Stanley said, tightly:
“Just don’t have a relapse. Do you remember what the doctor said, or did?”
“Actually, he bandaged only the fingertips of one hand. Then when I was finally able to get away, I heard the switchboard girl tell one of the girls Shana must have had a bad accident with a new line of cream the salon was putting out. And she took a call from Ravoc, in Atlantic City.”
Stanley leaned forward, staring at me, and at something else very far away, but coming closer.
“This was actually a new line of cream Shana’s own salon was about to put on the market?”
“No. That was just the first rumor about it. Actually, it was sent by Fenner. He told me he intended to, and he did. He planned to send it as coming from Ravoc, and that is the person Hepworth, herself, thought it came from. But they didn’t waste a minute checking up. She knows by now it wasn’t Ravoc.”
Stanley smiled, a little wistfully.
“How does she know?”
“He’s told her. They were probably clearing it all up, right while I was on my way up here in the taxi. By now, they’ve certainly got it straight.”
Stanley shook his head, faintly, in grave and almost compassionate sympathy.
“No. Life isn’t quite that simple, Belle. I’m afraid that precious pair have finally gotten themselves into serious trouble.” He leaned back in his chair, composed and concentrated, now having in plain sight some changing drama visible only to himself. “It’s a fact, isn’t it, her salon does put out its own line of cosmetics?”
“Yes. But she certainly knows it can’t be hers, and by now she knows it wasn’t sent by Ravoc. It won’t be hard to trace who did send it. Fenner.”
Stanley began that brisk drumming of polished nails upon the desk top, growing more and more interested.
“And it’s common knowledge at the salon this was an accident with an experimental cream of her own. What was the name of that physician who attended her? Did you hear it?”
I thought for a moment, and remembered.
“Dr. Dwight.”
“Fine. And what did Shana tell him? That the cream had been sent by Ravoc? Or that it was a new, experimental formula of her own?”
“She just said it scalded her.”
Stanley thought for a moment only, then made up his mind and spoke with finality.
“She could not have said Ravoc sent it. Whether she admitted this deadly stuff was a product of her own vicious, scheming mind, that we can learn only from Dr. Dwight, himself. He may not want to talk about it, but I am certain that if this Dr. Dwight can be forced to tell the truth, he will have to admit he understood it was in fact one of her own products. Now, you and Fenner were to establish her exact connection with Inner Light. How far did you get with that?”
It was exciting, as I began to see the picture Stanley had in mind, shown in its true perspective.
“Every time I asked her why she was there, what her position with an organization for disfigured women really was, or why she came to the banquet, or how she happened to be there on that particular night, she either dodged around the question, or wouldn’t say anything.”
Stanley nodded.
“Of course. She couldn’t say anything, without admitting her guilt. It’s a typical picture. Either she sends the human wreckage from her salon to Inner Light, or else she uses the organization to draw wealthy patrons from it to the salon. Maybe she does both. It’s a wonderful set-up she and Ravoc have there. I almost admire nerve like that.” He nodded again, again drumming with his fingers, and I shivered, but nice, admiring more than ever the solid foundations on which Stanley worked. “Did you mention that homicide in Central Park, which she covered up?”
“Yes. Of course.”
Stanley was alerted.
“You didn’t say anything about it, well, too specific?”
“Oh, Stanley.”
“All right, Belle.”
Then I said, perversely, knowing that I had him, and reaching for more:
“But you know you were really there, Stanley. You and Charles.”
He nodded, indifferently, staring at me, not really thinking much about what I had said, just staring at me.
“Small details and superficial facts, Belle. We can’t let them stand in the way of what we know is a far more ominous truth. Now, especially.”
I looked back at him, confident again, knowing that he had that great thing, quality. The thing in me only he could ever bring out, if anyone ever could, freeing me of the granite prison in which I still lived, and otherwise always would, no matter where I might pretend to be.
“Well, what about Fenner?” I asked.
“Yes? What about him?”
“He really did say he intended to send that acid.”
Stanley nodded, but not greatly impressed.
“The idea of sending her something as a harmless scare, or perhaps only as a joke, wasn’t so bad.” He looked at me in full, clairvoyant candor. “It could jolt Ravoc, and bring him to his senses. Maybe.”
“But he plans to send more of that stuff. Won’t that be dangerous?”
Stanley remained still and withdrawn for a very long pause. Then he looked at me with slowly changing eyes.
“That could be. Yes, it would be. In fact, I’m afraid he’s growing more and more dangerous. But leave Fenner to me. I’ll take care of that.”
I stared back at him, fascinated.
“How?”
“How would you suggest?” He waited, testing, probing, encouraging, at the same time not really expecting any answer from me, none at all. In a way, my not answering became a reply, the one he expected and desired. “You know, Belle, a lot of Fenner’s work is dangerous, especially with the patients of the Generous Heart.” He paused again, and when I still did not reply, he went on in a conversational tone, as though giving a simple, technical explanation to a student in an ordinary classroom. “Many of them have self-confessed homicidal tendencies. That’s what the organization is for, to help them when they feel they are about to lose control, and commit multiple familicide. Usually we succeed. But sometimes we don’t. Fenner is very good with people inclined to use knives and guns.” He watched me for a moment, and still not replying, I answered his own unspoken question. “But Charley Talcott is also experienced. In fact, Charley has probably had much more experience with these people. And with a wider variety of cases. Monoxide poisoning from cars, subway jumpers, and so on. I’d say he’s better than Fenner. But the point is, Belle, all work of that kind is dangerous. It’s bound to be. Want to hear about it?”
