Homicide at Yuletide (7 page)

I couldn’t wait any longer. See you at the party tonight. You’re sweet.

“So be it,” I mumbled, relieved, weary right through to the bones. I padded back, leaving footprints. I showered, rubbed, and plumped out in the lovely warmth of my overheated bedroom. I lay rigid as a husband after a night out, sneaking back to the marital bed, hours after the admonished curfew. I rested. Then I reached for the clock, set it for eleven-thirty, and took it to bed with me.

Peter Chambers in bed with a clock. Serves him right.

Somewhere in my dreams, the brightest phrase ever uttered by the illustrious Barney Bernandino took hold like a zipper on a marked-down pair of pants.
Somebody ought to pay for that. Somebody ought to pay for that.

“And how,” I said, sitting up, looking at my ticking bed-companion.

I had been asleep a long ten minutes.

Resolutely I placed the clock on the night table. Strongly I reached for the covers. Firmly I closed my eyes.

So the phone rang.

I dragged off and answered it.

“Honey,” Gene Tiny said. “It happened.”

“Congratulations. Name it after me. For laughs.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Okay. We’ve run out of negatives. Wha’ hoppen?”

“My place was topsy-turvy when I got home, which is just now. I stopped off at a restaurant for dinner first. How would
you
like to help
me
fix up? Oh, that Barney Bernandino.”

“I would love to fix you up.”

“Pardon.”

“But I must get sleep. If I don’t get sleep, I’m going to die.”

“Sure, you poor guy.”

“May I beg off?”

“See you later.”

The poor guy hit himself on the head twice, once for turning down twenty-five hundred dollars, and once for turning down an invitation to do fixing in a bachelor girl’s apartment. The poor guy was not himself. Either he needed sleep, very badly, or he needed a psychiatrist. Sleep is cheaper. I went to sleep.

T
HE ALARM BLASTED
like it was building a house. I slapped it off the table but that didn’t discourage it. I got up, surprised at how limber I was. I managed some slight calisthenics, retrieved the clock and shut off the ringing. I had a drink, showered, dressed in my faultless tuxedo, pinched my cheeks for color, appraised my tongue in the mirror, grabbed a bite, a coat, and a homburg, and went, williamnilliam, to a party.

The Somerset wasn’t far. I walked.

It was a tall building with a soundless elevator and a one-word-type elevator man who looked like Abe Lincoln.

I said, “Talbot?”

He said, “Yes.”

Then we rode.

Then he said, “Talbot?”

And I said, “Yes.”

Then we stopped.

He leaned out and pointed a bony finger.

“Talbot,” he said.

I shrugged, and went to the door. I pushed the button and someone opened up and, at once, I was part of the party. Terry greeted me, waving like a quarterback behind a line of party guests. A butler, who was indistinguishable from the other men in tails, took my hat and coat. I straightened my tie and looked again for Terry but she was lost among the swarms of the many people. The room was big, tremendous. A three-piece orchestra wafted music at the customers from a stand isolated in a corner, but there all isolation ended. The place was busier than under-the-marquee at a hit show during intermission. There was buzz, noise, shouting, champagne, cigarette smoke, square-shouldered men and bare-shouldered women.

I worked my way to a punch bowl and had several ladles. Someone shoved champagne at me. I had champagne. Someone danced with me. I danced with her. “You’re fresh,” she said and slapped me. A man behind her grinned. Maybe he was carrying a midget with a pointed elbow. I had more champagne. I saw Evelyn Dru and waved. Someone seized me and I danced again. Someone cut in and I was dancing with another. Someone else cut in and it was Stella. “Hi, sweetie,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Been here for hours.”

“With all of this mad mob, it could very well be.”

“Punch?”

“Whom?”

“To drink.”

“Oh, sure.”

I led her to the punch bowl, but someone dragged her off. I had punch, and I saw Noah Cochrane. “Hello,” I said.

“Listen, mister, I don’t like you. Between you and me, I think you’re on the make for my wife.”

“Wife? Who’s your wife?”

“Well spoken.” He clapped me on the shoulder murderously. “Have a drink. You’re a friend.”

His shirt front drank most of it. I backed away, losing him. I saw Terry waving at me, but I couldn’t break through to her. In the distance, Evelyn Dru was smiling, but it disappeared waveringly behind a screen of cigar smoke. Then Gene Tiny touched me. “Having fun?”

“Yup,” I said. “But fun.”

A couple of wild dancers bumped me and I almost fell on her. She moved back and for just one moment I had a full-length portrait. Describing a plunging white evening gown on Gene Tiny is like gelding a lolly. It does no good. It was white and tight. It covered the bottom and uncovered the top. It did nothing for her figure. You cannot enhance the unenhanceable. I gathered her in and we danced, tightly, and then someone took her away. I moved toward the punch bowl, but a cheery mob surrounded it. I walked along the edge of the room until I came to a half-open door behind a heavy portiere. I sidled through, seeking respite.

