A Kiss Before Dying

by Ira Levin

  The Dean opened the fourth folder. ‘Gordon Gant,’ he said. ‘Does that sound like the name?’ He turned the application form towards her.

  He was blond and unarguably handsome; light eyes under full brows, a long firm jaw, and a cavalier grin. ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think he—’

  ‘Or could it be Dwight Powell?’ the Dean asked, displaying the fifth application form in his other hand.

  The fifth photograph showed a square-jawed, serious-looking young man, with a cleft chin and pale-toned eyes. ‘Which name sounds familiar?’ the Dean asked.

  Ellen looked impotently from one picture to the other. They were both blond; they were both blue-eyed; they were both handsome.

  She came out of the Administration Building and stood at the head of the stone steps surveying the campus, dull grey under a clouded sky. Her purse was in one hand, a slip of paper from the Dean’s memo pad in the other.

  Two … It would slow her up a little, that’s all. It should be simple to find out which was the one – and then she would watch him, even meet him perhaps – though not as Ellen Kingship. Watch for the darting eye, the guarded answer. Murder must leave marks. (It was murder. It must have been murder.)

  She was getting ahead of herself. She looked at the paper in her hand:

  Gordon C. Gant

  1312 West Twenty-sixth Street

  Dwight Powell

  1520 West Thirty-fifth Street

  THREE

  Her lunch, eaten in a small restaurant across the street from the campus, was a hasty mechanical affair, her mind racing with swift thoughts. How to begin? Ask a few discreet questions of their friends? But where do you start? Follow each man, learn the identity of his friends, meet them, find the ones who had known him last year? Time, time, time … If she remained in Blue River too long, Bud might call her father. Her fingers tapped impatiently. Who would be sure to know about Gordon Gant and Dwight Powell? Their families. Or if they were from out of town, a landlady or a room-mate. It would be impetuous to go straight to the centre of things, to the people nearest them, but still, no time could be wasted … She bit her lower lip, her fingers still tapping.

  After a minute she put down her half-finished cup of coffee, rose from the table and threaded her way to the phone booth. Hesitantly she ruffled the pages of the thin Blue River book. There was no Gant at all, no Powell on Thirty-fifth Street. That meant they either had no phones, which seemed unlikely, or they were living with families other than their own.

  She called Information and obtained the number of the telephone at 1312 West Twenty-sixth Street: 2-2014.

  ‘Hello?’ The voice was a woman’s; dry, middle-aged.

  ‘Hello.’ Ellen swallowed. ‘Is Gordon Gant there?’

  A pause. ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘A friend of his. Is he there?’

  ‘No.’ Snapped out sharply.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘His landlady.’

  ‘When do you expect him back?’

  ‘Won’t be back till late tonight.’ The woman’s voice was quick with annoyance. There was a click as she hung up.

  Ellen looked at the dead receiver and placed it on the hook. When she got back to her table the coffee was cold.

  He would be gone all day. Go there? A single conversation with the landlady might establish that Gant was the one who had gone with Dorothy. Or, by elimination, it might prove that Powell was the one. Speak to the landlady – but under what pretext?

  Why, any pretext! Provided the woman believed it, what harm could the wildest story do?–even if its falseness were completely obvious to Gant when the landlady reported it. Either he wasn’t the man, in which case let him puzzle over a mysterious questioner pretending to be a friend or a relative, or he was the man, in which case: (a) he had not killed Dorothy–again let him puzzle over a mysterious questioner; or(b)he had killed Dorothy – and the story of a girl seeking information about him would make him uneasy. Yet his uneasiness would not interfere with her plans, for should she later make his acquaintance, he would have no reason to associate her with the girl who had questioned his landlady. Uneasiness on his part might even be a help to her, making him tense, more likely to betray himself. Why, he might even decide to take no chances and leave town – and that would be all she’d need to convince the police that there was a sound basis to her suspicions. They would investigate, find the proof …

  Go straight to the centre of things. Impetuous? When you thought about it, it was really the most logical thing to do.

  She looked at her watch. Five past one. Her visit shouldn’t be made too soon after the telephone call or the landlady might connect the two and become suspicious. Forcing herself to sit back in the chair, Ellen caught the waitress’s eye and ordered another cup of coffee.

