by Leslie Ford
He looked as yellow as saffron and incredibly old and forlorn, standing there nervously, his hat in his hands, his bald egg of a head glistening under the light.
“I’m sorry to bother you this time of night, Mrs. Latham,” he began,
“It’s quite all right,” I said. “Come in, won’t you?”
He followed me into the sitting room and stood in the middle of the floor, moving his hat around in his hands.
“Sit down, Mr. Kalbfus,”I said. “I’ll get you a bottle of beer.”
He shook his head, but I went downstairs to the kitchen to get it anyway. Lilac’s door was closed. I could hear her snoring peacefully, and I didn’t turn on the light, for fear she’d wake and come grumbling out, wanting to know what I was doing in her kitchen. I made my way quietly across to the icebox, started to open it and stopped, my heart suddenly a frozen lump in my throat. There was someone in the area outside the kitchen door. A dark shadow had moved silently across the window toward the recess under the front doorsteps. I could hear something scrape softly across the iron garbage can and stop there.
My first impulse was to streak like a rabbit back up the stairs and call the police. My second and more considered one was to find out who was out there before he got away. I forced myself to open the icebox quietly, not looking toward the window, and get out the bottle of beer. I took a glass out of the cupboard, started toward the stairs, turned and tiptoed over to the door and put the bottle and glass on the drainboard.
If I could get the latch chain down without any noise, I could turn the lock and switch on the light as I opened the door. I was trying to remember whether the screen door was still up or not when I heard a sound on the other side. A milk bottle fell over and rolled on the concrete floor. Then I could hear footsteps, and I ran around to the window.
A man’s legs were visible dashing up the steps. He wore an overcoat with the collar turned up, and his head was down so that I couldn’t see his face; but as he got to the top and turned left, his coat caught on the end of the iron guardrail.
He turned back and jerked it off, his head still down, and then sprinted on. But it was too late. I’d seen the end of his nose and his cheekbone and the side of his jaw.
I stood there for a while quite breathless, my heart not in my throat any more—in fact, not anywhere that I could feel it beating.
I must have stood there a very long time. It was so stupefying, someway. What possible reason had Stanley Woland to be lurking in my areaway at half past eleven at night?
CHAPTER 20
WHEN I WAS ABLE TO THINK COLLECTEDLY, my reaction was just plain anger. I was furious. It was a plain violent uprush of adrenalin. The idea of being afraid of Stanley Woland would never, under any circumstances, have occurred to me. I picked up the bottle and glass and marched upstairs, so mad that I could have burst. That all vanished, however, when I saw poor Mr. Kalbfus sitting gingerly on the edge of the chair by the fire, old and wan and destroyed, with Sheila, her head between his knees, looking up at him as if she’d lost her last friend too.
They both brightened up as I came in.
“They didn’t keep me in jail,” Mr. Kalbfus said.
“I should hope not,” I answered warmly.
I put the glass and the beer on the table by him. He poured it out slowly against the side of the glass.
“I kept trying to tell them, but they don’t believe me,” he said. “So I gave up. Maybe you can tell Colonel Primrose. My father did work for his mother in the old shop.”
That was a little surprising. I’d never thought of Colonel Primrose as having a mother. Sergeant Buck, indeed, had told somebody that the Primrose house on P Street had descended from father to son through seven generations of John Primroses, all officers and all bachelors.
“What won’t they listen to?” I asked.
“About the old fellow. About the money.”
Mr. Kalbfus wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at me anxiously.
“He had it all the time. Nobody paid it to him. He had it in a canvas bag, tied hanging under his arm. I didn’t ever see it; I just saw the bag and the way he was so careful about it. But they won’t believe me. They said somebody would have stolen it. I think he’d been saving it up for something. For a long time.”
I tried hard to readjust my theory about Mrs. Hilyard.
“He never said anything about himself, or where he was from, or anything?” I asked.
Mr. Kalbfus shook his head.
