There was a Crooked Man

by George Worthing Yates

  “All right.”

  “A man’s job, I warn you, Raymonds. Other clothes to wear? You will get them tomorrow. Dare say you understand my first requirement, perfect discretion? Good. Now I shall ask you some questions. Be as precise as possible. First, is John Boxworth closely acquainted with Christien?”

  “No.”

  “With Suttro or Levison?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Would he conceal information about one of them?”

  “I don’t know. He’s the kindest and fairest man in the theatre business. I’m sure of that, from things I heard from the other ushers.”

  “Sorry, Raymonds. This chap Suttro. Is he deeply in love with Ann?”

  Raymonds admitted it, nodding his head.

  “What evidence of it?”

  “Evidence? She practically turned him upside down.”

  “Be precise.”

  “He got to know her really well a little less than a year ago. He used to be very uppish. Nobody saw him anywhere, theatres and that sort of thing, and nobody knew him very well. He came out of his hole for important meetings, and that’s about all. Then he began taking Ann to dinner, and mixing a bit. Tonight he went to the Chelsea Roof. That, for Suttro, is being turned upside down. He changed. I think he’d do anything for her.”

  “Murder, for example?”

  “I couldn’t give an—”

  “Come, Raymonds! You’d do murder for her, if it came to it. Would he?”

  “I think,” said Raymonds, deliberately, “that he would do a hell of a lot to marry Ann. But I think he’s too big and prominent and fine a man to get mixed up in a murder. It isn’t probable. Read his books, sir, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  “You admire him?”

  Raymonds had to make sure of his own mind first. Then he took a long drink from his glass. At last he said, “He was extremely decent about helping me get a job. He did it because Ann asked him to, but he did it decently. I’m not fond of him, but I respect him.”

  “Now Holcomb, who dismissed you.”

  “He had to do it.”

  “What had you done?”

  “Ann happened to get engaged to Mr. Suttro. I knew she couldn’t marry me when I was so broke, but—well,

  I hadn’t got round to realizing it. I wasn’t much use to the company for a few days, and I didn’t care about the job after that anyhow.”

  “Lowes Levison. Is he friendly with Ann?”

  “He used to be. He used to like her, but Suttro edged him out in a polite way, and now he’s friendly, but not too friendly. I think he asked her to marry him, and she turned him down. Aunt Emma told me that bit.

  I don’t know, it may be true.”

  “Good.” Bennett rose from his chair. “Reddish about the eyes, Raymonds. Go to bed.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  It was over. Raymonds yawned, stripped off trousers, shoes and socks, drained his glass, and slipped under the blankets on the couch. Bennett stood still, swaying, sending up slow puffs of smoke from his pipe. Raymonds lay awake, watching him. At last the pipe burned bitter, and Bennett’s thoughts were in order. He saw that Raymonds hadn’t closed his eyes.

  “Get your sleep.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bennett knocked out his pipe and slipped it into his pocket. He said, “Good-night, Raymonds. Dare say all isn’t lost. Forget the wench. Good man. Ah, how fresh they keep the air in these trains! Some mechanical contrivance, I fancy! Quite. Well, good-night.”

  “Thanks a hell of a lot, Mr. Bennett, for—”

  “Not at all. Rot.”

  “Sorry I talked all—”

  “Not at all, not at all. Good-night.”

  “Good-night.”

  3.

  Little that Lord Broghville did on Thursday had anything to do with the case. Tussard plunged into the mystery of the corpse and the vanishing coupé. The murderer may have had a nasty day of it. Raymonds, looking comic in a suit of Hope’s, started the day off with apologies at breakfast in Bennett’s private car. “Sorry I talked so much last night. Forget it, will you, sir?”

  “Yes, of course. Cream, in tea? Good Heavens! Do you Americans put mayonnaise in your Burgundy? How particularly horrid! I hope you slept well.”

  “I did, sir. Toast?”

  “Why, pray, is Hope slinking at my elbow? Hope, I may explain, is an illegitimate half-brother who came into my service on his solemn promise to abjure strong drink. No doubt he wishes to kill me and inherit my estates. Can’t send him packing, though, as he deserves. Hope, please take Raymonds to a tailor this morning. He offends my eye. Hats, gloves, everything. What’s this, pray?”

