by Q. Patrick
“I can get by without that, thanks.”
“Okay.” Once again Timothy surveyed the chaos of the room. “Listen, I’m out a lot these days and my colored man’s eating his head off for something to do. How about his coming around to fix this place up a bit? You can’t work in all this mess.”
Bristol’s sudden smile was disarmingly boyish.
“That’s darn decent of you.”
“I owe it to you for that tadpole.”
Bobby held out his hand. “Thanks, Trant, you’re hardly the conventional idea of a policeman. And if—well, I’m a complete wash-out at the moment—but if there’s anything I could do to help about Clara—”
“I’ll remember you. By the way, there is one thing right now. What conclusions do you draw from the following little anecdote, Bobby? A newly married husband calls his wife long distance when he doesn’t have anything to say. She’s not there—so he telephones again in a couple of hours.”
“I’m hardly an authority as a husband.” Bristol smiled wanly. “But as a would-be novelist, I’d draw one of two conclusions. Any man who calls his wife long distance twice is either very much in love—or suffering from a guilty conscience.”
“Remarkable, Bobby.” Timothy grinned. “That’s exactly the way I had it figured out. Goodbye.”
As he hurried out to the street, Timothy reflected that there were two very definite things about Robert Bristol. However dubious might be the claims of Mrs. Van Heuten’s other visitors to a literary persuasion, Robert Bristol was obviously a genuine client of the Advice Bureau. Timothy was also certain of another fact.
Bobby Bristol was still passionately, almost tragically in love with the wife who was “divorcing him to marry a more promising husband.”
But Timothy did not think for long about Robert Bristol. He was too busy pondering the conundrum which he had just set his boyhood friend.
XII
Timothy was at headquarters by nine. He had a short packed session with Sergeant Danvers. The routine end of the case had brought in very few results. No sneak-thieves had been seen around the neighborhood of the Advice Bureau. No one in the building had noticed anyone go in through the back entrance. Even Tolfrey had passed unobserved.
“No one even seems to know there was an extra back door,” grumbled the sergeant. “And there’s only one other office in the building with the same set-up. The one right underneath the Advice Bureau—Americo-Japanese Rayon Incorporated. Doesn’t look as though that’ll help much.”
The most negative news was on Mrs. Van Heuten herself. Dozens of friends and clients had sworn emphatically to her respectability and the palpable genuineness of the Advice Bureau. There was not the shadow of a slur on her impeccable reputation.
The preliminary reports on those of the visitors who could be traced had also come in. Timothy glanced through them. The history of the Bristol family was given as he had known it. The biographies of Princess Walonska and her three celebrated friends were just what one would have expected. Miss Dawn’s presence in town was explained by a personal appearance engagement and a desire to keep away from the publicity of Hollywood while the preliminary proceedings of her divorce suit against her current husband started.
Jervis’ formidable thoroughness had even embraced the four ladies’ husbands. But there seemed small chance of their being involved. The Prince Walonski was in Europe, making arrangements to buy up the family estate which he had been forced to relinquish at one stage of a typically impoverished aristocratic career. Mr. Hobart was in Winton, Ohio, acting as sales manager to the celebrated Stuckey Bone Product Company. Miss Kennet’s husband, a young and well-known archeologist, was doing something to primitive shrines in Tahiti, while Mr. Davenham, Gilda Dawn’s half-divorced English mate, was in his native land, acting in a Shaftesbury Avenue play.
Timothy was more interested in what the reports had to say about Dane Tolfrey. Mr. Tolfrey, it appeared, ran some sort of financial investigation service. But he was seldom known to go to his office. He seemed to divide his time almost exclusively between the bars of New York and trips to Europe. He was believed to gamble quite heavily on the race tracks, but his source of income had not been traced. The financial investigation service seemed almost moribund and, although coming from a once-wealthy Boston family, Mr. Tolfrey had dispersed his meagre inheritance many years before. Jervis’ reporter found this discrepancy between expenditure and apparent income rather suspicious.
