Call After Midnight (11 page)

She shook her head. “Cal, somebody
had
to come into the house from the outside. He
had
to escape from Fiora’s room and the only way I see would be for him to run down the back hall and out of sight before you got that double door across the hall open.”

He gave a little shrug. “He had to know the house—or be told something of the house. He had to be in the house, waiting in the hope you would leave Fiora’s room—unless he was prepared to shoot you, too.”

“Cal!”

“Well, think about it. He had to know how to get away so quickly and so silently that none of us knew it”

“We didn’t know anything—at least I didn’t, for the first few minutes.”

“If there was such a person, then events arranged themselves very conveniently. So—Peter has an alibi.”

“You talk as if Peter got somebody to kill Fiora—”

“I think the police may be considering it. If, that is, they give any credence to the alibi you gave Peter.”

“Peter wouldn’t do that!”

“No. Besides, you don’t pick a hired assassin off the nearest tree.”

The waiter brought soup. Jenny moved a little to allow him to put down the plate. He lingered, it seemed to her forever, fussing around the table, renewing butter and water. It is not possible, she thought, that Cal and I are sitting here, in everyday surroundings, talking of hired assassins and Peter.

Yet actually they were not talking and didn’t talk until the soup plates were removed. Cal said at last, “No, I don’t for a moment believe that Peter would do that. He did send for us—but he wouldn’t hire somebody to kill Fiora. It’s not so easy to hire an assassin even if anybody wanted to. But I’d feel better if the police could find some evidence of this invisible man who came into the house.”

“The gun is evidence. He must have taken it away with him.”

“Oh yes. Peter’s gun, as you know, was still in the drawer of the table in the hall. Still unloaded. I was in Fiora’s room only a couple of minutes after she was shot. Peter was there in her room less than a moment later. Blanche went into her room later and saw her. One of us could have taken the gun and disposed of it—”

“Where?”

“Anywhere. In the Sound.”

“No, there wasn’t a chance. The police came too soon. Before that—oh, I was muddled, everything was muddled but I’m sure nobody went out of the house.”

“It’s a point for us,” Cal said, “still I wish they’d find the gun and trace it to its owner. Did Fiora tell you anything?”

“Fiora—”

“While you were with her before the murder. Did she say anything about who shot her the first time?”

She busied herself with a hard roll. Fiora hadn’t actually accused Peter; she had said that Blanche was at the telephone in the hall at the time of the first shot; she had only suggested that both Blanche and Peter might be lying, and when Jenny told her point-blank that she was accusing Peter of murder, Fiora had said no, she hadn’t said that exactly.

Jenny didn’t know and now would never know what Fiora really thought. But she did know that she must be very careful to say nothing that would shake Cal’s faith in Peter for Peter needed Cal’s friendship as he had never needed it before.

Cal said, “Of course Fiora suspected that Peter had taken a shot at her and that Blanche was covering up for Peter.”

Jenny was caught unawares; she looked at him in dismay. Cal shook his head. “Jenny, don’t you think I’ve got eyes in my head? Why else would Fiora want you to sit with her that night? Because she suspected Peter and Blanche of course, not definitely perhaps, but she had some kind of suspicion. She knew that you
hadn’t
been there when she was shot. What did she talk about?”

“Well—she said she trusted me.”

Cal nodded. “What else?”

“N-nothing much.”

“There must have been something. Did she talk about Peter?”

“She asked why I had come. That is—”

“She knew why you came. Because of Peter, of course. Didn’t she warn you off?”

“Well, yes, in a way.”

“What way?” Cal asked inexorably.

Jenny sighed. “All right. She asked me if I’d been seeing Peter. She asked me if I was still in love with Peter. She said that she wouldn’t give him a divorce ever. Or if sometime she did agree to it, she’d want so much money that he’d never give it to her.”

Cal ate the best part of a fragrant
coq au vin
before he spoke. “Then it had occurred to Fiora that Peter might suggest divorce.”

“I think it naturally would have,” Jenny said slowly. “I don’t know how to explain it to you, Cal. She was shrewd and prudent. She was very forthright and—poor Fiora.”

He shot her a quick glance. “You sound as if you liked her.”

“I didn’t want to. But—yes, I was beginning to like her. I don’t know why. I felt sorry for her.”

