He saw the door swing slowly, the pale glow spread across the rug from the low-watt bulb outside. A slow-moving shadow reached out to break the pattern of this light and a man followed it into the room, his face turned away from Rick toward the front of the room.
The door closed and the darkness came again. The soft scuff of feet on the rug was the only sign that the man was moving. No attempt was made to snap on the overhead light and this spoiled Rick’s initial advantage. He had expected that light and wanted to be close, counting on surprise to give him the upper hand should he need it. Now he could only wait for the intruder’s next move; luckily it came almost at once.
For even as he stood there with a new uncertainty mounting inside him, the bright beam of a flashlight broke the darkness to sweep the floor near the front of the room and focus on the desk. The reflection of that light silhouetted the man sharply, a thin, not too tall man, bareheaded, the corner of his spectacles showing at one side. When he stopped beside the desk, Rick moved on tiptoe past the door until his fingers found the light switch.
The resulting burst of brilliance revealed the intruder with one hand on the manuscript box. He dropped it as he spun about. As he stiffened there with the flashlight still in one hand Rick let his breath out and felt his muscles relax. For although he had never seen this man in person he had seen his picture on the back of a dust jacket.
“Hello, Gorton,” he said, and moved toward the desk, hands at his sides and the weight on the balls of his feet. “Looking for something?”
In his first moment of astonishment Stuart Gorton’s thin bespectacled face held a look that was akin to terror. By the time Rick had come up to him a certain gleam of defiance had replaced his wide-eyed stare and his jaw tightened. He snapped off the flashlight but held it ready in his hand in an attitude that somehow made Rick think of a terrier at bay.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded in blustering tones.
“Rick Sheridan.”
“Sheridan?”
The eyes blinked again and the air of defiance was no longer so pronounced. His mouth moved but no words came out, so he swallowed and tried again.
“I—I didn’t know,” he said. “I wanted to get this manuscript of mine and Clyde Eastman said it wasn’t at the office so I thought—” The sentence dangled with the thought unspoken and when there was no attempt to finish it Rick said:
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want the manuscript?”
“What difference does it make? It’s my story.”
“Not exactly.” Rick stepped past and picked up the box. He indicated the letter of acceptance Frieda had written. “According to this, the story belongs to Brainard & Eastman. At least they have the right to publish it.”
“What’s that to you?”
“I may have inherited part of the business. Maybe not legally yet, but I’m interested enough to want to hang onto this until—”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Gorton’s voice was suddenly exasperated. “You’re not making any sense. I’ve been thinking about this story since I submitted it. I want to do some rewriting. What’s all the fuss about?”
It was a reasonable argument and Rick might have ended it there and handed over the box if he hadn’t remembered that Gorton had gone to an unusual amount of trouble to get the manuscript back.
“I don’t know what the fuss is about,” he said. “You submitted the story. It was accepted. Now, with Frieda dead, you want it back. You want it bad enough to break into her apartment.… No,” he said. “I’m hanging on to this until I can turn it over to Eastman. Go talk to him.”
He tucked the box under his arm and walked over to open the door, still not knowing why he was being so stubborn about this but determined to stick with his decision.
“Out,” he said. “Before I call the police and have you pinched for breaking and entering.”
For a second or so while Gorton eyed the open door he looked as if he might burst into tears. His face wrinkled and his mouth worked silently and then settled into a thin, mean line as his jaw grew taut. He started forward and because Rick wasn’t sure whether the writer was going to give battle or not he got ready to drop the box and swing if he had to.
He saw the clenched fists and the hate in the bespectacled eyes, but apparently Gorton did not like the odds. He marched past without another word, continuing into the hall with determined, hard-heeled strides.
Rick closed the door and sighed, his mouth twisting into a wry grin because, now that Gorton had gone, he felt a little foolish about his stubbornness. He still did not know why he had been so intent on keeping the manuscript. He had no desire to finish reading it; neither could he understand Gorton’s almost desperate determination to retrieve the story. Why? he asked himself, and when there was no answer he went to the telephone and dialed a familiar number.
“Nancy?” he said a moment later.
“Rick,” Nancy Heath said in a voice that sounded both anxious and relieved. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get you—”
“I’ll tell you about it in ten minutes if I’m lucky getting a cab.”
“Here?”
“Maybe it would be better not to,” Rick said. “How about that bar on the corner near your place? You know the one I mean.”
Nancy said she knew and Rick said if she got there first to get a table where they could talk.
Chapter 9
The street where Nancy Heath had her apartment was quiet at this hour and the warmth of the August night had settled into the man-made canyon to leave the air still and humid. Rick had waited at the curb on the corner to see that she reached this entrance in the middle of the block safely and now she shifted the manuscript box under her arm and waved to him before she turned into the doorway.
For the past hour she had been listening to his story about Sam Crombie and the apartment on Eighth Street and the things that had happened there. She had no explanation for Stuart Gorton’s abortive attempt to get his story back but she intended to read it when she could and see if she could find a proper answer. She was still intent on her thoughts as she stepped from the automatic elevator at the fifth floor and went along the corridor to her door.
