Old Sinners Never Die (7 page)

“I know Mrs. Chatterton. She is an art patron. Very generous woman.”

Jimmie then asked a direct question, something Mrs. Norris had trained him from childhood to avoid as bad manners. “Do you know the woman with whom my father left the dinner?”

D’Inde cocked his head wistfully. “I cannot know every woman, much as I should like to be able to.” No one had trained him in direct answers at any rate.

Helene smiled apparently charmed. Jimmie thought him as charming as a jackdaw.

“If you will excuse me a moment,” he said, “I am going to call home. It’s just possible they will have heard from Father.”

Jimmie phoned from the lounge. It was a long chance indeed, he mused, listening to the telephone signal. He wondered if his father, wherever he was, had heard the news of Fagan’s charge. Chatterton was a friend of his … A strange assortment of people for him to have gathered regardless of Fagan’s charges: d’Inde made sense, but was there no Madame d’Inde? Or was she home with the brood, obliging some ancient Gallic tradition? The violinist, Katz: he was an ageing prodigy, not first rate by any means although his concert was sold out. Jimmie happened to know that the concert had been lately arranged, to coincide with the Beaux Arts Ball Week, and Katz was the best available performer. Maria Candido: he seemed to recall that her reputation as a singer of bawdy songs far outdistanced her operatic fame. The whole party was damned indiscreet of Chatterton, bad taste, and quite out of character. If Cabinet Secretary Jennings was involved in anything scandalous—that was unthinkable, really; one of
the
daughters of the country—but if she were involved, the administration was involved. Probably what Fagan wanted. The man couldn’t stand to be tolerated: he wanted either to be kicked out like a bum or proposed as a presidential candidate.

Jimmie realized then that the phone had been ringing for a long time. He broke the connection and then called again, to be sure it had not been a wrong number ringing. There was no answer. This, on top of everything else, was very distressing. Mrs. Norris was most unlikely to go out her first night in Washington. Of one thing, he was sure: she would have left a message for him at home. When he could no longer rely on Mrs. Norris, Jimmie thought, he would consider it folly for the human race to continue propagating itself.

When he returned to the ballroom, d’Inde volunteered gallantly to see Helene home if M. Jarvis felt it imperative to leave.

The lesser of two imperatives, Jimmie thought, choosing to go home now. He gave the Frenchman dry thanks and then asked, “If you don’t mind, Dr. d’Inde, can you tell me again who the other men at the dinner were?”

“I did not pay very much attention, but I will try—ah, Ambassador Cru. Do you know him? No matter, he and Madame Cru. And somebody I think called Montaigne—a young man. He was very gay, and most reactionary. The violinist, M. Katz, who was very melancholy. And that is all, except the host—and your father, who was, if you don’t mind me saying it, also very gay.”

He didn’t mind d’Inde’s saying it half so much as he minded the old man’s being it. “Forgive me for not seeing you home, Helene?” He was more than a little hurt that she did not insist on accompanying him.

She put her hand in his and clung to it for a second. “Call me … or come,” she said in a voice not quite a whisper but intended for him only to hear. There was, he became aware, some purpose to her easy consent to d’Inde’s escort. “I do understand, of course,” she said more loudly.

“By the way, Jarvis,” the Frenchman said, “your father had words with that Montaigne boy—as I did myself.”

“On politics?”

“On Hitler and Mussolini. Of course, I suppose you could call it politics.”

“Oh,” Jimmie said, relieved. His father was rather fond of talking about the Russians. He liked to say that some of his best friends were Russians. Whereupon he often recited their names, making up some of them, Jimmie was sure, for rhyme and metre. What it did for the Russians at home, friendship with an American army officer, Jimmie used sometimes to ponder, little realizing until the last few months how little it might prosper the American at home.

Montaigne, Jimmie thought, awaiting the delivery of his car: he did not suppose he had ever heard the name except for the sixteenth century French essayist.

