I remained at the road, watching. The woman took a key from her pocket and unlocked a small, padlocked gate at the rear of the grounds. She snapped the lock shut again and disappeared into the house.
I perched myself on top of an old-fashioned rail fence to think over what I had seen. The woman, whoever she was, obviously lived at the estate. Yet the cheap quality of her clothing suggested that she could not be the owner of such an expensive establishment. I concluded she must be a domestic servant.
Far over the hills in a lonely grove of pines stood Oaklands Cemetery. On either side of Chicken Run Road stretched dense woods, a growth that crept to the very boundaries of the Oaklands Estate. It would be possible for a person to flee from the cemetery to the very door of the estate without once leaving the shelter of trees.
I slid down from the fence. It would do no good to question the woman. Rather, if she were guilty, questions might serve to place her on the alert. Far better, I reasoned, to bide my time.
I’d catch the first bus into town and then return in the evening with Jack to stake out the place.
When I returned home, I found Mrs. Timms in a most discouraged mood. There had been no news about the fate of my father.
“I’ve been worried about you too, Jane,” Mrs. Timms confessed. “Where did you go after you left the Examiner office?”
I told Mrs. Timms about my trip to Matilda Mortimer’s garage and, later on, the mysterious woman I’d followed to the Oaklands Estate.
“I plan to go back there tonight,” I concluded. “For the first time since Dad disappeared, I feel I may have stumbled onto a valuable clue.”
Mrs. Timms looked troubled. “But Jane,” she protested, “you can’t go to the estate alone.”
“I don’t intend to,” I said. “I’m sure Jack will come with me.”
Except that, when I called the Examiner office, Jack was still out chasing a story. Shep had gone with him.
“Never mind,” I told Mrs. Timms. “Jack can’t go, but I’m sure Florence will accompany me.”
But Flo couldn’t come, either. Mrs. Radcliff was in the throes of preparations for the St. Luke’s Christmas Pageant the following evening, and Flo was apparently the only person in a fifty-mile radius qualified to hem robes for the angel choir in keeping with Mrs. Radcliff’s exacting requirements.
“I’ll not have you wandering the countryside alone,” Mrs. Timms insisted when I told her that neither Jack nor Flo could accompany me. “When your father comes back, I couldn’t face him if something should have happened to you—"
“But I don’t wish to call the police just yet, Mrs. Timms. I’ve no real evidence. Will you come with me?”
Mrs. Timms hesitated. She is not a woman who shares my hankering for adventure.
“I’ll go with you, Jane,” Mrs. Timms said at last. “It’s better than sitting here alone and worrying. Shall we start soon?”
“Not until after dark,” I said. “One can’t expect a ghost to show up in broad daylight.”
“A ghost!” Mrs. Timms quavered. “Jane, what are you letting me in for?”
“Frankly, I don’t know. Some strange things have been going on at the Oaklands Estate. Tonight I hope to solve part of the mystery at least.”
Pressed for an explanation, I repeated Jeremiah Jones’s story and told of seeing the strange white-robed figure with my own eyes. The tale did not add to Mrs. Timms’ comfort of mind.
“We’re crazy to go out there,” the housekeeper protested. “Must we do it?”
“I think it may be our one hope of gaining a clue that will lead to Dad.”
“Then I’m willing to risk it,” said Mrs. Timms. “However, we’ll drive out in a taxi. And I shall personally select the driver—a man to be depended on in an emergency.”
Mrs. Timms was so agitated that she had difficulty in preparing the evening meal. In the end, I took over, shooing her out of the kitchen.
“I declare, I don’t know why I am so nervous.” Mrs. Timms shivered. “I haven’t felt so shaky since the time I attended that séance at Leo Silva’s.”
“You saw ghosts aplenty on that occasion,” I said. “I only hope we have as much luck tonight.”
By eight o’clock, Mrs. Timms and I were dressed warmly. I carried an extra blanket and a thermos of hot coffee.
