The Dishonest Murderer Page 17

  “Happened?” Freddie said. “Nothing’s happened, Fay. We wanted to see Breese, but she isn’t home.”

  “Then something has happened,” Fay Burnley said. “Oh—my baby!”

  It was odd to hear Breese Burnley called a baby, even by her mother. It was, for some reason, rather touching.

  “She must be here,” Fay Burnley said, and moved a step or two so that she could reach out and press the little button above her daughter’s name. She pressed it and, as if the identity of the finger would make a difference, all three turned toward the door and waited. But nothing happened.

  “What makes you afraid something’s happened, Fay?” Freddie Haven said. “She’s—she’s just out somewhere.”

  “We’ll go in,” Fay said. She began to search through her bag, evidently for a key. It took her time, the key seemed to elude her hurrying fingers, to secrete itself in the depths of the bag. But then she drew it out, and unlocked the inner door. “She was coming to the hotel,” Fay said, over her shoulder, going in. “We were going to have dinner together. I waited and—and waited.” She started to climb the stairs.

  Celia seemed to hesitate, and Freddie said, “Come on, Ce,” and they went in after Fay Burnley. They climbed after her, one flight and another flight. The same key unlocked a door with a number on it, opening off a corridor on the third floor.

  The apartment was dark and before she went in Fay, evidently knowing its location, reached around the door jamb and flicked a light switch. Light came from a bowl in the ceiling, fell softly on a room which looked like an hotel room, which had two windows at one end, opening on an iron balcony, evidently a disguised fire escape landing. The room was very neat, very empty. No—it was not entirely neat. On a coffee table by the sofa there was a highball glass, emptied, abandoned.

  The apartment was small—the living room, a bedroom which was little more than an alcove, a kitchenette which was immaculate and seemed little used. But on the top of the icebox there was a bottle half full of scotch, and a larger bottle, less than half full, of charged water. The bathroom, tiny, seemed more lived in. There were drops of water on the shower curtains, there was tinted bath powder spilled on a dampened bath mat, a big towel on its rack was damp to the touch.

  “She isn’t here,” Fay Burnley said, as if her daughter’s absence were a new, unanticipated fact. “She isn’t here, Freddie. Something has happened.”

  “Fay,” Freddie said. “Don’t get so—so excited. She’s just gone out somewhere. You and she misunderstood each other about dinner. She’s—she’s just out.” Freddie looked at her watch. “After all,” she said, “it isn’t even midnight.”

  “But don’t you see?” Fay said. “She was going to have dinner with me. At the Chatham. I waited and waited. I kept trying to get her on the ’phone. Where is she?”

  There was no use answering; there was nothing to answer. Freddie looked at Fay and smiled. The smile was meant to be reassuring. But Fay Burnley looked at her blankly. Why, Freddie thought, she’s really upset, terribly upset.

  Fay Burnley did not look like her daughter, now. The blue eyes were not, now, bright at all; there were lines in her face. She looked very tired. As mustn’t we all, Freddie thought, and was glad there was no mirror in which to see herself.

  “She would have let me know,” Fay said, jumping at the final word in that odd way of hers, almost as if she were a cat pouncing. “Don’t you see?”

  I’m too tired to go on with this, Freddie thought. I’m just too tired. I—

  Then a buzzer sounded loud in the apartment. The sound came twice. “Over there,” Fay said, and Freddie found and pressed the button which released the downstairs lock.

  “It isn’t Breese,” Fay Burnley said. “She wouldn’t—” The sound seemed to have frightened her. After a long minute, there was a knock at the door. It was Freddie who crossed the living room and opened the door.

  Sergeant William Blake was standing there. He was very tall, she thought. He was also, at the first moment, surprised.

  “Well,” he said, “so this is where you are.”

  He said it only to her; the words were ordinary, but the tone was personal. He seemed pleased, and relieved.

  “Why, yes, Mr. Blake,” Freddie said. “But why—”

  “We’ve been looking for you,” he said, and then, at the expression on her face, went on quickly. “Nothing’s happened, Mrs. Haven. We just wanted to find you. You and Miss Kirkhill.” He smiled. “The lieutenant got worried about you,” he said. “About your—wandering around.”

