‘Only to warn him again not to try to see Farnsley that night.’
‘I won’t even argue that one’, O’Brien said magnanimously, ‘because we also happen to know that Farnsley called Leonard direct from Room 617.’ He paused and looked disappointed when Murdock did not react strongly to his announcement. ‘Why?’ he demanded finally.
‘How do I know? Maybe to call him names.’
‘Maybe. And no matter what was said over the telephone, Leonard knew where Farnsley was, knew that he was drunk. Mrs. Farnsley said she warned Leonard, but that doesn’t mean he took the warning the way she meant it, or even paid any attention to it. He may have been just as sore as Farnsley, but whether he was or not we know for sure he did not do the sensible thing and stay as far away from the Greene Hotel as he could. He went to the Greene. Why, if not to see Farnsley? Give me just one guy that saw Leonard actually inside that hotel and I’ll lay you even money he’ll be indicted for murder.’
The way O’Brien told it, the theory made sense. Murdock had no fault to find with the logic of it because his reluctance to accept the premise was based primarily on personal considerations. He was extremely fond of Helen Farnsley and every instinct rebelled at the thought that she might have known anything about the murder of her husband. Because of his concern over her happiness he had come here to see her and since it was obvious that Murray Leonard was important to that happiness, Murdock now found himself reluctant to concede that Leonard could be implicated. He did not say so however. O’Brien’s arguments were unanswerable at the moment and because the primary object of the police was to find the guilty one without regard for any personal consideration, to attempt to sway O’Brien with anything less than facts would be a simple waste of breath.
‘What do you intend to do about it?’ he asked as he stood up.
‘Keep on digging’, O’Brien said. ‘The state’s attorney is questioning Leonard now. We’ll see what develops, what else we find out at the Greene.… Don’t get me wrong’, he said as Murdock reached the door, ‘I’m not settling for Leonard yet. That lead you gave me on this Harry Usher may be something.’
Murdock said he would be interested to know what Usher had to offer, but his thoughts were elsewhere as he turned and started across the outer room, a lean, straight-backed man, his gaze fixed straight ahead, his dark eyes bleak.
Chapter Fifteen
IT was a quarter to five before Kent Murdock made up his mind to telephone Leone Thorpe, and even after he had looked up the number he hesitated, his thoughts an odd mixture of doubt and anticipation. Normally he was not particularly shy with women, but there was in his make-up a streak of Puritanism that frowned on casual pick-ups, whether made at a cocktail party or over the telephone, and he was moved to action in this instance only because his objective demanded such an approach.
For the past half-hour he had been lying stretched out on the bed, deliberating the pros and cons of his idea and now, as he gave the number to the operator, he had but one small favour to ask of luck; that the ring be answered by Leone herself instead of a servant who would want to know who was calling.
The instant he heard the voice he felt better, for it had the same vibrant quality he had noticed when she had called Room 617 that first afternoon to ask for Harry.
‘Yes’, she said, ‘this is Mrs. Thorpe.’
‘I was hoping you’d answer’, Murdock said, ‘I haven’t been able to forget your voice since I talked with you the other day.’
There was a pause and her tone was at once reserved. ‘Who is that, please?’
‘The name wouldn’t mean anything to you’, Murdock said, ‘but you must remember talking to me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘The other afternoon when you called Room 617 at the Greene and asked for Harry and I said he had checked out.’
Her, ‘Oh’, conveyed nothing and he went on quickly, not knowing how he sounded, but hoping for the best.
‘It’s bothered me ever since. Your voice, I mean. I think I have sort of a picture of you now. You’re young, I know. Your voice tells me that. About twenty-six maybe.’ He tried to remember what Claire Emerson had told him and said: ‘Your hair might be auburn and your eyes’—this was pure guesswork—‘are blue.’
