Chester bought a newspaper, the first he had bought that day. He had thought of a newspaper that morning, but the mail, communication, had seemed more urgent to him. He bought the Paris Herald Tribune and France Soir, and looked at the Tribune first. There it was, front-page news, but without a picture, fortunately. The story was only a few lines long. It said:
Athens, Jan. 19—Police were mystified today by the apparent disappearance of William J. Chamberlain, 42, an American hotelier who had been registered at the Hotel El Greco in this city. Authorities were reticent as to what may have happened to him, though they disclosed that Chamberlain had been under “police surveillance”, presumably to protect him from possible assault. His hotel room was left with all his possessions, as if he had merely stepped out for a walk. A note beside the typewriter which he had borrowed from the hotel expressed fear for his personal safety. Police are releasing no further information at the moment.
It was curious, Chester thought, very curious. They did not care to link Rydal Keener’s name with his. When Keener’s name was mentioned in the papers, Chamberlain’s wasn’t. Chester could not see their motive, could not see their reluctance to make an all-out search for Rydal Keener and in connection with the murder of Colette, Mrs. William Chamberlain. He couldn’t believe that the Greek police had doubted his story. If they had doubted him, why hadn’t they really grilled him, or at least done some much closer questioning than those two sessions they had had with him in the El Greco on Thursday?
Suddenly, Chester wondered if Rydal had gone to the police on his own, day before yesterday, and told them the story from his point of view? Were they somehow weighing Rydal’s story against his own? Could it be possible? Chester had heard of such things, of course. The police got the individual stories, which might vary, and then they confronted the two story-tellers with each other, or they confronted one with the other’s story and watched how he reacted to it. But Chester, in the second interview on Thursday, hadn’t had the least suspicion that the police had spoken to Rydal. The second interview, at 10 p.m., might have been a repetition of the first. Chester had not been out of the hotel since he had seen the police. He had had nothing new to tell them. No, that simply wasn’t it. The police had had time enough to confront them with each other, and they hadn’t done it. The very thought of what Rydal could say about him—on top of the bad news from Jesse—made Chester shudder slightly as he walked into the Montalembert.
Rydal Keener was sitting in the lobby.
Now not a shudder but a sudden sense of hollowness, of terrible shock, seized Chester and he caught against his body the newspapers and the bottle of Scotch that he had nearly let slip. He vacillated quickly, on his toes, between turning back to the door and going for his key, went for his key, and had to suffer the embarrassment of not knowing his room number, of having to think—it seemed to him—a whole minute before he could drag up even his name from his memory.
“Wedekind, please,” Chester said softly.
His key was pushed over to him. Chester moved slowly. He was supposed to think what to do. He couldn’t think what to do. He walked on, without looking at Rydal, towards the elevators. There seemed nothing else to do. Rydal was not getting up. Rydal sat in a heavy armchair backed by a column, so that he had a view of the door by turning his head slightly to the left, and of the elevators by turning it to the right. Though Chester did not look directly at him, he saw Rydal’s nod and his slight smile out of the corner of his eye. No, Rydal didn’t care if the hotel personnel knew that they knew each other, Chester thought. Rydal was still sitting, not looking at him now, his chin propped up casually on his fist, when the elevator doors closed him off from Chester’s view.
In his room, Chester solemnly and quickly shed his overcoat and got at his Scotch. He needed it, badly.
The telephone rang. Chester picked it up quickly, before he had time to think, to be afraid.
“Hello,” said Rydal’s smiling voice. “How are you, Phil? This is Joey. Can I come up and see you?”
“Who?” Chester asked, nervously stalling.
“Joey,” Rydal said. “I’d like to see you for a moment.”
“Never mind. Thanks. Some other time.”
“Listen, Phil—”
Here Chester heard Rydal interrupted by the clerk downstairs.
“Oh, he’ll see me, I’m sure,” said Rydal. Then, to Chester, “I’ll be right up, Phil.”
Chester put the telephone down.