Here she took the key from her bag and turned the lock so that the door swung open. Replacing the key, she stepped into the little entryway, aware now that the light was on in the living room but too occupied with her own thought to wonder if she had left it that way. She closed the door with her heel and leaned against it until she heard the bolt click in place; then she moved through the doorway. As she did so a man appeared in the doorway opposite. A second man stepped away from the wall three feet from her shoulder.
In that first instant she was too startled to be afraid. She simply stiffened in her tracks, her breath caught in her throat while the man in the doorway waved a short-barreled revolver at her.
“Stay quiet, sister!” he said and moved slowly forward, a thin, pale-faced man in a brown hat and brown suit, his eyes obscured by dark glasses.
“Real quiet.”
The other man moved into her view and she saw that he was shorter than his companion, and stocky. He, too, wore the dark glasses but his suit was gray, wrinkled, and spattered with small stains on the front.
“Yell and we’ll have to stop you,” he said. “Just take it easy and you’ll be okay—Over here,” he said and motioned her to the couch.
Nancy found her legs were weak but the stocky man had her by the arm now and she let him guide her. She felt him slip the manuscript box from under her arm and when he reached for her bag she let him have it.
“Get something to tie her with,” he said.
The thin man pocketed the gun. “I think she’s going to behave,” he said and then grinned at her. “Aren’t you, sister?”
Nancy sank down gratefully and when she finally found her voice her tone was more annoyed and indignant than afraid.
“If it’s money you want
you won’t get much.”
“Not money, honey,” the stocky man said. “Just relax.”
He opened the manuscript box and after a quick glance, put it aside. As he started to examine her bag his companion came out of the bedroom with a pair of stockings. When he separated and held them up she noticed with some satisfaction that they were not her best.
“Feet flat on the floor,” he said. “Ankles together.”
She obeyed and watched him wrap the stocking around her ankles and tie it.
“Hands behind you.”
She twisted her body and he leaned back of her to bind her wrists.
“Now, do you want a gag or are you going to play ball.”
“I’m not going to scream, if that’s what you mean,” she said acidly.
She watched him back away, his fixed grin revealing small uneven teeth. He rubbed the end of his long straight nose with the back of his hand.
“That’s what we like in a dame,” he said. “Cooperation… You find anything?” he added to his partner.
The stocky man had searched her handbag and now he tossed it on the couch beside her. “Unh-unh.”
“Then let’s keep working.”
He turned and went back into the bedroom and now the stocky man pushed his hat back, glanced slowly about the room, and began to open the drawers of the table-desk. He moved confidently, whistling under his breath while he worked, and when he had finished he stepped to the chest next to the door, pausing a moment to inspect his image in the mirror that hung above it.
He continued his whistling and presently Nancy ignored him. She had not the faintest idea why they had come here or what they wanted but obviously they were not interested in money. Or jewelry for that matter, since her wrist watch and the sapphire-and-diamond cocktail ring on her right hand must have been noticed. Satisfied also that she was in no physical danger, she let her thoughts slip back to her talk with Rick.
From what he had said there seemed now to be only four people who might have had some reason to kill Frieda. Of the four she knew Clyde Eastman best because of her work on the firm’s advertising. She knew that Eastman had been having trouble with Frieda and recalled an argument she had overheard in their offices but a few days ago. This argument took on new significance now. It supported Eastman’s statement to Rick that the firm was on the brink of bankruptcy; it also furnished Eastman with proof that Frieda had been working behind his back by signing personal contracts with some writers so that she could salvage something for herself if the crash came. Making a mental note to tell Rick about this, she considered the three other men.
Austin Farrell she knew slightly and mostly by reputation. She knew a little more about Stuart Gorton because she had read his books before. The same association applied to Tom Ashley except that she had talked to him two or three times when she had spent a Sunday in the country with Rick. That he might have had an affair with Frieda in the past surprised her not at all, since she had known they had worked together on Ashley’s second novel.
Now, as she considered him again, she remembered the noise she had heard in Rick’s house just after she had found Frieda dead on the floor. Until now there had been no time to consider those frightening moments when she had forced herself to walk back through the darkness of the hall to the kitchen and the back door. She had stood there still too shocked and terrified to think but as she relived that experience it became so vivid that she remembered one more detail she had heretofore forgotten.
The car. Or rather the sound of a car that broke the stillness of the night.
She had heard it start up as she waited. She had not investigated. Her will power had not been strong enough for that and she knew that the car could not have been too close. She had glanced out the window toward Ashley’s cottage, thinking the sound might have come from there, but there was no light to be seen and she knew she must have been mistaken.
But was she? Could someone have left a car there? Not necessarily Ashley but someone else. Or could it have been Ashley she had heard leaving the kitchen?…
She jerked her thoughts back as the stocky man spoke. His companion had come out of the bedroom and now he spread his hands in a gesture of defeat.
