Читать книгу Murderer's Vanity - Footner Hulbert - Страница 5

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While Lee was dealing with this private anxiety he was involved in his publisher’s intensive campaign for the promotion of his book. For an entire afternoon he was forced to sit at a table in the aisle of a crowded, stuffy, department store autographing copies of “Murder and Fantasy.” The intending purchasers stared at him as if he were some grotesque animal in a menagerie. They asked him inane questions to which he was forced to make equally inane answers. If he answered intelligently he wasn’t understood. All this was very trying to his dignity, but he had to put up with it, because, having quarrelled with his publishers’ indifference to his work in the past, he could not very well object to their present measures.

On the morning following this ordeal Lee received another of X’s letters. It said: “I bought a copy of “Murder and Fantasy” from you yesterday. So you’ve taken to peddling your own wares! Nice work! You show a certain amount of industry in digging up the details of past crimes from old newspaper files, but there isn’t an original thought from the first page to the last. You’re nothing but a literary parasite. Of course I knew this before I bought the book, but I wanted to have a good look at you close to. I was not impressed.”

Lee could afford to smile at this. The crude malice reminded him of the comic valentines of his youth. They too, were sent anonymously. He strongly doubted that the writer had bought a book of him, because he had a persistent hunch that the letters came from somebody that he knew personally. He called up the faces of the day before as well as he could. The great majority had been women, but there were a dozen or so of men. He could not bring to mind a single face. Well, I can’t remember everything, he told himself.

The letter went on: “You ought to tell your friend Loasby he might as well call off his men from the branch post-offices. While they are loafing and watching the letter slots, the crooks are making hay elsewhere. I shan’t use the post-offices again. After all, there’s a letter box on the nearest corner.”

Every day during this time there was some sort of social show where Rafe Deshon said it was absolutely necessary for Lee to show himself; a reception to a visiting celebrity; a first night at the theatre; a public dinner. In particular Lee detested the public dinners. Though he and Rafe had been thrown much together for some time past, Lee had never cared greatly for the publicity director. Rafe, handsome, smiling, overflowing with ingenious new ideas for publicity, seemed a little too good to be true. It was not blood that ran in his veins but advertising copy.

When Rafe released Lee, Peggy was generally there to take him in charge. Peggy would show him off at the smartest nightclubs where she reigned like a Dresden china queen. When Lee objected that the Monte Carlo was not exactly his style, she rejoined smartly:

“Nonsense, Lee! You’re a celebrity and you look the part. You have what it takes to succeed in New York!”

“When I consider how my dancing pumps hurt it hardly seems worth while.”

“Everybody’s feet hurt after two in the morning.”

“Don’t you get tired of doing the same thing every night?” he asked.

“I can’t afford to get tired. It is in three or four places in New York like this that all the stones of publicity are dropped. From here the ripples are spread to the furthest edges of the country by the syndicated articles of the society reporters. Reputations are made and unmade here.”

“What a bore it is to keep up a reputation!” said Lee.

Peggy’s eyes narrowed. “I must be first or nowhere,” she said.

One night Rafe and Peggy gave a small dinner to bring Lee in contact with the most powerful personality in radio. The radio offer had been increased and Lee was gradually being maneuvred into a position where he would have to accept it. The Deshons did not live in an apartment but in a recherché little house in the Sutton Place neighborhood. The furnishings of this house expressed the day after to-morrow in modernity. Every time Lee went there it appeared to have been done over. That was because when other women displayed anything Peggy had, Peggy threw hers out. Lee had been told that these amazing pieces of furniture and works of art cost the Deshons nothing because everything in Peggy’s house was sure to be written up in the press.

Luckily for Lee’s digestion the food was conventional.

As always he was amazed by the play of smiling camaraderie across the dinner table between Peggy and her husband. How were they able to keep it up? he asked himself. What were they like alone together? They put on a perfect show, yet he had a feeling that some place, some time, somebody had to pay for this excessive vivacity. Tonight while he was in the house the veneer cracked for a moment, and he had a startling glimpse of what lay beneath.

It was after dinner and the guests were departing. Rafe and Peggy were downstairs seeing them off while Lee waited in the drawing-room at the back of the house above. He and Peggy were going on to a nightclub. For her drawing-room Peggy favored a French wallpaper at the moment with a design of big rosy flamingoes against a tropical swamp. Lee found it a little nightmarish and walked to the open French window. Outside there was a balcony. The night air was delicious in his face and the view over a short back yard to the East river twinkling with lights, very soothing.

But he heard voices close to the dining room windows under the balcony which murdered peace; low, terrible voices curdling with bitterness.

“I hate you! Oh God! how I hate you! It keeps me awake at night!” This was Rafe.

And Peggy: “That’s because I’ve got your number, you poor four-flusher, you nothing-at-all! You know how I despise you and you can’t bear it!”

