ALM06 Who Killed the Husband? (11 page)

"Mr. Mappin!" Agnes cried breathlessly; "this is like the answer to a prayer! Oh, I wanted so to see you! An hour ago I could stand it no longer and I called your office. They said you were out, didn't know when you'd return. I didn't leave my name, of course. And here you are! It is too good to be true. Come into the boudoir. There's a fire and it's cosier!"

She led the way into the adjoining room. She was wearing a kind of house gown with a lustrous black skirt that trailed on the ground and a cerise waist. Lee watched to see how she avoided walking up the front of the long skirt; there was art in the way she kicked it out of the way with every step. She made an extraordinarily graceful picture. In the boudoir the curtains were drawn together and a flattering rosy light filled the room.

"Cigarette, Mr. Mappin? Shall I ring for tea? I'm sure you'd rather have a highball, and so would I." Suddenly she dropped the fine lady air and turned to him with a face all broken up and working like a child's. Lee couldn't help but be moved, though he told himself this was just art like everything else about her.

"Oh, before I ring for the man, tell me about Al," she murmured, clasping her hands. "How does he look? Is he well? Who is taking care of him? How is he bearing up under this frightful charge?"

"He looks grand," said Lee dryly. "In the pink of condition. Bubbling over with high spirits."

"Ah, that's just his line," she said quickly. "I expect in his heart he is almost ready to despair!"

"If he is, he concealed it well."

"Where is he hidden? Who is taking care of him? Oh, I am sure you know more than you told the newspapers!"

"I don't know where he is," said Lee. "I wish I did."

"What was his purpose in coming to see you at such a risk?"

"To protest that he was innocent; to ask me to prove his innocence."

"And you will, Mr. Mappin?"

"I'm going to work on the case," said Lee, "but I cannot undertake to prove his innocence."

"Oh, he is innocent! He is! He is!"

"I hope so," said Lee demurely. "I took quite a fancy to the fellow, confound him!"

"Did he send me any message?" Agnes asked eagerly.

"No," said Lee. "I am not in his confidence. He would hardly send it by me."

"But he spoke of me?"

"Oh, yes, but guardedly."

She caught her breath. "Guardedly? He...he is not angry with me?"

"Bless my soul, no!" said Lee; "only trying to protect your good name."

Mrs. Gartrey paced the room. Her agitation had increased. Lee began to perceive that it was not anxiety for Al Yohe which lay at the bottom of it, but fear of what Al might have told him, Lee. She said: "He told you, of course, that he was out of the apartment before the shot was fired?"

Lee lied with the utmost blandness. "Yes, he told me that."

She drew a long breath, her worst fears relieved. "You must be dying for a drink!" she said, pressing a bell for the servant. "Sit down, do!" She draped herself on a low chair beside the fire, and resting elbow on knee cupped her chin in her palm, an infinitely graceful pose. "Did he tell you that I sent him away on Monday afternoon?"

"No. He merely said that he left. I must tell you that we were interrupted by my well-meaning neighbor before I had finished questioning him. That's why I came to you this afternoon; to get you to fill in the blanks."

She swallowed this whole. "You did right," she said with restored complacence.

"You said you sent him away on Monday. Why?"

"I had an engagement."

Denman entered and was ordered to bring Scotch whisky, soda, ice. His face was as expressionless as paper.

When he had gone out, Lee said: "You had an engagement Monday afternoon--where?"

"At Madame Helena Rubinstein's establishment. I don't know if you have heard of it, but Madame Rubinstein possesses a marvelous collection of antique doll's furniture. It is all arranged in miniature rooms down both sides of a corridor, perfect in every detail of each period, and beautifully lighted..."

"Marvelous, I'm sure," said Lee, "but we're getting away from Mr. Yohe."

"Sorry. Madame Rubinstein had arranged to give a public view of her collection on Monday in aid of Polish Relief and I had to be there since I am on the Committee and..."

"Mr. Yohe left here at what hour?"

"About half past three. I couldn't tell you to the minute. My maid ushered him out."

"And you?"

"I went into my dressing room to change for the street. My maid joined me there."

"And then?"

Agnes bit her lip. "Wait a minute," she said. "Wait until we get rid of the servant." When she heard Denman coming she turned on her social chatter like a phonograph record, starting in the middle."...perfectly fascinating, Mr. Mappin! There are Spanish rooms, French rooms, American Colonial and English rooms of different periods, each one complete even to the tiny china utensils in the bedrooms. Madame has been collecting the furnishings for years. They say that Robert Edmond Jones painted the little interiors for her."

"How interesting!" said Lee.

The servant entered bearing a tray which he placed on a little table beside his mistress.

"You needn't wait," she said.

When he had closed the door behind him, Lee said inquiringly: "Well?"

She held up a delicate hand. "Let me mix the highballs first. I always begin to tremble when I approach that moment in my mind."

When she handed Lee his drink, he held it up. "To happier days!"

"Ah, you're so kind and understanding!" she murmured gratefully. After she had taken a swallow of her highball--and a big swallow, Lee noted, she picked up her story at the precise point where she had dropped it. "I was dressing in there when I heard the shot." She put a hand over her eyes.

"You ran out?" prompted Lee.

"Not immediately. I was paralyzed with terror. Nothing brutal has ever been allowed to approach me, you know. I am spoiled. I am no better than a hothouse plant. I couldn't move. And Eliza was just as bad. We clung to each other. I picked up the house phone then--the switchboard is in the servants' hall, but I could get no answer, no answer! 'Eliza,' I said, 'we have got to go and see!' It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life!"

"You ran out together?"

