Postmark Murder (18 page)

Again the bright little kitchen assumed a curiously happy atmosphere. Matt busied himself with the steaks, demanding salt, demanding pepper, demanding seasoning salt and charcoal powder, which Laura did not have; delivering a mock serious lecture as to the temperature of a broiling oven, meddling with the French dressing she made for the salad and tasting it—keeping up an energetic conversation which successfully precluded any mention of Maria Brown, of the kitten, of Conrad Stanislowski. It was a gay, a warm and pleasant hour or two, like a normal island in a sea of abnormality.

It was, too, a remarkably good dinner; the steaks, Matt assured with great sobriety, were superb; he hoped she realized that it was an extraordinary gastronomical experience to eat Steak Cosden. He joked with Jonny; he played with the cat. There were French fried potatoes, also from the freezer; there were cheese and apples and grapes for dessert. Through it all Matt talked gaily, and avoided murder and attempted murder. He told of his law practice; he talked of himself, for the first time since Laura had known him. She had known vaguely that he had lived in New York, that his mother and father and a brother still lived there. For some reason he had gone not to an Eastern school but to the University of Chicago where he had taken a law course. “So I settled here,” he said. “I like Chicago. And I was young enough then to like being on my own, independent. My brother was older than I, he is a lawyer too, by the way, and so is my father. The idea was that I should join the firm. But I wanted to strike out for myself. I was engaged to Doris then.”

He had known Doris in New York, before she married Conrad, and came, too, to live in Chicago. Laura said, “It’s past Jonny’s bedtime.”

“She’ll have to stay up tonight. There’s the tree to trim.” He peeled an apple and offered a slice to Jonny. “I didn’t expect Doris to come here to live. I certainly didn’t expect her to turn up, married to Conrad. But then, it would have had to be a long engagement. I was barely out of school and trying to get a start.” He gave Jonny another slice of apple which she munched solemnly, leaning against his knee. “Doris was my brother’s girl when I met her.”

“I didn’t know that.” How much she didn’t know, Laura thought, about Matt and Doris.

He nodded cheerfully. “I was home for Easter holidays. Went to dance with Jim and his girl—Doris. By the time the week was over, Doris and I were engaged. Whirlwind courtship.”

“Didn’t Jim mind?”

Unexpectedly Matt chuckled. “Oh it was all very dramatic. Both of us giving Doris up to the other, very highminded and self-sacrificing. But then Jim met Frances and married her. And Doris jilted me when she met Conrad. She had every right to. You can’t expect a girl like that to wait forever. Now then—I can wash dishes, too.”

Jonny trotted back and forth with grave importance, helping. And then they took coffee into the living room and finished trimming the tree. When at last, glittering and resplendent it stood reflecting itself a hundred times in the windows, Matt bundled Jonny off to bed.

And it was time for Matt to leave. “You look more like yourself,” he said at the door. “I don’t think you’ve had a square meal for a couple of days.” All at once there was something different in his eyes, something dancing yet serious, too. “There’s something we forgot. We ought to have a big mistletoe bough. Hanging right here—” He took Laura close and swiftly and very hard in his arms and kissed her, and then, slowly this time, kissed her again. Time stood still; time passed; and there was no reckoning of it. Then suddenly, without meaning to, Laura pulled away.

“Why did you do that?” Matt said.

Because of Doris, Laura thought; you’re still in love with Doris. You’re going to marry Doris.

She said, “Good night, Matt.”

He eyed her for a moment; then he opened the door. “All right. I’ll let you know if there’s any news. But try to put all of it out of your mind. Bolt the door, don’t forget. Have a good sleep.” He went down the corridor to the elevator. He did not look back. Laura bolted the door. But she didn’t sleep—not for a long time.

It was strange, she thought once, that she could still feel the pressure of Matt’s mouth upon her own. It was as if it had set a seal upon it, indelible and lasting.

Yet he had understood why she had withdrawn herself from the hard, warm circle of his arms; she hadn’t said why, but he understood it. He was still in love with Doris. He’d felt sorry for Laura, he’d tried and succeeded in distracting her, extricating her, for a while, from a morass of fear—of murder and attempted murder. That was because he was kind, he liked her, he wanted to help her; that was like Matt. But he was going to marry Doris; after all those years of waiting, he was going to marry the girl he’d fallen in love with long ago at a dance, during holidays, his brother’s girl; the girl he’d still loved even after she’d married Conrad.

