Heaslip:
The thing you're looking for is in the recording machine in the livingroom at my home, 1152 Pearl Street. I don't know why I kept it, unless I knew subconsciously, all along, that I was eventually going to do this.
I hope everything works out for you. And I'm sorry.
August Hennler.
There was no date. Even the signature was typewritten. Gary, broke into a run. He dropped the mail off at the kitchen and went on to the garage where he had his own telephone extension. After a few moments he was connected with the switchboard at Long Island Airlines.
He said, "May I speak to August Hennler, please?" "He's not here anymore," the girl said. "Did he quit?"
"Mr. Hennler--Mr. Hennler killed himself yesterday. It's in all the papers this morning."
"I see. I'm sorry. Thank you." He lowered the receiver into the cradle. He looked at the letter in his hand. "... I knew subconsciously, all along, that I was eventually going to do this ..."
He sat and stared at the letter for a long time. Then he called Hal Ludley, his attorney, in New York. When he got him on the phone, he said. "Get out here right away, Hal. Take the first plane from LaGuardia and I'll pick you up at the airport. Hennler killed himself this morning--or yesterday, I guess. Anyway, he told me where to find the dubbed tape, and I want you along."
Ludley said, "I hadn't ought to leave now, but--all right. I'll get to LaGuardia as fast as I can."
... The Long Island Airlines DC-3 touched down on the runway as lightly as a falling feather, then swept along the paved track for a while until it turned and, now graceless, waddled soddenly across the field to the apron.
Gary tried to pass the gate to the apron, but a mechanic held him back with raised arm. "I'm sorry, Captain Heaslip. Mr. Williamson gave special orders you can't go on the field."
All right. That would be over soon enough. He watched the stepped door swing down. Hal Ludley emerged, carrying his eternal briefcase.
Hal hurried across the apron and pumped Gary's hand. "Congratulations old man," he said. "I knew something would turn up."
"You're a liar, Hal," Gary said. He was grinning. "You thought I was lying right from the start. But this is what proves you were wrong." He showed him the letter.
"All right, boy. Let's get down there and see what we have."
Gary sent the stationwagon hurtling down Park Avenue. At first he was unable to find Pearl Street, but a boy on a bicycle gave him directions.
The shades were pulled at all the windows, and a stout, middle-aged woman was only then locking the front door.
Gary ran up the walk. "Mrs. Hennler?" he said.
"I'm her mother, Mrs. Gaines," the woman said. "Is this something important because I'm just on the way to the hospital. There's been a death in the family and my daughter is very ill."
"You'd better let me take care of this," Hal said.
He outlined the situation to Mrs. Gaines and showed her the typewritten letter. Gary did his best to conceal his relief.
Mrs. Gaines said, "I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to help you--"
"Mrs. Gaines!" Ludley said. "This is a legal matter. You can't refuse because a court order will--"
"That's not what I meant, young man," Mrs. Gaines said sharply. "I didn't say I refused. I said I can't. When my daughter found my son-in-law's body yesterday morning she broke down completely. I got here as soon as I could. She was simply beside herself. If she had gone out to the garage a few minutes sooner than she did, she could have saved her husband's life. She blamed herself for his death. In the evening she got up and had something to eat. She kept raving about a tape machine. She said that was the cause of all the trouble. She didn't know how. She didn't know anything about it. But she knew he had hurt her and hit one of the children because of the machine.
"I tried to stop her, but she ran into the livingroom and began to beat the machine with the poker from the fireplace. She threw the pieces into the fireplace and burned them. They're still there. You can see them if you like--but there's nothing left that could be evidence for anything ..."
IRENE CARTER
That night, in an automobile driven--or at least parked--by Ellis St. George, Irene Carter took another lesson in the delicate distinction between sexual and personal love. She readied the conclusion that the two things might well co-exist in the same person.
Irene was very happy.
