by Helen Wells
Cherry impulsively turned to the musician. But he was asleep, and she could not frighten a sick man with this discovery, anyway. She could not telephone Gwen: she had to keep Owens’s secret. She had never felt so alone. It was up to her, with her patient helpless, to act—to do whatever must be done. Or perhaps she had no right to act—this was Scott Owens’s affair, not hers.
But she was his nurse—his guardian—he lay helpless and she was responsible for protecting him—even protecting him against that man lurking under their window! If a patient was too ill to think or act, in time of emergency, then his nurse must do it for him! A shiver went down Cherry’s back. At the same moment, the words of the nurses’ pledge flashed through her mind and steadied her.
“Maybe I’m imagining things about that man in the street! Or maybe I’m half asleep and dreaming the whole thing!”
She went into her own adjoining room where no lights were on and looked out the window from there. No, she was not imagining it. There the man stood, only now he had furtively stepped back deeper into shadow.
With hands that shook, Cherry picked up her telephone and whispered into it:
“Please send a policeman up to Room 302.”
She returned to Scott, in 304, to wait. What exactly did she fear the man might do? She did not know. He might only be following them to secure information, or to prevent the blackmailer’s potential victim from slipping away. Or—he might try some violence. It would be easy—a sick man and a female nurse. That man was powerfully built. Cherry was badly scared.
She heard a tap on the door of 302 and ran in there, and opened it. A policeman stood there in the sleeping hotel corridor. Cherry took one reassuring look at the huge bulk of him in his blue coat, at his badge which spelled “law.” With him was a hotel clerk, anxiety in his pale face.
“What’s wrong, miss?” the officer asked.
Cherry explained in a low voice. “And I do recognize him. He’s trailing us, I’m positive of it!”
The policeman said calmly, “Maybe he’s just a loiterer. I’ll go down and talk to him.”
Cherry hurried back to the window. Yes, the man was still there—she had been afraid the sight of a policeman might frighten him away. A minute passed. Then she saw the policeman come out of the hotel, alone. He crossed the street leisurely, swinging his night stick, his footsteps echoing in the night air. The loiterer did not budge. The policeman went up to him. They both stood under the street lamp in full sight.
Cherry could hear their two voices, but not the words. They talked for a few minutes. Then the man pulled a wallet out of his pocket, showed some papers to the policeman. To Cherry’s horror, the policeman nodded, turned, and retraced his steps back to the hotel. The man continued to stand there. Cherry thought or imagined she saw him smile.
Again there was a tap on the door of 302.
“You’re mistaken, miss!” The policeman grinned down at her and his expression said plainly: “Just another hysterical female.”
“But what—he’s trailing us, I tell you—”
“Sure he is. He’s hired to do that. He’s a private detective lookin’ out for the two of you. A bodyguard. Mr. Owens hired him himself.”
“It’s the first I heard of it! I—I don’t believe it.”
“He showed me written proof, miss.”
“But I don’t believe—Officer, you’re mistaken! You’ve got to help me—Let me explain—”
“Now, now, what’re you trying to do? You could have caused a false arrest! That’s plenty serious. You take my word for it and go to bed. Everything’s in order!”
He tipped his hat and strolled away, leaving her shaken, on realizing that she could not turn to the police for help.
A private detective? A bodyguard? Cherry puzzled over it. She did not know what to think. The celebrity had hired him himself?—yet had never told her? And why should he have told her? There was no possibility of discussing such a thing with the sick man. Cherry remained undecided, and disturbed, about the whole incident.
Less than a week later, Scott Owens had improved enough to be able to travel. Cherry said a reluctant goodbye to Gwen Jones. Lucien came to St. Louis, and he and Cherry got the musician on the train, and took him home.
CHAPTER X
A Wig, A Lure, A Lie
CHERRY, UNABLE NOW TO GO TO THE POLICE, WENT sleuthing on her own.
