MONDAY AFTERNOON Dana telephoned me at the office. She reminded me that the skating party was still on for that night, said that she still loved me and asked whether I’d drop by her apartment when I knocked off. I said I would and hoped she wouldn’t laugh too much when I started punching holes in the ice with my face.
I left the office on the dot and got to her apartment in nothing flat. She opened the door for me, let me kiss her, handed me a long, tall, cool drink and told me to make myself comfortable. She said she had something to show me. I said, “Are you telling me!” and it rolled off her like a duck. I told her she was supposed to laugh at my funny cracks, and all she did was to push me down on the sofa and shove a magazine in the hand that wasn’t holding the drink.
She looked beautiful and happy. She moved the bridge lamp to the doorway which connected the living room and bedroom, turned it on full and placed it carefully. Then she went into the bedroom and closed the door, leaving me alone with a lot of nice ideas.
I looked at drawings of pretty ladies in the magazine. My interest in them was entirely clinical. I wondered what was going on in the other room. I didn’t wonder very long, because suddenly the door opened and Dana confronted me. She was standing in the cone of light cast by the bridge lamp and she took my breath away.
I had suspected from her manner that something extra special was brewing, but I wasn’t prepared for this. If she had planned to knock me silly, she had succeeded. I knew that this was being staged for my benefit, and that what she wanted was a verdict, so I tore my eyes away from her face and tried, in my masculine ignorance, to concentrate on her costume.
She was wearing a purple dress. Undoubtedly the modiste who designed it wouldn’t have called it purple. She’d have used whatever the trick name was they were using for purple. The portion of it that was in shadow looked midnight black, but wherever the light touched it, it looked like moonlight on water.
The top part was one of those strapless arrangements which defy the law of gravity. It emphasized the smooth whiteness of her throat and shoulders and the curve of her breasts. Deep folds, crossed in front and pulled snugly into the waist, didn’t do any injustice to the charms they only partially concealed.
Below the waistline, the skirt billowed out: smooth purple satin, and stiff, crisp net in alternating sections. It spread wider and wider as it approached the floor. I knew that it was designed to swirl away from her body while she was dancing. At the moment, it fell soft and full about her feet.
Long purple gloves covered her hands and arms, up to the line of the bodice. But the ultimate artistry was achieved by two touches—dramatic in their simplicity.
Peeping from under the hem of her skirt were dancing pumps of ruby-red satin, and fastened in the mass of tight little curls at the side of her head was an enameled clip which shaded from deepest purple to the same vivid red.
She smiled and turned. She turned slowly, like a model. She finished the manœuver and her eyes rested on mine. I said, “Good Lord! you’re beautiful!”
Her eyes sparkled. She said, “Go on.”
“There’s nothing to go on with. Except that you’ve been holding out on me. I never dreamed you could look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . like . . . how can I say it? Like something out of this world. Like an angel who has been living on a diet of nectar. And at the same time like a warm, exciting woman.”
“The gown, Kirk. What about the gown?”
“I—I don’t know. It isn’t the gown and it isn’t you. It’s the combination. It’s the ultimate carried to infinity.”
She threw herself into my arms and did things that I liked. She said anxiously, “You really mean that, darling?”
“Of course I mean it. What’s it all about?”
She stood up again and backed into the light. “I’ve been worried. All my life I’ve been sold on the idea that purple simply wasn’t for me. My dress designer insisted on making this for me with the understanding that if it weren’t becoming—the color, I mean—I wouldn’t owe her a cent. That’s why I asked you to come over. The dress was delivered less than two hours ago. I want to wear it at the dinner show tonight . . . but only if I’m sure it looks right.”
I tried to tell her how right I thought it looked. She said, “I was concerned about the color. When you’ve always believed you couldn’t wear something, and then you consider stepping out on a dance floor in that color . . . well, you’re afraid you might look grotesque.”
I was amused. She had counted so much on my verdict. I talked for a long time. I talked until I was fresh out of words. It took me that long to convince her that the color was right for her, and that she’d create a sensation.
She finally got the idea. She was walking on air when she went back into the bedroom to change into street clothes. When she returned, she had a long, wide pasteboard box under her arm. The new purple dress, the shoes and the hair ornament were in it. We taxied to the club.
