CHAPTER 16

I followed Lila Martin out of the store.

The sidewalk seethed with the usual variety of pedestrians, on the way home a little early to avoid the big subway crush. I stood across the street, watching Lila slide through the crowd, on her way to a taxi up at the corner stand. She was easy to follow. She had on a fur cape, a mink deal that gave her a regal air. She wore a tricky little bonnet with a stiff gray feather perched on it. The feather made her easy to tail. The feather ducked into a cab. The feather stood up straight against the back window.

My cabby had no trouble staying behind the feather. The feather led us across town, through the slow crawling traffic around the big stores, then uptown by way of Park Avenue, then to the right and into the fancy-rent district called Sutton Place.

The feather got out at a fancy front, an elegant modern façade of the avant-garde school of architecture. It was a polished stone building with a big picture window on the second floor. It sported a yellow door with four small glass bricks set in a neat design, above eye level. I studied it as the feather entered it. From where I stood, across the street, the big initials—G W—stood out in copper, glistening faintly under the aura of a street lamp.

Greg Wilkinson’s house!

I tried the knob and found it willing. The door slid open noiselessly, opening into a small foyer that was a closet of dead air and silence. Another door led into, a lush vestibule, the main lobby of the apartment. The vestibule was designed for a bachelor, a severe yet pleasant scheme of soft colors and softer rugs. The decorator had played on Wilkinson’s yen for sophistication, combining manliness with seduction, so that any visiting wren would find this first step into his bedroom inviting and in good taste.

I walked on my toes, on a thick rug that killed all sound. Where the hell did she go? On the right, a finely wrought balustrade led upstairs. Down here, through the door on the left, would be the servant’s quarters, the kitchen and the exit to the yard. The main house lay up these steps. She must have gone up fast because I could hear nothing now but the sound of my own breathing.

Until the silence was fractured by another noise.

It was a weak and throttled gasp, a coughing, as if from a long distance, sibilant and painful. I started up the steps at a gallop. The landing above was a square hallway, from which three doors opened into various rooms. Through one of them under the weak glow of the street lamp outside, I could make out clearly the contours of living room furniture. But the noise came from the last door on the landing—the one on the far right.

And the noise came from Lila Martin.

On the floor, and unconscious!

The hat with the perky feather lay a few feet from her. She had been hit hard and clawed diligently. The mink wrap was a background for her figure, her waist ripped and slashed away from her body as though some madman had worked to get at her full-blown breasts. She wore no brassiere, and in the weak light I could see the tentative scratches of her assailant, high on her chest, but not deep enough to draw blood. It had all happened only a short while ago. A minute? Five minutes ago? I had watched her from across the street for only a brief spell, allowing her the chance to accomplish her mission before following her here. But I had waited too long.

Somebody else reached her first.

Somebody had waited for her.

I ran into the john adjoining the bedroom. I brought out a tumbler of water and sprayed her face with it. She groaned weakly and squirmed in terror. She reached out to continue her fight with the man who leveled her.

“Who hit you?” I asked. “Relax, Lila. This is Steve.”

“Oh, God,” she wailed and fell against me, overcome by a mixture of relief and unfeigned terror. “The louse. The stinking, crawling louse.”

“Who?”

Her eyes did not open. I caught the flutter of her lids as she made an effort to revive herself. Her face was drawn and waxed-looking. She worked her mouth for words, wetting her lips once or twice. She frowned and clung to me.

“Who hit you?” I asked again.

“I don’t know, Steve.”

“You didn’t see him?”

“He didn’t give me a chance to see him,” she said. “He came at me from behind. He must have been hiding in here.”

“You’re sure it was a he?”

“What do you think?” She adjusted her blouse. Only one of the buttons remained, too low, and much too loose to confine her brazen breasts. “No woman on earth would claw this way. Besides, I could smell his breath.”

“What about his breath?”

“It smelled too much of tobacco for a woman.”

“What kind of tobacco? Cigars?”

“I didn’t have time to analyze the stench,” Lila said. Now she was on her feet and fussing with her hair in the mirror. She perched the feathered hat on her head. She adjusted the mink wrap. She was almost back to normal again, complete with the cigarette holder and the airy poise. “Is it so important to know the brand of weed the idiot smoked?”

