by Rufus King
“There is nothing further we can do for the present, Lieutenant, except wait,” he said.
“All right, Doctor. I’ve told my men how things stand.” He nodded toward Cassidy and Hansen, who, on tiptoe, were vanishing into the bathroom with two chairs. “I’ve told them you’re in charge here, and that there’s not to be an unnecessary sound or move out of them.”
Dr. Worth continued to remain politely incredulous. “Well, I dare say you know what you are doing, but it still seems an extraordinary precaution to me.”
“And it probably is. I spoke to one of the maids about your staying here, Doctor.”
“Yes—thank you. They’ve told me where my room is. It’s the one directly above this one.”
“I’ve also lined up one of Endicott’s friends. I’m getting in touch with him directly, and when he comes I’ll have him sent up to you. You can tell him just what you want him to do, and then see that he gets in here all right, if you will, please.”
“By all means. Who is he, Lieutenant?”
“A Mr. Thomas Hollander—lives on East Fifty-second Street.”
“Never heard of him; but there’s no reason why I should have.” He sped a parting look toward Endicott, faintly breathing on the bed. “The most reticent man, Lieutenant, whom I have ever met.” They went outside and closed the door.
Nurse Murrow went over and locked it. She felt, to put it mildly, not a little atwitter. Her life had not conformed to the popular version of a trained nurse’s. There had been no romantic patients in it whose pallid, interesting brows she had smoothly divorced from fever by a gentle pass or two with magnetic fingers. No grateful millionaire had offered her his heart and name; nor had any motherly eyed old dowager died and willed her a fortune. No. There had been, on the other hand, a good many years of sloppy, disillusioning, grilling work, long hours spent in pampering peevish patients, patients who were ugly with that special ugliness which is inherent in the sick, snappish doctors, and a perfect desert of romance.
The present case loomed as a heaven-sent oasis. Who knew what might not develop out of it? It awakened all the atrophied hunger of her starved sentimentalism. And even if nothing did result from it—nothing practical, like marriage, or a good bonus—it would at least leave her something to think about during those endless, tiresome, tiring hours of the future…
She crossed to the bed and looked down at Endicott. She felt his pulse and made a notation on her night chart. She lingered near the bathroom doorway.
“The strangest case,” she whispered, “that I’ve ever been on.”
Cassidy looked up at her bleakly.
Hansen said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“I dare say,” she whispered on, “that it’s quite in the ordinary run of things for you gentlemen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“There’s an atmosphere—a something sinister—
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nurse Murrow’s broad shoulders jerked impatiently. There was a talk-chilling quality in being so determinedly ma’am’d. She gave it up, and settled herself starchily in an armchair. She adjusted a lamp so that it shaded more efficiently her eyes.
A floor board creaked upstairs—once.
That would be Dr. Worth, she decided, going to bed. What a man! What a shining light in his profession! A little bigoted, perhaps, in some things, but so distinguished—admirable—a bachelor, too—
But what nonsense!
A complete stillness settled gently on the house. The stillness of a grave.
Yes, she thought, just exactly that—the stillness of a grave…
CHAPTER XI
12:15 A.M.—To Watch by Night
Lieutenant Valcour refreshed his memory from the leather reference book and then dialed the number.
“Mr. Thomas Hollander?” he said, when a man’s voice answered him. It was a smooth, soft voice, and he suspected that further words beyond the initial “hello” would reveal a Southern accent.
“Who is calling, please?” went on the voice, making the expected latitudinal revelation.
“I have a message from the home of Mr. Herbert Endicott for Mr. Thomas Hollander. Will you ask him to come to the phone, please?”
“One moment.”
“Certainly.”
