Red Gardenias

CHAPTER VI

They drove home soberly, both preoccupied, and parked the sedan in front of the house.

"How re we to explain the bullet hole?" Ann asked.

"We could say you shot at me and missed."

She said, "When I do I won t miss."

They went in and found Doc Williams in the kitchen. He was an operative of their agency. He d driven their car from New York and he was posing as their chauffeur. He was a middle-sized, dapper man with a waxed mustache and a streak of dead-white hair over his left temple. He saluted Crane smartly.

"Have a nice trip?" Crane asked formally.

"Very good, sir."

"Come up to my room. I want to talk with you."

Crane turned to Beulah. "This is Mr Williams. I want you to treat him right."

They mixed a shakerful of martinis in the dining room, then went upstairs.

"How re you gettin along with tutz?" Williams asked Crane. He winked at Ann, who was carrying celery, olives, and caviar canapes on a tray.

"I wish she wouldn t keep trying to get into my room at night," Crane said.

"Still got the appeal, hey?"

"It s my silk pajamas," Crane said modestly.

"Next time a burglar comes I ll let him take the ground floor away," Ann declared.

"A burglar?" Doc Williams was interested. "You had a burglar?"

Crane poured the martinis. "First a drink."

The drinks were just right, with the vermouth cutting the flavor of the gin without destroying the dryness. Crane poured a second round, then told of the burglary, of Mr March s accusation of Carmel March, of Delia and of the recent chase.

Williams was pleased. "It looks as though we re in for something."

"You ll think so when you see Carmel."

"A good number?"

Crane said, "Just looking at her makes me wish I knew how to tango."

The caviar was excellent. The black eggs were the size of buckshot, and about half the canapes had grated onion sprinkled over them. Some of the celery was stuffed with Roquefort.

Williams smiled at Ann. "It looks to me like you was giving Uncle William some lessons in detection."

"I am," Ann said.

Crane finished his drink, poured another. "I was afraid you were going to mention that." He selected a heart-shaped canape.

"Yes, and where s my champagne?" Ann said.

"You ll get it… probably across the bow, too, the way they christen a ship."

They sipped the martinis, munched celery and discussed the case. They agreed they would visit the Crimson Cat on the following night. Ann went to her room and presently reappeared in a semiformal dress of blue brocaded lame with silver shoulder straps. Her skin was smooth and tan.

Williams removed an olive pit from his mouth, flicked it under Crane s bed. "Bill was saying John traveled for the company, Ann."

"Yes?"

"That d give Richard a chance to chase Carmel."

"And John knew it," Crane added. "Or else he wouldn t have inquired about Richard s dovecot from the Jamesons."

Ann sat on the arm of Williams chair. "But where did he hear about the cottage?"

Crane didn t know.

"He couldn t have heard much," Williams asserted. "He wouldn t have asked the Jamesons to describe the woman if he had."

Crane admired Ann s eyes, quite green under artificial light. He said, "We agreed John found out about Richard and Carmel and killed Richard to stop the affair."

"But who killed John?" Williams objected. "We thought of that," Ann said. "He killed himself in remorse."

"What about Carmel?" Williams asked Crane, who was furtively tilting the shaker over his glass.

"I think she s beautiful," he replied.

Ann asked, "You re not going to get tight again, Bill?"

"Oh no." The shaker was empty, anyway. "Not me."

"I mean," Williams said, "couldn t Carmel have killed her husband?"

"Why?"

"She loved Richard, she wanted to avenge him."

Crane picked the olive out of his glass. It had absorbed enough alcohol to taste good. "Old man March thinks she killed him. He thinks she killed them both."

Williams asked, "Does he think she s going to wipe out the whole family… one by one?"

"Gosh!" Crane said. "I didn t ask him."

After dinner, Beulah s brother, James, served Ann and Crane coffee and brandy in the library before a bright pine fire.

"I don t like being a detective," Ann said.

Crane was astonished. "What could be nicer than this?" He halted his demitasse halfway to his mouth. "And besides, it isn t costing us a cent."

"It s a dead man s house," Ann said.

"Are you afraid of ghosts?"

"I don t know what it is." She looked at him through very wide green eyes. "I think it s the way everybody dies. Doesn t it give you a creepy feeling, Bill?"

"I haven t had a creep yet, darling."

"I think it s the gas. It hasn t any odor or color; it just sneaks up and kills you. It s horrible. Thinking of it makes me feel it in my throat, choking off my breath."

"Don t think about it, then," Crane said.

"If I were a March I d be scared to death." Light from the fire made her eyes glisten. "It s like having a curse on a family. So much hatred and death…"

"You aren t a March," Crane said. She was silent.

