This Is Murder

Chapter Six

Doris Bender herself answered the bell. She wore a flowing negligee. Her face brightened with a smile of recognition, as she swung the door wide open. Light, streaming from the eastern windows, filtered through the filmy negligee and disclosed every line of her body.

“Why, it’s Mr. Moraine,” she said, smiling. “We certainly put you to a lot of trouble. I had no idea I was letting you in for anything like that. But I certainly appreciate it, and I’m so glad you called. I was going to get in touch with you.”

Moraine brushed aside her gushing comments.

“Where’s the boy-friend?” he asked.

The smile faded from her eyes. She regarded him speculatively.

“Boy-friend?” she asked.

“Wickes,” he told her.

“Mr. Wickes isn’t here.”

“Is Mrs. Hartwell here?”

“Yes.”

“I want to see her.”

Doris Bender hesitated a moment, then stood to one side. Her hand rested on Moraine’s arm.

“Come in and sit down,” she invited. “Ann’s taking a bath.”

“Were the officers tough with her?” Moraine inquired.

“Pretty tough.”

“What was the idea?”

“I don’t know. They were looking for clews, I guess, but they kept asking a lot of questions. They asked questions about you. They wouldn’t believe that she hadn’t known you before.”

“Neither would her husband,” Moraine said.

“Her husband?”

“Yes.”

“When did you talk with him?”

“A few minutes ago.”

“What did he say?”

“Quite a few things.”

Doris Bender started to sit down on the edge of the chair, then changed her mind and came over to stand close to Sam Moraine.

“Sit down,” she said, “and tell me about it.”

There was a chaise longue between wide, curtained windows. She indicated it, and Moraine sat down. She sat at the side of him, swung around, pulling her legs up under her negligee, and faced him.

“How did he happen to come to you?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Was he angry?”

“Plenty. He had a gun.”

“A what?”

“A gun.”

“Good heavens! What did you do?”

“Took the shells out of the gun and gave it back to him. Then I gave him the bum’s rush. Was that the proper thing to do?”

She stared at him speculatively and said dubiously, “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Moraine remarked cheerfully, “it’s done, anyway.”

“Look here,” she asked, “just what’s your connection with all this?”

Moraine let his face show surprise. “Why, I’m the man that your boy-friend picked to pay the ransom.”

“Please don’t keep referring to him as a boy-friend.”

“He is, isn’t he?”

“It depends on what you call a boy-friend.”

“I call him a boy-friend.”

She frowned, “You’re most obstinate, Mr. Moraine.”

“All men are. Have they finished questioning Ann?”

“I guess so. They had her at their headquarters almost all night. Then they let her come out here on the understanding she wasn’t to try to leave the city.”

“Seems funny they’d waste time questioning her,” Moraine remarked, “when they should be out chasing kidnapers.”

“Yes, doesn’t it?”

She watched him with a somewhat puzzled speculation.

“Well,” Moraine asked, “what’s the trouble?”

“I was thinking,” she remarked slowly, “that I’ve never seen a man quite like you.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“I don’t know.”

Moraine laughed.

“I can’t understand just why you keep mixing In this thing,” she said.

“Your boy-friend asked me to.”

“He’s not my boy-friend.”

Moraine stretched out his feet and grinned.

“After all,” he observed, “I’m more mixed in than mixing. I always liked to read about mysteries, and now I’m in one. I think I’m going to like it.”

“The mystery’s been solved,” Doris Bender said, her eyes studying Moraine. “Ann is back.”

“But the kidnapers haven’t been caught.”

“We don’t care about that; that’s up to the police.”

“You mean you want them to go free?”

“No, not that.”

“What, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Then,” Moraine went on affably, “it still is a mystery.”

“But not one that were primarily concerned in.”

“Oh, yes, it is.”

“You mean,” she asked slowly, “that you’re going to try and catch the kidnapers — that is, that you’re going to try and do it personally?”

“Why not?”

“Why should you?”

“Oh, just as a matter of curiosity.”

“Pooh,” she said, watching him narrowly. “You couldn’t do a thing. You wouldn’t even know them if you saw them again.”

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Whistling to keep your courage up?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said that defiantly — as though daring me to contradict you.”

“I do dare you to contradict me.”

“Yes,” Moraine said slowly, “I think I’d recognize them again.”

“You didn’t see their faces.”

“I heard voices. I’ve got a good ear for voices.”

“That wouldn’t be very convincing to the police,” she observed, “and it might lead you into a very embarrassing situation. I understood you were a business man. Wouldn’t it be better for you to concentrate your efforts?...”

