Gilded Nightmare

by Hugh Pentecost

  “No. It was very vague. A kind of premonition.”

  “What about the party Charmian is planning to give?” Chambrun leaned forward in his chair.

  “The dinner for Mr. Culver?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about it? Mr. Culver is an old friend.” A tiny-smile twisted Wynn’s mouth. “I’ve heard the story. How he drove her out of Hollywood. Ironically, she fell into a pot of gold. Culver actually did her a favor. It’s typical of Charmian’s sense of humor that she’d give him a party to thank him for it, though he meant to do her harm.”

  Chambrun reached out and took from its envelope the note that had been left at the desk for Sam Culver. He showed it to Wynn. “If you value your life don’t go to the Baroness Zetterstroms’s dinner party.” Wynn stared at it, his eyes widened.

  “Do you recognize that handwriting?” Chambrun asked.

  “No.”

  “Is it Heidi’s?”

  “Good God, no.”

  “The Baroness’?”

  “No. Of course it could be disguised, faked.”

  “It has occurred to us,” Chambrun said, “that Heidi may have learned of some plan to kill Sam Culver; that she left this note at the desk to warn him; and that she was killed for meddling in the matter.”

  “Did she leave the note at the desk?”

  “We don’t know. Did she suggest to you that there was something about the planned party that worried her?”

  “No. I can’t remember that we ever talked about the party. Do you believe there is a plan to murder Mr. Culver?”

  “It’s easy to believe almost anything about your crowd, Mr. Wynn.”

  “About that fancy-dress suit of yours,” Hardy said.

  “I told you. I left my clothes on a chair in my room. I assume Clara took them to be cleaned and pressed.”

  “She says not.”

  “Then I don’t know what happened to them. The hotel valet?”

  “We’re checking,” Hardy said. “We think they may be stained with the girl’s blood.”

  Wynn’s mouth dropped open. “You think I—?”

  “Like Chambrun said, it’s easy to believe almost anything around here.”

  Wynn shook his head. It wasn’t the action of a guilty man. He was brushing away the suggestion as an absurdity. “What about the man in the lobby—Stephen Wood?” he asked.

  “We’re trying to pick him up,” Hardy said.

  “He struck me as a dangerous psychotic,” Wynn said. “He obviously believes the wild story his brother told him. He’s crazy for revenge.”

  “But not against Heidi Brunner,” Hardy said.

  “Any of us on the Island,” Wynn said. “If Heidi caught him snooping around—”

  “I’d like to discuss one more thing with you, Mr. Wynn,” Chambrun said. Stephen Wood didn’t seem to interest him. “You’ve been involved with the Zetterstrom picture for eighteen months. How do you account for Charmian Zetterstrom?”

  “Account for her?”

  “Her youth. The failure of time to do anything to her physical appearance.”

  “It’s a miracle,” Wynn said. He shook his head. “Oh, she works at it. Careful diet, exercise, massage. God knows what else. And there’s Dr. Malinkov. He’s got some kind of magic, I guess. He was a plastic surgeon, you know. Heidi has mentioned a thousand tiny face-liftings. They don’t wait for the signs of aging to appear. They keep pace with Nature, you might say.”

  “If there are repeated operations there must be days at a time when you don’t see her.”

  “Right.”

  “Clara Brunner and Malinkov take care of her during those periods?”

  “Yes. I mean, who else?”

  “Heidi?”

  “Oh, I think so. I mean we never discussed it much. It was a part of the routine on the Island that you just took for granted. Every three or four months Charmian would disappear into her wing of the house for several days. We knew Malinkov was doing his job.”

  “Being as close to her as you are you must notice the tiny changes, the tightening of her skin here and there.”

  Wynn laughed. “She’s an artist with makeup. You can bet your life she wouldn’t put in an appearance after one of her sessions with Malinkov until she could hide every trace of what he’d done for her.”

  “There is a rumor,” Chambrun said, “that the Island was a safe harbor for German war criminals. What about that, Wynn?”

  Wynn shook his head, slowly. “Many people visited the island in my time,” he said. “I was never aware that any of them were wanted.”

