IT WAS RAINING. A dripping gray rain, more like autumn than spring. Only the flowered hats and the bright feathery veils scurrying beneath the marquees below, darting out to the bus stop, told it was April. She stood there at the window pressing her fingers against the wet cold pane.
She didn’t like this job; she didn’t know why she should be wasted for six months in the office of Bryan Brewer, Importer and Exporter of Rare Objects, playing the part of a perfect secretary. She didn’t like being a secretary; there was no bite to it, no lovely excitement. She’d rather be an exquisite mannikin on the Parisienne boulevards; she’d rather be a part of the languorous adventure of a sunny Neapolitan street; she’d rather be a flowered hat and a giddy veil even in a downpour. She’d far rather be in the downpour than here in the office alone. Whether it was being alone in rainlight, or the incessant scratching of the rain on the window, or whether the monotony of the waiting had eaten into her nerves, she didn’t know. She knew only that she didn’t like the feel of this afternoon.
She left the window and walked slowly across the thick bronze rug to the mirror, the magic mirror that had lost its magic. It no longer showed anything but the perfect secretary in the perfect secretarial uniform, black tailored suit, white blouse, a face no one would look at twice; it was the usual city pattern. Perfect complexion, perfect features, a scarlet lipstick mouth, slant dark eyes, the long lashes hidden by amber-rimmed eyeglasses, dark hair hidden in a smooth roll.
She pulled off the glasses and her mouth made a gruesome mouth at the face in the mirror. That for the adventure of working in New York.
She left the mirror and went to her desk but she didn’t go behind it to her chair. It was as if she didn’t want to be cornered there. She lifted again the noon paper and her forefinger followed her eyes down the arrivals. By ship. By plane. Where was he, while she sat at an office desk from nine to five daily, nine to twelve on Saturdays? In Paris or London, Rio or Buenos Aires, Mexico City? She hadn’t heard from him since the small typewritten note broke the monotony of sitting days on end in his Aunt Hortensia’s apartment on the Square, waiting for that note. The message wasn’t signed, he was economical of his signature. Postmarked Havana. It informed her that Bryan Brewer would need a private secretary on a certain morning. That was all. She knew what to do.
She’d got the job. Bryan Brewer had been surprised that anyone was aware of the opening. She’d been surprised at how young, how attractive Bryan Brewer was. Not yet thirty; tall, dark; the kind of man she had wished she knew while she wasted youth on Towner and his friends. It wasn’t like Towner to send her to anyone like Brewer; the others had been as old or older than Towner himself, and as unattractive. She’d thought on first meeting that working with Bry might lead to something amusing. She didn’t know then about Feather. Perhaps Towner did know.
Brewer had received the resignation of Miss Grinswold, her predecessor, in the mail only that morning. Eliza didn’t tell him how she knew Miss Grinswold was gone. She didn’t tell him that this wasn’t the first time Towner Clay had known of things before they happened. She got the job and she was the perfect secretary from nine to five, from November to April. But if she didn’t hear from Towner soon, she would … She would go on being Bryan Brewer’s perfect secretary. There was nothing else she could do. Until she heard from Towner Clay.
Her fingers dropped the paper quickly, almost with guilt. Behind her shoulder across the room the door had been flung open. She knew it wasn’t Bry before she turned. He didn’t fling open a door; he put his hand on a knob, turned it and walked in on steady feet. Yet automatically her fingers folded the paper.
Standing there was a man with the bluest eyes she’d ever looked into, dark sapphire blue. For a fleet moment she had the hope he was from Towner. For the moment before he spoke.
“Where’s Bry?”
The man was young and tall and wet; his coat was rain slashed, the rim of his wet hat was turned down all around, to meet his turned up collar. The streets of New York were crowded with men fending off the rain in that same fashion. Yet something quickened her pulse, something not in his dress nor in his natural question. Something perhaps in his eyes. Something of danger. She recognized him as a man not made of the stuff of Manhattan streets. She knew him as someone from her own world. And she was alert. Until now it had been too easy; it was never that easy.
Her wits had quickened with her pulse and she said in her best secretarial voice, “Mr. Brewer isn’t in right now. May I help you?”