Lieutenant Valcour drew stars on a scratch pad while he waited. He wondered idly what secret powers or hidden vices they would disclose if examined by a trained graphologist. He made quite a good star and drew exciting rays out from its points. That would undoubtedly show, he told himself, that he was a nosey, mean-spirited, and cold-hearted sleuth hound. What an infernal time it took to get Hollander to the telephone! Had the line gone dead? Ah…
“Yes?” It was a deeper voice, this time, and held no promise, or threat, of Southern softnesses.
“Mr. Thomas Hollander?”
“Yes.”
“This is the home of Mr. Herbert Endicott, Mr. Hollander.”
“Yes?”
“And I am Lieutenant Valcour talking—of the police.”
The deadness of the wire became a pause of the first magnitude. Then:
“Well, Lieutenant, what’s it all about?”
“It is about Mr. Endicott, Mr. Hollander.”
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“He’s dead?”
“Dead? Why no, Hollander. Were you expecting him to be?”
“What do you mean by ‘expecting him to be’? Certainly I wasn’t. Please come down to facts, Lieutenant.”
“I was about to. Mr. Endicott has suffered a heart attack brought on by some sudden shock. His condition is serious, and Dr. Worth, who is attending him, insists that some friend be at hand when Mr. Endicott recovers consciousness.”
“You mean”—the voice was speaking very carefully now—“in addition to Mrs. Endicott?”
“No, unfortunately Mrs. Endicott cannot be present.”
Again a pause, and then:
“Why not, Lieutenant? She isn’t—that is—”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Hollander?”
“Damn it, is she arrested?”
“Certainly not. What for?”
“Well, what in hell are you cops in the house for if”—the voice ended less belligerently—“there hasn’t been some crime?”
Lieutenant Valcour remained splendidly detached. “We shan’t be certain that there either has or hasn’t been a crime, as you infer, until Mr. Endicott recovers consciousness and lets us know.”
“He’s unconscious?”
“Yes.”
“Is his condition serious, Lieutenant?”
“Most serious, Mr. Hollander.”
“And Mrs. Endicott—why is it she can’t be with Herb?”
“Dr. Worth has given her a narcotic. She’s sleeping. Her nerves are unstrung.”
This evidently took a minute to digest.
“From what, Lieutenant?”
“From her husband’s condition.”
“Did Mrs. Endicott suggest that you call me up, Lieutenant?”
“No. Roberts, her maid, said you were a friend—a mutual friend. Roberts tells me that your name is the only one she has ever heard spoken by Mr. Endicott in terms that would imply intimacy.”
“That’s right.”
“You and Mr. Endicott are intimate friends, are you not?”
“Pretty thick, Lieutenant. What is it you want me to do?”
“To sit with Mr. Endicott until he recovers consciousness. Dr. Worth is afraid that his heart will go back on him again if there isn’t someone he knows with him when he comes to. If you’ll be kind enough to come up, Dr. Worth will explain the whole peculiar affair to you much better than I can.”
“Why, of course. Yes. When?”
“As soon as convenient.”
“In about an hour? There are some things—”
“That will do perfectly. Thank you very much, Mr. Hollander. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
“O’Brian,” he said, “there’s a man coming here shortly by the name of Thomas Hollander. Have him identify himself by a visiting card, or a letter, or his driver’s license, or initials on something or other. Give him a pat, too, in passing to make certain that he hasn’t got a gun. If it offends him, say that it is just a matter of routine. As a matter of fact, in his case, it probably is. Then show him up to the room that Dr. Worth is occupying for the night.”
“Yes, sir.”
“From Dr. Worth’s room he will be taken down to Mr. Endicott’s room and will stay there until morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want you to tip the men off on guard down here that I want it known I am going home until tomorrow. Tell Mr. Hollander that if he asks to see me. I am leaving the house now and may be gone for a couple of hours, more or less. Then I’m coming back. I’ll rap on this door here, and you let me in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s probably a lounge or something in that room there just off this hall. I’ll spend the night on it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is the name of the gentleman who is coming?”
“Thomas Hollander, Lieutenant.”
“Good.”
