The Parting Glass (3 page)

“Hey?”

“Mr. Hollister,” said Mrs. Meade, “from what
I have seen of him at the dinner table these past few weeks, is a
brash, boisterous, headlong sort of person, the sort who is very
likely to jump to conclusions. Suppose it this way for just a
moment: Mr. Hollister is in his room. He hears voices in the next
room—agitated or disputing voices, perhaps. He knows the next room
belongs to a young lady, but one of the voices is a man’s voice—and
he immediately jumps to the conclusion that the man is an unwelcome
intruder. He rushes out into the hall and bursts unceremoniously
into the room to catch a glimpse of Clyde standing close to
Dorene—perhaps with his arms around her—and Dorene, a timid girl
under any circumstances, could easily have been startled into
screaming by Mr. Hollister’s plunge into the room, especially if it
was already a fraught moment. Mr. Hollister could have interrupted
any number of things, from the reconciliation of a quarrel, to an
awkward declaration of love, or even a proposal of marriage—”

Andrew Royal gave a short bark of a laugh.
“Clyde? Proposing marriage?” He recollected himself and became
gruffly serious again. “Go on.”

“Any of those things,” resumed Mrs. Meade,
“but Mr. Hollister leaped to the conclusion that it was an insult
he witnessed. Later on, Dorene could have simply been too
embarrassed and ashamed to contradict him with the truth.”

“Hmmm…well,” said Andrew Royal. He looked
somewhat embarrassed himself. He cleared his throat vigorously.
“It’s another way to look at it, but—hem!—don’t you think it’s—not
exactly—”

Mrs. Meade also cleared her throat, but
delicately. “You mean that the theory of a willing embrace
is—hardly more creditable to either of them, under the
circumstances?”

Andrew Royal’s face turned a shade redder,
and his expression admitted his answer in the affirmative.

“I would have always expected it of Clyde to
be scrupulous,” said Mrs. Meade; “I’d hardly have thought he would
choose such an improper time and place for a declaration, if not
for the fact that—”

“The fact that he’d had a couple,” Royal
filled in, blunt in his turn. “And that
is
a fact.”

“And that’s one of the things I don’t
understand,” said Mrs. Meade with another sigh.

“Well…look at it your way, maybe it does make
sense. Maybe he had a couple of drinks because he was trying to get
up the nerve to say something to her.”

“It needn’t follow, though, that a careful,
reasoning sort of man like Clyde would choose one of the most
important moments in his life to do something so contrary to his
usual character. Oh, Andrew, this endless speculation isn’t doing
us a bit of good. We’ll never get anywhere if we don’t
do
something.”

Sheriff Royal looked somewhat taken aback by
this declaration. He had, it was true, a respect for Mrs. Meade’s
insight that she had well earned, but he had not yet accustomed
himself to the unexpectedness of her thought processes.

He started to open his mouth in what was
clearly going to be an expression of outrage or a protest, but Mrs.
Meade read his mind, and raised a reassuring hand to forestall him.
“Now, that’s not what I mean, Andrew. You won’t have to do anything
strenuous, and it doesn’t involve Miss Asher. What I
meant
to say is, we’ll never know anything unless we have some help from
Clyde. May I see him?”

“Don’t see anything wrong with it,” said
Royal, knitting his bushy brows to think it over. “You could walk
down with me to the jail now, if you don’t mind that. I can’t take
him out to see you, not without having Aunt Asher ambush me, that
is. All right with you?”

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Meade.

Sheriff Royal made way for her to pass him on
the boardwalk, and then fell into step beside her as they walked
back down the street.

* * *

Mrs. Meade sat in a chair in the sheriff’s
office, her gloved hands folded over her reticule in her lap, and
observed Clyde Renfrew with grave attention. He was a big young
man, with light hair and a face that was usually serious but still
expressed natural good-nature. Now, though, his entire attitude
spoke dejection; his shoulders slumped dispiritedly and he could
hardly lift his eyes from the floor.

He had looked somewhat surprised to see Mrs.
Meade when Sheriff Royal brought him out from the back of the jail
into the office, but did not seem able to bring himself to speak
even to ask her why she was there. So Mrs. Meade, who was very good
at reading unspoken questions, broke the silence by answering his
very simply: “I did not want you to think all your friends had
deserted you.”

