If I expected to get a rise or a laugh out of her, I was sadly off base. Mrs. Paul suddenly shuddered and put her two hands together and clenched them. Bones popped, and the leathery old skin sounded like autumn leaves being rustled together.
"Poor Blassingame. Rotten going like that."
"Blassingame?" I echoed. "Was that her name? One of your people?"
She frowned. And then smiled faintly.
"Jolly good, wasn't he? Always fooled everyone. Face so soft and pretty. Tommy Blassingame never so much had to touch a razor in all his twenty-five years. You weren't in London when he bollixed up the Commies by impersonating Lady Wellington during a nasty mess down at the Home Office—" She broke off and instantly sobered up, her face severely serious. "The nun was Blassingame. One of our best agents. On loan-out from the CID. Blasted shame losing him first crack out of the box."
"Mrs. Paul," I held up my hands. "I got a great idea. Since we seem to be involved in a hands-across-the-sea deal here. Make me a drink, any kind of a drink. You have one, too. Then I'm going to sit down in that soft chair there and hear all you have to tell me. Then maybe I'll turn over this baseball to you. Fair enough? I've had a helluva day, and I'm tired."
She studied me for a long second, then made up her mind. She smacked her old hands together and pointed a crooked forefinger at me.
"Done, Edward. And why not? Seems to me you have every right. I only have port—my own brand—"
"Done," I said, flicking my fedora off to a couch along the far wall and moving to a deep-stuffed chair that looked like horsehide and nails, but comfortable-looking for all of that. My brain had ceased to function. I had forgotten about Felicia Carr, didn't remember my promise to call Melissa Mercer and all of my nerve ends were screaming for a drink. I had to unwind. Right then and there, all I wanted to do was to hear the whole story, whatever it was, right out of the thin-lipped mouth of an old doll from God knew where or what. The President's plane was probably jetting toward Teheran right now, but it didn't make any difference. The baseball in my pocket, if it was the key, had to be delivered. If Louise Warrington Paul was the genuine article. I had to find out for myself. Standard Operating Procedure. If there was a triple play going on, well I had to know that, too.
As she bustled around in a kitchenette to the rear of the living room, I took out my .45 and tucked it in the waistband of my trousers, out of sight under the skirt of my jacket. I removed the baseball, too, and hid it under the seat cushion of the chair I was sitting on. I folded my arms, stretched my legs out, and assumed a relaxed air, which was not easy to do. Warning bells had set themselves up in business in my nervous system all over again. I was on my guard because the bells had alerted me many times in the past, usually saving my life. I couldn't ever afford to ignore them. Especially not now. The old dame who had driven a Mustang like a racing-car fiend could be the enemy-agent plant of all time. I had no way of checking on her. And I still had to find out where Felicia Carr fit in the scheme of things.
Something wasn't too kosher. There was a scent of false promises and red herrings all over Number Nine Sniffin Court. I didn't like the aura—or the aroma that this whole sudden interview was giving me. And I couldn't have said why. I couldn't put the pieces together at all.
Louise Warrington Paul came back, two snifter glasses in both claws. She held one out to me. I took it. Even though the drinks had been my idea, I went through the old Borgia custom of making her switch glasses with me. She chuckled almost ruefully when she realized what I was suggesting by the move.
"Careful blighter, aren't you?"
"Sometimes."
"I am offended, you know. You obviously don't trust me."
I shrugged. "You never know just what a woman will do to you. Remember Samson and Delilah. Adam and Eve. Taylor and Fisher."
She chortled at that, clinked her snifter glass against mine and waddled over to the nearest couch and plopped herself down with a rustle of tweed. From a distance of ten feet, she was awesome.
"What a heartbreaker you are, Edward! I don't wonder that Felicia is crackers for you."
"Then you do know her?" I jumped right in on that.
"Certainly." Mrs. Paul sipped her port "How do you like it?'
'Tolerable," I admitted. "Not much for wines. Straight Scotch man. With a preference for martinis, Beefeaters, no less." I saluted her countrymen with a wave of the glass. Louise Warrington Paul settled her pear body down on the couch and surveyed me over the rim of her glass, which she was rotating in both hands almost greedily.
