Her smile was still registering its slight hint of affection. “Well, Andrew, is that the only thing you don’t want to bring up but have to?”
He struggled to get back his sense of urgency. “No,” he said. “There’s something else and it’s terribly important. Why did you dislike Maureen? Was it because you suspected that she and Lem …”
“Maureen and Lem?” No one could register appalled astonishment as effectively as Mrs. Pryde. “Are you asking me if I suspected anything romantic between Lem and that—that little nothing? Really, Andrew, I’m afraid all these disturbances have quite unhinged you.”
“But I happen to know …”
“What?”
“That there was something between them.”
“Something between them.” Daintily Mrs. Pryde removed the cigarette stub from the jade holder. She put it in the ashtray and sat studying the holder as if it gave her aesthetic pleasure. “Very well, Andrew. I never suspected this would have to happen but it seems that I’ve got to tell you all manner of things which I was hoping to be able to keep to myself. There was something between Lem and Maureen, yes. But it wasn’t what you so vulgarly seem to assume it was. The only thing between your wife and my husband was that your wife was blackmailing him. And just in case that puts any ideas into your head, you must remember that Lem was with me all yesterday afternoon, so any chance of his having killed her is quite out of the question.”
She abandoned her study of the cigarette holder and looked at him instead. “When you married that young woman, Andrew, you brought us all a great deal of trouble. You see, she found out about Miss La Marche and, since she was a confused and immoral girl, she used the knowledge as a threat against Lem. I could, of course, very easily have put a stop to it by letting Lem know I was fully conscious of Miss La Marche’s existence and that there was nothing in the world for him to worry about. But poor Lem isn’t very sophisticated. I knew it would embarrass him enormously and so … well, you will find, Andrew, when you know you don’t have very long to live that the only things which matter are the essential things. In my day I was very fond of my jewels, but now they mean nothing to me whatsoever, certainly they are quite insignificant in comparison to Lem’s peace of mind. And after all, Neddy will inherit quite enough without them, and, if he marries that rich Hatchard girl, there’ll be no kind of financial problem for him anyway.”
Once again, as she looked at him, the small, faintly mocking smile played around her lips. Then she glanced down at the ring on her hand. “Do you know? They are extremely good copies. I’m quite sure they deceive most people, which is all that matters. But you surely don’t imagine after the life I’ve led, after the sort of people who have been my friends, that I haven’t learned to tell a false stone from a real one?”
She raised the slim, beautiful hand for him, indicating the ring. “This emerald was one of the first to go. Poor Lem, I did feel sorry for him but I’m still sure that of the two evils the one I chose was the lesser. If the poor dear man ever realized that—well, that I know what I know, it would be a crushing blow to his pride, and to damage her man’s pride is the one sin a woman cannot commit.”
She broke off abruptly, tilting her head to one side attentively, listening. “There!” she said. “That’s the elevator. It’s Lem. Strange, I can always tell when he’s coming. Well, Andrew dear, I’m sorry for your problems and I’m quite sure they’ll solve themselves without excessive drama. But whatever else you do, of course you will not mention any of this to Lem.”
Andrew had never felt so completely at a loss. Mrs. Pryde got up from the daffodil chair. As she did so, Andrew heard a key in the lock of the front door.
“I’m off to bed, Andrew. Maybe Lem can help you with your difficulty, so talk to him, if you’ve got to … just so long as you say nothing about Miss La Marche or Dr. Williams.”
She laid her hand very lightly on his arm. “Do you know? It occurred to me just the other day that, of all my husbands, Lem’s the only one who hasn’t bored me to death. It’s comforting to be ending up with the best one, isn’t it?”
For the fraction of a second her hand remained on his arm, exerting its light, almost clawlike pressure. His mother had always been mistress of the parting shot. She was letting him know, once and for all, that she had no use for his pity.
“And, Andrew, if you do have to talk to Lem, don’t keep him up too late. He needs his rest.”
The hand had moved. She was slipping away from him into the bedroom. Just as she closed the door behind her, Lem, humming jauntily, came in from the hall.
