by Joan Sanger
Mechanically I reached over for it and with my movement. a long envelope, hitherto unnoticed, was brushed to the floor. I stooped and picked it up. From the corner I noticed a packet of greenbacks protruding. Incapable now of any further surprise, I took them out and counted them slowly. Fifteen, one hundred dollar bills, crisp and new. A line from Alcott, in his familiar large scrawl, fluttered to the floor. It lay there staring up at me.
This, I think, should cover our expenses. Forgive me, Johnny, for taking French leave. I told you to pay attention to Porkie Smith’s letter and that little gold medallion.
Pete
But I didn’t bother to pick the note up. I didn’t trouble to speculate how Alcott had managed to get his hands on that much cash. I didn’t even question where Alcott had gone, though privately I hoped to ... Hell! I was blazing mad.
Gloomily I stared down at my old black memo book, thinking of the myriads of questions therein, wondering like a schoolboy on examination how the devil I’d manage to get them answered.
I turned to the first page absently, then immediately I sat up. At a glance. I saw that the old precision and order had departed from my pages. My questions were still there, to be sure, standing stiffly at attention, but sprawling down the margins. across headings, between lines was a jumble of hasty writing that I could hardly decipher.
I drew my old book closer, peering intently at its pages. Then I gave a whoop of joy.
Under my first question: What is the mystery of the Wyndham will? Alcott had scribbled:
Simply Miss Isabella. She destroyed her father’s real will, bringing forward an older one, whereby she would inherit jointly with her brother. Stephen was aware of her guilt, having seen her at the safe on the night of Wyndham, Sr.’s death. He did not mind the division of the estate, but as he grew older, the knowledge of Isabella’s guilty act increased the strain between them. Keep this under your hat.
The reason for Charles Stone’s visit to the Sevilla Biltmore? Pete’s hunch was that Stone wanted to borrow money. And my hunch was Pete was right.
So my eye raced on, from one page to the next. Yes. There the answers all were. For Pete’s strange questions to the night man at the hotel! Of Ford’s use of his power of attorney actually to help Mrs. Dunlap. (Well, I had done the fellow an injustice, I had to admit it.) That mangled cigarette! The visit of Stone’s to the Orient? Ah! So Pete had translated the Chinese letter which Stone had carelessly dropped in our room, and learned in that way that “Parson” Charles had secretly married his Chinese sweetheart. As for that wheel which had so mysteriously come off our taxi at Lolita’s hacienda, Alcott still leaned toward the theory of accident. And he stuck to the same theory to explain the near casualty on the street comer and the delapidated ceiling that had fallen on our beds.
I read on, absorbed and fascinated. Once I even smiled to myself. Under my query about the mysterious room which Ford had engaged at the Sevilla Biltmore, Alcott had scrawled:
Have a heart. I’ve a hunch we shouldn’t say any more to Mr. and Mrs. Ford about that.
But by the time I’d come to no the end of the book, I was better satisfied than I’d been at the beginning. Ironically I now wondered why I’d ever thought I would be. I saw clearly that most of those questions, enigmatic as they’d seemed when I had jotted them down, not so many days ago, had been answered already by the night’s strange events, or, what was more to the point, completely. overshadowed by the strange and more baffling problems to which this same night had given rise. Yes. But about everything pertaining to this last phase, Pete was curiously silent. Damn him! If he thought he was going to get away with this.
I got out my old portable and with vindicative energy, I commenced pounding away. Alcott or no Alcott, the facts had to be gotten into some sort of shape for the paper and promptly. But with all the loose ends dangling it was a harder job than I’d supposed. Dawn broke. Sunlight crept into the garden. And still I worked away.
I think it must have been long after seven, when I looked up from my typewriter, certain I had heard a knock.
Hoping, dreading, I knew not what, I crossed and opened the door. Outside stood my old friend the day porter with a letter in his hand. At a glance, I saw it bore a Havana postmark.
“Thanks,” I said listlessly, handing him some change. I noticed the handwriting on the envelope was Alcott’s and that the letter had been posted the night before.
