Darkness at dawn : early suspense classics

by Woolrich, Cornell

  The ferry was in when I got back and the passengers were straggling up the long, almost horizontal gangplank. It hadn’t brought anybody out with it this trip, as the statue was closed to visitors after 4:30 each day and this was its last round trip. “Turn this in at the lost-and-found for me, will you?” I said, shoving the hat at one of the soldiers on pier-duty as I went by. “I just found it up there.”

  “Hand it in at the other end, at the Battery,” he said. “That’s where they come and claim things.”

  I was so dead-sure of lamping the lid’s owner on the ferry, this being its last trip back, that I hung onto it without arguing and went looking for him in the saloon, or whatever they call the between-decks part of a ferry. Meanwhile the landing platform had been rolled back and we’d started to nose up the bay.

  “He’s got to be on here,” I said to myself. “He’s not spending the night back there on the island. And nothing that floats came to take him off between the time we all got off the first time and just now when this thing called back for us.” I knew that for a fact, because the ferry only made the run once every hour, on the half-hour, and it was the only one in service. So I went all over the schooner from bow to stern, upstairs, downstairs, inside and out. In the saloon a couple of kids were sitting one on each side of their father, swinging their legs over the edge of the long bench that ran all around it. And a guy who didn’t give a hoot about the skyline outside was reading Hellinger in the Mirror. Nobody else.

  On the port deck the other half-dozen were sitting in chairs, just like they would on a transatlantic greyhound only without rugs, and one or two were leaning over the rail trying to kid themselves they were on an ocean trip. He wasn’t there either. Then when I went around to the starboard deck (only maybe it was the port and the other was starboard, don’t expect too much from a guy that was never further away than Coney Island), there was his wife sitting there as big as life, all by herself and the only person on that side of the scow which faced good old Joisey. I walked by her once and took a squint at her without stopping. She never even saw me. She was staring peacefully, even dreamily, out at the bay.

  Now, I had no absolute proof that she was his wife, or had made the excursion with him at all. He had mentioned his wife to me, so his wife was along with him, no doubt about that. But each time I had overtaken him on one of the benches inside the statue she had gone up just ahead of him and I had missed seeing her. Then when I got up to the top this particular woman had been up there ahead of me scrawling her initials. That much I was sure of. She had been at the next observation window to me with that same “come-and-take-me” far-away look that she had now. But it was only by putting two and two together that I had her labeled as his wife; I had no definite evidence of it. So I stopped up at the other end of the narrow little deck and turned and started back toward her.

  I don’t care who a guy is or what his job is, it isn’t easy for him to accost a woman sitting minding her own business like that, unless he’s the masher type—which I’m not. “If she gives me a smack in the puss,” I said to myself, “I’m gonna throw this son-of-a—hat in the water and make up my mind I never saw any fat guy; it was just a trick of the lighting effects in the statue!”

  I stopped dead in my tracks in front of her and tipped my hat and said: “Pardon me, but I’ve got y’husband’s hat here.” I held it out.

  She looked me up and down and a lot of little icicles went tinkling along the deck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I haven’t any husband—and I’m not interested in picking one up on a ferryboat in the bay!”

  This was enough to sour a saint; it was rubbing it in a little too much. First there’s a fat man and his wife. Then there’s no fat man. And now it seems there’s no wife either. Only a hat.

  “I’m no picker-upper,” I growled. “Just let’s get this straight though. On the way over I distinctly noticed you with a very hefty gentleman. You were talking to each other. You were sitting side by side out on this deck-bench. And you both stood up together when it was time to get off. I remember that distinctly, on account of your shapes reminded me of the number 10. Then later I saw the guy by himself in there. And that’s the last; he does a fade-out. Now all I’m trying to do is get this blasted kelly back to—”