  Hardy made a growling noise. “We aren’t getting anywhere with this,” he said. “You’re free to go back to your room, Mr. Wynn, but not to leave the hotel without my permission.”

  Wynn and Hardy left.

  Chambrun sat at his desk, his heavy lids lowered. He had retrieved from his ashtray the little ball of paper which Charmian had crumpled; he began tossing it up and down again. I wasn’t sure he knew I was still there, but he hadn’t dismissed me so I waited. The first gray light of dawn was beginning to seep through the office windows.

  It wasn’t a normal time to have a drink, but I felt I needed one. I went over to the sideboard and poured myself a slug of Scotch in a four-ounce shot glass.

  As I turned back toward the chair I’d been occupying, I saw that Chambrun had unrolled the little ball of paper and spread it out flat on his desk, evidently interested in Charmian’s unsuccessful attempt to imitate the handwriting on the Culver note. He looked up at me slowly.

  “Have a look,” he said.

  I walked over behind his chair and looked down over his shoulder. There were four words written on the wrinkled paper. They were in no way an imitation of the handwriting on the other note. The handwriting on the Culver note was small and precise. These four words were written boldly, hurriedly:

  Please, please help me.

  Part Three

  1

  CHAMBRUN SAT, MOTIONLESS, STARING at the scrawled plea for help on the desk in front of him.

  It didn’t make sense to me. “She was playing games as usual,” I said.

  “I wonder,” Chambrun said. He picked up the phone on his desk and got Mrs. Kiley, the night chief operator on the hotel switchboard. “Good morning, Mrs. Kiley. Will you locate Lieutenant Hardy for me and ask him to join me on the nineteenth floor, please.” He took an envelope from his desk drawer, put the crumpled note in it, and slipped it into the inside pocket of his Oxford-gray jacket. “Let’s find out,” he said.

  He stood up, checked the contents of his silver cigarette case, refilled it from the lacquer box, and took off.

  On the nineteenth floor we waited for Hardy. At the far end of the corridor one of the lieutenant’s men stood watch, and grinned at us.

  “If I ask to see her I’ll be told she’s asleep,” Chambrun said. “I need Hardy’s authority.” He lit a cigarette, took a couple of drags on it, then put it out in one of the sand-filled brass containers by the elevator. I knew the signs of impatience.

  Hardy finally appeared, looking harassed. “I think we’ve got this thing in the bag,” he said. “We just picked up Stephen Wood. He was heading for the elevators to this floor. There are bloodstains on his coat sleeve. He doesn’t know how they got there. The lab will check. If it’s Heidi Brunner’s blood, we’re in. What’s with you?”

  Chambrun showed him the “Please, please—” note.

  “So we ask her,” Hardy said.

  “Not quite so fast,” Chambrun said. “If she wanted help we could give her, why didn’t she ask us outright instead of this mumbo jumbo?”

  “Don’t ask me why she does anything,” Hardy said.

  “Unless it’s a prank,” Chambrun said, “she was afraid to ask with her own people within earshot.”

  “She’s afraid of her own people? Helwig, Masters, the woman?”

  “Unless it’s a prank,” Chambrun repeated.

  “I don’t get it,” Hard
y said.

  “I don’t get it either,” Chambrun said. “But if we walk in and ask her in front of Herr Helwig and Masters, we’re not helping. That’s why I wanted you here. I suggest you tell her you need to ask her some further questions; then take her down to my office—without the others.”

  “Let’s go,” Hardy said.

  It seemed to take forever for someone to answer our ring at 19-B. When the door opened a few inches, the inside chain-lock still in place, it was Helwig who looked out at us.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “I want to talk to the Baroness,” Hardy said.

  “My dear Lieutenant, the lady is asleep.”

  “Wake her up.”

  “This is nothing short of outrageous,” Helwig said. “She’s exhausted, emotionally and physically. Can’t you wait until she’s had a few hours’ rest?”

  “Sorry,” Hardy said. “I’m dealing with a homicide, Mr. Helwig.”

  Helwig’s eyes were flinty-gray. It took him a long time to make up his mind. “It would seem I have no choice,” he said. He pulled the door to, released the chain, then opened it wide for us. He was fully dressed.

