by P. N. Elrod
“No, ma’am,” I said apologetically, and folded away my dark glasses.
“That’s better. You may sit down. Coffee or tea?” she asked without enthusiasm, and we declined the offer with thanks. Social necessity out of the way, she dismissed the maid and inquired about our business.
“As I mentioned in my note, I am working on a disappearance case,” Escott began. “We’re looking for a Miss Maureen Dumont, who vanished in the late summer of 1931. We know she made a telephone call to an acquaintance and gave your phone number to them—”
“You mean she called from this house?”
“We can assume she did. She said she could be reached at this number.” Escott read it off from his notebook.
“That is my number, but I don’t know anyone named Dumont,” she stated flatly.
“She might have used a different name,” I said. I described Maureen to her. She listened, but ultimately shook her head.
“I can’t help you, I’m sorry. May I ask why you wish to find her?”
It was an effort to talk. “She was . . . she was special to me. Her disappearance was unexpected and unusual. I’ve been looking for her since then. This is the first solid clue I’ve had in five years . . . there must be something you can remember about that summer.”
Emily Francher again shook her head, her expression clouding as she swallowed and looked away. “My mother died that year. Things were very difficult for me and I was on medication for much of the time. My memories of that period are most painful and I’ve done my best to try to forget them.”
“I can understand that, but—”
She held up one hand. “I have led and continue to pursue a solitary life. I have very few visitors. I am certain that if this young woman had come to my house specifically to see me, I would have known about it.”
“Even back then?”
“Most certainly back then. The only visitors I received were members of my family and my lawyer to settle up any legal matters. They were all people I knew—this Maureen Dumont was not with them. Now, either a mistake has been made on your part with the telephone number, or one of my staff is involved, in which case my secretary will help you. Jonathan?”
Two high-backed chairs were placed in the far corner of the room, turned away from the center of things. Until now, neither Escott nor I had known one of them was occupied. The man she’d called to stood easily and came forward to look us over.
He was too handsome to be real, that’s how he struck me at first glance. His dark hair was perfectly combed, his features just uneven enough to be interesting and arresting. He didn’t have to smile for me to know his teeth would match the rest of him for a correct turnout. He wore a sober, well-cut suit with a subtle stripe that picked up the color of his blue eyes. He was tall, with a good spread of shoulder and not much hip, just the type to have to beat women off with a club. Some twenty years younger than his employer, I could guess that he was secretary in name only. If rich men felt entitled to have mistresses, I supposed rich women could have their gigolos as well. It was no skin off my nose.
“Jonathan, this is Mr. Escott and Mr. Fleming. Would you please see to them?”
He nodded acknowledgment. “Certainly, Miss Francher. Please come this way, gentlemen.”
Escott caught it at the same time and telegraphed it to me by a brief change in his eyes—an accent, almost English, but not quite. He swallowed back any objections to our summary dismissal by the lady of the house, bowed slightly again, and thanked her for her time. She waved a benevolent, if somewhat vague hand, and picked up a book from the table next to her chair.
Jonathan the secretary led us on a short hike to the second floor and ushered us into a cross between an office and a sitting room. It had more paintings on display, and Escott stopped and fairly gaped at a dim, heavily framed portrait of a man with a lumpy nose. Even my uneducated eye recognized it as a Rembrandt. It had to be genuine, nothing less would have been tolerated in such a house.
Opposite the door were some tall French windows softened by pale curtains. They opened onto a veranda that ran the length of the back of the house and overlooked a large, well-lit swimming pool. Though it was a cool night, someone was splashing around below. I wandered over to the rail for a better look and saw a slim blond girl cutting through the water like a seal, doing laps.
“That is Miss Francher’s cousin, Laura,” said the secretary, drawing my attention back into the room. “She’s very fond of swimming,” he added unnecessarily.
He politely settled us on a long couch and eased himself lazily into a padded banker’s chair before a roll-top desk. The top was shut and a whisper of dust clouded its brass handles.
On closer look, and in better light, he was still a remarkably handsome man. His dark hair and expressive brows accentuated his pale complexion, and slender blue veins were visible under the fine-textured skin of his long hands. He suddenly seemed out of place in his fashionable suit and modern surroundings. He should have been on a movie screen swinging a sword around and romancing Merle Oberon or Greta Garbo.
“How long have you worked here?” I asked.
“Several years.” He looked me over carefully in turn, holding on to a faint smile and not the least discouraged that it wasn’t returned. “How came you gentlemen to this place?”
Escott may have picked up on my uneasiness and was cautious. “I believe you heard all that was said to Miss Francher.”
“So I did,” he admitted. “It was I who persuaded her to allow you in. She values her privacy very much and we are naturally worried about robbery, but I was curious as to how you know Maureen Dumont. She was a friend of mine.”
He watched both our reactions, his eyes moving back and forth in a way that put prickles under my collar.
“Was?” I asked, trying to keep the thickness out of my voice.
“We were once very close.”
“How close?”
