The 24th Horse

by Hugh Pentecost

  “God!” Johnny said. Bradley eyed him, Johnny moistened his lips. “You see, Inspector, Gloria’s been missing since Wednesday. Guy and I — that’s Guy Severied to whom Gloria was practically engaged — have been hunting all over town for her for three days.”

  “Didn’t a disappearance of that sort seem important enough to you or to her family to call in the police?”

  Johnny looked down at his hat, which he was twisting round and round in his fingers. “Gloria was…well, sort of scatterbrained, Inspector. She used to run around a great deal — parties, friends everywhere. It wouldn’t have been unlike her to go off and forget to notify anyone.”

  “Weren’t her mother and father worried?”

  “Her mother’s dead, Mr. Bradley. The two girls live with their father and Miss Celia Devon, their aunt. Mr. Prayne and Miss Devon were told Gloria was staying with an old friend, Linda Marsh. Pat didn’t want to say anything till she knew what Gloria was up to. Gloria got enough publicity as it was.”

  Mr. Julius had closed his eyes, looking for all the world as if he were asleep. He opened them now — bright, unblinking eyes like a bird’s. “Gloria was a trollop!” he said, and closed his eyes again, resting his head against the couch.

  Johnny blushed. Bradley waited. “She…she was a little wild,” Johnny admitted. “Things were tough for her. The Praynes were lousy with money until Mr. Prayne’s brokerage firm went phutt and they lost everything.”

  “So Douglas Prayne sat on his behind and whimpered. A weakling. Always said so and to his face,” interrupted Mr. Julius without moving.

  “It was Pat who took hold.” said Johnny. “They had horses. She and George Pelham, an ex-cavalry officer, started a riding school. They teach people to jump…and school and sell horses on the side. Guy Severied, who is Pelham’s best friend, put up the money to recondition an old loft building on Ninety-First Street and to meet expenses for a bit. They’ve made a go of it…paid Guy back. But it’s still damned hard work, and not much profit. Gloria couldn’t take it. She was used to having everything.”

  “Stuff and nonsense!” said Mr. Julius. “A trollop! Been chasing every eligible man with money in town. You know Severied. Polo…yachts.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” said Bradley. “And what was your connection with Gloria Prayne, Mr. Curtin?”

  Again Johnny looked down at the twisting hat. “I…I’m in the horse business, too, Inspector. Have a little breeding farm up in Millbrook. Pat came up there one day to look at a horse. I…well, I kind of fell for her. I started coming to New York to see her. We…we had a lot of fun. Pat is the grandest girl you ever met, Mr. Bradley.”

  “About Gloria,” said Bradley gently.

  The glow from the fire heightened the color that mounted in Johnny’s cheeks.

  “Naturally, I met her,” he said. “She…she was colorful and…exciting.”

  “Like a Christmas tree,” said Mr. Julius from behind his veiled eyelids. “Lot of glitter and tinsel…no roots.”

  “I lost my head,” Johnny confessed. “I started giving Gloria a rush.”

  “I thought she was engaged to Severied,” said the inspector.

  ‘‘Not officially. I thought until it was official 1 had a right to…to see what I could do.’’

  “Then he found the apple had a worm in it,’’ chuckled Mr. Julius.

  “I realized I’d been a dope, Inspector,” Johnny said. “I took Gloria to El Morocco last Wednesday night. I told her…how I felt. I told her I’d crawl back on my hands and knees to Pat if she’d have me. Gloria got sore and went away.”

  “Couldn’t bear to lose a man…even if she didn’t want him,” said Mr. Julius.

  “And that, so far as any of us knows,” said Johnny, “is the last time Gloria was seen by any of her friends until tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “When I opened the rumble seat to … to put Pat’s things in the back of the car.”

  Bradley puffed thoughtfully on his pipe for a moment or two. His eyes studied Johnny, probing, weighing. Finally he said, “All right, Mr. Curtin. Let’s go back over tonight. You were waiting outside the Garden by her car for Miss Patricia Prayne?”

  “That’s right. When she came out, she had a lot of stuff to go in the rumble. She gave me the keys and asked me to do it for her while she finished up in the Garden. I opened the rumble.…” Johnny paused, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “I...saw Gloria…with that thing tight around her neck and her face black and horrible.” He drew a deep breath. “I slammed it shut. I put Pat’s stuff in front and drove straight to Mr. Julius’ apartment on Eighth Street.”

