Death Wears a Mask

by Thérèse Benson

  “How about these people?” The Inspector stared around. “It seems to me there ought to be a law against masked parties. How in hell do you know who was here and who wasn’t? Any gangster could crash the gate and mix with the crowd.”

  “Hardly,” Sam told him. “One or other of the hosts (young architects, very decent fellows and only casual acquaintances of Mrs. Thorne) received the guests and had them lift their masks for identification as a precaution. Moreover, it seems to me that the people here are hall-marked as innocent because Mrs. Thorne never got here—alive.”

  “Well, they can’t go down in the elevator till the Doc has had a look at the corpse. Aside from that I can’t see that it will have much to tell us, considering the number of people who have used it.”

  “I fancy they’ll all be glad to walk down the stair at the back,” Sam said. “The service elevator is shut after eleven. This is a pretty ghastly experience for these ladies, Inspector. You could post men to take down names and addresses as they filed out.”

  “They’ll wait till we hear what the doctor has to say,” Dolan insisted, and Sam protested no further. He felt anew that the uniformed force and those like Dolan, who had risen from the ranks, looked on his appointment as purely political and resented it. In the end he would win their liking and respect, but, as he had hinted to Thorne, that would take time.

  “Everything is entirely in your hands,” he said. “I’ve no experience, as you know, and no wish to hamper you by inexpert advice. My apartment is on the eighth floor and I’ll be glad to have you use it as your headquarters in the building when you’ve finished up hare. Remember, I’m personally interested in this case. Mr. and Mrs. Harris and I have lost an old and dear friend.”

  Dolan grunted. Sentiment carried no weight with him and he was not sure this here now young Harris was not implicated in some way. The Commissioner was a very smooth proposition. It kind of looked as if he wanted to show he’d had an opportunity to do something that he hadn’t done to turn attention away from this nephew.

  The arrival of the Medical Examiner created a diversion, even though he had little to add to the sum of their knowledge.

  Mrs. Thorne had been dead for approximately three hours. The penetration of the medulla oblongata by a sharp instrument was a sufficient cause for death. There would be an autopsy, but he expected nothing new from it.

  All that was mortal of poor Connie was lifted from the floor of the elevator, and the guests were declared at liberty to go, their names and addresses being taken down and each being asked just one question.

  Did he or she know of anything that might throw any light on the tragedy?

  The answer in all cases was an unqualified “No.”

  Chapter VI

  The necessary details in the penthouse completed and the guests there released from durance, Sam, Ed, the Inspector and various detectives of the Police Department who were awaiting further orders, adjourned to the eighth floor.

  The Inspector glanced around him appraisingly as Sam pushed aside books and magazines to leave a wide space for his use on the heavy oak refectory table, set beneath the studio window that would soon be admitting gleams of daylight. Tobacco, ash-trays and cigars were placed within reach and he was asked to make himself at home.

  Perhaps the new Commissioner wasn’t going to be such a bad guy, after all, Dolan ruminated, quite softened by these attentions. He cleared his throat and spoke more amicably than he had previously.

  “You can he of great use to us, Commissioner, in explaining a number of points, since you room in this building. It seems a big place. Perhaps you can tell us how it’s divided and who lives here.”

  Sam jumped to his feet and crossed the floor to an oak kas in which he rummaged for a while before he found a stiff document and paused long enough to blow the dust from it.

  “I can do better than that. I can show you a plan of the whole house,” he said. “It was begun with the intention of making it one hundred per cent cooperative, but the builder was caught with a lot of the apartments unsold dining the late unpleasantness, when real estate became a liability rather than an asset. Those are renting very well now, however, and he doubtless will get rid of all of them when better times are established. This is the blue print.” He unfolded it and spread it on the table, flattening it out with one hand.

  “You see, we are on the corner and the building consists of three identical stacks, each with the same floor space and each with its automatic elevator. This gives every apartment its own vestibule and warrants the name of ‘discreet apartments,’ which is what all so planned are called. The only place tenants are likely to run into one another is in the entrance hall, and really you’d be surprised how seldom one encounters any of one’s neighbors. Privacy is practically assured.”

