The Faceless Adversary

by Frances

  And then John had thought a moment, and shaken his head.

  Once the improbability of murder was accepted—accepted and then disregarded because murder had been done—the length of the way around could be understood. He went over that, speaking slowly—once holding, halfway to his mouth, a piece of sandwich, and holding it there, forgotten, for minutes, and putting it down again untasted.

  The purpose was to get the money. But, there is always a basic difficulty in murder for gain—the one who gains is the first choice as the one who murders. Unless—an alternative murderer is provided, neatly trussed and on a platter. Once the alternate is tried and convicted and put to death, the way is reasonably clear. The police may be trusted to wash their hands of that one.

  “It’s there the slowness of surrogate procedure comes in,” John said. “It takes a long time, in this country, in this state, to get a murderer executed. But—it takes a longer time to get the surrogate’s proceedings over with. One case the bank was concerned with, it took four years and about ten months. There’d be time enough for the alternate to go to the chair.” He looked out the window at the pompous swans. “The alternate in this case,” he said, “being me. Why? A kind of eeny-meeny-miney-mo?”

  They decided that, among those who met certain basic qualifications, it might well have come to that. The man chosen needed to be of a certain physical type. It was desirable that he live alone and be unmarried. It would help—although under the circumstances it was not essential—if some motive other than passionate violence could be adduced against him. It was necessary that he be a man on whom the adversary could, to some degree, keep an eye. The whole scheme fell apart if, for example, the man chosen as—as “fall guy”—happened to be in San Francisco on the day of the murder, and able to prove it.

  There did not have, they agreed, to be any real identity of appearance, but only the most general of similarities. Suggestion would do the rest, and the inability of the average person to remember faces. One read often of mistaken identifications, and there were, quite probably, many others of which one did not read, because the police had not been taken in themselves. General type resemblance would have proved adequate—had proved adequate. Of course, the adversary could not appear as, in this case, John Hayward among people to whom John was well known. But that had been easy to arrange.

  “A type,” John said. “A man about whom nothing is outstanding. In other words, again, me.” He smiled faintly at his girl. “Come down to it,” he said, “I don’t sound like much, do I?”

  “In the eye of the beholder,” Barbara said. “Me. Yes. Of course, I’m prejudiced. For some reason.”

  “Why?” he asked, and was told that there was no time to go into that.

  “Some day,” she said, “I’ll write you a memo. ‘From the desk of Barbara Hayward. To—dear John. Subject: Why you sound like much.’ Meanwhile—”

  Meanwhile—who?

  To make it easy—if “easy” was the word for any of it—they would assume that the adversary had been at the country club that day, and not as a casual trespasser. Assume, also, that he had been at the Harvard Club at lunchtime on the previous Saturday. They came up with?

  “Hank Roberts,”he said. “Dick Still. Pit Woodson. Possibly, Al Curtis. I didn’t see him at the Carabec Club, but he might have been there.”

  “Somebody,” she said, “who takes pictures. And—knew you would be at the club that day.”

  To the first, he agreed, but pointed out that almost everybody did, or could. There had been nothing about the photograph that anybody, armed with the simplest camera, and a little luck, might not have achieved. But, as to knowing that he would be at the club—

  “One of the things we’ve got to remember,” he said, “is that there wasn’t, at any given time, any great urgency. Up, I mean, to the moment of killing the girl. He allowed himself months, and he didn’t have to do anything any particular day. He could just—mosey around. Like—like a kid picking up odds and ends, a board here and a piece of iron pipe there, to make a shack. The kind of shack depending on what was around to be picked up. He didn’t have to have a picture of me. He didn’t have to have the girl introduce him to Father Higbee as me. He had time enough to be an opportunist. If it hadn’t been one thing, it could have been another.”

  He had, she said, to have access to John’s signature, since he had forged it. Could they get anywhere with that?

