Lady in Peril

by Ben Ames Williams

  “What makes you ask that? What do you know about Peace?”

  “Not much,” Tope assured him, but there was a twinkle of amusement in his mild blue eyes. “Not much! Only what I read in the papers. I know he’s a lawyer, and a bachelor and a sportsman. Used to be a crack polo player, rode to the hounds and all that. And I know he had charge of the Jervis Trust; and I know he was hurt in an auto smash about two years ago; and I know he was dropped from the Unity Club last winter, and why. And I know he lived in an apartment on the Avenue. And I know he hasn’t been there the last two months or so.”

  Dave grinned. “You didn’t read all that in the papers!” he protested.

  “I hear things,” Tope confessed; and he beamed and wagged his head. “People tell me things, and I hear things, and I read things, and I do a lot of wondering. But you go on and tell me, Dave. What’s Peace done—besides go away?”

  “Plenty,” Howell said morosely. “He’s looted the Jervis Trust! And he’s skipped! And I was wise to him!” He pounded his knee in a slow fury. “I was wise to him, but I let him get away. That’s why I haven’t slept much this last two months, old man.”

  Tope filled his pipe and lighted it. He took it in his plump hands and rubbed the black bowl between his palms; and he said thoughtfully: “Go on and talk, Dave. Do you good to talk about it. Maybe you’ll talk yourself into some idea.”

  And he put the pipe in his mouth, precisely in the middle, so that it seemed to bisect his pleasant round face; and he listened with a deep attention while Howell put the facts as he knew them in order for the older man.

  He began at the beginning, with the Jervis Trust. Dana Jervis, when he died, left a considerable estate, the income to be divided equally between his children, Clint and Clara. “They’re not around here,” Dave explained. “Young Clint’s been seeing Paris, the last year or two; and Clara’s in California, studying dramatics, and having herself a time.” And he went on to say that the estate consisted almost wholly of real property; an office building, a store block on a valuable downtown corner, some rentals in the congested West End, four large apartment houses on the Avenue.

  “They have an office in their own building,” he said. “There’s an old man named Beede, a sort of clerk; and a youngster named Randall, and a woman named Miss Moss. She’s fifty if she’s a day, and hard as nails. Theoretically, she’s Peace’s stenographer; but actually she ran the office when he wasn’t there.”

  And most of the time, he added, Peace was not there. He was accustomed to come once or twice a week to consult with Miss Moss and approve her courses and depart again. For the rest, the affairs of the Jervis Trust were in her hands.

  “But the Trust didn’t suffer,” Howell assured Tope. “Miss Moss has a pretty shrewd, level head. All the income was supposed to go to the children; but she managed to increase the principal without cutting down on them. They never complained, because they had all they could spend; and the Trust was getting bigger all the time.”

  He hesitated, and Tope interposed: “They’re not here, you say?”

  “No,” Dave told him. “The boy, Clint; he’s studying art, or architecture or something, in Paris. I guess most of the art he studies is in the nude. He raised the devil in college; and he’s kept up the same game ever since. From all I hear, he’s one of these quiet ones till he gets started, and then he’s a skyrocket with a cannon cracker on its tail. And the girl’s as bad! Junior League and all that, but she got restless. Went to California to go into the movies, and couldn’t get a job, and went to some dramatic school out there. She got herself into a jam with a man, a while back, got her name in the papers. Maybe you saw it.”

  Tope made it his business to read every line in the local papers every day, but he did not respond to this suggestion now; and Dave said apologetically:

  “I don’t know as there’s anything really wrong with either of them except too much money; but that’s enough to ruin a kid, I suppose. Anyway, that’s their rep! But it hasn’t anything to do with what I started to say.”

  Tope suggested: “Except that it was the money they had, and the money Miss Moss made for them, that kept them going.”

  “Sure,” Dave agreed. “And she was making plenty! The Trust was like a snowball, from all I can find out. Getting bigger right along. Up to about two years ago.”

  “Peace had his accident about that time, didn’t he?” Tope suggested. “I remember he got a bad crack on the head, a fracture, nearly died.”

