Читать книгу Killer in Silk - H. Vernor Dixon - Страница 5

AS SOON as the cleaner had gone, Morgan got out of bed and stood unsteadily on the floor until he felt some strength in his legs. He went to his suitcase, opened it and saw that the contents were undisturbed. He got out a pair of yellow slippers and slid his arms into a light pongee robe. He found a bowl of fruit in the kitchen and selected a red apple to munch on. The slight exercise of moving about tired him, so he dropped into a leather chair by one of the windows.

He thought of what the cleaner had told him about Mrs. Wilson. Murder was dramatic and suspenseful and highly entertaining—especially when a woman such as Mrs. Wilson had played the leading role on the spotlighted stage of death.

Morgan chuckled and leaned back in the chair with his eyes half closed. His writer’s imagination began immediately to hatch plots and counterplots. Because he knew virtually nothing about the principals involved, he was able to do as he pleased with what he was already calling the Wilson affair. His mind raced with all sorts of conjectures and theories. He was having a splendid time and thoroughly enjoying himself.

Morgan had the capacity to entertain himself without moving a muscle. He could lose himself in a daydream for hours on end, complete with dialogue, Technicolor, three dimensions and a story line on which he was able to hang fantastic situations and incidents and characters. Sometimes his dreaming took on such a sharpness and clarity that he was forced to drop the pose of dreamer and become a writer and critically assess the idea for book material. A large percentage of his stories was derived in such a manner. His dreams, however, were not for that purpose alone. He enjoyed them also for the passing pleasure they afforded him.

His life was composed as much of dreams as it was of solid substance. Rarely did he ever know where one left off and the other began. Though never having played the game himself, he had once written a story about a great tennis star. For the purpose of information and factual background, he had haunted tennis courts, studied rules and regulations and interviewed hundreds of players. In the end, he knew more about the game than most of the champions and so began using bits and pieces of tennis lore in dinner-table and barroom conversations. Ultimately, it was he, himself, who had been the great tennis star and could have been a champion except for an unfortunate fracture of the right ankle just before he was to play at Wimbledon. Whenever his audience was unusually sympathetic he felt such a twinge in his right ankle that he actually limped.

As a child he had learned to lie so plausibly that he was rarely challenged. He had always been the biggest liar in whatever school he attended, and during recess and lunch hours never failed to be surrounded by a gaping audience. Quite often his junior audience knew he was lying and he knew that they knew, but their pleasure in his tales was not lessened because of the fact.

The transition from free and easy amateur lying into professional writing had been so easy that he was hardly aware of having made a change. The great difference was principally in the larger audience. He was forced to become more critical and selective in the tales he put together. He was also forced to broaden his understanding of human nature, and had a better idea of what made people tick than a conference of psychiatrists. The ability to analyze, appraise and judge became instinctive with him. It was a talent that was never at rest and was always at work during his every waking moment.

Ordinarily, when he was convalescing from one of his binges, he suffered a state of depression so low that he walked on the brink of suicide. He had never made the attempt, he had never held a gun to his temple and he had never stood on the edge of a cliff, but mentally he had been so close so often that a grain of sand could have tilted the scales into the abyss.

On this occasion, however, a new element was introduced into his convalescence that shoved the old problem of self into the background. His creative faculties wrested depression from his shoulders and settled excitedly on the questions posed by Irene Wilson. It was undoubtedly the best medicine that could have been given to him.

When Dr. Rigsby arrived, just before the dinner hour, he was amazed to find his patient in far better spirits than he had anticipated. He suspected that Morgan had started drinking again, but found that not to be true and was more puzzled than ever.

He gave Morgan a hasty examination and said, “You’ve snapped out of it all right, but there’s a lot of damage to be repaired. You need sleep—”

“I need sleep like I need a hole in the head. Rest, yes, but all I’ve been doing is sleeping.”

“But not quite the sort of sleep you need. The main thing is food. You can eat solids from now on. Also drink a lot of milk and fruit juices between meals. I’ll tell Carl what to prepare for you.” He snapped his bag closed, studied Morgan, and said, “Mrs. Wilson tells me your name is O’Keefe and that you’re a writer.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of you.”

