Laura (Femmes Fatales) Read online

  A key turned in the lock. We assumed postures of piety as Mark entered.

  “Your men let us in, Mr. McPherson,” explained Mrs. Treadwell. “I called your office, but you weren’t in. I hope there’s nothing wrong about our . . . our attempt to bring order. Poor Laura was so careless, she never knew what she owned.”

  “I gave orders to let you in if you came,” Mark told her. “I hope you’ve found everything as it should be.”

  “Someone has been in the closet. One of the dresses has fallen off the hook and perfume was spilled.”

  “The police are heavy-handed,” was my innocent observation.

  Mark, I thought, took extra pains to appear nonchalant.

  “There’s nothing of great value,” Mrs. Treadwell remarked. “Laura would never put her money into things that lasted. But there are certain trinkets, souvenirs that people might appropriate for sentimental reasons.” She smiled so sweetly in my direction that I knew she suspected the reason for my presence.

  I took direct action. “Perhaps you know, Mrs. Treadwell, that this vase did not belong to Laura.” I nodded toward the mercury glass globe upon the mantel. “I’d merely lent it to her.”

  “Now, Waldo, don’t be naughty. I saw you bring that vase on Christmas, all tied up in red ribbons. You must remember, Shelby.”

  Shelby looked up as if he had not heard the argument. The role of innocence, he knew by experience, would protect him equally from my wit and her revenge. “Sorry, darling, I didn’t hear what you were saying.” He returned to his inventories.

  “Not ribbons, dear lady. There was a string tied to my Christmas package. Laura wasn’t to give it away. You know that Spanish prodigality of hers, handing things to anyone who admired them. This vase is part of my collection and I intend to take it now. That’s quite in order, don’t you think, McPherson?”

  “You’d better leave it. You might find yourself in trouble,” Mark said.

  “How petty-official of you! You’re acting like a detective.”

  He shrugged as if my good opinion were of no importance. I laughed and turned the talk to inquiry about the progress of his work. Had he found any clues that might lead to the murderer’s house?

  “Plenty,” he taunted.

  “Oh, do tell us,” Mrs. Treadwell begged, sliding forward in her chair and clasping her hands together in a gesture of rapturous attention. Shelby had climbed upon a chair so that he might record the titles of volumes on the topmost bookshelf. From this vantage point, he glanced down at Mark with fearless curiosity. The Pomeranian sniffed at the detective’s trousers. All awaited revelation. All Mark said was, “I hope you don’t mind,” and took out his pipe. The snub was meant to arouse fear and bid us mind the majesty of the law.

  I seized the moment for my own. “It might interest you to know that I’ve got a clue.” My eyes were fixed on Mrs. Treadwell, but beyond her floating veil the mirror showed me Mark’s guarded countenance.

  “Do you know there’s an art lover connected with this case? As probable heir, Mrs. Treadwell, you might be pleased to know that this little museum piece—” I directed her attention to the Jacoby portrait “—has already been bid for.”

  “Really! How much?”

  “I’d keep the price up if I were you. The portrait may have a sentimental value for the buyer.”

  “Who is it?” asked Shelby.

  “Someone with money? Could we ask for a thousand?” demanded Mrs. Treadwell.

  Mark used the pipe as a shield for self-consciousness. Behind his cupped hand, I noted rising color. A man girding himself for the torture chamber could not have shown greater dignity.

  “Someone we know?”

  “Do you think there might be a clue in it?” I asked mischievously. “If this is a crime passionnel, the killer might be a man of sentiment. Don’t you think the lead’s worth following, McPherson?”

  His answer was something between a grunt and a sigh.

  “It’s terribly exciting,” said Mrs. Treadwell. “You’ve got to tell me, Waldo, you’ve just got to.”

