He turned his head, but an angle of the wall cut him off from a direct view of the chaise longue. In the mirror he could see only the back of the chair—and the legs. They were a man’s legs, encased in well-creased gray trousers, black shoes, and gray spats. And a second glance told him that “dangling” was not the proper word to describe their position. The knees were bent across the top of the chair, but the legs did not dangle. They were extended with a peculiar immobility, a detached stillness that made them appear to belong to no living being.
Barney felt cold spasm contract his stomach. A chill weakness pervaded his arms and legs, and his knees were reluctant to function. Slowly, hesitantly he advanced into the room, turned the corner of the alcove to look at the chaise longue from the other side.
The man with the spats was sprawled upside down over the chaise longue, with his head in the seat, and his arms hanging over the sides. The sleeve of the arm nearest Barney was red and moist. And there was a little puddle of crimson under the motionless fingers. There was a look of incredulous terror frozen on the waxen face, and the mouth was open in eternal amazement.
Barney stood for a long time as though paralyzed. Only his hands moved, opening and closing mechanically against his trousers, wiping the cold perspiration from his palms. He stared, trying to place the dead man. There was something vaguely familiar about that hairline mustache, like a shallow W on the upper lip. He knew he had met the man at Pen’s once or twice, at parties, but could not remember his name. Was it Laurence?
He looked down at a scatter of small objects that had apparently fallen to the floor from the dead man’s pockets. There were coins, a key, a pencil, and what seemed to be a woman’s handkerchief. As Barney stooped to pick it up, he heard a sound that made him straighten instantly—a faint ping, like the sound of a wire hanger knocking against another.
He tiptoed across the room, picking up a chair in his right hand, and flattened himself against the wall next to the closet door. For an everlasting half minute he waited for more sounds of movement from within. There were none. Still hugging the wall, he reached over and flung the closet door open.
Again he waited. The panicky rhythm of his pulses thumped in his ears. He held his breath. Nothing happened.
“Come out of there!” he ordered.
A frightened feminine voice cried out in reply, “Barney!”
Vivian Sanderson came tumbling out in a tempest of fluttering dresses and coats and negligees. She flung herself against Barney, gasping with uncertainty. Her cheeks were gray, and Barney could feel her trembling against him.
“I’m so glad it’s you, Barney!” she gasped. “I’m half dead with fright.”
Barney patted her awkwardly. He put his arm around her, started walking her into the next room, but she collapsed on the edge of the bed in a spasm of sobbing.
“Pull yourself together, Viv,” Barney said. He sat down beside her, and the deep mattress, bending under their combined weights, sent a small avalanche of stuffed dogs sliding down against them.
In the next room the telephone rang.
VI
THE JANGLE OF THE TELEPHONE BELL rasped across Barney’s taut nerves. He started as if from pain, and was halfway to the door before he even realized he had moved from the bed. Half apologetically, he turned back to Vivian.
The phone rang again.
The harsh sound was an indecent intrusion, it seemed to Barney, a summons to the outside world to come in and see the thing on the chaise longue, to demand of these two young people what they were doing in the strange apartment with a strange corpse. It was an accusation that should be silenced, because it was false. He wanted to go into the next room and lift the receiver, to break the connection, to stop the ringing. He did not move, however. He continued to look at Vivian whom the ringing seemed to affect quite differently. Instead of being upset, she was regaining her composure. Momentarily relaxed, her mind apparently diverted for the instant from the gruesome object behind her, she was listening professionally. She might have been counting the number of times the telephone rang.
After the third ring, the apartment relapsed into a stillness that was thicker than ever. It was getting darker, too. Barney, still looking at Vivian, suddenly thought he knew why the telephone had rung only three times. The picture of the whole situation would take on new meaning if his idea was correct; Vivian’s nocturnal visit, her presence in the apartment now—The moment, however, was not exactly propitious for following this line of thought. Barney took the girl’s arm, drew her gently from the bed, and into the hallway.
“The view in the next room is nicer,” he said.
Vivian followed tamely. Barney piloted her into the bar, did not say a word until he had poured her a stiff drink of brandy. He poured one for himself, and made a face as he swallowed it. Penelope Dunne bought liquor according to price, not quality, and poured everything into cut-glass decanters so that her guests could not read the frugal story of the original labels.
“Now,” said Barney at last, installing the girl on a high red stool, “let’s have the story. And talk fast because you have to get out of here quickly. What happened?”
“You saw it,” Vivian said. “I’m afraid I don’t know any more than you do. You know him, of course.”
Barney shook his head. “I suppose I should,” he said, “because he’s vaguely familiar. But all I can say for sure is that he’s a European who hasn’t been in this country long enough to go native.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because his spats have five buttons on them—like the ones I bought in Paris that winter. American spats have four buttons. Is it Pierre Laurence?”
The girl nodded. “He’s a professional Continental, all right,” she said. “Or was.”
“French?”
“Vaguely. He always claimed to be, but I never saw his passport.”
