by Zelda Popkin
"Slid right out while you were talking," the stenographer answered.
"Dames! That's why you can't do business with them. Now you see them. Now you don't. Oh well, maybe she's gone some place to powder her nose."
He had guessed correctly. Miss Carner was powdering her nose. She had chosen to do it in a taxi-cab. Her nose and chin were whitened, her lips rouged, her hair neatly tucked under her hat by the time the cab let her out at Saxon Rorke's door.
She gave her name to the doorman, waited patiently beside the switchboard while he plugged in a cord, pushed a key, announced her. Li, as dignified, as owlish as before, opened the door, bowed, led the way to the living room.
Saxon Rorke came up the steps to greet her. He was in tweeds and a bronze Florida tan. With the dogs at his heels, he made a conventional, but convincing portrait of virile masculinity.
He extended his hand, showed his fine teeth in a wide smile. "This is a pleasure. If I'd known you were coming, I'd have provided some etchings."
"Then you do remember me?"
"I never forget a charming woman."
She frowned slightly. "This isn't a social call."
"And why not?"
"I bring bad news."
He stiffened. "About Phyllis?"
"Yes."
Mary began to feel sorry for herself. "I've given myself a mean job," she thought. "Why didn't I let the police break the news to him?"
"She's dead?"
"Yes."
Rorke lowered his head.
Mary said gently: "Hadn't we better sit down. It's easier to take bad news sitting down."
"You're being considerate. I'm really not a child. I can take it. Rover! Fido!…They didn't nip you?"
"I don't mind dogs." She bent down to pat the shaggy heads.
He led the way to the big living room, sat down on a sofa with her. "I've just come back from Florida," he began. "That state gets me. I stay later each winter. We're still not all to rights. And just as well, for we may be leaving again any day. For the country. I've bought a place in Virginia, You must come down sometime. Country squire stuff. Riding to the hounds. Not these hounds, of course. They'd be scared of a chipmunk." He was talking fast, too fast, almost as if he were trying to cover with prattle, a mounting hysteria. Mary stared at him in amazement.
"You're looking very well," he went on. "Have you had lunch? I'll ask Li to fix something for us. Hard work agrees with you, or isn't it hard work running around town to call on bachelors at their apartments? . . ."
Mary finished the sentence. "To inform them that their fiancees have been found murdered."
She saw the ruddiness go out of his face like a headlamp dimmed. She saw his fingers tremble. He settled back on the sofa. "Tell me."
"Her body was found in a furnace in an abandoned house in the West Nineties. She had been shot through the heart."
Saxon Rorke laced his fingers across his knee. He seemed to be struggling for self-control. He said, finally, "I'm afraid…I'm afraid I need a drink." He rose unsteadily, uncorked a silver and crystal tantalus, poured a stiff glass of Scotch.
His manners reasserted themselves. He paused, with the glass at his lips. "Pardon. Will you join me?"
"No, thank you. You need it more than I."
He tossed the liquor down his throat. He sat down again, reached for his humidor. He said: "Have the police any idea who did it, or why?" Lighted match and voice were both unsteady.
"Neither. Not yet." She shook her head. "We know that a man whom we believe was Nils Peterson had an appointment to meet her at the house where her body was found."
"Peterson?" His voice had an accent of thorough bewilderment. "Who was Peterson?" Between his fingers, his cigar was burning to a long white ash.
"A client of hers. She had made a record in her appointment book of a date with him."
"Oh! Oh, Peterson." He surrounded the name with an aura of amazement. "Have the police found Peterson?"
"Not yet. They're trying to locate him now. But Peterson met her there on October nineteenth, and we have reason to believe she was alive for at least two weeks after that."
"Two weeks?" He seemed puzzled. "Oh yes." He nodded finally. "The letter. The letter I received."
"Yours and the one to her secretary, Struthers."
"Oh yes, Struthers. And where is he now?"
Mary frowned. "Lord knows. It's nearly six months. Time enough for anyone connected with Phyllis' death to get far away from here."
Rorke sucked his cigar reflectively. "That wouldn't be very bright," he said. "By running away, a man marks himself a suspicious character. There are few places from which he can't be extradited."
"True enough. But the average murderer isn't as clever as all that. He thinks only of his safety. Putting distance between himself and his crime is, he believes, the best way of assuring that safety. If he had any brains at all, he'd realize that going about his business - but if he had that much sense, he wouldn't commit a murder in the first place…."
Saxon Rorke poured himself another drink. "You're a smart young lady," he said. "You know all the answers. Forgive me, if I sound cynical. I am a bit upset. I must ask your indulgence. This isn't easy for me. As you were saying, Phyllis met a man named Peterson in this house. By appointment, did you say?"
"Seems as if it were…as if she had an appointment with her death. Oh, but I keep forgetting - I don't know why I do? - that it wasn't that night she was killed. It must have been weeks later. Maybe months."
"The letters?"
"Yes, the letters, of course."
"Then she'd have had to come back to the place, wouldn't she? Have you figured out how or why?"
