Эрл Гарднер - The Adventures of Paul Pry

She nodded to herself with evident approval at what she saw in the mirror, then pulled the dress off over her head.

The dress which she had worn when she entered the apartment, a grey affair which displayed to advantage the curves of her willowy figure, lay upon the bed. Paul Pry waited for her to put it on. Instead, however, she took lingerie from the drawer of the bureau, held it against the satin smoothness of her skin and once more surveyed the reflection with critical inspection.

At length, she picked up the grey dress, slipped it over her head, adjusted it in front of the mirror, then walked rapidly to the living-room, where she picked up the suitcases and carried them into the bedroom. She laid the suitcases on the bed, opened them and started folding the garments into them.

Paul Pry, watching from his place of concealment, saw that the suitcases had been empty when she took them into the room; that she carefully folded the gowns, packing the cases as tightly as possible; that she also put in the elaborately embroidered silk lingerie which she had taken from the bureau drawer.

When both cases had been packed to the point of bursting with the most modish of gowns, the most expensive selection of underthings and accessories, the young woman struggled with the straps, trying to get the suitcases closed.

It was at that moment that Paul Pry, his sword cane held under his arm, his hat in his hand, stepped into the bedroom.

“I beg your pardon,” he said.

She gave a sudden scream, jumped back from the bed and stared at him with wide, startled eyes.

Paul Pry bowed courteously. “I happened,” he explained, “to be in the bathroom. I couldn’t help watching you. Perhaps it is a ‘Peeping Tom’ complex that I have. I didn’t know I possessed it until just this moment, but you were beautiful, and I was curious. Need more be said?”

She was white to the lips. She stared at him wordlessly.

“But,” Paul Pry went on, “having been permitted to invade the privacy of milady’s boudoir, I recognized the obligations which are incident to the benefits. Apparently you need someone to assist you in closing the suitcases. May I offer my services?”

Words came chokingly from her lips.

“Who... who... who are you, and what do you want?”

“The name,” he said, “really doesn’t matter, I assure you. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. When people get acquainted under such charmingly informal circumstances, I think names have but little to do with it. Suppose, therefore, that I shall call you Gertrude, and you call me Paul?”

“But,” she said with swift alarm, “my name is not Gertrude.”

“No?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “My name is—”

“Yes, yes,” he told her, “go on. Only the first name, if you please. I am not interested in last names.”

“The name,” she said, “is Thelma.”

“A remarkably pretty name,” he told her. “And may I ask, Thelma, what are you doing in this apartment?”

“I was getting some clothes,” she said.

“Your clothes?” he asked.

“Of course.”

“Then,” he said, “you must be aware of the untimely death of the person who is maintaining this establishment.”

“No! No!” she said. “I don’t know anything about that. In fact, I don’t know anything about the place at all.”

“You just left your clothes here?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d just moved in. You see, I subleased the apartment.”

“From whom?” he inquired.

“From an agent,” she said.

He laughed. “Come, come,” he said, “you’ll have to do better than that. Let’s be frank with each other. This apartment was maintained by Charles B Darwin. Darwin recently met a very violent end. You have doubtless heard of the death of Harry Travers. The circumstances surrounding the death of Darwin were almost identical. The lips, if I may be pardoned for speaking of such a gruesome matter, were sewed tightly shut with a peculiar cross-stitch. Now, it is quite apparent that a person who sews lips of a man, does so with some motive. Were the man living, that motive might well be to ensure temporary silence. But there are much better and less painful methods of ensuring silence. To sew the lips of a dead man had nothing whatever to do with the powers of speech. One would judge, therefore, that the sewing of the lips was either by way of warning to others, or as a gesture, to make the murder seem the more gruesome. It might also well be a warning to others who had been approached along certain lines not to communicate the facts to the police.”

She swayed slightly.

“You’re faint?” he asked. “Do sit down in one of these chairs.”

She shook her head in tense silence. “No,” she said, “I’m all right. I’m going to tell you the truth.”

“I wish you would, Thelma,” he said.

“I’m a model,” she said, “in a dressmaking establishment. I know the lady by sight who accompanied Mr. Darwin when these dresses were purchased. I happened to meet her on the street just an hour or so ago. She told me that owing to circumstances over which she had no control, she was leaving the city at once; that she had left a very fine wardrobe here, and that she knew the dresses would fit me, because we were almost identical in size. She gave me a key to the apartment, and told me to come up and take whatever I wanted.”

“Why didn’t you bring a trunk?” asked Paul Pry.

“Because,” she said, “I didn’t want too many clothes; I just wanted some of the pretty things that would give me a break.”

“And she gave you her key to the apartment.”

“Yes.”

“Is it at all possible,” Paul Pry inquired, “that you are, perhaps, drawing upon your imagination?”

She shook her head.

“And you’re not the young woman who occupied this apartment?”

“You should be able to figure that one out for yourself,” she said. “You stood there and watched me trying on the things.” She lowered her eyes.

“Are you, perhaps,” asked Paul Pry, “trying to blush?”

Her eyes flashed with swift emotion. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said, “standing there and watching a woman dress that way!”

Paul Pry bowed his head humbly. “Please accept my most profound apologies,” he said. “And would you, perhaps, let me see the key with which you entered the apartment?”

She inserted her fingers into a small pocket in her dress, took out a key, started to hand it to him, then stopped suddenly.

Paul Pry’s eyes were hard and insistent. “The key,” he said.

“I don’t know who you are,” she said, “and I don’t know what right you’ve got to ask for the key.”

Paul Pry moved toward her. His eyes were cold and hypnotic. “The key,” he repeated.

She stared into his eyes for several seconds, then slowly opened her hand.

The key dropped to the carpet.

Paul Pry stooped to pick it up.

At that moment she moved with swift speed. Paul Pry swung himself to one side and dodged as a small, pearl-handled automatic glittered in her hand. “Stick them up!” she said savagely.

Paul Pry lunged forward, caught her about the knees. She gave a half scream and fell forward, the gun dropping from her hand. They came together on the floor, a tangled mass of arms and legs, from which Paul Pry emerged presently, smiling and debonair.

“Naughty, naughty,” he said. “I really should spank you for that.”

He took the automatic and slipped it into his hip pocket. Then, as the young woman sat on the floor arranging her clothes so as to cover her legs, Paul Pry searched until he found the key, held it up and smiled knowingly.

“I thought so,” he said. “A skeleton key.”