Free Old Sinners Never Die by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Page B

about.”
    “Agreed.”
    “What about Dr. d’Inde?” Helene said. “You came here because you thought I knew him, didn’t you, Senator?”
    “And because I knew this young man was likely to be concerned with the same problem I was, the disloyalty charges Fagan has aimed at the Chatterton dinner.”
    Jimmie was impatient, but he tried to hold steady: piece by piece. “Something has made you genuinely suspicious of d’Inde, however,” he suggested.
    “Could be entirely irrelevant,” Senator Chisholm said, “but it came back to me tonight. I was coming out of a committee meeting one day last week—an Armed Forces Planning hearing where we’d been shown some pretty top secret stuff. D’Inde bottled me up and tried to get me to look at some photostats he had, thought I’d find them interesting. I gave him the brush the same way I would newspaper men on the subject. I make it an absolute practice never to talk of what goes on in those meetings outside.”
    “How did he react?”
    “Formal, polite. ‘But of course, Madame Senator—I understand.’ And he was nice as pie at the Chattertons.”
    “Did you see the photostats?”
    “Well, sort of the way you see the countryside from a train window. I saw geometric drawings and math figures. I couldn’t see more, refusing to look.”
    “He wasn’t exactly covert about it, though,” Jimmie said.
    “Not in the least. And maybe you can tell me, Congressman, if that’s good or bad.”
    Jimmie grinned. “I know what you mean. Imagination and timing: most factors are alterable.”
    “Exactly. A white dress makes a black shadow.”
    Jimmie’s respect for this grey-haired, blunt woman had deepened considerably. He drew the engraved card from his pocket and gave it to her.
    “Leo Montaigne,” she said. “I sat next to him at dinner. Do you know him?”
    Jimmie shook his head. “But when I went home tonight, I found this card on the kitchen table—and nobody at home; not my housekeeper, my man, and certainly not my father. Mrs. Norris had written the words ‘Key Bridge, Arlington side’ on the table, but I don’t even know that there is any connection. I came back by way of the Key Bridge. Nothing.”
    “He can’t be more than thirty,” the senator said, “but he smells musty, talks about the Riviera. He didn’t have much to say to me, but he seemed on intimate terms with the rest of the crowd.”
    “All of them?” Jimmie queried.
    “No, I wouldn’t say that. He had an argument with d’Inde. Your father took d’Inde’s side, I think. But it was trivial. I’m sure of that. Oh, something that struck me as queer; he was sitting between me and Secretary Jennings, and do you know, he called her by her first name?”
    “Curious,” Jimmie agreed, but there was something else curious, too. He was looking at the list of guests he had compiled with d’Inde’s help. “Have you any idea what he does for a living?”
    “Yes. And come to think of it, I found out by eavesdropping on the conversation across the table—between General Jarvis and whatever her name was. Montaigne runs something called the Club Sentimentale, and this woman is supposed to sing there.”
    Jimmie got up. “Well, as they used to say in the D.A.’s office, somebody sang tonight. I think I’ll try the Club Sentimentale.”
    “Senator Chisholm, will you stay and have some coffee with me?” Helene said.
    “Bless you, girl, I will.”
    Jimmie took his hat. Helene went out to the deserted hall with him and, when he gently lifted her chin with his forefinger, kissed him as though it were going to have to last him for some time.
    “I’d almost forgotten there were moments like this,” he said.
    Helene said, “There aren’t. You have to steal them. Call me as soon as you can.”

13
    T HERE WERE NO MORE than a half-dozen private automobiles scattered along the street near the Club Sentimentale. Washington was a city of taxicabs. Sometimes Jimmie thought its economy was