The 9 Dark Hours

by Lenore Glen Offord

  I considered this vision, and could not restrain a grin.

  “Well, thank heaven,” said Barney piously, “you are human after all. Do you know that’s the first time I knew you could smile?—Seems as if that picture made Colly a little nervous about art in general. He’s been looking narrowly at the walls of these apartments.”

  “I saw him,” I said, putting out my cigarette. “But what has that to do with you, and my bags being hidden, and the Johnsons’ baby?”

  Barney waited a moment as if coming to a decision. Then he looked full at me, his light blue eyes cold and remote. “The Johnsons’ baby,” he said, “is little Melissa Cleveland, who was kidnapped from her home on Pacific Avenue, last Tuesday morning.”

  He shut his mouth with a snap, and waited for that to sink in. “What? But—but nobody’s baby has been kidnapped. It would have been in the papers.”

  “Not in this case. The people who took her did a slick job, so slick that their very competence was a warning. You remember the de Tristan case, and how clumsy that kidnapper was? There was none of that this time, and when these people threatened that at the first movement of the police or the F.B.I., at the first hint of publicity, the child would die—the parents believed them.”

  This sudden change of pace left me breathless. He’d succeeded in making me laugh, and probably figured that I’d be more malleable from now on; so, it was time to get down to business. His voice had taken on the flat certainty of a police officer’s verbal report.

  It carried some of the same conviction, for I felt no doubt that a baby had actually been stolen.

  “The parents let themselves be bluffed?” I said, with the hint of scorn all too easy for those who have never been in such a hideous position.

  Barney looked at the carpet. “I think they were right,” he said. “They didn’t make the mistake of underrating their opponent.”

  I couldn’t make out what was behind the reserve in his voice.

  “But what was there—what made them think—”

  “You might as well know what we’re up against,” he said. “I’ll start with last Tuesday morning, though the story begins a long way back of that; but it came out in the open on Tuesday— Lord,” he added in a whisper, “six days of it!”

  “Well?” I said, after a wait.

  “Well. It was like this.”

  He began to talk. As one brusque, unemotional sentence followed another, slowly the appalling picture became clear.

  * * *

  ...It was like this. In San Francisco there was a man named Walter Cleveland, a wealthy and prominent man who was managing editor of the Eagle, an evening newspaper. For several months the paper had been carrying on a crusade against an enemy. There had been vague threats of retaliation made, but they didn’t mention Cleveland or his family; then the enemy struck, and the manner of the blow made it plain that this crime had been carefully planned—perhaps for weeks in advance...

  * * *

  “Why didn’t they go and sock the enemy?” I put in here.

  “They don’t know who he is,” said Barney briefly.

  * * *

  ...The Clevelands, he said, lived in a big, plain, old-fashioned home out on Pacific Avenue. Their servants had been with them for many years, and were undoubtedly loyal to the Clevelands. The one member of the household who received not only loyalty but worship was the eleven-month-old baby, Melissa.

  There was one employee newer than the rest: Patsy Gavin, a trained nurse who had full care of the child. Personally, Barney said, he was as sure of her as of the rest; he’d known her from her probationer days—had, in fact, recommended her for the position.

  The household, though a wealthy one, was industrious, and clocks could have been set by the regularity of its habits. Mr. Cleveland went to work early; his wife, who was on numerous charitable committees and took them seriously, usually drove away in her own car soon after nine o’clock.

  There was a three-car garage behind the house, set rather far back on the property. The doors were left open after the master’s and mistress’s cars had gone; the garage was in plain sight from the kitchen, where Adams, the old chauffeur, habitually went for a mid-morning cup of coffee. He had kept it in sight on Tuesday morning. He and the cook had watched Patsy Gavin, pretty and trim in her nurse’s hat and cape of dark blue lined with scarlet, carrying the little Melissa out to the garage where the perambulator was kept. This morning outing was also habitual. The baby, Barney said, was an appealing little creature, friendlier than most; she would go to anyone who held out his arms.