Mary shook her head. "You see, we haven't a motive. We think we know how she died. But we don't know why. That's the reason I'm here. To ask for help. To ask whether you can recall anything she might have said or hinted, at any time."
He moved his head in an emphatic negative. "You know as much about her affairs as I do. More, possibly. I didn't know the professional side of her life at all. Only a certain personal side. Knew she had had difficulties with her father. Have you thought of that? And this quarrel with the man from Troy. That's a possibility, too, you know. Jealousy, revenge."
"The man from Troy was a quiet, pleasant person. Scarcely the homicidal type."
"Oh, really. Is there a type?"
The whirr of a telephone bell came softly from somewhere behind the closed doors. Saxon Rorke's glance dropped to the coffee table at his knees, where a telephone handset stood. He started to pick it up, changed his mind.
"Let Li answer," he said.
Li had answered. Li came to the head of the living room steps. "A call for you, Mister Rorke." He flicked his head in the direction of the bedroom.
"Will you excuse me?"
Through closed doors and carpet deadened hallways, Mary heard an occasional rising note of Saxon Rorke's deep voice. And then silence, that grew into a sense of emptiness.
Mary stirred uneasily. "Has he gone out? Am I alone here?" she asked herself.
She heard footsteps. Running. They seemed to be behind her, out on the terrace. She whirled around. She flattened her nose against the casement. No one was there.
"I'm imagining things," she told herself. She was annoyed with the thumping of her heart. And then she saw Saxon Rorke at the head of the steps and she laughed aloud with relief and nervous embarrassment.
"Oh, here you are. I thought I'd been left alone."
Rorke came down the steps heavily. His hands hung limp at his sides. "Why would I do that?" he said thickly. His face was flushed purple, as though he were about to have a stroke.
Mary was frightened. "What's the matter?"
He jerked his shoulders. He seemed to be trying to pull himself together. He dropped back on the sofa, reached for the tantalus. His hands had become unmanageable.
"Pour me a drink, will you?"
He covered his face.
As she poured the whi
skey, Mary saw the blood had drained from his fingernails. She thought she heard a little moan.
"Are you ill? Shall I call a doctor?"
"Oh no." He downed the whiskey. "I'll be all right in a minute."
"Shall I call Li?"
He put his hand on her arm. "Please. Sit still." He pressed her hand reassuringly. "Just stay near me."
"Don't you want to lie down? You look really ill."
His lips struggled to round out a smile. "Please. I'll be all right in a moment. Sorry to frighten you so. My blood pressure. It plays these tricks on me." He achieved the smile. "I'm not as young as I look, you see. A man's as old as his arteries, and mine are beginning to - " His ruddy color was returning, his composure with it. "I must apologize." His silken graciousness was back too. "This is no way to treat a lady…"
"I'm very sorry. Isn't there anything I can do to help you?"
"Just one thing." He smiled again. "I don't know whether you'll be willing to do it. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone."
"But the police will want to talk to you. Can I tell them you'll come down to headquarters when you're feeling better?"
He nodded. "Of course. I'll be down."
He walked to the door with her, opened it, pushed the elevator button. "I'll come down to Centre Street. They can depend on my co-peration - as always."
It was in the elevator, going down, that she realized she had hardly told him anything or asked him anything at all about the death of Phyllis Knight, nor had he asked her. And that the one question she had meant to ask had remained unspoken. The telephone call. What could it have been that had disturbed him so? It troubled her. She stepped into a corner drug-store. She dialed Police Headquarters and asked for Inspector Heinsheimer.
"He's up at Bellevue. The Morgue. You can catch him there," she was told.
She hailed a taxi, rode to the house of the dead.
Lyman Knight, slumped in a chair in an ante-room at the Morgue, was wrapped in a velvet-collared cape, and it seemed, to first glance, as though there was nothing but a heap of gray cheviot on the seat, until one saw bony fingers, nervously tapping the arms of the chair, and bright, sharp eyes, darting from person to person. Agnes stood beside him.
A door opened. Inspector Heinsheimer hurried over to the old man.
"Mister Knight? I'm sorry to trouble you, sir," he said kindly.
The man blinked. "Oh, no trouble. No trouble at all." He cleared his throat. The tip of his tongue popped out like a papier mache snake, released from a box. It licked his indigo lips. Suddenly, he bared the yellow fangs of his teeth. He pointed at Mary Carner, entering the room.
"What's she doing here?" he demanded.
Inspector Heinsheimer looked behind him. "Oh, her? So you're back! That's Miss Carner. Friend of mine. Friend of your daughter."
The old man stood up. "I don't like her," he muttered into his mustache. He pulled the folds of his cape around. "She's a busy-body. She's a thief. I won't stay here if she's here. I'm going home. Come, Agnes."
Agnes bobbed her head, agreeing.
The Inspector said: "Oh, come on now. Miss Carner's all right. She's helping us."
"I won't stay if she's here."
