by Craig Rice
“I’ll wait,” Malone said, elbowing his way into the hall. “This is a business call.”
“Yes, sir,” the butler said nervously, “I’ll tell Mr. Proudfoot’s secretary, sir. What is the nature of the business, sir?” He was a thin, horse-faced man, slightly shabby, with graying hair and a worried look. Malone felt an inexplicable rush of sympathy for him.
“Mr. Proudfoot seduced my daughter, and I’m here to make him acknowledge that he’s the father of her unborn child,” Malone said.
The butler took his hat and said, “Yes, sir. I’ll call Mr. Proudfoot’s secretary. If you’ll just wait right here.”
Malone waited, looking around the hall. It looked very high-class and expensive, like a first-rate undertaking parlor. Only, on closer inspection, it was shabby. The carpet had been picked out a long time ago by someone with a lot of money, but it was slightly frayed along the edges and the seams. Perfectly dusted, though. The long plate-glass mirror was beautifully polished, but its frame was faintly tarnished. One of the bulbs was out in the chandelier.
A thin, sickly-looking young man with ginger-colored hair and thick glasses came into the hall, looked at Malone, and said in a high-pitched, nasal voice, “You’ll have to have an appointment to see Mr. Proudfoot.”
“I’m making an appointment,” Malone said nastily, “right now.” He poked a thumb through the pocket of his coat.
The secretary squeaked, on an even higher pitch, and backed through the lighted doorway. Malone followed him into a library that looked like the place where the corpse was found in any “B” picture made before 1930.
“You have a quaint sense of humor, Mr. Malone,” Abner Proudfoot said coldly. He didn’t rise from his chair.
“Thanks, pal,” Malone said. “I think so too.” He noticed that the gilding on the coat of arms over the fireplace was chipped. “Did you want to see me about anything important, or did you just want me to drop in for a friendly little drink, pal?”
“Bring Mr. Malone a drink,” Proudfoot said to the ginger-haired secretary. He folded his hands over his knees and sat silently looking at nothing. The firelight made his black suit and black tie look even blacker. Malone was glad when the drink arrived. Any minute now, he expected a bat to fly across the room, or Boris Karloff to crawl out of the fireplace. “I asked you to come here,” Proudfoot said, “to inform you that I consider it necessary that our arrangement be terminated, and at once.”
Malone half choked on his drink, gulped down the rest of it, and said, “How’s that again?”
“I have come to the conclusion,” Abner Proudfoot said, “that Bertha will get in touch with me, of her own free will, whenever she deems it advisable to do so. Therefore, no further necessity exists for you to search for her. I appreciate the efforts you have already put forward in behalf of this case and naturally I shall not expect you to return the advance fee I have already paid to you, on my own responsibility.”
Malone drained the last half inch of bourbon from his glass before he answered. The upholstery on the big chair might be almost threadbare, and one bulb might be missing from the immense crystal chandelier, but it was damned good bourbon. “You want me to stop looking for Bertha Morrison,” Malone said. “I wonder why. Is it because she’s already been found, or because you’re afraid I’ll find her?
“My reasons for arriving at this decision are none of your concern,” Proudfoot said stiffly. “I consider that you have been adequately compensated for the efforts you have put forth on my behalf, and I will appreciate your returning to me the paper which you induced me to sign.”
“It’s in my safety-deposit box,” Malone lied. He knew that Proudfoot didn’t believe him. He rose, and said, “I’m a hard man to fire, buddy. Once I’m hired to find a dame, I find her, come hell or high water. And if I do find this one, I’m just as like as not to insist on being paid for finding her. That’s the mean kind of a cuss I am.”
“You may consider this interview at an end,” Abner Proudfoot said coldly. He raised his voice and called, “Dudley!”
“You don’t need to yell for the bouncer,” Malone said. “I don’t like this joint.” He grinned at the pallid young secretary who’d come in the door and stood hesitantly, just inside the doorway. “Don’t worry, toots, I’m leaving, anyway.” He turned another grin on Abner Proudfoot, who’d risen and was standing before the fireplace, his hands clasped behind his back. “Naturally, you want me to stop looking for Bertha Morrison. Because you know I’m a damn smart guy, and now that a body’s turned up in the morgue that might be hers, you’re afraid I’ll find her head. And that’s the last thing you want to have happen, isn’t it, pal?”
