Dapne Sanders (Craig Rice)
Chapter Four
POPPY HYMERS MIGHT have been a ghost, to judge from the look on the two men's faces.
It was Donovan who found his voice first, and it was not too steady. “Miss Hymers — are you all right?”
She laughed again. “How do I look?” She walked over to his desk and perched on the edge of it, swinging her feet impudently.
“How did you get here?”
“I came in a taxi and the elevator. When I got home, I heard that I'd been kidnapped, and that you were quite stirred up about it.”
Donovan smiled in relief. “You can't blame us for thinking you might have been kidnapped. After all, when a person vanishes off the face of the earth like that—”
“I'm just terribly sorry,” Poppy Hymers said. She didn't sound the least bit sorry.
Renzo Hymers spoke for the first time since she had entered the room. “Your necklace — the emeralds. What happened to it?”
“Nothing happened to it. It's home in my jewel box, where it belongs.”
The two Hymers stared at each other. It seemed to Donovan that the enmity between them was like an electric current. To break the tension he cleared his throat and spoke again.
“You should have let someone know where you were. You've been causing all kinds of worry.”
“I really am sorry,” Poppy said, contritely this time. “I didn't dream anyone would give a damn. I didn't see anything about it in the papers and so I just assumed nobody had given me a second thought.”
“We kept it out of the papers,” the detective said. A sudden thought struck him. “Then if you've seen the papers, you must know about Mrs. Hymers.”
“Yes, I know.” She turned to her father. “I wish to goodness I could say I'm sorry, but I can't do it.”
“It isn't necessary,” he said. Not a muscle moved in his face. “I understand perfectly.”
Poppy turned back to the detective. “As a matter of fact, I came here expecting to be accused of the murder. There never was any love lost between Dorothy and myself and here I am, stuck with an unexplained absence.”
“The thought never entered my mind,” Donovan told her truthfully. “Were you driving your car when it was smashed up?”
“No. It must have been stolen. I left it parked up an alley and that's the last I know of it.”
“Poppy,” Renzo Hymers' voice broke in suddenly, “Poppy, where were you?”
“That's my business.” She looked at him coldly. “If I want to go away for a few days' fun, I don't need answer any embarrassing questions.”
During the next five minutes Donovan wished that he might be anywhere in the world save that room. He was well acquainted with Renzo Hymers' temper, but he had never seen the man quite this angry. Poppy had exploded into one of her justly famous rages.
The scene ended with Poppy jumping down from the desk and rushing out slamming the door so violently that the room fairly shook. Hymers glared after her for a moment, then turned to the detective.
“I'll expect to hear from you.”
He walked out stiffly, without another word.
Within five minutes the office door opened again, slowly, and a sheepish Poppy Hymers peered around the edge of it.
There was a moment s silence.
“Well,” she said at last, “don't you want to know where I was all this time?”
“Of course I do,” Donovan said. “I was waiting for you to tell me, that's all.”
“I was visiting the man who calls himself 'N'.”
It was a good sixty seconds before Donovan spoke.
“Tell me about it, Poppy,” he said quietly.
She did tell him part of it. How she had met an attractive man at a cocktail party and gone with him on a round of nightclubs. The visit to the last nightclub and then the smashup, and how the man she knew as John Moon had taken her to his house.
“I've told you quite a bit,” she pointed out, “Now I think it's no more than fair for you to tell me what you know about him.”
Donovan nodded, and began his side of the story. A pleased smile came over the girl's face as he told of the strange gift Mollie Casalis had received.
“Poor Mollie. She has had the very devil of a time.” Suddenly she paused, a startled look in her greenish eyes. “Look here. That money she got — could it have come from him?”
“Of course,” Donovan said, nodding. “It couldn't have come from anyone else.”
She gasped. “Do you suppose that's what he's doing with the money he gets? Giving it back to people who lost it to Renzo and his mob?”
“I thought you'd figure that out for yourself,” Donovan told her.
