The Dream Walker

by Charlotte Armstrong

  Oh, I raged. I walked up and down my carpet and let fly with a good deal of this. Mildred patted the thing in her hair, today, that looked like a huge amber teething ring to me. “Well, well,” said she. “All as I can say is, you look like you’re changing sides and getting over to the unpopular one again.”

  “What do you mean?” I yelled at her.

  “It’s edging around,” said Mildred. Her eyes looked tired suddenly and I could see the fine lines under her hearty makeup. “I printed this letter in my column this morning.”

  “You didn’t!”

  “Did,” Mildred shrugged. “It’s a job, honey.”

  “Jo Crain gave you that? What is Jo thinking of?”

  “Nobody’s going to know what Jo is thinking without Jo wants them to know,” said Mildred vulgarly. “I wanted to know what you’d think and I guess I got it. Kinda hope it will make a few more folks mad.”

  “Don’t quote me, please.” I was alarmed.

  “Boring from within, huh?” said Mildred cheerfully. “Listen, Ollie, I hold no brief for Cora—that little twerp of a half-baked Duse, believe me. But I got a job and I got an ear and I’m telling you, sympathy is edging around.”

  “How can it?”

  “It stuck to Marcus longer than you’d expect. People don’t want idols kicked over. But their sympathy is a jumpy thing. You know what’s doing it? The hospital threatening to throw her out.”

  “Oh me,” I mourned. “Mildred, leave me out of your column and out of your vocabulary for a little while? I’ll … maybe I can give you a scoop,” I offered feebly.

  Mildred grinned. “You’re quaint. Well, something has got to give pretty soon,” she announced with great good sense. “Cheer up, Hudson. I’ve been known to keep my mouth shut. Boy, is this a mess!” she added with glee.

  I tried to call Charley after she had left. I couldn’t reach him. (He and Bud Gray never had given me, the amateur, that mysterious phone number of theirs, through which they could be reached, it seemed, about any time.)

  Only a ripple. But Mildred had printed Cora’s letter to Jo Crain. And Kent Shaw had read it in the paper. We didn’t … couldn’t … see the ripple as it enlarged.

  Charley called me that evening, of the twenty-second. Kent Shaw had come to the hospital late in the day. He had been watched, avidly. But he had paced the lobby a little while, looking nervous and undecided. He had gone away without even trying to get upstairs to the eighth floor.

  Actually, he was checking on a point of hospital routine. This foray was a consequence of Mildred’s column. We didn’t know.

  But I will tell you. He watched the florist’s boy. Saw how an offering for Cora Steffani was stopped at the desk and looked into. Saw that the boy then put it on the elevator. And knew what to do.

  On the twenty-third, Darlene moved. She placed a classified ad for the Monday morning paper.

  On the twenty-fourth, Kent Shaw moved. He knew as well as I did that Jo Crain was both thoughtful of her friends and an extremely important and busy person. He knew that her florist had her cards and was used to her ways. So, since Kent Shaw wasn’t a bad mimic, himself, on Monday the twenty-fourth, he used Jo’s secretary’s voice to order red gladioli, in a basket, to be sent at exactly 4:00 P.M. to Cora Steffani in the hospital.

  On the twenty-fourth, then, Kent Shaw came into the hospital lobby a little earlier than 4:00. Again he jittered, paced, and then he seemed to decide. He stepped into an elevator. Got off at the eighth floor. Bit his fingers, looked left and right, swung on his heel and rode down again, without having tried to get into Cora’s room.

  The guards, who had watched prayerfully (Let him try!), thought he was scared off, perhaps having spotted them or sensed tension. Did not imagine what had happened between floors, in the elevator. And the glass jar of candy that Kent Shaw had carefully saturated with the same poison that had killed Ed Jones rode into Cora’s room in the midst of the blood-red gladioli in their open basket, under Jo Crain’s card.

  But the ripples from his act went a little differently from his expectation. Cora was put in utter terror by the news of those two visits, the second one closer than the first. (Which news she received, of course, on the hospital grapevine.) And Cora was in no mood for candy. She wasn’t poisoned yet, at 6:00 P.M. on the twenty-fourth, when she called me on the phone.