“Sorry for the woman who took Peter away from you!”

“Yes. I didn’t want her to die, Cal, and to die like this.”

“Well, no,” Cal said. “Dessert?”

“No, thank you.”

He ordered coffee. He sat for a long time smoking and thinking. Finally he said, “I only wanted to say, take things easy about Peter.”

“Oh.” She felt her face grow hot. “You mean this afternoon.”

He nodded and put sugar in his coffee.

“But that—I don’t know how to explain it to you, Cal—but it wasn’t the way it sounded.”

“That’s good,” Cal said dryly again.

“I mean, Peter was upset. This isn’t the time to talk of marriage or—”

“Not if you want to keep Peter out of jail on a murder charge.”

“Oh yes. But Cal, I think he needed me—”

Cal put down his cup with a sharp crack. “I wish you’d stop saying Peter needs you!”

“Well, but he does.”

“He’s a grown man. He can see to himself.”

“You just said you were trying to prove that he didn’t kill Fiora.”

“That’s different. Jenny, one thing more I want to say. Peter knew your address and you said he knew you had a job. I gather that you’ve heard from him recently.”

“Yes.”

Cal’s face took on its coldly remote look. After a moment he said. “I see. Then get rid of any letters.”

“I don’t have any letters. Oh, perhaps a card or two. With a present. You see—”

“Presents?”

“Oh, flowers. Or some silly thing. Like—like an ivory cigarette holder. Or—or bedroom slippers because I told him my feet get tired, posing. Or—”

“No jewelry?” Cal said icily.

“No jewelry, of course.”

“That could be traced.” His face had closed in like a rock. “You didn’t write letters. I suppose you talked to him over the phone.”

“Well, yes. Yes, I did.”

“Often?”

“N-no. That is—no.”

“Did he call you or did you call him?” Cal said remorselessly.

“He called me. At odd times. Not regularly.”

“Didn’t you see him?”

“Not once. No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wouldn’t. Cal, stop asking me questions.”

“Delighted to stop. In fact I cannot think of a more unpleasantly revealing conversation. And don’t tell me that women are like that! Hanging onto the telephone, waiting for him to call you—
letting
him call you, for God’s sake, not enough guts to hang up on him, tell him to go to hell—”

“Don’t think I haven’t said all that to myself,” Jenny flashed. “Women
are
like that!” Her flare of anger died away; she said rather forlornly and ashamed too, “I couldn’t help myself.”

“All right, all right. Let it go.”

The waiter poured fresh coffee and looked rather anxiously at Cal’s set face and rather sympathetically at Jenny as if he thought she was getting the worst of the quarrel, whatever it was, as indeed she was.

Cal offered her a cigarette. After a while he said, “How often do you spend five dollars?”

“
What
?”

“You heard me. How often—”

“—do I spend five dollars? Too often. What are you talking about?”

“Railroads,” said Cal smoothly. “One dollar out of every five dollars you spend goes for transportation. Did you know that?”

“No. And I don’t care—”

“You should care. Everybody should care. The railroads are America’s arteries—”

“You are trying to change the subject. You’ve got to understand about Peter’s phone calls.”

“I understand quite enough, thank you. Now about railroads—”

“I won’t listen. I want to explain—” He went on talking and she listened in spite of herself. The railroads were essential to America. There was a time when the railroads had been the bad boys of industry; a century ago, during the land scandals. It was so no longer. They were now America’s unsung heroes, vital as her heart. The railroads—

“Cal,” she said desperately, “stop.”

“Have you finished your coffee?” he said politely. “We’ve got to talk about something. Can’t just sit here in frozen silence.”

“Cal, you’ve got to listen to me. I’m not going to rush into Peter’s arms, as you suggest. I’m not going to do anything that would give the police any kind of case against Peter.”

Cal took the check from the waiter’s tray, paid, tipped the waiter and rose. “Good girl. Stick to that. Here’s your coat.”

“That’s why you asked me to have dinner with you,” she said. “That’s what you wanted me to say.”

“I asked you to dinner because I wanted you,” Cal said and put her coat around her.

But in the car, on the way to her apartment, he said suddenly, “Yes, I did want you to say that, Jenny. About you and Peter. And I do want you to stick to it until—well, until everything is cleared up.”

