“My dear little girl,” protested Aunt Emma. “What a thing to say! I call her my little girl, Mr. Bennett, because she’s the daughter of my younger sister, who died (poor thing) before Ann could even know her. We’ve been like mother and—“ Emma Whittacker reminiscent, seeing Tussard come into the shop, turned abruptly into Emma Whittacker the Sharp Businesswoman “—Good day, and what can I do (or you, please?” “Hello,” said Tussard. He had one of the honey ads in his hand. “Hello, Miss Crofts. How are you, Lord Broghville? We kind of run into each other a lot today, don’t we? Well, you can get something straight for me, Miss Whittacker. You know what I mean. How about the names you sent these things to? And a little truth won’t hurt any of us. I’m getting sick of wasting time today. What do you say?”
CHAPTER NINE
AUNT EMMA said a great many things, some irrelevant as Moses, some indignant, some incomplete and entirely meaningless. The gist of all of them seemed to be: that she had sent out her advertisements to unfamiliar names taken at random from the telephone book, and that she thought Tussard was going too far, taking such an attitude with her.
“Yes, I know all that,” said Tussard, impervious to it all. “Just the same, you sent that murdered guy one of your ads. If you picked his name out of a hat, you can make a fortune picking tickets for the Calcutta Sweep. And that guy knew you, when he put a mark by your name. You know him.”
She looked like an uncomfortable eagle and snapped, “Who is he, then?”
“I’m asking you. And you know.”
“I don’t know! And you can’t prove I know!” Tussard’s ways worked best with criminals from billiard parlors, dance halls and cheap hotels. They coped not at all with Aunt Emma. With sympathy for him, and tact for her, Bennett intervened. His intervention moved her from bluster to apprehensive humility. Bennett began gently, putting before her the copy of the ad he had received that morning.
“Curious fact,” he said. “Forgive my mentioning it. I’m not in the directory, I’m sure. I wondered.”
“Oh,” said Aunt Emma. “I guess that was just...”
Her voice died. Her hands fluttered vaguely. Ann picked up the ad, interrupted suddenly, “Oh, you did what I told you not to do. Tell them the truth. Why didn’t you let me know what it was?”
Tussard demanded, “What’s all this?”
“Nothing much,” said Ann. “My aunt has a queer sense of proportion, that’s all. I told her not to send out those silly ads to people we knew. She said she wouldn’t. But she did. She must have. Otherwise Mr. Bennett wouldn’t have got one. I suppose she didn’t dare tell you for fear you’d pounce on her and put her in jail for knowing the murdered man. She’s scared to death of the police, you see. Or possibly because she was afraid I’d find out and scold her. She hates being scolded, don’t you, Aunt Emma? Now tell them the truth, and don’t be silly. I’m going to the Upper Court for some stamps, and you won’t be embarrassed by having me around.” Ann went. Aunt Emma was mute. Tussard said something, either, “Oh hell!” or, “Oh well!” with faint overtones of irony. Bennett solemnly examined a glass decanter until he saw Emma Whittacker draw a deep breath and get her poise. Then he became crisp and brisk, before Tussard got back from throwing his cigar out the door.
“When did you send mine?”
“Last night. I saw you in the office, you know, and Mr. Suttro told us who you were, and I thought it would be nice—”
“Quite so. When did you send the others?”
“Sunday evening. You see, I had Sunday to write the addresses, and I thought Monday morning’s mail is usually light—”
“Yes. You sent them all at once?”
“All at once. Yes.”
“How many were there?”
“Let me see. I had seventy-five from the printers.
I’ve got twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two—twenty-two left here. And one to you last night. Twenty-three from seventy-five makes how much?”
“Fifty-two,” said Tussard gruffly.
“I sent out fifty-two of these advertisements.”
