Deadlier Than the Pen Part 3

On her arrival back at the art gallery, Diana immediately approached the manager, a nattily dressed little man with thinning hair that smelled of too much oil.

"I do not know his name," she said disingenuously after she'd described Damon Bathory.

"I cannot give you any information about the gentleman, madam."

"Can you tell me why he came here? What interested him?"

"That's privileged information. I do not discuss my clients' tastes."

"If he is a client, then you must know his name."

"No, madam, I do not. He did not give it." Looking down his nose at her, he inquired, "Is there something you would like to buy?"

"I'll look around," she told him, and she did so, hoping for inspiration. If she only asked the right question, she felt certain she could learn something. The manager must have more information than he'd volunteered.

Most of the landscapes on display were well executed, but none compelled her complete attention until she came upon a canvas towards the back of the gallery. It was a large seascape, featuring ships, brightly colored birds, and scantily clad maidens. The artist had signed it with the initials A. N.

"Excellent work, is it not?" Inexplicably, the manager sounded nervous.

"Interesting work. How has it been received by the critics?"

"Oh, them!" He waved a dismissive hand.

"Fit only to line a parrot's cage?" she guessed.

"Madam!"

"Perhaps a reference to Section 317 of the Penal Code."

He drew himself up to his full height -- which made him only an inch taller than Diana -- and huffed out a breath. "I a.s.sure you, madam, that neither this painting nor any of Mr. North -- " He broke off, annoyed with himself for giving away the artist's name. "That is to say, I can a.s.sure you that none of the work painted by this artist and handled by this gallery violates any city statute."

Section 317 prohibited the showing or selling of prints, figures, or images that were "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent, or disgusting." The mere mention in her column of a painting that skirted the bounds of decency would no doubt lead to its immediate sale. Damon Bathory was right about that. The scandalous always had appeal for the ma.s.ses.

Diana's amus.e.m.e.nt faded when she realized she was no closer to learning anything about Damon Bathory. Whoever "A.N." was, he did not seem likely to have any connection to her a.s.signment. There was, it appeared, no clue here to explain Bathory's visit.

"The gentleman you spoke with earlier calls himself Damon Bathory. He's prominent in his field," she said. "He is a writer and lecturer."

"Never heard of him."

"Perhaps he'll come back and buy something."

"Perhaps he will, madam, but many people simply stop in to have a look around." The gallery manager gave her a pointed look.

By the time Diana retraced her steps to Union Square, she felt as if her feet were on fire. Nearly an hour had pa.s.sed since she'd left Poke on watch. He bounded towards her the moment he saw her coming, all but dancing up and down with excitement.

"He come right out again after you went," Poke said.

"Did you follow him?"

"No need, missus." Poke launched into a colorfully worded account of how Damon Bathory had rushed out of the hotel, entered Union Square Park, and accosted a man. "Caught right ahold of him and give him a shake. My eyes, I thought he'd sock it to him."

Diana blinked. It took her a moment to translate the slang. "You thought he meant to rob the man and beat him up?"

Poke nodded. "On de level."

"This other man -- what did he look like?"

"One of doze guys wot gits lost in a crowd."

Diana persisted, eliciting a bit more description. Like Bathory himself, the mystery man had been dark-haired, but he'd been clean-shaven save for a mustache.

"Taller or shorter than Mr. Bathory?"

"Hard to tell, missus. De bloke, he slumped."

Puzzled, Diana urged Poke to go on with his tale, but there was not much more to it. The two men had argued a bit, although Poke had not been close enough to hear what they said to each other. Then Bathory had given the other fellow some money and hailed a cab for him. He'd watched it drive away, then gone back into his hotel.

Had the mysterious stranger been following Bathory, too? A creditor? A blackmailer? Whoever he was, it was too late to catch up with him now and Diana was glad of it. She'd had enough confrontations for one day.

"Are you certain Mr. Bathory didn't come out again?"

Poke a.s.sured her he had not.

Thoroughly confused by what she'd just heard, exhausted by the long hours she'd spent in a futile effort to learn something useful about the personal life of this man who wrote horror stories, Diana was reluctant to risk coming face to face with Bathory again. When Poke volunteered himself and two of his friends to keep an eye on the hotel for the rest of the night, she accepted with grat.i.tude.

"Mr. Horatio Foxe from the Independent Intelligencer will pay you," she told him.

Poke's eyes lit up at that. The street arabs knew Foxe was good for the money.

"If anything interesting happens," Diana continued, "send word to me at Mrs. Curran's boarding house on 10th Street."

