Scarlet Imperial

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  “Yes.” He waited for her to enter the elevator. “You shouldn’t ought to work so late.”

  She was inside the cage with him and there was no messenger peering after them. She said, “I don’t have to work nights often. This was something special.” She wanted to inquire of the messenger but she didn’t know how to say it. It was better not to mention the package. The messenger must have gone or Charlie wouldn’t have come up alone for her. He wouldn’t leave a stranger unguarded at night in the building. Grumble as he might, Charlie had pride in the building, his building.

  They had reached the ground floor. He stepped out first. She followed cautiously but she didn’t need caution. There was no stranger here. Charlie had clopped to the door, was unlocking it to let her out. She followed reluctantly.

  “I wonder if I can get a cab.”

  He growled, “I don’t think so.”

  There was no risk in stepping out on the sidewalk. This wasn’t a lonely byway. This was Madison Avenue; busses, cars, cabs splashed along its lanes. Across were lighted shops, just below, past Forty-sixth, the Roosevelt. She need but take a few steps to reach either one. Charlie didn’t hurry her tonight; the rain had given patience even to him. He thought her reluctance to move was the sloshing waves blown by the rising wind.

  She would be drenched when she moved but it wasn’t that which held her motionless here in the doorway. It was who might be waiting in other doorways; waiting to grab this bundle out of her arms. It was, of course, ridiculous. No one would chance raising a hue and cry by snatching it. They’d do it in slyer ways, a messenger who wasn’t a messenger… She said, “When the light changes, I’ll run for it.”

  Charlie grumbled, “You’re going to get awful wet.”

  “I can cut through the Roosevelt,” she called even as she darted out. She didn’t think until she was half-running through the downpour what a fool she was to advertise her way home. There were figures standing under the marquee of the stores, on this side of Madison there was a man walking rapidly towards her, another coming behind her. She didn’t hesitate, splashing across the street slantwise towards the Roosevelt. She pushed through the doors into the lower lobby.

  She stood a moment, shaking off the water, pulling the newspaper tighter about the box. A large puppy-faced man came through the door after her. He glanced at her only in passing, turned and walked up the stairs to the main lobby. She started down the corridor that led past the shops and the Grill but she stopped and turned back. It was too nearly deserted at this hour. The uneasiness engendered by the messenger hadn’t left her as yet. It wouldn’t until she was safe in her own apartment. She ran lightly up the stairs to the luxury of the bright, crowded hotel lobby. There was no one who paid any particular attention to her; a few, including the puppy-face, glanced up as she crossed this level but with only the casual inspection those who waited gave to any new entrance.

  The direct way home was by the Fifth Avenue bus. To walk over to Fifth and wait the bus in the rain, even if night had not fallen, even if she didn’t have the precious package, was out of the question. She didn’t have to go outside; she could, by way of the underground passage, enter Grand Central and the subway. However, there wouldn’t be much chance of flagging a taxi near her subway station downtown. Not on a night like this. She wouldn’t want to walk to the Square from the station on this night.

  She hesitated at the top of the stairs. She might have to wait a bit but eventually she’d get a cab at the Forty-fifth street entrance. There were always some incoming at a hotel. She descended the stairs and went out under the awning. Several men were standing there. The doorman shook his umbrella. “Taxi?”

  She called, “Yes, please,” and pressed back to the door away from the windblown spray.

  There was one quickly, but two of the waiting men took precedence. She took quick glimpse of the two men who remained. They weren’t together. They were middle-aged, ordinary looking, protecting themselves as best they could from the storm.

  The rain dripped from the marquee, it blew with the wind into this oasis. She clutched the damp, bulky newspaper closer to her coat. Two cabs were drawing up. The first dislodged its party, couples in evening dress, and the one man stepped forward. The other man motioned Eliza to the second. He called to the doorman, “Let the lady go first.”

  She inclined her head, “Thank you.” She waited until the gray-haired woman was helped to the walk, then entered the tonneau: She put a tip into the doorman’s hand, directed, “Washington Square.”