"Yes..." She quickly corrected herself. "Not together. I ran across this room and through the music room to the foyer. Eliza went by the corridor."

"Why did you separate?"

"Don't ask me! Neither of us knew what we were doing!"

"How long a time passed after the shot before you got out in the foyer?"

"I couldn't answer that either. It seemed like ages."

"Well, say two or three minutes. And what did you find?"

She covered her face. "My husband lying on the floor...bullet hole...gun...Hawkins kneeling beside him..."

"Was anybody else there?"

"The maids. Maybe they came afterwards. I don't remember."

"And then?"

"I think I cried out: 'Pick him up! Pick him up!' It semed so dreadful to see him lying there on the floor, an old man. And Hawkins said: 'He is dead, Madam."

"What did Hawkins look like when he said it?"

"Look like? He looked like a butler. A butler's expression never changes. If the house was blown to pieces he would say, without changing his tone: 'Do you require anything more, Madam?'"

Lee ironed out a smile; Agnes did not mean to be funny. "Were you completely dressed when you ran out in the foyer?" he asked.

"No...yes...no...Why do you ask me that?"

"Well, in Hawkins' story, he said..."

"That I was fully dressed. I see. And it would have been impossible, of course, for me to make a complete change in five minutes. You had better disregard Hawkins' story entirely..."

"But the other servants also..."

"I had my suit skirt on when the shot was fired. Before I ran out I put on the jacket of my suit, so I had the appearance of being completely dressed."

"The jacket was buttoned, I assume."

"How can I be expected to remember such a detail as that?"

"What did you have on beneath the jacket, Mrs. Gartrey?"

She hardened. "Why do you ask me that question?"

"A man like Hawkins might easily have been mistaken, but it seems strange that the maids should have testified that you were fully dressed. Including your own maid, Eliza."

Agnes changed color under her make-up. She was breathing quickly. "Are you intimating that I have not been telling the truth?" she demanded.

Lee looked shocked. "My dear Mrs. Gartrey! I never dreamed of such a thing!"

She was not satisfied. Her lips had drawn back in an ugly fashion. "When Al, Mr. Yohe, told you that he was innocent, did he express any opinion as to who had shot my husband?"

Lee shook his head. "The poor fellow was all at sea. That is why he insists on remaining in hiding."

"Did he...did he by any chance suggest that I might have had a hand in it?"

Lee deliberately paused a moment before answering. "He did not."

"Oh, God, what perfidy!" she breathed.

"My dear lady!" Lee assured her, "you are disturbed without cause. Al Yohe never said a word that would lead me to suppose such a thing. On the contrary, his thought was all of you...I am merely trying to get a clear picture of what happened...If you did not start to dress until after he left, how 
could
 you have been fully dressed a moment or two after the shot was fired?"

"I was not completely dressed," she said sullenly. "For an obvious reason my servants were not telling the truth. They wished to protect my good name."

Lee struck his forehead. "Of course! How stupid of me not to have perceived that at once!"

She drank off the rest of her highball. Slowly she recovered her self-possession. "You must have patience with me," she said with a return of her caressing manner. "My nerves are gone! Sometimes I scarcely know what I am saying!"

"Naturally," said Lee soothingly. "I am so sorry that I have to trouble you at such a time."

"Such a charge could never touch me!" she said with proud confidence.

Lee was reminded of something Al Yohe had said the night before.

"And if it should be brought, it would fall," Agnes continued, "because at the moment the shot was fired my maid and I were together."

Lee inwardly resolved to talk to Eliza Young without the knowledge of her mistress.

He rose and opened the door into the corridor. "I am trying to fix the layout of this building in my mind," he explained deprecatingly. "On the other side of the corridor wall must be the public hall and passenger elevator."

"That's right," she said carelessly. "Will you have another drink?"

"No more, thank you." Lee returned to his chair leaving the door open. "What did you and Mr. Yohe talk about while he was here?"

Again suspicion made her eyes narrow. "Didn't you ask him that question?" she countered.

"I did ask him," said Lee with an innocent air, "and his answer was evasive. That made me think that perhaps it had some bearing on what happened later."

"You're wrong," she said. "Our talk was completely unimportant--so unimportant that it has passed out of my mind...I suppose we talked about the Polish Relief Ball in which we are both interested. We discussed mutual friends--just such talk, in fact, as you would expect between old friends."

Lee thought: That is a little too good to be true, my lady.

While he sat with her he heard from the other side of the corridor wall a slight rumble and, after a pause, a click. Insignificant sounds, but unmistakable to apartment dwellers. It was the elevator door opening and closing again. It was important to Lee to know that these sounds could be heard from where he sat. Either Al Yohe or Agnes Gartrey could have had warning that Gartrey was about to return. Lee heard the distant sound of the doorbell.

"Bother!" said Agnes with an intimate smile. "I hope we're not going to be interrupted."

"Well, I've told you all I know," said Lee. "Have you anything more to tell me?"

"Oh, I'm so stupid, Mr. Mappin. I don't know what are the important things. You must question me."

"Can't think of any more questions now. But we'll meet again."

"We must."

The manservant entered. "Mr. Coler, Madam." Lee felt a little uneasy. It might be difficult to explain this visit.

Agnes said: "I'll see him directly. Did you show him into the living room?"

"Yes, Madam."

"Did you close the door?"

"I...I think so, Madam."

"That means you didn't," she said sharply. "Close it on your way out. How many times must I tell you to close doors, all doors!"

"Yes, Madam." He went out.

"It's just as well not to advertise the fact that you and I are friends," Agnes said to Lee. Agnes was keeping certain things from Coler, then. Lee was relieved and also a little puzzled.