Red Gardenias

by Jonathan Latimer

  "I think so."

  "My God! Poor John..." He started for the door. "I'll have to talk to Judge Dornbush about this." He paused in the hall. "Give my regards to Ann."

  "I will."

  Williams appeared, and they had a drink. "I'm scared about Ann," Crane said. • "Oh, she'll be back," Williams said. "It isn't noon yet."

  Crane telephoned City Hospital to inquire about Simeon March. He asked for Dr Woodrin, but got Dr Rutledge. He told the doctor he was a city detective. In reply to Crane's questions, the doctor said there were no bruises on Simeon March's body. There were no signs of a struggle. It was obviously an accident.

  "Will he recover consciousness?" Crane asked.

  "If he lives."

  "Will he?"

  "It's a fifty-fifty chance."

  Crane asked him if he knew where the clothes the millionaire was wearing were. They were in the next room. Crane asked him to smell them.

  "Anything funny?" he asked when the doctor returned to the telephone.

  "No."

  "You can't smell an odor of gardenias?"

  "No," Dr Rutledge said. "I can't smell anything."

  Crane went back to the blue-and-white living room and told Williams what he had learned. Both were surprised that there was no odor of gardenias. Until it was time for lunch they discussed the case. Crane said they had to determine if there was rubber on the exhaust pipe of Simeon March's car. Williams persisted in...

  "We got plenty of clues," Williams said.

  That wasn't what Crane meant at all. What he wanted was the relevant clue. That was the way Scotland Yard always worked. The inspector always singled out the relevant clue and followed it up to the murderer.

  "How're you going to know when you got it?" Williams demanded.

  "It has to be something that appeared in all the deaths."

  "Gas," Williams said.

  "No."

  "Gardenias?"

  "Simeon March didn't smell of gardenias."

  "But he ain't dead, either."

  Crane looked at him wide eyed. "Maybe you've got something there, Doc."

  Williams said, "I wish we knew where Ann was."

  CHAPTER XVII

  Ann had been gone five hours, and now even Williams was terribly upset. With serious black eyes, he watched Crane walk a frustrated diamond-shaped figure on the blue-and-white Aubusson. They knew for certain Ann was in trouble. Unexpressed, but strong within them, was a fear she had been murdered. They had searched Marchton for her and now they were trying to think of something more to do.

  They had entered the Crimson Cat together, had walked into the taproom. The barman's face was held together by gauze. He saw them, reached under the bar.

  "No," Williams said, producing a revolver.

  The bartender's hands rose; he looked as though he intended to chin himself on an imaginary bar above his head. "When Slats comes back to the city," he said, "he'll handle you guys."

  "Too bad he ain't here now, pal," Williams said.

  Crane asked, "Where is he, pal?"

  "I don't know," the bartender said sullenly.

  "Do you know where Dolly Wilson is?"

  "What's that to you?"

  Williams leaned over the bar, grasped a bottle of Canadian rye. "Do we have to open up your head again, pal?" he asked.

  The bartender said, "She lives at Elm and Fourth, in a boardinghouse."

  Perspiration made half-moons under the armholes of Mrs Grady's brown dress. "You just missed her, boys," she said. "She left for New York at one-thirty." She was a massive woman.

  A blonde girl had talked to Dolly, Mrs Grady admitted. No, the blonde hadn't gone with her.

  Miss Wilson had left no forwarding address, but she was going to write as soon as she was located in New York. She'd better, too, Mrs Grady added, because there was that little matter of nine dollars. Maybe the gentlemen...?

  On a sofa under a peach-colored quilt, Alice March was eating bonbons and reading a paper-backed French novel by somebody named Vercel. She didn't seem especially upset over Talmadge's death, or Simeon March's condition.

  "Carmel and Peter just left for the hospital," she said. "Won't you sit down?"

  Crane refused. "I just dropped in to see how you were."

  He and Williams agreed it didn't seem likely she was holding Ann.

  Gloom filled the interior of Simeon March's big garage. The German gardener showed them where the millionaire's body had been found on the cement floor beside the open left front door of his favorite sedan.