  It was vague enough if anyone questioned him later. As the car jerked forward she peered back through the narrow oblong pane of the rear window. Her heart stopped for one long moment. The man who’d given her his place was entering the hotel.

  It didn’t mean anything. He was tired of braving the rain; he’d stepped inside until the doorman had another cab for him. He couldn’t have heard her direction. He couldn’t be taking a short cut to the Square. Even if he did come to the Square, he wouldn’t know where to find her.

  The driver slashed across to Fifth, headed downtown. He wasn’t driving fast, his windshield in spite of the furious wipers was blurred with the rain. Eliza sat rigidly, bracing herself against the cold, damp leather of the seat. If he’d only hurry. If only she could quickly reach the safety of her apartment. Lock the doors, lock intruders and night and rain and shoddy imitations of messengers outside. She watched the driver’s rearview mirror. It sparked with lights. She should know if she was followed but how could you know in New York traffic?

  The cab slid through the darker way of Lower Fifth Avenue. The arch was ahead; there were no lights on the mirror now. She relaxed. She slid aside the glass separating the tonneau from the driver’s seat.

  “The east side of the Square,” she said. She gave the number. “It’s that tall apartment house over there.”

  He said, “I know it, lady,” and circled to the canopy.

  She paid him, adding a particular tip for his transporting her safely. Richards was already at the door stooping under uplifted umbrella.

  She smiled gratefully into the doorman’s homely circle of a face. Richards wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He’d known Towner’s Aunt Hortensia when she was a belle of the nineties; he’d been coachman then to another famous Manhattan family.

  He said, “Bad night, Miss Liza. You were lucky to get a cab.”

  “I was,” she smiled again up at his tall gray height. “I didn’t expect rain today. Didn’t dress for it.”

  He opened the door into the warm haven of the lobby, followed her inside. It was more like a comfortable living room than a lobby. Bright chintz-covered couches and easy chairs, daisies and cornflowers on a pale green field, the same pattern curtaining the long windows. There was no desk, there was no need for one. No one could go up to your apartment without first passing the judgement of Richards at the door and Franz at the elevator. Franz was old and fragile. He had the courtly manners of an old world servant; he’d been majordomo to a famous French family. Richards and Franz; you were safe with them. You were safe in this apartment house with its manners and modes of an earlier day, a day of gentility and gentle folk.

  Franz came forward. “Good evening, Miss Eliza. A bad night.” He held out his hand for her parcel but she shook her head.

  “Too wet, Franz. Though I picked up a cab at the Roosevelt.”

  “You’re late,” Richards admonished.

  “I had to stay late at the office.” They both walked with her to the elevator. She was their special pet, their protégée. Not because of Miss Hortensia Clay who was considered a little giddy for this house, Hortensia who had blonde hair at sixty because she always wanted blonde hair but had never dared until she was sixty; Hortensia with all her quirks, her rumba lessons, her painted toenails, her fun. She, Eliza, was their special because she brought youth to them, because she was their remembrance of the past when they waited upon their young ladies. It was nice to be considered a lady.

>   She said goodnight to Richards at the elevator door. He shook his head. “You’d better lie abed in the morning, Miss Liza.”

  “And lose my job?”

  “It’s only right when they make you work late at night,” he told her belligerently.

  Franz lifted the quiet front elevator to the fourteenth floor. She had no fear of getting out of it. There were only two apartments to the wing; there were no hiding places in the small exquisite square, deep carpeted, a gold framed oval mirror suspended above a small cherrywood table. Aunt Hortensia had installed the mirror so she’d have something to look at awaiting the elevator.

  Franz said, “Goodnight, Miss. You’d best change your wet clothes quickly and drink something warm. You don’t want to take cold.”

  “I don’t,” she agreed. She smiled goodnight as he closed the door and the elevator drifted away. She wasn’t afraid, setting the package on the table while she took her key from her black handbag. No one could come out of Apartment B except Mr. and Mrs. Hildebrand or their asthmatic spaniel. The Hildebrands were always at home at night except for their once a week voyage to the opera in season, and to the Boston Symphony during its New York engagement.

