Jealous Woman by James M. Cain Page A

take it?”
    “Well, she’s generally upset. Naturally.”
    “They just hate it.”
    “Well, who does love an undertaker?”
    “That’s not quite it. What they feel is not grief. It’s resentment. Maybe they keep quiet about it, as a matter of pride. But they’ve got that look in their eye. They regard it as an insult, a reflection on the marriage, and especially a reflection on themselves. ... Did you get anything like that in there?”
    “I thought she behaved with great dignity.”
    “But how much bitterness did she show?”
    “I didn’t notice any.”
    “Nor I either. I’ve been with her now for a considerable part of two whole days, and I’ve been struck by her complete freedom from rancor. She’s cracked up a few times, but there have been no hard feelings, and in fact when I’ve called her attention to one or two peculiar things about it she’s always come back with something that showed she preferred to regard it as an accident. Now tonight she says she saw it happen, and kept it concealed for legal reasons—but they were exactly the kind of reasons she would have placed before me, if it all took place as she says it did. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be possible for a woman to live a week or more in the same hotel as her husband’s former wife, and not know where her room was. Furthermore, even without law, or possible insurance angles, no member of a family ever admits anything that spells suicide. That’s one thing they’ll do anything to keep under cover, to pretend didn’t happen. And in my experience, I’ve never known an exception: if they do seem to come out in the open, it’s to cover something up.”
    “... Such as?”
    “Whatever she really saw.”
    “Spit it out, Keyes. What are you getting at?”
    “Ed, Lynch said there was no insurance angle, but we know there is, from the investigators that attended this inquest. But we don’t know what those investigators, if they were to stay on the case, might turn up. The quickest way to get rid of them, if there’s a suicide clause in effect somewhere, would be to place sworn testimony on the record of a public inquest that establishes an eye-witness. That closes the case—for the cops, who are concerned only with violations of the law, and for these buzzards, that are concerned with everything, up and down the line, that affects a claim ... Ed, I confess this disturbs me.”
    “Your lady love fibbing on you, you mean?”
    “It’s shifty. And I’ve been—”
    “Kind of stuck on her?”
    “I may as well admit it. ... And yet—if she’s covering up for his good name, to conceal some sort of scandal she knew had to come out, if this thing were really investigated—”
    “She’d still be your perfect lady.”
    “That’s it. And she is a thoroughbred, we know that.”
    “At least, if she was a horse, we’d know it.”
    “And that girl, that Mrs. Delavan—”
    “Oh, so she’s the scandal!”
    “Well, after all, it was her room, and she was his former wife.”
    I didn’t clip him on the jaw, you’ll probably be surprised to learn, but later that night I was to hear about insurance again. It was in Jane’s suite, and she had her head on my shoulder, and was relaxed and friendly, because, as she said, “I could never bring myself to take pleasure in the death of another human being, but I can’t forget either that this writes finis to one of the most ghastly chapters of my life. I had nothing to do with Dick’s decision, have no idea of the reason for it. Just the same, he’s gone. It’s the end. I’m not glad, but for the first time in a long, long while, I’m at peace.”
    Then the phone rang.
    I paid no attention, lit a cigarette while she went in the bedroom to answer. But she was gone some little time, and when she came back she said: “What could he have meant? ‘Do something about the insurance?’”
    “Who was he?”
    “Ireland, I think he said.”
    “... He’s a go-between. For insurance