“Oh sure, I guess so. I can’t remember him sayin’ anything particular about ’em, but we all got letters you know except a few mugs, maybe, that didn’t have no folks. Funny, though, now that you mention it, I remember Ealing always used to be interested in other folks letters. Not what they said, you know, but on account of the stamps. He was kind of a nut that way. He had a stamp collection. Can you imagine that—collectin’ stamps in the middle of a war!”
‘Mr. Smith’ of the Times lounged over the counter and helped himself to a pretzel from an open canister, and Mr. Heffenbaugh continued.
“Seems he’d always been crazy about stamps, ever since he was a kid. Knew a lot about ’em too. It was real interestin’ sometimes to hear him talk about ’em. Sometimes when there wasn’t nothin’ else to do we’d set around and he’d tell about some of the famous stamps, some of ’em that cost twenty years pay, like this now British—”
Mr. Heffenbaugh broke off suddenly, a strange expression on his face. “Say, now, come to think of it, ain’t that funny?”
“What’s funny?” ‘Mr. Smith’ of the Times inquired.
“Why, about this murder of his mother and it being connected up with that Crossley case with all those high-priced stamps stolen. I remember Ealing tellin’ us about the British Guiana one cent one night when we was behind the lines just a little before we went up to the front at Samonux. Funny, ain’t it?”
Mr. Heffenbaugh was thoughtful, struck by the strangeness of coincidence. ‘Mr. Smith’ of the Times drew out his wallet and extracted a piece clipped from a newspaper.
“Does this by any chance look anything like David Ealing?” he asked as he shoved it across the counter. Mr. Heffenbaugh peered at it.
“Why sure, that’s him all right. Where’d you get it?”
But ‘Mr. Smith’ of the Times was singularly uncommunicative. A few minutes later as he turned into Amsterdam Avenue he hailed a taxi.
“The Public Library at Forty-second and Fifth,” he told the driver.
CHAPTER XX - ‘Missing in Action’
ON THURSDAY EVENING for the second time within twenty-four hours Koenig dined with Spike in the town apartment. He had come immediately at Spike’s telephone invitation.
“Did you find her—do you know—is she—”
The anxious questions rushed out as soon as he crossed the threshold. There was a pathetic, pleading eagerness in his eyes for news, for reassurance.
Spike shook his head. “No, I didn’t find her. I didn’t promise that, you know I just said I had an idea.”
“Oh—” Koenig sank into a chair. His disappointment was tragic. His face usually so round and rosy was strained and drawn with anxiety, and it was obvious that he had not slept the night before. Spike brought him a stiff drink and presently he pulled himself together. But at dinner he ate little and talked less. In the keenness of his disappointment at no news of Linda he sought refuge in silence. After dinner they smoked their cigars and Spike reverted once more to the subject that lay so heavily upon them both.
“You know, Koenig,” he began, “I said I had an idea.”
Koenig nodded but indifferently. In his present state the nebulousness of ideas did not appeal to him. He wanted positive reassurance. Spike went on undaunted by his indifference.
“I may have forgotten to tell you, but the other day when I was up at Maysie Ealing’s I saw a photograph that interested me. It interested me a lot. Probably because at first it piqued and puzzled me. Then I remembered when I had seen that face before.”
Spike paused and drew his wallet from an inside pocket. He opened it and extracted a newspaper clipping and handed it over to Koenig. It was a half tone reproduction of a photograph—a young man, and the eyes that looked out of the picture were the same as those that had looked out of that silver frame in the Ealing apartment. There was a caption beneath. “Will anyone knowing whereabouts of fourteen-year-old boy resembling this photograph communicate with Box 71, Saugus Index.”
Koenig looked at the picture, read the caption and handed it back.
“That photograph,” Spike went on, “appeared in the West Saugus Weekly Index of the issue that came out the day before Prentice Crossley was killed.”
