“Is ladies’ tea party code for bootleg liquor racket?” I asked.
Jack looked at my father. My father looked at me and nodded.
“You’ve done fine work, Jack,” Dad said. “Thanks to your hard work, I’ve been able to devote all my attention to the bootleggers’ case. We ought to clean out the gang.”
“I hope so, Chief. Guess you have all the proofs needed to back up the story.”
“All the evidence is locked in my safe. I have an appointment scheduled with the prosecutor at ten-thirty. If he agrees, we’ll publish the story tomorrow. I’ll gather my papers and be on my way.”
Jack went out. Dad went to the safe and fumbled with the dial.
“Want me to open it for you?” I asked after he had tried several times.
Without waiting for a reply, I stooped down, twisted the dial a few times, and opened the heavy door.
“How did you learn the combination?” Dad demanded.
“Oh, the numbers are written on the underside of your desk,” I told. “For a seasoned newspaperman, you sure put a great deal of trust in your office help.”
“Fortunately, my reporters aren’t quite as observant as a certain daughter of mine,” Dad said as he removed a fat brown envelope from one of the drawers of the safe. Glancing at the papers it contained, he added them to the contents of the portfolio. He then locked the safe.
“How about letting me see that story?” I asked.
Dad smiled at me but shook his head.
“Only one person knows the facts of the case—me, and I intend to keep it that way.”
“Let’s make it two.”
“It will be two after I’ve talked to the prosecutor. I’ve got to step right along, too, or I’ll be late.”
“But Dad—”
“You’ll read the story in tomorrow’s Examiner—I hope,” my father promised as he picked up the portfolio and started for the door. “Just contain your impatience until I get back. And please keep those slippery little fingers away from my safe.”
Chapter Five
After my father had gone, I remained in the private office and used his telephone to arrange for the retrieval of Bouncing Betsy from the Greenville Yacht Club.
I was just hanging up the receiver after charging the tow truck man from Nelson’s garage to be gentle during the rescue of my beloved Betsy when a man with hard brown eyes paused on the threshold of Dad’s office.
The man was Jonathon Pim, an assistant editor, next in authority to Mr. DeWitt. Of the entire Examiner staff, he was the only person I actively disliked.
“Oh, good morning, Miss Fielding,” he said with elaborate courtesy. “Your father isn’t here?”
“It’s Mrs. Carter, actually, and no, my father went away a few minutes ago.”
“Of course, Mrs. Carter. And you are taking care of the office in his absence?” Mr. Pim smiled an oily smile. The words had an insolent ring, which I was certain Mr. Pim believed I would miss.
“I’m merely waiting for him to return,” I told Mr. Pim. “I was just telephoning a garage about retrieving my car.”
“Oh, yes, I heard you were the victim of a hit-and-run accident yesterday afternoon.” Mr. Pim’s lips twitched. “Too bad.”
“Perhaps the police will catch the driver,” I said. “There was evidence at the scene which suggested the truck was smuggling bootleg liquor.”
“I shouldn’t count on it if I were you, Miss Fielding. Wine and spirits have been flowing into this city for months. Nothing’s been done to stop it.”
“It’s Mrs. Carter,” I muttered under my breath before continuing at full volume. “Just what do you mean by flowing into the city, Mr. Pim?”
“Illegal trading in strong drink is rampant. Liquor is sold by the crooks to private clubs and restaurants who flagrantly flout prohibition and serve the public. It’s now a big-time business.”
“What does my father think about it?”
“Well, now, I really couldn’t tell you. Your father doesn’t discuss his editorial policy with me. If he did, I’d warn him to lay off all those bootleg liquor stories.”
“My father prints all the news, regardless of the consequences to himself,” I said. “Why should he soft-pedal the story on the illegal liquor trade?”
“For his health’s sake.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Pim.”
The assistant editor had closed the door behind him. Warming to his subject, he replied: “The men who have muscled into the bootleg liquor trade are ugly lads without scruples. If your father stupidly insists upon trying to smash the outfit, he may not wake up some morning.”
