“I think that’s our answer,” he said.
“Don’t you think you’d better call the police?”
“No,” he said. “Not yet”
He went into the bedroom and found the tape recorder, then took the tape out from its hiding place over the refrigerator. He slipped the cartridge into place, picked up the phone, and dialed.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Saving our skins.”
19. SKIN SAVING
JONATHAN BLACK WAS AT home, in his bedroom, lying quietly in bed. He was not asleep, but he was careful not to move. When the call came, he wanted to be sure his cheek had the pink creases of sleep. Small touches, but important touches. Detectives noticed so many things.
And sleep, he thought, was the best kind of alibi. A guilty man did not sleep well on the night of the murder. A guilty man did not have wrinkles from the pillow on his face.
After driving home from his meeting with Dominique, Black had wiped down the car carefully, removing any fingerprints from the girl. Then he had had a glass of milk to settle his stomach, and gone to bed. He had been waiting in bed ever since.
The call came at five. That, no doubt, would be Richard. Calling from the police station to announce that he was being arrested for the murder of the Mitchell girl.
He let it ring five times, then answered it with sleepy irritability. “Hello? Doctor Black speaking.”
“Doctor Black. Charles Raynaud.”
The voice sent a small shiver, a slight premonition, down his back. “Charles, it’s rather late—”
“This is rather important,” Raynaud said. “Richard is dead.”
For a moment, he could not believe what he had heard. It was impossible, incredible, unthinkable.
“Richard? Dead? Oh, my God.”
“I’m sure it must be a shock,” Raynaud said. “It will be less of a shock to hear that Dominique is dead.”
“Dominique?” His mind was churning; he would have to be careful of what he said. “Who is Dominique?”
“The little girl you gave an overdose to. Tonight.”
He’s guessing, Black thought. He sat up in bed and reached for a cigarette on his night table. Guessing. Very astutely, but still guessing.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”
He chose his words carefully, making certain there would be no slips.
“I’m not through,” Raynaud said. “There’s also the bottle.”
“Bottle?”
“It’s cloudy. Did you know it turned liquor cloudy?”
Black frowned. Impossible that he should know…
“Charles, whatever are you talking about?”
“Dezisen,” Raynaud said.
The bastard. It was inconceivable that he should know about that, without being told. Someone must have told him, and nobody knew.
Except Lucienne.
The sneaking bitch.
“Charles, this is all very confusing, and I really—”
“It’s all blown up,” Raynaud said. “Everything has gone wrong. Richard is dead, the estate goes to charity, and you go to jail. As soon as the police find the Dezisen in the bottle. And in Richard. The police will be fascinated.”
“My dear Raynaud, you must be under some terrible delusion. Police? Dezisen? I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
“I just want you to know,” Raynaud said, “that Jane and I are going to keep out of it. If we can. And only you can determine that.”
“I?”
“Listen,” Raynaud said.
There was a moment of silence, and then a mechanical scratching sound. Black poured himself a brandy, stubbed out his cigarette, and was lighting another when he heard Lucienne’s voice. On a tape recording. Lucienne was talking about the will, about hiring Charles, about the death of her husband and Black…
Good Christ.
“I just wanted you to hear that,” Raynaud said, clicking off the tape. “There are, by the way, two copies of the tape. They have been left with friends outside London. There is also a tape of my explanation of this affair, which has been left with another friend. All three tapes will be handed over to the police should anything happen to me, or to Miss Mitchell.”
“Charles, how absurd—”
But the phone was dead in his hand.
20. A QUIET DRINK
“DAMNED UNFAIR,” PETER DICKERSON said, rubbing his eyes. “The whole thing.”
“Shut up and drink,” Raynaud said, “and call the manager.”
The three of them were sitting in Dickerson’s hotel room. Dickerson wore a bathrobe, a wrinkled face, and an unhappy expression. They had just woken him up.
“Call the manager?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s five in the morning.”
“Call him,” Raynaud said, “and have him up for a drink.”
“In God’s name why?”
“We need an alibi.”
“Now? At five in the morning?”.
“Yes,” Raynaud said. “Now.”
Jane said nothing. She sat in a corner and stared at her glass.
“Jane, what the hell is happening? Who is this person?”
“She killed somebody,” Raynaud said.
“Who?”
“Your client. Miss Mitchell.”
“Killed somebody? How ridiculous.”
“Four shots. Two through the heart,” Raynaud said.
Dickerson stared at him. He turned to Jane. “Is this true?”
She nodded.
“Who did you shoot?”
“Whom,” Raynaud said. “Richard Pierce.”
“Richard Pierce? The Richard Pierce?” Dickerson said, his voice rising.
“None other.”
“My God, but the stock we are selling is—”
“Precisely,” Raynaud said.
Dickerson dived for the phone. “I have to call New York,” he said, picking up the receiver. “I have to get through right away.”
“Call the manager,” Raynaud said.
His voice was flat and tired. Dickerson stopped, hesitant.
“Do as he says, Peter,” Jane said.
There was a moment of silence. Then they heard Dickerson say in a calm voice, “I’d like to speak to the manager, please.”
