Call After Midnight, page 18
“Why, because he—I—we are friends and that’s all—”
Mrs. Brown interrupted. “The more fool you. Oh, well, it’s none of my business. I’d better be getting to the train. I just thought I’d run up and see you and rest a little—as long as Blanche wasn’t at home. My, how she’s come up in the world. I can remember when she didn’t have a second pair of stockings to her name. Oh, they always kept up a good front, Blanche’s folks. Big house, mortgaged to the roof. Big ideas—at least her father had, he was always going to make a lot of money somehow, never did. Mother was all prunes and prisms. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Wouldn’t let Blanche go out with the boys in town. She thought Blanche was too good for them.”
“Perhaps she was.”
Mrs. Brown gave her a penetrating glance. “Don’t go feeling sorry for Blanche. She can take care of herself. Her father died and Blanche got the insurance money and left town so fast you couldn’t see her for dust. Fiora was determined to go with her. Fiora had the beauty and the charm, I’d guess you’d call it. Blanche had the brains.” Her eyes fastened upon Jenny’s desk clock and she sprang up. “I must run. Peter said he didn’t know when he’d get back so I’d better take this train and have Victor meet me and—thanks for the tea. I do feel cooler. Good-bye,” said Mrs. Brown and was out the door, her full black skirt billowing, her handbag clutched firmly against her bosom. The firmness of her grip rather reassured Jenny but not entirely. She hurried after Mrs. Brown, who stood with her thumb on the elevator button. “Mrs. Brown, do be careful.”
Mrs. Brown gave her one glance. “About these letters? I wasn’t born yesterday. Not,” she said thoughtfully, “that I think there’s any motive for murder they can find in them. But then you never know.”
“Wait, Mrs. Brown, is there anything in those letters, anything you can remember that could possibly—”
The elevator door opened and Mrs. Brown said, “Not a thing that I can remember,” gave a jaunty wave and entered the elevator. “Thanks for the tea. And thanks for telling Peter to give me an allowance—”
The door closed. Jenny went back slowly. It was a perfectly impossible, erratic kind of visit on Mrs. Brown’s part and at the same time, somehow, typical of Mrs. Brown. She’d wanted to rest so she went to Blanche’s apartment; Blanche wasn’t at home so somehow she’d found Jenny’s address—the telephone book was the likeliest way—and calmly marched in, asked for iced tea, spoke whatever came into her mind, filled in the time before her train and departed.
She hoped Mrs. Brown fully understood the possible importance of those letters. Yet, as Mrs. Brown said, she was nobody’s fool. If there was by any chance some explanation of Fiora’s murder in those letters she felt sure that Mrs. Brown by now would have fished it up.
Yet she had an uneasy picture of Mrs. Brown going through the crowded Grand Central Station, her handbag snatched adroitly out of her grip—and the snatcher vanishing swiftly among the crowds of commuters. In any event, whoever had stalked Jenny that morning could not have stalked Mrs. Brown also; nobody could be two places at once. She wondered what Peter and Cal were doing in town. Mrs. Brown had given her almost too much to think about. Mrs. Brown had an unnerving way of being right.
Someone walked along the corridor and Jenny jumped up and listened and didn’t take a long breath until the footsteps went on past her door, and another apartment door opened and closed with a bang. The point now was that she would permit nothing in the world to induce her to venture out of her safe, newly locked apartment until—well, until she was safe. Ten minutes later, however, she left it in headlong flight.
She had gone into her bedroom to get something, she never remembered what, and saw on the dressing table a small bottle, labeled Mrs. Vleedam, two for sleep. This time it was full of yellow capsules.
Mrs. Brown. Only Mrs. Brown had entered the bedroom. She had come out when she heard Jenny with the tea in the next room. Dodson had sat stodgily on a chair near the door and had hurried away, as if it had been he, not Jenny, who was the frightened one.