  Miss Gavin disappeared into the garage. A minute or so later an automobile horn sounded in the street, and she came to the door and waved. At this distance, only her gay costume identified her positively. Adams thought that one of her young men friends had dropped by for a brief visit, for she went down the drive toward the street, her head bent over the baby in her arms.

  That was the last sight anyone had of Melissa Cleveland. The upstairs maid saw the woman in the nurse’s cape getting into a dark sedan—a medium-priced car like thousands of others—speaking to the man behind the wheel, and settling herself in comfort as they drove off. It all looked very normal and casual. Nobody had an idea that anything was wrong until Adams returned to the garage, fifteen minutes later.

  He saw that a rear window had been forced; and he found Patsy Gavin sick and dizzy, just recovering from a rabbit punch which had left her unconscious. She had been attacked the minute she stepped inside the door, and the only impression she retained was of “seeing herself in a long mirror.” The woman who had impersonated her had been prepared in advance with a duplicate of Miss Gavin’s uniform. That, of course, pointed to a careful study of the household and its routine, which must have called for weeks of preparation.

  It was so slick and cool as to be almost foolproof. The lost quarter of an hour gave the criminals a chance to disappear without leaving a single clue—except the inevitable kidnap note.

  The note, found in the garage, was the more terrifying because it was so businesslike. It was printed in purple ink from rubber-stamp letters, the sort that are sold in sets by Woolworth’s and the stationers. The wording was brief and definite. In effect, it said that if one word were spoken to police, Federal agents, newspapers or radio, the baby would die at once. Instructions would follow. If the Clevelands were willing to negotiate, a certain advertisement should be placed in the Personal column of the Eagle.

  The servants, who read the note first, kept their heads. They didn’t touch the paper (a useless precaution, since it proved to be devoid of fingerprints) and they notified no one but the parents. Mr. and Mrs. Cleveland were, of course, nearly crazed with grief and terror. The editor, thinking that he recognized the hand of his unknown and terribly capable enemy, decided to obey these dictates but to fight with his own weapons.

  There was more to it than just rescuing the child, Barney said with a momentary somber gaze at me. The enemy had been forced into this move by a long chain of circumstances. He was risking his own discovery and punishment for other crimes—if he should be caught; but that discovery had, through the Eagle, seemed imminent at any rate, and now he had pulled a winning trump out of the deck by getting possession of the child and bargaining with her life.

  It was a diabolically clever move, which took danger into account but turned it to an advantage. The Clevelands could fight, but all the obvious weapons were denied them. They might, without the help of the police, attempt to trace a dark Chevrolet sedan whose number nobody had noticed, or the purchase of a nurse’s cape and hat or the materials for a facsimile, or a pair of gloves with purple ink on the fingers. They might, in utter secrecy, attempt to comb every mountain cabin in the Sierras and every house in any one of a dozen cities; but these impossibilities could not even be considered.

  Conversely, they might pursue the search, already begun, for the anonymous enemy. If they should do so, their baby’s life would not be worth a plugged nickel
. In his own territory, the enemy would detect any signs of investigation...

  * * *

  “So,” I said, “they did nothing?”

  Barney turned on me one of those sober glances, focused on a point somewhere behind me. “They did plenty,” he said. “Walter Cleveland went to every other newspaper in town and told them what had happened.”

  “He called that keeping the affair secret?”

  “You don’t know newspapers. If they agree to keep still, they’d make a clam look gabby. And, since they were naturally anxious to help, he got two or three of the best crime reporters on each paper to work with him.”

  “You among ’em, do I gather?”

  “Well, no, I’m here in another capacity.” Barney got up and made a slow, meditative circle of the room. I had been spellbound—and well he knew it—by the smooth and circumstantial story just finished, but now he seemed to feel I should be satisfied.

  And, of course, that was only one small part of it. My breath quickened inexplicably as I came out, rather sharply, with the obvious question.

  “And who are you?”

