by Craig Rice
“Which is obviously impossible with Holly in jail,” Jake said.
Helene was silent and very thoughtful for a moment. “And, too,” she said slowly, “there’s the possibility that we might not be successful. In finding the real murderer, I mean—if Holly didn’t do it.”
“You really think she did, don’t you?” Jake said in a momentary flash of sobriety.
She looked at him and beyond him, her eyes very grave. “I don’t know. I don’t think she did. But I’m not sure we can prove that she didn’t.”
The point was, he gathered, that if they didn’t succeed in learning what had really happened, and if Malone failed at the trial, Holly would be in the soup. Even, in that case, if chivalrous Blake County declined to electrocute a lady and an Inglehart, still Holly would be put away for a long time. Certainly they didn’t want that to happen. Helene, for one, didn’t believe that Holly was guilty. (Jake doubted that a little, but he let it pass.) Even if she was, the murdering of Alexandria Inglehart called for a bonus rather than a jail term. (Which Jake didn’t doubt for a split second.) If Holly was safely hidden away somewhere, it wouldn’t matter so much if they didn’t find the real murderer; Holly could be kept hidden until things died down a little, and then smuggled out of the country.
It all seemed wonderfully logical to Jake.
“Shall we tell Malone?”
“Afterwards. Also Dick.”
Jake sighed. “It’s the sort of thing Dick would love. Knight rescues damsel. He plays Gershwin and Berlin, but he thinks Tennyson.”
He looked at her with affectionate approval. So smart, to think of such a scheme. It cleared everything up. The conversation with Hyme Mendel. The note in Holly’s compact.
No. Not everything. There was something else he wanted to ask her about. Something she was keeping from him and from Malone. Important as the devil, too.
He wished he could remember what it was.
They poured the remaining contents of the bottle into the three glasses and drank solemnly to the jailbreak.
Eventually Butch made a trip to the kitchen and they dined on sandwiches and beer. Then Jake and Helene walked through the snow and darkness to the Inglehart house.
Glen seemed worried and very pale. “Thank God, someone has turned up. Have you seen Malone? I’ve tried to reach him all afternoon.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“They’re going to bring Holly here tonight and make her go through the house. Some sort of experiment, Hyme Mendel said. He thinks that going through the house at night might make her remember something. I don’t like it.”
“She’ll be all right,” Jake told him. “They can’t do anything to her.”
“It seems to me that I ought to be doing more to help her. After all, she’s my sister. My twin. And she’s in this awful mess. I don’t seem to be any help to her at all.”
“You’re all right,” said Jake consolingly. “You’re doing all you can.”
“But,” Glen hesitated, “there’s no more reason, really, why they should suspect her of the murder than me. Except that she happened to be—well, somewhere where nobody knew where she was, if you know what I mean, and I wasn’t. When it happened. You know.”
“Sure,” said Jake reassuringly.
“I’d rather they arrested me than Holly. I’m a man. There’s, well, there’s a difference. I could stand it, because I know I didn’t do it.”
“Do you know Holly didn’t do it?” Jake asked.
“No,” Glen said miserably.
At that moment Hyme Mendel, Jasper Fleck, and Andy Ahearn arrived with Holly. Helene greeted Mendel like a long-lost sweetheart, led them into the Inglehart library, and insisted on mixing a cocktail.
“After all,” she told them brightly, “we are civilized people, aren’t we!”
Jake decided that if she had suggested that they all go out to a barn and eat hay, Hyme Mendel would have assented as willingly.
She mixed the cocktail herself. “My own invention,” she told them. “I call it Hearts Aflame.”
The first taste of it convinced Jake that his ears had moved two inches farther back on his head.
They had a second and a third before starting on the rounds of the old house. Jake watched Holly closely. The girl was extremely pale and oddly quiet, as though she were walking in a hypnotic trance.
They trailed up the stairs, paused at the door of Holly’s room, where she seemed to be doing her best to be Trilby to Hyme Mendel’s Svengali. He watched her with the careful eye of a man who has a cross section of frogskin under a microscope.