Her whole concept of Mrs. Brown wavered, cracked and shot into a new picture. Mrs. Brown had been—she’d said—in New York quite by chance the night when Fiora was killed. If the police had investigated her whereabouts and activities that night Jenny knew nothing of it. Mrs. Brown had claimed that Fiora had made a will in her favor. Mrs. Brown had frankly demanded Fiora’s “three fur coats,” her jewelry, her personal possessions.
Mrs. Brown could conceivably have got into Peter’s house without the knowledge of Blanche, or Peter—or Fiora. It was hard to guess just how but it was hard to guess just how anybody could have entered the house and shot Fiora and it had been done.
For a moment Jenny toyed with the unlikely idea that Fiora had invited Mrs. Brown and installed her secretly in the house, awaiting perhaps an auspicious moment to tell Peter that her aunt was there, but it was too unlikely; she discarded it.
Jenny couldn’t guess either just how Mrs. Brown could have returned secretly to New York, used the stolen key, tried to enter her apartment, pretended to have a message for her. She didn’t see just how Mrs. Brown could have spent that morning stalking her without being seen.
But Mrs. Brown and only Mrs. Brown could have left that full bottle of sleeping pills on the dressing table. So why? There was no possible motive attributable to Mrs. Brown. There was no possible motive attributable to anyone Jenny knew, either, but it had happened.
She was holding the bottle, staring at it when the telephone rang. It could be Cal or Peter and she had reached the end of her rope of endurance; she only wanted Cal or Peter to come, to take her away, to take care of her. She cried, “Hello—hello—”
A voice whispered into her ear, “Go ahead. Take the pills. It’s the easiest way.”
Jenny literally could not speak. Whoever was at the other end of the wire seemed to sense it. “Scared, aren’t you? It’ll get worse. Take the pills. They’re right there—in your hand, aren’t they? I thought so. Take them. It’ll be easier for you than—are you listening?”
She had a fantastic impulse to say, no, I’ve fainted. No sensible words came to her mind or her tongue.
“Easier,” the voice whispered. “You’ve not got a chance. You may as well give up. The pills are easier—quicker—” The telephone clicked.
Jenny’s throat unlocked. She screamed, “Who are you? Who are you?” and heard only the hysteria of her own voice and thought, this will never do. She had to save herself, keep her head, save herself.
She put down the telephone. She could see Mrs. Brown in her black clothes, sitting in a stifling telephone booth somewhere. A whisper has no gender, a hoarse kind of whisper yet all too clear. It could have been a man or a woman, there was no way to identify a whisper.
Mrs. Brown or someone else? A curious notion thrust itself into her mind. She couldn’t remember the name of the locksmith who had put on new locks for her. She could find his shop again, over on Third Avenue. She looked at her watch; if she hurried he might still be there.
But first, quickly, somehow change her appearance. She snatched out a raincoat; she tied a scarf over her head; she snatched out sunglasses. She saw herself in the mirror and knew it was all wrong; she looked disguised that hot evening. It would have to do. She took her handbag and opened the door of her apartment.
The corridor was safe; people were now coming home from work. A couple she vaguely remembered, laden down with grocery sacks, nodded at her in a friendly but rather puzzled way—that was because of her raincoat and dark glasses. No one was in the elevator but several people were waiting for it in the foyer when she emerged. No one so much as looked at her.
Better not take a taxi. The streets were always full between five and six o’clock. But too full, perhaps; it would be too easy for someone to approach her. A taxi drove up to the door, a woman got out and paid the driver and Jenny hailed him. “Third Avenue, please. Turn right. After you turn the corner, go slowly. I’m trying to find a—a certain locksmith.”
It was in the middle of the block. A large gilded key hung above the door. She thrust money at the taxidriver and said, “Wait for me, can you?”
“I’ll try,” he said nonchalantly. “Lost your key, huh?”
“I’ll not be a minute.”
The door was still open; the little store was lighted and the man who had changed the locks for her was there and recognized her. “I was about to shut up for the night.” He frowned. “Didn’t you get your key?”
