Lady in Peril

by Ben Ames Williams

  Tope said: “I thought they were going to speak to us.”

  Miss Moss nodded. “Yes,” she agreed, and she added quietly: “The woman is afraid.”

  And then, in a decisive tone: “Inspector Tope, you spoke of Howell. His particular province is—financial matters, isn’t it? He must know people in banks, and business men, and brokers.”

  “He does,” he told her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Go to him,” she directed. “Do this for me. Have him find out as much as he can about Doctor Canter. His business affairs, whether he has suffered or prospered, his income tax returns, how much money he has had, and spent, these last two years.”

  Tope looked at her appreciatively. “Now I hadn’t thought of that,” he admitted. “Ma’am, you’re miles ahead of me. You mean, ever since he took care of Peace, after Peace’s accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will,” he assented. “I’ll see Dave, and tell you what he says, tomorrow.”

  She smiled her thanks, extended her hand.

  He took it, and for a moment he held it firmly; and there was some word he wished to say. The word came stammering to his lips, but it died there. He released her hand and she moved away. Clint called good night to him.

  When they were gone indoors, Tope took off his hat and wiped his brow; and he grinned, standing there alone. He had always a keen sense of the absurd. Certainly it was absurd enough that at his age, at three o’clock of a raw cold winter morning, on the sidewalk of an empty street, he should wish to tell a woman that he liked her.

  Still grinning, he began to walk back toward town. He might have ridden; for it was cold. But he was warm and content and comfortable. The good world pleased the man, just now.

  8

  INSPECTOR TOPE opened his eyes next morning, in that comfortable room on Boylston Street which was his home, deeply at peace; and not till full awakening banished that dreamy half-sleep which at first possessed the man, did he realize the incongruity of his present mood. Yet there was, he reminded himself then, little enough reason for contentment, or for peace. Here was a murder done; a murder which came close home to these folk who were suddenly so important in his eyes. Here was a murder done, and a fortune stolen; and yet he was content and at his ease! He sat up in bed with a shake of the head at his own folly. Murders grow cold, and thieving too! If anything were to be accomplished in this matter, it had best be quickly.

  He found the morning papers as usual in a heap outside his door; and he brought them in and during the next half hour, while he went about the business of preparing for the day, he read them with sidelong glances over the blade of his razor, or while he whipped a towel about his shoulders, or while he tugged at his socks and laced his shoes. By the time he was dressed, he had absorbed all that they had to say about the affair of the night before.

  He saw that his frankness in the matter of Clara’s flight with young Mat Hews had had its results. Charlie Harquail had written:

  Romance entered into the case late last night when it was learned that among the visitors back stage during the performance was Miss Clara Jervis, daughter of the late Dana Jervis. She and her brother Clinton spent the intermission before the second act in the dressing room of Mat Hews, juvenile star of the show.

  Mr. Hews and Miss Jervis met while they were both students in a dramatic school in California; and when the company came east to open in Boston, Miss Jervis gave up her own dramatic career and returned to her home here.

  Neither Mr. Hews nor Miss Jervis could be found last night. It is thought possible that they may be able to throw some light on the tragic happenings which took place behind the scenes during the second act.

  Tope found that the other morning papers had been equally cautious, avoiding any least suggestion that either Clara or Mat had more than an accidental connection with the murder. Two of them did print Clara’s photograph, obtained from some photographer; but this was to be expected and he was not surprised.

  The bulk of the stories inevitably, centered around the picturesque figure of Lola, Cyr, in whose dressing room the dead man’s body had been found; the legend which she had erected about herself was strengthened now. She was a modern Lorelei, the siren whose charms attracted Doctor Canter to the spot where he met his death; and none of the reporters failed to remark upon this fact. Her most alluring photographs were included in the layouts published to illustrate the stories; and Tope, reading, paused for a moment to remember the woman as he had seen her the night before, radiant with a lustrous beauty despite the fears she fought always to control.