  John thought. He shook his head. Hank Roberts had any number of opportunities to study his signature. He vaguely remembered he had bought something from Curtis, and given him a check for it. He had had, for the bank, some correspondence with the law firm Still worked for. He stopped.

  “Mr. Woodson?” she said. “He’s just a name to me.”

  John couldn’t remember any opportunity Pit Woodson would have had to study his signature. Unless—

  “I’ve got a vague recollection of giving him a check once,” he said. “Settling my share of bridge losses, I think it was. I can’t be sure, though.”

  It was all shadowy—shadowy to her, too familiar to him to have features. But that, of course, was part of it. The adversary was himself a man quite ordinary in appearance, and apparently in habit.

  An ordinary man, capable of quite out of the ordinary behavior. And—quite extraordinary ability to plan ahead; to contrive, step by step, toward a goal kept always in sight. A chess player. Did John know whether any of them played chess?

  “Hank does,” John said. “I’m told he’s good at it. But—it isn’t much, is it?”

  “All the same,” she said, “it’s there some place. What can be raveled up can be unraveled. Mr. Woodson doesn’t play anything but bridge?”

  “Pit?” he said. “I shouldn’t think so. Not old Pit.” He looked at his watch. It was after four. They might, he supposed, be getting along. “Grady won’t know where I am,” he said. “Make him fit to be tied.”

  They got up. Back in the little car, they drove through the afternoon toward the city.

  “Does one of them need money?” Barbara said, after for some time neither had said anything.

  He thought they were all reasonably solvent. Except, possibly, Al Curtis. He didn’t know about Al. A few weeks before Curtis had left the company he’d been with for about a year. Probably, however, because he’d come on something better.

  “Like,” Barbara said, “a lot of money?”

  He had no answer to that. Anything was possible. That was precisely the trouble. Anything at all was possible.

  The Jaguar had got in a hurry; Jaguars almost always did, sooner or later. Shapiro had made no special effort to keep up; his interest in the Jaguar was idle, based on the coincidence of having seen it at least once, and perhaps more than once, before. Determined pursuit of it would have been a wild-goose chase, and Shapiro could not encourage himself to chase wild geese. It would not be thought well of. But, all the same, he was now engaged in what was probably a similar pursuit.

  The chances were a good many to one that Grady was right. Shapiro was not particularly fond of Grady, but that had nothing to do with the fact that Grady was right more often than not. This one was probably as open and shut as Grady, and presumably Miller (although one could never be entirely sure about Miller) thought it to be. All the same—

  All the same, Shapiro was in the genealogical section of the New York Public Library, which was not where he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be back in the squadroom at the precinct, not in pursuit of the wild goose—or the wild Titus. He was not supposed to be satisfying, or as it now turned out not satisfying, an almost unmotivated curiosity. It was almost certain that Hayward was lying, and had tricked the girl into lying for him. That was too bad; she seemed a nice girl.

  But the matter of the will did make one think; did arouse curiosity. Somebody was going to get a substantial sum of money, now that the Titus girl and Mrs. Piermont were both dead. That someone would be, in some fashion, a Titus, but almost certainly not named
Titus. It was not going to be that easy.

  The genealogical section was a large room, with card indices, an attended counter, and several long tables with heavy wooden chairs. Some of the chairs were occupied, largely by men who, if not actually wearing beards, gave a generally bearded impression. Although a library man in his spare time, which was inconsiderable, Shapiro had not before been in this section. He did not need to know who his own relatives were. Even less did he need further information about the relatives of his wife. About them, Shapiro thought sadly, but without animus, he already knew enough.

  He looked up Titus in the card index and realized at once that he was not, in the short time he could allow, going to be able to satisfy his curiosity. There were too many Tituses, and too much had been written about them—they appeared in standard reference books, and in privately printed books (which would, he thought, be small and badly printed and yellowed with years) and in pamphlets. There was The Titus Family in the United States and The Tituses of Rockland County, New York and Descendants of Rufus Titus, Gent. (That had been published in 1824 and could be presumed to leave things more or less in mid-air.) There were, also, innumerable cross-references.

