The Cases of Hildegarde Withers

by Palmer, Stuart

  “She was,” Piper told her. “We’ve checked up on the kid. Ran away from an Albany high school to make her fortune as a song-writer, so she’s even younger than you thought. Been in New York five months and got nothing but rejections. Yesterday afternoon she got another one and she waited until everyone else had gone, and bumped herself off. Left a suicide note on the piano, too.” The Inspector handed over the brown envelope. “Wrote it on the envelope which held the bad news—her rejected manuscript. And notice how firm and steady the writing is, right to the last word almost.”

  Miss Withers noticed. She bent to squint over the rhymed note. She saw:

  “Good-bye, good-bye I cry

  A long and last good-bye

  Good-bye to Broadway and the lights

  Good-bye sad days and lonely nights

  I’ve waited alone

  To sing this last song Good-bye . .

  . .

  . .

  . .

  . .”

  She read it through again. “She didn’t sign it,” Piper went on. “But it’s her handwriting all right. Checks with the manuscript of the rejected song in the envelope, and also with a letter in her handbag that she was going to mail.”

  “A letter?” Miss Withers handed back the envelope. But the letter was a disappointment. It was a brief note to the Metropolitan Gas Company, promising that a check would be mailed very shortly to take care of the overdue bill, and signed “Margery Thorens.”

  Miss Withers gave it back. She took the tiny handbag that had been the dead girl’s, and studied it for a moment. “She had a miniature fountain pen, I see,” said the school teacher. “It writes, too. Wonder why she used a pencil?”

  “Well, use it she did, because here it is.” Piper handed her the long yellow pencil which had laid on the floor. The school teacher looked at it for a long time.

  “The picture is complete,” said Piper jovially. “There’s only one tiny discrepancy, and that doesn’t matter.”

  Miss Withers wanted to know what it was. “Only this,” said the Inspector. “We know the time she died, because she smashed her wrist watch in her death throes. That was five minutes to six. But at that hour it’s pretty dark—and this is the first time I ever heard of a suicide going off in the dark. They usually want the comfort of a light.”

  “Perhaps,” said Miss Withers, “perhaps she died earlier, and the watch was wrong? Or it might have run a little after she died?”

  The Inspector shook his head. “The watch was too badly smashed to run a tick after she fell,” he said. “Main stem broken. And she must have died after dark because there was somebody here in the offices until around five-thirty. I tell you…”

  He was interrupted by a sergeant in a baggy blue uniform. “Reese has just come in, Inspector. I told him you said he should wait in his office.”

  “Right!” Oscar Piper turned to Miss Withers. “Reese is the boss of this joint, and ought to give us a line on the girl. Come along if you like.”

  Miss Withers liked. She followed him into the outer office and through a door marked “Arthur Reese, Private.” The Inspector introduced her as his stenographer.

  Reese burst out, a little breathlessly, with, “What a thing to happen—here! I came down as soon as I heard. What a—”

  “What a thing to happen anywhere,” Miss Withers said under her breath.

  “Poor little Margie!” finished the man at the desk.

  Piper grew suddenly Inspectorish. “Margie, eh? You knew her quite well, then?”

  “Of course!” Reese was as open as a book. “She’s been hounding the life out of me for months because I have the reputation of sometimes publishing songs by beginners. But what could I do? She had more ambition than ability. …”

  “You didn’t know her personally, then?”

  Reese shook his head. “Naturally, I took a friendly interest in her, but anyone in my office will tell you that I never run around with would-be song writers. It would make things too difficult. Somebody is always trying to take advantage of friendship, you know.”

  “When did you last see the Thorens girl?” Piper cut in.

  Reese turned and looked out of the window. “I am very much afraid,” he said, “that I was the last person to see her alive. If I had only known…”

  “Get this, Hildegarde!” commanded Piper.

  “I am and shall,” she came back.

