Invitation to Murder

by Zenith Brown

At six o’clock Fish was skimming through the Maloney file, which was mostly James V. Maloney’s daughter and the custody fight over Jennifer, together with the two old gardeners at Enniskerry, a padded story of the life of a man with an iron resentment against personal publicity. The facts were few. Maloney had left the bank at high noon, a news vendor had found his hat stuffed into a Broadway trash basket, a week later his daughter reported him missing.

  “Who got the photostat of this stuff?”

  Joe Henry shook his head. “A Western Union boy picked it up. The other inquiry . . . his current son-in-law.”

  “De Gradoff?”

  Joe Henry nodded. “Smith was the name he gave. Polly Randolph spotted him coming out. She was on the Paris edition when he married Dodo. She’s around, if you’ve got a Maloney expense account to feed her on. Nice gal, red hair and green eyes.”

  As Fish watched the sea gulls wheeling, screaming among the rocks in front of him now at the end of Nantucket Avenue in Newport, he could see Caxson Reeves’s parched immovable face at the end of the conference table when he reported the next morning.

  “And maybe you’ll think this is another slight morsel,” he said. “But it isn’t from a schoolgirl. It’s from a society reporter named Polly Randolph you’ve probably never heard of.”

  “On the contrary,” Reeves said evenly. “I know her very well. Her father jumped out of a window down the street in ‘29. Her uncle owns a good deal of the Courier Graphic.”

  “She had dinner with me last night.” Fish was seeing Polly Randolph then, as he described the scene in Tony’s back room.

  Polly Randolph regarded him appraisingly across the restaurant table. “But you people know all about Nikki de Gradoff,” she said. “Or did something happen to the little French dick—wasn’t his name Blum?—you had on his trail? At least we all assumed it was the Maloney trustees. Or aren’t you in their confidence either?”

  Fish grinned back at her. “I guess not.” Repeating that, he thought he caught a barely perceptible twitch in Reeves’s arid lids.

  “Well, I don’t know anybody else who’d be worried about Dodo,” Polly said. “I understand little Blum had been working for the Argentine family until they called him off. However . . .” She shrugged. “Anyway, we gave the wedding the full treatment. Riches disguised in rags meets true love under a lamppost in the pouring rain. A month later, in comes de Gradoff’s concierge with a story to sell. The rigged lamppost meeting, the phony flight from Paris when he found the girl was stinking rich. Nikki had forgot to pay the concierge for helping.”

  “Who rigged the lamppost?” Fish asked.

  She shook her head. “Somebody who knew Dodo was a pushover for romance, no doubt. Who’d loaned Nikki money and saw that was the way to get it back, I imagine. He’d been going high, wide and handsome for a while after his first wife died. He was really down and out when Dodo ran into him . . . or vice versa.”

  “Did you know the first wife?”

  Fish asked it casually. She went on eating for so long without answering that he’d begun to wonder if she’d heard him.

  “You mean, can I prove he killed her?” she asked then, calmly. “The answer is No, Mr. Finlay. The same as I told the French dick when he was beating about the bush also. She took an overdose of sleeping pills and died. She was in Paris. Nikki was in a hotel near Dijon. He had a lady with him to prove it, also the hotel manager and staff. Being French, the police assumed an affair of gallantry. When Nikki admitted he’d wanted a divorce, they took the rest of it for granted, till her family stepped in. The body was exhumed, and showed nothing. And that was that. Or was it?”

  She hesitated an instant, turned her head, looking Tony’s back room over carefully before she turned back and leaned toward him.

  “I’ve never told anybody this. It was the damndest thing that ever happened to me. I’m still not over it.”

  She glanced around again. The tables near them were empty.

  “I was sent out to interview him right after the funeral. There was a rumor that the rake had reformed and was going to seal up the house with himself in it . . . something bizarre. I went out to the faubourg. He let me in and got me a drink. The servants were all busy, he said. We were in her little writing-room. We settled down for a heart to heart chat about life and love and the folly of it all. And I still don’t know what happened.”

  She shivered a little and took another drink from her glass.