“What about that chair—the one you were doing this morning?”
“The lady came and got it this evening.”
“Was he there when she came?”
Mr. Kalbfus nodded. “That’s the first I really thought he was crazy. When she walked in, he just put down a file he was using and stood looking at her like it was Judgment Day sure enough. I took the chair out to her car for her. I said, ‘I’ve never seen him act like that before.’ She said she didn’t notice anything out of the way, so I didn’t say anything else. Maybe I just imagined it.”
I didn’t say anything.
“It’s too bad,” Mr. Kalbfus went on. “It just takes the heart out of you. I just can’t think about anything, seeing him there. The people in the front called me and told me the police were back there. I thought maybe they figured he didn’t have any right to be there, so I hurried over to tell them he was all right. He was such a nice harmless old fellow. I’d swear he never got that money dishonestly.”
It was after twelve when he left. I bolted the door and went upstairs. I might have been Macbeth, sleep had so effectively deserted me. It was after one when I turned on the light, reached for the phone and dialed Colonel Primrose’s number. I don’t know whether he ever sleeps; he always sounds perfectly wide-awake and the phone never rings but once.
“It’s Grace Latham, colonel,” I said. “I’ve got two things to tell you. Mr. Kalbfus came. He says Magnussen already had that money, and that he looked like Judgment Day sure enough when Mrs. Hilyard came for her chair.”
“What’s the second?” he said. He sounded exactly as if humoring a spoiled but favorite child.
“The second is that I had a nocturnal prowler kicking over my milk bottles in the area.”
I thought that would surprise him, but I could hear him chuckling exasperatingly.
“Dear, dear,” he said. “I gather you recognized Stanley, or you wouldn’t be so grim about it.”
“Did you know about Mr, Kalbfus too?”
“Of course. You didn’t think I’d trust you not to go prowling around and probably getting yourself murdered, did you?”
I couldn’t think of an answer to that.
“Furthermore, I don’t want anything to happen to Digges’ hat.”
“I see, now,” I said.
“He’s here with me, by the way. Lamb’s given us rope enough to last till midnight.”
“What about Ira B. Colton?”
“Magnussen worked for him for about four years. He was laid off six weeks ago when the promethium reserves ran out. Colton says he was a fine mechanic and crazy as bedbug. He’s cut up about it, now he thinks he can get some promethium.”
“Can he?” I was surprised at that.
“He seems to think so. I don’t know why. Now you go to sleep. Don’t be alarmed if you hear anyone. You’re safe.”
“I hope,” I said. “I’d rather have Stanley here than Sergeant Buck, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Well, it’s not. Good night, my dear.”
I was waked up by the phone at ten minutes to eight. I waited for the buzzer to sound, which would indicate that Lilac regarded the call as important enough for me to answer before she brought my breakfast. It did sound, but after so long a time that I knew she’d decided only after grave doubts. And when I answered, I don’t think, on the whole, that I could have been more surprised. It was Stanley himself, and as I knew—all other things apart—that he prided himself on never being up until ten
or eleven, it was obvious that something was gravely wrong.
“Grace, have you seen the papers?” he demanded quickly.
“I just woke up,” I said. “Why?”
“Because I’ve got to see you, or somebody, right away.”
“Then why didn’t you ring the doorbell last night, instead of prowling around the area?” I asked.
The silence at the other end was so lengthy that I thought he’d rung off. But he hadn’t.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
“I haven’t left the house for days.”
“It’s nights I’m talking about, darling,” I said.
He let it go. “I’ve got to see you right away. It’s important. Will you come over? Please, Grace. I can’t go out.”
“All right,” I said. “As soon as I can. Is it all right to bring Colonel Primrose?”
He hesitated. “If you want to. I didn’t know: you were so old-fashioned.”
“Then I’ll bring Diane instead,” I said. I put the phone down before he could answer.