  “Several weeks ago,” began Reese, “Margie Thorens submitted to me a song called Tennessee Sweetheart, in manuscript form. It was her fifth or sixth attempt, but it was a lousy—I beg your pardon, a terrible song. Couldn’t publish it. Last night she came in, and I gave her the bad news. Made it as easy as I could, but she looked pretty disappointed. I had to rush off and leave her, as I had an appointment for five-thirty with Larry Foley, the radio crooner. So I saw her last in the reception room where she died—it must have been five-thirty or a little earlier.”

  Miss Withers whispered to the Inspector. “Oh,” said he, “how did you know that the Thorens girl died in the reception room?”

  “I didn’t,” admitted Reese calmly. “I guessed it. You haven’t got that cop standing guard at the broken door for exercise. Anyway, I was a few minutes late for my date because of the rain, but I met Foley at about twenty to six. He’ll testify to that, and fifty others.”

  Piper nodded. He took a glittering gadget from his pocket. “Can you identify this, Mr. Reese?”

  Reese studied the watch. “On first glance, I should say that it was Margie’s. But I wouldn’t know…”

  “You wouldn’t know, then, if it was usually on time?”

  Reese was thoughtful. “Of course I wouldn’t. But Margie was usually on time, if that is anything. I said when she phoned me yesterday morning that I’d see her if she came in at quarter to five, and on the dot she arrived. I was busy, and she had to wait.”

  The Inspector started to put the watch back into its envelope, but Miss Withers held out her hand. She wrinkled her brows above it, as the Inspector put his last question.

  “You don’t know, then, anything about any private love affairs Miss Thorens might have had?”

  “Absolutely not. I don’t even know where she lived, or anything except that she came from somewhere upstate—Albany I think it was. One of her attempts at song-writing was titled Amble to Albany.”

  Piper and the music publisher walked slowly out of the office, toward where a wicker basket was being swiftly carried through a broken door by two brawny men in white. Miss Withers lingered behind to study the wrist watch which had been Margie Thorens’. It was a trumpery affair with a square modernistic face. Miss Withers found it hard to tell time by such a watch. She noted that the minute hand pointed to five before the hour, and that the hour hand was in the exactly opposite direction. She put it safely away, and hurried after the Inspector.

  With the departure of the mortal remains of Margie Thorens, the offices of Arthur Reese and Company seemed to perk up a bit. The red-haired Miss Kelly returned to her desk outside Reese’s office, wearing a dress which Miss Withers thought cut a bit too low in front for business purposes. The clerks and stenographers were permitted to fill the large room again, somewhere a man began to bang very loudly upon a piano, and an office boy rushed past Miss Withers with a stack of sheet music fresh from the printer’s.

  “Well, we’ll be off,” said the Inspector suddenly, in her ear.

  Miss Hildegarde Withers jumped. “Eh? Well what?”

  “We’ll leave. This case is plain as the nose—I mean, plain as day. Nothing here for the Homicide Squad.”

  “Naturally,” said Miss Withers. But her thoughts were somewhere else.

  The Inspector had learned to heed her suggestions. “Anything wrong? You haven’t found anything that I’ve missed, have you?”

  Hildegarde Withers shook her head. “That’s just the trouble,” she said. “I’m beginning to suspect myself of senility.”

  “Tell me,” said Miss Withers
that evening, “just what are the clues which spell suicide so surely?”

  “First, the locked door to insure privacy,” said the Inspector. “Second, the suicide note, for it’s human nature to leave word behind. Third, the motive—in this case, melancholy. Fourth, the suicide must be an emotional, neurotic person. Get me?”

  “Clear as crystal,” said Hildegarde Withers. “But granted that a girl chooses to die in darkness, why does she write a suicide note in darkness? And why does she bend a pencil?”

  “But the pencil wasn’t bent!”

  “Exactly!” said Hildegarde Withers, thoughtfully.

  To all intents and purposes, that ended the Thorens case. Inspector Oscar Piper turned his attention to weightier matters. Medical Examiner Bloom reported, on completion of the autopsy, that the deceased had met death at her own hands through taking a lethal dose of cyanide of potassium, probably obtained in a college or high school laboratory, or perhaps from a commercial orchard spray.

