The Scarlet Letters (12 page)

“Strong handshake, Mr. Harrison,” said Ellery, waving his fingers. “Impressive. Well, I don't want to hold you up, Martha. Happy to have met you, Mr. Harrison–”

“I wanted to talk to Mr. Harrison about a part,” said Martha pathetically. “In the play I'm doing this fall. He was kind enough to meet me–”

“Of course, Martha. See you!”

“Can I drop you off somewhere?” asked the actor, still smiling.

“No, no, don't bother. I'd only be in the way.” Ellery walked off, waving.

When he looked back, the convertible was gone.

She pressed the buzzer of the Queen apartment before ten the following morning.

“Come in, Martha,” said Ellery soberly.

She was hatless, in a housedress. It was a Bonwit's housedress, but a housedress nevertheless. She sat down on the very edge of the sofa.

“I'm supposed to be out marketing,” she said rapidly. “I can't stay. Ellery, you've got to forget you saw me yesterday with Van Harrison.” Her blue eyes were almost black this morning.

“Why?” asked Ellery.

“You know why. Dirk would–He mustn't know.”

“Oh, that. He won't learn it from me, Martha.”

She rose at once, relief written all over her. “I had to ask you. I couldn't leave it to chance. You understand that, don't you, Ellery?”

“Yes. But about the more important things I'm completely in the dark.” He made no attempt to rise.

“Ellery, I really can't stay–”

“It won't take long, Martha. Merely long enough to answer one question: Just what do you think you're doing?” Her lips receded; a total withdrawal, like the retreat of a turtle. “It isn't really as presumptuous a question as it sounds. I'm not exactly a rubberneck bystander, Martha. You came to me once–it seems a long time ago–to help you with Dirk. I didn't expect you'd do the one thing that makes help impossible.”

“I know.” The words came out of her as from a long distance. “But … there are some things you can't explain.”

“Even to me, Martha? I've listened to a great many secrets in my time. I don't recall ever having violated a confidence. I like helping people; it gives me a bonus for being. And I especially like helping people I like. I liked you very much, Martha, because I thought you were sturdy and forthright and honest. I'd like to go back to liking you–and incidentally, to avert a tragedy.”

“Just because I made a date to meet an actor in an out-of-the-way place?” He could barely make out the words. “You know why I did it, Ellery. Dirk–”

“Was it for the same reason that you met the same actor in that hotel room, and on The Bowery, and in Chinatown–and other places?”

He thought she was going to faint. She actually felt for the sofa. But then she drew herself up, her lips came together again, the dark of her blue eyes became darker; and Ellery sighed.

“Martha, I'm not sitting in judgment. I only want to help. All right, Dirk's driven you into the arms of another man. You're in love with Van Harrison, or you think you are. Maybe you went off the deep end on the rebound, after a particularly nasty set-to with Dirk. And now that you're in it … Is it that you regret the affair already but don't know how to get out of it? Harrison acting tough and your hands tied because if you break if off he may blab it around town, even fling it in Dirk's teeth? Is that it, Martha? If it is, I'll handle Van Harrison, and I guarantee that Dirk won't ever hear of it.”

“No! You stay away from him!”

“From whom, Martha?”

“From–from Van!”

“Then you are in love with him. At least tell me this, Martha: Why are you hanging on to Dirk? Are you afraid that if you asked him for a divorce–?”

“Let me alone!”

Ellery was still sitting there when the clatter of Martha's feet had died away.

He sat there for an hour, a slash of worry dividing his eyes.

Then he went to the phone and called the Lawrence apartment.

“Ellery?” It was Nikki who answered. “I … can't talk now. Dirk's up to his ears in this thing. It's really going beautifully–”

“Whenever you can, Nikki.”

Nikki arrived within the hour.

“What's the matter?” She was scared.

“Sit down, Nik.”

“But what is it?”

Ellery walked up and down as he told her of Martha's visit.

“Nikki,” he said to her upturned face, “I've spent a lot of time this morning thinking that talk over. Up to now I've been inclined to treat this business as an annoyance. I won't make that mistake from here on in. It's a lot more serious than I thought.”

“Why do you say that?
Why
more serious?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't
know
?
”
Nikki was bewildered.

Ellery went to the window and stared down at 87th Street. “Doesn't sound much like me, does it? No logic in it. No facts. Just feelings. Ghastly experience for a practical man …”

“But how could it be
more
serious?”

