The Tenth Commandment

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Peel me,” she said.

  There were a lot of other questions I wanted to ask her about Tippi Kipper and the Reverend Godfrey Knurr, but somehow this didn’t seem the right time. I peeled off her pantyhose.

  She rolled around and wiggled beneath the bedclothes, pulled sheet and blanket up to her chin. In a moment, a slim white arm popped out and she tossed brassiere and panties onto the floor.

  “Okay, tiger,” she said sleepily. “The time is now. The moment of truth.”

  I stooped to pick up her dress. I shook out the wrinkles and hung it away in the closet. I picked up her lingerie and draped it neatly over the dresser.

  When I turned back to the bed, she was asleep, breathing steadily, her head turned sideways on the pillow.

  I brought her shoes from the living room, set them neatly beside the bed.

  I awoke the next morning with cricks in my neck, shoulders, hips, thighs, and ankles, from a rude bed I had made of two chairs. Sometimes small stature is advantageous. I staggered to my feet and, in my underwear, began to waggle, flapping my arms, shaking my legs, rotating my head on my neck, and so forth. Such is the resilience of youth that I was soon able to walk upright with just the merest hint of a limp.

  Perdita still slept tranquilly, head sideways on the pillow, covers drawn up to her chin, knees bent, as I had left her. Only the slow rise and fall of the blanket proved she was not deceased.

  I went into the bathroom as noisily as I could, slammed the door, sang in the shower. I brushed my teeth, decided it was unnecessary to shave, and came bouncing out, a towel wrapped demurely about my loins.

  “Hello, hello, hello,” I caroled, then peeked into the bedroom. She was still sleeping.

  I dressed in fresh linen and clothing, trying to make as much noise as possible. Finally dressed, I went back into the kitchen and banged around, boiling water for instant coffee. I brought two filled cups into the bedroom and set them on the bedside table. It was almost 8:30.

  I sat on the bed and shook her shoulder gently. Then with more vigor. Then, I am ashamed to say, violently. Her eyes suddenly opened. She stared at the opposite wall.

  “Wha’?” she said.

  “Perdita,” I said gently, “it is I, Joshua Bigg, and you are in my apartment in Chelsea. Colonel Clyde Manila drove us here. Do you remember?”

  “Sure,” she said brightly. She sat up suddenly in bed, the covers falling to her waist, and reached to embrace me. I hugged her gingerly.

  “Feel all right?” I asked.

  “Marvy,” she said. “Just marvy.”

  “There’s coffee here. Would you like a cup?”

  “Why not?” she said. “Got any brandy?”

  “I do,” I said.

  “Slug me,” she said.

  I went into the living room for the brandy bottle. By the time I returned, she was out of bed and in her lingerie. She drank off a little of her coffee and I topped it off with brandy. She stuck in a forefinger, stirred it around, then licked her finger.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, sipping her coffee royal. I sat next to her. She turned to look at me.

  “Josh,” she said tenderly, “was I good for you?”

  “You were wonderful for me.”

  “I didn’t make too much noise, did I?”

  “Not at all,” I assured her. “It was perfect.”

  “For me, too,” she said, sighing. “Perfect. I feel so loose and relaxed. We must get together again.”

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  “I’m always at Mother Tucker’s on Thursday. Just drop by.”

  “I will.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise,” I said, kissing the tip of her nose.

  She finished her coffee, took her purse, and scampered into the bathroom for a short while. She came out looking radiant, eyes sparkling, lips wet. She dressed swiftly. We put on our coats and hats.

  “Kissy,” she said, turning her face up to me.

  I unlocked my door, we went out into the hallway, and there was Adolph Finkel. He stared at us. He coughed once, a short, explosive blast.

  “Good morning, Finkel,” I said.

  “Good morning, Bigg,” he said.

  He goggled at Perdita Schug.

  “Hi,” she said brightly.

  “Uh, hi,” he said. He nodded insanely, his head bobbing up and down on his thin neck. Then he turned and fled down the steps ahead of us.

  “A neighbor,” I explained.

  “Unreal,” Perdita murmured.

