Gilded Nightmare

by Hugh Pentecost

  “But not for Stephen Wood,” Chambrun said.

  “No, not for Stephen,” Sam said. “He was like the Ancient Mariner, telling his story to anyone who would listen. I was one of the people he buttonholed at a party somewhere. Being what I am, I was interested. It was a colossal story if it was true. But I’ve never been able to find one shred of evidence that proves the whole thing wasn’t some last-ditch delirium of Bruno’s. But today I thought I might find out.”

  “The confrontation in the lobby,” Chambrun said.

  Sam nodded. “Suppose it was true—Bruno’s story. Charmian arrives at the hotel and is suddenly confronted by Bruno in the flesh—actually his twin, but to her he must almost certainly be a stunning shock. I think Stephen counted on that. She would betray herself when she found herself suddenly face to face with someone who must seem to be Bruno.”

  “But nothing happened. God, she was an iceberg.”

  Sam nodded, frowning. “I know. Could she have been so controlled when she was unexpectedly faced by a man she had loved, tortured, and destroyed for years? Could she be that good an actress—not a flicker of an eyelid? I think she convinced Stephen. She couldn’t have faced him so blankly, without emotion, if there was even a small portion of truth to Bruno’s story. That’s what he meant, I think, when he said she wasn’t the woman he thought she was. The woman Bruno had described to him couldn’t have survived that confrontation without some small, revealing reaction.”

  “Stephen may no longer look like Bruno,” Chambrun said.

  “Very much like him,” Sam said. “Only the normal changes that take place in ten years.” He shook his head slowly. “That’s the most extraordinary part of the whole thing. Charmian hasn’t changed, physically, in twenty years. Not by so much as a misplaced hair. She is exactly as I last saw her, only a few months before she married Conrad Zetterstrom. It’s impossible and yet it’s so.”

  “The modern beautician can work miracles,” Chambrun said. “She evidently carried one with her—the Amazon.” His bright eyes narrowed. “She didn’t seem to know you, and I gather from Mark that you’re an old friend. She didn’t react to you either.”

  Sam’s smile was enigmatic. “That’s something else again,” he said. “I don’t think the lady likes me. I was being deliberately snubbed.”

  Chambrun pulled himself up out of his chair. “As a hotel manager I’m concerned about one thing. How crazy is Stephen Wood? Am I to expect more melodrama from him?”

  “Hard to say,” Sam said. “If he’s convinced, no. If, after he thinks about it, he isn’t convinced, yes.”

  Sam’s front doorbell rang. It was me, fresh from my visit with the electric Charmian.

  “Ruysdale told me you were both here,” I said, when Sam let me in. Miss Ruysdale is Chambrun’s incomparable private secretary. “I have a message for you, Sam. From Charmian.”

  “She was always quick on the first name stuff,” he said, his smile wry.

  “She didn’t see you in the lobby. She was disturbed by what had happened. She conveys a thousand apologies and wants you to come and see her.”

  “Well, well,” Sam said.

  “She’s giving a dinner party for you,” I said, enjoying myself. Sam just stared at me. I gave them both a quick outline of my interview with the lady.

  “It sounds like her,” Sam said. “Whatever she wants she assumes she can have—including people.” He glanced at Chambrun.

  “Never put off till tomorrow etcetera, etcetera,” Chambrun said.

  Sam nodded. He picked up the phone on his desk. “Please connect me with the Baroness Zetterstrom’s suite,” he said.

  None of us knew that at that precise moment the hall-man on the nineteenth floor was staring with disbelief at the mangled remains of a small French poodle which had been stuffed into a trash can near the service elevator.

  3

  YOUNG MR. PETER WYNN, referred to in these early pages as “the gigolo,” created something of a sensation when he appeared in the Trapeze Bar shortly before six o’clock that evening. His long red hair, carefully set, his red trousers and red suede shoes, his pale-blue Edwardian frock coat with a ruffled white shirt showing at neck and cuffs provided the extreme in Carnaby Street styling. He must have been aware that everyone in the place was suddenly staring at him, including Shelda and me from our corner table, but he was completely imperturbable as he perched on a bar stool and asked for a champagne cocktail. He mentioned a vintage year that provided him with a glimmer of respect from Eddie, the bartender.

