I stopped to snatch breath, and before I could get started again, the En-sign’s mouth was going like a pack of firecrackers. “Nuts! Don’t be a sucker, Narcisse! This slob’s handing you a cargo of lies. Say, lissen to this. If he kicked a knife outa Ambrose’s hand in the office, like he says, then wouldn’t that give him a blade to sharpen a billiard cue with?”
He straightened upright from the crouch, and his mouth was a grinning hyphen between the merry parentheses of his cheeks. Humor, great good humor triumphed across his sea-boil features. He poked the pipe-stem at me. “Bright Boy, how about it? I betcha you pared that harpoon that’s in Ambrose, yourself.”
I shed the last of my self-collectedness. “You and Manfred said you’d murder those two!”
“Wouldn’t send an innocent guy to hell for somethin’ you done, would you, Bright Boy?”
I panted, “You dirty rotten gob, you’re trying to frame me again.”
He was trying to frame me, trying to give me the rap the same way Manfred was consistently throwing guilt on the Widow Gladys. Not that I couldn’t believe the muddy Negress capable of murder in any degree, but I doubted the one-armed hippogriff’s ability to wield a spear with such drastic marksmanship. Toadstoll might have done so with a smile, but somehow I considered neither him nor his ogress mother endowed with the imagination that must have contrived that billiard room scene. I was equally certain Manfred and the En-sign were behind this lunch-hour massacre.
But oil colors were my medium, not deductions. I could only stand like a dolt, thick-tongued, and listen to the navy man’s guile.
“Frame you? Nah, I’m just tryin’ to help the police save my own neck before the list gets down to me.” The mariner sent a glance of appeal at Lieutenant Narcisse. His attitude was that of the strong man who despaired, yet was strong enough t be amused at impending doom. Cheeks fiery as carbuncles, throat husking chuckles, he leaned his shoulders against the staircase and lit his pipe, the way a Mexican bandit who loved babies might light up before a firing squad. Sucking the stem, he held a match flare before eyes as blue and benevolent as those of a cathedral-window saint.
“Lieutenant,” be instructed Narcisse, “I see this pair of murders plain as I’m seein’ you. The girl, now. She’s the sniper what shot Ti Pedro. It goes dark in that office; her arty boy friend opens the safe and gives the dame a loaded pistol. She races up the staircase with the heater and pots the Dominican through the transom.”
The En-sign drew a diagram with a finger in pipesmoke. “Same time her boyfriend, he’s got the knife he took off Ambrose. He scats across to the billiard room, yanks a cue outa the rack and with one swipe cuts a spear. Wouldn’t do fer him to use the knife he’s just copped from Ambrose, see? But Ambrose, he sees him and gives a squawk. He whales the spear into Amby, beats it outa the billiard room and across the hall in the dark an’ uproar, an’ he’s standing meek as a mouse at the stairs when the lights hop on.”
“One moment,” Narcisse spun from the En-sign to me with a snarl. “What became of that knife you wrested from Ambrose in the office?”
“I didn’t have it,” I shouted. “I kicked it across the floor. For God’s sake, Lieutenant, can’t I get in a word?”
“You shall have opportunity for a number of words, m’sieu.”
“Manfred and the En-sign, they were threatening me again while you were questioning Toadstool out in back a few minutes ago.”
The En-sign cried plaintively, “Lieutenant, this Bright Boy is a triple liar. Why, I swear to God, it was him as was threatening Manfred an’ me at breakfast, now. Told us to clear out, he did. Yessir! Told us to blow outa Morne Noir by noon, or him and his Jane would knock us off.”
“That is so,” Manfred seconded. “He said he would kill us.”
“You’re a liar!” I shouted.
“Herr Gott!” Manfred screamed. “The pot calls the kettle black!”
Desperation twisted my tongue, tied up my vocabulary. Every face in that line-up was shouting. Liar! Liar! Ananias would have had a holiday in that hall. I shall always remember the En-sign as one of the few talented people who could shout mendacity; perjure himself like an advertising man — that is to say, misrepresent, bellow, smile and look you straight in the eye at one and the same time.
He was looking me squarely in the eye. “Lovable cripes, Bright Boy, you got your nerve! Tryin’ to plant these butcherings on the Nazi and me, an’ all the while you know it’s you and the doll doin’ it.”
