RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK (23 page)

"I want your opinion on the date this was taken, as closely as you can give it to me, on the basis of what the subject is seen to be wearing."

The analyses came back in from one to five days. A composite of them, with repetitions eliminated, ran as follows:

Lack of shoulder padding in coat: 1940. Shoulder padding was first introduced by us in our 1941 models.

Straight up-and-down lines of coat (trade term "box coat"): no later than 1939. Fitted coats began to appear 1940; caught on by 1941.

"Rolled" lapels: out by 1940. Deeply-notched, flat lapels, such as in men's wear, after that date.

Fullness of skirt: before 1942, when wartime restrictions on material came in.

Closed-toe shoes: before 1940, when open-toes swept market.

Hair-do: introduced by the actress X--in picture Y--. Release date of picture, summer 1940.

Costume jewelry: one strand of pearl beads, such as subject is wearing close about throat, in vogue late 1940, early 1941. Following season, two and three strands. Previous to that, long strands, lying on bosom.

But they all alike added this note of warning: "Make allowance of one entire season (that is, spring to spring, or fall to fall) for the sake of probable accuracy. Background in exhibit appears to be rural, and subject not ultra-smart or clothes-conscious. It takes from six to twelve months for vogues launched by us in key cities to attain full acceptance throughout country."

Most of it was Greek to him. But they were experts, he took them at their word.

Boiled down (and with the aid of a tendril twining one of the porch posts in the background) he got this out of it. Early spring, no earlier than mid-March, no later than mid-April; no earlier than the year 1940, no later than the year 1941--the snapshot had been taken.

"Now we only have to find out where," he said.

And when he looked at the two white porch steps, the two white porch posts, the skimpy dab of clapboard house front, and the extreme edge of a window with a lace curtain showing in it, which was all the snapshot gave him (three million square miles of the United States, and every hamlet in every county in every state could have produced pretty much the same vignette if called upon to do so!), he was ready to give up in despair then and there.

But instead he just buckled down and went ahead working on it.

CAMERON SHRUGGED. "How do you go about finding out who the best-loved woman in a guy's life is? Ask him?"

His chief shrugged back. "Do you know of any other way? That's your problem."

Cameron held his jaw as though it ached. "It's not an exact measurement, you know. You can't go to anyone with a scale and weigh it out."

"I know," his chief said dryly. "It's tough, it's a stickler. I don't want to hear how tough it is. I just want to hear the answer. The correct answer. So when you've finished squirming and wriggling, will you kindly go out and bring it back to me?"

Cameron writhed, executed a sort of rotation from the waist up, then brought his torso back to where it had been before. "But how? Just by watching him. That might take weeks. It's something that's kept on the inside, anyway. Sometimes it doesn't even show on a guy's face."

"Then get on the inside and get with it!" Cameron's chief bounced his knuckles down on the desk and up again.

"There may be nobody."

"Everybody likes somebody, some one somebody, just a little better than he likes anybody else. It's put into them. It's nature. With men, it's a woman. With women, it's a man."

Cameron sighed dismally. "It's an impossibility, chief."

"I admit," his chief said stonily.

"But I'll go out and do it."

He didn't get any thanks. "Of course you will. Only, why didn't you get started five minutes ago, instead of sitting here wasting both of our time, cringing away from it?"

"Have you got him pretty well card indexed?"

"Thoroughly. All the preliminary work's been done."

Cameron leaned forward. "Then give me a list of all the women in his life. Can you do that? Have you got one?"

"I can," his chief said. He thumbed a lever on his desk. "And one is about to come into being now although it wasn't in existence in just that form until this minute." He gave the order, he shut off the lever again.

"And let me advise you," he said while they were waiting, "not to go at it in reverse; not to go to them , the women, and try to find out from that direction. Because every woman in a man's life thinks, or would like to think, she's the best-loved woman in that life. It has to come from the man himself."

It came in the form of a very small, neatly-typed list; five names on it.

Cameron studied it carefully. "Not many women in his life."

"It may not be on there. That isn't holy writ. You were the one asked for that. Remember, this is just from external observation--and at a respectful distance. It didn't get inside him. So watch yourself."

Cameron put it away in his billfold, stood up. "I'll find out," he promised. "I've thought of a way."

He didn't get any praise. "What a delayed departure," his chief remarked astringently. "If everyone took as long when I sent them on an assignment, we'd still be working on the Rosenthal case."

Cameron was at the door now. "He mayn't know himself. May never have thought about it before. But he'll tell me. I'll know."

The receptionist combined the perfect grooming of a mannequin and the icy manner of the headmistress at a girls' finishing school. She had no doubt been hired for just those qualities, or else she would not have displayed them so copiously.

"Do you have an appointment?" she said down her nose.

Cameron shook his head.

"Well, I'm sorry--" she started to say. "Does he know you?"

He gave her a look. "When your house is on fire, do you have to know the fireman before you let him put a ladder to your window?"

Her brows went up. "This has to do with fire ladders, then?" she sneered.

"That was just a figure of speech, as you are perfectly well aware."

"Well, what is the nature of your business?"

"Police business."

Her brows went up once more, but this time without the accompanying sneer. "Oh. Is there--is there something I can do? I mean, if it's about a ticket or a violation--"

"There is nothing you can do except to get me in there to see Mr. Ward. I realize what your duties are, but there is a time and place for everything. And, believe me, this is not the time to try to keep me out of his office."

