The Mystery of the Vanished Victim (9 page)

“Police Headquarters! And hurry, please.”

“Sure, son. I guess you’re going on duty any minute now, huh?” the driver replied with a grin as he shoved down the meter flag.

When the cab stopped for a red light, Gully got out his notebook and jotted down the address Mr. Herman had mentioned. Then he wrote down Kolar’s latest grim purchase—“telescopic gunsight.”

When they reached Centre Street, Gully paid the driver and dashed toward the big building. As he started in, a voice behind him called with surprise, “Gulliver!”

He turned and saw his grandfather.

“How in the world, Gully, did you beat me down here?”

“I took a cab,” Gully replied sheepishly.

“A cab!” Inspector Queen exclaimed. “It must be nice to have a rich grandfather.”

“But I have important information for you!”

Inspector Queen shoved Gully into his private office, sat down at his paper-strewn desk, and said, “Talk!” Gully told him of Mr. Herman’s call.

The inspector pushed a buzzer on his desk. A moment later Sergeant Velie appeared.

“A nice wild goose chase you sent me on yesterday, Gully. Did you come to apologize?”

“No, Velie,” Inspector Queen interjected. “As a matter of fact, Gully came down to lead you on another chase!”

The burly sergeant’s look of surprise changed as Inspector Queen quickly filled him in on the latest development.

“You know what to do, Velie.”

“Right, Inspector. I’ll get out a general call to all taxi companies to check their drivers’ trip sheets and find one who picked up a passenger at the gun shop and delivered him to East Forty-eighth Street. That’ll give us the address.”

“How long will it take to get an answer, Grandpa?”

“Hard to say, Gully. The drivers don’t turn in their trip sheets until they finish their work for the day. Also, they’re on staggered tours of duty. Some quit at ten, others at twelve.”

“I guess I could have come down by bus, after all.”

“No, Gully, learning this quickly was helpful. Why don’t you go with Velie? You might enjoy seeing some of our routine.”

Gully beamed and followed the sergeant out of his grandfather’s office. They entered a room filled with teletype machines, whose typewriter keyboards were thumping up and down, as if unseen hands were typing out the messages that flashed on the paper in each machine.

Gully had to be pulled away from the fascinating messages that kept flowing into the Police Headquarters from all over the busy city. Sergeant Velie gave his message to an officer at an electric typewriter, and in seconds it was flashing to all stations.

Sergeant Velie beckoned, and Gully hurried over to a teletype machine in time to see it begin receiving the very same message the policeman a few desks away was sending out!

“That’s amazing, Sergeant!” Gully exclaimed. “But now what do we do?”

“We just wait. Unless, of course, you’d like to go out and dig up some more blind leads for us, Gully.”

Gully didn’t answer. He sat down in a chair in the corner, watching the hands on the big electric clock move with painful slowness. Occasionally he got up, walked to a teletype machine, and read the latest report on crime in the city. It was an exciting world, and Gully began to understand why his uncle spent so much time here, getting material for his novels.

Gully was munching a rather dry ham sandwich that he had finally hurried out to buy himself around three o’clock, when a short man with a pot belly came to the reception desk, cap in hand.

“You looking for a cabbie that took a fare to East Forty-eighth this morning?” the man asked.

Sergeant Velie looked up and nodded. “Let’s see your trip sheet, mister.”

“Look, I didn’t bust no law or anything.”

“Let’s see your trip sheet,” Velie repeated.

“Look, if you figure I was cruising—” the cabbie continued defiantly.

“Why do people always have guilty consciences when they walk in here? We just want some information, we’re not trying to hand you a summons. The trip sheet!”

With obvious relief, the taxi driver handed Velie his trip sheet. The sergeant’s eye ran down the list of calls the cabbie had made that morning until he found the important one. The cabbie had picked up a fare at the gun shop and dropped the passenger at 1385 East Forty-eighth Street. The time checked with Mr. Herman’s information. But in spite of Velie’s questioning, the cabbie could not recall if the fare had a mustache or even if he actually went into that building.

“Don’t you notice anything?” Velie roared.

“Sergeant Velie,” Inspector Queen interrupted calmly, as he came up, “I think the driver has told us all he can. I want to thank him for his help.”

