Carson went toward the rear a short distance and entered a smaller room with half a dozen men lounging about with drinks. He spoke to a tall, aquiline-nosed man wearing shaggy tweeds and with a highball glass in his hand. “Inspector Hibbs.”
The Inspector came to the doorway looking at Wayne inquiringly.
“This man,” began Carson portentously, but Wayne cut him short:
“Let me handle this, please.” And to the Inspector, “Will you step aside with me a moment, sir?”
The inspector stepped into the hallway with him and Wayne said urgently, “These people are in the middle of one hell of a spot, and they're wasting time quibbling about whether I can be trusted or not. Carson has agreed to take your word about that.” As he spoke he again removed the gold medallion from his pocket and let the inspector see it. Unlike the state trooper below, the veteran policeman needed only a glance before saying heartily, “Certainly. Happy to accommodate you.”
Wayne said, “Thanks.” He drew back and allowed the inspector to rejoin Carson and speak to him briefly, after which the attorney hurried forward and admitted cordially, “He says you can be trusted to the limit. No offense taken, I trust. There are certain precautions...”
“That's all right,” Wayne said shortly. “Let's go back to the others and—”
There was a commotion down at the end of the long hall in front of them. Two uniformed officers led a giggling Letty between them, barefooted and wearing Morgan Wayne's best brocaded dressing gown wrapped tightly about her body.
Chapter Eight
CARSON HURRIED forward with an exclamation of pleasure as the girl was ushered into the room where her parents and uncle awaited her. Wayne followed more slowly. He hadn't the slightest idea what sort of wild story Letty had told the cops when they discovered her alone in his apartment. The apartment was rented under a different name and no one in the building knew him as Morgan Wayne, so there was no way the police could connect the two—unless Letty put the finger on him now.
He frowned thoughtfully as he strolled forward, planning how to handle it if she did start singing the moment he entered the room. And she probably would, he thought ruefully. Just to strike back at him for locking her in the bathroom and leaving her there to be found by the cops.
Well, he'd have to take it in his stride, he decided. Tell the whole thing just as it had happened. He didn't want to. He didn't want to bring Hake Derr and the Gingham Girl into it. Not yet. That was his private angle. There was some person high above Derr who was ramrodding this whole affair, he was certain. And so long as Wayne could keep his knowledge of Derr a secret, he would have an inside track in ferreting out the identity of the man who really counted.
He paused in the corridor just outside the open double doors, got out a cigarette, lit it meditatively, and leaned forward for a quick look inside the room.
The two New York officers who had returned the girl to her family were standing together near the doorway, looking on at the reunion and grinning furtively at each other while they listened to Letty's breathlessly babbled and highly colored account of her kidnapping and rescue.
Her mother was seated in a chair and Letty was perched on the arm of it, hugging Wayne's dressing gown tightly about her with one hand while the other was clasped tightly between her father's palms as he bent over her in an attitude of affectionate concern. Carson stood back a few feet listening to her story with interest, while her youthful and vapid-faced uncle sat across from her and listened with patent disbelief.
“They were just the most awful hoodlums,” Letty was saying rapidly when Wayne came in on the story. “They tied me up tight and put a gag in my mouth and said the most awful things about what they were going to do to me, and I guess there must have been ether on the gag or something because I just passed right out there in the car and didn't know another single thing until I came to in that apartment and there was this other man alone with me.”
She paused dramatically, licking her lips while she fashioned the next segment of her story together, and Wayne nodded with mute approval. That was O.K. That was fine. She was taking exactly the line he would have asked her to take. This was leaving Hake Derr and Al and Charlie out of it altogether. If she kept it up that way there would be nothing whatever to connect either her or Morgan Wayne with the occupants of the brownstone house when the dead gangster's body was found there beside his companion with the shattered jawbone.
Wayne stayed in the corridor out of the girl's sight and listened with amusement to Letty's free-wheeling and imaginative recapitulation of her imprisonment in the apartment where she had been found.
