The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries (78 page)

She saw a beauty shop around the bend of the corridor, walked into it. The woman proprietor was just putting her hat on.

“I’m
so
sorry.” Sandra turned on the utmost persuasiveness of her velvety eyes. “Can you give me a manicure? It’s something special.”

The woman sighed, took off her hat. Sandra was hardly seated at the little table when she reeled irregularly, clutched her head.

“I’m awfully dizzy. I don’t – Could I—”

“Here, dearie, here’s the key to the washroom.”

Sandra went out, unlocked it, shot the bolt in the door. She left it that way, came back looking considerably refreshed, and had her manicure. When it was over, she went directly to the washroom, went in, reversed the bolt so as to lock herself in. Then she waited. She heard the woman fussing around to close up, the jingle of her keys in the door, her echoing steps toward the elevator.

Sandra composed herself for a long wait. Dusk faded into night and the fire escape outlined outside the washroom window blotted into the general blackness. Little by little all sounds in the building diminished, spaced themselves farther and farther apart, died away entirely.

In the darkness the whole hideous affair seemed to throb in pulsing outline in her head. It was so clear! So perfectly clear! That one revealing move – done right in front of her – that one act that gave everything away! How had she missed it at the time? Now it seemed to stand out like a headlight. Her racing mind thought back to that sentence of Captain Corrigan’s that had jarred realization to her. Yes, why did Dow help the murderer with one hand, harm him with the other? Because he
had
to! That had flashed the truth to her – the truth at least in her own mind, the answer that she had leaped to arrow-swift, with a woman’s cut – the-corners rapidity, complete disregard of details. The old man had been murdered. By oxalic acid – by a corrosive poison that he didn’t take-by an inexplicable means! Yet it was so fantastically simple! But what a chance the murderer had taken! Except that of course it would be taken for suicide, normally, for the old man would have been found dead, alone somewhere by himself. When Dow had come up to the office the preparations had been set, ready, the murder an inevitable, imminent fact – and Dow had coolly thrown a monkey wrench into them. He was playing a game of his own, playing a gambit against the murderer; and she – her breath came quick-she was playing a gambit against them both.

Why? Her brown eyes rolled sideways. It wasn’t too late to go back. It was absolute, mad folly, what she was doing. She could still slip down out of the building, tell the watchman—

No. She shook her head. What was she doing it for? For a feverish little waif lying in pain in a clinic, a little laughing-eyed boy who had no part in anything, who had been thrown under this murder juggernaut, crushed beneath it.

Upstairs – she sank her teeth hard in her lip-in Suite 405–406, was the crux of the whole thing. It
must
be. In there, in those two rooms,
something
must remain, perhaps a bottle of oxalic acid, perhaps— She didn’t know. If she could get in, get out, in five minutes she might have the evidence in her hand.

Down the corridor she heard a new, ascending, plodding step. She heard the loud clearing of an old throat, the snap of light switches. That would be the watchman. Motionless, guarding her breath, she heard his raspings and hawkings make the tour of the whole building, return with the creaking yawn of the elevator to the lobby. She heard him drag a chair along the floor, settle himself before the door.

Then, and only then, Sandra groped out of the washroom. The hall was pitch-black. She slipped the catch, let the washroom door softly close. Quietly, gliding like a wraith, she went up the rear stairway. She knew where Rooms 405–406 were, by her preliminary tour. They were hardly twenty feet from the stairhead, on a corner, one room on each side. But as she turned the stairhead, she stopped abruptly. Light was coming through the door of 405.

Someone was there! This cut the ground from under her feet. On the glass oblong she could see the words: “Private-Entrance 406.” She stood motionless. Who was there? What was—

She heard the echoing scrape of a chair, the booming sound of the watchman’s voice. He was talking to someone below. Their conversation was too distorted by echo to follow.

The elevator began its yawning ascent. Sandra flattened to the wall, immersed in shadow by the stairway as in a well. The door clanged open; she saw a fan of light, the watchman’s face, a figure emerging. It stepped very quickly out, but Sandra recognized the brilliant black eyes, the flashy brunet prettiness, of Marceline!

Marceline! Coming up to Suite 405–406! Sandra felt a kind of explosion in her mind. What had she bagged here? Almost before she caught her breath, Marceline was inside, not by the entrance door, but by the very door marked “Private”. Sandra was watching. Voices began immediately inside. Loud, excited-one of them. The other – Sandra froze – was the bland, oily tone of Dow!

Dow – with Marceline! Sandra’s pulse clipped off for an instant, began going like a trip hammer. The door clanged, the elevator began its yawning descent. It was now or never. Sandra slipped out, darted to the door, listened.

Marceline’s voice came very clear. It was passionate, savage.

“What does this mean to me?”

“Much, dear lady.” Dow’s voice had that mocking silkiness that made leap into the mind his moon-round face, his slit-creased, almond eyes. “Why did you come here? Why did you come, for a telephone call merely naming this place? I see you are well acquainted here. Too well acquainted. Do not blanch so, dear lady. I understand. I understand completely. Come, calm yourself, please sit down, let us talk.”

Sandra could not detect the quality of Marceline’s voice. It was too low. “What do you want?”

“First let us look calmly at what I hold in my hand. It is very old-fashioned. Perhaps you do not recognize it. But I see you do. It has been among your father’s possessions a long time; you have seen it many times over many years. Only, dear lady, I turn it over slightly, and you see it is not quite the same. Not the original. A beautiful copy.” His voice fleered. “Why not? I made it myself. Now you understand, perhaps, a certain reckless action of mine last evening.”

Marceline’s voice was like a physical shudder.

“You horrible fiend.”

