Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky (11 page)

13

We didn’t mention Gino at first on the drive home. Instead we discussed how she got into show biz. “Actually, I’m a psychologist,” she said.

    I glanced at her in surprise.

    “At least, I wanted to be a psychologist,” Spookie amended. “Originally I wanted to be a model. But I soon found out that I have neither the face nor the figure – and I don’t mean just the four or five thousand for tuition fees! Photographs are never kind to the average female, you know that? They make you look fat! Even a thin girl looks as fat as a Cheshire cat!”

    “You’ve been reading
Alice in Wonderland
?”

    “Studied it at school. Anyway the ideal female model actually looks seven-eighths starved in real life, her cheeks all hollow and her bones sticking out. For a reason that no-one has ever been able to crack, the camera disguises all these defects and makes the average female weirdo look succulent and normal – and even attractive! Look at Audrey Hepburn for instance. But models also need to be tall, as well as half-starved, and with a bust line of no more than twenty-eight or thirty. So that put the kibosh on my modeling career. So I thought I’d take up that bursary at the uni – won it at school – and I got into psychology instead.”

    “Enter
Strike a Fortune
with Monty Fairmont and ‘Ace’ Jellis?”

    “That’s how it happened. They advertised for a bright, outgoing personality who could set people at ease.”

    “Done!”

    “And even more importantly someone who was sharp enough to write up observant reports.”

    “They didn’t want much!”

    “You haven’t heard the worst of it, the most important qualifier: Did I have any relatives? Was I married, engaged or living with a boyfriend? In short, did I have any attachments? Any attachments at all? So I hung my head. ‘I am an orphan, sir,’ I said – which is true. ‘I don’t even know my own name.’ And you know what one of them answered? ‘That’s spooky!’ So that’s how I became Spookie Williams.”

    “So how does Gino fit in?”

    “A friend. I’ve known him for a long time.”

    “You met him at the markets?”

    “We’re both orphans, if you must know. There, I’ve told you too much. I hope you like me as much as I like you.”

    “Like you? I love you! Can’t you feel how much I love you?”

    “I can feel how much you want me, but love is something else.”

    “I love you! I love you! How can I prove it to you?”

    “You’ll get your chance. Tell me, Merryll, do they really think that tower falling down wasn’t an accident?”

    “Merry!”

    “You were in Kent’s office,
Merry!
”

    “You heard them too, Spookie. They said they found a cable hooked to one of the tower’s legs.”

    “Maybe the cable was supposed to be there. How do they move these lumbering things into place anyhow? The whole thing could still have been a genuine accident!”

    “A genuine accident? I hope to God you’re dead wrong, Spookie,” I murmured. “Otherwise I’ve done myself out of eighty thousand dollars!” 

14

Don’t let anyone kid you that love and romance are strictly for the young. And there’s about as little truth in that other old proverb about once bitten, twice shy. I know what love is all about. I’ve had my guts kicked in forty or fifty times, but here I am still looking for another thorough going over. 

    It’s true that when you reach my age, you do tend to be a bit more cautious – and a lot more self-protective. You say to yourself,
This girl is using me. She’s playing me for a sucker and there’s about as much chance she’ll come across as an alligator will give birth to pink elephants. But what the hell? If you’re not playing the game, you may as well be dead!

    So here I am, still playing in the main game and still staring down the barrel of another defeat. But I have learned a few tricks to protect myself. That’s why I didn’t try to justify my conduct when I walked into Kenovarnie’s Personnel Office next day and calmly asked for Miss Williams’ file:  Spookie’s actual name on the folder was Kathleen Irene Williams. No children. No husband. No health issues. She’d joined up only eleven months ago. No letters of recommendation. No birth certificate, tax forms, no record of previous employment. Why not? Ah! She was under contract to Monty Fairmont Productions. She wasn’t actually employed by Kenovarnie’s at all. That made sense. Just to be sure, I checked the files of “Ace” Jellis (real name: Albert) and Sedge Cornbeck (real name: Sedge!). They also were contracted to Monty Fairmont. So everything on the Spookie Williams front was O.K.

    That night, I invented an excuse to phone her at home and discovered she lived in an apartment with a young woman named Sandy. She told me Spookie had gone out.

    “It’s Merryll Manning here. Nothing important. I’ll see her tomorrow. Gone out with Gino, has she?”

    “Yes.”

    I decided to make it my business to track down this Gino. I like to see my rivals face to face. I couldn’t possibly identify him from the glimpse I had of his bike and helmet.

    For the next few days, I was busy with the contestant files. Spookie helped me with comments and recollections, and I took care to be charming, but not to overdo it. On Friday morning, she made sure to tell me she was leaving at four-thirty to meet Gino at the markets. Women love to keep their admirers under pressure, so I made it my business to get to the markets ahead of her. I spent the rest of the afternoon hovering around the $2 stand – without success. A few thousand people must have jostled by, but no Spookie Williams nor any too-likely Ginos. I must have missed them somehow.

    Feeling pretty disgruntled, I waited until the last bell and then walked through the thinning crowds to Peter Tunning’s office nearby. I wanted something to show for a lost afternoon, and the sponsor at least was a sure bet. Sure enough, Tunning’s girls were still busy at the switchboard and the great man himself bounced out of his office as soon as he heard my voice. This time he was minus his coat, but the celebrity dark glasses were still firmly in place.

    “Come into my office,” said the spider to the fly.

