Dream of Fair Woman Page 13

Tony had been finding himself in a miserable position. His own story was getting away from him. All more or less obvious channels of information were being opened up by foxier men than he. For another thing, in view of the Daw millions, and a dragon named St John Cotter, the powers-that-were on Tony’s paper kept dampening Tony down. They wouldn’t, for instance, go for any ingenious theorising about the identity of a dead girl in a truck. All that would open up, sooner or later, through the police. Open up for everybody. But it was a part of his story! Had to be. And what could Tony do about it?

  Tony had felt that he must make the most of his private inside track, his acquaintance, through Betty Prentiss, with the Cuneens. It was paying off, he felt, but he had been stymied. Until, inspired, he had looked through the Los Angeles area telephone books. So brilliantly, so simply.

  He parked in front of the tract house. Sunday. Good. The householder wouldn’t be at work, then. Pleased with himself, Tony rang the doorbell. He had devised a strategy.

  ‘Mr Larry Wimberholtz?’ said he, politely, to the slim pale young man who opened the door.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘My name is Severson. I … er … happened to be in touch with a fellow I know in Yuma …’ Tony trailed off questioningly and watched like a fox. He saw the face change and soften with a mention of the old home town. Yup. This was the man, all right. Uncommon name. Luckily.

  ‘Is that so?’ said the young man. ‘Somebody who knows me, was it!’

  ‘Somebody who knows you were once married to Alison Hopkins.’

  At this, the young man took a step backwards and a look of horror came over his face. Tony’s imagination took wing.

  ‘And now she’s dead,’ he said. ‘I guess that’s too bad. Right, Larry?’

  ‘What do you mean, dead?’ the man said belligerently.

  ‘That’s what her mom says. Murdered. Naked, in a truck in Fresno.’ Tony’s ideas were burning bright. ‘You want your side of it in the papers, too, don’t you, Larry? Listen, the cops aren’t far behind me. So why don’t you tell me about it, Larry? Maybe you won’t get to talk, see, later on.’

  The man screamed like a woman. ‘Get away.’

  Tony winced as the door hit the soft toe of his suède shoe and the end of his nose. The door wooshed firmly shut. He was outside. He rang the bell five times. Nothing happened. So Tony went out to his car and sat there a while. Nothing happened. He was in a state of wild excitement. It occurred to him that the cops might not be right behind him, after all. Wasn’t it his duty to tell them about this ex-husband? This big fat suspect that Tony had turned up, single-handed? Tony started his car and roared away. Let him run, he thought. Makes a good story better!

  Inside the house, Larry Wimberholtz wept in his wife’s arms. ‘Damn her! Damn her! That damn Bobbie! She told them. She said she wouldn’t. Listen, honey, I didn’t want any part of this. I didn’t want to get mixed up with that old mess. Now, I can lose my job. It’s not right. I begged her. I said …’

  ‘I think I heard his car.’

  ‘Go and look, Dolores honey, would you?’

  When she came back, he said, ‘I’m getting out. I’m not going through the mill for that damned Alison. Not anymore. Listen, I never talk about it, Dolores. It was a bad time in my life. I’ve got a right to forget. I paid my debt. I wish I’d never got mixed up.

  ‘Listen, in those days my dad was still alive and in the chips and I was going to a private school, see, and I had this car. This real neat car. Well, I made a date with this cute girl who was in this girls’ school, you know. Lilianne, her name was. A kind of quiet girl, real nice. I mean I had respect for her. So I asked her out again the next Saturday night and when I came by for her, this girl comes running out of the house. So we go to the show and I was having, you know, a nice time. But afterwards when we park … I’m telling you, I was never so surprised in my life.

  ‘I was a kind of innocent kid, Dolores. I really was. I mean that. Two days later, I found out it was her twin. It was Alison, that second date. Seems like she used to do that all the time. Play she was her sister. Any time her sister looked like having anything Alison wanted. Like my real neat car.

  ‘Seemed like everybody knew all about them, except me. Couldn’t tell them apart. That’s one reason they went to separate schools. Alison, she was the wildest kook in the public high school. And the other one, the nice one, she didn’t have a chance. So there was this woman, ran the girls’ school, was taking an interest, trying to help, I guess.

