The Listening Walls

by Margaret Millar

  “Wherever Amy is,” Gill said, “she didn’t take Mack with her. His leash is still hanging in the kitchen.”

  “Rupert had an explanation for that. He told Gerda . . .”

  “I know what he told Gerda, but it isn’t true.”

  “I agree that it doesn’t seem likely,” Dodd said cau­tiously. “It’s possible, though.”

  “If you knew Amy you wouldn’t think so. She’s child­ishly proud of Mack’s tartan.”

  “Then where is the dog?”

  “I’d give a great deal to know the answer to that.”

  You may have to, Dodd thought. Finding people was tough enough. Finding a Scottie that looked like a thou­sand other Scotties seemed impossible. There wasn’t even any guarantee that the dog was still alive. He said, “Why should Kellogg have told you in the first place that Amy took the dog with her?”

  “To convince me that Amy came home and went away again of her own accord.”

  “Is there any evidence that she did come home?”

  “Rupert’s word.”

  “No one else saw her?”

  “No one, to my knowledge.”

  Dodd consulted his notes. “Let’s see, she came back from Mexico City, allegedly, on Sunday, September the fourteenth, and left again that same night without call­ing anyone to say good-bye and without being seen by anyone we know of except Rupert. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you any idea why?”

  “Why she didn’t call me and wasn’t seen? Certainly I have an idea. She never came home. Perhaps she never even left Mexico City.”

  “Let’s be frank, Mr. Brandon. Do you believe your sis­ter is dead?”

  Gill looked down at the smiling pictures on Dodd’s desk. Me, dead? Don’t be absurd, Gilly. I’m in New York. I’m having a ball. He said, through tight lips, “Yes. I believe he killed her.”

  “And his motive?”

  “Money.”

  Dodd sighed, very faintly. If it wasn’t money, it was love. Perhaps they both boiled down to the same thing, security.

  “He has her power of attorney,” Gill said. “He doesn’t even have to wait for proof of death so he can inherit her money.”

  “Did your sister make a will?”

  “Yes. Rupert inherits half her estate.”

  “Who gets the other half?”

  “I do.”

  Dodd said nothing but his black, bushy eyebrows moved up and down his forehead. Very interesting, Mr. Brandon. I know—and you don’t know I know—that you’ve been living beyond your income for some time now, taking bites out of your capital to feed some pretty undernourished investments. “It would, then, if your sister is dead, be to your advantage to prove it as quickly as possible.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As long as Mrs. Kellogg is simply missing, the power of attorney she gave her husband is in force. He has full control over her property, and how much will be left for you or anyone else to inherit depends entirely on his dis­cretion. Let’s assume your sister is dead. From your point of view—that is, keeping her property intact and at full value—it would be an advantage to get proof of death immediately. From his point of view, the longer the de­lay, the better it will be for him.”

  “I don’t like to—to think of these things.”

  You’ve already thought of them, old boy; don’t kid me. “Come now, Mr. Brandon, it’s just a little game we’re playing. Your sister, by the way, must have trusted Ru­pert completely or she would never have given him a power of attorney.”

  “Perhaps. But he might have applied some form of pressure to get it.”

  “You said he has a small but successful business of his own?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he lives modestly?”

  “There’s no guarantee he intends to continue living modestly,” Gill said. “That calm exterior of his might be hiding some pretty fancy and wild ideas.”

  “Do you believe his dismissal of Gerda Lundquist was, as he claimed, a matter of economic necessity?”

  “Not unless he’s been having some unusual expenses.”

  “Such as gambling debts?”

  “Such as another woman.”

  “That’s pure speculation on your part, is it, Mr. Bran­don? Or impure, as the case may be.”

  “You may call it speculation. I call it simple arith­metic. Two and two add up to Miss Burton, his secre­tary.” Gill ground out his cigarette in an overflowing ash tray advertising Luigi’s Pizza House on Mason Street. “I have two secretaries, but I assure you that neither of them has a key to my back door, neither of them looks after my dog, neither of them drops in after church to clean up my house.”

  “It will be easy enough to check up on Miss Burton.”

  “Do it subtly. If she suspects anything she’ll tell Ru­pert immediately and he’ll find out I hired you. He mustn’t know a thing about any of this. Surprise must be the basis of our tactics.”

  “My tactics, if you don’t mind, Mr. Brandon.”

  “All right, yours. So long as he’s caught. And pun­ished.”

  Dodd leaned back in his swivel chair, interlacing his fingers. It seemed clear to him now that Brandon wanted Rupert punished more than he wanted his sister found. He shivered slightly. It was three o’clock on a sunny after­noon. It felt like midnight in the dead of winter.

  He got up and shut the window, and almost imme­diately opened it again. He didn’t like the sensation of being in a closed room with Gill Brandon. “Tell me, have you talked to your brother-in-law since the morning he gave you the letter?”

  “No.”

  “You haven’t communicated any of your suspicions to him?”

  “No.”

  “It might clear the air if you did.”

  “I’m not giving him any advantage by tipping my hand.”

  “Are you sure you have a hand?”

