The Frightened Fianc?e

by George Harmon Coxe

  “That’s what the cops say but they couldn’t turn up the guy they think wanted to rub me out.” Whaley twisted his mouth in an expression of derision. “A hired killer, they said. Maybe, but I been around ever since and nobody’s taken any shots at me.”

  “But if the police were right, could Vanning have been mistaken for you?”

  “How do I know? Look.” Whaley tapped Holland on the arm. “The cops say I had a habit of leaving my place around eight every night to get dinner. So far, okay. That night this Vanning—he lived on the floor below me—came out before I did. He’s about my height and wore a brown coat and hat like me. That’s all. I got fifteen years on him and fifty pounds weight and we don’t look nothing alike. So you figure it.”

  “Did you see it happen?”

  “I’m tellin’ you. All I know is, somebody waiting outside in a car lets him have it when he comes out. Two slugs. I don’t even hear the blast. I’m in the next elevator down and I see him on the sidewalk.”

  It was all in the newspapers just as Whaley told it, but Holland let him finish.

  “Some guy in one of them downstairs apartments heard the shots and looked out the window in time to see a car tearin’ off down the street.” He tipped one hand. “That’s the story, Mac. Figure it any way you want.”

  He started back to his desk to indicate the discussion was over so Holland turned and left the office. He walked down a flight of stairs and headed east until he found a drugstore. From a telephone booth he called the number Crombie had given him and asked for Sergeant Garrity and, when the sergeant answered, for Crombie.

  “What about the bullet?” he asked.

  “You hit it,” Crombie said. “The slug came from the gun that killed Nadine Winsor.”

  “Now do one more thing for me—if you can.” Holland paused while he tried to find the proper words. “You remember that George Vanning murder two years ago. He was shot twice. Can you find out if the police recovered either of those bullets?”

  He waited for a reply and when none came he thought they were cut off. “Hello,” he said. “Hello.”

  “I’m here,” Crombie said, an odd inflection in his voice. “Wait a minute.”

  Holland counted off the seconds. He counted to nine. Then Crombie said, “Yeah. They got one slug.”

  “They still have it?”

  “Sure. They always keep ’em on unsolved shootings.”

  “How about asking Garrity to check that bullet with the one I gave you? Just for the hell of it.”

  “Where’ll you be?” Crombie asked, still skeptical but not arguing.

  “I’ll go over to your place and wait for you.”

  The receptionist-operator who sat behind the glass panel in Crombie’s outer office gave Holland a nod of recognition when he came in and sat down. He picked out what looked like the most comfortable chair, got a cigarette going, and settled back prepared to wait. He had taken about three puffs when the girl tapped on the glass and beckoned to him.

  “Mr. Crombie just called,” she said when he leaned down to the semicircular opening. “He wants you to meet him in Joe’s Bar & Grill. It’s just around the corner on Forty-Ninth Street. He said he should be there within ten minutes.”

  Holland found the bar without trouble and ordered a beer, standing near the front, away from the crowd that was watching the ball game on television. He listened absently, watching the door and wondering why Crombie had changed his plans; then he saw the big man come in and signal him toward a booth across the room.

  Holland took his beer with him. He tried to read the expression in the detective’s face when he sat down but that got him nowhere, so he said, “Why here instead of your office?”

  “Because in a very short time I’m going to be asked some embarrassing questions—if the cops can find me—and my office is the first place they’ll look.”

  Holland didn’t get it. He said so.

  “It’s very simple,” Crombie said dryly. “You can’t just walk down to headquarters and ask a man like Garrity to check a slug for you and then, when he finds that slug hooks up with a murder, pick up your slug and walk out. Garrity’s got to report it. He’s got to turn it in. Then a couple of town cops come around and say, ‘Okay, Crombie. Where’d you get the slug?’”

  Holland had a little trouble following the detective but when he began to sense the implications of his remarks in relation to the all-important but still unanswered question, he leaned forward and grabbed Crombie’s arm.

  “But did it check?” he demanded.

