Call After Midnight, page 10
“Yes.”
He came to the bedroom door. “I’ve been thinking it over. I’m not sure I’m right. But I believe it would be better if we don’t tell these policemen anything at all about Fiora’s murder. I mean—well, it’s Parenti’s case. No sense in confusing issues.”
“All right.”
“Here they are,” Cal said and she heard the rumble of the elevator.
There were two young policemen and they thought that the attempt at entry should have been reported at once. “Half an hour—forty-five minutes—he’s had plenty of time to get away. However, let’s have it. Any description?”
They were not impressed by the fact that he had no face. “Covered,” said one of them. “The business of saying there was a message for you is an old trick, too. Anything distinctive at all about him?”
He addressed Jenny. She said, “He had a cold.”
One of the policemen took out his handkerchief. “So has everybody else this time of the year.” He sneezed.
Cal said, “Mrs. Vleedam lost her keyring. On it was a key to the door to the apartment house and the key to her own apartment.”
“When did you lose it?” The sneezing policeman spoke through his handkerchief.
“Night before last, I think.”
“Bag snatching?”
“No. No, I just—lost it.”
“Any address on your keyring?”
“No. It was just a gold keyring.” Peter had given her that, too, she suddenly remembered. But there was no date, no inscription, nothing.
“Could have been stolen out of your handbag.”
“I don’t think—”
“Happens all the time. Keyring stolen. Person followed so as to get the right address. Apartment entered later. Well, we’ll do our best. Sure nothing’s been stolen?”
“He didn’t get in. I told you. I wouldn’t open the door.”
“That was right. Well, now, we’ll look out for anybody. Best we can do—”
Cal said, “There’s another thing. Mrs. Vleedam found an empty sleeping-pill bottle which didn’t belong to her.”
“Let’s see it.”
Cal gave him the bottle. Both of them looked it over. Both of them looked at Jenny. “But it says—” one began.
“Mrs. Vleedam,” said the other.
“Yes. I am Mrs. Vleedam. But I—” Jenny stopped. Don’t talk of Fiora, Cal had said.
Cal said, “She’s sure she never bought any sleeping pills at any time. She never saw that bottle before.”
The sneezing policeman sneezed again. The other said, “I expect you’ll remember. Any doubts of it, you can always get hold of your doctor—”
Cal said, “There’s no doctor’s name on it. It’s been scratched out.”
“I didn’t—let me see it,” Jenny said.
One of the policemen put it in her hand. All she had seen was “Mrs. Vleedam, as directed, two for sleep” and the chemist’s name. She had realized that the label was scratched but that was all. Cal’s sharp eyes had seen the significance of that. She said slowly, “I didn’t notice that. But there’s a number—”
“Oh, sure. That can be checked if you really want to.” The sneezing one seemed to be in authority. He said, “Well, if that’s all now—we’ll see that this is reported. Keep our eye out for anybody snooping around. Just a minute, I’m not sure I have your name, Mr.—”
He looked at Cal. Cal said, “John Calendar,” and gave his address.
“Oh,” the policeman looked up from writing. “You don’t live here.”
“Mrs. Vleedam was frightened and called me. I’m an old friend.”
“Mm,” the sneezing policeman said and glanced discreetly but sharply around the room. It was so very discreet a look that it suggested what one might call indiscretion. Jenny was suddenly, foolishly thankful that Cal had told her to get into clothes. She glanced at Cal and caught an unmistakable gleam of laughter in his eyes.
But that was all. Both policemen went away, intent on their night’s business of trying to keep order in a restless, unpredictable city.
The door closed after them. Cal said, “Well, that’s that.”
“They didn’t believe it about the bottle.”
“I expect we’d be surprised if we knew half the things the police are expected to believe. They were really very patient and reasonable. And probably right.”
“I didn’t forget that bottle of sleeping pills. I never had a bottle of sleeping pills.”
“When did you last use your keys?”
