The Girl with the Frightened Eyes

by Lawrence Lariar

  He didn’t wait for my answer. I followed him into the bathroom and watched him continue his routine. The medicine chest held him for many minutes. I wondered whether he, too, was looking for stray hairs, stray red hairs that might have belonged to Paula Smith.

  We paused in the hallway on the way out of the apartment. He opened the hall closet and studied it carefully.

  I said, “We forgot all about this closet. It could have been that Mrs. Franklin’s boyfriend hid in there while she was easing us out of the apartment.”

  “It’s big enough for three men,” said Bull. “And empty enough.”

  He toyed with the lock on the front door for a few moments and after that we left.

  In the cab, Bull said, “I still like the appeal of that apartment. Empty places are always a challenge to me. A man with an imagination can knock himself out dreaming up the people who belong in an empty apartment. I find myself drawing mental pictures of your Paula Smith. She doesn’t seem to fit up there, and yet the place smells strongly of art.”

  “How does the Inspector feel about it?”

  Bull laughed a short, humorless snort. “Trum and I don’t exchange theories. I finally persuaded the great man to allow me a few privileges. I’ll never persuade him to allow me a few conclusions. At any rate, I’ve sold him the idea that I’m not interested in his murder—told him I’m getting a fat fee from you for trying to locate Paula Smith. On that basis he’s allowed me to bring an important witness down to the morgue for questioning—the janitor. A lot depends on what I can get out of him.”

  I said, “Then everything really depends on the thread to the Franklin apartment.”

  “It begins there and it’ll end there.”

  At the morgue, a little man named Flax opened the door for us and said, “The old guy’s here, Bull. You want me to send him to you?”

  “Not at all, Herman. Take him inside and show him the stiffs. Steer him over to Lecotte’s slab and leave him there to meditate. I want him to get a good look at Lecotte. It may jog his memory.”

  Flax said, “He’s a pretty old duck, Bull. A lot of these old boys can’t stand the sight of a dead one.”

  “I’ll take the chance, Herman.”

  Flax left us alone. I said, “The old man claimed he couldn’t remember Mr. Franklin. You think Lecotte was Mr. Franklin?”

  “It’s worth the try. Pierre Lecotte was quite a man for fake names and foolish addresses. He’s been pulling that gag almost all of his adult life.”

  “You knew him well?”

  Bull closed his eyes. “Not too well. I met him years ago when I was starving gracefully in an unheated room on the Left Bank, back in 1928. In those days every artist in the Montparnasse area knew every other artist. The art group in and around La Rotonde was a well-organized mob, they used the same models, ate in the same dens, and so forth. I was one of the nosy outsiders who couldn’t crack the inner circle, because my art work was of a school nobody appreciated but myself—and even I tired of it after a while.”

  I said, “I never knew you painted, Bull.”

  “I didn’t. I had a working knowledge, however, of all the borderline idiots who managed to remain in Paris because they, like I, thought they were artists, or critics, or musicians or sculptors. Pierre and I shared a common dream, in those days. We both wanted to be artists. We both failed. His type of painting was too phony for even the modern intellectuals. He attempted to create a new school of art after his first big failure at showing his wares. He coined a weird name, gathered six or seven demented disciples to support him and then financed a small school by seducing the daughter of a millionaire American and blackmailing her for a big pile of money.”

  “Versatile chap.”

  “Lecotte was more than versatile, Jeff. He was a man who never gave up. His art school was a five star flop, but Pierre didn’t bat an eye. He disappeared from Paris and went to the south of France to try his luck with the gambling. I know this because I met him down at Nice. He was with another woman, of course—this time an English woman who seemed delighted to have him waste her money. He returned to the quarter about a year later—in a new role. He became Lecotte the critic, Lecotte the connoisseur, Lecotte the expert. He milked the tourist trade of many thousands of dollars in those days, peddling cheap art to the innocent Americans at art gallery prices.”

  “What kind of art?” I asked.

  “Any kind at all,” Bull said. “Lecotte could sell anything—anything at all. He sported fine clothes, lived in good hotels and spoke with a clear and varnished Oxford accent. His approach was masterful. He never went out on a limb. He would arrange his sales so that an assistant would bring a customer to him and beg him to obtain a certain picture for the customer. In this way Lecotte needed no pressure selling. He was always the aristocrat, trying to help the tourist. He was reputed to have married twice and well. He was the type of society lush who considered divorce a sound livelihood. Thus Lecotte prospered and when he had saved a tidy nest egg he moved across to New York and greener pastures.

  “I lost track of him for a while,” Bull went on, “and then suddenly he flashed into prominence in the book world. He wrote a wordy opus, a book that lifted him high in the art world. A certain young debutante, stricken with Lecotte’s manly charms, is supposed to have, financed that one. Pierre did well after that. He rose to the heights as an art critic and became known as a sort of broker in paintings. I’ve never checked any of his sales, but I’m willing to bet that many a rich drawing room is decorated by one or more of his swindles.”

  Bull got off the desk and we went outside. We walked down a narrow corridor and then through a large metal door into a long room. The smell of death hung heavily in the place. It was medicated death, sharp and cloying. The room was dark, save for the circle of light far down the end where the janitor stood under the lone lamp.