“Don’t get snobbish about it. You’re only one small unit of the largest organization in the world, the hundreds of millions who have never heard of O’Keefe.”

The doctor chuckled and said, “I see you have a sense of humor.”

“Don’t kid yourself, my friend. What passes for humor has its source in my bile. But I’ll bet you’re quite a card when it comes to flipping butter pats around at the Rotary luncheons.”

The doctor’s amiability vanished. He remembered having flipped butter pats at a Rotary luncheon and his face reddened. “Well,” he grumbled, “you’re getting along. A few more days and you’ll be out of here.”

“I’ll hate to leave. This place has such an intriguing atmosphere. For the past hour or so I’ve been enjoying myself by wondering where she killed him: here in this room, in the hallway, on the stairs, in the study? No, not the study. I don’t know why it is, but in fiction the corpse is always found in the study. Never in real life. When a gal scrags a man she doesn’t give a damn where she is and she certainly wouldn’t do it in the study, or even be found dead there herself. The latter is a rather dubious pun, my eminent physician.”

The doctor chewed at his lower lip and his scowl deepened. “Carl wouldn’t have told you.”

“No. The cleaner was here a little while ago.”

“He told you the whole story?”

Morgan shook his head. “All he said was that my benefactress had shot her husband to death here in this very house. He seemed quite elated about it. At least one of his customers has distinguished herself in the realm of higher dramatics. You can’t say that about everyone. But tell me, Doctor, were you in on the Wilson affair?”

The doctor said stiffly, “No. I was the family physician, but I was not in on the affair, as you put it. It was an accident, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. An accident, you say? Now you’re ruining everything. How did it happen?”

The doctor glanced at his watch and sighed. “Sorry, but I don’t have the time. However, you can read all about it right here. Mrs. Wilson has a leather-bound scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings of the tragedy. She keeps it in the study. Ask Carl to bring it to you.”

Morgan squinted narrowly at the doctor, not quite sure he had heard right. “You mean to tell me she keeps a scrapbook about her accidental killing of her own husband?”

“That is correct I have tried for years to get her to destroy it. She refuses. Frankly, Mr. O’Keefe, I have known Irene since she was a child, but I must admit I don’t understand her. But then,” he sighed, “none of us ever really understands another person.”

Morgan said, “I do. I’m beginning to understand you only too well. I think you’re strictly a society doctor and you can probably guess what that means in my dictionary.”

Dr. Rigsby gasped, and then roared, “By God, but you’re impertinent!”

Morgan laughed. “Not impertinent, Doctor. Impertinence implies a lack of due respect of the humble toward his superior. Of the two of us, therefore, only you could be the impertinent one.”

The doctor gasped again, spun about on his heel and slammed the door as he went out. Morgan scratched his head and wondered, Now, why did I do that? The doctor was probably a nice old slob. He shrugged and forgot the incident.

Carl came into the room with his first full-course meal, and Morgan devoured it with a ravenous appetite. After having eaten he knew that he would sleep well, so decided against asking Carl for the scrapbook that night. And as long as he still knew little or nothing about what had taken place, he could make up all sorts of dreams and fantasies that would help him to sleep and stave off the depression that was normally his at that point.

He remained by the windows until it was dark, and then, as his lids began to droop, he got into bed. He heard the door open softly and turned his head to see Irene Wilson standing in the shaft of light at the doorway. She asked softly, “Are you awake, Mr. O’Keefe?”

“I just got into bed.”

“Oh. I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay. What’s on your mind?”

“Well, nothing important, really. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Carl said that you were in such good spirits—”

He chuckled softly and said, “Forget it. Would you like to kiss me good night, Mrs. Wilson?”

“I’m afraid I don’t—”

“On the other hand, maybe you’d better not. That gown you’re wearing may inspire the rise of something loftier than my mind.”

She gasped and slammed the door. Morgan rolled over on his side and went to sleep.

