The Case of the Missing Corpse

by Joan Sanger

  Suddenly and with peculiar clarity there came to my mind the description young Stone had given of Meenan at the Havana poker party. “A heavy set coarse looking fellow ... an aloof manner that went so oddly with his ... bloated face ... seemed to know all the works ... night clubs, politicians, Broadway, the whole show.”

  “Get on with the story,” Alcott was saying quietly.

  “There isn’t so much to get on with, that’s the kick. But up at 79th Street and Broadway—where this Meenan had his apartment, there’s plenty of talk going around. It seems the fellow lived alone, entertained as though he was lousy with jack, drove a high-powered speed car and up to three days ago gave no indication of anything but the best of health. Then what have we got? A valet who comes in after his evening off to discover the old boy dead at his desk. A search that reveals absolutely no evidence of violence, bloodshed, robbery or anything out of the way. An elevator boy who states that Meenan had come in earlier that evening with an unknown gentleman; that he had later sent downstairs for ice, his refrigerator being out of repair, and that Meenan’s unknown visitor had left before the valet’s return. That’s every blooming thing there is to date and no amount of enquiry has uncovered even the identity of the unknown visitor.”

  I grinned. “Tst! Tst! Not even a calling card!”

  But Farrel was in dead earnest. “Bet your life not, or maybe I wouldn’t be here. The only thing that sounded half-way promising was some talk the elevator boy claimed he had overheard.”

  “What was that?” Alcott asked quickly.

  “Oh, just something this unknown guy let out, not counting on being heard, I guess.”

  “Go on. Don’t be so bashful.”

  “It wasn’t so much, now that I think of it.” Billy scratched his head. “Simply that he was leaving for Havana some time this week.”

  “Can’t arrest a man for that.”

  Billy Farrel shook his head. “I know it,” he said slowly. “But I can’t help feeling there’s something rotten in Denmark. Without a peep from anybody Meenan’s death is officially set down to heart failure, the undertaker calls and there’s a nice quiet funeral. At which point I’ve a notion a good many people in this old burg heave a big sigh of relief. A rip-snorting political scandal wouldn’t be exactly relished just now, not after all those nasty rumors last year about some of the big shots playing hand and glove with the racketeers.”

  I smiled. “Shades of the Schmidt crowd again!”

  “Aw. I’m not kidding! The point is your George Meenan is dead, either of natural causes or—‘what have you?’”

  Alcott looked grave. “Well, Billy, I think I’ll set his death down to—‘what have you?’”

  I glanced at Alcott with interest. “Good God! Do you think it possible there’s a connection between this so-called heart failure and—”

  But Alcott cut me off. “I’m not thinking anything, just yet. All I say is I don’t like it and I won’t forget it. Now Farrel, what about those others?”

  Farrel’s stubby finger advanced resolutely down the list.

  “Well, this Dunlap....”

  But from Farrel himself we never learned anything about Barton Dunlap. Abruptly, the boy broke off, his mouth half open, his eyes fixed on the doorway.

  “What’s the matter Billy?”

  But Billy stood transfixed. If, as science tells us, all life began in hot water, Billy looked, at this particular moment, as though he’d waded straight back again, and into the hottest part. Following the direction of his glance, I turned to the door of the City Room. There stood our managing editor and, talking vehemently at his side, I noticed a huge, though well-built chap with silver rimmed glasses and a light malacca cane.

  To my untutored viewpoint, the fellow seemed quite unnecessarily well turned out. His blond hair glistened with good care, his complexion was clear and ruddy. None the less, the impact of his ultra fashionable clothing, his well-matched tie and shirt and handkerchief, his carefully folded gloves and overcoat, his fresh carnation, oddly enough served to prejudice me against him. I wondered at my prejudice. More especially, I wondered at Billy Farrel’s.

  Alcott was whispering in my ear. “Mr. Barton Dunlap, unless I’m very much mistaken!”

  Farrel overheard him and forced a smile. “You’re on! S’long boys! Here’s the card with all the dope. I’ll be seeing you later!”

  The last word reached us from over Farrel’s shoulder. A moment later, he had disappeared jauntily through the opposite door of the City Room.