  I was never a child to torture butterflies. The death agonies of small fish have never been a sight that I witnessed with pleasure. I remember blanching with terror and scurrying across the lane when, during an ill-advised visit to a farm, I was forced to watch a decapitated chicken running around and around its astonished head. Even on the stage I prefer death to follow a swift, clean stroke of a sharp blade. To spare Mark’s blushes I spoke hastily and with the air of gravity: “I cannot betray the confidence of Lancaster Corey. An art dealer is, after all, somewhat in the position of a doctor or lawyer. In matters of taste, discretion is the better part of profit.”

  I sought his eyes, but Mark turned away. His next move, I thought, was meant to divert conversation, but I learned later that he had had a definite purpose in meeting Shelby here this afternoon.

  “I’ve been working and could use a drink,” he announced. “As chief trustee, Mrs. Treadwell, would you mind if I took some of Miss Hunt’s liquor?”

  “How stingy you make me sound! Shelby, darling, be useful. I wonder if the icebox is turned on.”

  Shelby leaped from his perch and went into the kitchen. Mark opened the corner cabinet.

  “He certainly knows his way about this apartment,” I observed.

  He paid no attention. “What do you drink, Mrs. Treadwell? Yours is Scotch, isn’t it, Lydecker?”

  He waited until Shelby returned before he brought out the Bourbon. “I think I’ll drink this today. What’s yours, Carpenter?”

  Shelby glanced at the bottle, decorated with the profiles of three noble steeds. His hands tensed, but he could not hold them steady enough to keep the glasses from rattling on the tray.

  “None—for—me—thanks.”

  The softness had fled his voice. He was harsh as metal, and his chiseled features, robbed of color, had the marble virtue of a statue erected to the honor of a dead Victorian.

  Chapter 8

  Mark asked me to dine with him that night.

  “But I thought you were displeased with me.”

  “Why?”

  “I failed you at the funeral.”

  “I know how you felt.” His hand lay for a moment upon my coat sleeve.

  “Then why didn’t you help me get my vase away from that she-vulture?”

  “I was being petty-official,” he teased. “I’d like to take you to dinner, Mr. Lydecker. Will you come?”

  He carried a book in his coat pocket. I saw only the top inch of the binding, but unless I was mistaken, it was the work of a not unfamiliar author.

  “I am flattered,” I remarked with a jocular nod toward the bulging pocket.

  He fingered the book, with some affection, I fancied.

  “Have you read it yet, McPherson?” He nodded. “And do you still consider me smooth but trivial?”

  “Sometimes you’re not bad,” he conceded.

  “Your flattery overwhelms me,” I retorted. “And where shall we dine?”

  His car was open and he drove so wildly that I clung with one hand to the door, with the other to my black Homburg. I wondered why he chose the narrowest streets in the slums until I saw the red neon above Montagnino’s door. Montagnino himself met us and to my surprise greeted Mark as an honored customer. I saw then that it would take little effort to guide him along the road of good taste. We passed through a corridor steamy with the odors of tomato paste, peppers, and oregano to the garden, which was, on this incredible night, only a few degrees cooler than the kitchen; with the air of a Caesar conferring honor upon pet commoners, Montagnino led us to a table beside a trellis twined with artificial lilac. Through the dusty wooden lattice and weary cotton vines we witnessed a battle between the hordes of angry clouds and a fierce copper moon. The leaves of the one living tree in the neighborhood, a skinny cat
alpa, hung like the black bones of skeleton hands, as dead as the cotton lilac. With the flavors of Montagnino’s kitchen and the slum smells was mingled the sulphurous odor of the rising storm.

  We dined on mussels cooked with mustard greens in

  Chianti and a chicken, fried in olive oil, laid upon a bed of yellow taglierini and garlanded with mushrooms and red peppers. At my suggestion we drank that pale still wine with the magic name, Lacrymae Christi. Mark had never tasted it, but once his tongue had tested and approved the golden flavor, he tossed it off like Scotch whiskey. He came of a race of drinkers who look contemptuously upon an alcoholic content of twelve percent, unaware that the fermented grape works its enchantments more subtly than the distilled spirits of grain. I do not imply that he was drunk; let us say, rather, that the Tears of Christ opened his heart. He became less Scottish and more boyish; less the professional detective and more the youth in need of a confidant.

