The card was wedged above a little knob in the panelling. Gamadge shoved this aside; it disclosed a typed list of names, which he read with no recognition and with dwindling interest. But he doggedly went through it again, and this time stopped midway, hunched forward, and gazed intently at one item:
Imogen Weekes. 52B.
Could Isabel Wakes be using an alias as well as a pen name, and was that the reason why she had dropped out of sight? People often did stick to their initials, probably because they had marked belongings and wanted to go on using them.
Bradlock had called here on the last night of his life. As a very old friend, he would be likely to know Mrs. Wakes’s new name; but it had conveyed nothing to the police, nor would the name of Wakes have conveyed anything. She would have been pretty safe in denying the acquaintanceship.
Feeling very little doubt in his own mind, Gamadge began to climb. On the third floor, in the rear, twin doors confronted him. One was marked 52A, the other 52B. Looking around him, he saw two similar doors in each wall, but only one of each pair was numbered; it looked as though the rear apartment had been cut into two.
He rang at 52B. After a short pause the door was opened, and a tall figure stood facing him against the light. A woman built on big lines, but with not much flesh on her bones now; a woman gone to seed. A great mass of greying hair was drawn back from her broad forehead and coiled untidily; grey eyes, set flat in a pale face, looked at Gamadge without curiosity. She wore a long silk robe that had once been an evening coat; its brocade was tarnished, its fur collar matted down like old plush. There were frayed satin sandals on her feet.
Gamadge said: “I do hope I’m not disturbing you, Mrs. Wakes.”
Whatever Mrs. Wakes had lost, she had retained—or perhaps acquired—the gift of silence. She stood with her hand on the knob, perfectly quiet, showing no interest.
“My name is Gamadge,” he went on, “Henry Gamadge. I do a little writing. I’ve just had lunch with Mr. Meriden, the publisher—”
She interrupted in a hoarse, rather rough voice: “I didn’t think the old boy knew where I was. Did Malone give me away? I told him not to. Skin him for it—not that it matters. What can I do for you?”
“I’m interested in literary byways. Of course I’ve read your book—French women writers.”
“Oh, that. Thought it was dead long ago. I only did that for the money, on commission; I read up for it. Don’t know a thing that isn’t in the book itself. I couldn’t even give you the sources now. Can’t be a bit of help to you.”
“It’s the authors I’m interested in, Mrs. Wakes. Your husband’s work, yours, all the research work done at that time abroad.”
She paused before saying anything more. Then she dropped her hand from the knob. “Poor old Jeremy, his books were no good; but he got a lot of amusement doing them. You might as well come in.”
The door opened directly on a large, high, ugly room, too narrow for its depth and with its one tall window asymmetrically placed to the extreme left in the rear wall. A big desk-table stood in front of it, heavily laden with the equipment of a working writer—papers, blank or typewritten, crushed carbon sheets, were heaped and strewn over the whole top of the desk, and some of them were on the floor. The typewriter emerged from a mass of them. Erasers, worn down to their metal hubs, pencils and pens, clips and a little oil-can, were strewn over an open, dog’s-eared dictionary and some other books. Gamadge looked at this mess with sympathy.
“I’m afraid I am disturbing you horribly,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter. Sit down. I always quit work at four, anyway.”
Mrs. Wakes herself sat down in the desk-chair, and Gamadge took a sagging wicker one opposite her. He glanced about him. There was a studio couch in the corner between the west and north wall, and at its foot an open doorway led into darkness. There was a dressing table behind a screen, another table, a chair or two, a ragged Persian rug, cut down to size. The window curtains, of faded madras, were shoved back to give what little western light came from over the house-tops.
Mrs. Wakes followed his glance. “They cut some of these apartments in half to give themselves more rents. I used to have the whole rear, but it was too big for me. Too much bother to take care of. Have to be independent of cleaning women these days.”
Gamadge thought the place looked as if Mrs. Wakes still found it too much bother to take care of. He said: “Nice old places—the ceilings are so high.”
“Yes. Nice big bathrooms too, lots of space for cooking. And the iceman doesn’t have to be repaired.”
