by Zelda Popkin
"That's not fair, Chris. Just because we waited for Phyllis Knight and luncheon was late starting. What's doing?"
"Not much. One of your old friends - green-eyed Gussie, remember her? dropped in. Fresh out of Westfield Prison. Came right on over to get a new fur coat. Had a Persian Lamb under her sport coat when we caught her. The cool weather'll be reminding the girls they'd like a new fox or a hunk of mink."
Miss Carner nodded, her hand on the door-knob. "Remind me," she said, "to call Phyllis Knight's office later. She didn't show up at the luncheon."
"She's getting smart. I never thought much of those hen parties of yours. Women! Just women!"
"Oh, we had a man. He made a speech. You'd have loved it. Said we go around looking for trouble. Told the girls to stay home and tend to their knitting."
"There's a special on wool and needles in art embroidery today, sweetheart. You do the knitting. I provide the home."
"I'll think it over." Miss Carner waved her hand airily. "Some evening when I've nothing better to do, I'll think about it."
"Do, sweet. Dinner with me, tonight?"
Miss Carner's nod said "Yes."
At half past five, when the bell had rung to warn the customers of closing time, and the clerks were covering the tables with night shrouds of blue denim, Miss Carner stepped into a phone booth and dialed a number in the John exchange.
A man's voice answered.
"Is this Miss Knight's office?" Mary asked.
"Yes." The voice at the other end seemed disappointed.
"Is Miss Knight in?"
"No."
"Has she been back this afternoon?"
"No."
"Is she at her home?"
There was a ten second pause before the voice answered: "I do not believe so."
"This is her friend. Mary Carner of Blankfort's. We expected her at the Contempora luncheon. She didn't show up. I thought I'd call to see whether she was ill."
"I do not believe Miss Knight is ill."
"Who is this? To whom am I speaking?"
The voice seemed to hesitate again. "Miss Knight's secretary. Ben Struthers," it said finally.
"Oh, Mister Struthers, but you'd surely know if Miss Knight were ill, wouldn't you?"
"If she informed me."
The secretary's taciturnity was trying. "Miss Knight was planning to attend the luncheon, wasn't she?" Mary persisted.
"One moment…. Hold the wire, please. I'll consult her calendar…. Yes, Miss, she planned to attend the luncheon. It is written in her engagement book."
"Did she notify you of any change in her plans?"
The pause before Struthers answered was longer this time. At last he said: "I have not heard from Miss Knight at all today. I have been waiting at the office to hear from her."
"Have you called her house?"
"I have not called her residence. Miss Knight does not care to be called at home…." Another pause. "She has a rule about that."
"And you follow instructions, always?"
"Miss Knight is the best judge of what she wishes." Mr. Struthers was beginning to show irritation. "I am sorry. I can give no further information." Mr. Struthers' receiver clicked an abrupt ending.
Miss Carner fished another nickel from her bag, dialed a number in the Gramercy exchange. The dial tone hummed half a dozen times before a woman's voice growled: "Yes?"
"Is this Miss Knight's residence?"
"Yes."
"May I speak to Miss Knight?"
"Not in. Good-bye."
"Where is she? Where can I reach her?" Miss Carner's questions rolled futilely along a deaf wire.
At dinner with Christopher Whittaker that evening, Mary said: "Chris, I'm worried about Phyllis. She isn't home. She hasn't been at her office all day."
"Can't the woman have a private life?"
"Of course she can. But it's not like her."
"What isn't - a private life?"
"No. Not that. Failing to keep an appointment. She's one of the most meticulous people I know. The sort of person who works out schedules and keeps them to the dot. She planned to come to the luncheon."
"Maybe she met Robert Taylor and ran off with him."
"Oh silly. If you knew Phyllis. She'd not look twice at any man. Not even Taylor."
"It might be mutual."
"Oh, she's not bad looking. The petite, blonde type you boys like."
"Don't say 'you boys' to me. Got my own ideas. Willowy brunettes in tailored, gray suits."
"I'm not joking, Chris. I didn't like the way her secretary answered. Couldn't get much more than yes or no out of him. And a female who answered the phone at her house was even more secretive."
"Mary." Chris Whittaker's voice was sharp as his chin and nose. "Don't let your imagination run away with you. A friend of yours fails to keep an unimportant date and you build a case. Phyllis Knight is a grown woman, isn't she? She knows her way around, doesn't she? She's free and over twenty-one, isn't she? She doesn't have to give an accounting to anyone, does she, of where she comes and goes? Not to you, at any rate. She can take care of herself. Stick to your knitting …Now, what'll you eat? A steak? O.K. Two T-bone. Medium for the lady, rare for me. Get them right on the fire, will you, waiter? What'll you have first - oysters, tomato juice? How about some nice hot soup? Cool night like this? O.K., two puree Mongole. Baked Idahoes with the steak…. That's settled"
A tattered urchin, eluding the cashier at the desk near the door, was making his way between the restaurant tables with a sheaf of evening papers under his arm. Chris Whittaker beckoned: "Here boy!", took a paper, gave the boy a nickel, waved the change away. "All yours, sonny." He flipped the paper open, glanced over page one.
