There is No Return (30 page)

“And to think Ella practically caught him red-handed, leaving the professor’s room the night before he was murdered!” I ejaculated.

Chet Keith looked at me askance. “You neglected to tell me about that.”

“I thought it was her imagination working overtime,” I admitted sheepishly. “Her story sounded preposterous, you must admit.”

He did admit it when I finished. Nevertheless he was convinced that Ella had actually observed Hogan Brewster stealing away from an interview with Professor Matthews, while the deputy slept at his post.

“The professor had divined the murderer’s identity and meant to capitalize upon his information,” theorized Chet Keith.

“Brewster was a wealthy man. I don’t suppose he minded paying the dole, not, at least, until he realized that the old quack hadn’t the stuff to keep a secret.”

“Sheila heard him praying for guidance this afternoon,” I said unsteadily.

“He was undoubtedly on the verge of confession, so Hogan Brewster killed him, after first stealing into your room and destroying the alley cat.”

I shivered. “While I slept! Heavens, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to close my eyes in the dark again.”

“An old battle-ax like you!” he protested with a sly grin. “I don’t believe it. No woman who makes it her business to goad people into telling their blackest secrets is afraid of the dark or even of the hereafter.” His voice softened and he turned very red. “Of course you know how grateful Sheila and I are, Miss Adelaide.”

“To me?” I stammered, highly embarrassed. “I’m sure I don’t know why, except that my heart was on the right side from the first.”

He grinned at me affectionately. “Be yourself,” he exclaimed and all but chucked me under the chin. “You’re the swellest backer-upper I ever saw! Especially of lost causes!”

He glanced down at the girl, sleeping against his shoulder, and his expression sobered. “God knows I can’t face what would have happened without you,” he said in a husky voice.

“Most of the time I was staggering around in an impenetrable fog,” I felt constrained to confess.

“Weren’t we all?” he demanded ruefully. “But you at least staggered to some purpose.”

At that moment Ella, whom I had believed fast asleep, raised her head and regarded me with a jaundiced expression. “Are you going to spend the rest of the night exchanging compliments with that young man, Adelaide?” she inquired in withering accents. “If so, please do not expect me to commiserate with you if your bronchitis prevents you from speaking above a whisper in the morning.”

“I have never asked you or anybody else to commiserate with me, Ella Trotter,” I said with cold dignity. “I am quite capable of coping with my own difficulties.”

“Oh yeah?” drawled Ella in an insulting voice and, leaning over, she stared pointedly at the remains of Fannie Parrish’s umbrella which she had laid on the floor at her feet for the express purpose, I feel sure, of annoying me.

“Just because you once stumbled inadvertently into the role of my rescuer, it does not follow that I have permanently surrendered all my rights to independent action,” I said bitterly.

“That’s what you think,” murmured Ella with infuriating sweetness.

Mr Jonathan Carboy, of Carboy and Patterson, 60 Wall Street, stepped briskly out of the train as it came to a stop in the Pennsylvania Terminal, nodded to the nearest porter, indicated one bag among the pile on the platform, and walking rapidly on through various lofty corridors, emerged at length in the waiting room of the Long Island Railroad. As he reached the news-stand he paused.

“Evening papers not in yet?” he demanded.

“Not yet, sir,” the porter answered. “Where to, sir?”

“Oyster Bay.”

“Twenty-five minutes to wait.”

“I’ll sit down over there.”

He moved to a vacant seat, two trains having just left, the station fly trap, shaken empty, was not yet full again, tipped the porter, sat down, and became immersed in thought.

For the past few days Mr Carboy had been too busy to think. This was the first moment he could call his own. His mind turned at once to a letter that had been handed to him by his partner as he was leaving the office, with the sardonic comment: “Something for you to chew on, old man, while you’re gone.”

