The 24th Horse

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Looking for you.”

  “No kidding!”

  “No kidding. I finally located one of your operatives who said you were apt to be here between five and six almost any day.”

  “Know why? They have the best damn salami in New York.”

  “I could bear to find out for myself,” said Bradley. “And a bottle of ale,” he added to the bartender.

  “What’s on your mind, Red? Got a case?”

  “Don’t you read the papers?”

  “Not if I can help it!” Then Bonesteel’s eyebrows went up. “Not the Prayne case?”

  “The Prayne case in person, Jerry.”

  “Oh, boy!”

  “That’s why I’ve been hunting for you.”

  “I don’t get it”

  “You know the Praynes, don’t you?” Bradley was loading a piece of rye bread with salami. “In connection with the disappearance of Dorothy Pelham back in ’35.”

  “So that’s the way it is,” said Bonesteel. He tapped his highball glass on the bar and slid it across to the bartender with a nod. “Double,” he said.

  Bradley munched his sandwich, indicated approval, and reached for his glass of ale.

  “I’m a smart guy,” said Bonesteel. “Mind like a steel trap. You’re interested in Dorothy Pelham. You’re homicide with a capital Hom. You think maybe little Dorothy might not have shuffled off to Buffalo of her own free will.”

  “I’d like to know what you think,” Jerry.” Bradley was watching the private detective in the mirror behind the bar. Bonesteel was looking thoughtfully into his drink.

  “Nothing to it, Red,” he said after a pause. “Mind you, I wasn’t hired to investigate a crime. Just to find the gal.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Bradley.

  “But the department went into that,” Bonesteel said quickly. “Bird named Williams was in charge. He dug around quite a lot and then washed it up. Nothing against anyone.”

  Bradley arranged two fresh pieces of salami on a slice of bread, making certain that the entire surface was covered. “Retired now.”

  “That’s right. He’s got a farm in Peekskill. I stopped off there last summer to see him. He’d asked me to a long time ago.”

  “Nice place?”

  “A top-notch dairy farm,” said Bonesteel, looking away. “Must have cost him a lot of dough.”

  “Thanks,” said Bradley quietly. “About Dorothy Pelham?”

  “Red, I’m not really a chiseler at heart. I shagged around for nearly three months trying to find some kind of a lead, and then I went to Severied and told him, frankly, he was wasting his dough.”

  “Severied?”

  “Sure, Guy Severied, the society sportsman. He’s the one who hired me and paid my fee. He was a buddy of the gal’s husband.”

  “You must have found out something of interest in three months,” said Bradley.

  “I did. I found out I’d like to work for Severied for life. That bird never once checked an expense account, Red.”

  “Nice kind of a fellow, huh?”

  “A prince.”

  Bradley sighed. “About Dorothy?”

  “Red, that gal just went up in smoke. That’s on the level. If you think there was dirty work, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you a thing to back it up.”

  Bradley drained his glass. “Well, there was no harm in asking you.” He slid off the stool and handed the bartender a five-dollar bill. “It’s all on me,” he said.

  “Gee, Red, thanks. Wish I could have helped you,” Bonesteel said. He was frowning.

  “I wish you could. Well, so long, Jerry.”

  “So long.”

  Bradley started for the door.

  “Red!” Bonesteel called after him.

  Bradley turned.

  The private detective avoided the stare of his level gray eyes. “There’s one thing you might not know about Dotty Pelham.”

  “Yes?”

  Bonesteel gave his bow tie a straightening tug. “She was crazy about the boys, Red.”

  Bradley waited for more, but Bonesteel had turned back to his bread and salami.

  Chapter 17

  “Well, Julius, doesn’t that prove that your friend is wrong?” Pelham demanded. “Doesn’t that clear the lot of us?”

  They had all come back from headquarters together to find Mr. Julius waiting for them at the Prayne apartment. The old man had told them what he wanted — a set of alibis which could either take them all off Bradley’s list of suspects or point a finger at one of them specifically.

