Paul Cain - Seven Slayers

Druse smiled. “I’m an attorney — a sort of extra-legal attorney.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “If we can get your rubies back, and assure your safety, and” — he coughed slightly — “induce Mister Hanan to reimburse the insurance company, you will be entirely satisfied, will you not?”

She nodded, started to speak.

Druse interrupted her: “Are the rubies themselves — I mean intrinsically, as stones — awfully important to you? Or was this grandstand play of yours — this business of threatening Crandall — motivated by rather less tangible factors-such as self-respect, things like that?”

She smiled faintly, nodded. “God knows how I happen to have any self-respect left — I’ve been an awful ass — but I have. It was the idea of being made such a fool — after I’ve lost over a hundred thousand dollars to Crandall — that made me do it.”

Druse smiled. “The rubies themselves,” he said — “I mean the rubies as stones — entirely apart from any extraneous consideration such as self-respect — would more seriously concern Mister Hanan, would they not?”

She said: “Sure. He’s always been crazy about stones.”

Druse scratched the tip of his long nose pensively. His eyes were wide and vacant, his thick lips compressed to a long downward curved line. “You are sure you were followed when you left Crandall’s Wednesday?”

“As sure as one can be without actually knowing — it was more of a followed feeling than anything else. After the idea was planted I could have sworn I saw a dozen men, of course.”

He said: “Have you ever had that feeling before — I mean before you threatened Crandall?”

“No.”

“It may have been simply imagination, because you expected to be followed — there was reason for you to be followed?”

She nodded. “But it’s a cinch it wasn’t imagination this evening.”

Druse was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. He looked intently at her, said very seriously: “I’m going to get your rubies back, and I can assure you of your safety — and I think I can promise that the matter of reimbursement to the insurance company will be taken care of. I didn’t speak to Mister Hanan about that, but I’m sure he’ll see the justice of it.”

She smiled faintly.

Druse went on: “I promise you these things — and in return I want you to do exactly as I tell you until tomorrow morning.”

Her smile melted to a quick, rather drunken, laugh. “Do I have to poison any babies?” She stood up, poured a drink.

Druse said: “That’s one of the things I don’t want you to do.”

She picked up the glass, frowned at him with mock seriousness. “You’re a moralist,” she said. “That’s one of the things I will do.”

He shrugged slightly. “I shall have some very important, very delicate work for you a little later in the evening. I thought it might be best.”

She looked at him, half smiling, a little while, and then she laughed and put down the glass and went into the bathroom. He leaned back comfortably in the chair and stared at the ceiling; his hands were on the arms of the chair and he ran imaginary scales with his big blunt fingers.

She came back into the room in a little while, dressed, drawing on gloves. She gestured with her head towards the man on the floor, and for a moment her more or less alcoholic poise forsook her — she shuddered again — her face was white, twisted.

Druse stood up, said: “He’ll have to stay where he is for a little while.” He went to the heavily draped window, to the fire-escape, moved the drape aside and locked the window. “How many doors are there to the apartment?”

“Two.” She was standing near the table. She took the black automatic from a pocket of her suit, took up a gray suede bag from the table and put the automatic into it.

He watched her without expression. “How many keys?”

“Two.” She smiled, took two keys out of the bag and held them up. “The only other key is the pass-key — the manager’s.”

He said: “That’s fine,” went to the table and picked up his hat and put it on. They went out into the hall and closed and locked the door. “Is there a side entrance to the building?”

She nodded.

“Let’s go out that way.”

She led the way down the corridor, down three flights of stairs to a door leading to Sixty-third Street. They went out and walked over Sixty-third to Lexington and got into a cab; he told the driver to take them to the corner of Fortieth and Madison, leaned back and looked out the window. “How long have you and Mister Hanan been divorced?”

She was quick to answer: “Did he say we were divorced?”

“No.” Druse turned to her slowly, smiled slowly.

“Then what makes you think we are?”

“I don’t. I just wanted to be sure.”

“We are not.” She was very emphatic.

He waited, without speaking.

She glanced at him sidewise and saw that he expected her to go on. She laughed softly. “He wants a divorce. He asked me to divorce him several months ago.” She sighed, moved her hands nervously on her lap. “That’s another of the things I’m not very proud of — I wouldn’t do it. I don’t quite know why — we were never in love — we haven’t been married, really, for a long time — but I’ve waited, hoping we might be able to make something out of it...”

Druse said quietly: “I think I understand — I’m sorry I had to ask you about that.”

She did not answer.

In a little while the cab stopped; they got out and Druse paid the driver and they cut diagonally across the street, entered an office building halfway down the block. Druse spoke familiarly to the Negro elevator boy; they got off at the forty-fifth floor and went up two flights of narrow stairs, through a heavy steel fire-door to a narrow bridge and across it to a rambling two-story penthouse that covered all one side of the roof. Druse rang the bell and a thin-faced Filipino boy let them in.

Druse led the way into a very big, high-ceilinged room that ran the length and almost the width of the house. It was beautifully and brightly furnished, opened on one side onto a wide terrace. They went through to the terrace; there were steamer-chairs there and canvas swings and low round tables, a great many potted plants and small trees. The tiled floor was partially covered with strips of coco-matting. There was a very wide, vividly striped awning stretched across all one side. At the far side, where the light from the living room faded into darkness, the floor came to an abrupt end — there was no railing or parapet — the nearest building of the same height was several blocks away.

Mrs. Hanan sat down and stared at the twinkling distant lights of Upper Manhattan. The roar of the city came up to them faintly, like surf very far away. She said: “It is very beautiful.”

“I am glad you find it so.” Druse went to the edge, glanced down. “I have never put a railing here,” he said, “because I am interested in Death. Whenever I’m depressed I look at my jumping-off place, only a few feet away, and am reminded that life is very sweet.” He stared at the edge, stroked the side of his jaw with his fingers. “Nothing to climb over, no windows to raise — just walk.”

She smiled wryly. “A moralist — and morbid. Did you bring me here to suggest a suicide pact?”

“I brought you here to sit still and be decorative.”

“And you?”

“I’m going hunting.” Druse went over and stood frowning down at her. “I’ll try not to be long. The boy will bring you anything you want — even good whiskey, if you can’t get along without it. The view will grow on you — you’ll find one of the finest collections of books on satanism, demonology, witchcraft, in the world inside.” He gestured with his head and eyes. “Don’t telephone anyone — and, above all, stay here, even if I’m late.”