Sinful Woman (11 page)

“This is all conjecture?”

“Con—”

“Just guesswork?”

“Absolutely, yes sir,
guesswork
.”

Irritated, the Coroner led Dmitri through the rest of his story, encountered much less gabbiness. Dmitri stood down. Then he walked off to one side. Then, to his horror, he heard the Coroner say to his jury: “O. K., then as soon as the Sheriff identifies this other stuff for the record, I’ll instruct you in the law and you can consider your verdict.”

He caught Mr. Layton outside, between the parked cars, where he had followed when that gentleman got up and hurried out of the hearing. But when he grabbed Mr. Layton’s arm, he was flung roughly against the side of the building. “So that’s the kind of a cross you pull on me, hey? Get up there and mumble something about how funny it looks, and then go off in a corner, and that’s supposed to make it a suicide, hey? Where’s that letter she was supposed to get?”

“Plizze! We wrote the letter! We—”

“Then where is it?”

“I gave it to the Sharf! He took it! He—”

Waiting no longer, Mr. Layton strode off to the rear, no doubt to drag his surprise witness out of his car and parade her in to the Coroner. Dmitri didn’t wait to see. He turned to the open window at his side, dropped his elbows on the sill, and quite unrestrainedly began to weep. He seemed to have his head in some kind of storeroom, and his tears splashed down on big green dice in an open box on the floor.

He was in a dreadful spot all right. But he had become part of a business that is accustomed to dreadful spots, and has been well-schooled in what to do about them. When a crisis arises, some writer usually bellows: “I got it, I got it, I GOT IT! Cut to those sirens! Cut to those motorcycles coming down to street! Maybe it’s not story, but it’s ACTION!”

That may have been why Dmitri suddenly straightened up, fished a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it, and dropped it into the box of celluloid dice.

T
HE SIRENS WERE A
success, quite as much of a success as they invariably are in a fast, gangster movie. They came screeching out from town at 80, motorcycles in front, the chief’s car behind that, the salvage truck behind that, the ladder truck behind that, and the pump behind that, a fine, glittering, noisy, 100% American midnight motorcade. Even so, it was tame in comparison with what went on
inside
the Domino. The inflammable dice, if they had been all, might not have amounted to much, and Dmitri’s desperate scheme might have failed for the simple reason that a fire takes a great deal longer to get going than a theatrical imagination realizes. But the box happened to be sitting within an inch or two of the big intake cable that led from the connection outside to the electric meter at rear. So when the dice flared hotly up they did not ignite the wall, for it was made of some sort of fireproof composition, but they did melt the cable, so that the first result of the cigarette was that the place went completely dark, without so much as a fuse blowing out. For a minute or so, as Americans versed in the idiosyncrasies of power houses, the gathering sat around without saying a word: one or two muttered gags about a blackout were rebuked by the Coroner, who said it was not a frivolous occasion. But when another minute went by and no light came on, the Coroner said: “Well, we got to get on with this. Tony, do you think you could get us a few candles?”

“I’ll do it.”

It was the voice of one of the girl dealers, and at once there was the sound of her heels clicking off to a corner, and then out. At once came her scream, and then another, and then another. “It’s on fire, the whole storeroom is burning,” she called, as soon as she could run back into the casino. At once came the Sheriff’s voice: “Out, everybody. Take it easy, but get outside.” The front door opened, making a big rectangular patch of light from outside, and Mr. Flynn’s voice said: “This way.” Several photographers, carrying cameras and evidently concerned for their pictures, hurried out. But hardly had Mr. Flynn spoken when Tony, frantically, yelled: “The cash! Girls, the cash! Girls, don’t let me down without getting the cash out!” For the cash, amounting to several thousand dollars, had been rung up on the registers, but it had not been put in the safe, and Tony’s voice betrayed only too well what he stood to lose if the place went up and took this precious paper with it.

Within a few seconds there was a frightful din, as the girls groped their way to the registers to retrieve the cash, the officers groped their way to the girls and tried to get them out, and the photographers groped their way inside again to take pictures of the scene by flash-bulb, all yelling at the top of their lungs. But a dull, flickering glow took command at last, accompanied by the smell of smoke, and by the light of that, the girls ran out, handing their money to Tony at the door. After them stamped the irate officers. When the fire apparatus arrived, in answer to Mr. Britten’s call, some of the crowd was out front, but most of it was at the side, watching Tony, Jake, and one or two others throwing water into the storeroom window with buckets.

