The Window at the White Cat
Page 13
CHAPTER XIII
SIZZLING METAL
Burton listened while he ate, and his cheerful comments were welcomeenough after the depression of the last few days. I told him, after somehesitation, the whole thing, beginning with the Maitland pearls andending with my drop down the dumb-waiter. I knew I was absolutely safein doing so: there is no person to whom I would rather tell a secretthan a newspaper man. He will go out of his way to keep it: he will lockit in the depths of his bosom, and keep it until seventy times seven.Also, you may threaten the rack or offer a larger salary, the seal doesnot come off his lips until the word is given. If then he makes ascarehead of it, and gets in three columns of space and as manyphotographs, it is his just reward.
So--I told Burton everything, and he ate enough beefsteak for two men,and missed not a word I said.
"The money Wardrop had in the grip--that's easy enough explained," hesaid. "Fleming used the Borough Bank to deposit state funds in. He musthave known it was rotten: he and Clarkson were as thick as thieves.According to a time-honored custom in our land of the brave and home ofthe free, a state treasurer who is crooked can, in such a case, draw onsuch a bank without security, on his personal note, which is usuallyworth its value by the pound as old paper."
"And Fleming did that?"
"He did. Then things got bad at the Borough Bank. Fleming had had todivide with Schwartz and the Lord only knows who all, but it was Flemingwho had to put in the money to avert a crash--the word crash beingsynonymous with scandal in this case. He scrapes together a paltryhundred thousand, which Wardrop gets at the capital, and brings on.Wardrop is robbed, or says he is: the bank collapses and Clarkson,driven to the wall, kills himself, just after Fleming is murdered. Whatdoes that sound like?"
"Like Clarkson!" I exclaimed. "And Clarkson knew Fleming was hiding atthe White Cat!"
"Now, then, take the other theory," he said, pushing aside his cup."Wardrop goes in to Fleming with a story that he has been robbed:Fleming gets crazy and attacks him. All that is in the morning--Friday.Now, then--Wardrop goes back there that night. Within twenty minutesafter he enters the club he rushes out, and when Hunter follows him, hesays he is looking for a doctor, to get cocaine for a gentlemanup-stairs. He is white and trembling. They go back together, and findyou there, and Fleming dead. Wardrop tells two stories: first he saysFleming committed suicide just before he left. Then he changes it andsays he was dead when he arrived there. He produces the weapon withwhich Fleming is supposed to have killed himself, and which, by the way,Miss Fleming identified yesterday as her father's. But there are twodiscrepancies. Wardrop practically admitted that he had taken thatrevolver from Fleming, not that night, but the morning before, duringthe quarrel."
"And the other discrepancy?"
"The bullet. Nobody ever fired a thirty-two bullet out of athirty-eight caliber revolver--unless he was trying to shoot adouble-compound curve. Now, then, who does it look like?"
"Like Wardrop," I confessed. "By Jove, they didn't both do it."
"And he didn't do it himself for two good reasons: he had no revolverthat night, and there were no powder marks."
"And the eleven twenty-two, and Miss Maitland's disappearance?"
He looked at me with his quizzical smile.
"I'll have to have another steak, if I'm to settle that," he said. "Ican only solve one murder on one steak. But disappearances are myspecialty; perhaps, if I have a piece of pie and some cheese--"
But I got him away at last, and we walked together down the street.
"I can't quite see the old lady in it," he confessed. "She hadn't anygrudge against Fleming, had she? Wouldn't be likely to forget herselftemporarily and kill him?"
"Good Lord!" I said. "Why, she's sixty-five, and as timid and gentle alittle old lady as ever lived."
"Curls?" he asked, turning his bright blue eyes on me.
"Yes," I admitted.
"Wouldn't be likely to have eloped with the minister, or advertised fora husband, or anything like that?"
"You would have to know her to understand," I said resignedly. "But shedidn't do any of those things, and she didn't run off to join atheatrical troupe. Burton, who do you think was in the Fleming houselast night?"
"Lightfoot," he said succinctly.
He stopped under a street lamp and looked at his watch.
"I believe I'll run over to the capital to-night," he said. "While I'mgone--I'll be back to-morrow night or the next morning--I wish you woulddo two things. Find Rosie O'Grady, or whatever her name is, and locateCarter. That's probably not his name, but it will answer for a while.Then get your friend Hunter to keep him in sight for a while, until Icome back anyhow. I'm beginning to enjoy this; it's more fun than apicture puzzle. We're going to make the police department look like akindergarten playing jackstraws."
"And the second thing I am to do?"
"Go to Bellwood and find out a few things. It's all well enough to saythe old lady was a meek and timid person, but if you want to know herpeculiarities, go to her neighbors. When people leave the beaten path,the neighbors always know it before the families."
He stopped before a drug-store.
