Call After Midnight (12 page)

She went to the telephone. She turned on the lamp, sat down on the bed and tried to assemble her self-control. She was going to telephone to Cal. What would she say? A messenger came but he wasn’t a messenger, he wasn’t in uniform. He didn’t have a face. The light in the corridor was dim. But all the same she hadn’t seen a face.

The little bedside clock was beside the telephone and pointed to nearly half past two. Wake Cal, and tell him a story which he—anybody would put down to frightened imagination? But the messenger didn’t have a face!

She’d smoke a cigarette and think it over. Her silver cigarette box—Peter’s Christmas gift—was empty. She opened the drawer of the bedside table. Beside the fresh packages of cigarettes she saw something that had never been there before, a small, empty bottle which was totally unfamiliar to her. She picked it up and held it under the light. She stared unbelievingly at the prescription label: Mrs. Vleedam, as directed, two for sleep.

Jenny Vleedam had never taken a sleeping pill in her life. She had never seen the bottle before either. She had never to her knowledge been in the drugstore whose printed name and address were on the label—a chemist somewhere in the forties.

But there it was, Mrs. Vleedam, two for sleep, and an empty bottle. After a long time her body seemed to rouse itself and she reached for the telephone.

H
ALF AN HOUR LATER
Cal arrived and listened to the whole story again. “The face isn’t important,” he said. “That is, it’s important but he could have been a genuine messenger. Or he could have covered his face with a cloth, could have happened to stand in the shadow so you didn’t see his face, anything. He had a face all right, don’t get to thinking of hobgoblins. But I don’t like this bottle.”

“I didn’t like the messenger,” Jenny said.

“We’ll settle that right now.” Cal went to the telephone in the bedroom, sat on the tousled bed and dialed Western Union.

He had been awake, he’d said, when she telephoned to him. She had paced the floor and told herself she was mistaken, afraid of nothing, but kept coming back to look at the empty little bottle during the half-hour or so that elapsed before she heard the rumble of the elevator again and ran to the door and he’d said, low, “Jenny, it’s me,” before she opened the door and let him in. He was a little cross, not at her but at the ease with which he’d entered the building. “Don’t they ever lock up here! There’s no night man, anybody can walk in—”

She had explained that usually the building was locked at twelve, that each tenant has a key but that if anybody forgot his key all he had to do was to ring the superintendent’s bell. The superintendent was as a rule too tired and sleepy to get up and look; he just pressed a button which released the front door. “Asking for burglaries,” Cal had said shortly. “What about this messenger? What about this bottle?”

She listened now as he talked into the telephone. She knew the answer before he came back into the living room where she was huddled on the sofa, wrapped in her woolly dressing gown for the night was cold. Or she was cold. “No message,” he said. “Do you use another name ever? I mean your maiden name.”

“My name is Vleedam,” Jenny said. “I always use it.”

Something flickered in Cal’s eyes. Disgust? Jenny thought. He lowered himself into a chair. “I don’t know what to do.” He lighted a cigarette and added, “I saw that cigarette box Peter must have given you. His name on it and yours and the date in a facsimile of Peter’s handwriting. Get rid of that.”

“Oh—I never thought. Yes, I will.”

“The sensible thing to do is to report this to the police.” He frowned at the rug and finally heaved himself out of the chair again. “Yes, I think that’s what we’ll do. You’re sure you never saw that bottle before? Sometime when—oh, maybe you weren’t sleeping well or something—and you’ve forgotten it.”

She was sure. “I’d have had to get a prescription. I’d remember that. Besides, I know I’ve never taken a sleeping pill. I was afraid to start.”

She could have bitten her unlucky tongue when she perceived the implication of haunted, sleepless nights and it was not lost on Cal. He said shortly, “I’ll call the police” and went back into her bedroom.

In a few moments he emerged; he had the silver cigarette box in his hand and went to his overcoat. “A prowl car is in the vicinity. They’ll be here in a minute. I’ll just take this silver box and put it in some safe place. It’s got a date on it. It wouldn’t be good to let anybody know that as recently as last Christmas Peter was still sending you presents. Better get some clothes on.”

“Oh. Yes!” While she got into a tweed skirt and sweater she heard Cal rattling around in the kitchen.

He called to her. “Did you lose the key to the door of the apartment house, too?”

She got the sweater down over her face. “Yes. They were both on a key ring, that key and my door key.”

