Shape of fear, p.9
Shape of Fear, page 9
“I’ll be outside,” I said.
“Thanks,” Digger said, without looking at me.
I went out into the reception room. Shelda was staring wide-eyed at the closed door to my office.
“So that was it!” she said.
“What was ‘it’?”
“Old Mark Cupid,” she said laughing. “I didn’t know you had that much romance in you, boss-man.”
It was a shattering moment for those two in the other office. It was the first time they had spoken words to each other since that day in the French magistrate’s court nearly three years before, not counting Juliet’s whispered words in the Trapeze Bar the night before. One night they had been deeply in love and eternally promised to each other. The next day murder and hatred and revenge had come between them. Now they were together again, but with the hopeless barrier of Charles Girard between them.
Digger told me later what went on between them.
They just stood there, a room separating them, not speaking. Being there with Juliet was like having new blood pumped into his veins, Digger told me. Finally he managed to speak, sounding as though she was a stranger.
“You sent for me, Juliet,” he said.
“I sent for you?”
“I got your message,” Digger said.
“But—but I didn’t send you a message,” Juliet said. “I got your message.”
“I didn’t send a message,” he said.
She moved quickly across the room to him. “You must get out of here, Digger …”
“Wait! I …”
“Don’t you see? Someone has brought us together for a reason. I want to see you. I want to talk to you. But not now. Not here! Someone’s tricked us into being here at the same time. Please—don’t stop to talk now. Just go!”
She put her hands on his chest and tried to push him toward the door. Touching him and his being touched was too much for them.
“Oh, my God!” Digger said, and had her in his arms, kissing her on the mouth with all the fierce longing of three years in that one moment. “I love you—I love you—I love you,” he kept saying over and over.
And for that moment, whatever her intentions, whatever her loyalties, she couldn’t fight off the man she loved. She kept whispering to him. He didn’t care what the words were. He knew what they meant.
But finally she managed to pull away from him. “You’ve got to go, Digger! This is some kind of trap. We’ll arrange to meet somewhere again. Talk to your friend, Mr. Haskell. He knows what I want to tell you.”
“To hell with traps!” Digger said. “Do you think I’m going to let you go, now that you’re here?”
The time for a decision was past.
In the outer office I saw Charles Girard coming along the corridor. He was running. His face was white marble with deep gashes cut at the sides of his mouth. I had no time to warn Digger and Juliet. I did move in front of the closed door to my office.
I did a little boxing in college. I’m in pretty good physical shape. I’ve never been particularly afraid of anyone physically. But it’s a curious thing. If you go to the movies or watch television, you get the idea that the world is made up of situations in which people take punches at each other. Two men meet each other, exchange a few words and—pow! You can see it every half hour on that little horror box in your living room. But the truth is that, at thirty years of age, I’ve never seen anyone throw a punch at anyone in real life. Oh, I saw it in the army, but is that real life? It just doesn’t happen in civilized society often enough for it not to be remarkable.
It got remarkable in a hurry.
“Get out of my way!” Girard said, in a low, shaken voice.
“Now just a minute, Mr. Girard,” I said fatuously
That was all. While I was playing the cool, calm and sophisticated man, Girard gave me a merciless, chopping blow on the side of the head. I hit the deck but good, and Girard smashed through the door into my office.
I heard Juliet scream.
My head felt like a balloon. I tried to shake away the haze. I could see the vague outline of Shelda standing behind her desk.
“Get help,” I think I said, but it sounded like someone with a mouthful of mashed potatoes.
I grabbed hold of a little magazine table and tried to pull myself up. Instead, the table fell over on top of me. In that Mack Sennett position I was aware that Juliet came running out of the office. I felt outraged. Nobody was trying to help me. I heard the splintering of broken furniture.
The fog cleared a little. There were no women around. I managed to get up this time and stood there for a moment, weaving back and forth. Then I walked unsteadily toward my office.
