“But let’s suppose Mason is a killer. He knew Uncle Charles was in Toronto. He could have killed him at any time. Then Sadie could have collected on her policy and they could have gone off.”
“Yes, that’s true enough,” I admitted. “But there’s a difference between planning a cold-blooded murder and shooting a man in self-defense.”
“And he didn’t seem like a cold-blooded killer?”
“No, definitely not. You can tell by the eyes.”
“He did have sincere eyes,” Emmie agreed. But then she saw my smile. “You’re playing horse with me again.”
That put Emmie into a pet, but at least I was allowed to sleep for the rest of the trip. When we arrived, Emmie woke me with a rather unsettling request. She asked for the return of the fifty dollars she had entrusted to me. I wasn’t up to explaining why there was only thirty-some remaining, so I lied.
“I’m afraid I left it at my hotel when I stopped off there earlier.”
“You left it in a hotel room?”
“No, no. The manager put it in the safe for me. I’ll bring it by the house this evening.” If only I could lie as well as Mason, there wouldn’t have been a problem. As it was, Emmie left for home with a look of consternation on her face. It was quite unbecoming.
I bought a newspaper and went over to McLeod’s for a cool bath. The big news was that the muzzling of dogs was still required, though the public was assured that the recent rabies epidemic had ended. Further down the page was the headline “Man’s Body Found in Cellar Hole.” The story read:
Workers at a building site on Oakland Street were surprised this morning to find the body of a man lying at the base of the cellar hole they’d been preparing. It was quickly apparent the man had been dead for some time, and the police were summoned.
As no papers were found on the body, the man could not at first be identified. Later, a photograph was taken at the morgue and shown at various hotels. The manager at the Iroquois identified him as John Whitner of New York. It is believed he lost his way in the dark, stumbled into the cellar, and hit his head on the masonry.
Why would Whitner have returned to Buffalo? I had assumed he would go straight to New York. But either way, he wasn’t the type to drink himself into a stupor and tumble into a cellar hole. Jack Whitner had been murdered. The police might not have looked too closely at it, or, if they had suspected it was murder, decided it wasn’t important. Most likely, they were right. Everyone who knew him in Buffalo would be glad to be rid of him. Any friends or relatives back in New York probably knew him under a different name. No one would be pestering the police demanding something be done. Certainly not me.
I dressed and then went off to the Iroquois. I found Keegan in the billiard room and we went in to dinner. He ordered us another exquisite meal, but there was still no smoked eel available. Apparently, Boss Conners had cornered the market.
“I was wondering about the advance on the Mason case?”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news there. And it’s a little embarrassing,” he confessed. “You see, the main reason I stayed on after Mrs. Keegan left was to spend a few days at the races in Fort Erie. The Grand Circuit is there this week. I never get a chance to visit the track at home. I stopped at the bank right after I spoke to you, but I’m afraid my luck went rather badly this afternoon. And, well….”
“I don’t mean to sound mercenary, but I could really use the money this evening. Even twenty dollars. Perhaps the cashier here would take your check?”
“I tried that, but it seems I’ve a rather large bill, and they really don’t know me. But I’d be happy to write you a check. Or you can wait until I visit the bank first thing in the morning. They have my letter of credit.”
I couldn’t imagine explaining to Emmie why I was returning her money in the form of a check from a complete stranger, so I told him I’d meet him in the morning. I tried to extend the evening as long as possible in the hope that if I called Emmie late enough, she’d have to agree to put off the repayment until the next day.
“Did you see Jack Whitner was found dead this morning?” I asked.
“Jack Whitner?”
“Yes, that fellow I was with when I ran into you and the missus the other night.”
“Was there an accident?”
“Well, he was found dead in the cellar hole of a house they’re building somewhere. The police think it was an accident.”
“Any reason not to think so?”
I recounted Whitner’s part in the events of the last several days.
“Yes, a bit of a coincidence,” was all Keegan said.
We lingered over our meal, had cigars and brandy, and then played several games of pool. Keegan won three dollars, but agreed to put it on account. It was long after ten when we went into the lobby. I told Keegan I needed to make a call and headed to the phone. As I passed the desk, I saw Detective Donahy speaking with the clerk. The clerk nodded at me and whispered something to Donahy.
Donahy cut me off before I got to the telephone. He had a look of disgust on his face. At least, I took it as disgust. It may have been indigestion. Regardless, he didn’t look in the best of moods.
“I guess we need to have a talk,” he said. “Let’s sit down.”
“Is this about Jack Whitner?” I asked.
“Yeah. We got a call this evening from a Miss McGinnis. She insisted Whitner was murdered. So I got called away from home and had to listen to a long story of hers about following this Whitner to Canada, finding Charles Elwell dead, chasing that Mason guy, and what else I can’t remember. She said you could tell me all about Whitner. You weren’t at your hotel so I came here to see what they knew about him. The clerk just told me you’d been asking about Whitner.”
I should have known Emmie wouldn’t miss an opportunity to complicate things.