  “He was talking: Could any pure woman ever love him again? How had he ever dreamed of divorcing an angel of light? I was a woman . . . did I think he was a monster?—All that crap, and I was ready with a touching reply of the same, when all of a sudden I heard myself telling him the truth. I was saying I’d always thought he was one of the most scheming, coldest, most utterly ruthless . . . I stopped before I said ‘swine’. . . .”

  Polly Randolph closed her eyes, a shudder running through her.

  “It was just as if somebody else—or some thing else—was using my tongue, saying things I’d never even thought. I hardly knew the man. It was the atmosphere of the place . . . something. He had all her letters and stuff out, burning things in the fireplace. And just when I stopped, I saw all the dust on the table and I knew I was there alone in the house with him. There weren’t any servants and hadn’t been for days, because I remembered just then I’d noticed the hall was dusty. And he was looking at me looking at the dust, and I . . . I swear I thought he was going to kill me. I was petrified. I tried to get up, but he said ‘Sit down,’ and I sat. Then he started. Why did I say what I’d said? Why scheming? What did I mean, ruthless? Who had I been talking to? It was just like a silk stocking around my neck.”

  She shuddered again, her face pale.

  “I don’t know how I got out of there. I’ll never forget that trek down the hall with him behind me. I truly never thought I’d make it. I knew he’d killed his wife, and he knew I knew it. I don’t know how I did, but I did. And I knew that was why the servants weren’t there. It was just as if some finger I couldn’t see was writing it in the dust in her room. And if I’d turned up in the Seine with a suicide note in my pocket in the next couple of weeks, it wouldn’t have surprised me. I was sick as a dog when I got home and I had cold sweat all over me when I saw him coming out of the office the other day. And what’s he so interested in the Maloney deal for? Dodo must have told him all about her father. Three martinis and she sounds off on the dirty deal he gave her. I’ve even heard her say poor old Caxey Reeves murdered him.”

  “What kind of a dirty deal does she think she got?” Fish asked.

  “She never specifies. She just gets a cagey look in her eye and says she’s got everything she needs to break the Trust. Maybe Nikki’s trying to help her. I suppose if Mr. Reeves murdered the old man you could establish undue influence, or something?”

  Caxson Reeves had listened to that without a ripple of expression, waiting impassively for Fish to go on.

  Polly Randolph shrugged her shoulders. “All I know is you won’t catch me in Newport this summer. I’ve asked for Washington, heat or no heat. And you know, of course, I’m an overwhelming minority of one. Except for the first wife’s family, and they won’t talk. I tried to corner one of them in Madrid on my way back and he’d never heard of anyone named de Gradoff. Everybody else including Dodo thinks he’s divine and that the family took him to the cleaners when he was helpless in the throes of chivalrous remorse.” She shrugged again. “But I know if I were the Maloney trustees and I got even a whiff of that romance curdling, I’d see Dodo didn’t have any sleeping pills within reach.”

  “Dodo does not take sleeping pills,” Caxson Reeves said evenly.

  “I’m just telling you what Polly Randolph said,” Fish replied. “I still think an investigator could sound out the first wife’s family.”

  “Who’d be happy to convict themselves as accessories after the fact for the benefit of the Maloney estate, no doubt.” Reeves looked at him over his specta
cles. “It is not my business as Trust Officer of this bank to accuse a client’s husband of murder, Finlay. Dodo is trying to break the Trust. Just how long do you think it would take her to find out the Maloney Trust was paying someone to pry into de Gradoff’s past, and to bring suit for damages? You’re concerned with her safety and with Jennifer Linton’s. I’m concerned with the Maloney Trust and the reputation of the bank. I—”

  “You told me.” Fish pushed his chair back to absorb the sudden resurgence of angry resentment. “As long as the bank and the Maloney dough are safe, that’s all that matters. I guess that’s the point of your ‘Invitation to Murder’ gag. You said it wasn’t the Maloney Trust that was about, it was the reversion of the Trust in case both Dodo and Jennifer die. So de Gradoff, the hatchet man, can do somebody a big favor, can’t he. While the bank sits tight and refuses to interfere.”