The papers were grim enough, heaven knows, even without the Hilyard case or the murder of the old man named Magnussen. I looked hurriedly down the left-hand column. It was devoted to both of them, as if the connection was already firmly and publicly established. Bowen’s name was mentioned openly for the first time, though only in connection with his discovery of Magnussen’s body.
It was what they called NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN OPM DEATH that startled me.
It was authoritatively disclosed at headquarters late last night that the police are in possession of two articles of clothing presumed to have been worn by a man closely connected with the dead dollar-a-year OPM metal magnate. The police refused to give out his name at this time. He is known to have been questioned several times, and is under surveillance. Stains on the clothing alleged to have been worn by him on the night before the millionaire industrialist’s body was found in the C. & O. Canal have been examined. It was learned today that tests showed the stains to be blood, and that they are what is known in blood analysis as Type 2. Tests also revealed that the blood of the dead promethium king was Type 2.
The hat missing since the police arrived at the death scene on the canal, and alleged to have been thrown away by the daughter of the dead man, has also been recovered.
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. But the most startling item followed:
The police declined to reveal its whereabouts, and refused any comment, other than to confirm a rumor that reporters dug up from a servant of one of the individuals concerned.
I put the paper down.
“Lilac!” I said sharply. “Come here at once.”
She was just starting down the stairs, and she came back, blinking at me in apprehension.
“Yes, Miss Grace.”
“Lilac, did you tell anyone I had a man’s hat in this house?” I demanded.
“You mean that ol’ hat in th’ chest out there in th’ hall under my tablecloth?”
“Yes.”
“ ’Deed, Miss Grace, Ah ain’ tol’ nobody. ’Cept the sergeant. He ain’ nobody. He’s home folks.”
“Did you tell Boston?”
“ ’Deed Ah ain’ tol’ Boston nothin’,” she said belligerently. “He say they askin’ roun’ over there did he see a hat. Ah said, if anybody come roun’ here askin’ for a hat, Ah throw the dishwater in their faces.”
It wouldn’t, I thought, need a very bright reporter to see through that.
“Take the tray,” I said, “and hand me my slippers and robe.”
I got out of bed and put them on and got the key out of my dressing-table drawer. She followed me out into the hall to the chest-on-chest. I unlocked the drawer and picked up the tablecloth.
Bowen’s hat was gone.
I just stood there for a moment. Then I said, “Lilac, what day did Boston tell you about their asking for the hat?”
“Day before yes’day,” she answered. “Tha’s Thursday, ain’ it?”
I went back to my room and dialed Colonel Primrose again. Lilac came back in.
“Miss Grace,” she said, “Ah forgot to tell you. It was th’ sergeant took that hat. He said you might fo’get an’ throw it in the fire. He took it Wednesday night when you was out.”
I could feel the blood seeping up into my face. I put down the phone and drew a long deep breath.
“An’ he say,” Lilac went on, “that when anybody come roun’ askin’ ’bout that hat, Ah was to make pretense it was here, but Ah wasn’ sayin’ it is or it ain’. Now you drink you’ coffee an’ cover up. You’ll freeze to death. Ol’ Jack Fros’ out here this mornin’.”
I think I could have borne all that, difficult as it was, but I wasn’t prepared for the final straw. When I dressed and went downstairs, Sergeant Buck was down in the kitchen, eating breakfast enough to feed the German people for the Nazi duration. And Bowen’s hat was lying on my living-room table.
CHAPTER 21
THERE WERE CARS PARKED ALL ALONG Stanley’s side of Adams Place, so that I had to park quite a ways down the block. I got out and started along, stopped and took a second look ahead of me. A woman was just crossing the sidewalk in front of his house to her car. I thought at first it was Mrs. Hilyard. Then I realized that, oddly enough, it really was Mrs. Hilyard, and that she was coming from Stanley’s. It seemed reasonable enough for me to be surprised at it, after all the elaborate camouflage of his staying in and creeping out after dark to keep people from seeing that somebody had violently assaulted him. It was even more surprising to think that Mrs. Hilyard apparently still had the idea that Diane was going to marry him.
