Murders in, Volume 2 (11 page)

“Take him down, Posy, and show him the library,” said the old lady.

Gamadge rose. “I do hope you understand, Mrs. Dykinck, that this kind of research takes a long time?”

Mrs. Dykinck said she understood; but Gamadge, as he wrapped the letters and the daguerreotypes in a piece of paper retrieved for him from the wastebasket by the last of the Dykincks, could not help wondering how long it would be before her mother joined their ancestors. Posy, he was certain, could be more easily dealt with.

He made his farewells, and followed Miss Dykinck out of the room. Mrs. Dykinck suddenly called after him in her resounding bass: “Why don't you get married?”

“I will if I can.”

Again by request, he preceded Miss Dykinck down the stairs. She took him along the hall, and into a small, squeezed apartment behind the drawing room, with a ponderous mahogany bookcase in the darkest corner of it. The doors fitted so tightly that when she opened the middle section it left its frame as if reluctantly, with the ghost of a sigh.

Gamadge felt a slight but unmistakable thrill when he saw the row of little brown and gilt books, with the gap between Volume I and Volume III. He removed Volume I with some difficulty—the old shelves had warped, and left a faint double scar on its top edges. An inscription on the flyleaf read:

“Interesting,” said Gamadge. “I should like to borrow Volumes I and III, if I may. Too bad Volume II is missing; or have you lent it?”

Miss Dykinck peered at the shelf in a manner which showed that she was puzzled, as well as nearsighted. “Missing?”

“Yes. I hope it's not lost?”

“I'm sure I don't—nobody ever looks at these books.”

“Or stolen?”

Miss Dykinck turned her head to stare. “Who would steal a book out of a set?”

“Who, indeed?”

“They were all here when Anna and I dusted them, before Easter.”

“Very odd; spoils the set.”

Miss Dykinck looked angry, and very much puzzled. “Mamma would be—I can't imagine what's become of it!”

“So few people would have an opportunity to smuggle a book out of this room, too; or at least I suppose so. Your maids wouldn't?…“

Miss Dykinck dismissed this suggestion with no more than a satirical smile.

“Who does come into this room,” persisted Gamadge, “besides yourself?”

“Nobody except my Lenten sewing circle. They overflowed, last time, from the drawing room. In Holy Week. Perhaps,” and Miss Dykinck's nervous giggle sounded as if, in spite of her obvious and growing uneasiness, she rather enjoyed the idea, “perhaps one of the girls is a kleptomaniac.”

“I suppose your mother's friends aren't kleptomaniacs, either?”

“They never come in here. They go up to her.”

“In fact, nobody but the sewing circle ever does overflow into your library, nowadays. Well, it's a fascinating little minor mystery.” Gamadge glanced at her face, which looked like a mask of perplexity under the shadow of her hat brim. The doorbell jangled downstairs, and caused a diversion; Miss Dykinck listened with interest while heavy steps came up from the Cimmerian darkness of the basement.

The maid Anna passed the library door, with a side glance at the couple within, and presently a masculine voice could be heard inquiring for Miss Dykinck. Its owner was apparently left to wait in the hall while Anna mounted to the second story.

“What's the matter with her?” inquired Gamadge. “That was for you.”

“She always speaks to Mamma first.”

“What in the world for?”

“Poor Mamma hates to feel out of things,” said Miss Dykinck brightly.

Gamadge, again impressed by her gameness, surveyed her in silence. The maid came slowly down again, and entered the library.

“Your books, Miss Rose. Your mamma hasn't finished one of the last lot; she says she'll pay the extra charge for keeping it over.”

“All right. Had he the new ones I asked for?”

“Your mamma is only keeping one of them. She says you won't care for the other.”

Miss Dykinck, somewhat annoyed, peered at a book in a library jacket, which the stolid Anna gripped firmly in both hands.

“Oh dear,” she murmured. “I'll go up and speak to Mamma. No, never mind. Let it go.”

Anna went off, and a moment or two later they heard the front door slam, shaking the house.

Gamadge said: “As the gentleman said to the lady in the old play, ‘This I have heard of before, but never believed.'”