  Miss Hildegarde Withers attended to her usual duties down at Jefferson School, and somewhere in the back of her mind a constant buzzing continued to bother her. The good lady was honestly bewildered by her own stubbornness. It was perfectly possible that the obvious explanation was the true one. For the life of her she could think of no other that fit even some of the known facts. And yet—

  On Tuesday, the fourth day after the death of Margie Thorens, Miss Withers telephoned to Inspector Piper, demanding further information. “Ask Max Van Donnen how long the girl could have lived after taking the poison, will you?”

  But the old German laboratory expert had not analyzed the remains, said Piper. Dr. Bloom had summarized the findings of the autopsy—and Margie Thorens had died an instant death. In her vital organs was a full grain of cyanide of potassium, one of the quickest known poisons.

  “She couldn’t have taken the poison and then written the note?” asked Miss Withers.

  “Impossible,” said the Inspector. “But what in the name of—”

  Miss Withers had hung up. Again she had struck a stone wall. But too many stone walls were in themselves proof that something was a little wrong in this whole business.

  That afternoon Miss Withers called upon a Mrs. Blenkinsop, the landlady who operated the rooming house in which Margie Thorens had lived. She found that lady fat, dingy, and sympathetic.

  “I read in the papers that the poor darling is to be sent home to her aunt in Albany, and that her class is to be let out of high school to be honorary pallbearers,” said Mrs. Blenkinsop. “Such a quiet one she was, the poor child. But it’s them that runs deep.”

  Miss Withers agreed to this.

  “Do you suppose I could see her rooms?”

  “Of course,” agreed the landlady. “Everything is just as she left it, because her rent was paid till the end of April, and that’s a week yet.” She led the way up a flight of stairs. “You know, the strangest thing about the whole business was her going off and making no provision for her pets. You’d a thought—”

  “Pets?”

  The landlady threw open a door. “Yes’m. A fine tortoise shell cat, and a bird. A happy family if ever I saw one. I guess Miss Thorens was lonesome here in the city, and she gave all her love to them. Feed and water ’em I’ve done ever since I heard the news…” She snapped her fat fingers as they came into a dark, bare room furnished with little more than the bare necessities of life. It was both bedroom and sitting room, with the kitchenette in a closet and a bath across the hall. One large window looked out upon bare rooftops. One glance told Miss Withers that the room existed only for the rented grand piano which stood near the window.

  Mrs. Blenkinsop snapped her fingers again, and a rangy, half-grown cat arose from the bed and stretched itself. “Nice Pussy,” said Mrs. Blenkinsop.

  Pussy refused to be patted, and as soon as she had made sure that neither visitor carried food she returned to her post on the pillow. Both great amber eyes were staring up at the gilt cage which hung above the piano, in the full light of the window. Inside the cage was a small yellow canary, who eyed the intruders balefully and muttered, “Cheep, cheep.”

  “I’ve got no instructions about her things, poor darling,” said the landlady. “I suppose they’ll want me to pack what few clothes she had. If nobody wants Pussy, I’ll keep her, for there’s mice in the basement. I don’t know what to do with the bird, for I hate the dratted things. I got a radio, anyhow. …”

  The woman ran on interminably. Miss Withers listened carefully, but she soon saw that Mrs. Blenkinsop knew less about Margie Thorens than she did herself. The woman was sure, she insisted, that Margie had never had men callers in her room.

  More than anything, Miss Withers wanted to look around, though she knew the police had done a routine job already. She wondered if she must descend to the old dodge of the fainting spell and the request for a glass of water, but she was saved from it by a ring at the bell downstairs.

  “I won’t be a minute,” promised Mrs. Blenkinsop. She hastened out of the door. Miss Withers made a hurried search of bureau drawers, of the little desk, the music on the piano…and found nothing that gave her an inkling. There were reams of music paper, five or six rejected songs in manuscript form…that was the total. The room had no character.

  Miss Withers sat down at the piano and struck a chord. If only this instrument, Margie’s one outlet in the big city, could speak! There was a secret here somewhere…for the understanding eye and heart to discover. Miss Withers let her fingers ramble over the keys, in the few simple chords she knew. And then the canary burst into song!

