The Steel Mirror

by Donald Hamilton

  She swung impatiently away from him, sipping her drink; he tasted his drink absently, watching her. Then he sat quite still, his mouth and nose segregating an elusive taste and odor for his brain to identify. On me! he thought incredulously, She has the nerve to try it on me, a chemist! The blonde girl turned back to face him, about to speak; he saw her recognize his discovery in his face.

  He was a little embarrassed. He could feel his blood singing in his ears, and he was aware of a sense of outrage, but he could not see precisely what he was going to do about it. Her eyes followed his face as he rose; her face turning up to him was expressionless, the hazel eyes blank, as if a shade had dropped. He knew that he was in the presence of something primitive and unfamiliar. People who cared much for human life did not use chloral; it was an unreliable agent. Helene Bethke looked cool and self-possessed and a little contemptuous. Her composure irritated him unendurably; when she moved, he flung the drugged drink in her face.

  There was ice in it. He saw her, through a singing haze, thrown off balance by the shock of the cascade of ice and cold liquid; when she started again toward the purse on the table, he was ahead of her. She did not stop. He put his shoulder and hip into her with deliberate violence, taking the impact of her compact body with a savage pleasure that derived from sources he was aware weren’t very nice. She was hurled across the cocktail table to strike against the sofa and roll off onto the floor in a flurry of green sandals and bare muscular legs and stained white dress. He took a small gun from the green purse, looked at it for a moment, and recalled how to put the slide back to check the loads: there was a shell in the chamber.

  “No,” he said. “Don’t move.”

  She had pulled herself up to kneel beside the sofa, her forehead pressed against her folded arms. Her shoulders shook with the force of her breathing as she kneeled there, her disheveled bright hair matted and sticky, her dress splashed and awry and ripped at the waist. Her dishevelment embarrassed him and made him want to turn his back while she pulled herself together.

  She rose with a last shuddering intake of breath; standing, she regarded the gun for a moment, then his face. Then she looked down at her ruined dress and, gingerly, as if not liking to touch it, her fingers marking the silk where it was still clean, tugged at the knot of the sash. Her face contracted with impatience, something tore, and she stripped the dress off over her head. She had nothing at all on beneath it. She stood there without anything on but the green sandals, using the dress to dry her hands and face and hair. Then she threw it at him.

  As he ducked, there were steps behind him, and a cold hard bar of metal that he somehow knew to be a gunbarrel came down across his wrist: he dropped Helene Bethke’s pistol. He turned slowly to face Dr. Kaufman, who had come in from the bathroom.

  “Kick it this way, Mr. Emmett.”

  He kicked the smaller gun across the rug. The doctor picked it up and dropped it into his pocket. He put his own revolver away but kept his hand on it.

  “I’m sorry about your wrist,” he said politely, seeing Emmett rubbing it. “I’m afraid I struck harder than I had intended.”

  “I’ll live,” Emmett said curtly.

  Dr. Kaufman said, “Perhaps.”

  chapter FOURTEEN

  He sat in the big chair that was deep enough and low enough that, as far as quick action was concerned, he was as effectively immobilized as if he had been tied. The doctor sat on the sofa and told him about the climate; it seemed that it was fine for certain respiratory diseases, the humidity and pollen count were quite low, and yet you could count on a cooling shower several afternoons a week. Dr. Kaufman expected that they would have one that afternoon, from the look of the sky, although often the thunderheads dissipated themselves over the mountains without reaching Denver.

  Emmett listened to him and watched, waiting for the blonde girl to return from the bathroom. It seemed to Emmett that he had never spent so much time and effort on trying to understand people as he had today, with so little results. He did not know why the big man from the FBI had accused him of being a foreign agent, when Kirkpatrick certainly had access to his agency’s wartime files, which would show that one John E. Emmett had been thoroughly investigated and proved to be safe for confidential work at the Federal Research Labs. He could not understand why Helene Bethke should apparently have lied to give an alibi to a girl she obviously hated. He could not clarify the character of Ann Nicholson in his mind; at one moment she seemed to be a small, rather helpless, slightly unbalanced girl who was the victim of a savage persecution, and at the next she was a cunning maniac who had left a trail of treachery and death reaching back to France and the war.

