Odor of Violets

by Baynard Kendrick

  “Come on,” said the cop efficiently. “I’ll have him in the wink of an eye.”

  3

  Arnold C. Cameron waited on the twenty-fourth floor until the elevator had dropped from sight before he stepped into the private lift close by and pushed the button which took him up two flights more. There he rang the bell on Maclain’s penthouse door. There was no answer, and after a short wait he took a leather key holder from his pocket, selected a key, and opened the door. A night light burned dimly in the small reception room. Cameron went into Maclain’s office, turned on soft indirect lights concealed in the molding, and stood still for a while appraising the furniture and equipment. His gray eyes opened a shade wider at sight of the Ediphone.

  He took a few soft-footed strides and sat down in Maclain’s chair. There he adjusted the transmitter by moving the needle back to zero, let it down on the record, and turned it on.

  He sat immobile until Maclain’s voice said: “If you find anything suspicious, get in touch with Colonel Gray. Tell him that I’m more important than anything for the moment, and to keep an eye on me.”

  He clicked off the record and put his elbows on the desk. Resting his chin in cupped hands, he stared at the telephone. The number on the dial was Susquehanna 7-0039, Ext. 2.

  Cameron puckered his lips, pushed back the chair, and swiftly began to go through the desk drawers. In the top one on the left-hand side he found another phone. He dialed a number with automatic precision and leaned back in the chair.

  After a few rings someone answered and Cameron said, “Jack, it’s me. The barge is loaded with women and children and it’s about to go down. They moved too fast for us. Sometime between nine and ten o’clock they snatched Maclain and a girl.”

  The listener’s voice broke in, crackling insistently over the phone.

  Cameron said, “Sign off for once, will you, and listen to me. The girl’s name is Cheli Scott, a visitor at The Crags. She was driving Maclain in to the Hartford Post Office. They must have been held up on the road. Police found her deserted car.”

  “Where are you now?” the voice demanded peremptorily.

  “I’m in Maclain’s office,” said Cameron with a patient sigh. “I highballed it down here to see if I could find something that would give me a lead. Maclain sent a message down to New York by his chauffeur several hours ago. It’s on a record. Hold tight, and I’ll play it to you over the phone.”

  He picked up the recording mouthpiece from the combination Ediphone and after a couple of tries succeeded in shutting off the Capehart and making the mouthpiece talk into the phone.

  When Cameron put the telephone receiver to his ear again, the voice said excitedly, “That’s a pretty kettle of stew. Where does this Bonnée come into the picture?”

  “I don’t know, do you?”

  “No.” The voice became icy and authoritative, snapping out orders over the phone. “Everything’s set for a round-up from here to the coast tomorrow night—Christmas Eve. Any tip-off now and a whole year’s work is undone. Maclain’s been let down cold. He thinks he’s being protected, and he isn’t. Get back up to Hartford as fast as you can haul it, and see what you can do.”

  “And what about the House of Bonnée? I might dig up something there.”

  “They’ll have to wait until tomorrow night. I’ll include them in the show.”

  “But Maclain’s been kidnaped,” Cameron protested. “He’s carrying around a lot of information. God knows what they’ll do.”

  “I don’t care if they snatch Jim Farley and nine Cabinet members,” the voice barked back. “You let that House of Bonnée alone!”

  “All right,” said Cameron, “but it strikes me that the House of Bonnée is my only chance of ever finding out where they’ve taken him.”

  “I’m giving you orders,” said the voice. “Let the House of Bonnée alone.”

  “You’re murdering the Captain and an innocent girl,” Cameron declared metallically, and hung up the phone.

  He swung around in the chair to look straight down the long dark tube of Patrolman Heeney’s Police Positive. The officer’s round moon face hung like a crimson pie over the sight as he lumbered through the office door.

  “Put up your hands,” he commanded thunderously.

  “Don’t shoot,” said Cameron pleadingly. “If you miss me, the bullet will hit the desk and there’s a baby in the drawer.”

  “Git up,” ordered Heeney, “and tell me how you got in here.”

