The Big Book of Female Detectives

by The Big Book of Female Detectives (retail) (epub)

  But did musicians use rouge?

  Absurd!

  Did conductors? Did Palestrina?

  What wild and ridiculous nonsense! Palestrina, in point of sober fact, was actively conducting his orchestra at the moment Mrs. Letts lay back in her chair and died. Wasn’t he? Of course he was. A houseful of people could testify to that. He had been right there from the beginning.

  Very well! But for the sake of the argument—what if Palestrina had not been there, behind the conductor’s stand, all the time? At any time! Was the likeness between himself and the violin player in the orchestra so great that one could pass as the other? Was it possible that a violin player could, without the genius of Palestrina, conduct an orchestra with Palestrina’s genius?

  Would it have been possible for a violin player to escape from the orchestra pit—at the conclusion of the overture, say—and go about another business?

  “Oh dear!” murmured Miss Cardiff again. She sat up straight in her chair. “I’m getting quite, quite mad. But I do wish I had looked for that man in the orchestra again. Did he go away? And, if he did, did he come back?”

  Then another thought occurred to her, more paralyzing than the first….

  * * *

  —

  The newspapers, in the morning, called attention to the statement of the coroner’s physician with reference to the violence of the blow given Mrs. Letts by her assailant. It had been, it appeared, very powerful. The flesh about the wound was bruised and discolored. The inference was that only a man could have delivered such a stroke. The newspapers were inspired to this utterance by Dallas, himself, who was anxious that his private theory concerning a woman should remain in obscurity. No use warning one’s suspects in advance of the big pinch. His woman obsession was one he was loath to give up, although Sally Cardiff had shaken it.

  Duffield, meanwhile, had turned up a sensation. It completely revolutionized Dallas’s notions when he heard about it. The word came to him over the telephone, and the chief of detectives banged his fist on the desk and swore with savage triumph.

  “Good work, Duff,” he said. “Wait there till I join you. I’m coming right away.”

  Duffield, a bit of a genius himself, had been visited by an inspiration….A pilot had crashed the night before—a commercial pilot—while eastbound for New York, and now lay cursing in a small hospital in Northern Indiana. The newspaper account had been brief. Duffield had read it in an early edition. The pilot, it appeared, was concerned about the fate of his passenger; but as there had been no passenger found in the wreckage, the Indiana authorities had assumed the man to be delirious.

  Duffield, without orders, had hurried to the Indiana hospital—by fast plane—and was at the pilot’s bedside when he telephoned his superior. Dallas joined him at top speed, by early train. Top speed was what the company called it; but in actuality the Middle West was all but snowbound.

  “Listen, Chief,” said the subordinate, when he had taken his superior aside, “he said it again, right after I telephoned you!”

  “The deuce he did!” said Dallas.

  “Yep. There was a doctor with us, and he heard it too. He thought the fellow was trying to say ‘Let’s go!’ which is a common phrase, it seems, among fliers. I didn’t try to tell him anything different.”

  Dallas grinned happily. He inhaled the aseptic odors of the hospital corridor with appreciation. “It looks good to me, Duff,” he said.

  “It’s the goods,” said Duffield. “What the pilot was saying was ‘Letts,’ as sure as you’re a foot high. His passenger was Emmanuel B. Letts—and Emmanuel B. Letts is missing! They must have left Chicago sometime last night. They got caught in the blizzard, tried to go over it—or around it—or something—and finally they crashed.”

  “Is this fellow going to die?”

  “No—he’s going to pull through.”

  “I suppose,” said Dallas reflectively, “it couldn’t have been that—”

  “Not a chance,” interrupted Duffield. “I thought of that. I thought maybe this fellow had done the job, himself, and was making a sneak. But why? He ain’t a gunman or a gangster. He’s a professional pilot. It only makes it harder, that way, Chief! There’s no sense looking for a hard answer. This fellow couldn’t have had anything against Mrs. Letts. The other way it’s easy. A woman’s husband—”

  “All right,” said Dallas. “It just occurred to me. Well, we’ve got to find Letts. Where was the crash?”