The blue-eyed man looked her over from her neat black hair all the way down to her black alligator pumps. All the way down and all the way up again. He smiled when he finished his survey. He had a cocky, sure-of-himself smile on his square face. She held her apprehension quiet behind her secretarial mask.
“Where is he?” he asked. He shifted the box under his arm. It was a white box, wrapped in white paper, the shape of a florist’s box. It wasn’t wet.
She said, “I really don’t know.” Her heels were brisk rounding her desk. She sat down behind it, took up some papers as if they were important. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“When will he be back?”
She said, “I don’t know.”
He’d followed her to the desk, dripping rain on Bryan Brewer’s bronze rug, and he stood there looking down at her. His eyes were cut like sapphires too, flecked with bright and dark. She didn’t like his smile.
She said, “He may be in before five and he may not. He didn’t say, when he left this morning.” She rolled a sheet of white paper into the typewriter. She didn’t want him to wait here for Bryan Brewer. He might recognize her for what she actually was.
He was watching her. The smile in his eyes didn’t match the smile on his mouth. “What’s your name?” he demanded suddenly. The voice went with his eyes.
“Eliza Williams,” she answered briskly. It was a nice ordinary name, Towner had invented it. “I’m Mr. Brewer’s secretary. If I can be of any assistance, Mr.—”
“No.” Then quickly he smiled again, as if he’d come to a decision. “Yes.” He thrust the white box at her. “There. Put that on ice for me. I’ll be in for it later.”
She’d passed the test. He believed in her secretarial performance. But she didn’t like his lordly attitude. She quieted temper. She began coldly, “We have no ice chest here, Mr.—”
He grinned, “Your desk is cold enough, sweetheart.” Then he made his grin into a smile, what he doubtless thought was a charming smile. “Mind you take good care of it. Don’t be giving it to anybody else but me.” He was gone before she could answer him, before she could inform him that Bryan Brewer’s was accustomed to dealing in rare objects and that his florist’s box would be perfectly safe here. He dashed out as he had dashed in, leaving no trace but the damp treads on the carpet, the box on her desk.
She took it up, thrust it into the deep lower drawer. She didn’t sigh; she released her breath slowly. He was gone. He wasn’t someone sent to spy on her; he wasn’t someone sent to tell tales to Bry Brewer. His footmarks evaporated from the rug. Outside the rain wept wearily to the window. Inside Eliza Williams waited alone.
The wet gray sky dropped lower over Madison Avenue and the lamps blinked on. The street lamps were pale fruit looking down on them from the window, here on the twelfth floor. Shrouded with the darkening rain, they hung suspended in the dim ghost light of the Avenue.
Eliza stepped back from the window. There was no reason to be chilled. The reception room of Bryan Brewer was rich and warm, safe from rain and ghost light. It looked shadowed only because of the early saffron darkness outside, because the lone desk lamp was too small for this hour of rainy evening. She’d never been in the office this late before.
She didn’t have to stay any longer. The blue-eyed man certainly wouldn’t return tonight for the package he’d left. He was doubtless across in Longchamp’s bar at this very moment surrounded by exquisite women and soft laughter, the box entirely forgotten. As forgotten as Brewer’s secretary. What was she waiting for? If he came in, he’d grab the box, say thank you, and go again that quickly. He wouldn’t appreciate it that she’d stayed after hours to give it into his hands.
Bryan Brewer certainly wasn’t coming in again. If he did he wouldn’t recognize her as something exquisite; he wouldn’t ask her to have a drink at Longchamp’s, and go on to dinner, maybe dancing. He would never know that there was once an Eliza Williams … She set her lips. She wasn’t seventeen any longer; the moon world of seventeen was long ago and far away.
If the box held a priceless lapis lazuli tea set, the blue-eyed man shouldn’t have left it here. It was probably a box of candy. Too heavy for a corsage. A box of candy for Feather Prentiss. He wouldn’t know that men didn’t give Feather candy; they sent rare ivory orchids, or primroses in January; boxes of uncut rubies, all the perfumes of Arabia. That’s what Bry Brewer would send Feather if he could pawn his soul for them. That was why he didn’t even know what Eliza Williams looked like after her six months in his office, taking his dictation, ordering his theatre tickets, reserving his tables at Toots and Morocco.
Six-fifteen. The sky growing darker and wetter. The building growing emptier and more vast. She wouldn’t wait any longer. The man could get his box tomorrow. She was going home. The smart of disappointment because she didn’t want to go home wasn’t anything new. Someday she’d give up hoping; she’d accept the dull evenings, the empty apartment. She’d give up expecting white orchids and Arabian perfumes, settle herself into the pattern of the efficient secretary she portrayed, growing grayer and more brittle by the year. Like Miss Grinswold who’d gone on to a more important secretaryship somewhere in the city. She’d even give up expecting Towner Clay to reappear. He had what he wanted and he’d found another girl to run his errands. He’d have turned up before now otherwise. This was her fate from now on. Waiting around a lonely office to deliver a parcel. Going out alone in the rain at night. Alone. Respectable. Lonely. Loneliness. And self-pity.
She looked at her watch again. Six-twenty. Slowly she put on her small black hat. She took out her lipstick savagely and put more red on her thrice reddened lips. From the mirror she saw the man shape against the door.
She knew before the door opened that it wasn’t the blue-eyed man returning. How she knew, she couldn’t say but she knew and she swiveled slowly, a small, cold wind blowing across her heart. There was no reason for it; there must be other late workers in the building. Furthermore, this was a modern, efficient building, derelicts couldn’t wander in at night. There was a man downstairs on duty, a register to sign. No one in New York knew who she was, why she was here. There was certainly nothing in the business of Bryan Brewer to draw danger to its doors. The sound of the phrase Importers and Exporters of Rare Objects might bring romantical notions to a romantical mind; one who rattled a typewriter forty hours a week knew better than to expect Polynesian thuggees lurking in dark corners.
It wasn’t the man she’d been waiting for because he would have flung open the door and dashed in, not fumbled outside. The blue-eyed man was that kind. She held the lipstick tightly waiting. So tightly that her thumb and forefinger ached. Then the knob turned and the person outside was in the room. Her hand trembled with relief. It was a messenger boy, his black rain cape glistened; his cap, too big for him, pushed down damply over his ears. He said, “Package for Mr. Keane.” He had a worried voice and a worried face; he wasn’t a boy, he was a miserable man, rain wet, his broken shoes soggy with rain.
She said, “You have the wrong office. This is Bryan Brewer.” She was sorry for him, for the additional lines her dismissal grooved on his face.
He shook his head. “Bryan Brewer. That’s right.”
She said, “There’s no Mr. Keane here.” It was when she spoke the name that she knew. In his mouth she hadn’t recognized it. It had happened at last. She’d been slow-witted not to have realized it earlier.
Her job was over. The messenger didn’t know the exaltation hidden behind her words. “I’m sorry. You’d better ask the night man downstairs. You could probably leave the package with him and save yourself another trip.”
He didn’t move. He just stood there, the water sliding down the slick black rubber of his cape to the bronze rug, his shoes soaking into the rug. Again he shook his head. He said in the same mildly worried voice, “I don’t have no package. I’m to get a package. Mr. Keane left it here.”
If he’d spoken another name, she might have given it over. But there couldn’t be two men named Keane carrying a package to Brewer. And if she hadn’t been looking at his shoes, regretting their damage to Bryan Brewer’s fine rug, it wouldn’t have come to her that no messenger service would send out a boy without his rubbers on a night like this. There were messengers in and out all day, always in boots and rubbered. She’d never seen one with broken shoes, shoes that looked as if they tramped the streets looking for work, not working shoes. She raised her eyes slowly to the man’s colorless face. “Did you say you were sent for a package?” she asked. She asked the question briskly, the efficient secretary voice.
“Mr. Keane sent me for a package he left here.” He spoke the line as if he’d memorized it, as if he’d finally remembered what he was to say. He hadn’t come from Keane.
She shook her head. “There’s no package here. Perhaps Mr. Keane left one with Mr. Brewer but he isn’t here and his office is locked. You come back in the morning.”
She was afraid he wasn’t going to leave. He didn’t seem to know what to do. He stood there, looking more uncertain, more lost.
She suggested, “Can’t Mr. Keane call Mr. Brewer at home if he must have it tonight? He’s in the book. You tell him to do that.”
“I’ll tell him.” He didn’t want to go but he went then; uncertain, unhappy, he went.
