Q. This is not a radio program.
Q. Captain, if you’d just let me
Q. We’ll straighten this out later.
A. Straightened one thing out for sure. The photograph. Seems all three went to Riverview Park. Roller coasters. Fun house. And had a gag picture taken in wedding clothes. Mr. C and Mrs. B, that is.
Q. Is this a divorce case you claim you ware working on?
A. It’s connected with divorce. And after Riverview, after a couple of other stops the three of them ran into Miss T at the bar of a club with a French name.
Q. Minuet?
A. Thanks, Captain, I don’t dance
Q. Why Captain didn’t you say we should’t
A. I know I know. I lost my temper. Cross all that out you damn fool.
Q. Now, was this club called the Minuet?
A. Yeah. And Miss T, according to Cleo, was scared of something. Didn’t want to go home alone. So she glommed onto Mr. C, her escort Charley having left. That’s important, Miss T being scared.
Q. Let him talk, Sergeant.
A. These other things could be important too. Picked them up piecemeal when Cleo wasn’t busy filling or emptying her kidneys. Cleo said that while she and Miss T were in the ladies room Miss T put in a call to Washington. Told someone evidence was safe with—only Cleo didn’t catch the name. Then Miss T hung up muttering about a mechanical man.
Q. Mechanical man?
A. That’s what she muttered. Mechanical man. And then Miss T got an airplane schedule out of her purse, began looking up flights to Washington. Like she had to get there quick, Cleo said, and at the same time scared and not knowing what to do. Scared peeless, Cleo said in her elegant way.
Q. Now look.
A. Washington, evidence safe, mechanical man and scared peeless is about all Mr. C because Cleo and Mrs. B left.
Q. That is all. Period. We don’t give a tinker’s damn about this crap with Miss T at the Minuet. We want your story.
A. Very well. While I was digging all this out, Cleo started falling over things. Over things and off things. She also got sick. So I said coffee and she said her apartment.
Q. 11 East Oak?
A. All I know it was on the sixth floor and the elevator boy had to help me lug her in. Pretty elegant place. Dumped her on the sofa and went out into the kitchen to make the coffee. And then came the crash?
Q. Crash?
A. Damnedest you ever heard. Like an earthquake at a glass blowers’ convention. I ran to the bathroom.
Q. Why the bathroom?
A. Are you stupid? There was this dame in the tub, naked as a jaybird, thrashing around in about three feet of perfume bottles.
Q. Perfume bottles?
A. Well, water, perfume and blood too, but mostly bottles. About fifty, all broken. Oh yeah, and what was left of two glass shelves. Seemed she’d slipped getting in the tub, grabbed the shelves and pulled the whole shebang, bottles and all, down with her.
Q. Why was she taking a bath?
A. How the hell would I know?
Q. Go on.
A. Fished her out of the tub. You ever wrestle a greased pig in a junkyard, Captain?
Q. No.
A. You can see where I cut my hands, and started to carry her into the bedroom and there were these people.
Q. Who?
A. We never got around to introductions. The elevator boy. A cop. Some others.
Q. And then?
A. I tossed the dame at the cop and would have got out only some bastard tripped me.
Q. That’s your story?
A. Can you think of a better one?
I. P. Geisel turned the page, but there was nothing under it. He glanced at Clay. ‘Illuminating.’
Clay didn’t say anything.
‘A call to Washington. A mechanical man. Frightened.’
‘What about Nichols?’ Clay asked.
‘Miss T.,’ I. P. Geisel murmured. ‘And Mr C.’
‘A writ of habeas corpus?’ Clay suggested.
I. P. Geisel eyed him thoughtfully. ‘Don’t you think I’d better apply for two while I’m at it?’
Chapter 18
EXCEPT for a kidney-shaped desk the size of a Hollywood swimming pool, Mrs Palmer’s outer office resembled an apartment living-room. Bright chintz covered a couch and three overstuffed chairs; Dufy paintings hung on panelled walls; yellow roses, petals closed, slept in silver vases; and in a marble fireplace were birch logs so white they looked as though they had been dry-cleaned. Back of huge windows at the end of the room sparkled the city’s lights.
