The Red Carnelian

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The Red Carnelian Page 6

by Phyllis A. Whitney


  He got through smoothly and easily, skirting all quicksands. For once McPhail actually seemed to believe what was being said, and there went our last chance to make a clean breast of things. Bill hadn’t been telling the whole truth any more than I had. And how many others?

  Sondo was last on the list and I sat up to listen with interest. Here came trouble, if I knew a storm signal when I saw one. Sondo knew all about Tony’s quarrel with Monty, and I’d caught a look in her eyes once or twice that made me suspect she might know a few other things too.

  But Sondo was in anything but a manageable mood. She showed no proper respect for the law and McPhail disliked her on the spot.

  “Just what was your relationship with Montgomery?” he barked.

  Sondo recrossed her legs, managing to convey an insult to majesty by the length of time it took. “What do you mean, relationship? He was my boss.”

  “Oh, sure,” McPhail said. “You know what I mean. What did you think of him? How did you like him?”

  “Very much.” Sondo’s tone was bland. “He was a very brilliant and capable man.”

  I expected her to go on and drop a few disparagements about Tony, but she let the opportunity pass. McPhail led her through the usual maze of questions and she answered impertinently whenever impertinence was possible, but not a word did she say about the feud in window display. She said she’d been in her workroom all afternoon, and admitted cheerfully that she couldn’t prove it.

  I thought of that moment when I’d gone to Tony’s workroom and had passed Sondo’s door without looking in. The light had been on, but her phonograph was silent. Had she really been there or not?

  McPhail questioned her about answering the window display phone while Bill was waiting for Monty. She dismissed the call as routine business, but it seemed to me that an odd flicker came into her eyes.

  Whatever she knew, she wasn’t telling. I think McPhail would have enjoyed getting something on her, but her answers were glib and gave nothing away.

  Hering sauntered back from an excursion into the window.

  “She said upstairs she might have a candidate for murderer,” he told McPhail.

  “Well,” said McPhail. “If you know anything, Miss Norgaard, this is the time to spill it.”

  But Sondo smiled venomously and disclaimed knowledge of anything. She’d just been talking. She didn’t know a thing.

  McPhail was disgusted with the whole affair, and particularly tired of Sondo.

  “Did they find the stone from that ring yet?” he asked Hering.

  The store detective shook his head gloomily.

  McPhail glanced around at the rest of us. “Now look, all of you. What’s happened here this afternoon is bad business and you’re not any of you clear of suspicion. So no skipping out of town, see, or you’ll land in jail. You can all go home now and report back to your jobs in the morning. I’ll let you know when I want you to answer more questions. Some of you will be called for the inquest.”

  A sudden commotion started at the other end of the store. Several large, important-looking gentlemen were advancing down the middle aisle with the air of a parade. Sondo caught my eye and winked.

  “The heavenly hosts themselves? Do you suppose we’d better get down and salaam?”

  The procession was headed by Mr. Cunningham, president of the store, flanked on each side by the first and second vice-presidents respectively and it was apparent that he had been thoroughly affronted.

  A murder had been committed in his beautiful store. Murders were not good for business. Murders were definitely low, messy, and uncharacteristic of the high Cunningham level of quality. The man who had been murdered was a valued employee of the store; a man who had been imported some months before at considerable expense. Mr. Cunningham was in a very critical mood. He looked around at us lesser mortals as if he’d have preferred to part with the whole lot, rather than to lose Montgomery.

  McPhail had evidently met executives before. He sighed and signaled to Owen Gardner. “You had better stay a while. The rest of you can go.”

  We went willingly enough.

  Near the door Tony put a hand on my elbow to draw me quietly aside.

  “Thanks for trying to get me out of the store,” he whispered. “I won’t be asking you any questions, see? And I won’t be answering any either. Whatever you do is okay by me.”

  It was a promise of secrecy and I hated to be in a position to have to accept it. Sondo’s eyes were upon us suspiciously, so I gave Tony a nod of thanks and went over to join Bill.

  As I came up, Bill said, “I’ve got my car outside. Suppose I drive you and Miss Farnham home?”

  In spite of the suspicions about Bill that had flashed through my mind, I was relieved. We were certainly in no state to take a bus. And probably Bill’s connection with the whole thing was innocent. Strain and shock had made me suspicious in a direction where I’d never have entertained a doubt in a more normal frame of mind. At least those were the arguments I used on the ride home.

  He came up to the apartment with us and suggested that he be fed a sandwich or two. That was the first time Helena and I thought about the fact that we hadn’t had supper. But even when we thought about it, we weren’t hungry, and it took Bill’s bullying to get us out to the kitchen.

  It was queer how matter-of-factly we were behaving by that time. I suppose the human mind cannot live intensely through a period of horror without becoming somewhat numbed. In spite of all I’d endured since the discovery of Monty’s body, I think I accepted the fact of murder only in brief flashes of realization. The rest of the time I was too confused to face the enormity of what had happened.

  Just the same, it was I who voiced the question that was in all our minds.

  “Bill,” I said, buttering rye bread automatically. “Who do you think—”

  He shook his head at me. “Better let it go for a while. You’ve had a nasty shock. Can’t we talk about something else?”