  “But this ain’t like this room here,” the Inspector was tracing the white lines laboriously with a thick forefinger, his massive forehead corrugated in a frown.

  “No,” Sam agreed, “it isn’t. I was (me of the early birds who bought before the building was under roof, and I made changes to suit myself. I’m a husky brute and I like lots of room, so I eliminated a spare bedroom and bath and threw all that area into this room.”

  “‘Tis a fine big room, a man’s room,” the Inspector said, approvingly. “I’m beginning to get the hang of things now. Then the other apartments in this stack ain’t like this, necessarily?”

  “No,” Sam answered, “although I can tell you little about most of the others. The floor above mine belongs to a bride and groom. Mr. and Mrs. Alpheus Carter. They’re in Florida. I’m sure their apartment follows the original plan because it was finished for the builder. Mrs. Carter’s father bought it only last autumn and gave it to her for a wedding present.”

  “Servants living there?”

  “I believe not. There’s only one servant’s room, and a toilet for a non-resident butler. I’m inclined to fancy that Mrs. Carter went South because she wasn’t very successful as a housekeeper. The place is vacant, I’m reasonably sure, but we can find out positively from the superintendent. The seventh floor belongs to a Miss Livingston. Very blue blood. A sort of social secretary to the rich.”

  “How old a lady?” The Inspector glanced up keenly from his notes and Sam received the impression of unexpected intelligence such as is sometimes conveyed by a gleam in the eye of an English bulldog, half hidden in its wrinkles.

  “So far as the mere male can judge, between fifty and sixty and makes no effort to hide it.”

  “Friend of the murdered woman?”

  “Most unlikely. Indeed, I’ve no hesitancy in saying no.”

  “Let’s begin at the bottom and go up,” Dolan suggested. “I don’t think we need look beyond this stack. No one would risk lugging a corpse across the entrance hall with a jamboree like that upstairs going on and guests arriving constantly. First floor?”

  “Dentists’ offices. Non-resident. Private doors on the street. Service entrance in rear on the court like the rest of us. I have a plan of that floor somewhere if you want it.”

  “Not necessary,” Dolan shook his head. “Second floor?”

  “An old grouch named Scott, aged seventy or a hundred. He rents and won’t even speak to you if you meet in the elevator. I know nothing about his servant, although I suppose he has one. Third floor. Two maiden ladies. Look like school-teachers. I never heard their names. Fourth floor. Mrs. Trevor and her sister, Mrs. Lee; the latter divorced, while Mrs. Trevor is a real widow. Both of them were at the party, as were Jenks, Ransom, and Kettle, bachelors who share the fifth floor. Sixth. The Señor and Señora Gomez. Refugees from Cuba. Three kids, with more eyes and black eyelashes than you’ll often see. Seventh. Miss Livingston. I told you all I knew about her before. Eighth floor. Samuel Mellon. My servant, Sing Lo, Chinese, was out at a lecture. I don’t know what time he came in. I’ll ring and ask him, if you like.”

  “Not necessary at the moment,” the Inspector replied. “Presumably he was
not in the building when the minder occurred.”

  “Ninth. The Carters, in Florida. Tenth. Mrs. Ford, daughter at college. You saw their cook. Eleventh. Mr. and Mrs. Manheim, two sons, at boarding-school, I fancy. At least I never see them except in the holidays. Just German kids, as blond as the Gomez offspring are dark. The penthouse is the twelfth.”

  “Do you know which of these people knew the murdered woman?”

  Sam wished he would frame his questions differently. It was painful to think of Connie in his terms, but there was no use of protesting. The Inspector would hardly understand his sentimental shrinking, and he answered, promptly enough:

  “Not to swear to. I’d guess the fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth floors only. Of them, one is out of the city and the others were at the party.”

  “Sure,” said the Inspector. “Ain’t that the best place they could be if they did it? Only who’s to swear they were there all the time? Remember, the lady was done in three hours before we saw her. Just about when she ought to have reached here, according to what her maid said.”

