The Case of the Etruscan Treasure (Andrew Tillet, Sara Wiggins & Inspector Wyatt Book 5)

by Robert Newman

  “Do you remember what he said to those reporters and to us about whether he’d come over here on a case or not?”

  “‘If I told you I wasn’t here on a case, would you believe me?’”

  “That’s right. Well, I’m sure he is here on one.”

  “This one?”

  “I don’t know. Decker’s his friend and in spite of what he said he may want to help him out. Or else it may be something very different. But I think he should have a chance to follow this up if he wants to.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think we have to go to the theatre for him. He should be back by midnight.”

  “Probably. We put it in his room then?”

  “Yes. I’ll push it under his door.”

  He put the note back in the envelope as they went on down the corridor. When they reached Wyatt’s room, he pushed the envelope under the door, leaving one corner partly out.

  “Don’t you want to push it in all the way?” asked Sara.

  “No. This way he’ll be more likely to see it. And if we want to know if he’s back later on, we’ll be able to tell.”

  Sara looked at him approvingly. “Good,” she said.

  They sat in the sitting room of the suite for a while playing checkers, then went to their bedrooms. Andrew took off his shoes, but did not get into his pajamas. He stretched out on his bed and began to read Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights. At some point he must have fallen asleep, for, when he woke up with a start and looked at his watch—a repeater his mother had given him for his birthday—it was twenty of twelve. Putting his shoes back on, he crossed the sitting room to his mother’s room and tapped softly on the door. When there was no answer, he opened it and looked in. It was empty. As he closed it, the door of Sara’s room opened and she came out. Like Andrew, she was fully dressed.

  “She’s not there, is she?” she said.

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so. I didn’t hear her come home. I wonder if Peter’s back.”

  “It’s easy enough to find out.”

  They went out into the corridor. The corner of the note was still sticking out under the edge of the door.

  “I guess he’s not back yet,” said Sara.

  “No.”

  They looked at one another and each of them knew what the other was thinking, for they had both been thinking the same thing since they had read the note.

  “If he’s not back in a couple of minutes, he won’t be able to meet whoever wrote the note,” said Sara.

  “No.”

  “And I think he would like to, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then don’t you think perhaps we’d better go out there and tell whoever it is that he’s a bit late but that he’ll meet him later?”

  “It’s what you planned all along, isn’t it?” said Andrew, grinning.

  “I wouldn’t say I planned it. How could I when we both thought he’d be back by now? But I did think that if he wasn’t.…”

  “Right. Let’s go.”

  They went downstairs and paused just before they reached the lobby. Jim McCann had gone off duty and the night clerk, a man they did not really know, was just going into the office behind the desk. Walking quietly but quickly, they crossed the lobby, went out and down the few steps to Fifth Avenue. A hansom went by, going up toward Fourteenth Street. But though there was laughter and the sound of voices coming from the Brevoort Café, the streets were deserted.

  Keeping to the shadows near the buildings, they walked south toward Washington Square. The fountain was in the center of the square, about halfway between the marble Washington Arch and the rather Spanish-looking Judson Memorial Church. They did not approach it directly, but circled around to the east, toward the Gothic facade of New York University, and approached it from that direction. Though it was a fairly dark night, the gaslights set here and there in the park gave enough light to see the fountain clearly, even see the spray that jetted up from its center. And there was no one there, either standing there or sitting on the stone curb that surrounded the fountain.

  They paused behind the statue of Garibaldi, who stood drawing his sword just across the roadway from the fountain.

  “What time is it now?” whispered Sara.

  Andrew pressed the button on his repeater, and it began its faint, silvery chiming. When it had chimed five times, a church clock somewhere near them began striking the hour.

  “It’s just midnight,” said Andrew.

  “He’s late.”

  “Yes. Let’s give him a few more minutes.”

  They waited there, watching a lady and gentleman come out of one of the beautiful red brick houses on the north side of the square, get into a waiting carriage and drive off.

