The velvet hand

by Helen Reilly

  “You, Miss Oaks?” Eyes downcast, Eleanor Oaks said with studied indifference, “About the same as Sam. I run into Tony Wilder now and again, in a bar, at a party— that’s about all.”

  You don’t, McKee reflected, run into him as often as you’d like to, as you would if it weren’t for your boyfriend here. Aloud he said, “How very kind you are, Miss Oaks, to lend your car to a casual acquaintance. Tell me, did you lend your car to Tony Wilder last Wednesday night?” That was the night a yellow convertible had been seen parked near the Haven house in Denfield.

  Eleanor Oaks was indignant. “I certainly did not. Sam and I were using it.”

  She gave a vague story of its having been such a wonderful night and driving around Westchester after a late show. McKee didn’t press her too hard. He wanted to get to the most important night of all, the night Libby Tallis had been taken.

  “Monday night a week ago, Inspector? You do skip about.” Pedrick said that on that Monday night he was over in Jersey, he had driven over in the convertible “to see a man.”

  Another vague story was going to be one too many. “Name? Address?”

  Pedrick smiled. “Sorry, but I haven’t the faintest idea. This is the way it was.” He said that he had gone to Newark to pick up a man named Tribling outside the Mayflower Cafe on Main Street. Tribling had friends in Morristown who might be interested in a company for whom Pedrick was doing some work—but Tribling hadn’t turned up. Pedrick said, “I hung around for a while and then came back to New York at—oh, well before ten.”

  This statement was more than vague, it was a he out of the whole cloth. Before McKee could say so Pedrick remarked amiably, “It does sound rather thin, doesn’t it, Inspector? Tell you what, though. I got a ticket from the highway patrol just outside Newark at around 8:40.1 was late and I was stepping on it. Will that help any?”

  McKee stood. Pedrick might be lying about his business in Newark; he was telling the truth about having been there. The ticket would be a matter of record, with time and place noted on it—and if Pedrick was on the other side of the Holland Tunnel at 8:40 on Monday night he couldn’t, at approximately the same time, have been in Denfield blindfolding Libby Tallis and hustling her into a car. Therefore his was not the whispering voice. And yet, leaving the apartment and driving to the Hotel Bronson, McKee reflected that although Libby Tallis’ name had never once been mentioned Pedrick knew all about Libby Tallis and what had happened to her, in detail. How had he gotten his information, from whom? Because have it he did.

  Tony Wilder wasn’t at the Bronson; he had checked out an hour and a half earlier for parts unknown. McKee drove across town to the office, sent Dalowitz over to the Bronson to check back minutely on Wilder’s whereabouts during the last week, rang his buzzer and asked for Brown, Trumbel, Kapper, and Small. The four detectives filed in. McKee said, “I want those suicides we worked on last year reopened. Go after it hard. See if you can tie any one of these names to any one of those girls.” He pushed a list across the desk. In order the names on it were, George Corey, William Grant, Anthony Wilder, Samuel E. Pedrick and Hugo Cavanaugh.

  After that he turned to other business, but with a divided mind. Libby Tallis had been scared, plenty, by that telephone call. But nothing would be attempted up there, not with a state trooper in the grounds. He reckoned without his host.

  XIII

  In the Denfield house Kit didn’t so much wake up as come widely awake at twenty minutes of four that morning; she was too exhausted for sound sleep and had been dozing fitfully. She sat up in bed and switched on her light with a look at the clock. Some sixth sense, or perhaps only her hearing, told her that there was something wrong. She had heard some sound. . . . Whatever it was it had stopped, but it had been there. Her first thought was Libby, and that voice whispering threats over the phone. “Don’t talk to the police. If you do . . .” Libby had talked to the police in the person of Inspector McKee. She was alone. Lucy Barrett was sleeping in one of the guest rooms.

