Curtain for a Jester

by Frances Lockridge

  Bill returned to reports. The technical men, and the others, had finished at the Wilmot apartment, the door of which had then been sealed. Dust from the floors, from the furniture, was under microscopes. Fingerprints of a dozen people—of twenty—were being checked. The former occupant of the apartment was in the morgue, perhaps under knives of pathologists. Papers from the apartment—Bill’s eyebrows went up. A man who had an office in Foley Square had appeared, had talked briefly with an assistant commissioner of police, had departed, taking with him the blueprints which had been among the papers, and certain of the carbons of Mr. Wilmot’s correspondence.

  The last will and testament of Byron Wilmot, if any, was not among the papers in his apartment. It was not in his private file at the Emporium. His lawyer’s name had been. His lawyer had drawn up no will for Byron Wilmot. So far as the lawyer knew, Clyde Parsons was Wilmot’s closest—indeed, his only—blood relative. If no will turned up, no closer relative—yes, Parsons would inherit. Bill changed the order of the reports, took up the one concerned with the movements of Clyde Parsons the night before.

  A gap remained. Mr. Parsons disappeared from view at a little before two in the morning, when he went thirsty—if one could believe the bartender—from a grill in Eighth Street. He reappeared, something over two hours later, at the outside door of the building, west of Eighth Avenue, in which he rented a two-room flat. He appeared there, swaying, and found the outside door locked. He discovered, apparently, that he had lost his key.

  “Locked after midnight,” the superintendent explained. “Got to in this neighborhood.” He had waved his hand to indicate a neighborhood which, to the enquiring detective, had looked quiet enough. The detective knew neighborhoods—

  “Tenants got their own keys,” the superintendent said. “See?”

  The detective saw.

  “Except this guy Parsons, he’s got to lose his key,” the superintendent said. “Got to lose it four o’clock in the morning. Got to stand there, leaning on the button, till he wakes me up. And the wife. So there he is, stinking drunk, saying something you can’t make out about the key. And his coat. No coat either.”

  “Topcoat, you mean?”

  “What else’d I mean? No topcoat. So he thinks, as I make it out, the key was in the topcoat and—phooey. No hat, either.”

  “You let him in?”

  “Sure I let him in. He falls going upstairs. Man, was he drunk!”

  “And that was?”

  “Four-ten. Fifteen, maybe. Somewhere around there.”

  The lost key unlocked not only the outer door of the building’s entrance hall, but the door to Parsons’s flat. The superintendent had climbed with Parsons—three flights—and let him in there. It had been, not in short, “a hell of a thing.”

  “Seems to have been,” the detective had said, and gone to simmer it into a report.

  So—two hours unaccounted for; a significant two hours; two hours which Parsons himself had been unable to account for. So—a missing topcoat Parsons had not mentioned. So—Parsons inherited, probably. There was twenty-eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty to inherit, to begin with.

  Bill reverted to the report on that. The money had been in old bills. It could not in any fashion be traced. Inside the safe there had been Wilmot’s fingerprints, recently made. There had been, further, a set of fingerprints, probably even more recently made, which were not Wilmot’s. Nor were they the prints of the expert who had opened the safe. They were not the prints of anyone known to the New York City police. A code description of them had gone to Washington.

  Bill Weigand looked at nothing, and let his fingers tap the desk. Somebody—but when?—had had his hands in Wilmot’s safe. (The right hand, at any rate; three fingers of the right hand.) The somebody—but why?—had not been interested in twenty-eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars. Or, had there been more money there? Had part of the hoard been taken?

  The questions were obvious. It would be pleasant, Bill thought, to find a few of the answers. He went on with it.

  Sylvester Frank, Wilmot’s servant—the butler who had trained himself to annoy, because he knew it teased—was as annoying now as he had ever been. He teased by the most simple method—that of complete disappearance. At a little after ten that morning he had gone to the penthouse. He had, obviously, found his employer dead. If he had done anything about this, it did not appear. He had gone from there. It was possible, but unlikely, that he had merely gone to look for another job. A pickup was out on him, he was wanted for questioning. Bill Weigand thought about him. He wondered whether, until then, he had thought enough about him. He read again what others had found out about Sylvester Frank.