  “Maybe he’s on the other side of the fountain,” said Sara finally.

  “I doubt it. We’d see him.”

  “Not necessarily. Not where the water’s shooting up.”

  “Do you want to walk around and see?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.”

  Coming out from behind the statue, they crossed the roadway to the fountain, started around it.

  “Well,” said Andrew when they were opposite the church, “are you satisfied? I told you he wasn’t there.”

  “Yes. And I guess—” She clutched his arm. “Andrew, look!”

  He turned, looking where she was looking, and there, floating face down in the softly splashing water of the fountain, was a man’s body.

  4

  Benny the Monk

  Though Washington Square had once been a potter’s field, it later became quite fashionable. Some of New York’s most distinguished families lived in the red brick buildings on the north side of it, which was probably why Sara and Andrew had so little trouble finding a policeman. For, like London and most other large cities, it was the neighborhoods where the wealthiest and best connected citizens lived that were most carefully patrolled. The two young people had barely convinced themselves that they were not imagining things and there really was a body in the fountain when they heard slow, heavy footsteps and saw a policeman, wearing a helmet very much like a London bobbie’s, walking west on Fourth Street.

  They ran over to him. Busy swinging his night stick—no, not swinging it; making it dance and pinwheel at the end of its leather thong—he did not notice them until they were in front of him. He started, listened skeptically to what they had to say, and then walked over to the fountain.

  “Holy jumping Moses!” he said, then beat a rapid tattoo on the pavement with the end of his club. Apparently this was an established means of communication, because almost at once they heard an answering rapping from somewhere over on West Third Street, and a few minutes later another policeman came running down Broadway toward them.

  “What is it, Joe?” he called. Then, as the first policeman jerked his head at the fountain. “Saints above! Dead?”

  “Well, now does he look like he was taking a midnight swim?”

  “Who found him?”

  “The kids here.” Then turning to them, “What are you doing out here anyway?”

  “Meeting someone,” said Sara. “At least…”

  “At this time of night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “The Hotel Brevoort,” said Andrew.

  The policeman looked at him, at Sara, and reassured by their appearance, said to his partner, “You stay here and keep your eye on the corpus. I’ll walk them to the hotel, then go on to the station house and report it.”

  “You don’t have to walk us to the hotel,” said Sara.

  “Yes, I do. I’ve got four of me own at home, and I wouldn’t want any of them traipsing around by themselves at this hour. Besides, it’s on me way.” Then as they started across the park toward Fifth Avenue, “Are you British or something?”

  “Yes,” said Andrew.

  “Well, I was born in Cork, but I’ve been here long enough to lose most of me justi
fiable prejudices. What are your names and how long have you been here?”

  They told him and managed to answer his questions without having to tell him any of the things they preferred not to—such as who they were meeting and why—until they reached the hotel. They were afraid that he might go in with them, which would be awkward, but as they paused under the canopy, a hansom drew up and Wyatt got out.

  “Well, what’s this?” he asked, looking from them to the policeman.

  “Was this who you went out to meet?” asked the policeman.

  “Not exactly,” said Sara evasively.

  “My name’s Wyatt. I’m a friend of theirs and of young Tillett’s mother and I’m staying here at the Brevoort, too. Now can you tell me what this is all about?”

  “They were out in Washington Square Park, and they found a body in the fountain there.”

  “A body?” He stiffened, looking sharply at Andrew who returned his glance with significant intensity.

  “There was a note for you,” he said. “But since you weren’t here, we went out to take care of it.”

  “I see,” said Wyatt, reading him correctly and understanding that there were things he did not want to say. “Do you know Inspector Sam Decker?” he asked the policeman.

  “I know who he is, sir.”

  “Well, will you get word to him that Peter Wyatt thinks he should know about the body in the fountain and that I also think he should stop by here tomorrow morning and talk to me and my friends here.”