  “Dickie!” said the school teacher. “You surprise me.” All canaries are named Dickie, and none of them know it. The bird sang on, improvising, trilling, swinging gaily by its tiny talons from the bottom of its trapeze. Miss Withers realized that there was a rare singer indeed. Her appreciation was shared by Pussy, who dug shining claws into the cover of the bed and narrowed his amber eyes. The song went on and on. …

  Miss Withers thought of something. She had once read that the key to a person’s character lies in the litter which accumulates beneath the paper in his bureau drawers. She hurried back to the bureau, and explored again. She found two dance programs, a stub of pencil, pins, a button, and a smashed cigarette, beneath the lining.

  She was about to replace the paper when she heard someone ascending the stairs. That would be Mrs. Blenkinsop. Hastily she jammed the wearing apparel back in the drawer, and thrust the folded newspaper which had lined it into her handbag. When the door opened she was talking to the still twittering canary.

  She took her departure as soon as she could, leaving Mrs. Blenkinsop completely in the dark as to the reasons for her call. “I hope you’re not from a tabloid,” said the landlady. “I don’t want my house to get a bad name. …”

  Down the street Miss Withers paused to take the bulky folded newspaper from her bag. But she didn’t throw it away. It was a feature story clipped from the “scandal sheet” of a Sunday paper—a story which dealt with the secrets behind some of America’s song hits, how they were adapted from classics, revamped every ten years and put out under new names, together with photographs of famous song writers.

  But the subject of the story was not what attracted Miss Withers’ eagle eye. Across the top margin of the paper a rubber stamp had placed the legend—“With the compliments of the Hotel Rex—America’s Riviera—Boardwalk.”

  “Dr. Bloom? This is Hildegarde Withers. Yes, Withers. I have a very delicate question to ask you, doctor. In making your autopsy of the Thorens girl’s body, did you happen to notice whether or not she was—er, enceinte? It is very important, doctor, or I wouldn’t bother you. If you say yes, it will turn suicide into murder.”

  “I say no,” said crusty Dr. Bloom. “I did and she wasn’t.” And that was the highest stone wall of all for Hildegarde Withers.

  “Where in heaven’s name have you been hiding yourself?” inquired the Inspector when Miss Withers en
tered his office on Friday of that week after the death of Margie Thorens.

  “I’ve been cutting classes,” she said calmly. “A substitute is enduring my troop of hellions, and I’m doing scientific research.”

  “Yeah? And in what direction?” The Inspector was in a jovial mood, due to the fact that both his Commissioner and the leading gangster of the city were out of town—not together, but still far enough out of town to insure relative peace and quiet to New York City.

  “I’m an expert locksmith,” Miss Withers told him. “I’ve spent three hours learning something about poisons from Max Van Donnen, who has forgotten more than the Medical Examiner ever knew! He says you can’t swallow a lethal dose of cyanide without dying before it gets to the stomach—unless it’s in a capsule.”

  “You’re not still hopped up about the Thorens suicide?” The Inspector was very amused. “Why, that’s the clearest, open and shut case…”

  “Oscar, did you ever hear of a murder without the ghost of a motive?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t exist,” he told her. She nodded slowly. “See you later,” she said.

  Miss Withers rode uptown on the subway, crossed over to Times Square, and came into the offices of Arthur Reese, Music Publisher.

  The red-headed Miss Kelly looked up with a bright smile. “Mr. Reese is very busy just now,” she said. Miss Withers took a chair, and stared around the long office. It was a scene of redoubled activity since her last visit, with vaudevillians, song-pluggers, office boys and radio artists rushing hither and yon. On the wall opposite her was an enlargement in colors of the cover of the new song, May Day—by Art Reese. On every desk and table were stacks of copies of the new song, May Day.

  “So Mr. Reese is a composer as well as a publisher?” Miss Withers asked conversationally.

  Miss Kelly was in a friendly mood. “Oh, yes! You know, he wrote that big hit, Sunny Jim, which is how he got started in the music business. Of course, that was before I came here. …”