“They were friends who came for Mr. Fielding.”
“Your friends?”
“Well, no, I found the names and addresses in Mr. Fielding’s briefcase. They were men in the restaurant business.”
This latest scrap of information stunned me. As far as I knew, when my father went missing his portfolio contained only evidence pertaining to the bootleg liquor case.
“Who were the men?” I demanded.
“One was named Kurt Mollinberg—Ropes Mollinberg, his friend called him. I forget the other.”
“Ropes Mollinberg?” Jack said. “He’s one of the lowest rats in the region. Connected with counterfeiting, the numbers racket, and who knows what else. He just got out of prison a month ago for passing counterfeit money.”
“Why did you summon those men, of all people?” Mr. Deming asked.
“Well, I found their addresses in the portfolio. I had to get rid of Mr. Fielding before you came, and I was afraid to call his house.”
“You’re a cruel, heartless woman,” I said. “You sent my father—who was clearly not in his right mind—away with one of the most dastardly rogues in Greenville. Those men have been waiting for a chance to waylay him. They wanted to get possession of vital evidence my father had in his portfolio.”
“I didn’t know anything about that,” Mrs. Rigley whined. “How could I have known? When they came in the taxi, they offered me money.”
“And you took it?”
“I tried not to, but they forced it on me.”
“I offered a reward for information leading to finding my father, yet you passed up several opportunities to reveal his whereabouts?”
“I didn’t want to become involved with the police. I was afraid.”
I sprang to my feet. Only by the greatest effort of will could I keep from telling the housekeeper what I truly thought of her contemptible actions—and in colorful terms of which Mrs. Timms would definitely not approve.
“You sent my father away with those men,” I said. “Didn’t he realize who they were?”
“I told him they were his friends. I really thought so. He went willingly enough.”
I was sick with fear.
From the first, the situation had been grave, but now there seemed little hope. From Mrs. Rigley’s story, I could only conclude that my father suffered from a brain injury. Even if I were fortunate enough to find him otherwise unharmed, he would not recognize me as his daughter.
“Jack,” I pleaded. “What are we to do? What can we do?”
“Every policeman in Greenville is on the lookout for those men,” he answered soberly. “but we’ll scour every nook and cranny of the county ourselves. I won’t give up until we’ve found the Chief and brought him home.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
I was heartsick with the knowledge that my father had fallen into the hands of the bootleggers. The taxi that had spirited him away had left the Oaklands Estate fully an hour earlier. There seemed little chance that the trail could be picked up quickly.
“I’ll telephone the boys at the newspaper office,” Jack said. “The police, too, now that we know the names of the miscreants who took off with the Chief. We’ll put a description on the radio. We’ll have everybody in Greenville watching for that yellow taxi.”
“Call the cab companies too,” I suggested. “They may be able to trace the location of the cab.”
While Jack made phone calls, I ran outside to find the policeman assigned to guard the house. I soon returned with him, and he placed Mrs. Rigley in custody.
“Oh, Mr. Deming, don’t let them take me to jail,” the housekeeper pleaded. “I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”
“Mrs. Rigley, I can’t help you.” Mr. Deming was unswayed by her pleas. “Your offense is a very serious one. The court must decide your fate.”
The housekeeper broke into tears again and for several minutes was quite hysterical. When her outburst moved no one, she resigned herself to the inevitable. Packing a few articles in a bag, she prepared to leave the house in the custody of the policeman.
“I’m sorry about everything,” she said to me as she was led away. “I hope Mr. Fielding is found. I really do.”
After Mrs. Rigley had gone, I was too upset to wait quietly. I longed to join in an active search for the yellow taxi. Common sense told me that the cab undoubtedly had reached its destination, yet I hoped I might pick up a clue.
“By questioning the attendants at the filling station at the crossroads, we may learn which way the taxi went,” I urged.
As we drove away from the Oaklands Estate house and sped down the familiar twisting highway and passed the first bend, the bright headlights of Jack’s car illuminated a patch of snow along the ditch. I thought I saw a small, dark object lying on the ground.
“Stop the car!” I said.
Jack brought the car to a standstill a little farther down the road.
I leaped out and ran back to the ditch. A leather portfolio lay in the snow.
“Jack!” I shouted. “I’ve found Dad’s briefcase.”
Jack came running. By the time he reached me, I was examining the portfolio in the beam of the headlights. The briefcase was empty.
“Just as I thought,” I muttered. “Those men were after the evidence Dad carried. It looks like they got it, too.”
We searched the snowy ditches on either side of the road for a long distance from where I had first spotted the satchel. There were no footprints. I could only conclude that the portfolio had been thrown from a window of the moving cab. Evidently my father remained a prisoner, whether he had yet realized it or not.
“Now that those men have what they want, maybe they’ll release Dad,” I said. “Don’t you think so, Jack?”
Jack averted his eyes.
“You believe they’ll harm Dad?” I said, reading Jack’s face. “Maybe I’ll never see him again—”
Jack silently took my arm to guide me back to the car.
We drove on, our tires crunching the hard-packed snow. At the crossroads, we met a police car and hailed it. I turned the empty portfolio over to one of the officers, explaining where it had been found.
