Several blocks farther I passed a bisecting street with the name of Parnell Place. It was only two blocks long. The name was familiar to me, and when I searched my memory, I remembered that Santini in one of his conversations with me had mentioned it as the street which connected to Newton Mews where Bianca Hill lived. The Hill woman had found me on her doorstep.
Abruptly it occurred to me that I would like to see her.
I did not feel grateful, in the least, to her for finding me, but I could pretend that I did, and have an opportunity to look at her. All that I could feel was a curiosity—a speculation concerning her not as a woman, but as the last link connecting me with my past.
Newton Mews was even shorter than Parnell Place— hardly a dozen feet wide, with very small, two-story, stone houses leaning heavily against each other. The street was paved with cobblestones, and a narrow sidewalk ran along each side of it in front of the houses. I walked slowly past reading the names on the mailboxes. One carried the name “Bianca Hill.” The house, just wide enough to accommodate two windows, in addition to a door, had been painted a light gray. The windows supported yellow shutters, and the door was a Chinese black. The single stone step was flanked on either side by a delicate piece of ironwork painted white.
After pressing the doorbell, I waited for several minutes before I heard footsteps hurrying to the front of the house. The door swung open, and for a space of time the woman stared at me before recognition reached her. Then her face lighted up, and she grasped my hand. Impulsively she said, “Why, yes! You’re the man who was hurt!”
I nodded. At this time I was forming the habit of carrying a small pad of paper and a pencil which I used to write messages. I wrote out my name and the single word “thanks.”
“You can’t talk?” she asked. I nodded. “What a pity! That’s terrible! Well, come in, come in, and we’ll have a drink. Can you drink?” Again I nodded.
She led the way into the house, past a tiny front living room with a carved marble mantel, into a considerably larger room which was both a kitchen and dining room. She seated me at a round baroque dining table and hurrying to the stove, removed a pot of coffee. “I was just stopping for my afternoon coffee-break,” she said lightly, “and I’m delighted to have company. Perhaps I’ll have a pony of brandy with it. How about you?”
I shook my head and wrote, “just brandy, please.” Coffee was too hot to drink as extreme heat still hurt my throat. However, I didn’t feel the necessity to do the extra writing to explain this.
Placing two ponies on the table, a bottle of brandy, and filling a cup with coffee, she joined me. As she had walked before me into the dining room, I had noticed that she was a small woman—not over five feet two or three, with a nice figure compact in a pair of toreador slacks. Now, as she seated herself, I realized, with surprise, that she was still very young—somewhere in her middle twenties. Possibly it had been her name which had misled me to conceive of her as an older woman. Or perhaps it had been Santini’s description of her as the “Hill woman” which had been responsible for my misconception.
Bianca Hill wore her hair straight back, and her hair was very black. At the back of her head was an elaborate silver ring through which her hair passed and it hung down well below her shoulders. Her eyes were dark, as dark nearly as her hair, and when she smiled, her teeth were very white. Her face was not beautiful, but it was striking ... and delicate, and in it I could read a ready sympathy and friendliness which someday would bring her unhappiness.
She lifted her cup to her lips, and her eyes smiled, curving upward almost into an Oriental cast. “Mr. Pacific,” she said, “that’s a lovely name. I’m glad you came to see me; I’ve wondered about you. Once I called the hospital, and they told me you were doing fine.”
Nodding, I tasted the brandy. Her hands caught my eye. They were red, with bums over them. They were not pretty and I turned my eyes away.
“Tell me,” she asked, “do you live in New York?”
I shook my head, then wrote out the fact that I had lost my memory completely. I had only my name, no family, no address.
She rose quickly from the table to refill her coffee cup. Then she asked slowly, “You have no place to go? None at all?”
No. I shook my head.
“Do you have any money?”
