Dream of Fair Woman

by Charlotte Armstrong

‘Sure did. What have I got to hide? So? Back to Nickey’s?’

  ‘Wait. Did you talk to her at all,’ said Betty earnestly, ‘on the way?’

  ‘Well, I let drop a couple of remarks, but she don’t want any. Some do. Some don’t.’

  ‘Did she look as if she didn’t feel well?’

  ‘Nope,’ said the cabby cheerfully. ‘She looked good to me.’

  ‘You recognised her picture in the paper?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘No? Why didn’t you, I wonder?’

  ‘Because what I see is a pretty blonde in a hat. And so what? I get all kinds. In the picture, it’s black and white. She’s got no hat.’

  ‘But you said—’

  ‘Look, I know I had that pick-up at one-thirty, didn’t I? When I read that in the paper, this morning.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call the hospital?’ broke in Matt sharply.

  The cab-driver said, ‘You know, I was thinking about doing just that.’ He grinned as if to say ‘and nobody can prove different.’ He waited for another question. When none came, he started his vehicle, cut a sharp U turn.

  At Nickey’s, they paid in silence and the cab took off.

  They retrieved Betty’s car. Matt looked at his watch. ‘Union Station? We’ve got time.’

  ‘That’s our trail,’ she answered.

  Neither of them said what both were thinking. The police would already have been to the railroad station. Whatever there was to be found there, the police would already know. They were following a beaten trail.

  But there was nothing to be found out at the railroad station. The very small cluster of redcaps professed not to be able to remember what had become of the girl in a brown suit and a small bright hat who had arrived in a cab, near two o’clock, on Tuesday, and carried her own luggage. Yes, there had been some police detective asking around. Just about an hour ago. Yes, sir. Yes, ma’am. They knew not why. They knew nothing.

  So Matt and Betty went in and walked down the whole line of ticket windows without finding anyone who remembered having seen any such person. End of trail.

  They must hurry back to snatch a bite with Peg, and then Matt must be at the hospital for visiting hours. They tried to sum things up. Miss Dorothy Daw had cancelled her flight, lied to her uncle, changed her destination in the cab, bought no train ticket, but might have taken a train. Or, it might have been her plan to become anonymous and vanish in the city.

  Betty said, ‘She paid the cab. She tipped. Did she give him all her change, down to the last penny? And what did she do with her hat? And her other things? Do you get the feeling that this is turning out to be even more peculiar than we thought it was?’

  ‘I get the feeling,’ said Matt, ‘that she must have been in bad trouble. I get the feeling that we shouldn’t have let them put her picture in the paper. I get the feeling we should have … I don’t know … done better by her. If we were going to do anything at all.’

  Betty stared at his hand on the wheel. She felt invisible, intangible.

  ‘I’m doing the best I can,’ she murmured rebelliously.

  To Matt’s surprise, when he came into the hospital, the old man was back. He seemed to be mumbling along in some dream. His brain was sodden. It took Matt ten minutes to convince him that if his daughter had been thirteen years old twenty years ago, then this girl could not be she.

  Then there was a woman who said she rented rooms and one of her lodgers had run out without paying. A dizzy little nobody named Natalie Johnson, who hadn’t been a blonde at the time but what difference did that make? It turned out that the missing lodger had been two inches taller than the figures given in the newspaper, but the woman was hoping that there could have been a mistake. She couldn’t afford to lose the sixty dollars. Matt finally got rid of her. She left as the door was being held open by Leon Daw for Megan Royce.

  Mrs Royce was wearing, over the violet dress, a purple coat cut perfectly square, with huge patch pockets. Her head was high on her long neck, her eyes were bright, she acted as if she were slumming.

  Leon Daw said, ‘St John Cotter is in touch with the hospital’s lawyer. Now, let’s get on with this.’

  Matt took them along to the door of Room 124 upon which the sign hung. He told them to wait. He beckoned the nurse. She came quickly with the necessary garments.

  ‘You will have to wear a gown and mask, Mrs Royce, and you, too, sir, if you’re to go in there.’

  Megan Royce uttered cries of girlish dismay and began to wiggle rather clumsily out of the purple coat. Matt turned abruptly to Leon Daw. ‘Have the police been to see you?’

