Lackey looked wilted. "How do you do, miss?" he mumbled, bowing slightly.
Boley was overcome and merely stared sadly at this vision and wondered how he could have thought that the little blond babe, Kit, was so good-looking. Ed Reynolds chewed his match. Finally he said to Boley: "Didn't think she could look better. But she does. Why ain't she Miss America? They like 'em big at them contests, don't they?"
At the main office door, Roy barred the clamoring horde again. "Now take it easy, boys and girls. Plenty of room if you don't stampede. All right now."
Roy stood aside and the pressmen rushed in, pushing and talking.
"Would you mind standing over here, miss?" asked Roy, indicating a place in front of one of the desks.
The girl glanced at him, hesitated, then came over. Now she stared at him. Her eyes didn't seem to wink. It bothered Roy a little.
"I'm Captain Hargis, Miss Vance," he explained.
"Oh," said the girl, "you're the boss man."
"I'm the boss man," said Roy, feeling proud of the fact for the first time in months.
"Then I'd better do what you say."
Roy looked at her, expecting a smile, but none came. She turned away from him and ran her eyes over the jam-packed office.
"What is this all about?" she inquired of no one in particular.
The flash-bulbs were going again. A couple of photographers jumped up on a desk, kicking things about. Boley cursed them, but Roy gestured for him to let them alone. A girl photographer pushed her way through the crowd.
"Won't you sit on the desk there, honey, and give the boys a treat?"
There were wolf-howls, but the girl said calmly: "Sorry. No cheese-cake." There were groans. The girl hesitated, then seemed to consider. She glanced over at Roy. "Unless of course the Captain…"
"You decide for yourself," said Roy, quickly.
"All right then," said the girl. "No cheese-cake." She paid hardly any attention to the argument which followed. She didn't enter into it, or even so much as shake her head. Apparently she had spoken, and that was that!
Now she turned to Roy. "Captain, what is all this?"
"It's a press conference."
"You mean I'm supposed to answer questions?"
"Yes."
"Do I have to?"
"You do not," said Roy. "It's all up to you."
She cleared her throat politely then she said: "Sorry. But I will not answer any questions."
There was a tremendous uproar and quite a bit of shoving and protest.
"But, kids," said Roy, "what do you expect me to do about it? She's got rights. If she won't, she won't."
"A sad thought," said one of the reporters.
"You used to work at Cip's, didn't you?" somebody asked suddenly.
The girl hesitated, then nodded slowly. "I worked at Cip's. Now that's all. No more questions. I won't answer them." She turned her back on the semi-circle of newsmen. "I'm sorry," she said over her shoulder.
"All right, boys," said Roy. "We'll be around till late. There'll be some bulletins. I'll look after you."
The girl turned around again and faced the reporters. She had a piece of paper in her hand. "I want to make a statement," she said mildly.
"Go right ahead," said Roy, slightly surprised.
The girl read from the paper. "I want to state that I am entirely and completely innocent in regard to the lamentable murder of Mr. Hobart."
There was a dead silence, then somebody laughed. The girl looked in the direction of the laugh. "I would like to see the person who thinks that is funny," she said, coldly.
Nobody else laughed. Roy moved over beside her and asked in a low voice: "Where did you get that statement?"
"Why, I wrote it myself, Captain Hargis. And it's the truth, and I'll just keep repeating it."
He began to study her. At close range, he noticed that she had done a wonderful make-up job on her black eye. He also noticed that her eyelashes were not faked-the longest and blackest he'd ever seen. Then abruptly he stopped studying her. Poor Hobart! Badly overmatched. His breakdown didn't seem as surprising to Roy as it had to Joe Sert.
"Take Miss Vance in my office, Boley," he said.
It took both Boley and Ed Reynolds to get her through the jam to Roy's office. Reporters crowded round her, trying to startle or anger her into answering a question or making a comment. She looked right through them as she moved along. Finally she disappeared into Roy's private office, followed by Boley and Ed Reynolds.
