Fifth Key

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Fifth Key Page 2

by George Harmon Coxe


  “Look, kids,” he said, leaning through the taxi window. “You go along and have fun. I’m tired and—”

  “Oh, now, wait,” Owen Faulkner said. “Just for a little while.”

  “But, Kent.” Sheila sat up, and light from the entrance picked out the red-painted mouth and arched brows of her small oval face. “You can’t do this to me. I wouldn’t dare ride alone with Owen. Do you want me to get my throat cut?”

  “Come on,” Faulkner said, ignoring the crack. “You don’t have to stay.”

  Murdock sighed and opened the door, unable to think of any further excuse. Sheila immediately moved over to her side of the cab.

  “You sit in the middle,” she ordered.

  Faulkner gave the driver an address, and Murdock leaned back. “The whole thing is silly.”

  “What’s silly about free drink?” Sheila said.

  “It’s not often Sheila and I have anything to celebrate,” Faulkner said. “This may be your last chance to see it,” he added sardonically.

  Murdock’s remark had not been directed at the celebration. Sheila’s brain child, Sob Sister, had been a success as directed and produced for Universal by Faulkner. Tonight’s performance, he had learned, had pleased everyone including the client, and as a result the contracts were to be signed tomorrow—through George Stark’s agency. This rather meteoric rise of a new show to a sale after five sustaining broadcasts was well worth a celebration. But what Murdock referred to was the man and woman who rode with him.

  His mind went back for a moment or two as he stared out through the cab windows, and because he had known them years ago when all three worked for the Courier, he talked to them without restraint or diplomacy.

  “Why don’t you give up?” he said.

  “Who?” Sheila wanted to know.

  “Both of you. You’ve got a good thing in this program. Wouldn’t this be a good time to break it clean? You’ve been separated quite a while, you know—over two years isn’t it? Why don’t you go to Reno, Sheila?”

  “Because I’m a dope,” Faulkner said. “Because I signed a paper that says I have to give her two hundred a month.”

  “And why not?” Sheila asked. “You can afford it, darling.”

  “There was a time I couldn’t.”

  “And besides,” Sheila said, as though she had not heard, “it keeps you safe—from other women.”

  Owen Faulkner was slumped in his corner of the cab, his chin buried in the collar of his topcoat, his battered felt angled over his eyes. He did not move. After a block of silence he said, “Don’t count on it, Sheila. I’ve had about enough.”

  In the semidarkness Sheila’s smile seemed cold and fixed. “Have you?” she said. “Have you really?”

  That was all, and Murdock was glad. It had, he realized, been a mistake to bring the matter up; it was none of his business and he should have remembered the fact in the beginning. He said he was sorry he mentioned the matter, but he couldn’t forget what had been said. He had an idea that underneath the ironic cadence of the words was a lot of pure venom.

  At George Stark’s apartment in the East Sixties, three men Murdock had not met were just leaving when he arrived with Sheila and Faulkner. Sheila seemed to know one of them for when they left she walked into the hall to continue talking to him.

  Faulkner gestured with his thumb. “They’re Esquire Products,” he said to Murdock.

  “The sponsors?”

  “To be—we hope.”

  “They’re sold,” Stark said to Faulkner. “We’re in, boy. Take off your coats.”

  Sheila came in and closed the door. She slipped off her coat and put her bag on top of it. She looked into the mirror and fussed with her hair for five seconds while the others waited and then led the way into the living-room where Lois Edwards and Arthur Calvert, the leads in Sob Sister, were waiting.

  Calvert lifted a hand and said, “Greetings,” and Lois Edwards smiled at them from the divan.

  Sheila smoothed down her dress and that made it cling nicely all over. She asked Arthur Calvert if he wasn’t being rash and he grinned and looked at the glass in his hand.

  “You know how it is with me,” he said, “when there’s free Scotch.”

