CHAPTER XXIV — AN IDENTIFICATION THAT WENT WRONG
IT WAS nearly noon the next day when Blake received a telephone call from the District Attorney to bring Erskin to his office. Lieutenant Brewster had come in voluntarily, explaining that he had been out of town and had just learned that Mr. Brixton wanted to see him. Blake telephoned Chester Garman to report at once at Mr. Brixton’s office, got Robert Erskin at his hotel and took a taxi downtown.
Mr. Brixton placed Blake and Erskin in a room opening off his outer office so they might observe Brewster without themselves being seen.
“That’s the man!” exclaimed Erskin as Brewster passed the door. “Same walk, same shoulders. I didn’t get a full look at his face, but the side view is enough.”
Blake then went into Mr. Brixton’s office, leaving Erskin outside until the District Attorney was ready to confront him with Brewster.
“You know Mr. Blake,” said Brixton to the aviator who sat directly across the desk. Brewster gave the press agent one keen look and nodded affably.
“Have you learned anything since you were last here,” said the District Attorney to Lieutenant Brewster, “to lead you to suspect anyone as the murderer of the Japanese valet?”
“Nothing at all. It may have been the work of some fellow countryman of his. I know nothing about his personal relationships.”
“He was your orderly in France you told me.”
“That’s right.”
“You did not mention, however, that your wife was in France as a ‘Y’ entertainer.”
“There was no occasion to mention that fact. It had nothing to do with the death of poor Kentaro.”
“Her stage name was Dorothy Dineen?”
“Yes.”
“While in France she met Chadwick Morne, fell in love with him and followed him, or was brought back by him, to this country?”
“She met him, certainly. She wrote me that he had offered her a place as the leading woman of his new play in New York. She added that she had accepted his offer. She may have been in love with him; she did not mention the state of her feelings towards him. She believed that she had great histrionic gifts and that her big chance had come.”
“Did you share her belief in her acting ability?”
“She would never have been more than a second-rate actress.”
“Did you approve of her decision to accept Morne’s offer?”
“No, because I knew she was in for a tragic disillusionment. She did not ask for my advice or approval. She simply told me what she was going to do. Her heart was set on a stage career.”
“She was a beautiful woman,” said Brixton, “judging from her portrait.”
“Singularly beautiful,” agreed Brewster.
“You met Chadwick Morne in France?”
“No. I was on duty at the front.”
“You hated him for having taken your wife from you?”
“No. Why should I? She was wrapped up in a stage career; nothing else would satisfy her. This was a chance for her to discover for herself that her gifts were not equal to the demands that would be made upon her as the leading woman for a popular New York actor. If it hadn’t been Mr. Morne it would have been some other actor.”
“Then why did you break into the Mornes’ apartment and cut out from his theatre record book the newspaper account of your wife’s suicide?”
Mr. Brixton had suddenly changed from the suave, believing questioner to a stern and skeptical inquisitor. Blake could not be sure whether the amazement expressed on Brewster’s face was genuine or assumed, it was so instantaneous in response. He simply stared at the District Attorney as though too amazed to speak at once.
“I do not even know where the Mornes lived. How could I know there was a clipping about my wife’s suicide in Morne’s book of clippings?”
“Who else would have been sufficiently concerned to have removed it?”
“Perhaps Morne himself—”
“Mr. Kemerson saw the clipping several days after Morne’s murder. Night before last it had disappeared.”
“Perhaps someone who was jealous of Morne—”
“As you were!” interjected Mr. Brixton.
“...as his wife, from all I’ve read since his death had cause to be, removed it, hoping to destroy evidence of a motive for wishing him out of the way.”
“What were you doing, the morning after Morne’s murder, near Binghamton with the gas in your airplane so nearly exhausted that you had to land in a public road and get a fresh supply?”
“The explanation is simple enough, Mr. Brixton. I make my living by visiting the various air shows, carnivals, county fairs, taking passengers up for a ride at five dollars each. Sometimes I perform stunts with my ship. I was en route from Hartford to Buffalo and wanted to get an early start. I was delayed in getting to the hangar and, judging that I had enough gasoline to get me to Buffalo, did not wait to have my tank replenished. By the time I was in the vicinity of Binghamton I found my gas so nearly exhausted that I did not dare try to reach a landing field. I saw a gas station beside a wide, paved road, free of traffic, on which I could land. My plane is a small one.”
“You jostled away the filling station agent when he attempted to get a look at your license.”
“Naturally. I do not like to have curious busybodies monkeying about the cockpit of my plane.”
“Why did you conceal your identity from the man?”
“My name would have meant nothing to him. And it was no business of his.”
“What color is your airplane?” asked Blake.
There was just the fraction of a second too long a pause before the answer, “Red,” was forthcoming. “The plane was blue that landed in the road.”
“I’ve since had it repainted. Red is much easier to> see up in the blue of the sky. It touches the imagination of spectators more keenly.”
Mr. Brixton now summoned an attendant and asked that Erskin be shown in. Brewster nodded familiarly to him as he entered.
“We never expected our next meeting might be in the office of the District Attorney of New York County,” he observed, smiling.