Miss Carner said: "Where were you brought up? Didn't anyone ever teach you it's bad manners to read at table?"
"'Scuse please, ma'am." He slipped the paper behind him. "Your friend was beginning to pall. Thought I'd dig up something else to talk about. Takes twenty minutes to do a steak medium. . . Lots of good conversation in that front page. Europe, f'r instance. And Rockey Nardello. Trial started today. Bad break for Europe. Rockey'll steal the front page."
Miss Carner made a little moue of distaste. "International gangsterism in Europe…. Small time gangsterism in New York."
"Small time, my eye, lady. Rockey'd bust a blood vessel if he heard that. He's the big shot. Policy. Bookmaking. Alcohol. Vice on the side. Others I never even heard about. I'm a nice boy. If the D.A. doesn't fall down on the Nardello prosecution - and I think he means business - he can take the town apart. A man like Rockey can't operate without protection: police, judges, politicians, big shots way up on the top crust who won't soil their lily hands with blood and dirt - only with gravy."
"Amazing, isn't it." Mary spooned her soup thoughtfully. "How little we know about what goes on under our noses in New York. The sores of evil run deep, but if the surface is smooth . . ."
"Sure, sure," Chris Whittaker assented. "New York's the place where you can have a private life. You can do anything, be anything you please. New Yorkers mind their own business. Police cars, ambulances, fire engines - nobody even turns around for them. We go to the movies for excitement. You can get away with murder in this town."
"You don't believe that, Chris. It isn't true."
"Isn't, eh? Shows how little you know. What's the name of the people next door to you? Don't you say you know. Nobody knows. Why should you be different?
Know what they look like? Well, maybe you've seen her taking in the milk, him reaching for the Sunday paper. Maybe you've passed them in the hall, gone down the elevator with them once or twice. Could you give the police an accurate description of them? No, you couldn't. Admit it. Even you, whose business it is to have eyes and ears Well, suppose she slipped him a dose of poison some night - or vice versa - or slit his throat while he was sleeping, left a note for the milkman not to deliver any till further notice (that's a nice touch - my own idea - never forget to stop the milk after
a homicide) and skipped town. How long would it be before the crime was discovered? Couple of days, when the corpse smelled to heaven. By that time the murderer'd be - who knows? Boats leave New York harbor every day of the week. And trains and busses. And air-lines."
Miss Carner broke a roll and buttered it. "That's your story and you'll stick to it," she said. "Even if it couldn't happen. There's always something to betray a murder - an outcry, a careless misstep, the workings of conscience."
"You're a big girl, now," Chris answered. "Ain't it time to stop believing in Santa Claus? Here's dinner. Say, this steak's not bad." He chewed in contented silence for a few moments. Then he lifted his head, grinned at Miss Carner. "As I was saying - or wasn't I? - your lady friend might be dead this very minute and nobody be the wiser. That's a pretty thought for the evening. What do you say we go to the movies?"
In spite of Chris Whittaker's admonition to mind her business - or possibly because of it - Mary Carner called the telephone number in the John exchange and the one in the Gramercy exchange at ten on Friday morning and again at five in the afternoon. She called both numbers Saturday morning. She dialed the Gramercy number Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning and on Monday morning she phoned to the John number again. And then she said: "Chris, she isn't at her office. She isn't at her house. At least they say she isn't. And they tell it to me in a way that makes me uneasy."
"Are you your girl friend's keeper? Suppose Miss Knight has gone away somewhere and left orders that nosy people aren't to be told where she is. Suppose you're just being told what she wishes you to be told, no more, no less."
Mary shook her head. "No, the man at the office is worried too. I can tell by his voice. Look, Chris, would you mind very much if I took an earlier lunch hour today? I'd like to run down and talk to him."
Just before noon, Miss Carner climbed out of the subway caverns into the gloomy canyons of lower Manhattan. She blinked at the sunlight that lay like a benediction over the grass and marble oasis of Trinity churchyard. She paused to envy the mid-day idlers, spreading their lunches on the flat gravestones, swinging their heels above dust of the centuries. Then she crossed Broadway, saying to herself how odd it was that that historic churchyard made one think only of peace and ageless beauty. It was the street of the living, rather, the narrow, sunless canyon of Pine Street, which gave one a chill of foreboding. Where there were living people, there was fear, for there was hate.
On the forty-second floor of a tall office building, a door, black lettered "Phyllis Knight, Counsellor-at-Law," let into a reception room, sexless with worn leather upholstered chairs, long oak table on which the daily law journals, and the bulkier magazines of the profession were neatly stacked; carpet of taupe broadloom, stereotyped etchings of non-committal landscapes.
An attractive young receptionist at a desk in the center dog-eared the page of her screen magazine, looked up with a bright "Good-morning."