She hoped the boy would not have reason to contact her. In dire need of a hot bath and a good night's sleep, she didn't even want to think about Damon Bathory again until tomorrow.

Seated at the breakfast table the next morning, Diana looked up as her landlady pushed aside a lace curtain to peer into the areaway used as a servants' entrance. "And who would that be, knocking at my door at such an hour?" she said Abandoning her breakfast, Diana joined Mrs. Curran at the small window. They were the only occupants of the house who were up this early. The others, who kept late hours, were accustomed to sleep in. Diana blinked in surprise when she recognized a familiar face. "Why, it's Horatio Foxe. My editor."

"Whatever is he doing here?" Without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Curran threw open the door and invited him in.

Diana wondered the same thing. Foxe had never visited her at home before. Somehow, she did not think he'd come in person to deliver the expense money she'd requested.

A few minutes later, his ever-present cigar clamped firmly between his teeth, he sat across from Diana at the recently scrubbed pine table. She resumed eating her usual morning fare, slicing a bite out of a tender beefsteak and chewing slowly as he watched her. In the quiet kitchen of Mrs. Curran's small house on 10th Street, with the cast iron cookstove warming the chill out of the morning air and the pleasant, familiar scent of yeast enveloping them, Foxe seemed as out of place as mourning dress at a wedding.

"You've seen the column?" He gestured at the pile of newspapers she'd been reading as she ate. She'd set aside the previous day's Evening Telegram and that morning's Times, Tribune, and World in favor of the latest Independent Intelligencer.

She nodded and dug into a mound of fried potatoes. As he'd warned, Foxe had tinkered with her text.

"What did he do this time?" Mrs. Curran asked, turning from the stove with the coffee pot in her hand.

She was a small, birdlike woman, her exact age anybody's guess. When she'd given up the stage, she'd bought this house and announced she had bedrooms to let to other women of a theatrical bent. At present, two actresses, a dresser, and a seamstress lived under her roof. And Diana. Because her late husband had been an actor, she had been welcomed into the fold. She'd come close to being evicted over Monday's column and been obliged to explain herself to her landlady.

"Mr. Foxe has committed me, in print, to getting a story on Damon Bathory," Diana said.

"And is that bad?" Mrs. Curran had already brought a plate overflowing with fresh rolls to the table. She refilled Diana's cup with strong black coffee, poured out cups for herself and for Foxe, and sat down with them.

Foxe shifted uneasily in his chair. It was obvious his hostess did not intend to be driven out of her own kitchen. If he'd hoped for privacy to speak with Diana, he was doomed to disappointment.

Hiding her amus.e.m.e.nt at Foxe's frustration, Diana answered Mrs. Curran's question. "It is impossible!"

She gave a brief account of the previous day's adventures for the benefit of her landlady and her editor.

"In other words, you learned nothing." Foxe glowered at her.

"Why are you here?" she asked, giving him a suspicious look. "Have you discovered something new?"

He glanced at Mrs. Curran. The older woman beamed back at him and did not budge.

"Mrs. Curran is unlikely to leak our secrets to a rival newspaper."

Diana's curiosity had been aroused by Foxe's unprecedented visit, but she was not yet fully awake and felt out of sorts besides. If he wanted to speak with her alone, he could wait until she'd finished her breakfast. She lifted her cup, inhaled the rising steam with something akin to bliss, and took a long, satisfying swallow of the reviving brew.

Foxe b.u.t.tered a roll and ate it in three bites. He drank some coffee. Then the need to gloat got the better of him. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew two telegrams.

"Take a gander at these, Diana. The Bathory story is bigger than I thought."

Intrigued, she reached for them. One came from Philadelphia, the other from San Francisco, but both said the same thing -- a woman had been stabbed to death in the city's theater district.

Foxe looked grimly pleased with himself. "On a hunch, I sent requests for information to a major newspaper in each city Damon Bathory visited on his current tour. Just gave the dates and asked if any newsworthy events had taken place about the same time. You see the result -- replies from the Philadelphia Inquirer and the San Francisco Chronicle."

"These women died while Bathory was in town?"

"At the end of his stint in each of those cities, late on a Sat.u.r.day night or early on a Sunday morning, when he'd be on his way out of town and likely to avoid being questioned."

Foxe's logic was easy to follow. And alarming. Could Damon Bathory really have blood on his hands? She had been trying very hard to convince herself that he was nothing more than a talented writer and performer. Perhaps that had been a mistake. He did have an interest in some rather unpleasant subjects. And he claimed descent from an ancestor who had killed young women for their blood.

Diana shivered.

