by Kane, Henry
“Hi, friend. You buying?”
“Of course.”
“Double rye,” she yelled to a waiter in an apron. “What about you?” she said to me.
“Scotch and soda.”
“And a Scotch and soda,” she yelled to the waiter in the apron.
“How’s things?” I said.
“Things are always kopasetic. For Gladys. What’s your name?”
“Pete.”
The waiter brought the drinks, and I paid, and he went away without a continental bow. “Gladys,” I said, “I’m looking for a lady.”
“Here?” she said. “Here you’re looking for a lady?”
“Lady named Delores Hart. Delores with an e.”
Her wrinkled eyelids came down covering the sheen of her colorless eyes. “Who’re you?” she said. “Who the hell are you? What do you want?”
“I’ve got a message from Mr. Hart. It’s important.”
“I’m sorry.” Her jowls shook and her bosom heaved, heavily naked. “I don’t know about no Delores. And I don’t want you to buy me no drinks no more.”
“Yes, you do know about a Delores.”
“Look, fella, you’re whistling in the wrong graveyard.” She put a thick hand on mine. “You a copper?”
“No.”
She sat back and rested her chest on the table. She closed her eyes and seemed to be asleep. I was about to touch her when the burst of applause came. The lady at the piano had finished her stint and a new team had appeared, a colored man and a colored lady. They were the stars and the applause was for them. The man went to the piano and the lady began to sing.
The drunken audience became almost quiet.
The lady who had been Glady’s accompanist came to our table. She sighed and sat down. She was small and slender, black hair touched with grey. Her soft mouth drooped tiredly.
“Want a drink, honey?” Gladys said, opening her eyes.
“No, thank you.”
“I’m buying,” I said.
“No, thank you,” the lady said.
“How about you, Gladys? Encore?”
“I don’t want nothing from you, fella?”
“Please, Gladys,” I said. “Look. Any of these names mean anything to you? Finch. Johnson. Dame named Jessica Rollins.”
The slender lady touched my arm. “What is it?” she said.
“I’m looking for someone. I’d hoped Gladys could help me.”
“Someone?”
“Lady named Mrs. Jonathan Hart. I have a message for her from her husband.”
“Would you tell me the message?”
“It’s not exactly a message. He’s dead.”
Gladys’ hands thumped on the table-top. She glared at me, glared at the slender lady, pushed on the table-top, stood up, turned her back, and went away.
“Please,” I said. “Why won’t she help me?”
“Perhaps I can help you.” Her voice was a whisper.
“You? I … er … I didn’t quite get your name. My name is Peter Chambers.”
“I’m Delores Quigley Hart.”
11
She took me back to her dressing room with her. She made it fine all the way, but when we got there, she fainted.
Gladys’ bottle of rye on the dressing-table of the grubby little room loomed up big. I grabbed at it, bent to the lady, pulled down her lower lip, and let it pour. It shook her up. She quivered, gurgled, spluttered, and opened her eyes. The rye drooled as she said, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know who you were, of course.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Her smile was as wan as a winter morning. “You could use some of that yourself, Mr. Chambers. You’re quite pale.”
“Some of what?”
“Some of what you’re holding in your hand.”
I didn’t know what I was holding in my hand. I looked. It was the bottle of rye. I am a Scotch drinker.
I drank rye.
“They thought it was a heart attack,” I said. I put the bottle away. “They thought it was a heart attack, but right now they’re not sure.”
“Not sure?”
“No. They’re working on an autopsy.” I helped her into a chair. I said, “He was looking for you, Mrs. Hart.”
“Me?” she said. “Who?”
“Your husband.”
“How do you know that?”
“He retained me to find you. I’m a private detective.”
“Private detective?”
“Same as Johnson and Finch.”
“You know them too?” She sighed, quaveringly.
“Were they working for you, Mrs. Hart?”
“Did he … did he tell you about Johnson and Finch? Did he know?”
“No, ma’am. I found out about them as part of my looking for you.”
She shook her head and stood up from the chair. “Dead,” she said dazedly. “Poor Johnny. Perhaps he’s at peace now. He never knew peace. He was a tortured man.” And then she cried, and I let her. I would have given her my handkerchief, but I couldn’t, because I remembered that I had forgotten to change it. It still had Finch’s blood on it. She cried, and then it ended, and she wiped her face with tissue from the dressing table. “It’s all over now,” she said.
“What is, Mrs. Hart?”
“A long marriage. A long and stormy marriage. I loved a man who was neither capable of giving nor receiving love. But I loved him.”
She was getting to me. I tried to shake it off. “Is that why you hired Johnson and Finch?” I said. “Because you loved him?”
Fire showed in her eyes and then died away. “Why did he hire you?”
“I’m going to have to be blunt, Mrs. Hart.”
“Be blunt.”
“He hired me to try to dig up evidence against you on which he could base divorce proceedings.”
Her mouth opened, her nostrils opened, her eyes opened. “Are you telling me the truth?” she said. She giggled once, like a sample of hysteria to come, but she controlled it.