“What old play?”

“
Love for Love
.”

A ladylike squeal made Gamadge realize that he had twice used a word which could never pass unremarked in the presence of Miss Dykinck. He went on: “You know, I was just thinking: Suppose, for the sake of argument, that you had acquired some friend—we will say X—whom your mother might be expected to disapprove of. No, wait—it's only a hypothesis. Hang it all, most of us require a little privacy, now and again; are we guppies?”

“Men look at these things so differently,” protested Miss Dykinck.

“Do they? Well, anyhow—I believe you have no telephone.”

“The ringing bothered—”

“Just so. Suppose you wanted to get into communication with this X; you could go out half a dozen times in a day and call up from a drugstore, until you found your party at home. But what I should like to know is, how in the name of Childe Roland and the Dark Tower could X get into communication with you? Not by telegraph or by letter; the message might be opened by mistake. Am I wrong? I see that I am not. X couldn't because the faithful Anna would announce the caller to your mother before you knew there was such a person as X in the house. So if you wished to entertain X at home, you would have to make the appointment; and you would have to let X in, yourself—rather late, say, when the good Anna had retired to bed. X wouldn't ring, of course, but would knock gently on the door. And X couldn't leave by the front door, because it slams loud enough to wake not only Anna, but your mother, too.”

“This is all very silly, Mr. Gamadge,” said Miss Dykinck; and Gamadge, for the first time in his life, saw what is meant by “bridling.”

“No, it's an interesting piece of induction. You would have to let X out by the area gate.”

“Are you planning to call, one night?” inquired Miss Dykinck archly.

“By Jove, I'd like to! As a matter of fact, I flatter myself that Mrs. Dykinck approves of me thoroughly as a good young man; rather dull, but quite presentable. Look here, Miss Dykinck; I believe I can locate your missing Byron for you.”

Miss Dykinck became rigid. Finally she said: “I won't trouble you, thanks.”

“No trouble at all. I ought to be able to get it back for you quite soon.”

“Mr. Gamadge, I…”

“Don't be distressed, Miss Dykinck; please don't. I'm the soul of discretion. Nobody will ever know where your Byron was—except those who know it already. And not even X will know that I got it back for you. You really ought to have it.”

Miss Dykinck looked at him, and saw that his smile could be a very friendly one. She said, in a trembling voice: “You're absolutely wrong. I don't know where the book can have got to.”

“And you needn't know it. I shan't communicate with X in any way—I shall simply get it and bring it back. I don't at all like its being where it is. It might get you into a spot of publicity.”

Miss Dykinck, very much frightened, searched Gamadge's face. “I cannot think what you mean.”

“I'll do the thinking, if you'll trust me. But in order to identify your Byron, I must have Volume I and Volume III.”

“Take them. I don't know what you're talking about. It would kill Mamma, if—”

“Mrs. Dykinck will never know a thing about it.”

Gamadge added the Byrons to his now considerable bundle, and asked for more paper. Miss Dykinck opened an oak desk, and hunted about in it until she found a creased square of Christmas paper with holly on it, and a length of gold twine.

“Splendid,” said Gamadge. He turned the paper inside out, wrapped up the books, the letters and the daguerreotypes, and tied them securely. “Thanks very much, Miss Dykinck; I'll have a try for your Byron this very afternoon. Don't forget that you're coming to my next doings.”

He hurried out and along the hall. The lugubrious Anna surged up from the basement stairs before he had reached his hat, but it gave him some pleasure to slam the front door in her face.

He strolled westward, and had not reached the corner before Miss Dykinck came down her steps and flitted in the opposite direction. He watched her turn into a corner drugstore.

“X is going to get an earful,” he murmured, and looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes to one.

He got on a bus, which was already crowded by a herd of other people who were going home to lunch. As he swung on his handle, he cogitated. As soon as X heard from Miss Dykinck, and realized that Volumes I and III were going to be compared with Volume II, and no later than that very afternoon, X would feel strongly impelled to get hold of Volume II before Gamadge did. But was that possible? Until after five, nobody could get past John and Eliza unseen; after five, Mr. Vauregard would be in the library, guarding his own treasure. It could probably be stolen under the old gentleman's nose, but in that case Mr. Vauregard would know who the thief had been. No, Volume II would remain where it was until it had had its picture taken.

Gamadge frowned, and then shrugged. Nonsense, he thought; no cause for worry. He was not, after all, dealing with the Medici.

W
HEN HE REACHED HOME,
Gamadge sought Harold in the office, and handed over Volumes I and III of the Dykinck Byron.

“There are minute rubbings and scars along the top edges of these,” he said. “I want photographs, much enlarged. You'll find a break in the sequence—unfortunately. I have to take a photograph of Volume II myself. I only hope Mr. Vauregard will let me; but I don't think he'll be able to resist the baby camera. My picture will have to be fitted in between your two, somehow. Can you manage with the laboratory camera?”

“Sure, I can.”

“Have your lunch, will you? I want some help after I swallow mine.”

He swallowed his, and then spread the Dykinck letters out on a table beside the library window. “Start on these,” he said. “Begin with the year 1840, and sort out anything that refers to the Vauregards, with special attention to the dates immediately following May third.”

A cab got him to Central Park West shortly before two o'clock, and stopped in front of the old Palazzo apartments. Huge potted palms still bloomed among columns of variegated marble, and turbaned Moors (bronze gilt) upheld clusters of multicolored light globes. Gamadge went up to the top floor in a cage elevator, open on all sides.

He got out of it into a high, bare hall, and rang at a door with CHANDOR on it in blue lettering. It was immediately opened by the individual whom Harold had not cared for—a bald, peering man of immense size, whose manner to clients might be good, but who surveyed Gamadge without affection.

He looked at Gamadge's card, and then led him down a long passage with two bends in it, and into a big, surprising room. It was a kind of sun parlor, with starred, dark-blue awnings adjusted against the glare of the sun. A range of windows on three sides let in air, more sun, and the troubled roar of the streets below. Anything less soothing than this room, decorated as it was in light-blue and silver, with stars everywhere, Gamadge could not imagine.

Two persons rose from large blue-and-silver chairs as he came in; a handsome, big woman, faultlessly garbed in dark blue, with a diamond star on her left shoulder which Gamadge imagined to represent many fees, and large ones. She had a jolly smile, which beamed upon Gamadge while her small bright eyes appraised him.

The tall, thin, gray-headed man beside her looked like an actor. His regular features and waxy complexion needed a touch or so of grease paint to make them impressively handsome, but even now he was very good-looking. He did not smile at all—in fact, his expression was ominous. He said: “Stay and take notes, Rubens.”

Gamadge remarked, amiably: “My assistant wanted to come with me; perhaps I ought to have let him.”

“Now, now; you two!” protested Mrs. Chandor, showing brilliant teeth. “Sit down, Mr. Gamadge. I'm delighted to meet you.” She sat down herself, and Rubens accommodated himself at a table, upon which he laid a notebook.

“Just for the record,” said Mr. Chandor. He lifted his hand, a slim and pale one, and waved it horizontally in front of him, level with his midriff. “You don't object?”

“Not a bit.”

“Sit down, Mr. Gamadge.”

“When you do.”

Chandor lowered himself into a chair, his eyes on the visitor. Gamadge pulled up a hard, spindly affair with a star surmounting the back of it, and sat down also.

“Our business name is Chandor, but in private life we are Mr. and Mrs. Zanch,” said Mr. Zanch. Gamadge bowed.

Mrs. Zanch said: “Such interesting books you must write. We couldn't read them, of course, because we don't accept crime.”

“Nice, not to have to,” said Gamadge.

“We don't quite understand how we can help you. There is no mystery, as I said in my letter, about New Soul. It is merely a system of thought. What can you do with it, Mr. Gamadge ? It would take you years merely to learn to put it into words.”

“Didn't you put it into words in your book, Mrs. Zanch? You have written one, I understand.”

“That is for initiates, who have taken the preliminary steps towards the light. I really cannot see—”

“My wife means,” said Mr. Zanch, also smiling, but without mirth, “that she'd like to know what the racket is. Don't be annoyed.”