  Kit snatched at a dressing gown thrown over a chair. A button caught and the chair crashed to the floor taking a small table and a lamp with it. Struggling with a sleeve she said, “Damn” through her teeth. The crash was loud enough to wake the dead. Now the whole house would be roused. It didn’t matter, if only Libby was safe, unmolested. She flew down the hall to Libby’s door and threw it open. Libby had heard the crash the chair had made. Her covers were flung back and she was just getting out of bed. Her face was white. The scratches stood out on it redly. She was frightened. “Kit, what was that noise?” Kit said, “Nothing. I did it, I knocked over a chair,” and looked around the room. Everything was in order.

  The others came crowding then, Miriam, Lucy Barrett and William. William had come up on the last train, overjoyed about Libby, and carrying a large and hideous bouquet of gladiolus. Kit explained that something had frightened her and that she had come to see if Libby was all right.

  Someone was banging on the front door. William, in pink and white pajamas that were a size too small and revealed a figure thick and thin in the wrong places, started for the stairs. It was the state trooper knocking. He had seen the lights spring up. The two men searched the house from top to bottom and found no one and nothing disturbing. The front door was locked and all the lower windows, except the little one to the left of the hall fireplace.

  Wrapped in ice-blue satin that made her look ten feet tall, Miriam was coldly annoyed, perhaps because her hair was in curlers and her face covered with a mask of cream. “You ought to be a little more careful, Catherine, particularly of Libby. She’s had enough to bear without being roused in the middle of the night. What an alarmist you are! I believe you revel in sensation.” They went back to bed. By that time Kit was beginning to feel that she had made a fool of herself. It wasn’t so. She wasn’t an alarmist, she had heard something that morning before dawn, she discovered what it was at almost noon that day.

  Before he left the house the day before, Inspector McKee had asked to see the glove and the tissue with the print of Libby’s lips on it that had been sent to Philip through the mail. They weren’t anywhere around. Kit searched for them after he went, and found them. The cleaning woman, Mrs. Marsh, had put them where she put all miscellaneous objects strewing the tabletops, in the chest in the corner beyond the living-room fireplace. McKee had said, “Don’t handle them any more than you can help,” and Kit had been careful. Taking them out she had placed them on a magazine on top of the desk. The magazine was there, behind William’s floral tribute, but the glove and the tissue were gone.

  Kit stared through the window at a patch of sky. Everybody in the house knew she had been looking for them. Miriam had been testy about it. "If you weren’t so careless, Catherine . . .” What about people outside the house? Anita Stewart knew, she had come over to ask about Libby. The only other person who had gained admittance was George. He had driven up from New York in his car, aghast at what had happened to Libby and concerned about its effect on Kit. "Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe I could have helped. You must have been through hell.” He didn’t stay long. Except for George and Anita there was no other outsider. . . .

  Kit rang McKee and told him. Silence at the other end of the wire; she said, “Fingerprints, Inspector?” and he said, abstractedly, “Perhaps,” adding that he’d be up shortly. Kit replaced the phone. Libby was coming down the stairs between Lucy Barrett and Miriam. At the bottom she released herself from their support. "I feel fine,” she declared stoutly. “My legs are a little shaky, but that’s from not using them. Look at me, Kit, I weigh five pounds more than you and I’m three inches shorter—as strong as a horse, really. I’m going to stop coddling myself. It’s all nonsense.”

  Miriam was looking at Kit fixedly. “Who were you talking to just now, Catherine?”

  Kit’s brows rose at her aunt’s demanding tone. “Inspector McKee.”

  “Why? What did you want to say to him?”

  Kit would have preferred to keep he
r discoveiy to herself, she didn’t want to frighten Libby unnecessarily, but the Inspector would ask questions when he came—she told them about the tissue and the glove. Libby was frightened, tried not to show it. “Maybe they got mislaid again. Let’s not think about it. Come on outside with me, Kit, I want to look at my borders.”

  McKee arrived at a little before twelve. He talked to Kit and Libby and Miriam VanKreef. The theft of the glove and the tissue interested him. Someone had wanted them, urgently, and yet they were without apparent meaning. But there was one.

  The thief could be someone inside the house, or someone from outside—the unlocked window beside the hall fireplace would have been no trick for an agile person. “Who else, besides yourselves, knew that those two things were on the desk when you went to bed last night, Miss Haven?” “Not many people,” Kit said. “A neighbor, Mrs. Stewart, who lives across the street; she came in at around ten to ask about Libby, and George Corey, a friend of mine who drove up from New York.”