  "He warms the engine and the gas comes," the gardener explained. "Then he falls the door out."

  Crane thought this was possible. He found, as usual, rubber on the exhaust pipe. As they left the garage, he told Williams the hose could have been stuck through a back window, as it had been in Richard's and Talmadge's death.

  Williams disagreed. "You'd smell the gas."

  "Why didn't the others smell it?"

  "Richard was drunk," Williams said. "And Talmadge had a bad cold."

  This was something to think about.

  Before returning home they dispatched a telegram to the agency in New York, suggesting Dolly Wilson be met by an operative at the station and asked what she had told Ann.

  And now Crane was wearing the diamond-shaped trail in the Aubusson.

  "We can't call in the police," he said, "because it would tip off the murderer that we're working on the case." He halted in the middle of a step. "And a big search would probably frighten the guy into killing her, if he hasn't..."

  Williams said, "I don't like not doing anything."

  Crane walked around the imaginary diamond. "Our agency'd be the laughingstock of the world if we had to ask the police to find one of our operatives."

  "That's better than having Ann dead."

  "When she went to work she took her chances." He looked at Williams. "A detective takes the risk of being knocked off."

  Williams said, "We ought to do something."

  Crane walked twice around the diamond, then telephoned City Hospital and found there was no change in Simeon March's condition.

  Williams said, "If he recovers the murderer'll probably take another crack at him."

  Crane's brown eyes narrowed; he stared at Williams.

  "In fact, a smart murderer would find a way to crack him before he recovers," Williams said. "In case he should talk."

  Crane said, "By God!" He telephoned the Marchton Globe, got the city editor on the wire. "This is Doctor Amos Crane of Chicago," he lied. "I have some news for you."

  "What is it?"

  "I have just completed an examination of Simeon March—my special field is gas poisoning—and I am confident he will recover. He should be conscious by morning."

  "That's great!" The city editor was excited. "What hospital are you connected with, Doctor Crane?"

  "The Presbyterian," Crane lied. "But I shouldn't like to be quoted. Ethics, you know. In fact, I wish you wouldn't mention my call to the local physicians. I prefer to co-operate with the newspapers in an anonymous mariner."

  "Well, that's very decent of you, Doctor Crane. You'll tip us off if anything new develops?"

  "I should be glad to. If you wish to reach me I am staying at the Richard March residence; with my cousin, William Crane. Good-by."

  Crane felt pleased with this last invention. The fact that he was staying at Richard March's house would put the seal of truth on his story in the eyes of the Globe. Moreover the newspaper could check back on him if it wanted to. And it would certainly preserve the anonymity of a good tipster. He got his hat and coat.

  Williams had been watching him beetle eyed. "Where are you going?"

  "To March & Company... to get some guards for the hospital."

  "And then...?"

  "I'm going to sit up all night with Simeon March."

  "I'll go with you."

  "No." Crane walked to the door. "You sit here until the first edition of the Globe comes out. And r
emember, until then you're Doc Crane, the specialist from Chicago."

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Only the night lamp, a wan bulb with a meager supply of honey-pale electricity, provided illumination for the room. A circular puddle of light at the lamp's base showed a white table top, a glass half filled with water, a green thermos bottle. Gloom blurred the outlines of the room's other furniture, gave a fourth dimensional quality to Simeon March's bed, two chairs, a dresser. Cold air seeped through a half-open window.

  Crane, on a chair back of the screen in the corner of the room, waited for the murderer.

  He had been waiting for six hours and he was not happy. His neck ached from the rigidity with which he had held himself in his chair. He wanted a drink to quiet nerves that fluttered with every unusual sound. He wanted someone to talk to. He was worried like hell about Ann.

  It was after midnight. Quiet, more nerve racking than the early evening bustle, had descended upon City Hospital. There were no calls for doctors over the loudspeaker system. Few used the corridors; occasionally a nurse would pass his door on tiptoe. At long intervals he could hear the whine of the elevator's electric motor.

