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The Book of the Lion

Page 15

by Elizabeth Daly


  “Yes. Neurotic personality. I’m afraid we’ll have to let her get away with those bonds of yours, Mrs. Bradlock.”

  “If you knew how thankful I am to let her have them! They made me ask you to come on Monday evening, Mr. Gamadge. They said Avery mustn’t suspect that I was against it. I didn’t understand what they’d been doing.”

  “Iverson is just a fellow-worker in the vineyard?”

  “That’s all. He used to bring things back here from Paris and sell them.”

  “They’re not pleased with each other just now.”

  A door closed below. She got up. “That’s Avery.”

  “You’re all right, Mrs. Bradlock?”

  “All right.”

  Avery Bradlock came into the room. “Gamadge, I hope they’ve been treating you properly?” He glanced at the little table. “I see you’ve had something. For me, a cocktail. I’ve told Ellen, my dear.”

  She went up to him and kissed him.

  “Well!” He turned to Gamadge, laughing, his arm around her. “What a welcome! Hanged if I know why. She ought to be in the sulks at me, I’m so late; but then she never is out of temper. Pretty good record?”

  “Pretty good.” Gamadge, in high good humour, stood with his hands in his pockets, contemplated them benignantly and congratulated himself. “Tell you the truth, Mr. Bradlock, I’m not so popular at home just now as you are. I forgot that we had a dinner engagement, and I’ve got to change for it. That’s why I came so early.”

  “Oh, don’t run off yet. I’ve asked Ellen to go over and see whether my sister-in-law can’t join us. She’s heard from a friend in California, and she’s packing for the trip; but she’d like to meet you again, I know, and hear about this unfortunate woman.”

  “I can’t tell you much about Mrs. Wakes, Mr. Bradlock. Really not more than you saw in the papers. I went there to get up some material for a paper on the twenties in Paris—or did I tell you?”

  Mrs. Bradlock said: “Don’t keep him, darling. He might come another time, and Mrs. Gamadge might come too. For dinner, you know.”

  “Good idea. Well—”

  Steps pounded on the stairs. Ellen came to the door, leaned against the jamb, and stood gasping. Her eyes were starting from her head, her mouth open.

  Bradlock stared too. “What on earth—”

  “It’s killed she is. It’s killed she is.”

  “What do you mean?” He went over and put a hand on her shoulder. “What are you talking about, Ellen?”

  “She fell down her little stairs.” Ellen burst out into loud weeping. “She must have been getting her luggage out, and she fell.”

  Mrs. Bradlock stood rigid. Bradlock said over his shoulder: “Stay here, Nannie. Keep your mother out of it,” and ran for the stairs. Gamadge followed him; down to the first floor, through into the back entry, along the connecting way. Both doors were wide.

  The studio was dark before them. Then, as they paused just inside, and their eyes adjusted themselves to the twilight, they saw the insignificant sprawl at the foot of the stairway across the room. It seemed no more than a flattened heap of dusty clothes, at first; in a moment more it had taken on the look of a discarded and broken manikin.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Accident

  BRADLOCK STRODE OVER open suitcases and went down on one knee beside the dead woman. Gamadge followed slowly; his eyes took in the open trap-door two stories above, the little dressing case near the body, the outflung hands. Bradlock twisted his head and looked up: “She’s dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “It looks as if she’d broken her neck. My God, poor little creature. Is there any—I’d better turn her. Can’t see her face.”

  Gamadge said nothing. Bradlock hesitated, looked up at the open trap, around at Gamadge again. “Frightful accident. She must have fallen the whole two flights, to get smashed like this. Carrying that thing?” He glanced at the dressing case. “This place has a ban on it.” He put his hand on the crumpled pink sleeve of the overall, drew it back. “I don’t know what to do first.”

  “Call your doctor,” suggested Gamadge. “He’ll take over, he’ll know the procedure.”

  Bradlock, relief showing on his face, got up. “Good idea. I only hope he’s at home.”