Mr Carboy extracted the letter from an inner pocket, noted that it was from his most profitable client, Mrs Kearny-Pine, at present in Tecos, New Mexico. Ran his eye hastily down the first two pages: “Magnificent scenery. Picturesque pueblo. High altitude. No palpitations as yet. Death of my maid exceedingly inconvenient...” and reached the final paragraph.

“I have decided,” it ran, “to change my will. The fortune accumulated by the sagacity of my dear father, which has increased under my stewardship, must be safeguarded, and I shall take steps to prevent its being dissipated by reckless extravagance. But I cannot go into the matter in detail at present as it is time for my constitutional. I will write to you again tomorrow. Trusting that Mrs Carboy and my godchild, little Louisa, are in good health, I remain, Sincerely yours, Louisa Kearny-Pine.”

Mr Carboy folded the letter, more than a week old now, and pocketed it with an impatient sigh. Who was to be prevented from squandering the fortune that ‘my dear father’s’ Golden Chain stores had piled up and his daughter had increased? Was it her nephew Algernon? Algy’s extravagance was an old old story. Was it her cousin, little Rosalie Colbrook? Rosalie was a nice girl and not at all extravagant.

Or was it her husband she was worrying about? And if so, why? Had the gossip titillating Long Island for the past few weeks come to Mrs Kearny-Pine’s ears at last? Did she know that Stephen was having an affair with Mrs Larkin? The beautiful Mrs Larkin, as respectable as she was beautiful, and, therefore, dangerous? Good God, was there no limit to Stephen’s folly! Why couldn’t a man lucky enough to have married the richest woman in America, the last income tax returns gave his wife that title, satisfy himself with some less conspicuous amour? The latest rumour actually hinted at divorce.

Mr Carboy pocketed the letter with a sigh of annoyance, and glanced about him. Two clerical figures whom he recognized – the Bishop of Manhattan and his chaplain, Mr Cope – were descending the stairs, followed by a luggage-bearing porter. But Mr Carboy felt no desire for conversation; he closed his eyes, affecting deep slumber, hoping to remain unobserved for another ten minutes.

He succeeded. The Bishop and his escort moved sedately onward across the dusty floor and joined the throng already gathering at the Oyster Bay gate.

“No vacant seats, of course,” Mr Cope remarked, and added, with some bitterness: “I never enter the Long Island station, sir, without being reminded of Milton’s lines: ‘They also serve who only stand and wait’ should be inscribed over the entrance.”

“To remind us that patience is a virtue?’’ the Bishop smiled. “Any news of our black sheep? Or rather, our wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

“News, but not encouraging, Sir Hubert Pierce called me up this morning. It seems the police traced Weedon to Chicago and lost him! But it’s an interesting story. I asked Hubert to take our train, he commutes from Far Rockaway, so that he could report to you in person. There he is now.”

A slim, well-dressed young man had emerged from the entrance to the subway and paused to survey the crowd. Mr Cope beckoned. He joined them at the gate and was greeted with affability by the Bishop, who had known the young man since boyhood and was eagerly awaiting his report of the activities of a notorious crook who had recently ventured into the clerical field and was making hay with alarming success.

“Cope tells me that the police lost Weedon in Chicago!” the Bishop exclaimed. “How did that happen?”

“The hare outran the tortoise, sir, as he usually does in real life,” Pierce answered. “Weedon was quick and the police were slow. But it might have been worse. Weedon didn’t do much business in Chicago. The police missed him by five minutes.”

“Have the police any clues?”

“A man answering to his description bought a ticket for San Francisco that same afternoon. They’ll get him very shortly now.”

Mr Carboy’s ten minutes were almost up now. He roused, beckoned to a porter, and affecting to catch sight of his clerical friends with surprise, he hurried to join them.

Greetings were exchanged; Hubert Pierce was introduced. Carboy glanced at the young man with curiosity as they shook hands; he knew this ‘gentleman detective’ by reputation. It developed that the Bishop was on his way to Oyster Bay for Confirmation.

“Where are you stopping, sir?” Carboy inquired. “Not with Mrs Kearny-Pine, as you usually do, for she is away.”

