The DEATH OF COLONEL MANN

by Cynthia Peale

  “You wanted to see me,” he said unnecessarily.

  “Yes,” she breathed. He caught her scent—some heavy, sensuous perfume. It was not the scent of a proper Boston lady. “If you don't mind—could we go out? I will just fetch my hat and coat.”

  Left alone in her pretty sitting room, he looked around. All was as it had been when he'd visited her before—tasteful, expensive, and the Yorkie eyeing him from its pillow. Except— Ah. There on the mantel. He went to look at it more closely. It was the diamond bracelet that he'd seen in Longworth's room at the Hotel Brunswick. It lay half out of its box, as if she'd left it there carelessly.

  Or perhaps Longworth himself had left it there?

  He remembered what Caroline had told him of the maid's confession the evening before: Longworth besotted with Mrs. Vincent, threatening her, threatening himself— and the Colonel. Longworth had denied any connection with her, and she with him; it was hardly surprising they both had lied. Their motive for lying was something else, however. If she—

  She was back, wearing a green velvet coat and matching hat; the color suited her marvelously well, he thought. He wondered if she'd ever had her portrait painted. John Singer Sargent was making a name for himself in society portraiture; he'd do Serena Vincent justice and then some.

  The maid let them out—the same who had attended Mrs. Vincent last evening at the theater. A devoted servant, Ames thought. So why had Mrs. Vincent wanted to leave her apartment just now? Because she didn't want the maid to overhear what she had to say, obviously. So what did that mean?

  They walked along Berkeley Street toward Boylston. The only woman with whom he was accustomed to walk was Caroline, and not that often with her. Serena Vincent was much taller than his sister, and he realized he liked it, that height.

  “They have questioned me again.” Her lovely profile was taut, almost grim.

  “The police, you mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “And—?”

  The sun had come out, but the day was cold, the wind brutally whipping her skirts, his Inverness cape. As they waited to cross at Boylston Street, she slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. “Shall we go to Bailey's?” she said. There were a number of Bailey's; this one was across the street.

  “Wherever you like.”

  They found a quiet table by the window with no other patrons nearby. The waitress took their order and vanished.

  He looked at Mrs. Vincent across the table. The cold air had reddened her cheeks a little—or was it face paint? He hoped not. To the casual observer, she would have looked perfectly calm. But he saw the little line of tension between her brows and the slight trembling of her full, exquisite mouth.

  “Well?” he said. “What happened? Was it Crippen who spoke to you?”

  She gave a short, bitter laugh. “Spoke to me? Hardly that, Mr. Ames. Cross-examined me was more like it.”

  “You should not have submitted to it without a lawyer present.”

  “Next time—if there is a next time—I won't. But that isn't the most important thing I have to say to you, Mr. Ames.”

  She fell silent as the waitress brought their order—coffee for him, a bowl of clam chowder and a chicken sandwich for her. This was, she said, her supper; she would go to the theater directly from here.

  She took a few spoonfuls of soup, and then she said, “You know, of course, about Mrs. Trask.”

  “Yes.”

  She looked away from him for a moment as if she were trying to come to some difficult decision; then she went on.

  “She was blackmailing Richard Longworth.”

  He felt it reverberate all through him. “Why?”

  “Because—obviously—she knew something about him. Something damaging enough to demand money for her silence.”

  “How much money?”

  She waved her hand. “Thousands.”

  “And do you know why?”

  “No. But I do know that he was terribly upset about it, so whatever it was, it was true.”

  He remembered Longworth's haunted eyes, his desperate manner.

  “She is—was—such a silly little woman,” Mrs. Vincent went on. Her voice was calm, but her eyes flashed with anger. “Such a little busybody. I wouldn't be surprised if she were one of the Colonel's spies. Do you know, it was she who discovered that poor boy, Harry Morgan, in flagrante?”

  “Who?”

  “Harry Morgan. I believe you met him when he ran into you the day before yesterday, at my front door.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. He'd forgotten about Harry Morgan, but now he recalled a tall, fresh-faced, handsome youth. “In flagrante with whom?”

  “I have no idea. Harry never told me, but she was obviously a girl of good family.”

  “Why obviously?”

  “Because otherwise he wouldn't have felt the need to seek refuge with me on the Vandergrifts' yacht. As it was, if he'd tried to show his face again in polite society, Mrs. Trask would have made him persona non grata, and well he knew it.”

  Yes, she was right. If Harry Morgan had been discovered with, say, some servant girl, no disgrace would have attached to him.

  “And on the strength of my rescuing him,” she went on, “he has been staying at the American House Hotel all the autumn, laying siege to me.”

  “You are not suggesting that it was Harry Morgan who killed Mrs. Trask, are you? Possibly in revenge for—ah— uncovering him, so to speak?”

  She laughed. She was spooning up her chowder again, seemingly with good appetite. “Hardly,” she said. “Harry isn't the killing type.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She lifted one elegantly clad shoulder and gave him a wry smile. “A woman in my position, Mr. Ames, has to be a fairly quick study of men's natures.”

  “Yes.” He felt himself flush. “I see.”

