The Galton Case Read Online Free PDF Page A

Discontent flicked a fin in their depths, but she said dutifully: “Sheisn’t so bad. She’s not at her best today. It’s hard on her to rake up the past like this.”
    “Why is she doing it?”
    “She had a serious scare not long ago. Her heart almost failed. They had to put her in an oxygen tent. She wants to make amends to Tony before she dies. She treated him badly, you know.”
    “Badly in what way?”
    “She didn’t want him to live his own life, as they say. She tried to keep him all to herself, like a—a belonging. But you’d better not get me started on that.”
    Cassie Hildreth bit her lip. I recalled what the doctor had said about her feeling for Tony. The whole household seemed to revolve around the missing man, as if he’d left only the day before.
    Quick footsteps crossed the hallway below the stairs. I leaned over the balustrade and saw Sable wrench the front door open. It slammed behind him.
    “Where’s he off to?”
    “Probably home. That wife of his—” She hesitated, editing the end of the sentence: “She lives on emergencies. If you’d like to see those pictures, they’re in my room.”
    Her door was next to Mrs. Galton’s sitting-room. She unlocked it with a Yale key. Apart from its size and shape, its lofty ceiling, the room bore no relation to the rest of the house. The furniture was modern. There were Paul Klee reproductions on the walls, new novels on the bookshelves. The ugly windows were masked with monks-cloth drapes. A narrow bed stood behind a woven wood screen in one corner.
    Cassie Hildreth went into the closet and emerged with a sheaf of photographs in her hand.
    “Show me the best likeness first.”
    She shuffled through them, her face intent and peaked,and handed me a posed studio portrait. Anthony Galton had been a handsome boy. I stood and let his features sink into my mind: light eyes set wide apart and arched over by intelligent brows, short straight nose, small mouth with rather full lips, a round girlish chin. The missing feature was character or personality, the meaning that should have held the features together. The only trace of this was in the one-sided smile. It seemed to say: to hell with you. Or maybe, to hell with me.
    “This was his graduation picture,” Cassie Hildreth said softly.
    “I thought he never graduated from college.”
    “He didn’t. This was made before he dropped out.”
    “Why didn’t he graduate?”
    “He wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction. Or his mother. They forced him to study mechanical engineering, which was the last thing Tony was interested in. He stuck it out for four years, but he finally refused to take his degree in it.”
    “Did he flunk out?”
    “Heavens, no. Tony was very bright. Some of his professors thought he was brilliant.”
    “But not in engineering?”
    “There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do, if he wanted to. His real interests were literary. He wanted to be a writer.”
    “I take it you knew him well.”
    “Of course. I wasn’t living with the Galtons then, but I used to visit here, often, when Tony was on vacation. He used to talk to me. He was a wonderful conversationalist.”
    “Describe him, will you?”
    “But you’ve just seen his picture. And here are others.”
    “I’ll look at them in a minute. Right now I want you to tell me about him.”
    “If you insist, I’ll try.” She closed her eyes. Her face smoothed out, as if years were being erased: “He was alovely man. His body was finely proportioned, lean and strong. His head was beautifully balanced on his neck, and he had close fair curls.” She opened her eyes. “Did you ever see the Praxiteles Hermes?”
    I felt a little embarrassed, not only because I hadn’t. Her description of Tony had the force of a passionate avowal. I hadn’t expected anything like it. Cassie’s emotion was like spontaneous combustion in an old hope chest.
    “No,” I said. “What color were his eyes?”
    “Gray. A lovely soft gray. He