The Scarlet Letters (3 page)

And suddenly everything gave way and Martha was sobbing. “If Dirk doesn't stop … I can't take it much longer! He needs help, Ellery. I need help. Is there anything you can see to do? Anything?”

Ellery took her hand. “I'll try. I'll try, Martha.”

Ellery put Martha Lawrence into a cab–she insisted on going home alone–and he went back upstairs to find Nikki filling the coffeepot from the kitchen tap viciously.

They had their coffee like two strangers in a cafeteria.

But then Nikki put her cup down with a bang. “I know I'll hate myself in the morning, but I've got to sit up and beg.” After a moment, Nikki said, “Ellery. I'm begging.”

“For what?”

“Oh, don't be obtuse! What can you do?”

“How should I know? You know the idiot as well as I do. Better.”

Nikki frowned. “Personally, I think Martha's the idiot. But then, as she said, I'm not in love with him. Mar's done a lot for me, Ellery–things I've never told you and probably never will. And I not only love her, I like her. There's something so awfully
clean
about Martha. Like a little girl in a starched pinny …

“Maybe that's it. She's the last woman in the world, I should think, whom anyone would accuse of sleeping around. Especially her husband! That's why I'm so worried, Ellery. It isn't natural. There's something wrong with Dirk.”

“Of course there is.”

“And I'm scared.”

“With reason.” Ellery fingered his jaw unhappily. “But what can I do? It's a doctor Dirk needs, not a detective.”

“Doctors don't know everything.”

“They know more about this sort of thing than I.”

“He's committing a crime!”

“So is the soda jerk who doesn't wash the glasses properly, but I'm not expected to solve that kind of mystery. Nikki, I'd like to help, but it's not my kind of problem.”

“It might turn into your kind of problem!”

“All I can do is see Dirk tomorrow and try to help him help himself. Although, after tonight, I don't think I'm qualified to do even that! … Nikki, would you see if there's any codeine in the medicine chest?”

But it was Dirk who came to see Ellery.

He showed up at the Queen apartment just as Inspector Queen was sitting down to breakfast.

“Ellery?” The Inspector eyed Dirk suspiciously. “He's still in bed, Mr. Lawrence. Someone hung one on his chin last night, and he was up half the night feeling sorry for himself. You wouldn't know anything about it, would you?”

“I hung it,” said Dirk Lawrence.

The Inspector stared at him. Dirk needed a shave, his clothes were damp and wrinkled, and his dark strong face was lumpy with fatigue. “Well, you don't look very dangerous this morning. Through that door and to your left.”

Dirk said, “Thank you,” and went through Ellery's study to the bedroom beyond. Ellery was lying on his stomach, nuzzling an icebag.

Dirk lowered his big body into a chair beside the bed and he said, “Don't be alarmed. My intentions this morning are strictly to crawl on my belly.”

“This is a dream,” said Ellery in a muffled voice. “At least I hope it is. It would mean I'm getting some sleep for a change. What do you want?”

“To apologize.”

“Good. Get me some coffee, will you?”

Dirk raised himself and went out. He came back with the coffeepot and two cups and saucers. He poured for both of them, lit Ellery's cigaret, and sat down again.

“I wouldn't say,” remarked Ellery, looking him over, “that you passed a restful night, either.”

“I walked the streets.”

“All night? In the rain?”

Dirk looked down at himself with some surprise. “Say, it rained, at that.”

“Then you haven't been home?”

“No.”

“Haven't you even phoned Martha?”

“She wouldn't talk to me if I did.”

“You underestimate Martha's capacity for being kicked in the rear. That woman is too good for you, Lawrence.”

“I know,” said Dirk humbly. “She has the patience of a setting hen. I realize now she only met you to talk about me. But that's this morning. Last night I was plotzed.”

“I have it on the best authority,” said Ellery, sipping his coffee, “that you do pretty well when you're not plotzed, too.”

Dirk did not answer at once. His dark skin was gray under the stubble and his eyes looked trapped. He leaned back and shut them, as Martha had done the night before.

“Have you ever had a real set-to with yourself, Ellery?” His voice was a faraway rumble.