  “Sure,” Crombie said, sighing heavily. “That’s what I’m telling you. I don’t know how you figured, or if you had a crystal ball; maybe you’re psychic—or just plain lucky. But Garrity says the gun that killed Nadine Winsor also killed your friend George Vanning two years ago.”

  twenty-one

  THE TELEVISION ANNOUNCER’S VOICE, still loud and excited, faded instantly when it touched Holland’s ears. Inside his head there was only silence. Although his eyes were wide open the things he saw were not of this room, but of the mind.

  It did not take long. One minute he sat there immobile and incredulous; the next his spirits soared exultantly. He felt young and gay and invincible; it was all he could do to keep from shouting aloud his relief and joy.

  “I knew it,” he said, pounding Crombie’s thick, hard arm. “Tracy’s no jinx; she never was a jinx. She had nothing to do with what happened to Vanning or Drake. It was a plot from the beginning. Someone”—he hesitated while the enormity of his deduction made itself felt—“someone killed them deliberately.”

  Crombie pulled his arm back to safety and massaged it absently. His heavy face looked thoughtful and unhappy. “It’s screwy,” he said. “But it’s the best answer I can find. It sort of narrows things down. You got any ideas?”

  Holland put down his new eagerness as best he could. He made himself think, the somberness returning to his gaze and the excitement passing swiftly from his face. He asked Crombie where his car was, and the detective said it was in a parking-lot down the street.

  “Let’s get it,” Holland said. “Let’s get back to Hawk’s Point before some of your detective friends try to stop us. I’ll make you earn your dough yet.”

  “Hah!” Crombie said and grinned. “What dough?”

  They said very little to each other on the ride up the West Side highway. Crombie was busy with the fast-moving traffic, and Holland slumped over in his corner of the seat, entirely occupied with his thoughts. Not until they were rolling along the Hutchinson River Parkway did he stir himself and begin to speak of the things in his mind.

  “They arrested the wrong man,” he said.

  “Erskine? You could be right.”

  “The gun that killed Nadine was at Hawk’s Point around two-thirty last night. How did Erskine get it there? Even if he was only questioned a few minutes and followed me right out I would have heard the car.”

  “Pilgrim,” Crombie said sardonically, “will be delighted to hear that.”

  “And even if he did—and I say he didn’t—what motive would he have for killing George Vanning?”

  Crombie drove in silence for another mile. “If we’re going on the assumption that somebody wanted to prevent Tracy Lawrence from getting married—and it begins to look like we have to—then we’ve got to check on everyone. How about the old lady? She might have some screwy motive we don’t even suspect.”

  “She didn’t climb those vines to the second-floor porch.”

  “We ain’t sure the one that climbed them is the one that killed Drake.”

  “She didn’t shoot Nadine. She wasn’t even in New York.”

  “She could have somebody in with her, ever think of that? She’s a tough old dame.”

  He went on to elaborate the idea, but Holland was only half listening. “She’s afraid,” he said. “She’s been afraid for days. I’m going to find out why—and I think I know how to do it.”

  Crombie drove on, as
if waiting for Holland to continue. When nothing more was said he made a suggestion.

  “How about that kid that works there and is sweet on Carver?”

  “Ginny Marshall?” Holland shook his head. “I can’t see her in it at all.”

  “That leaves Baldwin, Mrs. Erskine, and Carver. And I guess you’ve got to put Baldwin on top. He keeps Tracy from marrying and he has himself that three hundred thousand she won’t get. He’s trustee. We don’t know what shape the estate is in. Suppose he’s short, suppose he was short when Tracy was engaged to Vanning. That labor guy living in the same apartment was just luck. The cops jumped to a conclusion on that one because they couldn’t find any other motive. They checked on Vanning and found he didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

  “And on that,” Holland said, “they were right. Twenty-eight days after they were engaged, Tracy said. Drake was killed on the twenty-ninth day after. Why?”