It was Doris, of course, who had said frankly that she and Matt were to be married; but Doris wouldn’t have said it if it hadn’t been true. She was too quick-witted, too intelligent, to lie about it; and besides—Matt was still in love with Doris. Laura always came back to that.

She wouldn’t think about that moment or two as Matt was leaving. She wouldn’t think of Matt—and Doris. She listened to the low, regular moan of the foghorn. And went over and over, irresistibly, every word, every look of Matt’s—and of Doris’.

Once, however, she thought for a long time of Maria Brown. Suppose she was Jonny’s mother! How had she felt, seeing Jonny? What did she intend to do?

And once, too, as the lonely hours of the night wore on, Laura thought, suppose Peabody is right! Suppose Doris—or Charlie (not Matt, not Laura March) but Doris or Charlie—had known of Conrad Stanislowski’s arrival, had known his address, had murdered him!

She turned on the light. She sat up in bed, huddled the eiderdown around her shoulders, and smoked a cigarette. After a while the black phantoms that had seemed to enter the room with the night, surrounding her, disappeared, driven away by the light, the familiar look of the room. She put out her cigarette and read for a while and at last drifted into sleep.

The light was still turned on when the telephone woke Laura. It rang and rang insistently, jabbing through her sleep, so she roused and blinked at the unexpected light from the bedside table and then groped for her robe and slippers and went into the hall to answer it. A man’s voice, a strange voice, spoke to her.

“Miss March? This is Sergeant O’Brien. Lieutenant Peabody wishes to speak to you. Will you hold on a minute.”

She held on, carrying the telephone to the door where she could see into the living room. The curtains were still drawn. The

Christmas tree winked dimly in the light from the hall. It was still dark. She snapped on the living-room light. The gilt hands of the French clock pointed to six-thirty. What had happened? Why had Peabody called so early? Suddenly she was fully awake. And listening—for all at once, from the street far below, through the heavy silence of early morning there was the wail of a police siren. It seemed remote and far away. It drew closer, and still closer, shrill and eerie, and then abruptly stopped.

Lieutenant Peabody’s voice spoke into her ear. “Miss March? I want to see you. I’ll be right up.”

“What is it? What has happened—” He had hung up.

He’d be right up. That meant, didn’t it, that he was in the apartment house? Why?

Fear caught her as if it had hands.

There was no time to dress. She ran to the bathroom and washed her face quickly, ran a comb through the soft, loose curls of her brown hair, seeing her white face in the mirror, listening for the door buzzer. She closed the door into Jonny’s room, very quietly, very softly, so the round hump under the blankets that was Jonny did not stir.

She hugged her white bathrobe around her and went into the living room and drew the curtains apart. The Christmas tree looked strangely festive and gay, out of place.

It was a dark and overcast day, with low gray clouds, threatening snow. The door buzzer sounded sharply. She ran, so Jonny would not be awakened; she opened the door and Lieutenant Peabody and a policeman came in.

Peabody’s swift glance took in Laura, her bathrobe, her bedroom slippers. He stepped to the doorway of the living room, glanced quickly around, and said shortly, “I’ll have to ask you to let us take a look through your apartment. Stay here, please.”

“But what is it? What has happened?”

The Lieutenant did not answer, but disappeared back through the hall. She made an instinctive move to follow him and the policeman said, “I wouldn’t if I were you, miss. The Lieutenant said stay here.” He eyed her with sharp curiosity, and he looked well prepared to keep her there. She said, “But Jonny—there’s a little girl here. I don’t want him to frighten her.”

“You needn’t worry, miss,” the policeman said. She could hear Peabody in the kitchen and then, which seemed odd, in her bedroom. After a long moment or two he came back.

“You’d better get into some clothes, Miss March. There is something I want you to do.”

“What is it, Lieutenant?”

“Hurry, please.”

“But Jonny—I can’t leave her. What do you want?”

“Sergeant O’Brien will stay with the child. You’ll not need a coat.”

It was barely polite; it was in fact a sharp command.