"Do you suppose the ancient Amazons looked like that?" asked a reporter. "If they did, what kind of guys were the Greeks, fighting them?"
"Fighting 'em off, you mean," somebody else put in, and there was a laugh.
"The crack still goes. Any man who would fight her off…"
"Would be wise," a girl reporter interpolated.
Gradually Roy worked them out, and then finally shut the door. Lackey was still standing back against the wall. When Roy looked at him, he took out his handkerchief and mopped his face.
"Well," said Roy, "I'm afraid my show fell a little flat."
"Oh, no. On the contrary," called a voice from some place.
Roy and Lackey turned. Wesson emerged from a clothes closet. His face was red and he was drunk. Roy came over and stood examining him.
"A snootful, eh? Don't tell me you found that in the store-room."
"No," said Wesson. "As a matter of fact, I sent a nice black boy out for a couple of quarts of gin. He drank one of the quarts. He is now lying on the storeroom floor, clutching his broom. I drank the other."
"When do you drop down?"
"Ah, that's the question." Beating time with his forefinger, Wesson intoned:
"Wine there! Wine…! Tomorrow's fears shall fools alone benumb!
By the ear Death pulls me. 'Live!' he whispers softly, 'Live! I come.' "
Roy merely stared at him.
"I see you don't appreciate classical poetry. Virgil, no less. Roy, do I sit in?" He jerked his thumb toward the door of the private office.
"You do not, you drunken bum!"
***
They were alone now. The windows in Roy's office were open and the distant roar and clamor of the city drifted in, accentuating the silence. The girl was sitting in the one comfortable chair, a battered old leather armchair which had been knocking about the City Building for years, shunted from office to office. Roy, at his desk, noticed for the first time that the chair was a disgrace, dirty, torn, with the stuffing showing in places.
The girl sat rather straight with her ankles and knees together and her hands crossed loosely in her lap.
Roy fiddled with a pencil, then a desk-knife, finally he rose and shut one of the windows. "Is that better?" he asked. "Cooling off, I think."
"That's better," said the girl.
"How about the other one?"
"Shut that, too, if you don't mind."
Roy shut it. Something about the way the girl spoke interested him, aside from the voice. She spoke with extreme care, like a foreigner who has just learned the language and is afraid of making mistakes and being laughed at. There was something definitely artificial about her diction. She never spoke carelessly, as most Americans do, educated or not. She separated her words neatly and stressed each syllable. Nevertheless, although it was obvious that she'd been taught to speak this way and not too long ago, it blended into her personality and seemed natural, as did her manner of walking, patently stylized.
"She's a production, all right, by God," Roy told himself, then he sat down at his desk and after a moment asked: "You want to tell me what happened in your own words without me breaking in?"
"I don't want to tell you anything, Captain Hargis. I am very distressed over Frank's death. It is a terrible thing, and I'd rather not talk about it."
There was a pause. "You want a cigarette, Miss Vance?"
"I don't smoke."
Roy rose and paced behind his desk for a moment.
He felt nervo
us, markedly ill-at-ease. Generally, he felt superior to people and contemptuous of them and was careless, offhand in his attitude toward them. But this big girl, relaxed, emotionless, decorative, upset him, made him unsure of himself. How did you penetrate her armor?
"I believe you know Bob Dumas," he began, as if tentatively.
"Yes, I know him."
"What time did you call him Monday night?"
"I did not call him any time Monday night. I haven't called him for, oh, weeks."
"Then how did he happen to be with you at the Terrace when you checked out?"
"Was he?"
There was a long pause. With the windows closed the girl's perfume became more and more noticeable. Roy found it very disturbing. In a moment, he went to his desk, got out a cigar, and bit off the end, then he saw that the girl was regarding him with what looked almost like amusement. It was not that her eyes were so pale in color, he decided; the strange effect came from the fact that her eyelashes were so black, thick, and long. He'd noticed the same effect on blue-eyed trainmen, whose sooty lashes had given their hard, masculine faces a falsely effeminate look.