  He got up. “Sorry. I don’t look at things that way. I’ve quit, sir. Unless you’ve already fired me. The bank’s reputation and the Maloney money will be safer in other hands.”

  “That’s hardly the way to help Jennifer Linton, is it?”

  Reeves spoke on a dead dry level without raising his eyes.

  “Don’t be an ass, Finlay. I didn’t get up and walk out when you suggested I may have murdered my oldest and closest friend.”

  “I was speaking for Polly Randolph and Dodo Maloney, not myself.”

  “I was speaking for the bank,” Reeves said quietly. “Now, if you’ll just sit down, I’ll speak for myself. It’s obvious something must be done.”

  Fish sat. Reeves reached for his briefcase.

  “I’ve had this for several weeks.” He took out a blue airmail letter. “I don’t know what its significance is, if any, but it disturbs me. It’s a reply to my letter saying the Maloney Trust has no funds to pay de Gradoff’s debts and referring the undisclosed principal to the Countess de Gradoff.” He read the letter carefully before he put it back in the envelope. “The principal is still undisclosed. But he has withdrawn his inquiry. He trusts we will forget that any inquiry was made, and explicitly requests that no mention of the matter be made to any third party . . . particularly the countess.”

  “Meaning what?” Fish asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s no inference the debt has been paid, or written off. I presume the undisclosed principal still wants his money.”

  “How does he plan to get it?”

  “I’ve no idea. As he does not appear to be making de Gradoff a free gift of it, he must have a plan of some sort in mind. Another thing. Dodo is a creature of habit. When she changes, it’s always been a sign of trouble. She’s never gone to Newport an hour before she had to under her father’s stipulation about the property. When she got here week before last, she chartered a plane and went directly up there. I want to know why. She was here in time for Jennifer’s graduation, a full-dress occasion she’d normally love. She didn’t go. Again, why? You tell me de Gradoff has been looking up the newspaper files. He has a very legitimate interest in his wife’s father . . . why does he use surreptitious means to satisfy it? He could have come to me. Unless, as you say, Dodo’s suggested to him that I murdered the man.”

  “Perhaps he knows there’s the French detective tracking him.”

  Reeves glanced at him. “I’d bury that bone, Finlay,” he remarked patiently. “You’ve given me opportunity to gnaw it. I’ve declined. Draw any conclusion you like . . . but silently, will you?”

  Fish grinned. “Sorry, sir.”

  “To get back to Dodo. I haven’t talked to her since she’s been home. I understand you have.”

  “It was the day she got here,” Fish said. “She wanted to know if she had a few thousand bucks lying around anywhere. She didn’t. She then wanted to know if she could draw on her fourth quarter stipend. I said I was just your messenger boy and she’d have to ask you. She said she’d skip it and take a chance. She didn’t say—”

  Reeves’s glance had sharpened. “—Take a chance?”

  “That’s what she said, sir.”

  “The damned fool.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “No reason you should.” Reeves was still irritated. He sat looking fixedly at the table. “I’ve had no experience with private detectives,” he said then, abruptly. “I’ve had, however, a great deal of experience with Newport. It’s not what it used to be, but it’s still pretty much of a closed corporation. An outsider would get nowhere. We’d have to have somebody who could move on the inside track.”

  He was silent for a moment.

  “It’s a serious risk. Are you willing to take it?”

  “Me?” Fish Finlay asked.

  “You.” Reeves nodded. “Go to Newport, find out what’s going on.”

  “I’ll be the rankest kind of outsider.”

  “I’ll supply your credentials. An unattached male doesn’t need too many. He must be presentable—which my sister says means he’s in possession of a white dinner coat and doesn’t spit on the floor.”

  “And has a normal complement of legs.”

  “Forget your leg, Finlay,” Reeves said quietly. “Unless you’re using it to escape the risk I was talking about. Because the bank and the Maloney trustees, as such, have no part in this. If Dodo, or de Gradoff, or your newspaper friend, anyone, finds out what you’re in Newport for, you’re finished here. That’s the risk. You don’t have to take it . . . but leave your leg out of it. If it comes to kicking de Gradoff in the backside, I expect you’ll manage.”

