The Merriweather File

by Lionel White

  A moment later and the door swung inward. Whoever 109

  THE MERRIWEATHER FILE

  opened it was standing at the side and I was unable to see anyone in the semigloom caused by the drawn shades.

  “Come in.”

  It was the same soft, almost sultry, slurred voice that had answered the telephone.

  I stepped into the room and the door closed quickly behind me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The first thing that struck me was the overpowering scent. A lush, but still oddly delicate scent, which reminded me just faintly of orange blossoms. The room into which I stepped was almost completely dark but within a second, before I could make out more than the barest outline of the girl who had opened the door, there was the snap of a light switch and a shaded brocade floor lamp flooded one end of the chamber and I saw that I was in a small, rectangular living room, overdecorated with heavy furniture. There was a huge couch stretched out in front of a fireplace and, a couple of deep chairs. The walls were a sort of off white in color and the thick velvet curtains that covered the windows were deep red, matching the wall to wall carpeting. A small log fire was dying in the fireplace which, despite the lamp, threw flickering shadows on the wall. The room created an atmosphere of nighttime in broad daylight.

  Even before I looked up at the owner of the room, there was something about that odd orange scent and the heavy, voluptuous decorations which immediately brought the tabloid phrase “love nest” to my mind. The Lord knows I have never really had any idea of what a so-called love nest would look like, but this place certainly gave me a suggestion of one. And then I looked up at the girl who was standing a little to my left, with her hand still on the door latch.

  in

  She made me completely forget my surroundings.

  Ginny Grant belonged in that room. It made an absolutely perfect frame for her. Even as a glance at the room had conjured up the phrase “love nest,” one look at this soft, rounded, golden girl standing next to me in a halter, shorts, sandals and with her long blond hair loosely thrown back from her heart-shaped face and falling like a flood of corn silk over her bare shoulders, suggested “mistress.”

  She stood with her weight on one foot, her shoulders at a slight angle, almost slouching except that with a body like hers slouching would be impossible. Her head was slightly cocked on her slender, long neck and there was a twist to her perfectly formed, voluptuous lips. Her nose was small and turned up just a bit and her eyes were oblong, amber and enormous, fringed by great dark lashes too extreme to be real.

  She was looking at me almost insolently, and I dropped my own eyes to her bare shoulders. She was wearing a halter, as I have said, but she could have been arrested for indecent exposure if she had walked out into the street the way she was. I would have sworn that her beautiful full breasts were false except for the fact that there was so much of them exposed that they couldn’t be. Between the halter and the shorts her midriff was bare and the skin was of the same soft delicate golden texture as the skin of her face. She looked as though she would bruise if you touched her.

  “Like it?” she asked.

  I know that I blushed. I fumbled in my pocket, reaching for the note Charles had given me.

  “I’m Herbert Yates,” I said, my own voice sounding suddenly high-pitched like that of a school-boy. “I called you. Charles, Mr. Merriweather that is, he—”

  She reached out a slender, well formed bare arm on which a faint trace of down glowed in the reflected light of the fire, taking the note from my hand.

  “Sit down,” she said languidly, half waving toward the couch. I walked over and sat down. She followed me to the couch and stretched out, her long legs straight in front of her as she rested on what must have been the last three vertebrae of her spine and the back of her neck. Holding the envelope close to her face, she read carefully what Charles had written. I had looked at it myself, after I’d left Charles, and I knew what she was reading. He had written:

  “This will introduce Herbert Yates. He is my attorney. I want you to tell him where I was on Sunday night and I want you to answer any questions he asks you. Tell him the truth about everything he wants to know. You can trust him.”

  He had signed it “Charlie.”

  She allowed the note to fall from her hand and when it rested on the floor she kicked it with the toe of one sandled foot.

  “I’ve been reading the newspapers,” she said, her voice throaty and the words coming out with a peculiar, subtle hint of sarcasm. “Seems like our boy has gotten himself into something of a mess.”

  ”5

  “Our boy? You mean Mr. Merriweather?”

  “Say,” she said. “You’re his lawyer, or at least that’s what this note says. Don’t you know him?”

  “I know him very well,” I said. I tried to keep the antagonism I felt for her out of my voice. I wanted to make her a friend. I knew how valuable she was going to be. “Yes, I know him very well. We are neighbors, in fact.”

  “Then I guess you know that wife of his, too? ”

  I nodded shortly.

  “I know both of the Merriweathers. They are personal friends as well as clients. And, as you say, it would seem that Mr. Merriweather has gotten himself into a jam.”

  “Oh, call him Charlie,” she said. “By the way—have they found out who the dead man is yet? ”

  “He has been identified as a man named Jake Harbor. He had several aliases. He was a smalltime hoodlum. An ex-convict.”

  She nodded, her face expressionless.

  “Hum,” she said. “Now I wonder what Charlie was doing running around with his body in his car trunk.”

