Red Gardenias (2 page)

A hollow, metallic voice from the door said, "No, buddy. No, you won't. Keep your mitts off that desk."

A thin man in a blue overcoat stood by the living-room door. Crane had an idea he had been there for a considerable time. A white handkerchief masked the lower part of his face; a felt hat shadowed his eyes. He had an automatic pistol.

"I'll take them papers," he said.

Crane had never heard a voice like the man's. It had a resonance, as though he was talking through a piece of gas pipe. It sounded as though he had a tin larynx. His breath made a whistling noise, too, when he spoke.

"Get over with them others," he said to Peter March.

Crane said, "This house is about as private as the Grand Central Station."

"Don't get wise," the man whispered. "I don't want to sap anybody, see?" A button was missing off the left sleeve of his overcoat.

Waving Peter March aside with the pistol, he advanced on the table. Ann Fortune watched him through cucumber-green eyes. He put a handful of papers in his overcoat pocket.

"No," said Peter March. "You can't do that."

He started for the man, and for an instant Crane was certain he was about to be shot. The man looked frightened, undecided. Crane held his breath. Then the man hit March on the temple with the barrel of his pistol.

Crane saw his wrist was small. The bone was a blue-white, like the wristbone of a man who has been begging in winter. March fell down, but he wasn't badly hurt. Ann started to scream.

"Now, sister..." the man whispered.

Ann was silent. The man put the rest of the papers in his overcoat pocket. He saw the revolver, put that in his pocket. He pointed his pistol at Crane.

"That all?"

"That's all I know about," Crane said. "What about you, March?"

March sat on the Aubusson, both hands pressed to his temple. "I don't know anything about them," he said sullenly.

"Like hell!" The man's voice, with that metallic quality, sounded Chinese. "I heard you tell our friends why you was here."

"All right," March said.

"Yeah, but it ain't." The man stood over March, but his eyes, the pistol were on Crane. "A certain party don't want anybody nosin' around."

"All right," March said.

The man took two quick steps, reached a hand in March's inside coat pocket, pulled out three letters, all the time keeping the pistol pointed at Crane.

He jeered, "So you don't know nothin', Mister March?"

"Listen," March began. "I'll give..."

"Stow it." The man raised the pistol as though he was going to backhand March's face. "They'll be safe where they're going." He bent his body so that his face was near March's. "Safe, see?"

"Where are they going?" Crane asked.

"Keep your nickel outa this, wise guy," the man said, going to the door.

Ann asked, "Isn't he going to take our money?"

"Don't give him ideas," Crane said.

The man paused at the hall entrance. "Lady, you got me all wrong." It was hard to hear what he was saying "I'm here on business."

"Oh," Ann said.

"I ain't a heister, see?"

"I see," Ann said. She didn't.

"O.K., lady."

The man went out into the hall, and presently they heard the front door slam. Peter March got to his feet An automobile engine roared about half a block away the automobile went off very fast in second gear.

"Are you all right?" Ann asked Peter March.

He took his hands from his temple. There was no blood, only the swollen place where he had been hit.

"Damn him," he said. "Who could have sent him?"

Ann asked, "Were the letters very important?"

"To the March family. Maybe to some of Richard March's women, too."

"Richard must be fascinating," Ann said.

Peter March's face was grim. "A lot of women thought so."

Crane found his glass, was pleasantly surprised to find whisky in it. "You told me you were destroying the incriminating items," he said. He drank the whisky.

March nodded.

"But the letters in your pocket...?"

"Oh, those?" March took his time answering. "I was... going to destroy those at home."

Ann said, "I think I hear the doorbell."

They listened. A bell was tinkling persistently somewhere in the house.

Crane said, "I hope it's not the postman—with more letters."

Under the white porch light was a woman in a magnificently marked mink coat. She was a slender woman and her hair glistened darkly. Back of her, obscured by shadow, stood a man.

"Is this Mr Crane?" she inquired.

"Carmel!" Peter March moved past Crane, held the door open. "And Dad! What are you doing here?"

