Scarlet Imperial

by Dorothy B. Hughes

  She settled back. “No one should have to go to work in such filthy weather.”

  The cab turned at the northwest corner. She glimpsed the man on the bench. He hadn’t moved.

  “It makes the trees to grow,” Tomasi informed her. “And all the green things we eat. And the flower carts. You hadn’t ought to gripe about rain.”

  “If I were a cab driver I wouldn’t.” She lit a cigarette, relaxed. They were out of the Square, heading up Fifth. She could relax. For these few safe moments with Tomasi.

  As he jockeyed past a lumbering bus, she pushed out the cigarette in the ashy container. That man on the bench wasn’t watching for her. She wasn’t known in this; she was accidental. It was Gavin he was waiting for. Gavin knew; he’d seen from the window. As long as the man was rooted on the bench, Gavin couldn’t come out. Not until he was able to protect himself.

  The driver turned east on Forty-sixth street, north again on Madison and stopped in front of her office building. She paid him, said, “You’re a life saver, Tomasi. I’m not terribly late. And I’m dry as Sahara.” She didn’t put up her umbrella for the swift cross into the building. Waiting for the elevator, she had almost unbearable reluctance to go up to the office. It wasn’t fear. This wasn’t last night; it was today. The building was modern as antisepsis. Danger couldn’t be lurking in the upper corridor, in the office luxury of Bryan Brewer.

  It wasn’t fear, it was an unwillingness to face Bry, to be questioned by him. To lie to him. Because she couldn’t answer his questions. Because she had no intention of allowing Gavin Keane to see him until she and the Imp were safely away.

  She walked forward up the twelfth floor corridor to the chaste lettering on the opaque window. Bry was there before her, the door was unlocked.

  He lunged up from where he was sitting in her chair at her desk. He said, “You’re late. I was afraid something had happened to you.”

  He didn’t look as if he’d been to bed. His hair was in place but there was weariness under his eyes, his jaw was shadowed.

  She said, “I’m always careful crossing streets,” as if that interpretation were the right one. “It was raining so hard I waited for a cab.” She hung her coat, hat and umbrella. The routine of a secretary. She closed the closet, came casually to her desk. She could maintain the pose but it wasn’t easy in the face of his penetration.

  He asked, “Did Gavin Keane ever get in touch with you?” He moved around the desk and she took her place.

  Her eyebrows lifted surprise. “Didn’t you find him?”

  “No.” He was abrupt but not out of annoyance, out of anxiety. “I came back to your place last night hoping. You must have been asleep.”

  “Did you find the package?” She’d been scrubwoman when he rang; he would never know.

  Again he said, “No.”

  She opened the desk drawer and looked into it as if she couldn’t believe the box wouldn’t be there. She said, “I wonder what could have happened to it.”

  “Gavin must have it.” He had nothing to base it on but his hope. “I’ve been calling the hotels.” He flung himself into the chestnut leather chair, rested his head wearily back against it. “He isn’t registered. He was to be here yesterday.”

  She interrupted gravely. “He was here, Mr. Brewer. He came in the afternoon. I didn’t know where to reach you.”

  He shook his head. “I had to go to Washington. I thought I’d be back early but I was delayed. He didn’t say where he was stopping?”

  She said, “He only said he’d be in later. For the box. I waited until past six—”

  “If you’d only taken the box home with you.” His exhalation was a groan.

  “But I wouldn’t think of doing that, Mr. Brewer.” She hated herself for her deception with him. He wasn’t like the others she’d deceived; he was decent and unaware. She had no choice. But he could be warned of the danger. She added, “Anyway I would have been afraid to after the messenger came for it.”

  “Messenger?” He sat up and panic slanted across his face.

  She told herself it was only his fear that something he’d ordered had disappeared; it was a business matter. He couldn’t have any other interest in the luckless Scarlet Imperial. But why had none of the correspondence passed through her hands?

  She continued, “He wasn’t a real messenger. He was only posing as a messenger.”

  “You didn’t—”

  “I didn’t tell him it was here.”

  He rubbed his temple. “Damn it, a man can’t just vanish into empty air.”

  She was quiet. “Sometimes men do—only it isn’t empty air.”

  He rejected the implication with a dark frown. “Why did you think the messenger wasn’t a messenger?”