    I did just that. The drapes were drawn against the remnants of the setting sun. And as I was lowering myself into a chair by the light from the door, and Peter closed that door, and his whole office plunged into darkness – bloody hell! – it suddenly dawned on me that Tunning was a nyctalopist!
What an idiot I
am!
I knew my Fergus Hume. In fact, I looked it up when I got home that night:

   
The steps recommenced. I heard their soft, light fall on the marble floor, the rustle of the silken gown, like the sound of dry leaves in an autumnal wind, and then I felt this woman was standing in the arched doorway, looking straight at me through the darkness. “Why are you here?” It was the voice of the Contessa. I gave a cry of horror as I suddenly realized how ineffective the darkness concealed me from the eyes of this nyctalopist.

   
Well, I didn’t utter a cry of horror, but I know for certain my face registered shock and that Peter was now well aware that his secret was discovered. I could hear him creeping up behind me. But if I was doomed to die, at least I’d know why.

    “Why are you sabotaging your own show, Peter? Insurance?” 

    “You amaze me, Mr. Manning.”

    “I’m surprised myself. But I guess there are moments when we just don’t care if we live or die.”

    “How did you guess, Mr. Manning? You noticed the blackout blinds on my windows?”

    “Nope. I’m not that observant. Besides, I wouldn’t know a blackout blind if I saw one. Fergus Hume is my informant. Fergus Hume!”

    “Further Hume?”

    “British novelist, also claimed by Australia. Fantastically popular in his day, but now completely forgotten.”

    “You amaze me, Mr. Manning.”

    “Yeah. You already said that.”

    “Since you know my secret, I will pull the blinds right down, and then we will make ourselves really comfortable. ”

    “You’ve already pulled the blinds down.”

    “But not secured, Mr. Manning. There are still a few drops of light.”

    “Not to my eyes.”

    “But to mine, Mr. Manning, to mine!”

    “Just tell me one thing: Why are you trying to sabotage your own show?”

    “That is so easy to explain. People work better when they are frightened, no?”

    “Frightened? You’ve scared the pants right off them! But I’m not complaining. No scares, no Merryll Manning on the job. It was great while it lasted.”

    “I cannot follow you, Mr. Manning. Perhaps I shall get right to the point. I am hiring you!”

    I breathed a sigh of relief. But he could be stalling. I was not out of the woods yet. “That’s a smart move, Peter. But frightening the staff can be a two-edged sword. I need to know the number one reason you’re sabotaging your own show, not all this malarkey about how frightened people work a whole lot better. Insurance?”

    “Of course, insurance. Also I don’t have to pay out any more prizes. And think of the publicity. Good publicity! I am the victim. People feel sorry for Peter. Poor Peter! The publicity for Tunning’s Totally Tempting Travel Tour Tickets will be just amazing.”

    “I agree. So what do you want me to do?”

    “There is someone who knows. I was hoping it was you, Mr. Manning.”

    “Knows what? That you can see in the dark?”

    “It comes this afternoon. Through the post. I phoned you at Keovarnie’s, but you are out. See, I keep the envelope. I am handing it to you.”   
        

    “I can’t see a damn thing, Peter!”

    “I am handing it to your hand. You have it?”

    “I’ll have to examine it when I get back to the office. But I don’t think it’s going to tell us much.”

    I almost said
if I get back to the office
, but my fears were rapidly subsiding. If he was going to kill me or put the fear of a nyctalopist into my heart, he would have gone about it straight away rather than concoct some crazy story. But here comes the clincher. “What was the message?” I asked.

    “
Missed you last time. We will not miss again. Your last and final warning
.”

    “You have enemies, Peter?”

    “Doesn’t everyone?”

    “In particular, Carmichael Dune-Harrigan?”

    “Carmichael what?”

    “Dune-Harrigan, an Egyptologist and university professor, a quiz contestant on the same program as me.”

    “Why would he be my enemy?”

    “I’m trying to revise my thinking in a hurry, Peter, but I would say he is the author of your
last and final warning
.”

    “Why?”

    “Blackmail is my best guess. Or maybe revenge?”

    “Revenge for what? I do not know the man.”

    “The name doesn’t stir any memories?”

    “Done-Larrikin?”

    “Obviously not!”
 

15

No doubt about it, Ex-Professor Carmichael Dune-Harrigan was an irredeemable old fool. Why keep his mad, perverted threats going now that he had nothing positive to gain?

    Well, I knew the answer to that one. Dune-Harrigan not only simply relished evil for the sake of evil, he was passionate about revenge. Anyone who opposed him or his plans, he immediately marked out for special treatment. It didn’t matter to Dune-Harrigan whether the opposition was intentional or accidental. Simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time was irrelevant. He relished his elaborate stand-over tactics and loved to watch his victims squirm, even if neither money nor prestige were in the pipeline.

    I’d planned to spend my weekend in planning and possibly executing some means of involving the lovely Spookie in the Tunning affair. Something to make her extremely grateful, for she’d soon be out of a job. I needed to place myself in exactly the right spot to catch her in my arms when her little world came tumbling down.

    How much time did I have before Tunning pulled the plug? Why didn’t I ask him? Too shocked, I guess. In any case, Tunning’s original plans were now on hold – unless of course he and Dune-Harrigan were actually working in cahoots – and the professor’s threats merely a cunning decoy!

    Hell! Why is life so complicated?

I checked the phone book and sure enough the listing told me there was only the one Dune-Harrigan, and he was living at Palm Beach, seemingly right at the top of one of those sandstone cliffs that look over the bay. You really need a four-wheel drive to make the steep grades, but there was no way of renting one on the Saturday or the Sunday, so I’d just have to use my old Ford and park it at the bottom of the grade…