Ahead of him he could see a man's head and shoulders. The man was halfway down one of the basement flights of stairs. His head and shoulders moved back and forth in a sort of a jigging rhythm. Approaching, Jones saw that he was sweeping up the stairs of the basement. He swept in careful, calculating little dabs, as precisely as if he were painting a picture with his broom.
"Hi," said Jones, stopping and standing on his left foot.
The man made another dab with his broom, inspected the result, and then looked up at Jones. He was an old man, small and shrunken and wiry, with white, smooth hair that was combed straight back from his softly plastic face. He nodded silently at Jones, solemn and wordless.
"Hendrick Boone live here?" Jones asked.
The old man sniffed and rubbed his nose. "Who?"
"Hendrick Boone."
The old man considered for a moment. "Live where?"
"Here," said Jones.
"Yes," said the old man.
Jones stared at him sourly. "Thanks a lot," he said at last.
"Oh, that's all right," the old man said, and smiled.
Jones went up the stairs, grunting painfully, and, when he got to the top, leaned over and pinched the toe of his right rubber and muttered to himself under his breath. He straightened up and looked at the closed double doors ahead of him. There was a narrow frosted-glass panel in each one, and the pair of stiff-legged storks, with toothpick beaks depicted on them, leered disdainfully at him with opposite eyes. Jones looked around for a doorbell, finally located a little iron lever that protruded out of a slit in one of the doors. He pulled it down and then up again, and a bell made a dismal blink-blink-blink sound inside.
Jones waited, standing on his left foot, and the door opened slowly, squeaking a little. Jones touched his hat and said: "Hello. Is Mr. Hendrick Boone here, and if so, can I talk to him for a minute?"
"He's not here. He's really not here."
"Oh," said Jones.
She was a very small woman with gray hair that was puffed up in a wide knot on the top of her head. She wore thick, rimless glasses and behind them her eyes were a distorted blue, wide and a little frightened and anxious to please. She wore a long skirt that rustled and a white waist with lace stiffen the front. She had a timid, wavering smile.
"Where is he?" Jones asked.
"He's in the hospital."
"Hospital?" Jones repeated.
"Yes. He fell downstairs. Are you the man from the installment company?"
"No," said Jones. "I'm a detective, believe it or not. I know I don't look like one. I can't help that. I didn't pick this face, and, to tell the truth, I don't think so much of it myself."
"Oh, but he didn't do it! Really he didn't, officer! He couldn't have, you see. He's been in the hospital, and his condition is very serious, really if is, and he couldn't have done it."
"Done what?" said Jones.
She moved her hands a little, helplessly. "Well--well, whatever you think he did. Was it--windows again?"
"Windows?" Jones asked.
"I mean, did you think he broke some windows, like he usually does?"
"He makes a habit of breaking windows?"
She nodded. "Oh, yes. But only plate glass ones."
"Particular, huh? What does he break windows for?"
Her sallow face flushed slightly. "He sees his image. You know, his reflection. And he thinks he is following himself again. He thinks he is spying on himself. And so he breaks the windows."
"Well, maybe it's a good idea," said Jones. "Is he ever troubled with pink elephants?"
"Yes, he is. He often sees them walking on the ceiling when he wakes up in the morning."
"What does he do for them?"
"Oh, he always saves a half pint, and as soon as he drinks that they go away."
"I should think they would," said Jones. "I'm still talking about Hendrick Boone, by the way? Are you?"
"Yes. My husband."
"Oh," said Jones. "You're Mrs. Boone. Could I come in and sit down and speak to you for a moment? I've got some news for you, and besides my feet hurt."
"Oh, yes. Surely. Excuse me, please. I was a little flustered when you said 'detective'--"
The hall was dark and small and narrow with a carpeted staircase running up steeply just to the right of the front door. The wallpaper was a stained brownish-black. There was a hole worn in the carpet at the foot of the stairs.
"Right in here," Mrs. Boone said anxiously.
It was the parlor that stretched across the narrow front of the house. The furniture was stiff and awkward, mellowed with age, and there was a clumsy cut-glass chandelier that had been originally designed to burn gas.
Jones sat down on a sofa that creaked mournfully under him and looked down at his feet, wincing involuntarily.
"Now," said Mrs. Boone. She was sitting primly upright, looking very small against the high carved back of the chair, with her hands folded on her lap and smiling a little, timidly. "Now--you wished to speak to me?"
Jones nodded, still thinking about his feet. "Yes. Your husband was born in Awkright, Idaho, wasn't he?"
She nodded brightly. "Yes."
"Had one brother--by the name of Semus Boone?"
"Yes."
"Not any more," said Jones. "Semus Boone died a couple of months ago."
