The Alibi Club

by Francine Mathews

  “My documents.” The lawyer smiled thinly. “You have them, I believe. Please sit down.”

  “I wouldn’t want anything of yours.”

  Morris sighed, a man long tried in patience. “I am speaking of the papers Philip Stilwell stole from my firm’s files, and which I presume you then lifted from his lady friend’s flat when you nearly killed her two nights ago.”

  Spatz concentrated on striking the match without burning his fingers. “There were no papers in that room.”

  The lawyer’s lips compressed while Spatz nursed his flame, the tip of his Dunhill glowing warmly, his indifference sharp as a slap.

  “I sent you there to retrieve my property. Hearing nothing from you for far too long, I went to the place myself this afternoon. A Russian slut let me into the room for a small…gratuity. I searched it thoroughly.”

  “And found nothing.”

  “I want my property back.” Morris placed his hands on the table: small, feral, moist with desire. One of them held a snub-nosed gun.

  Spatz stared at the weapon coolly. This pathetic little man found it necessary to threaten him.

  “If you do not choose to help me, von Dincklage, I will be forced to call upon the services of friends,” the lawyer persisted. “Your…woman…is not of the most Aryan kind. She would grace the Führer’s work camps admirably.”

  “You’re wasting time. I never saw your file. I didn’t take it. I do not know where it is.”

  “Are you acquainted with Reichsführer Himmler?” Morris inquired.

  Spatz went still. His eyes drifted over the lawyer’s face: the small, wet eyes; the pursed lips quirked with malice. “Are you?” he countered.

  “Our paths have crossed. I was able to render him some…small service. The Reichsführer chooses to say he is under an obligation to me. I flatter myself I have the Great Man’s ear.”

  “The head of the SS is obliged to nobody. Think otherwise, and you won’t live till tomorrow.”

  “Hah! Very good, von Dincklage! I applaud your wit!”

  “So it’s Himmler’s papers you’ve lost? No wonder you’re worried. I wouldn’t like to give the Great Man, as you call him, that news.”

  “I said nothing about Himmler and any documents.” The gun wavered in Morris’s hand. “Nothing.”

  “You didn’t need to.” Spatz drew on his cigarette. “If I had the papers, I’d give them to you for a price. Believe me. But I don’t have them. So where are they?”

  “It comes down to the girl,” Morris said fretfully. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Stilwell would never have destroyed them, and I’ve searched everywhere else. The firm, both apartments—”

  Through the thin walls, he could still hear Memphis sing.

  “…don’t know nothin’ ’bout blue skies, mistuh, my sky’s all gray…’cause my man done gone away…”

  Spatz thought of that body he cherished, the supple curve of muscle and bone bowed under the steel of Sachsenhausen, the way in which she could be torn in half by the casual hands of a thousand men.

  “If the Allies have got Himmler’s papers,” he countered, “I wouldn’t give you three hours after the Nazis take Paris.”

  For once, Emery Morris had nothing to say. They both knew the violence of Great Men.

  “It’s a pity. With such a relationship—the ear of Himmler himself—you might have done much when the Germans arrived. Made yourself indispensable. Shown them all the best whorehouses in the city. But now—you have no choice but to run.”

  “Are your choices any different?” Morris spat.

  “I never saw those papers. I avoid Himmler and his kind like the plague.” Spatz’s eyes were calculating. “I could still help you, of course.”

  “How?”

  “You’re looking for Stilwell’s girl, correct?”

  Morris leaned toward him avidly.

  “Follow the body. Stilwell’s corpse. It will either be consigned to French earth or shipped across the sea. The girl’s sure to go with it. You have only to ring the Paris Morgue to learn the funeral arrangements.”

  The lawyer shot to his feet. “Thank you, von Dincklage.”

  “From now on, my friend,” Spatz answered acidly, “you will leave Memphis Jones alone.”

