Women's Wiles

by Joyce Harrington

  At about eight-thirty, just as she was about to start out on her quest—she could only pursue it in the evenings, of course, after library hours—the doorbell rang and she found him standing there. He looked disappointed when he saw she had her glasses on. He came in rather shyly and clumsily, tripping over the threshold and careening several steps down the hall.

  “Were you able to find out anything?” she asked eagerly.

  “Nope, I checked again, I went all the way back six months, and I also got in touch with Missing Persons. Nothing doing. I’m afraid it isn’t a genuine message, Miss Roberts; just a fluke, like the lieutenant says.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you. I’ve copied a list of the borrowers and I intend to investigate each one of them in turn. That message was not intended to be readily deciphered, or for that matter deciphered at all; therefore it is not a practical joke or some adolescent’s prank. Yet it has a terrible coherence; therefore it is not a fluke or a haphazard scarring of the page, your lieutenant to the contrary. What remains? It is a genuine ransom note, sent in deadly earnest, and I should think you and your superiors would be the first to—”

  “Miss Roberts,” he said soulfully, “you’re too refined to...to dabble in crime like this. Somehow it don’t seem right for you to be talking shop, about kidnappings and—” He eased his collar. “I...uh...it’s my night off, and I was wondering if you’d like to go to the movies.”

  “So that’s why you took the trouble of coming around!” she said indignantly. “I’m afraid your interest is entirely too personal and not nearly official enough!”

  “Gee, even when you talk fast,” he said admiringly, “you pronounce every word clear, like in a po-em.”

  “Well, you don’t. It’s poem, not po-em. I intend on going ahead with this until I can find out just what the meaning of that message is, and who sent it! And I don’t go to movies with people the second time I’ve met them!”

  He didn’t seem at all fazed. “Could I drop around sometime and find out how you’re getting along?” he wanted to know as he edged backward through the door .

  “That will be entirely superfluous,” she said icily. “If I uncover anything suspicious, I shall of course report it promptly. It is not my job, after all, but...ahem...other people’s.”

  “Movies! The idea!” She frowned after she had closed the door on him. Then she dropped her eyes and pondered a minute. “It would have been sort of frisky, at that.” She smiled.

  She took the book along with her as an excuse for calling, and set out, very determined on the surface, as timid as usual underneath. However, she found it easier to get started because the first name on the list, the meek Mrs. Trasker, held no terror even for her. She was almost sure she was innocent, because it was she herself who had called the library’s attention to the missing page in the first place, and a guilty person would hardly do that. Still there was always a possibility it was someone else in her family or household, and she meant to be thorough about this, if nothing else.

  Mrs. Trasker’s address was a small, old-fashioned apartment building of the pre-War variety. It was not expensive by any means, but still it did seem beyond the means of a person who had been unable to pay even a two-dollar fine, and for a moment Prudence thought she scented suspicion in this. But as soon as she entered the lobby and asked for Mrs. Trasker, the mystery was explained.

  “You’ll have to go to the basement for her,” the elevator boy told her, “she’s the janitress.”

  A young girl of seventeen admitted her at the basement entrance and led her down a bare brick passage past rows of empty trash cans to the living quarters in the back.

  Mrs. Trasker was sitting propped up in bed, and again showed a little alarm at sight of the librarian, a person in authority. An open book on a chair beside her showed that her daughter had been reading aloud to her when they were interrupted.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Prudence reassured them. “I just want to ask a few questions.”

  “Sure, anything, missis,” said the janitress, clasping and unclasping her hands placatingly.

  “Just the two of you live here? No father or brothers?”

  “Just mom and me, nobody else,” the girl answered.

  “Now tell me, are you sure you didn’t take the book out with you anywhere, to some friend’s house, or lend it to someone else?”

  “No, no, it stayed right here!” They both said it together and vehemently.

  “Well, then, did anyone call on you down here, while it was in the rooms?”