“Every road is being watched,” the officer told me. “An alarm has been broadcast throughout the state, too. The taxicab company has supplied us with the license number of the vehicle. If that yellow cab still is on the road, someone will spot it.”
For an hour longer, we scoured the roads in the vicinity of Greenville. We stopped at filling stations and houses to inquire if anyone had seen a yellow cab pass by. Always the answer was in the negative.
“Don’t you think we ought to go home?” Jack said after pointing out that it was going on three in the morning. “For all we know, the police may have found the Chief by this time. We’d never learn about it while we’re touring around.”
“All right, let’s go home,” I reluctantly agreed.
Jack turned the car back toward Greenville. We arrived at the outskirts, and Jack chose a boulevard which wound through a park. Had I not been sick at heart about the fate of my father, I would have thought myself in a magical winter wonderland. Each ice-coated limb and twig glistened in the bright light of the moon, but the beauty of the scene was lost on me.
I gazed absently toward the frozen lake, devoid of skaters since it was the wee hours of the morning.
I was startled to see a man sitting on a park bench beneath a streetlamp. He wore no hat, and his overcoat was unbuttoned. The man on the bench had turned slightly, so that I was able to see his face.
“That man! Jack, it looks like Dad.”
Jack brought the car to a halt with a jerk. I leaped out, Jack on my heels. I was the first to reach the bench, and I flung myself headlong at the disheveled man who sat so dejected and alone.
“Dad! I’ve found you at last. How thankful I am that you are safe.”
The man on the bench didn’t push me away, but when I let go of him, he stared blankly back at me.
&
nbsp; “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Jane—your daughter, Jane.”
“I have no daughter,” the man said. “No home. Nothing. Not even a name.”
“Who is this person?” the man asked, gesturing weakly at Jack. “Why are you people staring at me?”
“You remember me, don’t you, Chief?” said Jack. “I’m your star reporter at the Greenville Examiner.”
“Never saw you before in my life.”
“You’re my father—Anthony Fielding,” I said desperately. “You’re a newspaper editor. You’re a widower engaged to be married to a Mrs. Doris Timms.”
The man gave no sign of recognition.
“You were in a bad accident,” I persisted. “You were driving and got hit by another car. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember that I was taken by two men in a taxicab. They pretended to be my friends. As soon as we were well away from Mrs. Rigley’s home, they robbed me of my money and portfolio. Then they pushed me out of the cab, and I started walking. I kept on until I came here.”
“You’re cold and tired,” said Jack, taking his arm to help him to his feet. “We’re here to take you home.”
“By what right?” Dad demanded. “Why should I let you take me away? You’ll only try to rob me—”
“Dad, you don’t understand,” I said. “You’re not thinking straight. The blow to your head has taken your memory from you.”
“Come along, Chief,” Jack urged him. “We’re your friends. We’ll take you to the doctor.”
Jack had managed to pull Dad to his feet, but once standing upright, my father planted his feet firmly on the ground and refused to budge.
“I’m not going a step,” he announced. “Not one step.”
“Sorry, Chief, but if you’re so set about it,” said Jack, signaling to me to assist him, “we’ll have to do it the hard way.”
Before my father knew what was coming, the two of us caught him firmly by the arms and legs. Although he resisted, it was clear that his ordeal had severely weakened him, and we manhandled him into the car with surprisingly little difficulty. Jack hemmed in my father in the backseat while I took the wheel.
“I’ll drive us home as fast as I can,” I told Jack as I started the engine. “Then I’ll want you to go for Doctor Greer, the brain specialist at Mercy Hospital. Dad’s in serious condition.”
“Serious, my eye,” my father snorted. He struggled to free himself from Jack’s grip. “Let me out of here.”
“Dad, everything will be all right now,” I tried to soothe him. “You’re safe with me. You’re going home to your beloved Mrs. Timms.”
“I’m being kidnapped!” Dad said indignantly, more outraged, it seemed, than frightened. “Twice in one night, no less. If I were strong enough to get out of here—”
Again he tried to free himself. Failing to elude the grasp of Jack, he sank back into the seat and averted his face.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In the upstairs bedroom, I moved with velvet tread. Noiselessly I rearranged a vase of flowers and closed the slat of a Venetian blind.
“You needn’t be so quiet,” my father said. “I’ve been awake a long time now.”
“How are you feeling this afternoon, Dad?”
“Afternoon?” my father demanded, sitting up. “How long have I been sleeping?”
“Most of two days.”
Dad threw off the covers and started to lower his feet to the floor.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said, pressing him back against the pillow. “Doctor Greer says you are to have absolute bed rest for several more days. It’s part of the treatment.”
“Treatment for what?” Dad grumbled. “I feel fine. I’m no longer plagued by those blasted headaches.”
“That’s wonderful,” I said. “You must be hungry. I’ll have Mrs. Timms bring up something for you to eat.”
I called down the stairway to Mrs. Timms and then returned to the bedside. My father looked more like his former self than at any time since the accident. His voice too, was more natural.
