The Book of the Lion

by Elizabeth Daly

  “How?”

  “Well, look at it; after Paul Bradlock’s death his penniless widow sells every saleable thing he owned, as she had a perfect right to do. That studio annex was as bare as the palm of your hand, except for broken-down worn-out stuff that evidently belonged there, and a painting that had nothing to recommend it but colour—so far as I could judge—and probably would bring nothing. She may have sold through Iverson; that character—there are mighty few games he wouldn’t play, unless I’m mistaken. But she’d mentioned letters to her brother-in-law Avery—in connection with her book. However, she has no reason to think that Avery will feel any future interest in them; they’re not his property in the first place, and he doesn’t know or care anything about such things. He’s a busy man, with lots of ways to occupy his time, and my impression is that the less he has to think about his brother Paul, the better he’ll be pleased.

  “But suddenly a pal of Bradlock’s, somebody whose opinions carry weight with him, informs him that a correspondence of that kind often has a commercial value. Then Bradlock is interested. Through his wife he springs the news on Mrs. Paul. Well, that’s awkward for her, isn’t it?”

  “You mean he wouldn’t like to find out that she’s been selling stuff and pocketing money on the quiet. But after all—”

  “After all, she’s living there in her own house, and sheltering a couple of other people, and getting all her living expenses paid, entirely subject to Avery Bradlock’s goodwill. There are worse things than cracks in the ceiling, Dave; no wonder she didn’t bother her brother-in-law with complaints about cracks in the ceiling! Or bother his wife, either—how about Mrs. Avery’s goodwill? There isn’t any too much of that lying around at the disposal of Paul Bradlock’s widow. If Mrs. Paul moved out it would certainly be into a very small place, and if she lost Avery’s goodwill she’d probably lose all but a bare living. He struck me as a very decent sort of man, but he’s the sort to be rather disgusted by what looked like sharp practise of any kind.”

  “So you think she and Iverson got up this charade tonight to conceal the fact that she’d sold those letters?” Malcolm smiled. “If you thought that at the time, it must have been slightly irritating to watch. There you were, perfectly helpless, while Iverson and the lady did it all with mirrors.”

  “I’m pretty sure of one thing, anyway,” said Gamadge. “She’s where she is because Bradlock’s sense of duty—and perhaps his respect for public opinion—keeps her there. But if he found out that she’d sold his brother’s papers on the sly, while he paid for the cost of publishing that biography, I think she’d move into a furnished room. They could let that studio for any money now, as I’m sure Mrs. Avery would be the first to remind him.” Gamadge took a swallow of whisky, and put down his glass. “Of course I may be entirely wrong about the whole thing; but if it wasn’t a charade, as you call it, I shall be surprised.”

  “You sound as if there were some way of finding out. How can you do that, would you mind telling me? Iverson got the box out from under your nose.”

  Gamadge looked at him, half smiling. “Care to help me out with a little test?”

  “I’d be delighted.”

  “Perhaps I oughtn’t to get you into this. It may be more of a game than it looks. Iverson—” Gamadge fanned cigarette smoke away from his face, frowning. “I don’t think he plays any game for love.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Grandpa.”

  Gamadge felt in his pocket. “I got his address. Mrs. Paul had the box nicely labelled, and I got a look at the label. Here you are. Address in the East Fifties, and he said it was a walk-up.”

  Malcolm took the paper, read the address on it, and looked up. “Nice mid-town location. What do I do about it?”

  Gamadge leaned forward and talked earnestly. When the bridge four came in for drinks he and Malcolm were laughing.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Offensive

  AT A LITTLE AFTER ten o’clock on the following morning David Malcolm stood in the vestibule of a converted private house, pushing a bell marked Iverson.

  It was a handsome house, whose original owner must have had taste as well as money; a delicate iron balcony ran across the first story front, the superintendent’s basement was hedged off from the street by well-kept shrubs, and the vestibule in which Malcolm stood was tiled with lozenges of black and white marble. There seemed to be only four tenants, one to a floor, and by the arrangement of the bells and mailboxes Iverson was apparently one flight up.