“Well, she exaggerated,” I said. “I don’t know much, really. But I suspect Whitner was a grafter who knew something about Elwell still being alive. He was from New York and there’s probably something on him there. I think he assumed Elwell had set up an insurance fraud scheme with his wife or Sadie Parker, or perhaps both. So he was sticking around hoping to find out where Elwell was hiding. Then he’d blackmail him. But he mistook postcards sent to Sadie from Mason as coming from Elwell. He read one telling Sadie to go to a Queen’s Hotel and ended up in Toronto expecting to find Elwell there. He was in the right city, but for the wrong reason. And he never saw Elwell. With Elwell’s death, his set-up died, too. I have no idea why he came back here.”
“This McGinnis girl says he must have known who killed Charles Elwell.”
“Miss McGinnis has a restless imagination. The police in Toronto are willing to believe Robert Mason killed Elwell. Anyway, I thought your people determined Whitner’s death was an accident?”
“Well, the boys kind of left it at that. There was a bash on the head, and plenty of stone to hit it on. But now there’ll be an autopsy.”
“Even if Whitner was murdered, I’d bet it was because of some other bunco he had going. He was in town for a few weeks, so he may have had several irons in the fire. Blackmail may have been a specialty. I’d see who else he met with here.”
“Yeah. First I’ll see what the autopsy finds. Maybe I won’t have to bother,” he said. “Where will you be tomorrow?”
“I’ll be in town.”
“Well, meet me in the office around eleven. By then I’ll know what the doctor has to say about Whitner. And you can give me your version of what happened in Canada.”
I agreed to do that, and then finally telephoned Emmie.
“I’m sorry for calling so late, Emmie.”
“That’s all right. Did you see Detective Donahy?”
“Yes.” In fact, I was looking straight at him. He was over by the desk talking to Keegan. “Why’d you get involved in this, Emmie?”
“Well, doesn’t it seem too much of a coincidence? Whitner goes to Toronto just in time for Uncle Charles’s murder. Th
en comes back here the next day and is found dead just a block from the house.”
“A block from your aunt’s house?”
“Yes, didn’t you realize that?”
“No. Donahy didn’t mention it. I see what you mean now.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“It doesn’t matter what I’m thinking. It’s what Donahy thinks. Did you find out where Charlie went on Saturday?”
“Lockport. He spent the night there.”
“But he came back to town on Sunday?”
“No, not until this morning. He called Aunt Nell from the office. His business trip took longer than he had anticipated.”
“Is he home now?”
“No, he told Aunt Nell he was going out with some friends after work.”
“Isn’t it kind of odd he hasn’t been home since he and his mother learned about his father’s death?”
“He was home for lunch. And it’s not like Aunt Nell is in tears over Uncle Charles’s death. I suppose it might strike someone else as odd. But Charlie didn’t kill anyone. You need to make sure Detective Donahy understands that.”
“Detective Donahy would be home in bed and have forgotten all about Whitner if you hadn’t telephoned.”
“I know. I should have waited until I’d spoken with Charlie. Maybe I could tell them it was a mistake.”
“Too late. There’ll be an autopsy tomorrow morning and it’s a safe bet they’ll determine it was murder. Are you going to the office tomorrow?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“I’ll meet you for lunch. By then I’ll know the results of the autopsy.”
She agreed. I felt bad for making her feel guilty. But at least the matter of her fifty dollars never came up.
I went over to the Vendome to see if Carlotta was in. It was late to be calling, but not for her crowd. She was in the taproom with a new cast of vaudevillians. These were the acts for the new week at Shea’s. I got to regale them with the story of Elwell and Mason, and Sadie. I’d be able to buy drinks with this tale for years to come.
Madden wasn’t there, so I drew Carlotta aside to ask about him.
“Our next show is three days in Cleveland, starting Thursday, so he went up to see his family, in Canada someplace.”
“But you didn’t go with him?”
“Why would I go with him? I stayed on to see you again, and for the horse races.”
“You’ve been to the races today? How’d you do?”
“Don’t ask. Another day like that and I’ll be walking to Cleveland.”
“I don’t suppose you knew a fellow by the name of Jack Whitner in New York?”
“It doesn’t sound familiar. Why?”
“Oh, I think he might have been a friend of Madden’s. He was found dead this morning.”
“Another murder?”
“Maybe.”
Then I told her about my engagement to Emmie. She began to ask me about Emmie’s family and just how much I knew about her. Which naturally made me laugh, given that Emmie’s family had such an unflattering picture of Carlotta. I had to tell her all about her brief stay at college, and subsequent stumble into ill repute. She found it very funny. But when she was done laughing, and had had time to think about it, she asked if I was sure Emmie wasn’t just a little queer in the head.
19
After breakfast the next morning I went directly to the Iroquois and camped out in the lobby until Keegan finally came down. I wasn’t going to let him out of my sight until the banks opened and I had my advance. I sat through breakfast with him and tried to bring up Whitner again. But he kept changing the subject.
“I may have a job in Scranton for you,” he said. “But you’d need to be there in the next day or so. Could you make that?”
“I don’t know. You see, I’ve gotten myself engaged.” I told him about Emmie and he congratulated me.
