He leaned over me. From the faint dilatation of his thick nostrils, I could tell he was sniffing for alcohol on my breath.
Coming Through, apparently, was the Aurora Clean Living League’s term for conversion.
I smiled weakly. “I’m Coming Through,” I said.
Mr. Moffat slapped me on the back. “Fine, glorious.” His bright, dirty brown eyes were trying unsuccessfully to register a delight he obviously did not feel at the prospect of my Coming Through. “Let’s be frank, boy. There’s a little situation today. Money, boy. A question of the allocation of money.” He bowed at the twittering Mr. Petherbridge. “Let’s get this clear, boy. Don’t you—or your dear mother—think we care about money. Mr. Friend was a fine man, a splendid man, but sometimes he didn’t always understand. What is money—when the best things in life are free? The rolling breaker, Gordy. The sunshine over the little kirk on the mountain. The sunlight, boy, in your mother’s eyes when you come home to her from your wanderings. Those are the things that brace you. To us, to all of us, it’s a millionfold jollier to welcome a new friend who’s Come Through than to miss that friend and be a little wealthier in terms of Cash.”
His smile flashed big, irregular teeth. “We’ve always been lucky, boy. When times are lean, there’s always a good friend ready to put his hand in his jeans for us. Lucre, the old Bible folk called it. Filthy lucre. And that’s how I’ve always thought of it too. We’re not going to have filthy lucre come between us and a—pal.”
Having unburdened himself of this disastrous speech, Mr. Moffat slapped me on the back again, swung around dramatically to face the crowded chairs, lifted both arms as if he was about to hail the rising sun and cried ringingly:
“At it, boys and girls. Aurora’s song.”
One of his raised arms became a conductor’s baton. A seedy girl had seated herself at the piano. She played a tremolo octave and, to a man, the group rose and burst into a loud merry song. I caught only snatches of the words—
Aurora…
Jollity
…
sunshine…no death… Come Through…
Aurora’s song concluded, Mr. Moffat embarked upon his eulogy of Mr. Friend. From it emerged the sharp division between those who had Come Through and those who had not Come Through. Those who had not Come Through were poor misguided sinners doomed to a life of blind debauch on this planet and utter annihilation after death. Those who had Come Through earned the inestimable privilege of Mr. Moffat’s society both on this earth and, eternally, after death in some jolly Valhalla of Cleanliness.
Mr. Friend had definitely Come Through.
I tried to visualize the grim old man I had seen in the photographs frolicking jollily with Mr. Moffat’s flock and then returning from the romp to excoriate his family’s wickedness. The thought made me faintly nauseated. Mr. Moffat was extolling Mr. Friend’s many virtues, ending with his talents as a poet. Suddenly, before I was at all prepared for it, he swung round to me with a flourish reminiscent of a circus ringmaster and cried: “And now we have the great pleasure of hearing his own very son, who is Coming Through to us, recite what is probably his most inspiring work—his Ode to Aurora.”
A chatter of applause sounded.
Mr. Moffat held up his hand. “But first there’s something I’m sure my friend Gordy boy here would want you all to know.” His voice lowered to an awesome whisper. “Until recently, he was on the Wrong Track—steaming down the Wrong Track. All the weaknesses, the frailties. Alcohol, boys, that weevil-like borer. Even worse, boys. But now, girls, he’s seen the red signal. Now he’s swung the lever, he’s switched tracks. Now, when he recites the Ode”—he paused, raising both hands over his head and clasping them together like a victorious boxing champ—“now, girls and boys, on this glorious summer day when the very birds sing for joy, he’s Coming Through—to me, to you.”
The applause was thunderous. Grandma, at my side suppressed a cackle behind a small handkerchief. I glanced desperately at Selena and then at Mrs. Friend. Both of them were sitting quietly with downcast eyes. In a moment of panic, my mind went completely blank. Then Selena half raised her head and winked. I was all right again then.
In fact, I felt so elated that I decided to abandon the meek method of recitation suggested by Mrs. Friend and to adopt some of Mr. Moffat’s rousing swagger.
“ ‘Seven sins lead our sons to Perdition’,” I bellowed, “ ‘Seven sins that lure youth like a Whore’ …”
I got my audience. Steadily, accurately, I progressed through the Ode, increasing the passion of my delivery from verse to verse. When I had finished, applause soared. Mr. Moffat, a look of undisguised fury in his eyes, swung round and slapped me on the back. Almost before I realized it, he had grabbed a document and a pen. He was thrusting them at me. I glanced at the first line.
