Breath hissed from between her teeth in a gasp of relief as she bathed the blood away. The gash was ugly, but the bullet had only scraped the shin bone, paralyzing but not breaking it.
As she plastered down the end of that white swathing the tramp of heavy feet sounded dully overhead. A door slammed closed. Anne smiled wryly. The police had tired of waiting. They had gone.
She could get hot water now, put up the strengthening broth to heat that Peter would need so badly when he awakened.
She wiped her bloody hands with cotton waste, twisted to the wooden ladder that lifted from the dirt floor and ended against a seemingly solid ceiling. Her hand flashed to the switch as she passed and blackness smashed into the hidden room again.
Anne’s feet whispered on the ladder treads. She reached the top of the ladder, fumbled. Her fingers found nailheads in a beam, pressed them in a certain order. Wood scraped on wood and pale luminance slitted the blackness above her. It grew slowly, became an aperture wide enough to let her through.
She went up into the bedroom she had shared with Faith since death and disgrace had taken her home from her and they had pooled their slender resources to build this tavern. She flung across the room to the single, iron-barred window, twisted at those bars. Behind her there was again the sound of scraping wood.
When she turned there was no longer any aperture in the floor. It was a level of wood, solid, unbroken.
This was not the tavern’s only secret, not the only hidden thing that Bulldog Ryan would give his pension to unearth. That he suspected their existence Anne knew beyond doubt, but the courts demand more than vague suspicions before they issue a search warrant.
The hot breath of the huge range met her as she opened the door to the kitchen. She stepped out into that grateful warmth, pulled it shut behind her.
“Hello,” a toneless voice said. “I see you decided to come back.”
Anne twisted to the sound. The doorway framed the speaker; stocky, derby hat crowning his pinched, pointed visage, a mocking sneer twisting at his thin lips.
The police had gone, but Bulldog Ryan had remained behind.
CHAPTER III
Whispers of Doom
“Come back?” Anne Marsh managed to force through the clamping muscles of her throat. “I haven’t been anywhere.”
“Yeah.” Ryan stood stolidly motionless on spread, thick legs, but the girl had an impression that he was advancing on her with that plodding, persistent pace with which he had come after her, always come after her for a fear-filled year. “I been right here the past half-hour an’ you ain’t gone out. It must be snowin’ in your room there an’ that’s how you got your tootsies an’ your pants wet.”
The girl said nothing in reply. What was there to say?
“He’s in there, huh,” the heavy, expressionless voice began again. “Slippery Joe.”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah. I know you’re dumb. I know you don’t know nothing about Joe, just like you was asleep in there when some guy emptied ten grand outta John Simpson’s safe. Somethin’ funny about that room. I been wantin’ to take a look at it for a long time an’ now I’m goin’ to.”
He was moving now. His thick-soled shoes thudding purposefully toward her. “No,” Anne whispered, spreading her arms wide. “You can’t go in there.” He wouldn’t miss the marks her wet boots had made on the floor in there. Not Ryan. They would show him the hidden trapdoor and….“You haven’t got a warrant.”
“No, I ain’t got a warrant. I’m breakin’ the law. But there ain’t nobody here ’ceptin’ you to see me do it, an’ there won’t nobody ask too many questions when I bring in the guy we been huntin’ for a year. Get outta my way!”
Spatulate fingers lashed out at Anne, clamped on her shoulder. The kitchen whirled around her and the floor came up to hit her. Anne rose on hands and knees, stayed that way, heart pounding, a soundless scream twisting her lips as Ryan lumbered through the opened door, and vanished within.
It was over. With only one left of those from whom she had set out to exact vengeance and reparation, Ryan had run her down at last. When the tracks had shown him the trapdoor and he’d broken it open he’d go down through it to find not only Peter but also the disguises that would tie her inescapably to certain unsolved crimes.
“Hey!” he snapped. “How the hell did you get in here?”
“That, Mr. Bulldog Ryan, ain’t the question.”