  Not a move in the entire situation escaped Alcott. Before I had even recovered from Farrel’s headlong rush, Pete noted the newcomer was inclining his head somewhat vigorously in my direction. He caught the Chief’s look of mingled bewilderment and doubt. Suddenly, with all his usual indolent ease, Alcott stooped and picked up my noon edition which had fallen to the floor. Then sotto voce: “Looks to me like you’re in for the fireworks, old punk! D’you mind if I stick by?”

  With seeming indifference, he spread the paper open to the sporting section and seated himself on the next desk.

  As usual, he wasn’t far wrong in his surmise. I was in for fireworks, all right. Pin-wheels, sparklers and skyrockets! And, in a few seconds more, they had started.

  Chapter X AN IRATE CALLER

  THE first firecracker came from my chief, Tim Gerraghty.

  “Ellis!” he exploded, as he crossed toward me, the well dressed stranger appendaged to his side. “Who was that talking to you a few minutes ago?”

  I gestured mutely to the top of Pete’s head, which showed an inch or two above his all-absorbing sporting section.

  “No!” the stranger flared. “We mean that younger chap and I’ve an idea you know it!” Despite the stridency of his tone, I caught the slight suggestion of Cambridge in his speech.

  “Oh,” I said innocently. “That was just one of our cub reporters. Anything wrong?”

  “Wrong?” the fellow snapped angrily. “I should say so!” For a moment he tried withering me with one of these “less-than-the-dust” glances. But I don’t wither easily. “A fine pass we’ve come to when a man’s privacy can be invaded and violated by every lowdown reporter from the press! Really!” He pronounced the last word “rilly” but there was no trace of four o’clock teas in the way his right hand tightened over his cane. His blond face flushed with anger. “That young ass went out that door. I saw him!” And having delivered himself of that, the stranger turned and strutted across the city room, his head up, his stick gripped in silent fury. Our one stroke of luck was that the place was fairly empty at this hour. It would have been too good a show for the boys.

  I looked at Gerraghty and fairly bristled with interrogatives. That the Chief was in a hole I could see. His lips were pressed sternly together.

  “That’s young Barton Dunlap!” he shot out significantly. Then sizz bang! “You men have gotten me in a damned fine mess. It looks like there’ll be the deuce to pay!”

  The tone more than the remark struck home. In all my years around the old news factory, it was my first genuine flare-up with the chief. And though I was far too deeply involved in this Wyndham tangle to count any minor consequences, still I’d have given a great deal to have avoided this encounter. Gerraghty happened to be one of those rare men who have a way with them. There wasn’t a man on the staff who didn’t feel it as I did.

  “What’s the difficulty?” I asked in genuine sympathy.

  The chief nodded off toward Dunlap’s retreating figure. “It so happens that fellow’s grandfather is one of the part owners of this paper!”

  “Still I don’t quite see....”

  “H’m. One of our boys was reported snooping around Mr. Dunlap’s club last evening, asking a good many personal questions. And to make matters worse, a couple of hours ago, at what seems to have been—er—a most inopportune time, this same enterprising young man forced his way into Mr. Dunlap’s apartment.” (Just like Billy Farrel, I smiled to myself.)

 
; Gerraghty was proceeding drily. “The first I knew of the matter was when young Dunlap burst into my office, hurling imprecations at the press in general and threatening a local shake-up here!” Gerraghty paused. There was an embarrassing silence. I felt the pinch of my own indirect responsibility.

  “If you’ll leave it to me, sir, there’s just a chance—a slim one I’ll admit—but I might be able to handle the situation.”

  The chief shot a swift, appraising look in my direction. “We couldn’t be much worse off, that’s sure! You know where to find me!” He turned on his heel and was gone.

  Three seconds later I caught up to Dunlap. “That reporter you’re after, won’t be back for a while!”

  Barton Dunlap turned around arrogantly and glared at me. I hadn’t realized how much simpler the whole situation looked with his scowl turned the other way. I started gamely. I tried good fellowship. It was all a total loss. The man’s attitude was oddly disconcerting.

