The Case of the Missing Corpse

by Joan Sanger

  “What was his attitude through all of this?”

  “Oh, he was very quiet. Didn’t have much to say one way or the other. Only once, when I’d been looking at him rather searchingly, he pointed out, not to me but to the group, that Steve’s hat and overnight bag were gone, and added almost insolently, I thought, that all this speculation seemed to him much ado about nothing.”

  “Closets?” I caught Alcott rapping.

  “Did you think of looking in any of the closets?” I improvised quickly.

  “Oh, yes! Ford thought of it because, you see, he wasn’t so readily convinced. There was only one closet in the room in which we were sitting, but when Ford tried to open it he found it locked.”

  “Wasn’t that peculiar?”

  “Ford didn’t seem to think so. He said Wyndham kept all his trick fishing rods and golf sticks and such stuff locked up in there. According to Ford, Steve was as temperamental about his paraphernalia as a couple of prima donnas, on opening night.”

  “H’m, how about the money on the table? Was that O.K.?”

  “I think it was O.K. Anyhow, nothing was said about it. However, there was one thing that Ford thought very peculiar.”

  “What was that?” I inquired with interest.

  “The simple fact that the door which led to his bedroom was locked.”

  “And what was so strange about that?”

  “Oh, Ford seemed very much surprised at this because, as he explained, this particular door was always kept open.”

  At this point, I proferred my memo pad and fountain pen to Stone, for I was in bad need of a diagram. Without any hesitation, the young man sketched in a rough plan of the suite that Wyndham and Ford had occupied. I append a copy of this drawing herewith.

  “You see,” Stone said as he finished, “Ford explained that he and Wyndham used the room in which we were sitting—that is, room 209—as a sort of ante room and always entered their respective bedrooms from there instead of from the main corridor.”

  “Was Ford certain that he had not locked the door earlier that evening?”

  “Oh, yes. Ford seemed positive about that. In fact, at first he wasn’t sure how he was going to get into his room at all because as he explained it, most of the time the. key to his hall door was sticking inside the lock. Anyhow, together with Watts, he went out into the hall to summon an attendant and a few moments later we heard a click at the lock of the door that led from his room to the sitting room and were surprised to see Ford and Watts come smilingly in. All their anxiety about Wyndham had been set completely at rest for, on Ford’s bureau, they’d found a brief note of goodbye from Steve, explaining that something had arisen necessitating his hasty departure and appending a short memo of instructions of what Ford should do with his stuff if by any chance he should be away longer than a week. So that was all, or should have been all, except—”

  “What about the locked door?” Alcott was tapping so persistently that I had to put his question if for no other reason than to silence him.

  “Oh, the door. They all joshed Ford about that, saying knowingly that there had been rumors that he was sort of up ‘in the air,’ these days and now they knew it. I remember Judge Lamar announcing with a side glance that he’d seen in the evening paper that Kay Devereaux . . . I think that was the name the Judge mentioned ...”

  “Yes it was. Go on.”

  “Anyhow this Devereaux girl had flown down that day from Palm Beach. I remember Ford got as red as a lobster. He made a grand-stand play at nonchalance, but it wasn’t very effective. Just the same, he kept insisting that these particulars did not alter the fact that when he had gone out that afternoon his hall door was locked and the door to the sitting room was open. However, once having discovered there was a girl in the case no one took his protests very seriously. That is no one.... but myself.”

  “And why did you?”

  “Because of one peculiar fact. A short while later, when the crowd was breaking up, everyone reaching for their hats, settling up their accounts, and all that stuff, I noticed on the floor near the chair, where Steve Wyndham had been sitting, the butt end of one of his—Steve’s—Russian cigarettes.