  Leon looked at him dumbly and Megan squealed, ‘Oh, be careful! My bracelet! Here, let me do it myself.’

  ‘The police seem to be asking questions,’ Matt said.

  ‘This is not police business,’ said Leon coldly.

  And Megan cried, ‘Oh, my hairdo! Oh, dear!’ The nurse was tying the mask. She finished and turned with other gowns on her arm. Megan’s bright eyes were shining over the white lower half of her face. She had her hands to her back hair, as if to adjust the mask to a more stylish position. ‘I must be ready!’ she said, gaily. ‘I feel terribly sterile.’

  ‘All right,’ said Matt. ‘Now you, Mr Daw.’

  ‘I don’t need to go in,’ he said. ‘I know who she is. I told you.’

  Matt opened the door to the room. ‘Mr Cuneen,’ the nurse said warningly.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Matt plunged his arms into the sleeves of the gown she was holding. ‘Wait a minute, Mrs Royce,’ he said sharply, as Megan began to tip forward. She didn’t heed. He grabbed his mask and tied it in swift motions as he took long strides after her. She was already standing beside the high bed. He came up beside her and said, ‘Don’t touch her. Step back, please.’

  She turned her head. The face, blunted by the mask, seemed animal-like. The skin around the bright eyes crinkled. She was laughing at him. ‘What in the world is the matter with you?’ she said. ‘I’m here to look closely and I’m going to do it, aren’t I?’

  ‘Look, then,’ he said grimly. For some reason he took hold of her arm. The arm was thin, It seemed to shudder. The blunt face turned. ‘Leon,’ she called out. ‘Yes, it is! It really is! Poor dear Dorothy.’

  The man growled from the doorway, behind. ‘You better listen to that, Cuneen. You look me in the eye and tell me she isn’t Dorothy.’

  But Matt was looking at the sleeping girl. It seemed to him that her face was thinner, her breath was more shallow, He himself could not breathe. It struck him that she might drift away—just softly drift away on a breath, one day. She was all through with the world.

  Then Megan Royce spoke sharply. ‘No, no, darling. You mustn’t come in. Not like that.’

  And Matt turned, with a start. The nurse was trying to step into Leon’s way. He was trying to enter. Megan pulled out of Matt’s grasp. Matt was suddenly furious. He swung his arm over the woman’s shoulders and forced her around. He said harshly, ‘All right. All right. You’ve seen. Now, get out of here.’

  She turned up her eyes, rolling them, showing the whites as if he had frightened her, as Leon Daw bellowed from the doorway, ‘I won’t stand for this overbearing attitude much longer, you … Cuneen.’

  ‘And you, stay out!’ Matt bellowed back.

  The woman was rigid under his arm and Matt slipped it lower, to her waist. She again seemed to shudder but she began to walk under his guiding and insistent pressure. Matt took her out of the room, pushing Leon aside, and the nurse slipped quickly behind them to close the door.

  (Oh, let her sleep! Let her sleep in peace.)

  Leon was dancing in an absolute rage. ‘I say damn you,’ he muttered thickly, ‘and your damned interference. That’s my niece in there and I want her out of this place and damned fast, too.’

  Megan Royce had pulled her mask off. ‘She looks perfectly ghastly. I had no idea …’ She sounded shaken. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Cuneen.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘That girl
is dying, isn’t she?’

  Leon said, ‘Hurry up. I want to talk to this Atwood. And where is that stupid doctor?’

  ‘Why don’t you go on ahead, darling?’ Megan said. ‘Don’t wait. Perhaps I can make Mr Cuneen believe us.’

  Leon gave her a hard glare and went down the corridor with bouncing strides. The lady settled her hat and her hairpin, slipped into the purple coat, felt of her back hair once again, smiling brightly at Matt all the while.

  ‘Let’s walk a minute. I’ve realised something. I had better tell you.’ Her eyes flattered him. ‘Tell you,’ they emphasised.

  She didn’t thank the nurse. The nurse gaped after them, as Megan took Matt’s arm and began her swaying walk. Matt went with her to the intersection of two corridors where there was a tiny alcove, lined by an upholstered bench, a place for visitors to wait for other visitors to leave. There was a cylinder of stone, filled to the brim with sand to make an ash-receiver. Megan pulled a cigarette case out of her purple pocket and sat down with a sigh.