I went on slowly until she pulled out and turned the corner at the end of the block. Stanley’s Filipino houseman opened the door tentatively and squinted through the crack. He recognized me instantly, took the chain down and opened the door with smiles and bows; I suppose relieved that I hadn’t brought an Army officer along this time.
Stanley was not only down, he was dressed.
“I thought you weren’t receiving,” I said. I put my coat over the back of the sofa. It must have been the only time in Stanley’s life that he hadn’t bounded to help a woman off with her wrap.
“I’m not,” he said.
“I thought I saw Mrs. Hilyard just leaving.”
He gave me a jittery glance. “She didn’t come in; she just brought some flowers. There they are over on the table. Good Lord, can’t a—”
“Oh, hush,” I said wearily. “I don’t care if the Empress of Japan calls on you, darling. What is it you want?”
He went the rest of the way to the window and came back. Just as he’d got to the other sofa facing me the telephone rang.
He jumped as if a firecracker had gone off in church. The phone was right by me, and he must have thought I was going to answer it, because he shot around and picked it up before the little brass objets on the shelf had quit tingling.
“Hello.”
I was so close that I could hear the voice at the other end.
“Hello, Stanley. John Primrose speaking. I believe Mrs. Latham is there. I’d like to speak to her, please. How are you, by the way?”
Stanley looked rather taken aback. “Yes, she’s here. She’s just come. I’m all right, thanks.”
I took the phone quickly, not imagining what could have happened. Or how he knew where I was, for that matter.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” he said placidly. “That’s all I wanted to say, really. Just keeping track of you, that’s all.”
“You mean that’s the only reason you called?” I demanded. “In that case, let me tell you something. I nearly fired my cook this morning, before I discovered your perfidy about the hat. You can just take it out of my house right away.”
There was a sort of shocked silence at the other end of the line. I realized with complete horror that I shouldn’t have said it. Stanley would probably tell Mrs. Hilyard the minute I left the hou
se.
“And if Stanley mentions it, I’ll phone every newspaper in town about his black eye,” I added.
Colonel Primrose chuckled. “I’ll see you shortly.”
I put the phone down. Stanley was opening a fresh pack of cigarettes.
“Does he call up everywhere you go?” he asked. “Why don’t you marry him and be done with it?”
“Because he never asked me in the second place,” I said. “And you know the first place, darling?”
“I know it’s none of my business, but—”
“Look, Stanley,” I said patiently. “If that’s what you woke me up at daybreak and got me over here to talk about, I’m going back right now.”
“It’s not. I want to talk to you about this fellow Digges.”
“Then go ahead. And quit roaming around! Can’t you sit down and quit being so jittery?”
“You’d be jittery too. You don’t seem to realize what all this means to me!”
He sat down opposite me. “This is the point,” he said, “I know Diane isn’t going to marry me now, unless—— Oh, well, we’ll skip that. But this Digges. They’re going to arrest him for the murder of Hilyard.”
“Really?” I said. “How did you know?”
“Because he’s the chap whose clothes they’re talking about in the morning paper.”
“It doesn’t say so. How did you know?”
“Because it’s my blood on his clothes!” He almost screamed it.
“Oh,” I said.
“It was my nose!” he cried. “He hit me! Twice, three times—I don’t know! He knocked me down! Then he picked me up—and that’s when he got the blood on him! My nose was like a fountain!”
“Then he didn’t kill Mr. Hilyard,” I remarked. “Stanley! You’re wonderful!”
“But wait, Grace! You don’t understand. That doesn’t prove anything! All it proves is about the blood. It was after Mr. Hilyard was killed that it happened. It was twelve o’clock. Here! Here in my own house! Right upstairs!”
“Do you mean he came here deliberately and attacked you?” I demanded.
“Yes! Oh, yes!”
“But why?”