“I’ve not seen or heard from her for some five years,” he said, ignoring the question and watching me.
I started to say something, but Escott stepped in instead. “Would you relate to us the exact circumstances of your last contact with her?”
He dragged his gaze from me to Escott. “Possibly, but I would first like some information about the two of you.” Now his full attention was focused on Escott. “Who are you? Why are you here?”
“My name is Charles W. Escott. I am a licensed private investigator from Chicago and this is my colleague, Jack Fleming. Mr. Fleming was a very close friend of Miss Dumont. In August of 1931, Miss Dumont disappeared. This took place within a few hours of her sister Gaylen’s escape—”
“Charles,” I warned.
He stopped abruptly and shook his head a little. I thought he was trying to put me off.
“Go on,” said our host, leaning forward.
“. . . escape from a private sanatorium in—”
I looked at Escott—really looked at him—and the skin on my scalp started crawling every which way.
“—Kingsburg. She—”
“Charles.” This time I grabbed one shoulder and turned him to face me. His gray eyes were empty. He was unaware of everything except the last question he’d heard and his absolute necessity to answer it.
“—telephoned her friend . . . telephoned . . .”
Hardly knowing what I was doing myself, I lunged at the secretary and hauled him from his chair and slammed him against the nearest wall. Escott’s voice trailed off and stopped. An instant later the man’s arm shot up and he caught me in the soft spot right under the rib cage. If I’d been breathing I’d have doubled over. As it was, the force of the blow surprised me and sent me staggering back into his chair.
I went right over in a crash and tangle, bruising my arm on an unpadded wooden edge. He started to come after me, but stopped short, as though undecided whether to help me up or belt me again.
“Easy now,” he said, holding his hands with the palms out. I’d spoken the s
ame way to that horse last night to keep it calm. We glared at each other for a few long seconds, and then I glanced at Escott. He was still on the couch and oblivious to what had just happened.
The man said nothing when I looked back at him. He was on guard, his white teeth showing in the kind of non-smile you see on a wolf. When I didn’t leap up for another attack, he cautiously extended a hand down to me. I swatted it away before I could give in to the sudden urge to break the arm that went with it, and got to my feet without assistance.
“Easy now,” he repeated. “There’s no point to this, and you know it. The truth of things—that’s all I wanted from him.”
I knew what he was talking about, but wasn’t ready to face it yet, not until Escott . . .
“Pull him out of it—and carefully, or I’ll kick your ass into the sound.”
“Very well,” he told me. His voice was level, his rictus smile gone, but he wouldn’t hurry to do anything until he felt sure of me.
After a moment I backed off. Slowly. I wasn’t under his influence, but there was little else I could do.
When he was certain I’d stay put, he crossed to Escott, looked into his eyes, and said his name. Escott blinked, as though trying hard to remember something, and came quickly back to himself. He instantly noted the tension in the room and stood up.
“What’s happened?” he asked.
“We hit pay dirt,” I said. “He just pulled a Lamont Cranston on you.”
“Then he’s . . .” Escott didn’t bother to finish as the realization hit.
The man’s blue eyes flickered at me and held steady like the hot part of a candle flame. “How much does he know about things?”
“Enough,” I snapped. “Charles, you get behind me, I don’t trust this son of a bitch.”
Without any questions, Escott did just that. Whether he was any safer with me in front was anyone’s guess.
“Jonathan,” he said, recalling the secretary’s name. His head cocked thoughtfully and he regarded him with abrupt understanding. “You’re Jonathan Barrett.”
Maureen’s lover, her ageless vampire lover of three decades past, nodded once as an affirmative.
“At your service, gentlemen,” he said, and smiled mirthlessly.
4
BARRETT straightened a little and smoothed his clothes, not taking his gaze from either of us. “I apologize for the intrusion upon you, Mr. Escott.” His tone was slightly hostile and devoid of any regret. “Perhaps you will both excuse my desire to protect myself.”
I said nothing, it was up to Escott to pick up the ball.
“There was no real need to influence me into giving you information.”
“Yes, but then I don’t know you. The information could have been false or incomplete. It saves time and trouble when both sides know where they stand. For all I knew, you might have been friends of Gaylen, not Maureen.”
“What do you know about Gaylen?” I asked.
“Enough,” he replied, echoing me. “How is it that you know her?”
“She was looking for Maureen and found me instead.”
“And what happened to her?”
“She’s no longer a threat to Maureen.”
“That hardly answers my question.”
I ignored the sarcastic note. “Where’s Maureen?”
He studied me carefully, probably gauging my past relationship with her, perhaps even trying to see me through her eyes. That was what I was doing to him. “I don’t know.” He could see I didn’t believe him and said it again, spreading his hands for emphasis.
“When did you last see her, then?” asked Escott.
“On the night that Gaylen escaped from Kingsburg. Maureen stayed for the day, departed the following dusk, and I’ve not heard from her or of her since then—until you two turned up to trouble my innocent employer with questions.”
“How so is she innocent?”