We walked to a nearby cab station. There Mrs. Timms selected a driver, a burly man who looked as if he might have been an ex-prizefighter. I resisted the urge to point out that if we really were presented with a ghost, all the brawn in the world wasn’t going to do us a bit of good against the supernatural.
“How are you at capturing ghosts?” I asked the driver as I climbed into the cab.
The driver looked a trifle startled, but quickly recovered. “Bring on your spook, and if he don’t weigh no more than two hundred pounds, I’ll nail him.”
I instructed our driver, Joe Henkell, to drive directly to the Oaklands Estate.
“By the way, do you know who owns the property?” I asked.
“Think his name is Deming—Gregory Allan Deming,” Joe flung over his shoulder. “Wealthy sportsman. Has his own plane an’ everything.”
“Married?”
“Couldn’t tell you that. I do know that the estate has been closed up this winter. Mr. Deming spends most of the winter in Florida.”
As the cab approached the familiar grounds, I directed the driver to pull up some distance from the dark house.
“Switch off the headlights,” I told Joe. “We’ll wait here. It may be a long time, too, so make yourself comfortable.”
Joe, taking me at my word, began to smoke a vile-smelling cigar which nearly drove Mrs. Timms to distraction. After an hour had elapsed, Mrs. Timms could endure the stuffy air of the cab no longer.
“How long must we wait?” she asked plaintively.
“It’s early, Mrs. Timms. I expect to stay until midnight at least.”
“Midnight!”
Just then, the cab driver turned around and said, “A light just went on.”
A single light burned in a window on the upper floor of the house. As we watched, it blinked off.
“Now, if a ghost is to appear, this is the time,” I said. “Why don’t we get a closer look?”
I sprang from the cab. Mrs. Timms and the taxi driver followed with less enthusiasm. Mrs. Timms, quivering and shaking, clutched the man’s arm as she struggled against the wind.
“Joe, you stay right beside me,” she ordered.
“Sure, Ma’am,” he said soothingly. “I couldn’t get away if I had a mind to.”
I turned back and held up my hand as a warning for silence. I had glimpsed the familiar white figure rounding a corner of the house.
“There’s the ghost,” I whispered. “See! Beyond the gate.”
Joe whistled softly.
“A spook, sure’s I’m alive,” he muttered.
“And you promised to nail him,” I reminded Joe, starting forward along the fence. “We’ll creep a little closer. Then, Mr. Henkell, I shall expect you to do your stuff.”
Chapter Fifteen
Joe, Mrs. Timms, and I moved stealthily along the high fence. Through the iron palings, I could see a white-garbed figure walking with measured tread amid the shrubs of the frozen garden. The apparition paced back and forth, following a well-trodden path between the shrunken snowdrifts.
We crept closer. The ghostly figure seemed not to notice our approach. He kept his hooded head bent low as he glided to the gate, then tested the chain and padlock.
“Poor restless soul,” whispered Mrs. Timms.
I gave Mrs. Timms a tiny pinch to break the spell that had fallen upon her. “That’s no ghost,” I whispered. “Don’t you see? It’s a man wearing a heavy white bathrobe over his clothing. He’s pulled the wide collar up over his head like a hood.”
“It’s a man all right,” Joe agreed. “You can tell by the way he walks. Ghosts kinda slither, don’t they?”
“I believe it’
s someone imprisoned on the grounds,” I whispered. “Watch.”
The ghostly figure, his face shadowed, rattled the chain again. Then with a distinct, audible sigh, he turned and tramped back along the fence away from the gate.
“That spook could get out if he wanted to,” Joe pointed out. “Why don’t he climb over the fence?”
“Perhaps the man is a sleepwalker,” suggested Mrs. Timms nervously. “Whoever he is, the poor fellow should be in his bed.”
I was determined to learn the identity of the man. I approached the gate and called out softly. The figure in white whirled around and looked straight at me.
I caught a fleeting impression of a lean, startled face. Then the man turned and fled toward the house, the legs of his woolen pajamas visible beneath the white robe.
“Wait!” I called after him. “Please wait!”
