Invitation to Murder

by Zenith Brown

  “If they let you out.”

  “Sure. We’ll see. What’s your phone listing?”

  “Enniskerry, stable.”

  “Okay.” He shambled over to the door. “You don’t think the Winton dame shoved her over?”

  “She shoved her all right,” Fish said. “It’s whether she killed her.”

  “She’ll need a nice long rest, anyway.”

  “It could be longer. Much longer if they think she pushed the waiter in too. He was alive when he went in. He was a private detective named Blum.”

  “The AP man told me, off the record.”

  He ambled out onto the balcony and looked down. “I I guess Bestoso’s through brainwashing my rickshaw boy. Gone, anyway. So long. I’ll see you.”

  Fish thought of the empty beds in the two rooms next to his.

  “I’d ask you to stay here, but I’m a guest myself.”

  “Thanks, all set,” B. Meggs said. “Place called the Azores. Room seven. There’s a strawberry blonde across the hall doesn’t look too bad. Or too good. Whichever way one states a simple relative proposition. Joe wants Polly’s letter back when you’re through with it.”

  Fish nodded. B. Meggs, like A. Bestoso, seemed to get around a hell of a lot faster than F. Finlay, F. Finlay decided, deciding also to offer no advice to B. Meggs, gratuitous or otherwise. He looked back at Polly Randolph’s letter, at the last typed line.

  “Something did happen to Exhibit No. 43, I take it.”

  “What Joe says. Sent a man around next day. Couldn’t get to first base. Called Joe, Joe called Zirolli, Zirolli clammed. Scared. Nobody’s figured the deal yet.”

  “Polly knew Ferenc Blum in Paris,” Fish said.

  “No foolin’?” For a second B. Meggs looked alive and awake. “I better call Joe before I act on that one. What about Bestoso? He know about that angle?”

  “I think not,” Fish said. “But I wouldn’t sell him short. He’s a lot smarter than he looks.”

  “A shabby thing for the human race if most of us were not,” B. Meggs commented, and departed without unseemly haste.

  Caxson Reeves came out of the Chalet with Jennifer and Dodo.

  “Finlay didn’t get my message, I expect.” He looked at his watch and raised his stick for his sister’s chauffeur. “If you see him, Jennifer, will you tell him I’m conferring with the ‘undisclosed principal’?” There was a bleak momentary gleam in his eye. “He’ll know. Tell him I’ll be around to see him at four. Or may I take you ladies home?”

  “No, thanks, Mr. Reeves,” Jenny said. “I have my car.” She glanced at her mother stopping to talk to some friends behind them. “I’ll tell him, sir. Mother wants to go by the Randolphs’. Just a minute, Mother.”

  She ran down the steps. She wanted to get her mother away from there before anybody else got hold of her to tell her how lovely her daughter’s orchids were at the Randolphs’ party. Just once more and she’d begin to wonder and then to ask, and it meant inventing a beau or telling her Mr. Vranek sent them, risking an explosion when everything was lovely. She hadn’t even minded leaving Nikki playing backgammon in the cabaña. Nikki couldn’t pay a sympathy call in shorts and a flowered shirt. And Peter had happily found himself another blonde. Now Jenny knew Fish Finlay wasn’t coming, she wanted to get away herself. But getting her mother away from the butterfly orchids was the immediate problem. And it was already too late.

  “Darling!” she said as she got in beside Jenny. “Those orchids. Shows what kind of a mother I am. They were so perfect with your hair I thought they were artificial. Not Peter?”

  Jenny felt the laughing blue eyes examining the side view of her face, and knew she had to answer. She couldn’t avoid it.

  “Did he send them to you?”

  “Who?” Jenny kept her eyes ahead as she turned the car away from Enniskerry, round to the Randolphs’ on Ocean Drive.

  “Your own lamppost lover, darling? Or have you forgotten about him in the whirl you. . . . Why, Jenny, baby! I didn’t mean that. Pull over to the sea wall and stop, darling. I didn’t mean to upset you. . . .”

  It was the general strain, and the disappointment of not seeing him, that had upset her, and the sudden image of the flag at half-mast on the Chalet that was caught there in her side mirror, bringing Polly Randolph back and with Polly her own numb misery at the table after Polly left it. That’s why Mr. Finlay hadn’t come to the Chalet, of course, and why he hadn’t wanted her around that morning in the stable. He really had been in love with Polly.