So did Timothy. “Unless,” he reflected, “Tolfrey received checks for three hundred and fifty dollars from Mrs. Van Heuten every day.”
Nothing had come in on Derek Muir, John Smith or the anonymous girl, but there was a surprisingly long dossier on Madeleine Price, including several newspaper clippings. Timothy was starting to look through it when the phone rang, summoning him to the chief’s office.
“Well, Trant?” asked the chief anxiously.
Timothy gave him a rapid outline of what had happened since their last interview. The chief smiled wryly.
“That certainly is enough to get your teeth into. Making any sense out of it?”
“A grain.” The wary, panther look had come into Timothy’s gray eyes. “I’m fairly certain now that most of those nine visitors are tied up together. I can’t imagine why they all should have chosen the same day to visit the Literary Advice Bureau. But I see them rather like flies, butterflies and wasps, all entangled in a web, with the respectable Clara and the disreputable Mr. Tolfrey as twin spiders in the center. One of the wasps stung the female spider; and I have a feeling he’s hovering over the bereaved male at the moment.”
“You think there’s a chance of Tolfrey getting murdered?” asked the chief sharply.
“I don’t know. The simile ran away with me. I’m still floundering in the most impenetrable darkness.” Timothy grinned. “But, although a vast weight of evidence is against me, I’m convinced the polite, refined Literary Advice Bureau was an under-cover racket, and that Tolfrey and Mrs. Van Heuten worked in the most discreet cahoots.”
The chief looked perplexed. “It’s very difficult to believe, Trant. We haven’t had the slightest thing against Mrs. Van Heuten’s character.”
“Exactly. She was as respectable as hell. In fact, she was so fantastically respectable that I think she must have deliberately played it up and used it as an asset for the racket. But the racket beats me. It can’t be any of the routine affairs.”
“I agree with you there. It couldn’t be blackmail, for example. A woman in her position just couldn’t have gotten away with it. There’s always one blackmail victim that’s ready to talk.”
“Precisely. I threw out blackmail, too. And I threw out any kind of loan racket. Whatever her business was, it involved the Princess Walonska and her friends. As some of the richest women in America, they’d never have got mixed up with a loan shark.”
“Perhaps Mrs. Van Heuten was putting the high hat on sex or dope,” mused the chief.
“Sex!” exclaimed Timothy. “You only had to take one look at her to see she hardly knew such a thing as sex existed. And then there are the corrections she made on manuscripts. Any woman who suggests changing ‘stench’ to ‘scent’ wasn’t mixed up with disorderly houses or narcotics.”
The chief smiled. “Then what is there left?”
“Exactly. Find the racket, sir, and you’ve solved the murder. At least that’s my current opinion, for what it’s worth.” Timothy shrugged. “And by the way, you needn’t worry yourself about the Princess Walonska turning nasty on us. At the moment she’s too scared to lift a little finger.”
As he spoke the door opened and Inspector Jervis hurried in. He nodded to Timothy and crossed to the chief’s desk.
“Well, chief, things are beginning to break. I’ve just come from the bank and Mrs. Van Heuten’s lawyer.”
“And what’s the good word?” put in Timothy.
“In the first place, I checked on the finances of the Advice Bureau. It didn’t lose
money, but it didn’t make it. It brought in just about enough to cover office expenses.”
“Whew!” said Timothy. “And what price the elaborate Park Avenue apartment, the wholesale entertaining and the diamond ring?”
“Yeah. What about them?” The inspector snorted. “I’ve checked definitely that Mrs. Van Heuten was flat busted in nineteen thirty-one. Even had to sell her jewelry. She’s been living at a rate of roughly fifteen to twenty thousand for the last three years—and she left an estate worth over a hundred grand.”
The chief shot a swift glance at Timothy. “Looks as though your racket theory’s right.”
“And what a honey of a racket!” exclaimed Timothy.
“But that’s not all.” Jervis’ expression was growing increasingly bewildered. “I saw the will. Most of the dough goes to relatives in Boston and they’re alibied up so far as I can see. But there were three other bequests. Five thousand to Louise Campbell, the regular secretary, another five thousand to the secretary’s kid, Elaine, and five thousand to Dane Tolfrey.”