Abner Proudfoot said, “I do not consider my interests to be any further concern of yours, Mr. Malone.”
Malone puffed at his cigar. “You must have thought she was alive, when you hired me to find her and to keep her out of the chair. Because as long as she’s alive, you can go on milking her old man’s estate. But if she’s identified as dead, her husband will inherit all that dough, and the management of it, and you’ll be out of luck. So as soon as you read in the papers that that might be her body in the morgue, you called me up quick, to tell me to lay off.” He knocked a fleck of ash on the carpet. “Only I’m a guy with a lot of natural curiosity, and when I start out to find a person, I find her. On my own time, if I have to.”
The gray-haired butler appeared in the door and said, “Can I be of assistance, Mr. Proudfoot?” Mr. Proudfoot didn’t seem to hear him.
“Or, if I should stumble on the missing head,” Malone said, “which is necessary to identify her, then maybe we can make a deal.”
Abner Proudfoot looked at him quickly and said, “Do you know where it is?”
“I was beginning to think you’d brought it here and stuffed a pillow with it,” Malone said, “but I guess I was wrong. No, I don’t know where it is, but I’ll look around. You’ll hear from me, pal. And don’t think you’ve fired me, because you haven’t.” He took a backward step toward the door, looking into the room. Abner Proudfoot, tall, dressed in black, standing before the carved fireplace. The paneled walls, the gloomy oil paintings of unpleasant-looking men. The drawn blinds. The gray-haired butler standing near one door, and the spectacled secretary near another. It made, Malone thought, a swell scene.
It was marred, though, suddenly. Another door was flung open, and a chubby, yellow-haired young woman, dressed in a bright-violet negligee, a pair of ostrich-plume slippers, a string of pearls, and nothing else, ran into the room and up to Abner Proudfoot. She said petulantly, “Honey, I can’t stick around here waiting for you all evening—” Then she saw Malone, pulled the negligee together, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were entertaining a friend.”
“He’s not entertaining,” Malone said quickly, “and we’re not friends. But you and I could be.”
She giggled, caught a nasty look from Proudfoot, and was hastily silent. Malone backed slowly to the door, carefully keeping all of them in sight. He paused at the door. “Good night,” he said, “and thanks for the drink. You’ll hear from me.”
“Sylvester,” Abner Proudfoot said, “show Mr. Malone to the door.”
Malone let the gray-haired man precede him and waited with his back against the wall while the door was opened.
“Good night, Mr. Malone,” the butler said.
“Good night, Sylvester,” Malone said, in the same grave tone. He heard the heavy door bang shut behind him, and restrained a sudden impulse to run like hell down the sidewalk. So, Abner Proudfoot was trying to tell him, John J. Malone, what to do, was he! Well, he’d find Bertha Morrison now, dead or alive, if it was the last thing he ever did.
The street was dark and shadowy, there wasn’t a cab in sight. A thin, cool April rain was beginning to fall. Which way was west? He wasn’t sure. Far down the street, though, he could see lights, as of a main thoroughfare. If there wasn’t a cab there, he could at least find a phone with which to
call one. He headed toward the lights.
He wished with all his heart that he wasn’t doing this alone. Always, in similar circumstances in the past, Jake and Helene had been right along with him. But this time, Jake was off on some mysterious business of his own, and Helene was out night-clubbing. He needed them. He needed Jake’s determined single-mindedness and Helene’s flashes of intuition. Besides, on the off chance that Abner Proudfoot was really out to get that signed agreement back—Jake was always a good man in a fight.
By the time Malone had gone half a block he was definitely uneasy. Something about the street itself depressed and worried him. The darkness, the rain, the lack of cross streets. The great, gloomy apartment buildings, the tightly shuttered houses. The emptiness of the sidewalk. If a guy needed to holler for help here, he’d be lucky if he even got an echo. He walked faster and faster. Were there footsteps behind him? Utter nonsense. Just his Irish imagination again. He was damned if he’d look back.