  She answered, “Because of his shoes. They were broken. As if they hadn’t had work in a long time.”

  He came out of the chair and began to pace the room. She watched him in silence. He stopped abruptly at the desk. “Who was the man at your apartment last night?”

  She didn’t want to answer him. She knew it would increase his disturbance. But he waited. He had a right to know. He should be put on his guard. He too might be questioned. Her voice was even. “He was from the F.B.I.”

  “F.B.I.?” It didn’t increase his fear; he was puzzled. “What did he want?”

  “He was looking for a man.”

  “Gavin Keane!” It came too fast. He knew Gavin Keane hunted with the hounds of danger.

  “No,” she denied. “The name was Hester. Renfro Hester.”

  The name meant nothing to him. “Who is Renfro Hester?”

  She said, “I don’t know.” She was blunt. “But Hester had come to my apartment looking for Gavin Keane.”

  He was frightened again. “Someone knew Gavin Keane was going to your apartment.” He began to pace anew. “Look here,” he began. He came back to her at the desk. “I know you’re wondering what this is all about.”

  She could answer, “Yes,” in all honesty. Even if she knew far more than he, she didn’t know it all.

  He found it difficult to continue. He said, “Frankly the less you know the better.”

  She lifted her eyes to him. “Is the box that dangerous?”

  “Yes.” He’d retreated somewhere within himself, within memory. “Yes, it is. It has a bloody history.”

  She spoke sharply. “I shouldn’t think you’d have anything to do with it then.” He shouldn’t have touched this affair. He wasn’t fitted for this kind of thing.

  He told her, “A client wanted it, wanted it badly. He was willing to pay a collector’s price for it. I knew I could get it for him.”

  Bryan Brewer bought and sold rare objects. He didn’t trace the history of the objects. He bought from responsible, reliable sources. There was no transaction in his files, and she’d finecombed through them during his frequent out of town trips, feeling low and dishonest. He wouldn’t deal with a thief. Not with a murderer and a thief. But there was nothing in his files about the Scarlet Imperial. Not one letter, not one line. Yet he had a client for it and he knew from whom he could obtain it. Why were there no records on it?

  She said slowly, “You knew where you could get it.” He didn’t appear to notice her disturbance. He said, “Yes. From Gavin Keane.”

  He knew the Imp was dangerous; did he know it was stolen? He couldn’t know that. He wouldn’t touch it if he knew. She couldn’t ask the questions she wanted to ask; she couldn’t give away her knowledge. How had Gavin Keane come by the Imp?

  Bry strode into his own office but he didn’t close the door tightly. She could hear him at the phone, doggedly calling down the endless list of hotels. She could hear the hopeless replacing of the phone as the answer to his question was never the hoped-for one. He could ask her to make the dreary calls but it was as if he alone could handle anything this important. That, and because he must be active, not twiddle his mind and wait.

  She sat leaden in the outer office. She could stop this. Tell
him where Gavin Keane was. Gavin had asked her to inform Bry. If they were allowed to get together, Gavin would give the Imp to Bry. She’d been sent to New York for one purpose, to intercept what Keane was sending to Brewer’s before it got into Bry’s hands. To keep it from reaching the collector who had ordered it. She wasn’t doing just another job for Towner. It was for this, to lay hold of the Imp, that she’d worked with Towner for years. She couldn’t, with the job this near done, cause the years of work and plan to be undone. Not if Bry Brewer was anxious to the point of despair. Bry Brewer didn’t mean anything to her. He couldn’t. No man could, not ever, no one but Towner who had cared for her, who had taken a miserable alley cat and given it kindness. When this was all over, the wrong made right, then if a man like Bry Brewer came along, she could begin again. She could dare warm her hands at happiness. Only it wouldn’t be Bry; she’d be gone. Someone like Bry, someone that made your heart stir just a little when you saw him come into the room. Someone whose rare smile quickened the beat of your stirring heart.

  He’d pushed the bell. She took her pencil and stenographer’s notebook, hid errant thought behind secretarial calm. She went in to him. He said, “Take a wire, Eliza.”

  She sat down on the straight chair near his desk, opened the tablet.

  “Feroun Dekertian.”

