The Black Dream_Rue Morgue Vintage Mysteries

by Constance Little

  I was considerably startled to find John sitting in a chair directly beside the door, and he looked up and saw me before I had a chance to back away.

  "I—er—saw your light," I murmured confusedly. "Thought I'd drop in and say hello."

  John scowled at me, but Mrs. Budd got up from a chair across the room and came forward. "Come in, dear—do. We were just sitting here."

  John got to his feet reluctantly and swung a chair around for me, and then asked abruptly, "What's the matter?" because I was staring so intently at his eyes.

  I was badly rattled, and instead of being clever and using finesse, I blurted out, "We found your black eye for you. At least I did—all by myself—and then Ken took half the credit."

  Mrs. Budd gaped at me, but John's face tightened, and he let a moment pass before he asked quietly, "What do you mean?"

  "Your black eye—the one you were looking for—we found it in Mary's apartment, but Egbert took it away from us. I don't know why he didn't bring it to you."

  "But how in the world did it get over there?" Mrs. Budd wondered, her eyes round with surprise.

  John frowned. "I don't know how I came to lose the confounded thing—or how it got in there. Incidentally, how did you come to know about it?"

  "I don't know anything about it." I admitted frankly, "except that I heard you looking for a black eye—and then I found one."

  He was silent for a moment before he asked, "Where—where was it?"

  "Well, I—er—I suppose Egbert will tell you all about it," I fumbled.

  "Now look here," he said with sudden firmness, "that man Egbert is a slick customer, and he'll twist things to suit his own little theories if he happens to feel like it. I lost that eye lately—apparently it fell out of this pocket where I always keep it, in case anything happens to the new one."

  I looked up at him and said in honest astonishment, "Do you mean to tell me that one of your eyes is false?"

  He nodded. "I thought you must have known—but it's a good job, isn't it?"

  "It's wonderful," I murmured, staring, and found that I could pick it out, now that I knew. I had heard that the workmanship on things of that sort had improved enormously, but it was very hard to believe that that eye could not see.

  "That's why I've kept it secret," he explained. "There were only a handful of people who knew about it. But that one you found—the first one—was not such a good piece of work. In the first place it was black, instead of being dark brown, and it was an imperfect fit—it made me wink constantly. So I had another one made, and it seems to be perfect."

  But you never let anything go to waste, I thought, looking him over coolly, not even a false eye that wouldn't fit. You got rid of those two women by blaming the whole thing on the black eye that made you wink.

  I wanted badly to laugh, but I shut my teeth together and swallowed it down.

  "Now where did you find the thing?" John asked grimly.

  "Oh—well, as a matter of fact, it was in Mary's room somewhere."

  "In that drawer under the bed, I suppose," he said quietly. I nodded.

  He sat down rather suddenly, at though the strength had gone out of his legs, and said feverishly, "It must have dropped out of my pocket when I examined the drawer that time."

  "When was that?"

  He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his eyes and gave his head a quick shake. "It was just before Betty disappeared. Homer had called me in to help him move the large bureau in Mary's room, and while we were busy with it Mary called him. I had nothing to do for a few minutes, so I wandered over and examined the bed—and I remember that I opened the drawer and looked inside."

  "Didn't you find that it was difficult to open?"

  "No," he said, and gave me a glance of faint surprise. "It came out quite easily."

  "What was inside?"

  "Just a blanket," he said indifferently.

  Just a blanket. The same one that was used to cover Betty later on, I thought, and the black eye must have caught in one of the folds.

  John stood up, ran a smoothing hand over his hair, and drew a long deep breath. "What are you doing this evening—you and that yellow ribbon?"

  "I'm going to bed. What else?"

  "No," he said. "It's hot and stuffy inside—and it's a pity to waste that array of yellow. Let us step out—if only to the corner drugstore."

