False colors

by Powell, Richard, 1908-1999

  "He's an artist who has some talent," I said. "That's my only interest in him."

  "Speaking of art, the cop who stayed in the front room last night, while I was talking to you, said your friends brought a rolled-up thing that might have been a painting and gave it to Miss Raymond. Would that have been one of Nick's paintings?"

  "I didn't get a look at what they brought her."

  "Probably it was just a calendar for 1923, huh?"

  "Let's make it 1924," I said. "I'm not sure I have an alibi for

  1923-"

  "Meadows, you're the most helpful guy I ever talked to."

  "What are you investigating, anyway?" I asked. "A burglary?

  Miss Raymond told you nothing had been taken. Assault and

  battery? Miss Raymond told you I had nothing to do with it."

  "Right at the moment," he said wearily, "all I'm investigating is human nature, and I got the goods on it. Now tell me, Meadows, what did you think of this thing?" He pulled a piece of blue-green silk from his pocket and dropped it on the desk. It had been rolled up tightly, and as it lay on the desk it uncoiled as if alive.

  "If you were watching closely," I said, "you probably saw me flinch. That either means I'm a strangler, or a guy who gets jumpy at the thought of a strangler. I like the second answer. Which one do you like?"

  "I'll take the second one, too. What do you think of that piece of silk? Is it a scarf?"

  I picked the thing up. The silk was so light it almost floated. I spread it out and examined it. The edges were unfinished and you could pick loose threads from them. "I thought it was a scarf when I first saw it," I said, "but I guess it isn't. Looks as if it was cut from a larger piece of material."

  "Did you ever see anything like it before? In drapes or curtains or bolts of material?"

  "Don't believe so. It's a rather unusual color, and I might remember if I'd ever seen it."

  He said casually, "When was the last time you saw Mason Dawes?"

  "Who?"

  "Mason Dawes."

  "Never heard of him. What's he got to do with this?"

  "I was just asking," he said. He took the length of silk and held both ends and braced his shoulders and tried to pull it apart. The silk stretched until it hummed, but it didn't rip. "Strong, ain't it?" he said, giving up the attempt. "You could hang a man with a long enough piece of this."

  "At the moment I'm not planning to hang anybody. But I'll let you know if I change my mind."

  He got up. "Let me know if you change your mind about the Raymond case, too. It might be hotter stuff than you think. And in the meantime, don't let yourself get caught in one of these." He made a loop in the silk, put it over his wrist and

  jerked it tight. He held up the free end, letting the wrist flop from the loop in a slightly horrible way. Then he smiled at me and went out.

  All afternoon I kept thinking about McCann's visit. There was something very odd about the way he had pretended to strangle his wrist in a loop of the blue-green silk. That was the second time he had done it. The first time was in Kay Raymond's bedroom, when he was questioning me. Each time he had made a noose and hung his wrist from it. In one way that didn't make sense, because nobody had tried to hang Kay with the silk. As far as I knew, a guy had put the thing around her throat and tightened it, without using a noose at all.

  The other queer thing about McCann's visit was his reference to somebody named Mason Dawes. When was the last time you saw Mason Dawes? That sounded like a loaded question, but I didn't know whether it was loaded with live ammunition or blanks. It might be interesting to find out who Mason Dawes might be.

  I looked him up in the phone book. No sale. I hunted through my catalogs for a dealer or collector or artist by that name. I went outside and found the cop who directs traffic on my corner and asked him if there was a policeman or detective named Mason Dawes. I telephoned some friends who have a wide acquaintance in art circles and asked them. I even called the Rit-tenhouse Arms and asked to speak to Mason Dawes. Nobody had ever heard of him. Working on that killed the afternoon and left me feeling tired and stupid. I went for a walk to clear my head, although it seemed empty enough anyway. Then I dropped in at a restaurant for dinner.

  While eating I got another idea. If Mason Dawes had ever been in the news, there might be clippings about him in the libraries of the local papers. The Bulletin would be closed by now, but maybe I could check at the Inquirer. After dinner I walked to Broad and Callowhill and went up to the Inquirer's city room and hunted up a friend of mine, Eddie Talbot, on the rewrite staff. I told him what I wanted, and he phoned the library to see if they had clippings.

