“The hoyden!” Sidney said. “Georgie, do you realize who she is?”
“Certainly,” Miss Semple said. “Shall I send her in?”
Sidney grinned wickedly and nodded, and a moment later June Beattie entered his private office with casual grace, glanced about her in calm appraisal and said, “Hi!”
“Hi,” Sidney replied politely. “Won’t you sit down?”
She sat down, pulled a package of cigarettes from her pocket and lit up.
“So you are Mr. Grant,” she said.
“I am. And what can I do for you?”
“Blowed if I know quite,” she said. “I have this grandmother, and she has a slave. She found some loophole in the Emancipation Act of 1832 which allows you to keep any slave you catch coming out of an orphanage on the first bounce. This Betty—the slave—managed to smuggle a message out of Granny’s moated castle in Rosedale in a bundle of laundry. The message, when decoded, said to go and see a tall, dark, handsome lawyer called Sidney Grant. Betty followed you home herself, but you leapt out at her, knocked the knife out of her hand and beat her to within an inch of her life. She only just escaped by feigning madness.”
“That is substantially correct,” Sidney said solemnly.
“Betty also tells me you know something to the advantage of my poor idiot of a brother. No one in the family has told me anything about the case. Will you please explain just what this is all about?”
“Very well,” Sidney said. “You probably know that your brother has a pretty good insanity defense, based on certain delusions he suffers from. You’ve heard about the mystery gang that framed him on a theft charge?”
“Yes, I’ve heard bits and pieces. I’m afraid it sounds like a typical Wes story.”
“Fine. Now amongst all the feverish nonsense, Wes kept insisting on one concrete point, namely, that the woman who claimed he stole her purse had disappeared. He further claimed that Uncle Edgar had been trying to locate the woman, and that a man called Edgar up and warned him to lay off. Nobody has been taking any stock in this yarn. But then I found that your Uncle Ralph knew that Edgar had been searching for the woman and also knew that a man did call Edgar, but didn’t think it was worth while telling anyone.”
“That would be my Uncle Ralph,” the girl said. “Uncle Ralph always knows best.”
“Does he indeed? Well, he and your aunts and grandmother were so hostile when I went to see them that I decided, rightly or wrongly, not to tell them everything I know. The fact is I know the names of the two people who were at the Midtown Motel when Wes was arrested. And when you consider their behavior, it just doesn’t add up. If that deal wasn’t fishy, neither is the Restigouche River.”
“And where does this lead us?” she asked.
“It establishes the fact that there are two people who could be conspirators. It points out that several statements of your brother’s which were regarded—by psychiatrists and others—as sheer fantasy, are in fact true. So it struck me that before Baldwin Ogilvy agrees to locking his client away in the funny farm, he might like to investigate the whole bang shoot and see if there is a better line of defense.”
“Look, Mr. Grant,” she said. “Let’s face it. Wes is a poor fish. It isn’t his fault. That awful old woman, my grandmother, has dominated him to the point where he is a spineless dreamer. Last spring I inherited a little money from my grandfather’s estate and immediately pushed off on a world tour. I was in France when I learned that that poor sweet idiot Wes had been sent to jail. I phoned home and offered to catch the next plane, but it was all over. So I carried on with my tour, and when I was in New Guinea I got this awful news about Uncle Edgar.
“Now, so far as I’m concerned, Wes is finished. The kindest thing to do would be to put him quietly to sleep. What’s the point of living on and on without freedom? And he’d never be really free even if they turned him loose. So what is the point, really, in worrying about his defense?”
“Miss Beattie,” Sidney said, “you are not the judge nor the jury. It isn’t for you to decide the guilt or pass the sentence. Everyone charged with a crime is entitled to the best defense. It’s up to the Crown to prove him guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and until that moment he is presumed to be innocent. My feeling is that the damning evidence of those fingerprints should be ignored for the time being—because it tends to hypnotize everyone— and every statement Wes made should be checked out and proved false, if possible—or true. I think that the activities of these people who sent Wes up for theft should be investigated to see if they had any motive for framing him. The kid is entitled to the full treatment before he’s locked away.