  Crane remembered how Ann had looked when he saw her last. She had looked trim and efficient, but her green eyes, her sawdust-colored hair, he thought, would certainly have got her into trouble if she had gone to the Crimson Cat. He, himself, had always admired tanned blondes; it wasn't every blonde—what was that? He held his breath. A small gust of wind rustled the curtains. He breathed again. What was he thinking of? Oh yes. Most blondes didn't tan well.

  It had been necessary to tell Dr Rutledge and Dr Woodrin that he expected another attack on Simeon March. They had agreed to let him remain in the room, and had allowed him to place guards from the March Company plant at the front and back entrances to the hospital. Neither doctor treated this plan seriously, but the night nurse, Miss Edens, a pretty dark-haired girl, was impressed. She was spending the night in a small anteroom connected by a door to Simeon March's room.

  Dr Rutledge had paid Crane visits at eight, ten and midnight. "Everything's ready," he whispered on his last appearance. "There are men at both back and front doors."

  "I wish there was one under the bed," said Crane plaintively.

  Grinning, Dr Rutledge said Dr Woodrin would take over at three. "If you're still alive."

  A clock somewhere outside uttered a single gonglike note. He wondered if it was one, or half-past twelve. Or, hopefully, half-past one. The shade rustled again and his heart jumped. The elevator motor whined; there was a clashing noise as its metal door was opened and closed; heavy feet passed along the corridor. The wind was blowing stronger and the curtains, ghostly in the dim light, were dancing. There was an odor of chloroform in the air. A blue globe in the corridor threw a curious shadow on the ceiling by the transom. It looked like the shadow of a man wearing a cloak.

  Somebody was bending over the bed. He clawed for his revolver under his arm, then saw it was the nurse.

  "My God!" he said. "Don't scare me like that."

  "You were asleep," she said.

  "I couldn't have been."

  Her voice was very small. "Do you want anything?"

  "I'd like a drink."

  "Dr Rutledge said he'd send you some whisky."

  "He'd better bring a lot."

  "Not so loud." Her voice was soft. "Do you want anything else?"

  "No, just whisky."

  There was a slight tapping at the door to the anteroom in which Miss Edens had a cot. She left him. The curtains beside the open window were almost parallel to the floor; the wind was cold and steady. A door slammed somewhere down the corridor.

  Miss Edens came back. "The floor nurse with a paper," she said.

  "What's it say?"

  She tilted the lamp so the light reached the screen.

  In the saffron light they read:

  SIMEON MARCH IS FOURTH VICTIM OF CARBON MONOXIDE

  Simeon March, first citizen of Marchton, was recovering in City Hospital last night from severe carbon-monoxide poisoning. He was overcome early Sunday in the garage back of his home at 1703 Park Street.

  He is the fourth member of the March family in less than a year to be the victim of accidental carbon-monoxide poisoning. The other three resulted fatally.

  However, Mr March's chances of recovery, according to physicians at City Hospital, are good, owing to speedy injection of methylene blue, latest remedy for the deadly gas. It was said he might regain consciousness before morning.

  The millionaire was discovered by Mrs Minnie Kruger, 55, of 904 E. Third Street, a cook in the March household. She said she became alarmed at her master's failure to emerge from the garage and had gone to...

  The remainder of the story, running all over the front page of the paper, was mostly of the discovery of the body and an account of the millionaire's career. Crane felt a little better. The newspaper had fallen for his story, and the murderer would probably fall for it, too, and be worried by what Simeon March would say when he regained consciousness.

  Only the important thing was: What had happened to Ann?

  Miss Edens took the paper, put the lamp in place, touched his shoulder lightly and went into the anteroom. She was a nice girl, he thought.

  The clock outside made a noise—bong bong—and it was two o'clock.

  Still coming through the window, the wind at intervals made a sound like a frightened horse blowing out breath. It was very cold. One of the curtains was stuck to something, but the other performed a macabre dance. It smelled as though snow was on the way.