Sam Clay, sitting in a corner of the couch, drowsily watched Mary Lou Converse, the pretty receptionist, get ready to go home. She had already put on lipstick and eye shadow, combed out her dark hair, rolled a piece of gum in paper and dropped it in a waste-basket, and now she was adjusting the seams of her stockings. ‘No peekin’,’ she warned from behind the kidney-shaped desk.
Clay asked, ‘Are you-all fixin’ to leave me here alone, Mary Lou?’
‘Four hours overtime! No dinner!’ Mary Lou said. ‘And the man wants me to stay!’ She straightened up, began turning dials on a machine that looked something like a dictaphone. ‘And besides, Her Majesty’ll be getting around to you any minute now.’
‘Who’s in there?’
‘Widdecomb, Standish and a detective.’
‘Heavy-set man?’ Clay asked, alarmed.
‘No. Thin. Grey hair.’ She touched a switch on the machine. Soft green light lit the dials and from within came a humming sound. She depressed a lever on the telephone control box, picked up the nearest telephone and listened. Clay could hear a woman speaking, but he couldn’t make out what she said. After a moment Mary Lou put the phone back in place.
‘What’s that gadget for?’
She smoothed her skirt, then picked up her purse. ‘Telerecorder.’ She came around the desk.
‘What’s a telerecorder?’
‘How ignorant can you-all get?’
‘Plenty.’
‘For incoming calls, stupid.’ Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled. ‘Answers the phone, records what you have to say and then hangs up. Electronics or something. For heaven’s sake, don’t touch it.’
‘I won’t.’
‘’By, you-all.’ Buttocks moving jauntily under the thin skirt, she went out the door.
Clay settled back on the couch. It was the first chance he’d had to think since I. P. Geisel had left him in the outer office ten minutes ago. I. P. Geisel was impaled on the horns of a dilemma, if that was what a dilemma had. As a citizen he was duty bound to report what he’d learned about Clay from Tom Nichols’ statement. As a lawyer he was duty bound to keep the information confidential until otherwise instructed by his client. He’d gone down to his office on the thirtieth floor to interview his conscience, was still interviewing it as far as Clay knew.
He started to think about the Minuet and what Cleo had said about Miss T. It was pretty incoherent, coming as it did in a sort of triple play from Cleo to Tom to a police stenographer. Airplanes to Washington. The phone call to Washington. The first of two phone calls to Washington, counting the one from the apartment. If only he could remember. He tried to visualize himself at the bar with the three women, but nothing came. The blackout was still in effect. Irritated, he went to the desk and picked up one of the phones. The machine clicked, its dial lights flickered, it hummed and Mary Lou’s voice said: ‘Mrs Palmer’s office. This is a telerecording. Please give your name and message.’ He put the handpiece back on its cradle, tried another phone, got a dial signal and called Bundy’s number. ‘Sam Clay,’ he said when Miss Dewhurst answered.
‘Oh, Susan, I’m so sorry!’ she exclaimed.
‘Susan?’
‘I know I’m late, Susan, but Mr Bundy is being … interviewed.’
He finally got it. ‘Police?’
‘I should be free quite soon, though.’
‘Can you give him a message?’
With occasional pauses for additional ‘Yes, Susans,’ Clay gave her a quick summary of Nichols’ arrest and his statement, ending with the call to Washington, the ‘evidence safe’ line and the reference to the mechanical man.
‘That’s terribly exciting, Susan,’ Miss Dewhurst said. ‘Because a most interesting person has the Dupont number.’
‘Who?’
‘Tell you when I see you, dahling. Must ring off now.’
Clay put down the phone wondering why the police were questioning Bundy. It could be about some other matter, but it didn’t seem likely. Not with Miss Dewhurst acting the way she had. And if they were after Bundy, it meant——
Widdecomb came out of Mrs Palmer’s office. Albino eyebrows arched, baby-blue eyes widened as he caught sight of Clay. ‘You!’ He halted theatrically.
‘Why not?’
‘Mrs Palmer didn’t tell me she … she …’ He started to go back into the office, then glanced again at Clay, suddenly alarmed, and hurried out of the room. His heels raised staccato echoes in the corridor.