I choked at the sailor, “I’d like to kill you,” and tried to hit him. Pete cried, “Cart! Don’t!” and clung to my arm.
“Sure you’d like to kill me,” the En-sign protested in a wounded tone. “You’ll knock us all off if the Law don’t put you and the Judy away. Four killin’s since the funeral. My Gawd,” he deplored to Narcisse, “didn’t Ambrose tell you this bird was a safe-cracker an’ a gunster wanted by every G Man in the States? Didn’t Ambrose say he’d seen this hood in the trap six years ago at Miami, Florida?”
“Ambrose lied!” I shouted.
“Why would Ambrose lie about you, Bright Boy?”
“He wanted the police to get me out of here. Trying to frame Miss Dale and me. You and he and the rest of your cutthroat mob!”
The En-sign’s cheeks were rosy. He said through the edges of set teeth, “Amby had the dope on you, Bright Boy. If you’re an artist, I’m a China Coast singsong gal. Ambrose reckonized you as a gunman who was in the brig with him up in Miami, an’ you slaughtered him so’s he wouldn’t blab. Artist? You’re a homicidal maniac! You and the doll will put us all on the spot — to get the Old Man’s estate — if this Haitian cop don’t give you the works. Get ’em outa here,” he petitioned Narcisse. “Get ’em both outa here before they kill us all.”
“You navy deserter! You inhuman cur!” Pete blazed at the man. “Confusing this officer with your stupid, lying accusations. Lieutenant Narcisse, you must listen to what I have to say. I think I can tell you how Ti Pedro was killed, if you’ll only listen — ”
“Can you prove, ma’mselle, that your companion is this artist he claims to be?”
“Certainly I can prove it,” I bit out.
“Like hell he can,” the En-sign said from the side of his face.
Narcisse’s eyes shoved Pete aside and focused a glitter into mine. He was leveling that machine-gun pistol at my stomach, and I stood like a fascinated bird, staring hot and cold at the muzzle. “How? How can you prove yourself the artist, then?”
“Fool!” Pete cried at the officer before I could work my tongue. “Would a gunman be carrying around a box of oil paints and — the canvas! Why,” — her eyes widened at the thought — “he’s got a painting with him. A portrait of me! Upstairs! Show him, Cart,” she begged, turning on me. “Show these idiots, for heaven’s sake, and put an end to this lunacy!”
Narcisse doubted. “You have this work of art in your room?”
I choked, “Yes.”
The hall was reeling again. Cubistic faces scribbled on lights and shadows; black doors standing guard on the freshly dead, and a front door curtained with boom-thumped rain — that painting of mine in this picture! Murder on the loose and the police of Haiti discussing art. It wasn’t digestible on an empty stomach. Whirrr — bong! Whirrr — bong! The old clock on the stairs joined its voice to confusion by announcing twelve. Twelve o’clock noon and a château storm-wrapped in midnight. Twelve o’clock and nothing was well. The big gun in the fist of Lieutenant Narcisse of the Garde d’Haiti was leveled straight at my jugular vein. A blue vein swelled under the fudge-colored flesh on his forehead and the sclerotics of his eyes were pen-lined red.
“I give m’sieu ten minutes.” He was dicing whispery words through his teeth. “If you are an artist I will believe the scoundrelly Ambrose lied. If you are an artist I will be convinced you are not gunman and professional murderer. You have the canvas, the box of paints, oui? That could be but part of a disguise. But the talent, that is something you
cannot pretend. I would have you demonstrate the talent, m’sieu. M’sieu the artist, I desire to watch you paint!”
“Paint?” I gargled. “In this madhouse?”
“M’sieu, I give you ten minutes to prove yourself the artist.”
VIII.
Cacos!
Ten minutes in which to prove myself an artist! From all that olla-podrida of demonism, death and dark I recall that particular injunction as the maddest. Breakfast after murder may be more or less in the tradition; our fiction detective steps over the corpse to finger a bibelot on the mantelpiece and yawn a criticism to some Florentine ceramist; but portrait painting — To leap from a sweat-bath in the Chamber of Horrors the frivolity of smock and palette! Ten minutes in which to prove myself an artist!
A thousand years ago (or was it two days before yesterday) an art committee had given me ten days. And who was that Fleming who spent a whole week on a broomstick? Ten minutes!
“Allons donc!”