“Look what happened before. Mr. Paget insisted on the case being rushed through in order to hush it up and save your grandmother embarrassment. So Wes was convicted and given two months. With a proper defense, there isn’t a chance in this world that he would have been convicted. The case would have been remanded, and two weeks later there would have been no witness. Do you want that to happen again?”
“No,” she said. “You mean that that officious old woman Ralph Paget caused all this trouble by taking charge?”
“Don’t quote me, but he did,” Sidney said. “But he won’t push Baldwin Ogilvy around. Ogilvy will take the best line of defense he can see, regardless of consequences. So obviously he feels he’s on the best thing with the insanity defense.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “This dear old Betty was yattering at me on Sunday morning when I was hung over to the eyeballs, but she said something…”
“Yes?”
“I can’t remember exactly what. But something like this: Uncle Ralph and Gran decided not to pass along to Ogilvy what you told them, but Uncle Ralph wrote you a weasel-wordy letter intimating that he had. Does that make sense?”
Sidney pressed the buzzer. “Miss Semple,” he said, when his secretary appeared, “get the story from those prospective clients and make appointments for them, will you? And will you bring me the letter from Ralph Paget, please?”
A cursory glance at Paget’s letter showed that nowhere had he stated that he had told Baldwin Ogilvy anything at all.
“You are quite right, or Betty is quite right,” Sidney said. “Well, I am going to keep things straight by writing to Ogilvy and giving him the facts. Then there isn’t much more I can do. I can’t interfere in Ogilvy’s case. Of course…”
“Yes?” she said.
“If the theft case was a put-up job, then Wes’s family might want to have it investigated so that Wes’s name could be cleared—on that score. Small potatoes alongside the murder, but…”
“But you could do it without poking your nose into Ogilvy’s business?”
“Possibly. Anyway, let me buy you a coffee. Miss Semple will get the dope from those unfortunates on the penitents’ bench.”
“Wonderful idea,” she said.
They walked to the Honey Dew on Bay Street and settled in a remote corner with two large mugs of coffee.
“Tell me how you found this information about the theft charge,” June Beattie said.
Sidney laughed. “It will sound a bit wild and fictional,” he said, “but the way it started was this. I suggested to a certain gent that your brother’s fantastic story of a conspiracy could be punctured very simply. Find the woman whose purse was stolen, investigate her bona fides and prove to Wes that he was full of wet hay. This gent challenged me to do it. So first I found that the woman had given a false name and address in court. Then, at the motel, I found that she’d registered under the same false name—but that they’d noted down the license number of her car. The car proved to be rented, and to rent it she’d used a driver’s license. I got the number, and it turned out that the license had been stolen and altered!
“Now then—suppose you and I wanted to cuddle together for warmth at the Midtown Motel. We wouldn’t require a car. We could take a cab or walk and merely pay a deposit. So it struck me that the car was not rented for the purpose of flimfl
amming the motel. Why was it rented then, and driven for six or seven miles only? One possible explanation—to work the frame-up described by your brother.
“Well, the woman who rented the car had some minor repairs done, for which she paid cash and got a receipt. She recovered the cash from the rental agency and gave them the garage receipt. That led me to the garage and the mechanic who did the job.
“By an unholy slice of luck, he remembered the car—and the man and woman in it. While they were at the garage, one of the mechanic’s regular customers greeted this stranger—the man—as an old school chum and got snubbed. But the thing I learned there which drove me further along the trail was this: your Uncle Edgar had been to the garage too!
“Well, I went to see this regular customer—an ad man called Mayhew—and he said he couldn’t remember anyone snubbing him. He also denied that your Uncle Edgar had called on him, which was a patent lie. So I put on my deducin’ suit, smoked an ounce of shag and got Watson to lend me his needle. I went to the school where these two old chums were supposed to have been educated and got a list of names from the school yearbook. Mayhew, by the way, had referred to the stranger as ‘a former teammate.’ Hockey, in all probability. Am I boring you?”