“I’m sure,” said Bennett, “we agree that one of them got to the victim, since one was found in his pockets. Also we must agree that your name, my dear Miss Whit-tacker, meant something to him, since he made a mark against it as if it surprised or attracted him. Indeed. Any suggestion that the murderer himself might have taken precious minutes to mark the ad and put it in his victim’s pocket, leads us into undesirable subtleties. It would do the murderer no possible good. We may presume, then, that the victim knew you in some way, Miss Whittacker. And you, if you sent these ads to your acquaintances, knew him.”
Tussard said, “That’s the idea,” and Miss Whittacker sat down in the pangs of mental indigestion.
“Do you know the fifty-two names to which you sent those letters?”
“Yes.”
“Is one of them this crippled man?”
“No. No, that’s the—”
Tussard said, “There she goes again. Now we’re right back where we started. All right.”
The ‘All right’ went with a short gesture of deference to Bennett. Bennett said, “Do you know by sight each of the fifty-two people to whom you sent these?”
“Yes.”
“Yet the murdered man isn’t known to you?”
Aunt Emma was without affectation now, and anxious to make them believe her. She said, “I sent those things to my friends, and—I know them. You know your friends, don’t you? I don’t know that—the man who was killed. I never saw him in my life. I don’t know how he got my ad. I can’t figure it out. I don’t know how he could know my name, either. I swear to you, I never saw him before in my life.”
Tussard and Bennett exchanged glances, agreeing to believe her this time, provisionally.
“If you have the fifty-two names, Miss Whittacker, in some convenient form so that Mr. Tussard can take them with him for investigation...Necessary inquiries, I’m sure you’ll agree...I shall undertake to promise that there’ll be no embarrassment to you. Good of you to understand. Address book? Precisely the thing. Of course Mr. Tussard will return it as soon as possible. Believe me, we’re grateful for your frankness and your valuable assistance...”
Aunt Emma melted and smiled, thinking of the great Mr. Bennett as one of the most charming people in the world. She wished he didn’t have to hurry away with the policeman.
As they left, Tussard flipped through the address book. “Christien,” he said. “Holcomb, too. Levison. Suttro. Well, that means fifty-two calls I’m going to make.”
They went along Moore Lane to Eighteenth Street. Tussard gave in to ecstasies of admiration, comparatively, when he admitted to Bennett, “I tell you, sir, that’s a pretty nice line you got, if you ask me.”
Bennett said, “Ah!” He didn’t know exactly what a ‘line’ was.
2.
They parted when Bennett could find a cab and fit his bulk into it.
“I’ll be seeing you, sir?”
“Yes. Dare say you’ll have information about those names this evening?”
“Hope to. Getting right at it. Maybe that cripple will hook up with Emma Whittacker after all, with him carrying her ad around.”
“Perhaps.”
“Where you off to now, sir?”
“Ah? The park. Where there are birds.”
“That ought to be nice. Well, I’ll be running along, Mr. Bennett. Thanks a lot for busting the old lady...” Tussard stepped into the stream of passers-by and lost himself like one gray monkey among a cageful. Bennett told the driver, “Go round the block. Stop when I rap with my stick.” Bennett rapped when the cab had almost completed a circle. He descended at the door of the Chelsac Theatre offices. The reporters had vanished.
Lowes Levison was alone in his office when the page boy brought Bennett to him. Levison sat brooding at his desk. Neither bright nor cynical now, but grave, and curiously absent-minded and indifferent, he made a poor forced show of welcoming Bennett. He said,
“I really didn’t expect you today.”
“Dare say.”
“Don’t mind me if I’m pretty useless to you. I have these occasional fits of indigestion.”
“Indeed?”
Levison’s face had become solemn and haggard in the hours since Bennett had last seen him. With some determination that came into his mind after a brief stare at Bennett, the dark face grew even more dark, as if a perceptible shadow had fallen on it, and even more haggard, sharp and bitter. Levison almost spat out the words when he spoke. “Tussard’s coming,” he said.
“Really? I just parted from him. Intended to pay a few visits, I thought.”
“I left word for him to come up here. I didn’t really speak to him.”
“I shan’t stay,” said Bennett. “I wanted to ask you, what was the purpose of the meeting last night?”
