LITMIR.BIZ

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overdraft.

      From the bank I caught the elevated to Osbourne Heights, changing to a cab in order to ride the couple of miles to my destination. I could have taken a streetcar, but didn’t. I’m not a snob, but I had to keep up a front, and it was lucky I did. The drive must have been all of a mile long. Paying off the cab, I pressed the doorbell and, while I waited, glanced at the weather-stained front of the big, brownstone house and the trimmed lawn before it. I was busy wondering what a convulated piece of moss-covered stone was supposed to represent when the door opened and a discreet cough warned me that I was not alone.

      I handed the butler my card. ‘The Colonel probably left orders about me,’ I said. ‘Is he at home?’

      ‘No, sir.’ The butler glanced at the card in his hand. I’d given him one of my personal cards, the one which doesn’t say anything about my business, but I could see that he wasn’t impressed. ‘The Colonel did mention you, Mr. Lantry. I understand that you wish to question Marie.’

      ‘Marie?’ I stepped into a hall which could have been hired out as a taxi-dancers’ step-around, and the door swung shut with a click from its patent lock.

      ‘Madam’s maid,’ explained the butler. ‘I will send for her at once.’

      ‘Just a minute—er?’

      ‘Harmond, sir.’

      ‘You know my name already, Harmond.’ I grinned at him, and some of the ice thawed from his weak old eyes. ‘Are the children at home?’

      ‘I believe so, sir. Shall I inform them of your presence?’

      ‘Later.’ I stared at him, trying to read beyond the professional mask. Servants aren’t as dumb as most people like to think, and I’d have wagered half of what I owned that Harmond knew more of what went on in the house than the owner did. If he wanted to he could be a great help.

      ‘You know why I’m here, Harmond?’

      ‘No, sir,’ he lied.

      ‘But you could guess.’ I handed him one of my professional cards. He glanced at it and somehow, in some subtle way, his face altered.

      ‘Madam?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I see. Are you connected with the official police?’

      ‘No.’ I stared at him. ‘I want to find her, Harmond. Do you want me to?’

      ‘Indeed, yes, sir.’ He seemed about to say more, then his face froze back into its original mask. ‘I will inform Marie that you are waiting, sir. If you will remain in the library I will send her to you.’

      I followed him into a small, book-lined room, where he left me alone with the mouldering volumes. Marie came in just as I was wondering whether it would be best to start reading a book or to go in search of her. As soon as I saw her, I could tell that she knew what I was and what I wanted.

      She was small, pretty in a hard, cynical way, and if it hadn’t been for her powder and phony French accent she would have been quite attractive. I smiled at her and offered her a cigarette.

      ‘Did the Colonel tell you to expect me, Marie?’

      ‘Oui, monsieur.’

      ‘C’est bon Alors, did moi—’

      ‘Okay, wise guy,’ she said wearily. ‘So I’m not French. What do you want to know?’

      ‘What clothes, if any, did the Colonel’s wife take with her when she left?’

      ‘None.’

      ‘None?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘In this weather? She must have been pretty hot-blooded to walk naked in early winter.’

      ‘Joke,’ she said flatly. ‘Ha, ha, ha.’

      ‘Then what did she take?’

      ‘What she was wearing.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘Well, the usual underthings.’ She darted a vicious glance at me. ‘Want me to elaborate?’

      ‘I can guess. What else?’

      ‘A brown tweed costume. A chartreuse blouse, green shoes, nylons, fur coat, hat, purse, and gloves.’ She rattled off the list as though she had learned it by heart. I looked up from my notebook.

      ‘What kind of fur coat?’

      ‘Silver fox, three-quarter length.’

      ‘What colour hat and gloves?’

      ‘Black, I think.’

      ‘Don’t think, be sure. What colour?’

      ‘Black.’ This time she was certain, and I knew that I wouldn’t get a different answer no matter how hard I tried. ‘Jewellery?’

      ‘A stack of it. Wristwatch, gold and studded with diamonds. Two bracelets, one of rubies and diamonds, the other emeralds. Four sets of earrings, a couple of ropes of pearls, some dress clips, and a hatful of rings.’

      ‘A lot of jewellery.’

      ‘Most of what she had.’ Marie sounded vicious, and I wondered why. ‘She cleaned out the jewellery box but good. Now, I suppose, some gumshoe will accuse me of helping myself.’

      ‘Why should they?’

      ‘I know coppers.’ Marie dragged at her cigarette. ‘Anything else?’

      ‘Did she take any suitcases?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Then she must have shoved the jewellery in her pockets or purse?’

      ‘I guess she must have done.’ Marie shrugged. ‘She was always a crazy dame; I guess she just got fed up with the old man and took a powder with all the portable loot.’

      ‘What make you say that? Did they fight?’

      ‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ she admitted. ‘But she was always chasing off and leaving him to worry about her. If you ask me, he began to regret having married a tramp.’

      ‘She was in the habit of taking off, was she?’ I crushed out my cigarette and slipped the notebook back into my pocket. ‘Any idea where she went to?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Did she ever talk to you about her friends?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Not much help, are you, Marie?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘I see.’ I took out another cigarette and poised it in front of my mouth. ‘Why do you think she’s dead, Marie?’

      ‘Dead!’ Now she looked scared for the first time. ‘I didn’t say that.’

      ‘Yes, you did. Not right out, maybe, but in other ways. Why else would you be afraid of someone thinking that maybe you’ve helped yourself to the jewellery? If she was still alive, the question would never arise.’ I dropped the cigarette and gripped her shoulders. ‘Come on, Marie, give! What do you know?’

      ‘Nothing!’ She wriggled and I held on. ‘I don’t know nothing, I tell you.’

      ‘Is she dead?’

      ‘I don’t know!’ She was getting frantic by now. ‘Honest to God, shamus, I don’t know!’

      I believed her. I let her go and she rubbed the places where my fingers had dug. Her eyes told me she hated me, but they told me more than that. Marie was scared, plenty scared, and I wondered why.

      I was still wondering when she ran out of the room and slammed the door behind her.

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