Face to Face (13 page)

34

What happened to Lorette was an old story to Ellery, who was native-born and steeped in the American juices; to alien Burke, such Anglicisms as the Profumo case notwithstanding, it was an astonishment. The heroine of the liberating courtroom, following cultural precedent, became an overnight celebrity, with all the appurtenances thereto appertaining, including a contract.

“Only ignorance accounts for your surprise, Harry,” Ellery said kindly. “Over here we reward homicide as a matter of national course. We dote on our murderers. Photograph them, interview them, beg them for autographs, raise funds for their defense, fight for a glimpse of them, and burst into tears when they're acquitted. Some of us even marry them. I understand that Truman Capote has been spending his past few years—years, mind you—picking away at a particularly senseless Kansas massacre, just to get a book out of it. Just? He'll sell millions.”

“But to sign her for Broadway!” Burke protested.

“Of course. You're simply not with it, Harry. These days in the U.S.A. civil rights mean something. Why should a WASP of the tender sex be discriminated against because my father and the D.A. thought she'd murdered her aunt? Although I understand Lorette's case doesn't altogether conform to the democratic ideal. She's supposed to have talent.”

“So has Roberta.” the Scot said bitterly. “But I don't see anyone offering her a contract.”

“Tell Roberta to go out and get accused of shooting somebody.”

Lorette had been bombarded with so many offers—TV appearances, nightclub work, even a motion picture contract—that, at Uncle Carlos's tactical suggestion, she had turned to Selma Pilter for guidance. The old veteran of the percentage wars, whose affection for Lorette dated from that day in William Maloney Wasser's office, charged into the battle. It was she who captured the Broadway contract.

“But Selma,” Lorette said nervously, “Broadway …”

“Look, my dear,” Selma Pilter said. “If you're serious about a singing career, there's no quicker way to recognition. I don't see you kicking around the clubs for years. If you're going to become a star you've got to command a star's audience. And, while television is good exposure, it's no shortcut. Look at Barbra Streisand—it wasn't until she hit Broadway that she made it big. GeeGee climbed to the top on radio, but that was a different era. You've had the publicity, now you need the vehicle. And right away, while the public still remembers you. That's why I advised you to turn down the Hollywood offer—Hollywood takes too long. Of course, if you didn't have star quality, it would be another story. But with your voice, on top of what's just happened to you, you can't miss.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I'm too old in this game to waste my time on mediocrity. So, I might add, is Orrin Steyne. If Orrin wants you for his musical, he thinks you'll make it. He's not going to risk nearly half a million dollars of his backers' money, let alone his reputation, on a mere pretty face and a few dozen yards of news clippings.”

“Will I be playing the lead?”

The old woman grinned. “You're talking like a star already. Dear, this is a musical revue. Loaded with fresh young talent—Orrin's a master at picking tomorrow's stars. What he has in mind for you is a single—just you, a piano, and a spotlight. He couldn't show more confidence in you. My advice is to take it.”

Lorette took it and the buildup began. Between Selma Pilter and Steyne's press agent, not to mention the likes of Kip Kipley, she received the full treatment. Quietly, Marta Bellina, back from her tour, gave the girl lessons in breathing and projection. “It's the least I can do for Glory's niece,” the aging opera singer told her. “And your voice does so remind me of hers.”

Ellery, still fitfully chasing the four-letter will-o'-the-wisp in the Guild murder, took time off to satisfy himself on that score. He cabbed over to the doddering Roman Theater on West 47th Street, where Steyne's company was rehearsing, and with the help of a nodding acquaintance with the doorman and a five-spot, slipped into one of the last-row seats for a personal audition.

It was true. The resemblance raised goose pimples. The girl was a natural instrumentalist of the voice—the same voice, Ellery would have sworn, that came out of the ancient Glory Guild records he cherished.