“No, my dear man, you are fascinating me with your colossal acumen.”
Sidney blushed, but continued. “Remember that the woman had used a stolen driver’s license? Well, the owner of the license thought it might have been stolen at a mining convention. And she had given me a list of delegates to this convention. So I found a name on the convention list which was duplicated on the teammate list!”
“Extraordinary!” she said.
“Elementary,” he said modestly.
They both laughed.
“Anyway, I went back at Mayhew, and forced him to admit that this man—his name is Howard Gadwell, and keep that under your hat —was, in fact, the man who had snubbed him at the garage. Further patient research into Gadwell’s rich and varied love life turned up the fact that the woman was probably the wife of a geologist off in the bush in northern Quebec. So I flew to this mining camp in a ski plane, found the geologist and got a picture of the wife, who had by this time deserted her husband. Well, one James Bellwood positively identified the geologist’s wife as the woman who had accused your brother Wes of pinching her handbag.”
“Good heavens!” she said. “You’re not making this up?”
“No ma’am,” he said. “Now this man and woman—Gadwell and Janice Wicklow—had absolutely no reason I can see to go to the Midtown Motel. They had a more convenient love nest. Is that fishy enough for you?”
“Very, very suspish,” she said. “Good lord, it ought to be investigated right down the line. Where is this dame now?”
“She has vanished,” Sidney said. “Several department stores would like to talk to her, but she can’t be located.”
“Mr. Grant,” she said, “or may I call you Sidney? Sidney, would you be able to go on investigating if I retained you to look into the theft charge angle?”
“I would,” he said. “I’d have to let Ogilvy know what I was up to as a matter of courtesy, I suppose. But I can’t see anything wrong with it.”
“All right,” she said. “This is a business deal. I have several hundred dollars in the bank, and my friendly banker will probably let me have another thousand. I’m going to send you a check as a retainer and you carry right on. I owe this to poor old Betty, who is all the mother Wes ever knew.”
***
Back at the office, Sidney Grant wrote a letter to the eminent Mr. Baldwin Ogilvy, Q.C. He drafted it carefully in longhand and corrected it meticulously before handing it over to Miss Semple for typing. It read:
Dear Sir:
I have been retained by Miss June Beattie to investigate the circumstances under which her brother, Wesley M. Beattie, was convicted of theft on May 12 last, with a view to clearing his name of this charge. The investigation is, of course, to be discreet in order not to prejudice the case at present before the courts.
It appears to me very likely that Mr. Beattie’s claim—namely, that he was the innocent victim of a conspiracy in the matter of the theft charge—is well founded.
I had earlier obtained certain information leading to this conclusion, and I called you with a view to telling you about it, as it might have had some bearing on the charge of murder which Mr. Beattie now faces. Unfortunately you were in Ottawa, so to save time I called on Mrs. Charles Beattie and Mr. Ralph Paget and gave them the information. Mr. Paget told me that he would convey it to you and that you would decide whether it was of any use in the defense of your client.
Mr. Paget wrote to me last week and said that your decision was to let the matter drop. Miss June Beattie, however, wishes these suspicious circumstances to be fully investigated, and, unless you have serious objections, it is my intention to act on her instructions.
Any matters arising from the investigation which may have a bearing on the murder charge will of course be communicated to you at once.
Yours faithfully,
Sidney Grant
“And that,” Sidney said with a wicked grin, as he signed the typed copy, “may give Mr. Ralph Paget something to think about.”
Six
THE MIDTOWN MOTEL was situated on a busy street in the west-central part of the city. Facing the street was a main section, containing various bars and restaurants, plus several stories of conventional hotel bedrooms. Running off to the rear was an extension of one story, which contained motel units with private entrances. In one angle of the T thus formed there was a swimming pool, which was empty in winter. In the other angle was the car park, which could be reached by driving through an archway from the street.
