Red Gardenias (7 page)

"Oh yes." Carmel smiled at him. "We do that and the subway dip and turkey in the straw."

"Then I'll come," said Crane decisively. "But you'll have to come to the Crimson Cat with me tomorrow night."

"I think that would be splendid," Carmel said.

They drank some more and soon Crane found himself sitting on the davenport with Carmel. Ann and Peter were in the kitchen. Carmel's skin was very pale, but it had a warm undertone of health; he thought she was a remarkably seductive woman. There was insolence about the arch of her dark brows, passion in her scarlet lips, a contemptuous abandon in the curve of her body on the couch. She had the violet-shaded hollows under her cheekbones Crane admired so much in women.

"Do all the corpses in Marchton smell of gardenias?" he asked.

Her eyes widened for an instant. "What do you mean?" Then they looked directly into his. "Oh, you're remembering this afternoon."

"Yes."

"Talmadge has a malicious tongue."

"But your husband, someone told me he smelled of gardenias," he lied.

Anger brought a faint glow to her eyes. "Why shouldn't he? After all, he was my husband." She leaned toward him so that the gardenia odor was strong in his nostrils. "Who told you?"

"Someone."

"You won't tell?"

"I don't think I better."

"I can guess." She looked at him and he imagined he saw fear and anger in her eyes. "I can guess."

"You have some enemies." He would have liked to know who she was thinking of, but he didn't dare press the matter further. He wanted her to believe he actually knew something.

She was looking at him again. "Why are you so interested?"

"I don't know," he said. "I am, though." She spoke slowly. "You're thinking there's something back of Richard's and John's deaths."

"Perhaps."

"Well, you're right. There is."

He stared at her in silence, hiding his excitement.

"I might as well tell you before you stir up trouble." Her voice was flat. "John March killed himself."

"But why..." he began, and stopped suddenly as Peter and Ann came from the kitchen. He began again, "But why don't they hold the dances at the Town Club?"

"The ballroom isn't as large," Carmel said.

Peter's voice sounded young. "I'm going to scram, give you a chance to get some sleep. Crane's got to be at the office on the dot or Dad'll think he's a loafer."

"What office?" Crane demanded.

Ann said, "You may not remember, darling, but you're employed by March & Company to write about refrigerators."

Crane groaned. "For a happy moment that fact had completely slipped my mind."

Peter asked, "Coming, Carmel?"

"You take your car and I'll walk home. I want to have a word with Mr Crane." She glanced at Ann. "That is, if Mrs Crane doesn't mind?"

"Of course I don't," Ann said.

"Well, I'll be off," Peter said.

Ann followed him out.

Crane asked, "How do you know he killed himself?"

"He left a note."

"He did!" Crane didn't have to act; he was really surprised. "What did it say?"

"I can remember it exactly." Carmel's fingers pulled at the diamond-and-ruby bracelet. "It was written to me. It said: 'I can't go on... I've got to see Richard... explain to him... good-by, darling.. forgive me as I've forgiven you.'"

"My gosh!" Crane's mind sifted the implication of the note. "Was it signed?"

"Yes. With a J. That's the way John signed all his private letters."

"But why wasn't the note brought out at the inquest?"

"I destroyed it." Her words came out jerkily, as though she had been running and was out of breath. "I wanted it to look like an accident."

"Insurance?"

She glared at him, really angry for the first time. "Do you think that would make any difference? What kind of a woman do you suppose I am?" Her breath made a rushing noise in her throat. "It was his father.... It would have killed him to know John was a suicide."

Crane, surprised, asked, " You worried about Simeon March?"

"Oh, I know he hates me." She laughed briefly, without humor. "He wanted John to bury himself in work, to live for March & Company. I... I had other ideas." For a moment her face was tragic. "Simeon March keeps a shell of rage and hate and hard words about him, but he can be hurt inside. He loved John. I didn't want to make him suffer. God knows there's been enough already."

She was either acting beautifully, or her emotion was genuine. Her slender fingers plucked at the rubies on the bracelet. Her face was still masklike, but her glistening, red lower lip trembled.

