House of Cards

by Stanley Ellin

  It was providence which sent the instrument of my vengeance strolling by the café just then. I saw the girl on the sidewalk at the same time my waiter did, recognized what she was as promptly as he. She was small and pretty, with a trim figure and excellent legs, and was dressed with a chic that suggested she was the pampered wife or mistress of some rich denizen of the Étoile district. But her walk gave her away. She moved too deliberately, her face expressionless, her eyes flicking over the tables, taking in every man who sat there unaccompanied, appraising the possibilities with the accuracy of a pretty little electronic computer. A poule de luxe out to explore the rich tourist market.

  When she finally headed toward an empty table nearby, my waiter, a footsore old veteran, snapped his fingers to attract her attention and gave her a warning shake of the head. I knew what was on his mind. At this early hour, there were too many watchful, bad-tempered American and British wives here with their husbands. Let word get around the tourist bureaus that the place welcomed professional temptresses and the family trade might very soon fall off.

  The girl seemed momentarily embarrassed by the warning, then shrugged and started to walk away. Suddenly, Machiavellian inspiration seized me. I stood up—discovering in the process that my knees had mysteriously turned to rubber—and waved a greeting to Mademoiselle.

  “So there you are, chérie,” I said. “Do you know you’ve kept me waiting for an hour?”

  She looked at me with surprise, then promptly picked up her cue.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, baby.” She flashed the waiter a look of triumph as she sat down beside me. “I had so many things to do before I could get away. You know how it is.”

  “Sure. Anyhow, I have a forgiving nature. What would you like to drink?”

  “What are you having?” she asked, and when I told her she shuddered and said, “My God, what a stomach you must have. Café crème and a cigarette will do very well for me, thank you.”

  The waiter departed, growling under his breath, and as I lit the girl’s cigarette I said to her sotto voce, “It’s only fair to tell you I’m not in the market right now. But when that miserable type tried to run you off the premises—”

  “You felt it would be amusing to stick a thumb in his eye,” the girl said, “and now he probably thinks you’re my mackerel. Well, if it doesn’t matter to you, it doesn’t matter to me. I can always use a cup of coffee anyhow.”

  “Good. My name’s Reno, by the way. What’s yours?”

  “Ghislaine.”

  “It’s a nice name.”

  “It’s just a name,” the girl said indifferently. “Don’t strain yourself, baby. You don’t have to make conversation if you don’t want to.”

  “I want to. However, there’s a phone call to make first. Will you wait here meanwhile?”

  “Yes. But not very long unless I get paid for it.”

  I found the phone in the back of the café. When Anne heard my voice over it, her own immediately became guarded.

  “Yes, Monsieur Reno?”

  “Is someone there with you?”

  “No, but someone may be listening in. I’ve always had trouble with this connection. What did you want to tell me?”

  “It concerns the reading list I’ve drawn up for Paul, but I’d rather discuss it in person, madame. Could you meet me here at the Café Chaudron? It’s too pleasant a day to remain indoors.”

  “Impossible, Monsieur Reno. I don’t think Georges has returned with the car yet.”

  “It’s only a short walk, madame.”

  It took her a long time to come to a decision, and then at last she said, “Very well, monsieur; I’ll bring my copy of the reading list with me,” and hung up.

  I kept the receiver to my ear. Sure enough, after a few seconds the silence in my ear was broken by the sound of another phone being carefully replaced on its stand. So someone had been listening in. Bernard, most likely. But when I pictured him at his desk, eavesdropping with wet-lipped avidity, what came sharpest to mind was his copy of La Mystère du Tarot on the desk, its jacket decorated with the grotesque illustration of The Hanged Man. It neatly symbolized me in my present state, emotionally dangling upside down by one ankle, but with a beatific smile on my lips.

  I somewhat unsteadily made my way back to the table outdoors, and Ghislaine said, “Well, you certainly look pleased with yourself. That call must have been a great success.”

  “It was. I arranged for a friend of mine to meet you here.”

  “A rich friend?”

  “Unbelievably rich.”

  Ghislaine drew on her cigarette with great deliberation and exhaled a cloud of smoke into the golden, hazy air.

  “Vous êtes un drôle de mec, bébé,” she declared, which could mean either that she found me a disturbingly weird character or a remarkably fascinating one. “What’s your racket?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  Ghislaine nodded wisely. “So that’s it.” She seemed relieved at this logical explanation of my eccentricities.

  After that, she settled down in her chair and drowsily took the sun, her face turned up to it, while I sat on tenterhooks, keeping a close eye out for Anne’s arrival. It didn’t take long. Whatever she thought when she saw I wasn’t alone didn’t show on her face. She took the seat I offered her, smiled at the startled Ghislaine and looked at me inquiringly.

  “This is Ghislaine,” I told her. “And this,” I said to Ghislaine, “is the friend I want you to meet.”

  Ghislaine threw me a sidelong glance of loathing, then turned apologetically to Anne.

  “Madame, I don’t know what sort of joke your husband is playing, but believe me, I have nothing to do with it. If you will excuse me—”

  She started to rise, but I caught hold of her wrist and forced her back into her seat.