  Chapter Twenty

  I’d been feeling like a cat on a leash, alone all the weekend and alone the Monday, that twenty-fourth of May. When I hung up on Cora, called Charley Ives and got him, I was about to pop with the release of something having happened.

  “I’m convinced she’s going to ask me for a loan,” said I excitedly, “so what shall I do, Charley? Shall I promise to lend her the money?”

  “To run away with? She can’t be let go, coz.”

  “I know,” I said, “but there’s such a thing as the torture of hope. If she thinks she’s escaping and then can’t.…”

  Charley sounded amused. “Spanish Inquisition has nothing on you.”

  “Charley, my boy,” I bristled.

  “I don’t think it matters,” he cut in.

  “It matters this much. If I refuse she’ll, sure as fate, throw me out right away and then what use would I be?”

  “Tell her anything you want,” said Charley indulgently. “Except one thing. Don’t twit her with Kent Shaw’s name. He was up on the eighth floor yesterday. Didn’t see her. But if we get Darlene tonight, we may be able to bring them all three together and I’d just as soon—”

  “Get Darlene! What do you mean?”

  There was a silence that shouted surprise. “Didn’t Bud call you?” asked my cousin Charley rather cautiously.

  “Nobody has called me for days and days,” I cried indignantly. “I might as well be unconscious.”

  So Charley told me about the ad in the morning paper. It was addressed to K.S. and it was signed by D. Charley didn’t doubt who had placed it. Neither did I. It asked K.S. to bring “key” to Biltmore lobby, 9–10 P.M. It added, “Uncle anxious to hear.”

  I suppose I squealed like a teen-ager.

  “K.S. is going to have to go,” Charley said with satisfaction.

  “Are you going?”

  “Not me and not you, coz,” Charley said, reading my mind. “Kent knows us too well. Bud’s going.”

  “He’s met Bud.”

  “Once. Bud won’t be very noticeable. I figure on getting into Shaw’s room while he’s safely out of it. What occurs to me … the very last thing he’ll take to any rendezvous with Darlene is that so-called key. Once she got that, she’d really vanish. He’d never have any easy moment thereafter. She wants him in a public place and she may threaten. You see the threat in that ad, don’t you?”

  “Uncle Sam?” said I.

  “Exactly. So he’ll give in, agree, but say the key has to be fetched and he’ll want her to go some other place where it’s lonelier.”

  “She won’t go?”

  “It won’t matter. But we’ll move in as soon as they meet. Point I’m making … who knows what I might not find in his room?”

  “Can I come there?”

  “Nope. You’re going to the hospital and play games with Cora.”

  “Charley, if you get Darlene you’ll come there?”

  “Sure will.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll stay in the audience. I hope there’s a show.”

  Charley said, taking pity, I suppose, because I sounded so forlorn, “Have you talked to Marcus today? Do you know he says Darlene has had her nose bobbed?”

  “He does? But Charley, how could she? When would she have time? And with everyone looking for her, wouldn’t that be suspicious? I don’t see.…”

  “Marcus just says Judge Ellsworth isn’t an old fuss-budget defending his privacy, but an honest and accurate man. And if the judge says the woman on the golf course didn’t look like Cora, then she didn’t.”

  “But … does that help us any?”

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nbsp; “They are rounding up reports on every nose-remodeling job done over the country in the last couple of months. Can’t be too many. May help.” (Eventually, of course, it did.)

  I said, “Thanks for all the news, Charley, my—” I stopped myself in the middle.

  But Charley said, and he sounded a bit miffed, “Oh, I’m your boy, Teacher. I don’t see why you shouldn’t have the news.”

  He saw, I guess, later.

  When I went down the corridor toward Cora’s room it was 8:00 P.M. I’d made it as late as I conscionably could so as to be around if there were going to be fireworks. I was trying to put myself into the staunch old friend pose, but when I opened the door she threw me a cue for a better role.

  Cora was dressed neatly in gray jersey, had her glasses on, looked very businesslike. She said, “Ollie, how are you? Will you have one?”

  She had a small glass jar in her hand and she was twisting the top open. “One what?” I said and she turned it and let me read the label. OLD-FASHIONED HUMBUGS, the label said. I looked up, at her face.

