Curtain for a Jester Page 10

  Mrs. Monteath had, as Mrs. Wilmot had said, died in a Portland hospital the morning of the twenty-ninth. She had had a heart attack at the cottage, and a second at the hospital. She had been twenty-eight years old. The Monteaths had been married only two years.

  “Things piled up on the poor guy,” Stein said.

  Weigand agreed that they had indeed. And it was, presumably, of those few tragic days in late July of 1940 that Byron Wilmot had elected to remind Monteath. Or—had he?

  “Parks have red hair?” Bill asked. “Look like this mannequin of Wilmot’s?”

  Stein had not seen the mannequin. Neither had Bill Weigand, and the Norths’ description had not been detailed—beyond the red hair. Stein went through his notes. He shook his head. Parks had been a heavy-set young man, black-haired, ruddy complexion.

  “How did they identify Parks?”

  “Prints. Oh yes—somebody who’d known him showed up. Man named”—he returned to the notes—“Behren.” He spelled it. “Alexander Behren.”

  The name meant nothing. “Have red hair?” Weigand asked, a little to his own surprise.

  “Now captain,” Stein said. “Have a heart.”

  “Right, “Bill said. “Forget it.”

  Although the afternoon was warm for so early in the spring, Martha Evitts had stood shivering in the doorway to the Norths’ apartment. She had hugged a cloth coat about her. Her face had been pale; her brown eyes inordinately large. She had said, “I had to come. I had to—” and had broken off, and swayed a little in the doorway. Pam had gone to her quickly. Martha Evitts’s body was shaking, as with the cold. But it was not cold. In the apartment it was very warm.

  “I had to come to someone,” she had said. “I’ve got to find out.”

  But Pam had told her to wait; had said she needed something hot; had got her tea, very hot, and had poured brandy into it. Martha had sat on the edge of a deep chair; the cup had trembled in her hand as she raised it to her lips. She held the cup in both hands, then, as if to warm her hands. She put the cup down and made her slender hands into fists, to bring them warmth.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I—”

  “Drink your tea first,” Pam said. “You want something else?”

  Martha shook her head. She sipped again, finished the cup, nodded when Pam offered to refill it. The second cup, laced again with brandy, did more. Color came back to Martha Evitts’s face; the hand which lifted the cup grew steadier.

  “I’ve been walking around all day,” she said then. “I—I don’t know where. I didn’t know where to go. Then I thought—she’ll know. She was there too.”

  “You mean the penthouse,” Pam said. “Yes. Oh—it was in the papers, wasn’t it?”

  Martha nodded.

  “I went there,” she said. Her voice still shook a little. She drank again from the cup. “I had a key. To take dictation, you know. And—and—”

  “I know,” Pam said. “I saw, too. You didn’t tell anybody?”

  Martha shook her head. The movement was quick. “I couldn’t,” she said. “How could I?”

  Pam merely waited.

  “He was dead then,” Martha said.

  “Yes,” Pam said. “He had been dead for—oh, for several hours.”

  “The papers said that. Didn’t they—just say that? Didn’t the police—Mrs. North. Have they arrested John?”

  “No,” Pam said. She paused. “Anyway, I don’t think—I don’t think they’ve arrested anybody.”

  “I think they have,” she said. “I’ve—I’ve been trying to find him. I have to find him. Where is he? You know. Somebody must—” She stopped. “I don’t know why I say that,” she said. “I—”

  She stopped. Her effort to gain control of herself was physical, evident in the muscles of slim hands, in the movements of facial muscles.

  “I have to tell somebody,” she said. “Not the police. Not yet. I wanted to see John first but I can’t find him. He’d be able to explain what—” She stopped again. “Mr. Wilmot had really been dead for—for a long time? When I found him?”

  “Six hours, anyway,” Pam said. “Perhaps longer. Why is it so important?”

  “I can’t—” Martha said, and again she hesitated. She leaned forward a little in the chair. “But if that’s true, I was wrong,” she said. “Wasn’t I?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Pam said. “I’m sorry. How can I?”

