The Specialty of the House

by Stanley Ellin

  I got away from there without knowing how. All I knew was that I had seen a murder committed and there was nothing I could do about it. Absolutely nothing. Merely to say aloud that what I had seen take place was murder would be enough to convict me of slander in any court. Kyros Kassoulas had planned and executed his revenge flawlessly, and all it would cost him, by my bitter calculations, were one hundred thousand francs and the loss of a faithless wife. It was unlikely that Sophia Kassoulas would spend another night in his house even if she had to leave it with only the clothes on her back.

  I never heard from Kassoulas again after that night. For that much, at least, I was grateful …

  Now, six months later, here I was at a cafe table on the rue de Rivoli with Sophia Kassoulas, a second witness to the murder and as helplessly bound to silence about it as I was. Considering the shock given me by our meeting, I had to admire her own composure as she hovered over me solicitously, saw to it that I took down a cognac and then another, chattered brightly about inconsequential things as if that could blot the recollection of the past from our minds.

  She had changed since I had last seen her. Changed all for the better. The timid girl had become a lovely woman who glowed with self-assurance. The signs were easy to read. Somewhere, I was sure, she had found the right man for her and this time not a brute like Kassoulas or a shoddy Casanova like Max de Marechal.

  The second cognac made me feel almost myself again, and when I saw my Samaritan glance at the small, brilliantly jeweled watch on her wrist I apologized for keeping her and thanked her for her kindness.

  ‘Small kindness for such a friend,’ she said reproachfully. She rose and gathered up her gloves and purse. ‘But I did tell Kyros I would meet him at—’

  ‘Kyros!’

  ‘But of course. Kyros. My husband.’ Madame Kassoulas looked at me with puzzlement.

  ‘Then you’re still living with him?’

  ‘Very happily.’ Then her face cleared. ‘You must forgive me for being so slow-witted. It took a moment to realize why you should ask such a question.’

  ‘Madame, I’m the one who should apologize. After all—’

  ‘No, no, you had every right to ask it.’ Madame Kassoulas smiled at me. ‘But it’s sometimes hard to remember I was ever unhappy with Kyros, the way everything changed so completely for me that night—

  ‘But you were there, Monsieur Drummond. You saw for yourself how Kyros emptied the bottle of Saint-Oen on the floor, all because of me. What a revelation that was! What an awakening! And when it dawned on me that I really did mean more to him than even the last bottle of Nuits Saint-Oen 1929 in the whole world, when I found the courage to go to his room that night and tell him how this made me feel – oh, my dear Monsieur Drummond, it’s been heaven for us ever since!’

  Coin of the Realm

  Among other things, he had learned over the years to wait patiently while his wife made herself ready to go out with him, and under no conditions to distract her from the job being done before the dressing-table mirror. So now he waited patiently at the open window of the hotel room, abstractedly looking down at what seemed to be most of the motor traffic of Paris jammed into the narrow rue Cambon below.

  ‘Walt,’ Millie said, ‘I’m ready. Walt, did you hear me? I said I was ready.’

  He turned to face her and saw she was indeed gleamingly, faultlessly ready, wearing that simple little black number which, to his surprise, had cost him $200. She looked fine in it. Just fine. At 46, Millie was as trim and slim as she had been on her wedding day, and a lot more chic.

  ‘You look like a million,’ he said, soberly nodding his approval.

  Her own expression, as she eyed him from head to foot, was anything but approving.

  ‘I wish I could say the same for you. Is that how you expect to go out? That ridiculous Hawaiian shirt and not even a jacket?’

  ‘It’s too hot for a jacket. And we’re only going to the Flea Market, for Pete’s sake, not the opera.’

  ‘Even so. And that camera and that great big camera bag slung around your neck. And that awful cigar shoved into your mouth. Do you know what you look like?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘An American tourist, that’s what. A real corny American tourist.’

  Walt glanced at the beefy, red-faced, bald-headed image of himself in the full-length mirror on the closet door and unsuccessfully tried to suck in the roll of fat overhanging his belt buckle. No question about it, Millie had spoken the truth, but that was all right with him. Even better than all right.