  “Pull over, darling,” her mother said gently. “Don’t look so miserable, baby. What’s the matter?”

  Jenny stopped the car at the ledge. She fished out her handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “It’s nothing, really, Mother. It’s . . . well, I just shouldn’t have said anything, that’s all. Because it’s no use. He . . . he wouldn’t ever care anything about me, anyway. Not really, I mean.”

  Her mother hated the sun and the wind but she was sitting there being . . . being just like Anne Linton, Jenny thought, with a sudden surge of tenderness toward her that was new even in their new and warmer friendship. “You’ll get all blown to pieces, Mummy.”

  “It doesn’t matter, darling,” Dodo said gently. “What’s happened? Maybe I can help. Who is he, Jenny? Is it someone I know? I know how ghastly it is when you’re young. I remember when I thought your father was in love with one of Polly Randolph’s cousins. It was simply horrible.”

  Jenny closed her eyes a moment. That made it worse instead of better.

  “I won’t say you’ll get over it, darling. Or some sleep would help. It’s all true but you have to learn those things yourself. Where did you meet him?”

  “On a road in Virginia,” Jenny said. “It was when I was terribly upset about Anne getting married. I didn’t want to come up here, because I didn’t think we’d get along. I . . . I didn’t know you could be so nice.”

  “I’m a stinker, Jenny.”

  “No you’re not. You’re wonderful, Mother.” Jenny blinked quickly. “You’ve been marvelous. I’m . . . I’m so glad I came.”

  “Thank you, Jenny.”

  “But that’s where I met him. He gave me a lift back to school. He . . . knew who I was but I didn’t know him. And afterwards, he pretended we hadn’t ever met. But I . . . just couldn’t get him out of my mind. All spring I kept looking for him. I thought he liked me too. I thought he’d come back to the school, but he . . . but he didn’t. It’s Fish Finlay, Mother.”

  She put her head down, waiting, not wanting to look at her mother, waiting and almost holding her breath as the silence got longer and longer. She looked up then, not looking at her mother but seeing her, sitting perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed straight ahead of her out over the sea.

  “You’re . . . you’re not going to be—”

  “Oh no, Jenny. I was just thinking how . . . enormously wise we can be when we’re very young. I think Fish is wonderful, Jenny. He’s kind. He’s self-contained. He’s fun. I think a girl would be terribly happy with him, Jenny.” She turned her shining gold head and smiled at her daughter. “But I don’t think he’d marry a girl he wasn’t in love with, and he’d never pretend to love one he didn’t love.”

  “I know it.”

  “He’s older than you,” Dodo said gently. “But that wouldn’t matter. You’ve had a miserably disjointed sort of life, so . . . dispossessed. You probably need somebody who’s steady and . . . dependable. A boy your own age would have all your problems. I’ve thought about that, Jenny. It’s funny, it was Fish who started me thinking about it, last April. I like to think maybe I’m not as much of a stinker as I know I am sometimes.”

  “Oh, Mother. . . .”

  “No, sweetie.” Dodo took her hand and squeezed it. “I’ve been a lousy mother. And if Fish. . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anything I could do to help. It’s something you’ll have to work out yourself, Jenny dea
r. It’s a little like birth and death, that way. Nobody can help you much.” Then she smiled. “But I’d love it, Jenny. I’m very fond of him. I wouldn’t feel I’d been as grim as I have been, if you had somebody like Fish to make up for all the things you . . . you haven’t had.”

  She laughed suddenly. “There’s one thing I can tell you, sweetie. Don’t let him fall in Caxson Reeves’s sister’s hands. She’ll marry him off to that walleyed grandchild of hers. Let’s go home. That’s probably why Caxey’s coming around at four, to get him for her for the dance tonight. You keep your eye on him, baby. Nikki and I can go to the Randolphs’ later. He ought to go, they’re so devoted to him. Come along, let’s go home. You’re probably dying to see him anyway. And be terribly careful. Don’t let Alla and Nikki know it. I’ve decided you and Fish were right . . . They both have their eye on you for that lout Peter. I wouldn’t have you marry him for all the world, my pet.”

