The Murder of a Fifth Columnist (17 page)

I heard myself saying something, I don’t remember now what, and I managed to get the door open and get out into the center room. I caught hold of the glass table to steady myself, my knees suddenly as weak and unstable as water. Ruth Sherwood’s voice came through the door, sharp and taut and abrupt.

“You lied to me! You promised you wouldn’t let them use his name! You lied!”

“And you, my dear lady—you also lied,” Kurt Hofmann said calmly. “Why did you do it? I wonder that you dared, my friend.”

I will really never know how I got back to my apartment without the elevator boy or somebody reporting me to St. Elizabeth’s. But I did, and I got inside and bolted the door and raced madly for the telephone. I wasn’t aware of the Grand Rapids Queen Anne or the dancing nymphs and Rheims facade that better-class hotels go in for. All that was in that room with me was Lady Alicia’s face bent back over the chair, and Kurt Hofmann’s smile in the mirror top of the console table in Ruth Sherwood’s hall, and those letters curling up in flames and dying in black flakes of carbon up the chimney. They swirled around me like a horror scene in the movies.

I clicked the telephone rod up and down frantically.

“I’m sorry, madam, Miss Peek’s apartment doesn’t answer,” the operator said patiently. “Do you want me to keep on ringing?”

“No, no!” I said. “See if you can get me Michigan 3084.”

Maybe Colonel Primrose would have gone home. And I had to get him. I’d never thought the time would come when if I didn’t get him I’d be almost out of my mind. I could hear the phone ring at the other end, and ring again and again before a frail and incredibly ancient voice said, “This is Colonel Primrose’s residence.”

“Lafayette,” I said. “This is Mrs. Latham. Is the Colonel there, or Sergeant Buck?”

I knew of course that neither of them was, or Lafayette wouldn’t be answering the phone.

“No, miss, neither of them has come in yet. I’ll tell them you called, miss, when they come, if they do come before I go to bed.”

There was no use in my leaving a message, for Lafayette told me a long time ago that he neither reads nor writes.

“Listen, Lafayette,” I said urgently. “You must stay up until they come, and tell them to call me. It’s dreadfully important. Do you understand?”

“Yes, miss, I do.”

I put down the phone. The idea of trying to get Lamb presented itself to me, and I rejected it. I sat there trying to think where else I might reach the Colonel. Then the possibility of that florist’s box at Lady Alicia’s occurred to me. I asked the operator for the shop.

“This is Mrs. Latham in 306,” I said. “I wonder if you’d help me. Colonel Primrose was inquiring about some roses a little while ago. Could you tell me-?”

The girl cut me off in the middle of the sentence.

“Didn’t I put the card in the box, Mrs. Latham? It was that South American gentleman. He’s a guest in the hotel. They’re the only ones I’ve sold today, except the ones Mrs. Wharton and the Congressman bought. They took theirs out with them, and—”

“Thanks,” I said, cutting her off too. I let the bar up again, said, “Mrs. Wharton’s apartment, please,” and waited as patiently as I could. I was on the point of hanging up when Effie Wharton’s voice said “Hello.” It sounded strained, and immediate, as if she’d been there all the time but hadn’t at first dared to pick up the receiver.

“This is Grace Latham, Mrs. Wharton,” I said.

She didn’t answer—just waited for me to go on.

“Is Colonel Primrose there, by any chance?”

“What makes you think he’d be here, Mrs. Latham?”

She almost snapped it at me.

“I just thought he might be,” I said.

“Well, as a matter of fact, he was.”

I knew she’d had her hand over the mouthpiece and had been whispering to someone standing there beside her. I could hear the tail-end of a man’s voice as she turned back to speak to me.

“—He left about fifteen minutes ago. She was perfectly all right when Sam and I left her—we couldn’t tell him a thing. It’s simply incredible. There must be some mistake. Why should he have come to us of all people?”

“Oh, I’m sure he didn’t—”

“Well, I should hope
not,
Mrs. Latham,” Effie said acidly, and I could have bitten my tongue off. “You’ll be interested to know,” she went on, “that Sam has a wonderful offer to go to South America on a lecture tour. Your newspaper friends will be very much interested in it. Mr. Hofmann is making the arrangements. The friend who’s backing his work in this country is anxious for my husband to make the trip. They’re just as interested in staying out of war down there as we are. Mr. Hofmann was so pleased. We’re going down together. It’s such a
splendid
opportunity.”

