She burst into a hideous torrent of profanity which Mr. Mayherne tried vainly to quell. She fell silent at last, her hands clenching and unclenching themselves nervously.
“Enough of that,” said the lawyer sternly. “I’ve come here because I have reason to believe you can give me information which will clear my client, Leonard Vole. Is that the case?”
Her eye leered at him cunningly.
“What about the money, dearie?” she wheezed. “Two hundred quid, you remember.”
“It is your duty to give evidence, and you can be called upon to do so.”
“That won’t do, dearie. I’m an old woman, and I know nothing. But you give me two hundred quid, and perhaps I can give you a hint or two. See?”
“What kind of hint?”
“What should you say to a letter? A letter from her. Never mind now how I got hold of it. That’s my business. It’ll do the trick. But I want my two hundred quid.”
Mr. Mayherne looked at her coldly, and made up his mind.
“I’ll give you ten pounds, nothing more. And only that if this letter is what you say it is.”
“Ten pounds?” She screamed and raved at him.
“Twenty,” said Mr. Mayherne, “and that’s my last word.”
He rose as if to go. Then, watching her closely, he drew out a pocketbook, and counted out twenty one-pound notes.
“You see,” he said. “That is all I have with me. You can take it or leave it.”
But already he knew that the sight of the money was too much for her. She cursed and raved impotently, but at last she gave in. Going over to the bed, she drew something out from beneath the tattered mattress.
“Here you are, damn you!” she snarled. “It’s the top one you want.”
It was a bundle of letters that she threw to him, and Mr. Mayherne untied them and scanned them in his usual cool, methodical manner. The woman, watching him eagerly, could gain no clue from his impassive face.
He read each letter through, then returned again to the top one and read it a second time. Then he tied the whole bundle up again carefully.
They were love letters, written by Romaine Heilger, and the man they were written to was not Leonard Vole. The top letter was dated the day of the latter’s arrest.
“I spoke true, dearie, didn’t I?” whined the woman. “It’ll do for her, that letter?”
Mr. Mayherne put the letters in his pocket, then he asked a question.
“How did you get hold of this correspondence?”
“That’s telling,” she said with a leer. “But I know something more. I heard in court what that hussy said. Find out where she was at twenty past ten, the time she says she was at home. Ask at the Lion Road Cinema. They’ll remember—a fine upstanding girl like that—curse her!”
“Who is the man?” asked Mr. Mayherne. “There’s only a Christian name here.”
The other’s voice grew thick and hoarse, her hands clenched and unclenched. Finally she lifted one to her face.
“He’s the man that did this to me. Many years ago now. She took him away from me—a chit of a girl she was then. And when I went after him—and went for him too—he threw the cursed stuff at me! And she laughed—damn her! I’ve had it in for her for years. Followed her, I have, spied upon her. And now I’ve got her! She’ll suffer for this, won’t she, Mr. Lawyer? She’ll suffer?”
“She will probably be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for perjury,” said Mr. Mayherne quietly.
“Shut away—that’s what I want. You’re going, are you? Where’s my money? Where’s that good money?”
Without a word, Mr. Mayherne put down the notes on the table. Then, drawing a deep breath, he turned and left the squalid room. Looking back, he saw the old woman crooning over the money.
He wasted no time. He found the cinema in Lion Road easily enough, and, shown a photograph of Romaine Heilger, the commissionaire recognized her at once. She had arrived at the cinema with a man some time after ten o’clock on the evening in question. He had not noticed her escort particularly, but he remembered the lady who had spoken to him about the picture that was showing. They stayed until the end, about an hour later.
Mr. Mayherne was satisfied. Romaine Heilger’s evidence was a tissue of lies from beginning to end. She had evolved it out of her passionate hatred. The lawyer wondered whether he would ever know what lay behind that hatred. What had Leonard Vole done to her? He had seemed dumbfounded when the solicitor had reported her attitude to him. He had declared earnestly that such a thing was incredible—yet it had seemed to Mr. Mayherne that after the first astonishment his protests had lacked sincerity.
He did know. Mr. Mayherne was convinced of it. He knew, but had no intention of revealing the fact. The secret between those two remained a secret. Mr. Mayherne wondered if some day he should come to learn what it was.
The solicitor glanced at his watch. It was late, but time was everything. He hailed a taxi and gave an address.
“Sir Charles must know of this at once,” he murmured to himself as he got in. The trial of Leonard Vole for the murder of Emily French aroused widespread interest. In the first place the prisoner was young and good-looking, then he was accused of a particularly dastardly crime, and there was the further interest of Romaine Heilger, the principal witness for the prosecution. There had been pictures of her in many papers, and several fictitious stories as to her origin and history.
The proceedings opened quietly enough. Various technical evidence came first. Then Janet Mackenzie was called. She told substantially the same story as before. In cross-examination counsel for the defence succeeded in getting her to contradict herself once or twice over her account of Vole’s association with Miss French, he emphasized the fact that though she had heard a man’s voice in the sitting room that night, there was nothing to show that it was Vole who was there, and he managed to drive home a feeling that jealousy and dislike of the prisoner were at the bottom of a good deal of her evidence.
