Four Lost Ladies (The Hildegarde Withers Mysteries)

by Stuart Palmer

  After the dessert she tried again, and finally got through to Probationer Fink, who announced in somewhat strained tones that the Inspector was on a long-distance call and that three others were waiting for him. “Any message?”

  “Just tell him that Miss Withers is going to go picking flowers,” the schoolteacher said. “He’ll understand.”

  That was one night when the dinner dishes were left unstacked on the table. Miss Withers and Jeeps went tearing downtown in state, with Talley sitting between them in the rear of the taxi and trying his best to bark at passing traffic out of both windows at once.

  The building, when they finally found it, was a narrow, dingy four-story, standing a little askew in the no-man’s-land where the Village merges into the lower west-side water front. A single bulb, festooned with last year’s cobwebs, burned in the lower hall, and Jeeps had to use a pocket-flash to squint at the half-obliterated names on the eight mailboxes. But Miss Withers and Talley were already hurrying up the stairs. “Don’t you hear it, child?”

  From somewhere high above them came a feeble, irritable knife blade of sound. They raced to the top floor three abreast, where the two women hesitated. But Talley tightened his leash, pointing with his whiskery nose in the direction of the door at the rear of the hall. The faint animal noise was a little louder now, but there was a hoarse, gasping note in it. Miss Withers rapped sharply. “She must be out,” Jeeps deduced. “No light shows through the transom.”

  But the schoolteacher shook her head. “Something’s wrong. That dog in there has been barking and howling until it’s almost lost its voice.” She rattled the knob again.

  “There must be a manager somewhere,” the girl said. “But it wasn’t marked on any of the bells down in the lobby.”

  “We haven’t time for that.” Miss Withers squatted down and tried a hairpin on the lock. Then from her handbag she took a knife blade and a strip of celluloid, equally without result. “These Yale locks,” she murmured.

  Beside them Talleyrand was whining, evidently made uneasy by the noise of the dog inside—or something. The schoolteacher stood up. “Young woman, have you ever read Oliver Twist?” She was looking thoughtfully at the half-open transom.

  “Why, yes.” Jeeps suddenly gasped. “But you don’t think I’m going through that little-bitty thing, do you?”

  “Not you. Come here, Talley.” Jeeps watched, bug-eyed, as Miss Withers started to hoist the bewildered poodle up into the air. Then she caught hold, and together they shoved poor Talleyrand ignominiously through the transom into the room. They heard the soft clump as he hit the floor.

  The schoolteacher leaned close to the panel. “Talley? Come, boy! Come here to me. Here Talley, here Talley.”

  There was the sound of bewildered whining inside. “Come on, Talley!” Miss Withers tried to whistle.

  Then they heard the click of the dog’s claws on the floor as he trotted away. There was a pause, and then the scrabble of running feet, a grunt—and suddenly two paws and a bewhiskered apricot face showed briefly in the transom opening. Talley hung there for a moment, and then dropped back. He barked hopefully.

  “Not that way!” his mistress said. She rattled the knob. “Come on, Talley boy, come on out!”

  “Maybe it’s bolted,” Jeeps whispered. “Aren’t you asking a good deal?”

  “Talley, come here!”

  There was a pause, a brief yip of excitement, and then the grating sound of ivory teeth on the knob. The two women waited, not even daring to breathe—and then the door opened. Talleyrand came proudly out, pausing like an acrobat for his bow and his applause. But his audience had pushed past him, into the darkened room.

  “I’m medium scared,” Jeeps announced.

  The air was stifling and stale, and Miss Withers’s analytical nose decided that there were traces of dog, food, chocolate, perfume, dust, and tobacco, among other smells.

  “Look!” Jeeps cried, and grabbed her arm. In the darkness two reddish eyes gleamed fiercely. Then there was another outburst of hoarse, wheezing barks.

  “It’s only her dog,” Miss Withers whispered. Then she found the light switch. They were standing in the midst of a big square room filled with furniture which was either Louis Quinze or Balaban and Katz, she couldn’t decide. Anyway there was a good deal of gilt. It appeared that a minor cyclone had passed through here some time ago, leaving a good deal of feminine wearing apparel in its wake.