  Hope said, “Thank you, sir. Telegram, sir.”

  The telegram said:

  PLEASE WIRE DENIAL OF IDIOTIC REPORT YOU ARE ASSUMING CONTROL OF CHELSEA PROJECT STOP MISCONCEPTION ARISES FROM VISIT YESTERDAY STOP SINCERE APOLOGIES

  SUTTRO

  Bennett, who had emulated Marcus Aurelius Antoninus from an early age, said, “Rubbish. Suttro is as nervy as my grand-aunt’s cat. Shan’t bother to deny the incredible. Might be useful. Eh?”

  Hope said “Yes, sir,” insinuated the morning papers from New York under Bennett’s cuff, and topped the performance with a magnificent understatement. “I thought these articles might interest you, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The articles had been marked with neat penciled lines.

  REAL KING MAY RULE

  CHELSEA-RUMOR

  British Lord Confers

  on Mystery Killing

  Wed., May 23—A meeting today which included Lord Broghville, whose business in the United States has so far been a closely guarded secret, and executives of the Chelsea Project, caused widespread rumors of negotiations for a new deal...

  Bennett left off reading this to purse his lips at an astounding picture of his own tall shape stooping out of a taxicab to the sidewalk on Madison Avenue. He swept the tabloid aside, and glared at the next paper:

  TALK OF CZAR FOR CHELSEA PROJECT

  Broghville Suggested for Post

  BRITISH LORD TO VISIT

  WASHINGTON THURSDAY

  Outcome of the discovery of a dead man on the roof of the world’s newest building development will be a complete shake-up, according to reports not yet confirmed by those...

  Bennett growled slightly, under his breath. He spilled some tea, contracted his forehead, turned with a savage movement to the third paper. Hope had placed it at the bottom, perhaps with intentions of softening the shock as much as possible.

  KING FLEES CITY

  AFTER THEATRE DEATH

  ROYAL HIGHNESS WON’T TALK

  Who is Chelsac Theatre’s dead man? Predictions of sensational disclosures and a major shake-up followed yesterday’s admission by police that they have made no arrest in the mystery killing of...

  Bennett reddened ominously, flung the third paper to the floor, and poured himself more tea with some intensity. After a time he looked at Hope, and said, “Naughty, naughty newspapers. Take the damn things away.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s called a ‘bad press,’ you know,” said Raymonds. “We shan’t speak of it, Raymonds.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  4.

  Bennett’s ripe opinion about the water colors at the Balthurst Galleries was: that they might well have been painted, for all he could make of them, with gravy soup. Hope in the meantime saw to an outfit of new clothes for Raymonds. Raymonds himself had to spend the afternoon in bed waiting for the new things, and reading Martinsop’s Biography of a Vice-Regent, or The Life of Lord Broghville. Martinsop, unfortunately, demonstrated a wit too dry and a penetration too involved to keep any healthy male in bed all day; and particularly to keep any active mind from reverting to the intolerable influence of love.

  It was shortly before midnight on Thursday evening, when Hope came out of the darkness to prowl on the fringe of the disbanding reception at the Embassy
. He caught Bennett’s eye. He said in Bennett’s ear, “The young man has returned to New York, sir.”

  “Indeed. Rot. Devilish hot. What young man, Hope?”

  “Mr. Raymonds, sir. I believe he went away while you were at dinner at the Georgian Society, sir.”

  Bennett said, “Indeed. Very foolish of him, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just discovered his absence, I take it?”

  “Yes, sir. I spent the evening at a cinema, sir. He left word at the hotel that he was very sorry.”

  “I thought he had no money.”

  “I’m afraid he had, sir. He asked me for ten dollars before I went out, sir. I gave it to him.”

  “Ah? Silly thing for you to do, if I may say so. Doubt if you can afford it, and I’m sure you won’t get it again. These women have voices like starving fox-terriers. What time is it?”

  “Three minutes to twelve, sir.”

  “Good. I shall be leaving soon. Stuffy. I see Lady Augusta. Now go away. At the door, in ten minutes. Ah, my dear Lady Augusta...”