Lorette sat at the grand on the naked stage, in street clothes, without makeup, a frowning preoccupation on her little face as she occasionally squinted at the lyrics on the sheets. From her throat came the same faint throb that had bewitched her aunt's radio millions. Like the intimate Guild voice, it drew its audience close, singing to the listener, not the theater; it became one man's experience, to be carried tenderly home and dreamed on. Billy Gaudens, whom Steyne had chosen to write the music for his revue, had tailor-made Lorette's numbers, fitting style and mood to the voice until they seemed of a piece. Gaudens had cleverly struck away from the prevailing beat and rock and folk sounds, going back to the impassioned ballads of Glory Guild's day—songs that grieved, demanded, yearned, sank to the roots.

(Later, Ellery learned that all the other music in the show was in the modern idiom. Orrin Steyne was giving Lorette a showcase. He knew what he had.)

She's going to be a sensation, Ellery thought … and, as he thought it, the old lightning struck.

More sensational than the girl.

He sat for a few moments, overwhelmed, thinking it over.

There was no doubt about it.

That's what GeeGee had meant.

He crept out of the orchestra seat and went groping for a phone.

35

“Don't ask me why it hit me at Lorette's rehearsal.” Ellery said an hour later in Wasser's office, to the attorney, his father, Harry Burke, and Roberta. “Or maybe it's because she makes music—I mean makes it!—and music is the secret of this thing.”

“What thing?” demanded Inspector Queen. “What are you talking about, son?”

“Face,” Ellery said. “The message GeeGee left on her desk as she was dying.”

“What's music got to do with that?”

“Everything.” Ellery was too hopped up to talk from a chair; he was darting about Wasser's office as if trying to dodge an assault of hornets. “I don't know how I could have been such a mental dropout. It was all there in those four letters.

“You'll note,” he said, “that I say four
letters
, not the word. You'll note,” he said, “that I use the word
note
, which is absolutely called for.”

“You'll note, Mr. Queen,” said Wasser, his tic ticking, “that you've already lost me.”

“I'll find you again. Give me my head, Mr. Wasser. At times like these I feel as if I'd had ten drinks and then hit the fresh air … Look.

“GeeGee wrote ‘face.' It was evident that she meant ‘face' as a reference to whoever shot her. It was also evident, and it's become increasingly so, as my headaches attest, that as a word-clue to her killer ‘face' means nothing at all.

“The question naturally follows: Suppose it wasn't a word-clue?”

The Inspector frowned. “But if it wasn't a word-clue …”

“Exactly. If it wasn't a word-clue, what sort of clue could it be? This called for reexamination. I reexamined. I re-reexamined. I thought of everything it could be except what it is. And what it is is so obvious that none of us saw it at all.

“For if it wasn't a word-clue, it became simply a clue consisting of four letters of the English alphabet. Forming not a word, but a sequence of some sort, in some other frame of reference.”

“A code?” the old man suggested.

“Don't interrupt me when I'm flying, please. Where was I? Oh, yes,” Ellery said. “When you start thinking in those terms it immediately strikes you that GeeGee wrote those four letters—wrote them physically—
as
individual letters.
She separated them:
f
and a space,
a
and a space,
c
and a space, and finally
e.
True, spacing was characteristic of her handwriting generally; and to make it more misleading, the way she formed her letters made them look like hand printing rather than ordinary calligraphy. But once you think of
f-a-c-e
in some context other than words, you're in the clear and on your way.”

“Not I, said Mrs. Burke's comfort-and-joy.” The Scot frowned. “What context?”

“Well, what do we know about Glory Guild's preoccupations? One: as a performing artist, she spent her whole life in music. Two: in retirement she was a nut on puzzles. Right? Then think of
f-a-c-e
in terms of musicology and puzzles. A musical puzzle.”

There was a silence, musical and puzzled. Ellery beamed; he had achieved orbital velocity, and as always at such times he was in a state of euphoria. His father, Wasser, Burke showed no signs of intelligence. Roberta West was cerebrating as if she were on to something—the big eyes were luminous under the indrawn sorrel brows—but finally she shook her bricktop.

“I studied music as a child, so I ought to know what you're getting at, Ellery. But I don't.”

“What does
f-a-c-e
stand for in music, Roberta?”

“Face?”

“There's that old devil ‘word' again. Not a word, Roberta. Letters. In music.”

