The DEATH OF COLONEL MANN

by Cynthia Peale

  He fell silent, lost in his memories. After a moment, Ames said, “Was that when she shot a man?”

  Longworth looked up sharply. “Who told you that?”

  “It doesn't matter. She did, didn't she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he was a rotter. A thoroughgoing rotter. He—”

  “Yes?”

  Longworth shook his head, refusing to continue.

  “Why was she in New York?” Ames persisted. “Had she been offered a part there? She told me she wanted to stay in Boston.”

  “It was—a personal affair.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing to do with this case, Mr. Ames.”

  “I am beginning to think that everything has to do with this case.”

  To his horror, he saw that Longworth had begun to weep. He was quiet about it: no harsh sobs, no panting breath, just a silent stream of tears dropping down his cheeks. For a moment, he put his hands up to his face as if to shield himself from Ames's gaze; then, wiping his eyes, he said very low: “If you must know, Mr. Ames, she went to New York to have an illegal operation.”

  Ames felt the shock of it rocket through him. He realized that such things happened, of course, but not to anyone he knew. Such things belonged to some other world—the world of reckless, amoral men and loose women, women who lived in the demimonde. Women like Serena Vincent.

  “And the man she shot—?” he said.

  “Was—yes—the man responsible for her condition. She told me he tried to stop her from—from going ahead with it. Of course he had no right to do that. None. He followed her to New York, managed to find her, became violent. She had acquired a gun—a little pearl-handled shooter—some time before that, when she'd had trouble with a particularly persistent admirer. Women in her position often have to put up with such hazards.”

  “Like the shot taken at her the other night in the theater.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where you were. I saw you there.”

  Longworth's face twisted into a grimace. “I don't even own a gun. Search if you like.”

  “But I have it on the word of Mrs. Vincent's maid that you threatened to kill her—and yourself.”

  “Bluff, Mr. Ames. Pure bluff.” And now again, Long-worth began to weep, loudly this time, harsh sobs tearing at him.

  Ames felt he must ask his questions quickly, before the man collapsed completely and was no longer able to speak. “And so, when you met Mrs. Vincent in New York, you helped her in her difficulty. I imagine there was some to-do with the authorities.”

  “Some. She was lucky—she only gave the fellow a flesh wound in the arm. And, yes, I helped her. The District Attorney was my mother's second cousin. He was—cooperative.”

  “Hmmm.” Ames forbore to comment on this. “What did she think when you began to work for the Colonel?”

  “I didn't tell her.”

  “Did she ever find out?”

  “No. But she would have understood—I know she would have. She knew that I needed money. Needed!” He laughed—a harsh, ugly sound. “I was desperate for cash, I don't mind telling you. She offered me money herself, but I wouldn't take it. Even a man as hard up as I am has some standards.”

  “Even in the face of Mrs. Trask's blackmail?”

  Longworth stared at him, the shock plain on his ravaged face. “How did you know about that?”

  “I can't say. But I see from your reaction that it is true. She was blackmailing you, was she not?”

  Longworth reached for the cigarette box on his desk, opened it, and without offering one to Ames, took one and fumbled to light it.

  “All right, Mr. Ames. Yes, Mrs. Trask—that bitch—did try to get money from me. From me!” Again, the harsh, bitter laugh. “Better to try to get blood from a turnip. I have no money, and I told her so.”

  “Did you kill her?”

  “No.”

  “You had an excellent motive for doing so.”

  Longworth inhaled furiously, blew out clouds of smoke. “No. I mean—yes, that may appear to be so. But I didn't do it. I was with Mrs. Vincent.”

  “Her maid told me she would be at her dressmaker's that afternoon.”

  “Then her maid lied. And besides, why would I take such a risk—to kill that stupid woman? I could never understand why Winston—”

  Ah, thought Ames. Now we come to it. “Why Winston what?”

  “Since you seem to know so much, Mr. Ames, you probably know about him, as well. Yes. My partner—carrying on an affair with Marian Trask. Poor fellow, he is dead now.” He paused, remembering.

