I stood there in that narrow passageway, my blood drumming wildly in my ears and Monty’s body sprawled on the floor behind me. Stood there, waiting agonizingly through seconds that seemed like years, while someone climbed into the window.
The head and shoulders of a man appeared first, then his whole body, and I experienced an instant of almost agonizing relief. But with recognition came a guarded tightening.
It was Bill Thorne. But why was Bill Thorne coming into this window? As far as I was concerned, who was Bill Thorne? What did I really know about him? And how could I forget that only a little while before he had threatened to punch Monty’s head?
“What are you doing here?” I asked in a voice that sounded strained and cracked.
He looked at me queerly, but I must have been a strange sight with my face bloodless with terror.
“What’s up?” he asked.
I could only repeat my question as if I knew no other words. The second time he answered me.
“I’m looking for Monty. I got tired of waiting around upstairs for him to show up. Thought I might catch him down here. Linell, what’s the matter?”
He sounded natural enough and if he was looking at me a little strangely, that too was natural, considering how I was behaving. I made a feeble motion toward the alcove and the switch box.
“Back there,” I gasped. “Back there on the floor! You’re too late!”
He gave me one look and strode past to the alcove. When he saw, he made no sound, no outcry. His eyes turned back to meet mine for just an instant, then he knelt at Monty’s side. I watched while he felt for a pulse and I knew by his face that there was none. He shook his head and stood up, looking white and shaken.
“We’ve got to get you out of here,” he said.
Then, while I watched, he leaned down and gingerly picked up the broken golf stick. Working carefully, to avoid the area where blood had spattered, he wiped the shaft with a handkerchief, replaced the stick beside the body.
“Now then,” he said, “come on.”
He had wiped the fingerprints from that stick. His hand hurt my arm and I tried to pull away.
“We—we’ve got to call s-s-somebody!” I said between chattering teeth. “G-g-get a doctor!”
He shook me quite sharply. “It’s too late for a doctor. Pull yourself together. You’ve got to get back upstairs.”
His fingers were cruel and tight on my arm and I was too terrified to protest. We walked to the entrance of the window and then he bent to whisper grimly in my ear.
“We’re going out into the store now and you’re going to walk past the counters and over to the elevators as if nothing had happened. It’s busy out there, and if we move quickly, the chances are we won’t be noticed.”
There was no resisting the tight band of his fingers grasping my arm. I found myself walking along the wide aisle, conscious in a confused way of the bright lights of the store, of spring decorations overhead, of the gleam of crystal at the perfume counters. Then we were in the elevator and a girl in a green uniform was saying, “Floors, please,” as the car moved upward.
Just as we reached the eighth floor the closing bell jangled harshly and I jumped as if the sound had released some lever that controlled my normal will to think and act. But I didn’t try to talk to Bill until he led me to my office and thrust me none too gently into the chair behind my desk.
Then I sat up and started in.
“I don’t know what you’ve had to do with this, Bill Thorne,” I said angrily, “but I don’t like the way you wiped that golf stick with your handkerchief. Or the way you sneaked us out of there. Or—”
“Stop it!” he said. “It’s no go.”
He’d perched himself on the corner of my desk again, just the way he had earlier that afternoon, only now there was no twinkle in his blue eyes. Only grim purpose.
I could only gape at him blankly, numbly, until the straight line of his mouth softened. He leaned over and put his hand beneath my chin and I had a swift, incongruous memory of Tony doing the same thing to that mannequin.
“You can trust me, Linell,” he said. “I’ll see you through. Begin at the beginning and tell me exactly what happened. Was there a quarrel? Where did you get the golf stick?”
I began to understand and the stunning realization that Bill thought I had killed Monty did what even the sight of that crumpled body had not managed to do. It snapped the tension.
I put my head down on my arms and began to laugh. Crazy, choked laughter that shook me clear through and must have sounded more like sobs than laughter.
Bill put his hand gently on my shoulder and the concern in his voice made me laugh all the harder.
“Linell,” he said, “you mustn’t. You poor kid! Monty got what was coming to him all right, but why did it have to be you?”
I couldn’t stop. All the strain I’d been under that day was releasing itself in laughter. And there was horror too, because I sensed that the moment I stopped laughing I’d have to face the terrible fact of murder.
I raised my head and Bill saw that I was laughing. He looked so shocked that I knew he must think I’d gone crazy—and that made me laugh still more.
“It’s so—f-f-funny!” I gasped. “You’re so rid-d-diculous!”
