Dapne Sanders (Craig Rice)
Chapter Five
“DON'T MAKE A SOUND,” John Moon whispered fiercely.
He felt along the wall for the electric switch, closed the door and turned on the light. Then they could see the body of Florence Starr, hanging from a hook high above the floor, suspended by a bathrobe cord.
“Dear Heaven,” Laura Kane moaned softly. “She's killed herself.. Frightened to death, poor darling.”
John Moon shook his head. “I don't think so.”
He inspected the body closely, without touching it. The bright-colored cord was knotted skillfully in a slipnoose at the back. He walked around to the other side.
“Look at this,” he whispered to Laura Kane. Just at the edge of one temple was a small discoloration. He examined it searchingly. Yes, it was a bruise, or rather the edge of a bruise. Whoever had made it had struck above the hairline. “No, she didn't kill herself.” Laura Kane's face went white.
“Murdered!”
“It must have been murder. She never could have tied that knot the way it is, in back. And that little bruise on her forehead — I think the murderer knocked her unconscious first.”
“He — must have found her.”
“He must have,” John Moon said between tight lips.
“Now listen. I'm going to give you the phone number of a man named Donovan — a private detective. Tell him as briefly as you can what happened, and have him meet you near here.”
He switched off the light and closed the door carefully behind them, then guided Laura Kane down the stairs and out into the street. A little distance from the house, he paused.
“Miss Kane — I can't tell you how sorry I am. I know she was a close friend of yours. I know exactly how you feel.”
“She was the best friend I had,” said Laura Kane.
“Then if you want to help find the man who killed her, call Donovan for me. Here's his number.”
Before she had time to say another word to him, he had vanished into the darkness. She stared after him for a moment, and then went into a drugstore.
Laura Kane's message was brief. “This is Laura Kane, a friend of Florence Starr. She has been murdered. John Moon told me to call you instead of the police.”
“Where are you?” Donovan said sharply.
She named the drugstore she was telephoning from and inside of five minutes he was on his way.
He found Laura Kane hunched disconsolately on a soda fountain stool in the drugstore. His greeting was a few hesitant words of sympathy.
She smiled at him gratefully. As they walked to the dingy little rooming house, she told him the story of how John Moon had come to her that afternoon and talked her into taking him to see Florence Starr.
“Here, this is the place,” she said at last.
For the second time that night Laura Kane led the way up the ramshackle staircase to the dreary little third floor room.
Donovan took one quick glance, and said “Do you know if there's a telephone in the house?”
“There's a nickel phone down the hall.”
“Thanks. I'm going to call the police right away. I'll have plenty of time to look around before they get here.”
He went down the hall, called Inspector Garrity, and then Tom Clark, and returned to the room.
“You'd better rouse the landlady and tell her what's happened. Wait a minute. When the police come, not one word about this man who came to see you today. Nor to anyone.”
“Why not?” Her eyes were wide.
“Because if you do, you'll not only get him into trouble but you may make things difficult for yourself. Let your story be that you came to see your friend and found her dead. You called me first because you already knew me.”
“I get it.” She gave him a wan, but reassuring smile.
He turned his attention to the room. Florence Starr's body was dressed in gay, flamboyant pajamas; there were traces of heavy makeup on her face. There were indentations on the bed and pillow that showed the girl had been lying down. Yet she had not been lying down when the blow was struck, from the position of that bruise on her forehead. Probably she had risen to answer a knock at the door. Certainly she would have kept the door locked. When the knock came, she had assumed it to be Laura Kane, since no one else knew that she was here. Then when she had opened the door— before she had time to move or cry out — there had been that sudden, stunning blow.
It must have happened that way.
He sat down on a hard chair to wait. A moment or so later Laura Kane came back.
“The landlady's out. Probably at the nearest bar.”
“Well, we can get along without her very nicely.”
They waited in silence until the police arrived. Then, to Laura Kane, everything seemed a horrible confusion. She told her story over and over, how she had come to see her friend, to find out if she needed anything. When her knock had been unanswered she had been a little worried but thought at first that perhaps the girl was asleep. Then she'd gotten a key from the landlady, opened the door and found Florence Starr dead.