Ellery turned back. “Oh, in lots of ways,” he said lightly. “But let's get back on firmer ground. It's going to be a race against time. Sooner or later Dirk's bound to smell out just what's going on. He's nose-down right now. It's more than ever your job, Nikki, to fight a delaying action. He's hot on this book?”

“Yes.”

“Keep those study fires burning. Drive him. Pamper him. Flatter him–tell him he's the greatest mystery writer since Poe and that he's producing a world classic that will outlive
The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
If he has another spell and beats Martha up again, shut your eyes and stop your ears. Above all, don't give him any reason to get rid of you. If you're out of the apartment, we're through. Of course, wherever you can, cover up for Martha. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Personally,” said Ellery, “I don't give a damn about Dirk Lawrence. I'm tired of self-pitying neurotics. I'm no mental healer. Dirk's brought this on himself. If he insists on going to hell on a shingle, I'll respectfully tip my hat as he whizzes by.

“But Martha's a different story. I like her all over again. She's headed for trouble from Dirk, from Harrison, from God knows whom else or what. I want to help her more than ever and she's going to get help whether she wants it or not.”

“Thank you,” whispered Nikki.

“And there's only one way we can help her–by breaking up this dirty business with Harrison. Crack it wide open and manage to do it without letting it get back to Dirk.”

“But how, Ellery? Even if you broke it up, how could you shut Harrison's mouth?”

“That little problem,” said Ellery, “is what I propose to go to work on, effective immediately.”

H· I· J· K·

That afternoon Ellery telephoned Leon Fields's office.

“Mr. Fields isn't here. Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Queen?”

“Who is this speaking?”

“Mr. Fields's secretary.”

“Miss Loughman?”

“That's right.”

“Where can I get in touch with Leon, Miss Loughman? It's important.”

“I really couldn't say. Is this a confidential matter?”

“Extremely.”

“Well, I handle a great many of Mr. Fields's confidential matters, Mr. Queen–”

“I'm sure you do, Miss Loughman, but this isn't going to be one of them. Where is he, at 88th Street off Madison?”

There was a silence. Then the woman said, “Hold on a minute.”

Ellery held on.

Three minutes later the columnist's jarring voice said, “Don't do that, Ellery. Your geography question had Harriet changing her panties. That's supposed to be top-secret stuff. What's on your mind?”

“Is it safe to talk?”

“On my phone? Listen, chum, I'm on automatic wiretap-testing service. They check every hour on the hour. Shoot.”

“Well, have you thought about it?”

“Have I thought about what?”

“What you said you were going to think about. Just before our parting kiss that night.”

“You mean Harrison?” An unpleasant flatness came into Fields's voice. “Yes, I've thought about it.”

“And?”

“I don't know yet.”

“You don't know what yet?”

“Whether I've thought about it enough. Look, Ellery, I'm in a hurry. I'm packing to fly out to Hollywood. Why don't you call me when I get back?”

“When will that be?”

“Two-three weeks.”

“I can't wait that long, Leon!”

“My friend,” said Leon Fields softly, “you've got to wait that long.”

He hung up.

Ellery wasted no time thinking unkind thoughts of Leon Fields. Fields was a law unto himself, not subject to the pressures of ordinary men. If Fields said, “Wait,” you waited. Usually, it turned out to be well worth waiting for.

Ellery saw no point in moving to the direct assault on Van Harrison until he had in hand the force and armament to impress his will, as the military said, upon the enemy. What he was hoping for from Fields was a weapon. The fact that it was a secret weapon made its acquisition doubly desirable.

Meanwhile, he could only keep up with the lovers between largely futile attacks on his work. His desk was piled high with unanswered correspondence, unread manuscripts submitted to
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
, and the cryptic notes on his new novel which were so old that even he could no longer decipher them.

He followed Martha to Central Park West and 81st Street and saw her meet Harrison at the Hayden Planetarium. He felt rather bitter about their behavior on that occasion. They went inside to view the evening performance. In the dark they watched the artificial stars, and Ellery was not touched.

They left separately, and they went in different directions. Apparently Martha dared risk only the time for an astronomy lesson.

The following week, as if to preserve the mood of space and flight, they met at the Idlewild airport in Queens. The wind of a departing plane whipped Martha's skirts about prettily as her lover embraced her. She was nervous, and pulled away and looked around as usual; and he, as usual jaunty, laughed and kissed her and away they went in his convertible–away to lower Connecticut, to a country road with a beautiful house at the end of it, overlooking a slough of the Sound, with evergreens sighing all around like envious neighbors. And the actor carried Martha Lawrence over his threshold as if she were his bride, and Ellery–watching from the protection of a typical Connecticut boulder–backed his car around and drove off with a sickness in him.