  ‘Oh, come, sit down. We can talk here.’ She held the cigarette towards her lips and waited for him to produce a light.

  ‘I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this,’ she sighed, blowing smoke. ‘This woman who says that Dorothy is her daughter? Her name is Hopkins?’

  ‘Yes,’ Matt said.

  ‘Well, of course, that is not the name.’ Megan crossed her legs and twisted her torso. She seemed to do nothing without tension, and creating a line. ‘I once had a girl come to model for me. Let me see, it must have been two years ago. As a matter of fact, that is how I met Leon! Isn’t that strange? He was there, this day, with one of my patrons. And when this particular girl came out to show a dress he almost fainted in his chair.’

  Matt sat still, listening to the rise and fall of her voice.

  ‘I remember having quite some trouble persuading him that she was not his niece Dorothy. The resemblance, he said, was absolutely uncanny. At that time, I believe Dorothy was supposed to be in Rome—or some such place. But this little blonde girl … She wasn’t quite tall enough for wearing clothes. I do remember that. I didn’t use her long. Now let me see. She had taken the name of Kinsey.’

  ‘Taken it?’ said Matt.

  ‘I suppose she thought that was cute.’ Megan smirked. ‘She called herself Alison Kinsey, as I remember. Now, don’t you guess that she must be that woman’s daughter? She was—so Leon said—almost a perfect double for Dorothy Daw.’

  ‘And was she?’ Matt asked. ‘You’ve seen them both—so you say.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Well, it was a while ago,’ said Megan. ‘Yes, of course, she was very like. I really don’t remember Alison’s face in every detail. At that time, of course, I had never seen Dorothy herself. But you must agree that this is the explanation. That poor mixed-up woman, the mother, may even believe what she is saying.’ Megan Royce was smarter than that, her pose implied. Megan Royce—groomed, composed, sophisticated—knew better than to believe very much of anything and weren’t people amusing?

  ‘You say Mr Daw was hard to convince?’ said Matt. ‘Isn’t he making the same mistake again?’

  ‘Ah, but not I! I studied Dorothy’s face, in a very good light, not three days ago.’

  ‘If the resemblance made such a great impression,’ Matt was stubborn, ‘why hasn’t Mr Daw said a word about it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly. ‘When I spoke of it at lunch, just now, he seemed to have forgotten. You know, two years ago, on the very next day, he and I took the girl, Alison to lunch and I do remember that he said she wasn’t really anything like Dorothy. In manner, you see. Or personality. But he and I … got on well. He’s rather a pet, you know.’ She smiled at him, perfectly perfidious. She was saying, I would of course have preferred you. Her left hand came to touch his sleeve and it said so, too. She seemed to think that she was ageless in allure. But a lock of her dark hair had lost its moorings, perhaps because of the strings of the mask, and it stood away from the right side of the otherwise smooth mass on her head, spoiling the effect, making it ludicrous.

  Matt looked down at her claw with its long pointed fingernails. ‘Your hair is loose,’ he blurted.

  The cigarette fell into the ash-receiver. Both hands flew to her head. She twisted her torso and looked at him sideways. ‘Don’t, please,’ she said, ‘talk to the Press about what I’ve told you. Will you promise me? She was tucking her hair back. She leaned towards him, sending off a cloud of perfume. ‘Ah, but you will not. You will help us keep this dreadful publicity down. You understand that people with any money are so very vulnerable.’

  Matt couldn’t help it. He had leaned away.

  She straightened, twisting again at her supple waist. Every move she made was full of muscular tension. ‘Don’t hold success against us,’ she said, and twisted back again, and smiled. Her right hand was plunging the burning cigarette deep into the sand, with that same exaggerated tension. ‘Or Leon against me?’ she added softly.

  Matt said, ‘I see no point in mentioning this model to the Press—if that’s what you want me to say.’

  She blinked, rebuked and knowing so. ‘Now, hadn’t we better find my angry man before he tears this hospital down?’ She rose and he rose and moved politely out of her way.

  They started for Atwood’s office and met Leon Daw bouncing angrily towards them. He said to Matt, ‘They tell me they’ll have to hear from you. Well?’

  Matt said steadily, ‘They’ll hear from me.’