  The door clicked, and Malcolm went in. He climbed well-carpeted stairs to a narrow landing. A voice asked: “That the cleaner and valet?”

  “No, I’m calling on Mr. Iverson.”

  Iverson himself stood in an open doorway. He was clad in a short brocade dressing-gown over pyjamas, and Malcolm thought that his morning face had a certain coarseness. He looked at his caller inquiringly, and amiably enough; Malcolm was highly presentable.

  “Want to see me?” he asked.

  Malcolm was a little taller than the man in front of him, and could get a view of part of the large sitting-room over Iverson’s shoulder. He got what he could in the moment allowed him—“Might slam me out,” he thought, his eyes fastened on a compact mass of newspapers which had been placed on a side table near the door. The papers looked as if they had been moulded into shape by tight packing; they made an oblong that probably measured twelve by twelve by thirty inches.

  “I ought to have telephoned,” said Malcolm, assuming a timid and apologetic air which was very foreign to his nature. “But I hate explaining over the telephone, and one so often gets no farther than the house man. Does one?”

  “Well,” said Iverson, a little less amiably, “that depends. Doesn’t it?”

  “It certainly does.” Malcolm laughed with genteel diffidence. “I thought I’d just take a chance. I am so interested in Paul Bradlock. I write a little poetry myself. I’m one of his greatest admirers. My name’s Malcolm.”

  Iverson’s expression did not change, not by the flicker of an eyelid. “Just one of those good old outcasts of Poker Flat,” thought Malcolm. “Might have dealt faro all his life.” But he was inclined to think that the full, pale face swelled a little, and there was certainly a reddening of blood vessels over the cheekbones; perhaps Mr. Iverson’s only way of flushing.

  Iverson moved a little to the left, cutting off Malcolm’s view of the newspapers on the side table. He said: “I don’t know who can have given you my name, Mr. Malcolm.”

  “Oh, I ought to have said. Mr. Gamadge did—Henry Gamadge, you know, the criminologist.”

  “The what?” Iverson’s face was still blank, but his voice flattened.

  “The criminologist, you know.”

  “I don’t know. I understood that Mr. Gamadge was a—if anything, a graphologist.”

  “Oh, he is; but he’s very good at crime, too. He found out who murdered a stepmother of mine,” said Malcolm earnestly. “If he hadn’t, I might have been hanged myself. That’s how I know that he’s a criminologist. He doesn’t talk about it.”

  “Evidently not.” Iverson surveyed Malcolm with rising doubt. “Are you serious?”

  “You can look it up.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. What about Paul Bradlock?”

  “Well, I did hope that I might get just a look at those papers before you dispersed them.”

  Iverson said: “I’m surprised that Mr. Gamadge mentioned the papers to anyone. It was a private transaction—I thought he understood that. He wasn’t even in on it professionally; he definitely told Avery Bradlock that he wasn’t an expert in that line at all, he wouldn’t even look at the letters professionally.”

  “That’s so, he only goes in for disputed documents. But of course he was greatly interested, and he thought that after you’d had a first whack at the letters you might let me have a look too—at your convenience, and of course in the most confidential way. There ought to be a lot of juice in them,” said Malcolm eagerly. �
�Lots of controversy. Paul Bradlock was such a fighter.”

  “The papers are not on view,” said Iverson, his hand now on the door-knob, “and they may never be. And if you want my frank opinion of Mr. Gamadge’s behaviour in sending you here, Mr. Malcolm, I’ll tell you—it was damned officious of him.”

  The sudden ferocity in Iverson’s voice seemed to intimidate his caller. Malcolm backed away a little. “Oh, he didn’t send me—don’t blame him, Mr. Iverson! We were just talking, because he knew I was such a Bradlock fan. Just talking at the cigar store, after breakfast. I came right down. I’m awfully sorry.”

  Iverson said with icy repression: “If I ever show any of the Bradlock correspondence it will be to fellow collectors of my own choosing. It isn’t even unpacked yet, and I’m taking it out of town with me to explore at my leisure.”

  “Of course.” Malcolm took another backward step.