  The mother answered this. “No, no one. When the tenants want me for anything, they ring down for me from upstairs. And when I’m working around the house, I keep our place locked just like anyone does their apartment. So I know no one was near the book while we had it.”

  “I feel pretty sure of that myself,” Prudence said, as she got up to go. She patted Mrs. Trasker’s toil-worn hand reassuringly. “Just forget about my coming here like this. Your fine is paid and there’s nothing to worry about. See you at the library.”

  The next name on the reference card was Lucille Baumgarten. Prudence was emboldened to stop in there because she noticed the address, though fairly nearby, in the same branch library district, was in a higher-class neighborhood. Besides, she was beginning to forget her timidity in the newly awakened interest her quest was arousing in her. It occurred to her for the first time that detectives must lead fairly interesting lives.

  A glance at the imposing, almost palatial apartment building Borrower Baumgarten lived in told her this place could probably be crossed off her list of suspects as well. Though she had heard vaguely somewhere or other that gangsters and criminals sometimes lived in luxurious surroundings, these were more than that. These spelled solid, substantial wealth and respectability that couldn’t be faked. She had to state her name and business to a uniformed houseman in the lobby before she was even allowed to go up.

  “Just tell Miss Baumgarten the librarian from her branch library would like to talk to her a minute.”

  A maid opened the upstairs door, but before she could open her mouth, a girl slightly younger than Mrs. Trasker’s daughter had come skidding down the parquet hall, swept her aside, and displaced her. She was about fifteen at the most, and really had no business borrowing from the adult department yet. Prudence vaguely recalled seeing her face before, although then it had been liberally rouged and lipsticked, whereas now it was properly without cosmetics.

  She put a finger to her lips and whispered conspiratorially, “Sh! Don’t tell my—”

  Before she could get any further, there was a firm tread behind her and she was displaced in turn by a stout matronly lady wearing more diamonds than Prudence had ever seen before outside of a jewelry-store window.

  “I’ve just come to check up on this book which was returned to us in a damaged condition,” Prudence explained. “Our record shows that Miss Lucille Baumgarten had it out between—”

  “Lucille?” gasped the bediamonded lady. “Lucille? There’s no Lucille—” She broke off short and glanced at her daughter, who vainly tried to duck out between the two of them and shrink away unnoticed. “Oh, so that’s it!” she said, suddenly enlightened. “So Leah isn’t good enough for you anymore!”

  Prudence addressed her offspring, since it was obvious that the mother was in the dark about more things than just the book. “Miss Baumgarten, I’d like you to tell me whether there was a page missing when you brought the book home with you.” And then she added craftily: “It was borrowed again afterward by several other subscribers, but I haven’t got around to them yet.” If the girl was guilty, she would use this as an out and claim the page had still been in, implying it had been taken out afterward by someone else. Prudence knew it hadn’t, of course.

  But Lucille-Leah admitted unhesitatingly: “Yes, there was a page or two missing, but it didn’t spoil the fun much, because I could tell what happened after I read on a little bit.” Nothing seemed to ho
ld any terrors for her, compared to the parental wrath brewing in the heaving bosom that wedged her in inextricably.

  “Did you lend it to anyone else, or take it out of the house with you at any time, while you were in possession of it?”

  The girl rolled her eyes meaningly. “I should say not! I kept it hidden in the bottom drawer of my bureau the whole time; and now you had to come around here and give me away!”

  “Thank you,” said Prudence, and turned to go. This place was definitely off her list too, as she had felt it would be even before the interview. People who lived in such surroundings didn’t send kidnap notes or associate with people who did.

  The door had closed, but Mrs. Baumgarten’s shrill, punitive tones sounded all too clearly through it while Prudence stood there waiting for the elevator to take her down. “I’ll give you Lucille! Wait’ll your father hears about this! I’ll give you such a frass, you won’t know whether you’re Lucille or Gwendolyn!” punctuated by a loud, popping slap on youthful epidermis.