An even darker section of the sidewalk stretched ahead of him in the next block, beside a great, shadowed, cavernous excavation. Malone speeded up a little more. It wasn’t so far to that lighted street, now. He passed a street lamp; it threw his shadow on the walk before him, huge and distorted. It produced another shadow, too, right behind him, moving up closer, with an upraised arm. Malone wheeled around, just as the arm moved. He was thrown against the frail railing of the excavation, and a hard object grazed the side of his head.
The little lawyer had learned his art of self-defense on Chicago’s West Side, and he hadn’t forgotten it. He brought up one knee sharply and, at the same moment, drove one fist toward a stomach and the other toward a jaw. His unseen opponent yelped and fell back just long enough for Malone to get away from the railing and pull the improvised blackjack from his pocket. He swung his weapon. The other man, with a startled cry, slid through the railing and into the excavation.
But there had been two of them. Malone spun around just in time. A blow aimed at the back of his neck shunted harmlessly across his shoulder. He drove his fist into what he hoped was a face, but another blow caught him on the side of the head, and he fell to the walk. He lay still, pretending unconsciousness. His second assailant knelt beside him, picked up the abandoned blackjack, and put it into his own pocket. Then he began to search Malone. He was reaching for the inside coat pocket when Malone managed another, even more savage kick. The man, cursing, fell backward, and Malone tried to get up, with a desperate hope of getting away.
A car came slowly down the street, a police car. It slowed down still more as it reached the excavation, and a split second later Malone’s attacker was out of sight, leaving the lawyer alone on the sidewalk. The car stopped, with a little moan from its siren, and a searchlight was turned on Malone. He tried to get up, stumbled, and half fell. There was a sharp pain in his head, tiny lights danced in front of his eyes. Two men came running out of the car, one of them slipped a hand under Malone’s arm. A voice said, “Are you O.K., Malone?” and then “Good thing Peterson told us to tail him.” In the last instant before everything went black, Malone felt a twinge of surprise. He’d never thought the time would come when he’d be so glad to see Schultz.
23. Dearest Sweetheart
Jake’s first thought had been to sit down and read the letters right there in Gloria Garden’s apartment, they were that tempting. Then he’d looked at his watch, realized how late it was—already nearly seven—and that Helene was waiting. He stuffed the packet inside his coat and started back to the hotel.
He’d wasted an hour looking for the letters in all the places where he—or any other man—would have hidden them. For a while, he’d been about to give up. Someone else must have been here ahead of him. He was sure of it.
Then he’d thought about the little desk. Yes, he remembered, and positively, one of the empty drawers had been open a crooked inch, as though it had been hastily closed, and there was the fact that the desk drawers had been so completely empty. Gloria Garden might have taken out any important letters and hidden them away. But whoever had been here ahead of him must have simply scooped out letters, bills, clippings, ads from the Book-of-the-Month Club, everything, to be read and sorted out later.
Still, there was a chance that Gloria Garden might have hidden her important letters somewhere else in the apartment. He certainly wasn’t going to give up now, after spending all this time. He thought about Helene, about where she always hid his birthday and Christmas presents, and the letters from her Aunt Agatha whom he didn’t like and who was always writing for money. Then he went into Gloria Garden’s bedroom, lifted up the top section of the double mattress, and there were the letters, tied with grocer’s string into a neat little bundle. Jake felt a sudden joyous elation. He’d found something, anyway. He didn’t know yet where he was getting, but he was getting somewhere.
He wanted to rush straight to Helene, not to tell her what he’d accomplished, not to tell her what he hoped to do, but just to look at her. He’d glance over the letters in the privacy of the bathroom, or maybe he’d save them to read and study later. He’d take Helene out for a celebration, even though she wouldn’t know what they were celebrating. Malone too, of course.
The cab got stuck in four different crosstown traffic jams, and seemed to take at least a week to reach the hotel. The talkative driver apologized all the way for the series of delays, and Jake politely pretended that he was in no hurry and didn’t mind. He had to wait another month or two for the elevator, and then it moved like an exhausted snail, and stopped for days at a time at every floor. The corridor to his door looked a mile long, and he raced the full length of it. At the door he paused, to make sure that the packet of letters didn’t create a bulge under his coat. Then he found his key, unlocked the door, opened it, went into the suite, and discovered that Helene wasn’t there.