  At a quarter to two she entered the 1300 block of West Twenty-sixth Street. It was a quiet, tired-looking street, with pallid two-storey frame houses sitting behind pocked brown lawns still hard from winter. A few old Fords and Chevvies stood immobile along the kerb, some ageing naturally, some trying to stay young with unprofessional paint jobs, bright coloured but lustreless. Ellen walked with the enforced slowness of attempted nonchalance, the sound of her heels the only sound in the still air.

  The house where Gordon Gant lived, 1312, was the third one from the corner: mustard coloured, its brown trim the shade of stale chocolate. After looking at it for a moment, Ellen walked up the cracked concrete path that bisected the dead lawn and led to the porch. There she read the nameplate on the mailbox affixed to one of the posts: Mrs Minna Arquette. She stepped to the door. Its bell was of the old-fashioned kind; a fan-shaped metal tab protruded from the centre of the door. Drawing a deep initiatory breath, she gave the tab a quick twist. The bell within rang gratingly. Ellen waited.

  Presently footsteps sounded inside, and then the door opened. The woman who stood in the doorway was tall and lank, with frizzy grey hair clustered above a long equine face. Her eyes were pink and rheumy. A busily printed housedress hung from her sharp shoulders. She looked Ellen up and down. ‘Yes?’ – the dry midwestern voice of the telephone.

  ‘You must be Mrs Arquette,’ Ellen declared.

  ‘That’s right.’ The woman twitched a sudden smile, displaying teeth of an unnatural perfection.

  Ellen smiled back at her. ‘I’m Gordon’s cousin.’

  Mrs Arquette arched thin eyebrows. ‘His cousin?’

  ‘Didn’t he mention that I’d be here today?’

  ‘Why, no. He didn’t say anything about a cousin. Not a word.’

  ‘That’s funny. I wrote him I’d be passing through. I’m on my way to Chicago and I purposely came this way so I could stop off and see him. He must have forgotten to—’

  ‘When did you write him?’

  Ellen hesitated. ‘The day before yesterday. Saturday.’

  ‘Oh.’ The smile flashed again. ‘Gordon leaves the house early in the morning and the first mail don’t come till ten. Your letter is probably sitting in his room this minute.’

  ‘Ohh—’

  ‘He isn’t here right—’

  ‘Couldn’t I come in for a few minutes?’ Ellen cut in quickly. ‘I took the wrong tramcar from the station and I had to walk about ten blocks.’

  Mrs Arquette took a step back into the house. ‘Of course. Come on in.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Ellen crossed the threshold, entering a hallway that was stale-smelling and – once the front door was closed – dimly lighted. A flight of stairs rose along the right wall. On the left an archway opened on to a parlour which had the stiff look of seldom used rooms.

  ‘Miz Arquette?’ a voice called from the back of the house.

  ‘Coming!’ she answered. She turned to Ellen. ‘You mind sitting in the kitchen?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Ellen said. The Arquette teeth shone again, and then Ellen was following the tall figure down the hallway, wondering why the woman, so pleasant now, had been so irritable over th
e telephone.

  The kitchen was painted the same mustard colour as the exterior of the house. There was a white porcelain-topped table in the middle of the room, with a set of anagrams laid out on it. An elderly bald-headed man with thick glasses sat at the table, pouring the last of a bottle of Dr Pepper into a flower jar that had once held cheese. ‘This is Mr Fishback from next door,’ said Mrs Arquette. ‘We play anagrams.’

  ‘Nickel a word,’ added the old man, raising his glasses to look at Ellen.

  ‘This is Miss—’ Mrs Arquette waited.

  ‘Gant,’ said Ellen.

  ‘Miss Gant, Gordon’s cousin.’

  ‘How do you do,’ said Mr Fishback. ‘Gordon’s a nice boy.’ He dropped his glasses back into place, his eyes swelling up behind them. ‘It’s your go,’ he said to Mrs Arquette.

  She took the seat opposite to Mr Fishback. ‘Sit down,’ she said to Ellen, indicating one of the empty chairs. ‘You want some pop?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Ellen said, sitting. She slipped her arms from the sleeves of her coat and dropped it back over the chair.

  Mrs Arquette stared at the dozen turned-up letters in the ring of black-backed wooden squares. ‘Where you on your way from?’ she inquired.

  ‘California.’

