Lady Afraid (13 page)

Here was sail, friendly and close. She watched the ketches, yawls, the Marconi-rigged cutters, the crisp little schooners. Automatically she began picking out vessels she knew. There was enough light for that, because sailing-craft lines meant a great deal to her experienced eye. She was able to spot, in a few moments, three of them on which she had sailed. One was
Winifred VI
, a staysail-rigged ketch owned by a family named Decker; Sarah had cruised on that one from Portland to the little fishing village of Lubec, in Maine. There was
Millie
, a cutter, a fine little sea boat, a darling offshore; Sarah had never seen a craft behave so well when hove to. Mr. and Mrs. Wildberg owned
Millie.
Sarah had skippered
Millie
in the last St. Petersburg–Havana race, and it had been wonderful.

Sarah closed her eyes tightly. “I’m—I’m afraid to think of Jonnie!” she gasped.

Most shook his head. “It might do you good to uncork some emotion.”

“Do you suppose he’s—” She couldn’t complete the question.

Most moved his shoulders and said, “A little boy doesn’t have enemies who would harm him.”

But I do not know that is true
, Sarah thought wildly.
We know so little.
She bowed her head. “He was such a nice little boy. He had grown a lot. Oh, a great deal. He was the most husky little fellow you ever saw.”

His expression perhaps more unnatural than hers, Most was listening.

“I think he had my features,” Sarah said softly. “Yes, my eyes. I knew he had my eyes. But when I had last seen him—he had just turned six months old—one could not be certain whether he was to resemble myself or Paul.”

Most rubbed his jaw, watched her, was silent.

“I think,” Sarah said slowly, “that the way Jonnie could talk surprised and delighted me the most. He had such a sweet little voice. And his words—why, he spoke them more distinctly than I do my own!… That’s pretty good for only two and a half years old!” she added proudly. “And he wasn’t afraid of me, not a bit. He was the bravest little fellow, and a regular wildcat with his energy. He had a cowboy suit that he liked, and he put it on all by himself.”

She leaned forward now and her forehead came against the cool glass of the window.
I wish I could cry
, she thought. But she knew the tears were far away; she felt dry, dehydrated; her voice was more loose, less tied, as she babbled on: “I only had him those few minutes, but it was worth anything the police or Lineyack’s attorneys do to me!… If only I knew he was safe! That’s what’s so horrible—knowing I did have him, and now—”

Most cleared his throat against feeling. “This isn’t helping you, Mrs. Lineyack,” he said.

Sarah wheeled, buried her face in Most’s jacket. “My baby boy! Oh, mother of God, my baby. It was worth almost anything, just having him those few minutes. My own child—I hadn’t even seen him for two years—not so much as touched him…. Never felt his soft little legs and hands, all that agony of not being able to touch my child for so long. And then, to lose him so quickly, and not know whether he’s safe or even where he is. Will I ever be forgiven for causing such a thing? But I love him so!” She was sobbing violently now, and through the sobs she said, “He called me ‘Mother.’ Just once! But it was so nice.” And after that there was not much that was coherent, because she was far from being as dry emotionally as she had thought.

Later, Most brought her a drink, saying, “A touch of firewater won’t hurt you.”

She nodded gratefully, for tears had chased some of the dark fog. The picture of her predicament seemed clearer, although not as immitigable; fears were still there; drawn with even more jagged clarity perhaps, they seemed less grotesque, which may have been because she faced them in a more relaxed attitude. She took the glass of whisky from Most.

“You’re good for me,” she said.

Either he hadn’t expected such a flat statement or her emotional state made it sound quite candid. Most looked startled.

What he would have said, and he had something at his tongue, was knocked out of mind by the metallic howl of the telephone. The loudest bell, Sarah thought—she had brought a hand up as if to catch her heart—that she had ever heard on a telephone.

“I’ll answer it,” Most said. “It may be our round friend with the easily imitated voice.”

He scooped the instrument out of its hiding place in the small cabinet. He said “Yes” twice, the first time calmly, the second time astonished. He extended the phone to Sarah. “For you. I was right. It’s him.”

Sarah said “Yes” herself into the phone, and there came a flood of words in Mr. Arbogast’s voice. “Sarah, this is Mr. Arbogast. Listen closely: You must leave at once. Keep away from the police if you can. And if you do—if you can keep the police from catching you—your son will be returned to you.”