  “You were there after I was,” Martha said. “It must have been—oh, only a short time. Isn’t that true?”

  “Yes,” Pam said. “You came down and, because of the way you looked, I knew something must be wrong. The elevator man and I went up.”

  “You saw me come down?” Martha said. She shook her head. “I didn’t see anybody.”

  “You could have touched me,” Pam said. “I had a big package of groceries. You didn’t see me?”

  “No,” Martha said. “It doesn’t matter. You saw John too, then?”

  “Mr. Baker? No. You were by yourself. You—”

  “Not there.” Martha was impatient. “I’m getting it all mixed up. In the penthouse.”

  Pam shook her head.

  “I thought you had,” Martha said. “I kept walking around, calling John’s hotel and not getting him, calling the office and—I was sure you’d seen him. Told the police. That the police had arrested him and were—were making him talk. I—all day I’d see them—the light and—and men hitting him and—”

  “They don’t do that,” Pam said. She hesitated. “Not Bill’s people,” she said, firmly. “Mr. Baker was in Mr. Wilmot’s apartment when you went in?”

  “On the terrace,” Martha said. “Outside. Looking into the room. He must have seen me and—and I thought he had just come and found Mr. Wilmot before I did. But—but then he disappeared. I don’t know where. But if he’d just found the body and saw me he’d—he’d have come to me. Then, when he didn’t—when he just wasn’t there—I thought—Mr. Wilmot did a bad thing to us last night. A dreadful thing. John was—” She stopped.

  “Mr. Wilmot had been dead for hours when you saw Mr. Baker,” Pam said.

  “I thought that wasn’t true. But then, why did he just—leave me? Not come when—it was a shock, of course. I needed him, Mrs. North. If he had found Mr. Wilmot, and that was all, why did—why can’t I find him anywhere? Why didn’t he call the police?”

  She looked at Pam North and her big eyes were dark, demanding of reassurance.

  “Because—” Pam began, and then stopped. The girl, back now on the edge of the deep chair, waited, waited with a kind of desperation. But in the end, Pam North could only shake her head.

  It was not that there was no answer. There was an immediate answer: John Baker had not just reached the penthouse when Martha saw him there; he had not innocently found the body of his employer. He had seen Martha Evitts, had assumed that she would at once call the police; had not waited for the police. The explanation was not difficult; it was merely one she could not offer the dark-eyed young woman who sat so tensely across from her; to whom it would come, in any case, as but a confirmation of what she already desperately feared.

  The girl swayed in her chair. Pam moved to go to her, but Martha Evitts took the chair arms in her hands, and steadied herself, and said she would be all right.

  “I didn’t sleep much last night,” she said. “John took me to the apartment but I couldn’t sleep and—it’s a small apartment and two other girls share it with me. So I dressed again and went to an all-night diner and had some coffee and—and tried to get John on the telephone at his hotel. But he didn’t answer and—” She broke off. “I’m older than John,” she said. “You saw that. Too old for him. That was why—”

  “I know,” Pam said. “You’re not—it’s not just chronological.”

  “John says that,” Martha said. “Says it over and over. He wasn’t home last night, Mrs. North. This morning, I mean. I telephoned again, and it must have been four this mor
ning and they rang his room but he didn’t answer and—”

  She leaned back, suddenly. And closed her eyes. Her hands gripped tight on the arms of the chair.

  “I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m terribly afraid. They’ve arrested John.”

  “No,” Pam said.

  The girl merely shook her head.

  “No,” Pam said. “Listen to me. No. This afternoon, Mr. Baker wasn’t arrested. A few hours ago. He was in a car, driving the car. He drove out of the parking garage opposite the Algonquin and he was alone. Nobody else was in the car. He—” Pam North checked herself.

  The doorbell rang. Cats, who had withdrawn to another room on Martha Evitts’s arrival, came galloping to attend. Pam North crossed the living room, opened the door, and looked up at John Baker—at the open, youthful face of John Baker, at the smiling face.

  “Well,” Pam North said. “Of all people. No, Teeney, you cant!” She stopped the cat named Teeney with a quick, experienced foot.