  ‘Then be quick about it. I’m calling my own doctor, at once.’

  ‘Why don’t you do that?’ said Matt.

  Leon said, ‘If she dies …’

  And Megan said, ‘Oh, darling, hush.’ And then to Matt, ‘But ought you to take that risk? You are … a young man on his way up? Publicity can be so … terribly destructive.’

  Matt said nothing.

  They swung away together, faces blank.

  Matt, who didn’t think a doctor was going to jump in on another doctor’s case quite as readily as Leon Daw seemed to imagine, and who knew, besides, that Dr Prentiss had already called in consultants of high repute, went thoughtfully on to Atwood’s office. He felt as if he had just escaped from something … spiritual rape, perhaps. He ground his teeth together.

  Atwood said to him, ‘Well? Who is she?’

  Matt said, ‘It’s stranger than we thought.’ Atwood listened to Megan’s story, as reported, and seemed to find it a relief.

  ‘But if there is this startling resemblance, that could very well explain the woman Hopkins. I’m afraid it looks to me as if Leon Daw is in the right.’

  ‘If so, he is an oddly forgetful man.’

  Atwood’s face sagged. ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘Not yet, sir. I haven’t seen Mrs Hopkins.’

  ‘And when you do, that will clear your mind?’

  ‘I hope so, sir.’

  ‘Go and see the woman, then. And get this over, will you?’ Matt began to turn away when Atwood added, ‘What was that you said on the phone about the police?’

  Matt told him. ‘I’m wondering why they are in the picture. Leon Daw didn’t put them into it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past that woman Hopkins,’ said Atwood, ‘to have stirred them up with some wild surmise they would have to investigate. Why don’t you get going?’

  But Matt turned again. ‘Tell me, does Dr Prentiss think she is dying?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Atwood, ‘especially since they can’t seem to find a damn thing wrong with her.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mrs Bobbie Hopkins told them, through the door, to go away and not bother her. But when Matt said he represented both his mother and the hospital, she opened up.

  ‘Well, it’s about time,’ she declared. ‘I guess now you got it through your head I know what I’m talking about.’

  When Betty was presented, Bobbie nodded with great care. She was looking ravaged and without doubt she was hung over.
She had a green turban wound over her hair, her lipstick was on crooked, her skin was grey.

  Her small redwood house, perched on a steep bank up in the hills above Hollywood, was cluttered with cheap furniture. There seemed to have been some attempt made at bold solid colours, but the decorator had lost her grip on the décor. The draperies of yellow bamboo sticks were drawn across all daylight, and a lamp with a rose-coloured shade was burning in a corner. The air was close and full of smoke and rancid perfume.

  When their eyes had adjusted, Betty and Matt saw that there was a young man in the room, a thin nervous young man with dark glasses dominating his long pale face.

  ‘Excuse me, Bobbie,’ said he. ‘I got to blow, now.’

  ‘Oh? Well. O.K. then, Larry. Listen, don’t worry. Nothing bad is going to happen.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the young man said. ‘You just stick up for yourself, see?’

  ‘O.K.’

  ‘O.K.’

  The young man ducked his head and went out the door as if he slithered through a crack.

  ‘A friend of mine,’ said Bobbie complacently. ‘Sit down, why don’t you? Gads, what a night and a day I’ve been having. Anybody care for a little schnapps?’

  When they didn’t, it seemed that she did.

  Finally they were settled, more or less cosily.

  ‘I’m telling you,’ she said, ‘it’s been wild. Mr and Mrs Barrington went down there didn’t they?’

  ‘You mean early this morning? Yes, some couple came.’

  ‘What do you mean, some couple? Listen, they’re my next-door neighbours and they should know Alison. You see her picture, by the way?’ The woman picked up a large photograph and handed it to Betty. Matt looked over her shoulder. It was the face of the girl in the hospital, in every feature. Yet it was the face of a person they had never seen. Evidently it was supposed to display the attributes of an actress. The pose of the head. The eyes were trying to smoulder. The mouth was trying to be seductive. The bare shoulder was trying to allure. Poor Alison.

  Betty held it for Matt to take, but he did not take it. It made him sad. He glanced at Bobbie. ‘I have some questions. Your daughter has lived here, hasn’t she?’