Hunt in the Dark Read online

  “I guess so.”

  “And Karl! Somehow we must save Karl. But it’s too early for that yet. We’ve got to concentrate on Nikki and the woman with the purple hat. Somehow we’ve got to—Peter!”

  She broke off, swinging me around excitedly. “Peter—look.”

  We were standing in front of one of the little cheesy stores, staring into its window. Almost everything was in that window—lurid postal cards, junk jewelry, nutcrackers made like women’s legs, little china dolls and animals, all the regular stuff. But I saw at once what Iris saw. Hanging high up in the left corner of the window were hats—large, floppy beach hats.

  And right in the middle of the cluster, even more shrill and hideous than the rest, dangled a glaring, fuzzy-brimmed purple hat.

  Iris’ voice came breathless: “Nikki doesn’t know the woman he’s going to meet. He’s never seen her. All he knows about her is the purple hat and The Blue Danube. And he hasn’t seen me, either. I can hum The Blue Danube and I can wear that purple hat. Peter, I can be the woman he’s going to meet. With any luck we can fool him, get him to give me the instructions. And I can impersonate the woman with the purple hat all the way up the line to Garr.”

  I’d known what was in her mind. I didn’t like it. Iris is the only thing in this world that I can’t do without. I wasn’t going to have her impersonate unknown female crooks and fool around with murderers. I began, “Iris, when there’s danger, I’ve got to be the one—”

  “—to wear the purple hat?”

  “Darling, this is dynamite. You must realize it. I love you. I…”

  “You loved Marta too, didn’t you? Marta died when I could have saved her. Do you think I’ll ever sleep easy until we’ve done this for her? I’m in it, darling, up to the neck and you better get

  used to it. So—buy me that purple hat.”

  I looked at her. I saw the misery in her eyes. I knew then that she’d never be happy again unless she did this thing—as a sort of atonement. I’d sooner have her happy than safe. “Okay.”

  We hurried into the little store. There wasn’t much time before nine. Iris wasn’t wearing a hat, which made it easier. A skinny old woman with straggly hair fumbled the purple hat down and handed it to Iris. It cost me a quarter and it was dear at the price. The crown bulged like a pudding and the fuzzy brim had faded to a sickly puce.

  “Thank heavens I wore gray instead of my raspberry tweeds.

  How do I look, darling?”

  “Terrible,” I said. “Only Aloma could get away with that hat.”

  The old woman sniffed. “Who’s Aloma?” she asked unexpectedly.

  “Aloma’s our cook,” said Iris. “But I can’t imagine why you should care.”

  The old woman sniffed again. We left.

  In Coney Island it takes all kinds of hats to make a world. Among the bobbing heads around us, Iris’ monstrosity wasn’t as noticeable as it might have been. We hurried on toward the Waxworks Museum. It was ten of nine. My vindictive hatred for Marta’s murderer was merged now with sickening worry for Iris. But she was taking it in her stride. At the prospect of action, she was losing her tormenting sense of responsibility. I could tell that. “It’s a perfect plan, Peter. I’ll be waiting in the museum. When I see Nikki I’ll start to hum The Blue Danube. His nerves will be shot after—after Marta, anyway. He’ll be in a dreadful hurry to get away, easy to fool. Once I get the instructions from him, we’ll be on our way to Garr.”

  “What about the real woman with the purple hat? She’ll be there too, you know.”

  “You’ll have to take care of her, darling. Do anything, just so long as you keep her out of the way while I meet Nikki.”

  She smiled grimly. “And once she misses out on Nikki, maybe she’ll be stranded and have no way of getting any further up the line, to Garr. The whole sabotage scheme or whatever it is that centers around her may be bottle-necked. Don’t you see? We may kill all the birds with one purple hat.”

  That was brilliant, wonderful, crazy—if it wasn’t for Iris having to take such an immense risk.

  “Honey, you—you really think you can carry it off?”

  “Of course.”

  I guess I’d been resigned to it from the beginning. “All right. Then leave the woman with the purple hat to me. Somehow I’ll keep her out of the way.”