“Five thousand?” echoed Timothy.
The inspector nodded. “I was figuring on that document you found being a new will, Trant. I was hoping we’d get some financial motive on Tolfrey. But five thousand! I don’t see him bumping off Mrs. Van Heuten for five grand when he could get checks for three hundred and fifty out of her just by asking.”
While Jervis went on talking to the chief, Timothy sat perfectly still for a few moments. Then, suddenly, he rose and slipped out of the room.
The next half hour was as hectic as any thirty minutes in Timothy’s career. He sent out for plane schedules, he dashed to the fingerprint department and obtained a photographic copy of the prints on the knife, he pored over the schedules when they arrived and finally telephoned to make two reservations on the eleven o’clock plane to Cincinnati. He was smiling when he dialed another number.
“Hello … Miss Price?”
“Yes,” came back the guarded reply.
“So you’re still alive. I was afraid your unknown caller might have called again. This is Timothy Trant, by the way.”
“Is it?” Madeleine’s answering voice was crisply sarcastic.
“Please, please, Miss Price, let’s not start another interesting relationship. There’s no time. Can you be really quick if you feel like it?”
“Of course.”
“Then meet me at the Newark airport by ten minutes to eleven. Don’t be late. And don’t buy yourself a ticket. The Homicide Bureau will be delighted to have you as a round-trip guest.”
He heard a faint gasp from the other end of the wire. “But where are we going?”
“That’s my secret. And promise me one thing, Miss Price. If you must wear that soup-plate hat again, give it an interesting tilt.”
As Timothy dashed out of his office, he bumped into Jervis who had just left the chief. He gripped the inspector’s arm.
“Listen, Jervis. Do something for me. It’s frightfully important. Have all the newspapers give out that a Mr. Dane Tolfrey met with a slight accident, is suffering from concussion and isn’t expected to regain consciousness for at least forty-eight hours.”
The inspector gazed at him in complete bewilderment. “But what …?”
“I’ve no time to explain. But do it, for—for my sake.” Timothy glanced at his watch. “I’m going to be out of town till evening.”
“But where are you going?”
“All over the lot.”
“And what are you going to do?”
Timothy smiled. “With any luck, inspector, I hope to bring you back news of Mrs. Van Heuten’s first visitor and her—tenth.”
XIII
As a taxi sped him toward the Newark airport, Timothy took from his pocket the dossier on Madeleine Price which he had not had time to read. The report itself merely digested the newspaper clippings to which it was attached. It was the clippings themselves that absorbed Timothy’s attention.
The first was dated five years ago and read:
TRAGIC AUTO DEATH
BAINESVILLE, PA. Gilbert A. Campbell was killed instantly today when a roadster driven by his sister-in-law, Madeleine Price, swerved off the road at Eaglepoint Ledge and dropped down a thirty foot bank to burst immediately into flames. Campbell’s body was charred almost beyond recognition. But the girl, thrown clear, miraculously sustained no injuries other than shock. Miss Price is in the hospital and is not in a condition to make a statement.
The next clipping, a few days later, read:
MYSTERY BEHIND EAGLEPOINT FATALITY?
BAINESVILLE, PA. Madeleine Price, striking-looking brunette of 21, was questioned today as to the cause of the accident which resulted in the death of her brother-in-law, Gilbert Campbell, last Wednesday. Eyewitnesses claim to have seen the car speeding in the opposite direction half an hour previously, with the man driving. There had been an abrupt stop and what appeared to be an argument. Finally the girl had taken the wheel, backed the car and driven toward her home at Terrabinny. There was no witness to the fatal plunge. Madeleine Price, pale but composed, stated that she had objected to her brother-in-law’s driving because he had been drinking. She admitted exceeding the speed limit on the way home, but said she had done so in her anxiety to get back to her sister who was unwell. The accident, she alleged, was caused by her brother-in-law’s grabbing her arm suddenly in an attempt to take the wheel.
