I repressed a grin. “He is the Sergeant in charge of the case. He’s smooth as butter, Court, and, in spite of his polite chatter, right on the job. He put me in the dickens of a fix, where only John Patrick’s wit served to extricate me.” And I explained the predicament in which I found myself not so long ago.
Bill Courtney nodded with sympathetic understanding. “I never did trust that guy. That’s the devil of having the police around. They stir up no end of a mess and when the dust settles, there is many an innocent party gets—er, well, dusty. It’s bad for business and business is bad enough anyhow. Now, if I had any dope to help, actually I’d spill it and gladly if it would keep the cops away from here. But I don’t know what to say to them, the way it all is now.”
Gratefully, I seized the opportunity so unexpectedly presented. “If you’d care to talk it over with me, I’ll take whatever information you can give me to Mr. Vaile, and I’m sure he’ll think of some way to save you from official annoyance.”
“I hope so,” sighed Courtney. “There is darned little I can tell you. We handled Evans’ account for about six months, but he isn’t the sort of speculator we encourage around here. You know, gambles from day to day, first on the upside, then on the down, and none too careful about his margins. We had quite a bit of trouble with him and finally we suggested, very tactfully, that he settle up with us and take his business elsewhere.”
“When was this?” I inquired.
“We sent him a letter just two days before Cyrus’ death. In fact, that was the reason why he came up when he did. He brought a wad of money, and paid us in currency.”
“Did he usually pay in checks?”
“Yes, Skipper’s National. Oh, I can tell you one thing more. His heaviest trading was from the fifteenth to the twentieth of the month; if he lost between those dates he never came in again until the next month.”
“Curious,” I murmured. “Then the tenth was early for him. How successful was he?”
“Oh, so-so. I imagine he broke even in the six months he has been trading with us.” Courtney hesitated. “We understood in this office that his only source of income was the allowance his uncle gave him. Was it paid on the fifteenth, do you guess?”
“It was not,” I retorted grimly; I ought to know, for I dispatched the check the first day of every month.
Courtney’s glance shifted. “I might as well get it off my chest, I reckon. It was queer about his coming in that last day with the ready cash and then, too, he got sort of high-hat about changing his account. Hinted about his ship coming in, the money he had then being just a sample of more to come. His talk all through lunch was of the modest fortune—those were his exact words, I recall—the modest fortune he was about to get his hands on. Of course, it might have been peeve at being asked to take his account elsewhere, but neither Jones nor I thought so at the time.”
I frowned without comprehending this latest development. “He talked as if he were about to come into some money? I don’t know what he could have meant, for I’m sure he hasn’t a relative in the world—“ I stopped suddenly.
Bill seemed very uncomfortable. “Look here, old man, he may have meant nothing at all, or he may have irons in the fire we know nothing about. But there it is, and I couldn’t go popping off to the police about a statement like that, only, well darn it all—he did say it, you know.”
I left the broker’s office in a thoughtful frame of mind. Two facts had I learned and many more did I suspect. Going over Edwin’s accounts with Bill, I had discovered two different occasions, at least, when the amount of money paid over to the brokerage firm was decidedly in excess of the amount of his month’s allowance; nor could the discrepancy be explained by profits recently made. Another thing, Court’s story of Edwin’s last trip into their office differed not a little from Edwin’s own. In fact, the latter had not even hinted that he was no longer trading with them, that he had been asked to take his account elsewhere. With a start, I recalled fragments of his conversation—“I placed a few bets on the Tia Juana races.”
“I went back to check over the closing prices and I placed a few orders for tomorrow.” There was a discrepancy somewhere, but, at that, Edwin might have been telling the truth, he might have switched brokers and refrained from mentioning the fact. But where had he taken his mysterious account and how was I to find out?
The inadvisability of applying to the Skipper’s National for information was obvious. I had been successful at the brokers because of my friendship with one of the firm, but I quailed before the thought of approaching the bank officials in my capacity of self-elected detective with the hope of eliciting information from those august individuals. So I pigeon-holed that line of endeavor in my mind, deciding to consult John Patrick about the best method of getting at Edwin’s bank statement, and contented myself for the moment with making a careful written record of everything I had learned thus far.
