A 1,007,061 A MOST IMMORAL MURDER AIRROOV w 1817 HUMMIT WT LARTES SCIENTIA LIBRARY VERITAST OF THE NIVERSITY OF MICHI MICHIGAN UNIVERSIT MINIMA COCOSCONS L ISIN MMINISTRATION I N TCEBOR SI QUERIS SUERIS-PENINSULAMA AMAMONAM SIRCUMSPICE N UTNO INTERN ATIONAL LIMITILLIMITTE 211111 UMOUC BEQUEST OF ORMA FITCH BUTLER, PH.D., '07 PROFESSOR OF LATIN MTULUI 228 A824 -- -- - ----------- A MOST IM MORAL MURDER BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE MURDER OF CECILY THANE THE MURDER OF STEVEN KESTER THE MURDER OF SIGURD SHARON A MOST IMMORAL MURDER arriette BY H. ASHBROOK COWARD-McCANN PUBLISHERS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1935, BY H. ASHBROOK Published in MYSTERY MAGAZINE under the title "HE KILLED A THOUSAND MEN" PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO WELLMER WHO COLLECTS STAMPS AND TO DIZ WHO DOESN'T O. F.BUTLER BEQ east 4-ronto CONTENTS PAGE I. “Ain't It Dull?” . . . . . . II. A Good Deed Gone Wrong. . . III. The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship · · · · · · · IV. Murder at Last! . . . . . . V. Enter—the Super-Sleuth. ... VI. Dull But Necessary . . . VII. The $32,500 Nut . . . . VIII. 50,000,000,000 M – 2c. . . . IX. "Haven't I Met You Somewhere Before?” . . . . · · · X. The Guy without Guts . . . . XI. Spike Hunts Russian Air Mails . XII. Just a Couple of Damn Fools . . XIII. Enter-a Man of Honor . . . XIV. A Very Private Secretary . . . 110 XV. Gossip on the Doorstep. ..115 XVI. A Familiar Face . . . . . . 121 vii vili Contents 159 PAGE XVII. The Inspector Has Spots Before the Eyes . . . . . . . 128 XVIII. Pug Forgets He's a Wodehouse Butler . . . . . . . . 136 XIX. Mr. Heffenbaugh's Buddy . . . .141 XX. 'Missing in Action' . . . . . 148 XXI. Clem Yoder, Memory Marvel . 154 XXII. The Killer Strikes Again (S'Death!) . . . . . . . 159 XXIII. A Little Nifty Mail Robbing . . 166 XXIV. The District Attorney Bites the Dust . . . . . . . . . 170 XXV. The Truth and Nothing But.. 185 XXVI. The Way-Down-East Motif . . 198 XXVII. Wanted-an Unmarried Mother. 205 XXVIII. Found-an Unmarried Mother. 218 XXIX. A Goofy Hunch . . . . . .. 227 XXX. Worse and More of It . . . . 234 XXXI. Three Frightened People . . . 242 XXXII. The Long Dead Past . . . . . 258 XXXIII. Just Nosey . . . . . . . . 277 An Epilogue. Involving Two Dis- reputable Characters . . . . 286 NOTE In all fairness to the reader it should be pointed out that the events narrated in this story are sup- posed to take place in the year 1933. The reader should also bear in mind the fact that, although all of the stamps mentioned herein really exist and are famous throughout the philatelic world, the owner- ship attributed to them in this story is pure invention on the part of the author. A MOST IMMORAL M U R D E R CHAPTER I "AIN'T IT DULL?" "'IT MAY be life, but ain't it dull?' " The lazy young man, a-sprawl in the porch chair, flung down his book and gazed across the blue waters of the bay. "I beg pardon, sir?” The voice was soft and dis- creet in the best traditions of English butlerdom. "Just quoting. Guy named Herbert. He knows what he's talking about.” “Yes, sir. Very good, sir.” "You lie! It's lousy." The discreet voice made no comment, but a tall tinkling glass was deftly inserted into the curve of the young man's hand as it lay outflung in boredom across the wicker table beside the chair. His fingers closed around its icy smoothness. He raised it and took a long swallow. Then he made a face. "God! Even the liquor's lousy!" "Beg pardon, sir, but that's the special brand you ordered the other day. Durfey & Benson." 4 A Most Immoral Murder “Well, it's lousy just the same. They made a mis- take on the label. They ought to call it 'cambric tea.' If you ever get wind of some good old pre-repeal, aged-in-the-bathtub gin, buy out the house." “Yes, sir. Very good, sir." The young man took another swallow of the “cam- bric tea" and scowled at the landscape. “The trouble is," he said, "I'm getting old.” “Yes, sir." "I'm twenty-nine and I'm bored as hell." “Beg pardon, sir, but might I suggest that " “No!” Inertia changed to sudden irritation. The young man's feet came down off the chair opposite with a bang, and he twisted in his seat to confront the soft discreet voice at his elbow. “Sit down!" The soft, discreet voice sat. “Pour yourself a drink!". Soda sizzed in a second tall, tinkling glass. “Now be yourself!" “Very goo " “Yourself, I said." There was a threatening edge to the tone. “O. K., Chief." “That's better, but make it 'Spike.'”. The young man relaxed once more into his com- fortable sprawl and let his eyes rest this time on the figure before him. A surprising figure it was. Surprising at least to "Ain't It Dull?" anyone who up to this time had heard only the voice that issued therefrom. “Yes, sir.... Very good, sir. ... Beg pardon, sir.” A butler. An English butler, tall and austere, the snobbish sort who gets racing tips from dukes, and can make even the most self- satisfied Americans feel a bit wormish and inferior. As a matter of fact Pug Beasley was none of these. He was short, just a bit over five feet, and he had never in all his forty years so much as seen a duke. His scarred, battered features taken separately -the broken nose, the missing teeth, the bent left ear-were not prepossessing, but the ensemble, though ugly, was comic and strangely intriguing. Of late, however, his general air of geniality had been somewhat marred by the assumption of a dig- nity which his stature made slightly ridiculous. "Just what,” said Spike, "is the idea ?” Pug relaxed gratefully from the strain of British butlerdom and took a long swig from his glass be- fore he answered. "Well, you see, it's like this. I been readin' a book.” "Bad business, Pug. The higher learning has ruined more than one prize-fighter.” "Yeah, but I don't read so good, and I ain't a fighter no more, so I guess it ain't gonna do me no harm. Anyway this book here, I'm tellin' you about, has got a butler in it. A real classy one. And I figure to myself that this here job with you is pretty soft, and if I'm gonna hold it I'd ought to be perfectin' A Most Immoral Murder myself in my art. If I'm gonna be a butler, I'm gonna be a good butler, like when I was a fighter, I was a good fighter, see?" "I see, but I don't think it's so hot." "Well, that's maybe because I ain't so good yet. I ain't had the book but about two weeks, and I'm only at page eighty-three. Gimme time.” “Give you time and you'll work yourself right out of your soft job." "Whaddaya mean?” Pug looked suddenly appre- hensive. "I mean that I didn't hire you to be a butler. If I'd wanted a butler, I would have gotten a butler, not a has-been, bantam-weight pug. I loathe butlers. They're too damn snooty. They don't realize that this is a democratic world. A butler, for instance, would never sit down and put his feet up on the table and drink with the mahster." "No? Well, that just shows what a sap he is.” "See that you don't get to be that kind of a sap." "Well, I'll tell you, Spike. With you—no. But in front of company, it's class. See?" "All right, in front of company, but at your own risk. There's no telling when I may haul off and bust you one." Pug grinned. “Couldn't be done. My foot work's too good for you. It ain't all just in the hittin', you know. You gotta find the guy first before you can lam him one. Now you take ". “No, you take it right back home. When I want a "Ain't It Dull?" 7 lesson in boxing, I'll call up Dempsey. He's more my size." The two men sat for a few moments in silence, sipping their drinks and smoking. Presently Spike: spoke, taking up once more the thread of his bore- dom. "What do you do, Pug, when you don't know what in God's name to do?”. Pug considered the question judicially. "Well, if I got the price, I get drunk.” Spike shook his head. “No good. I tried that all. last week. The relief's just temporary." "Well, if you're hell bent on goin' to hell, and likker won't do it, most everybody else tries women." Again Spike shook his head. “Vastly over-rated. Anyway modern morals have destroyed sin. It's. called 'living life to the full' now." Plainly Pug was stumped. Liquor and women ex- hausted his own personal repertoire of iniquity. His was a simple soul, untuned to the finer nuances of wickedness. In desperation he cast about into those realms of vicarious experience in which he had lately been immersed. "Well, in this book I'm readin', the one with the class butler in it, it starts off with a guy that's kinda like you. I mean he's got tons of jack, and he ain't bad lookin' but he ain't got nothin' to do except spend his jack and make janes, and he's already kinda tired of doin' that, so he begins lookin' up ads. in the newspapers. You know like-well - " A Most Immoral Murder myself in my art. If I'm gonna be a butler, I'm gonna be a good butler, like when I was a fighter, I was a good fighter, see?” “I see, but I don't think it's so hot." "Well, that's maybe because I ain't so good yet. I ain't had the book but about two weeks, and I'm only at page eighty-three. Gimme time.” “Give you time and you'll work yourself right out of your soft job." "Whaddaya mean?” Pug looked suddenly appre- hensive. "I mean that I didn't hire you to be a butler. If I'd wanted a butler, I would have gotten a butler, not a has-been, bantam-weight pug. I loathe butlers. They're too damn snooty. They don't realize that this is a democratic world. A butler, for instance, would never sit down and put his feet up on the table and drink with the mahster." “No? Well, that just shows what a sap he is.” "See that you don't get to be that kind of a sap." “Well, I'll tell you, Spike. With you-no. But in front of company, it's class. See?" "All right, in front of company, but at your own risk. There's no telling when I may haul off and bust you one." Pug grinned. “Couldn't be done. My foot work's too good for you. It ain't all just in the hittin', you know. You gotta find the guy first before you can lam him one. Now you take " "No, you take it right back home. When I want a "Ain't It Dull?" 7 O lesson in boxing, I'll call up Dempsey. He's more my size." The two men sat for a few moments in silence, sipping their drinks and smoking. Presently Spike: spoke, taking up once more the thread of his bore- dom. "What do you do, Pug, when you don't know what in God's name to do?" Pug considered the question judicially. "Well, if I got the price, I get drunk.” Spike shook his head. “No good. I tried that all last week. The relief's just temporary.” "Well, if you're hell bent on goin' to hell, and likker won't do it, most everybody else tries women.” Again Spike shook his head. “Vastly over-rated. Anyway modern morals have destroyed sin. It's. called 'living life to the full' now.” Plainly Pug was stumped. Liquor and women ex- hausted his own personal repertoire of iniquity. His was a simple soul, untuned to the finer nuances of wickedness. In desperation he cast about into those realms of vicarious experience in which he had lately been immersed. "Well, in this book I'm readin', the one with the class butler in it, it starts off with a guy that's kinda like you. I mean he's got tons of jack, and he ain't bad lookin' but he ain't got nothin' to do except spend his jack and make janes, and he's already kinda tired of doin' that, so he begins lookin' up ads. in the newspapers. You know like-well — " A Most Immoral Murder He reached for the newspaper that lay on the wicker table and opened it to the column of per- sonal notices. “You know, like these here. They was one that said, 'Wanted, young man of fearless courage to un- dertake secret mission, one willin' to risk life and fortune if need be,' and it was just signed 'Sonya,' so this guy in the book answers it and Sonya gives him a ring and tells him to come on over, and it seems she's the daughter of a spy in the Czar's army and she's tryin'..." The exploits of the stalwart hero of fearless cour- age were lost on the lazy young man in the porch chair as he let his eyes wander down the personal column of the Tribune. The regular annual meeting of the shareholders of the Teachers' Building and Loan Society will be held at the office of the society, 349 Broadway, at 4 p. m., August 12. Party driving to California in car will take three passengers for share of expenses. Marty: Come home. Mamma sick. We'll forget it.- Cora. Write Joe Marajos for details of Mexican divorce law. Divorces obtained in six weeks without leav- ing New York. Spike put down the paper and shook his head sadly. “I'm not a member of the Teachers' Build- ing and Loan Society, I have no intention of driving "Ain't It Dull?" to California, I haven't an idea who Marty and Mamma and Cora are, and I'm not married so I don't need a Mexican divorce. No, Pug, I'm afraid that won't do." "Well, those ain't so good. I been sort of readin' them myself since I started this story I'm tellin' you about, and the best ones is in that paper that's all about books." "The Saturday Review. Ah yes; poor, dear Rich- ard gave me a subscription to it. He thought it might improve my literary taste.” Spike took from the pile of newspapers and mag- azines which cluttered the screened verandah ledge, the Review and opened it to that enticing column of human vapidity in a world of literary austerities. Lives there a man with soul so dead he could not suffer inspiration from a young woman?-Gay but Wistful. "Sorry," Spike said, “but my soul is absolutely moribund." His eyes wandered down the column. Struggling harpist wishes someone would endow her future musical education. Sick and in prison. Adele. "Now this," Spike remarked as he scanned the . third item, "sounds promising." I want to put on an act to make the cats in my office sit up and take notice. For this not especially high-minded purpose I require an attentive date. I'd like him to be forty or older and willing to come into the office with the expressed purpose of taking me to lunch or dinner. It will be Dutch treat, but the cats will never know. Proud Polly. 10 A Most Immoral Murder Pug was not impressed. Female office intrigue is pap to one whose regular fare is international es- pionage. But he merely pointed out: “You're too young. It says forty or over.” Spike read on. Artist or writer can have home in exchange for part time work around country residence. Must be well recommended. “Recommended for what?" he inquired. "His prose style or his skill in putting up the summer screens ?” He tossed the Review from him and scooped up from the floor the Saugus Weekly Index. A much less pretentious sheet than either the Review or the Tribune, yet boasting a personal column enlivened with photographs. There were two in today—a young man and a cow. Beneath the young man the caption read: “Will anyone knowing whereabouts of fourteen-year-old boy resembling this photograph communicate with Box 71, Saugus Index.” And beneath the cow: “Will anyone knowing whereabouts of Holstein cow marked like above communicate with C. F. Springer, Old Lane Road, Saugus.” There was also an advertisement of the midsum- mer strawberry festival of the First Presbyterian Church of Saugus, an announcement of a meeting of the Farmers' Co-operative, and three notices of strayed calves. ! "Ain't It Dull?" 11 Spike flung the pile from him. "No, Pug, I'm afraid they won't do.” Pug agreed with him. Lost cows and strawberry festivals bore even less promise of adventure than starving harpists and spinsters without dates. They sighed in unison and for a long time they sat gazing gloomily out across the gay ripples of the bay, musing on the barrenness of life. Presently Spike yawned prodigiously, stretched, and gathered to- gether his sprawling members. "I guess there's nothing for it, Pug, but to give myself up to good works.” Pug looked apprehensive. “You mean prayin' and takin' jelly to the sick ?”. "Hardly. I'm not exactly the type for that. What I had in mind was a trip over to the mainland to my brother's." Pug rose and started gathering up the glasses. "I don't suppose,” he said, as he busied himself with an overflowing'ash tray, that there's much accountin' for tastes." "Meaning, of.course, that you think my brother is one of the most God-awful blisters on the land- scape.” Pug nodded and Spike grinned reminiscently. “That was the beginning of our beautiful friend- ship, wasn't it? The minute he told me you were a 'disreputable character,' I felt drawn to you. I felt something in you akin to myself. Richard has so often called me a disreputable character.'” 12 A Most Immoral Murder Pug paused in his cleaning and eyed Spike, his forehead wrinkling with speculation. “Tell me some- thin'—are you sure your ma didn't put nothin' over on your old man?” Spike laughed, then sobered quickly. “Unfortu- nately," he said dolefully, “I'm afraid she didn't. Blood brothers we are, though, thank God, it isn't visible to the naked eye.” “Then what do you want to see him for ??? "I was thinking of Teddy. I feel sorry for the brat. He wrings my heart. He's been sick and I promised him I'd come and see him and bring some stamps. Tell Mrs. Parsons I'll be back late for din- ner, maybe not before eight." “The paper says storm tonight. You'd beter look out crossin' the bay." CHAPTER II A Good Deed Gone Wrong MR. PUG BEASLEY was not alone in his speculations as to the parentage of the Tracy brothers. There were many who shared his doubts. It seemed hardly possible that two such diverse human beings could spring from the same parents. Spike, or to give him his baptismal, passport and police blotter name, Philip Tracy, was a blithe, deb- onair young man of infinite good humor and a feel- ing that life is more bearable if laughed at. He was twenty-nine, personable in a tall, blond way, with plenty of inherited money, and an inclination to en- joy what he had rather than make more. He had an apartment in New York and a summer cottage on an island two miles off the south shore of Long Island. His brother, Richard, shared none of his insou- ciant qualities. Between the ages of one and three Richard had been subjected to the portrait of an an cestor in a frock coat with the left hand stuck in the chest about to make a speech. It had hung over the 13 14 A Most Immoral Murder mantle in the drawing room and he had viewed it every day of his life and it had left an indelible im- print. Life as he saw it was serious and should be treated with proper respect. Man was created for some useful purpose like being district attorney of New York County—which Richard was. Man should strive onward and upward, ever aspiring toward something higher like being senator or gov. ernor—which was Richard's secret ambition. Man should not waste his youth in idle bachelor- hood but should found a family. And as Richard was some fifteen years older than Philip, the family which he had dutifully if not passionately founded was not twelve years old and just recovering from the mumps. It was the hapless plight of Teddy which had aroused the benevolent impulses of his Uncle Spike. Not that the mumps, and an extremely light case at that, was particularly distressing. It was at worst a temporary ordeal. But parentage such as had been wished on Teddy was a permanent blight on a young life which otherwise might have been full of hope. If Spike considered his brother a blister, he regarded his sister-in-law as a boil. How the two of them together had ever managed to produce a child as appealing as Teddy was one of the major mysteries of life which he had refused to tackle. He did, however, feel a certain responsi- bility toward the child in ameliorating the hardness of his lot. And in consequence he found himself some A Good Deed Gone Wrong 15 fifteen minutes after his parting with Pug heading his motor launch toward the mainland of Long Island and the Saugus wharf. The town of Saugus by some strange miracle had escaped the depredations of summer vacationists and antique hunters, and had preserved much of the quiet, sleepy flavor that is one of the chief charms of very old and very small shore villages. There was still the white church that had been built in 1794, and the same shops that had lined its streets since the Civil War. It was into one of these that Spike strolled after he had moored his launch down at the rotting, green- lichened pier at the foot of Main Street. Milo Taylor, the proprietor, a rosy, graying, ro- tund fellow, sat behind a tall roll top desk in the rear. "So it's stamps you're after again," he said when Spike had stated his business. “Well, I guess I still got some left-somewhere.” He started pawing about aimlessly in the roll top desk. "I recollect I bought quite a sight of 'em about two, three years ago from a salesman that come through. Nobody much has bought 'em, though, except you and the boy up to your brother's place." "I'm getting them for him," Spike explained. “He has been sick. Mumps." Milo tch-tched sympathetically and heaved him- self from his chair. He wandered about the shop, peering under a length of cloth here, opening up an 16 A Most Immoral Murder empty tin there. And like all disorderly people overi whom some benign Providence watches, he finally found what he was looking for in a large and ornate vase made from clam shells embedded in pink ce- ment. "Here they are," and he shook them out onto the desk. “Always had a hankerin' after stamps myself ever since I read an article about them in one of the New York papers, the time they had the big exhibi- tion, back a spell.” The stamps were a miscellaneous lot, done up in little soiled, dusty cellophane envelopes. Spike se- lected several packets. “How much?” Milo pursed his lips uncertainly. Cost accounting had no place in his schemes of merchandising. “Oh- well—say about fifty, seventy-five cents." He laughed as he pocketed the coins flipped across the counter. “You know this article I was tellin' you about says they's some stamps that are worth thou- sands of dollars. Thousands !". "Don't tell Teddy about them. It would sort of take the edge off my seventy-five cents worth.” "Well, you never can tell. Now maybe unbe- knownst to anybody there might be one of them real valuable ones in one of them there packets you got." Milo seemed to regard the prospect of a fortune slipping through his fingers with his usual equanim- e ity. "I recollect this article was tellin' about a fellow A Good Deed Gone Wrong 17 that come across a bank that was movin' from a place they'd been fifty, sixty years, and they was go- ing to throw out a lot of old letters and stuff. And he give a hundred dollars for the lot, and what do you know if he didn't find some of these valuable stamps, and sold 'em for seven, eight thousand dollars. "And they was tellin' about one stamp—just one, mind you—that was worth twenty-five thousand no, no, it was thirty-two thousand " Reluctantly Spike tore himself away from Milo's tall tales of stamp fortunes. He would have pre- ferred to stay and listen to the store-keeper's genial ramblings, but having pledged himself to good works, he felt that the sooner he got them over the better. The country place of R. Montgomery Tracy was imposing in an ugly, solid sort of way. As Spike drove his Cadillac roadster up the gravelled drive- way—he had picked up his car at the garage in Sau- gus-he searched the second-floor windows for a glimpse of Teddy's face. He hoped he might slip in and see his nephew without encountering his sister- in-law. His brother he knew was in town. Hilda, he hoped, was in hell. But it just happened that Hilda was sitting on the side verandah. Hilda was a largish person—a bit taller, as a matter of fact, than her somewhat small- ish husband—and she ran to resolute corseting, close- cropped gray hair, and large bone glasses. Much of her life was devoted to committees, and she had at 18 A Most Immoral Murder one time or another been chairman of everything from a church mystery play to a county dog show. Her specialty, however, was child training, and Teddy was her guinea pig. It was a tribute to the in- herent soundness of his constitution that he had sur- vived successively Behaviorism, the Montessori Method, a progressive play school and Gestalt psy- chology. It was only the mumps that had saved him from newer and more scientific horrors. The interlude was temporary though. Already his mother was planning fresh experiments. Even as Spike mounted the steps she was engaged in reading a book, an astonishing new theory that conclusively proved that the time to get a child, to really mold his character and clinch his behavior pattern is in his twelfth year. He must be isolated, a creature apart during that crucial time. He must be kept from all peril both physical and moral. Bad company is as dangerous as germs. As- sociation with people of light ... Spike felt that his sister-in-law's greeting was un- usually cool. He was aware, of course, that her feel- ings toward him were never unduly tender, yet this afternoon he felt a new frigidity in the air. "Teddy,” she told him curtly, in reply to his in- quiry, "is ill.” "I know. That's why I came over. I brought him some stamps." “Stamps!” A Good Deed Gone Wrong 19 The inference of her tone was that someone was about to present her son with a bunch of adders. "For his collection," Spike explained. "He has no collection." "Oh yes, he has. He was showing it to me just the other day.” "He has no collection. I ordered Perkins to burn it-this morning." "Why you di — " Spike caught himself just in time. "To burn it—this morning. I was reading a book only last week on various phases of the Oriental plague, and they have on record three cases over a period of twenty years which are directly traceable to stamps. The plague bacillus adheres to the glue of the stamp, forming " Spike rose abruptly. “Where's Teddy? I want to see him." "Teddy can see no one." "He's not as sick as all that. The doctor said yes- terday that he " "For a period of six weeks Teddy will not be at home to anyone-anyone. I'm reading a book now, a marvelous book on an entirely new phase of child psychology which — ". Spike jerked open the door of his car, turned the key and jammed in the clutch. The engine roared with quite unnecessary anger. It was just beyond the shrubbery that shut off the house from the road that 20 A Most Immoral Murder a figure jumped from the bushes and gesticulated wildly. Spike put on squealing brakes. “Perkins, what the hell?". "It's Master Teddy, Mr. Philip. He asked if I would give you this when I saw you instead of-of burning it. But you won't, of course, say anything to Mrs. Tracy about it, will you?” Perkins was old and white-haired and his gentle, kindly eyes were appealing as he held out a clumsily done up package. Spike slipped the wrapping off. It was a grubby stamp album and inside was a letter in round little boy writing. "Spike: Take care of this for me. They're going to burn it on me. And if you find any good new Rus- sian air mails save them. Teddy. P. S. Do you know a book that says that stamps are good for you? If you do will you please buy it and send it anonmusly to Mother and I will pay you back twenty cents a week from my alouance." CHAPTER III The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship “SING to me. Sing me that song you sang the night when first we met." Pug looked disgusted. “If I didn't know you, I'd say you was a pansy." “Sing to me,”'.Spike persisted as he stretched him- self on the davenport. The heat of the afternoon had given way before lowering clouds, and with darkness had come a storm that whipped the calm waters of the bay into tumbling waves. The wind was rising now, driving the rain against the window panes. Spike lit an after-dinner cigarette and raised his voice above the rattling of the shutters as he ad- dressed Pug. “Sing 'The Baggage Coach Ahead.'” "I can't. I ain't drunk, and anyway, I gotta clear the table." Pug went virtuously about his duties. “Mrs. Parsons wants to get home early." 8 . 21 The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship 23 ... "Don't hit him, Clarence, you might hurt him." ... One of the fighters had gotten mad at the crowd. Words had been flung back and forth over the ropes. “All right, if you can do any better come on up here and do it, you little dried up prune." A small, belligerent figure had crawled and swayed into the ring. Dead, roarin' drunk. He had fought with his bare fists and both of the fighters at once. A gallant fight! A challengel... Always stick up for the game fighter. . . . Another figure had crawled and swayed into the ring ... larger, clad in evening clothes ... dead, roarin' drunk, too. It was a grand four-cornered melee. Afterward on the way to the precinct station house in the patrol wagon, they had introduced themselves with the extreme formality of which only the very drunk are capable. “Mr. Pug Beasley, one of the bes' bantam-weight fighters in the world 'til I got too fat, one of the bes'." ... "Mr. Spike Tracy, one of the bes'-no, no, one of the wors' - " They had spent the night together in the same cell and Mr. Beasley had revealed himself as a virtuoso of rare talent. "The Curse of An Aching Heart".. "Just Break the News to Mother" ... unprintable verses of "Mademoiselle from Armentiers" and “Frankie and Johnnie" ... "Throw Him Down, McClosky.” ... The night had been alternately gay and lachrymose with song. In the morning the desk sergeant had been some- what embarrassed to discover that one of his guests 24 A Most Immoral Murder was the younger brother of the district attorney. He was all for letting him go quietly, but Spike refused unless he be allowed to take along a friend. The elastic procedure of the police department—where friends are concerned-could not be stretched quite that far, and Spike's wallet had been lost in the fight the night before. In the end R. Montgomery Tracy had been forced to come down in person and put up the money for fines. He had not missed the opportunity to lecture his younger brother on the “thoroughly disrepu- table" nature of his conduct and his associate. It was, as Spike frequently pointed out, the beginning of a beautiful friendship. It's only discordant feature was Pug's insistence on doing a little work. He received a salary far in excess of his actual services, and occasionally his conscience smote him. “I hired you,” said Spike, drifting back to the present, "to do what I tell you to do." “Yes, sir. Very good, sir.". “I thought we settled all that this afternoon." "We did, sir, but occasionally, sir, I like to get your goat, sir." Spike grinned. “God, what a bloody fool you are, Pug. That's why I like you. Light up." He tossed him cigarettes and a lighter. "How's the kid, Teddy?” Pug asked when he was settled comfortably, smoking. 1 . The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship 25 "Lousy." Spike related the afternoon's misadven- tures. "Ain't I glad my old lady was a tart," Pug com- mented complacently, “and left me on a doorstep? It's fierce what kids with mothers has got to endure. I'll bet " The rest of his sentence was drowned in the roar of thunder and wind. “Tough night out," Spike said. “Yeah.” “Milo Taylor says people pay thousands of dol- lars for just one stamp." "He's a liar or there's more damn fools in the world than I thought.” “Yes, but aren't they lucky ?" “Who?” “The damn fools. At least they have-some- thing." Spike's voice became weighted with pity and tragedy. “They have their stamps, their porcelains from the tenth Ming dynasty, their match box cov- ers. But what have I? Nothing, nothing! My life is empty. My empty arms are " “Shut up!" Pug sat up listening. “What's the matter?" "I thought I heard Spike listened. “So did I. Go to the door.” Pug crossed the room, shot back the heavy bolt, opened the door a crack. Wind and rain billowed into the room. He peered out into the darkness. The 26 A Most Immoral Murder door was pushed wider. Then it crashed open with the weight against it. A woman, drenched, wild, haggard, fell across the threshold and lay there, moaning softly. "Get a load o' this in your empty arms,” Pug said quietly. 