She smoothed her hair quickly and shoved her feet into pumps. Cal said, “I think I hear them coming. Are you dressed?”

“Yes.”

He came to the bedroom door. “I’ve been thinking it over. I’m not sure I’m right. But I believe it would be better if we don’t tell these policemen anything at all about Fiora’s murder. I mean—well, it’s Parenti’s case. No sense in confusing issues.”

“All right.”

“Here they are,” Cal said and she heard the rumble of the elevator.

There were two young policemen and they thought that the attempt at entry should have been reported at once. “Half an hour—forty-five minutes—he’s had plenty of time to get away. However, let’s have it. Any description?”

They were not impressed by the fact that he had no face. “Covered,” said one of them. “The business of saying there was a message for you is an old trick, too. Anything distinctive at all about him?”

He addressed Jenny. She said, “He had a cold.”

One of the policemen took out his handkerchief. “So has everybody else this time of the year.” He sneezed.

Cal said, “Mrs. Vleedam lost her keyring. On it was a key to the door to the apartment house and the key to her own apartment.”

“When did you lose it?” The sneezing policeman spoke through his handkerchief.

“Night before last, I think.”

“Bag snatching?”

“No. No, I just—lost it.”

“Any address on your keyring?”

“No. It was just a gold keyring.” Peter had given her that, too, she suddenly remembered. But there was no date, no inscription, nothing.

“Could have been stolen out of your handbag.”

“I don’t think—”

“Happens all the time. Keyring stolen. Person followed so as to get the right address. Apartment entered later. Well, we’ll do our best. Sure nothing’s been stolen?”

“He didn’t get in. I told you. I wouldn’t open the door.”

“That was right. Well, now, we’ll look out for anybody. Best we can do—”

Cal said, “There’s another thing. Mrs. Vleedam found an empty sleeping-pill bottle which didn’t belong to her.”

“Let’s see it.”

Cal gave him the bottle. Both of them looked it over. Both of them looked at Jenny. “But it says—” one began.

“Mrs. Vleedam,” said the other.

“Yes. I am Mrs. Vleedam. But I—” Jenny stopped. Don’t talk of Fiora, Cal had said.

Cal said, “She’s sure she never bought any sleeping pills at any time. She never saw that bottle before.”

The sneezing policeman sneezed again. The other said, “I expect you’ll remember. Any doubts of it, you can always get hold of your doctor—”

Cal said, “There’s no doctor’s name on it. It’s been scratched out.”

“I didn’t—let me see it,” Jenny said.

One of the policemen put it in her hand. All she had seen was “Mrs. Vleedam, as directed, two for sleep” and the chemist’s name. She had realized that the label was scratched but that was all. Cal’s sharp eyes had seen the significance of that. She said slowly, “I didn’t notice that. But there’s a number—”

“Oh, sure. That can be checked if you really want to.” The sneezing one seemed to be in authority. He said, “Well, if that’s all now—we’ll see that this is reported. Keep our eye out for anybody snooping around. Just a minute, I’m not sure I have your name, Mr.—”

He looked at Cal. Cal said, “John Calendar,” and gave his address.

“Oh,” the policeman looked up from writing. “You don’t live here.”

“Mrs. Vleedam was frightened and called me. I’m an old friend.”

“Mm,” the sneezing policeman said and glanced discreetly but sharply around the room. It was so very discreet a look that it suggested what one might call indiscretion. Jenny was suddenly, foolishly thankful that Cal had told her to get into clothes. She glanced at Cal and caught an unmistakable gleam of laughter in his eyes.

But that was all. Both policemen went away, intent on their night’s business of trying to keep order in a restless, unpredictable city.

The door closed after them. Cal said, “Well, that’s that.”

“They didn’t believe it about the bottle.”

“I expect we’d be surprised if we knew half the things the police are expected to believe. They were really very patient and reasonable. And probably right.”

“I didn’t forget that bottle of sleeping pills. I never had a bottle of sleeping pills.”

“When did you last use your keys?”

“Night before last. When I came home from work I let myself in and—why, of course. I had my keys then. I had to have them. Nobody stole them from my handbag.”

“You’re perfectly sure?”

“How else could I get in?”

