“You’re trying to tell me someone filed through the brake cable. I know. I realized that myself right away. I’d had the wagon’s brakes overhauled only a week ago.”
The firelight played over her pale, piquant face. “I may seem a fool, darling. But I’m not that much of a fool. Someone tried to murder Fleur this evening.” She looked up. “That means Dorothy and Janet were murdered too—in spite of everything. That frightful Count Laguno was right all along. You’re going to call the police, aren’t you? That’s why you brought me in here to break the news gently as if I was a nasty old bedridden woman with a bedjacket and a pink satin boudoir cap.”
I said, “I’m glad you’re taking it this way, Lorraine.”
“What way did you expect me to take it? I believed David and—and Chuck about Janet and Dorothy. Why shouldn’t I? There wasn’t anything to make me suspicious. But now—Peter, what is it? What’s happening?” Her gaze flickered, pleading from me to her half-brother. “I invited them here. I invited their husbands. I suppose I was an idiot. But I had my reasons. I wanted everyone to be happy. I—I never dreamed—Peter, I invited them here and—and they’re dead—”
Her eyes were shadowed with fear. I went to her and took her arms. “Baby, it wasn’t your fault.”
She rose, drawing away from me, staring at me. “Peter, who is it? Who’s doing this?”
“I only wish I knew.”
Lover got up too. “Don’t worry, Lorraine. I guess the police will find out. It’s up to them now.”
Lorraine said, “You’re going to call them immediately?”
“The sooner the better,” I said grimly. “You don’t know what’s going to happen next around here.”
“If only Mr. Throckmorton hadn’t been thrown off his plane!” Lorraine clutched my arm. “Peter, darling, please wait until Chuck gets back from Reno. He should be here any minute.”
His voice tinged with hostility, Lover said, “Why should we wait for Chuck? You admitted yourself he was one of the ones who’s been trying to hush this up.”
“I didn’t say that.” Lorraine swung round to me. “He’s implying Chuck deliberately kept the police from knowing. That isn’t true, is it?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “He just followed Wyckoff’s lead. Wyckoff’s the one who started the hush-hush. And he admits now that he was mistaken. He admits Dorothy was probably poisoned. He’s going to ask for an autopsy.” And then, because I could see from her eyes that she loved Chuck very much and that it would kill her to have to be suspicious of him, I added, “Don’t worry about Chuck. You know him better than any of us. You know what he would and wouldn’t do.”
Lorraine turned back to her half-brother. “Lover—that ghastly name! Why do I call you Lover? Walter’s the name mother gave you. It’s a good enough name. Walter, please wait for Chuck to come back.”
Lover shuffled and looked at me. “Well—”
“Please.” Lorraine crossed to him. “Walter, don’t you see? You’ve never been rich. Oh, I know it must be tough having me your sister and one of the richest girls in the world. But I am just that and it means I’m news. Everything that ever happens to me gets plastered over every scandal sheet in the world. Think what it’s going to be for me—going everywhere for the rest of my life with people staring at me and whispering, ‘There’s Lorraine Pleygel. My dear, I’ve always wondered about those women who were murdered at her house. You know, they say….’ Chuck knows all the policemen in Nevada. If he called them, talked to them, they’d be more sympathetic. They’d try and help me, see things weren’t blasted all over the front pages. Don’t you see?”
Lover gave her hand a clumsy pat. “I guess it’s all right to wait for Chuck, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Thank you, dears. Thank you so much.”
Lorraine took a cigarette from a small cloisonné box and lit it. She moved back to the fire. None of us spoke. As I looked at Lorraine’s slim, elegant figure standing in front of the quivering flames, I started to think about her. I had known her and rather loved her for years, but she was still a mystery to me. Why, for one thing, had she never married? Since I had first known her, she’d been engaged at least five times and then something had always happened. Why? Was it her money? At the last moment had she always discovered that it was the Pleygel fortune rather than herself that had brought on the admirers? I wondered about Chuck, too, the elusive gambler about whom so little seemed to be known. That Lorraine was crazy about him, I was pretty sure. I had seen it just now in her eyes when she spoke of him.
