Murder is the Pay-Off Read Free

he’s going to write or not write, I think he ought to fire her.”
    Lucy Maynard looked at her husband. “I think perhaps he ought to fire her, anyway, John. That’s a stunning dress, Connie. Superb theater. Sometime we must have caviar and pressed duck to match it. Everything else is ready, John.” She turned her head, listening to the first car coming into the drive. “Please try to keep your sister Mamie from making a speech, John. I’ll keep her up here out of the playroom if you’ll just keep her from drinking too much. I don’t know how she became convinced champagne is non-alcoholic. Mamie’s temperance lecture when she’s hiccuping never seems the least amusing to me.”
     

TWO
    As the party was still just beginning, Connie Maynard, balanced on the arm of one of the deep-yellow leather sofas that flanked the log-burning fireplace, could still hear herself think, and speak without having to scream to make herself heard. And still watch the stairs, smiling, to see Gus and Janey when they came. The cellar of the old house, converted into a playroom, was bigger than the Parish Hall and much more comfortable. The sofas in the recesses formed by the arched brick foundations were secluded and cozy, the juke box was still playing sweet and low over in the corner where the bar and games were. The room was slowly filling up now as the crowd divided itself into the older sheep staying soberly upstairs with her father and mother and the younger goats skipping about down where the fun and noise was.
    Connie saw that Orval Rogers was one of them. Not that Orval ever skipped, singly or in pairs. Coming down alone now, his black tie neatly tied, his blond hair neatly brushed, he looked very like a young but sober owl behind his neat steel-rimmed glasses. Halfway down the stairs he stopped, searching the room earnestly for a moment before he came on.
    “Poor Orvie—”
    Connie started a little and looked around. It was Martha Ferguson, wife of the bank president.
    “Oh, Martha. You took the words right out of my mind, dear.”
    It was not quite true, because in her mind they had none of the affectionate warmth and bubbling amusement they had as Martha Ferguson spoke them.
    “Hi, Orvie,” she said.
    “Hi, Connie. Hi, Martha. Dad couldn’t come, Connie. He says he’s sorry, but he’s too old for these routs.”
    He looked around earnestly again.
    “Janey isn’t here yet,” Connie said.
    “Yeah. She said she didn’t know whether she could get a sitter for little Jane.”
    Orvie Rogers wandered over toward the bar. Connie looked around at Martha Ferguson again. “I wonder why we always say ‘Poor Orvie,’ ” she said abruptly. “He’s got an awful lot more dough than any of the rest of us.”
    Martha Ferguson laughed. “Oh, he’s so serious and his father makes him work so hard. Poor Orvie—I don’t think he’s really ever had any fun, or busted out all over. I’m devoted to him. He’s really sweet.” She took a Manhattan off the tray the colored boy held in front of her. “Now what I wonder—I mean if we are wondering—is how long, for heaven’s sakes, we’re going on always telling Orvie that Janey hasn’t come yet, or Janey’s over there, or Janey’s upstairs or out in the garden. It’s funny, isn’t it?”
    “Is it?”
    Connie took a sip of the cocktail in her hand. Martha Ferguson glanced at her, her brown eyes kindling a little. “Oh, Connie, don’t be a stinker and a louse! You know damn well you’ve no right to be.”
    “Darling! Who’s being a stinker and a louse? You asked me a question and I asked you another.”
    “Okay.” Martha Ferguson tossed off the rest of her cocktail and put the glass down. “It’s not manners to quarrel with your hostess, so I guess I’ll move along. I’m a bit tense tonight myself. I like Janey.”
    She let her eyes rest on Connie’s plunging neckline and bare, smooth shoulders for an instant. “That’s a divine little