Two men, making no sound except for heavy breathing, were stalking each other, coldly intent on killing each other. I didn’t have to be told that. And with a curious kind of dazed detachment I realized that if there was any edge, it lay with Girard. Digger was younger and certainly physically stronger, but somewhere Girard had learned how to fight to kill. Probably the French Resistance, I thought. Digger crowded him, leading with jabbing lefts, his right cocked for the kill. And then Girard closed with him, hands raised, locked together, and brought down viciously on the back of Digger’s neck. Digger went down to his knees, and Girard swung a vicious kick at his jaw. Digger went flat on his face.
Somehow I unfroze at that point. I jumped on Girard’s back, my arms locked around his neck. Very promptly I went somersaulting through the air to smash against the far wall. As I struggled up, I saw that Digger had managed to get to his feet. I saw on his bloody face that he knew how desperate his situation was. Girard, crouching low, moved in on him. I started forward at the same time.
“Stay out of it, Mark!” Digger said, his voice thick.
“You’ve got to stop it!” I said.
Somehow I got in the middle of it before they reached each other. It was like being caught in a stone crusher. They kept trying desperately to get at each other. I could hear Girard muttering under his breath in French. Someone kicked me violently in the shin. The pain was excruciating, but I kept hanging on to each one of them, trying to foul up the situation as best I could. And then I took a solid punch right on the button and lost all interest in the proceedings.
It seems I had stalled things just long enough. I wasn’t aware of the arrival of Jerry Dodd, Johnny Thacker, the day bell captain, and a couple of boys from the elevators. Jerry Dodd had to use the butt of his gun on Girard to stop things.
When I came to, Shelda was patting my face with a wet handkerchief. The office was a shambles. The house doctor was working on Girard who was lying face down on the rug. Digger was sitting in my desk chair, leaning back with his eyes closed—as though he’d been thrown there.
Standing over me—and Shelda—was Chambrun. I felt frightened. I think I’ve never seen such cold anger in a pair of eyes.
“Did you arrange this?” he asked, very quiet.
“Arrange what, sir?” I asked through swollen lips.
“Did you arrange for Sullivan to meet Mrs. Girard here?”
“Good God, no, sir!” I said.
The set lines of Chambrun’s face relaxed slightly. “Your secretary told me you’d been playing matchmaker,” he said.
“My secretary is an idiot,” I said, holding tightly on to Shelda’s hand.
She made an unexpected wailing sound. “Are you all right, darling?”
“I’m a hell of a long way from all right,” I said. I managed to struggle up to my feet. Every bone in my body ached. Then I looked at Shelda. “Did you say ‘darling’?”
“Shut up, you big goof,” she said.
“Be that as it may,” I said. “Mrs. Girard was here because she had a message from Sullivan asking her to meet him here. He never mentioned it to me.”
A hollow voice came from behind me. It was Digger. “I never sent her a message. I had a message from her. She says she didn’t send it. We were gotten here, and then Girard was tipped off. How is he?”
“He’ll do,” the doctor said. “I think if a couple of you will help me, we can get him to his room.”
Jerry Dodd and Johnny Thacker got their arms around Girard and lifted him to his feet. He stood there, still struggling for breath, his knees buckling. He spotted Digger sitting in the desk chair.
“Where is she?” he asked.
Digger just shook his head.
“If she has gone somewhere else to meet you, so help me God, I’ll …”
Digger laughed. “I’ll carry a fire axe with me next time,” he said.
Girard ignored him. “Where is my wife?” he demanded.
Nobody there seemed to have an answer for him.
THREE
THE SCENE SHIFTED TO Chambrun’s office. Digger and I, both very much the worse for wear, were there with Chambrun and Jerry Dodd. I was trying, for the first time, some of Chambrun’s sickish-sweet Turkish coffee. Digger was sprawled in the big leather armchair, gingerly testing arms, legs, and ribs to see if he was all in one piece.
“He was going to kill me,” he said. “And he knows how, by God! I didn’t have time to adjust to the idea before he was all over me.”
“You can prefer assault charges against him,” Chambrun said.
