The place had the vast echoing reaches of a cathedral. Except for Bill’s office, it occupied the entire floor, vanished into ghostly distance at the opposite end of the building, and went endlessly upward toward the high ceiling. Plaster dust lay over everything. It covered the floor and spread in drifts on every shelf. The dry smell of it hovered in the air and choked my lungs.
“Come on in,” Bill said.
The place frightened and fascinated me. I was torn between an impulse to turn back to the bright compactness of Bill’s office, and an even stronger desire to explore this strange world before me.
I walked around some piled packing cases and then drew close to Bill with a gasp of horror. A foot away from me hung a horrible, brown, desiccated thing like a crumbling mummy.
Bill laughed. “That’s only an armature. You know—the foundation for the first clay model. Come over here and I’ll show you the start of a mannequin.”
I followed him to a big table on which stood a half figure in plaster. It looked ghastly in naked white, all the more horrid since lips and eyes had been touched with color and artificial eyelashes had been fastened to the lids. The thing was bald and a cheap wig, to give the sculptor an idea of how it would look when completed, lay on the table beside it.
“Our master mold will be cast from that,” Bill explained, “and then a papier maché foundation will be made, with a light plaster composition over it. Over there are the booths where the figure can be sprayed with color.”
It was all very interesting, but somehow I couldn’t focus my attention on Bill’s words. The place held me in its grip and I waited with tense expectancy for him to go away and leave me alone with it. It was as if the whole vast room was waiting too. Waiting to share some secret with me—if only I would come quickly and alone.
“You go back,” I whispered. “I—I’ll just roam around and get acquainted.”
I stood there in silence, hearing his steps move away, hearing the click of the office door, waiting with a queer compulsion until I could do whatever it was the place demanded of me.
Two naked electric bulbs hung down from the ceiling, casting a thin light where I stood. But it was not dark beyond. Windows ranged the entire length of the walls on both sides, and through these, moonlight flowed, making patterns of light and dark.
I moved forward softly, as if stealth, too, were part of the compulsion. Behind me lay the work tables and the area of packing cases. Ahead a new and shadow-haunted world beckoned.
Everywhere stood ghostly plaster figures—forests of them, with a single narrow path of clear floor winding between. There were creatures of every form and description. Prancing plaster horses, eagles, unicorns, swans. And there, directly at my feet, was surely an acre of small plaster owls, still unpainted, waiting to be made ready for next Halloween.
I moved on into the dimmer reaches, but still it was not dark, for the plaster figures glowed luminously in the moonlight, casting a reflected radiance of their own. I’d felt the creatures behind, and now tall Grecian columns towered above me and I found myself in a maze of gods and goddesses. A pointing Mercury caught my sleeve and cold sweat came suddenly to my forehead.
Why was I here? Under what spell had I wandered so far into the depths of this eerie place, leaving Bill and safety behind?
Safety? What nonsense! I tried to get myself in hand. This place was peopled only by things of cold plaster and there was nothing to fear. I had only to turn and walk back along the path to reach Bill again.
I turned and it seemed that the acre of owls had moved in behind me. They sat on the floor, hundreds of them, watching me with empty, staring eyes, and it was as if they were saying, “Go on, go on! You cannot go back!”
The path had disappeared. It was there, of course. But some trick of light and shadow had hidden it for the moment. I ignored the squeamish rise of panic and turned my back on the way by which I’d come. Because I’d suffered a savage attack that morning didn’t mean that I must be fearful of shadows. This place was far removed from death and murder. There was nothing here to fear.
A path lay ahead and it would undoubtedly circle the floor and lead back to Bill.
It was then that I saw a square patch of moonlight on the floor at my feet moving like smoke, like the rippling of water. I glanced up at the big window. A silver edge of cloud was creeping over the moon. It moved quickly and already the light was dimming.
Panic surged up again, but I refused to give in to these tricks of the imagination.
With the fading light the figures about me seemed to come into a shadowy life of their own. Where before they had seemed stiff and white and inanimate—now they wavered in the gloom, whispered among themselves.
But their whispers were unreal, imagined. The sound I heard close at hand had frightening reality. It was no more than a creak, as if something moved stealthily and sought to tiptoe away.
But even as I tensed to listen, the sound was gone, the whole vast place hushed into deathly silence. An unnatural silence. The silence of waiting. I saw the shadow then, a few yards ahead. A shadow darker, more dense than the shadows all around; a shadow more human than those other shadows that merely mocked the human.
I couldn’t be sure if the thing moved, or only seemed to move. A second later I was sure. The outline had changed, wavered into a new form.
I wanted to scream, to cry out to Bill, but my throat muscles were tight and choked and no sound came. But I could move; I could walk. I turned and ran blindly back along the path to the place where the owls had crowded in—and still I couldn’t find the way. I turned helplessly from side to side, sick with terror, brushing at last against an Olympian figure which tottered on its pedestal, and crashed to the floor.
In that instant I heard clearly the sound of running feet. Feet no longer stealthy but bent on escape.
