“I have to catch the light; if I don’t, I’ll hear from the army in the rear.”
“It’s really a very dangerous night for driving.”
Gamadge said nothing. There was nothing to say, short of asking Jennings to get out and walk. After a pause he changed the conversation:
“What was Mrs. Tanner’s husband like? As lively as they say?”
“I hardly knew him. One rather pathetic thing—Nellie Lynch says he was always so nice to Alice.”
“Pathetic?”
“Well, if he’d lived he would have felt this so much. He always used to joke with Alice, brought her out.”
“And took her out?”
“Well, no, I don’t suppose so. He was wrapped up in Abigail. I mean he paid some attention to Alice—he noticed her.”
Gamadge said: “This is all very dreary.”
“The rain, you mean?”
Gamadge looked sideways at him, looked back, jerked the car out of the way of a car that had jerked out of the way of something else, and turned a corner. They drew up in front of the Stanton.
A uniformed attendant gave Gamadge a check, and drove the car into the parking place beside the hotel. The two went into a big quiet lounge, left their outer things at a counter, and crossed to the desk. Jennings, in a conspiratorial whisper, gave their names. Gamadge thought the clerk’s glance at him was cynical.
They were announced, and walked to the elevators. The lounge was nicely got up for the summer in striped linens, with matching chintz in the long windows. “Attractive old place,” said Gamadge.
“Oh, it’s one of the best. The Dunbars chose it for her.”
“I thought she had her own money and did her own choosing.”
“Well, they’ll leave her a lot more if she’s good,” said Jennings paternally.
The elevator let them out into a broad corridor, down which Jennings led the way. He stopped and rang. The door opened immediately, and they went into a large sitting-room that smelled like a bar and seemed full of smoke, music, and people. But there were only five people—the dark, bald man in a white mess-jacket and dark blue trousers who had opened the door for them, another man, handsome and fair, dressed like him, who sat at the other end of the room playing a piano, and three women.
There was a doll-like girl in pink, leaning on the piano, watching the musician, and an older woman in black whom Gamadge recognized as Mrs. Lynch, sitting on a loveseat to the right of the fireplace. Opposite her, on a similar loveseat, in a silk evening dress that billowed about her feet, was a haggard blonde who must be Abigail Tanner. She was leaning back with her eyes closed, her hair slightly disarranged against the cushions.
Mrs. Lynch sprang up. “Hello, Artie. Gail, wake up; here’s Mr. Gamadge; you’ll love him.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Informal
THE MUSIC WENT on; professional playing, with cunning hesitancies and recoveries, tuneless but rhythmical. Mrs. Tanner opened large blue eyes. They were bloodshot, the skin of her whole face was suffused and puffy, and yet the haggard look was there. She had not escaped through alcohol from the feelings that sent her to it.
She held out her hand. “Good old Artie. Mr. Gamadge. Wayne, get us something to drink.”
The dark, bald man—he was only bald in front, Gamadge saw as he turned—was moving slowly towards a buffet that seemed to bristle with bottles, glasses, siphons; Mrs. Lynch said rather hurriedly: “Introductions first, darling, you know. Arthur, Mr. Gamadge, you must meet these nice people.”
The dark man had an expressionless face, good-looking in a narrow-featured way. He might have been a good deal younger than he looked at first glance. He said in a flat voice: “Don’t bother. Just part of the band.”
“Now Wayne. Mr. Bishop is the leader of the orchestra, Mr. Gamadge. And that’s John Osterbridge at the piano, and he sings too.”
The pianist, playing on, looked up and bowed in a mannered way, teeth flashing in a smile. His high forehead receded a little; he had a widow’s peak. Definitely a charmer.
“And Dodie Bean, who sings too, and plays beautifully.”
The little girl in pink was not very pretty, but she was made up to look so. She turned round eyes in Gamadge’s direction, smiled vaguely, and then went back to her absorbed contemplation of Osterbridge’s fingers.
Mrs. Tanner said: “Where’re those drinks, Wayne?”
Mrs. Lynch glanced at Bishop, and then sat down and patted the loveseat. “Here by me, Mr. Gamadge. Artie, pull up a chair, and let’s have a nice talk.” Hardbitten, thin-faced, fashionable from head to feet, she looked good-natured, a good sort. Jennings, who had seemed a little at a loss, pulled up his chair obediently; but Mrs. Tanner waved the other suggestion away:
“If Mr. Gamadge is so wonderful, he’d better sit by me.”
