The Gutenberg Murders by Gwen Bristow

Author:Gwen Bristow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At half-past eight Wade climbed the crooked stairway leading to Marie’s garret and knocked with grim resolution. A moment later she stood in the doorway, her scarlet smock flecked with soapsuds and her hair tousled into a confusion of black tendrils around her ears. “Oh, it’s you,” she greeted. “Come in. And don’t blush. This is only me and the laundry.”

He laughed, relieved at the gay normalcy of her attic, where various items of lingerie flapped in limp immodesty on a crisscross of clotheslines. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“Nothing left but one pair of stockings. They can wait. Sit down.” She curled up on her red sofa and offered him a cigarette. “Why the magnificence? Don’t tell me a dinner-jacket is the new police uniform.”

He glanced down at his expanse of shirt-front and back at her. “No. I’m going to the Chinese ball at the Vincennes Club. I want you to come with me.”

Marie raised a pair of hard black eyes. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“I know you don’t want to go. I don’t blame you. But it might be a good idea.”

“Can’t see it,” she answered. Then she looked at him with a sudden reluctant appeal for understanding. “Please don’t think I’m not glad you asked me. I know I ought to show people that I can find another escort the day Quentin’s fiancée gets her name in the papers. But I can’t go.”

“It’s more important than that, Marie.” He spoke with urgent sincerity. “I want you to prove that you aren’t heartbroken. You aren’t, but perhaps you don’t realize how many persons might enjoy saying you are.”

She nodded bleakly. “Winifred.”

“Not only Winifred, though she’ll do for an example. But others you know will be there tonight, and if you’re with me they’ll have less reason to say Ulman left you high and dry.”

“I can’t.” She shook her head. “Please—don’t you understand I’m not like Winifred? She’ll be there tonight—beautiful as ever and not giving a damn. But I haven’t got the sort of courage it takes to be frivolous in a crisis.”

For a moment he looked at her without answering, involuntarily elaborating the contrast she had suggested—Winifred, from her perfect house to her perfect marcel an achievement of expensive and consummate artistry; Marie, washing her own clothes in her garret, too conscious of reality even to pretend that she could ignore it; and he went to her abruptly and took her hands in his. “Then I can’t persuade you?”

Marie smiled as his eyes met hers. “No. But thanks just the same.” She stood up. “Run along to your party. I won’t have a bad time, for I’m all ready for my own kind of quiet evening—a couple of chocolate bars, a new pack of cigarettes and a lively treatise on volumetric analysis.”

He left her regretfully, wishing that she would let him help her, but in spite of himself feeling a slow admiration for her independence. But he was troubled, nevertheless, for he knew how precarious was her chance

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