She broke off as a door opened and Ann Hartwell thrust a shiny countenance through the aperture. “Are you talking about me?” she asked.

“Hello,” Moraine remarked. “Come in. Are you feeling better?”

“Lots better, thanks. No, I won’t come in, I’m dressing.”

“He’s going to play detective, Ann,” Doris Bender said.

“Your husband was just in to see me,” Moraine remarked, ignoring Doris Bender’s comment and keeping his eyes fastened on Ann Hartwell.

“What did he want, and why doesn’t he come to see me?”

“He’ll come. You were the one he wanted to see. He’s pretty excited. He was packing a gun. He seemed to think there was something phoney about the kidnapping business.”

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t think that I’d rescued you from the kidnapers.”

“How did he think you got me?”

“He didn’t go into details, but I gathered he thought I might have faked a good deal of the kidnapping business.”

“Why?”

“Because you’d been some place with me, or because we were trying to frame a murder charge on him. He wasn’t very definite.”

She pushed her way through the door now, disclosing a trim figure partially covered by scant silk. She seemed entirely unconscious of herself, but concentrated entirely upon the news Moraine had told her.

She ignored Moraine, and glanced pleadingly at Doris Bender. “You see, Dorry, I told you so. We’ve got to do something about Dick.”

Doris Bender said slowly and significantly, “Go get some clothes on, Ann.”

Ann Hartwell glanced down at her garment, hesitated for a moment; then slip-slopped back through the door, closing it behind her with a bang.

“Perhaps,” Moraine said casually, “I’d be less trouble to you if you’d quit using me for a fall guy and shoot square with me.”

She blinked her eyes, looked up at him, smiled, and cuddled over closer to him on the couch.

“Just what do you want?” she asked.

“I want to know things.”

“What things?”

“Everything.”

“Why?”

“Call it curiosity, if you want to.”

“I wouldn’t want to call it anything,” she said slowly. “But others might consider it was impertinence.”

“Call it impertinence, then,” Moraine said cheerfully.

“You’re a most impossible man.”

“Your boy-friend should have thought of that when he picked me for a sucker.”

“Please don’t keep calling him my boy-friend!” she said. “And please don’t refer to yourself as a sucker. He’s not my boy-friend and you’re not a sucker.”

“I didn’t say I was,” Moraine agreed cheerfully, “I said that your boy-friend picked me for one.”

She glanced at the doorway, then moved closer to him. Her hands rested upon his arm. She swayed close to him. Her eyes were warm and intimate.

“Please,” she said softly, “if you’re a gentleman...”

Her voice trailed off into silence. She was snuggling close to his arm. The back of his hand could feel the curve of her breast, the warmth of her body coming through the filmy negligee. Her eyes remained fastened on his.

The latch of the outer door clicked back. A man coughed.

Doris Bender flung Moraine’s arm from her as though it had been a snake. She jumped up from the lounge, pulling her negligee together.

Moraine looked inquiringly over his shoulder.

A man stood in the doorway. He was in the late forties. His face was slightly pallid and utterly without expression. There were dark circles beneath the eyes. His hands hung at his sides. He seemed very tense, waiting for something.

Doris Bender pulled at her negligee, ran toward him, her face wreathed in smiles.

“Carl!” she exclaimed.

It was not until she was within three feet of him that he made any motion. Then he pushed her open arms to one side, strode into the room and said, “Who the hell is this guy?”

Moraine who had taken a cigarette case from his pocket, extracted a cigarette, tapped it on his thumb. “Has anyone got a match?” he asked casually.

Doris Bender burst into voluble conversation:

“This is Sam Moraine,” she said. “He’s a friend of Phil Duncan, the district attorney. Mr. Moraine, this is Carl Thorne. You’ve probably heard Duncan mention him.”

She turned with a last despairing gesture to Thorne. “You’ve read about Mr. Moraine in the papers,” she said. “He paid over the ransom. He’s... he’s Ann Hartwell’s friend.”

For the first time since he had flung open the door, Carl Thorne’s muscles relaxed. He exhaled a deep sigh and said, “Oh, Ann’s friend, eh?”

Doris Bender nodded, her eyes pleading with Sam Moraine.

Carl Thorne’s right hand dropped to the side pocket of his blue serge coat. He pulled out a box of matches.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, and scraped a match along the side of the box.

Moraine leaned forward to touch the end of the cigarette to the flame. Doris Bender swept past him, jerked open the door of the connecting room and called, “Ann, it’s all right, you didn’t need to run away. It was Carl Thorne we heard at the door.”