  “Er—isn’t it Mark Twain or somebody who advises for emergencies like this, when you can’t explain matters, just deny them?” I asked at length.

  “H’m, try it!” Dunlap snapped.

  “Oh, I’m not going to, and you’re not either,” I said, with impeccable good humor. “Instead of even pretending to deny things, I thought we’d both reverse the adage and explain ’em!”

  “Explain!” Dunlap went off into sparks. “As though any explanation could alter the indignity to which I’ve been subjected!”

  I looked the firebrand over coolly and came to the point. “You were a very good friend of Stephen P. Wyndham, I believe.”

  “What’s that to do with this?” he asked haughtily.

  “A great deal, Mr. Dunlap. Since you didn’t come forward and tell what occurred in the Sevilla Biltmore on February 13th, we’ve been driven to going after you!”

  For a moment Barton Dunlap studied my face in what seemed to be frank surprise. “Are you trying to say that the espionage to which I’ve been subjected was supposed to be conducted in the interests of the Wyndham case?”

  “Exactly! Though it’s not widely known as yet.”

  “Well! Well! That does make a whale of a difference!” He emphasized his point with a rap of his malacca cane. “Who’s handling this matter for your paper?”

  “I am.” I introduced myself. There was a sudden right-about-face in his attitude.

  “I’ve been enormously put out, y’know—still I wouldn’t want to hamper you in any way.”

  “No one’s going to, Mr. Dunlap. We mean to get to the bottom of this matter!”

  “Well, I’ve wanted to cooperate from the beginning, don’t y’know!”

  It was my turn to be sarcastic.

  “So it seems, if you’ll pardon my saying it. That’s why Wyndham’s been out of the picture for over ten months now without the slightest hue or cry being raised by any of his friends. That’s why....”

  Dunlap flushed to the roots of his hair and glancing around, he interrupted me quickly.

  “Isn’t there some place other than this corridor where we can talk?”

  I nodded toward my desk in the City Room and headed back that way, glad for the pretext to have Alcott within earshot once again.

  “This is somewhat better!” Dunlap drawled as he sat down and I noticed with suppressed amusement that the fellow seemed to strut even when he was seated.

  “You really must get a few things straight. However, I’m not to be quoted.”

  I tried to ease his mind on that point but for a seemingly endless instant the issue looked dubious. Then abruptly, Mr. Dunlap put down his overcoat and hat, and verbally, took the plunge.

  “Y’see, until the newspapers first broke with this Wyndham story, it never once occurred to me or, for that matter, to any one of the men who knew Wyndham well that there was anything amiss in this entire matter, don’t y’know.”

  “That listens well!” I said, with a skeptical smile. “However, I wouldn’t let my grandmother’s poodle leave a room and remain unheard of for over ten months without troubling myself somewhat more than you gentlemen have done in your friend’s case!”

  Dunlap met my eyes with a quizzical smile. “Perhaps your grandmother’s poodle isn’t as habituated to frequent excursions as we knew Stephen Wyndham to be. Wyndham and I have been acquainted since boyhood, don’t y’know, and this wasn’t the first time that he pulled off something like this!”

  He said this with a frankness that was completely disarming.

  “No?” I found myself saying.

  Dunlap lit a cigarette and unbent to the point of actual loquacity.

  “Decidedly no! Up at Hotchkiss they still talk about the rumpus he stirred up in the third form there. For some five weeks or so, he had the school authorities almost on their heads, while the local police were scouring about the countryside, looking for him. And where do you suppose Wyndham was all the while? Off Montauk Point on a fishing trip with the former captain of his father’s yacht. He hadn’t troubled to confide in any of us for fear we might talk a trifle too much!’” Dunlap gave a short reminiscent laugh while I looked all the incredulity I didn’t care to voice.

  “Oh, you think that’s rather peculiar?” Dunlap eyed me with tolerant amusement. “Well, you wouldn’t have thought twice about the matter if you’d known Wyndham as we did. From the time of his father’s death, he was rather his own master, y’know. No rein or check of any kind. To be sure, there was his older sister, but somehow he never seemed to care a rap for her. As for the old Wyndham mansion, it gave him the hibbie-jibbies, so he rarely if ever went home.”

