by Q. Patrick
In the taxi Robert Boyer engulfed her small hand in his large one. The pressure of his strong fingers was warm and rather exciting. She wasn’t in love with him, of course. As a hard-boiled career girl, Leslie was far too proud of her impersonal business efficiency to do anything so weak and feminine as fall for her most important author. Particularly since she had a strong suspicion that he was still devoted to Faith Felton, the actress.
Nevertheless even career girls with independent spirits like having their hands held by men as attractive as Robert Boyer.
And Robert was one of the most attractive men Leslie knew, and he was not a complete egoist like most successful writers. It was typical that alone of them all he should have gone out of his way to help Minna Lucas place her thoroughly bad first novel—just because she had at one time been his secretary.
Leslie knew that she should be sorry for Minna too— sorry for her because a terrible car accident had scarred her face and broken her only romance, sorry too that she herself only last week had been obliged to turn down Weeds, the book which Minna had dreamed of as the first step toward a brilliant career as an intellectual authoress.
And yet, in spite of everything, it was impossible to feel sympathy with Minna. Even in the old days when she had been Robert’s secretary and had shared an apartment with Leslie and Faith Felton, there had been something calculating and spiteful about her. Now, her bitterness increased by her disfigurement and her failure as a novelist, that vindictive streak had become exaggerated.
Robert was still holding her hand. He said reflectively, “Probably the party will be pretty grim, Leslie. But try to be nice to Minna. She’s had all the turn-downs and we’ve had all the breaks.”
That was only too true. On the strength of her Mark promotion, Leslie herself had been swept from an obscure subeditorship to an office of her own and a place on the company’s letterhead. Gordon Keath, the literary agent who had sold her the book, had the biggest percentage earner in history on his hands. Jim Harding had been an utterly unknown playwright until his adaptation of the Boyer novel had smashed Broadway between the eyes; and no one had heard of his young wife, Faith Felton, until her playing of Sally McCreedy in The Story of Mark had skyrocketed her overnight into the spotlight as the theatre’s ranking dramatic actress.
All of them who had been connected with Robert’s astounding first novel, had jumped onto the bandwagon of his success. Only poor Minna, whose burning ambition was stronger than that of the rest of them put together, had been left behind with nothing but a scarred face and a broken romance.
Reflectively Leslie said, “Maybe you’re right in being nice to Minna, Robert. But I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s not grateful. She grudges us all every break we ever had. She’d murder any of us cheerfully to get something she really wanted.”
Slightly startled by her own vehemence. Leslie concluded, “Unless, of course, somebody murders her first...”
* * *
Surprisingly, it was Gordon Keath who opened the door for them at Minna’s house. Perennially young and cheerful, Gordy was one of the soundest literary agents in town and Leslie’s oldest crony and sparring partner in the book racket. He closed the door behind them, shutting out some of the chilly February night.
“Minna’s gone Eskimo,” he said. “All the windows in the living room are jammed wide open and the temperature’s sub-Arctic.” He grinned at Boyer. “Probably a tribute to the great author of the frozen north.”
He crowded them into a narrow hallway. “Our hostess is out on important business. I got a sweet little note to come early and do the honors.” The agent’s attractively unobtrusive face crinkled around the eyes. “Gordon Keath, Inc. Manuscripts Sold and Free Maid-Service.”
They had emerged now into a long living room where several people were standing around chattering. Leslie shivered. Gordy was right about the cold. The room was glacial. It was noisy too. Traffic sounds blared through the open windows, and from somewhere in an adjoining room a radio was churning out dance music.
“Leslie, darling... Robert, angel!”
The exotic figure of Faith Felton disentangled itself from the knot of guests and swooped down on Boyer, smothering him in silver fox and affection.
“Heaven to see you! Jimmy!”—the actress tossed the word over her shoulder to her husband—“here’s Robert.”
Jimmy Harding, sardonically handsome young dramatist, joined his wife, and the two of them whirled Boyer away. Gordy navigated Leslie to a table.
