"What took you so long, Mr. Dreyar? You should have come earlier. Maybe it's too late now, maybe he's gone forever."
In a pink bed, wearing a pink jacket with fur on the sleeves, lay Mrs. Susan Treadwell. I sat like the doctor on a straight chair.
"Vincent?"
She nodded. Her pink massaged skin looked dry and old, her eyes were swollen and the black stuff had matted under her lashes. The Pomeranian lay on the pink silk comfort, whimpering.
"Do make Wolf stop that sniffling," begged the lady. She dried her eyes with a paper handkerchief that she took from a silk box. "My nerves are completely gone. I can't bear it."
The dog went on whimpering. She sat up and spanked it feebly.
"He's gone?" I asked. "Where?"
"How do I know?" She looked at a diamond wristwatch. "He's been gone since six-thirty this morning."
I was not upset. I had trusted Gray to follow Vincent since I'd check with Mosconi on the Bourbon bottle. Normally I didn't like the kid, but he was pestering me in letting him help do what he could, seeing that he had more tact than Titania and Natsu; I had him follow the Duke. It worked out well for me, who knew Ice Magic, or Maker Magic could be so verastile?
"You were awake when he left? You heard him go? Did he sneak out?"
"I lent him my car," she sniffled."
"Do you think he was trying to escape the law, Mrs. Treadwell?"
She blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes again. "Oh, I knew it was weak of me, Mr. Dreyar. But you know Vincent, he has a way with him. He asks you for something and you can't resist him; and then you hate yourself for giving in. He did the same thing to Lucy! And I hated the way he pulled at her heart strings, I told you she had this big heart that wanted to help anyone down on their luck." She shuddered. "He said it was a matter of life and death, and if I ever discovered the reason, I'd always be grateful."
I let her cry for a few minutes before I asked, "Do you believe that he committed the murder . . . the murder of your niece, Mrs. Treadwell?"
"No! No! I don't, Mr. Dreyar. He just hasn't got the stomach. Criminals go after what they want, but Vincent's just a big kid. He's always being sorry for something. My poor, poor Lucy!"
I said nothing about Lucy's return.
"You don't like Vincent very much, do you, Mrs. Treadwell?"
"He's a darling boy," she said, "but not for Lucy. Lucy couldn't afford him."
"Oh," I said. I wasn't sure what that meant. Maybe on a wizards salary since she wasn't S-Class, but the Heartfilia's were the second most rich and influential family in the country, so what she meant by she couldn't afford him; I had no clue.
She was afraid I had got the wrong impression and added quickly: "Not that he's a gigolo. Shelby comes from a wonderful family. But in some ways a gigolo's cheaper. You know where you are. With a man like Vincent you can't slip the money under the table."
I decided that it was lucky that most of my investigations had not ever involved women. Their logic confused me.
"She was always doing the most absurd things about his pride. Like the cigarette case. That was typical. And then he had to go and lose it."
By this time I'd lost the scent.
"She couldn't afford it, of course; she had to charge it on Jude's account and pay her father back by the month. A solid gold cigarette case, he had to have it, she said, so he'd feel equal to the men he lunched with at the club and the clients in their business. Does it make sense to you, Mr. Dreyar?"
"No," I said honestly, "it doesn't."
A gold cigarette case was too gaudy for him, and he wore a fur lined coat and a cheetah shirt most days.
"But it's just like Lucy."
I could have agreed to that, too, but I controlled myself.
"And he lost it?" I asked, leading her back to the trail.
"Um-hum. In April, before she'd even finished paying for it. Can you imagine?" Suddenly, for no reason that I could understand, she took an atomizer from from the bed-table and sprayed herself with perfume. Then she made up her lips and combed her hair. "I thought of the cigarette case as soon as he'd gone off with the keys to my car. Did I feel like a sucker!"
"I understand that," I said.
Her smile was a clue to the business with the perfume and lipstick. I was a man, she had to get around me.
"You're not going to blame me for giving him the car? Really, I didn't think of it at the time. He has a way with him, you know."
"You shouldn't have given it to him if you felt that way," I said the stern detective that Lucy would have hated me for using.
She fell for it.
"It was weak, Mr. Dreyar, I know how weak I was to have done it. I should have been more suspicious, I know I should, especially after that phone call."