  I had planned to get a cab, but when we came out onto the street, there was a chocolate-colored Rolls-Royce, and Colonel Clyde Manila behind the wheel, his furred collar turned up to his ears, his black leather cap set squarely atop his gingery toupee. He was sipping from a cut-glass tumbler of Scotch.

  It hadn’t registered with me that it was a Rolls. I turned to Perdita in disbelief.

  “He’s still here?” I said. “Waiting for you?”

  “Sure,” she said. “What do you think?”

  5

  YETTA APATOFF WAS ON the phone, but gave me a warm smile and a flutter of fingers as I passed. I fluttered in return. Workmen were busy in the corridor outside my office, moving a desk, swivel chair, lamp, and other accessories into position. A telephone installer was on his knees at the baseboard, running a wire to connect with my office phone.

  I sat at my desk and went over the latest additions to my file of pending requests for investigation. I divided the stack into two piles: those I felt could be answered by Mrs. Kletz, and those it would be necessary to handle myself. I then went through those I had delegated to my new assistant and scrawled in the margins the sources where she could obtain the information required.

  I had started going through the Manhattan Yellow Pages, but was dismayed by the number of chemical laboratories listed and decided to entrust my new assistant with a sensitive assignment. I left a typed note, asking her to call each of the labs listed and say that she represented the attorneys handling the estate of the late Professor Yale Stonehouse. A question had arisen concerning a check the Professor had written to the lab without any accompanying voucher. She was to ask each laboratory to consult their files to establish the date of billing and the purpose for which the money was paid.

  On my way out I stopped at Yetta Apatoff’s desk to tell her that my assistant would be in at eleven. She giggled.

  “Oh, Josh,” she said, “she’s so big and you’re so small. It’s so funny seeing the two of you together.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said impatiently. “But I’m sure you and everyone else in the office will get used to it.”

  “So funny!” she repeated, squinching up her face in mirth. I wished she hadn’t done that; it gave her the look of a convulsed porker.

  I told her I’d return in plenty of time to take her to lunch at one o’clock. She nodded, still giggling as I left. It seemed to me she was exhibiting a notable lack of sensitivity.

  I took a cab up to the Kipper townhouse, pondering what I might say to Tippi if I got the opportunity and how I might draw her out on matters not pertaining to my alleged inventory of her late husband’s estate. I could devise no devilishly clever ploy, and decided my best approach was to appear the wide-eyed innocent.

  Chester Heavens answered my ring at the outside iron gate. “Good morning, sah,” he said, friendly enough.

  “Good morning, Chester. I trust I am not causing any inconvenience by dropping by without calling first?”

  “Not at all, sah,” he said, ushering me into the looming entrance hall and holding out his hands for my hat and coat. “Mom is breakfasting in the dining room. If you’ll just wait a moment, sah, perhaps I should inform her of your arrival.”

  I waited, standing, until he returned. “Mom asks if you would care to join her for a cup of coffee, sah?”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  Mrs. Kipper was seated at the head of a long table. In the center was a silver bowl of camelias
and lilies. She held a hand out to me as I entered.

  “Good morning, Mr. Bigg,” she said, smiling. “You’re out early this morning.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said moving forward quickly to take her hand. “I’m anxious to finish up. Almost as anxious, I imagine, as you are to see the last of me.”

  “Not at all,” she murmured. “You’ve had breakfast?”

  “Oh yes, ma’am.”

  “But surely you’ll join me for a cup of coffee?”

  “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  “Chester, will you clear these things away, please, and bring Mr. Bigg a cup. And more hot coffee.”

  “Yes, mom,” he said.

  “Now you sit next to me, Mr. Bigg,” Tippi said, gesturing toward the chair on her right. “I’ve always enjoyed a late, leisurely breakfast. It’s really the best meal of the day—is it not?” Her manner seemed patterned after Loretta Young or Greer Garson.

  I must admit she made a handsome picture, sitting erect at the head of that long, polished table: Portrait of a Lady. In pastels. She was wearing a two-layer nightgown peignoir, gauzy and flowing, printed with pale gardenias.