Leslie said: “How tactful of Minna to delay her entrance. I’m rather dreading seeing her now I’ve turned Weeds down. Why do you suppose she insisted on Robert’s bringing me, anyway?”
“Don’t ask me. Don’t ask me why I’m here either. Didn’t you know Minna grabbed her priceless manuscript away from me when I couldn’t sell it? Terrible tantrum, there was. I thought I was out on my ear as Minna’s agent. But here I am.” Gordy Keath shrugged useful, man-sized shoulders. “It’s cuckoo having Faith and Jimmy here too. Minna tried to interest Jimmy in a stage adaptation of Weeds as a follow-up vehicle for Faith after The Story of Mark. They both turned her down flat too. Looks like this is a turn-down party.”
“But what’s its point?”
“Heaven knows. She was mysterious. Just said she was celebrating Weeds.”
“Celebrating!” Leslie’s blue, fascinating eyes blinked. “I bet I know. She’s found some sucker who’s willing to publish her, and she’s got us all here to flaunt it in our faces. It’s exactly the nasty sort of thing she’d do.” Leslie flushed. “Sorry to be a cat, but... ”
“Miaow away, darling. You don’t know the half of it.” Gordy nodded past Boyer, Faith Felton and Jimmy Harding to a square, rather sulky young man who stood by the couch with a dark, thin girl. “See who’s here?”
Leslie peered myopically. “It isn’t—it can’t be Dave Walker and Yvonne Prevost!”
“No other.” Gordy grinned satirically. “Sweet, charitable Minna’s giving a little party just for the boys and gals who done her dirt.”
Leslie sighed. The whole thing was crazier and crazier. Dave Walker had been engaged to Minna in the days when she had still been rooming with Leslie and Faith; Dave Walker had been driving when the car had smashed up; Dave Walker had broken the engagement after Minna had come, scarred and embittered, out of hospital; and Dave Walker was now in love with Yvonne Prevost, the young artist who designed the jacket for The Story of Mark.
Dave and Yvonne were here as Minna’s guests.
There was something distinctly wrong about this party. Faith Felton descended upon them like a perfumed blizzard, sweeping Robert and Jimmy Harding after her. “Gordon, darling, couldn’t we migrate upstairs to Minna’s studio? There’s usually a fire there and maybe the windows will shut.”
“Seems like a superior idea.”
“Fine.” Robert Boyer took Leslie’s arm. “Leslie and I’ll prospect. Where do we dump hats, et cetera, by the way?”
“Second floor. Men on the left, girls on the right.”
Leslie followed Robert through the small dining room where the radio was blaring and up the stairs. “The temperature must make you homesick for Labrador,” she said. She knew, of course, how The Story of Mark had been written; knew how the sudden northern winter had cut off Robert Boyer, then a government land surveyor, in a lonely hut with only a young French Canadian as companion. After the first month the boy had died of pneumonia and, to save himself from going mad with loneliness, Robert had written night and day on the manuscript which later had swept the country.
The circumstances were tragic and yet romantic. Leslie had often wondered whether those terrible months accounted for some of the stark poignancy of the book; had wondered too whether Boyer’s next novel, unseen but reportedly nearing completion, would show the enervating influence of the civilization in which he now lived.
“I guess Minna won’t mind our invading her sanctum,
” said Robert doubtfully. “I’ll light the fire and you can tidy up.”
At the second floor, he stopped off in the bedroom to leave his hat and coat. Leslie was too cold to shed hers, and started up alone to the third floor where Minna had converted a large attic into an elaborately arty studio.
Only her intimates were allowed there and that at strictly scheduled times, so as not to interrupt the routine of her work. For Minna, ever since she had given up private secretaryship for great literature, had adopted all the fancy trimmings of a lady authoress.
Reaching the small landing, Leslie pushed open the door of the studio. There was a single shaded light on the desk and a brisk fire burning at the far end of the long, low-ceilinged room.
It should all have been very comfortable and pleasant, but from the moment she crossed the threshold, Leslie knew that something was wrong. Although it took her short-sighted eyes some seconds to focus properly, she could not miss the confusion of the floor. It was carpeted with pages of manuscript, scattered haphazard as if by the force of some sudden tornado.