Gamadge complied, smiling at her. Bishop was looking at him, his changeless face showing nothing but detachment. He looked tired, perhaps ill. He asked: “Scotch? Rye? Bourbon?” and glanced at Jennings.
Jennings had crossed his legs. Sitting upright on the hard little white-and-gold hotel chair, he said formally: “Nothing for me, thank you.”
“Oh, Artie,” protested Mrs. Tanner. “Do you good.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t.”
“Can’t burn it up?” Bishop did not insist. He looked at Gamadge again.
“I could burn up a Scotch and water, I think,” said Gamadge amiably.
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Tanner, patting his sleeve. “Rye for me as usual, Wayne. Double.”
Mrs. Lynch said casually: “I don’t believe we need it, Gail ducky. I’m not having any. We’re too nervous.”
Mrs. Tanner raised her voice. “Double rye and let’s see it coming.”
Bishop mixed the drinks. The music went on. Jennings cleared his throat:
“The hotel orchestra isn’t playing tonight?”
Bishop replied without turning: “Dinner’s over. Dancing starts at ten.”
“Music is so soothing, don’t you think so, Mr. Gamadge?” Mrs. Lynch glanced towards Mrs. Tanner and back at Gamadge—a mighty good sort! As if at a cue, the music grew louder; there was a kind of tune in it now, sad and cynical.
Bishop came across the room with the glasses in his hand. Gamadge rose to take them, and Mrs. Tanner stretched out her hand. Bishop said, looking calmly down at her: “This one isn’t going to do you a bit of good.”
She was tilting it against her mouth before he had finished speaking. Half-turned away from her, he addressed Gamadge: “I’ll collect my two, and in a minute or so we’ll leave. Won’t be missed.”
Suddenly he smiled, and Gamadge was startled. Bishop had lost half his hair, he was ailing, he was as quiet as a cat and slow-moving, his unmodulated voice had as much expression as one piece of wood striking another; but he was a charmer too.
And with what a difference! No mannerisms for him. He didn’t require them. In other words, Gamadge thought his smile was very attractive. He came from a tough background, he was probably tougher than these women could even understand, but let him turn that smile on them and he was the homme fatal.
Gamadge smiled in return. “It might be just as well if Jennings and I went too.” He pivoted to see what Mrs. Lynch thought; she had been listening, and her face showed that she agreed with him.
“Might be better,” she said, just above a whisper. “I ought to have known she couldn’t go through with it. She was all right when Artie telephoned—she’s only been hitting them up since then.”
Jennings said nothing. His knees close together, his hands clasping the arms of his chair, he had a pitiable look of restrained horror. Bishop went back to the buffet, and picked up a tall glass which was half full of soda water just tinged with liquor. He lifted it to his mouth. Mrs. Lynch’s eyes were on him.
“He can do anything,” she said. “Play anything, sing. He oughtn’t to be here at all—this is a small band. But he picked up some kind of a bug on his world to
ur in the war, and he can’t stand a racket and late hours yet. Here they play only until one.”
Mrs. Tanner called out sharply: “Mr. Gamadge.”
He sat down beside her again. She put out her free hand, and he thought she wanted him to take it; he took it obligingly, but that wasn’t her idea after all. Shaking her fingers loose from his, she made a vague gesture.
“Artie said you said I mustn’t talk so much.”
“Talk all you like to your friends, Mrs. Tanner. Don’t go on record with things you couldn’t back up—or don’t believe.” He added, taking the empty glass from her other hand and putting it down beside him on the floor: “Nobody’d blame you, but you don’t want to sound as if you knew something and were fighting it.”
“Knew something!” Her eyes were full of terror.
“When you only know what we all know,” said Gamadge.
“I don’t know anything. I can’t understand it.” She leaned forward and towards him, and he leaned forward too; they spoke with their heads together, almost in whispers:
“Where would she get a red raincoat?”
“Bought it that afternoon. So Macloud tells me.”
