The handkerchief flap was pulled right back now, revealing what lay inside. It was a Colt .45—an old chipped automatic. And, although I hadn’t given it the slightest thought for the last three weeks, I recognized it at once.
It was Angelica’s gun.
Lieutenant Trant’s voice was sounding with peculiar unreality like a voice played back on a faulty tape recorder. “It’s old. Probably bought at a hockshop. It’ll take time, of course. But we’ll track it down.” He gave a little laugh. “Of course, it’ll probably be a blind alley. Probably we’ll end up finding that Lumb bought it himself.”
Cautiously he wrapped the handkerchief around it again, put it back in the envelope and put the envelope under his arm.
“Oh, Mr. Harding, there’s one thing I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
I looked at him, wondering if I was being even remotely successful in keeping my face in control. He was smiling again. The smile was almost shy.
“You aren’t, by any chance, the William Harding who wrote Heat of Noon?”
Of all the questions in the world, that was the one I had least expected.
“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
“I hope you’ll forgive me for raving. I know how embarrassing fans are. But I’ve read that book three times. I think it’s one of the finest novels to come out of the war.” He tapped the manila envelope. “Well, I’m busy and you’re busy. I’d better be on my way.”
He started for the door. “Good-by, Mr. Harding.”
“Good-by, Lieutenant.”
The door closed behind him, but it was as if he hadn’t left. I could still feel his friendly eyes on mine, still hear the quiet voice which had been free from the slightest tinge of accusation. Angelica’s ring had been in Jaimie’s apartment and Angelica’s gun had killed him. My panic stirred again, but I checked it. There were dozens of explanations for both those facts which in no way need inculpate Angelica. In fact, from the time element, I knew she’d had nothing to do with it. And yet Trant would certainly trace the gun to her. Trouble was not far off after all.
But there was no time to brood. I shook myself free of Trant’s atmosphere and went to find Ellen. She was in the nursery. With her passion for class stratification there was practically nowhere else she could be. The cook and the kitchen were just as definitely “beneath” her as Betsy, I, and the living room were “above.”
She was at her knitting gain. It was some sort of depressing pink tube made on a circular needle. A child’s skirt, perhaps? I had expected the icy condemnatory stare to which I had been submitted earlier that morning. To my surprise, the expression on her face was conspiratorial, almost flirtatious. I should have guessed it. This was the result of C. J.’s imperial bribe. I wasn’t that dreadful, loose-living Mr. Harding any more; I was the son-in-law of that dear, sweet Mr. Callingham. It encouraged me.
I asked, “It all went off all right, Ellen?”
“Oh, yes, sir. I said exactly what Mr. Callingham told me to say.”
“And Trant accepted it?”
“I’m sure he did, sir.”
Since she was being so cozy, I was cozy too. I said, “Mr. Callingham’s terribly grateful. You see, Daphne was alone last night and she’d been seeing quite a lot of this young man. He thought it would save embarrassment all around if we arranged it this way.”
She nodded her head emphatically. “Of course, sir. I understand completely, sir. It was that handsome Mr. Lumb, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “And, by the way, Mr. Callingham asked me to tell you that he’ll see you early next week and arrange for your niece’s passage.”
Once I’d made that rather indelicate reference to the bribe, I was afraid I had said the wrong thing. But I had underestimated her venality. She dropped the knitting and clasped her hands together. Her face was positively dewy with sentiment.
“Oh, Mr. Harding, if you knew how wonderful it will be for my sister and for poor little Gladys… Mr. Callingham’s a saint, sir. That’s what he is—a real saint.”
I found this new Ellen so unintimidating that I could move on to really dangerous ground with the minimum of embarrassment.
“About the other thing, Ellen—since it’s so important to Mr. Callingham that Daphne and I should have been alone here last night, I think, don’t you, that it would be more sensible if we both forget about the…”
“Oh, yes, sir. Oh, yes, indeed, I’m sure.” Her lips stretched in a wide smile which revealed pink gum. I had never seen her look roguish before. It was an alarming spectacle. “Those little things do happen, don’t they?”
