The Great Mistake by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Author:Mary Roberts Rinehart [Roberts Rinehart, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784088231
Publisher: Head of Zeus Ltd
Published: 2013-07-16T19:53:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

TONY DID NOT COME home that night at all, but I had plenty to think of. If Bessie had been Marguerite Weston, where did that leave him? Suppose the police learned it? It would give them a motive for the attack on Bessie, perhaps even for Don’s murder.

I slept badly, and early the next morning I went down to the public library on Main Street. Old Dan Reeves, who has been in charge there since my Elsie Dinsmore days, looked surprised when I asked for files of old city newspapers. At one o’clock I emerged, black with dust but no further along than I had been before. Fifteen years before there had been no scandal sheet in the city, and there was no mention of Donald Morgan’s elopement or of Marguerite Weston. Only a year or so later a brief announcement from Reno of Lydia’s divorce.

I called her and told her. She accepted it quietly.

“I suppose it was a foolish idea, anyhow,” she said. “Let’s forget it, Pat.”

That was the situation by the middle of October of last year. The Cloisters had been entered twice, Don Morgan had been murdered in the playhouse. Evans had disappeared, and Bessie had been shot at and barely escaped with her life. To the people who knew something of the inside story there were a dozen possible explanations, but the general public was bewildered. It is not surprising that the theory of a lunatic at large began to grow.

I think Maud herself inclined to that opinion.

“There might have been a reason for Mr. Morgan’s death,” she said, looking white and tired. “A good many people seem to have had reason to want him out of the way. But Evans, and now Bessie—”

I would have sworn that the effect on her was one of pure bewilderment. She would sit for hours, her big hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on nothing. Once a day she made a slow pilgrimage to Bessie’s bedroom, where Bessie lay resentful among her pillows. I think Maud dreaded those visits. Amy said her pulse would be more rapid after them. And Bessie would be uncompromisingly rude. I went with her one morning. Bessie was up, lying on a chaise longue, with the usual movie magazine in her hand.

The nurse had to unlock the door to admit us, and Maud made a protest. “My dear, do you think it is necessary to keep your door locked all the time? After all, we are responsible for you.”

Bessie looked at her coldly. “I’m not trusting anybody around this place,” she said.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand that, Bessie.”

“I think you do. If you don’t, ask Tony.”

“Tony? Surely you don’t believe—”

“Listen,” said Bessie. “Tony’s got plenty of reason to want me out of the way. Who else gives a damn?”

“What reason, Bessie?”

She looked at me. “I can see one,” she said. “The other—better let it go at that. I’m not talking, unless I have to.”

It was not pretty, nor was Bessie just then.

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