  Bennett left on the night Express. The secretary brought him some papers, which Bennett had asked for.

  He smoked his pipe, drank his night-cap, and changed into pajamas. Then with several pillows at his back and papers scattered about on the blanket covering his long legs, he settled himself for the night.

  “You may go, Hope.”

  “Yes, sir. Very sorry, sir, about the ten dollars.”

  “Are you? Young Raymonds is a damned fool, perhaps pardonably. No fault of yours. You pray, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “Then remember the idiot in your prayers, for there’s little more I can do for him. You may go. I shall read.”

  5.

  Like many old men, Geoffrey Bennett needed little sleep, and took that little where he liked.

  He spent half an hour each with Levison, Boxworth and Suttro, as the Police Department thought of them.

  Levison lived uptown on the East Side of Manhattan in a ‘luxurious’ apartment. He lived with his mother, who was his only close relative. Ada Levison knew nothing about a crippled man.

  Levison’s past held few secrets. He had been an infant prodigy. He had entered college at the age of fifteen. He had been an army interpreter during the war, and he had written a play about trench life. He had been an actor, an actormanager-author on tour, a manager, an important theatre manager, the manager of a chain of cinema houses in New England, and eventually, Assistant to Mr. Christien.

  He had been co-respondent in one moderately famous divorce. He had been attacked in a hotel in Worcester, Massachusetts, by an angry husband named Helbaugh. He had become more adept, or more abstemious. The attack in the hotel had occurred in 1927.

  He wrote books, said the dossier. He went about with writers. He lunched at the Algonquin and supped at Tony’s. It was not his custom to come home every night.

  John Boxworth, in contrast, led a blameless life. He lived in an old hotel, and kept a Filipino servant. He liked to play the horses, and very seldom indulged. Whereas Levison was but thirty-five, Boxworth was more than sixty. (Between sixty and seventy, said the dossier.)

  Boxworth had been an actor. At thirty he had retired from acting, to managing a theatre. He had at the same time married his leading lady, Miss Polly Mahoney. She had drowned in the Titanic disaster. He had not remarried.

  During the war, Boxworth had been in California, making pictures. After the war, he had produced a series of successful musical shows, and an unsuccessful and spectacular review at the Century. He had turned then to Chicago, where he managed the Million Dollar Theatre. By way of the huge Orpheum on Forty-sixth Street in New York, he had stepped to the Chelsac Theatre.

  Boxworth was charitable and kindly. A clipping from a columnist’s paragraph, attached to the dossier by some unknown hand (these were, of course, merely copies), said gloriously, “Grand old John Boxworth. The Biggest Heart on Broadway. And the Widest Pockets.”

  Anthony Suttro, whose real name was Willis, had been a teacher at Amherst College before the war. He had written a couple of books. Not content with this brilliant start, he had gone to England soon after the outbreak of war, joined the British Army, and acquired three medals for bravery. In a war hospital, he had written a war book, and profited handsomely.

  After the war, he had written books with great regularity, and with the money they made for him, he had bought out the Faunce Company, then on the brink of failure. Suttro and Faunce had prospered. Suttro’s books had continued to succeed. Life for Anthony Suttro had grown, the dossier suggested, both quiet and productive.

  ‘College Professor Type,’ said the biographer at the Police Department. His house on Clinton Street in Brooklyn had been built in 1884, and inherited, through an intervening generation, from the builder. His friends were few, his nature quiet and industrious, his private life uncomplicated by indiscretions.

  Holcomb? Only the slenderest reference, apparently, occurred to the official mind. It was noted that he lived at a certain address on Staten Island, that he came originally from Providence, Rhode Island, and that he had been arrested for disorderly conduct outside an unspecified speakeasy in Manhattan on the last night of the year 1924.

  Bennett put the scattered papers in their envelope, and dropped the envelope into a slipper. He turned on his side. He picked up a pamphlet his secretary had bought for him. A New World’s City, by Anthony Suttro.

  One day—he read—we shall find we have lifted our lives from the trivial confusion and friction and murk of the ancient inherited cities. From that day, we shall see Old New York, in retrospect, become as strange to us as the squalid filthy streets of the cities of the middle ages seem to us now...