  “Mr. Wilder wasn’t here?” It took both girls by surprise. Libby colored faintly. McKee said, “Mr. Wilder’s at the hotel in Denfield. He came yesterday evening.”

  Libby got McKee’s drift. She said quietly, “But Tony wasn’t here at the house, Inspector, so he couldn’t even have seen those things.”

  The desk top was visible from the garden, and there was only one man patrolling the grounds. The tissue and the glove didn’t appear to threaten anyone, neither surface would take a fingerprint, and their removal had involved considerable risk.

  Kit sat frowning intently at her hands. Something about the tissue tugged at her attention. They all watched her.

  Miriam had been hemming a damask napkin. Her scissors fell to the floor with a sharp clatter. Kit gave her head a shake. “I thought I remembered something odd—but it’s gone.”

  The clatter of the scissors had snapped a thread. Miriam VanKreef’s intervention could have been deliberate; McKee said so to Kit when she walked with him to the gate a few minutes later.

  She stared past him at tree shadows. "I can’t believe that Aunt had anything to do with what happened to Libby. I’m not very fond of her—but I can’t.”

  “Why, Miss Haven?”

  “Because,” Kit threw out her hands, let them fall, “how could she look like that, like she always does, and walk around, and talk about it, and stay here in the house if she was involved? She’d be different. We’d see it.”

  McKee smiled. “I’m afraid not, Miss Haven. No, I’m afraid not. From now on don’t take anything on faith— anything or anyone.” On that he went.

  “Don’t take anything on faith.” It was a cynical credo to live by. Kit walked slowly up the path.

  XIV

  All that afternoon and evening the house was full of people. Tony Wilder came and William and George and Hugo and, later on, Mr. Strait. Tony Wilder was the first. He came at around four o’clock.

  Kit couldn’t decide in her own mind how Libby really felt about Wilder. She was nice to him, but then she was nice to everybody. She certainly gave no sign of being madly in love with him. On the other hand, she was firm with Philip about him after he went, firm in her own quiet way.

  Kit opened the door when Wilder rang. He was even more wooden than usual. He had come to ask about Libby. “How is she, Miss Haven?” There wasn’t much doubt as to how he felt, his devotion was obvious. Libby called to him from the living room. “Tony, hello—come on in.” After a few minutes Kit left them alone together.

  Wilder didn’t stay long. Libby walked to the gate with him when he left. Looking tired and cross, Philip came out of his study while they were standing together under the maples. He saw them through the window, and swore. “What’s that scoundrel doing here?” He talked to Libby when she came in. “You don’t mean to tell me that you like that tailor’s dummy! There’s nothing inside of him but sawdust. He hasn’t got a brain in his head.”

  “Now, Philip,” she squeezed his arm, laughing. “You’re jealous, just plain jealous—and I won’t have it. I want you to like my friends—and I’m fond of Tony. The poor fellow’s had a hard time. The only thing he cares about is the theater. He was an actor and a good one and he was just getting a toehold when the war came. The four years he was in the army pretty well ruined his chances, and he’s had to take a succession of miserable jobs at other things since.”

  Philip grunted and grumbled but Libby could always cajole him out of a bad humor. He swore again when William arrived at six o’clock. “Damn it, Kit! Are we running a hotel for this fellow’s benefit, or what? Two nights in a row—and a week-end coming up!” “Sshh, he’ll hear you,” Kit cautioned. “I don’t give a hoot in hell whether he hears me or not,” Philip retorted, raising his voice, but when Kit said, “Oh, darling, we ought to be happy with Libby home and all right,” he agreed and became milder and more civilized.

  After Wilder left Libby went up to rest. When she came down for dinner she looked much better. Hugo got there as they were going into the dining room. Libby had been unconscious the last time Hugo saw her; Kit found herself watching them both closely, and after that gave her entire attention to her plate.

