Waltz Into Darkness (18 page)

She
stopped at the very last door of all but one.

On
a shield of blown glass set into its upper-half was painted in
rounded formation, to make two matching arcs:

Walter
Downs

Private Investigator.

Durand
knocked for the two of them, and a rich baritone, throbbing with its
own depth, vibrated "Come in." He opened the doors stood
aside for Bertha Russell, and then entered behind her.

The
light was greater on the inside, by virtue of the street beyond. It
was a single room, and even less affluent in aspect than the building
that housed it had promised it would be. A large but extremely worn
desk divided it nearly in two, with the occupant on one side of it,
the visitors--all visitors--on the other. On this other side there
were two chairs, no more, one of them a negligible canebottomed
affair. On the first side there was a small iron safe, its corners
rusted, its face left ajar. Not accidentally, for several ledgers
which protruded, and an unsorted mass of papers which topped them,
seemed to have rendered it incapable of closing.

The
man sitting in the midst of this rather unappetizing enclave was in
his early forties, Durand's senior by no more than two or three
years. His hair was sand colored, and still copious, save for an
indented recession over each temple, which heightened his brow and
gave his face somewhat of a leonine look. He was, uncommonly enough
for his age in life, totally clean-shaven, even on the upper lip. And
paradoxically, instead of lending an added youth, this idiosyncrasy
on the contrary seemed to increase his look of maturity, so strong
were the basic lines of his face and particularly of his mouth. His
eyes were blue, and on the surface there was something kindly and
humane about them. Yet deeper within there was an occasional glint of
something to be caught at times, some tiny blue spark, that hinted at
fanaticism. They were at any rate the steadiest Durand had ever met.
They were sure of themselves and attentive as those of a judge.

"Am
I speaking to Mr. Downs?" he heard Bertha say.

"You
are, madam," he rumbled.

There
was nothing ingratiating about his manner. Intentionally so, that is.
It was as if he were withholding himself from commitment, to see
whether the clients met with his approval, rather than he with
theirs.

And
so Durand was looking for the first time at Walter Downs. Out of a
hundred lives that cross a particular one, during its single span,
ninety-nine leave no trace, beyond the momentary swirl of their
passing. And yet a hundredth may come that will turn it aside,
deflect it from its course, alter it so, like a powerful
cross-current, that where it was going before and where it goes
thereafter are no longer recognizably the same direction.

"There
is a chair, madam." He had not risen.

She
sat down. Durand remained standing, breaking his posture with a
shoulder occasionally against the wall to ease himself.

"I
am Bertha Russell and this is Mr. Louis Durand."

He
gave Durand a curt nod, no more.

"We
have come to you about a matter that concerns both of us."

"Which
one of you will speak, then ?"

"You
speak for the two of us, Mr. Durand. That will be easiest, I think."

Durand,
looking down at the floor as if reading the words from it, took a
moment to begin. But Downs, who had now altered the position of his
head to direct his gaze upon him exclusively, showed no impatience.

The
story seemed so old already, so often told. He kept his voice low,
left all emphasis out of it.

"I
corresponded with this lady's sister, from New Orleans, where I was,
to here, where she was. I offered marriage, she accepted. She left
here to join me, on May the eighteenth last. Her sister saw her off.
She never arrived. Another person altogether joined me in New Orleans
when the boat arrived, managed to convince me that she was Miss
Russell's sister in spite of the difference in their appearances, and
we were married. She stole upward of fifty thousand dollars from me,
and disappeared in turn. The police down there inform me that they
cannot do anything about it for lack of proof that the original
person I proposed marriage to was done away with. The impersonation
and the theft are not punishable by law."

Downs
said only three words.

"And
you want?"

"We
want you to obtain proof that a murder was committed. We want you to
obtain proof of the murder that we both know must have been
committed. We want you to trace and apprehend this woman who was a
chief participant in it." He took a deep, hot breath. "We
want it punished."

Downs
nodded dourly. He looked thoughtfully.

They
waited. He remained silent for so long that at last Durand, almost
feeling he had forgotten that they were present, cleared his throat
as a reminder.

"Will
you take this case?"

"I
have taken it already," Downs answered with an impatient
offgesture of his hand, as if to say: Don't interrupt me.

Durand
and Bertha Russell looked at one another.

"I
made up my mind to take it while you were still telling me of it,"
he went on presently. "It is the kind of a case I like. You are
both honest people. As far as you are concerned, sir--" He
raised his eyes suddenly to Durand; "You must be. Only an honest
man could have been such a fool as you appear to have been."

Durand
flushed, but didn't answer.

"And
I am a fool, too. I have not had a client in here for over a week
before you came to me today. But if I had not liked the case,
nevertheless I would not have taken it."

Something
about him made Durand believe that.

"I
cannot promise you I will succeed in solving it. I can promise you
one thing and one only: I will never quit it again until I do solve
it."

Durand
reached for his money-fold. "If you will be good enough to tell
me what the customary--"

"Pay
me whatever you care to, to be put down against expenses," Downs
said almost indifferently. "When they outrun whatever it is, if
they should, I'll let you know."

