A thinnish smile parted his lips. Even Baron didn’t know about the terms of this particular policy.
II. A NIGHT CALLER
The man who might or might not give these two highly esteemable gentlemen cause for worry was, at this particular moment, deep in his cups in a suite of rooms at the Commodore Hotel. Before him on a table littered with the remains of a late supper were three jade-green bottles—two of them empty.
The eyes of Ned Anderson were sad. “It’s no use,” he told the empty bottles. “Here I am home and bored to extinction. California, here I come. Come? I’m here! Oh God, thirty years old, lousy rich, and I’m as useless as a wart on a toad. No guts, no ambition, nothing. Can’t even get tight without wanting to cry. What a man!”
Once more he filled his glass, sighed and drank moodily without being in the least exhilarated. “If I was poor like most of humanity,” he reasoned, hopelessly, “I’d probably be working in a ditch or sleeping in a gutter. But being rich Pm forced to drink myself into it—which isn’t so hot.”
The buzz of the telephone broke in on his moody cogitations. He regarded the instrument solemnly as he lifted the receiver from its cradle.
“Hello,” he said. “Who? Don’t know her. Never heard the name before...can’t help it...I said...Listen, let’s begin all over again. Miss Laird, you said. I still insist that I don’t know her. Oh! All right. Send her up. Wait. Don’t send her up. I’ll come down. Tell her to wait in the lounge.” He hung up.
“Now who the Devil,” he asked himself, “is Miss Laird?”
Miss Laird, it developed on his meeting her in the lounge, was a towhead. She had a wide, humorous mouth, and deep violet eyes. She might have been called pretty by her mother. But by any other standards she was definitely—not.
Ned Anderson bowed politely and guided her to a deep chair in a secluded corner of the lounge. His eyes studied her casually, half-appraisingly.
“So you’re Ned Anderson?” she said. “Please sit down opposite me. I haven’t any designs on you. I simply want to talk to you and tell you what a stupid, wasteful and utterly incompetent person you are.”
Ned Anderson exhibited mild interest and sat down. “Ah!” he sighed. “You restore my confidence in human nature. A truthful and observing person. May I smoke? Thanks. And you? Too bad.” He lighted a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “Please proceed with the indictment.”
Miss Laird’s violet eyes became thoughtful. “I don’t suppose you know me, Mr. Anderson, like I know you.”
“Skip that part, Miss Laird. Who are you?”
“I’m that ‘vl’ that’s always at the bottom of Mr. Gillespie’s letters to you.”
Anderson took Gillespie’s last communication from his pocket, and there, sure enough, following Gillespie’s initials, were two letters in small type—v and l. He had never noticed them before. He was exhibiting more mild interest when he said: “V for violet?”
“Virginia.”
“Virginia is much nicer. Southern hospitality, magnolia blossoms, horses, crinoline, hams...”
“You’re not a serious person, Mr. Anderson,” she broke in.
“Sorry. Frivolous is the word. By the way, how is Mr. Gillespie? I must look him up in the morning.”
“You really plan to exert yourself that much?”
“Yes. I need the exercise.”
“You’re going to have all the exercise you want during the rest of your life. As a matter of fact, Mr. Anderson...”
“Call me Ned.”
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Anderson, I have a feeling that you and I are shortly going to be looking for jobs.”
“Odd,” said Anderson. “I never thought of going to work before. Don’t know what to say. I once had a lady friend who worked—in a department store. Wait! Don’t interrupt me. She was a law student nights. Days she was a store detective. I liked her tremendously, but she couldn’t see me at all.”
He paused and rubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “You see how it is, Miss Laird. I’m talking just to hear the sound of my voice. As I just remarked, I’ve never given thought of going to work—that is, seriously.”
“I’ve always worked,” said Miss Laird, calmly. “Probably always will, so I’ll get along somehow.”
“That’s fine. But perhaps I’m dense. Maybe there is something you said that somehow got by me. I’ll admit I’m not overly bright, but at least I’m not altogether stupid.”