  By the time he had dressed, he found himself hungry for breakfast. This was not usual with the old man; but he had no scruples about satisfying his appetite. He had been a pudgy, round figure for forty years and he was content with his own girth. But before he went downstairs he telephoned Dave Howell; he caught the Inspector at Headquarters, and Tope said earnestly:

  “Dave, have you got anything on Peace, since yesterday?”

  “Not a thing,” Dave confessed. “Not a line.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Tope told him. “I want to see you. I’m going down to breakfast now.” He named the restaurant. “Can you meet me there, right away?”

  “What’s up?” Howell objected doubtfully. “I’ve got a lot to do.”

  Tope hesitated; he said then: “You saw this Canter thing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Canter is the doctor who fixed Peace up after he was supposed to be hurt, two years ago.”

  There was a long silence; then Howell asked: “What of it?”

  “Come up here,” Tope insisted. “And I’ll show you.” And when Howell had agreed to come, Tope descended, and strolled along Boylston Street to the restaurant where the other man would meet him. He had not much more than ordered his orange juice and poached eggs before Howell appeared, saw Tope at his table, and came striding across the floor. Dave was always an impatient man; and he had sought Peace so long and fruitlessly that he was all an itch for action now. He asked questions; and Tope ate his eggs and wagged his head and protested:

  “Hold it, Dave, till I’m through. One thing at a time is all I could ever do.”

  So Howell perforce must wait; till when Tope by and by was done, he told as much as it seemed wise to tell.

  “So I’m interested, Dave,” he pointed out. “I like Miss Moss, and she’s wrapped up in these children, and they’re tangled up in this murder thing. So I want to take a hand. But you know Hagan. He doesn’t want me around on his heels all the time. And it’s Hagan’s case, as far as the murder goes.”

  He hesitated. “But Dave, Peace is in it, somewhere. Peace knew Doctor Canter, and Peace knew Hammond. When Peace wanted to fake that busted foot and the scar on his head, he went to Canter; and when he wanted to disappear, he went to Hammond. So they’re all mixed up together.” Howell banged the table. “Sure!”

  “Peace is in this,” Tope repeated vigorously. “That’s my hunch! And if he is, that brings you into it. I want to work with you, Dave. What do you say?”

  Howell said grimly: “Whatever you say!”

  “We’ll work together?”

  “Sure!”

  Tope nodded briskly, and he stood up and crossed to pay his check. On the sidewalk outside he turned to his companion. “All right, Dave,” he said. “Here’s the first thing! How much money did Doctor Canter have? How much did he make in the last two years? Where did it come from? Where did it go to? That’s what I want to know.”

  “I can find out,” Howell assured him. “But it may take a little while.”

  “How long?”

  “An hour, a week, a month. I can’t tell,” Dave admitted. “I might get a break.”

  Tope said seriously: “Dave, hurry!”

  “Sure!”

  “You can telephone me,” the older man directed. “I’m going up to the Jervis Trust to see Miss Moss. You might catch me there!”

  And when Howell was gone to do the task assi
gned, Tope swung away toward Tremont Street; he crossed the street and took the broad walk across the Common. The day was raw and cold as March can be cold in Boston; but the Inspector had no complaints of the weather. He strode along at a surprising speed, his hands swinging at his sides in a fashion almost youthful; and when he came to Tremont Street again, he stopped at a flower shop and bought a blossom for his buttonhole.

  He was tempted to take a cluster of flowers to Miss Moss; but his courage would not as yet carry him so far. In fact, as he drew nearer the Jervis Trust offices, he began to be doubtful of this blossom on his lapel; he looked down at it sidewise with an uncertain eye, and his pink cheeks were more pink than usual. Yet he wore it bravely as far as the foot of the stairs that led up to the Trust offices. Then his courage failed, he took it out of his buttonhole, and stood wondering what to do with it, till someone at his elbow said cheerfully:

  “Good morning, Inspector!”

  It was Miss Moss herself, here beside him. Inspector Tope coughed till he strangled, with sheer embarrassment, and he dropped the small flower, and she picked it up.

  “Is it faded?” she asked. “Why no, it’s quite fresh. Did you mean to throw it away?”

  Inspector Tope’s face was crimson, and then he laughed at himself. “Why ma’am,” he confessed, “I just bought it. To wear.”