Cal went over to the fireplace and looked up at the Utrillo print above it in which a street went along between houses and with some magical touch of light and shadow turned a corner so truly that Jenny had always felt she could almost see what lay around the corner. But she didn’t even guess what lay around this corner for Cal said, without turning his head, “Then it looks as if either Peter or Blanche or I took your keyring, came here and left that empty bottle—and came back tonight.” Jenny cried, “I didn’t say that!”

He turned.

“That’s the alternative, Jenny. Look at it. You can’t find your keys here in your apartment. Then you must have taken them in your handbag the night we went out to see Peter. They were not in your handbag when you returned—”

“Peter didn’t take them! Blanche—you—”

“It seems unlikely. But then what happened to them? We’ve got to find out who took the keys and who put that bottle in the drawer of your bedside table and why.”

“There isn’t any reason.”

“And when was it done? Probably while we were out to dinner. Now then, Peter was in the country; he phoned just as we came in from dinner. Blanche is in town. Art Furby might be in town.”

“Art Furby—”

“He’s close to Peter, close to Fiora.”

She thought it over.

Cal said wryly, “Yes, another suspect is a rather welcome thought to me, too. The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned. But I don’t think Art would have the imprudence to shoot anybody. Or to come here and try openly to get into your apartment. He’s far too discreet. Besides, a lawyer has a certain respect for the law. Are you sure that it was a man?”

“Yes. That is—I never thought of anything else.”

“What did you see though?”

“Just a black—figure.”

“Hat? Overcoat? What?”

“Y-yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

“You’re not too sure. Still I don’t think Blanche would have come here just that way. Of course it has struck you that there are—there were two Mrs. Vleedams.”

She sat down. “You mean the prescription was for Fiora.”

“Don’t look like that, Jenny. I only mean that the sensible thing to do is find out something about this bottle. Phone to the chemist, ask for a renewal of the prescription. They’ll say they have to have a new prescription and we’ll say that it wasn’t your regular doctor. We can’t remember the doctor’s name and ask what it was. I imagine they’ll look up the number of the prescription and tell you.”

She said with difficulty, “Suppose it was for Fiora. That would mean—”

“Oh, yes. Somebody had to have access to that empty bottle.”

Her imagination had taken a dreadful leap. “Nobody could force me to take any pills! Nobody tried to. Nobody would want to—”

Cal said, “Are you sure, Jenny, that you don’t know anything about Fiora’s murder?”

“No! I mean yes, I’m sure.”

“It would be a motive for murder.”

“I don’t know anything that threatens anybody!”

“Have you got an empty medicine bottle? Not that one—”

“Why—”

“Nobody could force you to take pills, an overdose. But something you might drink could be doped sufficiently to knock you out for a while and make murder easier for a murderer.”

“I can’t believe—”

“Then we’ll prove it isn’t so. Get a bottle.”

“What for?”

Cal said shortly, “The only thing in your kitchen that could have been doped and you might drink is orange juice. There’s some in the refrigerator. I looked. We’ll have some of it analyzed. We’ll prove it right or wrong, that’s all.”

She took a long breath. “There is no reason in the world for anybody to try to—well, you mean murder. Don’t you?”

He gave her a straight look. “That’s what you mean.”

“You mean that somebody put enough sleeping pills in the orange juice so when I drank it I’d fall into such a sound sleep that”—imagination hurled her on—“he could get into my apartment and—but Fiora was shot!”

“That could happen again,” he said with chilling truth. “Besides, there are other ways of murder.”

“But there’s no reason for it! I don’t own anything of value. I don’t know anything at all about Fiora’s death that the rest of you don’t know. I don’t threaten anybody. I don’t have any enemies either!”

“How did the bottle get here? Who came to the door with a message that didn’t exist?”

“No, no, I can’t believe—you said the policemen were reasonable and probably right.”

“I hope to God they are,” he said with sudden energy. “Go get an empty bottle, anything.”

She rose; her legs felt like sticks that didn’t belong to her. She went into the bathroom and poured some throat gargle down the drain. Cal had said analysis, so she felt a compulsion to rinse and rinse the bottle. She took it out to Cal who stood in the tiny kitchen. She gave him a little funnel she used for salad oil and washed that thoroughly too before she gave it to him, and couldn’t really accept her own actions. He shook the orange juice hard, poured some into the small bottle, went back to the living room and put that, along with the silver cigarette box into a coat pocket. “Now then,” he said, “pack up what you’ll need for the next few days. We’ll make our mistakes on the side of safety. You’re going to stay at my house.”