  She felt grayly depressed and apprehensive. The Inspector’s warning not to take anyone or anything at face value rang malignly in her ears. She didn’t even, when George arrived later on, get any comfort out of him, and he could usually make her feel good. As far as the others went, the atmosphere was one of subdued cheerfulness. Philip was in better spirits, William beamed on everyone, unsnubbed. Miriam was calm, and, as usual, concerned about trifles. The soup wasn’t quite hot enough—and perhaps a little more mace? Watching Libby laugh and talk Kit thought at first, she’s happy because she’s beginning to feel safe and because Hugo is here; looking at her more closely she decided that she was wrong, Libby was too gay, too vivacious. Was it simply reaction, the upswing of the pendulum, or was Libby frightened and trying to conquer it, prove to herself that she wasn’t afraid?

  Dinner seemed interminable. It was over too soon. After dinner Mr. Strait came, with the result of his investigation into Philip’s bank statement.

  It was William who had put the kettle on to boil in the kitchen in the small hours last week; it was William who had leaped through the window in Philip’s study when Kit pushed the door open. William had raised a check of Philip’s from fifty to five hundred dollars. Mr. Strait and Philip closeted together in the study; Philip came charging into the living room with a roar. They were all there, including William and Miriam.

  Philip was outraged. He lashed out at William, told him he was a whited sepulchre, a rat gnawing, a snake in the grass, and a fool—a fool who was going to pay for his folly.

  White-faced and crushed, William cowered before the storm, huddled down in a chair, his eyes blinking behind his glasses at each fresh assault. He should have known, and Miriam should have known, that Philip wouldn’t carry out his threats. There was no danger of William’s going to the penitentiary. Philip was only blowing off steam. “You thought I was safe in Mexico and that I was going to be there for a while and that you’d have plenty of time to cover your tracks. You were caught short when my telegram arrived. You came up here that Monday night and my bank statement hadn’t come. You came again on Wednesday night and when we were all in bed and asleep you steamed the bank statement open and destroyed the check you raised.”

  Kit and Libby exchanged glances. They were uncomfortable and embarrassed and sorry for William; they knew better than to interrupt Philip. It was Miriam who did that, rising majestically in the middle of the furor, and putting up a hand. “Stop, Philip. I won’t listen to any more. William did wrong, certainly, I’m not denying that—but don’t worry. I haven’t very much, but I will see that you’re paid back, in full. The trouble is, you keep the poor boy too short.”

  Philip looked as though he were going to have a stroke. “I—what?”

  Miriam repeated firmly, “You keep the poor boy too short. Wealth isn�
�t given us to hoard, you know. If you had been more liberal with him, this wouldn’t have happened. Come, William—come upstairs to my room with me.”

  Any port in a storm; William lurched to his feet ^tnd followed Miriam through the door. Philip stared after them, speechless. No wonder, Kit thought angrily. Her aunt’s accusation was absurd. Philip was the most generous man in the world, money meant absolutely nothing to him, if he wanted to throw it away he could, it was his own. But William was no relation of his and he was under no obligation to fill William’s pockets.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” The anger went out of her uncle. He said uncertainly, “Maybe I shouldn’t have gone after him so hard. ... I don’t know.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Things seem to bother me more than they used to.”

  It was his telltale heart subconsciously warning him. Kit got up, got a glass of water and two of the pills Dr. Terry had left and made him take them. “What do you think, Kit?” he asked, handing back the glass. “What I really wanted to do was to give him a scare. Do you think I was too hard on him?” It was unusual for him to ask her opinion; it gave Kit a little glow. “William will recover,” she said dryly. “He has a way of shedding things.”

  Libby was sitting on a hassock near the open window, hands clasping her knees. She said with a troubled look, “You know, I believe I’m responsible, partly, anyhow. William was spending money on me. He brought me flowers and candy and once,” she dimpled, “a hat. He left it behind the door when he went. It was a color I can’t possibly wear, a red. . .”

  She broke off and looked wonderingly from Hugo to Kit, who had turned to stare at each other. Kit said, “What hat, Libby? That red straw cloche with the navy ribbons?” Libby nodded. “Yes. That’s the one. Why?” Kit told her about the hat, how they had found it with the crown smashed in on her bedroom floor.