  The Trapeze Bar is suspended in space, like a bird-cage, over the foyer to the Beaumont’s grand ballroom. The Trapeze, its walls an elaborate Florentine grillwork, is popular mainly because it’s different. An artist of the Calder school has decorated it with mobiles of circus performers working on trapezes. They sway slightly in the gentle draft from a concealed air-cooling system. It is a predinner meeting place for the very rich, the very elegant, and the very notorious. It is presided over by one Mr. DelGreco, who, like all the maître d’s and captains at the Beaumont, is suave, a master of the art of supplying real service, and a shrewd student of human nature. He is also kept informed, like all the others, as to exactly who’s who on the Beaumont’s list of guests.

  Mr. DelGreco was suddenly at young Mr. Wynn’s elbow, holding a lighter for a cigarette which the young man had produced from a silver cigarette case.

  “May I find a table for you, Mr. Wynn?” DelGreco asked, “or are you waiting for someone?”

  The use of his name obviously surprised Wynn. I found myself repressing a giggle as I watched. Wynn was a little like Batman appearing at some formal party in Gotham City.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m looking for a dog,” Wynn said, “and I got thirsty. You haven’t seen a small black poodle running around anywhere, have you?”

  “Dogs are not allowed in the Trapeze Bar,” DelGreco said.

  “Oh, this dog doesn’t pay any attention to signs,” Wynn said. “The world is his oyster. His name is Puzzi. If you call him by name he may answer. If you see him, tell him the Baroness is very worried about him.”

  DelGreco’s face was a mask. “I’ll tell him,” he said. “Meanwhile, if the Baroness has lost her dog have you reported it to Mr. Dodd, our security officer?”

  “The little man who pushes people around? I think I’d rather not,” Wynn said. “What about Mr. Haskell, the public relations bird? Isn’t that he over in the corner?”

  “Would you like to talk to him?” DelGreco asked.

  “I think I would,” Wynn said, reaching for the champagne cocktail Eddie brought him. He sipped, and then blotted at his red lips with a lace-edged handkerchief which he produced from the sleeve of his blue frock coat.

  DelGreco came over to where Shelda and I were sitting.

  “The Baroness has lost her dog,” DelGreco said. “The young man wants to talk to you about it.”

  “Ask him to join us,” I said, “and tell Eddie to repeat whatever it is he’s drinking.”

  “Champagne cocktail,” DelGreco said.

  I grinned at him. “It goes on my expense account,” I said.

  Shelda’s hand closed over mine under the edge of the table. It was cold. “Do you suppose he—he’s another prisoner?” she asked.

  Chambrun had repeated the story of Bruno Wald to me and I, in turn, had passed it on to Shelda.

  “If he is, the chains are invisible,” I said.

  DelGreco delivered my message and young Mr. Wynn waved to us across the room. He indicated his drink to DelGreco and the captain picked it up and followed Wynn toward our table. Every eye in the Trapeze Bar followed his progress. Just as he reached the table a waiter produced a third chair. I introduced Shelda, and Wynn gave her a polite, formal bow. Close up he looked just a little older than I’d supposed he was. No longer in his twenties, there were the beginnings of what would be lines of character in his face. It was hard to tell yet whether they could be weak or strong. His eyes wer
e a cold, pale blue and unexpectedly shrewd, but he played the part of a foppish clown.

  “It’s Puzzi,” he said, giving us a half-comic little shrug.

  “The poodle?”

  “He seems to have slipped out of Charmian’s suite and disappeared into thin air.”

  “He shouldn’t be hard to find in the hotel,” I said. I signaled to a waiter and asked him to bring a telephone to our table.

  “Puzzi is a newish member of the family,” Wynn said. “Charmian is mad for him. If anything has happened to him she’ll probably sue your friend Chambrun for the gold fillings in his teeth.”

