Death Takes a Bow

by Frances Lockridge

  “Well!” Pam North said, watching the man take his hat from the check girl and turn around so that she could boost his coat onto him. He was completely at leisure and full of assurance, and it was evident that he did not believe anyone could object to his stealing a telegram from one woman and tripping another. “Because he must have stolen the telegram,” Pam told herself, without logic and with utter conviction. It was infuriating, and Pam North agreed unhesitatingly with herself that something would have to be done.

  “Wait here,” Mrs. North commanded the nieces, who looked at her with surprise. Pamela North, their eyes said, was being a very peculiar aunt; she was acting out of character for an old person. But they nodded.

  “I’m going to chase him,” Pam North told them. “I’m going to find out what this is all about.”

  She started and stopped, remembering. She had promised Jerry that, if she simply could not avoid doing dangerous things, she would at least let somebody know she was about to do them. “That way,” Jerry North told her, “we’ll know where to lay the wreath.” And so now she ought, obviously, to tell somebody what she was up to. But the little dark man had got under his topcoat and was pushing it back to get change out of his pocket, and there was no time.

  “Beth,” Mrs. North said, slowly but commandingly. “Telephone Police Headquarters and get Lieutenant William Weigand. Weigand. Tell him—tell him I’m chasing the little dark man.” Mrs. North put even more command in her voice. “Then,” she said, “come back here and wait. No matter how long it is, wait.”

  Beth nodded. Mrs. North transferred her commanding auntly gaze to Margie, who nodded also. The instructions seemed to have taken. Mrs. North started off, because the little dark man was already moving toward the door. She remembered something, and called it back.

  “No sailors!” she called.

  The girls looked embarrassed and somebody laughed. Mrs. North, because the little dark man was already going through the door, could not make things clearer, although she felt that she ought to. She moved quickly toward the door, going around tables.

  One of the captains looked at her with some doubt for a moment, and then looked back at the table and saw the nieces. That, apparently, made it all right, except that the lady was going the wrong way. He stepped forward to direct her in a better direction, but she smiled at him very brightly and shook her head and kept on going. The captain did not want to make a mistake, and it was not until Mrs. North had passed the check stand without pausing and gone out the door that he became really afraid he had made one. However, hostages had been left. He drifted nearer, so that he could keep his eye on the hostages. If this was a new racket, it would have to be a good one.

  Mrs. North, on the sidewalk, looked quickly in both directions and almost at once saw the little dark man, walking unconcernedly eastward toward Fifth Avenue through the rain which had now, fortunately, become a drizzle. His felt hat was green, Mrs. North was surprised to notice. It was not a hat she would have cared to see on Jerry, but at the moment it had its advantages. It stood out. Mrs. North, keeping her eyes on the green hat, went along behind.

  The green hat reached Fifth Avenue and turned south. It was easy to follow him, Mrs. North found, partly because he seemed to be in no hurry at all, and partly because there were very few people on the sidewalk. The little dark man paused to look in a window and Mrs. North, not wanting to get too close, paused to look in a window in turn. Her window was filled with cutlery, and she saw a carving set which was precisely what they needed. She must, she decided, bring Jerry up to look at it, and at the martini mixer in the other corner, with what was evidently a trick mixing device of some sort. Jerry wouldn’t like that, but he might like the carving set, because the knife would be sharp, and Martha, although in all other respects virtuous, was a loss at sharpening knives.

  Mrs. North recalled herself with a guilty start, and looked anxiously down the avenue. The little dark man had satisfied himself about the window and was sauntering on. He didn’t, Mrs. North thought, move as if he had a thing on his mind. Where, she asked herself, is his guilty conscience? If I’d tripped somebody, Mrs. North thought—

  She followed on. He finished the block and, crossing with the lights, began the next. It was drizzling more persistently, now, and Mrs. North remembered that she had forgotten to retrieve her umbrella from the lockstand in the lobby of the Roundabout. It was certainly going to ruin her hat, and her coat wasn’t, either, meant for walking in the rain. It had better come to something, Mrs. North thought rather angrily, to repay me for all this. She looked at the back of the little dark man, now half a block ahead, with real animosity.