  We followed him into the living room. Masters was there, sitting on the little gold love seat. He, too, was dressed. The men obviously hadn’t been interested in bed. Lights burned on the wall brackets, but daylight was now streaming through the windows that overlooked the East River. Masters’ eyes were narrowed, cold. He wasn’t the relaxed, mildly amused man we’d questioned a few hours earlier. This, I told myself, was the professional gun on the alert.

  “Will you ask Clara to call the Baroness,” Helwig said.

  Masters hesitated, his eyes questioning Helwig. Then he shrugged and started out of the room.

  “Tell her to get dressed,” Hardy said. “I’m taking her somewhere else to question her.”

  Masters went out without acknowledging the order. Helwig stood very erect, a little tense, I thought.

  “Surely this is unnecessary,” he said to Hardy. “I can answer any questions that have to do with the Baroness, or the rest of us.” He turned his head. “I appeal to you, Mr. Chambrun. This is completely uncivilized.”

  Chambrun might not have heard him. He was staring at the door through which Masters had gone. The silence set my nerves on edge. Then Clara Brunner appeared. She was wearing the same black dress she’d had on earlier in the evening. She gave Helwig some incomprehensible hand signals.

  “Impossible,” Helwig said.

  Clara nodded, affirmatively.

  “What is it?” Hardy asked.

  “Clara tells me the Baroness is not in her room,” Helwig said.

  Masters had reappeared in the doorway. He was smiling a thin smile, as though he was suddenly enjoying himself.

  “Then she’s in some other room,” Hardy said. “Get her.”

  Helwig looked at Clara. She shook her head, this time negative. She made sign language. Helwig moistened his lips.

  “She seems to have gone out somewhere,” he said.

  “Your man in the hall,” Chambrun said.

  Hardy turned and went to the hall door; we heard him call to the cop who was stationed out there.

  “It’s been an exhausting and highly disturbing evening for the Baroness,” Helwig said. “She may have felt the need for a little fresh air—a chance to walk about and collect her thoughts.”

  “Only she didn’t,” Hardy said, coming back into the room. “No one’s left your rooms, Mr. Helwig, since you were all checked in by my man. I don’t want any more crap from you. You produce her, or I’ll go in and drag her out myself.”

  “She isn’t here,” Helwig said, in a flat voice.

  “Okay. I’ll remember you made it tough,” Hardy said. He headed for the door to the inner rooms. Masters blocked the way, casual but not relaxed. He looked past Hardy at Helwig. I saw the gray man nod. Masters stepped aside, grinning.

  Chambrun looked at Helwig. “We’re wasting time,” he said. “You don’t know where she is, do you?”

  “But I’ve only just heard—”

  “I doubt it,” Chambrun said. “You’re fully dressed. So are Masters and Madame Brunner. You were about to start a search of your own for her. Right? What about Malinkov and Wynn? Are they dressing to join your search party?”

  “I assure you, Mr. Chambrun—”

  “Don’t assure me,” Chambrun said. He turned and walked through the door at the far end of the room, past Masters. I followed him. Masters grinned at me. I could smell an overpowering aroma of whiskey. The man was half loaded.

  Charmian’s bedroom was empty. The big double bed had been turned down, but it didn’t appear to have been slept in. The bathroom, shelves loaded with creams and lotions, was empty. The second bedroom of the suite was untouched. No one was using it.

  As we went through the connecting door to the next room we encountered Malinkov. The doctor was wheezing as he tried to pull on a pair of pants over long winter underwear.

  “Are we to have no privacy at all?” he asked.

  We caught up with Hardy in the next single room, which was obviously Clara’s. The lieutenant had just finished looking in the large stand-up closet.

  “Just in case she’s hiding out on us,” he muttered.

  The next room was Peter Wynn’s. The young man was pulling on his jacket as we walked in.

  “They say Charmian’s missing,” he said. “Gone out somewhere.”

  “Mind if I look in your closet and bathroom?” Hardy asked, not waiting for an answer.

  “Where would she go—and why?” Wynn asked.

