The Red Carnelian

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  Bill stood up just as Keith and Hering came into the room. Keith was yellower than ever, yet he looked relieved. As if he felt safer and more at ease with his conscience.

  Hering said, “McPhail wants you, Thorne,” and motioned with his thumb toward the display department.

  Bill leaned over and gave my cheek a sharp pat. “If I don’t come back, remember I love you.”

  “I’ll write you letters in jail and come to the trial,” I promised, but I didn’t feel very funny.

  Hering looked after him with his usual melancholy. “Nice kid. But he ought to lay off hammers.”

  “Don’t be silly!” I snapped. “Sondo asked him to hand it to her. And he did. That’s all there was to it.”

  Hering didn’t say anything and I had a clairvoyant glimpse of what he might be thinking. A ridiculous picture of Bill getting the hammer down for Sondo, thumping her over the head with it and then calmly strangling her with the suede belt.

  “Detectives are so stupid!” I told him. “It would take a crazy person to go smashing up that mannequin. To say nothing of taking off Sondo’s smock and stuffing it in my desk. If you think Bill did any of that, you’re crazy.”

  “Did I say anything, Miss Wynn?” Hering asked. “And you know, maybe we detectives wouldn’t look stupid if we could get any co-operation out of people like you and Bill Thorne. Do you think it was nice not telling about that party at the Norgaard girl’s apartment?”

  “Oh, so you know about that?” I said.

  “I told them,” Keith broke in, looking at me defiantly. “I told them the whole thing.”

  “Now if I could just remember where I saw that ring,” Hering complained.

  He went off without remembering and left Keith and me to work—or pretend to—in a long uncomfortable silence. I think we were alone for all of twenty minutes and then Carla Drake came gliding gently into my office to sit down in the chair opposite me.

  “Miss Babcock said you were down looking for me,” she announced, “so I thought I’d better come up and see what you wanted.”

  I promptly sent Keith on an errand, though I knew he didn’t want to go. Then I faced Carla squarely, hoping that my manner was as cool as hers.

  “Why did you go upstairs to play that phonograph last night?” I asked.

  She smiled very sadly and sweetly. “It was wrong of me, wasn’t it? But I was feeling so unhappy and I thought perhaps music—”

  “You must have walked up four flights of stairs. Does music mean that much to you?”

  She made an expressive gesture with her graceful, dancer’s hands. “Music means everything to, me. It is all I have left.”

  “But still the elevator is easier,” I pointed out. “And more logical.”

  She was undisturbed and wearing her usual what-will-come-will-come manner. “Not when one is breaking the rules. I had no right to go about the store in that expensive frock.”

  “You were dancing, weren’t you? You were up in that lonely place dancing. Why?”

  For the first time she looked shaken. “It was the white frock. It was made for dancing. And that music was upstairs waiting—”

  I had a sudden inspiration. “Begin the Beguine— Luis and Lotta used to dance to that, didn’t they?”

  She crossed her arms over her breast and drew her hands upward along them, with the gesture of one who is desperately cold. But she showed no surprise.

  “Yes,” she said. “We used to dance to that.”

  And the Carioca too, I thought. That explained her tears that night at Sondo’s when Bill was playing.

  “But you frightened me so,” I protested. “I’ve never gone to pieces before the way I did when I heard that music. Carla, it was almost as if Sondo were in there playing it.” Why didn’t you come out when I screamed?”

  She looked at me with lovely, haunted eyes. “I was afraid, too. I didn’t know who it was, or what could have happened. And I—didn’t want to be found there—dancing.”

  What was she hiding? Had she been frightened because she didn’t know—or because she knew very well the thing that had caused my fright?

  “Why didn’t you want to be found dancing?” I persisted. “Was it because Lotta Montez is still wanted by the police?”

  Her hands closed upon her own shoulders, her arms shielding her body as if from a blow. She made no effort to deny my words.