  The animosity increased rapidly as the little dark man sauntered on, never looking guiltily back over his shoulder, never increasing his pace. His insouciance robbed the chase of excitement; there was little to be said for chasing a man who wasn’t running and who did not, evidently, at all fear being chased. The man passed Forty-fourth Street and, when he got to it, Forty-third. The rain, having rested, trickling only enough to hold the franchise, began to hurry. Mrs. North was getting very wet. People huddling in doorways looked at her with surprise and doubt.

  “Probably all think I’m crazy,” she told herself, and realized that she could hear the words. That would fix it up, that would fix it fine. A youngish woman plodding through the rain along Fifth Avenue, with her hat drooping, and talking to herself. She’d be lucky if somebody didn’t pick her up for observation.

  The lights stopped the little dark man at Forty-second and Mrs. North gained. The lights released him. He crossed Forty-second, walked the half block, came to the nearer stone bench under the nearer lion, and unconcernedly sat down. Mrs. North stared at him unbelievingly. The little dark man had walked half a dozen blocks down Fifth Avenue, in the rain, so that he could sit on a wet stone bench under one of the ineffably pompous Public Library lions. He had stolen a telegram from one woman, tripped another so that she fell on a restaurant floor, walked down Fifth Avenue in the rain and sat under a lion.

  Also, it was clear, he had put Mrs. North in a predicament. She could not very well walk up and sit down beside him. She was wet enough in other places, for one thing. And he would be bound to recognize her and he would want to know, reasonably enough, what brought her there, and she could not think of any answer. What, indeed, had brought her there? Aside, of course, from her singularly wet feet? She could walk by and give the whole thing up; she could go up to him and ask, with such politeness as the situation warranted, why he had tripped her, and why he had stolen Mrs. Williams’ telegram. And he could deny both, and, if he felt annoyed about it, probably have her arrested. She could hardly stop and look in a window, because there were no windows. She could hardly—but that was precisely what she could do!

  She could stop where she was, or about where she was. She could go over to the curb and look up Fifth Avenue, and be waiting for a bus. It was the simplest thing in the world—believe it or not, she could say, I’m waiting for a Fifth Avenue bus. And when a bus came she could shake her head, sadly, and pretend it was the wrong bus; if it was a Fifth Avenue bus, she wanted to go to the Pennsylvania Station. If it was a Pennsylvania Station bus, she didn’t. A bus came along, going to Twenty-fifth Street only, and she shook her head at it. The next one was blocks up the street and she looked up toward it, turning just enough so that she could see the little dark man on the bench.

  He was still on the bench. But he was not alone on the bench. A rather large man in a bulky overcoat which was too warm for the weather, had sat down beside him. He had sat down casually, and he was not making any show of the fact that he was talking to the little dark man. But he was talking to the little dark man. The little dark man said something, and the man in the bulky overcoat shook his head. The little dark man showed something to the big, bulking man, and the big man shook his head more severely, even angrily. The little dark man looked at him searchingly, and did not seem convinced. The bulky man stood up, still shaking
his head.

  And then the big man said something loudly enough for Mrs. North to hear. He said, and his voice was angry and contemptuous:

  “Nein! Dumkopf!”

  The little dark man sat looking up at him, and Mrs. North thought he looked like a child which has been slapped when it expects better things. She was annoyed with the bulking man, because he had hurt the feelings of the little dark man.

  She was annoyed at him before she had time to remember that she was also annoyed at the little dark man, with more cause, and even before she realized that the bulking man had hurt the little man’s feelings in German. “No,” he had said, and something which meant, most simply, “fool.” Or blunderer, or half-wit. The little dark man had walked half a dozen blocks through the rain, and sat on a cold, wet bench, to be called a fool in German by a man from whom, it was evident, he had expected other things. Praise, probably.