As Donovan watched and listened, his admiration for the dancer grew. That very evening she had found her dearest friend dead, brutally murdered. She was being subjected to severe, ungentle questioning. She was keeping back part of the truth, for reasons she didn't understand. Yet never once did she appear close to breaking down.
At last it was all over. Laura Kane was taken home, where Donovan told her to take a stiff drink and go right to bed. Tom Clark returned to his office to write the story. The body of Florence Starr was taken away. And Donovan went home, a puzzled, thoughtful, weary man.
From the street below, he could see that the lights were on in his apartment. When he opened the door a worried Madelaine met him in the hall.
“There's someone waiting to see you, sir. A man — I didn't quite like to let him in, from the looks of him. But he said it was important, and that you'd be glad to see him. He's waiting in the study.”
Though Donovan had never seen him before in his life, he knew his visitor must be Leon Martelli.
THE LITTLE dancing man was a pathetic figure. He looked as though he had not slept for a week, nor eaten in twice that time. Donovan's first act was to send for food. Then he sat down beside his visitor and offered him a cigarette.
“What on earth have you been doing to yourself?”
Martelli tried to laugh. “I guess I look as if I'd been over the bumps, don't I? Well, I have.”
A generous plate of sandwiches and a pot of scalding coffee arrived just then, with such promptness Donovan suspected Madelaine had anticipated his request. Further conversation was postponed with their arrival, but as soon as they had been consumed, the detective took up the story again.
“Now Martelli, just what did happen to you?”
“I've been hiding,” the dancer said. “Hiding from you, mostly. You, and the police. And if you think that's easy, when you haven't any money, and when everybody seems to look as you as though you were a murderer, you just ought to try it sometime.”
“But why were you hiding?” Donovan asked.
“I thought I was wanted for murder, that's why. When I walked into that room and saw Dorothy sitting there, dead, that was the first thing I thought.”
“Begin at the beginning,” Donovan said gently.
“Well, first,” Martelli said slowly. “You know that business about the bracelets, I suppose.”
Donovan nodded.
“I thought you'd find it out,” he said. “I knew we never should have been so careless about that damn maid of Dorothy's. But if it had worked, the plan would have been perfect.” He paused and looked up at the detective unhappily. “I can imagine what you're thinking of me for having the idea in the first place.”
“I might as well be honest about it,” Donovan said slowly. “I never did think much of living off women.”
“That's the hell of it,” Martelli told him. “Neither do I. But I didn't know how to do anything else.”
Donovan looked at him questioningly. Martelli leaned his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor.
“I was just a kid when I won a dancing contest at a ballroom. I'd been a clerk in a cheap shoe store then, and it made me feel pretty swell. Then I met Florence Starr.”
He paused, and Donovan looked at him curiously, wondering if he knew that the night club girl was dead.
“She was a nice little kid and a swell dancer, and we teamed up together. We made a pretty good thing of it, too —for a pair of beginners — winning cash prizes at dancing contests and doing fancy exhibition stuff at some of the cheap ballrooms and cafes. The only trouble was, we weren't quite good enough to say what we would or wouldn't do. And there were always dames at those joints who'd tell the manager they wanted to dance with me. That wasn't so bad, only —” He stopped suddenly.
“Only Florence Starr didn't like it,” Donovan suggested.
“You're damned right, she didn't like it.” The faint ghost of a smile crossed his dark face. “Well, anyway, we kept on for a few years, sometimes making more, sometimes making less, and once in a while getting down and out. It was one of those last times that I got a chance to go to the Scarlet Swan as a professional partner. It was pretty good as far as money went, only there was Florence on my hands. Finally I got the manager to give her a job in the show. It was at the Scarlet Swan that I met Dorothy.”
“How long ago?” Donovan asked.
“Oh, nearly a year, I guess. When. I saw how much she'd gone for me, I really thought I was in the heavy dough for a change. But I was pretty crazy about her too, at first. It wore off, though.” He sighed. “Then one day she told me about the letter her husband had gotten from the crazy guy.”