  I remarked that I had dined here with Laura. We had eaten the same food at this very table. The same weary cotton leaves had hung above her head. The place had been one of her favorites. Had he guessed it when he planned the dinner?

  He shrugged. A mechanical contrivance filled the restaurant with music and sent faint melody into the garden. Noel Coward wrote an unforgettable line (whose precise wording I have forgotten) upon the ineluctable charm of old popular songs. That is why, I venture to say, a nation sways to George Gershwin while the good works of Calvin Coolidge have become arid words in unread volumes. Old tunes had been as much a part of Laura as her laughter. Her mind had been a fulsome catalogue of musical trivia. A hearty and unashamed lowbrow, she had listened to Brahms but had heard Kern. Her one great had been Bach, whom she learned to cherish, believe it or not, by listening to a Benny Goodman record.

  When I mentioned this to Mark, he nodded gravely and said, “Yep, I know.”

  “What do you know and how do you know so much?” I demanded, suddenly outraged by his superior airs. “You act as though you’d been Laura’s friend for years.”

  “I looked at her records,” he said. “I even played some of them. Make what you want of that, Mr. Lydecker.”

  I poured him another glass of wine. His belligerency dwindled and it was not long afterward that he poured forth the revelations recorded in foregoing chapters: the scene with Bessie; his annoyance at the clumsy flattery of the girl reporter; the sudden interest in painting which had caused him to discover Lancaster Corey and ask the price of the Jacoby portrait; and finally, with the second bottle of wine, of Shelby Carpenter.

  I confess that I was not without guilt in plying him with liquor and provocative questions. We discussed the insurance policy, the false alibi, and, at my subtle instigation, Shelby’s familiarity with firearms.

  “He’s quite the sporting type, you know. Hunting, shooting, and all that. Once had a collection of guns, I believe.”

  Mark nodded knowingly.

  “Have you checked on them? How do you go about getting all these items of information? Or did Shelby confess that, too?”

  “I’m a detective. What do you think I do with my time? It was a simple matter of two and two on the guns. Photographs in her album and storage receipts in his room at the Framingham. He went up to the warehouse with me himself on Monday and we looked over the arsenal. His father used to hunt foxes in a red coat, he told me.”

  “Well?” I awaited revelation.

  “According to the records in the warehouse, nothing had been touched for over a year. Most of the stuff showed rust and the dust was an inch thick.”

  “Of course a man might have guns that he didn’t put into a warehouse for safekeeping.”

  “He’s not the type to use a sawed-off shotgun.”

  “A sawed-off shotgun!” I exclaimed. “Do you know positively?”

  “We know nothing positively.” He underscored the adverb brusquely. “But where do you use BB shot?”

  “I’m no sportsman,” I confessed.

  “Imagine anyone trying to carry a shotgun around the streets of this town. How could he get away with it?”

  “Sawed-off shotguns are carried by gangsters,” I observed. “At least according to the education I’ve received at that fount of popular learning, the movies.”

  “Did Laura know any gangsters?”

  “In a way, McPherson, we’re all gangsters. We all have our confederates and our sworn foes, our loyalties and our enmities. We have our pasts to shed and our futures to protect.”

  “In the advertising business they use different weapons,” he observed.

  “If a man were desperate, might he not sacrifice sportsmanship for the nonce and step out of his class? And tell me, McPherson, just how does one saw off a sawed-off shotgun?”

  My plea for practical information was disregarded. Mark became guarded again. I spoke of the insurance policy.

  “Shelby’s eagerness to tell you about it was undoubtedly a device for disarming you with his charming frankness.”

  “I’ve thought of that.”

  The music changed. My hand, holding a wineglass, was stayed on its journey to my lips. My face was drained of color. In the bewildered countenance of my companion I caught a reflection of my pallor.