  “H’m. So you imply that Wyndham’s friends had grown accustomed to these absences!”

  “After a while, yes. But it took training, you see. There was one occasion, a year or so after college, as I recall it, when he wandered off from a hunting expedition returning from Africa, turned right about face and went off on a crazy nine months’ trek into the Punjab, along with some Tom, Dick or Harry who had chanced across his path. That was Wyndham all over. He never troubled with much ceremony. You simply had to take him or leave him as you felt disposed. Most of his friends took him, of course, and were jolly well glad to!” Dunlap paused. “But you see, it was this past impulsiveness that led us all so far astray this time.”

  “Yes,” I let out suddenly. “Whoever plotted Wyndham’s end calculated on that!”

  Dunlap looked at me sharply and folded his gloves into careful creases. “Oh, I rather doubt that. It would narrow the range of the guilty down to someone who knew Wyndham fairly well. And that’s too utterly unspeakable!”

  “But not unthinkable!” I remarked unwisely.

  Dunlap looked at me with a flash of anger in his eye. “I’m not sure what you’re driving at, young fellow. But speaking for myself, I rather feel as though I’ve about done everything I can in this matter.”

  “I’m sure you do!” It was absurd how I let the fellow irritate me.

  Dunlap rose to his feet and reached for his coat and hat. Then, just as he was on the point of departure, he got an attack of galloping common sense and turned superciliously to me.

  “To be sure I didn’t call in the press, as you, perhaps, would have liked me to, but get this straight! As soon as I was convinced that Mr. Wyndham had met with foul play, I went directly to the one person who had authority to act in this matter, told exactly what I knew of the facts, placed myself in readiness to be of whatever service I could.”

  I looked at the man with new-born interest. “To whom did you go?”

  “To Miss Isabella Wyndham, of course.”

  The telephone ringing at my elbow saved the day. It was Gerraghty.

  “How are you making out?”

  “I think everything’s O.K. chief!”

  Suddenly from over the top of the sporting page I saw Alcott give me a little wink. It was so swift I wasn’t sure I’d seen aright and when a moment later, he seemed utterly engrossed in making notes on the margin of his
paper I was doubly uncertain. Nonetheless, I stalled for time.

  “Wait a minute, Mr. Gerraghty. Maybe Mr. Dunlap will speak to you himself.” I handed the phone over to my caller and stepping between him and Alcott, I screened as well as I could the passage of the scribbled message which I felt ought to be coming my way.

  I wasn’t a moment too soon. Dunlap’s talk with Gerraghty did not take long.

  “Your managing editor is a nice chap!“

  “Oh, we all second that around here.”

  Dunlap reached for his stick.

  “Mr. Dunlap, before you go, I want to apologize.” The words came hard. I was taking my cue from Alcott. “When I spoke, I hadn’t realized that you had tried to help in this matter at all. For reasons I don’t understand, Miss Wyndham and her lawyer omitted all mention of your visit.”

  “That’s deucedly odd!”

  “Worse than odd, for we’re in bad need of a little first aid around here. The fact is, we’ve had one version of what occurred in Stephen Wyndham’s rooms on the night of February thirteenth. It would help enormously if you would tell me how far that story coincides with your own recollections of that most peculiar occasion!” I looked directly into Dunlap’s watery blue eyes.

  Dunlap gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’d like awfully to help you, don’t y’know! But the fact is that night at Wyndham’s, I’m afraid I was rather—er—in my cups!”

  “The entire evening?”

  “Yes. I had enough of an edge on to completely discredit me as a reliable witness.”

  However, I wasn’t to be put off. Without revealing my source of information I repeated young Stone’s story to him. omitting all mention of the knife that had been seen in Sanchez’s hand and all reference to the blood-stained cigarette.

  Dunlap listened with what seemed rapt attention. At the conclusion. he nodded. “That’s just about the straight of the thing. don’t y’know! Even I recall most of that!”.

  “Do you think you could draw me a diagram of the positions of the men at the table that night?”