by Kane, Henry
She looked once at the bunched figure beneath the blanket and did not look again.
“Mrs. Monet,” said Parker. “This is Peter Chambers.”
“How do you do?” I said.
She nodded.
“Mrs. Monet, if you please,” said Parker. “Would you begin at the beginning once again for Mr. Chambers?”
She sighed. Her tongue flicked out moistening her lips. “Madame and me, we have been in ze countree for a week. We have return at about four o’clock. Madame, she is very fatigue, and she goes to ze bed for a nahp. Eet is about ten minutes to fife when I wake her opp. I know she has ze appointmahnt for fife, so I wake her.”
“Appointment for five?” I said. “I happen to know that her appointment with Jack Medford was for five-thirty.”
“Ah yes oui, is true. I speak of ze ozzer appointmahnt. Zat one eet is for fife.”
“Which one?”
“Wiz Monsieur Peabody.”
“Oh.”
“Okay,” said Parker. “So you woke her up.”
“Madame, she has brought a presahnt — a riding-wheep — for her friend Madame Celia Krause who has ze domicile on Central Park West. So Madame, when I wake her, she say to me, ‘Uhkay, Denise, you weel now go to bring ze presahnt to Madame Krause. And I say, ‘But Madame, you are alone in ze bed and you weel have ze guest shortly.’ And Madame, she say, ‘So my guest, he weel wake me opp, or he weel get in ze bed wiz me. So now go, Denise, and leave unlocked ze front door.’ And Madame, she smile and yawn and go back to sleep.”
Parker took it up. “Denise pushes the snap on the outside door leaving it unlocked and blows as ordered. She comes back at about twenty after five and she finds your Jack Medford standing here in the bedroom. That knife is in his hand and Penelope Arlington is—dead in bed.”
“So queekly I call ze police,” said Denise, “and queekly ze police comes …”
“And what does Jack Medford do in the meantime?”
“He stands like how you say eet—petrified.”
“And he does about that much talking,” said Parker, “as though he’s petrified which means, I think, turned to stone. He wants Peter Chambers, period.”
“He’s frightened of cops, Louie. He had a bad experience as a youngster.”
“He’s liable to have a worse experience as a grown-up.”
“What about that first appointment — the five o’clock shadow —that Michael Peabody?”
“The minute Mrs. Monet gives us that part of her story — one of my boys goes out and picks him up.”
“Where?”
“Where he lives, Hotel Brittany. He’d hardly just got there. Still had his hat on. My guy hauls him out but just as they’re leaving, Sandy Santee shows up. Sandy accompanied him back here. I’m a stickler for law and order, as you damned well know. A guy’s entitled to legal counsel. Peabody insisted that his lawyer be present during his questioning and I couldn’t legally, object.”
“I might as well get his story too, huh, before I tackle Medford? The kid might be tough with me too. Better to shore up all the ammunition I can.”
“No reason why not, Pete. I’ve asked for your cooperation — I can’t deny you mine. I’ll get Peabody.” Parker bowed to Denise, bowed to me, and marched out. Something ludicrously Continental always happens to American men, including me, under the subtle influence of an Old World accent especially when it emanates from a female.
So now I bowed and marched—but away from the incandescent Denise. I arrived at the dresser and tried to avoid the bloody knife by concentrating on the vases of flowers. “What’s with flowers?” I said. “What’s with such tired orchids and gardenias?”
“Madame,” said Denise, “hates flowers—nevaire has zem.”
“She hates flowers? So she has flowers on her dresser?”
“A beau of Madame, he bring zem last week. He places zem in ze vases.”
“All wilted like that?”
“Oh no, zen zey were fresh. But zat was last week and we have been away all of zis week …”
Parker came back with Peabody and Santee. Peabody was carrying his gay Tyrolean hat. Santee was carrying a sour expression. Parker bowed to Denise, said, “Thank you very much, Mrs. Monet.” He looked toward the cop and the cop, quite happily, took the redhead’s ample arm and escorted her out. “All right, Peabody,” said Parker, “tell Mr. Chambers what happened here today.”
