Murder Has Its Points by Frances and Richard Lockridge Page B

thought. And people had worshiped at lesser shrines.
    â€œThat doesn’t matter,” Faith said. “I realize that. If Willings killed him—but I don’t think he did. I think I know who may have and—”
    It had happened before, and Pam had grown rather tired of it. For all her growing sympathy for—call it empathy with—Faith Constable, Pam felt irritation stirring. If people had things to tell the police—
    â€œPlease,” Faith said. It occurred to Pam that her own face, also, probably was expressive. “Yes, there is something I want the police to hear about. It may be nothing. They may already know. And, it’s quite true I don’t want to go to them.” She watched Pam’s face; evidently saw something in it almost before Pam had herself caught up.
    â€œPart of it’s the bad publicity,” Faith said. “I don’t deny it. I don’t want ‘Actress Grilled in Ex-Husband’s Murder.’ Or however they’d put it. I don’t want that at all. That’s cowardly selfish, so all right it’s cowardly selfish. And if I have to, in the end, all right, I have to in the end. But—there’s more. I—”
    â€œListen, darlings,” Alice Draycroft said. “Do we have another drink? Or do we have lunch? Or—what I mean is, darlings, how’s to take five?”
    Faith Constable looked at her friend, and fellow actress, somewhat as if she had never seen her before. After a moment, she smiled a little vaguely, as if she had come back from a great distance to surroundings only a little familiar, and said, “All right, dear. Perhaps we should.” Alice Draycroft looked over her shoulder and a waiter said, “Yes, Miss Draycroft?” and she made a circling movement with the index finger of her right hand. The waiter said, “Yes, Miss Draycroft,” and went. Faith, very carefully, fitted a cigarette into a holder; very carefully lighted the cigarette and sat, looking at the lighter flame for seconds before she snapped the lighter shut. It occurred to Pam that she was looking, not at the tiny flame, but far back to where she had been, been brought back from. The waiter came with drinks. Faith sipped from her glass, and did not look at either of the others—looked at nothing.
    â€œI was very young twenty-five years ago—no, it was twenty-six,” Faith said and only after she had said that looked at Pam North again. “The story of my life,” she said. “More than you’d asked for. Not all of it.” She smiled at Pam, and there was a certain apology in her smile. “I was younger than I should have been, of course. I wasn’t really so very young. Not as years go.”
    She paused again. After a moment, as abruptly as before, she began again.
    â€œI was just realizing,” she said, “that I wasn’t going to be a writer. I’d wanted very much to be a writer, and not nearly so much to act. But it turned out I could act and couldn’t write. I suppose that’s why I’ve always been a little’ that way—a little hipped—about writers. I suppose that was why I married him in the first place.” She paused again. The pausing—between ideas, now and then between words, was, Pam thought, a part of artistry, of a craft which had, in turn, become part of Faith Constable. “I’m talking about Tony,” Faith said. “He was a real writer—anyway, he thought he was, persuaded me he was.
    â€œWe were only married a couple of years,” she said. “I’ve always said that I was the one who decided to call it quits. That was true. But—only partly true. He wasn’t a very nice person, poor Tony. I wasn’t nearly so young after a year of it—old enough to notice how very un-nice he was. But that wasn’t all.” Once more she paused. She took a breath. (How many times, Pam thought, must