  “The first one, that aviator guy—just happened that way. The second was probably deliberate. To make her feel sure she was a jinx. The last one—” He paused to give Holland a slanting glance. “Did it ever occur to you that if she had been engaged to you instead of Drake you would probably be six feet under by now? She really did you a favor, chum, now that I think of it. You owe her plenty.”

  Holland found he had to agree. He thought about it quite a while, with humility and more than a little shame when he remembered the things he had thought about Tracy, the things he had said. It took an effort to bring his mind back to Baldwin.

  “Suppose he did kill Vanning and Drake. Nadine was different.”

  “Not so very,” Crombie said. “Who says he was in love with her? And how important is that when it may mean your neck? If Nadine saw him kill Drake—or even if she thought he did—she had enough on him to tie him in a knot for the rest of his life. That way he had to marry her. He had to do exactly as she said and buy her whatever she asked for from then on, or else.”

  He grunted and said, “Who do you think she called when she asked for long-distance yesterday? He took an afternoon train down, didn’t he? And you’d thrown a scare into her. So suppose she tells him she’s got to talk or be arrested. You think a guy who has killed twice before is going to let her talk? It ain’t a question does he want to kill her; he has to.”

  “You said we should consider everybody. What about Frances?”

  “She can be figured,” Crombie said, “but it ain’t as good. She inherited three hundred grand. How old is she? Twenty-six or seven? Okay, she gets another three hundred thousand at thirty-five. She also gets the three hundred that Tracy won’t get if she don’t marry—but not until Baldwin kicks off. Like I said that’s maybe stretching a motive, but it’s there and she’s one of those supercharged, aggressive dames that’re hard to figure.”

  “That leaves Carver,” Holland said. “There’s no money motive there.”

  “None that I can see,” Crombie admitted.

  “He was in love with Tracy,” Holland said as his mind went back to the conversation he had had with Frances that night in the kitchen. “She jilted him for that flyer. He never married.”

  “It’s possible,” Crombie said. “More than one murder has been committed because someone said, ‘All right if I can’t have her, no one else will ever have her either.’ You’ve got to admit the guy’s no ray of sunshine. He’s been bitter about something; he looks like a guy who could nurse a grudge for a long, long time. Where was he last night?”

  “He drove in sometime after eleven-thirty, according to Mrs. Allenby. She doesn’t know when he went out. Also,” Holland said, “Frances was in the house by seven-thirty.”

  “That let’s her out,” Crombie said, “unless she was in on the job with someone else. And if you figure that way I have to pick her husband, who for my dough will never be a heavyweight where dames are concerned.”

  Holland made no reply, and Crombie offered nothing more. It was as if they were temporarily talked out and content for a while to pursue their individual thoughts.

  Presently Crombie had to contend with the New Haven traffic and although they had run into no rain the streets here were wet and the wind which had been blowing since the night before seemed higher. In spots branches lay in the streets, and once they were in the open country again Holland could see the treetops bending and twisting, the underside of the leaves showing whenever a gust hit them.

  Holland did a lot of thinking in the next hour. From out of the twisted mass of facts and suppositions in his brain he found at last a pattern that he could follow clearly. There was a hole here, a contradiction there, but it was the best he could do and he knew that it was his one last hope.

  But he would need help. He saw that even as the pattern began to unfold. He would need Crombie; most of all he needed Tracy.

  And Fanny Allenby?

  He was not sure how or why he thought so but the conviction remained that she was a key figure who could make or break his plan of action, and in the end he realized that since he could not expect her active cooperation he would have to use whatever means at hand. He watched Crombie swing the car into the sleepy main street and saw again the big elm trees bending in the wind.

  “Have you got a gun?” he asked abruptly.

  The detective gave him a startled, one-eyed glance. After a few seconds he leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. In the back of this a snub-nosed revolver lay darkly gleaming.

  “I also got a permit,” he said when Holland removed the gun. “Which means if you leave it around it gets traced to me. Who you planning to knock off?”

  Holland began to speak of the things that had been going through his head. He could not draw a blueprint because he was not positive that the data at hand was all it seemed. But he covered the general idea as well as he could and told Crombie what he wanted the detective to do.