“Guess I must have had a bad dream,” Dad said, his gaze roving slowly about the room as if seeing it for the first time. “I seem to recall riding around in a taxi and being pushed out into the snow.”
“You know where you are now, don’t you?” I asked him.
“Certainly. I’m at home.”
Mrs. Timms came into the room, bearing a tray of food. On hearing my father’s words and seeing a fleeting glimpse of recognition in his face, she looked over at me. I could see tears springing to her eyes.
“Doctor Greer was right,” she whispered. “His memory is slowly coming back.”
“What’s all this?” Dad said irritably. “Will someone kindly tell me why I am being imprisoned in this bed?”
My father has never been a compliant patient.
“Because you’ve been very, very sick,” Mrs. Timms said, arranging the food in front of him.
“You know who I am now, don’t you?” I asked.
“Certainly. You’re my daughter. Your name is—now let me think—”
“Jane.”
“To be sure. Fancy forgetting my own daughter’s name.”
“You’ve forgotten a number of other things too, Dad. But events gradually are coming back to you. Suppose you tell me your name.”
“My name?” Dad looked bewildered. “I don’t remember. It’s not Jones. I took that name because I couldn’t think of my own. What’s wrong with me?”
Mrs. Timms tucked a napkin beneath Dad’s chin and offered him a spoonful of beef broth.
“What’s wrong with me?” My father was becoming increasingly agitated, and Mrs. Timms telegraphed a distress signal to me across the room. “Am I a lunatic?” my father continued. “Can’t either of you tell me the truth?”
“You’re recovering from a severe case of amnesia,” I told him. “The doctor says it was brought on by overwork in combination with the shock of striking your head against the steering wheel when you were involved in an auto accident. Since you were hurt, you’ve not remembered what happened before that time.”
“I do recall the accident,” my father insisted. “Another car crowded me off the road. The crash stunned me, and my mind was a sort of blank. Then a pleasant woman took me to her home.”
“A pleasant woman, Dad?”
“Mrs. Rigley gave me a nice room and good food. I liked it there. But one night a girl broke in—could that have been you, Jane?”
“Indeed, it was.”
“When Mrs. Rigley came home, she was very excited,” Dad resumed meditatively. “She said I had to leave. She hustled me out of the house and sent me off with two strangers.”
“One of the men was Ropes Mollinberg, a member of a gang of bootleggers you were about to turn in to the state prosecutor.”
“Yes, that was his name,” Dad brightened at the realization that he’d gotten something right. “Speaking of bootleggers, I’ve been intending to write an editorial for the paper. Jane, please have my secretary come in. I’ll dictate the material while it is fresh in my mind.”
Mrs. Timms looked slightly distressed. Clearly, my father was in no condition to be dictating anything for publication, but I figured if nothing else it would give his troubled mind something to focus on. I whisked away the tray of food, got pencil and paper, and sat on the edge of my father’s bed, ready to take dictation.
“Your secretary isn’t available just now, but I’ll take down what you want to say.”
I’ve never learned to write in proper shorthand. I compose my novels on a typewriter, so I’ve never had a need. Nevertheless, I pretended to jot down notes. Dad led off with a few crisp sentences, then wandered vaguely from one idea to another.
“I can’t seem to think straight anymore,” he complained. “Type that up, please, and let me see it before it goes to the compositors.”
“How shall I sign the editorial?” I asked
“With my name, of
course, Anthony Fielding.”
“Dad, events are coming back to you. You’ve just recalled your name, and that’s a big step forward.”
“Anthony Fielding,” my father repeated as if trying out the sound of the words. “Yes, that’s it. Now there’s another matter that troubles me. I had a briefcase—”
“It was stolen by those men who took you away from the house where you stayed with Mrs. Rigley,” I said. “If only you could remember what those lost papers contained, we’d expose the entire gang of bootleggers.”
Dad struggled to think for several excruciating minutes, then shook his head.
“Mind’s a blank, Jane. What does the doctor say? Is there a chance my memory ever will return?”
“Of course it will,” I said.
“You’ve already recalled a number of important things,” Mrs. Timms added. “Doctor Greer thinks that with rest, events will gradually return to mind.”
“I heard somewhere that another shock, perhaps a blow similar to the one you had, might bring everything back,” I said.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” my father joked. “Go get the sledgehammer.”
“It’s not that easy, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Timms.
“I’m afraid not, either.” Dad sighed. “Guess I’ll sleep some more now. I feel pretty tired.”
During the days that followed, Dad made a slow but steady recovery. At first I did not worry him by mentioning how matters had gone at the Examiner office. Only after Dad was well enough to spend several hours a day at the plant did I reveal how Jonathon Pim had sought to establish himself as editor-in-chief of the paper.
“That blasted scoundrel,” Dad raved. “Before my accident, I intended to discharge him, and he knew it. I have evidence in my safe showing that Pim accepted money from a local politician to suppress an unfavorable story.”
“You did have evidence,” I corrected my father. “While you were away, Mr. Pim went through your safe.”
My father immediately went through the contents of both his desk and strongbox. To his chagrin, he found that I was right. Every document pertaining to Pim was missing.
The Jane Carter Historical Cozies Box Set 2 Page 58