The visitor took a long time to climb the stairs; he waited, standing just inside the door, listened with relief to the sound of footsteps, opened the door as soon as the bell rang.
Abigail Tanner stood there, looking at him almost without surprise—as if anything could happen in the dream world she inhabited now. Her face was pale and swollen, not made up at all. She was wearing a plain black dress, thin black stockings, white gloves, and a little black hat with a veil.
He said: “Come in, Mrs. Tanner. Miss Bransome isn’t in. Can I do something for you?”
She asked in a halting, roughened voice: “What are you doing here?”
“I came to look at your sister’s gift cards. Didn’t you?”
He stood aside, and she went past him into the studio. But he was close behind her when she put out her hand to the black valentine; his own closed over hers.
“You know I can’t let you have that, Mrs. Tanner.”
She drew her hand away. He picked up the valentine and opened it. “Will you read it? Not very good verse, but her style was cramped by the restrictions of the form.”
Will you be my valentine?
Always constant, always mine?
You to me as I to you,
Never wandering
Ever true.
Mrs. Tanner stood staring at the lines.
“No name on it, you see,” said Gamadge. “That’s all there is.”
She burst out crying. “I wanted to tear it up.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“That’s all over. He must have met her behind my back. He only laughs. He says they can’t do anything, but they’re following him everywhere. If I only knew how he ever got hold of Richie’s gun! That makes it all so senseless that I feel as if none of it could be true.”
“It was a sporting try of yours.”
She put the handkerchief away that she had been wiping her eyes with. “I never should have known such people. You can’t tell what they’ll do. But I couldn’t believe—until they told me this morning about Jack Osterbridge.”
“You didn’t agree with the suicide theory, then?”
“Jack Osterbridge! It’s despicable to put it all on him. But that’s what they do—turn on their friends. What if Alice did meet Jack in my suite once? She hardly noticed him.”
“You told the police that, I suppose?”
“Yes, I did. I never thought…” She paused, and added wildly: “I know he needs money. Alice must have told him she was expecting Great-aunt Woodworth’s.”
“Bishop’s really a gambler?”
“Of course he is.” She turned away. “I suppose they’ll never believe now that I didn’t know he’d met Alice. Well, she found him out!”
“Mrs. Tanner, if I were you I’d go back to my family. I’d go now.”
“I’m going. Nellie Lynch will send me my clothes. I’m going now. I never want to see the Stanton again.”
“Better not, perhaps.”
“My father and mother will be furious with me; they’ll never forgive me for introducing Jack Osterbridge to Alice; but at least I needn’t be involved myself. That”—she looked at the black valentine—“won’t matter much. Just one more thing.”
She went out into the hall. Gamadge opened the door for her, and stood on the landing until she had gone down the stairs and out of the building; he heard the front door close behind her.
He went back, sat down again, and continued to search through rough sketches and designs for greeting cards. When the doorbell rang again he was prepared for it—his watch said twenty-eight minutes past seven.
He got up, went into the passage, and clicked the switch. Footsteps began to climb the stairs, lumbering.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Position Is Everything
NORDHALL AND SERGEANT Murphy came into the flat very much as Gamadge’s cat Martin would have come into it for the first time—warily, curiously, with an indefinable air of scepticism. Nordhall followed Gamadge into the studio; the sergeant, methodically and as a matter of routine, plodded to and fro looking into rooms and closets, opening and shutting doors.
Nordhall’s eye fell on the scattered gift cards. “Couldn’t wait for your witnesses after all. I don’t think you meant me to put much stock in all that, did you? I mean you didn’t expect to actually find anything.”
“Well, as a matter of fact I did find something.” Gamadge held out the black valentine. “Poetry in it.”
Nordhall looked at him, looked at the bright flowers on the cover, opened the valentine, and ran his eye over the verse. The sergeant came in, and glanced over Nordhall’s shoulder; his expression was one of intelligent interest, his lips formed words. At last he spoke aloud: “Just a valentine. They’re supposed to be a secret, they don’t give any names.”