  She seemed born to that splendid setting. If the Kipper sons had been telling the truth, if she had the background they claimed, she had effected a marvelous transformation. The silver-blonde hair was up, and as artfully coiffed as ever. No wrinkles in that half-century-old face; its masklike crispness hinted of a plastic surgeon’s “tucks.” The brown eyes with greenish flecks showed clear whites, the nose was perfectly patrician, the tight chin carried high.

  I felt a shameful desire to dent that assured exterior by risking her ire.

  “Mrs. Kipper,” I said, “a small matter has come up concerning your late husband’s estate, and we hoped you might be able to help us with it. During an inventory of your husband’s office effects, a bill was found in the amount of five hundred dollars, submitted by a certain Martin Reape. It is marked simply: ‘For services rendered.’ We haven’t been able to contact this Mr. Reape or determine the nature of the services he rendered. We hoped you might be able to assist us.”

  I was watching her closely. At my first mention of Martin Reape, her eyes lowered suddenly. She stretched out a hand for her coffee cup and raised it steadily to her lips. She did not look at me while I concluded my question, but set the cup slowly and carefully back into the center of the saucer with nary a clatter.

  It was a remarkable performance, but a calculated one. She should not have taken a sip of coffee in the midst of my question, and she should have, at least, glanced at me as I spoke. Roscoe Dollworth had told me: “They’ll take a drink, light a cigarette, bend over to retie their shoelace—anything to stall, to give themselves time to think, time to lie believably.”

  “Reape?” Mrs. Kipper said finally, meeting my eyes directly. “Martin Reape? How do you spell that?”

  “R-e-a-p-e.”

  She thought a moment.

  “Nooo,” she said. “The name means nothing to me. Have you found it anywhere else in his records?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Did I see relief in her eyes or did I just want to see it there as evidence of guilt?

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you,” she said, shaking her head. “My husband was involved in so many things and knew so many people with whom I was not acquainted.”

  I loved that “…people with whom I was not acquainted.” So much more aristocratic than “…people I didn’t know.” I was horribly tempted to ask her how Las Vegas was the last time she saw it. Instead, I said…

  “I understand your husband was very active in charitable work, Mrs. Kipper.”

  “Oh yes,” she said sadly. “He gave generously.”

  “So Mr. Knurr told me,” I said.

  There was no doubt at all that this was news to her, and came as something of a shock. She took another sip of coffee. This time the cup clattered back into the saucer.

  “Oh?” she said tonelessly. “I didn’t know that you and Godfrey had discussed my husband’s charities.”

  “Oh my yes,” I said cheerfully. “The Reverend was kind enough to invite me down to Greenwich Village to witness his activities there. He’s a remarkable man.”

  “He certainly is,” she said grimly. She took up her cigarette case, extracted and tapped a cigarette with short, angry movements. I was ready with a match. She smacked the cigarette into her mouth, took quick, sharp puffs. Now she was Bette Davis.

  “What else did you and Godfrey talk about?” she asked.

  “Mostly about the boys he was working with and how he was trying to turn their physical energy and violence into socially acceptable channels.”

  “Did he say anything about me?” she demanded. The mask had dropped away. I saw the woman clearly.

  I hesitated sufficiently long so that she would know I was lying.

  “Why no, ma’am,” I said mildly, my eyes as wide as I could make them. “The Reverend Knurr said nothing about you other than that you and your husband had made generous contributions to his program.”

  Something very thin, mean, and vitriolic came into that wrinkle-free face. It became harder and somehow menacing. All I could think of was the face of Glynis Stonehouse when I told her I knew of her father’s poisoning.

  “Oh yes,” she said stonily. “We contributed. Take a look at Sol’s canceled checks. You’ll see.”

  I could not account for her anger. It did not seem justified simply by the fact that I had had a private conversation with the Reverend Knurr. I decided to flick again that raw nerve ending.

  “He did say how difficult it had been for you,” I said earnestly. “I mean your husband’s death.”

  “So you did talk about me,” she accused.

  “Briefly,” I said. “Only in passing. I hope some day, Mrs. Kipper, you’ll tell me about your experiences in the theatre. I’m sure they must have been fascinating.”