  “He got a big gash across the top of his head,” Howell assented. “And he lost the toes off his right foot, halfway back to his ankle.”

  Tope’s pipe was hissing cheerfully as Howell went on:

  “I guess he was pretty sick, but he got over it. And he got fat, after that, too. Probably because he stopped exercising. Anyway, he put on weight fast.”

  “And then the Unity Club dropped him,” Tope prompted. “Something about a poker game?”

  “Last spring,” Howell agreed. “And I heard about that, so I began to look him up. The market was booming, and any man with other people’s money in his hands might make a mistake, if he had a shady streak in him. So I poked around a little.

  “I found out that the Trust was mortgaging its real estate and investing the money in stocks. All blue chip stuff, bought outright; but I wasn’t satisfied. I’d rather stop a fire before it starts; but there wasn’t anything I could put a finger on.” He hesitated. “I did a fool thing, then,” he confessed. “But I wanted to size up the man, so I went to see him. I told him I’d heard that one of the clerks in the office had got away with some money; asked him if he wanted to prosecute. He was friendly and agreeable and all that; but I didn’t get anything out of him. Far as I could see, he acted like any other man would have acted.”

  He was silent for a moment, staring at nothing. “I’ve gone off half-cocked all through this thing,” he admitted. “After I saw him, I got worried for fear he’d skip, so I set Haddon to keep an eye on him. That was maybe ten weeks ago. Haddon tailed him right along. Then about two months ago, Peace bought a ticket on the night train to Washington. He took a taxi from his apartment to the Booth Theatre.” He did not see Tope’s eyes suddenly become more intent. “He knew this Walter Hammond, playing in that show there, and he went back stage to see Hammond. And he never came out.”

  Tope asked swiftly: “What happened? What did Hammond say?”

  “Said he left Peace in his dressing room when he went on in the second act, and never saw him after that.”

  Tope nodded, and Dave made a weary gesture.

  “Well,” he said, “I waited a day or two, and when he didn’t show up, I went to the Trust offices to see Miss Moss. I put my cards on the table, asked her to check up on him. The Trust had a vault in the basement of the building. He and Miss Moss had keys and access. She found that most of the securities supposed to be there were gone.”

  “She hadn’t missed anything before?” Tope interjected.

  Howell shook his head. “No reason why she should!” he explained. “He attended to that end of things. The securities had been filed away in envelopes, each one marked; and he’d put blank paper in place of them. I figure he converted them into Libertys, stuff we can’t trace, good anywhere at all!” His tone was deep in hopeless wrath.

  The old man nodded. “Where did Miss Moss think he’d head for?” he asked cheerfully.

  “She didn’t know!” Howell assured him. “But I’ve checked every way out; he didn’t take a train, and he didn’t take a boat, and he hadn’t ridden in an automobile since his smash. Tope, he’s right here in town. That’s my hunch! That’s what’s getting me!”

  The older man seemed to consider for a while, and he inquired at last: “Dave, did his hair cover that scar on his head?”

  “The scar didn’t show,” Howell said readily.

  “Did he walk with a limp?”

  “Yes. Yes, with a sort of thump when the toe of his shoe came down.”

&nbs
p; “And he had got fat, after that accident?”

  “Yes.”

  Tope puffed precisely at his pipe; he sat for a long minute like a plump old statue, beaming at the fire, while Howell stirred in a restless impatience. Then Tope asked:

  “Miss Moss a good business woman, you think?”

  “She’s smart as they come,” Howell agreed. And he added: “I’ve seen her two-three times since Peace ducked. She’s running the whole show, now, of course; and she’s different! As if she liked it.”

  “The estate hurt bad?” Tope asked.

  “Around four hundred thousand,” Howell declared. And his fist knotted on his knee. “Four hundred thousand in Libertys, floating around somewhere, Tope! That’s what I’m shooting at; what I’ve got to find.”

