Odor of Violets
Page 15
1
WHEN DUNCAN Maclain left the International Aircraft plant he was carrying a brief case loaned to him by Bunny Carter. Inside the pigskin bag was the stencil cut by Miss Tavestock, and an Ediphone record from Bunny’s machine. On that record was a verbal copy of the advertising letter as read to Maclain in Bunny’s most formal dictating tone. The contents of the letter not only were engraved on the cylinder, but were equally impressed on the sensitive receptiveness of Duncan Maclain’s brain.
For thirty minutes after Bunny had recorded the letter, the Captain had sat in the seclusion of the president’s office with headphones clamped to his ears, playing the record repetitiously through and through. Once or twice Bunny had looked in from his secretary’s office, where he was watching Miss Tavestock cut the stencil with conscientious accuracy. Each time, the Captain’s head had raised alertly and one of his expressive hands had motioned Bunny impatiently away.
“What do you make of it?” Bunny had asked when he returned carrying the stencil and the original letter. “It looks like an ordinary enough circular to me.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” said Maclain. “That’s the beauty of everything we’re dealing with. It looks so ordinary that even the most alert investigator is likely to glance at it but once, and then turn away.”
Bunny asked him, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to take this record, the letter, and the stencil to Middletown, if you’ll lend me a brief case to carry them in. That is, if you don’t mind my using your car.”
“Not at all,” said Bunny immediately, “but why Middletown? What do you expect to find there?”
“A State Police laboratory.” The Captain carefully put the letters and the record into the brief case and snapped it shut. “Sometimes there’s more writing on a piece of paper than appears on the surface. Police laboratories have curious means of bringing it to light with chemicals and ultraviolet rays.”
Word by word the Captain mentally sifted the contents of the letter as Bunny’s Lincoln drove him on his way. There weren’t more than a hundred and twenty words on the single sheet of fine bond typewriter paper embossed with the heading: —
THE HOUSE OF BONNÉE
TANNER BUILDING
EAST 57TH STREET
NEW YORK CITY
The words were simple, carrying no hint of espionage or intrigue, carrying nothing except some advertising man’s conception of an angle which might induce a recipient of the letter to buy the products of the House of Bonnée.
The Captain gave it up after a while and relaxed in a corner of the car. He remained motionless, head back, with his finger tips pressed gently against his eyes, until he sensed by the sound of the car that they were crossing the long bridge leading into Middletown. Then he sat up and grasped the handle of the brief case beside him. There were still many things he couldn’t understand. One of them was why that lingering scent of violets should be in Bunny Carter’s car.
2
Dr. Jellicoe, a neat, precise man in his early fifties, tapped the edge of his pince-nez against his teeth and stared across his desk at Schnucke and Duncan Maclain.
“You think there’s a message of some kind written on this piece of paper in invisible ink, Captain?” The Doctor replaced his pince-nez and stared down once more at the letter in his hand.
“I haven’t any idea,” said Maclain, “but it’s something I’d like very much to know.”
“It’s a type of work that’s a little outside of my field.” Dr. Jellicoe’s unlined forehead was momentarily marred with a tiny frown. “I’ve used iodine fumes for bringing out latent fingerprints, and I believe there’s a process with a combination of sodium nitrate and silver nitrate solution that’s very effective.”
“Two solutions in the latter method, to be exact,” said Maclain. “It’s what they call a sulphate picture. After the sodium nitrate and the silver nitrate you’d have to use Formalin and sodium hydroxide, but I’m afraid it won’t do. It’s apt to destroy the visible writing which I want to keep particularly.”
Dr. Jellicoe checked a question and said, “You might make a copy.”
The Captain smiled. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t do much good either. You see, I want to throw this letter away.”
“Yes, certainly,” Dr. Jellicoe agreed a shade too quickly. He began to wonder if Duncan Maclain knew that he was an accredited member of the staff of the Connecticut State Hospital for the Insane.