  "They got something on him," Eddie said. "They're sending it down."

  "What's the dope?" I said. "Why is the guy so hard to locate? I've checked all over Philadelphia looking for him."

  Eddie yawned. "You didn't check the right place," he said. "You should have tried the cemeteries. The guy is dead."

  I don't know what there is about that word "dead." Sometimes it slips by in conversation like a minor note on a flute when the Philadelphia Orchestra is playing. Other times it comes out like a roar of kettledrums. This was one of the kettledrum times. It made my skin feel as if it had been turned inside out. I waited until the small brown envelope arrived. It held one clipping, and the headline read: FIND YOUNG ARTIST IN STUDIO SUICIDE.

  The brief news item reported that Mason Dawes had been twenty-three years old, had studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and was a promising artist. About two years ago he drank most of a pint of liquor, in his downtown studio, and then hanged himself from a rafter. There wasn't any suicide note, but the people from whom Dawes rented the studio said he had seemed very depressed about his work.

  That was all. It was one of those open and shut cases, in which you get a peek at a guy's private life and then a coffin lid slams in your face. I thanked Eddie and left the Inquirer building.

  The studio where Dawes hanged himself was in a little section off Twenty-first Street called Shakespeare Village, where somebody had hollowed out part of a block of old buildings and built places that are supposed to look like Stratford-on-Avon. I decided to pay it a visit. Maybe I could get another peek into the private life of Mason Dawes, and find out why a detective wanted to know when I had last seen him.

  The house where Dawes had lived was built to look like an old English tavern. The timbers showing on the outside were painted blood-red and made the place look as if it had been badly wounded. There was a bell-pull beside the door. I yanked it and heard a somber tolling inside. A man in a red

  corduroy jacket and blue slacks came to the door. I introduced myself, and said I was an art dealer who was interested in a couple of things done by an artist named Mason Dawes, and asked if the man had known him.

  "Mason Dawes?" the man said. "Why, sure. He rented the studio above here from us. My name's Archbold. Come in."

  I followed him into the living room and looked around, while Archbold went to the rear to call his wife. It was a big room with a high ceiling. It needed to be big, because it held two grand pianos, and a record player you could have parked a jeep in. Mrs. Archbold came in. She looked thin and intense, as if she had spent too much time playing Bach.

  "So you're an art dealer," she said. "Didn't we read about you lately in the papers?"

  I admitted it.

  Archbold said, "We're not too sold on art. Music is our line. I guess you can see that. We both play. The phonograph is hi-fi, naturally."

  "Naturally," I said. Whatever hi-fi was.

  "I don't want you to think we have anything against art," Mrs. Archbold said. "It's just that it's not, well, in a class with music. And of course we had that unfortunate experience with poor Mason Dawes. Nowadays we only rent the studio to musicians. Much more reliable. The man upstairs now is a cellist. Philadelphia Orchestra, naturally. Do you think Ormandy is as good as Stokowski was?"

  "Mr. Meadows wants to talk about Mason Dawes," Archbold remin
ded her. "Now what exactly did you want to know?"

  I asked questions and pulled the story out of them like a conductor working on a balky orchestra. Dawes had rented their studio for about a year. At first he was a perfect tenant and they had some pleasant times together, although of course Dawes didn't understand music at all. But then he became quite gloomy and temperamental and began doing a lot of drinking. He seemed very unhappy about his work. Finally one night when they were at a concert he hanged himself. They found the body the next morning, when he didn't come down

  for the cup of coffee he liked to have with them. Dawes hadn't had any relatives in the city, as far as they knew. The only one they had met was an uncle from Perth Amboy, who had come on for the funeral.

  I tried to find out what sort of painting Dawes had done, and why he was unhappy about it, but they couldn't remember. They hadn't paid much attention when Dawes talked about art. They looked on painting as an activity only a shade better than coughing at concerts. Considering some of the work artists do nowadays, I wasn't sure they were far wrong.