“Bill!” I screamed. “Oh, Bill!”
But he had already heard the crash and rushed to find me.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You haven’t done any great damage. I should have turned on more lights.”
I clung to him, shaking. I liked the comforting feel of his arm about my shoulders. I had to tell him quickly. “Bill, someone was hiding there among those figures. Someone who ran away.”
I could sense his disbelief, but he went to a wall switch and in a moment the entire place blazed with light. It was not an easy place to search. There were too many objects to afford temporary shelter, and where we were standing a wide aisle ran past benches and tables, troughs, and vats.
I went to the place where the shadow had crouched.
“Look, Bill,” I said.
The thick plaster dust had been recently disturbed, trampled, though no distinct footprints showed.
Bill glanced at the telltale marks and then ran into the aisle. “The fire escape door is open! That’s the only way out, except through my office.”
We ran across to where a few steps led up to an open door. There were traces on the steps, marks of plaster dust. Bill believed me now.
He said, “I’m going down. You go back, Linell.”
I had no intention of facing that echoing vastness alone. I climbed out into the cold of the fire escape and followed Bill down the ladder.
But the chase was futile. The long, dark alley offered a dozen doorways to shield and conceal, a dozen passageways between buildings to furnish escape.
“You’re cold,” Bill said at last. “We might as well go back. But first we’ll go around and pay a surprise visit to your shadow.”
The man in the doorway looked bored and tired until he saw us hurrying around from the rear of the building. He took the cigarette from his mouth in astonishment.
“A lot of good you are!” Bill said scornfully. “Did you see anybody come out of the alley just now? Anybody at all?”
He hadn’t seen a thing. His attention h
ad been focused on the main door of the building. Our visitor had made his escape.
The detective went into the building with us to question the elevator operator. The man said he’d taken no one upstairs that evening except Bill and me. But since Bill hadn’t bothered to lock up when he went out to dinner, it would not have been difficult for someone to give the elevator man the slip and reach the upper floors by means of the building stairs. The fire escape offered an exit, since anyone coming down could lower the last flight, but it couldn’t have been used as an entrance.
The whole thing was senseless. Nothing much of value could be picked up in the shop by a petty thief; in fact most of the things were too large to be carried off. What could the prowler have wanted? I thought of Keith and what he’d said about a mind ready to do crazy, treacherous things, but there couldn’t be any possible connection between Universal Arts and the death of Michael Montgomery.
After Bill and the detective, a young man named Jones, had given the shop a quick search, we gave up and went out for coffee and doughnuts. Our new friend was gloomy and guarded and suspicious—not very good company. But when Bill drove me home, we were generous and offered him a ride in the back seat. I’ve an idea he believed as little in the hidden watcher as McPhail had believed my story of the picture torn from the wall. I suppose it’s the job of detectives to be suspicious and disbelieving, but it makes them very difficult to get along with.
Helena met us at the door of the apartment, opening it the moment she heard the sound of my key.
“Thank heaven!” she said. “I was beginning to get worried. I phoned Bill’s place once, but I couldn’t get any answer.”
“We were probably roaming the alleys about then,” I told her. “But why the anxiety? Anything wrong?”
“Company for you.” Helena glanced over her shoulder. “But I wouldn’t know how to entertain her. If you ask me, the girl’s a little unbalanced.”
It was Sondo Norgaard. She had arrived only a few moments before, and came into the hallway when she heard Bill’s voice.
“Hello, Linell,” she called. “That you, Bill? Swell! I want to talk to you both.”
Sondo, minus her green smock and dressed in a drab brown suit, looked more like a gnome than ever. But tonight there was something electric about her—wild black hair and eyes that flashed with triumphant light. She strode back into the living room as if she owned the place and seated herself on the arm of a sofa, swinging one brogued foot.
Bill explained what had happened at the shop and described our hunt through the alley, while Helena sat quietly sewing, her strong, well-cared for hands moving competently with needle and thread. Sondo perched on the sofa, swinging her foot and listening with that electric interest to every word.
“Anything damaged?’’ she asked when he had finished.
Bill glanced at her. “Why did you say damaged? Why didn’t you ask if anything had been taken?”
Her teeth flashed in an insolent, secretive smile.
“A girl can ask a question, can’t she?” she demanded. “And you might as well answer. Was anything damaged?”
“Not that I know of,” Bill said. “Have you any reason to think that what happened out at the shop has anything to do with the affair at the store?”
Sondo hugged her thin arms about herself and laughed unpleasantly. “How should I know?”
I dropped down on the sofa beside her. This day had added up too many nerve strains and I wished Sondo would say her say and go home.
“Why did you want to see me, Sondo?” I asked.
She hopped off the sofa and took a quick turn about the room as if seething energy would not let her rest. Then she came to a halt in the middle of the floor and faced us, hands on hips.
“I’m going to have a party,” she announced. “Tomorrow night. And I want you all to come.”
Helena’s needle paused in midair and Bill turned away from the bookcase.
“A party!” I said in a shocked echo. “At a time like this? Sondo, you’re crazy!”