  “An alibi must be checked and tested before it stands up,” said the old man, thumbing through a stack of notes written in his spidery hand.

  “But on the face of it …” Pelham began.

  “On the face of it,” said the old man sourly, “you are all pure as the driven snow. But anyone can invent a plausible story. After I’ve checked …” He shrugged.

  “How long will it take?”

  “Few days … a week … two weeks. Depends on how much you’ve lied.”

  “Good God!” Pelham groaned. “By that time Bradley will have dragged us all to hell and gone!” He crossed over to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. The neck of the decanter clicked against the rim of his glass.

  “George … please, sweet. You musn’t let this get you,” Linda said.

  “For God’s sake, what do you expect? Bradley’s sunk … hasn’t got a real lead in the case. So what does he do? Starts prying into the past … into Dorothy’s disappearance. It’ll make a field day for the press, and take the heat off him a little while he stumbles around looking for a trustworthy clue.”

  “Bradley’s no superman,” said Mr. Julius. “He can’t get anywhere without help. You’re not helping. No one is.”

  “How can we help?” Pelham asked. “The man’s up in the clouds like a balloon. He’s developed a romantic theory and doesn’t bother with facts.”

  “What facts?”

  Pelham banged his glass down on the table, “There must be facts … clues! Why dig up old scandals … open old wounds? I tell you it’s a smoke screen to hide his helplessness.”

  “It’s so cruel, so useless,” Linda said. “To accuse George deliberately of murdering Dorothy, when everyone knows …”

  “Knows what?” said Mr. Julius.

  “Why, how much George loved her!”

  “It’s going back pretty far,” Johnny said. He was sitting beside Pat on the couch. “Personally, I think …”

  “No one cares a hoot what you think,” said Mr. Julius. He was peering at Pelham from beneath shaggy eyebrows. “You mentioned facts, George. I still say, what facts?”

  “Well, what do detectives usually find? Fingerprints clues … evidence.”

  “Oh, that!” said Mr. Julius.

  “What else do you have on which to base an investigation?”

  “People,” said Mr. Julius promptly.

  “But, Uncle Julius, if these alibis you’ve collected …” Pat said.

  “Don’t count on ’em. Even if they check. Until Bradley finds out where Gloria was killed, alibis won’t amount to a hill of beans.”

  “He’ll never find that out,” said Pelham.

  “You know that?” Mr. Julius’ eyebrows rose.

  “Of course I don’t know it. But from the way he goes about things, I’d say it was unlikely.”

  “Would you, indeed,” said the old man.

  “But there are facts, George,” said Celia Devon, looking up from her knitting. “Guy, for instance, is a fact. He’s missing. He seems concerned about you. He was at your apartment and had to knock out Sergeant Snyder to get away.”

  “That’s only guesswork,” Pelham said, “Guy is missing, so Guy is blamed for slugging Snyder. Who saw him? How do they know it wasn’t a burglar?”

  “Or Santa Claus,” said Mr. Julius.

  Miss Devon continued, undisturbed, “I don’t think it’s a state secret that Gloria was blackmailing Guy. That explains why
he was so unhappy about marrying her. Gloria wrote a letter containing incriminating information and left it with Linda. That’s why she was killed, it is probably why Douglas also was killed. Those are facts, George.”

  “And where do they get you?”

  “Not far. But they explain Mr. Bradley’s interest in your past, in all our pasts. He’s trying to put his finger on a fact so important two people have been murdered to keep it.”

  “Celia, for God’s sake! That’s nonsense!”

  “Is it, George?”

  “If that’s so, Miss Devon,” Johnny said, “Guy is guilty. He was being blackmailed; he’s taken it on the lam. And yet Bradley seems to make no effort to find him.”

  “Hasn’t it occurred to you why?”

  “No, it hasn’t.”

  “Guy isn’t hiding because he’s guilty. He’s hiding because he doesn’t want to tell the facts he knows. I’d do the same thing. I’d stay somewhere I was quite certain this murderer couldn’t find me.”

  “Aunt Celia!”