“Be quiet! A man can stand only so much. Don’t push me over the line!”

“You can’t divorce me! You can’t divorce me!” Peggy’s voice hissed like snakes. “I’m necessary to you.”

“No, but I could kill you!” said Rafe.

Peggy’s answer was a silvery laugh. Peggy’s laugh was famous and she lost no opportunity of letting it be heard.

A few moments afterwards the couple entered the drawing-room wreathed in happy smiles. Lee could scarcely believe his eyes. Peggy slipped her hand under her husband’s arm.

“What have you got to do tonight, Ruffian?”

He patted her fingers. “Plenty, beautiful. First to the Herald-Tribune to make sure that a story I gave them is in print. I’ll have to drink with some of the fellows there. Then to the Lambs to see a theatrical manager. He’s not fit for human society until one o’clock. It’ll take me a couple of hours to wangle what I want out of him. Then home to snatch forty winks. Got a big day at the office to-morrow.”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to spend an evening together for once,” said Peggy.

Lee hoped they would not feel it necessary to stage a kiss for him. However they did not. Rafe departed.

A few minutes later Peggy and Lee were on their way in a taxicab to one of the town’s most gilded spots. Peggy was chattering in her usual flip fashion. It gave Lee a bad taste in his mouth. Since these people called themselves his intimate friends, he felt justified in asking bluntly:

“Peggy, what’s the trouble between you and Rafe?”

She laughed. “What on earth gave you that idea, Lee? Why we’re considered the perfect modern couple.”

“While I was waiting for you,” said Lee, “I went out on the balcony. I couldn’t help hearing you and Rafe in the dining-room.”

“Oh, that!” she said. “Just a little husband and wife stuff behind the scenes. We all do it.” Lee said nothing. She felt impelled to explain further. “We get along as well as most couples in this cock-eyed world. Better than most I guess, because we have a strong community of interest. I play Rafe’s game and he plays mine. That creates a stronger bond than love, Lee.”

“Maybe,” said Lee. “But it must be pretty horrible to go on living with somebody you dislike.”

“I don’t let myself think about it,” she said carelessly. “Rafe sticks to his part of the house and I to mine.”

“Are you in love with somebody else?”

“No ... Yes! It depends on what you mean. There is only one man in the world that I want, and he has no eyes for me. So I amuse myself with the others—plenty of others; always taking care never to let it get too serious.”

“Who is the man?”

“Not going to tell you. You’re too sharp anyhow. You can find out if you’re sufficiently interested.”

“And Rafe?”

She laughed. “You surely didn’t believe that stuff about seeing a man at the Herald-Tribune and a theatrical manager at the Lambs’ Club. He’s gone to the tough girl friend; I heard him making the date. You should see her, Lee. A horse of a woman with a voice like a foghorn. He can have her. Honestly I don’t care. But what makes me mad is that he won’t allow me to be equally free. Am I supposed to live like a nun? Is it fair?”

“There’s no fairness in marriage.”

They were drawing up to the curb in front of their night club. Lee ordered the chauffeur to drive on up to Eighty-first Street and return.

“We should have gone in,” said Peggy a little sullenly. “I don’t like heart-to-heart talks. I prefer not to think at all.”

“Can you live without thinking?”

“Sure! I make a rattle to keep the bogey-man away.”

“What is the game you are playing, Peggy?”

“Why, to get on in the world, to be somebody, to lead! Don’t think I’m kidded by this crazy life. I didn’t make the world. I have to take it as I find it. I’m after something solid. Publicity makes names and names rule. I was born a have-not and I’m going to be a have. I can’t get what I want without Rafe, but I can get it through him. So I use him. It’s almost in my hand. Soon now Rafe will control the firm of Blair and Middlebrook while old Tyrrell gorges himself into an apoplexy. Then I can sit back and thumb my nose at the mob. When you tell them to go to hell they bow down to you more than ever.”

“Good God, my dear, this is horrible!” said Lee.

“Not horrible but only honest. You’re a sentimentalist, Lee.”

“Well, I’m rather glad of it.”

“The day of sentiment is over. It’s a bad world, and you have to fight it with its own weapons.”

“You can’t live like this. Nobody can. In refusing to think and in suppressing all your feelings you’re doing violence to the human nature in you. Believe me, nature has unexpected and horrible ways of getting back at you.”

She laughed. “You think I may crack up, eh? Not I!”

Lee took another line. “Who is Rafe jealous of?”

“Of the man I told you about. Because he is a man, every inch of him, he’s real; and Rafe in his heart knows he’s only a sham man. So he hates him. What can I do about it? I can’t give the other man up because I never had him!”

“You see,” said Lee softly, “it is foolish to deny reality; you are at the mercy of reality.”

Her voice began to shake. “For God’s sake, Lee, don’t fish up things from the bottom! What good does it do? We’re all on the toboggan. Let her slide!”