  He rose lazily and moved a chair for her, offering cigarettes as she sat down. Stark asked what the others would have to drink. Owen Faulkner asked if he could help, but Stark said he could manage, and when he went away Faulkner walked past Sheila and sat down beside Lois Edwards after she made a place for him where actually none was needed. She smiled at him as he turned toward her, and he smiled back. They did not say anything but spoke to each other like people in love—with their eyes.

  Murdock saw the look and continued to watch them, surprised now because this thing they felt was so obvious. He wondered why he had not noticed some indication of the attachment at the studio; then, remembering something else, he glanced covertly at Sheila.

  She was saying something to Calvert but she was watching the couple on the divan, her mascaraed lids half closed and her red mouth tight, and Murdock, recalling again the scene in the taxi, began to appreciate the significance of what had been said. He was still speculating about this when the buzzer sounded.

  Calvert got up and went into the foyer to open the door, and the room was silent until Ira Bronson’s husky staccato voice sounded a greeting. He came in presently with Calvert and hailed them with enthusiasm.

  “I heard it,” he announced. “It was terrific. Where’s George? What did Esquire say?”

  George Stark came in then, said hello to Bronson, and passed the drinks, answering the agent’s questions as he did so. Bronson rubbed thick hands, and his round face beamed.

  “Sob Sister will have a rating of fifteen or better at the end of the first month,” he announced. “Anybody want to bet?”

  No one, it seemed, did. Someone said he hoped so, and Stark echoed the thought. He asked Bronson what he was drinking, and the agent shook his head. He muttered something about his stomach. He looked abused.

  “Why don’t you take a pill, Ira?” Sheila said, her voice too sweetly concerned.

  Bronson did not look at her, and his tone seemed suddenly edged. “I think I will,” he said.

  George Stark went out with him, saying something about the sponsor, and when they returned they were still talking business, and now the others joined in, so that from then on the conversation revolved around the show and the night’s performance.

  Murdock sipped his drink and listened idly as they spoke of lines which had been nearly muffed and bits that had been overplayed, and when they began to discuss next week’s script, he listened no more but considered those about him.

  Owen Faulkner, sandy-haired and restless, kept twisting the signet ring on his right hand as he talked, and the harassed look about his eyes made him seem older than his twenty-nine years. Beside him, Lois Edwards had little to say. She was a tall girl, big-boned but not heavy, about twenty-seven, Murdock thought, and according to his standards, attractive. He liked her auburn hair and milky skin, the prominent cheekbones; there was an appealing grace in all her movements, and he liked especially the warmth and timbre of her voice. Pleasant in any setting, it found added intimacy and charm in some alchemy of the microphone, and though he had never heard of her before today he could understand why she had become successful in the field of radio.

  Arthur Calvert had tossed one leg over the arm of his chair and was nursing his drink. Big, blond, and good-looking, though no longer a juvenile he had, Murdock remembered, once been a name in Hollywood. Now, after years of hard luck and inactivity, he was on his way up again by way of radio and by courtesy of Sheila who, as the author, had insisted that he have the male lead on her program.

  That brought Murdock around to Sheila, and as he looked at her he realized that the conversation had become desultory and the silences longer and more awkward. There was nothing now to suggest that anyone had come here for a celebration; rather there was a sense
of somberness and strain in the room. A question was asked and answered. Ice clinked in the bottom of a glass as a drink was put down. A match was scratched, a cigarette lighted. When the silence grew too tight someone would break it.

  Aware of this now and curious as to the reason, Murdock got the idea that Sheila was the source. Owen Faulkner continued to avoid her with his eyes. Stark, looking very neat and well-groomed in his chalk-striped gray flannel and white shirt, talked smoothly and well as befitted a successful account executive with an advertising agency like Gray & Rankin, but a certain connotation of stiffness came into his words when he spoke to Sheila, and it seemed to Murdock that some of this stiffness was reflected in his bony face and the thin line of his mouth beneath the mustache.

  Finally Ira Bronson jumped up and said he had to go. He was delighted with the way things had worked out. He would be around for the signing of the contract in the morning and he’d see Sheila then.