“You’re right about that.” Mrs. Wakes had a tonic cynicism that rather pleased him. He said: “I do hope you won’t think it impertinent of me if I say that I wish you hadn’t stopped signing your own stuff, Mrs. Wakes.”
She laughed. “Know what my own stuff is?”
“Well, no, but your Meriden book—”
“You think my Meriden book would pay the rent?” She shoved a book on the desk towards Gamadge, still laughing. “Don’t give the poor girl away—I mean Gillian.”
Gamadge picked up the book, which had a lively jacket, and read the title: And Now I Am an Extra. By Gillian Giles.
“Went big in serial,” Mrs. Wakes told him, “so they made a book of it. Doesn’t often happen. I don’t do big names.”
Gamadge said respectfully: “I’d get the tragedy of the title better if I knew who Gillian was—or had been.”
“Oh, she was quite a well-known silent movie star. But now”—and she laughed again—“she needs money as much as I do.”
“She’s lucky in her ghost.”
“Oh, they don’t want me to write,” said Mrs. Wakes carelessly. “That would spoil everything. They just want the formula. We cater to a simple public. You won’t give me away, will you?”
“Shouldn’t think of it. You’re very sporting.”
“One must live, in spite of what that fellow said. I see the necessity. And the other fellow was right—when he said that nobody but a fool writes except for money.”
“Doctor Johnson never meant it like that,” protested Gamadge earnestly. “He never meant it at all. Catch him compromising or writing down to a public! Excuse me; but I hate people to quote that—and quote it wrong, too.”
Mrs. Wakes did not take offence. She said tolerantly: “I used to feel that way myself, but I had money then.”
“You have something there.”
“Well, let’s see, what can I do for you? You must be hard up for a subject if you want to write about Jeremy’s books.”
“I’m particularly interested in him, to be quite frank, as a friend of Paul Bradlock’s.”
Mrs. Wakes’s elbow slid sideways over the papers on the desk-top. After a moment she said roughly: “Jeremy knew him as others did. I haven’t anything suitable for memoirs.”
“Haven’t you? I was wondering if he didn’t sponge on you too—during his later years here in New York. That night he was killed, for instance, when he stopped in to see you.”
Mrs. Wakes had ceased to move. She sat, her head a little lifted, looking past Gamadge with slate-grey eyes.
“The police know he came, of course,” said Gamadge in a casual tone. “But it was early in the evening, and there was no reason why any friend of his here should be involved. And it’s quite understandable that you should have denied knowing him afterwards. All that unpleasant publicity.”
Mrs. Wakes might not have heard him. After a bleak moment she said without moving: “Don’t I hear a tap dripping?”
Gamadge heard nothing. He did not speak as she got slowly out of her chair and walked across the room to the doorway opposite. She went through it; Gamadge turned in his chair to watch her.
He could see that the door led only to a small lobby, with no exit to the hall. She turned left and disappeared. He relaxed, and sat facing the desk.
Presently she returned, and before she passed him he was conscious of a strong smell of brandy. She stood for
a moment with her back to him, one hand on the desk. Then she turned, sat down, and fumbled in the litter on the desk for a package of cigarettes. Gamadge lighted hers, and one for himself.
Leaning back, she asked: “Why interview me about Paul Bradlock? I hardly knew him. If he came here that evening he probably wanted to borrow a book. He’d know I had a lot of Jeremy’s old books. He’d certainly know I hadn’t money for him or anybody. Why don’t you interview his wife?”
“She presumably said her say in her book.”
Mrs. Wakes laughed, a little drowsily. “I didn’t ghost that!”
“You’d have made something better of it.”
“I never see the woman.” She leaned back and turned her head a little away, pale wisps of her hair straying against the faded cushion. “We never bothered with that girl; just somebody Paul picked up in the bookshop. No talent, but she’d be quite shocked at what I do now. So would Paul. Always very highbrow.”
Her voice was blurred. Gamadge wondered how many drinks she had had before he arrived; certainly there had been no evidence of them.
“Must eat, whatever they say.”
Her sentence trailed off. Gamadge rose; the interview was over. He left her to all appearances half asleep; his watch said four o’clock.