  “Or shall we be honest, for a change?” she said.

  “By all means,” said I. I thought for a moment she was going to confess to me, then and there.

  But she said, “I appreciate your ‘standing by,’ Ollie, darling, even if I do know you belong to the unbelievers. You think I’m a humbug, don’t you?”

  “And you think I’m a humbug,” said I slowly. “Well, that should clear the air.”

  She put the candy down. It had been a prop for her little scene, but now the bit was over, we both forgot the candy. She in her purpose. I in the glimmer I then had of a role I might play that would drive her wild. I wanted to turn it over in my mind, taste it and test it. At the same time, I found myself laying a foundation for it.

  I sat down quietly. “What do you want?”

  “I want some money.” (I said nothing.) “And you have plenty of money,” she said a trifle waspishly.

  “You want me to finance your departure from these shores?”

  “You must see that if I leave the country all this will be a nine days’ wonder and then die down. Isn’t that a good thing?”

  I held on to my temper. “It won’t help Marcus much,” I said, very flatly.

  “Charley Ives seems to blame me. But he most certainly can’t blame you, Ollie. Now can he?”

  She seemed to have Charley Ives on a salver and be handing him over. I thought she looked gray in the face.

  “You’re scared, aren’t you?” I leaned back.

  “Of course, I’m scared. I want to get away. They won’t keep me here and I’d go out of my mind if they did. I can’t go stay in my apartment. I’d be … I’d be at the mercy of the curious.…”

  “They have no mercy,” I muttered, thinking we both meant Kent Shaw.

  “Ollie, will you help me? I know no reason why you should. But I ask you to and I need to know.”

  I didn’t meet her eye. (I felt, in spite of everything, like a dirty traitor.) “Oh, I already have,” I said carelessly. “I can get you a seat on a transatlantic plane tomorrow morning. You can be in Paris with modest funds—I don’t say I’m going to support you forever—by the day after.”

  Then she sat down. I saw tension draining out of her. She thanked me in that businesslike way, and she told me I would be repaid. But I could tell that she was wondering why.

  So I talked idly. “You realize you may be hounded, even there? Your destination will be no secret. How are you going to get to the plane? Do you mind an escort of news hawks? Because you are sure to have it.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, and indeed she didn’t. The thought cheered her up. It should be safe. “Once I get to France,” she said confidently, “I can manage to disappear.”

  “Like Darlene Hite,” I murmured.

  She said, “Ollie, whatever you believe, believe this. Never again. No more. And once I am gone, it will all be over.”

  “You think it will die?” said I. I suppose I sounded queer. I felt so angry at her conception of a universe that revolved around Cora Steffani. I hurried on. “And you’ll disappear? Have your face remodeled, I suppose?”

  “Perhaps,” she said. There was a movement of her eyelids, a flaring. It was an idea. “Ollie, can’t we drop the whole subject? You do mean this? I can pack?”

  “You’d better,” said I. “Will you need to go back to your apartment at all?” She said no, she would travel light, and she began, then and there, to organize her possessions. And I to help her.

  (In fact, I searched, rather carefully, for something written down. I didn’t find it.)

  So there we were, two women, folding clothing, speaking of what one needs to wear, both playing the scene, nothing honest about it. She was, all the while, puzzling, wondering why I was being so very helpful, so ready to get rid of her, so easy. And I thinking to myself, I am a humbug, am I? Can’t I use that?

  “Want to pack these?” said I coming to the candy jar.

  “Too heavy,” she objected and put it aside.

  By ten o’clock, I’d had enough. The nurses were fretting. Nothing had happened. No one had come. And I could bear no more. When I left her, she was still baffled by me.

  There was nothing for me to do but go home. So I did. And I waited. No one called me. I thought bitterly that I wasn’t even going to be told. But five minutes after eleven Charley Ives came in my door.

  “What happened?” I burst.

  “Nothing.” He cast himself down on my sofa and begged piteously for a drink.

  “Did Kent Shaw go to the Biltmore?”

  “Oh, yes, he went.”

  “Darlene?”

  “No Darlene.”

  “What now?”