“Night before last. When I came home from work I let myself in and—why, of course. I had my keys then. I had to have them. Nobody stole them from my handbag.”
“You’re perfectly sure?”
“How else could I get in?”
Cal went over to the fireplace and looked up at the Utrillo print above it in which a street went along between houses and with some magical touch of light and shadow turned a corner so truly that Jenny had always felt she could almost see what lay around the corner. But she didn’t even guess what lay around this corner for Cal said, without turning his head, “Then it looks as if either Peter or Blanche or I took your keyring, came here and left that empty bottle—and came back tonight.” Jenny cried, “I didn’t say that!”
He turned.
“That’s the alternative, Jenny. Look at it. You can’t find your keys here in your apartment. Then you must have taken them in your handbag the night we went out to see Peter. They were not in your handbag when you returned—”
“Peter didn’t take them! Blanche—you—”
“It seems unlikely. But then what happened to them? We’ve got to find out who took the keys and who put that bottle in the drawer of your bedside table and why.”
“There isn’t any reason.”
“And when was it done? Probably while we were out to dinner. Now then, Peter was in the country; he phoned just as we came in from dinner. Blanche is in town. Art Furby might be in town.”
“Art Furby—”
“He’s close to Peter, close to Fiora.”
She thought it over.
Cal said wryly, “Yes, another suspect is a rather welcome thought to me, too. The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned. But I don’t think Art would have the imprudence to shoot anybody. Or to come here and try openly to get into your apartment. He’s far too discreet. Besides, a lawyer has a certain respect for the law. Are you sure that it was a man?”
“Yes. That is—I never thought of anything else.”
“What did you see though?”
“Just a black—figure.”
“Hat? Overcoat? What?”
“Y-yes. Yes, I’m sure.”
“You’re not too sure. Still I don’t think Blanche would have come here just that way. Of course it has struck you that there are—there were two Mrs. Vleedams.”
She sat down. “You mean the prescription was for Fiora.”
“Don’t look like that, Jenny. I only mean that the sensible thing to do is find out something about this bottle. Phone to the chemist, ask for a renewal of the prescription. They’ll say they have to have a new prescription and we’ll say that it wasn’t your regular doctor. We can’t remember the doctor’s name and ask what it was. I imagine they’ll look up the number of the prescription and tell you.”
She said with difficulty, “Suppose it was for Fiora. That would mean—”
“Oh, yes. Somebody had to have access to that empty bottle.”
Her imagination had taken a dreadful leap. “Nobody could force me to take any pills! Nobody tried to. Nobody would want to—”
Cal said, “Are you sure, Jenny, that you don’t know anything about Fiora’s murder?”
“No! I mean yes, I’m sure.”
“It would be a motive for murder.”
“I don’t know anything that threatens anybody!”
“Have you got an empty medicine bottle? Not that one—”
“Why—”
“Nobody could force you to take pills, an overdose. But something you might drink could be doped sufficiently to knock you out for a while and make murder easier for a murderer.”
“I can’t believe—”
“Then we’ll prove it isn’t so. Get a bottle.”
“What for?”
Cal said shortly, “The only thing in your kitchen that could have been doped and you might drink is orange juice. There’s some in the refrigerator. I looked. We’ll have some of it analyzed. We’ll prove it right or wrong, that’s all.”
She took a long breath. “There is no reason in the world for anybody to try to—well, you mean murder. Don’t you?”
He gave her a straight look. “That’s what you mean.”
“You mean that somebody put enough sleeping pills in the orange juice so when I drank it I’d fall into such a sound sleep that”—imagination hurled her on—“he could get into my apartment and—but Fiora was shot!”
“That could happen again,” he said with chilling truth. “Besides, there are other ways of murder.”
“But there’s no reason for it! I don’t own anything of value. I don’t know anything at all about Fiora’s death that the rest of you don’t know. I don’t threaten anybody. I don’t have any enemies either!”
