Red Gardenias (4 page)

Miss Kirby seemed about to fly from the room.

"They glisten, Miss Kirby. They will not stain or lose their luster. They dress the kitchen, make the basement look like the living room."

Under the impression this was a flight of the advertising mind, Miss Kirby began to take notes.

"They're orange juice and ginproof, guaranteed to freeze diapers in ten seconds with the rugged Rapo-Arctic finger-tip, freewheeling action. They have the highest humidity, the lowest frigidity, the greatest rigidity, the finest-"

"Miss Kirby, where does a man in my condition go?"

Some of the alarm left Miss Kirby's face.

"Well, Mr Richard March used to go over to the Morgan House taproom about this time in the afternoon. He used to say thinking of ice boxes gave him chills."

Crane looked at her closely. "Did Mr Richard March come back to the office later?"

"No sir."

Crane seized his coat and hat. "Thank you."

He was followed out of the office by Miss Kirby, who halted to confide to Miss Anselman, the assistant production manager's secretary, that she didn't think Mr Crane was going to do at all.

"He doesn't seem to be serious," she said.

The Morgan House taproom was like home after a long visit with foreigners. It was cool and dim, and there was an odor of limes in the air. He sat in a red-leather upholstered armchair, leaned on a red-lacquered table.

He'd no idea there was so much to manufacturing. He was really confused between the March Rapo-Arctic refrigerator, with the finger-tip blizzard control, and the foam-flinging March Acrobat washer. He had walked down scores of assembly lines, fingered bright parts, nodded wisely to technical lectures on current consumption, shelf features, soap consumption, rinsing, temperature zones, humidity controls, crispers, automatic ironing, fruit storage, clothes capacity, food capacity...

He ordered a double scotch and soda. After a time a man came in the taproom and walked up to his table.

"You probably don't remember me," he said. "I'm Doctor Woodrin. I met you at lunch, at the City Club."

"Sure," Crane said. "Sit down. Have a drink?"

The doctor ordered ale. He was a healthy man with a round, pink-and-white face and light blue eyes. His complexion was so fresh it made him look under' forty, but Crane was sure he was nearer forty-five.

"After I leave the hospital I drop in for a bottle of ale," Dr Woodrin explained. "I usually run into somebody to gab with."

Crane said, "My secretary told me this was Richard March's afternoon headquarters."

"He used to be here in the morning, too."

"A good idea," Crane said.

After Crane got another scotch and soda they talked. They discussed Marchton. Dr Woodrin said he'd lived in the town for fifteen years. Before that he'd been chief physician for the International Oil Company in Texas and Oklahoma. He was a graduate of Rush Medical, in Chicago. He was now chief of staff at Marchton City Hospital.

"It's a nice position," he said, "but not much money."

Crane, after a time, worked the conversation back to Richard March. He told the physician he had the Richard March house, wanted to know how it happened to be so elaborately decorated.

"That's Alice March," Dr Woodrin said. "You'll understand when you see her. She dresses the same way."

"She divorced him?"

"They were divorced. It was sort of a standoff." He drank the remainder of his ale. "She didn't get any alimony, but was allowed to divorce him. I think Dick's lawyer, old Judge Dornbush, was too smart for Alice's lawyer, Talmadge March."

"Who's Talmadge March?"

"Richard's younger brother." The doctor looked at Crane over his glass. "Their story's like those Greek plays we used to read in college."

Crane took his word for that. Anyway, it was a strange one. Alice had been Talmadge's girl; they were engaged to be married when the handsome Richard met her. The doctor said he supposed it was, for Richard, more the challenge of the engagement, the lure of someone's property, than love; and besides, the brothers had always hated each other.

Marchton's tongue moved a great deal over the elopement, moved less when Alice left Richard five years later, but regained vigor when Talmadge appeared as her attorney in the divorce suit. The gossip reached a climax when, five months before Richard died, the divorce was granted with no settlement, no alimony, Dr Woodrin said. The town wondered what Richard had on his wife. It must have been good; she had plenty on him. There was speculation as to whether Talmadge was involved beyond the role of counsel; it was popularly believed he was still in love with Alice.

"It was a triumph for Talmadge, then," Crane said.

"No. Richard didn't care. He was through with her."

