Free Death Likes It Hot by Gore Vidal Page A

looked at me calmly. At that moment one of the policemen came in and whispered something in his ear. Greaves nodded and the other handed him a handkerchief containing two small cylindrical objects. The policeman withdrew.
    “Sleeping pill containers?” I guessed that one right.
    He nodded, carefully opening the handkerchief. “As a professional journalist and amateur sleuth, Mr. Sargeant, you should be interested to know that they were found in two places: one bottle in Mrs. Brexton’s jewel box; the other in Fletcher Claypoole’s bathroom. Both contain the same barbiturate found in Mrs. Brexton’s system. Our problem is to determine, if possible, from which bottle the pills she took (or was given) came.”
    “Just like spin-the-bottle, isn’t it?”
    “That will be all, Mr. Sargeant.”
    I had one more shot to fire. I let him have it: “The bruise on Mrs. Brexton’s neck was made
before
she went swimming. I noticed it last night at dinner.”
    “You’re very observant, Mr. Sargeant. Thank you.”

CHAPTER THREE
I
    SHORTLY after one o’clock. I sneaked down the backstairs of the house, across the deserted kitchen and out the back door. The policeman on guard was faced the other way, sprawled in a wicker armchair at the corner of the house. I ducked down behind the dunes, cursing the clear black night in which the white moon rode like a searchlight, casting dense shadows across the dunes, scattering silver light on the cold sea.
    I made it to the road, however, without being observed. We’d all been told to remain in the house until further notice and I’d excused myself as soon as possible and gone up to bed, praying the dance wouldn’t be over yet.
    It wasn’t.
    Easthampton is a funny place with any number of sets, each mutually exclusive. The center of the village’s summer life of course is the group of old-timers who belong to the Ladyrock Yacht Club, a rambling building with a long pier, situated a mile or so north of Mrs. Veering’s house, on the road to Ammagansett.
    Members of the Club are well-to-do (but not wealthy) socially accepted (but not quite “prominent”) of good middle-class American stock (proud of their ancient lineage which goes back usually to some eighteenth-century farmer).Their names are not known to the general public yet they feel that America is a pyramid at the apex of which will be found themselves, a delusion nurtured by the fact that they are not accepted by the rich and the great while they refuse to associate with those poorer than themselves. Their favorite word, however, their highest praise is “nice.” You hear that word every few minutes in their company. So-and-so is nice while somebody else isn’t. They have divided the world neatly between the nice and the not-nice and they’re pretty happy with their side of the border.
    Part of being nice means you belong to the Club and deplore the presence in the community of such un-nice elements as Jews, artists, fairies and celebrities, four groups which, given half a chance, will, they feel, sweep all that’s nice right out to sea. Fortunately the other elements are not conscious of them; otherwise, there could be trouble in this divided village.
    As it is, the painters and such like mind their own business in the south end of the town while their nicer neighbors live contentedly together in big houses and small cottages near the Ladyrock; they go to the John Drew Theater in the town; they give parties for one another where at least half the guests get drunk and the other half get offended; they swap wives and husbands while their children coast around at great speed in new cars from Hampton to Hampton wrapping themselves periodically around telephone poles. A typical resort community, and a nice one.
    The clubhouse was lighted with Japanese lanterns. A good band was playing. College boys and girls were necking on the dark pier which extended out into the sea. After a fumble with a pile of cards at the door, I was