  ‘But I didn’t know. I didn’t know a damned thing. So what did I do? Damned idiot, I stuck up for Alison. I said it was love. We ran away and got married. You see … uh … you see … uh … she was pregnant.’

  ‘I knew you were married before,’ Dolores said softly.

  ‘Yes, but … well, but … well, you know my dad died, and there wasn’t anything, and my mom had to go to work and Alison …’

  ‘You got divorced.’

  ‘Yes, but … Oh, Dolores, she just about wrecked me for ever. The things! She smashed up my car. She lost her licence. She … did worse than that. I was innocent, but they wouldn’t believe it. We … she …’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ Dolores said. ‘It’s O.K. It’s O.K.’

  ‘Now look!’ He wept. ‘Now she’s got herself murdered. Isn’t that what he said? Believe me, I’m not surprised. But I’m not going to get mixed up in it. I can’t stand … You know I only feel better if everything’s quiet. You know how I am.’

  ‘I can say you’re out of town, Larry.’

  ‘Would you? I’m out of town, you can say. On business. Then they can’t arrest me. Let them find out who did it and I can come back when they do. Because I didn’t do anything, but I can’t stand going through all that … I’m a damn coward. All right. I know it.’

  ‘It’ll be O.K., Larry,’ said his wife. ‘I don’t want you to get mixed up in it. They can’t make me say anything. You can go somewhere and just be quiet …’

  ‘Honey, get your mom to come and stay with you?’

  ‘I will. Hurry.’

  He kissed her. He whimpered like a kitten. She was nineteen years old, and heavy with his child, and stronger than a lioness. She packed his suitcase.

  When the plane landed in Las Vegas, the woman in the raincoat went into the ladies’ room.

  A cab picked up a little later the smart-looking woman in the yellow knit and took her into town. She walked two blocks on her high thin heels. Leon Daw opened the door of his car for her and she got in, sighing. ‘Don’t talk about it,’ said Megan. ‘It’s not wise.’

  (There hadn’t been a way in the world to do it. There was no way in the world she could have done what she had meant to do. But she need not say so.)

  ‘We drove over just for the ceremony,’ Leon told the man who married them. ‘Driving back tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re not gambling, then?’ the man said.

  But the bride was. She continued to say nothing.

  Betty Prentiss was sitting in Peg’s living-room, doing her mending. She hated to mend. It was just the thing to do when you felt too numb and miserable to do anything else. Matt was in the front hall, on the telephone. He’d been on the phone all afternoon, and now again.

  Peg came in and said, ‘What is he doing?’

  ‘He’s trying to locate a woman named Alfreda,’ Betty said drearily. ‘She’s one of the people who came to the hospital and said she knew the girl. She’s some kind of religious nut, Matt thinks. A cult leader, maybe. Now, Matt thinks that could have been what Bobbie Hopkins meant.’

  ‘And not a nun?’ said Peg softly. Her bright eyes knew everything.

  Betty felt herself flush. ‘I give up,’ she said boldly.

  ‘I know,’ said Peg. She sighed and sat down and let her hands fall idle. She wouldn’t go, she thought, to her meetings tomorrow. She had left the church supper early. She could not answer all the questions—over and over and over.

  Matt left the phone an
d came into the living-room, too restless to stand still. ‘Nothing,’ he told them. ‘I’ve tried every religious editor in town. I’ve also been trying to find out what court she could have been in. She said she’d had to be in court on Friday. But that’s hopeless. Sunday night. And all I know is that she calls herself Alfreda and wears a robe. Alfreda Jones? Smith? It was a good idea while it lasted.’

  ‘You think our girl could be this twin sister?’ Peg was calm.

  ‘I think this Alfreda may at least know where the twin sister can be found.’

  ‘Won’t the police find her, dear?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Matt gloomily. ‘One thing, though, this character Alfreda did say she was coming back to the hospital. Maybe she’ll be there at seven-thirty.’

  ‘I’m going with you,’ Peg said.

  ‘Why, Ma?’

  ‘Because I want to see our girl, how she is.’

  ‘She’s the same,’ he said painfully. ‘I thought you didn’t feel responsible any more.’

  ‘I’d still like to see her,’ Peg said. ‘She’s beginning to seem unreal.’

  ‘Oh, she’s there,’ murmured Betty. She looked up with her head down, her old look.