“They do,” I said.
“And, anyway, we wouldn’t want Mrs. Harding upset, would we, sir? She being always so kind and thoughtful.”
I thought suddenly of Betsy’s homecoming and thought of it with unalloyed delight and a feeling of almost superstitious gratitude.
“Exactly,” I said. “She’s so kind and thoughtful.”
The wide stretch of gum was still visible but above it the eyes were beady now with the consciousness of her power over me.
“I’m sure you’ll love little Gladys, sir. She’s ever so pretty and quiet as a mouse. After she’s out of the hospital, sir, and cured again, I’m sure you and Mrs. Harding would hardly notice her if she had a nice long holiday here with her auntie. She’d be such company for me and a dear little playmate for Master Rickie.” I might have realized that Ellen, once she had savored the delights of being corrupted, would be eager for a second helping. And now that she had revealed her price tag as plainly as her gums, I saw that it might have been much worse. The cured, convalescent little Gladys was comfortably far in the future, a harmless enough burden to bear in exchange for a silence which meant so much to my life. I smiled back at her insincerely, sealing the bargain.
“Of course. Little Gladys can stay as long as she wants.”
Ellen picked up the knitting again and started to click the needle ends. “You’ll speak to Mrs. Harding about it when she comes home, won’t you, sir?”
“I certainly will.”
“She’s such a darling little thing, Gladys, always thinking of others. We all used to call her the little angel and…”
I didn’t object to being blackmailed, but I drew the line at having to waste precious moments listening to anecdotes about little Gladys. Still beaming all over my face, I made my excuses and left the nursery. In the living room I called Paul Fowler at the Fund office and asked if I could come around.
“Sure,” he said. “Come right over. And bring a big, fat check. What the Sandra Fowler Fur, Jewel and Automobile Fund is mad for is money, money, money…”
chapter 8
It was eleven-fifteen and the Fund offices were at 30th and Lexington. My cab could only crawl through the jammed mid-morning traffic. Our snail pace frayed my nerves, but the delay at least gave me a chance to review my plan for Angelica. In spite of my new respect for Trant as an antagonist, I couldn’t see that anything could go wrong with it. Paul and the Prop had no connection with Jaimie. Trant wouldn’t even be aware of their existence until such a time as they were produced by us as Angelica’s alibi. That would give us every opportunity to rehearse a whole imaginary evening in detail.
I was beginning to feel that this whole new world of subterfuge and countersubterfuge wasn’t so alarming, after all. All it needed was typical Callingham Publications, Inc., strategy applied to the private life. There was, I told myself, absolutely nothing to worry about. I even permitted myself to feel the satisfactions rather than the ironies of my promotion. I was vice-president. Dave Manners wasn’t. However it had happened, it had happened.
I found Paul in his office with his legs up on the desk, pouring charm into a telephone. He waved as I entered.
“… sure, Mrs. Mallet… absolutely, Mrs. Mallet, the whole thing’s deductible—if you’ve got the teensiest-weensiest doubt about it, just take it up with your teensy-weensy tax man…” He was grinning at me b
roadly and his lips, chewing gum, were making appalling grimaces around the receiver. Paul had the bluest and wisest eyes of anyone I had ever known. They were eyes which had seen everything and found everything both ludicrous and enchanting. The mere sight of him with his crumpled, wildly expensive suit, his ten-dollar necktie pulled at an angle and his cashmere socks slopped down over his shoes steadied me. I felt whatever shreds of guilt and embarrassment which still clung to me fading peacefully away.
“… a thousand bucks, Mrs. Mallet?… Gee, Mrs. Mallet, you are a dreamboat… The Betsy Callingham Leukemia Fund endorses you; it awards you its Red Badge of Courage. It… yes, Mrs. Mallet, I am in gay vein; I’m floating on air. That is the perpetual condition of those who work only for others in this our life… Good-by, dear Mrs. Mallet.”
He slammed down the receiver and made another ferocious grimace at it. Then, with immense solemnity, he glared a C. J. glare at me.