"O.K., then. Anything to please the customers." The Inspector waved his hand, shooing Mary from the room. "There. She's gone. Sit down, please." He drew a chair for himself close to Lyman Knight's knees. "I thought it would be better if I told you the news myself." He put his hand paternally on the old man's knee. "Mister Knight, we have found your daughter."
Agnes bent over the old man. She stroked his shoulder. "Don't let it upset you, Mister Knight," she said.
Lyman Knight brushed her hand away. "Is Phyllis dead?" His tone was eager.
The Inspector nodded. "This is a formality. A legal formality…Unpleasant. But necessary." He swallowed his spittle. "Would you - do you think you'll be able to make the official identification for us? Or is there someone else in the family?"
The gray cloth straightened into a man's back. "There is no one else in the family," Lyman Knight said with dignity. "I am her father."
"It'll not be easy." The Inspector watched his face. "There have been changes. It's a long time. When, exactly, did you last see your daughter?"
Lyman Knight's lower lip came forward to help him think. "Let me see. October. It was in October. October the nineteenth…. The day she went out to die. 1 told them she was dead. Would they believe me? Oh no. Not they. They took my suggestion to mean I had guilty knowledge. They invaded my premises. They destroyed my garden."
The Inspector's face was pink. "We're sorry. Sometimes we have to do these things…. Sometimes hurt more than people's gardens to get at the truth."
"Ah." Lyman Knight wagged a fleshless finger under the Inspector's nose. "That's it. It wasn't the truth. My daughter was alive when they tore up my garden. She was writing letters to other people. Not to her father. No, never to her poor old father. She never paid any attention to him. Never told him anything. She wrote to strangers to tell them she was still alive."
The Inspector said: "Don't think harshly of her now. Daughters aren't always most of us don't always show our parents the consideration we ought to. But she's dead now…. Forgive her her little sins."
Lyman Knight pursed his lips. "She deserves no forgiveness," he said.
The inspector's eye-brows rose. He said quietly: "If you'll just follow me . . ." To the housekeeper: "You're sure he's strong enough?"
The woman's hand tightened around the old man's arm. "I'll look after him," she said.
The Medical Examiner glanced sharply at Lyman Knight before he lifted the cloth. Then his eyes shifted to the Inspector, questioning.
"Go ahead," Inspector Heinsheimer nodded. He stepped to the old man's side, took his arm. Through the cape it seemed like a wire, thin, hard. The housekeeper gripped the other arm, and between them, for a few steps, they seemed to carry the frail creature along.
Suddenly Lyman Knight wrenched himself free. He darted with a swift, swooping motion toward the table on which the golden hair, bones and blue cloth suit of Phyllis lay. He pulled the sheet off. His lips spread in a yellow and purple grin. "That's Phyllis," he cackled. "Isn't she pretty? Isn't she a lovely sight? He…he…. Isn't she pretty?" His shoulders heaved with merriment.
The housekeeper's head pivoted from one person to another. Her face was scarlet. "You'll have to excuse him," she begged. "You can see he's just a poor sick old man."
"Eh, what's that?" Lyman Knight swung around on his heel. "Who's an old man?" His cape had slipped from his shoulders, and years from his face and figure. He stood erect. There was a smirk on his countenance.
"An old man, eh? I've outlived her, haven't I? She's dead. I'm alive. And she's dead. Dead!" Triumph vibrated in his voice and body. "Ah, but we must bury my pretty daughter. We must have a funeral. Funeral…. Now let me see." He tapped his yellow teeth with his forefinger. "On Monday…. Will that be satisfactory? At…let me see…eleven o clock. Will that be convenient to you, Agnes? We can have our lunch, as usual, then, at one. Services at the house. Interment at St. Marks. I must remember to notify the sexton to open the crypt. How shall we dress her? In a party dress? Or just a shroud? Or a nightgown, Agnes? She's asleep, isn't she? Just asleep." He chuckled. "A lady's nightdress with lace and ribbons…. So soft to touch…." The tip of his tongue licked his lips.
Through closed teeth Agnes muttered: "We'd better talk about that when we get home, Mister Knight. You've had enough excitement here."
"Very well. We'll talk about it at home. Very well. I trust my arrangements will be satisfactory to you, gentlemen." He waved his arm toward the body. "You may send her home."
Inspector Heinsheimer described the scene to Mary Carner as they drove together back to Police Headquarters. "Just as though he were ordering a package sent home from the store."
Goose-pimples rose on Mary's arm. "He's insane," she said.
"Harmless?"
"Phyllis though
t so. I don't. I don't believe that any unbalanced person is harmless. Lyman Knight knows the difference between right and wrong. You should hear him pontificate on the subject of conduct and morals…. But . . ." she shook her head, "he's capable of any villainy."
"But where," the Inspector asked, "would that old man have gotten a thirtyeight and how would he know how to handle it?"
"Perhaps he hired someone else to use one for him. Who knows what's locked up in that warped brain of his?…Want to know why he hates me? It's because I saw his toys."