"I'll have to pack for my little jaunt," he said, and purchased atooth-brush, which proved to be the extent of his preparations. Weseparated at the station, Burton to take his red hair and histooth-brush to Plattsburg, I to take a taxicab, and armed with a pagetorn from the classified directory to inquire at as many of the twelveAnderson's drug-stores as might be necessary to locate Delia's gentlemanfriend, "the clerk," through him Delia, and through Delia, themysterious Carter, "who was not really a butler."
It occurred to me somewhat tardily, that I knew nothing of Delia but hergiven name. A telephone talk with Margery was of little assistance:Delia had been a new maid, and if she had heard her other name, she hadforgotten it.
I had checked off eight of the Andersons on my list, without result, andthe taximeter showed something over nineteen dollars, when the driverdrew up at the curb.
"Gentleman in the other cab is hailing you, sir," he said over hisshoulder.
"The other cab?"
"The one that has been following us."
I opened the door and glanced behind. A duplicate of my cab stoodperhaps fifty feet behind, and from it a familiar figure was slowlyemerging, carrying on a high-pitched argument with the chauffeur. Thefigure stopped to read the taximeter, shook his fist at the chauffeur,and approached me, muttering audibly. It was Davidson.
"That liar and thief back there has got me rung up for nineteendollars," he said, ignoring my amazement. "Nineteen dollars and fortycents! He must have the thing counting the revolutions of all fourwheels!"
He walked around and surveyed my expense account, at the driver's elbow.Then he hit the meter a smart slap, but the figures did not change.
"Nineteen dollars!" he repeated dazed. "Nineteen dollars and--lookhere," he called to his driver, who had brought the cab close, "it'sonly thirty cents here. Your clock's ten cents fast."
"But how--" I began.
"You back up to nineteen dollars and thirty cents," he persisted,ignoring me. "If you'll back up to twelve dollars, I'll pay it. That'sall I've got." Then he turned on me irritably. "Good heavens, man," heexclaimed, "do you mean to tell me you've been to eight drug-stores thisSunday evening and spent nineteen dollars and thirty cents, and haven'tgot a drink yet?"
"Do you think I'm after a drink?" I asked him. "Now look here, Davidson,I rather think you know what I am after. If you don't, it doesn'tmatter. But since you are coming along anyhow, pay your man off and comewith me. I don't like to be followed."
He agreed without hesitation, borrowed eight dollars from me to augmenthis twelve and crawled in with me.
"The next address on the list is the right one," he said, as the manwaited for directions. "I did the same round yesterday, but not being aplutocrat, I used the street-cars and my legs. And because you're adecent fellow and don't have to be chloroformed to have an ideainjected, I'm goi
ng to tell you something. There were eleven roundsmenas well as the sergeant who heard me read the note I found at theFleming house that night. You may have counted them through the window.A dozen plain-clothes men read it before morning. When the news of Mr.Fleming's mur--death came out, I thought this fellow Carter might knowsomething, and I trailed Delia through this Mamie Brennan. When I gotthere I found Tom Brannigan and four other detectives sitting in theparlor, and Miss Delia, in a blue silk waist, making eyes at everymother's son of them."
I laughed in spite of my disappointment. Davidson leaned forward andclosed the window at the driver's back. Then he squared around and facedme.
"Understand me, Mr. Knox," he said, "Mr. Fleming killed himself. You andI are agreed on that. Even if you aren't just convinced of it I'mtelling you, and--better let it drop, sir," Under his quiet manner Ifelt a threat: it served to rouse me.
"I'll let it drop when I'm through with it," I asserted, and got out mylist of addresses.
"You'll let it drop because it's too hot to hold," he retorted, with thesuspicion of a smile. "If you are determined to know about Carter, I cantell you everything that is necessary."
The chauffeur stopped his engine with an exasperated jerk and settleddown in his seat, every line of his back bristling with irritation.
"I prefer learning from Carter himself."
He leaned back in his seat and produced an apple from the pocket of hiscoat.
"You'll have to travel some to do it, son," he said. "Carter left forparts unknown last night, taking with him enough money to keep him incomfort for some little time."
"Until all this blows over," I said bitterly.
"The trip was for the benefit of his health. He has been suffering--andis still suffering, from a curious lapse of memory." Davidson smiled atme engagingly. "He has entirely forgotten everything that occurred fromthe time he entered Mr. Fleming's employment, until that gentleman lefthome. I doubt if he will ever recover."
With Carter gone, his retreat covered by the police, supplied with fundsfrom some problematical source, further search for him was worse thanuseless. In fact, Davidson strongly intimated that it might be dangerousand would be certainly unpleasant. I yielded ungraciously and orderedthe cab to take me home. But on the way I cursed my folly for not havingfollowed this obvious clue earlier, and I wondered what this thing couldbe that Carter knew, that was at least surmised by various headquartersmen, and yet was so carefully hidden from the world at large.
The party newspapers had come out that day with a signed statement fromMr. Fleming's physician in Plattsburg that he had been in ill health andinclined to melancholia for some time. The air was thick with rumors ofdifferences with his party: the dust cloud covered everything; prettysoon it would settle and hide the tracks of those who had hurried tocover under its protection.