“Okay, Inspector,” the driver replied with a grin. “Glad to help. Any time. But just remember it next time one of your traffic boys stops me for something minor.”

Velie returned the trip sheet to the driver. The man was just strolling out when a patrolman entered.

“Say,” the officer exclaimed, “is that your hack out there, double parked?”

“It’s all right, Drake,” the inspector said quickly.

The driver walked out, winking back at Inspector Queen. A moment later, Velie and Gully were off in a squad car.

Gully stood at the curb as Velie’s insistent ringing brought out the superintendent of 1385 East Forty-eighth Street. He was a skinny, scowling man in dirty overalls. The place was a shabby rooming house.

“What do you want?” he demanded curtly.

The sergeant flipped his wallet open and showed his shield.

“Did you rent a room to a foreign man with a mustache? He wears his hat brim turned down—”

“Doesn’t sound like anyone here.”

“Have you seen an Oriental man, over six feet tall, handlebar mustache, wearing a turban—”

“You draw another blank.”

“Just who is living here?”

“Read the name plates for yourself,” the man replied, jerking a thumb toward a piece of cardboard tacked inside the hall.

Velie studied the list of names, but they were meaningless. He turned again to the man.

“Look, this is important—”

“Not to me it ain’t.”

“I could get a search warrant—”

“Why don’t you do that? Last time you guys were nosing around, it cost me a fine for having garbage in the hallway.”

“That’s not perfume I’m smelling right now,” the sergeant suggested.

“First get a search order!” the man retorted with a grin.

Sergeant Velie ducked back into the squad car, Gully realized that they had got nowhere. He listened disconsolately as Velie radioed his report to Inspector Queen. There were no grounds for obtaining a search warrant since the cab driver hadn’t actually seen the suspect enter the premises. All the inspector could do was have a plainclothesman watch the address.

At dinner that night, the phone rang. Inspector Queen answered it and grunted a few words. He returned to the table, his face grim.

“That was Detective Gold. He’s been watching the house on East Forty-eighth for five hours. Not a soul has gone in or out who even remotely resembles your friend Mr. Kolar.” “But we know he was in that cab—”

“Yes, we’re reasonably sure, Gulliver. But he might have got out there, waited till the cab pulled away, and then walked around the corner. Mr. Kolar isn’t going to be easy to find!”

Gully didn’t answer. He realized the police investigation had ground to a halt. But he suddenly thought of a way that Balbir and he might continue their own private investigation.

“Where are you going, Gulliver?” his grandfather called as he saw Gully start for the front door.

“I’m going to see Balbir. Is it all right, Grandpa?” And he was gone before Inspector Queen could say a word.

T
HE
dull glow of street lamps, haloed and misted by a light drizzling fog, was all that lit the long brownstone-lined block. East Forty-eighth Street was quiet, with only an occasional figure moving the length of the long, unfriendly sidewalk.

“That’s the house, Balbir,” Gully said, pointing to 1385. A dim hall light shone through the glass front door. The only other light was in a rear room on the top floor.

“Oh, Gully, it is not easy to stand here, thinking my father may be in there.”

“Balbir, I told you—this is just a guess.”

“All right. I will not do anything foolish.”

“Come in here.” Gully herded his friend into a darkened doorway diagonally across from 1385. “We can watch the building from here and keep out of the drizzle.”

The boys maintained a silent vigil, their eyes glued to the five-story building. Twice Gully checked the luminous dial of his wrist watch. In the thirty-five minutes that had dragged by, no one had entered or left the building.

“And to think we had to argue Prema out of coming,” Gully remarked, trying to break the grim silence.

“She did not miss anything,” Balbir groaned. “It is so terrible, Gully, to have to wait, wait! But what else can we do?”

“Play a long shot, as Sergeant Velie would say. There’s only one light on, that top-floor rear apartment. To get into the house you need a key for the inside door, or else someone has to buzz the lock.”

“Are we going to go up to that apartment, Gully?” Balbir asked hopefully.

“No, we’re just going to try to learn if a foreign-looking man is in it.”

“But if we do not go up, how can—”

“There’s an intercom by the buzzers. If anyone’s up there and we ring, he’s bound to ask who’s calling!”

They crossed the street and mounted the steps of the brownstone they had watched so patiently. Gully opened the glass-paneled front door, and they found themselves in a dingy little vestibule. Gully looked at the list of names and apartment numbers by the series of buzzers on the wall in the narrow hall.

“The top floor rear must be this one—5B,” Gully concluded.

“But the name next to it is Johnson.”

“It’s not the first time our friend with the mustache has used a fake name.”

Gully pushed the buzzer. There was a pause. Balbir looked questioningly at him. Then Gully pressed the buzzer twice in succession with long insistent rings. Hearts beating fast, the boys waited and listened. Fifteen seconds … thirty … a minute passed. Still no answer. Gully turned to the outside door.

“I guess Mr. Johnson just left his light on when he went out,” Gully said sadly. “I’m sorry, Balbir. It’s another washout. We’d better go.”

The turbaned boy nodded, his face drawn with despair. As they started up the block, Balbir turned to take a final look at the house that he had hoped held his father. There was a low rumble of distant thunder. Suddenly, Balbir cried out. He spun Gully about, pointing to the fifth-floor rear window. Against the half-lowered yellow shade, a blurry shadow was moving!

“Someone
is
home!” Gully exclaimed.

“Then why was there no answer?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out!” Gully made for the four-story house next door to 1385.

“Gully, do you think he might have been asleep and that is why he did not answer?”

“I’m not guessing if we can find out for sure. Anyone coming up the block?”

Both boys looked first one way, then the other. The fog-like drizzle had discouraged walking. No one was in sight. Gully pointed to an iron ladder some four feet above his head. It was the sliding bottom ladder from the fire escape of the neighboring house.

“Quick! Give me a boost, Balbir.”

“But Gully, if someone sees us,” Balbir stammered.

“Give me a boost,” Gully insisted.

For the first time that evening, Balbir’s dark face broke into a broad grin. He stood below the ladder and cupped his hands. Gully put one foot in Balbir’s hands and stepped up, his long arms swinging for the ladder’s bottom rung. Balbir pushed up and Gully’s fingers tightened on the cold, wet metal. Then he pulled hard. Down the ladder slid, to within a foot or two of the sidewalk. Gully scurried up the iron steps as Balbir held the ladder down. As Balbir swung himself up after Gully, they heard another peal of thunder.

They crouched on the first landing, as the now unweighted ladder was pulled back into its original position by a counterweight. Balbir’s lips started to part as Gully clapped a silencing hand over his mouth. On the pavement below, a man with a dog hurried along. The dog started barking up at the two shadowy figures crouched against the second floor’s wet wall. The man yanked on the leash, annoyed at being delayed in the drizzle. The dog hurried on.

The boys slowly rose to cross the iron fire escape and start up the next ladder. But between them and the ascending iron steps was a lighted window with its shade up. Crawling across the iron grating of the fire escape, they kept below the window sill. Inside, Gully could hear the voice of a child talking.

“See if it’s stopped raining, dear,” a motherly voice called.

The boys fell flat below the window. A small hand poked out the window, its palm turned up.

“It’s still coming down, Mommy.”

As the hand pulled back, the boys exchanged glances of relief. Keeping low, they started cautiously up the second series of steps on all fours. The next landing was dark. They tiptoed past the black window, turning again to start up the next flight of steps. His hands reaching ahead on the damp, cold steps, Gully was making his way up in good time when suddenly his fingers touched something that moved! The object stiffened and leaped. Gully glanced up, frozen with surprise.

“Meaoow!” a small, black kitten cried, scurrying for the open fourth-floor window. The boys lay motionless along the steps, holding their breath. The kitten was wailing insistently inside the room above, but no one paid any attention to it. Just then thunder rumbled again, ominously close now. The drizzle was changing into a storm. Gully nodded and looked up. Quickly, Balbir followed, and they continued up the fire escape until they swung over the low wall that circled the roof.

Built flush against 1385, the roof of this building came up a few feet below the other brownstone’s fifth floor. They made their way across the tarred roof, crunching lightly on some broken glass, but a clap of thunder covered the noise. The rain was heavier now and the increasing wind kicked dirty papers about. They saw their goal ahead—the lighted rear fifth-floor window of 1385. The window was open a third of the way from the bottom, but a yellow shade was drawn level with the window sill.