The Follower, page 3
He pulled the fire screen from the hearth and deliberately, one by one, burnt all the papers and dispersed the ashes in the grate.
He turned off the lights, moved into the bedroom, stripped off all his clothes and, naked, dropped into Ellie’s tumbled pink sheets.
Suddenly, as if some tap had been opened, anxieties flooded through him, dispelling his great fatigue. He had done what he had been able to do for Ellie. But what did it amount to? At the time it had all seemed planned, efficient, almost heroically sound; all traces, it seemed, of Corey’s visit to the apartment had been erased.
Now, with a merciless clarity, he saw that the ark of safety he had built for his wife was as riddled with holes as a sieve. Corey Lathrop was an important man, with secretaries and dozens of friends. Why wouldn’t one of them know that he had planned to visit Ellie that evening? His disappearance would be reported tomorrow. Why wouldn’t the police make a bee-line for Ellie’s apartment? Why wouldn’t an elevator operator remember taking Corey up to the penthouse? Why…? There were a thousand ‘whys.’
Until then he had succeeded in keeping from thinking emotionally about his wife. But now she leaped into reality as vividly as if she were in the bed with him, and his love and fear for her clutched at him. Where was she? The poor, frightened kid, what was she suffering?
He twisted on to his side and his hand touched something. His fingers curved around it and picked it up. It was Ellie’s brassiere.
‘What a homecoming,’ he thought. ‘What a hell of a homecoming …’
4
MARK LIDDON woke up. For an instant he confused the scarlet bed canopy with mosquito netting and was back in Venezuela. Then he remembered where he was and what had happened. He looked at his watch. It was almost nine o’clock. He had slept less than four hours, but it seemed to him that he had been recklessly wasting time. There was so much to do.
He got out of bed and put on his grey bathrobe. Outside the window the rooftops of Manhattan gleamed white like great frosted cakes. It was not actually snowing, but the heavy grey of the sky indicated that the storm was not over. The brief sleep had restored his thoughts to their normal coherence. He had to find Ellie before the police found Corey, or everything he had done for her, instead of helping her, would boomerang on them both. It was as simple as that.
He went into the living-room and inspected the fireplace to be sure that he had efficiently burned Corey’s papers the night before. Satisfied, he went up to the bar and studied the area of floor which had been bloodstained. He had done a better job than he had thought. Police analysis might be able to detect blood, but there was nothing visible to the human eye.
He thought of the rag with which he’d cleaned up the night before. Going into the kitchen, he picked it out of the trash can and put it down the chute which led directly to the apartment house incinerator. If he had thought of the chute last night, he could probably have disposed of Corey’s coat and briefcase that way. But, until he met Ellie, his New York days had been spent in cheap walk-ups. The chute was still exotic to him. In the emergency he had reverted to the technique of poverty.
By now Ingeborg, the Swedish maid, should have arrived. She might know something of Ellie’s whereabouts. He prepared coffee and put the percolator on the stove. Ingeborg still hadn’t come by the time he finished breakfast. In the bedroom he found the maid’s number in Ellie’s telephone book. A woman’s voice, heavily accented, answered his ring. No, it wasn’t Ingeborg; it was her sister. Ingeborg was in Atlantic City. Hadn’t Mrs Liddon told Mr Liddon that she had given Ingeborg two weeks off for Christmas? Hadn’t Mrs Liddon told Mr Liddon that she was going away?
‘Going away?’ echoed Mark.
‘Yas. She tell Ingeborg she oughtta take a vacation too, have a good time for Christmas.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Since two days. Since two days Ingeborg is in Atlantic City.’
‘Two days ago. Did Mrs Liddon go away two days ago too?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Know where she went?’
‘Ingeborg don’t know. She says Mrs Liddon just says she’s going away.’ The voice added anxiously: ‘You want I should tell you Ingeborg’s address? You want she should come back?’
‘No. No, thanks.’
‘If you want I should tell …’
‘No. It’s okay.’
‘Okay, then. Merry Christmas, Mr Liddon.’