She was staring straight ahead of her. The cab was passing a street light. Lee took her chin between thumb and forefinger and turned her face so that the light shone in it. Her eyes were brilliant and dry.

She laughed. “I’m not going to drizzle. A modern woman can’t afford it. And I’m going to win!”

“All right,” said Lee. “Just the same I advise you not to taunt Rafe. He might spoil your game.”

She laughed. “Did he threaten to kill me in the dining room? I’m so accustomed to that, it doesn’t register any more. You take him too seriously, Lee. He hasn’t got the guts to do it. You take us all too seriously. Nobody has any strong feelings nowadays; we’re just actors putting on a sorry show!”

“You’re sick,” said Lee, “and don’t know it.”

Peggy laughed. “A couple of glasses of champagne will cure me!”

When they entered El Zingara the major-domo and the captain of waiters bowed before them, the proprietor himself, an important figure in the New York scene, hastened to greet them. A table amongst the elect in the front of the room had been saved. As they moved toward it there were cries of welcome to Peggy from every side. Many came pressing up for a closer greeting. To Peggy it was more intoxicating than wine. She was in her own element here.

As they sat with their backs against the wall and a little table in front of them, there were always two or three leaning over trying to engage Peggy’s attention. The red-headed Tom Cottar came by. The corners of Tom’s lips were permanently turned up in a mocking grin.

“Hi, Beautiful!”

“Hi, Red!”

Peggy’s greeting matched Tom’s in mockery, but Lee felt a wariness drawing over her. Was this the man? he asked himself, measuring Tom. Tom was a stalwart, virile fellow, but his face was not much to look at. A handsome face is a positive disadvantage to a man, Lee thought. Peggy was waiting for Tom to ask her to dance, but he passed on to another woman at another table. Peggy drained her glass and pushed it toward Lee to be refilled.

On the following day there was an immense cocktail party at the Tyrrell Blairs. Though it was so large an affair, the list of guests was made up with the greatest care because this was to be a party that established social ratings. If you were not there you were nowhere. Rafe and Peggy Deshon checked the list since Mary Blair could not be induced to attach sufficient importance to such matters. It was useless for Lee to try to get out of attending the party. Rafe said: “If you don’t show yourself everybody will say you’re going to give your next book to another publisher.”

“But as long as I’m not going to,” objected Lee.

“The firm’s credit would suffer in the meantime.”

The Blair penthouse was a three-story affair topping one of the most conspicuous buildings overlooking the East river. It had everything including a yacht landing in the basement. This was no good to Blair who protested that he hated the water and had never owned even a row boat. When Lee arrived at six o’clock the immense rooms were already thronged. All the sharp-eyed guests were engaged in making mental notes of who was there. It was a fair May day and outside the French windows the aerial gardens were at their loveliest. Few persons however left the rooms for fear of missing something. Lee went out and looking on the amazing city from among the perfumed flowers thought: After this, what?

Tyrrell Blair sent for him. Standing in front of the renaissance chimneypiece in the lofty sala Blair dominated the whole crowd with his tall heavy figure and strong voice. Blair with his feats of eating and drinking, his affairs with women, was becoming a legend even while he was alive. He kept Lee beside him, introducing him to all as: “My cleverest author.”

Lee smiled inwardly at the proprietary air.

“Lee’s a psychologist and a philosopher,” announced Blair, “A dangerous combination! He knows what makes the wheels go round in all of us.”

Lee, while he smiled and said what was expected of him, thought ruefully that if he was a philosopher, this was no place for him. Getting away as soon as he was able he went in search of Mary Blair.

She was holding court in another room. A tall figure in soft blue draperies the color of her deep eyes. She was going through the motions of a gracious hostess, but Lee guessed from her slightly distrait expression, that her feeling about the show was similar to his own: Why all this clamor when stillness is so sweet? Mary was by nature a still woman. Other women were inclined to despise her because she did not rebel against her husband’s flagrant infidelities; Lee would not allow himself to despise a quiet person. You never knew!

As he approached, Mary gave him a special smile. He joined in the talk around her. When an opportunity presented itself, he said:

“Will you come with me for five minutes? I want to show you something in your own place that you may not have seen.”

She excused herself from the others, and they passed out into the lofty garden. It was not crowded here. A few people leaned on the parapet, gazing at the miraculous city; others lay in wicker chairs outside the windows. The garden was constructed on two levels, so that those in the chairs looked over the heads of those at the parapet.

“This is wonderful,” said Lee.

“Wonderful for what it is,” said Mary. “I prefer my garden on the ground.”

He took her to the south side and made her sit in a certain chair. He had discovered that looking from this spot you saw the stark grey bulk of the R.C.A. Building like a gigantic sarcophagus enframed between two branches of flowering lilac. From the chair level nothing else was visible but clear sky.

