The Red Carnelian

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  She made no comment, and spread out the second letter for us to read—and I had to suppress my excitement till the time when I could confide my theories to Bill. This letter was written in black ink in a strong hand. Merely a paragraph, with a name signed to it

  You have brought about the death of the person I loved most. I know you are callous and have no regrets. I know you would do anything to save yourself. But soon you are going to have much to regret because the person you most love will have to pay this debt in full. That person being yourself.

  Lotta Montez.

  “Who on earth,” I said, “is Lotta Montez?”

  Chris shook her head. “I’ve never heard of her. And I don’t know any ‘E’ either.”

  She got up and went back to the desk. There was nothing else in the drawer. I spread out the two letters and the clipping and read them again.

  “The answer must lie here,” I said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t have told you to look in the drawer if anything happened to him. It certainly appears that he was up to something not too healthy and above board.”

  Chris put her hands over her face. “It’s awful to love a person who isn’t good. I wish I could stop loving him. I wish the pain would go away so I could forget.”

  I made no attempt to comfort her. It’s no use talking about the healing of time and things like that. Each of us has to find out for himself. And there’s only one way to find out—the hard way.

  Chris turned back to the desk and made another search before returning to her place beside me on the couch.

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything else,” she said. “Linell, can you connect any of these things with people we know?”

  I couldn’t and when I told her so she seemed oddly relieved.

  “But I don’t think this is for us to decide,” I said. “I’d like to show these letters to Bill Thorne and then turn them over to the police.”

  Chris gave me a startled look. “Oh, must we?”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “But—but it may just mean stirring up unpleasantness in Monty’s past. And what’s the good of that now?”

  It might do a lot of good if it led the police to the murderer,” I said.

  There was a certain relief in Chris’s manner, yet there was uneasiness too. As if she was glad not to have found something she’d half expected to find; and as if she couldn’t be sure it still didn’t lie in those enigmatic letters we’d uncovered.

  I began to think of what she had told me since the murder. That Monty had married her in order to protect himself in some way. From whom? The letters from “E” and from “Lotta Montez” carried obscure threats. Who were these people and how could Monty’s marriage to Chris protect him? There must be some secondary thread here we were missing.

  Chris was roaming about the room and I looked after her thoughtfully. Against whom could Monty have best used Chris as a shield? Owen Gardner? Monty might have married Chris to protect himself against Owen. But what had Owen to do with the whole thing? He hadn’t come to that window until long after Monty was dead. I knew that. Then what—

  A sound broke into my thoughts. Chris heard it too and whirled about. Someone was at the door of the apartment fitting a key into the lock.

  I suppose I realized instinctively that whoever was about to enter would be frightened away if he saw lights inside. Anyway I motioned wildly to Chris to reach the wall switch, while I turned off the reading lamp on the small table beside me.

  Chris obeyed and I could hear the sharp intake of her breath from across the room. I regretted my action the moment the lights were out and the room plunged into darkness. I’d encountered the murderer twice and I’d had enough of waiting in semi-darkness for shadows to move and footsteps to fall—yet here I was going through the whole eerie experience again. This time, at least, there were two of us, Chris and I, and for safety we were separated by the width of the room.

  A faint glow of light came from the tiny entrance hall just off the living room, as the door to the outer hall was opened and closed. Closed softly, stealthily. Then silence, while my heart beat in my throat. I knew someone had stepped into the apartment and was standing in the darkness, listening and waiting. Someone who was behaving in too secretive a manner to have any right to be there. Someone desperate.

  Chris and I waited, too, frozen into immobility. Then there came a faint tap of steps across the bare floor before the carpet was reached and after that only whispering, muffled sound.

  I turned my head stiffly and looked toward the windows, where soft moonlight glowed faintly around the edge of the Venetian blinds. A hand seemed to close over my thudding heart and stop its beating.

  Someone stood between me and one of the windows.

  The figure was tall and black and indistinct. I couldn’t be sure whether it was a man or a woman. It hesitated an instant and then made its way fumblingly through the darkness to Monty’s desk. Hands patted over the surface, halting as if in surprise at the pile of papers Chris had dumped from the drawer, then moving on with a tiny rattle which told me they fumbled for the chain of the desk lamp.

  That second or two was filled with almost unbearable suspense. An intruder had come into this room, hunting for something. Just as an intruder had hidden in my office and broken into Bill’s place. Were these the same? In another moment the light would flash on and we would see—the murderer?

  Fingers found the swinging chain and tugged. A soft pool of light flooded the desk, reflected upward into the face of the woman who bent above the lamp. It was Helena Farnham.

  The relief that surged through me was so intense that I almost burst into hysterical laughter. It lasted no more than an instant, and was followed at once by distrust, by shock and by horror.

  I lived with Helena Farnham. She was my friend. As far as I knew, she’d had no connection with Michael Montgomery. Yet she was in possession of a key to his apartment and she had come here, knowing the police guard was lifted, to look for—what?

  Even though she was dazzled by the light she sensed our presence immediately and whirled to face us. She wore a long black coat and black turban and her face was dead white, her eyes set in deep hollows. I know she must have been as shocked as we were. I know the experience must have been a frightening one—to turn and see us. But her self-control was admirable.