‘Merry Christmas.’
Mark put down the receiver. Ellie had sent Ingeborg away two days ago and had said she was going away too. Why shouldn’t it be true? She hadn’t expected him for two weeks.
Knowing Ellie, it was fantastic to suppose that she would have planned to spend Christmas in a lonely apartment. For the first time, he thought that perhaps his wife hadn’t killed Corey Lathrop. He was too cautious to give hope full rein, but the dark pall was lifting.
Maybe he had invented a nightmare for Ellie and himself which had never really existed. If she’d gone away two days ago, she was definitely in the clear. She could have lent Corey the apartment in her absence. Corey, as a parole officer, could have run into trouble with one of his pet redeemed convicts. Yes, it might have easily happened that way.
His spirits soared. But he wasn’t going to let optimism run away with him. Perhaps Ellie had left two days ago. But he would still have to find her and make sure everything was all right before he could think about going to the police.
And finding her, even if she were innocently off on a trip, would not be easy. She had as many ‘favorite’ places as she had ‘favorite’ friends — Palm Beach, La Jolla, Sun Valley. Distance didn’t exist for her. She would jump a plane to Hawaii if she felt in the mood.
He thought of asking around in the apartment house — the elevator boy, the doormen. But he decided against it. Until he knew more than he did now it might be risky.
Perhaps her parents would know something, although it wasn’t likely. Ellie had turned her back on the Rosses and all they stood for some years ago, and ever since their contemptuous rejection of Mark as a son-in-law she’d been hardly on speaking terms with them. But, unwelcome though he would be at Gramercy Park, it was the most obvious place to try first.
From the taxi window, on his way downtown, he watched the snow-heavy Christmas trees pass by. Somewhere, at Corey’s apartment or at the Ross Steel Products Company, people would be starting to wonder about Corey. A maid, perhaps, had found his bed unslept in and was speculating idly as to why Mr Lathrop hadn’t told her he was spending the night out. Soon a secretary at the office would be thinking: ‘Mr Lathrop’s late this morning.’ An attendant at the garage might be wondering whether he’d remembered to drain the radiator of that station wagon he had blocked up for the winter a while ago.
Since yesterday the whole face of the city had changed. It wasn’t just a town any more. Both for himself and for Ellie wherever she was — it was becoming a trap.
Outside the Rosses’ apartment house in Gramercy Park, snow clung to the iron railing which surrounded the gardens and sat in white puffs on the winter bushes. Mark entered the old-fashioned foyer and moved to the cramped self-service elevator. The atmosphere of the house depressed him. To him money was something you took intelligent advantage of once you’d got it. Why did the immensely rich Rosses choose to play at the simple life? Just because Mrs Ross had been a Van-Something that didn’t mean they had to live in the Mayflower.
The elevator stopped at the third floor. The Rosses owned the whole building. Mrs Ross’s father had built it. But they kept only one floor for themselves. A dowdy ‘family’ maid opened the door. She looked uneasy.
‘Oh! Mr Liddon. One moment, please.’
She made as if to close the door, but he pushed past her into the foyer.
‘Where are they?’
‘In the library, but . .’
He ignored her twitterings and strode through the foyer. The maid scurried ahead of him, and, opening a door, announced breathlessly:
‘Mr Liddon.’
Mark walked past her into a room of sad brown leather and musty blue. Everything remained the way it had been left by Mrs Ross’s father. A bust of Dante stared from its niche above the bookshelves. A portrait of Mrs Ross’s father, painted by Sargent, stared with equal stoniness from above the marble mantelpiece, beneath which a meagre fire was burning.
Mrs Ross sat by the fire, with a coffee-cup in her hand and a low table set with a breakfast tray at her side. She was a large woman with deliberately untidy grey hair and a handsome profile. Mr Ross, thin and dignified as an elder statesman, stood by the window. It had started to snow again. White flakes twirled and sank behind him. They both looked at Mark unsmilingly.
She said: ‘Why, Mr Liddon, we thought you were in Brazil or somewhere.’