The man hesitated. He glanced over his shoulder, but a second later, he vanished through a side door into the house.
“Mrs. Timms,” I said when she and Joe reached me. “Did you see him?”
“Yes, you frightened him away when you shouted.”
“But didn’t you notice his face? As he turned toward me, I caught a glimpse of it. Mrs. Timms, that man looked just like Dad.”
“Oh, Jane,” Mrs. Timms said, taking my arm, “you can’t be right. How could it be your father? I’m very much afraid it’s just wishful thinking on your part.”
“It looked just like him. Honest to Christmas.’”
“I saw no such resemblance,” said Mrs. Timms firmly. “If it had been your father, he would have answered when you called. He wouldn’t have run away.”
I was compelled to acknowledge the logic of Mrs. Timms’ reasoning. “I guess that’s true. I must admit that I didn’t see his face plainly. Perhaps I wanted it to be Dad so badly I may have imagined the resemblance.”
A light switched on in an upstairs room of the estate house. However, blinds were lowered, and I did not obtain another glimpse of the mysterious man who haunted the snowy garden. Finally Mrs. Timms induced me to return to the taxi.
As we sped toward Greenville, neither of us had much to say. I could not blot from my mind the vision of that startled, bewildered face. Reason told me that Mrs. Timms was right—the man could not be my father. Who, then, was he? Why had he refused to talk to me at the gate? I supposed that the man might have been a sleepwalker. Perhaps he was the owner of the estate, Mr. Deming, come back unexpectedly from his holiday to Florida.
The cab had reached the business section of Greenville. Upon impulse, I decided to stop at the Examiner plant to make sure that the production of the night edition was going well.
“It won’t take me long,” I assured Mrs. Timms. “Why don’t you wait in the cab?”
Only a skeleton night force was on duty. The advertising department was closed, and on the floor above, scrubwomen were busy mopping up. A sleepy-eyed desk man greeted me as I entered the deserted newsroom.
“Everything’s okay,” he assured me. “The final edition’s out, and most of the boys have gone home. I was just taking a little cat nap.”
“Any news?”
“Not about your father. The police have been kept busy chasing down false rumors. About four hours ago a report came in your father had been seen in Chicago.”
“Chicago?”
“Just a false report.”
“Oh, I see,” I said weakly. “Jack Bancroft’s gone home, I suppose?”
“He left about an hour ago. There’s some mail for you.”
“Anything important?”
“Mostly replies to that reward offer you made. A lot of ’em are screwball letters. Your father’s been seen in every section of the city from the river to the Heights.”
“Where is the mail?”
“I dumped it on your father’s desk.”
“I’ll take it home to read,” I said. “By going through every letter carefully, I may stumble upon a clue.”
I crossed the newsroom and opened the door of my father’s private office.
The light was not on. As I groped for the wall switch, my ears detected stealthy steps moving away from me. I was not alone in the room.
“Who’s there?” I called out.
There was no reply. Across the room, a door softly opened and clicked shut. Although the private office had two entrances, one leading directly into the hall, the latter had not been used in years. Usually the door was locked, and a clothes tree stood in front of it.
I found the switch and flooded the room with light. The mail lying on the desk appeared disturbed. One of the top drawers of Dad’s desk was hanging open. The clothes tree had been moved from in front of the hall door. It was unmistakable that someone had just fled from the room.
I darted to the corridor door and jerked it open—not a soul in sight. However, at the end of the deserted hall, I saw the elevator cage moving slowly downward.
Taking the hall at a run, I plunged down the stairway two steps at a time. Breathless but triumphant, I reached the lower corridor just as the cage stopped with a jerk.
Jonathon Pim stepped out, closing the grilled door behind him.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I said. “What were you doing in my father’s office?”
Pim tried to brush past me without answering. I would not allow it.
“You were looking for something in Dad’s desk,” I said, standing in his way. “I know how you got in, too. Through the hall entrance. You’re such a professional snooper you probably have a skeleton key that unlocks half the doors in the building.”
