Dream of Fair Woman Page 16

  (And if she isn’t, that’s another, thought Betty. That’s Dorothy Daw.)

  ‘That’s a witch?’ he said, in a moment. ‘Alfreda? One of your magical ones?’

  Betty swallowed hard and looked out the window. ‘I’d be glad if you skipped all that. Just kindly forget it? I’m agreeing with you that Alfreda is sure weird. She was trying to get a message, telepathically or somehow. Was Lilianne’s spirit departed? she was asking.’

  ‘And what did the Devil tell her?’ said Matt bitterly.

  ‘He didn’t think so.’

  ‘Whew!’ Matt let out a long whistling breath. He quoted an address. Betty began to hunt on the map for Opal Street.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Even with the help of the detailed map, it took time to find the short left-over piece of street. 438½ would mean a rear house. They found 438, parked the car, and started along the path beside the shabby and deserted-looking frame house on the front of the lot.

  ‘If her mother said she was out of the world,’ said Betty, ‘she could have been thinking of this place.’

  But Matt had eyes, ears, nose, fixed ahead upon the little shack they were approaching. ‘What do I smell?’

  Betty could smell burned wood and was about to say so, when he gestured for quiet and tapped on the door. A female voice said, at once, ‘Miz Gibbs?’ Then the door opened and there she stood.

  It was the girl in the hospital. It was the same face. But it was different. It was not asleep. These eyes were open. Large and grey, they glistened in a way that was not entirely pleasing. The skin had the same soft tan, or perhaps a shade deeper. It was bare of make-up. The blonde hair was hanging down around the face. It was not exactly the same colour. The colour was more evenly pale yellow.

  The girl stepped back, as if disconcerted by the sight of strangers. She said in a clear voice, high in her throat, almost a child’s voice. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I thought it was the lady down the street.’

  Matt was stricken dumb. So Betty spoke. ‘Miss Kraus?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘May we come in?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, if you want to. There was a fire here last night. I’m sorry.’

  The girl stepped backward. She was wrapped in a long cotton garment of faded blue-and-white print and on her feet she wore white ankle socks and no shoes. She stepped as softly as a kitten. Her mouth was holding a meaningless smile. Her glistening eyes seemed to ask for kindness.

  ‘I could smell it,’ said Betty. Now she could see the scorching on the wooden wall, and the charred spot in the ceiling. The frame of a day-bed, stripped of any bedding, stood near the scorching. ‘In the night?’ she said. ‘How did it happen? Weren’t you lucky?’

  ‘I am a friend to fire and to wind,’ the girl said in that childish voice. ‘They will never hurt me.’

  ‘Are you Lilianne?’ said Betty bluntly.

  The girl’s large eyes turned in glistening innocence. ‘My name is Lilianne Kraus.’ She did not ask them who they were. She stood there in her white socks, holding the wrapper close, waiting passively for what they would do or say next.

  ‘We have just seen Alfreda,’ said Matt, in an unnatural voice that had just recovered the power to speak at all.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ The girl showed no surprise.

  He began to speak, as if to a child. ‘My name is Matthew Cuneen. This is Betty Prentiss. We came about the girl in the hospital who looks just like you.’

  This girl said, ‘My mother told me that if I didn’t go out, nobody would bother me.’ But her hands crept up to her throat.

  ‘You live here? And work for Alfreda?’ Betty asked.

  ‘Sometimes I do. Alfreda is a very good person. I don’t like to work where there are too many people. Men, I mean.’ The girl looked down at her feet. She kicked the long garment to cover them. ‘Do you want to sit down?’ she said vaguely.

  Matt said, ‘The girl in the hospital must be your twin sister Alison. She is very ill. She won’t wake up.’

  The girl tilted her head as if she couldn’t quite hear what he was saying.

  ‘You didn’t know that?’ He hammered away. ‘Would you come to see her? You would know for sure if she is your sister.’

  ‘I never see my sister anymore,’ she said in that childish piping. ‘It is better if I never do. She was my doppelgänger. Everything she did, I was guilty of. So I had to get out of her shadow.’ The girl spoke as if she had been taught the speech and kept smiling at something over their heads.

  ‘Don’t you care for your sister, at all?’ Matt said.

