by Basil Copper
Close up and without her glasses she wasn’t a bad-looking woman; grief had softened the harsher lines of her face and she looked younger without make-up.
“Come in,” she repeated, ushering me forward. “I’m all in a mess.” She patted her hair and led the way into a living-room.
This repeated the pattern of the shop but on an even more sumptuous scale. There was crystal and jade and Ming; mahogany tables that reflected back the light, made by English cabinet makers dead this three hundred years; a blue carpet with a pile that made Horvis’s look like lino; book cases, cabinets full of china and glass; brass warming pans and all that sort of stuff.
Large divans covered with green silk and piled with cushions made me feel uneasy; all these ottomans and hangings gave the place an Oriental air and I looked around for a brass gong. There wasn’t one, but somehow I still felt uneasy. There were dim lights burning in wall brackets of twisted metal and lots more wrought iron balustrades painted pale blue. Through a half-open door lights burned in a bedroom; there was a large bed, half seen, with what appeared to be a white mink coverlet. To complete the M.G.M. touch there was a blue fox fur coat laid casually across the bed.
In one corner the wrought iron descended in a spiral staircase and as I made an appreciative noise at Whistler’s uncle who leered at me in a friendly manner from a gilt frame on the opposite wall, I saw that the stairs ended in a hall furnished in the same extravagant manner. Despite the foreshortening I could make out some pretty substantial oak doors covered with an ironwork grille; I guessed, rightly it turned out, that they led to the shop beyond. When locked, they’d turn the place into an isolated apartment, approachable only from the stairway in the street. The rooms had that quiet which is unmistakable. I was certain there was no one else in the flat. I turned back to Mrs. Standish. She was bending over a table and I saw bottles, a cut glass decanter, an array of glasses.
“What’s your poison?” she asked.
“Scotch,” I said. “With plenty of ice.”
I saw something else too. Mrs. Standish bent farther over the table to pour the drinks. She had a pretty good figure. She was naked underneath the gown and I could see way down between her breasts. Any other time I might have been interested but hell, this was no way to respect a woman’s grief. Anyway, she didn’t give any sign and I transferred my gaze back to Whistler’s uncle.
“Hogarth?” I asked.
“Watteau,” she said. “Wrong artist, wrong country.” Some of the frost had gotten back into her voice. She may have had a few but she was a businesswoman at heart.
“Sorry,” I said. “I never majored in art.”
“You didn’t come here to discuss art?” she queried, interrupting me in a gentle, almost absent-minded manner.
“Well, no,” I said, swilling my drink in its frosted glass. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
We sat back on the green silk divan. It was better like that. When she sat down the gown pulled back tight over her breasts. Now I got rid of that temptation I could only see most of her legs. They were bare too and stuck a mile out of the parting of the dressing-gown. I made sure the cord was fastened tightly and transferred my gaze to her shoulder level. They weren’t bad legs either, but I had other fish to fry. Besides, I had to save myself for the Johnson girl.
I glanced at my watch and was surprised to find it only a quarter after eight. It sure seemed late. Mrs. Standish took no notice. She took another swig at her drink, which was a long thing with a lot of salad and that sort of junk floating on top of it, and leaned farther back on the divan. She closed her eyes and her voice came from far away.
“What makes you think I can help you, Mr. Faraday? And what’s more, what makes you think I’d want to?”
Her voice was unexpectedly sharp, considering the atmosphere and all, that I was at a loss for a moment.
“I’ve already told the police all I know. I couldn’t help them; what do you expect me to say to you?”
I drank some more and shifted my position on the divan. “Supposing you tell me? I might pick up something the cops have overlooked.”
She laughed suddenly, a harsh sound which seemed to set the glasses tinkling in the dim room.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Faraday? Didn’t you collect your fee? Adrian would be amused at that. A real joke …”
She subsided again and started to get outside her drink.