She waited only until his shadow passed the door before crossing swiftly. She turned the bolt and she stood there trying to quiet her quick breath. The blue-eyed man was Gavin Keane. He hadn’t sent the false messenger. He might be returning himself any minute; she must get away from here quickly. With the box, the box that wasn’t candy or flowers. That wasn’t for Feather Prentiss.
She took her black coat from the closet quickly. And then she realized. Someone else was after the box. Someone who wanted it enough to hire a derelict to impersonate a messenger boy. A derelict who was expendable? She put on her coat, buttoned it to her throat. The wool didn’t warm her. She opened the lower drawer of her desk, lifted out the box. Her hands were iced with excitement. There was no time to look into it now. The box wasn’t one you could disguise easily, it was too square, too deep for that. A plain package wrapped in white paper. The best she could do was cover it in the folds of a newspaper. If the worried messenger was waiting outside in the corridor, he’d know what it was she carried. Or if those who sent him were watching.
She couldn’t go out alone into the corridor, wait for the long climb of the elevator. She didn’t dare risk it alone. Even now knowing the door was locked, her skin was crawling. She took the noon paper from the desk, folded it over the box. She laid her purse on top it. She lifted the phone, called the night watchman’s office. She could hear the long ringing. She waited; eventually he would answer. He must. She had to get out of the building, get to the safety of her apartment. It wasn’t a place now that she was loathe to reach; it was haven.
She grasped at Charlie’s voice. “This is Miss Williams—Bryan Brewer’s. Would you mind coming up, Charlie?”
He’d mind. He’d grumble but he’d come. He always grumbled. She had to have some excuse. She thought of it quickly; it wasn’t too good but it would do.
She went to the door of Bryan Brewer’s private office, opened it, fearful of what might be in the darkness beyond. She set the latch and closed it. Her upper lip was wet when she sat down again to wait, the newspaper package cradled in her arm. She waited in silence, broken only by the shuffling of the rain against the windows. When she heard the clop of Charlie’s shoes on the long tiled corridor, she didn’t move. Not until she saw his shadow against the door. She called out then, “Who is it?”
“It’s Charlie. Who you think?”
She knew his accent, his intonation. She unlocked the door.
“What you want?” he demanded.
She smiled at him, smiled as if he were a white winged angel, not an unlovely little man with a scowl between his black toothbrush brows. She closed the door behind him as she spoke. “I was afraid the windows in Mr. Brewer’s offices might have been left open, Charlie. He went home early—and I forgot my key this morning.”
“All right. I’ll see.” He stumped across the rug, shaking his master key from his key chain.
She walked on his heels. He flashed on the light, went to the windows in both rooms. He snuffed, “All closed.”
She said, “Thanks, Charlie. Wait a minute and I’ll ride down with you. I’m leaving now.”
She knew he would wait. He wouldn’t want to bring the elevator up again to twelfth for her. She turned out the light, held the newspaper close against her as she closed the door.
She followed him down the dim lit corridor, not looking into the cross corridors as they passed. She kept talking because their steps echoed too loudly without words to soften them. “I came out without an umbrella or raincoat this morning. It looked like such a lovely day. Is it still pouring?”
“Yes.” He waited for her to enter the elevator. “You shouldn’t ought to work so late.”
She was inside the cage with him and there was no messenger peering after them. She said, “I don’t have to work nights often. This was something special.” She wanted to inquire of the messenger but she didn’t know how to say it. It was better not to mention the package. The messenger must have gone or Charlie wouldn’t have come up alone for her. He wouldn’t leave a stranger unguarded at night in the building. Grumble as he might, Charlie had pride in the building, his building.
They had reached the ground floor. He stepped out first. She followed cautiously but she didn’t need caution. There was no stranger here. Charlie had clopped to the door, was unlocking it to let her out. She followed reluctantly.
“I wonder if I can get a cab.”
He growled, “I don’t think so.”
There was no risk in stepping out on the sidewalk. This wasn’t a lonely byway. This was Madison Avenue; busses, cars, cabs splashed along its lanes. Across were lighted shops, just below, past Forty-sixth, the Roosevelt. She need but take a few steps to reach either one. Charlie didn’t hurry her tonight; the rain had given patience even to him. He thought her reluctance to move was the sloshing waves blown by the rising wind.
