Wives to Burn, page 4
Another pause. Virginia seemed tremendously interested in the painting of the blue Krishna, standing on his five-headed snake, and playing the flute with two of his four blue hands. She did not look at Fred as she said, “Tonight.”
“You might tell your brother,” Fred declared, “that it will take a bit of doing. Tell him Shivaji Lal’s son has a writ all prepared. He’s a lawyer, you know—Harvard, I think—and while he may not be as cantankerous as a Bengali lawyer, he can be extremely annoying. Your brother, in his capacity of magistrate, will of course have to honor the writ—unless he declares martial law or a state of emergency, which is exactly what he does not want to do….”
“He may not be able to help himself. There’s going to be war in Europe—very soon now.”
“Going to be?” Fred laughed. “Europe hasn’t been at peace since 1914.”
“I don’t mean the white war, or whatever you call it. I mean actual hostilities. England is going to fight. Reggie’s had word.”
“Well, well.”
“Fred, it’s going to be awful for you here—being a Nazi.”
“I’m not a Nazi.”
“A Fascist, then.”
“I’m not a Fascist either, particularly. I have no political convictions.”
“But you served with Franco….”
“That was purely business—like selling motor cars, or Vickers machine guns. A man must live—and some men, according to Nietzsche, must live dangerously.”
“Don’t you believe in anything you do, Fred?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, Fred….”
“We can’t all be social-minded like you, Virginia. We can’t all hypnotize ourselves with the idea that we have a message for humanity.”
“If only you believed in—oh, even Fascism—I—I—”
“You might not detest me quite as much?”
“I do detest you, Fred. I can’t help it. I detest everything you stand for.”
“I don’t stand for anything. That’s the great advantage of my philosophy. But don’t let that stop you. Go ahead and hate me. You undoubtedly have a great capacity for fine, virulent hate, and if you haven’t enough reasons of your own, I can always give you a few more. May I see you home?”
“Thank you, but I’m waiting for Shivaji Lal.”
“Better lock the door while you’re waiting, then.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Fred.”
“I try not to be too ridiculous. But lock the door anyhow. Have you seen Rhoda Curring tonight?”
“No.”
“Good. Don’t see her. Keep the door locked. And if you won’t let me see you home, let Shivaji Lal walk as far as your compound with you.”
The girl looked at him with uncomprehending eyes, her lips parted. The kitten, having safely negotiated Fred’s knee finally made its claws register in the fleshy part of his left thigh. With an absent-minded gesture he brushed it off, started for the door.
Virginia stooped to pick up the miauling kitten. She arose from her chair, called sharply, “Where are you going?”
Some unaccustomed note in the girl’s voice made Fred stop. He turned around. “I’m going home,” he said, “to be arrested. Good night, Virginia. See you in the District Magistrate’s court.”
“Good night.”
Fred touched his right hand to his forehead, smiled briefly, made a jaunty exit. He went quickly down the few stairs, cautiously opened the street door, looked in both directions. The sound of the milling crowd of pilgrims chanting devoutly before the Temple of Shiva came to his ears like the distant roar of the sea. Above it he imagined he could hear the shrill fanatical shouts of the Moslems in their mosque, a quarter of a mile away, working themselves into an intolerant climax for the fast of Muharram. And one sound which he did not imagine, but which came to his ears clearer and stronger and shriller than either, was the high, hollow piping of a bamboo flute, and it came from the house next door. It was, he knew, the class-conscious musicianship of Ahalya Bai Lal, over-educated and unorthodox daughter-in-law of the Brahman, playing the Internationale.
Fred thrust his hands into his pockets and hurried into the night.
Chapter Five
A Curious Design in Red
William Shakespeare Gabriel, having installed Lucy Steel in the dilapidated, musty, mid-Victorian pile that was Seaside House, went off in search of Fred Oaks. He walked directly to the Curring bungalow, because previous research had disclosed that Fred was dining there tonight. He did not know exactly how he was going to approach Oaks on the subject of meeting Lucy, but he felt instinctively that unless he used subterfuge the meeting would not take place. Lucy’s eagerness, he was reasonably sure, would not be shared by the party of the second part.