“Yes,” I said.
“Poor Johnny,” she said. “Always devious, always entangled.”
I broke out cigarettes, offered one to her, but she shook it off. I lit it, pulled in smoke and let it dribble. “Mrs. Hart,” I said, “there’s a possibility that he was murdered. I’m sure that, right now, the police are looking for you. I advise you to go to them. But first, if you please, could you tell me what this is all about? Would you, please?”
She took the cigarette from my fingers, puffed once, inhaled deeply and returned the cigarette. “Yes, I will tell you,” she said. “There isn’t much to tell. It was a long marriage, and a stormy marriage, but he had never once asked me for a divorce. He knew that was impossible for me. In my kind of marriage, in my kind of religion, there is no divorce. Do you understand that, young man?”
“I understand,” I said. “Completely.”
“Then he took up with this girl. Whether or not she wanted to marry him, I don’t know.”
“Jessica Rollins?”
“Yes. And this time he asked me for a divorce. I’m sure he knew what my answer would be.”
“Then he couldn’t possibly have thought that I could turn up any evidence against you.”
“Of course not.”
“You left him two weeks ago, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he … did he threaten you … when you refused to divorce him?”
“Yes.”
“So my hunch was right.”
“What hunch, Mr. Chambers?” “I had a feeling that what he really hired me for was to find you. But what about you? Why did you hire Johnson and Finch?” “I was frightened. I wanted to know exactly what he was doing. I paid them well. Money was no object. I have a good deal of money. He was always liberal. I saved a good deal over the years.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You retained Johnson and Finch a month ago. But you left him two weeks ago. How does that add up?�
�
“His threat,” she said, “his original threat came a month ago.”
I got rid of the cigarette. “There was more than the original threat?”
“Yes. He kept after me.”
“Then it adds this way,” I said. “A month ago, after asking for a divorce, and getting a negative answer, he threatened you. You kind of believed him. You hired Johnson and Finch to keep him tailed. That way, in a sense, they would serve as some sort of protection for you. Then the threats became more … more threatening. You left, two weeks ago, because by then you were really frightened. You kept Johnson and Finch working anyway, hoping it would blow over, but wanting to know just what was happening. That right, Mrs. Hart?”
“Yes.”
“And he hired me to find you in order to—”
“To carry through his threat. I’m certain of that.” She was crying again. “I … I believe his mind was disordered. I do believe that. He would have killed me. And he would have done it without leaving trace that he was involved. He was clever and he was capable and that was exactly what he had threatened.” She covered her face with her hands. “What now? What now?”
“You go to the police.” I touched her shoulder. I spoke softly. “You go to the police,” I said, “and you tell them everything that you told me.”
“And then? Then …?”
“Then you go home, Mrs. Hart. You go home, where you belong.”
12
I went back to my apartment and I went to sleep. I tossed with the nightmares which are the end-product of my chosen profession. I awoke at noon, called the office, said I was sick, and then I showered, shaved, and had breakfast. I locked up and took a cab to the offices of Tamville & Hart where all was as serene as the ripples of a lagoon in a movie about Bali. The purple eyes in the reception room were the same, and the eight young men with the pointy pencils were the same. The redhead’s smile of welcome was the same, and Jessica Rollins was as fresh-faced, as desirably protuberant, and as daintily wiggly as ever. And when I got through to Robby Tamville, he was as brusk and offensive as yesterday.
“Is the party on?” I inquired.
“Why not?” he said.
“But the thing with Mr. Hart …?” “A confirmed cardiac dies of a heart attack,” he said. “It’s to be expected. Life goes on, regardless. In case you’re affected by any of this, Mr. Chambers, and you don’t wish to attend—please say so right now, so that I can make other arrangements. And kindly, if you please, kick in with the fee that was paid to you for services to be rendered.”
Which meant that Sergeant Ernest Falkner was working behind the scenes, and that Hart’s death was still, for the world, a heart attack.
“Me? Affected?” I said. “I hardly knew the man.”
“Lucky for you.”
“And Miss Rollins …?”
“Life goes on. She attends as The Lady Eve. Tell you this, though. I’d have sent her home today, but it is quite impossible. With Hart gone, there are many many details to be ironed out, and she’s familiar with all of them.” He sighed, reaching for a cigar. “We’ll both be struck in this damned office until at least six o’clock.”
“What time do you want me at your party?”
“Eight o’clock. Sharp. Okay?”
“Okay,” I said and I got out of there.
I was glad to know that Rollins would be working until at least six. I was very curious about Rollins and I intended to exploit that curiosity but I had time so I stopped off first at Brooks. I got me a pirate’s costume for hire for one day, took it home, laid it away, opened my safe, brought out my burglar’s kit, complete with silk gloves. I shuddered, I sighed—but that’s my racket. Conscience is fine, but if conscience pricks too insistently, you’re in the wrong business if you’re a private detective. (So how come, although I didn’t mean to, I left my hat at home? Freudian slip?).