“My mistake,” said Miss Laird. “Before you left on your world tour, you gave Mr. Gillespie power of attorney. I hope you can recall this act without undue mental strain.”
“Which means,” said Anderson, “that my fortune...?”
“Is practically nil,” finished Miss Laird. “It also means that Mr. Gillespie will close his office—that’s where I lose my position—and depart for distant shores.”
“You sure of all this, Miss Laird?”
“No, I’m not sure. After all, Mr. Gillespie is a capable executive and keeps part of his business to himself. I do know however, that he has lost tremendous sums of his own money in the stock market. I know also that his cash reserve has never been adequate enough to handle any such amounts as he has poured into Wall street.”
“Mere suppositions, Miss Laird.”
“By mistake, Mr. Anderson, a canceled check for seventeen thousand dollars, signed by Gillespie against your cash account, was included in the canceled checks sent through the account of office salaries and expenses.
A bank mistake, but Mr. Gillespie was furious. He knows I saw the check, but he’s never mentioned it.” “You think there were others?”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
Ned Anderson was silent for a long time. Finally he said: “Katharine Cornell is at the Commodore Theatre in Shaw’s St. Joan. I think I can get a pair of tickets for tomorrow night if you care to go.”
Miss Laird’s violet eyes were faintly quizzical. “I expected to see you blow up. I really did.”
Ned Anderson smiled. “I’ve got a home in the foothills outside of town—in Los Gatos canyon. Quite a shack. All of twenty-one rooms, tennis court, swimming pool. Do I still own it, or does...?”
“I wouldn’t know that either.”
“I’d like to know,” said Anderson, wistfully.
“Call the tax assessor’s office. You can find out in five minutes. But you’ll have to call in person at the bank where they have your account.”
“About tomorrow night,” asked Anderson. “Do we go?”
“By tomorrow night you’ll be too sick for anything but a moving picture.”
“I don’t like pictures. I want to see a good play—especially Miss Cornell. The last time I saw her was in New York in the Barretts of...”
Miss Laird rose to her feet. “It’s late. I must be going.”
“Why did you come to me, Miss Laird, with all this?”
“I don’t know, really, Mr. Gillespie is my employer,
and I know that I owe him a certain allegiance. After all he paid me a good weekly salary. But...”
“But what?”
“If you must know, I had a certain contempt for you. Call it pity, it sounds better. I thought if you were warned, you might not be hurt quite as badly as you might be later on.”
“Do you still feel the contempt...”
“No.”
“Or pity?”
“You don’t need anything I can give you,” she told him.
An odd quirk turned up the corners of Ned Anderson’s lips. He seemed detached and far away. “Did you know you were a person with considerable charm, Miss Laird?”
The violet eyes snapped. “Is that a line with you?”
“In a way—yes. A life-line. I’m afraid I’m going to need one. But whatever my faults, Miss Laird, and there are a lot of them, I have never been accused of saying one thing, and meaning another.”
“Did I say...?”
Anderson shook his head. “No. You’ve been swell. D
o we meet tomorrow night?”
Virginia Laird shook her head. “Please, Mr. Anderson. I know you mean to be nice.” She smiled brightly. “But let’s forget it. Shall we?”
“Just as you say. May I see you home?”
Again she shook her head. “I know my way around. And the trolley cars are still running.” She extended a small hand.
Ned Anderson pressed it gently as if afraid of crushing it. “Good night,” he said.
The bright smile was still on the girl’s lips. “Good night,” she echoed.
He watched her receding figure for a long second as it moved down the wide corridor towards a side street. Then something leaped into his mind. Something he must ask her. He frowned and started after her small figure with long strides.
The telephone beside George Baron’s bed shrilled impatiently. He took down the receiver.
“Listen,” said a voice. “I’m in a booth at the Commodore.”
“Go ahead,” snapped Baron. “So what?”
