The Cases of Susan Dare (18 page)

She paused, glancing at the open transom. Then she crossed to the window and examined the old-fashioned shade and the light rod that held the hem of it flat and straight.

“Bring me,” said Susan Dare, “all the movie magazines you can find. And a mirror—a shaving mirror will do, but I’d rather have one of those small make-up mirrors: you’ve seen them. They have a little standard and are about six inches in diameter. And at dinner tonight when everyone is seated at the table I want you to tell Madame that you are going to inform the police of André’s disappearance. Make it emphatic. And again, when I talk of André, follow my lead. Agree with me.”

“Yes,” said Mariette and was gone.

Susan hid the sketches and opened her door. Madame’s door was closed. Probably she had taken up her observation post in the drawing room downstairs. Susan looked about her room, discovered a small push-button bell, and rang it.

Her little plan, however, failed. Either the bell was disconnected or Agnes, the somewhat mysterious servant, was busy in the kitchen. Susan rang several times, but there was still no answer.

Well, the matter of Agnes could wait.

But she must know who was in that supposedly vacant room. Or rather who was not in the room.

But again she failed. For though she managed to approach the closed door to the room at the back of the house without, so far as she knew, having been seen, there was no sound from within. She listened, bending her head to the blank dark panels and holding her breath. But there was no sound at all on the other side of that door. She wanted to knock; she wanted to open the door. But something about the silence and the darkness of the place held her silent, too, and not too certain of herself. After all, a man had been murdered in that house—murdered deliberately and in cold blood. She was as certain of that as she was ever in her whole life certain of anything.

And the murder had been skillfully, carefully concealed. So skillfully and so carefully that there remained no evidence at all to show that it had been done. No evidence but the thin brown mark around that clean spot under the rug. No evidence but the sketches in André Cavalliere’s portfolio.

But the murderer had made one mistake.

And that night, if Susan’s conclusions were right, there would be an attempt to make that mistake right.

And what could she do then? She would need help—and she must be sure.

There was still no rustle of motion within that room. Susan went quietly back to her own room, took her hat and, boldly this time, went through the hall toward the front and down the stairs.

Madame, bent over her lace, looked up. John Kinder let a card fall from his hand and looked up also.

“I’m going out a bit,” said Susan. “If Mariette asks for me, won’t you tell her I’ve gone for a little walk?”

Madame’s black eyes plunged across the dusk into Susan’s.

“The door,” said Madame calmly, “is locked. And I have the key. Mariette has just gone out for a little walk, too. But I shouldn’t advise Miss Dare to go. Because,” said Madame Touseau slowly, “it is about to storm. Mademoiselle would not like to be caught in a storm.”

Susan gripped the stair railing. Absurd that her heart had leaped so suddenly to pound in her throat.

She shot a glance at John Kinder. But he had gone placidly back to his card game as if altogether unaware of the threat in Madame’s heavy voice.

Susan left the stairway, but Madame reached the door first. Her thick body was an indomitable barrier.

“That gown,” said the Frenchwoman, “is too beautiful—too expensive to permit to be ruined. Me, I know the handsome dressmaking. I am not one to be deceived about that—that,” she repeated slowly, “or other things. I do not believe Miss Dare wishes the walk in the rain. No.”

It was then an open threat. Yet the woman could not keep her jailed for long in that house. She dared not.

Dared not? There was that other thing she had dared.

Susan thought swiftly. It was time for which the woman was playing. She must need time—otherwise her opposition would have taken an entirely different line. Susan restrained a desire to combat the woman openly; for an instant the thought of physical struggle over the key, a mad desire to escape, to be gone from that fetid, silent house with the stain of blood overhead, clutched at Susan as hysteria would clutch.

But the Frenchwoman was stronger. And there was Kinder. And behind Susan quite suddenly on the steps another voice spoke. The words, however, were altogether commonplace.

“Madame Touseau,” said Louis Malmin quietly, “may I have dinner a little early tonight?”

As if a puzzle had given itself a jerk so that pieces which had been distorted and confused fell suddenly into a regular and ordinary pattern, so, all at once the queer little scene changed and became regular and ordinary. Susan’s breath began to come freely. Madame’s dark face was smooth and efficient as she spoke calmly to Louis Malmin.

