It occurred to Holcomb to say something about getting a doctor for Ann. She looked so strange, as if she might go to pieces. Still, it was none of his business. He had a job to keep. He turned away, gathered his squad, and led them off into the silent building.
3.
Between half past eleven and midnight, Holcomb opened the door into the high ‘cellars,’ which offered better opportunities for hiding than any other part of the building. He would have expected Ann to know it.
He led his men across the iron bridge. They flashed the beams of electric torches into the darkness. Holcomb’s head roared like a blast furnace each time he stooped to make his way under one of the pipes or flues in his path.
“There’s something. What is it?”
“Hat. A man’s hat.”
“All right,” said Holcomb. “One of you climb down.”
One of the ushers descended to the arching plaster, and crawled carefully and precariously along a thin steel ladder. He swung his beam of light. He stopped, took up the hat, and called, “Something else.”
“What?”
“Looks like blood.”
“Go on down a bit.”
The usher made his way among tangled struts and girders, down the steeper sides of the arch. These grew perpendicular at the base, far below the bridge. The man disappeared, his light lost itself in the depths. Holcomb held his head in his hands and waited, considering the advisability of another aspirin.
Out of the darkness, the usher called up to them, “Here it is.”
“Mice,” said one of the ushers on the bridge.
“Shut up,” said Holcomb.
“Hey, somebody give me a hand,” called the voice.
“Go on, give him a hand,” said Holcomb.
The torch beams flickered crazily. There were sounds of clambering. Slowly the men came up into sight.
“One slip down there, and you break your neck,” said the first explorer, resting to get his wind.
“What’d you find?”
“Looks like a man. I didn’t go close to it. Afraid we couldn’t get back. Got to get a rope.”
“Where is he?”
“At the bottom, in the narrow part.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Holcomb sent for Tussard.
It was Anthony Suttro. He was alive, but unconscious. His left leg dangled from a broken thigh. Face and head were badly lacerated. He had fallen from the steel bridge near the north door of the ‘cellars.’ Or, as Tussard pointed out, he had been shoved. He had plunged down in the steepest and darkest place, between the ceiling and the outer wall.
The nurse had not yet gone home. She was sent into the room where Suttro had been carried. When she came out again, Holcomb asked her what had happened. “They wanted me to bring him to, so he could talk.”
“Did he?”
“Just a few words. His mind isn’t very clear.”
“What did he say?”
“They asked him if his wife had tried to kill him, and he didn’t say anything. They told him they’d caught her, and he nodded. They said did he know she was a murderer, and he said yes. Then they asked him again if his wife had shoved him off the bridge, and he said yes. Then he began to cry, and they let me give him a shot to quiet him. I’m just waiting for the ambulance now. I’m afraid he got a bad knock on the head.”
“All right,” said Tussard, coming to the door, “you can all clear out of here now.”
Holcomb, suffering a dull nausea, went away. He let his men go home. He wanted to go home too. He thought it best to tell Mr. Levison, and he found him walking up and down the passage in front of his office.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Levison, “if somebody came up to tell us we’d struck oil in the lobby, or a middle-aged whale had given birth to quintuplets in one of the water tanks. I couldn’t be surprised.”
“I think I’ll go home, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, go home, Holcomb. I think—”
Levison’s door opened suddenly. A policeman ran out through the secretary’s office, vanished down the passage. Through the open door, Holcomb could see the girl’s figure stretched out on the floor. Tussard kneeled beside her, shaking her limp arm in his hand. The other policeman clumsily patted water from a carafe on her white, slack cheeks.
“Stay out of here,” Tussard barked. Then the door was kicked shut.
The nurse came. Two other men, vaguely official and preoccupied, crowded into the office. Then three more came, two of these in white, carrying a folded stretcher, and the third in furious haste.
Holcomb pressed his temples, feeling that time had jumped curiously, like a broken clock; slipping from swift empty hours into long, heavy, thumping seconds. He waited at Levison’s side.