  “That doesn’t sound like much, does it? All right. Listen. I stooped to pick up that stub because I thought I saw it still smoking. In this it happened I was wrong, but in so doing, I noticed to my surprise that the butt end was off, bitten clean through. Do you understand me? I didn’t need the stain of blood which I now saw, to convince me that in some undreamed of moment of tension Steve’s teeth had met on that cigarette. A train of unutterable thoughts whirled through my head, paralyzing me, turning me into stone. When at last I raised my eyes from that tell-tale stub, it was only to encounter the chill gaze of Señor Sanchez.

  “ ‘Pardon me,’ he said, with studied politeness. ‘I believe you have picked up my cigarette.’ Automatically, I handed the stub to him. Somehow, I never knew how, I managed to bid the others goodnight. Then, completely unnerved, acting as though I were in a dream, I turned and fled from that chamber of mystery.

  “The very next day I sailed for home.”

  Chapter VIII A PACT IS SEALED

  AS Stone concluded his narrative there was a brief silence. The young man looked as though he would like to be off. In my mind a stream of thought was flowing. “You’re a plausible youth, Charles Stone, but can I believe you? You’ve had plenty of time to invent a good story; how much of it will bear checking? Moreover, why did a fellow with your particular tastes ever elect to be a missionary? You’re not the type, Parson Stone, not the type! What is your association with that strange Wyndham sister? ... H’m yes . . . and that recent huge bequest to a Chinese mission?” Suddenly, the pale face and wide, frightened eyes of Miss Isabella rose to my mind and I restrained an involuntary shudder. Aloud, I asked: “By the way, do you happen to know any reason for Miss Wyndham’s intense dislike of her brother?”

  Stone shrugged. “Just a case of temperament I’d say. Miss Isabella’s all Puritan. Steve was Cavalier! Also there was a gap of nearly thirty years in their ages. If, to all of that, you add the inevitable antagonism that must have been aroused by the Senior Wyndham’s preference for Steve, you have the whole psychological picture, as I see it. Anyhow, whatever the reasons, it was so marked that I don’t think Stephen went home six times after prep-school.”

  I nodded sagely, but I wasn’t convinced.

  “There’s nothing more specific that you could tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know of any unusual circumstances that might have surrounded the will of Wyndham Senior?”

  Stone looked thoughtful for a moment and shook his head. “Nothing.” Then he added as upon second thought, “Except perhaps that when the old gentleman bequeathed the Madison Avenue home to Miss Isabella there was a special codicil that the place had to be preserved exactly as it was at the time of his second wife’s death, not a stick nor a stone to be altered. Beautiful sentiment and all that, but the result is that there isn’t a modern convenience in the place, not even an electric light! I’d call that somewhat unusual, wouldn’t you?”

  “You’re damned right. Is there anything else?”

  “Nothing of which I know.”

  It was then that I shot my bolt.

  “Perhaps you could tell me something of a small gold medallion, minutely engraved with Wyndham’s initials and—er—yours?”

  At the mention of the medallion, I thought Stone started, but I could not have said surely. One thing was certain, however. From that instant the young fellow’s manner changed abruptly from one of open frankness to one of hostile reserve.

  “I’ve never seen the piece you describe,” he said with annoyance. “And since I’ve told you about all I can in this matter, I’m sure you won’t mind if I move along. It’s getting late.” He rose to his feet and shouldered into his ulster.

  “I’ll bother you for your address—just in case of emergency,” I said with a yawn.

>   “Of course.” He wrote his number down in a small, precise hand.

  “Good night!”

  “Good night, and thanks for your help.”

  The door closed and I made a long distance dive for the telephone that 1 knew stood in the next room. In my haste I nearly upset Pete who, arrayed in pajamas of passionate orange, was stalking up and down the floor.

  “What’s the hurry?”

  “I think we’ll still make the last edition. And Holy God! What a scoop! What a scoop!” I executed a restrained Highland fling and dialed the office as quickly as I could. All the discouragement of the early afternoon had fallen from me. I believed I’d just succeeded in getting the city editor on the telephone when, without the least warning, Alcott crossed over to me and deliberately clicked down on our connection.

