Rex Stout (12 page)

Miss Delaney smiled a little. She was fully aware of the sweet uses of publicity, especially when the proposed medium was of the nature of the
Town and Country Register.
She looked with calculating interest at the lively dark eyes and inquired, “And you want something from this end too? I’m afraid you’ll have to see Miss Gannon—”

“Not at all.” The man sounded a little hurt. “I’m no hog. I’ll get mine from the
Tee and See.
But I need your co-operation to make it as good as I can. This picture of the ensemble is plenty good enough, and it’s a good shot of Miss Farris too, but what I want is a piece of the bayeta yarn itself, shoot it, enlarge it maybe six times, and print it the length of the page. That’s why I was hoping the outfit was here, I thought maybe we could take a strand of the yarn from it. Of course I could fake it, but that would be dangerous, especially in an enlargement. I doubt if I would dare do it if I didn’t have the real thing. That would do just as well—if you have a piece of it left over—do you?”

“I’m not sure.” Miss Delaney pursed her lips. “Miss
Farris always keeps a sample, but I don’t know whether she had any of that left or not. She’ll be here in the morning—”

“I wouldn’t like to wait. This is hot. Maybe you could look—if it isn’t too much trouble….”

Miss Delaney hesitated. She never liked to discuss publicity with her partner anyway, for although Jean had sense enough to understand its necessity, she shied off whenever she could. And this was certainly decorous and dignified enough….

She got up, asked the man to wait, and passed through the intervening room into Jean’s sanctum. There she again received proof that the chaos was not disorder. First she consulted a large canvas-bound book, speedily found the entry she sought, and went to a filing cabinet and opened the third section from the top. The folder she extracted after a little fingering bore an inscription in Jean’s bold hand on an outside flap: “7/21/37—Bayeta—GC—unr by JF—9 oz.—to Krone for JF.”

Miss Delaney, frowning at it, muttered to herself, “Is that so, G.C., I didn’t know that—if she didn’t want me to, she shouldn’t have put it here in the open file—anyway, I don’t see what difference it makes so long as it’s bayeta—”

She selected a single strand the length of three fingers, returned the yarn to the folder, and the folder to the file.

In her office, she was surprised to see the man sitting at her desk, writing with her pen on a piece of her paper. He looked up and smiled apologetically, and hastily arose.

“Did you find it?” He reached for the yarn, eagerly, but not too eagerly. “That’s fine! So that’s real bayeta! It is a story, you know—it’s a peach!” He tucked the yarn into a pocket, and extended a piece of paper. “I took the
liberty of using your desk—I hope you won’t mind—if you’ll just sign that—”

She looked at it. It was a Jean Farris Fabrics letterhead, and he had written the date on it and the sentence:
I hereby certify that this yarn is a piece of the genuine bayeta used in weaving the material for the costume worn by Miss Jean Farris on the afternoon of August 5, 1937.

She glanced up quickly at the lively dark eyes and caught the lids drooping again. She had a mild protest ready, but he was ahead of her, explaining:

“My reputation is pretty fair, but after all, it would be simple for me to get a piece of red yarn somewhere and call it bayeta, and the
Tee and See
editors aren’t experts. Of course don’t sign it if you’d rather not, but it would make it a little easier for me to put it over….”

Miss Delaney shrugged, sat at her desk, and reached for her pen.

Down on the street, five minutes later, a taxi driver got a signal from the sidewalk and swerved to the curb. An agile medium-sized man with a portfolio under his arm hopped in and slammed the door to.

“Police Headquarters, Centre Street.”

The driver grunted and shifted gears. The passenger leaned forward: “Step on it. Fifteen minutes ought to do it. Make it hot, and don’t worry. Here.” The passenger extended his hand through the window. The driver glanced briefly at the shining metal badge, and shifted to high.

I
nspector Cramer’s fifth telephone call to his office during the afternoon, made from a booth in a florist’s shop a few doors down from Leo Kranz’s art gallery, was put through a few minutes before the arrival at headquarters of the taxi bearing the man with the portfolio, and therefore there was some delay before the inspector learned of the superb success of the tactics he had suggested with regard to the new development—that development of which he had first heard at the time of his previous phone call, prior to his visit to the National Indian Museum. But in any event, since he was a methodical man, Cramer would probably have kept his appointment with Portia Tritt. He had determined to make the acquaintance of the principal persons involved among their own surroundings rather than in the menacing atmosphere of the office of the chief of the homicide squad, and it was his custom to lay out a programme and stick to it.

