ALM06 Who Killed the Husband? (4 page)

"I shall not do so."

When he returned to the dining room Curt Wintergrenn said: "No bad news, I hope, Lee."

"No, indeed, Curt. A bit of routine business, that's all."

"You looked a little disturbed."

Lee laid a hand on his epigastrium. "I partook a little too generously of the 
caneton
."

"Have a brandy?"

When they returned to the drawing room Mrs. Wintergrenn was sitting alone at the coffee table and Lee went to her. "Carol, I have had a phone call, I shall have to slip away, my dear."

She looked at him doubtfully. "Don't you like my party?...Honestly, Lee, I'm distressed because I couldn't steer the talk better."

"You needn't apologize for that," he said. "I'm positively becoming interested in the case."

"Do me a little favor before you go," begged Carol. "Anything within my power, my dear."

"While you men were at the table we got to talking about crime. Somebody said that criminals had a snap nowadays because of modern inventions. For instance, a call made from a dial phone cannot be traced. I said that might be, but that you were able to read off a phone number just from hearing it dialed. They all scouted at the idea. Please, Lee, give them a demonstration."

"I hate to do parlor tricks," said Lee.

"I know, but just to bear me out, 
please
. Afterwards you can slip out quietly, and I'll make your excuses."

Lee submitted and the whole party adjourned to the hall to make the test. One went into the booth while Lee, provided with pencil and pad, turned his back on it. As the numbers were dialed, Lee made marks on his pad. Out of five tries he read off four correctly, and great was the wonder of the beholders.

"There is no magic in it," said Lee; "simply a question of training your ear. Some people pull the dial around quickly, some slowly; you pay no attention to that sound. But the dial always comes clicking back at the same measured rate of speed; that is what you listen for. I can do it without pencil and paper, but there is a danger of forgetting a number before the call is completed. So I make these marks of different lengths corresponding to the passage of the dial, and then I have a record."

"Marvelous!" they cried.

Soon afterwards he made an inconspicuous get-away.

The Gartrey apartment occupied the entire eighth floor of one of the finest buildings on the avenue. A manservant admitted Lee to a stately foyer. An immense music room opened off on his left and in front of him a salon as big as a museum. Today the very rich have more space in their city apartments than they once had in a whole house. Mrs. Gartrey presently came swimming to meet him in something pink that set off her cunningly dressed chestnut hair. She looked like a girl and was, perhaps, thirty years old. She was beautiful but not so beautiful in the flesh as in her photographs. It was because hers was a beauty of feature rather than expression. The touch of gentleness that makes a woman wholly adorable was lacking. It was clear that she had suffered dreadfully during the past few days, but it had not softened her.

"How good of you!" she murmured.

"I was glad to come if you think I can be of the least use," said Lee.

She led him to a settee by the fireplace. She was alone in the vast room. Lee reflected that rich people were apt to be lonelier than the poor. They sat down.

"Will you have a drink, Mr. Mappin?"

"Thanks, no. I have just come from a too-hospitable house."

A bitter expression crossed her face. "I expect I was well discussed around the table."

He wasn't going to lie to her. "You were," he said candidly.

"What did they say?"

"Oh, come, Mrs. Gartrey, you didn't ask me here to repeat silly gossip. I assure you you did not lack defenders at the table."

She put a handkerchief to her lips. "It's so hard to know where to begin my story!" she murmured.

"Tell me why you chose to send for me instead of somebody else."

"That's easy," she said. "One reads your books; one reads in the newspaper how extraordinarily clever you are in bringing the truth to light in baffling cases. I want you to find out the truth of this case."

Lee waited for more. It was obvious that the woman was suffering intensely, but did she really want the truth? He doubted it.

"You understand," she went on, "I am asking you to accept me for a client. I expect to pay for your services."

Lee waved his hand. That didn't commit him to anything.

Her voice scaled up. "The newspapers are like a pack of dogs, like a pack of dogs yapping at Mr. Yohe's heels!" she cried. "He is innocent of any wrongdoing. He was out of the house before my husband came home. I want you to prove that to the world."

"How can I without his co-operation?" said Lee.

She put a hand over her eyes. "Oh, I know! I know! It was suicidal for him to run away and to stay away. I wish to God I could reach him. I could soon persuade him to come back."

Lee said, to see what kind of reaction he would get: "It has been suggested that you do know where he is."

"That's a lie," she said scornfully. "Would I be suffering this horrible uncertainty? Would I stay here if I knew? This place has become a nightmare to me. Every time I cross the foyer I can see my husband lying there."

"Why do you stay here?"

"Because I think that Al...Mr. Yohe may try to get in touch with me here. By telephone. Even the telephone is risky, but he might take a chance. I am listening for it day and night!"

Lee thought: Okay, she does not know where he is.

He said: "Until he does come back, Mrs. Gartrey, I don't see what I can do."

"Oh, you must, you must help me!" she cried, clasping her hands. "Ask me whatever you like and I'll gladly pay it!"

"Believe me, it's not a question of a fee," he said mildly. "I have sufficient for my modest wants. I have no family."

"All you have to do is to come out in his favor," she pleaded. "Then, wherever he is, he would see that he had a friend and a powerful one; that would bring him back."

Lee said firmly: "I can't come out in his favor until I see some reason to doubt his guilt."

"He's innocent!" she wailed. "Who should know that better than I?"

"If Alastair Yohe didn't shoot your husband, who did?" asked Lee bluntly.