“The man who signs himself 'N,' ” Donovan murmured.
“That's the one. Either he's crazy, or else he's a lot smarter than any of us ever will be. But I thought I'd be smart too. Here was a chance for me to cash in big. I was going to take Florence out of the chorus. Hell, I even thought of getting married to her.”
“You didn't think of telling her about it, did you?” Donovan asked.
Martelli shook his head. “I wasn't going to say a word until it was all set. And everything seemed foolproof. Then the day I was to get the bracelets, I got a note from Dorothy telling me to meet her at another place. I know now the note must have been a phony. But I wasn't taking any chances, so I went to the other place and waited a long time. Finally I began to wonder if something had gone wrong, so I beat it back to the old apartment.” He paused, and his face turned a shade more pale.
“I guess you can imagine how I felt when I walked in there,” he said in a low voice.
Donovan nodded sympathetically. “Go on. What did you do?”
“I didn't even stop to see if the bracelets were there. I just turned around and beat it. It didn't take me much figuring to see that I'd take the rap. So I scrammed back to my boarding house and get what dough I had — it wasn't much — and cleared out.”
He drew a long breath. “Then I really began to get scared. I couldn't afford to go out of town and I was too worried to risk going to a cheap hotel. It was worse, though, the next day when I picked up a paper and saw that the cops were looking for Florence and for me. I didn't know how she could have got mixed up in it and I was plenty frantic. After that I hardly dared go into a restaurant to eat.”
He smiled ruefully. “I've been sleeping in a coalyard. Maybe you guessed that. Well anyway, I was hanging around the bus station, wondering if I could get away with buying a ticket, when I saw Florence come out. She didn't see me, and I didn't dare stop her, but I followed her. I found out where she was going, a dirty little rooming house, but I didn't dare go in after her. I waited until tonight to go and see her.”
“You saw her tonight?” Donovan broke in suddenly.
“Yeah, I saw her. She told me she knew who'd killed Dorothy. But she was too scared to tell. Not scared of the cops, like I was, but scared of the murderer. So finally she wrote it all down in a letter and mailed it to me, at my old rooming house, so I could go to the cops and clear myself. Poor kid — she was plenty scared.”
“She had reason to be,” Donovan said very slowly. “She's dead.”
The little dancing man stared at him, open-mouthed. “You mean she was murdered?”
Donovan nodded, and briefly related the evening's events, leaving out John Moon's part in them. When he had finished, Martelli's already haggard face had turned the color of chalk.
“What time did you see Florence Starr?” Donovan asked.
Martelli frowned, thinking. “I left there about half-past six, I guess. Why?”
“Because,” Donovan said, “I'd thought you might have been the last person to see her alive. But you weren't. Laura Kane was there about seven, left, and returned later to find her dead.” He paused, and added “Still, I don't know of any other person besides Laura Kane and yourself who knew where she was.”
Martelli looked up at him quickly. “You don't mean you think I killed her!”
“No,” Donovan said, “I don't think you did. Because I know you didn't murder Dorothy Hymers. I can't tell you why I know, but I do.”
“Who did?”
“I don't know,” Donovan said, “yet. I hope I'll find out when I get that letter Florence Starr wrote.”
Martelli stood up. He was fairly swaying with weariness. “Well then, I guess the best thing for me to do is beat it back to my rooming house. It's pretty late, and I can get a bath, and some sleep in a real bed, and change my clothes. Then I'll come back here with the letter.”
Donovan was very tired. And it was, indeed, very late. It had been a long, difficult day. At that moment he wanted sleep more than anything else in the world. He could go to bed now, and still get three or four hours of sleep before Martelli returned. So he let the little dancing man go.
Donovan seldom slept late in the morning. He usually woke at daybreak and could never go back to sleep again. But on this important morning, he overslept his usual hour. When he did wake, his first thought was of Martelli and the promised letter.
He sprang out of bed, shaved, bathed and dressed hurriedly. The dancing man was due any minute now, in fact was already a little late.