“Because she was running away? Wouldn’t run away in red raincoat. Wouldn’t be found…” She stopped, looked sideways at him, her mouth drawn. “Know what I was going to say?”
“Yes. Never mind.”
“I do mind. Why shouldn’t I say it? She wouldn’t be found dead in a red raincoat. And still they go on saying it was my sister, Alice.”
“They’ll know for certain tomorrow, but I don’t think there’s a doubt of it, Mrs. Tanner.”
“Well, then, that makes it all different. I don’t feel the same about it now. I’ll tell you something—my sister and I were not—” She hesitated over the word, but brought it out at last, slowly and intact: “Congenial. We were not congenial.” Suddenly she raised her voice: “Hate ’pocrisy.”
Bishop was finishing his watered drink. He set it down. “Well,” he said, “there’s the book of the rules. Have to keep them—that’s not hypocrisy. Just makes things easier all round if you keep the rules of the game.”
Mrs. Tanner began to laugh. “You old gambler, you and your book of the rules.” She got up, holding on to the back of the sofa, and put a knee on the padded seat. “Stop that noise, will you?”
Osterbridge raised his hands from the keys and poised them outspread in the air. Miss Bean turned to stare, her mouth open. The room seemed to be wrapped up in silence. Mrs. Tanner began to slip away from the loveseat, her hands first, her knee. She crumpled all at once as if boneless, had fallen to the floor and lay there quietly before anybody realized what was happening. Gamadge was nearest, and got her up in his arms while Bishop was still coming across the room.
The others were on their feet. Mrs. Lynch said: “It’s all right, she’s collapsed, I expected it,” and walked past Gamadge without looking at him. “This way, Mr. Gamadge, this is the bedroom, just bring her in here and I’ll put her to bed.”
Jennings mouthed: “Doctor.”
“No doctor,” said Bishop. “She’ll be all right.”
Gamadge carried her through a doorway, getting a glimpse as he passed them of Miss Bean’s gaping face, Osterbridge’s expression of incredulous shock.
Mrs. Lynch shut the door behind him, put on a light, and ripped a taffeta spread off one of the twin beds. Gamadge stood waiting, glancing around him. It was an airless room, though the windows were wide open; a room with no personality, done up in orchid and green—hotel taste, hotel furniture. He laid the almost childlike weight on the bed, and he and Mrs. Lynch, side by side, looked down at her.
“Sleep it off, won’t she?” asked Mrs. Lynch.
“I should think so; but you’ll stand by?”
“I’ll stand by. I stood by when she got the news about Rich Tanner. She didn’t carry on like this.” Mrs. Lynch lifted her eyes to Gamadge. “I wonder if she isn’t suffering a little bit from ‘ree-morse.’”
“Don’t think so.”
“Just general shock? Well, perhaps. It’s enough to kill a buffalo, all this. I’d say Gail was pretty tough, but—you know something? In her place I wouldn’t feel so much remorse about Alice.”
“No?”
“No. She was morbid. You couldn’t do a thing with her, not after that man walked out on her.” Mrs. Lynch began to unfasten the straps of Mrs. Tanner’s slippers. “I hope this doesn’t get around; they don’t need any more scandals now.” She took the slippers off, went to the door, opened it, and called: “Beanie!”
Miss Bean appeared, looking reluctant and frightened.
“Give me a hand,” said Mrs. Lynch. “I want to get her to bed. Thanks, Mr. Gamadge; good night.”
“Anything I can get you?”
“Oh Lord, there’s everything right here in the bathroom cabinet.”
Miss Bean gazed without sympathy at the figure on the bed. “Is she tight?”
“She was exhausted,” replied Mrs. Lynch with dignity. “Would you be surprised at that? Haven’t you any feelings yourself? If this had happened to your sister, you might be laid out yourself.”
“I’d be with my family, if I had one. Why isn’t she with her family, instead of drinking in a hotel suite with a lot of men? I think it’s awful, and Jack Osterbridge thinks so too.”
“It doesn’t much matter what he thinks or what you think either. And I’d keep quiet about this if I were you,” said Mrs. Lynch with an intimidating glare. “The hotel wouldn’t particularly like it if you talked around.”
“I’m not going to talk around,” said Miss Bean in a lower voice. “Jack says what she needs is black coffee.”
