Puzzle of the Red Stallion (13 page)

“Wait a minute,” protested Eddie. “You got it all wrong. I was the boy-friend as far as going places was concerned, but with me Violet was always an icicle. Down at the stables among her horsy friends she was different. But I never got to first base. It was just see her to the door, that’s all there is, there isn’t any more. So when I meet up with her kid sister, who is as good looking as Violet ever was and friendly besides …”

“You wanted to marry her!” concluded Miss Withers.

Eddie shrugged. “I know,” he began to apologize, “but everybody gets married once in a while. And she is a cute kid.”

Miss Withers turned her blue eyes upon him. “As a gambler you were willing to take a chance?”

He nodded. “Then,” said Miss Withers, “I wish you’d give me some advice about betting.”

Eddie grinned. “You too? That’s just what Violet said a week or so ago. Seems like she got a tip on a certain horse running at Beaulah next Saturday and she wanted to know how to put down a lot of dough on him without spoiling the odds….”

Miss Withers dug in her handbag, finally producing the announcement of the race with its penciled notations which she had filched from the desk of old man Gregg. “Can you tell me what this means?”

He frowned. “Bard … Kyte … Roberman….” He nodded. “That’s easy. Those babies are big-time bookies at the Beaulah track. No pari-mutuel up there, you know—all bets are made with bookmakers. Evidently somebody was interested in the big race next Saturday and spent some time checking up to see which bookie would give the best odds on a large wad of dough put down on the line.”

“You couldn’t tell me the name of the horse?” Miss Withers pressed. Eddie frowned. “It’s a long shot, certainly, to get those odds of better than twenty-to-one.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “At present quotations I’d say the horse would be Santa Claus, Prince Penguin, or maybe Wallaby. The others are all better nags and lower odds.”

Miss Withers studied the list of horses on the front page of the announcement. “Easter Bunny, Verminator, Toy Wagon, Santa Claus, Head Wind, Tom-Tom, Good News, Prince Penguin and Wallaby,” she recited thoughtfully. “What kind of horse is Santa Claus?”

Eddie warmed up a little at the idea of being asked for expert opinion. “Lady, Santa Claus needs six reindeer to pull him around the track,” he told her. “If you’re set on betting in the handicap put your money on Head Wind to show. He’s the favorite and you can’t lose much.”

“Was Head Wind the horse Violet Feverel asked you about?” Miss Withers went on.

Eddie shook his sleek head. “She had a wild tip on a rank outsider,” he told her. “A plug that’s never even raced on the flat in this country and one that hasn’t done much since he fell down in the big English steeplechase. His name is Wallaby and for some reason or other Violet was set on betting her shirt on him. Seems like some guy who owed her some money paid it and then tried to borrow it back to bet on that horse, and so she thought she might as well plunge herself.”

“I see,” said Miss Withers, who did not see at all. “Perhaps Violet was fond of wallabies. As one race track fan to another, what horse would you advise me to plunge on next Saturday?”

Eddie was thoughtful. “Well, you see it’s like this…. I’m betting Toy Wagon to place because when I was a kid I had a toy wagon and”—the young man grinned—“I’m not always such a scientific better after all. You got to play your hunches in this game.”

“We all have to play our hunches,” said Miss Withers thoughtfully. “Sometimes even when we haven’t got any hunches.” She looked up and saw that the brightly clad young man was moving away.

“Where are you going?” she wanted to know.

“I’m playing a hunch right now,” he came back. “I think Babs really wants to see me and I’m going up and knock on her door. If I can talk to her …”

Miss Withers thought fast. “Young man,” she said with one of her most meaningful glances, “do you want to help or injure the police in this murder investigation?”

He looked surprised. “Me? But what have I got to do with it?”

“Nothing, I hope,” said Miss Withers. “But after all, you are a suspect. You were paying a good deal of attention to Violet Feverel and then suddenly you transferred your affections to little Babs….”

Eddie’s face hardened subtly, showing an expression of complete woodenness. “So that’s how you figure it?”

“No,” said Miss Withers heartily. “I’m just telling you how it might look. After all, you and Barbara both claim to have been in each other’s company at the time the murder was committed.”

“Yeah?” Eddie countered.

