Death Wears a White Gardenia Read online

  She went to the door again and called softly to the young man at the nearest desk. "Bob, will you phone downstairs for me to the carpenter, and ask him to send someone up to put a lock on this door? Right away? And Bob, if anyone comes here, tell him it's Mr. Whittaker's orders that no one is to go into Mr. McAndrew's room. Let me know if anyone tries to get in, will you, Bob?"

  "Sure, Miss Carner. . . . It was murder, wasn't it?"

  She ignored the question and repeated: "Don't let anyone in. I'll be back in a few minutes to get the key for the new lock."

  Before she went on to Blankfort's room, however, she stepped into the little cubicle where Evelyn Lennon had typed letters for the credit manager. The desk's lid was down; the typewriter and empty wire basket waited for the day's correspondence. Only Evelyn's chair, thrust crookedly against the wall, indicated that something unexpected and startling had happened. The detective opened the desk drawers, and ran through them swiftly. There were pencils, rubber bands, clips, an eraser, fountain pen, ink eradicator, a box of loose face powder, a card of safety pins, a ten cent store box of hosiery mending silk, half a chocolate almond bar, letterheads, envelopes, and carbon paper, large white sheets and onion skin tissue, a folded white towel, machine embroidered in red with the name of Jeremiah Blankfort and Company, and a black suede handbag. From the handbag, Miss Carner extracted a coin purse, containing two single dollar bills and less than a half dollar in small change, a house key, a powder and rouge compact, a lipstick, a comb, a nail file, a broken string of beads, the card of a dress shop, a ten cent store handkerchief initialed E, and a snapshot. Her eves widened as she looked at the snapshot. It showed the rotund figure of Andrew McAndrew, in a bathing suit on a crowded beach. In his arms in a playful, albeit intimate embrace was Evelyn Lennon. She dropped the handkerchief and the picture into her own purse.

  A gust of laughter and applause drifted out to greet her as she crossed the carpeted expanse of the reception room to the President's office. Mary Carner opened the door softly and tiptoed inside. The anniversary breakfast was being held in the wood paneled, beam ceilinged, exquisitely furnished chamber which John Blankfort used as his private office.

  Gratz, the personnel manager, stood near the entrance. His anxious eyes met hers. "I've heard, Mary," he whispered. "Nobody's told Blankfort yet. It'll knock the guts out of him. He thought a lot of McAndrew."

  "I've got to tell him."

  "You can't, now."

  "Got to. It can't wait any longer."

  "F'Gawd's sake. This is no time to—"

  She pushed past him into the room.

  Pursell, the general manager, small, thin, dynamic, was on his feet, making a speech. He looked up as the door opened and frowned as he saw the young detective. Next to him sat Blankfort's wife—a little, sharp featured, gray haired woman, wearing a tight hat with pointed flaps which made her look exactly like a mouse. Mrs. Blankfort was smirking—a nervous, uncertain, rather silly little smile.

  The breakfast was over, Mary noted. Coffee cups stood empty on the white damask cloth which covered a horseshoe shaped table. The petals of the golden roses that lay beside each plate had begun to curl up. It had been a lovely table. Golden roses and asparagus fern in golden bowls, and gold shaded candlesticks had made it beautiful. Miss Carner's quick glance took in the two dozen faces that composed the semi-circle of the guests and their hosts. She saw that there were reporters at one end of the table, two young women and three men, scratching industriously on wads of folded paper. "Writing down Pursell's wise cracks," she thought, "when there's a story they'd give their eye teeth for, right in the building." The Governor's wife had removed her coat and had pinned her orchids to a black satin-covered shoulder. Blankfort sat beside her, whispering to her behind a gilded menu card. A slim, blonde, persistently smiling, musical comedy star was on his left hand, joining occasionally in the whispered conversation.

  "This is is certainly no time to tell him bad news," Mary Carner said to herself. But, resolutely, she took a scrap of paper from her handbag and she wrote a few words on it. If Jeremiah Blankfort and Company was to be saved from the discomfiture of unwelcome publicity today, if it was to prevent its anniversary celebration from being overshadowed by murder, Blankfort would have to act quickly. Only he could take responsibility and achieve what must be done to hush up the newspapers and direct police activity into unsensational channels. With a store full of customers and a murdered man in the back of the lingerie department, Pursell stood spouting platitudes!

