The Frightened Fianc?e

by George Harmon Coxe

  “I know it,” Holland said and then, standing there by one of the windows that overlooked the circular drive, he told how he had awakened with most of his clothes still on, and of the impulse that prompted him to go swimming.

  What he said required little thought and when he saw a car drive round the corner and park in the motor court he continued absently while he gave his attention to the man who struggled out from behind the steering-wheel. The car carried New York license plates, and struggle was the proper word to describe the newcomer’s efforts; for he was a big man of considerable bulk and wore a seersucker suit and a Panama hat. He ducked back into the car to bring forth a briefcase, and Holland watched his hurried progress toward the steps until Mrs. Allenby thumped a folded newspaper on her knee and spoke sharply.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You’re not paying any attention. I asked you if that was all you saw?”

  He sat down opposite her, aware that she had opened the newspaper to a new crossword puzzle. She had a pencil in her hand but she wasn’t working with it. She was watching him closely, her brown eyes perturbed and uncertain and perhaps a little afraid.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t hear anything,” he said.

  “Why do you say that?” she demanded with some asperity. Then, seeing that he was taken aback by the sharpness of her reply, she said, “Oh, you mean the shot?”

  “The guesthouse is on this side.”

  “But you were outside when you heard it. You were awake.”

  “Do you always sleep well?”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “You usually take a stiff drink—that’s what you said—and last night you took a light one.”

  She gave him a hard, bright look, the aging lines about her mouth suddenly deepening. Then she laughed.

  “You remembered that, did you? Well, I had the other jigger after you left. I had to get out of bed and get it because I did have trouble getting to sleep. But after that—” She paused, the look he had seen before working in the depths of her gaze. “You didn’t actually see anyone, Johnnie?”

  Holland remembered the porch climber vividly. He remembered how he had stood there on the rock and watched Nadine remove blouse and brassière. He tried to visualize the girl’s hair, evaluating the depth of its color and wondering if at night and from where he stood it would appear black. He thought it might, but he did not say so.

  “No,” he said:

  Fanny Allenby lowered her glance quickly and settled her weight in the chair. Just as suddenly she looked back at him, her mouth pinched as she thumped the paper again.

  “It was someone from outside,” she said dogmatically. “A private detective, humh! I knew there was something wrong about Roger Drake from the start. I can’t understand what Tracy—Oh, here she is now.”

  Holland was on his feet as Tracy entered the room, walking fast and heading toward him. She looked like a little girl in her sleeveless jumper-dress, but her tawny, clear-skinned face was grave. When she stopped in front of him he quickly groped for words of sympathy and condolence, having no chance before to express them and finding it difficult now to assess her mood. He made a start.

  He said, “I can’t tell you—” and then she cut him off.

  “Listen to me,” she said, her voice quiet but deeply urgent. “I had no intention of marrying Roger Drake. You have to know that now; you must tell them that.”

  She was looking right at him, one hand on his arm now, and he could only stand there, startled and unbelieving, finding no grief or sorrow in her eyes or any answer to what she said. He understood that she was disturbed and greatly agitated and her voice was both. worried and impatient as she hurried on.

  “You knew Roger was a private detective. You knew why I hired him and what my plan was. Make them believe that, John—”

  “Oh, Mr. Holland.”

  A man in uniform was coming through the doorway and Holland saw that it was Art Ritchie. Not until then did he realize that Tracy’s enigmatic words were meant to warn him of some plan as yet unknown to him, to coach him in advance on the answers he must give.

  “They’re waiting for you, Mr. Holland.”

  Tracy stepped quickly past, her voice at once casual. “Having puzzle trouble, Nana?”

  Holland did not hear Fanny Allenby’s reply. He could not even think properly as he followed Ritchie through the corner of the living-room, into the hall, and then through the doorway that opened to the rear of the staircase. He found himself in a paneled, book-lined room and he was conscious of leather-upholstered furniture, a desk, drum lamps, sporting prints. After that he gave his attention to the inquisitional board.