  “You’re mistaken,” I said. “I am not Madame’s husband.”

  “Will you please tell me what this is all about?” Anne looked from one to the other of us. “I really don’t understand.”

  “Nor do I,” said Ghislaine, and to me she said witheringly, “Everyone is watching this, monsieur. If you want them to witness a scene that will curl their hair—”

  “There’s no need for any scene,” I said. “I wanted you to meet Madame for a good reason. I’ve already mentioned that she’s very rich. Unbelievably rich. And you can see for yourself she’s also extremely beautiful and elegant, isn’t she?”

  “So?” Ghislaine said warily.

  “So not to be subtle about it, I want you to clear up a mystery. I want you, as a professional in this line of work, to explain to me why such a woman as Madame would choose to go to bed regularly with a man she thoroughly detests.”

  Anne gasped. Her eyes, wide with shock, stared into mine; her hand went to her cheek as if it had been slapped. Then she came to her feet and blindly fled into the dim, concealing recesses of the café.

  Ghislaine looked after her open-mouthed, then turned to me wrathfully.

  “Ah, you brute! You animal! Now see what you’ve done? She’s going to be sick all over the place.”

  She rose and hurried after Anne, leaving me alone to savor my splendidly brutal triumph. Bernard Bourdon had been right when he warned that Madame de Villemont doted on playing off the people in her life against each other. And she had been so sure, so pathetically sure, she could play me off against Hubert Morillon without being caught at it—

  Ghislaine finally returned to the table.

  “She wants to see you,” she told me coldly. “She’s sitting there in the dark crying her heart out, the idiot.”

  “Is she? Well, don’t let her fool you. She’s a great performer, that one.”

  “She’s an imbecile, that’s what she is. Just another stupid female who lets a man wipe his feet all over her because she thinks she’s in love with him. You men are all alike. The only real pleasure for you is abusing women, isn’t it?”

  I held out my hand so she could see the edge of the fifty-fran
c note I had palmed, and she dexterously took possession of the money.

  “Chérie,” I said, “you didn’t get to the game early enough to know the score.”

  I strolled into the café. Anne was at a banquette in a far corner, her face a pale oval in the darkness, her hands clasped before her on the table. The only other people in the room were the bartender and a waiter in close conversation. I sat down, and when the waiter bustled over I ordered a double cognac. The waiter looked questioningly at Anne, and she nodded. “The same,” she said lifelessly.

  Sitting there nursing my drink, I became aware of the saccharine strains of a ballad being piped by Radio Luxembourg through the speaker behind the bar. The sound of the music, the sight of Madame’s melting eyes glimmering with tears—everything seemed calculated to make this a scene from Tristan und Isolde performed by a third-rate company.

  “Turn off that damn thing, will you?” I said to the bartender, and when he seemed deaf to this I repeated it, bringing my fist down hard on the table to emphasize it. This time he hastily switched off the sound.

  Anne leaned forward. Her hand hovered hesitantly over mine, then came to rest on it.

  “You’re very drunk, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Very.”

  “Please listen. Whatever you think—”

  “Sweetheart, after last night I don’t have to think. I know.”

  She abruptly withdrew her hand.

  “Who told you about it?” she asked dully. “Matilde?”

  “No. Your bad luck that I was waiting up to tell you some good news, so I got the picture all by myself. As for the news, Leschenhaut called me to say he’ll take a couple of my stories if I work them over with him next weekend. I’m afraid our little jaunt to New York will have to be postponed until that’s cleared up.”

  “Postponed?” Anne said unbelievingly. “You mean, even after what’s happened you’ll still get Paul and me to New York?”

  “Strictly as a business proposition, and my price is twenty thousand dollars cash before we leave. If you’re wondering how come I picked that figure, it’s because I heard that’s how much you’ve been dropping at Spinosi’s every time you’re there for the fun and games. How’d you make out last night, by the way? Win for a change? Is that what you were celebrating with Morillon?”

  “Oh, please. If you’re trying to punish me by talking this way—”

  “I’m only trying to let you know how we stand with each other.”

  Anne took rigid control of herself.

  “All right, I’ll pay your price. But under one condition. The trip can’t be postponed. We must leave Friday.”

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter why.” Her voice hardened. “You’ll do what you’re paid to do without asking questions, or we forget the whole thing.”

  I had the feeling she wasn’t pulling a bluff. In that case, Leschenhaut would just have to stand by until I had her and Paul safely convoyed across the Atlantic.

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll leave this Friday.”

  “And no one is to know about it. Absolutely no one.”

  “Except for a couple of people who are supposed to help me with the arrangements,” I pointed out.

  “You don’t have to tell them too much, either.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “You’re making this sound like Eliza getting ready to cross the ice. Maybe you don’t know it, but Orly airport is only half an hour down the road, and I’ve never yet seen a bloodhound in Paris.”

  “Don’t be funny about it! Just listen and try to understand what I want done. Or are you too drunk by now to understand anything?”

  “If I am, maybe it’s better that way. And what am I supposed to understand?”

  “Exactly what must be done Friday. Paul already knows his part I’ve taken him shopping in the Galeries Lafayette a few times to get him ready for it.”