  When we finished talking about Dawes they had me stay for a drink. It turned out that Archbold was an actuary for an insurance company. He liked music because it was based on mathematics, like insurance statistics. There was a concerto by Brahms that he wanted me to hear, because it had some delightful higher mathematics or maybe mortality tables in it. I explained politely that I had no ear for music, and couldn't tell a pizzicato from a pizza pie. After that they didn't urge me to stay. I said good-by to them at the door, wishing that I hadn't wasted a couple of hours running down this idea.

  "We probably haven't been very helpful to you," Mrs. Arch-bold said. "But maybe you could get some more information from that girl Mason used to go with. What was her name, dear? The girl who was an assistant buyer in one of the big stores?"

  "Can't quite remember," Archbold said.

  "Don't tell me that, dear," Mrs. Archbold said. "I remember the way you used to eye her. Raymond, that was her name. Kay Raymond."

  I jumped. "What was that?" I said.

  "His girl's name was Kay Raymond. They were practically engaged."

  "Maybe I know her," I said, trying to keep my voice calm. "The same girl who has an interior decorating shop on Locust Street?"

  "That's the one. She opened it six months after poor Mason died. Quite a jump from an assistant buyer's job. I suppose some man set her up in business."

  no

  "Men are never right, are they?" Archbold grumbled. "If a girl doesn't get ahead in business, it's because men keep holding her back. If she does get ahead, it's because men keep holding her."

  Mrs. Archbold ignored him. "And when you see her," she said, "and if the subject isn't painful, ask her where poor Mason could have found that material he used for the rope. I've always been curious about it. Such an odd color, and it didn't match anything else he had in his studio. It looked as if it had been a long window drape. The color was blue-green."

  I gulped. It was like trying to drop a burr down inside a woolen sock. "Silk?" I asked.

  "I believe it was. Blue-green silk. Good night, Mr. Meadows. I'm sorry we couldn't tell you anything interesting."

  I said good night and walked unsteadily down the street. There was only one way she could have been more interesting. That would have involved telling me who murdered Mason Dawes.

  13.

  As soon as I managed to stop walking like a man on his way to meet a hangover, I hurried to the Rittenhouse Arms. Either Kay Raymond was going to talk to me or I was going to talk to the police. It wouldn't be any news to the detective, McCann, that he was working on a murder case. Obviously he knew that. But I could hand him a lot of information he didn't have, and I planned to do it if Kay didn't give me some good reasons why not. It was possible, of course, that Kay might have been involved in the murder. But it wasn't likely. Hanging a man, even if he happens to be drunk, takes a lot of strength. Kay would be more the revolver-in-the-handbag type.

  I wanted to make sure the desk clerk at the Rittenhouse Aims

  knew where I was, so I asked him to call Miss Raymond's room for me.

  He looked at his files, and said, "Miss Raymond is away."

  "You remember me," I said. "I was here last night, and called you when she got hysterical. I have to see her. Can you tell me where she went or anything?"

  "She left at eleven o'clock this morning, with a suitcase. She said she would be away for at least a week, and to hold her mail. That's really all I know."

  This case was as hard to get hold of as a jellyfish. I wanted to talk to Nick and he slipped away. I wanted to talk to Kay and she vanished. Maybe I should give Nancy a ring and make sure she was still around before I called the cops. I walked to a public phone booth and dialed her number. William answered the ring.

  "Hello, William," I said. "This is Peter Meadows. Is Nancy in?"

  "I'm glad you called," he said. "Miss Nancy came home at five-thirty and tried to phone you."

  "Well, here I am."

  "Yes, Mr. Meadows, but now she isn't."

  "Where did she go? Did she leave a message?"

  "She left three messages for you, sir. The first one is that she has gone out with Mr. Sheldon Thorp."

  I didn't enjoy that message. "What's the second one?"

  "She said, 'Tell Mr. Meadows I will probably clear the whole thing up tonight without his help.' Does that make sense to you, sir?"

  "Sure. It means she's trying hard to get hurt."

