Lady in Peril

by Ben Ames Williams

  Hagan nodded: “That’s all right. But when you ducked out, who did you see in the wings?”

  “No one. Just the usual people. Urbin. Maybe Hews. I don’t know. I slipped by.”

  Hagan considered. “The trouble with that story is,” he said, “the gun wasn’t there. Not on the chaise longue. Not in the room anywhere. We looked.” His eyes turned to meet Lola’s. “You didn’t find the gun, did you? Didn’t see it?”

  She shook her head. “Annette may have,” she suggested. “Annette was in the dressing room, all the time I was on in the third act. You can ask her.”

  The Inspector started to open the door, then he hesitated, turned back to them.

  “We can come to that,” he decided. “I hadn’t finished with you, ma’am, before Mr. Hammond came in. We’d come to where you found Doctor Canter, and yelled. Where was this maid of yours then?”

  “Right there, with me. Rubbing my temples, my head . . .”

  “What happened? I mean, you leaned over, and saw him, and yelled. Then what?”

  Lola smiled faintly. “It was funny,” she confessed. “In a way.” And she explained: “You see, my hair is not my crowning glory. So for the public, I always wear a turban, or an obvious wig, or something. Annette had taken off my turban to rub my head; and when I screamed, she knew someone would come in very quickly. So she fairly grappled me, and dragged the turban down on my head again. And I fought her, frantic, hysterical . . . I can see that it was funny now!”

  “But someone did come in?”

  “Mat Hews,” she agreed. “And Kay Ransom. They’d been standing in the wings at that end of the stage, watching the final scene, watching poor Madison fumble through his lines in Mr. Hammond’s place. They came in; and I remember Kay helped Annette quiet me. I was having some mild hysterics, in a curiously detached way. I was perfectly calm, like a spectator, watching myself sob and writhe and moan. They laid me on the floor, and I remember kicking my heels to hear them clatter. Then I watched Mat Hews, and he was so busy that I forgot to kick, after a while.”

  “Busy? Doing what?”

  “Down on his knees staring at Doctor Canter I And then rummaging around the room I He had a handkerchief in his hand. I used to have a cocker spaniel. I’d hide my handkerchief and he’d go nosing everywhere till he found it. Mat reminded me of the little dog, with that handkerchief in his hand, and I started to laugh, and Kay and Annette thought I was worse, and then someone else came in. A lot of people.”

  “How long was this?” Hagan asked. “After you yelled.”

  “I don’t think it was long,” she confessed. “You know how time stands still sometimes and you remember a scene as though it were a picture. It couldn’t have been long. Then Kay and Annette helped me over here to Kay’s dressing room; and then Annette put Kay out, and took care of me.”

  “You’ve been here since?”

  “Ever since.”

  The Inspector sighed and wiped his mouth with his hand. “Well,” he said, half to himself, “that finishes with you, anyway.” He looked toward Inspector Tope. “I’d say it wasn’t her, and it wasn’t Hammond,” he suggested.

  Tope nodded; but Miss Moss spoke quietly. “And it wasn’t Alexander the Great; nor General Grant,” she remarked in mild irony.

  Hagan frowned, shook his head. “You don’t think I’m getting anywhere,” he protested. “But the first thing is to find out what happened, how it happened, all about it.” He continued: “You see here, now. We’re getting somewhere. The gun was there, when Hammond saw it. All right, what does that show? It shows that whoever shot Canter didn’t have time to get away right off. So he dropped the gun there, and when Miss Cyr yelled and the crowd pushed in, whoever killed Canter went in too, and picked up the gun and got away with it.

  “All right, why did he do that? Why, because someone would know it was his gun! If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t care. He’d let it be found. So all we’ve got to do is find that gun. It’s here somewhere. We’ll find it, and trace it by the number, and clean up the whole thing!”

  Miss Moss returned: “I see!” Her voice was to Hagan’s ears toneless; but Inspector Tope was not so deaf as he. The older man’s eyes twinkled faintly. Hagan was a good man, and a thorough man, and he asked the right questions, and he got the facts. If he seemed stupid, that might be a part of his strength. Let him go on, grope his own way to the light. It was the man’s right so to do.