  “Weren’t there any policemen around?” Bradley asked.

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I gave one of them a dollar to give to Pat in case she didn’t have taxi money.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you to report to him what you’d found?”

  Johnny’s jaw set stubbornly. “I didn’t want Pat mixed up in it. I know the police. Her car…a body in the back of it. I…Well, I didn’t want her to go through that if I could help it.”

  “The poor, stupid police,” murmured Bradley.

  “Apt description!” Mr. Julius’ eyes popped open. “Wonderful for directing traffic — there it ends. Blundering, blustering, bullying — that’s the police. Pick on innocent citizens. Let crooks run the city. Humph!”

  Bradley sighed. “And why did you go to Mr. Julius?”

  Johnny frowned. “It … it was instinctive. He’s a sort of uncle of the Praynes, and he’s often told us how he helped you with that stamp murder last year. He said you were…were reasonably intelligent.” Johnny grinned.

  “Mercy,” said Bradley. “Praise from Caesar.”

  “Hope the build-up wasn’t phony,” said Mr. Julius. “You’re not acting very spry at the moment.”

  Bradley ignored him, keeping his eyes on Johnny.

  “So I went to Mr. Julius and told him what I’d found. We came here, and that’s that.”

  “You realize,” said Bradley, “that you’re going to have to answer a lot of awkward questions? You were the last person to see Gloria Prayne alive…you were the person to find her. You deliberately withheld information from the police until it suited your convenience. You had quarreled with Gloria Prayne. Perhaps she stood in the way of a reconciliation with her sister.”

  “Bosh!” said Mr. Julius. “He did what any normal man would do to protect his girl. Wanted her to have a break. That’s all. Stop being ponderous. Doesn’t suit you. Bradley.”

  “Um,” said Bradley. “Do you plan to take a hand in this, Mr. Julius?”

  The old man looked belligerent. “Mean to see Pat is protected.”

  Bradley sounded hopeful. “Have you any fundamental interest in catching a particularly brutal murderer? Because that’s my job, y’know.”

  “Naturally!” snapped Mr. Julius. “Just don’t want to see you act like a bull in a china shop.”

  The doorbell rang. Instantly Johnny sprang across the room, “That’ll be Pat,”

  Bradley knocked out his pipe. “Sometimes I hate this job,” he said.

  They heard Pat’s eager voice as Johnny opened the door, “Oh, Johnny! Where is she?”

  “Hate it like hell,” said Bradley.

  Mr. Julius glanced up. For the first time there was a look of warmth in his faded blue eyes. “She’s a thoroughbred, Bradley. Only one in the family with guts. Deserves a break. Do your best, won’t you?”

  Bradley smiled down at Mr. Julius. “You sentimental old hypocrite,” he said, Then he turned to look at Pat, who was suddenly clinging desperately to Johnny. She had been told the news. Bradley’s face sobered.

  “I’ll do my best for her,” he said.

  Chapter 4

  Mr. Julius rose. as Johnny led Pat to the couch. When she reached the old man, she buried her head on his shoulder and sobbed.

  “Here! No use in tears!” Mr. Julius blustered. He glowered helplessly at Bradley. “
Great Scott, I’m no hand at this sort of thing. Don’t gape! Do something!”

  Bradley went into his kitchenette and returned with a jigger of brandy and a glass of water. He handed them to Pat.

  “Take it easy,” he said. “Don’t gulp.”

  Pat drank the brandy and then Johnny, hovering about, eased her down onto the couch. None of them spoke until the storm of emotion had subsided. “Somebody give me a cigarette,” she said at length.

  Johnny lit one himself and handed it to her. Her eyes avoided all their faces. “I suspected that s-she was dead, after what Johnny said on the phone. I…I was ready for that, Uncle Julius. But murder!”

  “It’s nasty!” said Mr. Julius. “‘But don’t try to carry the whole load yourself. Time your father faced some responsibility. Ducked for years. He can’t duck murder!”

  Pat’s slim brown hands were laced together. “It’s so stupid, so senseless! Gloria wasn’t important! She had nothing anyone wanted! Why? Why should someone want to kill her?”