  He came into the room. He said, “We just wanted to know where you were.” He looked around the room. “Miss Burnley not at home?” he asked.

  Freddie shook her head.

  “Why?” she said. “Why were you trying to find us? How did you know we weren’t—that we’d gone out at all?”

  He looked at her. He seemed amused.

  “Now Mrs. Haven,” he said. “We try to keep an eye on things. We don’t—don’t want anything to happen to you.” He paused, amplified. “To any of you,” he said.

  “My daughter,” Fay Burnley said. “Something’s happened to her.”

  “Happened to her?” Blake repeated, and the smile left his face. His face seemed to grow tighter. “What do you mean, Mrs. Burnley?”

  Fay Burnley told him, pouncing on the words.

  “She says it was a misunderstanding,” Fay said, indicating Freddie with a movement of her head. “But it was perfectly clear. She was coming to the hotel about seven-thirty and we were going to have dinner and then we were coming back here.”

  “And she didn’t get in touch with you?”

  “Not a word,” Fay said. “Not a word. And I kept calling and she didn’t answer.”

  Blake stood for a moment, looking at her. Then he turned to Celia, to Freddie.

  “You just came over to—to call on Miss Burnley?” he said. “Without telephoning or anything? Or—did you have some reason to think she’d be here?”

  Freddie shook her head. “We should have telephoned,” Celia said. “We just—” She stopped. Sergeant Blake waited, pointedly, for her to go on. She looked at Freddie Haven.

  “We wanted to see her,” Freddie said. “To—to talk to her. But she wasn’t home. We were in the vestibule downstairs, just about to go and—and Mrs. Burnley came.”

  Blake looked at her; again there was a kind of insistence about his waiting.

  “That’s all,” she said. “That’s really all.”

  “You didn’t come up?” he asked. “Before you met Mrs. Burnley?” His expression was grave, a little worried. He didn’t want to ask that, Freddie thought. “I have to ask that,” he said.

  She shook her head. He looked at her a moment longer, then he nodded. He said, “Right. Of course” and then, “Wait a minute, will you?” He looked around the living room, his eyes intent, as if he were seeing the room so that, if it became necessary, he could sketch it from memory. He went into the kitchen, was gone a moment; came out and went into the little bedroom and the bath which adjoined it. He was gone a longer time. When he returned, there was nothing to be read in his face.

  “There’s no sign of—anything,” he told Fay Burnley. “She bathed, had a drink, went out. Nothing to indicate that anything else happened.” He gave her a chance to speak, but she merely looked at him. “It’s probably as Mrs. Haven says,” he went on. “A mixup about dates. Perhaps she’s trying to get you at your hotel.”

  “You’re just going to let it go at that?” Fay said. There was incredulity in her tone.

  “Yes,” he said. “For the moment. Unless you want to make a formal report that she’s missing.” He smiled. “After all, Mrs. Burnley,” he said. “You’re worked up, you know. Understandably. But you’re magnifying this, don’t you think?” His voice was persuasive. Freddie saw doubt in Fay Burnley’s eyes.

  “Of course, she could have misunderstood,” Fay said. The admission was reluctant.

  “Of course
,” Blake said. “I’ll tell you, Mrs. Burnley. Why not go back to the hotel? As I said, she may be trying to get you there. Leave a note here for her, go on back. Of course, if she doesn’t show up in a few hours—but I’m certain she will.”

  Fay Burnley hesitated. She looked questioningly at the tall detective, and he nodded, slowly.

  “Well—” Fay said. “Well, all right.” She turned to Celia. “Dear,” she said. “You look so tired. Why don’t you come back with me?” She turned to Freddie. “Shouldn’t she, Freddie?” Fay asked, and nodded quickly. “Anyway,” she said, again to Celia, “all your things are there.”

  Celia hesitated, but more, Freddie thought, from weariness than from indecision.

  “She has a room at the Chatham, next to mine,” Fay Burnley said to Blake, who said, “Yes, I know.” “It was just simpler for her to stay at Freddie’s last night after—”

  “I know,” Blake said again.