In the car Jimmie turned on the radio as he headed along the Potomac. It was time for the 12.30 news. He did not know whether or not he really wanted to hear it. Surely there were other important things going on in the world. There were, but Jimmie soon discovered he was not listening to them: he was waiting for the name, Senator Fagan, convinced he would hear it before the broadcast was over. How many throughout the city were waiting for the same thing, albeit less intimately concerned: there were some people to whom Fagan’s revelations had more suspense than a lottery. And the senator never failed his public. The newscaster said:

“A late bulletin. Reached by telephone within the hour. Senator Fagan announced that tomorrow morning he would turn over to the proper authorities for investigation the names of persons involved in tonight’s charges. Earlier, the mid-western lawmaker had accused a prominent member of the State Department of entertaining at least four known subversives …”

Jimmie switched off the radio and turned into his own driveway. The garage was empty. Even Tom’s jalopy was gone. He knew the moment he let himself in the house that the only possible company he might find there was the family cat, and he thought bitterly, observing her reluctant rise from the kitchen rocker at his approach, she wouldn’t be home either if she weren’t already pregnant.

Not a note anywhere: it was entirely unlike Mrs. Norris. Of course, she might have been persuaded earlier to go riding with Tom, and something might have happened to delay them; almost anything could happen in his automobile; he called it “Sophie” in honour of a singer of comparable vintage.

Then the cat jumped up on the table, a laborious leap; but thus was Jimmie’s eye attracted to the words Mrs. Norris had written as Tom remembered them: “Key Bridge, Arlington side,” and the card on which was engraved the name, “Leo Montaigne.”

Jimmie sat down for a moment and made a lap for the cat. The handwriting was Mrs. Norris’, no doubt of it. But the card, Leo Montaigne’s—what was it doing here? Had his father been home? What had gone on here that had taken Tom and Mrs. Norris from the house? The cat stretched and began to purr and knead her paws. Her claws went through to his flesh.

Jimmie thought then of Virginia Allan, remembering her name. She was the woman with whom he presumed his father to be right now. And Virginia Allan sang at a club, or so Helene had said. He got up and put the cat in the chair. He phoned Helene’s hotel and left the message to have her call him here as soon as she came in. Then he sat down to think and wait, staring at the engraved card. It was obvious now that his father was more deeply involved than as a chance dinner guest at Chatterton’s.

It suddenly occurred to him to wonder where Helene had learned Virginia Allan sang blues at a club. He remembered the words, for he had proposed to think she might be a ballad singer. Where but from Henri d’Inde?

But in answer to Jimmie’s question, d’Inde had declined to acknowledge that he knew the singer. On grounds that it might tend to incriminate him?

Jimmie lit a cigarette and began to pace the kitchen while the cat miaowed.

M
RS. NORRIS HAD NOT
ridden in anything like “Sophie” since Master Jamie had mounted an orange crate on roller skates and persuaded her into it. She clung now to her hat with one hand and to the door handle with the other.

“What kind of a car is it?” she asked at the top of her voice.

“As near as I can figure, she’s half-Ford and half-Chevrolet,” Tom shouted.

Mrs. Norris sat back, more or less. She was glad she had worn sensible shoes: there was no telling from where she might have to walk home. Not, of course, that she could find “home” if she were across the street from it. Nyack was never like this.

Tom drove directly up to the hotel entrance. He tumbled out and ran for the building without a word.

The doorman shouted after him, “Come back here! You can’t leave a can like that in front of the door.”

“The lady’ll explain everything,” said Tom, and disappeared.

The doorman came to the car window. He had the decency to remove his cap at least before sticking his face into Mrs. Norris’. “Can you drive this contraption?”

“I might if I was wearing spurs,” Mrs. Norris said, and there was a burr to her spur.

The doorman pulled out. “Are you looking for someone?”

“We are. For Congressman Jarvis who is here at the ball.”

“Jarvis, did you say?”

“I did.”

“He’s just left. I called up for his car not ten minutes ago.”

Tom came out at a gallop and leaped in beside Mrs. Norris. The car seemed almost alive to his touch. It was very nearly beautiful, she thought, the grace with which he could manoeuvre something so ugly. He dimmed the lights and nosed Sophie around a curb and into position.

“This way, if we have to, we can take off in any direction,” he explained.

“We’ll be fortunate if it’s not in all of them,” Mrs. Norris said over the rattle of her teeth. “Mr. James has left. Or did you find that out yourself?”

“I deducted it,” said Tom. “Herself will be coming out in a minute with the Frenchman.”

“Mrs. Joyce?”

“The same, cruel vixen that she is. We’re going to shadow them.”

“In this?” said Mrs. Norris.

