Death Wears a White Gardenia

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  DEATH WEARS A WHITE GARDENIA

  by

  Zelda Popkin

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  BOSON BOOKS

  Raleigh

  Published by Boson Books

  ISBN 1-886420-14-9

  An imprint of C&M Online Media Inc.

  Copyright 1995 Richard H. Popkin and Royal S. Popkin

  All rights reserved

  For Information contact

  C&M Online Media Inc.

  3905 Meadow Field Lane

  Raleigh, NC 27606

  Tel: (919) 233-8164

  e-mail: cm@cmonline.com

  URL: http://www.bosonbooks.com

  The strained atmosphere of a great New York department store is the setting for this brain-teasing mystery. Early one morning, Andrew McAndrew, credit manager of the store, is found dead—murdered—in an alcove just off the silk underwear department. A big man, McAndrew had been choked to death the evening before. Chris Whittaker, store detective, and pretty Mary Carner, one of his assistants, are the chief investigators. A good many persons had been working in the store during the time when McAndrew must have been murdered, and they are all under suspicion. A shop lifter who found the body, the murdered man's wife, his mistress who is also an employee of the store, are also among those whose activities are under investigation. Mary Carner finds that the murdered man's files have been tampered with; constant danger attends her search for evidence. Even though the murderer will come to the reader as a great surprise, there are clues leading to him, or her, fairly placed through the book. This is a mystery that will the most exacting reader.

  CHAPTER I

  At fifiteen minues before five o'clock on the evening of March fourteenth, Joseph Swayzey entered the department store of Jeremiah Blankfort and Company on Fifth Avenue, New York. In his left hand he carried a suitcase. It was a medium size bag of worn tan cowhide. He carried it as though it contained enough but not too much of a gentleman's wardrobe. It was a bag of apparent quality, harmonizing with his tweed overcoat which was smart and suggestive of British tailoring—not however, too smart or too obviously English—and with his dark felt hat and his tooth-brush mustache. A fresh white gardenia adorned his coat lapel. An acute observer might have noted that Mr. Swayzey glanced down at the gardenia occasionally and inhaled with evident pleasure.

  The men's furnishings department, on the main floor at the right of the Fifth Avenue entrance, was Mr. Swayzey's immediate objective. He stopped there before a display rack, put down his suitcase and caressed a silk necktie with gloved fingers. Harry Rosenbloom, salesman of men's furnishings, who was clearing the counter preparatory to closing, looked up eagerly.

  "May I assist you?" he asked.

  Mr. Swayzey draped a necktie over the back of his hand, held it to the light, and contemplated it. "Have you a similar tie in blue?" he inquired. His voice was husky, his words carefully modulated, and vaguely English.

  Mr. Rosenbloom shuffled his long thin boxes and flipped them open expertly. "We're all out of blue in that pattern," he replied. "We have it in green and brown and gray." He opened another box. "Here's a very handsome blue tie. It's an exclusive pattern."

  Mr. Swayzey held the tie between his fingers, regarding it thoughtfully. "No," he decided. "The design is not quite suitable." His accents were as politely regretful as his first selection had been impeccable. "I shall take the other in brown." He tendered two single dollar bills from his leather wallet, picked up his bag and waited, tapping with genteel impatience on the glass counter for his change and for his package.

  Mr. Rosenbloom handed it to him with a flourish and a "Thank you very much, sir." Mr. Swayzey tucked the package under his arm, and moved on leisurely.

  "Dja get the accent? English," Mr. Rosenbloom smirked to Miss Fay Winter at the other end of the counter. "Just off the boat, I betcha."

  Miss Winter gazed after the moving figure. "I like that type," she said. "It's so refined. I like them small mustaches. He looks like a movie actor. Somethin' like Clark Gable without the ears.

  "Yeah," Mr. Rosenbloom retorted. "Dja see the suitcase? Ever see a movie actor carrying his own luggage?"