There was one more clipping which brought this little tragedy to an abrupt and rather unsatisfactory close.
LOVE-DRIVING RULED OUT
BAINESVILLE, PA. Louise Campbell (23) pretty blonde widow, indignantly denied rumors that her husband’s death had been caused by “love-driving” on the part of her sister, Madeleine Price. “Madeleine and Gilbert were good friends and nothing more,” she stated. “The idea of an elopement is ridiculous.” George Gruber, Terrabinny taxicab proprietor and old friend of the attractive bride-widow, was also interviewed by our reporter. He stated: “Madeleine’s not the type to fool in a car and she’s one of the coolest drivers I know. All I can say is, Gilbert used to get pretty high on a couple of drinks.” At the court hearing today, Miss Price’s license was revoked. She and her sister plan to leave Terrabinny for New York.
Timothy’s eyes were thoughtful as he slipped the clippings into his wallet. Here was a new angle on Madeleine Price.
It was twenty to eleven when he arrived at the airport. He spent eight minutes talking rapidly to the reservation clerk and then, punctually at ten minutes to the hour, put in an appearance in the waiting room.
Madeleine Price had been even prompter. He found her sitting composedly on a bench. She was wearing a severe black costume with black gloves and the “soup-plate” hat set defiantly straight on her head.
Timothy gazed at it and sighed. “Really, Miss Price, you’re the most obstinate girl.”
The secretary’s eyes met his without the hint of a smile. “Green shirt and white tie, Mr. Trant. Is there any professional excuse for the combination?”
Something about her direct gaze made Timothy feel rather foolish.
“You have a talent for embarrassing me, Miss Price. Come on. Or we’ll miss the plane. Ever been in the air, by the way?”
“No.”
“Scared?”
“Yes. I’ve always been afraid of speed since …”
Madeleine Price did not speak again as they hurried to the waiting plane. She asked no questions as to where they were going. In fact, she seemed to have not the slightest trace of curiosity.
They boarded the plane, found their seats. The propeller whirred, the plane taxied forward, faster, faster. It left the ground and then started to rise—ploughing upward.
Neither she nor Timothy spoke for some time as the plane droned on. Timothy had been surprised and a little puzzled by the unexpected glimpse into Madeleine’s past which the newspaper clippings had afforded. He tried to persuade the girl to talk about her life. Madeleine was tart and monosyllabic
until he shrewdly shifted his ground to Louise. Then she seemed willing, almost eager to talk. Conversation was an effort above the steady noise of the engine, but gradually Timothy was able to piece together the history of the two Price girls. It had been uneventful and rather pathetic.
At their parents’ death, the sisters had been left almost penniless. Louise, the elder, had soon married Gilbert Campbell, while Madeleine had gone to live with a bedridden friend of her mother’s in the capacity of companion. The old lady had died, leaving her a small income. Shortly afterwards the motor accident had occurred. Madeleine studiously avoided any reference to her brother-in-law’s name. But now and again, as she talked, Timothy noticed a subtle change come over her face.
He was right. She could be beautiful. It was an odd, elusive beauty—a radiance that illumined the dark eyes and softened the firm lines of the mouth. A beauty that came and went so that one was always alert, watching a face that could sometimes be exciting and never was dull.
Madeleine was still talking absorbedly of Louise when the plane started its second descent after New York. Timothy reached up for his hat.
“I shall always be grateful to this plane, Miss Price,” he said, smiling. “I feel it has brought us closer together. But this is where we get off.”
The girl glanced up sharply. “Where are we?”
“Winton, Ohio,” said Timothy brightly. “I hear it’s a very interesting city.”
Timothy hailed a taxi at the airport. As they drove through the crowded streets of the prosperous Ohio factory town Madeleine Price still asked no questions. But he could tell she was curious now. At length, he shot her a swift glance.
“I expect you’ve guessed, Miss Price, that the Homicide Bureau isn’t treating you to a mere joy-ride. I want you to follow my lead, however cockeyed it may seem. I have to pay a visit here and you are going to be very useful.”
