Golden Trap

by Hugh Pentecost

  “You would remember the occasion,” Chambrun said.

  “I don’t like this,” Lovelace said. “Would you mind very much coming to the point, Pierre?”

  “I do mind—very much,” Chambrun said. “But I will. Madrid. Seven years ago.”

  Nothing happened to Lovelace’s face except a look of exasperation. “What about Madrid seven years ago?”

  “Miss Arnaud was singing there in a café,” Chambrun said. “One night after a performance she was kidnapped by two men, driven to a house somewhere out in the country. There she was delivered to a third man who beat her and raped her. She says that third man was you.”

  Lovelace’s mouth dropped open. “You have to be kidding,” he said.

  “When she came out onto the stage tonight she saw you, and that’s what sent her off into hysterics.”

  “For God’s sake, Pierre, you don’t buy that, do you?” Lovelace said. He, too, was suddenly angry.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Chambrun said. “You say you don’t know Miss Arnaud. I assume you are saying also that she doesn’t know you. Then what could she have against you and why would she make such a charge?”

  “God only knows!” Lovelace said.

  “Would you be willing to face her?” Chambrun asked.

  “Of course.”

  Chambrun stepped over to his desk and pressed the intercom button. “Call Louis Martine and have him bring Mademoiselle Arnaud here.” He clicked off the box.

  “Louis?” Lovelace said. “She’s a friend of Louis’s?”

  “Of Collette’s in particular.”

  “My God, Pierre!”

  “What?”

  “Of course Collette will believe her, and therefore so will Louis.”

  “If she’s lying, George, why is she lying?”

  “I don’t know!” Lovelace said. His hands shook as he lit a cigarette. “I saw her come out on stage tonight. I swear I’ve never seen her before—except for large blown-up photographs outside a nightspot in Paris where she was singing a couple of years ago. She meant absolutely nothing to me except that she’s a show business name on the Continent. When she blew her top up there, it never for a moment occurred to me that it had any connection with me. She’s a total stranger.”

  “She can have been mistaken,” Chambrun said quietly. “She may admit that when she sees you here, close up. She can be deliberately lying, which could only mean that she is part of the conspiracy to destroy you, George. Or you can be lying, and you did assault her in Spain.”

  “You think that last is possible?” Lovelace asked, his face frozen.

  Chambrun walked over to his Turkish coffee-maker. He spoke without looking at his friend while he filled a demitasse.

  “There isn’t time, George, for niceties. There isn’t time for me to tell you that I know the real George Lovelace couldn’t possibly be guilty of such a thing.”

  “What do you mean—the real George Lovelace?”

  “Sometimes, under severe pressures, a man cracks—comes apart—is no longer his real self. You have lived under pressures for twenty-five years that the average man couldn’t endure for a month. You could have gone to pieces from time to time, George—you could have adopted a schizoid pattern. You could be a modern Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

  “And not remember?” Lovelace asked in a low voice. “Not turn myself in afterwards?”

  “Louis says you became a psychotic killer somewhere along the way during the war,” Chambrun said. “He says there is a trail of senseless killings stretching out over the years.”

  “Louis is under the influence of his wife, who hates me!”

  Chambrun sipped the strong black Turkish brew. “We have to consider all the possibilities, George,” he said. The harshness had gone out of his voice. He looked down at the blinking red light on his telephone. “Would you like a drink before Miss Arnaud is brought in here?”

  “Please!”

  Chambrun waved toward the portable bar. “Help yourself,” he said.’ He avoided looking at me.

  I could see the line his thinking was taking, and how deeply it hurt him. His friend could be guilty—guilty of this horror presented by Jeanette Arnaud and perhaps a whole series of others. It could be a sickness, only now being revealed to outsiders. If it was, Chambrun would still stand by him, but the going would be very rough.

  He watched Lovelace fill a glass at the bar and toss off an unbelievably stiff drink of Scotch in two long swallows. Then he pressed the button on his intercom box.

  “Monsieur and Madame Martine with Miss Arnaud,” Ruysdale’s cool voice said.

  “Show them in, please,” Chambrun said.