28 A Most Immoral Murder U. to bring provisions and mail, stood firm. It was alone, however, in its pigmy defiance, for no ferry would risk the boiling, mountainous sea that sep- arated Sark Island from the mainland. At the Tracy house the roaring outside only threw into greater relief the strange quiet of the upstairs room where the woman lay. A lamp burned fitfully on the dresser—there was no electricity on Sark Island and the room was hung with shadows through which the white face on the pillow could be dimly seen. Spike and Pug stood at the foot of the bed, and Mrs. Parsons sat on a chair beside it, her large capable hands smoothing the tangled black hair, wip- ing rain and mud from the face, turning up the cuffs of the pajama coat that was much, much too long and large for the frail body within it. The woman tossed, muttered, babbled strange in- coherencies. She seemed to strain, now in some agony of effort, now in some terror of recoil. A violent fit of shivering shook her. "Get a hot water bottle and fill it,” Mrs. Par- sons said quietly to Pug. "We ain't got any. What do you think "But the words were suddenly stilled. Even Pug seemed to realize that it was not the time for his usual mode of retort. "Then go down cellar and get three of those bricks Murder at Last! 29 that are piled up against the fruit room and heat them in the oven and wrap them in towels and bring them up here." When Pug left the room, she turned to Spike. "She's very ill, Mr. Tracy. She's cold and yet I'm sure she has a fever." Spike said nothing but went to the window and peered out into the frenzied night. She divined his purpose. “No use thinking about that,” she said. “She ought to have a doctor, though.” "I know, but how could you get one?” "I could take the launch," he said, ignorant of the fact that even as he spoke it tossed in a million splinters on the boiling sea. She shook her head. “You couldn't get beyond the breakers. You'd be smashed to pieces. When you've lived on Sark Island for twenty years like I have, Mr. Tracy, you'll know better than even to think of it. We're marooned. We are, every once in a while." "Then there's nothing to be done?” "Nothing, except to keep her warm and quiet if we can.” "You'll stay tonight?” She nodded, and turned back to the woman moan- ing softly in delirium. Monday night ... all day Tuesday ... Tuesday night. The storm raged. Inside the quiet room the 30 A Most Immoral Murder woman lay for long hours sunk in coma. Then she would rouse, try vainly to get up, cry out, sink back sobbing, babbling. Mrs. Parsons was with her con- stantly during the day, and slept in an adjoining room at night. Pug and Spike took turns sitting be- side the bed during the night, three hours each, alter- nating like sailors on watch. It was in the early hours of Wednesday morning just as a murky grayness was beginning to creep into the room that the gale broke. Gradually Spike, sit- ting beside the bed, became aware that there was no roaring and pounding of wind and surf. He went to the window and peered out into the graying dawn. The storm was over. He came back and sat down again and looked at the face against the pillow. White, oh so white and frail, with great dark circles of tragedy under the eyes. There were tiny crow's feet at the corner of the eyes and the muscles of cheek and throat had begun to droop. Here was no first flush of youth, but a woman in the indeterminate thirties. Over all the face there lay an expression of pain and weariness and beaten, broken effort. And yet with it all she was strangely, inexplicably beautiful. At nine o'clock that Wednesday morning Mrs. Parsons stood on the verendah with Pug and sur- veyed the ravages of the storm. It was very still now and her ear was cocked for any slightest sound Murder at Last! 31 from the room upstairs. At the pier at the foot of the lawn she could see Spike waiting for the ferry that was laboring toward the landing place on its first trip since Monday evening. “Quite a lot of passengers, seems like," she com- mented as the ferry drew nearer and she could see a small knot of figures on the foredeck. “Maybe the Huddlestons are expecting company." The ferry nudged against the pier, and the ferry- man sprang out with his packet of mail. Mrs. Par- sons could see him handing some of it to Spike. Then the little knot of figures on the foredeck swarmed over the landing platform. An excited movement in their arms and legs could be discerned even at a distance. Mrs. Parsons shaded her eyes with her hand and squinted the better to see. "Looks like maybe they're friends of Mr. Tracy. He seems to know 'em.” She could see them now, standing in a ring around Spike. He was shaking hands with several of them and they seemed to be telling him something. They stood in confab for perhaps ten minutes. Then the group broke up. Three of the men went one way along the north shore and three others along the south shore. The ferryman climbed into his gently rocking boat and started back across the bay. Spike came toward the house, walking slowly, his forehead wrinkling as he scanned the newspaper he held in his hands. He mounted the steps of the ver- 32 A Most Immoral Murder andah and for a moment stood looking strangely at Mrs. Parsons and Pug. “Why, Mr. Tracy, whatever is the mat — ". He motioned her to silence. “Come on inside," he said and led the way into the house. He closed the door carefully behind them, then faced the two puz- zled creatures and spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "The ferryman says that he brought a passenger over here on his last trip Monday night about seven - a woman." Mrs. Parsons' anxious face lighted. “It must have been-her. Does he know who she is, where her folks are?" Spike shook his head. “He never saw her before. He says she seemed nervous and distraught. ‘All wild-like and terrible upset was the way he put it, and she gave him five dollars to bring her over." “Did she say who she was coming to see? The Huddlestons, maybe?" “She didn't say anything. And now — " He paused and again he eyed Mrs. Parsons and Pug as if he were weighing certain possibilities. "Those men you saw down there, the ones that came over on the ferry, are detectives from the New York police department. I know some of them. I—I lied like hell to them, and I expect - "He paused again and this time the gaze he held them with was a command. “_ and I expect you two to do the Murder at Last! 33 same," he said quietly, and spread the front page of the New York Post before them. FAMOUS STAMP COLLECTOR VICTIM OF STRANGE MURDER Prentice Crossley, Owner of Fortune in Stamps, . Found in Fifth Avenue Home, Stabbed in the Back Linda Crossley, Granddaughter, Missing. Believed in Long Island Hide-out. And beside the screaming, ghastly headlines was a photograph. It was a woman of dark and tragic beauty, the woman who lay in the room upstairs. CHAPTER V Enter-the Super-Sleuth THE WRITERS of murder fiction, the metropolitan press and the detective story magazines have been a powerful educational force. Thanks to them there is hardly a member of the general public today who doesn't know exactly what to do before the police arrive. The average citizen confronted with a dead body isn't even embarrassed. He knows that he must dis- turb nothing and call the police. He regrets his in- ability to suspend himself in midair and thus avoid the destruction of footprints and automobile tracks. He observes. The time? Are the windows open or closed? Was the door locked from the inside or the out? He sniffs avidly for the scent of some strange Oriental perfume, searches for a frail wisp of hand- kerchief, a cigarette stub ringed with rouge. Sex- appeal is as important in death as in life. A woman in the case may mean all the difference between the front page and interment next to the ads. 34 Enter—the Super-Sleuth 35 He knows that as soon as the police arrive the servants will be questioned, and the body photo- graphed. A horde of men will descend upon the murder chamber and dust its smooth surfaces with white powder and then foolishly blow it away with a tiny bellows. Fingerprints ! There will be scientific looking chaps who will scrape up bits of dried blood stain, and confiscate the three strands of red hair found clutched in the dead hand. And presently there will appear a figure, rotund and jolly, whistling a sentimental hit from a Broad- way show who will gaze down upon the corpse and toss off a bright quip about violent death. The medi- cal examiner. And above them all will tower the super-sleuth. Oh so super! From the bit of cigar ash on the mantlepiece he will determine the last words of the deceased. A turned down corner of the desk blotter may be just a turned down corner of the desk blotter to the po- lice, but to him it reveals the exact height of the mur- derer and the number of gold inlays in his teeth. With strange psychological insight he knows that the first parlor maid is lying when she says that the door to the library was open when she pased it at nine: forty-seven the previous night on her way downstairs to fill a hot-water bottle for cook who was having a twinge of her neuralgia, poor soul. Afterward, of course, there are the reports that are brought moist from typewriter, laboratory and 36 A Most Immoral Murder morgue and laid on the desk of the district attorney. It was these reports that were still engaging Dis- trict Attorney Tracy and Inspector Herschman as they sat in the district attorney's office four days after the murder of Prentice Crossley. Inspector Herschman, head of the homicide squad, was built along the approved lines. The average citizen would spot him in a minute for what he was—a Headquarters dick, earnest but heavy- handed. In a detective story he would have made an ideal foil for the super-sleuth. Having worked him- self up from a patrol beat on the sidewalks of New York, he knew intimately Willie the Wop, and Mike the Mick, but his acquaintance with the higher strata of society was limited. Stamp collectors, for instance, were terra incognita to him. "They don't even call 'em that," he complained to the district attorney as the two of them sat hunched over the reports, studying them for the tenth time. “They call 'em philatelists." “That's beside the point," the district attorney said irritably. “What I want to know is what prog- ress have you made?”. "Well—we got the report from the men I sent out to Sark Island.” “Yes?" "They combed every inch of it and they didn't find hide nor hair of the woman. And none of the people on the island did either. We questioned them Enter—the Super-Sleuth 37 all—a farmer family named Huddleston, and a Mrs. Parsons and—and your brother." There was a short silence. The eyes of the two men met, then dropped swiftly, as if each was some- what embarrassed by the mutual divination. The dis- trict attorney drummed on the table with nervous fingers and the inspector chewed at his unlit cigar. Presently he broke the silence. “Speaking of your brother," he said with forced casualness, “it strikes me he's-well, he's a pretty bright fellow." "At times; not always." “Yeah, but ” The sentence trailed off into nothing. The inspector was thinking back to a cer- tain famous case in which the police department had covered itself with glory for the astuteness of its solution.* Being at heart an essentially honest fel- low his spirit if not his flesh blushed when he thought of the flattering things that had been said about the chief of the homicide squad, and all the time it was that young Spike ... Again his eyes met those of the district attorney's. “I was thinking," he said, "that it might be a good idea if we were to ..." "I have already,” the district attorney snapped as if unwilling to admit it. “He ought to be here now. I told him two o'clock, but of course, he's never on time." **The Murder of Cecily Thane." 38 A Most Immoral Murder At three: thirty Spike arrived at the office of the district attorney. He rushed in with breathless cheer- fulness, greeted Herschman genially and then turned to his brother. "Make it snappy, old dear. I'm on my way to a squash match up at the Racquet Club. What am I on the carpet for now-drinking, women or embezzle- ment?" The district attorney looked uncomfortable, pushed a box of large, fat cigars toward his brother, tried to smile and said, “Sit down, Philip." “Can't. I'm dashing." But he took out his case, lit a cigarette and took a temporary seat on the cor- ner of the desk. The district attorney cast a signifi- cant glance at the inspector. "We were—u—just wondering, Mr. Tracy - " "Inspector! And after all we've been through to- gether! Anyway, it's mixing, with Richard here in the same room.” The inspector looked a bit embarrassed, substi- tuted "Spike" for "Mr. Tracy," and went on. “We were wondering if maybe you couldn't-uh-well, in this Crossley murder case ..." "Oh yes, I talked to your men yesterday. In fact I spent half the day helping them. We couldn't find a trace of her. How come you tracked her to Sark Island?" “Her picture was published in the Tuesday morn- ing papers, and the guy that runs the ferry recog- Enter-the Super-Sleuth 39 nized it and tipped us off. Said he took her over Mon- day night about seven.” "Well,” said Spike lightly, "she isn't there now. She probably got hold of a boat somewhere Monday night and went back to the mainland before the storm broke and is now " Suddenly he broke off, struck by an idea. “I wonder," he said, “I just wonder." For a moment he was thoughtful. Then he turned toward the district attorney. "My boat!” he said. “That motor launch I had. You know it, Richard. It was gone yesterday morn- ing and I just assumed that it had broken away in the storm and drifted away. I had to row over to the mainland in the Huddleston's row boat. That's why I was so late. I bet she took the launch. Come to think of it, it seems to me I recall hearing a sound like a motor starting about eight o'clock Mon- day night. I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, but now I remember.” "Listen,” and he turned excitedly to Herschman, "send out a description of her-Elso, twenty- four foot cruiser, engine number 47926, painted white with ..." Herschman reached for the telephone, put through quick commands to his office, set in motion the vast network of a police broadcast, through radio and mail and telegraph. As he turned from the tele- phone, Spike gathered up his gloves and stick and tamped out his cigarette. "Well, I'll be getting along. Glad I was able to 40 A Most Immoral Murder help you a bit. If you find the boat let me know. I had to buy a new one this afternoon." "But—but Philip!” The district attorney half rose from his chair. “We thought you might- perhaps-ah " Spike looked innocently blank, and R. Montgomery Tracy floundered. It was Inspector Herschman who finally came to the point in the blunt, flatfooted manner in which years before he had pounded the sidewalks of New York. "Listen, Mr. Tra-Spike, here's the idea. You were a big help on that last case we had. You know, Cecily Thane, and I understand you did pretty good with that Long Island case* and that one up in Ver- mont.** So now we want you in on this. See?" "Sorry, Inspector, and thanks for the kind words, but I couldn't possibly. I'm much too busy." The district attorney snorted in disdain. “Doing what, may I ask?" "I'm supposed to be at the Racquet Club this min- ute. I'm going out to dinner and the theater tonight, and afterward I'm going to a party from which I shall not probably recover for several days. It's that kind." "Now listen here, Spike.” The inspector was roused, and he bore down upon him in his third degree manner. As a matter of fact the ordeal to which Mr. Philip Tracy was subjected in the fifteen *"The Murder of Steven Kester." **"The Murder of Sigurd Sharon." Enter—the Super-Sleuth AL minutes that followed was not entirely unlike some of the more violent bludgeonings of the police depart- ment. At any rate he emerged at the end of half an hour only because, with a sigh of exhaustion, he gave way-slightly. “All right, all right,” he said irritably. “Give me your damn reports and I'll take 'em home tonight and read 'em over while I'm dressing, and if I'm in any condition tomorrow I'll drop in. But I won't guar- antee anything. It's going to be a tough party." He reached for the typed copies of the reports that lay on the district attorney's desk, stuffed them into his pocket and escaped from the inquisition. He hailed a taxi in front of Police Headquarters, but the address he gave the driver was not that of the Racquet Club. It was his own town apartment on East 102nd Street. He leaned back against the leather cushions, reached a hand into the breast pocket in which he carried the police department reports, and grinned with satisfaction. Then he glanced appre- hensively at his watch. Pug was to call him at six. But the cab made good time and he had almost ten minutes to spare before the telephone rang. “Long distance, calling Mr. Tracy.” And presently Pug's voice came over the wire. “Everything's O. K. I mean it's just the same.” "She conscious yet?” “No. She don't toss around and moan so much, but she ain't conscious." "Where are you calling from?” 42 A Most Immoral Murder "Hollis. If I'd called from Saugus all them hicks would be listenin' in.” "Good boy, Pug! Now get this. Go out tonight and pick up any wreckage of the launch that you find on the beach and bury it. And then if anybody asks you what happened to the launch, look dumb and say somebody must have stolen it—that it disappeared Monday night, before the storm. See?” "I don't see, but it's O.K. Anything else?” "If I'm not out tomorrow, call me at the same time, same place." “O.K.” Spike ate his dinner at a tiny basement restaurant near his apartment. Then he came home and studied the reports, read them, re-read them, paced the floor, smoked countless cigarettes. It was one o'clock before he finally turned out the light, and sank into a rest- less sleep. At his home in the Bronx, Inspector Herschman slept soundly for the first time in three nights. At the summer residence of the district attorney in Saugus, the district attorney remarked irritably to his wife, “Philip is not always a fool, but at least he's always irritating.” And in the dim, lamplit upper room on Sark Island, Linda Crossley tossed in troubled stupor. CHAPTER VI Dull But Necessary EVERY ROSE has its thorn. Into each life some rain must fall. Comes a time in the course of even the best of murders when things get awfully slow. Facts ... the minutiæ of checks and counter-checks ... the dis- tance from the door to the window and back to the fireplace . . . and who heard the clock strike ten? The reader must resign himself to a bit of tough going. It's dull but necessary. Although Spike spent three hours of troubled con- centration on the reports which he had taken from the district attorney's office that afternoon, the gist of them can be put down here in a few pages. At eight o'clock on Monday morning, June 5, Kathryn Dennis, for four years second maid in the home of Prentice Crossley, entered the library for the daily straightening, and discovered her employer lying hunched over the library table. The dressing gown he wore was maroon, and the dark stain down 43 44 A Most Immoral Murder the back was not immediately noticeable. One hand was outstretched, the fingers half tensed. She thought at first he was asleep. Then she realized that he was dead. At her summons the police had arrived some twenty minutes later. Kathryn and her fellow servant, Annie Farley, the cook, had been questioned. They stated that the last time they had seen Prentice Crossley alive had been on the previous evening, Sunday, about eight:thirty. They had a sudden impulse to attend a Sunday evening movie, so together they had gone to the library and asked his permission to absent them- selves from the house that evening. He had assented, and they had left by the front door. As they went out they had seen Linda Crossley, granddaughter of Prentice Crossley, come down the stairs and enter the library. They had returned to the house at eleven: thirty and had entered by the servants' entrance under the brownstone stoop. They had not noticed whether the light was burning in the library. In going to their own rooms on the top floor of the house they had used the rear stairway so they had not passed the door of the library on the first floor, nor the door to Linda Crossley's bedroom on the second floor. They had gone directly to bed and had heard no sounds during the night. In the morning, after Kathryn had discovered her employer dead, they had gone to Linda Crossley's room to inform her of the tragedy. Her room was empty. The bed had not been slept in. Dull But Necessary The two servants had refused to remain in the house, even with the police there, and had gone to stay with a cousin of Kathryn Dennis in Yonkers. The photographs of Prentice Crossley's library showed a large glass-topped desk in the center of the room, and behind it a small safe. It was across the desk that the body was found sprawled. It was in the safe that Prentice Crossley was reputed to have kept his famous and valuable collection of stamps. The report of the fingerprint experts showed that there were no fingerprints on the safe. On the glass- topped desk there were many, mostly Crossley's own. But along the right edge there were the distinct marks of a different set of prints-prints which corre- sponded exactly with those found in the grand- daughter's bedroom upstairs, on dressing table, toilet articles and desk accessories. A preliminary report from Special Detective Hare of the homicide squad showed that all of Prentice Crossley's affairs at the time of his death were in the hands of his lawyer, John Fairleigh. Fairleigh, at the time of the murder, was in Los Angeles attending a legal convention. He had been summoned immedi- ately, and was on his way back to New York to confer with the police. He had in his possession Crossley's will, and the combination to the Crossley safe. No other persons had been found who knew the contents of the will or the combination of the safe. Detective Hare also reported that through the American Philatelic Society and the American Stamp 46 A Most Immoral Murder Dealers Association he had succeeded in locating the stamp dealers with whom Crossley had transacted most of his business. They were Kurt Koenig, an in- dependent dealer, and Jason Fream of the Acme Stamp Company. He had also located Homer Wat- son, a private collector of rarities, known in philatelic circles as a keen rival of Crossley. The rivalry had apparently been friendly, however, for Watson ad- mitted that he was a frequent visitor to the Crossley home and that he and Crossley occasionaly traded stamps. None of the three when interviewed could throw any light on the murder. All agreed to hold them- selves in readiness to assist the police, should their knowledge of the Crossley stamp collection be of any use. The collection was kept, they said, in the small safe in the library. The report of the medical examiner showed that Crossley had died from a deep stab wound in the back. The examiner was unable to place exactly the time of death. "Some time before midnight, June 4, Sunday," was the best he could do in view of the fact that many hours had elapsed before the discovery of the body. "An examination of the wound shows that the instrument which caused death was a dagger of some sort about ten or twelve inches long, of a pecu- liar triangular shape with tiny notches at intervals along the three cutting edges." The report had been made, of course, that first morning immediately after the removal of the body, Dull But Necessary 47 before a thorough search of the house had confirmed the astuteness of the medical examiner. But it was not until Friday morning that Spike found out about that. It was eleven: thirty when he appeared at the inspector's office, heavy-lidded and morose, like one who has drunk too deeply the night before. He tossed the reports on the desk and sank wearily into a chair. "Sorry," he said, “but I didn't have a chance to look at 'em.” He yawned prodigiously. “God, I feel lousy!" The inspector surveyed him with a look of pained irritation as if he were torn between a desire to humor him and to bust him one on the jaw. Instead he rose and paced the floor, his hands thrust into his pockets, his lips nervously chewing an unlighted cigar. Presently the telephone rang. He picked it up ... scowled ... listened ... “Tell 'em to go to — No, no, never mind, we can't do that. Hand 'em out the regular line. We're working on the case and expect to make an arrest before night. You know, the old baloney." He slammed the receiver down. “Newspapers !” he snapped. “They're yapping again." Spike dropped an apparently heavy, aching head onto his outstretched arms. "What about?” he asked, his voice muffled. "This Crossley case. If this fellow Fairleigh who's coming today tells me what I think, I'll have plenty for 'em by tonight." 48 A Most Immoral Murder “Who's Fairleigh ?" Spike asked sleepily. “Crossley's lawyer. Had a wire from him this morning. He's arriving at noon by plane and we're going to meet him at the Crossley house. He's bring- ing the old boy's will with him, and he's going to open the safe. I'm having three of these stamp birds up, too, to check up on this collection of Crossley's that's supposed to be so valuable.” Herschman continued his pacing, talking more to himself than to the unresponsive figure sprawled over the desk. “If the girl's the beneficiary ... plenty, plenty ... and with that bayonet. ...". "You sound kind of maudlin yourself," Spike cut in, “sorta the way I feel. The war's over. We've beaten up our bayonets into Ford fenders and—Oh, my head!" The inspector ignored what he felt was an obvious bid for unmerited sympathy, and went to a large steel cabinet on the opposite side of his office, un- locked it, and brought out an object carefully wrapped in gauze. He laid it on the table and gin- gerly lifted the top layer of gauze. It was a bayonet of peculiar designa bayonet that was still shining and polished, a foot long, its three triangular blades serrated at intervals. Spike raised his head, looked at it. “What's that?" he asked with sleepy indifference. "That, my boy, is what killed Prentice Crossley. We found it wiped clean as a whistle, upstairs under some clothes in a chest—in Linda Crossley's room.” Dull But Necessary 49 Spike's head dropped into his arms once more and he hunched his shoulders into a more restful position. "And if the will shows that Linda Crossley is sole beneficiary of her grandfather. ..." Herschman left the sentence unfinished, but there was a certain excited anticipation in his tone. Spike snored softly, but presently when the inspec- tor began making sounds of departure, he raised his head once more. “I guess,” he said between yawns, “I'll go up there with you—to the Crossley place. Maybe if I got up and moved around it would clear my head.” CHAPTER VII The $32,500 Nut For three weeks the packet from Southampton had been overdue and the postmaster was worried. It was not, he ex- plained, that he was expecting anything for himself. But the stamps! They were running low. Less than a hundred left. And with ships putting in at Georgetown harbor so frequently now, what with the rum and cocoanut trade so booming, and local merchants writing as many as ten and fifteen letters a week, the stamps would be gone in no time. If the packet bearing the new supply from England didn't arrive pretty quickly ... Came the day when the last stamp in the post office was sold. There wasn't another stamp in the entire colony. The post- master, a resourceful soul, went to the office of the Official Gazette, the only newspaper published in the colony and put his problem before the gentleman who combined the functions of editor, reporter, typesetter and proof-reader. British Guiana must have some stamps-immediately. The Gazette gentleman, as we have already pointed out, was versatile. Within a few minutes he had added to the list of his accomplishments that of designer of stamps. It was a rough looking specimen, to be sure, just a few rules arranged in box formation, enclosing a Latin motto and the tiny cut of a three-masted sailing ship that the Gazette always car- ried at the head of the “Shipping" column. The four sides of the square were buttressed by the words "postage,” “British,” '50 The $32,500 Nut 51 "one cent," "Guiana.” The stamps were printed in black on deep magenta paper, in time for the opening of the post office the next morning. There is no definite record of the number of these stamps that came off the press of the Official Gazette and were sold through the wicket of the Georgetown post office, but we do know that today there is in existence only one of this issue, the British Guiana, 1 cent, 1856. This tiny bit of paper that originally sold for 1 penny is today valued at Patrolman Finney dropped the book into his lap and stared wide-eyed at his vis-a-vis, Patrolman Smith. "Holy Mother o' Jesus, Mary and Joseph !” he gasped. “Would you believe it now, what it says here?” He picked the book up again and scanned the last line carefully to make sure there was no mis- take. “.... is today valued at thirty-two thousand and five hundred dollars!'” Smith, who up to this time had taken no part and little interest in Finney's reading aloud, suddenly straightened in his chair. “Thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars !" Fin- ney repeated as if to assure himself as well as his companion. Then he continued reading slowly: This famous stamp was for many years in the collection of Count Philip la Notière von Farrary. Count Farrary was the son of an Italian duchessa and an Austrian nobleman. He lived most of his life in Paris, but legally he was an Austrian, and therefore an enemy-alien in the years 1914-18. He managed to escape Paris to the neutral territory of Switzer- land, but he was forced to leave his stamp collection in France. He died in Lausanne in 1917. His property in France, like 52 A Most Immoral Murder that of all enemy-aliens, was confiscated and his stamp collec- tion put up for sale. It brought almost $2,000,000 into the coffers of the French government. The British Guiana, one cent, 1856, was sold to an American collector and taken to the United States where in the course of a year it passed through several hands. It has for the past eight years been in the possession of that well known collector of stamp rarities - Finney paused dramatically. Smith, lately removed from the traffic squad, gestured irritably by force of habit. “Get goin', get goin'.” ".... has for the past eight years,'” Finney con- tinued, “ 'been in the possession