  “Skeleton key,” said Cameron. “How did you?”

  “With a passkey,” the policeman explained, slightly confused. “What are you doing with a baby in that drawer?”

  “It’s my little boy,” said Cameron. “I brought him in under my coat—I thought his mother was here.”

  The officer’s guileless blue eyes narrowed disapprovingly.

  “You’re a crook,” he said with dawning comprehension. “I’ve seen your face someplace before.”

  “It’s posted from coast to coast,” Cameron told him. “Do you ever go into the post office?”

  “Yes,” said Heeney, “to mail letters. What else would I be going in there for?”

  “I think you’re impersonating an officer,” Cameron said. “Sit down in that chair.”

  “Is it you that’s givin’ orders,” Heeney demanded, “or is it me?”

  “It’s me,” said Cameron. “What do you mean by breaking into my apartment? I’m Duncan Maclain.”

  “He’s blind,” said Heeney.

  “So’m I,” said Cameron. “Only you can’t tell it without my glasses on. Sit down in that chair!”

  The policeman felt that his head was whirling giddily. “I know you now. Why aren’t you in jail? You’re a murderer.”

  “I am not,” Cameron denied. “The fellow that accused me of killing him appeared in court and they set me free. Sit down in that chair. You have a gun, and I’m very busy.”

  The power of suggestion became too much for the overwrought officer, and he sat down gingerly on the edge of the red leather chair.

  “Now lean back,” said Cameron. “You can keep me covered with your gun; but there’s something I want to show you before we go.”

  “Don’t try anything,” Heeney advised.

  “Look.” Cameron held both his hands out in front of him and wiggled them. “All I want to do is push a button and get the time. If the time doesn’t come, you can shoot me.”

  He pressed the button marked “Time Connection” on the desk at his side.

  Beside Officer Heeney, from a loud-speaker in the wall, a woman’s voice said, “When you hear the signal, the time will be exactly three twenty-three.”

  Heeney fidgeted uncomfortably, but kept his eyes on Cameron. “ ’Tis quite a trick,” he mumbled, “but you’ll not be after trickin’ me!”

  “Now listen,” said Cameron. “You know that Duncan Maclain’s blind. He’s a private detective, and he has to have means of protecting himself. Did you ever hear of an electric eye?”

  “Yes,” said Heeney. “And what’s that to do with me?”

  “Nothing,” said Cameron, “except it’s going to keep you sitting in that chair. When I pushed that time-connection button, I turned another one on.”

  The officer tensed.

  “Don’t move,” Cameron warned. “There’s a gun set in the upholstery in the back of that chair. If you try to get up you’ll break the ray of an electric eye which goes from arm to arm. In other words, officer, you’ll be shot in the back.”

  “I’ll get you first,” said Heeney.

  “You’d better keep your hands down, too,” Cameron told him. “You’ll shoot yourself in the back if you try to raise your gun.”

  He got up and picked his soft felt hat from off the desk.

  “If you don’t believe me, you can try it,” he said, “and the blood won’t be on me. Clever chap, that Duncan Maclain.”

  He started toward the door. “I wouldn’t try to wipe the sweat off my fore
head either,” he warned Heeney commiseratingly. “I’ll write a letter to the Commissioner about you. I’m tired of having you fellows stop me at every street corner to try to put me back in jail. Hasta la vista—or, as the Swedes say, au revoir.”

  He walked from the room and closed the door, descended rapidly down a service stairway to the basement, and let himself out into an alley by way of the delivery entrance. At the corner of Seventy-second and Broadway, he located an all-night restaurant with a phone booth where he dialed Spring 7-3100, and finally got Inspector Davis on the phone.

  “This is the Shadow,” he told Davis. “I just wanted to let you know that one of your minions named Heeney wants to see you up in Duncan Maclain’s office without delay.”

  “What’s he doing up there?” the Inspector sputtered furiously.

  “He’s sitting in a chair,” said Cameron, “and he thinks he’s being kept there by the Seeing Eye.”

