She wasn’t surprised there’d been trouble at the skater’s suite; Marge herself might have caused it. But probably Jeff had been right; Tildy Millett would be in Bermuda or on a plane to Europe by now. Dow would undoubtedly be with her. The piece she was playing was pretty doleful.
“That,” I said, “will make it look as if he killed Roffis.”
She admitted that to anyone who knew Dow it might look as if he was trying to help the girl get beyond the reach of the authorities. Not that her husband might not have gone abroad with Tildy even if there’d been no need for protecting her. They had planned a continental elopement — she played a little louder so I wouldn’t notice the tremors in her voice — Marge had known about it for some time. That was why she’d gone to the Plaza Royale that afternoon, to make one last attempt to scare the skater away from her husband.
There was another interlude on the high keys, clashing discords. I asked Mrs. Lanerd if she’d had any luck with Miss Millett.
She couldn’t say. Marge had been cold-blooded about it, had warned Tildy that plenty of girls had tried to break up Marge’s home and none had succeeded. Marge had been a show girl too long not to know how hard it was to hold a good man. Even when he wasn’t the good man she’d thought he was when she married him.
“You couldn’t get anywhere with your husband — no reconciliation?”
Reconciliation, of course. The usual scene, the same old promises. She knew better than to believe them. He was putty in the hands of the woman he happened to be with at the moment. So she said. She’d threatened to kill Tildy, indeed she had. At that point, Roffis — who hadn’t been at all sure he should have let her in the suite, anyway — put her out. Deep rumblings down at the left of the keyboard.
She’d been very upset, very excited, but she hadn’t said a single thing she didn’t mean from the bottom of her heart. Tildy had mentioned a possible divorce; Marge had scorned the idea. She knew all about her husband’s playing around; had long ago determined that she’d rather have a part of Dow Lanerd than all of any other man. And would go to absolutely any lengths to keep him. At least she’d accomplished one thing, she had thought. The guard hadn’t been aware of the elopement plans; as he pushed Marge out into the corridor he’d told her, sotto voce, not to worry; the District Attorney would see to it Tildy Millett didn’t get on any outward-bound plane.
Marge had counted on that slim consolation. But even then, as she left the hotel, it occurred to her perhaps Tildy also would fight for the man she wanted. If the person she had to battle had been Roffis — well — A crashing crescendo.
MacGregory supplied the crusher.