“How did the bottle get here? Who came to the door with a message that didn’t exist?”
“No, no, I can’t believe—you said the policemen were reasonable and probably right.”
“I hope to God they are,” he said with sudden energy. “Go get an empty bottle, anything.”
She rose; her legs felt like sticks that didn’t belong to her. She went into the bathroom and poured some throat gargle down the drain. Cal had said analysis, so she felt a compulsion to rinse and rinse the bottle. She took it out to Cal who stood in the tiny kitchen. She gave him a little funnel she used for salad oil and washed that thoroughly too before she gave it to him, and couldn’t really accept her own actions. He shook the orange juice hard, poured some into the small bottle, went back to the living room and put that, along with the silver cigarette box into a coat pocket. “Now then,” he said, “pack up what you’ll need for the next few days. We’ll make our mistakes on the side of safety. You’re going to stay at my house.”
She said blankly, “I didn’t know you had a house.”
“Oh, yes. I had to buy one. A year or so ago. I’ve got four sisters and eleven nieces and nephews all converging upon New York at odd times. I got tired of trying to bed them down in my apartment or get hotel reservations for them. Go on and pack. We’ll get new locks for your apartment before you come back.”
She said after a moment, “Peter won’t know where I am.”
Cal walked into her bedroom.
She followed to find him calmly taking clothes off their hangers and thrusting them into her big suitcase which had stood in the nearest closet. “Do you want this?” he said holding up a blue wool dress. “Do you want this?” It was a dinner dress, not worn in over a year.
She was forced to take over. He looked at his watch. “You can always come back and get anything you need. Don’t worry about toothpaste and stuff. My sisters have never been known to take away everything they bring. There’s a perfect cosmetic shop in every spare bedroom. Are you ready?”
“Are any of your sisters there now?”
“Not that I know of. The only incumbent when I left home an hour ago is Henry, twelve, in town to get new braces on his teeth. God knows how many have arrived since.” There was a gleam of amusement in his eyes. “Worrying about the proprieties, staying in a bachelor household?”
She thought of the doorknob that had turned under her hand. “I was thinking that I want never to see this place again,” she said truthfully and reached for her red coat. He took it out of her hands, raked through the little coat closet off the living room, and pulled out a brown tweed coat. He put it around her shoulders. “Less conspicuous.” He took up her suitcase.
She stared at him. “Can you possibly mean that someone would follow me?”
“As I said, let’s err on the side of safety. Ready?”
He closed the door behind them. The apartment house was so quiet that Jenny felt like tiptoeing down the corridor. She saw that Cal looked into the elevator and made sure it was empty.
He did the same thing in the little foyer below and then told Jenny to wait while he strolled, as if casually, out to his car which stood at the curb. He came back. “Looks all right. Come on—”
But he saw to it that they crossed the sidewalk quickly. She cast a look around and could see nothing but the dark outlines of parked cars, a street light. There were no dog walkers, no late home-comers, no one standing in the shadow of some vestibule. But this was impossible, she thought dully. Nobody would follow her with intent to murder.
Cal lived in the sixties, she knew that from his address in the telephone book. It was no time for a ride up Fifth Avenue, a sudden swerve across Eighty-fifth Street, back along Madison, several apparently aimless treks around blocks and back again. Cal’s eyes returned again and again though to the little mirror above. Once he said, “I don’t intend to scare you to death. I only want to be sure—I think it’s all right.” He pulled up and maneuvered into a position parallel to the curb.
“Here we are. Run on ahead of me. The vestibule door is open.”
She ran across the sidewalk; the grilled door yielded to her touch and she entered a small, black and white vestibule. The house was one of the narrow, pleasant houses which line the cross streets of New York, with steps going down to the kitchen and big windows above. Cal came after her, unlocked the house door and ushered her into the house.
