The Star Reporter Mystery

by Norvin Pallas LLC

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Ted answered. “I don’t know who Mr. Bogus is, and whatever his plans are, he sure didn’t tell them to me.”

  Grossen gave Lister a nudge of his elbow, and said hoarsely, “This don’t look like a conference to me. I wonder if we didn’t come to the wrong place.”

  “You could be right, Grossen, and if you are it’s the second time you’ve been right this year. You were right about Mr. Bogus going up to meet Desmond in Lonely Valley.” He remarked in an aside to the others, “It isn’t often he’s right twice in the same year.”

  “He wasn’t right when he searched my suitcase on the train,” Ted broke in.

  “A small thing, Ted. He was in Forestdale at the time, checking out the possibility that Barry Knight was hiding at your home. He was then ordered to follow you to Union City, but searching your suitcase was his own idea, and not a very good one. He didn’t find anything, so there’s no reason to get sore. In fact, I don’t see any reason at all why we shouldn’t be friends even though your brother works for a different paper. There’s usually a pretty good fellowship among members of the press, and they don’t mind giving each other little tips from time to time. I’ve just got a few little questions to ask you, and I don’t think you’ll mind telling me as one newspaperman to another. Is there a conference going on up in Lonely Valley tonight? Is that where everybody is, while your brother very cleverly sent you out to lead the opposition astray?”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Ted replied, “and if I did, I surely wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Oh, we haven’t got time to fool around with him,” said Grossen impatiently. “Mr. Big ain’t gonna like it when he finds out we been wastin’ our time one place when we should have been someplace else. I can get it out of him in a couple of minutes.”

  Lister shrugged. “I like to do things a little more subtly than that, but if you must…”

  Grossen suddenly stepped behind Ted and bent his arm up behind his back. Stinging pains shot up to Ted’s shoulder, and he winced in spite of himself. He looked about. Lister had turned away indifferently. The unconcealed hatred in Grossen’s face was clearly evident. Even Mr. Knight evidently wasn’t going to interfere.

  “Where’s the conference tonight?” said Grossen menacingly, bringing Ted’s arm up sharply once more.

  “I don’t know!” Ted cried.

  “We think you do. Ask him some more questions, Lister. He’s gonna think up some answers pretty soon or else…”

  “Who is this man named Desmond?” said Lister carelessly. “I haven’t been able to get much of a line on him yet. Is he a relative of Knight’s or is theirs just a business relationship?”

  Ted gritted his teeth but said nothing, and once more his arm was forced upward. The pain went through him like a knife. Hold on, don’t let them intimidate you, he told himself. They don’t dare really hurt me, they’re not so all-powerful that they can get away with anything. This is as much as they dare do to me, and if I can take this much, then they’re licked.

  “No answer to that, Ted?” said Lister smoothly. “Then let’s try once more. I wouldn’t want Grossen to get really rough, but sometimes I have difficulty controlling him. Another thing I’d like to know is Barry Knight’s real name. Do you know anything about that?”

  As Ted hesitated, his arm went upward once more, this time harder, longer, and steadier, with his wrist turned back as well. He tried to lean forward to break the grip, but Grossen’s other arm was firmly about him. I’ve had a broken ankle this past year, and I can take a broken arm if I have to, he reminded himself. More than the pain, the hot blood of frustration was rushing to his cheeks, a sense of futility and helplessness because he knew it was useless to fight back. Up until now he had considered feeding them little dabs of useless information, but now he was mad. He controlled himself with difficulty, knowing that anger would only add to his plight, that if he got to talking he might give something away that would help them.

  “You can save all your trouble,” he said stoutly, “because I’m not going to tell you anything at all!”

  Again his arm went up, bring sharper pains that made him think that this time his arm really would break. But Mr. Knight had moved away from the fireplace and out to the center of the scene.

  “Well, now,” he offered mildly, “it seems to me that maybe we are exceeding our instructions just a little.”

  “That’s right, let him go,” Lister ordered. “I can’t afford to get mixed up in something like this, and I forgot we had a witness. Besides, that’s not the proper way to deal with a boy like Ted. Let me talk to him.”

