Invitation to Murder

by Zenith Brown

  The house across the medallion, shingled as intricately as the clock tower, had a curious air of summer stillness, no sound of human occupation and no sign of it except a long low foreign car standing under the porte-cochere. Fish’s engine and the scrunch of his tires in the drive were like a tocsin sounding in a courtyard of enchanted sleep, making him more acutely conscious than ever of the embarrassment of his own position there. If the arrangements for the stable apartment hadn’t already been made, he would have driven right on around and out again. He stopped in front of the porte-cochere and got out, his footsteps grating unevenly as he passed in front of de Gradoff’s car. It was custom made, the draft he’d signed to pay for it exactly the amount of his own year’s salary before taxes. It still didn’t mean the man was a murderer, he thought ironically. He rounded the gleaming hood to the verandah steps, started up and stopped. “—Oh, I’m sorry.”

  Three people were facing him there, de Gradoff, a younger dark-haired man and a lovely black-haired woman with skin startlingly white in contrast to the sun tan of the two men, barefooted in shorts and sleeveless sport shirts. He’d obviously interrupted a first-class row. The arrogant flush on de Gradoff’s face was mirrored in the sullen mouth and glowering brow of the younger man and by contrast in the woman’s lacquered indifference. She wore a black linen dress and scarlet sandals, a black bag and scarlet parasol dropped casually under the bamboo chaise she was stretched lazily out on. Her dark eyes were leveled on Fish Finlay with total lack of interest. He might have been a harmless toad that had hopped up on the steps and would hop away in a moment.

  Apparently de Gradoff did not recognize him.

  “I’m Fisher Finlay, Mr. de Gradoff,” he said. “Is—”

  “I know,” de Gradoff said, without moving. He was slumped down in a wicker chair, his bare legs over the arm. “The stable’s over there.” He motioned toward it. “My wife’s not at home. The servants are busy.”

  One of them appeared, a thin sallow man wheeling a portable bar.

  “I can take Mr. Finlay over, sir,” he said. “If you’ll serve yourselves, sir. Madam said—”

  “He’ll manage, I’m sure. What are you having, Alla?”

  “G and T,” the dark lady murmured.

  “Scotch,” the young man said. “On the rocks.”

  The servant stood there, his hand on the bar.

  “Mrs. Emlyn said gin and tonic, Moulton.” De Gradoff repeated it without emphasis. “Mr. Peter takes Scotch. Gin and soda for me. Just a touch of lime.”

  “Yes, sir.” The man’s eyes met Fish’s for an unhappy instant.

  “Thank you,” Fish said. He turned and stepped back into the drive.

  “That was stupid, Nikki, dear.”

  He heard Mrs. Emlyn’s lazy voice before he was off the bottom step. But she spoke in French, which Fish, being an American, obviously could not be expected to understand.

  “I shouldn’t worry about that fellow Reeves’s hired hand,” de Gradoff said easily, also in French. “He won’t be with us long . . . unless his hide’s thicker than I think.”

  He added something Fish could not hear. He heard the burst of laughter that followed it as he got into the car.

  “You’d be surprised how thick my hide is, friends,” he thought pleasantly as he started around the ivory drive toward the stable. Their anxiety to get rid of him was all he needed to bring the situation sharply back into focus. They weren’t being that insulting just for fun. He glanced in his side-view mirror. The lovely Mrs. Emlyn had bestirred herself to come to the verandah rail and was looking after him. He wondered. Mr. Peter was obviously the cousin aged twenty-three that Jennifer Linton had been summoned to entertain. Who was Alla Emlyn? And what was her interest in the Maloney Trust? De Gradoff’s reply had pointed it up just as it pointed up his own concern. The hired hand routine was what Fish had given Dodo over the phone the day she landed in New York and had wanted to know if she had a few thousand dollars loose. Unless she’d passed it along, which was unlikely, it meant that Nikki listened in on phone calls as well as at keyholes.

  He stopped in front of the hexagonal tower and got out to open the trunk and get his gear. It was all to the good . . . unless, he thought abruptly, they’d been at work on Dodo. But they hadn’t. He heard the gay toot of her horn as she came in the beech tree drive. She saw him and swerved toward the stable.

  “Darling! What fun!” She threw the car door open and rushed to him, arms out. “It’s divine to see you!” She kissed him warmly on both cheeks. “But where’s Moulton? He’s supposed to settle you in.”

  “He’s busy.”

  “Nonsense.” Her eyes shot over to the porch. “Can’t they even pour their own poison, the lazy devils?”

  In the brief incendiary flash, her laughter suddenly gone, Fish saw her face. Good God, what’s happened to her?

  “But never mind, I’ll take you up.”

  She was gay again, too gay, trying to conceal the taut lines under the heavy layer of her peachblow makeup. She was much thinner. The pearly lusciousness that was what he remembered about her was completely gone.

  He picked up a couple of bags and followed her into the hexagonal two-story hall at the base of the clock tower. Central stairs led to a railed balcony level with the windows on the three front sides of the tower. There were doors at each end of the balcony and one in the center.

  “Nikki’s furious. He wanted Alla here.” She stopped on the stairs. “She’s another cousin. Husband hunting.” She wrinkled her nose. “Marry a central European and you get the whole family. And they’re certainly realistic about life and love. Alla married an Air Force major in Austria, he got her out, got her naturalized and whoosh, off she went to Reno.” She laughed. “Couldn’t stand being chatelaine of Emlyn Appliances Inc, in Frisbie, Wyoming. But she didn’t stick him for alimony. Just a lump sum, plus her own jewelry he’d got in duty free as household effects. Smart girl, Alla.”

  She went on up the stairs. “I knew her long before I met Nikki. Peter’s her nephew.”

  “Wife hunting?”

  “Don’t be funny, darling. Unless, of course, something very glamour and very, very rich turned up. He might condescend.”

  She laughed again. “If it’s Jennifer Linton you’ve got in mind, relax, darling. She’s not his type. And she’s not rich, my sweet. Not when I get through smashing up your old Maloney Trust.”

  She went along the narrow balcony and threw open the door at the terrace end. “This is your living-room, sir. The whole thing used to be the hayloft.”

  Fish saw a large handsomely paneled room, open to the steep gable of the roof, cool and pleasantly dark, with open casement windows filled with pink geraniums. The house was beyond them at his left, gardens to the right, and at the end, where the hay had once been brought up, a whole world of sparkling sea.

  “It’s wonderful, Dodo.”

  She was silent a moment. He saw the tired lines deepen in her face.

  “I suppose it is,” she said gravely. “It doesn’t have a lot of happy memories for me. Bob Linton and I used it for a playroom. You can still smell juniper in the bathroom, I expect. Sometimes I think if it hadn’t been for prohibition, Bob Linton and I . . . maybe we wouldn’t have made such a mess of things.”

  She looked at the circular staircase in the corner. “That goes to the clock tower. Actually, all this is the gardeners’ domain, not mine. They graciously permit me to use it sometimes. It was sweet of Caxey to ask me if you could have it, instead of asking Jan Vranek. The tower’s still boarded—even when I promised Vranek you wouldn’t climb after a few drinks. And don’t go down to the Rock at night, drunk or sober. A friend of ours tried it.” She shivered a little. “That was the end of our parties here.”

  She went over to the sofa in front of the dark paneled fireplace and sat down wearily. “It’s funny, you know. It didn’t depress me this way when Moulton was getting it ready for you, with old Vranek standing guard to keep us from committin
g sacrilege.” She opened her bag aimlessly and let it slide off her lap onto the cushions. “Caxey said you needed a rest. I don’t often think kindly of my father . . . but I thought he’d be rather pleased to have you here. He always felt so bitterly about not having any son of his own to go to war. And about my not having any.”

  She shook her head quickly. “But this is stupid. I guess the doctor depressed me.”

  “The doctor?”

  “Didn’t Nikki tell you that’s why I wasn’t home?”

  Fish shook his head, watching her gravely, with rising concern.

  “It’s absurd, of course.” She put her head back against the slip cover and closed her eyes. “It’s maddening, actually. I just can’t sleep any more. I can’t eat. I’m so jumpy I can’t sit still five minutes. I drink decaffeinized coffee and smoke hay with all the nicotine out of it. If I get to sleep, I have such nightmares poor Nikki’s had to move out in self-defense. It’s horrible.”

  “What does the doctor say?”

  “Not a damned thing. Is my marriage successful? It’s divine. How long has this been going on? Good grief, how do I know? it started in Europe, I guess, but I never had time to go to bed, anyway, so it didn’t seem to matter. Then old Caxey started calling me up every other day, and I guess that worried me. All he was doing was waiting to hear me say my marriage was going sour, which it wasn’t and isn’t. Caxey’s a ghoul.”

  She got up and moved impatiently around. “I guess it’s my mother,” she said abruptly. “She died of cancer. The doctor said if I was scared, I ought to go to a hospital for a checkup. But that really scares me. If I’m going to die, I don’t want to know it. Or have Nikki know it. I don’t want him to see a death’s-head every time he takes me in his arms.”

  She jerked around to the mirror over the telephone table. “Just look at me, Fish! I’m horrible. This afternoon, I was crossing the street to my car, and right where I’d parked there was a chalk cross on the curb and ‘Death’ printed under it. I’m not superstitious, but—”

  “Oh, nuts, Dodo,” Fish said. “It was just some kid—”

  “I know, but why was it right where I parked?” she asked sharply. “But it isn’t that. It’s my conscience, I guess. I’ve never told Nikki he won’t have a penny if I die . . . and Jennifer’ll be glad to see him starve. . . .”

  She came back to him and gripped his arm. “What’ll I do? Shall I tell him, Fish?”

  He felt his arm stiffen under her grip. If she told de Gradoff, the death’s-head would move to Jennifer Linton.

  He stood there rigidly, not knowing how to answer her, when her hand relaxed abruptly. She was looking past him, her eyes widened, out of the window and across the courtyard at her own house. He turned. The stable loft was level with the second story of the house. Through the windows between its shingled turrets, flooded with sunlight, the master bedroom was like a lighted stage, and across it was the open door of de Gradoff’s dressing-room. Or the room he was dressing in, fairly from scratch. With him was the lovely Alla Emlyn, in a black bra and black pantie girdle, pausing occasionally to talk to him as she brushed her long black hair.

  Dodo’s hand dropped from his arm.

  “Well, bless me.” She turned away, brows arched. “What was I saying? Let’s skip it, shall we? I dare say he’ll manage.” She moved over to the door, not taking it as lightly as she pretended. “I’ll go along. I ought to be there when—” She glanced at her watch. “Good heavens, I wonder what’s happened to her? She promised to be here by four.”

  “Who?” Fish asked.

  “Jennifer. You knew she was coming, didn’t you?”

  “Next week, I—”

  “She changed her plans. She was going to stay with some South American friends in Washington, but she decided to drive Anne Linton and her new husband to New York instead to catch their boat to Europe. Anne’s husband gave her the car for graduation. You knew Anne had copped herself a gold mine, I guess.”

  “Jennifer wrote Mr. Reeves.”

  “I should be pleased, I suppose, but I’m not.” There was a waspish edge to her voice. “Now Anne can afford to keep my daughter, I won’t have any control over her. She’s only coming here to get out of Anne’s way. Not because I want her to. You said not to make her come, so I began to feel like a dirty dog and say, darling, you can stay in Virginia. But not at all. She’s coming, and will I lend her the money to pay off the mortgage on Dawn Hill Farm as a wedding present for Anne Linton, for the love of heaven. I could have killed her.”

  She laughed irritably. “I suppose, of course, I should have given her the car, instead of letting Anne’s husband do it. But that thing of Nikki’s cost all I’ve got to put in cars this year. He was so crazy to have it. Cars are the one thing he knows all about. He sat around New York three days getting a touring permit so he could drive it up here himself.”

  So he could look up the story of James V. Maloney, is what you mean, lady.

  “Alla was in New York,” Dodo went on. “He was going to bring her, but she decided to fly straight up with me and Peter. She adores Peter. I felt so rotten I didn’t want to stay myself. And I don’t know why I thought I’d feel better here. I hate the place. Sometimes I think I just come back to spite those two old monsters out there in the greenhouses. But then I think it’s because I’ve lost something, and maybe it’s here I’ll find it. I don’t know. But I was showing you the drains, wasn’t I?”