  The temperature didn’t go up any. “Well, why pick on me?” she said. “Why marry me off to him, and turn me into his hatcheck girl in the bargain? Who are you, anyway, the census-taker? All right, a fat clown did sit down next to me on the way out and try to take a shine to me. So what? I never saw him before in my life, don’t know his name from Adam. You saw me talking to him all right—I told him a thing or two, only I’m not the kind screams for help and makes a scene. And if he stood up at the same time I did and tried to stick close to me, I outdistanced him once we hit those stairs, don’t you worry. And if you think you rate any higher than he did just ‘cause your stomach goes in instead of out, think again! Next time I go on an excursion I’m bringing a bulldog along—”

  “Oh, just one of these strong, silent women! Not a word to say, eh?” I told her. “Well, suppose you give me your name and address just for fun,”

  She hoisted herself up and took a quick step away. “I’m going to get a cop!” she burst out.

  I side-stepped around and got in front of her. “You’ve got one,” I said, and let the badge slide back into my vest pocket again. “Now are you going to tell me what I asked you?”

  “You can’t compel me to give you my name if I don’t want to!” she said hotly. “Who do you think you’re dealing with, some fly-by-night chippy? I don’t care whether you’re a detec—”

  Which was true enough, as far as that goes. But she had me steamed up by now. “Either you identify yourself, or you can consider yourself under arrest!” I didn’t have a thing on her, and I knew it. I had no way of proving that what she had told me about the fat man wasn’t so. True, he had mentioned his wife to me sitting on the bench in the statue, but he hadn’t tagged this particular woman or anyone else in the group as being “it.” He hadn’t even made it clear whether his wife had accompanied him on the excursion. For all I knew she might be sitting at home at this very moment, just as my own was.

  Meanwhile, “—never so insulted in my life!” she was boiling, but she was going through the motions of coming across, with angrily shaking hands. She threw back the lid of her pocketbook and fished around inside it. “I didn’t expect ii third degree like this,” she snapped, “so I didn’t bring my pedigree with me! However, I’m Alice Colman, Van Raalte Apartments, Tarrytown. Take it or leave it!”

  I felt like two cents by now, especially as I noticed her eyes growing shiny with tears. Even if the fat man had met with foul play, which there was no proof of so far, she hadn’t been anywhere near him at the time it happened. She had been away up at the top looking dreamy. I was only doing this because I’d seen them together on the trip out, and she needn’t have made me feel like such a lug. I covered it up by going through with what I was doing, taking out my notebook and jotting down the info. “Miss Alice Colman,” I said out loud, squinting down my pencil.

  “I didn’t say that!” she flared. “Oh, let me alone, you dog!” And she whisked herself off down the deck as if she couldn’t stand any more. I could see her shoulders shaking as she went. I let her alone after that, didn’t try to follow her up.

  “Well, well, well,” I sighed, “I certainly have the light touch with dolls!” Her last crack, I took it, meant that she was a Mrs. and not a Miss.

  If I had any doubts that the fat guy might have turned out to be on the ferry after all, hiding behind a cuspidor or something, and that I had simply missed seeing him until now, they were very soon settled once the tub had tied up at the South Ferry landing. I stationed myself on the lower end of the plank ahead of everyone, and stopped them one by one as they tried to go past. “Police headquarters… . Name, please… . Address. Got anything to back it up?” And I killed the inevit
able “What’s this for?” each time it came with a terse “None of your business!”

  When I was through I had a line on every one who had made the outing with me—at least if anything turned up now I was no longer in the dark. All but the very guy who was missing. And he was still missing. He had definitely not made the trip back on the boat. The Colman person was the last one off, and came sailing by me head in air with the cold remark: “Be sure you follow me—low-down common bully!” I just stood there and looked after her, scratching my head. It was only after she’d gone that I realized she was the only one of the lot who hadn’t backed up her name and address with documentary proof

  But meanwhile there was something else I wanted to see about.