  I felt quite impressed at being dated by the fancy Emerson, although I figured that it had become automatic with him, by now, and he couldn't help himself—and anyway, a stroll to the corner drugstore wasn't anything to tell the girls about.

  He came over and closed his hand around my elbow. "Come on."

  "Isn't it a bit late?" I asked feebly—but I had decided to go, and he knew it.

  "Not quite twelve," he murmured, and began to urge me gently from the room.

  I said some sort of a hasty farewell to Mrs. Budd, but she was looking down at her hands, which were twisted tightly together, and she gave no sign of having heard me.

  Outside in the hall, I suggested that the corner drugstore might be closed, but John merely said, "We'll avoid the elevator—might run into someone. We can walk down the stairs."

  We clattered down the five flights and went out a side door onto a back street. The air felt cool and fresh, and I breathed it in gratefully and ignored the slight discomfort in my head. I had a faintly guilty feeling that I should have been in bed, but I couldn't help enjoying the walk after so much confinement.

  John still had a guiding hand on my arm, and he said, "There's a little place around the corner, here, where we can get anything to drink all the way down to coffee."

  I nodded. "I'll start at the coffee, then, and work up if it seems to be indicated."

  He laughed, and it seemed to me that it was the first easy, relaxed sound I had heard from him.

  The little place turned out to be comfortable enough, and I ordered coffee, and John bourbon and water, which he downed almost at a gulp. He began in earnest, then, to make himself agreeable, and I could see easily enough how he had come to be the local glamor boy.

  When I got a chance—which was not for some time—I asked him what he was going to use as an excuse to get rid of his girlfriends—now that he had no winking eye.

  He had been leaning toward me, but he sat back stiffly in his chair and asked in some annoyance what I thought I was talking about.

  "Well," I said mildly, "I heard you twice telling the ladies that they had taken your black eye too seriously."

  He began to tap irritably on the table with the amber glass mixing stem that had come with his drink.

  "That was only a joke," he said sulkily. "Who were the girls anyway?"

  "One was the widow Manchester in the drugstore on Tuesday, the other was on Monday night—someone in your living room—only I didn't see her."

  The cloud lifted from his face, and he said in a relieved voice, "Oh, I was only joking with both of them—and they knew it."

  "And they both knew about your false eye. Dotty Manchester would, I suppose—her husband having been in the eye business, in a manner of speaking—but who was the other one?"

  John downed his second drink, closed his hand over mine, and murmured, "Quiet."

  I became conscious of a presence at my elbow, and turned my head to find a young girl who could certainly have given Alice a run for her money. She had a long golden bob, cornflower-blue eyes, and a curving scarlet mouth. Looking further, I discovered smooth, shapely brown legs ending in cream-colored sandals to match a slick, brief, cream-colored dress. I observed— while I admired in silence—that she was glaring at John, and that John's face had become impersonal and guarded. The silence had begun to assume an ugly shape, when John said with apparent ease, "Hello there, June. Sit down and have a drink."

  "No, thanks, darling, I wouldn't dream of intruding," the girl said nastily, and I noticed that her hands were clenched tightly at her sides. "I suppose you older men have to take a girl out every da
y for three weeks and then drop her cold, just to prove to yourselves that you're still young."

  She flounced off, and I considered John in the role of an older man—and then glanced after her retreating form. Certainly she was young enough, not more than eighteen.

  John was laughing. "These kids—if they can't find any other rough spot to chisel off they'll always take a poke at your age."

  "They're easier to get rid of, though, aren't they?"

  He made some sort of dignified protest, but I had stopped listening. It had occurred to me suddenly that this girl had really identified the other—the one who had been in John's living room and who knew he had a false eye, which she had taken too seriously. It was Suzy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  OF COURSE it was Suzy—it must have been. John had been trying to brush Dotty off for some time, and had started to take Suzy out on her day off. This June must have come next—and Suzy had seen them together—all of which cleared up the obscure places in Suzy's little notebook.