  “What’s the idea? You big baboon!” I exploded in wrath.

  “I think you’re crazy!” he said, quiet as always and looking straight at me. “Look here! If you want to ruin every chance you have of getting anywhere on this case, just come out in the next edition with the few good leads you’ve got. Smear them all over the front page! Give every half-baked reporter in town and every well-meaning but clumsy member of the police force a chance to bungle them before you get a bit further.” He shook his head disconsolately. “Good Lord! people like yourself are the most dangerously explosive material in the world! You ought to have a guardian appointed—really.”

  There was a sharp common sense to what Alcott was saying that made me pause. Turning the matter over, I saw how incontestably true it was that, if I published the information we had just run down, it would only turn the case into a sort of reportorial “free-for-all” in which the New York Globe would come off no better than the next paper, and, possibly, not even as well. Furthermore, in the interest of the Wyndham case itself, the wide publicity and muddled outcry consequent upon any fresh newspaper publicity might only retard the ultimate solution by keeping the guilty party or parties informed of the direction of public interest and effort, thus giving them ample opportunity to cover their tracks or to escape. Of this sort of thing, certainly, there had been enough public instances of late to serve as a warning. The longer I considered the facts the sounder Alcott’s advice looked. At last I meekly hung up the ’phone and turned to him.

  “Damn it. There goes one of the best stories I ever broke. Stone was a knockout, you know.”

  “H’m! Couldn’t help but be!” Alcott laughed. “Consider the latitude of his interests. God and the devil, soft living and hard liquor!” He glanced dejectedly through the doorway toward his empty bottle of Scotch. “Yes, he had breadth of viewpoint, your young Parson Stone. You certainly ought to cultivate him a bit!”

  “What did you make of his story?”

  Alcott took a few puffs on his cigarette before answering. “A rather brilliant compound of truth and genius and just good old-fashioned lying, I’d say!”

  This coincided exactly with my own earlier misgivings, but Alcott’s pontifical statement of the fact drove me to energetic dissent. “Well, the boy impressed me for all my original prejudice!”

  I said this with especial vehemence hoping to goad Alcott to loquacity. The ruse worked. He came over and patted me soothingly on the back. “Keep on, some day I’ll write your memoirs and call them, ‘Gullible’s Travels.’ Good old Ellis!”

  “Aw, shut up.”

  But I was amused. “One thing did strike me phoney .. That mountain of evidence he piled up against Sanchez.”

  Alcott shrugged. “All of which may have been true, y’know!”

  “Sez you! And where did you think the lying commenced?”

  Pete broke into laughter. “Hang around a little while. We might see!”

  “Oh, be funny, why don’t you?”

  “I was never more serious, I assure you!”

  I shot a look at Alcott and knew I need not have doubted the fact. He was sitting close by me on the edge of the table, where the telephone stood. His long legs dangled loosely over the side, and his glance strayed absently out the window. I studied his face, noticing with interest that the furrows in his forehead were graven deeper that I ever remembered, and that there was a peculiar grim determination in the set of his jaw.

  “This case is getting you the way it has all the rest of us around the office. Look out, Alcott.”

  “Oh, well, I’ve an alibi. For years I’ve been interested in Wyndham’s career, you know. After all, that gives a fellow a sort of personal feeling....”

  The phone cut in raucously and Alcott picked it up. For the space of a few minutes I heard him in low-voiced conversation. Then he hung up, and very nonchalantly handed me a slip of paper on which I’d watched him swiftly jotting down some message.

  “You asked me where Stone’s lying commenced. Take a look at that!”

  I took the paper from his outstretched hand.

  “And in case you want to know,” he drawled in his usual lazy way, “that radio was sent five minutes ago to the New York Globe from aboard the good yacht ‘Seven Seas’ cruising, as you learned this afternoon, around the Galapagos.”

