Murder for Madame

by Lawrence Lariar

  But I was racing the echoes back to the street. I crossed over to the corner and doubled back to the canopy. The doorman was gone. The elevator youth, too, must have been summoned below by the superintendent down there, because his car stood open and untended, a tempting vehicle for my projected trip to the penthouse.

  But I avoided it and raced to the stairway on the right side, climbing up and out of sight of the lobby with enough speed to bring my heart pounding into my ears. My decoying clatter had worked. I started the long climb to the penthouse by way of the stairs.

  It was a long way up. It was twenty-three floors to the last landing before the final narrow stairway to Larry Fanchon’s secluded nest. I paused to quiet the hammering of my breath in my throat. I had come this far under the pressure of a fixed purpose, the yen to corner Larry Fanchon and have words with him.

  I crept up the last flight of steps and found myself moving through an iron door and out into the terrace on the westward side of Fanchon’s penthouse. There were a few incongruous dwarfed shrubs planted in a tiny skirt around the rim of the house. My eyes took in the wall before me, lit by the strange and eerie light that exists above and beyond the man-made illumination of New York City. It is the shimmering glow that stems from the reflected shine of a thousand lights below, caught and trapped in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, a pall that lives throughout the night until the onrushing dawn wipes it away and substitutes the sharper brightness of daylight.

  Ahead of me, through the miasma, a door beckoned. I advanced to the window alongside it and peered inside and knew that this would be the kitchen. The door was open.

  I felt my way through the kitchen, all light blocked away from me here, groping for the door that I knew must release me into the inner reaches of the penthouse. My hand touched it, and I froze there. From beyond, a thin thread of light struck the edge of the door. And a voice broke the silence. Somebody was talking in there. Somebody was on the telephone, a man’s voice, arguing. Or was he pleading? The sound of his monologue teased me into action, because I could not make out what he said. I heard only the muffled tones of him, the rise and fall of his personal pattern of speech.

  I pushed the door open to hear him better.

  Now I was in a square-built dining room, in darkness, but somewhat lit by the same feeble glow I had seen outside, the weird light entering through a tremendous picture window on my left. Beyond the dining room, a small section of the living room lay in semi-darkness, so that some of the city skyline was visible beyond another great window that faced to the south. It was a pretty picture. It was a symbol of elegance, the type of modem room featured in the house and garden magazines, alive with bright color and handled with charm and distinction. From somewhere down at the other end of the room, beyond my line of vision, a strong light was burning, strong enough to bathe this end in subdued brilliance. And from the same hidden section, the voice was talking again.

  And it was an angry voice.

  “She’s gone,” the voice was saying. “I tell you she’s gone.”

  Then silence, and the sound of the receiver dropping on the phone pedestal. I stepped into the living room and approached the back of him, not too close, because I didn’t want to frighten him too much.

  I said, “Maybe I can help you locate her.”

  Larry Fanchon whirled on me, his face a contorted mask of shock and anger. He was everything I expected him to be a thin and serious youth who looked more like a bird-watcher than the head of a great steel empire. He stepped backward, moved by the sound of my voice. But he was stepping backward to a small and modern end-table. In which he might have a gun.

  So I stepped after him and said, “You don’t need the gun, Fanchon. Maybe Joy Marsh told you about me. I’m Steve Conacher.”

  He was stubborn about the gun. He brought his hand up from the drawer and showed me the automatic. It shook a bit in his hand. He was more used to handling fountain pens. He said, “Move over to the wall and put your hands up.”

  “No need to get dramatic about this,” I said. “You know who I am.”

  “You better put your hands up, or this gun might go off.”

  “Let me show you my card.”

  I didn’t give him a chance to grant my request. I jerked out my wallet and handed him a card and he read it nervously, more concerned with keeping me in focus. He tossed the card into the fireplace after he read it. Behind his horn-rimmed glasses, the eyes of Larry Fanchon were red-rimmed and bagged, as tired as a six-day race through the Encyclopedia Britannica. His flesh was pale and waxed, and there were small lines building close to the corners of his determined mouth. For some reason I could not define, the sight of him evoked almost instantaneous sympathy, like a familiar face on the way into a serious emotional upset, eyes, eyebrows and mouth atremble and out of control, as though the ensemble might burst into tears at any moment.

  “How did you get up here?” he asked with a forced sharpness.

  “The scenic route. I hiked.”

  “They told me about a man who wanted to see me today. Was that you?”

  “The same. I’ve had you on my list, Fanchon.”

  “Obviously,” he said. “And now you can cross me off, because I’m going to phone the police.”

  I stepped up to him before he reached the phone. My boldness made him more nervous than ever, because it was the moment for using the gun now, and he had no control over the muscles around his trigger finger. His face reflected a deep annoyance with his own timidity. He stepped backward and tried to stiffen his gun hand.

  I said, “Why don’t you put that thing away? You’re not going to use it, and if you do, you’ll probably miss me anyhow. All I want is to chew the fat with you, Fanchon.”

  “About what?”

  “Put the gun down and we’ll talk.”