  “Mr. Merriweather wonders too,” I said and smiled thinly. “The police wonder and so do I. But the point at issue right now isn’t the fact that the body was in the trunk, or how к got there, but who killed the man. Somebody did. Shot him through the stomach sometime between three and six o’clock on Monday morning. And unless Mr. Merriweather has an airtight alibi for that period, I am afraid he is in serious trouble. Very serious trouble.”

  She nodded slowly, looking oddly sage.

  “I can see that,” she said. She looked up at me and shrugged and then smiled brightly. “Well, Mr. Yates—it is Yates, isn’t it—well, you can stop worrying. Charlie has the best alibi in the world. He was with me. From a little past twelve until shortly after six. We were in a bar part of the time and then we came here. I know what time he left because he had me set the alarm clock. You know he had to get away early on Monday for his New England trip and he wanted to stop home first.”

  She watched my face, her own expression bland, as she spoke.

  “So,” she said, “if that’s all the police have to know in order to clear him, that’s that. I guess it’s too bad that Mrs. Merriweather will have to know also, but it probably can’t be helped. In any case it doesn’t matter. Charlie has been wanting to tell her off for a long time, but he just hasn’t had the courage to do it. I guess this will sort of force his hand.”

  This time I was unable to conceal my surprise.

  “Why, I’d always thought that the Merriweathers got along well together,” I said. “I’m sure that Mrs. Merriweather—”

  “You know what they say,” she said. “The wife is always the last one to know.”

  I forced a smile.

  “The wife and the family lawyer,” I said. “I didn’t have any idea—”

  “Oh, Charlie is a real gentleman,” she said casually. “He isn’t the sort to go around talking about his troubles.”

  THE MERRIWEATHER FILE

  “His troubles?”

  Again she smiled, sardonically.

  “If you know him at all,” she said, “you must have known how he felt about losing that boy of his a few years ago. Charlie just loves children. I guess that was why his first marriage wasn’t too happy. She—the first wife—wasn’t able to have children, you know. I think the only reason he married his present wife was so tha
t he could have kids. Well, they had one and what happens? His wife leaves the youngster alone unguarded and the child is killed. Charlie will never forgive her for that.”

  “Do you mean to tell me—” I began, but she stood up and shook her shoulders and reached for the fire poker to shift a log.

  “Don’t be nosey,” she said. “You didn’t come here to pry into Charlie’s private life, did you?”

  “No. I came here to try and establish an alibi for him for the time during which a man was killed.”

  “Good. Then you have what you came for. I’m his alibi and I don’t mind telling the world about it. Charlie and I—well, one of these days—”

  “Please sit down,” I said. “That is exactly what I want to talk to you about. I must admit that some of this comes as a bit of a surprise. But facts are facts and my job is to clear him of any implication in the murder of a man named Jake Harbor. You will have to tell the police about Merriweather spending the night with you. There is a good chance that you may have to go into court and testify. I assume that you are prepared to do just that?”

  “I certainly am. He not only spent the night with me 116

  but on that night he wasn’t even driving the car in which the body was found. He was using his wife’s car and his sedan, the one in which the police found the corpse, was parked in his garage. I’ll testify to that while I’m at it. I think if the police want to get anywhere with this case, they would do better talking to Mrs. Merriweather than they would to Charles. After all, she was supposed to have been at home and that’s where the car was when the body was put in it.”

  “You aren’t suggesting,” I said, a little tartly, “that Ann Merriweather had anything to do with—”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I am only saying—”

  “Do you know Mrs. Merriweather by any chance?” I asked.

  She looked up at me rather slyly.

  “Why no,” she said. “No, I don’t. But you sound as though you do.”

  I swallowed my anger.

  “You are quite right,” I said. “I do. And believe me, knowing her as I do, I may assure you that it would be utterly impossible for her to have had anything to do with this unfortunate business. I can assure you, my dear girl-”

  “Oh, am I your dear girl?”

  I could see that she was laughing at me and it disconcerted me. The sharp and complete contrast between this young, flightly woman and Ann Merriweather suddenly occurred to me and I must admit that I was baffled to understand how Charles Merriweather could possibly have preferred her to his wife. Oh, I’ll admit that Ginny Grant

  had a peculiarly heady sort of sexual appeal. And that there was even something charming about her offhand, casual manner. But certainly Ginny Grant was not in the same league with Ann Merriweather.

  “You don’t think,” I said, changing the subject, “that there is any possibility that Charles could have known the dead man? He never mentioned—”

  She shook her head, again blinking her eyes as she looked at me. I will say one thing about Ginny Grant—when she turned those eyes fully on you, it was rather breath-taking.

  “He’s your client, why don’t you ask him?” she said.

  “I have asked him,” I replied quickly.

  “Well, then that’s that. So what do you want me to do? Shall I see the police and—”

  I shook my head.

  “No. I’ll talk to the detective in charge of the case. A man named Giddeon. And he will probably come out and talk with you. By the way, I don’t suppose that after you returned here on Monday morning, there were any witnesses—”

  This time she really laughed.