Sarah cried, “But what—”

“Don’t interrupt, please,” said Mr. Arbogast’s voice. “At seven o’clock drive past the corner of Fourth and Flagler. Attorney Brill will be there. Pick him up. If you come, if you’ve avoided arrest, the boy will be turned over to you by Brill. Got all this, Sarah?”

“Oh yes! Only—”

“Hurry! Get out of my apartment instantly. I can’t say more. Good-by!”

The line went dead.

Sarah cried three “Hellos!” into the unresponsive telephone and was standing rigidly, the instrument still gripped in her hands, when the door flung open and Mr. Arbogast came in from the corridor.

Sarah stared. Mr. Arbogast, whose voice she had heard not twenty seconds before, came into the room. His face was pale, and against the pallor a patch of apple redness stood out over each cheekbone.

“Mr. Arbogast! You were just—” Sarah shook her head blankly.

“What’s that?” Mr. Arbogast seemed puzzled.

“You were speaking to me on the telephone!”

“When?”

“Just now. This instant. You had just hung up and—”

“Now, really, Mrs. Lineyack,” said Mr. Arbogast. “That’s quite preposterous. I don’t carry a wireless telephone around with me, I’m afraid.”

Captain Most said, “She’s right. I answered the phone. It was—or sounded like—your voice.”

Mr. Arbogast’s mouth hung open, and thereafter it remained open whenever he was not using it to make words.

“I didn’t telephone!” he blurted. “Good lord! It must have been the fellow who deceived Mrs. Lineyack yesterday afternoon!”

“You see anybody hanging around downstairs?” Most demanded. “The caller knew you weren’t up here.”

“I saw no one but the building attendants,” Mr. Arbogast confessed.

“What about the policeman you went down to see?”

“There was none.”

“What?”

Arbogast trotted to a chair and sagged into it. “I couldn’t find anyone. The person who said he was an officer didn’t put in an appearance.”

“Then there was no officer?” Most demanded.

“No…. I saw none, anyway. I looked all about. I don’t think I would have missed him. I even went outdoors. There was no police car there.”

Most, with his eyes opaque and seeking, studied the chubby financial attorney. “Was the voice that said it belonged to a cop at all familiar to you?”

“No. Oh no!”

“I’m going to describe two men—Ides and Yellow-shoes,” Most said grimly. He proceeded to do so, repeating with surprising accuracy the word picture that Sarah had given him of the two men. “Do you know them?” he finished.

“No indeed!” Mr. Arbogast turned an unquiet face to Sarah. “Sarah, I want to help you…. But I don’t think you should stay here. I really don’t. Frankly, I’m becoming afraid!”

“Oh, of course. I’ll leave now,” Sarah said.

Mr. Arbogast sprang up excitedly. “No—that is—don’t feel I’m throwing you out. Don’t think that of me, please. It’s just that—well—your little boy isn’t here. And you’d best be hunting him elsewhere…. But I’ll help you. Oh, I will!”

Contempt overspread Most’s face noticeably, and it was in his tone, undisguised, as he said, “I’m sorry I got you into this, Mr. Arbogast.”

Mr. Arbogast reacted with surprising anger. He wheeled, scowling. “Captain, may I ask just why you
are
being so helpful?”

“Why,” said Most coldly, “I am one of your employees, and naturally interested in your welfare. So when Mrs. Lineyack came to me with this misunderstanding about speaking to you over the telephone, I felt it my duty to function.”

“Your job is to sail a boat, Captain.”

“Isn’t it proper that I look out for your welfare, sir?” Most asked, and sarcasm wore a thin veil.

“Never mind. It’s done,” Arbogast said.

A
BEL MAURICE HAD A
heavy body and a broad tired face that appeared to have been molded by fifty-five years of completely dull existence. He lived in a stucco bungalow. It was on Eighteenth Terrace, well out, a tiny house so imitation Spanish that it was sad and a little ridiculous.

Abel Maurice opened the door for them wearing a washed-out and faded-out blanket bathrobe over, Sarah suspected, nothing but underwear. He looked tousled, had a sleep-dulled expression, and he complained, “I thought the doorbell was the telephone. Kept tryin’ to answer the phone…. What’s on your mind?”

Captain Most asked, “You are Mr. Maurice, of Maurice and Black, private detectives? This is the address we found in a telephone directory.”

“That’s right.”

