Dream of Fair Woman Page 20

  ‘So she found Mrs Cuneen’s sign,’ said Betty excitedly. ‘Dr Dienst, does Lilianne smoke?’

  Alfreda looked at her with hauteur.

  ‘Does Alison?’ Betty was on the edge of her chair.

  ‘Alison shall give that filthiness up,’ said Alfreda. ‘Now, gentlemen, there are reasons why I would rather not wake Lilianne, just now, this morning.’

  ‘The other day—’ Betty was following her own thoughts.

  Matt shushed her fiercely.

  ‘Since, when I do awaken her,’ pronounced Alfreda, ‘as I have told you before, then I must take her with me.’

  ‘That will be for the doctor to say,’ said Atwood, a little stiffly.

  ‘I am afraid,’ said Alfreda, ‘that will be for me to say. She is, in effect, my patient.’

  ‘This hospital cannot—’

  ‘She won’t be able to accept this hospital. Or, indeed, any.’

  Betty could not stay hushed. ‘The girl we saw on Opal Street!’ she cried. ‘She acted scared to death of doctors and nurses and hospitals. She looked as if she’d fly into a fit, and we had to give up. But that was Alison?’

  ‘Of course. Of course.’ Alfreda sighed. ‘I told you. Alison steals Lilianne’s whole psyche whenever she needs it. A wickedness. A great evil.’ The big woman’s eyes flickered.

  ‘But evil rebounds,’ she went on sternly. ‘Alison herself has little or no identity, now. A sick soul.’

  ‘You’ve seen Alison? Recently?’ Dr Prentiss pounced.

  ‘Oh yes, quite recently. To speak your language, Alison is at this time on the verge of a nervous collapse with suicidal tendencies.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Dr Prentiss said, ‘if you have spoken to Alison, we do seem to be sorting these girls out, at last.’

  ‘Providing,’ said Atwood, ‘that Dr Dienst is right about the girl upstairs.’

  Alfreda smiled. ‘Still a doubter,’ she chided gently.

  ‘I will believe it,’ said Atwood, ‘when she tells me, herself, who she is.’

  ‘Ah then, the simplest way,’ sighed Alfreda, ‘is for me to go now and wake her. But then I must take her. And you must agree to that.’

  She rose. Atwood got up. He made a pronouncement of his own. ‘The police must be informed.’

  ‘Why?’ said Alfreda.

  ‘Because, obviously, if you know that both the twins are alive, the dead girl must be Dorothy Daw.’

  Alfreda said, ‘I believe I have already said so. Although the dead girl is not, and never has been, within my ken.’

  Dr Prentiss seemed more amused than appalled. ‘You’re going to have to talk to the police, Doctor,’ he said, with an air of kindly warning.

  The big woman raised her brows. ‘I will speak to the police if I must—but only when I find myself able to take the time. I will not abandon a soul, to suit the law. A wooden structure, yes. A human soul, no. Never. Not even’—she slew Matt with a glance—‘a poor soul.’ She looked at the door and said, ‘Which of you will take me to Lilianne?’

  Dr Prentiss put his hand on the doorknob. ‘I’ll take you, Doctor.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor.’

  Matt was at the woman’s side. ‘I’d like to go with you, Dr Dienst,’ he said intensely, ‘if you will please allow it.’

  That’s the way, thought Betty. That’s the way to speak to her. She saw Alfreda’s look, now bent upon Matt. It was full of lofty pity. ‘Ah yes,’ said Alfreda, as if she waved a wand, ‘you have need. You may come with me.’

  She walked away with the doctor, and Matt followed.

  Betty stayed where she was.

  Hadn’t he taken in the truth—that Peg had guessed, that Alfreda knew and had stated, that Betty herself had just stated? Matt didn’t seem to realise that he had already met and spoken with a well-practised copy of the girl upstairs. And she had turned his stomach. She had made him sick. Well … poor Matt.

  Meanwhile, Atwood was after Lieutenant Tate on the phone and he got him.

  ‘This is Fred Atwood at Cooper Memorial Hospital. A Dr Ruth A. Dienst is here who says that our sleeping girl is Lilianne Kraus or Hopkins, twin sister of Alison. Dr Dienst also tells us that Alison is alive and she has spoken to her. Now, sir, you must see …’

  Atwood began to listen. Betty was on her feet, making motions. ‘The adress,’ she urged. ‘Tell him 438½ Opal Street. He can find Alison there.’