"Oh," said Mrs. Boone. She was silent for a moment. "We hadn't seen him for over twenty years. He didn't like Hendrick. He invited us to a Christmas party, and Hendrick took a drop too much and broke the plate glass window in Semus' living room. Semus was very angry."
"He must have gotten over it," said Jones. "He left your husband all his money."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Boone. She smiled vaguely. "Was it enough to pay his funeral expenses?"
Jones nodded. "Yes. And a little bit to spare. About a million and a half."
Mrs. Boone's hands gripped tight. Her eyes glazed behind the thick glasses, and her lips moved soundlessly. After a while she drew a deep breath. "You're not--joking?"
"No," said Jones.
"You're--you're sure there's no mistake?"
"No," said Jones. "I don't make mistakes--not when there's a million and a half in the pot. I've been hunting your husband for two months."
"A million and a half!" said Mrs. Boone dreamily.
"Yes," said Jones. "Your husband can't touch the principal, though. It's in trust. That's where I come in. I'm an investigator for the Suburban Mortgage and Trust Company. The company's the trustee--handles the principal. Your husband gets the income--he and his heirs and assigns and what not--for twenty years. Then the principal sum goes to certain charities. The income amounts to over a thousand a week."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Boone. "Oh!" Her eyes began to gleam behind the glasses, and she swallowed. "Sarah!" she called, and there was a gasping catch in her voice. "Sarah! Sarah!"
There was the flip-flop of slippers in the hall, and a girl came and stopped in the doorway. She had a wide red mouth and cigarette drooping in the corner of it that slid a smooth blue stream of smoke up past her cheek and the faded blondness of her hair. She was big and heavy-boned, but had a lazy, cat-like gracefulness. Her eyes were a deep-sea blue, set far apart. They were narrowed sullenly now, and she looked Jones up and down.
"Well," she said. "And now what?"
She wore a blue kimono with the sleeves rolled back and was wiping her hands on a towel. Her forearms were white and smoothly muscled. There were birthmarks on both of them.
"Sarah," said Mrs. Boone. "This gentleman here just came to tell us that your Uncle Semus died."
"Too bad," said Sarah. "What'd he do--bite himself on the tongue and die of hydrophobia?"
"No," said Jones. "As a matter of fact he had a heart attack."
"Somebody must have cheated him out of a nickel," said Sarah. "That would do it, all right."
"Don't speak ill of the dead," Mrs. Boone said in a gently reproving voice. "He left your father a lot of money."
"How much?"
"The income from a million and a half," Jones told her.
Sarah's wide set eyes blinked once and then narrowed slowly. "Oh yeah? What's the gag, mister?"
"No gag," Jones said. "I don't have anything to do with it. The trust company that handles the principal hired me to find you, and here you are. I'm through."
"A million and a half," said Sarah slowly. "About how much would that be a month?"
"Around five thousand."
Sarah's breath made a little hissing sound between her white teeth. "Five thousand a month! The old man will drink himself to death in a week."
"Won't make any difference to you if he does," Jones said. "The income will go to your mother in that case."
"Oh," said Sarah thoughtfully. "It would, hey? That's something that needs a little thinking about."
Jones got up. "I'll run down and see Mr. Boone before I leave town."
Mrs. Boone blinked at him, worried. "He's in the City Hospital. But, I don't know. He's really pretty seriously ill. I don't know whether they'll let you in his room."
"I just want to look at him," Jones said. "I'll have to put it in my report. You say he fell?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Boone. "He came home late, and he was--"
"Fried," said Sarah. "Drunk as a skunk. He crawled up the front steps and started walking around in circles looking for the front door and fell down again. He cracked his noggin on the sidewalk. He'll get over it, though, I'm afraid."
"Sarah," said Mrs. Boone. "Sarah, now. He's your father."
"That's your fault," said Sarah. "Not mine."
"Well, I'll be going," Jones said.
"Mr. Morganwaite," Mrs. Boone said brightly, getting up with a sudden swish of her long skirt. "I must tell him! He'll be so pleased! I won't have to worry--" She hurried out of the room.
"Morganwaite?" Jones said inquiringly, looking at Sarah.
"He's an old stooge we keep around to clean up the joint now and then," Sarah told him. "He takes care of the old man when he gets potted. You probably saw him when you came in. He was sweepin' the basement stairs."
"Oh, yes," Jones said. "Well, so long."
"So long," Sarah said. "Lots of thanks, mister, for coming around and doing a Santa Claus for us."
Jones smiled. "I got paid for it." He went down the dark hall and out the doors past the two storks that were still leering at him and the world in general.
The city hospital was a great square pile of brick, masonry and steel that covered a complete city block. Three hours after he had visited the Boones, Jones rode up and down on seven elevators and limped through a mile and a half of silent cork-floored corridors and finally located the section he wanted. He went in through a glass door in a glass partition that blocked off the short end of a hall. There was a middle-aged woman sitting behind a flat desk in a little cubby-hole off the corridor.