Clyde looked up for a second, and then down
at the floor again. “Well,” he said in a lifeless voice, “I
wouldn’t blame them if they did.”

“Now, that does not seem a very promising
attitude to take,” said Mrs. Meade.

Clyde said nothing.

A feeling of pity overmastered whatever else
Mrs. Meade might have been thinking, and she impulsively leaned
forward and laid her hand on his arm. “Clyde, I am not so ready to
dismiss you as you think. I’ve known you a good many years, and I
knew your father and mother. I’ve never thought you would be the
kind of young man to insult a woman, even if you were—were not
quite yourself.”

“Up until yesterday, I’d have thought so
too,” said Clyde.

“Can you not remember anything of what
happened? of how it came about? Anything at all?”

Clyde opened his mouth slowly, his brow
knitting as if with thought. He looked across at her, and for the
first time Mrs. Meade thought she caught a look of hesitancy in his
eyes. He shut his mouth again, undecided.

But in the few seconds of silence Andrew
Royal had suddenly tumbled to the point. “There
was
something you remember!” he said explosively, sitting up with a
violent creak from his wooden swivel chair.

Mrs. Meade gave him a quick, inconspicuous
shake of the head. It was too soon to press the point.

“Why don’t you begin at the beginning, and
tell me just what you can remember happening,” she said to Clyde.
“You said that Miss Leighton sent for you—is that correct?”

“Yes,” said Clyde. He was still a little
uncomfortable, but he seemed to relax somewhat as he spoke, his
words gradually coming more freely. “She sent me a note. It said
she wanted to ask my advice about a business matter—she asked me to
come to the hotel because she knew her aunt was going to be out
that afternoon, and it was something she couldn’t talk about with
her aunt there.

“I went to the hotel—I had to ask for her
room number at the desk, because she hadn’t put it in the note—I
went upstairs and knocked at her door, and she let me in.” A vague,
troubled look came up in his eyes like a fog, as if he were back in
that moment, seeing Dorene as she opened the door. He swallowed and
went on. “She told me what she’d wanted to see me about. She said
she had some money her grandfather’d left her, three or four years
ago, but she’d given her aunt the control over it when she came of
age, so as not to have the bother of dealing with it herself. But
she felt differently now, because she couldn’t touch it—her aunt
wouldn’t let her have the least bit to spend unless it was on
something she approved of. Dor—Miss Leighton wanted to ask me what
was the best way to get control of it herself again, without having
too much of a fight with her aunt. I think—she kind of wanted a way
to do it without telling her aunt at all.”

He came to a halt for a moment, frowning, and
rubbed his temple as if it hurt. Mrs. Meade noted the action.

“What did you do while you talked? Did you
sit down?”

“She did, after a few minutes. In a chair. I
might have—no, I think I walked up and down a little while I
talked—maybe leaned against the wall by the bureau.”

“And then?”

“There was a decanter full of sherry on the
bureau, and some glasses. At some point while we were talking she
stood up and asked me if I’d like a drink before I went, and poured
a glass for me, and I took it.”

“Did you have more than one glass?” said Mrs.
Meade.

“Yes,” said Andrew Royal before Clyde could
answer.

Clyde turned toward him with the first
appearance of interest he had shown so far. “I did?”

“She says you did. Admitted it, anyway.
Didn’t seem to want to, but Aunt Asher bullied her into it.”

“I suppose I must have, then,” said Clyde
wearily, relapsing into indifference.

Mrs. Meade leaned forward a little. “Do you
remember pouring a drink for yourself at any time?”

“No-o-o…” Clyde sounded doubtful.

“And then what happened? How did your
conversation end?”

“We were still talking about the money. I
don’t remember it ending—I just—” Clyde was floundering now,
grasping vaguely for the memory. He shook his head. “There was a
picture on the wall, wavering back and forth, like it was
floating…I think I felt kind of sick. The next thing I remember is
hearing somebody shouting at me, from a long ways off it seemed,
and then Hollister was shaking me. I can’t remember.”

“The curious thing is,” said Mrs. Meade, “you
were upstairs for more than an hour, between the time you stopped
at the desk and the time Mr. Hollister burst in. How can you
account for all that time? How long did you discuss the question of
Dorene’s money?”