  “You like flowers?”

  “I never thought much about them,” the Inspector admitted; but he added, his courage quickening: “Only, this morning, I was on my way to see you I”

  She smiled, with a quick dip of her head, as though this were explanation enough, and she said: “Here, wear it, then!” And she replaced it on his lapel. When they went together up the stairs, Tope thought she must hear his heart, it pounded so.

  So they came into the Trust offices. Clint was already here. He looked up at their entrance and nodded, and Miss Moss crossed to her desk, the Inspector close beside her. She stripped off her gloves, and she said apologetically:

  “I’m late this morning. I stopped in to see Miss Cyr.”

  “Eh?” Tope asked in surprise. “Oh, yes!”

  “She and Mr. Hammond live two floors below us, in our apartment building,” Miss Moss reminded him. “You remember, we saw them go in, last night.”

  “That’s right,” the Inspector agreed.

  “So—I stopped in to see her,” Miss Moss repeated. “I was rather touched by her manner last night. She was so terrified—and so brave. With something pitiful in her very courage.” Tope nodded. “How is she?” he asked. “And Hammond? You see him, too?”

  “They rise late,” Miss Moss confessed. “I suppose all theatrical people do. He was still abed, I think. She was breakfasting, a tray in bed.”

  Tope’s thoughts were always apt to play around the facets of a fact, considering all its implications. “I don’t suppose they would have the same bed,” he remarked, as though agreeing with something she had said.

  “No; separate rooms, evidently,” Miss Moss assented. They were sitting at her desk, their tones low. Letters waited her attention here, but she paid no heed to them. The telephone rang, and Clint looked toward her, and she nodded to him so that he came to answer it. And Tope asked:

  “Did you find out anything more?”

  “I wanted to ask her a question,” Miss Moss explained. “It seemed to me important. Of course, I don’t know anything about—investigations and such things. But I wanted to ask her whether she knew Doctor Canter was coming, last night.”

  “Did she?” Tope inquired.

  “She expected him to come for her after the performance,” Miss Moss told him. “Not before that.”

  “So she didn’t know he’d be there during the second act?”

  “No one knew he would be there,” Miss Moss agreed. “Until he came. Then of course Mr. Hammond saw him come in, and Clara, and Mr. Hews, and Miss Ransom, and Clint, and others, probably.”

  Tope looked at his hands where they rested on his knees. He raised his eyes to her and smiled; and he said slowly: “Ma’am, I’ve told you before, you’re miles ahead of me. I can tell, the way you talk, you think this matters; but I don’t see why?”

  “It must mean two things,” she pointed out. “It must mean that the killing wasn’t planned in advance, because no one knew Doctor Canter would be there. So the opportunity was an accident. But to seize that opportunity, whoever killed him must have known where the Doctor was, and must have known just when the shooting on the stage would cover the sound of his own shot; and he must have known how to get to Miss Cyr’s dressing room without being seen, and how to get away again.”

  Tope considered, and he nodded slowly. “Yes,” he agreed. “Yes, that’s so. Someone who meant to kill him, or wanted to kill him, or wished he was dead, saw the chance, and knew how to seize it. That does narrow it down some.”

  “That narrows it, yes,” she said.

  “It might have been any one of—several people, at that,” he pointed out; and his eyes, following his thought, looked across the room to where Clint had returned to his work, after answering the telephone. Miss Moss saw his glance; and when he did not speak, she called Clint. The young man came toward them.

  “What was the phone call, Clint?” she asked.

  The boy reported: “That was Michelsen, up at the apartment. He says they’ll need coal by the first of next week. The winter has been cold, so we’ve used more than usual. The bins are low.”

  Miss Moss nodded. “Thank you, Clint,” she said; and the young man nodded and went back to his files. Miss Moss watched Inspector Tope as his glance followed Clint; and when he turned back to her again she asked with a faint smile:

  “You still think he might have done it?”

  He chuckled. “What made you think I was—thinking that?”

  “He had threatened to kill the Doctor, and he was there, and he knew the routine of the play,” she reminded him, and added: “Also, I saw you look at him.”