  “Dunno. See if the ad runs tomorrow. Try again.”

  “Why didn’t Darlene come?” I cried, impatient with that elusive character.

  “Tell you, coz,” said Charley, accepting liquor gratefully, “a man wants to murder her and she knows it. I don’t think she is going to walk up to him in any kind of place, public or private. I don’t think he’ll ever lead us to Darlene Hite.”

  “Charley, what does ‘key’ mean? Is it a real key, do you think? Key to a box or something?”

  “Sure. A box or something. Somewhere in New York City. Or the world.” Charley just looked tired. “Small matter which. I didn’t find any key. Worse, he’s tipped off we’re watching him, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, me!” I said. “How?” I sat down beside him. I wanted very much to comfort him because he looked so tired and that’s not like Charley Ives.

  “We’ve corrupted the landlord, if you must know,” he said. “Didn’t take much to corrupt him, either. What a dump that is! So I got in, easily enough, and left the door ajar, relying on Bud’s man to tip me if Shaw showed in the street. Well, some damn woman from across the hall has got to put her head in and get neighborly. Am I a friend of Kent’s? An artist, am I?” Charley dared me to comment.

  “Is she a friend of Kent’s, do you think?” I said instead.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. She looked like something out of Greenwich Village in the ’twenties.”

  “Couldn’t you have warned her not to mention …?”

  “Sometimes you make your own trouble,” Charley said. “To warn her might set up more importance in her mind than she will naturally give it. I don’t suppose it matters. I’ve got a mind to grab him anyhow and stop this fooling around. Bud is right. Darlene’s too smart.”

  “Arrest Kent Shaw?”

  “We’ve got absolutely nothing,” Charley said heavily.

  “Couldn’t you bluff? Say you’ve got something?”

  Charley closed his eyes wearily, and with the blue gone out of his face, it looked like something cut in age-darkened ivory.

  “Charley,” I said, “Cora thinks she’s squeaking out of it. I gave her carfare. I told her she had a plane seat. Thinks she’s skinning out of the whole business tomorrow morning.”
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br />   “She won’t,” he said dispiritedly.

  (I can’t help the way my mind works.) “Look, what if Kent Shaw were to find out she’s going tomorrow?” I heard myself saying. “Then, if he wants to get rid of her, I mean, kill her, and if he thinks she is getting away, wouldn’t that stir him up, maybe?”

  “And we nab him with the knife at her throat?” said Charley. “I don’t want him within ten blocks of her. We can’t risk losing Cora. Or any one of them. We need them all.”

  “To explain the blue envelope,” I murmured. “But Charley, my boy, hope is creative, Marcus says. So—”

  “And hope’s all I’ve got,” said he, “and that’s running low. Excuse me, coz. It’s restful here. A man could fall to pieces.”

  “Ivory Tower. I’ll fill your glass.” I bustled. “Where is Kent now?”

  “He headed for home about ten. Bud’s tucking him in. Bud will be here in a minute.”

  “Oh?” said I.

  I brought him a freshened drink and sat down again. I didn’t know what to do for him.

  “Maybe I need a little sermon,” said Charley. “Would you, Teacher?”

  “All right.” I braced myself. “Any special text?”

  “Darkness before dawn? The shower that clears? Anything.”

  “Let us sit upon the ground,” I murmured, “and tell sad stories.… We needn’t, Charley. Marcus is tough. I saw it in Dr. Barron. It’s not at all connected with muscles or guns or money or power. I just doubt if it’s for the likes of me, or even you, to fear for him.”

  Charley said judiciously in a moment, “Y’know, Teacher, I think you are right.”

  And I began to cry on Charley’s shoulder.

  “Cousin Ollie,” said Charley, stroking my hair, “what’s the matter?”

  “Just because I can preach,” I sobbed, “and I think I know what one ought, doesn’t mean I can. I’m just a poor female, Charley, and too feeble and I never had any guts, really, and sometimes I wish somebody’d take a little pity.…”

  “Now, now,” said Charley soothingly.

  “I don’t want to sound ‘right’ all the time,” I wailed. “Nobody likes that kind of person. They ought to know that most preachy people are only preaching to themselves really because they need it so bad.”