“I don’t know,” said Clyde, shaking his head
again. “It couldn’t have been that long, but I haven’t got the
least idea.”

“If you say it wasn’t that long, then you
have
got some idea,” said Royal shortly. “How long did it
take you to finish that first drink?”

“I don’t know.”

Royal got up impatiently. “You mean to tell
me you had no idea of the time at all? You didn’t look at your
watch once? Or a clock?”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Meade, “one should always be
aware of the time, for one never knows when one may be called upon
to produce an alibi.”

Sheriff Royal coughed suddenly, but Clyde
looked piteously rebuked.

“Leaving that aside for the moment,” said
Mrs. Meade, “I am, admittedly, not an expert in such matters, but—I
suppose
two
glasses of sherry could have
had
such an
effect upon you?”

“The decanter was practically empty
afterwards,” said Clyde, sinking back into his former state of
despondence. “Hollister saw it; other people saw it. And about the
only thing I
am
sure of is that it was mostly full when I
went into the room. I must have just drunk more without remembering
it.”

“But you
don’t
drink, ordinarily, do
you?”

“Well, not as we know the meaning of the
word,” said Clyde. “I mean, if I’m trying to close a deal with a
man and he’s pushing to buy me a drink, I’ll have one with him, but
not more—do you see? And I’ve been known to have a glass of sherry
if it’s served at a dinner I’m invited to…not that I’m invited to
dinners that often,” he added with a gloom that seemed separate
from the subject at hand.

“Then that was the reason you accepted the
glass of sherry Dorene Leighton offered you—just politeness?”

A rather funny smile replaced the strained
expression on Clyde’s face, a smile that seemed both shy and
tender. “Well—I don’t know,” he said awkwardly. “It was more the
way she looked. She seemed like a—like a little girl playing at
being hostess, and anxious to get it all right—the way she had the
glasses set out so carefully, and tried to pronounce all her words
just right when she asked me. I—I kind of felt I’d hurt her
feelings if I said no.”

“That is also why you accepted a second
glass, perhaps?” suggested Mrs. Meade.

Clyde shook his head again and reverted to
his old refrain. “I don’t know.”

“So, if you are not accustomed to much strong
drink,” said Mrs. Meade, “do you suppose the second glass might
have affected you, so that you unthinkingly drank more—for
instance, if you were nervous, perhaps?”

“I—don’t know what you mean,” said Clyde, his
eyes shifting away from hers.

Mrs. Meade deftly skirted the issue again.
“Do you know Mr. Hollister?”

“No. I don’t know him, but I’ve seen him
around—he’s been out working the town. I saw him in the saloon the
other day, buying drinks all around and trying to fast-talk
everybody into buying his toothache oil, or whatever it is.”

“You met Dorene Leighton at a dinner at the
Coopers’, didn’t you?” said Mrs. Meade inconsequently, as though
refreshing her memory on a minor point.

“No, a picnic,” said Clyde. “But I did see
her at a dinner once.”

The way he said it made it sound as if every
time he had seen Dorene was marked off as a significant occasion in
his memory, a precious stone on a chain of plain days.

“There is one other thing,” said Mrs. Meade.
“My room is just across the hall from Dorene’s. Yesterday
afternoon, a few moments before Mr. Hollister began shouting, I
head three taps in succession, as if someone had rapped lightly on
a door or a wall. Do you know anything about that?”

Clyde shrugged, with an air of bewilderment.
“I’ve told you, I wasn’t in any shape to tell whether I tapped on
anything or not.”

“If you were as intoxicated as we have all
been led to believe,” said Mrs. Meade decisively, “you would not
have
tapped
on anything. You would have banged it, or at
least thumped it.”

Here they were interrupted by a recurrence of
the sheriff’s cough, which took a moment or two to bring under
control this time. Clyde and Mrs. Meade looked at him, and he waved
for them to go on, his face red and eyes watering with the
effort.

Mrs. Meade decided it was time to abandon all
form of pretense or subtlety. “Clyde,” she said, “I wish you would
give me your honest opinion—your opinion, mind, not your
deductions—as to what took place yesterday afternoon. I know there
is something you have been hesitating to say. If I were you I
should say it, even if it is not something calculated to do you any
good.”