Reaching in my pocket, I removed the sixty-three dollars and placed it on the table. She understood, and I replaced the money in my pocket. Her eyes searched my face quietly, while she drank her coffee. Finally she said, “How perfectly awful! Is there anything at all you can do to earn a living? I mean ... do you remember any skill ... or job?”
I wrote “nothing.”
“Is there a chance that you will get better ... remember someday?”
“Possibly.”
The sudden whiteness of her smile animated her face, and her words began to tumble out eagerly. “I have an idea,” she explained. “Perhaps it’s a crazy one, and wouldn’t work out very long. But I think it’s terrible ... impossible ... for you to just wander out into the city! Not remembering anything, not having any help! What do you think?”
I didn’t think. I shrugged, but it didn’t lessen her enthusiasm.
“Everyone would say I’m foolish,” she continued, “not knowing you, or anything. However, I believe a person should help others, don’t you? Help each other ... mutually, that is. For a long time I’ve needed help here. Look! Look at these.” She held out her two hands—red and disfigured. “I haven’t been able to afford to pay enough to hire someone to help me.” She hesitated for a moment, then continued more slowly, her voice a little embarrassed, “Perhaps you’d like to work for me?”
I scribbled, “Doing what?”
She laughed. “Oh, I make jewelry; silver, handmade jewelry. That would make me a silversmith, wouldn’t it? At least partly a silversmith, because I work in copper too. I have my workroom here in the house—down in the basement I sell everything I make through just two or three shops uptown on Fifth Avenue. My big problem is that I can’t turn out many things because it takes so long.” She laughed. “Consequently, I don’t have much money.”
My note to her explained I knew nothing about silver-working.
“Don’t worry,” she reassured me, “you can take care of the silver furnace, do the firing, the smelting, the pouring. I need help.” She added, looking at her scars, “That’s how I keep burning my hands all the time.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t understand why a woman wanted to be a silversmith anyway.
6
THE lights bounced off the canvas screen, painting it a delicate silver in the blue-black night But behind the screen, Gorman had tentatively completed his indelicate examination. He nodded, and two attendants walked leisurely away to the police ambulance to find the six-foot-long, covered, canvas box to remove the corpse. In the meantime, Jensen and Burrows joined the medical examiner. “What do you think?” asked Burrows.
“It’s damned near impossible to make out very much under these circumstances,” Gorman replied. “I’ll know a lot more after I get through in the lab.”
“Tell us what you can,” Jensen urged.
“Well,” said Gorman, slipping into his jacket, “he was in good physical condition. He might have been anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five years old. The features are so covered with blood, you can’t tell; but the post on a few organs can narrow that down. He’s six feet tall or slightly better, and probably weighs somewhere around a hundred and eighty pounds.”
“Did you notice anything in particular?” asked Jensen.
“What do you mean?”
“Distinguishing marks or characteristics.”
“Only the obvious under these conditions,” Gorman said a little testily. “He has an old scar on his back. Looks like it might have been from a shell splinter.”
“Anything else?” asked Burrows.
“Nothing now.”
“How long has he been dead?” Jensen looked at the body whi
ch had been covered with a blanket.
Gorman glanced at his wrist watch. “He was dead at two o’clock, that much we know. Working back is hard ... the body stripped, left outdoors, I can’t do anything but make a guess at this point.”
“Go ahead, Doc, make it,” said Jensen.
“And then have you guys swarm all over me if I change my mind later.” Gorman was bitter. He’d had to revise his opinions before, and he resented being pushed into making decisions before having a basis for them.
“We won’t hold you to it,” Burrows said, easily.
“You’re damned right you won’t,” replied Gorman, “because what I’m telling you now is only a guess. I’ll help you if I can now and change my mind later if I have to.” Both of the detectives nodded their agreement. “Okay,” said Gorman, “so my guess is he was chopped off about midnight. It might have been as early as eleven, and maybe as late as one. I’ll try to do better when I get back to the office.”