  “Sit down,” Lieutenant Pilgrim said. He was stationed behind the desk with Thornton at his elbow. At one corner, a notebook open before her, sat a policewoman. The uniformed captain relaxed in a straight-backed chair that he had tilted against the wall, and off to one side the bulky citizen Holland had seen drive up twenty minutes before sat comfortably in a leather chair. Apparently Pilgrim had been elected to carry the conversational ball and he began by asking Holland to go over once more the story he had given to Pilgrim earlier.

  Holland did so with one part of his mind while the other struggled with the things Tracy had said. The stenographer went to work. Pilgrim nodded from time to time, interrupting now and then to clarify some point.

  “Now,” he said when Holland had concluded, “tell me. Did you know when you came here that Drake was a private detective?”

  “Certainly.”

  Pilgrim blinked behind his glasses. He sat right where he was for three seconds. He took time to glance at Thornton and the captain before he gave his attention to Holland.

  “You didn’t mention that when I told you over at Carver’s at five o’clock this morning.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

  Pilgrim drummed his fingers lightly on the desk top. “If you knew what he was you probably know who hired him.”

  “Miss Lawrence hired him.”

  “Why?”

  Holland had an idea it would end up this way. He had gone as far as he could with the hints that Tracy had given him. But they couldn’t make him talk if he didn’t want to, could they? He shrugged and said nothing.

  Pilgrim watched him narrowly, but he did not press the question. Instead he turned to the heavy-set man in the leather chair. “This is Sam Crombie,” he said. “He runs the agency Drake worked for. He was Drake’s boss. Go ahead, Sam. Tell Mr. Holland why Tracy Lawrence came to you. Then we’ll be sure he knows.”

  Crombie took a folder from his briefcase and put it in his lap. Immobilized in the chair that way he moved with some difficulty, for he carried a lot of weight on his frame, but close up like this Holland saw that the flesh was solid rather than fat. The broad hands were hard-looking, so was the jaw. He looked to be about forty-five and his eyes were bright and keen behind their drooping lids.

  “Sure,” he said, in a voice that was hearty but a little hoarse in its overtones. “Well, this girl comes in one morning—no appointment or anything but I’m not too busy so I see her—and I can tell right off she’s got class. You know, a tailored suit that looks expensive, good shoes, a way of talking that tells you she’s been expressing herself that way a long time.” He paused to see if he was making himself clear. “Now, we don’t do too much divorce business but I figure that’s what it must be, so I ask her who sent her. She says her boss did. She gives me his name and it turns out he’s a guy who used to be my commanding officer in the C.I.D. That takes care of that and she sits down and says, ‘Mr. Crombie, I want to hire a man to act as my fiancé for a month.’”

  Holland found himself sitting erect in his chair. He forgot he was supposed to know the whole story. He said, “What day was that?”

  Crombie mentioned a date.

  “What day of the week?”

 
“Friday.”

  Still not understanding, or quite believing what he had heard, Holland was nevertheless sure of one thing; Tracy had gone to Crombie the morning after he, Holland, had left for Chicago. The night that she kissed him good-by in Grand Central Station, holding forth her promise of marriage when he returned—that night she had known exactly what she intended to do.

  “Well, this is a new one on me,” Crombie continued, “so I stall. I tell her a month is a long time and it’ll be kind of expensive. She says how expensive and I say thirty dollars a day whenever my man works, plus reasonable expenses which may run high depending on what this fiancé is expected to do. She waves me off. She says she can pay and the only thing that worries her is do I have a guy presentable enough to pass as a lad she could pretend to be in love with and make it convincing.”

  He chuckled and said, “She admits she’s sounding like a snob. But she explains what she really means is that she doesn’t have to have a male model or a Harvard graduate, but since she’ll have to take the man home and introduce him to the family she’ll need someone that’s halfway decent looking, somebody whose clothes are okay and who can speak English, and not out of the corner of his mouth.” He grinned and added, “You can see she doesn’t hold a very high opinion of private detectives.”