  Yellow hands slid coffee cups across the table. At the next table a woman laughed. The moon had lost its battle with the clouds and retreated, leaving no trace of copper brilliance in the ominous sky. The air had grown heavier. In the window of a tenement a slim girl stood, her angular dark silhouette sharpened by a naked electric bulb.

  At the table on our left a woman was singing:

  So I smile and say,

  When a lovely flame dies,

  Smoke gets in your eyes.

  Fixing offended eyes upon her face, I spoke in my courtliest tones. “Madame, if you would spare the eardrums of one who heard Tamara introduce that enchanting song, you will restrain your clumsy efforts at imitation.”

  She made a remark and gesture which, lest my readers be squeamish, I shall not describe. Mark’s eyes were fixed on my face with the squinting attentiveness of a scientist at a microscope.

  I laughed and said hastily: “That melody is significant. Common as it has become, it has never lost a peculiarly individual flavor. Jerry Kern has never surpassed it, you know.”

  “The first time you heard it you were with Laura,” Mark said.

  “How astute of you!”

  “I’m getting used to your ways, Mr. Lydecker.”

  “You shall be rewarded,” I promised, “by the story of that night.”

  “Go on.”

  “It was in the fall of ’33, you know, that Max Gordon put on the show, Roberta, book by Hammerstein Junior after a novel by Alice Duer Miller. Trivia, of course, but, as we know, there is no lack of sustenance in whipped cream. It was Laura’s first opening night. She was excited to no end, her eyes burning like a child’s, her voice rising in adolescent squeaks as I pointed out this and that human creature who had been, until that night, magic names to the little girl from Colorado Springs. She wore a gown of champagne-colored chiffon and jade-colored slippers. Extraordinarily effective with her eyes and hair.

  “‘Laura, my precious babe,’ I said to her, ‘we shall drink to your frock in champagne.’ It was her first taste of it, McPherson. Her pleasure gave me the sensation that God must know when He transforms the blasts of March into the melting winds of April.

  “Add to this mood a show which is all glitter and chic, and top it with the bittersweet froth of song, throatily sung by a Russian girl with a guitar. I felt a small warmth upon my hand, and then, as the song continued, a pressure that filled me with swelling ecstasy. Do you think this a shameful confession? A man of my sort has many easy emotions—I have been known to shout with equal fervor over the Beethoven Ninth or a penny lollypop—but few great moments. But I swear to you, McPherson, in t
his simple sharing of melody we had attained something which few achieve in the more conventional attitudes of affection.

  “Her eyes were swimming. Later she told me that she had recently been rejected in love—imagine anyone rejecting Laura. The fellow, I take it, was rather insensitive. She had, alas, a low taste in love. Through the confession I clung to her hand tightly, that small, tender hand which held such extraordinary firmness that she used to say it was slightly masculine. But the elements are so mixed in us, McPherson, that Nature must blush to quote Shakespeare when she stands and says to the world, ‘This was a man!’”

  The music flowed between the white dusty boards of the trellis, through vines of artificial lilac. I had never before spoken aloud nor written of the reverie which had filled me since that night with Laura at the theatre, yet I felt certain security in entrusting it to a man whose nostalgia was concerned with a woman whose face he had never seen.

  At long last the song ceased. Freed from pensive memories, I drained my glass and returned to the less oppressive topic of murder. I had by this time sufficient command of myself to speak of the scene we had witnessed in Laura’s room and of Shelby’s pallor at the sight of the Bourbon bottle. Mark said that the evidence gathered thus far was too circumstantial and frail to give substance to a case against the bridegroom.

  “Do tell me this, McPherson. In your opinion is he guilty?”

  I had given myself freely. In return I expected frankness. He answered with an insolent smile.

  I set to work on his emotions. “Poor Laura,” I sighed. “How ironic for her if it actually was Shelby! After having loved so generously, to discover treachery. Those last hideous moments before she died!”

  “Death was almost instantaneous. Within a few seconds she was unconscious.”

  “You’re pleased, Mark, aren’t you? You’re glad to know she had no time to regret the love she had given?”

  He said icily, “I’ve expressed no such opinion.”