  And shamelessly skipping—This clean simplicity of towers which rise lightly from the earth into sunlight and air, this necessary refinement of environment, is essence of a religion. I need no longer worship in a cave, nor live and work at the mercy of multiplied inconveniences which...

  Bennett let Anthony Suttro’s arguments slip by him like the darkened villages outside the windows of his train. He riffled through a hundred more pages, making odd words dance in his head as his eyes caught them. He put Suttro’s book, with a sigh of deep relief, away.

  With a long arm, he fished up to him a book that had slipped down to the region of his knees, and opened it, and began to read:

  It was a nice, quiet Sunday of the sort that tempts men to bring their motorcycles out. It was a lovely, quiet countryside, the sort men like to bring motorcycles into. Thoughtfully scattering tacks as he strolled up his lane towards...

  He made himself snug in the pillows, and settled to it. It never failed him. He had read it twice before. It was The Gentleman’s Mermaid, by Frank Porch.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  FRIDAY MORNING was wet and gray. The railway terminal had a depressing, sulphurous smell. The lawyer, awaiting Bennett on the platform, looked ghostly in that early light, and disappointing.

  “The trunk, or whatever you call it,” said Bennett, tapping his beautifully rolled umbrella as he walked to the car. “Have you seen it?”

  “I managed to see it, yes.”

  “What did it contain?”

  “Clothing, and toilet articles.”

  “Property of the dead man?”

  “Beyond doubt. The clothing was very fine, but little worn, and not new. I talked with the tailor yesterday evening. I’m afraid he can’t...”

  “Exactly. These toilet articles?”

  “They weren’t new. It’s very difficult. No identifying marks on such things as hair-brushes and shoe-horns. I have all my things marked, personally. There was no toothbrush, of course.”

  The ferry waddled its plump hips through the mist and the screaming tugs. Bennett said, “Quite so. It was expected that the box would indicate it had belonged to the dead man. But not that the dead man was a certain Mr. Such-and-Such, of a definite street and
city. The police?”

  “Within their rights. Their investigation is incomplete.”

  “Has this box been traced?”

  “To a certain extent, yes. The trunk itself was small, and not remarkable. Many thousands of them were sold in this country in the last ten years. There is nothing to distinguish one from another.”

  “To be sure.”

  “It came by express, addressed directly to Mr. Frederick Christien, at Southampton. It had been expressed from Grand Central by a porter. The police are inclined to believe it came from Boston, but that is pure surmise. They really lead the porter on to say it had been picked up at the gate of one of the incoming Boston trains. If they use his testimony, it will be easily broken down, but I don’t suppose they’ll use it I don’t think the trunk came from Boston at all.”

  “It did not,” said Bennett.

  “The porter was told to express the trunk, by a man in a cheap raincoat and a brown hat. The trunk had been traced to the station, tentatively and doubtfully, from the Hotel Minter. At the Minter, it could not be identified.”

  “Chap may have moved it about as he pleased in taxicabs, from one to another, asking for it to be put down in plausible’ places. Impossible, I should say, to follow it back, from Southampton to its original home.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “You might urge the police, if you can, to start at the other end. The houses. Levison’s place, Boxworth’s hotel, Miss Crofts’s flat, Mr. Suttro’s house in Brooklyn. Have them inquire for cabs that called at those doors for luggage.”

  “I shall.”

  “Identification of the dead man?”

  “The police are circulating a detailed description, a man between fifty and sixty, face partially—”

  “I saw him, you know.”

  “Yes, I remember. At any rate, they have circularized the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad almost to a man. I don’t think they’ve made any progress there. I think it very possible the man may have been making a vacation trip or a business trip on that occasion. He might have gone north by road, and come back for some reason by rail.”

  2.

  The lawyer was something much less than diverting. Bennett parted with him on Twenty-third Street. As soon as he got to his hotel, he telephoned Paula Christien. She had reassurances for him, about Christien himself, but no other news. Thus Bennett began the long and involved procedure of trying to telephone Tussard. He got through eventually. He was pleased to hear Tussard’s voice, as mechanical as a music box. Tussard had scarcely found time, he said, to snatch two hours’ sleep.