The So Blue Marble (10 page)

    He grinned again. “More than one reason. Maybe to see how you were doing. No time to go into it now. Is the marble safe?”

    She whispered, “Yes,” and she shivered and looked beyond him at doors but none was opening. She leaned to him, “Why don’t you give it back? Why do you want to keep it? If you only knew…” She jumped at the buzzer’s sound.

    He nodded to her to answer. Hesitantly she went to the communicating phone. “Yes?” Then relief, ”Yes, Dr. Kane. The elevator is self-running. Button four.” She hung up, pushed the opening bell.

    He said, “I’ll get out of the way until he goes.”

    She held her hands tight at her side because she couldn’t let him go. “You’ll come back?”

    He laughed. “Your eyes are like saucers, angel. I won’t be out of earshot.”

    She heard the elevator and opened the door into the hall. Dr. Kane’s mustache was to disguise his young mouth, his sobriety, his young emotions. She said, “I am Griselda Satterlee. I called you. Professor Gigland is in his apartment.” Con had left the opposite door on the catch. She preceded the doctor.

    Gig was limp on the couch. She caught her breath, whispered, “Is he dead?’

    “No.” He worked over him a long time but Gig lay there, unresponsive. The doctor’s face puckered. “I’ve tried restoratives. I’ve tried everything. But nothing happens. It’s like an anaesthetic but that seems impossible. He mustn’t be left alone. Can you stay?”

    She couldn’t. “I scarcely know him. I couldn’t stay here.” She tried to explain just enough, that she had found him in the elevator. This wasn’t Inspector Tobin but better to get the story set now. If Gig, this Gig, died, she would be questioned. The very young doctor would be questioned.

    He decided. “I’ll call a nurse for tonight. In the morning with Dr. Slezak…” He took the phone.

    She was on edge. “Need I wait? I’d like to get to bed. I’m so tired.”

    “Of course.” His whole face apologized. “Sorry to keep you so long, Mrs. Satterlee.” He hesitated. “You don’t look well. You’re nervous. Would you take a sedative if I gave it to you?”

    She said no. Again she crossed to her own apartment, let herself in. She didn’t know where Con had gone. She sank on the couch, took up her drink. The back door was opening. Her throat was too dry to scream.

    It was Con re-entering and she began to weep without sounds. She heard him chain the door. He came over to her and there was surprise on his chin.”Don’t start that angel,” he said mildly. “We haven’t much time and I want you to talk.” He took her glass from her, went to the kitchen and returned with a fresh one for each. “I’d put you to bed but I’m afraid you’d pass out on me soon as you touched a pillow and I’ve got to know first what has you in such a frazzle.” He looked at his wrist. “It’s ten-thirty. I have to be out of here by midnight.”

    She had wanted him so, listening to his voice over the radio; she had thought that if only he were there, everything would be all right. If he’d only hold her hand as Gig-or whoever he was-did. But he was Con, sprawling back in his easy chair, one knee hooked over the arm. He was here, but the dreadful game must go on; he must be protected, not she; she couldn’t pass the burden to him. For that would be surrender and he didn’t want that. She couldn’t reach one finger out to him lest he think she was trying to get him back.

    She asked: “Do you know the Montefierrow twins?”

    “Good God! Have you met up with them?” He drank.

    She wanted to laugh and cry at his ignorance but she held her mouth taut. “Yes.”

    “Good God!” he repeated. He drank again. “They’re here?”

    She nodded

    “I haven’t seen a paper-except the
Times’
headlines.” He said, “I didn’t think they’d stick around here if they came. I thought they’d follow me. Believe me, I’d never have asked you to use the apartment if I’d thought you’d run into them. That’s fact, Griselda.” He meant it. He asked suddenly, “Anything on them?”

    She answered no. She hoped he wouldn’t think it was irrelevancy. “Mr. Grain, your superintendent, committed suicide.” She couldn’t mention tonight, not until it was in the papers. “They want the very blue marble. They say it belongs to them. Missy is with them.”

    “The kid sister.”

    “She’s grown up.”

    He remembered. “She saw the marble once. That’s how they’ve traced it to me.”

    “Why don’t you give it to them?”

    He spoke easily, “I don’t have it.”