It was past seven, but possibly she and Malone hadn’t come back from sight-seeing. No, they’d been back, there were cigar butts in one ash tray, cigarette stubs in another, and a litter of newspapers on the floor. He inspected Helene’s wardrobe. The pale-green chiffon wasn’t there. She’d gone out, dressed for the evening.
He called Malone’s room. There was no answer.
Jake pulled the packet of letters from under his coat, threw it across the room, plopped down on the davenport, and sat there swearing. It was true he was three hours late. But obviously Helene hadn’t worried about him. She’d dressed up in the new pale-green chiffon and gone out to have a good time.
Maybe he should have confided in her, long before this, about what he was doing. But he wanted to surprise her. And Malone, the bastard, his best friend, Malone hadn’t worried because he came home three hours late. He might have been lying murdered in a gutter somewhere. But Malone had gone out to do the town.
Jake grabbed the telephone, called the desk, and asked if Mrs. Justus had left a message for him when she went out. There was a brief pause for investigation. It turned out Mrs. Justus had. The desk read it over the telephone in a businesslike, emotionless voice. “Have a date for dinner and the evening. Be home early.”
Jake said, “Thank you. And do you have any idea where I could reach Mr. Malone?”
There was a very long pause while the desk checked. Mr. Malone hadn’t left any message. But he’d been in the bar about an hour ago. Just a minute, please, Mr. Justus. A still longer pause. Mr. Malone left in a taxi. He didn’t say where he was going.
Jake thanked the desk very politely; hung up, and restrained an impulse to throw the telephone across the room. Where the hell was Helene? Where the double-hell was Malone? Why had they gone off and left him?
He’d been surprised and bewildered at his first discovery that they were gone. Now, he began to get mad. Of all the inconsiderate people! Going off to have a good time, without him, just because he happened to be a few minutes late! He slammed the bedroom door, hard, and kicked a wastebasket across the room. That made him feel a little better, but not much. Treat him lik
e that, would they! He’d show them! He’d call up a girl and take her out to do the town. Maybe he’d run into Helene somewhere.
He ripped off his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt, preparatory to bathing and changing into evening clothes. At the third button, he paused. He didn’t know any girl to call up, in all of New York, except Wildavine. And Wildavine was at home, reading his manuscript. Jake definitely didn’t want to interrupt her. She’d promised to give him her opinion of it tomorrow.
All right, he’d stay home and sulk. He refastened his shirt and put on his tie again. He’d do a job of sulking that would go down in history. For that matter, though whom did Helene know here in New York to go out with? She hadn’t gone with Malone. She didn’t know anyone in New York worth putting on the new green chiffon evening dress. Or did she? Come to think of it, she’d been behaving rather oddly these past few days.
Jake put on his coat and went downstairs to the lobby. Someone must have seen Helene leaving. He inquired at the desk, at the cigar stand, and of the doorman, and got exactly nowhere. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t notice Mrs. Justus leaving.” No one, it seemed, had noticed Helene. That, Jake reflected, was a rank impossibility. People always noticed Helene. And, in that pale-green dress—
He had the feeling of being surrounded by a wall of silence, a conspiracy. Then he realized that of course it was a conspiracy. The desk clerk, the cigar girl, and the doorman didn’t remember noticing Helene because they thought they were talking to a jealous husband. They were right. Jake went back to the suite, baffled, frustrated, and miserable. He was all over being mad, now. He just wanted Helene.
Maybe she’d misinterpreted his behavior. Now that he thought it over, he’d been keeping a lot of secrets from her. He’d been away for long periods of time without explanation. And tonight he’d been unusually, inexcusably, and unforgivably late. The idea of treating Helene like that! He ought to be ashamed of himself. He was. No wonder she’d gone out with someone else. He didn’t blame her. The only thing he could do to redeem himself was to solve Gloria Garden’s murder and find Bertha Morrison. Then he’d be a public hero, some publisher would buy his mystery novel, and Helene would be pleased and proud.