Lieutenant Valcour went outside. The normal orderliness of life returned comfortingly with the first deep breaths of cold night air. He walked the short half block to Fifth Avenue and hailed a taxi. He got in. He gave the driver, through the half-opened window in front, the Riverside Drive address of Marge Myles. ‘
CHAPTER XII
12:30 A.M—Madame Velasquez Stirs up Muck
The taxi ran north along Fifth Avenue for a few blocks and then bore left into the leafless, frosty stretches of Central Park. It was deserted of pedestrians. Occasional yellow lights showed the vacant surface of benches and empty walks.
The average worthlessness of any person’s reactions when suddenly confronted by the police, Lieutenant Valcour reflected, was a curious phenomenon. It was his belief that only rarely were such reactions the result of the moment at hand. They were instead a subconscious scurrying backward to some earlier time when something had been done by that person, or known by that person, which might then have brought him into the grip of the law. No one—he included himself in the arraignment—led a blameless life. No, not even the saints, for they had their periods of expiation, which in themselves presupposed blemishes that required the act of expiation for their erasure. And so it was with people when, even in the role of the most innocent of bystanders, they were confronted by the police. Inevitably there lurked a certain fear, an instinctive thrusting out of defenses as a guard against the chance discovery of that early blemish…
Take Hollander, for instance. Every word of his telephone conversation had been a negative defense, and yet one could not link it necessarily with the attack on Endicott. No, not necessarily. It was perfectly obvious that Hollander had expected something to happen to Endicott, and equally obvious that he was worried about the fact that Mrs. Endicott might be involved in it, but one couldn’t say that he had been involved in it himself…
The taxi stopped. Lieutenant Valcour got out, paid the driver, and dismissed him.
Riverside Drive seemed about ten degrees colder than the midtown section of the city had been. Or was it fifteen or twenty degrees? A northerly wind blew iced blasts from the Hudson River and at him across the treetops of the terraced park. Marge Myles, Lieutenant Valcour decided as he took in the facade of the building that housed her apartment, did herself rather well.
A sleepy and irritable Negro casually asked him “Wha’ floor—’n’ who, suh?” as he entered the overheated lobby. The boy was smartly snapped into full consciousness by the view offered him of Lieutenant Valcour’s gold badge.
The proper floor proved to be the fourteenth.
As the hour was hovering about one in the morning, Lieutenant Valcour was considerably surprised at the promptness with which the door swung open in response to his ring, and considerably more surprised by the querulous voice that emerged from beneath a wig, dimly seen in the poor light of a foyer, and said, “Well, I must say you took your own time in coming. Put your coat and hat on that table there, and then come into the parlor.”
Lieutenant Valcour complied. He followed a dimmish mass of jet bugles into the more accurate light of a room heavily cluttered with gold-leafed furniture and brocades.
“I’m Madame Velasquez—Marge’s ma. I ain’t Spanish myself, but if there ever was a Spaniard, my late husband Alvarez was.”
The wig on Madame Velasquez’s head offered no anachronism to the bugles of her low-cut dress. Its reddish russet strands were pompadoured and puffed and showed at unexpected places little sprays of determined curls. The face beneath it bore an odd resemblance to an enameled nut to which nature, in a moment of freakish humour, had added features.
“Now I want you to tell me at once, Mr. Endicott, what you have done with my little Marge.” Lieutenant Valcour with curious eyes tried to probe a closed door at the other end of the room.
“I expected to find her here, Madame Velasquez,” he said quietly. “Isn’t she?”
“She ain’t. And what is furthermore, Mr. Herbert Endicott, you know she ain’t.” Her voice had grown shrill, but without much volume. It was rather the ineffective piping of some winded bird.
“What makes you say that, Madame Velasquez?” The bunched strands of artificial jewelry that were recklessly clasped about Madame Velasquez’s thin neck quivered defiantly.
