“He went over there right away. Then he went home for a few hours and went back this morning. He called me about an hour ago. She's on the critical list.” She sat down heavily, little grace apparent in the plump body. “Did you see her?”
He nodded. “You don't want to bear about it,” he said gruffly.
“She was-oh, I don't know-” Gloria Philips ran her palms up over her arms as though suddenly cold. “It makes you wonder if any of us knew what we were getting into in this thing.”
“Specifically, which thing?” Johnny asked her. “Oh, run along,” she said tiredly. “Yap, yap, yap, that's all I hear. Poke a little, pry a little, prod a little. Watch the animals squirm. All I've wanted all along-” She checked herself. “Yeah?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I'm not going to tell you what I've wanted all along. But I'm not going to get it. I feel that I'm not. I feel-oh, run along,” she repeated. “I mean it. I'm not fit to talk to anyone today.”
He moved toward the door. “Harry still at the hospital?” “I guess.”
He left her sitting slumped and hollow-eyed. Enough to shake any woman, when she hears it, he thought on his way to the street. That their incorporated capital can be blown in three bloody minutes.
All the uptown cabs were full. He had to cross the street and hail one going the other way. “Hotel Alden,” Johnny said, and successfully fielded the driver's indignant stare. He settled down for the long ride.
The first person he saw in the lobby of the Alden was Harry Palmer. Striding along with his chin in the lead, the aggressive-looking little man was headed for the elevators.
“Harry!” Johnny called.
Palmer looked startled as he turned a step or two away from a waiting elevator. “You following me?” he snapped.
“Wouldn't dream of it. What's on your mind upstairs?”
“Not a damn thing you can handle. Butt out, Killain.” Palmer stepped aboard the elevator, and Johnny followed right behind. The little man's voice rose. “I said-”
“I heard what you said. Relax.”
“Killain, I'll-” The elevator doors opened, and Palmer stepped off, again followed by Johnny. Palmer glared. “If you aren't the damnedest buttinsky I ever-”
Johnny waited only until the clash of the elevator's doors behind him signaled its departure. He took Harry Palmer by an arm and turned him, took him by the collar of his suit coat and marched him on tiptoe to the wall. Holding him aloft until only the tips of his toes touched, Johnny began a swift-patting manual examination. “Don't kick,” he advised soothingly. “You'll just take all the polish off your shoes on the wall. Ahh-” He removed a blue-steel revolver from inside Palmer's belt. “All you gunmen, Harry, and I haven't found a shoulder holster in the crowd. Don't you read up on what the well-dressed goons are wearin' these days?”
“Give me that damn gun back, Killain,” Palmer stormed when Johnny released him.
“You gonna plug him with me standin' right there, Harry? Then you'd have to plug me. Which'd make it a little silly of me to give you back the gun, right?”
Without another word Palmer plunged off up the corridor. He had to knock three times at Tremaine's door before anything happened. When it opened Jules Tremaine stood in the door and stared out at them irresolutely. The Frenchman was badly in need of a shave, and his eyes were bloodshot. “What d'you two birds of ill omen want?” he asked thickly. “In, I suppose,” he answered his own question, and walked back inside as though it were a matter of indifference to him whether they followed or not. When Johnny got inside Jules Tremaine was pouring himself half a water glass of Armagnac from a bottle two-thirds empty.
“Goddammit, Tremaine, I want to talk to you,” Harry Palmer bristled.
“Unfortunately I hear you.” Tremaine raised his glass and swallowed three times rapidly. He bowed exaggeratedly when he found Johnny's eyes upon him. “Sacrilegious, I know, to gulp in such a manner, but circumstances alter cases.”
Not drunk, Johnny decided, but not far from it, either. The room could have used a good cleaning. It appeared different to him from the last time he had been there, and he suddenly realized why. The large short wave radio and the table upon which it stood were both gone. “What happened to your radio, Tremaine?” he asked the Frenchman.
Harry Palmer cut in, angrily malicious. “After so many years a man can get tired of his hobby of listening to the short wave marine band, you know.”
Johnny looked at him. “So what's with the marine band?”
“Don't be naive, Killain. In certain lines of business it pays a man to know on which tide a certain ship is going to dock, even at what hour. If he knew that he might know, not only specific workmen unloading freight, but the customs crew checking it in.”
“You've got a lot to say, Harry,” Tremaine said from the sofa upon which he'd seated himself. He didn't appear particularly concerned. Glass in hand, he leaned back and closed his eyes.
“I'll have a damn sight more to say, you murdering bastard!” the little man flared. “I'm going-”
“Murdering?” Johnny interrupted. “Madeleine Winters died?”
“No, no,” Palmer said impatiently. “Although she still could. It's Jack Arends he killed. There's no-”
“Harry-”
“Shut up, you!” Palmer's complexion was mottled from the violence of his emotion. “For that matter, Madeleine might have been better off if you had killed her. The doctors say there's a serious question as to what her mental condition will be. If she recovers at all.”
Jules Tremaine re-opened his eyes, which had remained closed. “I didn't lay a finger on Madeleine, Harry,” he said softly. “I have an alibi.” He smiled. “Attested to by the police.”
“I don't believe y-” Harry Palmer swung to Johnny. “I don't believe him. He hated her. He'd said time and time again he'd get her.”
“True,” the Frenchman said unruffledly. He raised his glass and drank from it, his bloodshot eyes on the little man. “But someone saved me the trouble. And through a most fortunate circumstance I have an alibi. I very nearly didn't.”
“You weren't here,” Johnny inserted.
“I wasn't,” Tremaine agreed. His glance that had difficulty in focusing moved over to Johnny speculatively. “Although I don't know how you knew. I was-disturbed, last evening. Upset, if you like. I am given to moods. I have a-treatment for them. Early in the evening I repaired to a little place I know where the bartender is an artist in the preparation of that much neglected drink, the French Seventy-five.” He smiled at Johnny, not quite vacuously despite the clouded eyes. “You're familiar with the drink? Champagne over a cognac base? Terrific morale builder. I had-several, after which I decided a spot of visiting was in order. I've no idea, actually, how long my stay lasted, but upon my departure-”
“Who'd you go to see?” Johnny drilled at him.
“A friend.” Tremaine took a long, meditative pull at his glass. “Yes, I believe that covers it. A friend. As I say, I'm not clear as to my departure time. For some reason, also unclear to me at the moment, it had been decided that despite the hour I was to drive up to the Bronx and deliver a package. Really a most inconsequential package.”
He waved his hand, nearly dropping his glass. “I actually started, before it occurred to me that I could accomplish the same thing far more conveniently today by messenger. Having arrived at this brilliant conclusion, I drove back to my bartender and more French Seventy-fives. Magnificent drink, really. It was latish when I got in downstairs to find that damnably narky Rogers waiting in the lobby. You will agree, gentlemen, that if I'd made the trip to the Bronx I'd have been unable to take Rogers to my bartender friend who assured him of my presence at the critical time? In my relief I insisted that Rogers have a French Seventy-five. I'm afraid his palate needs cultivating.”