I am not a woman easily shaken, but the suggestion that my father might ruthlessly be done away with shocked me. A canny corner of my mind demanded to know how Mr. Pim could be so well informed. I was quite certain my father had not taken him into his confidence. Not even Jack knew the details of the case.
“Dad is no coward,” I said.
“Oh, no one ever questioned his bravery, Miss Fielding. Your father is courageous to the point of rashness. But if he prints an exposé story about bootleggers, it’s apt to prove the most foolish act of his life.”
I gave up on Mr. Pim ever getting my name right. I had more than a sneaking suspicion he was forgetting it on purpose just to undermine my confidence, but why he should feel the need to I couldn’t fathom.
“How do you know my father intends to print an exposé?”
My question, so sharply put, startled Mr. Pim.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he denied hastily. “I merely heard the rumor traveling around the office.”
I fixed Mr. Pim with a cold stare but made no reply. As the silence lengthened, the assistant editor murmured that he would return to see my father later and left the office.
I glared at the man’s retreating back. Even more intensely than before, I disliked Jonathon Pim. I was certain he’d been listening at the door or prying in Dad’s papers. I was sure no rumors had been circulating around the office. Jack is the soul of discretion, and my father is Fort Knox when it comes to keeping undercover operations under wraps.
The telephone rang. Automatically I took down the receiver.
“Mr. Anthony Fielding?” inquired a masculine voice.
“He’s not here now. This is his daughter, Mrs. Jane Carter, speaking. May I take a message?”
“No message,” said the purring voice. “Mr. Fielding may hear from me later.”
“Who is this?” I demanded, but there was no answer, only the click of a receiver being returned to its hook.
The incident, although trifling, annoyed me. Getting up from the desk, I walked to the window. Mr. Pim’s veiled threats had alarmed me, and now the telephone call added to my uneasiness. I told myself that the man who had telephoned was doubtlessly well known to my father and that I was just imagining that his voice sounded sinister, but I failed to convince myself there was no need for concern.
I decided to wait for Dad to return from his meeting with the prosecutor, so I wandered out into the editorial room while I waited.
Jack had gone off to cover a speech by the mayor, and Shep had gone with him, so I chatted with the society editor and for a time watched the world news reports coming in on the noisy teletype machines.
“Need a job?” inquired Editor DeWitt at the slot of the circular copy desk. “How about writing a few headlines for me?”
“I’m just waiting for Dad. He should be back any minute now.”
It was eleven-forty by the office clock. Never had time seemed to pass so slowly. As I debated whether or not to wait any longer, Jack returned.
I waited until he had filed his story, but Dad had still not returned. Jack suggested we wander down to the Bean Pot for a couple of sandwiches. Half of me wanted to wait around for my father to come back, but the other half of me wanted a ham on rye and Jack’s ear away from the prying eyes of Mr. Pim.
“It’s that bootleg liquor story I want
to ask you about,” I whispered in his ear, as we sat at the counter of the Bean Pot sipping coffee and waiting for our sandwiches “Did you ever tell anyone that Dad is planning to expose the gang?”
“Of course not,” Jack whispered back.
To the rest of the lunch counter, we probably appeared to be exchanging sweet nothings.
“I knew you wouldn’t give out any information,” I told Jack, “but somehow Jonathon Pim has learned about it.”
“Pim! That egg?” Jack hissed. “How could he have found out?”
“I’d like to know myself. He hinted that something dreadful might happen to Dad if the story is printed.”
“Pim does a lot of wild talking,” Jack tried to reassure me. “Probably whatever he said to you was pure bluff. He doesn’t know a thing. How could he?”
We finished our sandwiches, and I debated whether to go home or back to the Examiner office. I’d just settled on returning home and getting at least a few pages further along on Fiona Finds a Way when my ears were assaulted by the shrill scream of a siren.