  But Atwood only rolled his eyes at her and did not repeat into the phone what she had said. He went on listening to Tate and after a series of ‘Yes,’ ‘Yes’ and ‘No,’ he hung up and mopped his chin.

  ‘They think,’ he told Betty, ‘that Mrs Hopkins was choked before she was gassed and by the same hands that broke the neck of the girl in the truck. Tate has this Wimberholtz fellow now and is interrogating him. Wimberholtz also says Alison is alive. Tate is having her picked up.’

  Betty relaxed.

  ‘But Tate says,’ Atwood’s voice began to sound a little frantically weary, ‘that they have received some information that leads him to suspect that Dorothy Daw may have been, or wanted to be, acquainted with the Hopkins clan. He isn’t sure that our girl upstairs is not Dorothy Daw.’ Atwood mopped vigorously. ‘He does say that he now knows where all three girls are and that he will get them sorted out, once and for all, before this day is done.’

  Atwood began to shift some papers on his desk. ‘I only hope,’ he added, ‘that this hospital can be said to have done its full duty.’

  ‘You have duties now,’ said Betty. ‘I’d better leave you to them.’

  ‘Will you wait in the lobby?’

  ‘I may. Or I may run over to tell Mrs Cuneen.’

  ‘It will take time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Will it?’ said Betty. ‘She didn’t seem to think so.’

  ‘Eh? Oh, no, not Dr Dienst. I meant that it will take time to pick up the third girl in Yuma. Or on the way there. Whoever she is.’

  ‘But surely she is Alison!’

  ‘I suppose I tend to think so,’ said Atwood pathetically.

  Betty went into the corridor and walked along slowly. What would Dorothy Daw want with the Hopkins family? How would she know about them? Wait—Megan Royce had known that Alison was a double for Dorothy.

  Betty came into the lobby and looked for Megan, to question her if she dared. But Leon Daw and Megan Royce were not there.

  Betty sat down, feeling numb.

  Tate said to Larry Wimberholtz, ‘We’ll go over it again. Alison is alive, right?’

  ‘That’s right. I told you five times.’

  ‘And how come you’ve got her suitcase in your car, with her passport in it?’

  ‘Because we forgot,’ raved Larry, pounding his thighs with his fists. ‘We forgot! I told you. She’s alive. I took her to catch a bus. She got out and never said a word about the suitcase, and I forgot it.’

  ‘Uh huh. Why did you go to Opal Street so early this morning?’

  ‘You don’t believe me. What’s the use? You don’t believe a word I—’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘I wanted to see Lilianne. I thought I’d find Lilianne there.’

  ‘Why did you want to see Lilianne?’

  ‘I told you. I just wanted to see her. All right. All right.’ Larry began to sob. ‘I went to tell her that her mom was dead.’

  ‘You knew her mom was dead, eh? How did you know that?’

  ‘Because I saw her, through the kitchen window.’

  ‘Now maybe we’re getting somewhere. When was this?’

  ‘I don’t know. Five-thirty this morning.’

  ‘You saw her through the window in the dark?’

  ‘Yes, in the dark! The oven door was open. You got to believe me.’

  ‘And why were you looking through Bobbie Hopkins’ kitchen window at five-thirty in the morning?’

  ‘Because … You’re trying to mix me up.’

  ‘Because you had it in for Bobbie, too? Did Bobbie have a hunch you’d kil
led Alison?’

  ‘No. No. No. I didn’t kill anybody. Alison isn’t even dead. I told you. She’s pretending to be her sister. She’s gone to Yuma.’

  ‘Maybe she is her sister,’ Tate said. ‘Or maybe she’s Dorothy Daw.’

  ‘What’s the use of telling you anything?’ Larry screeched. ‘Don’t ask questions, if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘You knew I wanted to ask questions. Mind telling me why you ran away?’

  ‘Because of just what’s happening, right now. I can’t take this. I knew I couldn’t take this. I can’t take this any more. I got nerves. I get sick. Go ahead, lock me up. I got a record. I got no rights. Do anything, only let me alone. Or I’m going to pass out on you. Right in this chair. Feel my pulse. Go ahead. See what you’re doing.’