  He could not work out in his mind the relationship between the doctor and the nurse. Ann Nicholson had accused them of being lovers, but the impatient attitude of the girl and the rather tolerant contempt that seemed to be characteristic of the man, did not bear out this theory. Yet they were certainly working together. He did not even bother to try to understand what they wanted of him. There was no sense in wasting effort guessing at what he was going to learn in a few minutes, anyway.

  Helene Bethke came in from the bathroom, wrapping a towel about her head like a turban. Her face was freshly washed and free of makeup except for lipstick, but the lipstick was so fresh and heavy that it looked wet. She was wearing a white chenille robe that parted, showing her legs as she moved; she had to keep reaching for it. She sat down at the white vanity table and found a cleansing tissue to blot her lips. Emmett found himself experiencing a curious resentment; he was a little startled to realize that he did not like to see the blonde girl making herself at home among things designed for Ann Nicholson.

  “Have you got it?” the nurse asked Dr. Kaufman over her shoulder.

  “No, I was waiting for you. Was it necessary to take a bath?”

  “Did you ever swim in Coca-Cola? I couldn’t be drinking a plain highball when I get it thrown in my face, not me!” She dropped the tissue in the wastebasket and turned. “He’s got it in his wallet,” she said.

  Dr. Kaufman glanced at Emmett. After a moment he held out the hand that did not rest on the gun in his pocket.

  “Please, Mr. Emmett.”

  Emmett looked at the hand reached out to him across the cocktail table. It was like walking into the middle of a movie. He did not have any idea what was going on. He shrugged and took out his wallet. The doctor received it and sat back to examine it. Helene Bethke went quickly to the sofa and, sitting on the arm, reached over the stocky man’s shoulder and picked from the bill compartment a slip of paper which Emmett recognized. It had been given him by the desk clerk when he came down from his hotel room that morning.

  “Mrs. Amos Pruitt,” the doctor read, the nurse holding the slip for him. “Mrs. Amos Pruitt, Hogback Lake Lodge, reservations. Summit seven two one, ring four.”

  They were both looking at Emmett with the same calculating, weighing look.

  “You’d better call,” Helene Bethke said. She passed the telephone to the man, the cord running across her knees, one bare.

  “Summit seven two one,” the doctor said after a pause. “Ring four.”

  The nurse said, “Find out if—”

  “Be quiet!” He cleared his throat. “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Pruitt. Mrs. Amos Pruitt? Oh, Mrs. Pruitt, this is Dr. Einsinger, of Young’s Valley Ranch… Yes, Young’s Valley. That’s right. Mrs. Pruitt, we were wondering if one of our patients could have come by your place. A young lady driving a Mercury convertible with Illinois plates…”

  The room was quite still as he listened to the reply.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, thank you very much, Mrs. Pruitt. If you should happen to… Oh, no, not dangerous at all, Mrs. Pruitt, except to herself, poor child. We are trying to find her before she… Well, I hope so too, Mrs. Pruitt. Sorry to have troubled you.”

  He hung up very slowly and looked at Emmett; and Emmett felt a slow relaxation and rearrangement going on, as if a dangerous exp
eriment had just proved to be a failure, and the doctor was now studying the apparatus gingerly to determine how to release the pressure or disconnect the terminals with minimum risk to himself.

  “You see,” he said quietly, “she got away from us, Mr. Emmett.”

  Emmett said, “Yes, I got the idea.”

  Dr. Kaufman grimaced. “We stopped at a gas station…” He hesitated. “I went inside. She asked her father to get her a soft drink from the dispenser. She had seemed rather sick and dazed all morning, hardly capable of standing up unsupported. He did not even consider… The moment he was out of the car she was behind the wheel and away.”

  Helene Bethke said, “We thought you might know—”

  “Actually,” the doctor said, “it’s very important for us to find her, you understand. Not only because of what she may do to herself, but because of what the police will do to her if they catch her, and…” he paused and looked up, “… what she may do to someone who does not suspect the truth about her case.”