  She wasn’t afraid but she hesitated a moment, the newspaper-covered package under her arm, before turning the key. She swung the door into the darkness, switched the light quickly in the apartment foyer. Reason returned. No one could be in her apartment. No one knew she lived here except Bryan Brewer. And Towner Clay.

  She closed the door and went through the rooms steadily, lighting the living room; the dining room, turned into a game room by Aunt Hortensia who considered dining rooms waste space; the electric kitchen. The bolt on the kitchen door was tight as she’d left it this morning.

  She went through to the bedroom corridor, lighted the two bedrooms and baths. The apartment was safe, serene and never more beautiful. Always on returning to it in the evening after an office day of being diminished to a piece of furniture by Bryan Brewer’s sterile efficiency, the apartment had the curative effect of a new, silly, but intensely becoming hat. There was nothing like modern white, chrome and glass, to give you the illusion of being a rare flower in an exquisite bowl. Eliza was grateful that she’d missed Aunt Hortensia’s Islands period; it might have brought bad dreams. There’d been an English county period, abandoned by Towner’s aunt because “shabby comfort becomes apologetic if you haven’t the right accent.” The Early Colonial had likewise been long abandoned, quoting Aunt Hortensia: “The functional always seems indelicate to me.” The French chateau period had gone its way because Hortensia couldn’t endure dripping maribou on the rugs. Aunt Hortensia had tinkled the history of her apartment on the brief day of her arrival in London. She’d been delighted to loan it to Eliza Williams, Towner’s young friend. She had no idea that Towner had cabled nostalgia to his aunt for the Continent merely to have use of her apartment. Even Eliza didn’t know why he wanted her to be housed here. She appreciated it none the less. Tonight as never before she appreciated its safety and Aunt Hortensia. You couldn’t shy at shadows in an apartment where there were no shadows, only clean shining surfaces.

  Eliza left the lights on as she returned to the foyer, hung her coat in the closet. She was hungry, she’d get comfortable then fix something to eat. She discarded the damp newspapers in the foyer basket, picked up the box, stood for a moment holding it. No one could enter here unbidden but she carried the box to her bedroom, the front bedroom, all gray and silver gaudied by splashes of cerise. She set it on the dressing table. While she undressed, it was there, square and white and carefully wrapped, tied with white string ribbon. It was there, an unopened question mark, while she put on her pale pink nightgown, the frothy bright pink hostess gown, the pink ballet slippers. Towner paid well; at least she could be exquisite in private. It wasn’t a very good substitute for being across a small table from attentive eyes but it kept you from entirely forgetting you were human. She sat down at the dressing table behind the white box, unloosed her dusky hair, brushed it to her shoulders. She looked at the same face that a boy with wings—it seemed so long ago—had called beautiful. She brushed savagely. He was dead. But the wrong could be righted, would be righted. She and Towner would right it. She had the box.

  She put down the hairbrush, laid one finger on that whiteness. She wasn’t Pandora. She knew what was inside. Yet she was loathe to open it, almost fearful, as if it were an evil something. It was evil, it had brought death. She lifted her head quickly. The sound had been her front door buzzer. It was repeated. She stood there motionless for a moment and then she relaxed. It could only be Franz with a letter, a telegram. Word from Towner! The box was in New York; Towner too must be here. Again the buzzer sounded. She moved quickly, taking up the box and putting it on her closet shelf, pushing it behind the hatboxes there. Although it was only Franz. She turned off the bedroom light as she went out, turning off the top living room light as she passed through to the foyer. The place looked like a Christmas tree.

  She opened the door. It wasn’t Franz. It was the blue-eyed man, Gavin Keane. She was so astounded to see him there that she had no reaction to seeing him there. Her steps backwards into the room were automatic. He followed. It was he who closed the door.

  Under that spell of astonishment she cried, “What are you doing here?” Only then did she realize; there was only one reason for him to be here.

  He didn’t answer right away. He wasn’t dressed for evening, he was wearing the brown tweeds he’d worn in the office and he was more rain-soaked than he had been earlier. He stood there looking at her, his eyes narrowed on her. He said, “I’ve come for my box.”