  Yet—there were some things Tope knew which Hagan did not know; and the older man now moved to put these facts into Hagan’s hands. He said to the other:

  “Hagan, you remember I told you a while ago about Dave Howell, and this man Peace?” Hagan looked at him in some bewilderment, then made a sign of assent. And Tope turned to Walter Hammond.

  “You knew Clarence Peace, didn’t you, Mr. Hammond?” he asked.

  Hammond said readily: “Yes. Yes, I knew him.”

  “You knew he’d disappeared?”

  “I knew he’d not been around for a while back, a month or so.”

  Tope urged: “Didn’t Inspector Howell come here and ask you some questions about him? Didn’t Peace come here to see you one night, and drop out of sight?”

  Hammond hesitated; his tone was mildly impatient: “Yes. Inspector Howell asked me some questions, and I answered them. I didn’t know what it was all about. Clarence’s affairs were his own business, so far as I was concerned.”

  But Tope suggested: “Tell us about it now. About that time Peace came here.”

  Hammond considered. “Why, it was several weeks ago,” he explained. “But as I recall it, he dropped in during the second act. I spoke to him a minute in the wings. He said he was going to Washington that night. I’m on, most of the second act; so he said he’d wait in my dressing room. When I came off at the curtain, he was gone. I didn’t think any more about it till Inspector Howell came to see me, two or three days later.”

  Hagan asked Tope impatiently: “What’s the idea, Inspector? What’s that got to do with this?”

  But before Tope could reply, Hammond volunteered: “There was one other thing . . . I’ve thought since that Howell might want to know about it. Peace had a flask, and he gave my man a drink and it made the man dizzy. He went outside, into the passage by the stage door for some air. I had to send for him when I came off!”

  “That left Peace alone in your dressing room?” Tope asked quickly.

  “Yes. I didn’t think to tell Howell; and I fired Lesser—that was my man’s name—a day or two later. He had been drinking too much, right along. So I don’t think Howell ever talked to him.”

  “Where is he now? This Lesser?”

  “I’ve no notion,” Hammond declared.

  Tope said with a mild smile: “I’ve always figured I’d like to have a valet myself. If I could have a wish, that’s what I’d wish for.”

  They all chuckled; and Hammond explained defensively: “A valet’s a necessity, for an actor. So many changes, so many properties to watch, and all that.”

  But Hagan protested: “Tope, this is off the track. You’re wasting time.”

  “Maybe,” Tope agreed. “But I thought it might mean something. Because, you see, Hammond knew Peace, and Peace and Doctor Canter were friends.”

  Hagan considered. “What of it?” he asked then.

  “It just struck me,” Tope confessed. “A coincidence, in a way. Peace steals four hundred thousand and disappears; and now Canter’s dead . . .”

  Hagan scratched his head. “I don’t see any way that could fit in here,” he insisted. He looked at Hammond doubtfully. “You knew Doctor. Canter, did you?”

  “I knew him years ago,” Hammond assented. “Met him again in California last winter. And then he followed us East; or he came East and looked us up.”

  Hagan suggested shrewdly. “Looked Miss Cyr up, you mean, don’t you?” He saw Hammond’s red confusion, and he exclaimed: “That reminds me! She said you were sore at him for hanging around her. Why was that? Crazy
about her yourself, are you? What was it to you?”

  Hammond did not immediately answer; he looked at Lola doubtfully. But Miss Moss spoke.

  “It was very natural,” she said quietly. “You see, Miss Cyr is really Mrs. Hammond.”

  And they all swung toward her in startled surprise.

  “Who told you?” Hagan demanded; and Miss Moss answered, speaking to Lola and not to him:

  “You did, Mrs. Hammond. When you used his first name by mistake, then tried to correct your slip!”

  Hagan stood bewildered and uncertain, and Hammond said grudgingly: “It’s so. We didn’t talk about it. Kept it secret. But we’ve been married seven years!”

  “I’ve a boy five years old,” said Lola to Miss Moss, as though appealingly. “He’s in school, in Chicago!”

