Fashioned for Murder

by George Harmon Coxe

  He said if Duble wanted to get in touch with him he could leave word at the hotel, or telephone him there that night. He said he was going there now to get cleaned up and if nothing developed before seven he would still be there.

  Chapter Twelve

  THEY DINED THAT EVENING at the same little restaurant on Fifty-Second Street where they had their first drink more than two weeks ago. Only, this time they had agreed to meet here, and Nason, arriving early, was waiting at the bar when Linda Courtney came in.

  The instant he saw her the room seemed suddenly to brighten. Then, as she drew closer, he saw that this was a different girl from the one he had left after lunch.

  No longer was there any despondency in her manner. Her cheeks were delicately pink, and her smile was gay. Her gray eyes were bright as she took his offered hand and let him draw her to the bar stool beside him.

  “Did you have any luck?” she said when he had ordered.

  “Some,” he said, still holding her hand.

  “Tell me.”

  He put his elbow on the bar, his arm in front of him, and she put her shoulder against his so that he could talk without being heard by others. And that was how he told her about Sam Duble and the picture he had developed and printed, and what Sam had said about Norman Franks.

  For a second or two then he was afraid he had spoiled her mood, for she was briefly sober as he spoke and remained so after he had finished. Then, surprisingly, the brightness came back in her eyes, and she looked for all the world like a pretty little girl who had just done something of which she was extremely proud.

  “So did I,” she said presently, her shouder still against his own.

  “What?”

  “Have some luck.”

  She sipped her highball, and, though he was impatient now to know what she meant, he knew also that he would have to wait for her disclosure. When it came he could understand why she was so proud, even though he found it hard to believe.

  “I found out who Irma Heath is.”

  He turned, brows warped and mouth half open.

  “Her name is Irene Keith,” Linda announced. “And I know where she lives. Or at least I think I do.”

  Nason realized he was still staring, that the bartender mistook the look for a summons for service. He waved him back. He took time to finish his Martini and make the necessary mental readjustments.

  “All right,” he said. “That’s another one.”

  “Another what?”

  “Alias. Irma Heath—Irene Keith—Nate Fallon—Norman Franks. Now, how did you find out, and where does she live?” he said, and was a little dismayed that she should know these things. “Just what have you been doing?”

  She glanced into the dining-room. “Are we going to eat here? Then we’d better wait until we can talk,” she said, and would tell him nothing more until the dishes had been cleared away and they were having coffee. They were sitting side by side then on the red leather banquette, and, when Nason had furnished a cigarette and a light, he grinned crookedly and said, “Now?”

  “Yes,” Linda said. “You’ve been very patient, and I wasn’t being mean—I just didn’t want a waiter interrupting me. Well, you said you thought Irma Heath had been around photographers before, so, when I went to the office, I decided to look through the files and see if Mr. Carson had a picture of her.”

  “And he did.”

  Linda refused to be hurried. “I went through the current pictures and there was nothing there so I started going back through the inactive file. There were an awful lot of pictures—people who were no longer in the business. And finally I found a photo of Irma Heath, only her name was Irene Keith, and she hadn’t posed —at least through Mr. Carson’s office—in several years. But there was an address and a phone number in the file so I decided to try it.” She moved one shoulder expressively. “She hadn’t lived at that address in three years, and they didn’t know where she’d gone; they didn’t even have a forwarding address.”

  She tapped ashes into the tray and said, “So, then I got to thinking. The Irma Heath I’d seen did not look like the Irene Keith in the picture. Oh, the features and coloring were the same, but Irma Heath had put on weight. I thought perhaps that was why she’d stopped posing—before a camera, I mean. But, she still had a good figure even if she was heavy, and I wondered if maybe she still posed in other ways. So, I thought a little more and then I went to see Mr. Hudson.”

  “Hudson?” said Nason, the name escaping him for the moment.

  “The artist. With the studio on Lexington where I posed the second time.”

  Nason said he remembered but he was still perplexed. “Why?” he said.

  “You remember the nude he was doing? Well, so did I. There was no face on it but the body could have been Irma Heath’s. Of course, it seemed like an awful coincidence if it was, but on the way there I began to see that perhaps it wasn’t coincidence, after all.”

  Nason waited while she crushed out her cigarette. She half turned so she could watch him, and he nodded. “Go on,” he said. “I’m still out in left field.”

  “We wondered how anyone could know Mr. Hudson’s apartment was going to be vacant on that one particular day, didn’t we? We decided someone knew about his going away, and we do know that either Fallon or Heath must have found this out, unless the janitor was in the plot—and we didn’t think he was. But Fallon or Heath, as we knew them, didn’t look like the type Mr. Hudson would have for friends, at least not to me, so how did they know?”

  Nason blew out his breath and grinned crookedly, seeing the answer coming now but wanting her to finish.

  “I forgot to tell you,” she said, “that on the back of each office photograph there is an alphabetical key that tells you what a model will pose for. Some won’t do underwear or bathtub pictures or corsets, and some will. Very few will pose in the nude, but on Irene Keith’s photograph it said she would.”

  “So you went to see Hudson.”

