Dan Marlowe - The Fatal Frails

He called Gloria's boss first. “Jules Tremaine,” he said to the high-pitched voice he knew at once was not the redhead's.

“Mr. Tremaine will return your call immediately, sir. Your number, please, Mr.-” the voice inquired rapidly.

“Killain,” Johnny said after a second, and supplied the booth phone number. He waited, puzzled. What kind of a gag was this? He sat there for five minutes, and was just about to dial the Spandau number when the phone rang. He grabbed the receiver. “Yeah?”

“Killain? That matter you mentioned at the office. Why don't you go to see Madeleine Winters?”

“I don't know her address,” Johnny replied truthfully. Score one for the redhead, he thought. She called this one right on the nose.

“2-0-4 East 66th. You knew that she's the widow of Dechant's former partner, whose sudden death two years ago was extensively investigated?”

“I know she's still walkin' around,” Johnny answered.

“Nothing could be proven. She's a clever, ruthless woman.”

“Am I supposed to be pullin' chestnuts out of the fire for you because you don't like her?” Johnny asked in simulated doubt. “'Course, if you tell me she's got no inexpensive sins-”

“There is nothing about Madeleine Winters that is inexpensive,” Jules Tremaine said positively. “Ah-Killain. I'd like to talk to you. Privately. Not at the hotel. The attention you've drawn to yourself, you've probably got more people watching you than the Surete has agents.”

“You name it,” Johnny suggested.

“My place, I guess,” Tremaine said after a second. “Tonight. Latish, though. About midnight?”

“Suits me,” Johnny agreed. “I'm a night bird. Where's your roost?”

“At the unfashionable Hotel Alden,” Tremaine said drily.

“I'll see you,” Johnny told him, and hung up. He dialed the Spandau number as quickly as he could get a dime out. There was something he wanted to know. “Your boss around, little sister?”

“Johnny? He just rushed out of here when his answering service called him. I thought it might be you he was calling back.”

Johnny ignored the implied question. “He doesn't trust his little secretary?”

“He trusts Jules Tremaine.” Her tone changed. “What happened over at Empire?”

“If you know somethin' happened, you should know what it was,” Johnny pointed out.

“I only caught snatches. Jack called, nearly in hysterics. I heard your name.”

“Arends hysterics easy. Where'd you learn French and Italian?”

“I went to school in Switzerland. You learned French in the South, didn't you? I could hear that soft Provencal accent.”

“Marseilles.”

“I thought so. Mine is the accent du nord. Jules' is Parisien. Although his English is Britishy. Did you know he speaks seven languages?” Her tone changed again. “Stop distracting me. What happened?”

“You could call Max Stitt,” Johnny suggested.

“I'm not speaking to Max Stitt.”

“Then it wouldn't break you all up to hear that he ran into a little hard luck?”

“The only thing that would break me all up is that I wasn't there to see it.” Gloria Philips made no effort to disguise the malice in her tone, or the impatience. “What happened?”

“Well, he come waltzin' out of the chute with his front hoofs in the air before I got to say a word. At his age he should be a little more careful of the matches he makes for himself.”

“Max Stitt has never had to be careful. He has a reputation for hospitalizing people.”

“What's he so sudden about?”

“He enjoys it,” the girl said flatly. “He has an appetite for violence. I can't believe you beat him. Everyone's afraid of him.”

“Until he run into the hard luck he was way ahead on the score card. He can go.”

“It must have been quite a load of hard luck. Madeleine called me twenty minutes after Jack called Jules, which means that he'd called her, too. She wants to meet you.”

“She a buddy of yours?” Johnny asked cautiously.

Gloria Philips' laugh was brittle. “She doesn't even know I'm alive, until she wants something. Right now she wants to meet you. Her Majesty has commanded. I'm to arrange it.”

“What kind of a string's she got on you?”

“She owns stock in Spandau.”

“How's she think you're goin' to be able to do it?”

“My girlish charm. She knows I met you at the hotel when we found Claude.” She does, does she, Johnny thought. What a nice, tight little community of interests this was turning out to be. “I thought the best way to handle it would be to have her meet us when you pick me up for dinner,” Gloria continued. “If you don't mind. We can stop off for a drink at her place. She can afford it better than you can.”

“Suits me, if it does you,” Johnny said with pretended indifference. “She'll meet us at your place?”

“Not in the office. She won't come within a mile of Jules, if she can help it. He hates her, and she's deathly afraid of him, although she won't admit it. I'll see you at five?”

“You will, little sister. You will indeed.” Johnny replaced the receiver pensively.

The slowly widening ripples from the stone cast into the pool, he thought. The slowly widening ripples…

He left the phone booth and hurried upstairs to change.

Johnny stepped from the elevator into the stream of people in the lobby of 222 Maiden Lane with Gloria Philips on his arm, and the redhead's hand tightened on his elbow. “There she is,” the girl murmured. “That's Harry Palmer with her.”

Johnny looked with interest at the tall, regal-looking blonde in a pastel mink stole who swept up to them, trailed by a short, bouncy, aggressive-looking little man in a dark business suit. “So good of you to be able to make it, darling,” the blonde said crisply to Gloria, semi-enveloping her in the phantom embrace with which women meet in public without ever quite making contact. “And how is dear Ernest these days?”

“Dear Ernest is just fine,” the redhead replied. “Mrs. Winters, Mr. Killain. Mr. Palmer, Mr. Killain.” Johnny was conscious that the eyes of both were upon the marks on his face.

Madeleine Winters was a green-eyed ash blonde, Johnny discovered as he pressed the tips of her fingers, which somehow managed to be the only part of her hand available to be shaken. What he could see of her legs beneath the faille suit were excellent. He suspected that her figure was just as good, if a man held no prejudice against the greyhound type.

Harry Palmer's handshake was firm and surprisingly strong. “Glad to meet you, Killain,” he said buoyantly. Confident good humor quirked the corners of his wide mouth. Johnny felt the transfer of a bit of cardboard from the little man's hand to his own. He palmed it as Palmer turned to Madeleine Winters. “Now that I've done the honors, my dear, I'll be running along.”

“Certainly, Harry.” The blonde smiled at him cozily. “And thanks for being so sweet about escorting me.” She addressed herself to Gloria as the little man strode jauntily away. “You won't mind that I've asked Jack Arends to join us for a drink at my place? I feel he can add so much to the gathering.” Madeleine Winters smiled again.

“I don't mind in the least,” Gloria replied. She disengaged her arm from within Johnny's. “I'm going to have to hold you up a moment, though. I've forgotten my little case with my homework. Excuse me, please?” She stepped back onto the elevator as she spoke.

For a second Johnny thought it might have been an arrangement to leave him alone with Madeleine Winters, until he saw that lady's expression as she stared at the elevator's closed door. In the lobby's harsh overhead light, tiny crow's-feet radiated from the eyes but only slightly negated a very good complexion. She was older than the redhead, Johnny thought, but it would take a woman to appraise the difference.