  The man who’d been drinking an apéritif in the small café in the Place du Tertre had long since drained his glass. He was sitting in a square that had once served as the forecourt of a Benedictine abbey. Shackles and gallows had stood there, centuries ago; but now it was merely a place for sin and coffee. Some instinct of caution prevented him from ordering a second Pernod; he had missed his lunch and the alcohol sat uncomfortably on his empty stomach. The glass, like the newspaper folded beside him, was primarily chosen for cover, a plausible excuse for keeping a solitary man in an uncongenial bar.

  He surveyed the war news, a concoction of bravado and rumor—the Grand Army of France is fighting with extreme bravery to repulse the German attack—passed by the government censors in a despairing attempt to fill the page—and declined politely the offers of a prostitute who wove her way like a shadow down the Rue St-Vincent.

  The Alibi Club door opened, and Emery Morris stepped out.

  The lawyer looked like a man of purpose: neatly tailored, trim of figure, one hand casually in his trousers pocket and his gaze fixed on the middle distance. He walked briskly down the paving, oblivious of the watcher in the café as he rose from the table and crossed the square at an angle designed to intersect the American’s path. Only when the stranger was abreast of him did Morris glance to the side, his face impassive.

  “Monsieur Emery Morris?”

  “Yes?”

  “Etienne Foch. Sûreté National. I must ask you to accompany me. We have questions regarding the death of your compatriot, Monsieur Philip Stilwell.”

  For an instant Morris did not move, as though he were parsing the meaning of every accented word. Then he withdrew his hand from his trousers pocket and fired a gun directly at Foch.

  The bullet tore into the detective’s stomach. He gaped at Morris, his hand instinctively moving to the bunched fabric of his jacket. A lawyer. Such a little man—

  And then the revolver flared again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Where’s Madame Blum?” Sally demanded as Hearst swung down the corridor from the consular section, alone.

  “I sent her home with an embassy driver. She was completely exhausted and she’ll never get a taxi in this city tonight. The entire world’s in the streets.”

  “I know. I walked here today, remember?”

  “Then I’ll drive you now,” he said, “wherever you want to go. But not back to your flat. It isn’t safe.”

  “You’re awfully high-handed, Mr. Hearst.” She bent down and picked up her suitcase. “But as it happens, I don’t need a ride. I can walk to the Latin Quarter.”

  “And wait for the killer to call again? Don’t be a fool, Sally. You’ve been hurt enough.”

  “Mother of Mercy,” she muttered. “What is it about men? You and Shoop. Always telling me what to do—”

  “Max Shoop?”

  “He checked me out of the hospital yesterday. Then checked me into the hands of his wife. I sneaked out of their place in the dead of night. I don’t like it when people try to run my life, Mr. Hearst. Especially men.”

  “You were with Shoop?” The possibility had never occurred to him. He was oddly unsettled; she hadn’t run off with an unknown guy, some lover from the past. He’d been thinking of Sally, and seeing Daisy. The clear awareness of jealousy—the way it distorted his judgment—left Hearst momentarily speechless.

  “People make all kinds of mistakes about me,” Sally said tautly. “I wear these impossible confections, chiffon and silk, with diamonds at my throat. Hair piled high on the top of my head, a little veil over one eye. Gloves. I look like a dream, Mr. Hearst. Men think I’m a dream. They have no idea I was raised by a rancher out
West, that I can break a horse inside of a week and ride two days without water if I have to. Most men have no idea who I am. It’s the dream they pay for, at Chanel and Schiaparelli—but Philip saw beyond the silk. Philip saw me. And…loved me all the same…”

  “How could he do anything else?” Hearst reached for her suitcase. She allowed him to take it. There were no tears today, only fierceness; but from the pallor of her face he guessed she was at the end of her rope.

  “I have something for you,” he said. “Something of Philip’s. Come with me now, and we’ll talk about it.”

  He drove her directly to his flat in the Rue Lauriston. With another woman and in different circumstances the move would be awkward: High-handed Joe Hearst, seducing a girl with no place else to sleep. From what he knew of Sally, however, she cared little for proprieties. She had a fund of sense behind her sculpted features, a supple strength. When he told her she’d never get a hotel room in refugee Paris, she agreed without a murmur.