Dmitri, being already out, took no part in any of these proceedings, but stood apart, some little distance off, apparently studying how best to take advantage of the diversion he had created. When the firemen piled off their trucks and began coupling their hose to the plugs along the main highway, he spotted the Sheriff, standing with the first chief near the ladder truck. Going over and speaking in a large, confident way, he said: “Can I bother you one minute, Sharf?”

“What about?”

“Plizze, is confidential.”

Wonderingly the Sheriff followed him a few steps off, until they were on the banks of the little mountain stream. Dmitri cleared his throat, said mysteriously and importantly: “Sharf, there was one thing. One thing I didn’t tell when Excellenz ask me. Sharf, I feel sure this Vicki, this my friend, he killed himself.”

“What you got to go on?”

“Last night he wrote a letter.”

“How do you know?”

“He took my pen. My pen with green ink. He wrote a letter to Sylvia, put a special on, drove out and mailed it. Sharf, when he finish this letter, Vicki cried. He cried like a baby. In my arms, he cried. Sharf, I
know
this man took his own life.”

“Well, you could be right.”

“What did she say when she read this letter, ha?”

“That the letter you gave me?”

“Sure, it was the same one.

“She never saw it.”

“She—What did you say?”

“I burned it up. She got kind of upset when I handed it to her. Broke her up. I didn’t see any reason for making her feel worse. I pitched it on the fire. It’s gone.”

Dmitri made a noise like a very small pig. The Sheriff watched an emergency truck of the electric light company turn in at the gate, then turned a reflective eye on the wretched little figure in front of him. “You seem kind of upset yourself.”

“Yes, Sharf. He was my friend.”

“We’ll never know.”

He started to rejoin the fire chief, but Dmitri caught his arm. “No, Sharf, plizze don’t go. I must talk to you.”

“What about?”

“Money.”

“In what way would you want to talk to me about money?”

“Man to man.”

“You sure you don’t mean crook to cop?”

“Why, that’s ridiculous.”

“Then say what it is.”

“Now, Sharf, don’t get sore, because I don’t know how goes with you. Sometimes a guy needs money, sometimes not.”

“He generally does.”

“O. K., then if twanny five-fifty will help out, say the word, here I am. Cesh, or any way you want it.”

“You think I could be bought for fifty bucks?”

“Bucks? Don’t make me laugh. Grand.”

Even the Sheriff, no stranger to matters cinematic, blinked at this gay riposte. “You mean you’d pay me fifty thousand dollars to cover up something in this case?”

“Cover up? Who said cover up?”

“Then for what?”

“That I can sleep my nights, Sharf. That I can go back to Hollywood and hold up my head. That I can look people in the eye. That they don’t say, he let his friend be killed. That they don’t say, there goes the dirty heel that didn’t think any more of his friend than to let him use a loaded gun. That they don’t say—”

“I got the idea.”

“Sharf, I know this note says Vicki will take his own life if Sylwia gets a divorce. All I ask, Sharf, is that you tell you read note
first. Before
you burned it up. You burned it up, that’s O. K. Who wouldn’t? My God, to save a girl from feeling so bad, anybody would burn it up. You do this for me, so all know Dimmy Spiro is no heel, that all know Vicki himself did this, that’s all I esk. No cover up. The truth, Sharf! The truth!”

The Sheriff cogitated over this some moments, staring at Dmitri, or at that spot a few inches behind Dmitri’s head that seemed to be his focal point at certain moments. Then he said: “Here’s where you get the surprise of your life. I’m taking your money.”

“Sharf! Sharf! I die! From happy!”

“I want your check.”

“Anything.”

“Make it to Parker Lucas, Treasurer.”

“Treasurer what?”

“Just at large.”

“O. K., do like you say.”

“I won’t testify that you read the letter, but I’ll testify there was a letter, and that I burned it. If you want to testify that you lent him the pen to write the letter, and that he cried and made remarks that led you to think it was a suicide letter, then O. K., that’s up to you. But I’ll agree if the inquest turns out in a way that interferes with your sleep, to return your money.”

“O. K., Sharf, it’s wonderful!”