Crane learned Talmadge March was not connected with the March business. He had refused to enter the company, had opened his own law office. He was moderately successful and, the doctor added, he had a large income from the interest his father had left him in the company. It was larger now that Richard was gone.

"That was a funny death," Crane said. "Richard's, I mean."

"It was," Dr Woodrin agreed. "I've often thought about it. You know I was there when he was found."

"You were?"

"I'll tell you about it." The doctor crooked a finger at the waiter. "Two more of the same, Charley."

Crane said, "Let me get these."

Dr Woodrin shook his head at Crane. "It was one of those dry, clear nights in early February," he began. "It was cold, but there was a three-quarter moon. We'd all decided to take a drive after the Country Club dance."

He had come out of the club, he continued, with John March and Carmel, Peter March and Alice and Talmadge, just as the orchestra began to play "Home, Sweet Home." The orchestra had been bad, and they were all glad the dance was over. Alice, who was ahead with Peter, called over her shoulder, "Dick must have passed out."

They could see Richard sprawled over the wheel of his big sedan, his head cradled in his arms; a pale vapor slipping out from under the left-hand running board. The gas was almost the color of milk in the moonlight; Dr Woodrin said. It was like a mist rising over a swamp.

Carmel had called to Peter, ahead: "Dick's engine's on."

Peter went to the sedan and opened the door by the driver's seat, the doctor said, and shook Richard's shoulder. "Come on, old boy," he had said. "Time to go home." He shook him again violently, and said, " Dick!"

Charley, the waiter, put ale and a double scotch and soda on the table, accepted the quarter tip. Crane said, "Thanks."

The doctor said. "Peter sounded scared, and I ran over to him."

They pulled Richard from the sedan, he continued, stretched him on the ground, and he had jerked loose the rear-vision mirror and held it against Richard's lips. It hadn't clouded!

"I knew he was gone, but I sent someone to call an ambulance," Dr Woodrin concluded. "They worked on him at the hospital. He'd been dead for some time."

"Who'd been dead?" a woman's voice asked.

Startled, Crane pivoted to encounter Carmel March's dark eyes. She was smiling. She wore a gray suit trimmed with blue fox and tailored so that it was tight over sleek hips and high breasts and padded at the shoulders to give them a military appearance. She looked like a Cossack lady.

"Who'd been dead?" she repeated.

Back of her were a man and a woman. Crane knew, at once, that the woman was Alice March. She was blonde and plump, and there was a sweet smile on her face, as though it had been painted there. She was wearing a quantity of jewelry, a silver fox fur and a floppy hat with some imitation blue flowers on it.

"Hello, there," Dr Woodrin said. "Join us?"

It was Alice March. The man with her, a middle-sized man with a bored face and languid manners, was Talmadge March. "How d'you do," he said to Crane. He didn't offer his hand.

In response to Crane's invitation, they ordered martinis. Crane had another double scotch and soda with them.

Carmel sat next to Crane. "For the last time, who'd been dead?"

Dr Woodrin said, "I was telling Mr Crane about the former owner of his house."

"The late lamented Richard?" Talmadge inquired.

Crane thought his lightly contemptuous attitude was hardly proper in front of the widow (even the divorced widow), but Alice March smiled sweetly. She seemed pleased.

Carmel asked, "What about Richard?"

"Just the usual story of his death," Dr Woodrin replied.

Talmadge drawled, "I suppose our local Galen told you of the mystery?"

"No," Crane said. "A real mystery?"

"A lady." Talmadge's amused eyes were on Carmel. "A woman, anyway."

"Hell!" said Dr Woodrin. "That mystery's been buried a long time."

"Has it?" Talmadge took a sip of his martini. "I wonder."

Dr Woodrin said, "He's talking about lipstick marks on Richard's face."

"Fresh lipstick," Talmadge drawled. "Naturally there was speculation as to the identity of the lady."

Alice March, her voice sweet, said, "It narrowed down to two or three, I believe."

"Not to you, though, dear," Carmel said.

Crane got an idea the two women didn't like each other.

"The marks looked green," Dr Woodrin said. "I don't know anybody who uses green lipstick."

"I saw them," Talmadge's smile was mocking. "The moon plays strange tricks with colors." He looked directly at Carmel. "But the lady of the green lipstick never came forward."

"She never explained what she was doing," Dr Woodrin said sadly.