“He did pay me, as a matter of fact,” I said evenly. “I tore the cheque up.”
Her face dropped and she bit her lip. “I’m sorry I said that,” she said, putting her hand on my arm. “I had no right …
“Forget it,” I said. “What is important is for us to talk.”
She took another swipe at her drink and wriggled her feet in her slippers. “Why don’t you call me Margaret?” she said. “What’s your name?”
I told her. “Now that we’re Margaret and Michael,” I said, “how about some co-operation?”
“What makes you think I know anything?” she persisted.
“I have nothing to go on at all,” I said. “Don’t you want Horvis’s murderer caught?”
Her lips twisted. “What good would it do? If I did tell you anything it would only cause more trouble. There’s been enough killing already.”
I leaned forward. “Then the two shootings are connected?”
She ignored my remark. “I’ve said too much. Another drink?”
She poured me another liberal Scotch and mixed herself a second salad mash or whatever it was. She looked at me calmly, swizzling her drink in the glass. Her eyes were quite steady and bright. In the silence the ticking of an ormulu clock sounded like someone breaking rocks.
“Would you like some money?” she asked. “A sort of retainer. Because …”
“No thanks,” I interrupted her. “I have a thing about taking money from women. Besides, I’m in this business for the love of it.”
“Oh, I’m not offering you a fee to go digging up information no one wants uncovered,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to do anything for it.”
“In other words you want to buy me off?” I said.
“Something like that.”
I put down my drink. “Why is it everyone on this case wants to let things lie,” I said. “Two people get holes drilled in them and everyone from here clear to Sunset Boulevard wants to forget all about it. Either disinterest has reached a high level in this state or it isn’t healthy to be too curious. But I’m starting to worry someone.”
I told her about the interrupted attempt to force my door. She went white and her hand trembled as she hurriedly put down the drink.
“You think the whole thing’s connected?” I asked.
“Don’t you?”
“I’m asking the questions,” I said.
She drank again. “I suppose it’s no use asking you to stop poking your nose in, fee or no fee?”
“Not a chance,” I said. “I’m too curious. Besides, the police would only go on digging if I didn’t.”
“I shouldn’t rely too much on the police if I were you,” she said dryly. “The L.A. force is full of bad eggs.”
“Meaning what?” I said.
“Meaning that sometimes information gets dropped into pigeon holes,” she said.
That set me thinking. We sat quiet and I studied Whistler’s uncle; the leer looked even more pronounced. I had a feeling that something might break for me tonight but sitting around wouldn’t help. I finished my drink and stood up.
“Thanks for the visit,” I said. “And for being so nice.”
She looked surprised. And alarmed too, I thought. “You’re not going, surely?”
“I’ve got to earn a living and the overheads are mounting up,” I said.
“Sit down, Mike, and listen.”
I sat down. She made one last try. “You really are going on with this?”
I said nothing and just stared at her calves; they had a nice shape. She sighed suddenly.
“All
right,” she said. “I might be able to help. But nothing must be traced back to me. About two years ago Adrian started taking trips and becoming rather mysterious about some aspects of the business. I used to ask him about them but he would never say much. Then, some months ago, he did take me partly into his confidence. There was an invention, it seemed, in the motor industry, which could be made to yield a lot of money. I don’t know the details.”
I looked puzzled and she laughed. “Sorry. There was no reason for you to know. Adrian was quite a businessman. The motor connection arises through his brother in Detroit. Leslie is a manufacturer of motor car bodies in a big way.”
“Do you think this invention was stolen by whoever murdered Braganza?” I asked.
“Difficult to say. I know so little. But I think it may be likely.”
“But despite this you can and will help me?”
“Yes, I can help,” she said quietly. “I don’t know what the hell this is all about or really why I’m doing it, but I will.”