  It’s unlikely that the policeman knew who Wyatt was, but he would have known he was someone of consequence even if he hadn’t mentioned Decker’s name.

  “I’ll do that, sir,” he said, saluting. “Good night to you. And to the two of you,” he said to Sara and Andrew and went off up Eighth Street toward the station house.

  “Where’s the note?” asked Wyatt.

  “Upstairs, under your door,” said Sara.

  “Let’s go up.” He got his key at the desk, led the way upstairs, opened the door and picked up the note.

  “How did it get up here?” he asked.

  “We brought it up,” said Sara. “Jim McCann said there was a note for you, and we thought it might be important.”

  “I assume you also read it,” he said, reading it himself.

  “Yes,” said Andrew. “The envelope was open, and we thought if it was important, we could get word to you at the theatre. But when we saw the time, we thought we wouldn’t have to. That you’d be back by then.”

  “But when I wasn’t, you thought you’d go meet the anonymous informant yourselves.”

  “That’s right,” said Sara. “Do you think he was the man who was killed?”

  “How do you know he was killed?”

  “Well, as the policeman said, it’s not likely he was taking a midnight swim.”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean either that he was the man who wrote the note or that he was killed. It’s possible that he died of natural causes and—”

  “Well, well,” said Verna, appearing at the top of the stairs. “Am I interrupting something?”

  “No,” said Andrew. “Not really.”

  “Then could you tell me what’s going on? I’m not inflexible about your bedtime, but even you will admit that this is a bit late for the two of you, unless there’s some special reason for it.”

  “There is a reason for it,” said Wyatt. “I don’t know whether it’s a good one or not, but … let’s go inside, and we’ll tell you about it.”

  They went into the sitting room of the suite, and taking off the shawl she wore over her ivory silk dress, Verna sat down and listened while Sara and Andrew told her what had happened, just as they had told Wyatt.

  “Does this have anything to do with one of your cases?” she asked Wyatt.

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Then who sent you that note and why?”

  “I think I can tell you why if not who, but I’d rather not. I’ve asked a friend of mine, Inspector Decker of the New York City Police, to come here tomorrow. I think he should be told about the note and how Sara and Andrew got involved, and I suspect he’ll be able to answer many of our questions as well as yours. So, especially since it’s so late, why don’t we hold them all in abeyance?”

  “That sounds sensible,” said Verna. Then, looking at Sara and Andrew with a frown that was only partly in jest, “As for you two.…”

  “Yes, mother,” said Andrew, and he and Sara both kissed her and went off to their respective rooms and beds.

  Decker came to the hotel at a little after eleven the next morning. Sara and Andrew were in the sitting room with Verna at the time. She was going to Mark Russell’s studio for her first sitting that afternoon—as a matter of fact, they were all going—and they were discussing what she should wear for the portrait when Wyatt brought Decker in. Though he was a fairly sophisticated man, his reaction was one that Andrew and Sara were used to, especially from men who had seen Verna on the stage. He did not stare, stammer and become much too courtly as some men did, but he did seem to find it hard to tear his eyes away from her and get to a discussion of the facts that was the supposed purpose of his visit.

  “Yes,” he said in answer to a question from Wyatt. “We’ve been able to identify the fellow in the fountain. He was generally known as Benny the Monk.”

  “The appellation, Monk, I suspect, was not used in its religious sense.”

  “No. It seems to have been short for monkey. If you had a chance to look at him, you’d know why.”

  “What did he do?” asked Andrew. “Was he a criminal?”

  “It’s hard to say. He was never booked for anything major—just vagrancy and drunkenness—but he hung around with known criminals, especially two who were suspected arsonists.”

  “Then he could have had something to do with setting fire to the investigators’ office,” said Sara. “Was he killed?”

  “Just a second,” said Decker. “Why do you connect him with the fire in the investigators’ office? And what were the two of you doing out there at the fountain anyway?”