  ‘I am an American tourist,’ he protested mildly. ‘Nothing wrong with letting people know it, is there?’

  ‘Oh, yes, there is. You don’t go around like this back home, so there’s no reason to go around here like some good-natured hick from the sticks. You can look very impressive when you want to.’

  ‘Sure, I can. That’s how I get the girls.’ He gave her a broad, comic wink and was disconcerted when she refused to smile in return. In fact, she was looking downright sullen. She was building up to a real storm, Walt thought uneasily, she had been since breakfast.

  ‘Come on, hon,’ he said placatingly, ‘something’s eating you, isn’t it? What is it?’

  ‘Nothing’s eating me.’

  ‘Don’t hand me that. I’ll bet you’re still bushed from the plane ride yesterday, aren’t you? You know what? If you want to stay here and rest while I tend to this Flea Market expedition by myself—’

  ‘I will not!’ Millie’s nostrils flared. ‘And it’s some expedition, all right. Hunting up old coins for Ed Lynch’s precious collection. We’ve got three little days in Paris for our whole vacation, and he has the gall—’

  So that was it.

  ‘Now, let’s leave old Ed out of this,’ Walt said.

  ‘I wish we could.’ Millie shook her head ruefully. ‘Walt, you don’t know how much I wish you’d remember you’re Ed Lynch’s partner, not his errand boy. You hardly ever get away with me like this – a few days in Paris two years ago, a few days in Naples the year before that – but any time you do, there’s good old Ed handing you that shopping list for his stupid coin collection.’

  ‘Millie, if the man asks me to do him a little favor, I can’t turn him down, can I?’

  ‘Why not? And I’m sure he didn’t ask any favor, he told you to do it. He just has no manners at all. The way he is, he should have been some kind of gangster, not a businessman.’

  ‘Now, Millie—’

  ‘I don’t care. All I know is I wish you were partners with anybody else in the whole world but good old Ed.’

  ‘Well, I’m not!’

  It burst out of him so explosively that Millie gaped at him in astonishment. Then her face crumpled woefully. Quickly Walt crossed the room to her, drew her down to sit beside him on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Ah, come on, hon,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. You know I am, don’t you?’

  She sniffled a couple of times but managed to hold back the tears. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘No maybes about it. But please be reasonable, Millie. Face the facts. You know everything we’ve got – and we’ve got plenty – is only because Ed took me into the plant twenty years ago and taught me the engraving and printing business from A to Z. It doesn’t matter how much of a roughneck he is, just look at our balance sheet. A fine home in Scarsdale, a big summer place on the Cape, two cars, a new mink whenever you feel like it. As far as that goes, do you know how much your daughter’s wedding cost us?’

  ‘She’s your daughter, too. And what difference does it make how much it cost? That doesn’t make Ed Lynch any easier to tolerate.’

  ‘Twenty thousand dollars, Millie. Twenty thousand in cash. And because of Ed I could sign checks for a dozen weddings like that and never feel it. That’s what you have to keep in mind.’

  She shook her head stubbornly. ‘You’ve got a lot of ability. You always did. You could have done just as well with somebody else.’

  ‘Done what?�
� Walt demanded. ‘I hate to bring up ancient history, but what the hell was I fitted for when I got done winning World War Number Two for the OSS? Superspy, that was me. Some qualifications to offer the boys running the rat-race. A thirty-year-old superspy who could get along in a few foreign languages nobody wanted to hear him talk anyhow. But with enough sense to know that when everyone else in the world is swimming in money he’s not going to be any ragpicker. That’s where Ed came into the picture, Millie, and one thing you have to admit about him. He didn’t just talk big money, he delivered it.’

  ‘All right, but please don’t get so excited. You know it’s bad for you.’

  ‘I am not excited. I am only trying to settle this between us once and for all. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I say it’s not a wife’s place to mix into her husband’s business. I hate to tell you how many times I’ve seen trouble between partners just because of that. Ed and I are partners, that’s how it is, and there’s no use talking about it any more. Is that all right with you?’