She would be drenched when she moved but it wasn’t that which held her motionless here in the doorway. It was who might be waiting in other doorways; waiting to grab this bundle out of her arms. It was, of course, ridiculous. No one would chance raising a hue and cry by snatching it. They’d do it in slyer ways, a messenger who wasn’t a messenger… She said, “When the light changes, I’ll run for it.”
Charlie grumbled, “You’re going to get awful wet.”
“I can cut through the Roosevelt,” she called even as she darted out. She didn’t think until she was half-running through the downpour what a fool she was to advertise her way home. There were figures standing under the marquee of the stores, on this side of Madison there was a man walking rapidly towards her, another coming behind her. She didn’t hesitate, splashing across the street slantwise towards the Roosevelt. She pushed through the doors into the lower lobby.
She stood a moment, shaking off the water, pulling the newspaper tighter about the box. A large puppy-faced man came through the door after her. He glanced at her only in passing, turned and walked up the stairs to the main lobby. She started down the corridor that led past the shops and the Grill but she stopped and turned back. It was too nearly deserted at this hour. The uneasiness engendered by the messenger hadn’t left her as yet. It wouldn’t until she was safe in her own apartment. She ran lightly up the stairs to the luxury of the bright, crowded hotel lobby. There was no one who paid any particular attention to her; a few, including the puppy-face, glanced up as she crossed this level but with only the casual inspection those who waited gave to any new entrance.
The direct way home was by the Fifth Avenue bus. To walk over to Fifth and wait the bus in the rain, even if night had not fallen, even if she didn’t have the precious package, was out of the question. She didn’t have to go outside; she could, by way of the underground passage, enter Grand Central and the subway. However, there wouldn’t be much chance of flagging a taxi near her subway station downtown. Not on a night like this. She wouldn’t want to walk to the Square from the station on this night.
She hesitated at the top of the stairs. She might have to wait a bit but eventually she’d get a cab at the Forty-fifth street entrance. There were always some incoming at a hotel. She descended the stairs and went out under the awning. Several men were standing there. The doorman shook his umbrella. “Taxi?”
She called, “Yes, please,” and pressed back to the door away from the windblown spray.
There was one quickly, but two of the waiting men took precedence. She took quick glimpse of the two men who remained. They weren’t together. They were middle-aged, ordinary looking, protecting themselves as best they could from the storm.
The rain dripped from the marquee, it blew with the wind into this oasis. She clutched the damp, bulky newspaper closer to her coat. Two cabs were drawing up. The first dislodged its party, couples in evening dress, and the one man stepped forward. The other man motioned Eliza to the second. He called to the doorman, “Let the lady go first.”
She inclined her head, “Thank you.” She waited until the gray-haired woman was helped to the walk, then entered the tonneau: She put a tip into the doorman’s hand, directed, “Washington Square.”
It was vague enough if anyone questioned him later. As the car jerked forward she peered back through the narrow oblong pane of the rear window. Her heart stopped for one long moment. The man who’d given her his place was entering the hotel.
It didn’t mean anything. He was tired of braving the rain; he’d stepped inside until the doorman had another cab for him. He couldn’t have heard her direction. He couldn’t be taking a short cut to the Square. Even if he did come to the Square, he wouldn’t know where to find her.
The driver slashed across to Fifth, headed downtown. He wasn’t driving fast, his windshield in spite of the furious wipers was blurred with the rain. Eliza sat rigidly, bracing herself against the cold, damp leather of the seat. If he’d only hurry. If only she could quickly reach the safety of her apartment. Lock the doors, lock intruders and night and rain and shoddy imitations of messengers outside. She watched the driver’s rearview mirror. It sparked with lights. She should know if she was followed but how could you know in New York traffic?
The cab slid through the darker way of Lower Fifth Avenue. The arch was ahead; there were no lights on the mirror now. She relaxed. She slid aside the glass separating the tonneau from the driver’s seat.
“The east side of the Square,” she said. She gave the number. “It’s that tall apartment house over there.”
He said, “I know it, lady,” and circled to the canopy.
She paid him, adding a particular tip for his transporting her safely. Richards was already at the door stooping under uplifted umbrella.
She smiled gratefully into the doorman’s homely circle of a face. Richards wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He’d known Towner’s Aunt Hortensia when she was a belle of the nineties; he’d been coachman then to another famous Manhattan family.