Irene started angrily down the hallway, but as she came opposite a gilt-framed full-length mirror she stopped for a moment to stare at her reflection. Contrary to what most men thought of all women, Irene did not clothe herself simply to attract men. Prior to Jay Wilson’s death, she had made some effort to buy the things he liked and that were attractive to him and to other men, but since the tragedy she had had no desire to attract any man, and so bought her clothes only with an eye to what was currently fashionable. She frowned and pivoted before the mirror and for the first time realized that the cocktail gown she was wearing, though simple, was indeed cut so well and fitted her so perfectly that it revealed every line and curve of a very good figure. She was annoyed and thought of changing to something else, but there wasn’t time. As she walked away from the mirror, though, she looked back once and the ghost of a smile appeared in her dark eyes.

She passed the darkened living room, which was rarely used because of its size, and went on to the softly lighted study to arrange the vases of flowers a florist had delivered that afternoon. The study was a large, outsized room that had once been the formal dining room. It was long and narrow, with a massive wall of plate glass at one end that looked north over the necklace lights of the Golden Gate Bridge. A fairly large bar, complete with sink and hidden refrigerator, had been built into one wall and elaborately stocked. There was also a large desk in a corner, book shelves, a tall, glass-faced cabinet for filing purposes and a grouping of chairs that had come from the original library. Otherwise the room looked not at all like a study and was decorated and furnished as a living room.

The upstairs, where the master bedrooms and guest rooms were located, had been left intact, but since the deaths of her parents and her subsequent marriage to Jay Wilson, Irene had made a number of changes on the main floor. Thomas Tinsley, Irene’s father, a man who had enjoyed living in the grand manner, had built the house for large-scale entertainment as well as for gracious living. The kitchen wing, in fact, was equipped to handle anything from a pair of boiled eggs to a banquet for two hundred. During his life it had often been pressed to its utmost capacity and beyond.

Irene sighed as she thought of how those days had been. She had been an only child and had arrived late in the lives of her parents, so that she knew them only as middleaged and then as elderly people. It was almost as if she had been raised by her grandparents. She had been a spoiled, arrogant, domineering child. She had been shielded so carefully that she was almost in her teens before she realized there were other people in the world who did not sit down to a formal dinner with fifty or sixty guests at least once a week.

Her world was the world of wealth and fashion and the great people who wined and dined at the Tinsley mansion. Opera stars and senators and state governors occupied the guest rooms. There were winter weeks at Palm Springs and golf events at Pebble Beach and every summer quick flights to Europe and leisurely returns on the plush liners. It came to an end in 1941 when the Tinsley yacht went off course in a heavy Pacific fog, struck a reef and went down off Point Sur. Irene’s parents were lost, along with her father’s partner, Jeb Wilson, and Wilson’s wife. The following year Irene married Jay, the younger of the two Wilson sons, and for the first time in her life had to cope with reality.

Now she bit her lower lip and walked over to the windows to look out at the lights of the great bridge. She had failed, she knew; it was not Jay who had failed. He had tried to understand her unreasonable demands and her snobbish arrogance and he had tried to exercise patience with her, but he had been young, too, and his tolerance was limited. In the end, he had begun drinking heavily and staying out late at night and then rowing with Irene every following morning. If Jay had not been killed that summer they would have been divorced anyway, before the year ended.

She heard the door chimes, but knew that Carl would be on hand and remained where she was. When Frank and Glenna Wilson entered they had to walk the full length of the room to be greeted by Irene. Glenna’s amber-green eyes narrowed and the hatred that was never far from the surface danced into view. She was positive that Irene had deliberately made them walk that far. But she touched a cheek to Irene’s, forced a smile and stepped aside as Irene shook hands with Frank.

They were an oddly matched couple. Frank had just reached his fiftieth year and looked it. The fringe of hair around his bald head was white, his big frame had become heavy with flesh, his large nose and cheeks were mottled with blue veins and the constant flush of his face was caused by high blood pressure. He had once dressed as gaily as had his much younger brother, Jay, but he had become extremely conservative, and even dowdy, with the passing years. One glance at him and anyone knew instinctively his position in life, president of a bank, chairman of the board and long-time member of the Stock Exchange.