But I had seen something else in her eyes, too. The specious little face of Mimi Burnett fluttered through my mind, Mimi with her white rose and her medieval gown, Mimi with her sickly sweet gushings over Lover and her sly glances at Chuck. Was Mimi the cause of that other look in Lorraine’s eyes?
The fragile yellow room was very quiet. Then, from outside the window, I heard the throb of a car swinging up to the front door.
Lorraine stiffened. “That’ll be Chuck now.”
“Come on,” said Lover. “Let’s get him.”
We all went out into the library. Laguno was sitting there, reading glumly. We hurried past him and out into the hall. The front door was ajar. Lorraine slipped through it. I came next, bumping against her as she stopped dead in her tracks.
I stared over her small frizzy head. Chuck’s car was parked outside. But I had no time to look at it because Chuck and Mimi were standing in front of it. And Mimi was in Chuck’s arms.
They were locked together in a close, passionate embrace.
XIV
Chuck and Mimi sprang apart. It was much too late. As usual, Chuck was wearing tight cowboy pants and a tartan lumber jacket, open at the neck. But all the customary swagger that went with them was gone. Mimi had the unexpected decency to be embarrassed, too. Her lips were half parted in something that was meant to be a dear-little-girl smile but which looked more like the snarl of a trapped weasel. The white rose was still at her bosom. It was crushed now. One of its petals slipped loose. We all of us, stupidly, watched it twirl to the ground.
All of us, that is, except Lorraine. She was watching Mimi. In spite of the frivolous curls, the frivolous face, the frivolous sweeping gown, there was a stillness about her that was impressive.
She said, “You can pack your things, Mimi. You’ll be leaving immediately.”
Her tone was magnificently contemptuous; she was a mistress firing a slatternly maid.
Lover had been staring at his fiancée and at Chuck with astounded incomprehension. Now, his plump chin quivering, he turned to Lorraine.
“There must be some—some explanation.”
“Of course there’s an explanation,” said Lorraine. “If you hadn’t been so infatuated, you’d have seen this coming on for days. She worked it so’s she drove into Reno alone with Chuck that night we all went down. In the car she no doubt demonstrated how clinging and feminine she could be. Then she had him rhumbaing with her. That was to show how glamorous and sexy she could be. Then she started poking fun at me, pointing out how crazily I dressed. When Chuck kidded me out of wearing that swimming suit, for example, that wasn’t his idea. It was Mimi. She was making him see how flighty I am, just to point up how artistic and other-worldly she is herself. Then, later on, she started cooing over him and getting him drinks when he was tired. That was to show what a lovely, lovely wife she could be. Slippers in front of the fire every night.” She gave a weary shrug. “The whole thing’s been so obvious it’s made me sick.”
Chuck was looking down at his feet. Mimi still didn’t say anything. Lover, pitifully at sea, stammered, “But Lorraine, she’s—she’s engaged to me.”
Lorraine put her hand on his arm. “Dear, I haven’t wanted to interfere in your life, haven’t wanted to say anything. I suppose I was wrong as usual. You’re so easy to fool—it’s taking candy from a kid. Heaven knows where you picked her up. Las Vegas, wasn’t it? Why do you imagine she go
t engaged to you? You’re not exactly an Adonis, my poor dear. Don’t you see? Because you were my half-brother, you looked like a good catch. But when you brought her here she started to realize that the money hadn’t been left to you, it was a different matter. And there was Chuck, the big-time gambler with his own club in Reno—a much more promising victim, even though he was engaged to me. Oh, the switch was done slyly, of course. You were kept on a string just in case.”
Lover blinked. Lorraine turned to Mimi.
“You!” she said. “You with your Edna St. Vincent Millay, your ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese,’ your ‘Lover picked me a white rose tonight’! Wherever you’ve gone, there’ve been fairies and pixies dancing in your wake. Phooey on the fairies and the pixies. Wherever you’ve gone, you’ve been a slut.”
That was telling her. Mimi’s face was as white as the crushed rose. She took half a step towards her fiancé. “Lover,” she began.