  Reluctantly Grossen released his grasp. The soreness gradually disappeared from Ted’s arm, but he was far from soothed.

  “Ted, you want to be a newspaperman, don’t you?”

  “This is your build-up,” said Ted bitingly. “You can carry on without answers from me.”

  “I know you’re interested in newspaper work. Editor of your school paper, high-school correspondent for the town paper, a brother on a big-city paper. I was once a sincere, idealistic boy very much like you, so I think I can understand you. You’ve been bit by the bug early, just the way I was. Now as an incipient newspaperman, you believe in freedom of the press, I’m sure.”

  At least this was one response Ted could make without compromising himself. “Yes, I do.”

  “All right, then, that’s it.” He waved his arm as though there was no further room for argument. “If you believe in freedom of the press, you believe in the right of a newspaper reporter to get a story if he can. And all I want is a story.”

  “I don’t care much for your kind of story,” said Ted firmly. “You haven’t any right to intrude into a person’s private life unless there is some public purpose to be served.”

  “You mean if a person commits a crime the paper shouldn’t tell about it?”

  “That’s different. Enforcement of the law is a matter of public concern. That’s not the same as the kind of gossip you peddle.”

  “I take it you don’t approve of my work. Well, let me tell you something, Ted. If you ever rise as high as I have in the newspaper world, you’ll have reason to be satisfied, and glad, and proud. Over a hundred papers carry my column—”

  “But the Twilight Star isn’t one of them,” Ted reminded him.

  “I see. The Star is a special paragon of virtue, just because your brother works there. Let me tell you that the Star is a paper just like the others, and their reporters grub for stories just the way other reporters do. Whether or not you approve of my delving into the lives of other people, you must agree that a newspaper reporter’s life is a special case. Barry Knight never hesitated to examine someone else’s life for the sake of a story. A person in that position ought to be willing to hold up his own life for examination, and I’m beginning to get the feeling that Barry Knight has a good deal to hide. When the public is relying upon his integrity, I’ve got a right to make sure the public isn’t being fooled, haven’t I? That’s all I’m trying to do.”

  “You can try,” Ted asserted, “but you aren’t going to get any help from me.”

  “I still don’t think you quite understand the situation, Ted. Now you’re a friend of Barry Knight’s, or at least your brother is, and I’m sure you’d like to help him if you could. I don’t have anything against Knight—the last thing in the world I want is to do anything to hurt him. Unfortunately he is in a position where he can hurt some other people I know. Why should anybody get hurt at all, when we can make a little deal?”

  So that was what they really wanted, Ted thought—not to expose Barry Knight, but to get something on him and then make a trade. They would trade what they knew about Knight for what Knight knew about Uglancie. But even if Knight were willing to agree to a proposition like this, it would mean that he would have a club hanging over his head for the rest of his career.

  “I’ve never met Barry Knight,” said Ted firmly, “but fr
om the things I’ve heard about him, I think you’d be wasting your breath.”

  An impasse seemed to have developed. Ted wondered what they would do next. Would they turn him over to Grossen again? He had already made up his mind that he wasn’t going to let Grossen touch him again without a struggle. If they wanted a brawl, they were going to get it.

  A booming sound came to their ears, followed by a distant rumble. Thunder in the winter? Ted wondered. It sometimes happened, but he hadn’t seen any lightning. Or was it something else?…

  “What was that?” he demanded.

  “Oh, that?” said Lister, as though it didn’t matter. “Avalanche, I guess. The professor was due to blow up the hill at Lonely Valley tonight. That’s why I was so sure the conference wouldn’t be held there tonight. Maybe I was wrong, but if I was, maybe your brother was just as wrong.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Rendezvous at Lonely Valley

  The two men stared at each other in the glow from the window reflected upon the snow. Ronald was the younger by several years, the new, inexperienced recruit who had just begun to feel his way into a newspaper career, while Barry Knight was the established reporter who had already made his mark and was still moving upward. Ronald had looked up to Knight as an ideal, and had tried to pattern his work after the older man’s.