  John, still toying with the glass stem, evidently saw the expression of distaste on my face. He slumped back into his chair, looking suddenly tired, and said. "It's easy enough for you to look virtuous and disapproving. Betty would have nothing to do with me for the last six months—and I've been lonely."

  I couldn't blame Betty, but John looked so miserable that I felt a faint pity for him.

  "I'll admit that I don't approve," I said, smiling at him, "but I didn't mean to look virtuous. But we'd better go—it's late."

  He protested that we'd only just come, but I insisted, and he gave in sulkily. We walked back almost in silence, and I did some furious thinking. John had an easy enough explanation for his eye having been in that drawer— and it could be true, too. I wondered whether Mary would back up his story. And what had poor little Suzy done that was so deadly? She'd seen Homer— that was all—and not his dead body, either.

  I was tired to the point of exhaustion by the time we had climbed the five flights of stairs, and then I had to go through the Emerson apartment because I didn't have any key and did not want to wake anyone up to let me in. Walking down the long hall, with John at my side, I came out in a cold sweat of fear. The place was only dimly lighted—and John could easily have done those murders—and if I knew more than was good for me, here was his chance. When he put his hand on my arm I gasped and pulled away from him.

  "Easy," he said, giving me an oblique glance. "You're jumpy."

  I swallowed and admitted that I was. He helped me over the barrier on the balcony, and his last words were a remark about the yellow ribbon being very fetching.

  I made my way into the living room, wondering if they had sent the fire engines after me, since I must have been missed, because Lucy was sleeping in with me.

  I was wrong, as it happened, for they were all still in the dining room and seemed to be having a hot argument. I had to listen for quite a while before I was able to make head or tail of the discussion.

  It seemed that Mary wanted to call in a private detective to find Homer, and Ken thought it was ridiculous and that the private detective would merely get under Egbert's feet and perhaps trip him up. Lucy's angle was that Egbert had already tripped over his own feet, and anyway, she had always wanted to meet a private detective. Mary immediately made it plain that if she did get in a private detective Lucy would have to leave, since she didn't intend to hire him just so that he could spend his time flirting with Lucy. Whereupon Ken objected violently to Lucy's leaving and declared that he would not get his proper food if she were not there. Mary's voice, sounding decidedly offended, asked Ken if he didn't suppose she could cook, and Ken replied tactlessly that he had no doubt of it, but it would remind him too much of the Army three rigid meals a day, and no extras. Lucy, he declared, served up something every hour or so, and that was more to his liking. Lucy chimed in again and said certainly! A soldier needed a little extra food on his furlough. Mary, hotting up nicely, observed that a little extra food was one thing, but that shoveling it in at all hours of the day was another, and hardly less than revolting.

  I walked in at that point, determined to have my innings. "How do you expect an invalid to sleep," I asked, "with all this noise going on?"

  They looked me over coldly, and Mary suggested that I might sleep better if I tried getting undressed first. I changed the subject hastily and told them that Mary could certainly wait until morning before calling in her private investigator, but that under no circumstances was Lucy to go, and that Ken was to eat every hour on the hour—further, I was ashamed of all of them, arguing like that and making a noise over nothing. I left in a hurry, after that, and retired to my room, where I undressed and went to bed.

  I had broken it up, though, for presently I heard dishes clattering in the kitchen, and then they came into the hall and dispersed. Lucy slipped into the bedroom, closed the door behind her, and turned on me. "Well!" she exclaimed, on a long, laughing breath. "You certainly slapped Mary's ears back— telling her what to do in her own home!"

  "It's good for her," I said, yawning. "It takes her mind off the fearful mess people make by wearing their shoes around the house."

  She gave a shriek of laughter and then went over to the mirror to examine her face.

  "It's after one o'clock," I said, yawning again. "Why don't you go to bed?"

  "I will," she murmured absently. "Give me time."

