Call After Midnight (6 page)

“Fiora! You don’t mean that Peter shot you and then Blanche lied to protect him!” Jenny looked at Fiora with horror. “That’s a dreadful thing to say.”

“It’s worse to think.”

“Peter’s gun—”

“Suppose there’s another gun somewhere. He threw away that bullet.”

“Peter—” Jenny swallowed hard. “Peter was worried about you. He wasn’t thinking. Besides—
why
?”

“Why would Peter shoot me?” Fiora was silent, her eyes closed for so long that Jenny thought she’d fallen asleep. She hadn’t for she said suddenly and loudly, “Somebody shot me.”

“Fiora, listen to me! Peter wouldn’t have shot you. Peter wouldn’t have hurt you. Peter—”

“Still in love with him, aren’t you,” Fiora said without opening her eyes.

And here it was again, contrarily, a kind of intimation that something was going to nibble at the edges of Jenny’s hatred for Fiora.

Fiora said, “I was glad he called you. I asked you to sit with me tonight and I don’t want you to leave me for a minute. That’s why I said you were a friend of mine. You see,” Fiora said with simplicity, “you were not here when I was shot. So I said you were my friend because I wanted you to come and I want you to stay here till I find out for sure just what happened.”

“Fiora, it was a thief. You surprised him. He was scared and shot you and got away.”

Fiora said drowsily, “Besides, you really are a friend of mine. You didn’t object a bit when Peter asked you for a divorce.”

It seemed to Jenny a peculiar basis upon which to claim friendship. She said, “Peter didn’t ask me for a divorce. He told me he was in love with you so—”

“So you flounced off, all pride and hurt feelings. Silly of you, Jenny, really. But you gave me—at least you let me have—everything a woman could want. An attractive husband, rich, a real catch. Of course sometimes it’s a little hard to pry Peter loose from money. It’s the Dutch in him, I expect.”

Jenny said tartly, “And now you say he tried to kill you!”

Fiora’s eyes opened and in spite of the drug she’d been given had a very shrewd look. “I didn’t say that exactly.” She then closed her eyes firmly again.

It was futile to try to talk sense into Fiora when she was foggy with sedation.

Jenny leaned back and looked around the room. There was a coral carpet, velvet-covered chairs in white, a vast dressing table laden with jars and bottles which must help keep Fiora’s luscious beauty fresh and young.

Yet Fiora couldn’t be as young as she looked. If Fiora and Blanche had come to New York together, looking for worlds to conquer, then they must be about the same age. Blanche had to be in her thirties or near, Fiora must have been older than she looked when she had snatched Peter with the single-minded determination of a baby snatching a lollypop.

So therefore, Jenny suddenly wondered with a tingling little shock, just what had Fiora been doing all that time? Clearly she must have met and known many people. Was there by any chance among those people anyone who hated Fiora—and could have crept into the house without being seen or heard and shot at her?

The more she thought of it the less reasonable it seemed. No; it had to be a prowler, a thief looking for what he could get.

Fiora was certainly sound asleep. Jenny pushed myriad lacy cushions off the chaise longue, got her head into a comfortable position and sleep crept upon her like a fog.

She roused groggily when Blanche softly opened the door. “Oh, you were asleep,” she whispered.

“M-m,” Jenny mumbled.

Blanche looked at Fiora. “She’ll go on sleeping. No use in your sitting up.”

Jenny was cramped, uncomfortable and still lost in sleep. “I’m going to bed,” she said muzzily.

“I’ll leave my door open. If Fiora wants anything I’ll hear her.”

Blanche wore a green silk dressing gown exactly the color of her eyes. She nodded at Jenny, said, “All this fuss over nothing,” and tiptoed out of the room again.

Fiora opened her eyes and unexpectedly giggled. “Sound asleep, weren’t you? But don’t go to bed. You promised to stay with me.”

Jenny rubbed her eyes. “Yes. Yes, I did. I was so sleepy I didn’t think of that.” She yawned. “I’ll stay if you want me.”

“I do want you—what were you thinking so hard about before you went to sleep? Do you like the room as I changed it? I couldn’t stand that old Brussels carpet and that ugly old furniture and all those photographs. Women in shirtwaists and pompadours, honestly. I had the room next door, it was Peter’s nursery, made into a bathroom and dressing room. Go and look at it. Much nicer than when you lived here—go and look.”

