House of Cards

by Stanley Ellin

  “God, these Frenchmen,” she loudly whispered in pure mid-western American. “Look at that gorgeous thing, Adele,” whereupon they all turned to examine me as they filed by, so that I felt like something behind bars in a zoo.

  By the time I finished my cigarette, the corridors ahead were empty. I reached Compartment 2, Car 8, without running into any inquisitive officials along the way, found the door unlocked, and stepped inside, locking it behind me.

  Anne was standing there in the narrow aisle between the made-up lower berth and the commode cabinet, which was about all the standing space the compartment offered. She looked completely unstrung.

  “I’m glad you showed up,” she said with a weak attempt at the light touch. “I was just getting ready to panic.”

  “Nothing to panic about. Did you get a customs declaration from the trainman?”

  “Yes, I already signed it and gave it to him along with my passport. He has the money, too. I told him to change it to lire. And I asked about connections to Venice. He said we’d get into Milan at three in the morning, and a train to Venice comes through there about four. Otherwise, we could stay on board here in the Milan station until seven.”

  “Why would we want to do that?”

  “It wasn’t my idea. He seemed to think the early train to Venice wasn’t my style. It’s all third class.”

  “But the price is right and we’ll be in Venice while your friends are still hunting around Paris for us.”

  Anne’s nostrils flared. “Do you have to call them that?” she demanded.

  “All right, just keep your voice down. You can be heard right through these walls. You’re supposed to be traveling solo in here.”

  “Then what happens when the conductor comes back with the passport and money? Where will you be? There’s no place in here to hide.”

  “You don’t have much confidence in this deal, do you?”

  “No. I want to have, but I don’t.”

  “Then just do what I tell you to do. I trust you’re wearing something under that dress?”

  “The minimum.”

  “That’s enough. Now get out of your things and hang them on those hooks so they’re in plain sight. The shoes and stockings you can put on the commode.”

  She hesitated momentarily, but then obediently undressed while I stowed the gun under the pillow and stretched out on the bed. An extra blanket had been tightly rolled into a protective cushion between berth and wall, and I unrolled it and threw it over me. After Anne slipped under the covers I switched off the ceiling light so that the compartment was lit only by the pallid glow of the reading lamp at the head of the bed.

  Anne was, in fact, wearing the stark minimum of underwear, and her body, where my hand met it, was cold gooseflesh. But she didn’t flinch at my touch or try to withdraw from it

  “Can you reach the lock on the door from here?” I asked.

  She stretched out an arm to test this. “Yes.”

  “Then when the trainman comes back, open it like that and take the passport and money without letting him in.”

  “What if he wants to inspect the valise?”

  “He won’t. Now let’s see that newspaper. Which one is it?”

  “France-Soir. It was the only one they had from Paris.”

  My spirits rose as I scanned the first few pages. There was no mention of Louis’ murder in them, and that could mean it hadn’t stirred up enough interest to warrant a general alarm. Then on page four I was handed the bad news. My picture was there—an old one lifted from the sports files—and below it was a detailed account of the killing, I read it, and it was like reading the prosecution’s case against me as prepared by Léon Becque, an airtight, unbeatable case.

  I showed the news story to Anne and she nodded. “I read it while I was waiting for the train.”

  “Is it the same story Claude told you about me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “He didn’t pretend to believe it himself.” She closed her eyes and lay there quiescent. Then she said in a remote voice, “When he told me it was your best friend I knew it was Louis. It was horrible.”

  “Was it?” I said viciously. “I didn’t know Louis meant that much to you.”

  “I knew what he meant to you.”

  “Very touching.”

  “Oh, God,” Anne said, “if you can’t understand how I—”

  “Never mind that. The man who killed Louis was the same one who delivered Paul to his grandmother afterward. Who is he?”

  “I don’t know. Probably someone sent by Charles Leschenhaut.”

  “Leschenhaut?”

  “He’s the head of the whole organization,” Anne said wearily. “He does the planning. He gives the orders.”

  So that was it. When I had stupidly let Leschenhaut know I couldn’t work with him on my stories the coming weekend because Anne had other plans for me, he already suspected what those plans were. And when his spy, Léon Becque, brought Eliane to Véronique’s apartment the next evening to celebrate their engagement, he had learned enough to confirm the suspicions.

  I told Anne this. “It was my fault for being so damned gullible,” I said bitterly.

  Her eyes opened wide, fixed on the curve of the ceiling over us.

  “When it comes to adding up faults,” she whispered. “When I think what I’ve done to you—”

  I didn’t argue that. It was only the truth.

  “And Sidney Scott?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What really happened to him?”

  “They killed him.”

  “Who did?”

  “All of them. They called me up that night to say Madame Cesira was dying and that I was to have Sidney drive Paul and me to Île Saint-Louis right away. They killed Sidney there. They drowned him in the bathtub the way you’d drown a helpless animal. I didn’t see it because when I came in they gave me a drink with something in it that knocked me out completely. But Gabrielle de Gonde told me about it afterward. She enjoyed telling it to me, the sweet-faced, hypocritical bitch. How easy it was when you just lifted someone’s ankles out of the water—”

  “Why did they kill him?”