Miss Kitty still was out of town. Cherry was secretly grateful for this as Miss Kitty would have confused the situation much more. She was grateful, too, that there were Dr. Pratt, Jen, and Bébé to help look after the ill musician. Besides, Dr. Pratt urged the overworked nurse to get outdoors, to take the day off. Cherry had been impatiently waiting for this chance. She dressed carefully, put ample money in her purse, and left the Owens house without saying where she was going. Her plan was not clear: she only felt somehow that she needed more information, needed some lead as how Carroll might strike next.
She headed straight for the expensive neighborhood and apartment building where Gregory Carroll had his headquarters.
But it was not so easy to get upstairs. The doorman stopped her as she was halfway through the lobby.
“Whom do you wish to see, miss?”
“Oh, it’s all right. I’m expected.”
“Sorry, miss, but we have to announce all callers. The management doesn’t let anyone go upstairs unless we call up the tenant you want to see on the house phone.”
“But I have an appointment, they’re expecting me,” Cherry bluffed.
The doorman was adamant. “Whom do you wish to see, miss?” He picked up the house telephone. “Who shall I say is calling?”
Cherry sighed. “Miss Ames to see Mr. Gregory Carroll.” Carroll would never agree to see her, she thought. It would never do to forewarn him.
“Mr. Carroll?” the doorman repeated. “Mr. Carroll has moved away, or at least he’s gone away temporarily. Isn’t that right, Bill?” he said to the elevator man.
“That’s right.”
“His secretary, then,” Cherry said stubbornly.
“Mr. Thatch is gone too, miss.”
Cherry had not expected this development. But she was not going to be routed so easily. Maybe Carroll had instructed the doorman to say “Not at home.”
“Then I’d like to see the superintendent, please.” Cherry sat herself down on one of the lobby chairs and unhurriedly took out her compact and powdered her nose, to show that she really intended to stay and see the superintendent.
In about five minutes a stocky, middle-aged man in a navy blue suit came out of a corridor behind the elevator.
“I’m Mr. Bixby, the superintendent.” He looked at her doubtfully. Part of his job was to see that the tenants’ privacy was protected, and he did not like intruders. Cherry at once put on her most feminine and helpless air.
“Oh, Mr. Bixby, I’m sorry to bother you, I know I’m being a nuisance, but I just have to see Mr. Carroll. Please?”
“I’m sorry, miss, but Mr. Carroll has gone away. There’s nobody up there now.”
“Oh, dear. When will he be back?”
“I don’t know, miss.”
“Did he leave a forwarding address?”
“You can leave all messages here and they will be picked up.”
“You mean he’s moved away? Because if he has, I—ah—might be interested in subleasing his apartment.” That should pry the information out of him. He would want to sublease an apartment if it were vacant.
“I couldn’t say if he’s moved away, or just gone temporarily, miss. You’d have to ask our renting office. I can give you the address—it’s downtown.”
Cherry was stumped. But somehow she did not believe the superintendent. He would know whether or not there was an apartment for rent or for sublease in his own building. He was lying. Possibly his discreet evasiveness had been purchased by a large tip from Carroll. Well, she had money in her purse, too. Cherry had scruples against bribes and against lying. But whe
n fighting against such people as these blackmailers, she had no choice. Either she could go through with this, or passively let Scott Owens get hurt! Coaxingly she said:
“Mr. Bixby, I’ll tell you what’s really on my mind. I’m in the silliest jam—I’m one of Mr. Carroll’s regular clients, you’ve probably seen me here before. And the last time I was here”—she thought fast—if only she could get into that apartment, she might learn something!—“I left my furs. Stupidly went off and left my furs! In Mr. Carroll’s private study.”
“Mm-hmm.” The superintendent seemed to believe her. He was used to Mr. Carroll’s women clients.
“So if you could please let me in there—” She delicately pressed a folded bill into his hand. His fingers curled over it. “I’d be so grateful, Mr. Bixby.”