“Only the addressee’s. Read the first letters downward, Sergeant,” said Gamadge.
“…I’ll be—”
Nordhall said reflectively: “Gives us what we want, I imagine.”
“You couldn’t convict on it.”
“No. Big help, though.”
Gamadge asked: “May I borrow it back?” He took it from Nordhall. “I admit I haven’t found any more acrostics yet.”
“No, I guess that was special.”
“You just missed a caller, Nordhall.”
Nordhall’s head jerked up. Gamadge laughed. “No, Fuller didn’t come; but when the doorbell rang and I had to click that switch I was scared silly. I’m afraid of Mr. Fuller.”
“So you clicked the switch.” Nordhall fixed him with a pale, amused stare.
“Yes, it was too early. It was Abigail Tanner.”
“No! Looking for that?” Nordhall jerked his head at the valentine.
“Yes. You know what I think, Nordhall? I think she commissioned it. I think she got her sister to do it for her; as a kind of joke, I suppose. It would be a quaint thing for Abigail Tanner to send Wayne Bishop.”
“I don’t get that,” said Nordhall.
Gamadge looked down at it. “I wonder what she bought it with? A little party at the Stanton, a glimpse of the gay life?”
“What’s the argument?” insisted Nordhall impatiently.
“Why should she come here, involving herself further in a case she wants to get clear of, to destroy evidence that her sister knew Wayne Bishop? She’s sure he’s Fuller. But if this thing was done for her to send him, she might not know exactly what was in it; her own name might have been worked in somewhere—evidently she hadn’t seen it yet.”
The sergeant observed: “Valentine’s Day is six months off.”
“These things take a long time to do properly—that lettering is a work of art, spaced and all; beautiful script. The picture is beautifully done. She might have wanted to get it off her hands before she tackled Christmas cards, birthday cards.”
“Mrs. Tanner wouldn’t destroy evidence against Bishop?” asked Nordhall. “She was fond of him; they all say so.”
“There’s no proof of it but hearsay, and she isn’t fond of him now. I’ll tell you what I think happened to Mrs. Tanner,” said Gamadge, laying the valentine down on the work-table and lighting a cigarette. “She thought up to yesterday that her sister had simply gone away; and if she thought that, there must have been plenty of reason for her thinking so. But yesterday her sister’s body was found; Alice Dunbar had been murdered and brutally huddled away underground; and the murderer had lived in sight of the grave for a week afterwards. Mrs. Tanner couldn’t help thinking of Bishop; he might have introduced himself to Alice at the Stanton—she thinks he did, ‘behind her back.’ He’s a gambler and needs money. And most of all, he’s an enigma to her; a man so entirely out of her experience that she thinks he might be capable of anything. That’s what attracted her to him, you know—he was the nearest thing to romantic danger that she had ever had a chance to know. Never mind Richfield Tanner’s tough friends—they weren’t a bit like Wayne Bishop.”
“I guess tha
t’s so,” said Nordhall grimly.
“So she thought of him, and she thought of this commissioned valentine. She fought the thing hard; she collapsed fighting it. Today she heard about Osterbridge’s alleged suicide, and she gave up. Bishop had had opportunity, and she felt as we did about the motive for this second murder. What did she think of her valentine then? She must get hold of it. Could she go down in criminal history as the woman who sent Bishop that?”
“So she comes here and finds her name isn’t on it, and that lets her out,” said the sergeant.
“And perhaps it catches the murderer,” said Nordhall, “who hadn’t been doing the right thing by her anyway.”
“So he comes here to get it himself,” said the sergeant.
“Or whatever Alice Dunbar was getting ready for him. I suppose Mrs. Tanner couldn’t help telling him something about it.” Nordhall looked around him. “He ought to be coming along pretty soon, if he’s coming; but did you think he’d be coming alone?”
“He could get in here, Nordhall; they wouldn’t expect him to come here. Or did you say anything?”
“Well, no, I didn’t.”
Gamadge smiled at the sergeant. “Boss doesn’t take me seriously, Sergeant.”