  Sara and Andrew looked at Wyatt and when he nodded, they told the inspector about the note—which Wyatt gave to him—and then went on with everything that had happened after that.

  “I see,” said Decker thoughtfully. “To answer your question,” he said to Sara, “yes, he was killed. With his history, we thought at first that he might have fallen into the fountain while drunk and drowned. But our surgeon said no. There was a wound on the back of his head. He’d apparently been hit there—that’s what killed him—and then thrown into the fountain.”

  “That means that someone must have known about the note,” said Andrew, “and killed him to keep him from talking.”

  “That’s the way it looks,” said Decker.

  “May I ask a question?” said Verna. “Is this the case that brought you to New York?” she asked Wyatt.

  “No, it’s not. It’s something I have absolutely nothing to do with.”

  Andrew tried to catch Sara’s eye. For the first time Wyatt had not equivocated about whether he had or had not come to New York on a case. Which meant that he was on one.

  “Then why did that Benny the Monk send you that note?” asked Verna.

  “Tell her, Sam,” said Wyatt. And somewhat awkwardly, Decker did so, not going into all the details, but covering all the important ones and especially the story about Wyatt that had appeared in the World.

  “I see,” said Verna. “I’m sure you know why I’m interested.”

  “Of course,” said Decker. “You’re worried about Sara and Andrew. While it was nothing that anyone could have foreseen, I’m sorry about what happened last night and I can’t see any reason why they should have anything more to do with the case—or any other case—from now on.”

  “Good,” said Verna, ignoring the young people’s disappointed looks. “You’ve relieved my mind considerably. And now that we’ve straightened that out, would you like
to have lunch with us?”

  Though it was obvious that Decker would have liked to, he pleaded press of work and left. The four of them had lunch in the Brevoort restaurant, and a little before two they left for Russell’s studio.

  As the theatre was being readied for the dress rehearsal, which was to take place the next afternoon, there was no rehearsal that day. Nevertheless the carriage was at Verna’s disposal, and they used that to go to Russell’s studio. Andrew was the last one in, sitting on the outside with his back to the coachman. As he got in, he noticed a man standing near the hotel entrance, staring at them. He was in his thirties, powerfully built, and wore rather rough clothes: corduroy trousers and a short jacket over a checked shirt. He made no effort to avoid Andrew’s eye, and as the carriage moved off, Andrew saw him step out into the street and hail a hansom.

  Russell’s studio was on Twenty-Third Street, a short distance east of Fourth Avenue and the National Academy of Design, a striking building that was by no means to everyone’s taste, for it was built of marble and blue stone and was modelled after the Doge’s Palace in Venice. The studio, on the other hand, was in an unpretentious brownstone with a street-level entrance. As Andrew helped Sara and Verna out of the carriage, a hansom drew up a short distance beyond them and the man in the checked shirt got out. Again he made no effort to avoid Andrew’s eye, seemed in fact to be seeking it out. He paid off the cabby, then as Andrew hung back, letting Verna, Sara and Wyatt walk ahead of him toward the building, he came up to him.

  “Got a nickel for a cup of coffee, mister?” he said. The contradiction—calling Andrew mister and asking for a nickel when he had just gotten out of a cab—were too pointed to be accidental.

  “I think so,” said Andrew. He took out a nickel, handed it to the man and felt something pressed into his palm.

  “Thanks,” said the man, then he turned and walked away. Andrew watched him go, then went after Verna, Sara and Wyatt. What the man had given him was a note, folded small. But since, in spite of his seeming openness, the man had passed it to him secretly, Andrew did not look at it then, but put it in his pocket.

  Russell’s studio was on the second floor, in the rear. Wyatt, who had been there before, directed them to it, knocked and then stood aside when Russell opened the door. He was wearing a white shirt with the collar open and the sleeves rolled up, and he greeted them warmly as they walked in.