  My eye raced across the message. It read:

  AT NO TIME WAS STONE INVITED TO HOTEL ROOMS BY WYNDHAM OR MYSELF. CAN’T SUGGEST REASON FOR HIS PRESENCE. IF MY RETURN WILL HELP INVESTIGATION RADIO AT ONCE. FORD.

  “Your fool hunches are getting better and better!” I burst out as I finished. “When did you think of communicating with Ford?”

  “As soon as Stone finished that most interesting explanation of his presence, and I’d had time to figure that it wasn’t quite so late down there where Ford is.”

  I looked my amazement. “But how in hell did you manage it?”

  Alcott nodded across to the closet. “Took the phone in there, shut the door and let the New York Globe attend to the rest. And while I was at it,” Alcott looked sheepish, “I took a few other liberties, too.”

  “What now?” I gasped.

  “Well, seeing you were up to your neck on this Stone lead, I’ve started Billy Farrel running around, presumably on your authority, trying to get you a line on all those men who were in on that fatal little poker party at the Sevilla Biltmore. I told him to hunt down every blamed thing he could get. Past, present and future. You’ve simply got to beat those detective agencies to it, you know, if you’re going to get anywhere on this case. Farrel hasn’t an idea what’s up, of course. And we mustn’t let him. All he knows is that he’s to get all the information he can and meet you in the city room at twelve o’clock tomorrow morning. Also, a little while ago I phoned my own assistant—yes, all of this from the closet over there—and started him checking up steamship passages and little things like that, on our sporty Parson Stone. It’s not that I don’t believe the general outline of his story. I do. But I thought the invented portions, if we can find them, would prove much more interesting food for contemplation.” Suddenly, Alcott paused self-consciously. “Say, Ellis, I hope you don’t mind my barging in as I’ve done!”

  “Mind? M. Constantius God! Right now, you’re the one person I want to stick around.” This came from the bottom of my heart (wherever that metaphoric spot may be) but I proceeded to look so put out at my own spontaneity that Alcott confronted me squarely.

  “Really mean that?” he asked quietly.

  “Aw, I never go in for Valentines!”

  He lit a fresh cigarette with the butt end of his old one and strode to the window. For a while he smoked in silence meditatively contemplating a fat old lady across the court who was disrobing for bed.

  “If I was dead sure you meant that . . .” he began at length. Then he broke off and turned abruptly to his typewriter. For the space of a few minutes his keys clicked soberly. Then having pounded out whatever it was he wanted, he brandished aloft the paper and its carbon and crossed to me. His eyes were twinkling with amusement. “I thought we’d just put it down in writing!” he said with a laugh.

  I looked at the paper in surpr
ise and read:

  It is agreed that John Dwight Ellis, party of the first part, and Peter Alcott, party of the second part, do hereby pledge themselves, insofar as compatible with their respective responsibilities, to work jointly toward a solution of the Stephen P. Wyndham case, until such a time as both shall decide this mystery has been adequately cleared, or, failing that, until such a time as it shall seem, according to the best judgment of both parties, that the case is entirely impossible of solution; in either of which events all credit, reward and emolument deriving therefrom is hereby waived by Peter Alcott.

  I looked up with a grin. “This all looks like just so much gravy to me. Of course, ‘it ain’t just! it ain’t fair!’ but where the hell’s my fountain pen?”

  I rummaged through my pockets for my pen, feeling all the while a tingle of immense elation such as I hadn’t known since the days when as a bare-legged, dirty-faced, utterly disreputable small town boy, I’d slunk off to forbidden places, to swear magnificent loyalties and plan impossible escapades, with all the most disreputable youth in the neighborhood. Some philosopher has defined life as a long search for a friend, but, to my way of thinking, he’s wrong. Alongside a genuine comrade-in-adventure, all mere friendships pale to anaemic twaddle. I located my fountain pen on the table in the other room and strode back to Alcott to find him once more glancing his document over.