"Hell," Crane said. "She must have been kissing Richard."

"A very fine piece of deduction," Talmadge drawled.

"The kiss of death," Crane said. "That's what she was giving him." He liked the phrase. "The kiss of death."

Carmel March's eyes, suddenly jet black, examined his face for a halved second. He grinned foolishly at her. She looked frightened, he thought.

Talmadge said, "There was another clue."

"How do you know so much about this?" demanded Dr Woodrin.

"I was there, and I have eyes... and a nose."

Crane gaped at him. "A nose?"

"There was an odor of perfume on Richard's coat." Talmadge's speech was so affected it made him sound feminine. "I caught it as I helped put him in the ambulance—you remember, Woodrin, I lent a hand?" Woodrin nodded.

"What was the odor?" Crane asked. "Gardenia perfume."

Carmel said coldly, "You're making that up, Tam."

"Am I, darling?"

Crane got an impression they had forgotten him. He was conscious of an undercurrent of genuine emotion, of a tensity in each of them, with the possible exception of Dr Woodrin. He supposed they ignored him because they thought he was either slightly simple, or drunk. He determined to maintain this impression.

Carmel's face was like a delicately tinted dancer's mask. "You have a lawyer's imagination, Tam." She did not change expression when she talked.

"If I have," Talmadge countered, "how is it you gave up gardenias after Dick died?"

That's done it, Crane thought. Now for an explosion. He wondered why Simeon March hadn't mentioned the gardenia business. He watched Carmel for the eruption, but none came.

She laughed, genuinely amused. What a fine detective you are!" She leaned toward Crane so that his face was in the hollow formed by her neck and shoulder. "What do you smell, Mr Crane?"

Crane took a deep breath, then said gallantly, "I smell Nassau in May."

"No," she said.

"I smell the Sabine hills after an April rain. I smell flower-strewn boats at Xochimilco. I smell the cherry blossoms of Nippon. I smell a hot tub filled with English bath salts."

Every one laughed except Carmel, who said:

"No, specifically."

Crane said, "I smell gardenias."

Talmadge didn't seem embarrassed. "I thought I might trap you into a confession, Carmel." He grinned at her over his martini. "A lawyer's trick."

"I think it's in pretty poor taste." Carmel remained close to Crane. "... If it was a joke."

Dr Woodrin was lighting a pipe. "You've a macabre sense of humor, Tam."

Crane was delighted with Talmadge's composure under fire. He liked the name Talmadge March. He acted and sounded like the villains in the 1880 dramas of the New England barn revivals. All he needed was a Whip and a pair of handle-bar mustaches.

Talmadge was watching Carmel. "Perhaps it is a bit on the macabre side." She met his eyes angrily, and he looked away. "I'm sorry."

Again Crane felt tension. He asked, "Just what difference does it make who was in the car with Richard before he died?"

"A small town's prurient curiosity," Carmel said bitterly.

"I'm really sorry, Carmel," said Talmadge.

The taproom was beginning to fill, and men and women, as smartly dressed as a New York cocktail-hour crowd, passed by their table. Everybody seemed to know everybody else, and most of the new arrivals either spoke or waved to Crane's companions. The newcomers were very gay and noisy.

"The haut monde of Marchton," Talmadge drawled.

"They look nice," Crane said.

He felt a warm glow about the case. He liked the seductive hollow above Carmel's bare collarbone, the sweet spitefulness of Alice, the name of Talmadge March. He felt sorry for Ann Fortune, sitting at home. He liked the feeling that his expense account was unlimited.

He hoped he would not solve the case too quickly. He wondered if he could be a little drunk. "One more?" he suggested to the others. They were perfectly willing. While Charley collected empty glasses the conversation turned to duck shooting. The season had been open for a couple of weeks, but there hadn't been many birds. The cold weather had made them hopeful for next Sunday's shooting. Talmadge asked Crane if he'd like to shoot with them, and Crane said Peter March had already suggested it.

"It's usually fine shooting," Dr Woodrin said.

For the first time Talmadge spoke without affectation. "Wonderful shooting."

Crane learned that the river lands where the March family and friends shot duck had been acquired by Great-Grandfather March when he emigrated from New England in 1823. He had farmed by the river and died there, and had willed the land as a perpetual estate for the family until there should be no direct male descendants. Then it could be sold.