She had merely advised Susan not to go out in the rain. That was all.

“Will you unlock the door, Madame Touseau?” said Susan. “I wish to go out before the rain comes.”

Would the woman boldly refuse?

But her dark eyes met Susan’s and glowed. Then she smiled and said:

“But certainly, if one wishes.” She turned and opened the door. “However—when the storm comes it will be bad.”

Susan was conscious of Kinder’s face turned inquiringly toward her; of Louis Malmin’s presence there on the stairway behind her. But the door to the street stood open, and Susan walked past Madame and out upon the steps.

A string of shops ought to be found a street or two beyond, for Susan remembered vaguely a patch of radiance off toward her right as she and Mariette had walked from the church the night before. She turned in that direction.

Her easy victory was perplexing; it led Susan to doubt her own conclusions. For it was as if Madame had warned her merely to go no further but had scorned, smilingly, any notion that Susan was already in possession of a fact that might be dangerous.

It became clearer to Susan that the little episode had been merely a warning on Madame Touseau’s part. Madame, then, was very sure of herself. But she did not know that Susan had seen the sketches. She did not know that one of her own wooden bobbins was at that moment in Susan’s white handbag. She did not know that Susan had seen the woman on the church steps.

Yet perhaps the entire fabric of reasoning that Susan had built up was wrong. Perhaps she had missed some salient and pivotal fact.

Few corners are without drugstores and the corner upon which Susan emerged was no exception. It was small and crowded at the soda fountain where perspiring and frenzied clerks dealt out tall, iced glasses. Susan supplied herself with nickels and went to the little row of mahogany-stained telephone booths at the back.

The telephone number of the
Record
is famous in Chicago. Susan called it and waited. Jim had been out of town yesterday, of course; but that didn’t mean that he was not in town today. If he had not returned, she didn’t know exactly what to do next; it would be best, perhaps, simply to wait. But she wasn’t sure that she dared wait.

It was terrifically hot in the little booth. A faraway voice said it was the
Record
and referred her to another voice which hesitated and then to Susan’s immense relief, turned and called distantly: “Hey, Jim!”

“Hello—hello—”

It was Jim Byrne.

“Jim,” said Susan in a small voice, “oh, Jim, I’m so glad you are here.”

“Oh, hello, Sue. What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know, but I think it’s murder—”

“My God!” said Jim. “In this heat!”

“And I think I know who did it.”

“
Where are you
?
Where’s the body
?”

“I’m at Sibley and Loomis—”

“What?” shouted Jim.

“At Sibley and Loomis,” repeated Susan firmly. “In a drugstore in a booth.”

Then Jim said: “You sound scared. Stay there where you are. I’ll be there in—oh, ten minutes. ’Bye.”

Susan sat down at a table. “Two tall lemonades,” she said to the white-aproned boy who approached. “With lots of ice.”

“Two?” he said, eyeing Susan as if measuring her capacity.

Jim bettered his promise by three minutes.

“Angel,” he said looking at the frosted glass, “is that for me?”

“Drink it,” said Susan. “And don’t ask me questions till I’ve finished. Jim, is there anyone who might be in hiding there at Madame Touseau’s? That is a rooming house in the French quarter. Someone a great deal in the public eye; someone who would want to escape attention?”

He grinned.

“A lot of people, my Susan. The bird I’ve been trying to locate for one.” He took a long swallow and added: “But everybody says he’s got out of the country. Best for his health. You’ve read about the Anton Burgess disclosures. As long as he can stay out of sight a whole lot of fellows here in Chicago are that much better off. There’s an embezzlement charge.”

Susan frowned.

“Yes, I read that. Jim, can you come back there with me? You see, I’ve got some sketches that I want to show you. The main facts of the thing are simple. A man by the name of André Cavalliere, an artist, engaged to marry little Mariette Berne—”

“Berne,” said Jim. “That little ballet dancer?”

“Yes. He—well, he just vanished. And I think he’s murdered.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Susan, “there’s blood on the attic floor. And it’s been washed.”

Jim gave her a long look. Then he beckoned to the boy. “Two more drinks,” he said. “Whose blood, Susan?”

