Time Off for Murder (6 page)

  He pulled Mary down the dark hallway, flung open the door of the front bedroom. They had no more than time to glimpse a wide brass bed, covered with a marseilles spread, walls papered with framed, time-dimmed photographs and painted portraits, a crayon enlargement of Marianna Knight in the center, over the mantel, and a bare floor covered with battalions of toy soldiers and miniature cannon, before the powerful hands of the housekeeper gripped Mary by the collar of her coat, and the man from Police Headquarters by his sleeve and whirled them around. The woman's knees propelled them down the hall toward the steps. Behind them Lyman Knight shrieked: "Get them out of here. They haven't any business here."

  On the steps the detective rubbed his arm. "That old girl's got a grip. Like a man's. I bet I'm crippled for life. What'd you call her before? Cerbus or something?"

  "Cerberus. The watchdog at the gates of Hell."

  "Perfect." Detective Reese took out his little notebook. "Spell it."

  Mary was puzzled. "It's a classical allusion. It has no bearing . . ."

  "I know, I know. Spell it."

  She spelled the name. He wrote it down. "Those college boys they're putting on the force nowadays, they'd know it, wouldn't they?"

  "Maybe."

  "Got the idea now, sister?"

  "Meeting competition, eh?"

  He grinned.

  "Of course," Mary said soberly, "that female watch-dog is within her rights to chuck us out You can't search a place without a warrant. You can't get a warrant to search unless you've good reason to suspect a crime's been committed on the premises. You know that as well as I do."

  "Sure, sure. I know it. I didn't like the set-up, sister, no more'n you did. I thought a quick look-see'd do no harm."

  "You're a smart boy. What did you say your name was?"

  "Johnny. Call me Johnny. Johnny Reese. Missing Persons."

  "I don't know many of the lads over there. My pals are pickpocket squad, narcotics, safe and loft, and - homicide."

  "I'll get there too, sister. I'm on my way."

  "If you don't get your neck broken first. Where are you headed for now and take me along?"

  Detective Reese rubbed his arm, then scratched his head. "It ain't the thing. Business and pleasure together."

  "This is business," Mary said sharply. "Nothing else. Don't start getting ideas."

  "O.K., O.K. Next stop's Rorke's place. I got a car."

  Mary said: "I like riding in those little green and white buggies."

  "Can't oblige. It's my own car. Chevvy."

  "Where's it parked?"

  "Around the corner. I found a nice, wide open spot, next to a hydrant. What do you make of the old guy's room?"

  "That's easy." Miss Carner's manner was far more grave than her glib speech. "The old man's crazy. Has been for years. Phyllis knew it. Her friends knew it. Crazy, but presumably harmless. In that room he lives with his past and plays with soldiers. I'm not setting myself up as a psychologist, but I get the general idea. He hasn't been right since his wife died when the daughter was born. He has always hated Phyllis. Jealous of her. Besides he's a very small man. Small men often have a sense of inferiority. And this man's has been heightened by having a daughter who does a man's job and does it well. His ancestors were pretty important people. He likes to have them around. Makes him feel important too. And the soldiers. Well, you can convince yourself you're Napoleon, too, if you've an army to push around."

  "Gee, you're smart." There was honest admiration in the young detective's eyes. "Where'd you learn so much?"

  "I read books. I talk to people…. Look here." She stopped on the pavement. "Do you remember how happy the old man looked when we suggested that Phyllis might be dead?"

  "You don't think he's killed her?"

  "If wishes were deeds, he killed her. " Miss Carner shivered. "He has a straightedged razor and God knows what else."

  "We'll toss the place with a warrant."

  "Do." She wrinkled her brows. "But there've been ten days to cover up a crime. He wouldn't call the police till he was sure he was safe. That woman - that Agnes is capable of carrying a small person like Phyllis any distance. But, see here, Johnny Reese, you and I may be just cooking up a case because we don't like the old man and Agnes. For all we know Phyllis may have gone away for excellent reasons of her own. It seems ridiculous - but the only reason I have for thinking something's wrong - is that she failed to keep a lunch date. Lord knows that's little enough to start a murder mystery with."