  Shapiro made out a slip for The Tituses of Rockland County, New York, which seemed as large a nibble as he had time for, and handed it in. He waited, patiently, in the chair assigned, in front of a number on the surface of a table. After he had waited for some time he went to the counter and asked.

  “I’m afraid—” a trim woman of middle age, with neat white hair, began and a pneumatic tube popped. She opened the container and looked at its contents and shook her head. “The Tituses of Rockland County,” she said, “cannot be located. I’m very sorry.”

  “In use?” Shapiro said. “In the bindery?”

  “They are making a search,” she said.

  “Then,” he said, “it isn’t in use? Or in the bindery?”

  “Well,” she said, “it’s got to be somewhere, hasn’t it? But—”

  He waited.

  “I am afraid,” she said, “that it has been misplaced. Temporarily, of course. Of course, only temporarily.”

  “Can you tell whether it’s a large book?” Shapiro asked.

  “I don’t—” she said and was told, sadly, that it was rather important. She looked again at the slip he had written, which was now returned, annotated. She said, “Oh! Police Department.”

  Shapiro nodded, dolefully. She went to the card catalogue, then. She found the card. She said it was quite a small book.

  “About,” Shapiro said, “pocket size?”

  “Oh,” she said, “it would quite easily go into a man’s pocket. Or a woman’s bag. But the people who come here never—”

  “Of course not,” Shapiro said.

  “And anyway,” she said, “the slips are kept on file and it would be easy to find out who consulted it last. The name, you know.”

  “Yes,” Shapiro said, and his voice was more than ever sad. “There’ll be a name on the slip.” He paused. There wouldn’t be time for that. The radio in the car was already, beyond doubt, talking, with increasing asperity, to an empty seat. He said he would be back, or someone would.

  If by any chance Hayward wasn’t lying, and there was another man, the other man was getting around.

  Shapiro walked down the wide marble stairs from the third floor of the library.

  The man (who probably didn’t exist) had already got around a lot. And—mightn’t he be thinking he still hadn’t got around enough, if Hayward was still not charged with murder? And—mightn’t he try to get around a little more? In his place, Shapiro thought, I think I might. I think I know where I’d go next.

  “At six-thirty, then,” Barbara said, and slid out of the little car. On the sidewalk, she turned. Her face was very serious and her eyes were wide. “You won’t be late?” she said. He smiled, not too successfully. The intentness of her expression did not change.

  “No,” he said. “Not unless they decide to pick me up.”

  He watched her go quickly up the stairs to the front door of the house; watched the door open; Townsend always on hand to open doors; Townsend, always loyal. He hoped that Townsend’s loyalty could be so far extended. She would not, they had agreed, ask too much. False testimony under oath would not be requested. They could only ask for time—only ask that, for the time, if questioned, Townsend would forget that Miss Phillips had come in the previous night before eleven and come in alone, and that afterward he had heard nothing of a visitor.

  Although what, John thought, driving the little car away, they would do with the time was a question. He agreed they could not merely sit and wait—and that they could not be apart. That last was what it came to, whatever they said—however they agreed that two heads were better than one; that they would think of something; that there must be some way the two of them, working together, could find out. What it came to was more simple. They could not, now, be apart. When they were apart, there was nothing. They had not needed to say this, or even to hint at it. Already, driving away, he was swept by loneliness.

  She would see Townsend and see what she could do with Townsend. She would change. He would garage the Corvette, since a car in town was only a nuisance, and “freshen up” and then go back for her. That was the plan.

  “Oh, Townsend,” she said, when he let her in. “There’s—” But she stopped with that. Her father was sitting in the library, the door open to the hall. “Nothing important,” she told Townsend. “Later.” He said, “Yes, miss,” and she went into the library. Her father stood up and looked down at her. He said, “Well, Barbara?”

  “Not very,” she said. “Not well at all, father.”