"Just a minute," she said, almost hastily. "Come in," she said, when she had returned, and held the door for him. Then closed it on the two of them.

Ward was standing up behind his desk. He had on a very light-colored gray suit. He had been handsome up to about five years ago; now it was slipping away. His hair was still richly dark, but there was a lighter tipping, a frosting, beginning to glint here and there, as on a silver fox fur. His eyes were extremely intelligent, but it was a kindly, forebearing intelligence, not the shrewd hardness of a typical businessman.

"I'm Cameron, of the police department," Cameron introduced himself.

Ward shook hands across time desk. He looked politely blank and not very interested.

"Miss Koenig tells me--" He didn't finish it. He hadn't meant to.

"I don't like to come here to your office like this, but after all, it's the kindest way. The telephone is pretty heartless at certain times. . . ."

"Kindest? Heartless?"

"I have bad news for you," Cameron said bluntly. He took out the typed list, held it so that it lined his own hand.

Ward came around from behind the desk, then stopped short.

"There's been an accident," Cameron said. "Someone's been hurt. We're not sure what relationship she --" he deliberately emphasized the word, "bears to you."

He was holding the list in such a way that only he, not Ward, could read it.

"Is it Louise? Is it Mrs. Ward?"

Ward's face was strained and pale, but steady. Cameron watched it closely. He murmured something hesitant, purposely indistinct.

"It's not my mother, is it? Not Mom--?"

His face grew whiter still. It flickered tearfully while he strove to hold it still.

Cameron watched it closely.

There were only three more names on the list: two married sisters, both younger than himself, and his partner's daughter, a girl of twelve or thirteen. Cameron shook his head to himself.

"I don't believe--" he said blurredly.

Ward took a staggering step toward him, then another. He caught hold of his lapels in supplication. His eyelids drooped, half-covering his eyes.

"Martine--" he whispered expiringly.

"Who's Martine?" Cameron answered.

He didn't answer that. "Oh, my God," he shuddered convulsively, his knees dipped limply, and he would have at least slid downward, if not fallen, had not Cameron caught him under the arms and held him for a moment until he got his own powers of support back again.

"What's her other name? Her last name?" Cameron had to put his mouth close, aim the words directly into his ear, to get him to understand them at all, acknowledge them. His faculties were so clogged with shocked grief they would not, it seemed, have penetrated otherwise.

"Jensen," he moaned, in mechanically-extracted answer.

Cameron led him over to a chair, helped him down into it.

"Take a drink, Mr. Ward," he said.

Ward nodded, pointed. Cameron got it out for him, poured it, handed it to him.

"There has been no accident. No one has been hurt." He wrote the name down on his list: "Martine Jensen."

He had to repeat the statement. "No one. Miss Jensen or anyone else."

Ward's reaction was slower this time, but as thorough as it had been in the first case. When it had completed itself, he rose to his feet. He dashed the halffinished brandy in the paper cup full into Cameron's face. Little straw-colored drops stood out on his white shirtcollar.

"Get out of my office." He shook with the effort of dislodging the words.

He came closer, swung, and hit him in time side of the jaw.

Cameron staggered, kept his balance by putting his hand out to something behind him.

"I won't hold that against you," he said. "I would have done that to anyone too, who did what I did to you."

Ward kept his arm from delivering a second blow only by sheer muscular contraction which made it tremble as it held itself back.

"What'd you do a thing like that for?"

"I had to find out whom you loved most. There was no other way."

'Ward didn't ask him why. "Get out," he said through his clenched teeth.

Cameron opened the door. "I'm getting. I'll be back--shortly."

Cameron went back and showed the chief his list, Three names had been crossed off. Three remained, one of which had not been on it originally, had been added during the interview itself. They read:

1.
3. His wife.

2.
2. His mother.

3.
1. Martine Jensen.

The chief was annoyed. "Well, which is which? Why the double sequence of numbers, what do they mean?"

"That's what I wanted to ask you. They mean: one is the sequence in which he mentioned them. In other words, the speed with which they came to his mind. The other is the degree of emotion he showed. Now, which is it? Is it the one that first came to his mind, his wife? Is it the one he showed the greatest emotion about, his Martine Jensen? (Whoever she is.) I'm not a psychologist."

"We agree," the chief added parenthetically.

"I thought it would be clear, it would be easy to tell. It isn't clear, it isn't easy to tell. That's the trouble with these tests of behavior. When human nature is involved, it's never predictable, it always--"

The chief had been pondering. He stopped pondering now, nodded in arrival at a conviction. "The one he showed the greatest emotion about," he said, speaking with great deliberation.

"But maybe it was cumulative emotion, the result of increasing strain. Maybe the first in mind was the right one, but he still had enough self-control at that moment to keep from showing it fully. It was only later that his control finally wore out. In other words, the emotion was for his wife, but it was carried over, past that pointy and only showed itself by the time we'd reached the third name, externally ."

The chief didn't bother arguing with him. "The one he showed the greatest emotion about," he said doggedly.

"But will he figure it out that way too? The Danger? If we, the police, can't be sure, how can he, on the outside, be sure? We may protect the sweetheart and he may go after the wife."

"The one he showed the greatest emotion about. Look, try not to think, will you, you only get in trouble. just be the machine you're supposed to be. A little logic gives us the right answer and that's all I've used. The mere fact he has a sweetheart in addition to a wife, shows he loves the sweetheart more. If he loved his wife more than his sweetheart, he wouldn't have a sweetheart at all. He wouldn't need one. She would be superfluous."