“He does, Mr. Gamadge,” said the sergeant earnestly, “it’s just that he didn’t take these Christmas cards serious.”
Nordhall bit his lip in perplexity. “It makes some kind of sense, I’ll say that. Well, he comes here; I won’t say he might not manage it—steps into the vestibule in the dark, and then you open the door and he’s in. Say he does it. What happens?”
“You couldn’t do a thing to him unless he misbehaved himself, Nordhall.”
“That’s so.”
“Well, I fixed this chair for him here at the end of the table with his back to the passage. If you and the sergeant were in the bathroom, say, it’s only a step from this, and the door opens right—I’d sit in this chair and talk to him.”
“Fine,” said Nordhall with a blank look.
“Just a frank talk,” continued Gamadge. “It might upset him. But before he could do anything about it you’d both be on top of him—wouldn’t you?”
“Well, I hope so. But we might be a little late,” said Nordhall, “and you’re scared of Fuller.”
“We’d be ready for him.”
“What makes you think he’d sit down in the right chair?”
“If he tries to throw me out of mine you can arrest him for assault. I’ll bring charges,” said Gamadge. “And you’ll find he has a gun on him, and that’ll make it even simpler.”
“So at least we have him in the coop, with some explaining to do. It can’t hurt us to try it,” said Nordhall, “and I must say I’d like to hear that frank talk. I’d hate to miss that.”
“Oh, it’s a beauty,” Gamadge assured him.
They looked at each other. “He might be really tough,” said Nordhall. “If he’s Fuller, he’s as tough as they come.”
“Don’t remind me.”
The bell rang; it had its usual first effect on the two policemen, who jerked round in unison. “All the way downstairs,” said Gamadge kindly. “No cause for alarm. Now if you’ll just…”
A few seconds later he was alone in the passage. He clicked the switch. “I’ll put out the light here,” he said, “or at least unscrew the bulb a little. Not a sound out of either of you, now, unless he starts to pull a gun. Have you a good view?”
“Perfect,” said Nordhall. “And don’t give me any more orders.”
Steps mounted the stairs. Gamadge went back into the studio, and waited. When the doorbell rang he walked the few feet necessary, and swung the door open. He stared, and laughed.
“I expected somebody else,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ve spoiled a party, Mr. Dunbar.”
Bruce Dunbar stood with his hat pushed back on his head and a light overcoat on his arm. He stared back, and smiled. “Party?”
“I’ll tell you. Come in.”
Dunbar came into the passage, glancing around him. “I was looking for Miss Bransome—the art teacher, you know. Alice’s art teacher.” He took off his hat and gloves, looked around him again.
“She stepped out.”
“You’re Mr. Gamadge, aren’t you?” Dunbar surveyed him with curiosity and interest. “We met last night.”
“That’s so. And I met your cousin and some other people; I got some notions afterwards, crazy perhaps, but I wondered whether I mightn’t verify them here. I’ll explain.”
Dunbar said: “I got some notions myself. I happened to remember this art teacher—or rather, I was looking back over old newspapers at the Dunbar house, and I came across her. Nobody seems to have bothered much with Miss Bransome. I thought I’d like a little talk with her about my cousin Alice. She might just remember something.” He came farther into the passage, and Gamadge closed the door. “You have the same idea?” he asked, puzzled.
“Yes. I’ll explain if you’ll come into the studio.”
Dunbar followed him through the doorway, laid his coat and hat on the work-table, and sat down with commendable docility in the nearest chair; Gamadge had already pulled out the other one to half-face him.
“So this is where she did her painting,” said Dunbar, his eyes moving from object to object about the room. “Rather nice place, too.”
Gamadge offered him a cigarette. He accepted it absent-mindedly.
“You know, Mr. Dunbar,” said Gamadge, smiling a little, “I think you must be as sceptical of that Osterbridge suicide as the rest of them are.”