  “Fine.”

  “And, listen, if you’re impersonating her, you mustn’t be seen with me. We’d better break up right now and go to the museum separately. I’ll go ahead and clear the way. You come on behind. And if it works, scram right out the moment Nikki gives you the instructions before he has a chance to realize what’s happened.”

  “Where shall we meet again?”

  I glanced across the street. A flickering neon-light above a little bar said: Beers and Liquors in green. “Over there. And don’t forget. Get away from Nikki as fast as you can.”

  Iris saw. “Okay.”

  We stopped. Iris smiled. She looked wonderful in spite of the purple hat. She really did. I kissed her.

  “Take care of yourself, honey. You’re very precious.”

  I left her there, hating it. I hurried away from her through the crowd headed toward the Waxworks Museum.

  And, as I turned the corner, it came smack into view, all dolled up with red lights. Potter’s Waxworks Museum of Murderers and Horrors. It was written up in great red letters sprawled across a black ground. Outside the entrance, in a glass case, a wax lady’s naked torso was tumbling out of a blood-stained trunk. Just so people would get the general idea! A man with a droopy black mustache was barking doleful sales-talk to a scant audience, mostly of round-eyed children.

  It was five minutes to nine.

  I wanted to look back, to make sure Iris was okay. But I suppressed myself. I found a dime and gave it to the mustache. There was a splintered wooden door that said: Entrance.

  I pulled it open. I moved into the main hallway of Potter’s Waxworks Museum of Murderers and Horrors.

  There was nothing half-hearted about the Horrors. They smacked you in the eye the moment you entered. It was a long, rectangular room with three corridors branching off, going somewhere. It was dowdily lit, except for the exhibits. They were all dressed up with lights, proudly presented for public approval. To the right, behind one plate-glass pane, savage Indians were scalping helpless white women and children and a very intense, indignant-looking colored nurse who reminded me of Aloma. To the left, white-robed heretics were merrily burning at the stake before a delighted audience of Spanish Inquisitors. In the center, the pièce de résistance, naked men and women were being given the once-over with racks, thumbscrews and iron maidens in a Medieval torture chamber.

  All good clean fun.

  Personally, I was in no mood for wax horrors. I glanced around at the customers. At first I thought the place was crowded— women with babies, sitting on benches, young lovers, with sounder constitutions than I, embracing in the shadowy corners. Then I got on to it. They were all waxworks, too. Cute!

  Except for one gawky colored boy, staring at the scalping Indians I had the place to myself. I looked around again, making sure. Yes, that was right.

  There was very definitely no woman with a purple hat.

  I started getting jittery. What if she was late? What if she walked in just as Nikki was giving the instructions to Iris? There, in that charnal atmosphere, the extent of the danger to Iris made itself horribly apparent. Why had I let her go through with it? Why—?

  How to head off this invisible woman with the purple hat, this woman, who, unless I succeeded, could in a thousand unpredictable ways bring Iris’ scheme down in ruins around her false purple hat?

  It was four minutes to nine.

  I started to explore the three corridors. The first, ranged on both sides with super-realistic wax reconstructions of famous murders, was deserted and trailed to a dead stop. The second was the same. Edgy as a cat, I turned into the third.
Halfway down, it took a sharp bend. I approached the bend, past the Lindbergh kidnapping and the Gray-Snyder murder, strolling as casually as I could. No one was there. I came to the bend. I turned it.

  And, suddenly, there she was.

  This corridor came to a dead end too. And, standing there ahead of me, alone, staring at the lurid representation of some hearty hatchet slayer at work, stood the woman.

  She was about thirty-five, thin almost to gauntness, with cheekbones and a prominent nose and too high-heeled shoes. I took all that in automatically, for I was looking at the hat on her frizzed-up silver blond hair.

  It was a purple hat, a large-brimmed straw, with a purple ribbon around the crown.

  She glanced up at me almost the instant I turned the bend. But I had enough sense not to catch her eye. And I kept my face away from her. No one could foretell what would happen later; it might be fatal if she were to recognize me as the man she had seen in the museum.