It was Faith’s acidulous voice that sounded in reply. “It’s what you mean by breakin’ into a lady’s bedroom.”
Anne didn’t know how she regained her feet. But she was erect, and she was where she could see into the room, where she could see Ryan’s broad, squat back and the old woman facing him, a kimono fluttering about her bony, angular form, her wrinkled countenance a mask of righteous indignation.
“Get out!”
“Wait.” His head moved and the gasping girl knew that no inch of the chamber was escaping his scrutiny. “Wait. Now that I’m in here, I’m goin’ to look around.”
“Go ahead and look, if you think it’s going to do you any good. Maybe it will. Maybe it’s the first time you’ve been in a decent woman’s room.”
Anne’s hand went to her breast. It was coming now. He would see the wet marks on the floor and…
There weren’t any there! The boards were dry. The old woman had wiped them dry!
* * *
—
Ryan moved around the room with a clumsy diffidence. He came to the window that was latticed by iron bars. He tugged at the black rods, peered out into the white swirl of nothingness without. Then he turned.
“All right,” he said heavily. “You two have put it over on me again. Maybe I fell asleep standin’ in that kitchen doorway. Maybe the two of you walked in and out of this room and I didn’t see you. Yeah. But I’ve got a hunch there’s something queer about this room, and I’m going to find out what it is damn soon.”
“What do you mean?” Anne couldn’t stop the question, though all she wanted was for Ryan to get out of that room, out of the house.
“I mean that you’ve got about a week more to stay here. Union Light and Power’s bringin’ a high tension line in from Bolton along this road and they’re goin’ to condemn this property for the right of way. Fulton Zander’s in court right this mornin’, gettin’ the papers approved. When their crews start tearin’ down I’m goin’ to be here, with bells on.”
He thudded out into the kitchen and banged the outer door shut.
“Faith,” Anne exclaimed. “You slipped out through the front door and around to the creek. I didn’t know you knew about the secret entrance.”
“I know about that and I know a lot more things. Includin’ that we’re through here. I’m glad of that. Maybe we’ll go away from here now, and live a normal life where you’ll be Anne Marsh and not Webster Marsh’s daughter….”
“I’m still his daughter, Faith, still the daughter of dishonor. There’s Fulton Zander left to deal with.”
“You little fool— Here, where are you going?”
“To make some chicken broth. I…”
“I’ll attend to that. You get some blankets and clean sheets and a pillow and take them down to your Peter. The idea,” she sniffed, “of letting that poor hurt boy lay there on them filthy rags.”
“You’re an angel, Faith….” Anne’s arms were around the stringy, dried-up little figure.
* * *
—
The snow laid a blanket of soft white over the roofs of the mansions along East Drive, and edged the windows of the stores on Main Street with unintended beauty. Even Slum Hollow was crisp and white and clean in the sunset glow when the blizzard ended. And in the hovels of the very poor there was a little laughter, for there would b
e lots of jobs clearing the streets.
The shovellers started along Main Street at dusk and by ten they had reached the bridge over Waley’s Creek where Bolton Turnpike came down off Lane Hill. They stopped there—because the state highway plows had opened the road to this point—and leaning on their long shovel handles squinted across the bridge at the windows of The Tavern, bright yellow oblongs in the night. That Marsh girl ran that joint, didn’t she? The daughter of that guy Webster Marsh who swiped the Community Chest money last year and made everything so tough?
Yeah. We was pretty sore at him then, even though he bumped himself off, but what was the use keepin’ a grudge? After all the charities around town been gettin’ money all year in all kinds of funny ways, pretty near as much I guess as they woulda got if old Marsh hadn’t done what he did. An’ before that the ginks what worked fer his company were treated white, a lot better than this new gang’s been doin’, cuttin’ wages an’ not givin’ no holidays with pay, an’ so on—
Slim, somehow pathetic in the black of the mourning she still wore, Anne Marsh sat at her desk by the door between the dining room and kitchen and covertly read a yellowed clipping that had appeared in the Laneville Courier the morning after Christmas—a year ago.