He sent for the morning papers and read over the account of the finding of Florence Starr's body.
Finally he laid down the papers and glanced at the clock. Morning was more than half gone, and still no Leon Martelli. No doubt the dancer had also overslept, he had seemed weary to the point of complete exhaustion. He decided to be patient a little longer.
When the doorbell did ring he answered it himself, fairly bounding to the door. But it was Tom Clark who stood there. Donovan's face fell.
“You might ask me in,” the tall, thin reporter said. “You seem to have been expecting someone infinitely more welcome, but just the same—”
“Come in, Tom,” Donovan said briefly. “Had breakfast?”
“Long ago. Long enough to appreciate a cup of coffee, if you happen to have one lying around—”
Donovan called to Madelaine for the coffee, invited the reporter to sit down and went on staring moodily out the window.
After a while Donovan said “I imagine you'll be rather interested in my visitor.”
“Who is he?”
“Leon Martelli.” Tom Clark whistled softly.
“What's more,” the detective added, “he's going to bring me a letter which will probably give me the first definite lead to the man who killed Dorothy Hymers—and Florence Starr.”
The reporter stared at him.
Donovan took one last glance out the window, sat down, and told the story of Leon Martelli just as it had been told to him by the little dancing man. “I'm not going to wait any longer,” he finished. “I'm going over to his rooming house. Care to come along?”
They drove to the squalid little rooming house where Martelli lived. After vainly trying his bell, Donovan called the landlady.
“He ain't in,” she said.
Donovan frowned. “Do you know what time he went out? He failed to keep an appointment with me, and I'm anxious to find him as soon as I can.”
“Oh, he went out a long time ago,” the landlady said chattily. “He's been away for a few days, you know. Well, he came in last night, very late. I heard him when he came in.”
“I've no doubt of it,” Donovan said. “But what time-did Mr. Martelli go out?”
“Him? Oh, I guess it was about six o'clock. He got a special delivery letter, and then he left. I met him in the hall and he said he couldn't sleep, and he was going out. But that's the last I've seen of him.”
Donovan and Tom Clark looked helplessly at each other.
Leon Martelli had disappeared again.
TOM CLARK thought that in all his born days he had never listened to such a profane silence as Donovan's as they rode from Martelli's rooming house to the detective's office.
The silence was not broken until the office door closed behind them.
“I should have known better,” Donovan said bitterly. “I even thought about it last night, after Martelli was gone. But no one knew of the existence of that letter, save Martelli and myself. It wouldn't arrive until the morning. And I needed sleep.” Tom Clark sighed. “Should we notify the police?”
“What for?” Donovan demanded. “They're looking for him already. I haven't anything to tell them except that Leon Martelli was here and is gone again.” There was a long envelope lying on his desk. He picked it up and looked thoughtfully at the handwriting on it, decisive, vertical, in jet black ink. Before he opened it, however, he opened a drawer marked “Private correspondence,” and took out the first letter he had received signed “N.”
“Tom, you might as well know the whole story. Here, read this and see what you make of it.” Then he turned his attention to his own letter.
“My dear Donovan;
“I am afraid that the death of Florence Starr is due to my inexcusable carelessness.
“If I had followed my first impulse and trailed Laura Kane to Florence Starr's rooming house and called on her without the formality of an introduction, she would be alive today.
“Can there be any doubt but that the man who knocked Florence Starr unconscious and strangled her with her own bathrobe cord is the man who committed the first, and similar crime.
“I have tried to find one person who knew Florence Starr and also Dorothy Hymers, and have found none — save, of course, Martelli.
“Have you considered the mark on Florence Starr's brow? It was made by some blunt, engraved object, probably the head of a walking stick.
What men who habitually carry metal-headed walking sticks were acquainted with Florence Starr, or Dorothy Hymers?
“Lucius Abernathy, Wallie Ginter, Arthur Forristor, and Renzo Hymers, all carry metal-headed walking sticks more or less habitually. All of these men were acquainted with Dorothy Hymers. There is no evidence to suggest that any of them were acquainted with Florence Starr.