  Acting as if I hadn’t noticed her, I stared at the nearest exhibit, not really seeing it at all.

  Obviously, she was planning a meeting with Nikki here in the depths of the corridor where it would be less conspicuous. Iris, right out in the front hall, was bound to attract Nikki’s attention first. So long as this woman could be kept down here in this dead-end passage, we would be okay.

  We were getting the first break.

  I found I was quite an actor. Nonchalantly, as if the exhibits were far too boring to merit my attention, I turned from the woman with the purple hat and strolled back toward the bend which would put me out of sight.

  I was pretty sure I’d never aroused her serious interest. I reached the bend, turned it. I had my plan then. I was going to take up my stand at the place where the corridor debouched into the main room. From there I could keep a watch on Iris and the “assignation.” I could also have the woman covered. If she took it into her head to come out of the corridor at the wrong moment, I’d have to suppress her, by force if necessary. There was to be no chivalry in this fight to the finish.

  I moved back past Hauptmann and Ruth Snyder, I was taut now as a bird dog when the rifle’s aimed. I reached the mouth of the corridor. There was an exhibit there—The Cleveland Butcher at Work. I took up my position, pretending to gloat over its gory splendors. Out of the corner of my eye, I could look straight into the main room.

  And, with a twitching of the pulses, I saw Iris at once. The awful purple hat gleamed brightly in the light from the Spanish Inquisition. She was putting on a dandy show, staring at the Burning Martyrs as if she couldn’t wait to drop a postal card to mother about them. The colored boy had gone. We were alone in that dismal main room. But, although I was sure she knew I was there, she made not the slightest sign.

  I glanced in the other direction, down the corridor. The stretch of it to the bend was still deserted. The woman with the purple hat was still around the corner, waiting there for the assignation which—I hoped—would never come off.

  My watch said exactly nine o’clock.

  And, precisely at that moment, the entrance door opened and Nikki came in. His punctuality—after the horror interlude of Marta’s murder—was rather hair-raising. And in the drab light of the musty room, his huge, swaggering figure with the dark turtle-neck sweater and the tousled blond head seemed distortedly large and somehow unreal. A waxwork come to life.

  I thought of Marta again, Marta toppling down, down past the dark scaffolding. Just to sock him once—just once on that dimpled arrogant jaw of his! My hands were aching for it.

  Calm yourself, Peter Duluth.

  I held my breath. He paused on the threshold. His quick eyes moved straight to Iris and the hat. They lingered there; then they gave me a casual glance. In the shadows by the Cleveland Butcher I was nothing more than a vague figure to him. I knew that.

  Very slowly, pausing to look at the Indians, he started easing his way around to Iris. He was falling into the trap.

  And yet the suspense of it was almost more than I could bear. Because that trap—baited with my wife—could still work in reverse. If anything were to go wrong, Iris would be the one to be caught—the helpless victim of that thug who less than half an hour before had killed Marta in cold blood.

  Nikki and Iris—and, more dangerous than a barrel of T.N.T., the woman with the purple hat, invisible but agonizingly near, down the corridor.

  Iris’ timing was superb. At first, when Nikki came in, she hadn’t looked around. Only now did she throw him one quick, perfunctory glance. He was moving nearer and nearer to her. Around them, grotesquely real, the young lovers kissed, the wax mothers dangled their wax babies.

  The silence was stifling.

  And then, very softly, with the dreamy unconcern of a little girl, Iris started to hum. Those lilting notes of The Blue Danube seemed to echo around that madhouse of Horrors. And, with sudden, gnawing fear, I wondered: Can she hear? Down there at the end of the corridor, can the real woman with the purple hat hear?

  Silence came again. Still Iris did not move. Nikki was only a few feet from her. His great, broad-shouldered figure almost blotted her from view.

  Then he was at her side. He was saying something to her. I couldn’t hear what it was. Iris said something back, low and quick. I watched out of the corner of my eye, standing there by the Cleveland Butcher. I saw Nikki smiling at her, smiling with an insolent Gable leer of approval. I could have killed him for it.