  Mary Carner's expression was grim as she went round the table and handed Blankfort a note. He took it from her with a gesture of impatience. She had written, "McAndrew has been found dead. It appears to be murder. I must talk with you at once." He read it. She saw his lips tighten, the flesh around his nostrils grow white. His hand shook as he opened his fountain pen and wrote an answer. He handed it to her, turned toward the actress and began to talk fast and a little shrilly. Mary shook her head when she read his reply.

  It was a note like a growl: "Can't talk to you now. Be finished here in twenty minutes. Don't do anything 'till come down."

  "He's the boss," Mary Carner decided. She moved away reluctantly and with some impatience. "It'll be all over town in twenty minutes."

  She went out to get the key for the new lock that had been put on McAndrew's door. The young man at the desk in the enclosure gave it to her with a message: "The phone in McAndrew's office was ringing like mad," he said. "I answered the extension on Evelyn's desk. It was a man. He wanted McAndrew. Wanted to talk to him personally. I just said he wasn't in and the man said to tell him Bill called and he'd call in an hour, and there was no message."

  "Thanks, Bob," she said cordially and then she went to look for Evelyn Lennon.

  CHAPTER V

  Carner found Evelyn Lennon lying face downward on a wicker couch in the employee's rest room. A plump white clad matron, and a half dozen anxious young women stood in a semi-circle around her, watching her with a mixture of helplessness and curiosity. "I can't do a thing with her," the matron told the detective. "She's been crying like that for half an hour. She won't speak to me, or to any of the girls."

  "Keep them away from her. And keep them out of here," Mary said briefly. "Please, girls, please leave her alone. I want to talk to her, privately."

  Evelyn Lennon's hair was red. The pins had fallen out of it and it hung in soft dishevelment down her neck and over her shoulders. Her long, slender body heaved with sobs and when Mary touched her cheek she found it hot and moist. She took Evelyn's hand. "Brace up, girl. I know it's a terrible shock. Especially for you who worked with him."

  The girl turned her face toward the detective. Ordinarily a beautiful and graceful creature, with creamy white skin, long lashed gray-green eyes, she looked now like a caricature of herself. Her face seemed gaunt, her eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red and her skin had gone gray as ashes.

  "Oh, Mary, it isn't true. Tell me it isn't true," she sobbed.

  "I'm afraid it is. I want you to pull yourself together now. I want you to come down to Mr. Whittaker's office with me."

  "No, Mary. I can't," the girl sat up suddenly and began to tremble. "I won't."

  "I'm afraid you'll have to."

  "Mary, don't make me. I'd rather die."

  "Listen, Evelyn, I've got to talk plainly to you. Andrew McAndrew has been murdered. You know that? All right. Somebody murdered him. It's our job to find out who. Murder's been done. The murderer must be found. There are no two ways about that. And everybody's got to help. Especially you. You probably know more about McAndrew's affairs than anyone else in the store. You'll have to tell us what you know. I'm sure you'd rather talk to Chris Whittaker and me than to the police, wouldn't you?"

  Evelyn shook her head. "I can't. Really, I can't." The cords of her neck grew taut. Her voice became an hysterical shriek. "Mary, they won't do anything to me," she cried. "They can't. I didn't kill him."

  "Nobody said you did." Mar
y Carner, watching the girl closely, paused. "Nobody thought you did." Her statement had a note of interrogation.

  "I couldn't do a thing like that," Evelyn screamed. "I wouldn't have. Oh, Mary, it's too terrible."

  She swayed suddenly and dropped limp on to Mary Carner's arm.

