One Night with Nora Read online

  I was standing there glancing over the old titles when Elsie came in with a tray, which she set on a low glass table in front of the sofa. It held a full bottle of Monnet, two four-ounce wineglasses, two tall crystal goblets with ice cubes, and a squat, cut-glass pitcher of water.

  She smiled as she set the tray down, and said, “I’ve always assumed that authors drink exactly what they give their characters in books. If you prefer soda—or even whisky—I’ve got it.”

  I shook my head and assured her. “No. Mike has taught me his drinking habits. That’s perfect.”

  She sat on the sofa and started pouring cognac in the two wineglasses. I told her, “This is really an interesting place you’ve got. Are the pictures yours?”

  “Oh, no. I did try dabbling with water colors once, but nothing came of it. I can’t take credit for a single bit of this,” she went on a trifle ruefully. “I’m just subletting from friends. Everything you see belongs to them.”

  “Except about twenty-four volumes I noticed on the top bookshelf.” I sat beside her and reached for a glass.

  She blushed slightly and said, “As a matter of strict truth two of those belong to the Johnsons. They had three or four of your books, and two of them were ones I hadn’t been able to get to complete my set.”

  “The Johnsons?” I paused with the drink halfway to my mouth. “You wouldn’t mean Ryerson?”

  “That’s right.” Her face lighted happily. “I remember now that Johnnie said he’d met you at some MWA meeting. Do you know Lois, too? She illustrated one of his books a few years ago.”

  “Yes. She’s a sweet girl.”

  Elsie lifted her glass in a sort of salute and we both drank the straight cognac and then washed it down with a sip of ice water.

  I leaned back and relaxed and lit cigarettes for both of us, nodded toward the typewriter in the corner, and asked, “Do you write?”

  “Yes. That is—no. Not really. I’m trying to. In fact,” she said gravely, “prepare yourself to be disillusioned. I seduced you up here under false pretenses.”

  “You mean it wasn’t just my masculine charm—my masterful technique?”

  “Not altogether.” She leaned close to draw her finger tips across my cheek. “Though I won’t deny there was that, too. But when I persuaded Miss Jane to introduce me, I had only one thought. A very carefully planned campaign. To get you up here and ply you with brandy and whatever sex appeal I possess to induce you to read a half-finished manuscript and tell me what the devil to do with it.”

  I leaned back and grinned and said, “Go ahead and ply me.”

  “I am,” she said defiantly. “Don’t you feel plied?”

  I said cautiously, “The brandy is very good.”

  She leaned toward me again, her face turned and pressing against the back of the sofa, her eyes dancing with excitement that was at least partially sexual.

  I moved closer to her and her eyes remained wide open and inviting me. Her lips parted slightly and they trembled. She said, “Darling,” in a husky, shaking voice, and I kissed her.

  It was a long kiss, and we were both shaky when it ended. She moved a little so her shoulder touched mine companionably, reached for her glass, and asked, “Now do you feel plied?”

  “Most satisfactorily.” I drained my glass and lit another cigarette. “You promised me the story of your life, too.”

  “That will come later. After I’ve had a few more drinks. Aren’t you going to say you’re just dying to read my book?”

  “Is it a mystery?”

  She hesitated, biting her underlip. “Sort of. I guess I hope it will be what they call a suspense novel these days.”

  “Like ‘The Writhing Worm’?” I asked, trying to keep the venom out of my voice.

  “Oh! Do you know Lew’s work?”

  “No. I ran into him at the bar tonight and he gave me a lecture on how the modern mystery novel should be written.”

  “That sounds like Lew,” she said indulgently.

  “Let’s talk about you and your book.”

  “I’ve only fifty-some pages done.” She hesitated thoughtfully. “I’m stuck at that point, you see.” Then in a sudden burst of confidence, she hurried on.

  “Actually, I’m afraid I’m discovering I’m not really a writer after all. Up to this point I’ve been fictionizing a real situation. One that happened to me. It is a mystery, and a darned good one,” she went on defiantly. “An unsolved case that I thought up an ending for and decided I could make a book out of. But I can’t think of a middle part. The first fifty pages were easy because I was dealing with real facts. But now I don’t know how to go on. I thought maybe, if you read it, you could advise me.”

  I poured myself some more cognac. Elsie still had some in her glass. She was leaning back comfortably, her face hopeful. I wanted to kiss her again, but I’ve met enough budding authors to realize she would have to get the book off her mind before we could hope to move on to more interesting matters.

  I said, “Let me get this straight. You started out with an incident that actually happened to you. You’ve written that much of it, and now that you’ve reached the end of your real facts, you can’t dream up an ending.”

  “I do have an ending. A good one. But I know a book should be at least two hundred pages long and I can’t think how to stretch it out.”

  “What sort of situation have you got?”

  She hesitated a moment, a faint tinge of pink flushed her cheeks. “I’d much rather have you read it than try to discuss it openly with you. I’d be too horribly embarrassed because—well, it wasn’t a very nice experience. Quite horrible, in fact. I’ve changed all the names in my story, of course, and the physical descriptions of the people involved, so it doesn’t seem so personal when you read it all typed out.”

  “Have you shown it to anyone else?”

  “Just one friend. He’s a writer, too, and it seems different when one is a professional. So much more impersonal.” She paused and the color came into her cheeks again. “Please don’t think I’m awful while you’re reading it. I did try to put things down as honestly as I could. A writer has to, doesn’t he?”

  I poured both of us more cognac. I was beginning to get restless. Here we were alone and time was passing. Discussing a manuscript wasn’t my idea of the best way of killing the night. But she was so wrapped up in her own personal problem that I knew it was going to be difficult to change the subject.

