“If you mean her past,” I said, “I know about it. So does Walter. She doesn’t seem to be hiding it.”
“She’s clever. She took them all in with her supposed candor. They think it makes her honest, but I see the darkness in her. I can see her holding herself in. There’s something in her that she can’t control, something animal.”
“You think that whatever that is, it led her to kill your uncle? Why? He liked her, you said so yourself.”
She brushed at the air, brushing away logic and answers. “I don’t know, perhaps he learned something about her. I know that Mother and Walter are worried, tense. I think Deirdre has some hold on Mother.”
She was a busybody, a meddler with a hobbyhorse. She was protecting her Walter, and she had more of her ruthless ancestors in her than she knew. It had simply been channeled in her into redemption instead of exploitation. That was not new, and a fanatic redeemer could be as deadly as any exploiter.
“What hold, Miss Radford?” I said. “If she killed Jonathan, I’d figure the hold to be the other way around.”
“Then why is Mother worried? Why would she protect Deirdre?”
The words hung there in the office, accusing her. She had trapped herself. She had started by insisting that Gertrude Radford’s actions proved that Deirdre Fallon had killed Jonathan, and now she was saying that Mrs. Radford’s actions were all wrong if Deirdre had killed Jonathan. She had accused her mother of defending a murderer, now she asked why her mother would defend a murderer.
“Yeh,” I said, “why? I don’t think she’d protect Miss Fallon if she thought Miss Fallon had killed anyone.”
I expected her to fold, but she didn’t. There was a great deal of the Radford steel in her. She sat and looked at me.
“Very well, perhaps Mother doesn’t know about Deirdre, but she knows something,” she said grimly. “Mother came to New York on Monday night, quite late and alone. Mother never goes into the city alone at night.”
“Monday? After the murder was discovered?”
“Yes. That night, of all nights, she would never have left the house without some urgent reason. She was waiting to hear again from Walter and George with the police.”
“How’d you find out? You didn’t mention it before.”
“I didn’t know until today. I told you I was watching Mother. I knew she had gone out that night, but I had assumed it was to visit some local friend. She hadn’t even dressed, just put her coat on over her housedress. But today I remembered that she had had a phone call just before she went out. I questioned MacLeod, the butler. He likes me; we think a lot alike. He said he had driven Mother to the eight-twenty train that night. He said she came home late by taxi.”
“Have you asked her about it?”
“No. She never mentioned going anywhere. She would only lie.”
“What kind of coat was she wearing?”
“Her mink. A red housedress.”
“All right,” I said, “anything else you’ve dug up?”
She shook her head. She stood up. But she didn’t move to go. “They’ll destroy him, Mr. Fortune. Deirdre will destroy Walter. I know it. I know that, somehow, she killed Jonathan, and she’ll destroy Walter.”
“She couldn’t have killed your uncle,” I said. “She had no reason, and she has an alibi. It’s impossible.”
“I don’t care about that. Somehow, she did it. I don’t know how. I don’t care about the facts. The facts are wrong.”
“Maybe they are,” I said. “Do you know a Carmine Costa? Misty Dawn? Maybe Paul Baron?”
“No.”
“All right. Keep in touch, okay?”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
I watched her go out, and let out a slow breath. Somewhere inside Morgana Radford was on the edge. Maybe it was only that she knew she would lose her last hope of having her Walter back once he married Deirdre Fallon. She was right about that. Deirdre Fallon would make Walter dance her tune, and Walter would love every minute of it. I didn’t think she was right about much else.
No, her conclusions from her watching didn’t hold water, but that did not mean that her observations were necessarily wrong. She had seen what she had seen, and I wanted to know where Gertrude Radford had gone on Monday night.
Then I heard the footsteps in the corridor. They were not Morgana Radford coming back. They were one man moving softly. I made it to the door on my toes and turned the lock. I listened. He was still at the far end of the corridor. (There is one big advantage to a creaky old building like mine-it creaks.) He could be stalking someone else, some other office, but “could” is not something to stake your health on.
I went to my file for my ancient cannon. It wasn’t there. I had left it in my apartment. I headed for the window. People who want to talk don’t creep up. At least, that’s a good rule to go by. I went out the window. If I was wrong, all I would do is look foolish later. Looking foolish is never fatal.
On the window ledge I did not look down. I knew what was down there-a narrow black shaft with no visible bottom. I knew what was above, too. When your work is digging into other men’s affairs, it pays to know how to get out by the window. Another advantage of an ancient building is that all kinds of braces, gingerbread, and ledges stick out of the outside walls.
I gripped an iron brace and hauled up to the middle window frame; caught hold of a deep crevice and hoisted to the slab ledge at the top of the window. From there I hooked my chin over another protruding iron brace and groped for the edge of the roof above. I got a good grip on a piece of gingerbread decoration, and pulled myself up until I could kneel on the iron brace. I wrapped my arm over the roof parapet, hauled, and flopped over the parapet into the snow of the roof.
Below, my office door crashed in. He would spot the open window. I ran for the next roof. I skipped the first three ways down from the roofs because the exits from those buildings were near the door of my building, and my visitor might not have come alone. I made the fourth roof before I heard him behind me. I went down through the fourth building and did not stop until I reached the bottom. I listened. He was still behind me up above. I went out into Eighth Avenue.
I had planned to blend into the crowd. There was no crowd. The wind had risen, the snow had thinned out, and it blew down the avenue that stretched empty like a deserted tundra. I ran right, dove down some steps into a narrow passage beneath the buildings, and ran through and up to the backyards behind my building. I looked for a weapon. All I could find was a pile of loose bricks. I grabbed one, flattened against the dark wall to the right of where the steps came up from the passage, and waited.
A minute passed. Then three. Slower than the slowest rocket countdown. Five minutes. Nothing moved anywhere. He was not coming. Ten minutes. I dropped the brick, climbed some fences, and went out through another cellar passage into Twenty-seventh Street. I flagged a cruising taxi.
20
After a time, the taxi driver looked back at me.
“Where to, buddy, or did you just come in to get warm?”
It was a good question. Where to? Misty Dawn? Garla Devine? It was well known by now that I was interested in both of those ladies.
“Grand Central,” I said.
The driver made a vicious turn uptown, and I sat back to think. Leo Zar? That was guess number one. Leo was looking for Carla Devine, and so was I. I knew he was, so he probably knew I was. It was not a pleasant guess, but the others were worse. If it had not been Leo chasing me, then I had no real idea who it had been. Ignorance is the big danger. It could have been anyone: Costa; one of the Radfords or a hired hand; maybe that unknown third man asking around about Carla Devine; or even one of Carla’s friends, maybe Ben Marno. It had to be about the Radford affair. I wasn’t worth killing, or at least maiming, for any other reason. I had no illusions about what my pursuer had had in mind. He had come softly, kicked in my door, and chased in silence.