Digger shook his head slowly. “No. No, I won’t do that.” He gave Chambrun a crooked little smile. “You see, I know how he feels. Only the situation isn’t what he thinks it was. Someone else framed the whole thing.”
“I’m waiting to hear about that,” Chambrun said.
“I got a message from Juliet asking me to meet her in Mark’s office at ten-thirty,” Digger said. He fumbled in his coat pocket and brought out a small square of white paper. It was one of the hotel’s regular telephone message forms. “ ‘Please meet me in Mr. Haskell’s office at ten-thirty. Juliet.’ ” Digger handed it over to Chambrun.
“It wasn’t made out by a switchboard operator,” Chambrun said. “It should have a time written on it and the operator’s number. Is this Mrs. Girard’s handwriting?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Digger said. His laugh was short and mirthless. “When I met Juliet in Paris three years ago, it happened—like that! We were in love. I saw her every day. We never had reason to write to each other. I don’t think I ever saw her handwriting. We saw each other every day until the day her father died. After that—no contact.”
“How was this delivered to you?” Chambrun asked.
“With my breakfast—I had it in my room. When the waiter wheeled in the table, he handed me the message. He said he’d found it stuck under my door.”
“Find out who the waiter was, Jerry,” Chambrun said, “and get him here. Go on, Sullivan.”
“That’s all,” Digger said. “There it was. She’d set up an appointment. Yesterday in the Trapeze, as Mark can tell you, she’d asked for help. Of course I went to Mark’s office at ten-thirty.”
“And Mrs. Girard denied sending you the message?”
“Yes. She’d had a message from me, she said.”
“Slipped under her door after Girard left her to go to the airport to meet Bernardel,” I said.
“You talked to her?” Chambrun asked me.
“Yes.” I told them about the minute or two I’d spent with Juliet—the whole thing; that her husband had discovered Digger was innocent of Colonel Valmont’s murder; that she wanted Digger to know that; most of all, that she wanted him to pull completely out of the situation because his life was in danger; that she intended to stick by her husband, no matter what, but that Digger had to know that she believed in him—and that she loved him.
I heard Digger give a sort of low groan.
Chambrun, eyes narrowed against the smoke from one of his Egyptian cigarettes, moved restlessly up and down behind his desk. “A fake message to you, Sullivan; a fake message to Mrs. Girard; and a third one to Girard, turning him back from his trip to the airport.”
Jerry Dodd came back from the outer office where he’d been phoning to the kitchens for the waiter. “Waiter’s on his way up, boss,” he said. “Ferruccio Conti, one of our old-timers. And by the way, Mrs. Girard left the hotel. Waters, the Fifth Avenue doorman, saw her go out. Must have gone straight from Mark’s office out of the place. And just for the hell of it, I checked on Kroll. I’ve had him covered since you asked me to a little earlier. He left around ten for the airport to meet Bernardel.”
“Lieutenant Hardy’s got to be brought up-to-date on all this,” Chambrun said with a kind of impatience. “See if you can locate him, Jerry, and have him come here.” He turned to Digger. “Mrs. Girard had very good advice for you,” he said. “Why don’t you get out of here—go somewhere far away until this book is closed?”
“No,” Digger said. “If I’m in danger, I must be close to the truth. If I’m not, there’s no danger.”
“Except that Girard will chop you down the next time you run into him somewhere.”
“I’ll be ready for him next time,” Digger said grimly. He started to rise painfully from the chair. “Somebody’s got to find Juliet.”
“Not you,” Chambrun said. “For God’s sake, use your head, Sullivan. Let her husband find her. It’s his problem.”
“Have you forgotten that Girard is on the list?” Digger asked. “Loring’s list? Doesn’t it occur to you that every word he’s told Juliet may be a lie. Oh, he’s cleared me—which puts her in his debt. But wouldn’t that be a nice screen to hide behind if he’s actually a part of the whole conspiracy? No, Mr. Chambrun, I’m not going anywhere, and I’m going to find Juliet and talk to her.”
