Black-Eyed Stranger

by Charlotte Armstrong

  “You going to dictate, boy?”

  “I am and you’ll print.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind. Print.”

  Sam said, “What is this?”

  “Print it. ‘Take the first left after the third traffic light. Go west three quarters of a mile to iron fence.’”

  Sam’s damp fingers slipped on the pencil. He felt a grin begin to form on his face, a battered thing. Then he put his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and began to print laboriously.

  Reilly was looking over Dulain’s shoulder at the brown paper. “Oh, oh,” he said.

  “Am I perchance printing part of a ransom note? Perchance?” Sam saw Salisbury’s hand over his eyes. “Continue,” said Sam, cutting the comedy. “Sorry, Pop.”

  “The way that’s done,” Reilly said in a low voice, sounding troubled, “you can’t tell. It’s a trick. You take cardboard. You cut a square hole. Every letter is drawn square with a guide, see. How about fingerprints?”

  “Have it tested,” Alan snapped.

  “Better have it tested,” drawled Sam, “in case this fellow never read a book or went to the movies. Maybe he can write but he can’t read. Say, tell me, when did this show up?” Sam’s fingers were spread. The yellow pencil jiggled in the press of his thumb against his palm. Marvelous, he thought. A pencil! What a thing! What a device!

  “Thursday,” Salisbury said tensely. “Eighteen hours are long gone. Why isn’t she home? Can you explain it?”

  “You mean!” Sam exploded. “Don’t tell me you’ve paid!”

  “I … thought I did.”

  “Don’t keep telling him—” began Alan.

  “I want to listen to this, sunshine,” snarled Sam. “Shut up a minute. Get out of the way.”

  Salisbury told him and Sam leaned back. He let the chair take him. He closed his eyes. He thought, oh, this is marvelous!

  He said, “Was there anything from her? Surely you didn’t pay off without some sign?”

  “They sent her scarf.”

  Sam looked at it. He said, “Mulberry, eh?” in an odd tone. “Pretty exclusive, I guess. That pattern.”

  “What?”

  “You shouldn’t have paid off. You should have gone to the cops. You know that.”

  “I’knew that,” Alan said.

  Salisbury’s haunted eyes met Sam’s. Sam saw the hurt and looked away. “You should have figured it for murder, sir,” he said somberly. “From the very beginning. From the first word. Well, down the drain.” He jiggled the pencil. “When did they say she’d be back?”

  “By now. An hour ago,” The old man was steady. “Why isn’t she back, Mr. Lynch?”

  Sam answered mechanically, “Don’t be too sure. There could be a hitch somewhere. Things don’t always go in order. It’s a slippery world.”

  He was thinking. That fox! That Ambielli! Must have been hanging around, ready to pick her up, maybe on Thursday. She doesn’t show. So, he snoops. They let it out. Maybe the servants. Let it out she was missing. Or, calling hospitals, they let it out. Or asking questions. Lots of ways Ambielli could catch on she was gone.

  Ambielli must have been burning. Somebody hijacks his prey. So, he steps in. He hijacks the money. Oh, oh, it was marvelous! A world such things could happen in, you wouldn’t want to leave.

  And now, Ambielli had the money, and what did he care where the girl was? She’d been no trouble to him, no groceries for Baby to buy, never a face of theirs to see. She was no danger to them at all, and Ambielli didn’t want her any more. Wouldn’t want anything to do with her. All he cared, now, was to discipline Sam Lynch. If Sam was the one. If he got sure.

  But, Sam thought with growing excitement, anyhow she was safe and she could get home by herself easily, now. And she might even … the girl, herself … oh, she would if she could … little sister with the gray eyes … she’d even said so … she’d protect Sam Lynch!

  Then he wouldn’t have to die!

  If he could make it back out there, let her go, tell her what to say. Tell her she never saw any faces. The ransom was paid, and she was released. Simple as that. Or she could even give a partial description, not possibly Sam Lynch. Some way to cover. Some way. Maybe it would work.

