SHE FADED INTO AIR (A Thriller). Ethel Lina White
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and stared helplessly around him, as though trying to find a chair.
Instantly Viola slipped her thin arm through his and marched him into No. 15. She pushed him down onto the divan and then ducked behind the partition at the end of the room. When she came back, she was holding a small tumbler. "Drink this, darling, and you'll feel better," she invited Cross.
When he made no attempt to take it--but sat and rubbed his eyeballs--she changed her tactics and gave him a smart slap on the cheek.
"Snap out of it," she commanded.
His response to treatment was immediate. His eyes lost their daze of apathy and the muscles of his face ceased twitching. For one moment, he glared at her as though he would attack her; then his fury gave way to surprise and he swallowed the brandy.
"Thanks," he said. "You understand."
His self-control restored, he turned to Foam.
"Now, young man," he said briskly, "I want to hear your opinion."
"Suppose we consider the facts," suggested Foam. "Will you admit that your daughter could not have been kidnapped inside this house? It takes a complicated conjuring apparatus to work the 'Vanishing Lady Illusion'--and the builder proved the room had not been tampered with. Do you accept his report--and the evidence of your own eyes?"
"I must," said Cross.
"Good. The alternative theory is that she faded into air...Do you believe in the supernatural?"
"Hell, no."
"Then the only explanation is this. Your daughter slipped past you when all of you were too engrossed to notice her. This sort of thing has happened before. Famous pictures have been stolen from galleries when they've been crowded with tourists. The thief has contrived to choose the psychological moment when his confederate distracted their attention...Of course, in your daughter's case, it was unintentional and not deliberate. I feel sure she'll soon be back at your hotel."
Foam stressed his words for he wanted to convince not only his client but himself. While common sense forced him to accept his own explanation, he knew that he had not flattened out every snarl in the tangle. It was true that five persons had declared that Evelyn Cross had gone upstairs and had not returned; but four of these witnesses were not entirely reliable. Cross was neurotic and the major influenced by his own interests, while neither Madame Goya nor Marlene inspired complete confidence.
There remained the porter. Foam believed that his testimony was both honest and truthful; but he could not acquit the man of a natural self-deception. He was sure that Pearce did not remain at his post with the fidelity of the lava-submerged sentry at Herculaneum, because when he arrived at Pomerania House the porter was outside the house and fraternizing with Raphael Cross' chauffeur.
Up to this point, therefore, the inference was that Evelyn Cross had made a voluntary disappearance--which was a rational deduction. Unfortunately, Foam's complete confidence had been flawed by the discovery of the shoes. Since it was obvious that they belonged to her--in spite of the typist's claim--they introduced an element of mystery into the case.
Foam could not understand why Evelyn should have removed them as a preliminary to walking upon fog-slimed pavements, while her choice of a boot closet was even more perplexing. The mere act of opening and shutting the clock case would advertise her presence on the landing and shatter any alternative idea that she wished to creep away noiselessly upon stockinged soles.
He was relieved when Cross sprang from his chair with restored vigour. "I am sure you are right," he said to Foam. "There's no need to worry."
As he looked around him, his keen eyes' remarked the poverty of Viola's apartment. The familiar suite and buff Axminster carpet seemed to indicate that Major Pomeroy had semi-furnished these three rooms in order to exact an increased rental. There was little else besides a cretonne curtain--with pierrots printed on a black ground--which concealed a row of pegs and served as a substitute for a wardrobe.
Instead of a mirror, a large bill of a stage performance by the London Repertory players was pinned over the mantelpiece. Cross picked out the name of "VIOLA GREEN" printed in small type.
"Professional?" he asked, looking at her with new interest.
"I'm trying to be one," she confessed. "It's funny. Power looks like a vicar's daughter and probably comes from a brothel. Now I am a scallywag, but I really am a parson's daughter. We're a tragic family. We're all in the church, and we want to go on the stage."
"What happens then?" asked Cross.
"We have to stick in the church. The tragedy is we have no talent. But fate's most ironic blow is this: My grandfather really is a born comedian, yet he will persist in being a bishop. No ambition."
"Never mind. Perhaps I can help you. I've some influence in a film company...No strings to the offer, my dear. You've been good to me and I don't forget. I have a daughter of my own." The light gleamed on his fair, curling hair as he expanded his broad shoulders and drew himself up to his full height. His head was thrown back so that his heavy chin was merged into the powerful muscles of his neck. At that moment, he presented such a splendid type of self-assertive manhood that Foam--who was glad to be ordinary--felt a twinge of jealousy.
"Here's my card," said Cross. "Send in your bill and you shall have a cheque. You stood by, and that helped...Good evening."
"I'll come down with you," offered Viola.
Foam did not attempt to accompany them, for he wanted to snatch the chance of making a few notes. Whenever he took up a new case, it was his custom to jot down his first impression of every person. It was essential to capture these mental snapshots without conscious thought, so that it could not be a reasoned opinion but merely an instinctive recognition of personality.
The second step was to put the results in his office drawer and forget about them until the time came to compare them with his up-to-date knowledge of a client.
On this occasion, he was afraid that he might be unable to trap an unbiased impression of Viola. Trying to make his mind a blank, he scrawled rapidly across the small pages of his notebook, as though his fingers were the medium of automatic writing.
He snapped the elastic band over his book as Viola limped back into the room.
"Sit down," she invited. "I've still chairs left. If you'd come last week, you'd have seen me in all my glory with a gorgeous meretricious suite of veneered walnut. All the wrong people admired it. But the plain van took it away...Sorry I have no booze. Your client had the last drop."
"What do you think of him?" asked Foam curiously.
"Good looking in that way," commented Viola casually. "Gosh, he registered enough emotion for twenty fathers. I've got a hunch he is a sugar daddy. It would be enough to make him all steamed up if his girl walked out on him and he couldn't produce her to her lawful parents."
Foam had too expert a knowledge of faked relationships to reject Viola's theory. As he was not concerned with the morality of a case, he even welcomed it because it helped to explain his own instinctive distrust of Cross. He had attributed it to unworthy prejudice, based on a dislike of spectacular good looks. But now he realized that the root of his suspicion was his inability to credit Cross with the ordinary feeling of a father. He could not imagine him tossing a baby up in the air or running a small daughter to school in his car. On the other hand, he could picture him at the races, cigar in the corner of his mouth, hat tilted over one eye and accompanied by a flash lady friend.
He realized that Viola had curled herself in a big chair and was looking up at him with inquiring eyes.
"He made rather a nasty crack when he told you to send in your bill." she said.
"I shall charge him for my time," explained Foam.
"Tell me all about your work."
He slew the impulse to magnify his job.
"I do hole-and-corner jobs for people who don't want police limelight," he said. "It's a sordid life. My mother thinks it has made me a rough and common