by Frank Kane
“Nobody's going to beat him to it.”
“That's what you say. That dame's name is news. If she's disappeared and if she's tied into last night's shooting it's a corking yarn.”
“Don't worry about it. Nobody knows she's disappeared except me and the house dick at the Westmore. And he's not likely to spill that one of the house's guests was snatched right out from under his nose. Every old biddy in the joint would check out in an hour.”
Muggsy refused to be mollified. “I ought to cover Pop on this one, Johnny. I can't sit on anything as hot as this.”
“You think this is hot? Before I'm finished I'll give you a story that'll make this look like kid stuff.”
“What story?”
Liddell shrugged. “I haven't got it yet. You didn't even ask what she hired the agency for.”
“With her it could be anything from finding her pet Pekinese to buying back love letters from the Tattooed Man at the circus. Okay, I'll play along. What did she hire the agency to do?”
“Find out who murdered her old man.”
“Who murdered her old man? You kidding? Matt Merritt committed suicide.”
Liddell shrugged. “Do me something. She thinks he was murdered.”
Muggsy chewed on the end of a lacquered nail, considered it, shook her head. “I don't believe it. That may have been the reason she gave you, but there was something else behind it.”
“Such as?”
“It could be anything, I tell you. With gunmen like Scoda in the picture it begins to smell like blackmail or unpaid IOU's, doesn't it?”
“I don't know enough about her,” Liddell admitted. “Give me a fast rundown.”
“She's a typical cafe society screwball. In one mess after another until her old man toned her down. Seems to me she's managed to stay out of the columns for the last year or so, but before that she was always in them. Seems to me she's due to get married this month.”
“Who to?”
The blonde pursed her lips, wrinkled her brow in concentration. “The family doctor. Guy named—-” She struggled with her memory, shook her head. “Let me check.”
She picked up the phone, dialed a number, waited. Then, “Hello. Advance? Give me Ann Shafer on Society.” There was a brief pause. “Ann? Ronny Kiely. Fine. No, I'm back in town for a while. Look, honey, my memory isn't what it was. Do you remember the guy Jean Merritt was going to marry”? Who? Yes, that's the one. Thanks a lot.”
She dropped the phone back on its cradle. “Doctor Seville. Tony Seville. He took care of the old man.”
“How about him?”
“Okay as far as I know. He didn't play the cellar circuit. How he ever came to fall for a screwball like the Merritt kid I don't know.”
“That could be the answer.”
“What?”
“The fiance. When she checked out of the Westmore last night, there was a man with her. He took care of the bill, took her away. From all I could pick up, she went willingly enough.”
“If it was a man, she went willingly.”
Liddell scowled, ignored the interruption. “He might have talked her out of keeping the appointment, taken her home.”
“Why knock your brains out over it? If she didn't think enough of it to keep the appointment, why should you worry?”
“First, because she paid a five-hundred-dollar retainer and she's got some action coming to her. Second, because the guy she left the hotel with sounded like Scoda and the car they got into sounded like the one they used for the guitar serenade.” He punched the button at the base of the phone. “Just the same, it's worth having a talk with Doctor Seville.”
The redhead in the outer office answered her ring.
“Pinky, get me the number of a Doctor Tony Seville, will you?”
She snapped an affirmative, clicked the phone in his ear.
“Maybe we can wrap this one up fast and have a couple of days to see the sights, Muggsy. What's your Pop have to say about your packing in the movie job?”
Muggsy grinned. “He played the same old record. Newspaper work is no fit work for a woman. It's a dog's life. Still, even with his ulcers they can't get him to take a couple of weeks off for a rest.”
“Going back to the Advance?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On you. On how good this story is that you're going to hand me all wrapped up in pretty ribbons.”
The desk phone buzzed. Liddell lifted it to his ear.
“Doctor Seville has two numbers,” Pinky snapped. “One is his office on Sixtieth and Park. The other is his private hospital in Bronxville. Which one do you want?”
