Dan Marlowe - The Fatal Frails

Suddenly conscious of his eyes upon her, Madeleine Winters showed her teeth in what was not quite a smile. “Extraordinary girl, Gloria. Isn't there something in the natural history books with tentacles ending in claws?”

“Not since the Ice Age,” Johnny said.

“A prehistoric background would suit her nicely,” the blonde said acidly. “But I shouldn't prejudice you on your first date.” Johnny again saw the flash of her even white teeth. “You must tell me all about it some time. I adore naughty stories.”

“You don't pull many punches, do you, Mrs. Winters?”

“Madeleine, please.” The green eyes inspected him searchingly. “If I don't, I understand I'm in good company. Max Stitt is not considered an easy man to handle.”

“His foot must've slipped.”

“Why did you go to see-” She broke off as the elevator ejected Gloria, attache case under her arm. “We can always get into that later, can't we?” The blonde smiled at Johnny. The smile evaporated as she turned to the redhead. “You're quite sure you're ready now, darling?”

“Quite sure,” Gloria returned evenly, drawing on white gloves. Johnny followed them through the lobby's revolving doors onto the sidewalk. Brother, he thought to himself, if there's a lamb in this crowd its name is Killain.

Facing away from the women with his arm upraised for a cab, Johnny was able to take his first look at the business card Harry Palmer had pressed into his hand. Beneath the block-lettered name it said Heritage Building, in the upper left hand corner Factoring, in the lower right Financing. Diagonally across its face in a bold, pencil-stabbing scrawl appeared Drop around and see me.

Now here's a money man no one took the trouble to mention, Johnny thought. He slipped the card in a pocket as he opened the taxicab door.

There was only one attempt at conversation during the trip uptown. “I suppose your friend Ernest is busy disentangling Claude's affairs?” Madeleine Winters inquired. “I haven't seen my friend Ernest since that night,” Gloria replied. The balance of the ride was completed in silence. Johnny offered his hand to each as they alighted. He found the double flash of nylon blinding as they scrambled from the low-roofed cab. A uniformed doorman lumbered up belatedly to assist. With what they were able to see all day opening car doors for the ladies, Johnny mused, doormanning should be a fine job for voyeurs.

Inside the canopied entrance the ceiling was twenty feet high, the floor was parqueted, the atmosphere as hushed as a cathedral. The elevator was self-service type with black filigree ironwork adorning it. It rose soundlessly. Key in hand, Madeleine Winters led the way down a thickly carpeted corridor and admitted them to her apartment.

There was no hallway. Johnny stood just inside the door and looked at the rectangular living room filled with bright color. The walls were off-white, the ceiling dull gold. A shaggy white rug covered the floor. A lounge in royal blue ran nearly from wall to wall at the narrow upper end of the room, and a three-quarter sofa bed with a bright gold coverlet angled out from the right-hand wall. A huge bowl of flowers decorated a hi-fi set against the long left wall. Armchairs in azure blue and nile green squatted at the ends of the lounge, with barely enough room for small end tables with thin-stemmed blue lamps on broad brass bases. The blues and greens should have clashed, Johnny felt, but somehow didn't. A teakwood cabinet rested against the wall opposite the hi-fi. Three doors led off the room, including the one behind him.

“Jack should be along in a moment,” Madeleine said, scaling her stole carelessly at the sofa bed. She indicated the cabinet to Johnny. “Would you do the honors? You'll find everything you need except ice. I'll bring it.”

“I'll run inside to the little girls' room,” Gloria said. She pointed with her attache case to the door on the right. “It's still in there, Madeleine?”

“I haven't moved it recently, dear,” the blonde said sweetly, and exited through the door opposite. Johnny winked at Gloria, who shook her head in a half smile before disappearing behind the right-hand door. Johnny caught a quick glimpse of a white four-poster bed on another white rug before the door closed.

He opened the cabinet door and ran his eye approvingly down the line of bottles. He removed Scotch and bourbon, and three highball glasses. As an afterthought he took out two Old-fashioned glasses. They might like their drinks on the rocks.

“What'll it be?” he asked Madeleine as she returned with a small silver ice bucket. At her silence he turned to find her staring at a black fedora and black leather gloves on an end table.

“Jack's already here?” she murmured half to herself, and raised her voice. “Jack? Where are you, Jack?”

For a second Johnny thought the sound in his ears was a wall-reflected echo of her call. When it was repeated he reached the bedroom door in three long strides and jerked it open. The room was enough to snow-blind a man, he thought as he sprinted through it to the door ajar at its end. Walls, ceiling, rug, bedspread, dresser, boudoir table and bench, lamps, Venetian blinds, occasional chairs-all white. Dead white. Behind him he could hear the thud-thud of Madeleine's heels on the rug.

Gloria stood in the bathroom doorway, attache case crookedly under one arm, staring down at her feet. “I thought you'd never hear me,” she got out in a cracked, strained voice as Johnny moved her to one side and looked down at Jack Arends' crumpled, bloated body. The ugly features were blood-streaked, and a black automatic gleamed against glistening tile.

For an instant Johnny felt suspended in time. Was he seeing the same movie twice? So recently he'd looked down upon a body on a bathroom floor with a black automatic lying alongside on white tile. He dropped to one knee as he heard Madeleine Winters' sharply indrawn breath behind him, and, while he felt for a pulse he knew would not be there, his eye caught up with the differences between this death and Dechant's. This was no suicide. There were no powder burns, and Arends had been shot more than once. This time it was murder.

“The door was closed,” Gloria said from above him in a small voice. “I opened it, and there he was.”

Johnny sat with Gloria on the gold sofa bed and listened to Detective Ted Cuneo direct questions at-from the sound of her voice-an increasingly impatient Madeleine Winters. Beside them an anxious-faced Ernest Faulkner tried ineffectually to referee the match, his glasses glinting in the light.

“Why do you suppose Madeleine insisted on callin' Faulkner?” Johnny asked Gloria.

She shrugged prettily. “At a guess, to embarrass me. I've dated him a few times, but I'm afraid he's taken it more seriously than I have.” The blue-gray eyes were guileless.

Detective James Rogers emerged from the bedroom and approached them. The sandy-haired man looked tired. “I guess that does it inside,” he said mildly. He looked at Johnny. “Run through your end of it again for me.”

“Sure. Gloria an' I left her office at five. We met Mrs. Winters in the lobby, talked maybe five minutes an' caught a cab up here. Took us half an hour, maybe.” Johnny glanced at the bedroom door. “He looked fresh enough to have caught it while we were comin' up in the elevator.”

Rogers' smile was mirthless. “It wasn't long.”

Across the room Madeleine Winters' voice rose stridently. “How many times are you going to ask me that? I told you Jack had his own key! Are you investigating his death or my morals? Ernest, can't you make this man stop repeating himself?” Johnny could see the fluttering movements of Faulkner's hands as he tried to talk to the glowering Cuneo.