Nor was that all. In the light from the fire, Leslie could make out something else. Something—someone—was lying at the far end of the room. Someone was lying there in the very centre of that chaos of manuscript.
A woman...
Leslie Cole took a step nearer, then stood frozen, the blood in her veins turned to ice.
It was a woman, a young woman, lying there on the floor with a white, scarred face staring unseeingly up at the raftered ceiling. Across her right cheek and over the scattered heap of manuscript close to her head was a long, sprawling stain of red. In her right hand gleamed the blue steel of a revolver. Her left hand, flung grotesquely above her head, clutched a crumpled piece of paper.
Leslie tried to move, but she couldn’t. It was as if her limbs were locked in a sudden paralysis. Desperately she fought to check that awful welling-up of nausea. She had to keep calm. Whatever happened, she had to keep calm.
Dimly she was conscious of footsteps on the stairs behind her—outside the room. Robert... Robert was coming. With a supreme effort, she turned her back on that thing lying there on the floor. Robert Boyer stood on the threshold. She saw his lean, handsome face, unconcerned in the first second, and then gone suddenly grey and pinched.
At last her voice sounded, dry, edged, not her own voice at all.
“Robert, it’s Minna. I found her—there... It’s—Minna... ” Robert Boyer pushed past her, striding toward that twisted heap on the carpet. When Leslie turned again to face it, his large figure was mercifully blotting it from her view. He had dropped on one knee and was bending over Minna Lucas. For an interminable moment, when every sensation was suspended, Leslie stood there watching. Robert had taken something from his pocket—a silver cigarette case.
He was holding it in front of the prostrate woman’s lips in an attempt to detect any faint stirring of breath.
And then his voice came, saying the words that were drumming in Leslie’s mind.
“She’s dead, Leslie.”
Leslie clenched her small hands into fists. She mustn’t think. It was no good thinking—yet... Robert was stooping forward. With cautious deliberation, he was removing the crumpled piece of paper from Minna’s fingers.
Then he was back at Leslie’s side. Dazed and haggard, he was holding out a piece of paper, smoothing it.
Like a person in a dream, Leslie stood at his elbow, reading the words neatly typed on that sheet of manuscript.
“It’s no good going on. You’ve all hated me; you’ve all tried to drive me insane. You won’t weep when I’m dead. But I don’t care.
Why should I? There’s only one thing more for me to say. And I’ll say it now. I’ll say—to the devil with you... ”
Underneath, written in red ink in Minna’s large sloping handwriting, was the one word:
FINIS
Leslie stopped reading. Her eyes, staring without object, noticed dimly that Robert’s large hands were trembling.
“It’s the last page of her novel, isn’t it?” His low voice brought her thoughts back. “Poor kid! She couldn’t get her book published, so she killed herself. She threw the manuscript all over the room and used the last page as a—suicide note.”
“Suicide!” Leslie’s glance flashed from the revolver in Minna’s hand to the spreading red stain on the pile of manuscript by her head. “So that’s why she invited us to the party. We’d all turned her down and she wanted us to see... Robert, what are we going to do? The others’ll all be coming up any minute.”
“We better not let them know yet. Heaven knows how many people may have arrived by now. There’ll be a stampede if they find out. Leslie, you go and call the police. I’ll see this place is locked up.”
“But the telephone’s right there in the dining room, next to where the party is. They’ll hear me.”
“Not if you turn the radio louder. Just tell the operator.
She’ll report it. Say it’s urgent.”
As if some of his control had steadied her, Leslie hurried downstairs. Vaguely above the insistent drumming of the radio, she could hear the chatter of the others in the living room. She reached the dining room. Clumsily she jerked the radio dial, spinning the music into a raucous crescendo; then she slipped to the telephone and hurriedly called the operator.
“Get the police... quick... a woman’s killed herself...” She gave the address and rang off. She took a step forward and then stopped dead as the door from the living room opened and a man came in.