  Mrs. North half-heartedly pretended she was still waiting for a bus. But she began to be excited. She was learning something, even if she did not, at the moment, understand what it was. There were plenty of people who spoke German in New York, war or no war; so many that nobody paid the slightest attention, accepting the enemy language as if, because for so long it had been, it must always be spoken by friends. But there was something funny about this.

  The bulking man, having stood up, turned suddenly and walked away. He walked down toward Forty-second Street, and as he neared the corner lifted a hand to wave down a taxicab. The taxi stopped and engulfed him. The little dark man remained sitting on the bench, looking after him.

  And then two men who had been walking, idly enough and not noticeably together, up Fifth. Avenue from the direction of Fortieth Street, parted without speaking when they were opposite Mrs. North. One went, unconcernedly, toward the curb and reached it just as a black sedan slowed down. He opened the door of the sedan and stepped in and, without seeming to move hurriedly, the sedan continued down Fifth Avenue in the direction which had been taken by the bulky man’s taxicab.

  The second of the two men who had been walking up the avenue seemed suddenly to have decided he was tired. He walked over to the bench on which the little dark man sat and sat down beside him. The little dark man looked at him and the man who had just sat down said something, and a look of overwhelming surprise appeared on the face of the little dark man. He started, as if to stand up, and the right hand of the man who had just sat down went out and closed on his wrist. It did not, Mrs. North thought, close gently. And the left hand of the man who had just sat down stayed in his topcoat pocket, in a way which Mrs. North remembered from motion pictures.

  Forgetting entirely to appear to be waiting for a bus, Mrs. North stared. As she stared the two men got up, standing close together as if they were very dear friends. They turned North on Fifth Avenue, walking toward Forty-second, and as they did so the new man—he was a tall, solid man in a gray topcoat—moved so that he would be on the outside, nearest the curb. As if the little man were a woman, Pam thought, and the tall man was his escort. But also, Pam realized, the move brought the little dark man on the left side of the taller man, so that the hand in the topcoat pocket, and whatever the hand might hold inside the pocket, were very near the little man. Conveniently near.

  Pam knew what it was, and realized she had known since the taller man sat down. The little man was being kidnapped! It was—what did Mullins call it?—it was a snatch.

  It was preposterous, but it was true. The little dark man was being snatched, no doubt preparatory to being taken for a ride, from under the very nose of the self-satisfied Public Library lion. He was being marched along Fifth Avenue toward Forty-second Street, and no doubt toward the powerful black sedan, under the self-satisfied noses of all New York, including the traffic policeman at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second. And there was nothing to be done about it.

  But wasn’t there? Pam could scream, but then the little dark man probably would be shot. And I’d probably be shot next, Pam added, with even more concern. She could go up to the two and denounce the kidnapper, but that seemed unlikely to help, and might also lead to shooting. And she could follow, and watch her chance.

  She followed. It was as she expected. A sedan was waiting at the corner, in Forty-second Street, facing east, half blocking the cross walk. It was not a black sedan, to be sure; it was sand-colored. But the two men, walking close together in what anyone who did not know would think a friendly fashion, were obviously going toward the sedan. They were going toward it and now they were getting in it, the little dark man first. And Pam, hurrying, could hear the quicker note of the motor as the driver, who looked very like the tall man with the gun in his pocket, accelerated as he let in his clutch.

  And then what looked like a miracle happened. The lights turned red against the car, and the traffic policeman whistled and held up a hand. And then Pam realized what she had to do.

  Unhesitatingly, with a recklessness born of vast urgency, Mrs. North dodged through the cars moving down Fifth Avenue, angling diagonally out toward the traffic policeman. And when she was near enough, and ignoring the expression of indignant concern on the policeman’s face, she began to explain, talking in a hurried, anxious voice.

  “Stop them,” she demanded. “Stop them. They’re kidnapping a man!”

  “Huh?” the traffic policeman said. “Listen, lady, you want to get yourself killed?”