‘Well, really.’ She paused and though the words remained reserved there was interest in her voice and possibly an overtone of humour. ‘This is all very flattering but——’
‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking’, Murdock cut in, ‘here’s a fresh travelling salesman that managed somehow to find out who I was. He’s feeling lonely and wants a date for to-night and he thinks he can sell me a bill of goods.… But it isn’t that way at all’, he said and managed to sound convincing.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘I just want to find out if you’re as lovely-looking as you sound. If I could just see you for a few minutes——’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m sorry, but——’
‘Why?’ said Murdock, who knew it was a good question.
‘Because—well—I don’t even know you.’ She laughed lightly to show how ridiculous the whole thing was, but to Murdock the important thing was that she laughed. ‘And besides’, she said, ‘I’m married.’
‘I know. But you must go out once in a while without your husband, if only for a cocktail. You go out with Harry.’
That stopped her for a second or two and Murdock decided to keep going while he could. He could feel the perspiration on his palm where he gripped the telephone and he kept his tone low and confidential because, though he may not have realized it, this was no longer a game. He did like the girl’s voice and he really wanted to meet her, not as part of a plan he might have had but as a personal achievement. As a result his real charm began to filter through and the warmth that coloured his words was genuine.
‘This is not just another pick-up’, he said, ‘really. It took me a long time to get up enough nerve to call you at all. Will you believe that much?’
‘Well—’ She let the word trail.
‘You know what I think?’ he said. ‘I think you’re just the least bit curious about me. I think you might even agree to meet me if you were sure you wouldn’t be embarrassed.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You don’t know me. You don’t know what I look like. You’re afraid maybe I’ll turn out to be some impossible character you’d prefer to ignore. But I can show you a way to get around that.’
‘Oh?’
He took a breath and now there was a pleasant glow inside him that gave him new confidence and put a smile in his voice.
‘Do you know a place called the Studio Grill?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s going to be cocktail time pretty soon’, he said, ‘and I’m going over there and have one. I’ll be sitting at the bar next to the wall and all you have to do is walk in, take one look at the guy on that particular stool.’
‘Then what?’
‘You take this one look to see how I’m dressed, the colour of my tie, the cut of my hair—if any. Then you back out fast’—he heard her laugh at this—‘or if you decide it’s worth one drink, you come over. You have your drink while I introduce myself. When you finish you excuse yourself because you have another date—fictitious if necessary—or you decide you could have one more before you leave.’
There was another moment of silence, but no denial and he said: ‘I’ll be there from five-thirty on.’ He took another small breath and gave it all he had. ‘I do hope you’ll come.’
He hung up gently before there was any reply, rubbed the dampness from his palms, and crossed the fingers of both hands. It had been a long time since he had made a pitch like that and it occurred to him that he might have done better had he kidded around a little more and not played it quite so much on the nose. Almost immediately he thought of other things he could have said, all of them more clever and witty than the words he had used, but when he realized that in any case there was nothing more he c
ould do, he stood up and began to look for a clean shirt.
It was twenty-five minutes to six when Kent Murdock walked into the Studio Grill and surrendered his hat and coat. He saw at once that the stool next to the wall, which had been occupied the other afternoon by Mr. Preble, was vacant, and he was glad that the same bartender was on duty.
‘Good evening, Charles’, he said.
‘Good evening, sir.’
‘Mr. Preble is not with us to-day?’
Charles grinned and said no. He put a paper doily in front of Murdock and his big fists on the edge of the bar.
‘If I’m lucky’, Murdock said, ‘I may be joined shortly by a young lady. I’m not sure how long I’ll be here so I think I’d better settle for something light. Say a Scotch and water.’
When the drink came Murdock tasted it and examined the autographed photographs in his immediate vicinity. One or two were personalities he recognized, but mostly they seemed to be obscure entertainers who had worked with the owner of the Grill in times past, judging from the styles represented by those who wore street clothes; the dancers in tights and spangles were more timeless.
