I slung my coat and hat on the hall stand and stalked into the kitchen for glasses. “Make yourself at home.”
When I turned to face him, mission accomplished, he had taken my advice and hung up his overcoat. He sat now in my usual chair, eyeing the vodka wistfully. A distant pink neon sign flashed like a heartbeat on his cheek. I took the opposite chair, set down the glasses, and poured the vodka. “Salut,” I said.
“Salut.”
I finished first, but it was a close call. I opened my pocketbook and found my cigarettes. “Smoke? Or another drink?”
“Both.”
I lit him up and then me, and I refilled the glasses. “I should warn you. In about an hour, a man’s going to burst into this room and enact a melodrama. You’re welcome to stay. But I thought I should give you the choice.”
Tibby was right, he wasn’t a smoker. Something in the unfamiliar way he held the cigarette between his forefinger and thumb, the tremor of trepidation as he lifted it to his mouth. He raised his glass with a relieved expression. A poison he recognized. “Do I know this man?”
“He’s Gogo’s brand-new fiancé. You heard it here first.”
“I see.”
“As I said.” I tipped my vodka at him and polished it off with beeswax. “Melodrama.”
Tibby sat back in his chair. I pushed an ashtray at him. He let his half-finished cigarette drop gratefully inside. “How’s the article going?”
“Jesus. I forgot.” I opened my pocketbook and drew out Violet’s letter, Violet’s letter that had seemed so vital a few hours ago.
From the sofa, Sally made a startled noise and sat up. One breast fell out of her robe, and then—as an afterthought—the other. She belted herself back up without haste. “Who the hell is he?” she asked, wide awake.
Without lifting my head: “Sally, Mr. Edmund Tibbs, editor extraordinaire, takes his coffee black, with sugar. Tibby, Sally.” I waved my hand.
She stood up. “Enchanted. I’m going to bed.”
Tibby reached for the vodka bottle. “First thing tomorrow, I’m going to recommend you for a raise.”
I looked up awestruck from my letter. “Tibby, this is it. I think this is it.”
Tibby did the slow blink. “Is what?”
“Look at this.” I handed over Violet’s letter.
He pulled his reading glasses out of his waistcoat pocket and said aloud, in a voice that slurred only once or twice: “‘My dear Christina, I am leaving Walter at last. I don’t mean to surprise you, but there it is. He has always been selfish and unfaithful, but I could live with that; now he’s turned brutal, and I have fallen in love with another man. Lionel Richardson. You remember I’ve written about him. We’re off to Berlin tonight, as soon as we can slip away. I shall stop at the flat for a few things, but I hope never to see or speak to Walter again, unless the divorce process requires it. I have all the grounds in the world, or at least I will once I’ve reached the flat and find what I’m looking for. I hope you’re not disappointed in me. I hope I may count on you to give evidence if necessary. I know I’ve made a dreadful mistake. I expect the family would disown me, if they hadn’t already done so years ago. I shall write again when I can. Your loving sister, Violet. Postscript. All well. Terrible scene in Wittenberg. Have just reached Berlin with Lionel. Will post this immediately.’”
Tibby pulled off his glasses and looked at me. “There’s no date.”
“It’s postmarked July twenty-sixth.”
“Assuming she did as she said and posted the letter right away . . .”
“She never intended to murder her husband. He must have followed her and confronted her at the flat in Berlin, and then . . .” I shrugged.
The telephone let loose.
“Aren’t you going to answer that?” asked Tibby.
“Why bother? It’s just Gogo. I know what she’s going to say. She wants to tell me how happy she is, how it’s been a whirlwind the last week or two, he just called her up out of the blue and said he’d made a terrible, terrible mistake. She’s been dying to tell me but he swore her to secrecy. For some reason. And now she wants to spill every detail. Proposal, ring, kiss, the works.” I pulled out another cigarette.
The shrilling stopped. Tibby sat absolutely still, no mean feat for a man in his condition. I knew he was watching my profile. Me, I watched the ashtray. The smoke drifting from my fingers.
I could face Doctor Paul. Probably would face Doctor Paul in short order. But I could not face Gogo, even and especially the telephone Gogo, crackling her joy down the copper wire from the Lightfoot mansion to my sordid squalor.
“All right,” said Tibby. “But then why did Violet flee? If she killed Walter in self-defense. She was a scientist. A rational thinker. She would have stayed to clear her name. She wouldn’t have simply run off and disappeared.” He held out the letter.