  “I had hoped,” said Bradley quietly, “that you might be able to tell me that, Miss Prayne.”

  “But I can’t!” Pat cried. “I can’t! She was wild, like a green colt. She did a lot of stupid things. But she hurt no one but herself.”

  “There has to have been a reason, Miss Prayne,” Bradley said. “There always is. And the reason is sometimes harder to take than murder itself. But we have to go after it.”

  “Of’ course,” Pat said. “Of course we have to go after it. Every one of us has to go after it, because whoever did this has got to pay for it.” She looked at Mr. Julius. “I’ve been so damned mad at Gloria so damned often, Uncle Julius. But this…”

  “Let’s get a few essential facts, Miss Prayne,” said Bradley. His voice, cool and impersonal, checked the threat of further tears. “I have Curtin’s story. He discovered your sister’s body when he went to put your things in the back of the ear. He acted, somewhat unwisely and impetuously, to save you the shock of discovery. For the moment, at least, I’m accepting his story. So we come to the heart of this thing. How did your sister’s body get in the back of that car, Miss Prayne?”

  Pat stared at him. “But I haven’t the faintest idea, Inspector. I —”

  “Where has that car been since, say, Wednesday night, which was the last time any of you actually saw Gloria?”

  “I’ve had it, Inspector,” Pat said. “We’ve exhibited horses at the Show all week. I’ve driven to the Garden each morning about eight, for the exercise periods, and stayed there until the Show closed at midnight. The car’s been outside the Garden all day … every day.”

  “Where?”

  Pat looked down at her hands. “I don’t like to get anyone in trouble, Mr. Bradley. I …”

  Bradley smiled. “Some cop let you park where you weren’t supposed to. That it?”

  She nodded. “Outside the exhibitors’ entrance on Forty-Ninth Street.”

  “Then you’re the only one who’s used the car all week?” It sounded casual enough.

  “Don’t answer that, Pat,” Johnny Curtin said sharply. “Somebody put Gloria’s body in the car after Wednesday night. If you say — ”

  “Please, Curtin, don’t pop off,” Bradley interrupted in a tired voice. “I’m trying to make it easy by questioning Miss Prayne here, with her friends about, instead of alone at headquarters.”

  “But you’re trying to trap her,” Johnny protested.

  “Shut up, Johnny,” said Mr. Julius. He was sitting on the couch beside Pat, his eyes closed again.

  “This isn’t meant to be a trap, Miss Prayne,” Bradley said. “Someone at some time during the week put your sister’s body in the back of the car. Quite obviously it couldn’t have been done while it was parked outside the Garden. I’m trying to find out when it could have happened … and who had access to the car.”

  Pat was frowning. “A lot of people used the car,” she said. “Someone was always having to run back to the school for something we’d forgotten. Peter Shea, our groom, used it; George Pelham … I don’t know who else.”

  “You don’t know?”

  Pat met the inspector’s eyes steadily. “The car keys were left on the table in the tack room,” she said. “Anybody could have borrowed them without our paying particular attention.”

  “Don’t you see what that means, Inspector?” Johnny said. “Thousands of people were milling in and out of the Garden stables every day. Anybody … anybody in the whole of New York could have taken those keys and used the car. And there’s no way to check.”

  Bradley looked down at Mr. Julius. An understanding glance passed between them.

  “Don’t be a fool, Johnny,” said the old man. “We’re dealing with a cold-blooded murderer. Someone who thought out a very neat way of getting a body off his hands after he’d killed. Anyone in New York? Phooey. Someone who knew, Johnny. Someone who knew where the car was, where the keys were. Someone who could take those keys and not create suspicion if he were caught at it.”

  Pat’s lips began to tremble.

  “No use beating around the bush,” said Mr. Julius. “Somebody close … somebody intimate with your routine. That the way you see it, Bradley? Family … close friends?”

  Bradley sighed. “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  Chapter 5

  Johnny stepped from the revolving door into the crowded entryway of the Blue Moon Club. The air was thick and stale, He could hear the dull. tom-tom thumping of a band and the shuffle of feet on the postage-stamp dance floor.

  A hat-check girl tried to relieve him of his things.

  “I’m not staying,” he told her. “I’m looking for Guy Severied.”