  FIVE

  Eat with the Devil

  HIS HEAD WAS AVERTED, but in the cheek nearer me I could see the vertical furrow deepening as if he smiled. I had time to think again what an utterly unknown quantity I was faced with: a man who had lied to me and tried his best to make me believe I was crazy, whose story would be supported only by his word. Listen I might, with an interest nobody could help, but could I let myself give way to instinctive belief and—trust? There was a proverb about that, or a bit from W. Shakespeare; it kept jigging in my head, something about the need of a long spoon for those who would eat—

  “Who am I?” Barney repeated thoughtfully. “If I tell you the exact truth, you may not like it.”

  “Give it a try.”

  “I’m a fruit farmer,” he said with an owlish look.

  At least five bright rejoinders at once suggested themselves. I think I deserve credit for replying only, “Oh, I see.”

  “Do you? Well, what’s the matter, doesn’t it seem likely?”

  “Likely as anything else, I suppose. From your looks you might be a mounted policeman, or a wrestler, or—a crook.”

  “Thank you,” the man said gravely. “What I look like doesn’t matter. I’ve known Walter Cleveland for some years.”

  “And that capacity you spoke of?”

  He grinned again. “I represent the sapper division, the rear-guard action; it’s my job only because I haven’t been around here much in the last ten years, and there’s a good chance of my staying unrecognized. And—until you came, I was the leader of a forlorn-hope party.”

  “Until I came. You mean you hadn’t known the baby was here?”

  “I’ve been here since Friday afternoon, keeping the closest possible watch on your next-door neighbors. In that time there hasn’t been the slightest indication that they ever so much as saw a small child. I thought I was watching an empty rat-hole, but it was the only lead we had.”

  “I don’t see how a kidnapped baby could be kept here, in an ordinary apartment house like El Central.”

  “Not so ordinary,” the man said with a peculiar twinkle in his eye. “It would have been safe enough, except for one thing. Don’t you see? With no publicity of any kind, the kidnappers could work the purloined-letter stunt, keeping a child—probably drugged so it wouldn’t make them conspicuous—right in town, under the noses of the pursuers. It might have worked perfectly, except for the one thing they hadn’t counted on.”

  “You, I suppose.”

  “We-e-ell—yes,” he admitted, in a very fair imitation of Charlie McCarthy. “Once upon a time, as you guessed, I used to be a cop.”

  “Shucks,” I murmured, “I hoped it was a wrestler.”

  “Wouldn’t football do as a substitute?” he inquired anxiously. “I was a fairly good tackle once. If I knew you better, Miss Ferris, I would show you my biceps.”

  Curse the man, he made me laugh in spite of myself; and, common sense told me, that wouldn’t do. With every involuntary smile, every crosscurrent of sympathy between our minds, my guard was being insensibly relaxed. I fought, but I felt it slipping.

  “We can skip that,” I said. “Go on from there.”

  “I didn’t care much for the police force as a life job,” he said, “but I made some useful friends.”

  “Don’t tell me O’Shea was on the force!”

  I remembered that cold flat face with its white eyes, and was once more on guard.

  “No, no. Quite the—well, as I was saying, we figured that with my peculiar background I might be able to work from within.

  “I could, because of an amazing stroke of luck. It was coming to us, because it was the first one we’d had. All Tuesday and Wednesday I nosed around on the Embarcadero, and the lower reaches of Pacific and Broadway, and the cafes south of the Slot. There were a few people down there who owed me a good turn. Never mind how I ran across Colly, or how he got to know what I wanted; but we met privately on Wednesday night.

  “He has excellent reasons for wanting to stay out of sight in this affair, but he had an even stronger reason for taking part in it. Seems there’s a gentleman named Jay Ruber, who has a girlfriend called Gertie. Gertie has a brother, Fingers Lossert—a black-browed little fellow, with a short nose.” He waited expectantly.

  “Is that supposed to mean anything to me?”

  “Perhaps not. Maybe you’ve never seen him—Those three had done Colly some dirt, it seemed, and he didn’t take it in a Christian spirit. He was eager to get something on them, and with that end in view, he’d been quietly keeping an eye on the three.