“A fire?” I asked Jack.
“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “Sounds more like an ambulance.”
Jack was right. We left the Bean Pot just in time to see an ambulance rush past. It raced to the end of the short street and pulled up.
Curious to learn what had happened, Jack and I began to run. At the end of the street, a large crowd had gathered. A car with a smashed fender and damaged front grillwork had piled against a streetlamp.
“What happened?” I asked a man in the crowd.
“Two cars in a smash-up,” he answered. “Didn’t see the accident myself.”
“But what became of the other automobile?” Jack asked.
The man didn’t answer.
We pushed through the gathering crowd to the curb. Broken glass was scattered over the pavement. Ambulance men were searching the wreckage of the car that had struck the lamppost. The other automobile, apparently, had driven away.
My gaze riveted on the rear license plate of the smashed car. In horror, I read the number—P-619-10.
“That’s Dad’s car. He’s been hurt!”
Chapter Six
Never in my life had I been more frightened. Breaking away from the group of people at the curb, I ran to the parked ambulance. A glance into the interior assured me that Dad had not been placed inside on a stretcher.
“Where is he?” I asked wildly. “Where’s my father?”
“We know the owner of the wrecked car,” Jack explained, but the white-garbed ambulance attendant turned to stare at us blankly.
“That’s my father’s car!” I repeated, pointing to the battered car. “Tell me, was he badly hurt?”
The attendant tried to be kind and reassuring, but I was far from calm.
“We don’t know, Ma’am,” he told me. “Someone put in a call for us. Said we were to pick up an injured man, but evidently he was taken to a hospital before we could get here.”
“That’s what happened,” said a small boy who stood close by. “A woman drove by in an auto. She offered to take the man to the hospital, and he went with her.”
“A tall, lean man in a gray suit?” I asked the boy.
The boy nodded.
“Was he carrying anything?”
“Yes. He had a leather case in his hand.”
“Then it was my father. How badly was he hurt?”
“Oh, he could walk all right,” the boy replied. “He seemed kinda dazed though.”
“Did you see the other car?” Jack asked the boy.
“It was a big blue car, with two men in it,” the boy said. “They started to go around your father’s car and crowded him into the curb. Next thing I saw, he’d plowed into the lamppost.”
“The other car didn’t stop?”
“I’ll say it didn’t. You should have seen ’em go.”
“Didn’t you notice the license number?” Jack asked.
The boy shook his head.
Jack and I questioned others in the crowd of witnesses, but only one woman in the crowd was able to provide additional information. Her eyewitness account differed slightly from the boy’s, but she confirmed that a middle-aged woman in a black coupe had taken the accident victim to a hospital.
“Which hospital?” I asked.
The woman did not know, but she tried to reassure me that the accident victim seemed to have suffered only minor scratches.
A police car drove up.
I was frantic to find my father and did not wish to be delayed by questions, so I left Jack behind to learn whatever else he could and hailed a taxi for Mercy Hospital. It was only a few blocks away, and it seemed reasonable that my father would have been taken there for treatment.
When I enquired at the information desk at Mercy Hospital, I learned that my father had not been admitted as a patient. The nurse in charge offered to telephone other hospitals. After six calls, she reported that she was unable to trace the accident victim.
“Are you sure that your father sought hospital treatment?” she asked me.
“Perhaps not. Dad wasn’t badly hurt according to witnesses. He may have simply gone home to recuperate.”
I thanked the nurse for her help and took a taxi home. Mrs. Timms, in an old coat and a turban, was scattering salt on the icy sidewalk in front of the house. From the look on her face, it was evident she had not heard the news.
“Mrs. Timms, Dad’s been hurt,” I said as I leaped from the cab. “He was involved in a hit-and-run accident and crashed into a light pole.”
“My lands!” the housekeeper gasped and allowed the bag of salt to fall from her gloved hand. “How bad is it?”
“I think he was more stunned than anything else. But I’ve not been able to learn where he was taken. He didn’t telephone here?”