  ‘Oh, no.’ She kept smiling. ‘Alison went with the world. I had to let her go. I was told to let her go. My mother, too. I can’t hope for them.’

  (This was an echo of Alfreda, as Betty recognised.)

  ‘But you have seen your mother recently?’ Matt pressed.

  ‘I think so. She came … one time. Maybe two times.’ The girl looked vague.

  Betty said, ‘Is there a way to tell you apart? Your mother told us there was a mark.’

  ‘She had a mark,’ the girl said, in a moment. ‘But she let a doctor take it away.’ Her eyes rounded. ‘You shouldn’t do that. If God gives you a mark, then you should keep it.’

  But did the doctor leave another kind of mark?’ It was like talking to a four-year-old. Matt was dumb again. Betty kept pressing.

  The girl gazed over both their heads. ‘She came and laughed at me, one time. She showed me where the mark was gone. She said, now, not even Mama could tell the difference.’ Her shoulders began to shake.

  ‘Your mother says it can still be seen.’

  The girl didn’t answer. She rolled her head to one side, her eyes the other way.

  ‘Would you put on a dress and let us take you to the hospital?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ She shrank back.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Oh, no, I can’t go. There would be doctors.’

  ‘You needn’t see anybody but the girl who might be your sister.’

  ‘There would be doctors and nurses,’ she said, seeming to panic. ‘I don’t like doctors and nurses. I don’t like hospitals. I can’t go. I mustn’t go. Alfreda says I don’t have to go.’

  Matt said in weary disgust, ‘All right, Betts. We might as well get out of here.’

  But Betty said stubbornly, ‘Let me stay with her, alone. Maybe she’ll show me where the mark should be.’

  The girl clutched the wrapper tightly and her eyes began to roll. ‘You are of the world? And the flesh?’ Her voice spiralled upward.

  ‘Let her alone,’ Matt said. ‘Just let her alone.’

  They went out into the air and breathed deeply. The little room had reeked.

  ‘Nutty as a fruitcake,’ said Matt. ‘A real weirdie. That’s Tony’s nun?’ Pain flashed across his face. ‘She turns my stomach.’ He hurried towards the car, impelling Betty with a hand on her elbow. ‘What the hell is the matter with people? Nobody gives a damn about anybody else. Not even the so-called “religiously oriented”.’

  Betty didn’t speak.

  He put her into the car and ran around it and bounced behind the wheel. ‘I’ll tell you one thing. Alfreda didn’t know what she was talking about. Which doesn’t surprise me much. Still … now listen … it seems to me that it’s absolutely impossible for Dorothy Daw to look that much like Lilianne Hopkins-Kraus. How could she? So our girl has got to be Alison. She’s just about got to be, Betts. Now that we’ve seen them both.’

  ‘What about the scar thing?’

  ‘That’s only according to Bobbie. Bobbie doesn’t know what she’s talking about either.’

  ‘But if … if we’ve got Alison, how come Bobbie says that Alison is the dead girl?’

  ‘Who knows why Bobbie says anything? I do not understand that witch, let me proclaim!’

  Matt slammed the little car around corners.

  Betty said, ‘O.K. Lilianne was also nutty enough to drive you nuts. Why take it out on a defenceless Chevrolet?’ />
  ‘Sorry.’ Matt took hold of his temper.

  ‘Do you see what I see?’ he asked in a moment. ‘If you throw out Bobbie’s erratic carryings-on, and stop believing a word she says, and if you take into account tigers—Isn’t the plot unthickening?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Betty admitted.

  ‘Then what?’ He wanted her to state it.

  ‘Then,’ she said, ‘the dead girl is Dorothy. The girl in the restaurant was Alison and we’ve got Alison.’

  ‘Ah ha! And who knew there was a double? Megan knew. She told me. I told you.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘So now, Leon Daw and Megan-baby, they know it’s Alison we’ve got in hospital. And they can’t afford for Alison to wake up and talk. That’s why Megan tried to get at her. Doesn’t it follow?’

  ‘It seems to,’ said Betty unhappily.

  ‘What’s the matter? You got some female intuition our girl has to be Dorothy?’

  ‘I don’t know what I intuit,’ said Betty, taking no offence. ‘I wish I did, because it makes me, although female, pretty darned miserable not to believe something.’

