"What"d you want to see me for?"
"This. I"m not in a position to judge. It will be for you to decide what to do."
Before I could ask what he was talking about, he reached for a folded newspaper and pointed to a circled item in the public notices. My fingers grew cold as I read it.Jack, will you please call me. I want to talk to you about Maureen.
There was no name, only a phone and room number. I stared at the symbols on the page as though they could tell me more.
"Sorry about the shock, old man," he was saying. "I knew you would want to know about this as soon as possible, but I couldn"t really give any details to Miss Smythe."
I read the ad again, not believing it, but none of the wording had changed. "How long has it been running?"
"It started the day after you left."
Then I stopped being stunned and things cleared up for me. "That old b.a.s.t.a.r.d..."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Braxton must have planted it to try and trap me."
"Who is Braxton?"
"Someone else you can check up on when you go to New York. He knew Maureen, or at least I think he did." I settled back and told him the story of the last three nights of my life. "The kid said they began looking for me when they noticed my ad was gone. This is probably just bait to flush me out."
"I think not. I took the liberty of tracking down the number. It belongs to a small but respectable hotel near the Loop. When I made inquiries, I was told to go to room twenty-three, occupied by a Miss Gaylen Dumont. She arrived two days ago from New York; a semi-invalid, she takes her meals in her room and is regarded as a very quiet, trouble-free guest. The name suggests that she is a relative of Maureen Dumont."
"Gaylen?" I repeated blankly. "I wouldn"t know, Maureen never talked about her family."
"People who don"t generally have a good reason. In the simple cause of common sense, I counsel you to be cautious about this."
"h.e.l.l, yes, I"ll be cautious. Did you learn anything else?"
"She is in her seventies, listens to dance music on the radio, and doesn"t like fried foods."
"How did you-"
"It is amazing how much one can learn from a hotel"s staff when the right questions are applied in the right manner. Have you any reason to think that Braxton might be connected with this woman?"
"If he knew Maureen, he might know this Gaylen. I just don"t know.""This could be bad timing or coincidence, but it will be safer if you a.s.sume it is not. You removed your ad and some people noticed."
"Yeah, but not the one that mattered." The paper twitched in my hands. "I"m checking on this first thing tomorrow night. Want to come along?"
"I was leaving for New York tomorrow, or rather today, but I can postpone the trip if you wish."
"No, I couldn"t ask you to do that. I guess I can handle one old lady."
Escott looked out the front window. "Jack, it"s getting lighter. If you"ve no other place to stay, perhaps we should move you in now."
"Jeez, I forgot."
My second trunk went into the bas.e.m.e.nt next to the first, and between us we emptied the car of thirty-six bags of earth, piling them neatly in a corner. The faint gray of dawn was just beginning to hurt my eyes when we finished. Escott dusted his hands off.
"I"ll bid you good morning now, I still have some cleaning up to do."
"It won"t disturb me," I a.s.sured him.
"No, I daresay it would not. Pleasant dreams." He climbed the bas.e.m.e.nt steps and shut the door.
As long as I had my soil around me I was past the point of being able to dream.
All the speculations tumbling through my brain would have only given me nightmares, anyway. There were some compensations to my condition, I thought as I wearily lowered the lid of my trunk to hide for another day.
Chapter 6.
ABOUT THIRTEEN HOURS later I emerged from the bas.e.m.e.nt, drawn by the swish-and-crinkle sound of pages being turned. Escott was in the parlor, half-buried in a drift of newsprint.
"I thought you"d be on a train by now," I said, dropping into a leather chair next to his radio.
He gave out with a slight shrug. "I seem to be acquiring your habits. I was up late and overslept."
"The whole day?"
"Most of it. Knocking down walls is a very exhausting exercise. This afternoon was too late to make a good start, and by then my curiosity about Gaylen Dumont had grown considerably. If she has any useful information it could save me much trouble. I"d like to meet her, but if you would rather go alone, please don"t hesitate to say so. I shall be more than happy to wait here for your return."
"Nothing doing, I could use the moral support."
He looked relieved, but covered it by picking up his cold pipe and fiddling with it.
"I"ll do my best."
The papers weren"t thrown about haphazardly, but shuffled into stacks on the sofa and floor. A neat pile was on one end of the table, each refolded so that it was open to the personal column. I flipped through them, and each had the same ad he"d shown me the night before.
"They are all the papers that you had used," he pointed out. "Either she knew which ones or she is remarkably thorough."
"I"ll find out."
His phone was clinging to a dingy wall in the kitchen, which he hadn"t gotten around to repainting yet. With one of the papers in hand, I carefully dialed the number. A professional voice answered, identifying the West Star Hotel and asked if it could help me. I asked for room twenty-three and heard clicking sounds.
After five rings a woman said h.e.l.lo. Her voice jarred me to the core because it was Maureen"s voice. I bit my tongue and counted to five until I could respond normally.
"I"m calling about the ad. I think I"m the Jack you want to talk to."
There was a pause at the other end and I heard a long, soft sigh being released.
"Jack," she finally said. "Could you prove that somehow? I"ve had two crank calls already."
It wasn"t Maureen. The voice and inflection were very similar, but this one had the reedy quality of age in it. "How can I do that?"
"If you could just tell me the color of Maureen"s eyes- "Blue, sky blue, with dark hair."
This time there was an intake of breath. "I am so glad to hear from you at last, Jack. My name is Gaylen Dumont and I would like very much to meet you."
