The Parting Glass (2 page)

Consequently, in a little while Sheriff
Andrew Royal came climbing up the stairs and stopped at the
door—looking, in the brief glimpse Mrs. Meade had of him, as if he
did not relish his errand any too well—and knocked. He was
admitted, and a second conference took place behind the closed
door. Miss Asher’s voice was more modulated in the presence of a
third party, but she possessed the faculty of talking smoothly over
anyone who attempted to remonstrate, so Mrs. Meade guessed that she
had it very much her own way. Dorene seemed to try and interrupt
anxiously once or twice, but was not allowed to succeed, and
Sheriff Royal did not seem to be allowed to even finish a
sentence.

In about ten minutes he came out, bidding a
rather grim good-afternoon, and once the door was safely closed
behind him he gave a snort that was not meant for anyone else’s
ears and stomped off down the stairs. Mrs. Meade arose from her
chair, and went out into the hall and followed him down.

As she reached the turn at the landing a door
opened on the floor above, and Miss Asher’s voice came clearly down
to her: “Do not be an idiot, Dorene. If we did not seek reparation
there would be Things Said, and I shall never have Things Said
about any niece in my charge.” Whereupon the door closed
uncompromisingly.

Mrs. Meade came quickly down the lower flight
of stairs just as the broad-shouldered, ungainly figure of the
gray-haired sheriff was leaving the foot of them.

“Andrew,” she said.

Sheriff Royal turned abruptly to look up.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said as she came down and joined him; a greeting
which sounded rather ungracious, but which did not seem to bother
Mrs. Meade in the least.

“Andrew, could I speak to you for a moment?”
she asked.

Royal glanced around and motioned with the
battered hat in his hand toward the hotel’s small best parlor off
the lobby, which was empty. They went toward it together. The
harassed expression on the sheriff’s face as he stalked beside her,
coupled with a somewhat hunted look in his eye, made Mrs. Meade
feel sure he was only waiting till he had reached suitable
surroundings to explode. As soon as she had closed the parlor door,
he did so.

“Women!” he snorted. “If there’s anything
worse than having a woman after you, it’s getting between two of
them.”

“Then perhaps I should not make matters worse
by making a third,” said Mrs. Meade, with a slight twitch about her
mouth that belied the matter-of-fact tone of the suggestion.

Royal waved it away with his hat. “Oh, you
don’t count. That is, I mean—” He strove to extricate himself from
this linguistic tangle, and compromised with, “Well, you’re a
different breed from that Asher woman, thank goodness.”

“I should not repeat this in public, but I
consider that a very nice compliment,” Mrs. Meade told him kindly,
and the sheriff harrumphed and waved that away too. “What has Miss
Asher done?”

“It’s not so much what she’s done,” said
Royal. “It’s the way she goes about it. She talks like she’s the
only person who knows how to do things properly and if you don’t do
just what she says you’re not even worth bowing to on the street.”
He stopped for breath, and added, “She wants to sue young Renfrew
for damages.”

“She does—or her niece does?”

“She does all the talking for her niece,”
said Andrew Royal grimly. “The girl would rather try and forget
about the whole thing, to my mind, but Aunt Asher is boss. To hear
her talk you’d think she’d like to go after him herself with a
horsewhip. But at least she’s agreed to settle it out of
court—easier on everybody’s feelings.”

“Will Clyde settle, do you think?” said Mrs.
Meade.

“He’s got no choice,” said Royal, looking at
her as though a little surprised by the question.

“I simply can’t understand it,” said Mrs.
Meade. “Clyde was such a nice upstanding boy. I knew his mother
very well, and she was always so proud of him—I can’t think what
can have happened.”

“Hmmm…well,” said Royal. “How much do you
know about it?”

“As much as anyone else in Sour Springs does
just now,” said Mrs. Meade, and the sheriff grunted in dry
appreciation. “Perhaps a little more, since I was nearby when it
happened. My room is just across the hall from Dorene Leighton’s,
in fact.”

“You seem to have a knack for being just
across the hall when things happen,” said Sheriff Royal, eyeing
her. “But this isn’t like that Bradford affair, where it all
happened at night and all we had to go on were things we found.
Plenty of people around to see and hear this time.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Meade, “but—what about
Clyde? Did he tell you anything—try to explain, or to defend
himself at all?”