  I picked up the phone the waiter brought and had myself connected with Jerry Dodd in his office. I gave him instructions to organize a dog-hunt.

  Shelda was watching Wynn with the kind of fascination that a snake charmer produces in a snake. I had to concede that he certainly gave off male vibrations in spite of his fancy dress.

  “We’re all a little stir-crazy,” Wynn said, as he extracted a cigarette from his silver case after offering one to Shelda. “Charmian hasn’t been off the Island for twenty years. Most of the rest of us have been there for varying lengths of time. Helwig and Masters have been there longer than Charmian. Getting out in the world is a little dizzy-making.”

  “You’ve been there a long time?” I asked.

  Wynn’s smile was tight and thin. “I went there for a weekend eighteen months ago,” he said. “I was offered a job and I stayed. I’m new compared to the rest.”

  I felt Shelda’s knee press against mine. It was a little like Bruno Wald’s story, only obviously Peter Wynn had not found the job distasteful.

  “I’m a weak character,” he said, as though he’d read my mind. “I prefer luxury to accomplishment.”

  A waiter picked up his empty glass and produced the fresh drink I’d ordered.

  “What is the Island like?” Shelda asked him. “One hears so much about it, and yet I’ve never heard anything that really describes it.”

  Wynn’s eyelids lowered and he seemed to be looking past us at some distant place. “The climate is unbelievable,” he said. “Always warm, the air heavy with the scent of exotic flowers. You lie in the sun, you dream of something you want; you turn your head and there it is.”

  “Like for instance?” Shelda asked.

  The pale-blue eyes turned her way, and a thin smile moved his lips. “Like a beautiful woman,” he said. And then, quickly: “Like a bunch of purple grapes; like a new suit of clothes; like a peacock on the lawn; like a dry, dry wine, properly iced; like a cheese made from the milk of celestial goats; like—like anything you can dream of.”

  “Like freedom?” Shelda asked, quietly.

  Wynn laughed, and it was tinged with bitterness. “You are a shrewd cookie, Miss Mason,” he said. He reached for his champagne cocktail.

  DelGreco appeared at my elbow. “You are wanted on the second floor,” he said, in a discreetly low voice. That meant Chambrun.

  I made my apologies to the peacock fancier. Shelda started to rise to go with me.

  “Please, Miss Mason, won’t you stay and have one drink with me?” Wynn asked. “You are my first real contact in a very long time with the outside world. I find it heady stuff.”

  The jerk, I thought. You didn’t have to be a prisoner on a distant island to find Shelda heady stuff. She gave me a small, questing smile. Obviously she was dying to get more information about the Zetterstroms.

  “Stay, of course,” I said. “Don’t worry about Puzzi, Mr. Wynn. They’ll collect him for you in no time.”

  I went down to the lobby and up to Chambrun’s office. Miss Ruysdale was at her desk in the outer office. She looked as though she’d been recently ill.

  If there is an indispensable member of Chambrun’s staff it is Miss Betsy Ruysdale. She’s not easy to describe. Chambrun has many requirements in a personal secretary: She must be efficient beyond any normal demand. She must be prepared eternally to anticipate his needs without waiting for orders. She must be prepared to forget anything resembling regular working hours. She must be chic but not disturbing; Chambrun doesn’t want his staff members mooning over some glamorous doll in his outer office, but neither does he want to be offended by someone unattractive. By some miracle, Miss Ruysdale meets all these requirements. Her clothes are quiet, but smart and expensive. Her manner toward the staff is friendly, touched by a nice humor, but there is an invisible line drawn over which no one steps. She is clearly all woman, yet there is no obvious man in her life unless the rumor about Chambrun himself is true. Her devotion to him is obviously total, but questionably romantic. He neuters her by calling her Ruysdale—never Miss Ruysdale or Betsy.

  “I trust you have a strong stomach this evening,” Miss Ruysdale said to me.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  She waved toward Chambrun’s elegant private office and I went in, wondering.