The door opened twice in the next fifteen minutes, once to admit a gentleman who greeted Charles affectionately and took a stool at the far end of the bar, the second time to disclose a couple who sat near the centre and had time for no one but each other. Murdock glanced at the clock four times and had a small contest with himself to keep from looking at it oftener. He nursed the drink and fidgeted some as the hands drew closer to six but when, at five minutes to, the door opened again and she came in, his heart turned over slowly to tell him he had been well paid for his time.
Though he had never seen Leone Thorpe he seemed somehow to recognize her at once, not from the way she hesitated while her eyes slid directly to the corner stool, but from the mental picture he had fashioned out of things he had heard. Striking was the word that occurred to him first. For she looked smart and beautifully groomed in her black dress and short mink coat, her auburn hair was upswept at the ends and artfully coifed, the tailored arch of her brows giving a peculiar distinction to her smooth oval face.
Murdock slid off his stool to stand erect. He gave her a tiny bow and small smile. And there was no further hesitation on her part; there seldom was when women got this far with Murdock. She swept towards him easily, her eyes busy but approving as they examined him, and what she saw was a moderately tall man in a plain, dark-grey suit that was conservative in cut but expertly draped, a white shirt with a button-down collar, a maroon tie; above this his angular face was well-boned and vital-looking, and his hair was neatly combed but not slick. Satisfied with all this, her instinct told her he was a gentleman, and from then on there was neither coyness nor uncertainty in her manner. If anything there was a glint of satisfaction in the eyes which, he saw now, were dark-blue beneath the arched brows.
‘Hello’, she said simply, ‘am I late?’
‘Just fashionably so. Would you like this stool by the wall?’
She said she thought so and he touched her arm to help her settle herself and arrange her things. He inspected her hands as she withdrew her gloves and found he liked them. She put the gloves and purse in her lap, touched her hair lightly, glanced at him again with interest, and relaxed.
Charles came over. When he caught Murdock’s eye he winked and nodded his approval, and suddenly Murdock felt very good indeed. He asked Leone what she would have and she said a sidecar, she thought.
‘I’m glad you came’, Murdock said.
‘I almost didn’t.’ She gave him a slanting look, one eye inspecting the angle of his chin and then roving upward to consider the parting in his hair. ‘You seemed almost too sure I would’, she said when he made no reply.
Murdock chuckled. ‘I was never more unsure in my life. All I had was a certain amount of hope based on the idea that you might be curious.’
‘Curious?’
‘As to how I knew who you were.’
He watched her take her cocktail and approved of the way she went at it, neither daintily nor thirstily but straightforwardly, as though she enjoyed it. His own glass was empty and he caught Charles’s eye to order a refill and a second cocktail for Leone Thorpe. There was a method in this, for it had not been Murdock’s original idea that this encounter was to develop into any flirtation as such; he wanted to know about Leone, he had certain subjects he wished to discuss, and he hoped that a few cocktails might help to get their conversation on an easy, confidential basis.
‘And how did you find out?’ she asked.
‘I knew your name was Leone and that you were a friend of Harry Usher’s—a rather good friend from the way you spoke when you thought I was Harry.’
She looked at him again, a smile working deep in her eyes. ‘You tricked me’, she said. ‘You said, “Is this Anne?” and like a dope I said, “No, this is Leone.”’ She took the cigarette he offered and said: ‘Then what did you do?’
‘I found out who Harry was and what he did. I found out that you were married and what your name was and that you had a jealous husband, much older but wealthy.’
The smile with which she regarded him grew speculative and he had time to reconsider his first opinion of her. Viewed in any light she was a pretty woman, her features regular, her skin smoothly textured. There was a petulance to her red mouth, a suggestion of wilfulness perhaps to the line of her chin, though these would be minor flaws to anyone who considered her desirable in other ways.