“Not at all. Such a pretty thing, to me, for example. What is it, so small, so bright, that I turn thus in my palm and let the light fall upon? Why, it is the whole murder. I turn it so; you look where I point to—”

His voice stopped on a rising note. There was an instant’s silence, then his voice flowed on. “Control yourself, dear lady. It is a shock. I see you understand. You clutch your throat, you look around, you see how the preparations were made. It was very simple. There, in that very chair, he sat. Yesterday there was no assistant, or, shall we say, I was the assistant. I held it, so. I passed it across, saying: ‘What a beautiful repair!’ And it is done, so, in the twinkling of an eye, without noise or fanfare, a simple, innocent—”

A low sound came from Marceline like the cry of an animal. There was a rush, a scuffling, a gasped: “Give it to me!”

“Not quite so fast, dear lady.” Dow’s oily voice hardly faltered. “It is my whole purpose to give it to you – for a price.”

“What price?”

The bland voice was like honey. “Now that you are a rich woman, much money is accessible to you. Ten thousand dollars will not be too much. You will have a certified check for that amount tomorrow at nine thirty. On your discretion I can count. There is so much I know, you see, so much you did not tell the police.”

Marceline said in a terribly altered voice: “Is that all?”

“That is all, dear lady, until the morning.”

Marceline came out so precipitately she almost smashed the door into Sandra’s face. Sandra reeled flat to the wall. Marceline didn’t look back. She went down the corridor almost at a run.

The lights went out. Dow was coming out. Sandra started back toward the staircase, froze. She saw, vague in the darkness, a blank bulk standing at the head of the stairs.

Sandra’s heart seemed to leap out of her mouth like a jackrabbit. Pure primordial instinct, the kind that freezes animals into replicas of posts, of weed clumps, glued her like an integral part of the darkness to the wall. She might have been a piece of the fire extinguisher whose bulging cylinder touched her forehead. A man, waiting there – for what? For her? Had he seen her?

Her eyes swung wildly. She was caught between two fires. Already Dow was coming out; she heard the pad of his feet, the door closing.

It was an interminable moment, a moment that seemed to scream in the silence with all the voices of pandemonium. Behind her was Dow, his hand on the knob; ahead was that shape, looming silent, waiting.

A voice from the stairhead said: “Dow.”

Dow whirled around. Flame roared in a blasting streak across the dark. She saw Dow leap completely across the corridor like a chimpanzee. The dark was a wild havoc of noise. The man was plunging this way. Sandra had only one way to go. She flung down the fire extinguisher, fled like an antelope over its deafening crash. She made the stairhead, flew down the staircase like a streak in blackness. She twisted into the washroom, flung up the window, and darted down the fire escape.

The sunlight gilded De Saules’ hawklike head, his back, the black spike of his beard, as he stood in the apartment lobby. His narrow eyes shifted down the line of bells, read the card opposite one: “Miss Sandra Grey.” The odor of breakfast drifted down to him through the open lobby door, muted morning noises. De Saules did not ring the bell. He lifted the topcoat on his left arm, glanced once at the bulb-like swelling, the thin tubular nose that extended one pocket. He went rapidly up the carpeted steps to Sandra’s apartment.

Sandra herself opened the door. She was ready to go out. The morning light made a halo around her trim little shako hat, touched the freshness of her face, made her eyes vividly brown, her lips as red as cyclamen. De Saules’ hat was in his hand.

“Good morning, Miss Grey. You’ll pardon such an early call? You’re going out, but may I have just a moment?”

“Of course.” Sandra’s eyes widened as she let him in. De Saules did not sit down. He stood in the center of the living room, immaculate in dove-gray tweed, perfectly poised, his cool eyes mild and disarming.

“This is rather abrupt, Miss Grey, but I am a busy man and have not much time. This will only take a moment. I have been so impressed by your splendid welfare work that I wish to make a donation to it.”

Sandra sat down. She stared at the smiling olive face, so freshly barbered, almost purringly soft. De Saules stepped across the rug. He sat very close to Sandra. It was a confidential, gliding movement.

“The size of the donation depends only upon yourself.”

Sandra was very still. It was curious, what that simple statement did to the room. One moment the air was calm, relaxed; the next bristling with tension as though electricity crackled through it.

Sandra opened her mouth. “Oh,” she said. “I understand.”

“There is only one stipulation.” De Saules’ cool eyes were very close. “That is, that you devote your attention to welfare work from now on.”

“From now on?”

The cool eyes inclined forward.

“That means, from this morning on?”

De Saules’ eyebrows rose, fell. “We understand each other perfectly, Miss Grey.”

Sandra ran her tongue between her lips. She was a fool ever to have closed the apartment door. She felt the blood pound, racing in her ears.

“And if I do not accept this – contribution?”

De Saules studied her. His eyes narrowed very slightly, as though he thought there might be some misunderstanding between them.

“Perhaps you have not seen the morning papers?”

“No.”

De Saules unfolded an edition from his pocket. The headline screamed in blackface:

Sandra’s mind went blank. A reversal of testimony! It was impossible! Impossible! Admitted he
took
the poison! What on—

De Saules’ voice cut across her stupefaction. “It happened late last night. Captain Corrigan is extremely bewildered, but he will be obliged to accept the fact.”

Sandra gasped: “All . . . all of you . . .
you
and Marceline—”

“Precisely.”

“The Chinese maid, too?”

De Saules smiled with his eyes. “In her position it is, shall we say, difficult to get another job if discharged under suspicion of murder. She is a very level-headed girl.”

Sandra managed to get the words out of her mouth.

“You want me to corroborate this absurd lie?”

“Not at all, Miss Grey.” De Saules’ tone was unruffled. “The gift – I mean the settlement gift, of course-will enable you to study conditions abroad very comfortably, even luxuriously, provided you take the boat that leaves at noon. There are excellent airplane connections which I have already arranged.”