  He fixed his sleepy eyes on me and deliberated his plight. He stared for a long moment, and in the process of taking time out, something died inside him. Whatever purpose he might have in handing me to the police, or shooting me, or getting me out of there, all these ideas seemed suddenly lost to him, and he sagged and sighed and slipped into a chair and sat there, shaking his head at the gun. He held it in one hand, but the hand was limp. He lifted it and dropped the gun into the drawer where he had plucked it.

  He said, “Maybe you’re right, Conacher. Maybe you can help me. It’s a cinch I’m getting nowhere by myself.”

  “Where were you trying to go? Crazy—because of Joy?”

  “How did you know?” he asked, not me, but the patch of floor close to his shoes. He was stooped over, slumped into a symbolic heap of despond.

  I said, “Didn’t Joy tell you she knew me?”

  “You? Why should she tell me about you?”

  “Why not ask her?”

  “You heard me on the phone,” he said mournfully. “Joy left here today. I’ve been going mad looking for her. I’ve lost her, Conacher, lost her.”

  “Why did she leave?”

  “She left no note. She just walked out.”

  “But you know what was bothering her,” I said.

  “There were quite a few things.”

  “Your old man, for instance? He didn’t approve of her.”

  He lifted his head and gave me his sad eyes, hopeless and tortured. But were they brightening because of an inner urge to share his burning headache about Joy Marsh?

  “What do you know about my father?” he asked.

  “Plenty, but let’s keep it clean.”

  “I should kick you the hell out of here,” he said angrily.

  “You should, but you won’t. And I’ll tell you why. You’re nuts about Joy Marsh. You’re so in love with her that you’re operating off the top of your head these days. It’s my theory that you’re fighting your old man about her. You want to marry her. You met her through your pal Plummer and you fell li
ke a ton of bricks, because she’s a sensationally pretty girl who maybe has something more than just beauty. So you took her down to the Village to meet your old man—and the fun began after that. What happened? How did your father get the lowdown on her?”

  “The lowdown?”

  “The business about her career at Mary Ray’s?”

  “She had no career!” he shouted, jumping out of his chair as though shot from a cannon. He stood over me, his lean face clouding with color, the pallid cheeks flushed by the explosion of his corpuscles. “I ought to break you in half, Conacher!”

  “You forget that I’m on your side, chum. I think Joy’s a swell kid. And I know enough about her background to sympathize with you. You’re dead right about her. She’s good. She’s wonderful, and I envy you finding her. So sit down and relax, so that we can make some sense out of this hassle. Has Joy been living here alone?”

  “For the past two weeks.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He seemed to force himself into a mood of composure, trying for a slowdown in his speech, which had been spilling out of him up until this moment, accelerated by the nervousness that threw him out of control. He stood by the window, gazing out at the bleak and drizzly void, while he backtracked into his memories and gave me the yarn from the very beginning. He had met Joy Marsh while she was out on a date with Averill Plummer. It was love at first sight. He saw her regularly while she lived at the rooming house. He asked her to marry him, and took her down to meet his fat father.

  “The trouble began down at Dad’s,” Larry Fanchon said. “She was getting along famously with him, until a painter by the name of Haskell Moore walked in. From the moment Joy saw him her mood changed. She became nervous and worried and anxious to leave. I took her home to her fiat and we made a date for the next evening. But she was gone when I called for her, and she had left no forwarding address. I became desperate with worry, and went at once to see a private investigator, a man named Kemper. He promised to locate her for me—but he failed.”

  “Kemper couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag,” I said. “But you located her yourself?”

  “Joy called me and told me that I must help her. She explained that my father was having her followed all over town, while she looked for work. She had found employment in a restaurant, out of desperation. But my father’s chauffeur hung around the place all day long, watching her every move. I told her to stay here in my place, until I could set Dad straight. I begged her to come, and she finally capitulated. I saw her only twice while she lived here, because she had made me promise to allow her the chance to work things out. I felt optimistic about the future. Joy said that we could get married soon. As soon as she could manage to arrange for the destruction of a certain painting that Haskell Moore had done of her. I offered to buy back the painting for her, but she refused. She couldn’t bear to have me even see the thing. She told me that everything would work out fine, because Haskell Moore was a good friend of Mary Ray’s. Joy thought that Mary would arrange to have Moore turn over the picture, or at least promise to destroy it.”

  “It begins to fit,” I said. “What time did Joy leave here today?”

  “About two hours ago.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “The elevator boy.”

  “And how about your old man?” I asked. “Has he still got his bloodhound on Joy?”

  “My father has changed his mind,” Larry Fanchon said. “I’ve been in touch with him all evening, since the moment Sailor Schenk was arrested.”

  “Your father now approves the marriage?”

  “That’s what he told me, only tonight.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “I don’t know,” Fanchon said, his former jittery unease riding his face again. “Do you think so? What do you think, Conacher?”