“Florence Starr had an admirer, Douglas Prescott, who habitually carries a walking stick. There is no evidence that he was acquainted with Dorothy Hymers.
“Leon Martelli, who was acquainted with both women, occasionally carried a light ornamental cane with an engraved metal handle.”
Sincerely, “'N.'“
Donovan smiled bitterly at the mention of Martelli. He handed the second letter to Clark, and sat back to reflect on its contents.
So far, Martelli was the only known man who was acquainted with both of the women. He appeared to have had no reason for murdering Dorothy Hymers, rather, the best of reasons for wanting her to remain alive. Or did he?
Perhaps Dorothy Hymers had threatened to expose the blackmailing scheme, and take the consequences to herself, rather than give up the bracelets.
Martelli had seen Florence Starr. He knew where she was hiding.
Before he could pursue that line of thought any further, Tom Clark tossed both letters on the desk, and met the detective's eyes with a thoughtful stare.
“You know,” he began slowly, “I'm inclined to believe that guy is on the level. What are you going to do? My personal hunch would be to play along with him.”
Donovan nodded. “That's just what I am doing.” He told the reporter what he had just been thinking about Martelli.
“Could be,” Tom Clark said. “But somehow —”
He was interrupted by the telephone ringing on Donovan's desk. Donovan answered it and recognized the voice of Inspector Garrity.
“Well Donovan, Leon Martelli's turned up at last.”
Donovan felt his heart give a bound. “Where is he?”
“He's down in the morgue,” came the inspector's voice. “We just moved him there.” It was a full minute before the detective could find his voice.
“I'll be right down,” he said at last, hanging up.
“Did you find a letter, or anything like that on him?” That was the first question Donovan addressed to Inspector Garrity at the morgue.
Garrity shook his head. “Not a be-damned thing. His pockets were all turned out. No money taken, but he sure had been searched thoroughly.”
Donovan's heart sank like a stone. “Where did you find him?”
“In an alley, not far from his rooming house, some-body found the body there this morning and reported it. It was taken to the morgue and we just now identified it as Martelli.”
“How was he killed?”
“He'd been black jacked, and then strangled,” Garrity said slowly. “Strangled with his own necktie.” He paused.
“Funniest damn thing, though,” he added, “he must have been run over by some car driving up the alley. Because his feet were smashed. Almost every bone broken.”
“POOR LITTLE dancing man,” said Donovan gently. Whatever he may have thought of Martelli in the past, he had nothing but sympathy for him now. Evidently the dancer had spent the last hours of his life repairing the damage done to his appearance by his days of hiding. He had bathed and shaved, manicured his nails and dressed in clean, dapper clothes.
“No letter,” Donovan repeated under his breath.
Inspector Garrity glared at him. “What did you expect? Want him to carry around a letter telling you who killed him, and how, and why?”
“I know how and why,” Donovan said crossly.
“So do I,” said Garrity, with a rude sniff. “So would anybody. It's a cinch, though,” he added in a milder tone, “if he'd lived, he'd never have danced again.” He looked at Donovan a little wistfully. “You're keeping too many secrets. You were on the trail of Florence Starr and never told me. You knew where Martelli was and you didn't let me know. You had all this dope about the robberies and you never breathed one word.”
Donovan spoke very patiently. “I didn't know where Florence Starr was, until I was informed of her death. I admit I should have informed you last night when Martelli turned up. But I give you my word, I intended to bring him and his letter down here as soon as he turned up this morning.”
Inspector Garrity scowled.
“This guy that signs himself 'N',” he said fretfully. “He's probably right here in the city, not doing one damn thing to hide himself. Can we find him? No.”
Donovan kept silent. The matter of John Moon was postponed in his mind until the murders were settled. When the murderer was once in the hands of the police, his agreement with the man who signed himself “N” was finished.
Out on the sidewalk, Tom Clark looked at the detective's face, and at a bar across the street.
“One quick one while we talk it over,” he suggested.
Donovan followed him unprotestingly, lost in his own thoughts.