“I’ve had about enough of your insolence,” Pim finally spoke. “There’s no law which says I can’t come to this plant. And speaking of law, I may sue you for libel.”
“What a laugh.”
“You’ll not be laughing in a few days, Miss Fielding. I’ve hired a lawyer, and we’re preparing our case. You’ve insulted me, humiliated me in the eyes of my fellow newspapermen, but you’ll have to pay handsomely for the privilege.”
Pim’s threat failed to disturb me, but his next words got under my skin.
“You’re deluding yourself if you believe you’ll ever see your father again,” Pim jeered. “You won’t. Anthony Fielding is dead, and you may as well get used to the idea.”
My eyes burned. “You only say that to taunt me.”
“It’s the truth. If you weren’t so blind, you’d acknowledge it. Your father tried to run a gang of professional bootleggers out of this town, and they snuffed him out.”
“You seem very certain of your facts, Mr. Pim. Perhaps you know some of the higher-ups personally.”
“How would I?”
“Your knowledge is so complete,” I said. “Surely you must have inside information.”
“I’m only telling you my opinion,” Pim growled, now on the defensive. “If you want to ride along in a sweet dream that’s fine and dandy with me.”
“What I want is to get at the truth,” I said. “Do you have one scrap of evidence that Dad has fallen into the hands of his enemies?”
Pim hesitated.
“I don’t have any direct knowledge of the case,” he said. “At least not fit for publication.”
Then he gave me an oily smile and pushed past me. I watched his receding back as he left the building and wondered if it would be a sin to pray for God to smite him with a thunderbolt, or, if thunderbolts from Heaven were in short supply, that one of the monstrous icicles hanging from the awning might detach itself and impale the odious man through his vile and stone-cold heart.
Chapter Sixteen
I didn’t know what to think of Jonathon Pim’s words. I was unable to decide whether or not he had any actual information about my father’s inexplicable disappearance. I was forced to reckon with the possibility that the old snooper might be hand in glove with the bootleggers. I wouldn’t put it past him.
I went back upstairs and explained to the night watchman that I’d caught Mr. Pim skulking ab
out the premises.
“I’m sure he never came through the newsroom,” the watchman insisted.
“No, he got into Dad’s office by means of that old hall door. First thing tomorrow I want new locks put on my father’s office.”
“I’ll have it taken care of myself,” promised the watchman.
I returned to Dad’s office, gathered up the mail, and carefully locked both doors. I then went down to the waiting taxicab, which contained a rather impatient Mrs. Timms.
During the ride home, I made no mention of my encounter with Mr. Pim. There seemed little point in causing Mrs. Timms further distress.
It was well past midnight before Mrs. Timms and I had examined every letter written in response to the offer of a reward. Not one offered the slightest promise.
“I’ll turn everything over to the police tomorrow,” I told Mrs. Timms. “Maybe they’ll find a clue I’ve not considered important.”
Mrs. Timms and I were both feeling the effects of such a long period of strain. Meals had been irregular and our appetites poor. I had lost so much weight that I looked nearly as wraithish as the ghost behind the gate at the Oaklands Estate.
“Mrs. Timms,” I said the next morning at breakfast, “I’m going on another taxi jaunt today.”
“Not back to the Oaklands Estate, surely.”
“No, out to Matilda Mortimer’s garage. I’m convinced that place is dealing in bootleg liquor. If only I can reconstruct the evidence that disappeared in Dad’s portfolio, I may get a clue that will lead me to him.”
Down at the taxi stand, I hired Joe, the cabman.
When we reached the Mortimer garage, I still had not settled on a plan and hadn’t the foggiest of ideas what I would say when I entered the place. As I sat in the back of Joe’s taxi, debating with myself, the big doors of the building opened, and a tow truck drove away with Matilda at the wheel.
I got out anyway and sauntered into the garage office. Matilda’s partner, Seth, was not in the office, nor did he appear to be working in the main part of the building.
The Jane Carter Historical Cozies Box Set 2 Page 54