  While he got the number, Gamadge stood leaning against the piano; gravely sympathetic, but decently withdrawn and to all appearances at ease. Bradlock, waiting for an answer to his call, turned and looked at him. “Look here, you have a dinner engagement. Oughtn’t to keep you.”

  “I’ll stand by till somebody comes.”

  “Would you shut and lock that door?”

  Gamadge did so.

  “I suppose there’s nobody else here?” Bradlock glanced up at the gallery doors. “But there can’t be, unless that fellow—who is it? Walsh? Welsh?—unless he’s asleep up there.”

  “I’ll look. Don’t think so.”

  Gamadge came forward, circled the body, and went up to the gallery. He looked into two dark cubicles, each with a view of old bricks and mortar some two feet away. He came back. “Nobody.”

  “Fleming is on his way, thank fortune. Gamadge, this is a tragedy. That unfortunate little soul—Fleming says not to touch her…”

  “No, these accidents ought to be filed away properly from the start.”

  “Glad that occurred to me—subconsciously, perhaps. This poor little soul; she was using that thousand dollars Iverson paid her for the letters to buy into a florist’s business in Los Angeles. Would you think they’d need florists? More than anybody, it seems. She called me up about it only this afternoon. Couldn’t wait for help, I suppose, all excitement over the move, and look what happens. Peculiar, independent little thing.” He sat beside the telephone, casting disgusted looks about him. “This place is disgraceful, but she never said so. I’m inclined to think my mother-in-law is right, they like to live in a mess.” He paused. “Once or twice I tried to get in, while she was out; look things over. But the door was always bolted on this side—I got an idea she didn’t want us here.”

  “Some privacy fixation, perhaps?”

  “She may have had some feeling of resentment. It was a difficult situation while my brother was alive—I suppose you know. Everybody did. Insoluble problem. With the best will in the world, what could I do? Like dealing with a—with a madman. You can’t help them. Money lost or stolen, or spent on—perhaps I was hard on him. Nannie thought so. Tell you the truth, I was glad she was going.”

  “Much better.”

  “Well, she’s gone with a vengeance!” He glanced with pity and a certain revulsion at the body. “Can’t pretend we ever liked her. We’re not intellectuals. I hope Fleming can save us more newspaper headlines. Do you think—”

  The doorbell rang. Gamadge admitted a stoutish man, carrying a black bag. He exuded competence and authority.

  “Well, well, well, Bradlock, this is too bad.”

  “Yes, pretty ghastly. Mr. Gamadge, Doctor Fleming. Gamadge was having a cocktail with us when we got the news.”

  Fleming went directly across to the body. After a minute he got up, and took Bradlock’s place at the telephone. “Been dead a very short time,” he said, dialling. “Killed instantly, I should say. May have broken every bone in her body, besides her neck.” He talked into the telephone, replaced it, and turned. “Fell from up there, did she? Looks as if she had that little case in her hand; they can be heavy if they’re filled. Sorry it had to happen to you, Avery. Bad luck.”

  Bradlock said: “Mr. Gamadge has a dinner engagement.”

  Fleming nodded at Gamadge. “You go on home, then. No need to keep you here. With the Bradlocks when the maid brought the news? Go on home.”

  “Well, if I can’t help—”

  “Not a thing to do but wait for the green light. You have it now, beat it. There’s a pile of routine.”

  Gamadge shook hands with Bradlock, and went back through the connecting way. He got his hat and coat, hurried out of
the Bradlocks’ front door, and passed the radio car at the corner.

  When he reached home he dashed upstairs to the library. “Get your things, Clara, we’re dining out.”

  “Out? Where? Those Bradlocks?”

  “No, that’s for some other night; you’re invited at last.” He was out in the hall, telephoning. Malcolm answered.

  “That you, Dave? We’re on our way? You invited us to dinner.”

  “We certainly did not,” replied Malcolm with indignation. “The Lithuanian has gone for her night out, and we’re hacking pieces off a cold ham and opening cans. And there isn’t enough cold ham for us, much less you.”

  “We’ll bring the dinner.”

  Gamadge slammed down the receiver and made for the kitchen. A few minutes later Athalie the cook, infuriated, was wrapping a hot roast chicken in waxed paper.

  “And we always meant to dine out,” Gamadge told her, “only we forgot. And all Theodore has to say is that we are out, and he doesn’t know where.”

  “If he know where,” said Athalie, pushing the chicken into a carton, “he got the second sight. Want gravy in a milk container? You friends must be trash.”

  Ten minutes more saw the Gamadges tumbling into a cab.

  After dinner the four played bridge. Gamadge seemed fascinated by the game. “We’re not the kind of people to eat and run,” he explained. “Come on, another rubber.”

  Nobody could get any kind of explanation out of him. They left at eleven, Gamadge having won all the money. “My luck’s running,” he said. “I need it.”

  When he and Clara got home a visitor was waiting for them, and Gamadge showed no surprise. It was Lieutenant Durfee, and he had made himself comfortable on the chesterfield. He rose slowly as they entered.

  “Hello,” said Gamadge, “how are you? I’m glad Theodore made you feel at home.”

  “Least he could do.” Durfee shook hands with Clara. “Me waiting here an hour.”

  “Well, I’m glad it’s a social call. It would be, of course,” said Gamadge, “since you’re—er—taking refreshment.”

  “You think you’re funny.”

  Clara said she was a little tired, and bade them good night. When she had gone Durfee sank back on the chesterfield.

  “Now, let’s have it,” he said. “Why did you duck out before we got there?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Money’s Worth

  GAMADGE, pouring himself a drink, raised his head to register surprise. “There? You mean up at the Bradlocks’?”

  “That’s it.”

  “I ducked out before you got there? What’s Homicide doing at an accident?”

  “Nothing. I’m talking for the department.”

  Gamadge, highball in hand, studied him with eyebrows arched high. “Didn’t they tell you I was over at the other house? Didn’t they explain that I had a dinner engagement?”

  “Yes.” Durfee crossed one foot over the other, clasped his hands behind his head, and gazed at the ceiling. “All in all, the Bradlocks are news. When I caught the accident I couldn’t help wondering whether you being there didn’t make some kind of a tie-up.”

  “You thought there was a tie-up? Suffering cats, what next?” Gamadge drank deep.

  “I know, I know. I’ve reformed,” said Durfee.

  “But why reform now, when it was an ac—”

  Durfee flapped a hand at him. He asked: “Suppose somebody was up at the top of a little flight of stairs like that, just climbed out of a trap-door, with a suitcase in one hand. What would you do if you didn’t like the party, and you were standing down below in the living-room, and you thought it would be nice if they fell down the two flights and broke their neck?”

  Gamadge thought it over. “I’d throw something at them.”

  Durfee burst out laughing. “Anything funny?” asked Gamadge, rather shocked.

  “You are. That must have been what happened. Nobody could be up there behind her, no string across the stairs—she’d been going up and down right along, getting out her suitcases. You’re a nice-dressed caller down below, you don’t want to get mussed up or anything. So you pick up a little fitted case, heavy as all get-out, and you take a swing. Hit her full in the face. Face is all bruised up, the whole front of it; Doc says she couldn’t very well do that falling. You try it.”

  Gamadge sat on the edge of the table and swung his foot. “I don’t believe any M.E. would come to any such conclusion without reasons for it better than that one.”

  “You’re right. Don’t worry about the Bradlocks. Nice folks, ain’t they? Bradlock’s chauffeur drove him right home from his club and rang the doorbell for him and saw him in, and that was at a little after seven.”

  “I know he got home then, because I looked—”

  “Sure, sure. He was playing bridge at his club, he was put into his car there by his chauffeur and the doorman. What a lot of help Mr. Bradlock does need, don’t he?

  “Then Mrs. B., she was talking to you from the time her maid left her after she dressed for dinner. The other maid was in and out picking up after the first maid. What a lot of help—”

  “Oh, forget it.”

  “As for you, of course you might have fitted it in on your way up from here, nobody keeps track of your hours, but we got another line that looks even better.”

  “I’m relieved.”

  “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

  “Well, yes; I’m interested.”

  “Now, mind you, I haven’t changed my opinion about the Wakes suicide. That was suicide. You got her scared, and my opinion is that when the rest of the gang saw your name in the papers they worried. You started a general break-up. What the racket is we probably never will know.”

  “Won’t we?” Gamadge looked disappointed.

  “Not if you don’t.”

  “I told you—”

  “Yes, and thank God I don’t have to work on it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I love to hear you asking the questions for a change,” said Durfee. “There’s a little retired op named Indus. Nice little feller, used to be with Geegan. He takes a walk up town in the park of an afternoon, and to-day he was walking past the Bradlock place on his way to the Madison Avenue bus. He sees a man come out of the Bradlock studio, plenty quiet and careful, sees him walk along that side yard to the gates as if he was walking on eggshells, sees him squint up at the Bradlocks’ bow window there and duck by—can’t help ducking. Being an op, Indus is interested. He walks along, and sees the feller dive down into that service alley beside the apartment house. Being an op, he looks at the time. It’s six twenty-five.”

  Gamadge’s foot had stopped swinging.

  “Well, what does Indus do but chase after him, and I can tell you there wasn’t a better man at it in New York in his day. There’s something about the feller that interests him. They go along to the next street down, then east, then a few blocks down, and they’re on that block beside that old abandoned hospital with the high wall and the big trees. Know it?”

  “I ought to. It’s Saint Damian’s.”

  “It is. I remember, you know it. Well, the feller has a bad conscience, so he does notice Indus on that stretch. He lets him catch up, there under that wall, dark and deserted stretch, and what do you know? He pulls a gun on him.”

  “No!”

  “For a fact, this Iverson pulls a gun. But this Indus—slick little customer, knows all the tricks—he dives, tackles him, and has him flat with the gun sliding across the pavement. He hollers murder, and people begin running. Iverson gets away from him, of course, and has his gun again. What does he do? Puts a bullet in his own head.”

  Gamadge was now able to form sentences. “What in the world,” he wondered aloud, “should he do that for?”

  “Well, for one thing,” said Durfee, “he had his pockets stuffed with government bonds with Mrs. Bradlock’s name pencilled on the top of the covers, the way those banks or brokers do. He was bulging with them. Didn�
��t have more than time to grab them and get out. Then in the second place, he left the studio at just about the wrong time for him and the right time for us. Left with her property in his pockets and inside his vest. And he’d fixed himself by pulling the gun. Personally, I think this Indus ought to get some kind of a reward.”

  “You think so because you won’t have to check up on the details now?” Gamadge laughed.

  “Are you going to check up any more?” Durfee looked amused too.

  “No, of course not. They’re all dead—I can’t do any checking.”

  “That’s so. Given up looking for that accomplice, have you? The one that changed the brandy flask?”

  “There was none, of course.”

  “You actually admit it?”

  “Can’t I be wrong sometimes?” asked Gamadge.

  “This time you could. It wasn’t that little girl that beat it when you got to the studio this afternoon?”

  “No. Ridiculous.”

  “Or that boy?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “I thought you’d backed down on it when Bradlock told me about your going up there on invitation this evening to tell him about poor Mrs. Wakes. Not a word out of you to them about all this brandy-flask stuff, or anything else. So,” said Durfee, “I didn’t give you away.”

  “You didn’t? Fine. Now they may ask me to dinner.”

  “They were all pretty well laid out by the Iverson business. Upset Mrs. Bradlock a good deal.”

  “Naturally it would.”

  “But that old lady they got up there—the mother-in-law; bright as a button, isn’t she? She was all excitement. Told me about how they never got into the studio, and all the rest of it.”

  “Yes, she’s always full of useful information.”

  “They were sitting around after dinner when I got there. I had to drop in, of course, about Iverson and the twenty-odd thousand he took off Mrs. Paul Bradlock.”

  Gamadge turned a little away, picked up his glass, and drank some whisky. He said after a pause: “He’d have had his share before, if it was loot. Er—Bradlock wouldn’t know anything about any such amount as that. Are you turning it over to him?”

 

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