  He looked over at Pilgrim. “I told you about Drake. I don’t know too much about him personally except that he had experience and had been working for a lawyer that got in a jam on a wire-tapping rap a while back. I find nothing against Drake so about a month before this when I’m shorthanded on a big job I take him on, on a temporary basis, which seems lucky for me now because he’s the only regular I have who is young enough and well enough dressed to play the part this girl wants. I think of him right away and I tell her I believe I have a man who can do the job. I say I’ll call him in and she can see what she thinks of him, but first I want to know a little more as to why she wants a fiancé at all. You know, maybe she’s a psycho or something.”

  Crombie opened the folder and started through some typescript, continuing as he did so.

  “Now I’ve got a pickup and amplifier in the voice box on my desk which is plugged in to my confidential secretary so she can take down exactly what goes on between me and a client, just in case I ever have to prove who said what. I’ll read you some of what was said that morning.”

  “Crombie: Just why do you feel you need a hired fiancé, Miss Lawrence?”

  “Client: Because I think I’m a jinx. I’ve been engaged twice before and both times my fiancé was killed accidentally. One died in a plane crash and the other was shot in what the police say was a case of mistaken identity.”

  “Crombie: You think something might happen to this one?”

  “Client: I just want to be sure nothing does.”

  “Crombie: And if anything does you want to be sure it doesn’t happen to someone you really love. You have someone in mind?”

  “Client: Yes.”

  “Crombie: But you won’t marry him.”

  “Client: Not until I’m sure. You see, Mr. Crombie, both of my fiancés were killed four weeks to the day after our engagement was announced. Until recently I never expected to get married at all. It just seemed that marriage was not for me, that I brought only tragedy each time I became engaged. I don’t expect you to understand what I feel or how I feel. I’m sure I must sound like a nitwit to you, but the fact remains that I’ve got to find out. Twice it was twenty-eight days. I feel that if I get through that period, if I could be engaged even thirty days with nothing happening it would be all right and I could be sure the other was only a horrible coincidence. At any rate that’s what I intend to do. I’m willing to pay for it but if you don’t want the job please say so now so I can arrange for someone else.”

  “Crombie: What happens on the thirtieth day?”

  “Client: I call the engagement off, explaining as best I can to the family that it was only a pretense.”

  “Crombie: You think they’ll understand?”

  “Client: I think they will, though I don’t particularly care.”

  “Crombie: And what about the man you’re doing all this for? How’s he going to take this phony engagement?”

  “Client: He’s gone away for a month’s trip. When he comes back this other will be over. If he still wants to marry me I’m not only going to say yes, I’m going to do it quickly—with no engagement at all.”

  Crombie closed the folder and said, “There’s more of this but that’s the main pitch. It sounded screwy, I admit, but there was nothing wrong with it. Miss Lawrence impressed me as being convinced that this was something she had to do—either that or be an old maid the rest of her life. So I called Drake in, introduced them, told them to go out and get a cup of coffee and talk it over. While they were gone I called Miss Lawrence’s boss and what he had to tell me about her was all good. When Drake and the girl came back they agreed it could be done, and I left most of the arrangements to them.”

  Holland watched Crombie lean back and nod at Pilgrim. He felt as if he had been slugged and he knew there wasn’t going to be any time to take a ten-count and get his wits about him. For Pilgrim was looking right at him with those gray-green eyes, and there was no humor in them now.

  “You say you know all about this,” he began, “but nothing Crombie has to say will bear you out. We happen to know that you weren’t aware that any wedding was scheduled to take place. Your actions, once you arrived here, were not those of a man who was in on the secret.”

  “That’s only your opinion,” Holland said, grabbing at straws.