  ‘I didn’t know Gordon had family in the west.’

  ‘No, I was just visiting there. I’m from the east.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mrs Arquette looked at Mr Fishback. ‘Go ahead, I give up. Can’t do anything with no vowels.’

  ‘It’s my turn?’ he asked. She nodded. With a grin Mr Fishback snatched at the turned-up letters. ‘You missed it, you missed it!’ he crowed. ‘c-r-y-p-t. Crypt. What they bury folks in.’ He pushed the letters together and added the word to the other ranged before him.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ Mrs Arquette protested. ‘You had all that time to think while I was at the door.’

  ‘Fair is fair,’ Mr Fishback declared. He turned up two more letters and placed them in the centre of the ring.

  ‘Oh, shoot,’ Mrs Arquette muttered, sitting back in her chair.

  ‘How is Gordon these days?’ Ellen asked.

  ‘Oh, fine,’ said Mrs Arquette. ‘Busy as a bee, what with school and the programme.’

  ‘The programme?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know about Gordon’s programme?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t heard from him in quite a while—’

  ‘Why, he’s had it for almost three months now!’ Mrs Arquette drew herself up grandly. ‘He plays records and talks. A disc jockey. “The Discus Thrower” he’s called. Every night except Sunday, from eight to ten over KBRI.’

  ‘That’s wonderful!’ Ellen exclaimed.

  ‘Why, he’s a real celebrity,’ the landlady continued, turning up a letter as Mr Fishback nodded to her. ‘They had an interview on him in the paper a couple of Sundays back. Reporter come here and everything. And girls he don’t even know calling him up at all hours. Stoddard girls. They get his number out of the Student Directory and call up just to hear his voice over the telephone. He don’t want anything to do with them, so I’m the one’s got to answer. It’s enough to drive a person crazy,’ Mrs Arquette frowned at the anagrams. ‘Go ahead, Mr Fishback,’ she said.

  Ellen fingered the edge of the table. ‘Is Gordon still going out with that girl he wrote me about last year?’ she asked.

  ‘Which one’s that?’

  ‘A blonde girl, short, pretty. Gordon mentioned her in a few of his letters last year – October, November, all the way up through April. I thought he was really interested in her. But he stopped writing about her in April.’

  ‘Well I’ll tell you,’ Mrs Arquette said, ‘I don’t ever get to see the girls Gordon goes out with. Before he got the programme he used to go out three – four times a week, but he never brought any of the girls here. Not that I’d expect him to. I’m only his landlady. He never talks about them neither. Other boys I had here before him used to tell me all about their girls, but college boys were younger then. Nowadays they’re mostly veterans and I guess they get a little older, they don’t chatter so much. Least Gordon don’t. Not that I’d want to pry, but I’m interested in people.’ She turned over a letter. ‘What was the girl’s name? You tell me her name I can probably tell you if he’s still going out with her, because sometimes when he’s using the phone over by the stairs there, I’m in the parlour and can’t help hearing part of the conversation.’

  ‘I don’t remember her name,’ Ellen said, ‘but he was going with her last year, so maybe if you remember the names of some of the girls he spoke to then, I’ll be able to recognize it.’

  ‘Let’s see,’ Mrs Arquette pondered, mechanically arranging anagrams in search of a word. ‘There was a Louella. I remember that one because I had a sister-in-law by that name. And then there was a’ – her watery eyes closed in concentration – ‘a Barbara. No, that was the year before, his first year. Let’s see, Louella.’ She shook her head. ‘There was others, but I’m hanged if I can remember them.’

  The game of anagrams went on in silence for a minute. Finally Ellen said, ‘I think this girl’s name was Dorothy.’

  Mrs Arquette waved a go-ahead at Mr Fishback. ‘Dorothy.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘No – if the name’s Dorothy, I don’t think he’s going out with her. I haven’t heard him talking to any Dorothy lately. I’m sure of that. Of course he goes down to the corner sometimes to make a real personal call or a long distance.’

  ‘But he was going with a Dorothy last year?’

  Mrs Arquette looked up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember a Dorothy, but I don’t not remember one either, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Dottie?’ Ellen tried.

  Mrs Arquette considered for a moment and then gave a noncommittal shrug.

  ‘Your go,’ Mr Fishback said petulantly.