  “I doubt that you do, but take my word for it.”

  “And what—or who—would you say is the killing type, Mrs. Vincent?”

  She thought about it. “The one with the most to lose,” she said finally. And, seeing his expression, “Why do you look surprised at that?”

  “Because it is exactly the answer a very learned man—a Harvard professor, in fact—gave to me not three days ago.”

  She smiled at him. What depths of mysterious femininity were in that smile—and what traps for the unwary, he reminded himself.

  “You understand that you have given me, just now, the name of someone with an even stronger reason than Harry Morgan's to have killed Mrs. Trask.”

  “Yes.” She watched him steadily. Her smile vanished, replaced by an expression of the utmost gravity. In it, he saw no compassion, no sorrow, no sympathy for the man she had implicated—the man who had been, despite her denials, her lover. Ames was sure of it.

  He reminded himself that according to her maid, she'd rebuffed that man. So apparently he had become a nuisance to her—or worse.

  And what better way to get rid of a nuisance than to implicate him in murder?

  Was she capable of such a thing?

  She was, he realized, a complete mystery to him. As were all women, but this woman more than most.

  “Have you told the police about Mrs. Trask's blackmail threat to Mr. Longworth?”

  She gave him a look that was equal to any of Caroline's. “Of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  “He has trouble enough, wouldn't you say?” Her lovely eyes hardened for a moment. “Let the police do their job. It is no affair of mine.”

  Oh, but it is, he thought. Because—as I have warned you—Crippen has you in his sights.

  “Do you think Longworth killed Mrs. Trask?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he was with me.”

  So that may have been the telegram Longworth sent yesterday, Ames thought, asking for a meeting with her. Either they were going to cover for each other again, or she was lying. But why give Longworth the motive for Marian Trask
's death if she intended to show that he couldn't have killed her?

  “Why did you send a threatening letter to Colonel Mann?” he said abruptly.

  He'd intended to catch her off guard, and for a moment—no more—he succeeded.

  “Because—oh, I don't know!” She'd finished her soup; her sandwich lay untouched. “Because I was angry, I suppose. Because he'd ruined me once, and I wanted him to know that he couldn't do it again.”

  “It was, wouldn't you agree in retrospect, a foolish thing to do?”

  “Perhaps. Yes—obviously. But how could I know there was someone even more desperate than I was to—to get rid of him?”

  “You admit you were desperate?”

  She gave her head an angry little shake.

  “I wanted to—to prevent any gossip that linked me to Mr. Longworth.”

  “Because?”

  “Because, as I have already told you, I want to stay here. I am determined to stay here. And if I continued any association with him, that would have become impossible. I survived one scandal in Boston, Mr. Ames, but I doubt I could survive two.”

  He thought of the maid's tale: Longworth's threats, his pleas, his desperation.

  “How did you meet him?”

  “It was… in New York.”

  “Where you shot a man three years ago.”

  Her gaze was steady—almost too unnervingly steady—as she reached for her sandwich. He reminded himself that she was a skilled actress. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It seems I have no secrets from you, Mr. Ames.” She bit into her sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. He waited.

  “He was a pest,” she said. “He—threatened me.”

  “And Longworth came to your rescue.”

  “Yes. He was very kind—very helpful. He—he managed to get any charges against me dismissed.”

  “How convenient.”

  “You may call it that. At the time, I called it providential. It was… a bad time for me.”

  “Why were you in New York when you have said you want to pursue your career in Boston?”

  For a moment, he thought she would not answer, but then, very quietly, she said, “I went to New York on a personal matter, Mr. Ames. I can say no more about it than that.”

  “I see.” He didn't—or not entirely—but he let it go. They were silent while she took a few more bites of her sandwich; then she pushed the plate away.

  “I must be going,” she said. “They want a run-through of the third act. My co-star is, shall we say, a little shaky in his lines.”

  Something that will never be said of you, Ames thought. He signaled for the check, and while they waited, he said, “Have you given any further thought to who might have fired that shot at you last night?”

  “Yes. And I can't imagine—”

  “Inspector Crippen does not believe that it was intended to harm you. He thinks it was some kind of publicity stunt, and in any case, they cannot find the bullet.”

  She raised a skeptical eyebrow at that.

  “Have you considered that it might have been Richard Longworth?” he asked.

  “No!” Her vehemence surprised him. “It was not he.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because—it was a reckless act.”

  “Entirely in character, from what I know of the man.” And, when she did not answer: “He has threatened you, has he not?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes were downcast, her voice almost a whisper.

  “He wants you to go away with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which you refuse to do.”

  “Yes.” She lifted her chin a little as she stared at him. “A happy relationship between a man and a woman, Mr. Ames, may be the greatest gift life can give. But as I do not have to tell you, it happens very rarely. Most relationships are less than ideal, and many are less than happy. So I cling not to a relationship with a man, not even to the hope of a relationship, but to the security—and the independence—of my work. It is a state of existence I would wish for many women, trapped as they are.”

  She was speaking from a perspective that he found alien in the extreme; he wanted to bring the conversation back to specifics.

  “And so—?”