  Teeney looked at Pam sharply, spoke sharply, communicated—by means not clear to humans—with her daughters. The three cats, in a line, Sherry moving like a hobby-horse, galloped from the living room.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” John Baker said. “They told me Captain Weigand might—”

  The chair in which Martha Evitts sat had presented a high back to the door. Martha came out of the chair; she crossed the room, running, almost stumbling. She said, “John! Oh, John!” She was in John Baker’s arms. “I’ve been looking everywhere,” she said, her voice muffled, her face against his coat. “I was so frightened.” Baker held her close. But he looked over her head at Pamela North and his eyes narrowed.

  His face changed then, or to Pam seemed to. It was no longer so youthful, so open. For an instant it was an older face, more experienced—and harder. But this expression—if she had not imagined it—passed quickly.

  “You didn’t need to be,” Baker told Martha. “What would happen to me?” He held her off, looked down at her, smiled. “What?” he repeated. She shook her head and smiled at him. Her smile was uncertain.

  “She thought the police might have happened to you, Mr. Baker,” Pam North said. “She thought rubber hoses and glaring lights.”

  Baker’s expression could not have been more open, more ingenuous.

  “The police?” he repeated. “Why on earth?” He looked down at the girl. “Why on earth, Martha?” he said.

  “Because she saw you in the penthouse this morning,” Pam North said. “When she found Mr. Wilmot. You were there, on the terrace.”

  John Baker stepped a little away from Martha, then. He kept an arm around her shoulders, held her lightly, emphasizing—but it seemed to Pam unconsciously emphasizing—their unity. And he said, “Oh,” in a flat voice, an entirely non-committal voice. He removed his arm, then, and turned so he faced Martha. He smiled at her again, but it was a thinner smile. (His whole face, Pam thought, had become thinner. And this time the change was not fleeting.) “Yes,” he said. “Well, I was afraid you had. I was rather afraid you had.”

  He’s not at all what I thought he was, Pam thought. Not the least bit what I thought he was. And then she thought, what he wants people to think he is.

  “You’ve told Mrs. North,” he said, still to Martha Evitts. “Anyone else, Martha?”

  There was no special feeling revealed in his voice.

  Martha shook her head, her soft brown hair swinging just a little with the movement. Her eyes were wide again, the smile was no longer on her gentle mouth. She said, “Nobody, John.”

  “You were there, then?” Pam said, and he turned to her with, apparently, a moment of surprise.

  “Of course,” he said. He smiled faintly, thinly. “Martha is a very truthful person, Mrs. North,” he said.

  “I had to tell someone,” Martha said. “I had to. I was so—so alone. So afraid.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m sorry. You needn’t have been.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right, Martha,” he said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

  But then he turned back to Pam North. He looked at her, considered her.

  “You’ve told Weigand?” he said. She shook her head. “That means, ‘not yet,’” he told her. He did not ask a question, but accepted the self-evident. There was nothing frightening in his voice, Pam told herself. There was nothing in his voice at all. I should really not be frightened, Pam North thought, and thereupon was.

  “It will be inconvenient,” he said. He smiled again, notably without warmth. “You’re rather an inconvenient person, Mrs. North.”

  “She’s kind,” Martha Evitts said. “I tell you, she’s kind. Couldn’t you tell last night when—when she understood what Mr. Wilmot had done? She won’t—”

  “Oh yes, Martha,” Baker said. “She will, of course. As soon as she can get Captain Weigand on the telephone.”

  “He’s coming here,” Pam said, quickly. “You said yourself—started to say when you first came in—that someone had told you he might be here already.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Baker said. “Well, I had to say something, Mrs. North.”

  “You didn’t come for that, then?”

  “Well,” he said, “not entirely. No. I’ve no reason to think Weigand’s coming here, at the moment.”

  “And not because Martha was here, because how could you have known?”

  He nodded.

  “Of course,” he said, “I could have been watching the building, seen her come in, come up after her to see that she didn’t—tell too much.”

  “No,” Pam said. “Because, look at the time you’d have waited and what would have been the point? I mean, there was time enough for her to tell, wasn’t there?”