  “Hello, Linell,” she said. “Hello, Chris. Evidently we’re here for the same purpose.” She motioned toward the papers on the desk. “Have you found it yet?”

  Chris came across the room and stood beside me, her hand on my arm. I think she was a little afraid of Helena in that moment. I turned on another lamp.

  “Have we found—what?” I asked, between stiff lips.

  She didn’t answer at once, but looked coolly about the room. Her eyes noted the painting above the mantel, with the signature, “Sondo,” drawn in yellow across one corner, and examined the furnishings, the rugs and hangings.

  “Isn’t it odd,” she mused, “the way the most despicable men often have the most excellent taste?”

  “Helena,” I said, “you’d better explain why you’re here.”

  She smiled at me remotely and her eyes came to rest on the sofa beside me where lay those two letters and the newspaper clipping.

  “So you did find something?” she said, bending above the papers.

  I suppose I should have prevented her from touching them, but Helena was someone I knew, or thought I did. She was someone I’d trusted. And Chris was guided by me, so we sat there in silence.

  She read every word, clipping and all, and her white face and dark eyes told us nothing. Then she straightened, walked away from us to the fireplace, and stood looking down at the dead hearth.

  “So they’ve arrested Tony Salvador,” she said. “Tony didn’t kill Monty. I’m sure he didn’t. They’ll find out and let him go.”

>   Chris spoke for the first time, her fingers still clutching my arm. “What do you know about all this, Helena Farnham?”

  Helena was studying the scratch on her palm again. She spoke without raising her eyes, and there was no irritation in her voice. Only pity for Chris.

  “I know this has been a terrible thing for you,” she said. “But I think Michael Montgomery deserved to die. I think justice has been done and the matter should end.”

  I watched her in shocked silence. That was the way a murderer might talk! And then Chris surprised me still further.

  “I think so, too,” she agreed fervently. “I loved Monty and I still love him. But I hope they never catch the person who did it.”

  Helena came back to the couch, as if she had suddenly made up her mind. She selected one of the letters, picked up a box of matches and ran back to the hearth. Before I could make a move to stop her, she’d held a match to the notepaper and the flame flared upward in the draft from the chimney. By the time I reached her side, it had crumbled to black ash and Helena was breaking it up with the poker.

  “Burn the others too!” Chris cried. “Burn them all!”

  And if I hadn’t thrust the remaining note and the clipping into my purse, Chris would have snatched them. As it was, she was all for dumping every paper on Monty’s desk on the hearth and lighting a bonfire. Hysteria again. A frenzy of hysteria.

  I remembered Bill’s treatment and put my hands on her shoulders, shaking her as hard as I could. She was bigger than I, and I felt like a Pekinese shaking a chow. It turned the trick, however. She let the papers slide back on the desk and went over and curled up on the couch.

  “I want to go home!” she wailed. “I don’t want to go to Sondo’s. I’m afraid to. Something awful will happen. I know it will!”

  Helena and I exchanged glances.

  “If we stay away,” Helena said, “goodness knows what Sondo will cook up behind our backs. I think the idea is horrible, but we’d better go and defend ourselves. By the way, Chris, this is as good a time as any to return your key.”

  She leaned over and dropped the apartment key into Chris’s hand as the girl looked up in surprise.

  “It wasn’t very decent of me.” Helena was calm. “I mean, to go rifling your purse for the key that night you came to our place. But I had to have it, you see. So that I could do what I’ve done tonight.”

  Certainly her poise was amazing. Later on I meant to get her alone and find out a few things. Maybe what she was doing was all right, maybe not. I wasn’t afraid of her and I meant to have the whole thing out.

  It was time now to get on to Sondo’s. I swept the batch of papers back into the drawer, so that the place wouldn’t appear to have been ruthlessly searched, and trailed after Helena and Chris. I let them go into the hall, while I stopped to switch off the lights. And to do one other thing, which had struck me suddenly.

  While they started down the stairs, I paused in the vestibule and glanced at the note in my purse. It was the one signed “E”.

  Helena had burned the letter signed by “Lotta Montez.”

  14

  Sondo lived on Superior Street in Chicago’s more Bohemian quarter, and it went without saying that she had a basement apartment.

  Chris parked her car conveniently near and we got out and went down a dusty, crooked flight of stairs.

  Sondo opened the door and at my first glimpse of her and of the room beyond, I knew I wasn’t going to like the evening.

  Perhaps, under other circumstances, the set-up might have been downright funny. That night there was nothing funny about it. It made no difference that Sondo had gone dramatic in a big way, or that the whole place reeked of bad theater. The room, with all its tawdry trappings, had something odious about it, something evil.

  Stubby logs burned in the fireplace. The leaping flames kept shadows dancing and scorched anyone who came too close. There were lighted candles in heavy wrought-iron candelabra on a high carved chest at the far end of the room, and in brass candlesticks on the mantel.

  Sondo had gone exotic in black satin lounging pajamas and a Russian blouse embroidered in scarlet and gold. But she still looked more guttersnipe than glamor girl.

