Old Sinners Never Die (17 page)

Mrs. Norris ruffled her shoulders, but she started at the beginning, relating her adventure with Tom.

Now and then Forsman checked some notes he had in his hand and nodded, she presumed at some verification of her story.

“Now, this French fellow,” Forsman said when she was finished, “would you say he acted as though he felt at home?”

“Except with the baby, but to tell the truth, I didn’t hold that against him, for not many men can take over when the wee one is skirling like that.”

Forsman nodded.

“Oh, something I forgot to mention—he stepped out into the vestibule once, as though he was going to the mail box,” Mrs. Norris said. “But it was Tom’s notion that he took the nameplate off the door, for it was missing a few seconds later when Tom went in to look.”

“Is Tom a reliable sort?”

“You’re asking the wrong person for that opinion,” Mrs. Norris said, “but he must have something steady to recommend him. He’s worked for Congressman Jarvis since he came to Washington.”

Forsman gave a moment to summarizing his notes. Then he said, “Congressman Jarvis’ father is Major General Jarvis, isn’t he?”

“He is.”

To the other two men he said, “General Jarvis was one of the people at the Chatterton dinner last night.”

Mrs. Norris bit her lip, remembering—how long ago it seemed—Tom’s reading out of the paper Senator Fagan’s charges. “The son isn’t the father, let me tell you,” she said.

Forsman looked at her curiously. “Why do you say that?”

Mrs. Norris was more cautious. “He has a bent for trouble, the old gentleman has.”

Forsman nodded, pleasantly enough. “It’s not necessarily trouble—I hope, though it’s trouble enough for us, God knows. Do you know someone by the name of Joyce?”

“I do, or I know who she is,” Mrs. Norris said, and clamped her teeth down in front of her tongue.

“Would you mind telling me … confidentially?”

“She’s a friend of Mr. James’—Congressman Jarvis’—and a world-famous sculptress.”

“Ah-h-h.”

“And it was her the Frenchman took home from the Ball when Tom and I started to follow him.”

“Now I’ve got a couple of things in place,” Forsman said. “I can tell you one thing, your Irishman’s safe. He’s with Senator Chisholm and this Mrs. Joyce.”

Mrs. Norris dumped her chin on her breast. “Trust him to that,” she said.

“They all seem to have gone looking for you.”

“Did they find me?”

“No, but I shall see that they do before long.” He turned to the other investigators. “Senator Chisholm was also at the dinner party. Also Ambassador and Mrs. Cru.”

“We don’t have to check them out, do we—foreign nationals?”

“Only if they ask it,” Forsman said.

“Let’s get out of here before they do,” Mulrooney said.

“Man, you’ve just begun to work,” Forsman said. “But in this case it looks as though we’ve flushed a swan instead of duck, doesn’t it?”

The men nodded agreement.

Forsman picked up the rolls of film which had made up the package Mrs. Norris found in the tree.

“Why can’t I just go and put that back in the tree,” she said, “and get something I left in its place?”

Forsman looked at her. “Don’t you think these things should be processed so we can see what’s in them?”

“That,” Mrs. Norris said, “is your business. But it would seem to me that if you wanted to snare somebody else the way you did me, it wouldn’t matter what was in the box as long as you caught them with it.”

“You want to put the box back where you found it?” Forsman said.

“It would clear my conscience,” Mrs. Norris said.

“I have no better idea at the moment,” Forsman said. “Gentlemen?”

“Isn’t the whole thing off?” Mulrooney growled.

“Not where Mrs. Norris is concerned,” Forsman said. “She’ll wait for you in the sitting room. Won’t you, ma’am?”

“What’s my choice?”

“A few minutes,” Forsman said soothingly, “and the boys will be at your service.”

“Will they take me home?”

Forsman nodded. “Wherever you want to go.”

T
HE TRUCK BEARING THE
General and other contraband cargo rattled into Washington. The General could tell their arrival by the condition of the streets: a city of monuments and broken car springs. He was not sure he had not broken a spring or two himself on this trip. It was no escapade for a man near seventy. But at least he was out of the mountains.

In the front seat, the mountain boys were singing, not raucously, and not harmoniously—just something to keep the driver awake. When the truck began a series of frequent turns, the General girded his loins, and if ever loins needed girding, his were they. He also divested himself of the striped sweater and tucked it between the cases.