  Emmett said, “What is the truth, Dr. Kaufman?”

  “I think you know the answer to that,” the doctor said.

  “But I understood that Miss Bethke gave her an alibi for the Stevens murder.”

  “Miss Bethke lied,” the doctor said without looking at the nurse. “Miss Bethke’s job was to keep an eye on the patient. But Miss Bethke, unfortunately, was flirting with a number of young men at the punchbowl when the patient slipped away from the party. Going back to report her mistake to Mr. Nicholson, Miss Bethke heard him on the phone talking to the manager of a local department store where the patient was trying to cash a check. She saw the opportunity to conceal her lapse from duty, and hurried to the store. When I came there, sent by Mr. Nicholson, Miss Bethke gave me to believe that she had been following the patient all the time. At this time, of course, we knew nothing about the murder, which is why I took the step of leaving Miss Nicholson in your care. And Miss Bethke did not see fit to confess her little deceit until after our session with the police the following morning.”

  The blonde girl stood up and walked quickly to the dresser. “I didn’t know anybody had been killed,” she said. “My God! I’d been driving all night. I was dead for sleep, I was starving, my best dress was a wreck, and suddenly those damned policemen were shooting questions at me—”

  The doctor said with false mildness, “And now, of course, we’re all in the same boat with Miss Bethke. The police will never believe that Mr. Nicholson and I were not aware of the truth. Our only hope is to get the patient committed to an institution, where she certainly belongs, and hope that the police will not feel it worth while to pursue the investigation against a suspect who cannot be convicted.”

  Emmett said, “Well, what was all this stuff about where she got the drug with which she tried to kill herself?”

  The doctor glanced briefly at the nurse. “Well,” he said, “it is a point that’s aroused some discussion, Miss Bethke insisting, of course, that she has not been careless…”

  The nurse said wearily, “Oh, hell, she probably did get it from me, Doctor.”

  “Well, did she or didn’t she?”

  “All right.” The blonde girl’s voice was angry. “She did. I left the damn bottle out one night and it vanished. I didn’t dare tell anybody. I just said she’d finished it and asked you to write another prescription. I tried to find where the little bitch had hidden the stuff, but in some ways she’s clever as a pack-rat—”

  “That’s enough, Miss Bethke.”

  Emmett said, “And was it necessary to slip me a Mickey Finn? Why not just ask me if I knew where she was?”

  The doctor smiled. “Tell me honestly, Mr. Emmett, if you had known, would you have told just upon being asked? Be honest, now.” He chuckled when Emmett hesitated. “She is a very pretty girl, isn’t she; and very charming, too, in her happier moments?”

  There was a knock at the door. The nurse turned at the dresser with a glass in her hand. The doctor looked up slowly. “Come in,” Helene Bethke said, after a pause.

  The door opened and Mr. Nicholson, in a wilted gray seersucker suit, came in, followed by a bald man Emmett had seen before. Presently he remembered: he had seen the man talking to the desk clerk as Helene Bethke marched him out of the lobby of his hotel. The man had ogled the nurse’s ankles as they went past.

  Mr. Nicholson closed the door behind him, and looked at the wet rug. The glasses had been set upright, but there was still a pool of liquid on the cocktail table. He looked at the girl in her robe with the turban of towel about her head, and at Emmett, and apparently what he saw added up to something in his mind, because he said, “I wish you’d stick to medicine, Miss Bethke, and you, Dr. Kaufman. What kind of a roughhouse has been going on in my suite? Is that a gun in your pocket, Doc?”

  The doctor stood up and showed the weapon. He smiled apologetically. “Miss Bethke heard Mr. Emmett receive a message from a lady this morning,” he said. “She told me, and I thought it worth investigating as a possible lead.”

  Mr. Nicholson said, “Plaice here reports that while he was looking for Emmett to ask him a few questions, the nurse marched him off right under his, Plaice’s nose.”

  “We didn’t know you had anybody else—”

  “And I don’t like guns, Doc. If somebody got shot, we’d be sunk. Things are bad enough without a lot of irresponsible—” Ann’s father checked himself. “Is that the message? Let’s have a look at it.”

