Gentleman Called Read online

  “That man,” Mrs. Mellody said with consummate scorn.

  “Didn’t he fit in?”

  “He did not, though he belonged to us. He joined strictly for purposes of his own, I do believe, and I don’t think they had anything to do with the Lord’s work. Oh, I don’t suppose that’s fair to him either. He needed all the sources of income he could find to scratch out a living. And not much of a living it was. I never knew a man so thin. If he’d swallowed a needle, you’d see the bulge.”

  Tully smiled.

  “You have a nice face when you smile, Mr. Tully.”

  “Kind of awful without it though, isn’t it?” he drawled. “Was there any particular friendship between Blake and Mrs. Sperling?”

  “No, none. The only half-way special friend Blake had was Eddie Murdock. And what they had in common was a matter of considerable worry to me—.” Mrs. Mellody leaned forward and put a finger on his arm that Tully thought would pin down any man. “They both liked ‘girls’…young girls.”

  Her eyes were glistening, and it wasn’t nice to see. She was the worst kind of puritan. Nothing must give her more pleasure than to arrange a sexless marriage.

  “Well,” Tully said, getting up, “I guess it was better for them than liking boys, at that.”

  17

  JIMMIE HAD NOT FINISHED dressing in the morning when Mrs. Norris tapped on his bedroom door. He wondered if she was on a tea “kick” again. Periodically she took to urging a cup of morning tea upon him while he was dressing. He absolutely refused to pour it over himself in bed. The only cure for these morning tea turns of hers was the suggestion that she take a year’s leave and go visit Scotland. Likely a good thing for both of them: during her absence he might get married…

  “Come in,” Jimmie growled.

  “Good morning, Mr. James. Your Mr. Adkins is in the study.”

  “He’s where? Did he spend the night there?” It was not yet eight-thirty.

  “Certainly not,” Mrs. Norris said, with an air of indignity sufficient to his having accused her of spending the night there also.

  “All right,” Jimmie said, “I’m not blaming you for letting him in.”

  “But I did,” she said, “just a moment ago. He only wants a word with you, a civil word, sir.”

  “Look, Mrs. Norris, you keep my house. You may even keep my purse, but I will keep my own counsel. Do you understand? Now go out there and get that Teddy-bear out of my study, out of the house. I will see him at the office. Or tell him to come back tonight. No! It’s bad enough he’s started the day for me. I won’t have him ending it, too. Bring me a cup of coffee.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll take him one, too.”

  “I want mine first!” Jimmie cried.

  Mrs. Norris turned round. “I have ever done everything for you first, Master Jamie,” she said reproachfully.

  Jimmie sat down and held his head in his hands until the coffee arrived. It was one hell of a way to start the day.

  Adkins was delicately sipping his coffee out of a blue china cup, and with a silver coffee service gleaming beside him. It was enough to blind a man at that hour. He was pouring himself a second cup when Jimmie joined him. He offered one to his host.

  Jimmie accepted limply.

  “I should like to have my clipping book back if you’re through with it—and Mama has sent you an invitation.”

  “Thanks,” Jimmie said, brightening a bit. After all, it might have been Mama herself who turned up in his study.

  “She thought you might like to spend the week-end with us. She said I should recommend our hunting.”

  “Do you hunt?”

  “Oh, no,” Adkins said. “I don’t approve killing for pleasure.”

  Jimmie unlocked the middle drawer of his desk and brought out the album. He returned it to its owner.

  “Find anything interesting?”

  “What put you onto the Ellie True affair?”

  “I liked the looks of the unfortunate Reverend Blake. He resembled Don Quixote. And Ellie True reminded me of my sister, Miranda.”

  “You knew them then?”

  “Certainly not, except as they appeared in the newspapers. I am an avid reader and clipper.” He glanced at his watch. “I must get along to the office. Will you call Mama today about the week-end? She would like you to come up on Friday.” He tucked the album into his dispatch case.

  “I’ll call,” Jimmie said.

  “I don’t suppose you’re going downtown now?”