  Hagan rubbed his head in a deep exasperation. “There’s too much going on here for me,” he confessed. “But I know we’re off the track, anyway. The thing we’ve got to do is find that gun.” And he asked Lola: “Where’s that woman, your maid?”

  “Outside the door,” Lola guessed; and Hagan went to see. Annette was there, attentive, waiting; he signed to her to come in.

  The French woman faced them steadily, and Lola said to her, in low-toned command: “We are telling the truth, Annette.”

  “You’d better,” Hagan agreed. His own bewilderment could turn to anger. He asked the maid: “You stayed in the dressing room from the time Mr. Hammond was there till you found Doctor Canter?”

  “Yes,” the woman answered.

  “There was a pistol, a revolver, under the cushions on the chaise longue,” said Hagan. “Did you see it?”

  “No.”

  “Did you clean up, straighten the cushions or anything?”

  “No.”

  “Did anybody come in there?”

  “No one came in.”

  Hagan caught the reservation in her tones. “Anyone come to the door?”

  “A young man, Mr. Jervis,” said Annette; and these others looked at her in intent surprise.

  “What did he want?” Hagan barked.

  “Just after Miss Cyr went on again, while they were hunting for Mr. Hammond, he came to the door.”

  “Hunting Hammond, was he?” Hagan demanded.

  “He was hunting for his sister.”

  “His sister?” Hagan’s tone was one of stark surprise. “Yes.”

  “What made him think she might be in there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You hadn’t seen her?”

  “No.”

  Hagan considered. “See here,” he asked, “before that, when Miss Cyr was on, and during the shooting, where were you?”

  “In the basement.”

  “The basement? What for?”

  “I hate noise, hate guns.”

  “You do, eh?”

  “I am a French woman,” said Annette. “Before the war, I was in this country; but when the war came I went home to nurse. I was in a hospital, and we were bombarded, and there was fighting near.”

  “Oh,” Hagan muttered. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  “So every night, when I know there will be guns, I go as far away as I can.”

  And Hagan seemed to see this tall gaunt woman with new eyes. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said again, and he added reassuringly: “I don’t like guns myself.”

  But Lola told them, mischievously: “Besides, Annette has a swain. When she was most fearful, he would always comfort her. When a woman is afraid, men like to reassure her; so sometimes she may pretend more terror than she feels, to give them opportunity.”

  Annette said in a grim amusement: “Oh, that one!” It was plain this was a stale jest between them. She looked again toward Inspector Hagan, waiting; and after a moment Hagan cleared his throat, spoke to Miss Moss.

  “The way it looks to me, ma’am,” he confessed uncomfortably, “I’d better talk to young Jervis about this, now.” Miss Moss agreed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is necessary!” So Hagan opened the door again; he signed to Annette to go before him; he followed her, closed the door behind him, and after a moment he returned with Clint upon his heels. The young man met their glances, and Miss Moss asked: “Where’s Clara, Clint?”

  “With Mat,” he explained. “She’s all right.”

  Miss Moss spoke to Hagan. “Let me,” she suggested; and the Inspector after a moment nodded. So she said to the young man:

  “Clint, you and Clara have hidden something. You were not together all the time back stage here tonight. Tell us about that, please.”

  Clint’s color rose and faded. His eye turned from one to the other; and he said stubbornly: “Clara’s all right!”

  “I’ve known Clara since she was a baby,” Miss Moss reminded him with some asperity. “And you, too. You need not reassure me. Tell us what happened, Clint.”

  He hesitated. “We’d had a kind of a row,” he confessed. “She was sore at me!”

  “About Doctor Canter?”

  “No.” He spoke with a sudden haste. “Well, here’s what happened,” he said abruptly. “If you’ve got to know. When Mat and Kay went on, we stood in the wings to watch them. Then Kay went off. Clara said she was going to find Kay, and she went around behind the back drop.”

  Miss Moss interrupted, voicing the thought that leaped to all their minds. “That would take her past the door of Miss Cyr’s dressing room?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “She started away, and I told her to keep away from Doctor Canter; and she didn’t answer. I stayed there; and then after the shooting on the stage, when Hammond and Miss Cyr came off, I looked around for Clara and she hadn’t come back. So I started to hunt for her.”