  “I’ll save it,” I said. “We’ll talk about your old man at the proper time, when all the chips are down. It’s a cinch he’s a little off his rocker on the subject of females. He must have known all about the background for Haskell Moore’s pornographic portrait of Joy. When Joy quit Mary Ray’s, Mary probably offered to get her some odd modeling jobs with Haskell Moore. So Joy simply posed for him to earn a few honest bucks. But neither Mary nor Joy knew how the maggoty mind of Haskell Moore would make use of his model. Until it was too late.”

  “I knew nothing about all this,” Fanchon said, “or I might have killed the bastard.”

  “You and a few others.”

  “But he committed suicide?”

  “That’s the popular theory.”

  “You don’t sound as if you believe it.”

  “I’m toying with it. I’m also toying with a few other ideas that should be taken for granted. Your old man, for instance.” I got up and showed him that we were at the end of the line. “I don’t believe men his age change their minds so quickly.”

  “Where are you going now?”

  “Maybe I’m headed downtown to look for your girl friend.”

  “I’ll make it worth your while, if you find her.” He led me to the elevator, reluctant to have me leave, obviously anxious to talk some more about his lady love. “You’ll keep in touch with me, Conacher?”

  “You’ll be seeing me,” I said. “Sooner than you think. Just tell the monkey on the elevator that I’m your guest, or he’ll have the hounds of the law on me for breaking and entering.”

  He waited for the elevator and cleared me with the youth at the controls. He came downstairs and hailed a cab for me and held the door open with obvious gallantry. He was waving to me as I tapped the cabby on the shoulder and told him to head for Greenwich Village.

  CHAPTER 24

  It was almost four in the morning by the Paramount clock.

  The cab sailed downtown, unimpeded by traffic, cruising the distance in record time. The house of Eric Fanchon was fast asleep, a gray cavern of darkness. I leaned heavily on the bell, and my prolonged pressure set off a distant ringing, a faint tinkle from somewhere deep inside the fortress walls. The street was dead around me. The rain still fell in a misted spray, but the wind was gone now and the steady drizzle hung in the air like an overambitious fog, not really raining, but as damp as the inside of my collar.

  Above me the windows were black patches in the dismal façade. My thumb dug into the bell, as purposeful as my weary arm could make it. This was no hour for waiting in the wet. My mouth stung with the bite of too many cigarettes. And my brain ached with the weight of my theoretical mumbo-jumbo. I was working overtime. I had been pushed here by the annoying curiosity that comes from the smell of success in the hunt-and-think business called skip-tracing.

  A light blinked on inside and the houseboy appeared, clothed in a robe that was too small for him. He was a comic bit-player in the scene, but his face did not reflect internal humor. He scowled out at me angrily, his broad mouth pouting, his accustomed grin lost somewhere back on his deserted mattress.

  “What the hell?” he asked, recognizing me and not enjoying the memory. “What is it you want at this time, mister? You know that it is after four o’clock?”

  “Out of my way,” I said, and butted him forward, catching him off guard as he stepped away. “Get on your horse and wake up the big guy—the chauffeur.”

  “Mister Fanchon, he will not like this,” he said.

  “I don’t want your boss. We’ll let him sleep.”

  “Maybe you better get out of here, mister.”

  I showed him Sailor Schenk’s automatic. I whipped it out and stuck it into his well-muscled gut, pressing it into his navel so that it made him take another step backward and stare down at it with a sudden gasp of respect.

  I said, “No games. Lead me to the chauffeur.”

  “But he does not live here.”

  “Let’s check it. Show me where you sleep.”

  He was
stalling, but he knew I had him cased. His skittery eyes roved beyond me, meditating some sort of strategy. He leaped at me suddenly. He caught me low, around the legs. His little arms were manufactured of wire and steel, as hard as the grip of a vise. He knocked me off balance and we fell to the rug as he groped upward for my gun arm. He would have tied me in knots with judo. He was working for it. He was quick and he was earnest. So I had to slap him once across the ear with the butt of the gun. He rolled over on his side in a heap.

  There was a hallway to the kitchen, where a door led downstairs. I groped my way down slowly and carefully, and crossed a smallish hall and entered a dim passage, lit only by a weak night light. The place was as quiet as an election speech listened to through a dead hearing aid. A door stood ajar, the second one to the left. I avoided it and opened the first one, lured in that direction by the sound of someone snoring lustily.

  It was the chauffeur. I flipped on the wall switch and stood there looking down at him. He snored in an iron bed. The room was small, as sloppy as the head that rested on the pillow. I reached over and slapped the chauffeur squarely in the kisser. He snapped up in bed, gaping around him, immediately conscious and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. Then he saw me and stiffened, and moved my way in a reflex of surprise. I slapped him back again.

  “Get out of the bed,” I said.

  He gurgled a throaty epithet. He scowled and showed me his molars in an insolent sneer, and opened his mouth to make his next obscenity more intelligible. Then he saw the gun. It was strange that it took him so long, because I had it close enough to his head for him to examine the barrel in great detail. I pushed it closer, resting the muzzle on his iron chin. His head sank back under the threat of it, into the ridge of his massive shoulders, like a turtle with a stiff neck.