The bartender brought them drinks. Tom Clark, trying to tap Donovan's continued silence, argued that the strangulation method used in all three cases would seem to indicate that Dorothy Hymers, Florence Starr and Leon Martelli had all been killed by the same person.
“But the motive.” Donovan answered at last. “We don't know the motive for the murder of Dorothy Hymers. Florence Starr was killed because she knew the identity of the murderer. But Martelli—”
“The murderer must have seen him visit Florence Starr,” Tom Clark said. He paused, thoughtfully, and then said, “He must have had a hell of a lot of chances to murder the guy between the time he left Florence Starr, and this morning. Why did he wait so long?
Why did he let him visit you first and perhaps give away the whole show?”
“There can be only one reason,” Donovan said slowly. “He knew about the letter.” For a moment he was silent, thinking. “He knew that it was coming to Martelli, and waited to strike until it was received. He may have seen her mail it or he may have been hiding outside her door and heard her telling him about it.”
He went on very thoughtfully. “Then he must have known that it was mailed before Martelli visited the girl. It's possible he may have assumed that the girl told her story to Martelli at the time of his visit. Then if he saw Martelli come to my apartment and stay there half the night, he probably assumes that the information was passed on to me.” The two men looked at each other in silence. “Run the whole story of that letter,” Donovan told the reporter. “Make it big, on the front page, and put in all the details. How Florence Starr had mailed it to Martelli, and that he was on his way to deliver it when he was killed. The point is,” he added, “to make it very clear that Martelli didn't know its contents, and that I don't know, now, what was in it.”
“I was planning to do exactly that little thing,” Tom Clark said, emptying his glass. “It wouldn't encourage respect for law and order in the city to have Donovan found strangled with his own suspenders.”
The detective grinned for the first time that day. “You catch on quick,” was all he said.
MR. LUCIUS ABERNATHY bounced down the steps to his car, his round, babyish face rosy and smiling.
Life had become very pleasant indeed. A few words on the phone with Donovan had removed a grave worry from his mind, one that had been present since the death of poor Mrs. Hymers. He was confident now that there would be no sudden, fatal retribution from the man who signed himself “N” if he put the Star-flower necklace in a safe deposit box.
The necklace was now safely reposing in its little leather case in his inside pocket. He would drive straight to the bank and it would be in the safe deposit box inside of half an hour.
There were other reasons for his good humor. Poppy Hymers had turned up for lunch that noon. Such a dear girl and so amusing! The stories she told were, well, outrageous, but Mr. Abernathy really preferred them that way. He had confided the matter of the necklace to her and she had been ever so sympathetic.
Such a dear, amusing child! That business of the berets, for instance. She had arrived for lunch wearing a white one, and carrying the other, a bright green one, in a paper bag. She'd bought them both that morning and hadn't been able to decide which one she wanted to wear, so she'd taken both with her. After lunch she had unexpectedly switched to the green one and gone merrily down the front steps on her way.
But as though Donovan's welcome reassurance and lunch with Poppy weren't enough, to add the final touch to the general pleasantness of life that gorgeous brunette secretary of McGee's was going to join him for a cocktail at five. He had been keeping an eye on that secretary for months now.
So little Mr. Abernathy fairly purred as he settled down in the deep, soft cushions of his car, picked up the speaking tube and told Williams to drive him straight to the bank.
He must remember to do something special for Williams.
A raise in pay and possibly some little gift, like a box of those terrible cigars Williams liked so much.
As a chauffeur, Williams was everything that could be desired. Almost incredibly discreet. Mr. Abernathy felt a great sense of comfort in the sight of the broad, greycoated back.
He felt comfortably drowsy. It had been a perfect lunch, almost too perfect. He really ought to watch his diet. But if one was inclined to be a trifle plump, there wasn't much use worrying about it, especially when food was so good. He blinked his eyes once or twice. Yes, he was actually sleepy. If he didn't watch out he would be dozing off right there in the car.
Queer, Williams wasn't taking the usual route to the bank. Wonder why that was? Certainly he'd told Williams to go to the bank, and go there directly, too.