The dark landings were still deserted. Gamadge went down the stairs slowly; and blinked when he got out into the sunlight. He took a bus home. Clara greeted him in the library:
“Tea’s ready, and your friend Mr. Iverson has been calling you ever since one. He’s left a message for you.”
“No! Has he?” Gamadge was diverted. “Where is it?”
“Beside the telephone in the hall.”
Gamadge went and found it. It was in Clara’s hand: Will Mr. Gamadge very kindly call on Mrs. Paul Bradlock any time after four o’clock? Very urgent, he will understand that a conference is in order. If no telephone message received, we’ll expect him. Iverson.
“Are you going?” asked Clara.
“Am I going? Of course.”
“I thought you said they didn’t want you to look at those letters.”
“They just want to talk about them.”
“Why on earth should you rush up there for that? It seems to me that these people have a good deal of nerve,” said Clara.
“I’d like to know how much they have got.” Gamadge, still amused, sat down on the chesterfield. “Anyhow, there’s plenty of time for tea.”
“I should hope so.”
Half an hour later he took a cab up to the iron gates, paid it off, and stood for a minute looking down the side yard, past the big Mexican urns, to the corner of the studio door that was visible from the street. How remote the squat, ugly little house looked, hidden away and hemmed in by taller buildings, cut off from direct sunlight at any hour; cut off from the Bradlock house by no more than a few yards of passage, but in spirit how immeasurably far! Two locked doors between; the sneak-thief excuse was good enough, but Gamadge thought the Bradlock side had been locked against more imminent invasions than that.
It had been locked against Paul Bradlock, and the habit persisted still. Avery Bradlock had no confidence in his sister-in-law’s friends, left-overs from wilder days.
As for Vera Bradlock, she locked her doors and went her own way. Gamadge walked down the alley, climbed her steps, and rang.
CHAPTER TEN
The Book of the Lion
THE LITTLE PINK-NOSED GIRL opened the door. This time she was all ready to leave, one arm in her shiny grey coat, a magenta beret crushed down on her head; she looked as if she meant to leap past him and away.
Gamadge, on the step, addressed her pleasantly: “Well, Miss Sally; why do you plunge out of the house every time I come into it?”
“I have to go.”
“Why not stay this time and see the fun? And where’s your gentleman friend?”
“I don’t know. I suppose he’s asleep.” She looked up at Gamadge, and vaguely from side to side. Then with a glance over her shoulder, she said again: “I have to go.”
“It’s just like sitting through a movie twice,” complained Gamadge. “Same action every time. And you fade out.”
She gave him a nervous look, ducked past him, and ran down the steps. Gamadge watched her for a moment as she hurried along the path to the gates, her handbag clutched to her side, her topcoat still hanging from one shoulder. Then he went into the studio and closed the door behind him.
The studio was very dark at this hour of the day, uncertain light filtering in from the two narrow windows that overlooked the side wall of the neighbouring apartment house, across the deep well of the service alley between. Gamadge saw Iverson advancing to meet him, but for a moment he did not make out the effaced figure of Mrs. Paul Bradlock. She was sitting in front of the fireplace to the extreme right of the door, beyond the entrance to the connecting passage.
Iverson looked amused, embarrassed, and apologetic. He said: “Mr. Gamadge, we appreciate this fully; but we counted on you. We really knew you’d respond to our plaintive cry.”
“Least I could do, don’t you think?” Gamadge smiled.
“You were very naughty,” said Mrs. Bradlock, and there was no embarrassment on her impudent little face. “Curiosity killed the cat, I understand.”
“Now, Vera, now Vera!” Iverson, laughing, went across to the piano, where a tray had been set out with whisky, a siphon, ice and tumblers. “We’re in no position to make countercharges. Unconditional surrender. Have a drink, Gamadge, before we embark on this highly confidential confession?”
“I really don’t think—I’ve just had tea.”
“Tea! That won’t support you.”
“The drink of heroes.” Gamadge went over and sat down on the couch beside Mrs. Bradlock. There was a low fire in the grate now, and he was glad of it; the chill of the place was awful.