“No dice,” he said, and the stocky man swore and gave a tug at his hat brim.
Nancy looked from one to the other, still not knowing why they had come but understanding that their search had been futile. While she wondered what they would do now the thin man came up to her and reached behind her to give a tug at the stocking on her wrist.
“It ain’t too tight, is it?” He grinned again as he stepped back. “I told you you’d be okay if you made like a mouse. Five minutes, if you work at it, and you’ll be free.”
“She could start screaming the minute we leave,” the other said.
The thin man was still looking at her. “You want the gag?”
“I told you I wouldn’t scream,” Nancy said.
“Okay. I took your word for it before. Don’t spoil it now. All we want is a couple of minutes to get to the street.” He glanced at his companion and jerked his head toward the door. “Let’s drift, Al.”
Nancy watched them open the door. She watched the thin one grin again and tip his hat to reveal his thick black hair. Then they were gone and she was straining at the binding on her wrists.
She found that the nylon stretched a little and perspiration had made her wrists slippery. A minute or so later she had them free and began to work on the other stocking. When she loosened the knot she kicked off her pumps and slipped first one foot and then the other through the noose. Finally she stood up, finding no runs in the stockings as she straightened them out and refolded them.
For another speculative second or two she considered calling Rick; then decided against it. She was still too puzzled to make any sense out of the incident and to telephone him now would only worry him needlessly. Tomorrow would be time enough. Right now what she wanted most was a cold drink and she walked stocking-footed into the kitchen to see what she could find. Not until later when she was sipping the drink did she change her mind about telling Rick what had happened.
When Rick Sheridan reached his apartment he found four letters in his mailbox. One was a bill, two were circulars from investment services telling him how he could make a million by subscribing to their bulletins; the last was from his son, and when he saw the familiar scrawl on the cheap envelope his heart was suddenly heavy and his steps began to lag as he trudged up the ancient stairs of the remodeled brownstone to his third-floor apartment.
Once inside, he put the letter on the end table beside his favorite chair and placed his jacket across the arm of the davenport. When he had walked through his rooms to open some windows, he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, then went into the kitchen to get a can of beer.
Ever since his son had been in camp the weekly letters had been a high spot in Rick’s scheme of living. He had made it plain that he expected such a letter even if it had to be a short one. He, in turn, had been conscientious about his replies and he tried to write every Sunday no matter what else was on his schedule. It was, he explained, the best and cheapest way for them to keep in touch with each other and to know what was happening, and to him the tone of his son’s notes had told him the boy was happy where he was and liked what he was doing.
Now, as he slit the envelope and took out the two ruled sheets that had come from a cheap pad, he tried to blot from his mind the tragedy which had involved them both, to ignore its ramifications, to avoid futile speculation about the immediate future. The penciled and uneven letters told him the note had been written on Sunday and mailed yesterday morning, and the wavering sentences proudly explained that his son had parsed his advanced swimming test and was therefore entitled to take a canoe out by himself. It told of an overnight hike some of the boys had taken earlier in the week in company of a counselor, and dwelt briefly on a camp dinner which had been given Saturday night as a farewell party to the boys who
se families could afford the luxury of a camp for only one month. It ended as it always did: With love. Ricky.
When he had read it again to be sure he had missed nothing, he placed the letter back into the envelope and blew his nose. He took a sip of beer and this feeling of futility was beginning to work on him again when the knock came on the door.
Having no idea who might be wanting him at this hour and not particularly caring, he rose and walked to the door as the knock sounded again. He palmed the knob and pulled and then he stood right where he was, aware that two men waited in the hall but his gaze fixing on the gun which was pointed right at his breastbone.
“Back up, Mac! And watch the hands.”
Rick obeyed. He put one foot carefully in back of the other and shifted his weight. When he could he brought his eyes up to inspect the man with the gun.
About Rick’s height and build, he wore a brown suit and hat, and had a long straight nose topped by dark glasses. When he saw Rick would give him no trouble he grinned to reveal small crooked teeth. Only then did Rick see that the second man was a stocky, thick-necked husky in a wrinkled gray suit, his broad, lumpy face obscured by the same kind of glasses.
Rick was still backing because the gun was advancing. When he felt the chair at his hip he stopped. “What is it?” he said harshly. “A stick-up?”
“Not tonight, Mac,” the thin man said. “We just want a look around. Take it easy and nobody gets hurt.… Turn the other way and clasp your hands behind your neck.”
Rick turned and stood still. Behind him the door clicked shut and hands tapped his pockets lightly. The man with the gun moved round him, giving him plenty of room. When he spotted the jacket on the davenport he picked it up and tossed it to his companion, who searched it without comment and put it back.
When he continued on to the old Governor Winthrop desk his companion told Rick to sit down on the davenport. Rick did so, watching the other perch on the arm of his easy chair and reach for the can of beer.
The Third Mystery Page 23