“He’s an old flame of Penelope’s, isn’t he?”
“Not so old,” Vivian said. “Pen was crazy about him for months. I didn’t know she’d been seeing him recently. He dropped her rather suddenly.”
“For any good reason?”
“For Julia Frye. At least I suspect it was Julia. Everyone seems to know about it except Pen and Tom Norfolk. Tom’s Julia’s fiancé, you know.”
“Maybe they knew about it, too,” Barney said pensively. “What caused Mr. Laurence’s switch?”
“Probably just masculine fickleness,” Vivian said, “although Julia is younger than Pen and has prettier legs and too much money. Principally too much money, I’d say.”
“Is that what you meant when you said Laurence was a Continental by profession?”
Vivian nodded. “I couldn’t prove it,” she said. “Officially I think he was a teacher of French and bridge. He had classified ads in the Sunday papers, ‘French taught by former actor of the Comedie Française. Informal conversational methods. Also classics. Private lessons.’ The sort of thing that would appeal to lonely ladies of means. He met a good many bored and independent women of a romantic age around the bridge clubs, too. He was supposed to be a wizard with the cards. I think he picked up a modest living at a cent a point, plus whatever he charged officially for his lessons. The suspicious part is that he didn’t live at all modestly.”
“Do you think Pen killed him?”
“I don’t know. I should think not. It would be pretty silly to kill him in her own house, wouldn’t it?”
“She might have done it in a fit of anger. A woman scorned, you know.”
“How was he killed, Barney?”
“Shot, apparently. Or stabbed. I didn’t see any weapon. Did you see any?”
“I didn’t see a thing, Barney. I was too petrified when I walked in on that horrible sight. I hadn’t been here more than two minutes before I heard you come in. Naturally I was more scared than ever, not knowing who it was, and knowing I couldn’t get out without being seen.”
“What were you doing here in the first place?”
“Was she expecting you?”
“I don’t know. I doubt it.”
“Then how did you get in?”
“I—the door was open.”
“Open? Or merely unlatched?”
“It was ajar,” the girl said.
“And you left it that way?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You must have, because it was that way when I came in. There was no one here when you arrived?”
“No one.”
“You more or less expected to find murder here, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know what I’d find, Barney. I came to talk to Pen, that’s all.”
“Isn’t this what you were anticipating when you warned me last night?”
“I didn’t know what was going to happen, Barney. I just knew something was in the air, and I was afraid you might be caught in it somehow.”
“I may be yet,” Barney said. “Tony’s car is still in front of my house. And it looks like you’re in this, too.”
“How, Barney?”
“Were you on duty just before I met you last night?”
“Yes.”
“Penelope Dunne is a subscriber to Gotham Phone-Answering Service. Are you taking her messages these days?”
The girl hesitated.
“You’re not violating any confidence,” Barney said. “Pen’s been talking about getting one of your phantom secretaries—because it was cheaper than hiring a secretary of her own, and I know how Pen is about squeezing the buffalo. Right now when the phone stopped ringing after the third ring, it occurred to me that maybe you intercepted a message for Pen last night that gave you the idea that someone was going to get killed. Did Pen know Pierre’s number was up, Vivian?”
“I can’t talk about it, Barney.”
Barney stared at the girl for several seconds. Then he slapped the bar with the flat of his hand.
“Of course!” he exclaimed. “Of course that’s it. Somebody who didn’t know Penelope subscribed for your service spilled the beans. Somebody who thought he was talking to Pen talked out of turn. Because your voice does sound like your cousin Penelope’s on the phone. Viv, you are in a jam!”
It was dark in the bar, and the girl’s small face was just a pale blur in the gloom. It moved nearer to Barney as she said, “Maybe I am.”
Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper.
“Then you did know this was going to happen?”
“Not exactly, Barney. Honestly. All I knew is that someone phoned Pen to say that she had better get out of town for a few days because something was going to happen to her white-haired boy. I hadn’t the slightest idea of who was phoning or who the white-haired boy might be. I relayed the message to Pen, but she said it was probably a joke. I knew it wasn’t. I felt it was serious. That’s why I warned you. I was still worried when I got up today. I came by the exchange, to see if anybody had asked for Pen’s message slips to see who it was who had taken the message in question. Someone had. A Western Union messenger had come by in the morning and picked them up, supposedly to take them to Pen. I came to Pen’s to find out if it was really she who had sent for the messages, and to tell her that I’d warned you—because I didn’t think Pen was willingly involved. And you know what I found when I got here.”
“You’ll have to get out of here right away. Did anyone see you come in?”
“The elevator boy, of course. He’ll probably remember, because he knows me.”
“Before you go, I want you to go back in Pen’s room once more—if you think you can stand it.”
“I’ll try. Give me another brandy first, though.”
“There’s a handkerchief on the floor that I want you to look at. Don’t touch it, though. I just want you to tell me whether you think it’s yours.”
