Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

The go-ahead signal was given, and Leone took her first, baptismal step down, with the hypnotic, pavane-like slow-motion of the professional mannequin, feeling her way with the tip of her foot as though she were blindfolded.

There was an urgent, surreptitious follow-up footfall on the stairs behind her, someone thrust a catastrophically forgotten show-handkerchief into her hand, and then whoever it was retreated again into safe anonymity.

She and the other mannequin passed one another. They didn’t look at each other, they weren’t supposed to.

She reached the foot of the stairs, her course leveled off, and the display-room was now hers alone.

There were some people standing out here, in the space between the stairs and the display-room entrance, all men, who either had shown up late and found all the seats taken, or who wanted to hold private discussions of their own out here, or whatever the reason was.

Those who had their backs to her, and some did, turned around to face her as she started to glide past them. All but one; he kept himself turned away from her. But the man he was standing in front of, looked at her hard and steadily. They all were doing that of course, but there was this difference: The rest were looking at the gown she was merchandising, he was looking at her face and only her face. Then the corner of his mouth moved a little, saying something secretive to the man with his back to her. And she saw the latter nod his head, she could see him do that from the back. And right after that, he turned, too.

And they were looking at each other again, she and that face from the crowd, that was always there, wherever she went, each night now the whole week past. Outside the door here where she worked, and on the bus, and peering into the cafe, and under the windows of her flat.

She faltered in her stride, she couldn’t help doing so, and gave a sagging little knee-dip for a moment, then picked up her swing again and went at a stylized stroll into the packed salon behind, but with a feeling as if there was a knife in back of her poised between her shoulder blades.

She heard a voice introduce: “April Rain, for the important moments of your life,” and thought, This is one of mine, but it isn’t a good one.

All she was conscious of was tiers of pinkish-beige ovals looking her over from all sides. Even when she felt secure and at ease, she never looked directly into their faces, she had been taught not to. It would have injected a personal note that would have been out of place; more to the point, it would have distracted attention from the very thing she was trying to draw attention to. And now, after seeing him standing out there, she wouldn’t have dared look into their faces, it would have broken her up in no time. So she fixed her eyes on an imaginary guide-line along the walls just high enough to miss the tops of their heads, and kept them on it whichever way she turned. And all the while she kept thinking, I have to pass him a second time, on my way out, to get back to the stairs: oh, my God!

There were murmurs of admiration and interest as she moved around the room, which swelled now and then to a sustained buzz or a spattering of applause. Individual remarks stood out here and there. “ Very good!” “A natural!” “She always comes up with something!”

In the meantime she kept trying not to swallow (which would have been noticeable along her throat-line), and her tongue felt as if it were drowning in her own fears.

Every now and then she had to make a complete turnaround, to show off the back of the gown as well. The whole routine or technique was a simple one, that could be picked up in fifteen minutes. She had. What your job depended on more than that was word-of-mouth reputation, of having been known to work at one of the other big houses previously. In other words, once you were in, you were in. Until you were in, you couldn’t get in.

One corner was past, now the second. There remained only one more and then she would be back to the door, that dreaded door, again. And he was waiting out there beyond it. Whoever he was and whatever he was, one thing was sure, he wasn’t good. He wasn’t good news. Maybe if she — just went by fast, without stopping to think about it and without looking at him, he wouldn’t have a chance to — do whatever it was he was going to do. And the other one with him, who was he? Birds of a feather? Maybe he was just some fellow-standee he’d struck up a conversation with. There was a certain freemasonry among men of that kind.

She was out through the door now and about to break into a headlong spurt. And then she suddenly had to slow it down again. Renard was standing there, come to drink in her own triumph. People all around her showering congratulations, but her eye didn’t miss a trick. Her behind-the-hand whisper reached Leone as she was about to go past her. “Don’t hurry so. You may catch that on something and damage it.”

The voice of authority, that could not be disregarded. She tapered to a gracious walk, and one of the two men immediately made a signal to her. Not him. The other one.

She didn’t stop for it, so they came over to her instead, stood alongside her one on each side, peering closely with professional interest and professional pitilessness. Not at the gown this time, but at her. Only at her. She halted, with fear-glazing eyes.

“Your name Leone Aubry?” said one, pointing with a slim putty-green cigar he was holding between his fingers.

“What do you want?”

“Is your name Leone Aubry?”

“Yes, but what do you want?”

“You’re coming with us, is what we want.”

Then he showed her something, in a sort of wallet-carrying-case that split open across the top and uplidded, instead of opening along its edge like the usual money-carrying wallet does. She could make out the city’s coat-of-arms, then he squeezed it closed, with the same hand he was holding it in.

The police. She knew now who they were. She clapped both hands to her mouth, and held them there, at cross-angles to one another. People started to turn and look curiously at her. Finally she let her hands drop again, so that she could speak without impediment. “What for? What have I done?” she asked them, in a sort of piteous, passive, boxed-in panic.

“We don’t stand and talk to you here, in a place like this.”

And the other one, the one who had been at her heels for a week, surly: “We didn’t come here to buy our wives dresses, you know.”

“Can’t I go upstairs and change for a minute?” Just a minute more, anything for a minute more. You don’t value freedom when you have unlimited lengths and stretches of it. Then when you don’t have it anymore, how sweet just one extra minute of it is.

“No delays, you’re coming right as you are. Put a coat on over you.”

“But I can’t take it out of here. It belongs to the house. I’m not allowed to.”

Renard intervened. “What’s the trouble? Is this an arrest?”

“An interrogation.”

“Then please, gentlemen, no commotion. We’ve all worked too long and too hard for this, to have it spoiled.” And with that typical logic which had made her the successful business woman she was, she pointed out: “The dress is my property. You can’t take it out of here unless you have an order for its confiscation. Which you don’t have. Therefore the dress and the girl must be separated first before you can take the girl.”

One of them scratched his head and mumbled in an aside to his partner something about “not only designs clothes but she’s a lawyer in the bargain.”

“Go upstairs, Leone,” Renard said with a sort of localized sympathy. That is to say, a sympathy that was given freely and for the asking, until it collided with or obstructed her own one and only concern, the making and selling of dresses. Then it stopped and didn’t go any further. “Maybe it’ll work itself out all right. Let me hear from you, if you can.”