  “You’re certain he’s innocent?” Ronald asked skeptically.

  “I’m positive. There was just no way he could possibly have taken the money. I’ll tell you about it on our way up. I suppose you’ve already guessed that my father’s been staying up at Lonely Valley. Bill was keeping him supplied until I came here, but now I’ve been taking care of it.” He shifted the bundle he was carrying to the other arm. “Want to come along?”

  “If I may. Think we’re all right in just our overshoes?”

  “Oh, yes, it isn’t too bad walking. I’ve done it before.” They started out toward the head of the northern valley. In the darkness Ronald could easily have lost his way, but Knight went ahead with assurance.

  “You mentioned someone named Bill,” Ronald reminded him. “I haven’t met anyone here yet by that name.”

  “I meant Bill Hudson, of course. That’s his real name, William Hudson, but the nickname Hank fits in better with the name of the lodge. My father and I knew Hudson and his wife back in the old days at Imperial, before they left to start their lodge up here. So when my father needed a rather quiet, isolated place where he could conduct a business arrangement, he immediately came here.”

  “And you followed him,” Ronald added. “I think it was that hunting jacket of yours that finally gave it away to me. I figured when you’d taken your jacket along you must have had someplace like this in mind.”

  “Well, you certainly came to the right place, Wilford, but for the wrong reason. When I left town I had no idea where I was likely to end up beyond Union City. I knew vaguely that Hudson and his wife had left Imperial years before to start some sort of lodge, but I had no idea where, and no particular reason to believe my father had gone to them. It was the poster in the lobby of the hotel at Union City that put me on the track. I immediately realized that Hank Hudson must be the old Bill Hudson who was a friend of my father’s, and that that must be where he had gone, so I never stopped to register at the hotel at all.”

  “So then I was wrong about one more thing,” said Ronald, more than a little vexed with himself. “I’ve made so many blunders on this case that it isn’t funny.”

  “I wouldn’t call it a blunder, Wilford. Your logic was a little faulty, but your intuition was sound. It was the same sort of intuition that led me to take my hunting jacket along in the first place when I didn’t know where I was going—just the feeling that I was likely to end up in some such place as this. Intuition is more subtle than logic only because it’s based on smaller things that we can’t quite put our finger on, but are there just the same. You’ve explained how you got from Union City to Half Moon Lodge, but you haven’t yet explained how you got as far as Union City.”

  “Dixie Orlando tipped me off,” Ronald admitted.

  “He did? You were pretty smart to catch on to Orlando, and even then it must have taken some persuasion. He’s a fairly closemouthed type.”

  “I managed to convince him that you might be in some sort of danger, and even then he wouldn’t tell me until I convinced him that I already knew something about Walter Desmond. He’s quite a character, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes, a character all right, but loyal as a dog, and he’s been plenty useful to me on a number of occasions. I’ll have to take you down to Short Vincent sometime and have you meet some of these characters—if I ever go back.”

  “Then you may not go back?” asked Ronald, narrowing his eyes.

  “I don’t know, Wilford,” Knight responded, and all the weariness, frustration, and despair that had led him to Half Moon Lodge showed in his voice. “I can’t tell yet how things are going to turn out. I’ll do whatever I have to do.”

  He stopped speaking, and although Ronald was filled with questions he wanted to ask, he felt it was best to let Knight tell it in his own way and in his own good time. But Knight made no attempt to go on, and they trudged in silence for several minutes.

  “You knew about Marv Lister and Marty Grossen being here, didn’t you?” asked Ronald at last.

  “Oh, yes, Bill’s been keeping me posted on everything.”

  “That’s a funny thing,” said Ronald, feeling it might put Knight more at ease if he adopted a lighter attitude. “I can’t get used to that name Bill. My brother was just pointing out to me how many persons here are going around under assumed names. One of the reasons I felt I couldn’t talk things over with Hank—or Bill—was because I didn’t know what name you were using, and I didn’t want to give too much away.”

  “Bill doesn’t know anything about Barry Knight—I doubt if he’s so much as heard the name before. He remembered me as Larry Desmond from the Imperial days.”