I took a cab to Fifth Avenue and Sixty-ninth Street, and I walked the rest of the way to 16 East 70th. Apartment 5, after I had let myself in downstairs, was on the third floor of a narrow well-kept building. Outside the door, I put on my silk gloves, pushed the buzzer for safety’s sake, waited while nobody answered, opened my kit, fiddled for two minutes, and let myself in. I shuddered again, reaching for my hat and not finding it on my head, smiled to myself, and that was the last of conscience and self respect for that afternoon.
Jessica Rollins had a three-room layout with a high-walled terrace. It was furnished like the model apartment for the Number One Wife in the harem of a potentate who has played the right kind of politics. I admired it for a few moments, sending spiritual respects to Jonathan Hart, who had done a little bit of all right for little old Jessica.
But I did not waste time.
I scanned that apartment as carefully as a fence with a magnifying loop scans a hot diamond that is being offered for purchase. Everything was wide open and ready to be looked into, so I did not look. But in the bedroom there was an object that was not wide open and not ready to be looked into, and I concentrated my energies there.
It was in the back wall of a slide-door closet that hung a good many clothes. It was a thin bronze plaque, more than a foot square, and it was stuck as an adornment to the rear wall of the closet. Question: now who in all hell needs an adornment stuck to the rear wall of a closet behind a good many clothes? Answer: the usual idiot who falls for every transparent gadget. I removed the plaque and there it was: a built-in iron door about a foot square that, I was certain, was the opening to some sort of fire-proof crypt. Fire-proof, yes—but not kit-proof to the kind of kit I was lugging. The thing had a really excellent lock (the landlord must have been a free-wheeling thief with imagination) and it took time but time was on my side. Finally the little iron door succumbed to my steel-pronged imprecations.
I swung it open and looked.
There was not too much. There was a packet of letters. There was a collection of some excellent jewelry. There was a package of cancelled vouchers from a bank. There was a receipt for a year’s payment for a bank vault. And there was a key to a bank vault.
There was nothing else.
I was not interested in the jewelry. I put that back at once. Then I sat down on a spongily springy mattress and inspected the remainder of the material. I wondered, for a fleeting moment, how frequently this spongily springy mattress had sprung with gusto, and, knowing the occupant of the apartment, I had a twinge of envy. Twinge? Envy splattered within me like a Chinese firecracker had got loose in my heart. But, resolutely, I stayed with my work.
The cancelled vouchers were checks that Miss Jessica Rollins had written during the year. They were drawn on a bank around the corner, Seventy-first and Madison.
The receipt for the bank vault was dated three weeks ago. That bank was on Pine Street.
The bank vault key was a bank vault key and you did not need to be Sherlock Holmes to know it was the key for the vault on Pine Street.
The packet of letters disclosed literature donated by one man. They were love letters and they were all signed “Tim.” Some of the envelopes were still with them. The return address recited the name Timothy Blattner exclusively. The early ones bore a San Francisco address, the later ones were from New York.
I replaced everything with the exception of two of the items. One was the key to the bank vault, and the other was a single cancelled check, picked at random. I locked the iron door, hung back the bronze plaque and re-arranged the clothes. But what, I thought, if she happened to discover that the key to the bank vault was missing? She would not miss a single bank check, but she could miss that key. So I disarranged the clothes again, took off the plaque, and went to work with my steel prongs. I jammed the lock, for just in case. Now if she tried to open her little iron door, it would not open. Busted lock. She would have to call a mechanic. I did not imagine that she would be wanting to look into that crypt this evening, but I covered the possibility anyway. She would be going to a fancy party as The Lady Eve. That did not require exp
ensive jewelry. Lady Eve had not worn jewelry. She had enticed her Adam with jewels of her own. Lady Eve, for Robby’s masquerade, required a good epidermis, a figure to go with it, and a female with a sense of pride and a hell of a lot of nerve. And where would she get a lock mechanic anyway, after a tough day at the office, and a crazy masquerade to go to? I was not worried about it, but now it was covered. Back went the plaque, arranged went the clothes, and out into the living room went I—with the wildest idea of my career.
Why not, I thought? Why the hell not?
I had never heard of it, but it could not miss.
I used the phone and called Sunny Saunders. Sunny sounded romantic and I tried my darndest to sound the same. I told her to come over to 16 East 70th, apartment 5, and please come quickly. She said she would and she hung up before I did. Sunny was anxious but Sunny was in for a surprise.
I thought a lot about it while I waited. It was the wildest—but I had a real strong hunch it was going to work.
13
Sunny was lovely in a brick-red suit that clung like a thirsty leech, no stockings, and high-heeled French shoes without backs that looked like fancy house-slippers. She whistled when I let her into the apartment, whistled again as she looked it over, and then showed me she had brains (which suited me perfectly).
“Your girl friend,” she said, “take a vacation?”
“Girl friend?” I inquired.
“Whoever lent you this place,” she said tartly, “is a dame. If it ain’t a dame, it’s a male ballet dancer. Don’t kid Sunny.”