Standish and Lieutenant Diffendorf appeared next. Standish scowled at Clay. ‘Detectives! Lies!’ he snarled. ‘Benedict Arnold!’ He went out into the corridor.
Diffendorf, lingering to light his pipe, observed quietly, ‘You ain’t a very popular fellow.’
‘I guess not.’
‘Anything you want to tell me?’
Clay shook his head.
‘Pity.’ The match flame above the pipe’s bowl was yellow. ‘Storm’s a little on the trigger-happy side.’
‘I imagine.’
‘Might plug me, too, after what happened with the hat.’ Match still poised over the bowl, he gazed at Clay thoughtfully. ‘Could be we’re playing for the same ball club.’
‘I hope so.’
‘You wouldn’t want to swap information?’
‘I’ll call you later.’
‘You mean it?’
‘I promise.’
Diflfendorf broke the match, dropped it into an ash tray. ‘That Storm,’ he said. ‘Couple of police maxims he doesn’t know about. One’s, arrest in haste, repent at leisure.’
‘And the other?’
‘I hope it don’t apply.’ Diffendorf’s lips curled around the pipe stem. ‘But it starts out: Give a man enough rope …’ He nodded, sauntered out the door.
Clay felt a tingling sensation at the base of his neck, where the rope would go. Or rather the metal collar on the electric chair. Diffendorf was the one to worry about. He was playing cat-and-mouse. The hat proved that. And when he decided to pounce, the case would be as nearly airtight as a case could be. And once he learned about Laura Peterkins! What in hell gave with her, anyway? Almost four hours and still nothing. Could the police be covering?
From behind the inner door a voice called: ‘Mr Clay.’
Twice as big as the reception room with twice as many windows and four times as many yellow roses, Mrs Palmer’s office carried out the panel-and-chintz effect. There were two couches instead of one, with a huge circular glass-top cocktail table between them; a bigger marble fireplace and, Clay saw to his amazement, an even bigger desk. Behind this, her lovely face composed, bland, inscrutable, sat Mrs Palmer.
‘Close the door.’
He closed the door wondering how old she was. In the thirties certainly, but the flawless skin, the clear eyes, more topaz than smoky now, the tawny hair, the smooth curve of flesh from jaw to collarbone gave no indication of where.
‘Sit down.’
He sat on one of the couches, deciding her age didn’t matter. There was a perfection about her that was outside age: the poised, assured perfection of a lady who, in addition to being lovely, happened to control three newspapers, five magazines, a national wire service and forty million dollars.
‘A drink?’
‘No, thanks.’
She watched him for a moment with detached curiosity and then, in a low voice, she asked the question.
‘Tell me, why did you kill Mary Trevor?’
Chapter 19
OUTSIDE the big windows the summer dusk had gone, leaving the city lights crystal bright, like lights on the moon. A taxi horn asked a question thirty-one stories below, was answered by distant thunder. In the room the yellow roses slept, undisturbed by the beating of Clay’s heart.
At last he managed to say, ‘What makes you think I killed Mary Trevor?’
‘Weren’t you with her last night?’ Her hand, capable looking but still feminine, moved on the desk. ‘She told me you were.’
‘She told you!’
The hand stopped moving. ‘Then you didn’t trace the Dupont number?’
‘It’s unlisted.’
‘It’s mine.’
He blinked at her in astonishment.
‘Miss Trevor telephoned me at five-thirty this morning. From her apartment. And mentioned you.’
‘She made the call at four-thirty.’
‘Not Washington time, Mr Clay.’
As his surprise diminished, Clay realized he shouldn’t have been surprised at all. He should have guessed from Standish’s, Canning’s, I. P. Geisel’s, Widdecomb’s agitation whose number it was. Bundy, if Miss Dewhurst was right, had figured it out with far less information.
He said, ‘I think I’ll take that drink now.’
‘The panel with the bronze knob.’
Sliding back noiselessly, the panel revealed shelves with Steuben glasses, liquor bottles, soda siphons and a silver ice bucket. ‘Scotch and two cubes of ice, please,’ Mrs Palmer said. He poured Scotch over ice into two old-fashioned glasses, added soda to one and carried them back to the desk. He put her glass in front of her, asked, ‘Why did she call you?’