She used his name as if it were slightly foreign and difficult for her quiet precise voice.
‘I got back earlier than I expected,’ Mark said. ‘Ellie’s not home. I’ve come to find out if you know where she is.’
Mrs Ross sipped her coffee. ‘She’s not here, I’m afraid.’
‘No,’ said Mr Ross, ‘she’s not here.’
A small clock chimed softly from the mantel. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, carefully trimmed with tinsel snow and shining balls, blue, yellow and green. Mark wondered irrelevantly what two old people wanted with a Christmas tree. Probably it was because there’d always been one. Another of Mrs Ross’s memorials of her dead father.
He said: ‘Know where she is ?’
Neither of them spoke. They were not being rude or hostile; they were too polite for that. They were just passively uncooperative.
Finally Mr. Ross said: ‘I’m afraid Ellie doesn’t keep us informed of her comings and goings.’
‘But you’ve seen her recently ?’
Mr and Mrs Ross exchanged a swift look which seemed to serve them as an adequate means of communication. The snow falling past the window gave the weird illusion that Mr Ross was moving very slowly upward.
He said: ‘As a matter of fact Ellie came to visit us last week.’
‘And she didn’t say anything about going away for Christmas?’
‘I don’t believe so,’ said Mr Ross. Mrs Ross’s untidy head was bent over her coffee. ‘Yes,’ continued Mr Ross. ‘Ellie came to visit us because she wanted to borrow — money.’ He pronounced the word as if it were almost indelicate.
‘Borrow money?’ Mark said.
‘It appears she had been gambling. She owed a large sum. She was not able to meet it.’
‘It’s happened again and again,’ put in Mrs Ross suddenly, and the soft bitterness in her voice managed to reveal a whole life of maternal disillusionment.
So Ellie had been gambling. She’d got a little high at Victor’s, had one of her ‘majestic hunches’ and lost her shirt. Now the whole picture was changed again — and for the worse.
He asked: ‘And you let her have the money?’
‘No,’ broke in Mrs Ross again. ‘No, we did not.’
Mr Ross smiled his sad, distinguished smile. ‘Perhaps this is as suitable a time as any to explain certain things to you. My wife and I have tried to be good parents to Ellie. We have given her every advantage and attempted to set her a good example. But for several years she has chosen to lead a frivolous and worthless life with what we consider idle and vicious associates. It has not been easy for us to see our only daughter systematically destroying herself, but you can hardly expect us to encourage that process.’
He paused. ‘We always hoped that these — these dissipations were a passing phase. We were pathetically prepared to believe that she might marry Corey Lathrop and become a responsible citizen again. But instead of marrying Corey —’
He looked down at his carefully manicured hands. ‘We have nothing against you as a man. How can we? We know nothing about you and were given no chance to. But we have everything against you as a factor in Ellie’s life. In the past we have helped her out of many scrapes and received precious little gratitude for it. After this — er — irresponsible marriage was thrust upon us we put down a foot which should have been put down much earlier. We told Ellie that in future we would give her no financial aid whatsoever. She has her own income from her grandmother. It should be more than sufficient to support in luxury both herself and any impecunious husband to whom she chose to attach herself.’
Mark’s anger rose to the obvious goad, but he was even more shocked than angry. His own parents would have disapproved of gambling too. But if Ellie had been their daughter they would have stood by her to the last ditch and the last debt. It was inconceivable to think of them adopting this glacial washing of hands attitude.
Suddenly he imagined Ellie as a little girl growing up in this bleak, loveless mausoleum. For the first time he saw pathos in her as well as brilliance. It added a new tenderness to his feeling for her. Poor kid, with a couple of icebergs for parents, no wonder she had run to ‘idle and vicious associates’ for warmth and affection. This was enough to have soured anyone on respectability for life.
The clock on the mantel chimed softly again. It was an idiot clock that had lost contact with time. A slight draught from somewhere made one of the golden balls on the Christmas tree nod.