"Oh, I don't want to accuse anybody else! I have no proof!"

"If you have even a suspicion it will be safe with me."

"Have you thought of the butler, Robert Hawkins?" she asked in a muffled voice.

"Hm, that's a new lead," said Lee.

"He was in a position to do it," she went on eagerly, "and it would explain why he tried to put it off on Al."

"What motive could Hawkins have had?"

"Personal motive? None! He was only a servant. But my husband had enemies. Men of great wealth. It would have been easy for one of them to get at Hawkins and to pay him, to pay him a great sum, perhaps, to do away with my husband."

"That's a possibility," said Lee. "I will investigate it."

"I understand that Hawkins has disappeared," she said.

"Only from the newspaper reporters. He has given the police his present address."

"Oh, he's a smooth customer," she said bitterly. "Don't be deceived by his snowy hair and his seeming honesty!"

"I am not easily deceived," said Lee mildly.

"He washes his hair with bluing to make it whiter," she said acidly. "My maid told me. It wouldn't do any good for you to talk to him. He would only lie."

"Naturally. I shall endeavor to find out if he has come into any money lately."

Mrs. Gartrey arose. "You must let me give you a check, Mr. Mappin. You shall name the amount yourself!"

Lee held up his hand. "Thank you, no! I have not yet taken the case."

Mrs. Gartrey's eyes never left his face. As they proceeded toward the door, she saw him looking at the masses of expensive flowers that filled the room, and murmured: "People 
will
 send flowers. And usually the people one doesn't much care for. It is so inconsiderate. Every box that comes administers a fresh stab!"

"Why don't you send them to a hospital?" he asked dryly.

"The senders usually call to extend their condolences. They would be offended if they didn't see their flowers."

Lee passed a huge bouquet of American Beauty roses with stems three feet long. Under the edge of the vase which contained them was caught the edge of a card--presumably the sender's. On it was written: "Deepest sympathy--Rulon."

"Mrs. Gartrey," said Lee, "why don't you address Mr. Yohe through the newspapers? Wherever he is, we may be sure that he reads them."

"How can I?" she murmured distressfully. "In the first shock of this awful happening I was so confused, so distracted, that I made the mistake of telling the police that he was just a casual acquaintance. You know better than that. I can't hide anything from you. But I trust you. You see, if the truth about what I feel came out now, it would only react against him."

There was something very flattering, very affecting in the sight of the famous beauty casting herself on his mercy like this. And she knows it! thought Lee. "I see," he said.

"But Mr. Mappin, I swear to you there has been no wrongdoing!" she protested.

"I accept it," said Lee. He took a pinch of snuff.

"I may say, though, that it wouldn't make the slightest difference to me if there had been."

She laid her hand lightly for a moment on his arm. "Ah, you are so kind and understanding!"

"Still," he said, "why can't you put an ad among the public notices that none but he would understand. Haven't you some private way of addressing him that he would recognize?"

She shook her head with an appearance of great sadness. "No! It hadn't gone as far as that, you understand."

Chapter 4

Lee Mappin had now reached the point where he read with care every word in the newspapers appertaining to the Gartrey case. His face turned a little grim next morning when he came upon this item in the 
Herald Tribune
:

Amos Lee Mappin, the well-known author and criminologist, is known to have called on Mrs. Jules Gartrey at her apartment late last night. What took place during this interview can only be surmised, but it looks as if Mr. Mappin was preparing to enter the case on behalf of the missing Alastair Yohe.

Tipped off the paper herself, thought Lee.

When he reached the office he was a little disturbed to see the glint of a fresh determination in Fanny Parran's blue eye. She did not keep him long in doubt as to what it portended. Bringing in the mail, she said:

"Pop, I've been thinking all night about something you said to Judy yesterday."

"What was that, my dear?"

"You said you couldn't make any move to help Al Yohe unless you could hear his story."

"That's right," said Lee, wondering what on earth was coming next.

"Would you consent to see Al Yohe and let him tell you his story?"

Lee almost bounced out of his chair. "Good God! Fanny, do you realize what you're saying?"

"Perfectly."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No," she said calmly.

"What am I to understand from this extraordinary proposition of yours?"

"Well," she said cautiously, "I've been approached by somebody who knows Al and presumably is able to communicate with him."

"Was it Mrs. Gartrey?" demanded Lee.

Fanny turned pink with anger. "No indeed! I believe that woman is playing a double part and Judy thinks so, too."

"Then who was it?"

Fanny's soft lips hardened. "I won't tell you that, Pop. It's useless for you to ask me."

"My dear girl," said Lee, holding himself in, "don't you understand that for you to have any truck with a fugitive from justice without informing the police, constitutes you an accessory to his crime?"

Fanny was unimpressed. "Surely, I know it. It's one of those things men make such a fuss about that you might think it was important."

"And what is more important?"

"Many things. Justice, honor, good faith--" Fanny touched her breast, "and that something in here which prompts you how to act in a specific case whatever the usual rules may be."

"I am being instructed," said Lee dryly.

"I am only applying what you have taught me," said Fanny firmly.

Though he preserved an appearance of calmness, Lee was growing a little warm. "Those are brave words," he said, "but the plain truth of the matter is that you have become infatuated with this..."

Fanny turned pink again. "That's not so, Pop. It's not desire for the man that has got me going, but a desire to see justice done. Why this woman who came to me..."