“I’m too sleepy to move.”

“You looked so serious. What
were
you thinking about?”

Jenny groped back, still groggy with sleep. “Oh, yes, I remember. I was wondering if there was anybody at all you’ve ever known who just
might
have—”

“Shot me?” Fiora said instantly. “No. Nobody but you, and I know you didn’t. Go and see the dressing room. It’s all mirrors. I’ve got three fur coats. Go and look. I wish I had something to drink. My mouth is so dry.”

“That’s the sedative. How about some water?”

Jenny rose to pour from the Thermos that stood on the bedside table but Fiora said, “No. Maybe some hot milk.”

“All right.”

Fiora put out her hand. “Wait a minute. I asked you another question and you didn’t answer. Are you still in love with Peter?”

Jenny put down the Thermos slowly. She was now thoroughly awake. Fair was fair; she had an impulse to say yes, and I’m going to get him back if I can. But Fiora said, with that unnerving fluctuation between excitation and drowsiness from sedation, “Of course you must be. You wouldn’t have come when he wanted you to come, if you’re not. And I was glad Peter phoned to you. I knew I could trust you. Besides, there’s something I want to ask you. Have you been seeing Peter?”

“No!”

Fiora’s eyes were hazy yet something very shrewd peered from them. “Then why has he been phoning to you? Don’t deny it. I saw the phone bills and hunted up your number and it’s the same number on the bills, the toll calls.”

“I’ll not deny it. You know then how seldom he has phoned.”

“Well, that’s true. But why does he phone at all?”

“Because he wants to, I suppose,” Jenny said.

Fiora waited a moment, brooding. Then she said, “I didn’t think you and Peter were such good friends. You certainly weren’t friendly at the time of the divorce.”

“We didn’t see each other. But the divorce was—” She hunted for a word and Fiora supplied it.

“Friendly! Don’t tell me that. Yet six weeks afterward Peter was phoning to you.”

“Yes, I remember that. He wanted to know something about the household—oh, yes, the name of the employment agency I had used.”

“And after that everything was cozy, between you and Peter.”

“Cozy is not the word,” Jenny said tartly. “We were perfectly polite and friendly, that was all.”

“Polite and friendly,” Fiora said and thought it over. “Well, I suppose that’s possible. How often do you see him?”

“I told you! I haven’t seen him at all. I’ll get the milk.”

“No, wait a minute, I want to tell you something. Don’t try to get Peter back again. I warn you. I’d never be the fool you were. I’d never give him a divorce. I’d refuse it to the last and Peter knows it. And if I finally did give in, as I never will, I’d stick him for such an alimony that he’d never pay it. Not Peter.”

“Peter was very generous with me.”

“Generous!” Fiora gave a drowsy giggle. “You call that miserable little settlement of fifty thousand dollars generous! I don’t.” She was still laughing when Jenny went out and closed the door behind her.

One half of the double door across the corridor was open and a light shone from the end of the hall above the stairs. It was so dark in the half-dusk of the long corridor that she could barely see the blank panels of the closed door to Peter’s room opposite. She went through the double doors toward the light and the crossing corridor.

The door to Blanche’s room, opposite her own, was open as Blanche had promised. The door to the room beside her room, Cal’s room, was open, too; Cal had said, I’ll be next door.

The house was breathlessly quiet, yet there was a curious sense of watchfulness which plucked at Jenny’s nerves so she paused at the top of the stairs and looked around her. There were the two open doors showing only blackness, silence, nothing else; she went downstairs and felt her way through the half-lighted dining room and into the pantry. The door squeaked as always.

She turned on lights. Just there, beside the refrigerator and the back stairway they must have found Fiora.

The pantry had been done over, too; it was all chromium steel and glitter. She went on into the kitchen, which was also a glittering expanse of chromium. She got milk out of the huge, new refrigerator, found a pan, and eventually found the right button to turn on a burner of a fine new range which looked so efficient that she almost expected it to speak to her. She stood, shaking the pan a little so the milk would not scorch, glancing absently around the kitchen and thus saw that the back door was not bolted. All their fuss about locks and a prowler with a gun! She went across the room and turned the small bolt.