  "Get some aromatics. Quick," Mary called to the matron. "Open a window." She dragged the limp figure to a chair beside the window, bent the girl's head down to her lap and held the bottle to her nostrils. As she held Evelyn Lennon thus, the detective saw a sheet of paper, crushed between the unconscious girl's brassiere and her body. With the swift, almost imperceptible motion with which she was accustomed to frisk shop lifters, she drew the paper out and thrust it into her own coat pocket. Then, as if in apology, she patted Evelyn's shoulder gently. The girl's eyelids fluttered; her spine began to stiffen. When she had straightened up again, Mary slipped an arm under her and led her back to the couch. "Lie perfectly still and relax," she ordered.

  "I'm all right now. I'll be all right. Send her away, Mary. Send the matron away. Mary, I've got to tell you something."

  The matron stepped reluctantly to the door. "Don't let anyone in," Mary Carner ordered.

  Evelyn sat up, her gray face twitching. "I've got to tell somebody." Her hands writhed in her lap. "I can't keep it to myself any longer. I've got to have help. Mary, I'm in trouble." Scarlet embarrassment flooded her face and throat—"It's so hard for me to tell anybody. Andrew—it's Andrew's child—what'll I do?" Her voice had the toneless quality of blank despair. She took hold of the detective's arm. "Tell me, Mary, what'll I do now?"

  Mary Carner shook her head somberly. "It's an awful mess. An awful mess."

  "What'll I do?" The girl's flat voice persisted. "What'll I do?"

  The detective put a comforting arm around the girl, caressed her in wordless sympathy for a few moments. "There's some way. There's some way to work it out," she said gently. But then, remembering why both of them were there, she withdrew her arm. "I'm a swine," she thought. "But I can't let her do this to me. She'll have me crying with her." She rose. "Don't think I'm heartless, Evelyn. Don't think I'm not sympathetic—that I'm not anxious to help you. But there's a job we both have to do. Right now. I have to take you downstairs with me. See here. I'm going to call the matron in to help you get yourself together. Stop crying now. Where's your handkerchief?" Evelyn picked up a wet ball that had rolled under her on the couch.

  "It's soaked," said Mary. "Give it to me. You take mine." She put the wet handkerchief into her purse. She noted that it was like that other she had found in the handbag upstairs, sleazy cotton initialed "E." "Now wash your face, fix your hair and put on some make-up. Here, take my compact. That's a good girl. I'll leave you with the matron a few moments. There's something I've got to do. I'll be right back."

  The something Mary Carner had to do she did on the other side of the rest room door. She read the note she had taken from Evelyn Lennon's dress. It said: "Honey, I'm thinking of you. Sorry I had to call off our date tonight. Don't worry. Everything will be all right. I'm not going to let you down. Just give me a chance to get things fixed up. Got a date down at the bank in the morning. Will be in around ten." It was handwritten and the writing seemed the same as that which had indited the two scraps of paper Mary had found in McAndrew's waste-paper basket. Mary Carner came back into the room with the note in her hand.

  Evelyn Lennon had stopped crying. She had put fresh lipstick on her mouth and powder on her nose, but her eyes were haggard and her cheeks still ashen. Color leaped into them as she saw the paper in Mary's hand.

  "Where'd you get that? It's mine. Give it back to me.

  "I can't give it back to you, Evelyn. I'm sorry. I had to take it and I have to turn it over to the police."

  Evelyn sank back on the wicker couch. Tears started to her eyes again.

  "It's from Andrew?" Mary persisted.

  The girl nodded. "We had a date last night. We were going out to supper. He bought me some gardenias for my coat. So I'd look dressed up. And then at the last minute, at half past five, he found he had some work to do, and said he'd have to stay at the store. He left the letter in my desk for me." Her voice turned to pleading. "Oh, Mary, I must have it. It's my last word from him. He was going to see me through....Mary, we were going away together....I have to have it."

  Mary shook her head. "What bank, Evelyn, was he going to go to this morning?" she went on.

  "I haven't any idea. He didn't say."

  "Where did he have his personal account?"

  Evelyn hesitated. "He drew his personal checks on a bank in New Rochelle where he lived," she said. "And I know he had a savings account, but I don't know in what bank. But he might not have had to go to one of his own banks. Lots of times he went on store business to see about customers' checks that didn't go through—things like that."

