Into the Night

“I can get a very nice eyebrow line, a certain lift to the brows, that way, that I can’t get in any other way. I had a sitter in here one day who told me she was very poor at arithmetic. I had her do the higher multiplication tables, you know, times-thirteen, times-fourteen, and I got the most beautiful quirk into her eyebrows. It made her whole face. Most brows are too straight.”

She thought: It’s hard to kill a man whom you don’t hate. Just hate by proxy.

“That was a remarkable expression!” he exclaimed with satisfaction. “One of the most remarkable I’ve ever seen!”

“When are you going to take me?” she asked.

“I just did,” he said blandly. “That expression was too good to pass up. You’re going to have quite a photograph on your hands.”

He took her several times more, with various changes of angle, and then it was over.

“Thank you,” she said. She held out her hand, more to test out his grip than anything else.

His grip was sincere and warm and firm.

The grip of an honest, straightforward man.

The first phone call practically raced her back to the hotel. It was sounding as she keyed the door open. She made no move to go over and answer it; instead she carefully reclosed the door, took off her hat, settled herself comfortably in a corner of the sofa, all as oblivious as if she were stone-deaf and didn’t hear it. It finally rang itself out.

It rang again about a quarter hour later. They must have waited that long to give her additional time to get home. Again she didn’t go near it. She wanted him out of the studio before she answered. Again it dwindled down, like a spent alarm clock.

The third time it rang sooner, inside of about ten minutes. This time she went over to it and answered. It was now close to six. He couldn’t possibly still be at the studio this late, watch or no watch.

“Miss Chalmers?” It was his voice, not the girl’s.

“Yes?” she said as guilelessly as though she didn’t know who it was.

“This is Mr. Herrick, the photographer. Are you by any chance missing a watch?”

“Yes, I am,” she lied superbly. “I only just now noticed it was gone as I came in the door. I thought I might have lost it in the taxi—”

“We found one in the dressing room,” he said. “No offense, but could I ask you to describe it, please?”

“It’s platinum, round, with a circle of diamonds around the dial. It’s a Patek Philippe. It’s mounted on a twisted black cord instead of the usual strap or band.”

“That’s the one,” he said. “I have it. Miss Stevens found it right after you’d left.”

“Oh, bless her heart!” she exclaimed fervently. “What a relief. I don’t know how to thank you. My mother gave it to me as a birthday gift.” Which latter part was true, anyway; it had been her grandmother’s first.

“I have it with me right now,” he said. Then explained, “I’m downstairs in the hotel. Shall I turn it over to the desk?”

“No, no,” she cried, in such alarm that he must have taken it to be an excess of gratitude. “Please come up, if only for a moment. You must let me thank you personally.”

“Fine.” He hung up.

She had him on her own territory now. The gambit had worked beautifully, without a hitch, from beginning to end.

It was still light outside the windows, but she turned on a certain lamp, so that if he sat within its radius as she proposed to arrange that he do, the light would fall on his face and she could watch his expression more closely. He was not the only expert in lighting effects, she said to herself arrogantly. Only, his were created for appeal, hers for espionage.

He knocked, she opened the door, and he came in.

He handed her the watch, and she did a thorough acting job over it, uttering little cries, even holding it pressed for a moment to her heart. Then she put it back on her wrist.

“I don’t know how I came to do that.”

“We don’t have a safe at the studio, don’t keep anything of too much value down there, and I didn’t want to just leave it in a desk drawer overnight. I decided to take it home with me and call you in the morning, but I knew you might worry about it all night, so I took a chance and had the taxi stop off here first on the way home.”

“Sit down and visit.” She guided him with just a shadow of a gesture to exactly where she had wanted to have him sit. “Let me buy you a drink, to show my appreciation.”

“Please don’t trouble,” he demurred.

But she was already at the phone. “Don’t deny me that privilege, I’ll feel hurt. What would you like to have?”

“Scotch and plain water.”

“What Scotch?”

“Chivas Regal.”

“Room service,” she said. And then concluded with, “A double and a single.”

“I have another customer who lives in this building,” he remarked when she’d rejoined him.

“I know her,” she said.

They both laughed a little in common understanding, but good-naturedly, not unkindly, without having to say anything further.

“I’m not keeping you from anything, am I?” she asked. “Your wife isn’t expecting you, is she?”

“We’re not together anymore,” he said expressionlessly.

“I’m sorry.”

“That makes two of us,” he said.