“You only think of Peter.”

“Not at all,” Cal replied after a moment, rather tersely. “Here we are at your apartment. I’ll see you safely upstairs.”

“Safely? I’m not afraid.”

He stared ahead of him along the street, with its lines of parked cars. “No,” he said at last, “but I guess murder’s like that. It came too close.”

She knew exactly what he meant. She had gone around and bolted windows on the third floor.

He went up in the little elevator with her. She unlocked and opened the door, and he came into the living room and glanced around approvingly. “I take back what I said about a dump—” he began and the telephone rang.

She knew before she answered it that it was Peter. Cal knew it, too. “Tell Peter I’ll be out sometime tomorrow.”

She left him in the living room and took up the telephone by the bedside. Peter said, “I can’t bear it out here alone, Jenny! You’ve got to come back.”

“Cal is here. Do you want to talk to him?”

“No. I want to talk to you.”

Suppose the police are listening, she thought suddenly; it could happen—couldn’t it?

“I’ll call Cal. Cal, he wants to talk to you.”

Cal spoke briefly into the telephone. She went into the living room and could hear him. “Yes—all right. Yes, tomorrow. Yes, all right—”

Cal came back. “I’ll see Peter tomorrow. Good night.”

He left before she could thank him for her dinner.

Cal could be a very exasperating man, she thought, as stubborn as Peter. More stubborn.

She hadn’t needed Cal’s warning not to rush into Peter’s arms; she had already seen the danger herself. Just now she must think of appearances at all times. She thought though, with a kind of guilt, of Peter alone, without a friend, in that horribly empty house.

Peter didn’t have many friends and the few friends Peter had had now seemed to Jenny in some way to have wanted something from Peter. Perhaps that was one of the prices a rich man paid for his riches. Peter must know that, too; and he knew whatever else she might be to him, Jenny was a friend.

After staring at the ceiling blankly for a long time she turned off the bedside lamp and determined to sleep and of course couldn’t. Cal had said it: murder had come too close.

The apartment house was so quiet that she might have been alone in it so she heard the hum of the elevator and knew that it had stopped at the third floor. Without pausing to question any reason, she sprang out of bed, went into the living room and made sure she had turned the little inside bolt of the door. She had her hand on the doorknob when it turned. She jerked back. The room was dark; she couldn’t see the doorknob but she knew it had turned. Hadn’t it?

This was preposterous! She wasn’t going to let herself be a prey to nervous imagination all the rest of her life. She moistened her suddenly dry lips and decided to prove herself mistaken then and there. She had to prove it or lie awake all night in a state of terror, which would build up with every second. She called out clearly, “Who’s that?”

There was dead silence on the other side of the door but it seemed to that galloping imagination of hers a surprised silence. She called sharply again, “Who’s there? What do you want?”

A voice which sounded as if it had a cold replied, “Telegram, miss.”

Her wildly careening imagination settled itself down but a modicum of caution remained. “Slide it under the door.”

There was another pause; then the voice on the other side of the door, sounding muffled and thick with a cold, said, “You have to sign for it, miss.”

It was absurd; it would be a very foolish habit to let herself fall into but nevertheless she didn’t intend to open the door. She called out, “You can have it phoned in, in the morning.”

“Please, miss.”

“In the morning.”

There was another long pause. Then she heard footsteps going toward the elevator and felt like a fool.

She didn’t know whether she wished to prove her own courage or whether she wished to be absolutely sure that the messenger had gone; whatever it was, she opened the door and looked out.

The messenger hadn’t gone—at least there stood down by the elevator a faceless, dark figure which seemed in that fleeting second to plunge toward her.

She banged the door shut. She bolted it and put the chain bolt in place. That didn’t seem a sufficient barrier so she groped in the darkness for a chair and braced it under the doorknob.

There wasn’t any sound at all from the corridor. No footsteps, no voice, no rustle—no hum of the elevator.

After a long time, her heart was still thudding like an engine. She made sure the chair was wedged in tightly under the doorknob. She turned on lights and the pleasant living room looked reassuringly natural. She sped to the little kitchen, turned on lights there, then returned to the foyer to make sure that the chain bolt was up and safe.