In the third week he telephoned Leon Fields's office again. Mr. Fields was still on the Coast, reported Miss Loughman. No, she had had no word of the exact day of his return, but if Mr. Queen would care to call again on Friday …

Mr. Queen would, and did, and on Friday Miss Loughman informed him that Fields had flown to Mexico City on a hot tip involving a well-known crusader for good government and a matter of a highly aromatic eighty-five thousand dollars, and no, she didn't know when he would be back. He had said something over the phone about possibly having to hop over to Havana for a few days.

And Ellery ground his teeth down another millimeter and tried to console himself with the fact that Dirk Lawrence was working at a furious pace, with not a loud whisper of his jealousy disturbing the ménage.

Martha, too, was busy these days. She had completed casting of the Greenspan play and rehearsals had begun in one of the empty theaters on West 45th Street.

Van Harrison was not in the cast. All the roles were female except one, that of a boy of ten.

She was a thinner and quieter Martha, with a whip in her voice. One Broadwayite, after watching her run a rehearsal, reported at Sardi's that “Martha's found herself as a director. Something's happened to her–thank God.” The memory of her first two productions was still bilious green in Shubert Alley. It began to get about that Martha had a hit in the offing, and everyone hoped emotionally that she might make back some of the fortune she had sunk in
All Around the Mulberry Bush
and Alex Conn's stinker.

Still, Martha found time to slip away, in the fourth week of Leon Fields's absence, to Jones Beach, where Ellery watched her somberly from the promenade through field glasses. She lay under a red umbrella with Harrison. Her bathing suit revealed a streamlined Martha, with all of the comfortable upholstery of her early marital years stripped away. She was almost thin. Ellery was not sure he liked her that way. A thin cherub sang no paeans. There was something sad about her figure.

Harrison was in a handsome bronze beach robe, his throat swathed in a royal-blue scarf. This concession to vanity was a matter of simple prudence; he would hardly put himself on exhibition before her against a foreground of all these hard flat young male bodies. But when Martha dashed off to plunge into the sea, he removed the robe, dropped robe and scarf under the umbrella, and lumbered into the water. Ellery followed him remorselessly with the glasses. Harrison undressed was a sight. His skin with its sunlamp tan was flabby, he had a paunch, the hair on his chest was gray, and his legs showed clots of varicose veins. While Martha dived and swam like a porpoise, Harrison paddled about dog-fashion, his chin rigidly above water. He had, of course, to keep his toupee dry.

Ellery entered all the facts in his little book, adding
J
to his alphabet and wondering why he was keeping the record at all.

And in the fifth week, with Fields in Miami– “He has a lot of friends down there among the permanent residents,” as Miss Loughman put it–Martha and her lover lunched at crowded Keen's English Chop House on West 36th Street as if their love were licit.

“I can't wait for Fields any longer,” Ellery told Nikki. “They're getting more and more careless, and we can't expect this sweet obliviousness of Dirk's to last forever. I've got to tackle Harrison.”

It was a Sunday morning, and Ellery called Harrison's Darien number with the gloomy confidence of a man entirely familiar with the weekend habits of actors. To his surprise, there was no answer. He tried again an hour later, thinking that Harrison might be sleeping off a Saturday night. But there was still no answer, and none an hour after that.

Then he remembered how the great Van Harrison was keeping his oar in, and he phoned Radio Registry, leaving his number.

His telephone rang twenty minutes later.

“Van Harrison speaking,” said the rich, pear-shaped tones. “I have a message to call this number. Who is this, please?”

“This is Ellery Queen.”

There was a silence.

“Oh, yes,” said Harrison pleasantly. “We met outside a tomb. What can I do for you, Queen?”

“I want to see you.”

“To see me? Whatever for?”

“Put your mind to it, Harrison. What are you doing today?”

“I haven't said I'd see you.”

“Would you rather see Dirk Lawrence?”

“Not that,” moaned the actor. “Spare me, buddy. Of course I'll see you. In hell, or anywhere you like.”

“Are you free right now?”

“I am not, Mr. Queen. I was good enough today to come to the aid of a friend of mine–poor wight–eking out his miserable existence as a director of radio dramas. Some idiot got the bellyache and had to bow out of tonight's cast. Consequently I am in rehearsal, and I am calling from the studio during a ten-minute break. Now would you like to know what size bloomers I wear?”

“When do you get off the air?” asked Ellery.