After a few minutes James brought Peter and Carmel into the library. Carmel took off her glossy mink coat, tossed it carelessly across the library couch. "Hello." Her voice had a throaty quality. She sat on the couch, crossed her legs. They were slender and long, but rounded.

"Hello," Crane said.

She had on a black velvet evening gown, so simple and so perfectly fitted to her body, that Crane knew it must have cost a lot of money. A diamond-and-ruby bracelet, on her left arm, glittered in the rays of the pine fire.

Ann greeted Peter. "How s the burglary business tonight?"

His face was pleasant with a smile. "I never start work before midnight."

"Then have a drink," Crane said.

James brought cups and fragile inhalers, and Ann poured them coffee from a chromium pot with an arched nose. Crane gave them good portions of brandy. Ann sat in a leather chair. Crane decided her legs were as attractive as Carmel s. They weren t so long, but the knees were better.

Peter said, "What we came over for was…" Crane interrupted him. "I know. You came for your car."

"Oh no."

"It s slightly damaged but it runs," Crane persisted.

"A pebble flew up and made a hole in the window," Ann explained.

"No, it was a bullet," said Crane.

"A passing car." Ann glared at him. "A stone must have shot up from its tires."

"It was an obvious attempt to assassinate us both." Crane said. "I was terrified."

While Ann poured the brandy Carmel said, "What we really came over for was to tell you about the Country Club dance Saturday night." Crane smelled her gardenia perfume.

"I told you Dad fixed you up with a membership," Peter said. "We thought you might like to come with us."

"That s awfully nice of you," Ann said.

"I only dance the bunny hug," Crane said. "Has that got out here yet?"

"Oh yes." Carmel smiled at him. "We do that and the subway dip and turkey in the straw."

"Then I ll come," said Crane decisively. "But you ll have to come to the Crimson Cat with me tomorrow night."

"I think that would be splendid," Carmel said.

They drank some more and soon Crane found himself sitting on the davenport with Carmel. Ann and Peter were in the kitchen. Carmel s skin was very pale, but it had a warm undertone of health; he thought she was a remarkably seductive woman. There was insolence about the arch of her dark brows, passion in her scarlet lips, a contemptuous abandon in the curve of her body on the couch. She had the violet-shaded hollows under her cheekbones Crane admired so much in women.

"Do all the corpses in Marchton smell of gardenias?" he asked.

Her eyes widened for an instant. "What do you mean?" Then they looked directly into his. "Oh, you re remembering this afternoon."

"Yes."

"Talmadge has a malicious tongue."

"But your husband, someone told me he smelled of gardenias," he lied.

Anger brought a faint glow to her eyes. "Why shouldn t he? After all, he was my husband." She leaned toward him so that the gardenia odor was strong in his nostrils. "Who told you?"

"Someone."

"You won t tell?"

"I don t think I better."

"I can guess." She looked at him and he imagined he saw fear and anger in her eyes. "I can guess."

"You have some enemies." He would have liked to know who she was thinking of, but he didn t dare press the matter further. He wanted her to believe he actually knew something.

She was looking at him again. "Why are you so interested?"

"I don t know," he said. "I am, though." She spoke slowly. "You re thinking there s something back of Richard s and John s deaths."

"Perhaps."

"Well, you re right. There is."

He stared at her in silence, hiding his excitement.

"I might as well tell you before you stir up trouble." Her voice was flat. "John March killed himself."

"But why…" he began, and stopped suddenly as Peter and Ann came from the kitchen. He began again, "But why don t they hold the dances at the Town Club?"

"The ballroom isn t as large," Carmel said.

Peter s voice sounded young. "I m going to scram, give you a chance to get some sleep. Crane s got to be at the office on the dot or Dad ll think he s a loafer."

"What office?" Crane demanded.

Ann said, "You may not remember, darling, but you re employed by March amp; Company to write about refrigerators."

Crane groaned. "For a happy moment that fact had completely slipped my mind."

Peter asked, "Coming, Carmel?"

"You take your car and I ll walk home. I want to have a word with Mr Crane." She glanced at Ann. "That is, if Mrs Crane doesn t mind?"

"Of course I don t," Ann said.

"Well, I ll be off," Peter said.

Ann followed him out.

Crane asked, "How do you know he killed himself?"

"He left a note."

"He did!" Crane didn t have to act; he was really surprised. "What did it say?"

"I can remember it exactly." Carmel s fingers pulled at the diamond-and-ruby bracelet. "It was written to me. It said: I can t go on… I ve got to see Richard… explain to him… good-by, darling.. forgive me as I ve forgiven you."