Miss Tritt’s apartment on the twelfth floor of Nyasset House, overlooking the East River, was a subtle triumph of her personality. It was expensively and elegantly trite, with its Ferinda mirror and photographic murals by Dickinson in the entrance hall, and in the living
room, geometric rugs, bentwood furniture by Weber, copies of two Epsteins, and Diego Rivera sketches; but in spite of that it had the air and the feeling of a place where someone lived and wanted to live. Inspector Cramer, however, wasted no appreciation on the triumph; nor surprise on the luxury, for among the things which the reports had taught him about Portia Tritt was the fact that she was one of the eight or ten women whose varied activities in the New York fashion world were netting them incomes in excess of the salary of the President of the United States. Some things, of course, he had not been taught, as for instance that the Vionnet original of the afternoon dress she was wearing had sold for $800, whereas her copy by Nicholas had cost her nothing.

Cramer conjectured that her visible nervousness, as she recounted for him the story of her movements on the night of July 6th and the following morning, was probably habitual. In twenty minutes she took three cigarettes from a lacquered box, but never got one lit, she spoke hurriedly, and she sat her chair like a bird not on its chosen roost but on a momentary perch soon to be abandoned. Nevertheless, the story got told. She had ridden to Lucky Hills after lunch with Val Carew, driven by his chauffeur. Guy Carew had arrived that morning. There had been a long conversation between Guy and his father—not a quarrel, so far as she knew—and she and Guy had played a few sets of tennis. Later Buysse had come, and Leo Kranz, and the Barths. She knew nothing whatever of Barth’s business with Carew, but a remark of Carew’s had led her to suppose that Barth had phoned that morning to request an appointment, and that Carew was grimly amused that his wife was to accompany him. She had noticed nothing unusual in any one’s conduct before or during dinner, or after. After dinner she had
played billiards with Kranz, and when Kranz went up a little after eleven she had decided to go for a walk.

Cramer put in, “Had you seen either of the Carews since dinner?”

“No.”

“Did you see Guy when you went outdoors? He was on one of the terraces.”

“I didn’t go that way. It was a cool evening, and I went first to the side hall, to get a jacket from the closet, and then left by the main entrance, to tell Orson not to lock me out.”

“Okay. Orson says it was 11.25 when you spoke to him. You came back in at one o’clock?”

“Around that, yes.” Portia Tritt abandoned her fourth cigarette to a tray without having lit it. The tip of her tongue showed for an instant between her lips, and disappeared. She looked straight at the inspector. “Of course,” she said, “I know that the decencies of privacy no longer exist—for that night—for any of us who were there. I realize you have to know everything, and anyway, you already do. You are aware that Mr. Carew and I intended to be married. You are aware of his habit of consulting—the sunlight on his dead wife’s face, in her tomb. I suppose you are aware that he had not in fact engaged to marry me, that he had informed me that he intended to let the decision be made on that morning in his wife’s tomb….”

The tip of her tongue showed again. “But perhaps that isn’t the way to say it. We had, really, agreed that we would marry. But he had let me understand that he couldn’t fulfil the agreement without Tsianina’s approval—or, as he said, her indifference. That sounds as if I had got myself into a humiliating position, and I had. Nobody could understand how it happened and my reason for submitting to it without knowing Val Carew, and I assure
you we understood each other perfectly. But, why I say this, it was not only humiliating, it was ridiculous—it
is
ridiculous, my explanation of why I went outdoors and stayed until one o’clock. I wanted to look at the sky. I wanted to know if it seemed likely that the sun would be shining in the morning.”

Cramer grunted. “It may have been ridiculous, but it was practical. And at one o’clock?”

“I went to my room. I didn’t undress, because when I’m on edge I know I can’t sleep, so I sat and tried to read. Perhaps I read some, but not much. At two o’clock—exactly that, for I looked at my watch—I reached a decision that I had been trying to make. I left my room and went to Guy Carew’s room and knocked on his door, and he let me in.”