  She hissed.

  “He told you that?” she said. “That I was in the theatre?”

  “Oh no,” I said. “But surely it’s a matter of common knowledge?”

  “Well…maybe,” she said grudgingly.

  “As a matter of fact,” I said innocently, “I think I heard it first from Herschel and Bernard Kipper.”

  “You’ve been talking to them?” she said, aghast.

  “Only in the line of duty,” I said hastily. “To make a preliminary inventory of your late husband’s personal effects in his office. Mrs. Kipper, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. But the fact of your having been in the theatre doesn’t seem to me to be degrading at all. Quite the contrary.”

  “Yes,” she said tightly. “You’re right.”

  “Also,” I said, “as an employee of a legal firm representing your interest, you can depend upon my rectitude.”

  “Your what?”

  “I don’t gossip, Mrs. Kipper. Whatever I hear in connection with a client goes no farther than me.”

  She looked at me, eyes narrowing to cracks.

  “Yeah,” she said, and I wondered what had happened to “Yes.” Then she asked: “What a client tells a lawyer, that’s confidential, right?”

  “Correct, Mrs. Kipper. It’s called privileged information. The attorney cannot be forced to divulge it.”

  Those eyes widened, stared at the ceiling.

  “Privileged information,” she repeated softly. “That’s what I thought.”

  Knowing she believed me to be an attorney, I awaited some startling confession. But she was finished with me. Perhaps Knurr had told her I was not a member of the bar. In any event, she stood suddenly and I hastened to rise and move her chair back.

  “Well, I’m sure you want to get on with your work, Mr. Bigg,” she said, extending her hand, the lady again.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said, shaking her hand warmly. “And for the coffee. I’ve enjoyed our talk.”

  She sailed from the room without answering, her filmy robes floating out behind her.
>
  “Have a good day,” I called after her, but I don’t think she heard me.

  I felt I had to spend some time in the townhouse to give credence to my cover story, so I took the elevator up to the sixth floor. I went into the empty, echoing party room and wandered about, heels clacking on the bare floor. I was drawn to those locked French doors. I stood there, looking out onto the terrace from which Sol Kipper had made his fatal plunge.

  Small, soiled drifts of snow still lurked in the shadows. There were melting patches of snow on tables and chairs. The outdoor plants were brown and twisted. It was a mournful scene, a dead, winter scene.

  He came up here, or was brought up here, and he leaped, or was thrown, into space. Limbs flailing. A boneless dummy flopping down. Suicide or murder, no man deserved that death. It sent a bitter, shocking charge through my mouth, as when you bite down on a bit of tinfoil.

  I felt, I knew, it had been done to him, but I could not see how. Four people in the house, all on the ground floor. Four apparently honest people. And even if they were all lying, which of them was strong enough and resolute enough? And how was it done? Then, too, there was that suicide note…

  Depressed, I descended to the first floor. I stuck my head into the kitchen and saw Chester Heavens and Mrs. Bertha Neckin seated at the pantry table. They were drinking coffee from the same silver service that had just graced the dining room table.

  Chester noticed me, rose immediately, and followed me out into the entrance hall where I reclaimed my hat and coat.

  “Thank you, Chester,” I said. “I hope I won’t be bothering you much longer.”

  “No bother, sah,” he said. He looked at me gravely. “You are coming to the end of your work?”

  His look was so inscrutable that for a moment I wondered if he knew, or guessed, what I was up to.

  “Soon,” I said. “It’s going well. I should be finished with another visit or two.”

  He nodded without speaking and showed me out, carefully trying the lock on the outer gate after I left.

  I hailed a cab on Fifth and told the driver to drop me at the corner of Madison Avenue and 34th Street. From there I walked the couple of blocks to the ladies’ wear shop to buy the green sweater for Yetta Apatoff. I described Yetta’s physique as best I could, without gestures, and the kind saleslady selected the size she thought best, assuring me that with a sweater of that type, too small was better than too large, and if the fit wasn’t acceptable, it could be exchanged. I had it gift-wrapped and then put into a shopping bag that effectively concealed the contents.