“We had a pet canary at home when I was a boy. It got out of its cage one day and flew around the room. I tried to catch it, and I was pretty clumsy. I was only six or seven at the time. I caught it by one leg and—” He made a little grimace as if the memory were still an emotional sore. “The leg came off in my hand. The poor bird wilted and bled profusely, but it didn’t die quickly. My father had to chloroform it. The dreadful thing about cruelty to animals is that they judge you solely by your actions—never by words. You can never apologize or explain to them that your act was unintentional. That was the first time I saw death and the first time I saw blood flow from an act of violence. The fact that it was inadvertent didn’t make me feel any the less guilty, and I’ve always had a guilty feeling about canaries ever since.”
Pauline was watching Basil’s face. “That isn’t the way a murderer would talk, now, is it?”
“Unfortunately, murderers have no special way of talking.” Basil’s equable tone made his words inoffensive. “It would make things much easier for us if they did.”
When the pair had gone, Basil went back to the living room and turned over his file of recent newspapers until he came to a Sunday edition that devoted considerable space to stage and screen. He found what he was looking for in a picture section dedicated to churchgoers promenading on Easter Sunday, a few weeks earlier:
It was a blurred action snapshot taken in bright sunlight. Wind molded Wanda’s print dress to her body and pushed back the floppy brim of her wide spring hat. One hand held the hat; the other was linked through Rod’s arm. They were looking into each other’s eyes and laughing happily. For a young man who was engaged to another woman the pose seemed a little indiscreet. . . .
Frowning, Basil cut out the picture and put it away in his desk. Then he tucked Wanda’s script of
WANDA MORLEY lived in a little house with a garden that went down to the edge of the East River. It was perfection in miniature—a doll’s house for a child princess. The walls were white-washed brick, roof and shutters were green, and the door was painted yellow. A mulatto maid answered Basil’s ring. He gave his name and waited in a shallow green and white hall, wondering if Wanda would receive him. The maid returned and led him up a flight of narrow, curving stairs to a long, pale drawing room with French windows that gave on a balcony overlooking garden and river. Though it was nearly noon, Wanda was at breakfast on the balcony—a Swiss breakfast of coffee with hot milk, hot buttered rolls, and honey. Her dark hair was gathered in a loose coil on the nape of her neck. She looked rested and comfortable in beautifully cut slacks of gray flannel and a yellow sweater.
The morning sun brought out lines in her face that Basil had not noticed before. Ordinarily he found the look of disillusioned maturity more interesting in women than the blank freshness of youth. But middle age had carved lines of slyness in Wanda’s face that were unpleasing in spite of her vivid coloring and regular features. There was still a certain melancholy in her eyes, but the morbid hysteria of last night was gone. He had an impression that she was essentially a practical person. As soon as the first shock of any disaster was over, she would pick up the pieces and put them together somehow. She would never nurse a grief and wallow in it for sheer emotional luxury.
“Dr. Willing, how nice of you to call! And how nice of you to bring my script back!” She smiled, eyes narrowed against the sun. Their golden color was no trick of eye shadow or indirect lighting. Here in the sun’s glare he could see the irises plainly, and they were a pure, buttercup yellow without a trace of
“Everyone else has deserted me this morning,” Wanda was saying. “Sam, Rod, Leonard—not one of them had the grace to telephone, let alone appear in person. Yet Sam is my favorite producer, and Leonard and Rod are my very best friends. Leonard gave me my first start by introducing me to Sam and making him give me a part, and I did the same thing for Rod. . . . Will you have coffee?”