  He thought of the dead men in the case. There had been a lot—too many! It was not a neat case. He liked murder cases where there was one corpse and no prospects of any more. Then the problem became academic, with no haste and plenty of time for drinking at the client's expense. But this one wasn't a murder case; it was a massacre.

  The dead: Richard March, John March, Talmadge March, maybe Simeon March and Lefty—what was his name? And three out of the five dead from a silent, odorless, creeping gas that filled their lungs and turned their bodies pink. What was the link between them?

  And then there was Ann....

  It was a really lousy case. He wondered what Colonel Black, his boss and Ann's uncle, would say to him. Especially since Ann was gone. He wondered where Williams was.

  He was glad, though, the window was open. Suppose someone tried to pump carbon monoxide into the room. The idea was farfetched, but it made him shiver. He supposed it was perfectly possible to carry the gas in metal containers under pressure like oxygen. He wouldn't be able to detect its presence, unless he found himself getting drowsy. And he was drowsy!

  In quick alarm he looked at the window. It was still open; both curtains were waving now. He decided he'd freeze rather than lower that window. Good old window.

  There was something horrible about dying of gas. Maybe it was just dying that was horrible, but it didn't seem so bad to die by gun, or by knife, or by hanging. Possibly those deaths seemed natural because people for a long time had been dying in those ways. But this gas, without odor, without color, like voodoo magic, crept upon its victim, left him to meet, gasping and blushing, an unnatural death.

  Ann's face, young and frightened, came to mind. He opened his eyes and stared at the curtains.

  Simeon March began to moan. With each exhalation he moaned, making a sort of aaaaaanaaahaa with his breath. The moans seemed to come from deep within his body; his chest gave them a resonant quality. It sounded as though he moaned, listened for an answer that didn't come, then moaned again.

  Miss Edens came quietly into the room.

  "Are you all right?"

  "That's not me."

  "I know. I thought I'd see if you were all right."

  "I'm fine."

  "I'm going to lie down for a little while."

  "All right."

  After a minute the light in her room went off. He settled down further in his chair. It was gett
ing very cold.

  Simeon March was still moaning. In the corridor two nurses were whispering. Their hushed voices sounded foreign; so many s's and th's came to his ears. In the street someone was trying to start an automobile.

  The engine was cold; it would catch, splutter, cough, then die.

  It must be three, he thought; he must have missed two-thirty. As he was debating this the clock made a single bong. The minutes were moving like snails.

  The next half-hour seemed a night. He moved around, but he couldn't find a really comfortable position. At intervals he reached under his arm to make sure his revolver was still there. He had a feeling someone was watching him, but he knew this was impossible. The automobile engine had finally started, and the automobile had gone away with a noisy meshing of cold gears. Simeon March still moaned. He wondered why someone didn't do something about him.

  He wondered what could possibly have happened to Ann. He remembered the fun he'd had with her in New York. He remembered a walk in soft rain through Central Park on an April morning, the gift of a straw-enclosed bottle of chianti from a restaurant proprietor who thought they were newlyweds, watching Army play in the Polo Grounds with Ann sharing his fur rug, a mad swing session with Stuff Smith at the Onyx Club, a brief, surprised kiss in a taxicab....

  At last three o'clock came, but he didn't feel any better. He knew ahead of him lay another night until three-thirty, and another until four, and another until four-thirty. By five he'd probably be mad, if he wasn't already. He hoped Ann was having an easier time. He'd welcome the arrival of the murderer. Anything was better than waiting. Why the hell didn't they shut up Simeon March?

  The elevator whined, but it didn't stop at his floor. Like the veils of a classical dancer, the curtains quivered in the wind. There was light enough in the room to see their movements, sometimes languid, sometimes wild. The blue light in the corridor gave them a milky, diaphanous appearance, but it was strange; they cast no shadows. He watched them closely during an angry tarantella, but there were no shadows. It was like ghosts dancing.

  A man was standing beside the bed. He must have come through the door on rubber-soled shoes, have tiptoed to the bed. Noiselessly, he put a black bag on the table under the shadow; only his hands were visible.