  “Are you going to tell them?” she asked. “Are you going to turn me over to McPhail?”

  She had that Lost Lady look in her eyes again, but this time I believed in it and I couldn’t help being touched.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Perhaps I won’t have to. I suppose it’s enough that your husband is in jail, so—”

  “My husband is not in jail,” she said with quiet dignity. “My husband is dead.”

  Somehow I was completely taken aback and I don’t know how I’d have answered her. As it happened I was saved by an interruption, because through the door of my office walked one the strangest figures I’d ever seen in my life.

  We pass them sometimes on the street, characters so weirdly dressed, so queer in manner that we feel they belong only on a stage. And yet when we see them in a play we call them exaggerated and unreal.

  This woman was real enough, for all her get-up. She was short and broad, with an ancient, seamed face and black, wicked little eyes like coals set in yellow leather. She was dressed in a conglomeration that might have been the choice of a rag-picker’s dream. Feathers and beads, bits of satin and silk, long faded in hue and set together in a crazy patchwork design.

  “You’re Miss Wynn, ain’t you?” she said in a cracked voice. “I got a letter for you.”

  She came in, smelling to high heaven of an assortment of odors I made no attempt to analyze, and handed me a long envelope. My name was written across it plainly in black ink, the store’s name, and the floor of my office.

  I ripped the envelope open. There were two folded sheets of paper inside and as I pulled them out, something flew across the desk and dropped in front of Carla. It was a picture. A small snapshot cut in a tiny oval.

  Carla picked it up to hand it to me, but something about it must have caught her eye for she looked at it a moment, then handed it across without a word. The expression on her face, though fleeting, was an odd one, and I took the picture quickly and looked at it.

  Carla said, “I must hurry before it’s time for the style show,” and went out, circling my peculiar visitor by a wide margin. I scarcely noted her going, so puzzled was I by the snapshot in my hand.

  It was only a tiny section of the original picture, showing the head and shoulders of a girl and a man wearing fancy dress—the man with a bullfighter’s hat and an embroidered cape about his shoulders, the girl in a lace mantilla and Spanish shawl. They were both young, as nearly as I could tell, though the man’s face was blurred a little. At that it looked faintly familiar. I recognized the girl at once. It was Chris Montgomery.

  I looked up at my visitor. “Who sent you?”

  “My best friend,” she said, preening a little. “My very best friend. Your friend too.”

  She paused and looked suspiciously about the office as if someone might be hiding there.

  “Ain’t no policemen in here, is there?”

  “No,” I said, “no policemen. Who sent you?”

  She bent toward me and I held my breath against the aroma of gin, garlic and no baths.

  “Sondo,” she whispered. “Sondo Norgaard.”

  I’ll confess that a cold finger went down my spine. My visitor managed to smile evilly and squeeze out a few tears at the same time.

  “I’m Mrs. Dunlop,” she confessed. “I got a room down in the basement near Sondo’s rooms. And me and her was best friends. She never trusted nobody but me. And now she’s gone.”

  I could get
something of the picture. Sondo with her warped sense of humor, her derision for most of humanity. How like her to bestow a friendship of sorts on this bit of human wreckage.

  “Well,” she said, before I could recover from my surprise, “I got to be running along. Cynthia’ll be waiting for me. Cynthia’s my cat, you know. Sondo gave her to me. Poor Sondo. She was afraid all along something would happen to her. That’s why she give me that letter to bring you, just in case.”

  She shook her assorted feathers and patches into place and departed with a coy wave of her hand for me. I went over and opened the window wide and then sat down to read the letter.

  It was from Sondo, all right, and it gave me an eerie feeling to be sitting there reading words that she had written.

  Dear Linell:

  I’m writing this at my table before the fire just after you’ve all left. Carla is curled up on the studio couch watching me. I think she dislikes me as much as the rest of you do. But there’s no really telling with Carla.