“Why not?” said Tom. “She can do everything but climb a tree, Sophie can.”

Mrs. Norris would not have been surprised to see her climb a tree. She laid a hand on Tom’s wrist; it was tense and sinewy, his hand tight on the wheel. “Why did this man send the message to the house, Tom, and both him and Mr. James here all the time? It’s only a minute or two since Mr. James left, the doorman says. I think you’re making it all up, just to get out on a lark.”

“A great lark, with you along clipping my wings. There they are, getting into that cab!” Tom eased the car into first gear and allowed it to roll gently forward.

Mrs. Norris, peering at the couple, and at her mind’s after-image of them when they were out of view, knew that if it was Mrs. Joyce in the cab, she was not there with Representative Jarvis: and that in itself portended trouble, so she held her peace.

Tom had no trouble following the cab to the hotel where he said Mrs. Joyce was stopping.

“I hope she doesn’t invite him up,” Mrs. Norris said without realizing she had said aloud her moral appraisal of the situation. For Mr. James’ sake she wanted fervently to believe in Mrs. Joyce.

“So do I,” said Tom, but for quite another reason. “Oh, we’re in luck. He’s having the cab wait.”

“You’re going to follow him from here?”

“Sure, as long as we’re on his tail, he’s not fighting with the boss, is he?”

“I’d rather, to tell you the truth, be following Mr. James.”

“That wouldn’t even be decent,” Tom said. He let the car motor idle lower. “What kind of shoes do you have on in case we have to go after him on foot?”

“They’re as good as my feet,” she said. “Isn’t that him now?” The man came out of the hotel at a much faster pace than he had gone in. Truly he seemed to stride with purpose and Mrs. Norris’ heart gave a leap in spite of herself.

“Look sharp, Sophie,” Tom said. The cab shot ahead and then left a smokescreen as the driver changed speeds. “He’s in earnest now, wherever he’s going. By God, I hope the old girl doesn’t backfire! She’d give us away sure, and us the only ones on the road. Sophie, behave, dear!”

“You’ll soon have company at this speed, if there are police,” Mrs. Norris said. She could make neither head nor tail, north nor south of the Washington streets, the names of which she was no sooner finding than she was losing. It was a town put together in diamond patches, like a quilt designed from the centre.

“Where are we now?” she asked, not that she would know, being told.

“In the neighbourhood of Dupont Circle. I’ve a notion he’ll stop here. It’s an artisty kind of section.”

Tom’s hunch was right. The cab came to a sudden stop and he had to take Sophie around it. It was to be said for his boldness, he did it with a flair, giving a blast of his horn to the cabbie for not having warned him of the sudden stop.

“Baaaa,” said the cabbie, articulate as a goat.

“Sounds just like New York,” Mrs. Norris said.

“Watch where he goes in,” Tom alerted her.

“I didn’t come only for the ride,” Mrs. Norris said. “He’s already in and I’ve seen where he went.” She was grateful for the moonlight, and drew her identification of the house from a tree stump.

Tom drove around the block and parked near the corner. “I wonder if he’s come home for the artillery.”

“The what?”

“Pistols. What he wants to fight with. Come on and show me the house. We’ll walk by.”

There wasn’t a sound but their own footfalls and the burble of frogs, as they went silently toward the tree stump Mrs. Norris had chosen as marker. Then there were other sounds—music of a listening variety somewhere nearby, and laughter from somewhere else, the distant banging of a car door, a dog’s barking.

“There it is,” Mrs. Norris said, indicating a two-family stone dwelling.

“We’re all right if he lives in the one on the left,” said Tom. “The blinds are up, and there’s people you can see through to.” The other half of the house was in darkness.

“You’ve the eyes of a ferret,” she said, but yielded her hand to his when he groped for it, and allowed herself to be led off the sidewalk into the shadow of bushes near the house. “We’re trespassing, Tom.”

“Aye, and I wonder if he isn’t himself. Look there, he’s talking to some woman with a baby in her arms.”

“I can’t see a thing,” Mrs. Norris said, for the window was above a veranda.

“Well, I’m not going to lift you up,” said Tom. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”

The room to the front of the house was dark, but Mrs. Norris could see the shadows from the figures in the second room playing upon the ceiling. Suddenly the woman was trying to thrust the baby into the man’s arms, and he was backing away from it, his own arms flailing while he talked.