  Matt paced. ‘Don’t give me any of your dark looks, Betts,’ he burst impatiently. ‘Give me a bright idea, why don’t you?’

  She flushed and lifted her head, abandoning her ‘look’ for ever.

  He smiled suddenly and fell into a chair. ‘Don’t worry, eh? That’s the good word, I guess.’

  Betty said, in a moment, as if she reluctantly brought her mind to the problem, ‘I think we should have gone back to the restaurant.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We didn’t talk to the hat-check girl or the waiter.’

  ‘Does that matter?’

  ‘We don’t know whether it matters,’ she answered patiently.

  ‘The one in the restaurant was Dorothy Daw. But there is still no trail between here and the railroad station. In between, Dorothy could have …’

  He gave it up. It was suddenly absurd. His girl, with or without a vaccination, must be Dorothy Daw. Running away. Needing something? He brooded.

  The phone rang and Matt leaped to answer it.

  Tate said, ‘Cuneen? We went right to the key. It was easy.’

  ‘Is that so, sir?’

  ‘Thought your mother would be interested.’

  ‘Yes, do you want her?’

  ‘I can tell you. The key fits a locker at the Union Railroad Station. They’d stored the contents, after twenty-four hours. But the contents were—one white suitcase with initials D.D. Inside, there’s a lot of expensive clothing, a small hat with orange feathers, and Dorothy Daw’s passport.’

  ‘I see,’ said Matt.

  ‘You can tell your mother I’m inclined to believe her ex-roomer is Dorothy Daw, all right. The dead girl is Alison Hopkins.’

  ‘I see. Complete with mark, is she?’

  Tate evaded answering the question. ‘There’s this. Alison’s ex-husband has taken off for parts unknown. So, as of now, it looks like two entirely separate stories.’

  ‘That’s … pretty hard to believe, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, you can believe it, if you try,’ said Tate dryly. ‘This Severson is a personal friend of your family, is he?’ Tate brushed on.

  ‘You might say so.’

  ‘If you’ve got any influence, tell him to keep out, will you? We could have had this Wimberholtz easy, if Severson hadn’t flushed him out and scared him away.’

  ‘But you’ll find this Wimberholtz, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said Tate carelessly. ‘Give your mother my regards, will you please?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Thanks for calling. Wait. She’s Dorothy Daw, if you say so.’ Matt was tense. ‘That means Leon Daw gets to claim her? How about the poison attempt?’

  ‘Her own uncle,’ said Tate, ‘should be able to protect her.’

  ‘You mean you can’t?’

  ‘You give me proof, or take the chance of making a charge, I’ll get after Mrs Royce. If not, then Leon Daw will have to take care.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ said Matt, cautiously.

  Tate did not speak for an instant. Then he said, ‘There’s a lot of pressure on, in a lot of ways. Publicity is a pressure. He may leave her in your hospital. May think that’s wise.’

  ‘I see.’ Matt’s spirits were both rising and falling in confusion. The policeman half believed in the poison? The policeman couldn’t do anything about the poison?

  ‘Let me catch this ex-husband,’ said Tate, ‘and I’ll tell you more. Or, let your doctors cure your patient. That would help some.’

  He hung up.

  Betty said, ‘I don’t see how I could have missed that key.’

  ‘Well, you must have, dear,’ said Peg, who was feeling more cheerful. ‘The suitcase went into the station with Dorothy Daw. How could anyone else have put it into the locker? How in the world else could that key have got here, unless she put it in the dresser drawer?’

  ‘Two separate stories!’ fumed Matt. ‘Naw! I don’t believe it. I’ll bet you Tate doesn’t believe it, either. How is that possible? Three girls, who all look exactly alike, and at least two of them turn up missing at the very same time?’

  ‘And one dead on Monday night,’ said Betty, ‘although neither of the missing two was missing until Tuesday.’

  Matt blinked at her. ‘Unless Bobbie Hopkins made a mistake.’

  Peg said, in her wisdom, ‘You can’t believe all of it. Somebody must have made a mistake, somewhere.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The bell pinged, the front door opened. In popped Tony.

  For one who had been practically scalped by Lieutenant Tate, he was looking healthy. ‘Ex-husband on the lam! How do you like that? Poor little Alison fell among her angry ex. Happens every day. Probably there was something wrong with the divorce. He’s married again, you know.’