  I could feel a prickling on the back of my neck. I could see Lovelace put down his glass and figuratively brace himself.

  The office door opened and the three people whom Lovelace had to think of as mortal enemies came into the room. Jeanette Arnaud was in the protection of Louis Martine’s strong arm. Collette Martine walked beside them, rigid, straight. Her eyes looked for Lovelace, found him, stayed fixed on him, unblinking. The Arnaud girl seemed to shrink against Martine’s lithe body. Her eyes were wide as saucers.

  Chambrun moved toward her. “I’m sorry to have to put you through this, Mademoiselle,” he said. “The accusation you’ve made is, of course, most serious. It is made against a man whom I think of as friend. He denies ever having seen you before tonight. It’s possible, in the half light of the Blue Lagoon, that you were mistaken. I’ve asked you to come here, quietly, where you can see Mr. Lovelace and be absolutely certain about him.”

  Her answer was in the wide, frightened eyes. She pointed a shaking finger at Lovelace. “There can be no doubt,” she whispered. “He is the man!”

  The action was so sudden neither Chambrun nor I could move. Collette Martine launched herself at Lovelace with a fury the like of which I’ve never seen. She was on him, screaming at him in French, her long fingernails tearing at his face. He stood like a statue, not lifting a hand to protect himself.

  Chambrun and I reached her, but only after his face had been ripped and was streaming blood. Martine abandoned the girl and came to his wife, taking her out of our grip, talking to her in a low urgent voice. I turned to look for Jeanette Arnaud. She had started out of the room but Miss Ruysdale had appeared in the doorway, blocking the girl’s retreat.

  “Be good enough to take your wife back to your suite, Louis!” Chambrun said. “Miss Arnaud will stay here with us for a moment.” His voice was so cold it was like a blow.

  “Jeanette will come with us!” Collette Martine cried.

  “She stays here,” Chambrun said.

  Martine almost carried his wife to the door. He paused to say something in a reassuring tone to the singer. Then he took his wife away. Jeanette Arnaud stood with her back to the wall, her hands spread out on either side of her. She appeared to be gasping for breath. Ruysdale, who had disappeared for a moment, came back into the room carrying a small metal first-aid box, went over to Lovelace and began to do something to the livid gouges on his face.

  “You will be good enough to come over here and sit down, Miss Arnaud,” Chambrun said. He held one of the high-backed Florentine chairs for her.

  The girl edged across the room toward him, never taking her eyes off Lovelace. She sat on the edge of the chair, gripping its arms. Chambrun moved around his desk to face her. His voice was coldly matter-of-fact.

  “I still believe it is possible you are mistaken, Mademoiselle,” he said.

  “No!”

  “It’s possible. The time is seven years. The moment for you was a nightmare. Mr. Lovelace has no hump on his back, no scars or birthmarks that would make him unmistakable. He could be very like someone else.”

  “No!”

  “I would like more proof,” Chambrun said. “In the story I was told you went to the police the night it all happened.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember the date?”

  “How could
I forget, Monsieur Chambrun? The fourteenth of October—seven years ago.”

  “Do you remember the name of the police officer who tried to help you?” Chambrun asked, scribbling a note on the pad in front of him.

  “Certainement,” the girl said. “He was the Commissaire for the district. He was very kind to me. He was Capitaine Luis Santana.”

  “So there is a complete record of the case?”

  “A record of sorts, Monsieur. We never located the house, or the two men who carried me to it, or the third man—until tonight.”

  Chambrun’s dark eyes looked at her sharply. “Were you given medical attention that night—after what had happened?”

  “But yes, Monsieur. By the surgeon of police, and later by a private doctor supplied by the owner of the café where I was singing.”

  “Do you remember their names?”

  “Not the surgeon of police,” she said. “He only saw me the one time. The private doctor—his name was Manuel Fuentes.”

  “This Captain Santana—he’s never been in touch with you since?”

  “He told me he would if he found the men. He asked if I would come back to Spain to make the identification. But he never found them.”

  “And until tonight it has been a forgotten matter?”

  “Not forgotten, Monsieur!” she said.