"Is Miss Knight in?"
"Not at the moment."
"Her secretary, Mister Struthers? He's in, isn't he?"
"I'll see. Who shall I tell him is calling?"
Mary gave her name. The girl wrote it on a slip of paper. "Will you have a seat?"
Miss Carner took the edge of a chair. The receptionist disappeared behind a door in the partition. Mary heard the distant ringing of a telephone, the muffled sound of a masculine voice, answering the phone, then the man's voice and a girl's voice in colloquy. Then the door opened. The receptionist came in and behind her a stocky man with waxen face, yellow-dyed by either fading summer tan or jaundice, a freckled bald head, like a brown egg, and unhappy eyes behind a pince-nez.
"I'm Mister Struthers." The man surveyed Miss Carner. The inspection seemed to reassure him, for he added, almost politely: "Please step inside."
He led the way to a window-less cubicle which held a book-case, a typewriter desk and swivel seat, and a single straight-backed chair. An electric light burned dismally below the ceiling. "This is my private office."
Through an open doorway, Miss Carner could see a spacious, sunny room, a wide desk, easy chairs, corner windows spreading a panorama of water and sky, of undulating hills of Staten Island, of ships ploughing toward the sea. Mr. Struthers followed her gaze, and got up to close the connecting door. "Miss Knight does not care to have her office entered in her absence," he said stiffly. He pulled out the straight-backed chair for Mary Carner. He clasped his hands, put them up on a corner of his desk.
"Now then," he said. "What is it you wish?"
"I? Nothing but to get in touch with Miss Knight."
Struthers smiled wryly. "I share your wish," he said. "You're the person who has been calling up, are you not?"
"I'm Mary Carner, Miss Knight's friend."
"May I ask what makes you so concerned over her absence?"
"I've told you that on the phone. She didn't appear at our luncheon. I knew she had been ill. I thought she might be ill again." She paused, considered what she was about to say, watched his face, as she said: "I'm a detective, Mister Struthers. That's my business." Was it illusion that the man paled and his fingers twitched? "Not police. Department store," she added quickly.
"Oh." He seemed relieved. "What makes you feel," he said, with what seemed to be eagerness, "that there's anything wrong about Miss Knight's absence?"
"A sixth sense, possibly." She smiled to reassure him. "I gathered you were worried too." She fumbled in her bag. "Do you mind if I smoke?"
"Miss Knight doesn't like it. Since her illness, she claims smoke irritates her throat. I've stopped it myself. I like a cigar once in a while. I've given that up, too. She might come in while you're here and she'd be annoyed."
Mary dropped her cigarette case back into her handbag. "You certainly follow instructions," she began. Then she halted, realizing the import of what he had said. "You're expecting Miss Knight back any moment, aren't you?"
"Why, certainly," Ben Struthers answered. "She has work to do. She has a title closing here this afternoon at four. She has to be in court tomorrow at ten. She's given me no instructions to change those appointments."
"When did she make the appointments?"
"Last week. Before she left."
"This is Monday. You've had no word from her since last Wednesday and yet you expect her to keep her appointments?"
"I do. Miss Knight always keeps her appointments."
"She didn't keep them Thursday, or Friday or Saturday, did she?"
"No." Struthers seemed reluctant to make the admission. "It was most troublesome. We - Miss Getch and I - that's Miss Knight's clerk - did the best we could. We put people off. It was very difficult. There's one default judgment - Oh, that'll be a headache, that will. I do wish she'd get back."
"Yet when she left here Wednesday, she gave you no hint that she was changing her plans? No notion of where she was going?"
"Why, certainly." Was that a shadow of a smile on Struthers' face? "She told me where she was going. She said she was going to the movies."
Now that was preposterous! A busy attorney had walked out of her office, announcing she was going to the movies, and had been gone for nearly a week. Was the man joking? No, apparently not. His expression was serious, anxious even.
"What movies?" Mary asked sharply.
"I have no idea."
"Was she alone?"
"I believe so."
"Was she to meet anyone?"
A brief hesitation. "I could not say. Miss Knight does not tell me her personal affairs."
"Have you been in touch with her house? Have you suggested that they notify the authorities to search for her? Have you spoken to her father?"
Distress cut deep lines alongside Mr. Struthers' nose. His words were tangled in a stutter. "I don't know whether you know it, Miss,- Miss Knight wouldn't like me to discuss her family - her housekeeper is a bit difficult."
"I've found that out."
"All I've been able to get out of her is that Miss Knight hasn't been home
since she left her residence Wednesday morning. I haven't been able to talk to her father at all."
"Did she leave any writing, any papers, any letters that might indicate her plans? Anything on her desk? In her desk?"
"Miss Knight is very meticulous. She clears up all current matters before she leaves. She never leaves anything on her desk. It's locked. It's always locked. She has the keys with her."
"Could you show me her appointment sheet?"
Struthers stiffened. "Of course not. I would not dream of revealing the details of Miss Knight's business to anyone."