“He was... I just don't know how to describe him,” the girl went on with a shudder. “I've told those two policemen about him already.” She looked toward the pair standing together near her, and one of them nodded.
“We've got a good description of the man. Marcus Knowlton, he calls himself. He's been in that place two months and no one knows much about him. Laying low from some other rap, most likely. Planning this snatch down to the last detail.”
“Butwhy?” exclaimed Hendrixon. “Why my daughter? What did he want from her?”
“Now, Daddy,” said Letty quickly and reprovingly. “I hate to tell this right out in the open, but if you force me to, I will. I did have to tell the officers already,” she conceded, looking so naive and frightened that Wayne had to choke back his laughter.
“He's crazy, of course,” she went on complacently. “A sexual maniac. But in a nice but awfully peculiar way,” she went on swiftly, wrinkling up her nose in a little-girl frown as though she were striving to be completely fair, “You wouldn't think it to see him at all. He was really nice. Big and broad-shouldered, but grim, sort of. He apologized right off,” she hurried on glibly, “for using force that way to get me in his clutches, but swore he just couldn't help himself. He's been clipping my pictures out of the newspapers, you see, and fallen madly in love with me.”
“This time John Durtol III did laugh out loud when Letty paused. He sank back in his chair choking with mirth and waved one thin hand in the air. “Honestly, Let! Of all the ridiculous adolescent—”
“John!” Mrs. Hendrixon sat erect and glared at her brother. “After all this child has been through! If you haven't the decency to be quiet and listen to her, you'd better leave the room.”
“Oh, no. My God, I wouldn't miss this show for a million dollars. Go right ahead, Let,” he urged. “Tell us what the big bad man wanted from you so much that he arranged a kidnaping to get it.”
“You needn't laugh about it!” exclaimed Letty indignantly. “It was simply terrible when I realized he was a maniac and had me there alone with him where he could do what he wanted with me.” She sat erect on the arm of her mother's chair and leaned forward so the lapels of the dressing gown fell open and showed bare flesh beneath.
“You just ask the officers what they found when they broke in and rescued me. Every stitch of my clothes torn off me, that's what. And locked in the bathroom.” She caught her underlip beneath her teeth and shook her head slowly as if all this was simply too much for a simple child like herself to comprehend.
“He talked awfully funny,” she confided to them all. “About people named Havelock Ellis and Mr. Kraft and Mr. Ebbing. And—and it was all so strange and indecent that I just don't want to talk about it any more.”
From his point of vantage in the corridor, Wayne had a clear view of Mrs. Hendrixon's face while Letty spoke. The thin nostrils were widely flared again, and the haughtily patrician features seemed to contract and tighten. There was again the queer flicker in the depths of the cold eyes, somehow repellent and evil.
“Oh, really now, Let!” The girl's uncle was rocking back and forth in his chair with laughter. “So this character out of Kraft-Ebbing stripped you down...”
“I won't have you laughing at me!” shrilled Letty. She leaped up from the arm of her mother's chair and fled toward the doorway into the corridor. Mrs. Hendrixo
n rose hastily to follow her with a withering look and an angry exclamation for her younger brother, and Wayne stepped back two paces, thrust out a long arm to intercept the girl as she dashed through the doorway.
Letty squealed with surprise when his arm circled her waist, then she drew back with a hissing intake of breath when she saw his face.
“You were marvelous in there,” he told her swiftly and emphatically. “Don't blame me for running out on you. I had to. I knew the police were coming and we'dnever have a chance to be alone together if they found me. As it is now... if they don't suspect...”
“Wewill be alone together?” she interrupted happily. “Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die?”
“I promise,” he whispered fiercely. “Just don't tell anyone.” He slid his arm from about her waist and took firm hold of her wrist as Mrs. Hendrixon appeared beside them and continued in a conversational tone, ”... realize you're upset now, and I want to talk to you about that man again. I think I may know something—”
He broke off as though in surprise at her mother's presence and told her smoothly, “I overheard a portion of your daughter's story, Mrs. Hendrixon, and detained her to ask for a meeting later when she's less upset. I think it's quite possible,” he went on deliberately, “that I may be able to locate the man who calls himself Marcus Knowlton, with your daughter's co-operation.”