  Frank was thirty-four years old. He had been born in Hoboken. He had started as a waiter, in Hoboken, when he was nineteen. He had become a comic waiter some five years later. And, as a comic waiter, he had enjoyed a certain renown. He had made a very good thing out of insulting those he served; he had been inventive at it, and in demand at public dinners of a certain kind. Yet, five years before, he had abandoned a career which combined profit with innocent merriment, and had gone to work for Wilmot. It was to be assumed that he had been comic only at Wilmot’s parties; it was unlikely that, dining alone, Wilmot had encouraged his servant to serve soup with a thumb in it. In short, Frank had abandoned a career and gone to work.

  It would, Bill decided, be interesting to know why. It would be interesting to know whether Frank had, in the end, found his employer too trying to be put up with. It would be interesting to know what Frank had been about between two-thirty and, say, six that morning. But you cannot question a man you haven’t caught. Bill put Sylvester Frank aside. He turned to Martha Evitts.

  Miss Evitts had reached her uptown apartment a little before two, arousing one of her apartment mates, a girl who was “waked up by the least little thing.” The light sleeper, one Paula Thompson, had gone back to light sleeping, only to be again awakened, after about half an hour, by the sounds of Martha Evitts’s departure from the apartment. “Where you going at this time of night?” Paula asked, but was not heard, or at any rate not answered. Martha had come back at about three-thirty, awakening Paula once more. Then, after breakfast—of which she ate little—Miss Evitts had disappeared, so it had been impossible for Paula to ask what had made her so restless in the night, or where she had gone in the night.

  The telephone rang. Was this Captain William Weigand? Then, one moment please, Mr. Monteath was calling. After the moment, Bill confirmed his identity to Mr. Monteath, confirmed also that he had asked Monteath to telephone. He explained that, in connection with the unfortunate death of his friend Wilmot—

  “Not my friend particularly,” Monteath said. “But go on, captain.”

  The police liked, Bill went on, to find out all they could, even from people who knew little. He wondered whether he might stop by and see Mr. Monteath, and ask the few routine questions, necessary.

  “Now?” Monteath said.

  “Right,” Bill told him. “As good a time as any for me, Mr. Monteath.”

  Monteath hesitated. He was at someone’s office. He could not tell exactly when he would be leaving. If Captain Weigand was going to be at his own office for a time?

  Indefinitely, Bill thought. For an hour or so, he told Monteath. Then, Monteath would come around as soon as he could manage. “Get it over with,” he said. “I want to get down to Washington tomorrow.”

  “Right,” Bill said, and told him where to come.

  Bill returned to the reports. The night clerk at John Baker’s hotel had been pursued to his small room near the top of the building, near the elevator shaft, and, awakened from hot sleep, had remembered Baker’s return that morning. Baker had got in at about twenty minutes after two, and had picked up his key.

  But—Baker had not remained in. Fifteen minutes later he had gone out again, taking his key with him. He had not returned by the time the night clerk went off—of that the night clerk professed h
imself certain. “Probably accurate,” the precinct detective noted. “Have to pass the desk to get to elevator or stairs.” Bill pictured the hotel lobby in his mind. If the night clerk had been at his station, and awake, he would almost certainly have seen Baker, had Baker returned. It was not, however, a point provable beyond reasonable doubt. (They were a long way from a place where reasonable doubt mattered. Bill was not certain that they were, at the moment, getting appreciably closer.)

  Bill remembered John Baker as he had come a little after noon—had come fresh-faced, open-faced, to offer his assistance, and that of the staff of the Novelty Emporium. Baker had not looked like a man who had spent the night out. He had been freshly shaved, had appeared rested. He could have been to a barber, obviously; he could be physically resilient. He could also have other lodging, or what amounted to other lodging. Baker, Bill Weigand decided, was becoming a man of discrepancies. It would be necessary, before long, to reconcile him.

  Simultaneously, the telephone on Bill’s desk rang and Sergeant Mullins came into the office. Bill acknowledged the arrival of Mullins, identified himself to the telephone. A voice said, “Saul Bessing, Bill.”