As he climbed the stairs to the Curring veranda, Gabriel was rehearsing his strategy. When he reached the top step, he heard a man’s voice raised in ill-tempered monologue. He recognized the voice, even though it was changed by anger, and while he could not hear the entire harangue, he made out a few scattered phrases that startled him: “… bitch … kill me … one or the other … thought I didn’t have the guts, eh…?” He knocked for a full minute before the tattoo of his knuckles against the frame of the screen door brought a response. James Curring himself opened the door.
“Greetings,” said Gabriel. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
Curring’s cold, saturnine manner told him plainly that he was. The moment of hostile silence would have embarrassed anyone but Bill Gabriel, who had always been able to maintain his plump good nature in the face of any odds. With a cheery wave of his squarish hand, he made an unbidden entrance.
“How are you, Gabriel?” Curring managed at last.
“Fine,” said Gabriel. He crossed the veranda, preceded Curring into the drawing-room. He was anxious to see the object of Curring’s angry vehemence, but he was disappointed. From all appearances, Curring had been engaged in soliloquy. There was no one in the room. “How’s Mrs. Curring?”
“Rhoda’s quite well,” said Curring. He was a tall, gray-haired man, with deep rictus folds making sharp shadows on either side of his grim, thin-lipped mouth. He added curtly, “Sit down and have a drink, Gabriel.”
“Thanks, I won’t stay,” Gabriel replied. “I just looked in to see if this fellow Fred Oaks was here.”
“He’s not here,” Curring said.
“So I see.” Gabriel nodded. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t expect to see you here either, Mr. Curring. I heard you’d gone to the estates for a few days.”
“I just got back,” Curring answered. “I haven’t been in the house five minutes.”
There was an awkward pause. Gabriel thought he heard footsteps in the next room, but he wasn’t sure until the door opened and Rhoda Curring came in. Two spots of color burned in her cheeks and she was out of breath. Gabriel had the impression that her elbow trembled as the fingers of one hand hastily verified the unruly ends of her copper hair.
“Hello, Mr. Gabriel,” Rhoda said. “How’s the teak market?”
“Fine,” said Gabriel. “I just dropped in to look for Fred Oaks.”
“He’s not here,” Curring repeated.
“I haven’t seen Fred today,” Rhoda said. “He promised to stop by this evening, but he didn’t come. He’s probably with that Hatton girl.”
Gabriel studied the peculiar expression in Rhoda’s green eyes. She wasn’t a very convincing liar, he mused. Her husband did much better; either that, or Curring was telling the truth.
“Well, I’ll mosey on, then,” Gabriel said. “Good night.”
“Good night,” said Rhoda.
Curring said nothing, but Gabriel felt his suspicious, resentful stare follow him out the door. It seemed to strike the back of his neck like a breath of cold air.
For the next 20 minutes Gabriel made the rounds of several places where he might find Fred Oaks. After an unsuccessful search, he returned to Seaside House to make excuses to Lucy Steel. He would tell her Fred was on his way….
On the veranda of Seaside House, Gabriel met Alvin Brinker, manager of the Shakkarpur Bank. The pompous Brinker was pacing restlessly up and down, a malacca cane hooked in the angle of his elbow, a cigar between his buck teeth, his baldish, oversized head a little on one side as though he were suffering from a perpetual stiff neck—which was impossible, because he had no neck to speak of. The glow from the end of the cigar made his sallow, wrinkled face seem more sallow than ever, his tiny, pig-like eyes brighter than they really were.
“Good evening,” Brinker said. Then, quickly, as if eager to explain his presence in such an unlikely place as the outlandish Seaside House, he added, “I’m waiting here for the District Officer.”
The District Officer himself emerged at that moment with the promptness of an actor who has been waiting in the wings for his cue.
“Hello, Gabriel,” said Reginald Hatton. “I’ve been looking for a compatriot of yours. Haven’t seen Fred Oaks by any chance, have you?”