  Tony sat down. ‘I’m pooped,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘We still got to find out, is our sleeping beauty Dorothy Daw? Or some religious, née Lilianne?’

  ‘Oh, we know, now,’ Peg said. Matt wished he could stop her but did not try.

  Tony listened to the story of the locker key. ‘Oh wow!’ he said. ‘That’s going to be a feather in the department’s hat. An orange feather, hey? I got to go, get that.’ He got up. ‘Oh say, some scoop came in from … what’s its name, now?… town, name of Entebbe, Uganda. Guess what? Dorothy Daw got religion. Seems she fell like a ton for some guy who is some kind of junior Schweitzer. Noble young doctor, name of Harkness, George. Slaving away to save lives in the jungle. (Do they have jungles? Aw, they gotta have jungles.) Well, seems Dorothy hung around about a year making eyes at this bird, but he’s dedicated, he is. He don’t want to marry the Daw millions and sit on his duff on some yacht. Poor little rich girl who couldn’t buy love. How do you like that for a heartbreaker?’

  Matt was furious. By a superhuman effort, he kept his mouth shut. But Tony leered at him and said, ‘Hey, Matt, you’re a noble young scientist yourself. So what’s to stop the inevitable consequences? Ah! At last, she opens her beautiful eyes. The mists clear. What does she see? The face of poor-but-honest compassion.’

  Matt said with his teeth clenched, ‘If you don’t want a bust in the mouth, shut it fast.’

  ‘I’m only kidding,’ said Tony, with round eyes. ‘For Pete’s sake, Matt! Hey, Mrs Cuneen, wasn’t I only kidding?’

  ‘Maybe you had better get along, Tony,’ said Peg gently.

  ‘Hey, Betts, how’s about a date? Let’s you and me go hash this whole thing over without getting into a fight. We could, eh, doll? Gadzooks!’ Tony was righteously indignant.

  ‘I,’ said Betty quietly, ‘am going to wash my hair.’

  ‘Well! What man,’ said Tony, ‘has got a chance against that glamorous prospect? O.K. O.K. O.K. I know when I’m not wanted.’ And off he went.

  Matt said, when he had gone, ‘I
’m afraid I’m fed up to here with Tony. If you really want to come, Peg …’

  ‘Give me a minute to get ready.’ Peg got up, sampled the passions in the air, and left the room.

  Matt walked up and down three times. Betty stabbed herself with the needle and sucked her finger. He had forgotten she was there.

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’ he said aloud.

  ‘You don’t want her to be Dorothy Daw, that’s all.’

  Matt hadn’t expected an answer. ‘What’s the difference what I want? Will you tell me that?’ He turned on her.

  ‘There’s a difference to you, I suppose. You don’t want her to be a nun, either.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I don’t want,’ he said angrily. ‘I don’t want her to get killed off by Megan Royce. That buzzard in female form …’

  ‘You’re awfully sure.’ Betty had her head up.

  ‘That bright-plumaged bird-of-prey!’ he raved. ‘Then there’s that chicken-headed Bobbie Hopkins. Why won’t she say where the twin is? If there is one? I wish I could locate jolly old Alfreda. There’s another female for you. A real nut! A juggernaut-nut!’

  ‘What do you want her to be, Matt?’ asked Betty, calmly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The sleeping one.’

  ‘Want her to be? I don’t want her to be anybody.’ He choked and stopped speaking.

  ‘Not even in a dream?’

  ‘A dream?’ He was shocked and astonished. ‘You mean I’ve got designs?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean sexy designs. I mean another kind of dream. A dream of fair woman.’ Betty was wide-eyed.

  ‘Tell me more,’ he said, relaxing suddenly and sitting down on the sofa. He had a feeling that something was going to break open and he was feeling desperate enough to be glad of it.

  ‘She’s so beautiful. She’s so helpless. She’s so empty.’

  ‘Empty?’

  ‘Her spirit isn’t there,’ said Betty solemnly.

  He looked at her as if she had gone mad.

  But Betty went on recklessly. ‘So you can dream it’s anything you want.’

  ‘So that’s what I’m doing? Dreaming?’

  ‘Aren’t you? Don’t you want to? Doesn’t everybody?’ She wasn’t looking at him. The sleeve of the blouse she was mending was a blur in her lap. ‘Of course, nobody wants to admit it today.’