He said, “If you don’t stop, I’ll slap you.”
He looked as if he meant it too, but I couldn’t stop. He did mean it. His hand whacked smartly across my cheek and I could feel the blood tingle under the blow. I stopped right in the middle of a giggle, so mad I wanted to throw things.
“How dare you!” I stormed. “How dare you strike me! How dare you think I killed Monty!”
He caught me by the shoulders and turned me toward the light. “You mean—you didn’t kill him?”
We looked at each other for a long moment. There was something guarded in Bill’s eyes that I didn’t like. It meant either that he was still suspecting me, or that he had something to hide himself. Even in my numbness, I couldn’t quite accept the way he’d behaved through all this.
My lips must have trembled, for he bent over me at once. “If you switch to tears, I’ll slap you again. Regardless of what’s happened, you’ve got to get out of this store. I’ve never seen such a nice mess of circumstantial evidence as you handed me down in that window, and I can’t turn in an alarm till you’re safe.”
“My prints weren’t on that stick,” I told him indignantly. “If you hadn’t wiped it off, the police could tell I’d never touched it. But maybe you were wiping your own prints off.”
He didn’t deny it. “We can go into the details later,” he said. “Right now I’ve got to get you out of this.”
“Get her out of what?” asked Sondo’s voice and we both swung guiltily about to see her standing in the doorway.
There was no telling how much she might have heard, with her stealthy way of sneaking up before you were aware of her. But though her big dark eyes looked brightly curious, there seemed nothing in them of suspicion.
“Hello, Sondo,” Bill said. “I’ve just been offering a little free advice. Linell takes on more than her share of work, it seems to me. Can’t your bosses look after their window job themselves?”
“It’s Linell’s job too.” Sondo presented her usual chip-on-the-shoulder attitude. “Monty can’t do everything. And Tony’s no good. Right now he’s over in window display getting gorgeously drunk. You’re the only one he ever listens to, Linell. So how about coming over and clearing him out?”
Bill didn’t give me a chance to answer.
“Not tonight,” he said. “Linell’s in a hurry. You’ll have to get rid of all incidental drunks yourself.”
He picked up my hat and plunked it on my head with about as much skill as you’d expect from a man.
Sondo said, “Oh, stop playing the dominant male. I’m talking to Linell, not you. Look—I don’t care if Tony gets fired tomorrow, but I’ve got some work to finish and he keeps cruising through the place getting in the way. And if he turns mean he may start smashing things.”
Bill had a hand on my arm again and I knew the way he was squeezing meant that I wasn’t to waste any more time on Sondo. Thanks to his tender protection I was going to be thoroughly black-and-blue tomorrow, and the soreness of my arm didn’t make me feel any more amiable toward him. But there was something else that kept me from turning down Sondo’s request.
Tony.
Tony was pretty decent really, and he’d always been nice to me. But he was reckless and impulsive and excitable. If the—the body (I winced from the picture that word brought up) was discovered and then Tony was found in the store, drunk and spilling over with indignation against Monty, it might go hard with him. Tony hadn’t had anything to do with this, of course, and I didn’t want to see him get into a lot of trouble. It would only take a couple of minutes to collect him and get him out of the store with us.
I took off my smock and hung it over the back of my chair.
“Come on,” I said, “we’ll go get Tony.”
And I started off, with Sondo at my heels, and Bill reluctantly following. Short of picking me up by the hair and dragging me off to the elevators, there wasn’t much else he could do.
Tony was in his office this time and he was still conversing loudly with his plaster and papier maché dream girl, Dolores.
“Tony,” I said, “we’ve come to see that you get started home all right. Be a good guy and get your hat.”
Tony dazzled me with his smile. “Linell, honey, this is my home. I like it here. Besides, I got Dolores now.”
“You see what I have to put up with?” Sondo said. “Well, I’m going back to work. I leave him to you.”
She went off and I tried again. “Listen, Tony, this is serious. It’s important that you go home right away. Please come.”
“Oh, you mean it’s important,” Tony said. “That’s different, isn’t it?”
Bill started in on me. “Stop wasting time. I’ll give you one more second to persuade him, and then you’re coming if I have to carry you. And I mean—”
He stopped and looked around with a listening expression on his face. “What’s that?”
I knew right away, but I’ll admit it had an eerie sound echoing through those deserted display rooms. It was the phonograph in Sondo’s workroom. She’d brought it when she first came to the store and Monty had humored her and let her play it. She said she could always work better to music, and though the window decorators claimed it drove them batty, Sondo’s phonograph could be heard in the department at almost any hour.