  "You're no dope and you're all worked up about it," Johnny Reese said seriously. "So it must be something. Where do you come in on this whole business?"

  "I told you before. She's my friend. Phyllis Knight is one of the most precise people in the world. Now, when Phyllis makes an appointment, she keeps it. She isn't careless. She isn't forgetful I went down to her office to see her secretary. Have you seen him yet? Don't miss him. Struthers is the name and mum's the word. Miss Knight's orders this, Miss Knight's orders that. It's all I could get out of him. But I did learn from him that Phyllis had no intention of disappearing when she left the office Wednesday night. She had her work all planned for the rest of the week. Left there as usual, saying she was off to the movies."

  "The movies?"

  "That's what I said. That's what he said."

  Johnny Reese hummed a half dozen tuneless notes. "Maybe she got stuck with one of them double features. Here's my car. Hop in."

  He settled himself into the driver's seat and propped the portfolio against his steering wheel. He took a tiny pick out of his vest pocket, twisted the miniature lock.

  "I learned that one from Houdini," he said.

  From one pocket of the portfolio he extracted a half-dozen sheets of gray-blue stationery, from another, envelopes to match, from a tiny one postage stamps. He dug deeper. He brought out a receipted bill from an Ashville Hotel, a Pullman stub - the residue of Phyllis Knight's vacation - and then a folded sheet of stationery and a snapshot. He examined the picture, handed it to Mary Carner. "That's Rorke," he said.

  The man in the snapshot wore sport sweater and slacks, held a golf club. He was athletically built, aged about forty. Dark hair was slicked back from a high forehead; high, Mary guessed, because the hair was thinning rather than because nature had provided a tall brow. The features were bold, jowls heavy, lips full. Sun in the man's face had brought out a slight puffiness under his squinting eyes. "So that's what Phyllis turned down the collar man for…."

  "Gets me. " Johnny Reese looked up from a sheet of note paper. "Him falling for a tomato like her. I bet my right arm that buck-toothed old maid never hooked him. But what did he want to say so for if it wasn't on the up and up?"

  "We're going to ask him that, aren't we?"

  "Sure are, sister. And maybe we ain't gonna believe it even if he says it's so. Here, sister, this handwriting drives me nuts. I can't dope it. It's poetry. But God knows what it says…."

  Miss Carner took the paper. "You don't know class when you see it," she said. "That square back-hand's very elegant. Oh my, Johnny, Phyllis wrote a poem to him. Listen:

  "Saxon, does thy name imply

  Cooled passions, arrogance, a willful pride,

  Or is there neath that noble brow

  The deep pure strain of honor,

  Reserve that masks a love profound,

  Fearing its strength may tear the world apart?"

  "Mighty pretty language," said Detective Reese.

  "I never would have believed that of Phyllis," said Miss Carner.

  "She wrote it but she didn't send it. Got a mirror? There's something on the blotter too."

  Mary fished a vanity mirror from her purse, held it against the blotter. "Look, Johnny," she said, "and blush."

  Johnny Reese looked. He didn't blush. Instead, he complained. "I can't make head or tail out of it. It's hen's tracks in the mud to me."

  "It's a cinch. 'Saxon dear, I try to tell myself it was my imagination that you were indifferent when I phoned today. I couldn't bear to have that happen. I have never allowed myself to . . .' The rest is too indistinct. There's a date on top. Tuesday night." Mary put away the mirror. "Well, Johnny, it looks as if the lady was the pursuer. It's most unlike our Phyllis. It certainly is. She must have been pretty far gone over that man to let herself write like that." Mary sighed. "I've always wanted to meet a man who could do that to me."

  Detective Reese looked at her sharply. "If you mean that," he pouted, "I won't take you up there."

  "All right, don't. I've gotten out of cars before."

  The young detective clicked on his ignition, shifted into first. "Lady," he said, "don't forget you're a detective. Guys you meet in line of business ain't never to be trifled with. Maybe I'm too young to be handing out advice." The scar on his cheek grew livid with his blush.

  She patted his arm. "That's quite all right, grandpa. I'm used to it. The police department's been giving me advice for years. It goes with the uniform and the feet. To the boys in blue, I'm just a helpless little woman. Where are we going? Know where Rorke lives?"