“No, I haven’t,” Gabriel replied.
“Miss Small says he’s in, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in his room.”
“What do you want with him?” Gabriel asked.
“Nothing important, really.” Hatton’s offhand manner was too studied. He continued, “Tomorrow will do just as well. There’s no way he can get out of Shakkarpur any more tonight, unless he sprouts wings—which I doubt very much. By the way, who is the mem-sahib with the golden hair who came in on the Mail tonight?”
“Why ask me?”
“I understand she went directly to the dak bungalow.”
“Oh, that’s Miss Steel,” Gabriel said. “She didn’t know there was a hotel in town. I sent her to Seaside House. Thought she’d be more comfortable down here. Anyway, I’ve been vaccinated against blondes. Have you seen her?”
“No, but I thought you might know her,” said the District Officer. “I understood she was from the States. What’s she doing in Shakkarpur, of all places?”
“Probably one of these lady authors,” Gabriel ad-libbed. “America’s full of them. One of our chief exports, in fact. They travel all over hell, digging up dirt to shock their high-minded public. Go to the ends of the earth to find the same sordid stuff they left behind in their native Ozarks—or in the slums of any of our cities over 20,000. They write—”
“I say, Reggie,” Brinker interrupted, poking Hatton playfully with the tip of his cane, “there’s a bridge game waiting for us. Mrs. Brinker is going to give me the devil if we’re any later.”
“Sorry, old man.” Hatton started off. “Well, cheer-ho, Gabriel.”
“ ’Night,” said Gabriel.
He went immediately to Lucy Steel’s room and entered without knocking. A damp, musty smell of long abandon pervaded the dim Victorian interior of the chamber. A kerosene lamp was burning on a marble-topped stand, and Lucy’s elaborate cosmetic kit was spread out on the marble-topped dresser. Her suitcases were open, and half a dozen dresses were laid out carefully on the great, English-looking walnut bed and on each of the red-plush chairs. A gecko uttered his impolite two-toned croak from some unseen corner. But Lucy Steel was not in the room.
Gabriel went out, shutting the door after him. He walked down the corridor, its dingy pink walls streaked with mildew, to Fred Oaks’s room—three doors below and on the opposite side. He knocked insistently, got no answer. He tried the knob. The door was locked, but he had the distinct impression that there was someone on the other side. He was aware of the almost imperceptible sound of slow, cautious movements, of the rhythmic whisper of breathing. He took out the pass key which he had had the foresight to have made the day after his arrival, slipped it carefully into the lock. The rusty tumblers dropped into place with a protesting click—but he found it impossible to turn the knob. The latch was frozen, as though a strong hand were clamped desperately to the knob on the other side.
Gabriel stomped away down the corridor, making all the noise that he plausibly could. Then he came back silently, leaned against the wall next to Oaks’s door, and waited. It was five minutes before the door started to open, very slowly.
“Hello, Mr. Oaks!”
Gabriel wheeled out from the wall, had one foot inside the door before Fred could close it again.
“You surprise a man, to say the least,” said Oaks. His face was more than surprised; it was anxious, almost haggard. He smiled, but the old, jaunty charm was not there. The smile was like something modeled in papier-maché by a not-too-skillful hand.
“I’d like to speak to you privately, Mr. Oaks,” Gabriel said. “Shall we go into your room?”
“Let’s not.”
“It’s pretty important, Mr. Oaks.”
“We’ll walk along the beach, then. It’s damned hot in here.”
“I had a hunch you might be hiding something pretty hot—the way you were hanging on the door knob a few minutes ago.”
“So that was you?” Fred laughed briefly. “Pass key?”
“Oh no. Just a Yogi trick I’ve learned since coming to India. The triumph of mind over locksmiths….”
“I suppose you have some Yogi gift of second sight, too—so you know what’s inside the room.”
“We Yogis are pretty clever,” Gabriel said.
Fred Oaks searched the rotund face of the detective for several long seconds. He seemed to be holding his breath. Suddenly he relaxed, breathed again. He said. “All right, come on in. We may as well get it over with as quickly as possible.”