“As long as the naked are unclothed,” it ended, “and the hungry unfed, the soul of Webster Marsh shall have no peace.”
“Only a little more, Dad,” the girl whispered. “There’s only one more left who must pay for your rest, and then…”
And then, what? The tavern that had grown to mean home to her would be torn down by the first of the New Year. She would be homeless again, her mission accomplished. Where would she and Faith go? What would they do…?
Anne’s thoughts abruptly ended. Another voice was whispering from under her desk. A ghostly, disembodied voice it was.
“It’s so cosy here, Dickie,” the voice said. “So nice to be alone with you here. It’s always nice at the tavern but tonight the storm’s kept people home, and it’s like everything’s just for us.”
Anne’s hand moved under the desktop to the switch that connected the tuned-down loudspeaker there with the one occupied booth. That was another of the secrets of the tavern, the concealed wires by which she had been enabled to listen in on the conversations of her guests, relaxing and guarded by the seeming privacy the little cubicles afforded them. This was how she had learned the plans by which John Lawton had sought to safeguard his payroll money and had been enabled to circumvent them. This was how Dr. Thomas Wayne had betrayed himself….
“Guess we wouldn’t be here either if the governor hadn’t been called over to Fulton Zander’s house so I could grab the car.” Anne didn’t switch off the talk. She did not make a habit of listening in on lovers’ murmurings, but this…
“Gee! Won’t he be sore?”
“Naw. He seemed all hipped up after that ’phone call. Said something about splitting a melon in cash….Hell! Keep that quiet, Rhoda. I shouldn’t have spilled it. He told me to keep mum about it. Reason why he wasn’t using the boat was because this here meeting was so all-fired secret.”
“Ooh, Dickie, that’s positively thrilling. Tell me some more.”
“But…”
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid I’ll tell anybody. All the girls tell me their secrets and I never repeat them. Come on, I’ll give you an extra kiss if you do.”
“Well, to tell you the truth I don’t know anything more except that it’s the Union Light and Power bunch that’s going to be there.”
“Oh, it’s business.” Anne didn’t have to glance up into the artfully concealed mirror that would have given her a view of Rhoda’s face to know that she was pouting. “I thought it was something interesting.”
“Maybe it’s more interesting than you think. The governor cracked wise about a stickup making a rich haul if he got a notion to…”
* * *
—
The voice clicked off as the kitchen door swung open behind Anne. A neatly dressed waitress came through, swinging supple hips….
“Mary,” Anne said, stopping her, “who are the youngsters in booth ten?”
“The girl’s some dizzy deb from East Drive.”
“And the boy?”
“Him? He’s Dickie Lawton.”
“I didn’t know John Lawton had a son.”
“Gosh, where you been, Miss Marsh? Dickie made the winning touchdown for Yale in the Dartmouth game. He’s All-American left halfback an’ some sugar for the dames.”
“Oh yes. I remember now. Look, Mary, tell Hazel Jervis I want her to take the desk. There isn’t anything doing tonight and I think I’ll go to bed early.”
“Sure.” The girl swung away with her tray. Anne arose and went through the rear door of the dining room.
The trapdoor scraped shut over Anne’s head. She went down into the darkness of the secret room, tiptoed across its floor. Her hands found that which they sought in the blackness.
For a moment there was no sound except the soft whisper of breathing. Of two persons breathing. The girl had not turned on the light because Peter lay here asleep. Peter—her heart sang the name….
And then the song was a dirge as she recalled the muttering of his delirium. “She’s his daughter. You must hate her. Hate…”
Hate! That was her heritage. But why must he hate her?
She stifled a sob. Fabric rustled in the darkness, rubbing against satin-smooth skin….Anne whirled to a sudden footfall, was blinded by yellow light….
Her vision cleared. Peter was crouched against the wall, his hand on the light-switch. His clothing was wrinkled, but dry, his wounded leg straight again. The heart-shaped scar at the corner of his mouth was a white pucker. A small, flat automatic snouted from his fist.