"Where is Maureen? Do you know?"
It was as though she hadn"t heard me. "I am so very glad you called, but it"s difficult for me to talk over the phone. Could you come over?"
There was no other answer but yes. I got her address and promised to be there within half an hour. She thanked me and hung up. I stared at the earpiece and wondered suspiciously what her game was."She wasn"t too talkative," I told Escott.
"Some people don"t like to use the phone."
I was more inclined to think some people don"t like to deliver bad news on the phone. Maybe I could have stayed on longer and tried to get more information. I was vulnerable to making mistakes because of my emotional involvement and was very glad Escott was coming. He might help me to think straight. As we drove over, half- formed thoughts and questions and alternatives to what I should have said were running through my mind like insane mice.
The West Star Hotel was nothing to write home about; neither old or new, flashy or drab, there were hundreds like it all over. We parked, went in past the front desk and elevator, and walked straight up the stairs to the right room. I hesitated before knocking.
Escott noticed my nerves. "Steady on," he said under his breath.
I nodded once, shook my shoulders up, and tapped on the door. No immediate answer came from within. I knocked again and heard faint movements now: a shuffling, a muted thump, the k.n.o.b turned, and the wood panel squeaked open.
The voice was softer and less reedy than it was on the phone. "Jack?"
I swallowed. "Yes, I"m Jack Fleming."
The small shadowy figure in the dark dress stepped away, turned slowly, and retreated into the room. Her heart and lungs were laboring. She was either very excited, very ill, or both. I stepped forward and Escott followed quietly, taking his hat off with a smooth and automatic movement and nudging me to do the same.
We took in her plain impersonal room with a quick glance. The window was open only a crack, and the air well tainted with the smell of soap and strong liniment. A radio on a table crackled out the news of the day. She hobbled to it, using a cane for balance, and turned it off, then sat down with obvious relief.
"I"m so glad you could come over to talk," she said. "I did so want to meet you, and it is difficult for me to get around."
A suitcase stood at the foot of the bed and beyond that a stiff and ugly-looking wheelchair. She noted where my eyes went.
"That"s for my bad days. They come more and more often, especially when it"s damp. I have arthritis in my legs and it gives me a lot of trouble."
"Miss Dumont, this is my friend, Charles Escott."
She extended a frail, yellow hand. "How do you do?"
Escott took it and said something polite, making a little bow that only the English can do without looking self-conscious. She smiled, pleased at the gesture. "I"m glad to meet you, both of you, but you must call me Gaylen, everybody does. Pull those chairs a little closer to the light so we may have a good look at each other."
We did as she said and sat down. Maureen"s eyes looked back at me, but the dark hair and brows had faded and gone white. The angle of her jaw was the same, and there were a hundred other similarities too subtle for immediate definition. Her face was scored with wrinkles, the skin puffy and gone shapeless with age-a face like and unlike Maureen"s. It was an agony to look at it.
She was smiling. "I can hardly believe you"re here. I hardly dared hope you would see my notice, especially after yours stopped. I was afraid you"d moved again."
I explained how Escott had pointed it out to me.
"How very fortunate. You see, it was only a few days ago that I saw it. I live in upstate New York, pretty much by myself, and don"t read the papers often. My housekeeper had a stack of them for her ch.o.r.es, though, and I saw one opened to the right page, and Maureen"s name caught my eye. I remembered she once knew someone named Jack years ago, and I had to find out. I called the paper and they said you"d moved to Chicago. By then I"d found some of her letters to me and I knew you were the right person, so I came out."
"Gaylen, do you know where she is?"
She bowed her head. "I"m sorry, I am so dreadfully sorry to disappoint you."
Everything inside me twisted sharply. "Is she dead?"
"I don"t know," she whispered. "I haven"t heard from her for nearly five years."
The twisting got tighter. "When did you last see her? What did she say?"
"I didn"t see her, she called me. I don"t know from where. She said she was going to be gone on a long trip and not to worry if she didn"t write for a while."
I shut my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, I was able to speak quietly, lucidly. "Gaylen, tell me the whole story, tell me everything you know."
"I"m not sure that I know very much. I only wanted to see someone else who knew her, who could remember her with me. I"d hoped you may have seen her in the last five years."
I felt sorry for both of us. "You have the same name. How are you related to her?"
She seemed surprised. "I thought you knew. Surely she mentioned me?"
"She never talked about her past."
"How very unlike her... Are you certain? Well, I am her sister-her younger sister, Jack.""Younger," I echoed back softly.
"I"m seventy-two, Maureen seventy-six-did she tell you nothing?"
Her look made me acutely uncomfortable. "No, I"m afraid not."
She shook her head. "You poor young man, you must be starved for information.
I"ll try my best, but I hope you"ll be as frank with me."
"How so?"
"When I told you her age, you were startled, but not incredulous. You are aware of her-her unusual state?" Her eyes went from me to Escott inquiringly.
Escott cleared his throat. "Please feel free to speak openly about your sister. Jack has made me acquainted with the facts. All the facts."
She regarded him soberly, pursing her lips. "Your accent, you"re from England?"
He nodded once.
Gaylen"s eyes were lighter in color than Maureen"s. Now they faded to pale gray as she thought things over and made up her mind. "If it"s all right with Jack... but some of my questions might be too personal."
"Questions?" I said. "No, Charles, stay, it"s all right. What questions?"
She hesitated, struggling with something difficult within. She finally took a deep breath and said: "How close were you to Maureen?"