A Key to Death

by Frances

  The doorbell interrupted him. He crossed the room and opened the door and looked down at the woman who stood there—the small, trim woman with brown hair streaked dramatically with white. She looked at him.

  “Why—” she said, and looked around the room, the rather crowded room. “What’s happened?” she said. “Something’s happened to Nan.”

  “Mrs. James,” Pam said, from inside the room. “Something dreadful. Mrs. Schaeffer’s—”

  “Come in,” Weigand said. “Mrs. James? Phoebe James?”

  She came into the room. She wore a brown sealskin coat, held close around her; in the heat of the room she still did not release the clutched coat.

  “I don’t—” she said, and looked around again, and looked at Pam North. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Nan—what’s happened to Nan?”

  “Apparently,” Bill Wiegand told her, “Mrs. Schaeffer has been kidnapped. By someone she found ransacking her apartment. She telephoned Mrs. North and—”

  “Telephoned you?” Phoebe James said, and looked at Pam. “But that isn’t what I—” She stopped. She looked, Pam thought, taken aback; there was something almost of consternation in her expression.

  “What you what, Mrs. James?” Weigand asked her. “What were you going to say?”

  “Wait,” Mrs. James said. “She telephoned you, Mrs. North, and—told you what was happening?”

  Pam told her of the telephone call. When she had finished, Phoebe James said again that she did not understand it. She looked around the room. “This is so strange,” she said. “So very strange.”

  “You expected to find her here?” Bill said. “Evidently you did. Had you arranged to see her? By telephone or some other way?”

  “Arranged?” Phoebe James repeated. “They searched everywhere?”

  “Yes,” Bill said. He was patient. “Had you arranged to call on Mrs. Schaeffer tonight. At—” He looked at his watch. “At twenty minutes after twelve?”

  “I hadn’t arranged anything,” Phoebe James said. “I—Forbes Ingraham was a very dear friend of mine.” She seemed for the first time to see Bill Weigand. “You’re a police officer?” she asked. Weigand identified himself.

  “Of course,” she said. “The officer Mr. and Mrs. North spoke about. Have so much confidence in. I was terribly upset, captain. I—I couldn’t stand to be alone. I just came here on an impulse. To—to be with someone. You’ve felt that way?”

  Bill nodded. He waited.

  “That’s all,” she said. “Oh—to talk about what’s happened, I suppose. To go over it and over it, and around and around in it. You think—‘perhaps there’s something I forgot to ask. Perhaps there’s something, some simple thing, we’ve missed.’ Do you understand?”

  Again Bill Weigand nodded.

  “And now—this,” Phoebe James said, and released her coat, moved her hands to indicate the room. “Nan—you really believe she’s been kidnapped? Taken out of here forcibly? Or—or what?”

  Everything looked, Bill told her, as if Mrs. Schaeffer had surprised intruders, been taken with them when they left.

  “The men Forbes was—afraid of? Or wary of? The Norths have told you about that?”

  “What she told them?” Bill said. “Yes. And—yes, that’s a possibility. If they thought Mr. Ingraham had given her something. Something they might want. You think he would have done that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “How could I know?”

  “Or, that her husband had something they wanted. That she had brought it here when she moved after he died?”

  Mrs. James merely shook her head. She shook it hopelessly. Then she asked if there was anything to indicate that Nan Schaeffer had been—she hesitated over the word—had been “hurt.”

  They had found nothing, Bill told her. He looked at her curiously. She did not seem to notice this. She shook her head again and as she looked around the room, her lower lip pressed between her teeth. Then she turned.

  “There’s nothing I can do, is there?” she said. “Nothing to help?”

  “If you have any ideas?” Bill said.

  “None,” Phoebe James said. “I—it’s the last thing I’d have expected to happen.”

  Then there was nothing she could do at the moment, Bill told her. It would be best for her to go home. Should he have someone go with her?

  “Go with me?” she said. “Why? Oh—no, I’m perfectly all right, captain. At least—I don’t need anyone to take me home.”