  “True,” Sam conceded. “Let’s have Thady Keogh, the doorman up. He may remember when she came in.”

  “He doesn’t,” the Inspector grunted. “It didn’t take long to get that out of him. He says all women look alike to him, ‘aiven them as is different,’ and the old fool means it. If we bother him with more questions, he’ll only begin to remember a lot of things that never happened; and I’ve troubles enough without that. What’s your idea of the motive for this killing?” he demanded abruptly, including Ed, who had been very silent, with Sam in the keen glance of his little eyes.

  Ed spoke, unexpectedly and perhaps unwisely;

  “Jealousy.”

  The Inspector seized upon this at once. “Jealousy, huh? Now who would you say was likely to be jealous of her?”

  “Oh, lots of women thought she was too attractive.” At the sound of his own voice Ed had recovered his self-confidence and now put forward his ideas nonchalantly. “Or she may have had some new man on the string who resented today’s development. Mrs. Thorne kept her own secrets. F’r instance, I never suspected—did you, Sam?—that she was engaged to Hugh Oliver?”

  Dolan brought his heavy fist crashing down on the table.

  “D’you mean to tell me she was the dame all this hullabaloo was about in the evening newspapers? Why did no one say that before?”

  “It never occurred to me that you didn’t know it,” Sam replied, truthfully.

  “Hand over that paper I” This was addressed to his henchmen, three of whom had their heads bent over the sheet which they had picked up on entering. “Did either of you know this man Oliver?”

  “Yes,” said Ed. “He was a customer of ours. I’m a broker, you know. Mrs. Thorne made a pot of money after he began giving her tips. He’s a wise baby and something of a character. I’ve been told that his mother was a woman of good family in Kentucky, who eloped with one of her father’s jockeys. The fellow did what very few can do—made a fortune picking the winners; and after he died his son carried on; only instead of horses, he gambled in stocks. That’s why he and Mrs. Thorne cottoned to each other. He admired her for her nerve where most men would have been afraid to marry a woman who plunged as heavily as she did.”

  “I knew him, too,” Sam volunteered. “Not as well as Ed seems to have done. That is, I had heard nothing of his beginnings. He came to New York several years ago with a great deal of money, knowing nobody intimately, if indeed he had any friends. He was introduced to people and put up at a couple of clubs by his brokers, of whom Mr. Harris is one. I shouldn’t say he was ever popular, although he has gained a certain position. I confess that the announcement of their engagement and his plans for Mrs. Thorne (or her plans for herself) were a complete surprise to me. I had thought him the perfect snob. The male social climber, who is rather a contemptible creature to my mind. But probably Mrs. Thorne could twist him around her finger.”

  Ed shook his head in a vigorous negative. “Don’t you fool yourself, Sam. Not even Connie could do that. That little man is made of wire and leather. You couldn’t touch his feelings or influence him in any way in a thousand years.”

  “Then I don’t understand the match,” Sam said. “Certainly Connie would be no help to him socially.”

  “You mean she wasn’t a society dame?” The Inspector had pricked up his ears at this exchange between uncle and nephew.

  “Not in the restricted sense that Oliver would apply the term,” Sam explained. “She came from a small New England coast town. Her maiden name was Dacosta. Portuguese, I think. Claimed social position there, which meant nothing to New York. Then she went on the stage. Never had anything but small parts and they were given to her for her looks.”

  “Gay little lady?” Dolan suggested genially.

  “No.” Sam took him up sharply. “Don’t get that notion. Mrs. Thorne was chaste. There were no back-stage affairs. She had plenty of ardent admirers. A lot of young fellows and some old ones were crazy about her—as a pretty girl, not as an actress, understand. At first I seemed to be the favorite. Then Harvey Thorne cut me out. The rest you «an probably read there, except that it is a fact that her social position was less secure after she left Harvey. God alone knows why. Divorce is a commonplace of modern society and there was never any scandal about Mrs. Thorne. She was too cool-headed for that.”

  “Do you know, I think it was her coloring,” Ed said reasonably. “Everyone thinks of natural red-heads as hot babies, whereas Connie was an absolute iceberg.”