As soon as the truck stopped, the General took a leap out through the curtains, his body sinking almost to the ground as his knees collapsed. He had to hang onto the truck. Meanwhile, the sounds from within the Club Sentimentale suggested that more than one set of knees in this vicinity should be out of joint. The General did a few gingerly bends, hanging on still to the ropes.

The mountain boys were standing beside the cab door, getting their own legs and bearings.

“Hey, Red, do you hear that? And ain’t it near crowing time?”

“It’s past crowing time, man, and that be a chicken you’re listening to, not a rooster. Matter of fact, I’d say it be an old hen.”

“Sure can cackle, can’t she?”

The General grinned to himself. He was safe on safe ground now. That would be Maria Candido touching up a bawdy song. He staggered around the side of the truck.

One of the mountaineers nudged the other. “Oh-oh, Red, here’s one flew the coop.”

“Can you gentlemen direct me to the Club Sentimentale?”

“Reckon if you got this far you ought to be able to make it there, mister.”

Amen, the General thought.

“Yonder door.” Red gave a nod toward the carriage lamp-lighted entry.

“Thank you very much,” the General said, and did a bit of weaving on his way which was not entirely put on.

“Looks a mite like Grandpa, don’t he?”

“Mite. Grandpa always wanted one of them monkey suits he got on. I’ve been thinking, Red, we could afford to get him one.”

“What for—to sit and rock in?”

“He’d have it to sit and rock in—or else to lie and roll in.”

The General turned around and motioned to them. “Come on in, fellows, I’ll stand you a drink.”

“Thanks, mister, but my brother and me don’t drink.”

“That’s what I like,” the General said, “good, upstanding young Americans.”

“We’re Virginians, sir!”

“Bravo!” the General said, and went indoors.

No one saw him arrive. The place was dark as a cavern and misted with smoke. He had not heard a racket like this since the war’s end, and he could tell by some indefinable quality to the odd ends of conversations, the pitch of voices, the air of all night abandon that there were newspaper men all over the place. So much the better, he thought.

The first thing he did was explore the back walls of the building. It was on the river’s edge, he knew, but he wanted to see just where the mountain boys were going to unload their dew. He found a window at the end of the check room, overlooking the river. Even as he was looking out, one of the boys passed close by the window. It meant there was a walk alongside the building.

The General then went to the men’s room to repair the ravages of a night on a bald mountain, or, to put it another way, he thought, grimacing at the face in the mirror, a bald night on a mountain.

“Q
UITE A HIDEAWAY, THIS
,” Jimmie said as he drove zigzag up a mountainside.

Dolores agreed: “Leo liked to come here, he said, so’s he could communicate with his soul. That doesn’t sound right, communicate, does it?”

“I think it sounds fine in the context of Leo,” Jimmie said. “I don’t doubt he had trouble sometimes, communicating with himself.”

“I’m sleepy,” Dolores said.

From the high part of the mountain they could see the beginnings of dawn even as the General had seen it not so very long before.

“We’re just about there,” Dolores said. “Those lights—that’s the cabin.”

Jimmie put out his car headlights and, not having more than a few hundred yards to go, decided to park the car. “We won’t do any talking now, Dolores, and when we get to the point of talking, I’ll do it for both of us.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. “I’d just as soon curl up in the car here and go to sleep.” She drew her knees up under her and tucked her head down on her shoulder. “I’m a pussy cat. Night-night.”

Well, Jimmie thought, she might have said “’Bye now.” Everybody else was saying it these days. He took the keys of the car with him. “All right,” he said, “if that’s the way you want it, it’s all right with me. But you’re not to come after me once I’ve gone inside.”

“Bye now,” she said.

Jimmie stayed in the shadows, approaching the building, but the moon was under a cloud. It was now the darkest hour. He was very close to it when he saw the Jaguar parked next to the cabin. In fact, he heard the creaks and sighs of it, the motor still hot, before he saw the automobile.

He felt squeamish about entering without knocking, presuming he could get in. Then he remembered where the Jaguar had been in the last hour and he put his hand on the doorknob with no further qualm. The door was unlocked. The place was aglow with lights. Nobody here worried about electric bills, certainly. It passed through his mind then that he had not seen an electric light for miles. No wonder at almost four in the morning.