  Tope cleared his throat; he puffed his pipe, he fell into a protracted silence, sitting motionless, his eyes half-closed, staring at the fire. Now and then he wagged his head as though brushing some thought aside; now and then he nodded as though accepting some conclusion fixed and sure. And Howell waited patiently enough, till at last the old man stirred. He rose, and he said briskly:

  “Dave, let’s go call on Miss Moss. I’d like to see her, talk to her. She might have some idea!”

  Howell stared at him, surprised at something in the other’s tone. “She doesn’t know a thing,” he protested. “I’ll bet on that! She’s straight as they come!”

  “Maybe!” Tope assented. “But just the same, I’d like to talk to her. Even if she wasn’t in on this, she might know something you didn’t think to ask. Let’s go see.”

  “Blast it!” Howell insisted. “It’s Peace I want, and the four hundred thousand! You won’t find him in the Jervis Trust offices.”

  “Have you looked there?” Tope asked, with a quizzical grin; and Howell uttered an explosive negative. “Then you’d better!” said Tope. “Because you haven’t found him, so one of the places where you haven’t looked is where he’s bound to be.”

  Howell stared at him. He asked incredulously: “You think Miss Moss is in it?”

  And Tope said: “Why, it looks to me that a real good business woman ought to notice if a man got away with four hundred thousand in bonds, right under her nose!” Howell shook his head. “You’re wrong!” he declared. “I’ll bet on her. You’ll see.”

  “See her; yes! That’s what I want to do, Dave,” Tope mildly insisted. “Let’s go along . . .”

  The offices of the Jervis Trust had about them that almost pretentious shabbiness which austere respectability so often likes to wear. On the second floor of an ancient building on Tremont Row, their windows looked out into an alley, and sunlight seldom entered there. When Dave Howell and Inspector Tope opened the door and stepped inside, the place was all in shadow; dusk filled the corners of the one big room.

  Tope, with a quick glance, saw desks and filing cabinets and record cases round the walls; and an old man on a high stool at the ledger desk by the further window must be Beede. Then a younger man approached to greet them, and Inspector Howell asked: “Where’s Miss Moss?”

  “At lunch,” the other returned. “But she’ll be here within ten minutes.”

  “Where’s Randall?” Howell inquired. “What’s become of him? Is he gone?”

  “I’ve taken his place here,” the young man replied, and he had a smile which Tope approved. He continued: “If you’ll wait, Miss Moss will be here presently. Or perhaps I . . .”

  But before he could finish, the door beside them opened; and he broke off, added quickly: “Here she is now. Miss Moss, these gentlemen . . .”

  Tope had been watching this young man, but he swung now to the woman, and with a quick surprise. Dave had said she was hard as nails; but Tope had an instant impression that Dave might be wrong in his appraisal. She had been when she came in almost radiant; but in this first moment when she confronted them, Tope saw a pulse stir in her throat and quiet there.

  Then she spoke to Dave Howell; and Inspector Howell introduced the older man.

  “Inspector Tope is an old friend of mine,” he explained. “I’ve been asking some advice from him about tracing Mr. Peace. He wanted to talk to you.”

  Miss Moss nodded. “Certainly,” she agreed, and she led them toward her desk. These three sat down together there. The window was at her back as she faced them, so that her countenance was shadowed as she waited for what they might have to say.

  Dave left the matter in the hands of the older man; but he was astonished at the turn the immediate conversation took. For Tope looked around the long, dusky room; and he said at last as though in idle curiosity:

  “Looks like you people still had enough to keep you busy!”

  “We must build something out of nothing,” Miss Moss agreed. “That’s our task now.”

  “As bad as that?” Tope protested; and she hesitated, said then:

  “Quite! There isn’t much left of the Trust except the realty, and that is heavily mortgaged. The interest charges, and taxes, and repairs will eat up most of the rentals. Of course, with strict economy, the estate can be brought back, in time.”

  Tope nodded. His eyes were mild, yet they watched her keenly. He said at last:

  “I had two or three questions I wanted to ask you, Miss Moss, in case you could answer them. You knew Mr. Peace better than most, I expect.”

  “I expect,” she assented.

  “Worked for him long?”

  “I was Mr. Jervis’ secretary,” she explained, “before he died. For fifteen years. And he asked me to stay on with Mr. Peace here.”