  ‘I might lock you up for a little bit,’ Tate said soothingly. ‘But, first, let’s just go over it once more.’

  Megan said, ‘What a miserable hut. Come away, Leon. She isn’t here. The neighbours might not like us breaking in.’

  Leon turned around. He was standing in the tiny alcove kitchenette with a knife in his hands. It was a sturdy kitchen knife with a seven-inch blade.

  ‘Come. Put that thing down,’ she said sharply. ‘Don’t touch things.’

  He said, ‘Your latest bright idea didn’t work out either, did it?’

  ‘Oh, come on.’ Megan walked out into the air. Her right hand twisted at her beads. She began to walk fast towards the car.

  When Leon slammed the door of the little house behind her, she looked around. He was coming. She got into the car. He had the keys. She sat stiffly in the front seat. He went around to get in. He tucked the kitchen knife under the driver’s seat. He didn’t mention it.

  Neither did she.

  When they were on a through street, Megan said, ‘Could you drop me at the shop, darling? I really ought …’

  Leon said, ‘No.’

  She didn’t argue.

  He said, in a moment, ‘You’re going down, too.’

  ‘Nobody is going down. There is no connection between us and the truck. None at all. Not even Alison can say anything about that. They can’t prove it. They can’t prove anything.’

  ‘They won’t wonder why we worked up an alibi?’ he snarled. ‘Oh, you are intelligent!’

  ‘They can’t prove why.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Oh, come on. Oh, come on.’ Leon sounded at the end of his rope. ‘If I have to be dragged through a trial I’d rather … Where is Alison?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling,’ Megan said meekly.

  ‘That cheap, brainless little movie queen—darling?’ He mocked her.

  ‘We’re going home? Maybe that boy from the newspaper will find out something.’

  ‘Too late. For both of us.’ He banged the wheel. ‘For both of us, remember.’

  ‘Why, I know that, darling,’ Megan said softly. ‘But don’t worry. I don’t intend for us to go down.’

  Time crept. Betty fidgeted. There was a man cleaning up the lobby. He began to clean out ashtrays. After a while, Betty got up and drifted thoughtfully towards the phone booth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Tony Severson was sitting in Peg’s living-room, bemoaning his state. ‘Why are they always keeping me out? It ain’t right, Mrs Cuneen. Wasn’t it my story in the first place? Well, I’m sticking to you, Mrs Cuneen-darleen, because you’re going to be told, the minute they do, or don’t, identify the chick in the hospital. And you’re a good friend of mine, which is more than I can say for some.’

  Peg was looking very tired. ‘Oh, our girl is Lilianne,’ she said.

  ‘But how do you know that already, Mrs Cuneen-sweetheart?’

  ‘Because she’s had such fits before,’ snapped Peg, ‘and that means a very high degree of probability.’

  ‘Oh, oh.’ Tony wasn’t shocked. He pondered a moment. ‘So then, who do you think was staying in the shack on Opal Street and set the joint on fire, Sunday night?’

  Peg shook her head. She was untangling embroidery cottons. Her hands were nimble.

  Tony twitched. He looked at the time. He said, ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘I don’t want a secret,’ Peg said, rather shortly.

  He was quiet for forty seconds. Then he said slyly, ‘You ever wonder how come three girls all look alike?’

  ‘It doesn’t do much good to wonder.’

  ‘They were sisters,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘All three. They were sisters. Same Ma. Same Pa.’

  Peg’s hands stopped moving. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Oh, we can’t print it,’ Tony said. ‘My boss got this from an inside source. We got to find this bird first and interview him. Since his only known address is Chicago, Illinois, that ain’t easy.’

  ‘What bird?’

  ‘If I tell you it won’t go any further?’ Tony was bursting and he didn’t wait for a promise. ‘O.K. This morning some bird calls up, long distance, the police. Fella says his name is Kraus, Charles. He used to be married to Bobbie Hopkins and he is the legal and acknowledged papa of the twins. So he sees stuff in the paper or on TV or some place and he figures to be helpful. And when he hears Bobbie has had it, too, he breaks down and tells all. AND he says he and Bobbie, they seemed to have kinda jumped the matrimonial gun, long ago, and there was another baby girl—about a year and a half older than the twins but without benefit of clergy, so they farmed her out to be adopted. In the East, mind you. So he says, what with this Dorothy Daw being such a dead ringer for her own two sisters, he is willing to bet that’s who she is.’

