Kaleidoscope (7 page)

“Are you mad?” she said wonderingly. “Of course she did, she was there, I told you so. Who else could have killed him?”

“You,” said Pruden.

“What?”
she gasped. “How dare you! Everett, are you going to allow him to say such a thing to me? There
can't
be any such evidence.”

“Why not?” asked Harbinger pleasantly.

“Why not?” she echoed. “Because Jenny's a mute, she can't talk, she can't hear, I made sure of—” She stopped, appalled, and pressed a fist to her mouth. “You weren't there; how could you think—”

“You removed the dagger from your husband's body,” said Pruden steadily, “and you made sure that Jenny's bloodied fingerprints were placed on it. A helpless child who could never deny your accusation.”

“No!”
she shouted, “how can you
know
that? You can't say such a thing, I won't let you, I won't listen, I have plans and you've no right—”

“Enough evidence,” continued Pruden, hating himself for this, “to convict you of very cleverly using Jenny to conceal that it was you who killed your husband.”

“I'm not listening,” she told him furiously. “What evidence could you possibly have? I won't listen.”

“Enough evidence,” lied Pruden.

“No,” she cried. “Impossible! Jenny can't talk; Jenny's a mute. Everett—” She turned to him, but seeing his impassive face she burst into tears. “I can't bear this; it wasn't supposed to be like this. Everett, it
has
to be Jenny, don't you see?” she pleaded. “Tell them it's Jenny; tell them I have
plans
.”

“What plans?” Harbinger asked gently.

“I wanted . . . I wanted—” She stopped, confused and dazed, her lips trembling. “I had
plans
,” she repeated, and Harbinger, a look of pity on his face, went to the telephone and put in a call to her doctor.

“And that's how it ended,” Pruden told Madame Karitska that night. “Not a pretty story.”

“Where is she now?”

He sighed. “In a psychiatric hospital. She insists that she's Joanna Warren and never knew a John Epworth; she seems to have completely blotted out the last eight years. Strange, isn't it?”

Madame Karitska shook her head. “Not so strange,” she said. “From what her friend Abby told you she was very likable in those days, ambitious but likable. I would guess that she can't face what she's become and what she did.”

He nodded. “She must have felt like Cinderella when John Epworth proposed marriage to her.” He stopped and then added sadly, “My guess is that she learned money was no substitute for love, and with no grounds for divorce she began dreaming of being a rich young widow in the south of France, and finding love at last with a husband her own age.” He shrugged. “But we'll never know.”

He suddenly smiled. “Ironically, there's one happy note to add to this story of vanity and greed. . . . John Epworth had at last found a teacher of sign language shortly before his death. She arrived at the home yesterday, and it's hoped that in a few weeks, a month at most, Jenny will have learned enough to verify our evidence.

“That evidence,” he added dryly, “that we only hoped we had, but could never have proved in court.”

5

The next morning Madame Karitska saw three clients in succession and then, with Georges Verlag still on her mind, she made a brief phone call to a man by the name of Amos Herzog.

“My dear Countess,” he said, “come at once. I have just completed writing my chapter on Earnestine Boulanger, who poisoned three husbands, and she has proved the most boring woman I've spent a week with. It would be a pleasure to see you, but
not
,” he added dryly, “with that policeman friend of yours. I remain, still, allergic to the police.”

She laughed. “No, I'm still saving you for a surprise. This concerns diamonds, and I'll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Leaving a sign on her door, BACK AT 2 PM, she walked to the subway and was soon strolling down Cavendish Square with its stately homes and gardens. Number 46, however, housed elegant apartments where Amos occupied the first floor. It amused her very much that decades ago Amos Herzog had been the country's most outrageously successful jewel thief, moving in the best of circles—as he still did—and had been famous for never carrying a gun during his robberies. Very sensibly he had retired after two stints in jail, and for years had been writing a series of books on—of all things—famous crimes in history. If there were some who wondered how his modest book sales supported a luxurious apartment on Cavendish Square, if they perhaps wondered if he had stashed away many of his ill-gotten gains in Switzerland, he was so charming, and so often of help to the FBI—he had even taught a class for them on picking locks— that no one cared enough to explore the source of his income . . . so long as he remained retired.

That he had actually been a client of hers a few months after she'd hung out her sign still amused her. Not many Mercedeses were to be seen on Eighth Street, and his astonishment when she'd opened her door had been palpable. “Good God,” he'd said.

Out of desperation, irritation, and condescension he'd either heard of her or seen her sign, and apparently had decided that she was his last but no doubt vain hope. He had lost or mislaid a coin in his apartment.