  Bull lifted himself to a slab and said, “Hello, Pop. What’s your name?”

  “Sammit. Mike Sammit.”

  “Fine, Mike, fine.” Bull swung his short legs over the slab, a schoolboy at a picnic. “You know this dead man, Mike?”

  The janitor stared at the corpse, blew his nose, shook his head, wiped his eves, fingered his mustache and said, “I can’t be sure, mister.”

  “Why not, Mike?”

  “A man looks different, stretched out this way.”

  “Sure,” said Bull. “I understand, Mike. But his face isn’t real different, just quiet, that’s all. Isn’t this man Mr. Franklin?”

  The janitor’s eyes were vague. “He was about the same age, I guess. Youngish, like this one. It’s funny, looking at a man stretched out this way—”

  “You said that, Mike. You won’t go out on a limb and identify this man as Franklin?”

  Mike renewed his head shaking. “I can’t do that. I just can’t do it. This one may be somebody altogether different.”

  Bull slid off the slab. He paced slowly to the far end of the room letting his heels down hard in the silence. His face was aimed at the floor. At the end of the room he stood for a while as though enjoying the tableau under the green lamp.

  He came back to the old man and faced him grimly, measuring him through heavy lidded eyes. Bull said, “You’re an old man, Mike. You’re old enough to be my father, but I’ve got to put it to you straight. You’re a damned liar! Why are you lying, Mike?”

  Mike winced. “I’m not lying.”

  “Who’s paying you?”

  “See here,” whined Mike. “That’s not nice—”

  The old man gave me his eyes for an instant. They were wet with pleading and fear. I looked away from him, studying the figure on the slab.

  Bull said, “Nobody with a pair of eyes could forget a face so fast. This man came into your apartment and paid you money and probably signed some sort of paper. Where were your eyes while all this was going on? No
body, not even an old man like you, Mike, could forget a face so easily. You’re lying like hell.”

  “That’s not so. I tell you I’m telling you the truth.”

  Bull didn’t hear him. He was off on another tour of the room. He walked to the far end, then came back casually. He stood at the head of the corpse and stared at Mike Sammit unmercifully. He said, “Who is this man, Mike?”

  The janitor shook his head on a hinge.

  Bull winked at me and jerked a thumb over his right shoulder. He said, “You’re going to be a little more than sorry before I’ve finished with you, Mike. You’re going to talk.”

  He started for the door and I followed him. We walked to the door and stood there looking hack through the darkness at the old man. He remained under the low green shade and the light fell on his shoulders and cast a strong shadow under his quivering eyebrows. He was a small man in a small spot of light from where we stood.

  Bull pulled open the big steel door. He reached for the light switch as he opened the door. He let go of the door at the moment he pulled the switch. We remained in the room with Mike Sammit, but Mike couldn’t have known it.

  When the light went out we heard a stirring in the darkness. The old man was moving away from the corpse. There was a sound of scraping and a moan of horror and sudden movement. Mike was getting away from the corpse, fast. He hit something in his flight and there was a groan of pain and terror and we knew that he had hurt himself.

  Mike Sammit lifted his voice in a thin, sharp wail.

  “I’ll talk! For God’s sake don’t leave me in here alone!”

  Bull threw the switch and the light returned to the small green shade. We ran down to him and he was on the floor clutching his knee in pain. We lifted him toward a slab.

  “Not that!” he moaned. “Take me out of here, anywhere but in this place!”

  We carried him out into Flax’s office and set him down on the leather couch. Bull put a chair cushion under his head and said, “Take it easy, Mike. I suspected you’d come to terms in there, but I didn’t want you to cripple yourself first.”

  Flax brought in a glass of water.

  Mike sipped the water and sucked in his breath unsteadily. He closed his eyes and sank back against the cushion. Bull waited until the frantic breath became normal.

  Bull said, “Who paid you?”

  “There were two men. They came just a little bit before you got there that night.” He looked at me. “You remember when you got there? Well, they were maybe ten, fifteen minutes before you. I didn’t see them come in.”

  “They had their own keys?” Bull asked.

  “Must have. I woke up when they were leaving and put on my robe and ran into the hall just as they got through the front door to the street.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “Wait, I didn’t see them. I only saw their backs when they were going through the door. When I went outside they were getting into a car. I didn’t know what to do. After all, they might have been tenants.”

  “If they might have been tenants, why did you leave your room in the first place?”

  “I’ll get to that,” said Mike Sammit. “I live down there in the basement. I can see from my window into the street. When I woke up I happened to look into the street. I thought I saw these men carrying something. That’s why I ran into the hall. I figured maybe they were crooks.”

  “What were they carrying?”

  The old man registered uncertainty. “I can’t be sure. It looked like something big—maybe something in a bag. I saw some white, when they were putting it into the car.”

  “Something big?”

  “Two of them were carrying it.”

  “What shape was it?”

  “Shape?” Mike asked himself. “It was big.”

  “It could have been a body?”

  “It could have been anything. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was a piece of furniture.”

  “A chair?”

  “Maybe. When I reached the porch the thing was almost in the car. I turned around then, to go back inside, because I was scared. I figured it’d be better if I minded my own business. Then they saw me standing there on the landing and came up after me.”

  “You must have gotten a good squint at them. See their faces?”

  “I wasn’t wearing my glasses and it was after midnight. How could I—”

  Bull iced his voice. “You’re lying, Mike. I’ll have to cool you off inside again if you continue. Whoever hauled that package into the car was seen by you. What did they look like?”

  Mike paused, swallowed hard and shrugged in despair. “There was a big man. He was the one who grabbed me by the arm and sort of shook me and told me I better keep my mouth shut.”

  “Fat?”

  “Kind of fat. Tough, too.”

  “And the other one?”

  “The other one didn’t do anything. He was shorter, but I couldn’t see his face, honest I couldn’t. He pushed the big guy away and slipped me a hundred dollars. He said there’d be plenty more if I’d keep my mouth shut, but that they’d kill me if they found out I spilled. Then the big one pushed the other guy away and told me not to think they wouldn’t be watching me. He said they’d watch my every move and if they caught me talking I would never know what hit me. This big guy kept talking that way even after the other one went back to the car. He was tough.” Mike paused for a short breath and stared at Bull. “What could I do? Anybody in my spot would have done the same thing.”

  Bull nodded dreamily. “Naturally. Did you see either of them hanging around the house after that?”

  “I didn’t go out. I looked out of the window a lot, but I couldn’t really tell because I’m under the sidewalk.”

  “You’re sure they didn’t come back?”

  “I hope I never see them again, those two.”

  “Maybe you won’t,” said Bull. “How about that car? You remember it at all?”

  “Be reasonable,” Mike Sammit pleaded. “I told you it was dark out there.”

  “You must have seen a bit of the car. Take it easy and think back, Pop.”

  Mike took it easy. “The wheels glistened a little. I can remember that, all right. They must have had some kind of bright metal on them, maybe on the hub caps. The rest of the car I can’t remember.”

  “Big? Little? Roadster?”

  “Big as hell.”

  “A sedan?”

  “A fancy sedan—it was a big, long car.”

  “Fine,” said Bull. “And after you got the money, you went back to bed?”

  “I was scared for real after he gave me the money. I no sooner got down to my apartment when the bell rang again and it was this man here and another one. I let them in and went back to my room and took a sleeping pill.”

  “And nobody else woke you?”

  Mike shook his head violently. “Nobody could have. I was out cold. I was too scared to want to stay awake.”

  “Fine, Mike.” Bull put a gentle hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Now, how about that fellow inside on the slab?”

  Mike closed his eyes wearily and muttered, “He’s your man, all right. He rented the apartment from me.”

  “As Benjamin Franklin?”

  “He’s Franklin—I don’t remember the Benjamin part of his name.”

  Bull stepped back and lit a fresh cigar. He nodded to me soberly.

  “That’s more like it, Pop,” he said.

  CHAPTER 11

  Bull moved with a purpose.

  We left the morgue and went immediately to Boucher’s large art gallery in the heart of the fine arts belt in Greenwich Village.

  The store front was a symphony of flat and simple planes, chrome and gray, highly polished and modern, undecorated and cold. In flamboyant italics, the name Boucher floated acros
s the top third of the window. In the window, set against a crimson background, were a few choice pictures, framed in heavy wood, unadorned and natural in tone.

  Boucher himself greeted us in the well-lit interior. He was a tall man, grayed in the temples. His face was pure Gallic, modeled in the aristocratic style. His eyes were soft, sober and gentle. His smile was white and went well with his gray and delicate mustache. He wore a blue pinstripe suit and a bright tie that might have been designed by Dali.

  He spoke softly, using his hands in the smooth and pleasant gestures of upper bracket French society.

  “But, of course, Pierre Lecotte was a good friend of mine,” he told Bull. “He worked with me often when he wanted certain artists for his night club shows. It is a shame that a man like Pierre was taken from the art world. He was on his way to great things for the American artists.”

  “You knew him well?”

  Boucher smiled into his memory. “We were friends, even in Paris—a long time ago.”

  “Good friends?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Boucher, quickly. “Pierre and I saw each other very often. After all, it was a matter of business, too, you understand. He was intensely interested in modern art. His book—”

  “I’ve read it,” said Bull. “Did he ever sell any of your pictures?”

  Boucher opened his eyes in amazement. “But, of course. Pierre showed pictures from this gallery, as I said. He had several important showings of my people artists.”

  “You favor certain artists?”

  “Naturally,” shrugged Boucher. “A gallery owner must favor certain artists. There are all kinds of modern painters, as you can imagine. A gallery man must select the ones he thinks will stand up. It is the element of time that is important in these paintings. Artists must have a quality of permanence,” he groped for words, “it is the exhibitor who must judge many painters, really. You agree?”

  Bull nodded, smiling. “Who were these favored people?”

  Boucher enumerated seven artists on his fingertips. He went no higher than seven. One of the seven was Alice Yukon.