“Mr. Harding, boy, you have, of course, heard that the A.M.A. has finally discovered not only the cause of leukemia but the cause of all diseases. All diseases—but all of them—are caused by the dread virus Callinghamia and are contracted through the pores of the finger tips from contact with any copy of a Callingham Publication. In the name of science, Mr. Harding, in the name of generations yet unborn, it is our duty never to rest by day or night until each and every one of these dread scourges to humanity… Hi!”
He hadn’t heard about Jaimie’s murder. As I told him, he swung his legs off the desk top and sat up very straight, watching me keenly. I started then to tell him the whole Angelica story. I found it absurdly easy and, as I had expected, wonderfully purgative. It was as if I were seeing it all through his eyes rather than mine; and, as it came out, it seemed shorn of all feelings of shabbiness or folly. It just sounded like one of those sophisticated, against-yourself jokes which make for popularity at cocktail parties. He started to grin very soon in my narrative; when I told him about Ellen’s interruption of our embrace, he laughed out loud; he was roaring later when I described the predicament into which C. J.’s alibi for Daphne had put me. But his laughter was never heartless; with his extraordinary agility of mind and sympathy, he grasped the situation instantly and all its implications. His first thought was for Betsy. Of course Betsy must be shielded. He even thought of Angelica, which was more than I was doing.
“The poor kid. And she was so beautiful. The most beautiful girl I ever saw. Bill, I adore you. You’ve achieved the ultimate, the very quintessence of snafu. But it’s serious, of course it is. What are we going to do about it?”
I proposed my plan that he and his wife should give Angelica an alibi. He accepted it immediately and with enthusiasm. Then, for a moment, a shadow of doubt clouded his blue eyes.
“The Prop! She’s so dumb. You think she can get away with it?”
“I think so.”
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. By the time the cop gets around to us she’ll have forgotten what she did last night anyway. And if she shows the faintest glimmerings of awareness, we can strap up her kisser with adhesive tape and explain to your Lieutenant that she’s suffering from a deeply-ingrained germ-psychosis.” He leaned across the desk and patted my arm. “Sure, boy. You don’t have a thing to worry about. The ex-Mrs. Harding spent the evening with us. It’s a cinch. We were alone. Not a soul pestered us. We’re the most ideal alibi-givers in all Christendom.” He paused. “By the way, where is Angelica?”
It seemed impossible, but, until then, I had never even thought of Angelica’s whereabouts. I’d suggested the Wilton and I’d assumed she’d gone there. But—suddenly anxiety came again.
“I think she’s at the Wilton.”
“Think! You’d better call and find out.” He gestured to the phone. “Tell her to come right over. The Prop, believe it or not, has planned a shopping spree for this afternoon. She’ll be in any minute to be taken expensively to lunch and then to toss the family nest egg away in a riot of sleazy black underwear. We’ll all four of us lunch together; we’ll brief Angelica; we’ll get it all over with.”
“I can’t have lunch,” I said. “I’ve got a date with C. J. and a VIP.” I glanced at my watch. It was twelve-thirty. I felt the anxiety spreading. “You could lunch with Angelica, though, and get it all straight. And afterward, when I’m through with C. J…”
I stretched my hand toward the phone. It started to ring. Paul picked it up, arranging his face into a fiendish Man from Outer Space expression.
“Paul Fowler at the instrument… Oh, hello, darling, where are you?… You are? But, baby, you… What?”
As he listened, the Martian face disappeared; he looked very solemn.
“What…? You did, baby?… Oh, no… Oh, no. Oh, good grief… No, baby. Never mind. No, no, forget it. Just come right over… Yes, darling, you know I love you, enormously improbable though it must seem.”
He put down the receiver. His face, as he watched me, was almost haggard, although he was smiling a smile which was meant to be jaunty.
“It won’t work,” he said. “We’ll have to think up something else.”
“Won’t work?”