“Why the hell should I tell him anything? Who the hell is he?”
“Michael,” said Santee, “don’t be obdurate. If the lieutenant wishes you to repeat your story, he is within his rights. The lieutenant has been eminently fair and aboveboard with us. It is only fitting that we be fair and aboveboard with him.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Fair and aboveboard. You two are just the team for that.”
“See what I mean?” said Mike the Pea.
“Tell your story, Mr. Peabody,” said Parker.
The Pea looked at his prompter and the prompter nodded his pink head. “Well,” said the Pea, “I got this date with her for five bells, and at five bells I come. I ring. There’s no answer. I I try the door. It’s open. So I’m in and I find her sleeping in bed. I wake her but she’s in the mood for company. Well, I’m no crumb like certain people I know. If a dame don’t want company, she don’t want company. We shmooz around a little and then I tell her I’d better toddle along, huh? She says okay but that I should come back in the evening, she’s going to make a party. I tell her I’ll lock that outside door for her. She says no I shouldn’t because she’s expecting that goof, that sculptor-joe, that Medford. I say how come she makes a date with both of us when she’s so tired and sleepy. She says she didn’t expect to be tired and sleepy and thought she’d enjoy the company of two nice young men. Yeah, two nice young men. Anyway, there’s going to be a part later which is like consolation. So I blow and leave that doorsnap unlocked just like she says.”
“How long did you stay?” I said.
“How the hell do I know? I didn’t clock myself. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”
“And then?”
“I go back to my hotel. It takes a little time, getting a cab, all of that. Well, I’m not there maybe a minute when wham!—banging on the door. A cop. He don’t have to take no cab, he don’t have to stop for no lights, he goes with the siren wide open. I’m home maybe a minute when wham! — there’s the cop rapping on my door. I open up, he starts lugging me out, and lucky, Mr. Santee comes along to call on me. Mr. Santee comes back here with me to protect my interests, and like that nobody pushes me around, everybody’s nice and polite.”
“Did you happen to bring a knife with you, Mike?”
“I object,” said Sandy Santee.
Innocently I said, “But I asked nice and polite.”
“He doesn’t have to answer any question that might incriminate him.”
“I’ll be happy to answer the louse, Mr. Santee,” said Mike.
“Well, answer,” I said.
“At least you know who’s the louse, don’t you?”
“I object,” I said.
“No,” he said.
“No, what?”
“No, I didn’t happen to bring a knife, Mr. Peeper.” He set his hat rakishly over his golden hair and opened his baby-blue eyes at me. “Any more questions?”
“No,” I said nice and polite.
“We’ve got a date,” he said. “Remember?”
“You and I …?”
“Once,” he said. “When you don’t have me over a barrel. You’re supposed to prove you’re a man.”
“Oh yes,” I said.
“Whats this all about?” said Parker.
“He’s a handsome kid with big muscles and a fat head. He’s challenged me to knock it off. He can’t believe that mashing him up is the kind of small potatoes I don’t have time for.”
“Don’t have time for.” He sneered. “You’re a dog, a yellow dog —”
“Easy, kid,” said Santee.
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“Any time I catch up with him, the bastard has got me over a barrel.”
“We’ll work it out,” I said.
Sharply Parker said, “Is there anything else, Pete?”
“Nothing else.”
“Then come along with us, won’t you?”
He delivered Mike and Sante to the cops in the drawing room, he sent back the bedroom-cop to the bedroom, he got rid of Denise, and then he and I and Medford and one cop were in the library. Parker, always the good psychologist, drew the cop aside to one corner of the room and quietly chatted with him, giving me the opportunity to sit down alone with Medford.
“Easy does it, pal,” I said. “You wanted me. I’m here.”
He was pale, he looked scared, there were black circles beneath his eyes, but his first question was about his father. “Has there been any word … anything … about Dad?”
Hell, I had to set him up for it. “Nothing. And the more time that goes by like that, the less I like it.”
“Meaning?”