He was getting incredibly sleepy. It was an almost unendurable effort to keep his eyes open. He yawned, and let his eyelids drop for one second. He opened his eyes and his glance fell on the rear view mirror in the seat ahead of him, and he caught a glimpse of the face above the steering wheel.
The man was not Williams.
Mr. Abernathy, in one last conscious and terrified moment, tried to call out, failed, dropped back on the cushions and slept.
The man who was at the wheel, wearing Williams' cap and coat, glanced over his shoulder. A smile of satisfaction formed on his face and he drove a little faster.
The sleek black town car went through a maze of narrow streets, finally turned into a little driveway between two tall buildings, went about half-way to the end of it, and stopped. The man in Williams' cap and coat got out, opened the back door and climbed in beside Mr. Abernathy.
He felt carefully through the sleeping man's pockets. Yes, there it was right where he had expected the plump little man would carry it. He took a quick look inside the leather case, shut it again and tucked the Starflower necklace carefully away in his own inside pocket.
Next, he dug down into the front seat and pulled out a coat and soft felt hat, which he exchanged for the coat and cap borrowed from Williams. The uniform coat and cap he stowed beside the sleeping Mr. Abernathy. Now, one more thing to do. He opened all the windows. No use letting the little man get a bad headache. Then he closed the doors of the car and strolled in a leisurely manner up the driveway to the street.
The whole affair had gone off very nicely without a single hitch. A clever idea of Poppy's, that, the two berets. He had watched from a little way down the street until she came out of the house wearing the green one. Then, knowing that the Starflower necklace was to be taken to the bank that afternoon, it had been a simple matter to go around to the garage where he knew Williams would be alone, lock Williams in a little storage room, don the uniform and bring the car around for Mr. Abernathy.
He started for the subway but suddenly some impish sense of curiosity made him pause. After a moment's reflection he turned and walked back to a counter lunchroom, from which he could watch the driveway across the street.
He ordered coffee and doughnuts and engaged the counterman in casual conversation about the weather and the Brooklyn Dodgers, while he kept an eye on the big, glossy limousine standing in the driveway.
He kept on watching the car, and ordered a second cup of coffee. After that, he didn't have to wait long. A policeman going by, noticed the car standing squarely in front of a “no parking” sign. He started to write out a ticket, the pad balanced on his knee. Then he happened to glance into the back of the car. From that point on, everything happened in a rush. The big, burly policeman started with surprise. Then he pulled the car door open and leaned inside, evidently examining Mr. Abernathy to see if he were dead or alive. Then he came running up out of the driveway and headed for the nearest call box. Then suddenly there were police sirens, shouts and a crowd gathering in the quiet street. A squad car screamed around a corner. The young man in the lunchroom hurriedly tossed a coin on the counter and ran out to join the crowd.
Mr. Abernathy was waking. The policeman had lifted him from the car and laid him on a robe taken from the driver's seat. Now he was trying to sit up, blinking his round, bewildered eyes. He felt in his inside pocket. Then the plump face became tragic and the little man struggled to his feet and stood there, swaying, leaning on the arm of the nearest policeman. “I've been robbed!”
The young man could hear his anguished cry clear up at the end of the driveway. The show was over now. He turned around, dived into the nearest subway entrance, and hurried home.
Marcus was waiting for him anxiously in the little cellar workshop. He pulled the leather case from his pocket and tossed it carelessly to the little cripple. “There you are.”
He looked on silently as the little cripple opened the leather box and let the Starflower necklace flow across his( fingers, a cascade of light and fire.
“How much can we realize on it?” he asked, almost irritably. But Marcus didn't hear him.
“There have only been three matched necklaces in the world like this,” he breathed.
“Look at it, and feel of it, and be damned to you,” John Moon said. “But remember you've got to break it up in little pieces and sell it by weight. Don't dare get attached to it.” He drew in his breath and said, “Is there any word of our missing man?”
“Nothing,” Marcus said, his head bent low over the worktable. “Joe is still out going to cheap hotels and lodging houses. But there is no trace of him yet.”
John Moon frowned. “He's got to be found, Marcus. Somehow, we've got to find him, before he gets to the man he's looking for.”
