“I understand,” she said. “I can handle Harry.”
Back in Buffalo, Calhoun drove straight to his flat, then turned the car over to Helena. He didn’t invite her in.
Standing on the sidewalk with his bag in one hand and his new fishing gear in the other, he said, “I’ve kept a list of expenses. But I’ll wait until the police lose interest in your husband and you get your affairs straightened out before I bill you. I imagine your money will be tied up for some time if everything was in Lawrence’s name.”
“Are you charging an additional fee for disposing of Lawrence?” she asked.
“That was on the house. Just don’t give me any more little jobs like that.”
“Will I see you again, Barney?” she asked. “I mean, aside from when you submit your expense account.”
He shook his head definitely. “You’re a lovely woman, and except for the third party you rang in on our trip, I enjoyed the week thoroughly. But this is the end. When things quiet down, get yourself a Nevada divorce for desertion and marry some nice millionaire. Harry Cushman, maybe, if he isn’t too scared to come near you again.”
He thought her expressionless face looked a little wistful for a moment, but it may have been imagination. Her voice was totally lacking in emotion as usual when she spoke.
“Good-by, Barney.”
“Good-by, Helena,” he said.
She drove away.
Calhoun felt that after his suspenseful week he deserved a little relaxation. That evening he set out with the deliberate intention of getting drunk.
As often happens when a man has that intention, nothing he drank seemed to faze him. At eleven thirty P.M., some twenty highballs later, he arrived at the Haufbrau dead sober.
There was only a sprinkling of customers in the place. Joe the bartender came to him immediately and set a drink before him.
“Evening, Barney,” Joe said. “Where you been keeping yourself?”
“Been busy,” Calhoun said. “How are you, Joe?”
He searched for change in his pockets, found none, and pulled out his wallet. Riffling through the bills there, he could find nothing less than a fifty. When he laid it on the bar, Joe picked it up and eyed Calhoun speculatively.
“You must be in the chips,” he said. “Was this the smallest in that roll?”
Calhoun ignored the question. The bartender rang up the drink and rapidly counted out the change.
“Harry Cushman has been in here twice in the last few nights,” Joe said. “Drinking himself blind all alone. Seems worried about something.”
A prickle went along Calhoun’s spine, but his expression didn’t change. “Cushman?” he said, as though searching his memory. Then, “Oh, the guy you pointed out to me one night.”
“Yeah.” The bartender’s gaze was still speculative. “You know, I’ve been wondering a little about that night, Barney.”
“Wondering about what?”
“Occurred to me that hit-and-run up the street happened right after Cushman and his date left. Just about long enough after so it could have been them.”
“Oh?”
“I found out who the woman was.”
“Yeah?” Calhoun said with raised brows. “How?”
“Checked the society sections of back Sunday papers until I found her picture. I’ve got a six-month stack in my basement. She looked like society stuff, and I figured she’d be in if I looked long enough. Sure enough, she was in the reception line at a charity ball last March. Name’s Mrs. Lawrence Powers. He’s president of Haver National Bank.”
“Urn,” Calhoun said noncommittally.
“Had a cousin of mine in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles look up what kind of cars she and Cushman drive. Know what? Cushman doesn’t even own a car. With all that money.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know how to drive,” Calhoun said.
“Possible,” Joe said seriously. “But you know what else? Mrs. Powers owns a green Buick convertible.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“Don’t you read the papers? It was a green Buick that killed that old man.”
After a moment of silence, Calhoun said dryly, “You ought to be a detective.”
“You think it’s a pipe dream?” Joe asked.
Calhoun shrugged. “What difference does it make? I don’t know her, I don’t know Cushman, and I didn’t know the old man who was killed. Did you?”
Joe shook his head. A customer up the bar called for service, and he moved away to tend to him. As soon as he finished, he came back to Calhoun.
“I just had another pipe dream, too,” Joe said. “I thought about it before, but since you came in it’s getting stronger.”
“Yeah?”
“That night of the accident. You went out the front way just a couple of minutes before it happened. When you came back in, you said you didn’t see it. But now all of a sudden you’re loaded. I don’t mean to be personal, but it’s a long time since you laid anything bigger than a one on this bar.”
Calhoun frowned at him. “What’s the connection?”
“You haven’t been doing a little shaking down, have you? Without cutting in your old buddy who gave you the steer?”
Calhoun said coldly, “I told you before I haven’t sunk to blackmail yet. I don’t like the suggestion.”
“No offense meant,” Joe said with a humorless smile. “But you can’t blame me for asking. I’d hate to think I gave you a steer that paid off and you forgot my commission.”
“‘You didn’t,” Calhoun assured him. “If you want to go in for blackmail, work it yourself.”
Joe shook his head. “I’m strictly a finger man. But I don’t like to be crossed. Sure you don’t want to throw me a bone?”
Calhoun growled. “I’ll throw you five knuckles if you keep it up.”
Joe’s nostrils flared a little. “Let’s put it this way, Barney. If Cushman or Mrs. Powers did pay you off, they might get a little sore if the cops came nosing around anyway.”