  “All right,” Celia said, in a voice too weary to be like her own, almost too weary to be young. “I guess so.”

  She went with Fay Burnley, after Blake had promised, more than once, that they would find Breese if she were really missing. Blake closed the door behind them. “Give Mrs. Burnley something else to think about,” he said. “Having Miss Kirkhill with her, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Freddie said. Her own voice was tired; Blake appeared to notice it. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “you ought to be at home yourself. Sleeping.” He paused. “What did you want to ask Miss Burnley?” he said.

  “Whether—” Freddie said, and stopped. He waited. But this time there was no pressure in his waiting. He smiled down at her. There was, Freddie thought, friendliness in his face.

  “Whether she met Bruce,” she said. “Yesterday. Celia heard from him yesterday morning. She thinks—”

  She told him what Celia thought might have been the implications in what Bruce Kirkhill had said. Repeating it, she felt again that she had built on nothing. But Blake, his face serious now, and interested, nodded as she spoke.

  “You thought Miss Burnley might have met the senator?” he said. He hesitated. “Why, Mrs. Haven?”

  Now she shook her head slowly.

  “You know,” she said, “I don’t know. I just—just wanted—” She broke off. She looked up at him. “I guess I really don’t know,” she said. “I was just grasping at something. At—anything. Mr. Blake, do you know what—what it’s all about? What’s happening?”

  He shook his head. For a moment he was not a policeman, for that moment he was merely another person, seemingly as puzzled, at as much of a loss, as she.

  “Come,” he said, “I’ll take you home, Mrs. Haven. There’s nothing you can do—”

  And then someone knocked quickly on the apartment door. Blake opened it. Howard Phipps looked at them, and blinked.

  “Oh,” Phipps said. “I—has something happened to Miss Burnley?”

  He was as neatly dressed as always, as impeccable as always. The events of the past twenty-four hours seemed to have left little mark on him. Perhaps the small lines in his carefully shaven face were a little deeper than they usually were, perhaps there was weariness around the eyes. And I, Freddie thought, I feel as if I had been pulled through a knot-hole; I must look as if I had been.

  Howard Phipps touched his smoothly brushed hair, smoothed it further. But there was anxiety in his face.

  “Has something happened?” he repeated, when he was not immediately answered.

  “Why no, Mr. Phipps,” Blake said. “No. Not that we know of.” Blake spoke slowly, almost tentatively. “What makes you think something has happened?”

  “Your being here, for one thing,” Phipps said. Blake smiled and shook his head. “Her not being.”

  “After all, Mr. Phipps,” Blake said. “It’s only a little after midnight. Not late for Miss Burnley. Or, I shouldn’t think so.” There was interrogation in the last sentence. Did Mr. Phipps think so?

  Phipps nodded, but not with conviction. His agreement was to a statement in the abstract. He seemed to think something over, reach a decision.

  “She telephoned me,” he said. “About—oh, about twenty minutes ago. Asked me to come here. She made it sound urgent. Now, she’s not here.”

  He moved further into the room; he looked around it, as if to verify Breese Burnley’s absence.

  “I’d worked all evening,” he said. “I’d turned in. Just fallen asleep. Naturally, I asked if it wouldn’t wait—whatever it was.” He looked up at the taller man. “What she wanted to talk about,” he amplified, needlessly. “She made me feel it wouldn’t wait. So I dressed like a fireman. And—well, rushed over to the fire. And now—now she isn’t here.”

  He was apparently a little annoyed by now; reasonably annoyed, as a man might be who was hauled out of bed for no purpose.

  “Was she here when she telephoned?” Blake asked.

  Phipps shrugged. He amplified the shrug; said she had not said so, that he had assumed she was.

  “Anyway,” he said, “she wanted me to come here.”

  “She had something to tell you?”

  Phipps nodded. Then he hesitated.

  “Actually,” he said, “she didn’t say so in so many words. Said she had to talk to me. Said, ‘Darling, it’s vital I talk to you.’” He smiled at his own mimicry. His anxiety seemed to be ebbing slowly. “Actually,” he said, “I probably took her too seriously. Things—well, everything sounds more important when you’re only half awake. She’s just having one last drink with someone. No sense of time.” The last was, half humorously, chiding of the absent Breese Burnley.