  (Strange how everyone compared her to ice. Glittering but without warmth.)

  “Where’s this Harvey Thorne, the first husband?”

  Prepared to lie, Sam was saved the trouble. “They got a Paris divorce,” Ed cut in. “Thorne has never been back in New York since then.”

  The Inspector gathered together his papers. “So far, we’re certain of only one thing,” he announced. “Mrs. Thorne was murdered. That’s really all we know for sure. We can guess that it was done in this building, probably in the elevator, but since that car was sure to be extra busy all night on account of the party, her body wasn’t left in it. For a while, at least, it was hid somewhere else. Remember she’d been dead some time when you found her. It strikes me that it would have been easy to stow her in one of the private vestibules. Then, if no one happened to call at that flat, she could stay there undiscovered for hours. If some one living here done her in, the most likely place is the empty apartment, the Carters’, didn’t you say?”

  (“But I wanted her to be found—by some one else,” Sam thought.)

  “There aren’t apt to be many callers after nine or thereabouts,” Ed volunteered.

  “How came the body to be put back in the elevator?” Sam objected. “I rode up in it about fifteen minutes before the final discovery and I assure you it was empty then.” This was a point that had been puzzling him and he was curious to hear the police theory, if there was one.

  “What time did Commissioner Mellon come in?” The Inspector, not averse to proving his thoroughness to his superior officer, turned to one of his men, who replied, categorically:

  “The Commissioner left here at eleven-twenty-eight on foot, arrived at Mrs; Edward Harris’s at eleven-forty-two; left ‘Fifty-seventh Street in a taxi at twelve-nine, arriving here at twelve-sixteen.”

  “I should think that was approximately, perhaps accurately, correct,” Sam said, concealing his surprise that his movements had been checked up and wondering if any information had reached Dolan as to his visitors of the evening. If there had, it was going to be very difficult for him to explain why he had remained silent. Chivalry to ladies or to a friend would be a poor excuse in Dolan’s little pig eyes.

  “You were at home all evening, were you, Commissioner?” Effort was made to render the inquiry indifferent rather than suspicious, and one of the detectives stirred uneasily. “What is it, McCurdy?”

  “If the Commissioner was h
ere all evening, how come he never opened his paper?” The man asked, taking his courage in his teeth. “It hadn’t been so much as unfolded.”

  This was coining dose, edging a way into a period Sam was loath to have considered, yet he replied without visible hesitation.

  “Over in that corner, Inspector, you’ll see my desk. On it are my ledger and several bank books. I’m certainly one of the world’s worst accountants. I pledge you my word not one of them balanced. I’ve two friends each of whom has his own way of cutting that knot. Of course it goes without saying that one always has less than expected, not more. One of these men puts down this difference as ‘Cash to Maria,’ his wife. The other has a superior method. He writes in the figures necessary to strike a balance with ‘G.O.K.’ after them. That means, God only knows. Now I’ve no wife and I’ve the miserable sort of conscience that nags at me until I straighten things out, so that’s where my time went. Not much good as an alibi, I grant you. To that you may add the absolute fact that to my mind the evening papers are rarely worth reading. Sing can testify that more than half the time mine reach the pantry without being opened.”

  “Well, then, if you didn’t read the paper, how come that you knew about the lady’s engagement?” McCurdy persisted, obstinately.

  This was going too far, and the Inspector made a movement as if about to protest. Sam silenced him.

  “I like a zealous officer, McCurdy,” he said, and there was an edge to his voice. “I’ve no special love for one who wastes time barking up the wrong tree. If I don’t read the evening papers, there are plenty of other people who do. Mrs. Thorne’s engagement was the favorite topic of conversation at the party this evening. I trust that satisfies your curiosity?”

  “McCurdy’s a good man, Commissioner, if he wasn’t such a damn’ fool,” Dolan said, apologetically. “He’s one of them that love detective stories, which, if I had my way, there’d be a law against. Is there anything else you think we ought to do here? It’s in my mind this case is going to be a puzzler.”