  “It’ll do for now, Mr. Holland. If you had known what you say you knew you wouldn’t have gone out on that pier and quarreled with Drake and got yourself slapped down. If you’d known everything was going to be all right you wouldn’t have come at all.”

  He lifted one hand from the desk and pointed the index finger at Holland.

  “But you did come. You did fight. You were knocked down. After that you got drunk. Under those conditions a jealous man might go looking for Drake with a gun, particularly one who had been drinking and nursing a grudge. In my book that adds up to a very sound motive. You weren’t in bed asleep when Drake was shot, you were out walking around. So far we have only your word that you went there after you heard the shot. And up to now your word hasn’t been worth a damn.”

  Holland did not know what to say. He realized that everything Pilgrim said was true. The fact that he was innocent was of no importance now because he alone knew that he was innocent. He had the motive, the opportunity, and now, understanding how deeply he was involved, he thought of something else that shook him deeply.

  Tracy must also have realized that he might be suspected. Otherwise why would she have tried to warn him? She knew what had happened on the pier and how upset he was; she saw him drinking in Mrs. Allenby’s room. There was no way for her to know that he was innocent, but guilty or not, she had tried to help him. The very thought of this gave him new courage and suddenly there stirred inside him a sense of buoyancy and well-being. She loved him. She must love him.

  “If you thought I killed Drake,” he said, “you’d arrest me.”

  The captain who as yet had said nothing, cleared his throat. “We may do just that, Mr. Holland. And don’t get the idea that the charge has to be murder. If we decide to hold you we can do it on a coroner’s warrant; that’s plenty good enough in this state. Think it over,” he said.

  Holland sat there while the seconds pussyfooted past. When no one said anything he stood up and asked if that was all. Pilgrim said that was all for now and Holland went out and down the hall, not wanting to talk to Mrs. Allenby yet, not wanting to talk to anyone.

  On the front porch he saw that Carver and little Ginny Marshall still occupied one corner, but it was a large porch so that he had no feeling of intruding. He sat down on the steps to light a cigarette, and he was staring sightlessly out across the sunlit Sound when something moved at his el
bow and a throaty voice he had never heard spoke his name.

  “You’re Mr. Holland, aren’t you?” Nadine Winsor said. “And you were on the train with me coming up last night. May I have a light?”

  She sat down beside him, holding a cigarette between her fingers while Holland reached for matches. She leaned close for her light, the heavy fragrance of her perfume swirling about her as he inspected her arched brows and white skin, and the thick, coppery waves of her hair before she settled herself and blew smoke through pursed red lips.

  “It’s pretty terrible, isn’t it?” she said, giving a little shake of her head to straighten her hair.

  Holland agreed while he studied her aslant, finding her a slim-hipped, long-legged woman, somewhat more fully developed above the waist so that the term busty came to mind. Apparently she did not care for sun because she wore navy slacks, very thin, and a long-sleeved buff-colored shirt, cut like a man’s so that it minimized the well-formed curves beneath it. Except for an incipient double chin the line of her throat was good, and taken all in all he could understand why she would be attractive to Arthur Baldwin or, in fact, to any man who had the time and inclination to consider her charms.

  He let his glance move to the front again, and now he saw a man walking toward the pier carrying a couple of paint pails, some brushes, and a folded piece of canvas. He wore white, paint-stained coveralls and a white cap on which the name of some store had been printed. He walked on until he stood opposite the landing-float, studying it while he got rid of his paraphernalia. Finally he began to heave on a block and tackle and the float, which rose and fell with the tide and was hinged at one end to the pier, began to tilt upward like a folding bed.

  Nadine was talking again and Holland brought his mind back to her. He heard her say something about having a feeling that Roger Drake was not quite what he seemed. “But murder,” she said, aghast. “I mean, after all—it—it’s just something that you never consider at a place like this.”

  Holland made no comment until she fell silent. Then he said, “You’re going to marry Mr. Baldwin, aren’t you?”