  There was a heavy silence in which we all tried to think of something else—anything at all. And couldn’t. Then Helena looked up from arranging slices of cold meat on a plate and asked a point-blank question.

  “Did you find him when you went into the window, Linell?”

  I had a bad moment as remembrance swept back, but my mind was weary of horror. There was no use trying to keep the truth from Helena.

  “Yes,” I said. “I found him and Bill found me. Then Bill rushed me off upstairs and we’ve each been suspecting the other ever since.”

  Bill helped himself to the makings of a sandwich and took a bite. “You can see what a nice tidbit that would make for McPhail. And it wouldn’t help the case any for him to know.”

  Helena’s silence seemed a little ominous and I dropped my butter knife in anxiety.

  “You don’t think we—we ought to—” I began, but she cut in on me.

  “I don’t very well see how you can now. Bill’s right that it wouldn’t help. But I was just thinking how much worse it may be for you if it comes out later on.”

  She’d finished with the plate and was standing there examining the palm of one hand absently. Helena’s hands were lovely. They hadn’t aged as her face had, and as I went shakily past her to get the coffee from the stove, I saw a long red scratch which ran down one finger and clear across the palm.

  “Heavens!” I said. “How did you do that?”

  She started, as if she hadn’t been aware that she was looking at the scratch. Then she shrugged.

  “One of the girls from upstairs came back to exchange a pin she didn’t like. One of us was clumsy and that’s what happened.”

  “You’d better put something on it,” I told her, but I doubt if she heard me.

  She went on looking at her hand as if she were really seeing that scratch for the first time. And an odd look came into her face, as if s
he were remembering something. But whatever it was, she evidently didn’t mean to talk about it. She picked up the plate and carried it into the living room where we’d set up a card table for our impromptu supper.

  “I’d hate to be in McPhail’s shoes tonight,” Bill said as we sat down. “This is going to be smeared all over the front pages tomorrow, and he has a good portion of the city of Chicago to choose from in selecting the murderer.”

  “I thought he was going to discard the outsider theory,” I put in.

  Bill shook his head. “He can’t discard anything, though the chances are that whoever did this is someone who hated Monty. Somebody he’d hurt. Somebody reasonably close to him.”

  “That would tie in the store,” I said. “His personal life was pretty much connected with it, I think.”

  We couldn’t keep from speculating to save our souls. In a moment we were deep in discussion. I began checking over the people who had strongly disliked Monty.

  “There’s Tony,” I said. “And of course Owen Gardner. Monty wasn’t exactly popular, but most of the boys in window display got along with him all right, I think. Besides, everybody up there went home early today except Tony and Sondo.”

  “Hm,” Bill said. “Well, McPhail will check their alibis fast enough. What about his secretary?”

  I shook my head. “Not Monty’s type. Plain and efficient. And anyway, she’s gone home to be with her mother. She left last week. But there must be more than one woman in Monty’s past who had reason to detest him.”

  “That’s a green field,” Bill said. “Now we’ve got half the country to choose from. He’s worked in stores all over the east and middle west.”

  Helena made her contribution. “Linell didn’t list that office boy of hers. He didn’t sound very fond of Monty this afternoon.”

  That was funny. I hadn’t thought of Keith since he’d walked out the door of my office. Yet he had his small place in the pattern too and McPhail would probably get around to talking to him in the morning. But to think of Keith as a possible murderer was absurd and I said an emphatic no to that.

  “Just the same,” Bill said, “we’ll put his name on the list. He’s a queer egg, to say the least. And there’s another name. Yours, Linell.”

  I choked over my coffee and put my cup down with a hand that shook.

  Helena said, “Don’t tease her like that,” and Bill reached over and gave my hand a friendly pat.

  “Don’t take it too hard,” he told me. “Just to show you I’m open-minded, I’ll put my name down too.” And he actually took a notebook from his pocket and wrote down the names. “Now then—where does Sondo fit in? She was sticking up for Monty with McPhail. That mean anything?”

  I tried to focus my mind on Sondo, but my thoughts had a tendency to gallop off in four directions at once.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She always seemed to get along all right with him. It was Tony she disliked. If Sondo was going to murder anybody, I’d expect it to be Tony.”

  He put down Sondo’s name with a question mark after it.

  “Anyway,” he said, “there’s something she’s not telling. Did you see how suspiciously she watched everybody? She was a clam with McPhail, but I have a feeling that she has a finger on some point that wasn’t brought out.”

  I bit into a sandwich that seemed to have no taste, and swallowed only because I felt I ought to.

  “Where does Chris fit in?” I demanded.

  Helena passed Bill his fifth sandwich. There was nothing wrong with his appetite.

  “Does Chris belong on your list at all?” she asked. “She seems a sweet girl and she was certainly broken up over this. I felt sorry for her when McPhail was hammering away.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean as the murderer,” I explained hastily. “She was in love with Monty all right. But it was queer about that waiting room business. And there’s certainly something troubling her.”

  I was watching Bill as I spoke. That interest of his in Chris—what did it amount to?