Gay Cochrane was sprawled low in an easy chair with all of the aplomb of a full-flung dishrag. Her feet were out, crossed in front of her, and her hands hung over the arms of the chair, one hand holding a bottle, the other a glass.

“Hi, beautiful,” she said. “Have a drink.”

It was a small, sparsely furnished anteroom.

I took the bottle and the glass. I had a gulped drink, and set them down on the floor.

“What’s the matter?” I said. “Unsociable?”

She smiled, loosely. “Too sociable. Which is why I’m sitting around, waiting for my second wind to catch up.”

“I just saw your husband.”

“He’s a lout.”

“He accused me of being on the make for his wife.”

“Just the opposite, my friend. I’ve got you filed and catalogued. Remember that.”

“Must I?”

The door closed behind us. It was Terry. “I saw you go through, Mr. Chambers, and I’ve finally caught up with you. Gay, dear, I’d like to talk with him. Please?”

“Why not?” Gay stood up, swaying. “I’ll take the bedroom.”

“Bedroom?” I said.

She came close and opened wide her filmy eyes. “You heard me. You two stay here.
I’ll
take the bedroom.” She turned to Terry. “Forty winks’ll do it. Lemme sleep, huh? Lock me in. I’ll be perfect in an hour. You’ve done it before for me, Terry.”

Terry took her arm, finger-wise, like the arm was a live eel. She led her through another door, locked it, and put the key in a drawer of an end table. “An hour from now, miraculously, she’s as good as new. Everybody else will be staggering all over the lot, but dear Gay Cochrane will be sober and superior. Won’t you sit down?”

I sat and she sat beside me.

“About Sheldon,” she said.

My party simper contracted. “Sheldon?”

“I know he’s dead, Mr. Chambers.”

“How?”

“Stella told me.”

“When?”

“Directly after she came back from there. I was waiting at her apartment.”

“That Stella’s an awful little liar, isn’t she?”

“Why?”

“She told me she didn’t tell anyone.”

“Well, perhaps she meant—”

“Listen, about her age—”

“Stella’s older than any of us. Stella was born old.”

“She lie about that too?”

“What?”

“Her age.”

“How old did she say, Mr. Chambers?”

“Eighteen.”

“She wasn’t lying.”

“Look,” I said. “You know anything about a package of jewelry?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He told me.”

“When?”

“This morning. I saw him this morning.”

“Where?”

“On Thirteenth Street.”

“Did he tell you about Barney Bernandino?”

“He told me about everything.”

“Do you have them?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have them?”

“No. Why?”

“They’re gone. Disappeared.”

“May I ask a question now, Mr. Chambers?”

“Sure.”

“How do
you
know?”

“Barney B. told me. You can check that with him. Or with Gene Tiny. They’re gone, all right. You don’t have them, do you?”

“No, no, of course not.” She was quiet for a few moments, primping thoughtfully at her beautifully arranged white hair. Then she clasped her hands tight. “I’m worried about Stella.”

“Suddenly you sound like a mother.”

“She told me about your having found her with the gun in her hands. Do you think she—?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“She’s a peculiar girl—willful—”

“So I’ve been led to imagine.”

“Look. If by any chance, she did— I mean—we must cover it up, we must take measures, affirmative measures. I’ll pay you—”

“Let’s skip that, for the time being.”

“Yes, yes.” She rubbed a hand at her forehead. “He wanted fifty thousand dollars. He was willing to turn over all of that jewelry for fifty thousand dollars.”

“You might stick the word ‘stolen’ somewhere in there, I mean, as long as you insist upon the tragic note. Stolen jewelry. Which
he
stole. He was willing to return that for fifty thousand dollars. That way, it’s not quite so sacrificial.”

“You don’t understand the man, Mr. Chambers.”

“I never knew him.”

“He was a complex person.”

“So I assume.”

“He had learned a good deal about Bernandino. He had learned, for instance, that Bernandino operated a crooked gaming house.”

“They all do, if they can get away with it.”

“That was why he had appropriated that jewelry. He felt that he was merely turning the tables on Bernandino, taking back a small part of what had been taken from him. I don’t want to go into all of it. Suffice to say, once he had made up his mind to return it, he wanted no part of it, no part of it whatever.”

“Except a booby prize of fifty thousand simoleons.”

“It may surprise you to know, Mr. Chambers, that he was going to return that.”

I nodded. “It surprises me.”