The visit to Holly’s room brought nothing to her memory. They went on to Glen’s room.
Jasper Fleck, Jake decided, was a holy sight with three of Helene’s cocktails under his belt.
They left Glen’s room and headed for the stairs to the Parkins’ room. Then everything began to happen with a breath-taking suddenness.
Helene dropped the glass she was carrying and it rolled down the stairs with a terrific clatter. For an instant everyone turned to look at her.
In that instant, with one swift motion, Holly slipped down the laundry chute.
There was a sharp cry from Hyme Mendel.
“My God, she’s committed suicide!” Jake howled.
Helene gave a low moan and fainted.
“Quick!” Andy Ahearn cried. “Down the stairs!”
They started down the stairs in a mad rush. A thick Oriental rug covered the landing. Somehow Jake caught his foot in it and they all sprawled on the floor. They sorted themselves out and continued the rush. In the excitement of the moment Glen led them down the wrong staircase to the cellar and they wound up in the furnace room. That meant climbing up the stairs to the first floor (by that time Jasper fleck was on the verge of a stroke) and going down the back cellar stairs to the tradesmen’s entrance.
There, to their horror, was no sign of Holly Inglehart Dayton, though the door to the laundry chute hung open.
Squad cars came with an insane shrieking of sirens, the house was searched from cellar to attic, the grounds were searched, the lake front, the driveways, the woods.
All night long the cars prowled Maple Park and its environs; all night long the police radio station blared descriptions of the missing girl.
It was no use. Holly Inglehart Dayton had vanished from sight, as completely as though the earth had swallowed her.
Chapter 12
Sometime later a slightly staggering couple came down the steps from the elevated station at Thirty-first Street. They turned down a dimly lighted street for half a block or so. A sleekly powerful car stopped alongside. They climbed in and the car drove on.
The big car carried a peculiar burden. In the back seat was a figure wrapped in a man’s overcoat, its head and hands swathed in gauze bandages.
Jake and Helene looked at the ghastly thing and hooted with appreciative laughter.
“Butch, you did a swell job.”
Holly giggled faintly behind the bandages.
They drove around for a few blocks.
“We’re safe all right, Butch,” Helene said. “Nobody followed us, and even if anyone had, the quick changes we made from el train to el train would have lost an efficient ghost.”
In the enthusiasm of the moment Butch drove through a red light. There was a sudden horrible confusion of whistles and brakes squeaking.
“Oh, God,” Helene breathed.
They pulled up to the curb and a round-faced policeman came alongside. Helene opened the door and leaned out.
“I’m sorry, officer—we’re taking my husband to the hospital—he’s been seriously injured—”
“I’m a doctor,” Jake added, “and there mustn’t be any delay in getting him there.”
“Go on, go on,” said the policeman, waving a hand, “but watch your driving or there’ll be another accident.”
They drove on down the street.
“See?” said Helene brightly.
“Yo
u’re wonderful. There ought to be a Nobel prize for jailbreaking.” They turned into the outer drive.
“Miss Helene,” said Butch joyously, “you’d never guess what I got under them blankets on the floor.”
Helene investigated.
“Judas!” she said. “Champagne!”
“I thought it seemed sort of appropriate.”
“But no glasses,” she said. “I suppose nobody can think of everything. Just the same, drinking champagne out of a bottle in a moving car is more than a mere accomplishment.”
“I’ll drive slow,” Butch promised.
“Holly,” Helene asked, “did you murder Aunt Alex?”
“Not that I remember,” Holly said. “How long do I have to keep these damn things on?”
“Until we decide what to do with you.”
They drove around Jackson Park until the champagne was gone. Then they headed north on the Drive, skirted the Loop and followed the lake shore to Lincoln Park.
“Not too far north,” Helene warned.
“Look here,” Jake said, “we can’t just go driving her around indefinitely. For days and days, I mean.”