"So much for the amenities. I'll get right down to cases." She paused to sniffle suddenly. As if she had an abrupt irritation of the nose. "There is in existence a roll of microfilm. It is the property of Her Majesty's government. Do I need to stress the amiable rather eye-to-eye relations of my country and yours? I think not. Well, to the point—the microfilm was snitched. Quite thoroughly from the Foreign Ministry Office. By agent or agents unknown. Oh, there is not much doubt or speculation as to the employers of these agents. Or this agent. As far as all interested parties are concerned, this theft is the handiwork of the Communists. In any case, the microfilm is gone. Somebody'd got it and, we wanted it back—terribly. It's been quite a chase, my dear Edward. Some five people have died already. Blassingame is the most recent casualty. Are you following all this?"
"Just a little around the edges. But don't let that stop you, please."
She almost glared at me, but maybe it was a trick of the dim lighting. For a long moment, she seemed to be thinking, then she resumed. She'd gotten to first base and was now dancing off the bag, figuratively speaking, ready to steal second.
"I can't give you all the fine details, my boy, but suffice to say we caught up with the microfilm here in New York. Wrested it from the enemy, you might say. In fact, rescued the film just before it could be rerouted to Moscow at the last second. Then it would have indeed been all over. But—and a very large one—the problem remained. How to get it safely to your CIA officials here, who are working very closely with our people on delivering the film to its proper channel. So—it was devised and arranged for a certain innocuous party like yourself, I understand, to go to the ball park this afternoon, receive the ball under prearranged circumstances and then turn it over to me. Now are you closer to understanding?"
I looked at her over the brandy glass.
"You sure leave huge, gaping holes in your story, but I'm still listening. I won't interrupt until you're finished. Or at least have told me what this microfilm is."
Louise Warrington Paul blinked. If a prune could blink, the effect might have been the same. She set down her glass, done with rotating it, and smoothed out the crumpled folds of her tweed skirt.
"Oh, I say," she murmured.
"Say what?"
"Then they haven't told you? Then you don't really know or understand what this is all about? My. Dearie me, you are truly the innocent bystander. I didn't think such people existed anymore in espionage circles, outside of penny dreadfuls."
"Dear Dame Paul," I said, trying not to blow my cool. Her schoolmistress air set my teeth on edge, suddenly. "What the hell are you trying to say?"
She fixed me with a baleful eye.
"Edward, old son," she grumbled, "the microfilm contains the blueprints of the entire anti-ballistics missile program both here and in my country. It was put on film for interchange between your ABM Department and ours. It so happens that right this second, barring any unforeseen skulduggery that went on at the park this afternoon, it is nestling comfortably and safely within the cork-lined center of that baseball I asked you to bring to me. The one you hid under your seat cushion while you thought I was out of the room fetching you a drink like any serving-girl. Blast it all, man, you must have known! Why else would they have asked you to be go-between on such a mission of the first magnitude?"
I didn't have any answer for that one. Why indeed? Maybe the answer lay in the indisputable fact that, in all wars, sparrows mus
t fall and that there is no such thing as the indispensable man. Only expendable men.
And blank-faced, bloody idiots who become meaningless statistics in no time at all. But I do not need buildings to fall on me to get the picture. I react very quickly, considering the shock aspects of sudden revelations. Like beautiful nuns who are really female impersonators. I took the .45 from out of my waistband and leveled it at Louise Warrington Paul. Sighting along the barrel to where the gunsight centered between her rather overly heavy breasts.
She frowned. A grande dame frown.
"What are you doing now?" she croaked mightily, the bullfrog rampant in a pond of suspicion and intrigue.
"An ABC of spy protocol," I said between tight lips. "You just prove to me you are who you say you are, lady. Then maybe we'll make a trade."
"Trade?" she stiffened haughtily. "What is there to trade about?"
"The baseball," I suggested, "for one tall, smashing brunette named Felicia Carr."
5
Twin Killing
In the dim, far-from-cheery light of the living room at Sniffin Court, Louise Warrington Paul wagged her gray hairs at me. She was about as friendly looking as an English bulldog.