  In fact, Sam had done the dirty work and Ambielli had his profits, safely, and he had an alibi, a dandy, they said. Sam thought, I could even get Ambielli to buy that. But he thought, No. There’s his reputation. What else was he up here for, if not to see what he could find out about who did this to him? He got the money. Used my method. Of course, he’s got it. So he wasn’t up here for profit, but for his dignity. He came to find out. And he did find out. Or, did he?

  Maybe there was still a chance, if he could get out there to the shack alive and stay alive until she came home and told the story. Dulain would never do it, never cover him. (Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Death to tell.) See if he could get to her alive. Little sis Salisbury with the crooked tooth, she had heart enough and little enough sense to do it for him. At least, he thought, she’d listen.

  He said aloud, “Did you speak my name?” Nobody answered. He looked at Warner. “You were here, Joe?”

  “Yeah, Sam.”

  “Did they?”

  “Ambielli did, Sam.”

  “But they didn’t? You didn’t?”

  “Just then, you came in.”

  “Oh. Did Ambielli have a car?”

  “Him and Baby rode up with me.”

  “Oh.” Sam thought, but they’ll get a car. Have one by now.

  Alan was listening, his ears almost pointed. Not really listening, Sam thought bitterly, but waiting to hear what he expects to hear.

  He heard Salisbury say, quietly, “Is there any way you can help us?”

  “Maybe so,” Sam said.

  “Help us!” burst Dulain. “He knows all about it. He’s in it. Don’t you get that? He’s trying to figure how to shake you down a little more. He …”

  “Alan, this time I’m going to assume Lynch is a decent—”

  “Then you’re a fool, sir. He is not decent. He is on the wrong side of this somehow. Why do you spill everything you know to him? Everyone’s telling him? But he hasn’t told us one thing. Not one thing. I can’t understand.”

  “Boy,” said Sam, “that’s the truth.” He looked at his shoes. He thought, and why should I die for Katherine Dulain?

  “If he can help …” the old man argued.

  “Don’t listen to him, sir. We’ll get help. He’ll try to talk you out of going to the police. His type never wants authority in on it. He’ll be mysterious. A phony like this! It’ll be agony, sir. And more money, no doubt. And all the while, you know quite well, she may not even be alive.”

  The father knew it quite well, Sam saw. Sam said, angrily, “That’s right, Dulain. For all you ever listened or did about it, she could be dead.”

  “You—”

  “There are wolves in the woods,” raved Sam, “that ain’t been rehabilitated yet. But when I come crying wolf, you say, ‘I can’t understand this kid’s motive, so he must be a liar.’ And if Alan Dulain can’t understand it, it can’t be human. Aw, you’re so damn silly. Why didn’t you call your police on Wednesday?”

  “Why didn’t you?” spat Dulain.

  “Because I was scared. But you got nothing to be scared of, a hero like you. Go ahead. Call them now. Sic them on Ambielli, why don’t you? Go ahead. Do that. Do something useful.” Sam ground his teeth. “Call them now.”

  “Will you swear,” said Dulain craftily, “that it was Ambielli you overheard plotting—”

  “I can’t quote him,” Sam said through his teeth, “for God’s sake, he didn’t say.”

  “Then how can I sic the police on him?”

  “You won’t do it? Just do it, right now? Just for the hell of it? You’re going to debate, boy?”

  “If you don’t tell …” Alan shrugged. “What have I got? You said yourself the grudge idea was silly.”

  Sa
m said, “Yeah, it was silly. Never mind.”

  The question churned in his mind. How get Ambielli? For extortion, or whatever it would be called? For the taking of the money, which was a crime, and Ambielli had done it. This Sam knew. But how could he tell? “Because I told him a little plot,” he would say, “and the little plot was used.” It was a long way from proof. A long, long way. He could hear the sarcasm. “Now, Mr Lynch, you contend that you and only you in all life and time could think up such a little plot? Do you mean to say, Mr. Lynch, that in—how many?—years you never mentioned it to another soul but Mr Ambielli?” Sam groaned. Laughter in the courtroom.

  Then, get Ambielli for the murder of the watchman? That was a crime, and Ambielli had done it. And Sam knew. And knew by nothing but the intuition, without evidence or witness or clue.

  All right, get him for kidnaping? Which was a crime. Oh yes. But Ambielli hadn’t done it. Sam’s eyes felt hot and the lids dry.