  ‘Me, too,’ he said, rather contritely. ‘Me, too, Betts. But now I can figure a theory that at least hangs together. Megan and Uncle Leon hire Alison to impersonate dear Dorothy, after they’ve knocked off the original, sometime before Monday midnight. But Alison, instead of flying to San Francisco or whatever she was supposed to do, fixes to disappear. And up and falls ill. This puts them in a panic. They have to get their clutches on her. She might give the whole thing away. So they get to Bobbie Hopkins. Maybe they buy her off. I wouldn’t put it past her. She obliges them and says the dead one is Alison. Now they can get the real Alison.’

  ‘To do what to the real Alison?’ said Betty shrewdly.

  ‘And Bobbie, mother-to-Alison, is going along with that?’

  ‘Betts,’ said Matt, ‘that dame is not only what you could call a real bad witch, but brainless, besides. Maybe they’re telling her Alison can go on playing the little rich girl and Bobbie gets in on the perks. Bobbie would have no more sense than to fall for that. She doesn’t know they already tried to poison Alison, in the meantime. I’m the one who knows that.’

  ‘But what are we going to do, Matt? This is a pretty tall tale. It sounds like Tony Severson in his riper moods. It’s … awful fringy, Matt.’

  ‘We’re going to the hospital,’ Matt said. ‘Don’t ask me what we’re going to do there.’

  What they did was tell the tall tale, to which Mr Atwood listened patiently.

  Then he began his questions. ‘Tell me this. Why did Alison’s ex-husband run away?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir,’ Matt said.

  ‘And why, if this girl Alison was hired, as you suggest, to play the part of Dorothy Daw, didn’t she continue to play it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why did she leave the suitcase, and the clothing that belonged to Dorothy Daw, in a locker at the station? How did she get to your mother’s house, in old clothes?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why did her mother tell you about a scar or mark if it doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Why did her sister tell us it doesn’t exist if it does?’ Matt countered. ‘Has the body of the dead girl got such a mark?’

  ‘I haven’t heard. I can call Tate.’

  ‘And if it has not?’ Matt was keen.

  Atwood shook his head. ‘On the other hand, if it has, then Alison is dead.’ Atwood couldn’t reach Lieutenant Tate on the telephone. He hung up, defeated, and said to Matt, ‘Leon Daw is in Las Vegas, so his lawyer tells me. He and Mrs Royce drove over yesterday, to get married.’

  Matt grunted.

  ‘So I suppose we hold everything, until he’s back, at least.’

  ‘You don’t think what the waiter said indicates doubt about the girl in the restaurant?’

  ‘It may or may not,’ said Atwood. ‘It is not against the law to imply, for fun, that there are tigers in Africa.’

  ‘Talk about a TV show?’ Matt kept on pressing. ‘Alison would be likely to know about show business.’

  ‘In Spain?’ said Atwood.

  ‘Why not? She would know the trade gossip.’

  ‘So might anybody. You know, I am a little surprised,’ said Atwood, leaning back. ‘I don’t think your head is quite clear, Cuneen. Look what you are going on. Something you “sensed” about Mrs Royce. A possibly kidding remark that Miss Prentiss heard, second-hand. On such bases you accuse Leon Daw of murder, Mrs Hopkins of lying for a bribe about the death of her own daughter, and you suggest that an innocent man is running away from the police who wish to question him about the death of his ex-wife.’

  Matt said, ‘One girl was murdered.’

  ‘And perhaps when Lieutenant Tate catches the runaway husband, he will turn out to have had an innocent reason. It is all very well to spin theories. What we shall do is continue to care for our patient, which is our business, as long as she is our patient.’ Atwood lifted all his flesh in a smile and nodded dismissal.

  Matt and Betty went out into the corridor.

  Betty said, ‘Would you let me see her, Matt?’

  ‘It’s not hours. But come on.’

  So they went up to the second floor and endured the ceremony of mask and gown. The tall guardian went with them. They stood like spectres around the high bed.

  She slept in peace. Her breath came softly.

  Betty said, ‘Will you let me make sure there is no mark?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Matt gruffly and then to the guard who was shifting his feet, ‘It’s O.K.’

  So Betty, very gently, took the blanket down and tugged at the short hospital coat while the men stared at each other. Betty said, ‘No. Nothing,’ and covered the girl again. ‘May I turn her hand, please?’

