Fletcher Flora
Death Is Her Bridegroom
Chapter I
Parked in the curved drive under the shadow of the huge portico, Jefferson Pitt’s modest jalopy assumed an appearance of weary decadence, as if it were about to collapse in a sad heap of defeated parts. And Jeff felt that he himself was in something the same shape. As he went up wide steps, his serviceable worsted seemed suddenly to become shrunken and shabby.
However, being the type of guy who could laugh at himself, he laughed silently and with wry humor. By the time the door chimes were answered by an ancient servant, he regained assurance, and was even feeling a little superior. After all, his services were in demand — he was needed and had been asked to come.
“My name’s Pitt,” he said. “Mr. Roman expects me.”
The servant nodded and stepped back.
Jeff moved past him into the hall that could have done service as a railroad terminal. Standing there with his hat in his hand, he felt the subtle depression which descends upon one in a place which has too much of everything.
From his position, he could detect in the half-light the dark faces of old paintings. Any one of them would have been worth a small fortune, and there were a dozen. Down the hall near the foot of the stairs that had more breadth than most rooms, there was, somewhat incongruously, a bright yellow splash of Van Gogh.
The servant moved around Jeff with cautious decrepitude. Jeff followed him down the hall, past the Van Gogh, and up the broad flight of stairs. On the second floor, the old man knocked discreetly upon the heavy walnut paneling of an immense door, and pushed the door inward without waiting for a response.
“Mr. Pitt has arrived, sir,” he said in a cracked, squeaky voice.
Obeying the servant’s gesture of invitation, Jeff entered the room, and immediately his whole attention was taken up with the initial shock of seeing the man who sat in a massive, high-backed chair awaiting him.
When Jeff had last seen Reed Roman, three years before, the fabulous millionaire had been a powerful, dominating block of man. Old, even then, but with the drive and aggression of youth still in him.
Jeff had read about his illness, the stroke, in the papers, but he hadn’t realized the extent of its ravishment. The old man sat twisted in his chair, his body betraying, even in repose, its partial impairment.
Only the eyes retained some of their former force, burning under craggy brows. His voice sounded, now, with an angry tremor, driven upward from its afflicted mechanism by a fierce exertion of will.
“Come in, Pitt. Come in and sit down.”
Jeff found a chair and sat with his hat on his knees, wondering if he should comment on the old man’s condition, deciding he’d better not. In the burning eyes there was suddenly a glint of cold humor.
“That’s right, boy. Be discreet. Sit there and act as if nothing had changed. They all do it. They all think the old man’s dying, and their fingers are itching like the devil for his money all the time the damned pious expressions are on their faces.”
He broke into a gusty wheeze of laughter, maliciousness gathering to bright, sharp points under bony overhang.
“I’ve got news for them. I’ve got news for the whole damned crew. The old man will be here like a lump in this chair for a long time yet. I’ll be right here watching them stew in their juice while they wait for me to die. Maybe I’ll even outlive a few of them.”
The aspirate laughter exploded again.
“You know why I called you here?”
“Not exactly, of course. I assume you have a job for me.”
“Brenda’s gone. Kidnapped,” the old man said abruptly.
Jeff’s rather amiable face hardened, taking on a rugged angularity that was not usually apparent.
“Snatched? It’s the first I’ve heard of it.”
“Naturally. I’ve kept it quiet. Get a lot of noisy police mixed up in it, anything might happen.”
“Sure. Anything. They might even get Brenda back for you.”
The old man’s stricken body jerked angrily. “The note said she’d be killed if the police were notified.”
“You’ve had a note, then?”
“Of course. Fifty thousand ransom. It’s here, if you want to see it.”
Slowly, with laborious effort that set his moving hand to trembling, he reached into the pocket of his robe and extended a folded piece of paper.
Taking the paper, Jeff turned it in his fingers, discovering that it was the cheap stuff for typewriters that can be bought in packets in any dime store. The kind that could never be traced. This piece had added stiffness, the result of paper pasted to the side folded in. Opening it, he found the expected — the crude newsprint pasted to form the message. Reading, he felt a certain incredulity, an inner urge to jeer at himself for taking seriously the hocus-pocus of a bad movie.
After he had finished reading it, he said, “It’s a queer setup. It has a phony ring.”
“All these things have a phony ring. Something that just doesn’t happen — until it does. You’re a detective. You ought to know that.”
Jeff shrugged. “You’re right, of course. There’s always an air of incredible melodrama about real evil. That doesn’t make it any less real. What do you intend to do?”
“I’ll pay the ransom, naturally. Not that she’s worth it. Brenda, I mean. She’s beautiful. She’s more beautiful than you’d imagine a woman could be, and she’s rotten as a stump full of termites. But that’s not a good analogy. It makes her sound soft, and she’s not soft at all. She’s hard as a diamond and filled with the same kind of fire. Cold as ice sometimes, sometimes hot as an inferno. And for me, no love. No love at all for the old man.”
The petulance in his voice was suddenly in danger of degenerating into self-pity, and becoming aware of it, he shook himself out of the mood impatiently.
“But maybe I’ve got it coming,” he said. “If so, all right. I’ve been hard myself. No pity or love in me when maybe there should have been. You don’t build up a fortune of millions with love and pity. Anyhow, it’s too late now for regrets. It was too late long ago. I’ll pay the ransom because she’s my son’s daughter. It’s pride. It’s the thick, sticky hold of blood. At any rate, it’s the last she’ll have from me, and maybe it’s cheap enough. Not another penny will she have.”
“You mean she’s out of the will?”
“That’s right. Out cold. She looks like an angel, but she’s got the instincts of a hellion, and she’ll have nothing of mine to dissipate on the frequenters of garbage heaps.” The explosive laughter burst past his bloodless lips again, but there was grudging admiration in the harsh lines of his face. “Not that she gives a damn. She’s got more guts than all the others put together. That much you can say of her. She told me I could take every cent I had to hell with me.”
“The note instructs you to get a man named Constance to act as contact. Cleo Constance. You been in touch with him?”
“Yes. He was here earlier today.”
“Will he act?”
“Yes.”
“Why him, I wonder. Why a particular man named Cleo Constance?”
“Probably it was Brenda’s suggestion. Constance is a private detective, like you. Brenda used him once. A matter of some stolen jewelry. He seemed efficient. Got the stuff back in a hurry.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know exactly. Not long ago. At the time, I was flat on my back with hell’s emissaries sitting on my chest.”
“There’s another thing. Constance must be known to the kidnapper. By sight, I mean. There’s no instruction, in the note, about identification. No special article of clothing to wear. No gesture or sign to make at a certain place or time. Nothing to point him out.”