  “Do you think,” he heard the father say, “that Katherine is alive?”

  Sam pulled himself together. “I’ll find out for you,” he said carefully. “If you’ll let me go. I’ve got contacts. Dulain knows my reputation. Think it over. Meantime, where is there a bathroom?”

  “Phinney,” called Alan, “will you show Mr. Lynch?”

  “Thanks,” snarled Sam, “for understanding.” He thought, wants to confer. Glad to get me out of the room. Going to debate a while.

  He closed the door of this bathroom. The window was not transparent. No way he could be seen, as he wrote on a page out of his notebook, wrote it down boldly. Exactly where she was and how to get there. Housekeeping in this air castle was perfect. Everything was spotless. It couldn’t be long before one servant or another would be cleaning around in here. He put the piece of paper under a box of medicine in the cabinet. He thought if he made it to her, he could warn her to destroy this note. He thought, if I don’t make it, and I’m dead, they’ll find this pretty soon. Or she’ll be into the coffee can.

  He thought, I’m a great one to leave little notes around. Got a lot of faith in the written word. Naturally.

  He began to think again of the fly in the soup. All the little fly could do was beat his wings. Some flies got out, though. Some of them made it. If they hadn’t got their wings too sticky. He thought, I never saw a fly who wouldn’t try.

  Chapter 15

  HE unlocked the door and came out. There had been some kind of flurry. He could sense the trailing eddies in the air out here, the settling of the dust. The stalky little operative, Reilly, was gone.

  He said, irritably, “Well? Do I leave? Or you want to burn the soles of my feet or something?”

  “You may go,” Dulain said.

  “You been on the phone, boy?” Sam wanted a few more minutes. He didn’t feel ready. Besides, his demon was on him. He wanted to know why they let him go. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  “Charles?” All their faces tilted to look up and Martha Salisbury looked down. Then she saw Sam Lynch, and she came down the rest of the way and walked across the room to him. He had forgotten about her. If he’d thought to wonder where she was, he’d have guessed they kept her drugged someplace, some dim luxurious quiet place where Martha Salisbury could be safe in a dream.

  But here she was, and her small feet came marching. She said, “Oh, Mr. Lynch, I am so glad you are here at last.” Her voice was all right. And he saw that her pretty doll face had fallen tight to the bone but she was not doped. Her eyes were all right.

  He hadn’t reckoned with her.

  She said, “Do you know where Katherine can be?” She asked him, respectfully.

  He mumbled, “Ma’am, I’m going to try …” He left it hanging. He was ashamed. He thought, I didn’t give her enough respect. I should have respected her.

  Salisbury was swiftly at her side. “Lynch thinks he can help, darling. He thinks there could have been a little hitch. Things don’t always go by the strict hour, so he says …”

  But the little doll lady wasn’t having any. She said to Sam Lynch, “I’ve been thinking about it.” She spoke to him as if only he and she were grown up. She said, “People who would do such a thing as this, wouldn’t honor a promise. Or I shouldn’t think so.”

  “It … it depends, ma’am. Some kinds of promises …” He was evading. He hadn’t reckoned with her and he didn’t want to. “There are different circumstances. It’s hard to say. Can’t be sure.”

  “But isn’t it true that the safest thing for them would be to kill her?”

  “Ah, Martha.” Salisbury was dismayed.

  “When I think about it, Charles,” she said, “that seems so plain. Maybe Mr. Lynch, who knows more than I, can show me I’m mistaken.”

  Sam said, respectfully, “Yes, it’s dangerous to them for her to stay alive. She may see too much. You’ve thought that out, ma’am. But it is also a pretty terrible danger the other way. Once you were sure she was never coming back, you’d move heaven and earth.” Salisbury’s eyes glittered. But Sam had to go on. He couldn’t leave it hanging. “Still, you’ll do that either way.”

  She said, “So I was thinking.” She threw her white head back. “Ought we to be sure she is never coming back? Is it time?” And she stood there, and he was to answer.

  “Oh, no, no, no,” Sam couldn’t help it. He touched her shoulder. He said, “Don’t be sure, yet, ma’am. Don’t hurt yourself with that. Try not—”

  She wrenched away and picked up the mulberry scarf. “But this silk. It’s not alive, Mr. Lynch. I wish I could tell you how I know. It just isn’t Kay. She’s flesh and life. This silk is dead.”

