Death Before Bedtime Read Free Page B

tell me, the Senator had some impressive backing; he also had some very sinister backing. I disguised my alarm, though, and by the time I took a taxi to the Senator’s house on Massachusetts Avenue, Mr. Hollister was convinced that I too was a crusader for Good Government and True-Blue American Ideals.
    The house on Massachusetts Avenue was an heroic imitation of an Italian villa, covered with yellow stucco and decorated with twisted columns and ironwork balconies. The Senator, I soon discovered, was a very wealthy man though the source of his income was not entirely clear to me. Mr. Hollister spoke vaguely of properties in Talisman City.
    A butler showed me to my room on the third floor and, as I went up the marble staircase, I caught an occasional glimpse of ballrooms, of parquet floors, of potted palms, all very 1920 Grand Hotel
chic.
Dinner would be announced in an hour, I was told. Then I was left alone in a comfortable bedroom overlooking the Avenue.
    I was dozing blissfully in a hot bath, when Ellen marched into the bathroom.
    “I’ve come to scrub your back,” she said briskly.
    “No, you don’t,” I said, modestly covering myself. “Go away.”
    “That’s hardly the way for my fiancé to act,” she said, sitting down on the toilet seat.
    “I haven’t been your fiancé for almost a year,” I said austerely. “Besides, the bride-to-be is not supposed to inspect her groom before the wedding.”
    “You give me a pain,” said Ellen, lighting a cigarette. She wore a very dashing pair of evening pajamas, green with gold thread, quite oriental-looking … it made her look faintly exotic, not at all like a simple girl from Talisman City. “By the way, I told Mother we were engaged. I hope you don’t mind.”
    I moaned. “What is this allergy you have to the truth?”
    “Well, it
was
the truth a few months ago … I mean time’s relative and all that,” she beamed at me. “Anyway it should help you with my father.”
    “I’m not so sure,” I said, recalling the Senator’s look of pain at the mention of his only daughter.
    “The house is full, by the way,” said Ellen, exhaling smoke. “Some of the dreariest political creatures these old eyes have seen in many a moon.”
    “Constituents?”
    “I suppose so. One’s rather sweet … a lovely boy from New York, a newspaperman. He’s doing a profile of Father for some magazine, very Left Wing I gather, and of course poor Father doesn’t have the remotest notion that he’s being taken for a ride. Did you ever see the piece the
Nation
did on him?”
    I said that I hadn’t; I asked her the name of the lovely boy who was doing the profile. “Walter Langdon … a real dream. I had a quick drink with him in the drawing room,before I dashed off to make violent love to my prospective groom.”
    “I have a feeling that our engagement isn’t going to last very long.”
    “You may be right. Oh, and you’ll never guess who’s here … Verbena Pruitt.”
    “My God!” I was alarmed. Anyone would be alarmed at meeting the incomparable Verbena, the President of the Daughters of the War of 1812 as well as National Committeewoman for her party, one of the most powerful lady politicos in the country.
    “She’s from Daddy’s state, you know. She has the hairiest legs I’ve seen since that football game at Cambridge last week.”
    “I had better get myself a hotel room quick,” I said, letting the bathwater out and standing up, my back turned modestly toward Ellen as I dried myself.
    “How do you keep so slim?” asked the insatiable Ellen.
    “No exercise is the secret,” I said flexing a muscle or two in an excess of male spirits.
    “You’re really not bad at all,” she said thoughtfully. “I wonder why we ever fell out.” She rose and came toward me, a resolute expression on her face.
    “None of that,” I said, making a dash for the bedroom. I had my trousers on before she could violate me further. She relaxed and we went on