My next step must be the garage, for I had ascertained from Bill that Edwin had not used his car for the trip to the hotel where they had lunched on the momentous day. The presumption, then, was that he had left it in the only big downtown garage near the business district. Most motor commuters make a habit of leaving their cars at some particular garage adjacent to their usual destinations, and follow this habit month in and month out, leaving the open-air parking spaces to the casual tripper and shopper. Since most of the motor-car salesrooms have their service stations far out of town, I decided that Edwin, in all probability, was a customer of a mid-city station rather than the garage run by the Chrysler dealer, thus saving himself a long trip back into the city. Of course, if my reasoning were wrong and he used any of the innumerable outdoor parking areas, my task was well-nigh hopeless.
I drove up to the five-story ramp garage which housed business men’s cars and inquired from the man at the booth if Mr. Edwin Evans left his car there. As I had hoped, he misunderstood my question and supplied me with the information I was seeking. Circumstances were in my favor, for the murder and subsequent trial had given the entire Evans’ family a notoriety which made it fairly easy to trace the movements of any one of them. Small chance of Edwin being unnoticed anywhere he went these days.
The doorman answered my question, “Mr. Edwin Evans, he drives a Chrysler Imperial, blue phaeton, doesn’t he? Not in today, but he always leaves it here when he comes to town.”
“Well,” I attempted to make my tone casual, “if I’ve missed Mr. Evans, may I talk to the mechanic who worked on his car the last time it was in?”
“No trouble, I hope?” The doorman reached into his booth to draw out a loose-leafed notebook.
“Not at all,” I replied, somewhat mendaciously, I fear. “Mr. Evans was telling me about some gadget he had put on his car and he thought I’d be interested to talk to the workman about having it put on mine.”
“Fred Clark, third floor, that’s repairs, did some work on the Chrysler the early part of the week.”
“Thanks, I’ll drive up and look for him,” I said. “That’s the job, I remember now, he said the man was Clark. I’ll just get him to estimate on my job.”
“All right,” said the custodian, glancing at my bantam, “but I doubt if the Henley really needs it. You see, Mr. Evans had a trunk put on the rear end.”
Realizing that I was caught out fairly, I thrust a two-dollar bill in my informant’s hand and drove up to the third floor. I told the attendant who came forward to meet me that I wished to speak to Fred Clark, and he jerked a dirty thumb in the direction of the farther wall. Taking it for granted that I was supposed to look out for myself, I left my car standing and gingerly picked out my way, avoiding pools of oil and stray bits of machinery lurking as traps for the unwary. The only sign of life discernible was a pair of overall-clad legs protruding from beneath a car whose engine, turning over noisily, was exposed to my gaze.
“Mr. Clark,” I called, raising my voice with all my might to be heard above the din, “Mr. Clark.” My yelling availed me exactly nothing,
so I was forced to wait until, sliding out nicely on a little roller platform, my quarry appeared in view of his own accord.
The mechanic paid me not even the courtesy of a glance, as, adjusting a stethoscope to his ears, he listened intently to the sound of the motor. Apparently, the patient was coming along nicely, in spite of the wheezes and rumbles, for Mr. Clark nodded his head critically, turned the motor off at the dash, removed an unlighted cigarette from his mouth and, after throwing it on the floor, trod on it carefully. Then jamming the stethoscope into an outside pocket, he took several steps in my direction.
“Pulmonary consumption?” I inquired politely. I was really interested in the patient.
He stared at me. I recovered myself hastily. “Mr. Clark, I’ve been told that you usually do work on Mr. Evans’ car when it is here—Mr. Edwin Evans.”
“Yes,” came the unexpectedly courteous reply.
Now I had not planned this interview very carefully, and for a moment I could not think how to go on. I brought out awkwardly, “The car was left here on the day of the murder?”
“Police, sir?” asked my now-very-attentive vis-a-vis.
“Not exactly,” I stammered.