“Yes.”

“And lost it?”

“Yes.”

“And kept losing it?”

“No,” said Ellery.

“Well, that's the spot I'm in. I can't explain this in rational terms, and yet I'm not irrational … at least I don't feel I'm deluded … It sneaks in. I can't keep it from sneaking in, Ellery. And once it's there I can't seem to dislodge it. It sticks, no matter how hard I try. I see Martha with another man, and I feel myself blowing. Am I making any sense?”

“Not much,” said Ellery, “but then sense isn't the word. Call it nonsense, and I get it. What
reason
have you for continually questioning Martha's fidelity? Because there must be a reason.”

“I always think there's a reason–at the moment. This thing generates its own reasons.”

“What thing? Let's name names.”

“This jealousy … phobia.”

“Too simple, Dirk. Call it a cuckold phobia, and you've got something. I don't mean to pry, but what's the matter with your sex life?”

Dirk's eyes flew open, and Ellery blinked in their flash. But then the flash died, and the big man sank back in the chair again.

“That hurt?” inquired Ellery

Dirk passed his hand over his face in a curious lavatory gesture. “Look,” he said. “I'm sorry for smacking you last night. Let's leave it at that.”

He got up.

“Down,” said Ellery. “Down, Dirk. I'm not finished with you. I happen to like your wife, and you're giving her a rough time. This thing has to have some roots. Let's dig … Thank you,” he said, when Dirk suddenly sat down again. “I pumped Martha last night, and between what I got out of her and what I've gathered from personal observation, I think what's wrong with you, Dirk–and it's not restricted to this jealousy business by any means! – goes way back. Do you mind if we talk about your childhood?”

“I'll save you wear and tear,” said Dirk. “I'll give you the facts, and if you want the medical terms I'll give you the conclusions, too–”

“Oh, then, you've had psychiatric treatment.” Ellery tried not to look disappointed.

Dirk laughed. “I've tried analysis twice. But it didn't do a damn thing for me but make matters worse. Oh, it wasn't their fault. I couldn't cooperate. Don't ask me why. That's part of it, I suppose.”

“Then there's no need to go into it.” Ellery set his cup down.

“Wait, I don't mind telling you. It makes some sort of sense.” Dirk planted his elbows on his knees and addressed the rug. “I don't have what you'd call a normal background. No sweet dreams for me about my childhood. They're nightmares. It can do things to you, no doubt about it.

“When I was twelve years old my father caught my mother in bed with another man. He beat the guy's brains out with a solid brass lamp he grabbed up from the night table next to the bed.

“He was tried for murder and of course acquitted–any juror would have done the same thing under the same circumstances.

“So that was all right–for him.

“But what happened after wasn't, especially for her and for me. Father had reserved a characteristic punishment for my mother. He refused to divorce her. He made her keep on living with him. In the same community–the same house. And he didn't let a day go by for the rest of their lives without reminding her of what she'd done to him. Her friends wouldn't have anything to do with her, naturally. Her own family threw her over.”

Dirk sat back and smiled. “He wasn't going to let her go, you see. That would have been too easy on her–like killing her quick. She had to suffer slow death,
à la chinoise.
She'd dishonored his precious name, disgraced his seminal manhood, and betrayed their codified class … He was quite a guy, my father. I doubt to this day if the embalmer found any blood in his veins. He had that quiet kind of cruelty that's really nasty. Everything under control, you understand, and the amenities of the Southern gentleman observed under all circumstances. When one of that kind gets his knife into you, Brother Elk, you feel pain.”

Dirk lit a cigaret and then spent some time crushing it in his saucer. “She tried suicide twice and flubbed it both times. She'd never been taught to do
anything
right, you see. Finally she became a lush, and that's the way I remember my dear mother–a glassy-eyed hag reeking of lavender and old bourbon, staggering around the big house falling-down drunk.

“That's what I grew up with.

“I hated her, and I hated him.

“So maybe Martha is my mother, and I'm my father, or something. And I say to you, as I said to the gentlemen with the couches, ‘So what?' Knowing where it comes from hasn't changed a thing. I still get these uncontrollable attacks of jealousy. And I don't mind admitting they scare the hell out of me.”