‘She tried to borrow from Corey too.’ The words burst out of Mrs Ross as if there was some masochistic streak in her that enjoyed reopening wounds. ‘Imagine trying to borrow from Corey after jilting him the way she did. Corey asked Mr Ross what we wanted him to do.’
‘We told him,’ said Mr Ross, that he was on no account to lend her anything.’
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Ross She added suddenly: ‘Perhaps there aren’t even any debts. She lies. She always has ever since she was a little girl. You can’t tell what’s true and what’s false. Perhaps there aren’t any debts at all.’
Mark wanted to slap her face.
He said: ‘Then you can’t help me in any way?’
‘In no way whatsoever,’ said Mr Ross.
Mark started for the door. Behind him Mrs Ross’s voice, fine and brittle as porcelain, rose again:
‘John, dear, you’d better drink your coffee. It’s getting cold.’ Mark reached the door. Down in Gramercy Park a child shouted.
‘There, dear,’ said Mrs Ross behind him. ‘Drink it. You know how you hate your coffee cold.’
5
Out in Gramercy Park again, Mark hurried past the sedate, snow-covered gardens. The Lorton Club would be closed at this hour, but Ellie would certainly have Victor’s number in her telephone book at home. And he knew he had to see Victor at once.
Mark had seen enough racketeers around the athletic gymnasiums to know how the underworld mind operated. If Ellie owed Victor money and couldn’t pay, the fact that she was just a crazy kid and a personal friend wouldn’t help her at all. Victor would stop at nothing to see that the debt was settled.
What if he’d put the screws on Ellie and she had run away? Although the Rosses had forbidden Corey to help her, they were no match for Ellie in persuasion. What if she’d left Corey to handle Victor and Corey had bungled it badly enough to get himself shot? That could have happened. And, if it had, it would mean a new danger for Ellie — a danger far more immediate than any from the police. It would mean that Victor was on her trail — out after her blood too.
A gnawing fear for Ellie took possession of him. His instinct was to storm around to Victor and demand a showdown. But he knew that would be stupid. Victor was far too dangerous for crude tactics. He would have to walk very warily indeed.
There were three numbers listed for Victor in the black book. One of them said Victor D’Iorio. Mark hadn’t known his last name.
The first number didn’t answer. He dialed the second. Sa9-6412. A girl’s voice sounded in a languid: ‘Yeah?’
‘Is Victor D’Iorio there?’
‘Who wants him?’
‘Mark Liddon. I’d like to come around and see him.’
‘Hold it.’ There was a pause and the voice came back. Is that the Liddon married to Ellie Ross?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Business or personal?’
‘Both.’
‘When’d you want to come?’
‘Right away.’
‘I guess that’s okay.’
‘What’s the address?’
*
The house was a massive Victorian edifice with a haughty iron-grilled front door. Mark climbed the snowy steps and pressed a buzzer. The door was opened by a big man with a round, solid face and hairy wrists. He looked like a night-club bouncer, but he was dressed as a butler.
‘Mr Liddon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Step in. He’s in bed. He’ll see you upstairs.’
The butler closed the door, took Mark’s hat and coat and led him into a living-room that looked like a Hollywood set for an Edith Wharton novel. Only the most chic decorators, obviously, were good enough for Victor. Between two richly draped windows stood a large Christmas tree trimmed with tinsel and colored balls. The Rosses and Victor at least shared the same taste in Christmas decorations. The frou-frou of the room was climaxed by a marble staircase, which rose upward in a swan-necked curve.
The butler said: ‘Upstairs.’
As Mark started through the room, a girl came down the stairs. She was a sleekly built red-head, wearing a cream-colored quilted housecoat and smoking a cigarette from a long ivory holder.
She and Mark met half-way up the stairs. She paused, watching him from heavy-lidded, uninterested eyes.
‘You Liddon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Victor’s in bed.’
‘So I’ve been told.’
She stuck the cigarette holder between her teeth. Lazily she leaned towards him and, with orchid-nailed fingers, frisked him for a gun.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Go on up. First door to the left down the passage.’