“It’s scarcely appropriate,” Bill said.
“Why do you want to give a party, Sondo?” Helena asked.
Sondo rocked triumphantly back and forth on her heels. She was obviously enjoying the sensation she had caused.
“I’ve a reason for wanting to give it,” she said. “I may be crazy, but I’m going to do it. And this party will be very appropriate indeed. You see, my cherubs, it’s going to be a murder party!”
11
Sondo helped herself to one of Bill’s cigarettes and bent her head to the match. The tiny flare caught the shine in her eyes and something made me shiver. Was Helena right? Was the girl a little unbalanced?
“Now for the details,” Sondo went on. “I’m going to invite everybody who’s had any connection with this affair. Even your office boy, Linell. He’s going through a siege of calf love over you and he was death on Monty.”
“Oh, Sondo!” I protested.
But she only made one of her monkey grimaces and continued. “We’ll have Owen Gardner and dear dumb Susan, of course. And we’ll have Tony—maybe. Though I might have other plans for him. We’ll have Carla because she’s the mystery woman in the case and—”
“I thought Carla was your friend,” Bill put in.
“She is. But she picked me—I didn’t pick her. And I’m afraid our stunning Carla doesn’t love me for myself alone. She likes my collection of records. Say—Bill, have you looked at that phonograph yet?”
“I will tomorrow,” Bill promised. “If the display department over at Cunningham’s would take better care of things—”
“I didn’t think you’d looked at it,” Sondo said. “I suggest that you do so the very first thing in the morning.”
Her eyes were dancing wickedly and she shook her head when Bill prodded for an explanation.
“Let me see—who else?” She began checking on her fingers. “There’ll be you three, of course. And—why, I do believe I’ve forgotten Chris. Oh, we must have Chris. After all, she’ll be guest of honor.”
I lost my patience completely. “Look here, Sondo, why do you keep picking on Chris? You’ve got the child frightened half to death, and for no good reason at all.”
“No good reason?” Sondo sniffed. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
“Just what’s the idea behind this party?” Bill asked.
“Oh, only a friendly little get-together. But with a purpose, of course. The purpose of finding out a few things about one another, of comparing a few notes.”
Helena’s needle moved evenly in and out of the cloth, but a line puckered between her eyes. “How do you know anybody will come?”
“They’ll come,” Sondo was confident. “People usually do what I want them to. I’m a very persuasive woman.”
“What about the police?” Bill asked. “Are you planning to invite Hering and McPhail to your party? They’ll be pretty hurt if you don’t. In fact I think they’re quite likely to attend anyway.”
“You mean we’re being watched?”
“Some of us are,” Bill said. “Linell had a detective trailing her tonight.”
Sondo was examining her fingernails. “I think there won’t be any detective around tomorrow.”
“How’ll you manage that?” asked Bill.
She returned his look coolly. “If there was an arrest the police would be withdrawn, wouldn’t they?”
“Maybe,” said Bill.
“Well then,” said Sondo, “it’s just possible there might be an arrest.”
Bill scowled. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I can’t say I like the sound of it. Besides, if there’s an arrest, what’s the purpose of your party?”
“I didn’t say the right one would be arrested,” Sondo told him. “I just said there might be an arrest. But that’s not for you
to worry about. I’ll invite everybody the first thing tomorrow morning. If I speak to Gardner he can arrange to bring Susan and Chris, and—”
“You’ll have your trouble getting Owen Gardner,” I broke in. “He doesn’t like you, and he won’t want Chris submitted to any more emotional upheavals. Which means Susan won’t come either.”
“They’ll all come,” Sondo was assured. “After I’ve talked to Owen he’ll be afraid not to. You see—” her impudence mocked us, “Owen Gardner is going to have a very personal interest in the identity of the murderer.”
“This is a screwy idea,” Bill said, “but I suppose I’d better come and lend a stabilizing influence. I’ll pick my own girl, however, so never mind any assignments.”
I had a feeling Bill would ask me and I wasn’t too pleased when he went on.
“I think I’ll come down to the store tomorrow and see if I can scrape up an acquaintance with the lovely Miss Drake. The more I hear about the lady, the more I think we’d make quite a pair.”
“She’s old enough to be your grandmother,” I said. “Don’t make any more of a fool of yourself than you can help.”
Bill grinned at me. “Older women fascinate me. They have something you young things lack. Anyway, I doubt if she can quite rate as a grandmother.”
He was looking disgustedly satisfied with himself and I yawned and stared at the ceiling to show how bored I was.
He said, “Come along, Sondo. I guess we can take a hint when people want us to go home.”
Sondo wasn’t given to taking hints and she wasn’t in the least anxious to leave, but Bill’s offer to drop her off was too convenient to be passed up.
When they had gone, Helena put away her sewing.
“That young man’s very fond of you, Linell,” she said. “And he’s really nice.”
I felt snappish. “You don’t know him as well as I do. If he likes me, he certainly has peculiar ways of showing it. Carla Drake!”
The Red Carnelian Page 11