“I want you to see the sketches,” she said obliquely. “I want to know if you see in them what I see.” She frowned again. “Burgess,” she said thoughtfully. “Yes, that might be right.”

Jim put down his glass.

“Look here, Susan,” he said earnestly, “if you’ve stumbled over Anton Burgess, lead me there, Miss Santa Claus. Every paper in the United States has been trying to find him for nearly two years.”

Susan shook her head. “Are you sure you would recognize him if you saw him?”

“Yes,” he said soberly. “I believe so—you’re keeping something back, Susan. What is it?”

She shook her head again. “I want you to see it for yourself,” she said. “I may be wrong.”

He stared at her over the empty glasses. His blue eyes were thoughtful; his irregular but agreeable features were intent.

“All right,” he said. “Are we apt to need reinforcements?”

“Police? No. It’s a case for your Irish tongue, Jim. I think,” said Susan slowly, “that we’ve got a lever that you can work.”

He flipped the coins to the weary boy. They emerged upon a heat-stricken street. They turned toward Notre Dame.

“I’d forgotten there was a French quarter,” said Jim. “What a place for anyone to hide! A forgotten section in the middle of a great city. Hedged in completely with little foreign worlds. Tell me all, Sue.”

“Well,” said Susan cautiously, “I’ve made a little plan. It’s not much. But it may work. I sent Mariette for some movie magazines. And a small mirror.”

“The mirror,” said Jim, “suggests a periscope. But I’ll be damned if I know what you want movie magazines for. And how are you going to get me in this place? Tell them you’ve picked up a boy-friend?”

“I don’t know,” said Susan, eyeing him doubtfully. “I don’t think even money would persuade Madame to take another lodger just now. Especially a suspiciously well-tailored one arriving promptly upon my return. I believe the simplest way will be best—that is, for me to let you in while the others are at dinner.”

It was quite simple. The house was very much darker than the street and though a light burned in the drawing room there was no one to see Jim cross the hall. With the knowledge that Jim was upstairs, Susan felt more certain of herself.

Susan was never to forget the dinner—her first and last dinner—in Madame Touseau’s house. She was always to remember the narrow room with its brown walls, its mirrored built-in sideboard, and its heavy hanging center light. There was unexpectedly good linen and soup, and Madame, erect, with her black hair and eyes gleaming, presided quite as if they were in truth her guests. Louis Malmin was directly opposite Susan. John Kinder ate sparingly of what appeared to be a vegetable diet and said very little. As Susan appeared, Mariette uttered a little gasp of relief which she tried to cover by saying something about the storm.

A window had been opened, and now and then a hot breath of air swept the lace curtain inward and then sucked it back against the screen. Wasn’t that an indication of a cyclonic area? thought Susan, accepting chicken gumbo and her first glimpse of the servant, Agnes, at the same time. Agnes was a plain, fat little woman, about as mysterious as a post, and she retired immediately to the kitchen.

Mariette lifted her dark eyes and looked straight at Madame Touseau.

“I think I’d better tell you,” she said, “that I am going to call the police tomorrow morning.”

Madame’s face darkened, and she shot a swift suspicious glance at Susan.

“You mean to investigate the departure of André?”

“Exactly,” said Mariette with unaccustomed decision.

Madame’s broad hands fingered the silver beside her plate.

John Kinder paused with a forkful of lettuce in the air to look in a mildly reproving manner at Mariette, and Louis Malmin ate steadily.

“There are some sketches that André made,” said Susan. “They are very interesting sketches. So interesting that we thought the police might be able to—” She stopped herself abruptly, as if she had said more than she had intended to say.

There was a little silence.

Then Madame said:

“Sketches. What kind of sketches?”

“Oh, nothing much. Just little bits of—everyday things. Street scenes—people.” Susan hoped she was making the right impression of flurried retraction.

“What people?” said Madame heavily.

Susan said nothing, and John Kinder let the lettuce travel to his mouth and said through it, mildly:

“Me, for one. I used to pose for André often. But I don’t quite see how this young lady expects the sketches he made to help solve the problem of his disappearance. And I do think police investigation is quite uncalled for.”