“I could take you in there myself for a few minutes, while we look for your furs.”
“Thank you so much! That will be a great help!”
“Just wait till I get the keys.”
He came back with a bunch of keys and took one off the key ring.
Upstairs Mr. Bixby opened the door to Carroll’s apartment, admitted Cherry, and followed her in. The beautiful, stagy room was just as she remembered it, with a pall of silence hanging over it now—no, there was something different! Cherry’s darting dark eyes, alert for anything she could learn up here, noted that the harpsichord was gone. Scott’s shrewd guess that the fortunetellers had rented the harpsichord to impress him was right!
Cherry fussed around the big room, pretending to look for her imaginary furs. She particularly hung around Mr. Thatch’s desk. It was not littered any longer; there was nothing on it to supply her with fresh leads.
The superintendent said warningly, “You said you left your furs in Mr. Carroll’s study?”
“Yes.”
Cherry went on into the little room and poked around, her eyes never leaving his desk. Nothing here, either. She dared not open the desk drawers. Mr. Bixby was watching her. She straightened up and sighed.
“My furs aren’t here. I guess Mr. Carroll has taken them along with him for safekeeping and will return them to me.” It was the best she could say, to save her face.
“Were the furs valuable?” the superintendent asked.
“Quite valuable. But I’m sure I left them here, and Mr. Carroll’s so nice, I know he’ll take care of them, so I won’t worry too much. If only I knew where to reach him”—Cherry tentatively tried again for information—“I’m going away and will need my furs—”
He did not answer. He went to the entrance door and held it open for Cherry. She walked through, defeated.
But downstairs in the lobby, on the table, lay a pile of mail for the mailman—the letters which tenants of the building wanted mailed. Pushed to one side was a letter already postmarked and marked in pencil: Please Forward. That letter was addressed to Carroll! The superintendent must have marked it! Hastily Cherry read and memorized:
Please forward to:
c/o James Smith
412 Huneker Street, City
Huneker Street was a shabby residential street, and Number 412 was an old brownstone house converted into apartments.
Cherry stood in the small vestibule and studied the names over the brass letter boxes and bells. There was no Carroll or Smith or Thatch listed. Some of the name brackets were left empty. Cherry tried the heavy door into the building, then jiggled the doorknob. It was locked. She rang the bell marked Superintendent.
The buzzer on the door buzzed and released the lock. Cherry opened and went in. A stout, pleasant woman in a housedress came out of the first apartment.
“You looking for the superintendent?”
“Yes, I am. Could you help me locate Mr. Carroll?”
The woman looked puzzled. “We have no one named Carroll here.”
“He’s in care of Mr. James Smith, I believe.”
“Smith? Smith? What does he look like, dearie?”
Cherry hesitated. Then she described Gregory Carroll “—and medium height, a very serious, almost saintly expression. Remarkable blue eyes, and blonde hair.”
“Aha! I know the very one you mean.” The woman closed her own door and stepped out into the hall. “Very saintly looking, he is. You’d notice him any place. Only you’re mistaken about his hair, dearie. He has red hair. A regular mop of it.”
“Red hair?” Cherry echoed.
“Beautiful red hair,” the stout woman declared. “I’d be happy to have it on me own head.”
Cherry kept the woman chatting while she tried to figure out a further angle. “His name wasn’t Carroll, you say? I must be all mixed up.”
“No, indeed. His name was Lawrence. John Alter Lawrence. I remember because it’s such a beautiful, high-sounding name.”
Was this redheaded Lawrence the same man as Gregory Carroll or not? Cherry said tentatively, “He usually is with an elderly man—looks like a teacher.”
The woman nodded emphatically. “I know the one, the very one. Looks like a dried-up leaf, don’t he? Always with Mr. Lawrence. I supposed he was his brother, though they don’t look alike, but some brothers—”
She had located Carroll and Mr. Thatch, then! They did live here!