  She reached for the door next to the hall door, making a brittle attempt to be gay again. “This is your kitchen. I thought you’d like to get your own breakfast.”

  “Don’t bother, Dodo. I’ll find things.”

  He stayed where he was over by the fireplace while she went inside. Then, as she didn’t answer, he waited a moment before an odd feeling of alarm made him start to go to her. As he did she came quickly out of the kitchen and closed the door sharply behind her. Her face was chalk-white under her makeup.

  “Dodo . . . what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing, darling. I . . . I’m just losing my mind, I guess. But I . . . I’ve got to go now.”

  She opened the hall door. “If I could go to sleep! Just once!” Her voice rose hysterically. “It’s driving me crazy. And that stupid doctor. He just looked at me as if I was lying to him. All he did was give me some sleeping pills. And I told him I’d never taken a pill in my life, not even aspirin. Nikki’ll be furious. But it was Nikki made me go to the doctor, so he can’t say I can’t take what the doctor gives, can he?”

  Fish looked at her blankly.

  “Oh, I told you!” she exclaimed. “That’s the way that wretched first wife of his killed herself. That’s why he’s so dead against sleeping pills. He raised hell the other night when Alla offered me something she uses. But if I don’t tell him I’m taking them—”

  She broke off, pushing her hair back from her forehead. “I don’t know what’s happened to me, Fish. I’ve gone all to pieces, all of a sudden.” She shook her head quickly. “Just leave me alone a minute. I’ll be all right. Go on and wash your face, and come over when my child gets there. Go on . . . please.”

  She pulled the door shut. Fish Finlay stood there, listening to her pacing back and forth on the balcony. Then he heard her go down the stairs and the car door slam. He went back and looked out of the window, his face grave, and saw her car reach the house. She got out and ran quickly around the black car and up the steps. He looked up at the front bedroom. The dressing-room door was closed. That pleasant interlude—casual rather than illicit, he thought suddenly—probably accounted for some of her distress. He started to turn away when Dodo flashed into the room from the other side. She stopped, balancing herself for a moment, before she threw her arms around the heavy post at the corner of the bed and clung to it, breaking away almost immediately as a maid in a black uniform and white apron came in.

  He went across the room and stood looking out of the hayloft window at the end, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
De Gradoff’s opposition to the sleeping pills, so in reverse of what had seemed to be the pattern. And he’d made her go to the doctor, she said. Fish sharpened his attention then, seeing de Gradoff strolling around from the back of the house, in a yellow sports jacket and brown slacks now. He glanced casually at Dodo’s car and continued his stroll calmly down out of sight among the roses. He’d made her go to the doctor, but he was certainly controlling his impatience to learn the doctor’s verdict, Fish thought.

  As he reached down to get his bags and go find the drains, a glint of gold on the sofa caught his eye. He went over. It was a compact that had slipped out of Dodo’s bag, and under it was a small green bottle with a black screw cap. He picked it up.

  “One every four hours for sleep when necessary,” the label read. “Dr. M. McNair.” Under it was a red sticker. “It is necessary for your physician to authorize the refilling of this prescription.” He unscrewed the cap and poured the twelve small capsules out into his hand. They were the mildest form of sedation the doctor could give her. She could take the whole batch at a gulp without serious consequences.

  He put them back in the bottle, dropped it into his pocket, thought for a moment, went over to the telephone and picked up the book. Dr. Malcolm McNair, 24 Roger William Street, 684. He picked up the phone, heard a woman’s voice and started to put it down when the operator came in, in front of the woman’s voice dribbling steadily on about a dress sale.

  He gave the number. Another woman’s voice came on in front of the backdrop of the dress sale. “Dr. McNair’s office.”

  “Does Dr. McNair have evening hours?”

  “By appointment. He’s in tonight. He could see you at 9:15.”

  “I’ll be there. Put me down, please.”

  He put the phone back quickly before she could ask his name, and stood there with his hand on it. Caxson Reeves might know Dr. McNair and give him a green light to ask questions and get answers. But if the voice of the anonymous woman could filter through the old-fashioned phone system, so could his, no telling to whose ears.