Somewhere in the House (17 page)

“I don't believe he stopped off here,” said Malcolm.

“Neither do I.”

“I'm sure he went up to the top.”

They climbed again, into darkness and a curious sense of desolation; the desolation of airless places that have been abandoned, to which nobody ever comes. Gamadge put on his torch.

There was a wall bracket, very ornate, at the head of the stairs; its bulb was dead. The skylight, immovable under its layer of dust, would let only a filtered daylight into these premises at midday. The walls had at some time been decorated by hand with a big scrolled dado in brown and gold; the pinkish plaster showed a big square place where some large picture had hung; there was a hole in the wall where its screw had been.

Gamadge said, turning his torch on all this ancient splendour, “Done in the nineties, and the same man did the door.”

It was a black door, its panels painted and gilt; but there was a Yale lock with new scratches around it.

“Mr. Garth Clayborn tried to get in?” Gamadge ruminated. “Silly fellow; the door's solid.”

“They'd better be, in this place, with the outer doors open to the town,” said Malcolm.

“Who'd burgle here?”

An old card under glass beside the door said
Raschner
. Gamadge put a finger on the push-bell.

“O Lord, don't do that!” begged Malcolm. “This place died long ago. What mightn't answer your ring?”

“Let 'em come.”

But nothing and nobody came. The bell rang, but faintly. Gamadge turned away.

“I don't know what you think,” said Malcolm, who had spent most of his adult life in France, “but I think this used to be somebody's petit apartment.”

“Love nest,” said Gamadge. “You may be right. At the turn of the century this would have been a good address for a sporting character; right among the big restaurants and the theatres—the hot bird and the cold bottle, the lobsters and champagne. But it's in use now. If it weren't, Garth Clayborn wouldn't have followed somebody down here at some not too remote period, and then come back, after the discovery of the Fitch murder, to refresh his memory. It looks as though he'd never got in.”

“How are
we
going to get in? Shall I go somewhere and get a chisel? If the tenant is somebody up at the Clayborn house, we won't be caught here this evening.”

“Let's go and talk to Mr. Spitano.”

“Why on earth should he know anything, or tell us if he does?”

“He or his forebears have been living downstairs for a long time.”

They went down to the floor below and rang a loud buzzer. The door was flung open, letting an uproar of voices and radio into the hall; a dark man in his shirtsleeves asked what was wanted.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” said Gamadge. “You have a party.”

Several children had poured into the narrow hall and were gazing at the visitors. The dark man said: “Just Sunday night.”

“Too bad to bother you. It's this housing situation.”

The dark man looked as though he couldn't do much for them in that line.

“It's this effort the city's making to get us roofs over our heads,” said Gamadge. “I had a list of possible addresses, and I think one of them is the top floor here. Do you know where I could apply?”

The dark man looked over his shoulder, shouted “Papa,” and then turned and left without more ado: herding children in front of him and leaving the little hall-way vacant. A very old Italian, also in shirtsleeves, came through one of the doors and advanced to within ten inches of Gamadge. He looked at him, looked at Malcolm, looked at their topcoats, and put out a polite finger. He traced the line of Gamadge's shoulder seam, and asked admiringly: “Where did you get?”

“I got it so long ago I don't remember. Is this Mr. Spitano I'm talking to?”

“I am Spitano. The apartment upstairs is not for rent.”

“O Lord, some mistake.”

“So many people trying to find apartments, they get mixed up.”

“You're quite sure the place isn't for rent, Mr. Spitano?”

“I ought to be sure; it's mine. I sublet.”

“Oh, I see. You couldn't ask your tenant if he spoke to anybody about letting it?”

Mt Spitano, who looked a little thoughtful, said nothing.

“We really thought somebody would be there,” said Gamadge. “We came on the dot, hoping to be let in to view the place.”

There was another pause, and then old Mr. Spitano embarked on family annals: “When I first came to this country I took the three upper floors for the business and the family. Then my sons and daughters married, and I have only one son and his family with me now. So I sublet.”

“They fixed it up, didn't they?”