“Not a valuable one,” he'd explained. “Worth no more than two hundred dollars, but it's been my lucky charm. I count on it, depend on it, and I can't tell you how unlucky I've been since it disappeared.”

“Stolen?” she'd suggested. “Surely stolen?”

He had vigorously shaken his head. “Impossible. It has to be in my apartment, which I've ransacked, trying to find it. Too stupid of me—and certainly not a police matter. I simply wondered—”

“Tell me about it,” she'd said. “Or better still, draw me a sketch of it.”

He'd drawn a picture of it for her: a
real
, one of the coins commonly known as “pieces of eight,” salvaged by divers from pirate ships. “Of value only to me,
always
I carried it on my person. Jacket or trouser pockets.”

She nodded. “Then may I first hold something of yours, worn on your person for a number of years?”

He had never heard of psychometry, and with a laugh he'd handed her his gold signet ring.

She held it for quite a while, increasingly amused. “You have a strong sense of mischief,” she told him. “And have at one time been famous—or perhaps infamous?”

“All this you pick up from a mere ring?”

“Emanations,” she'd explained. “Thoughts. Moods, feelings. So much is invisible. . . . We all possess a magnetic field, a current that runs through us and that can be detected . . . when you leave that chair, for instance, yours will remain behind you for some moments.” She added politely, “I have the impression that you've spent some time in . . . jail, dare I say?”

“You unman me,” he'd said. “Yes, there was a time when I divested a number of wealthy matrons of their jewelry. Without violence, I can assure you.”

“Ah—a jewel thief!”

“A
distinguished
jewel thief,” he emphasized.

“About your missing good-luck charm . . .” She picked up his sketch to concentrate on it. “How many rooms in your house?”

“Apartment. Five.”

In her mind, concentrating on the coin's picture, she went through each room. “A closet,” she said at last.

“Impossible,” he told her. “Sorry, I've searched every closet. Thoroughly. Every drawer, every chair, bed, and couch.”

Paying no attention to this she added, “I gain an impression of fur.”

“Fur!”

“Yes, have you a fur coat or rug, perhaps? No,” she amended, “something
much
smaller.”

“Small? And fur?” With a frown he said, “That's strange; I've a pair of very old fur bedroom slippers.”

She nodded. “Good. I believe you will find the coin in one of those fur slippers, although one must wonder how it got there.”

Startled, he said, “I nearly threw them away, but . . . yes, I did wear them one very cold evening a month ago. You really think . . . ?”

She laughed. “Then how fortunate you did
not
throw them away.”

Surprised and curious about her, she had brewed coffee and they had settled down to a long and interesting talk about his career and hers, and by the time he left they had established an easy and amusing relationship. Not having a telephone as yet he had sent her by mail the next day a note to say the coin had been found precisely where she'd said he would find it, and he had enclosed a check, begging her to use the money to install a telephone because writing notes bored him, and he would like to talk to her occasionally.

She had not ordered a phone; she had paid her rent with his check.

Now he opened the door for her at once, still handsome and distinguished in his seventies; he had cultivated a white goatee to match his white hair, and there was always a twinkle in his clear blue eyes. “Come in, come in,” he said, radiating the charm that brought him so many friends. “It's a rare day when I can do something for you.”

Once seated in his well-appointed living room she asked if he'd heard of Georges Verlag.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “one of Zale's men.”

She smiled. “So you
do
still have connections—as I hoped.”

He said dryly, “My two experiences in prison invoked a great deal of interest among my fellow inmates, and I have never lost an opportunity to broaden my education. It was very educational for me to make friends with them. When I left it was with many wellwishers, who remain in touch. What about Georges Verlag?”

She described her experience in the subway, the attaché case tossed to her, his subsequent departure with the man following him.

“Can you describe the man following him?”

She said efficiently, “Sharp pointed nose, sharp pointed chin, thin lips, roughly six feet tall.”

He thought for a few minutes, frowning. “That sounds rather like the young man they call Frankie the Ferret, an unsavory chap, works out of Jake Bodley's group.”

“What I want to know,” she said firmly, “is whether the man caught up with Georges and is holding him, or whether Georges escaped him and is in hiding. I want to know if he's alive.”

Amos said slyly, “Of course I'd rather know if you've kept the diamonds.”

She laughed. “Oh no, they're quite unreachable, the police have them. But my problem is that when I met Georges my name wasn't Karitska, so he has no way to find me—or his diamonds—which worries me.”