  “Did you assume what she wanted to tell you had to do with the senator’s death?” Blake asked.

  “Yes,” Phipps said. “Naturally, Sergeant.”

  “Did she say so?”

  Phipps shook his head.

  “But of course I thought that,” he said.

  Blake nodded. He said, “Of course.” His tone seemed to end the discussion.

  “Mrs. Haven and I were just leaving,” he said. “Do you plan to—”

  The negative shaking of Howard Phipps’s head made the rest of the question unnecessary.

  “I’m going back to the hotel,” he said. “Back to bed. If Bee-Bee wants to talk to me, she can call me again. And wait until morning.” He looked at them. “God, I’m tired,” he said. “Aren’t you, Freddie?”

  She nodded.

  “Then,” Blake said, and moved toward the door. They went out, closing the door. Blake turned the knob, made sure the door had locked itself. He said, halfway down the stairs, “Never mind” to Howard Phipps’s suggestion that he would take Freddie home. “I’ll take her home,” Blake said. “Drop you off, Mr. Phipps?”

  Phipps shook his head. “Take you out of your way,” he said. “Anyway—” He broke off. He sighed. “God, I’m tired,” he said again.

  Blake took Freddie to a parked sedan, indistinguishable from any other parked sedan, and Phipps said, “Well,” vaguely, and went off down the street. Freddie sat beside the detective in the front seat; Blake pressed the starter and the engine caught, hurried a moment and relapsed to a murmur. It was very cold and still in the street; even in the car, Freddie huddled in her coat. Blake did not put the car in gear immediately; he seemed deep in thought. Then he turned to Freddie as if about to speak, but instead he merely smiled and started the car.

  He said little as he went through the transverse road which gashed Central Park, crossed Fifth and Madison and turned up Park. But Freddie did not feel alone; as it grew warmer in the car, she felt almost comforted. Then Sergeant Blake spoke.

  “I imagine Miss Burnley’ll be all—” he began, and then stopped. They had been driving north along Park, slowly. Now, as if of itself, the car gained speed. Freddie Haven felt a new tenseness in the man beside her. But he did not finish his sentence, or start another. He looked straight ahead; he seemed to have forgotten her.

  “What is it?” she said.
>
  He turned with something of a start. He turned enough to smile at her.

  “Thought of something,” he said. “Want to get hold of the lieutenant.” He smiled again. “Nothing for you to worry about,” he said. He drove on.

  In front of the apartment house, Blake stopped the car, got out on his side and came around to the right hand door and opened it. He held out an assisting hand, but did not actually touch Freddie Haven as she got out. He walked with her across the sidewalk, let her precede him to the building door and then said, “Go on in, do you mind? Wait for me a moment?”

  She went into the warmth of the lobby, and she looked back. As Sergeant Blake stepped back onto the sidewalk, another man joined him. She could see them talking, but could hear nothing. The other man, after a time, nodded and shrugged. Then he turned away. Blake came on into the lobby.

  “Everything’s all right,” he said, and walked with her to the elevators.

  Jerry North looked at his wrist watch. He made only formal efforts to conceal this action; he permitted his face to display faint astonishment at what the watch told him. “Well!” he said, as if inadvertently, as if he were very surprised.

  That was one way. Usually it worked. But there was nothing to indicate that Bill Weigand noticed anything. Bill sat in the chair by the telephone table to which he had moved to take the call from Smitty. He seemed lost in thought.

  “Well,” Jerry North said, in a voice artificially brisk. “How about another drink, Dorian?” Dorian opened her greenish eyes. She smiled, shook her head, looked at her husband. Bill Weigand regarded the carpet. “Bill?” Jerry said, very brisk now. “How about—” Bill Weigand shook his head, without looking at Jerry. “Pam?” Pam said, “No, dear.” She looked at Bill Weigand.

  That almost always worked, Jerry thought. He waited. Sometimes the reaction was delayed. Sometimes you lighted a fuse and had to wait until it burned up to the designated mind and—Jerry North yawned. He covered the yawn belatedly. Nobody paid any attention to it.