He said, “Bad night, Miss Liza. You were lucky to get a cab.”
“I was,” she smiled again up at his tall gray height. “I didn’t expect rain today. Didn’t dress for it.”
He opened the door into the warm haven of the lobby, followed her inside. It was more like a comfortable living room than a lobby. Bright chintz-covered couches and easy chairs, daisies and cornflowers on a pale green field, the same pattern curtaining the long windows. There was no desk, there was no need for one. No one could go up to your apartment without first passing the judgement of Richards at the door and Franz at the elevator. Franz was old and fragile. He had the courtly manners of an old world servant; he’d been majordomo to a famous French family. Richards and Franz; you were safe with them. You were safe in this apartment house with its manners and modes of an earlier day, a day of gentility and gentle folk.
Franz came forward. “Good evening, Miss Eliza. A bad night.” He held out his hand for her parcel but she shook her head.
“Too wet, Franz. Though I picked up a cab at the Roosevelt.”
“You’re late,” Richards admonished.
“I had to stay late at the office.” They both walked with her to the elevator. She was their special pet, their protégée. Not because of Miss Hortensia Clay who was considered a little giddy for this house, Hortensia who had blonde hair at sixty because she always wanted blonde hair but had never dared until she was sixty; Hortensia with all her quirks, her rumba lessons, her painted toenails, her fun. She, Eliza, was their special because she brought youth to them, because she was their remembrance of the past when they waited upon their young ladies. It was nice to be considered a lady.
She said goodnight to Richards at the elevator door. He shook his head. “You’d better lie abed in the morning, Miss Liza.”
“And lose my job?”
“It’s only right when they make you work late at night,” he told her belligerently.
Franz lifted the quiet front elevator to the fourteenth floor. She had no fear of getting out of it. There were only two apartments to the wing; there were no hiding places in the small exquisite square, deep carpeted, a gold framed oval mirror suspended above a small cherrywood table. Aunt Hortensia had installed the mirror so she’d have something to look at awaiting the elevator.
Franz said, “Goodnight, Miss. You’d best change your wet clothes quickly and drink something warm. You don’t want to take cold.”
“I don’t,” she agreed. She smiled goodnight as he closed the door and the elevator drifted away. She wasn’t afraid, setting the package on the table while she took her key from her black handbag. No one could come out of Apartment B except Mr. and Mrs. Hildebrand or their asthmatic spaniel. The Hildebrands were always at home at night except for their once a week voyage to the opera in season, and to the Boston Symphony during its New York engagement.
She wasn’t afraid but she hesitated a moment, the newspaper-covered package under her arm, before turning the key. She swung the door into the darkness, switched the light quickly in the apartment foyer. Reason returned. No one could be in her apartment. No one knew she lived here except Bryan Brewer. And Towner Clay.
She closed the door and went through the rooms steadily, lighting the living room; the dining room, turned into a game room by Aunt Hortensia who considered dining rooms waste space; the electric kitchen. The bolt on the kitchen door was tight as she’d left it this morning.
She went through to the bedroom corridor, lighted the two bedrooms and baths. The apartment was safe, serene and never more beautiful. Always on returning to it in the evening after an office day of being diminished to a piece of furniture by Bryan Brewer’s sterile efficiency, the apartment had the curative effect of a new, silly, but intensely becoming hat. There was nothing like modern white, chrome and glass, to give you the illusion of being a rare flower in an exquisite bowl. Eliza was grateful that she’d missed Aunt Hortensia’s Islands period; it might have brought bad dreams. There’d been an English county period, abandoned by Towner’s aunt because “shabby comfort becomes apologetic if you haven’t the right accent.” The Early Colonial had likewise been long abandoned, quoting Aunt Hortensia: “The functional always seems indelicate to me.” The French chateau period had gone its way because Hortensia couldn’t endure dripping maribou on the rugs. Aunt Hortensia had tinkled the history of her apartment on the brief day of her arrival in London. She’d been delighted to loan it to Eliza Williams, Towner’s young friend. She had no idea that Towner had cabled nostalgia to his aunt for the Continent merely to have use of her apartment. Even Eliza didn’t know why he wanted her to be housed here. She appreciated it none the less. Tonight as never before she appreciated its safety and Aunt Hortensia. You couldn’t shy at shadows in an apartment where there were no shadows, only clean shining surfaces.