Mrs. Curran picked up each of the telegrams in turn. "Oh, my," she murmured, fixing a wide-eyed look on Foxe. "You think Damon Bathory killed these two women?"

"I think it will make a d.a.m.ned fine story if we can link him to the murders."

"That's not the same thing," Diana protested.

"He may have been responsible for their deaths." Foxe attempted to look hurt and missed by a mile. "Is this the thanks I get? I came here to warn you before you left to resume following your quarry. You must be on your guard, Diana."

Foxe's att.i.tude made it difficult for Diana to take him seriously. Common sense suggested he was up to something. Besides, two deaths in two cities Bathory had visited seemed scant evidence of any connection. Bathory's involvement was highly conjectural. She'd seen the itinerary for the tour he'd just completed. The man had performed at twenty-eight stands in less than four months, crisscrossing the entire continent. She reminded Foxe of that.

"And who's to say there aren't twenty-eight dead girls, one in each city?" His eyes gleamed. The unlit cigar between his teeth bobbled as he worked himself up to a new level of enthusiasm. "Think of it, Diana! What a story!"

In her agitation, she gripped the edge of the table with both hands. "I do not write fiction."

Foxe s.n.a.t.c.hed up the telegrams and waved them in her face. "What if it's all true? It could be. Philadelphia, last November. A young woman stabbed." He glanced at the top telegram for details. "Belinda MacKay, found in an alley behind the Muse Lecture Hall. Did she attend Bathory's reading the previous evening? Then here in San Francisco." He shuffled the yellow pages and flourished the second telegram. "January 9th. Lenora Cosgrove. Age twenty-eight. She was found in an alley, too. And likewise stabbed."

"Coincidence. By your logic, any member of any acting company might as easily have committed these crimes. There are dozens of theater troupes on tour at any given time. In each of those cities five or six plays, at the least, would have been presented on the same nights Bathory read from his works. And that does not count singers and circus acts and -- "

"I take your point, Diana. But of all those performers, Bathory is the one who revels in blood and gore." He dropped his voice to a lower register. "And what if I were to tell you that both of these murders took place under a full moon?"

That suggestion elicited a gasp from Mrs. Curran but Diana's eyes narrowed with a sudden increase in her skepticism. "Did they?"

"Who knows?" Foxe chuckled and seemed to relax. He reached for another roll. "That's what I pay you to find out."

"This is the Sat.u.r.day after he's completed a stand," Mrs. Curran murmured. "If he is the killer, does that mean he'll strike tonight?"

Foxe looked pleased at the thought.

"Where is your full moon?"

Foxe ignored Diana's sarcasm, making her reasonably certain that he had not made the special effort to come to Mrs. Curran's house because he thought one of his reporters was in danger. He'd wanted to catch her before she left. That much she believed. But his primary motivation had not been concern about her safety.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"Keep following Bathory. Tonight, too. Do not let him out of your sight. No delegating this task to anyone else." He wagged an admonishing finger at her.

"You think Poke and the other street arabs missed something?"

"I think he's a clever lad accustomed to living by his wits. He's not above taking money from Bathory to edit what he tells you."

"You cannot ask this young lady to risk her life." Mrs. Curran glared at Foxe, warming Diana's heart. It was good to have caring, loving friends.

With an ingratiating smile for the older woman, Foxe rose from the table. "No risk. I have arranged for her to have a bodyguard." He shifted his gaze to Diana. "Today, when you follow Bathory, you are to let him see you. We'll draw him out. When he makes his move, we'll have our proof."

"When he tries to kill her? Are you daft?" Aghast, Mrs. Curran fanned herself, her gaze darting from Foxe's face to Diana's and back again.

Diana sighed. "This is likely to be a tempest in a teapot, Mrs. Curran. But if Mr. Foxe is right, I have an obligation to find out the truth. If Bathory was responsible for those deaths, he must be stopped."

Investigating Bathory as a potential criminal, she realized, would give her pursuit of him, her invasion of his privacy, a certain legitimacy. She shot Foxe a considering look. Was he providing her with what she'd said she wanted, the opportunity to go after real news? Or was this just another ploy to trick her into inventing scandal?

It was not until he'd left and she was preparing to set out for Bathory's hotel to relieve Poke, that Diana remembered a remark the elusive horror writer had made to her in his hotel room. He had encountered "a particularly annoying" female reporter near the start of his tour, he'd said.

Philadelphia had been one of his earliest stands.

In her head, in Bathory's deep, resonant voice, Diana heard again what else he'd said. "I dealt with her," he'd boasted, "in a most satisfactory manner."

But he'd only meant he'd taken her to bed ... hadn't he?