“Perhaps you would like to talk with the manager of the repair shops,” said the quiet voice. “His office is on the right—as you go out.”
I turned to depart, my cheeks burning for shame at the bungling of the job. I had decided to leave the manager quite alone, when a diminutive colored boy, who must have been lurking by the side of the car where we had been talking, came up to me. “You want to know all about Mr. Edwin Evans’ car?” he asked. “Then, Boss, I’se your man.”
This was luck, indeed. I nodded my assent and he led me to another section of the shop, where we could talk without observation. Seating ourselves on the running-board of a dismantled sedan, we got down to business at once. Whatever leanings toward taciturnity Mr. Clark had were entirely lacking in my new friend. The prospect of a half-hour’s freedom from work, combined with the possibility of a tip, loosed the flood-gates of speech.
The urchin undoubtedly believed me to be a detective and, since as such I had an added glamour in his eyes, I did not disabuse him of the notion. His story wandered through the mazes of incidental information, but told me little except that Edwin had left his car for some minor repairs in the morning and had given orders for it to be driven upstairs to he washed before he called for it.
“Would the boys who washed it be able to give me any information?” I asked.
“Not a bit, Boss,” eagerly disclaimed the youngster. “They jes’ run the car through the washing machine and doan pay no ‘tention to it at all. Anyways, Ah wuz there all the time. I drove it up ‘n’ wuz waiting to drive it back, jes’ bidin’ mah time like, when Mr. Evans, he come up hisself. He drove it away, but he tipped me fo’ bits fo’ somethin’ Ah found in the car.”
But the something proved to be merely a lady’s vanity case. Sensing my disappointment, my friend went on, “Lissen, Boss. He carries a gun in the door pocket. Ah knows, fo’ Ah felt it there more ‘n’ once.” This last in a low-pitched whisper.
Emulating Edwin’s generosity in the matter of a tip, I moved off, thinking my visit to the garage, although advocated by my chief, had netted me very little. Just as I was about to get into my car, the boy came running up to me again.
“Hey, Boss, Ah just remembered somethin’. When Mr. Evans gave me the fo’ bits, he says to me, ‘Go to a movie, son, there’s where Ah’m goin’,’ and he laughed so kinda funny-like, Ah just couldn’t laugh back.”
As I drove off, I wondered whether or no this bit of parting information could be construed into anything significant. Edwin had told the Coroner he had happened to take the upper road into Belton because it was safer in slippery weather and, passing through the town, apparently by chance he saw the picture advertised and went in. He had certainly given the impression it was a haphazard choice of entertainment, entirely unpremeditated. I was beginning to notice that Edwin had succeeded in giving us several impressions not quite verified by facts.
Suddenly an idea came to me. Belton is that rare country town which does not route all the through traffic down its main street; on the contrary, the two highways touch only the outskirts of the place. True, Edwin might have seen the picture advertised as he drove along, but he had to leave his normal route and drive into the heart of the village itself to reach the cinema. This certainly lent doubt to the premise of fortuity.
Now it was just about lunch time and I bethought myself of following Edwin’s example of lunching at the Southern; but a fleeting temptation assailed me—after all, I had been at work since early morning and could I not afford to make a vacation out of my noon repast? What could I hope to find out at the Southern, a month after the event? Besides, I was very thirsty and there is a famous eating place in Baltimore which specializes in crab, and beer on draught. No, not a speakeasy, for its bare walls and wooden tables would shame these modern palaces of gin and sloth—it is an institution, and a masculine one at that. Some wag once suggested to the bartender that if he festooned flowers over the doorway and put cloth on the tables, the women would flock to his place. He replied—but no, his reply was as unprintable as it was pertinent.
Entering the place, I forgot my new role of budding detective and betook myself to a table in the last booth but one along the far wall. It was pleasantly shadowy in there, for the tables did not have any electric fixtures, and I did not observe whether the booths adjoining mine were occupied or not—an omission I was later to regret.