This time tropical Haiti couldn’t wait. I stared down my nose, shatterpated, at the menacing snout of Narcisse’s machine-gun pistol. Narcisse’s machine-guh pistol was nudging my belt buckle. Narcisse’s eyes were reasonless as onyx beads on the heads of hatpins. He thrust me back on my heels.
“Paint, m’sieu!”
In that dormitory of criminals, that jungle-hemmed manse where Death struck the minute your back was turned? That house wasn’t a studio, and its atmosphere would have made the twilight in an octopus cave sweet by comparison. I continued to stand brainless as a cigar store Comanche. Lieutenant Nemo Narcisse gave me a prod. There was no time for temperament.
“You and ma’mselle. To your room.”
Sweet land of liberty, if the man didn’t mean it! He gave a low-voiced order in creole. Corporal Louis relayed it in honks to the gendarmes. Manfred, En-sign, Widow Gladys and Toadstool were escorted toward the back of the house.
Then, tramp, tramp, tramp, Harelip Louis on one hand, a pair of awed gendarmes on the other, Tousellines bringing up the rear and Lieutenant Narcisse in the van, Pete and I were marched up the staircase to the mezzanine, along the balcony to that room assigned as mine, the front room between Pete’s and the late Uncle Eli’s. Our corporal produced candles and started a candelabra on the bedside table, but the darkness was little remedied. Candles couldn’t pinch, hit for the required “north light” in that artist’s quarter. The fluttering, emaciated yellow gleams were solemn as church. Added to the pouring of rain in outer dark and the echo of the drums, candle-light gave the chamber all the foolish and sinister tenebrosity of a college fraternity “goat room” in which an initiated Freshman might be killed.
“Great God!” I managed an aside to Pete. “They’re going to carry it through.”
Her eyes clouded and she whispered, “You’ll have to show them. Stretch the canvas, anyway. I’ll slip to my room for the costume — then they’ll see — ”
While she was gone with one of those Nubian escorts, I got in a few of my more stellar oaths for Narcisse’s benefit. “And there’s the painting,” I concluded a Philippic on the situation, madder by the second and obviously doing my cause no good. “I haven’t an easel with me, a frame to stretch it on, but if you insist — ”
Suspicion worked on his face. “I did not believe you would have, m’sieu.” He bunched his brows. “Not so? Anybody may carry a picture.”
I could have choked him without a qualm. “I tell you, I brought it with me to work on because I’ve got finish it for a showing — ”
“Yet you neglected to bring this easel that is necessary?”
“I intended — I mean I thought I could rig one up if we stayed here — I’ve got to work on that painting!”
“And I give you an opportunity to work, m’sieu.”
“Damn it, man,” — my nerves were jangling like fifty tambourines — “while we dance around in this asinine comedy, the real killer is loose down there in the hall. Isn’t this canvas enough? Would a gunman be lugging around all this trash and — take that gun out of my stomach!”
He took the Thompson gun out of my stomach and aimed it at my ribs. “I repeat, how do I know you do not carry the paints to mask true identity?”
I flung at Tousellines, “What a hell of a lawyer you are! You were in New York, saw my studio. Why don’t you tell this blockhead you were in my studio when you called for Miss Dale?”
The little old man’s brown-black nose wrinkled dismay. “Forgive me, m’sieu. I have seen artist’s studios in the cinema only. There was the motion picture Arms of Amour in which the youthful artist was desperately in love with one of his — ”
“For the love of God, what’s that got to do with my studio?”
Maître Tousellines drooped his lip unhappily. “I wish to aid you, on my word, but in all honesty I did not carefully view your New York habitat. Please, m’sieu. I did not see the — the ladies without clothes — the models. And the velvet draperies were not in evidence, m’sieu, the divans, the wines. Speaking truthfully, I do not recall it as looking like — like an artist’s quarter.”
“Ha!” Narcisse blared. “So there is but one way to prove. If the man is an artist the talent will convince. Go on with it, m’sieu!”
I could have rung like a smashed alarm clock, every nerve buzzing, but Pete slipped into the scene in her costume and saved me that extremity. Together we fumbled with the canvas. Puttering like a congenital idiot, I hunted around for a place to mount the thing and finally decided (sanity to the four winds!) on the door of the clothes closet. I pawed through my color box and found tacks. Ten minutes had collapsed to six. Pete took off a shoe, and limped up to help me. I hammered tacks with a high-heeled shoe while the Law of Haiti and its moon-lipped pettifogger looked on like pickaninnies absorbed in the raising of a showboat poster, and dead men spoiled downstairs.