There weren’t many people inside. We walked toward the rear, and somebody called me. It was John Ferguson. He was dining with another man at a wall table. They stood up and Ferguson introduced the other man to Dana. She chatted briefly, then excused herself and started for her dressing room.
Ferguson invited me to join them for dinner. I said No, and explained about the skating party. Just to make it good, Agnes Sheridan chose that moment to come in, carrying her skates which were attached to white skating shoes.
Maybe I was in an unusually appreciative mood tonight, but Agnes looked prettier than I’d thought was possible. She had on some sort of a brown tweed suit with a white sweater underneath. Her beaver coat was swung over her shoulders with the sleeves dangling empty at her sides. A tiny little white hat—a beanie—was perched jauntily on her head and, instead of gloves, she was wearing white, woolly mittens.
There were more introductions. Then Agnes and I got away and made for my corner table near the corridor. Ferguson smiled and made a flattering comment about the work I was doing for him. I liked that. I liked Ferguson. I liked his friend. I liked almost everybody.
Dana showed up in the archway and grabbed Agnes. She said, “Better bring your skates back to my dressing room. We’ll pick them up after the show. And besides . . .”
“Besides,” I said, “she wants your opinion about a gown.”
The two girls disappeared. The show had started by the time Agnes came back. She had seen the purple dress and was slightly hysterical about it.
Just to make it one big, happy family, Candy Livingston swept in at the head of a party of six. Once again she grabbed the attention which rightly belonged to the show girls. She saw us and came over. She insisted that we join her. I went into my routine. No could do. Skating party. I didn’t ask her to go with us. There was too much danger that she’d accept.
As the time for the Ricardo & Dana act approached, I found myself getting excited. Suppose I’d been wrong? Suppose Agnes and the modiste had been wrong? I was commencing to understand how such a thing could be important.
The emcee gave them the usual ritzy build-up. I deliberately had refrained from looking at Dana while she was waiting for her cue. My first glimpse of her was on the floor, in Ricardo’s arms, the big spot beating down on the purple gown.
There was a hush over the place, then a spontaneous burst of applause. It wasn’t the dancing; they hadn’t gone far enough into the number. It must be the gown. I felt relieved.
They went through three routines and finished to an ovation. While they were waiting to let the applause die down, Candy Livingston swept past our table and into the corridor. Headed for the powder room, I gathered, but I was resentful of the fact that she was walking out before the end of the act.
There was more applause after the encore number. The team took a half dozen bows, then I saw Ricardo go toward his dressing room. Dana stopped at our table. We all talked about the gown, and then Dana beckoned to Agnes. “Come on back while I change. You, Kirk, can join us in ten minutes.”
The show was over. The regular orchestra was starting a loud, thumping rhumba which the relief combo would finish.
The girls went into the dim, drafty corridor and turned left. Then something happened. Something loud, but not too loud. There was no mistaking that sound.
It was a shot.
There was a split-second of silence, then a choked scream. I was on my feet. I knew who had screamed. It was Dana.
People were pouring into the corridor when I got there. Waiters from the kitchen; men and women from the rest rooms. We all moved toward the same place.
The first person I saw was Dana. She was standing motionless, her eyes wide with terror.
Agnes Sheridan was on the floor.
She was wearing a white sweater under her tweed costume. But the sweater wasn’t all white. There was a reddish-brown spot under the left breast. One leg was bent under her. The left arm was stretched out, the fingers curled.
I didn’t have to look twice to know that she was dead.
There was a lot of talking and pushing. Somebody said, “Call the police” and somebody else said, “Get a doctor!”
I heard a voice at my elbow. It was Candy Livingston’s voice. It said, “Oh my God! . . .”
My eyes went to the end of the corridor. The door of Ricardo’s dressing room was closed. Dana’s door was slightly ajar. And while I was watching it, it opened.
Ricardo came out. Not out of his own dressing room. He came out of Dana’s room.
He stared at the crowd. He moved swiftly and joined the people who hovered over Agnes Sheridan’s body.
Ricardo’s eyes met mine. I saw something there. Something I didn’t like. I got a sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach. I thought, “Ricardo shot Agnes. But he didn’t mean to. The person he intended to kill was Dana.”