I hereby declare that from this day on, I abstain from all uncleanliness, the sordidity of alcohol, the…
I didn’t need to read any more to recognize the abstinence pledge. I held the pen in my left hand over the document. For a moment I hesitated. This was it. Once I signed the forged name, I had irrevocably thrown in my lot with the Friends for better or for worse.
In that second while I hesitated, Selena sprang up as if possessed by a cleanly rapture. Her eyes aglow with evangelical fervor, she clutched my arm.
“Sign it, Gordy boy,” she cried. “Oh, renounce forever alcohol, that weevil-like borer.”
Mr. Moffat looked taken aback by this unexpected burst of ardor. As I glanced from him to Selena, the need to control an irresistible desire to giggle obliterated every other consideration from my mind. Bowing my head over the document I scrawled a clumsy pretense of the words Gordon Renton Friend III at the foot of the pledge.
Selena sat down with a sigh. Mr. Moffat snatched the paper and brandished it.
I had Come Through.
The League was still clapping. With a swoop of the hand, Mr. Moffat gave his musical signal. The tremolo octave warbled from the piano. The League rose and burst into a closing paean to Aurora.
It was all over as quickly, as easily as that. Either Mr. Moffat was bowing to the inevitable or he had decided to postpone any legal contentions to the future.
As I looked at him, trying to guess what was in his mind, I had the uneasy suspicion that Mr. Moffat was not the type to bow to the inevitable.
Something other than coarse reddish hairs, I felt, was up his sleeve.
It was a feeling I did not like at all.
“Now, boys and girls,” Mr. Moffat was booming to the assembly, “here is some fun. Mrs. Friend has invited us to hold our Sunshine Hour in her glorious swimming pool. We all have our Aurora Swimming Suits?”
A chorus of assent rose.
“Then, boys and girls—to the pool.”
In a clatter of chairs, the League rose and started to swarm around me, heartily greeting their new pal. As one after another gave me a word of cheer, I noticed that two strange men had slipped into the room and were standing uncertainly by the door. One was elderly and stooped with a red-veined nose and white hair. The other was young and very solid with a wary, assertive air which marked him definitely as someone who had not Come Through to Mr. Moffat.
While youths and maidens giggled their hopes that I would soon be sufficiently recovered to take an active part in their larks, I saw that Mr. Petherbridge had bustled away from Mrs. Friend and had joined the two men at the door. The three of them were talking together in low, conspiratorial tones.
Gradually the Aurora Clean Living League was spiffing out through the library and the french windows towards the pool.
When the last member had paid his respects, Mr. Moffat wrung my hand again.
“Welcome to us, Gordy boy. Welcome. There’ll be many a glorious spree ahead for all of us, I’ll be bound. Ah, your beautiful mansion—the ideal setting for the League. The ideal setting.” The smile stretched to engulf Mrs. Friend who was standing nearby. “And the filthy lucre?” He gave a rich, false laugh. “Where do the life earnings of the Father belong but in the lap of his widow and his fatherless children—provided they have been proven worthy?”
The irregular teeth flashed as he completed that faintly ominous remark. Then the shoulders were thrown back. Mr. Moffat, much jollier than a man who had just lost several million dollars ought to have been, strode away to supervise the Sunshine Hour. Before he left, his eyes flashed to the two men with Mr. Petherbridge and then flicked quickly away as if he was pretending he had not seen them.
I noticed that, but Mrs. Friend, apparently, did not. Her face was radiant and she gave my arm a little squeeze.
“We’ve done it,” she breathed. “Darling boy, you were wonderful, wonderful. We’ve done it.”
She hurried after Mr. Moffat, presumably to put in a hostess appearance at the pool. Selena and Marny had taken Grandma back to her room and Jan had disappeared. I supposed that I, too, should have wheeled myself to the pool. But the mental image of the Aurora Clean Living ladies in their Aurora swimming suits was too much for me. I stayed where I was.
I had the room to myself now except for Mr. Petherbridge and the two strangers who were still grouped by the door. I glanced at them, thinking about Mr. Moffat and feeling obscurely uneasy. As if my glance were a signal, the three men started towards me.