  As he advanced through the store Mr. Swayzey's footsteps quickened and his preoccupation increased. To men's shirts and gloves he gave not even a passing glance; he hurried by the glass cases that reflected the glitter of costume jewelry. He strode, without as much as a twitch of nostrils or turn of head to show that he knew they were there, past counters laden with the perfumes of Worth and Chanel, of Coty and Matchabelli, in flacons exotic and costly. It took a great deal of will power to pass those by. Perfumes were a weakness of Joseph Swayzey. But Harris had ruled, "No more perfume. We got all we can handle of that junk." Some day, when he was rid of Harris and on his own, he'd specialize in perfumes. That was the way to combine business with pleasure. For the moment, the white gardenia was consolation.

  Singularly, Mr. Swayzey's promenade came to an end in the silk underwear department, in, to be specific, that section of the department devoted to handmade lingerie designed in France, and executed by the sight-destroying labor of underpaid Chinese and Porto Ricans. The tables in the center of the section drew his discerning eye. One was heaped with nightgowns, pink, peach, orchid and white, looking like old fashioned valentines with blobs of lace and fine spun cobwebs of embroidery; another with panties; a third slips. He looked at a price tag, speculatively, saw "$19.75" in red ink, below the crossed-out typed figure of "$24.50."

  "That's the idea," he told himself. "Mark it down and out it goes." It was more than a statement. It was a joke and he smiled to himself over it. To the clerk who came over hopefully, he apologized. "Just looking," he said. "Wife's birthday."

  "These are excellent values, sir. All our French imports have been marked down for the anniversary sale tomorrow. There may never be another opportunity like this."

  "Right you are," Mr. Swayzey agreed. "Just looking," he repeated, and moved reluctantly on.

  At the distant end of the silk underwear department, where negligees of sheerest chiffon and lace, draped tantalizingly over full busted dummies, seduced the eyes and common sense of frustrated housewives and sensuous stenographers and turned their thoughts to pent-house infidelity, Joe Swayzey passed a bank of elevators and a row of dressing rooms.

  In front of one of the dressing rooms Mr. Swayzey ran into a woman in a mink coat. Ran into is the word. There was a thump. The woman was on her way out of the dressing room, and as women sometimes do, she was walking forward and looking backward, and carrying on a conversation as well. "You'll send these three—the black chiffon, the cream lace, the orchid satin—to my apartment. You know the charge," she was saying to the clerk who followed her with the armful of satin and chiffon, at the moment when she bumped into Mr. Swayzey and his suitcase. Mr. Swayzey lifted his hat and his eyebrows. He saw that she was blonde, expensive looking and exceedingly beautiful.

  "I beg your pardon," he said, bowing like Lord Vere de Vere. "Some doll!" he thought.

  In the doll's eyes he caught a flicker of interest, and as he moved slowly on, he heard her saying to the clerk: "He's certainly not hard to look at." Though it flattered him, he, none the less, wished she hadn't. At this stage, he preferred to attract no female attention. He knew that the blonde had looked back, and the clerk as well, and he had arrived at a moment when all persons who looked at him twice were mortal enemies, and so he paused, simulating nonchalance, pretending to examine the silken fabric which swathed a dummy. Not for long, however—not long enough to draw the solicitude of another clerk. Mr. Swayzey knew the importance of timing.

  Be
yond the row of dressing rooms, there was a solid door, connecting the main selling floor, apparently, with the stock rooms. As he approached this door, Mr. Swayzey's footsteps quickened and his manner changed. Abruptly, he ceased to be the casual gentleman shopper. He looked about furtively, sharply, and then, seeing no one, and being reasonably certain that no one saw him, opened the door and darted through. Beyond the door he found a long dim passage and a row of high narrow cubicles. At the distant end of the passage, a delivery truck was backed into an open street entrance. A watchman sat on a high stool beside a wooden counter, watching two uniformed figures moving busily, rhythmically, with arm loads of gray wrapped bundles. The watchman gave no indication that he saw or heard Joe Swayzey at the farther end of the corridor. A single bulb swung over the cubicles. It shed a feeble pinkish beam which produced shadows rather than light.