Royal shook his head. “Nope. Took us a few
minutes to get him sobered up enough to talk—funny thing, I’ve
never heard of him being drunk before, but there’s no doubt about
it, he was soused. Then when they told him what he’d done he pretty
near turned green—I thought he was going to slide right off his
chair. But all he’d say was that he couldn’t remember
anything.”

“That was your first mistake, then,” said
Mrs. Meade, “letting them
tell
him what had happened instead
of waiting to hear him speak first. He was in no condition then to
know what was true and what wasn’t.”

Andrew Royal stared at her for a moment, as
if a new idea was just filtering into his brain. “You don’t mean to
tell me you don’t
believe
it?”

“I did not tell you anything of the kind,”
said Mrs. Meade firmly. “I merely think you have forfeited your
only chance of getting a clear account of the incident—of Clyde’s
version of it, at least.”

“How many versions d’you think there are?”
growled Royal (a not entirely serious question).

“Four, at least,” was Mrs. Meade’s entirely
unexpected answer; and then after a second she added, “perhaps
five.”

Royal did not attempt to reply for a minute.
“Oh,” he said at last, just a little sarcastically, scratching the
back of his head with the hand that still held his hat. “Five.”

He cleared his throat ferociously, a habit of
his when he was at a loss and did not want anyone else to know it.
“Guess I’d better get back to the office,” he said. “Anything else
I can do for you, Mrs. Meade?”

“No,” said Mrs. Meade a trifle absently,
having become rather thoughtful in the brief interval; “no, not
just at present.”

Royal stared for a second, and then he
clapped his hat on crooked and made his escape.

* * *

“It is shocking,” said Miss Powers warmly,
“quite shocking.”

Miss Powers, small and sheeplike, had a soft,
mellow voice with a little vibration in it that lent the impression
of heartfelt feeling to everything she said. She also had not an
original idea in her head, but she possessed the gift of absorbing
the opinions of the company about her and repeating them warmly as
if they were her own. People often liked her very much for the
first day or two that they knew her, until it began to be borne in
upon them that Miss Powers was merely a glorified echo.

Miss Asher, however, found Miss Powers’
earnest concurrence very gratifying. She agreed grimly in her turn.
“And it all might easily have been averted,” she said. “It was
never
my
wish that Dorene should be introduced to that young
man. From the very first I considered him a most undesirable
acquaintance.”

“I’m sure you were right,” said Miss Powers
feelingly. “And yet he always
acted
rather like a gentleman,
I suppose.”

“Gen’lman my foot,” said Mr. Hollister, who
was consuming a hearty meal a little further down the table,
leaning forward over his plate with his napkin tucked into his
collar. “A right-down young scoundrel what don’t deserve to be
called any better, ’s what he is. But I told ’im. I give ’im a
piece of my mind.”

A doubly large mouthful of food stopped up
any further remarks from the commercial gentleman, whose
experiences had certainly not impaired his appetite. Miss Asher
looked down the table at him with a faint air of distaste. She
inclined her head slightly as though forced to agree with him, but
against her will. It appeared that being under obligation to Mr.
Hollister, a person of whom she had no opinion, was the part she
liked least of the whole affair.

“I had spoken to Dorene more than once about
him, but to no avail,” she observed, returning to her dinner and
the mutually agreeable society of Miss Powers. “I cannot tell you
how this has distressed and grieved me. I have always endeavored to
do my Duty by her, but really sometimes Dorene is a Sad Trial to
me.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that,” observed Miss
Brewster, a straight, thin woman who spoke in jerks like throwing
darts.

“One would never guess it by your fortitude,
Miss Asher,” said Miss Powers, sympathetically misinterpreting.

Miss Asher allowed herself a grenadierly
simper. She took another spoonful of soup, and then sighed. “The
trouble with Dorene is not so much rebelliousness, as a Lack of
Understanding. I often tell her things again and again, but she
simply does not seem to comprehend them. And This is the
result.”

Miss Asher and Miss Powers both shook their
heads regretfully. Miss Brewster merely said “Hm!”

