Max Collins - Carnal Hours

“You should always try to get sixteen-year-old honey blondes home before dawn,” Gardner said archly.

“Right-or their folks might worry. Anyway, de Visdelou was back in fifteen minutes, parked his car in the driveway, and Freddie told him to come get his goddamn cat.”

We picked up speed, the surrey having turned off at Rawson Square. Gardner was lost in thought. “What’s the approximate time of Oakes’ death?”

“According to Barker and Melchen, between one-thirty and three-thirty a.m.”

We both mulled that over. At one-thirty or one-forty at the latest, Freddie had been seen by his servants on Victoria Street; also, de Visdelou spoke to him at one-thirty or so.

Soon the big black gates inscribed Westbourne loomed ahead. No guard on the gate, today; the crime scene was apparently completely scrubbed down-no need to preserve what’s been destroyed.

“Thirteen minutes,” I said.

“Double that,” Gardner said, pulling in and stopping before the gate, “and it’s a twenty-six-minute round trip.”

“And the weather is perfect. That night, it was coming down in sheets.”

“Yes, but there wouldn’t have been surreys and sponge wagons to slow him down,” Gardner said, while the engine hummed. “Hell, man, you drove it, same damn night, same damn time-how long did it take you ?”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” I said, “but I would guess half an hour easy, round trip.”

“So Freddie simply didn’t have time to murder Oakes, set the fire, do the voodoo routine, before he got home.”

“Not even close. We’re talking, at best, ten unaccounted-for minutes. I don’t even think those are there.”

Gardner backed out, pulled onto West Bay Street, and we headed into the city. “But he had between two a.m., when the servants left, and three a.m., when his buddy took Shirley Temple home.”

I was shaking my head. “De Visdelou and his date were awake, up over the garage, playing house or whatever. Could Freddie really take the chance that de Visdelou would hear him coming and going?”

“Maybe so,” Gardner said, looking over with a raised eyebrow, “if he figured de Visdelou was ‘coming.’”

I laughed a little. “Yeah, but he also might be going -Freddie had no way of knowing when Georges would finally tire of the blonde and take her home.”

“I see what you mean, Nate-cousin Georgie would surely notice the Lincoln was gone. Of course, Freddie could’ve just lied, if de Visdelou brought that up, and said the Lincoln was in the garage.”

“True. But it’s still risky as hell. How could Freddie chance de Visdelou running into him in the driveway, either coming or going?”

Gardner was nodding. “Besides which, the drive to and from Westbourne took half an hour, and the killing took a minimum of fifty minutes.”

“A bare minimum. Even at that, it totals eighty minutes-and there just aren’t eighty minutes available to Freddie to do the deed.”

“What if the time of death is off? What if our boy did it after de Visdelou got back from taking his date home?”

I thought that over, then said, “That was around three-fifteen. With the Lincoln in the garage, Freddie would’ve had to move, or use, the Chevy. The question is, did de Visdelou leave the keys in the Chevy, or somewhere else Freddie could have got access to ’em? Or did he hang on to them?”

“Whatever the case,” Gardner said, “I would say a lot hinges on this cousin of de Marigny’s. I hope this gigolo makes a good witness.”

Gardner had a point. I needed to talk to the Marquis, who after the arrest had moved out of the Victoria Avenue house, where he’d been living over Freddie’s garage, to an apartment over a bar on Bay Street, Dirty Dick’s, a place where locals and tourists mingled. Access to the Marquis’ apartment was by a wooden stairway in the narrow, sewage-smelling alleyway next to the popular Nassau watering hole.

I knocked on the white weathered paint-peeling wooden door; Gardner stood behind me on the small landing. He had promised that anything he heard on this fishing expedition would stay off the record. I believed him.

“Somebody’s in there,” the writer said. “I can hear ’em talking.”

I could, too, faintly. I knocked again, harder-knocked some paint flakes off.

The sound of speech within stopped, but there was still no response.

Finally on my third assault on the door, it opened. The pretty, puffy, pasty-white face of the Marquis de Visdelou stared at me with indignation, and dark, darting eyes. His brow was wide, his chin weak, his hair black and marcelled; he wore a white silk shirt open at the neck and dark slacks. In one soft hand was a large double-shot glass; it appeared to contain whiskey and ice.

His perfect little Clark Gable mustache twitched as he spoke in a French accent not as thick as de Marigny’s, but just as distinct. “I don’t wish to be disturbed. Please go away.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s important,” I said. “My name is Heller and I’m working for your cousin Freddie, trying to help his attorney clear him.”

For some reason this news made him cringe; he blinked nervously, long feminine lashes fluttering. He looked past me, at Gardner. “And who is this?”

“He’s assisting me.”

“Oh.” He pursed his lips. “ Bien. Anything I can do to help Freddie.” He raised his voice; it did not seem to be for our benefit. “Please step in, gentlemen!”

We did, into a living room that was attractively furnished-matching burgundy-mohair-and-walnut sofa and easy chair, another chair with floral tapestry, coffee table, shaded standing lamp, oriental carpet. A Bahama seascape watercolor was framed over a well-stocked portable bar. A breeze and the noise of Bay Street ruffled the curtains of windows behind the sofa.

“Forgive the drab surroundings,” he said, gesturing dismissively. “I was forced to rent a furnished apartment, and the establishment downstairs caters to gauche tourist tastes.”

“How sad for you,” I said.

My sarcasm was lost on him. “Sit anywhere. Can I get you gentlemen something to drink?”

“Sure,” I said. “Rum and Coke, if you’ve got it. Erle?”

“When in Rome,” he said.

De Visdelou smiled condescendingly, went to his liquor cart, freshened his own whiskey, and poured us some Bacardi and Coke on the rocks. We had each taken a chair.

He served us, raised his glass and said something in French, and had a sip. So did we, except for the saying something in French part. He sat on the sofa, where he could lounge against the armrest; he seemed blase, but he wasn’t: a small tic played at the corner of one soulful eye.

“I would so very much like to help Freddie,” he said.

I glanced at Gardner, then looked hard at the Marquis. “You say that like there’s some doubt.”

His prissy mouth pursed, and he sipped the drink again. “Mr. Higgs called. We haven’t spoken yet-but I intend to ask him not to call me as a witness.”

“Why is that?”

“I gave a statement to the police…. It, what is the word? Corroborates Freddie’s story, to every detail. But in open court, on the witness stand…What I would rather do is leave this island, quietly, and not testify at all.”

I sat forward. Gardner’s eyes glittered behind the wire-frames; I knew he was kicking himself that this was all off the record.

“What’s wrong, de Visdelou? Were you lying for Freddie? To cover for him?”

He looked away from me. He seemed about to weep!

“What the hell is going on, de Visdelou!”

He swallowed thickly; he looked toward me, but the darting eyes wouldn’t land. “I’m afraid there are elements of Freddie’s story that will not…coincide…with what I would have to say.”