“Is Sam pleased?” I asked.

She gave a funny sort of laugh, as if Sam had jolly well better be pleased or else.

“As a matter of fact, Mrs. Latham,” she said, very complacently, “I’ve just this moment told him. Of course, he’s simply delighted. Nobody realizes better than Sam does the fallacy of our present economic policy in South America. Anything that can be done to make people understand has his most vigorous support.”

I knew all about that already. What she meant, of course, was that anything to keep her from going back to her home town had her most vigorous support. That was so obvious that she didn’t really need to add the next.

“—Do tell Mr. Villiers when you see him that I’m sorry to disappoint him. I shall continue my Spanish and leave bingo parties for people like him.”

“I’ll be glad to,” I said.

I put down the phone and sat there, thinking how appalled poor Sam would be when he found Kurt Hofmann wasn’t going to South America. Not right away, at any rate—not if I could get hold of Colonel Primrose. I tried to think where else I could find him, and finally I picked up the phone book, turned to the “H’s” and called Pete’s number. “Hello.”

His voice was abrupt and belligerent, as if I’d interrupted him in the middle of something important.

“This is Grace, Pete,” I said.

“I’m busy, Grace,” he said shortly. “A great light is just beginning to dawn. What is it you want?”

“I want Colonel Primrose,” I said. “Have you seen him? I’ve got to find him.”

There was a silence at the other end.

“What for, and I’ll tell you,” he answered coolly.

“It hasn’t anything to do with you,” I said. “And I can’t tell you anyway. Where is he, Pete?”

“Wait a minute, sister,” he said evenly. “What goes on here?”

“Nothing, Pete. It’s just something I’ve found out that he ought to know as soon as possible.”

There was a silence again. “Look here,” he said. “Is it— has it anything to do with ‘Truth Not Fiction’?”

“No,” I answered. “It hasn’t.”

“Sure of that?”

“Of course. It’s something else entirely. But I can’t tell you—honestly I can’t. Anyway, I should think you’d be delighted if it was.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said bitterly. “In fact, it’s me that writes it, Grace.”

“What are you talking about!” I demanded sharply. “Have you lost your mind?”

“No,” he said, very sardonically. “I’ve just found it. One thing more.—Is it about Sylvia you want to see the Colonel?”

The silence was at my end of the phone this time. I couldn’t believe my ears. If it hadn’t been for the catch in his voice before he said her name I’d have been sure I’d imagined it.

“Of course not,” I said unsteadily. “What makes you say that?”

“Forget it, then. Primrose was here. He left about four minutes ago. He’s gone over to your house to see Bliss Thatcher. He was stopping somewhere on his way, but he ought to be there pretty soon.”

“Oh,” I said.

“What’s the matter, Grace?” he demanded. “You sound as if you had a first-rate case of the jitters.”

“I have, I guess. I’m scared out of my wits, to tell you the truth.”

“Look—do you want me to come over and take you to find him?”

“I’d love it,” I said. “I’ll be downstairs. Hurry, won’t you?”

“Right,” he said.

The phone rang just as I’d put it down. I picked it up quickly. Colonel Primrose might have stopped by his home on his way to my house to see Mr. Thatcher.

“Hello,” I said.

“—Mrs. Latham?”

My heart froze in the pit of my stomach. It was Kurt Hofmann.

“Are you alone?” he said. His voice over the line was formal and pleasant. “I wonder if I might come up and see you a few moments? I really think you deserve some kind of an explanation, you know.”

The red warning light inside me flashed on and off and on and off. I tried desperately to keep my voice calm and matter-of-fact. Lady Alicia’s staring eyes were there in front of me, burning into mine.

“I’m so
sorry,”
I said. “There are a lot of people here, and we’re just going out. Couldn’t you come tomorrow?”

“Thank you so much. I’ll be happy to. Or perhaps later, when you come in, you might give me a ring?”

“Of course,” I said, pleasantly. “If I’m not too late I’ll be glad to.”

“Splendid,” Kurt Hofmann said. “And may I count on your heart being as lovely as your face, madame? Will you not mention our little drama until I have had a chance to tell you my side of a rather romantic story?”

My heart was beating like a trip hammer.

“And would you like me to keep our proposed rendezvous a secret too, Mr. Hofmann?” I managed to ask demurely.