“But what does it mean? Who is Box 71?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out. I’m going out to Saugus tomorrow and find out who inserted that photograph in the paper because I have an idea that the information may be interesting. Somehow or other I have a feeling that it will mean something. That picture appears in the paper with that very strange caption. Prentice Crossley is murdered the day after. Soon after that Mrs. Deborah Ealing is murdered and in the same manner.
“And on the wall of the Ealing apartment is a picture of this same fellow. It’s David Ealing, her son, ‘missing in action.’ I know that because there was a bit of engraving underneath the frame—his name and division, 116th Infantry, and ‘missing in action’ October 1918, Samogneux. I had a hunch.” Spike paused and lit a cigarette and then continued. “This morning I went down to the Legion organization of the 116th Infantry and I ran into luck. The secretary there knew a fellow who knew young Ealing well, years ago in France. A fellow by the name of Heffenbaugh, runs a delicatessen now up on Sixty-seventh Street, near Amsterdam.” Briefly Spike related his conversation with Heffenbaugh. Koenig became interested but he was puzzled.
“But what,” he insisted, “has this got to do with—with Linda’s disappearance?”
“I think you’re forgetting, Koenig,” Spike replied, and there was an edge of disapproving severity to his tone, “you’re forgetting in your anxiety for Linda that there have been two murders committed.”
“No, no,” Koenig protested wearily. “I am not forgetting that. I can not. I wish I could. But what has it got to do with—with anything, this delicatessen store keeper knowing a man who has been dead for years?”
“I dunno—for sure,” Spike confessed, “but after I got through talking to Heffenbaugh I went down to the Public Library and started looking up books about equipment used in the World War. It was a hellish job, because a lot of it—at least a lot that I wanted—was in German and I can’t read German. I had to get a woman in the foreign language department to do some translating for me. But I found out something very interesting.”
He paused and smiled slightly, tantalizing, as one who knows something but is taking his time about telling.
“Yes, yes, what was it?” Koenig was a bit impatient of histrionics.
“You know the murder weapon in both cases, the triangular bladed bayonet with the serrated edges?”
Koenig nodded.
“Well, that was the peculiar type of bayonet used by a certain German division which was in a sector of the Franco-German line near Samogneux in the fall of 1918. And it was at Samogneux where the action took place that Heffenbaugh was telling me about today. Samogneux is where David Ealing was reported ‘missing in action.’ ”
“But I don’t quite see how it hitches up,” Koenig protested.
“Neither do I,” Spike agreed, “unless…” He left the sentence hanging in air as he gathered himself together from the low chair in which he had been sprawling and began pacing up and down the room, his face thoughtful.
“ ‘Missing in action,’ ” he repeated half to himself as if he had no audience and was only thinking aloud. Koenig lit a cigar and puffed at it in a desultory manner. The telephone rang. Spike picked it up, said, “Hello!” in a preoccupied fashion in the general direction of the receiver.
And then quickly his hand on the instrument clutched tighter in sudden tension.
“Who?… Yes, yes… What?… When?…” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Koenig. “It’s Maysie Ealing. She says…” He jerked back to attention to the voice that was coming over the wire. He listened. “Yes, but that won’t be necessary. He’s right here now… Yes, here with me… Yes, right away.”
Spike banged the receiver into the cradle an
d turned to Koenig. “Get your hat,” he told him and his voice was edged with excitement. “Go up to Maysie Ealing’s right away. It’s 143 West 110th St. She says Linda Crossley just turned up there at her apartment. Linda wants you to come up there, right away.”
CHAPTER XXI - Clem Yoder, Memory Marvel
FOR A LONG time that night after Koenig had left, Spike paced the apartment, up and down, up and down. Once he pulled from his pocket the newspaper dipping that he had showed Koenig earlier in the evening. “Missing in action!” He repeated the words half aloud. Once the telephone rang and he jumped convulsively as one whose nerves are tensed, edgy. It was only a town acquaintance trying to book him for a squash game at the Racquet Club.