Simeon March followed the woman into the house walking with hard, abrupt steps. He was the richest man in his state; owner of March & Company, the nation's second largest manufacturer of electric washing machines and refrigerators; founder of Marchton, and chairman of the March Foundation for Medical Research.

For Crane, he had another distinction. He was, for the moment, his employer.

In the blue-and-white living room Peter March made the proper introductions. The dark woman's name was Carmel March. Looking at Simeon March, Crane wondered who Carmel March was. Not Richard March's wife; her name was Alice. He put this problem away to answer Simeon March's questions.

"At the last minute we came by airplane," he said. "That's why we're early."

Simeon March had perfectly white hair, heavy pepper-and-salt eyebrows, a drooping mustache, and brown eyes the color of maple sugar. The skin on his face and hands was discolored; it was mostly tan, but there were dark brown patches. He was very wrinkled, almost like an old Indian. He made Crane think of Theodore Roosevelt without in the least looking like him.

He started to say something else to Crane, but an exclamation from Carmel halted him.

"Peter! What's the matter?" She came across the room to him, her dark eyes on the bruise over his temple. "How did you hurt yourself?"

"It isn't anything," Peter said.

"But it is." Her voice was anxious; she turned to Crane. "How did it happen?"

Crane told her, thinking as he talked she was very beautiful. There was a masklike quality about her oval face, but her anxiety over Peter March gave it, for the moment, a lovely mobility. She was one of the most vividly colored women he had ever seen—India-inkk hair, raspberry lips, milk-of-magnesia skin, and eyes.. eyes so dark, so luminous, so liquid they made hit think of very strong coffee.

" But why the devil did you try to stop him?" Simeon March gruffly asked his son when Crane finished.

"He could use the letters for blackmail," Peter said.

Simeon March grunted. "Let him try."

"He got all of them, Peter?" Carmel asked. "All of them?"

"Yes."

She had forgotten about his bruise. She sat on the sofa, let the mink fall away from her, revealing exquisite shoulders. "That's strange," she said softly. She wore black evening gown of tulle, cut so low in front it exposed a blue-shadowed hollow between her breasts.

Crane caught Ann's eyes, green and narrow, on him and he grinned. Let her admire Peter March; he had something to admire, too. He wondered again who Carmel was; she seemed pretty exotic to be a March except by marriage.

Peter was explaining it to his father that he had wanted to destroy Richard's personal documents before the house was occupied. "I just thought of it," he said.

Simeon March demanded, "Did you call the police?"

"If you call the police there'll be publicity," Peter warned.

Crane said, "The man spoke of getting the papers for someone."

"It sounded like blackmail," Peter said.

"Blackmail a dead man?" Simeon March grunted. "Huh!"

Crane thought with considerable pride that he had guessed correctly about Richard. He wondered how long he had been dead.

"This sounds like a mystery drama," Ann said.

"Doesn't it, though?" Carmel March said.

Simeon March stared at her. "You could have prevented this," he growled. "You had a whole year to destroy Richard's papers."

Carmel asked, "Why should I have thought to destroy them?" Her voice was brittle.

For a moment her eyes met his in a defiant stare, then Simeon March swung around to his son, " You could have done it."

"I should have," Peter admitted. "But I never thought until today."

Simeon March's anger made his eyes topaz yellow. "Stupid," he snarled.

Crane thought he'd hate to cross the millionaire. He wasn't the kind of man you'd try any slick business tricks on. To avert a further explosion, he said, "Will anyone have a drink?"

"I will," Ann said. "I always will."

The others accepted, too. Carmel offered to help get ice and glasses, but Ann refused.

"Sooner or later I'm going to have to explore that kitchen," she said. "It might as well be now."

"I'll go along as a bodyguard," Crane said.

Glistening with porcelain and chromium, the kitchen looked as fancy as the ones in magazine advertisements. There was a double sink, an electric stove, an electric dishwasher, and the largest refrigerator Crane had ever seen. He opened the refrigerator door gingerly.

"What's the matter?" Ann asked.

"I was afraid a corpse would come tumbling out."

"Richard's?" Ann asked.