  As they turned in between the marble urns of marble flowers in the gate of the serpentine wall she said, “And I’m ever so glad you told me, Jenny. I’m ever so glad!”

  The mauve shadows of the purple beeches on the shining blue of the car dyed it the color of the wine-dark sea until they came out into the sudden white and emerald of the courtyard as the chimes in the clock tower struck half-past three.

  “His car’s here, Mother,” Jenny said quickly.

  But her mother was looking at the black sedan standing in front of the porte-cochere, a United States government tag on the back of it, and at the heavy-set man with a briefcase just getting out. Jenny heard her catch her breath sharply, and turned to look at her.

  “Mother . . . what’s the matter?”

  Her mother shook her head.

  “Nothing.”

  But her face was thin and haggard, dead-white, almost green from the reflected light of the emerald turf in the courtyard of Enniskerry. “Just let me out, Jenny. Then run and get Fish. Tell him I need him. Ask him to come as quickly as he can.”

  CHAPTER : 16

  Jennifer Linton walked until she got inside the clock tower, well out of sight of the man in the government sedan. Then she ran up the stairs and knocked on the living-room door. “Fish!” She waited a second before she opened it. He wasn’t there. Through the windows behind her she could see the large heavy-set man taking off his gray felt hat and wiping his forehead, waiting by the porte-cochere. She called again, and ran through to the kitchen. The doors of the small foyer were open, and she saw him on one of the bird’s-eye maple beds, his coat on the back of a chair, shades drawn, sound asleep. She ran quickly through, catching her breath as she stopped at the side of the bed, her whole young heart alive in her face.

  I hate to wake him, he must be worn out. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Fish.”

  Fish Finlay opened his eyes.

  Who can say how long a dream is, or how long it took the phoenix to rise? How long the instant’s iridescent brush of an angel’s wing as it passes to drop a single feather of its pure incredible gold? It was to such an instant that Fish Finlay awoke and saw the face of the dream he’d banished, and for such an instant held it. Then he smiled.

  “I thought I sent you home, Miss Linton.”

  Her cheeks flushed scarlet bright. “Mother wants you, quick. There’s a man from the government. . . .”

  “I’ll be right there. You scoot along. He wasn’t due till four.”

  He reached out one hand to turn off the alarm he’d set for ten minutes to, and the other for his coat.

  “I’ll go on over,” Jenny said. She ran out, her knees trembling, her cheeks still fire hot.

  Now he knows I’m crazy about him . . . and he laughed at me. He just thinks I’m a silly fool. And I shouldn’t have gone in his bedroom. She rubbed her cheeks quickly. I’ll just never dare face him again.

  She quickened her pace down the stairs, hearing him coming, and kept half a dozen steps ahead of him across the courtyard. Dodo was on the porch with the man from the black sedan. He was putting his billfold back in his pocket.

  “This is Mr. Finlay, and my daughter, Miss Linton,” Dodo said. “Mr. Northrup.” Her face was dead-white but her voice was steady. “It’s all right . . . I’d like Mr. Finlay to be here.” She turned to Fish. “Mr. Northrup is a United States Customs Agent from Boston.”

  Fish nodded to him, thinking intently. The long distance call to the Collector of Customs, Port of Boston. The operator hadn’t been mistaken. . . ?

  “Jenny, will you go upstairs and bring down my ruby necklace,” Dodo said. “It’s in a blue leather case on the second shelf of the safe in my dressing-room. Hurry, darling. I’d like to get this over with before the rest of them come home. It’s a flat case with gold tooling around it.”

  Fish waited silently, his eyes on the large man with thinning gray hair and quiet manner.

  “Will you sit down?” Dodo said. “And you, Fish.” She sat down herself, took out her handkerchief and wiped the cold moisture from her upper lip. “It was very stupid, Mr. Northrup. I must have been out of my mind to do it.”

  She turned to Fish. “I didn’t declare them,” she said simply.