“Well I'll be damned.” Her eyes were very wide and very grave. “He didn't tell me anything about that.”
Donovan told her what he knew about the murder of Dorothy Hymers, and of how suspicion seemed to point, irrevocably, to the man she knew as John Moon.
“He didn't murder Dorothy,” Poppy said.
Donovan lifted his brows. “That's a theory.”
“No, it's a fact.”
He sighed. “I'm afraid,” he said, it's going to take a little more proof than that.”
Poppy nodded. “I know it will, and so does he. I came here with a message from him. Tomorrow you'll get one of those letters signed 'N,' it will have enough proof to convince you. Also — he's going to find out who did murder her.”
Before there was time for more discussion, the telephone rang. Donovan answered it, and listened to what appeared to be a very long story on the other end of the wire. When the conversation was finished, he turned again to Poppy Hymers.
“Here's a funny one. May not mean a thing. That was Inspector Garrity of the Homicide Bureau, and he had a weird story to tell. It seems the policeman he left in charge of the house where Dorothy Hymers was murdered had a visitor this afternoon — a little, rabbity man, according to description, with brown hair and glasses. He gave his name as Albert Bunce, and said he was an amateur detective. O'Meara, the officer, just thought the man was a good joke and didn't pay much attention to him.”
“A man named Albert Bunce could very easily be a good joke, especially if he were an amateur detective,” Poppy commented.
“Yes, but that's not all. He tried to coax O'Meara into letting him see the premises, but O'Meara chased him away. Then after he'd gone O'Meara got drowsy and dropped off for forty winks. Nobody thought any more about it until Garrity looked over the place tonight and found that someone had swiped a piece of letter paper left in the room next to where Mrs. Hymers was murdered and had snipped a few inches off the bathrobe cord she was strangled with.”
WILFRED HUME was not, as Donovan had observed, an ordinary young man. Indeed in some ways he might have been considered remarkable.
He was a curious combination of English and American—curious because he had managed to inherit only the most noteworthy qualities of both nations. His mother, the Hon. Mary Fordyce, had been an exceptionally beautiful woman, fragile and blond and exquisite. His father, Thomas Hume, had been a self-made millionaire who had fought his way to the top with his bare fists. Both had been dead now for several years.
The young man had somehow, and miraculously, taken the best from both of his parents. The Fordyce family had been one of many generations of gentle breeding, kindness and generosity. Tome Hume had passed on tremendous strength, courage and honesty to his only son.
His one misfortune — and no one but himself considered it one — was the combination of wealth and position to which he had been born. He had nothing to try for, nothing to achieve.
The affair of the Hymers stock market coup had entirely disgusted him with business and its methods. He had gone into it blindly, without much interest. Hymers had told him it would be a very good thing and he had assented, turning the whole matter over to the financier. It had been pleasant to make a great deal of money all at once, even though he already had more than he could spend.
Then he had discovered the way in which it had been made. He had seen the results on the other side of the affair, brought home to him vividly by the small, yet disastrous losses of his old nurse. On the heels of that discovery came the letter signed “N.”
The night after his visit to Donovan, he took the Fordyce Coronet from the little wall safe where it was always kept.
It was a beautiful and valuable thing of itself, but to Wilfred Hume it had been made far more valuable through association. Generations of the Fordyce family had guarded it carefully.
He removed the wrappings tenderly, and looked at it for a long time before he rewrapped it and carried it upstairs to his own room. There he locked it in a little desk that stood near his bed. Then he took a package from the same desk and carried it downstairs. Both the package and a letter, whose composition had taken considerable time and thought, he deposited in the wall safe.
Having completed his arrangements, Wilfred Hume went to bed and slept like a baby.
It was very early in the morning when a frantic and white-faced butler came to wake him. Something terrible had happened during the night, said the butler. He had found the watchman on the floor of the entrance hall, apparently drugged. Probably the Coronet had been stolen.
Would Mr. Hume come downstairs and see? He was the only one who could open the wall-safe.