  Tope seemed to weigh this information thoughtfully. “Mrs. Jervis died a good while ago, didn’t she?” he asked.

  “When Clara was born,” Miss Moss assented, in a low tone.

  The old man nodded, as though abandoning this matter. “Now about Mr. Peace,” he suggested. “What did he look like? Scar on his head didn’t show, Inspector Howell tells me.”

  “No,” she said. “He brushed his hair over it. He wore his hair short, before; but after he was hurt, Mr. Peace went away for a rest and vacation, and let his hair grow longer, and when he came back, he brushed it across, parted it on the side.”

  “And he limped?” Tope suggested.

  “There was a little halt in his gait,” she assented.

  “He wear a mustache?”

  “Not since the accident. He did before!”

  “And he’d put on weight?”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “He wasn’t a tall man, but he grew almost stout. He gave up his polo, sold his horses after the accident, you know.”

  “Take a man that’s been used to exercise and stops all of a sudden, he’s apt to put on weight,” Tope agreed. “Hair was black, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How old a man?”

  “Near fifty,” she replied. “But he never seemed so old till these last two years.”

  He nodded, as though she pleased him. Then he rested his hands on his chubby knees, leaning a little forward. “It’s funny,” he suggested, “that a man his age hadn’t begun to get gray. With black hair, they usually do.”

  She smiled faintly. “I thought at one time he was beginning to,” she confessed. “Some years ago.”

  Tope chuckled. “Well, you can’t always count on it,” he agreed. “With a bachelor, specially.” He leaned forward again. “Now take it just before he went away. You see much of him, the last week or two?”

  “He wasn’t in the office for a week before,” she assured him. “Till the day he disappeared.”

  “Came in that day, did he?”

  “Yes.”

  “What for?”

  She hesitated. “Why—routine business,” she explained, something almost evasive in her tone.

  “What kind of business?” he insisted. “Anything about the building he lived in, Miss Moss?”

  She looked at him acutely. “Why do you ask that?” she countered; but before he could reply, she went on: “Because as a matter o
f fact, that was the case.”

  “You don’t say!” he protested. “Why, I was just shooting in the dark!”

  Howell paid attention; for Inspector Tope was not one to shoot in the dark. There was always some purpose behind his questions. But Miss Moss seemed to find nothing incredible in this explanation.

  “The superintendent of the building up there had resigned a few days before,” she explained. “I had hired a new man, Michelsen. Mr. Peace didn’t know this till I told him. Details of that sort I usually handled alone.”

  Tope seemed faintly puzzled. “Then if Peace didn’t know that, what did he come in about?” he asked.

  She hesitated. “Oh, he came to sign the payroll,” she said at last.

  “Nothing else?” Tope insisted. “Anything about repairs up there, or the help?”

  She was silent for a long moment; asked then: “Is that another—shot in the dark?”

  “Why, no,” Tope explained. “A new superintendent might want to change the help.”

  She seemed to consider, shook her head. “No,” she said. “It wasn’t Michelsen’s doing. But Mr. Peace told me he had discharged the janitor that day; caught the man stealing his neckties. I had wanted to let him go before, but Mr. Peace had always defended him.”

  Tope nodded. “So Michelsen had to hire a new janitor?” he suggested.

  “Yes,” she agreed; and Tope asked her casually:

  “You see this new man?”

  She might have been trying to remember; and she said at length, reluctantly: “Why, yes. His name is Burke. He heard about the vacancy, came to me about it. I sent him to Michelsen, and Michelsen took him on.”

  “How long was this after Peace fired the other one?”

  “That same day. Late that afternoon.”

  “The day Peace disappeared?” he asked, and she assented.

  Tope seemed to sigh. “Well, we’re not getting anywhere,” he decided. “Inspector Howell here, he’s got an idea that Mr. Peace is still in town, playing hide and seek with us.”

  “I don’t think so,” she objected.

  “I don’t know,” Tope argued. “It looks like if a man five feet six, and weighing close on to a hundred and sixty, and walking with a limp, had gone anywhere, someone would have seen him go.”