“I followed the jane like you ordered. She came to this hotel, spoke to the clerk, then went into the lounge. A guy came down the elevator—Anderson, I’m pretty sure. They’re in there talking together. She’s telling him something. I couldn’t get close enough to hear everything that was said, but I heard something about the bank making a mistake.”
“I see, I see,” said Baron. “Listen, Coughlin. Get back to the lounge and watch her. If she leaves alone, follow her and get her into a cab. You’ll know how. Then bring her here.”
“You mean to make a snatch?”
“You heard me.”
“That’s a big order in this state.”
“Do exactly as I say. I’m not going to harm her. But I know she won’t come of her own accord, and I’ve got to talk to her—tonight before anyone else gets to her.”
“Okay,” said the voice. The receiver at the other end clicked. Baron hung up, lighted a panatela, made certain his houseboy had left the building for the night, then switched on the light over the drive, and sat down to compose himself while he waited for Coughlin to arrive with Gillespie’s secretary, Virginia Laird.
Irritable because this girl was bound to cause him trouble unless he closed her mouth, he closed his eyes and tried to plan how this was to be done intelligently, so that the suspicions of the girl’s family would not be aroused.
As Virginia Laird pushed through the circular doors leading to the street, a man came up behind her, turned back the lapel of his coat, and motioned her to a taxi a short way down the street.
Ned Anderson, following some distance behind, saw him take her arm, saw her look rather wildly around, than start to shake her head. The man’s hand gripped her arm. She started to protest and stiffened. He shoved her forward. Her heels slid across the concrete walk towards the cab door which the driver had opened.
Sensing trouble, Ned Anderson broke into a run. Her scream, muffled against the man’s chest as he pulled her head down into the fold of his arm, was hardly audible in the din of night traffic. Still holding her tightly, he crowded into the cab’s interior. The driver reached out his hand to shut the door.
At that moment Anderson reached the cab, knocked the fingers from the door’s edge, and reached a long arm inside. Coughlin, handicapped with the struggling girl, snapped a short blow to Anderson’s face.
Ned caught the blow on the cheek, but it did not stop him. He got hold of Coughlin’s arm and yanked him from the cab. Then he swung hard—harder than he seemed capable of. Coughlin staggered against the edge of the open door and sprawled back onto the fender.
“Hey, you!” shouted the hack driver, belligerently.
“Same for you,” clipped Anderson, swinging the mate to the first blow into the hacker’s face.
Virginia Laird emerged from the taxi, her face white, lips trembling. She went to Anderson. Got between him and Coughlin, who was rising to his feet. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “Let them go.”
She pushed him back, her hands on his coat lapels. Anderson’s eyes glittered as he watched Coughlin partly cover his face as he got back into the cab. The driver was already behind the wheel cramping the machine away from the curb.
Ned took her arm. There were two spots of color on his cheeks faintly visible beneath the tan from African sunlight. “You hurt?” he asked, reaching casually for a cigarette.
She shook her head and clung to his arm. “I thought for a moment,” she said, “that I was going to smother when he held my face against his horrid coat.”
“Mine wouldn’t smother you. See, it’s soft, woolly.”
“Be serious, won’t you? Tell me, was that man a detective?”
“Detective—private dick most likely, ordered to fol-
low you, then kidnap you. Why? I don’t know. Somebody’s interested in you.”
“Who could be interested in me?”
“That’s what we’ll have to find out.” He had her by the arm and was leading her back into the hotel. “We’ll go down to the cocktail room and have. .
“I can’t. I have to get home.”
Ned Anderson eyed her steadily for several moments before speaking. “You can’t go home. Don’t you suppose the man who wanted you kidnapped knows where you live. He’ll try the same stunt again, and where will you be?”
Virginia Laird wiped her lips with a tiny handkerchief. “I really don’t know. Nonsense. Who would want to kidnap me. I haven’t any money, and no friends who have any. And I’m sure my boss, Mr. Gillespie, would not consider me so valuable that...”