  “I can let myself out,” he said. “Don’t bother coming to the door, George.”

  They waited, hearing him putting on his things. The door opened and closed, and the silence came again. Minutes dragged by, and Faulkner turned his ring harder, and even Lois Edwards seemed no longer at ease. Finally Calvert swung his leg from the chair arm and cleared his throat.

  “Isn’t it awfully quiet for a celebration?” he said. “Or are we having a silent prayer for something or other?”

  The remark helped. Someone sighed and someone else laughed lightly. Sheila made the most of the opening. “Yes,” she said. “Aren’t there any refills tonight, George?”

  Stark jumped up, his cheekbones coloring. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He reached for Sheila’s glass but she was already on her feet and turning toward the adjacent dining-room.

  “I’ll get it,” she said and kept moving as Stark followed. “I just wanted to know if there was any.”

  Murdock rose slowly, hesitated. When no one said anything he walked over to Lois Edwards and reached for her empty glass.

  “How about you?”

  She smiled up at him, and he saw that her eyes were green and softly shadowed.

  “I really shouldn’t,” she said, still holding to her glass.

  “I’ll tell Mr. Stark to make a short one,” Murdock said, and then he had the glass and was walking into the dining-room, around the table and past the buffet to the swinging door. He had it half open when he heard the sound.

  In that first instant when he could not stop, he thought it was a shot, and his momentum carried him on, opening the door so that he could see the kitchen. Then he knew it was no shot. He also knew where the noise had come from, for standing under the dome light and clearly focused in its brightness stood Sheila and George Stark, the explanation for the sound imprinted clearly on his face.

  He stood rigidly, close to Sheila, his jaw rigid and face livid except for the white patch her fingers had left across his cheek. His shoulders were set and he was leaning forward, balanced on the balls of his feet. He held his arms at his sides, the fingers splayed as though only by some tremendous physical effort could he control them.

  He did not glance round, nor seem aware of Murdock, so intent was his look of concentrated fury, but Sheila did. She heard the door and looked quickly at Murdock, and it did not make any difference. She still had things to say apparently and, forgetting Murdock or just not caring whether he heard or not, she said them, her voice taunting and thick with scorn, her small rounded figure braced defiantly as she faced Stark again.

  “I don’t care what you do,” she said. “The show is sold and you can’t stop it. Why don’t you call her up? Tell her you’re sorry. Maybe she’ll come back to you.”

  Still Stark made no answer. As though unaware of Murdock he stood unmoving, and now the room was quiet. Murdock sensed rather than heard the movement behind him and half turned, finding Lois Edwards at his shoulder, a witness, he was sure, to what had happened. Then, since there was nothing to do but go forward, he moved in and did the best he could.

  “Excuse us,” he said. “We—we thought maybe you had a short one for Miss Edwards.”

  Sheila stepped back. Her face was still pale, and her dark eyes glittered as they touched Lois Edwards, but her voice was suddenly casual.

  “Come in,” she said.

  Stark’s fingers curled and relaxed. He shook himself visibly and turned slowly as the stiffness went out of him muscle by muscle. He couldn’t smile, but his voice was controlled.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m afraid I’m not being a very good host.”

  He took the glass and stepped to the counter. He poured whisky deliberately, added ice and soda. “It was soda, wasn’t it, Lois?” he said.

  She took the drink and thanked him, and he picked up another glass.

  “This is yours, isn’t it, Sheila?” he said as though nothing had happened.

  He filled it without hurrying, wiped the bottom on a towel. While Sheila drank thirstily he turned to Murdock.

  “What about you?”

  Murdock shook his head and said, “Thanks, no.”

  He spoke with a smile. It served its purpose though it did not touch his eyes and he did not particularly care. The annoyance he had felt at allowing himself to be talked into coming here was growing inside him and now he’d had enough of these people.