I gathered my gloves, my bag, and stood up.
“Some other time, Stanley,” I told him, smiling. “Soon?”
He nodded, admiring me.
“Very soon.”
I walked out of the room, stepping from cloud to cloud. There aren’t very many men who know much of anything about a woman, fewer still who appreciate the genuine article, almost none. Leaving the office and the building, I was simply not the same person who came into it only half an hour before.
Chapter VIII
Jay Ravoc
I had a small but serviceable two-room suite at a good hotel for elderly strays and an occasional convention of bird-watchers, stamp collectors, credit managers, historians of Indian trails and burial mounds. In two days the key personnel of Polyclinic, our client in the drive for a new maternity pavilion, forgot Newell Gibbs had ever been in town.
Gibby himself had returned to New York and whenever I ran into a personality fog that might spell trouble, I phoned him. He was glad to explain everything. The explanations themselves were dense and misty, requiring some quick decoding on my part, but an answer was always there, and somehow the drive went around all hidden reefs, regaining its lost momentum. By the end of the third day, when I finally got a man qualified to take over, gifts and pledges were coming in so fast that Kramer began to talk again about re-scheduling our contract for a longer campaign.
I
also kept in touch with the office, regularly with Lillian but sometimes with Vincent or Haley, and I usually phoned Shana at the salon in the afternoon.
I had an early breakfast at the hotel on the morning of my fourth day in charge of the local drive. Our headquarters were in an office building downtown, three rooms, two full-time paid assistants in addition to Dave Merriman who was to take charge as CC’s new director, and a variety of part-time local volunteers giving a lot of enthusiasm to their own campaign. I was not due to go into the office until just before noon, with a morning appointment to visit a possible, but tough and unpredictable big contributor, accompanying several of the hospital’s regular committee members.
I was called to the telephone just before I left the hotel dining room. The caller gave his name, which I did not think I knew, in a voice I did not at all recognize.
“When would it be convenient for me to see you?” he asked.
“What about?”
“Find an investigator for the Generous Heart, Mr. Ravoc.”
I placed it. Homicide, suicide, and psychocide. A terrific program, in theory, for angels working with people already born in hell and doomed, most of them, to stay there. But we were not angels, neither were our clients. We just raised money for people who would be around long enough to make reasonable use of it. And then it came to me, Generous Heart had already been proposed once or twice as a possible client agency. They had never asked for a survey, nor had their people even made an official approach. Just an indirect suggestion here and there. Campaign Consultants had turned them down.
“Yes?” I said, in polite interest. “I know your organization.”
His own voice carried a little surprise.
“Yes, I should think you would. Mr. Ravoc. Now that we’ve signed with Campaign Consultants for our next drive.”
I had a brief impulse to laugh, but didn’t.
“Now that you’ve what?”
He sounded annoyed, but patient.
“The contract,” he said, as though that explained everything, “The contract Campaign Consultants finally sold our agency. But that’s not what I called about. It concerns that, in a way, but right now it’s a far more important matter.”
It couldn’t be. Neither Vincent nor Haley had mentioned a contract. I had signed none. As matters stood, without my signature none could be valid. Millard’s was also necessary, or rather, Stanley’s, who had his power of attorney, and the usual form also carried the signatures of Vincent and Haley. But this fellow seemed to have no doubt that some kind of agreement had been reached and was already in force.
“I know of no such agreement,” I said. “You’ve been misinformed. And I didn’t quite catch your name. Who are you, did you say?”
“Griscom,” he said. “Mr. Fenner Griscom.”
The name began to carry some cloudy meaning, but no more.
“Yes, Mr. Griscom. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“It’s something rather confidential, Mr. Ravoc. I thought you’d rather talk it over privately, when you get back to the city. I’m calling from New York.”
“Well, I’ve taken temporary charge of a drive down here.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know.”
He seemed to know it too well. But of course the office would inform anyone who called and claimed important business with me.
“And the way it looks, I’ll be here another two or three days. Three, at most.”
“This is urgent. I think I ought to see you today, if possible. The sooner the better.”
“Suppose you tell me what this is all about, Mr. Gris-com?”
There was a heavy pause. Then he said, thinly:
“It’s about Stephen Barna.”
It came to me at first as no more than the well-known name of a public figure, but even as I spoke, I realized that I knew it more directly than that. This was the man killed in Central Park by some car in which at first we believed Stanley Thornhill had been a passenger, perhaps even the driver. The recognition now jabbed a ghostly finger straight at the center of some web of nerves. They stirred, shivering.
“Stephen Barna?”
“Yes, the actor who died a few days ago, under rather unexplained circumstances. On a road in Central Park, at night, with practically no witnesses actually on the scene when it occurred.”