  The wooden squares clicked softly as Mrs Arquette manoeuvred them about. ‘I think,’ said Ellen, ‘that he must have broken up with this Dorothy in April when he stopped writing about her. He must have been in a bad mood around the end of April. Worried, nervous—’ She looked at Mrs Arquette questioningly.

  ‘Not Gordon,’ she said. ‘He had a real spring fever last year. Going around humming. I joshed him about it.’ Mr Fishback fidgeted impatiently. ‘Oh, go ahead,’ Mrs Arquette said.

  Choking over his Dr Pepper, Mr Fishback pounced on the anagrams. ‘You missed one again!’ he cried, clawing up letters. ‘F-A-N-E. Fane!’

  ‘What’re you talking about, fane? No such word!’ Mrs Arquette turned to Ellen. ‘You ever hear of a word “fane”?’

  ‘You should know better’n to argue with me!’ Mr Fishback shrilled. ‘I don’t know what it means, but I know it’s a word. I seen it!’ He turned to Ellen. ‘I read three books a week, regular as clockwork.’

  ‘Fane,’ snorted Mrs Arquette.

  ‘Well look it up in the dictionary!’

  ‘That little pocket one with nothing in it? Every time I look up one of your words and it ain’t there you blame it on the dictionary!’

  Ellen looked at the two glaring figures. ‘Gordon must have a dictionary,’ she said. She stood up. ‘I’ll be glad to get it if you’ll tell me which room is his.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mrs Arquette said decisively. ‘He does have one.’ She rose. ‘You sit down, dear. I know just where it is.’

  ‘May I come along then? I’d like to see Gordon’s room. He’s told me what a nice place—’

  ‘Come on,’ said Mrs Arquette, stalking out of the kitchen. Ellen hurried after her.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Mr Fishback’s voice chased them, ‘I know more words than you’ll ever know, even if you live to be a hundred!’

  They sped up the darkwood stairs, Mrs Arquette in the fore muttering indignantly. Ellen followed her through a door adjacent to the head of the stairway.

  The room was bright with flowered wallpaper. There was a green-covered bed, a dresser, easy chair, table … Mrs Arque
tte, having snatched a book from the top of the dresser, stood by the window ruffling the pages. Ellen moved to the dresser and scanned the titles of the books ranked across its top. A diary maybe. Any kind of notebook. Prize Stories of 1950, An Outline of History, Radio Announcer’s Handbook of Pronunciation, The Brave Bulls, A History of American Jazz, Swann’s Way, Elements of Psychology, Three Famous Murder Novels, and A Sub-Treasury of American Humour.

  ‘Oh, shoot,’ said Mrs Arquette. She stood with her forefinger pressed to the open dictionary. ‘Fane,’ she read, ‘a temple; hence a church.’ She slammed the book shut. ‘Where does he get words like that?’

  Ellen eased over to the table, where three envelopes were fanned out. Mrs Arquette, putting the dictionary on the dresser, glanced at her. ‘The one without a return address is yours, I guess.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Ellen said. The two letters with return addresses were from Newsweek and the National Broadcasting Company.

  Mrs Arquette was at the door. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ellen said.

  They trudged down the stairs and walked slowly into the kitchen, where Mr Fishback was waiting. As soon as he observed Mrs Arquette’s dejection he burst into gleeful cackling. She gave him a dirty look. ‘It means a church,’ she said, slumping into her chair. He laughed some more. ‘Oh, shut up and get on with the game,’ Mrs Arquette grumbled. Mr Fishback turned over two letters.

  Ellen took her purse from the coat-draped chair in which she had sat. ‘I guess I’ll be going now,’ she said dispiritedly.

  ‘Going?’ Mrs Arquette looked up, the thin eyebrows arching.

  Ellen nodded.

  ‘Well for goodness’ sake, aren’t you going to wait for Gordon?’ Ellen went cold. Mrs Arquette looked at the clock on the refrigerator next to the door. ‘It’s ten after two,’ she said. ‘His last class ended at two o’clock. He should be here any minute.’

  She couldn’t speak. The image of Mrs Arquette’s upturned face swayed sickeningly. ‘You – you told me he would be gone all day—’ she strained out finally.

  Mrs Arquette looked injured. ‘Why, I never told you no such thing! Why on earth you been sitting here if not waiting for him?’