  Nobody bothered to answer him.

  The final suite of rooms was Helwig’s. No sign of Charmian there. Hardy and Chambrun faced each other.

  “She’s not anywhere in these rooms, that’s for sure,” the lieutenant said. “She didn’t go out in the hall. What do you make of it? Fire-escape?”

  “Nothing outside the building,” Chambrun said. “Fire stairs. She’d have to go out into the hall to reach them.”

  “And she didn’t.”

  “Your man says.”

  “You suggesting—?”

  “There’s more cash floating around in this setup than you can imagine,” Chambrun said. “The Baroness could meet any price. Let’s talk to your man.”

  We went out into the hall from Helwig’s suite, leaving the door on the latch. Hardy’s man was a plainclothes cop named Salinger.

  “Find her?” he asked, as we joined him in the hall.

  “No,” Hardy said.

  “Well, she didn’t come out this way,” Salinger said. “I checked them all in when Molloy brought ’em back here. Two women, three men—and later a fourth man. Wynn. None of ’em tried to come out again.”

  “You didn’t leave here for anything? Go to the john? Drink of water?”

  “Not for ten seconds,” Salinger said. He seemed completely undisturbed by the line of questioning.

  “What’s your price?” Hardy asked, his voice harsh.

  “How’s that?”

  “I said, What’s your price? How much did the lady pay you to look the other way?”

  “For Godsake, Lieutenant!”

  “Well, how much?”

  “You must of had a rough night,” Salinger said. His face had gone white with anger. “If I didn’t know you better I’d hand you my badge and bust you one.”

  “All right. I had to ask,” Hardy said.

  Salinger took a wallet out of his pocket. “Take a look,” he said. “And go through my pockets.” He began turning his pockets inside out. There were the usuals; cigarettes, a lighter, some kind of cough drops, matches, keys, and about eleven dollars and change in money. “Maybe she gave me a promissory note I hid somewhere,” Salinger said. He was trembling with rage.

  “Okay, okay, I said I had to ask,” Hardy said.

  Salinger began replacing his belongings in his pockets, unmollified.

  “I made the suggestion you’d been bo
ught,” Chambrun said.

  “You and your fancy flea-bag of a hotel!” Salinger said.

  “It had to be thought of,” Chambrun said. “It’s the only way she could get out, and she has gotten out.”

  “Maybe she’s the Flying Nun,” Salinger said.

  “If you weren’t bribed, Salinger, she has to be something like that,” Chambrun said. “You’re a cop. You know you didn’t turn your back. How did she make it?”

  “All I can say is, she didn’t make it this way.”

  “Was there any kind of disturbance—an argument down the hall—a cute chambermaid? Seriously, if you were distracted for that ten seconds you mentioned she could have slipped around the corner of the hallway.”

  “There was nothing,” Salinger said. “No one spoke to me. No one went in or out of any of these rooms or the ones on the other side of the hall.”

  “Keep watching close,” Hardy said. “The people inside are getting restless.”

  We went back into Helwig’s deserted suite, leaving the still simmering Salinger to stand watch in the hall.

  “What do you make of it?” Hardy asked.

  Chambrun stood staring at the east windows of the sitting room. The fingertips of his right hand seemed to be unconsciously stroking the pocket that held the “Please, please—” note.

  “I believe him,” Chambrun said.

  “Then how did she get out?”

  Chambrun walked over to the windows and opened one. He beckoned to us. I have no head for heights. Just looking down nineteen stories to the street makes my stomach churn. The few taxis and trucks moving in the early-morning traffic looked like toys.

  “There is a ledge about two feet wide,” Chambrun said. “If you can imagine her standing out there, you have also to imagine her turning a corner of the building; otherwise, she’d have had to come back into one of her own rooms. She’d have to gamble on finding an open window somewhere, presumably into an empty room, or someone would have sounded the alarm.”

  “What about empty rooms?”

  “Check,” Chambrun said to me, and I went to the phone to call Nevers at the front desk. “It’s more likely that your perfectly honest Salinger was distracted by something he doesn’t remember,” I heard Chambrun saying.