"What phone call, Mrs. Treadwell?" Now I was alarmed. What was up with these people in withholding evidence?
It was only by careful questioning that I got the story straight in the end. If I told it her way, there would be no end to this chapter. The phone had wakened her at half-past five that morning. She lifted the receiver in time to hear Vincent, on the upstairs extension, talking to the night clerk at the Hotel Framingham. The clerk apologized for disturbing him at this hour, but said that someone wanted to get in touch with him on a life-and-death matter. That person was waiting on another wire. Should the clerk give that party Mr. Sarwarr's number?
"I'll call back in ten minutes," Vincent had said. "Tell them to call you again."
He had dressed and tiptoed down the stairs.
"He was going out to phone," Mrs. Treadwell said. "He was afraid I'd listen on the extension."
At twenty minutes past six she had heard him coming up the stairs. He had knocked at her bedroom door, apologized for waking her, and asked for the use of the car.
"Does that make me an accessory or something, Mr. Dreyar?" Tears rolled down her cheeks.
I contacted Mira afterwards and asked if there had been any reports from Gray who had been following Vincent. Nothing had been heard since he went on duty at midnight, and at eight in the morning was still waiting.
As I put down the phone, the dog began to bark. Vincent walked in.
"Good morning." He went straight to the bed. "I'm glad you rested, darling. It was cruel of me to disturb you at that mad hour. But you don't show it at all. You're divine this morning." He kissed her forehead and then turned to welcome me.
"Where've you been?" she asked.
"Can't you guess, darling?"
He petted the dog. I sat back and watched. There was something familiar and unreal about Vincent. I was always uncomfortable when he was in the room, and always struggling to remember where I had seen him. The memory was like a dream, unsubstantial and baffling.
"I can't imagine where anyone would go at that wild hour, darling. You had me quite alarmed."
If Vincent guessed that the lady's alarm had caused her to summon me, he was too tactful to mention it.
"I went up to the cottage where Lucy stayed," he said. "I made a sentimental journey. This was to have been our wedding day, you know."
"Oh, I'd forgotten." Mrs. Treadwell caught his hand. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, comfortable and sure of himself.
"I couldn't sleep. And when that absurd phone call woke us, Auntie Sue, I was too upset to stay in my room. I felt such a longing for Lucy, I wanted to stay close to something she had loved. There was this, I would call it a conservatory, she would use it to look at the stars. She'd cared for it herself, Mr. Dreyar, with her own hands. And with her keys missing-"
"I don't know whether I quite believe you," Mrs. Treadwell said, not letting him finish. "What's your opinion, Mr. Dreyar?"
"You're embarrassing him, darling. Remember, he's a detective," Vincent said as if she had been talking about leprosy in front of a leper.
"Why couldn't you take that telephone call in the house?" asked Mrs. Treadwell. "Did you think I'd stoop so low as to listen on the extension?"
"If you hadn't been listening on the extension, you'd not have known that I had to go out to the phone booth," he said, laughing.
"Why were you afraid to have me hear?"
Vincent offered me a cigarette. He carried the pack in his pocket without a case.
"Was it it a girl?" asked Mrs. Treadwell.
"I don't know. He . . . she . . . whoever it was . . . refused to leave a number. I called the Framingham three times, but they hadn't called back." He blew smoke rings toward the ceiling. Then, smiling at me like the King of Fiore in a newsreel showing Their Majesties' visit to coal miners' huts, he said: "A yellow cab followed me all the way to the cottage and back. On these country roads at that hour your man couldn't very well hide himself. Don't be angry with the poor chap because I spotted him."
"He kept you covered. That was all he was told to do. Whether you knew or not makes no difference." I got up. "I'm going to be up at Miss Heartfilia's apartment at three o'clock. I want you to meet me there, Sawarr."
"Is it necessary? I rather dislike going up there today of all days. You know, we were to have been married . . ."
"Consider it a sentimental journey," I said sneered.
Mrs. Treadwell barely noticed when I left. She was busy with her face.
At the office I learned that Vincent's sentimental journey had added a five-hour taxi bill to the Lucy Heartfilia case. Nothing had been discovered. Vincent had not even entered the house, but had stood in the garden, where indeed was a glass like structure where you could openly see the stars, but he stood in the rain and blown his nose vigorously. He might also, it was hinted, have been crying.
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