Mr. Hume would. Gladly.
As he swung open the little metal door, he heard a horrified gasp from the butler. The safe was empty.
“Oh, it's gone, sir. The Coronet's been stolen!”
Wilfred Hume turned to him, shaking his head reassuringly. “No it hasn't. It's upstairs in my room, locked in the desk beside my bed.”
He bounded up the stairs, whistling with exceptional good humor for a man who has just been robbed of a considerable sum of money.
That day he told Donovan what had happened. The detective nodded his head wisely and said it was what he'd expected. The Fordyce Coronet was returned to its place in the little wall-safe.
There was one thing he purposely neglected to tell Donovan however. In his letter, left with the money, he'd hinted that he expected an answer.
He canceled one or two unimportant engagements , and remained at home all evening, sitting alone in the library trying to read.
At last he went to bed and tried to sleep. But he remained wide awake. The rest of the household slept. The watchman, too shaken by his experience to be of any use, had been told to stay at home and rest. Wilfred Hume was the only person awake in the entire house.
Every sound in the night seemed magnified to tremendous proportions.
He was just considering turning on the light and reaching for a book, when a new sound caught his attention. It was a very small sound, but he identified it immediately. One of the French windows opening onto the downstairs terrace was being opened.
Wilfred Hume was out of bed in one quick, silent move. He hurriedly donned a dressing gown, took a small, but efficient revolver from his desk and slipped it in his pocket. Then, moving swiftly and noiselessly as a cat, he went down the stairs.
At the door to the library he paused. A large white envelope on top of the desk caught his eye. He picked it up, and in the dim light he could make out his own name written across it. The handwriting plainly told him who had placed it there.
He felt safe in switching on the little desk lamp. Then he ripped open the envelope.
It contained only a small slip of paper, with a few words written on it.
“Paid in Full”
“N"
Wilfred Hume crept put the side door and glanced hurriedly through the garden. He stole softly along the house, keeping in the shade of the trees.
Was that a dark figure in the shadows of the side gate? He crept along the high iron fence, keeping always out of the light. Yes, someone was there, a man, standing in a little corner formed by the fence and the square iron gate-post.
Hume could hear his heart pounding in his ears. He called out softly, “Come out of there!”
The figure emerged from the shadows. Hume saw that he was slight, and not tall. But his face was concealed in the shadows of his hatbrim.
The man said, “I rather hoped you'd wake and come downstairs.”
“Step out into the light,” Hume said. “Let me see your face.”
The intruder stepped into a circle of light that came from the nearest street lamp and removed his hat.
Wilford Hume stared at him for a long, silent moment. When he spoke, his voice was very calm and cool.
“I thought it might be you. Come in the house.”
WHEN DONOVAN had one of his impatient fits, there was no pleasing him. Poppy Hymers' visit to him was the beginning of an impatient fit that lasted until the next day, while he waited for the promised letter from the man who signed himself “N.”
The letter was waiting for him at the office. Donovan recognized the writing on the envelope and turned the letter over in his hand half a dozen times before opening it. At last he ripped it open and took out the sheets of thin paper, covered with that black, vertical script. Then he lit his pipe, settled back in his chair, and began to read.
“My dear Donovan,
“I did not murder Dorothy Hymers. I know that all the evidence at your disposal points to me.
But this is my side of the story.
“I went to the house where Mrs. Hymers had been meeting her lover to rob her of the twin bracelets. I had learned of her plan to give them to Leon Martelli and place the blame on me. Therefore, on the afternoon when they were to meet, I made arrangements to delay Martelli, so that he would not be able to keep his appointment until too late.
''When Mrs. Hymers entered the room in which she was later found dead, I was hidden behind the long curtains stretched at one end of the room. When she entered, I released a small cylinder of the effective, but not dangerous gas which no doubt you have already guessed I use on occasion, having already taken the usual precautions so that I would not be affected by it.