The door opened again, at last, and the stretcher, with Ann Crofts on it, was carried out. A parade of frowning men followed it. Tussard came last, and stopped to say a word to Levison.
“Too bad,” he said.
“What’s the matter with her?” Levison demanded.
“She just went to pieces. When I told her I’d found her husband, and he was alive to accuse her, she just passed out. Your nerve can’t last forever.”
“Where is she being taken?”
“Hospital.”
“Under arrest?”
“For the attack on her husband. That ought to be good enough to hold her for now. Well, I’ll be leaving.
The place is yours, and I won’t be bothering you any more...”
4.
“Twelve o’clock,” Levison said. “Aren’t you going home?”
“Yes. I’m going now.”
“In case you’re interested, Holcomb; I think Mr. Christien will be back with us, if he recovers.”
“How is he?”
“Improving. I’m going to turn out these lights.”
“Wait a minute. I ought to telephone.”
“To your wife?”
“No. Emma Whittacker. Damn it, Mr. Levison, I feel that somebody ought to do it...”
At midnight, Miss Emma Whittacker plodded blindly and blundering through the tangle of her business accounts. Figures danced, and pages made a glaring blur before her eyes. Raymonds, drinking soda and silently shuffling through the stacks of canceled checks, gave dejected assistance. She in a panic of dread, he rather hopelessly, they started up when the telephone rang. Aunt Emma listened, and heard Holcomb’s brief story of the arrest of her niece for attempting to murder her husband, the great Anthony Suttro.
Aunt Emma did not cry. She merely asked, “What are we going to do, Hobey?”
“Where’s my coat?”
“I put it on the radiator to dry. What are we going to do?”
Hobey put on his coat as he went to the door.
“What are we going to do, Hobey?”
“You go and see her. Don’t wait for me. I’ll do something.”
“Where are you going?”
“Get some help.”
He was gone, running down the corridor towards the elevators. Ineffectually, poor Aunt Emma started after him with his hat, but too late. She heard the elevator doors open for him, and shut. She was left alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BENNETT, holding his coat closed at his throat, leaning on the rail, decided he could see no dawn in that black and sullen fog. He heard somebody approaching him along the deck, running towards him, calling his name. He turned, and saw Hobey Raymonds. The boy’s face, white and set, glistened in the wet.
“Look here, sir. I’ve got to talk to you.”
“My word!”
“Please listen to me. Something’s happened. I’m asking you to—”
“I know,” said Bennett. Then he said, “Yes. Come to my cabin. Tell me how it came about.”
Bennett let Raymonds follow him into the room. He pointed to a chair, rang for the steward, and ordered coffee. Then he listened to what Raymonds could tell him. Coffee came. Raymonds fini
shed his account, and sat leaning forward in his chair with his cold hands clenched round the cup, watching the old man. Bennett smoked his pipe, and walked aimlessly and restlessly about the cabin.
At last he asked, “Why did you come here?”
“You’re the only man I know who can help. I came to ask you to.”
“Sorry. I can’t.”
“There isn’t any time to argue. God, sir, a lot of words aren’t going to make it stronger. You can’t let us down.” Raymonds’s face looked haggard. Bennett said, “Entirely a matter of being unable.”
“If you want to help, you can do it, sir.”
“A wireless message to Tussard? Quite useless. To the girl’s barristers? Doubtful. We’re on a ship bound for England, you know.”
“You can get off with the pilot.”
“Perhaps.”
“That’s why I’m here. To get you off, if I can. I’m getting off. I don’t care what happens, I’m getting off. Even if I have to swim back from Sandy Hook. After the way you were treated, you don’t owe anybody a damn thing. All right, if you won’t do it, tell me what I have to do.”
“You wouldn’t be believed, Raymonds.”
“Maybe not.”
“Nor would I.”
“You can pull strings, and make them believe you.”
