“He was framed, Gert. That’s why we’re here. To find out who really killed Madeleine Porlock.”
“If we knew,” Arthur Blinn said, “believe me, we’d tell you. But what do we know?”
“You lived in the same building with her. You must have known something about her.”
The Blinns looked at each other and gave simultaneous little shrugs. “She wasn’t directly under us,” Gert explained. “So we wouldn’t know if she had loud parties or played music all night or anything like that.”
“Like Mr. Mboka,” Artie said.
“In 3-C,” Gert said. “He’s African, you see, and he works at the U.N. Somebody said he was a translator.”
“Plays the drums,” Artie said.
“We don’t know that, Artie. He either plays the drums or he plays recordings of drums.”
“Same difference.”
“But we haven’t spoken to him about it because we thought it might be religious and we didn’t want to interfere.”
“Plus Gert here thinks he’s a cannibal and she’s afraid to speak to him.”
“I don’t think he’s a cannibal,” Gert protested. “Who ever said I thought he was a cannibal?”
I cleared my throat. “Maybe the two of you could talk to Carolyn about Miss Porlock,” I suggested. “And if I could, uh, be excused for a few moments.”
“You want to use the bathroom?”
“The fire escape.”
Blinn furrowed his brow at me, then relaxed his features and nodded energetically. “Oh, right,” he said. “For a minute there I thought-But to hell with what I thought. The fire escape. Sure. Right through to the bedroom. But you know the way, don’t you? You were here yesterday. It’s spooky, you know? The idea of someone else being in your apartment. Of course, it’s not so spooky now that we know you, you and Carolyn here. But when we first found out about it, well, you can imagine.”
“It must have been upsetting.”
“That’s exactly what it was. Upsetting. Gert called the super about the pane of glass, but it’s like pulling teeth to get him to do anything around here. Generally he gets more responsive right before Christmas, so maybe we’ll get some action soon. Meanwhile I taped up a shirt cardboard so the wind and rain won’t come in.”
“I’m sorry I had to break the window.”
“Listen, these things happen.”
I unlocked the window, raised it, stepped out onto the fire escape. The rain had stepped up a little and it was cold and windy out there. Behind me, Blinn drew the window shut again. He was reaching to lock it when I extended a finger and tapped on the glass. He caught himself, left the window unlocked, and smiled and shook his head at his absent-mindedness. He went off chuckling to himself while I headed down a flight of steel steps.
This time I was properly equipped. I had my glass cutter and a roll of adhesive tape, and I used them to remove a pane from the Porlock window swiftly and silently. I turned the catch, raised the window, and let myself in.
“That’s what I was talking about before,” Gert said “Listen. Can you hear it?”
“The drumming.”
She nodded. “That’s Mboka. Now, is that him drumming or is it a record? Because I can’t tell.”
“He was doing it while you were downstairs,” Carolyn said. “Personally I think it’s him drumming.”
I said I couldn’t tell, and that I’d been unable to hear him from the Porlock apartment.
“You never hear anything through the walls,” Artie said. “Just through the floors and ceilings. It’s a solid building as far as the walls are concerned.”
“I don’t mind the drumming most of the time,” Gert said. “I’ll play music and the drumming sort of fits in with it. It’s in the middle of the night that it gets me, but I don’t like to complain.”
“She figures it’s the middle of the afternoon in Africa.”
We had a hard time getting out of there. They kept giving us shortbread and coffee and asking sincere little questions about the ins and outs of burglary. Finally we managed to fight our way to the door. We said our goodbyes all around, and then Gert hung back a little while Artie caught at my sleeve in the doorway.
“Say, Bernie,” he said, “we all squared away now?”
“Sure thing, Artie.”
“As far as the insurance company’s concerned…”
“Don’t worry about a thing. The coat, the watch, the other stuff. I’ll back your claim.”
“That’s a relief,” he said. “I must have been crazy, putting in that claim, but I’d look like a horse’s ass changing it now, and why did we pay premiums all those years anyway, right?”
“Right, Artie.”
“The thing is, I hate to mention this, but while you were downstairs Gert was wondering about the bracelet.”
“How’s that, Artie?”
“The bracelet you took. It was Gert’s. I don’t think it’s worth much.”
“A couple of hundred.”
“That much? I would have said less. It belonged to her mother. The thing is, I wondered what’s the chance of getting it back?”
“Oh,” I said. “I see what you mean. Well, Artie, I’m kind of pressed right now.”
“I can imagine.”
“But when things are back to normal, I’m sure we can work something out.”
He clapped me on the shoulder. “That’s terrific,” he said. “Listen, take all the time you need. There’s no rush.”
CHAPTER Twelve
The Pontiac, untowed and unticketed, waited for us at the bus stop. The suitcase huddled undisturbed on the floor in back. All of this surprised Carolyn, but I’d expected nothing less. There was something about that car that inspired confidence.
On the way downtown I learned what Gert Blinn had told her. While I was a floor below in Madeleine Porlock’s apartment, Gert had maneuvered Carolyn into the kitchen, presumably to copy down a recipe but actually to dish a little dirt. The late Madeleine Porlock, she’d confided, was no better than she should be.
“Gert was vague,” Carolyn said. “I don’t know that Porlock was a hooker exactly, but I got the impression that her life tended to revolve around men. Whenever Gert met her on the stairs she was with some man or other, and I gather that’s how her rent got paid.”
“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Well, it surprises me,” she said. “I never saw Porlock, but the way you described her she was the furthest thing from slinky. The woman you were talking about sounded like she could play the mean matron in all the old prison movies.”
“That’s on a bad day. On a good day she could have played the nurse in Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Uh-huh. Bern, I admit I don’t know what men go for, because it’s never been a burning issue with me, but she doesn’t sound the type to get her rent paid.”
“You didn’t go through her drawers and closets.”
“Oh?”
A cab stopped abruptly in front of us. I swung the wheel to the right and slipped neatly around it. No question, I thought. The Pontiac and I were made for each other.
“Lots of sexy underwear,” I said.
“Oh?”
“Wispy things. Scarlet gauze and black lace. Peekaboo bras.”
“Men really go for that crap, huh?”
“So it would seem. Then there were a few garter belts, and a couple of tight corsets that you’d have to be a graduate engineer to figure out.”
“Tight corsets?”
“A couple of pairs of boots with six-inch stiletto heels. Lots of leather stuff, including those cunning wrist and ankle bracelets decorated with metal studs.”
“A subtle pattern begins to emerge.”
“Doesn’t it? And I haven’t even mentioned the small but tasteful wardrobe in skintight black latex or the nifty collection of whips and chains. Or the whole dresser drawer full of gadgets which we might euphemistically designate as marital aids.”
She twirled an imaginary mustache. “This Porlock creature,” she said, “was into kink.”
“A veritable mistress of kink,” I said. “It was beginning to get to me, prowling around in all that weirdness.”