“A MR. GINTER to see you, boss.”
Donovan sighed. He could guess the purpose of Wallace Ginter's visit. He was one more of the seven who had been enriched by the stock-market coup. It was going to be hard to feel any sympathy for Wallace Ginter.
Ginter was, without doubt, the stingiest millionaire who had ever amazed the tabloid press. He lived with an unmarried sister in an unpretentious old brown-stone house, from which he took the subway to his office every morning. His petty economies about the office and in his personal life were famous.
For years Donovan had expected to hear that Wallace Ginter had been found up an alley with his throat cut and a vast sum of money stolen. The old miser refused to pay for a guard and habitually carried large amounts of money or valuable securities.
Donovan sighed again, deeply. “All right, Billy.”
Wallace Ginter came in, a thin, pinched looking man who always seemed to be in desperate need of a meal.
“I'm not going to pay you a cent,” he began in a cackling voice. “I'm here because Renzo Hymers told me to come. He says you're working on a case for him, and what happened to me would be of some help.”
“I wouldn't dream of charging you one damned penny,” Donovan said coldly. “What happened?”
“I've been robbed,” Wallace Ginter said.
The story was a simple one. Wallace Ginter had been carrying a large sum in negotiable securities in an ordinary briefcase. He had been squeezing his way into a crowded subway train during rush hour when someone had dashed past him on the way out of the car, wrenched the briefcase from his hand and fled down the platform. Just at that moment the doors had closed, shutting Ginter inside, and the train had started By the time the train had reached the next station and an alarm was raised, the thief had disappeared.
Donovan shrugged his shoulders. “It's all very interesting, but I don't see what it has to do with me.”
“Because Hymers says he was robbed by the same feller and so was Gifford and so was Forristor.” The multi-millionaire pulled a soiled paper from one of his pockets. “Found this in my pocket one night when I got home from the office. Didn't pay any attention to it. Got something better to do than worry about crank letters. Get a hundred of 'em in every mail.”
I bet you do, Donovan thought. He looked at the paper, read the few words written in the familiar handwriting warning Ginter that he was going to be robbed, and handed it back.
“If you'd paid some attention to this, you might not have been robbed.”
Ginter snorted. “If you're hinting that I ought to have hired you, you're wasting your breath. I've got something better to do with my money. Anyway, it's too late now.”
Donovan agreed that it was. “Did you get a look at the man?”
“No. Just knew he went past me, that's all. Felt him grab my briefcase and run. Never saw him.” Well,” Donovan said, shrugging his shoulders, “it's too bad. Thanks for telling me about it, anyway.” Winter rose to go. At the door he paused, a sly look coming into his small, pale eyes. “Since I've done you the favor of coming down here to tell you about it just to help you out, paying my own carfare both ways, I don't suppose you'd care to give me a little free advice—about what to do to make sure this won't happen again.”
“Delighted,” Donovan said, looking at him coldly. “If you're carrying around anything bigger than six-bits you'd better ask for police protection.”
He sat there musing for a long time after Wallace Ginter had gone. Who was the man who called himself John Moon and why did he sign his letters “N”? He had gone through the card file of men who had been ruined in the famous crash again and again. It did not seem possible that any one of them could be John Moon. But one of them had to be. There was no other explanation.
Then when we had come to that conclusion, in the contrary manner his mind invariably followed when he was thinking out a problem, he began wondering if John Moon might not be someone else who had not lost a penny in the market crash but had simply seen a wrong that needed to be righted and taken this means of doing it. If that were the case, then the question of the man's real identity seemed almost impossible to answer.
Suddenly Donovan found himself wondering again, as he had wondered so many times in the past years, what had happened to John Casalis.
Probably, dead. Possibly, alive and John Moon.
The detective sighed. Was it still humanly possible to find out, after all these years? Was there some clue that had been overlooked at the time of the search for John Casalis?
Suddenly he came to a decision. He rose, told Billy that he would be out for the rest of the day, and left the office.
He had decided that he would go, once more, over the route John Casalis had followed on the night of his disappearance.
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