“I see.” Mrs. Hendrixon's coldly suspicious gaze moved slowly from Letty's flushed cheeks and heaving bosom to Wayne's imperturbable face. “Who are you, Morgan Wayne?” she asked, spacing the words carefully. “I'm afraid I don't understand your position in all this.”
“Yes,” echoed Letty uncertainly. “Who are you? I never saw you before, did I?”
Wayne had no idea how well or poorly that got over to Mrs. Hendrixon. She was watching him fixedly, waiting for a reply to her question.
“Did Carson tell you that Inspector Hibbs vouches for me?” demanded Wayne.
She said, “Yes. He told us. But I understand now that you warned my husband a month ago that Letty was in danger. From a sexual maniac?” There was a touch of cold scorn in her voice.
“Hardly, Mrs. Hendrixon.” Wayne matched her tone with a curt flatness of his own that was like flint striking steel. “I'm inclined to think that perhaps your daughter —ah—misinterpreted the motives of her kidnaper.”
“You listen here,” began Letty violently, but neither of the older persons paid the slightest heed to her. Their eyes were locked together in a sort of duel of wills, mutual antagonism flaring swiftly between them. The woman's eyes narrowed and her lips thinned out against sharp teeth. There was something almost venomous in her silent appraisal, yet with it Wayne detected a surging undercurrent of seething emotion that repelled yet fascinated him.
The tableau held for a matter of seconds while Letty stood aside and watched them in helpless bewilderment, then Mrs. Hendrixon shook her head as though to break the spell and turned to Letty, saying shortly, “You must come again, Mr. Wayne, when Letty is more herself. I...” She hesitated and appeared to struggle to form the words. “I should like to see you also.” She was moving away with Letty as she spoke the words and they came out jerkily.
Morgan Wayne stood very still for a moment and gazed after the mother and daughter speculatively. A session with Letty and then with her mother. That would be a day!
He shrugged and went inside the library to find Julius and his attorney eagerly questioning the two policemen about the details of Letty's rescue.
“... locked her naked in the bathroom and tried to phone out here, it looks like,” one of them was explaining, looking down at the toes of his shoes and speaking heavily. Wayne repressed a grin as he moved closer to the quartet. The poor cop was certainly on the spot, confronted by Letty's father and trying to explain the girl to him. Knowing Letty, Wayne had a pretty good idea what she would have said to the policemen when they opened the bathroom door and she saw them instead of the man she expected. But you couldn't tell that to a girl's father. Not if you were an ordinary cop and he was Julius Hendrixon.
Wayne stepped into the breach and interposed smoothly, “I spoke to your daughter in the hall just now, Hendrixon, and I doubt whether these officers can tell you as much about all this as I can. Hadn't you better let them report back while we have a brief talk?”
“I think it's damned well time you and I did have a talk,” fumed Hendrixon. His hand went into his coat pocket for a wallet, and he turned to the two uniformed men.
“See here, I'm really grateful for your excellent work. Please let me express my gratitude a little more concretely.” He was extracting bills as he spoke, but both men drew back stiffly and shook their heads and mumbled something about only doing their duty, and turned and hurried away as though happy to wash their hands of the whole affair.
Looking somewhat nonplused, Hendrixon turned away from them and boomed, “Now let's hear something that makes sense, Wayne. Carson here says the inspector gives you a clean bill of health. But who are you? What's your position in this matter? What is behind all this?”
Morgan Wayne shrugged and carefully lit a cigarette. He nipped the matchstick away onto the oak floor and lifted his eyebrows at the younger man slumped in his chair. He said, “This actually concerns Durtol Drugs, Incorporated. Is he in on it?”