  “Things get around, among his friends. They wouldn’t dream of telling these things to the police, they’d spit in the eye of a Fed, and they have no love for reporters; but Colly knew something, and when he was assured he could trust me, he gave out with his story.

  “It was known, somehow, that Jay and Fingers and Gertie were planning some big job, and Colly was interested. They’d never let their friends know, incidentally, what it was to be, but he found out where Fingers had holed up, right after Christmas. It was a room on the fourth floor of this building.

  A face, dimly seen at the time, came back into my memory. “Spelvin?” I said incredulously.

  “Yes. Didn’t you ever wonder about him?”

  “I—well, I did think it might be funny if his name were George Spelvin. And yet, there might be people who are really called that.”

  “He isn’t. He—or someone who was laughing up his sleeve—picked out that name as a variant on John Smith or Richard Roe. I suppose they have their right to a bit of quiet amusement on the side.”

  “But—they’re all so respectable here! They mind their own business, and nobody goes in for noisy parties.”

  He was laughing at me openly, but I was too puzzled to resent it. “Didn’t you ever take a look at your neighbors? How come you chose Mrs. Pitman to appeal to, earlier tonight?”

  The feeling that I was being dense bothered me. “Because she’s the only one of my neighbors I’ve ever spoken to. We met on the roof hanging out our wash.”

  “Don’t tell me she does her own laundry?”

  “Well, it was mostly chiffon panties, apricot and nile green, with lace. She seems to be well off; she had on a pair of diamond bracelets that looked—”

  The sentence faltered as a wild idea came into my head. I stared at him, frowning.

  “Do you want it straight?” he said soberly, but with laughter in his eyes. “Very well. Mrs. Pitman wouldn’t open her door to anyone after nine o’clock at night. She’s the mistress of one of the town’s most prominent businessmen. Everybody suspects it, but she wouldn’t want him caught in the act.”

  My expression must have been a study, for he grinned more broadly. “That’s why Mrs. Ulrichson and Bassett both believed me, when I told ’em I was after someone’s husband. They didn’t want to le
t me up here, but my borrowed credentials were too good, and they were scared. I promised to hush it up if they’d cooperate, but to raise a howl if they didn’t. These landlords are anxious to look respectable, no matter how much they know about their tenants—and they try not to know too much.”

  “These landlords!” I tried not to gasp and splutter, but it was hard. “Then—all the other tenants are—They want to look respectable. That’s why she came down on the rent... ”

  “Uh-huh,” said Barney, indulgently amused. “Now you get it.”

  “Good grief,” I added faintly, “of course, you must have thought I—all you knew about C. Ferris was the name—” Horrified laughter threatened to overcome me.

  “ ‘Making som mistakes, netcheral,’ ” he murmured diffidently.

  “Oh, don’t apologize.” I had to give way. “It’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me. I thought Roger was crazy when he warned me.”

  “Who’s Roger?” The question was casual.

  “A man at my office,” I said; and a disloyalty of which I was immediately ashamed made me add, “He tells you the plots of movies.”

  “He knows this apartment house?”

  “Oh, no. He was just anxious about my living alone, and I swore the neighborhood was pure as a lily!”

  “Probably most of it is. The houses to the north and south may be straight enough. How’d you happen to pick this one?”

  “Chance and a low rent.” My voice was still quivering. “But surely Mrs. Ulrichson isn’t so broad-minded that she’d harbor criminals?”

  “No,” said Barney, and all at once the amusement left his face. “We’ll get back to it now. I took Colly into my confidence about the kidnapping. He said it might be the job Jay and Gertie were planning. He had a hunch that there was someone else involved, who was keeping out of sight, but that wasn’t certain. The job could have been all their own idea; it sounded like the way they work together. It seemed like a hot lead. As soon as Colly gave me the tip, we managed to plant some of the newspaper men in the adjoining buildings; and I, as the stranger with handy police connections, got in here.