Glenna Wilson was forty-eight, and she looked almost young enough to be her husband’s daughter. She was the envy and despair of all her friends and the constant amorous target of their middle-aged husbands. Her waist was still twenty-two inches, her breasts were firm and high, her hips were slim and her legs were as gracefully curved as they had ever been. Men half her age turned to smile at her on the street and tried to pick her up in cocktail lounges. Yet, except for a light henna rinse applied to her dark blonde hair—that was always worn in a full page boy—and carefully applied make-up, Glenna did absolutely nothing to keep her figure trim, her eyes clear and her skin smooth. She ate and drank whatever she pleased, she lived as hard as she pleased and she simply did not age. She was not, however, a contented woman. Her twenty-year-old daughter, Sue, was running with a fast, Bohemian crowd and Tommy, her twenty-four-year-old son, was about to make her a grandmother. But the main source of her discontent was the rapid aging of her husband and their friends. She still felt as young as she looked and she hated being constantly in the company of what she had begun referring to as “the old crowd.”

Perhaps because they disliked each other so intensely, Irene was always aware of her sister-in-law’s attitudes and so knew more about her than anyone else. She was the only one in the family who seemed to realize that it would not take much for Glenna to walk out on her husband and children and take off for Reno. She also knew that when and if it happened she, too, would be partially responsible, though innocently so.

Irene asked Frank to act as host, so he moved heavily to the bar as other guests began to arrive. The party was small, comprising only a dozen couples, and represented the social residue of the chipping away and wearing down of ten years. Most of Irene’s friends had deserted her immediately after the tragedy. Others she had cut adrift herself when she realized that the loyalty of so many of them was based on the color of the Tinsley-Wilson millions. There were also large social groupings in the city wherein Irene was no longer welcome or acceptable. The people at the party were those who believed in Irene’s innocence and, if they did not, kept it to themselves and liked her, anyway.

Irene gave her cocktail parties every other Friday night. The pattern was so well established that no one was any longer invited. They simply arrived at the proper time. The parties were never very gay and they never lasted more than a few hours. A few drinks, some hors d’oeuvres, a little chatter and the guests began drifting away to late dinners and other, more lively affairs.

This Friday night, however, was enlivened by the introduction of Morgan O’Keefe’s name. Irene was standing by the fireplace, talking over business of the bank with Frank, when Nicky and Tina van Ostrand wandered over to join them. Irene smiled at her two closest friends, relieved to break off the boring conversation with Frank. Nicky was tall, slim, blond and handsome and at one time had been the target of most of the city’s debutantes. It was still a surprise to everyone, even after eleven years, that he had married Tina. She was small, she was chubby, her lipstick was always the wrong shade, the best hairdressers could never do anything with her mouse-brown hair, and she made expensive gowns look like cheap hand-me-downs. Tina, however, was more of a woman than any woman had a right to be, a fact of which Nicky was happily aware. She had a vast love for humanity that encompassed almost everyone, she adored her husband and children and she had a talent for savoring every moment of living that was sheer genius. She would not have traded places with any woman in the world and Nicky, though he still had a roving eye and occasionally had to be reminded where the home pasture was located, felt exactly the same way. They were the only two people with whom Irene had absolutely no reservations.

Nicky sipped at his highball, winked at her and said, “I saw Doc Rigsby today, the old quack. He tells me you’re competing with the Salvation Army again.”

Frank groaned, “Oh, no. Irene, do you have another of those drunken bums in the apartment?” She nodded and he sighed, “God knows why you do it. Jay was never an alcoholic, you know.”

“I’ve known that for years.”

“Then why do you persist? If you feel you must help them, just give them some money and send them on their way. One of these days you’re going to have trouble, bringing bums like that into your own home.”

She arched her eyebrows and said quietly, “I have learned a great deal about alcoholics. When they reach that last step where they must have someone else’s help they are in no condition to be trouble to anyone.”

“But don’t you allow them to convalesce here for a few days?”

“Of course.”

“In which case, they get back on their feet and—”

She interrupted. “They aren’t like ordinary sick people. I’ve never known one yet who wasn’t humble and grateful and—” She paused and thought of Morgan and of the remark he had made while she was standing in his doorway, and suddenly the incongruous humor in his words struck her and she giggled.