This gas, which is my own discovery, by the way, quickly made Mrs. Hymers unconscious. I took the bracelets, and returned to my own room which, as you know, was immediately adjoining.”
Donovan paused in his reading. So far the letter seemed to tell the truth. The facts it stated only confirmed what he had already come to believe.
With a little sigh, he went on with it. The next few pages told of the events in the house after the robbery of Dorothy Hymers, of the footsteps heard through the thin partition, of the unknown person who had searched the house, and of the arrival and hurried departure of Martelli. —
The detective went on reading.
“Now, let me point out the following about my own part in this affair.
“First, I would have no object in murdering Mrs. Hymers. If I had any personal revenge to accomplish, it would be visited upon Hymers himself, and not his wife.
“Second, in case you doubt that she was unconscious at the time of the robbery, and also at the time of the murder, it will be very easy to produce proof. Unless I am greatly mistaken, I believe that her eyes must have been closed when you found her dead. Also the autopsy must, by this time, have revealed the presence of gas in her lungs.
“Third, the behavior of Florence Starr. I have learned of her outcry at the discovery of Mrs. Hymers' body. 'He — murdered her. I never thought he'd do that.'
“Whom did she mean by 'he?' Certainly not myself — since she is not in any way acquainted with me, or my activities. Not Martelli, surely.
“I know this isn't enough to convince a jury of my innocence. But I hope that it may convince you.
“My first act will be to find Florence Starr. I promise she will be turned over to you as soon as I learn what she has to tell.
“I owe an apology to the police for the behavior of Albert Bunce yesterday. His visit was necessary toward the solution of this crime. He managed to secure several extremely valuable pieces of evidence which the police had overlooked, and these will be sent to you the moment I have finished with them.
“Donovan, I know you for a fair-minded man. You have been engaged to find the man who has been robbing Hymers and his associates. Will you postpone that task until the murderer of Dorothy Hymers has been found? When the case is finished, you are more than welcome to get on with the job of running me down — if you can.
“You can communicate with me through the Personal Column of the TIMES. Sincerely,
“N”
“P S You might tell Mr. Abernathy, however, that this shall not be allowed to interfere with my plans for the Starflower necklace.”
Donovan laid down the letter, refilled his pipe, and leaned back to think. In his lifetime he had come in contact with professional criminals of every description.
Taken as a whole, he had a very low opinion of them. He felt honestly sorry for a few of them, but that was all.
But this was something entirely new. The man who signed himself “N,” and whom Poppy Hymers knew as John Moon, had turned to crime in order to right what he believed to be a wrong. In his heart Donovan too believed that it had been a wrong, and one that certainly needed to be righted. Yet on the other hand, the man was breaking the law, and Donovan, as a private detective, had been engaged by the clients who had trusted him for years to track down the man who was robbing them.
He called Inspector Garrity and asked if the autopsy on Dorothy Hymers had revealed the presence of any gas on the lungs.
It had. The woman had probably been unconscious when she was strangled.
Donovan thanked the inspector, hung up the phone, and called Billy.
“Billy, I want you to take something over to the Times—- an ad to run right away in the personal column.”
He seized a piece of paper and wrote on it rapidly.
“Accept your offer. Good luck to you.”
RENZO HYMERS' town house was set in a small, but extremely expensive garden — expensive, because the square of ground given over to grass, trees and shrubbery was easily worth its footage in gold. The garden was closed in by a high iron fence Soft foliage of dark trees hung over the great iron spikes at the top and almost hid them, little branches reached out from the tender green bushes and shrubs to twine around the iron bars.
Those dark trees and twining branches were wet and glistening in a warm rain, and stray drops of water on the leaves reflected the glow of the street lamps when a lone figure stood in the shadows and watched the great Hymers' house.
For the first time since the murder of Dorothy Hymers the house was blazing with lights. Renzo Hymers and his daughter were going out to the Long Island estate that was even larger and more impressive than the town house.
The decision to move into the “country” had been made at the last minute. So the house was lighted from roof to basement and the man watching from the street could occasionally see hurrying figures silhouetted against the window-blinds as preparations for the move were made.