  Bill Weigand said, “Hello, Saul. How are all the wonder boys?”

  “Fine,” Saul said. “Just fine. How’s good old Arty?”

  “Inspector O’Malley,” Bill said with great formality, “is on a brief and well-earned leave.”

  “Must make things nice and quiet,” Bessing said. “Hear you’ve got a tough one, Bill.”

  “Um-m-m,” Bill said. “Do you?”

  “Yes,” Saul said. “About that first print your people sent through to Washington. Negative, Bill.”

  “Well, thanks,” Bill said. “You’re quick about it.”

  “Cooperation,” Saul said. “We always cooperate. Cooperation between the various agencies of law enforcement is the sine qua non of—”

  “Come off it,” Bill said. “Washington goes to the trouble of hurrying things up. You go to the trouble of telephoning. In a rush to say you haven’t got a print that went to Washington through routine channels—wait a minute. You do mean that?”

  “What else?” Saul said. “In re, subject print. No information available.”

  “You know, Saul. I rather like ‘available.’ A nice evasive word.”

  “And here,” Saul said, “we go to all the trouble of cooperating. And the thanks we get.”

  “Look, Saul,” Bill said. “Tell me this much. You people are in on the Wilmot kill?”

  “I hope not, Bill,” Saul said. “We all hope not. We hope it was a nice personal job—so somebody could inherit his money, say. Nothing we’d care about. Nothing that would have—well, let’s say have ramifications.”

  “Like blueprints of—devices—being sent to Germany?”

  “Well,” Saul said, “things like that might come into it, mightn’t they?”

  “For God’s sake, Saul,” Bill said. “Do you—”

  The telephone on Sergeant Mullins’s desk rang, distractingly. Mullins picked it up. He said, “The captain’s on the other phone—oh, hello Mrs. North. Do you want—”

  “Take it, Mullins,” Bill said. Then, to Saul Bessing, “Do you have to be this way?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” Saul said. “Let’s put it like this. It would be convenient if your Mr. Wilmot got killed because somebody didn’t like his taste in neckties. Or the kind of jokes he played. Something nice and clean and simple. Might happen to anybody who had bad taste in neckties. Nothing to disturb his business associates. They’d just say, ‘Too bad about poor old Byron. If we told him about those neckties once, we told him a hundred times.’ And then, maybe, they’d just get on with their business. See what I mean?”

  “Probably,” Bill said. “You’re interested in this—‘business,’ I gather? Don’t want it interfered with?”

  “Well,” Saul said, “we’d hate to have any rumors—any unsubstantiated rumors, you know—get around that would upset anybody.”

  “We don’t spread rumors,” Bill told him. “You know that damn well.”

  “Sure,” Saul said. “Only—the more people the more rumors, don’t you think? Anyway, that’s what the big boys think. I’m just a voice, pal.”

  “Security,” Bill said, and made it sound an epithet. He was told not to use profanity. “Cooperation,” Bill said.

  “My dear captain,” Saul Bessing said, “what do you think we’re giving you? Why do you think I called?”

  “Right,” Bill said. “You’ve probably done what you could. I’ll grant that.” He paused, momentarily. “It’s rather odd about the print, isn’t it?” he said. “You’ve got such a lot of them available.”

  “Oh,” Bessing said, “we’ve missed one or two.”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “By the way, did you ever hear of a man named Monteath—Arthur Monteath?”

  “Seems as if I might have. State Department, isn’t he? Seems as if I’ve heard the name.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all, Bill.”

  “A man named Sylvester Frank? A man named John Baker? A young woman named Martha Evitts? A man named Dew-snap?”

  “You do meet a lot of interesting people in your work, don’t you?” Saul Bessing said. “Well, been nice talking to you, pal.”

  And then Saul Bessing hung up. Bill Weigand glared at the telephone. Then he shrugged. Probably Saul had done what he could. He usually did. Bill turned to Mullins.

