Friends till the End

“Bernard,” said Maya, “did you hear what Snooky just told me?”

“What is it?”

“The hostess of the party he went to last night—well, she died. They say she was
poisoned.
”

Bernard looked up from his desk. “You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“That’s horrible.” Bernard felt strangely offended. Murders, he felt, should not happen in Ridgewood, Connecticut.

“Well, he’s pretty upset.”

“Mmmm-hmmm. Do you think he did it?”

“Bernard, please. It’s not like he
knew
any of those people, really. He just met them last night. I mean, Snooky is always getting into some kind of trouble, but he never actually ran afoul of the law before.”

“Sweetheart, your brother did not murder his hostess. The police must know that. All the same—”

“What?”

“All the same, I wonder who did,” said Bernard.

It was a lovely party. Everyone said so; even Harry Crandall, emeritus professor of biology, who ordinarily spent the whole evening talking about his beloved slime molds. This evening he had been cajoled into discussing the Late Beethoven Quartets, quite a departure for him. He was an authority on the subject, as everyone expected he would be. He only held forth on subjects on which he was an authority. The host, Walter Sloane, and his wife Laura circulated among their guests. It was a small party: just the Sloane family and a few friends. There was only one stranger present, a young man with a very odd name, something like Snoopy or Ucky. Walter Sloane’s daughter had brought him along as her date. He was not one of the usual crowd so everyone ignored him; by far the easiest way.

It was a lovely, lovely party; everyone said so. It would have been just about perfect if the hostess had not died. As it was, everyone enjoyed themselves very much.

“Naked masses of protoplasm,” Harry Crandall was saying, diverted momentarily by a question concerning his favorite subject. “That’s all they are. Fascinating creatures, I tell you. Slime molds belong to a class of extremely peculiar organisms,
Myxomycetes
 …”

Freda Simms gave her distinctive loud cackle. “He’s off again. Good old Harry.”

Ruth Abrams looked worried. She always looked worried. She was a short heavy-set woman with the mild-mannered face of a not very intelligent sheep. “Freda,” she said reproachfully. “He’ll hear you.”

Freda Simms smiled. Her hair tonight was red; a distinctive shade of brilliant red. It looked as if it had been painted on her head by an industrious child with finger paints. It stuck out wildly in all directions and bobbed as she talked. She spoke constantly, nervously, gesturing with a cigarette.

“I’ve convinced Eddie to show me how he does his makeup,” she said.

Ruth Abrams looked doubtfully at Freda’s boyfriend.

“Clown makeup is an art form,” Freda continued. “Isn’t it, Eddie?”

Eddie seemed to agree. Eddie was a silent creature; a man of few words, thought Ruth. She glanced around nervously and hoped someone would rescue her soon. Freda was a dear friend, but honestly, a
clown
 …

Although perhaps a clown was better than Freda’s last boyfriend, who had been introduced at a party much like this one. His name had been Charlie and he had been a professional skydiver. The romance had blossomed until one day Charlie had had a minor technical difficulty with his parachute.

Harry Crandall was back on the Late Beethoven Quartets again. Ruth could hear his voice droning on. Usually the host, Walter Sloane, found some minor point that he could disagree with and picked a fight—more than one party had been broken up by the women because Harry and Walter were at each other’s throats over the prospects of the local baseball team, or the merit of some obscure work of literature, or that forbidden topic, politics. But tonight Harry was droning on undisturbed. That probably meant that Walter Sloane didn’t know a thing about the Late Beethoven Quartets.

Ruth looked over at Walter. Tonight he seemed to be having a decent time, although the sight of his closest friends eating his food and drinking his liquor usually made him apoplectic. Rich as he was, he saved every
dime. She had been with him once in a restaurant when he called the manager over because he had put a quarter in the jukebox, which then refused to play his selection. “I want ‘Old Man River,’ ” he had roared, to the delight of the other patrons.