  “You had me worried,” Crombie said. “I thought maybe you’d cooked up something that might lose me my license and my bond. Check me, now, and see if I’ve got it straight. Your idea is that Baldwin, Carver, or Mrs. Erskine is guilty. I’m to get them out of the house at a certain time—”

  “Before that if you like,” Holland cut in. “Just be sure they’re out at the right time—and not together.”

  “You wouldn’t have an idea how I might do that, would you?”

  Holland’s dark eyes were bright with interest as he absently watched the side of the road. The feeling was growing in him that something would come of his scheme and he did not even try to answer Crombie’s question because he had confidence in the man and his methods.

  “You’ll think of something,” he said. “You’re a detective, aren’t you? You’re smart.”

  “Okay, I’m smart.” Crombie chewed one lip. “You think your girl will play along?”

  “I’ll make her.”

  “If you do, it’ll be the first time you ever made her do anything. Also,” he said, “just remember I want that gun back. You figure on calling Lieutenant Pilgrim?”

  “When I’m ready.”

  Crombie said all right, and made the turn into the private road leading to the Allenby home. He said it might be fun. He said old Mrs. Allenby would probably be delighted to see him.

  twenty-two

  IT WAS TEN MINUTES after six when Holland and Crombie came down the hall and turned into the Allenby drawing-room. Fanny Allenby sat in a chair near the front windows watching the angry waters of the Sound which, even close in shore, showed white frothy tips that tossed and broke beyond the pier. The sailboat, her spar bare, danced in lively fashion at her mooring and even the speedboat was uneasy in its slip.

  Fanny Allenby removed her glasses and let them dangle from the cord around her neck as they crossed the room. She listened to Holland’s apologies as he said he was sorry to come this way without an invitation. He assured her that they would not stay long.

  She regarded him with enigmatic eyes, her wrinkled face set and impassive as she adjusted the fo
lded newspaper in her lap. If she was displeased she gave no sign, hiding whatever anxiety or suspicion she may have felt behind her customary blunt manner.

  “Why did you run away this morning?” she asked directly.

  “I had to get back. I thought the police might want to question me.”

  “Did they?”

  “No.”

  She put her glasses back on. “You do a lot of traveling, Johnnie. Who was Queen Wilhelmina’s mother?”

  Holland gaped at the sudden digression. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, come now.” She waited, pencil poised. “Her name. Four letters beginning with E—I think.”

  Holland reached back into the little-used recesses of his brain and found nothing at all.

  Crombie said, “Emma.”

  The woman printed the word and nodded. Then she took her glasses off and examined Crombie. “Thank you,” she said, still not liking him. She put the glasses on, beginning again on the puzzle.

  Holland winked at Crombie and they started to move away.

  “You’ll have to amuse yourselves,” Mrs. Allenby said. “Tracy and Frances drove over to Essex and they’re not back yet. “Arthur’s still in New York, but he’ll be back for dinner.”

  In the hall Crombie said he’d go over and see if Eric Carver was in. “You could help me upstairs,” Holland said. “We got a break, the rest of them being away.”

  “Not me, chum.” Crombie shook his head. “It’s your idea and you’ve got no license to lose.”

  Holland went up the stairs to the second-floor hall where there was no sound but the whine of the wind in the eaves. The door of the room that interested him most was closed and he opened it quietly even though he knew the occupant was out. Once inside he left the door partway open so that he could hear anyone coming up the stairs, then turned his attention to the bureau.

  He went through the full-length drawers quickly but thoroughly and in the bottom one he found something that interested him—a pair of men’s black silk pajamas, styled with a collar and a buttoned front. A gleam of satisfaction began to work at the angles of his eyes as he put them aside and started through the two half-drawers on top. He spent a minute or so making sure that what he sought was not there and then, about to give up, he reached for the pajamas and, on a hunch, examined them more closely. That was how he noticed the bulge in the breast pocket. When he saw that it contained what he wanted he gave a silent cheer and left his discovery where he found it.