  From beneath a love-seat the rat-like Chihuahua glared at them, and then finally flung defiance to Talley in a yapping attack. Obviously deeply regretting the inflexible tradition that male dogs shall not chew up female dogs, the poodle retreated with lofty dignity and then suddenly leaped to the eminence of a large radio-phonograph, where he pretended to look for a flea.

  “Look at that dog,” the schoolteacher said. “The poor little thing is shaking. Come here, Sugar.”

  But Sugar retreated, snarling, under the love-seat again. The two women went on into the bedroom, where by the look of things two cyclones and a tornado had had a free-for-all. Stockings, underwear, slips, girdles, and dresses covered the rococo bed and every other available piece of furniture. The bed was unmade, and dingy peach-colored silk sheets and a satin coverlet were wadded into a heap. In the closet, stacked almost to the ceiling, were five pieces of luggage marked H.B. in gold. They were empty, but the rest of the space was crowded with smart new suits and dresses—the wardrobe that had been poor Harriet Bascom’s. It was the right place, and the right Flower Quinn.

  “Suppose she comes back and catches us?” Jeeps wanted to know. “Do we tell her believe it or not we were waiting for a streetcar?”

  The schoolteacher, who had been poking idly through the drawers of the vanity chest, looked up and said softly, “We might ask her what she was doing with these little toys.” She showed a battered leather jewel-case which she had ruthlessly pried open with a nail-file. In it were a small pearl-handled .38 automatic, a loaded leather sap, and a small square box almost full of white powders individually wrapped. “You are getting a glimpse of the seamy side of life,” Miss Withers told the girl. “That’s the way chloral hydrate comes. It’s knockout drops—the Inspector showed me some once in his office.”

  “Nice people,” Jeeps said. “If—if you hear any odd sounds, it’s just my teeth chattering.”

  But Miss Withers said that wild horses couldn’t drag her away before she had found out everything there was to find about Flower Quinn. And so far they had found nothing to prove her suspicion that the woman had been a tool of Mr. Nemo. She still might have wandered into that auction by accident, for all the proof anybody had.

  The schoolteacher had always been of the opinion that it was the kitchen of a house that told most about its occupants. By that token, Miss Quinn ran true to form. The sink in the little kitchenette was piled with dirty dishes, some evidently of several days standing, and the cupboard shelves were a litter of half-emptied boxes and cans, strewed every which way. On the stove stood a full percolator and a frying pan containing bacon and three eggs half-cooked and now congealed in grease. There were four pieces of bread in the oven, faintly browned and now hard and cold.

  Talleyrand still kept himself aloof on the radio-phonograph, but now the little Chihuahua sidled into the kitchenette, relaxing her suspicions enough to suggest that she would like to be fed. “That creature has gone hungry all day,” said Miss Withers, as she watched the spider-like beast bury its nose in a plate of salmon. “The Quinn woman must have left in a tearing hurry.”

  “A good idea,” Jeeps said. “Let’s us, huh?”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” the schoolteacher admitted. “It looks like a job for the Inspector from here on. Probably they’ll assign a policeman to watch the place and pick her up when she comes home. She must intend to come home, or she wouldn’t have left the dog.” Miss Withers went around turning out lights. The place had been a disappointment—there was a dearth of real clues. No personal letters, no cancele
d checks, no little black book filled with telephone numbers. She picked up Talleyrand’s dragging leash. “Very well, Jeeps. Look out and see if the coast is clear.”

  The girl cautiously opened the door and peered out into the hall. “All quiet,” she said. Then suddenly she whipped back into the room, closing the door and leaning against it. “A man!” she whispered. “Coming up the stairs two steps at a time—I just caught a glimpse.”

  “Probably somebody for the front apartment.”

  But a heavy, brisk tread came down the hall.

  “Into the kitchen!” whispered the schoolteacher, picking Talley up bodily in her arms. She turned out the living-room light. “Grab the little dog, quick!”

  A key was already rattling in the lock as the two women huddled among the pots and pans, in pitchy darkness. The Chihuahua whined. “Hold its muzzle, child, so it won’t betray us!”

  The lock rattled again, as if the man with the key was not accustomed to it. Then suddenly it clicked, and there was the creak of the opening door. Surprisingly a low whistle sounded.

