Mrs. Pollifax on the China Station

when Peter hit him in the
stomach and I fainted.”
    ”You fainted,” said the young officer, and gave her a thoughtful glance.
    ”I fainted,” she told him firmly.
    ”I see. So you will presently,” he said smoothly, ”tell me that you do
not know what happened during the next few minutes.”
    She met this with a lift of her chin and an edge to her voice. ”I would
like to point out that I had experienced a runaway horse, believed that my life
was about to end, I’d thrown myself off and broken a bone, and although I
daresay it affords you some amusement to hear that I fainted, faint I did.”
    ”Yes,” he said, with an appreciative smile. ”And when you came out of
this faint what did you see?”
    ”Exactly what I assume you saw if you have visited the area,” she told
him. ”Peter was nowhere to be seen, and there was all this blood, and Joe
Forbes was lying by the river. I limped over to him and saw that he was—quite
dead.” She shivered. ”After a while I realized it was part of a Mao jacket Mr.
Forbes was clutching in one hand, and Peter—Peter had been wearing one. That’s
when I had the horrible realization that Peter might be dead, too. Have you
found him?”
    ”No,” he said shortly.
    She decided that she believed him. ”What,” she asked him, ”do you want
to find out? It’s such a terrible thing, we’re all very upset, and I don’t
understand—”
    He said, ”We have never had such an event occur. Naturally a tourist
becomes ill now and then, but this is a murder.”
    ”Yes,” said Mrs. Pollifax, and was acutely aware of the man standing by
the window watching her; she willed herself not to look at him.
    The young officer shuffled his papers. ”Mr. Li has told us there was
something between this young Peter Fox and Mrs. Damson that might have provoked
the quarrel. Mr. Li said he found Peter Fox missing an entire night in Turfan,
and the next morning Mrs. Damson explained that Mr. Fox had spent the night
with her. This is true?”
    Mrs. Pollifax winced. ”I heard her say that, yes.”
    ”Why do you wince?”
    ”I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I really know nothing about it. I
just heard her say it.”
    ”But you did hear it said. Did they spend much time together, these two
people?”
    Mrs. Pollifax shrugged. ”No more than with any of us. We were usually
all of us together.”
    ”In this country such matters are frowned on. In your country it is
different?”
    She sighed wearily. Obviously it was different here—all those unisex Mao
jackets, for one thing—but she felt too jaded to explain her own country, to
point out the variables, the multitude of codes, the generation gaps, the
sexual revolution, the mores and traditions of courtship. She said, ”Not
necessarily. Why don’t you ask Iris—Mrs. Damson?”
    He said coolly, ”Already we have, I assure you.”
    ”Good,” she said in relief.
    ”She continues to weep,” he added with irony, ”and to say as little as
you do, Mrs. Pollifax.”
    She said dryly, ”I feel as if I’ve been talking forever.”
    He drew out a sheet of paper and read from it. ”I quote Mrs. Damson.
‘Yes Peter spent the night in my room. I don’t suppose you’ll believe me when I
say it was perfectly innocent. He came in to talk, about nine o’clock I think
it was. He said everyone else had gone to bed and did I have any books he could
read. I didn’t. He stayed, talking—on the other bed, curled up—and then he
suddenly fell asleep. So I just brushed my teeth—I was already in pajamas—and
left him in the one bed while I went to sleep in the other.’ ”
    Dear Iris, thought Mrs. Pollifax, magnificent Iris. To
the officer she said, ”I can believe that, you know. Iris is a very casual
person.”
    He said irritably, ”But if this Peter was not in love with her why
should he argue, fight, and kill Mr. Forbes over her?”
    ”Perhaps,” said Mrs. Pollifax cautiously, ”he felt a very warm
friendship toward Iris, and Mr. Forbes said something insulting about her. But
really I don’t know, it has all been— simply awful. I wonder,” she said
truthfully enough, ”if the explanation will ever be found.”
    He said sharply, ”It is very surprising to me that none of you has any
explanation at all. A man is dead, Mrs. Pollifax, and another presumed
dead for the moment. None of you appears to have noticed anything between Mrs.
Damson and this Peter, or between Mrs. Damson and Mr. Forbes. Only Mr.
Westrum—”
    Mrs.