However, he was not interested in watching the lights. He was waiting for the last of them to be extinguished.
He was a pathetically bedraggled figure. Rain dripped from his hat-brim and ran down the upturned collar of his coat, his shoes were sodden masses of mud and water. But he had no other choice than to stand in the rain and watch for the last light to go out in the Hymers' house. Tomorrow Renzo Hymers would be out of the city and out of his reach.
He was not the only man watching the big, lighted house. Another, equally wet and bedraggled, stood on the other side of the garden, likewise in the shadow of one of the great trees that leaned over the iron fence.
The two were completely unaware of each other. They knew each other, but their last meeting had been far away and long ago, and under vastly different circumstances. But both were deeply interested in Renzo Hymers — though not for the same reasons. They continued to watch the house, while the ram went on falling.
It was well past midnight when the house was darkened save for a few lights that would burn all night long at the back. Then the second of the two watchers left his post.
As he turned the corner of the fence, his sharp gaze found the other watcher, almost hidden by the shadows of the trees. He slowed down, almost stopped.
After a moment's hesitation he began to tramp briskly down the sidewalk, as though he were a stray and hurried pedestrian going by. As he passed the other man he gave him a quick, curious glance. Then, though he had intended to continue his brisk pace to the next corner — he stopped dead still in his tracks and stared into the other's face.
For a moment's time the two stared at each other, without a word or a move. One of them was too stunned by the fact of the other's presence to speak. It was a possibility he had dreaded for a long time.
The other was struggling in his dim and clouded mind to recall the man who confronted him, to find the association for that familiar, and still unremembered face. But he could think of only one thing, that the man standing before him had come to prevent him from doing the thing that he had to do.
With a kind of muffled snarl he sprang forward, one hand reaching for a pocket. But John Moon was too quick for him, and the gun went spinning between the bars of the iron fence to land in a clump of bushes.
“Stop it, you fool! Don't you know me?”
John Moon's words had no effect. Then, before the insane man could make another move toward him, he had struck out with swift and deadly aim. The blow went home, and the man crumpled in a heap on the wet sidewalk.
Here was a pretty problem, John Moon told himself. This was a quiet street, but someone might come along at any moment. He turned and ran lightly down the street to where Joe waited with the car.
Joe was a man who never asked for explanations. John Moon told him to drive along the street until he was told to stop, he did so. John Moon told him to help carry a body into the car, he helped to carry it. John Moon told him to get home as quickly as he could, he started the car with a burst of speed and headed homeward.
It was not until the unconscious man had been laid on the bed in John Moon's room that he got a good look at the face. Then he gasped, but only slightly.
“He ain't dead, is he?”
“No,” John Moon said reassuringly. “I knocked him out, that's all. He'll come around all right.”
There was a little silence.
“Well,” Joe said at last, “what'll we do with him?”
“We'll have to keep him here,” John Moon said quietly, “and he's going to be the very devil of a nuisance. He'll have to be watched all the time. And we'll have to manage somehow so that if he gets noisy, no one will hear him.”
Joe nodded. “That's not so much of a trick. There's that old room Marcus used to have, next to the workroom in the cellar. It's got bars on the windows, and if he should get loud, we could drag him into the furnace room.” He paused and added “but we can't do that forever.”
“I know it,” John Moon said briefly. “But there's no way we can ship him back. There's no way we can turn him over to an institution in this country without attracting too much attention. And God knows, we can't turn him loose.”
The cellar room was made as comfortable as possible, and the prisoner was placed there. He was amazingly docile and easy to manage. He asked no questions about his new situation, and adjusted himself to his circumstances.
But even in those first moments, he was planning and scheming, preparing to study his captors to judge how easily they might be overwhelmed, examining the doors and windows and observing the habits of the establishment.
There was only one clear thought in his mind, and it burned there steadily. He had to escape and get to Renzo Hymers.