  “Not yet,” Jimmie said. He simply could not bring himself to invite the man to wait or to share his breakfast with him. He took him to the door. The most hospitable thing he could manage was a weak smile.

  He picked up the morning paper and took it to the table with him.

  Mrs. Norris served him an egg, the collar of which had a brown fringe on it. “The pan was too hot,” she explained unnecessarily. “You could have asked Mr. Adkins to breakfast. I always have enough eggs in the house.”

  “There’s been enough of Mr. Adkins in the house, too,” Jimmie said.

  “I think he’s a very cheerful gentleman, and it’s nice to see one here, especially in the morning.”

  “He reminds me of Harpo Marx,” Jimmie said, “scalped.”

  “I think that’s disgusting, sir.”

  “So do I!” roared Jimmie, and watched her thump out of the room.

  18

  MRS. NORRIS SAT A few moments before doing the dishes that morning although it was a practice she disapproved in others, much less herself. But Mr. Adkins, arriving that early had nonetheless remembered the book he had promised her: Ballads of the North Countrie. She read a few lines here and there…“And the birk and the broom blooms bonnie…” Where else in the world over was there such a resounding use of the language?

  She rose to the ring of the telephone. It was Mr. Adkins himself. “I’m about to impose on you for a most enormous favor,” he said. “I wonder if you could take an hour from your day, and help me select a gift for my mother? She’s a very old lady, and I thought perhaps something in Scotch wool…”

  Mrs. Norris could not very well refuse him. So they met at eleven at Lord & Taylor. Before reaching the woolens, Mr. Adkins caused them to peruse a few things in silk and some jewelry in gold and silver. He had lovely taste for a man, and almost fondled the things he fancied, she observed, and she remembered that he had the pocketbook to match his taste, according to Mr. James.

  “Are you sure it’s a very old lady, sir?” Mrs. Norris ventured once indirectly commenting on a trinket with which he was trifling.

  Mr. Adkins laughed. “I swear it by my honor and hers.” While they awaited the elevator, he asked: “Has Mr. Jarvis told you of the scrape I’m in?”

  “No, sir. Mr. James never confides his clients’ affairs to me.

  “’Tis a woman, you know,” Adkins said, and Mrs. Norris was aware of his sidelong glance to see how she took it.

  “Many a man gets scraped by them, if he takes up with too sharp a one,” she said. She was pleased with herself for having been right in her guess about him the first night he came into the house.

  “Oh that I’d had the benefit of such wisdom in time,” Adkins cried. “I did but call on her a few times—properly, I assure you—and now she dares accuse me of fathering her child.”

  An elevator was no place to pursue that subject, and in truth, Mrs. Norris was glad of the respite to cover the pause it gave her. “The old ballads are lovely,” she said on the way up. “All about courting and dueling, parting and pledging. I never knew the Scotch were so great on poisons.”

  Mr. Adkins, close by her side in the elevator, gave her arm a little squeeze while he laughed. “You are a delightful woman.”

  They ended up buying Mama a Sea Isle sweater, and Mr. Adkins said it was a shame to have brought Mrs. Norris out of the house to select something he could have bought through the Sunday magazine section of The New York Times. The least he could do now if she would allow i
t, was take her to lunch.

  “I know a place where the salmon melts on your tongue,” he coaxed.

  Mrs. Norris, allowing that she would have to eat somewhere, consented. She even found herself wishing that by some marvel of fate, Jasper Tully might chance to see them. But then it would get to Mr. James, and she would as soon that not happen. And the fact that she felt that way troubled her. Not enough to ruin her appetite, but enough to disturb her digestion.

  Which was altogether nonsense. Mr. Adkins was merely paying a debt he had not needed to contract, and doing it graciously.

  “Am I not in a shocking predicament?” he said after a pause between fish and dessert.

  She supposed his mind went back to his trouble at every idle moment. And then she suddenly realized why he was so much about the house and her: he needed the protection he felt came from being near Mr. James, poor man. She could entirely understand that. It was a terrible thing to be accused of, and you innocent.