“Oh. You mean that
f
and
a
and
c
and
e
are
notes?”

“What else? Of course that's what I mean. Which notes?”

“Which?”

“On the staff.”

“If I had a sheet of music …”

“Mr. Wasser, may I?” Ellery grabbed a pad of plain yellow paper from the lawyer's desk, and a pen, and sketched quickly. When he held the pad up, they saw that he had inked in the common musical staff of five parallel lines:

“Here's the staff in G clef, the treble clef. Roberta, show us where the notes,
f, a, c
, and
e
go.”

Roberta took the pad and pen and, after some thought, used the pen.

“Now label each note.”

She did so.

“Have a look.”

Ellery passed the pad around. What they saw was:

“So they're notes,” said Inspector Queen. “And I take it Miss West's put them in the right places or you wouldn't be licking your chops. So what, Ellery?”

“The staff is composed of five lines and the four spaces between the lines. Where has Roberta placed the notes? On the lines or in the spaces?”

“In the spaces.”

“In the
spaces.
Which means
between the lines.”

Ellery paused triumphantly.

“Are we supposed to put you up for mayor?” his father snapped. “I don't know what you're talking about, Ellery. You'll have to spell it out before it makes sense to my peabrain.”

“Wait.” Harry Burke was gripping the arms of his chair.
“She was telling us to look between the lines.”

“Give the gentleman the cigar,” Ellery said. “Yes, that was GeeGee's little musical-puzzle message. ‘Look between the lines.' ”

There was another silence.

“Which lines?” asked the Inspector wildly. “Where?”

“That, of course, is the question.”

“Her diaries!”

“Logical, dad. But not reasonable. Remember how closely written her diaries are. Hardly any room on those jammed pages. She'd have to have had the talent of the man who wrote the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin to have squeezed anything in between the lines of those entries.”

“Then where? In one of her books?”

“Unlikely. There are hundreds of them.”

“It couldn't be between the lines of anything handwritten.” muttered Burke, “for the reason you gave. And yet not printing, either. Still it's got to be something mechanical, where the spacing is appreciable and regular …”

“You've got it, Harry.”

Burke saw light.

“Something typewritten! Did she leave anything she'd typed?”

“Not necessarily that
she
typed.”

“Her will,” Wasser said slowly. “By God, her will!”

“That,” Ellery nodded, “was my conclusion, too. That's why I asked for this meeting in your office, Mr. Wasser. When you read the will to the heirs you stated that the original was already in the hands of the Surrogate; you were reading from a copy. I recognized it as the one we found in the metal box in the Guild apartment, Glory's own copy. You still have it in your files?”

“Of course!”

“I'd like to have it.”

While they waited for Wasser's secretary to fetch the will, Ellery remarked, “There's another reason for suspecting that Glory's copy of the will is the hiding place of some between-the-lines message from her … that long list of bequests to charities. It struck me at the time as peculiar. Why had she gone to the trouble of having all those trifling donations listed individually? A lump bequest could have been more conveniently provided for, to be parceled out at the discretion of her executor. But specifying the charities one by one did accomplish one thing—it made the will a much longer document, providing plenty of space for a considerable message. Ah, thank you,” Ellery said to Wasser's secretary, taking the will. “Just a moment, please. Didn't I see an electric toaster in the outer office?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Wasser often has his breakfast in the office. That's why we keep one here.”

“I'd like to borrow it.”

The girl brought it in, and Ellery plugged the connection into the wall behind the lawyer's desk. He set the toaster down on the desk and turned the machine on.

“Better than the match trick, eh?” Ellery said cheerfully. “Well, let's see if the old guesser is still functioning.” He held the first page of the will above the heat coming up from the toast wells, passing the page back and forth. By this time they were crowding about him, craning.

“It's coming out!” Roberta cried.

In the spacing between the typewritten lines, the unmistakable handwriting of Glory Guild had begun to appear.

“I'll be damned,” Harry Burke exclaimed.

“Somebody's going to be,” Inspector Queen said exultantly. “Now maybe we'll get somewhere on this case!”