“He would have returned it. Once he realized a mistake, Sheldon never went halfway. He would have returned every penny of it, believe me.”

“Then what was the whole deal about? What did he want it for in the first place?”

“He needed time to arrange certain affairs. He wanted that money, temporarily, to use for the purpose of revoking certain trust funds. Once that was effected, he would have been in the position to return Bernandino’s money, and not be, in any way, involved with him.”

“Trust funds?” I said. “Sounds real engaging.”

“The principal is an enormous amount of money, Mr. Chambers. It would have taken care of him for the rest of his life, and then some. He needed Bernandino’s money, once he came to that decision, for lawyers and—”

“What decision?”

“To revoke those trusts.”

“You’re on his side, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You know he killed a man?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re still on his side?”

“If you could only understand the man, sir. Sheldon Talbot, a cultured, remote man, had suddenly become involved in a world that was completely foreign to him. In this new environment, he took steps that were wholly repugnant to his nature. Then the fear—the pressure—he was no longer himself. I believe, I know—during the Chicago period—he was, well—deranged—there is no question in my mind about that. He was a frail man, Mr. Chambers, always having lived a rather cloistered life—despite his numerous marriages—”

“Trust funds,” I said. “Would you tell me about that?”

She scraped teeth against her upper lip. “There was one for the child, Stella, created at her birth, irrevocable.”

“There were others?”

“Three others.”

“Recite them slowly, Mrs. Talbot.”

“Five years ago, at the time he married Evelyn Dru—he still had a great deal of money at that time—he set up trust funds for the three of us, something in lieu of dower rights, for Evelyn, myself, and Gay. This was before Gay married Noah.”

“Can you explain these—these trusts?”

“I’ll do the best I can. The income from each trust fund went to each of us for a period of five years—then, there was a two-year period within which the trust could be revoked—and, if not revoked within that period, each became irrevocable.”

“I see. And suppose he died?”

“In that case, they were set, for the lives of each of us, the principal then reverting to his estate.”

“And this—this five-year period?”

“Was up within this next month. Then started the two-year period within which he had a right to revoke any of the trusts, and recall his principal.”

“And, according to you, he was about to do that, using Barney’s fifty thousand for the necessary legal expenses, and that sort of thing.”

“Yes. But first he wanted to see us, each of us, to know whether it would really hurt any of us—I mean, financially.”

“Giving each of you, of course, a right proper motive for his demise.”

“I doubt it.”

“You will admit that it provides motive?”

“That depends upon the people involved.”

“Let’s start with you, then. He spoke with you about your special trust?”

“Yes.”

“He told you he wanted to revoke it?”

“Yes.”

“What was your reaction?”

“I acquiesced, whole-heartedly. I have a very successful business, Mr. Chambers.”

“What do you do, by the way?”

“I am an interior decorator, with a large and wealthy following. My books can be checked at any time.”

“So you told him it was perfectly all right with you.”

“That is correct.”

“When?”

“When I saw him this morning. He told me, as a matter of fact, that he had already spoken both with Gay and Evelyn, and that they too had agreed.”

“Do you know when he saw them?”

“He had seen one of them a couple of days ago, and one last night.”

“Which, and when?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t cross-question him.”

“How much was in it for you people?”

“I don’t understand.”

“How much did each of you get out of your respective trust funds?”

“About ten thousand dollars a year.”

We sat back eyeing each other. I reached for the bottle and gave her a drink and had one myself.

“Have I answered all of your questions, Mr. Chambers?”

“So far.”

“I want to be on your right side.”

“Why?”

“Because my true interest in all of this is Stella. I want her protected, and I want your co-operation. You’re experienced in these affairs, and, well, there’s something about you, a resoluteness, I don’t know— You strike me as a person with force, a person one can depend upon.”

“Thank you.”

“I want you to work on it, to check into it, for which, of course, I will pay you. You’re not a police officer, I mean, a regular member of the Department?”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“This. If by any far-fetched—if you find that Stella—I mean, if she was at all involved in it—then I want it covered up. Do you understand?”

“Do you know what it means to compound a felony?”

“Yes.”

“And you want me to do that?”

“Yes. And you can practically name your own consideration.”

“Let’s pass that for the moment. Why Stella? Why should she?”

“His will left everything to her.”

“So what? If he lived, and revoked those trust funds, the principal would be his—and then she would inherit after he died. But why now? Why should she kill him now? If he’s dead now, those trusts set—and then she would be helping you, and Gay and Evelyn—but she would be doing nothing for herself. Right or wrong?”

“Right, I think.”

“What about that will? When did you see it?”

“This very morning. He gave it to me, had me read it. He said he was involved in this Barney Bernandino affair, and he knew he couldn’t trust Barney. He told me to take the will with me.”