A CONFERENCE was being held by John Moon, Joe, and Marcus, and the subject of it was Florence Starr.
“She has to be found,” the blond young man said grimly. “She has to be found, and practically immediately, or else perhaps we are going out of business.”
He looked at Joe, then at Marcus. The little cripple, he knew, never forgot a face and never overlooked a lead. He had a patient, dogged persistence that would keep him on a trail long after it had grown cold to any other pursuer. If Florence Starr was on earth sooner or later Marcus would run her down.
But Joe had a rare value of his own, in the wide acquaintance he had kept up with a strange collection of underworld characters: pickpockets, burglars, and thieves of all description, dishonest cab drivers and some honest ones, ex-bootleggers, confidence men, dope peddlers, gamblers and petty racketeers and all those who made up that dark fringe of the social order.
John Moon had encouraged him in his peculiar friendships. There was no telling when they might come in handy. This, apparently, was one of the times. Joe had already been at work. John Moon looked at a scribbled paper in his hand.
“Joe, this was a swell job. Listen, Marcus. Joe located the cab driver who picked up Florence Starr that night, before the police had even started looking for her. The driver took her to the apartment of Laura Kane at this address.” He waved the sheet of paper. Laura Kane is a dancer in the Scarlet Swan floor show. At the time of Florence Starr's visit to her, she was away, at work. The elevator boy at the building remembers taking Florence Starr upstairs, and says that she came down again about fifteen minutes later, dressed in,”—he looked at the paper again—“a brown suit with a yellow and orange scarf, and a brown straw hat with a wide brim.”
He paused and laid the paper on the table.
“There the trail ends,” he said.
“Or begins,” Marcus told him. He frowned. “She will need money. Girls like Florence Starr never have very much cash on hand.”
“I'd thought of that,” John Moon said, nodding. “And this Laura Kane is evidently a close friend of Florence Starr's. It would be natural for Florence Starr to appeal to her for funds. But the chances are that Laura Kane herself would have to raise the money somewhere.”
Joe took it up from there. “The nightclub is the place. I know a waiter there. He'll find out for me whether or not this Kane babe tried to dig up any dough.”
When the two had gone, John Moon retired to a tiny laboratory with the piece of paper and the few inches of bathrobe cord Albert Bunce had removed from the house where Dorothy Hymers had died, and occupied himself for the rest of the afternoon.
Joe was the first to return reporting success. That morning Laura Kane had borrowed a hundred dollars, to be paid back out of her salary.
Later Marcus returned, likewise successful. That afternoon Laura Kane had sent the money by Telegraph to a Miss F. Adams, at a cheap hotel in Philadelphia. Marcus went to Philadelphia, tracing her back to New York. She'd ridden a bus until she reached New York, then disappeared in the subway.
Marcus reported back to John Moon, prepared to continue the search with a long and patient questioning of subway guards.
“Wait until tomorrow,” John Moon told him.
“It can't wait,” Marcus said doggedly.
Joe agreed with him. “The dame'll get so far away she'll never be found.
“Maybe,” John Moon said, “but I doubt it. My hunch is that she's hiding out somewhere. And I've had another idea, all my own. I'm going to call on Laura Kane.
She turned out to be what he privately described as a “tired blonde.” When he saw her first she had just returned from the hairdresser and her gilded hair was plastered close to her head in a series of highly artificial ripples and whorls.
When he knocked, she opened the door of her apartment, peeked through the crack with a suspicious eye and said “I don't want to buy a thing, so beat it.”
“Wait a minute,” he said. “I want to talk to you about Florence Starr.”
She shook her varnished head at him through the crack. “I don't know where she is. I don't know anything about her.”
“That's not good enough,” John Moon said. You knew where she was when you sent her a hundred dollars.” As she started to close the door he added hastily “You don't need to be afraid of me. I'm not from the police, and I'm not from the newspapers.”
The door opened one more half inch.
“How do I know you're on the level?”