“Hi, chickie, still up? Still …” He saw Andrew then, but the bluff military smile remained completely intact. “Why, hello there, Andrew my boy. Where’s the old girl? Off to beddy-bye?”
Andrew stood looking at him, fighting his way out of his mother’s incomprehensible world, forcing himself to remember Bill Stanton and his reasons for being there.
“Yes,” he said. “Mother’s gone to bed.”
“Just been taking a little stroll. Always like to get a breath of fresh air before I turn in.” Lem came over and banged him on the shoulder. “Delighted you’re here, old boy. Makes it a lot easier. I can finish what I was about to tell you before dinner when your mother barged in on us. A drink?”
Still humming and beaming, he went over to a table in the corner and started making drinks.
Andrew watched his broad, unconcerned back. What was he waiting for? His mother hadn’t changed anything.
He said, “Remember you suggested that Maureen had a lover who was in with her on the jewel theft?”
“Sure. Of course I do.” Lem turned, holding a highball in each hand. “But I’ve been thinking, old boy, while we sat through that boring play, and now I doubt it very much. I mean, I doubt that he was in on the jewel racket. That wasn’t like Maureen, was it? Can you see her cutting anyone, even a boy friend, in on any of her deals?”
Andrew said, “I’ve been talking to one of her friends. It may interest you to hear that she admitted to this friend that she did have a lover and a partner. She even told the friend who this man was. He was you.”
“Me?”
For a moment Lem’s large, handsome-moon face registered stupendous astonishment.
“Me her partner—me her lover? She said that?”
He stood staring with his mouth wide open. Then he burst into uproarious laughter.
“Me taking on that little she-wolf? At my age? Excuse me, old boy, excuse me. If she said it, she said it. I’m sure you’re not lying and I’m sure she had her reasons. But … boy, that’s rich. I guess I should be flattered, shouldn’t I? But no sir. Not for me. Old tunes on old fiddles—your mother, Rowie—that’s more my style. That’s always been my style. Here, old boy.” He was holding out one of the highballs to Andrew. “Take it, for God’s sake, I’m going to spill the damn thing all over the carpet.”
The truth? thought Andrew. Was it possible for someone to be laughing like that and be lying? He took the drink. Lem patted him on the shoulder while tears of merriment still streamed down his cheeks.
“Sorry, old boy. Disgraceful exhibition. Should be serious, I realize that. But don’t give up hope. If you’re looking for a lover, I think I can help. That’s what I was going to tell you before dinner when your mother busted it up.”
He took out a large handkerchief, mopped his face and then perched on the arm of a chair.
“Look, Andrew, I don’t know who this friend of Maureen’s is and I don’t know why she lied to him about me, although I’d say offhand it should be pretty obvious that she was lying. Why would Maureen be such a fool as to give away the name of her real lover to anybody? Answer me that, old boy. No, that’s settled. But as for her having a lover—yes, she had a lover all right. She must have had. There isn’t any other explanation for it.”
He took a gulp of his drink. “Ahh, that hits the spot. You see, old boy, just about a week before she got herself killed, old Lem Pryde fi
nally woke up. One day I said to myself, ‘My God, here you are just lying down like a bloody doormat letting that little bitch walk right over you. Where’s your enterprise? This is war. Why the hell haven’t you been fighting back?’ That’s when I started to follow her.”
“Follow her?” Andrew put out his hand and gripped the back of his mother’s chair.
“Sure. She’d snooped on me. Why not snoop on her? That’s how I figured it. A little bitch like that probably had something she was just as keen to keep quiet about as I was about old Rowie. So, whenever I got a moment to sneak away from your mother, I’d slip down to your place, wait till she came out and follow her.”