  “Surely you understand, Mr. Malcolm”—Iverson’s voice softened, and he smiled—“that the less known about such collections, the greater their value in the collectors’ world. I shouldn’t have dreamed of buying this one if Mrs. Paul Bradlock had used any of it in her life of her husband, for instance.”

  “I understand perfectly.” Malcolm looked over his shoulder at the stairs as if he would have liked to make a dash for them.

  Iverson seemed to regret his former annoyance. “Wish I could ask you in to have a little talk about Paul, but the place is a mess. The woman hasn’t been up yet.”

  “Oh, thanks, no, that’s all right. I’m awfully sorry. Please overlook the intrusion. My fault.” Malcolm sounded faintly hurt. “Good morning. I should have telephoned, I know.”

  “Sorry not to be able to accommodate you.” Iverson, smiling frostily, closed the door.

  Malcolm ran down the stairs, out to the street, and down the area steps behind the row of shrubs. He rang at the grille. A woman in working clothes came and looked out at him.

  He said: “This the superintendent?”

  “Me husband is next door just now, sir.”

  “Oh, well; I’ve just been up calling on Mr. Iverson. He said there was a wooden box sent down, and I wondered if I could have it. I hate cartons,” said Malcolm, taking a dollar bill out of his wallet. “Especially for packing china, and you know how hard packing-crates are to get hold of. Could you help me out?”

  The woman said: “Well now, sir, I believe there is a box. I’ll get it for you. Me husband hasn’t broke it up yet, I’m pretty sure of that.”

  “Thank you so much. I’ll just see if I can hail a cab.”

  Malcolm had the cab at the kerb before the superintendent’s wife came out with the box. It was in fine condition, with the cover loosely attached by its nails. Malcolm pressed the dollar into her hand.

  “Tell Mr. Iverson I got it all right, will you?”

  “I’ll be going up any minute to do his rooms.”

  Malcolm got himself and the box into the cab and drove away.

  Ten minutes later it was on Gamadge’s laboratory table, and he and Malcolm stood contemplating it lovingly.

  “And the beauty of it is,” said Malcolm, “that there needn’t have been a box, all we needed was for Iverson to know I asked for it. But there it is. Is it the right one?”

  “I could swear to it.” Gamadge inspected it. “He tore the label off, the sly dog—thought he was cutting communications. What an ass he is. That’s always the trouble with these twisters, they have such bad consciences they overdo everything. Why shouldn’t the superintendent see a box with Mrs. Paul Bradlock’s writing on it?”

  “And then he goes and leaves those newspapers just as they were when he unpacked them, and right in line with the doorway.”

  “He didn’t expect you.”

  “Poor Iverson, such self-control, and then the delayed shock coming out in that exhibition of fury. Pitiful. He got himself together pretty fast, though.”

  “He did everything wrong. If he’d been on the level he needn’t have wasted any time on you at all; the normal thing would have been to say he was sorry, nothing doing, and politely shut the door in your face. But he had to know what you were up to.”

  “I’ll tell you another funny thing. After I told him you were a crime man, and he’d recovered from that, he asked me what about Paul Bradlock. Not Paul Bradlock’s letters, but Paul Bradlock.” Malcolm looked at Gamadge thoughtfully. “Am I wrong? I thought that was rather odd.”

  “It’s odd. It means that the letters weren’t on his mind because there were none, but that Paul Bradlock is.”

  “Oh well, natural enough, perhaps, with all my talk about him. What’ll he do now?”

  “He’ll wonder whether I’m going to spill all this to the Avery Bradlocks, and why. He can’t get around that lie he told you about not having unpacked the letters.”

  Malcolm, sitting on the edge of the table, looked inquiring. “Well, what are you going to do? Or was this test carried out purely in the interests of scientific truth?”

  Gamadge did not answer directly. He stood with his hands in his pockets, staring down at the box and scowling. After a pause he said: “She left all those people out of her book.”

  “For heaven’s sake, we’ve been over that.”

  “You have. I didn’t say she left them out because they were dull. I wish—” Gamadge took Malcolm’s list out of his pocket. “I wish we could find some of them. Let’s see. Wakes, Toller and Brandon are dead. Stark is in Paris. Mrs. Cobway—you think—is still living in Italy. How about Mrs. Wakes? You say she came back to America.”