“At any rate I never did,” replied Erskin, no answering smile on his face.
“You recognize Lieutenant Brewster as the pilot of the dark blue plane that landed in front of your gas station?” asked Mr. Brixton.
“Most certainly.”
“Where did the Lieutenant tell you he had flown from?”
“From Baltimore, and that he was flying to Albany.”
“Now, Lieutenant, that is at variance with the statement you made a few moments ago that you were en route from Hartford to Buffalo.”
“I told you the truth, Mr. Brixton. When this man asked me where I had flown from and where bound, I uttered the first names of towns that came into my head. It was none of his business where I had come from or was going. His curiosity annoyed me—”
“Why annoying?” interrupted the District Attorney. “A very natural curiosity in the circumstances.”
“I mind my own business and like to have others mind theirs.”
Mr. Brixton’s secretary entered and handed a slip of paper to Blake. On it was scribbled the name of Chester Garman. Blake wrote an explanatory line underneath the name and passed the paper to Mr. Brixton who read it carefully and then said: “Show him in.”
Blake kept his gaze fixed on Brewster’s face as the real estate agent entered. Perhaps, he thought later, the very intentness of his look had warned the aviator who never even glanced at Garman, but instead walked to a window and looked out, like one who does not wish to appear to be listening to a private conversation.
“Mr. Garman,” said the District Attorney, “do you recognize, in this room, the man who called himself Howard Easter?”
Garman looked at Blake with a timid, self-conscious smile; then at Erskin, and finally his eyes came to rest on the back of Lieutenant Brewster. The latter conveniently turned so that his face was in profile.
“Yes, sir. That is Mr. Easter.” Garman pointed to Brewster. “He is the man who borrowed the key to the vacant—”
The real estate agent never completed that sentence, for the aviator turned and shot at him a glance that seemed to dry up his powers of speech. He stood, his mouth partly open, like, thought Blake, a bird fascinated by a snake.
“I am Lieutenant Marshall Brewster,” said the aviator, standing militarily erect. “I have never seen this fellow before in my life. I could never forget such a craven figure of a man.”
He walked quickly towards Garman and for a moment his face was hidden from both Blake and the District Attorney. They could but guess at the look which Brewster had given the realtor from the latter’s face which had gone a sickly gray and became devoid of expression.
“Take a good look at me,” commanded Brewster. “Be sure you are right before you identify me as Howard Easter. There is such a thing as mistaken identity. Have you ever seen me before?”
Mr. Brixton sprang to his feet, a flush of anger on his cheeks.
“I will do the questioning here, Lieutenant Brewster. This is the District Attorney’s office, not a military tribunal.”
After a moment Brewster withdrew his fixed stare into Erskin’s face, and turned to Mr. Brixton with a harsh laugh.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Brixton, but you are trying to place a net about me, and I was merely exercising my right to defend myself. This man should be sure of his ground before he deliberately helps you place a noose about my neck.”
“New York uses the electric chair,” said Blake, softly.
“Merely a figure of speech,” said Brewster, airily, and returned to the window and resumed his attitude of leisurely examination of the city’s tall buildings. He addressed Brixton without turning towards him. “After you get through questioning this man, Mr. Brixton, I claim the right to ask him a few questions.”
“You will have plenty of opportunity for that, Lieutenant,” said the District Attorney, dryly, and turned to the real estate agent. “Mr. Garman, you identified this man as Howard Easter?”
“I...I think I was too hasty,” said Garman. “The figure is about the same. From the side view I could have sworn—But the full face...It is quite different...I can’t be...” Brewster turned full towards Garman who stared at him as though fascinated. “No,” he said, after a moment, and there was conviction in his voice, “this is not Howard Easter, the man who borrowed the key from me.”
The blaze of triumph in Brewster’s eyes, quickly extinguished, sent Blake’s pulse bounding upward with excitement.
CHAPTER XXV — A CALL ON ARTHUR LAYMAN
TWO days passed without further developments in the parachute murder case. No trace of Kemerson had been uncovered. Blake was nonplussed, his own amateur investigation at a complete standstill. He spent hours pacing his hotel room trying to disentangle the various threads of the mystery. He reviewed the evidence he had learned with Kemerson, and the further information with which the actor had supplied him. As he was going over the interview with Richard Chase, the pilot of the Silver Lark, he recalled that John Carter, one of the plane’s passengers on the fatal night, had not been heard from. He seemed to have passed out of human knowledge without having given any account of what he might have seen or overheard on the airplane. Blake determined to call on Arthur Layman at his home in Bayside, L. I., found his telephone number and put in a call. He told Layman quite frankly the situation he was up against and asked if he might come out. Permission was readily granted.
Arrived at the Bayside station, Blake took a taxi and had been driven but five or six blocks when it stopped before a gray, shingled cottage surrounded by a neatly clipped hedge. Layman took his guest into the living room and poured highballs. He explained that he had rented the cottage for a summer and had lived in it for more than a year. He was quite willing to talk, but could tell little that Kemerson and Blake had not already learned from Miss Vane and the pilot of the Silver Lark. He had been curious about Chadwick Morne and observed him rather closely, after having heard someone in the plane mention his name. He had read and heard things about Morne that piqued his interest, although he had never seen him upon the stage.