  ‘Dorothy Daw was adopted?’

  ‘Yup. Yup. Yup.’ Tony rolled his head in his hands. ‘The cops can dig that up. They got their resources. But Megan knew it. And why didn’t I think of that?’

  Peg was looking startled. ‘I knew she knew it was her child,’ she murmured.

  . ‘So now they got this Larry Wimberholtz,’ Tony went on blithely, ‘and no point in me hanging around, because everybody and his brother is waiting, now, on the results of the interrogation. But guess what came out already! Larry-boy has got a record. He was put away once, not long, for child-beating. And so, by the way, was his teenage wife, under the name of Alice Kraus Wimberholtz, which is—you wanna bet?—what our Alison was at the time.’

  Peg was looking horrified.

  ‘Oh, the kid wasn’t too bad off. They took it away and it got adopted.’

  Peg drew in a shuddering breath.

  ‘But now do you see what it is all about? Alison must have been blackmailing the poor slob. She’ll tell his new and pregnant wife, maybe? So he gets upset and does her in. Then it comes over him that Bobbie-girl, his ex-mother-in-law, she knows the whole story and probably is going to mention not only the story on him, but his motive for the murder of Alison. So he has got to do Bobbie in, too. And that wraps it up, hey? Don’t worry. They’ll get it out of him.’

  Peg stared. ‘But wait,’ she said. ‘Then who was the girl on Opal Street?’

  ‘Ah hah,’ crowed Tony. ‘See, there’s a big fat cliché in this country. Let a kid be rich, she’s bound to get done in for her money. But it ain’t necessarily so. And there was no hanky-panky with the money. The girl on Opal Street is Dorothy Daw.’

  ‘Surely that can’t be.’

  ‘Sure it can.’ Tony began to expound, his foxy eyes delighted. ‘Listen, Dorothy Daw fixed it to vanish, didn’t she? All that jazz at the railroad station? Say Dorothy finds out she’s got a real blood Mama and a couple of real blood sisters in this vale. O.K. She’d just as soon get to know them. But she wants no publicity about this. Which is reasonable. Well, now, she pulls her act at the Union Station—’

  ‘There must be something you don’t know,’ said Peg vehemently. ‘Or you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Oh, wow,’ said Tony, ‘is there ever going to be a twist to this story. And I’m the only one that’s on it. Me and Megan, that’s all. Oh wow—the rich guys
are going to turn out to be the good guys. Twist of the century! Nobody murdered the tenth-richest girl in the world … for her money or anything else. Dorothy Daw is still alive! And I know where to find her. That is—providing the chick in the hospital is honest-to-God Lilianne.’

  ‘I don’t see …’

  ‘All right. You can’t figure it any other way.’ Tony was ready for argument but the phone rang.

  Peg jumped. She excused herself and went out into the front hall to answer.

  ‘Peg?’ said Betty Prentiss. ‘Dr Jon and Alfreda are trying to wake the girl up now. Matt’s with them.’

  ‘Then you don’t know …’

  ‘I’m sure it was Alison we saw on Opal Street. You’ve guessed that, I’ll bet.’

  ‘Yes, I … But Tony says that was Dorothy Daw. He says the rich guys are the good guys. He’s here now.’

  ‘Then say something, quick. Say you’ll bake a cake.’

  ‘I’ll bake a cake,’ said Peg, slowly. ‘But why?’

  ‘Because Tony’s got ears like a fox.’ (Tony, whose ear was to the kitchen extension, grinned foxily.) ‘And we just can’t put up with Tony’s embellishments. Listen, Peg,’ Betty went on, ‘even in the smell of the fire on Opal Street I thought I could smell tobacco on her, somehow. Lilianne doesn’t smoke. Alfreda is dead against it. She says Alison has to give it up.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And Peg—when we were up there this morning—didn’t you smell tobacco smoke?’

  ‘In the temple?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘I … might have.’

  ‘Me, too. The police are trying to pick her up in, or on the way to, Yuma.’

  ‘But she’s not?’

  ‘Well, the point is—at least she might not be. So do you want to call Lieutenant Tate?’