gaze of a group of officials. Assistant District Attorney Dorrens said, “You must allow for—certain differences. The—er— water, you know, and the length of time…”
Steven Hazard said, “Yes.” The captain of the detective district raised an eyelid carefully. He indicated the clothing, the hair, what was left of the teeth, a bracelet embedded in the flesh. Hazard stood beside the drawer looking down. An iron rein held his emotion, his outraged sensibilities in check. He identified the body.
After a long moment he said huskily, “Yes. That’s— my wife. That’s—Sara.” He turned away.
An autopsy was duly performed. Sara Hazard had been neither shot, strangled, poisoned nor stabbed. The lungs were full of water. She had been alive when she went into the river. She had been drowned as a result of the crash.
What had happened was clear. A late party, a projected excursion elsewhere. The Hazard convertible with the top down had been parked in its usual place when it wasn’t in the garage, at the top of the sharply inclined street around the corner from the apartment hotel. Sara Hazard had lost control. The car had turned over when it hit the fence before diving into the river. She had fallen out, to be battered back and forth for all those days in the swiftly moving currents until her body turned up off the airport.
It was on the twenty-fifth of August that the fatal crash occurred. It was on September sixteenth that the body was found. Two days later Sara Hazard’s body was buried in the little cemetery a couple of miles away from the Hazard farmhouse in lower Dutchess County. A cold September rain beat down on the handful of mourners. Cristie Lansing wasn’t there. Mary Dodd and Kit Blaketon were, and Pat and Cliff Somers and Steven’s chief.
That was on Wednesday. On the succeeding Monday, Steven Hazard returned to the office. Work was good for him, took him out of himself. His friends encouraged him. He began to look more normal. He went to the World’s Series with Pat, spent an occasional evening at the Dodd house. Mary Dodd was very kind to him, very gentle. So was Kit Blaketon.
Steven was too much wrapped up in himself to notice the change in Kit or that Cliff Somers no longer dropped in at all hours. Mary didn’t say anything. She talked of his work, of the future, made him talk.
Steven had closed the apartment on Franklin Place. He put the things in storage and moved to his club. He called Cristie once or twice, but it wasn’t until after the first of October when a refreshing tingle of frost was turning the leaves, that he began seeing her regularly again. The first meeting was awkward, they were stiff and shy with each other.
The stiffness began to wear off. Steven would call Cristie from the office and they would meet for a quiet dinner and a play. They didn’t do much talking. There were so many things that had to be left unsaid.
The shadow of Sara persisted. Cristie began to wonder with a dull ache at her heart what was going to happen and whether Steven would ever speak to her again as he had spoken that day in the little cafe around the corner from Margot’s.
Late one afternoon in the middle of the month, Margot St. Vrain called Steven at his office and asked him to the penthouse for dinner and the evening. Steven thanked her, but said he had an engagement to dine with Mary Dodd and Kit Blaketon. Margot suggested that he bring the two women over after dinner. She said Harry Woods, the song writer, was going to be there, that he was going to try out a new number for them.
Steven spoke of Margot St. Vrain’s invitation to Mary Dodd during dinner and Kit was enthusiastic about the idea. She hummed, “When the red red robin comes bob, bob, bobbin’ along” with a touch of her old gayety and said, “Let’s, Mary, I’d adore meeting Harry Woods. He’s marvelous, absolutely grade A.”
Mary was agreeable. While Kit was getting her hat, Mary told Steven she had been a little worried about the girl but didn’t tell him why.
When they arrived at the penthouse, Margot received them cordially. Her fiancé, Euen Firth, her cousin Johnny St. Vrain and Harry Woods were there. Woods was a lean gaunt fellow with an attractive smile.
Steven introduced Mary and Kit. Woods resumed his place at the piano. Cristie came in during the middle of the new song. She slipped quietly into a chair near the door, a slim snow-white and rose-red figure in dark crimson wool that brought out the cherry-blossom texture of her skin, the dark cloudiness of her hair. She didn’t single Steven out particularly. She gave him a smiling nod, accepted Kit Blaketon’s sizing-up stare, returned Mary Dodd’s pleasant half-smile and waved a hand to Johnny, leaning over the piano.
The song over, they all congratulated Woods. Euen Firth reappeared, followed by a colored maid wheeling a small bar. Drinks were served. Conversation became general.
As usual Euen helped himself to the liquid refreshment, his weak, good-natured face outfitted with a placating and permanent smile.
Cristie was waiting for a chance to talk to Steven, but to her annoyance Euen devoted himself to her. Her attention wandered. Toward what she hoped was the end of a long story about a Mexican and a goat, she glanced up. To her surprise, Euen wasn’t looking at her; he was looking at Steven who was talking to Margot and Miss Dodd on the other side of the room. There was no vacuity in Euen. His eyes were owlish, intent. As she watched, his aimlessness returned. He put a hand on her shoulder and finished his tale, echoing Cristie’s polite mirth with a cheerful guffaw.
Cristie was puzzled. It was no more than that, then. Another man and woman came in, and, later, Pat Somers arrived. He was accompanied by his brother Cliff. Cristie hadn’t seen either of them since the night of the party. That was what she called it herself, the only thing she permitted herself to call it. She averted her mind swiftly, pulled down a shutter. The act was automatic. She was getting used to it. Pat greeted Margot and Johnny, turned to Mary Dodd. He seemed glad to see her.
“I called the house and they told me you’d be here,” he said.
A look of understanding passed between them.
Kit Blaketon joined Johnny on the other side of Woods. The girl had been laughing and talking a moment before, red hair tossing vivid fire around the pretty, pointed face. It changed as Cliff Somers neared the piano. There was a beseeching air about him as he said, “Hello, Kit.”
Kit Blaketon stared back at him stonily. “ ’Lo, Cliff.”
It was the merest scrap of a greeting, indifferent, curt, uninterested. She turned back to the song writer, threw an arm around his shoulders.
“Go on, Harry,” she urged, “don’t stop playing.”
Woods looked up at her with a grin. “All right, baby, what’ll you have?”
Kit Blaketon’s voice, clear, metallic, rode the room as she answered, “Play ‘Get out of Town,’ darling. That’s the only tune I can think of at the moment.”
Cristie watched the good-looking young politician flush and pale. How cruel girls could be when they wanted to! Then she stopped thinking about the curious incident.
Steven was crossing the room. Beside her he said in a low voice, “I want to talk to you, Cristie.” He looked different. There was an air of purpose about him somehow.
She said, “My room, down the hall.”
She was standing at one of the tall windows beyond her drawing board when Steven joined her. He paused just inside the door, his tall broad-shouldered figure, his dark head, outlined against the white paneling. He was thinner and older but the light was back in his face, the light Sara had almost succeeded in crushing out.
“Cristie!” His voice had a ring to it.
“Yes, Steven.” Her own was none too steady, her own small dark head was lifted. She was shaking inwardly. “You—wanted me for something?”
Steven was holding a cigarette in his lean brown fingers. He ground it out in an ash tray. He said, “That’s just it. Yes, Cristie. I do want you. It’s time now. All the other is gone. It’s finished, done with, over.”
Cristie’s hands were clasped