of that well-known collector of stamp rarities, Prentice Crossley.'" He slammed shut the slim redbound volume he had taken from the bookcase and looked incredulously at Smith. "Well, whaddaya think of that? Thirty-two thou- sand, five hundred dollars for a measley bit of a stamp, and him ownin' it.” At the word 'him' he jerked his head toward the large glass-topped desk that stood in the center of the library. Before it stood a straight-backed Jacobean chair, empty. "Nuts !" Smith commented succinctly. “Nuts !” Finney repeated in emphatic agreement. “Any bird that'd pay $32,500 for one stamp is nuts.” “Off his nut," Smith elaborated. “Completely off. Just nutty." Having exhausted the synonyms in their vocabulary for mental unbalance, the two patrolmen sank into a The $32,500 Nut 53 contemplative silence. The easy chairs of the library were very easy and they had been sitting in them for four hours. Presently the two heads began to nod ... nod... lower ... Smith came to with a jerk and gave his com- panion a hasty shake. “Beat it! Someone's comin'." Finney jumped to his feet, straightened his uniform and quickly resumed his post in the front hall just outside the library door. It was John Fairleigh. “Yes, sir, we're expectin' you, sir," Finney as- sured him as the visitor was shown into the library. "The inspector just called a few minutes ago and said he was startin' on his way and he'll be here any minute." For a moment after he crossed the threshold of the room, Fairleigh stood very still, his eyes travel- ing slowly from chair, to table, to window, to book- case. It was as if he were making sure it was the same room he had known in his years of dealing with Prentice Crossley. A tall man, firmly built, with a crisp, gray mus- tache and gray-blue eyes that were hard and at the same time filled with compassion. His entrance into the room seemed in some strange manner to lay upon it once more the stigmata of murder and trag- edy, so recently dispelled by the commonplace pres- ence of the two patrolmen. Fairleigh took off his hat, unstrapped the brief case 54 A Most Immoral Murder he had brought with him, and looked through the papers it contained. There were deep, troubled wrinkles between his eyes. The inspector and the district attorney arrived ten minutes later. In their wake trailed a sleepy young man who seemed chiefly concerned with gaining the soft haven of an easy chair in a far corner of the room. "I came as quickly as I could," Fairleigh assured Herschman and the district attorney. “I would have been here sooner, but plane service was broken be- tween Oklahoma City and Indianapolis on account of storms and I had to go by train.” "You have with you the documents we requested?” the district attorney inquired. Fairleigh nodded. “Yes, I went directly from the landing field to my office in Nassau Street and picked up the papers and then came up here." The three men seated themselves, and Fairleigh reached for his brief case lying on the window seat, but the district attorney held up a restraining hand. “Before we go into that, Fairleigh, perhaps you can tell us something about Crossley himself. We've been able to get surprisingly little information about him except in a—well, a professional way. I mean we have plenty of newspaper files telling of his activities in the local stamp clubs and his collec- tion of stamps, but there's very little we know or have been able to find out about the man himself, The $32,500 Nut 55 his personal life and his friends and associates. You should be able to help us there.” A slow, crooked smile twisted Fairleigh's face and he shook his head doubtfully. “I'm not so sure about that. You see, he didn't have any. For fifteen years, ever since he retired from business, he has had just one passion-his stamps. In the last five years his health has been very poor and he hasn't been able to get out much. Outside of a few fellow collectors and one or two stamp dealers and myself, I don't suppose ten people have come to the house in these five years." “But you have been here frequently?". “Once or twice a month. Sometimes oftener." “May I ask you to tell us just what was your business relationship to Mr. Crossley. I know you were his lawyer, but that term can cover a variety of services." “As I said before, Mr. Crossley retired from busi- ness fifteen years ago. He had made plenty of money in the chemical business, so he pulled out while he still had it. He invested it in various ways and then turned these investments over to me to manage. I'm a sort of legal and financial steward." “Well then, as such you must know a great deal about the more personal side of Crossley's affairs ?" “As much as there is to know, which is very little. Outside of his stamp collection, I don't be- lieve he had an interest." The $32,500 Nut 57 she had many. Her grandfather absorbed her com- pletely." "She was very devoted to him?" “Very." “To the exclusion of everyone else ?” "As far as I know, yes.” The district attorney switched to another tack. “The main purpose of our meeting, Mr. Fairleigh, as you know, is to see the will of Prentice Crossley. You have it with you ?” For answer Fairleigh reached for his brief case and drew out a document bound in stiff blue paper. "It's not a complicated will," he said flipping through the three sheets of legal foolscap which com- posed it. “Mr. Crossley had a sufficient investment in his former chemical company and in first mort- gage real estate bonds to yield a yearly income of between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars. I may say that originally his income was much larger, but he chose to use part of his capital in the purchase of stamp rarities which I can assure you are very expensive. He has paid between thirty and forty thousand dollars for a single stamp." The inspector and the district attorney looked properly astounded and Fairleigh smiled. “Collec- tors, you know, are that way. To you and to me a stamp is only an old, faded bit of paper, but to col- lectors it holds all the romance and adventure of life. It's difficult to understand their psychology, but there it is. However, this stamp collection business 58 A Most Immoral Murder does have its more practical side. Altogether just at a guess, I would say that Mr. Crossley invested between two hundred and three hundred thousand dollars in stamps. In the course of twenty years, though, the value of this investment has increased. Last year when he had his collection officially ap- praised, the valuation put on it was $400,000.” "But what we want to know," Herschman inter- rupted impatiently, “is who gets it all. Let's read the will." "But that's just what I'm doing. I'm enumerating the various assets of the estate that are enumerated here," and he thumped the paper. “There are his investments in chemicals and real estate; there is his stamp collection; there is this house." He paused. “Yes, but who gets 'em all ?" Herschman per- sisted. "There is a small bequest to myself. Outside of that everything is left to his granddaughter, Linda Crossley. There are no other beneficiaries. The will is very simple.” Inspector Herschman, who had been holding him- self rather stiffly in his chair, slowly relaxed with satisfaction. He turned toward the easy chair in a far corner outside the circle made by himself, the district attorney and the lawyer, and flung a "what- did-I-tell-you” glance at the young man therein. But the young man was apparently asleep. The district attorney looked slightly incredulous. Being a lawyer he enjoyed fine technical complica- The $32,500 Nut 59 tions. Simplicity bafiled him. He reached for the document which Fairleigh had been holding, but the lawyer had already started to fold it up. “Let me have a look at it,” he said. Fairleigh continued to fold. “But really there's nothing to see. As I explained, it is a very simple will, and I've given you a complete if somewhat informal paraphrase of the whole thing." He thrust the will back into his brief case and started to ad- just the buckles. The district attorney bridled. “Just the same, Mr. Fairleigh," he said, “I think I would like to see it for myself.” Fairleigh seemed to hesitate. Then he handed it over. For several moments there was silence in the library as the district attorney with the inspector looking over his shoulder read the document. When he had finished it, he laid it out on the table, smooth- ing the creases carefully. "There's just one thing you didn't mention," he said to Fairleigh. “This paragraph here." His finger indicated the line and he read it aloud." 'And on my friend and adviser, John Fairleigh, I lay the heavy burden of the guidance of my granddaughter, Linda Crossley. Guidance not only in her financial and legal affairs, but in her personal life. To him I be- queath the onerous task of saving her, if possible, from the consequences of her own indiscretions, and to him also I bequeath $50,000 in recognition of his steadfast refusal to betray the trust which I have had in him.'" 60 A Most Immoral Murder The district attorney paused. When he spoke again his voice was icy with sarcasm. “Do you con- sider $50,000 a 'small bequest Mr. Fairleigh ?”. "Small in proportion to the balance." "It seems to me that this paragraph that I have just read indicates a much greater degree of in- timacy with Crossley and with his granddaughter than you have led us to believe." Fairleigh nodded. “Yes, it does look that way." “Just what does it mean, then? Have you been deliberately mis-stating the ". "No," Fairleigh interrupted sharply, "I have mis- stated nothing." "Then what does this mean?” The district at- torney persisted, “... in recognition of his stead- fast refusal to betray the trust which I have had in him.'" "I have managed Mr. Crossley's business interest for the last fifteen years, as I told you. I have held a power of attorney. I have never misused that power.” But the district attorney was not satisfied. He pointed again to the paragraph in question “.... the onerous task of saving her if possible from the consequences of her own indiscretion.' What does that mean?” The hard blue eyes of Fairleigh met the direct gaze of the district attorney. "I haven't the slightest idea,” he replied quietly. CHAPTER VIII 50,000,000,000 M = 20 IN THE hall outside the library Patrolman Finney did his best to be entertaining, but in this he was not altogether successful. Two of the three visitors- the tall thin one and the tall fat one-sat stifly in their chairs ranged against the wall and looked very solemn and bored. But the short round one, the one with the slight German accent and the elegant, dandyish haber- dashery, and the blue eyes that crinkled up at the corners, wasn't at all solemn. He actually chuckled when Finney related the story of the versatile gen- tleman of British Guiana in the year 1856. The other two frowned at this unsuitable levity, but the short round one seemed not to notice their dis- approval. "Thirty-two thousand, five hundred dollars," he repeated at the conclusion of Finney's story. "But, my friend, that is nothing, nothing." His fat little 62 A Most Immoral Murder le hands with dimples where there should have been knuckles brushed aside the $32,500 as one would brush aside a fly. Then his airy manner changed suddenly. "You want to see something?” he asked in a low, conspiratorial tone. Finney nodded. Cautiously the short round man looked up and down the hall to make sure that there were no spies lurking in the shadows of stair and wall. He cocked his ear as if listening for the ap- proach of stealthy footsteps. Then he reached inside his coat and slowly drew forth a wallet and ex- tracted therefrom a tiny bit of paper. “There! Look!" he half whispered. Finney looked. His eyes popped. He stared at the little round man. His glance jerked apprehensively to the two on the other side of the hall. Then he looked again at the tiny bit of paper. "Holy Mother o' Jesus, Mary and Joseph !" He bent forward and examined it more closely. Blue against white. “Deutsches Reich.” Simple circular design. But it was the overprint in a deeper blue that held his gaze. “50,000,000,000 M." "Fifty billion marks!" he repeated in awe. "How much is that in American money?". "Well, if you use the pre-war valuation of the mark at 23.8 cents it amounts to $11,900,000,000.” "Holy Mother!” The sheer magnitude of the sum reduced even blasphemy to its simplest terms. 50,000,000,000 M= 2c 63 “But aren't you afraid to carry it around with you, just loose like that?” The little round man struck a brave attitude. "No," he said, "I'm not afraid. In fact " He paused, peering into the depths of his wallet. “In fact I carry three or four of them with me usually -as souvenirs—for my friends. Permit me.” With a ceremonious bow he presented his open palm. On it reposed four of the little blue bits of paper with the deeper blue overprinting. He se- lected one, pressed it upon the patrolman. “With my compliments, my friend, I beg of you.” The crinkles around the blue eyes deepened. Finney grinned uncertainly. “Say, what the hell?” The little round man laughed aloud this time, the merry laugh of one who is enjoying his gentle joke. Then he explained. “You see, my friend, in Germany after the war, they had inflation, very dreadful inflation. First the value of the stamps was doubled, then trebled, then on up, up, up into the millions, the billions. This one here was the highest they issued. A monstrosity! A curiosity! You can buy all you want of them these days at my shop for two cents each." "Well, I'll be — ” Finney laughed at the memory of his recent awe before a mere two-cents' worth. “Say, listen here, who are you and these two birds over there? The D. A. told me he was expectin' three men and to let 'em in and keep 'em here 50,000,000,000 M = 2c 65 leigh, knowing what was expected of him, went immediately to the safe and set to work. The safe was not a large one-it stood about three feet high —but apparently the combination was complicated. It was almost five minutes before he swung the door open. Herschman moyed the reading lamp closer to the edge of the glass-topped desk and switched on the light so that its rays shone full on the front of the open safe. Rows of squat, thick, leather-bound books with names embossed on the back in gold: “United States" — "France" — "British Empire" - "Air Mail.” In the upper right hand corner there was an inner steel compartment. "These are the stamp albums," Fairleigh ex- plained, pointing to the books. "The more valuable stamps were kept in here." He indicated the inner compartment. "It has a combination, too." The lawyer reached for the tiny knob on the inner compartment, but the rough hand of the in- spector restrained him before he could touch it. "Just a minute," Herschman said. He went to the door of the library, opened it and called to Patrol. man Finney in the hall. "Get Morris. I left him out on the front steps." Morris, the fingerprint man from Headquarters, brought his apparatus into the library and set to work on the inner surfaces of the safe, dusting with pow- der, blowing, searching. When he had completed his 66 A Most Immoral Murder task and withdrawn, Herschman motioned Fair- leigh to proceed. The lawyer knelt before the safe, twiddled the tiny knob and in a few moments it was open. He rose from his stooping posture and stood back away from the safe. The district attorney nodded to the three stamp men-the tall thin one, and the tall fat one and the little round one. They gathered round the safe, lifted out the squat, thick books, drew forth from the inner compartment, trays containing tiny square steel boxes, placed them on the glass-topped desk. Fairleigh, the district attorney and the inspector withdrew to the far end of the room to allow the three experts to work without interruption. The quiet of the room was broken only by the hum of traffic on Fifth Avenue at the front, and by the occasional domestic sound that drifted in through the windows at the back from neighbor- ing apartment houses. Presently the lazy young man slowly lifted his head from his chest and yawned, stretched slightly, blinked sleepily as he looked about him. He lit a cigarette. His eyes wandered casually around the room. Once he encountered the disapproving glance of the district attorney and he hastily looked the other way. He picked up a slim red volume which lay on the table beside his easy chair and turned the pages idly. 50,000,000,000 M = 2c 67 It was the wife of the Governor-General of the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean who was really responsible for them for she ... Spike's eyes wandered down the page. ... the first issue of postage stamps in England in 1840. By 1847 the news of this innovation had penetrated to far off Mauritius, but not the stamps themselves. It was about this time that the wife of the Governor-Gen- eral took it into her head to give a ball. It was decided that Mauritius would celebrate the occasion with its first postage stamps. J. Barnard, a local watchmaker, was commissioned to engrave the dies—one for a penny stamp and one for a two- penny. They were to be very like the stamps of the mother country—the good Queen's head in the center, “postage” across the top, the valuation at the bottom, “post paid” on the left and “Mauritius” on the right. Accordingly the watchmaker set to work with enthusiasm. His memory, however, was not commensurate with his zeal. In the wee small hours of the morning he suddenly realized that he had forgotten the words to be engraved on the left side of the Queen's head. “Post” was ne of them. But what was the other? Perhaps, he argued, if he were to go out for a little walk the night air might clear his head. So he donned his hat and set forth. His stroll took him past the post office. Still trying to recall the elusive word, he hap- pened to look up. Suddenly he smiled. Of course! There it was! “Office!” “Post Office.” He returned to his workship and finished the dies before morning. The stamps were printed and the first panes delivered with much ceremony to the residence of the Governor-General for the Governor-General's lady. They were affixed to the invita- tions to the ball and sent on their way. It was not until some time later that the engraver's mistake in substituting "office" for “paid” was discovered. 68 A Most Immoral Murder Through chance alone twenty-two of these Mauritius one- and two-penny stamps still survive. One of them recently sold for $12,500. They are among the greatest stamp rarities in the world, and only collectors of ..." The three experts put away their tiny glasses, laid down their tweezers, Alexed the cramped muscles of their backs, bent for more than an hour over the glass-topped desk. The district attorney, the inspector and Fairleigh rose and joined them. The lazy young man in the easy chair slipped the slim red volume into his pocket. It was Fream who acted as spokesman. His voice was shaken as one mindful of his painful duty in breaking bad news, but at the same time conscious of the drama of his disclosure and making the most of it. “The Crossley collection,” he said, "has been looted of its finest treasures. It is impossible just now in so short a time to check the entire collec- tion, to give a total estimate of the loss. But we have been able to ascertain this morning that more than $85,000 worth of stamps are missing." He picked up a sheet of paper on which he had made some notes. “There are missing the follow- ing: the Mauritius two-penny 'post office' valued at $17,500; a thirteen-cent Hawaiian 'missionary' catalogued at $2,500; the nine-kreuzer Baden, 1861, with the color error worth $11,000; the six-real Spanish, 1851, also with a color error worth $12,- 50,000,000,000 M = 2c 69 500; the French 1849, one-franc, 'tete-beche', cata- logued at $10,000, and — " He paused. “And the British Guiana, one-cent, 1856, the most valuable stamp in the world, worth $32,500." CHAPTER IX "Haven't I Met You Somewhere Before?" THE BUICK sedan streaked through the green and white-tiled Holland tunnel hundreds of feet below the surface of the Hudson River. Close behind—but not too close--followed the Cadillac roadster. Across the lush, dank green of the salt marshes of Jersey, through the back streets of Newark, into the open country west of Irvington. It was more than an hour before the lead car slowed up, turned off the main street of a quiet little village on the western edge of the New Jersey Forestry Reservation and bumped over a rutted, unpaved road. It stopped finally before a small farm bungalow set in several acres of truck garden. The driver got out and went into the house. The second car drove on by, turned down a side road and parked behind a low shelter of trees and bushes. Through the lattice of the protecting shrubbery Spike could see the bungalow with Fairleigh's car parked in front of it. He waited for five minutes. 70 72 A Most Immoral Murder The boy disappeared in the direction of the barn. He returned in a few minutes with a wrench and fol- lowed Spike out to the car. He watched with inter- est while Spike set to work, peering, poking under the engine hood. "What's wrong?” he inquired, “fuel pump ?” Spike looked up, a smudge of grease on his nose. “Noah–I don't think so. It's—it's the steering gear.” The lad giggled. “Then you're a-lookin' on the wrong side, Mister. Steering gear's over here." He indicated the opposite side of the engine. “Oh-ah-yes, so it is." Spike strove valiantly to cover his confusion, as he raised the opposite side of the hood, and engaged in more desultory pokings under the inquisitive gaze of the boy. "How do you like these new syncro-mesh trans- mission gears Cadillac's got this year?” the boy in- quired as he stood off and admired the stream lines of the car. “They make the shift any easier ?" "Oh-much easier, much, very much easier." “Yeah, but don't you think with a two-plate clutch you " Spike held up an admonitory hand and straight- ened his bent back. "Listen, sonny," he said, “just what are you? A professional ..." Fairleigh arrived at his Nassau street address at three o'clock and immediately called his secretary into his private office. It was a bit after four when a young man of lazy "Haven't I Met You Somewhere Before?" 73 well being slouched into the outer office of Schwab, Fairleigh & Morrison and cast an enchanting smile at the telephone operator. "I want to see Mr. Morrison," he said. "Mr. Morrison's out of town. He's gone to Eu- rope." She smiled. "In that case," he said, “I won't wait.” He sat down, inched his chair a bit closer to the switchboard, gazed in quizzical speculation at the operator. She was pretty and she was paying more attention to the audacious stranger than to the lights flashing on the board. “You know," he said, and his voice had a low, confidential tone, “your face seems awfully familiar. Haven't I seen you some place before?” She giggled. “Oh, that's what you tell all the girls." "No, but really I mean it. Haven't I..." They had dinner together at a little restaurant on a side street in the Thirties, a discreet, quiet little restaurant with no orchestra or dancing. The girl was a bit disappointed. “Oh, I like to talk better," the young man pro- tested. “I like serious things you know, like politics and what you read in the newspapers, and problems like-well, like unemployment and crime. Now you take, for instance, this Crossley crime case in the newspapers. ..." ase A late moon rose over the horizon, bathed Sark Island in silver, washed it with iridescent waves. 74 A Most Immoral Murder Spike stretched himself gratefully in the porch swing and lit a pipe while Pug cleared away the remnants of a late supper. It had been almost ten before he had gotten back to the island. "Thank God,” he said, "she lived in Jamaica and not in the Bronx." “Who's she?" "A dame I picked up." "Ain't you got enough dames on your hands with- out goin' out and huntin' trouble?” "Maybe I've got too many. How's she today?" He sobered suddenly and nodded in the direction of the upper room. "Same, only maybe a little quieter. Mrs. Parsons says she ain't got so much fever as she did yester- day." "Talk any?” "Not much and not so's you could understand anything." For a moment Spike was thoughtful. "Sit down, Pug. I've got to get things off my chest.” He told the story of his two days' adventures. His interview with Herschman and R. Montgomery Tracy, the reports, the slim little red book with its quaint tales of stamp rarities, the two hours he had spent in the Crossley library. "I pretended I had a sleeping hangover. That was a lot of crap, of course. I told Richard I had slept through it all there in the library. I wanted to get away to follow Fairleigh. I didn't like the way he acted. I think he was lying. I think he knows a hell of ya 76 A Most Immoral Murder There was a short silence, both of them musing on the implications of this revelation. Then Spike spoke. “Go upstairs and bring down her handbag. It's in the bureau drawer in her room." In a few minutes Pug was back with the bag-a plain black envelope, its fine seal leather showing the effects of rain and mud. They had opened it that first night, searching for a card, a bank book, a let- ter, something that would identify the wild, sodden creature who had stumbled over the door sill. But there had been nothing helpful. A vanity case, about ten dollars in bills and coin, a few other inconsequen- tial items that are to be found in every woman's purse. The only thing unusual was a tiny square steel box. But it had offered no initial, no address, no hint of identity, so they had paid little attention to it. Now Spike reached into the purse and brought it out, held it in the palm of his hand. His eyes met Pug's and they were troubled. He pressed a tiny spring at the side, just as he had seen other tiny springs pressed that morning in the Crossley library. The lid flew open. He brought his flash to play on it, the better to reveal what was inside. He and Pug bent closer. "Funny,” Spike said, "how it keeps its color all these years.” It was a stamp... a three-masted sailing ship ... a Latin motto ... black on deep magenta ... It was the most valuable stamp in the world—the British Guiana, one cent, 1856. CHAPTER X The Guy without Guts "THE TROUBLE with you, Spike, is that you ain't got guts. And another thing. You think just because a jane's a jane, she's got special privileges, like gettin' away with murder and " “Oh, shut up !" Spike snapped the command as he paced irritably up and down the sun-drenched veran- dah. Pug lolled complacently on the chaise longue and took the rebuff philosophically. "Now in this book I'm readin', the one I was tellin' you about the other day, the fella finds out that this jane he thought was on the level is really workin' for the Sultan, and has been makin' up to him just so she could steal the Czar's secret plans from him. He's all broke up, findin' out like that, that she's a rat. Of course he's nuts about her but he turns her over to the secret police and they put her in prison and she's condemned to be shot at sunrise and that's as far as I got. That guy's got guts. Now you - " "Shut up!" 77 78 A Most Immoral Murder Pug shrugged his shoulders and lapsed into si- lence. Spike flung himself into a chair and gazed out over the bay, his brows twisted in a troubled scowl. Finally he turned to Pug.. “Well, what do you think?" "Same as you. Only I ain't afraid to admit it." “What should we do about it?" “Better phone up your brother and tell him.” “Throw her to the lions—eh?” "Well, I could think of other things to call your brother besides a bunch o' lions, but I guess that's what it amounts to." “You are a bastard, Pug." “Maybe," Pug agreed without rancor. “But then again, I ain't no damn fool." "And I am ?" Pug nodded, rose and began clearing away the breakfast dishes from the wicker porch table. At the door leading into the house he paused. “But then," he added slowly, "there's worse things than bein' a damn fool.” Spike left the verandah and went for a walk along the smooth, sandy beach. One hand held his pipe, the other was jammed into his pocket, fingering a small square steel box. He had put it there last night after he had taken it from the woman's purse. Now he was tempted to hurl it out into the low whitecaps that curled up the beach. They would wash it away, carry it out to sea, bury it in sand. Perhaps that would be 80A Most Immoral Murder "But-but I want to know who-where " “I'm Mrs. Parsons and you're in Mr. Tracy's house on Sark Island, and you've been mighty sick for five or six days now, and we've been looking after you. This here's Mr. Tracy.” Spike drew up a chair and sat down beside the bed. She shifted her eyes slowly, looked at him, said nothing. "You came Monday night,” Mrs. Parsons went on. “You must have lost your way in the storm.” "The storm ...” The woman echoed the word weakly. “Oh yes the rain and the wind and be- fore that Saugus. . .” She seemed to be laboring to remember, and the effort was exhausting. She closed her eyes. "Just you rest a while now," Mrs. Parsons com- manded gently. She motioned Spike out of the room and lowered the curtain that the light might not shine in the woman's eyes. Later she took up some food, rich meat broth and an egg whipped up in milk. In the early afternoon, soon after lunch, she summoned Spike once more. She met him outside the upstairs room and closed the door softly behind her as she stepped into the hall. “She's lots better,” she said in a low voice. “I've explained as much as I could to her and she insists on seeing you." "Did you—did she say anything about-about what I showed you in the paper ?" 82 A Most Immoral Murder in this bed, in this room for a week, several weeks.” “No-I must go-tomorrow.” She was getting tired and she closed her eyes wearily. Spike looked at her thoughtfully for a few mo- ments, hesitated, then spoke. “But why," he said softly, “must you go away from here-tomorrow?” She opened her eyes and returned his steady gaze. "Because you have been kind, and if I stay I will bring you trouble." "I told you there was no question of 'trouble.'” "I don't mean that kind—inconvenience. I mean -real trouble. Please call my friend. Tell him Linda wants him. Ask him—to come." "Very well," he said, rising. "What's his name and how shall I get in touch with him?" “He's in the telephone book—the Manhattan book. His name is Koenig. Kurt Koenig." CHAPTER XI Spike Hunts Russian Air Mails "IT WAS," said the large lady with the bosom as she peered into the cavernous depths of her handbag, "very romantic. You see, my grandfather was liv- ing in Allegheny at the time and my grandmother -but, of course, she wasn't my grandmother yet. She was just plain Hattie Haws-well, she was living back in Medbury, Mass., and my grandfather wrote to her and said that if she didn't come west right away and marry him, he'd jump in the river and drown himself, but the letter got lost and my grandmother didn't get it 'til three years after they were married-my grandfather didn't jump in the river after all—and then it turned up when they were living in Chillecothe—my grandfather ran a feed store there—and of course they had a big laugh over it and my grandmother always kept it, and me being her namesake she handed it on down to me when she died along with her Battenburg tablecloth and her crocheted bedspreads, and I never thought much 83 84 A Most Immoral Murder about it 'til the other day Mr. Simpson-he's in business with my husband up in Yonkers, they're in the plumbing business—well, I happened to be tell- ing Mr. Simpson about it and he says that only the other day he was reading in the paper about just such a letter, you know, somebody's grandfather and grandmother, and they took it down to a stamp dealer and he looked at the stamp on the envelope and said it was worth twelve hundred dollars, so " This monologue, carried on without pause or punc- tuation, suddenly ended with a triumphant “There!" as the large lady with the bosom at last managed to extricate an old and yellowed envelope from the debris of her handbag. "There!" she repeated, and handed the envelope over to the little round man behind the counter. On her face was the broad satisfied smile of one who has just engineered a remarkable coup. Through her mind ran visions of new velour dining room cur- tains, a brocade upholstered davenport for the liv- ing room, and other assorted domestic glories. The little round man picked up the envelope, looked at the stamp and handed it back to her. "It's the 1851, three-cent, dull red, type I. It is worth - " He paused slightly and the bosom of the large lady heaved with expectation. "It is worth twenty-five cents.” Spike Hunts Russian Air Mails 85 The large lady gasped and sputtered. "But—but Mr. Simpson said — "This is a poor specimen and on cover. Unused this variety sells for around $3.50.". “But-but it's very old. Mr. Simpson - " "It is not the age that counts; it is the rarity.” "But 1851-that's very old.” “But very ordinary. There are hundreds of that issue still in existence.” “But Mr. Simpson said " She was indignant now. "Pardon me, madam, but if you would rather take the word of a plumber instead of a stamp dealer, perhaps you had better offer this for sale to Mr. Simpson himself.” The large lady sailed out, wrath fighting with dis- appointment. Mr. Simpson had said .. The little round man sighed in relief and turned to the three small, grubby boys sprawled across the counter, poring over a thick catalog. One unused to small, grubby boys would have concluded that they were about to spring at each other's throats, so yio- lent were the tones in which they addressed each other, so threatening their gestures as they turned pages. But the little round man, who was used to small, grubby boys, knew that this was only their or- dinary mode of amiable conversation. "It is not ?" "It is so !" 86 A Most Immoral Murder "Ain't it, Mr. Koenig?” They addressed him simultaneously as he settled himself happily in their midst. The transactions un- der consideration were weighty ones and involved all of a dollar and seven cents. As the only other customer in the shop was a tall, blondish young man, who seemed unwilling to be disturbed in his consulta- tion of one of the counter catalogs, Koenig devoted twenty minutes to stretching the dollar and seven cents over a French "Poste Arienne," a couple of "Ubangis" from Belgian Congo, and a complete set of Soviet "First All Union Assembly of Pioneers." He was a wizard at that-stretching a small sum over a large territory, especially when small, grubby boys were concerned. At last they departed, happily clutching the tiny cellophane envelopes containing their purchases, and Koenig turned his attention to a newcomer in the shop. It was an elderly, bearded gentleman of aca- demic mien, but with an air of excitement incongru- ous in one of his advanced years. He greeted the stamp dealer as an old friend, a friend to whom he had brought a weighty problem. "It's about those Hawaiians," he said. “I think —but I'm not sure I've picked up an original five cent, 1853." From his wallet he produced a tiny oiled paper envelope. A bluish stamp fluttered down upon the dark baize of the counter. "What is your opinion?" he asked eagerly. Spike Hunts Russian Air Mails 87 Koenig bent over the tiny square of paper, screwed a glass into his eye, scrutinized the wooden face of a long dead Hawaiian king-King Kamehameha III, who ruled the tropic islands before they were subjected to the "civilizing' influence of the white man. From a drawer beneath the counter the stamp dealer drew out a tiny forked instrument of infinite delicacy and laid it across the face of the stamp. Presently he stood up and unscrewed the glass from his eye. “How much did you pay for it, my friend?" he said gently, as one handling a patient who at any minute may take a turn for the worse. : "Five dollars, but the price doesn't matter. Is it a real one-an original ?" “Come, look," Koenig said, and together the two heads bent over the bit of paper--the white one and the shining bald one. "See, the blue is much brighter than in the original, and the design is a fourth of a millimeter wider. And see, the space around the five in the upper right hand corner is perfectly clear. In the original there are two tiny dots just within the left hand border. No, no, my friend, not so shrewd. It is not the 1853 original. It is the 1868 reprint.” The bearded gentleman seemed visibly to slump. It was as if the fine cord of his excited anticipation had broken, and left him, not a shrewd bargainer, a discoverer of the rare and the beautiful in obscure byways, but just an old gentleman with sadly dashed hopes. A slightly too intense bluishness, and the hun- 88 A Most Immoral Murder dredth part of an inch had robbed life of its savor. When he had gone the stamp dealer approached the tall, blondish young man who for almost half an hour had been consulting the catalog at the other end of the counter. For a moment the young man let the stamp dealer look him square in the face, before he spoke. There was no flicker of recognition in Koenig's eyes. Young gentlemen who slouch in easy chairs with their faces half-hidden in their hands in dimly lighted libraries are not easily iden- tified later. "I have a collection here," the young man ex- plained somewhat apologetically. "Not a very val- uable one, but it belongs to my young nephew and I thought I'd like to get an estimate on it.” Koenig smiled as he picked up the grubby, bat- tered little album. “You are not a collector your- self?” he asked. The young man shook his head. "I did not think so. The real collector is not in- terested in price. Price is nothing. It is the thrill of owning, of having, of discovering." There was subtle reproof although his tone was gentle. He turned the pages of the album, smiled with kindly tolerance at the miscellaneous collection. "He likes air mails, I see.” “Yes, they're his passion. By the way, there's some new Russian air mail stamp he's awfully keen about. If you've got it, I'll take one and "He broke off. Spike Hunts Russian Air Mails 89 Koenig was staring. His little fat hands holding the album trembled slightly. For a moment he said nothing. Just looked at the page before him. When he spoke his voice seemed to stick in his throat. "Your nephew-he-where-where did he get that one?" His finger pointed at a stamp—black on magenta, the rough design of a sailing ship, a Latin inscription. "Oh that,” said the young man lightly. "That one I put there myself, today. It was—given to me." “Given—to you? Who—who?" His voice rose fiercely, anxiously. Suddenly the young man's manner changed. He stood facing the stamp dealer now, eyeing him steadily. Behind him the door to the shop was half ajar. He kicked it shut with his foot, but still facing Koenig, he turned the key, put it in his pocket. Then he approached the little round man. "A woman gave it to me,” he said quietly. "A woman! Lind— ” Koenig broke off abruptly, realizing too late his involuntary betrayal. A look of horror and fear crept into his eyes. Spike nodded. “Yes, Linda. Linda Crossley. I've come to take you to her.” CHAPTER XII Just a couple of Damn Fools BACK IN the quiet room again with the evening sun slanting through the western windows, and the woman on the bed sleeping, but quietly now. No troubled frenzy of delirium. No terrorized recoil from the menacing phantoms of fever. At the foot of the bed stood two men—Spike and Koenig, waiting. And as they waited they con- tinued their watchful scrutiny of each other. From that moment, three hours before when they had faced each other over the counter, and that cry, half fear, half joy had burst from the lips of the stamp dealer, distrust had sprung up between them. They had said little to each other. It was as if each feared the most casual conversation. They had gone into the back of the shop where Koenig had his pri- vate apartment, and very briefly Spike had related the events of that stormy Monday night when Linda Crossley had first stumbled across his threshold. 90 Just a Couple of Damn Fools 91 "But how is she is she well—is she - " There was frantic appeal in the little man's eyes, begging for reassurance. "She is better. Her mind is clear. But she is very weak. She asked me to send for you.” “Yes, yes, I must see her, my poor Linda. We must start immediately. Come.” He had snatched his hat from the closet, started out of the room, but Spike had called him back. "You're not," he said, "going to leave that like that.” He pointed to the grubby stamp album lying on the table, abandoned by Koenig in the first anxious excitement of the news which Spike had brought. Koenig had turned, looked back at the stamp al- bum, seemed suddenly to remember its precious, ter- rifying burden. He came back to the table, turned the pages until it was open at the British Guiana, one cent. Slowly he raised his eyes to Spike. "But how," he said quietly, "did you get this ?” “I said a woman gave it to me." “And did she?" “Well-no. I took it." “Where did you take it from?" "From Miss Crossley's handbag." Koenig's hand holding the album had whitened around the knuckles as his grip stiffened. “Do you—do you know—what it is?” Spike nodded. “I read the papers." He picked up the album and carefully extracted the British Guiana. From his pocket he took the tiny steel case, placed 92 A Most Immoral Murder the stamp inside, snapped it shut. Koenig watched him. “What are you going to do with it?" “Return it-put it back where I found it." “No!" It was more than a mere negative. It was a command. Koenig held out his hand for it. Spike hesitated. Koenig's eyes softened. “If they—if any- one should find it-on her, on Linda — No, no. It is better here, in my safe.” Spike had surrendered the little steel case with its precious burden, saw it locked in Koenig's safe. . Their drive to Saugus in Spike's car, and their trip across the bay in the motor launch had been made in almost complete silence, broken only by an argument just before they mounted the stairs to the upper room. On the first landing Koenig had turned toward Spike. “I must see her alone; you will wait down here." Spike had eyed him warily. “I think I'll stick around, too,” he said. “But - " "I said I'll stick around, too." There was some- thing firm, unmoving in the repetition. Koenig had hesitated, then submitted. There was nothing else he could do. Together they had mounted the stairs and entered the room. And now they waited. The woman slept quietly. Once Mrs. Parsons came in to make sure that nothing was needed. Koenig sat on a chair be- side the bed, and in the gaze that he turned on the 94 A Most Immoral Murder her hand, pressing in hard as if to shut out a mem- ory of horror. There was a deathly silence in the room. Neither of the two men moved, stirred. Spike stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at her. Koenig sat, immobile, tense. Her voice when she spoke again was almost a whisper. “He was I thought he was asleep. There was only the reading light on the desk and it was dim. His head was forward on his arms. And one arm was stretched out—and I could see in his hand the little box-open. It was it was a stamp—a very valuable one, the most valuable in the world, and I thought if I could steal it from him, I could make him — " She broke off again. But now she seemed to grow strong. She opened her eyes and looked into Koe- nig's. It was as if her gaze carried a silent message that only he could understand. “I thought I could use it could make him tell me something I wanted to know. So I took it. I stole it." Her voice rose almost to shrill defiance. "I left the house and I spent the night at a hotel. I didn't use my own name. I thought he might try to find me. I was going to hide it where no one would know but me. And then I was going to force him to tell me—tell me what he's kept from me, what I must know if I'm to go on living—what I've got to know. And then the next day before I had decided just what I was going to do—I saw-it-in the papers." Her voice had sunk away again into a whisper. A. Just a Couple of Damn Fools 95 slight tremor seemed to shake Koenig, but it was a tremor of tension relieved. She went on. “I suddenly realized—what people would think. I was afraid. I tried to get hold of Mr. Fairleigh. Then I seemed to lose my head. I-thought of Saugus. I remembered what that woman had told me. You said it was silly. I guess it was. I don't know. I can't remember clearly. I know I got on a train but when I got to Saugus I went crazy. I thought I must get away. There was an island. I could see it from the mainland, and a man with a ferry. He brought me over. There was a storm-rain, wind. I wandered around—I don't re- member-1-that's all – The little strength she had was exhausted, drained from her. Her hand lay weak and helpless in Koe- nig's. Her eyes were closed. She seemed like one dead. But presently she opened her eyes again, looked up at Koenig. "Do you,” she whispered. “Do you—believe me? Do you believe—he was already—dead—when I went in there-to him?" "Liebling!” In the quaint old endearment there was reassurance, passionate, tender. She smiled faintly and her fingers pressed his. A half hour later downstairs in the library the two men faced each other. "You did not tell her," said Koenig, and his voice was hard, "you did not tell her—you believe her?” 96 A Most Immoral Murder Spike gave no answer. His eyes faltered, fell be- fore the accusing gaze of the other man. “Do you ?" Koenig persisted. “Do you believe her?" "I—I don't know." Koenig was thoughtful. Then he spoke again in the same guarded tone. "Did not the papers say that the police had searched this island ?" Spike nodded. "Did you see the police officers when they were here?" “Yes.” “Then how - " “I lied to them.” A pause. “Why—why did you lie to them?" "Because," Spike said quietly and this time his eyes met Koenig's squarely, “because I'm a damn fool.” Koenig's round face broke into a grin, and tiny wrinkles sprayed out from his eyes. In some strange fashion the barrier of distrust between them seemed suddenly to melt away. “Good!” he said warmly. “So am I a damn fool. We shall get along, my friend." CHAPTER XIII Enter-a Man of Honor PUG WAS puzzled. He knew, of course, that there comes a time in the life of every butler when he must, perforce, do a bit of pinch-hitting, be a gentleman's gentleman as well as a butler. He knew, too, for his varied reading had once included one of the Jeeves opera of Mr. P. G. Wodehouse, that among the services expected of a gentleman's gentleman is the “laying out” of a gentleman's "things.” But what, he asked himself, if the gentleman has no "things?”. He stood in the doorway of the guest room and pondered, and presently the opportunistic instincts which had once stood him in good stead in the roped square came to the rescue. He went to Spike's room and returned with arms laden. The pajamas he ar- ranged on the bed, arms outflung across the pillows, legs a-sprawl upon the counterpane that there might be no mistaking their function. With rare thoughtful- ness he turned up a deep cuff at ankle and wrist. 97 98 A Most Immoral Murder ver & "The little wart'll be lost in 'em at that," he com- mented half aloud. The bathrobe he shook out and draped over a chair, and on the dresser he arrayed purloined toi- let articles in a tasty symmetrical design he had once noted in a Second Avenue drug store window. Then he stood back and surveyed his handiwork and found that it was "class.” A few minutes later he appeared in the doorway leading to the verandah, having in the meantime made a quick professional change from gentleman's gentleman to butler. His chin was slightly elevated and his posture had that dignity peculiar to those who get racing tips from dukes and snoot vulgar American upstarts. “Dinner is served, sir," he announced in a quiet, discreet voice. The meal, despite the dampening effects of British dignity, was a pleasant one. The two who sat oppo- site each other even laughed a bit, an inevitable re- action after the strain of that scene two hours before in the upper room. Spike told Koenig of Milo Taylor and his hodge-podge shop, and related local fishing superstitions he had learned from the Saugus natives. Koenig described the peasant ritual surrounding the launching of seine boats on Lake Walchen in his native Bavaria. It was not until they had adjourned to the verandah for coffee and cigars that the conversation turned Enter-a Man of Honor 99 once more to the immediate problem of Linda Cross- ley. “I think,” said Spike, opening the subject, “she should stay here. Try and persuade her.” “She must stay,” Koenig agreed. “I shall com- mand her and she will do as I say. In the first place she is too weak to be moved, and in the second place — "He broke off, unwilling to complete the sentence. "I know. The police ..." They smoked for a while in silence, sprawled at ease in wicker porch chairs, and for the first time Spike had an opportunity to really study his guest. Their previous meetings—in the Crossley library, at the stamp shop, in the upstairs room—had been too fraught with emotion to permit of quiet survey. Koenig looked forty-five, perhaps fifty, but an ex- ceedingly well-preserved fifty. His skin was firm and rosy, and he had, even in repose, a vigorous liveli- ness. There was, too, about him a sartorial elegance that somehow seemed incongruous. His clothes were obviously the product of an excellent tailor, and there was quiet taste in tie and socks and shirt. His shoes only were a discordant note. They were comfortably old, looked as if they had been made by a village cobbler, and they needed a shine. Spike noted with an inward gleam of amusement that the heels were slightly high, as if their wearer had sought thus to mitigate Nature's shortcomings in the matter of height. 100 A Most Immoral Murder Presently Spike took up the conversation again. “Tell me something about Crossley. Who do you think might have ..." Koenig shook his head. “I can imagine no one ..." “Then he was one of those lovable old gentle- men without enemies?” “Oh, I would not exactly say that. He had no enemies that I know of, but he was not—lovable.” Spike flung away a half-smoked cigar and reached for the more familiar cigarette. “You know, Koenig, I'm terribly in the dark, and I feel that I am—that I have a right to a little en- lightenment. More than a mere right. If Linda Crossley is to stay here, I think I could hold up my end of it a bit better if I knew a little more about her-and old Crossley." Koenig was thoughtful for a moment. “Yes," he said, "you're right. Perhaps I should tell you." His cigar had gone out and Spike held out his lighter. In the glow of the tiny flame he could see that Koenig's face was sober and troubled. "I have known Prentice Crossley for three years," the stamp dealer began at last. He spoke with just enough of an accent to lend a certain charm to his voice. “I met him shortly after I came to this coun- try the second time. I lived in America many years ago before the War. I was in business here, textile importing. After the War I remained in Germany. I made, money, not a lot, but when I had enough for comfort I quit. I thought I would travel. I had al- Enter-a Man of Honor 101 ways liked New York so I came back here. It was just about the time of the International Stamp Ex- hibition. I had always been interested in stamps and knew a lot about them. I even had a small collection of my own. I started it when I was just a boy in school in Munich. I collect 'howlers.'” “ 'Howlers ?'” "Stamps with crazy mistakes in them—you know, ships with their flags blowing against the wind, and animals with their anatomy against Nature and - Well, take for instance, the St. Kitts-Nevis." Koenig's reminiscent manner left him and he warmed to his subject like a woman suddenly given an oppor. tunity to talk about her children. "The 1903 St. Kitts-Nevis. It shows Columbus on his ship discovering America—with a telescope." Koenig chuckled. "Well, what should he have discovered it with -a divining rod?" "No, no, but the trouble is that in 1492 there wasn't such a thing as a telescope. It was not in- vented until several generations later. Then there is the Jamaica, two-and-a-half-penny with the Union Jack in the left border reversed, and the Belgian air mails of 1930 showing — "That," Spike interrupted firmly, "is all very in- teresting, but it isn't telling me about Prentice Cross- ley." Koenig's eager face fell. Then he laughed. "Ah, my friend, you do not know what you have let your- 102 A Most Immoral Murder self in for. Stamp collectors! Ach! Give them a chance and they'll talk stamps until Doomsday." He settled back in his chair and puffed quietly at his cigar for a few minutes. "Still,” he continued, “my 'howlers' were really re- sponsible for my meeting with Crossley. He owned at that time a whole pane of the twenty-four-cent U. S. air mails with the airplane printed upside down in the middle of the stamp. These are among the most valuable 'howlers' in the world today. Of course, we would never think of actually calling them 'howlers.' They are much too .grand. But just the same that is what they are, and I wanted to see them when I went to the stamp exhibit. I knew that Crossley had some of them, so I went to his exhibit. He was there and we got to talking. Stamps are like babies and dogs. They are an open sesame to conver- sation. "Later I decided to settle down in New York -to make a business of what had formerly been a hobby, so I set up a stamp shop, and in the course of the last three years my work has kept me in fre- quent touch with Prentice Crossley." He paused again letting his thoughts drift back silently over that association. "Three years," he repeated, “and yet I can tell you so little about him. In all that time I do not think we ever talked about anything but stamps. His health was very bad and it was difficult for him to get about, so I usually went to his house when he summoned me. Enter—a Man of Honor 103 Once or twice a month, sometimes oftener. He used me principally as his agent at stamp auctions, and through my European connections I was able to ar- range certain trades for him with German and French collectors. I was able, for instance, to get for him the famous six-reel Spanish stamp with the color " “Remember," Spike interrupted and there was an ominous edge to his tone, "we're talking about him. Not his damn stamps. What was he like? What sort of a person was he?”. Koenig considered the question carefully before he answered. “He was not-not exactly - Well, what is the use of beating about the bush just be- cause he is dead. He was not a pleasant man in any way, my friend. He was harsh and stubborn and he had an implacable belief in his own rightness in everything. For fifteen years he has lived shut up in that house with not another human interest in his life but his stamps. His damn stamps! You are right. They were an obsession with him, a mania. He cared for nothing else on earth. He pored over them like a miser with his money bags. If he had no enemies, at least no enemies capable of murdering him, neither had he any friends." "What about this fellow Watson? I understand he and Crossley made occasional trades with each other." “They did. And their meetings were like an armed truce. There was a bitter feud between them." 104 A Most Immoral Murder “How'd it start?”. "Oh, that was years before I knew either of them. Watson was not a collector then. He didn't know a thing about stamps. His people came from Lock- port, New York, and one day in an old trunk be- longing to his mother, he found a letter written from Lockport in 1846. That was before federal postage was adopted in this country and each indi- vidual post office used to issue its own stamps. This one from Lockport happens to be very valuable. I think it is catalogued now at something like eight or ten thousand dollars. Watson, because he knew Crossley was a collector, took it to him and asked him what it was worth. Crossley realized its value, of course, but he pretended that it was not worth much, and offered to buy it for ten dollars, and Wat- son let it go. Afterward Watson found out the real value of the stamp. "That incident started him studying stamps, hop- ing that some day he would get a chance to get back at Crossley. Then he got genuinely interested, started collecting himself. Now he is almost as bad as Crossley was. He has a remarkable collection. He came into money about ten years ago, I understand, and has been able to indulge his taste for valuable stamps. He and Crossley were the two greatest rivals in this country in the collection of rarities. And they hated each other like poison.” "And I suppose," Spike said, “Crossley had a. number that Watson wanted." Enter-a Man of Honor 107 ness into her life. Sometimes after I was through with Crossley I would linger in the drawing room across from the library and talk to her. We grew to be friends. She told me how lonely her life was, how empty, shut up with the old man. He was very de- manding. He wanted her constant attention. He cared for her, I suppose, in his selfish, strange way, but her life with him was no life for a girl.” “Girl? She seems hardly that." "I know. She is a woman, really. She is thirty- four, but I always seem to think of her as-just nineteen." Koenig's voice had softened as he talked of Linda Crossley. It was infinitely tender, not with the tenderness of a lover, but with the deeper, more protecting tenderness of a father. "You knew her when she was just nineteen?" "No. I have known her only three years." "Has she always lived there in that gloomy old house with her grandfather?" "Always. Her parents were killed in a railroad accident when she was a baby." “Had she no other friends beside you ?” "A few acquaintances, yes. But no real friends. Friendship, you know, does not thrive on gloom and harsh, decaying age. He discouraged it. He was too selfish to wish for her any world of her own. He ruined her life.” Koenig spoke the damning accusation quietly with- out rancor—a simple, hard statement of fact. "Tell me something," Spike said, "something I've been wondering about ever since this afternoon when Koenig spoke imple, hard statemeh (something I've 108 A Most Immoral Murder she talked to us. She said something about a woman. She said, 'I remembered Saugus and what that woman had told me.'” He paused and tamped out his cigarette. “What did she mean? Who is that woman?'” He sensed rather than actually saw a sudden stiffening in Koenig. There was a long pause before Koenig answered, and when he spoke his voice was low, restrained, as if he were suddenly on guard against something "That I cannot tell you." “You mean you don't know?" "I mean, I cannot tell you." Spike considered this refusal in silence for a few minutes. Then he spoke again. “But perhaps you can explain this: she kept re- peating 'what I must know,' 'what I've got to know if I'm to go on.' Something her grandfather knew, some information he had that she wanted. What was it?” Koenig's cigar had gone out again and he was sitting, staring now into the darkness. He did not look at Spike as he answered. “That too, my friend, I cannot tell you." “Why?” Another long pause. “Because it is not mine to tell. It is—hers." “I see.” Spike hesitated. Then: "Had it-any- thing to do with that clause in Crossley's will ?” “I have never seen Crossley's will. What did it say?" Enter—a Man of Honor 109 "Oh, something about putting upon Fairleigh the task of—I think the exact words were, 'saving her from the consequences of her own indiscretions.'” Koenig made no answer. "Well?” Spike said at last. "Well, what?" "I mean, has that clause in the will anything to do with this other thing that Linda Crossley must know?" “I am sure,” Koenig replied, "that I am not in a position to know what was in Prentice Crossley's mind when he wrote his will." This was plainly an evasion, but Spike did not feel that he could press the point further. Instead he picked up the new lead inadvertently suggested by Koenig. "How about Fairleigh? Do you know him?" "No, I have never met him.” Koenig tossed away his dead cigar and rose. "I have never even seen him," he added, “but I dislike him extremely." “Why?" “Because he is a man of honor." “Aren't you?” "No thank God.” “But you—keep confidences ?” “I have my own code.” His round face broke into a gentle smile as he looked down at the younger man. “It is a strange code, perhaps, but — " He paused, then shook his head. “No, it is too late now to go into that to- night. Some other time perhaps. Good night." CHAPTER XIV A Very Private Secretary FOR A LONG time after Koenig went upstairs to bed, Spike sat on the verandah, gazing out across the moonlit waters of the bay-thinking. Koenig left early the next morning, for he and Spike agreed that it might be just as well were it not generally known that he had spent the night on Sark Island. Linda Crossley's hiding place must be kept secret at all costs until ... It was with that 'until' and its implications bear- ing down on his mind that Spike took a long, solitary walk Sunday afternoon, skirting the north shore, following the meandering stream that cut diagonally across the small island, wandering aimlessly through the woodland to the south. When he returned it was late. He met Mrs. Par- sons in the hall descending from the upper bedroom with a supper tray. "She's very much better," the housekeeper told him. “She ate a good supper and she seems much 110 112 A Most Immoral Murder ments. And just a couple of sticks at that, full of the things which Inspector Herschman and District Attorney Tracy usually said when they had nothing to say. Spike stuck the paper in his pocket and called for another drink ... and another. ... A taxi driver took him home, put him to bed. It was ten the next morning before he wakened. His head ached and his mouth felt furry, but a cold shower banished these slight ill effects of the previous night's indul- gence. It would not, however, banish that vague but persistent restlessness. He dressed, fixed himself coffee and toast on the kitchen table. After breakfast he lit a cigarette and slumped down into an easy chair. So what now? He didn't know. His gaze wandered about the room. The paper he had bought the night before was lying, folded and crumpled just where it had fallen from his pocket as he was assisted to bed by the obliging taxi driver. He picked it up, yawned and turned pages. Old stuff. What he needed was tomor- row's news. He had already read today's news last night. Modern tempo was confusing. His eye strayed down a column. He read in a desultory way, skipping, skimming. It was on the fourth inside page, dwarfed beside a seven-column automobile ad that he found it. Or perhaps it would be better to say chanced upon it. For it was just that-chance. And it was only the last line that really caught his attention. But after he A Very Private Secretary 113 had seen that last line, he went back and read care- fully from the beginning. “Mrs. Deborah Ealing, of 143 West 110th St., was found dead in her apartment last night with a stab wound in her back. She had apparently been dead some hours. No property was missing and noth- ing was disturbed in the apartment. The apartment house is near the Spanish district and police ex- pressed the view that the killing was part of a vendetta which has been raging in that district for some weeks. The body of the woman was discovered by her daughter, Maysie Ealing, 33, when she came home from work late Tuesday evening. The daugh- ter is employed - " Spike thrust the paper from him and grabbed the directory, looked up a number and reached for the telephone. "H'ya baby,” he said when presently there came a response. His voice was as vapid as his words. "Remember me? You know, the guy you were out to dinner with the other night. ... Oh yeah, I know. Don't rub it in. I'm just one of a crowd. ... Come on now, dearie, no wise cracks. You know I can't take it. ..." The conversation drifted on. There was some talk of a date. There were frequent long waits. The party at the other end was apparently interrupted. It was after one of these long waits that he sprang it-oh so casually, as if it had just popped into his head. 114 A Most Immoral Murder "Say, did you read the paper this morning? You're right in the news, aren't you?... I bet you got about ten cops hanging round you down there, and you're giving them all the eye, aren't you? ... Oh, she did? ... Well, I wouldn't think she would be ..." At last he laid the telephone back in place and snatched up the paper once more, read the final un- finished sentence. "The daughter is employed by the Nassau street law firm of Schwab, Fairleigh and Morrison." He rose and reached for his coat. There was a decisive set to his jaw. He was thinking of what the telephone operator had just told him. "... She's Mr. Fairleigh's private secretary. She's only been working here six months. ..." He was remembering too what she had told him that evening he had taken her out to dinner. "... and on Monday afternoon just when it was all over the papers about him being killed, Miss Crossley calls up and wants to speak to Fairleigh's private secretary, a dame named Ealing, and when I says, 'Miss Ealing's out,' she says ..." T CHAPTER XV Gossip on the Doorstep "Well, That's the newspapers for you!" Mrs. O'Brien leaned out of the front window of her apart- ment on the ground floor of 143 West 110th St. and addressed Mrs. Quigley on the sidewalk below. Mrs. Quigley lived next door at 145. “ 'Spaniards !' " said Mrs. Quigley, and her voice had the same contemptuous tone as Mrs. O'Brien's. "Why, there ain't been any Spaniards since that Estrellos family that got so rich with the bootleggin' moved out." “What," inquired Mrs. O'Brien, "is a vendetta ?" “Oh, that's where they go round murderin' each other with daggers." "What for?" "Oh–I dunno. Spaniards, you know." "Well, I told 'em different this morning,” Mrs. O'Brien affirmed decisively. “Who, the Spaniards ?” 115 116 A Most Immoral Murder "No, no, the police and the newspaper reporters. Every family livin' in the house had to be questioned. Us and the Bartons and the new people on the top floor and the Torrences and the Helvigs and all of us." “Yes?” Mrs. Quigley was eager. Here was some- thing new in her limited experience. It lent a cer- tain flutter of excitement to her dull life to be talk- ing to someone who had actually been questioned by the police. “What'd you tell 'em ?" she demanded eagerly. “I told 'em all about seein' the old lady yester- day. I'm supposed to be,” Mrs. O'Brien boasted with swelling importance, "the last one to see her alive. I went up there about two o'clock yesterday to bor. row a cup of sugar, and Mrs. Ealing was sittin' in the front room right in the very chair where she was murdered. And I set down and talked with her a few minutes and then I came on downstairs. Well, I told 'em all about that and then they began askin' how long we'd known Maysie and her mother and I told 'em ..." The young man leaning idly against the iron rail- ing around the basement entrance to number 145 lit a cigarette and slouched a little closer to the two women. He blew a long, lazy cloud of smoke into the air, and gazed up and down the street as if he were waiting for someone. But no one came, so he continued to lean and slouch and listen to the two women. Gossip on the Doorstep 117 "... when they moved in here eight months ago.” The voice of Mrs. O'Brien continued. “I was always awful fond of the old lady, and I used to say to her so often, 'Mrs. Ealing, you shouldn't leave your door unlocked like that,' and I told Maysie so too, but she says her mother bein' so feeble and all, it saved a lot of trouble. She could just call, 'Come in,' when somebody knocked and wouldn't have to get up to go to the door. “And I says to 'em-I mean to the police-I says that you couldn't ask for nicer neighbors than Mrs. Ealing and her daughter, and who'd be wantin' to be doin' anything to the poor old lady, I wouldn't know. And then they wanted to know if we'd no- ticed anyone goin' in or out of the place on Tues- day, but you know how it is. This front door to the buildin's unlocked, and a dozen people could go up to the Ealings without I'd be seein' 'em. "So then they asked a lot about Maysie and I told 'em there wasn't a steadier, better girl to her mother, and it was just beautiful the way she treated the old lady, although Lord knows it must have been tryin' at times, with the old lady just a little bit — But, of course, I didn't tell 'em about that." "You mean about her bein'- queer?” “Now, now, Mrs. Quigley, she wasn't queer. I don't like that word. She was just a bit touched and only sometimes at that, and can you blame her, poor thing. Ever since she lost that boy in the War, Maysie told me she hadn't ever been quite the same. 118 A Most Immoral Murder Him gettin' killed just seemed to sort of take the life out of her. It almost seems — " Mrs. O'Brien paused and lowered her voice like one about to commit blasphemy. “It almost seems, Mrs. Quigley, as if it was a mercy she's gone." Mrs. Quigley nodded gravely in agreement. “Maysie was a good daughter to her like you said, but just the same it was awful hard on her, espe- cially with that young man in London and all. How's she takin' it?" "She was better this mornin'. You know they made her go down to police headquarters so they could talk to her, and she was there nearly all the mornin'. She got back a little while ago and she seemed pretty calm. But oh last night, it was ter- rible, I'm tellin' you, Mrs. Quigley. “She came home about eight-she got kept late at the office finishin' up some work for her boss. You know how it's been. Almost every night she's kept late—and she went upstairs and went in and turned on the light and found her mother. The first we knew about it was when she screamed and ran out into the hall. Mrs. Helvig came runnin' down from upstairs —the Helvigs are right above the Ealings—and Maysie was out in the hall. "The doctor that come with the police had to give her something to quiet her down. Mrs. Helvig stayed with her last night and she's up there with her now. Maysie didn't want to be alone in the apartment and could you blame her? It gives me the shivers my- Gossip on the Doorstep 119 self, knowin' a horrible, bloody thing like that has gone on right in this house. Why this mornin' I says to Jim, it don't hardly ..." The conversation drifted on and Mrs. Quigley at length drifted off to 145. Mrs. O'Brien drew in her head, and the young man slouching against the rail- ing drew out an afternoon paper from his pocket. The headlines of the front page leaped up at him in black glaring type. EALING KILLING LINKED WITH CROSSLEY MURDER “The murder of Mrs. Deborah Ealing, of 143 West 110th St., erroneously reported at first as a Spanish vendetta killing, is now being definitely linked by the police with the murder of Prentice Crossley, wealthy stamp dealer and ..." He skipped the rest of the lead, his eyes jumping quickly down the page until he found the paragraphs he was seeking. "The report of the medical examiner places the time of death 'sometime after noon Tuesday.' The murder weapon was a bayonet with a triangular blade containing tiny notches, and is exactly like that used in the killing of Prentice Crossley. It was found wiped clean, and hanging with some other War relics, a German and an American helmet, on the wall of the back hall. Maysie Ealing, the daughter, says that it was a War souvenir sent to them by her 120 A Most Immoral Murder brother who was killed in France, and always hung in that particular spot. “Rigor mortis had already set in by the time the medical examiner was summoned, and it was not discovered until some hours after the body was taken to the morgue, that the fingers of the right hand clutched a tiny piece of paper. This has been defi- nitely identified by Jason Fream of the Acme Stamp Company and Kurt Koenig, two of the stamp ex- perts originally called in by the police in the Cross- ley case, as the six-real Spanish issue of 1851, valued at $12,500, which was stolen from the Crossley col- lection the night Crossley was murdered.” 122 A Most Immoral Murder For a long time there was no answer. He knocked again. Presently the door was opened by a woman. She was middle-aged and comfortably plump with a scrubbed, red peasant face and a coronet of heavy blond hair. She eyed the visitor hostilely and de- manded his business in a heavy Swedish accent. "Miss Ealing,” he explained, "I want to see her.” “Miss Ealing can't see nobody. She iss sick. Her modder iss just dead." She pushed the door to, but Spike caught it before it slammed. "I quite understand the circumstances,” he said in a voice politely hushed, suavely considerate of the presence of grief and death. “But I must insist on seeing Miss Ealing. I'm—I'm from the district attorney's office.” At the reference to the district attorney, the woman's hostility increased, but she ceased to push the door. “But she vas dere all morning,” she protested. “You asking her questions all morning and now she iss tired." “I know. I'm sorry, really. I wish I might spare her the distress of further intrusion, but it can't be helped. I shan't keep her long." The woman melted a little. She was uncertain just how to deal with this gentle but firm gentleman. He wasn't like those others, those heavy-jawed fel- lows who had come with the policeman in uniform that first night when Maysie Ealing had rushed 124 A Most Immoral Murder corner a couch with an old fashioned afghan cro- cheted in bright colors. It was a room of no par- ticular taste or period, and yet somehow it managed to convey a feeling of homely comfort. Spike looked about him and wondered where it had happened—where the old lady had sat-in what chair she had been when the daughter had found her. But the room gave back no answer. He crossed to the opposite wall and surveyed a group of family photographs. Babies, indistinguish- able as to sex or disposition. A sturdy lad of possibly twelve, and a little girl of eight or ten, playing with a dog. The girl again in a fancy dress costume. Another one of the boy, a bit older this one, prob- ably just entering high school. And then there was the large picture apart from the others. The boy grown into a young man in a corporal's uniform, a pleasant looking young man, with frank, humorous eyes and a big generous mouth, and hair that waved slightly. The frame was of silver and there was engraving across the bottom. Spike bent closer to read it. David Ealing 116th Infantry - 29th Division — A. E. F. Missing in Action-Samogneux, October 1918. "... ever since she lost that boy in the War ... him gettin' killed just seemed to sort of take the life out of her ..." For a long time Spike stood looking at the pho- tograph, his brows furrowed in a perplexed frown. Where ... Was it ... A Familiar Face 125 He was still looking at it when he heard a slight sound behind him. He turned. Maysie Ealing stood in the doorway leading from the back room. For a moment there was no sound in the room while the two of them confronted each other, the young man and the girl. Not exactly a pretty girl and not really a girl any longer. She looked as if she might be about the same age as the dark woman who lay in the upper room on Sark Island-Linda Crossley. The blond of her hair was faded and her small piquante mouth was bracketed with two tired lines. She was thin, too thin. And yet there was about her a feeling of strength, of firmness of will. Her eyes were deeply shadowed with grief and horror and physical exhaustion, but her chin was firm. She bore a strong resemblance to the soldier photograph on the wall. It was she who spoke first in a dead, colorless voice. “You are from the district attorney's office ? You wanted to see me?" “Yes; may we sit down?” She looked at him, uncertainty and suspicion in her steady gaze. "You were not-down there this morning?" "No, I know. The situation is a bit unorthodox, and although I'm not officially connected with the district attorney's office I-ah-assist at times on- ah—special assignments. You see I'm the district attorney's brother.” He drew forth his visiting card and handed it to her. 126 A Most Immoral Murder She took it and looked at it for a moment without comment. Then she motioned him to a chair and sat down herself in one opposite. “There are two points, Miss Ealing," he began, "that were not entirely cleared up this morning.” She sighed heavily, wearily. “Do I have to go over all that again ?" "No. I just want to ask you two questions." His hands fumbled for his cigarette case. Then hastily remembering the circumstances he shoved the case back into his vest pocket. But she had seen the gesture. “It's all right," she said. “Go ahead and smoke." She stretched forth her hand. “I'll take one too. Being silly isn't going to do any good to anyone." He lit her cigarette and his own. She inhaled deeply and settled back more easily in her chair as if in the curling whisps of smoke she found relaxa- tion at last from the intolerable strain of the last twenty-four hours. And then Spike shot the first question at her. “Why did you go to work for John Fairleigh six months ago ?” Her hand raising the cigarette to her lips paused in mid-air. Her eyes were quickly veiled with down- dropping lids so that no one might read the expres- sion therein. "Why—why should I not?” Her voice was still flat, colorless, but now it seemed the result of con- scious effort to make it so, rather than the natural consequence of exhaustion. A Familiar Face 127 e W s a reason "I only wondered if there was a reason—a special reason ?" “No, of course not. It it is a good position." “Will you keep it now—after this ?” “Of course—if I want to.” "And do you want to ?” "Yes—well, for a while, anyway. Things are so upset now, I don't know - " He waited a bit before he posed his second ques- tion. But when he did finally, he shot it at her quickly. "Tell me, has Linda Crossley been in this house within the last two days ?”. For a moment there was no answer. Slowly she rose from her chair. She held on to the arms as if to steady herself. Her lighted cigarette dropped to the floor. Her face was white, contorted with the effort to erase all betraying expression. A valiant effort but futile. Stark fright and horror stared from her eyes. She swayed. She grabbed for the back of the chair, missed it. She fell heavily before he could catch her. She had fainted. For a long time Spike waited in the living room after he had carried her into the rear bedroom and summoned the Swedish woman. Just before he left he stood once more before the picture of the young man in uniform. Gradually a look of satisfaction came into his eyes. He was just remembering where he had seen that face before. CHAPTER XVII The Inspector Has Spots Before the Eyes THE AVERAGE citizen, the one previously referred to in this narrative, isn't fooled for a minute by alibis. He knows, thanks again to the metropolitan press, the detective story magazines and the writers of murder fiction, that axioms may be homicidal as well as Euclidian. Take, for instance, the chap who is found stand- ing over the dead body with a smoking pistol in his hand and a look of fiendish triumph on his face. This is not the murderer. (Some day a writer of murder fiction is going to break with tradition and pin the crime on the one who is caught red-handed in the first chapter. He'll fool 'em all.) Or take the matter of alibis. It is an unchallenged fact that the person who of all the suspects has the most unbreakable alibi, the person who at the very moment the murder was committed was taking tea with the Prime Minister at Number 10 Downing 128 The Inspector Has Spots Before the Eyes 129 Street, fifty miles from the scene of the crime—that person is the perpetrator of the foul deed. In view of this axiomatic situation it would seem that police departments and detective story writers would save themselves much time if they would admit the situation. But they are hidebound, con- ventional souls and go plodding along in the same old grooves, "checking up" on the characters in hand and placing a naive faith in their findings. Inspector Herschman was one of these conserva- tive souls. The result was that in the Crossley-Ealing killings he had a complete record of the movements of all parties concerned and very little else. This paucity of other real evidence weighed heavily on his mind, and he felt that life was not entirely molded to his heart's desire. This feeling of depression was intensified by the presence in his outer office of six newspaper reporters. He knew that if he went out and faced them they would ask all sort of childish, troublesome questions. “Do you know who killed Prentice Crossley and if not why not?" and "Who killed Mrs. Deborah Ealing?" and “Why the hell don't the police find out?” And since Inspector Herschman had to admit to himself that he didn't know the answer to any of these questions he instructed his secretary to say that he was in conference and could see no one. Having thus entrenched himself behind the world's most palpable prevarication, he sat in his office, gazing out of the window with troubled eyes, fiddling The Inspector Has Spots Before the Eyes 131 For more than an hour after Herschman had left Spike sat in deep thought, sorting out the informa- tion which he had just extracted from the unwitting and slightly fozzled police inspector. Here, boiled down to undramatic statements of fact, are the results of many hours of patient police investigation, two quarts of Scotch and a conscience so unscrupulous as to take advantage of a man when he's drunk. In reading them, one should keep in mind the fact that according to the reports of the medical examiner Prentice Crossley was killed "some time before midnight" on Sunday, June 4, and that Mrs. Deborah Ealing was killed "some time after noon" on Tuesday, June 13. Kathryn Dennis and Annie Farley, maids: Say that on the night of June 4 they were at the movies. No attempt to seek corroboration of this. Say that on the afternoon of June 13 they were with a cousin of Kathryn Dennis' in Yonkers. Corroborated by neighbors. Jason Fream, stamp dealer: Says that on night of June 4 was at church and at home with his wife and daughter. This corroborated by wife and daughter. Says that on June 13 was at work all day at Acme Stamp Company. Corroborated by four employees. Kurt Koenig, stamp dealer: Says that on the night of June 4 he was at his apartment alone. No cor- roboration. Says that on afternoon of June 14 he left his shop in charge of assistant and spent the 132 A Most Immoral Murder afternoon in the Public Library at Forty-second Street examining the Benjamin K. Miller stamp col- lection in the third floor corridor. Absence from shop corroborated by assistant, and two attendants at the Library recall seeing him in upper corridor during the afternoon but unable to give exact time. Homer Watson, stamp dealer: Says that on the night of June 4 he was home alone with three sery- ants. Servants corroborate this, but say that none of them saw him after nine: forty-five, when he dis- missed them for the night and they went up to the third floor to bed. Says that he spent June 13 on the road between Poughkeepsie and New York. Was up there on business, left in his car at nine in the morning and did not get back to New York until 6 p. m. Driving his car himself and alone. Had car trouble and was delayed for four hours in Yonkers. This corroborated by mechanic in Yonkers who worked on his car from twelve to four. Maysie Ealing: Says that she spent the evening of June 4 at home with her mother. No corroboration. Neighbors of apartment house at 143 West 110th St., cannot recall whether they saw her in or around the apartment that night or not. Says that on June 13 she left the office of Schwab, Fairleigh and Mor- rison at twelve o'clock and did not return until four. Spent the time at lunch and shopping. Says Fair- leigh said she might have the time off. Time of leav- ing and return corroborated by telephone operator at office. Fairleigh corroborates statement about The Inspector Has Spots Before the Eyes 133 "time off.” No corroboration from any of the shops she said she visited in shopping. John Fairleigh: Says that on June 4 he was at the Alhambra Hotel in Los Angeles at a legal con- vention. Hotel register at Alhambra shows that he checked into the hotel on Sunday morning, June 4, and checked out Tuesday morning, June 6. Says that on June 13 he left his office at 11:30 in the morning and did not return until the next morning. Said he spent the afternoon in private law library of a friend on Riverside Drive. No corroboration of this, as the library was in a private house from which all servants and even the friend himself were tem- porarily absent for a month. Fairleigh, however, in possession of key to the house and could let him- self in. Spike read and re-read the notes that he had as- sembled from Herschman's wandering conversa- tion. Not a good clean double alibi in the lot ... holes, fulla holes ... any one of 'em.... He crumpled the paper and flung it with a dis- gusted gesture into the wastebasket and started pacing the room. But presently he retrieved the crumpled wad and smoothed it out on top of the desk. His forehead knit into a speculative frown as he studied again that last paragraph. He folded it carefully and put it in his pocket and reached for his hat. In the street below he climbed into his car, and turned it westward toward Seventh Avenue and the Holland tunnel. 134 A Most Immoral Murder An hour later he drew up in front of the little bungalow on the outskirts of the Forestry Reserya- tion, the bungalow at which John Fairleigh had paid a brief visit while Spike had lurked in the bushes five days before. The blinds were down against the glare of the afternoon sun and the place looked deserted. He mounted the steps and rapped. A woman opened the door. “Mrs. Polk?” he inquired with the engaging voice of a salesman using the approach approved in the selling manual. "Yes, sir. I'm Mrs. Polk, and " She looked at him with dawning recognition. “And you're the young man who was here last week, with your car broke down, ain't you ?". Spike acknowledged the identification, elaborated it. “My name's Smith. I'm a friend of Mr. Fairleigh's. I'm wondering if you could help me find him. I've just been down at his office in New York and they didn't know where he was but they said that he might be out here. I'm awfully anxious to get in touch with him.” "Well now, I'm right sorry, Mr. Smith, you had all that trip for nothing, because he ain't here." ‘Mr. Smith' tch, tched with vexation. . "No," the woman went on, "he ain't been here since " She broke off in sudden confusion, the pleasant amiable smile with which she had greeted her visitor replaced by an expression of misgiving. "Since Tuesday," 'Mr. Smith' finished the sen- CHAPTER XVIII Pug Forgets He's a Wodehouse Butler “THE THING I can't understand," Spike said as he settled himself for an after-dinner smoke, “is why the hell ?” Koenig opposite him refused a cigarette and pro- duced his own cigar, clipped and lit it and gave a few experimental puffs. “Yes ?” he said. "Well, why the hell did Fairleigh tell that cock- and-bull story to the police about being at a law li- brary on the afternoon of June 13, knowing all the time that no one could possibly substantiate his story for the simple reason that it wasn't true?”. "Fairleigh, as I told you before, is a man of honor." “A damn fool if you ask me.” "It frequently amounts to the same thing." “But why not admit where he was out in Jersey at this Polk place?”. "Because for some reason he did not want the 136 Pug Forgets He's a Wodehouse Butler 137 police to know that he was out in Jersey at this Polk place." “But why?" Koenig merely shrugged his shoulders. "It's pretty obvious," Spike went on, "that he has said something to the Polks about keeping his visit quiet. The woman slipped badly and let herself into a neat trap, which I took advantage of. For. tunately for my purposes she was a dumb, simple soul and didn't see through me." For a while the two men sat smoking in silence. They were on a tiny balcony which gave a view of the city, with dusk settling down, blotting out the ugliness. Street lights from the distance looked like spangling jewels. Koenig broke the silence. "For your purposes, you say. Just what are your purposes ?” Spike hesitated a moment before he spoke. "Why—I suppose they're the same as yours. After all, a lady in distress, flung on my doorstep, all that sort of thing." "Yes—for Linda. But I do not fear so much for her now.” “You mean on account of the Ealing murder?” Koenig nodded. “It is very certain that the same person did both of them.” “Are you so sure?" Spike challenged. "I can only draw the obvious conclusion. The manner of the killing, the weapon, the stamp found clutched in the hand. Identical in both cases, for of 138 A Most Immoral Murder course the police would have found a stamp in Crossley's hand if Linda had not removed it." Spike considered this gravely. “So that if Linda Crossley didn't commit the second murder- " Koenig winced visibly. “No, please, my friend, don't even put it in words.” "I'm sorry. Let's say that if Linda Crossley was fifty miles from the scene of the second crime at the time it was committed the obvious inference is that she was not present at the scene of the first.” Again there was a long silence as the two men smoked. This time it was Spike who broke it. "Another thing I can't understand," he confessed, “is this Ealing girl. Does she know Linda Crossley?" "Does that not seem fairly obvious, too?" Koenig pointed out. “You yourself say that the telephone operator told you Linda telephoned Maysie Ealing the afternoon after Crossley was murdered. After all, it is quite likely that she may have known her. Miss Ealing is Fairleigh's secretary and Fairleigh was her grandfather's lawyer." "But why the dead faint when I pulled that fast one?" Koenig smiled indulgently. “Probably because she had been reading the newspapers and had jumped to the same conclusion that everyone else had—that Linda was—ah-involved.” The kindly little man obviously shrank from using the harsh terminology of homicide. “Incidentally, why did Pug Forgets He's a Wodehouse Butler 139 you 'pull that fast one?' What was your idea in asking her if Linda had been there?” “I don't know exactly. Just a hunch, I suppose. Just to see what she'd do." "And she did it. Oh well, if you really want to know what if any is the relationship between Linda and this Maysie Ealing it will be simple enough to ask Linda herself. If I can trespass on your hospital- ity for a day, I think I'll go out tomorrow to see her.” "By all means. I won't be there myself, but just make yourself at home and Pug and Mrs. Parsons will " The telephone bell interrupted his sentence. He picked up the receiver on the table at his elbow, spoke for a few minutes with the person at the other end. As he replaced the instrument he turned to Koenig. "That's Pug himself," he explained and there was a troubled note to his voice. "He was phoning from Penn station to see if I was in. He's on his way up here now." "Is is there any trouble? Linda " There was sudden alarm in Koenig's eyes. "He didn't say, but he sounded funny." An uneasy silence settled on the two men while they waited. Spike rose and paced the balcony. Koe- nig's foot tapped nervously on the stone coping. In spite of his dinner jacket he was still wearing the in- 140 A Most Immoral Murder nas congruous home cobbled shoes, and they made a particularly irritating tattoo. Finally Spike could stand it no longer. "Come on, Koenig, let's go into the house and get a drink.” Twenty minutes later when Pug arrived they were somewhat fortified against the impending news. Pug's entrance was slightly dramatic in the man- ner of one who arrives breathless after a twenty mile dash by horseback, rather than as one who has ridden but three in an upholstered taxicab. "Jeez," he accused his lord and master in a most un-British manner, "where the hell have you been the last two days ?” "Oh, in and out, but here in New York all the time." “Well, I been callin' you twice a day ever since yesterday morning, and I never could get you, so tonight I just made up my mind and come in." “What's the matter?" “It's that dame." Koenig clutched Pug's arm. “She beat it. Took the new boat. Tuesday morn- ing—early.” 142 A Most Immoral Murder pretty good. And then Tuesday morning she wasn't there. She'd beat it in the night. Me nor Mrs. Par- sons, neither one of us, heard her go. She must of beat it some time around six in the morning because I was awake at seven, and I couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and went down to the dock and the boat was gone then." "But could she still be on the island ?" Spike put in. “Did you make any attempt to search for her?” "Search? Hell! I tramped over every inch of the damn place myself. And I tried to find out over at Saugus if they'd seen anything of her. I had to be damn careful though, but I couldn't find out any- thing." The three men had been standing. Now Koenig sank to a chair as if his knees could no longer hold him, and his face was ashen. Spike motioned silently to Pug to withdraw. When they were alone, he laid a hand in rough masculine comfort on Koenig's shoulder. "Buck up, Koenig,” he said. The words were shop worn and empty in themselves, but Spike's tone was full of tacit understanding. “I've got an idea," he went on quietly. “You-you think you know—where she is ?” Spike shook his head. “No, but I think I know where I can find out." "Where-when " "I'm not sure. I've just got an idea. I'll let you know. ..." Mr. Heffenbaugh's Buddy 143 Mr. Heffenbaugh stirred the dishpan full of po- tato salad with a large wooden spoon, and told his story for the hundredth time to Mrs. Bowen, who lived around the corner up over the tailor shop on Amsterdam Avenue. Mrs. Bowen had just purchased twenty cents worth of bloodwurst and a box of crackers. “Oh sure,” Mr. Heffenbaugh assured her, “I knew him well. We were buddies." “Well now, just think o' that. Don't it sort of give you the creeps though ?” Mr. Heffenbaugh shrugged his shoulders with superior nonchalance. “Well you know, Mrs. Bowen, after you been through a war you don't get so stirred up over death." . "I know, but women and children are different. Especially an old lady like that. Why it just don't seem "Mrs. Bowen interrupted herself to greet Mrs. Surace, who lived down the street across from the coke factory. “Mr. Heffenbaugh,” she explained to Mrs. Surace, "has just been tellin' me about him knowin' the son of that old lady that was murdered, you know, with the dagger stuck in her back over on 110th Street. They was in the army together." Mrs. Surace was properly impressed and bought a boat full of pickels and half a pound of cheese. "Sure,” Mr. Heffenbaugh continued, "we was in the old 116th together. Why I was in the same company with him when he went west. That's what we used to call it in the army, you know. The Hein- Mr. Heffenbaugh's Buddy 145 happy in the thought that now at last he was to have a wider audience than the one limited by his delica- tessen clientele. The Times! His name in the papers ! "And if you's like my photograph," he said to ‘Mr. Smith' when at last he had done justice to his martial reminiscences, “I can let you have the one my wife's got taken in my uniform.” "Well, I don't know. I'll—I'll have to see the city desk about that." "Mr. Smith' showed a disap- pointing lack of eagerness to avail himself of this opportunity. Instead he returned to a point in the narrative to which he had just listened, and asked Mr. Heffenbaugh to repeat himself. "It was just like I said before," Mr. Heffenbaugh replied. “The Heinies come over in a surprise attack when we wasn't expectin' 'em. Half of us couldn't even get out of the dugouts in time. They was about three to one against us, usin' bayonets, so we had to retreat to our second line of trench. After the re- treat I says to another fellow in the company, 'Where's Ealing?' and he says, 'I dunno,' and then I remembered that he was in one of the dugouts when the attack come. They must of got him there.” "You don't know how-how they 'got' him, do you ?" "There wasn't no way we could tell. Later on we regained our old position, but by that time the trench and dugouts was all blowed up by shells. You couldn't tell nothing." "What sort of a chap was this Ealing?” Mr. Heffenbaugh's Buddy 147 being connected up with that Crossley case with all those high-priced stamps stolen. I remember Ealing tellin' us about the British Guiana one cent one night when we was behind the lines just a little before we went up to the front at Samonux. Funny, ain't it?" Mr. Heffenbaugh was thoughtful, struck by the strangeness of coincidence. 'Mr. Smith' of the Times drew out his wallet and extracted a piece clipped from a newspaper. “Does this by any chance look anything like David Ealing?” he asked as he shoved it across the counter. Mr. Heffenbaugh peered at it. "Why sure, that's him all right. Where'd you get it?" But 'Mr. Smith' of the Times was singularly un- communicative. A few mintues later as he turned into Amsterdam Avenue he hailed a taxi. "The Public Library at Forty-second and Fifth," he told the driver. CHAPTER XX 'Missing in Action' ON THURSDAY EVENING for the second time within twenty-four hours Koenig dined with Spike in the town apartment. He had come immediately at Spike's telephone invitation. "Did you find her-do you know—is she " The anxious questions rushed out as soon as he crossed the threshold. There was a pathetic, plead- ing eagerness in his eyes for news, for reassurance. Spike shook his head. "No, I didn't find her. I didn't promise that, you know I just said I had an idea.” “Oh ” Koenig sank into a chair. His disap- pointment was tragic. His face usually so round and rosy was strained and drawn with anxiety, and it was obvious that he had not slept the night before. Spike brought him a stiff drink and presently he pulled himself together. But at dinner he ate little 148 'Missing in Action' 149 and talked less. In the keenness of his disappoint- ment at no news of Linda he sought refuge in si- lence. After dinner they smoked their cigars and Spike reverted once more to the subject that lay so heavily upon them both. “You know, Koenig," he began, “I said I had an idea.” Koenig nodded but indifferently. In his present state the nebulousness of ideas did not appeal to him. He wanted positive reassurance. Spike went on un- daunted by his indifference. "I may have forgotten to tell you, but the other day when I was up at Maysie Ealing's I saw a pho. tograph that interested me. It interested me a lot. Probably because at first it piqued and puzzled me. Then I remembered when I had seen that face before." Spike paused and drew his wallet from an inside pocket. He opened it and extracted a newspaper clipping and handed it over to Koenig. It was a half tone reproduction of a photograph-a young man, and the eyes that looked out of the picture were the same as those that had looked out of that silver frame in the Ealing apartment. There was a caption beneath. “Will anyone knowing whereabouts of fourteen-year-old boy resembling this photograph communicate with Box 71, Saugus Index.” Koenig looked at the picture, read the caption and handed it back. 150 A Most Immoral Murder "That photograph," Spike went on, “appeared in the West Saugus Weekly Index of the issue that came out the day before Prentice Crossley was killed.” "But what does it mean? Who is Box 71 ?” "I don't know, but I'm going to find out. I'm go- ing out to Saugus tomorrow and find out who in- serted that photograph in the paper because I have an idea that the information may be interesting. Somehow or other I have a feeling that it will mean something. That picture appears in the paper with that very strange caption. Prentice Crossley is mur- dered the day after. Soon after that Mrs. Deborah Ealing is murdered and in the same manner. "And on the wall of the Ealing apartment is a picture of this same fellow. It's David Ealing, her son, 'missing in action.' I know that because there was a bit of engraving underneath the frame-his name and division, 116th Infantry, and 'missing in action' October 1918, Samogneux. I had a hunch." Spike paused and lit a cigarette and then con- tinued. “This morning I went down to the Legion organization of the 116th Infantry and I ran into luck. The secretary there knew a fellow who knew young Ealing well, years ago in France. A fellow by the name of Heffenbaugh, runs a delicatessen now up on Sixty-seventh Street, near Amsterdam.” Briefly Spike related his conversation with Hef- fenbaugh. Koenig became interested but he was puzzled. 'Missing in Action' 151 "But what,” he insisted, "has this got to do with -with Linda's disappearance?”. "I think you're forgetting, Koenig,” Spike re- plied, and there was an edge of disapproving sever. ity to his tone, "you're forgetting in your anxiety for Linda that there have been two murders com- mitted.” "No, no," Koenig protested wearily. “I am not forgetting that. I can not. I wish I could. But what has it got to do with—with anything, this delica- tessen store keeper knowing a man who has been dead for years?" "I dunno—for sure," Spike confessed, "but after I got through talking to Heffenbaugh I went down to the Public Library and started looking up books about equipment used in the World War. It was a hellish job, because a lot of it—at least a lot that I wanted—was in German and I can't read German. I had to get a woman in the foreign language de- partment to do some translating for me. But I found out something very interesting." He paused and smiled slightly, tantalizing, as one who knows something but is taking his time about telling. “Yes, yes, what was it?" Koenig was a bit impa- tient of histrionics. "You know the murder weapon in both cases, the triangular bladed bayonet with the serrated edges?” Koenig nodded. "Well, that was the peculiar type of bayonet used 152 A Most Immoral Murder by a certain German division which was in a sector of the Franco-German line near Samogneux in the fall of 1918. And it was at Samogneux where the ac. tion took place that Heffenbaugh was telling me about today. Samogneux is where David Ealing was reported 'missing in action.'” “But I don't quite see how it hitches up,” Koenig protested. "Neither do I," Spike agreed, "unless. ..." He left the sentence hanging in air as he gathered him- self together from the low chair in which he had been sprawling and began pacing up and down the room, his face thoughtful. “ 'Missing in action,'” he repeated half to him- self as if he had no audience and was only thinking aloud. Koenig lit a cigar and puffed at it in a desul. tory manner. The telephone rang. Spike picked it up, said, “Hello!" in a preoccupied fashion in the general direction of the receiver. And then quickly his hand on the instrument clutched tighter in sudden tension. "Who? ... Yes, yes ...What? ... When? ..." He put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned to Koenig. "It's Maysie Ealing. She says ..." He jerked back to attention to the voice that was com- ing over the wire. He listened. “Yes, but that won't be necessary. He's right here now. ... Yes, here with me. ... Yes, right away." Spike banged the receiver into the cradle and turned to Koenig. “Get your hat," he told him and CHAPTER XXI Clem Yoder, Memory Marvel FOR A LONG time that night after Koenig had left, Spike paced the apartment, up and down, up and down. Once he pulled from his pocket the newspaper clipping that he had showed Koenig earlier in the evening. “Missing in action!” He repeated the words half aloud. Once the telephone rang and he jumped convulsively as one whose nerves are tensed, edgy. It was only a town acquaintance trying to book him for a squash game at the Racquet Club. "Sorry," he said curtly, impatient of the intru- sion. “I won't be in town tomorrow," and he slammed the instrument back into place. He waited for it to ring again, but it was silent. He hovered about it, picked up the receiver, started to call a number. Then he put it back in place. Finally when it was very late he went to bed. In the morning he was heavy-eyed, weary, and he rose just as the first milk wagons clattered down. 102nd St. in the early dawn. He dressed and had 154 Clem Yoder, Memory Marvel 155 breakfast in a corner coffee pot on Third Avenue in company with two night watchmen just off duty. He took his car from the garage and headed it toward the Queensboro Bridge to Long Island. At nine o'clock he was waiting in front of the office of the Saugus Weekly Index when Clem Yoder arrived. Mr. Yoder combined in his person the offices of editor, reportorial staff, typesetter, proof reader and business manager. He was a grizzled little fellow whose acquaintance with local and pri- vate history was boundless, and it took Spike all of half an hour, thanks to these garrulous proclivities, to find out what ordinarily would have required ten minutes. “Well, now, lemme see,” Mr. Yoder peered at the clipping which Spike tendered. “Yes, sir, that's from the Index all right. I recollect the picture, sure enough. Always did have a great memory for faces. Reminds me of the time me and my wife was on a visit to her folks up in Vermont, and I met a fellah on the train that says ...". Spike let him ramble on for a few minutes and then brought the conversation back gently to the subject in hand. "Oh yes, this photo here," said Mr. Yoder, re- minding himself of the business in hand. "Well, that was brought in here, oh two, three weeks ago, maybe three, four." "By whom, do you know?" “Certainly. I got to keep track of that so's if any 156 A Most Immoral Murder letters come addressed to Box 71, I can always send 'em on." "Have any come for that box number?”. “No, as a matter of fact, they ain't. But you never can tell. I remember once a fellah had me insert a notice. Let's see, it was in June, 1922, and he didn't get no answer. But three years later it seems another fellah saw it in a pile of old papers and he ...". Again Spike laid a firm hand on the conversation. “But this person who brought it in. Who was it? What name did they give ?" "Well, now, of course, Mr. Tracy, I couldn't tell you that. That's confidential like. To tell the truth I don't recollect it myself. I ain't so good on names as I am on faces. Of course I've got it wrote down here ..." Mr. Yoder delved into the old fashioned roll top desk from which he conducted his business affairs, and from one of its pigeon holes, he drew forth a packet of dusty index cards with a rubber band around them. "Lemme see, now. Box sixty-nine, seventy, sev- enty-one. Here it is.” He drew the card out and held it up to the light the better to decipher his own scraggled writing. He adjusted his glasses, peered closer. And then suddenly something happened to his face. The lower jaw dropped and the eyes popped. He looked up gaping into Spike's face. “Lordamighty !” he said. Clem Yoder, Memory Marvel 157 Spike attempted to take advantage of him while he was still overcome with amazement. “And the name was " Mr. Yoder looked up. His jaw was back in place but his eyes were still a bit poppy. “I couldn't tell you, really, Mr. Tracy, but I think I'd better be tellin' the police." “Of course," Spike agreed amiably, “but that's why I'm here. My brother, you know," and he nodded in the general easterly direction of the dis- trict attorney's country home a mile or so from town. “I'm helping the police on this case,” he said blandly. “My brother sent me out to get this infor- mation." Mr. Yoder hesitated, eyed Spike suspiciously, but there was something in the easy assurance, the can- did gaze that made it impossible to doubt that his words were as honest as statements sworn before a notary. "Well,” said Mr. Yoder capitulating at last, “it's a name that's been in the paper a lot. It sure did give me a turn when I picked out this card. I recol- lect now her bringin' it in,” and he read aloud the name and address on the card. On the way back to the city Spike stopped off at a pay station on the outskirts of Queens and put in a call to Koenig's combination shop and apartment, but there was no answer. His brow was clouded as he made his way out to the curb and got into his car. 158 A Most Immoral Murder It was at Third Avenue and Sixty-fourth Street while he waited for a green light that the headlines from a sidewalk news stand caught his eye. He took one long distance glance at their glaring blackness and motioned the newsdealer to the curb. He shoved a dime into his hand and grabbed a paper. THIRD VICTIM IN STAMP MURDER Kurt Koenig in Critical Condition in Cutter Hospital After Attack by Unknown Assailant 160 A Most Immoral Murder "He's with the patient now. If you'd like to wait ..." She indicated a small anteroom at the left. Spike paced nervously up and down the ante- room. He looked anxiously at his watch. He flung himself into a chair and drew from his pocket the paper that he had snatched from the news dealer at Sixty-fourth Street. He had had time to read only the headlines. Now he unfolded it, spread it out before him. “Kurt Koenig, stamp dealer who negotiated stamp purchases and sales for Prentice Crossley, murdered June 4, was seriously wounded by an un- known assailant as he was walking through Central Park late last night. He is in Cutter Hospital with a bullet wound through his left shoulder. "He was discovered unconscious from loss of blood in the path that leads through the Park from 106th Street on the east to Lenox and St. Nicholas Avenues on the north, by Patrolman J. F. Duffy. The assault occurred just south of the lake where the path is closely hedged by dense shrubbery. It is believed that the assailant was hiding in these bushes, as the bullet was fired at close range. "After Koenig was taken to the hospital it was found that his watch, an old fashioned closed face model, contained one of the valuable stamps re- ported missing two weeks ago from the collection of the late Prentice Crossley. It is the 13-cent Ha. waiian issue of 1851-52, more popularly known as a The Killer Strikes Again (SʻDeath!) 161 'missionary and valued at $17,500. This is the sec- ond of the missing Crossley stamps that have been recovered. The first, a six-real Spanish stamp worth $12,500, was found in the hand of Mrs. Deborah Ealing, the second stamp murder victim. "At Police Headquarters fingerprint experts found that all traces of fingerprints had been re- moved from both case and crystal of the watch. The only prints found on it were those of Patrolman James F. Smith, who went through Koenig's clothes soon after he was brought to the hospital. “At an early hour this morning Koenig ..." Spike lowered the paper and stared hard at the white wall in front of him. His face was expression- less, but there was a strange set to his jaw. He did not finish the newspaper story. When the doctor came to the door, he was still staring at the wall... thinking.... The doctor was almost as irritating as the recep- tion clerk. “I'm sorry," he said with heartless polite- ness, “but he can have no visitors." “But — "Spike spluttered impotently. The doctor turned to the reception clerk at the switchboard. “Get in touch with a Mr. Philip Tracy and ask him to come to the hospital. He's in the telephone book. The patient in 247 wants to see him. Tell him ..." The nurse who finally conducted Spike to Koenig's room was irritating too. "He has lost a lot of blood,” she said in a mat- 162 A Most Immoral Murder ter-of-fact tone as if she were remarking that he'd lost his collar button, “but he'll be all right.”. "The newspapers said he was in a 'critical condi- tion.'" “Yes, I know. They always do. Anything worse than the hives is a critical condition.' Sounds better." "How-how did it happen?" “Police rang in about 12:30 last night from a box on the Avenue and we sent the ambulance over. He was unconscious and he had bled freely, but the bullet went through his shoulder. The guy evidently aimed for his heart and missed. Didn't hit any of the vital parts. He'll be all right if they'll leave him alone.” “They?" “Police and the district attorney. You know- about that Crossley murder. They think the same person did this. They've been up here talking to him all morning." Spike paused abruptly. “Are they there now?" "No, they left about an hour ago." When Spike first entered the room Koenig was lying with his face toward the opposite wall. At the sound of the opening door the injured man turned, and when he saw it was Spike he smiled weakly. "Only ten minutes.” The nurse laid down the time limit as she closed the door behind her and left the two men alone. Both of them were embarrassed. Men always are The Killer Strikes Again (S'Death!) 163 in the presence of physical weakness. Their sym- pathetic impulses war with their fierce masculine revulsion at anything "soft.” Spike mumbled something about well-how-are- you-old-man and Koenig mumbled something de- signed to make light in an heroic manner of his wounds. With these embarrassing preliminaries off their chest they could be natural. Spike drew up a chair and bent close so that Koenig's weak whispers might be audible. "How did it happen?” he asked. “I don't know-after I left your place—I-I wrote a letter and then-then I went through the Park. I started to take a taxi and then I thought- I would walk. I was all upset. I needed to—to get hold of myself before I saw Linda—so I took the short cut through the Park. Then I don't know-I just remember bushes close to the path-on the left side and then "He closed his eyes and gestured weakly. "And the next thing you knew you woke up in the hospital.” Spike finished the sentence for him. “Lis- ten, did anyone know you were going up there?" “No one-except you." Spike grinned. “Well, I didn't do it. And anyway that's not quite right. Maysie Ealing and Linda Crossley knew you were coming. I told Maysie over the telephone.” It was Koenig's turn to grin now. “You may be.. 164 A Most Immoral Murder a—damn fool—but you are still a little—distrust- ful.” Spike forbore to argue the matter. “What about this letter you mentioned? What did you stop to write a letter for?”. “To Linda." "Linda ? But you were going to see her, you were on your way?" "I know but I was afraid-afraid maybe I might not-get there." "Afraid of what?" “Just afraid-a-premonition—what you call a hunch. You see I was right.” "Look here, where'd you write this letter ?" "The drug store on the corner near your place. I bought a tablet and envelope-stamp-wrote it sitting down-one of the soda tables." "Was there anybody else in the drug store at the time?" “Lots lots of people." "Did you tell anyone where you were going, what you were going for?". Koenig shook his head. Spike was thoughtful, his brows knit in perplexity. He glanced at his watch. The minutes were ticking off rapidly. Koenig put out a weak hand and laid it on Spike's arm. "Listen—my friend-go see her now. Tell her to do as I said—in the letter—now today—tell her to do it." The Killer Strikes Again (S'Death!) 165 “Do what?" “She knows-it's in the letter. Tell her!" There was a fierce urgency even in his weakness. "Yes, yes, I will," Spike reassured him. Koenig closed his eyes. He was getting very tired. Spike leaned over the bed solicitously. His time was up. "Anything I can get for you, do for you?" “No—just see-Linda.” “Yes, I'll do that. But anything from your place. Any clothes or anything?" “Bring pajamas—the blue ones with white stripes -these hospital shirts my keys are in-pants pockets.” Even in his weakness Koenig still retained his sartorial vanity. Outside in the corridor Spike summoned the nurse and had her show him where Koenig's clothes were hung in a locker in the hall. CHAPTER XXIII A Little Nifty Mail Robbing ONE FORTY-THREE West 110th St, of a dull, warm afternoon in June was quiet except for the occasional noisy pounding of a child up and down the dark stairway. Mrs. O'Brien of the first floor front was, as usual, leaning out of the window, lazily casting her eyes up and down the street in search of a gos- siping neighbor who might be passing. Mrs. Tor- rence of the fourth floor rear, returning from the corner market laden with a large paper shopping bag bursting with groceries, stopped to pass the time of day. Soon they were joined by Mrs. Barton, who lived in the basement. All three stopped talking and stared when the Cadillac roadster drew up at the curb and the young man got out. In the vestibule he pressed a bell and stood and waited. The three women watched him. It was not often that number 143 had visitors who arrived in Cadillacs. Then Mrs. Torrence broke away from the group and mounted the three low steps to the vestibule. 166 A Little Nifty Mail Robbing 167 "If it's Miss Ealing you're lookin' for,” she said as she noted the buzzer he was pressing, "she ain't here." "Not here?” The young man inquired in polite surprise. "No, she's moved. She moved early this morn- ing.” Mrs. Torrence peered at the letter boxes. “I guess she forgot to tell the postman her forwarding address. There's some mail for her.” The young man peered too. "You don't know where she's gone, do you?” "Just over the next street to a rooming house. Mrs. Parley's. I can't tell you the exact number, but I can show you where it is if you'd like." "Oh-well—no, I don't think that will be nec- essary. I'll get in touch with her through her office." "You a friend of hers?”. "I know her slightly." “Too bad about her mother, wasn't it?" "Very tragic.” “Still in a way, I say it's a good thing. I don't mean the poor old lady goin' off so terrible like that, but just the same the daughter really didn't have no life of her own, and she ain't as young as she once was. Now I guess she can go to England and marry that young man of hers. It isn't as if she - " “I think,” he interrupted, indicating the pay sta- tion at the back of the hall, “I'll make a telephone call." He talked a long time to some fellow he called 168 A Most Immoral Murder Jack. So long in fact that Mrs. Torrence, finding no further pretext for lingering, went on upstairs. At the sound of the door closing behind her, the young man abruptly ceased his conversation with "Jack" who, as a matter of fact was nothing but an empty buzzing at the other end of the wire. He hung up the telephone and listened. There were no more voices outside. He went quietly to the open door of the vestibule and peered through the crack of the jamb. Mrs. Barton was gone and Mrs. O'Brien was no longer at the window. He pushed the door to, but did not latch it. The vestibule now was almost in darkness. Only a faint light came through the transom above. From his pocket he pulled out a knife with a stout blade, thrust it under the letter box marked Ealing. He pried, lifted, pried some more. There was a slight wrenching sound as the little door swung open. He snatched out the mail, leafed through it quickly -a bill from the gas company, an advertising circu- lar, a letter. He thrust the bill and the circular back into the box, closed the little door, pressed it firmly until it was flush with the frame, so that it didn't look as if it had been pried open. At 102nd Street Spike turned his car east off the Avenue and drew up in front of his own building. Upstairs in his apartment he took out the letter, to obtain which he had just committed a penitentiary offense. It was addressed to Miss Maysie Ealing, but A Little Nifty Mail Robbing 169 inside there was a second envelope bearing the name of Linda Crossley. Of course . . . he wouldn't put Linda's name on the outside for every postman and mail clerk who had been reading the papers to see ... wise guy.... For a moment he hesitated, looking at the en- velope. Conscience ... honor ... a gentleman ... oh, to hell with all that tripe! He ripped open the letter. There was just one page on cheap tablet paper. The writing was uneven as if the hand that had driven the pencil had trembled slightly. “Linda, my dear: I have time for so little now. But if anything goes wrong and I—but never mind that now. I think I have found the family. Their name is Polk and they live in a little town called West Albion, N. J. If anything goes wrong before I see you, go to the police and tell them where you have been all the while. They will believe you and know that you have had nothing to do with all this horrible business. Go now as soon as you receive this letter. K. Koenig." Spike's eyes raced over the letter. Then he went back and read it more slowly. "Their name is Polk and they live in a little town called West Albion, N. J.” For a moment he just sat there, looking at the letter. Then slowly he folded it and put it back in its two envelopes and put it in his pocket. Presently he turned his attention to a small bundle that he had brought with him from the car. CHAPTER XXIV The District Attorney Bites the Dust THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY, R. Montgomery Tracy, sat in his office and scowled at an editorial in the New York Herald-Tribune. The chief of the homi- cide squad, Inspector Herschman, sat in his office at the opposite end of the corridor and scowled at an editorial in the New York Times.* The case—the famous Crossley-Ealing-Koenig. stamp-murder case—had reached that stage where editorial writers take the covers off their typewriters and unleash their choicest denunciation. It's tradi- tion, just one of those things that's done, like tails at a formal dinner and walking on the curb side when you're with a lady. Comes a time in every well-regulated murder * Now we know perfectly well that the office of the district attorney of New York County and the office of the chief of the homicide squad are not in the same building. But later on we're going to pull a fast one that would be impossible if we stuck to geographic fact. Why should poets be the only ones with special license? 170 The District Attorney Bites the Dust 171 when the press feels it necessary to call attention to the fact that the district attorney and the police are by way of being just a bunch of wet smacks. Of course the editorial gentlemen phrase it in a more erudite manner. It usually runs something like this: The present police and legal administration may seek to camou- flage successive failures with grandiloquent talk of 'civic progress' and 'worthy reforms' but the man in the street is not deceived by such high-sounding phrases. The fact remains that during the last two weeks there have been two bloody and atrocious murders- Prentice Crossley and Mrs. Deborah Ealing--and an attempted third-Kurt Koenig—to say nothing of the theft of $85,000 in valuable property. The failure of the district attorney and the chief of the homicide squad to bring to justice the criminal is but another proof of their inadequacy. As officers of the people. ... The district attorney put down the paper and spoke into the inter-office telephone on his desk. “Ask In- spector Herschman to come to my office.” The scene which followed is a depressing one and there seems little point in going into it. The district attorney took a firm line, glowered and in- sisted that “something has got to be done.” The "got” was emphasized by a decisive pounding of the fist on one corner of the desk. The inspector with an air of righteousness outraged protested that "every- thing humanly possible is being done,” emphasizing the “is” by pounding on the opposite corner of the desk. The district attorney pressed for details, and the inspector was vague. Between the two of them they added little to the gaiety of nations. 172 A Most Immoral Murder It was at this point that a fresh breeze of spring swept into the gloom-charged atmosphere in the per- son of a debonair young man with a gardenia in his buttonhole and a jaunty swing to his walking stick. Both the district attorney and the inspector were startled, and their scowling faces lit up with some- thing akin to hope. Then remembering their position and dignity, and the disreputable reputation of the intruder they quickly resumed their scowls. “Philip,” the district attorney said with the im- patience of one who has weighty problems on his shoulders, “I can't see you now. Inspector Hersch- man and I are having a very important conference. Please wait outside and ...". But dignity and gloom and weighty problems, hav- ing no part in the young man's makeup, slid easily off his shoulders leaving no impression. "Inspector! Richard! How godawful you look, both of you." He greeted them with cheerful good humor. “Just like the before-taking photograph in patent medicine ads. The air in this place is lousy." He threw the window wide open and the breeze merrily scattered papers from the district attorney's desk. “What you two need is a little riotous living. Drink and women. Nothing like drink and women for toning up the system, opening the pores, and all that. I can furnish you with some telephone numbers if you're interested. What have you both been do- ing with yourselves? Why don't you — The District Attorney Bites the Dust 173 "Philip !" The district attorney's stern voice broke through the bright chatter. “Yes, Richard.” The young man was suddenly meek. “Will you please do as I ask ?" “No, Richard.” The voice was that of a docile child. He sat down and lit a cigarette. "Philip!" “Yes, Richard.” “Kindly leave this room—immediately." "No, Richard.” “Philip!" “Yes, Richard." "I will ask you once more to le — "Listen, old dear, are you purposely doubling back on your tracks, or is this just an ad lib because you've forgotten your lines?" The district attorney's mouth tightened and his face grew slightly apoplectic. One could hardly sum- mon a patrolman to forcibly eject one's own brother. There was, after all, the Tracy family dignity to con- sider. His eyes met Herschman's. The inspector quickly veiled a smile and joined the district attor- ney in glowering at the insouciant young man. But the insouciant young man still refused to be impressed. “You know," he said lightly, as he blew a long, lazy cloud of cigarette smoke into the air, "I was thinking - He paused and looked at his two companions. “At 174 A Most Immoral Murder that point," he reminded them, "you're supposed to pull a wise crack.” But wise cracks were not in line with their present mood. “Oh, very well, if you will waste your opportuni- ties. I was thinking, though, that if you haven't al- ready discovered the bird that knocked off Prentice Crossley and old Mrs. Ealing and winged Koenig, you might be interested in something I found out about ..." Here too is another scene which we will pass over quickly. It is not pleasant to witness the rout of the righteous before an advocate of light living and debauchery. It is still less gratifying to see dig- nity confounded, and the might and majesty of the law brought to the point where it eats gratefully out of the hand of a young man who is himself guilty of (1) compounding a felony, (2) willfully withholding evidence from the police, (3) false im- personation, and (4) robbing the United States mails. Let us cravenly turn our face on this seamier side of a district attorney's life and skip forward fifteen minutes. But let us not get the impression that in those fifteen minutes Spike revealed all that he had dis- covered since that day almost two weeks before when he had sat in the Crossley library sunk in sham slumber. As a matter of fact he was chary with his revela. tions. He did not, for instance, tell them of Linda The District Attorney Bites the Dust 175 Crossley's sojourn on Sark Island, and Koenig's subsequent visit to the Island. He made no mention of his interview-under false pretenses—with Maysie Ealing, and those other interviews—also under false pretenses—with Mr. Heffenbaugh and Mr. Yoder. And naturally, since he was talking to "officers of the people" pledged to the punishment of those who transgress the law, he did not confess that he had just filched a letter from Maysie Ealing's mail box. "It's Fairleigh who intrigues me,” he said. “You know after that episode in the Crossley library, you remember that first day, I had one of those inde- finable hunches. I reasoned that if Fairleigh did have anything on his mind, the first thing he'd do after getting back to town was to get it off. That morn- ing he'd come directly from the landing field to his office and then to the Crossley place. He didn't have time to do much but what you demanded of him- get the Crossley will from his own safe and meet you at the house. But afterward - Well, I fol- lowed him." Briefly he related the story of his first trip to the little town on the edge of the forestry reserve in New Jersey. "Then when I read about this second murder in the paper, I had another hunch. I went out there again and talked to the woman." He sketched in his conversation with Mrs. Polk. "I was wondering," he said innocently, "just what 176 A Most Immoral Murder story Fairleigh told you about his activities that afternoon." "He told us a damn lie, that's what he told us," Herschman burst out. “Said he was at a friend's private library—place on the Drive, but he couldn't produce a single person to back him up." “Really,” said Spike with mild interest. "What, I wonder, is the idea ?” “If what you say is true, Philip,” the district at- torney put in, “Why did " “Can the ‘if,' old dear. You know I'm the soul of honor." The district attorney looked slightly skeptical but recast his sentence. "Since Fairleigh was in New Jersey all afternoon, what is his motive in withholding that informa- tion?" “Because, obviously, he didn't want anyone to know that he was in New Jersey all afternoon," Spike explained. "But that's a perfect alibi,” Herschman protested. "Exactly! And he had a perfect alibi for the other murder-Crossley. That's why I don't quite trust him. I'd be inclined to talk things over with him. Incidentally, where was he the night Koenig was shot?” “At the theater with his wife. And they went straight home afterward." Herschman picked up the telephone. “Get hold of Fairleigh,” he said when a connection had been The District Attorney Bites the Dust 177 put through to his own office, "and tell him to come over here. We want to talk to him. Handle him easily. Don't let him think there's anything up." "And in the meantime," said Spike as the three of them sat waiting for Fairleigh's arrival, "we should be investigating his financial affairs. You re- member that clause in old Crossley's will? Fair- leigh gets a big cut. And when anyone is due to in- herit a lot of money and the guy gets popped off, one must always investigate the financial affairs of the guy that's left. He, of course, has juggled the firm's books to get money to speculate in the stock market and the worst has happened, and unless he, can produce the $50,000, he'll go to jail and the wife and kiddies will — By the way, Fairleigh does have a wife and kiddies, doesn't he?" Herschman nodded. “Three.” "Kiddies, I trust, not wives. Well anyway, we ought to find out whether " The inspector interrupted. “I don't know," he said, "whether you know something you're not tell- ing, or whether you're just gassing away like you do sometimes and hitting the bull's-eye without realizing it, but — " “You refer, I suppose, Inspector, to my feminine intuition.” "Well, if you want to put it that way yourself, I suppose it's O.K. But what I was saying is that we've already done what you said. Fairleigh is in bad financially. But as far as we can make out he 178 A Most Immoral Murder has played perfectly square with the Crossley prop- erty, even though he did have power of attorney. And he's O.K. with his firm. But his own affairs are all mugged up. He was one of those wise birds who thought they knew how to make money on a falling market. He figured that stocks were so low they couldn't get any lower, but they did. And now he needs a lot of money to cover or he's sunk. I understand he's already borrowed on his Crossley inheritance.” Spike looked disappointed. “Embezzlement,” he complained, “is always so much more interesting than bad stock market judgment." "Well, he's not an embezzler, but he's all kinds of a damn fool.” “A man of honor,'” Spike murmured with a reminiscent flash. "What's that?" Herschman inquired. "Oh nothing. I was just thinking...." “What with ?" Herschman laughed broadly at his own wit. “I caught you up that time.” Nassau Street is not far from Police Headquar- ters. Within fifteen minutes the district attorney's secretary announced Fairleigh. “If you don't mind, let me handle him," Spike suggested as they waited for him to come into the office. It was almost two weeks since Spike had seen Fairleigh. There was a change, but not a great one. His hard, grey-blue eyes were shadowed as with sleepless nights, and the lines around his mouth had en The District Attorney Bites the Dust 179 deepened. But he still had that air of implacability, as if Heaven itself could not budge him from his own preconceived course. When he had exchanged greetings with the in- spector and the district attorney he seated himself and looked inquiringly at Spike. "My brother," the district attorney explained somewhat apologetically. "He has been-ah-as- sisting with the case. You perhaps remember that you met him at the Crossley house the first morn- ing you came back from the Coast." Fairleigh accepted the explanation but said noth- ing. Spike lit a cigarette and slouched down in his chair with a deceiving sense of ease. "Speaking of that first morning," he said, "things were rather disorganized and hurried then. There were some loose ends we didn't quite clear up. Per- haps you can help us now, Fairleigh.”. Fairleigh nodded in acquiescence. "We don't feel that you have been entirely—ah -candid with us.” "In what way, may I ask?” There was a hard, flat note to Fairleigh's voice. "I refer particularly to certain clauses in Mr. Crossley's will." Spike paused. There was an almost imperceptible tightening of the lines about Fair- leigh's mouth. "There was one phrase referring to you and the $50,000 bequest which you were to receive that went something like this'in recognition of his 180 A Most Immoral Murder steadfast refusal to betray the trust which I have had in him.' Would you mind, just once again ex- plaining the meaning of that?" "I thought,” Fairleigh replied, "that I had made that plain. For fifteen years I have managed Mr. Crossley's affairs, managed them capably, I think you will find, if you look into the matter." "And I suppose you received a certain fee for doing this ?” “Certainly." “So that the $50,000 bequest is what you might call a work of supererogation ?”. “Possibly." "And then again, possibly one might look at it as a special-ah-inducement in return for which you yourself rendered a work of-ah-supererogation?” "I don't understand you." "Then I shall put it very bluntly." Spike leaned forward and eyed Fairleigh. “Isn't it true, Fair- leigh, that that $50,000 was left to you by Prentice Crossley because you had rendered him some great service entirely outside your regular duties as man- ager of his business affairs ?”. “Certainly not!” The answer came quickly, em- phatically. Was it too quick? Too emphatic? “You're quite sure of that?" “Quite !" There was a finality in that short, clipped 'quite that indicated plainly that further questioning along this line was futile. em- 182 A Most Immoral Murder "I will never believe that there is any relation be- tween those two facts-never.” Again the answer was quick and emphatic. “I don't believe I said there was.” "You implied it though.” "Well, we shan't argue about that now. Let's get back to facts. I'm asking you for an explanation of that clause in Prentice Crossley's will. Just what did he mean when he said, 'the onerous task of sav- ing her from the consequences of her own indis- cretions ?'" Again the hard blue eyes of Fairleigh met the direct gaze of his interrogator even as they had that first morning in the Crossley library, and with the same implacable quietness he replied. "I haven't the slightest idea." Spike stamped out his cigarette and lit another one. "And that," he murmured to himself, “is that." Aloud he addressed Fairleigh directly with a deceiv- ing casualness. "All right, let's forget that. There's just one other thing I'd like to ask you. Where were you on the afternoon when Mrs. Deborah Ealing was mur- dered?" "I have already explained that to the district at- torney and the inspector." "Would you mind explaining it once again—to me." Fairleigh related the story of a visit to the law library on the Drive. The District Attorney Bites the Dust 183 as Spike nodded and smiled. "Interesting,” he said, “if true.” Fairleigh smiled too, but it was a tight, hard smile. “If, as you say, Mr. Tracy, it isn't true, and I was not in my friend's library, where was I? What would you suggest ?” "Oh,” said Spike nonchalantly, “I'm not 'suggest- ing' anything. I'm telling you. You were - " He paused and inhaled deeply from his cigarette. “You spent the entire afternoon in New Jersey at the home of Mr. Henry Polk at a little town called West Albion on the edge of the Forestry Reserve.". There was a moment of silence. Fairleigh just sat there, unmoving. His eyes as they met Spike's were still direct, unflinching. But imperceptibly al- most, something seemed to go out of him, like air leaking slowly from a balloon. At last his glance fell. It was a gesture of defeat. "Yes," he said quietly, "you're right." “Then why the hell did you tell this cock-and- bull story about being in New York?” Another moment of silence. Then Fairleigh spoke. "I cannot tell you that.” “You mean you don't know?”. “No, of course not. I'm not feeble-minded.” “You mean you won't tell ?” “Yes, if you wish to put it that way." Spike was standing now looking down at Fair- leigh. He gazed at him as if he were calculating his ce zere 184 A Most Immoral Murder possibilities. Then suddenly he shot the question at him. “Listen Fairleigh, do you know where Linda Crossley is ?” The last breath of air went out of the balloon. Fairleigh crumpled. "No," he said. “No, I don't, but I wish to God I did.” And this time there was no mistaking the ring of truth in his voice. Yet there was still a question. Was it devotion or hatred that prompted those im- passioned, unguarded words? It was impossible to tell. CHAPTER XXV The Truth and Nothing But “WELL, I do declare, Henry, I never heard the like.” Mrs. Henry Polk of West Albion, New Jer- sey, gave an expert tug at the strings of her old- fashioned front laced corset and miraculously com- pressed her generous figure into a fraction of the space it had previously occupied. "What do you suppose it means ? The police! I do declare!" Mr. Polk at the wash-stand struggling with an unwonted shave in the middle of the day stropped his razor. “What did the man say, the one that told you about it?" “Just said we was to come in to New York to the police." "But, Henry, we ain't done anything." “He never said we had.” “But the police! What are they going to do to us?” Mrs. Polk, resting secure in a guiltless con- 185 186 A Most Immoral Murder science, was curious rather than apprehensive. Mr. Polk was non-committal to the point of silence, and his wife grew slightly impatient. "Henry, I asked you a question," she complained. “What are they going to do to us?”. “Oh, just ask us questions, probably.” The hand that held the razor along the side of his face was nervous. “But what about, Henry? What do we " She interrupted herself and went to the window that gave onto the back yard. "Edward," she called to the boy in the yard, "be sure you fill up the car with water, because I don't want your uncle to have to be fussing around it after he gets dressed, and if you go swimming this after- noon and get home before we get back I'll leave the key over to the Haineses." She withdrew her head from the window. "I do declare, Edward's getting so big he's going to have to have a whole new outfit this year before he starts back to school again.” Mrs. Polk slipped her best flowered foulard over her head and spoke from the depths of its voluminous folds. “My goodness, seems like it isn't any time at all since he was just a wee little shaver crying for his bottle. Remember what a terrible time we had getting milk to agree " Again Mrs. Polk broke the thread of her ram- bling conversation to revert to her original theme. "But, Henry," she protested, "what are they 188 A Most Immoral Murder Nor did the first few questions of the district at- torney put them at their ease. The man acted as spokesman for the two of them, the woman merely nodding in agreement with his flat monosyllables. Yes, they were Mr. and Mrs. Henry Polk of West Albion. Yes, they had lived there twenty years on their little truck farm. No, they had no children of their own, just their nephew, Edward. “And do you know anyone by the name of Fair- leigh ?" The district attorney posed the question. The man nodded. “Yes, we know a Mr. Fair. leigh.” "Is hema frequent visitor at your house ?" "He comes once in a while." “What do you mean by 'once in a while'?" "Oh-every month or so." "How long have you known Mr. Fairleigh ?" "About twenty years." "And during those twenty years have you seen him often?" "Oh-pretty often.” "What do you mean by 'pretty often'?" "Well, every month or so, like I said before." “Are these visits which Mr. Fairleigh makes to your place every month or so' purely-ah-friendly visits ?" “Yes,—you might say that Mr. Fairleigh's al- ways been right friendly." "That isn't what I mean. I mean are these visits of Fairleigh's to your house just in the nature of a The Truth and Nothing But 189 friendly call, or do you have some definite busi- ness relationship with him?" The man paused, his rough, work-gnarled hands working in his lap. It was as if they were the out- ward manifestation of an inward turmoil. His trou- bled eyes met the district attorney's. Then his glance shifted to his wife beside him, groping for guidance. "Henry," she said, and her voice was faint with fear and anxiety, "you'd best do like we agreed on the way in." He nodded slowly and turned back to his inter- rogator. "It's like she says. I guess I'd best tell you -tell you the truth. We had a hard time making up our mind what to do, but finally we decided lying never did come to no good. Only if anything happens about Edward " He broke off, unwilling to finish the sentence. There was something pathetic in his confused, fear- ful commitment to truth. The district attorney was touched but puzzled. "About Edward ?” he said. Polk nodded. “Yes, Edward. You see—that was why Mr. Fairleigh has been coming to our house." "I don't understand. Please explain what you mean.” “Well," the man began slowly as if he had to pull the words forcibly from some deep, unwilling well within himself, “you see, Mr. District Attorney, Edward ain't really ours. He ain't no kin to us at all. But we've had him ever since he was just a 190 A Most Immoral Murder baby and it's just like he was our own and if any. thing was to happen that we'd - " Again he broke off. His wife beside him was weep- ing quietly. "But what has Mr. Fairleigh to do with you and your wife and this boy whom you call your nephew?" The district attorney prodded him on with the story. "Well, you see Mr. Fairleigh used to live out near West Albion before he got married about twelve-fifteen years ago, and we used to sell vege- tables to his folks. His mother and father—they're dead now—were real nice people and they traded with us for years. That's how young Mr. Fairleigh -we always call him that although he ain't so young now—that's how he happened to know us. “I guess he knew we'd never had any young ones of our own and would do right by one, so I guess that's why he brought us the baby fourteen years ago." “You mean Edward?". "Yes. Mr. Fairleigh brought him to us when he was just a baby, only just two weeks old and we've had him ever since. Mr. Fairleigh's paid for his keep ever since, although sometimes it seems sort of sinful us taking it, but Mr. Fairleigh always insisted. Edward's just like our own child, we're that attached to him." "But to whom does he really belong?” “We never did know that." “But what did Fairleigh say when he brought him The Truth and Nothing But 191 to you? You don't pick babies out of thin air, you know." "He said that it belonged to a woman he knew and she died right after the baby was born. Her husband was dead too. He'd got killed in an auto- mobile accident about six months before. And there wasn't any folks to take care of the baby, so he put it out to board with us." "Did he say who the mother was or the father?" "No, sir. Just friends of his. We never knew their name. We asked if Edward could go by our name, Polk, and he said yes. We gave him the Edward part, too, after a brother of my wife's that died.” "And in all these years he has never mentioned the real parents ? All these years that he has been seeing you every month or so ?” “No, sir.” “But what was the purpose then of his visits ?” "To bring the board money." "I see. He didn't send you a check." "No, sir, he always brought the money himself in cash.” The district attorney paused and for a few moments, sat drumming on the edge of his desk, his brows knit in speculation. Then abruptly he turned back to Polk, and shot a question at him. "Has Mr. Fairleigh been to see you recently ?” Polk hesitated. It was as if he had expected the question, but dreaded it nevertheless. “Yes," he said slowly, "he has." 192 A Most Immoral Murder “How recently?" "Last-last Tuesday.” "And how long was he at your house?” "In the afternoon.” “But how long in the afternoon?” "Nearly all afternoon." "Be specific. Can you remember at what time he arrived and at what time he left.” "Not exactly. But he got there around two o'clock and he left just a little before supper time around six." "So that on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 13, Mr. John Fairleigh was at your house from about two to about six. Is that right?" “Yes." “That was the first time that you had seen him in how long?" "He was he was there just the week before, on Friday, the day he got back from out West.” "What time did he come and how long did he stay?” “I couldn't say exactly what time he got there. Mid-afternoon about, but he only stayed fifteen, twenty minutes." "Did he usually stay such a short time or were his visits of longer duration ?". "He just stayed a short time usually. Just long enough to leave the money, and maybe chat for a few minutes with my wife." 194 A Most Immoral Murder fix him up some cold buttermilk and cake, and after- wards he said he was that all in, he felt like he could get a mite of sleep. He said he hadn't been able to sleep o' nights, and he said out in the country like it is at West Albion maybe he could get a few winks, so we put him to bed in the spare room and he took a real good nap." "How long?" “Oh, I should say about three hours. He got out to our place about two, and we talked a while and he drank the buttermilk, and then went to sleep about three and we didn't wake him up till six." "You're sure that he was asleep in your spare bedroom all that time?" The man looked slightly puzzled. “Why, of course," he said. "You didn't happen to go into the spare room by any chance while he was sleeping ?” "No, sir." “So that you really have no way of knowing that he was sleeping there all that time. You just think so." “Why yes, I guess that's it.” “So that it is possible that he might not have been in the spare room all that time.” "Why yes, I guess " "No, it ain't.” This unexpected interruption was from the woman. “Of course he was there all the time. I had to go in twice to get some embroidery thread that I keep in the top bureau drawer and I as The Truth and Nothing But 195 saw him both times, sleeping just as sound as a baby. The second time I went in, I spread the afghan over him. It turned a little chilly that afternoon." "I see.” The district attorney accepted defeat and retreated from this line of questioning. For a moment he looked at the two simple creatures before him, a quizzical expression in his eyes, his mouth pursed. Then a second quick direct onslaught. “What was the purpose of this second visit?”. Polk paused, and again there was that hesitant recoil from an expected but dreaded question. When he spoke his voice was low and his eyes dropped. "He-he told me not to say anything about him being out to our place-or anything about Edward." “Why? What explanation did he give for this request ?" “He said that there was this murder of this Mr. Crossley. And it seems that he'd known Crossley for a long time and the police had been asking him about it. And he says that if folks knew that he'd been out to our place they might be asking us about him-I mean about Mr. Fairleigh. Not Mr. Crossley." "But how does Edward come in?" "He didn't explain that very clear. He just says that if the police got to know about him and us and Edward, it might mean Edward would get taken away from us, so if we loved the boy and wanted to keep him, we'd best not tell the police anything, if they was to come and ask us anything. We was 196 A Most Immoral Murder just to say that we didn't even know a Mr. Fairleigh and that Edward belonged to some dead relation of ours. We were to keep still.” “But you're not keeping still,” the district attor- ney reminded him heartlessly. “What's the matter? Don't you really want to keep Edward? Are you just pretending?" “No, sir, no! It'd break us all up if anything- happened to Edward. But I been scared and wor- ried. We're not the kind of folks that get mixed up with the police, Mr. District Attorney. We're good, self-respecting people, and I don't like this business of lying. At first I didn't know what to do, I was that worried about what Mr. Fairleigh had asked of me. I didn't even tell my wife all of it. I just told her that if anyone asked about Mr. Fairleigh not to let on like he'd been to our place on Friday, that was June 9-or last Tuesday either. I never told her all about it until today after we got orders to come in here. “We didn't know what to do. We were scared. But we just know it ain't right to lie. We're church- going folks and we don't believe that in the end you profit by it. We don't know what this is all about. Mr. Fairleigh didn't tell us anything, and you ain't told us anything. But we do know that in the end lying don't pay, so we're telling you the truth as good as we know it, and we're asking you please not to let anything happen about Edward." His voice had risen and his troubled, questioning The Truth and Nothing But 197 eyes pleaded. It was impossible to doubt the man. Stumbling, bewildered, frightened, he was, but it was obvious that he was surrendering to truth with a simple trust in its ultimate righteous efficacy. When at last the Polks were gone, the door to the inner office opened and Spike walked out. He was grinning broadly. CHAPTER XXVI The Way-Down-East Motif "THERE really should be,” said Spike settling himself comfortably with his chair tipped back and his feet desecrating the district attorney's desk, “a snowstorm." The inspector's mouth sagged slightly as he glanced out of the window at the pavements blazing with June heat. "A raging snowstorm," Spike amplified, “and a girl, young and beautiful with her nameless child clasped to her bosom, cast out into the bitter night by an outraged father. 'Never darken my door again, you as has brought shame on the pure name o Steb- bins.' She stumbles through the blizzard. The babe whimpers. The wind " "Philip!" The district attorney interrupted, irri- tated and sarcastic. “I'm sure it's all very interest- ing but I hardly feel that now is the time to indulge your taste for moving picture scenarios." “But can I help it,” Spike protested, "if life takes 198 The Way-Down-East Motif 199 OU on a Way-Down-East pattern? Is it my fault if fifteen years ago come next Michaelmas, John Fair- leigh seduced some innocent Nell and then refused to do right by her?” Suddenly the puzzled face of the inspector light- ened. “I see what you mean. You mean that this Edward is really Fairleigh's child." Spike nodded. “Although,” he added, "the evi- dence of my eyes is against it. I've seen the boy and he's a nice appearing lad. Fairleigh, of course, looks like a sour pickle." The district attorney repenting his disapproval of what had at first seemed irrelevant histrionics, seized upon this line of speculation. "It sounds reasonable," he admitted. "Fairleigh's married now and naturally he doesn't want it known that he's keeping a child with country people over in New Jersey. Of course he instructs them not to tell that he has been out there. And he never paid out the board money by check. Note that. He de- livered the cash in person all these years. Inter- esting.” "And don't,” Spike reminded them, “forget the most interesting point." “What's that?" “The mother-the ruined, betrayed girl.” “Yes," the district attorney agreed, “but I hardly see anyway of finding that out except by direct ques- tioning of Fairleigh himself. And even at that it might have no connection with this case. It explains The Way-Down-East Motif 201 do is to support it. He puts it out to board with simple country folk. She returns to her grandfather. Life goes on. Fourteen years pass. ...". It was at this point that the inspector snatched the conversation from Spike. "Sure, don't you see? For years the old man I mean Crossley-never knows anything about it-I mean who the man was. Then one day he gets hep. He's always thought that Fairleigh was the soul of honor. Left him $50,000 in his will just on that ac- count. And then he finds out about this that hap- pened fifteen years before. So what does he do?" “Threatens to change his will," Spike put in like a bright pupil answering teacher's questions. "Sure. And then what happens ? Fairleigh - " "_ murders him before he has a chance to do it.” Again the bright pupil. "Sure!" Herschman was now definitely excited. Spike's next words were like the sudden sticking of a pin into a balloon. “But remember this : Fairleigh was in Los Angeles when Crossley was murdered.” The balloon collapsed. The inspector slumped in his chair. "Sure,” he said, “I forgot that." "And," the district attorney added, "he has an absolutely iron-clad alibi for the afternoon Mrs. Ealing was killed.” For a few moments there was the silence of de- feat. The inspector was cast down, the district at- 202 A Most Immoral Murder torney was thoughtful. Spike lit a cigarette and yawned. Presently the district attorney broke the silence with another question. "And just how does all this I mean Fairleigh and an illegitimate child and Linda Crossley—how does it all tie up with the Ealing murder?" The inspector shook his head. It was too deep for him. Spike puffed meditatively at his cigarette. "Perhaps it does," he said, “if we leave Linda Crossley out of the picture. She, I take it, is not the only woman who in the spring of 1919 was capable of bearing a child.” “Doesn't that leave it open to a rather large field ?” the district attorney asked with a mild at- tempt at humor. "Possibly. And then again it might narrow it down. Narrow it down to the other woman in the case-Maysie Ealing. Don't forget that she's Fair. leigh's private secretary." “But how - " Spike waved them to silence. "Perhaps," he said, “I forgot to mention the other day, another little trip I made.” From his pocket he drew a newspaper clipping and handed it to the district attorney and the in- spector. It was a picture of a young man and be- neath it a caption : "Will anyone knowing the where- abouts of a fourteen-year-old boy resembling this photograph communicate ..." 