The Dishonest Murderer Read Online Free PDF Page B

touching glasses was, momentarily, clearer than any other sound.
    â€œHappy New Year, Winifred,” her father said.
    â€œHappy New Year,” she said. “Happy New Year, Dad.”
    Her voice did not falter; she did not let it falter. They drank as the bells sounded, as sirens mourned the old year in metal-throated lament, as the tiny sound of clinking glass was repeated.
    They drained their glasses, father and daughter, oddly alike in square shoulders, the way they stood, the way they moved, carrying on a custom which meant nothing. (“A toast’s to be drunk, Freddie,” her father had said, long ago, perhaps when first they had drunk together, as two Satterbees, her mother dead. “If you mean it, drink it.” She had never known where her father acquired this rule, or whether he invented it.) Now her glass was empty when she lowered it from her lips.
    Her father leaned down and kissed her, then. He kissed her lightly, on the check, and patted her bare shoulder.
    The next hour or so meant nothing, could not afterwards be remembered. She became a hostess again, keeping the party alive after its climax; seeing that champagne was passed unhurriedly, without interruption, (“Never rush people,” her father’s rule was. “Never leave them with empty glasses.”) She seemed to remember, afterward, that Breese Burnley and Howard Phipps were together a good deal of the time; that they had been together at midnight, drunk the New Year in together. She knew that Celia Kirkhill and Curtis Grainger were always together; she remembered how often, being near them, she had seen Celia’s face turned toward hers, with a question in it; how often she had shaken her head. But, oddly, the tension of her own waiting had lessened after midnight. Apparently she had set that hour as an arbitrary one, the hour by which Bruce Kirkhill must appear. As the night had built toward that hour, her tension had built. But when the hour had passed, when nothing had happened, the unreasoning quality had gone out of her anxiety. She was still worried, but now she felt, more than worry, a kind of emptiness. It was as if she had been defrauded; as if she had reached out for something and, where this thing, this wanted thing, should have been there was merely nothing. With this emptiness not showing in her face, she moved from group to group; she went with Uncle William and Aunt Flo to the door, when they left half an hour after midnight; she had, with a fleeting expression, let Uncle William’s aide know she sympathized as he went along, dutifully, to see that the car was there, the bluejacket who drove it on hand and competent. (The aide came back, after about five minutes, looking very pleased. He rediscovered the girl he had discovered on arrival. They continued to drink to the New Year.)
    The party dwindled, eroding away. It re-formed as it dwindled; a halved group joined a group similarly depleted; the revived unit, again diminished, merged with another. Soon there would be only a single group, large at first, then growing smaller. Soon there was. A dozen people remained. Celia, who was staying at the apartment instead of returning to her hotel; Curtis Grainger, who remained very close to Celia, who looked at her so often, with protective concern; Breese Burnley and her mother, Fay; Phipps, who now, as the group shrank, left Breese to her mother and turned to Freddie herself; a scattering who did not wish the party to end as yet. Uncle William’s aide was one of the scattering, and the girl he had found. (The girl was the daughter of Captain Arrhhhh, on duty in BuPers in Washington, or of Commander Arummmm, assigned to the Third Naval District.)
    The scattering diminished. Uncle William’s aide, who was handsome, suave, very savvy, took the girl away, after casting one last, quick glance at the perfection of Breese Burnley. A civilian who had been in the Navy once, but only as a reserve, went