“Yes. And so it would create a good impression if you co-operated with us all you can. Right now I’m faced with a problem which is right up your avenue, as the slangsters put it. I’ve got to know why it was that Mr. Pat Gregg made these notations about the odds on that horse race. And I want to find out if he placed the bets or changed his mind. Can you help me?”

“Well,” admitted Eddie Fry, “I know Toby Kyte pretty well. He’s a square bookmaker. He might tell me….”

“Good!” said Miss Withers. She almost shoved the young man out of the lobby. “Don’t let any grass grow under your feet and if you find out anything report to me at this telephone number. After all—if we discover anything that leads us to the real murderer, that will clear you—and Barbara!”

“Yeah,” admitted Eddie Fry, still somewhat unconvinced. “That’s right, it will, won’t it?”

He wandered out into the street again lighting a cigarette. For a moment Miss Withers stared after him, shaking her head. Then she turned, and avoiding the clerk at the desk, she went back to the elevators.

Hesitating for a moment she pressed the bell of what had been Violet Feverel’s apartment. She pressed it hard and long, the sound dying away in vibrating echoes. There was no answer, there was no sound of voices or of scurrying footsteps, and yet Miss Withers was ready to swear that the apartment was far from empty. There was an atmosphere of tension filtering through that closed door—an eerie air of poised and breathless waiting….

She rang again, holding her thumb on the button for a long time. Then she knocked, calling softly—“It’s I—Miss Withers….”

Just as she was about to try for a third time the door opened in her face. There was Barbara Foley, innocent and smiling. She had changed from her white lace evening gown to some gay green and lavender pajamas which the schoolteacher guessed had belonged to her sister Violet.

“Come in!” she invited. “I didn’t answer because I thought it was Eddie.” The girl had needle and thread in her hand, and over her arm were a couple of light silk stockings.

Miss Withers entered the long living room and looked about her. The smile on Barbara’s face was a little too open and a little too set.

The schoolteacher sniffed.

“I—I was smoking,” said Barbara quickly. She crossed to the window and threw it wider. “Violet never liked me to, but my nerves are jumping like anything.”

That was no lie, as Miss Withers could see for herself. She sank into a comfortable chair and took off her hat. “I thought it was time that you and I, child, had a heart-to-heart talk….”

“Yes, of course,” said Barbara. She drew up a straight chair and perched on the very edge of the seat. “I’ve been thinking and thinking, but I’ve told you all I know. Are you—have you learned anything?”

“I don’t know, but I think so,” Miss Withers said half to herself. She was staring at a near-by ash stand.

“It’s not as if Violet and I had been brought up together,” the girl was rambling nervously on. “I didn’t know her very well, not really. And I wouldn’t have come to her here if I had had any other home to go to…. All the same I’ve been trembling ever since I got back from that dreadful place where they took her.”

Miss Withers nodded sympathetically. But her eyes were still glued to the ash stand and to what it bore in the tray. She looked over at Barbara, her blue eyes sad and doubtful.

“I hate to see a girl your age smoking,” she suddenly broke in. Barbara looked surprised.

“Why—just a cigarette—”

Miss Withers got up and went over to the ash stand. “I didn’t really think
you’d
been smoking this,” she said taking up a still-warm tobacco pipe in her fingers. “At least not while you were doing anything as feminine as needlework.”

There was a brittle silence, during which the girl took a long and shuddering breath. Her soft lips parted. “I wasn’t smoking it,” she admitted. “But—”

“Better ask the young man to come out of the closet,” Miss Withers suggested sweetly. “We’ll have a three-cornered heart-to-heart talk.”

“There’s nobody in the closet—” Barbara began. She wasn’t lying, because at that moment the kitchenette door opened and a man came into the room. He was a plump young man and might have been handsome if his face had not been so pale, and if his expression had not been faintly pouting. Over one arm he carried a dark and mud-stained blue overcoat which he immediately tossed onto a chair.

He kept one hand in the pocket of his jacket and his lips were pale and gray. Miss Withers blinked foolishly at him for a moment. This was a surprise. Even without getting up to look in the bottom of the bird-cage she recognized this young man. “Good afternoon, Mr. Don Gregg,” she said. “It’s high time you were joining us.”

He didn’t say anything but he took his hand out of his jacket pocket.

M
ISS HILDEGARDE WITHERS LET
the air from her lungs in a deep sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure what she had expected the young man to pull from his pocket, but it certainly was not a harmless-looking tobacco pouch of yellow oiled silk.