Helene sighed. “I know. We would think of everything except how to dispose of the body.”
“Couldn’t you park me at a hotel?” Holly asked hopefully.
“Don’t be a dope. Every hotel in Chicago has a description of you by now. And you could hardly go in wearing those bandages.”
“How about rooming houses?” Butch asked.
“No good either. A description of Holly is in every newspaper.”
“Well, damn it,” said Helene, “we’ve got to do something with her. If we were back in Maple Park, I could hide her in my house forever. But we couldn’t get back there.”
“Isn’t there some way I could get out of the city?” Holly asked.
“Remotely possible, but we want you here.”
They drove in silence for a while.
“Well,” said Helene, “as I said before, nobody can think of everything.”
“I’ve thought of something,” Jake said slowly, “but I don’t know—”
“What?”
“She’d be perfectly safe there,” he went on, “and nobody would ever need know. And certainly she’d be well hidden.”
“What are you talking about?” Helene asked.
“Well, it’s a little hard to explain. But it isn’t far from here—just a little west of Lincoln Park—and it would be perfectly safe.”
“Jake, what kind of a place is this?”
“It’s—” he gulped. “Well, it hasn’t a very good reputation, but as far as—” Helene hooted. “Jake, where is this brothel?”
“Helene!” he said in a scandalized voice. “Such language!”
“My God,” she said, “it’s a perfect idea.”
“Mrs. Fraser,” said Jake, warming to his subject, “is an old pal. I got her out of jams no end of times when I was working for the Examiner. She’s an honest woman with a strong sense of the conventions, and Holly will be safer there than anywhere else you could name.”
“Tell Butch where to drive,” Helene said, settling the matter. “Hope you don’t mind, Holly.”
“Not at all,” came the muffled voice from behind the bandages. “At least it’s better than the Blake County jail.”
They drove to the address Jake gave them and waited in the car while he went in to make arrangements. A few minutes later he emerged, beaming.
“All okay. Drive around to the alley.”
They left the car in the alley, went through a neat backyard and were met at the back door by a broad-faced woman with gray hair and the faintest suggestion of a mustache.
“Up the stairs, dearie. Then there won’t be a Chinaman’s chance of your being seen.”
She led the way through a spotless blue-and-white kitchen and up what seemed an endless flight of back stairs. On the fourth floor they halted while she fished for a key and unlocked a door.
“There you are, my dear. My daughter’s room, that she uses when she’s home from boarding school.”
“I helped get the daughter into that school,” Jake whispered to Helene, “and if I told you which one it is, you’d drop dead.”
It was a dainty little room with a ruffled bedspread and pink curtains.
“This is just our own little home up here on this floor,” the woman went on, “and there won’t a soul bother you. In case you’re a bit nervous, I’ll leave you the key and you can lock the door. It does get a bit noisy downstairs sometimes, but you won’t notice it much, and I’ll bring your meals up to you.”
Holly began unwinding bandages.
The stout woman chuckled. “Those bandages! As neat an idea as you ever had, Jake Justus!”
“Don’t credit me,” Jake said, “it was this crazy blonde.”
Helene bowed.
“Holly, would you like a drink?” Jake asked.
She nodded.
“Oh dearie,” said Mrs. Fraser reproachfully. “You’re much too young to be drinking. If you knew what that stuff does to your stomach!”
“Just a little one,” Jake pleaded. “Remember, she’s been through a terrible strain.”
The woman was instantly all sympathy. “Of course she has, poor dear.” She beamed at Holly. “You just wash your face and comb that pretty hair of yours. I’ll have a tray up here in a minute.” She left them, closing the door.
Butch beamed. “Well, Miss Helene, I guess we done it, all right.”
“If we don’t all draw twenty years to life for it,” Jake said gloomily.
Holly began combing her hair. “What’s the next move?”