  She held the coat around her. She looked at Pam North and seemed about to say something to her. But in the end she merely shook her head, and went to the door and out of it. Bill closed it behind her.

  “Well,” Pam North said, “I wonder what—”

  The telephone rang. Weigand answered it, identified himself, listened. He said, “The hell it has,” and listened again. He said, “Right, we’ll be along,” and replaced the telephone.

  “The offices have been broken into,” he said. “The law offices. Mullins!”

  Mullins said, “O.K. Loot.”

  Weigand looked at the Norths.

  “We,” Jerry said, with firmness, “are going home. To sleep.”

  “Sleep?” Pam said. “With all this to worry about?”

  VII

  Wednesday, 8:20 A.M. to 11:45 A.M.

  The cat was black, except for a white chest and one white forepaw. He sat tight against the front door, his tail wrapped close around him. It had snowed lightly during the night, and from his tracks in the snow it was evident the cat had been several times to the front door, and at least twice to the back door, and that once he had leaped to a window sill and, finding the window closed, leaped down again.

  The cat shook his cold forepaws, first one and then the other. From time to time he cried out, in a voice which was plaintive, and angry, too.

  It was Mrs. Isaacson who heard him most clearly. She lived next door, in a cottage very much like that which the cat sought to enter. Mrs. Isaacson was agreeably plump and rosy, and in her early thirties, and as she made the bed she sang contentedly to herself. She had been up before seven, and got her husband up and off by seven-thirty. It is a long time from the center—the high center—of Staten Island to the tip of Manhattan. There is a walk to the bus, and a longish ride on the bus, and on the ferry one has enough time to read the New York Times from first to last, excepting the financial news. Larry Isaacson was due at the office at nine.

  Mrs. Isaacson had washed the dishes and, since that was her day for it, cleaned the range. She had run the vacuum over the living room rug. Since these activities are not quiet ones, she had not heard the cat until she came to bed making. She did not, at first, pay much attention. But as the cat continued to cry, she began to notice the sound, and finally to wonder about it.

  It was not like the cat to cry. She knew the cat well; frequently, in the summer, he dropped in for lunch. But he seldom had much to say, except what he said by purring. And now, quite suddenly, Mrs. Isaacson stopped, with a pillow tucked under her chin and the pillow slip dangling, and listened.

  On a day like this—a cold, February day—it was strange for the cat to be out at all. In the winter, he was a dedicated house cat, and stayed where it was warm. Now and then he went out briefly in the morning, but by seven-thirty or thereabouts he was in again, and for the day. But now it was—it was eight-thirty.

  Rose Isaacson put the pillow into the slip, and laid it on the bed. She went to the window, and looked across at the cottage next door. She saw the cat, flattened against the front door.

  She raised the window slightly and spoke to the cat.

  “What’s the matter, Tommy?” she said. “You get locked out?”

  The cat turned and looked at her. He spoke with increased vigor; he looked up at the door, then, and cried very loudly.

  “She’s not there, Tommy,” Rose Isaacson said. “She must have gone—”

  But then she stopped, and looked at the walk in front of the house and w
as puzzled, then concerned. There were the marks of the cat’s feet in the snow—he had gone down the walk, apparently to look up and down the street, and come back again to the doorstep. But—there were no other marks in the snow. And the snow had been on the ground, in fact it had already stopped snowing, when Mrs. Isaacson had gone to the door with Larry, and his feet had left marks in the snow.

  So her neighbor had not gone out, or had gone out before the snow fell or—had not come home? But during the evening, Rose thought, was almost certain, she had been conscious of a light going on there. Yes—it had shone in a window, interfering with television. She had pulled down the shade.

  I do hope, Rose Isaacson thought, nothing’s happened to the poor thing. It’s not like her to leave the cat out. Particularly when the weather’s so—

  Rose put a sweater on. She went out her own front door and crossed to the house next door, her footmarks sharp in the light snow. The cat circled away from the door as she approached, and rubbed against her legs, and looked up at her, waiting. It had taken a long time for a person to see the obvious. The cat shook his paws, cold from the snow.