  "Where were you last night, Evelyn?"

  "Why, home—I went home, I didn't feel well. I went to bed early."

  "Where's home?"

  "339 West 84th Street. I've got an apartment."

  "Alone?"

  "Irene, Irene Gates of advertising, lives with me."

  "Was she home too?"

  "Yes."

  "And you went home after McAndrew called off your date? And you stayed there all evening?"

  Evelyn nodded with an almost imperceptible reluctance.

  "Why did Andrew have to work late last night?" Mary went on. "I should think he'd have to put in overtime after the sale, not before it."

  Evelyn shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know why. Except that he was so faithful to Blankfort's—you haven't any idea, Mary. He worked so hard. Why lots of times he didn't leave the store till nine or ten. I used to meet him then, and we'd go to a movie or to a restaurant or to my place." Evelyn Lennon began to sob again. She raised the handkerchief to her eyes...

  "Please, Mary, give me back my letter—it's so precious...."

  Mary Carner seemed not to hear. "Did McAndrew's wife know about you two?" she persisted.

  Anger brightened Evelyn's eyes. Her lips drew back into a thin, bitter line. She nodded her head affirmatively.

  "Did she know about the baby?" The girl's eyes filled. "Mac said he told her. But she wouldn't divorce him. She said she'd never let me have him."

  "How do you know she said that?"

  "Mac told me."

  "Did she know you had a date with him last night?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did she ever come to the store?"

  "I know what you're driving at," Evelyn Lennon sprang to her feet. "I know what you're getting at," she screamed. "She killed him. She killed him on account of me." She fell to sobbing again. "My poor dear Andrew. My poor darling...."

  "Evelyn, stop crying and listen to me," Mary tugged at the weeping girl's arm. "Evelyn, listen to me. If you're really sincere—and I think you are—in wanting to help us find out why Andrew was killed you've got to show some backbone. Do you understand? "You've got to tell me everything. I want you to tell me who else besides Mrs. McAndrew knew of your intimacy with McAndrew. Irene knew, I suppose."

  Evelyn nodded tearfully. "Irene knew. But I don't think she told anyone. Irene minds her business. And we were awfully careful in the store. Margaret Rogers used sometimes to snicker and look wise, and one or two of the others on the eighth floor. But we were very careful, Mary. It was our private business and we kept it to ourselves. Of course, Bill knew too."

  Bill who?"

  "Bill Smith. Mac's friend. Bill used to go out with us, meet us at Tony's. He and Mac sometimes had business deals on."

  "What kind of business?"

  "I don't know," said Evelyn sharply. "Mac minded his own affairs. I once asked him and he said there was only one way to keep a secret and that was not to tell anybody. Not even me. All I know was Mac and Bill Smith used to make money together. Piles of money. I once saw Bill hand Mac a stack of hundred dollar bills in Tony's."

  "And you were never
curious enough to find out what sort of business they had together? That's strange for an intelligent girl like you."

  "It wasn't queer," Evelyn said defiantly. "I loved Andrew. And I saw it made him mad if I asked about it. It didn't make any real difference to me. Besides, I couldn't bear to nag Mac. He had enough nagging at home. He said he'd soon have money enough so we could go away together. I just figured that he and Bill had some kind of a business racket together, and I let it go at that. But Mary, he didn't kill Mac. Why do you want to know about Bill? He didn't kill Mac," she smiled wanly. "I'm sure he didn't kill Mac. Nobody kills his best friend."

  "Let's let the police decide that. We'll go down and tell them everything we know. And listen, girl, you can be of great help if you just hang on to yourself. If you help us now, Evelyn, I'm going to see if we can't help you."

  Evelyn Lennon gulped. She pressed Mary Carner's handkerchief again to her eyes. "Give me your compact, Mary. Just once more." She powdered her nose, looked at herself in the mirror, touched her lips and cheeks with rouge. "All right. Let's go."

  At the door she paused again for an instant, and clung to Mary Carner's arm. "I don't have to look at the body, Mary? I don't have to see Andrew dead?"