As soon as he had hung up, the telephone rang again.
“Hello?” Chester said.
“M’sieur, if you do not wish a visit from this gentleman, we will not permit him to go up.”
“Oh, well, he . . . he . . . No, thank you, it’s quite all right. He’s a friend of mine.” The words came out quickly. Chester put the telephone down. He folded his arms and frowned at the door, waiting. Wrong stance. He dropped his arms. He mustn’t look angry or even annoyed. Above all, he mustn’t look frightened.
Rydal knocked.
Chester opened the door. He had expected a smirk, but Rydal’s face was solemn and calm as he came in.
“Good evening,” Rydal said. He glanced around the room, at Chester’s new suitcase on the luggage rack, then said, “Well, what’s the news from home?” He pulled out a package of Gauloises. “Cigarette?”
“No, thanks. Listen, Rydal, if it’s money you’re after, maybe we can come to terms.”
“Oh-h.” Rydal smiled and shook his match out. “I’m not averse to a little money, but I doubt if you and I can ever come to terms.”
Chester laughed contemptuously. “I don’t give money to people I haven’t come to terms with.”
“No? Think again.”
“A pity you didn’t make it clear from the start you were a blackmailer. You might have told me before we went to Crete.”
“It wasn’t clear to me before I went to Crete. I think it’s associating with you that’s made me so money-conscious. Anyway, there it is.” He sat down in the armchair, glanced around for an ashtray, then coolly flicked his ash on the carpet.
Chester went to his Scotch bottle on the night table, and poured some into the glass that was standing there. “Well, you’re not getting a cent,” Chester said.
“Oh, don’t make me laugh. I’d like ten thousand and right now.”
Chester smiled, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you right now, I’ve got only twenty thousand left. Is that worth—”
“I want your ten and I don’t want to sit here all night talking about it.” Rydal sat forward, frowning. “Only got twenty thousand. I’ll bet! I’ll bet you’ve got fifty thousand in each shoe.”
Chester advanced a step and stood easily, holding his glass. “I don’t pay blackmailers, Keener. I’m in quite a good position to blackmail you—if you had anything.” Chester looked at him straight in the face, but it was an effort for him. Rydal’s hatred, the anger that showed in his eyes, was very disturbing to Chester. He had never seen it quite like this before. It was anger, contempt, and the kind of hostility that looked as if it could burst forth in some unpremeditated action. Chester set his glass down.
“Don’t worry,” Rydal said. “I’m not going to sock you in the jaw. I’d like to. But there are better ways. More civilized, more deadly ways.” He smiled, as if at himself, and stood up. “I won’t detain you any longer, Mr. Wedekind. I’d like the ten—in your usual five-hundred-dollar bills. Twenty of them, please.”
Chester said, “I think I’ll just call downstairs for a couple of strong bellboys and have you removed.”
Rydal came slowly towards Chester, and Chester noticed that he was wearing new shoes—handsome black ones with thick rubber soles.
“You’ll have me removed? I’ll have you in prison, you ass!” The intensity in Rydal’s eyes ebbed, and he smiled slightly.
He was quite right, Chester knew. They were unevenly matched. At least here, now, in this room. Thoughts flashed erratically through Chester’s brain: go to some small hotel tomorrow. Paris had hundreds and hundreds of hotels. He’d telephone the police and say that Rydal Keener was in Paris. Ah, but he’d been here before. Couldn’t do that. All he could do was try to get Keener off his neck. That meant get to America as soon as possible, get rid of the Wedekind name, take a brand-new name. Yes, for Christ’s sake, that was the only way.
“Move and get the money,” Rydal said.
Chester moved, slowly. He went to his overcoat on the bed and reached into its breast pocket. “This’ll be the last. I’m—”
“Why?”
Chester counted off the bills, without removing the money completely from the pocket. “I’m going to the States. Tomorrow. Try and keep such good track of me then.” With a nasty smile, he handed Rydal the twenty five-hundred-dollar bills.