  “About five miles from here—out in the country.”

  “Who found the pilot?”

  “A farmer. He lives near where it happened. He telephoned the police here, when he heard the crash, and they went out and got him. Got the pilot.”

  “No suspicions, of course,” said Dallas, “so they wouldn’t look around. I’ll bet they’ve trampled the snow like a flock of elephants.”

  Duffield shrugged. “Well,” he said, “the snow’s been falling pretty steady ever since. There wouldn’t have been any footprints, anyway.”

  “He couldn’t go far,” mused Dallas. Then he brightened and spoke more cheerfully. “Maybe he was hurt! He’d almost have to be. Maybe the farmer’s got him. Anyway, he’s hiding somewhere.”

  “They ain’t always hurt,” said Duffield, morosely. “First thing he’d think of ’d be a train. He’d have to get that here.”

  “Would he?” questioned Dallas. “Well, that’s something. You’ve looked up the morning trains, I suppose?”

  “The storm has shot schedules all to hell,” said Duffield. “The train you came on should have left Chicago last night. There’s plenty of time as far as trains are concerned.”

  “This fellow have anything in his pockets?”

  “Nothing we want.”

  “Hmph,” grumbled Dallas. “Well, you’re a good dick, Duffy! Let’s get going.”

  They assured themselves that there was no chance of the pilot’s miraculous recovery and disappearance during their absence, then plunged into the snow-clad streets. Their first visit was to the railroad station. No stranger had been inquiring for trains East, however, and they pushed on to police headquarters, where their advent created a sensation. Dallas was a very famous detective.

  “I’ll go with you, myself,” said the chief of police, with flattering emphasis. “My driver knows every road in the county.”

  “He’ll need a snow plow,” observed Duffield grimly. “I wish criminals would stop operating in the winter.”

  The drive to the scene of the accident was cold and difficult; but at last they stood beside the twisted framework of the plane—a gaunt and melancholy spectacle with its insulation of gleaming snow. A glance was sufficient to tell the experienced Chicagoan detectives that a hunt for clues would be useless. They stood in snow to their knees and looked gloomily at the tragic tangle of wood and metal. They kicked their aching feet against the dead motors, and swore thoughtfully.

  “Any roadhouses near here?” asked Dallas, at length. “Hotels? Any place he could have gone?”

  “There’s Braxton’s,” said the police chief. “It’s five miles the other way.”

  “Letts wouldn’t necessarily know his directions,” said Dallas. “All right. Let’s go to Braxton’s.”

  They drove toilsomely to Braxton’s—a two-story shack whose creaking signboard, festooned with snow bunting, announced its raison d’être in a single laconic word: TOURISTS. The slattern in charge was unimpressed by their descent. No guests had come to her the night before, nor during the morning hours either. She brightened when they ordered coffee, which they drank standing.

  Then again the snow-piled highway took them. They were heading back, now, toward the town. On all sides stretched desolate miles of glistening white. Trees were hung with it. Fences drooped with its weight.

  Not far from the wrecked plane the land fell away into a ho
llow, from out of which now rose a lazy question mark of smoke.

  “What’s that?” asked Dallas.

  “Neilson’s,” answered the police chief briefly. “The fellow that found the pilot,” he explained. “He don’t know anything about it.”

  “Oh?” said Dallas. “Let’s have a look at him, anyway. There seems to be a bit of a path there.”

  They swung inward and upward for a piece; then their wheels spun uselessly in unbroken drifts of snow and ice. Duffield climbed out of the car.

  “Get back to the road, if you can,” he said. “I’ll go up to the house.”

  He plunged forward on foot, wading in snow to his waist, and at length breasted the hillock. Behind him the stalled car fumed and chugged, endeavoring to back.

  Duffield’s eyes fell first on the low dwelling of the farmer Neilson, all but snowbound in the hollow. Then he saw something else. From an upper window a man was watching him who, after an instant, began frantically to wave his arms. He seemed to be summoning Duffield to the house. Neilson, no doubt—but what the devil did the fellow want? Had he seen the car?