  It was well she was seated, well that her pencil was tight between her fingers. Her eyes had darted up at the name. She covered with an apologetic smile. “Will you spell that please, Mr. Brewer?”

  He spelled, “F-e-r-o-u-n D-e-k-e-r-t-i-a-n.”

  She was prepared now. He wouldn’t hear the thumping of her curiosity, he was too engrossed in his trouble.

  “The Iranian Embassy. Washington.” He pushed his fist against his forehead. “Has Gavin Keane—no—” He broke off abruptly. “No use worrying him too. Here it is.” He thought it out loud. “‘Have you heard from Keane? Wire collect.’ Sign Bryan Brewer.” He looked at her with some relief, small relief but even that was good. “Get that off right away, Liza. That doesn’t sound as if Keane has vanished into thin air. He might have heard from Gavin. Maybe Gavin went to him when he couldn’t find me. If someone was trying to take the Imp from Gavin, he might have played it that way.”

  She sat there, upright in the chair, listening to him as a secretary would.

  Even making the right unobtrusive sounds of affirmation and negation.

  Her conscience not thorning her now because hope had come back to him.

  But the hope was brief. It fled leaving the hopelessness darker than before.

  “Maybe I should call the police.”

  She said, “No,” quickly, too quickly. He eyed her. But not with suspicion, with determination.

  “I know I should,” he said. “Or the hospitals. He could have been struck down. I don’t want to face it.”

  “He’d have some identification on him,” she argued. “Your card or a letter—”

  He explained as if she were a sheltered young girl, “Sometimes men who strike don’t leave any identification on a victim.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. If he’s lying low on purpose—He wouldn’t want the police brought into it.”

  He spoke with knowledge of Gavin Keane. This wasn’t just a casual business relationship. But he didn’t continue and she left the office. She typed the wire mechanically, called a messenger. If Feroun Dekertian were the client, Towner had made a terrible mistake. There had been no reason for these months of pretense. There was no purpose in withholding the Imp, in keeping Gavin and Bry apart. The reason she and Towner wanted the Imp was to turn it over to Feroun Dekertian.

  She echoed Bry’s own admission: I don’t know what to do. She had never changed Towner’s plans, those plans as carefully, as beautifully made as mosaic. She wouldn’t change them now. Not yet. She was certain Towner would get in touch with her today. For the space of a heartbeat she wondered if anything could have happened to him. No. She could say that with certainty. Towner never figured personally in any of his deals. He never risked himself. He appeared, suave, urbane, only when the preliminaries were over. Whoever had been after the egg last night would have no knowledge of the interest in it of Towner Clay.

  He would come today. He would explain all the things she couldn’t understand; they would be simple, amusing. All but Renfro Hester. Towner wouldn’t like what had happened in the apartment. She took a breath. He needn’t ever know. She set her chin. She would never let him know that Gavin Keane had stayed there.

  She turned quickly at the opening of the corridor door. It should have been Towner but it wasn’t. It was a sweet, breathless voice saying, “Good afternoon.”

  It was Feather Prentiss, the exquisite one. She had a Dresden doll face, a doll’s wide, heavy-lashed eyes. Her black wasn’t secretarial; it was richness. Furred at the throat, the slim taper of her legs completed by the tracing of slim-heeled sandals. Her shining amber hair was brushed high, the tiny black tricorne atop it frothed with veiling. She didn’t look rainy day; she might have been carried to the very door in a sedan chair. In another age she would have been. In this she drove the maddest car, flew the fastest plane. Nervous energy had been substituted for languor in time the present. She asked, “Is Mr. Brewer in?”

  Eliza didn’t have to answer. Bry was in the doorway of his room at once, almost with guilt. His pleasure was nervous. “Feather, what brings you here?”

  Her mouth was too small, a rosebud, redder than any rose. “Darling, had you forgotten lunch today?”

  He had forgotten. He had completely forgotten. But he said, “Lunch time already?” His eyes alone touched her, you didn’t ruffle Feather Prentiss with sudden affection.

  “No, dear.” She did it well, Eliza admitted, the half-sorrowful glance under her curled lashes.

  “I can’t lunch. Dentist. Frightful bore.” The lift of her lashes was provocative. “But I could come in and say—hello.” The hello was in that breathless lilt.

