The Girl with the Frightened Eyes

by Lawrence Lariar

  There were many framed and unframed oils on the walls but only one of these attracted me. It was a large head of Alice Yukon. The handling of the subject was impressive, the color was fine. The underdrawing was loose and free, promoting the character of the subject in an effect of skillfully planned caricature.

  I held the lantern up to this picture and saw the name “Paula” signed modestly in the lower right corner. This, then, was her work. I stood away from it and studied it until my arm wearied of holding the lantern above my shoulder level.

  The sight of the picture moved me to action and I circled the room quickly, searching for something and nothing and everything. I went through a small antique desk and studied Gregory Yukon’s checkbook. I explored the cupboards in a large cabinet near the door and found nothing but sketchbooks full of Alice Yukon’s landscape detail.

  The one small bedroom yielded little of interest. In the closet, a collection of unframed landscapes, loose canvas, an old paint box and many brushes. I pulled out the landscapes and examined each of them.

  There were fourteen, all of them obviously done in the vicinity of the Woodstock hills. All of them obviously by Alice. I was about to replace her pictures on the top shelf of the closet when I saw the last small painting and pulled it down.

  This was not an Alice Yukon creation. The dull light of the lantern played hob with the colors of this picture. This was an old one—a very old one, indeed. I recognized the school and placed the artist as Dutch or Flemish. It was a simple scene, an interior. A peasant woman sat on a stool in the foreground. She sat in darkness, but a strong light came through an open window on the left side of the room. I pulled the lantern up close to the picture so that I could examine the finish. It was dirty. It had a dust-like quality that meant age, or neglect. Even under the lantern light a picture of this type should have sparkled. I searched for a signature on the canvas but found none. I returned the picture to the shelf and walked through the living room to the front hall.

  The hall was bare save for a small chest of the early American style. I lifted the telephone from the lid of this chest and looked inside. There was nothing but rubbers and an old umbrella.

  This, then, was the end of my search. I was about to blow out the lantern when the small red telephone index caught my eye. I opened it quickly to “S” and scanned the names on the page. There were two phone numbers for Paula Smith. I ripped the page out of the book, blew out the lantern and left the house by the front door.

  The trip to the Yukon cottage had not been a complete failure, after all. I had made two discoveries, either of which might lead to Paula. I had proved to myself conclusively that Alice Yukon and Paula were very good friends. Paula had painted a picture for Alice. Good portraits take time. Good artists don’t waste time on casual acquaintances.

  The telephone listings proved, too, that Alice was more than an acquaintance. I wondered if one of the phone numbers might be the apartment on Fifty-Fourth Street. If this was so, Alice Yukon had kept in close touch with Paula after she left Mrs. Preston’s place.

  The lights from a local tavern beckoned me and I felt the need of something to warm my body and my brain.

  Dave Luffon spotted me at the bar and came over. Dave was one of the New York cartoon gentry, a man who had risen high enough in the trade to move away from the traffic of the city permanently. He lived the ideal life for a comic man. He inked his sketches and mailed them to his agent. Editors bought his funny pictures and kept the Luffon family well fed, well clothed and housed in one of the most picturesque villas in Woodstock.

  Dave was glad to see me. We threw the usual questions at each other. We talked war and strategy—and finally, home front.

  I said, “Are you still the friendliest cartoonist north of Kingston? Do you know all the residents hereabouts?”

  “There are ten or twelve I don’t want to know.”

  “Artists?”

  “Artists—and Republicans.”

  I held up a hand. “Let’s not wax political. Do you know the Yukons?”

  His long face was deadpan. “I’m not in their social set.”

  “Incredible. Who up here is in their social set?”

  “Nobody but themselves. They are of the hermit crab variety. They live a self-sufficient life, never mixing with hoi-polloi.”

  “Longhairs?”

  Dave sighed. “Down to their knees. An ordinary cartoonist isn’t supposed to understand their double talk. We tried them one night, the little woman and I, but I gave up when the great Gregory drank a bottle of my best Scotch and then began to throw Picasso and Matisse at me.”

  “You ought to hide your head in shame. What’s Picasso got that you can’t understand?”

  “Picasso’s got Gregory Yukon. You follow me?”

  “How about Alice?”

  “Alice has got Gregory, too. Maybe Alice is sorry blood is thicker than solitude. Maybe she’d be all right without her ape man brother.”

  “You don’t mind Alice?”

  “Alice means well, I guess,” he said. “Matter of fact I’d turn longhair myself if she’d let me paint her some rainy Thursday afternoon when my wife is visiting her relatives in Flatbush.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit since your Automat days. Have you seen Alice’s artwork?”

  Dave dropped his mouth in a gloomy grimace. “I came, I saw—but I didn’t savvy. She paints the usual modern puzzle pictures.”

  “I’ve heard that one before. You mean that you don’t understand them?”

  “I haven’t got the time. I like a picture I can sink my eyes into. My brain is fuzzy enough from doing my weekly output of humor.”

  I said, “How about Gregory?”

  “His line is pure garbage.” Dave sipped his drink thoughtfully. “He’s some sort of a paint technician. Restorer, or something like that.”