  Then he went on: “I could never understand what he saw in her. She was nothing but a bag of bones and a hank of hair. As much charm as a lamppost, a shrill little shrew, always poking into everyone's business— Well. There's no accounting for taste, is there?”

  No, thought Ames, there is not.

  “And the way they had to conduct themselves!” Long-worth said. “Sneaking around, always on the verge of being found out! One would hardly think she was worth it. At least I can go to Serena when I please, more or less. But Winston had to depend on—”

  “On what?”

  “On whom, you should say. Mrs. Trask needed help to conduct the affair—a friend to cover for her when she and Winston had an assignation. So it was a difficult business from beginning to end. They say the French do these things more skillfully, but this isn't France, is it? Poor old Winston was a nervous wreck, hiding in corners as if he were some kind of criminal. At the last, just before they were exposed to Colonel Mann, Winston told me he regretted the day he ever met her.”

  “Where was that?”

  “At the Christmas Revels. Winston played one of the jugglers, if I recall correctly. Had to dress up in a damned stupid costume.”

  “Who was the friend who covered for her?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Did you betray her to Colonel Mann?”

  “No.”

  “Who did?”

  “I don't know that, either. But he had very good information, whoever he was. Old Trask paid up on the spot.”

  Longworth took a final drag on what was now merely the stub of his cigarette and then smashed it out, violently, in the metal ashtray. Long after it was extinguished, he continued to pound it until it was a mush of tobacco shreds and torn paper. Then, very quietly, he said, “Why did you come here today, Mr. Ames?”

  “To try to help Mrs. Vincent.”

  “Did you ever find those letters you were looking for?”

  “No.”

  “Any idea, more than you had when you first asked me about them, where they might be?”

  “No.”

  Longworth began to laugh. It was a horrible sound, almost like a dog's bark. And, having begun, he couldn't seem to stop. “That will teach you a lesson, Mr. Ames,” he gasped. “Don't involve yourself in other people's problems! You started out searching for a packet of letters, and look where you find yourself! Trying to find a murderer!”

  “Perhaps I have succeeded,” Ames said quietly.

  Suddenly, startlingly, Longworth stopped laughing.

  “No,” he said. “You have not.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Prove that I did not kill the Colonel? Or Mrs. Trask, either? I've told you where I was, both times. One gentleman to another—isn't that enough?”

  Hardly, thought Ames. If you are a gentleman, Richard Longworth, I am Marie Antoinette.

  “I see,” Longworth said. “It isn't. Look—” He shook his head. “I don't know how many times I have to tell you this, but I did not kill Colonel Mann.”

  Ames watched him. “Or Mrs. Trask, either?”

  “No! Especially not her, the stupid bitch. Stupid, trou-blemaking bitch—to come to me with such a story, to try to get money out of me—me!” He was trembling so violently that his teeth chattered.

  “But the story was true,” Ames said quietly.

  Longworth was
silent. Then: “Yes.” He made a strangled sound that was nearer a sob than a laugh. “You are looking at a ruined man, Mr. Ames. But ruined though I am, I had nothing to do with either of those deaths, I swear it! Here— I will swear it on the Good Book if you like!” He whirled around and without needing to search for it took a Bible from the shelf behind him. Holding it in his left hand, he placed his right hand on it. “I swear—by this Book, by my mother's grave, by my own damaged soul—by anything you like, Mr. Ames. I did not kill them!”

  He kept his eyes steadily on Ames's. They were of some indeterminate color, and, just now, wide and staring. Ames met them steadily with his own dark gaze, and he thought, beyond all reason, beyond all that I know of him, I believe him.

  “And you did not betray Mrs. Trask to the Colonel?” he asked.

  “No. I did not.”

  “And you know nothing of the letters I seek?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  Longworth laid the Bible on the desk in front of him. Ames stood up. The man before him was a bad debtor, an addicted gambler, an adulterer, a bigamist. Until this moment, Ames had believed he was a murderer as well.