“Why would they come nosing around?”
“I’m just sorehead enough to phone them an anonymous tip to look over her car. I told you I don’t like to be crossed.”
Calhoun’s eyes narrowed. Was it a bluff, he wondered? Silently he cursed his luck at having spent his last small bill at the previous stop. This was the first time all evening he’d laid more than a five on a bar.
He contemplated throwing the bartender a fifty-dollar bill to shut him up, but immediately realized that this would constitute admission that the man’s guess was right. And it couldn’t be anything but a guess. Even if the man carried out his threat to phone the police, nothing could be proved now that the car was repaired. He probably wouldn’t phone anyway. He was merely running a bluff on the chance that if he had guessed right, he could shake a commission from Calhoun. It was safer to risk Joe’s vindictiveness than to risk letting him know for certain that there were grounds for blackmail.
“You phone anybody you want, Joe,” Calhoun encouraged. “Meantime, why don’t you go to hell?”
Scooping up his bills and change, he walked out without leaving a tip.
Outside, he sat in his car moodily smoking a cigarette, thinking over the conversation. Eventually he decided he had taken the best possible action under the circumstances.
His desire to get drunk had passed. He started the car and headed for home.
19
Sunday evening Helena phoned Harry Cushman at his apartment.
“Thank God!” he said in a relieved tone when he recognized her voice. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all week.”
“I had to take a little trip,” she said enigmatically. “Did everything go well?”
“No trouble,” he said. “But I’ve been going crazy every minute since, wondering what was happening on your end.”
“Everything is under control,” she told him.
“You got him to New York all right?”
“I said everything is unde
r control.”
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Are you sure you told me everything? How’s it happen Calhoun didn’t raise his fee again for a service like this?”
“I don’t think we’d better discuss it over the phone, Harry.”
“Why not?” he asked. “They’re both private lines. There’s no operator to listen in on dial phones.”
She said, “I just don’t think we should.”
“Can I come over, then? Or can you come here?”
“Not tonight, Harry. I don’t think it would be wise until my business with the police is finished. I just phoned to let you know everything is all right. I’ll call you again in a day or two.”
“A day or two?” he complained. “I want to know the details of all this. I’ve got a dozen unanswered questions on my mind.”
“They’ll have to wait,” she said firmly. “We can’t afford to be seen together now. You wouldn’t want anyone to notice how closely your description fits Lawrence’s, would you?”
“Good God, no!” he said fervently.
“Then just be patient for a day or two, dear. I’ll phone you as soon as I think it’s safe.”
After she broke the connection, Helena dialed Alice’s home and told her she could come back to work the next morning.
Monday morning Helena met American Airlines flight 785 at the Buffalo airport. It came in on time at 9:24, and she waited patiently until the last passenger had come up the stairs.
Then she went to the American Airlines desk and inquired about the passenger list.
“He had a reservation on the flight,” the clerk told her. “Made from Buffalo at the same time he made his reservation to New York. But he didn’t verify it from that end and didn’t cancel either. Apparently he just didn’t show. There’d be a notation here if he’d called in to change his reservation to some other time.”
Helena managed to look puzzled. “Where can I send a telegram?” she asked.
The clerk told her and she sent a wire addressed to her husband from the airport. Then she went home and waited.
At noon she got a call from Western Union informing her that her telegram was undeliverable. Immediately she sent a wire of inquiry to convention headquarters. At one thirty a return wire informed her that her husband, though expected, had never checked in at the convention.
Before phoning the police, she practiced her worried-wife act on Alice by rushing into the kitchen and asking the maid what she thought of the situation. Apparently it was an impressive exhibition, for the maid became even more upset than Helena was pretending to be. She hung over Helena’s shoulder wringing her hands when Helena phoned the police.
Helena succeeded in putting over an excellent imitation of a desperately concerned woman holding her panic in check when she explained matters to the desk man at Police Headquarters. His tone was politely sympathetic when he told her the police would institute inquiries and inform her if anything turned up. He asked for a full description of her husband, including the clothing he wore the last time she saw him.
“A brown suit,” she started to say, then caught herself when she realized she ought to describe the clothing Harry Cushman wore on the plane rather than what her husband had worn that day. “I mean a light-gray suit, beige summer loafers, a light-blue shirt, and a maroon necktie.”
After she hung up, Alice said worriedly. “You got that all wrong, Mrs. Powers. The mister was wearing a brown suit and brown shoes that day.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Helena said imperiously. “That was to work in the morning. He changed before I took him to the plane.”
“He did?” Alice said doubtfully. “I thought when he come up for your handkerchief, he still had the brown suit on. Maybe I was mistaken.”
“You were,” Helena said in a firm tone. “Let’s not confuse the police by giving different descriptions of his clothing. He wore a gray suit and beige shoes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Alice said.
Before the afternoon was over, Helena began to wish she hadn’t called Alice back to work. The girl was in such an emotional state over the disappearance of the master of the house that she was incapable of doing any work. She seemed to feel responsible for solacing her mistress, and went about it by following Helena everywhere she went, staring at her with large, mistily sympathetic eyes.