His beam indicated how pleased it made him to contemplate his own shrewdness. “I followed her four or five times and finally I hit pay dirt. It was about three-thirty in the afternoon. She’d walked from your place downtown to 38th Street. She came to an old brownstone just west of Madison and turned into it. From across the street, I could see her take a key out and let herself in. ‘A key,’ I thought. ‘What’s this?’ Once she’d gone in, I crossed the street and as I did so a woman came out of the building with a poodle. I knew she must have passed Maureen on the stairs, so, smooth old Lem, I took a dollar bill out of my pocket and said, ‘Excuse me, madam, but the lady who just went in dropped this dollar. I wonder if you know who she is so I can ring the right buzzer and return it to her.’ And the woman said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know her name but she’s just moved into the apartment above mine—her and her husband.’ ”
Lem’s beam was triumphant now. “Husband, old boy. I knew I was really cooking then. So I said, ‘Then at least you know the apartment number.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘3b.’ She went off with the poodle then. I went up into the foyer. I looked at the name for 3b. And there it was—Mary Cross.”
“Mary Cross!” exclaimed Andrew.
“That’s it, old boy. Does the name mean anything to you? It didn’t to me, but, my God, calling herself Mary Cross, moving into a broken-down old brownstone with her ‘husband.’ Wham! I almost decided to go right on up and confront her. Then I figured, you never knew, maybe the ‘husband’ was there with her and I wasn’t too keen on the prospect of any fisticuffs, what? I did stick around, though, for a while, hoping she or the ‘husband’ might come out. But then it got time for me to go back to chickie. I figured it didn’t matter anyway. All I had to do when she showed up on the next Thursday was to challenge her with it. As it happened, of course, there wasn’t any other Thursday because she got herself killed.”
He got up from the chair arm, took a little notepad and pencil out of his breast pocket, scribbled down an address and, tearing the sheet off, handed it to Andrew.
“There you are, old boy. You do realize I’d have told you this before dinner if your mother hadn’t come in, don’t you? But whatever happens, we mustn’t ever let the old girl get wind of any of this. Well, since it’s her lover you’re searching for, I’d say you don’t have much further to look.”
Andrew took the piece of paper. 38th Street. The real Mary Cross shared an apartment in the Village with Gloria Leyden, there was no doubt about that. This surrealistic visit had brought him something. It wasn’t what he’d expected. But when had things ever turned out even remotely the way he’d expected?
He could feel his stepfather’s hand on his shoulder again. Its pressure was firm and confident, indicating the simplest affection and the most natural desire to help.
“Well, old boy, I hate to turn you out, but chickie never goes to sleep until she’s read to me. She insists it’s soothing, good for the old ticker. So you do understand, don’t you? She’s not as young as she used to be. It’s a shame to keep the old thing up too late.”
EIGHTEEN
Andrew took a taxi to the nondescript brownstone on 38th Street. It was just after midnight and no light showed in any windows. He went up the steps and looked at the buzzers by the door: 3b—Mary Cross. Lem hadn’t been lying. He pressed the buzzer. He had little hope that anyone would answer. He rang again. Nothing happened. He tried the front door. It was locked.
There was a hotel across the street. He hurried into the deserted lobby. The thought of Lieutenant Mooney was goading him. He looked up Mary Cross in a telephone book. There was only one listed—at the 38th Street address. So the apartment did actually belong to Mary Cross, and Maureen hadn’t necessarily been assuming the other girl’s identity. She had merely taken over the apartment when Mary Cross had moved in with Gloria Leyden? He looked up Gloria Leyden. West 10th Street. That would be it. He went into a booth and dialed.
Almost immediately the ring was answered by a feminine voice, which said, “Look, whoever you are, you’d better be good calling at this hour.”
He said, “Mary Cross?”
“Mary,” the voice—Gloria Leyden’s—shouted. “It’s for you.”
He could hear the approaching clatter of spike heels. Then another voice said, “Yes?”
“Mary Cross?”
“Yes.”
“This is Andrew Jordan. I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Maureen’s husband?”
“That’s right.”
“Gosh.”
“I’m coming right over.”
“Well … listen, gee, I mean Gloria’s washing her hair.”
“I’ve got to see you.”
“Then—then, look, there’s a bar on the corner of West 10th and 6th Avenue. The Bangkok.”