Then the next witness was called.
“Your name is Romaine Heilger?”
“Yes.”
“You are an Austrian subject?”
“Yes.”
“For the last three years you have lived with the prisoner and passed yourself off as his wife?”
Just for a moment Romaine Heilger’s eye met those of the man in the dock. Her expression held something curious and unfathomable.
“Yes.”
The questions went on. Word by word the damning facts came out. On the night in question the prisoner had taken out a crowbar with him. He had returned at twenty minutes past ten, and had confessed to having killed the old lady. His cuffs had been stained with blood, and he had burned them in the kitchen stove. He had terrorized her into silence by means of threats.
As the story proceeded, the feeling of the court which had, to begin with, been slightly favourable to the prisoner, now set dead against him. He himself sat with downcast head and moody air, as though he knew he were doomed.
Yet it might have been noted that her own counsel sought to restrain Romaine’s animosity. He would have preferred her to be a more unbiased witness.
Formidable and ponderous, counsel for the defence arose.
He put it to her that her story was a malicious fabrication from start to finish, that she had not even been in her own house at the time in question, that she was in love with another man and was deliberately seeking to send Vole to his death for a crime he did not commit.
Romaine denied these allegations with superb insolence.
Then came the surprising denouement, the production of the letter. It was read aloud in court in the midst of a breathless stillness.
Max, beloved, the Fates have delivered him into our hands! He has been arrested for murder—but, yes, the murder of an old lady! Leonard who would not hurt a f
ly! At last I shall have my revenge. The poor chicken! I shall say that he came in that night with blood upon him—that he confessed to me. I shall hang him, Max—and when he hangs he will know and realize that it was Romaine who sent him to his death. And then—happiness, Beloved! Happiness at last!
There were experts present ready to swear that the handwriting was that of Romaine Heilger, but they were not needed. Confronted with the letter, Romaine broke down utterly and confessed everything. Leonard Vole had returned to the house at the time he said, twenty past nine. She had invented the whole story to ruin him.
With the collapse of Romaine Heilger, the case for the Crown collapsed also. Sir Charles called his few witnesses, the prisoner himself went into the box and told his story in a manly straightforward manner, unshaken by cross-examination.
The prosecution endeavoured to rally, but without great success. The judge’s summing up was not wholly favourable to the prisoner, but a reaction had set in and the jury needed little time to consider their verdict.
“We find the prisoner not guilty.”
Leonard Vole was free!
Little Mr. Mayherne hurried from his seat. He must congratulate his client.
He found himself polishing his pince-nez vigorously, and checked himself. His wife had told him only the night before that he was getting a habit of it. Curious things habits. People themselves never knew they had them.
An interesting case—a very interesting case. That woman, now, Romaine Heilger.
The case was dominated for him still by the exotic figure of Romaine Heilger. She had seemed a pale quiet woman in the house at Paddington, but in court she had flamed out against the sober background. She had flaunted herself like a tropical flower.
If he closed his eyes he could see her now, tall and vehement, her exquisite body bent forward a little, her right hand clenching and unclenching itself unconsciously all the time. Curious things, habits. That gesture of hers with the hand was her habit, he supposed. Yet he had seen someone else do it quite lately. Who was it now? Quite lately—
He drew in his breath with a gasp as it came back to him. The woman in Shaw’s Rents….
He stood still, his head whirling. It was impossible—impossible—Yet, Romaine Heilger was an actress.
The KC came up behind him and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Congratulated our man yet? He’s had a narrow shave, you know. Come along and see him.”
But the little lawyer shook off the other’s hand.
He wanted one thing only—to see Romaine Heilger face to face.
He did not see her until some time later, and the place of their meeting is not relevant.
“So you guessed,” she said, when he had told her all that was in his mind. “The face? Oh! that was easy enough, and the light of that gas jet was too bad for you to see the makeup.”
“But why—why—”
“Why did I play a lone hand?” She smiled a little, remembering the last time she had used the words.
“Such an elaborate comedy!”
“My friend—I had to save him. The evidence of a woman devoted to him would not have been enough—you hinted as much yourself. But I know something of the psychology of crowds. Let my evidence be wrung from me, as an admission, damning me in the eyes of the law, and a reaction in favour of the prisoner would immediately set in.”
“And the bundle of letters?”
“One alone, the vital one, might have seemed like a—what do you call it?—put-up job.”
“Then the man called Max?”
“Never existed, my friend.”
“I still think,” said little Mr. Mayherne, in an aggrieved manner, “that we could have got him off by the—er—normal procedure.”
“I dared not risk it. You see, you thought he was innocent—”
“And you knew it? I see,” said little Mr. Mayherne.
“My dear Mr. Mayherne,” said Romaine, “you do not see at all. I knew—he was guilty!”