"Oh, my," she growled. "You really are crackers, aren't you? Come, Edward, this charade has gone far enough. Put up that gun."
"Where's Felicia Carr?"
"I told you. I don't know. I only know that she is part of the entire schedule. I assumed, and quite rightly, you would be concerned for her safety. Sorry if I frightened you unduly."
"You did." I raised the .45 an inch higher. "Now just give me a rundown on one Louise Warrington Paul. Just to keep the record straight. How do I know you're not a man in disguise? If your chap Blassingame was so good at it, why not you?"
She almost winked at the suggestion. Her pear body rocked with amusement.
"Shall I disrobe? I must confess no one has seen me in the altogether since the Colonel. Oh—you didn't know the Colonel. Sir Henry Twillson Paul, K.O.B.E., the Home Office. Legion of Honor. Died, you know. That was 'fifty-eight, and he fancied mountain climbing. At his age! Well, his Alpine guide brought his body down. Wasn't much to look at. All smashed up and——" She held out her clawlike hands. Her eyes had undergone another of their swift changes. From silly-old-girl featherheadishness to supreme sobriety. "Really, Edward, this is nonsense, you know. I've been in Her Majesty's Secret Service a long long time now. Don't make me divulge all my hard-earned secrets."
I lowered the gun.
No actress in the world could have assumed the screaming reality of a Louise Warrington Paul. The only real question was—was she working for them or us? Double agents and triple agents are nothing new in espionage.
"Why did you follow me from Shea?"
She shrugged. "Fairly obvious, isn't it? Blassingame had steered you to the Diamond Club. I followed. Meaning to catch up, identify myself, and acquire the ball. I didn't fancy you for spotting me or losing me in all that traffic."
"What about the message Blassingame gave me? It was signed Felicia."
She straightened up again as if I had once more impugned her honesty.
"I've told you. Same kind of thinking that led me to use her name to bring you here on the run. But the message was true. Felicia composed it for Blassingame at the ball park, gave it to him, and then popped off somewhere. She surely must have been there during all the commotion. Fact is, Edward, I've been rather expecting her to turn up here, you know."
"No, I don't know," I snapped, not feeling good about the information at all. "That smacks of something wrong. If Felicia Carr is anything she's efficient, punctual, and reliable. You don't work for Navy Intelligence if you're flighty." I mulled that over a bit and then stared at Mrs. Paul once more. "Does the name Gotlieb mean anything to you?"
"No, it does not. Should it?"
"Blassingame died in my arms. It was his dying message. He said the name twice."
"Gotlieb, Gotlieb," she parroted. "German name, you think?"
"Or Jewish. Anyway it's a lead, isn't it?" I holstered the forty-five and made a sign of truce. "All right, Dame Paul. We'll play it straight from now on. You have any identification on you?"
She made a face and looked uglier than ever.
"Cards, special passes, tattoos. That sort of rubbish? Rot, Edward. We wouldn't be caught dead with any sort of ID cards. Would give the game away."
"I suppose that makes sense." I reached into my side pocket and produced the baseball. It felt compact and familiar in my fingers. I revolved it, tossed it up in the air, and caught it. Louise Warrington Paul's eyes got beady and watched me and the ball very, very closely.
"Microfilm, you said," I said.
"Yes. In the cork-lined center."
"Do you suppose it's still there?"
"No reason for it not to be. Nobody knew we had arranged such a hiding place. Do hand it over, Edward."
I sighed and played catch with the ball once more.
"The screwy lengths you people go to to send things around. Wouldn't it have been simpler to mail the film in a box or just hand it over to the next guy?"
"Perhaps." She took a step toward me. The tweed suit rustled again. Her face was suddenly worried and concerned. "In any case, I'll relieve you of all further responsibility."
I started to toss her the ball, but she took a quick step toward me and I thought better of the notion. After all, spy lady or not, she had to be at least seventy years from her conception. She took the ball from me, almost hungrily, and walked it back to her chair where she sat down and held it up to the light of the nearest lamp. She nodded to herself, satisfied it was the same ball she remembered, and I finished the rest of my drink. The play was out of my hands now. I probably could pick up my hat and go home.