The Captain continued. “That may sound funny to you, Doctor, but I want to see who finds it.”
“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Jellicoe, studying a button on the desk by his side and wondering if an attendant was near. “Yes, I have that same urge at times, myself. I think it exists in everyone in a greater or lesser degree.”
“Pardon me?” said Maclain.
“Oh, think nothing of it,” said Dr. Jellicoe. “There was some writing you wanted to see?”
“That’s it.” The Captain felt himself slipping. “Suppose we try the ultraviolet ray.”
The Doctor took his pince-nez off again and looked with twinkling eyes at Maclain. There were flashes when he almost thought that this blind man was really sane. He had letters from the Commissioner of State Police and Colonel Gray of G-2. At least, those documents seemed to be in order.
Dr. Jellicoe shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, it might be a good idea at that. Come along with me.”
He started to place a hand on the Captain’s arm, but abandoned the idea precipitantly as Schnucke with gentle firmness nosed him out of the way. Instead, he took a position safely in front and led the way to a darkroom farther down the hall.
Once inside, he hesitated a moment before closing the door. Then his years of practice came to his rescue. Duncan Maclain was powerful, but he was blind, and the agile little Doctor had gotten himself out of plenty of tight spots before.
He switched on a quartz lamp filled with mercury gas, seated the Captain in a chair, and searched around until he found a light filter.
“I’m going to test it with nickel oxide glass,” the Doctor explained, keeping a wary eye on Maclain. “It lets through rays of about thirty-six hundred and fifty angstrom units.”
“Yes,” said Maclain placidly. “At least both of us are on an equal basis. Thirty-six hundred and fifty angstrom units are something that neither of us can see. I believe that four thousand angstroms are the least that are visible to the human eye.”
“That’s right,” said Dr. Jellicoe. He felt a little easier. The blind man seemed to know what he was talking about after all.
He held the paper up in front of the filter for quite a while, then turned it so that the rays would strike the other side. “It’s almost certain,” he said, “that any invisible ink would show up luminescence in the ultraviolet ray.”
He clucked disparagingly. “I’m afraid there’s nothing here at all.”
“I didn’t think there would be,” said Duncan Maclain. “I guess I’ll just have to throw it away.”
“By all means.” Dr. Jellicoe switched on overhead lights and turned out the quartz lamp. He had reached the stage where he acted automatically when he restored the letter to Maclain’s outstretched hand.
The Captain turned and unhesitatingly found the doorknob. “Thank you so much, Doctor,” he said cordially as he stepped out into the hall.
The Doctor stood in the doorway and watched the Captain and his canine guide stride confidently away. Suddenly he reached a momentous decision. He put out the lights in the darkroom, closed the door, and almost scurried down the hall. In his office he sat down beside his desk and said, “Hell, I need a drink. This working around in an insane asylum is beginning to get me.”
3
“Home now, Captain?” asked Al Rutgers when Maclain was back in the car.
“Except for one stop,” the Captain told him. “I want to go to a drugstore at the corner of Albany Avenue and Burton Street. It’s called the Ideal Drug Company.”
He was finally convinced that Paul Gerente’s murder, Babs’s kidnaping, and the guillotining of Bella, the maid, were steps in a definite plan of some highly organized band. Such a band must have a source, some recognized headquarters. If perfume was their signal, then what better source, what better headquarters, might be found than an outfit so innocent-appearing as the House of Bonnée? Yet his test of the letter had drawn a blank.
His strong teeth clamped down tightly, setting his jaw into fighting lines. He was using weak tactics by hoping for carelessness in adversaries who had shown none so far. Code letters were careless when a message could be detected by the pet of every police department in the country—the ultraviolet ray.