  Nevertheless, I tried.

  While she was sipping her fresh drink, I said, “I’ll be most interested in reading your story first thing in the morning. I’ll be better able to judge it intelligently if I know a little more about you as a person. You’re not married?”

  “No.”

  “But not a virgin?” I made my voice light and didn’t look directly at her as I spoke.

  “No.” Her answer was slow but direct. “Is that important?”

  I shrugged. “Probably not, except as an indication of the sort of person you are. Completely repressed females generally don’t make very good writers. What do you read?”

  Her face lit up. “Everything. That is, I did when I was younger. Proust and Joyce. Hemingway and Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis. Lately I’ve been concentrating more on the better mysteries and suspense novels. Yours, of course, and there’s a woman writer named Helen McCloy whom I like. Do you know her books?”

  “Very well. Do you have a job?”

  “Not now. Until a couple of months ago I worked as a secretary in an importing house. Then I decided I wanted to try and write this book and I had a little money saved up, so I quit my job and moved into this less expensive apartment when the Johnsons offered to sublet it while they were in Maine. I’ve got money enough for a couple more months, but if I don’t have the book finished by then I guess I’ll have to go back to work.”

  “Perhaps I can help you get it finished,” I told her heartily. “Right now—why don’t you kiss me?”

  She said, “I’d li
ke that,” and came toward me on the sofa. This time there wasn’t any question about her response. Her lips were soft and wet, and they spread apart like the petals of a flower. Her arms went around me, and I drew her close so the full length of her body was against me.

  And then the telephone rang!

  I would have let the damned thing ring forever. I tried to hold my lips on hers, to make her feel the telephone was the least important thing in the world right then, but she twisted away from me, drew herself up, breathing hard. With an apologetic smile at me, she crossed the room to pick up the shrilling instrument.

  I settled back to catch my own breath and sip some more brandy. I didn’t listen to her carefully. I actually tried not to listen at all, but I was sore at the interruption and was inwardly cursing the person at the other end.

  I heard Elsie say, “Yes,” and then, indignantly: “No. Of course not. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  Her back was toward me, and she straightened and stiffened as she listened some more.

  “But he’s not,” she said angrily. “He dropped me off after promising to read my script tomorrow if I send it to him—and I’m up here working like the devil to get it in shape for him to read it.”

  She listened again for a moment, then said emphatically, “No. I tell you I’m working. Good night.”

  She put the telephone down hard and stood for a moment, her back still toward me.

  I got up and when she turned slowly, I saw everything was finished for that night. Her face was set in stiff lines and there was a perfunctory sort of smile on her lips. “I’m sorry, Brett. I—”

  I went across the room to take her in my arms, but it was no good. She let me kiss her, but she was far away from me. Her body was tense, and I didn’t know whether it was anger or fright. She moved her mouth away from mine to say, “You’d better go, darling. Really, I’m sorry as hell, but—if you still want to read my script—”

  I was sorry, too. I told her so, and lied like a gentleman by saying of course I still wanted to read her script.

  She smiled wanly and said maybe I’d call her as soon as I’d read it.

  I promised I would, and she moved out of my arms and around the typewriter desk where she picked up a large Manila envelope. She turned and said, “I’ll give you the original copy. It hasn’t been revised or corrected, but I’ve been working some on the carbon copy and it would take too long to gather it all up and straighten it out.”

  I had the impression then that she was scared to death, and wanted to get me out of there fast. Since I didn’t particularly wish to encounter a jealous boy friend, I told her that would be fine and what number should I call after I’d read it.

  She grabbed up a pencil and wrote a number on the brown envelope and shoved it into my hands. I was getting the bum’s rush for sure, but I didn’t argue about it.

  She moved around me fast to pick up my hat, and I went to the door and opened it.

  She followed me swiftly and flung her arms around my neck and pulled my head down for a fast, hard kiss, and then whispered, “Sorry, Brett,” and there were tears in her eyes.

  I grinned and said, “There’ll always be another time, honey. You come to my place next time where we can really talk.”

  She nodded and smiled with the tears still shining in her eyes, then pulled the door shut, and I went to the elevator and down.

  The street outside was deserted at that hour, and I turned left and walked up to Third where I didn’t wait more than three minutes before flagging an empty taxi. I told the driver the Berkshire Hotel on Fifty-Second, and settled back morosely against the cushion with Elsie Murray’s manuscript in my lap.

  There was no doorman on duty, and the lobby of the Berkshire was deserted when I went in. I walked straight past the desk without looking at it, got in a waiting elevator, and went up to my floor.

  I had my key with me, and unlocked the door of my suite, went in, and tossed the envelope on a table while I stripped off my coat and went into the bathroom to run a glass of cold water.

  There was half a fifth of cognac on the coffee table in the sitting-room, and I poured out a stiff slug to put on top of Elsie’s Monnet before going to bed.

  With the glass in my hand and a lighted cigarette between my lips, I sat down and idly opened the envelope. I took out the sheaf of typed pages and glanced at them.

  There was a title page with capital letters in the center:

  SHE WOKE TO DARKNESS

  by

  Enid Morgan (pseudonym)

  I turned to the first page and saw it was neatly typed on lightweight paper. I took a sip of cognac and started reading Elsie’s unfinished manuscript.

  Buy She Woke to Darkness Now!

  About the Author

  Brett Halliday (1904–1977) was the primary pseudonym of American author Davis Dresser. Halliday is best known for creating the Mike Shayne Mysteries. The novels, which follow the exploits of fictional PI Mike Shayne, have inspired several feature films, a radio series, and a television series.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1953 by Brett Halliday

  Cover design by Mimi Bark

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-1455-7

  This 2015 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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