“Sorry,” he said curtly, impatient of the intrusion. “I won’t be in town tomorrow,” and he slammed the instrument back into place. He waited for it to ring again, but it was silent. He hovered about it, picked up the receiver, started to call a number. Then he put it back in place. Finally when it was very late he went to bed.
In the morning he was heavy-eyed, weary, and he rose just as the first milk wagons clattered down 102nd St. in the early dawn. He dressed and had breakfast in a corner coffee pot on Third Avenue in company with two night watchmen just off duty. He took his car from the garage and headed it toward the Queensboro Bridge to Long Island.
At nine o’clock he was waiting in front of the office of the Saugus Weekly Index when Clem Yoder arrived. Mr. Yoder combined in his person the offices of editor, reportorial staff, typesetter, proof reader and business manager. He was a grizzled little fellow whose acquaintance with local and private history was boundless, and it took Spike all of half an hour, thanks to these garrulous proclivities, to find out what ordinarily would have required ten minutes.
“Well, now, lemme see,” Mr. Yoder peered at the clipping which Spike tendered. “Yes, sir, that’s from the Index all right. I recollect the picture, sure enough. Always did have a great memory for faces. Reminds me of the time me and my wife was on a visit to her folks up in Vermont, and I met a fellah on the train that says…”
Spike let him ramble on for a few minutes and then brought the conversation back gently to the subject in hand.
“Oh yes, this photo here,” said Mr. Yoder, reminding himself of the business in hand. “Well, that was brought in here, oh two, three weeks ago, maybe three, four.”
“By whom, do you know?”
“Certainly. I got to keep track of that so’s if any letters come addressed to Box 71,1 can always send ’em on.”
“Have any come for that box number?”
“No, as a matter of fact, they ain’t. But you never can tell. I remember once a fellah had me insert a notice. Let’s see, it was in June, 1922, and he didn’t get no answer. But three years later it seems another fellah saw it in a pile of old papers and he…”
Again Spike laid a firm hand on the conversation. “But this person who brought it in. Who was it? What name did they give?”
“Well, now, of course, Mr. Tracy, I couldn’t tell you that. That’s confidential like. To tell the truth I don’t recollect it myself. I ain’t so good on names as I am on faces. Of course I’ve got it wrote down here…”
Mr. Yoder delved into the old fashioned roll top desk from which he conducted his business affairs, and from one of its pigeon holes, he drew forth a packet of dusty index cards with a rubber band around them.
“Lemme see, now. Box sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one. Here it is.” He drew the card out and held it up to the light the better to decipher his own scraggled writing. He adjusted his glasses, peered closer.
And then suddenly something happened to his face. The lower jaw dropped and the eyes popped. He looked up gaping into Spike’s face.
“Lordamighty!” he said.
Spike attempted to take advantage of him while he was still overcome with amazement.
“And the name was—”
Mr. Yoder looked up. His jaw was back in place but his eyes were still a bit poppy. “I couldn’t tell you, really, Mr. Tracy, but I think I’d better be tellin’ the police.”
“Of course,” Spike agreed amiably, “but that’s why I’m here. My brother, you know,” and he nodded in the general easterly direction of the district attorney’s country home a mile or so from town. “I’m helping the police on this case,” he said blandly. “My brother sent me out to get this information.”
Mr. Yoder hesitated, eyed Spike suspiciously, but there was something in the easy assurance, the candid gaze that made it impossible to doubt that his words were as honest as statements sworn before a notary.
“Well,” said Mr. Yoder capitulating at last, “it’s a name that’s been in the paper a lot. It sure did give me a turn when I picked out this card. I recollect now her bringin’ it in,” and he read aloud the name and address on the card.
On the way back to the city Spike stopped off at a pay station on the outskirts of Queens and put in a call to Koenig’s combination shop and apartment, but there was no answer. His brow was clouded as he made his way out to the curb and got into his car.
It was at Third Avenue and Sixty-fourth Street while he waited for a green light that the headlines from a sidewalk news stand caught his eye. He took one long distance glance at their glaring blackness and motioned the newsdealer to the curb. He shoved a dime into his hand and grabbed a paper.