  But he had seen something, just now, in Longworth's eyes—some inkling of truth, some faint trace of honesty, of decency, perhaps—decency, in spite of everything.

  “Mr. Longworth, I told you that I came here to try to help Mrs. Vincent. On the other hand, I will tell you quite frankly that last night, when I heard she had been arrested, I could not repress the thought that at least in jail, no matter how uncomfortable she might be, she would be safe. Safe from you, I thought.”

  Longworth seemed, suddenly, exhausted. “She has nothing to fear from me, Mr. Ames.”

  “There walks in this city a man who has killed two people in the past week—yes, I believe the murders are connected—and has made an attempt on Mrs. Vincent as well. If that man is not you…”

  “It is not, Mr. Ames. I have sworn it.”

  “Then the man who did is very dangerous.”

  “More dangerous than you thought I was?”

  “Yes.” Ames considered it. That man, whoever he was, was the man who had the most to lose. But who could possibly have more to lose than Richard Longworth? “Far more dangerous. Who is Mrs. Vincent's lawyer?”

  Longworth gave him a name.

  “Will you go to see him?” Ames asked. “And tell him not to request bail for her?”

  “I imagine he's already requested it and been refused. They don't bail first-degree murder suspects who may flee.”

  “Still. Make sure he understands her situation. Can you do that?”

  “Of course. If you think it necessary.”

  “I do.” Ames held out his hand. “I must go now. Will you be all right?”

  Longworth did not rise, but he did take Ames's hand. He gave it a brief shake and let it go. “Yes,” he said. “I will— now. Oddly enough, Mr. Ames, I am glad you came, although I would not have said so when you walked in. I feel—relieved, in some odd way, for having spoken to you.”

  Relieved, Ames thought as he went out. It was a notion completely foreign to him—to blurt out one's dark secrets to a virtual stranger, to admit one's horrendous blunders and failings— No. It was not his way, never would be.

  The fog had thickened; it was only three-thirty and already growing dark. The crowded street had something of the look of a new French painting he'd seen at the Vose Gallery—blurred, indistinct, not a clean, clear line on the canvas.

  No day for a herdic, he thought. He'd take the omnibus and hope to get to the club within the hour.

  THE ANNUAL AUTUMN ART SHOW AT THE ST. BOTOLPH Club was an event much anticipated, not only for the small cachet it gave to its members, marking them as men of culture and good taste, but also for the chance to buy, every so often, a painting that might, in time, turn a handsome profit. Promptly at four o'clock, the doors to the spacious exhibition room at the rear of the building were thrown open, and members and their guests streamed in.

  Ames found Delahanty and MacKenzie waiting for him in the lobby. “What is it, Ames?” Delahanty exclaimed. “You look as though you've seen the banshee herself.”

  Ames smiled to cover his discomfiture—did his feelings show so plainly?—and handed his hat and his Inverness cape to the porter.

  “Traffic,” he said. “The fog's thickening up badly.”

  They joined the steady stream of people thronging in and began their perambulations, starting with the wall to their right. There were perhaps fifty paintings spaced out around the room; in the center, at the back, was a large canvas that had been given the place of honor.

  But what with the crowd, and the need to consult the program, and the need to speak to people as he made his way, Ames had become impatient with the whole business by the time he'd seen less than half the exhibition.

  “Lots of effort went into this one, wouldn't you say?” Delahanty asked. It was a middling-sized canvas, a still life of fruit and cheese and a bottle of wine.

  Ames grunted. He was not interested in still lifes. He moved on. The next painting was a portrait of two children, a boy and a girl. They stared mournfully out from the canvas as if they had been reluctant to pose; they were dressed in their best, ruffles and satin sash for the girl, an uncomfortable-looking Little Lord Fauntleroy suit for the boy, and they looked very unchildlike. They have an ambitious mama, he thought, who makes them suffer this even when they are so young. To what lengths would she go, he wondered, when they were older?