“Up with ’em,” he grunted. “Reach.”
CHAPTER IV
Conspirators’ Cabal
Anne Marsh’s hands went over her head. “Peter!” she gasped. “What…What’s the idea.”
Astonishment peered from the youth’s blue eyes. “It’s—it’s you. It’s Anne.” He pulled the gun dazedly across his forehead. “I heard someone in here, and I thought…”
“You’d been found out. But you saw me when the light came on. Why did you still…?” And then she laughed. “Oh, it’s because I’m dressed as a boy.” Laughed and blushed, remembering that she had made the change with him lying only a yard away, that her dress, her frothy undergarments, still lay at her feet.
His blue eyes laughed with her. “Dressed as a boy but too damned beautiful to be one. You couldn’t fool anybody except a sleep-doped dummy like me. Look at your hair….”
“I’ll fix that.” Anne snatched a checked cap from the hook where the boy’s clothing had hung, stuffed her hair into it. She bent, came up with a handful of black loam from the floor, rubbed it over her face. “How’s this?”
She strode toward him, and she was a grimy-faced, shabby street urchin to the last small inch of her. “Watch yer car, mister?” she whined. “Only cost you a nickle.”
“You’re pretty good, at that.” Peter applauded.
“I ought to be. I’ve had enough practice. But that’s enough fooling. Put out the light. I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Out! Where—what…?”
“Put out that light.” She stamped her foot. “Please. It’s getting late.”
The darkness smashed in again. Once more there was the scrape of wood on wood.
Anne climbed to the road. She was a small, lonely figure trotting toward the heart of the city.
Close-drawn window drapes muffled the scrape of the snow shovels that were clearing East Drive. “We’re all here,” Fulton Zander’s acidulous tones remarked, “If everyone is sure he was not followed here we can get down to business.”
“What’s the idea of all the secrecy?” The question oozed greasily from John Simpson’s thick lips. “You’d think we were running a stag, the way you had us sneak in here.”
“That’s just what my Alice thinks,” Donald Reynolds, grey of hair but dissipated of ferret-like countenance twittered.
Zander’s fleshless lips scarcely moved. “You’ll be able to bribe your Alice with a new diamond for Christmas, Don,” he murmured, “and as for you, Simpson, I imagine some of the big depositors in your bank would be interested in knowing you were here tonight; those who hold bonds of the Union Light and Power Company for example—when I move in court tomorrow for a receivership!”
“A receivership!” John Lawton, Laneville’s department store owner, spluttered; “I thought we were making money.”
“We have been,” Zander replied. “We have been, but the books show the corporation has been running at a terrific loss. I told you a year ago that there was more to my plan than just getting hold of the outfit. You gave me authority to operate it in accordance with my ideas, and I’ve done so. I’ve been…”
“Milking the business. Good man!” Tall, completely bald, Dr. Thomas Wayne was too sardonic even to pretend ignorance of Zander’s machinations as the others were doing. “Gentlemen!” He lifted a small glass, “I give you Fulton Zander, shrewdest lawyer in seven states.”
“I don’t like it,” the last of the half-dozen seated around the table moaned. “I think we’re going too far. I’m sorry I ever threw in with you fellows, I’ve been sorry ever since—ever since Webster Marsh—killed himself.” Fred Harris’s neatly manicured hands tugged at his trim van dyke, trembling, and the tiny lights of hysteria jittered in his red-shot eyes. “I keep seeing him in my sleep, pointing a finger at me, accusing. I feel him looking at us now, listening….”
Outside the snow gleamed with an eerie, internal luminance, but along East Drive bomb-like flares waved the orange-red pennants of their flames to illumine the labors of the shovellers. The lurid glare deepened the shadow of a great fir in the Zander grounds so that it was a tar-hued, impenetrable mass lying against the sidewall of the house.
The Big Book of Female Detectives Page 57