  So it was Finlay or nothing. He was conscious of his leg again, sitting there at the end of Nantucket Avenue. Below him where the road turned was a Swiss chalet with two arcs of cabañas extending from it, like a dark prehistoric bird with brilliant multicolored wings stretched out along the glistening sands to catch the sun. The beach was empty now, but beyond the far arc of cabañas were the tennis courts, with half a dozen players out, their long brown legs flashing back and forth over the green composition surface. Pretty soon they’d be dashing down to the white surf feathering the sand. Our kind of fun. . . . The old dream girl with amber eyes crept out beneath the chinks in the shuttered places of his mind. If she’d said plainly, “I don’t love you any more” and let it go at that, would he still be bleating about it? Or was it just the business of being put on the marked-down counter that made him shy away from every other girl who smiled at him, made her look like a sacrificial heifer, or a bargain hunter who didn’t have what it takes to deal in first-class merchandise?

  He got out of the car abruptly and went over to the guard rail. There it was back again, the old destructive formula of his lost confidence in himself. Its return had nothing to do with his leg and people playing tennis, and not much to do with his being an outsider getting his first outside view of the closed corporation of Newport society, as symbolized by the cabañas and chauffeur-driven cars down there in front of the beach club. It was his suddenly changed perspective. What if he was wrong about the whole thing? And if he was right, what could he hope to do about it? All he was doing was cutting his own throat . . . which was, no doubt, what Caxson Reeves had been doing his devious damndest to tell him for the last three months, with all the double-talk about the reputation of the bank and the sole duty of the Maloney trustees. If de Gradoff had murdered his first wife. Reeves’s French detective would certainly have found it out. If it was true and he hadn’t been able to prove it, how could Fish Finlay expect to prove future intent to murder in time to stop it?

  Reeves was presumably helping him. Fish grinned. Helping him to cut his throat, no doubt, just the way he admitted he’d been helping Dodo to cut hers for years under the stipulated terms of the Maloney Trust. But there was nothing he could do at this point but go on. It was a week before Jennifer Linton would be there. Maybe he could find out he was all wrong and get out before she came.

  He went back to his car, too absorbed to see the shiny new blue convertible that came around the curve going toward the chalet
, or see the dark-haired girl who was driving it jam on her brakes as she caught sight of his tall figure limping back to the gray sedan with the New Jersey license plate.

  CHAPTER : 4

  Fish Finlay turned in between the pink marble gateposts. It was curious, driving in through the twilight purple of the beeches on the actual ground level of Enniskerry, when the far sharper image of it in his mind was the black and white aerial photograph over the safe in Caxson Reeves’s conference room, when Reeves had finally given in and started to help him.

  “This is the stable.” He put his forefinger on the clock tower of a long shingled building across an open courtyard from the turreted Victorian mansion that Dodo called a matchstick monstrosity.

  “There’s an apartment in it I can arrange for you to have.”

  The purple beeches were a sable rim in the photograph. Reeves’s finger moved up to where the rollers broke with foam-filled crests on the rugged cliff and rested on a jagged black spot bisected with a thin white line.

  “Here’s the Devil’s Chasm. A break in the cliff. The Rock, the Maloneys call it. But there’s no use loading your mind with old tragedies. Those were the bathtub-gin days. People tried to get Maloney to put a rail around it. He did board up the clock tower, but that was only to protect the shingle work.”

  The scalloped-shell road dyed mauve from the reflected light of the beeches hadn’t shown in the picture. Bordered with purple-leaved begonias, curving gently back on itself to hide the house and inner grounds, it opened suddenly into a magnificent sun-flooded arc of sky and sea and lawn. The courtyard was a great emerald medallion of perfectly shaved, sharply edged turf, the drive a gleaming ivory frame around it. Directly across from Fish as he entered it was a low spindled balustrade set with marble urns of pink geraniums, concealing the terraced rose gardens down to the cliff. The stable was on his right. The hexagonal clock tower was centered in the high-gabled side facing the house, its shingles as intricately and delicately patterned as a bird’s feathers, its molded cupola set like a feathered helmet wide at the brim to shield the gilded clockface under it.