  ‘I guess so.’ Matt didn’t know what was in Betty’s mind but he had, he discovered, a basic faith in Betty Prentiss, that she would do no harm.

  Betty took up the girl’s right hand. Young and fair was its flesh. It looked unused. She turned it in both her own, looking closely at the fingers. ‘Is she right-handed?’

  ‘How can we tell?’

  Betty took up the left hand. It was as limp and as warm and as spotless as the other. When Betty put it gently down, the girl stirred. Her head rolled. Her mouth firmed a moment. Then it relaxed. She slept.

  Three pairs of lungs took air again. Matt said, ‘Come on. Come on.’ He was dragging Betty away. In the corridor she saw the sweat on his forehead as he tore off the gown.

  ‘I was only w-wondering,’ she stammered, ‘whether she is a s-smoker. Even in that awful stench, at Lilianne’s house—’

  ‘Oh, no, no, no,’ he groaned. ‘Don’t remind me of Lilianne. She made me so sick!’

  Betty trotted fast, because he was taking steps too long for her.

  It was a long Monday afternoon. Matt went dutifully back to the hospital to check for visitors, but there were none. At Peg’s house, there was no news. Not even Tony came bounding in. TV news made no mention of the hunt for Larry Wimberholtz or, indeed, had any new developments in the matter to report.

  Matt ranged the house like a caged lion. She wasn’t Lilianne. She probably wasn’t Alison. If she was Dorothy, how could she be saved?

  Leon Daw and his wife Megan came driving home at eight P.M. Three newsmen were waiting for them. Leon introduced his bride with the proper pride of a bridegroom. Megan was properly starry-eyed. Leon said that he was very very glad to know that the identity of his niece was now established beyond question. He was sorry, of course, for poor Mrs Hopkins. But he would be removing Dorothy Daw from Cooper Memorial as soon as possible. No doubt tomorrow, in the morning. Very sorry—he would not care to say where. No stone would be left unturned to speed her recovery. He was much upset by her condition and very anxious to have his own doctors on the case. He now thanked the Press for its fair treatment, but hoped that his niece could have the peace and quiet she m
ust have. She was, he said, too young and beautiful to die.

  Yes. He and the then Mrs Royce had driven to Vegas yesterday, leaving late in the morning. He had needed the-woman-he-loved. The newlyweds then hurried into the Spanish house.

  The rooms were chilly, this June evening. Leon punched the furnace button. Megan drifted, in her yellow knit, to the bar. Her slim hips swayed.

  He rolled his eyes at her, sat down and called the hospital. A voice told him that the girl’s condition was unchanged. So Leon sighed.

  He took his drink from Megan’s wifely hand.

  ‘Better this way?’ she said. ‘That … was dangerous.’

  ‘Not very, was it?’ he said with a sneer.

  But her eyes were steady and he looked away. He began to make brisk phone calls. He called St John Cotter. When he hung up he said, ‘The pressure is on,’ and Megan’s brows flew.

  He called Dr Jon Prentiss and was sharp. He would have an ambulance at the hospital door by nine o’clock on Tuesday morning. He expected to remove his niece, Dorothy Daw, to seclusion and the care of other physicians. He had the right and he intended to exercise it. He had no complaint to make against Dr Prentiss, none at all; nevertheless, he would expect the doctor to have made the necessary arrangements for her release and to have secured all necessary permissions. Very well. Very glad.

  He hung up. He said nothing.

  Silent, in victory, they toasted each other.

  After a while, Leon turned on the tape recording of his calls. They were monotonous. Then, the voice of Bobbie Hopkins came on. The listeners were galvanised.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was after evening visiting hours. (All quiet at the hospital.) Peg was saying, in her living-room, and sadly, ‘I just can’t make myself believe in Mrs Hopkins.’

  ‘You are a dear sweet innocent lady,’ said Betty.

  ‘Oh, am I?’ said Peg tartly. ‘I’d like to see her myself. I never have, you know. I’d like to talk to her.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Matt. He raised his brows at Betty. ‘Why don’t we take Peg up there? Maybe that’s not such a bad idea. She’s a wise old woman.’

  Betty said, as if she were his mother, ‘It’s better than watching you try to sit still. So, Peg, do you want to?’