  "Mr. Meadows, she has spent her life getting hurt. If it isn't falling off horses, it's scalding herself trying to learn to cook."

  "What's the third message? It can't be worse than those two."

  "She was invited to an art exhibit at the Lassiter Galleries, and has gone there. Is that worse, Mr. Meadows?"

  "You wouldn't believe it," I said, "but next to that one the first two are Christmas carols."

  I cut off the talk fast and headed across Rittenhouse Square.

  The Lassiter Galleries occupy an old rock quarry of a house on the corner of one of the streets coming into the square. Usually at night the place looks as blank as a jail. The lights were on now but it still looked like a jail. And, if my suspicions were right, this was a jail where the criminals ran the show. I didn't think Nancy would get very far playing detective in it, not unless where she wanted to get was to a slab in the morgue.

  I ran up the front steps of the place. The heavy doors at the entrance were open, and there were clumps of people in the hallway beyond. I walked in and took two steps through the hall and then somebody grabbed my arm and spun me around.

  "Going somewhere?" a flat voice said.

  The guy who stopped me was short and built like a fireplug. He had a round head varnished thinly with black hair, and jowls that looked purple with tomorrow's beard. He wore a white jacket and a maroon bow tie and a dark scowl. "I was going inside," I said. "I was invited."

  "I didn't getcha name."

  "Meadows. Peter Meadows. Mr. Lassiter called me up this morning and—"

  The guy had already walked back to the entrance, and was looking at a chart on a table. I hadn't noticed the table when I hurried in. A nice-looking old man with white hair was sitting behind it, apparently keeping track of the invited guests.

  The guy who had stopped me said, "Mark him down, Pop. Name's Meadows." Then he came back to me and tried to stretch his face into a smile. "Sorry to stop you like that," he said. "But we gotta lotta stuff in here that's worth money and nobody gets in but people that's invited. Pop over there marks them in and out on that list."

  I would feel better when Pop checked out Miss Vernon and Mr. Meadows. "I understand," I said. "You have to be careful."

  "Yeh," he said in his toneless voice. "We don't take no chances."

  I went inside and started looking for Nancy. The first floor of the house had half a dozen big rooms. Four of them were

  being used for the exhibit, and were crowded with pe
ople chattering and lifting drinks and occasionally looking at the paintings on exhibit. Right away I bumped into Sheldon Thorp. He had been looking at a Renoir as though it were a stain on a restaurant napkin, and when I came along he let me be the stain.

  "Hello, Sheldon," I said. "Where's Nancy?"

  "Why should I tell you?" he said. "Does Gimbel's tell Macy's?" Then he grinned and added, "That's not bad, is it, Pete?"

  "You've collected everything else," I said, "so now you're going to collect old jokes, hull? You brought her, didn't you?"

  "I brought her but I can't keep track of her. She's fluttering around somewhere."

  Sure. Fluttering around like a clay pigeon at a trap shoot. "I'll see you," I said.

  "Stick around and let's sneer at Lassiter's exhibit. I find it very disappointing. It's been thrown together like a rummage sale at a church. What do you think, is Lassiter slipping?"

  "Not in some ways," I muttered, and walked off.

  After hunting through the exhibit rooms for a few minutes I saw a glint of bright hair flickering through the crowd. I hurried after it. The glint whisked around a corner and vanished. When I turned the corner I saw the doorway of a small dark room. The door was partly open, and enough light reflected in to show the outlines of office furniture. There seemed to be another light, too—a moth-sized glow winging over a desk. I poked my head in and there was Nancy. She was using a small pocket flashlight, happy as a kid fighting matches to look in a gas tank.

  I glanced around quickly. Nobody was in sight. "Psst!" I said. "Come out of there!"

  At least she had enough sense to jump. "Oh, it's Pete!" She gasped. "You startled me."

  "If it had only been a silk scarf tightening on your neck, it probably wouldn't have bothered you a bit. Come out here!"

  "There are some papers here I want to look at and—"

  "Don't get excited about them. They're nothing but invitations to your funeral. I'll drag you out in a moment."