“You are as discreet as you are charming, Mrs. Latham. It is a rare gift in a woman.”

As I put the phone down my hand shook as if I were in the last stages of jungle fever. I grabbed my hat and coat, and if the fire had already spread to the living-room door I couldn’t have got out of that place quicker than I did. I thought the elevator would never come. When it did the boy looked at me seriously.

“Do you feel all right, Mrs. Latham?”

“Oh, fine, thanks,” I said. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was as white as a ghost and I looked quite as scared as I was.

I got out on the main floor and hurried along the arcade to the big lobby. Larry Villiers was there, talking to a dowager in wild mink and diamonds. He excused himself rudely when he saw me.

“Hello,” he said.

He stared at me oddly. “What’s the matter? Alicia’s ghost stalking? That’s the most ghastly thing I’ve ever heard of in my life. She was really a pet, you know. Zany as they come, but a real aristocrat.”

I nodded mechanically. I didn’t want to talk about Lady Alicia, not to Larry, and Pete hadn’t had time to get there yet.

“I’ve got a message for you,” I said, remembering it. “From Effie Wharton. She’s got Sam a job. Mr. Hofmann’s backers are financing a lecture tour South of the Border.”

His brows raised. “You don’t tell me,” he said. Then he said, “Well, I’ll be damned. Is Sam going?”

“That’s what she said.”

“I’ll bet a hundred dollars he doesn’t.”

He hesitated an instant, looking at me queerly.

“Sam’s going back home. He didn’t want to come here in the first place. He only did it to please Effie and because the governor appointed him. He wouldn’t ever have come back if she hadn’t told him he was afraid he wouldn’t be elected and the people needed him. Sam likes it back home. He’s one of the people that never had their head turned by being a public figure.”

“I think he’s swell,” I said. “And he deserves some peace and quiet.”

Just then a bellboy came up. “Mr. Hamilton is outside, Mrs. Latham.”

Larry’s eyebrows raised again.

“Beating Sylvia’s time, Mrs. Latham?” he inquired coolly. “And what’s happened there, by the way?”

“Weren’t you pleased?” I asked. “I was.”

“No, I wasn’t,” he said. “If he was too busy, he could take time anyway to call her up and tell her he wasn’t coming. It doesn’t take as long as it does to send a telegram.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded, staring blankly at him.

“He’s out there—ask him.”

I went on out.

“I got here as quick as I could,” Pete said.

In the bright light over the portico he looked haggard, as if he’d been through a private hell all his own and wasn’t by any means clear of it yet. I got in his car.

“What’s the matter, Pete?” I asked when he turned off Calvert Street into the park.

“Nothing. Why?”

“Has anything happened to you and Sylvia?”

His eyes were fixed straight ahead of him. “Did she say so?”

“I haven’t seen her. Larry seemed to think you’ve been pretty rough on her.”

He didn’t say anything until he slowed down to go under the arch of the new bridge they’re building on Massachusetts Avenue.

“Let’s skip it, shall we?” he remarked.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were in love with her. And she’s been in love with you so long that… oh, well, it’s none of my business.”

“What do you mean, she’s been in love with me for so long?” he said shortly. “I’m the one that’s been in love with her, only I wasn’t smart enough to know it. I thought the reason I was always getting sore at her was because I had— ideals, I suppose… about the job, and all that. It was just because I was in love with her, and thought she was hunting a rich husband.”

“Didn’t you know this morning that that wasn’t fair?”

“I thought I did,” he said bitterly.

“Pete!” I said. “What on earth’s happened to you?”

He stopped the car by the side of the road.

“I’ve got to tell somebody this, or I’ll get drunk and God knows what I’d do. Do you tell that retired beau of yours everything you hear?”

“If you mean Colonel Primrose, the answer is no,” I said.

“Well, I’ll tell you something. Keep it to yourself, and don’t be surprised at anything you hear. There’s nobody else I
can
tell.”

“Go on, then.”

He sat there hunched down over the wheel, grim and bitter, and with something else in his face that I didn’t know how to describe. I felt horribly sorry for him.

“I told you I wrote ‘Truth Not Fiction,’ ” he said evenly. “Well, that’s right. I do.”

“I suppose you’ll explain,” I said.

“That’s what I’m doing.—I take it you’ve heard I’ve been collecting stuff for a contemporary history of Washington?”