  The next name on the list was Florence Turner. It was already well after ten by now, and for a moment Prudence was tempted to go home, and put off the next interview until the following night. She discarded the temptation resolutely. “Don’t be such a ’fraid-cat,” she lectured herself. “Nothing’s happened to you so far, and nothing’s likely to happen hereafter either.” And then too, without knowing it, she was already prejudiced; in the back of her mind all along there lurked the suspicion that the lone male borrower, Dermuth, was the one to watch out for. He was next but one on the list, in reverse order. As long as she was out, she would interview Florence Turner, who was probably harmless, and then tackle Dermuth good and early tomorrow night—and see to it that a policeman waited for her outside his door so she’d be sure of getting out again unharmed.

  The address listed for Library Member Turner was not at first sight exactly prepossessing, when she located it. It was a rooming house, or rather that newer variation of one called a “residence club,” which had sprung up in the larger cities within the past few years, in which the rooms are grouped into detached little apartments. Possibly it was the sight of the chop-suey place that occupied the ground floor that gave it its unsavory aspect in her eyes; she had peculiar notions about some things.

  Nevertheless, now that she had come this far, she wasn’t going to let a chop-suey restaurant frighten her away without completing her mission. She tightened the book under her arm, took a good deep breath to ward off possible hatchet men and opium smokers, and marched into the building, whose entrance adjoined that of the restaurant.

  She rang the manager’s bell and a blowsy-looking, middle-aged woman came out and met her at the foot of the stairs. “Yes?” she said gruffly.

  “Have you a Florence Turner living here?”

  “No. We did have, but she left.”

  “Have you any idea where I could reach her?”

  “She left very suddenly, didn’t say where she was going.”

  “About how long ago did she leave, could you tell me?”

  “Let’s see now.” The woman did some complicated mental calculation. “Two weeks ago Monday, I think it was. That would bring it to the seventeenth. Yes, that’s it, May seventeenth.”

  Here was a small mystery already. The book hadn’t been returned until the eighteenth. The woman’s memory might be at fault, of course. “If you say she left in a hurry, how is it she found time to return this book to us?”

  The woman glanced at it. “Oh, no, I was the one returned that for her,” she explained. “My cleaning maid found it in her room the next morning after she was gone, along with a lot of other stuff she left behind her. I saw it was a liberry book, so I sent Beulah over with it, so’s it wouldn’t roll up a big fine for her. I’m economical that way. How’d you happen to get hold of it?” she asked in surprise.

  “I work at the library,” Prudence explained. “I wanted to see her about this book. One of the pages was torn out.” She knew enough not to confide any more than that about what her real object was.

  “Gee, aren’t you people fussy,” marveled the manager.

  “Well, you see, it’s taken out of my salary,” prevaricated Prudence, trying to strike a note she felt the other might understand.

  “Oh, that’s different. No wonder you’re anxious to locate her. Well, all I know is she didn’t expect to go when she did; she even paid for her room ahead. I been holding it for her ever since, till the time’s up. I’m conshenshus that way.”

  “That’s strange,” Prudence mused aloud. “I wonder what could have—”

  “I think someone got took sick in her family,” confided the manager. “Some friends or relatives, I don’t know who they was, called for her in a car late at night and off she went in a rush. I just wanted to be sure it wasn’t no one who hadn’t paid up yet, so I opened my door and looked out.”

  Prudence pricked up her ears. That fatal curiosity of hers was driving her on like a spur. She had suddenly forgotten all about being leery of the nefarious chop-suey den on the premises. She was starting to tingle all over, and tried not to show it. Had she unearthed something at last, or wasn’t it anything at all? “You say she left some belongings behind? Do you think she’ll be back for them?”

  “No, she won’t be back herself, I don’t believe. But she did ask me to keep them for her; she said she’d send someone around to get them as soon as she was able.”