  Five minutes later, he was smashing every speed limit on his way back to Hartford in the convertible coupé.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  1

  DUNCAN MACLAIN manipulated his hands vigorously together in an attempt to restore circulation. Spasmodic cramps had seized his shoulder muscles and were traveling downward. He could feel small excruciating knots bunching up along each arm. He spread his elbows outward, twisting and writhing to get his manacled wrists up farther behind him. There was one position where the tightly locked handcuffs seemed looser, where the hampered blood could flow in his veins a little more freely.

  The air about him was damp, penetratingly cold. Its smell, with an overlying trace of metal and oil, was reminiscent of fungus and mush-rooms. The Captain breathed it cautiously, keeping his lips tightly closed against the nauseating taste of adhesive tape which gagged him formidably.

  Time had drifted by in a dark overpowering wave. He judged it better than most people. Years of sightlessness had instilled in his mind a faultless chronometer which ticked off pulse and heartbeats, dividing them into seconds, minutes, and hours with an almost fatalistic regularity.

  His feet and legs were tightly bound. He lay face down, disdaining muscular struggle against obvious impossibility. Limp and inert as though anesthetized, he husbanded his strength, waiting for a moment when someone would come and set him free. Somewhere his carefully laid plans must have slipped.

  He pressed his cheek down against the roughness of an unplaned board. Unhampered by any extraneous distraction, he reviewed the events of the past few days, checking each item from the time the man who he thought was Madoc brought him the instructions in Braille to the moment when Cheli Scott’s car was blocked by a truck on a deserted stretch of highway. He analyzed each move he had made, ruthlessly scrutinizing each weakness in the chain.

  Duncan Maclain had been guilty of an unpardonable sin: carelessness. The price might be the life of Duncan Maclain. The enemy had moved too fast, had gone to work without wasting an hour. Never had he expected them to act with such precipitancy. Their move gave Spud no time whatever to receive his message, investigate the House of Bonnée, and get in touch with Colonel Gray.

  The Captain had predicated his plans on the belief that he would be forcibly abducted some time during the following day. He intended to give his adversaries every chance, to put himself up as a bait. Saboteurs must have a base. Maclain’s taped mouth twisted into a grin. He had found the base, gotten himself unerringly into the headquarters of an airtight, organized band, only he had arrived there about twenty-four hours too soon to be of any use to the competent workers of the F. B. I.

  “—And this one may end your career,” he thought bitterly, recalling the words of Colonel Gray.

  He wormed himself sideways with maximum caution, trying to find a wall. His exploring feet encountered nothing. After a time, he decided he must be lying on a packing case a foot or two high. Inaction began to pall. He held his breath and listened. A water pipe dripped steadily. Not far away, some mechanism which might be a tiny motor ran with an almost inaudible purr. Maclain judged that he was close to an electric meter and that the noise he heard was the spinning of the recording wheel. Lights were on somewhere in his prison, although he felt sure that outside it was day. His entire body ached dolefully and he knew that he must have spent much time sleeping fitfully.

  Taking a chance of injury, he swung his feet violently to one side and rolled off onto the floor. The drop was higher than he expected and it stunned him momentarily.

  He eased his weight from off his hands and listened again. Small feet pattered flutteringly as a rodent scuttled away. Maclain was satisfied that no one had been in to look at him for some time. Otherwise a timorous rat would not have been so near.

  He planned a tour of exploration. His only means of moving would be to bend his legs and shove himself along the floor. There were always identifying marks that his sagacious fingers might see, and if he ever escaped he wanted to know that place again.

  By aiding himself with his elbows against the side of the packing box which had served him as a couch, he managed to sit erect. Awkwardly he rocked himself around to one end of the box. Sitting up as straight as possible, he went over the wood with his fingers, starting at the bottom each time and moving his hands upward from the floor.

  The packing case was large. Nailed-down metal tape bound it at each end. The Captain had covered almost the entire surface when his fingers touched a series of small indentations. He went over them once, then sat unbelievingly with sweat staining his forehead as he traced them again more carefully. Underneath them, punched into the wood, was a tiny arrowhead.