“Well,” said Iverson, bringing a glass to Mrs. Bradlock and then going back to fill his own, “I need more assistance than tea would give me—if I ever drank it.” He added: “And so does Vera, but I want you to keep in mind the fact that she was always strictly within her rights.”
“I realize that.”
Mrs. Bradlock sipped her whisky in silence, that little smile lingering on her face. It was in her eyes, too, as she watched Gamadge demurely. Iverson came and sat down on Gamadge’s right. He pulled a standard ashtray towards the group, and they all lighted cigarettes.
“Now then,” he said. “Shall I take off, Vera, and will you supply notes?”
“Please, Hill.”
“Well, Gamadge.” Iverson crossed his knees, and put his tumbler down on a coffee table. “Let me begin by admitting—what you already knew, or you wouldn’t have sent that delightful young Mr. Malcolm to call on me—that Vera and I practised an innocent deception on Avery Bradlock.”
“But such an elaborate mystification,” said Gamadge. “That’s my only excuse for my behaviour. The puzzle tempted me beyond my strength.”
“It would! But we don’t quite know how you came to guess that there was a puzzle.” He looked at Gamadge, very alert, and Mrs. Bradlock’s face also showed interest.
“Merely the timeliness of your arrival with your cheque,” answered Gamadge, laughing. “I thought it looked as if Mrs. Bradlock wanted to avoid showing her papers at all costs. Could she have disposed of them before? I really had to know. Mr. Malcolm, by the way, is very discreet.”
“I hope so!” Iverson joined in the laughter, and so did Mrs. Paul Bradlock.
She said: “We never would have dared do it if we’d known you were coming that night.”
“Didn’t Mrs. Avery tell you?” asked Gamadge.
“She only said that Avery had consulted an expert, and that a friend had told him people sold letters for large sums. It was after he came home that he exploded his bomb—about you; and I’d already told him that Hill Iverson was going to buy the papers.”
“I hope Mr. Iverson will get his money back?”
Iverson looked at Mrs. Bradlock. “How about it, Vera? What’s Avery going to do with that cheque?” He was grinning.
“We’ll have to wait, Hill.” She gave him a plaintive look. “Can you trust me?”
“I’ll have to. At least we know Avery won’t embezzle it.”
“I thought it would make such a good impression if I just handed it over.”
“It did; didn’t it, Gamadge?”
“On Avery Bradlock, it most certainly did.”
“Oh Lord, Vera, if we’d known then that Gamadge was a practising criminologist! Suspecting poor widows and their charitable friends!”
“What would you have done,” asked Gamadge, “if you had known I was coming?”
“Hanged if I know. Got the box out earlier, I suppose, before you arrived. You wouldn’t have bothered with a fait accompli, I hope?”
“We mustn’t blame Mr. Gamadge for our predicament, though,” said Vera, leaning forward to drop her ash in the tray. “It goes back farther than that. It goes back to that awful man who put the whole idea into Avery’s head at lunch—that busybody Williamson, or whatever his name is. What a nuisance. After that I had to produce letters, or at least convince Avery that there were letters. The trouble was that I’d said there were.” She looked up at Gamadge, and for the first time since he had met her he saw what he thought was sincerity in her eyes. Sincerity and cold anger. “So that I’d have an excuse for staying on and writing the book. I said I wouldn’t let anybody else use Paul’s letters.” She sat up, shrugged, drank some whisky. “I needn’t have mentioned them at all, I suppose. There were almost none—Paul didn’t keep letters, or anything else. I used what I had. Unfortunately, Avery has a great regard for the truth.”
Iverson said: “You wouldn’t understand, Gamadge, unless you knew Avery Bradlock, but you probably know his type. A fair man, an honest man, but he has a strong feeling that he’s done a lot for his brother’s wife. Being a business man first, last and always, he kept accounts, he watched every penny, he felt that he must be consulted at every turn. The Paul Bradlock estate is in debt to him for God knows how much—the biography, everything. Vera had nothing. Can you see her telling Bradlock last night that she’d been selling unlisted assets and pocketing money?”
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