He flung the door wide. Gabriel walked in. The room was a replica of Lucy Steel’s room: same marble-topped tables and commodes, same red-plush chairs, same heavy, Victorian walnut bed. The only difference that struck Gabriel at first glance was that the mosquitto netting had already been let down and tucked in around the mattress. At second glance he noticed that the mosquito bar was imprinted with a curious design in red, a series of irregular crimson smudges. He took two rapid steps forward.
Through the haze of the netting he could see Lucy Steel lying in bed. The white sheet, drawn up under her chin and molding her ample contours, also bore a pattern in crimson—a crude, stiffly-sketched interrogation mark. Lucy’s eyes were closed as though in sleep.
But Lucy Steel was not asleep. To the practiced eyes of Bill Gabriel, the grayish pallor of her face, the eloquent rigidity of her well-rouged lips, strangely red against the ashen waxiness of her skin, meant only one thing: Lucy Steel was dead.
Chapter Six
A Lesson in Anatomy
“You work fast,” Gabriel said.
“You talk fast,” said Fred Oaks.
“You better think fast.” A stubby finger of gun-metal suddenly appeared in Gabriel’s fist. “And you better hoist those mitts of yours even faster.”
“Why?” asked Fred Oaks. His hands, defiantly limp, remained at his sides.
“Because a guy named. Samuel Colt developed a pretty efficient type of side-arms in Hartford, Connecticut, some years ago. Let’s see your calloused palms.”
Fred still did not move. His gaze would have been insolent were it not for the faint, knowing smile at the corners of his mouth. He said, “You should have parked that corn-fed American accent if you expected me to take you for a legal representative of George Rex, Emperor of India and the Dominions beyond the seas.”
“Can’t you think of anybody but a cop who might want to pull a gun on you, Mr. Oaks?”
“No.” Fred still refused to raise his hands. “Just what is your gun-toting racket, Mr. Gabriel?”
“I happen to be a private investigator,” Gabriel said. “And the lady in bed there is my client.”
“Was your client,” Fred corrected. “Although I admit the relationship might have been fairly recent. The lady is still warm.”
“She was hot an hour ago—when I saw her last. How long since you saw her last, Mr. Oaks? Alive, I mean.”
“I never saw her before—alive.” Fred Oaks’s voice was so deliberately even, pitched so carefully low that all emotion could be squeezed out of it; and his gaze was so steady and so aggressively defensive, that Gabriel decided at once he was lying.
“You must be blind as a bat without your glasses, Mr. Oaks,” he said. “How long since you saw her dead?”
“She was dead when I came in—about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Were you here when the District Officer knocked at your door?”
“Several people knocked at my door. I don’t know who they were—except you.”
“You know the lady’s name, of course.”
Fred Oaks moistened his lips. “No,” he said.
“How do you know she’s still warm? The mosquito bar’s tucked in.”
“I tucked it in” Fred declared.
“Was it down when you came into the room?”
“Yes, it was down.”
“But you raised it—to investigate?”
“Wouldn’t you investigate if you came home and found a strange blonde in your bed?”
Gabriel did not reply. He walked up to Fred slowly, stopped when he was two feet away. Then he kicked Fred violently in the shins.
Automatically Fred’s hands emerged from his pockets. His right hand looped out. Gabriel ducked and lunged, his shoulders catching Fred low, at the off-balance limit of his swing. A second later, Fred was on the floor and Gabriel was sitting on top of him, quickly exploring his pockets, his arm-pits.
“All right. You can get up now,” said Gabriel. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t pull a gun.”
Fred got up. He brushed himself off as he was catching his breath. He didn’t look at the detective as he said, “You know, Gabriel, I don’t think I’m going to like you.”
“Let’s not get personal,” Gabriel said. “There was nothing personal in that little solar plexus workout. Just a routine I have for birds who refuse to put their hands up.”
“I still don’t like you.”
“Suit yourself,” Gabriel shrugged. “Shall we have a look at the corpus delicti?”
“I’ve already looked,” Fred replied. “It’s no treat.”