Bennett shook his head doubtfully. Raymonds put his cup on the floor, drummed his fingers on his knuckles. Abruptly he jumped up. “Getting late. I don’t want to take a chance on missing the pilot. Will you come with me?”
Bennett strode back and forth, trailing eddies of smoke. He said nothing. Raymonds stared at him. Then thumping his fists together, and in a sudden fire of anguish, he flung himself at the door.
“No,” said Bennett sharply. “Wait, please.” He took up the telephone, clicked it impatiently. He said into it, “Broghville’s compliments to the officer on the bridge. I wish to be put off the ship. Coming up to arrange it Good. Thank you.”
As he pulled on his mackintosh, the old man said, “Drink another cup of coffee, there’s a good chap. Do our best, shan’t we? Right. We shall try Broghville tactics on heaven and hell. Wait here.”
He closed the cabin door after him.
2.
They sat together in the pilot’s boat, Bennett with a rug over his knees, Raymonds wrapped in a heavy coat of Bennett’s.
“Most extraordinary part of it,” said Bennett, “is your getting to me on the ship.”
“I tried to do it before she sailed, but they put me off three times.”
“Yes. I told them to.”
“I couldn’t stand on the dock and let you sail right under my nose. I was afraid they’d arrest me if I tried the way into First any more. They’re sharp as the devil about keeping people off those boats. Anyhow, just before she sailed, I got hold of a woman going Tourist Third with two little kids. She had a lot of junk to carry. I told her I was sailing too. I carried one of the kids and most of the baggage for her, and they let me on. Mostly because the kids kept kissing me all the time. Anyhow, I got away with it.”
“And?”
“The boat sailed. I had to work my way up through Second. They spotted me there, and sent me back. I went away below and went through the crew’s quarters. I never had to open so many doors in my life. I saw you sending those stewards away and walking down the deck. As soon as they got out of sight, I went up to you.”
Moving through a vague universe of gray water and luminous murk, they could do nothing but wait for their arrival on shore. Bennett said little. Raymonds hopped up every third minute to stare into the wet morning for the sight of some part of the land.
“What’s the first thing we ought to do?”
“Shave,” said Bennett.
The old man contracted then, huddled his chin over his huge chest, and dozed serenely for the rest of the voyage up the bay.
3.
Bennett chose an obscure and unfashionable hotel, where he cautiously took rooms in the name of Mr. Lytton Browne and secretary. He plunged at once into a series of telephone conversations (one of these was long distance to London) which had for one tangible result the engagement of a criminal lawyer for the defense of Ann Crofts—a somewhat famous and very costly lawyer named Brian McMullen.
After this, Bennett disappeared. Raymonds, left alone in the hotel, paced the floor of his room, and occasion-I ally varied the monotony when it became insupportable, by ordering himself a meal or another packet of cigarettes.
Once, shortly after dark, a crisp stranger’s voice from j the office of Brian McMullen called up to tell Hobey that he, as well as Bennett and Aunt Emma, was in danger of being arrested as a material witness. He was not to show himself under any circumstances to anybody.
Then Raymonds paced back and forth until his legs ached. He took a hot bath at last, and hung up his damp clothes for them to dry, and waited in bed for Bennett to come back. It began to seem very improbable that the man would ever come back at all.
4.
Bennett came in at half past ten.
“Miss Whittacker was arrested an hour ago,” he said. “As a witness?”
“Of course. We can’t stop here, Raymonds. Come, get up, dress yourself.”
“Where do we go?”
“We move up to the trenches. Brooklyn. Be quick. Or join Miss Whittacker.”
Hobey thrust his legs into damp trousers, while Bennett demanded of him, “Where is Albemarle Road?”
“Good Lord, I don’t know.”
“Is there a place called Midwood in Brooklyn?”
“There could be.”
“We must find it.”
“Why, sir?”
“Percy Tussard.”