  “And he was very nice about it. Irene Keith has been posing for artists, and he met her through a friend. She posed for the nude he was doing—the body part—and it just happened that, at the time she and Norman Franks wanted a studio, Mr. Hudson told her he would be out of town for a day and would not be using her. I don’t know how they got in that Friday but—”

  “That would be easy for a guy like Franks.”

  “—they did,” said Linda. “And Mr. Hudson told me her name was Irene Keith and he had her address. I have it here,” she said, and took a slip of paper from her bag. “It was too late then for me to look her up.”

  Nason glanced at the address and pocketed the slip. His grin was genuine now, his eyes respectful and approving and proud. He took her hand; he cocked a brow at her.

  “You’re wonderful,” he said. “You’re not only beautiful, you have brains—and you can cook.”

  She colored prettily, and her mouth was sweetly mobile. “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  Nason let go of her hand signaled for the check. He said he would call on Irene Keith tomorrow. Meanwhile, if they were going to Paul Sanford’s party, they’d better get started.

  From the apparent gaiety of the guests it would have been difficult to know that Paul Sanford’s party was a wake to bury a flop play. The cast of a dozen or so was represented in its entirety, the director and stage manager supervised the celebration, and the two writers came well fortified with spirits, a condition which they maintained without difficulty, for Sanford’s bar was nicely stocked and his buffet well laden.

  Raoul Julian and Kate Harper put in an appearance shortly after Jerry and Linda arrived, and they danced some to the Capehart and listened to the general damnation of the New York critics and the low state of the theater, and now, at eleven-thirty, Nason was ready to leave. He had not seen Paul Sanford in the last few minutes, and, standing by the windows overlooking the city with Linda, he asked if she would like to go.

  To his surprise she said, “Would you mind awfully if w
e stayed? I don’t think it will last much longer.”

  He glanced about, aware now that the party was fast losing its early spontaneity. With one or two exceptions, the liquor or food—or both—had served to quiet the guests, and they seemed now to be realizing that the party, however well intended, could not obscure the fact that they were all out of jobs, and no amount of pretense would alter the fact.

  “All right,” he said.

  “I want to talk to Paul before we go.”

  “Oh? And tell him what happened?”

  “Some of it, at least.” She glanced up. “Don’t you think I should?”

  Nason gestured emptily. “I don’t know him well enough to say.”

  “But certainly I can trust him, Jerry,” she said. Then, as though sensing his indecision and wanting to convince him, she explained that Sanford had been a friend of her mother’s and was, in fact, the executor of her will. “I’ve known him for ages,” she said, “and he may be able to get some information about the pieces Mother had through the Jewelers’ Guild. I know he didn’t know about them because he said so when I told him what happened in Boston.”

  “Let’s stay, then. How’s it going?” he said as he saw Julian and Kate Harper approaching.

  “The party,” said Kate, “is dying. And so am I. Arthur Murray here”—she indicated Julian—“has worn me down.”

  “She is a marvelous dancer,” said Julian.

  “Where’s Paul?” said Linda.

  “In the library,” Kate said. “Showing his garnet collection to Albert Wylie.”

  “Wylie?” said Julian. “I didn’t see him come in.” “No,” said Kate, “you didn’t. You were busy talking to that little ingénue.”

  Nason had not seen Albert Wylie come in, either, but he did not say so. He was watching Raoul Julian, who seemed now to be unaware of the others as he stared thoughtfully over Kate’s head in the direction of the library.

  “I would like to see this garnet collection,” the big man said presently.

  “So would I,” Linda said.

  “I have to work tomorrow. You have to take me home.” Kate eyed Julian sardonically and sighed. “But come on,” she said and linked her arm through his.

  Paul Sanford and Albert Wylie looked up from the table as the quartet entered the library. When he saw who it was, Sanford smiled. “Come in,” he said. “Perhaps you’d like to see these. I usually keep them in the country, but I brought them in to show Albert.”

  They said hello to Albert Wylie, who bowed and stepped back to make room for them at the table. He was in a dinner jacket, the only one present, immaculate as always, his voice and manner smooth and affable.

  “Paul has been promising me a look at this collection for months,” he said. “I didn’t know there was a party.”

  Sanford made some comment, but Nason did not hear this and was intent upon the oblong lengths of velvet that had been unrolled on the table to reveal a variety of brightly gleaming stones, perhaps a hundred in all. These had been separated into five groups, four of which were identical in their deep-crimson color and varied only in size; the fifth roll was covered with stones that ranged from dark green through amber and various reds to violet.

  “Are those all garnets?” Nason asked. “The ones that aren’t all the same color?”

  Sanford chuckled. He said yes and explained the purpose of his collection, slipping on shell-rimmed glasses and picking up a stone from time to time to illustrate a point. Boiled down, his hobby was divided into two specialties. One, which consisted of getting garnets that were matched in size and color, was represented by the four rolls; the other was his attempt to get well-cut stones, all garnets, of as many colors as he could.

  “Why, they’re beautiful,” Linda said.

  Sanford was pleased. “Yes,” he said, “they are. Also, they are not expensive. Otherwise, I would be unable to collect them. Properly set, many of these stones would look as well or better than stones costing many times their value.”