  Then he stooped. He bent down to the floor as if he was picking something up. He unbent. He handed something to Iris. She took it, folding her hand over it. He was talking to her again, softly, casually, not looking at her.

  With a tingling of excitement, I realized the “transference” had taken place. Iris was winning. She had the instructions now which would lead us to Garr.

  In spite of my belligerent hatred for Nikki, relief started, like ice melting inside me.

  Then the relief stopped. I felt my heart leap and scuttle around like a mouse. Because, from beyond the bend in the corridor to my right, came the faint, relentless click of heels—woman’s high heels on the bare boards of the floor.

  The woman with the purple hat. The real woman. She was doing it. She was coming down the corridor.

  Iris and Nikki had stopped talking. But they were still standing there together by the Spanish Inquisition. I wanted to yell out to Iris: Get away. Get out—quick. My lungs were bursting with it, holding it back.

  And yet, in spite of my extreme anxiety for Iris, I was thinking with a cold, almost impersonal logic. I had it all worked out. That woman wasn’t going to reach the main hall while Iris was still there—not if I could help it. There was no point in trying to fool her I was Nikki, trying to lure her back down the corridor that way. She’d know I wasn’t Nikki. No turtle-neck sweater, no tattoo marks. Fancy tactics were out. I tensed myself, ready to jump on her when she came round the bend—if need be.

  I listened to the approaching footsteps. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Nikki and Iris. The assignation was over. They must break it up soon. Yes, Iris was moving away from him, heading toward the door.

  The footsteps down the corridor seemed deafening. Then, around the bend, appeared that thin, gaunt figure with the ashblond hair, the match-stick legs and the purple hat. She paused at the bend, glancing at her watch. Then she started sauntering leisurely down the corridor toward me.

  Iris was halfway to the exit door, strolling past a wax mother and child. Quicker, Iris!

  The woman with the purple hat moved closer. Unless she paused, she’d be up to me in a matter of seconds.

  Nikki was still lounging in front of the Spanish Inquisition.

  The pivot—!

  I started counting. One—two—three—when I got to ten, I’d let the woman have it. Heaven alone knew what the outcome would be. Sounds of a scuffle in that empty, reverberating museum would be almost bound to attract Nikki. But it would give Iris a chance to get away. That was all
that mattered.

  Four—five—cold sweat was breaking out on my forehead. The woman came nearer, nearer. And then, while every muscle in my body was taut, she stopped. One of the exhibits attracted her, some fantastic bathtub murder. She stood there, staring with pop-eyed interest at so much blood.

  Iris was almost at the door. She was at the door. Her hand was going out to it. She was pulling it open.

  And then, as the woman with the purple hat dragged her gaze away from the bathtub corpse and started forward again, Iris slipped out and the door swung shut behind her.

  She’d made it!

  Elation came like a glass of champagne. Iris was out of the picture, safe outside in the tangled Coney Island crowd. But I was still very wary. Because Nikki was still there by the burning heretics. In a moment the real woman with the purple hat would be in the main hail. In a moment she’d see Nikki and Nikki would see her—a second woman with a purple hat. They’d meet and they’d realize an imposture had taken place. They would realize Iris had tricked them—more successfully than poor Marta or Karl.

  On the face of it, that meeting seemed as disastrous as if it had happened while Iris was there. But was it? Marta had stressed the secrecy which kept each agent in Garr’s strange network ignorant of the agent next to him. Nikki had slipped Iris something which contained the instructions for the next meeting. Iris had those instructions and was safely on the way to our rendezvous in the bar. With any luck, unless he managed to follow her, Nikki would have no idea where the next meeting was to take place and no means of warning the next agent that Iris was an impostor.

  If I could rush her safely out of Coney Island to the next assignation, Nikki and the woman with the purple hat would be helpless.

  Or would they? I weighed the alternatives. Try and stop the meeting even though it would mean violence with a doubtful outcome and the loss of my priceless anonymity? Or let it go? I decided. Let them meet; let them do anything they wanted to do. The best bet was to get to Iris quickly.