The pounding covered Pete’s, “For heaven’s sake, Cart, hurry this over with before I go out of my mind. Just play around with the brushes — ” Then she took her pose beside the portrait, trying to smile the same inviting smile.
Not smiling at all, I messed a daub on the palette and strove to look like an artist. In shaky befuddlement, I dropped an expensive tube of Winsor Newton, dandelion yellow; and when I stooped to recover the tube, I gave it a boot that sent it slithering across the floor to hide in a cranny somewhere near the door. No time to pick things up. I was ready to pop like a Roman candle, and I had to give at least the performance of a Leonardo.
“Paint,” Narcisse was commanding, as if giving an order from the manual of arms. “Paint, m’sieu.”
Shadows stood up over my head and looked down from the ceiling. The black art committee gathered at my back; the coffee-hued officer nuzzled a sub-machine gun into my shoulder blades, and lunacy waited just around the corner. I flecked bits of color, brushing manfully, standing back and cocking my head at each stroke in the approved pantomime.
“Paint,” Narcisse said, in a guttural voice.
I made a couple of impressive strokes at the face. I could feel the critical eyes of the judges sizzling like electric batteries over my shoulder. A man couldn’t have read a newspaper under such an over-the-shoulder scrutiny.
“And are you painting, m’sieu?”
I twirled around in rage. “What in damnation do you think I’m doing?”
“It appears Ambrose, then, did not lie!”
“What?” I howled.
“An artist would paint the likeness! Do you call this art?”
“Well, I hope to cri — ”
“But you put blue on the throat and a streak of white paint down the nose—”
Then I saw! I don’t suppose that Haitian police officer had ever seen or heard of realism. I stood like the poet at the lynching who, told he must write a poem or hang, composed a masterpiece in blank verse and was promptly suspended by the neck because it failed to rhyme. To that dark-skinned Haitian art committee, a blue shadow and a highlight on the nose didn’t “rhyme.” An
d when you stand on top of an oil painting and the lighting is bad —
“Your game is up, m’sieu. Blagueur! Fraud! For this you and ma’mselle shall go to the Commandant of the Garde in irons, bien sûr!” He was mincing back on his heels, mouth askew, eyes glittering, gun aimed. “You will consider yourselves under arrest for — ”
“Nothing of the sort,” Pete interposed with a sob, exasperated to tears. “You don’t understand Mr. Cartershall’s — ”
“I warn you, both of you. Come quietly!”
I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand that pointed tommy gun any more. Swerving sidewise, I struck out hard and slapped the messed palette smack and truly into the officer’s face, grabbing the gun barrel and deflecting a burst of fire through the window blinds. The gunshot crashed like a barrage of seventy-fives, bullets shearing cloth from my armpit and squirting out through the bamboo shutters. Oils and paint splattered fifty ways. Pete’s scream came smothered through the cannon-smash; the air was cluttered with brushes, paint tubes, colors and creole; I saw Louis grab Pete’s wrists in mitt-sized hands; then a gendarme made of thongs and wires was pinning me from behind, riding my back like a black cat.
We did an adagio through reeling gunsmoke, that gendarme and I, while Narcisse ran about raging, his maddened features clown-spotted, polkadots and polychrome from chin to hairline, red, blue, green, ochre and white, modernistic for fair and otherwise comic with the palette sticking to his scalp like a farcical custard pie. Wiping smears from an upper lip and carnelian from his left eye, he finally focused me in his vision and came at me squealing like a rusted castor.
“Criminal! Assassin! I would shoot you where you stand blanc, if you were not already on your way to the gallows — ”
He scoured his harlequin face with a sleeve and squalled at his men. Pete was dragged toward the door. Behind me the black trooper fixed a rifle under my right shoulder-blade and propelled me across the room. The portrait tacked to the closet door (“Southern Hospitality, by E. E. Cartershall, ’35”) watched these proceedings in calm amusement, summery and gracefully aloof to uproar, as if Pete, herself, were standing aside there in the gloaming. On the bedside table the candles flittered like frantic moths; shadows were goblins every-which way on the walls; and down in the lower hall something new was happening.
Murder On the Way! Page 12
