Shelby added gravely, “was one of the finest things about her.”
“Anyone who had troubles came to her,” Aunt Sue declaimed, quite in the manner of the immortal Bernhardt. “I warned her more than once. It’s when you put yourself out for people that you find yourself in trouble. Don’t you think that’s true, Mr. McPherson?”
“I don’t know. I’ve probably not put myself out for enough people.” The posturing offended him; he had become curt.
His annoyance failed to check the lady’s histrionic aspirations. “‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft buried with their bones,’” she misquoted, and giggling lightly, added, “although her poor bones aren’t buried yet. But we must be truthful, even about the dead. It wasn’t money principally with Laura, it was people, if you know what I mean. She was always running around, doing favors, wasting her time and strength on people she scarcely knew. Remember that model, Shelby, the girl with the fancy name? Laura got me to give her my leopard coat. It wasn’t half worn out either. I could have got another winter out of it and spared my mink. Don’t you remember, Shelby?”
Shelby had become infatuated with a bronze Diana who had been threatening for years to leap, with dog and stag, from her pedestal.
Auntie Sue continued naughtily: “And Shelby’s job! Do you know how he got it, Mr. McPherson? He’d been selling washing machines—or was it casings for frankfurters, darling? Or was that the time when you earned thirty dollars a week writing letters for a school that taught people to be successful business executives?”
Shelby turned defiantly from Diana. “What’s that to be ashamed of? When I met Laura, Mr. McPherson, I happened to be working as correspondent for the University of the Science of Finance. Laura saw some of my copy, realized that I was wasting a certain gift or flair, and with her usual generosity . . .”
“Generosity wasn’t the half of it,” Auntie Sue interrupted.
“She spoke to Mr. Rowe about me and a few months later, when there was a vacancy, he called me in. You can’t say I’ve been ungrateful”—he forgave Mrs. Treadwell with his gentle smile. “It was she, not I, who suggested that you forget it.”
“Mustn’t be vicious, dear. You’ll be giving Mr. McPherson a lot of misleading ideas.” With the tenderness of a nurse Shelby rearranged Auntie Sue’s cushions, smiling and treating her malice like some secret malady.
The scene took on a theatric quality. Mark saw Shelby through the woman’s eyes, clothed in the charm he had donned, like a bright domino, for the woman’s pleasure. The ripe color, the chiseled features, the clear, long-lashed eyes had been created, his manner said, for her particular enjoyment. Through it all Mark felt that this was not a new exhibition. He had seen it somewhere before. So irritated by faltering memory that he had to strain harshness from his voice, he told them he was through with them for the day, and rose to go.
Shelby rose, too. “I’ll go out for a bit of air. If you think you can get along without me for a while.”
“Of course, darling. It’s been wicked of me to take up so much of your time.” Shelby’s feeble sarcasm had softened the lady. White, faded, ruby-tipped hands rested on his dark sleeve. “I’ll never forget how kind you’ve been.”
Shelby forgave magnanimously. He put himself at her disposal as if he were already Laura’s husband, the man of the family whose duty it was to serve a sorrowing woman in this hour of grief.
Like a penitent mistress returning to her lover, she cooed at Shelby. “With all your faults, you’ve got manners, darling. That’s more than most men have nowadays. I’m sorry I’ve been so bad-tempered.”
He kissed her forehead.
As they left the house, Shelby turned to Mark. “Don’t take Mrs. Treadwell too seriously. Her bark is worse than her bite. It’s only that she’d disapproved of my marrying her niece, and now she’s got to stand by her opinions.”
“What she disapproved of,” Mark observed, “was Laura’s marrying you.”
Shelby smiled ruefully. “We ought all to be a little more decent now, oughtn’t we? After all! Probably Auntie Sue is sorry she hurt poor Laura by constantly criticizing me, and now she’s too proud to say so. That’s why she had to take it out on me this morning.”
They stood in the burning sunlight. Both were anxious to get away, yet both hesitated. The scene was unfinished, Mark had not learned enough, Shelby had not told all he wanted Mark to know.
When, after a brief pause devoted to a final struggle with his limping memory, Mark cleared his throat, Shelby started as if he had been roused from the remoteness of a dream. Both smiled mechanically.
“Tell me,” Mark commanded, “where have I seen you before?”
Shelby couldn’t imagine. “But I’ve been around. Parties and all that. One sees people at bars and restaurants. Sometimes a stranger’s face is more familiar than your best friend’s.”
Mark shook his head. “Cocktail bars aren’t in my line.”
“You’ll remember when you’re thinking of something else. That’s how it always is.” Then, without changing his tone, Shelby added, “You know, Mr. McPherson, that I was beneficiary of Laura’s insurance, don’t you?”
Mark nodded.
“I wanted to tell you myself. Otherwise you might think . . . well . . . it’s only natural in your work to—” Shelby chose the word tactfully “—suspect every motive. Laura carried an annuity, you know, and there was a twenty-five-thousand-dollar death benefit. She’d had it in her sister’s name, but after we decided to get married she insisted upon making it out to me.”
“I’ll remember that you told me,” Mark promised.
Shelby offered his hand. Mark took it. They hesitated while the sun smote their uncovered heads.
“I hope you don’t think I’m completely a heel, Mr. McPherson,” Shelby said ruefully. “I never liked borrowing from a woman.”
Chapter 4
When, at precisely twelve minutes past four by the ormolu clock on my mantel, the telephone interrupted, I was deep in the Sunday papers. Laura had become a Manhattan legend. Scarlet-minded headline artists had named her tragedy The Bachelor Girl Murder and one example of Sunday edition belles-lettres was tantalizingly titled Seek Romeo in East Side Love-Killing. By the necromancy of modern journalism, a gracious young woman had been transformed into a dangerous siren who practiced her wiles in that fascinating neighborhood where Park Avenue meets Bohemia. Her generous way of life had become an uninterrupted orgy of drunkenness, lust, and deceit, as titillating to the masses as it was profitable to the publishers. At this very hour, I reflected as I lumbered to the telephone, men were bandying her name in pool parlors and women shouting her secrets from tenement windows.
I heard Mark McPherson’s voice on the wire. “Mr. Lydecker, I was just wondering if you could help me. There are several questions I’d like to ask you.”
“And what of the baseball game?” I inquired.
Self-conscious laughter vibrated the diaphragm and tickled my ear. “It was too late. I’d have missed the first couple of innings. Can you come over?”
“Where?”
“The apartment. Miss Hunt’s place.”
“I don’t want to come up there. It’s cruel of you to ask me.”
“Sorry,” he said after a moment of cold silence. “Perhaps Shelby Carpenter can help me. I’ll try to get in touch with him.”
“Never mind. I’ll come.”
Ten minutes later I stood beside him in the bay window of Laura’s living room. East Sixty-Second Street had yielded to the spirit of carnival.