  Miss Withers thought wistfully of the little gun hidden in the bedroom. Clutching the wriggling and uncomfortable poodle with one arm, she felt around behind her and found a potato masher.

  The whistle sounded again, louder. Someone had taken a step or two into the living-room, but had not touched the light switch.

  Suddenly Jeeps let go with a bloodcurdling scream. The poodle twisted out of Miss Withers’s grasp, barking frantically. In trying to grab him she knocked down an avalanche of pots and pans, and then tripped over his leash and fell headlong. Somebody stepped on Talley’s paw, and he yelped Bloody Murder. Then the front door slammed.

  “It bit me!” Jeeps was moaning. Then she turned on the light. Talley had prudently retired under the sink. The girl’s thumb was streaming blood, and her face was white as paper and twisted with pain and remorse. “I didn’t mean to scream and spoil everything, but it bit me!”

  Somehow Miss Withers scrambled to her feet and ran across the living-room, flung open the front door. Two flights down she could hear heavy running footsteps on the stairs, and then the slam of the front door. Somewhere an automobile motor roared, gears clashing.

  The Chihuahua was gone.

  When they got down to the street it was bare and deserted. In the soft, inch-deep snow along the curb a double line of automobile tires had curved in and out again—new tires, with deep, clear-cut diamond treads. But even as Miss Withers peered hopefully down at them great soft flakes of snow began to fall, blotting out the marks.

  So near it had been.

  “Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born. … ”

  —Matthew Arnold

  13

  THAT NIGHT MISS HILDEGARDE WITHERS had the dream again, and must have been talking and moaning in her sleep, for Talleyrand finally worked at her bedroom door until he got it open and then trotted in to put his paws on the bed and nuzzle sympathetically at her face.

  Her first impulse, once bathed and clothed and in her right mind, was to call the Inspector and tell him about the anticlimax of last evening. But on the other hand, there were parts of the story she would just as soon not discuss over the telephone, especially through the official switchboard. Perhaps just this once he wouldn’t mind if she came down to the office.

  She was halfway to the subway before she remembered that she had meant to have a look around her doorway. Had there been a man in a gray overcoat talking to the doorman of the apartment house down the street, or hadn’t there? Anyway, it was too late to turn back now. She took the downtown subway and twenty minutes later marched a little diffidently into the Municipal Building.

  Whatever reception Miss Withers had expected, there was a surprise waiting for her. The brawny Miss Fink looked up and waved her on. “Go right in—we were just trying to get you on the phone.”

  She burst into the office. “Oscar, what do you think—”

  “What I think isn’t fit for publication,” he said. Behind the great mahogany desk the Inspector today somehow looked more like a sphinx than a leprechaun. Before him was a telegram, to which he pointed. “Read it. Read it and weep.”

  It was a collect straight message, filed at Miami, Florida, at eight-thirty that morning, addressed to the Inspector.

  PLEASE IMMEDIATELY STOP SEARCH AND ALL PUBLICITY INVOLVING MY NAME. VERY EMBARRASSED. I AM VERY HAPPILY MARRIED AND FOR PERSONAL REASONS DO NOT WANT ANY CONTACT WITH PAST. MY HUSBAND IS TRYING TO AVOID BEING SERVED WITH PAPERS IN CIVIL SUIT. TO PROVE IDENTITY SUGGEST CONTACT MISS H M WITHERS 32 W 74TH ST AND ASK HER IF SHE REMEMBERS THE TIME TABBY AND TOWSER GOT OUT OF THE CAGE. WHEN THE PRESENT SITUATION QUIETS DOWN WILL RETURN TO NEW YORK AND TAKE CARE OF THINGS. WILL ALSO COMMUNICATE WITH MY NIECE AND NAMESAKE ALICE D. IN BAGLEY’S MILLS PA. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHY I OMIT MARRIED NAME AND PRESENT TEMPORARY ADDRESS.

  ALICE DAVIDSON

  “Oh!” said Miss Withers, sinking suddenly into a chair.

  “Well, what about it?”

  “It—it must be genuine,” she said softly. “Because nobody else would know about the funny names Alice had for her lovebirds. That was one of the things I wrote down in the black leather notebook where I keep the dossiers of the missing women.”