  Mr. Swayzey knew department stores like a book; It was, as a matter of fact, his business to know them thus, to know both their show places and their hiding places. That at Jeremiah Blankfort's these high, dim cubicles had been erected just outside the lingerie department for the convenience of outside salesmen who brought in bundles of sample merchandise to show to the store's buyers, was a coincidence of which he had long been aware, a fact that had entered into certain plans he had made. One or two of the cubicles were occupied by cases a little larger than his own, but their owners, he was gratified to note, were not in sight. He was for the moment alone in the passage. The somnolent watchman was as good as no one.

  The first of the cubicles had been put up behind the door through which he had entered, and into this one Joe Swayzey thrust his cowhide case. It was a dark cubicle—too dark to be of much practical use, somewhat inconvenient of access because of the in-swinging door, and perfect for his purposes. Opposite it another narrow passage led to the stock rooms and packing tables. With quick assured steps, Swayzey started down this passage. A stock clerk, coatless and in shirt sleeves, barred his progress, regarding Mr. Swayzey and his good English clothes with frank curiosity. "I'm looking for a men's lavatory," Mr. Swayzey murmured. "I was told there was one back here."

  "Down the end of this passage on the right, first door."

  "Thank you." Mr. Swayzey moved off, found the men's room, entered a compartment, bolted it. He turned back his cuff so that he could more easily see the dial of his watch. Tense and alert he watched the crawling minute hand. A gong reverberated through the store; overhead, and in the passage alongside, feet pattered swiftly. The lavatory door opened and shut a few times. For a quarter of an hour Joe Swayzey held his watch and listened until the footfalls had all died away. Then he unlocked the compartment and scurried down the passage to the cubicle where his suitcase was hidden. He picked it up, snapping its lock open as he moved, and darted through the door to the lingerie department.

  A dim night light burned in that corner of the main floor. Blue denim had been stretched over the tables. Mr. Swayzey lifted the shrouds. With lightning rapidity he picked out nightgowns, slips, chemises, and crammed them into his bag. Selection was easy. During his brief pause less than a half hour earlier, he had decided what he would take. A careless amateur might have grabbed at random and scattered, but not Joe Swayzey. He left the tables as neat as he had found them, piles of merchandise smaller, but otherwise not visibly disturbed. Swayzey had technique. When his suitcase would hold no more, he sighed regretfully. Then he scurried through the door again and dropped his burden into the dim empty cubicle at the beginning of the passage.

  "Ta-ta," he said to his luggage and to himself. "Take care of yourself, kid. See you in the morning." He adjusted his coat, flicked his hat brim and strolled through the store again to the main entrance, confidently and without undue haste. The store was empty, its lights dimmed. The denim shrouds covered all its tables and glass counters. Only the windows were bright and alive. Behind drawn street shades, figures, feet muffled in paper bags and felt slippers, padded softly to and fro.

  A uniformed watchman stood at the front door. The watchman took in Mr. Swayzey's good clothes, noted that he bore only a small, thin parcel correctly wrapped. "You're late, sir," he remarked casually. "I guess you're the last customer in the store."

  "I'm sorry," Mr. Swayzey said, with cold politeness, and he added truthfully, "I was in a lavatory."

  The watchman winked. He unlocked the door and let Joe Swayzey out.

  CHAPTER II

  When at fifteen minutes after nine o'clock next morning Joe Swayzey presented himself at the main entrance of Jeremiah Blankfort & Company, a policeman barred his way. The policeman pushed him back somewhat rudely, disdaining those good English clothes.

  A thin shudder ran involuntarily down Joe Swayzey's spine at this fleeting contact with the blue cloth that covered the arm of the law. Yet, since he had no desire to draw attention to himself by too obvious irritation, he vouchsafed merely a faint and most polite: "What's going on?"

  "You gotta wait," the policeman explained. "Customers can't come in till the store's officially open. Anniversary Sale. Or something. They're waiting for the Governor's wife. She's going to open the store with a gold key. She'll be along any minute now. Stand back. Wait over there."

  The officer indicated a huddle of shivering pedestrians before the entrance. Mr. Swayzey moved toward it with growing discomfiture. Crowds like this gave him jitters. A crowd usually held one or two store detectives, or members of the police pickpocket squad who had a sharp eye for a familiar face and a rotten way of detecting a false mustache.