Rydal counted it calmly, slowly, having trouble separating the new bills. Then he put the money carelessly into his right side trousers pocket. “Do you miss Colette?”
Chester saw Rydal’s left eye twitch, the lids flutter. “I don’t want you saying her name,” Chester said.
“She liked me.” Rydal looked at him.
“She did not. She was annoyed, she was disgusted by your . . . your God-damned passes at her.” Chester spoke vehemently.
Rydal smiled. “It’s curious. You really believe that.—I went to bed with her, you know. She wanted me to. She asked me to.”
“Get out of this room.”
Rydal turned and went out.
18
Rydal walked to Saint-Germain-des-Près and boarded a 95 bus for Montmartre. He was in both high spirits and low. He felt flung up and then down, from moment to moment. That was easily explained: he didn’t really like what he was doing. He hadn’t liked it when he planned it, when he had thought about doing it. The pleasure it gave him was strictly emotional and irrational. He wasn’t interested in heckling Chester because Chester was a criminal, a guilty man, and he wasn’t interested in robbing the rich to give to the poor, and least of all was he interested in turning Chester over to the police. Colette was at the center of it, he felt. Colette was more the motivating cause than even the fact—the obvious fact—that Chester looked so much like his father and that he wanted to hit back at his father. No, indeed. What a childish, petty motivation that would have been! But Chester had killed, stamped out a delightful and harmless, kind, young and pretty woman. A woman Rydal had been more than half in love with when she died. Rydal felt even more in love with her now.
With a throb of regret and pain, Rydal remembered that he had not asked Chester for a photograph of her, as he had meant to do. Damn it! How he would have liked it with him in his hotel room tonight! Well, next time. Tomorrow. Early tomorrow. It might be true that Chester was going back to the States tomorrow. It was certainly the wisest thing for him to do. Hanging to a pole on the crowded bus, Rydal bit his upper lip thoughtfully. How to prevent Chester from going to the States tomorrow? Simple. Just inform him that if he left, he would inform the police that Philip Wedekind was Chamberlain and also MacFarland. Or should he keep that MacFarland name back as an ace in the hole? Rydal smiled to himself, and he found himself staring at a girl sitting two seats away from him and next to the window, a girl who was also looking at him and smiling slightly. She looked away. She had short straight hair combed forward from the crown, no parting in it. A purple scarf at her throat. She looked back at him. She wore lipstick—her lips were neither thin nor full, just nice lips—but no powder, and her nose was shiny and even a little pinkish-blue from the cold, or maybe she had a cold. There was a small mole high on her left cheek. She got out at the next station, and he got out, though the bus had hardly begun to climb the hill to Montmartre. It was the Gare Saint-Lazare stop.
“Bon soir,” Rydal said, catching up with her. “Où allez-vous, mademoiselle?”
She looked away, but she was controlling a smile. It would take only one more try.
“If it’s far, we’ll take a taxi. Whether it’s far or not. Please. I have to celebrate this evening.”
“Celebrate? Celebrate what?”
“I’ve just won a lot of money,” he said, smiling. “Come on. Taxi!” They were just approaching a tête de taxis, and there were three at the curb.
“Do you think I would get in a taxi with you? You must be an idiot!” she said, laughing.
“No, I’m not an idiot.” His hand was on the door handle. “Come on, I’ll let you speak to the driver. I won’t say a word.”
“I live only three streets away. With my parents,” she said, smiling, undecided.
“Bien. Get in. Or are you walking for your health?”
She got in. She spoke to the driver, gave her address. Then she sat back, waiting for him to say something. He was silent, looking at her.
“You’re not going to say anything?”
“I promised.” He sat in the corner of the seat, watching her. “However—” He sat up. “Since this is such a short trip and I have a very short time, I’ll ask you now, would you honor me by having dinner with me this evening?”
“Dinner!” She laughed as if the proposal were absurd.