“Miss Francher and I have a complete understanding over certain matters: I maintain her privacy and she protects mine.” He turned to me. “I know you can appreciate how important privacy and discretion are to those of our nature. You should be more mindful of those dark glasses. They are a dreadful giveaway.”
“Tell us about Maureen,” I said.
“That’s a long story.”
“I’ve got all night and so do you.”
“Of course, but I must think on where to start.”
“With yourself,” suggested Escott.
Barrett frowned and shook his head. “That would take much too long and I am not inclined this night to confess my many sins to virtual strangers.”
“The primary points should be sufficient. May we begin with your life and death?”
Something like amusement seemed to light Barrett’s eyes from within. “So you do know that much about us. Are you Mr. Fleming’s protector?”
Escott didn’t reply.
Shrugging it off as unimportant, Barrett went to the French windows and shut them against the night. “Very well. Please be seated and make yourselves comfortable. May I offer you some refreshment, Mr. Escott?”
“No, thank you.”
This time Escott picked a chair off to one side of the couch. I resumed my original seat, barely settling on the edge, ready to move again if necessary. I still didn’t trust the man.
Barrett righted his banker’s chair, checked it for damage, and rolled it back under the desk. Apparently feeling secure about us, he sank into the opposite end of the couch from me with a mock sigh of weariness, angling against the back and arm to be able to look at us both. His loose-boned, informal posture had its effect and I felt myself relaxing a little.
“Very well,” he began, looking up once at the ceiling as though searching it for the right word. “I was a lawyer’s son and destined to be a lawyer as well, though I had little taste for the work. I was sent to England to study. It was my first real experience of unsupervised freedom and I quickly grew to love it. There I learned to spend my allowance in ways my father would scarce have understood, much less approved.
“Those were wild, delightful days, and the nights were made even better when I became acquainted with a certain lady of astonishing charm who taught me some unique skills in the art of love. I was but a rough, untutored colonial then, for a time I believed that that was how all men and women enjoyed themselves—I grew wiser about such things later on.
“Then war came up and I was commanded home again, that or be left without funds. Being a dutiful son, I returned. I was so dutiful that it got me killed. My father was loyal to the Crown, y’see.”
“What war are you referring to?”
“The one that sundered our respective countries, Mr. Escott. The American Revolution, as it is now called.” He paused to let that sink in and enjoyed our reaction.
“How old were you then?”
His eyes drifted inward, briefly. “I was not old then, Mr. Escott. I was young; very, very, young.” He shifted, crossing one leg over the other. “But I was talking about the rebellion. My dear father was a Loyalist and not a damned traitor to our God-appointed sovereign. Of course, his attitude may have been tempered by the fact that Long Island was then protected by British troops. We were safe and secure from the rebels, so they said, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. I was shot down in cold blood by a pimply-faced bumpkin cowering in some trees on my father’s land. The cowardly, dishonorable, half-witted bastard thought I was General Howe.”
After at least 160 years, his disgust was sincere and still fresh.
“I’ll pass over the dramatic details of my death and return, and my first stumbling efforts at coping with the physical change within me. I was forever cut off from my family—if anything, I was too embarrassed to come forward and try to explain myself. By the time I’d decided to overcome it, the so-called colonial government had won their war and seized Father’s property. He pulled a few pennies together and took the family back to England. I was tied to the land, though, and had to remai
n behind. I settled down, made a kind of life for myself, and even traveled a bit in later years when the chance presented itself.”
“How did you support yourself?” asked Escott.
“That, sir,” he smiled, “is none of your business. I did a lot of reading, trying to make up for my patchy and interrupted education. Decades later, my interest in reading eventually led me to meet the Dumont sisters at some literary club. I was immediately attracted to Maureen, her feelings were in happy correspondence to my own, and nature had its course with us for many contented years.”
“What about Gaylen?” I asked.
He sighed and shook his head. “She knew something was going on, but never came out and asked anything. It worried Maureen, but there was little she could do about it. She chose to do nothing.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. It was Maureen’s concern and up to her on how to handle things. I merely followed her wishes. Gaylen was a strange woman. There were no doctors then who could be of any help to her. She was too clever to be obviously mad.”
“What was she like?”
“Strange,” he repeated unhelpfully. “Normal on the outside, but there was a soft and rotten core of sickness within that never showed itself until you really got to know her. She liked to use people, but only in petty ways, mind you. She’d never put on a manner to make you think she was imposing on your goodwill.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are some people you like to do things for, simply because they’re nice and know how to say thank you. On the surface, Gaylen seemed to be one of them. She was pleasant company, and careful never to go too far, but she was really using people in her own way. As an outsider to their family with some larger experience, I could see how she worked all things around her to her favor . . . oh, but she was ever so nice about it.
“Maureen did everything she could for her, but it was never enough. Gaylen enjoyed playing the sweet suffering martyr and craved the attention it got her. In later years, Gaylen practically clung to Maureen, ‘as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on,’ if I may borrow from the bard. When Maureen had her accident, it was too much for Gaylen; she completely fell apart.”
