Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Then I retraced my way back to the car just as silently. There wasn’t any point in waiting in the basement, as the machine was loaded with a two-hour tape and required no supervision.

Promptly at nine-thirty I turned into my drive. Tom Wright’s car was now gone, I noted.

Nora greeted me pleasantly but without enthusiasm. Her inquiry as to what kind of time I had had was more polite than interested, and when I asked in turn if she’d been able to get hold of Tom, she merely nodded noncommittally and said he’d left about a half hour before.

With a little more animation she said, “Did you remember Tom’s birthday is Saturday?”

I hadn’t, as it happened. Wright and I had fallen in the habit of giving each other minor gifts on our birthdays. Nothing elaborate; a box of cigars or a fifth of scotch.

“I’ll get something tomorrow,” I said.

Nora announced she was tired from the previous night’s country club party and was going to bed early. She gave me a tepid goodnight kiss and moved toward the stairs.

“I’m going to read awhile,” I said. “I won’t wake you when I come up.”

I did read for about thirty minutes, until I was reasonably sure Nora’s door was closed and she was in bed. Then I quietly descended to the basement.

The first fifteen minutes of the tape playback was meaningless, consisting merely of scraps of conversation too far away to make out. Obviously Tom and Nora were still in the dining room.

Then, clearly, Nora’s voice said, “Jane can clear the table in the morning. Let’s sit in here.”

There was a long period of silence, then Nora’s voice again, close and breathless. “Please, honey! The front drapes are wide open!”

“Close them,” Tom Wright’s voice said huskily.

“And chance George coming home early and finding them closed? Stop it, Tom! We have to talk.”

“About what?” Tom demanded. “The thing fizzled. Talk won’t change it.”

“We’ll have to try again.”

“So we’ll try again. When the chance comes. It’ll have to be a setup like last night, when we’re scheduled to go out together and George gets home late. The chance’ll come. What’s the point of talking about it?”

I could visualize Nora shaking her head. “Not that way again, Tom. I couldn’t stand the suspense. We have to think of another plan.”

“Why? The wire’s simple and safe. Nobody would suspect anything but an accident.”

After a long silence Nora said reluctantly, “I’m not sure George didn’t loosen that wire.”

“You nuts?” Tom asked. “It just came loose.”

“How? You insist you fastened it firmly. You don’t know George. It would be just like him to disconnect one end and pretend he hadn’t noticed it so he could have time to figure out what action to take. He wouldn’t run out of a burning building until he’d stopped to analyze all possible exits and decided on the most logical one.”

Incredulously Tom said, “You don’t actually mean you think he suspects we tried to kill him, and didn’t say a word about it?”

“Not really,” Nora said impatiently. “It’s just… just that he’s such a cold fish, anything’s possible. I’m just unnerved, I guess. I don’t want to try the wire again.”

“Well, what do you want to try?”

“I don’t know. I want to think about it. I want to table the whole plan until we come up with a foolproof idea.”

“I think the wire’s foolproof.”

“It failed, didn’t it?” Nora snapped. “I want a plan that will work. And that’s going to take thought. Meantime I think it’d be a good idea if we stopped seeing each other except in George’s presence.”

“Why, for God’s sake?”

“Because he’s not an idiot. Did you see the measuring expression in his eyes when he came downstairs last night? I turned cold all over. I thought he was going to announce in that calm way of his that it was obvious we’re in love and ask our suggestions on what to do about it.”

“You’re imagining things,” Tom scoffed. “George trusts me like a brother. Didn’t he even suggest you invite me for dinner tonight?”

“Well, yes,” Nora admitted. “I guess I’m hypersensitive since the wire stunt failed. But I can’t help it. I’m scared. Let’s do things the way I suggest.”

“All right,” Tom said resignedly. “I’ll stay away unless George himself invites me over. Suit you?”

The tape went on for another full hour, but nothing more definite was resolved. All it boiled down to was that Nora and Wright would independently try to think up a feasible plan, and wouldn’t contact each other until one or the other came up with one. Meantime they would keep their relationship carefully circumspect.

It was a mild relief to know I didn’t have to be on the lookout for booby traps for at least the immediate future.

Returning upstairs, I disconnected the microphone, went back to the basement and pulled the cord through the hole in the floor. I closed the machine up and stored it back in its locker beneath my workbench.

After I climbed in bed I lay awake for a long time attempting to work out a plan of my own. Tom Wright’s invitation to go deer hunting crept into my mind, and at the same time I suddenly remembered that Saturday was not only the opening of deer season; it was Tom’s birthday.

The conjunction of the two dates gave me my plan.

Friday evening when I came home from the office, I brought a sealed pasteboard suit box with me. Opening it in the front room as Nora watched, I took out a brand new jacket and a peaked woolen cap. The jacket was a brilliant red. The cap was made up of four wedge-shaped panels, like pieces of pie, the ones on each side the same color as the jacket and the front and rear ones bright green. The peak was divided down the center, red on one side and green on the other.

Removing the sales tags, I slipped both on.

“It’s certainly a gay outfit,” Nora said dubiously.

“It’s supposed to be,” I told her. “Even with the woods full of amateurs, nobody ought to mistake me for a deer.”

“Oh, you’re going deer hunting?” she asked.

“If I can rake up a partner. Got time to make a phone call before dinner?”

When Nora said I had, I dialed Harry Nelson’s number. Nora stood watching me speculatively.

Apparently she recalled Tom Wright’s invitation to me to go hunting and assumed I was phoning him, because she looked surprised when I said, “Harry?”

“Speaking,” Harry said.

“George Wharton. Got your deer license yet?”

When Harry said he had, I said, “How about taking a crack at Werle’s Woods in the morning?”

“Sure,” he said. “What time?”

I told him I’d pick him up at five a.m.

When I hung up, Nora said, “You told Tom you’d let him know if you wanted to go hunting.”

“I tried to reach him from the office,” I told her. “He wasn’t home.”

Shrugging, Nora left for the kitchen to check up on the progress of dinner. The minute she was out of earshot, I picked up the phone again and dialed Tom Wright’s number. He answered at once.

“About tomorrow,” I said. “Still want to try for a deer?”

“Sure thing, George. When you didn’t call, I was planning to go out alone in the morning.”

“Pick you up at five-thirty.” I told him.

I slept with Nora that night. Deliberately, so that she’d have no chance to use her bedside phone to contact Wright.

It wasn’t until after we were in bed that I remarked in a tone of afterthought, “I tried Tom’s place again while you were helping Jane get dinner, and finally got hold of him. He’s going along with Harry and me.”