THIRD VICTIM IN STAMP MURDER
—————
Kurt Koenig in Critical Condition in Cutter Hospital After Attack by Unknown Assailant
CHAPTER XXII - The Killer Strikes Again (S’Death!)
THE PEOPLE at the hospital were irritating.
“Mr. Koenig?” The girl at the information desk which barred Spike’s way to the inner regions of the institution did not sound encouraging as she consulted a card index file.
“Oh, you mean 247,” she said as she pulled a card half way out of the file. “The man they had all that about in the papers.” She was obviously surprised by the oddity of referring to a man by his name rather than his room number. She plugged in on the switchboard at her elbow.
“Gentleman to see 247.”
She listened for a few minutes, then pulled out the plug and turned back to Spike. “No visitors for 247.”
“I know, but—”
“No visitors!”
“May I see the doctor?”
“He’s with the patient now. If you’d like to wait…” She indicated a small anteroom at the left.
Spike paced nervously up and down the anteroom. He looked anxiously at his watch. He flung himself into a chair and drew from his pocket the paper that he had snatched from the news dealer at Sixty-fourth Street. He had had time to read only the headlines. Now he unfolded it, spread it out before him.
“Kurt Koenig, stamp dealer who negotiated stamp purchases and sales for Prentice Crossley, murdered June 4, was seriously wounded by an unknown assailant as he was walking through Central Park late last night. He is in Cutter Hospital with a bullet wound through his left shoulder.
“He was discovered unconscious from loss of blood in the path that leads through the Park from 106th Street on the east to Lenox and St. Nicholas Avenues on the north, by Patrolman J. F. Duffy. The assault occurred just south of the lake where the path is closely hedged by dense shrubbery. It is believed that the assailant was hiding in these bushes, as the bullet was fired at close range.
“After Koenig was taken to the hospital it was found that his watch, an old fashioned closed face model, contained one of the valuable stamps reported missing two weeks ago from the collection of the late Prentice Crossley. It is the 13-cent Hawaiian issue of 1851-52, more popularly known as a ‘missionary’ and valued at $17,500. This is the second of the missing Crossley stamps that have been recovered. The first, a six-real Spanish stamp worth $12,500, was found in the hand of Mrs. Deborah Ealing, the second stamp murder victim.
“At Police Headquarters fingerprint experts found that all traces of finger
prints had been removed from both case and crystal of the watch. The only prints found on it were those of Patrolman James F. Smith, who went through Koenig’s clothes soon after he was brought to the hospital.
“At an early hour this morning Koenig…”
Spike lowered the paper and stared hard at the white wall in front of him. His face was expressionless, but there was a strange set to his jaw. He did not finish the newspaper story. When the doctor came to the door, he was still staring at the wall… thinking…
The doctor was almost as irritating as the reception clerk. “I’m sorry,” he said with heartless politeness, “but he can have no visitors.”
“But—” Spike spluttered impotently.
The doctor turned to the reception clerk at the switchboard. “Get in touch with a Mr. Philip Tracy and ask him to come to the hospital. He’s in the telephone book. The patient in 247 wants to see him. Tell him…”
The nurse who finally conducted Spike to Koenig’s room was irritating too.
“He has lost a lot of blood,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone as if she were remarking that he’d lost his collar button, “but he’ll be all right.”
“The newspapers said he was in a ‘critical condition.’ ”
“Yes, I know. They always do. Anything worse than the hives is a ‘critical condition.’ Sounds better.”
“How—how did it happen?”
“Police rang in about 12:30 last night from a box on the Avenue and we sent the ambulance over. He was unconscious and he had bled freely, but the bullet went through his shoulder. The guy evidently aimed for his heart and missed. Didn’t hit any of the vital parts. He’ll be all right if they’ll leave him alone.”
“They?”
“Police and the district attorney. You know— about that Crossley murder. They think the same person did this. They’ve been up here talking to him all morning.”
A Most Immoral Murder Page 11