“The rector of Saint Ampelopsis-by-the-Sea is putting me up. Speaking of Mrs Kearny-Pine, you know, of course, that she is now touring the West?”

“Yes. She is in New Mexico at present.”

“New Mexico? I should doubt whether so lofty an altitude were altogether salutary for a person with a cardiac affection.”

“She seems to be all right. I had a letter from her a few days ago, a business letter. She said the altitude was causing no inconvenience.”

“I understand that the campaign designed to ruin her rival, the Peerless Chain, originated with her,” Hubert Pierce remarked.

“It did,” Carboy nodded. “What’s more, she has achieved what she set out to do. It’s no secret. All the world will know tomorrow. Peerless is down and out.”

“Peerless ruined!” the Bishop exclaimed. “Most gratifying to Mrs Kearny-Pine, no doubt. But less so for Peerless stockholders.”

“Well, you can’t please everybody.”

“This is true,” the Bishop admitted. “But the affair will bring her a good deal of adverse criticism, I fear. She may have gone to New Mexico to avoid reporters as well as to enjoy the beauties of nature. Is her husband with her, Hubert?”

“No, indeed Stephen declined with thanks. Stephen had other fish to fry. I suppose you’ve heard about Stephen and...”

He broke off abruptly, and turned. Someone at the back of the station had let out an exclamation of surprise. It was followed by a confusion of excited questions and still more excited answers, and the rustle of a dozen newspapers all unfolding at once.

“The evening papers!” Mr Carboy exclaimed. “Something startling must have happened.”

Mr Carboy stared at the news-stand. The Bishop and Mr Cope stared. Hubert Pierce did not wait to stare. He was already on his way to the news-stand where a boy was handing out papers with the precision of a machine.

“What are they saying, Mr Carboy?” the Bishop demanded. “What is the cause of this commotion?”

Mr Carboy shook his head, and began elbowing a path for the Bishop through the crowd. But Hubert Pierce was already returning.

He slipped an Evening Sun into the Bishop’s hand. Across the page a string of huge black letters asked the world:

WHERE IS MRS KEARNY-PINE?

The Bishop groaned. Mr Carboy shuddered. Mr Cope expressed his horror. Hubert Pierce stood silent; bending over the Bishop’s shoulder, he read down the column. “It is only a rumour,” he said quietly, “worked up into a thrilling story. There may be nothing in it.”

“I sincerely hope so,” the Bishop sighed.

“All it amounts to is that Mrs Kearny-Pine left Tecos without saying where she was going. Is that strange?”

“More than strange,” the Bishop said solemnly. “It is, in fact, well-nigh impossible. If any such untoward event had occurred, you, Mr Carboy, as the family’s legal adviser, would have been immediately informed.”

“I have been away,” Mr Carboy muttered, rubbing his forehead with a large cambric handkerchief. “There may be a wire at the office now. I’ll call up. If you care to wait, Bishop, and you, Mr Pierce. You will miss your train, of course.”

The Bishop and Hubert Pierce signified their contempt for trains, under the circumstances. Mr Carboy hurried to the nearest telephone booth. They followed and stood waiting.

“Well?” said the Bishop.

Mr Carboy raised his hand, beckoning, hushing. “Come closer,” he whispered, throwing anxious glances right and left. “Not a soul must get wind of this. You swear you won’t breathe a word of what I say?”

Three heads nodded. “Three telegrams at my office. One from Mrs Kearny-Pine, received soon after I left on my trip up-state. Not of any immediate interest. One sent yesterday by some person in Tecos named Greenough asking if we knew anything of Mrs Kearny-Pine’s present whereabouts. A third, received an hour ago, with frightful news. Frightful! I can hardly believe it, and yet...” Mr Carboy paused to groan and wipe his face again.

“Continue, Mr Carboy! Continue!” the Bishop urged. “Let us know the worst!”

“Mrs Kearny-Pine has been kidnapped!”