Ira Levin - A Kiss Before Dying

Gant said: "Yesterday afternoon, absolutely without your father's knowledge, I went to Menasset. I broke into your fiancй's home-"

"No!"

"-and I took from it a strongbox I found in the closet in his room-"

She pressed back into the chair, her knuckles gripping white, her mouth clamped to a lipless line, her eyes shut.

"I brought it home and jimmied the cover-"

Her eyes shot open, flashing. "What did you find? The plans of the atom bomb?"

They were silent.

"What did you find?" she repeated, her voice lowering, growing wary.

Kingship moved down to the end of the couch and handed her the pamphlets, awkwardly unrolling them.

She took them slowly and looked at them.

"They're old," Gant said. "He's had them for some time."

Kingship said, "He hasn't been back to Menasset since you started going with him. He had them before he met you."

She smoothed the pamphlets carefully in her lap. Some of the corners were folded over. She bent them straight. "Ellen must have given them to him."

"Ellen never had any of our publications, Marion. You know that. She was as little interested as you are."

She turned the pamphlets over and examined their backs. "Were you there when he broke open the box? Do you know for certain they were in the box?"

"I'm checking on that," Kingship said. "But what reason would Mr. Gant have for..."

She began turning the pages of one of the pamphlets; casually, as though it were a magazine in a waiting room. "All right," she said stiffly, after a moment, "maybe it was the money that attracted him at first." Her lips formed a strained smile. "For once in my life I'm grateful for your money." She turned a page. "What is it they say?-it's as easy to fall in love with a rich girl as with a poor."-and another page -"You really can't blame him too much, coming from such a poor family. Environmental influence..." She stood up and tossed the pamphlets on the couch. "Is there anything else you wanted?" Her hands were trembling slightly.

"Anything else?" Kingship stared. "Isn't that enough?"

"Enough?" she inquired. "Enough for what? Enough for me to call off the wedding? No."-she shook her head-"No, it isn't enough."

"You still want to-"

"He loves me," she said. "Maybe it was the money that attracted him at first, but-well, suppose I were a very pretty girl; I wouldn't call off the wedding if I found out it was my looks that attracted him, would I?"

"At first?" Kingship said. "The money is still what attracts him."

"You have no right to say that!"

"Marion, you can't marry him now..."

"No? Come down to City Hall Saturday morning!"

"He's a no-good scheming-"

"Oh yes! You always know just who's good and who's bad, don't you! You knew Mom was bad and you got rid of her, and you knew Dorothy was bad and that's why she killed herself because you brought us up with your good and bad, your right and wrong! Haven't you done enough with your good and bad?"

"You're not going to marry a man who's only after you for your money!"

"He loves me! Don't you understand English? He loves me! I love him! I don't care what brought us together! We think alike! Feel alike! We like the same books, the same plays, the same music, the same-"

"The same food?" Gant cut in. "Would you both be fond of Italian and Armenian food?" She turned to him, her mouth ajar. He was unfolding a sheet of blue-lined yellow paper he had taken from his pocket. "And those books," he said, looking at the paper, "would they include the works of Proust, Thomas Wolfe, Carson McCullers?"

Her eyes widened. "How did you...? What is that?"

He came around the end of the couch. She turned to face him. "Sit down," he said.

"What are you...?" She moved back. The edge of the couch pressed against the back of her knees.

"Sit down, please," he said.

She sat down. "What is that?"

"This was in the strongbox with the pamphlets," he said. "In the same envelope. The printing is his, I presume." He handed her the yellow paper. "I'm sorry," he said.

She looked at him confusedly, and then looked down at the paper.

Proust, T. Wolfe, C. McCullers, "Madame Bovary," Alice in Wonderland," Eliz. B. Browning-READ!

ART (Mostly modern)-Hopley or Hopper,

DeMeuth (sp?) READ general books on mod. art

Pink phase in high school.

Jealous of E.?

Renoir, VanGogh

Italian & Armenian food-LOOK UP restaurants in NYC.

Theater: Shaw, T. Williams,-serious stuff...

She read barely a quarter of the closely printed page, her cheeks draining of color. Then she folded the paper with trembling care. "Well," she said, folding it again, not looking up, "haven't I been the... trusting soul..." She smiled crazily at her father coming gently around the end of the couch to stand helplessly beside her. "I should have known, shouldn't I?" The blood rushed back to her cheeks, burning red. Her eyes were swimming and her ringers were suddenly mashing and twisting the paper with steel strength. 'Too good to be true," she smiled, tears starting down her cheeks, her fingers plucking at the paper. "I really should have known..." Her hands released the yellow fragments and flew to her face. She began to cry.

Kingship sat beside her, his arm about her bended shoulders. "Marion... Marion... Be glad you didn't find out too late..."

Her back was shaking under his arm. "You don't understand," she sobbed through her hands, "you can't understand..."

When the tears had stopped she sat numbly, her fingers knotted around the handkerchief Kingship had given her, her eyes on the pieces of yellow paper on the carpet.

"Do you want-me to take you upstairs?" Kingship asked.

"No. Please... just... just let me sit here..." He rose and joined Gant at the window. They were silent for a while, looking at the lights beyond the river. Finally Kingship said, I'll do something to him. I swear to God, I'll do something."

A minute passed. Gant said, "She referred to your 'good and bad.' Were you very strict with your daughters?"

Kingship thought for a moment "Not very," he said.

"I thought you were, the way she spoke."

"She was angry," Kingship said.

Gant stared across the river at a Pepsi-Cola sign. "In the drugstore the other day, after we left Marion's apartment, you said something about maybe having pushed one of your daughters away. What did you mean?"

"Dorothy," Kingship said. "Maybe if I hadn't been..."

"So strict?" Gant suggested.

"No. I wasn't very strict I taught them right from wrong. Maybe I... overemphasized a little, because of their mother..." He sighed. "Dorothy shouldn't have felt that suicide was the only way out," he said.

Gant took out a pack of cigarettes and removed one. He turned it between his fingers. "Mr. Kingship, what would you have done if Dorothy had married without first consulting you, and then had had a baby... too soon?"

After a moment Kingship said, "I don't know."

"He would have thrown her out," Marion said quietly. The two men turned. She was sitting motionlessly on the couch, as she had been before. They could see her face in the canted mirror over the mantel. She was still looking at the papers on the floor.

"Well?" Gant said to Kingship.

"I don't think I would have thrown her out," he protested.

"You would have," Marion said tonelessly.

Kingship turned back to the window. "Well," he said finally, "under those circumstances, shouldn't a couple be expected to assume the responsibilities of marriage, as well as the..." He left the sentence unfinished.

Gant lit his cigarette. "There you are," he said. "That's why he killed her. She must have told him about you. He knew he wouldn't get near the money even if he did marry her, and if he didn't marry her he would get into trouble, so... Then he decides to have a second try, with Ellen, but she starts to investigate Dorothy's death and gets too close to the truth. So close that he has to kill her and Powell. And then he tries a third time."