    She began to shiver. “Con-please…”

    He patted her knee. “Listen, baby, I don’t want that marble for myself. You ought to know that. If I did, I’d have done something about it a long time ago. I wouldn’t have to be wearing my voice out plugging a border fracas now. I’d be Warbucks himself-or lying in a ditch with buzzard feathers in my hair.”

    She sat very still, too still. “It is valuable then.”

    He whistled. “Valuable!” and looked at her curiously. “You don’t know anything about it?”

    “How could I?”

    “I don’t know.” He laughed. “Only everyone seems to know. It’s been an underground yarn for years. I never quite believed it until the blue marble came to me.”

    “Send it back,” she urged.

    Again he hesitated. “I can’t. The guy who-sent it to me-got his. A knife in the…”

    He was going to say a word but he didn’t. She said, “Through his navel.”

    He eyed her, startled now. “Yeah. How did you know?”

    “I don’t know. I didn’t say that. I didn’t-”

    “Uh, huh.” He was looking at her panic, halfway through his eyes. Once he loved her. Once he couldn’t keep his hands away from her. Now he sat there looking at her as if she were a stranger. “Sure not,” he said.

    Her lip quivered and she covered it with her fist. “There must be someone you could give it to.”

    “Believe me, honey,” he was serious now, “I’d give it away in a minute if that’s all there was to it But it isn’t. I’m keeping it out of sight for a purpose-”

    Her eyelids tilted.

    “I haven’t time to spin much of a yarn,” he said, “and you’re better off if you don’t know too much. But the secret service is trying to round up-certain killers…”

    Breath hissed in her nostrils.

    His eyes narrowed. “A bunch that kill for the sport of it-or because they have to, maybe-but they kill, and they take what they want. Unfortunately they’ve wanted too many state secrets and sold them to the wrong parties. There’s been no proof to pin on them. But they want the blue marble now.” He shrugged. “If they don’t get it, maybe they’ll show their hands.”

    She didn’t stir. “You say, ‘they.’ You know who. The secret service knows?”

    “Yeah. The Montefierrow twins-and a yellow-haired doll that runs with them.”

    Chill was in her again.

    He said, “They’ve put a punk on me. Irish his name is, Irish Galvatti. Hasn’t the foggiest what it’s all about, except to keep me in sight. That’s why I was certain, they’d handle me themselves, not hang around New York.” He reassured her eyes. “Irish doesn’t bother me. I keep him drunk most of the time. He doesn’t move without orders. But he’s a killer too. I wonder about this fake Gig.”

    “He isn’t one of them.” She was sure of that “They’ve threatened him. And tonight…”

    “They did it?”

    “David did. He must have.”

    He drank. “You’ve got to play-act now, Griselda. Don’t let any of them guess you know anything.”

    If he only knew.

    “Don’t let this Gig suspect.”

    “Oh, no.” She wondered though.

    “I’ve got to get on my Gig’s trail. If they killed him-I’ll have the hunt started secretly.” He looked at his watch. “I might see Barjon.”

    “Are you working with Barjon Garth?” The fabulous head of the new X Division in Washington. The president’s right hand man. The greatest man-hunter the country had ever known.

    He drawled, “In a way.”

    ”Is that why you’re on the border?”

    “No. I’m there for N.B.C. But I’m not wasting time.” He looked at his watch again. “I think I’ll take off and make that Washington stop.” He stood on his feet and she stood in front of him, steadying herself with her legs pressed against the couch.

    “You’re not in any danger, Griselda?”

    “No. Oh, no.” If he thought she were he might come back into this horror. Not because it was she; he’d do it for any defenseless person.

    He hesitated. “If I thought you were, I’d do something despite my situation. I’d do it anyway only my hands are sort of tied. You see, I’m taking orders from the X these days.” He repeated, “The less you know the better, but this much: I’ve known Garth for some time-interviews and what not. When he learned that I held two aces, the marble, and my relationship-previous relationship-with Missy Cameron, he asked me to help out I have to let him run the game, you understand.”

    She did. She could even smile, lie. “Don’t worry about me. I’m all right. They don’t want me.”