He could hear the splash of running water. Someone was taking a shower. Jimmie swore softly, as, he was sure, no man had ever sworn at his own father. He moved through the completely modernized cabin step by cautious step. He observed the arsenal over the mantel, and saw the racks that were empty, but behind which ever so faintly the shape of two pistols showed in the faded varnish of the wood panelling.

He glanced about the room then, and saw the purse, the furs, the shoes on the chair nearest the bathroom door. All the perfumes of Arabia, all the waters of Niagara …

Then he noticed the huddled shape on the sofa, and said with deep though muted fervour, “You old reprobate.” But he moved quickly to the side of the couch, intending to rouse the sleeper. In the instant he put his hand down, he realized the shape was a dummy.

“Father?” he said in a loud whisper, for he got the uncanny feeling that the old gentleman was watching him. But the only sound was the gush of water, then a rattling of pipes as the shower was turned off. Jimmie cast his eye about quickly for a place to conceal himself at least long enough to appraise the situation. He started for the closet in too sudden haste, his foot catching the carpet and noisily tumbling an ashtray.

A few seconds later the bathroom door opened an inch or two. “Ransom, are you awake, honey?”

Jimmie groaned almost involuntarily.

“It’s almost time for you to go down home, but I just didn’t have the heart to wake you. Sleeping like a baby … no conscience, nothing. I’ll slip into something and you can get in here if you want to …”

Jimmie backed his way gingerly to a wing chair on the other side of the sofa. It concealed him from her view unless, of course, she came to look in it directly.

“There,” she said, coming into the room. “I must’ve fallen asleep myself. Ransom?”

Jimmie could hear the clack of her slippers and then the few cushioned steps on the carpet until she reached the couch. He braced himself to act at the moment of her discovery. It came with a little “oh.”

Jimmie, speaking to her back, said, “A friend of yours, Miss Allan?”

She started at his voice and whirled around, but she had quite controlled her expression when she faced him. Life would hold very few surprises for her, he thought.

“I don’t suppose you are either—a friend of mine,” she said, not precisely answering his question. “May I see your identification?”

“Do you say that to all your visitors?” Jimmie said.

“Very amusing. Who are you?”

“James Ransom Jarvis, in search of my father.”

“Oh.” She took a towel from around her head and shook out the wheaten hair. “I don’t know where your father’s gone to, Mr. Jarvis. He got just awful drunk and I couldn’t get him to go down home so I went to bed myself and left him here—tucked in like that almost.” She made a helpless gesture toward the sofa.

Jimmie nodded and waited.

“This isn’t my place really,” she started up again, compelled now to tell a story, and a damned good improviser, Jimmie thought. “And I hope nothing’s happened to him. I wouldn’t want any scandal.”

“Why did you bring him here in the first place?” Jimmie said.

She looked him in the eye. “You are kidding, aren’t you, Junior?”

Jimmie could feel himself blushing from the roots of his hair. “I am very definitely not kidding, Miss Allan. I didn’t ask you why he came. I asked why you brought him.”

She shrugged. “That’s what I thought you said. But I don’t think it’s fitting, you asking a lady to answer that question. And I’d be much obliged if you’d just find him and take the both of you out of here before I get into trouble.”

“Get dressed, Miss Allan. You’re coming with me. I think you are in trouble.”

“I don’t want to go, and I’ll have you arrested if you try to make me.”

“You’re coming down to answer the charge of murder.”

She opened wide her eyes in a show of innocence. “I don’t know what you’re saying at all. Just how did you get in here in the first place?”

“I followed the Jaguar which my father was
not
driving.”

“I suppose, being so holy, you got wings.”

And indeed, Jimmie knew he would have needed wings to keep pace as that car had set it. He did not answer, but instead, crossed the room directly to the telephone where it hung just inside the kitchen door.

Virginia Allan merely stood, twisting the towel idly. She had nerves stronger by far than his, Jimmie thought.

The operator came sleepily to his persistent signal. “Give me the District of Columbia Police Headquarters.” He called Washington although jurisdiction was probably Virginia: let the police decide.