Durtol blinked his eyelids at Wayne and said languidly, “I'm merely president of Durtol, that's all. How does this hocus-pocus with Letty concern the firm?”
Wayne frowned and told Hendrixon, “There must be some mistake. I understood you ran the corporation.”
“John is the titular head,” said Carson hastily. “Julius is chairman of the board and actually business manager.”
Wayne said, “I see.” He hesitated and then asked carefully, “Is it true that eighty per cent of Durtol stock is controlled by you, Hendrixon?”
“It is not,” the young man snapped. “Actually, Julius doesn't own a single share. I own forty per cent and my sister, Julius' wife, owns a second forty per cent. The remainder is held in small blocks by outside parties.”
Wayne nodded slowly, weighing this information for what it might be worth. “In effect, then,” he said, “either you or your sister, by getting proxies from eleven percent of the other stockholders, could control the affairs of the corporation?”
“That's theoretically true,” boomed Hendrixon, “but hardly to the point. John and my wife have been perfectly satisfied thus far to take my advice on all matters connected with the business.”
“Also,” put in Carson smoothly, “the other twenty per cent of the stock is scattered quite widely in very small blocks and the owners are well content with the present management and the large dividends that are issued each year. I daresay it would be almost physically impossible to trace down enough small shareholders to constitute eleven per cent.”
A trace of a smile flickered across Wayne's face. He directed himself bluntly to Hendrixon. “Do you recall that I warned you a month ago that someone seemed bent on doing exactly that? That small stockholders were being approached with absurdly high offers for their shares?”
“I do recall some such statement. But it was absurd on the face of it. Even if someonedid wish to buy in heavily, what possible harm would it do? We still control the eighty per cent.”
Wayne sighed. “And you mean to say neither your wife nor your brother-in-law has been approached recently with an offer to buy their shares at well above the market price?”
Hendrixon snorted and made a contemptuous motion of dismissal. “Perhaps they have. I can't speak for John. But a sale would be out of the question. My wife's grandfather founded the firm, beginning in a tiny laboratory in his own kitchen, where he evolved many of the formulas that are still big sellers in the drug field. Durtol Drugs is a family thing. It was expanded by the founder's son, and passed on as a sacred trust tohis son and daughter in equal shares. It is inconceivable that either would sell out for any price.”
Wayne
sighed again. “Exactly, my friends. And that is why Letty was kidnaped.”
The three men looked equally incredulous, Wayne noted as he glanced from one to the other, though the attorney appeared to grasp his meaning first. “You mean as a means to apply pressure? To force a sale of some of the Durtol stock?”
“To force the sale of forty per cent of it,” said Wayne flatly. “Perhaps you'll begin to believe me if you'll make a study of the records of stock transactions during the past two months. You'll discover that more than one half of the outstanding stock has changed hands during that period. Quite a sudden flurry when you consider that before two months ago not a single share of Durtol stock had been sold for several years.”
“Who is buying it up?” demanded Carson.
“It's being done cleverly by various agents who cannot be traced to a common source. I can't prove one man is behind it, you understand, but the facts speak for themselves. If you insist on closing your eyes to the obvious, I'm afraid I can't help you.”
“The obvious being,” said Carson slowly, “that someone has gathered up enough outstanding stock to gain control of the corporation if one of the blocks of Durtol stock were added to his present holdings.”
“Exactly. And I knew a month ago that absurdly high offers had been refused for the Durtol stock. That's why I came to you with my warning,” he reminded Hendrixon. “I don't know theman behind this, but I do know the vicious elements involved. They are openly out to get Durtol Drugs. They'll stop at nothing. Kidnaping Letty was the first and most obvious step. Next time it will be something else. Tomorrow perhaps. Or the next day. They'll have to move fast now that they've come into the open.”
“But why?” demanded Hendrixon, mopping his craggy face. “Durtol is a small and honorable firm. We're not big business like McKesson and Robbins, for instance. I understand things like this do go on when millions are at stake, but our net profit is less than a hundred thousand annually.”
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