Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

Finally she asked, “How’d you find out about me?”

“A letter Benny left lying around. You are M, aren’t you?”

She shrugged hopelessly. “Come in, Mr. Ross.”

He followed her into a large living room comfortably but old-fashionedly furnished with mohair furniture, marble-topped end tables and beaded lamps of the same vintage as the house. Ross chose an over-stuffed chair and the woman wearily seated herself in the center of a huge sofa, her hands folded in her lap.

“Mind telling me your name?” Ross asked.

“Marion Vandeveldt,” she said. “It’s Dutch. What is it you want with me, Mr. Ross?”

“I’m trying to find out why Benny was killed. I’m working on my own, not with the police. You don’t have to talk with me.”

She reflected. “I don’t mind talking to you. I suppose the police know about Benny and me anyway, since you do.”

“Not yet,” Ross said. “But they will in a couple of hours. You’ll probably get a visit from a Lieutenant Redfern this afternoon.”

He studied the woman, wondering why a man with a wife as attractive as Helene Stoneman would pick such a plain mistress. While Marion Vandeveldt was pleasant-looking enough in a well-scrubbed spinstery sort of way, Ross could hardly visualize her making a man’s blood hammer in his veins.

He asked, “You live here alone, Miss Vandeveldt?”

“Yes. My folks have been dead for some years. It’s just as well. If they were still alive, this scandal would kill them.”

“Not necessarily,” Ross said. “How long have you known Benny?”

“About six weeks. He moved here from Chicago a full month before he went to work for you, you know. We met at an open-air concert at Fallon Park. Benny loved music as much as I do, but his wife wouldn’t go to concerts with him.”

Mutual interest in music, Ross thought, mentally recording one clue at least to the mystery of the bookkeeper straying.

He said, “Excuse me if this sounds unnecessarily personal, but Benny didn’t strike me as a Lothario. Yet he had a beautiful wife and an attractive mistress, both at least fifteen years younger than he. Just what was his attraction?”

Her expression became one of inward contemplation, as though searching for an answer herself. Presently she said, “Ever see him smile?”

Ross reflected. “I suppose. I don’t really recall.”

“He didn’t often,” the woman said. “There wasn’t much in his life to smile about. But when he did, he was a different person. His face grew young and sort of wistful, like a small boy looking at a red bicycle in a store window. It turned your heart over when he smiled. I doubt that any woman could have resisted Benny’s smile. Except his wife.”

“He wasn’t happy with her?”

“Would he have turned to a mistress if he had been?” she asked. “I’m no competition physically to a woman as beautiful as Helene Stoneman. I’ve seen her picture and I look in mirrors. He came to me for the things he couldn’t get at home. Companionship, and interest in the things he was interested in. Benny would never have looked at me if he’d had anything at home. Or even with nothing at home if his wife had at least been true physically. He felt justified in taking a mistress on the basis of what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”

“His wife had a lover too?”

The woman gave a brittle laugh. “She chases everything in pants. Benny moved here from Chicago to break up the affair between Helene and his former boss.”

“Big John Quinnel?” Ross asked in surprise.

“I don’t know the Chicago employer’s name. But Benny said he thought the man was relieved when Benny decided to quit his job and move here. According to Benny, Helene always throws herself so hard at the men she picks, once the novelty wears off, she becomes a nuisance. She tries to envelope her lovers, wanting to monopolize their full attention twenty-four hours a clay, seven days a week. Benny said the affairs never last long, because the men begin to struggle away as soon as they learn what they’ve gotten into.”

“Why the devil did Benny put up with her?” Ross asked.

“He defended her by saying she was sick,” the woman said wearily. “He’d had her to a couple of psychiatrists who gave him a lot of high-sounding words about her man chasing being a compulsion she couldn’t resist, stemming from too early physical development and too much popularity with boys when she was very young. The psychiatrists’ explanation was that she was frantically grasping for a return of her teen-age popularity, so when men stopped chasing her after she married, she had to chase them.”

Ross said dubiously, “I still don’t understand why he put up with it.”

“Well, their entire married life wasn’t as bad as I’ve painted it. Benny told me that under psychiatric treatment she’d get better for a while and start acting like a normal wife. Then along would come a new man and the merry-go-round would start all over again. I’m surprised you escaped her. Mr. Ross, being Benny’s employer.”

“I never met her until yesterday,” Ross said.

A little ruefully he considered Helene’s three phone calls since they had met in the light of what he had just learned, and he looked into the future without much enthusiasm.

Ross had very little additional conversation with the woman, but he did manage to learn that she also owned a blue sedan, in this case a Chevrolet. As he drove back to the club, he wondered if it had even occurred to Marion Vandeveldt that she was a suspect in the case.

At a quarter of four that afternoon Ross was just taking Sam Black’s report that the downstairs club was all set for business when the first customer arrived. It was Helene Stoneman.

Going directly to Ross, who stood talking to Sam Black near the bar, she gave him an expectant smile and asked. “Surprised to see me?”

In view of his talk with Marion Vandeveldt, Ross wasn’t.

Unsmilingly he said, “Hello, Helene. What do you want?”

“I knew you wouldn’t be busy so early. I thought you might buy me a drink.”

She looked at Sam Black, awaiting introduction. Deliberately Ross ignored the hint. Taking her by the arm, he led her toward the front door.

“I don’t mix business with pleasure, Helene,” he said. “And right now I’m working. I also don’t like to be chased. Go home and wait till I call you.”

He half expected her to leave without even replying, but instead she said in a small voice, “Didn’t last night mean anything to you?” Studying her, Ross decided without emotion to test just how hard she was to discourage.

“No more than a hundred other nights with a hundred other women,” he said with deliberate cruelty. “I’ll call you if I decide I want to see you again.”

And turning, he stalked toward the elevator.

A half hour later he was called to the phone.

“I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry I upset you by coming to the club,” Helene’s voice said. “Are you still mad?”

Despite what Marion Vandeveldt had told him, Ross was astonished. “Are you apologizing because I was rude?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

“Then don’t call me any more. If I want to see you, I’ll call you.”

“All right,” she said in a penitent voice. Then after a pause, “Would you like me to stop up to your apartment after the club closes to-night?”

“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Ross said disagreeably, and hung up.

At seven, while Ross was having dinner downstairs, he was called to the phone again. It wasn’t Helene this time, however. It was Lieutenant Niles Redfern.

“Got somebody here who wants to talk to you,” the lieutenant said. “Mrs. Stoneman.”