  Dr. Kaufman gave it to the nurse, who passed it to Mr. Nicholson. He read it, snorted, showed it to the man beside him, and gave it back to the nurse.

  “Mr. Plaice has already investigated that call,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I rang up Mrs. Pruitt myself. She has an urgent demand for a cabin. Mr. Emmett reserved a cabin several months ago. She hasn’t heard from him since. She wants to be sure he is going to claim it; otherwise she can give it to this other client. As far as she knows, Emmett is planning to arrive alone.” He looked from one face to the other with some annoyance. “Plaice has checked and found that the lady exists, runs the place she claims to, and has a formidable reputation for honesty and respectability. I think we can forget that particular clue. You can give it back to Mr. Emmett, nurse.” Mr. Nicholson smiled. “Oh, yes, and his wallet, too. I appreciate your trying to help, both of you, but this is a case for a trained investigator, like Mr. Plaice. Mr. Plaice is a private detective who has done some work for the company from time to time. I have every confidence in him.” He glanced at the man beside him. “All right. Let me know if you make any progress.”

  The man put his hat on his head and went out. Mr. Nicholson came slowly forward to stand above Emmett. Seen from the chair, he was a rather impressive figure in spite of his lack of height; his military carriage even overcame the handicap of the rumpled seersucker suit and the wilted collar. “Where is my daughter, Emmett?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Emmett said.

  “I can’t afford a scandal right now,” the gray-haired man said. “There’s some talk of a congressional investigation of some of our war contracts. As far as I know we’re in the clear, but picture to yourself what the papers would make of it if they learned that my daughter… Not as much the murder as the other thing.”

  “I still don’t know where she is, Mr. Nicholson,” Emmett said. “I’m sorry.”

  “If she gets in touch with you, let me know.”

  “All right, Mr. Nicholson,” Emmett said. There did not seem to be any point in arguing with a man who was certain you were going to obey him. He got to his feet, saw that he was not wanted here any longer, and started for the door.

  “Emmett.”

  He stopped and looked around.

  “It’s ten thousand dollars,” Mr. Nicholson said, “if you do. If you don’t, you’ll never hold another professional job again. That’s a promise.”

  As he went out, Emmett reflected that he seemed to have heard approximately the same threat once before, in Boy
ne.

  Out on the street again, he found that the thunderhead in the west had reached the zenith, and as he walked away from the hotel the sun went behind it, leaving the air suddenly a little chilly. It gave him a peculiar feeling to wonder if some body would be following him. He walked into a drugstore and got change for a dollar and entered a phone booth. “Summit seven two one,” he said. “Ring four.”

  As he waited, he discovered that he was shaking.

  “Speak up, man,” a distant female voice said abruptly in his ear. “I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

  “… John Emmett,” he said. “Ee, double-em, ee, double-tee.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” the voice said. “It’s about time you called. How are your brothers? Howard? And the one that was always tinkering with the car? Dave?”

  “It was Howie that used to work on the car, Mrs. Pruitt,” he said automatically. There was a silence, and he realized that he had passed a test.

  “Your wife’s here, young man,” the sharp voice said. “A lot of people have been asking for her. You’d better come get her. She’s going to starve in that cabin if she doesn’t unlock the door long enough for me to give her something to eat.”

  chapter FIFTEEN

  He saw the station wagon waiting in the darkness as the bus rolled up to the false-front building that was Summit’s hotel and post office; the town otherwise consisting of two general stores, three saloons, and two churches. The saloons were lighted, as was the hotel; the stores and churches, dark. As Emmett got out he heard the clanking of a steam shovel in the bed of the creek that passed through the center of town. It surprised him that they were still working at it, after almost ten years. You’d have thought they’d have sieved all the silver out of that creek by now, he reflected.

  “You’re Mister Emmett, I reckon,” a man’s voice said. He turned and shook hands with a small compact figure wearing boots, jeans, a blue shirt, and a finger-marked Stetson. By the light from the bus and the hotel he could see that the man’s face was brown and middle-aged. “Mack,” the man said. “Pete Mack. It confuses some people.”