"You mind a cigar?" he asked.
"Not if you open one of the windows."
Roy threw the cigar down on the desk in sudden irritation, breaking it. "Now look, honey," he cried with sudden heat, "let's cut this out. I've got enough against you right now to hang you-or pretty close. So I would advise you to talk. Now let's start over. I intend to be as polite as possible, but I don't intend to overdo it."
The girl regarded him in silence.
"So you didn't call Dumas?"
"No, Captain."
"Did you check out at the Terrace?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Why?"
"I'd decided to go away."
"Why?"
"I was tired of this town. Besides, Mr. Hobart-poor man-was getting quite impossible."
"Jealous?"
"Oh, no. Nothing like that. He had nothing to be jealous about. It was his drinking. I don't know whatever happened to poor Mr. Hobart. All of a sudden he started to drink whiskey. It got to be very embarrassing. Every time we went out together he got… intoxicated."
"Where did you intend to go?"
"I intended to go back to San Francisco."
"Home town?"
"Yes, Captain. I was born there."
"What did you intend to use for money?"
The girl glanced at him, then glanced down at the floor. "I don't understand that question, Captain."
"Did you have the money to go?"
There was a long pause, then the girl said. "There is something I want to ask you if I may."
"Go right ahead."
"I read it in the World. It said I was arrested at the Lackawanna Bus Terminal. Who put that in there? And why?"
"You know as well as I do."
"No, I don't. It's a lie. Makes it look like I was running away."
"Weren't you?"
"No. When a person decides to leave a place, is that running away?"
"Do you want us to correct the error in the World? Is that it? Do you want us to state that you were arrested as you escaped from the Barrington Estates home of Mrs. Allen Spencer-your sister?"
"Oh, so she told you," said the girl in surprise.
"I already knew. How do you suppose I knew where to find you?"
"How could you know? Nobody knew."
"It's my business to know things, Miss Vance. And I assure you, you are not doing yourself any good by your evasive attitude."
"Captain," said the girl, "I'm on my own. I've got to look after myself. This I intend to do to the best of my ability. I'm sorry."
"You're going about it all wrong."
"I'll have to be the judge of that, Captain. What are you trying to say-that I should trust you?"
Roy turned his back, walked to his desk, and sat down.
The girl went on: "Because if that is what you are trying to say, you are not as intelligent as I take you to be. I trust nobody. I've learned to trust nobody, I'm sorry to say."
After a long pause, Roy asked suddenly: "Who do you suppose looted your suite, Miss Vance?"
The girl started slightly and lowered her eyes. Roy waited for a long time, but as she showed no signs of answering him, he went on: "A chinchilla, two minks, a car, evening dresses, lingerie-and thirty-five hundred in cash."
The girl stood up abruptly. Her lips were trembling and her eyes were cold as ice. Her face grew pale with what seemed to be a very strong emotion of some kind, perhaps rage, Roy decided. There was a long silence. Finally the girl sat down and composed herself. She had not uttered a word or made a sound, and yet the entire atmosphere of the office had been changed.
There was electricity in the air.
"Wow!" Roy said to himself, then he rose, walked over to the girl, and stood in front of her. "Do you want me to tell you a few other things I know?"
"You think you know," she said, refusing to look at him.
Roy noticed that her long fingers were knotted together on her lap and they were so tightly clasped that her hands were an unhealthy-looking white.
"I know where you abandoned the Cadillac, for instance," he said. "I know what time you called Dumas. About twelve-fifteen. By the way, he's downstairs waiting to talk to me. I know that you checked out of the Terrace about two-thirty. I know that you refused to admit that your suite had been looted. In fact, I know quite a lot about you Miss Vance. Quite a lot."
She stood up abruptly. They were very close together. There was a sultry power in her eyes which disturbed Roy so much that he began to turn pale.
"All right," she said, speaking very rapidly and breathing unevenly. "You know a lot. I admit it. Yes, you know a lot. But you don't know everything. It's all a mistake. I swear to you on the grave of my mother, on… on anything you like, that I am innocent. I didn't kill Mr. Hobart. Captain-please help me."
She flung herself into Roy's arms, put her head in his neck. "Please… please help me," she implored.
The floor seemed to tip. Roy felt overcome, powerless. Against him her body was strong, firm, rounded, young, and abandoned. He put his arms around her, then withdrew them, fighting for control.
Finally, he took her arms from around his neck and gently forced her to sit down.
"Come on, Miss Vance," he said in a shaky voice. "Let's not get emotional about this."
"I'm sorry," said the girl, looking at the floor. "But I've never had anybody to help me… never."
Roy sat down at his desk, fought a brief battle with himself, then pressed a buzzer. In a moment, Lois, Alma's assistant, stepped in.
"Will you take Miss Vance back now? I'll talk to her later tonight."
"Yes, Captain. Come on, dear."
The girl left without looking back. Lois closed the door softly. Roy paced the floor for a while, then he went over and opened both the windows wide.
"That goddamned perfume!" he cried, aloud.
After a moment, he went to a mirror and stood studying himself. His face was pale and drawn. "Look, son," he said, addressing his image. "You're the guy with the air-tight system, remember? You don't get into jams with broads. Remember?"
The door opened behind him and he turned abruptly from the mirror, and flushed like a boy caught in some shameful act.
It was Wesson. He was sniffing the air like a bird-dog. "Ah," he cried, "what a sexy perfume! Did we get any place, Roy? Murderwise, I mean, of course."
"Wesson," said Roy, "have you sobered up?"
"Sober as a judge. I don't mean Judge Anson, of course. They have to prop him up on the bench."
"She denied everything, Wesson."
"Took her a long time to say 'no.' About the murder I mean, of course."
"You are a louse, Wesson. Beat it."
"Why this change of attitude?"
"I always thought you were a louse."
"No, I mean, why so unfriendly?"
"Go round and join the ot
hers, Wesson. I've done you enough favors."
Wesson stood staring at Roy, who grabbed up a phone and spoke to Lackey in the main room. "Emmett? Wesson's to be out in the hall with the others now. Keep him there." He banged up the receiver.
Wesson walked slowly to the door, opened it wide, then observed: "Just because I saw the Great Captain admiring himself in the mirror-practicing faces."
Roy started for him. Wesson ran out, slamming the door. Roy checked himself, then walked back and sat down at his desk with a sigh.
***
As before Bob Dumas took off his coat and tossed it at a chair, missing. But he did not seem quite as unconcerned as he had earlier. He walked over to one of the windows and stood looking out. After a moment he began to sniff, then he turned.
"Smells like the lounge corridor at Cip's in here," he observed.
"Your friend, Miss Vance," said Roy, who was sitting at his desk, running through some papers.
There was a pause, then Bob asked: "When do you sleep, hawkshaw?"
"Oh, I knock it off here and there. I understand they let you use the phone downstairs. Call a lawyer?"
"No. I called a bim. I'm figuring I'll be out of here before long."
"Did the bim tell you what questions I asked her and what her replies were?"
"Captain," said Bob, smiling ironically, "refer to her more politely. You are speaking of the girl I ought to love."
Roy grimaced and lit a cigar. "Feel like talking?"
"Seems I'm in the well-known sack," said Bob, looking down at the city, listening to the traffic noises. Turning he demanded: "Did you hear that la-de-da horn? Minor triad with a dissonant train-whistle bass. Hear the train?"
Roy merely stared at him.
"You think I'm nuts, don't you?" said Bob. "Well, you got company, including Ruth's aunt. Good old biddy, at that. My personal opinion is that she's been around in her day. She's got such a goddamned comfortable look about her, like a well-layed duck. Most women her age don't look like that. They're off at women's clubs, screaming about something. Never saw a woman who could sit so still and look so contented. She makes me nervous."
"When I asked you if you felt like talking," said Roy, "I didn't mean at random."
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