Eliza left the lights on as she returned to the foyer, hung her coat in the closet. She was hungry, she’d get comfortable then fix something to eat. She discarded the damp newspapers in the foyer basket, picked up the box, stood for a moment holding it. No one could enter here unbidden but she carried the box to her bedroom, the front bedroom, all gray and silver gaudied by splashes of cerise. She set it on the dressing table. While she undressed, it was there, square and white and carefully wrapped, tied with white string ribbon. It was there, an unopened question mark, while she put on her pale pink nightgown, the frothy bright pink hostess gown, the pink ballet slippers. Towner paid well; at least she could be exquisite in private. It wasn’t a very good substitute for being across a small table from attentive eyes but it kept you from entirely forgetting you were human. She sat down at the dressing table behind the white box, unloosed her dusky hair, brushed it to her shoulders. She looked at the same face that a boy with wings—it seemed so long ago—had called beautiful. She brushed savagely. He was dead. But the wrong could be righted, would be righted. She and Towner would right it. She had the box.
She put down the hairbrush, laid one finger on that whiteness. She wasn’t Pandora. She knew what was inside. Yet she was loathe to open it, almost fearful, as if it were an evil something. It was evil, it had brought death. She lifted her head quickly. The sound had been her front door buzzer. It was repeated. She stood there motionless for a moment and then she relaxed. It could only be Franz with a letter, a telegram. Word from Towner! The box was in New York; Towner too must be here. Again the buzzer sounded. She moved quickly, taking up the box and putting it on her closet shelf, pushing it behind the hatboxes there. Although it was only Franz. She turned off the bedroom light as she went out, turning off the top living room light as she passed through to the foyer. The place looked like a Christmas tree.
She opened the door. It wasn’t Franz. It was the blue-eyed man, Gavin Keane. She was so astounded to see him there that she had no reaction to seeing him there. Her steps backwards into the room were automatic. He followed. It was he who closed the door.
Under that spell of astonishment she cried, “What are you doing here?” Only then did she realize; there was only one reason for him to be here.
He didn’t answer right away. He wasn’t dressed for evening, he was wearing the brown tweeds he’d worn in the office and he was more rain-soaked than he had been earlier. He stood there looking at her, his eyes narrowed on her. He said, “I’ve come for my box.”
He was definite; he knew she had brought it here. She needed time to know what to do. She began, “How did you—ever—”
He said, “I called your boss. He gave me your address—”
If she could only delay him until she could reach Towner Clay. But she didn’t know where Towner was. She shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. Franz brought you up.” He’d passed the twin Cerberus.
He laughed. “They seemed to think you were expecting me.”
She could understand that. He was tall and fair and decidedly handsome; even in the rain-bedraggled state; they would approve of her having a young man like this. They regretted she didn’t have a young man. They wouldn’t notice his eyes. They were too good to know of bad.
“They let me use the house phone.”
And he’d feigned using it. Why hadn’t he really rung up? Because he wasn’t sure of her; because even in certainty of her harmlessness he retained skepticism.
“I’m sorry.” He was in good humor. “If you’ll give me the box, I’ll be away before you can say Jack Robinson. Your beau’ll never know.”
There wasn’t any beau. He needn’t know. He had no suspicion that she cared what was in the box; he accepted her as the secretary even as he had earlier. She must make a delay. She said, “I’m very sorry—”
She broke off as the house phone sounded.
A belated query from Richards; conscience intruding in his romantic old heart. “Excuse me a moment,” she said. “Won’t you sit down?”
“I’m too rainy.”
The house phone was in the game room. She answered. It was Richards. “There’s a man down here looking for Mr. Keane. Do you want him to come up?” Richards didn’t sound enthusiastic. He didn’t want her and her young man interrupted.
She said, “Just a moment.” Gavin Keane couldn’t have brought along an accomplice; there was no reason for it. He expected her to hand over the box. Even if he anticipated trouble he wouldn’t need a gunsel. He could handle her unaided. She didn’t know who could be below, who could know Gavin Keane was here. She was a little fearful. But this might mean the delay she needed. She called out, “Are you Mr. Keane?” The blue-eyed man came through the living room to stand at the entrance of the game room. For a moment his eyes were curious on her, then he said, “Yes, I’m Gavin Keane. What is it?”