“Try him at his office, will you, Pinky? Make an appointment for me to see him right after lunch, if possible.” He consulted his watch. “Any time after one-thirty.”
* * *
Dr. Tony Seville was sitting behind his desk, his chair facing out onto the streaming traffic five stories below along Park Avenue, when the nurse ushered Johnny Liddell into his office.
“Mr. Liddell, doctor,” the nurse announced him.
The man in the chair swung around slowly, eyed Liddell disinterestedly, waved him to a chair with a carefully manicured hand. His thick black hair was carefully shellacked into place, high cheekbones accentuated dark liquid eyes, a thin pencil-line mustache separated a full, sensuous mouth from a perfectly chiseled nose.
He picked up the typewritten memo the nurse laid at his elbow, glanced at it. His voice was low, well modulated. “You wanted to see me on a personal matter, Mr. Liddell?” His eyes rolled up to the nurse, who nodded, back to Liddell. “How can I help you?”
“It's about a Miss Jean Merritt, doctor,” Liddell told him. “I'm a private investigator.” He dropped into a heavily upholstered chair, waited until the doctor had dismissed his nurse.
“Now, Liddell, what about Miss Merritt?” Seville asked as soon as the door had closed behind the nurse.
“I thought she might be here.”
The dark man raised his eyebrows delicately. “Here? Why should she be here?”
“She checked out of her hotel rather unexpectedly late last night. She left with a man. I thought it might be you.
The doctor considered it, twisted a heavy gold ring on his fourth finger. “May I ask your interest in my fiancee?”
“Miss Merritt engaged my agency to look into her father's death.”
The doctor sighed. “You know, of course, that her father committed suicide?”
“That's what the coroner says. Miss Merritt thought she had something that proved otherwise.”
“She may have thought she had,” Seville conceded.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that my fiancee has been under a tremendous emotional strain. She is prone to some exaggeration.” The doctor leaned over, selected a tubular cigarette from a japanned box on his desk. “Try one of these? I have them specially blended.”
Liddell selected one, hung it from the corner of his mouth, touched a match to it, drew deeply. He wrinkled his nose as he exhaled twin streams of smoke through his nostrils. “I prefer tobacco in mine,” he grunted, ground it out in an ash tray. “To get back to Miss Merritt. You think she's blown her top. Is that it?”
“Not quite that drastic, of course. Let's say she's very unpredictable as the result of the shock of her father's tragic death.” He fitted his cigarette into a holder, tilted it in the corner of his mouth. “She was very close to her father, you know. Very close.” He reached into his bottom drawer, deposited a bottle with a foreign label and two glasses on his desk. “Since you don't approve of my tobacco, may I offer you a drink?”
Liddell nodded, watched the physician pour stiff portions into each of the glasses. “I understood you were to be married this month?”
“We were. Naturally, in view of what has happened, it has been postponed.”
“Permanently?”
The physician looked up, a frown marring his forehead. “Temporarily, of c
ourse. We will be married as soon as Jean feels up to it.”
Liddell sipped his drink, approved. “You were Merritt's physician. Are you convinced he committed suicide?”
“Unquestionably.”
“He had a reason to kill himself?”
Seville shrugged. “He thought so, obviously.”
“And you?”
The doctor warmed his glass between his palms, sniffed the bouquet. “Jean's father was convinced that he was suffering from a malignant condition in his throat. He became despondent, withdrew into himself. We tried to convince him that the condition was not as bad as he imagined but he refused to be consoled.”
Liddell found one of his own cigarettes, lit it. “This throat condition. Was it incurable?”
“In my opinion, no. But we could not persuade him that it wasn't. His mother had died of cancer, and nothing we could say would shake his conviction that he had inherited a tendency toward it. He worried himself to the verge of a nervous breakdown.” He shrugged, looked sad. “That night he probably cracked altogether. It was tragic.”
“Why should Miss Merritt be so convinced that it wasn't suicide? She must have known his mental state.”