  She shook her head. “When they find that bullet, Mr. Ames—if they do—and if they compare it to Mr. Long-worth's gun, I am positive it will not match. If, indeed, he even owns a gun.” And then she surprised him by saying with a rueful little smile, “I suppose you are no closer to finding the letters you told me about?”

  “No. I am not.”

  “I am sorry. They must be causing your young friend a good deal of anguish.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Is she pretty, your friend?”

  “Why—I suppose she is, yes.”

  Her lips twisted in a bitter grimace. “Tell her, in the event that she is disgraced, if she loses her place in society as I did—tell her to come to me. She can make another life for herself on the stage. As I did.”

  But she has not your courage, he thought, nor, perhaps, your strength.

  As they left, the sun was low in the west, long, thin orange-red clouds above it. A crescent moon hung in the pale sky above the Arlington Street Church steeple. It would be another cold night, Ames thought, but clear; perhaps he'd take out his telescope.

  He offered to walk with her to the theater, which lay a few blocks away, past the Public Garden and the Common. She accepted with what he thought was a grateful smile, and they set off. Near the corner of Arlington, however, she halted for a moment—no more—to speak to someone.

  Or, rather, to accept someone's greeting.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Vincent.” The speaker was a tall, imperious-looking woman who was, Ames realized with a little shock of surprise, a woman he knew. She was, in fact, a woman of his own and Caroline's circle; the last time he'd seen her she had been in some distress.

  Isabel Dane.

  Serena Vincent met and held Mrs. Dane's gaze. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Dane,” she replied. Her smile was proud and haughty and, just a bit, maliciously pleased. And with good reason, Ames thought: women in his circle, women like Mrs. Dane—especially Mrs. Dane—did not ordinarily speak to women like Serena Vincent.

  He touched his gloved fingers to the brim of his hat as Mrs. Dane acknowledged him with a nod, and the moment passed.

  They moved on, across Arlington Street and down Boyl-ston toward the theater. Mrs. Vincent spoke, but not of the incident just past; she chatted easily, lightly, of nothing consequential, and Ames, remembering his manners, spoke easily in return.

  But all the way to the theater, and even after he left her, he felt the question nagging at him, and he could think of no reasonable answer: why, in broad daylight, in the midst of one of the busiest streets in the city, had Serena Vincent been greeted by Isabel Dane?

  They parted at the stage door. She gave him her hand in its black kid glove; even as she smiled at him he reminded himself of the many men who must have been captivated by that smile.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You are very welcome.”

  “Will you stay in touch with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you will let me know if you find the letters?”

  “Yes.”

  She turned away from him, and for a moment, after the elderly attendant had closed the door behind her, he felt bereft. It was nearly twilight now; the Symphony crowd would just be getting out. He might, if he wished, go along to the Music Hall to join Caroline and Val and the doctor for the walk home.

  He did not wish. He wished to see someone—anyone— who might help him untangle this twisted chain of events and lead him to—he needed always to remind himself— what he had sought four days ago, and what he sought still: Val's letters.

  At this point, he still had no idea who that might be.

  He pulled his cape m
ore closely around himself as he braced against the bitter wind blowing down across the Common. The lights were just coming on, Tremont Street clogged with traffic from one end of the Common to the other, and well beyond. One could walk more quickly along the top of all those conveyances, Ames thought, than seek to be transported inside them. An underground railway like London's was in the works for Boston, he knew; they had better get on with it.

  After a time, as he proceeded past the stylish shops and restaurants, he realized he was not walking aimlessly. There was someone he could see—someone who might, in fact, be able to tell him something useful.

  But when he inquired at the desk of the American House in Bowdoin Square, he was told that the gentleman had checked out early that morning and had left no forwarding address.

  Harry Morgan, it seemed, upon learning of the death of Mrs. Trask—as surely he had—had left town in a hurry.

  “HE'S THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND,” SAID DELAHANTY,“but still, he's not so far gone that he can't talk. Talk! My God, I can't shut him up. When I suggested sending for you, he agreed at once. 'Evening, Doctor.”

  The three men—Ames, Delahanty, and MacKenzie— were in the lobby of the St. Botolph Club. It was Friday evening, shortly before eight. After Ames's disturbing interview with Serena Vincent, and his failure to see Harry Morgan, he had looked forward to his dinner and a quiet evening in his study meditating on the day's events. But then Delahanty's urgent telegram had come, summoning him to the club, and so he had foregone his dinner to answer his friend's summons. Caroline had volunteered the doctor's services, and, to please her, MacKenzie had been glad to go along.

  “Where is he?” Ames asked Delahanty now.

  “In the private members' room, alone.”

  From the rear of the building, they heard voices raised in anger.

  “Trouble back there?” Ames asked.

  “There's some quarrel about where to put the Sargent portrait, apparently.”

  The club's annual Art Show, scheduled to open tomorrow. Ames had forgotten it.

  “All right,” he said. “Let's see him.”

  “Wait.” Delahanty put a warning hand on his friend's arm. “Do you know who he is?”

  “No more than that he is Godfrey Orcutt, noted journalist and world traveler. He's scheduled for a talk here next week, is he not?”