Jenny leaned against the counter. “What key—”
“Well, I gave you two last night but I had a duplicate here in case—anyway I gave it to the messenger you sent”
“What messenger—”
“Why, the one you sent. You phoned and told me you’d locked yourself out and asked me if I had another key and I said yes, so you said you’d send a boy for it and you did and I gave it to him. Look out lady, you’d better sit down. You look queer.”
Chapter 18
IT WAS, OF COURSE, an obvious place to inquire. A telephone book, the yellow pages, the address of a locksmith near her apartment. Anybody could have found it with a little patience.
She said, “When did the messenger get here?”
The locksmith looked surprised. “This morning. Early.”
So during the previous night which had seemed so quiet someone had entered the apartment house, approached her door, discovered the new lock.
She said, “Thank you. I’ve got a taxi waiting—”
He was looking troubled and puzzled. “Lady,” he called after her, “Wasn’t it all right? The key, I mean—”
She didn’t have any idea what she said if anything. The taxi was still at the curb. The taxidriver opened the door for her. “Good thing you came out. There’s a cop beginning to look at me. Get your key all right?”
“No, that is, yes. I mean—wait a minute.”
“Can’t wait, lady. Back to where I picked you up?”
“No!”
“Well, make up your mind, I’ve got to keep moving.”
Where? She gave him Cal’s address.
She ought to have questioned the locksmith about the voice over the telephone; he had said “you” telephoned. It must have been a woman’s voice; no, a man could speak in a high falsetto. A man could imitate a woman’s voice. It was harder for a woman to imitate a man’s voice. It would not have been hard for Mrs. Brown; her voice was naturally hoarse and deep.
The taxidriver turned a corner, escaped the heavy Third Avenue traffic and said over his shoulder, “Lucky you’ve got a friend to go to. You wouldn’t believe the times people lock themselves out or lose their keys. Here we are, miss.”
She didn’t want to get out of the taxi. She couldn’t spend the night riding around New York in a taxi.
She got out and fumbled in her handbag and the taxidriver said, “Listen, miss, you already paid me. Thanks just the same.”
The taxi thudded along down the street.
There were no lights in Cal’s house. She rang the bell and nobody answered. She rang and rang and thought she could hear the bell pealing the depths of the house. Still no one came to the door. She didn’t know what to do. Blanche’s apartment? She would probably be at home by now. A hotel? She rang the bell again.
A taxi stopped behind her, across the sidewalk. She whirled around and there was no place to hide, no archway, no shrubbery, no people passing to hear her scream. Cal got out of the taxi. She leaned against the door.
“Jenny!” Cal said, “Jenny—”
He put his arm around her—a good thing, she thought wildly, she couldn’t have walked by herself. He opened the door. He turned on lights. He took off her raincoat. He took off her scarf. He led her back to a dining room, with windows upon a scrap of a garden. He put her down in a chair. He went to a sideboard and came back with a glass in his hand. “I’ll not wait to get ice. Drink this—”
He waited a moment. Then he leaned over and gently removed her dark glasses. “Can you tell me now?”
“I phoned to Mrs. Cunningham. She wasn’t here—”
“She took Henry home. She’ll be back later.”
“You didn’t phone me—”
“I tried to this morning. Nobody answered. This afternoon I had a little detective work to do. Feeling better? All right now, tell me.”
“He said to take the pills. He said it would be easier. He said I didn’t have a chance. He said I might as well give up. She’d got a key—”
“Who said that? Who got a key?”
“The man—no, maybe Mrs. Brown—Wait a minute, Cal, give me a minute.”
He watched her; then he lighted a cigarette and put it between her lips. “All right?”
“I’d better start at the beginning.”
It was very hard. She kept forgetting and going back; she kept saying things over again. She told about the locksmith and the messenger who had been sent for her key, several times, and then like a clock ran down all at once.
Cal said, “You didn’t see anybody in the Museum you recognized?”
“No. No. Not anybody. Until Dodson came. But that was at my apartment.”
“But you’re sure somebody followed you?”
“Yes, yes. I could hear—everywhere I went in the Museum—but he was never there when I looked. Then the taxidriver said not to wear that bright dress. It was orange—”
“Yes. Didn’t Dodson give you any hint at all about this evidence he claims to have?”