Levison laughed, suddenly and sharply. Bennett raised an eyebrow at the explosion. Levison suppressed the laugh at once, and resumed an expression that was half sardonic, half sick. He said finally, “It took me one hour and fifty one minutes to make up my mind to call Tussard. It took me three and one-half minutes, just, to make up my mind to tell you what I decided to tell Tussard. Very amusing. The question you just asked—it was exactly the question I was going to answer. I hate such coincidences, Mr. Bennett. Irrational things. They knock me off my mental feet.”
“Pray don’t let my accidents of conversation take advantage of your indigestion.”
“I want to tell you.”
“Very well.”
“I took it upon myself to look through Christien’s papers while Miss Bannerman was out for lunch. Please understand. Christien’s personal things I put aside in an envelope and mailed them to him, without looking at them. I only looked at his business papers.”
“Of course.”
“I found only one letter that was unusual. Everything else I knew about. Here’s the letter. I kept it out. Remember, I didn’t know why Christien called the Executive Committee for eleven o’clock last night. I wasn’t looking for anything like this, to explain his reasons. And I’m afraid I can’t tell you one single fact about this letter, beyond that I found it in his desk, and that Miss Bannerman believes it came Tuesday morning, in the first mail. She destroyed the envelope. It’s her custom, after opening all letters.”
Levison left his desk to give the letter to Bennett, then returned to his chair and sat scowling blackly at the geometrical pattern in silver running along the pale blue walls. The pattern never completed itself, for each small parallelogram was interrupted by another parallelogram, on and on to infinity. In Levison’s head, each small resolution was interrupted by another, despairingly.
The letter had been typewritten on fine white paper, and beneath the printed address of Suttro and Faunce, Public Relations, De Lancey Building, Westfalen Chelsea Project, Eighth Avenue, New York City. The sheet had been folded in the usual manner, and bore the date, May at.
Mr. Frederick Christien,
Chairman, Directing Board,
Chelsac Theatre,
Chelsea Project, New York City.
MY DEAR MR. CHRISTIEN,
I consider it vitally necessary that my name be not included among those considered for the present vacancy on your Directing Board.
There is grave danger of an injustice to me, and to your company. May I urge with greatest emphasis that this matter be adjusted, for the safety of both of us, at some immediate private conference? May I ask further that you set an evening hour for us to meet, and provide several discreet and responsible witnesses? I shall put my explanations before them and you, at that time.
I am, believe me,
Faithfully yours,
ANTH. SUTTRO.
3.
“That,” said Levison, when he saw Bennett had finished reading, “is what gave me indigestion. And worse.
I want your advice. Should I warn Suttro that I found it? What’s the right thing for me to do? Shall I give him a chance to make some explanation to the police, before I let them have this? There’s still time.”
“Don’t,” said Bennett.
“Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” said Levison, “and let hell pop if it wants to.”
“Exactly. You’d compromise yourself and the Company, I assure you, if you did otherwise.”
“I thought so, too, but—I lean towards being too cold and intellectual, I’m told, and so I lean towards giving every man as much consideration as I can. Why the devil didn’t Suttro speak of that letter? He could have explained it, and covered himself, early this morning, or even last night.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you think of it?”
“Curious. The signature was not written, but typed. Very unusual. The letter was not done by a stenographer. Again unusual. The writer seems to have been somewhat unaccustomed to a typewriting machine, for there are clumsy breaks and corrections and uneven spaces. For example, July 21 was first written July and inverted commas and a dollar mark, then put right.”
“Suttro may have pounded it out himself. Though I don’t see why, because he could have telephoned or come over himself if he thought it such confidential business. And Suttro isn’t the kind of man to make up mysteries.”
“Tell me about him.”
“He writes, you. know. Analysis of Experience and that long thing, Spirit of Mankind. Philosophy for the more literate of the Masses. Profitable stuff. Perhaps you’ve read some of his things?”
“History of Courage, was that his?”
“An early work. Very ennobling. Damn it, I shouldn’t sneer. I’ll never do anything as good.”