7
“WHAT do you think of this idea?” asked Bianca. “Upstairs there are only two bedrooms, and I have a friend living with me who pays rent, but downstairs in my workshop I have a big leather couch which used to belong to my father. And there’s a shower down there too. You could sleep there, and have your meals here. I couldn’t pay much in addition to that, but I’ll give you what I can. A percentage of what I make?” She looked at me inquiringly.
I didn’t know.
“You’re free to leave whenever you like, but at least it’ll give you a chance to look around and find something better.” The sound of the front door opening reached us. Then I heard the light tapping of a woman’s heels along the hallway past the living room. In the doorway of the kitchen appeared the figure of a tall, striking blonde. In her high heels she was nearly six feet tall, slender, with her hair combed back in a chignon—showing off the classical regularity of her features. When she saw me, she stopped. Stopped as suddenly as if frozen in her motion, and when she looked at me I realized her eyes were cold. She asked, “Where’d he come from?”
Bianca laughed. “Rosemary,” she said, “may I present my new partner, employee, house guest, and the man who owes me his life, Mr. Victor Pacific.”
Rosemary merely stared at me.
Bianca attempted to ease the situation. She said lightly, “You’ve heard of men who die for a woman? Well, Mr. Pacific didn’t die for me, but he nearly died on my front steps.” Quickly she placed another cup and saucer on the table. “Come on,” she said to Rosemary, “join us. You look as if you’ve had a hard day.”
The blonde slowly seated herself while regarding me hostilely. “Please tell me,” she said, “what this is all about?” Bianca gave her the details. When she had finished, Rosemary turned to me and asked, “You mean you’ve completely lost your memory, and you can’t speak a word?”
I nodded. I didn’t really care if I stayed or not. I had passively accepted Bianca Hill’s offer because it had seemed to make little difference where I stayed for a while. It was an easy solution as where to go and what to do, and I could leave at any time. But this new woman was one who worried me; I felt that she was probing, searching me for something. It might be curiosity, but it seemed to me stronger than that. She was beautiful enough, and undoubtedly could be quite charming if she cared to make the effort. It was obvious though, she neither liked nor trusted me.
Rosemary turned to Bianca. “You must be out of your mind or at least a little mad!”
Bianca smiled and said to me, “See. Remember, I told you everyone would think I’m crazy.”
“But, dear,” protested Rosemary, “this man, what has he done? If someone tried to kill him once, and didn’t succeed, he may try it again. And this time you’re in danger, and I am too.”
Her objection amused me. I wrote her a note, “Perhaps I did it myself. I promise I won’t do it again.”
“I don’t think it’s very funny,” Rosemary said. Her voice assumed an aggressive tone. “Bee, you know nothing about this man. You don’t know who he is or what he’s done! He may even be a criminal.”
“If Victor were a criminal, the police would never have permitted him to leave the hospital,” Bianca replied. It seemed to me a reasonable answer.
Rosemary continued her objections. “You just don’t know!” Angrily she reached across the table and picking up the brandy bottle poured a large amount into her coffee. “He might be a criminal and the police just haven’t caught up with him yet.” She took several long sips of the coffee, and turned her attention back to me. Her eyes were as cold as before—which was very cold. “I tell you, Mr. Pacific, I frankly don’t like the idea.”
“Rosemary works very hard,” Bianca explained apologetically, “and she’s one of the busiest high fashion models in New York. Tonight she’s tired. Don’t mind her, tomorrow she’ll be sorry.”
“No, I won’t!” Rosemary was obstinate.
“But I need help and he’ll work hard,” Bianca said. “Oh, Rosemary, where’s your sense of ... fun ... adventure?”
“I don’t have a sense of humor about some things.” Abruptly Rosemary’s tone softened. Affectionately she patted Bianca’s hand. “All right, Bee,” she said, “go ahead. Try it.” Rosemary’s cold blue eyes turned on me calculatingly, and she said very deliberately, “But no funny business, do you understand?”