‘I think you’d better answer my question.’
‘Why I killed her?’
‘Of course you’ll say you didn’t.’
‘That’s right.’ The Scotch, cut by the soda, smelled like Harris tweed. ‘Exactly what I’ll say. In fact, I’ll say it. I didn’t kill her.’
‘But you were with her?’
He drank from the glass, feeling the soda bubbles prickle his tongue. ‘Before I answer that, I’d like to know something.’
She waited, motionless.
‘Have you told the police about the call?’
‘I didn’t have to. They came to me. But I didn’t mention your name.’
‘Why not?’
‘I felt, as a Globe employee, you were entitled to tell your story first.’
‘And if I won’t?’
‘Then you won’t.’
He stared at her serene face realizing she meant what she said. She didn’t really care either way. He was something that had functioned improperly in her empire, a linotype machine that had written etaoinshrdlu instead of the weather report, and in fairness she was willing to listen to an explanation before issuing a discard order. He felt the stirring of anger at being classed as a statistic, a cog, a wheel, but what could he expect? A comforting kiss? A pat on the back? He wondered what would happen if he leaned over the desk and kissed her. He sighed, finished his Scotch.
‘I guess it’s tell.’
‘Get yourself another drink.’
He filled his glass, then started at the very beginning, with Tom Nichols at the Drake celebrating the final decree from Alice. From there he went on to the dinner with Andy Talbot, to the Vendome and Mrs Bruce, to the Little Club and Cleo and the brandy, to Riverview Park and the wedding photograph. He found the story flowed smoothly, the earlier gaps now filled with the information supplied by Bundy, Cleo and the various people encountered along the way. He paused at the Minuet to make a third drink for himself, a second for Mrs Palmer, and then quoting Nichols’ police statement, recreated what had happened there. For the first time Mrs Palmer seemed interested. She made him repeat the business about the airplane schedule and the phone call to Washington.
‘Frightened,’ she said. ‘And try
ing to get help.’ Her voice was low. ‘Poor child.’
‘Where were you when she made the first call?’
‘In bed. I’d left instructions not to be disturbed.’ She added softly, ‘She didn’t give the butler her name.’
‘I suppose the schedule meant she was thinking of flying there.’
‘She was afraid of someone in Chicago.’ Steady topaz eyes met his gaze. ‘She told me that.’
‘Did she say who?’
‘No.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Don’t you know, Mr Clay?’
‘I don’t know anything. That’s the trouble. If I did I wouldn’t be in this jam.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.’
Angered by the calm, impersonal voice that might have been discussing the growing of yellow roses, he demanded, ‘Have you ever heard the phrase, “blind drunk”, Mrs Palmer?’ He rattled the ice in his glass. ‘Have you ever heard of blackouts? Of blanks?’
Coolly she asked: ‘In that case, how do you know you didn’t kill her?’
‘Because …’
He was about to tell her of his discovery of Laura Peterkins’ body, but he suddenly realized he couldn’t. That was too much to expect anyone to believe.
‘Because,’ he repeated lamely, ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Do you recall being in the apartment at all?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and told her of waking up and finding the body. From there he went on to his discovery of the bracelet and, later, the scissors, and to his experience with Tom Nichols and Mr Bundy. He also, at her suggestion, poured two more drinks. He told her about the discovery of the wedding photograph, about Gwen Pearson, the elevator boy, the hat-check girl, about Mr Bundy’s blackmail theory, the janitor’s ‘Angel of the Lord’, Saul Blair’s rendition of ‘Larry Trevor and the Hooded Nun’, about Esther Baumholtz and the girl’s sudden wealth after her death and the changing of her name to Trevor. He even told her about the Fort Worth report on Simon Palmer’s purchase of bracelet and clip, knowing he was on delicate ground, but wanting to get everything out in the open. Near the end he found himself repeating and broke off, suddenly realizing the whole story sounded as though it had been spewed out of a cement mixer.
‘We will now open the forum for questions,’ he said.
Sinners and Shrouds Page 14