  He strode onward with large steps and at length burst a path to the farmhouse door. The man at the window had disappeared. In the doorway, suddenly, were two men. The second man was obviously Neilson; he could be no one else. But the first man was a man of substance and position if ever Duffield had seen one. He was tall and powerful, running a bit to flesh, and his garments were expensive and of the latest cut. Obviously, too, they had been exposed to the elements.

  The big man was excited. “I heard your car from the window,” he said, “and I thought I had a glimpse of it. Are you going up to town?”

  There was no doubt in Duffield’s mind. He had never seen Emmanuel B. Letts or his portrait; but he knew that this was Emmanuel B. Letts.

  “Why, yes,” he drawled. “Wanta come along?”

  “You bet,” said the stranger. “I had a breakdown, last night, and had to put in for repairs. I’ll tell you about it as we go along.”

  “Reckon I heard about that,” smiled Duffield. “Your pilot’s in the hospital, ain’t he?”

  “Pilot?” echoed the other. “No, no—I heard about that, myself. Poor chap! No, I was driving. Wait till I get my traps.” He hurried away upstairs, leaving Neilson staring at Duffield with deep suspicion.

  “You don’t belong in these parts,” said the farmer, after a moment. “What was it you was wanting, when you came along?”

  “Your house guest,” answered Duffield promptly. He swung his heavy overcoat aside, then swung back the jacket underneath. Before the menace of his little badge the farmer fell away. “Not a word out of you,” continued the detective. In a swift whisper he asked: “What did he give you?”

  Neilson’s eyes fell, then lifted. “A hundred dollars,” he said defiantly.

  “Keep it,” said Duffield. “What’d he tell you?”

  “He was with the pilot that was wrecked; but he didn’t want it known. It was a secret trip, he said, and would hurt business if it was spread around.”

  “Keep your mouth shut till you’re told to open it,” said Duffield, “and I’ll keep still about the hundred.”

  Letts was lumbering down the crooked stairs, clutching his satchel. He was now attired in a significant leather jacket.

  “I’ll be glad to get away,” said the big man happily. “Not but what your hospitality has been fine, Mr. Neilson; but I’ve got things to do, after all.” He turned on Duffield with belated suspicion. “You live around here, I suppose? Just breaking a path to town, eh?”

  “Right you are,” said Duffield jovially. “And glad to have you with me, Mr….?” He hesitated before the name.

  “I’ll make it worth your while,” nodded Letts. “My name is Rogers. Maybe you can tell me about the trains out of town. I’m a stranger in the neighborhood, myself.”

  They fought their way through the drifts, stepping where possible in the holes made by Duffield in his advance upon the house. As they crested the rise, the detective noted that his companions had worked the car back into the road. Two of them—Dallas and the local chief—were performing a slow dance in the snow, pausing occasionally to kick their aching feet against the framework of the car. The chauffeur sat stolidly behind his wheel.

  “Friends of mine,” said Duffield, in answer to the other’s inquiring glance. “All going up to town, the same as we are.”

  They finished their plunge to the roadway and stopped beside the car. Dallas and the police chief were trying not to stare.

  “In you go, boys,” cried Duffield. “This gentleman is going along as far as the railway station.”

  The police chief climbed in beside his chauffeur. Dallas slipped into the rear seat and made room for the newcomer beside him. The last to enter the car was Duffield. The car started with a jerk.

  “This is Mr. Rogers, Chief,” said Duffield, chattily. “He wants to catch the first train East.”

  Dallas smiled blandly on their sudden prisoner. He had looked at a portrait of Emmanuel B. Letts before leaving Chicago. He softly rubbed his knuckles.

  “I sympathize with Mr. Rogers,” he murmured; and laid his heavy hand on the other’s shoulder.