“One always wonders what there is about a man that makes women run after him,” Layman observed, swallowing the last of his highball. “We are all envious of such a man, I suppose, and take pleasure in running him down. Well, Morne lived up to his reputation, in appearance at least. Tall, thin, with striking features—aesthetic, I presume a woman would call them—large and very expressive eyes, lithe as a cat in his movements—yes, I can understand a woman’s being fascinated by him. But I can’t understand why I was all but fascinated by him myself. I didn’t dislike him because the women are crazy about him. The news of his death came with a distinct sense of shock to me—not just the shock of murder; more of a sense of something rare being wantonly smashed.”
“He knew how to play up his personality for all it was worth,” said Blake. “The archangel Michael on the surface, but with the heart of Lucifer inside.”
“Yes, that’s just it,” said Layman. “He was anything but pleased when the Italian night club owner came aboard the Silver Lark.” He rambled on for some time, going over what Blake already knew. Layman had observed that Morne and Vanuzzi were quarreling, but seemed to have made up before Layman dozed off. “The Italian seemed to develop a case on Miss Vane. He could hardly tear his eyes away from her. They gleamed with desire. I wanted to smash his face in. And yet, of the two men, I imagine Morne was the more wicked and dangerous.”
Blake heard little of the rest of Layman’s narrative. The kidnapping of Miss Vane had come to him in a new light. Perhaps it had no connection at all with the murder of Morne; Vanuzzi might have resorted to abduction in order to get Miss Vane in his clutches, knowing that that was the only way in which he could ever hope to get her.
Remembering the reason for his call on Layman, Blake asked:
“Do you know anything about the sixth passenger on the Silver Lark—John Carter? He has never come forward with his account of the happenings on the plane.”
“Nothing whatever,” replied Layman. “I had never seen him before. He was a very quiet, retiring man. As far as I know he spoke to no one on the plane except the pilot when the latter questioned him. He said he was tired from his flight from Montreal to New York just before boarding the Silver Lark and had slept most of the evening. He had observed nothing unusual on the flight until awakened by Vanuzzi’s shout of a man overboard.”
“Where did he leave the plane?”
“At Chicago, where I got off. I heard him asking an attendant at the airport where he would find the Dallas plane.”
“Don’t you think it queer, not to call it suspicious, that he has never made any kind of a statement about what happened on the Silver Lark? The papers of the country have been full of it.”
“If he is on a Texas ranch, or in Mexico, he may not have read anything about the murder.”
“Did he speak to Morne at all on the trip?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Did he appear to avoid Morne purposely?”
“No more than he avoided everyone else, I should say. He went to sleep before we had flown over the Susquehanna. Of course, it’s possible that he was playing ‘possum—pretending to be asleep. But, no, I think Vanuzzi murdered Morne.”
“How did it happen that you were the one who discovered Morne’s absence from the plane?”
A steely look appeared in Layman’s eyes at the question, yet he answered pleasantly enough. “As I told Mr. Kemerson and the District Attorney, I had seen them in angry talk, and had heard enough, over the humming of the motors, to know that the Italian was threatening Morne. I awakened from a doze and saw that Morne was not in his seat. When he did not return, after ten minutes or so, I went back to the lavatory, thinking he might be—well, drunk. He was not in the lavatory, and I stumbled over his opened bag near his seat. I bec
ame suspicious. I awakened the Italian intending to ask him about his quarrel with Morne, but Vanuzzi gave the alarm before I had a chance to ask him a single question. Afterwards, that seemed to me in itself a sign of guilt.”
They talked desultorily about the case for a time, discussing the disappearance of Kemerson. Layman sympathized with Blake’s expressed purpose of never giving up the search, if Kemerson had been murdered, until his murderer had been brought to justice. Again he congratulated the press agent upon having traced Miss Vane to her place of imprisonment.
“She is a remarkably fine girl,” said Layman. “High-spirited and courageous—utterly fearless.” After a moment he added as though by after-thought: “Or so she appeared to me at the time of her rescue.”
“She has promised to marry me,” said Blake. He had not intended to utter those words, but something of admiration, or perhaps a much stronger sentiment, in Layman’s voice had aroused a slumbering spark of jealousy in Blake’s nature and he had blurted out the fact of his engagement.
Layman said nothing for a time—just looked at the press agent. It seemed to Blake that his host was too stunned to speak, that the destruction of any hopes he had been entertaining had frozen his powers of speech momentarily.
“You are to be congratulated on winning...so fine a girl,” he said after a time, but did not offer his hand.
There seemed to be nothing further for them to talk about, and Blake, anxious to escape the iciness of his host’s demeanor, asked the direction to the station, adding:
“It’s such a short distance, I think I’ll walk.”
“Go three blocks south and then take the path to your left through two vacant blocks.”
“Thanks,” said Blake, and took his leave. The door was shut quietly behind him, almost before he had got outside the house.
The Parachute Murder Page 21