“Precisely, Miss Laird. I think you’ve placed your finger on the festering spot—Mr. Gillespie.”
“Why, why, you don’t think...?”
“I’m not thinking,” said Anderson, examining his skinned knuckles. “I wish I had hit that fellow harder—both of them, for that matter.”
“You hit them brutally hard. The sound of your fists striking their faces almost made me sick.”
Ned took a possessive grip on the girl’s arm and led her to a chair. “You’re not going home. Call your mother if you want to. But you’re not going home or to Gillespie’s office until I’ve had an accounting with him.”
“And when will that be?”
“Tomorrow morning—as soon as the banks open and I’ve checked on that house of mine I was telling you about.”
“You seem to have developed a considerable amount of force since I first met you.”
“No, I don’t think so. Same old Ned Anderson, a little irked, sober and in need of a drink. Otherwise I haven’t changed a bit. I still think you’re beautiful. .
“Are you talking to me, or to all these people in the lobby?”
“I’m sorry,” he spoke in lowered tones. “Will you marry me? That will quickly solve the problem, and...”
“I’m going home.”
“But you haven’t answered—listen, I’m proposing.”
“Don’t be silly. Why should I marry you?”
“I can only think of one reason.”
“And that?”
“I like you.”
Impulsively she reached out and patted the backs of his hands. “You’re awfully nice, Mr. Anderson, even if you are an incompetent sort of a human being. It’s been a thrilling evening—especially the abduction rescue. I’m dumb, I know, for not swooning in your arms and burying my fevered skin against that soft, woolly coat of yours.”
He did not smile at her levity. He was worried by something he was only vaguely beginning to understand. “I’ll take you home,” he said.
“All right. But let’s not be too serious about this. Call it mistaken identity. Somebody thought I was somebody else—an heiress with scads of money in all the banks.”
“Let’s call it that,” said Ned. “Come.”
They found a Yellow cab outside in the rank, got in and were whirled away through the soft night.
George Baron stopped his pacing as the phone jangled. He lifted the receiver. Coughlin’s voice crackled from the
receiver.
“Sorry, but the thing didn’t jell. I had her in a cab, but Anderson butted in and jammed things up right on the street. Had to call it off. But I didn’t lose sight of them. Later he took her home in a Yellow cab.”
The lawyer’s eyes narrowed. “Well, it can’t be helped. That’s all for tonight. Keep in touch with me. Dismiss the cab and pay off the driver—just in case.”
“Okay.”
Baron hung up, waited a few seconds, then lifted the receiver and called a number. A voice said: “Hello.”
“Listen, Gillespie. It’s the girl. She went to Anderson at the Commodore. I had her followed. Think she talked. Don’t know for a certainty.”
“I see,” said the voice of Gillespie. “That’s bad.”
“Here’s what you do in the morning. Make up a dummy package for her to bring to my office. Impress on her mind that the package is important, and is to be delivered to me personally. Understand. I won’t be in the office, but here in my house. She’s got to come here.”
“But Baron, you aren’t. .
“I said I wanted her to deliver the package to me.
You tell her to come here in case I’m not at the office. She’s something we hadn’t figured on, and she’ll have to be taken care of.”
“Of course,” said Gillespie, wearily. “Depend on me. Anything else to be done?”
“No. Sit tight. Anderson will be down to see you in the morning. Stall him off. Good night.”
Both men hung up. Baron’s eyes were hard and brittle. Gillespie’s were frightened.
III. CLIENTS
There are, in all large cities, private detective agencies that have no connection whatever with the police. Some of these agencies are reputable, others shady. The private operators, taken from all walks of life, work for lawyers, gamblers, racketeers, department stores and manufacturing plants.
They also work for individuals. People in trouble, unwilling to seek police protection or aid, come to these agencies with their petty schemes, and for a fee, are helped or immersed into deeper trouble.
The Man who was Murdered Twice Page 2