The Sheriff led the way to his car and got in, beckoning Dmitri to follow. Then he turned on the top light, and Dmitri got out a single blank check. Then, using the brim of the Sheriff’s hat for a writing table, he wrote a check, handed it over. After examining it carefully, the Sheriff put it in his pocket.

“O. K., Mr. Spiro, thanks.”

“Ah, Sharf, you don’t know what you do for me.”

“You set that fire?”

“ ... What you say, Sharf?”

“I asked you if you set this place on fire.”

“O. K., Sharf, I did.”

“You’re paying for that too. Every cent it takes to repair that damage, so Tony doesn’t even put in a claim.”

“Sharf, you know I will.”

T
HE INQUEST, WHEN IT
assembled in a quite battered casino, showed every indication of frayed nerves. It was, and had been even before the fire, in the last few minutes of its life, and the jury, to say nothing of officers, witnesses, and newspaper men, wanted to get away. The Coroner rapped for order, and instructed the jury that they were to certify the fact of death, the cause of death, the manner of death, if they had been able to ascertain it, and any consequences of death they thought proper to include, particularly whether they knew of any persons who should be held for the grand jury. He was interrupted by the Sheriff, who asked permission to add to his testimony. He then said what he had promised Dmitri he would say. Dmitri was then permitted to testify about the letter, and especially the way his head would hang in shame if it were fastened upon him that he had been careless enough to let his friend be killed by accident, whereas in truth the affair had been a deliberate, if cunningly concealed suicide. The Coroner said: “You are to disregard the last two pieces of evidence, since conjecture, regard for personal feelings, or other irrelevant things don’t concern you.”

The jury whispered for two or three minutes, then one of the middle-aged men got up and said: “We find the said Victor Alexis Olaf Hermann Adlerkreutz came to his death by bullet through the heart fired from a gun in his own hands and the hands of Dmitri Spiro in an accidental and unintentional manner.”

“So entered.”

There was a stir as the newspaper people stood up, and the Coroner opened his mouth to declare the inquest at an end.

“Just a minute.”

The sound of feet moving toward the door stopped, and Dmitri caught the Sheriff’s arm, whimpering, whispering, pleading. But the Sheriff paid no attention, being evidently interested in Mr. Layton, who was striding with masterful mien toward the Coroner’s table. Then Dmitri did what was perhaps the first stupid thing he had done in a long and terrible day. As he hung to the Sheriff’s arm, he saw a letter in the Sheriff’s pocket. With Mr. Layton just a few feet away, and Ethel slithering her way forward in his wake, he evidently thought it no time to hesitate. Taking the letter between a roguish thumb and forefinger he flipped it out of the pocket and said: “Sharf, Sharf, you kid me! You didn’t burn this note at all! You—”

But when he saw the envelope he stopped, and his face froze in horror. The Coroner, who had been whispering in puzzlement to Mr. Flynn, stopped too, he being no more than three feet away. For there, in the Sheriff’s handwriting, were the words: “Shoreham Confession.” Reaching out, he took the letter from Dmitri. Then, taking a knife from his pocket, and acting with grave, slow deliberation, he slit it open, took out the slip of paper that it contained, read it. Then, taking off his glasses and looking frighteningly solemn, he said: “Sheriff Lucas, Sylvia Shoreham, Tony Rico, Dmitri Spiro, and Gerland La Bouche, it is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest, that you must submit yourselves at once to search, and that anything you say here may be used against you.”

No matrons were present to search Sylvia, but the Coroner swore in the Domino’s phone girl, and instructed her what she was to take, what to leave on the prisoner. The two women then went off to the ladies’ room. Police, expert on their job, made quick work of the men prisoners, while the reporters, still in the dark as to this unexpected twist, tried to break through the Coroner’s silence for their deadlines. It wasn’t until Sylvia and the phone girl returned, and a little memo book taken from her handbag had been placed on the table, that the Coroner resumed. Looking at the book, he handed it back to Sylvia; then, in a slow measured voice, read the confession. It emptied it, as no fire could have done. The newspaper people stampeded for their deadlines in a noisy, shouting throng, and for a full minute after their departure the air outside was full of the noise of their taxis and cars. The Coroner, who had rapped angrily for order, waited until things quieted down. Then he turned to the prisoners and said: “Is there any statement any of you people wish to make?”