  "Sure I know. East Sixty-seventh Street."

  "How do you know?"

  "I saw it in the paper once. I got fly paper in my dome. If I see something once, it sticks. Old Tanglefoot Reese, the boys call me. Lady," he said, expanding his chest and slapping it, "you're riding with a detective!"

The before noon strollers past the Sixty-seventh Street apartment building in which Saxon Rorke resided wore top hats, morning coats and Pekinese on leash. Packards, Cadillacs, a Rolls Royce or two, all with double or triple digits on their license plates, lined the curbs.

  "That one." Detective Reese indicated a sumptuous, shimmering black Cadillac, big as a bus. "His. Special body. Beaut. See the number. Big shot. State Police tip their hats to that number. Give it the go-by at seventy. Flunkies fall all over themselves at the race tracks."

  Liveried attendants in the foyer, superciliously inquisitive, examined their shields before they directed the two detectives to the private elevator to Mr. Rorke's penthouse.

  A dignified, skinny, middle-aged Chinese, white-coated, owlish in hornrimmed spectacles, opened the door for them. The butler's amber tint blended with the canary-flecked, pearl gray wallpaper of the foyer, the gray furniture, pale yellow lamps and silver framed water colors.

  "Get a load," Detective Reese whispered behind his hand to Miss Carner. "It's the nuts. The man lives right."

  "Step in, please," the butler said in unaccented English. "Are you newspaper people, also?"

  Detective Reese answered: "Sure."

  "May I have your names, please?"

  "Miss Carner. Mister Reese. Which way?"

  "One moment, please. I must announce you."

  "Don't bother. This ain't a social call."

  "I regret. I have my instructions. Kindly wait here." The butler's manner was firm.

  But Johnny Reese, unabashed, took Mary's arm, steered her down the corridor.

  At the bottom of a short flight of steps, under a nimbus of cigarette smoke, the boys and girls of the press sprawled on low sofas and armchairs, in a huge and handsome living room, through whose tall casement windows the clipped boxwood of a terrace garden was visible. There were highballs in their hands and on the little tables in front of them. There was admiration in their eyes.

  The admiration was bent on a magnificent male who stood before a huge fireplace of austere gray stone. From chin to toe, the man was robed in red lounging pajamas, brocaded robe. His abdomen bulged slightly above the cord of the robe. The man's face was florid, jowls a trifle heavy, but closely shaved and powdered. His elbow rested on the mantel. A cigar made graceful spirals around his sleek head. Two dogs, a tousled black cocker spaniel and a white wire-haired terrier, tugged at the crimson rope of his sandals.

  "Some more of the same, Li?" The man's voice was jovial.

  "Miss Carner. Mister Reese." Li bowed, stood aside to let them enter.

  The reporters waved familiarly to them. One or two grimaced.

  "They did not choose to wait to be announced," Li said. His face was impassive, but his eyes made his disapproval plain.

  Saxon Rorke frowned mildly. "Li has his orders."

  "This pair takes orders only from God and the Commissioner," a reporter grumbled.

  "He's a rather remarkable Chinese, isn't he?" Miss Carner said. "His English is extraordinary."

  Saxon Rorke smiled. "It should be. He learned it at Oxford."

  "And he's a butler?"

  "Why not? An honorable profession. Well paid. Li will tell you that."

  "He's one educated Chinaman that didn't go back to save China."

  "No." Saxon Rorke smiled again. "Li thinks China has saviors enough." He turned from Mary to Johnny Reese. "What's your paper?"

  "None. Headquarters."

  Saxon Rorke's eyebrows went up. "I have a number of good friends at headquarters," he said.

  "I know," said Johnny Reese.

  "You can assure them of my full co-operation." He kicked the dogs gently away from his toes. He held a chair for Miss Carner. "Do make yourself comfortable. A highball? Scotch or rye?"

  Johnny Reese scowled at Mary Carner as she said "Rye, please."

  "None for me," Johnny said.

  "Cigarette?" Rorke held an open box of half a dozen brands before her. She selected her favorite. He struck the match. The cocker looked at her inquisitively. She bent down to stroke his head, and he rolled over in convulsions of joy, his tail beating the floor ecstatically.