“Oh, yes, a splendid place; with a beautiful painting in the hall. I put it inside; I didn't want to be responsible afterwards.”

“Afterwards?”

“I sublet,” said Mr. Spitano with some pride, “to Mr. G. K. Raschner.”

“G. K. Raschner, Mr. Spitano?”

“Yes. The wine king. He knew my brother-in-law in Italy, and he often came to me here for little jobs of work; mending, pressing, even suits of clothes.”

“But, Mr. Spitano—G. K. Raschner has been dead for years.”

“Fifteen years and more,” agreed Mr. Spitano. “But the flat upstairs was kept on.”

“By the family? Do excuse me, Mr. Spitano, but I can't get it straight. Raschner had a town house here in New York, and an estate up the Hudson, and a villa at Cannes, and a little place on the Thames in England. Why should he need a flat too?”

“Just to stay overnight in sometimes, and give after-theatre parties. My wife kept up his apartment for him, and then my daughter, and now my grand-daughter takes care of it. But it's not much used any more.”

“But—do please excuse me, Mr. Spitano—Mr. Raschner only had that second wife, that he married off Broadway.”

“Yes, she was in the chorus,” said Mr. Spitano.

“And she's dead too. I read about her being killed in an automobile accident in France. Who kept the place on after that?”

“Mrs. Raschner never came here,” said Mr. Spitano.

Gamadge smiled. “Perhaps she didn't even know about the flat?”

“Oh, yes, she was at the parties before they were married. I thought some relative of hers kept the flat after Mr. Raschner died.”

“You thought…?”

Mr. Spitano hesitated. Then he said: “We didn't see Mr. Raschner often; Mr. Raschner used to leave the monthly rent in an envelope in the mailbox. If he was going abroad, he left the rent in advance; always in cash.”

“Didn't write cheques?”

“No, I never saw a cheque of Mr. Raschner's. The money has always been there in the mailbox, just the same, since he died.”

Gamadge studied Mr. Spitano with interest. “You mean you actually never
saw
the new tenant, Mr. Spitano?”

Mr. Spitano shrugged slightly. “Maria gets a note under the door when the flat has been used; very, very seldom now. She goes up and cleans—just a few glasses to wash, once or twice the bed made. She cleans the whole apartment twice a year, she takes care of everything—all Mr. Raschner's beautiful things. They are just as they used to be, when Mr. Raschner brought in caterers and his own butler, and gave the big suppers. I asked him not to leave silver, only plate, beautiful plate it is. But he laughed; he said burglars wouldn't come to this address, and nobody but his own friends knew he had a place here.”

“And being your sublet, it was all your own business. I see.”

“Good business,” said Mr. Spitano. “The rents go up, go down; but that two hundred a month for the rooms and service—it has always come.”

“I don't blame you for wanting to keep your tenant, Mr. Spitano.”

Spitano hesitated again. Then he said: “If the tenant wants to put the flat on the market, I won't object. It's a responsibility, I won't live forever; the house might come down—they're talking about all kinds of improvements since the elevated went. What would I do with the furniture up there, the paintings and the plate?”

“What, indeed, if you can't communicate with your sublet?”

“I can't even reduce the rent,” said Mr. Spitano plaintively, “and I would reduce it for a good tenant now.”

“Well, I'll certainly go back to these agents and get more information; but I do wish we could see the place first, before we do anything more. Suppose we didn't feel that it would suit us? And you'd want to leave a note for the tenant, wouldn't you, in case it did suit us?”

Mr. Spitano said that the sublet hadn't been in, so far as he knew, all summer, and might not be in again for months. “I knew it was some friend of Mr. Raschner's,” he said. “I was used to taking in Mr. Raschner's rent, it seemed just the same to go on taking in the sublet's rent. But it isn't so satisfactory any more. I wouldn't like my family to have any troubles if I died.”

“Then you'll take us up to look at the place, Mr. Spitano? Save us an extra trip if we find it is for rent?”

Mr. Spitano turned his head and summoned an invisible person whom he addressed as Maria.

Maria was a pleasant young woman in her Sunday best. She went and got her keys, the party trooped upstairs, and Mr. Spitano pished at the lack of light. Maria went back and got another bulb.