“And you never met her here at seven,” she said. “I suppose you’ll say you wasn’t to meet her here at seven. Well, I got this note to prove it. There, now.” She handed Lieutenant Valcour a sheet of note-paper that reeked of some high-powered scent.
Make yourself at home, Ma [read the note]. Herb Endicott was to meet me here at seven. He didn’t come although he was to take me to the Colonial for dinner. I am going to the Colonial now and see if he is there. Maybe I did not understand him right, Ma. I will be home soon anyways.
MARGE.
“And it is now,” said Madame Velasquez, “after 1 A.M.”
“She knew you were going to pay her this visit, Madame Velasquez?”
“I telegraphed her this afternoon. I’m here for a week. Where is she?”
“I don’t know where she is, Madame Velasquez.”
“Mr. Endicott, one more lie like that and I’ll call the police.”
“That’s all right, Madame Velasquez. You see, I am the police.”
The bugles, the jewels, the curls became still with shocking abruptness, as a brake that without warning binds tightly.
“You belong to the police?”
“Yes, Madame Velasquez—Lieutenant Valcour.” He showed his badge.
“Then you ain’t Mr. Endicott?”
“No, Madame Velasquez.”
“Then he—she—they’ve gone and done it, Lieutenant—they have run away.” Madame Velasquez began to simper.
“I’m sorry, Madame Velasquez, but they haven’t run away. Mr. Endicott, you see, was attacked this evening. If he doesn’t live, whoever did it will be charged with murder.”
There was a complete absence of expression in Madame Velasquez’s tone. “And you think Marge done it,” she said.
“Not necessarily so at all. Your daughter may very well have met somebody else at the Colonial—some other party of friends—and have joined it when Mr. Endicott failed to show up. The Colonial is closed by now, but perhaps she went on to some night club. I shouldn’t worry.”
“Why should she go on to some night club when she knew her ma was waiting for her here?”
Madame Velasquez’s thin hands, the fingers of which were loaded with cheap rings, played nervously with any substance they chanced to touch.
�
�Something’s happened to her, Lieutenant,” she went on. “I always told her as how it would. Marge—I told her a hundred times if I ever told her once—there’s a limit to the number of suckers you can play at one and the same time.”
“You think that some man who was jealous perhaps attacked Endicott first and then got after her?”
“Man? Men, Lieutenant, men. That brat kept the opposite of a harem, if you know what I mean.”
“She isn’t your daughter, really, is she, Madame Velasquez?”
“She was Alvarez’s only child by his first wife—some Spanish female hussy from Seville. What made you guess?”
“The way you talked about her. But do keep right on, Madame Velasquez. What a remarkable pendant—it’s a rarity to see so perfect a ruby—may I?”
Madame Velasquez simpered audibly while Lieutenant Valcour leaned forward and stared earnestly at the bit of paste.
“My late husband, Lieutenant, used to say that nothing was too good for pretty Miramar. That’s my name, Lieutenant—Miramar.”
“Few people are so happily named, Madame Velasquez. Tell me—let me rely upon your woman’s intuition—just what did Marge expect from Endicott?”
Madame Velasquez leaned forward confidentially. An atmosphere as of frenzied heliotropes clung thickly about her.
“Every last damn nickel she could get,” she said.
“Lieutenant Valcour assumed his most winning smile. “Scarcely an affaire du coeur, Madame Velasquez.” If he had had a moustache, he would have twirled it. “I suppose her early marriage embittered her, rather hardened her against men?”
“Well, if it did I ain’t noticed it none.”
“Perhaps Endicott came under the heading of business rather than pleasure?”
“Well, yes, and then no.”
“A happy combination?”
“Just a combination. Not so damn happy.”
“A little bickering now and then?”
“A lot.”
“Indeed? Marge was on the stage, wasn’t she?”
“If you can call it the stage nowadays, Lieutenant.”
“In the chorus, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“And Harry Myles saw her and carried her off.”