  “Shoop would find me in a hotel, anyway.” She helped herself to the triple-crème Camembert he’d placed on the coffee table. “It’d be the first place he’d look, after mine.”

  “Are you hiding from him?” Hearst concentrated on mashing sugar into the bottom of a martini shaker. They both needed a stiff drink by this time and gimlets reminded him of Long Island summers, Daisy in a halter-strapped dress and a wide-brimmed hat. He could picture the sculpted bones of Sally King’s tanned shoulders emerging from a bit of torrid-colored silk. The dream, again. Paris’s best designers ought to pay the earth for it.

  “Shoop wants me out of Paris. There will be no scandal, Sally,” she intoned in a fair approximation of the lawyer’s Brahmin voice. “He wants to pack me off to the States with Philip’s body tomorrow.”

  “So you know about that.”

  “The Clothilde. Philip to be retrieved by chauffeured hearse at the morgue tomorrow morning. Tickets to be retrieved by me at the Cherbourg shipping office. I’m sending Mme. Blum home in my place.”

  “You’re not!” He frowned at her, all the afternoon’s frustration resurging.

  “She needs the trip. I don’t. I’m staying in Paris, Mr. Hearst.”

  “Call me Joe.”

  She eyed him, amused. “I suppose I might as well. Since I’m sleeping on your couch tonight.”

  “Look, Sally—” He handed her the gimlet and waited for her to taste it. “You’ve got to make that boat tomorrow. Don’t sit here waiting for the Germans to kill you.”

  The implacable words stopped her cold. “They’re really coming?”

  “Any day.”

  “Then—” She swallowed the last of her cheese as though it might choke her—“nobody gives a damn about Philip, do they? That he was murdered, I mean. They’ll chalk it up as suicide. We’ll never find out…”

  “—Who did it?” Hearst shrugged. “I’ve done what I can. A pharmacist told me Stilwell’s drink was laced with Spanish fly. I’ve got the police checking for fingerprints. But with everybody in Paris running for the exits—I don’t think we’ll get much action.”

  There had been no message from Foch that afternoon. Hearst was fighting an urge to call the Sûreté.

  “Are you running?” Sally demanded sharply.

  “Not by choice.” The question took him aback. “Bullitt has ordered me to Bordeaux in the morning, with a convoy of embassy dependents.”

  Hearst watched her absorb the news of complete desertion—every last American in Paris headed south and west—and down the gimlet, neat.

  From the look on her face the world was becoming an increasingly scary place. He was conscious of the impulse to reach for her; he quelled it immediately. He was nothing in particular to Sally King; just one more man who was not Philip Stilwell.

  “Go to Cherbourg,” he said gently. “It’s for the best. Truly.”

  She handed him her empty glass. “What was she like?”

  “Who?”

  “The woman in the portrait.”

  He had spent so much time walking the flat in the middle of the night, all the lights doused, that he’d almost forgotten the grace of this drawing room—the Louis Seize boiserie, the pooled silk curtains. The sketchy splash of oils, all suggestion and random lines, that held pride of place above the mantel.

  “She was…is…a simpler person than I ever realized.” He refilled Sally’s glass.

  “Your wife?”

  “For a while. She left me about six months ago.”

  Sally might have said, as so many of his acquaintances had done, I’m sorry, or How could she do that? But instead she allowed a silence to seep between them. And naturally he filled it.

  “I failed her. First in my marriage, and then after she left.”

  “How?”

  “You talked about mistaking the dream for the woman. I think I did that with Daisy.”

  He had never voiced his doubts and guilt aloud; had never betrayed to anyone that he gave his wife’s defection a second thought. It was not part of his training—his diplomatic life—to admit a vulnerability.

  “I don’t need many people,” he said somewhat jerkily. “I’ve always been self-sufficient. But Daisy loved parties. Dancing. The admiration of a multitude. She took up with a bohemian crowd here in Paris—painters, writers.” He gestured toward the portrait. “That was done by one of them. Before she ran off with an anarchist to Rome.”