  Chambrun was seated at his desk, wearing his stone face. Jerry Dodd was there and a man in a neat suit of blue coveralls whom I recognized as one of the maintenance crew. His name, it turned out, was Powalsky. On a chair near the door was a bundle wrapped in a white sheet which appeared to be bloodstained.

  Chambrun’s cold eyes flicked my way. He gestured toward the sheet. “Take a look,” he said.

  I went over to the chair and, gingerly, opened up the sheet to see what was in it. I nearly tossed my cookies on the spot. Someone had slaughtered a small black poodle. The head was crushed like an eggshell. The body looked as though it had been ripped and torn by what must have been a large but dull knife with a jagged edge. I quickly covered the remains of the dog and turned, knowing that I must be a shade of pale green.

  “You found this an hour ago,” Chambrun said, ice in his voice, “but you didn’t report it until word went out to look for the dog?”

  “Gee, Mr. Chambrun, I would have reported it at the end of my shift,” Powalsky said. “But I mean, it was just a dog.”

  “Would you wait till the end of your shift to report a murder?” Chambrun asked.

  “No, Mr. Chambrun, but—it was just a dog.”

  “It was a murder,” Chambrun said, grimly.

  Jerry Dodd was fumbling with a cigarette. “No sign of the knife anywhere,” he said. “At least, not on the nineteenth floor or anywhere near the trash can where Powalsky found it.”

  Chambrun looked at Jerry. “No one has reported seeing or hearing anything?”

  “We’re checking,” Jerry said.

  “Maybe the whole staff thinks it was ‘just a dog,’ ” Chambrun said, his eyes bleak. “The violence involved is incredible.”

  “The blow on the head must have come first,” Jerry said, “or you’d have heard the poor little bastard screaming from here to Staten Island.”

  “Or Zetterstrom Island,” Chambrun said. He stood up. “The Baroness will have to be told. I don’t relish it. Would you like to come with me, Mark?”

  “No, but I will,” I said

  The pretty little blond maid, Heidi, answered Chambrun’s ring at the door of 19-B.

  “I’m afraid the Baroness is occupied,” she said to Chambrun.

  “It’s rather important,” he said.

  “I will see. Please wait.”

  We waited in the small foyer and could hear the sound of voices in the sitting room. Then the foyer door was reopened by Sam Culver, his face noncommittal.

  “Come in, gents,” he said.

  Charmian was still wearing the pale-yellow shift she’d had on earlier and she was still sitting on the gold-brocade love seat.

  “Mr. Chambrun,” she said. “And Mark!” She made it sound as though I was real pleasure. “I’ve just been renewing an old friendship with Sam. We knew each other a long time ago.” She must have sensed the nonsocial coldness in Chambrun’s attitude. “What is it, Mr. Chambrun?”

  “Your dog, Baroness.”

  “Puzzi! You’ve found him?”

  “We’ve found him, brutally kille
d.”

  Red-enameled fingers flew to her mouth. The electric-blue eyes were suddenly wide as saucers.

  “There is no way to tell it pleasantly,” Chambrun said. “Someone crushed in his head and then ripped him to pieces with some kind of knife. He was stuffed into a trash can in the service area only a few yards from your door.”

  She was on her feet, straight as a string. “Masters! Marcus!” she said, quietly.

  Instantly the door at the far end of the room opened, and Masters, the bodyguard, and Helwig, the steward, appeared together. It was interesting to discover that everything that was said in this room was evidently being monitored by these trusties. Both of them still wore black glasses.

  “You heard?” Charmian asked.

  “Yes, madame,” Helwig said.

  “Find out who did it and—and—” She couldn’t finish. She was trembling from head to foot. “Poor little Puzzi.”

  “I’ll take care of whoever it was,” Masters said. He was smiling, and his thin lips were moist.

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Chambrun said. “My staff and I will find the answers. Whoever is responsible will be dealt with properly.”

  “That’s not good enough, Mr. Chambrun,” Charmian said. “An eye for an eye! Whoever did it will be made to suffer just as Puzzi suffered.”