  Rose Isaacson rang the bell and then, not sure she had heard it ringing, knocked.

  “Mrs. Burton,” she called. “Oh Mrs. Burton.” When there was no answer, she called, “Are you all right?”

  She tried the door, then, and it was locked. She tried to see into the house through the glass in the door, but white curtains cut off her view. She went to the side of the house, the cat following her, and found a window from which the curtains were drawn back. She could look into the living room, then.

  She looked and the color faded from her rounded, pretty face, and horror sat in her dark eyes. She ran to her own house, and the cat ran after her, and into the house after her.

  Rose Isaacson had forgotten the cat. She went to the telephone, and sat for a second, and took deep breaths to quiet her trembling. Then she picked up the telephone and dialed once.

  “I want the police,” she told the operator. “I want the police. The lady next door—I’m—I’m afraid something dreadful has happened—”

  Captain William Weigand had got to bed at a little after four. He was at his desk at eight-thirty, feeling by no means as young as he once had felt. There was, he thought, hardly time left during which he could die young, as Dorian, his wife, had told him he was sure to do if he kept going the way he went. She had told him that in this morning’s gloom, as she fed him breakfast. She had moved lithely in the room, and her eyes had been green (and indignant) and it had been difficult to think of murder.

  Reports awaited on the desk. He was familiar with the contents of some, not surprised by the others.

  The bullet taken from Forbes Ingraham’s brain had so battered itself against his skull as to be useless for comparison, in case the opportunity for comparison arose. It had been fired from a thirty-two calibre revolver, from a distance of a few feet.

  Forbes Ingraham had been a healthy man, until the bullet splayed against the frontal bone of his skull. There was no evidence of organic disease, “Well nourished, male; weight 160; height, five nine.” There was no reason apparent why he should have sought medical treatment, which was confirmation, if needed, of his statement to Dr. Aaron Arn.

  Fingerprints had been numerous in Nan Schaeffer’s apartment. Hers predominated, as was to be expected. Almost as numerous were the prints of another woman, now identified as her personal maid. The fingerprints of the hotel maid were less widely distributed. There were prints, apparently less recent, left by Reginald Webb; he had left a clear set on the inside of a closet door, where his hand might have rested as he pulled the door open. In the laundry hamper was a shirt, also, from the laundry mark, left by Reginald Webb.

  Matthew Halpern had not, so far as could be determined, left his hotel room during the night. This was to the best of knowledge and belief, both being supplied by two precinct men who knew their trade, and had during the night, followed it. If Halpern had been devious enough, he might have evaded observation. That went without saying, and was not said. It is seldom convenient for detectives to sleep in the same room with a man they follow.

  A preliminary report from detectives of the Safe and Loft Squad was at hand, and for the most part it contained what Weigand already knew. The modus operandi was not distinctive, and Detective Rankin had reported as much a few hours before, as Weigand left the plundered offices of Schaeffer, Ingraham and Webb. “As a matter of fact,” Rankin had said, “you could blow it open with a firecracker.”

  The safe had not been blown open. It had been opened by knocking off the combination. It had not been much of a safe; it was less of a safe now. It had yawned open when Weigand and Mullins first saw it; had seemed to leer at them, and at the others in the then brightly lighted, completely ransacked, offices. Files stood open; locked files had been jimmied open. Here there had not been, as apparently there had in Nan Schaeffer’s bedroom, any attempt to hide the fact of search. It had been instantly apparent to the cleaning women who had got to the offices a little before midnight. They had notified the police; the offices had filled with the police.

  Entrance had been made through the door leading to Samuel Schaeffer’s former office. The door had been forced. Judging by the thoroughness with which things had been pulled apart—individual deed boxes in the safe had been broken open, their contents scattered—the marauders had been around for some time.