  “Mrs. North,” Mullins said. “Miss Evitts was there because she couldn’t get in touch with Mr. Baker, and he was at the penthouse this morning, but just now he was at Mrs. North’s and he isn’t at all what he appears to be and she’s afraid—that’s Mrs. North’s afraid—what it really amounts to is he’s snatched Miss Evitts.” Mullins paused and blinked. “Maybe I could of got it mixed up a little,” he said. “Sometimes she goes pretty fast.”

  “Yes,” Bill said. “Sometimes she—”

  The telephone rang again. The precinct man who had relieved Bill in a drugstore across from the Novelty Emporium reported, sadly. The gray-haired man, whose hair might once have been red, had emerged from the Emporium after about half an hour. He had been followed to a subway, in the subway to Times Square, in Times Square he had been lost. “In one door and out another,” the detective said. “I’m sorry, captain. But you know how it is.”

  Bill did; one man can always be shaken. He can be shaken even without intention.

  “You think he spotted you?” Bill asked.

  “Not unless he was expecting someone. If he did—sure.”

  “Did he plan to shake you?”

  “It’s hard to tell, captain. But—yes, I’d guess he did. You want me to backtrack on him? At the store?”

  “No,” Bill said. “We’ll skip it for now.”

  The detective was sorry about it. He was told he had done what he could.

  “Mrs. North said to come around if you could,” Mullins said.

  “Right,” Bill said.

  He drummed on his desk with his fingers. There were a great many pieces; too many, it occurred to him, for a single jig-saw. It might be that he had pieces from two puzzles, scrambled together. That would be fine, Bill thought. That would be wonderful. And once more the telephone rang.

  A Mr. Monteath was at the sergeant’s desk downstairs. Did the captain want him sent up.

  “I suppose so,” Bill said, weariness in his voice. He pulled himself out of it. “Right,” he said. “Send him up, sergeant.” He waited, briefly. The office door opened, a voice said, “Right in here,” and then, “Mr. Monteath to see you, captain.”

  Bill looked at Monteath. Then, unconsciously, he straightened his own tie, which had probably—from the feel had certainly—worked to one side. He became conscious of this and smiled faintly, wondered briefly whether Mr. Arthur Monteath so affected all the men he met, convicting them in their own minds of lamentable sloppiness.

  It was not that Monteath, standing
easily in the doorway, coming easily to a chair when bidden, appeared to have gone to any particular trouble about dressing himself. Anyone—anyone, at least, who could find Mr. Monteath’s tailor and pay the tailor’s charge—might wear such a gray suit, with the faintest of chalk stripes. Anyone might find—or have made—a shirt with a collar so smoothly fitting and cuffs so just enough showing below jacket sleeves. No doubt gray and maroon ties of similar subtlety were widely available. There was nothing to indicate that Mr. Monteath had thought long about these matters, or gone to any particular trouble. One was left, rather, with the feeling that Mr. Monteath’s clothes had merely happened to him because this had turned out to be his lucky day. Bill Weigand nevertheless straightened his necktie.

  “Mrs. North said you probably would want to see me,” Monteath said. “I’d been planning to get in touch with you.” Bill nodded. “But I’m afraid there won’t be much I can tell you.”

  “Anything you can,” Bill told him. “We go around picking up pieces. Looking for them, anyway. Anything about Wilmot.”

  Monteath knew nothing about Wilmot, he was certain, that the police didn’t already know. He had seen Wilmot only once in years, that once being the night before. “Unfortunately,” he added. “Bad for my—business.” He smiled faintly. “The Caesar’s wife sort of thing, if you know what I mean.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “We appreciate that. We’ll try to make it as painless as we can. You knew Wilmot rather well at one time?”

  Not even that, Monteath said. He had gone to college with Wilmot; seen him off and on for a few years, not seen him for a dozen. “I’ve been abroad most of the time,” Monteath said. Then he looked puzzled. “Come to think of it,” he said, “I don’t really know how Wilmot found out I was back, and where I was stopping. To invite me to this shindig of his, I mean. I got a note—renew old acquaintance, that sort of thing. Few people in he thought I might enjoy meeting. Hadn’t anything else on, you know, so—well, there you are. Rather, there I was.”

  “Right,” Bill said. “Heard you were in town from some mutual friend, you suppose?”