21. TRAP
AT FIVE-THIRTY IN THE morning Black had finished half a pack of cigarettes and most of a bottle of Armagnac brandy. He was pacing up and down his study, thinking furiously, his mind darting from Raynaud to Lucienne to Jane, and around to Raynaud again. He was searching for a weakness, an escape, a way out. There had to be one; there had to be. He could not accept the possibility that so simple a fool as Raynaud had trapped him. Had figured it all out.
But Richard was dead. That was the kicker: that shot everything. The whole plan, his hopes, his expectations. With Richard dead, the estate went to the Chelsea Home for Consumptive Children, and the Westfield Old Soldiers’ Hospital for Chronic Illness, and other equally worthy causes.
He shook his head. Insane, all of it. That tragic list of tragic charities, with old Herbert signing it all away…
He was lighting another cigarette, raising the match to the butt, when the pain struck him. He was unprepared for it, a sharp, excruciating squeezing vise that wrapped around his chest, doubling him over.
He dropped the match on the carpet, where it started a small fire. His eyes were filled with tears of pain, but he managed to stamp the fire out. The cigarette fell from his grimacing lips, and he collapsed into a chair.
His immediate thought was the nitrogylcerine pills, though already he felt the pain shooting in long, agonizing streaks down his left arm to the elbow, and he knew the pills would do no good. Still, he took one pill, and a second, washing it down with brandy.
He sat in the chair, hoping the pain would leave. It did not. It was steady, sharp, like needles plunged into his chest, tensing his muscles, forcing him to breathe in small stabbing gas
ps.
For a time, he thought he would die, or lose consciousness. His mind became fixed on one thing: morphine. He had it downstairs, in his dispensary, but that meant walking one flight down. He was not certain he could do it. He sat in the chair, fighting the pain, and finally decided he must try. He went to the stairs, leaning heavily on the bannister, and made his way down slowly. Near the bottom he tripped, dizzy, sweating, and fell the rest of the way. He had a sudden attack of nausea, but struggled to control it.
Leaning against the wall, wiping the chilly sweat from his face, he made his way to the dispensary. He clicked on the light, and saw the room, green, spinning. He tumbled to the floor.
He did not know how long he was unconscious. When he came to, he was lying in a puddle of vomit. He pulled himself up, the pain still there, and crawled toward the cabinet of medicines. Morphine, he kept thinking, morphine. He found the colorless ampoule, filled the syringe, and injected it into his arm. The pain continued, squeezing tight around his lungs, and he was still lightheaded, but he began to feel a little better. He sat down and waited several minutes, and the pain began to ease. The shooting pains down his left arm stopped, and he began to breathe more regularly.
With his stethoscope, he listened to his heart, though there was no doubt in his mind as to what had happened: massive coronary. His heart was already weak, and the tension, the drinking, and the smoking hadn’t helped. Through the stethoscope he heard a gallop rhythm and a bad murmur.
Some cold, logical corner of his mind told him that he was already a dead man. Perhaps not immediately. Perhaps he would live a day, or a week, or a year. But his hours were numbered.
He could think of only one thing, and the bitterness of it, the horrible twisting agony of it, distorted his mind: Lucienne, though she would not inherit the estate, at least would live. She would survive, and that, in a sense, was success.
He could not permit this to happen. Through his mind flashed a series of images of Lucienne, on the bed, on her stomach, raising her buttocks obscenely, Lucienne with her mouth open, her tongue flashing out, curving, slurping, Lucienne with him, Lucienne with a hundred others, always the same…
He could not permit it. Not after his work, after his efforts and his planning. If Black died, she might fix all the blame on him. And then she might attempt to break the will. The lawyers had said that the will could be broken. Not for certain, but there was the possibility.
So Lucienne might inherit the estate after all.
And Black would die.
No, he could not permit it.
He felt another gasping pain, and another. Despite the morphine, he did not have long. Desperately, his mind cast about for an answer. And desperately, he fixed on his final chance.
It took him two minutes to climb the stairs back to his study. There, he rang for Burgess, the butler. Undoubtedly, Burgess would be asleep; Black had never rung for him before at this hour.
Ten minutes passed. When he heard Burgess’ steps in the hall outside, he picked up the phone and began talking to the dial tone.
“Yes…yes…quite dead…yes, well, we have to implicate her…there’s no other way…Lucienne must be fixed…”
Burgess waited politely in the doorway. Black looked up, pretending to notice him for the first time. He said, “Well, I’ll call you back shortly,” and hung up.
“Burgess, bring me water, would you?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Thanks. I’m afraid we’ve got something of a crisis.”
“Yes, sir,” Burgess said neutrally. He walked away, down the hall, and Black wiped the sweat from his brow. He had no doubt that Lucienne would be called immediately.
Black timed him: six minutes to bring a glass of water. So he had called Lucienne—perfect. He took the glass, and Burgess said, “Will that be all, sir?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Very good, sir.”
When he was alone, Black got up, leaning on the desk, still dizzy, still in pain. He looked down the hail, making sure Burgess was gone, then he went down to Belinda’s room.