“Look, we’re pretty well agreed that Charlie’s no crook. But he did walk out of that bank with the money. It shapes up as some kind of a swindle; that, somehow, he got hooked into a deal. Well, by now he’d have been heard from, unless … unless …”
“Unless something’s happened to him.”
“That’s the only way I can figure it.”
He put a hand to his forehead and squeezed fingers at his temples. “I … I’ve finally come around to that too. It’s been bugging the hell out of me. That’s why I came here early, earlier than my actual appointment. I was anxious to talk to Penelope. And then I found her … found her like that …” The hand came away from the forehead and both hands squeezed together until the blood was out of the knuckles.
“You didn’t have anything to do with that, did you?”
“No no of course not.”
“Then you tell your story to Lieutenant Parker. He a nice guy, fair and square. I’ve known him for as long as I’ve know your father. He’s a right guy.”
“I … I’m scared, Mr. Chambers.”
“Sure you are, kid. But I’m right here alongside of you and Parker’s a good man, really a good man. Now you’re going to have to talk to him, boy …”
I waved to Parker. Parker came quickly and sat down with us. I let the kid ease up while I made some preliminary conversation with Parker. “Aren’t you going to have his statement taken down?” I said.
“I don’t have a stenographer here yet. Cops aren’t as efficient as they’re cracked up to be.” Good old Parker. Wise old Parker. Just the right tone of voice. Just sufficient deprecation. None of the big-badge stuff. No pressure. Quiet and easy.
“You mean they’ll have to repeat their stories? Mike Peabody too?”
“Of course. We’ll do the questions and answers all over again but the second time they’ll swear to their statements.” Parker chuckled properly. “The first time it’s sort of a rehearsal.”
“Jack,” I said, “I don’t know whether you’ve been formally introduced to the lieutenant. Anyway, Lieutenant Parker—Jack Medford.”
Jack smiled sickly.
Parker smiled engagingly.
“Louie”—I purposely used his first name—“you ask the questions. Jack’ll answer, I’m certain, to the best of his ability.”
“Thanks,” said Parker politely but couldn’t restrain a deep sigh, thus admitting his own nervousness. “Just for openers I’d like to ask a question about questions.” Another sigh. “Mr. Medford, I’d like to know why you’ve refused to answer any of my questions until now.”
“May I answer that?” I said.
“Sure,” said Parker. Wise old Parker. He was going along with me, giving the kid a chance to simmer down.
“Once, long ago,” I said, “Jack here was arrested in a murder deal that was thought to be a gang-job. He was kept overnight, he was brutally treated by some of the storm-troopers that masquerade as law-abiding policemen. He’s been scared of cops—and the ways and means and manners of cops—ever since. Now, once again it seems, he’s caught by the crotch in a murder deal, another murder deal. Can you blame him for falling back on the one defense he’s learned — silence?”
“No,” said wise old Parker. “I can’t blame him. Once burnt, always wary.”
“He has confidence in me—I’ve known him since he was a little boy—and he knows I’m in the racket and, just as that Peabody of yours depends upon his Santee, so Jack depends upon me. But I’m sure he’ll answer any of your questions now, Lieutenant. Won’t you, Jack?”
“Yes.”
“All right then,” said Parker. “How long have you known Miss Arlington?”
“Since I was a youngster, a kid. She was a friend of my father.”
“And now that you’re grown up—she’s a friend of yours?”
“Yes sir. That’s right.”
“A good friend? She was a good friend of yours?”
“Yes sir.”
“How good?”
Jack looked at me. I nodded. “A very good friend, sir. I’m an an artist, sir, a sculptor. She assisted me, as sort of a patron. She advanced money to me, encouraged me, recommended clients to me.”
“I see,” said Parker. “So you were very good friends.”
I said, “Bosom companions. If you expect any of the intimate details, Jack is too much of a gentleman to divulge them.” That told Parker what he wanted to know, and wise old Parker went on from there.
“All right then. What happened here today?”
“I had an appointment with her for five-thirty.”
“What time did you come?”
“At about five-fifteen or so.”
“Any reason that you came early?”
I said, “I’ll answer that, if you please, Lieutenant.”
