Dead of Night

Chapter seventeen: Fiery femme

In my experience, nobody can dope out dames. But nobody.

Those mass-opinion pollsters who’d tied on the bib and tucker in our Crystal Room might come up with such pithy data as that on winter afternoons five out of seven femmes will prefer the north or sunny side of Thirty-Fourth Street, while in summer it’s the other way around. But they’d never be able to guarantee it in the case of any particular distaffer.

So I had no confidence in my ability to figure out what a girl like Tildy Millett might do under any given set of circumstances. Still it didn’t seem quite rational for her to knife a man guarding her from a killer, wait around for the dead man’s partner to escort her to a studio, rattle off We Won’t Go Home Until Morning — and then elope. Not unless she had Borgian blood in her.

There was nothing wrong with Marge Lanerd’s statement. Or MacGregory’s topper. No real flaw, except there’d been no explanation of Lanerd’s pose with the automatic, after Tildy’d left for the studio. No mention of the man in the cream-colored suit. No reference to the gay doings Lanerd had arranged with Edie Eberlein and her little et al’s. Only half a dozen other minor discrepancies left unaccounted for.

But I had to believe Marge Lanerd. It had been hard for her to strip her emotions like that. No easier because MacGregory had been there to hear just how she felt about her husband. He didn’t look as if he’d enjoyed the recital.

“If Mister Lanerd’s actually done a skip-out,” I said, “he’d probably get in touch with some member of his firm, let him know.”

MacGregory doubted it. “Kenson’s in London. Frank Fullbright’s on a cruise somewhere. He’d let his secretary know, I suppose.” He glanced moodily at Mrs. Lanerd.

I asked if I might use the phone. The butler brought it, on a forty-foot cord plugged in somewhere off in a corner. I got the hotel, asked for 21CC.

Ruth Moore answered tautly. “Yes?”

“Gil Vine, Miss Moore.”

“Haveyouheardanything?” She hurried the words together.

“I was just about to ask you that.”

“He hasn’t phoned.” Her voice quavered with strain. “But — she called in. About ten minutes ago.”

“Miss Millett?”

“Yes. She asked for — Dow. She was all on edge when I told her we hadn’t heard from him. Crying, carrying on—”

“Where was she?”

“I asked her, but all she’d say was, ‘Mister Lanerd’ll know where to find me. Ask him to call me the minute he comes in, please.’” The secretary was close to the crack-up point herself.

That was that. She hadn’t thought about stalling while she had the call traced. Hadn’t said anything about the murder, naturally. Hadn’t even told Hacklin & Co., about the call.

I suggested she do that, gave the usual fatuous advice about taking it easy, told her I’d let her know soon’s I learned anything. After hanging up I had a feeling there were times when the telephone could be an instrument of torture.

Waiting — everybody waiting to hear from Mr. Giveaway. Hacklin, Ruth Moore, Marge Lanerd, not to exclude G. Vine.

“Might relieve your mind to know Tildy Millett isn’t planing to points east, Mrs. Lanerd. She just talked to Miss Moore. It wasn’t long-distance or our operator would have mentioned that before completing the call.”

“She’s with him?” MacGregory asked.

“No. I suppose she has a lot of friends who might put her up.”

“Not many, here.” Marge Lanerd trilled the high keys plaintively. “She’s from Minnesota, originally, but she bought a big place down in the Kentucky Bluegrass, when she isn’t in a show or on the road she spends practically all her time there. Her agent, Mister Walch, might put her up at his place.”

The producer vetoed that. “First place, Keith lives at the Gotham Athletic, which isn’t coeducational. Second place, she wouldn’t go to him for help; they’re always squabbling about publicity or contracts. He stays away from the studio about half the time because that Syrian maid of hers squawks about his making her nervous before a performance.”

“The maid,” I said. “This Nikky what’s-her-name.”

“Narian,” MacGregory answered.

“Where’s she from?”

“New Orleans, I think.” He shrugged. “She’s Tabasco, with a touch of T.N.T. Battles with me because I don’t have a private dressing-room for ‘her baby’ — goes at the boss all fire and combustion because he let the D.A. bottle her up in that hotel suite—”

“You can include me in that list, dear.” Marge smiled unhappily. “Nikky was ready to claw my eyes out this afternoon. She’d have done it, if Tildy hadn’t scolded her in Syrian—”

“Arabic,” MacGregory said.

“Yair.” I gave the phone back to His Haughtiness. “Well. We know she’s still in town. So Mister Lanerd couldn’t have gone out of town with her. Expect you’ll be hearing from him any minute.” I was lying by the clock. But it didn’t seem right to inflict my suspicions on Mrs. Lanerd. She had enough of her own to contend with.

It was just eleven by the neon-circled clock on Dave’s Place when I crunched the gravel of the parking oval under my tires. Just three hours since Ada’d showed me a spot of oil on a pillow slip.

The last of the fight fans would be surging out of the Garden. The first of the theater crowd would be straggling into the Calypso Room. I was tired and puzzled and uneasy as a cat on a hot stove; Lanerd’s disappearance bothered me. Everything I knew about him indicated he’d be the sort to keep in touch at a time when the storm signals were flying.

The burgery wasn’t chock-full of chic; what it was full of was cabbage and beef-stew odors. But there were a couple of motorcycles out in the oval; they had state licenses. Those road cops seldom patronize places where the grub isn’t first chop.

“T-bone and French frys,” I told the shorty behind the counter.

“Smothered?”

“Uh, uh.” That’s a cross all hotel men have to bear. No onions. Ever.

I consoled myself with a jug of brew, took it into a phone booth that smelled like a smoking car on the Erie.

When I got through to Tim, I forgot about the smell. “That hophead,” he boomed excitedly. “That Al Gowriss and so forth!”

“Remember your blood pressure. What about him?”

“Maxie — on car four — he made this hophead right away, soon’s Morry showed him the flyer. Maxie was off duty, but Morry got hold of him, called him back to check.”

“Gowriss in the house?”

“He was. This aft. Around six. Max don’t recall which floor Gowriss got off at. But he thinks prob’ly it was twenty. An’ Gil!”

“You’re busting my eardrum.”

“Max never did take this gorilla down again. None of the other elevator operators seem to have, either. He must still be upstairs!”