  The precinct men, and afterward the Safe and Loft men, had been unable to reach Reginald Webb. He was not in his apartment, or if there not in a mood to answer his telephone. Francis Cuyler had proved equally beyond immediate reach. “Keep late hours, these guys,” Rankin told Weigand. Saul Karn had answered his telephone, but he had answered it in Mount Vernon. He was on his way in. It would take a while; it was snowing in Westchester and the roads were growing slippery.

  The routine was almost finished when Webb answered his telephone and said, “Well, what is it?” to Sergeant Mullins. He sounded wide enough awake. Mullins told him what it was, and he swore and said, “Those damned thugs!” and hung up. He was at the offices in twenty minutes; had parked his car among the police cars in Forty-fourth Street, came to the door of the offices and looked in and swore again, at greater length. It was then two-thirty in the morning. He said, “I told Forbes to lay off that crowd,” and then, to Weigand, “Well?”

  “We’ve been trying to get hold of you for a couple of hours,” Bill told him. “Wanted you here while we—” he looked over Ingraham’s office, to which they had moved—“before we poked around.”

  He had been at his club, Webb said, and was abstracted as he began to pick up strewn papers, put them down again. “Old Mortimer’s will,” he said, and picked up a form from beside a broken deed box. “He’ll have fits.” He had played bridge at the club; when the game broke up, sometime around midnight, he had gone into the library and sat in a deep chair. “Tried to make some sense out of all this,” he said. “You get hold of Karn?”

  Bill told him about that.

  “Somebody’s had a busy night,” Bill said then, and looked at the back of Reginald Webb, who was bent over a filing case, peering into it. “You’ve heard about Mrs. Schaeffer?”

  It was as if Bill Weigand had hit Webb in the back, or had stabbed him in the back. The tall man straightened, turned, in a single violent movement.

  “Nan?!” he said. “What about Nan?”

  Before Weigand could speak, Webb took a long step toward him. “What’s happened to Nan?” he said.

  Bill told him. Webb’s hands clenched as he listened; his eyes grew hot. “Good God,” he said. “Oh, good God!” He raised clenched fists, lowered them again. “Nan,” he said. “And I—”

  Bill waited.

  “This doesn’t matter,” Webb said, and his gesture included the office, its devastation. “What are you doing here? Why don’t you look for her?”

  She was being looked for, Bill told him. This was part of it—o
ne thing would, almost certainly, lead to another.

  “You—” Webb began, and Bill said, “Calm down, Mr. Webb. We’ll find her.”

  “Alive?”

  “I hope so,” Bill said. “We’re doing everything we can.”

  “I thought she’d be all right,” Webb said. “I didn’t see how she could be—how it could affect her. If I’d gone up with her—but she—”

  “Gone up with her?” Bill said. “When, Mr. Webb. Tonight?”

  “Sure,” Webb said. “We had dinner and I took her to the hotel and told her to get some sleep and—and went off and played bridge!”

  Bill told him he couldn’t have known.

  “Played bridge,” Webb repeated. “Sat in a deep chair and—pretended I was thinking things out. Jesus!”

  He couldn’t have known, Bill told him again.

  But that was it, Webb said. He could have guessed. After the two men stopped him, threatened him. First that, then this—he indicated the offices—then, still looking for something, Nan Schaeffer’s apartment. “But—why her?”

  “They may have thought Ingraham confided in her,” Bill told him. “Or that there was something in her husband’s papers. What two men?”

  “Didn’t I—” Webb said and then, “of course not. I told Nan about it and was going to get hold of you, but—”

  He told of the two men who had talked to him in the car. Said he could not identify either of the men. He could not give the car’s license number. The men had guns, he hadn’t felt encouraged to go behind the car and read the plate. He thought the car was a Chrysler—it was a sedan, dark in color—black, possibly dark blue.

  “Listen,” Webb said. “We’re wasting time. Can’t you see that? It’s Nan who’s important. I’m going—”

  “There’s nothing you can do,” Bill told him. “Nothing we can’t do better, aren’t already doing. You can help here.”