Shortly after dinner that evening the doorbell rang. Alice went to answer it and returned to the fron room followed by a stocky, middle-aged man dressed in a neat blue business suit.
“Sergeant Hanover of the police, ma’am,” Alice announced in a tremulous voice.
“Good evening, Sergeant,” Helena said graciously. “Will you have a seat?”
“Thank you, ma’am,” the sergeant said, gingerly seating himself on the edge of a chair. “I guess you know I’m here about your husband.”
“You have news of him?” Helena asked.
“No, ma’am. At least not about where he is. We’ve got some sort of negative information.”
“Oh? What?”
“He caught the plane to New York you said you put him on, all right. Flight Four Thirty-two American. He was on the passenger list, and one of the stewardesses remembered him well enough to describe him. That flight lands at Newark Airport, you know. It came in right on time at five forty-five P.M.”
When he paused, Helena said, “Yes? Go on.”
“We got in touch with the Newark police by phone,” Sergeant Hanover said reluctantly. “Had them check the airport. You know those dime and quarter lockers they have at airports?”
Helena nodded.
“Well, if stuff isn’t taken out in twenty-four hours or another coin isn’t put in, they remove the stuff and put it in storage. Your husband’s bag was in storage.”
Helena widened her eyes. “What could that possibly mean?”
“Looks like he meant to go somewhere in Newark before grabbing a subway or taxi over to Manhattan,” the sergeant said uncomfortably. “He wouldn’t have checked his bag unless he expected to come back. He disappeared in Newark. Never checked into the hotel room he’d reserved in Manhattan, never showed at the convention.”
Helena made her voice faint. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Not necessarily,” Sergeant Hanover said quickly. “It could be amnesia or something. We’re having the morgues in the area checked as a matter of routine, of course, but we’re also checking hospitals. No use giving up hope until we know more. A picture of your husband would help in the search.”
“Of course,” Helena said. She crossed to a bookcase and returned with an eight-by-ten portrait mounted on a cardboard frame. “Will this do? It’s five years old, but he hasn’t changed a great deal except he’s a little grayer.”
“It’s fine,” the sergeant said, examining it. “Ah—there’s one more thing, Mrs. Powers. Has your husband been depressed, or been acting strange in any way lately?”
Helena resumed her seat. “How do you mean, Sergeant?”
“Well, has he mentioned any worries?” After a pause he said hesitantly, “Financial worries, for instance?”
Helena frowned. Glancing at Alice, who had been standing near the door taking all this in, she said, “Isn’t it past your time to go home, Alice?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the maid said. “I thought tonight I’d stay around in case you need me. I can stay all night if you like.”
“I’ll be all right,” Helena said. “You run along and come back in the morning.”
“All right, ma’am,” Alice said in a reluctant tone. “Will you call me at home if you hear anything, though?”
“Of course. Run along now, and stop worrying about me. I’ll manage fine.”
Helena waited until the maid had got her purse from the kitchen, passed through the front room again, and closed the front door behind her. Then she said coolly, “Are you asking about his finances because he’s a banker, Sergeant?”
“Of course not,” Hanover protested. “It’s a routine ques
tion in all missing-persons cases.”
“He hasn’t been embezzling from the bank,” Helena said quietly. “My husband is a completely honest man.”
“I didn’t mean that, ma’am,” the sergeant said, flushing. “I meant any kind of worries.”
Helena looked thoughtful.
“His health all right?” the sergeant prompted.
“Oh, yes. His physical health.”
Sergeant Hanover raised his eyebrows. “How about his mental health?”
Helena considered the question before saying with an air of frankness, “There’s nothing wrong with Lawrence’s mind. At least not the sort of thing that requires psychiatric treatment. But my husband is fifty years old. He’s reached that age some psychologists refer to as male change of life. Do you know what I mean?”
Sergeant Hanover nodded understandingly. “Been a lot of magazine articles on the subject. When a guy wants a last fling at romance, just to prove he’s not getting old.”
“You express it better than I did,” Helena said. “For some time I’ve suspected Lawrence of having a mistress in Washington, D.C.”
“Washington?” Hanover said with surprise.
Helena smiled. “You expected me to say New York? Sorry to complicate things for you, but Lawrence rarely visits New York. He flies to Washington several times a year.”
“He could have had her meet him,” the sergeant mused. “Or better yet, caught a plane out of Newark Airport for Washington five minutes after he landed, just to throw us off the trail. You know this woman’s name?”
Helena shook her head. “It’s only a suspicion, Sergeant. Lipstick on his pocket handkerchiefs when he returns from Washington. A bill in the mail once for a jeweled bracelet I never saw. Things like that. I never discussed it with him.”
“Why not?” Hanover asked with raised brows. “My wife would clobber me if she suspected another woman.”
“I followed the standard advice of the lovelorn columns,” Helena said with a gentle smile. “I tried to make myself more attractive and more of a companion. I wanted to win him back, not force him back to me.”
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