IVAN CARTER
In the master bedroom of the Carter Residence Dr. Ivan Carter was, that evening, summing himself up, totaling up his scores. He decided he was not pleased with his addition; not pleased, but not really ashamed either.
He was a little sorry about Erica. He hadn't been good for her. It wasn't a nice thing to do to make a girl your mistress and then force her to remain in the same house with your wife. There was no justification for that. But there was some justification for the parasitical life you had been leading--provided you stopped it now that you recognized it.
Money, Carter decided, was a terrible thing if it belonged entirely to your wife. All men whose wives suddenly inherited money should leave the wives immediately, for the good of their souls.
He rose from the easy chair, from which he had been staring at the darkness of the cove, and went to the smoking cabinet. He was removing one of his pipes when the door opened. Dolores stood, poised and proud and beautiful, in the opening.
"Yes, my dear?" he said.
"Ivan, I want you to come to my room."
"I should like to very much, Lor," he said gravely, filling his pipe from the humidor, "but I can't."
"Why not?" Her voice had sharpened.
"Because you tell me to," he said. He smiled a little. "There's a funny thing about men you'll have to learn some day. They can't take orders--not from women. It isn't good for them. Nor is it good for them to be surreptitiously manipulated by women. It damages their souls."
"Don't be ridiculous, Ivan," Dolores said. "When have I ever ordered you, or manipulated you."
"As for the orders--never. Not directly. But the mere fact of your money, and my lack of it, makes everything you say an implicit order. I admit you exercise restraint--but it just hasn't worked out. As for manipulation? Well, we both know why you hired Heaslip--to seduce Erica.
"I guess what you did made me feel less than a man. So I set about being a junior Machiavelli on my own. I'm pretty ashamed of that. But I found out a funny thing last week, Lor. I found out that even though I'd dropped my practice, even though I haven't done anything but write articles that weren't worth the paper I used for them--despite these little failings of mine, I'm still a damned good surgeon.
"I'm still a man, Lor. And I'm going to stay that way. I'm going back into practice. I'm going to leave and be on my own for a while. Now, you run along to bed. We'll see each other at breakfast."
Her face flushed, her mouth a little agape with shock, Dolores slammed the door behind her. Ivan heard her high-heeled footsteps along the hall.
DOLORES CARTER
When she left Ivan's door, Dolores intended to go directly to her room. Instead, she found herself continuing to the gallery, and then to the door that gave entrance to the servants' quarters. A light shown beneath the door of Gary's room. She knocked. Beyond the panel Gary said, "Come in."
On the bed a cowhide suitcase was nearly full. A profusion of garments dangled half-in, half-out of the bureau.
Dolores said, "Gary, I--" He looked at her steadily, waiting.
She felt the flush rising again in her face. "I wanted to tell you that maybe we were hasty in the car--the day of the storm, I mean. I--oh, it's so damned hard to be a woman! You can't say anything you want to."
"It's not that hard, Mrs. Carter," Gary said slowly. "Not so long as you don't try to be a man. I'm leaving tomorrow. I guess that by now you know all about me. I'm an airline pilot. I've been grounded for an accident--the one last spring off Montaugan Point--that wasn't really my fault. I've been trying to prove it wasn't. I gues
s I've failed pretty miserably at that.
"I go up for final hearing in about ten days and after that I'll be grounded for keeps. I'm not really a chauffeur--unless maybe in airplanes. And I don't want to keep on being one. So I guess I'll go to New York and take my medicine and look for a job. That's why I'm leaving. Not for any personal reason, but because there's no more purpose in my staying."
Dolores said, "Oh," as though he had explained everything. "But--you don't have to stop seeing us, just because you're not working here."
"What you mean is I don't have to stop seeing you. Well, I do, Mrs. Carter. I couldn't be a kept boy, even if I wanted to. And you're really in love with your husband.
"I didn't straighten out your affairs for you. I never accepted the terms you suggested. I said I'd think about it. Well, I thought about it, all right. But I sort of fell in love with Erica--with Miss Ledbitter.