“That cop of yours has too much on the ball. Apparently, Daphne mentioned us to him. He’s been around to the Prop. In fact, he’s just this minute left; that’s why she called. Among other things, he asked her what we were doing last night. She told him, of course, that we spent the evening together—alone.”
Suddenly it seemed to me that Lieutenant Trant was at my side, standing there, quietly, modestly, not looking at anything in particular. I did remember then that Daphne had mentioned the Fowlers. It had been the briefest, the most casual reference. She had merely said something about Betsy and me giving a party for Jaimie, and Betsy and the Fowlers having been crazy about him. That was all. And yet Lieutenant Trant had taken it in; somehow, in the briefest time, he had discovered who the Fowlers were and, with what seemed like satanic intuition, had gone directly from me to the Prop.
Once and for all he had neutralized the Fowlers and now Angelica was left standing outside our pattern, alone, in full view of the enemy, imperiling us all.
In my awe of him, all my old resentment of Angelica came rushing back. It was all her fault. She was the menace, the unwanted one, the one who should never have existed.
Paul was looking at me, the whites showing vividly around his blue irises. “Well, Bill, what do we do now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call her at any rate.” He lugged a telephone book up onto the desk and searched through it. He found the number, reached for the phone and dialed it.
“Hotel Wilton? I want to speak to Mrs. Angelica Harding.”
I stood looking at him, still completely disconnected, wondering what I was going to do if she wasn’t there, if, on top of everything else, she had become inaccessible.
“You have no Mrs. Angelica Harding listed?”
I heard him say that and my heart plummeted. “Hold on a minute.” He looked at me. “What was her name before she married you?”
I’d never thought of that. I said, “Roberts.”
He said into the phone: “What about Angelica Roberts?” His face relaxed. “You have? Fine.” He was grinning now. “Angelica? Hold on a second.”
He handed me the phone. I took it, feeling a savage desire to punish her for the scare she had given me with the name on top of everything else.
“Angelica?”
“Hello, Bill.” Her voice brought her so startlingly back to me as a person rather than an abstract disaster, that it threw me off a little.
I said, “You know about Jaimie?”
“What about Jaimie?”
“You haven’t read the papers?”
“The papers? No, I haven’t been out of my room all morning. Why should there be anything in the papers?”
“He’s dead,” I said. “Last night, he was found in his apartment shot, murdered.”
She gave a little gasp. Then, for a long moment, the
re was complete silence. At length, in a voice so small that I could hardly hear it, she breathed, “Oh, no. No, it can’t be.”
“It can be.”
“Who did it? Who killed him?”
“That’s the least of our worries.”
“Bill, where are you? Can I come to you?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve got a lunch date with my father-in-law. But stay in the hotel.”
“Yes.”
“Whatever happens, don’t go out. Stay there. I’ll get around as soon as I can after lunch.”
“All right.”
“And if a policeman comes, a Lieutenant Trant, for God’s sake, get out of seeing him.”
“A policeman? Oh, yes, of course. I see.”
“Stay there. Don’t do anything; don’t see anyone until I show up.”
I dropped the receiver. I said to Paul, “I’ve got to get to C. J.”
“Sure, Bill, what can I do to help?”
“What is there you can do now?”
“You’ll be able to fix up something.”
“I will?”
“Sure, you will.” His warm, friendly face, about the only face in the world which I felt at that moment I could trust, was watching me anxiously. “But there’s just one thing, Bill. Remember the Slave Driver. I know what you did with Angelica was nothing. There isn’t a male in Manhattan who doesn’t play around with playing around once in a while. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. But do be careful with Betsy. Women don’t figure like us—particularly women like Betsy. If she heard about last night, if Ellen gave her a blow by blow account, it would raise hell with her. It would…” He broke off. “Goddamit, I should be interpreting your wife to you!”
He put his hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, Butch. You’ll work it out. Run along now to Daddy-in-law, like a good little vice-president.”
He went with me to the elevator. As I got into it, he put his hand on my arm again.
“Keep in touch. Old Mother Fund’s always here with her infinite bosom and her all-encompassing lap.”
The Man with Two Wives Page 7