Chambrun started to protest and then evidently thought better of it. “Come with me, Mark,” he said, and walked out of the office. He didn’t say anything as we went along the corridor to the elevator. He pressed the UP button. “I don’t like any part of this, Mark. I’ve always said that if the time ever came when I didn’t know what was going on in my own hotel I’d retire. Here we have people slipping messages under doors and God knows what else. I’m suddenly not sure of my own people. It’s a miserable damn feeling.” Impatiently he pressed the elevator button again. “We live in a world of money. That’s what the Beaumont is—home away from home for the richest people in the world. But there’s never been so much money floating around ready to buy disloyalty. I’m going to find out who the corrupters are, Mark, if it’s the last thing I do on this job.”
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“Girard,” he said. “I want to know who his messenger boy was.”
Except for the lump on the back of his head made by the butt of Jerry Dodd’s gun, Girard had come out of the brawl in better shape than either Digger or me. He’d had an opportunity to get cleaned up and to change into a fresh suit There was a small patch on the back of his crew-cut gray head and a darkening bruise on his left cheekbone. He was ghostly pale but quite composed as he opened the door to us. He gave Chambrun a formal little bow and stood aside for us to come in.
“I’ve been expecting you,” he said.
The Beaumont’s suites are not furnished like ordinary hotel rooms. Each room is the result of an individual decorative scheme. The Girards, obviously by design, had been assigned to a suite done in the French Empire period. I noticed this, but mostly I was conscious of the faint scent of Juliet Girard’s perfume.
“The police are not with you?” Girard asked us as he came into the room behind us.
“Mr. Sullivan prefers not to bring charges,” Chambrun said. He, too, must have been aware of the perfume. “Your wife has come back, Mr. Girard?”
“No,” Girard said. He raised a hand to touch the bruise on his cheek.
“Look here, Mr. Girard, your quarrel with Sullivan is no concern of mine except as it disrupts the peace and quiet of my hotel.”
“You may count on me for all damages,” Girard said.
“Damn the damages,” Chambrun said. “I’m not going to play cat-and-mouse games with you, Girard. I know the whole story of your relationship with Sullivan. I know more than that. I know that my hotel is being used by people from your country as a base of operations for a drug ring and a political conspiracy. I don’t mean to put up with it. What I don’t know is which side you’re on, Mr. Girard. But you will understand why I am going to ask you questions and why I’m damn well going to have the answers.”
A faint, cold smile moved Girard’s mouth, “I’ll answer whatever questions I can,” he said.
“How did you know your wife and Sullivan were meeting in Haskell’s office?”
“That is my affair,” Girard said.
“It is my affair,” Chambrun said. “Tell him what happened when you found Mrs. Girard in your office, Mark. Tell him all of it.”
I told. I told the whole thing. I could see a little nerve twitching in Guard’s cheek as he listened.
“So you see,” Chambrun said when I’d finished, “it was no cheap lover’s meeting. Like your wife, Sullivan got a message he assumed was from her. The whole thing was stage-managed by someone, Mr. Girard. The same someone brought you back to find them. I want to know how that was done.”
“Whatever my wife might do it would not be something cheap,” Girard said.
“The message, Mr. Girard!”
Looking at Girard I suddenly wondered if he might be the stage manager himself; arranged the whole thing in order to have an excuse for finishing Digger. Anything was possible in this madhouse setup.
“It was a telephone call,” Girard said.
“A call! Someone talked to you?”
“A woman.”
“You don’t know who it was?”
“No.” Girard hesitated. “I left Juliet here and started on my way to the airport to meet Paul Bernardel. When I reached the lobby, I heard my name being paged. I was told there was a phone call for me and that I could take it on one of the house phones. I did. It was a woman who asked if I was Monsieur Girard. I said I was and asked who she was. She said it didn’t matter. She simply wanted to tell me that my wife was planning to meet Sullivan in the public relations office at ten-thirty. I asked how she knew, but she hung up. I connected myself with the hotel switchboard and asked where the call had come from. They told me it was an outside call.” Girard walked over to the center table and helped himself to a cigarette from a pack that was lying there. His hand wasn’t steady as he lit it.