Vivian gulped Penelope’s three-alarm firewater. She suppressed a cough, but tears came to her eyes.
“Let’s go,” she said.
In the bedroom, Barney turned on a small pink lamp on a night table. He stood between the girl and the chaise longue as he pointed to the floor.
“That look like it might be yours?” he asked.
“It might be, but I don’t think it is. At least I didn’t drop it today. I only had two in my bag and they’re still there.”
“Then why do you say it might be yours?”
“Because I have some exactly like it. All of Pen’s friends have. Pen brought back dozens of them as gifts when she came back from Europe last time. She got them at a bargain in Paris, I think.”
“There’s no chance of it being traced to you?”
“I don’t see how.”
“In that case we’ll leave it,” Barney said, “and you will leave me. Do you know your way down the service stairs?”
“I think so.”
“Then scoot out the back, and try to get down without being seen. Your story will be that you came to see your cousin Penelope this afternoon and that no one answered your ring, so you went away. Pen’s gone to Julia Frye’s on her way to the country, but you don’t know anything about that. If the elevator boy doesn’t remember taking you down, I’ll swear that he did, and that you got out of the car just as I got in. But don’t admit you were inside the apartment. Did you touch anything near the body?”
“No.”
“Good. I’ll take care of everything else. Start moving, Viv.”
“And you, Barney?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got a few things to check up on. I’ll call you later in the evening.”
“Barney—”
“You just go to work, as if nothing happened. I’ll get in touch with you. I—”
He stopped abruptly. The Pekinese were barking in shrill alarm in the next room. Vivian clutched his arm. He reached over to turn out the light. They heard the doorbell ring.
Quickly he steered the girl into the corridor and toward the back of the apartment. He squeezed her hand hurriedly, let her out the kitchen door, locked up after her.
He turned a light on in the bar, hid one of the brandy glasses, started for the living-room. Just as he reached the door, he heard the scratching sound of a key being inserted into the lock. The dogs stopped barking. He groped for a light switch, stood with his finger on it, waiting. The door swung slowly open. He pressed the switch. The room was flooded with brightness.
VII
ON THE THRESHOLD stood a young Oriental, dressed in collegiate manner, and carrying a professional-looking black bag on which was the legend in neat gold letters: Riverside Canine Caterers & Dog Walkers.
“Ah. Mistah Weavah. How are you feering, I hope?” he said with a broad, toothy smile of recognition.
“Hello, Matsuki,” Barney said. “I wasn’t sure I heard the bell, but I heard the dogs barking. You’ve come to service the menagerie?”
“Yessu. Mrs. Dunne gone away for few days. I rango berru in case Mistah Gorovo heeyah.”
“I’m waiting for Mr. Grove myself,” Barney said. “He’s probably just gone out somewhere for a minute, because he left the door open for me. You have a key?”
“Mrs. Dunne frequently reave key in erevatoh when absento,” said Matsuki, kneeling haunch to heel, Japanese fashion. He opened his bag and spread a gaily-colored oilcloth on the floor. Barney watched him set out the whimsically decorated enameled pots, lift the lids, and slide them toward the mildly interested Pekinese. The dogs sniffed disdainfully.
“You’ve probably forgotten the caviar. They always start dinner with canapés,” said Barney.
Some people had to do strange things for a living. Matsuki walked dogs as a side line, to pay his keep and tuition at Columbia. He was supposed to have won high honors in mathematics at the Imperial University in Tokyo, and had come to Columbia for special research. Figures and symbols being more or less universal, he had not quite perfected his English. The square root of zero is the same in any language, and it took no conquest of syntax or the subjunctive to
understand a table of logarithms. Or a still-warm corpse, Barney reflected, wondering how he was going to get Matsuki out of the apartment in a hurry.
“Go on and eat your dinner, dogs,” Barney said.
“Shitsurei itashimashita,” added Matsuki. “O-tassha des’ka?”
The Pekes backed away still farther.
“I think you’ve said the wrong thing,” Barney ventured. “They’re very sensitive animals.”
“Was simpry asking about appetite.”
“I know, but one shouldn’t speak Japanese to Chinese pups, should one? They might think you were commenting on Eastern Asia.”
Matsuki looked very solemn for a moment. Then his blank expression gave way to his ivory grin.
“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Undah-stando. You make joke about new puppied regime. Very fanny.”
“Very,” said Barney. “Listen, Matsuki, why don’t you go on about your other business? I’ll try to coax the beasts to eat.”
“Must remain for comprete repasto,” the Japanese replied. “Must take dogs fo’ aftah-dinnah echo-sas-size.”
“Then let’s get to work,” said Barney, dropping to his knees. “I’ll help you. We may have to try forcible feeding.”
For five minutes they wheedled, flattered, and cajoled before the coy Pekes would condescend to dine. Then the phone rang.
“You are not responding, Mistah Weavah?” asked Matsuki, when it rang again.
“I’m afraid the pups will stop eating if I move,” Barney said.
See You at the Morgue Page 5