Davidson left me at a corner down-town. He turned to give me a partingadmonition.
"There's an old axiom in the mills around here, 'never sit down on apiece of metal until you spit on it.' If it sizzles, don't sit." Hegrinned. "Your best position just now, young man, is standing, with yourhands over your head. Confidentially, there ain't anything withinexpectorating distance just now that ain't pretty well het up."
He left me with that, and I did not see him again until the night at theWhite Cat, when he helped put me through the transom. Recently, however,I have met him several times. He invariably mentions the eight dollarsand his intention of repaying it. Unfortunately, the desire and theability have not yet happened to coincide.
I took the evening train to Bellwood, and got there shortly after eight,in the midst of the Sunday evening calm, and the calm of a place likeBellwood is the peace of death without the hope of resurrection.
I walked slowly up the main street, which was lined with residences; thetown relegated its few shops to less desirable neighborhoods. My firstintention had been to see the Episcopal minister, but the rectory wasdark, and a burst of organ music from the church near reminded me againof the Sunday evening services.
Promiscuous inquiry was not advisable. So far, Miss Jane's disappearancewas known to very few, and Hunter had advised caution. I wandered up thestreet and turned at random to the right; a few doors ahead a newish redbrick building proclaimed itself the post-office, and gave the only signof life in the neighborhood. It occurred to me that here inside was theone individual who, theoretically at least, in a small place alwaysknows the idiosyncrasies of its people.
The door was partly open, for the spring night was sultry. Thepostmaster proved to be a one-armed veteran of the Civil War, and he wassorting rapidly the contents of a mail-bag, emptied on the counter.
"No delivery to-night," he said shortly. "Sunday delivery, two tothree."
"I suppose, then, I couldn't get a dollar's worth of stamps," Iregretted.
He looked up over his glasses.
"We don't sell stamps on Sunday nights," he explained, more politely."But if you're in a hurry for them--"
"I am," I lied. And after he had got them out, counting them with awrinkled finger, and tearing them off the sheet with the deliberation ofage, I opened a general conversation.
"I suppose you do a good bit of business here?" I asked. "It seems likea thriving place."
"Not so bad; big mail here sometimes. First of the quarter, when billsare coming round, we have a rush, and holidays and Easter we've got tohire an express wagon."
It was when I asked him about his empty sleeve, however, and he had toldme that he lost his arm at Chancellorsville, that we became reallyfriendly When he said he had been a corporal in General Maitland'scommand, my path was one of ease.
"The Maitland ladies! I should say I do," he said warmly. "I've beenfighting with Letitia Maitland as long as I can remember. That womanwill scrap with the angel Gabriel at the resurrection, if he wakes herup before she's had her sleep out."
"Miss Jane is not that sort, is she?"
"Miss Jane? She's an angel--she is that. She could have been married adozen times when she was a girl, but Letitia wouldn't have it. I wasafter her myself, forty-five years ago. This was the Maitland farm inthose days, and my father kept a country store down where the railroadstation is now."
"I suppose from that the Maitland ladies are wealthy."
"Wealthy! They don't know what they're worth--not that it matters a miteto Jane Maitland. She hasn't called her soul her own for so long that Iguess the good Lord won't hold her responsible for it."
All of which was entertaining, but it was much like an old-fashionedsee-saw; it kept going, but it didn't make much progress. But now atlast we took a step ahead.
"It's a shameful thing," the old man pursued, "that a woman as old asJane should have to get her letters surreptitiously. For more than ayear now she's been coming here twice a week for her mail, and I've beenkeeping it for her. Rain or shine, Mondays and Thursdays, she's beencoming, and a sight of letters she's been getting, too."
"Did she come last Thursday?" I asked over-eagerly. The postmaster, allat once, regarded me with suspicion.
"I don't know whether she did or not," he said coldly, and my furtherattempts to beguile him into conversation failed. I pocketed my stamps,and by that time his resentment at my curiosity was fading. He followedme to the door, and lowered his voice cautiously.
"Any news of the old lady?" he asked. "It ain't generally known aroundhere that she's missing, but Heppie, the cook there, is a relation of mywife's."
"We have no news," I replied, "and don't let it get around, will you?"
He promised gravely.
"I was tellin' the missus the other day," he said, "that there is an oldwalled-up cellar under the Maitland place. Have you looked there?" Hewas disappointed when I said we had, and I was about to go when hecalled me back.
"Miss Jane didn't get her mail on Thursday, but on Friday that niece ofhers came for it--two letters, one from the city and one from New York."
"Thanks," I returned, and went out into the quiet street.
The family had retired when I got home except Fred, who called from hisstudy to ask for a rhyme for mosque. I could not think of one andsuggested that he change the word to "temple." At two o'clock he bangedon my door in a temper, said he had changed the rhythm to fit, and nowcouldn't find a rhyme for "temple!" I suggested "dimple" drowsily,whereat he kicked the panel of the door and went to bed.