Sidney Grant, however, reached it by walking through the archway, and then he stood in the middle of the car park in order to survey the scene of Wes Beattie’s first battle with the law.
As he stood there, a short, stocky man with gray hair marched toward him with a military stride. He was wearing a maroon greatcoat with golden frogs, and a ceremonial hat with enough scrambled egg on it for a full admiral.
“All right, now, move along,” the man said. “You can’t stand around ’ere all day. Might catch cold.”
Sidney looked the man full in the face, a face like old mahogany with a road map of red veins on it, and stared at the little piggy blue eyes which peered out at him. On an impulse he reached into his pocket and pulled out a bill. He had actually reached for a dollar, but, owing to a ghastly error, what came out was a ten. On impulse, Sidney extended it toward the man.
“Can’t I have just a little look?” he said plaintively.
The ten-spot acted like a magnet, and the man’s fingers began twitching and creeping toward it, even as he glanced nervously over his shoulder to see if anyone was watching. Temptation won, and the ten-spot was whipped with great rapidity into the pocket of the maroon greatcoat.
“We ’ave to be a bit careful,” the man said in a mollified tone. “We get all kinds of snoopers around ’ere. Private dicks lookin’ for license numbers, peepin’ Toms, that sort of thing.”
“Peeping Toms?” Sidney said.
“Blinkin’ right! Look, them motel units. Some people get careless about droring the curtains, and the things you see! Gord Almighty, these dames! If my missis knew the things I seen around ’ere, she wouldn’t ’alf ’ave kittens!”
“When I’m cleaning windows!” Sidney sang.
“Window cleaning ain’t in it,” the man said. “Blimey! Sometimes the bloke gets up and goes to the office, eight o’clock like, and leaves the dame in bed. Nine-thirty, maybe, she rings for black coffee and orange juice. Well, I ’andle room service orders to the motel units along with keepin’ an eye on the car park. I go in with the tray, and blimey O’Reilly! Talk about sights.”
“And do they pay you money as well?” Sidney said, leering conspiratorially.
The man chuckled wickedly.
“You
do the room service, eh?” Sidney said. “Ice and mixers and all that stuff?”
“That’s right. I work odd hours. Like Friday and Satday I might go on till two or three A.M. and take time off through the week.”
Sidney inhaled deeply, and caught a whiff of the man’s breath. It would have flunked on any breathalyzer test known. There was no mistaking how the man had achieved such a rich and costly complexion.
“Well, friend, wot’s your business ’ere?” the man asked with the friendly curiosity of a well-bribed petty official.
Sidney Grant had a sudden inspiration. “Well, some people are coming to town,” he said. “There’s these girls—what I mean is, there’s these friends, and my—my wife and I wanted to have a party with them. Some place quiet and private, and I wondered…”
“When they coming?” the man asked sharply. Sidney gulped and looked nervous.
“Tonight,” he murmured with a sheepish grin.
“Well, friend, you come to the right place,” the attendant said. “Now you just nip in there to the office and tell ’em you want Unit Six. That’s a suite, like. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, showers, nice living room, wide-screen TV, kitchenette with stove and fridge, air-conditioned, all the rest of it. Just book it in your own name and pay in advance, thirty-six bucks. No questions asked.”
“Gee, that’s great,” Sidney said, looking pleased and relieved.
“You can bring your own mixers if you like—save a bit of money. But I can fetch you anything you like—them nice clear ice cubes, mixers, bottle of liquor…”
“Well, gee, we’ll bring our own liquor, but you can bring us mixers,” Sidney said. “I guess I’d better hurry in and book the suite. What’s your name, by the way?”
“Sam,” the man said. “Just ask for Sam Black. Call room service and ask for anythink you want.”
“That’s swell,” Sidney said, and hurried off to the front office.
***
It was early, not yet nine o’clock, when a smart new Oldsmobile pulled into the car park of the Midtown Motel and backed up to the door of Unit Six.
The Weird World of Wes Beattie Page 7