  Martha looked from one of them to the other, her large eyes questioning.

  “No,” he said. “Nobody’s watching the house, so far as I know. No reason anyone should now, is there?”

  “Then?”

  “Suppose we say,” he suggested, “that I’m very concerned about Mr. Wilmot’s death—admired him a lot, you know. I’m very anxious, suppose we say, to know what’s being done to find the man who killed him. I don’t want to bother the police, who are busy men, but I remember that you and Mr. North are friends of Captain Weigand, and have—suppose we say?—been associated with him in a few cases and—”

  “Suppose,” Pam North said, “we don’t say anything of the kind, Mr. Baker?”

  “No?” Baker said. “Why not?”

  “Because it isn’t that simple,” Pam said. “Because earlier this afternoon you were following Mr. Monteath and—” She stopped, because, unexpectedly, he smiled again. It was not a cordial smile. It was, however, revealing.

  “That’s what you came to find out,” Pam said. “Whether we’d seen you following Mr. Monteath. Isn’t it?”

  “Well,” Baker said, “perhaps that, among other things. Yes. You told Weigand?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked at her, his eyes again narrowing.

  “You are a rather inconvenient person, Mrs. North,” he said. “You manage—or will manage—to focus a good deal of attention on me, I’m afraid.”

  “You don’t want that, do you?”

  “It’s inconvenient,” he said. “Not, suppose we say, according to plan. But none of it is, I’m afraid. It’s all—”

  “John!” Martha Evitts said. “You don’t—you don’t know anything about Mr. Wilmot? Tell me!”

  “Why yes,” he said, “I know quite a bit about Mr. Wilmot. But—that isn’t what you mean, is it?”

  She shook her head, the soft hair swaying.

  “No,” Baker said. “I didn’t kill him, Martha. I’d have been the last man to do that, just now.” He smiled at her, and this time smiled more gently. “Not that he’s a great loss,” he said. “To anybody.”

  “You didn’t go back to your hotel this morning,” Martha said. “I called and called. I was—you were so angry—so—so different. Because of what he di
d to us.”

  “I was,” Baker said. “That was personal, Martha. We can’t help having personal—” He stopped. “No,” he said, “I wasn’t at the hotel. I went there but—it was necessary to leave again. But I didn’t go to Wilmot’s place. Not then. I rather wish I had.”

  They both looked at him.

  “Not to kill him,” he said. “He’s no use dead.”

  “Use?” Pam North said. “No use?”

  “None at all,” Baker said. “Of course, that may have been the idea. Probably was.”

  Pam didn’t, she said, understand what he was talking about. She was told there was no reason she should; that none of it concerned her. “Directly,” John Baker added. It would be a good idea for her to remember that.

  “It would be a very good idea,” he said, and again his voice had a peculiar lack of any emphasis whatever. “You don’t want to get hurt.”

  It was not a threat; it was no more than a statement—a statement of the obvious. But detachment can, in its fashion, be threatening.

  “I—” Pam began, but John Baker did not listen. He put a hand on Martha Evitts’s arm, and the touch did not seem to be a caress. He turned her toward the door. She said, “Wait, John, we can’t—” but by then he had opened the door, was shaking his head.

  “Come on,” he said. “There’s nothing to do here.”

  Martha did not obviously hold back against the compelling hand. But Pam North felt, nonetheless, that she went reluctantly with Baker, went with doubt and in uncertainty.

  In the hall outside Baker turned to speak over his shoulder. He told Pam to take care of herself. It might have been a cliché of parting. Perhaps, Pam thought, that’s all it is.

  VII

  Thursday, 4:55 P.M. to 6:10 P.M.

  The telephone rang. Mullins reported from the Waldorf—Arthur Monteath was registered there, but did not answer his room telephone. John Baker was not to be seen in the public rooms. Should he have Monteath paged?

  “No,” Bill said. “Leave a message. Ask him to give us a ring. All very polite, sergeant. Then come in.”

  “O.K., Loot,” Mullins said. “I mean—”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Come in.”