I went back to the table and slowly opened it. Then, at once, I sat forward, perceiving the high speed and terrific strain under which that letter had been written.
I reprint that communication here in full because it was one of the strangest documents I ever read.
“Johnny,” it began abruptly.
Chapter XXIX AN OVERDUE EXPLANATION
YES. “Johnny,” that letter began:
I don’t know whether I’ll ever get to see you again. In fact, I don’t know that I’ll even be alive by the time our session at the Sevilla Biltmore is over tonight. For which reason, this letter, that justice may somehow be done.
Should anything happen to me as I half anticipate, my advice is to communicate with Calvin Watts as soon as possible. By the way it was his chance recollection of Judge Lamar having begged or borrowed matches and lighters from everyone present on the fatal 13th that clinched this mystery for me at last. Though to be honest, I had a pretty good hunch that was the way the wind blew even before I saw Watts last night. Watts is better and he’s going to pull through. And he’ll help you fight this thing tooth and nail.
The letter broke off abruptly. Half way down the page, it continued in pencil.
There’s something more I’d like to tell you, even if it makes me late for our 10 o’clock appointment. It’s about that letter of Porkie Smith’s. You thought it unimportant. There you missed your guess. Do you remember the ‘bad customer’ he described having found on his boat on the night of February 13th? The one who was so peculiarly silent and never even gave his name?
You should have looked into that matter. That fellow didn’t give his name because he didn’t know it. He didn’t talk because he didn’t know what on God’s earth to say. His memory of every single thing that had happened to him before he opened his eyes on that fishing boat was gone. Wiped clean. A dead blank.
You would have found out that when Porkie Smith let him off in the States, the only thing he knew for certain was that for some unknown reason he wanted to get back to New York and badly. Why? He couldn’t have told you. He didn’t have a paper of identification about him. What was even worse for his plan, he didn’t have a red cent to his name. Just his clothes and a few impersonal knick-knacks that must have been overlooked when he was dropped by chance on Porkie’s boat.
Well, he knocked around at odd jobs at first. Then, by degrees, he found that he had a good bit of education and for some queer reason, he seemed to know a hell of a lot about sports. He traded on the last to good advantage, but despite his local success, there was always a constant inexplicable pull that he felt toward New York. Why? He hardly knew. Only for some vague reason that city seemed closer to his past.
At last when he had sufficient money saved up, he yielded to the impulse and took a train for New York. Once there, he found himself a job, but no particular light. His entire identity and background remained as obscured as ever. Terribly discouraged, he settled to his grind, succeeding in work beyond his expectation; but, aside from that, keeping much to himself, uncertain of anything and everything that lay outside his particular field.
Then one day, by chance, he picked up a newspaper. This Wyndham case had broken wide open. There was a picture of Steve Wyndham on the first page. Aghast with amazement, dizzy with wonder, he suddenly knew who he was!
At first, the sheer joy of discovery held him enthralled. You should have known him in those days as I did. Then by slow degrees, another feeling overcame him. He thought back upon his plight. His awful condition when he was picked up on that fishing yawl. The nightmar
e of those months of not knowing. (Amnesia’s the correct name for this trouble, I’ve since found out.) It all seemed wild and unbelievable. The last thing he could remember was that he had been playing poker with some friends.
But were they friends? Slowly, bitterly, he faced that thought. And if they were friends, how could this horror have ever come about? Why had there been no protest? No outcry? He who had been so happy-go-lucky in the past was now bitten through and through with a desire to find out which of those men had done him in. For one of them had. Of that he was certain. As his mind turned back upon events he even found he had very good grounds of suspicion against a few. But the actual criminal? Yes? Which of those eight men was the actual criminal? He must know.
Meanwhile, the papers were off on the wrong trail. Nothing was uncovered. There were a dozen false leads. He watched them all, biding his time, waiting the opportunity he craved. For by now, with every ounce of his strength, with every square inch of him, he wanted justice and revenge.