“I see. . . . Of course eventually the company would contact both police and FBI.”

She nodded. “And the police will return the case of diamonds but not to Georges Verlag.”

“You are fond of this man?”

“Fond? I scarcely knew him,” she said. “He was my husband's friend, they worked for the same firm, but he dined with us several times; it was a decade ago but I have a memory for faces.”

“Apparently he does, too,” pointed out Amos with humor. “I would not have cared to face you in any police lineup.”

She smiled. “You're not thinking of returning to your former . . . does one say ‘profession'?”

“Only through my books,” he assured her, “although I must say, most of the criminals I write about seem to me depressingly indelicate and clumsy. It will take time, you know, to learn what happened to your subway chap.”

“I understand, but you will—”

“I will,” he assured her gravely, and Madame Karitska left, feeling that she had done what she could for poor Georges.

At half past three that afternoon she opened her door to her last appointment of the day and was confronted by a fashionably dressed woman who looked both nervous and embarrassed, perhaps never having visited, or expected to visit, either Eighth Street or a clairvoyant, her face a pale oval, skin flawless, eyes carefully made up with eye shadow. Definitely she belonged to Cavendish Square; she looked expensive.

She said, “Karitska? Readings?”

“Yes, do come in,” Madame Karitska said cordially.

“I told the cabdriver to wait; it won't take long, will it?”

Madame Karitska smiled. “This is not precisely like a dental appointment. We shall see, shall we?”

“Yes—yes, of course.”

The woman followed her inside, looking around in surprise at the sunny book-lined room. “I'd rather not give you my last name, but . . . well, my first name's Anna.” She sat down on the edge of the couch as if ready to flee at any minute. “I didn't know what to expect—it's very private.
Very
private.” She looked at Madame Karitska with suspicion. “My hairdresser told me about you. I didn't know where else to go. Are you discreet? I hope we don't know the same people.”

Madame Karitska wanted to laugh but only waved her hand gracefully at her small living room. She knew a number of people on Cavendish Square, had been there, after all, only two hours ago, but she saw no purpose in saying so. “Unless you frequent Eighth Street I really doubt that we'll meet again.”

“You see,” she said, “it's about my husband.”

Madame Karitska sighed;
another erring husband,
she thought;
I must be tired,
and reminded herself that love, money and grief were what usually brought people to her door. Patience was needed; bills had to be paid.

“Have
you
been married?” demanded the woman.

Amused, Madame Karitska said, “Actually three times, yes. Once for survival when I was fifteen, once for love, once for comfort and companionship.”

“Oh,” the woman said, startled. “I suppose I should apologize for prying—”

“Yes, you should,” agreed Madame Karitska calmly, and waited. After all, she did not have to
like
her clients.

“Well, I'm sorry,” Anna said peevishly, “but this is embarrassing.”

“Yes, but you'd come about your husband?”

She nodded. “We're
very
happily married,” she said defiantly, “but I hardly ever see him; he's become so . . . so secretive since he left his
very
important job a year ago. He's a computer expert, you see, and considered a genius. And with two friends—one of them from Intel and one from IBM, the three left to begin their own electronic company—but in
Maine
,” she said with a catch in her voice, “and he refuses my moving there to be with him.”

There were tears in her eyes now. “Our home is here in Trafton, you see, but he comes back so seldom, I scarcely see him at all these days, and . . .” She hesitated and then said at last, “I keep wondering if he's seeing another woman. Up there. In Maine. And my hairdresser said that if I brought you something of his—”

“It's called psychometry,” explained Madame Karitska gently. “Any object worn by a person for a length of time acquires vibrations, energy, tone from that person. What have you brought me?”

From her purse she extracted a wristwatch with a frayed leather band. “He wore this until last month, when he finally bought a new one here in Trafton, on one of his few very short visits. He's worn it for years and years.”

Handing it to Madame Karitska she finally allowed herself to sit back on the couch, her eyes watching as she waited.

Madame Karitska cupped the watch loosely in both hands and closed her eyes, and almost at once was jolted by the impressions that reached her. She said reluctantly, “His mind—it whirls, never stills. Obsessive. Brilliant, yes, but not restful.”

“I told you he's a genius,” the woman reminded her.

But something was wrong, very wrong, thought Madame Karitska, as wave after wave of negativeness reached her. There was malice, a sense of destructiveness, a sense almost of madness. It frightened her, and she dropped the wristwatch and opened her eyes. Steadying herself she said, “At least I can tell you firmly there is no other woman.”