With her coat back he could see that she had a lovely figure, excellently proportioned and adequately curved, and the way she walked, the way she sat there on the stool had somehow a professional air, as though at some time she had had posture training of one sort or another. He could not be sure of her age—she might have been twenty-five or thirty—but her eyes were experienced and seemed wise in many ways.
He found himself wondering if she were cold and then considered the word, finding in it many shades of meaning. Certainly—assuming always that his diagnosis was correct—she was not cold in one sense; quite the contrary. Something told him that this was a woman who could be both passionate and reckless when the occasion arose, and yet something else he could not quite explain suggested that the coldness he wondered about came from a calculating nature which could usually be depended upon to reach whatever decision was best for Leone’s general welfare. He had an idea that she liked men, that she was currently bored or dissatisfied with her marriage, but that she was unlikely to risk it entirely until she was sure of something that in her opinion would adequately take its place. All of which brought his thoughts once more to Harry Usher.
‘You know quite a lot’, she said archly, ‘and I don’t even know your name.’
Murdock hesitated while his mind went over the stories the local newspapers had carried about the murder. He felt sure that she must have read about Lee Farnsley’s death, but there had been no mention of Room 617. With careful ambiguity the papers had said the murder occurred in a down-town hotel and his own name had not yet been mentioned.
‘Murdock’, he said. ‘Kent Murdock.’
‘You’re not from here?’
‘From Boston’. He pushed his empty glass across the bar and signalled Charles with a nod, watching the preparation of the drinks and continuing to the woman as though there was nothing more to be said about himself. ‘You have a rich husband with a society background. You’re a friend of a talent agent. They don’t work in the same league and that’s what makes me curious. Were you ever a model?’
From the corner of his eye he could see her straighten her shoulders. ‘How did you know?’ she asked, sounding just a little pleased at his perspicacity.
‘You have the looks.’ He watched Charles put the fresh drinks down. ‘The sort of body—from what I’ve seen of it—that would look good in almost anything. But mostly I guess it’s the way you walk, the way you sit there on that stool, straight-backed, shoulder up, stomach in.’ He turned
to grin at her. ‘You know.’
She liked that. It was the sort of flattery she understood. Her eyes said so. ‘For nearly three years’, she said.
‘I’ll bet you did all right.’ He turned, an elbow on the bar and his knees almost touching her right leg. ‘And one day Mr. Thorpe came into this place to buy a mink coat for his wife, and he saw you and——’
She laughed aloud. The third sidecar had begun its work and the reserve, the slight touch of haughtiness that had once marked her speech and manner, slid away. The flush that brushed her cheeks was becoming and her voice was more throaty and somewhat less cultivated.
‘No’, she said. ‘That wasn’t it. I wasn’t doing that kind of modelling then. I was a fashion model. I met Jesse—my husband—in Bermuda. Spotlight was doing a piece on Spring Fashions and they sent me and two other girls and a photographer down there for background. Jesse was there on a sailboat some friend of his owned.’
She hesitated, twisting the stem of her glass. Some of the erectness went out of her shoulders and her voice took on a quiet, reminiscent quality.
‘This isn’t any rags-to-riches story’, she said. ‘My father had a small-town business that did all right and there was always enough—not as much as any one of us would’ve liked, but enough for the necessities with some to spare. I guess it was the small town that I rebelled against. I wanted to go to New York and I kept pestering the family, and finally when I was nineteen they let me go with the understanding that I was to have three months to get a job, and fifty a week from home while I was looking.’
‘So you got a job?’
‘I got a chance at modelling right off. It took a while before I could say I was making a living but I had no kick. My rates went up gradually and at the end I was doing all right for a country girl.’ She paused to sip her drink, put the glass back carefully on the paper doily. ‘You are wondering about Harry Usher? Well, I’ll tell you how that happened. I sang some before I came to New York. With a resort band. Summers. Near home. And just before I went on this Bermuda junket a friend of mine put my name up for Arthur Godfrey’s show and then talked me into auditioning.’
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