Well, Johnny, I’ve a hunch you know the rest of the story as well as I do.
As to how I found out about this—don’t puzzle too much, old punk. But then perhaps you’ve already guessed. Yes. In spite of the grey hair that came almost overnight, in spite of the scars that have changed my face almost beyond recognition, in spite of the broken nose and the loss of weight and oh, yes, let’s not forget the nifty clothes—in short, in spite of every damned thing, I am Stephen Wyndham!
Nervelessly that letter fell from my hand. I picked it up and slowly read it through a second time just to make sure I hadn’t taken complete leave of my reason. A kind of mad incredulity had me in its grip. I simply couldn’t get the full import of that last sentence through my head. Then a legion of things came storming back into my consciousness, bolstering up Pete’s amazing disclosure.
The very python skin cigarette case that had been our first lead on this adventure. Of course! I could see it all now. That case had been one of those few “impersonal knick knacks” left in Wyndham’s pocket at the time of the tragedy. No wonder Peter Alcott had been able to produce it so opportunely.
There was Lolita’s instant attraction to Alcott. Good Lord! Sure! She must have intuitively sensed who he was, or anyhow felt a strong resemblance. I laughed aloud at the recollection of her words that night in the garden. “Your frien’—he do not seem like the ordinaire newspaper man to me.” And then I gave another laugh as I remembered the Police Communication that had spoken of the particular insistence of Señora de Sanchez that her arrest was an outrage and her confidence that when she could face Alcott and me justice promptly would be done. Well, I had to admit it, the lady was smarter than I.
My thoughts raced back to my first encounter with Miss Isabella and there loomed a whole phalanx of supporting testimony. Alcott’s neat bombshell about the Wyndham will. Why hadn’t I then suspected? Why indeed? Yet more significant things had passed me by.
Carefully I now went over that scene at the Wyndham mansion. When Alcott had suggested that visit to Miss Isabella’s, he must have felt convinced that the change that had taken place in his appearance precluded the remotest chance of recognition, especially from a sister whom he had seen so infrequently. Yet even so, I recalled Miss Isabella’s startled manner and strange comment in the darkened hallway when first she had heard Alcott’s voice; and how later in the drawing room, she had peered at him again and again with such curious interest. Doubtless, seeing the gaunt grey-haired figure before her, her suspicions had been lulled temporarily, but they had not remained so for long. Something familiar in Pete’s voice or manner must have come back to trouble her when once she had time to consider the matter carefully. I smiled now when I thought back upon the peculiar letter that she sent to young Stone the next morning. No wonder she had written in so anxious a vein. She must have been greatly puzzled by Alcott’s conduct. She must have wanted to investigate at once. And poor “Parson” Stone? Uncertain, not too sure of his ground, shadowing us on her orders, of course.
Now that I thought it all over carefully, it seemed almost funny. No wonder that day at the Post Office Pete had dodged that face to face encounter with Stone. No wonder he had left me to attend that Charity Fete by myself. No wonder he had felt tired and impelled to turn in that very first night when young “Parson” Stone had paid his late visit to his rooms. Yes, and buried himself in the Sports section that day when Dunlap had burst into the newspaper office. I smiled to myself when I thought of what I had said to him only two nights prior. “You lazy bum, don’t you think it almost time you took a crack at a few of our leads directly? You haven’t talked to a single damned one yet—excepting old Miss Isabella.” Well, no wonder he had answered, “I’ll see them all, but in my own good time.”
My thoughts raced to the night before when at last Pete had confronted what was left of that strange poker party. In the dim candle light of that chamber, changed as he was beyond any casual recognition, it would have been expected that no one except Stone and Lola, and possibly Sanchez could have guessed at his identity. And yet as I thought back on that scene, I remembered Hugh Ford’s expression when Alcott had turned on him, and how that smart redhead’s jaw had dropped open in sheer amazement and he had sat staring at the scarred, gaunt man before him as though he was seeing a ghost.