"My gosh!" Crane s mind sifted the implication of the note. "Was it signed?"

"Yes. With a J. That s the way John signed all his private letters."

"But why wasn t the note brought out at the inquest?"

"I destroyed it." Her words came out jerkily, as though she had been running and was out of breath. "I wanted it to look like an accident."

"Insurance?"

She glared at him, really angry for the first time. "Do you think that would make any difference? What kind of a woman do you suppose I am?" Her breath made a rushing noise in her throat. "It was his father… It would have killed him to know John was a suicide."

Crane, surprised, asked, " You worried about Simeon March?"

"Oh, I know he hates me." She laughed briefly, without humor. "He wanted John to bury himself in work, to live for March amp; Company. I… I had other ideas." For a moment her face was tragic. "Simeon March keeps a shell of rage and hate and hard words about him, but he can be hurt inside. He loved John. I didn t want to make him suffer. God knows there s been enough already."

She was either acting beautifully, or her emotion was genuine. Her slender fingers plucked at the rubies on the bracelet. Her face was still masklike, but her glistening, red lower lip trembled.

He asked, "What gave you the idea of destroying the note?"

"After I d found John, I called Paul… Dr Woodrin. He thought, at first, it was an accident." She had turned her face away from him, was talking in a low voice. "That gave me the idea."

"Did you show him the note?"

She hesitated. "Yes. He agreed that it should be destroyed, to avoid a scandal and to save Simeon March. He helped me fix the tools… close the garage doors to make it look accidental."

Crane thought of the bizarre twist her story gave the case. Carmel, risking a great deal to protect Simeon March from the knowledge that his favorite son had killed himself. And Simeon, convinced she had murdered John.

He said, "What did John s note mean, I ve got to see Richard… explain to him?"

A tiny blue vein fluttered at the base of her throat with each beat of her heart. She took a long time, then said in a flat expressionless voice, " John killed Richard."

Crane got off the couch and put a chunk of pine on the fire. Sparks flew up the chimney, tongues of flame licked the fresh wood. He went back to the couch.

"Why?" he asked. "He was jealous of Richard."

"Yes, but a man doesn t"-he hesitated over the next word-"murder because he s jealous."

"No."

"Then what — "

"He saw me with Richard in his car."

"At the Country Club? On the night of Richard s death?"

She nodded, her face still turned away from him. He understood, then, the smell of gardenia on the dead man s coat, the lipstick on his face.

She went on, speaking slowly, "John must have come up to the car very quietly. I don t know how long he d been there." Her low voice sounded as though she had not come to the end of a sentence, had only paused.

Crane waited, but she didn t go on. He asked, "He overheard you talking?"

"Richard was begging me to go away with him."

"Was John terribly angry? Did he make any threats?"

She was facing him on the couch now, her face completely unguarded. Her lips were soft and moist and red.

"He was very quiet… I couldn t see his face. He asked me to go into the clubhouse. I should have been afraid, his voice was so strange, but I went in… left him there with Richard."

"And then — "

"The next thing I knew Richard was dead."

Crane was surprised to see tears rolling in big, slow drops down her cheeks. It was very strange. She didn t sob or move in any way; she just sat there, her face like ivory, talking and letting those big tears roll down her cheeks.

"I never talked to John about it," she went on. "I was never sure… until I found his body."

"How do you suppose he killed Richard?"

"I don t know." Tears made her black eyes luminous. She pulled her mink coat from the back of the couch. "I think Richard must have passed out; he had too much champagne, and John did something to the car." She found a lace handkerchief, held it to her eyes. "I m sorry."

"I know," he said. "Your husband s death must have been a shock."

"It wasn t as if I d loved him." She looked at him over the handkerchief. "We hadn t been getting along." Her eyes had changed from black to amber.

"You cared for Richard?"

"I liked him, but I didn t love him."

She spoke so simply that Crane believed her. He believed her entire story. He wondered if he did because she was so beautiful. He thought he would make a hell of a juror if she were on trial. He d let her go with a vote of confidence.

The tears had stopped; she put the handkerchief back in the mink coat. "You think I m horrible."

"No, I don t."

"You must."

"I really don t."

She touched his wrist for an instant with the tips of her fingers. "Thanks. I had to tell somebody." He felt goose flesh rise all over him. "There was nobody in town I could talk to." She stood up and he held the mink coat for her.

"You won t…" she began.

"Of course not."

"Say good night to your wife for me."

"I ll take you home."

"Don t bother."

"But…"

"I d rather go alone."

They were at the front door. "Well, then, good night."

"Good night… and thanks."