"Just
a moment." Bertha Russell interrupted Durand, opening her purse.

"No,
please--I beg you-- It's my obligation," he protested.

"This
is no matter of parlor gentility!" she said to him almost
fiercely. "She was my sister. I am entitled to the right of
sharing the expense with you. I demand it. You shall not take that
from me."

Downs
looked at them both. "I see I was not mistaken," he
murmured. "This is a fitting case."

He
picked up a copy of that morning's newspaper, first shook it to
spread it full, then narrowed it once more to the span of a single
perpendicular column. He traced his finger down this, a row of paid
commercial advertisements.

"This
boat she sailed on from here," he said, "was which one?"

"The
City of New Orleans," Durand and Bertha Russell said in
unison.

"By
a coincidence," he said, "here it is down again, for the
company's next sailing. Its turn has come about once more, it leaves
frqm here tomorrow, at nine o'clock in the forenoon."

He
put the paper down.

"Do
you propose remaining here, Mr. Durand?"

"I'm
returning to New Orleans at once, now that I've put this matter in
your hands," Durand said. Then he added wryly, "My business
is there."

"Good,"
Downs remarked, rising and reaching for his hat. "Then we'll
both be sailing together, for I'm going down there now and get my
ticket. We will begin by retracing her steps, making the same journey
she did, on the same boat, with the same captain and the same crew.
Someone may have seen something, someone may remember. Someone must."

29

The
cabins of the City of New Orleans were small, little better than
shoeboxes ranged side by side along the shelves of a shop. The one
they shared together seemed even smaller than the rest, perhaps
because they were both in it at once. Even to move about and hang
their things, they had continually to flatten themselves and swerve
aside to avoid grazing and knocking into one another at every step.

Outside
in the failing light two soiled ribbons, the lower gray, the upper
tan, could be seen unrolling through the window; the Mississippi's
bosom and its shore.

"I
will help in any way I can," Durand offered. "Just tell me
what to do and how to go about it."

"The
passengers will not be the same on this trip as on that other,"
Downs told him. "That would be too much to hope for. Those who
will be, are those whose job it is to run the boat and tend it. We
will share them between us, from the captain down to the stokers. And
if we find out nothing, we are no worse off than before. And if we
find out something, no matter what, we are that much better off. So
don't be discouraged. This may take months and years, and we are just
at the very beginning of it."

"And
what is it you--we-try to find out, now, for a beginning?"

"We
try to find a witness who saw them both together; and by that I do
not necessarily mean in one another's company: the true Julia and the
false. I mean, both alive and on the boat during one and the same
trip, at one and the same time. For the sister is a witness that the
true one left on it, and you are a witness that the false one arrived
on it. What I am trying to arrive at, by a process of elimination, is
when was the true one last seen, when the false one first? I mark
that off, as closely as I can get it, against that out there-"
he gestured toward the two ribbons, "and that gives me, roughly,
the point during the voyage at which it happened, the State whose
jurisdiction it falls within, and the area in which to devote myself
to searching for the only evidence, if any, there will ever be."

Durand
didn't ask him what he meant by that last. Perhaps a chill sensation
running down his back told him only too well.

The
captain was named Fletcher. He was deliberate of speech; the type of
man who thinks well before speaking, and thus later does not have to
think ill of what he has spoken. His memory, by way of his hand,
sought refreshment in his luxuriant black beard.

"Yes,"
he said at long last, after hearing Downs's exhaustive description.
"Yes, I do recall a little lady such as you describe. The breeze
caught up her skirt just as we were both coming along the deck from
opposite directions. And she quickly held it down with her hands. But
for a moment--" He didn't finish it; his eyes, however, were
reminiscently kind. "Then as I passed, I tipped my cap. She
dropped her eyes and would not see me-" he gave a little
chuckle; "yet as she passed, she smiled, and I know the smile
was for me, for there was no one else in sight."

"And
now this one," Downs said.

He
offered in assistance a small photograph of Julia, supplied them by
Bertha, much similar to the one once owned by Durand.

The
captain studied it at length, but with no great relish; and then
after that ruminated a considerable while longer.

"No,"
he said at last. "No, I've never seen this old mai-- this
woman." He handed it back, as if glad to be rid of it.

"You're
sure ?"

The
captain had no more interest in trying to recall, even if he could
have.

"We
carry many people, sir, trip after trip, and I cannot be expected to
remember all their faces. I am only a man, after all."

"And
strange," Downs repeated to Durand later, "are the ways of
men; they see with their pulses and their blood. For the one whom I
could only describe to him by word of mouth, and secondhand at that,
he could recall instantly, and will go on recalling probably for the
rest of his active life. But the one whose very photograph he had
before him, he could not recall at all !"

Durand
thumbed the pushbutton in their little cubbyhole, and after an in
ordinate length of time, a shambling steward appeared.

"Not
you," Durand told him. "Who takes care of the ladies'
cabins?"

A
stewardess appeared in dilatory turn. He gave her a coin.