“There’s a man downstairs looking for you.”
Good humor had gone. He spoke quickly, and as softly as if the man fourteen floors below might overhear, “Find out who it is. What it is.”
She spoke into the phone. “What’s his name, Richards?” She waited.
Richards said, “He’s got something to deliver to Mr. Keane.”
She relayed, “He has something for you, Mr. Keane.” The quiver that went over her wasn’t stilled by the look on Gavin Keane’s face. He ordered in undertone, “Find out what he looks like.”
Richards’ voice disapproved. “He says he’s got to deliver it personally, Miss Eliza. Do you want him to come up?”
There didn’t seem to be any tactful way to ask a description. If there were she couldn’t think of one this quickly. Her fingertips were cold. She spoke again into the mouthpiece. “Could you tell me what he looks like, Richards?” She elaborated, “Mr. Keane doesn’t want to be bothered unless it’s business.”
Richards hemmed, “He’s a middling man. Nobody you’d be likely to know, Miss Liza. Not even anybody Miss Clay would. He says he’s got some business with Mr. Keane.”
She said, “Hold on another minute, Richards.” She said to Gavin Keane, “You ought to speak to Richards yourself. It’s hard to relay. I gather he’s average, not very prosperous. Evidently won’t give his name. A middling man, Richards says.”
He smiled at that. With his mouth. “Good enough.” He rammed his hands into his pockets. “I’d like to see him. I know it’s an imposition, but unless I can get rid of him—”
To old Richards’ plaintive, “What about it, Miss Liza?” she said, “Send him up.”
Keane nodded. “Thanks. What I wanted to say is unless I can be rid of him, I wouldn’t want to walk out of here with the box tonight. And I must. There’s no reason for you to be involved. If you’ll stay in your room—” He pulled off his hat with a sudden gesture. “I forgot. Your date—”
“I don’t usually entertain dates in negligee.”
“I’m sorry.” If he was embarrassed, it was covered by an impudent grin. “I thought it was your best dress. I’m not up on society.”
“I’ll be in the kitchen.” She turned. She had to play it innocent. It was her only hope of sending Gavin Keane away empty-handed. “I haven’t eaten dinner yet.” The buzzer sounded as she entered the kitchen. She didn’t leave the connecting door open. It didn’t matter if it was the pathetic messenger or the man who’d sent him. There was no reason for her to chill when Gavin Keane was present. Keane was big enough to take care of matters. She’d wanted time to think; she had it now.
She deliberately clattered the cooking utensils and dishes as she took them from the cupboards. There were lamb chops in the ice box. She lighted the broiler, set it. A chop. Coffee. Endive and tomato for a salad. Towner would be surprised how domestic she’d become. She could tell Keane she’d left the box in the office. He wouldn’t believe it; either he’d seen her carry it away or he’d returned to the office, searched. Because he knew. She couldn’t give it to him; she’d have to lie. Even if she said she’d left it in the taxi, even if he knew she lied. Even if she had to pretend that she liked him …
Think about food although the hunger had worn off long ago. Think about food and then she wouldn’t think about what was going on in Aunt Hortensia’s game room, of what would happen when that business was done. The only evidence of gaming was a dart board over the fireplace. Perhaps the small portable bar. The shelves were lively with books, the couches were deep as tossed hay. The room was a library but Hortensia refused the title as Victorian. Think of anything. Think of Aunt Hortensia bored by anything sporting from tiddledywinks to football; her snobbery of a game room. Anything but the silence of that room where two men conducted dangerous business.
Towner wouldn’t like it if anything went wrong. Towner liked everything neat, quiet. She didn’t know how she could get rid of Gavin Keane. She was rusty; six months confine in the respectability of a secretary had left her without too much confidence. Where was Towner? He must have known Gavin Keane was delivering the box today; he knew everything. He knew she didn’t plan campaigns; she followed orders.
The green leaves drifted slowly into the bowl. That sharp report. The heavy thud. She dropped the wooden spoon and fork without knowing where they fell. She pushed the door. There was no one in the game room, only his damp coat, his hat. Fearfully she rounded the shadowy living room.
Gavin Keane was standing in the foyer, standing over something crumpled and dark on the polished floor.