“Black coffee!” Mrs. Lynch’s black eyes snapped. “What do you mean, black coffee?”
“To bring her around. He says he can do it.”
“He’s insane. Bring her around? I hope she’ll sleep till tomorrow afternoon. I hope she’ll sleep a week.”
Gamadge was at the door. “I’m going down to the dance room for a while, Mrs. Lynch. Listen to this band. If you can get off later, would you care to join me?”
“Thanks, that’s a good idea. I’ll probably be there.” She kicked her black net skirts out of her way and bent to a chest of drawers; Gamadge went out. He found Osterbridge standing so close to the door that the pianist had to step out of the way. He had the same startled and frustrated expression that he had had when Mrs. Tanner collapsed, and he spoke quickly: “How’s she feeling now?”
“She isn’t. She’s asleep.”
Bishop stood with one elbow on the end of the buffet, a cigarette in his hand; the cigarette had a long ash on it. He looked imperturbable as ever, but as Gamadge shut the bedroom door behind him the cigarette ash fell unnoticed to the carpet. Jennings was planted like a mechanical traffic post in the middle of the room, his arms hanging. He said in a hollow voice: “I’m ready to go if you are, Gamadge.”
“Oh, Artie, I’m sorry. I told Mrs. Lynch I’d stay and listen to Mr. Bishop’s band for a while. They’ll get you a cab, but if you’d rather, I’ll drive you home and come back.”
“That’s all right,” said Jennings, with cold resentment. “Just as you say.”
He walked out of the suite, closing the door behind him carefully. Bishop followed this exit with his eyes, and then turned them back on Gamadge. He said gravely: “I don’t imagine the guy ever saw a drunk lady before.”
“Too bad about him.” Gamadge was irritated.
“It’s a kind of a mystery, isn’t it? This killing.” Bishop raised his cigarette, looked at the quarter-inch he held, and dropped it into an ashtray. “And what does it get us? The fellow might be a thousand miles off by this time.”
“He may not be.”
Bishop was interested. “Why not?”
“He didn’t think they’d find her. If he thought there was any chance of that, he wouldn’t stay there for a week afterwards.”
“I wouldn’t in his place,�
�� said Bishop.
“And if they never found her, they wouldn’t look for him; among Alice Dunbar’s friends and acquaintances, I mean.” Gamadge went to the buffet and poured himself a short drink. He swallowed half of it, and went on: “Miss Cole at the Woodworth place might recognize him, so might Mrs. Flynn. They have something to work on now; they might get somewhere.”
Osterbridge had been looking at the bedroom door. Now he turned, and said loudly: “I told Beanie to tell Mrs. Lynch to try some black coffee.”
“Yes,” said Bishop, looking at him with a faint show of astonishment, “we heard you.”
“I mean it’s ridiculous; I never saw anybody crash like that all of a sudden—couldn’t believe my eyes. It’s more of a faint. She’ll come around in no time.”
Bishop questioned Gamadge silently.
“She’s out for hours,” said Gamadge.
“But she wanted me to come back in the intermission.” Osterbridge’s face had a stupid look. “We had it fixed for me to come back.”
“Just a quiet talk, the two of you?” Bishop had a different kind of smile, and he used it now.
“Sure, like always.”
Bishop, hands in the pockets of his well-cut trousers, sauntered over to the bedroom door. He rapped sharply. Mrs. Lynch’s voice called after a moment: “Yes, what is it?”
“Send Beanie down in time, will you? It’s more than a quarter to, and she’s on ten minutes after we start.”
“All right. Now go away, all of you.”
Bishop came back across the room to stand with his fingers on the knob of the other door. He said: “Sounds like business. Come out of this, Jack, she’d have the house detective up as soon as look at you.”
When they were all walking down to the elevators, Bishop addressed Gamadge politely: “You’re really coming to catch a few numbers?”
“I’d like to. It’s early.” Gamadge smiled. “I didn’t know the party was going to break up so soon.”
“Spoiled your evening, too.”
Osterbridge pushed the bell. Gamadge asked: “Nice place to work?”
“From my point of view it is. The place caters to a quiet crowd, mostly out-of-town people that come back year after year; middle-aged ladies or couples. But kids come in and dance, we have a good bunch every night.”
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