A small touch of ice started at his neck and traveled slowly down his spine. Once again he was face to face with the name of that tiny flower. He began to trace its course: the odor on the Braille instructions; the odor in Paul Gerente’s secret drawer; the odor in the darkness of the Tredwill hall; the scent on the letter in Norma’s morning mail; the perfume in Bella’s room; and traces of it with him right now in Bunny Carter’s car. Then once again he had run against it unwittingly—the ultraviolet ray.
His clenched hand pounded impatiently on his knee. There must be some tie-up, something about those violets, that would break the whole thing; some clue that would bring out a message cleverly buried in the letter from the House of Bonnée. He knew one man, or thought he did—Madoc, who had spoken to Bunny Carter at the plant; but that hung on a slender, easily broken strand—the inadvertent drawling of a vowel and nothing more. Far too little to set in motion the complicated machinery of G-2. He must wait. Piece by piece, as he built his puzzles, he must tie them up together.
“When I strike,” he muttered viciously under his breath, “I can’t be wrong, and I think I know the way to strike at them all.”
The window slid back in front of him and Al Rutgers said, “Captain Maclain, here’s your store.”
CHAPTER XX
1
AL RUTGERS’ swimmingly deep black eyes watched the Captain questioningly as Schnucke preceded him from the car.
“The drugstore’s to your right straight ahead,” Al volunteered. “Can I be of any help to you?”
“Thank you, no. My dog will find the door.”
Maclain gave a curt direction to Schnucke, who followed the cleared-off sidewalk up toward the Ideal Drugstore, cautiously edging her master around a patch of snow-covered ground.
Rutgers’ close-cropped military mustache made a straight dark line over lips set in a musing smile as Schnucke skillfully checked the Captain at the pharmacy door.
Inside the store, several girls were lunching in booths ranged along the wall. At the entrance of the tall, handsome figure moving so surely under Schnucke’s direction, their chatter was suddenly stilled.
A white-coated boy came forward immediately and said, “Can I help you?”
Maclain smiled his slow likable smile and said, “I’d like to talk to the proprietor.”
“Mr. Kaufman’s in back,” said the boy. “I’ll get him for you.”
As the boy moved away, Schnucke followed and led Maclain to a prescription counter at the rear of the store. The Captain, in passing, touched comfortable leather seats at an elaborate soda fountain.
A moment later, an amiable voice said, “I’m Mr. Kaufman. What can I do for you, sir?”
“You can help me very much perhaps.” The Captain shook hands and introduced himself. “I’m a private investigator from New York.” He spoke in a very low tone. “My name is Duncan Maclain.”
The proprietor waited expectantly.
Maclain continued, “I judge from the voices that I heard when I came in that there are a number of people in this store. Perhaps it would be better if I went in back with you.”
“Certainly,” said Mr. Kaufman with an air of surprise. “You’ll have to come around the counter, I’m afraid. The opening is right in back of you.” He called, “Bill, will you show the Captain through?”
Maclain followed a directing touch on his arm, passed back of a counter with Schnucke pressed disapprovingly close to his leg, and entered a prescription room where the proprietor assisted him onto a long-legged stool. Outside, the chatter of the lunchers was resumed.
“I have a prescription here, Mr. Kaufman,” said Maclain. He took a bottle from his overcoat pocket. “I believe it was filled by you.”
The proprietor took the bottle from his hand and said rather nervously, “There was nothing wrong with it, I hope.”
“Nothing, I’m certain,” Maclain told him reassuringly. “This prescription was given by Dr. Trotter to a maid in the Tredwill home just west of Hartford. It occurred to me that she came quite a long way to have it filled. Her name was Bella Slater and I wondered if you happened to know the girl.”
“I know her by sight, if she’s the one who had that prescription filled. Is that any help to you?”
“Not much, I’m afraid,” said Maclain. “I hoped her family might live around here. She’s been killed, Mr. Kaufman, but apparently no one knows any more about her than you.”
“Killed?” the druggist asked, shocked. “An accident?”