“Fruity, as I remember it,” said Bennett, filling his pipe and settling in his chair. “Shelley, and Cicero, and Sir Thomas Browne. Do you write, Mr. Levison?”
“I’m Frank Porch, if you ever read that kind of rubbish.”
“But I do, really! Most amusing. Frank Porch, and this chap Wodehouse. You aren’t Wodehouse, too, by chance? No, of course not. The Bee in the Bishop’s Bonnet, you wrote that, didn’t you?”
“During an attack of insomnia,” said Levison. “It was that or taking to drink. I started to tell you about Suttro. He bought out Faunce after the war, and now it’s his own company entirely. Faunce is dead. Suttro is our public relations counsel, which is merely nice words for a publicity agent who’s been to Harvard. Damn it, I shouldn’t say that. He does awfully well with us. We are an institution. We have dignity, and a reputation. Newspapers treat us with decent respect. And Suttro is responsible for it, to a very great extent.”
“Really. By the way, your books must be very successful, Levison. Frank Porch must be profitable.”
“So they say. He is. My God, how the money rolls in; and I hope you’ll forget about Porch, Mr. Bennett, because I’m a decent respectable business man here. Writing is my secret vice. Suttro, you know, is supposed to be the god-father of Chelsea Project, and if you can find a copy of a little book he wrote, A New World’s City it’s called, you might read it. He advanced the idea of a place like this over ten years ago. Interesting how that little book was the germ of an actual development. Then he was close to the planning and the building, and naturally, he took over the public relations account. A sentimental connection and a business deal together. You did say you’d read his History of Courage, didn’t you? Published first in 1914, I think; and in the last chapter of that, where he suggests the future, you’ll find a few sentences which outline the idea he later developed into a book, which later became the stone and steel of these buildings. That’s probably the greatest satisfaction a man can have—to know that one thought in his mind had grown like this into something beautiful, without getting mucky and silly in the process, and to live to see it standing...
Thinking Levison’s envy for Anthony Suttro sufficiently established, and not caring for further elaboration, Bennett went away. Tussard telephoned before he left. Levison seemed to suffer sudden pangs of remorse moment
arily, to be appalled at the thought of giving the letter to the police. Levison would have liked Bennett to stay...
4.
The commissionaire at the hotel opened the door of Bennett’s taxi, the driver thrust a slip at him for the fare, and an undistinguished man scuttled up and took a picture.
Surprised by the photographer, Bennett frowned and stalked towards cover in his hotel. A man spoke to him, and a woman with a dirty face crowded him and plucked his sleeve insistently. He was jostled. This vexed him. He cried sharply, “No. No. Go away. Damn it, madam, NO!”
“Reporters, sir,” mourned the commissionaire.
“Really?” snorted Bennett, and vanished like an outraged god into the elevator.
He strode into his sitting room, where Hope, distracted, was answering the telephone. “It’s for you, sir. Will you speak to the gentleman? It’s the Mayor, sir.”
“Draw my bath. Yes, give me the telephone. Hello?...No! Please go away!...No, damn it! Sorry! Definitely no, and goodbye! My dear Hope, the Mayor of New York is not a woman, and you are a besotted fool. Is that agreed? Now please tell them below that we wish no more telephone calls put through to us. Reporters. Oh, tell them quickly before the infernal ruddy object rings again.”
Hope, obeying, coughed despairingly from the instrument and said, “They tell me now, sir, there’s a young gentleman below wishes to know if he may see you at—”
“Not mutual, no. Tell him to go away, too. The bath. I shall want to think in it, therefore a spot warmer than usual.”
“Yes, sir.”
5.
The warmth of the bath did help to hatch out an encouraging egg. Bennett stood his secretaries against the wall and fired instructions at them. Flowers and advice to Paula Christie?!, a schedule of information for Christien’s attorneys, a message to Holcomb about the missing watchman, who remained, it seemed, entirely missing and untraceable.
“The watchman did not leave the Chelsac Theatre.”
“No, sir.”
“He did not remain there.”
“No, sir.”
There was a Crooked Man Page 11