  “He works for a museum?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “In New York?”

  Dave made a face at me. “How should I know? People up in this neck of the woods don’t ask questions of other people who think people in another art bracket are morons. We never got along with the Yukons. My wife sees Alice once in a while down here in the seething metropolis of Woodstock, but that’s all. We go our way and they don’t bother to look.”

  “Then who are their friends?”

  “Any friend of theirs is no business of mine. How about another drink?”

  I begged off and wished him well and walked slowly back to my hotel. It was getting late. My head was heavy with speculation and I wanted sleep.

  CHAPTER 10

  The sun threw a square of yellow light through Hank MacAndrews’ big studio window. Hank sat at his board, bent into the working pose of the professional cartoonist, a pencil in his ear, sleeves up-rolled and a cigarette hung on his lower lip. Without pausing in his labors he waved me to a seat and pointed to a whole roast chicken and fixings on the large coffee table. I ripped away a drumstick and mouthed it, washing it down with Ruppert.

  Hank said, “Hail the conquering hero. What, if anything, did you ferret at Woodstock?”

  I told him about my walk in the dark, my visit to the Yukon cottage and my discovery of the old painting and the two phone numbers for Paula Smith.

  He put down his pen. “I don’t understand the old oil painting. But the phone numbers sound interesting. Maybe we’ve got a strong link between Paula Smith and Alice Yukon. Did you try calling those numbers?”

  “I checked both of them,” I said. “The first one is Mrs. Preston’s number. When I got back to the hotel this morning I compared it with the first number I called after I got out of Halloran. I had made a note of it that day”

  “And the second?”

  “The phone company wouldn’t say. They did tell me, though, that the number was disconnected.”


  “Good enough. Bull will track that down when the time comes.”

  I said, “I failed to mention another piece of business. I found a swell portrait of Alice Yukon up there—done by Paula.”

  “Better and better,” said Hank. “That sews it up. I imagine Bull will beat a path to Alice Yukon’s door as soon as he hears these things. Obviously the dames were friends—good friends.”

  “When does Bull begin to beat these paths?”

  “Today.” He scowled at a sheaf of manuscripts, lifted them, flipped them and slapped them down on his drawing board. “The fat boy came home today with two months of Doctor Ohm—in advance! That’s the way he operates. He goes into hiding for a couple of weeks. He sweats out enough story to ease his conscience and break my back. Then, back he comes, full of fun, loaded with good nature and the smell of the sea. He struts into my studio, opens his gunnysack and drops enough work on my board to stagger an art service. The great man is finished. And so am I!”

  “You can’t kick. You weren’t working either when he was away. It sounds like a fair deal.”

  “I wouldn’t kick if I could, General.” Hank poured himself a beer and waved the glass at his trappings. “I’m a happy man with all of Bull’s flibbertigibbet routines. I’ll be holed up in this dump for over a month now. I’ll be batting my head off with a crow quill pen while Bull takes his ease in every bistro in town. But, am I downhearted?”

  “Stop breaking my heart. Where is Bull now?”

  “At work—on Inspector Trum. They’ll be calling each other names for an hour or so while Bull wheedles the facts out of the great stone face. He’ll be here soon—wants you to meet him today.”

  I said, “I can’t wait. Where do I meet him?”

  “At the morgue.” Hank smiled into his beer. “Bull always likes to meet the corpse personally. In this case he’s especially interested in the stiff—he knew Lecotte pretty well back in his Montparnasse days.”

  The phone rang and Hank listened and nodded and said, “Okay, boss.” He hung up and grinned my way. “It’s Bull. He wants sometime with you before he sees the stiff. Wants you to meet him over at the Franklin apartment.”

  “No morgue?”

  “You’ll probably go there later. Bull moves with a system, Jeff. If he’s going over to the Franklin place you can bet he’s got a damned good reason for the trip. Bon voyage.”

  I took a cab and on my way made a few notes on a large index card I had stolen from Hank’s studio. I itemized my experiences in haphazard fashion, underlining a few of the important highlights. I scrawled a few personal conclusions and then crossed them out. The best I could do for Bull would be a filling in of the minor scraps that Hank might have forgotten to tell him.

  Bull awaited me at the Franklin apartment. My first sight of him was a surprise to me. He stood with his back to me, hands clasped behind him and peering out at the street.

  When he turned to greet me I saw that he was short and fat, but his weight was not the fleshy and cumbersome type. He carried himself well and moved with a sure and spry step. He had a cherubic face, half sage, half child. His eyes were deceptive, grayish green and hidden behind sleepy lids. He was dressed in a simple sport outfit, tweedy above the waist line. I didn’t mind the tweeds on his ample frame.

  He said, “Hello, Jeff: This is one hell of a place to bring a soldier. I’ve been standing at that window looking out to avoid the shudders inspired by the furniture and fixtures in this hole.”

  I said, “It hit us the same way Wednesday night.”

  He lit a cigar and settled himself on the edge of the easy chair as though it had been built for electrical wiring. He closed his eyes and listened to my story and as he listened he worked the cigar in his mouth diligently. Occasionally he removed the cigar to interrupt. He was a good listener. The interruptions were few and when they came they were brief questionings aimed at accuracy. I gave him the story from the very beginning, including the trip to Woodstock and my impressions of the Yukon family.