    “Good girl.” He went to the back door; she followed him like a squaw. “Better get to bed, babe, before you pass out on the floor.” He patted her head, let his hand rest a moment there, then jerked it away. “So long.”

    “Con.. But there was nothing more to say, nothing she could say.

    He unchained the door, turned the bolts, and went out into that horrible dark passageway. She didn’t watch him disappear. She rebolted, rechained the door, tore away her clothes, and cowered in bed. She left the lights in both rooms burning.

    

    

    

    She hadn’t slept at all, or she had slept for a thousand years, when the banging began. Then someone was calling, “Miss Satterlee, ma’am, Miss Satterlee. It’s me. It’s Bette, ma’am.” She opened her eyes slowly as if she were in a strange world. “It’s me. It’s Bette.”

    “All right, Bette,” she called. She turned off the bedroom lights, switched off one living room lamp as she went to the door. Bette had it open on the chain. The maid wasn’t alone. There was Tobin’s face over her head.

    Griselda closed the door, unchained it, opened it again. She didn’t care. At least Tobin was safety. She could listen to him even if she were too tired to talk. Moore was there too. He took off his cap and Tobin said, “Good-morning, Miss Satterlee. Sorry to bother you again so early.”

    Bette explained, “They were at the door, Miss. I couldn’t get in with my key.”

    She smiled faintly. “No, I put chains on. I feel safer, being here alone.” She moved to the couch and pulled off that floor light. The two glasses, hers and Con’s, she handed to Bette wordlessly. She didn’t explain either action. She sat on the couch. Moore went over to the window again, opened it and leaned out, looking at nothing. Inspector Tobin sat in the chair where Con had been.

    He said, “Guess you wonder why we’re bothering you again.”

    She didn’t answer. Words took more energy than she possessed.”You see, the doc isn’t so sure it was suicide.” She let her eyebrows speak.

    “No, not so sure. Seems Grain was knifed before he was shot. And there would have been a lot of blood somewhere. Wherever it happened.” He waited for her to say something but she didn’t. “He was shot down there, but he was already dead, carried down there dead, whoever put the knife in him…”

    Moore called over. “A thin knife it was. Maybe a stiletto-or a rapier. The bullet was to cover up the marks. But a way inside their paths didn’t go the same way. The doc says he’d have bled like a stuck pig where it happened.”

    She knew what they were doing. Piling on horrors to make her talk. They didn’t know that violence could arouse no emotion in her. There was none left. She stated, “They know all that?” added, “by medical examination?”

    Tobin said, “Yeah,” just the way Con had said it last night.

    Bette brought the breakfast tray, asked, “Shall I start in the bedroom?” Griselda nodded assent.

    Tobin looked at his thumb-nail. “You sure you didn’t see Grain Friday?”

    She was put together more compactly now. She could smile. “You don’t think I knifed him?”

    He pushed his hat back. “No, we don’t. But maybe it happened in here.”

    She looked at the rugs. They didn’t know about the small one. Not unless Bette had told them. Had they questioned Bette? She was careful. “I told you the truth. I dined at my sister’s. After I came home, friends dropped in. I told you who. If he’d been killed here wouldn’t there have been blood?”

    Tobin said, “Quarts of it.”

    Moore nodded. “That’s what we’re telling you. We were wondering if maybe we could take the rugs down to the lab-for testing.”

    She could smile. “I suppose you could. They’re Con’s not mine. Would it take long? A place is so barren without rugs. That small one,” she pointed to it, better tell them, “was cleaned Saturday. One of the boys spilled a drink on it, and it stained. He had it cleaned.”

    “You know where?”

    “I don’t.” She called, “Bette. Do you remember what cleaner returned the rug?”

    The woman brought in her unsurprised face. “No, Miss Satterlee. A messenger brought the things. There wasn’t any tag.”

    Would they notice the plural? They would. They noticed everything.

    The doorbell rang. She was rigid. No one spoke. Bette and the carpet sweeper opened the door. It was Gig walking in, shyly, hesitantly.

    “Gig!” Griselda clattered her cup and crossed to him. “You’re all right?” She took his arms, held him off to look at.

    He was sheepish. “Yes, I am. I couldn’t understand why that nurse was there with me when I woke up. She says I’d been out all night.” He didn’t notice the others until then.