She stood in the doorway for a moment, then added hurriedly, “Come on out. Make it snappy.”

Ann Hartwell’s voice, from the inner room, said something in a hurried tone. The words were inaudible in the next room, but Doris Bender’s impatient words were distinctly audible. “Oh, forget it!” she said. “Don’t be so damned modest. Make it snappy.”

A moment later there was the rustle of silk, and Ann Hartwell billowed into the room, throwing a negligee about her shoulders. She had been crying.

“Hello, Ann,” Carl Thorne said.

She nodded to him.

“What’s the matter, kid?”

“Everything.”

“You’ve been crying.”

She nodded mutely.

Doris Bender circled her waist with an arm, said something in a whispered undertone and guided her toward Sam Moraine. She slid up against Moraine’s shoulder, stood there, ill at ease.

“Well,” Thorne said, “you don’t look so bad, considering what you’ve been through.”

He crossed over to Doris Bender, stared at her for a moment. “Why didn’t you let me know when you got that ransom note?” he asked.

“I did tell Mr. Duncan. He acted so funny, I thought I hadn’t better say anything at all to you. It seems the district attorney isn’t supposed to know if you’re going to pay ransom.”

He asked, “Did Phil Duncan pull that line on you?”

She glanced at Sam Moraine anxiously.

“I thought that was the way he felt.”

“Did you really pay ten grand?”

“Yes.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Please,” she asked, “let’s wait before we go into this. We can do it later — when we’re alone.”

His voice was calmly persistent.

“Where did you get that ten grand?”

“A friend of Ann’s,” she said.

Thorne jerked his head toward Moraine.

“No,” she said, almost hysterically. “Let me mix you a drink, Carl. We can talk later.”

Carl Thorne sat down, extended his legs in front of him and pulled a cigarette case from his pocket.

“Okay,” he said.

He opened the cigarette case, made a gesture, extending it toward Ann Hartwell, and half-raised his eyebrows. She shook her head, placed her hand on Sam Moraine’s shoulder, looked at him with anxious, red-rimmed eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said simply.

He nodded.

“Sorry for what?” Thorne inquired, then laughed, and said, “Oh, pardon me. I forgot. You see, Moraine, I’ve known Doris for a long time. I feel like a big brother to Ann.”

Ann Hartwell crossed to a chair and sat down on the edge. Moraine sat down on the chaise longue. Thorne turned to stare at Ann Hartwell.

“Listen, kid,” he said, “are you on the up-and-up with that snatching business?”

She nodded silently. His eyes stared at her with steady question.

“There’s something phoney about it somewhere,” he said.

“About what?” she asked.

“About the guys who pulled the job.”

“What about them?”

“That’s what I want to know.”

“Have... have the police caught them?”

“I don’t think so, but they’ve run down a couple of clews. The clews look phoney.”

Ann Hartwell lowered her eyes and said slowly, “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been of more help to the police.”

Carl Thorne kept staring at her.

“Was it a real snatch?” he asked.

She raised her eyes to his, made a motion with her head.

Thorne said savagely, “All right. Which is it — a shake or a nod — yes or no?”

“Yes,” she said, “of course it was a snatch. But please let’s not talk about it now.”

She glanced at Sam Moraine.

Thorne’s eyes narrowed slowly.

“I’m tired, frightfully tired,” she said.

Thorne studied the smoke which eddied upward from his cigarette. His face was set in hard, grim lines.

The telephone rang insistently. Ann Hartwell walked across the room to it. With a dead, listless manner, she picked up the receiver and said, “Hello... No, this isn’t she. I’ll call her... Yes, he’s here.”

She said to Carl Thorne, “It’s for you.”

As Thorne took the telephone, she walked rapidly to the door through which Doris Bender had vanished. She gave Moraine one pleading look, then slipped into the outer room.

Carl Thorne said into the telephone, “Hello... Not yet I haven’t, but I will... Yeah... Okay, spill it.”

He remained silent, listening.

Doris Bender came hurrying into the room. She went at once to Sam Moraine.

“For God’s sake,” she said softly, “get out of here! Can’t you see what’s happening?”

Moraine grinned up at her.

“Is he jealous?” he asked in a low tone.

She pushed him toward the door.

“Please,” she said, “please get out.”

Moraine laughed, starting to say something, then, at the look in her eyes, patted her shoulder.

“Okay, sister,” he said, and picked up his hat.

Thorne was still at the telephone, listening, as she slammed the door behind him and twisted the bolt.