  “I’m sure. Nobody lies the way he’s lied unless he has something to hide.”

  “All right,” Dodd said. “Let’s leave Rupert out of this for a minute. Where, to your knowledge, was your sister last seen?”

  “At the hospital where she was taken after Wilma’s death sent her into shock. The American-British-Corday, I believe it’s called.”

  “And what was the name of the hotel she and her friend were staying at?”

  “It was their intention to stay at the Windsor. Whether they did or not, I’m not sure. Mrs. Wyatt was very changeable, and if some little thing didn’t suit her she would have gone someplace else. Wherever they stayed, you can bet that it was Mrs. Wyatt’s decision. My sister has never learned to stick up for her rights.”

  Dodd wrote: Windsor Hotel? Sept. 3. A.B.C. Hospital, Sept. 7. Then he gathered up the pictures of Amy, put them back in the manila folder and marked it A. Kellogg. “I’m going to send a couple of these down to a friend of mine in Mexico City.”

  “Why?”

  “He might be willing, for a fee, to do some investigat­ing. That’s where the trouble seems to have started. Let’s get an objective report, since you’re reluctant to believe anything your brother-in-law says.”

  “Who is this friend?”

  “A retired cop from L.A. called Fowler. He’s good. And expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

  “I can’t give you an exact figure.”

  Gill took an unmarked envelope out of his pocket and put it on Dodd’s desk. “There’s five hundred in cash. Is that sufficient for the time being?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how much bribe money my friend’s going to need.”

  “Bribe money? Whom does he have to bribe?”

  “In Mexico,” Dodd said dryly,
“practically everyone.”

  10.

  Thursday was Pat Burton’s dancing night at the Kent Academy. She didn’t bother going home after work. She took her dancing equipment to the office with her—a pair of transparent plastic shoes with three-inch heels and a bottle of strongly scented cologne because the Academy always had a rancid smell like an unventilated school gymnasium. The cologne was, therefore, an asset if not a necessity; the Cinderella shoes were not. They impeded Miss Burton’s progress. After eleven months of lessons (Learn to Dance the First Night) she was still having considerable trouble with the mamba, and her tango in­cluded numerous extracurricular totters which were the despair of the instructor. “Miss Burton, save your wig­gles for the cha-cha-cha. Keep your balance.” “I can do it perfectly well at home in my bare feet.” “Since when do we teach the tango so people can do it at home in their bare feet?”

  It didn’t matter very much anyway because no one in­vited Miss Burton out mambaing or tangoing. Her infrequent dates preferred less sophisticated or less stren­uous entertainment. She continued going to the weekly class, however. It represented to her, as well as to the majority of the others, a social rather than an instructive evening.

  The class was already in progress when Miss Burton arrived. One of her frequent partners, an elderly retired lawyer, a widower named Jacobson, waved to her out of a fast rhumba and Miss Burton waved back, thinking, one of these days he’s going to drop dead right on the floor. I just hope it’s not me he’s dancing with when it happens.

  The instructor screamed over the music at no one in particular, “Don’t sway your hips! Forget about your hips! If your feet are doing the right thing your hips will do the right thing. Do I make myself heard?”

  He made himself heard but hips refused to be forgot­ten.

  Miss Burton tapped her foot and surveyed the room from the doorway. Not many spectators tonight. A woman with a little girl. A pair of teen-agers, a boy and a girl, with matching shirts and matching expressions of boredom. A middle-aged woman wearing a pound of pearls. And, standing right next to Miss Burton herself, a man with bushy gray hair that seemed to emphasize the youthful alertness of his face. He looked as though he had wandered into the place by mistake, but now that he was there he was determined to get the most out of it.

  He said, with a slight frown, “I don’t understand the business about not swaying your hips. That’s a rhumba they’re doing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought in a rhumba you were supposed to sway your hips.”

  Miss Burton smiled. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. My first time.”

  “Are you going to be in the class?”

  “I guess so,” the man said, sounding rather pained. “I guess I have to.”

  “Why? There’s no law about it.”

  “Well, you see I won a scholarship. I can’t very well waste it.”

  “What kind of scholarship?”

  “There was this advertisement in the paper showing pictures of people doing various kinds of dances. If you identified the dances correctly you were given a scholar­ship, thirty dollars’ worth of free lessons. I won. I can’t understand it exactly,” he added. “I mean, there are a lot of people know more about dancing than I do, thou­sands of them. But I won.”

  Miss Burton didn’t want to hurt his feelings but she didn’t want him to be taken in, either. He was so naïve and earnest, a little bit like Mr. Kellogg. “I’m sure you could win lots of real contests if you put your mind to it.”

  “This one wasn’t real?”

  “No. Everybody won. It was just a come-on so the Kent Academy could get the names of people who are inter­ested in dancing.”

  “But I’m not interested in dancing. I’m just interested in contests.”

  Miss Burton whooped with laughter. “Oh dear. That’s a good joke on the Academy. What other kind of contests do you go in for?”