I was picking the succulent meat from the hard shell crab in front of me, quenching my thirst from a schooner of beer and minding my own business, when there was a loud crack from the booth next to mine, the last one in line. I was startled, although I realized what had happened—some one had hit his wooden mallet against the crab shell and it had popped open with a sharp retort. It was so loud, however, that there was a second of silence in the room, and during it I caught the resonance of a low-pitched voice, “What’s the matter, Evans,” it said, “are you gun-shy?”
Then the hubbub of the room began again; mallets pounding on wooden blocks, other crab-shells splitting, voices murmuring and the hum of the harbor rising from below the windows. But I had caught the timbre of the voice—and the name—and I was determined to hear more. I sat up as straight as I could and leaned against the thin boards separating me from that quiet voice in the next booth, and my effort was rewarded by catching a few phrases now and then—maddening phrases, for they piqued my curiosity without in the least satisfying it. Yet, had it not been for the moment of stillness, I am sure I would never have been able to understand a word the strange voice said—but when you were once aware of its quality, it was easy to follow, intense, incisive, possessed of queer overtones I can best describe as sinister.
I heard this speaker reply to words I could not distinguish, the utterance, I judge, of the man sitting in the same relative position in which I was, “You can’t come that over us, Evans,” and then a blur and then clearly, “the pistol shot on the tenth.”
This was beyond the bounds of coincidence. There might be many people in Baltimore named Evans, some of whom had reason to start at a pistol shot—but the date clinched it. One of the Evans men was sitting in the booth beyond me and with him were companions who knew something I should dearly love to know. Now, you may wonder why I did not simply step out of my booth and look over into the other. I thought of this solution to my problem, but the soft purr of the unknown’s voice deterred me. There was something in the sound that held me fast to my seat. It was not any of the Evanses, I feared, it was the unknown.
I was in a quandary. In order to leave, I must pass in front of their table; similarly, in order for them to depart, they must come into my line of vision. I decided on the latter course; I should wait for them to disclose their identity. By this time I had decided there were at least three of them, for I had isolated a rough, grum
bling monotone, sounding somehow familiar. The odds—three to one—were too much for me to cope with, so I curbed my impatience, ordered another glass of beer and settled down to wait.
But the last glass of beer was my undoing. It called attention to my presence. The waiter brought it and then answered a summons to the other table. I saw him standing slightly bent over, as if answering questions addressed in a low tone, and I caught him casting a sly surreptitious glance in my direction—infallible indication that I was under discussion. I wanted more than anything on earth to get up and walk out, but dared not try it. If Edwin were there, and if, as was more than likely, he should join me, I feared I could not conceal the knowledge of my eavesdropping. Unquestionably, my Fabian policy was the best. But some of the beer slopped over from my glass, I could not control my shaking hands. Then the waiter departed, and I could hear a stir in the next booth. Some one was coming out. The first person was a tall and shambling figure; he kept his back toward me. The next, I knew subconsciously, was the owner of the terrifying voice. He was small and his face, when he turned it to me, was cold and hard. He looked at me insolently for a full moment and then walked out slowly. Perspiring, I left on the table more than enough money to pay the bill and hastened to seek the fresh air myself. As I passed the adjoining booth, I looked in, covertly at first, and then amazed I stared. It was empty.
TWELVE
Not knowing what to make of my adventure in the restaurant, I found difficulty in recording it in my notebook. I was sure I had heard three separate voices, and equally sure that one of the men had been addressed as Evans. Yet I had seen only two men leave the booth and neither of them had been an inmate of Bayside—the vanishing of the mysterious third person completed my bewilderment.
In spite of all this, my day was not done. I drove out to Belton, carefully noting the time it took-me; exactly one hour and ten minutes, approximately as long as it would have taken to reach the Bayside gates, had I gone by the lower road. Entering Belton, I had a sudden thought, inspired by the sight of the State Troopers’ substation. Had any one on duty there, the afternoon of the tenth, observed Edwin’s car passing and, if so, would they tell me? I decided to put this up to John Patrick for, although such knowledge would be of certain assistance, I had no desire to see Sergeant Lyttle right then.
Murder at Bayside Page 13