“You’re not going to let him get hold of us, just when we’re trying to duck the cops over here?”
“Put your boots on, please. This case is going to be tried in the newspapers. Indeed, it’s being tried in them now. I abhor newspapers. However, I bought an interest in one of them. The Mail. We shall be represented in this court of journalists.”
“What did the lawyer say?”
“He advised against the case being allowed to come to trial.”
“But you can’t get Ann out of jail just by printing things in a—”
“Put your boots on.”
5.
Albemarle Road stretches for miles. Undistinguishable little suburban houses of wood, and undistinguishable trees, crowd each,other down the whole length of it.
Tussard lived in one little house that had a very small hedge in front, and a very large piano lamp in its parlor window. This time of night, Tussard in shirt-sleeves and slippers, with a (ox-terrier warming his lap, sat drinking his bottle of beer and eating snappy cheese spread on pilot crackers, in the kitchen. The doorbell rang. He called up to his wife that he’d go. He pushed the reluctant dog to the floor, and shuffled to the front door. He looked out on the porch through a small glass pane in the door, but he saw no more than an expanse of shadowy mackintosh, dorsal view.
He opened the door for Raymonds and Lord Broghville, learned that they wanted to see him, and wondering, led them back to the kitchen, which was Tussard’s favorite room in any house. The dog barked a little. Mrs Tussard listened alt the top of the back stairs. Tussard shut doors on both these irrelevant distractions, and gave his two visitors beer.
“Heard you were back in town, sir. I didn’t think you’d get over here to see me, though. That’s pretty good beer.”
“This indictment,” said Bennett, “must be dropped.”
“Why tell me? That’s not up to me, that’s up to the D. A.”
“You submitted the evidence. I offer you an opportunity to correct your mistake.”
“I don’t see it’s a mistake.”
“Dare say you will.”
“Besides, Mr. Bennett, I can’t go to the D. A.’s office and say, ‘Look here, I was just kidding, I take it all back.’ I can’t tell him what to do any more than you can.”
�
�Oh, more than I can, I’m sure. That’s why I came.”
“Well, and if I could, I wouldn’t.”
“If you knew that tomorrow’s newspapers would carry a very different explanation of the case, so that your own evidence would be made to seem silly, would you change your mind?”
“That depends on what’s printed. Newspapers don’t print every old explanation that comes along, you know.”
“Quite. You admit, however, that it would be to your advantage to know of some new development in the case, so that you could act upon it before the newspapers forced you. I offer that advantage.”
“Have some cheese?”
“Thank you.”
“Sure, I admit I’d like to know anything big.”
“Save yourself from appearing absurd, eh?”
“That’s about it.”
“The beer is very good,” said Bennett.
“What it boils down to, is this: you want me to get the indictment squashed for you, and you’re holding a bad break in the newspapers over my head, to make me do it.”
“Do you mind?”
“I’m just wondering how you’ll get a newspaper to listen to you, any more than the D. A.’s office would listen to you.”
“I shall have a newspaper man at the hospital where Suttro and Miss Crofts are being held. Tonight. At once. Will you come?”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Bennett. No reporters. I’ll listen to you, and I’ll go to the hospital if you want Ann Crofts or Ann Suttro or whatever you call her, to talk. But no reporters.”
“Then I shall go to the newspaper first, Tussard. You can read about it tomorrow. Sorry.”
“If you can do that, why come after me at all?”
“Perhaps I want the indictment dismissed at once, without public wrangling. Or perhaps, Tussard, I have an affection for you.”
“You think I can get on the inside of the D. A., that’s what you think.”
“Can you?”
“I’m just a cop, Mr. Bennett. But you know what?”
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“You got a lot of brains.”
“And?” said Bennett, pouring his glass full of beer again and holding it to the light.
“So maybe I’ll see what I can do. Now tell me, what’ll happen if the newspaper boys don’t believe you, and I don’t either?”
There was a Crooked Man Page 24