Free The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes

him.”
        She was surprised but insisted, “You understand then. It’s like him. Generous, and matter-of-fact.” She didn’t know why it mattered to them.
        “Yeah.” He was fiddling with his hands now and she saw what was there, the copper coin.
        She nodded at it “Bette found it under this couch Saturday morning. She knew it was Mr. Grain’s, his lucky piece. That is how she came to tell me that he was missing.”
        The Inspector tossed it. “Yeah. You had a party here Friday night.”
        She was doing well, calm, natural. “Not exactly that. I was at dinner at my sister’s, uptown. Mrs. Arthur Stepney. Arthur is a vice-president of Madison National.”
        He inserted the inevitable, “Yeah,” and the Sergeant said, “That’s the bank at Forty-second and Madison,” as if someone didn’t know.
        “Yes. Some friends dropped in after my return. It wasn’t really a party.”
        Tobin questioned, “Names?”
        “Names.” She hadn’t understood at first then she did. “Professor Gigland, a friend of Con’s. His apartment is across the hall. Teaches at Columbia.” She hesitated the barest second but she couldn’t make up names. They’d be checked. Sergeant Moore’s eyes were memorizing. “David and Danny Montefierrow.” That surprised them. She knew it although they said nothing. “And my younger sister, Missy Cameron.”
        The Sergeant asked, “Is she staying with you?”
        “No. She’s at the St Regis. She lives in Rome with my mother.”
        “Yeah.”
        If there were only something to say, some way to say it to make them believe truth. She had wanted the police. She had them now and she wasn’t saying a word. She couldn’t. The twins had warned.
        The Inspector turned the coin. “You think maybe Grain lost this under the couch sometime? Think it’s been there long? Before Con left maybe?” He was looking at the coin but at her too.
        “It couldn’t have been there long. Bette is a thorough cleaner. She’d cleaned earlier in the week.”
        “Think maybe someone dropped it Friday night?”
        The question came so quickly her mouth opened, stupid as an idiot child’s. She hadn’t considered that as an explanation. She’d thought they must know Grain had been here, lying there, on that spotless rug. She answered truthfully, “That never occurred to me.”
        The Sergeant put in, “Have you known these folks long?” It seemed as if he sensed things, as if he could see the picture on the back of her mind.
        “You mean my guests?”
        “Yeah.”
        “My sister, naturally.” She smiled. “Although I haven’t seen her since she was a child. Gig-Professor Gigland-I met only when I came here, and the twins very recently. They are friends of Missy’s, my sister, from abroad.” She took a breath. “I know of course that Mr. Grain is dead.”
        “You do?” His eyes popped at her.
        She flung out her hands. “I know he must be. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.” She said thoughtfully, truthfully, “I knew he was dead when Bette told me. After forty years he wouldn’t have stayed away from his wife otherwise.”
        “I guess not,” Moore agreed. “Though some would.” He grinned.
        Inspector Tobin asked, “Did you see Grain Friday?”
        “Friday night?”
        “Any time Friday.”
        “No, not that day.” She bit her lip. “I saw him the day I arrived. He had the key for me and helped me in with my bags. And one or two noons he was out front when I went out.” She added irrelevantly, wondering what the wife was like. “I’ve never seen her.”
        The front buzzer had been touched. Tobin said, “I’ll answer.” He walked to the entrance button, pushed it, not answering the house phone. He waited to open the door. Moore was still at the windows, looking out. He wanted to know,