Lover gave a weak smile. “I’m sure it’s all right, Mimi. There’s been a mistake. There must—”
Lorraine laughed. “You’d better make up with Lover, Mimi. I don’t know how far you’ve gone with Chuck, but I’m afraid you’re wasting your valuable time. In the first place, he hasn’t a cent except what I’ve given him. In the second place, he’s not in the market for wives.”
She paused. We were all watching her. In a quiet voice that was almost a whisper, she added, “Chuck has been married to me for almost six months.”
That set me back on my heels. Lover’s mouth popped open. Mimi sagged in her maroon evening gown as if her knees had given way. Chuck, beads of sweat on his chiselled upper lip, exclaimed, “Lorraine—!”
Lorraine swung round to him. “What does it matter now? We were planning to tell Mr. Throckmorton anyway.” She turned to me. “That’s why I asked Mr. Throckmorton here. We were planning to tell him first because he’s my guardian. Then we were going to announce the marriage and possibly have another wedding, a real wedding. And I asked all my schoolfriends here because I was so happy, because I thought being married was so nice and I wanted them to make up with their husbands and be happy too.” She laughed suddenly. “That’s funny now, isn’t it? My schoolfriends aren’t reconciled—they’re dead. And my husband’s cheating on me before the marriage has even been announced.”
Chuck’s handsome face was agonized. He took a step towards her.
“Lorraine, baby, just listen—”
Lorraine ignored him and turned to Mimi. “I don’t want a scene, Mimi. So please go at once. Pack up and
“Certainly I’m going,” Mimi said primly. “I’m not going to stay in this house and be insulted—not another minute.”
Trying to bring them all back to earth, I put in, “But we’re going to call the police. When they hear what’s been going on around here, I doubt whether they’ll let anyone leave.”
Mimi whipped round to me. “So you’re all finally breaking down. You’re admitting two of Lorraine’s snooty guests have been murdered. Fine. All the more reason why I’m crazy to get out from under. If the police want me, and I can’t imagine why they should, I’ll leave an address. They’ll be able to reach me.”
Picking up her trailing skirt, she rustled past us, heading for the front door.
Lover started after her. “Mimi—”
She paused on the steps, throwing him a spiteful glance. “Any man who can stand and watch me insulted like that is no use to me. I’m through with you, too. Through. T-h-r-o-u-g-h.” She gave a harsh laugh. “And don’t think it ain’t been charming, Lover.”
With that she swept into the house.
Lover hesitated a moment, clucking nervously. Then he turned on Lorraine, “My dear, I think you were very harsh with her, very unjust and inconsiderate.” He trundled off into the house, calling, “Mimi, Mimi,” like the tenor in the last act of La Bohème.
Chuck was paying no attention to Lover or Mimi or me. He was staring at Lorraine, his lips very tight. Suddenly he strode to her and put his husky arms around her. She struggled but he wouldn’t let her go.
“Baby, I know it looks bad,” he said hoarsely. “But I can explain. God knows, I should have explained the whole dirty business before. I—”
“What is there to explain?” I could tell that part of Lorraine wanted to stay there in his arms, that she was fighting not only him but herself. “You kissed Mimi. You can’t explain that away. Not that one kiss and one Mimi matter. It’s that you could waste your time playing around with a dreary little fake like that.”
“But, Lorraine, just listen—”
“Oh, I understand now. I’d be a fool if I didn’t. You said you wanted the marriage to be secret because you were poor and you’d be embarrassed to have people know you’d married Lorraine Pleygel. I believed you. I lent you that money to open the gambling club because you said you wanted to make a success of something on your own before we announced the marriage. Oh, you’ve made your success all right. But you’re just the same as the others. You married me because you were after the Pleygel dollars. And you wanted to keep the marriage a secret so you could strut your stuff down at Chuck’s Club, the attractive young buck of a bachelor with money to burn and no strings, the hick Lothario. Just how many of those Reno divorcees have been your Mimis?”
Chuck’s eyes were flashing. “I love you, Lorraine. And you’re the only one. I—”
Lorraine tugged herself free. “Don’t lie to me. What’s the use?”