“We can skip it,” I said, following her to the small night table at the right side of the tremendous bed. She seemed to know her way around inside the cupboard door. She came up with a bottle and two glasses. She poured and eased her lithe body to the edge of the bed. She was as composed as a hostess in her own living room. I didn’t want her that way. Her composure irritated me. The bitch had walked into a strange bedroom at a strange time on a strange mission. I had her caught and cornered. But she was doing her best to make me feel silly about following her here. I let her finish her drink. Then I took her glass and said, “The party’s over now, Lila. Now we talk. What did you come up here for?”

“Please,” she said through her long and classic nose. “I was thinking of having another shot of Scotch, Stevie dear.”

“It’ll have to wait. What did you come here for?”

“Nothing important.”

“Spill it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You will.” I grabbed her arms and let my hands talk for me. She yielded to the pressure almost willingly, smiling her teasing smile at me. She let me drag her up close, so that the mink fell away and she was rubbing me with her shoulder. Her small handbag bounced to the rug and lay there. When she began to stoop for it, I increased the pressure. I was mad enough to hit her. “We’re wasting time,” I said. “Either you tell me, or you can tell it to Lunt. Down under the lights, at the police sweatbox, baby.”

“You wouldn’t,” said Lila, examining me for strength of character. “You wouldn’t turn me in for this, Steve.”

“Don’t fool with me, baby. I’ve got no time for games.”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“There were some letters, Steve.”

“What kind of letters?”

“Silly stuff I wrote to Greg, not too long ago.” She gave me her eyes, loading them with conviction and girlish honesty. “I used to be quite fond of Greg. Don’t laugh, but it was a big deal for me when I met him. I thought I was in love with him. Then, Greg decided to play another woman. Vivian Debevoise. He went for her all the way. He pursued her in and out of the office. I became a bit aggravated with him. That was when I wrote him the threatening letters.”

“You lie like hell,” I said, still holding her where I wanted her. She winced under the sting of my hands. But she didn’t change her story.

“I’m telling you the truth,” she said softly. “I wrote a few very stupid letters to Greg.”

“You threatened to kill him?”

“Exactly. And that’s why I’m here—to get those letters. If the police discovered them, I’d have to face a lot of mad questions, Steve. And my career might be ruined.”

“Did you find the letters?”

“I didn’t have a chance to move,” Lila said. “I was hit as I entered this room.”

“Why would the letters be in his bedroom?”

“If you release the clutch, I’ll show you.”

I let her go. She took off her shoes and climbed on the bed. Over the headboard there were two French aquatints, drawings of buxom woodland maidens pursued by centaurs with gleaming eyes and obvious purposes. They were symphonies of Gallic nudity, richly curved and sensuous in shading and detail. She removed the picture on the right. In the wall behind the picture was a small square frame, the door to a wall safe of the easy-to-open variety. Lila came back to me, a bit flushed, a bit flustered, but still looking for some signs of belief in her sad little tale.

“Very fancy,” I said. “But you still haven’t answered my question, baby. How did you know the letters would be in that safe?”

“I didn’t, of course. But I thought it would be worth the chance. There are no other hiding places in Greg’s house.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I knew Greg pretty well,” she said without a blush. “I’ve been here quite often.”

“You had a key to the front door?”

“Naturally.”

“Who else had a key?”

“I wouldn’t know. But Greg was generous with this place. He used it for all kinds of things. Store parties, meetings, conferences.” She sighed wistfully. “Poor Greg. Actually, he was a damned fool about many things.”

“Especially the dolls?”

“He had his moments.” She put on her shoes and wiggled away from me. She stood over me, estimating me, weighing me in her sharp intellect. She leaned over me in the pose of an anxious sweetheart. “You don’t have to tell Lunt you found me here, do you, Stevie?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’d appreciate your silence.”

“Still worried about your career?”

“A girl has to be careful,” she said.

I leaped up and clamped my hand over her mouth. There was a noise downstairs. The flat click of a latch? A door moving open? A door shutting again? I jerked her toward the wall on the far side of the room. I switched out the light. We stood together, the sound of her breath loud in my ears. Her pulse beat fast under my fingers on her wrist. We listened together. There were footsteps outside on the landing.

Then the door opened and a man walked in.

“Lila?” he whispered.

But I had slammed out at him before the word really left his lips.

He went down on his knees, the wind knocked out of him. He rolled around on the rug, groping for the hurt part of his gut.

I switched on the light and saw that it was Larry Pettigrew!