  Joe decided to take a stroll around the block. He strolled leisurely, looking into the windows with a connoisseur's eye. It was Jeremiah Blankfort's block, with four sides of plate glass windows which screened dresses, furs, shoes, china and costly furniture. The windows were stunning, he noted with approval—gold paint, hangings of gold brocade, flashes of metallic cloth, calling attention with persuasive subtlety to the store's golden jubilee celebration. His aesthetic pleasure gave way, however, to panic. Those handsome displays, he realized, had been set up over-night. Window trimmers had worked while he slept. The store had been full of people for many hours after he had gone. More than ever, he was impatient now to get to his precious suitcase.

  At the bustling corner where Forty-sixth Street joined Fifth Avenue, a cadaverous elderly woman in a rusty black spring coat huddled against the store window, as if seeking protection from the cold March wind. A florist's green box rested on her outstretched hands, and as Swayzey passed she reminded him shrilly: "Gardenia. Buy a gardenia." He extracted a quarter from his pocket and pinned on a flower. As the flower's perfume reached his nostrils, his spirits rose.

  When he had come around to the front entrance again, he found the ceremonies in full swing. The Governor's wife had arrived, a tall, stout woman, wearing orchids pinned to the fox collar of her black caracul coat. Newspaper cameras and sound reel machines formed a barricade between her and the passersby.

  The Governor's wife had a tremendous gilded key. She giggled as she stabbed it futilely at the tiny keyhole. A harried looking man of medium height and sturdy build, in striped trousers and morning coat, with the bud of a talisman rose in his coat lapel, stood beside her. . . . ."We are very much honoured by your presence here, as representative of the Governor of the great commonwealth of New York . . ." the man stammered.

  "That's Blankfort. John H. Blankfort. Grandson of Jeremiah. He owns the store," someone whispered. The cameras clicked. The crowd shifted its chilly feet. "I declare this store officially open for its fifty-first year," piped the Governor's lady. A man within the store threw back the latch. There was a patter of applause and the crowd surged in.

  Mr. Swayzey tried to seem casual as he made his way across the main floor. He tossed a glance at initialed handkerchiefs and silk pajamas; he paused with a pretence of interest before the water carafes and cloisonne' ashtrays, but his steps, as he advanced toward the silk underwear department, were less assured than they had been the day before. He had
been a fool, he realized now, to pick a morning like this. But the anniversary sale had been an important part of his calculations. The big crowds, the interest in the advertised visiting celebrities, the preoccupation of the store's personnel with bargain shoppers, would, he had anticipated, draw attention away from him and his suitcase. He was aware now that that might easily have been a mistake. An ordinary sale day would have been much better. There were too many cops around today. Too much delay. Too great an opportunity for someone else to pick up his carefully hidden luggage. Nevertheless, when he came eventually to the silk underwear department, he was inclined, once more, to think well of his judgment. The clerks were in a huddle as he passed through the department, their eyes riveted on the elevator doors, their interest on visitors rather than customers. "Did you see her?" they were asking one another. "There she goes, with Mr. Blankfort. Up to his office. Anniversary breakfast. Who're the cuties? Show girls?" No one at that moment had eyes for Mr. Swayzey. No one noticed him he opened the door beside the dressing rooms, stepped through and reached into the cubicle behind the door.

  Swayzey's groping hand stopped and stiffened. A tingle of terror swept him from head to foot. He began to sweat. His avid fingers, awaiting the comforting contact of smooth cowhide, had met a cold, rigid human hand. He forced himself to look at that which his fingers had already perceived. He saw in the semi-darkness, dim but unmistakable, the wide open bulging eyes and swollen tongue of a dead man, the figure of a stout, middle aged person, standing upright, jammed tight within the narrow walls of the closet. His shoulders were slumped, as if with weariness, but the close confines of the little closet held the body erect, as if it had met death on its feet, had looked it fairly the eye, and had not gone down. Panic flooded Mr. Swayzey.