As she went to get up the phone rang from the hall below. “I won’t be a moment,” she said and went down the stairs. “Oh, hullo Arthur,” she said. “I thought it might be you.” This was an opportunity too good to miss. I went round the room in rapid strides. I concentrated on a small alcove in a corner which seemed to be used as an office. There was a large mahogany bureau there which looked interesting. There was a gilt-framed mirror hanging in the corner and by jumping forward about five feet from the bureau, I could just see Mrs. Standish at the phone; this would be a help in case she came up the stairs suddenly. I don’t know what I expected to find, but sometimes you hit the jackpot without meaning to.
The bureau was stuffed full of old receipts, bills, the usual things; a lot of it was an obvious overspill from Horvis’s office in the shop. That was another place I should like to give a going over. It would prove difficult though, as it would obviously be wired for an alarm. I riffed through piles of stuff, quite aimlessly, not really knowing what I was looking for. I could hear Mrs Standish rambling on; she was still at the phone but had sat down on the steps of the staircase, with her back to me.
I returned to the bureau. It had long, low drawers in the front of it, which went way back; they all had keys in the locks. Four of them were unlocked, but the fifth, the second from the bottom, had the key turned. I have a hunch about things like that and in a second I had the drawer open. It slid noiselessly on beautifully fashioned runners.
The drawer contained some magazines, a few odds and ends and, as I pulled it out farther, a couple of big, old, black-bound volumes. I flipped them over languidly and found they were photo albums. Holidays in Maine, days on the beach, the usual. Working swiftly through the years I found an interesting pattern; Mrs. Standish young, Mrs. Standish in her teens; Mrs. Standish in her twenties and thirties with a tall, sad-faced man with a black moustache, whom I took to be Mr. Standish. The second album was more interesting; the photographs were much more recent. Mrs. Standish still looked attractive — strange that I should have thought her matronly and frosty in the shop — but Mr. Horvis had replaced her husband as a companion.
There was one beach shot of her and Horvis; they were good likenesses, obviously taken with an expensive camera and not just a beach photographer’s rush job. I slipped the picture out of its mounts and put it in my wallet; she was in a bikini and looked really something and Horvis was in Bermuda shorts; they had their arms around one another.
I was just about to push the drawer back when I saw a big buff envelope. It was right at the back, under the albums, the last thing in the drawer, which is why I almost overlooked it. I have a hunch about things like that, too. Which is why I decided to open it. I didn’t learn much about the Horvis shooting but a lot about human nature.
The envelope was full of glossy photographs, obviously self-taken with the same expensive camera. The first pile came roughly in three classes; Mrs. Standish clothed; Mrs. Standish partly-clothed; Mrs. Standish nude. Then they began to get more elaborate. Presently Mrs. Standish was partnered by Mr. Horvis. They were both nude and seemed to be enjoying themselves. The backgrounds were varied; deserted beaches, automobiles, an expensively furnished bedroom or a familiar background crammed with antique furniture. I looked wistfully at Whistler’s uncle and eyed the green divan with more respect. This was one of the most entertaining evenings I’d had for some while. I longed to pull up a stool and sit down, but I didn’t have the time.
It was when I was holding one of the pictures upside down and squinting at it, that I saw Mrs. Standish. She was at the top of the staircase, one hand on the banister, looking at me intently. She didn’t turn a hair. In fact, she seemed highly amused. Some woman.
“It goes that way up,” she said dryly.
“Thanks,” I said. “I see you go in for health cures.”
“Perhaps you’d like one of those to go with the other?” she said.
“Good of you,” I said. “Next time I could operate the box Brownie. But it wouldn’t do for me to be caught with these on the street. Perhaps you could mail them on for me — under plain, sealed wrapper?”
She hooted with laughter and went to pour another drink. “What did you expect to find, Mr. Faraday?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Certainly, this was a surprise.” She looked at me in genuine puzzlement. “Why? Because I’m a woman of sensuous appetites and pleasures? I’m no different from anyone else in this world.”