“It’s that damn Bolero!” Tony said. “Some day I’m going to smash that box to tinders.”
I explained to Bill, and while I was talking, trying not to listen to the monotonous beat of the music, something quite dreadful began to happen way down inside me.
I began to be terribly aware. Aware of the fact of murder. Until now shock and hysteria had held me, but that music was beating right in my blood. With my mind I knew now that Monty was dead. Violently, horribly dead. Beaten to death with a golf club. I couldn’t yet cope with the question of who had done so terrible a thing. I knew only that I wanted to get away from Cunningham’s as quickly as I could, get home to the safety of my own apartment, to Helena’s comfortable, soothing presence.
So the first thing I did was to lose my head. I put both hands on Tony’s shoulders and shook him as hard as I could.
“Something awful’s happened!” I cried. “You’ve got to come right away.”
To my relief he stood up, swaying a little.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll come. But Dolores is coming too.”
He reached down to gather her up in his arms and I pictured the three of us trying to walk past the doorman with one of Cunningham’s prize mannequins in our company.
“Tony,” I said, “Monty’s dead.” I felt Bill’s warning hand on my arm, but I didn’t care. “Somebody’s killed him, Tony. I tell you he’s dead!”
Tony stared at me and for a second there was no sound except the maddening drum of the Bolero.
Then, echoing on the bare floor of the passageway that led toward the display rooms, came another. The sharp purposeful sound of someone walking toward a chosen goal. Not the clicking heels of a woman, but the heavier tread of a man.
I put a hand to my throat. “There’s somebody coming.”
“It’s all right,” Bill said, but his eyes were alertly on the door. “We belong here. We came to talk about that bird and phonograph attachment for the window. Understand, Tony? That’s all we came to talk about.”
I wobbled and leaned against Bill, with my back to the door.
“Sure,” Tony said. “That phonograph’s gonna stay too. I left it right there in the window. I don’t care what Montgomery says—” a shock of realization crossed his face, a stunned look. He was beginning to get it too now. “Maybe it won’t have to come out. Maybe—”
The footsteps had come very close and Bill broke in breezily. “It’s a good idea, Tony. And the contraption I’ve rigged up sounds fine. Ought to pull the crowds just as a novelty.”
Even in my confused state I sensed that Bill was doing the wrong thing. A few moments ago he could still have turned in an alarm. But he had committed us to conspiracy, to silence. It was already too late to tell.
The steps had reached the door, but I was too terrified to look. I tried to read Bill’s face, or even Tony’s. But Bill just looked blank and Tony had his head down and was running a finger around his collar.”
“ ’Evening, Miss Wynn,” said a drawling voice. “Hi, Tony.”
I turned around as slowly as I could. The man in the doorway had been put together on a large scale. He had massive shoulders and arms, the profile of a poet, and dark dreamy eyes. His name, ridiculously, was Sylvester Hering, but he was not a ridiculous person. Merely a sad one. He regarded the three of us in mournful speculation. Ominously mournful speculation.
“Thought maybe I’d find somebody up here,” he said as if he did not in the least relish his discovery. “You ought to go home right away after work, Miss Wynn. You been looking sort of tired lately.”
He broke off, listening to the music that came from Sondo’s workroom.
“That’s nice, isn’t it?” he said dreamily. “Swell tune. Dum-da-de-um. The Norgaard jane, I suppose?”
I managed somehow to nod, but my nerves were screaming. I wanted to bombard him with questions. I wanted to cry, “Have they found—do they know—who was it—?” But I just nodded dumbly.
Hering looked at Tony. “Too bad to interrupt the concert, but you better go bring her here.”
Tony walked a little unsteadily to the door and Hering turned back to me.
“Sorry to break the news,” he said, his brown eyes concerned, “but Mr. Montgomery’s been murdered. Downstairs in window five. You—you won’t faint, Miss Wynn?”
I’ve often wished I could faint. I always admire heroines in stories who slip into convenient blackness every time the going gets tough. But I always stay wide awake and watch the whole operation. However, I thought it might be just as well if I clung with touching weakness to the hand he held out to me. Sylvester Hering was a good friend of mine. We’d always got on fine together. He often stopped in my office to chat, and he never seemed to tire of studying the pictures on my walls. But of course I’d never had any professional dealings with him before.
Sylvester Hering was one of the store detectives.