He called for her at a quarter to 8, or rather picked her up on a certain corner, because she said she had to tell her parents that she was going to have dinner with a girl friend. Rydal asked her which place she would like best in all Paris to have dinner in. With a roll of her dark eyes, as if he were suggesting a round trip to the moon for the evening’s entertainment, she said:
“Ah, le Tour d’Argent, je suppose. Ou peut-être Maxim.”
“An aperitif chez Maxim and dinner at the Tour d’Argent,” Rydal replied, and put her into a taxi.
They ended the evening in a cabaret on the Left Bank. Her name was Yvonne Delatier. Rydal said his was Pierre Winckel—it being one of Rydal’s theories, or rather his experience, that the majority of French people had unFrench sounding names, like Geneviève Schumann in Athens, whose family was as French as they came. Winckel sounded much more authentically French to him than Carpentier, for instance. However, here was a Delatier to spoil his theory. She was twenty and studying to become a nurse, but afternoons she worked for a travel agency on the rue de la Paix near the Opéra. It was plain she did not have much money. She had changed to her best, perhaps, but her pocketbook was a cheap one. Rydal wanted to press a thousand dollars on her, but he did not even begin to try it. He explained his affluence—he had to, since he had boasted about it—in the easiest way, saying that a grandfather in Normandy, whom he hardly knew, had left him twenty-five thousand new francs when he died, and the money had come in only that day. Rydal said he had a job in Saint-Cloud in an automobile showroom, but he was staying at a hotel in Paris just now to attend to some legal matters in regard to his grandfather’s will. In the cabaret, they held hands. When the lights went out for the performers’ entrances and exits, they kissed. She had to be home by 12:30 at the latest, she said. In the taxi, Rydal cleared his throat and asked without much hope of success, if she would care to visit his hotel in Montmartre. Laughing, she declined. That was life. He dropped her off half a block from her door, as she wished, and watched until she was safely inside.
She had asked him if he had spent much time in Italy, because he had a slight Italian accent. That was funny. He had her telephone number, and he had told her he would call her “soon”.
C’est la vie. It had been a refreshing evening. He refreshed himself still more by putting two of the five-hundred-dollar bills into an envelope to send to Niko with a note of thanks for his hospitality in Athens.
Rydal set himself to awaken at 8, and woke up at twenty to. He reached for his telephone, and asked the operator to call the Montalembert for him. He would have ca
lled Chester last night, but he hadn’t wanted possibly to attract the ear of the Montalembert operator by calling at a late hour. And earlier, he hadn’t wanted to intrude on his evening with Yvonne by so much as a one-minute telephone conversation with Chester.
Chester was in, and sleepy.
“This is Joey,” said Rydal. “I am sorry if I awakened you, but I wanted to tell you that if you leave for home today, I’ll find out about it very soon, before your plane reaches New York. Do you know what I mean, Phil?”
Phil understood. He hung up in a pet, and Rydal lit a cigarette and lay on his back, thinking. He thought of Martha and Kennie in America, no doubt questioned by the police by now. What sort of person is your brother? He has a police record as a juvenile for sexual assault and breaking and entering at the age of fifteen. . . . Rydal turned over on his stomach and lay propped up on his elbows. Rydal would never kill anyone, Martha would say in her earnest way. He’s not a criminal, Kennie would say to them. It takes certain ingredients to make a criminal. . . . Yes, he’s a graduate of Yale Law School, but why do you ask me? You could call the school and find out. . . . Judging from the papers, the caretaker at Knossos didn’t know him by name. Why wasn’t it somebody else he saw? Why my brother? Rydal supposed he must write them. He frowned, thinking of the old hump, trying to explain why he had helped Chester in the first place. No, best not write. If the letter came from Paris, the police might get wind of the fact he was in Paris. At least, his brother and sister knew that he was still free, presumably not dead. No use writing to Martha, I’m hiding out in Paris, and I have to, because I’m being framed, something like that. Framed was neither quite accurate nor complete.
The Two Faces of January Page 23