  The room was thick with heat and cigarette smoke, and even a little wood smoke to sting the eyes. There was music, too—coming from Sondo’s small piano, and for once it wasn’t anything melancholy and sentimental. To my surprise, Bill was at the piano playing the Carioca in a sprightly way that cut the melodramatic atmosphere like an astringent knife, to Sondo’s evident displeasure.

  Carla Drake sat beside him on the piano bench, looking like a beautiful lost lady, with candlelight glinting on her hair and tears running down her cheeks. I couldn’t see what there was about the Carioca to bring tears, but Carla was crying as if her heart would break, and Bill wasn’t paying any attention.

  He caught my eyes over the top of the piano and gave me a slow wink. I sniffed and followed Sondo to the alcove she used for a bedroom. We left our things on the bed, powdered our noses and went back to the heat and wavering light of the living room.

  I wondered just what fruit Bill’s date with Carla had borne, if any, and hoped it was the kind that pertained to the case in hand, instead of a bit of side research on his part. Maybe he’d get it after a while that I was the kind of girl to whom things happened and that he’d better stick around if he wanted to keep up with the parade. I certainly had a few things to relate that would open his eyes.

  Susan and Owen Gardner arrived and I could tell by the way Owen glared about the room that the theatrical set-up offended his taste. Susan looked a little frightened, as if she longed to cling to him, but didn’t quite dare. Chris went over and sat down beside her, with a defiant glance toward Carla, who was lost in her musical jag and didn’t notice.

  The chair nearest the fire had been chosen by Helena, who could manage to be cold even on warm summer nights, and who seemed not to mind heat that would have toasted me pink in five minutes. I picked a studio couch, well back from that scorching blaze, where I had a good view of the room and could keep an eye on Bill at the piano.

  Sondo stood up and clapped her hands. “Stop it, will you, Bill? We’ve got to give Carla a chance to sober up.”

  Bill grinned at her and obligingly raised his hands from the keys. Carla gave a sigh and borrowed Bill’s handkerchief to wipe her eyes. I disapprove of women who never manage to have handkerchiefs of their own. I don’t think they’re as helpless as they like to appear.

  In a corner near the fireplace was a red lacquered Oriental screen and Sondo went over to stand before it. It made a striking background for her small, black-clad person, and I’m sure she was aware of the fact. She looked like a figure on a rather lurid magazine cover, except that she was never still.

  Tense, nervous excitement ran through her like quicksilver and set her hands dancing as she talked. There was an electric gleam in her dark eyes and we could all sense the strong purpose that drove her like a whip.

  “There is only one of us here tonight who has anything to hide,” she said. “All the rest can talk frankly. There is no McPhail to ask questions, no record being made of our words. I’ve invited these few of us who are closely concerned. These few and—the murderer.”

  She paused and sent her brilliant glance around the circle. The silence was like a single breath held in anticipation of disaster. When the doorbell shrilled suddenly there wasn’t a one of us who didn’t jump.

  Sondo ran to answer it and came back with Keith Irwin. We’d all forgotten him as usual. He came in like a dog who expects to be beaten, and his frightened look sought me at once.

  Sondo motioned him toward an empty chair next to Owen Gardner. He took two steps in that direction and then seemed to experience a curious reversal of purpose. There was room on the couch beside me and he turned awkwardly to choose that place. I found mys
elf wondering in faint amusement if he were afraid of Owen.

  Sondo went back to her place before the screen.

  “I’m going to start,” she said, “by reconstructing what happened in window five at Cunningham’s day before yesterday. First of all, we know that Tony Salvador was in the window arranging the golf exhibit and setting up his idiotic bird attachment. Upstairs Monty sent me over to see if Linell would give him a few moments. Chris was in her office and left immediately.”

  The dark look Sondo turned upon Chris was like the flick of a lash and I saw the girl wince. Sondo continued:

  “Monty stayed only a short time with Linell. From her office he must have gone directly downstairs to the window. Tony showed him the bird and phonograph arrangement and Monty laughed it down. Tony had been smouldering all the time Monty was away on his trip. I have reason to know. And when Monty told him to take the phonograph out of the window, he lost that excitable temper of his.”

  Sondo walked over to a small table and picked up exactly the type of cigarette holder you’d expect her to have. It was green jade and very long and exotic looking.

  “So Tony snatched up one of those old wooden golf clubs,” she said, fitting a cigarette into the holder, “and waved it threateningly at Monty. Monty wasn’t afraid of him. He simply took the club out of Tony’s hands and broke it across his knee. Then he threw the two pieces down on the floor of the window and told Tony to get out. I’m inclined to think Tony obeyed and that he left Monty alive in the window.”

  There wasn’t a sound in the room while Sondo lighted her cigarette.

  “Tony returned to window display and phoned Linell to tell her about his quarrel with Monty. I could hear every word he said. I had my phonograph turned off so I could listen. But except for a few details I’ll get to later, that’s where my information ends. I know Linell came over to the department to talk to Tony, and that she went down to the window after that. But what I’m interested in is what happened during the interval immediately after Tony left Monty alone in the window.”