“For you to get some sleep,” Jake told her, “quite a lot of it. Then we’re going to sit down with you and talk this whole thing through. Then you’ll stay here and catch up on your reading, while we find out what really did happen last night, and then we turn up the real murderer, and you reappear in triumph and start on your honeymoon.”
“Or?”
“Or,” said Helene, “we smuggle you out of the country disguised as a shipment of contraband ammunition.”
“Oh.”
There was a long pause.
“Oh God,” said Holly suddenly, and again, “oh God, if I only knew!”
“Stop that,” said Jake.
“But I keep thinking and thinking, and I know there’s something important that I’ve forgotten, and perhaps that’s what it is. Perhaps I really did do it, and I can’t remember it, and that’s why my mind just keeps going on and on like this.”
Helene gave her a smart slap that stopped the flow of words.
“You’ve got to stop thinking,” Jake told her. “You’re going to go to sleep and tomorrow when we talk it over, you’re going to remember.” He wished he felt as sure as he sounded.
Madam Fraser came back bearing a tray with a bottle, glasses, plates, and an enormous platter of cold fried chicken.
“I thought you all might be hungry.” She set the tray down and looked searchingly at Holly.
“You’re right, Jake,” said the woman surprisingly. “She didn’t do it. She’s too much of a lady.” She smiled at them all impartially. “Good night. I hope you sleep well, dearie. And Jake Justus, don’t you forget to latch the back door when you leave.”
They cleaned the tray of food and liquor and prepared to leave.
“I’ll try to smuggle you some clothes,” Helene promised.
Jake took the girl’s hand for a moment. “Forget things, baby. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be all right. I mean, whatever happens, everything is going to be all right.”
She smiled at him gratefully. “Thanks, Jake. And when you see Dick, tell him—”
“Tell him what?”
“Oh—I don’t know. Something. Tell him something.”
“Okay. Good night, kid.”
“Jeez,” said Butch admiringly, on the way down the back stairs. “That kid’s got nerve.”
Th
ey drove in silence toward the Loop.
“God, what a night,” said Helene suddenly. “Driving all over Chicago with an escaped murder suspect wrapped up in bandages, and finally hiding her out in a cat house. To say nothing,” she added, “Of the original escape. That idea about the rug on the stair landing was a stroke of genius, Jake. What a night!”
“This is only the first act,” he told her, looking at his watch. “Malone is waiting for me at the hotel right now.”
She nodded. “I’m playing in this scene with you.” She leaned forward. “Butch, take the car home. I’ll come home in a taxi, if at all.” She looked at Jake. It’s my hunch we’d better keep this from Malone and Dick until tomorrow. It may save a lot of explanations we’re too tired to make.”
“Just as you say, baby. This is your jailbreak.”
“We’ll have to make some excuse to Malone for being so late. I know,” said Helene brightly as the car stopped in front of the entrance. “I know! We’ll tell him we’ve been drinking.”
Jake widened his eyes. “He’ll never believe it!”
Chapter 13
“I want to go to the Casino and hear Dick’s band,” Helene said.
“In those blue pajamas?” said Jake indignantly. “Hell’s bells, woman, don’t you own any other clothes?”
They had found Malone sleeping peacefully in Jake’s room, wakened him by holding an opened bottle of rye under his nose. Now they were draped about the room—Jake comfortably settled in the one easy chair, Malone sprawled on the bed, and Helene lying flat on the floor. It had, she said, a reassuringly immobile quality which the furniture lacked. It wheeled a little, but it did not spin.
“I own other clothes,” she said, “but nothing as fetching as these pajamas. Still if you don’t like them, I can always take them off.”
“You two fools are drunk,” Malone said hastily.
“ ‘Malone says Dick’s deb not guilty,’ ” Jake read from the pile of afternoon papers heaped on the floor, and made a mental note to keep the last editions away from Dick and Malone. He picked up another. “ ‘Band Leader’s Bride Didn’t Murder Aunt, Lawyer Says.’ ”
“Well, is she guilty?” asked Helene from the floor.