  “Ma’am,” he protested, “I’ll be careful where I look from now on.” He shook his head. “No, it wasn’t him.” And he added: “Nor it wasn’t Hammond. Nor Miss Cyr. Nor Hews, nor Miss Jervis.”

  She said ruefully: “Thank you for that last name. I wish I were sure.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  ‘T was sure last night. Today I’m not.”

  “You haven’t heard from her, or Hews?”

  “No,” she admitted; and then she smiled. “Nor has Hagan,” she added. “There was a policeman outside the apartment this morning; and a man stood across the street watching you and me when we came in here.”

  “You think she might have?” he insisted. “You think she’s capable of it?”

  Miss Moss hesitated. “I am thinking about Mat Hews,” she confessed. “He loves Clara, and she loves him, I think. In fact, I am sure. But—why did he take her away?”

  Tope nodded. “There is that,” he admitted.

  “Mat tried so hard to take care of her,” she reminded him. “You remember at dinner, when Kay started to tell us about Lola’s new swain, Mat silenced her. And he told Clara not to come back stage. That was because he was afraid of her meeting Doctor Canter.”

  The Inspector exclaimed: “That’s how you guessed it was Doctor Canter who had been killed!”

  She nodded. “It seemed incredible,” she admitted. “But I knew it must be he. Instinct, intuition, something.”

  And she continued: “Then you remember what Miss Cyr said about how Mat hunted all around her dressing room, with his handkerchief in his hand?” Tope assented soundlessly; and she explained: “He saw the gun there, I think, and he knew Clara had had it. So he took his handkerchief and wiped the doorknob, the door jambs, the edge of the dressing table, everything that would take a finger print.” Tope chuckled. “I remember, you told Hagan that,” he said.

  “Everything he did was done to protect her,” Miss Moss urged. “But if she did not do this, it was folly to let her run away.”

 
; “That was foolish,” Tope confessed. “But the boy might lose his head.” He added, smiling faintly: “If I was his age, I’d run away with her myself, if she’d go.”

  “But don’t you see?” Miss Moss insisted miserably. “It means he thinks she did it! It may mean she told him sol” Tope sat thoughtful for a while, considering this; but in the end he shook his head. “No ma’am” he said at last. “No, you’re wrong there. A man don’t think the girl he loves did a thing like this.” He chuckled. “I’ll tell you what they’ve done!” he declared in a sudden inspiration.

  “What?” she asked, a deep concern in her tones. “They’ve gone to get married!” Tope predicted. “They’ll get married, somewhere, and come back here!”

  Miss Moss cried: “This is no time for marrying!”

  But the Inspector cheerfully insisted: “The. time for marrying is whenever you can talk the right woman into it! Being married is a good thing, ma’am. I’ve watched people long enough to be sure of that. It’s good for a man and for a woman too. It’s best if there’s some love mixed up in it; but it’s good anyway. A man needs a woman, and a woman needs a man. No, any time at all is a good time for marrying.”

  She said, half to herself: “I have never married. Clara and Clint have been—my children, I suppose.”

  A moment’s silence held them; then he went on: “You see, Mat wouldn’t want to have to tell all he knew about Clara, and the gun, and you can’t make a husband testify against his wife. Law don’t allow it.” He chuckled. “Guess the law figures it’s better to let a murderer get off than to start a row like that between a man and his wife. Hews knew the law, I’ll bet. Wait and see.”

  She said doubtfully: “It may be; but it doesn’t sound plausible, to me. I don’t believe Mat knew anything about such a law. And even if he did, there were others who knew Clara had the gun. Clint and Kay at least. And Kay would certainly tell!”

  But Tope urged: “Now ma’am, you’re just tormenting yourself. Let’s quit worrying and try to figure this out.” He spoke more vigorously, anxious to make her forget these fears. “It was someone back stage, someone who belonged back there, who killed Doctor Canter. Hagan will be checking up on them all.” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Or it might have been Peace. That notion sticks in my head. You remember anybody in the show that might have been him; anyone the right size?”