For the first time annoyance marred the lieutenant’s resolutely benign expression and he almost choked over the purr of; “But of course, Mr. Chambers.”
“Jack’s father, Charles R. Medford, is in some sort of trouble with bank where he’s employed—I believe you know some of that, Lieutenant.”
“Yes. So?”
“Jack and I learned that of recent months, Medford senior, a widower, had been going with a girl whom, he had met at one of Miss Arlington’s parties. We felt that perhaps this girl might have something to do with Charles Medford’s difficulties. Jack was anxious to talk with Miss Arlington about this and that’s why he came early.”
“Thank you,” said Parker unable to control a small bite at the bottom of his voice, “and I’d also thank you, Mr. Chambers, if you’ll kindly permit Mr. Medford here to answer his own questions; I mean, my questions; I mean, his own answers to my questions, not yours; I mean, my questions, but his answers, not yours.”
“But of course, Lieutenant.”
“All right then, Mr. Medford,” said Parker. “You came here at five-fifteen.”
“Approximately five-fifteen.”
“Yes, Mr. Medford. Approximately five-fifteen. What happened?”
The boy chewed at his lips, wetting them. “I rang the bell. There was no answer. I tried the door. It was open. I entered, walked through, calling Miss Arlington’s name. There was no answer. I thought this very strange, continued walking through, from room to room, calling her name. Finally, I came to the bedroom. That door was open, wide open, and I saw her there on the bed”—he clenched and unclenched his hands as though squeezing invisible sponges — “just as you’ve seen her. I went in, she was dead, I was tempted to run, I was scared blue. Then I saw that knife on the floor. Like a fool, like an idiot, I picked it up, and I was holding it, looking at it, when the maid came in.”
“Now hold it a moment, Mr. Medford.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You were scared blue, that I understand. You were tempted to run, that I don’t understand.”
“Sir, er, Lieutenant, as Mr. Chambers informed you, I was once involved in a murder thing, and I
was frightened, frightened to death over it, frightened to death that, innocently, I could be accused and involved and made to seem as though I had done it. Now here she was, Penelope, dead in bed, and I was there alone with her, and I was scared and I wanted to run because I didn’t want to be involved, because I know how dreadful it can be when the skillful questions are asked and your answers tie you deeper and deeper into something you didn’t do.”
“But you picked up the knife?”
“It was there on the floor.”
“But you picked it up?”
“It was an involuntary action, like a reflex action. I wish to God I didn’t.”
“And you were holding it when the maid—Mrs. Monet—came in?”
“Yes sir.”
“And what did you do then?”
“Nothing. I just stood there, shaking like a leaf, scared out of my wits. I saw her go to the phone. I heard her call the police. What could I do then? Run? It was too late for that. I just stood there. I did nothing. What could I have done?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Quiet,” said Parker.
“Sorry,” I said.
“Is there anything you’d like to add, Mr. Medford?” said Parker.
“That’s all there is, sir.”
“Did you kill her, Mr. Medford?”
“Are you crazy, sir?”
“Categorically, did you kill her, Mr. Medford?”
“Categorically, I did not, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Medford. And thank you, Mr. Chambers.”
I stood up. “Jack,” I said, “I’ve got to go back to Alfred Surf’s on business. I mean there’s nothing else I can do here at this moment. Is it all right with you if I leave now?”
His hands kept squeezing the invisible sponges. “Whatever you think right, Mr. Chambers.”
“I won’t be long. I’ll be back.” I turned to Parker. “Is it all right if I come back here?”
“Love to have you, Peter. We haven’t even begun here, as a matter of fact. I’m certain there are going to be many more questions and it seems that Mr. Medford is more comfortable when you’re present. Yes. Do come back. By all means.” He chuckled. It almost choked him. Wise old Parker. He was still softening up Jack Medford. “Perhaps you and Mike Peabody will square off for a couple of rounds upstairs in Miss Arlington’s gymnasium. Four rounds for a couple of preliminary boys. I’ll referee. By the way, Mr. Medford, are you acquainted with Michael Peabody?”