  “Martha. Martha.”

  “Yes, Charles. Yes, all right.”

  If you took the words, they didn’t mean anything. They sounded mad. But Sam knew what it was about the scarf, and his heart hurt for this little lady who had turned out to be as tough and marvelous as this. He said, almost stammering, “I think she’s all right, ma’am.”

  “You know more than we?” Oh, she put it right up to him.

  “I don’t suppose she’s so happy,” Sam said as lightly as he could, “but I don’t think she’s hurt at all. I think she’ll be home.”

  She said, “Thank you.” Her eyes didn’t leave his face.

  “Ah, darling, sit down.”

  “Yes, Charles. Will it be long?” She was asking Sam. He was supposed to answer. He must have told her.

  “I don’t know,” Sam said in a panic. “I couldn’t say. I really don’t know.”

  He knew without looking what Dulain wore on his face, the smirk, the just-as-I-thought-all-along expression, the big ha-ha. Dulain said, “You’re a liar.”

  Sam said, “Uh-huh.” He was very tired. He thought, well, this tore it. “You haven’t got a lot of tact, Dulain. But you’re right, as usual. I am a liar.” He put his hands in his hair.

  Chapter 16

  THE Salisburys were silent.

  “You are Ambielli’s man,” Alan said.

  “No.”

  “You’re a liar. ‘Boss,’ you called him.”

  “Slip of the tongue. Courtesy,” said Sam bitterly. “That’s a word, boy. Arrest me. Call a flock of cops. Call for the wagon. Oblige me. Please.”

  But now Alan drew back. “Why?”

  “Why not, for God’s sake? I’m a phony. I’m a crook. I’m a kidnaper.”

  “Then Ambielli’s got her and you—”

  “No. That’s not what I said.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  Sam said, “Go up to Shawpen Lake. I’ve got a shack up there. That’s where she is.”

  Salisbury jumped up but his hand was in his wife’s hand holding tight.

  “Who’s got her there?” Dulain demanded.

  “I have.”

  Martha sat still but the men made a hostile phalanx. Alan said, “Who’s on guard?”

  “Nobody.”

  “You’re a liar”. Alan snarled. “That’s impossible. Wait a minu
te.”

  Sam looked down at his shoes. He knew their voices were crossing and clashing over his head but he stopped hearing the words. He thought, so I get to be a hero. I trip myself to glory. He had to grin.

  Martha was still sitting there holding that scarf. But Salisbury was shaking him and shouting, “Take me there. Take me there. Right now.”

  Sam roused. “You can find it,” he said almost indifferently.

  “No, no, take me there. Now. Quick.”

  “You want to live, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Better not ride with me.”

  “He’ll take us there,” Alan cried.

  Sam lifted a brow. “What makes you think so? I told you. You’re a big boy. You go.”

  “It’s a trick!” Alan was furious.

  Sam hoisted himself up. “It’s a what?”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “For Christ’s sake!”

  “You’re working for Ambielli. This is only a trick.”

  “Yeah? You think so?” Sam felt his eyes glazing.

  “Why do you want us up in the country? What’s that going to do for you?”

  “Not a damn thing. Unless it gets me killed.”

  “Who’s going to kill you?”

  “The boss,” Sam said.

  “Then this is a double cross.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Who got the money?”

  “Ambielli.”

  Alan said, “You make no sense.”

  “How true,” said Sam. “How right you are. You’re often right, Dulain. Better get going, somebody.” He leaned back.

  “And where will you be?”

  “In jail, I hope. Please?”

  “Salisbury money. False arrest.”

  “Drop it, Alan,” Salisbury said. “Hurry.”

  “But wait a minute, sir. Don’t fall for this. He must have something rigged.”

  “That would be my type?” said Sam.

  “Katherine,” the father cried. “I’m going after Katherine.”

  “Wait.”

  Sam said, “Yeah. Wait. Don’t forget to put me away. Call the cops, one of you.”

  “Time enough,” said Dulain, looking sly, “when there is more evidence than your word.”