“Who’s trying to deafen us with the radio? Why, Leslie...” Gordon Keath stared blankly at her white, frozen face. “What’s gone wrong? Is it okay to move the party upstairs?” Leslie gripped his hand. “Gordy, Minna’s shot herself.”
“She’s—what?”
“Robert and I found her. We...”
She stopped as Robert Boyer came hurrying down the stairs. Gordon Keath ’s incredulous gaze shifted to the author.
“Boyer, this is crazy. It’s not true?”
“It’s true all right.” Robert looked at Leslie. “I’ve locked the door. No one can get in. Did you call the police?”
She nodded.
Gordy Keath ran a distracted hand through his thick black hair. “Suicide! Lord, so that’s why she asked us all and had me play host. That’s why she jammed the windows open, to be sure we’d get cold, move upstairs and find her.”
“Gordy, what are you saying?”
The three of them spun round as a hoarse voice sounded behind them. Faith Felton had come through the half-open door. The actress was standing staring at them, her exotic face taut and white beneath the little silver fox turban.
Robert Boyer moistened his lips. “It’s true, Faith. Minna’s shot herself. She’s in the studio.”
For one moment Faith Felton stood absolutely still. Then she made a sudden move forward and started up the stairs.
Robert called: “No one’s to go up there, Faith.”
“I’ve got to.” The actress swung round, supporting herself with a hand on the stair rail in a pose which even then was instinctive theatre. “The police will be coming. Don’t you realize? There are bound to be papers, things that shouldn’t be seen, things that we—that Minna would have wanted destroyed.”
“What things?” The question came edged with curiosity from Gordy.
Faith Felton stared at him blankly. “It’s just that I thought...” As the door from the living room opened for the third time and Jimmy Harding appeared, she swept precipitously down the stairs to her husband, clutching his arm. “Darling, the most appalling thing. Minna’s killed herself.” Her hands fluttered. “And with all of us here in the house!”
The playwright’s dark face registered neither surprise nor shock. In his cool, slightly affected voice, he drawled, “Exactly the untidy sort of thing Minna would do.” He turned to Robert. “You’ve notified the police?”
“They’ll be right here.”
“Then the
re’s nothing to do but keep our shirts on and wait.” He patted his wife’s hand. “Pull yourself together, darling. There’s no need to get Hollywood about it.”
Gordy Keath grimaced. “You certainly seem to be bearing up okay, Jimmy.”
“Why not?” The playwright’s eyebrows tilted upward. “We were none of us exactly in love with Minna. She’s probably better off dead anyway, poor girl.” He jerked a thumb toward the living room. “How about the party’s romantic element? Hadn’t we better tell Walker and Yvonne?”
“I guess so.”
In the living room the two remaining guests were sitting on the couch, looking uneasy and rather hostile. Dave Walker, the man who had been Minna’s fiancé, rose as they entered, but Yvonne Prevost remained seated, watching them from very black, guarded eyes.
While Robert told them what had happened, Dave Walker’s strong, rather brutal face, beneath the cropped blond hair, went blank. But all attention shifted to Yvonne Prevost who rose to her feet, her thin face passionately intense.
“Minna’s killed herself!” she exclaimed. “That’s funny. That’s too funny to be true.” She spun round to her fiancé, gripping his arm, laughing a shrill, uncontrolled laugh. “Don’t you realize, Dave? That’s what she meant over the phone. There’s nothing more to worry about. She’s dead. She...”
Her words were lost as the harsh laughter took full possession of her. Dave Walker, his mouth a thin line, lifted his hand and with lightning swiftness brought the palm down flat on her cheek.
“Stop it, you fool! What do you suppose they’ll—?”
He broke off. All of them had swung round to face the door as a shrill buzzer sounded from the hall.
It was Leslie who spoke. In a small choked voice, she said: "The police!"
* * *
The House had become full of policemen. Someone was calling Leslie’s name and she found herself face to face with a tall, pleasant-looking young man in a grey suit. His eyes were grey, too—a cool, level grey.
“I’m Lieutenant Trant,” he said. “In charge.”