  “I agree,” said Wylie. “In the case of garnets, beauty has very little to do with the price.”

  “But I don’t see—” Linda began.

  “It is because they’re so common,” Wylie said. “Garnets are found nearly everywhere. I have even read that some were uncovered during the building of one of the subways here. It is only because of this, because they are so plentiful, that they are not more valuable. But these”—he gestured toward the display on the table—“are fine. I have never seen a better collection.”

  “Very interesting,” said Raoul Julian. “I had no idea garnets could be so—” he groped for a word—“intriguing.”

  Sanford took off his glasses and beamed, looking very neat and well-groomed in his dark sack suit. “Now,” he said, as he began to roll up the garnets in their velvet containers, “what have you to show us, Albert?”

  “Me?” said Wylie.

  Sanford smiled at the others. “Albert,” he said, “is a very peculiar character. He has a store that is burglarproof; you practically need a passport to get in. Yet, he goes around with a fortune in his pockets most of the time. Come now, Albert, prove it for me.”

  “Well, there’s this,” Wylie said and brought forth a bracelet which was an inch wide and solidly paved with sapphires and diamonds.

  Linda and Kate Harper gasped in unison as the bracelet lay glittering before them. Their “O-h!” was a chorus of rapture, and as they stared fascinatedly at this display, Wylie brought out a pendant and put it beside the bracelet.

  “And this,” he said.

  Nason moved closer, finding an egg-shaped, blood-red stone encased in a diamond setting and suspended from a thin platinum chain. With no knowledge of gem stones, he knew somehow that this was a ruby, and, as he gazed down at it, he heard Wylie explain the stone’s history. He had, he said, been able to trace it back to the sixteenth century, though he had never actually seen it until some fifteen years ago when he was in Paris. Some time later he saw it again at Monte Carlo and talked with the woman who owned it, a countess.

  “Later, during the war,” he said, “the Germans tried to buy it. A young major the countess had known before made her an excellent offer, and since it was all she had left, she was ready to sell it, until she found out that the major was acting for Hermann Göring.”

  “She didn’t sell?” Nason asked.

  Wylie shook his head. “Not then—not until a year ago. I can’t tell you who I got it from, but there it is.” He handed it to Kate Harper, who had put the bracelet on her wrist to see how it would look.

  “I’d be scared to death to wear it,” she said.

  “Me, too,” said Linda. “Are you a collector, Mr. Wylie? Do you want it for yourself—the ruby?”

  Wylie smiled. He busied himself with his cigarette holder. “No,” he said. “With me, jewels are a business proposition. I have made a study of them and their history, and I must admit they have great fascination for me.” He shook his head. “But, the great ones, the famous ones, have too much blood on them for my taste.”

  He paused. They were watching him now, and Nason realized that no one was smiling; for, though his tone was casual, the words themselves had a strange and inescapable impact. As though realizing the effect of his statement, Wylie pocketed the bracelet and pendant and smiled again.

  “No,” he said. “I bought this as a speculation.” He glanced at Raoul Julian. “Mr. Julian sometimes is of service to me in such things. He has a friend who is interested in the pendant, and, in this case, I am quite sure there is a profit to be made.”

  Kate Harper yawned and lost interest. “I have to get home,” she said. She thanked Sanford for the party and said good-by to the others. She said if Julian was a good boy she might give him a nightcap, and took his arm as she turned away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  IT WAS ANOTHER HALF HOUR before the last of Paul Sanford’s guests had gone and he could be alone with Linda and Jerry Nason. He made himself a sandwich at the
buffet and brought it to the library with a Scotch and soda. Linda had said she wanted to talk to him after the others had gone.

  Now he said, “What’s it all about? Those costume pieces you lost in Boston?”

  “Yes,” Linda said, and told him how they had gone to Albert Wylie’s shop that morning to have them appraised.

  Sanford’s eyes came up and he stopped chewing.

  “I thought they were stolen,” he said. “I didn’t know you got them back.”

  Linda glanced at Nason and he took up the story of Norman Franks and how he had been killed. Then, because he did not want to admit he had delayed calling the police while he snooped around Franks’s office, he lied boldly. “Franks had the pieces with him when he died,” he said. “We didn’t turn them in.”

  “But, good Lord, child,” Sanford said to Linda when he got the rest of the story, “why didn’t you tell me? I’m a lawyer, you know. That’s my business. Now you’ve withheld information from the police and—” He broke off, sighed, picked up his sandwich.

  Linda looked chagrined. “We didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I tried to find you this morning, but you weren’t at the Guild, so we went to see. Albert Wylie.”

  She told him what Wylie had said, and now Sanford forgot the rest of his sandwich and his drink. His smooth, intelligent face was grave and perplexed.

  “It’s hard to believe,” he said. “I don’t understand it. I can’t believe that your mother knew about the value of those pieces. She certainly would have said something to me when she knew she was going to die, or mentioned them in her will. I can’t understand why, if they contained real emeralds, she would keep them secret, nor can I understand why I didn’t run across them when I went over her effects.”