"Someone's," Crane said. "It's a poor case where they haven't got a corpse tucked around the house."

Ann found a tray and high glasses in the pantry. "I think it's a nice case."

"You would." Crane jerked out a rubber ice tray, squeezed cubes of ice into one of the sinks. "I saw you giving Peter March the gladeye."

She said, "You were rubbering at Carmel, too."

He found some seltzer and they went into the living room. After everyone had a drink Simeon March said:

"Crane, I'd like to have a word with you."

"Dad, no business now," Peter said. "This is the middle of the night."

"We'll only be a moment," Simeon March said.

Crane followed him into the library, sat down beside him ok a leather davenport. "D'you know why you're here?" Simeon March asked him.

All four walls of the library, except where there were narrow windows and a high fireplace, were lined with books. Most of them were bound in leather with illuminated titles, largely in gold; and they ran in matched sets. Crane decided they had been bought for appearance, rather than reading.

"I've got a rough idea," he said.

"Then I won't have to tell you..."

Crane interrupted him. "I wish you would." He hadn't the least idea what the case was about, but he thought he ought to bluff. "I'd like to get the straight story."

"All right." Jerkily, Simeon March produced two cigars. Crane started to duck, so violent was the motion. "Have one?" asked Simeon March.

"No, thanks."

"Don't smoke?"

"Yes. Cigarettes."

"A woman's smoke."

This satisfactorily settled, Simeon March told his story. As he went along Crane felt a thrill of excitement. The case, if facts bore out the old man's inferences, looked like a humdinger.

Nine months ago, in February, Richard March had been discovered dead at the steering wheel of his sedan beside the Country Club at the conclusion of the dance. A defective heater had been blamed for his death by a coroner's jury.

"Your son?" Crane asked.

"My late brother's son. Joseph March's son."

Crane thought Mr March sounded as though he expected him to know who Joseph was, so he nodded as if he did know.

"Was there a defective heater?" he asked.

A look of grim humor came into Simeon March's wrinkled face. "I don't know. Nobody inquired."

"But why not?"

"People accepted his removal gratefully, without inquiring into whys and wherefores."

"He wasn't popular?"

"He was a complete wastrel."

"Didn't he work for March & Company?"

"Yes and no." Simeon March discovered the cigar was out. "Damn this thing!" He violently struck a match. "Richard was general manager in charge of sales." Air made a sucking noise through the cigar. "But I never heard of his working."

Crane nodded. "And then-—"

Simeon March took a long pull at the cigar, blew the smoke out hard. "And then my John died."

He told of his death without evidence of emotion, but the hand holding the burning match trembled. He didn't look at Crane while he talked.

John had died just a month ago. He had apparently been trying to fix his motor in his garage ("He was a first-rate mechanic," Simeon March interpolated.) and had been overcome by carbon monoxide. His body was on the floor. The hood over the engine was up and there were tools on the car's running board. Carmel March had discovered him.

"His wife?" Crane asked.

"Yes."

Crane reflected that Carmel seemed pretty cheerful for a widow of a month's standing. She was wearing black, but her attitude...

He broke this train of thought to ask: "How did the doors happen to be closed? A mechanic should have known — "

"There was a strong wind that day. Supposed to have blown the doors shut."

"Two carbon-monoxide deaths." Crane frowned. "Quite a coincidence. What was the coroner's verdict?"

"Like the other—accidental."

"Well, there are a lot of accidental deaths that way... and a lot of suicides."

"John wouldn't kill himself."

"What about Richard?"

"Richard was drunk when he died." Simeon March's voice showed his dislike for Richard. "You don't kill yourself when you're drunk."

"I never have," Crane admitted. He scratched the back of his neck. "Do you have any proofs of murder?"

"Do you think I would have hired you if I had?"

"But your suspicions were aroused by something?"

"Yes."

"By what?"

Simeon March stood up. His jaw was set. "I'd rather not say." He chewed his cigar. "I want you to make an independent investigation. If you find anything, come to any conclusion, I want to know about it. That's all."

"All right." Crane stood up, too. "Does anyone know Miss Fortune and I are detectives?"