"Yes?" she said. Her voice had a low, practiced hush, and her face looked as stiff and white and starched as her uniform and cap.
"Hendrick Boone?" Jones inquired wearily.
She nodded. "Mr. Boone is in Room Eighteen Hundred."
"Hah!" said Jones triumphantly, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Can I see him?"
"No. Mr. Boone is allowed to receive no visitors except the members of his immediate family. His condition is very serious."
"I'm not a visitor," said Jones. "I just want to look at him. Don't worry--it's not curiosity. It's my job. I was hired to find him."
"He's here."
"Look," said Jones. "How do you think that would sound in my report? I can't say I think he's here, or he's supposed to be here, or somebody by his name is here, or you told me he's here. I got to know he's here. I've got to see him. They're not paying me for guessing."
The nurse regarded him silently.
"Just a peek," said Jones. "Just open his door and give me a squint. I've got his picture and description. I won't say a word to him."
The nurse picked up a precisely sharpened pencil, opened a leather-bound notebook. "Your name, please?"
"Jones," said Jones.
"Your first name?"
"Just Jones."
The nurse looked up at him, and her lips tightened a little.
"All right," said Jones quickly. "Don't get mad. You asked for it, and that's really my name--just plain Jones. J. P. Jones. See, my mother had a lot of kids, and she always thought she ought to give them something fancy in the way of first names on account of there being lots of Joneses around. She named 'em Horatius and Alvimina and Evangeline and things like that. But she began to run out of names pretty soon, and she had an awful time with Number Twelve. She said: 'If there's any more, I'm not going to all this trouble. The next one is going to be just plain Jones.' So here I am."
The nurse wrote in her book. "Address?"
"Suburban Mortgage and Trust--New York City."She closed the notebook, laid the pencil carefully beside it. "This way, please." She went along the hall to the last door on the right and, standing in front of it, turned to look at Jones. "You are not to speak to him. You understand?"
"Right," said Jones.
The door swished a little, opening slowly. The room was a small one, and the high iron bed was in the corner beside the big window. The man in the bed made a bulging mound of the covers. He was lying on his back, and there was a white bandage like an adhesive and gauze skullcap on his head. There was something the matter with his face.
The nurse made a gasping sound, and her starched stiffness seemed to crack. She ran across to the bed, and Jones trailed right behind her. She fumbled under the covers, found the man's limply slack wrist. It was a thick wrist, big-boned, and the hand was big and square and powerful.
The nurse's voice was breathlessly small. "No--pulse. He strangled himself--"
"He didn't have to do it, himself," Jones said. "He had some help." He pointed to the red blotches, slowly turning dark now, on the thick throat.
"Pulmotor," the nurse said, and started for the door.
Jones caught her arm, spun her around. "No. A pulmotor won't do him any good. Look at the color of those marks on his throat. Who came to see him this afternoon?"
The nurse jerked against his grip. "His daughter. She left a half hour ago. Said--he was asleep."
"He was, all right," said Jones. "You sure it was his daughter? Sarah? You've seen her before?"
"Yes--yes. Let go!"
"You sure it was Sarah?" Jones repeated. "You positively saw her?"
"Yes! She was veiled, but her arms--the birthmarks--"
"Oh, yeah," said Jones. "Anybody else come?"
"No!" She twisted free, ran out the door.
Jones looked closely at the face of the man on the bed. It was Hendrick
Boone. Jones went out of the room. There was no one in sight in the corridor, and he went out through the glass partition and walked along the hall until he found a stairway and went down it.
In five minutes, he came out in the main entrance hall of the hospital and entered one of the public telephone booths beside the reception desk. He consulted the directory, finally deposited a nickel and dialed a number. He could hear the telephone at the other end ring and ring. It rang for a long time while Jones squinted at the black hard-rubber mouthpiece in front of him and muttered to himself inaudibly. Finally, the line clicked.
"Hello," a voice said casually.
"Is Sarah Boone there?" Jones asked.
"Who?"
"Sarah Boone."
"Where?"
Jones drew a deep breath. "Oh, it's you again, is it? Listen, Morganwaite, this is Jones, the detective that was there this morning. I want to know if Sarah Boone is there and by there I mean where you are. Now, quit playing around and answer me."
"No," said Morganwaite.
Jones choked and then recovered himself. "Are you saying no, you won't answer me, or no, she isn't there?"
"No, she isn't here."
"Is Mrs. Boone there?"
"No. She left as soon as she got Sarah's message."
"Message?" Jones said. "Sarah sent her a message?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
"Mrs. Boone told me."
The Essential Works of Norbert Davis Page 52