  “Because I told him everything so he’d help Paul and me get out of the country. And that same evening he went to Bernard about it. I didn’t know he trusted Bernard completely, didn’t know they were lovers, until it was all over.”

  “So the whole story you handed the police—?”

  “It was Leschenhaut and that doctor who runs the sanitarium—Dr. Linder—who made up the story.”

  “And,” I said, “when Max Marchat, your nice respectable lawyer, read the transcript of the police interview he suspected you were lying. After a while he made the mistake of asking people embarrassing questions, and that was the end for him.”

  “How do you know about it?”

  “Because once you know the OEI it’s easy to work out the answers. Do you want to know another answer I just worked out? It’s pretty risky handing over a quarter of a million dollars a year to an outfit like the OEI, what with all the snooping bank officials and tax collectors who might get curious about it. But you can hand it over by losing it in installments to someone named Spinosi who runs a gambling joint in Saint-Cloud. He doesn’t keep the money for himself. He’s an OEI agent and passes it on to them, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “So with Leschenhaut the president of the club and Spinosi the treasurer, what does that make Morillon? Sergeant-at-arms? Chief executioner?”

  I felt Anne stiffen at this, but she said nothing.

  “Well?” I said angrily.

  Still Anne remained silent. The infatuation for Morillon might have withered, but a loyalty remained, a feeling compounded of experiences shared, of torrid sessions in bed—

  “Could I have a cigarette, please?” Anne said in a strained voice.

  I had the pack halfway out of my pocket, then shoved it back. “I only have
a couple left. If you don’t have your own, you’ll have to do without.”

  “Then I’ll have to do without.”

  After that, she lay, hands clasped on breast, like the effigy of a crusader’s wife on a sarcophagus lid. It was a knocking at the compartment door which started her out of that position.

  “Madame, I have your passport and money.”

  I swiftly doused the reading light, drew the blanket over my head, and got a grip on the gun under the pillow.

  “All right,” I whispered, “you know what to do.”

  I felt Anne shift her position, heard the snick of the door bolt.

  “The passport, madame. And this packet contains the twelve thousand lire.”

  “Thank you very much.”

  “But, madame, one must sign a receipt for the money.”

  I held my breath as Anne slipped out of the berth.

  “The signature goes right here, madame. Ah, there we are. Good night. Sleep well.”

  The door closed; the bolt snapped back into place. Half-smothered, I threw aside the blanket and turned on the light. My hot elation wasn’t cooled any by the sight of Anne as she stood there, a few scanty inches of silk and lace this side of naked.

  I had to force myself not to stare.

  “We got away with it after all,” I said.

  “I think we did.”

  Anne put the passport into the pocket of the sweater on its hanger, handed me the money, and, without self-consciousness, slipped back into the berth. I reached for the light switch, pleasurably aware of the pressure of that bare shoulder and smoothly rounded hip against me as I moved, and Anne said, “No, leave the light on.”

  “Why? Afraid of the dark?”

  “Yes.”

  I saw she meant it. I pulled out my crumpled pack of cigarettes and offered her one. “Maybe this’ll help.”

  “How kind of you,” Anne said coolly as she took a cigarette. Then holding it up in clear view, she slowly and deliberately shredded it to bits between her fingers and let the fragments sift to the floor.

  The train roared through the farmlands of the Jura toward Switzerland, the compartment ceaselessly rocking and swaying, its walls creaking in a hundred different keys. And Anne and I lay wedged against each other in the narrow confines of that berth like a pair of prisoners chained together body to body, hating it, but at the same time—and I was sure this was as true of her as it was of me—feeling an uneasy excitement in the contact.

  2

  It looked strangely like a canal, but I knew it must be the Truckee River because of the Nevada state markers stuck into the ground along its banks. I was running away from home again, only this time, instead of taking the highway out of town, I was going to keep under cover of the thickets beside the river until I reached the California line. But the thickets held me fast, and whatever monstrous thing was following me was closing in now. Fire was the answer. Pine cones hung like belts of grenades from the scrubby trees around me, and all I had to do was hurl one at the pursuing Thing to send it up in a burst of flame. I reached for a pine cone. It was made of crumpled newspaper which turned to ashes when I touched it and floated like snowflakes to the ground. And the Thing thudded toward me with leaden steps—

  I opened my eyes, quaking with terror. Around me was a reflection of dim light on metal, a luggage rack, a dark rectangle of window shade. Compartment 2, Car 8, of the Paris-Milan night express.

  Anne lay against me deep in sleep, her cheek against mine, her arm across my chest. The sound of her regular breathing was the only thing to be heard in the eerie silence around us. Silence? That meant the train was standing still.

  The silence was suddenly broken. A thump of footsteps in the corridor. Heavy, authoritative footsteps. And an authoritative voice.

  “Alors, chaque compartiment, vous comprenez.”

  French, but with a strong Teutonic flavor.

  “Oui, Monsieur l’In specteur.”