  I went around to the ticket office in the ferry building; it was closed, of course. Ours had been the last trip of the day. I hammered on the wicket, and then I went around and pounded on the door. Luckily they were still in there, counting the day’s receipts or something. I recognized the guy that had sold me my own ticket. “Headquarters, it’s all right, lemme in a minute.” And when he had, “Now look. Do you remember selling a ticket down the bay to a fat guy, puffy cheeks like this, blue suit, brown hat, when the last boatful went out?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, I do.”

  “How many did he buy? One or two?”

  “Two,” he said decidedly. “I been selling ‘em all day long, but I can remember that all right because he was lamebrained, couldn’t count straight. He wanted to tell me four-forty change was coming to him out of a finn. I says, ‘Buddy,’ I says, ‘in my country two times thirty-five adds up to—’”

  “Never mind the trailer,” I squelched. “Did she—did anyone come up to the window with him when he bought them?”

  “Naw, he come up to the window alone and bought two tickets. I didn’t see who was with him.”

  “Being sore at him, you didn’t take a gander out the window after him after he moved on? Most ticket-sellers would.”

  “They were all on line,” he explained. “I didn’t have time, had to wait on the next rubberneck.”

  Well, if he’d bought two tickets his wife was with him—he hadn’t bought them just because he was ovenA^eight himself, that was a cinch. As for his wife, runner-up to himself when it came to staying out of sight, little Alice Colman was elected for the time being. Which added up to this—I was going back to that island. She could hold for awhile. If nothing had happened to him, then it was none of my business whether she was wife, girl-friend, or total stranger to him. But if something had—I wasn’t forgetting that she was the only person outside myself I’d seen him talking to.

  I beat it outside to the ferry again. It was still there, but fixing to go wherever it is they go for the night when they’re not in service. Or maybe it was just going to stay put. But not while I knew it.

  A couple of tattooed arms tried to bar my way up the gangplank. “One side,” I said, and the badge was getting a high polish just from nibbing against the serge so much, “I gotta see the captain before he slips off his suspenders!”

  “He uses safety-pins,” he corrected me dryly, “but go ahead—”

  He came out of the saloon just then struggling into a lumber-jacket, evidently going ashore to catch up on his suds.

  “Say, y’gotta take me back there,” I burst out. “Here’s what—” And I explained all about the hefty passenger that had gone out and hadn’t come back.

  He was one person the badge didn’t mean a thing to; he was used to being boss of the roost. “Gro ‘way, man, you’re out of your head!” he boomed. ‘This boat’s asleep for tonight, I wouldn’t make another run there for St. Peter himself. If he missed it and got left behind, that’s his tough luck. He’ll just have to wait over until nine in the morning, there are plenty of benches on the island, just like Central P—” and he took the most graceful spiral spit over the rail I had ever seen— and made it.

  “But y’ don’t get what I mean!” I howled, shoving the brown felt in his face. “He didn’t just miss it—something’s happened to him. Now give your orders. You know what this means, don’t you? You’re obstructing—”

  “I take my orders from the company,” he said surlily, looking longingly in the direction of the dives along South Street. “If that piece of tin means anything why don’t it get you a police launch?”

  But I wasn’t going to be a back-room laughing-stock for the rest of the year in case I did get there with a launch and find the fat guy had stayed behind to pick dandelions or something. I went ashore again and had it out with one of the agents in the ferry house, and he in turn had to telephone one of the higher muck-a-mucks and put it up to him, and then sign an order for me to show the captain.

  Some reporters had gotten wind that something was up, in the mysterious way that only reporters can, and a couple of them were already hanging around outside when I came out. “What’s the excitement?” they wanted to know, licking their chops. “What’s it all about?” “Wotcha doing with two hats?” one of them cracked suspiciously.

  “I always carry a spare,” I said, “in case the wind blows the first one off.”

  They looked sort of doubtful, but before they could do anything about it I was back on the ferry and gave orders to keep them off. “Here’s your instructions, admiral,” I told the captain, who was drooling by this time and biting his nails at the thought of being kept overtime. “I’ll buy the first ten rounds,” I assured him, “if this turns out to be a wild-goose chase.”