  “It’s not a pleasant notion,” said Miss Devon, “but I have no doubt that one of us in this room is a murderer. I don’t mind saying I wish I were with Guy.”

  There was a silence, broken at last by Mr. Julius’ chuckle. “Nice running with the ball, Celia!” he said.

  Miss Devon ignored him. “We might just as well face it. Pat, you’re trying to find a weakness in Bradley’s case. But suppose, while you search for it, you come on a truth … a dangerous truth. This person, whom you love, whom you can’t believe guilty of evil, will turn on you. It’s not safe for us to pry and search. Leave it to Bradley. I have confidence in him. He doesn’t jump at the obvious.”

  “Celia, I’m with Pat,” Linda Marsh said. “I simply can’t believe that one of us … ”

  Pat was silent, staring at her hands.

  “Heaven knows I’m sorry for the murderer,” said Miss Devon, in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. “Fear has driven him to it, he must be going through a hell of his own. But he is dangerous. When a dog you’ve loved goes mad, it may break your heart; but you shoot him. That is what we face. A mad dog … a sick mind. We can’t expect him to act toward tm or feel about us as he did before this blight descended on him.”

  “But Aunt Celia … ”

  “Since this madness doesn’t show on the surface, Bradley must look for the causes of it. That, George, is why he is interested in Dorothy’s disappearance. In a set of otherwise normal lives it is a high-pressure incident, a time of stress which may have started the warping of a mind.”

  She looked searchingly around at them. No one moved or spoke except Julius, who was nodding his head sagely.

  “One of us knows that secret,” Miss Devon said, “and the keeping of it has become an obsession … so great an obsession that he is willing to kill and keep on killing to protect it. The rest of us … we can’t keep our minds still if we wish. The seed is planted. We are remembering Dorothy, wondering what there was about it that seemed unimportant at the time which might now have some significance.”

  “Celia, why should any facts have been withheld?” Pelham protested. “And if there were, why didn’t the police or the private detectives ever come across a single clue to them?”

  “I don’t know, George. But there is a secret, Guy knows it. One of you knows it. Guy’s been willing to pay to guard it, and I think he’s praying Bradley will catch the murderer without his having to tell.”

  The color slowly faded from Pelham’s face. “You keep saying ‘he,’ Celia? Are you, too, accusing me of murder?”

  “I am not accusing anyone,” said Miss Devon. “You spoke about facts. I was trying to show you that there are some, and that Mr. Bradley has them well in hand.”

  “But if you’re right, Aunt Celia,” said Pat, “then Guy must be in danger … very real danger.”

  “He’s not playing hide and seek to win his letter,” snapped Mr. Julius.

  George Pelham drew a deep breath. “I’m going to find him,” he said. “Guy and I have stood together through everything. If it’s something about Dorothy, he’ll tell me. He’s never kept anything from me.”

  “George, wait!” Linda called after him, as he started for the door.

  “If I were you, Linda,” said Miss Devon, “I wouldn’t go after him. I’d go home to my apartment, lock my door, and stay there till I heard Mr. Bradley had made an arrest.”

  Linda stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. They all heard the door close behind Pelham.

  “There’s only one person Guy would go to these lengths to protect,” Miss Devon said.

  “Not George!” Linda cried, “Celia, you mustn’t say that! Mustn’t think it!”

  Pat was clinging tightly to Johnny’s hand. She wasn’t looking at Linda’s white face.

  Miss Devon smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt. “Is anyone interested in supper?” she asked quietly.

  Chapter 18

  After dinner that night Bradley got his own car out of the garage and drove to Peekskill alone. A steady rain in the city turned to snow when he’d gotten as far as Ossining, and the going was slow. It was nearly eleven o’clock when, after getting directions at the Eagle Hotel, he turned off a back road into the driveway of Earl Williams’ farm.

  He caught a glimpse of the rambling stone farmhouse, and of lights still burning in a wing at the rear. He parked his car and walked around toward the back door. As he approached, a dog, on the inside, set up a terrific clamor. Bradley saw the shadow of someone moving quickly against the drawn window shade. Then he mounted the back steps and knocked.