  “I should like to make something quite clear to you, Mademoiselle,” Chambrun said. There was none of the kindness in his voice I might have expected. Whether this girl was right or wrong about Lovelace, certainly the incident in Madrid must be for real. She wouldn’t be giving all the names of police and doctors if they couldn’t be checked out. The shock of seeing Lovelace who was—or who she thought was—the man who had so savagely manhandled her must be almost unendurable. I felt sorry for her, and doubtful about Lovelace. Chambrun seemed to be without pity. It puzzled me.

  “This is not a legal matter at the moment,” Chambrun went on. “The crime was committed in Spain. The identity of the criminal is still, for me, in doubt. If you are mistaken—”

  “I am not mistaken, Monsieur!” It was like a cry of pain.

  “If you are mistaken,” Chambrun repeated, unmoved, “you will have done irreparable damage to Mr. Lovelace.”

  “And he to me,” she whispered.

  “I am going to prove out your story from start to finish, Mademoiselle,” Chambrun said. “Are there any details you wish to change before it’s too late?”

  “None.” She looked past Chambrun at Lovelace, who stood ramrod straight, patting at his cheek with a piece of medicated gauze Ruysdale had given him. Her wide eyes were dark with fear and revulsion.

  Chambrun studied her from under his hooded eyelids with what seemed to me to be open hostility. I couldn’t figure him. “I advise you, Mademoiselle Arnaud, not to leave the city,” he said. “You are a well known personality and you will easily be found. Now I will ask Miss Ruysdale to see that you are safely escorted to wherever you are living.”

  “I wish to go to Madame Martine,” the girl said.

  “Very well. Ruysdale, see that Miss Arnaud gets to the Martines’ suite without being bothered by the gentlemen of the press.”

  Chambrun turned and went to his desk. He took one of his Egyptian cigarettes from a lacquered box and lit it. He kept his back to the girl until Ruysdale had escorted her out of the office. Then he turned on Lovelace, and his voice was a whiplash.

  “You were in Madrid on that fourteenth of October!” he said.

  “Why should you think so?” Lovelace asked.

  “Because you didn’t instantly deny it. Because you didn’t say at once, ‘I was in Brussels, or Stockholm, or Vienna.’”

  Lovelace let out his breath in a deep, shuddering sigh. “I was in Madrid,” he said very quietly.

  “And you still say you have never seen Jeanette Arnaud before tonight?”

  “I still say it, Pierre.” The awful weariness I’d been aware of earlier in the day seemed to come over Lovelace. His shoulders sagged. “But it doesn’t matter what I say, does it?”

  “It matters a great deal,” Chambrun said, suddenly brisk.

  “Why should it?”

  “Because I can smell chicanery a mile away,” Chambrun said. “It’s part of my job to be sensitive to dishonesty. At the core of the girl’s story is a lie, too well acted, too melodramatically played. The question is, why?”

  Part 3

  One

  IN LESS THAN AN hour a solid portion of Jeanette Arnaud’s story had been verified. A transatlantic telephone call located Captain Luis Santana of the Madrid police. The case was seven years old but the Spaniard remembered it very well. A hysterical Jeanette Arnaud had come to police headquarters with her story of abduction and rape. Santana had at first been skeptical. False rape charges are often brought by women who wish to get even with some man for some reason or another. This was a little different because Jeanette Arnaud had not named anyone. She had been examined by a police surgeon and later by a private doctor. There was no question she had been severely beaten and sexually molested. Santana said he took the case seriously because she never named anyone.

  “Did she describe the man?” Chambrun asked.

  You could almost imagine Santana’s shrug. The description had been meaningless. White, middle-aged, athletically built. But nothing they could use to make a clear picture for themselves. The violence had been so sudden and overwhelming that the girl had come away without any detail that would help. She couldn’t be blamed, Santana told Chambrun. She had been overpowered, only half conscious from the beating she’d received. Nothing fake about that. The date, the names, everything checked out. So far, no lie.