Laura went back to her room. Her hands were shaking. A zipper stuck and she tugged it, and heard the faint little rip of silk. She pulled on a gray skirt and sweater; got into stockings and pumps. She went out into the hall and Lieutenant Peabody was looking at his watch, and Sergeant O’Brien was standing in the door of the living room gravely surveying the Christmas tree and the little disarrangement of cushions, ash trays, coffee cups, from the previous night.

“All right,” Peabody said. “This way. Stay here, O’Brien.”

Laura said, “If Jonny wakes up—”

The Sergeant interrupted, “Don’t worry, miss. I have children of my own.” He stared at her stolidly, yet with a bright, cold curiosity in his eyes.

Lieutenant Peabody opened the door. “We’ll go this way.” They passed the bank of elevators, turned into an intersecting corridor, turned again and stopped at a service elevator. This, too, was self-operated; there was a panel of buttons; but a man in dungarees stood at the door. He was one of the big, rarely seen yet vitally necessary staff for the apartment house. His face was vaguely familiar, and now pale with excitement. He was obviously waiting for them.

“You want to go right down now, Lieutenant?”

“Right.” Peabody motioned Laura into the elevator. They went down and down, in a curious, forbidding silence, so Laura could not say, where are you taking me? Why?

The car stopped. She walked beside Peabody through a wide hall with a concrete floor and glimpses of a vast laundry with tubs and washing machines and drying lines at one side. Somewhere ahead of them and around the corner there was a subdued kind of commotion. There were lights, unshaded and garish, lighting up the gray walls. They turned the corner. A huddle of figures, among them the blue uniforms of policemen, stood in a close circle around something on the floor. A woman, in curlers, a fur coat and bedroom slippers, hovered on the outskirts and sobbed. Two men in plain clothes came in with a businesslike trot from the other end of the corridor.

Peabody touched the nearest policeman on the shoulder, and like a blue wave, the tight nucleus of uniformed figures moved apart.

A woman lay on the floor. She wore a brown coat. A black beret had fallen on the concrete floor. The woman’s hair was dark. Laura could not see her face.

T
HERE WAS, IT SEEMED
to her, a long silence. A bright electric bulb glowed directly above her. She felt rather than saw the concerted stare of all those men.

The light above was dazzling, confusing. She put her hands over her eyes.

“Who is she?” Lieutenant Peabody’s voice came out of the whirling, queer silence around her.

“I don’t know—”

“Look at her.”

“No—no—”

A hand touched her elbow. “Who is that woman? Look at her.”

I can’t, Laura thought; it’s like Conrad Stanislowski; I can’t look at it again.

But she did look down. And again, with that terrible clarity which she had felt when she looked at Conrad Stanislowski’s face, she thought, the woman is dead; she was murdered.

The woman had a swarthy, rather thin face. She had a fringe of short dark hair. A black wool skirt showed where the brown coat had fallen apart; she wore neatly polished black oxfords with rubber heels. Laura forced herself to search that still, rigid-looking face; she had never seen the woman in her life.

Lieutenant Peabody said, “Is it Maria Brown?”

“No,” Laura said, and drew back, her knees shaking.

There was another silence. The woman in the curlers and fur coat gave a strangling sob, flung her hands over her face and cried jerkily, “I want out of here. Poor Catherine—I’m going to faint—”

A policeman took her arm. “All right now, ma’am. In a minute you can go—”

Lieutenant Peabody said to Laura, “You are sure it is not Maria Brown?”

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen her before?”

“No. Not to my knowledge.”

“All right.” Lieutenant Peabody looked at one of the men in plain clothes. “Get out to Koska Street and get the landlady; her name is Radinsky.”

He went over to the woman in curlers, who took her hands from her face and stared wildly at him, her fleshy face white and sagging, her mouth trembling. “All right, Mrs. Grelly,” he said, “you can go to your apartment.”

“Oh, Lieutenant!” she cried with a gulping sob. “This is horrible. She was all right last night—just the same as usual. She cooked dinner and then I went out and—”

Peabody cut her short. “I’ll talk to you again later. Thank you.” He nodded at the policeman who stood near and seemed to understand an unspoken command.

“I’ll take you to your apartment, ma’am,” he said politely.

“Oh,” Mrs. Grelly gasped. “Oh—” A fleshy, ringed hand came out from the enveloping folds of her coat. She clutched the policeman’s arm and went away unsteadily. Lieutenant Peabody came back to Laura.