“You’ve been handling a job for an attorney named Calvin Brandeis Brill. We’d like to discuss it,”

Mr. Maurice jerked a thumb vaguely at regions behind him. “The girl’s asleep. No need of waking her up.” He stepped out, closed the door, and indicated the steps. “We can sit out here, can’t we? You people won’t mind?” He yawned and scratched himself and sat on the steps, which were of concrete with an edging of bricks.

Sarah had been fighting her fears all during the ride from Arbogast’s apartment house and had not been very successful. She sat on one of the lower steps, hands clasping her knees, half turned so that she could watch the private detective’s face.

Abel Maurice looked at her thoughtfully, then he looked at Most, and he asked Most, “Chance of mooching a cigarette, pal?”

“Pipe,” Most said, tapping his pocket.

Sarah, with steady enough hand, gave the sleuth a cigarette and a light. Mr. Maurice drew fire into the cigarette, took it from his lips, and lifted it by way of thanks. Then he examined his bare feet for a while. “So you want to discuss an attorney named Calvin Brandeis Brill?” he said.

“Yes,” Sarah nodded. “You see, Brill—”

“Let me,” interrupted Mr. Maurice, “say one thing before we start. It’s this: I don’t know no such guy.”

“You—” Sarah stared at him unbelievingly.

The private detective shifted the cigarette to the other corner of his mouth. “Never heard of him.”

“Oh!” Sarah was flattened by this. She threw Most a helpless look. Most had his lower lip pushed out and his eyes narrowed, and he was watching Mr. Maurice. With no friendliness Most said to the detective, “As it happens, the lady was told by Brill that you wouldn’t know anything about the case if you
were
asked.”

“That so?” Mr. Maurice matched Most’s unveiled suspicion. “Meaning what?”

“Just a point,” Most said.

“I see. A point, eh? Well, well!” The detective’s face seemed to get more tired. “Look, pal, it’s past three o’clock in the morning. I am up to nearly one, playing bridge, with the girl jawing at me all evening because I play bridge like a cub bear. We come home, and the girl jaws another hour or so before I get started sleeping…. Oh well, skip it. I’ve got a point too. It’s this: I’m tired and my feelings hurt easy when I’m tired.”

Most, not impressed, said, “This happens to be a serious matter.”

“Oh, I can see that. I read it on your faces. I see much the same thing on the faces of most of my clients, but you’ll probably not be interested in that.”

“What about Black?” Most asked.

“Black?”

“Your partner in the detective agency.”

Mr. Maurice threw the cigarette away. A short coughing laugh expanded his cheeks momentarily. There was no humor in it. “Wait a sec,” he said. And he stood up and opened the door and called, “Hon, will you come out here a minute?”

Presently a tall, bony, hatchet-faced woman of about the sleuth’s age came and stood in the doorway. Her hair was tangled, she wore a heliotrope robe, and two ostrich-trimmed mules were on her feet crookedly.

Mr. Maurice said, “Sweet, these people want to know what about Cy Black.”

“He’s been dead four years. What could be about him?” The woman had a too-deep, too-melodious voice, a powerful one that Sarah felt could easily become very tiresome.

“Honey, what did Cy Black die of?” asked Mr. Maurice.

The woman began to look disgruntled. “Cancer,” she said.

“Sugar, what about Brill?”

“Brill? Brill who?” The woman frowned at her husband.

“Do we have or have we had a client by such a name? Calvin Brandeis Brill.”

“Not that I’ve heard of.”

“Thank you, peach,” Mr. Maurice said.

The woman hesitated, then shrugged and withdrew into the house, closing the door. They heard her, in a moment, stumble over an article of furniture in the darkened house, and then they heard her curse two awful oaths. Mr. Maurice smiled tiredly.

“The girl runs my office. She’d know if I had a client named Brill.” The sleuth eyed his bare toes, turning them up as far as they would go and then turning them down. “She never tells a lie, not that you would know about that,” he added.

A heavy futility on her, Sarah sat with eyes lifted, staring blankly at the night sky. How much longer was each of her steps to be taken into empty space? She was becoming very weary of emptiness.

“I’m sorry.” Mr. Maurice was looking at Sarah. “I was a little corny, I guess. But the fact is that I don’t know any Brill and my partner Black has been buried four years. Nice guy, too. So nice I never changed the firm name.” He stood and tightened the cord of his robe. He laid a hand on the door to re-enter the house, then hesitated, frowning at Sarah. He asked, “Am I right in understanding this Brill told you I was doing a job for him?”