  People pressed in; he moved on. He spoke to several members, and to their wives or daughters; he acknowledged the wave of someone from across the room.

  He should not have come here, he realized. After seeing Richard Longworth, he should have taken the opportunity to be alone with his thoughts. The St. Botolph Club, on the afternoon of a crowded opening, was not the place to do it.

  But as he turned to tell MacKenzie that he was going to leave, the doctor touched his arm.

  “Look at that,” he said.

  Ames followed his gaze to the large painting that had been given the best place at the back of the room; they were near it now, with, for the moment, hardly anyone obstructing their view.

  He stared at it, all thought of leaving suddenly vanished. It was, he saw, a most magnificent painting. He recognized the artist as John Singer Sargent, a man well known to Bos-tonians, for, young as he was, he had painted many of the city's wealthiest, most prominent citizens—and their wives.

  This painting was of a woman—some wealthy man's wife. The man had commissioned it, Ames knew, not only to have the painting itself but also to make an announcement to the world: I am a rich man, and this richly bedecked woman is proof of it. See her, and envy me.

  The woman in the portrait stood in a pose that was becoming known as the Sargent stance. Corseted body half turned from the viewer, hands splayed, head oddly tilted— she looked as though, at any moment, she would scream out her nervous tension for all the world to hear. Her eyes were averted, and yet you could see in the way she stood, almost as if she were poised for flight, that this was a woman in mental turmoil.

  Why did Sargent do that, Ames wondered—pose them like that? Did he see something in them, did he look into their souls and see some hidden torment there that he wanted to reveal to the world?

  And why, moreover, did people allow themselves to be portrayed so? By now, Sargent was well known, almost notorious. These nervous, agonized women had become his signature trademark. People knew what they would get when they commissioned a portrait from him: they would get something like this, which was, admittedly, a most magnificent portrait, but one that showed far too much of its subject's interior life. He might as well have painted her naked, Ames thought, so deeply has he violated her privacy.

  Someone came up at his side: Professor James.

  “Amazing,” he said.

  “Do you think so?”

  “Yes, absolutely. Look at the tension in the line from her n
eck down through her right arm. I don't mind telling you, Ames, the man who painted that portrait may know more about the human psyche than I do.”

  Ames looked. And now, at last, he realized that he knew this woman. She wore a gown of what was called Nile green (the Nile is not green, he thought, but brown) and held a half-open fan. Sargent had painted her, as was his wont, to be far more handsome than she was in fact, which was why he'd not recognized her at once.

  “I'd like to speak with her,” James went on. “She looks like a fascinating subject.”

  “Better you speak with Mr. Sargent,” Delahanty offered, “since it is he who made that fact obvious.”

  James smiled. “I have spoken with him. He may be a brilliant artist—I believe he is, in fact—but he either cannot or will not elaborate on how he comes to understand so well the people—particularly the women—whom he portrays.”

  Delahanty chuckled. “Trade secrets, no doubt. What do you think, Doctor?”

  MacKenzie studied the portrait. “I think it's rather bold,” he said. “If I had a wife—which I do not, alas—I would not want her presented to the world in this way. What secrets that woman has—what mental anguish! But look, Ames.” He spoke more quietly now, turning aside. “Look at the necklace.”

  “Yes,” Ames muttered. He stared at the portrait—at one particular part of it, which was the woman's slim, swanlike neck (and surely, in life, her neck was nothing like that?). Around that neck she wore a necklace—a handsome piece, probably some kind of heirloom, or perhaps it had been a wedding gift from that same husband who had commissioned the picture.

  “Addington?” It was Delahanty speaking to him; he did not answer. Keeping his eyes on the portrait, he reached into his breast pocket and touched his small leather-bound notebook. He had carried the image of this thing with him from the moment he'd found it on the floor of Colonel Mann's suite and hurriedly sketched it so that he would remember it correctly. He had looked at it repeatedly since Monday night; he did not need to look at it again to be sure. He would recognize instantly the pearls that matched it.