He asked, "What gave you the idea of destroying the note?"

"After I'd found John, I called Paul... Dr Woodrin. He thought, at first, it was an accident." She had turned her face away from him, was talking in a low voice. "That gave me the idea."

"Did you show him the note?"

She hesitated. "Yes. He agreed that it should be destroyed, to avoid a scandal and to save Simeon March. He helped me fix the tools... close the garage doors to make it look accidental."

Crane thought of the bizarre twist her story gave the case. Carmel, risking a great deal to protect Simeon March from the knowledge that his favorite son had killed himself. And Simeon, convinced she had murdered John.

He said, "What did John's note mean, 'I've got to see Richard... explain to him'?"

A tiny blue vein fluttered at the base of her throat with each beat of her heart. She took a long time, then said in a flat expressionless voice, " John killed Richard."

Crane got off the couch and put a chunk of pine on the fire. Sparks flew up the chimney, tongues of flame licked the fresh wood. He went back to the couch.

"Why?" he asked. "He was jealous of Richard."

"Yes, but a man doesn't"—he hesitated over the next word—"murder because he's jealous."

"No."

"Then what — "

"He saw me with Richard in his car."

"At the Country Club? On the night of Richard's death?"

She nodded, her face still turned away from him. He understood, then, the smell of gardenia on the dead man's coat, the lipstick on his face.

She went on, speaking slowly, "John must have come up to the car very quietly. I don't know how long he'd been there." Her low voice sounded as though she had not come to the end of a sentence, had only paused.

Crane waited, but she didn't go on. He asked, "He overheard you talking?"

"Richard was begging me to go away with him."

"Was John terribly angry? Did he make any threats?"

She was facing him on the couch now, her face completely unguarded. Her lips were soft and moist and red.

"He was very quiet... I couldn't see his face. He asked me to go into the clubhouse. I should have been afraid, his voice was so strange, but I went in... left him there with Richard."

"And then — "

"The next thing I knew Richard was dead."

Crane was surprised to see tears rolling in big, slow drops down her cheeks. It was very strange. She didn't sob or move in any way; she just sat there, her face like ivory, talking and letting those big tears roll down her cheeks.

"I never talked to John about it," she went on. "I was never sure... until I found his body."

"How do you suppose he killed Richard?"

"I don't know." Tears made her black eyes luminous. She pulled her mink coat from the back of the couch. "I think Richard must have passed out; he had too much champagne, and John did something to the car." She found a lace handkerchief, held it to her eyes. "I'm sorry."

"I know," he said. "Your husband's death must have been a shock."

"It wasn't as if I'd loved him." She looked at him over the handkerchief. "We hadn't been getting along." Her eyes had changed from black to amber.

"You cared for Richard?"

"I liked him, but I didn't love him."

She spoke so simply that Crane believed her. He believed her entire story. He wondered if he did because she was so beautiful. He thought he would make a hell of a juror if she were on trial. He'd let her go with a vote of confidence.

The tears had stopped; she put the handkerchief back in the mink coat. "You think I'm horrible."

"No, I don't."

"You must."

"I really don't."

She touched his wrist for an instant with the tips of her fingers. "Thanks. I had to tell somebody." He felt goose flesh rise all over him. "There was nobody in town I could talk to." She stood up and he held the mink coat for her.

"You won't..." she began.

"Of course not."

"Say good night to your wife for me."

"I'll take you home."

"Don't bother."

"But..."

"I'd rather go alone."

They were at the front door. "Well, then, good night."

"Good night... and thanks."

The limousine traveled the winding road at a good speed, and without strain climbed a long grade. So bright was the moon that the rays from the headlights looked like spilled milk on the cement. The countryside was gray and black.

Dr Woodrin, between Ann Fortune and Carmel March on the back seat, commented on the car's power.

Crane and Peter March were on small seats facing the other three. Crane lied: "I wrote some advertisements for the company. They gave it to me."

"I should've taken up advertising," Dr Woodrin said.

Carmel said, "You could have a private tennis court then, Paul."