“No. Only that Peter would pay for it.”
“It could be something that would help Peter.”
“Dodson wanted money. I think it is a threat.”
“Sounds more likely. I thought you were at work. Mrs. Cunningham told me that you’d had the locks changed. I was going to phone as soon as I got in the house just now. I thought you’d be home from work.”
“No, I was fired. Yesterday.”
“You’d better have another drink. No—wait, when did you last eat?”
“I don’t know. Yes, this morning. I never thought of lunch.”
“Then you don’t get another drink. Mrs. Cunningham usually leaves a cold supper.” He came back from the kitchen and put a cup of coffee on the table. “Still hot in the electric percolator. Drink it. Better than getting yourself tight.”
He brought out the cold supper.
Cal wouldn’t talk and wouldn’t let her talk until they had gone up to his comfortable study and taken more coffee with them. He turned on lights, for the spring dusk lay in the room. Then he went to a telephone that stood on the big writing table and called Peter’s house on the Sound and talked to Mrs. Brown. When he finished he looked both relieved and troubled. “She’s there. Has the letters all right. Says she’s been looking them over and there’s nothing in them. Nothing I’d be interested in, she said. She said that there were a couple of places where Fiora mentioned her will in favor of Mrs. Brown. There really wasn’t any will and Fiora really didn’t have anything to leave except some jewelry, not much. I rather think the mention of a will was simply to placate Mrs. Brown.”
“Peter will give her something to live on. He promised—Cal, who would try to make me take those pills? I wouldn’t have done that! It’s a stupid kind of attempt. Yet I felt whoever that was whispering in my ear really hoped that I might be scared enough and silly enough to do it.”
Cal went to the table to pour coffee. His face was hidden. He said quietly, “Perhaps you threaten somebody. Perhaps you are an obstacle to something somebody wants.”
“But I don’t! I’m not!”
He brought her coffee.
“I had a long and private talk with Parenti yesterday. Peter and you are still his prime suspects. But he’s looking at every angle he can get, checking them off. That black stocking you saw in the kitchen. He says the murderer could have used a black stocking over his face; had a pair of them, dropped one by accident in the kitchen as he came into the house, threw the other one away in the Sound. He thinks that whoever came to your apartment and tried to get in could have used a stocking again over his face—if he says somebody actually came there. He says criminals repeat a kind of pattern, do things the same way. But anyway that’s why you couldn’t see a face.”
“He must believe us!”
“I think he’s being thorough, he’s that kind of man. He says that it is conceivable that whoever shot Fiora the first time could hide somewhere waiting for another opportunity, but he couldn’t have hidden in the house. The police who came the first time would have flushed him out. Conceivably he could have hidden somewhere about the place without being found.”
“How would he get back in the house again?”
“The back door was unlocked. You said so.”
“Do you mean that Peter or Blanche unlocked it? Purposely? That would mean—”
“Yes, we’re back at the hired-killer notion. However, it’s possible to work a bolt from the outside, I suppose, if you know how. Somebody could have given him a signal of some kind when the police were gone and the coast was clear.”
“But there were only—”
“Peter, you, Blanche, me. And Fiora.”
“Fiora—”
“Oh, not suspecting that his intent was murder.”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so.”
“It seems unlikely. But so does murder.”
“What kind of signal?”
“Anything. Lights. A telephone. There’s a phone in the library which is not an extension. I understand”—he looked at his coffee and stirred it—“that Peter used that one for any private conversations. Something he didn’t want Fiora to hear.”
“Yes. Parenti told me. I didn’t know it until then.”
“Somebody may have known it and used it to call the murderer. That’s only a guess. What I believe may be fact, because of the black stocking you found, is that he had returned to the house, waiting another chance by the time you went downstairs, and that was his chance.”
“He’d have had to be on the back stairs, in the hall, somewhere, where he could hear and see. Cal! I did stop, there in the hall, as if somebody was—oh, watching me. But I didn’t see anybody! I didn’t hear anything!”