  * * *

  —

  Young Mr. Castle was annoyed. He had no objections to playing chauffeur to Sally Cardiff—it was his ambition to land a permanent job in that and other servile capacities—but her detectival activities set his back up. The excitement of Mrs. Letts’s murder had gone to her head, apparently. He was forced to admit, however, that Miss Cardiff was not unduly excited. She was eager, but calm enough, all things considered. She was even dispassionate. Her theories of the murder were fantastic, they were the utmost nonsense; but she argued them plausibly. Somewhere, he felt certain, there was a flaw in her reasoning; but he was never able—while she was talking—to put his finger on it.

  “And the publicity of it,” he had stormed at her. “Suppose you were right! Can’t you just see the newspapers? My dear girl, there would be nothing left for you to do but open a private inquiry agency.”

  “My curiosity is impersonal,” she explained. “It’s just—just curiosity! I really don’t care two straws whether the murderer gets justice or doesn’t. It’s the chase—you know. My wits against his—and both of us against the police. I don’t think I’m morbid, Arnold. As for Dallas—can’t you see him taking all the credit? Why, I’ll hand it to him. I’ll toss it to him as I would to a—a fish!”

  “Good old sea lion,” grinned Castle.

  That had been their latest discussion of the subject. It all flickered, cinema-like, through his mind as he sat behind the wheel of his gray roadster and looked up at the gloomy windows of the big warehouse beside which, at the moment, he was parked. Sally Cardiff was inside.

  In time she emerged. On the instant all his dissatisfaction fell away. Her face was beaming. Her step was brisk and triumphant. With what decision her tall heels clicked on the stone flags! And what a glorious small person, in all aspects, was this Sally Cardiff!

  “Don’t get out,” she said, climbing in beside him. She sank back with a long sigh of relief. “It’s over,” she said.

  “You’ve failed?” he asked quickly—hopefully.

  “I’ve won!”

  He drove the roadster furiously through a narrow crack between two taxicabs, beat a changing traffic light by an eyelash, and turned a corner in haste.

  “Where to?” he asked, after a time.

  “I’m wondering,” said Miss Cardiff. “To the Detective Bureau, I suppose. Not that I fancy myself, now, in the role of tale teller; but there’s the chance that I’ll be able to keep Dallas from making a fool of himself.”

  “You’re quite sure you’re not making—er—committing an error, yourself?”

  “Oh, quite!”

  He sigh
ed. “What did you find in the warehouse?” There had been a package under her arm when she emerged. Now it lay across her knee. He eyed it with suspicion.

  But she did not lift the parcel. Instead, she opened her small purse, with infinite care, and extracted a tiny envelope.

  “Slow down,” she ordered, “and look inside.”

  He almost expected to see a human eyeball staring up at him from the inside of the envelope.

  What he saw was exactly nothing. Or did she mean that thread of dust that had settled in a corner of the envelope? As he looked, she shifted the container in her hands; and the thread of dust turned over on its side and glinted.

  He looked quickly away. “What is it?”

  “Mrs. Letts, you will recall, wore a metal-cloth evening dress. It was cut high. The knife passed through it. This is a shred of the material.”

  “Get out!” he scoffed. But he was astounded.

  “Actually. It can’t be anything else. It adhered to the point of the knife.”

  Castle was stunned. “Oh, come off, Sally!” he cried at last. “It couldn’t!”

  “It did. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t. I mean, it wouldn’t adhere to an ordinary knife. This knife was not ordinary. It was rather a blunt knife, with a damaged tip. You remember what the coroner’s physician said about the wound? An unusually violent blow was required. That was why. The blade didn’t have a point.”

  He was still incredulous. “And you found it—still clinging to the knife?”

  “Oh, no! It was on the jacket of the other man. Almost under the arm. I’m glad it was a rough jacket. The knife, of course, was cleaned—but this little shred—just a twisted thread or two—remained in the broken tip. It was dislodged by the murderer’s second thrust—later—and remained among the hairs of the jacket.”

  “Well, I’ll be hanged!”

  “Somebody will be,” smiled Miss Cardiff.