  “Did you find her?”

  “Yes. Over in the wings on the other side, watching the excitement on the stage. That was after Hammond had gone, you understand.”

  “Where had she been?” Miss Moss insisted.

  “I didn’t ask her.”

  The woman hesitated; she asked at last: “Where did you look?”

  “Oh, around!”

  “In Miss Cyr’s dressing room?”

  “No. Of course not. Why should I?”

  Her voice suddenly was stern. “Clint, this is no time for lies. Why did you go to Miss Cyr’s dressing room to look for Clara? Why did you think she might be there?”

  Clint’s face was crimson; he licked his lips. He said angrily at last: “She’d made a fool of herself over Doctor Canter before, and she might again. She knew he was there!”

  “You thought she might have gone to talk to him?”

  “Yes. And he had disappeared too. Nobody missed him but me; but I thought they might be in there together, or somewhere.”

  Miss Moss nodded. “And that’s all?”

  “Sure,” he said, and wiped his brow.

  Inspector Tope moved slightly; but then he checked himself again with a quick satisfaction. For Miss Moss had asked the questions he himself had been about to put to this young man. She remarked:

  “You and Clara had had a quarrel. What about, Clint?”

  “Oh, this Canter business.”

  “What about, Clint?” she insisted.

  He stood trembling. He said at last miserably: “Why, when we were all in Mat’s dressing room, she saw a gun in his drawer and picked it up. She was fooling with it, and I told her to be careful; told her it might be loaded. She said I was silly; and then Mat saw she had the gun, and tried to take it away from her. And she was kidding, and she backed out into the hall away from him. That was when Doctor Canter was just coming in.”

  There was a deep silence here; but Miss Moss asked bravely:

  “She still had this gun in her hands, when you first saw Doctor Canter?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she do with it?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t notice, forgot about it.”

  “What kind of a gun?” the woman persisted; and he said desperately:

  “Miss Moss, you don
’t think Clara had anything to do . . .”

  “What kind of a gun, Clint?” she repeated monotonously.

  “Oh, a cheap little nickel-plated thing . . .”

  Hagan stepped swiftly toward the door, he opened it and called: “O’Malley!” There was a movement outside, and a voice, and Hagan asked: “Where’s Miss Jervis?”

  “With young Hews,” O’Malley reported. “In his dressing room.”

  “Fetch ’em here,” said Hagan crisply.

  And he stood in the open door, turning to face these folk within the room while he waited.

  But a moment later O’Malley returned. They all could hear his quick, excited tones.

  “They’re gone!” he reported. “Out the window into the alley.”

  “Both of them?”

  “Sure.”

  Hagan’s face was red with rage. He whirled on the folk here within the room. “They’ve taken it on the run!” he cried in furious accusation. “While you kept me jawing here!” And over his shoulder to O’Malley: “Get Headquarters on the phone!”

  Inspector Hagan, when he heard that Mat and Clara had vanished, turned on Miss Moss and these others here like an exasperated bear; but only for a moment. Then he made haste to spread the alarm, to seek to close every avenue of escape from the city. There was a telephone in the corridor just outside the dressing room, and they could hear the man’s excited, furious words. They did not speak; they simply waited. But Inspector Tope and Miss Moss looked at one another, consulting silently, considering how to meet this situation which did confront them now.

  Then Hagan came stumping back into the room and he spoke to Tope in a restrained wrath. “You’re to blame for this!” he exclaimed. “I had a hunch it was the girl, all the tin f they hadn’t been friends of yours . . .”

  Miss Moss protested: “You assume a great deal, do you?”

  But it was Tope who answered her. “Why, ma’am, the Inspector here, he’s right to blame me,” he said.

  “At least, whatever Clara has done, you’re not to blame,” she insisted loyally.

  Inspector Tope hesitated, and he wagged his head. “Why, yes,” he said at last. “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “You couldn’t know these two would—run away!”

  And Tope insisted equably: “Yes, ma’am, I thought they would. I as good as told them to,” he said.