“It isn’t a lie.”
She stood there, looking very wispy and pathetic. Her lips were trembling. She pulled out a frail black raspberry handkerchief and blew her nose.
“It’ll never be the same,” she faltered. “Never, never.”
Quickly, her skirt swirling around her, she ran away from us up the steps into the house.
Chuck made no attempt to follow her. He just stood as if he’d been stunned. I was fairly stunned myself. How anyone in his right mind could have carried on with Mimi Burnett was hard enough to understand. That Chuck should have been doing so when he was the accepted husband of Lorraine was beyond the realm of belief.
My sympathy for him was not as deep as it might have been. Not without irony, I said, “Let me congratulate you on your marriage.”
He started and stared at me. He gave a sickly grin.
“Women!” he said. “Whatever way you look at it, women are women.”
After that penetrating observation, he seemed to have nothing more to say for himself.
Things had gone far away from the business in hand. Chuck’s intricate love life might be important to him but it was not as important as the fact that we had two murders on our hands. I felt it was time to bring Lorraine’s secret husband up to date on what had happened. Bluntly I told him of the attempt on Fleur’s life which had happened while he was in Reno. I also told him that Wyckoff, Lover, and I were going to wrap the whole affair in wax paper and hand it to the police.
If I had hoped to shock him into some sort of guilty admission, I was doomed to be disappointed. When he heard Wyckoff was going to ask for an autopsy on Dorothy, he snapped, “Why in hell can’t that guy make up his mind? He’s the one who said she died of a heart attack. If I hadn’t listened to him, I’d never—”
He paused, staring at me closely. “I’ve been a sucker. I’ve been kidding myself. I see that now. I figured something like murder just couldn’t happen here, not here in this fancy house with Lorraine’s fancy friends. I guess I was wrong.”
“I guess you were,” I said.
He whistled. “Dorothy, Janet, Fleur—what is it, Lieutenant? What’s the racket?”
“You’ll have to ask me something easier than that.”
“You—you don’t think there’ll be any more of them, do you?”
“I’ll be a lot happier when the police come,” I said. I told him that Lorraine wanted him to be the one to call the police.
“Sure.” He was brisk and competent now. “Inspector Craig’s the guy. Smar
test man they’ve got. A lot of pull with the press, too.” He started towards the house. “Come on. We’ve wasted enough time already.”
Chuck Dawson seemed to be an adaptable young man. Only that morning he had been the champion of the everything’s-going-to-be-all-right school. Now he was screaming for action.
I followed him into the empty living-room, where he was talking into the telephone. He slammed the receiver down.
“Craig’ll be up in about an hour and a half. I didn’t tell him anything. Just said to come.”
“Fine,” I said.
He gave me another of his sickly grins. “And, Lieutenant, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention our marriage or this Mimi business to the police. For Lorraine’s sake, I mean. Mimi didn’t amount to a row of beans. I guess I’ll go up now and put things right with the little woman.”
He said that with a certain bravado. And yet, as I looked at his face, I wondered just how easy putting things right with the little woman was going to be.
XV
That huge living-room was as bleak as a morgue. The house was beginning to give me the jitters. Only two days ago we had been a reasonably gay party. Look at us now. Dorothy and Janet were dead. Bill Flanders and the Count were widowers. Fleur, having escaped death by a hair’s breadth, was a patient under her husband’s care. Lover, plain Walter French again, nursed a broken romance, while Lorraine, her secret marriage perilously close to the rocks, was probably shut up in her room refusing to listen to Chuck’s so-called explanations. And here were Iris and I in the thick of it.
The casualty rate in that luxurious mansion was as high as the casualty rate on a stormed Pacific atoll.
Probably no naval lieutenant in history, I reflected, had dreamed up a worse way of spending a leave.
I poured myself a drink because I needed one, and started thinking about Iris. I had reached a stage where I worried if she was out of my sight. I was going to search for her when Bill Flanders hobbled in on his crutch. The ex-marine came up to me. He looked uneasy.
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