Ellery got out of bed. He said, “Wait, Dirk, till I take my shower,” and he went into the bathroom.

When he came out, rubbing his hair, he said, “How are you coming on your new novel?”

Dirk stared. “I'm not.”

Ellery began to dress. “Aren't you working at all?”

“I sit there eying my typewriter, and it eyes me right back, if that answers your question.”

“Much done?”

“I got paralyzed on the excavation.”

“What's the matter, isn't it any good?”

“Lordy, no. It's colossal.” Dirk laughed.

“Are you still interested in it?”

“What is this, an offer for the first North American serial rights? The idea is as stimulating as it ever was. But I can't seem to get back to it.”

“How about professional help?”

“What do you mean?”

“Dirk, your personal problem is beyond me.” Ellery tied the second shoe. “If the skull doctors can't do anything about it, I certainly can't. All I can do is suggest a treatment I've found therapeutic in my own lunacies. It's to get out of yourself. A writer does it by writing. Get all wrapped up in a writing problem and drive yourself day and night to fix it on paper.”

“I can't, I tell you. I've tried.”

“Let's have some breakfast,” said Ellery cheerfully. “I have an idea.”

Nikki arrived for her secretarial day to find Inspector Queen gone, as usual, and Ellery staring out the window, not as usual.

“Was that Dirk Lawrence I saw shuffling up 87th Street,” asked Nikki, “or an unreasonable facsimile thereof?”

“Nikki, grab yourself some coffee and sit down.”

“Yes?” said Nikki, not doing either.

“Dirk came up this morning to apologize for last night, and we had a long talk.” Ellery gave her a résumé of their conversation. Nikki was silent. “It's obvious that he's in the grip of a dangerous neurosis. I don't like it, Nikki. I don't like it at all.”

“Poor Martha,” was all Nikki said.

“Yes.” Ellery began to stuff a pipe slowly. “For Martha, I'm afraid, the prospects are dim. I'm not sure that even if she left him she'd be in any better case. It might make matters worse at this stage of his phobia. But that's academic. She won't leave him, and we've got to jump off from that.”

“Yes,” said Nikki. “But what exactly are you afraid of?”

“Violence, especially if Martha gives him provocation.”

“He wouldn't!” Nikki sat down with clenched hands.

“Nikki, I've resorted to subterfuge. I've convinced Dirk that his most sensible course is to get back to work on his book.”

“He'll never do it.”

“That's what he said. But I think he will do it–or keep trying–if there's someone with him constantly whom he likes and trusts, who'll flatter and encourage him, take a living interest in what he's doing. In other words, if there's someone at his side to help with his work. The way, for instance, you help me.”

Nikki said quietly, “You're farming me out to Dirk Lawrence.”

“We've got to have someone on hand when trouble starts, Nikki. Before it starts.” Ellery sucked on his pipe. “Nikki Porter, undercover agent. Of course, I neglected to tell Martha that when I phoned her, just before you came in. Dirk was sluggishly interested and rather grateful, and Martha sounded as if I were her patron saint. As far as they're concerned, this is an experiment in trying to get Dirk back to work. You're to act in a Girl Friday capacity, typing for Dirk, telling him what a deathless passage he just dictated, holding his hand when the Muse fails, mixing his cocktails for him–keeping his mind on himself as a writer and off Martha and her imaginary love affairs. “No, wait till I finish, Nikki. Martha insists on your living in. She's going to turn her dressing room into a spare bedroom for you. That's a break, because it puts us on the scene twenty-four hours a day instead of eight. If you agree to do it, you'll have to keep watching for danger signals and make immediate reports to me. If we can keep Dirk harmlessly occupied for long enough, maybe a more permanent course of action will suggest itself.

“And one thing more before you say anything,” said Ellery, going over to her. “I wouldn't have cooked this up if I thought I was sending you into personal danger. But that's only one man's guess, and a layman's at that. I've got to leave it up to you, Nikki. In fact, I find myself sort of hoping you'll turn it down.”