The velvet hand

by Helen Reilly

  Detectives in New York had been trying to isolate a nameless, faceless blackmailer with tragedies strewn in his triumphant and unchecked forward march, a blackmailer who had changed his approach and might be at the bottom of what had happened to Libby. The detectives had succeeded in tying in one of the names on the list McKee had given them with the girl who had jumped off the George Washington Bridge.

  It was Hugo.

  McKee said so. He said, “You were engaged to Margery Adams at one time, Mr. Cavanaugh. She married another man. She was with you in your apartment on the last two days of her life. It was from your apartment that she went to the bridge, and her death.”

  XVII

  Kit felt as though she were going to be sick. Her stomach churned. She saw Hugo’s face in flashes. It was hard, cold. He didn’t attempt to deny the Inspector’s charge; he listened to it judicially, consideringly, his hands in his pockets, his head on one side. When he spoke it was in an even voice.

  “Yes, that’s about right, McKee. Only I wasn’t there when Madge went that night, up the fire escape and across the roof. I’d forgotten about the fire escape.” He passed a hand over his face. “I had no intention of telling you anything about Madge, but now that you know ... By the way, I thought I’d covered things pretty well—how did you find out?”

  McKee said, “An interested neighbor of yours we located, who has since moved. She used to live on the floor below you.”

  “Oh. Argus-eyed Agnes. She had a permanent crick in her neck from listening up the dumbwaiter shaft. I almost cut her head off once sending down some bottles.” His vagrant grin faded.

  “I was engaged to Madge a long time ago, when we were both kids, years before she married Tim Adams. He’s a nice guy. Madge was all right too, only scatterbrained. I didn’t see anything of them for years, then one night last November I ran into Madge in a bar on the west side. She was with a raffish crowd, and she was tight. I met her for lunch the next day. Tim was in Korea. She was in pretty bad shape, she was bored and lonely I suppose, and she’d been running around and drinking too much. Her people live in Sullivan County and she said she couldn’t stand the country. I talked to her like a Dutch uncle but I could see I wasn’t getting anywhere. I met her again in the middle of December in Grand Central, and that time she was really a mess. She had just fallen down a flight of steps under the impression she was boarding a train for home.” He paused to light a cigarette. “I took her to my apartment and tried to get her sobered up. I kept her with me Saturday and all Sunday. On Sunday night, while I was out getting supplies from the delicatessen, she managed to get hold of some whiskey, God knows how—maybe from one of the elevator boys—although they denied it later. The door was still locked when I got back, but Madge was gone. A few hours later her body was fished out of the Hudson River.”

  McKee said, “Why didn’t you tell us this in the first place, Cavanaugh?”

  “Because Madge’s father and mother are alive. Because she has a young sister. Because Tim Adams is a good guy. Madge’s father and mother still think the sun rose and set on Madge. But Tim was approached. He was offered a half-dozen letters of Madge’s for five thousand dollars. He didn’t have five thousand and he didn’t want to go to Madge’s father; he bought two of the letters at a thousand apiece, one at a time, over a period of three months. The letters were written while Madge was drunk. No doubt it was suggested to her that she write them, and they were pretty bad. The man she wrote them to, the man with whom she was infatuated, was Tony Wilder.”

  Kit stood very still. Tony Wilder—who had asked Libby to marry him, whom Libby liked. He looked the part.

  "What happened to the other letters?” McKee asked. "I got them on the morning I went to Wilder’s apartment after Libby disappeared. I didn’t know before that where Wilder lived.”

  “Where are the letters now?”

  "I destroyed them.”

  “You didn’t give them to Adams?”

  “Good God, no, he’d had enough. I just told him over the phone that it was finished with and he didn’t have to worry any more.”

  "Did Wilder himself offer the letters to Adams?”

  Hugo said no, not under his own name, that the preliminary negotiations were carried on over the phone, and that the money that passed was sent to Harry E. Brown at the General Delivery post office in New York. He added that of course it was Wilder who had collected.

