Murder Up My Sleeve

16

Cynthia Renton looked down upon the surface of the King Alphonse she had been sipping. The film of thick cream which covered the dark liqueur was in a state of wild agitation.

“What makes it do that, Owl?” she asked.

“Do what?” Terry asked.

“The cream,” she explained, “on the Crême de Cacao. It looks as though it might be boiling, only there aren’t any bubbles coming up. It’s like storm clouds when they’re whipped by a wind.”

“I don’t know,” he told her.

She ceased to look at the liqueur, raised her eyes to his.

The floor show was over. It was during the lull between dances, with the orchestra silent. Waiters were scurrying about. Well-modulated voices, in animated conversation, filled the night club with a murmur which was punctuated by the sound of silverware against plates and saucers.

“So-o-o-o,” she said, “feet of clay after all, eh?”

Terry raised his eyebrows in silent interrogation.

“Like all gods,” she said, “you have feet of clay. I’ve finally found something you don’t know.”

She laughed then, and reaching across the table, squeezed his hand. “Owl, you put it across for me, didn’t you?”

He twisted his hand under hers, to give it an answering squeeze.

“But I feel sorry for Juanita, Terry,” she said. “You can’t blame her. God knows, Mandra needed killing, and she’s a fiery, unconventional creature of emotions. She shouldn’t be subject to the same rules which control other people. I’m like her, myself. I see the thing from her angle.”

“I understand,” Terry said, “that she’s retained your friend, C. Renmore Howland, to defend her.”

“Good old Renny,” Cynthia laughed. “You should have seen the smug way he went about getting me to commit perjury. My story, he said, would get me hanged. There was only one story that would get me off, and I must be very dramatic in the way I told it to the jury — tears at just the right time, and no leg when I was putting on the tears, but, in between times, plenty of leg for the jury. And sobs and leg for the newspaper photographers. Terry, he said jurors paid more attention to legs than alibis. Was he right?”

“He should know,” Terry said, laughing. “I’ve never been on a jury, but, if I were, I know how I’d feel.”

She looked at him with roguish eyes and said demurely, “You’d acquit me, Owl. Renny became so interested during my dress rehearsal, he couldn’t keep his mind on his perjury.”

With a quick motion, she leaned across the table towards him. “Tell me, Terry, what about that little Chinese girl?”

“Sou Ha,” he said, “has given me her friendship, and when the Chinese give you their friendship, they give for keeps. Sou Ha thought you really had killed Mandra and that I was in love with you. She wanted me to be happy. Therefore, she confessed to a murder she had never committed. It was, of course, a crazy thing to do, looking at it from our viewpoint. But she’s Chinese, and to her it seemed perfectly logical.”

Cynthia, suddenly serious, said, “Terry Clane, no matter what happens, you’re never going to betray the friendship of that Chinese girl.”

His frown was puzzled. “Why, of course not, Cynthia. What makes you think I’d even consider such an idea?”

“Because,” she told him, “you’re getting ready to make the plunge... Terry, promise me one thing... No, wait a minute, I know a better way than that. I’ll ask you a question and you’ll promise to answer it in Chinese. How’s that?”

“What’s the question?”

“When you marry Alma,” she said, her eyes wistful, but her voice racing on with that little lilt of whimsical humor which was so characteristic of her, “will you please remember that she has some rather conventional ideas; will you please let her own you, body and soul, so you can’t have any outside friendships; will you please promise never to play around at all, but look at life as a sober, serious business, to drop the little Chinese girl from your list of close friends, to lose as much of your spontaneity as possible, and always treat me as a little, scatterbrained sister... Tell me the answer in Chinese, Owl.”

“Why in Chinese, Cynthia?”

She laughed, and there was a little catch in her laugh, despite the hard smile on her lips. “Because there’s no word for ‘yes’ in Chinese, silly. Oh, Owl, please don’t get serious and lose your ability to take life as an adventure!”

He pressed his lips together and made a humming sound.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Chinese for ‘no’,” he told her, smilingly, his eyes tender. “You see, the Chinese negative is expressed by simply prefixing that m-m-m sound to any word or sentence.”