  “Well, scratch Alice Davidson.” The Inspector shook his head. “It’s what I’ve said all along—that your four missing women were probably just breaking ties with the past and dropping out of sight for reasons of their own. But I did hope, up until now, that maybe I was wrong and you were right.”

  She smiled wanly. “Thank you, Oscar. It—it’s worse than you think. We can scratch Ethel Brinker, too.” She took the letter from her handbag and handed it over to him together with the dog’s pedigree and registration papers.

  “Two down and two to go.” Piper shook his head. “Maybe I better not even wait for the hearing before the board. Maybe I better quit right now and go looking for a job as night watchman.”

  “Oscar,” she spoke up, “do you suppose there’s any chance that the signature on that letter could be forged? Suppose somebody got hold of the pedigree and the registration, and then traced or copied it?”

  “No, and again no,” the Inspector told her. “You’re grabbing at straws. I’ve had enough experience with handwriting to tell you right now that the two Ethel Brinker signatures on the dog registration and the Ethel Brinker Brown signature on the letter were all written by the same hand, though they’re just different enough to prove they weren’t traced.”

  “Oh!” and she subsided. “But there are still two other women that we haven’t heard from. And Harriet—you yourself were beginning to think yesterday that there was something very wrong about her death—the window, and all the rest of it.” She plunged into a breathless recital of last night’s adventures downtown in the Village.

  Piper shook his head. “So what does it add up to? Flower Quinn, a retired hookshop madam, worked for a while in the beauty shop at the Grandee. When she heard about the suicide she was just smart enough to remember that Miss Bascom had a nice new wardrobe, so she fished around and found out when the auction of the luggage was to take place, and bought the stuff. Yesterday something came up and she had to be away from home all day—so she sent some friend of hers with a key to stop in and take her dog out for a little exercise.”

  “But, Oscar! The man ran away.”

  “Who wouldn’t? No wonder he got out of there fast when he heard screams and all the commotion you made in the kitchenette. I think I would myself. Besides, any pal of Flower’s is probably the type character who doesn’t want to get mixed up in anything where the law might be involved.”

  “You aren’t going to arrest the woman? After all, she had a gun and things hidden in her jewel case.”

  “Yeah—and you had no legal right to be in the apartment. We can’t go in there without a search warrant, and we can’t get that on this kind of evidence. All I can do is to have Flower Quinn brought in
for questioning, and she hasn’t broken any law in giving a false address and changing from one taxi to another in Grand Central.”

  “Oh, dear. Perhaps you’re right—”

  Then the Inspector turned to face the woman who stood in the doorway. “Yes, Fink? What is it now?”

  “Will you accept a call from a Mrs. Carter, in Phoenix, Arizona? It’s collect.”

  “Oh, sure, sure!” Then Piper waved his arm. “Put her on! I accept collect calls from everybody, anywhere!”

  Miss Withers slumped in her chair. How she would have liked to hold both hands over her ears, or to rush out of the room! But these were her own chickens coming home to roost. This was the final result of her great project, on which she had expended so much time, effort, and money. The explosion she had counted on was going off with the feeble pop of a soap bubble.

  “Yes, Piper speaking. What did you say your name was again, please? Mae Carter, Mae with an e. Okay.” There was a considerable pause. “Now, Mrs. Carter, don’t take it like that. It was only—” Another pause. “Why, some of your friends here were worried about you, and feared you might have met with foul play. Yes, I see. Of course. Just a minute—hold the line, please.”

  He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to the schoolteacher. “She says that after she won that radio jackpot and all the prizes she was so pestered with begging calls and letters that she was almost out of her mind. Even after she came to New York people were still trying to horn in on the bonanza. She married and went out west, and now she’s not only afraid that those confounded posters will start the commotion all over again, but that her husband’s people and her new friends will get wise to the fact that she really isn’t a woman of means, she’s just a nobody who had a bit of luck.”

  But the schoolteacher was on her feet. “Wait, Oscar! It all sounds very glib and convincing, but just ask her to prove she’s the real Mae Carter. Ask her to describe the purchase she left at Altman’s for alterations and never picked up. And ask her what was the amount of her deposit account at Macy’s!”