Tina stared at her. She had heard Irene laugh a few times during the past years, but never giggle. A giggle was something new.

Intuitively she said, “This new bum doesn’t fit what you were about to tell us.”

Irene shook her head. “No, he doesn’t. And he’s not a bum. He’s not like the others in any way, except for his binges. All the others have been middle-aged or old, strictly Howard Street characters. Mr. O’Keefe is something quite different. He is about in his mid-thirties, I think; he’s rather handsome in a hawklike way, and there’s nothing humble about him. In fact, he’s decidedly sarcastic and sometimes downright insulting, even to me.”

Nicky gulped at his drink and looked at her with surprise. “You’re taking him in and putting him on his feet and he still has the temerity to insult you?”

“He certainly has. I think O’Keefe’s a man who would much rather have your hatred than your love. Then he knows where he stands and he doesn’t have to become involved.”

Tina protested, “Now, Irene—”

Nicky chuckled and said, “You’ll never get Tina to believe there’s anyone in the world like that.”

Irene noticed that other guests were drifting over to listen, as she said, “Well, this man is that way. And the things he says about himself— One moment he seems to be the supreme egoist and the next moment he destroys himself as casually as if he were talking about a stranger. And I have a quite definite impression that he enjoys lying about himself. As I said before, he’s far from being a bum, so I suppose he doesn’t want me to know who he really is.” She smiled. “He claims to be a writer. He says he writes dreary little books about dreary little people. Imagine.”

Everyone smiled except Nicky and Tina. They stared at each other with the same thought in mind. Nicky finished his drink in one gulp and swung his eyes back to Irene. “I know this is impossible,” he said, “but could this O’Keefe’s first name be Morgan?”

Irene stared. “Why—why, yes. How did you—”

Nicky snorted and said, “Oh, no. This is crazy. Morgan O’Keefe?”

Tina cried, “But it has to be! That description, Nicky!”

Irene said excitedly, “My goodness, do you know the man?”

Nicky shook his head, amazed and baffled. “No. We’ve never met him. It’s just that he happens to be my favorite writer. Tina can’t stand his work. He hits too hard and too low for her tastes, but I’ve always been crazy about him. Morgan O’Keefe, here in this house! My God, that’s hard to believe. And a drunk at that. That’s even harder to swallow. But it must be the same guy. Last I heard, though, he was living in Los Angeles.”

Irene said, “That’s right. He came up from there only recently, about two weeks ago.” All the guests had crowded around her so Irene explained why Morgan had left Los Angeles and what had happened to him in San Francisco. She felt a little guilty, as if she were exploiting a confidence, but she went on anyway, pleased by the reaction of her guests. She told them what little else she knew about Morgan and ended by saying, “So he wasn’t lying, after all. I had no idea I was taking care of a celebrity.”

Nicky corrected her, “Not a celebrity, Irene. I doubt if very many people have ever heard of him. He’s not a popular writer. People who read him either go crazy over his work or hate the guy. I’m afraid it’s mostly the latter. He has one glaring deficiency, a total lack of sympathy for the ordinary guy, or what’s known as the common man. If he ever corrected that fault he could become a literary giant overnight. But to think of him here in this house, a broken-down alcoholic—God!”

Tina said, “But you must have read him, Irene.”

“No, darling. The name doesn’t register with me at all.”

“But don’t you remember? About three or four years ago I gave you a book of his. I said at the time that I couldn’t understand why Nicky liked him so much, so I wanted to see what you thought.”

“I guess I’ve forgotten all about it. Did I return the book?”

“No. It was a gift.”

“In that case, I must still have it. Maybe it’s here in the study.”

All of them turned to the book shelves. Nicky picked it out at once. “The Long Day’s End,” he read aloud, “by Morgan O’Keefe.” He handed the book to Irene. “There you are. Now you’ll have to read it. And, believe me, I’ll give ten to one you don’t like it.”

Irene turned the book over and looked at the author’s photograph on the back of the jacket. Though his face was a bit fuller, there was no doubting that he was the man in her apartment. She felt suddenly as if a secret door had opened somewhere and a chill wind was blowing on her back.