  Not proven, the Scotsman reflected. Wilder might claim, probably would claim, that he had bought the four letters in his apartment to protect himself and the girl. If only— he eyed a clump of poppies morosely—Adams had come to them at the time; but it was the same old story, wearisomely reiterated. On the whole he was inclined to believe Cavanaugh, for the present, anyhow.

  Kit believed him implicitly. The letters were what Hugo had searched Wilders bureau for that first day. The relief was almost as piercing as pain.

  Hugo was asking McKee whether he wasn’t going after Wilder. "Personally I have every intention of smashing his face in the next time I meet him, now that this has been forced out in the open.”

  "I think,” McKee said slowly, "I’d like to find out a little bit more about Tony Wilder first—and I’ll have to see Adams. I want you to come back with me to New York, Cavanaugh. . . .”

  "Now?” Hugo frowned. McKee said, "Yes, now.”

  Hugo didn’t, quite naturally, want to leave Libby; the two men went on talking and Kit walked away.

  Two hours later McKee and Hugo Cavanaugh entered the shabby, ornate hotel in midtown Manhattan in which Wilder had taken refuge from his creditors and where, according to his story, he had waited in vain for a phone call from Libby Tallis until his patience was exhausted. Cavanaugh was sure that Wilder was mixed up in the extortion of the twenty-five thousand from Philip Haven. One for the money, two for the show; Wilder played the front man, the distracted lover, while accomplices did the rest, and he had his share of the loot stashed away in some safe place. “He doesn’t give a damn about Libby, Inspector. He’s in it for cash money and he’s hanging around in Denfield to make his story stand up.”

  McKee couldn’t agree. In the first place Wilder wasn’t a man riding on top of the world; he was still hiding from his creditors and terrified that they’d catch up with him. In addition to other worries he had drawn a couple of sizable checks on a practically nonexistent bank account, and unless he did something about them his goose would be cooked. He was also, in the Scotsman’s opinion, genuinely in love with Libby Tallis. On the other hand, as far as those blackmailing cases went, he could very well have been the decoy, handsome, plausible, leading his victims along the flowery paths that led to their ultimate undoing. Wilder the instrument, Pedrick the brains? The trouble in this case was that Pedrick hadn’t come into the Haven affair until the kidnapping was an accomplished fact.

  The crux of the matter was the collection of the treasure trove in the candy box. If they could find out who had removed the box from under Kit Haven’s arm on the Times Square subway platform at the peak of the rush hour, the rest would be easy. The single clue, admittedly slim, was a woman in a green raincoat Cavanaugh had seen in the lobby of the hotel, and a similarly clad woman who answered the same general description Kit Haven had noticed during her subway trek.

  Tony Wilder’s own alibi for the interval in question, roughly from 5 to 6 p.m. on Monday, had already been checked. Cavanaugh had seen Wilder enter the hotel and go upstairs at around half past three; two of McKee’s men had established him in his room at six-thirty.

  Cavanaugh pointed to an armchair towards the rear of the lobby and near the two elevators. “I sat there from the time he got in until almost six o’clock.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t slip past you?”

  Cavanaugh was reluctantly sure. There was no other exit for guests. A checker who sat just inside the passage to the service quarters was equally sure Wilder hadn’t gone past him.

  McKee took it further. At shortly after six Wi
lder had ordered up a bottle of whiskey from the bar. Number 27 had delivered the bourbon. Number 27 interviewed; he was a stout, shrewd-faced man. “Yeah, I remember it,” he said, “because I almost made a boner. I think there was a dame in 68. It was like this. We’re pretty busy about then and when I knocked and didn’t get an answer right off I unlocked the door with my key, figuring maybe the guy had stepped out. Well, he hadn’t, he was there all right, and when I walked in he was pretty mad. The bathroom door was a little open and while he was bawling me out it closed—and I don’t think it blew shut. I think there was a dame in the bathroom, that she ducked in there when she heard me come in. I couldn’t swear to it, but in this job you get a kind of feeling. . . . Thanks, Inspector.”

  The two men returned to the lobby. It wasn’t much. It was something. Cavanaugh said, “The woman in the green raincoat?” and McKee said, “Might be. We’ll check on Eleanor Oaks’s whereabouts at the time.” He used the phone and got the manager of the apartment hotel on Park Avenue. The personnel couldn’t say whether Mrs. Oaks had been in or out from four to six last Monday.

  Cavanaugh said stubbornly, “I tell you, Inspector, Wilders mixed up in it some place.” Smoking a cigarette beside a moth-eaten palm McKee studied Cavanaugh. His hatred of Wilder was violent and implacable. If what he said was true it was easy enough to understand, but there was no positive proof one way or another, as far as Margery Adams was concerned. Both men had known her and unless something more definite turned up they could go on mutually accusing each other till doomsday, without result. McKee thought of something else; it wasn’t until after Kit Haven had, doubtfully, produced the woman in the green raincoat on the Seventy-second Street platform who was one of the few people she could recall that Cavanaugh had come up with the woman in the green raincoat there in the lobby at an appropriate time. Cavanaugh didn’t look the part; Wilder was much more the type, but nothing ran true to form in this vaguest of cases, in which, moreover, the action was incomplete. McKee had the strongest feeling about that. And the house up there in Denfield was vulnerable, a fort without walls that could be entered almost at will from the shadowy tree-hung gardens.

  He shook off irritated worry. He had to see the Commissioner at eight—wind things up here now.

  Inquiries about the woman in the green raincoat produced blank stares from the clerks, the bellboys, the checkroom girl, the doorman and a porter. There were thousands of green raincoats around town and it was a rainy night and busy. As far as Wilder went he had checked out of the hotel at four o’clock the following day, Tuesday, and had arrived in Denfield at seven-thirty that same evening. Backtrack on him for anything that might be lying around loose here.

  One of the elevator girls, a large freckled redhead, remembered Wilder clearly. “Big handsome guy on Six? Sure. Looked like a movie star.” Wilder had been in a dither about something when he was checking out; she had brought him down. Generally he had a word and a smile for her, but not that day. He was carrying two suitcases. She noticed because one of them was good, nice leather; the other was a cheap thing made of straw, like what you’d see coming off the boat from Ellis Island.

  Two suitcases; McKee had a mental picture of Wilder’s room in the Denfield Inn, of one suitcase on the trunk rack at the foot of the bed. There might have been another in a closet. He rang the inn. Wilder had arrived in Denfield with only one suitcase.

  What had he done with the other between the hotel and the train? It was scarcely likely that he had lost it by accident; he didn’t look like a forgetful fellow. It might simply have contained soiled linen, and Wilder might have taken it back to his rooms in the Village. He hadn’t. A quick trip downtown assured McKee of that. According to the janitor no one had seen hide nor hair of Mr. Wilder since a young lady and him—the man pointed to Cavanaugh-had come looking for Wilder early the week before.

  Grand Central next; the straw bag could have been checked there, or Wilder could have rented a lock box. He had done neither. Establishing it, particularly the lock box—they had a long and tiresome wait for the official with the master keys—took more than an hour. There was one other place, the lost and found office on the west balcony.

  It was there that McKee got what he was after. The straw suitcase reposed on a shelf in full view. It had been picked up near the information booth on the Tuesday night in question and turned in by a porter. The attendant produced it, said in a singsong voice, “Describe the contents,” and prepared to open it. McKee flashed his shield and took the suitcase with him.

  He carried it across to the balcony overlooking the great central room below, crowded with figures scurrying under the painted sky in which gold stars twinkled benignly. The balcony was dim, empty. McKee put the suitcase down on top of the broad railing. It had cost perhaps five dollars a long, long time ago. The catches were flimsy. He cut the cord and threw up the lid. The green raincoat was there, rolled into a bundle. He unrolled crumpled folds of the rubberized cloth, and stared down. The thing the raincoat had been wrapped around was a beaten-up blond wig.

  Tony Wilder was the tall woman in the green raincoat Cavanaugh had seen leaving the Hotel Bronson last Monday afternoon. He was the one Kit Haven had seen on the Seventy-second Street platform disguised as a woman. He was the collector of the candy box and its sweet contents. Men masquerading as women were not new in the annals of Centre Street, there was nothing novel or bizarre in the idea; McKee shouldn’t have been surprised. He was both surprised and sharply disconcerted.

  Tony Wilder had fooled him to the top of his bent. He had judged the man as stupid, vain, weak—and very much in love with Libby Tallis. He had been wrong, and Hugo Cavanaugh had been right. Feet shuffled, people continued to move to and fro across the marble floor below, a redcap laughed merrily. Beside McKee, Cavanaugh said with satisfaction, “I told you so, Inspector.”

  Wait a minute. McKee didn’t say it aloud. He stood motionless gazing into the golden dusk. Perhaps he hadn’t been wrong. Wilder might be just as he had summed him up, in love with the girl, not wanting to hurt her, but forced to do what he was told and not daring to rebel against the part he had been assigned to play. The very clumsiness of the fashion in which he had gotten rid of the incriminating wig and raincoat showed that he was no mastermind. Wilder was very definitely a puppet, and not the brains of the outfit.

  Someone who wanted money badly, someone who knew it was there for the asking. That went for a lot of people. Could he have been mistaken about Pedrick, had Pedrick been in it from the beginning? And what about Eleanor Oaks? Hadn’t he himself been rather neglecting the divine Eleanor? Had Wilder been her tool? Was that why she was a frightened woman? Tools were things to be disposed of when their usefulness was over. McKee slammed the lid of the suitcase, snapped the only catch that held, retied the cord hastily and made for the nearest phone booth.

  He called the Denfield Inn first. Mr. Wilder wasn’t on the premises, but hadn’t checked out. He called the Haven house. George Corey answered and asked a question over his shoulder. Wilder had been there a few minutes ago but had gone. McKee then called Captain North at the state barracks. North said he’d go out on it himself. McKee said, “I’ll be up later on tonight. I’d like him in one piece, Captain,” and rang Eleanor Oaks. There was no answer. He dialed the office. On last report Mrs. Oaks and Pedrick were dining at the Green Grotto on Fourth Street. They weren’t at the Green Grotto; they had just left.

  It was the best that could be done for the moment. McKee was already overdue at Centre Street. In answer to a question from Cavanaugh he said, “Yes, go up there if you like—but not a word of this to anyone,” and tapped the suitcase. Cavanaugh said, “O.K., Inspector. I can just catch a train—I’m worried about those girls,” and strode off.

  Turning towards Forty-second Street McKee spared a moment to wonder which girl Cavanaugh was interested in. Decidedly a poker-faced young man with an uncanny habit of being right, after the event. Too bad he had seen the contents of the suitcase, but Capt
ain North would be on Wilder’s tail; the Scotsman dove for the subway.

  “I’ll tell you why I asked you to come down, McKee. The stuff is all here.” Commissioner Carey touched a folder on the desk in front of him. “It’s Colonel Stott who wants you; of course the request came through channels. Stott liked the work you did up there on the Cape last year. They appear to be having trouble, a couple of unexplained deaths—and Stott’s worried. You’re not working on anything particularly important right now, are you?”

  “Well. . .”

  “I thought the Jacobson affair was disposed of.”

  “That? Yes. But. . .” McKee gave Carey a quick outline of the Haven case, and Carey listened frowningly. William Grant was dead. And he could have killed himself. The

  Scotsman admitted that so far there was no proof to the contrary. In any event, Carey said, it was Connecticut’s ease. The girl was safe at home. As for the money—“Hardly your line, McKee.”

  “Not at the moment, Commissioner.”

  Carey sat up. “You—think there’s going to be more trouble?” '

  “I’m a hundred per cent sure of it.”

  McKee spoke quietly, but Carey knew his man, and was troubled. Crime prevention was even more important than its detection and punishment; they both had the same ideas on the subject. On the other hand, where a government agency was concerned ... He hesitated. McKee asked how long he could have before leaving for the Cape.

  Carey thought. “Two or three days?”

  “Make it a week.” McKee pushed back his chair and got up.

  He wanted to locate Eleanor Oaks and Pedrick, and he wanted Wilder. After five hours of strenuous work he was forced to the conclusion that want would have to be his master. All three of them had disappeared, willfully and of malice prepense—or that was the way it looked.