  Eliza’s nails pressed into her palms. He was falling for it. He always fell for it. “Come on in.” He only then remembered the audience. “You know Miss Williams, Feather?”

  “Of course, darling.” Feather noted her briefly; Eliza had been part of the office equipment before. The smile that Feather gave was precisely tuned to the meeting with a secretary or a lower order of peasantry. Eliza inclined her head unsmiling. Someday when Bry raised the question of Feather knowing Miss Williams, she’d say she had never heard of Miss Prentiss.

  Bry closed the door this time, closed it tightly. She didn’t have to sit here and imagine what was going on in that inner office. Bry wouldn’t worry about Gavin Keane while Feather was fluttering her lashes at him.

  The rain was a fine mist filtering from the sky to the slapping wet of the street below. Eliza put on her raincoat and rubber boots, looped the umbrella over her arm. She didn’t care how she looked. Careening taxis wouldn’t splash Feather; they would commoner clay. She pulled off her glasses as she left the office.

  She needed extra time; without Bry realizing she was taking it. There was the shopping to do for Gavin Keane. She bolted a drug store lunch, sandwich and coffee, and cut across to Abercrombie’s. Before stepping inside, she stood facing the windows long enough to make certain that no one was in sight. Not Jones of the F.B.I., not Bry, not Renfro Hester and his associates. The street was empty of all but unknown persons.

  A brother. She selected shirts, a brown jacket, underwear and sox, pajamas, a bathrobe. If Gavin were laid up longer than he expected, he’d need these. Even if he weren’t, would he dare return to wherever he was stopping? He wouldn’t if he were being trailed. She took the large box, went back to the drug store. She bought a razor and blades, a toothbrush, a comb. She was afraid to ask here for Sulfa powder; the clerk might well add it to her purchases, obvious purchases for a man in hiding. She walked further up Madison to another pharmacy.

  She said, “My aunt cut her hand badly. It’s an open gash. Sulfa.”

>   The pharmacist sold her powder and salve, explained application.

  She could go back to the office now. It was past one o’clock. Bry would be out. It was habitual. Go to lunch twelve forty-five; return one thirty. Lunch at the Roosevelt coffee shop. Unless he were taking Feather. He wasn’t today. Feather had invented a dentist. But Bry hadn’t been sorry. Until she’d wiggled her eyelashes, he’d almost been relieved.

  Eliza hurried, because of the rain, because she must have her purchases out of sight before he returned. The rain was fine; she couldn’t manage the umbrella with the awkward packages. She put her head down to keep the mist free from her glasses. It was because her head was down that she almost bumped into him. Just a man, a face and an overcoat who sidestepped her and strode on. But beyond him, crossing the strip of pavement to the entrance of the Roosevelt, she saw Towner Clay.

  She called out his name, joyously, thankfully. “Towner!”

  His head turned. He looked directly at her, into her eyes. Then deliberately he turned away and continued into the hotel.

  She stood there, rooted there on the damp pavement. It was Towner. She couldn’t be mistaken. His Chesterfield slightly dotted with confetti of rain, his bowler similarly dotted, but his black stitched gray suede gloves unspoiled and his gray spats, his gray ascot folded as precisely as if he had not braved a storm from taxi to curb. It was Towner. Even to the pale wooden handle of his English umbrella hooked over his arm.

  He had given no recognition to her, none at all. It suddenly occurred to her, he had not recognized her! The defect of the amber-rimmed glasses, the anonymity of her black uniform. He’d suggested she become a secretary pattern; he didn’t know just what the pattern was or how completely it protected her.

  She didn’t hesitate. She swerved and hurried up to the door of the hotel. Again she stopped, rooted. Through the door she saw Towner but he wasn’t alone. He was bowing over furs and imported scent and waving eyelashes. Towner Clay was Feather’s dentist.

  Eliza retraced her steps, crossed to her building, blankly. The office was empty. She stowed her packages into the coat closet, hung her damp coat and hat. Towner Clay and Feather Prentiss. She didn’t understand it. She’d been afraid to go into the hotel, speak to him. If he’d wanted her identity known to Feather he would have spoken. He had known her; he had deliberately cut her because he didn’t want Feather to know her. That meant he didn’t want Bry to know her. But he didn’t know that Bry was on their side.