  “Non-suspect,” he said. “We can’t use her at all. I was sorry for her today too. She looked so different from the happy kid who won that dress design contest a year ago. Remember, Linell?”

  “Of course I remember. National recognition, with her picture in papers all over the country.”

  But I was feeling hurt, and even a little frightened that Bill should put my name on the list and so readily eliminate Chris Montgomery’s.

  All our nerves were in a jittery state by that time, so when the doorbell shrilled suddenly, the three of us jumped up in alarm.

  I got to the door first and opened it to Chris. Her yellow frock was rumpled and her eyes red. She flung herself past me into the room as if pursuing hordes were on her heels.

  “I had to come!” she cried. “Oh, Linell, I couldn’t go home tonight till I’d said what I came to your office to say this afternoon.”

  It was Helena who took charge in her usual capable manner. She settled Chris beside Bill on the couch and took away her purse and gloves.

  “I’ll get you a cup of coffee,” she said and went to the kitchen.

  “Take it easy, kid,” Bill told her. “Where did you leave the others?”

  “Susan stayed to wait for father,” Chris said. “But I couldn’t stand it there in the store any longer, so I slipped out on my own and took a bus over here.”

  Helena came back with the coffee and Chris sipped it, becoming slightly less wilted.

  “Linell,” she went on earnestly, “I wanted you to know that it was really you Monty loved. I—I think he hated me. If I hadn’t been so blind and selfish and—”

  I patted her hand. “We’ve been over this before. You mustn’t go on reproaching yourself. I know how charming and compelling Monty could be when he chose, but I’m afraid I haven’t much belief in his ability to have loved anyone but himself.”

  Chris shook her head. “Oh, but he did love you. He even told me he did. That’s what I wanted you to know. I thought it might make all this a little easier for you to bear.”

  I knew it cost her something to tell me and I was touched. I was shocked, too. What a talent for sadism Monty had had to marry the child deliberately and then tell her that he loved me. And why had he done such a thing?

  “Chris dear,” I said, “you must try to understand that I haven’t been in love with Monty for a long time. We were moving toward a break-up and he knew it as well as I. So stop worrying about how you may have hurt me.”

  I was aware of quickening interest on Bill’s part, but Chris’s expression was blank. It was evident that the idea of anyone falling out of love with Monty had never occurred to her.

  “Sometimes in the last couple of weeks I’ve hated him as much as I loved him,” she said in a puzzled tone. “But it was love and hate all mixed up together in some queer way and it wouldn’t let me go,” she paused. “I mean after—I found out.”

  “Found out what?” Bill asked.

  She started to answer, then stopped. “I can’t talk about that. I mean I really can’t explain. But I don’t want you to think I’m completely a fool. All those things I was telling McPhail—I didn’t believe them really. I just had to say them for him.”

  “You mean about believing Monty was such a wonderful person?” I asked.

  “Yes.” She looked very young and very sad. “I couldn’t believe in him the way I did before. Not after the last two weeks. But, Linell, it didn’t matter. I don’t care how bad he was, or how cruel—I loved him anyway. I always will. I guess I’ve got a lot of my mother in me after all.”

  She sat up very straight on the edge of the couch. Her face, with its youthful prettiness, looked suddenly older, more adult, and there was the shadow of deep unhappiness in her eyes.

  I was puzzled. Somehow this older aspect of Chris didn’t fit in with what I knew of the
rather vapid Susan Gardner. She saw my bewilderment.

  “Didn’t you know, Linell? Susan isn’t my real mother. She’s been wonderful to me and I love her dearly, but she’s not my mother.”

  I think we were all a little surprised and there was a silence before Chris went on, groping uncertainly for words to explain.

  “My own mother ran off before I was two years old. With some man. Father hasn’t ever talked about it much, but he’s told me a little. He says the man was no good at all. But mother must have loved him to do a thing like that. She must have loved him the way I loved Monty, who wasn’t any good either. That’s what I mean about being like her. I guess I even resemble her a little, though I’m fair like father and she was dark. I found an old picture of her a while ago and it looked almost like a picture of me, the way I look now.”

  Chris’s inclination toward hysteria had passed, but it wasn’t good for her to go on this way, brooding over past tragedy, magnifying the present. Helena and I exchanged glances and then she spoke to Bill.

  “Why don’t you drive Chris home? She ought to get to bed as soon as possible.”

  “Of course,” Bill said. “Come on, kid. You’re staying at your father’s aren’t you?”

  Chris nodded. “Oh, yes. I couldn’t bear to go back to that awful, empty apartment of Monty’s.”

  Helena brought her things, but Chris stopped, as if there were something more she wanted to say. Even though her emotions were under control, strain was visible in every line of her face. Strain that had its roots in fear.

  “You see,” she said to me, “father’s had such a bad time that I—I don’t ever want anything to hurt him again. She made him unhappy. My mother, I mean. And I’ve made him unhappy by marrying Monty. So now all I want is to try to make it up to him. For everything.”

  “I understand,” I assured her, though I didn’t quite. There was something I couldn’t put my finger on. Something that left me faintly uneasy. But I patted her arm soothingly. “Get a good sleep. And drop in to see me next time you’re downtown.”

 

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