  The dog continued its barking, but for a long time no one came. It was not until after Bradley had knocked a second time that he heard a bolt shot back and the door was opened just enough for the man inside to peer out.

  “Well?”

  “Earl Williams?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know it’s late, but I’d like to talk with you for a few minutes, I’m Luke Bradley, Homicide Division, New York City.”

  “Bradley!” No mistaking the startled note in the man’s voice. Then the door opened wide. “Down Squire! Shut up!” The collie subsided, but kept a suspicious eye on Bradley. “Come in.”

  The kitchen was low-ceilinged, with heavy hand-hewn beams. The once-white woodwork had yellowed with smoke and steam from the coal range. There was a fire in the stove and the room was warm, the air thick with tobacco smoke. Bradley saw a calabash pipe lying on the scrubbed tabletop, a book turned face down, a cigarette stub burning in a saucer.

  Williams was a tall, stoop-shouldered man with white hair, a leathery face, and deep-set black eyes.

  “Mickey Flynn told me I’d find you up here,” Bradley said. “Mind if I take off my coat and sit down?”

  “Of course not. Let me help you.” Williams acted like a man who was recovering from a blow between the eyes. He took Bradley’s coat and hat and placed them on a chair. The collie sniffed at them and then came over and slipped a wet, cold nose into Bradley’s open palm.

  “Friends?” said Bradley.

  Williams laughed uneasily. “He makes a great to-do when anyone comes around at night. But he’s really very gentle.”

  “Great country dogs,” said Bradley. He looked across the room at a door which opened into a dark corridor.

  “Draft?” Williams started for the door.

  “Oh, no. I’m quite comfortable, thanks.”

  Williams turned a straight-backed kitchen chair around and straddled it. He picked up his calabash, struck a match on the underside of the table. “How’s Flynn, anyway?” he asked.

  Bradley was looking at the cigarette in the saucer. It had almost burned itself away. “Oh, he’s fine.”

  Williams fidgeted with the burnt match, waiting for Bradley to open the conversation. Bradley had begun loading his own pipe. He was in no hurry.

  “Just driving through?” Williams asked finally.

  “No. No, I came especially to see you
, Earl.” The inspector’s tone was friendly.

  “Oh, drive up from the city?”

  “Yeah. Slow going. Headlights don’t do so well when it’s snowing.” Bradley puffed contentedly at his pipe, his eyes roving around the room. “I suppose the old Dutch farmers used to live in their kitchens. Made ’em big enough.”

  “Yes … yes, I suppose they did. You said you came specially.”

  “Need help on a case,” said Bradley. He rubbed the collie’s head, and smoked.

  “I’ve been reading the papers,” Williams said. “You … you’re handling the Prayne case, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew them at one time,” Williams said. He took a bandanna handkerchief from his hip pocket and ran it over his face. “Connection with a case of my own. Naturally I was interested in reading about what’s happened. Is it … is it something about the Praynes you wanted to ask me?”

  “No.” Bradley said. “I wanted to ask you what really happened to Dorothy Pelham.”

  “Pelham? Why, that’s the case I was talking about.”

  “Yes,” said Bradley. The cigarette in the saucer had burned itself out completely, heaving the tapering gray ash.

  “That case was never solved, Bradley. One of those things. I couldn’t break it … no leads, no nothing.”

  “Bunk,” said Bradley, and stroked the dog.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said ‘bunk,’ ” said Bradley, with a pleasant smile.

  Williams sat perfectly still and silent for a moment, gripping the knobs on the back of the chair with both hands. “I think,” he said, “if you were to read the records at headquarters …”

  “I have read the records … word for word, and several times.”

  “Then …”

  “The records don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  “For example?” There was panic in Williams’ dark eyes, but Bradley wasn’t looking at him.

  “For example,” Bradley said, “the records don’t show how you happened to buy this farm.”

  “Oh!”

  “How did you?”

  “Squire, come away. Stop being a nuisance,” Williams said sharply to the dog.