  The Captain left the box and began to inch across the floor. It was cluttered with debris. Pieces of old iron, several camshafts from automobile motors, and assorted junk of all description put hazards in his way.

  He backed into a wall. It was damp and felt as though it had been whitewashed in the past. He moved along it until stopped by another packing case. It, too, was punched with the letters and the arrowhead. A trip around it brought him in contact with several more. He was certain then that, whoever his captors might be, they never intended him to leave the place alive.

  The name punched into the end of the boxes was that of the great Eagle Munitions Works. The arrowhead was the stamp of the British Government. He was imprisoned in a storehouse filled with looted British supplies of war.

  Behind him a bolt slid back in the door.

  2

  There were several people in the room. The Captain sat in a straight-back armchair with wooden arms and an upholstered seat. Adhesive tape held him motionless, binding his wrists to the arms of the chair. One man standing close beside him was breathing wheezily.

  The Captain fought to divorce his mind from the asthmatic inhalations of the man beside him so that he might better judge how many men were in the room. He segregated them after a while and gave them numbers.

  Number 1 was sitting down. Maclain placed him as being in charge and pictured him sitting behind a table. He had spoken once or twice in a velvety whisper which had sounded at a height approximately on a level with the Captain’s face.

  Number 2 seemed to be a confrere. He was also seated, more to the right. Maclain had followed his footsteps across the room and acoustically watched him take a chair.

  Number 3 had adenoids and was standing with his back to a door. Now and again he shuffled his feet uneasily, either touching the doorknob with his buttocks or moving it with his hand.

  Asthma was Number 4.

  Papers rustled. The Captain decided that Number 1 was reading, hence the silence. He followed the unmistakable crackle of fingered paper and the swish as each sheet was finished and laid face down on the table. Once the man with the velvet voice smothered an exclamation of annoyance.

  A chair creaked slightly under shifted weight. Once again the Captain pieced together a sequence of sounds and divined that a single sheet of the paper had fallen to the floor, to be retrieved by Number 2, who handed it back to th
e reader.

  The man with the velvet voice suddenly spoke aloud. “It’s to be infinitely regretted that a brave man and an officer should be put to such inconvenience, Captain Maclain.”

  The words were spaced. They rolled out dispassionately, without rancor or any noticeable mark of emotion. Unctious with an olive-oil texture, they managed to be detached, and terribly impersonal. There was no patriotism behind them, no warmth. Neither was there any coldness or inhumanity.

  The Captain was seized with hopelessness at their sound. Trained to estimate others by voice and cadence instead of appearance, it was brought home to him crushingly that he was face to face with a living body whose mind possessed no attribute subject to human appeal. He felt himself in the grip of the ultimate, as though cast by fate into some strange universe. He stood before Mars himself, the god of war and destruction. It would be futile to argue with a being whose voice had only beauty; as futile as to try to check a headlong rush of nations into ruin by casting himself bodily into the maw of their lancinating machine.

  A hand materialized, seized the end of the adhesive tape which muzzled his lips, and tore it loose with a single pull.

  “Your solicitude overwhelms me,” said Duncan Maclain. “I judge that I’m supposed to talk now that my lips are free.”

  “Assuredly,” the Number 1 voice agreed in a single word of unaltered pleasantness. “We find ourselves in an age-old situation, Captain Maclain. I possess something which in your peculiar scale of values is rated most highly—the life of a fellow being. A woman. You possess something which in my peculiar scale of values is rated equally high—the knowledge of plans to defend five salient points in New York City. I’m offering you an exchange, Captain Maclain—one which is more than fair. I want the name and location of those five salient points, and I want to know what measures have been taken to make them safe. I’m offering you the life of a woman in exchange. I say the exchange is more than fair, because whether you decide to tell me or not, a little more work on the part of the organization I represent will inevitably make those points known to me. The defense plans might take longer to obtain. Nevertheless, I’d learn them eventually.”