  When I had finished his cigar was burned out. He walked away from the chair and went to the window. He opened the window and tossed away his mangled stub. For a few moments he stared absently at the surrounding buildings. When he turned my way he was ready to talk.

  He reseated himself on the easy chair. “You’re a good story teller, Jeff. You’ve given me a pretty good picture of what happens to a man with an imagination and a purpose. You’ll be surprised to hear that Hank MacAndrews has reached the same conclusions.”

  I said, “My deductions and conclusions are built on a solid structure of wishful thinking.”

  Bull shook his head slowly. “Hank bows to coincidence, just as you have. But we can’t admit that all these coincidences are logical until we’ve checked them and established them as facts first.”

  “For my money they’re all coincidences. But you must admit that they seem to be running in some sort of direction, don’t they?”

  “They’re threads. You find a thread on a rug and what have you got? You’ve got a thread. Maybe the thread came from a sweater—maybe a suit—maybe a sock. But until you find the source of each thread, you’ve got nothing—absolutely nothing.” He held up a hand when I attempted to interrupt. “Think back, Jeff. Try to track down, in your mind’s eye, the first thread of evidence we can work upon.”

  I said, “The Preston place?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Bull. “I’d say the first important lead came to you from the maid. It was an important lead because it took you to The Frog. And after that?”

  “The girl I chased?”

  He smiled. “You learn fast. And now we’ve arrived at the point in our problem where coincidence runs hog wild and we must stop and search for other traceable threads. For this reason we must eliminate the girl who ran out of The Frog, for the time being. She may or may not have been Paula Smith. We can’t afford to include her in our reckonings at this point. Do you see why? We have no hook to hang her on. We have no way of checking her. Girls run out of night clubs for many reasons. It’s a common situation. I’ve had it happen to me.” He reached for another cigar, lit it and puffed smilingly. “Are you ready, then, to forget about the girl in The Frog for a while?”

  I said, “I see what you mean. You want the next thread that can be tracked to its source?”

  Bull nodded. “We want a line to something tangible.”

  “The phone call at The Frog?”

  “Touché!” said Bull. “That is exactly why we are here now. I like the lead to this place. It smells of something we can follow. I like the Benjamin Franklin angle and the trail to Alice Yukon. But more than anything else, I’m in love with the little lady who called herself Mrs. Franklin and led you away from this hole on a wild goose chase across town.” He got out of his chair and walked to the doorway. He stood there surveying the room for a while. “We’ll start in this room, Jeff. Hank tells me that the furniture seemed purposely scattered when you two walked in here. Are all the pieces in the same position as you found them with Hank?”

  “Exactly.”

  He walked to the easy chair, lifted it; moved it slightly to the right so that it sat closer to the window. He bent over the floor, rubbed it with a finger. Returning to the doorway, he asked, “Do you remember the color of the rug?”

  I apologized for my memory. “It must have been a light rug, but I can’t recall the color at all.”

  “You remember the stain as a vivid blot?”

  “The bloodiest blood I’ve ever seen.”

  “Then it could have been a very light rug.” He led me out of the living room and into the bedroom where once again he stood in the doorway and pondered the interior.

  In the daylight the small bedroom was more squalid than ever. The fact that the bed was bare now did not add to its charm. Bull went first to the bed and examined the mattress thoroughly. He ra
n his finger along the surface of it and then heaved it over and did the same on the other side. He fingered the pillow, picked it up, turned it in his hands, smelled it and studied it carefully.

  He said, “This bed—is it in the same position as you saw it that night?”

  I thought back. “Exactly the same.”

  “Was there only one pillow on it?”

  “Could have been two pillows. I can’t remember. Maybe Hank might.”

  “Was the pillow you saw covered?”

  “Uncovered. I remember that definitely.”

  “Good,” said Bull. He made a short note in his little black book. “How about the sheet?”

  “It had stains on it. Hank pointed them out to me and I told him I didn’t think they were bloodstains. I thought they were oil paint smears.”

  “What color oil paint would that be?”

  “A crimson. Crimson Lake, possibly.”

  “That color looks like blood?”

  “It might, on a sheet.”

  “Perhaps,” said Bull. “Are there many oil colors that might look like blood on a sheet?”

  “I wouldn’t know. There may be. But Crimson Lake is a very popular palette color. A vermilion might do the trick, too.”

  Bull said, “Too bad I couldn’t have taken a peek at that bedsheet.”

  He bent over the bed and stared at the mattress for a little while. Then he kneeled and scrutinized the floor. He came up with a few tiny threads. He walked to the window and examined them in the light.

  I said, “Clues?”

  “Threads. It may have been that somebody tore that sheet. There could have been a fight in this room. It never hurts to have threads like these analyzed.”

  He tucked the threads away and went on to the dresser, opening the drawers and smelling them. He examined the closet with great care. “This closet was empty, too?”

  “Clean.”

  He turned next to the Matisse reproduction on the wall, squinted at it and grinned. “Not a bad job of work, that. A little out of place in this type of bedroom, eh?”