Mr. Petherbridge seemed almost beside himself with nervousness now. “Ah, Mr. Friend, you—ah—seem to have carried off your duties as stipulated in the will. The terms are plain. You have obeyed them to the letter.”
“Then Mr. Moffat can’t start anything?” I asked.
“So far as the terms of the will are concerned—ah—no.” Mr. Petherbridge’s dainty face was almost purple with the embarrassment for which I could still see no cause. “But… Mr. Friend, before we discuss the matter further, there is something, something, rather distressing… I wonder if you could spare me and these gentlemen a few moments.”
“Of course,” I said, my nervousness aggravated by his.
“It is awkward. Awkward to say the least.” Mr. Petherbridge made a little fluttering gesture towards the older of the two men, the stooped man with the red-veined nose and the white hair. “This is Dr. Leland, Mr. Friend. I do not know whether you two have met. Dr. Leland is the physician who was attending your father when he—ah—passed on.”
My nervousness was almost panic. Mrs. Friend had not planned on Dr. Leland.
Dr. Leland was watching me from tired, heavy-lidded eyes. After an interminable moment, his hand came out.
“I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure, Mr. Friend.”
Relief flooded through me. I took the dry, horny hand.
“And this”—Mr. Petherbridge was almost whinnying as he indicated the second man—“this is Inspector Sargent.”
Inspector! My guilty conscience was like an arresting hand clamped on my shoulder.
Young Inspector Sargent did not take my hand. He was smiling at me, a steady, meaningless smile which kept any revealing expression from his eyes.
“Maybe there’s a room that’s more private, Mr. Friend,” he suggested. “What we have to say is—well, it’s of a confidential nature. “
Mrs. Friend wasn’t there. No one was there. I was on my own now. Gesturing to the men to follow, I wheeled my chair out of the living-room across the passage into a small sitting-room I had never been in before. The situation was as tough as that. I hardly knew my way about the house that was supposed to be mine. I remembered my anxiety when Mr. Petherbridge first arrived that morning. I remembered what I had thought:
Was I putting my neck in the noose?
Had I already put my neck in that noose?
I thought of Mr. Moffat’s sidelong glance at the Inspector when he left. Almost certainly this was something to do with Mr. Moffat, some wild bid of his to have the will overturned. If I kept steady, everything should be all right.
Inspector Sargent closed the door. The three men grouped themselves around me. I felt quite calm. That was one thing. The potential danger had banished my nervousness.
“Well, gentlemen?” I said.
Mr. Petherbridge fluted: “I think… ah, that is, I feel Inspector Sargent is the one who…” The sentence trailed off.
The Inspector had sat down without being invited. He took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. He was still smiling at me.
“Excuse the notebook, Mr. Friend. Just regulations.”
“Of course.”
The pencil, gripped in a large, square hand, hovered over the opened book.
“Your name is Gordon Renton Friend the Third?”
“It is.”
“You are, of course, the son of the late Mr. Friend who died a month ago in this house?”
“I am.”
I’d said it then. I’d committed myself. There was no turning back.
“I understand that you and your wife arrived here from Pittsburg about two weeks before your father died. Is that correct?”
Now, if ever, was the time to mention the amnesia. It might prove terrifically useful as a protection against unanswerable questions. And yet Mrs. Friend had kept it back from Mr. Petherbridge. If I suddenly mentioned it now, it would sound highly suspect. I decided to stall until I knew what the Inspector was after.
“Yes,” I said.
The Inspector’s grey, uninformative eyes met mine. “On the day your father died you left for Los Angeles?”
“Yes.”
“To visit?”
Although I had not dared use the amnesia, I could at least blur the issue with alcohol. Gordy’s drinking habits were common knowledge, through the will if through nothing else. I couldn’t be playing into the Inspector’s hands by admitting it.
I grinned. I said: “I might as well be frank. I’d been drinking. I didn’t go to L.A. to visit. I just went—on a bat.”
“I see. “For the first time when we might legitimately have been amused, the Inspector stopped smiling. “About what time of day did you leave?”
Marny had told me. When was it? “Sometime in the evening.”
“Before your father was known to be dying?”
“Of course.”
“But you were here during the earlier part of the day?”
“Yes.”
“Did you notice anything at all unusual that might have happened?”