“So you’re stuck in Buffalo making arrangements?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you come to the races with me this afternoon?” he asked. “We can catch the 1:30 train.”
“I’d like that. If I can make it, I’ll meet you at the station.”
Then we took a leisurely walk to the bank. He cashed a rather sizable check and handed me fifty dollars.
“There you are, Harry. That should tide you over until you receive the rest.”
And of course it would have, except that the rest wouldn’t come until the end of the month. Not only did I need to replenish Emmie’s nest egg today, but I’d left Brooklyn without paying my rent.
I had an hour before I was to meet Detective Donahy, so I took a car uptown to have a look at Whitner’s cellar hole. It wasn’t hard to find. There were plenty of buildings going up in the neighborhood, and no shortage of cellar holes, but only one had a ring of spectators.
Now that it was a potential murder scene, the police had halted work at the site and a patrolman stood guard. He didn’t need any encouragement to provide a run-down of the facts as he knew them. There wasn’t much to see. If there had been any blood, some helpful soul must have washed it off the day before. The hole was deep enough that it was easy to imagine someone tripping in and receiving a fatal knock on the head. But the cellar was thirty-odd feet from the street and there was a street light not far away. And Whitner would have had to negotiate a path through various piles of building materials just to get to the hole.
I took a car back downtown and headed to Donahy’s office. He was just finishing a telephone call.
“That was the doctor. He said he can’t be sure what caused them, but there were two blows to the back of the head. They occurred about the same time and it isn’t clear which was the cause of death.”
“Was there blood there when you found the body?”
“Yes—here’s the report.” He handed me a sheet of the most illegible scribble I’d ever seen.
“Can we get a translation?”
Donahy took it back and summarized it for me. “Detective Sheppard was called to the scene at eight o’clock yesterday morning. The body was lying face down, as if the man had stumbled into the hole. There was blood on one stone and the back of his scalp. Sheppard went through the victim’s pockets and found a wallet with a few Canadian dollars, but no identification. There was also a keychain, a pocket knife, and some coins. Then the ambulance came and took the body to the morgue. There it was photographed and Sheppard took the photo around to the hotels. Someone at the Iroquois identified it as Whitner and said he was from New York. Since he thought it was an accident, Sheppard sent what he had on to New York so they could find Whitner’s family.”
“How’s it look to you now?”
“Well, if he was drunk enough, he could have stumbled into the hole and hit his head and been knocked out. Then he came to, climbed most of the way out, tripped, and then fell back in, hitting his head again.”
“You’ll leave it at that?”
“I would if it were up to me. But your friend Miss McGinnis wired that Toronto police inspector in Rochester.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. He came in from Rochester this morning. He was at the morgue for the autopsy. And he’s very interested. So if we close the case as an accident, and he says it looks like murder, it’ll seem like we’re covering something up.”
Just then, a patrolman escorted Inspector Stark into the office.
“What did you make of the autopsy, Inspector?” Donahy asked.
“I’ll speak frankly, Detective,” he replied. “It could have been an odd accident, or it may have been murder. If I had a similar situation in Toronto—with some fellow from out of town, and no other evidence of murder—I’d probably call it an accident and leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, for the both of us I’m afraid, this man is tied to a murder in Toronto.”
“But I thought you had your man in Rochester,” Donahy said.
“Yes, that’s what I thought. But there are some questions
I can’t answer. Mr. Reese is aware of some of these, but last night I received a cable from the man I left in charge and he said they had found a witness who saw a tall man leave the building after the shots were fired, then saw Mason leave a little while later. Whitner was a tall man. And he was in Toronto at the time.”
“What would his motive have been?” Donahy asked.
“Well, I really don’t know,” the Inspector admitted. “But he was up to something, and whatever it was is still a mystery. Maybe he was a hired killer?”
“I’ve reason to believe that’s not the case,” Donahy said.
“Then you’ve learned something about him?” Stark asked.
“Yes, it seems he was employed by the same man who employs Mr. Reese here.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Your Mr. Keegan told me so himself. Last night.”
“And he was working on something for Keegan here in Buffalo?”
“He said he didn’t think so, but that his operatives worked on their own time and followed their own leads. He’s sent to New York for his file on Whitner.”
“His name really was Jack Whitner?” I asked.
“Keegan says it was as far as he knew. He didn’t tell you about any of this?”
“No. He likes to keep things compartmentalized.”
“Whitner may have simply been looking for Elwell for the same reason you were, Mr. Reese,” Stark said.
“If he was, he sure was going about it in a bizarre fashion. I think it’s more likely he learned about the Elwell case through work at Keegan’s. When a man with seventy thousand dollars of insurance on his life goes missing under suspicious circumstances, warning flags are raised. Perhaps Keegan’s file room was consulted and Whitner learned about it. He saw it as an obvious fraud and thought he could profit from it. But instead of being satisfied with the five percent he would get from Keegan, he decided it would be more profitable to blackmail the parties involved. Then he could ask for fifty percent. Or more.”
“Tell me, Detective, were you planning to let me know about this new information?” Stark asked.
Always a Cold Deck (A Harry Reese Mystery Book 1) Page 16