  She sat down and, after regarding her for a moment, he, too, sat. He indicated a highball on the table beside him and raised eyebrows.

  “No,” she said, “I’m going out again.”

  “With Hayward?” he said. “But I suppose that is a needless question.”

  “With John,” she said. “Father, things are worse for us.” He waited. She told him why. Then, he handed her a newspaper—a late edition of the World Telegram and Sun.

  It was on the front page. The headline read, “Aged Recluse Slain.” The “recluse” was Angela Piermont, who was also “wealthy” and “Social Register.” The death was being investigated by the State Police and the county detective’s office and—“it was learned that city police have been called in to co-operate in the investigation. Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley would neither confirm nor deny that the killing of Mrs. Piermont may be connected with the slaying Saturday afternoon of the beautiful red-haired girl who lived in East Eleventh Street under the name of Nora Evans.”

  She handed the newspaper back. She said, “They questioned John. Then—they let him go. Partly because—” She paused. “I said he was here with me, father,” she said.

  He looked at her steadily; there was slow thoughtfulness the way he looked at her.

  “I take it,” he said, “that that is not true?”

  “No,” she said. “That is not true.”

  “And,” he said, “that Townsend knows it isn’t?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You see things, don’t you?”

  “When they concern you,” he said. “Do you think it would be fair to Townsend to ask what I suppose you plan to ask? Since he might not feel free to refuse?”

  “I’ve known him,” she said, “since I was a little girl. A girl so high.”

  “All the more reason,” Martin Phillips said. “Don’t you think so?”

  She did not reply.

  “It occurs to me,” he said, “that it has been some time since Townsend has had a holiday. It would be only a palliative but—perhaps a week?”

  “You think of things, too,” she said. “A week would help. Only—”

  “Oh,” Phillips said, “starting at once. This evening. You are still very sure, Barbara?”

  “Very sure,” she said.

  He
nodded. He sipped his drink. She started to stand up.

  “The bank,” he said, “handled Mrs. Piermont’s investments. I remembered when I saw her name. Some of them, at any rate. Her investments were considerable.”

  Barbara sat down again. She leaned forward a little in her chair.

  “I don’t know that it has bearing,” he said. “Or what bearing it could have. And, everything seems to be in order.”

  “You—what?” she said. “Had someone check up?” She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. She said, “John?”

  “No,” he said, “not your John, my dear. Henry Roberts was her advisor. But everything is entirely in order.”

  “He might have gone up—I mean to her house—to see her? To talk about her investments?”

  “Oh,” her father said. “Probably he did.”

  “The girl lived there,” Barbara said. “The girl who was killed. Her name was really Julie. Julie Titus. She met a man who pretended to be John. She—she might have met Mr. Roberts.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “We have confidence in Roberts. But that goes without saying.” He lighted a cigar, taking time with it. “Roberts was not at the bank this afternoon,” he said, when the cigar was drawing. “He was representing us in—certain preliminary negotiations. So I had no opportunity to ask.”

  “To—” she said. “You would have asked? To—help John?”

  “Hayward,” her father said, with great gentleness, “seems to have become entangled in my life.”

  It was almost six when Barbara went up the stairs to her rooms on the third floor. As she stood in the shower, water beating against the rubber cap tight on her small head, the rushing water seemed to be talking—seemed to be saying, over and over, “Roberts. Roberts. Roberts.” After the water had stopped, as she toweled hard, as she dressed, the name still repeated itself over and over in her mind. If Roberts had met the girl—if—if—A place to start, she thought. An end of the knotted string—surely this would be the place to start. Surely—

  She was very quick. But it seemed she could not be quick enough. Although there was no need to hurry, she hurried so that, when she was putting lipstick on, her hand trembled for a moment. She made herself be slow, then—slow and careful. Very delicately she touched off lipstick which had gone astray. Very carefully she retraced the curving line. But she was still ready by twenty after six and then she stood at the front door, waiting. She stood so she could look up the street, toward the west—look for the cab which would bring John back.