Death Before Bedtime by Gore Vidal

stood up and the next thing I knew I went out.”
    “Where’s the light switch?” asked Winters.
    “At the head of the stairs,” said the man unhappily. “Right by the door to Mr. Hollister’s room, in the center of the landing.”
    “How could somebody turn off those lights without your seeing them?”
    “I … I was reading.” He looked away miserably.
    Winters was angry. “Your job was to watch that corridor, to make sure that nothing happened, to protect these people as well as to guard the study.”
    “Yes sir.”
    “What were you reading?” I asked, interested as always in the trivial detail.
    “A comic book, sir.” And this was the master race!
    Winters ordered the other plain-clothes man upstairs to take prints of the light switch. Then we went upstairs again and the Lieutenant proceeded to wake up everyone in the house for questioning. It was another late night for all of us and the discomfited politicos complained long and loudly but it did no good … it also did the law no good as far as I could tell. No one had heard my fall downstairs or the clubbing of the policeman; everyone had been asleep; no oneknew anything about anything, and, worst of all, as far as the police could tell, nothing had been taken from the study.
2
    I shall draw a veil of silence over the Governor’s funeral oration: suffice it to say it was heroically phrased. The occasion, however, was hectic.
    It was the first time I had been out of the house since the murder. I had no business in Washington and since my main interest was the murder I had spent most of the time talking to the suspects, calling various newspaper people I knew to check certain facts. Consequently, it was something of a relief to get out of the house, even on such an errand.
    We were herded into several limousines and driven downtown, through a miserably gray sleet, to the National Cathedral, a vast Gothic building only half completed. A crowd was waiting for us outside one of the side doors. Flash bulbs went off as Mrs. Rhodes and Ellen, both in heavy black veils, made a dash through the sleet from their car to the chapel door.
    We were led by a pair of ushers down into a stone-smelling crypt, massive and frightening: then along a low-ceilinged corridor to the chapel, brilliant with candles and banked with flowers: the odor of lilies and tuberoses was stifling.
    Several hundred people were already there … including the police, I noticed. I recognized a number of celebrated political faces: Senators, members of the House, two Cabinet officers and a sprinkling of high military brass. I wondered how many of them were there out of sympathy and how many out of morbid curiosity, to survey the murdersuspects of whom I was one. I was very conscious of this, as I followed Mrs. Rhodes and the Governor down the aisle to the front row. When we sat down the service began.
    It was very solemn. I sat between Mr. Hollister and Mrs. Pomeroy, both of whom seemed much affected. It wasn’t until the service was nearly over that I was aware of a slight pressure against my left knee. I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Mrs. Pomeroy but her head was bowed devoutly and her eyes were shut as though she was praying. I thought it must be my imagination. But then, imperceptibly, the pressure increased: there could be no doubt about it, I was getting the oldest of signals in a most unlikely place. I did nothing.
    At the cemetery, the service was even quicker because of the sleet which had now turned to snow. There were no tourists: only our party and a few cameramen. I thought it remarkable the Senator’s wife and daughter could behave so coolly … for some reason only Rufus Hollister seemed genuinely moved.
    When the last bit of hard black earth had been thrown onto the expensive metal casket, we got into the limousines again and drove back across the Potomac River to Washington and Massachusetts Avenue. It was a very depressing day.
    The drawing room, however, was