While Peter explained to Ann that Dr Woodrin's chief enthusiasm was tennis Crane thought over the day, decided he had accomplished exactly nothing. The party was bound for the Crimson Cat, with Williams driving, and he hoped he would find something there.

He hadn't even told Simeon March about Carmel's story of Richard's murder and her husband's suicide. He knew the old man wouldn't believe it, and he wasn't sure he did himself, now that he'd thought it over. The tools and the lifted hood on John's car puzzled him. How had she had the courage to set the stage for the police, with her husband's body lying there? The natural thing would be to call for help at once.

Of course her story, if true, did tie everything....

"Do you play tennis, Bill?" Peter March asked him.

"Huh? Oh, a little."

Ann said she did, and Crane returned to his thoughts. If Carmel's story wasn't true it meant that John had been murdered. She wouldn't bother to lie if the death had been accidental. It was either suicide or murder.

He felt his heart beat accelerate. Murder made it a real case, with plenty to worry about. It was a spooky way the victims died, without a struggle or a call for help, just being eased out of life by a gas that left their faces purple and their blood filled with poison. And if it was murder it meant someone wanted to get rid of the March family. It meant there would probably be another attempt on a March. He hoped it wouldn't be Carmel. He felt she was interesting.

"Paul even carries a tennis net in his car," Peter said. "I saw it the other day."

"Why not?" Dr Woodrin demanded. "The hospital courts don't have nets."

And the scent of gardenias... How did that fit into the case? That was a creepy angle, Crane thought. It looked as though someone wanted to implicate Carmel. And why was Talmadge March so eager to establish the odor? Just being with someone didn't leave a smell of gardenias about them. Or did it?

Carmel asked, "Bill, you're not asleep?"

"What? Me? Oh no."

"You're so silent."

Ann said acidly, "His edge has worn off."

Crane didn't like that. Maybe he'd had a few too many cocktails before dinner but he'd been a gentleman. He said, "I hope we're not getting a dose of carbon monoxide."

This was not the right thing to say. Peter March hastily pointed out the left window. "Down there," he said, "you'll see our fair city."

Street lights crisscrossed a spot on the valley below them, made the whole valley look like a velvet setting for an intricate pattern of diamonds. The limousine was no longer climbing. The city looked small and compact.

"Only two miles," Peter said.

Carmel's face, faintly illuminated by the light from the dash, looked sad. Her cheeks were hollow and her red lips had a tragic downward curve. "That's good," she said. "I need a drink."

"Me, too," Crane said.

He had, at that, done one thing during the day. Or rather, Williams had. He'd located both Richard's and John's cars. It would be interesting to examine them, to see if they had been tampered with. That might show...

A swerve of the car interrupted him again. They had turned into the driveway leading to the night club. The white cement building was large and had a Spanish appearance. There was a row of small balconies in front of the upstairs windows. A big red cat, with an arched back and a fuzzy tail, was formed by neon lights over the entrance.

"They've a hot band here," Dr Woodrin said.

There was no doorman. Crane helped the women out. Carmel's hand, in his for an instant, was hot. He let the others start into the club.

Williams eyed Carmel's ankles, slender and seductive, under her mink coat. "I'd like to get trapped in an elevator with that dame," he said.

Crane said, "You do and the newspapers'll have a story headed: New Carbon-Monoxide Victim."

"You think she's the one?"

Crane shrugged his shoulders. He went into the building and checked his coat and hat. He started for the main room, but went by mistake into a taproom with modern tables made of chromium and glass, red leather chairs and a bright red bar. He paused for a double scotch and soda.

"Doing a good business?" he asked the bartender.

The bartender had two gold teeth. "Wouldn't you like to know, pal?" he said.

Crane let the matter drop and found the main room. He could see Peter March and Dr Woodrin at a table by the dance floor. He felt better because of the whisky. He stood and watched the Negro orchestra come through a door in back of the stand. He wondered if he ought to go back and sock the bartender. He guessed not.

A pretty blonde in a cheap evening gown stopped him on his way to the table. "Alone?" She looked about seventeen years old.