  I gently placed my hand over Anne’s mouth. Her eyes opened, wide and staring.

  “It’s the police,” I whispered. “Don’t make a sound.”

  She nodded, and I withdrew my hand from her mouth. As noiselessly as I could, I climbed over her to the floor, switched off the bed lamp, and pulled up the window shade. The window was opaque with mist. When I cleared a patch of it with my fingertip I saw no human figures in the bluish, glass-distorted light outside, so I took the chance of raising the window and leaning out to look around.

  An icy cold instantly enveloped me. The ground was covered with a crust of snow that glittered under powerful fluorescent lights; the only thing moving against the whiteness was a feather of steam from beneath the car ahead. I leaned out still further. Up the line loomed the black maw of a tunnel entrance.

  I drew back into the compartment as a couple of uniformed men descended from the next car and walked briskly past me under the window, their shoes crunching in the snow.

  “Where are we?” Anne whispered. “It’s freezing.”

  “Simplon, I think. We’re right near the tunnel. The Swiss police must be checking every train from Paris. Look, there’s only one way out of this. We got away with it before; we’ll have to try it again.”

  “But it’s the police! If they walk in here and turn the light on—”

  “That’s what I want them to do. And what I want you to do right now is wait until I give you the signal, then scream your head off.”

  I cautiously pulled the compartment door open and took my place in the berth.

  “But, Reno—”

  “Shut up and listen. When they come in, tell them you screamed because a man ran in here and went out through that window. That’s all there is to it. Now get that blanket over me and crowd against me as close as you can. And don’t do anything until I tell you to.”

  We waited. Those heavy footsteps moved down the corridor like approaching doom. There was a peremptory rapping at the door of the next compartment. Then that guttural French.

  “Open up, please. Official business.”

  I pressed my ear against the wall. A grumble of voices, the official one rising in irritation.

  “Regrettable, yes, but it can’t be helped, monsieur. The man is dangerous. And we know he’s somewhere on the train. An entire company of ladies identified him from this photograph.”

  So the bright-eyed prairie type and her companions had taken too-good notice of me in the vestibule.

  “Now!” I said to Anne.

  She started to shiver uncontrollably, her teeth chattering in her head. “I can’t!” It was hard for her to even mouth the words. “I want to, but I can’t!”

  “You can, God damn it! Think of Paul. Do you know how easy it is to drown a helpless little kid? Do you know how he’ll look when they drag him out of the water?”

  She screamed then, as if releasing everything pent up in her. The footsteps next door thundered out into the corridor. The compartment door banged wide open.

  “Madame, what is it? What’s happened?”

  “A man!” Anne’s body strained back against me. “He went through that window!”

  “Through the window? Son of a bitch, he’s the one all right!”

  A deeper voice. The Inspector’s.

  “Naturally! So don’t stand there looking out at the scenery, lump. Follow him! Get after him!”

  “He’s already out of sight, Inspector. There’s no one outside here.”

  “Then he crawled under the car to the other side. He’ll try to make for the woods. Madame, forgive me, I know the state you’re in, but did you get a good look at him? Was he the one in this photograph?”

  “I don’t know. It happened so suddenly. He just burst in here—”

  “Yes, yes, of course. A terrible experience. But he won’t be back, I assure you. I’ll attend to him myself. A regrettable affair. Regrettable—”

  The two official voices rapidly faded out of hearing, but another took their place.

  “Madame—” Th
is was the trainman oozing concern. “If there is anything I can do—”

  “You can pull down that window, please. And the shade.”

  “Certainly. Ah, that’s better, isn’t it? But the train must start to move before the room will warm up properly and God knows how long we’ll be stuck here. It’s been half an hour already. I’m afraid you have very little chance of making a connection with the four o’clock train to Venice now, so if you wish to sleep late—”

  “Wake me when we get to Milan anyhow.”

  “If you wish. And this time be sure the door is locked after I leave. After all, an attractive woman traveling alone—”

  “It’s all right. I’ll take care of the door. Good night.”

  “And, madame, on behalf of the entire syndicate of French railways—”

  “They’re no sorrier about this than I am. Good night. I’m very tired.”

  “Good night, madame. Sleep well.”

  I heard him outside in the corridor answering the questions of some excited passengers. The pressure of Anne’s body against me eased as she snapped the door lock. When I emerged from concealment she turned toward me, and I put a finger to my lips. Slowly the gabble of voices died away, and dead silence descended on us again. As time went on, I got the feeling that there was no silence in the world more complete and pitiless than that of a train standing motionless in an Alpine pass at midnight. My skin crawled with the tension mounting in me, but I had to stay where I was. The police, failing to pick up my trail outside, would probably return here on the sly to make another search for me. They knew I was aboard the train. They would never let me get away like this.

  Anne’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling, her lips drawn back, her teeth set. She looked like someone on the rack while its ropes were being tightened.

  click—

  The sound was almost inaudible. I wasn’t even sure that I heard it at first.

  —click, click-click, click-click—

  “We’re moving,” Anne whispered unbelievingly.