Belinda had been his maid for four years. She was a simple-minded, somewhat avaricious girl with no modesty at all, which was why he had originally hired her. She was sleeping; he shook her awake.
“Belinda.”
“Wha—”
“Belinda.”
She roused slowly. The effort of waking her nearly made him faint, but he kept his control. He shook her until she sat up.
“Belinda,” he whispered, “I am afraid something terrible is about to happen?”
“What?”
She was instantly awake, sensing his mood.
“Come with me.”
He led her to his bedroom—she had been there before—and went directly to the wall safe, which he opened. He removed two packets of fresh bills.
“Here is a thousand pounds,” he said, giving it to her. “I want you to hide it carefully. I am afraid, Belinda, that something will happen to me very soon. You have been good and faithful, and I wish you to be rewarded.”
Her mouth hung open in astonishment. She took the money numbly.
“Get dressed,” Black said, hoping she would not notice that he was in pain, or that the sweat was pouring off his face, drenching his collar. “Wait in your room. If you hear any disturbance, run for the police. Do you understand?”
“Yes…yes, sir.”
“Good girl.”
She started to leave.
“Oh, Belinda. One other thing.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Burgess is not to be trusted. Will you remember that?”
She was obviously confused, but she nodded vigorously.
“Good girl,” he said again, and returned to the study.
He sat at his desk, staring at the telephone, trying to focus his eyes on the dial. His head was pounding, his chest was on fire, his arm was virtually paralyzed by pain. The morphine was no longer helpful. He had a terrible desire to pass out, to slip into oblivion. He found himself digging his fingers into his palms to keep awake, to fight off the gray drowsiness that threatened to creep over him.
Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. He took more pills, and an amphetamine. They did not seem to help. He wondered if he could hold on, or if Lucienne would arrive to find him dead…
The sound of a car in the drive.
The sound of a door opening.
Black picked up the phone and dialed WEA 2211, the automatic recorded service which reported the weather. A pleasant female voice began, “Good morning. Here is today’s weather forecast. In London, the four A.M. temperature is fifty-one, the relative humidity is sixty-seven, and the barometric pressure is twenty-nine, point five, and falling. Wind from the west—”
Black began talking. “Yes, we can arrange it. Lucienne is a fool, that’s why. Richard’s death will be easy. Everyone knows that she hated him. We will have no difficulty leaving a small clue, a hint…Besides, old Farnsworth at the Yard is one of her rejects. Only too happy to put on the screws.”
From the doorway, Lucienne said, “Good morning, Jonathan.”
Black looked up in astonishment, quickly cupping his hand over the phone. “Lucienne!”
“I just thought I’d stop by.”
“This is certainly a surprise.” He smiled, trying to ignore the pain in his chest, the dizziness in his head. He could not really see her, and wished he could. He wanted to gauge her expression, her mood…
“Won’t you sit down?”
“No,” she said. “I won’t.”
He returned to his phone call. The voice said, “Tomorrow, scattered showers in East Anglia and Devonshire, clearing by midday—”
“Well,” he said into the phone, “I’ve got to ring off now. Goodbye. Yes. Goodbye.”
He hung up and looked at her, folding his hands across his stomach and trying to control his features.
“Well now, Lucienne. What brings you here at”—he glanced at his watch—“six
in the morning?”
“What do you think, John-love?”
“I haven’t the slightest.”
“So Richard is dead, is he?”
He appeared surprised, though it was an effort. “You know that?”
“I know everything,” she said.
He smiled at her. “Oh?”
“I know about you, too.”
“Oh?”
She shook her head. “Innocence doesn’t suit you, John. Really it doesn’t. An old murderer like you.”
“Me? A murderer? Preposterous. Lucienne, you need sleep, you’re overtired. You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?”
Her voice was sardonic, cold, tense.
“Yes, indeed you are. Bursting in here, distraught…
“And what were you doing?”
“Just a call,” he shrugged.
“To whom?”
“A colleague. Actually, I was arranging a new series of experiments.”
“A new series of experiments.” She laughed. “John, do you think I am so foolish?”
“Foolish? Heavens no. We’re old friends, Lucienne.”
He had a particularly sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. It was all he could do to keep from doubling over. As it was, the sweat poured off; he wiped it with a handkerchief.
“You’re sweating, John.”
“Yes: A small cold.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“It couldn’t be that you’re afraid?”
“Afraid? Why should I be afraid?”
“You tell me.”
Lucienne stood in the doorway, holding her purse in her hands. She tried to hold it casually, but could not; it was heavy. Good.
“I don’t follow you, Lucienne.”
“Richard is dead,” Lucienne said, her face taut, “and something must be done to explain it. To explain your bungling. But you have a plan, don’t you?”
“A plan? No.”
“You have a scapegoat.”
“I wish I did.” He laughed, easily.
“And the scapegoat is me. You’ve been waiting for the chance, the chance to take over the fortune yourself. This is the perfect opportunity. Isn’t it, John?”
Venom Business Page 34