“Ah, no, they aren’t here any more,” the woman said. “What a shame, dearie. They moved out only day before yesterday. See, they had the apartment next to mine, sublet it furnished. It’s empty now, see?”
She went down the hall a few paces, Cherry following her, and swung open an unlocked door. Cherry went in, and looked around at the dark, meagerly furnished rooms. There was nothing there, not a trace.
“Did they leave a forwarding address?” Cherry asked.
“That they didn’t. They were here only a bit over a week.” The woman chatted on, about her troubles with transients.
Cherry thanked her, and was going down the front steps, when the woman called after her:
“The third one was named Fuller, if I remember rightly. Yes, dearie, a Mr. Fuller. But no Smith, no Carroll.”
“Well, thank you very much indeed.”
A third one! So there was no James Smith but there was a third confederate!
Cherry wandered down the street, found a stationery store which had a small soda fountain, ordered a Coke, and sat down to think.
That she had traced the two men this far, and uncovered the existence of a third man working with them, she had no doubt. She was on the right track. But why were they moving around like this? Why using assumed names? To keep out of sight, obviously—Perhaps the police were looking for them on another charge. Cherry’s heart rose at that possibility. If Carroll were already in trouble, that might make things easier for Scott Owens!
“That would be too good to be true,” Cherry thought. She sipped her Coke. “Besides, Carroll is a shrewd operator. Even if he is in trouble, he’ll wiggle out of it. And trouble wouldn’t hamper him from striking at Mr. Scott anyway. They could use extra money now. No,” she decided, “to be on the safe side, I’ll throw out the optimism and look at the worst possibilities.”
Why were they moving around like this? In self-defense? To dodge aggressive blows from somebody—maybe they were dodging Cherry herself! She recalled how Carroll, in telling her “fortune,” had warned her not to meddle in affairs not her own. “You won’t help them—you will only bring trouble, for them and for yourself,” he had said. That was the day he had predicted trouble for Scott, too. Quite a “prediction,” Cherry thought ironically, when Carroll intended to make the trouble come true via his own blackmail! He certainly had given them broad hints—he had wanted to be “helpful”!
Why were they moving around like this? What other possible reasons were there? Because being in hiding facilitated the working out of some scheme of theirs—or, because they wanted to meet the third confederate away from their apartment where he would be observed, or—But how important was it to know this, anyway? It could be for any of a dozen reasons. Cherry realized she could go on fruitl
essly speculating for hours. The only way she could secure definite information was to get back on their trail again.
How was she to find Carroll? And what about that red hair?
“A wig!” Cherry exclaimed out loud.
“Huh?” said the soda jerk. “Another Coke?”
Cherry sputtered and choked on her drink. “Yes, yes, another Coke.” But she left it sitting. “Have you a telephone directory? A classified one?”
The boy inclined his head. “Over near the phone booth, in back.”
Cherry hastily thumbed to the W’s. Watches … weavers … welding … wigmakers. There were ten wig-makers in this city. She wrote down the ten names and addresses.
F. Mittelhopf had a big plate-glass window, a small second-floor shop in the theatrical section. He was a gnarled little man in a black apron. Standing around the shop were faceless plaster heads wearing various wigs—a man’s powdered Colonial peruke, with pigtail and black ribbon—flowing golden braids—even a head of green hair.
“No, red hairs for man I do not make,” said F. Mittelhopf. “For the theater, I make. See the green one—for the première danseuse in the ballet, she is ladyfish—mermaid. For man everyday, I do not make.”
Georges et Dorothea turned out to be a beauty salon. The stylish woman assistant was busy and crisp. “We make only transformations for women. Sorry.”
Mr. Oscar was in the theatrical district too but his window bore in small gold letters: “Wigs—Toupees—Transformations—For Street Wear.” Cherry went in. Mr. Oscar was a young man who first demanded of Cherry: