The Kissed Corpse (15 page)

“Before or after I called you, Jerry?”

“I'm trying to think. I can't be sure, damn it. It was
after
you called when I noticed that she wasn't around.”

“Anyone else been missing?”

“Hardiman was gone for a short time. I let him go to the city for some cigars. But he's been back for an hour or more. I've been out here walking up and down and wondering what the hell had become of you. I've been too busy to keep track of Desta, but nothing she could do would surprise me.”

“Did either Laura or Hardiman overhear our telephone conversation?”

He shook his head positively. “I was in the butler's cubbyhole and there was no one close enough to hear. But there are extension telephones scattered all over the house. Every one of them might have been listening in. I haven't tried to check because I didn't know it had any bearing on the fact that you were missing.”

I got out of the car dizzily. Hardiman and Laura! I was positive that Hardiman wouldn't have bothered to drag me back to the kitchen after slugging me. What about Desta? I had a hunch she had a queer streak a yard wide and was capable of anything.

I followed Burke into the house and stood in the hall while he got Jelcoe on the phone and told him to call off the search for me and come on out to the Dwight estate. Coming out, he filled his pipe and said:

“When I first called Jelcoe about you, I had him repeat the message from Washington as closely as he remembered it. Not knowing what it was all about, he hadn't read it carefully, but the substance of it confirms my belief that Dwight is holding something over Hardiman's head, blackmailing him into using his official position with the State Department to force Mexico to make a private settlement with Dwight. I've been too upset by your absence to spring my information on Hardiman, but we won't let it wait any longer. Come on.”

He strode down toward the open doors of the lighted drawing room. I followed on his heels and we found Myra Young, Michaela O'Toole, Pasqual, and a tall Mexican whom I hadn't seen before.

Myra was stretched out on a divan with a highball within reach of her hand. She glanced at us with a grimace, and quickly looked away.

The three Mexicans were in a huddle across the room. They broke off their low conversation to look up inquiringly as we barged in. Senor Rodriguez was a tall, courtly, old fellow, with a lean scarred face and a bristly white mustache. He reminded me of a duelist on guard as he faced Burke.

“Where's the rest of the happy family?” Burke sardonically asked the room at large.

Nobody answered him for a moment. Then Myra swung her legs off the divan and sat up. “The Dwights said to hell with all their uninvited guests … and went to bed.” Her face was drawn and sallow.

“What about Mr. Hardiman?”

“He had a telephone call a while ago, and went out the side door soon afterward. He didn't tell any of us where he was going but I thought I heard him upstairs talking to Ray a little while ago.”

By “Ray” I gathered that she meant Raymond Dwight, and the thought flashed through my mind that she wasn't missing any opportunity to impress upon us her intimacy with our host.

Senor Rodriguez interrupted my thought by striding forward and confronting Burke: “As a citizen of another country I demand a reason for your holding us here against our will. I warn you that I shall make the strongest diplomatic representations to my government.…”

Burke broke in rudely: “You're safer here than if you were within reach of the mobs after your scalp for selling out your country to Dwight.”

The Mexican's lips were set in a thin tight line, and his eyes blazed, but he didn't answer Burke.

Myra got up and moved toward us. “I'll run up and see if Mr. Hardiman is still with Raymond. Shall I tell him you want to see him?”

Burke nodded absently. I went to the center table and mixed myself a stiff brandy and soda from the bewildering array of drinkables displayed there.

Burke turned to Rodriguez and said: “I apologize for my unwarranted crack about you selling out your country. I think I'm beginning to understand the sort of pressure you've been under … and I believe it is about to be withdrawn. But I insist that you are far safer here until the matter is entirely cleared up.”

The tall Mexican bowed stiffly. “In return, I assure you, Senor Burke, that my every action has been with honorable intent. There has been no secret agreement between my country and private interests, and there will be none if I can prevent it.”

I heard Chief Jelcoe's thin voice in the hallway, and Rodriguez moved away from Burke as the tall figure of the detective entered the drawing room. His eyes bulged as their gaze roamed over Senor Rodriguez's scarred face, then rested on Michaela and Pasqual who were talking together in low tones on the far side of the room.

“Hello, Chief,” Burke greeted him, then took his arm and drew him aside. “That telegram from Washington has disappeared. I want you to repeat it as nearly as you recall.…”

Hell broke loose upstairs.

A door slammed and the clamor of shrill voices tore the silence to shreds. A scream that contained more of anger than anguish sliced through the clamor; then there was the pounding of feet on the stairs and Desta Dwight's voice crying: “I caught you that time! Just like I knew I would! I've been watching.…”

Myra darted into the drawing room with Desta in close pursuit, Desta, her eyes glittering hotly, her slim body inadequately clad in filmy pajamas of flame-colored silk.

Burke took one step forward and his right arm encircled Desta's waist as Myra collapsed on the divan. He slapped a big hand over Desta's mouth and held her wriggling body tight while sternly asking Myra what it was all about.

Glaring back defiantly, Myra panted out: “She came at me in the hall just as I was closing her father's door. Without stopping to ask any questions, she jumped at her own nasty conclusions and tried to claw my eyes out. She's nuts if you ask me.”

Desta looked like a crazy person as she struggled, against Burke's hold, to get at Myra. Her face was smeared with cold cream or some beauty preparation, and her eyes were red-rimmed and glassy. Gurgles of anger crowded past Burke's big hand pressed tightly over her mouth.

Jerry lifted her bodily and carried her across to a big chair into which she crumpled when he let go his hold. Her breath wheezed in and out between set teeth, and little bubbles of saliva formed at the corners of her mouth.

Glancing aside at Jelcoe, I had to smother a laugh at the look of stupefied bewilderment on his sallow face. I had forgotten that he hadn't been with us all evening and didn't know this was just the normal thing to expect in that haywire household. In Desta's collapsed condition I thought I might be able to get something out of her, so I moved forward to the chair and reached down to shake her shoulder.

She looked up at me with a furtive glint of fear in her eyes, cowering away as though she expected me to hit her.

I said: “Some fresh air will do you good,” and pulled her to her feet.

Burke nodded with understanding and motioned the others back when I put my arm about her waist and steered her out the door.

She apathetically let me lead her out the front door, as though her spirit had suddenly crumpled under the strain. Her flame-colored pajamas were as near no covering as could be devised by modern science, and she began to shiver when we got out into the cool moonlight.

I went to the bench Laura and I had sat on, saying matter-of-factly: “You've been kicking up a lot of hell, young lady. Explanations are in order.”

She sighed and cuddled down against me on the bench, pressing my hand tightly against the inadequately covered flesh of her flat stomach. “Why?”

“Have you been away from here the last couple of hours?”

She snuggled a little lower. Again, she asked sleepily: “Why?”

“Someone followed me to my house and attacked me. I want to know.…”

She giggled. Not hysterically, but with real mirth. “Do you think I'd do
that
? Attack you, I mean? Would you really make a girl go that far? I should think.…”

“Not the way you mean,” I said hastily. I tried to move my hand but her hot moist fingers held mine tightly, kneading the flesh beneath them with a feverish intensity of purpose that made me uncomfortably aware of her youth.

“If
I
ever attack you, you'll know who did it. And I bet if you were to attack me.…”

“I'm not going to.” Her cheek was resting against my chest and I was looking over her head.

She moved and I looked down to see her lips drawn back tightly from sharp white teeth. There was something in her eyes that I had never seen in a woman's eyes before. I was shaken and repelled … yet I felt something inside of me responding to the hot glitter that was in her gaze.

She was working herself up into another frenzy and I didn't know how to cope with it.

I said: “So, you didn't?”

“Didn't what?” She expelled the words huskily through clenched teeth.

I stood up suddenly, lifting her in my arms. She came alive, writhing, to press the length of her body against me.

I held her away and started carrying her back to the house.

She kicked bare legs in the moonlight and started cursing me. I smothered the vicious phrases with my hand and carried her back into the drawing room that way, striding past a battery of amazed eyes and dumping her down into the chair where she had been previously. I turned away, wiping sweat from my face.

Michaela got up and went to Desta as I turned away. Though the Mexican girl couldn't have been much older than Desta, there was a look of maternal solicitude on her features as she bent down and touched Desta's arm; a grave madonna-like expression of understanding that radiated softly from her eyes.

“Come,” she said gently, “I will take you to your room.”

Desta rose submissively, like one who had no will of her own. Michaela linked the girl's arm in hers, and spoke a low word to Pasqual that brought him to his feet and to the other side of Desta. Supporting her between them, they led the American girl from the room.

A long shuddering sigh came from Myra's lips when they went out the door. In the moment of intense quiet following, Burke grinned briefly at me, then turned to her and asked:

“What about Hardiman?”

She stared at him a moment, then answered in a strained voice: “Raymond was half asleep and his room was dark. He said Mr. Hardiman had been there but left about half an hour ago.”

Burke crossed to the table and rang for a servant, a brooding look of worry on his face. When a man answered his ring he said brusquely:

“Have the butler get all the servants together in the hall where I can question them about Mr. Hardiman.”

The man nodded shakily and hurried out. Jelcoe edged forward and asked: “What's this about Mr. Hardiman? Has he disappeared?”

“For the moment at least,” Burke admitted. He paused, chewing on the stem of his pipe. “Baker was slugged at his home and that telegram stolen from him. If Hardiman did the slugging …” Jerry paused with an expressive shrug of his heavy shoulders, then went on: “Exactly what did the telegram say, Jelcoe?”

Chief Jelcoe's right eyelid twitched as he wrinkled his forehead in thought. “Just about what I told you over the phone. I glanced through it hurriedly and realized it was in reply to an inquiry you hadn't seen fit to discuss with me so I thought perhaps it was private.”

Jerry paid no attention to the accusing tone Jelcoe used. He nodded and said: “Let's go out and interview the servants. We've got to locate Hardiman.”

Myra Young jumped up from the divan and beat her hands together as they went out. “This is getting me down. It's worse than a wake. Let's have some music or something to snap us out of our dope.”

I mixed myself another drink while she went to an ornate console radio and pushed some buttons. A blast of static came out, then a blare of music. She tuned it down to a soft wailing of brasses and came swaying toward me with her arms outstretched, a set smile of determined gaiety on her face.

“How about a dance?”

I shook my head without saying anything, and she swayed away in rhythm with the music, snapping her fingers. Senor Rodriguez sat quietly in a chair in one corner, puffing on a small black cigar and watching Myra with about the same expression on his face that I might wear if I were suddenly confronted by a visitor from Mars.

I didn't blame the Mexican for looking at her like that. There was something macabre about her dancing. I had a feeling that she wasn't letting herself think … that she was afraid to be quiet with her thoughts … that she was driven by some inner compulsion to put on this act for us.

Burke and Jelcoe came back into the room. Jerry came to the table to mix himself a drink, and Jelcoe stood just inside the door, watching Myra, with his Adam's Apple bobbing up and down.

I asked Jerry if he'd had any luck, and he grimaced and said: “I don't know. The butler is positive that Hardiman's telephone call was from Laura Yates … that he went outside to meet Laura on the side lawn half an hour ago. He hasn't been seen since.”

Out of the corners of my eyes I watched Myra sway up to Jelcoe and undulate invitingly before him. He backed away from her in flabbergasted fright, and I began wondering if her sanity had snapped under the strain.

I plopped more soda into my glass, and at that instant Myra screamed. She was standing in the middle of the floor staring at us wildly, both hands held up for silence:

“What? Oh my God! what was that?”

“What was what?” Burke and Jelcoe sprang forward and I froze with my glass half-way to my mouth.

“I … thought I heard something. Didn't you hear it? A … it sounded like … a shot. Sort of faint and muffled.”

“You must have heard my shot of soda,” I said, for it was at that instant I had seen her stop and listen.