“A study in contrast,” said Lee. “Death and springtime.”

“A forced Springtime,” murmured Mary.

“You should have it photographed to-morrow morning when the sun is right,” said Lee; “before the lilacs fade.”

“Why?” she said indifferently. “I have no desire to preserve it.”

He looked at her quickly.

“I want to forget all this as quickly as possible,” she said with a secret smile. “And I shall, too.”

This sounded like the beginning of rebellion. He felt that it would interrupt her delicate confidences to ask a question, and so he held his tongue.

“You must think I am daft,” she went on, smiling. “I always feel a little daft when I am with you. That is because I have to keep such a close guard on myself all the time in there.” She inclined her head towards the windows.

“Let’s be daft,” said Lee.

“Lee, what do you want most of life?” she asked irrelevantly.

“One must choose what is within one’s grasp; for me a little wisdom.”

“Wisdom!” she said scornfully.

“What do you want, Mary?”

“Happiness!” Her breath caught on the word, and it was easy to see that she had a special happiness in mind. “I’m willing to pay,” she added. “I have faced that out.”

“You are entitled to it,” he said.

She laughed softly. “Isn’t it funny, when you and I are together we always talk in half hints.”

“But we do not misunderstand each other,” said Lee.

“We are never alone together for more than a minute or two. Wouldn’t it be nice if ...”

She was interrupted by a heavy voice behind her saying: “Here you are, you two!” Concealment drew over Mary’s face like a film of wax. Lee turned around with a bland smile. “I brought Mary out to show her a curious effect. You can only see it when you sit here. Look! Death and Springtime.”

“Death?”

“The top of the R.C.A. Building looks like a gigantic coffin.”

“That’s wonderful, Lee. To-morrow I’ll send up my best photographer to take it in color ... Come on in. A lot of new people have arrived. You are my star attraction, you know.”

As they followed Blair through a window, Lee murmured to Mary: “How about having tea with me some afternoon?”

“I’d love it.”

“Sunday?”

“Not Sunday.”

“Monday?”

“No; Tuesday. Call for me at four on Tuesday.”

The next item on Rafe Deshon’s calendar of engagements for Lee was a private view at the Whitney Galleries of Art. Many of the same people were present but this was a rather more bohemian gathering because the artists were included. Rafe and Lee met an eminent personality upon entering and while the former was engaged in flattering him, Lee slipped away. Avoiding the receiving line, he found a seat where he could amuse himself by looking at people looking at art.

Judy Bowles was at the show, and he presently picked her out across the room, standing with her back to him while she gazed at a picture. Beside her stood a young man. They made a fine complement to each other because he was as blond as Judy was dark, and for a moment or two Lee hoped that his girl had shipped the radio announcer. But he could not be sure that these two were together, because he did not see them speaking. The young man was a superb physical specimen; tall, broad-shouldered, with a firm stance. Lee was particularly struck with the good shape of his head, full behind and wide above his close-set ears. Lee waited in some curiosity to see if his face was as handsome as his body was well-made. It doesn’t often happen.

Judy kept looking over her shoulder toward the entrance to the room. Her face lighted up and she started in that direction. The slick-haired Boris Fanton was coming in. Lee’s heart sank when he saw their meeting. So that affair was still on. They left the room arm in arm.

The blond young man turned to look at another picture and Lee saw his face for the first time. He was astonished, as one always is, at the discovery of something absolutely right. It was one of the handsomest young men Lee had ever seen. His features were cast in a mold of classic harmony, but there was plenty of individuality there too. What pleased Lee most in him was that he lacked the cynical assurance that handsome young men so soon acquire in the city. This one was not spoiled yet. People were staring at him, and it made him sore. Lee, searching in his mind for a phrase to describe his fierce expression, thought: Blond Lucifer.

At this moment Rafe found Lee, and led him away to do his duty by the receiving line. At intervals during the afternoon and evening Lee kept remembering with pleasure the proud, resolute face.

On the following morning Lee found another anonymous letter in his mail. Each of these letters had been mailed from a different part of the city. This one was dropped in a Greenwich village postbox.

Lee Mappin:

Everything is all set now. I am only waiting for the train I have laid to produce the particular combination of circumstances that I require. I have left nothing to chance, and within the next three or four days my opportunity will present itself just as certainly as effect must follow cause. The knife is sharp, the hand steady and the grave chosen. If you expect to do anything to prevent this murder, you’ll have to look sharp. Yesterday you were in the presence of the destined victim.

X.

Since Lee had been in the presence of hundreds on the previous afternoon the last sentence of the letter did not furnish him with anything of a clue. Many of the persons with whom he was closely associated had been at the Art gallery; Tyrrell and Mary Blair, Rafe Deshon and Peggy, Fanny Parran, Tom Cottar, Judy Bowles and Boris Fanton, besides scores of others that he knew less well.