She stood for a moment, staring at something which lay like a black soft snake in the shadow of a table. It was a stocking, black, which argued that it was one of the maid’s stockings, for she couldn’t imagine Blanche or Fiora wearing a black stocking. She picked it up, tossed it on a chair and went back to the stove as Peter came quickly from the pantry and into the room. “I thought I heard you,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Fiora wants some hot milk.”

He watched her for a moment, sleepily. She gave him one glance and then watched the milk. It was beginning to show a tiny skin on top when Peter said, “I meant it when I said it was good of you to come.”

“There was nothing I could do.”

“But you came.”

Oh, yes, she thought, I came. She said suddenly, “Peter, what did you think I
could
do? Why did you ask me to come?”

Peter waited a moment as he usually did before replying. Then he said, “Jenny, to most people I’m a hard-headed man of business. I’ve got to be. But I’m human, too.”

She waited; he added presently, “I just needed you, that’s all. I told you that.”

“You haven’t needed me—you didn’t need me—” she began and Peter interrupted. “How do you know? We quarreled that time over Fiora. I lost my temper. I thought you were dictating to me. But then as soon as the divorce and all the—the hard feelings were over with—well, that’s when I first phoned to you and it was good to be friendly again. The way we always had been.”

“Do you mean that it eased your conscience?” she said slowly.

“No, I didn’t mean that. I only meant that I wanted to be—to be friends again. Tonight—I really thought that Fiora was either staging a pretended suicide attempt or it was the real thing. I did lose my head there for a few moments and I thought of you and I wanted you to come, that’s all.”

She wanted to believe him; she did believe him but she said, “You can’t have two wives, Peter.”

“Jenny—” He came closer to her. “Jenny, I counted on your understanding. I counted on you. I always did. Jenny—” He put his arms around her; he drew her close to him and said against her face, “I’ve missed you. You don’t know how much I’ve missed you. Jenny—”

This was the moment she’d dreamed of. This was Peter. Now was the time for sparks to fly and magic to work.

She had a crook in her neck and was slightly off balance. Also the milk was going to scorch.

There was something wrong about this reunion, too. Shouldn’t she at least make an effort to restore the old magic between them? She put her arms up around him—which incidentally relieved the crook in her neck—and the pantry door opened with a swish and Blanche and Cal came in.

There was a moment of silence while Blanche and Cal looked at Peter and Jenny and Peter blinked and looked at no one.

Then Blanche gave a short laugh. “I knew I heard someone on the stairs—”

Cal said, “Are you playing statues, Jenny?”

Jenny took her arms away from Peter. Peter said, “She’s heating some milk for Fiora.” Peter didn’t look embarrassed; he didn’t look anything.

Cal came over and took the pan. “You’re burning the milk.” He too was wearing a dressing gown, an old one of Peter’s, borrowed; Jenny recognized its red and white stripes.

Cal set the pan on a tabletop so hard it splashed. “Well, here are your burglars, Blanche. I’m going back to bed,” he said, and marched out of the kitchen without looking back. The door swung behind him.

Blanche said, “I beg your pardon,” stiffly and rather as if she had surprised somebody in his bath. Her green dressing gown made a vivid splash of color against the door. Then it swung behind her, too.

Peter stared after her for a moment and rubbed his brown hair. “They’re going to think all kinds of things.”

Jenny was confused and on the boil like the milk, although she couldn’t have said exactly why. “Are you afraid they’ll tell Fiora?” she asked shortly.

Peter didn’t answer. He met her eyes for one flickering blue glance and then tightened the belt of his handsome black dressing gown. He had naturally a rather stocky figure, which he kept trim by means of violent exercise, tennis and swimming. He looked around the room, went over to try the bolt of the kitchen door, saw the stocking on the chair and picked it up. “What’s this?”

“A black stocking,” Jenny said. She wished Blanche’s ears had not been so sharp. She wished Cal would mind his own business. She wished that she had followed her first instinct and refused to come to the house. She wished so much that she didn’t know what she wished most.

“Your stocking?” Peter said, looking surprised.

“The maid’s probably. What’s her name? Rosa? Peter, answer me. Are you afraid that Blanche will tell Fiora that she found us like—like that?”

“What?” Peter said absently. “Oh no. No, I’m not afraid of that.” He sat down on a table and stared at the floor.

She waited: he said nothing. She went into the pantry, found a glass and a tray, came back and Peter had not moved. She tasted the milk cautiously and it was scorched. She got a clean pan, more milk, heated it slowly and Peter still had not moved.