  “I’ve got to be shoving off,” he said when Stark protested. He thanked his host for the drink. He said it was nice of Stark to ask him, and as he turned away Sheila put out her hand and caught his arm. While he looked at her she drained her glass and put it aside.

  “I’ll go with you,” she said.

  She marched out ahead of Murdock, and Lois followed, her gaze averted. Faulkner, still on the davenport, eyed the others curiously, and Arthur Calvert stood in the center of the room.

  “Get my coat, Arthur!” Sheila said.

  Calvert hesitated a second, as though trying to figure out what had happened, then turned and went into the foyer. Sheila went to the windows and stared out, one toe tapping nervously and her small mouth grim. Murdock watched Faulkner move over to Lois Edwards and surreptitiously take her hand and then, as Calvert came back with Sheila’s coat and bag, Murdock moved on to the foyer where George Stark joined him. He said he was sorry Murdock had to rush off. He shook hands and said he hoped the pictures came out all right. Both he and Esquire Products would appreciate the publicity.

  Sheila marched over to the mirror while Calvert put on his coat When she had finished touching up her mouth she said, “Thanks for everything, George. Especially the drinks.” And without another word she opened the door and walked out.

  3

  GOING DOWN IN THE ELEVATOR Calvert kept glancing at Sheila, and his blue eyes seemed worried. He sucked at his upper lip, cleared his throat twice. Finally he spoke.

  “Have a little trouble with George in the kitchen?”

  “A little,” Sheila said.

  “It won’t make any difference in the show?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. We were straightening out some personal things.”

  “Oh,” said Calvert, sounding relieved. “Well—”

  There was no taxi in sight, so they walked along the silent street to the corner and spent five minutes waving and whistling at those which sped by. Finally an empty swerved toward them and stopped. Sheila got in and Murdock waited for Calvert but the big man shook his head.

  “You go ahead.”

  “We can drop you off somewhere, can’t we?” Murdock said.

  “I’d just as soon walk,” Calvert said. “It’s only a few blocks and it’s nice out tonight.”

  Murdock sat back gratefully as the cab got under way. Sheila, saying nothing, huddled down in her furs on her side of the seat, and he deliberately refrained from making any comment on the party lest he start her talking. He estimated the time it would take him to get back to his room—ten blocks to Sheila’s place, another eight or ten back to the hotel, and then he could have a drink by hims
elf and a hot bath. It was a pleasant thought but a somewhat premature one; for when they got to Sheila’s place there were complications.

  He told the driver to wait as Sheila got out, and she started across the walk only to swerve in front of the cab to examine her bag in the headlights. For five seconds she dug into it; then she looked up.

  “Oh, damn it!” she said. “I’ve left my keys somewhere.”

  Murdock looked at her helplessly. “What about your pockets?”

  She looked. She looked in the cuffs of her sleeves.

  “You had them when you locked the desk drawers,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “I thought I put them back in the bag.” She sighed. “Anyway, I haven’t got them now.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  Murdock crossed the walk, stepped through the foyer and felt hope die when he tried Sheila’s door and found it locked. When he came back he groaned and she heard him.

  “You needn’t act as if I did it on purpose,” she said. “We’ll just have to wake up Dale Jordan and get hers. Come on.”

  She got back into the cab and gave the driver an address and they rode four blocks south and two east, stopping in front of a darkened brownstone house.

  “She has the second-floor-front apartment,” Sheila said. “The lower door should be open.”

  “Who, me?” Murdock said, aghast. “Oh, no. Not at this hour. I hardly know her.”

  “Nonsense. You met her, didn’t you? It isn’t even one o’clock yet, and, anyway, she’s used to it. I had to wake her up last week when I locked myself out. Please, Kent. I’m tired.”

  Murdock sighed and got out, believing the errand less wearing then further argument. He went up stone steps, stepped through a dimly lighted entryway, and climbed to the second floor. There was a narrow hall here leading past the stair well and at the front end, where the staircase turned and went up again, was a door. He pressed the button, waited, pressed it again.

 

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