Dunbar returned his smile. “Well, they’ve turned me loose. I’m on my way to Washington, I have a translating job on hand for my old chief in Counter-Intelligence, and I’m glad to be able to get back before the weekend. But it doesn’t matter what train I take this evening. I assumed that they—police, I mean—swallowed the Osterbridge suicide whole.”
“They’re chewing on it yet, I think. Otherwise they’d have arrested Bishop. I’ll tell you my notion, Mr. Dunbar. I happened to think of the gift cards Alice Dunbar painted.”
“Gift cards?” Dunbar’s astonishment was as genuine as his start of surprise.
“I couldn’t help wondering whether there were any personal messages or greetings on any of them.”
Dunbar followed his glance, down to the scattered cards on the table. “I’ll be darned! Never thought of them.”
“It was a long shot.” Gamadge pushed the black valentine towards him. “Look at this.”
Dunbar picked it up, looked at the cover, turned it back, and frowned over the verse within. After a minute he raised his eyes, the light of amazement in them. “And I didn’t know she’d ever laid eyes on him! Will this do the trick, should you say?”
“It might get him arrested. It couldn’t convict him.”
“But damn it all, she did cards for me—I think she was doing one—an illuminated Christmas thing. Wait a minute.” He leaned forward and pushed bright squares and oblongs around. “Here, this is it.” He studied it rather gravely, passed it rather sadly to Gamadge. It was a pretty burnished page, unfolded; red and blue flowers, stars, butterflies. A blank space in the middle not much bigger than a postage stamp. “She liked butterflies for all seasons.”
Gamadge said: “Nobody would pay much attention to anything she did for you—a relative.” He laid the card down. “But Bishop!”
“That’s so.” Dunbar sat back, frowning and smoking. “I should say it might do for him.”
“Well, they’d still have a little trouble about it. I don’t see myself how Bishop could possibly get into another character; up at the Woodworth place, I mean. Bishop is himself; after I met him last night in Mrs. Tanner’s room I had a hard time thinking of him in an assumed personality. But that’s just my opinion.”
“I only had a look at him on the stage; it might be mine, if I thought about it,” agreed Dunbar.
“And then he did put himself on the spot, you know; it was rash o
f him to kill Osterbridge in a place that wasn’t freely accessible to anybody but himself. He could have walked home with him and shot him in a dark street. But there’s always the double-bluff, unfortunately.”
“There is. I can see that.”
“And suppose Mrs. Tanner wanted to save him, and was willing to swear on oath that that card had been done for him at her request?”
“My God, would Abigail do that?” He looked deeply distressed. “Hanged if I know what’s got into her since Richie died.”
“And they can’t connect Bishop and the gun.”
“That’s the damnedest puzzle of all.”
“I don’t think so,” said Gamadge. “The puzzle is why Bishop should have killed Alice Dunbar. But I have an answer to it.”
“You have?” Dunbar’s interest was faint.
“If you’ll sit on the party, Mr. Dunbar,” said Gamadge, smiling at him, “I’ll tell you the answer.”
“But what is the party?”
Gamadge put his finger on the black valentine. “Bishop’s no fool. Won’t he think of this—if I did?”
“You mean he’ll come here?” Dunbar straightened in his chair.
“It’s the first chance he’s had since your cousin’s body was found. Miss Bransome has been away. There was a sign that said so on her mailbox. It’s off now.”
“Yes, I thought she was here.”
“He may be followed, but I wouldn’t put it past Bishop to slip in.”
Dunbar was leaning forward, lips parted. “Then we’d know!” He slowly shook his head. “Another long shot, isn’t it?”
“I’ll tell you how long a shot I think it is.” Gamadge pulled Miss Bransome’s pottery bowl towards him and shook off the ash of his cigarette into it. “I asked Miss Bransome to spend the evening with friends, and I sent for police. There’ll be plain-clothes men down below.”
“We’ll get shot first,” said Dunbar, laughing.
“Not if we aren’t in view. We’ll see what he does, though. Pretty soon he’ll have his after-dinner interval—if he’s still leading the band. I suppose he is. He might even be playing piano for them—Mrs. Lynch said he could do anything.”
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