  “Listen,” Pam commanded. “They’re kidnapping a man. They’re going to kill him. Over there in that car.” She pointed. “You’ve got to do something!”

  “Yeh?” the cop said. He was worse than Mullins; infinitely worse than Mullins. Mullins understood things quickly, or almost quickly. “Who’s kidnapping somebody, lady?”

  The time of the red light was running out. In seconds, the light would change and the sand-colored sedan would be gone, with the frightened little man and his captors. Pam grabbed the policeman’s sleeve and shook it.

  “Stop them!” she begged. “Stop them—that car there. They’re going to kill a man!”

  The policeman looked at her and then, finally, he looked at the sand-colored sedan. You could see, looking frantically up at him, that thought was taking place behind the red and weathered face. The face seemed faintly surprised at this. But now the policeman was moving.

  He held up an authoritative hand, stopping the southbound cars. Through the clearing thus achieved, he advanced majestically on the unmoving sedan. Pamela North followed, relief spreading over her in waves. At least, it was out of her hands. She watched the policeman, and relief ebbed somewhat.

  It was out of her hands, certainly. But the hands in which it was seemed singularly overconfident. It was clear that the traffic policeman did not really believe that the sedan held desperate men, armed and ready to shoot; held killers, ready for anything. The traffic policeman advanced as if they were only cowering motorists, awaiting an earned reprimand, and perhaps a ticket.

  The policeman advanced to the sedan, holding up an authoritative hand. He bent over it, and Mrs. North held her breath. This way was wrong; this way was horribly wrong. He should have gone with his gun out, as ready as they. He should—

  He stooped and, through a window which someone inside must have opened, stuck his head into the car. He stuck it well in, so that what remained outside looked very peculiar. It was also very large, so that Mrs. North could not see over or around it. Mrs. North held her breath.

  The traffic policeman, however, emerged. He did not look alarmed, or surprised or anything Mrs. North could put a thought to. He stood away from the car and, as he stood away, the car started, since now the lights had changed in its favor. The sedan crossed Fifth Avenue and continued toward the east, and Mrs. North stared after it with open mouth. The New York police department just didn’t care! She couldn’t believe it.

  Mrs. North turned indignantly toward the official culprit, and discovered that he did not look at all like a culprit. He was staring at her, and his stare was measuring and
not, she thought, really sympathetic.

  “Well, lady,” the policeman said. “Friend of yours, huh?”

  “Friend?” Mrs. North said. “Friend? Who?”

  “The little guy, lady,” the policeman said. He said it with great, rather sarcastic patience. “The little guy. Friend of yours, huh?”

  “No,” Mrs. North said. “I know him, in a way. But—”

  “So you know him in a way,” the policeman said, heavily. “Think of that now, lady. So you know him in a way.”

  “He—” Mrs. North began, but the policeman was shaking a heavy head at her.

  “I wouldn’t, lady,” he said. “Don’t waste it on me, lady. We got guys who like to hear stories like that, lady. You tell it to them, huh? Do you want to pay for a taxi, lady?”

  “Pay for a taxi?” Pam North repeated. “Why should I pay for a taxi? I don’t want a taxi.”

  “All right, lady,” the policeman said. “It’s nothing to me. We’ll get you the wagon, lady.”

  “Wagon?” Mrs. North repeated. “You don’t mean—you’re not going to arrest me!”

  “Sure not,” the policeman said. “Sure not, lady. Just take you over to the station house so you can tell the boys about it. How somebody was kidnapping a friend of yours, and things like that. You wouldn’t call it an arrest, lady.”

  Pamela North found she could only stare at him. She could only stare at the second policeman who, in answer to a signal from the first, came across from the far corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second, where he had been standing without, it seemed, a care in the world. It was clear now, however, that he had merely been waiting to arrest Pamela North.

  Pam found difficulty in believing that anything of this preposterous kind was really happening. She did, however, rally enough to pay for the taxicab which took her to the West Forty-eighth Street police station. And once there, and after a considerable wait, she had a great deal to say to the sergeant at the desk.