"Same ball?" I asked.
"One and the same," she agreed. "I particularly remember the position of the signature of the Jones fellow. And the slight smudging on the stitching close to his name. Cleon Jones. Lovely name. Yes, yes—this is the proper ball. It couldn't have been duplicated."
"You going to cut it open and look to see if the film is still there?"
That shocked her. She looked up from her examination and her eyes registered disappointment with me. "Good Lord, what an idea! I wouldn't dare. They have the proper instruments and devices to do that—once we turn it in. No, no. My job is merely to ferry the ball on. Then I'm done with it. As you are."
"Just like that, huh?" I dug out my Camels and didn't offer her one. My mood was lousy. "You lose Blassingame, Felicia Carr may be among the missing—or dead—and all we're supposed to do is shake hands, wish each other well, and go our separate ways? No dice, lady. I'm sticking to you until we take that ball to whoever you have to deliver it to." Our eyes dueled across the room and she snorted.
"It's the way of this business, Edward. The way it's always been. We're none of us that important. Merely cogs. Tools, you might say—all part of a big, complex mechanism. I doubt there is one man that knows of this operation from start to finish." She eyed me almost kindly from the depths of her gloomy chair. "Don't take it so much to heart, my boy. We all do our bit and move on." She held up the ball once more and then rose from the chair, clutching it like it was the Koh-i-noor Diamond. It was a gas, all right. Her, I mean. You never would have believed in a million years she was a British secret agent. Maybe that was why she was so good at her job.
There was an enormous clutch bag lying on an end table close to the entrance to the kitchenette. Louise Warrington Paul waddled over to this and deposited the baseball somewhere inside the thing. She closed the bag with a snap of finality and brushed her hands together.
"Now, then. You wish to accompany me to your Pennsylvania Station? I'm sure you can direct me."
"I go where you go and I can. Why may I ask?"
She chuckled. "More cloak-and-dagger, I'm afraid. I'm to deposit the ball in a designated locker. One of those twenty-five cent contraptions. Clever, what? That will w
ash my hands of this whole business. I suspect your CIA people or my people will take it from there. At any rate, it will be the last step for me."
She was a cool old bird, for all the signs of death and terror in the air. Blassingame's finish might have upset her deep down inside where it counts, but you'd never have known that listening to her. I wasn't certain just where Felicia Carr fit into the scheme of her affection, but that, too, obviously was something not to put on a worried face about. But again, I had to shake off the alarm bells in my subconscious. They were tingling as if I were sitting in on the makings of a four-alarm fire. Or a giant economy-sized catastrophe. Something was just not right, and I was incapable of saying or knowing what.
The whole affair or operation or whatever it ought to be called should have ended right there for me—that night, accompanying Dame Paul down to her special Penn Station locker deposit box, but it didn't. It just wasn't in the cards. It is also one of the reasons they still put erasers on pencils and sell an awful lot of ink eradicator. The all-important baseball was as big a stake as the Chief and Louise Warrington Paul had led me to believe. Blas-singame's knifing should have convinced me I wasn't involved in a strawberry festival. Top Secret Affairs can get bloodier than Tong wars. Twice as dirty, too.
Mrs. Paul put on her Robin Hood hat, draped an old-fashioned matching tweed cape across her round shoulders and motioned me toward the front door. I bowed and indicated I was a "Ladies First" type. She clucked and waddled ahead of me, down the short flight of carpeted steps into the foyer toward the door. She left a night light burning in the living room.
"How long have you had this layout?" I asked conversationally as she played with the front-door lock, setting it for automatic closing once we were on the other side.
"Monday week," she said almost merrily. "Would surprise you, Edward, just how often this flat has been used for these things. We needed a few days to arrange the—ah—shall I say game—at Shea. Fact is, Miss Carr should have come here tonight to meet with you. But——" She shrugged eloquently. "C'est la guerre. She does have a key. Perhaps she'll be here on our return. We'll have a nightcap when we conclude our errand. If it's agreeable to you."
Little Miss Murder Page 5