behind his right knee "-he came to talk about business,"
he said. "An engagement in Las Vegas. Wasn"t that it,
babe?" He smiled falsely at Ca.s.sandra.
She didn"t answer, watching him with hooded eyes.
The Sheriff watched with displeasure as Max repeated
the card manipulations.
I watched Max with a coldness in my stomach/ wonder- ing what he was up to, what he had in mind, what plan. I knew there had to be one.
"Second method," Max was saying as he demonstrated.
"Hold the cards between the right forefinger and thumb and pa.s.s the left hand across the front of me right as though taking hold of them. Under cover of the left hand, quickly back-palm them behind the right. Your audience-"
"I"d prefer you didn"t do that/ Mister Delacorte," the
Sheriff told him.
"Really?" Max sounded surprised. "You don"t like it, Grover? You don"t think it"s jolly? Legerdemain? Sleight of hand?"
"Air. Delacorte-"
Max rumbled, almost dropping me cards.
With a scowl, he made them vanish, slipping them into his trouser pocket. He looked at Plum with a goading ex- pression.
"I"m all ears, Grover," he said in a hardened voice. "Hit
me.
"Why did you have to kill him. Max?" Ca.s.sandra asked.
Now You Sea H.. 127
There was an aching in her voice now which made him look at her strangely.
"Did Mister Kendal leave the house?" the Sheriff asked.
"I"ve already told you!" Ca.s.sandra"s anger burst out.
"Harry Kendal was murdered!"
The Sheriff tried to curb his irritation.
"I would like to hear what your husband has to say, Mis.-"
"He"ll say anything to throw you off!" she interrupted, raging.
Again, she looked at Max, her tone despairing.
"You didn"t have to kill him. Max/" she said.
Max, admit it, I thought. Be done with this.
Ca.s.sandra turned and walked to the picture window, looking out at the gazebo by the lake, her features taut.
"To repeat the question. Mister Delacorte," said Plum.
"Did Harry Kendal-"
"Harry Kendal vacated these premises-under his own power, I might add-I will add-I did add-at approxi- mately a quarter after one."
"He"s lying," Ca.s.sandra said without turning.
He was lying- But why?
The Sheriff was writing in his pad. "One . .. fifteen," he said.
"Another way of putting it, but just as good," Max said.
The Sheriff threw him a frowning glance. "I"m not amused/ Mister Delacorte," he said.
"Nor should you be," concurred my son.
Ca.s.sandra turned abruptly and walked to the spot where Harry had been lying after drinking me Scotch- Kneeling, she began to examine the floorboards.
"Looking for something, darling?" Max inquired.
128 Richard Mathexu
"You"ll know when I find it/" she answered coldly.
"Looking forward to it, snook.u.ms," Max responded.
He watched Plum writing on his pad.
"Did you know," he said, "that when one is blindfolded, one can see past one"s nose?"
Plum glanced at him with disinterest, Now what? I thought.
"But," continued Max as though the information must be absolutely fascinating to the Sheriff, "until one needs that sight, one keeps one"s eyes shut, don"t you see? In that way, one need not feign blindness during that period, because one is genuinely blind. N"est-ce pas?"
I felt a sense of melancholic pain, remembering the very day I"d told that to my thirteen-year-old son- Plum had frowned at the remark. "What has that got to do with what we"re talking about?" he asked.
Max smiled benignly. "Nothing," he said. (Does he have a plan7 I wondered.)
The Sheriff drew in a tight breath.
"I"m getting tired of this. Mister Delacorte/" he said.
"Here"s an intriguing item, Grover," said Max, raising his right index finger as though testing the wind. "The magi- cian, dressed in blue, rides a horse onto the stage/ accompa- nied by a number of attendants dressed in white."
His next words faded from my hearing as, abruptly, I was on the stage again, on horseback, dressed in blue. A screen was raised for several seconds, then removed. Voila! I"d vanished into thin air, the attendants running the horse on- stage. Applause; delighted laughter-