“At seven-thirty.”

“Which studio, Harrison? I'll meet you there.”

“You'll do nothing of the sort. A young lady who thinks she's an actress, and has convinced several directors of same while on an Ostermoor, is likewise in the cast of this dramaturgical turd, and since she resides in Stamford, I have contracted at great personal inconvenience to drive her home after the alleged performance. I scarcely think our conversation–yours and mine–will be suitable for a young maiden's ears. I'll be home about nine o'clock, Queen–I take it you've sniffed out where I live.” There was a contemptuous click.

Ellery was waiting outside the glittery Darien house when the red Cadillac convertible slid up the lane.

Harrison was alone.

He got out carefully and came up the stone steps bringing with him a fragrance of bourbon. He did not offer to shake hands. He began to fumble for a key.

“It's my Jap's day off or you wouldn't have had to park on the lawn. Waiting long?” It was almost ten o'clock.

“It doesn't matter.”

His hat had a dent in the crown and there was a smear of lipstick under his right ear.

“I couldn't get away from the little bitch. Hottest thing since Hiroshima. I'm really put out with you, Queen. Come in.” Harrison touched a switch.

The living room was typical of the more luxurious Darien waterfront houses, big and arty and full of gleams on the side facing the Sound. There was a large terrace beyond, and an immaculate lawn going down to the slough. The lawn was set with wrought-iron furniture wearing a W. & J. Sloane look. A stainless-steel barbecue on wheels was drawn up under a grove of dogwood trees, and a portable bar littered with glassware and empty bottles.

The room was really two rooms with the common wall left out–a sunken living room and a dining room beyond on a higher level. There were brown beams showing adz marks, a magnificent fieldstone fireplace, and a precious-looking staircase marching up one wall. The furniture was California modern, rugged-looking pieces selected for their masculine air. The doweled wideboard floors were polished to a shine and covered with brilliant Navajo rugs. Everything looked expensive.

The walls were cluttered with photographs, most of them of a younger and leaner Harrison in portrait or costume, the remainder being of theatrical people, uniformly autographed to Harrison.

“Forgive the disorder,” said the actor, tossing his hat in the general direction of the dining-room table. “These are bachelor digs, and contrary to the popular conception of Jap servants, Tama is no bargain, as you can see. But he mixes a fabulous martini and he's a wonderful cook. A drab wanders in twice a week and waves a cloth vaguely here and there to supplement Tama's tireless lethargy. And now for a drink, if Gladiola, or Hyacinth, or whatever her foul name is, has seen fit to leave any in the bar. She was here this morning.”

“No one answered your phone.”

“She ignores the phone. I suspect she can't write.” Harrison rummaged in the redwood bar set in one corner. “Damn Tama! I told him to replenish the cellar before he left. A party last night cleaned me out.” He held two bottles up to the light. “There's a suspicion of vermouth, and the whisky is dangerously near the vanishing point, but I think I can manage a few manhattans. I'll get some ice.” He disappeared through a swinging door at the dining-room end of the long room.

Ellery waited patiently.

Harrison came back with a pitcher containing some ice cubes and a muddler, and two clean cocktail glasses. He set about mixing the manhattans, whistling bird calls.

“And there we are,” he said cheerily, handing Ellery a glass. “Now. What's troubling your soul, Queen?”

Ellery put the glass down on an end table, untouched.

“What do you intend to do about Martha?”

Harrison laughed. He drank half his cocktail and said, “None of your unmentionable business. I think that covers all the possible corollary questions, too, old boy. But if you have any doubts, ask away.”

“Do you realize what you're letting yourself in for?”

A telephone rang. Harrison said, “Excuse me,” politely, and he took his drink over to the big trestle-table standing behind the sofa. He sat on the sofa arm and plucked the phone from its cradle. “Hello?” He took another sip.

The glass remained at his lips for a moment. Then he slowly set it down. “Well, I'll tell you, darling, I can't very well just now. I'm not alone.”

Martha?

“Yes, the appointment I mentioned.”

Martha.

“But my sweet–”

She was speaking very rapidly in tones that vibrated the membrane.

“Take it easy, darling,” said Harrison soothingly. “There's nothing to worry about–”

Again.

“But I can't very well–”

And again.

“All right.” Harrison's tone sharpened. “It'll take me about ten minutes. What's the number?” He scribbled something on a telephone pad as he listened, tore the top sheet away, stuffed it in his pocket. “Right.” He replaced the phone and rose, smiling. “I take it you insist on making your point, Queen, whatever it is?”