“I’ll be there in a quarter of an hour.”
The Bangkok was a dimly lit bar with vaguely oriental pretensions. It was easy enough to spot Mary Cross because she was the only girl in the handful of customers at the bar—a tall, slim, angular girl with cropped black hair. When he came through the door, she spun around to look. He went up to her.
“Mr. Jordan? Let’s go sit at a table. That barman’s ears—they could use them as a radar screen for the entire Eastern Seaboard.”
They found a table in the pink gloom. A waiter emerged from the shadows. They ordered and the waiter went away. Mary Cross was leaning over the table toward him but even then he had only the broadest impression of her—the thin, bony face; the black poodle-cut; the large, black ingenuous eyes.
“Gosh, Mr. Jordan, I don’t know what you want from me. Honest, I don’t. I talked to the cops this evening.”
“I know.”
“I mean, maybe you’ve come to the wrong person. Me, I wasn’t any friend of Maureen’s. I hated her. I just hated that girl.” The huge, gleaming eyes, hovering in the semi-darkness, seemed to have a disembodied existence of their own, like the Cheshire cat’s grin. “Gee, Mr. Jordan, you look terrible. You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”
“They think I killed her.”
“That’s what I figured. That’s how I doped that lieutenant out.”
“There were a lot of men in her life before me, weren’t there?”
“A lot? Brother!”
“And after she married me?”
The waiter brought the drinks and went away again. Mary Cross took a swallow of her Scotch. She was obviously embarrassed. Or was it scared?
“Look, Mr. Jordan, if I could help you, I would, honest. I mean, I don’t want to get involved. No girl wants to get involved, not when it’s a question of the cops. But once Maureen married you and moved out of the apartment we shared, I just breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Bingo,’ I said. And I never saw her again.”
“Never?”
“Gosh, I don’t think so.”
“Not even when you sublet your apartment on 38th Street to her?”
Mary Cross gave a little whistling gasp. “Gee, you know about that?”
“Yes.”
“Was I mad? Boy, I’d fixed it all up real nice. It had taken me months to finally get it and fix it up like I wanted. And then, out of the clear blue sky, she calls up. Of course she offered me double the rental, I admit that. But the nerve—just calling and saying, ‘Okay, I’m taking occupancy first thing
tomorrow morning.’ ”
“You mean she forced you out of the apartment against your will?”
“I’ll say.”
“Because she had something on you?”
“Something on me? Gosh, just because I’d been seeing Bill a couple of times when I was going steady with George? I mean, it’s contemptible, that’s what it is. What was to stop me coming right back at her and saying, ‘Okay, you tell George about Bill and I’ll have a little talk with your husband?’ But a nice girl just doesn’t do those things and she knew it. That was always Maureen, taking advantage of you not being the way she was.”
Her hand moved across the table and clutched his. “Listen, Mr. Jordan, you won’t tell the cops, will you? I mean, I don’t even have a subleting clause. You can get into trouble for that. I know a girl. She sublet without a subleting clause and, can you imagine, they almost arrested her.”
Andrew said, “When did she actually take over the apartment?”
“I know exactly when. Five months ago. For five months I’ve had to jam in there with Gloria like a sardine, and Gloria with all her dates and tinting her hair all the time, light blond, dark blond, auburn … It makes you tired.”
Five months. When had Maureen begun to steal the jewels? About eight months ago. Had the jewel theft then started as a solo operation, with the lover as a later development?
He said, “Did she tell you what she wanted the apartment for?”
“She told me what she wanted me to know. It was a friend, she said. An old family friend from out of town who simply had to have some place in Manhattan in a hurry. An old family friend.” She snorted. “Mr. Jordan, you asked me just now if she had a boy friend after she was married to you and I said I didn’t know, because, honest, I was scared telling you about the apartment. I mean, not having a subleting clause and all. But that wasn’t any old family friend from out of town. I’m here to tell you. That was a boy friend”
The Green-Eyed Monster Page 16