The Enemy
CHARLOTTE ARMSTRONG
THE STORY
Original publication: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, May 1951; first collected in The Albatross by Charlotte Armstrong (New York, Coward-McCann, 1957)
NOT A HOUSEHOLD NAME, in spite of the acclaim given to her by fellow mystery writers and critics, Charlotte Armstrong (1905–1969) enjoyed a long and highly successful career. She found a specialized niche when she wrote frequently about peril to the young and to the elderly, creating stories and novels of suspense that focused on that theme.
In no work is this characterized more graphically than in Mischief (1950), in which a psychopathic hotel babysitter gradually becomes unglued as she contemplates killing her young charge. Filmed as Don’t Bother to Knock (1952), it starred the young and beautiful Marilyn Monroe in a rare villainous role. Directed by Roy Baker, it also starred Richard Widmark, Anne Bancroft, and Elisha Cook Jr.
Another of Armstrong’s powerful suspense novels to be filmed was The Unsuspected (1946), a controversial novel that was praised by critics for its writing skill but lambasted for disclosing the identity of the killer almost at the outset. A famous radio narrator steals money from his ward’s inheritance and, when his secretary discovers his thievery, he kills her. More deaths follow before he confesses—on air. It was filmed under the same title and released in 1947 to excellent reviews. Directed by Michael Curtiz, it starred Claude Rains, Joan Caulfield, and Audrey Totter.
During the filming of The Unsuspected, Armstrong and her family permanently moved from New York to California, where she continued to write stories and more than twenty novels, one of which, A Dram of Poison (1956), won the Edgar as the best novel of the year. She also wrote television scripts, including several that were produced by Alfred Hitchcock.
In “The Enemy,” a likable boy has a disagreement with an unfriendly, mysterious neighbor, and proves to be less likable.
THE FILM
Title: Talk About a Stranger, 1952
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Director: David Bradley
Screenwriter: Margaret Fitts
Producer: Richard Goldstone
THE CAST
• George Murphy (Robert Fontaine Sr.)
• Nancy Davis (Marge Fontaine)
• Billy Gray (Robert Fontaine Jr.)
• Lewis Stone (Mr. Wardlaw)
A charming young boy, Robert Fontaine Jr., lives a lonely life on his family’s farm until he gets a dog and all is well until the dog dies, obviously having been poisoned. He is convinced that his openly hostile neighbor is responsible. When neither his father nor the police provide any help, he goes on a mission to find out what he can about the mysterious stranger who recently moved into the neighborhood and hears a rumor that the owner of the house where he previously lived was murdered. He does all he can to spread the damning tale that the neighbor was a murderer and, when he does not get the response he had wanted, the volatile boy commits a violent, dangerous act of vandalism.
An unusually young crew made this film noir. The director, David Bradley, had graduated from Northwestern in 1950 and directed his classmate Charlton Heston in Julius Caesar the same year before directing Talk About a Stranger, and Margaret Fitts, the screenwriter, had just graduated from the MGM junior writers program in 1947; she had cowritten two adaptations before this film.
The original script was titled The Enemy, and then was called A Stranger in the House before it was ultimately given its final, appropriate, title.
THE ENEMY
Charlotte Armstrong
THEY SAT LATE AT THE LUNCH TABLE and afterwards moved through the dim, cool, high-ceilinged rooms to the judge’s library where, in their quiet talk, the old man’s past and the young man’s future seemed to telescope and touch. But at twenty minutes afte
r three, on that hot, bright, June Saturday afternoon, the present tense erupted. Out in the quiet street arose the sound of trouble.
Judge Kittinger adjusted his pince-nez, rose, and led the way to his old-fashioned veranda from which they could overlook the tree-roofed intersection of Greenwood Lane and Hannibal Street. Near the steps to the corner house, opposite, there was a surging knot of children and one man. Now, from the house on the judge’s left, a woman in a blue house dress ran diagonally toward the excitement. And a police car slipped up Hannibal Street, gliding to the curb. One tall officer plunged into the group and threw restraining arms around a screaming boy.
Mike Russell, saying to his host, “Excuse me, sir,” went rapidly across the street. Trouble’s center was the boy, ten or eleven years old, a tow-headed boy with tawny-lashed blue eyes, a straight nose, a fine brow. He was beside himself, writhing in the policeman’s grasp. The woman in the blue dress was yammering at him. “Freddy! Freddy! Freddy!” Her voice simply did not reach his ears.
“You ole stinker! You rotten ole stinker! You ole nut!” All the boy’s heart was in the epithets.
“Now, listen…” The cop shook the boy who, helpless in those powerful hands, yet blazed. His fury had stung to crimson the face of the grown man at whom it was directed.
This man, who stood with his back to the house as one besieged, was plump, half-bald, with eyes much magnified by glasses. “Attacked me!” he cried in a high whine. “Rang my bell and absolutely leaped on me!”
Out of the seven or eight small boys clustered around them came overlapping fragments of shrill sentences. It was clear only that they opposed the man. A small woman in a print dress, a man in shorts, whose bare chest was winter-white, stood a little apart, hesitant and distressed. Up on the veranda of the house the screen door was half open, and a woman seated in a wheel chair peered forth anxiously.
The Big Book of Reel Murders Page 4