  “I don’t rightly know how far it can go,” she said, referring to the paternity suit. “Isn’t there some medical proof?”

  “I do believe that from the type of blood they could prove my innocence if the child’s type and mine are different. But if they’re the same, it’s all up to the jury—and Mr. Jarvis.”

  “Should you be admitting that even if it’s so?” Mrs. Norris asked, having been trained to a healthy reverence for the forms of law.

  “Only in the bosom of my friends.”

  He was not in her bosom by some distance, Mrs. Norris thought, not caring much for such intimacy of speech. “There’s many a viper in the bosom of friends,” she advised.

  “I should rather die than consent to such cynicism!” Adkins cried melodramatically. “Where can we turn if not to our friends? Shall I turn back to the wretch who deliberately cast me into this situation? I will not. She would marry me tomorrow, young vixen that she is. But I will not have her!”

  His face was flushed with the vehemence of his protest. Mrs. Norris made what she hoped were soothing noises, and advised him, somewhat uselessly at this stage: “You should leave the young ones alone, Mr. Adkins. With a man of your maturity and your station, they are up to no good.”

  “I am not one who cares one fig about station,” Mr. Adkins scored while he had the chance. “A man can be as well clipped in a castle as in a cottage.”

  “Oh, better,” Mrs. Norris said. “It’s the cottages which get even the castling kind in trouble.”

  “My sister married a count,” Adkins said. “She’s home now with Mama.”

  “And I dare say, with a packet of children?”

  “And grandchildren!” Adkins said.

  Mrs. Norris thought about that for a moment. “She didn’t come right home then, did she?”

  “I suppose I do exaggerate for the sake of a story,” he admitted.

  “There,” Mrs. Norris said, spooning up the last bit of sherbet, “I must get home myself to the work I’m paid for doing.”

  “And I down to the work for which I am over-paid,” Adkins said. “Do you know, I have never altogether approved the broker’s profession? One makes money in it out of other people’s money.”

  “’Tis better than making it out of blood,” Mrs. Norris said.

  Mr. Adkins’ round blue eyes narrowed upon her. “My dear Mrs. Norris, just what does that mean?”

  “I’m referring to the munitions makers, millions out of guns the world over.”

  “How admirable you are,” he said, with a new flush of color bursting into his cheeks. “And I suppose you are right: it is better to make money out of money. Money does labor hard, you know, in our times. If you have any, I trust it’s working for you. It will get on with the chore when you’re worn out.”

  “I never quite thought of it that way,” she said.

  “In that manner of speaking,” Adkins said, “a broker is worth his fee. But there, I sound like a drummer, don’t I?”

  “Are brokers interested in the widow’s mite?” Mrs. Norris asked tentatively while she put on her gloves.

  “Mites are mighty,” he said, “if you know what I mean.”

  “I do. I’ve heard it said that women like myself, if they all voted together, could control some of the biggest corporations in the nation.”

  Adkins merely nodded, as though himself mute in wonder at it. Finally, paying the check, and leaving a tip the size of which Mrs. Norris approved if the waiter did not, he laid his hand a moment on her gloved one. “If ever you need advice,” he said, “I should be glad to offer it. The widow’s friend, you might say. And I’d waive my usual fee in your case.” He fluttered his hands like a butterfly and dismissed the matter. “That is all! Let us speak no more of money, but rather of old ballads…” He almost sang the line to her: “‘Get up and bar the door.’”

  He had beautiful hands, she thought, long and delicate, unlike the rest of him. They were the kind to be seen on Christmas cards, the thumbs pointing up to heaven.

  “Ha!” she said, “‘Get up and bar the door!’ I’d better at that!”

  19

  IT WAS PECULIAR SUMMARY of herself Mrs. Norris got when she took inventory that afternoon. For the life of her she could not imagine why she should so enjoy the company of Mr. Adkins. She could not really say she liked the man, and she had never been one to coax flattery of herself. By their stations, she had no business socializing with the man at all. The plain fact was she had enjoyed herself thinking it might tweak the nose of someone who couldn’t see beyond it when he had it into a case. Three days without a word from Jasper Tully. He probably thought she would meddle if he came round. The old grouch must think she loved him for himself alone! And that was a thought to make anyone shocked with herself.