  You were all against me tonight for what I did to Chris. But in the long run you’ll know I was right. And if by that time I’m not there to speak for myself, perhaps you’ll forgive me. Not that I care whether you do or not. I only hope I’ll be there to laugh.

  Poor Chris! Poor sweet, helpless Chris! I could see it in your faces tonight—what you were thinking. But it’s your sweet Chris who murdered Michael Montgomery.

  Of course I loved him. Why wouldn’t I? If I’d been a man I’d have wanted to be like him. Cold and ruthless and without mercy. That way you never get hurt yourself. But warm, too, with a fire that would draw women always. It drew even me, though I must scarcely seem a woman in your eyes. And I think in his way Monty was fonder of me than of all the rest. Because I understood him. I understood him and I loved him. The others only loved.

  You know that queer Mexican desert thing I painted? I made a joke about that. I told him it was a picture of his soul. He got a kick out of what I said. But he didn’t mind. He was flattered. I gave it to him and after he’d used it in a window at the store, he hung it in the place of honor in his apartment. He said he had a sentimental attachment for Mexico and this picture pleased him a lot.

  But that isn’t what I want to write about. Now that Monty’s gone, I don’t care what happens to me. I only want to avenge his death. I want to see Chris crawling on her knees to me for mercy—so that I can show her no more mercy than she showed him. Because it is Chris. I have the truth.

  You and Bill were pretty smart about that phonograph, but not smart enough. I found the stone from the ring, and there was a picture hidden beneath the stone. Chris’s picture. That’s why she was afraid to have it found. That’s why she went out to Universal to try to recover it. Because it identified her so surely. I hoped she’d break down tonight and confess. But since she wouldn’t I’m saving the stone for the ace I mean to play tomorrow.

  Not the picture though. The picture goes in the envelope with this letter to you. I’m too wise for her. Even if she should succeed in what I think she’ll try—still his picture will go to you and she will be caught.

  But tomorrow I’ll set a trap for her. A very dramatic little trap. And this is how it will go. I had one of the boys bring Tony’s Dolores into my workroom this afternoon, because I thought I might need her tomorrow. Everyone will come down late in the morning, so I’ll have the department to myself. And I’ll dress Dolores in my smock, with my yellow handkerchief about her head. Then I’ll sit her on the stool at my drawing table with her back to the door. I’ll fix the lighting so it won’t be too bright and she’ll fool anyone intent on quick action into thinking it is Sondo Norgaard. Then I’ll put the stone from the ring in plain sight on the drawing table, and I’ll lay a hammer down handily near the door.

  When my trap is baited, I’ll hide behind a screen to wait for her to come. I’m not afraid. She’s a coward at heart, really. And when she’s struck at the mannequin, thinking it is me, she’ll have so betrayed herself that she won’t be able to do anything but collapse. I’ll make her crawl then, before I turn her over to the police.

  However, I know that human plans are fallible, so I’m taking precautions. This picture and letter go into the hands of the delectable Mrs. Dunlop, and if anything goes wrong, they go into your hands.

  Thanks, Linell.

  Yours,

  Sondo.

  I sat there for a while with the letter before me and the cold lake breeze pouring in the window. I was too far away to feel it. I was seeing now exactly what must have happened. The trap being sprung—but not by Chris. By someone who was more of a match for Sondo than Chris would have been. A match in wits and will, not necessarily brawn.

  Then the mannequin smashed and the ruse discovered. And Sondo stepping recklessly out from behind her screen, certain she could deal with the situation herself. Then what? The murderer standing there, hammer in hand, really caught—and this time attacking the flesh and blood Sondo. And when she’d dropped, unconscious from the blow, snatching up the first thing near at hand—that belt of braided suede?

  But there was still the picture to leave me uncertain. Was this really such evidence as Sondo had supposed? I looked at it again, recognizing Chris’s face, wondering about the identity of the man. If only his face were clearer! It looked familiar, yet not familiar.