  “How’s that name again?” said Ronald, screwing up his face, for ever since that call from Carole he had been careful to use the more common pronunciation of Desmond, but Knight had just pronounced it as though it were French.

  “It’s a French name,” Barry told him, “and my family’s always clung to the French pronunciation, even though most people who didn’t know us very well used the other way.”

  “Well,” said Ronald, brightening, “maybe I won’t come out of this affair so badly after all, although I gave your secretary a bad time for a while.”

  “Carole? This was a tough break on her. I know she felt she had a rather intimate knowledge of my affairs, and this must have seemed like a dirty deal to her. Does she resent it very much?”

  “I don’t think Carole is the kind of person who could hold a grudge even if she wanted to,” said Ronald with emphasis, and Knight laughed in spite of himself.

  “You haven’t told me yet how you know your father was innocent,” Ronald reminded him. “Feel like talking about it?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. I think I’ve been quiet altogether too long. There seems to have been a conspiracy to keep me quiet, but that’s over now. I’ll tell you just what my father did that night, Wilford.”

  Pausing as though to collect his thoughts, he went on in a moment, “As you know my father worked at the gas station. He put in long hours, which included a good deal of overtime, so that I got to hanging around the station, too, when I didn’t have anything else to do. On the night of the robbery there was a basketball game at school, which kept me rather late. On the way home I stopped off at the station, as I often did, to wait for my father. It was just about time to close up, and I saw my father go over to the cash register. He took out the money and counted it, to compare it with the total on the cash register. It came out all right, so he put it back. Remember that, Wilford, I saw him put it back.

  “About that time a friend of his came past. I would have gone out to service the car, as I occasionally did.
There was a drizzle coming down, and I figured my father’d been out in it enough. However, he said his friend wanted to talk over something or other, and there wasn’t any use in both of us getting wet. So I waited in the station while he went out and talked. It turned out that this friend of his didn’t really want anything except to talk.

  “After about ten minutes the friend drove off and my father came back into the station. Since his friend hadn’t bought anything, there was no need for my father to go over to the cash register again. As a matter of fact, he didn’t go near the cash register—I’m positive of that. We were late already and wet and a little cold and anxious to get home. So my father set the alarm, turned out the light, locked up, and we went on home.”

  “Could he have come back later during the night?” Ronald queried closely.

  “Impossible. I’m certain that the burglar alarm was already set. Besides, I was feeling a little restless that night after all the excitement of the basketball game—I scored the tying point in the last few seconds of play, but we lost in overtime—and I’m certain if my father got up and went out I would have heard him.”

  “Then how do you figure the robbery?” Ronald asked him.

  “Why do I have to figure it?” Barry cried out bitterly. “My father was innocent and I know it. Isn’t that enough?”

  “You’d think it ought to be,” said Ronald, more disturbed than his voice showed, “but very often it isn’t. How did it happen you weren’t called to testify at the trial?”

  “Because our lawyer wouldn’t put me on the stand,” said Barry, still bitter at the recollection. “He gave me a long spiel about how he felt it would hurt my father’s chances rather than help him. I don’t know just what it was all about. I think he was trying to create some doubt in the jurors’ minds that the burglar alarm really had been set at the time my father left the station. What could I say? I knew the alarm had been set. I remembered it distinctly. I’m not pretending to be too good, Wilford. I would have lied on the witness stand if I thought it would have done my father any good. But our lawyer was a completely honest man, even though I have some doubts about his competence. He would never consent to having me go on the witness stand and lie. He didn’t state it to me in those terms. He said if I went on the stand and lied, a smart lawyer would be able to get me all twisted up under cross-examination, and that would wreck our case. Another point was that if I went on the stand, he felt my father would have to support my testimony, and for some reason he felt it was better for my father not to testify. I don’t know exactly what was going on in his mind. I think he honestly thought my father was mistaken about setting that burglar alarm when he left, even though my father swore that he did, and he didn’t want him to say that under cross-examination, just as he didn’t want me to say it.