When Mr. Spitano saw the scratches around the lock of the Raschner door he pished again.

Maria said: “They weren't here when I put up the curtains three weeks ago, Grandpa.”

“Now they've found their way,” said Gamadge, “let's hope they won't come often.”

“We never had a burglar,” said Mr. Spitano. “It's too much responsibility.”

Maria said demurely that the sublet was so nice, always left her a nice present and didn't make any trouble.

“It's too long,” said Mr. Spitano. “Fifteen years is too long.”

Maria inserted her key and pushed open the door. The little hall-way was like the one below, but only in extent and plan; it was papered in red stamped velvet, there was a parquet flooring, and along the parquet lay a runner soft to the feet. Maria turned on a light with a red silk shade; its wall bracket was an old gilt sconce, probably Florentine. The ceiling had been painted in the Italian manner with plenty of silver and gold, and—shutting off any view of the flat beyond—a red velvet portière hung to the floor.

“Perfectly obvious,” said Gamadge, “that it's a splendid place.”

“Just wait,” said Maria, drawing back the portière. “Just wait and see.”

G
AMADGE AND MALCOLM
walked ahead of the Spitanos into a corner room so large that Mr. Spitano had to explain it. Mr. Raschner, he said, had removed partitions.

“There is only this room and a little bedroom,” he said, “and a pantry-kitchen and bath. Just right for a bachelor.
Two
bachelors.”

Maria turned on red-shaded lights to display more of the cut-velvet crimson wallpaper, which was without other blemish than a few streaks of fading. Four long windows, two at the front and two at the side, were hung with long, padded, crimson-velvet curtains, each curtain decorated waist-high by a twelve-inch monogram in gold thread. The same monogram—
G.K.R
.—had been woven into the fitted crimson carpet, and was repeated on the velvet backs of the carved-oak chairs.

Everything was big and ornate, from the furniture—round dining-table, sideboard, chest, tabourets and chairs—to the plated-silver water pitcher and goblets on the buffet. Everything was a reproduction of a good antique model, and had cost money. There was a Turkish corner, a broad and low divan under a canopy. Maria turned on the perforated brass lamp under the canopy, to display the oriental splendour of the big, scratchy pillows—silk and satin, little mirror span-gles, gilt braid. She plumped up an immense velvet pillow with
G.K.R
. on it in tarnished galloon.

“Magnificent,” said Gamadge. “But what a lot of work for you, Maria.”

“My husband helps me. Not much dirt gets in here.”

Malcolm was wandering about looking at art objects—a big Buddha with an incense burner in front of him, gold-framed copies of Italian old masters; a lamp made of coloured glass, a Chinese tub on a lacquer stand, from which rose an artificial palm. “No wonder Raschner wasn't afraid of burglars,” he said. “He spent a lot of money, but nobody except a theatrical supply house would have any use for any of this now.”

Maria went over to a window and drew back a curtain to show off the long lace drapery beneath. “Grandma used to launder them herself,” she said. “I have to send them out. They're as good as new.”

“Only six dining chairs,” remarked Gamadge. “Mr. Raschner's little suppers were very intime.”

“But the best caterers brought them,” said Spitano. “Such terrapin, such sorbets, such champagne—Mr. Raschner always had a vintage champagne set aside for his parties. And afterwards, nothing taken away. Such good things left for the children! Cakes and bonbons, spun-sugar ice-cream nests, crackers and fancy mottoes. This tenant—no; we never have caterers on the stairs nowadays.”

“It's really extraordinary, Mr. Spitano, that none of you has ever laid eyes on the tenant.”

“Well, why? The sublet comes after we are all in bed—late, very late. The sublet goes next afternoon, when we are all busy.”

“I see.” Gamadge looked about him. “Closet space here?”

“No, none,” said Maria, crossing to an arched door. “All the closets are in the bedroom or kitchen. Here is the kitchen.”

“Not modern,” said Mr. Spitano, “I won't say it's modern, and if ice was wanted our iceman would have to supply ice—as he did for Mr. Raschner; but ice is not wanted.”