She stopped. Cramer, with narrowed eyes on her, demanded, “Go on from there.”

She shook her head. “That’s all. Except that I stayed in his room, and he was with me, until half-past seven, when Wilson came and said he had found—Val Carew’s body.”

Cramer, continuing to gaze at her, folded his arms and straightened his shoulders. Finally he sighed. “Look here, Miss Tritt. There were two things in particular I wanted to go over with you. This is one of them. You can’t possibly get away with this. The police have been more than square with you. Not only has this not been published, it hasn’t even been whispered. But sooner or later someone’s going to be arrested and tried for murdering Val Carew, and the odds are a thousand to one you’ll be on the witness stand. See what you think of the decencies of privacy then, when you are asked why you went to Guy Carew’s room at two in the morning and stayed there for over five hours. If you refuse to say, there are only two possible surmises, or rather three.
One is that you’re lying. Another is that what you are concealing is guilty knowledge of the murder. The third you can guess—and Guy is the son of the man you expected to marry. I’m not accusing you of any of these motives for concealment; I’m just showing you the logic of it, and how that logic will work if you insist on giving it a chance, not among a few policemen, but with twelve people in a jury box and ten million people who read newspapers. You can’t get away with it.”

Portia Tritt said calmly, “The ten million—if it comes to that—may think what they please. As for a jury—what is there for a jury? Guy Carew is not a murderer. I am not.”

“That may be a point at issue.”

“Before a jury?”

“I say it may.”

She shook her head. “That’s a weaker threat, even, than the other. I’m not an ingénue, Inspector. Neither am I a holy terror. I’m thirty-three years old. For fifteen years I’ve wriggled through the mob, pinching and kicking and scratching and pulling hair, and—I’m where I am. The main trick is to keep all your own scars on the inside, where they don’t show. You threaten me with odium.” She laughed a little, not nicely. “You’re much too late with that. Haven’t you studied chemistry? Don’t you know that the air we breathe is composed of nitrogen, oxygen and odium? No? All I have to say, I said that morning at Lucky Hills, when the air was also filled with fear and suspicion and suspense and policemen. I went to Guy Carew’s room at two o’clock, and neither of us left there for five and a half hours.”

Cramer blurted at her, “Did you have an affair with him in Paris in 1929?”

She countered, instantly, “What does he say?”

“He doesn’t say.”

“Then neither do I. I’m not a braggart.”

“You knew him in Paris?”

“Yes, I met him.”

“Did Val Carew know that you had known his son?”

“Yes.”

“Did he know you had been intimate?”

“No more than you do.”

“Did he learn of your former intimacy with his son on July 6th? Did Guy tell him about it that day? Is that what you went to Guy’s room to talk about?”

“Three questions?” With a little smile Portia Tritt elevated her left hand to the level of her lips—admirable lips, neither too strong nor too dainty; with the index finger—a lovely, shapely finger—perpendicular. “No.” The middle finger was erected beside its fellow. “No.” The ring finger up. “No.”

“Okay. How much have you seen of Guy Carew since 1929?”

“Nothing. Oh, perhaps a few casual meetings. Most of the time he has been out West. You know he has been doing things for the Indians?”

“So I understand. Have you had correspondence with him?”

“Never.” She procured a cigarette from the lacquered box. “To tell the truth, I had forgotten his existence until last summer, when Val Carew was introduced to me by my friend Leo Kranz. Then, of course, I remembered his son.”

“And although you had forgotten his existence, you went to his room uninvited at two in the morning?”

“I did.”

“And you are not telling why?”

“I am not.”

“Do you suppose if the fact appeared in the newspapers it might remind somebody of something?”

“I wouldn’t think so. I don’t know who it could be, or what.” She smiled. “It really couldn’t help you, Inspector, neither the publication nor the threat of it. I told you I’m immunised to odium. Not that it’s my favorite diet.” She smiled again. “I appreciate your not publishing it—very much. And I shouldn’t expect an official of your standing to publish it merely in order to get even with me for having zones of discretion. What I think is, I think it was pretty decent of me to admit that I had visited a man in his room and stayed most of the night—a man who would certainly never have revealed it himself—to save him from the possibility of a suspicion that he had murdered his father. I might have waited until the suspicion was a fact instead of a possibility.”