Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Furthermore I had too little time for Nora. After the first year of our marriage five years before, I had become too preoccupied with building my practice to give her the attention she deserved, I now realized.

I had actually welcomed the congenial Tom Wright’s gradually increasing presence in our home and his agreeability to substituting for me as an escort for Nora to social events I wanted to get out of. It had been I who had thrown them together so much, and looking at the matter calmly, I could hardly blame them for falling in love.

I could even understand why they had attempted murder instead of asking me to divorce Nora. I don’t mean I could forgive it. I simply mean I could understand the reason. As a member of the country club board of directors, I happened to know Tom Wright’s salary was only forty-five hundred a year, which was hardly enough to clothe Nora, let alone support both of them. And Nora was not the sort of woman to sacrifice comfort for love. Naturally she would want both.

Thinking back, it was hard for me to understand why I had not even suspected the growth of Nora’s and Tom’s love before tonight. In the past year Tom Wright had gone nearly everywhere with us. His presence as a family friend was so commonly accepted, we frequently received invitations which automatically included him. And while he was often attentive to other women at parties and dances, he never escorted any woman but Nora anywhere, nor showed even passing romantic interest in any other woman.

How often, I wondered, had I stood at the country club bar with some of the men my own age indulgently watching Tom and Nora glide across the dance floor? Ruefully I recalled that my sole emotion on those occasions was relief that I didn’t have to exert so much energy myself.

Tom interrupted my thoughts by remarking, “Crisp tonight. Be nice if we had a blanket of snow Saturday to start off the deer season.”

Nora glanced sidewise at him. “I don’t think I follow that.”

“Makes tracking easier,” Tom explained. “George, want to go out to Werle’s Woods Saturday?”

I thought about being alone in the woods with a man who had tried to kill me, and the prospect didn’t much appeal to me.

Noncommittally I said, “Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

Then we were at the Nelsons, they were coming down the front steps to the car, and during the drive to the country club Velma Nelson kept up such an incessant chatter, I had no chance to return to my inner thoughts.

I didn’t have much opportunity for inward contemplation after we arrived at the club either. People were already sitting down to dinner when we arrived, and in the bustle of locating places I found myself trapped next to Velma Nelson. I have learned not to listen when Velma talks, but it’s difficult to think very constructively with a monologue going on in your ear.

After dinner, and before the music started, we as usual had an exhibition of local talent. There were the inevitable renditions by the barbershop quartet, in which Tom Wright sang baritone, and the equally inevitable piano solo by Velma Nelson. Then club president Chet Wayne called on me for my imitation act, and when the crowd set up an insistent clapping, I allowed myself to be drafted.

Mimicry is my sole party talent, and in all modesty I’m good at it. In Chet Wayne’s ponderous voice I introduced Velma Nelson, using all the superlatives our country club president is so fond of, then switched to Velma’s shrill soprano and announced I couldn’t possibly play tonight because of a cold in my little finger.

Immediately switching to the deep bass of Velma’s husband Harry, I said, “Good. Then sit down and shut up.”

The act got its usual heavy applause, particularly from Velma, who considers it a compliment to be teased.

After that we moved to the ballroom and I spent the rest of the evening standing at the bar with a group of men while Tom and Nora danced. I wasn’t able to get back to my problem again until past midnight, after I had kissed Nora goodnight and had retired to my own room.

Lying awake in the dark with my hands behind my head, I mentally reviewed the alternate actions I could take. First, I could confront Nora and Tom with their act and demand a divorce without alimony. Second. I could report the murder attempt to the police and have both arrested. Third, I could ignore the entire problem and get myself murdered when they made their next attempt.

Fourth, I could work out some plan to break up the affair between Tom Wright and Nora and force her to return to me.

After thorough soul-searching, I decided that even though she had tried to kill me, I wanted Nora to remain my wife provided I could set the terms and devise absolutely certain safeguards against her ever attempting to kill me again.

Which meant the fourth alternate action.

The next day, Thursday, was our maid’s day off, and Nora invariably lunched downtown on that day. I figured she would have left the house by eleven, and I left my office at the same time. To be on the safe side I stopped at a drugstore two blocks from my house and phoned to make sure she had actually left. When there was no answer, I went home.

The best place for the microphone, I decided, was behind the sofa in the front room, as that was the logical place for a couple in love to sit if they had anything confidential to say to each other. And the best place for the tape recorder was where it already was: in my basement hobby room immediately beneath the front room.

In recent years I hadn’t spent much time in my hobby room, but it was adequately equipped with every tool I needed. In less than a half hour I had a high-fidelity mike fixed to the back of the sofa just below the top, and a long extension cord leading from it through a hole drilled in the floor.

Setting the recording machine on my work bench, I switched it on, went upstairs again and counted aloud from various points of the front room. When I went back down to the basement to play back the tape, I found that my normal speaking voice had recorded clearly from every test point.

Clearing the tape, I left the house again, had a solitary lunch and spent the rest of the day at my office.

Normally I arrived home between five-thirty and six. The maid being off on Thursday, Nora prepared dinner herself, and if for some reason I was going to be late, I always gave her plenty of notice. But tonight I deliberately waited until five-thirty before phoning that I had an unexpected dinner invitation from a client and wouldn’t be home at all.

“But I made pot roast!” Nora wailed. “It’s practically ready to serve.”

“Sorry,” I said. “But this is one of my biggest accounts, and I can’t possibly get out of it. Why don’t you invite somebody over so you don’t have to eat alone?”

“Who?” she demanded.

“Maybe Tom’s free. He’d probably welcome the change from restaurant fare.”

She was silent for a moment, then said in a mollified voice, “All right, dear. I’ll see if I can reach him. Will you be late?”

“Don’t expect me before nine-thirty.”

“All right, dear. Have a good time.” Her voice sounded remarkably cheerful for a woman whose husband had disappointed her for dinner.

I had a leisurely dinner downtown, then drove back to my own neighborhood and cruised slowly past the house. It was not yet seven, but the November days were getting short enough for it to be dark already. Lights were on both in the front room and the dining room.

Tom Wright’s car was parked in the driveway.

Continuing on past the house, I rounded the corner and parked on the nearest side street. Quietly I made my way up the alley, through the back gate, and let myself in the basement door. Without turning on any lights I felt my way to the hobby room, switched on the recorder and turned the gain control on full.