“My,” she said, “it must be easy for a Chinese girl to say ‘no’. She could say it with her mouth closed!”

Terry dismissed her remark with a mere nod and went on, “And, by way of further answer to your question, I’m not going to marry Alma.”

Her eyes widened with consternation. “Not going... to marry Alma? Oh, Owl, but you must! It would break her heart. You love her and she loves you. You do love her, don’t you, Owl?”

“In a way — yes.”

“Then why aren’t you going to marry her, Owl?”

“Because,” he said, gripping her fingers, his voice suddenly husky, “I’m going to marry you.”

“You... you’re... Oh, Owl, no... please! Alma...”

“Wants me to,” he interrupted. “She’s too wrapped up in a career to take time out to be a wife. She didn’t really analyze it until this thing came up, and then...”

Cynthia stared at him with startled eyes, suddenly scraped back her chair.

“Come on, Owl,” she said. “If you’ve got anything like that to say to me, you’re going to say it where we aren’t surrounded by a whole mess of strange people, and... and where lipstick smears won’t be so damned conspicuous. Come on, Owl... Gee, I hope I’m not taking the aggressive in this ring, but you come on!”

A puzzled waiter rushed after them, caught them halfway to the door, and stared incredulously at the bill Terry pushed into his palm. At the cloakroom there was a slight delay while the attendant was getting Cynthia’s fur coat. A newsboy temptingly displayed a folded front page. “Read about de moider, Mister,” he invited.

“Oh, Owl, look! There’s Juanita’s picture, and...”

Terry handed the boy a half dollar, grabbed the paper. Cynthia looked over his shoulder. Suddenly she giggled. “Look!” she exclaimed.

Terry, who had been reading the headlines: “POLO PLAYER ADMITS BEING TOOL IN MANDRA MURDER... SPORTSMAN PROCURES MURDER WEAPON FOR DARING DANCER,” lowered his eyes to the place Cynthia was indicating. Juanita’s picture had been taken in front of her cell. Below it appeared the caption: “JUANITA MANDRA, THE BEAUTIFUL DANCER, WIDOW OF THE MURDERED MAN, TELLS HER STORY FOR THE FIRST time: ‘WE HAD DECIDED TO SEPARATE,’ THE DANCER SAID TEARFULLY. ‘I WAS FINISHED WITH HIM BECAUSE OF HIS INFIDELITIES. I WENT TO HIS APARTMENT TO GET SOME OF MY THINGS. THIS SLEEVE GUN WAS LYING ON THE TABLE. NOT KNOWING WHAT IT WAS, I PICKED IT UP. HE GRABBED ME, STRUGGLED WITH ME, RIPPED MY GOWN FROM MY SHOULDERS. I DREW BACK, FIGHTING TO FREE MYSELF. I AM SATISFIED NOW, MY HUSBAND HAD INTENDED TO KILL ME WITH THAT SLEEVE GUN. HIS HANDS WERE MOIST WITH PERSPIRATION. THEY SLIPPED DOWN MY BARE ARMS. HIS FINGERS CLOSED ABOUT MINE, PRESSING THE CATCH OF THE SLEEVE GUN. I SCREAMED BECAUSE THE CATCH WAS CUTTING INTO MY FLESH. SUDDENLY THERE WAS A WHIRRING SOUND. SOMETHING JARRED IN MY HAND. JACOB FELL BACK. EVEN THEN I DIDN’T KNOW THAT...’ (Read the full story of what transpired on page 3, column 2.)”

The girl brought Cynthia’s coat and Terry slipped it over her smooth shoulders. She nestled against the soft fur and laughed.

“Good old Renny. He’ll make it stick. Isn’t it a swell break for Juanita that Renny had already thought up that story, studied up on sleeve guns and had it all rehearsed? You should have seen the methodical way he ironed out all the weak points in the story!”

She studied the photograph, looking at Juanita’s legs with the critical appraisal which one woman gives to the feminine charms of another.

“At that, Owl,” she said, “the arguments by which she expects to sway the jury aren’t any better than mine.”