"Doctor Carter was never in love with her. He was only angry with you, because you'd made him into a lot less than he was. I don't know how or why. You know all that a lot better than I do. But there was that operation he did at the waterworks. Before you even saw him, or found out about it you had decided he had failed. You constantly underestimate the doctor.
"He can't take that. No man can. I guess men are a collection of little egotists--all suffering from an inferiority complex or something. But if a woman wants a man, she can't tear him down all the time. You've got to make him feel he's worth something or he'll blow his top.
"Look, Mrs. Carter, I have to finish packing. I'll say goodbye to you in the morning, and I'd like to pick up my check then. If you'll excuse me--"
He turned to his suitcase.
Dolores went out the door without another word. In her own room, she paced beside the bed. Suddenly she snapped her fingers and started for the door.
As she opened it she switched off the lights in her room. Then she went down the hall to Ivan's door. She knocked. There was no answer.
She knocked again. Ivan's voice came through the panel. "Who is it?"
"Me, darling. It's Lor. May I come in?" Then she said, "Please?"
He opened the door, then, and closed it behind her ...
XIX
GARY HEASLIP
"But we do have Mrs. Gaines' affidavit that Hennler did have such a machine, and that Mrs. Hennler destroyed it the day of his death," Ludley said. "Doesn't that show, at least, that the letter makes sense. Mrs. Hennler, herself, was questioned at the hospital. While she is hysterical she does say that she had no idea what was in the machine. She told her mother that she destroyed it because all the trouble before Hennler's death seemed to center around it."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Ludley," the Examiner said. "You may be perfectly right I'm willing to give you all the leeway I can. But that note isn't evidence."
"I'll take an exception to that, sir."
"Grant you an exception," McGonigle said, wearily. "Now, let's get on with this. We have Hennler's testimony on the record and we have the tape ..."
Gary watched Ludley as he turned from the Examiner's table and came back toward his seat. "It doesn't look good, fellow," Ludley said as he sat down. "McGonigle's right. And with the stuff they have against you, you're in the awful legal position of having to prove yourself innocent. They've already proved your guilt--in a strictly legal sense."
Gary shook his head dazedly. His hands were sweating. He rubbed the palms against his trousers. "I suppose none of this stuff is any good," he said, rattling the sheaf of notes he had taken at the airport.
"I don't see what we can do with that stuff," Ludley said. "The notes don't prove anything. That stuff is all in the official record anyway."
Gary looked across at Jack Williamson, who was glaring at him. Surreptitiously, beside Williamson, Harvey Browning made a "thumbs up" gesture.
Gary looked back at the notes in his hand. On top was the schedule he had made of the flights handled at the time of the crash.
Suddenly he grinned. He touched Ludley's arm, and whispered to him.
Ludley rose to his feel. "Mr. Examiner?"
"Yes, Mr. Ludley."
"My client requests permission to cross-examine the inspector who investigated the crash. He suggests that his own greater familiarity with tower procedure--greater than my own, I mean--may bring out something new."
"I hope this isn't just an attempt to waste our time," McGonigle said, glancing up at the clock. "All right. Go ahead."
Gary got up and walked across to the table before the Examiner. "Would you have them swear in Inspector Thompson, please?"
"Swear Thompson," McGonigle said.
The Inspector rose from his seat and came forward, carrying a manila folder of documents. He took the chair beside the Examiner's desk. But Gary's eyes were on the back of the room, where a door had just opened part way. Through the narrow opening he saw a woman enter.
Erica!
His blood-pressure bounded upward. He was filled with a sort of mystic elation. He watched her find herself a seat, saw her make a gesture toward him.
"Well, Captain Heaslip?" the Examiner said. "Shall we get on with this, or are we supposed to watch your back."
"I'm sorry sir," Gary said, turning. "I got a little hung up there for a second."