A hall ran back to what seemed to be a dining room. Stairs went up. She had an impression of shining orderliness, good old rugs and the clean smell of floor wax. She went up the stairs ahead of Cal and came out in another hall, wider, between what appeared to be a long living room at one side of the hall and a small study at the other.
The stairs continued upward and a voice said, “The dog did nothing in the night time.”
She looked up. A freckled face hung over the banister; it was topped with a red deerstalker cap. Cal addressed the face. “Do you mean to say you’ve brought that confounded pup?”
The freckled face eyed her. “Is that your girl friend?”
“This is Mrs. Vleedam. Jenny, this is my nephew, Henry.”
“How do you do?” the face said politely and went on, “because if she is, she must be the one the man telephoned about.”
Cal strode over to the banister. “What man? When?”
“At least I think it was a man. Eighteen minutes ago. I noted the time precisely. Sherlock always did that—”
“Never mind Sherlock. What did he say?”
“He said he had a telegram for Mrs. Somebody but I couldn’t hear the name and I said there wasn’t any lady here except Mrs. Cunningham. She’s Cal’s housekeeper,” he added in a polite aside to Jenny. “She likes dogs. Well, anyway,” he went on hurriedly with a glance at Cal, “then he hung up. Or,” said Henry conscientiously, “She hung up. I really couldn’t tell. It was sort of mumbled as if he—or she—had a cold.”
“I see,” Cal said after a moment. “Well, you go back to bed.”
“Is she your girl friend?”
“If you don’t go back to bed this minute there’ll be no Easter show at Radio City for you,” Cal said pleasantly.
“Oh,” said Henry, and disappeared.
“Bad child psychology,” Cal said, “but it always works.” He turned to Jenny. His voice had been light; his face was sober.
“So it’s true,” Jenny said in a whisper. Something seemed to drop away from her; the customs and guards of a familiar world vanished.
Chapter 11
CAL PUT HIS HAND around her arm. “The thing to do right now is have some sleep.”
He led her upstairs, past a closed door from behind which came a puppy yelp so swiftly cut off that it suggested a hand over the puppy’s mouth, and into a pleasant bedroom.
He put down her suitcase, came to her, put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up. “Go to sleep now, you’re safe here,” he said as gently as if she were a child, kissed her cheek lightly and went away.
The odd thing was that she did go to sleep and she did feel safe, in the big comfortable four-poster, whose lavender-scented sheets and freshly covered eiderdown attested to the thoroughness of Mrs. Cunningham’s housekeeping. Small marks of Cal’s sisters did appear here and there in the way of an opened jar of talcum in the bathroom, one high-heeled pump on a shelf and three lacy handkerchiefs, neatly washed and ironed, lying on a table presumably waiting for their owner to reclaim them.
In that atmosphere the familiar and trusted world reasserted itself; it was impossible to believe that she, Jenny Vleedam, could be the object of attempted murder. No, there had to be some mistake.
The next day she went back to the house on the Sound with Cal. The trip was accomplished with a surprising lack of opposition on Cal’s part.
Mrs. Cunningham brought her a breakfast tray herself; she was gray-haired, she wore gold-rimmed pince-nez; she looked severe and accepted Jenny’s presence in a matter-of-fact way as if Jenny had been some other sister, who had merely been mislaid up to then. There was a friendly warmth in her steely gray eyes when she went about unpacking for Jenny and she hoped the puppy hadn’t waked Jenny early. “Henry’s housebreaking him,” she said. “I told him he’d have to get the pup out regularly every two hours. There’s no other way. Mr. Cal said he hoped you had a good sleep and he’d like to see you a moment before he goes to the country. Now do eat your toast before it gets cold.”
The word country was like an alarm. In twenty minutes Jenny went downstairs and found Cal in the small study. He was reading the Sunday papers and sprang up when she came in, wadded up the papers, shoved them into a brass log basket and said good morning.
“It’s in the papers.”
“Oh yes. No need to read them. Nothing new.”
“There’s something about me—”
