Date for Murder by Louis Trimble

warmer, more intimate.
    He followed her silently around the back, along a concrete walk through groves of desert shrubs and cacti, past occasional upthrust palms to where the swimming pool shimmered through the semi-tropical plants set around it on three sides. He looked curiously at the house. He had never seen it from all sides, and the more he looked the more amazed he became.
    It was built in a perfect rectangular box, but the offset heights of the firewall and the balconies with metal stairways running down the sides of the building to the ground kept it from the dull squareness so many adobe structures have. There was a balcony on each corner, with the stairs running toward one another and hugging the side wall. In the rear an iron stairway curved from the large balcony shared by Grant and Idell and another from the balcony which opened into the stitting room of the Major’s suite. Around the base of the stairs rich, imported soil held sweet peas that climbed and wound their way up the ornate iron. Everything was well-groomed, perfectly kept.
    Mark followed Idell through a wooden gate set in the four foot high adobe wall that continued from the house line and walled in the patio on three sides, reaching from the house to the edge of the date groves at the rear.
    The path carried him onto the tiles surrounding the swimming pool before he saw the body. It lay face down as she had left it, the towel covering the head and neck. Mark knew before he lifted the towel whose face he would see.
    Link’s features had lost none of their horrible contortion. If anything, they were more horrible now that a ray of sunlight streaked across his sightless, staring eyes. Mark dropped the towel with a little shudder.
    He looked at Idell, still without speaking. She said, “I found him in the pool.” The remembrance whitened the edges of her lips. “I got up, and the pool looked inviting, so I thought I would have a swim. I dove in and—and I opened my eyes, and there he was. His face was—like that. Just floating there with his hair streaming out and waving up and down like—” She shuddered and buried her face in his chest. He held her quietly, both hands flat against the warm, moist back of her shirt. He heard soothing noises coming from his own throat, but they sounded foolish and he stopped.
    A cool, low voice from behind him made him drop his arms. Idell straightened and wiped her fingers across her eyes. Leona stood there, looking quite calm in her pale green hostess gown, her hair glinting like a mass of tiny jewels where a ray of sunlight caught it. She indicated the tray on the table.
    “You need a drink,” she said. “He is quite nasty-looking,” she went on, going to the table and pouring a good jigger into a tall glass. “Or should I say ‘it’?”
    Mark looked at her oddly, receiving an amused curl of her lips for an answer.
    “Why did you call me?” he demanded. “The police are the ones to notify.”
    “Must this be a case for the police?” Leona asked quietly.
    Mark looked at the rope still about Link’s waist. “Was that about him, or did you put it there to pull him from the water?”
    “He was tied to the ladder with it,” Idell said. “I suppose we should have left him just like he was.”
    Mark shrugged. “They won’t kick up too much of a fuss.” He looked at Leona. “It is too obviously murder, I’m afraid. Even without the rope.”
    “It was only justice,” she said.
    “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.
    “He was a beast,” she said coolly.
    “Nevertheless,” Mark said, “he was murdered, and the police would find out sooner or later. You could never fake this. It wasn’t drowning—it was poison. Cyanide.”
    “You know?” she asked.
    “Look at his face,” Mark said. “Someone must have thought the contortion of his features looked a little like drowning and tried to pass it off, but that never works.” He lit his pipe and sat down in the chair next to Idell.