  “You’re blaming yourself, Joe,” Sally observed. “That’s another mistake. Women make their own choices, too, you know—and sometimes we even learn to live with them.”

  “She wrote to me a month ago. Asking for help. I never answered the letter. And now—” He met Sally’s eyes with naked guilt in his own—“nobody can find her. I’ve wired the embassy in Rome. Can you believe it? Joe Hearst, hunting for his errant wife through all the back channels State can offer. It’s pathetic. Every time I see one of those refugees—”

  “That’s why you were so angry.” She set the gimlet down deliberately on the table. “This afternoon. That’s why you took my head off in the middle of the embassy. You couldn’t save Daisy, so by God you’re going to save me. But the cases are not the same, Joe.”

  “That’s true,” he said. “I know exactly where you are, for instance. And I know there’s a berth on a U.S.-bound ship with your name on it. You’re going to Cherbourg tomorrow, Sally.”

  “What did you want to show me?—That belonged to Philip?”

  He was tempted to tell her she couldn’t change the subject all night—but he had lured her to the apartment with the promise of the manila envelope. He retrieved it from his briefcase and placed it in her lap.

  “Your Mme. Blum gave me this yesterday. It’s probably the last thing Stilwell mailed. Does the address mean anything to you?”

  “Jacques Allier?” She shook her head. “Probably a client. Give the thing back to Max Shoop.”

  “Can’t do that. It might be exactly what Shoop wants.”

  She studied his face, that perfect façade. “You think Philip died for this,” she said suddenly.

  “Yes. I think the man who attacked you was looking for it, too.”

  She shoved the package across the cocktail table as though it smelled. “Open it, then.”

  He ripped the manila flap, withdrew a slim bundle of papers, and read the cover sheet aloud.

  13 May 1940

  Dear M. Allier:

  You asked for the original letter that started my highly improper search through my colleague’s files. Here it is, along with a few stray documents I uncovered in the archives. Keep them safe with the rest—and for God’s sake, get all of this in front of somebody with power at the Armaments Ministry, Dautry or the like, if you’re still in touch with him after Norway. Nobody here has the courage to deal with it.

  Cordially,

  Philip Stilwell

  “The original letter, as he calls it, is in German,” Hearst remarked. “It’s signed by Rogers Lamont.”

 
; “I don’t read German.”

  “As it will probably be the official language of Europe before the year’s out,” Hearst observed bitterly, “it’s fortunate that I do.”

  12 May 1939

  Rue Cambon, Paris

  My dear Juergen:

  It was a delight to hear from you last month and know that you and all of my old friends from Berlin are managing to thrive under the present system. I understand the risk you took in getting your letter out by human carrier pigeon. I will employ our mutual friend in the same manner for this reply. I have no love of official censors myself, and it appalls me to learn that you cannot avoid them, even for a friendly note.

  I, too, remember our days of trekking in Switzerland with immense fondness. I hope before very many months pass we may meet again over a good glass of beer and a strong-smelling cheese and exchange our stories of the past two years without worrying that anyone might overhear us.

  I was impressed to learn of your appointment to the Ludwigshafen factory; it’s a major concern. I hope the strains and demands of the present situation don’t wear you out. Try to take time for yourself, old fellow, or you’ll be of no use to anyone.

  Regarding your query: I can think of no reason why you’re being asked to supply so many pressurized containers of carbon monoxide to the Reich Security’s main office. It’s a fairly useless substance, after all, except for scientific research, and even then, might be regarded as of limited value. One wonders if they meant to order carbon dioxide for the drinks bar! But the fact that the canisters themselves are supplied by a different company—Mannesmann Röhrenwerke, I think you said?—suggests a more organized effort than a couple of clowns with a soda siphon. Somebody in the purchasing department at the Criminal Technology Institute is signing an awful lot of invoices. If you’re truly concerned—and from the care you’ve taken to get this letter out, you obviously are—I’ll try to learn what I can on this end.

  Best to Dagmar and the children—

  Rogers Lamont