The guests examined the book and passed it around. Nicky held forth at great length concerning the man and his works and the party did not break up until an hour or so later than usual. All of them were vastly intrigued by Irene’s guest. They demanded that Irene produce him for inspection before she turned him loose, and finally she said she would let them all know as soon as he was back on his feet. Perhaps a little dinner party, or a luncheon, or a Sunday brunch, where they could all meet him.

Even Glenna Wilson was intrigued. She and Frank were the last to leave, as usual. Glenna always went directly out and down to the car, anxious to quit the house as quickly as possible. But this time she paused at the door. She was afraid that she would not be included in the group that would meet O’Keefe.

She hated to ask a favor, but she drawled, “Don’t forget to include me, Irene. And Frank, too, of course. We’d like to meet this oddity of yours, too.”

Frank said musingly, “He does sound interesting. You will call us, Irene?”

If it had been Glenna alone, Irene would have ignored the request. But she could not refuse Frank, and so promised to call them. As she closed the door, though, she wondered suddenly what Morgan O’Keefe would have to say about meeting her friends.

She took his book with her to bed that night, intending to read for half an hour or so. But she found that she could not put it down until she had finished it, at four in the morning. Her mind was unsettled as she fell asleep and when she awoke in the clear light of morning she was even more disturbed. No book she had ever read had had such an impact on her emotions. It was almost as if he had directed every word at her and had carved each word into her brain with hammer and chisel. The man, as a writer, took perverse pleasure in punching holes in illusions, he seemed to have pity for no one, there was humor in his tragedy and cynicism in his love and he attacked his characters as a surgeon would with a scalpel. But he did breathe amazing life into his people and made them walk and talk as human beings rather than as carefully polished fictional characters.

Irene could understand why he was not popular, but she also realized, as did Nicky, that it would take very little to make him famous. The slightest injection of sympathy into the book she had read and it would have been a great work of art. It seemed to her, from what she had read, that he had been on the verge of sympathy a number of times, but had deliberately forced himself to write away from it. Obviously he regarded any trace of sympathy as weakness. Perhaps if he changed his attitude . . .

After breakfast she went into the study, where a pile of papers had been stacked for her to sign. Inasmuch as she owned three-quarters of the Tinsley-Wilson financial empire, she had certain duties that could not be relegated to anyone else. She had faith and confidence in Frank and allowed him to run the business without interference from her, and she had also given him power of attorney in some of her affairs, but some decisions she had to make herself. Saturday mornings were put aside for such matters.

She was about halfway through the papers when the butler came into the study and waited quietly at her elbow. She affixed her signature to a paper, put it aside and looked up. “Yes, Carl?”

His expression was bland as he said, “The gentleman would like to look through your scrapbook.”

There was no need to ask which scrapbook he meant. It was lying before her on the desk. It was always on the desk and had been there for ten years, another form of torture in which she indulged herself. It was there for anyone to read, but she was reluctant to let Morgan O’Keefe look through it.

She put her reluctance away and nodded toward the scrapbook. “Very well. Take it to him. How is he feeling, by the way?”

“Much improved, ma’am. He says he slept well last night, and he had an excellent breakfast this morning. Shall I inform him that you think he is well enough to leave this afternoon, or perhaps this evening?”

Irene turned and stared sharply at the butler. He had never before been anxious to get rid of one of their patients. Carl not only liked helping others, but his wages were also doubled when the apartment was occupied.

“Why?” she asked.

“I guess you haven’t seen this morning’s paper, ma’am.”

He took the San Francisco Examiner from under his arm, folded it over to Herb Caen’s column and placed it on the desk. He pointed about halfway down the column and Irene read the item, “Morgan O’Keefe, erudite but little-understood author, is currently the house guest of Mrs. Got-Rocks herself, Irene Tinsley-Wilson. Seeing as how the fabulous heiress is the very soul of charity and whereas O’Keefe is a man of exotic and numerous hates, we wonder what cooks on the front burners.”

Irene was furious, but she restrained her anger. She tapped a pencil against her teeth and thought it over, then said, “Say nothing to him now. I shall tell him myself, but later.”