“Not unless it was since I’ve been outdoors.”
“Maybe he went back to the Examiner office instead.”
Leaving the bag of salt where she’d dropped it, Mrs. Timms followed me into the house. Without removing my coat or hat, I dialed the Examiner office. Editor DeWitt answered.
“Has Dad arrived there?”
“No, he hasn’t returned. Anything wrong?”
I told Mr. DeWitt everything I knew.
“Don’t you worry,” Mr. DeWitt said. “Your father can’t be badly hurt, or he never would have walked away from that accident. Just sit tight, and we will locate him for you.”
During the next hour, Mrs. Timms and I remained near the telephone. Each moment we waited, our anxiety increased. Still, Mr. DeWitt did not phone. There was no word from the police station. I refused to believe that Dad had been seriously injured, yet it seemed strange he could not be found.
“It’s not like him to allow anyone to worry,” said Mrs. Timms. “I simply can’t understand why he doesn’t call to relieve our minds.”
Just then the telephone bell jingled, and I snatched the receiver from its hook.
“DeWitt speaking,” said the familiar voice of the editor.
“Any news? Did you find Dad?”
“So far we haven’t,” the editor confessed. “I’ve personally called the police station and every hospital and private nursing home in Greenville.”
“Dad may have decided to forgo the hospital and gone to a doctor’s office for treatment.”
“I thought of that,” replied DeWitt. “We’ve checked all the likely ones already.”
“What could have become of him?” I asked desperately. “Mrs. Timms and I are dreadfully worried.”
“Oh, he’ll show up any minute,” Mr. DeWitt tried to comfort me, but he failed to disguise the edge in his voice. “Probably he doesn’t realize anyone is looking for him.”
I asked the editor if he had learned the identity of the hit-and-run driver.
“No one took down the license number of the car,” Mr. DeWitt told me. “Our reporters are still working on the story, though.”
“The story,”
I murmured. For the first time, it occurred to me that my father’s accident and subsequent disappearance would be regarded as front page news.
“I don’t expect to run an account of the accident until I’ve talked to your father,” DeWitt said hastily. “Now, don’t worry about anything. I’ll let you know the minute I have any news.”
I hung up the receiver and reported the conversation to Mrs. Timms. A clock on the mantel chimed one-thirty, reminding Mrs. Timms that lunch had not been prepared.
“No food for me,” I said. “I don’t feel like eating.”
“I’ve rather lost my own appetite,” Mrs. Timms confessed. “However, it’s useless to worry. Your father must be safe. No doubt he had an appointment.”
“Appointment!” I said. “Dad was in conference with Prosecutor Simmons this morning. Maybe he returned to the prosecutor’s office on unfinished business. I’ll call there and see if they know anything.”
“Mr. Fielding hasn’t been here,” Prosecutor Simmons told me when I reached his office. “I expected him at ten-thirty. Then he telephoned that he had been delayed and would see me at eleven-thirty, but he failed to keep that appointment also.”
I explained about the accident and listened to the prosecutor’s expression of sympathy. After replacing the receiver, I turned once more to Mrs. Timms.
“I’m more worried than ever.” My voice was quavering, and my hands began to shake. “Dad didn’t keep his appointment with Prosecutor Simmons, and it was a vitally important one.”
“We’ll hear from him soon—”
“Perhaps we won’t.”
“What a thing to say. Whatever do you mean?” Mrs. Timms demanded.
“Dad has enemies. Jonathon Pim told me today that if any attempt was made to expose a certain gang of bootleggers, it would mean real trouble.”
“But your father has had no connection with such persons.”
“But he has. He has been working on a case. I just found out about it this morning,” I explained. “Today, at the time of the accident, Dad was carrying a briefcase with all the evidence in it. He was on his way to the Prosecutor’s office to present Mr. Simmons with the proof he needed to put away the whole gang.”
The Jane Carter Historical Cozies Box Set 2 Page 49