  “Hrrmph!” he growled, and turned around and hollered an order.

  Back we plugged.

  “How long you gonna be?” he wanted to know as I loped off at the island.

  “When I show up again,” I promised, “I’ll be back.” That old fellow could swear.

  The thick, chilly-looking, black metal doors that led into the base were shut by this time. I had to get another permit from an officer on the island, and two soldiers were detailed to come with me. The only one who seemed to get any kick out of the proceedings was Suicide Johnny, who was routed out to run us up in the elevator. He was all grins. At last something was happening to break his monotony. “Gee,” he said, throwing the switch in the car, “maybe he committed sewercide by hanging himself up there some place!”

  “Nuts,” I growled, “he couldn’t have hoisted himself an inch—not without a derrick. We’ll go up to the top,” I told my two escorts when we got out of the car. “Start in from there and work our way down.” They didn’t say anything, but I could read their minds: “This guy was dropped on his head when he was a kid.”

  We climbed all that weary way back again and finally stood there panting. “He never got up this far,” I said when I had my wind back, “because I was up here ahead of him. But I want to take a gander at some of these initials and names scrawled here on the stonework of the windows.”

  “Aw, them!” said one of the soldiers contemptuously. “Every chump that ever comes up here since the place was built has a crack at that.”

  “That’s just the point,” I said. I had a close look, first of all, at what my chief rooter and admirer Alice Colman had written, at the window next to the one I’d been standing at originally. It didn’t say Alice Colman, it didn’t say any name, but I knew her work. She’d used an eyebrow pencil and the mark it left was dark and greasy, different from the thin, faint pencil marks of the rest of them. It stood out like a headline on a newspaper.

  I turned to one of the bored soldiers. “What’s today’s date?”

  “The twenty-third,” he said.

  That’s what I’d thought it was too. But Alice Colman seemed to have gotten her dates mixed. She had it down as the twenty-fourth.

  Well, that could happen to anyone. But she had the hour right, at least. She’d even put that down—4 o’clock. Some people are like that, though. She’d visited this place at four o’clock and she wanted the world to know.

  On top of that, though, came a hitch. She had an a
ddress down, and it wasn’t her own. It was just five numbers and a letter, all run together. 254W51. But that wasn’t her own address. She’d given me that on the ferry, and I’d checked on it while I was hanging around in the ferry house waiting for the permit to come back here. Yes, the management of the Van Raalte Apartments had told me longdistance over the phone from Tanytown, that Mrs. Alice Colman was a tenant of theirs. So she hadn’t lied to me, yet she’d lied to the world at large when she was making her mark on Lady Liberty. There was something that I didn’t get about it.

  “Let’s go down,” I told the soldiers, “I want to look at that bench he was sitting on.” By this time they both hated me heartily from the guts outward, I could see, but they turned and led the way.

  We never got there, though. About midway between the head and where the bench was—in other words at about where the statue’s shoulder came—there was a gap with a chain across it bearing the placard Public Not Admitted. I had noticed this twice before, the first time I came up and then later when I had gone down to look for him. Maybe the chain had thrown me off, the undisturbed chain stretched across it. And then, too, until you stood directly before it, it looked far smaller and more inaccessible than it actually was, the way the lights slurred past it and made it seem no more than a fold on the inside of the lady’s gigantic metal draperies. This time, though, I stopped and asked them what it was.

  “Oh, he ain’t up in there!” they assured me instantly. “Nobody’s allowed in there. Can’t you read what that says? That used to lead up into the arm and torch in the old days. The arm started weakening little by little, so they shut the whole thing off a long time ago. It’s boarded up just a little ways past the ch— Hey!” he broke off. “Where you going? You can’t do that!”

  “I’m going just that little ways between the chain and where the boarding is,” I told him, spanning the cable with one leg. “If the arm lasted this long, one more guy ain’t going to hurt it, I don’t weigh enough. Throw your lights up after me. And don’t tell me what I can’t do when you see me already at it!”