  “At the Galeries Lafayette?” Maybe I was too drunk to understand her.

  “Yes. Georges always parks at the rue Mogador entrance and goes in with us. This time Paul will slip away once we’re inside and meet you at the rue de la Chaussée entrance where you’ll be waiting. You’ll have a car, a rented one, and you’ll drive straight to Orly and board the plane with Paul. I’ll join you as soon as I can get away from Georges. If I can’t, don’t worry about it. Somehow I’ll get a letter to you in New York that’ll explain everything.”

  It took me a few seconds to grasp the significance of this.

  “Are you serious?” I demanded. “Do you really expect me to smuggle Paul out of the country by myself and try to keep him hidden away from his own family?”

  “Oh God, all I expect you to do is go ahead without me if anything goes wrong. Doesn’t it mean anything that I trust you so completely? Doesn’t it prove that no matter what you think of me—”

  She was abandoning that pose of hardness now. Her voice became unsteady; she yearned toward me, her hand reaching again for mine as if by its own volition—anything, but anything, to sell the customer a doubtful bill of goods. And, possibly, a dangerous one.

  I drew my hand out of range.

  “The price is still twenty thousand dollars, cash in advance,” I said. “But now it’s a real bargain.”

  I called Leschenhaut from the café as soon as Anne left. When I told him I wouldn’t be able to keep the appointment with him he seemed to think I was pulling his leg.

  “Impossible!” he snorted. “Surely Madame couldn’t be so unkind. What reason could she possibly offer for such willfulness?”

  When, without divulging Madame’s reason, I convinced him that I was serious, he expressed his opinion of rich, psychotic, female Philistines in brutally frank language.

  “And to be the slave of such a type—” he concluded. “No, my friend, you need more spirit, more iron in the soul. If you want to be a creative force, you can’t let any woman lead you around by the nose, no matter how well she pays for the privilege.”

  That was uncomfortably close to the mark.

  “Monsieur Leschenhaut,” I said, “in a few weeks—”

  “No, no, young man. A few weeks, then a few more weeks, and meanwhile I’m supposed to sit like a fool waiting for you to favor me with your presence. I want none of that, thank you. I’ll return your manuscripts tomorrow. And give my regards to Madame. She may have saved both of us a great deal of wasted time.”

  It gave me a perfect score for the weekend. I had misjudged him almost as badly as I had misjudged Anne de Villemont.

  14

  In payment for Véronique’s services as my travel agent, when I climbed the four steep flights to her apartment on the rue de Babylonne the next evening it was with a box of wild strawberries in one hand, a package of her favorite Sainte-Odile cheese in the other and a bottle of wine in each of my jacket pockets. The door to the apartment was unlocked. I pushed it open with my foot and walked in to see Véronique and Louis keeping each other dismal company, Véronique with her eyes red and swollen and Louis looking bleak.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, and Louis said to Véronique, “You’d better help him unload that stuff before we tell him. There might be something breakable in one of those bags.”

  Véronique obeyed, and while she was at it said to me tearfully, “It’s Monsieur Driot-Steiner. My boss. He’s dead.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Sorry?” Louis slapped his hand against his forehead. “You should be terrified to hear it. For God’s sake, wake up, pal. Driot-Steiner. Adrian Driot-Steiner. Doesn’t that name mean anything to you?”

  Suddenly it did. That was the name signed to the requisition for the police report on Sidney Scott’s death.

  Louis was watching my expression. “Alors,”he said, “il pige vite, notre Reno, hein? Give him the least little clue and he catches on like a real genius.”

  “How did it happen?” I asked. “When?”

  “When he was leaving the Minist
ry after work this afternoon,” Véronique said. “A car was waiting there. It was just parked by the corner waiting. When he started to cross the street—”

  “What kind of car?”

  “A big black one. That’s all anyone could make of it before it got away.”

  “Poor devil,” Louis said to me, “he left the office at the same time every day and always crossed the rue de Grenelle at the same place. Such regularity can be fatal, it seems. Especially to types who get too interested in what happened to your Sidney Scott. What do you want to bet that Max Marchat was another one of those types?”

  I tried to put cause and effect together but couldn’t make them fit.

  “Look,” I said. “The only ones who knew about Driot-Steiner’s signing that requisition were the police. Are you telling me that the police had him killed?”

  “Why not?” Louis demanded. “The police have their share of rotten apples. And if someone like your charming Madame de Villemont is in the market for apples—”

  “You’ve met her,” I said. “Do you think she’s the kind to go around hiring assassins?”

  “Elle t’allume, bébé,” Louis said pityingly. “She gives you hot pants, that’s what I think, and that means you’re in no shape to judge her. But ask yourself just one little question. If she didn’t shove Sidney Scott into the drink and arrange to have Marchat and Driot-Steiner bumped off, who did?”

  “An old friend of hers,” I said. “Her lover, in fact,” and since I was here on confidential business anyhow, I explained in detail Dr. Hubert Morillon’s role in Madame’s life. I wound up with her plan to leave the country, and I could see that neither of my audience was happy about it.