  He was definite; he knew she had brought it here. She needed time to know what to do. She began, “How did you—ever—”

  He said, “I called your boss. He gave me your address—”

  If she could only delay him until she could reach Towner Clay. But she didn’t know where Towner was. She shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. Franz brought you up.” He’d passed the twin Cerberus.

  He laughed. “They seemed to think you were expecting me.”

  She could understand that. He was tall and fair and decidedly handsome; even in the rain-bedraggled state; they would approve of her having a young man like this. They regretted she didn’t have a young man. They wouldn’t notice his eyes. They were too good to know of bad.

  “They let me use the house phone.”

  And he’d feigned using it. Why hadn’t he really rung up? Because he wasn’t sure of her; because even in certainty of her harmlessness he retained skepticism.

  “I’m sorry.” He was in good humor. “If you’ll give me the box, I’ll be away before you can say Jack Robinson. Your beau’ll never know.”

  There wasn’t any beau. He needn’t know. He had no suspicion that she cared what was in the box; he accepted her as the secretary even as he had earlier. She must make a delay. She said, “I’m very sorry—”

  She broke off as the house phone sounded.

  A belated query from Richards; conscience intruding in his romantic old heart. “Excuse me a moment,” she said. “Won’t you sit down?”

  “I’m too rainy.”

  The house phone was in the game room. She answered. It was Richards. “There’s a man down here looking for Mr. Keane. Do you want him to come up?” Richards didn’t sound enthusiastic. He didn’t want her and her young man interrupted.

  She said, “Just a moment.” Gavin Keane couldn’t have brought along an accomplice; there was no reason for it. He expected her to hand over the box. Even if he anticipated trouble he wouldn’t need a gunsel. He could handle her unaided. She didn’t know who could be below, who could know Gavin Keane was here. She was a little fearful. But this might mean the delay she needed. She called out, “Are you Mr. Keane?” The blue-eyed man came through the living room to stand at the entrance of the game room. For a moment his eyes were curious on her, then he said, “Yes, I’m Gavin Keane. What is it?�
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  “There’s a man downstairs looking for you.”

  Good humor had gone. He spoke quickly, and as softly as if the man fourteen floors below might overhear, “Find out who it is. What it is.”

  She spoke into the phone. “What’s his name, Richards?” She waited.

  Richards said, “He’s got something to deliver to Mr. Keane.”

  She relayed, “He has something for you, Mr. Keane.” The quiver that went over her wasn’t stilled by the look on Gavin Keane’s face. He ordered in undertone, “Find out what he looks like.”

  Richards’ voice disapproved. “He says he’s got to deliver it personally, Miss Eliza. Do you want him to come up?”

  There didn’t seem to be any tactful way to ask a description. If there were she couldn’t think of one this quickly. Her fingertips were cold. She spoke again into the mouthpiece. “Could you tell me what he looks like, Richards?” She elaborated, “Mr. Keane doesn’t want to be bothered unless it’s business.”

  Richards hemmed, “He’s a middling man. Nobody you’d be likely to know, Miss Liza. Not even anybody Miss Clay would. He says he’s got some business with Mr. Keane.”

  She said, “Hold on another minute, Richards.” She said to Gavin Keane, “You ought to speak to Richards yourself. It’s hard to relay. I gather he’s average, not very prosperous. Evidently won’t give his name. A middling man, Richards says.”

  He smiled at that. With his mouth. “Good enough.” He rammed his hands into his pockets. “I’d like to see him. I know it’s an imposition, but unless I can get rid of him—”

  To old Richards’ plaintive, “What about it, Miss Liza?” she said, “Send him up.”

  Keane nodded. “Thanks. What I wanted to say is unless I can be rid of him, I wouldn’t want to walk out of here with the box tonight. And I must. There’s no reason for you to be involved. If you’ll stay in your room—” He pulled off his hat with a sudden gesture. “I forgot. Your date—”

  “I don’t usually entertain dates in negligee.”