His eyes flashed from the schoolteacher to Barbara, who was leaning stiffly against the back of her chair, and then back to the pipe which Miss Withers was clutching. “I’ll take that if you’re not using it,” said Don Gregg. She gave it to him.

“This lady is from the police,” said Barbara quickly—almost too quickly.

Somehow that set the key of the scene in the mind of the schoolteacher. Barbara wasn’t looking toward Don Gregg. Her face showed no trace of softness or sympathy. Yet the single sentence had declared her colors as definitely as though a flag flaunted itself overhead. It was impossible, it was ridiculous—but so it was.

The three stared at one another. “Not exactly from the police.” Miss Withers finally broke the ice. “If I were, it would be my duty to place you under arrest, young man.”

“What for?” Gregg wanted to know.

“How do I know?” Miss Withers snapped back. “Jail-breaking, resisting an officer, parking in front of a hydrant, inciting to riot … possibly for murder. For the murder of Violet Feverel, in case you haven’t heard. There’s a warrant out for you now, or there will be in a few hours.”

Don Gregg gave up trying to light the pipe. He made a sudden movement toward the front door and as suddenly stopped.

“This isn’t a trap,” Miss Withers said hastily. “So don’t go jumping out of any windows.”

“If it isn’t a trap then who told you to come here?” And Gregg looked suspiciously at Barbara.

“Sit down, young man,” Miss Withers ordered. “It’s my turn to ask questions. The first one is—who or what inspired you to come here? I should think that after what happened this morning this would be the last place in the world where you’d want to be found.”

Don Gregg didn’t sit down but he leaned against the back of a davenport. “I didn’t know,” he explained. “I hadn’t heard—until Miss—Miss—”

“Foley,” said Barbara, not too gently.

“Miss Foley told me. About Violet, I mean…. Being found dead on the bridle path and all that sort of thing.”

Miss Withers nodded. “So? You had no idea that your ex-wife was dead, so you dropped in to pay a social call? Naturally your first thought on getting out of jail was to pay your respects to the one person who would be most likely to have you sent back there?”

“I had to talk to her,” said Don Gregg stubbornly. “So I came right up here….”

“You got out of jail around midnight last night,” Miss Withers reminded him. “And now it’s five o’clock in the afternoon. Took you some time to get from Thirty-seventh Street to Seventy-ninth, did it not?”

“I’ve been here awhile,” blurted out Don Gregg. “And besides, I didn’t say I came right here after I got out of the hoosegow. I came here after I left the place where I slept last night.”

“And where was that?”

“The Park Turkish Baths on Sixth Avenue, if you must know,” Gregg told her. At Miss Withers’s look of amazement he continued, “Were you ever in jail? No—well, you ought to try it. Even alimony jail is no Ritz-Carlton. The first thing I thought about when I got out, even before seeing Violet, was to get that place soaked out of me. The smell of it, and the feel of those gray blankets that they never wash, and the yellow soap that chaps your hands …”

“I can imagine,” Miss Withers put in hastily. “You wanted to feel clean, is that it?”

She was watching, not Gregg, but the girl. Barbara seemed strangely uneasy, as if waiting for a bomb to go off under somebody’s chair.

Gregg nodded. “After the steam and the rubdown I went to bed and pretty near slept the clock around. I left the place and came over here expecting to find Violet….”

“I came upstairs after going down to—to the place where they’ve got my sister, and here he was,” admitted Barbara. “I knew who he was but he didn’t know me,” she went on to explain quickly. “Violet hadn’t ever told him she had a sister so much younger—”

“And named Foley,” Miss Withers put in. “Naturally not. And what was the first thing Mr. Gregg here said to you?”

Barbara frowned. “The first thing? Oh—as I came in the door he rose up in his chair and said, “Vi, old darling, you’re going to listen to me or I’ll tie a knot in your white throat …!”

“Which would make it very clear that, like Mr. Thomas earlier in the day, this young man mistook you for your sister. And moreover that he had no knowledge, guilty or otherwise, of your sister’s death.”

“That’s the way I figured it too,” said Barbara Foley calmly.

Miss Withers stared at the girl sharply and then nodded. “For a young man who could break out of jail it would be no trouble at all to break into an apartment,” she said.