The Examiner grinned. "All right, Heaslip. Let's go."
"I'd like to read you some times, Inspector Thompson. These are the tower's record of communication and movements of planes on the field at the time of the crash. I would like to have you confirm these times for the record."
Thompson said, "Yes, sir."
"The control tower's log indicates that my ship was due to land at an ETA of fifteen hundred hours, fifty-six minutes. Is that correct?"
"Just a minute," McGonigle said. "Can we stick to the twelve hour clock. I've been getting up to that all my life, and I'd rather not get too confused."
"All right," Gary said. "My ETA was three fifty-six p.m. Right?"
"That's right," Thompson said. "It's logged here."
"Now, at three fifty-one, a C-46 transport belonging to Cape Airlines requested permission to take off. Is that correct?"
"Yes, sir." Thompson nodded. "It says here that Cape's ship was sitting on the apron. They didn't give clearance because you were due to land."
"The crash occurred at fifteen--I mean, at three fifty-three p.m. is that right?"
"Yes, sir."
"And when did the tower give Cape's plane permission to take off?"
"At four-two p.m. It was still held up because Long Island flight one-twelve was due in at four p.m."
"So Cape's C-46 sat on the apron, waiting to take off from three-fifty-one p.m. until two minutes after four. Is that correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"Engines running?"
"I don't think they intended to push the plane in the air, sir." The inspector grinned.
"That's all."
"What's all?" McGonigle said.
"That's all I want to ask Inspector Thompson, sir. But I'd like to have that tape replayed at this point."
Someone brought the machine to the front of the room and set it up on the Examiner's table. Gary's stomach felt as though someone were tugging at it with a block and tackle.
"I'd like to make one further point before we play this tape, Mr. Examiner. A C-46 has to run up its engines for about five or ten minutes minimum before it can request take-off. I think everyone here will agree."
There was much solemn nodding of heads--except for Jack Williamson, who only glared.
"I don't know what point you're trying to make. Captain Heaslip," McGonigle said. "But I wish you'd get to it."
"Will you play that tape from a little before the conversation between Hennler and myself?" Gary said.
They ran through the tape till they found the markings, then backed it up a few feet and began the play-off.
Hennler's voice filled the room. He was talking to Long Island flight one-twelve. In the background was the steady roar of an airpla
ne engine--of two engines. The Cape C-46.
"Now I want you to notice," Gary said, "that whenever Hennler is talking you hear the C-46's engines. When the pilot is talking, you don't hear them, because he isn't miked in the radio shack, next to the apron."
Now Hennler's voice came, from the dead. He was saying, "Montaugan to flight one-oh five. Montaugan to flight one-oh-five. Report altitude." Behind his voice there was the steady pulse of aircraft engines.
Then Gary heard himself, answering across the months: "... Flying at five thousand as per flight plan."
Now! "Montaugan to Long Island one-oh-five. Boston Center reports converging traffic at five thousand. Clears Long Island one-oh-five, descend immediately to three thousand. Report leaving five thousand." There was no sound of plane motors. No background sound at all.
"That's all," Gary said. He turned to face McGonigle as the tape was shut off. "I submit, Mr. Examiner, that if the tower is not lying, and the C-46 stood on the apron until four-two p.m., then this section of the tape was recorded at a different time, because there is no sound of aircraft engines in the background."
"Play that again," McGonigle said. The inspector rewound the tape and ran through the passage a second time.
Suddenly the Examiner grinned. "I think you've proved your point, Captain Heaslip, Congratulations!"
... She was waiting in the corridor outside when Gary emerged with Hal Ludley.
Gary turned to Ludley. In a loud voice he said, "Just pretend you don't see her." He paused. Then he said, "And keep walking."
Then he turned sharply right and caught her in his arms.
In a little while they came out of the building together and found a cab. They got in and Gary said to the driver. "Just keep circling around Central Park until you hear from me ..."
THE END
Private Chauffeur Page 15