  “Any kind. Also tests. I buy all the magazines and do the tests, like, for instance, ‘Would You Make a Good Engineer?’, or ‘What Is Your Social I.Q.?’, or ‘Can You Qualify as a Quiz Contestant?’ Things like that. I do pretty well in them.” He added with a sigh: “I guess they’re rigged too, like this here contest.”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that,” Miss Burton said loyally. “Maybe you really would make a good engineer.”

  “I hope so. I do some engineering occasionally.”

  “What kind of engineering?”

  “It’s classified.”

  “You mean, like secret missiles and things?”

  “That’s close enough,” he replied. “What do you do?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m just a secretary. I work for Rupert Kel­logg. He’s an accountant.”

  “I’ve heard of him.” Too often, he thought. Much too often.

  “He’s the best accountant in town. The best boss too.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Other bosses I’ve had used to get their mean days. Mr. Kellogg never has a mean day.”

  “I bet children and dogs take to him right off the bat.”

  “Maybe you mean that as a joke, but it’s absolutely true. Mr. Kellogg’s crazy about animals. You know what he told me once? He told me he didn’t really like being an accountant, he wanted to open a pet store.”

  “Why doesn’t he?”

  “His wife comes from a ritzy family. They wouldn’t approve, I guess.”

  Old Mr. Jacobson, the retired lawyer, rhumbaed past, wriggling like a nervous snake, and gave Miss Burton a grin and a wink. His face was as moist and red as a sliced beet.

  “He seems to be having a fine time,” the man said.

  “That’s Mr. Jacobson. He knows all the dances per­fectly, only he can’t keep time.”

  “He’s certainly caught the spirit of the thing anyway.”

  “I’ll say. One of these days he’s going to drop dead right on this very floor. It kind of spoils my evening thinking about it.”

  The music ended, and the instructor announced in a tired shriek that the next number would be a change of pace, the slicker waltz, and would the men kindly remem­ber that a good strong lead was necessary in this one, especially at the turns?

  Mr. Jacobson sped in Miss Burton’s direction. Miss Burton turned red and whispered an anguished “Oh dear.” But she didn’t have enough nerve, or presence of mind, to head for the powder room. So she stood her ground and uttered a short, quiet prayer: Don’t let this be the night.

  Mr. Jacobson was as merry as Old King Cole. “Come on, Miss B. Let’s have at it!”

  “Oh, don’t you think you’d better rest a bit?”

  “Nonsense. I have the whole week to rest. Thursday’s my night to shake a leg.”

  “Yes. Well.”

  Miss Burton surrendered reluctantly to Mr. Jacobson’s bony arms and good strong lead. This might be, could very well be, Mr. Jacobson’s last dance. The least she could do was to make it as pleasant as possible for him by trying to follow him properly, and at the same time watch his face for any telltale signs of the end approach­ing. She wasn’t sure what the signs would be, and the strain of looking up at him gave her a crick in the neck.

  “You’re not concentrating tonight, Miss B.”

  “Oh yes, I am,” Miss Burton said grimly.

  “Loosen up a little. Relax. Enjoy yourself. This is sup­posed to be fun.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the matter, something on your mind?”

  “Just—the usual.”

  “Get it off. Tell someone. Tell me.”

  “Oh, dear me, no,” Miss Burton said hastily. “Haven’t we been having lovely weather this fall? Of course, we can’t expect you—it to last.”

  Mr. Jacobson didn’t catch the erro
r because the in­structor had raised his voice again. “This is ballroom dancing. This is not real life. In real life women don’t like to be pushed around. In ballroom dancing they ex­pect to be, they want to be, they have to be! So lead, gen­tlemen! You’re not zombies! Lead!”

  “You have a real good lead,” Miss Burton said.

  “And you have a mighty fine follow,” Mr. Jacobson replied gallantly.

  “No, I haven’t, not really. I do all the dances much better at home in my bare feet. I get shook up when peo­ple watch me.”

  “Such as the man at the door?”

  “Oh dear, is he watching me? My goodness.”

  “Watching people is his business, or part of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s a private detective named Dodd. I used to see him hanging around the Hall of Justice. He had a lot of nicknames in those days, the least objectionable of which was Fingers, because he had a finger in every pie.”

  “It must be a case of mistaken identity,” Miss Burton said in a high, tight voice. “He told me he was an engi­neer. He’s doing secret work.”

  Mr. Jacobson chuckled. “On whom?”

  “He’s—he’s here because he won a scholarship.”

  “Don’t you believe it. That’s Dodd. And he’s here because he wants information from someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, whom was he talking to?”

  “Me,” Miss Burton said, and both her heart and her feet missed a beat.

  Dodd caught the startled look she threw him and knew that Jacobson had told her who he was. He thought, I should have recognized Jacobson sooner, but he’s lost fifty pounds. Well, there’s no harm done. Let Miss Bur­ton get fussed up. She might tell me more of the truth by lying.

  “But I don’t have any information,” Miss Burton in­sisted.

  Mr. Jacobson winked. “Ah, don’t you now.”

  “I really don’t. Maybe Mr. Dodd is here after some­body else. That Mr. Lessups who enrolled last week, he looks like a crook.”