“What a respectable assemblage of ghouls we
are!” murmured Mrs. Clairborn to Mrs. Meade, under cover of the
discussion. Mrs. Clairborn was a well-to-do summer traveler, an
elegant, humorous woman whom Mrs. Meade found excellent company.
“Don’t ever tell me that genteel old ladies dislike scandal.
They’re all enjoying it to the hilt—even Miss Asher. One would
think she would have a little more feeling for her niece, and not
just her own position.”

“Poor Dorene!” said her daughter Phyllis, a
warm-hearted, brown-eyed girl of twenty, from the other corner of
the table, where she sat at Mrs. Meade’s left. “I think she liked
him, you know. She didn’t say anything—she doesn’t say anything
about
anything
, really—but I saw her looking at him once or
twice, and she looked quite miserable.”

“Miserable?” queried Mrs. Meade, to whom the
adjective was unexpected.

“Oh, yes. Dorene always looks haunted when
she’s trying to make up her mind about something, even if it’s only
which kind of sandwich to take at luncheon.”

Mrs. Clairborn raised her fine arched
eyebrows and shook her head, her small jet earrings swinging.
“Well, according to Miss Asher’s august judgment, she made a wrong
selection this once.”

“So it would seem,” said Mrs. Meade.

“Yes,” agreed Phyllis. “It’s too bad. Isn’t
it a shame that people always turn out to be different than you
think them?”

Mrs. Meade looked for a second at the girl’s
honest, sympathetic young face. “Yes,” she said, “I should think
that is one of the greatest shames there is in the world.”

* * *

The morning air was cool and fresh. Above the
town, the mountains stood crisp against the clear sky, their
snow-streaked crests looking almost near enough to touch. Sheriff
Royal strode along the boardwalk, upon which the early morning sun
was pouring brightly down through gaps in the trees, his much-worn
boots thumping on the wide weathered planks. Occasionally he met a
lady walking in the opposite direction and gave her a short nod of
greeting, but without paying any particular attention to her.
Therefore Mrs. Meade saw him well before he saw her, even though
she had been walking along rather deep in thought herself. She
considered for a moment, and then quickened her steps slightly to
join him.

Royal had stopped to look into the window of
the harness shop when Mrs. Meade came up to him. “Good morning,
Andrew,” she said.

“Oh—good morning,” he said, looking round,
and pushed his hat back a little by way of courtesy.

“I was out doing a few errands,” said Mrs.
Meade briskly, glancing down at the reticule on her arm, “but I’m
rather glad I met you. I have been doing a good deal of thinking
since last night, and…I have a slightly unusual favor to ask of
you, I think.”

Sheriff Royal looked slightly alarmed, but
signified his willingness to listen to her request.

“Would you let me come and talk to Clyde for
a few minutes? I don’t know if it will do him any good, or even do
me any good, but I feel somehow that I must understand this affair
better, even if—even if it’s only a sad truth after all,” she
concluded with a little sigh.

“You’ve been thinking again!” accused Andrew
Royal, rather unnecessarily. “You still won’t believe he did it,
will you. How
can’t
you?”

Mrs. Meade shook her head. “No, Andrew, I
can’t say for certain I don’t believe it. I honestly don’t know
what to think. It just seems so
wrong
, somehow.”

“Instinct!” growled Royal. “You can’t judge
everything on instinct, Mrs. Meade. No matter how wrong it looks,
the fact—”

“The fact is, there may be more than one
possible explanation for a set of facts, and the most obvious one
that everyone seizes upon needn’t be it.”

Royal was shaking his head back and forth. “I
don’t know what you’re getting at, but there’s one fact you can’t
get round—an eyewitness.”

“Ah, but can’t you?” said Mrs. Meade. “You
remember I said yesterday that there were five different versions
of the story—versions told by five different people. Clyde Renfrew,
Dorene Leighton, Mr. Hollister, myself, and—Miss Asher, perhaps.
Each can tell you what they saw, and heard, and were told, and each
version will be a little different.”

“But they all saw and heard the same stuff,”
said Royal.

Mrs. Meade shook her head. “But each may have
thought
they were seeing something different.”