Of course! Of course! In the end Judge Lamar must have guessed the secret too. It accounted for his brutal attack upon Alcott. Good God! No wonder, faced with the implacable fact of Wyndham’s risen corpse he had realized the game was up.
My mind turned to the singular stroke of good fortune that had enabled Pete to “come back” from that cunningly contrived doom. What a near call. A dark night! A hurried job! Lamar and Meenan had intended him for the black gulf, of course. And instead the gangsters had bungled, and he had landed among the hooks and rigging of Porkie Smith’s fishing smack. Holy God! It was rare luck. Yes, even if that fall had netted him a few bad scars, a broken nose and a temporary case of amnesia, at any rate he had come away with his life. Thinking it all over, now, it seemed as simple as two and two, and so wildly, madly preposterously right! Man alive! What a story!
In a flash, I crossed to the telephone and grabbed the receiver.
“Get me Long Distance. New York. Canal 6-5600!” I shouted to the English speaking operator. “I want to talk to Mr. Timothy Gerraghty, New York Globe, soon as you can get him.”
“Si! Si! But it takes a few minutes, Señor!” she answered dulcetly.
I hung up, but nonetheless, remained rooted by the phone, agog with impatience.
In twenty-three seconds exactly the bell rang. I snatched at the receiver.
“Hello! Hello!”
The operator spoke up. “An outside call for you, Señor. I’ll put it through until I can get New York. Si?”
Then I heard Pete’s voice at the other end of the wire.
“Good morning, Johnny!”
A gasp of surprise registered my presence.
“Don’t pass out on me, old punk. I just thought for once I’d explain my sudden walk-out.”
“You’d better!”
“Well, this has something to do with those missions of mine around the island! Remember?”
“Quit stalling and come to the point, you big bum!”
“The point is . . . er . . . those trips . . . well . . . they didn’t all come under the head of work. See?”
“Aw, cut the mystery! The police want to talk to you.”
“Damn the police! You’ve got to fix things with them and without saying too much. Yeah, and with Tim Gerraghty, too. What I want to tell you is—er—”
“Well, get it out!”
“Carol Sutherland Dunlap and I were married last night.”
“Holy God! That’s great. My congratulations! Where are you?”
“Pulling out on a cruise and in a devilish short time. What I want to know is . . . what do you say to coming along? It would give you a couple of months to ask questions.”
/> “That’s awfully decent. But, aw—I’ve an interview, day after tomorrow with Tim Gerraghty—only he doesn’t know it yet. Anyhow, two’s company—”
“But we’re more than two already. Hugh Ford is taking us off for a honeymoon.”
“Hold on!” I interrupted, my brain working now like a forest fire. “Then that letter you handed Ford at the table last night . . . ?”
“Exactly. It contained instructions as to where and how he should meet me. That was, providing I ever got out of that place alive.”
But still the forest fire was raging through my head.
“Not so fast, Pete . . .” (Whatever was I to call him?) . . . “You don’t get off without explaining one more thing!”
“What next?”
“That missing gold medallion with the “C. S.” engraved!”
“Oh, that! It was an old one of Carol’s. I took it myself because I would have liked to have kept her name out of all this mess if I could have. But one thing sure, you can’t say I didn’t give you decent warning that in the disappearance of that medallion lay a very important clue!”
“You old son-of-a-gun! You just wait! I’ll do you both up properly for the New York Globe!”
“Oh, no you don’t, Johnny. If you remember neither party to our contract is to give out any newspaper publicity without the express consent of the other. I’m not consenting . . . just yet.”
“But, Pete, you lousy stiff. . . .”
“The Captain’s calling us. Can’t argue. Sure you won’t join us?”
“NO!”
“Then get this. Carol and I are off for points unknown and a few months of quiet and rest. Lord knows we need it. I’ll make it up to you later, old punk. Meanwhile, goodbye and good luck, Johnny Ellis.”
Mechanically I replaced the receiver but stood where I was, dazed and wondering why in the name of reason I’d ever let myself into anything so absurd.