  “At least ten years ago. She may be anywhere now—may have gone back to Europe and been lost in the war. Why are you bothering about her or any of them?”

  “They’re Paul Bradlock’s past, and his wife suppressed it. She suppressed whatever correspondence he did leave, and she’s played a very queer game about it with Iverson. Looked tough to you, too, did he?”

  “You should have seen him when I mentioned your hobby.”

  “Guilty conscience, all right. Do me the favour to remember that this skulduggery about the letters wasn’t a crime. He has something on his mind besides that.”

  “If you told the Bradlocks, you might get Mrs. Paul thrown out of her studio. You thought so yourself.” Malcolm frowned at his friend.

  “Iverson doesn’t know me; perhaps he does believe that I’m the kind of poisonous busybody who’d do that—for any such reason.”

  Malcolm laughed. “After this morning, I don’t know why he shouldn’t believe anything.”

  “In any case, I think we’ll hear from him.” Gamadge was fingering a corner of the packing-box, raising the lid a little and pressing it down again. He said: “We’d have heard from him already, but he has to consult his partner.”

  Malcolm rose. Turning his hat in his hands, still frowning at Gamadge, he said: “You say you don’t want to make trouble for her, but you still seem bent on turning up her past.”

  “That needn’t make trouble for her.” Gamadge looked up at him. “I assumed that I didn’t have to swear you to secrecy.”

  “No, you didn’t. Just keep me posted, will you? I’m interested myself.”

  When Malcolm had gone, Gamadge made two appointments by telephone. Then he went up and told Clara that he was going out on business and didn’t think he’d be back until late afternoon. He went out, walked to a subway, and rode down town.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Research

  AT A QUARTER TO TWELVE Gamadge was sitting in a small office, looking across a flat-topped desk at Detective-lieutenant Durfee. Gamadge sat slumped down in his hard chair, legs stretched out and lighted cigarette dangling from limp fingers. Durfee had some papers in front of him.

  “Didn’t you read the newspapers?” asked Durfee.

  “I was out of the country at the time. Now I’m doing a little research on Paul Bradlock, and I thought you might have something the papers never got.”

  “Not much of anything,�
� said Durfee. He consulted the file. “Twelfth of June, nineteen hundred and forty-five. It wasn’t a mugging, somebody beat his head in. He was having a walk sometime after midnight—not long after midnight—in Central Park. It was either a hold-up—his pockets were turned out—or a brawl with a bar crony, which he often indulged in towards the end of the evening. The crony might not have robbed the body to fool us, he might have needed the money. Bradlock was always broke himself.” Durfee looked up. “You know that part of the park up there, around the Reservoir?”

  “I was brought up around the Reservoir.”

  “Then you know that entrance from Fifth Avenue up above Eighty-fifth Street. You go in and there are two walks, one straight ahead and one up some steps. That one goes along parallel to the Reservoir, but down below it, this side of the drive. There’s a slope down to the Fifth Avenue wall, which is very high along there, and even with the bottom of the slope. The walk has benches along it on the Fifth Avenue side, and a three-bar railing, and lots of trees and shrubbery. Very dark at night, if you get between the lights. This was a rainy night, too, and there wasn’t anybody in the vicinity.

  “Bradlock wasn’t found by park keepers or a policeman. He wasn’t found till early next morning, about eight o’clock. A passer-by on Fifth Avenue noticed one of his feet showing out from behind a bush just beyond the top of that high wall. He’d been killed on the walk, or so we imagine, his body hoisted over the rail or pushed through between the bars—he was a small, slight man, and very thin—and rolled down. You going to put all that in your piece?”

  “I might use some of it. People like details of the lives of the poets.”

  “They certainly did at the time. Boy! I was sorry for the family.”

  Gamadge took a pull at his cigarette. Then he asked: “Which theory do the police like best—hold-up or brawl?”

  “It’s fifty-fifty. Here’s the argument back and forth; a pro doesn’t go out of his way to kill a drunk, but a drunk mightn’t have any more sense than to put up a fight; in which case the poor pro might actually have to kill him in self-defence.”