“She must know it, but she won't permit herself to acknowledge it, Liddell. She's a very strong-minded person and to her suicide is an indication of weakness. She can't allow herself to believe that her father, whom she idolized, was weak in any way.”
“Surely you could talk her out of it?”
Seville sipped at his glass, set it back on the corner of his desk. “I haven't discussed the matter with Jean since the funeral. She was so upset she expressed the wish to see nobody. I am confident that when once she has worked the matter out in her own mind, she'll communicate with me. At that time, of course, I shall do what I can to rid her mind of this fixation.”
Liddell scowled, swirled the contents of his glass around the side. “Doesn't her behavior of last night indicate she may need some help?”
“The fact that she changed her mind about using your services, you mean?”
“The fact that she's disappeared.”
“What would you suggest I do?” The physician's voice was silky. “Call the police? And then have to explain to Jean after I'd stirred up an official inquiry merely because she'd decided to change hotels? Really, Liddell, it occurs to me that perhaps you are overstepping whatever authority you feel Miss Merritt's phone call may have given you.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But until she tells me otherwise, she's a client and as such she gets all the help and protection I feel she needs,” Liddell growled. “I'll go along with you on not dragging the police into this until it's absolutely necessary, but I do think her family should be checked.”
“She has no family. Her nearest living relative is her mother and she is lying near death in the hospital.”
Seville caught his drink from the corner of the desk, finished it, dried his lips with a snowy-white pocket handkerchief. “As you probably know, she was found unconscious at the foot of the stairs leading to her husband's study the night he died.”
“I didn't know,” Liddell admitted. “Stroke?”
“Some cerebral hemorrhage. However, even more serious are the incidental injuries.”
Liddell raised his eyebrows, “How'd they happen?”
The man behind the desk shrugged. “We can't be sure. My guess is that she discovered her husband's body, ran for help, suffered the stroke at the head of the stairs, and fell the full length of the staircase.”
“How does she explain it?”
A slight frown ruffled the placidity of Seville's expression. “She hasn't recovered consciousness sufficiently to explain anything.” He spun his chair around, consulted the filing-cabinet at his elbow, brought out a large Manila envelope, laid it on the desk. “Perhaps you'd like to see the extent of her injuries. These are the X-rays we took directly after the accident.” He spilled four grayblack negatives on the desk, rose, and snapped the switch for a large boxlike cabinet in the corner. He held the negatives up to the light, selected one, snapped it into place.
Liddell could see clearly the outline of a skull with a large, ominous dark area over the ear.
“In this lateral view of the skull you can see the full damage to that portion.” Seville's voice had grown professionally impersonal. He indicated the dark area. “Apparently in her fall down the stairs the patient's head came into contact with the sharp edge of either a step or the bannister, causing a severe fracture.”
Liddell nodded, crushed out his cigarette. “Never mind dragging out the rest of the family album, doc. I'll take your word for it.”
Seville smiled, snapped off the projector. “Sorry, old man. I thought you might be interested.” He walked back to his chair, refilled the two glasses. “In addition to the skull fracture, Mrs. Merritt sustained a fractured jaw and a compound fracture of the right arm. In a woman of her advanced age, you can understand, such injuries can be very serious.”
Liddell took a drink from his glass, regarded the other man over the rim. “Miss Merritt hasn't been around to see her mother since it happened?”
“She has dropped by, of course, and phoned from time to time to ask about her condition. As you can understand, there is little or nothing she can do.” Seville tapped his cigarette holder against his teeth. “So you see, Liddell, it would appear that you're putting too much credence in the hysteria of an emotionally unbalanced girl.”
Liddell drained his glass, set it on the desk, stood up. “I'll wait until I hear from Miss Merritt. You can tell her that I'm staying at the Hotel Abbott if you should hear from her. In the meantime, I'll do my best to earn my fee.”
Dr. Seville smiled, raised his hands, palms upward.
“That, of course, is up to you. I feel certain that you'll be hearing from her very shortly.”
Chapter Four
Johnny Liddell was sitting at a back booth in Lottie's, a small coffee shop that served as a secondary headquarters for the staff of the Advance between editions. He was drinking a glass of milk, stabbing disinterestedly at a slab of pie when Muggsy walked in. She stopped at the counter on the way, ordered a cup of black coffee, slid in next to Liddell.
“Didn't take you very long,” she said. “You couldn't have found out very much.”
“I didn't,” Liddell moaned. “All I found out is that the dame is cracked. In a nice sort of way, of course, and I'm goofier for paying any attention to her.”
“What'd he say when you told him she hired you to find out how her old man died?”
Liddell shrugged, waited while the waitress deposited a cup of black coffee in front of Muggsy, cleared away the remains of his pie. “The same thing everybody else says.”
“Did he know about it?”
“He says he hasn't heard from her since the funeral. Seems she likes to go some place and work things out alone.”
“I told you she was a wack,” Muggsy reminded him.
“So you can stop feeling bad. If she doesn't take the trouble to even get in touch with the guy she's going to marry, a mere employee shouldn't be hurt because she decides to stand him up.”
“That part I might buy,” Liddell conceded. “But who was the guy she left with and why the tommy-gun serenade for me?” He watched moodily while Muggsy lit two cigarettes, accepted one. “What do you know about her mother?”
The girl screwed up her forehead in concentration. “Had a stroke or something, didn't she? Seems to me she was on the critical list at the time of the funeral.” She ironed out the creases on her forehead, shrugged. “It's just an impression, but I think she's been pretty sick some place.”
“In Doc Seville's private hospital,” Liddell grunted. “Fell down a flight of stairs and got herself all busted up. Apparently she was alone in the house the night it happened and she took a stroke going for help.”
“I don't know why you don't just pack it in, Johnny. The only thing you're going on is Jean's telephone call and she's a
screwball from away back.”
Liddell nodded. “I probably should, I guess. But before I do, I just want to satisfy myself that the old boy did go out Dutch.”
“The medical examiner was satisfied and so were the police. Seville was his physician. What does he say?”
“Suicide.” He scowled at the tip of his cigarette. “But none of them were looking for anything. I am. It might make a difference.”
Muggsy shrugged. “It's your time if you want to throw it around. How you going to satisfy yourself?”
“Maybe if I could lay my hands on the official photographs and the on-the-spot testimony it might help.”
“Got any contacts out on the Island?”
“Doc Travin still the medical examiner out there in Carport?”
Muggsy nodded. “He was the last I heard.”
“Then I got contacts.”
“And if Doc Travin convinces you it was suicide?”
Liddell shrugged, dropped his cigarette to the floor. “Then I'll write it off as a dizzy dame's idea of a way to pass a dull, rainy night. I don't know how Scoda feels about it, but I'm willing to make believe it never happened.”
“Scoda?”
Liddell grinned bleakly. “Yeah, Scoda. The guy in the morgue.”
A half hour later, Johnny Liddell headed his convertible up the East Side Drive to the 125th Street ramp to the Triborough Bridge. He took the Long Island entrance, headed south past La Guardia toward Northern Boulevard. Once on Northern he headed east toward Carport, settled back for a forty-five-minute run. Alongside him Muggsy Kiely leaned her head back on the leather seat, let the breeze play havoc with her thick blond hair, hummed to the accompaniment of the car radio. By mutual consent neither of them referred to the case all the way out.
In Carport, the medical examiner's office adjoined the morgue in the basement of the new four-story stone courthouse. Liddell wheeled the convertible into the courthouse parking-lot, squeezed it between two whitewashed lines that were labeled For Official Use Only, locked the car.
They crossed the courtyard, pushed through a revolving door, followed a stenciled arrow that pointed to Medical Examiner's Office. It led down a flight of stairs, past a row of closed doors marked Morgue to a plain door bearing the legend Medical Examiner with Dr. T. Travin in smaller letters below it.