John Moon smiled his friendliest and most disarming smile. “I haven't a shred of proof. You'll just have to take my word for it. But it's a matter of life and death.” He added, “My life.”
After a moment's hesitation, the door opened.
“Well, you might as well come in.” The suspicious look stayed in the girl's eyes. “You'll have to excuse the way the apartment looks. I had company last night and I haven't gotten around to cleaning up yet.”
The little apartment was incredibly disordered. Empty glasses, filled ashtrays, dirty coffee cups and morning newspapers were scattered everywhere. Yet in spite of the shabbiness and the disorder, it was a comfortable room.
John Moon talked frankly, as though he were putting his entire fate in the hands of the faded blonde. “I don't think Miss Starr is especially afraid of the police,” he said. “There's no reason why she should be. There's no way that she's involved in the murder of Mrs. Hymers, save one. That one is—that she knows, or thinks she knows, the man who did it.”
Laura Kane nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“Therefore,” he said, “she's afraid because she knows too much, or believes that she knows too much. She's afraid that the murderer may think it best to make sure of her silence. Am I right?”
There was a moment of hesitation before Laura Kane said, “Yes. That's right.”
“But you see,” John Moon went on, “I'm not the man she's afraid of. Why, she never saw me or heard of me in her life, and I never saw her. And you see,” — he leaned forward and spoke low and earnestly. “I'm in this damned spot. I didn't murder Dorothy Hymers. But the police think I did. They may be able to prove it unless I can find the man who did commit the crime.”
He paused and saw with some satisfaction that a look of sympathy was growing on Laura Kane's face.
“Now you see how important it is for me to find Florence Starr.”
Laura Kane nodded again. “Sure I see. But she may refuse to say a word, even to you. That poor kid's scared all the way through to the bone.”
“I know it,” John Moon said. “But it's for her own safety, after all. If she's right, and the man she knows did murder Dorothy Hymers, then she's in danger as long as he's running around loose. As soon as he's found and arrested, then he can't do her any harm.”
“She won't go to the police,” Laura Kane said. “I begged and begged her to. I told her she ought to tell them everything she knows and let them protect her. But she won't do it. She's too frightened.”
“Naturally,” John Moon said. “If she went to the police her evidence might not be enough in itself to hold him He'd be free to go after her then.”
“Yes,” Laura Kane said. She made a helpless little gesture. “But what can you do?”
John Moon spoke as firmly as he knew how. “With the very important tip she would be able to give me, I could go ahead and find the necessary evidence to actually convict the murderer. When you know the identity of the man you're after, it's a lot easier to find evidence against him than if you're just working in the dark.
“You're darned convincing,” Laura Kane said, “but is it safe? Florence trusts me.”
“Let her decide,” John Moon told her. “You know where she is.”
The woman nodded. “Yes. I know.”
“Then you go to her. Tell her just what I've told you. See if she won't talk to me or at least send me a message. If she will see me you can take me to where she is, tonight.”
“I can't see how that would do any harm,” she said slowly. “I'll do it for you. You come back here tonight, and if she'll see you, I'll take you to her.”
They chatted a few minutes over the hardships of night-club life before John Moon went on his way.
He arrived home to find that a new emergency had arisen in his absence.
A pale and anxious Marcus met him at the door with the news. The prisoner in the cellar had managed to escape at last.
JOE WAS UPSTAIRS on his bed, nursing a nasty bump on the head. John Moon raced up the stairs three steps at a time. Marcus close behind him.
A shame-faced and apologetic Joe had very little to tell. “He was so easy-going and no trouble at all to manage,” he said. “I didn't expect nothin' like that. I wasn't prepared for it.”
The story was very simple. The prisoner had asked Joe to bring in fresh water. When he had unlocked and opened the door he hadn't seen the prisoner, who must have been standing behind the door. There had been a sudden blow, and that was all.
“I found Joe on the floor, unconscious,” Marcus said. “The door was open, and the street door was ajar.” He looked anxiously at John Moon.