That new set of nerves, whatever they were, continued to vibrate.
“Yes, I remember, of course. I saw the accident, myself.”
I knew you and Mrs. Hepworth were there. Both of you were eyewitnesses, In fact. That’s why I called you. I wondered, did either of you know Stephen Barna?”
“Personally? Of course not.”
“Neither you nor Mrs. Hepworth had the slightest previous acquaintance with him?”
I itched to bang down the receiver on this zombie. But his reference to Shana, his mention of a nonexistent contract, the memory of the bad moment we had before we found that Stanley, visiting some out-of-town friends, could not have been in the car, these things added up and held me to the phone. I laughed, and said:
“That’s a tall order, Mr. Griscom.” Griscom. Now, the fellow’s name seemed to crystallize into an identity. I’d heard it, in some connection. But when? Where? Or was It imaginary, some commonplace resemblance? “We probably saw him on the stage or screen or television, maybe his picture in a magazine or newspaper, but nothing more, I’m sure. Why do you ask?”
“Then Mrs. Hepworth said nothing at all about a long-standing connection with Stephen Barna?”
The voice was smooth and merely businesslike, almost casual, but it managed to bore in like a steel drill reaching for a calculated spot. It was just possible, and I could not be certain, that Shana did have some remote but personal link with the dead man’s past. Nevertheless, I gave a blunt, blanket reply.
“No, because she had none. Neither did I. Neither did Vincent Beechwood, who was also with us. Now, suppose you tell me your interest in this, and why you ask?”
“I’m an Investigator for Generous Heart,” he repeated. “And Stephen Barna was one of our cases. He had been my case, in fact. His problems were complicated but not unusually so, I thought, and he seemed to be making good progress at finding himself again. I’d gone to a lot of trouble with the man, myself, and grown to like him. So you can understand my interest.”
“I see,” I told him, without much doing so, in fact.
“He had suicidal tendencies, of course, that’s how he came to be registered with us. But there were other factors. Our psychiatrist diagnosed him as mildly paranoiac, with the usual delusions of persecution, never acute, but always vaguely present. And that is what I thought, myself, when he several times told me about efforts he was sure had been made to injure or disfigure him, perhaps even to kill him. That is what I thought then. But now, considering how he actually died, I think that view must be revised. Apparently his fears were not delusions. They were real.”
There was some logic to this, though at some point it also seemed to go away off, just where I couldn’t immediately locate.
“That may be so, Mr. Griscom.” I felt that name, now larger and closer as I spoke it again. “But I don’t know how I can help you. I suppose you’ve seen our statements, in the police report?”
“Yes. And I’ve spoken to other people who reached the scene shortly afterward.”
“Then you’ve got it all,” I said.
“Could you just tell me this, who was driving the car?”
Those brief seconds came back, but now more vividly, charged with the mounting anxiety they once brought. The surprise, the bewilderment, then the tension, these were more real than the car itself, at this moment remembered only as a swift, gray, receding phantom.
“Of course not, Mr. Griscom.” Griscom. Stanley had been present at a party miles away in Englewood, that evening, given at the home of Fenner Griscom. This man. Now the connection came solidly and deeply home. Too close, much, much too close, in an uneasiness that deep
ened without reason. “That was the gist of our statements. We did not know who was driving the car.”
He said evenly:
“No, I mean your car, Mr. Ravoc.”
“Mine? I was, of course. Why?”
“Did the police examine your car, then, or any time afterward? I can’t find any definite information that they did.”
The lid on the pressure cooker began to come loose, and I tried to clamp it back, but just missed.
“Of course not, why the hell should they? Griscom, are you a Generous Heart case worker, or one of their prize patients?”
His level voice flowed on, as though accustomed to such outbursts, as though there had been none.
“I’ve spoken to the patrolman first to reach the scene. I’ve interviewed those who were present, and made statements. A man airing his dog, a Mr. Michael Anders. A boy and a girl. In spite of the excited claims they made at the time, none of them actually saw that car mentioned in your version of the affair.”
I remembered that man carrying a dog. The boy and the girl A very sharp young cop.
“What are you getting at? Somebody there heard the horn of the car that hit the man, and heard its tires and brakes before it struck him and went on. He even saw the brake-lights.”
Griscom continued in a monotonous voice, as though reading from notes.
“They heard brakes, tires, a horn, and when they got there, they saw your car. They told me, privately, that when they first came up they had the distinct impression you were talking to each other as though you knew just who had hit the man, but you were keeping it among yourselves. To me, as an investigator, that usually adds up to a driver with a few too many drinks, perhaps some other compromising circumstance. But of course his friends never want to put him on the spot. So they sometimes concoct a story about another car ahead. But often, there never has been any other car. A driver runs a man down, automatically stops, finds him dead, and then suddenly they all see disagreeable possibilities. Do you follow me, Mr. Ravoc?”
I followed him, all right, with no trouble. This could hardly be serious, this witch’s hodgepodge. But it might be taken so, for a few uncomfortable moments.
The Generous Heart Page 11