  “Annie Norris, shame,” she bade herself. The truth was she was jealous of a dead woman, and one murdered in her bed at that.

  When Jimmie brought his drink in to the kitchen table while she was getting dinner, and said: “Mrs. Norris, how would you like to do a bit of detective work for me?” her world suddenly righted itself.

  “I wouldn’t mind if I’m able,” she said.

  “I shall have to take you into my confidence about our Theodore Adkins,” Jimmie started.

  For a moment Mrs. Norris wondered if she should stop him. There seemed to be something not quite straight about it. She had that very day told Mr. Adkins that Mr. Jarvis did not confide such affairs to her. But Jimmie was already into it, and there seemed to be nothing new in the content so she listened him out as he told the substance of the suit.

  “I’ve now reached the point,” he concluded, “where I feel I’ve got to know something about the woman, Daisy Thayer. She works at Mark Stewart’s on Fifth Avenue at the perfume counter. In fact, that’s where Adkins met her…”

  He was not a man who could pass up a perfume counter without a sniff of appreciation; Mrs. Norris knew that from experience.

  “…I don’t know just how you’ll go about this,” Jimmie went on. “You might ask Jasper for some advice.” Jimmie knew from the ruffle of her shoulders that she would not. Tully and she must be on the outs.

  “There’s nothing to being a good detective but knowing when to ask questions and when to keep your mouth shut,” she said.

  “You’re hired,” said Jimmie, which Mrs. Norris knew was only a manner of speaking. But she was to have extra an expense account.

  20

  AFTER WORKING HIS WAY through most of the parishes in the Village and Chelsea, Jasper Tully finally got a line on Michael Regan, the surprise witness in the Ellie True case. He had thought from the first that an Irishman’s telling his sins to a Protestant evangelist was both unholy and unlikely. It was not much of a line he got, to be sure, Regan having, soon after his testimony had saved the Reverend Blake, himself gone to the grave, and that of a drunkard. He had fallen up a four inch curbstone and split open his head. All that he left behind was a mourning widow.

  She was still grieving when T
ully went to see her. He knew the type all the way from his childhood: the only time they’d make up to a man was when he lay flat with lumbago or stretched in his coffin. The late Michael Regan would have had his sympathy.

  “Ach, don’t be raking poor Mike’s bones over, Mr. Tully,” she keened. “He did beat me, ’tis true, but it was his way of loving when the beast was up in him, and I’d never’ve made it a matter of public notice if it wasn’t for the bit of money in it.”

  “You were paid then for giving testimony in the Blake case?”

  “Only an allowance to make us fit for public appearance, a few dollars, Mr. Tully. Nothing to be disturbing poor Michael now over.”

  “Did your benefactor come to you himself?”

  “Oh, no. He went to Michael, Mr. Adkins did, or his representative.”

  “Did you ever see the Reverend Blake?”

  “I’m not sure, except in court that day. But I might have, living down the street from him then.”

  “Do you know where he lives now?”

  “Why should I, and him a Protestant?”

  “You know, Mrs. Regan,” Tully drawled, “that’s the very thought that’s been running through my mind. Now, you can tell me the truth and I don’t think it will upset poor Michael wherever he is, or yourself.” He leaned forward. She was a woman who loved confidences. “Do you honestly believe Michael confessed his sins to a Protestant clergyman?”

  “Oh, I do that, Mr. Tully. When Michael ’ud get a crying jag on, he’d confess his sins to the President of the United States on the White House steps.”

  Tully swore to himself and returned to his office in as glum a mood as had obsessed him in many a day. He settled into melancholy contemplation of the case. So often it was the little things, the little fragments of physical evidence. For example there was the piece of jewelry still missing, something called a “lover’s knot”: According to the nieces it was missing, and he was willing to take their word on an inventory of their inheritance. He scarcely lifted his chin from his breast when the detective who had worked on the Ellie True case stuck his head in the door.