  Prudence suddenly decided she’d give almost anything to be able to get a look at the things this Turner girl had left behind her; why, she wasn’t quite sure herself. They might help her to form an idea of what their owner was like. She couldn’t ask openly; the woman might suspect her of trying to steal something. “When will her room be available?” She asked offhandedly. “I’m thinking of moving, and as long as I’m here, I was wondering—”

  “Come on up and I’ll show it to you right now,” offered the manager with alacrity. She evidently considered librarians superior to the average run of tenants she got.

  Prudence followed her up the stairs, incredulous at her own effrontery. This didn’t seem a bit like her; she wondered what had come over her. Murphy should see me now! she gloated.

  The manager unlocked a door on the second floor.

  “It’s real nice in the daytime,” she said. “And I can turn it over to you day after tomorrow.”

  “Is the closet good and deep?” asked Prudence, noting its locked doors.

  “I’ll show you.” The woman took out a key, opened it unsuspectingly for her approval.

  “My,” said the subtle Prudence, “she left lots of things behind!”

  “And some of them are real good too,” agreed the landlady. “I don’t know how they do it, on just a hat check girl’s tips. And she even gave that up six months ago.”

  “Hmmm,” said Prudence absently, deftly edging a silver slipper she noted standing on the floor up against one of another pair, with the tip of her own foot. She looked down covertly; with their heels in true with one another, there was an inch difference in the toes. Two different sizes! She absently fingered the lining of one of the frocks hanging up, noted its size tag. A 34. “Such exquisite things,” she murmured, to cover up what she was doing. Three hangers over there was another frock. Size 28.

  “Did she have anyone else living here with her?” she asked.

  The manager locked the closet, pocketed the key once more. “No. These two men friends or relatives of hers used to visit with her a good deal, but they never made a sound and they never came one at a time, so I didn’t raise any objections. Now, I have another room, nearly as nice, just down the hall I could show you.”

  “I wish there were some way you could notify me when someone does call for her things,” said Prudence, who was getting better as she went along. “I’m terribly anxious to get in touch with her. You see, it’s not only the fine, it might even cost me my job.”

  “Sure, I know how it is,” said the manager sympathetica
lly. “Well, I could ask whoever she sends to leave word where you can reach her.”

  “No, don’t do that!” said Prudence hastily. “I’m afraid they…er…I’d prefer if you didn’t mention I was here asking about her at all.”

  “Anything you say,” said the manager amenably. “If you’ll leave your number with me, I could give you a ring and let you know whenever the person shows up.”

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t get over here in time; they might be gone by the time I got here.”

  The manager tapped her teeth helpfully. “Why don’t you take one of my rooms, then? That way you’d be right on the spot when they do show up.”

  “Yes, but suppose they come in the daytime? I’d be at the library, and I can’t leave my job.”

  “I don’t think they’ll come in the daytime. Most of her friends and the people she went with were up and around at night more than in the daytime.”

  The idea appealed to Prudence, although only a short while before she would have been aghast at the thought of moving into such a place. She made up her mind quickly without giving herself time to stop and get cold feet. It might be a wild-goose chase, but she’d never yet heard of a woman who wore two different sizes in dresses like this Florence Turner seemed to.

  “All right, I will,” she decided, “if you’ll promise two things. To let me know without fail the minute someone comes to get her things, and not to say a word to them about my coming here and asking about her.”

  “Why not?” said the manager accommodatingly. “Anything to earn an honest dollar.”

  But when the door of her new abode closed on her, a good deal of her newfound courage evaporated. She sat down limply on the edge of the bed and stared in bewilderment at her reflection in the cheap dresser mirror. “I must be crazy to do a thing like this!” she gasped. “What’s come over me anyway?” She didn’t even have her teapot with her to brew a cup of the fortifying liquid. There was nothing the matter with the room in itself, but that sinister Oriental den downstairs had a lurid red tube sign just under her window and its glare winked malevolently in at her. She imagined felt-slippered hirelings of some Fu-Manchu creeping up the stairs to snatch her bodily from her bed. It was nearly daylight before she could close her eyes. But so far as the room across the hall was concerned, as might have been expected, no one showed up.