“Agreed,” I said. “But why perpetuate it in print? These might get in the wrong hands.”
She shrugged. “Why not? They’re all I have left now.”
“A very beautiful friendship,” I said.
She flared up momentarily at this. “He was good to me. My husband left me many years ago. Can you blame me?”
I said nothing. She looked at me in silence again. Mrs. Standish shifted where she stood and one of her long, very mature legs came through the parting in her dressing-gown. It looked pretty good.
“You wouldn’t like to take me on?” she asked.
“Not tonight,” I said. “It’s my night for junior scouts.”
She gave another throaty laugh. They seemed to be her speciality.
I looked at my watch again. Time was creeping on and I’d talked my ass off for one evening.
“If you don’t mind,” I said. “You were going to fetch me something when the phone rang.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I almost forgot.”
As though a curtain had been pulled down she suddenly became business-like. She put down the glass and went into the bedroom. Then she called me in. I should have known better. There was a lot of peach and white in the decor and a hell of a lot of that heady French perfume. She was standing in front of a dressing-table and she went to hand me a small white envelope sealed with sticky tape; somehow it slipped out of her hand and went on to the carpet. I got down to pick it up and when I straightened Mrs. Standish had opened up her dressing-gown and as I gawped she let the whole thing slip to the ground.
She was stark naked and calmly stood back for me to admire her. She was silhouetted from every angle in the mirrors around the room; it wasn’t like there was anything so very terrific in her figure, but she had that sexy something which is worth all the rest.
“You like?” she said softly. I liked, that was for sure, but this wasn’t the night for it. She suddenly stepped forward and all the front of her body came along mine; she cupped my hand on her nipple and her head went back as we kissed. It wasn’t so much a kiss as a savage interlocking of our mouths and I felt the dart of her tongue as she bit at me. Then she pushed me quickly away and stood back for me to admire her again.
“I’ll save it for you,” she breathed.
“You do that,” I said, half angry with myself. With a quick movement she bent, scooped up the dressing-gown and covered herself. Then, the gown knotted at the waist, she became again the gracious hostess.
“When?” she asked.
“Soon,” I said. “I’ll give you a ring.”
I turned and went on out. I hadn’t got more than two yards when I heard that gurgling laugh again. “You forgot this.”
I saw the envelope lying on the carpet where I’d dropped it. St. Peter himself would have dropped his halo this evening. I picked it up and pocketed it.
“Thanks for the drink,” I said. “I can see myself out.”
I knew I had to get out of the bedroom or I wouldn’t have made it. In the hall I paused to straighten my tie in the mirror. It was then that I heard a soft plopping noise. It was the second time that day and it had an electric effect. I went through into the lounge like a tornado. I needn’t have worried. Margaret Standish was standing by the bureau with the open envelope of photographs. She had a newly opened bottle in her hand and was pouring herself another libation. She hadn’t heard me coming on the soft carpet.
I was sweating again but had to give myself a grin in the mirror as I backed out. I went on the porch and gulped in some night air. I went on down to the street. A clock was striking nine somewhere as I climbed into the seat of the Buick and it felt like another day since I went in. I glanced up but nothing moved behind the pink blinds. The city was still and nothing stirred in the length of the street either.
I got out the envelope and looked at it under the dim light of my dashboard. There was no writing on it, so I tore it open. Inside was something wrapped in several layers of tissue paper. It felt like a flat piece of metal. I unwrapped it and sat staring in the miniscule light cast by the instrument panel. A key was lying in my hand. Just that and nothing more, but I felt a good deal nearer knowing who’d killed Horvis.
It was the key of a safe deposit box. It had a number and the key belonged to the local branch of the Chase National down here in L.A. I put the key in my pocket and lit a cigarette. Then I tore up the envelope and pieces of tissue, walked about ten yards and stuffed them down the nearest storm drain.
Then I drove off. I had an appointment and I was late already.
4 - Sherry Johnson