  Millie shrugged ungraciously.

  ‘Nothing to say?’ Walt asked.

  ‘No. Except sometimes I wonder if you aren’t more married to Ed Lynch than to me.’

  ‘Hardly. But come to think of it—’ Walt playfully nudged his wife with his elbow ‘—it might be tougher getting a divorce from him than from you.’

  ‘Well, you’re not getting any from me, if that’s what you’ve got on your mind,’ Millie retorted, and Walt saw with relief that she had decided to forgive him.

  He wasted no more time – he got up and helped her to her feet.

  ‘Ready to do some shopping then?’ he asked.

  ‘You know I always am,’ said Millie pertly.

  Outside the hotel the doorman asked if he should call a cab for them, but Walt said no, and led the way to the Metro station on the Place de la Concorde.

  ‘The subway?’ Millie said in surprise at the head of the stairway.

  ‘Why not? I thought you might like to see how the other half lives for a change.’

  She gave him a look for that but went along amiably, and, it was plain, thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Her tantrum over, the storm clouds quickly blown away, she was the old Millie again, taking pleasure in something simply because she was sharing it with him, just glad to be with him, her arm tight through his. Married almost 25 years, he thought, but when it came to him she was still like a school kid on her first date. That was all right with him – highly gratifying, in fact – but it did raise problems now and then. For instance, it made it just about impossible to tell her that sometimes when they were on these trips abroad he would have preferred to be by himself, away from her company.

  Ed Lynch had disagreed with his feeling about it, and insisted that having Millie tagging along with him almost every step of the way was the perfect final touch. The complete American tourist with the cute little wife on his arm chattering to him. But that was Ed for you. A cold-blooded specimen, divorced three times and now on the verge of the fourth, he didn’t know what marriage to someone like Millie could mean. For Ed it was always some pinup girl, as hard-bitten as he was. No wonder Millie hated him and his succession of wives like poison.

  At Marcadet-Poissionniers station Walt steered the way through the iron-fenced maze of the transfer point to the train going to Clignancourt at the end of the line. There he and Millie ascended the stairs into the golden, summertime sunlight of Paris and crossed the boulevard to the Flea Market.

  They were caught up in a crowd as they entered the market grounds. Tourists with Americans predominating, French family parties, young couples dreamily strolling, arms around each other’s waist, as if taking a moonlight walk beside the Seine, but all with an eye out for a bargain. And from what Walt could see as he and Millie were carried along by the throng, there was certainly the stuff here to suit the weirdest tastes.

  The market was an endless congeries of roadways and alleyways lined with rickety shacks and stands which displayed every conceivable kind of second-hand goods from rusty paper clips to the stripped-down chassis of a once magnificent limousine. There was an almost insane quality to the variety of merchandise, Walt discovered. At one point, while Millie stopped to admire a shabby Tiffany lamp hanging over the doorway of one of the shacks, he found himself looking through a shoebox full of browned, waterstained, beautifully engraved party invitations issued by various members of the nineteenth century French nobility to each other. It was the engraving that caught his professional eye, it was the kind of meticulous craftsmanship devoted to lettering that was so hard to duplicate today; and it was only on second thought that he wondered who would possibly be interested in buying a collection of decaying party invitations.

  Offhand, it would have seemed impossible to find the way to any particular location in that bewildering complex, but Ed Lynch had provided careful directions to the one dealer he had assured Millie she should do business with, and they located the place without too much trouble. Millie had been on the verge of buying the Louis Quatorze escritoire she had long yearned for at the antique shop she frequented on Third Avenue in Manhattan, and it had been Ed who had talked her out of the idea. Bullied her out of it, really. If she and Walt were hopping to Paris for a long weekend, he pointed out, they must make the trip pay off by going to this antique furniture dealer in the Flea Market who, so Ed had heard, gave real value for your money. And, of course, while they were at the Flea Market it would be no trouble for Walt to hunt up some rare coins that Ed wanted for his collection. Trust Ed to plan everything so neatly, like a chess master looking six moves ahead.