  Fish Finlay took his own handkerchief out and wiped the cold sweat off the palms of his hands as two things Polly had said at the Randolphs’ flashed into his mind. The first was about her cousin who’d called Dodo a moron. She’s bright bitter green about Dodo’s new red necklace. The other Polly had said when she was baiting de Gradoff about the ghost-woman who’d come in with the de Gradoffs to the party and whom she’d last seen looking at Dodo’s rubies. Neither one of them had meant anything to him at the time, or meant anything now. He hadn’t been close enough to Dodo to see the necklace, and he knew so little about jewels that it wouldn’t have made any impression on him if he had been. Taken with the long-distance call and Polly’s letter there in his pocket about the rubies covered with blood, it added up to a confusion that was nevertheless staggering. He wiped his forehead unobtrusively and put his handkerchief in his pocket.

  Northrup opened his briefcase and consulted a notebook.

  “We understand, Countess de Gradoff, that you brought a necklace and earrings of star rubies, set with diamonds, into this country through the Port of New York on June 10,” he said. “You purchased them in Paris from a private owner?”

  “That’s correct,” Dodo said. “May I ask who told you?”

  He brought a receipt book out, laid it down on his briefcase and took out a pencil. “The source of our information is not given out.”

  There was a dull unhappy flush under the tight flesh over Dodo’s cheekbones, her eyes were a cold hardening blue.

  “I think I know what the source was,” she said evenly.

  “How much did you pay for the set of rubies, Countess de Gradoff?”

  The flush deepened along Dodo’s cheeks. For a moment she sat, her lips tight.

  “Fifty thousand dollars.”

  Fish’s hand on the way to his pocket for a cigarette stopped, and dropped quietly to his side. Jennifer Linton stopped in the doorway, the gold-tooled blue leather case in her hands, her face white-lipped, her gray eyes startled. She came across the porch and put the case in her mother’s hands, moved back quickly and sat down on the end of the chaise, her face impassive as she watched her mother hand it over to the agent.

  Northrup put the case by him on the table, calmly finished his writing, put his pencil down, picked up the case and opened it.

  “They’re very handsome.”

  Fish saw the stars caught in the sunlight gleaming out of the liquid pools of blood-red fire, the diamonds’ blinding rays of molten sunlight around them.

  “I’ve put down fifty thousand dollars, Countess,” Northrup said. “I expect they’ll have to be appraised.” He counted the rubies. “Forty-eight. I’d say approximately eighty-five carats? Do you know the figure?”

  “Eighty-seven,” Dodo said impassively.

  “And the diamonds?”

 
She shook her head.

  “You got a bargain at fifty thousand, ma’am. It’s a pity you didn’t declare them.”

  “As a matter of fact, I never intended to wear them while I was here. I shouldn’t have brought them in. I should have left them over there. It’s not much of an excuse, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”

  He tore the receipt out of his book, handed it to her, put the blue leather box in his briefcase, closed it and locked it.

  “Paying the duty would have saved you a good deal. If it’s any consolation, it’s not a criminal offense. You’ve only to pay.”

  “How much will it—”

  “The domestic value plus the penalty, if you wish to recover the jewels. It depends on the appraisal. If we take your figure of fifty thousand, that plus fifteen thousand duty you should have paid, or sixty-five thousand, is what we call the domestic value. The penalty is one hundred per cent. That makes one hundred thirty thousand, doesn’t it.”

  He picked his hat up from the floor.

  “We’ll notify you about the hearing. It’ll be at the Assistant Collector’s office here in Newport. Either you or your attorney can attend.”

  As he got to his feet, Jennifer Linton said quietly, “How much will the person who gave you this . . . information get, Mr. Northrup? You call it . . . isn’t there a name for it?”

  Northrup hesitated. “Why, it’s a matter of public knowledge, I expect. Yes, it’s called moiety. A person furnishing original information may receive twenty-five per cent of the total net amount recovered by the Treasury, up to fifty thousand dollars. If there aren’t any expenses in the present case, you can easily figure what twenty-five per cent of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars is.”

  Finlay had already figured it.

  Northrup turned to Dodo. “Thank you, Countess de Gradoff.” He included Jenny and Fish in his “Good day,” went calmly down the front steps and got in his car.

  On the porch was silence. It was broken by the sound of the black sedan starting, and leaving, by another car entering the drive between Enniskerry’s purple beeches, and by Dodo.

  “Oh my God,” she said, and put her head in both her hands. “What will I do, here comes Caxson Reeves.”