  She was still working on her face when I went to sleep, and when I woke up, some time later, she seemed to be in the bathroom, for I could hear the water running. The room was dark, except for one small lamp on the bureau adorned with a dark green shade that kept most of the electricity to itself. I was about to turn over when my eye fell on the little clock beneath the lamp, and I saw that it was almost four o'clock. I hesitated, frowning, and wondering whether Lucy were ill, and decided after a moment to stay awake until she came back. It was a mistake, because instantly I started to think about Homer and the whole sorry business, and I could not stop myself.

  Where was Homer anyway? Egbert had only pretended to look for the body to appease me, and he'd gone flying off as soon as he had the black eye. Poor John—that eye was going to give him more trouble than ever it had when it was in his head. But perhaps that body I touched had been Betty, as I had thought at first, and Egbert had put her back in the drawer for some reason of his own—only he'd have to have wrapped her up again, and how could he? And why? The thing was absurd.

  Lucy came back just then, and I asked her if anything were wrong.

  "No," she said, yawning, "I just can't sleep—too much excitement, I guess. I've been washing out some of my underclothes to make me good and tired, so maybe I can get off now."

  She flopped onto the studio couch, and I turned over, but neither of us could get to sleep. We turned and twisted for a while, and then Lucy flounced off the couch and declared that it was too hot there.

  "But where can you go?" I asked.

  "I'll bet it's cooler in the living room—only you'll have to come with me."

  "Why?"

  "Don't be silly," said Lucy. "I'd be scared to death. Poor Suzy died in there."

  "We can't go in there anyway," I said, rumpling my hair fretfully. "Mary would have to have the divans restuffed and dry-cleaned, if we slept on them all night."

  "It's morning already," Lucy pointed out. "And anyway, Homer slept on one of her sacred divans."

  "I don't believe it—he wouldn't have dared."

  "You mean he wouldn't have dared in the days before he got a little independent and decided to live a life of his own—without being told every minute of the day what to do and when to do it." She was over at the mirror now, carefully patting at the faint suggestion she had of a second chin.

  "Listen," I said, "whatever has happened to Homer, he still hangs around here, haunting the place."

  Lucy ran a thoughtful finger around the line of her jaw and said, "Not the last couple of days—not since Mary has been back."<
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  Well, that was true, and I thought it over for a while but didn't come to any conclusion.

  "You can try this bed," I said to Lucy after a while, "and I'll take the couch. I think it's cooler here."

  She demurred for a conventional interval and then agreed, and I climbed into the couch.

  It was hot, all right—there didn't seem to be a breath of air around it— and I tossed in damp discomfort. I was quite illogically annoyed with Lucy, too, because she went to sleep almost at once in my bed. I flopped around onto my back and saw that the gray square of the window was growing lighter. The various objects in the room began to emerge from total darkness—and then my eyes slid around to the door, and I thought I saw it open slightly. I was instantly in a cold sweat, and I stared in terror with my breath coming short, but there was no sound, and I was able to convince myself, after a while, that the door had not moved at all.

  My thoughts slipped to the wrapped-up mummy and the feel of cold marble—like flesh under my fingers—and I gasped and flung off the sheet. Then I decided that it wasn't all that hot and pulled the sheet up again.

  No, it wasn't the heat, so much. It was stuffy. I needed more air. I got up and tugged at the couch until it was about two feet away from the wall, hoping that the noise would wake Lucy. But it didn't. The thing moved smoothly, and I reflected bitterly that you could depend on Mary to have furniture that moved smoothly,

  I lay down again and breathed deeply a couple of times to see whether there was any improvement, but I couldn't be sure one way or the other. I began to toss around again, and at last I nearly went over the edge on the wall side, because I had forgotten the space there. I flung an arm out to save myself, and glanced downward—and instantly froze with horror. Something lay along the floor between the couch and the wall—something long, and still, and securely wrapped in what I knew would be a pinkish colored material.

  CHAPTER THIRTY