“Far from it, Mr. Kaufman. She was murdered in a particularly brutal manner. That’s why I’d appreciate knowing any little thing you can tell me about her.”
The druggist was silent for some time. Maclain could hear him fiddling with bottles on a shelf by his side. At last he said ruminatively, “I don’t believe she lived anywhere around here. I’ve been in this spot for a good many years. It’s only within the last few months she started coming into the store. . . . Bill!” he called.
Maclain heard footsteps approach the prescription-room door.
“Bill,” said Mr. Kaufman, “do you know anything about a Bella Slater who’s been coming here for the last few months once a week or more?”
“It was usually on Thursdays,” said Bill, “and most of the time to register a letter, that was all.”
Maclain slid down from the stool. “You have a post office here?”
“A substation,” said the proprietor.
Maclain swung around in the direction of Bill’s voice. “You don’t by any chance remember the address on any of those letters?”
“We don’t give out such information,” said Bill.
The Captain took a wallet from his inside pocket and flipped it open in his hand. “I’m here on government business.”
For a few seconds there was only the sound of the proprietor clinking his bottles.
“Okay,” said Bill. “It’s all right by me. I know the address of all the letters she registered here. They all went to the same place—Box Q, Division Eight, New York City. Do you want me to write it down?”
“I couldn’t see it if you did,” said Maclain, “and I know what it is anyhow. Thank you, gentlemen. You have a fine store here and an efficient one, too.”
“There was a man with her once, if that’ll do you any good,” announced Bill.
“It might, if you can describe him.”
“He wore a camel-hair coat that was a honey.” Bill thought for a minute. “Pleasant sort of a guy with hard gray eyes that sort of looked through you.”
“You have a remarkable memory,” Maclain commended.
“It’s not so hot,” said Bill. “This was only two or three weeks ago. I can tell you more than that. The girl called him Arnold. I happen to know because customers stick in your mind when they do curious things. He bought her a bottle of violet perfume, and that’s not a popular perfume these days.”
“Some p
eople like it,” said Maclain.
Back in the car, he told Al Rutgers, “You can take me to The Crags now, if you will.”
He relaxed moodily, thinking that he had uncovered another piece of information which amounted to exactly nothing. Box Q, Division Eight, New York City, had run him around in still another circle. It was the private mailing address of Colonel Gray, officer in charge of G-2.
2
Not until he returned to The Crags did Maclain remember that Christmas was only two days away. It was brought home to him forcibly when, coming into the house by way of a side porch after talking with Cappo in the garage, Schnucke signaled him to the right. He turned abruptly and reached out one hand to encounter the branches of a Christmas tree.
Ahead of him at the door, Pierce’s smooth voice said, “We always have one, Captain Maclain. I ordered that from Hartford hoping that Miss Barbara might return home.”
“I’m hoping so too.” Maclain went on in and exchanged greetings with the policeman in the hall.
In the drawing room, Stacy was playing Debussy. The Captain stood still until the piece was finished, lending an appreciative ear. The music added a homey touch strangely at variance with the efficient state officer vigilantly alert to prevent the swift strike of some unknown catastrophe.
The Captain went on upstairs. A low hum of voices sounded from behind the closed door of Norma’s room. Maclain paused long enough to identify Norma’s visitor as Thad. Farther down the hall, an intermittent click of typewriter keys told him that Cheli Scott was working in her room. He went on into his own and closed and bolted the door against intrusion.
He took the record and stencil from the brief case and slipped the record on the portable Ediphone. Stretched out on the bed with headphones on his ears, he began to follow the cut words with his perceptive fingers, at the same time listening to Bunny’s incisive voice reading the text on the Ediphone.
Five times he played it over, checking it letter by letter, syllable by syllable, word by word, sentence by sentence, and line by line; hunting for hidden meanings, trying vainly to evolve some complex mathematical key. Thoroughly dissatisfied, he got up, found several packages of paper matches, and lay down on the bed again.