“We've got to find him,” John Moon said. His face was grim. “Finding Florence Starr is necessary to solve a murder. But finding him is necessary to prevent another one.”
“I'm the one to find him,” Joe said. “Not because I let him get loose but because I know where to look.”
“Good thing you've got a tough skull,” John Moon said. “Where do you think he'd go?”
“He'll have to find himself a hide-out,” Joe said, “he's crafty enough to do that. And it'll have to be a cheap one. He'll head for the four-bit hotels and the flophouses. I know 'em all, and I know the guys who run 'em all.”
“Just a minute,” John Moon said, “suppose you do find him. What are you going to do with him?”
The big ex-prizefighter stared at him indignantly. “I told you I know the guys who runs these dumps. All I gotta do is say, 'Look, pal. Keep your eye peeled for this bird. If he shows up, just feed him the well known old Michael Q. Flynn, and I'll drop around and get him before he comes to.''
“Well, good luck,” John Moon said, grinning. “Sorry I can't go with you, but I've got a date with a girl.”
“If it's the red-haired one,” Joe began. But John Moon shook his head.
“No. This one is Florence Starr.”
Before the big man had succeeded in closing his mouth again, he'd told them of his success with Laura Kane. “I'm meeting her at eight,” he finished, “and she'll take me to Florence Starr.”
A cold, thin rain, more like mist than drops of water, was falling outside. John Moon went on down the street in the direction of Laura Kane's. For a moment his debonair manner dropped from him and he seemed almost weary. His gay mood of early evening had vanished now. Things did not always go according to plan, he told himself. One woman had been murdered, another was hiding in fear of her life and a madman was roaming the city, searching for his hated enemy.
Still, there was the prospect of what he would learn from Florence Starr. Laura Kane's first words to him raised his spirits a little.
“Yes, she'll see you,” the woman said. It seemed to John Moon that the blond dancer, who did not appear quite so tired under electric light, was a little relieved in manner. Perhaps she looked on this as a way out of her friend's troubles. Well, he hoped she was right.
A longish walk down dark streets led them to a dingy boarding house. Just the sort of place to use for a hideout, he thought. It was one of those decayed brownstone fronts, where landladies ask few questions, and are distinctly reticent to outsiders about their guests. There was a faint and unpleasant odor of cooking in the dimly lighted halls.
Laura Kane led the way up the dingy, ramshackle staircase to a back room on the third floor. There they paused and she knocked softly.
There was no answer. They waited several minutes, and knocked again. Still no answer.
“Could she have gone out?” John Moon whispered anxiously.
Laura Kane shook her head. “She hasn't dared to leave the house. I've been doing her shopping for her, for what things she needed. Besides, she knew that we were coming just after eight. She'd be here to wait for us.”
She knocked again, a little louder and more insistently, and another long wait followed. John Moon saw that her face was very white in the shadows.
“Perhaps,” he said very calmly, “You'd better try the door. It might be unlocked.”
The door was not unlocked.
For a moment they stared helplessly at each other. Then Laura Kane sat her jaw hard.
“You wait here,” she said. “I'll get us in all right.”
She went swiftly down the stairs to the first floor and knocked at another door. After a moment John Moon could hear her speaking, catch the landlady's mumbled answer.
“. . . friend of Miss Adams ... you remember me, I came here with her ... brought over some clothes for her, but she's not in . . . just let me borrow the key so I can get in and leave them on the bed . . . thanks so much . . . bring it right back....”
He heard her coming up the stairs again. A good sensible head on her shoulders, he told himself.
“Never let one of these landladies suspect anything's wrong,” she puffed as she reached the last steps. “Or there's hell to pay. Here's the key, you open the door.”
He turned it in the lock, pushed the door open slowly, and tiptoed in. In the next instant he wheeled quickly to put a firm hand over Laura Kane's mouth.
The little, cell-like room was pitch dark, save for the dim light that streamed in from the door. But that dim light was enough to show them the shadowy thing suspended in the air across the room.
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