  But the resentful mood that Millie had been plunged into when she saw through Ed’s game was gone now as she wandered among the collection of furniture in the shop, her eyes bright with greed. The proprietor of the shop was a brisk, helpful young woman, as quick and hungry as a piranha. She was so insistently helpful, in fact, that Millie had to draw her husband out of doors to have a private word with him.

  ‘What’s our limit?’ she asked.

  ‘I guess it depends. Did you see what you want?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a couple of stunning pieces to pick from. But I have a feeling she’ll ask a fortune for either one of them. I’d like to know how much bargaining I have to do.’

  ‘From what Ed said, all you can. Remember he told you to go over every inch of the piece and make sure you’re not getting stuck. And not to look like you’re interested in buying, whatever you do.’

  ‘Can I go as high as five hundred dollars?’

  ‘If you think it’s worth it. Just take your time before you sign anything.’

  ‘But what about you?’ Millie said as he had been sure she would. ‘You know how itchy you get standing around while I shop.’

  ‘I don’t have to. I can look around for Ed’s coins meanwhile. You can wait for me here. I won’t be gone long anyhow.’

  He left, thankful that she always preferred having him out from underfoot while she was at her haggling, and drifted along the rutted, stony, dirt-surfaced roadway, taking no heed of the crowd of bargain-hunters going their way around him, his eyes fixed on the signs marking the owners of the stands he passed. Brument, Fermanter, Duras, Puel, Schmitt, Bayle, Mazel, Piron. Battered furniture, from rusty cafe chairs to gigantic chests of drawers, seemed to be the stock in trade of all these tradesmen except the last one. While a few articles of furniture could be glimpsed through the open door of C. Piron’s ramshackle premises, outside his shanty, instead of a display of the best he had to offer, were only some cartons containing broken bottles. Wine and beer bottles, Walt saw when he went over to take a closer look at them, not one of them undamaged. It made as unappetizing a display as he had seen anywhere in the market.

  A man emerged from the shanty and leaned against its doorway to watch Walt make his inspection. Cadaverously thin, hard-featured, cold-eyed, he folded his arms on his chest and stood there in indifferent silence.

  Walt turned to him and pointed at the tatt
ered cardboard sign tacked to the wall of the shanty. ‘Piron?’ he asked.

  The man admitted to this by an almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘I’m looking for a place to buy some coins,’ Walt said. ‘Rare coins. I wondered if you could help me.’

  ‘Je ne comprends pas,’ the man said. ‘Don’t understand. Don’t speak English.’

  ‘Oh, in that case,’ Walt said amiably, and repeated the words in fluent French.

  The man’s eyes widened in surprise, then were veiled again.

  ‘Coins,’ he said. ‘What kind?’

  ‘American pennies. Old ones. The ones with the Indian head on them.’

  ‘What years?’

  ‘1903 and 1904.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And 1906.’

  ‘Three, four, six – that’s the magic numbers, all right,’ Piron said. ‘So you’re the one.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Mercier got my message through to you, I see. But I thought he’d be bringing back the answer himself.’

  ‘No, he’s only in charge of distribution around here. I handle the complaints.’

  ‘So you had to come all the way from America just to handle mine.’ The man looked Walt over and smiled broadly, showing a mouthful of gold fillings. ‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘Just beautiful. Who’d ever suspect it? The way you’re made up you look like the biggest innocent to ever hit town. You could walk off with the Louvre under your arms, and the cops wouldn’t even give you a second look.’

  Walt motioned at the throng eddying by. ‘Do we have to talk about it out here?’

  ‘You’re right.’ Piron gestured him into the shanty, closed the door behind them, and slid its bolt into place. With no window to admit the light, the room was bleakly lit by a single flickering kerosene lamp. Its furnishings, Walt saw, consisted of an old kitchen table and chair; its stock was a few monstrously oversized cabinets, highboys, and armoires ranged around the walls.