  The transatlantic lines buzzed again as Chambrun called an old friend, Inspector Claude Grizzard of the Paris police. He asked for a detailed history of Jeanette Arnaud. Grizzard would call back as soon as he could come up with detail.

  Lovelace seemed to have lost all interest in the proceedings. A kind of hopelessness had come over him.

  “What you need is a couple of sleeping pills and some rest,” Chambrun told him. “Take him upstairs, Mark, and see that he gets some sleep. It will be some time before we hear from Grizzard.”

  “What good will the girl’s history do you?” Lovelace asked. “She believes it was me.”

  “Nonsense,” Chambrun said cheerfully. “She believes no such thing.”

  “You are the only one who thinks that,” Lovelace said.

  Chambrun actually grinned at him. “Does anyone else matter?” he asked. He took a sip of Turkish coffee. “If I believed this girl’s identification of you, what would I do?”

  “Turn your back on me,” Lovelace said.

  “Precisely.”

  Lovelace frowned his puzzlement.

  “I think that is the answer to the ‘why’ I asked a little while ago,” Chambrun said. “I think I was supposed to turn my back on you. I would refuse you help. I would ask you to leave the Beaumont. And then you would be wide open to attack again. That, I think, is the ‘why.’”

  “You’re saying she, Jeanette Arnaud, is the person who’s hunting me? It doesn’t make sense, Pierre. I’ve had no contact with her, ever.”

  “You said it yourself, earlier today, George. ‘The relatives of people, the descendants of people, the members of organizations I helped to smash.’”

  “A friend of Collette Martine’s,” Lovelace said.

  “Let’s wait for Grizzard’s report,” Chambrun said. “Meanwhile, I’m not turning my back on you, George. I’m not deserting you. So go get some sleep. Take him away, Mark.”

  Lovelace and I went up to the fourth floor. The brass polisher was still in the hall. As I unlocked the door to my apartment I saw Lovelace’s hand slide inside his jacket to the holstered gun. I’d almost forgotten there were no longer any inviolate locks in the Beaumont.

  Inside, the apartment was as we’d left it. Lovelace didn’t wait for an invitation but went straight to the side table
and poured himself another Scotch. I rarely need help to sleep, but I had some Seconal in the bathroom, just in case. I got Lovelace a couple of the little red capsules. He swallowed them without resistance.

  “Marilyn,” he said. “She’s probably waiting.”

  “You go to bed,” I said. “I’ll bring Marilyn up to date.”

  His eyelids were heavy. “Chambrun is a true friend,” he said.

  “And an implacable enemy—if it happens you’re not telling him the truth,” I said.

  “I begin to wonder what is truth,” he said. “Could Chambrun be right? Could I be Jekyll and Hyde?”

  “You better get some sleep, Buster, or you’ll have us all wondering,” I said. I wasn’t kidding. Chambrun might believe in this man, but I wasn’t so sure about him myself…

  I called Jerry Dodd’s office. Jerry seems to be able to go days on end without sleep when there is some kind of crisis in the Beaumont. It was all right for me leave Lovelace. The brass polisher would make dead certain no one went into the apartment. So I went in search of Marilyn VanZandt.

  Shelda, as I’ve indicated, is a young woman of surprises. When I got to the Blue Lagoon the customers had thinned out. Dr. Claus Zimmerman had gone somewhere else to sleep. Rogoff and his bevy of tarts had disappeared. The room had thinned out considerably since the main attraction of the evening, Jeanette Arnaud, would not appear for the late show either. But Marilyn was where I had left her, with Shelda as a companion. As I approached the table I saw that Marilyn had stuck by her guns. There was no sign of a drink. She and Shelda were sipping coffee. I was ready for a bourbon on the rocks, myself.

  “Well, don’t sit there like an oyster on the half shell,” Shelda said, when I’d ordered. “Give!” When I hesitated she said: “I’ve told Marilyn. She had a right to know, I thought.”

  That meant a lot of things. It meant Shelda believed in Marilyn among others. When it comes to judging women I bow to Shelda.

  “Miss Arnaud insists Lovelace was the man,” I said.

  “She’s lying,” Marilyn said quietly.

  “Chambrun thinks so,” I said.