Writing on my pad, I quoted, “ ‘If you inquire what the people are like here, I must answer—the same as anywhere.’ ” I handed it to Rosemary.
She read it, raised her brows, and asked, “Where’s this from?”
“Goethe” I wrote automatically. This surprised me, as I really had no idea where the quotation was from, and I had made no special effort to remember it. I crumpled the paper, put it in my pocket, and returned her stare, silently. She arose from the table and walked back into the hall. I could hear her footsteps ascending the stairs; somehow her steps sounded halting.
Bianca drew a deep breath. “Follow me, Vic,” she said pleasantly, “and I’ll show you around my factory.” She opened a door to the kitchen and disclosed a short, steep flight of stairs leading to the basement. Her hand flicked the light switch, and she led the way down.
The basement ran the full length of the house, forming a single large room. In one comer, neatly partitioned off, was an oil furnace and water heater. The rest of the room held a series of long wooden benches, about hip high, with tall stools behind them. On the benches were racks holding neat rows of hand tools. Anchored firmly against one wall was a heavier bench which held a number of small anvils, the largest the size of my hand. It also held an automatic metal saw, a buffing wheel with a variety of attachments, and a metal container of acetylene gas with a torch.
Bianca pointed to a small brick furnace, approximately two and a half feet square, standing in the center of the room. “That’s going to be your main job,” she said. “It’s the smelting furnace where I melt my silver and copper. See, that’s the bellows down there.” Her foot touched a flat, black board which projected from the furnace a few inches above the floor. “You operate that by foot, and it keeps the bellows going inside the furnace.” She touched her back, and smiled, “The weary hours I’ve pumped that thing!”
Beside the furnace were several large paper bags marked “coke.” I pointed to them questioningly.
“Yes, indeed,” she agreed, “it burns coke. Usually we need a very hot fire ... extremely high ... around 1300 degrees F.” Turning away, she walked to a comer of the room which contained an aged, black leather lounge. The piece of furniture was nearly flat, although one end was slightly elevated and curved under.
With my pad I asked her if I slept on it.
“Yes, and it’s very comfortable. I’ve slept on it lots of times when I work at night. I’ll get you some blankets and a pillow and you can keep them in that chest.” She indicated a tool chest, about the size of a footlocker. “It has only a few tools in it, and I’ll clean it out right away.”
I shook
my head.
“All right,” she agreed, “you do it then.” I nodded, and she smiled back at me. “Just one more thing. Over there is a bath and shower stall. It’s all yours.” She approached the foot of the stairs. “Lie down and get a little rest,” she said. “I’ll call you in about an hour for dinner.”
She began to climb the stairs. About halfway up, she paused and looked down on me. “Who knows,” she asked, “perhaps today marks the return of the guild system to the world?”
After she had disappeared up the stairs, I sat down on the leather lounge. I was very tired, and for a long time I merely sat. Finally I aroused sufficiently to light a cigarette. It still had no effect on me. Although my mind returned to Bianca Hill, it soon skipped over her to Rosemary. I thought, Rosemary? Rosemary what? I realized that I didn’t know her last name. For some reason she distrusted or disliked me; and to a degree I was wary of her. I turned the thought of her aside, and stretched out on the couch. Bianca had not exaggerated. It was comfortable. My eyes stared at the ceiling; it had been painted a light green. Through the center of it ran a long fixture containing twin tubes of neon. There was plenty of evenly distributed light in the room which produced no glare. This was probably the most pleasant basement I’d ever lived in. Then I dropped off to sleep.
Bianca and I were sitting at the round dining-room table having dinner. With difficulty I managed to eat a little food and drank a glass of milk. Rosemary lounged leisurely into the room, drawing on a pair of white gloves. She was dressed in a smart black dress and wore a mink stole. “You look lovely,” Bianca complimented her. “You’re going out to dinner?”
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