  “Good God,” she said, “what do you think we do—run a peep show? No, we don’t have any witnesses. Except I can prove that we met at the bar. That we stayed there until almost three. Then we drove over here. Charlie left the car in the drive and I should imagine that without too much trouble you could find somebody who saw it parked there. The milkman comes by around four-thirty and the newspaper is delivered around five-thirty. The car would have been there then. And of course, there is always a 118

  chance that one of the neighbors may have seen us enter or Charlie leaving. That’s something the police will probably check into, I should guess.”

  “They will,” I said.

  Again she stood up and poked the fire.

  “Good Lord,” she said suddenly. “The coffee!” She turned and started to run from the room, calling over her shoulder. “I forgot and left it on when you came.”

  I heard her doing something in the kitchen and a moment later she called in to me.

  “It’s blacker than my heart,” she said, “but I’ll add some water. How about it—will you have a cup with me?”

  “I’d like some very much,” I said. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Just amuse yourself for about five minutes,” she said. “I’m going to make an egg and a slice of toast. I haven’t had my breakfast yet. Can I make you some, too?”

  “No thanks,” I said. “Just the coffee.”

  “Well, give me a few minutes. I want to run up and change and then I’ll be back.”

  I heard dishes rattling around and then a moment later I heard her feet on the steps as she went upstairs. There was the sound of a door slamming.

  I stood up, looking around the room. I walked over to a table on which were several framed photos. I don’t know what I was looking for and certainly I had no intention of being nosey, but I examined the pictures. They were of Ginny Grant and she looked as though she had been posed by a professional photographer. It suddenly occurred to me that she must be a model. I was about to turn away

  when I noticed the tooled red leather album lying on the table. I began to thumb it open.

  The first picture was of Ginny and she was completely nude, standing against a background of drapes and holding a Grecian urn on one shoulder. I began to blush but was unable to take my eyes from the picture.

  I leafed through several pages and the photos were all of her, in the standard poses of a professional model. And then I came to a series of snapshots. Almost the very first one was a color print of Ginny and Charles Merriweather, which seemed to have been taken right outside her house during the summer. There were a number of others, some taken at what was apparently a ski lodge. It was obvious from the pictures that she and Merriweather had known each other for some time and had been seeing a great deal of each other. I was shocked at the man’s perfidy. I wondered how long the affair had been going on.

  I heard her coming downstairs and I was about to close the book, when suddenly I stopped. My eyes were caught by a snapshot. Ginny Grant was in the picture all right, but it wasn’t at her that I was staring. It was the man with her. A middle-sized, rather slight man, wearing a badly cut sports coat and an open-necked sweater shirt and a pair of white shoes. Ginny was sitting in a chair with her legs crossed and he was standing in back of her, leaning over one of her shoulders with his arms folded in front of her and his thin face nestling against her own as he looked up into the camera. There was an expression of almost forthright lewdness on his face, as his eyes stared directly into the camera. His hands were cupped around her breasts

  and the total effect of the pose was one of complete intimacy. Ginny Grant herself had an indifferent, mildly amused and slightly bored expression on her face.

  I suddenly realized where I had seen a picture of this man before. I had seen it only an hour or so ago in the private office of Detective Lieutenant Giddeon. On an official police “wanted” circular. A man named Jake Harbor. It was the picture of the man I had seen laid out on a trestle table in the police station in Connecticut.

  The footsteps were approaching now and I shut the album quickly and moved away from the table. I was looking at a print on the wall when she returned to the room carrying a silver tray on which were coffee cups, a pot and accessories. She had changed into a short pleated skirt, a man’s white silk shirt open
at the throat and had tied her long blond hair back with a scarf. She placed the tray on the tea table in front of the couch and asked if I took cream and sugar.

  I told her that I did.

  “This man who was killed,” I said. “He had several aliases. The police are bound to investigate him thoroughly, check into his past.”

  “Yes?” She looked up at me, a little curiously but without suspicion.

  “Yes,” I said. “If Charles, or you, did happen to know him, it would be a lot better if we told the police so rather than have them find out about it themselves. Much better.” I then repeated the other names he had used.

  She didn’t change her expression.

  “They mean nothing to me,” she said. “And, as I told

  you, you’ll have to ask Charles. After all, he knows a lot of people I don’t know. But certainly I think he would admit it if he knew the man. He did see the body, didn’t he? ”

  “He saw the body,” I said.

  This time she did look at me with a faint trace of suspicion.

  “You seem to think that I am concealing something,” she said. There was something so completely innocent in her tone that I found it hard to believe I had only moments before seen that photograph in the album. I was almost tempted to cross the room and show it to her, but I quickly changed my mind. It occurred to me that she might have known him under a completely different name. And I knew that the newspapers so far had not published his picture.

  I looked around the room and I didn’t see a telephone and so I decided to play a hunch.

  “I would like you to do something,” I said. “I want you to call Lieutenant Giddeon at Nassau Police Headquarters in Mineola. Tell him that you have read the morning newspapers and that you have some information for him. I want you to tell him that you can supply an alibi for Merriweather for the hours between midnight and six on Monday.”