The Book of the Dead (18 page)

“Very attractive.”

“Nice little hat; the folks don't think it's very funereal, but they forgive her because she had a sudden trip from California and then this night trip to Stonehill. She's taking the hotel bus down to Unionboro; it catches the long-distance bus to New York.” Schenck added: “Gets in late. I hope she has somebody to meet her.”

“She'll have somebody.”

“Well, I kept an eye on the two sitting on the running board. They talked for ten minutes, and then they got up. Pike tipped his hat again, and she came along around the corner of the wall and up the road towards my group. Pike got into his car, and drove right over the edge of the mountain and off.”

“Off?”

‘That road he was on goes down into the next valley and to a little town on a branch railroad called Baylies.”

“You mean he left for good?”

“Just like that, and Boucher after him. We don't know the country; Pike might have had a chance to take some side lane, and we couldn't risk that, naturally. Boucher just streaked after him, taking our bags.

“Our arrangement was that in case of a sudden breakup the one left in Stonehill would check out and go down to Unionboro. There's a good hotel there opposite the station, the Long Valley Inn. I'm taking the bus Miss Daker's taking. Goes at three-thirty. Now, don't get it into your head that Pike was making a getaway. In a sense he probably is, but he isn't running away from us. He drove off like anybody. He quit because he was ready to, that's all. Let's hope Boucher won't lose him.”

“Let's hope.”

“They'll have to stop for gas sometime, and Boucher will telephone me at the Long Valley Inn. I've got five minutes to send a note to Mrs. Much—tell her we're called away. From now on it's going to be tough, Gamadge, and it's Friday, and we have to be back on our jobs early Monday morning.”

“I'm coming up.”

“You
are
?”

“Tonight, if I can get a berth on the 12:01. At 8:52 tomorrow morning I ought to be with you in Unionboro.”

Schenck was relieved. “I'll be glad to see you. If Boucher should send me a hurry call after midnight I'll leave a note for you here.”

Gamadge, muttering that he hoped that wouldn't happen, went back to Indus. “I've got to beat it down to the Grand Central and try to get a reservation; I'm leaving town for a few days. Tell Toomey. You mustn't lose Billig, whatever happens. I've left plenty of cash with Geegan; you and Toomey had better have plenty on you, in case the doctor should leave New York. I don't believe he will.”

“He's had time to get started already.”

“I don't think he'll go.”

“Has to watch that case in Queens? Even if it penetrates his mind that I might not have been running for a bus after all?”

“Even so.”

Indus hurried off, looking worried. Gamadge went down to his office, wrote a letter, sealed and stamped it; then he got some papers out of his desk, put his hat on and went out. He posted the letter at the corner, and took the subway to the Grand Central. Then he went down town to keep appointments in his other office, the cubbyhole that overlooked Bowling Green.

When he came home it was nearly dinnertime.

“I got a berth on the night train to Unionboro,” he told Theodore. “At least I got one on the car that finally gets to Unionboro. We shall put in hours at Springfield. Won't that be fun?”

“What hours?” asked Theodore.

“Four-thirteen till seven A.M.”

Theodore was amused, but he turned grave: “You goin' to let Mrs. Gamadge know you're goin' away on a case?”

“I telephoned her that I was joining Mr. Schenck for the week end, and that's what I am doing. I have to go down town again after dinner, but I'll come back here to pick up my bag; please pack the small one for me.”

“All those funny people been comin' in the house—young person wouldn't give her business, police and a burglar, those two men; and long distance from Mr. Schenck every five minutes: it's a case.”

“Everything's a case nowadays, Theodore; I'm on cases all day and every day.”

“That's different, that's the war. We don't mind those cases. We mind your old kind, and Mr. Schenck's kind.”

“Don't tell her a word, Theodore.”

Gamadge went back down town to the little office with the view of Bowling Green, to which a night watchman took him in the elevator. At half past ten the night watchman brought him down again and let him out of the silent building into the silent street. He was used to lower Manhattan at night, but this time he was not sorry to leave its great bastions for the comparatively animated subway. Even this, however, seemed lifeless; his train was a long time coming.

And when he changed to his local at 42nd Street, where there was something of a crowd, he found himself keeping clear of the crowd, away from the edge of the platform, when the local came in. He didn't think that tonight he would like the feel of being shoved.

At his own dark corner somebody asked him for a light; it was Toomey, cigarette in hand and hat pulled down.

Gamadge said: “Don't tell me our friend's back again.”

“If you look along the block you'll see a piece of shadow that ain't a stone post.”

Gamadge looked. Then he said: “I'm coming right out again with my bag. Stick around.”

“Want me to walk along?”

“No, thanks; just stay here under the light. That'll do.”

The hunched shadow lost itself among other shadows as Gamadge approached his steps. Gamadge let himself in, took his bag and a light topcoat from Theodore, and spoke to the cat Martin. Then he came out again, walked to the corner, ignored Toomey, and hailed a cab. He thought of all the people who were now scattered about the country; of Mrs. Dodson in the little house in Queens, of Billig, Schenck, Boucher, all on the move. Of himself setting out reluctantly on this journey. All because Idelia Fisher lay in some mortuary, unconcerned.

G
AMADGE HATED UPPER BERTHS
only a trifle worse than he hated lower ones; he never really slept in them. Tonight he lay in his accustomed half-stupor when a tremendous jolt and shudder woke him fully—they were in Springfield.

He waited until more jerks and shuntings ended in the peculiar dead quiet of a train at rest. The car was in its siding until seven o'clock, when it would be picked up and taken on to Unionboro. He turned over and went to sleep.

A hard, persistent poking, aimed with expert precision at his shoulder, woke him again—the indescribably relentless poke of a porter's knuckles through the curtain of a sleeping berth. He looked out.

“You Mr. Gamadge?”

“Yes.”

“Certainly am glad. Folks don't like to be woke up. Telegram for you, sir.” The porter's face showed respect, a certain awe: “Urgent. Federal business, sir.”

Gamadge took the yellow envelope, looked at the porter, and opened it. He read:

HENRY GAMADGE ON BOARD CAR
70
NEW YORK TO UNIONBORO SPRINGFIELD STATION SPRINGFIELD GET OFF SPRINGFIELD WILL JOIN YOU WITH CAR ABOUT EIGHT THIRTY JUST HEARD FROM BOUCHER
SCHENCK

Gamadge looked at his watch. It was twenty minutes to seven; he said: “Can do.”

“Yes, sir. I'll let down the steps.”

Gamadge had no time to wash. His impressions of Springfield Station and of Springfield itself were vague, remained vague even when he had had a cup of coffee in an early restaurant. Then he found an early barbershop and had the works—shampoo and shave, hair cut and facial massage—and began to shake off the effects of his short and troubled night. By the time he came back to the station it was half past eight o'clock; Schenck did not arrive, and Gamadge sat in the morning air, on the station platform, until half past nine.

Schenck drove up, neat and business-like as usual, but there was a dimness on his lustre. He opened the car door: “Sorry to be late.”

“I've been inquiring for more telegrams.” Gamadge climbed in.

“No time for that.” Schenck turned the car and drove southward as though he knew where he was going very well. But he said nothing more, and after a minute Gamadge asked: “Well, what's the trouble?”

“We think Pike's vanished.”

Gamadge sat mutely looking at Schenck's profile.

“I know. Say it, say it. But how do you think we feel,” asked Schenck, “after doing all the work?”

“Do you really think I'd blame you?”

“No, but it's sickening.”

“Are we—excuse me for asking—are we going back to New York?” asked Gamadge mildly.

“No, just out of town to this little place—golf club—the Crab Apple Inn. It's an old mansion done over, and it's very shick. Shicker,” said Schenck, “than the big places on the river. Only they've lost their custom for just now. Boucher's there; or at least he's sitting on a knoll on the golf course.”

“Is he?”

“It was on the cards we might lose Pike,” said Schenck violently, “but not like this. All we can think of is that there was a car waiting to pick him up, and Boucher says that's almost impossible. You don't know what Boucher's been through. Poor little guy's about used up.”

“I'm awfully sorry.”

“That's all right, he's full of beans yet. Won't admit we've lost Pike, and I don't see how we can have. But I'll tell you the story. It
was
a getaway, all right.”

“From you two?”

“No, no; that's out; you'll see why. But he deliberately lost himself. What happened was this:

“I told you how Boucher drove after him down the mountain. It was an old dirt road lined with trees; Boucher could see Pike's car a long way ahead, and Pike never looked round. When they got to this Baylies Pike was already in the one and only garage; selling his car.”

“Very wise of him.”

“That's when Boucher knew for a fact that Pike was going to disappear if he could. Boucher drove right over to the railroad station, parked behind the bushes in the weedy lot beside the tracks—you know those lots—and asked when the next down train was due. It was due in an hour; Unionboro the first station, and then all stops to Boston via Springfield.

“The next up train wouldn't come along until seven at night.

“Boucher took his big chance right there, and his judgment was good; he got in the car again and drove straight for Unionboro, where he picked me up. We were there on the platform when the train from Baylies crawled in; if Pike hadn't been on it, of course we would have driven back to Baylies and tried to follow up from there. But Pike was on the train, and he got off.

“He was lugging a big heavy suitcase; been living in it for a long time, you know. He lugged it right across the square to the Long Valley Inn, and he registered: George Pike, Cumberland Avenue, Springfield, Mass. Only I don't think there is any Cumberland Avenue in Springfield. Boucher got a squint at the card; by that time, of course, I was the one Pike mustn't see.

‘By this time Pike was (as I said) a respectable-looking small town guy, small agent or tradesman; the day clerk at the Long Valley didn't think much of him, but he gave him a room, no bath. He went up to it, lugging his own bag; and he didn't act like a man who cares much for lugging a bag, either.

“The Long Valley is one of those old coaching taverns, with lots of the original rooms and gadgets about it; quite a show place when there's any motoring trade. Now there isn't, and the place is pretty dead; too expensive for the local trade. There's another station hotel—The American House—looks terrible. Pike wasn't having any of that. In the money, we decided. And of course from then on we had to keep our eyes open, even if it did look as though he had settled down for the night.

“We parked the car in the garage behind the Inn, had it all ready to start with its nose pointing out, and made sure there was all-night attendance so that we could get at it early if we wanted to. Pretty ironical.”

“Was it?”

“You'll see. Well, the Inn has a lot of its old fixings left, as I said, and one of 'em's a kind of a covered way that runs across from the living quarters to the kitchen wing, with a space under it for the coaches to drive through to the stables. Gate-house. When we drove in under it to the garage we both noticed it, and noticed that it had windows back and front; if you were up in it you could watch both entrances to the Inn; all the entrances to the Inn.

“It being his watch that night, we decided that he'd better watch from there. It's nothing but a passage; we took chairs there and sat and talked about the case until supper time. Boucher liked the idea that Pike might be going back to Stonehill.”

“Did he?” Gamadge smiled.

“Liked it a lot; the idea of Pike hiding up there in the boarded-up Crenshaw house, nobody knowing it.”

“Why hiding there?”

“Digging for Uncle Crenshaw's buried savings. I think they must bury more savings in France than they do here, or Boucher wouldn't have been so sold on the notion. The talk up in Stonehill was that old Uncle Crenshaw had only left enough in the bank to bury him, but that he probably had cash stowed away. But isn't that always the talk?”

“Did Boucher think that Pike had chanced on some indication of hidden money, and concealed the knowledge of it from Crenshaw?”

“He was fooling with the possibility.”

“Pike had had a long time to find that buried treasure.”

“Boucher thought it might be in the ground, and Pike was too dumb to read the plan, or map, or whatever he had. But Boucher wasn't entirely serious about it, you know; he was just taking it into consideration. You haven't given us much to go on in this case, Gamadge.”

“I'll tell you all about it when we join Boucher.”