  “The marines!” said the girl. “Boy, is Gus going to be glad to see you if you’re a friend of Severied’s. He’s in at the bar.”

  Johnny pushed on into the blue-lit room beyond. After searching Tony’s, The Famous Door, The Onyx, Leon and Eddie’s, and a half dozen other places, if he didn’t find Guy here he would go on to the Praynes’ without him.

  He had been at the Blue Moon before, with Gloria. Then he’d laughed at the murals, danced endlessly to the rhythms of Skinny Evans’ band, and been trampled in the rush of Gloria’s admirers. Nobody noticed him now as he worked his way toward the oval bar. It was too late in the evening to pay attention to anyone, even grim-faced young men who had somehow managed to get past the checkroom without giving up hat or coat.

  Johnny saw Guy Severied. He was sitting on a high stool at the bar, and several men were standing by him. One was Gus, the Blue Moon’s proprietor; one the headwaiter; the others were frowzy-looking red-eyed young men who seemed amused. Gus and his majordomo wore that glassy expression that comes over such people when they are having trouble with a valued customer.

  “Drink for everybody in the place is what I said,” Guy was saying. He spoke with a careful dignity.

  “Sure, Mr. Severied, sure,” Gus soothed.

  “And I want ’em all set up on the bar…in a line. No trickery, Gus, my friend. Line ’em up.”

  There must have been five hundred people in the place. It was awkward. If Gus refused, Guy would be noisy and unpleasant. If Gus obeyed, Guy, sober, would raise hell when he got the bill.

  Johnny came up and put his hand on Guy’s arm. Guy flung it off and turned, eyes squinted to bring this new nuisance into focus.

  “Well, as I live and breathe! Young Lochinvar!”

  “I’ve got to talk to you, Guy.”

  Guy waved to include all his audience. “My first customer, Gus. You didn’t know I was running a service for the lovelorn, did you?”

  “No, Mr. Severied.”

  “Well, I am. Damn good service. Tell ’em what to do and they live happily ever after … if they live!” That he decided was very funny. Gus and the headwaiter smiled their frozen smiles of appreciation.

  “Guy, I’ve got to tell you something privately,” Johnny said.

  “Positively not,” said Guy. He
brought one huge hand down on the bar. Glasses bounced. Gus closed his eyes in pain. “I never, under any circumsha … circumstance, give advice after two in the morning. If a man doesn’t know what to do after two in the morning, he doesn’t need advice; he needs a doctor. Run away, Lochinvar.”

  “Come off it, Guy,” said Johnny, his voice sharp.

  “Oh,” said Severied happily. “Trouble!” He slid to his feet.

  “Take it easy, Mr. Severied,” Gus pleaded.

  Johnny didn’t give an inch. His eyes were cold. “The hell with him,” he said. “I’d just as soon take him out of here horizontal.”

  “Now, now, take it easy,” said Gus again.

  Guy looked sad, “Did she turn you down with an awful thud, Lochinvar? You mush … must have played your cards very badly. But really … no advice now. I wouldn’t do justice to myself.” He rested his hands heavily on Johnny’s shoulders. “You wouldn’t guess it, but the truth is I’m just a touch tight!”

  “I don’t want advice. I want to tell you something…now and in private.”

  Severied peered around the smoke-dimmed room. “Not built for privacy.” Then his eyes lit up. “The washroom. Beautiful place. Air-conditioned. Never over a hundred an’ ten in the shade. And lovely fans make a lovely noise…like,” he explained musically, “‘the dawn comes up like thunder, out of China ’cross the bay-ee!’” He took Johnny by the arm and started.

  “Cigars? Cigarettes?” A girl with a tray stopped them, looking up at Guy.

  “Certainly,” said Guy. “I’ll take a carton of Camels, a carton of Chesterfields, a carton of Luckies, a carton of …”

  “For God’s sake, come on,” Johnny snapped. “Cut the comedy.”

  Guy beamed at the girl. “Later,” he said, and gave her a resounding whack on the rear as she passed. “Great place,” he said. “Gentleman’s club.”

  They went down a steep flight of stairs. The washroom was small and, as Guy had predicted, hot as a furnace. Guy went to a washbasin, filled with lukewarm water, and began washing his hands.

  “Listen, Guy,” Johnny said. “We’ve found Gloria.”