  I tried to recall the wording of that other note—the one signed “E,” in which the ring had been mentioned. I tried to remember how Chris had looked when she read it. Had there been uneasiness, fear in her eyes? Could she have been the one, after all, to slip that note from my purse? I couldn’t believe that Chris was guilty and I knew I couldn’t take that picture and letter and lay her safety so surely in McPhail’s hands. I got up to close the window and then hid the envelope containing both letter and picture between the pages of a magazine at the bottom of the pile on my window ledge.

  Keith came back a few moments later and when I glanced at my watch I found it was almost time for my meeting with Helena. I’d have liked to see Bill again before I went, but he was evidently still busy with McPhail. My news would have to wait till later.

  I found Helena in a more submissive mood than she’d been in for some time. The moment we’d ordered our lunch I opened my attack.

  “I know just enough,” I said, “so that you might as well tell me the rest. I know Lotta Montez is Carla Drake. I know about the fur theft and that she’s wanted by the police. Now you can tell me what really happened down at the costume jewelry counter last Tuesday. Did you see her come out of the window?”

  Helena didn’t look at me. “No,” she said in a low voice. “No, I didn’t.”

  “But there’s something,” I said. “That evening right after Monty was killed, when we were all back at the apartment. I saw you looking at that scratch on your hand in an odd way. As if you’d just thought of something.”

  “I had,” she admitted. “I hadn’t remembered about Carla exchanging the pin until that moment. It struck me suddenly. But everything happened exactly as I’ve told you. I was around on the other side of the counter when she came down. One of the girls told me she was waiting for me and I went over to the end of the counter near the window, where she was. And while we were handling the pins my hand was scratched.”

  “But I still don’t understand why you should have had that odd look on your face.”

  Helena shrugged. “It was because I knew she had a motive, I suppose. And at the time I couldn’t help wondering.”

  “About that motive,” I said. “Was it because Monty knew she was wanted by the police?”

  “More than that. She was crazy about her husband. He was years younger than she, but they were very happy together. Monty sent him to jail. He was guilty all right. When Monty tried to connect Carla, Luis confessed and exonerated her.”

  “How did he die?”

  “He hanged himself,” He
lena said. “While he was in jail. The police still thought Carla was in on the affair and they were looking for her. But she got away. You can understand her bitterness toward Monty. Luis was the emotional type who felt the disgrace was too much to bear. Particularly in Carla’s eyes, because she hadn’t known anything about what he was doing. But there was one thing, according to Carla, that never came out in the affair.”

  “What was that?”

  Helena looked a little grim. “Carla claims it was Monty who should have been in jail. She says it was he who engineered the whole thing and that she had proof. Luis was weak and a tool in Monty’s hands.”

  I didn’t say anything for a few moments. I could understand many things now. Carla, mourning the death of her young husband, holding to her grief and pain. Some women get a perverse pleasure in the indulgence of pain. That accounted for the way music acted on her. It even made reasonable the temptation that had made her go upstairs the night before, to dance alone to the melancholy music of the Beguine.

  And the motive it gave her!

  “Then she must have come to Cunningham’s deliberately,” I said. “She must have followed Monty here.”

  Helena nodded. “She did. She wanted evidence that would trap him and put him behind bars where he belonged. When she found out how Owen Gardner disliked him, she told him the whole thing and the two of them set about the business of trapping Monty. That, you see, was why Monty married Chris.”

  I echoed her words stupidly. “Why Monty married Chris?”

  “Yes. In an effort to save himself. I don’t know all the details, but I believe Gardner threatened him with exposure. He was worried about Chris’s infatuation.”

  I was beginning to see the whole thing. “So Monty, with his usual audacity, simply crossed Owen up by marrying his daughter and tying his hands?”

  “Something of the sort,” Helena said. “He knew her father would never expose him after the marriage.”

  “But how did he think he could keep Carla still?”

  “By threatening that if he went to jail, he’d take her back with him. She’s been desperately afraid of that.”