204 A Most Immoral Murder looked like its mother and its mother's brother. The natural inference would be that this likeness would increase with the years. Hence ..." He indicated the clipping. He rose and reached for his hat. “I think,” he said, “Tll be looking into this." At the door he paused as if struck by a sudden disconcerting thought. “Still and all," he said, "suppose all this is true. How the hell are those damn stamps mixed up in it?" CHAPTER XXVII Wanted-an Unmarried Mother THE TELEPHONE OPERATOR was simple. Of course he had to make some concessions. The quiet eating place, so subtly conducive to conversation, which he suggested was vetoed in favor of a chop suey restau- rant that boasted a Chinese jazz band. It was noisy and hot and the food was none too good, and danc- ing on the crowded patch of floor in the center of the room was mainly a matter of stationary wrig- gling and swaying. But there were booths. Nice se- cluded little booths which partially shut out inter- ference and gave a sense of confidential intimacy. And at last along about eleven the telephone op- erator grew really confidential. Her remarks were, of course, prompted by her escort's interest in the higher things of life like unemployment and crime and the Crossley-Ealing murder. "If you ask me,” he said significantly, "from what I can make out from the papers, there's something 205 208 A Most Immoral Murder jockeyed the conversation back to the crucial point. “Oh yeah,” she reminded herself. "I was telling you about that night I had the date and went back to the office. Well, this boy and I had dinner up here and danced a while and then we decided to go on uptown to the movies and while he was paying the check I was fixing up, and I found that I'd for. got to fill my compact before I left the office and I didn't have any powder. Well, this place is just around the corner from the office and so I said to the fellow I was with we should go up to the office for a minute because I had a box of powder in my desk. "When we got up there the place was locked like it always is at night, but I always have a key be- cause I'm the first one that gets in in the morning, or at least I'm supposed to be, so I have one. Any- way, I notice that there was a light in the back where the glass partition cuts off Mr. Fairleigh's office, and I thought maybe he was there and he probably wouldn't like me coming back to the office late like that so I was awfully quiet. I made the fellow stay out in the hall and I went in and got the powder out of my desk. "But then I got sort of curious and I thought I'd just make sure it was Fairleigh so I tiptoed back there and looked in. You know the place is glassed in with this kind of glass you can't see through, but on the east side there's plain clear glass because that's the side that's toward Mr. Schwab's office. 210 A Most Immoral Murder ered making the interview official in the office of the district attorney, but on second thought he decided against it. There was that little matter of the visit he had paid her the day after her mother's death. It wouldn't do for the district attorney and the in- spector to know about that. They might jump to the fantastic conclusion that he, Spike, had not been entirely frank with them. Better go it alone. He found the house, Mrs. Parley's, easy enough. It was two streets away in a quietly decaying section devoted entirely to the dreariness of furnished rooms. But eminently respectable! Mrs. Parley, like all landladies of furnished rooming houses, tolerated no mixed company above the first floor. With the obscenity of mind which seems to characterize her kind, it was impossible for her to conceive of a man and a woman confining themselves to mere conversation in the same room with a bed. With an air of militant virtue upheld she provided a depressing little room off the main hall on the first floor for "entertainment." It was into this cubicle that Spike was ushered. “She's just come in,” Mrs. Parley assured him with a slight thawing of the chill which she usually accorded to young men callers. The sight of the Cadillac roadster at the curb had doubtless some- thing to do with this. Virtue is virtue, but at the same time a Cadillac is impressive.. As Spike waited he gazed around him. Musty, dusty, full of useless ornaments and photographs of 212 A Most Immoral Murder "Yes, I suppose so. Or at least it would seem that way. But, you see, the difficulty is that we keep on uncovering new evidence all the time." "Oh, I see. I hadn't realized that." There was subtle sarcasm in her words. “What's new now?" He hesitated again. He found the job before him less and less to his liking. “Tell me, Miss Ealing, themah—circumstances under which you got your job with Mr. Fairleigh." "Themah-circumstances were the usual-ah- circumstances. I was out of a job and I followed want ads in the papers. I answered Mr. Fairleigh's ad and he employed me.” "Had you known Mr. Fairleigh before you entered his employ?” "No. The first time I ever saw him was six months ago when he asked me to come to his office for an interview." “And having got the job, did you—ah-I mean why did you take the job?" . “Why did I take it? Why does anyone take a job? I had myself and my mother to support, you know." “Then you had no-ulterior motive in entering Mr. Fairleigh's employ?” “No, not unless you consider the desire to eat and pay the rent 'ulterior.'” "Then why - " He paused. "Why, Miss Ealing, did you spend so many nights trying to figure Wanted—an Unmarried Mother 213 out the combination of Mr. Fairleigh's private safe?" He leaned forward as he posed the question and eyed the woman steadily. He wondered if she really flinched or whether it was just his imagination. "The combination of Mr. Fairleigh's private safe?” She repeated the words as if to make sure that she had heard them correctly. “Yes. Why were you interested in it?" "I have no idea.” “What was in that safe that you wanted?" "Nothing." “Then why did you spend so many hours trying to get it open ?” “But I didn't.” "And what would you say if I should tell you that I have a witness who has seen you at it?" "I should question the reliability of your witness.” “Oh, there's no question of that. My witness is the most reliable witness in the world-a person too dumb to lie.” She made no reply. “Well,” he said, "what do you say?" "Nothing. Is it necessary for me to say anything except that I don't know what you're talking about. I really can't be held responsible you know, Mr. Tracy, if you insist on talking like a dime novel.” “In other words you deny either knowing John Fairleigh prior to six months ago, or trying to get 214 A Most Immoral Murder into his safe after you became his private secretary.” “Yes,” she said, "you've got those one or two points clear at last.” “Good! But there are still one or two more.” He lit a cigarette, offered her one but she de. clined. “Tell me, Miss Ealing, about your brother." A strange look came into her face. She hesitated. Then answered the question. "He was in the war. ‘Missing in action.' Is there anything more to tell than that?" "I-I happened to see his picture the last time I was at your house. He looked very much like you, didn't he?" "There was a strong family resemblance between us.” "So it's quite likely that any child you might have, might look very much like him." She stared at him. “Aren't you getting a little bit off the point, Mr. Tracy?". “Am I?" She made no reply and he went on. “Let's sup- pose for the sake of argument that you did have a child. And suppose that for some reason, you hadn't seen it for years, and then suddenly you had a great longing for it, but you didn't know where it was. And suppose the one person in the world who knew wouldn't tell you." His voice was disarming in its casualness as he spun the apparently hypothetical tale. He was Wanted-an Unmarried Mother 215 slouching down in his chair and his eyes were on the far corner of the room. He wasn't even looking at the woman as he continued "And so you determined to find out for yourself. Knowing that the child resembled you and that you resembled your brother, you assumed that in the years which had passed since the child was a baby, this resemblance to your brother would increase. And so you played a long shot. You took a picture of your brother and had it inserted in a paper- the Saugus paper. Why you picked on Saugus I don't know. Anyway you put in the ad and asked anyone who knew of a boy who looked like this picture to get in touch with you.” Suddenly he shifted his eyes from the far corner of the room and looked straight at her. But she was sitting there quietly, her face expressionless. “What would you say to that, Miss Ealing?" She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, if I must say something, I'd say that you have a wonderful imagination.” There was a pause. His hand slipped into the front of his coat. "Perhaps,” he admitted quietly, "but I really didn't imagine—that." He thrust it at her, the clipping from the Saugus Index “... a boy of fourteen resembling this pic- ture. ..." She took it from him. There was no mistake about it now. Her hand trembled as she held the clipping. 216 A Most Immoral Murder She looked at it for a long time. Then she handed it back. She raised her eyes and they met his. “All right,” she said quietly. “What about it?” “You admit that you inserted that advertisement in the paper ?" “Yes." “You admit that the 'fourteen year old boy re- sembling this picture,' is your son ?”. For the second time during the interview she hesitated. The taut wires within her seemed to tighten. “Yes," she said and her voice was hard, flat, metallic. “I admit-he is my son." “Whom you haven't seen since he was a baby." She nodded. “Your illegitimate son." “Does that matter?" “Very much so. Even illegitimate children have fathers.” “Yes, I suppose so." "Why did you go to all this hocus-pocus ?" He pointed to the Saugus clipping. "I couldn't think of any other way. Hiring de- tectives is expensive and I didn't have the money." "But why not do the simple, obvious thing?" "What is that?" “Ask the child's father." "Because " She stopped in confusion. “Be- cause I don't know where he is." Wanted-an Unmarried Mother 217 Spike was brought up short in his rapid fire ques- tions. It was his turn now to stare. "Then Fairleigh isn't ..." The sentence was left hanging in midair. It was as if he had been think- ing aloud and had suddenly remembered himself. But at the sound of Fairleigh's name the woman seemed to stiffen. "Fairleigh ?” she said. “You don't mean you think Fairleigh - " "Well,” said Spike, "isn't he?" Her hands were gripping the arms of her chair until her knuckles were white. Her mouth twisted. Suddenly she laughed-loud-high-pitched - "Fairleigh-oh, that's funnyếno, no, not Fair- leigh-he's not the father of my child-take back the papers, give me the-no, no, not Fairleigh- he's not ..." Her face was contorted, working convulsively. She rose unsteadily from her chair. Spike realized that she wasn't laughing any more. She was crying. Hysteria-wild, uncontrolled She rushed from the room. He followed her into the hall, stood at the newel post and watched her stumble up the stairs. rose Found-an Unmarried Mother 219 she admitted it with equal calmness. Just the same the strain was too much for her. She broke under it in the end. Now Fairleigh - " "If you ask me," the inspector cut in, “they're two of a kind, her and him. He knows a lot he's not telling." Spike nodded. “And he has lied with the same calm consistency." "But even if he is or isn't the father of this child and Maysie Ealing is the mother, what," Hersch- man demanded, “has that got to do with two murders and an attempted third ?” "To say nothing," the district attorney pointed out, “of the theft of a small fortune in valuable stamps.” “And there,” said Spike, “is where you put your finger squarely on the problem—the stamps." “Yeah, what the hell is the idea of stealing them from Crossley if whoever did it is going to scatter 'em all over the place, afterward?" “They're sort of a trade mark," Spike pointed out. “When Crossley's body was found there - He caught himself up sharply, finished off lamely. "- there weren't any stamps about, but they had been taken from the safe. When the next victim, Mrs. Ealing, was found, there was one of the stolen stamps in her hand. And the third victim-or at least he would have been a victim if the murderer hadn't been a rotten shot—when Koenig was found there was a stamp inside the face of his watch. Find the 220 A Most Immoral Murder guy who's got those stamps " He paused and Inspector Herschman finished the sentence with emphatic conviction. “_ and you find the guy that murdered Cross- ley and Mrs. Ealing and tried to do the same by Koenig." Spike nodded in sage agreement. "In the meantime,” the district attorney put in, "the circumstances seem to call for another inter- view with Fairleigh." A half hour later the district attorney and his younger brother in one car, and the inspector ac- companied by Mellett, a Headquarters detective, fol. lowing in a second car, drew up in front of the Nas- sau Street building which housed the office of Schwab, Fairleigh and Morrison. Spike had been all for summoning Fairleigh to police headquarters, but the district attorney pointed out the strategic advantage of a surprise visit at Fairleigh's own office. Spike looked slightly worried as he thought of a certain comely telephone operator. Maysie Ealing, he knew, had not been at the office since the death of her mother, was not expected back at work for another week. But the telephone op- erator - It would be disillusioning, doubtless, to find that one whom you had previously regarded as a person interested only in the finer things of life, was just a police department stool pigeon after all. It was chance alone which saved them both em- Found-an Unmarried Mother 221 barrassment. The temporary relief operator was on when the three men entered the reception room of the law firm. They were shown almost immediately into the private office of Fairleigh. The lawyer looked much the same as he had at the previous meeting two days earlier, worn, deeply troubled—and stubborn. “I suppose," he said and there was a grim smile on his thin, tight lips, "I should ask to what I am indebted for this honor." "Under the circumstances," said the district attor- ney with equal grimness but no smile, “I think we can dispense with such a formality.” The four men seated themselves, Fairleigh behind his desk, Herschman, the district attorney and Spike facing him on the opposite side. "Certain things have happened since we saw you last, Mr. Fairleigh," Spike began, "which have con- vinced us of the necessity of another interview with you. I may point out that at that time we were not entirely convinced of your—ah " "Honesty?” Fairleigh suggested. "Possibly," Spike admitted, “but perhaps the bet- ter way to put it would be to say that you did not impress us as one exhibiting a helpful spirit of co- operation.” "Possibly not,” Fairleigh agreed, “but may I sug- gest that you come to the point, if " He cut the sentence off unfinished. “If any," Spike supplemented. “Yes, Mr. Fair- 222 A Most Immoral Murder was leigh, there is one and quite a definite one. You see, since last we met we've had a talk with Mr. and Mrs. Polk." In the silence that followed this statement, there was an almost imperceptible tightening of the lines around the lawyer's mouth. “We had a talk with them," Spike went on, “and they told us about–Edward. What we want to know now is, who is he?" "He is the child of a friend of mine who died soon after his birth. The father had been killed six months ear_ " “We heard all that," Spike interrupted, "from the Polks. What we want to know now is just who he is." "I've just told you." “What was the name of his parents ?” Fairleigh hesitated for just the fraction of a sec- ond. Then his answer came quickly. "That is some- thing I am not at liberty to reveal.” "It seems to me, Fairleigh, that there are far too many things that you are not at liberty to reveal.” “I have always enjoyed the confidence of my clients. I feel it hardly honorable to betray it now.” “ 'Honorable' ... 'a man of honor ... The phrase flashed again through Spike's mind. Aloud he said: “ 'Betray.' That's a good word. The one they always use, isn't it?" “I don't know what you're talking about." “I'm talking about betrayal and honor and all that sort of thing." Found-an Unmarried Mother 223 “I'm afraid I don't follow you." "I'm talking about this child, Edward, and his mother, and at the risk of being melodramatic, I'll use your own words, Fairleigh. You betrayed her, and then refused to make an honest woman of her.” The lawyer stiffened and at the same time blinked. It was as if some one had given him a smart rap on the head. “Are you,” he said slowly as if trying to make sure in his own mind, "trying to intimate that I am the father of this child out in West Albion ?" Spike nodded. Fairleigh shook his head. "No," he said, "I'm not." "Then why for fourteen years have you supported him ?” “That again is something I cannot tell you." "Please say what you mean, Fairleigh. Say 'won't instead of 'can't.'” "As you will.” "All right. Suppose you're not the father. Then who is?” “The father is dead." "We've been told that several times now. What we want to know is who he was before he died.” "That again is something I - " " won't tell," Spike finished off. “All right, since you won't tell us who the father is, tell us who the mother is.” Fairleigh's only answer was an adamant silence. Spike laughed softly. “It's all right. You needn't 224 A Most Immoral Murder say anything. It just happens that we know the answer to that one." Fairleigh's eyebrows arched in silent inquiry. "We know who the mother of the child is. I've just been talking to her." Suddenly the lawyer put out a wavering hand and clutched the edge of the desk. “The mother-talking to her-herself?" "In person.” “Then you've seen her-you know — " “We've seen her-we know- “Where is she?” It was a peremptory command. “Don't you know?” "No. Tell me tell me quickly." For the second time Spike felt himself brought up short, checked abruptly in his rapid fire questions. He eyed Fairleigh, puzzled at first, then with a strangely speculative gleam in his eye. "Perhaps," he said, “I have made a mistake. But less than twenty-four hours ago your secretary, Maysie Ealing, admitted that she was the mother of this child.” It was Fairleigh's turn to be flabbergasted. "Miss Ealing, my secretary, told you—that? Told you that she was the mother of this child, Edward?" "Not under that name naturally. She hasn't seen him since he was a baby.” "But—but that's preposterous." “Then she isn't?" "No, no! It's ridiculous! I can't understand ..." Found-an Unmarried Mother 225 nown "How long have you known Miss Ealing?” “Six or seven months." “How come she's your secretary?” "My old one left to get married and I adver- tised for a new one and she answered the ad." “Ever see her before she answered the ad?” “Never." "Is she a good secretary?” “Excellent.” “Have you any complaints to make of her?” “None whatever.” “Did you ever find her-ah-prying?” “What do you mean?” “Poking into business that was none of hers." "No." "Didn't it ever strike you as queer that the murder of her mother should be so obviously linked with the murder of your client?” Fairleigh hesitated. “Yes, it did.” “How do you account for it then?" “I don't." “Do you know of any reason why the person who murdered Prentice Crossley and stole $85,000 worth of stamps should also murder Mrs. Deborah Ealing?" “None." "Do you know of any reason why Maysie Ealing should claim to be the mother of a child whom you are prepared to swear is not hers?” A Goofy Hunch 233 didn't wait for the elevator but ran up the broad, marble stairs to the second floor. Spike was in the lead. The other two followed, but at a slower pace. He went up the stairs two at a time. He made straight for the district attorney's office, burst it open, dashed across the room. When Herschman and the district attorney ar- rived he met them at the door, on his face a look of fears confirmed. “Look!" He pointed toward the desk. They looked. Their faces went blank. “But what is it? What's the matter?" "Here! Come close.” He motioned them across the room to the desk. “There !” He pointed to the blotter, to one of the leather corners. The district attorney and the inspector leaned forward, peered at the tiny bit of paper that stuck out from under the diagonal of leather. Dark blue ... "post office"... a queen's head ... two penny.... It was the two-penny Mauritius “post office" stamp, missing from the collection of the late Pren- tice Crossley. Its catalog valuation was $17,000. Worse and More of It 235 dience. They were not encouraging but he went on. "Anyway, I left the office and went downstairs and got in with Mellett and started back. Then I had a feeling that I should have waited for you, so I went back to Fairleigh's. They told me you had started to West Albion. I knew you had to go through the Hol- land Tunnel, so I caught you there, and - "Never mind about all that,” Herschman inter- rupted impatiently. “What about this?” He pointed to the stamp. “How did that get here and what does it mean?” He pressed a buzzer and almost immediately Lovelace, the district attorney's secretary, appeared. "Who's been here since we left?” Herschman de- manded. Lovelace, a quiet young man of extreme earnest- ness, blinked behind the heavy lenses of his spec- tacles. “No one." “No one called to see Mr. Tracy?" “No, sir.” "Anyone been in this room?" "No, sir.” “Sure?" “Of course. Anyone coming in here would have to pass me in the outer office, and no one has." “You were at your desk all the time?” “Yes, sir. The only time I left it was to come in here myself to get a letter from the file." "Notice anything when you were in here?” Worse and More of It 239 RSS "One more thing, Inspector!" Herschman tried to shake him off. “Don't stop me now. I've got " Spike jerked him roughly back to the desk. “This is important,” he snapped. “Get on the telephone quick and locate everyone concerned in the whole damn case. Find out where they are now, this min- ute. Don't you see?” Suddenly Herschman saw. He grabbed one tele- phone, shoved a second toward Spike. They barked names and numbers into the re- ceivers. "... let me speak to Mr. Fream ... Miss Ealing, this is the ... Mr. Fairleigh, I'll have to ask you to ... get Homer Watson. ..." Spike even called the hospital and had them con- nect him with Koenig's bedside telephone. They were all there on the other end of the wire-Fream, Maysie Ealing, Homer Watson, Koe- nig, Fairleigh. “And Mellett's keeping tab on the Crossley dame," Herschman snapped. "We couldn't be mistaken in their voices on the 'phone, could we?" Spike questioned. "No, I don't think so, but just to make sure, I'll send men around." He pressed a buzzer and another order rattled out. Downstairs Headquarters was like a walled town under siege. Only the besiegers were within and not without. In the main rotunda on the ground floor the crowd milled about, irritated, bewildered. They 240 A Most Immoral Murder hurled questions ineffectually against the patrolmen who barred all exits. Every name and address was taken, every person in the building was scrutinized, interviewed-janitors, visitors, employes, patrolmen. Some looked frightened and guilty; some were pleas- antly excited and innocent. Some were outraged and insulted. At the end of two hours the inspector and his aides had finished their inquisition. He returned to his office, his shoulders sagging. The district attor. ney and Spike were there waiting for him. "Nothing doing," he said. He picked up the tele- phone, gave a final order. “Unlock the doors; let 'em all go.” He replaced the receiver in a gesture of defeat. “Not a one in the lot you could hang anything on. It's got me down. I don't know what it means ?" He dropped into his chair with an exhausted sigh. For a few moments the three men sat in taut, nervous silence. The late afternoon sun beat in at the open window. The air was heavy with heat and humidity. Spike took off his necktie, left his collar open at the throat. Presently he rose and tamped out his cigarette. "I'll be back in a minute," he said and went out of the office and down the hall toward the men's room. But the "minute" stretched itself out to almost an hour. They found him finally hunched down in the bottom of one of the telephone booths in the upper hall. He was unconscious. Worse and More of It 241 And inside his cigarette case they found that strangest of all philatelic aberations—two stamps joined together, one upside down, the other right side up-a "tête-bêche"... head of Ceres, goddess of plenty, yellowish on a vermilion background. It was the 1-franc 1849, the most valuable "tête- bêche" in the world from the Crossley collection. CHAPTER XXXI Three Frightened People SPIKE STRUGGLED up through half-dazed conscious- ness. The police doctor was bending over him. At the foot of the couch were his brother and the in- spector looking helpless and anxious. He opened his eyes slowly, looked around him. He was in the dis- trict attorney's office. “Where," he said weakly, "am I?" “Philip!" It was the district attorney, and it was a cry of relief and thankfulness. There were mo- ments when he forgot that his younger brother was a reprehensible character, and this was one of them. He bent over the couch and took Spike's hand. “You all right, old man?”. Spike raised himself on one elbow and passed a Spike raised her the crown of his heavily, trying “I went out into the hall," he said slowly, trying to piece together the recollection shattered by un- consciousness. “I—I just turned the corner-going 242 244 A Most Immoral Murder guard of two brawny patrolmen who spelled each other in standing guard before the only possible en- trance to his bedroom. Likewise the district attorney. Rather than en- danger the lives of the little woman and the kiddie who waited for him at the summer residence just outside of Saugus, he spent the night in town, at the largest and most bustling of midtown hotels, per- sonally attended by two men in uniform. But Spike at his apartment on East 102nd Street observed no such precautions. They—the district at- torney and the inspector—had urged him to follow their lead and avail himself of the protective facili. ties of the New York police department, but his at. titude had been singularly quixotic. "If the killer come," he had said, and his voice trembled with unspoken menace, “I shall be wait- ing for him. I shall not be caught napping." Yet that was exactly what he indulged in. From police headquarters he went directly home and took a drink, a smoke and a nap. Afterward he took a shower, his dinner and his car from the garage. It was eight:thirty when he turned it westward into the gaping white maw of the Holland Tunnel. It was past one when he returned. He locked the door of his apartment and threw wide the bedroom window leading onto the fire escape. Then he turned out the light. For a long time he lay looking out into the city night ... thinking ... He looked at his watch ... Three Frightened People 245 Two:thirty ... He reached for the telephone, called a number. "Sorry to get you out of bed at this hour, George,” he said presently when the connection was made, "but I've got a story for you ... Yes, it's exclusive with you if you'll promise to break it in the first edition tomorrow, the one that gets onto the street around ten... No, no. Something that happened this afternoon at headquarters. You boys were all so busy streaking it out to West Albion that there wasn't a one of you around, so it will be a beat for you. ..." Spike appeared the following morning at police headquarters looking eminently fit, rested and intact. As he walked into the district attorney's office where the inspector had already preceded him, he was met by two sets of haggard eyes whose owners had ob- viously spent a sleepless and nerve-racking night. They looked at him in silent, miserable question. He flung himself carelessly into the nearest easy chair, lit a cigarette and smiled benignly on the two gentlemen in front of him. "I did not,” he said, "have the pleasure of the killer's company last night. How about you two ?” Herschman chewed his cigar and the district at- torney deepened his frown. They seemed to think that their mere presence, alive and in one piece was sufficient answer. "I did not, however, spend all of my time waiting for our homicidal friend," he went on to explain. "I Three Frightened People 249 there and stared at him. The kid, of course, didn't know what to make of it all. "Finally Mrs. Polk took him and Linda Crossley and herself into a bedroom at the back of the house opening off the dining room. Mellett stayed in the dining room. They were in there almost an hour. Pretty soon they came out and Mellett said Linda Crossley looked like someone suddenly transported to Heaven. She had her arm around the kid. He looked a bit dazed. Mrs. Polk had been crying, but she was smiling, and altogether Mellett, who has a few tender feelings even if he is a Headquarters dick, wished he had drawn another assignment. But he stuck around. "I got out there about ten o'clock, and I had a long talk with Linda Crossley.” He paused. Another one of those irritating pauses indulged in by story tellers, and designed especially to tantalize their au- dience. "Well, go on, go on. Spill it,” Herschman put in impatiently. "It's her child, all right," Spike continued. “Hers and David Ealing's.” “Who? "David Ealing, Maysie Ealing's brother. Remem- ber the picture, the one that was in the Saugus Index?” Both Herschman and the district attorney nodded. “Well, that's the father of the child. She met him years ago during the war. She was doing some kind 252 A Most Immoral Murder of course. Linda never could get away from home and the old man long enough to do it. Maysie thought it was silly but she did it to humor her. In all these years the only real friend she had in the world was Maysie. All their meetings, of course, had to be on the sly. "Finally, about six months ago, Linda went to Maysie and said that she couldn't go on any longer, that she had to find her child, that it was the only thing she had in her life and she didn't have that. She was going to kill herself. Maysie could see the condition she was in. She knew that Linda had at last come to the breaking point and that something had to be done, so she told her that she, Maysie, would make one last desperate attempt to locate the child. “Just then chance played into her hand. Fairleigh needed a new secretary, advertised for one, and Maysie got the job. She started staying late and sys- tematically going through all of Fairleigh's stuff- his files, his records, trying to get into his personal safe, hoping she'd come across a memorandum of some sort that would tell her where the child was. But it was no go. Finally she had to admit as much to Linda. "They met again in the Park—the night the old man was killed.” Spike paused. “What time?" Herschman put in quickly. “Early. Around nine: thirty." Three Frightened People 253 "How long were they there in the Park?”. "About an hour. Maysie admitted that she was stumped, that she'd run into a blind alley, that she couldn't find out a thing. From what I can make out from Linda's account of the meeting, she, Linda, went half crazy. She started back to the house on Fifth Avenue. Maysie wanted to go with her, but Linda wouldn't let her. She returned to the house alone, went in " Spike broke off abruptly. His brows drew into a creased frown as if he were thinking hard. But the inspector paid no attention. Instead he jumped into the breach. "She went in and found the old man there," Herschman continued the story with sudden deter- mination. "She found him asleep. She was mad crazy. She knew that when he died Fairleigh would have to reveal the whereabouts of her child. She went upstairs and got this bayonet this guy had sent her and killed him.” Herschman finished off with a flourish, his eyes gleaming with triumph. "And then I suppose," Spike put in quietly, "six days later she came back and murdered old lady Ealing, just for the fun of it.” "Sure. She's crazy. Stark, raving crazy. The strain of these fifteen years has been too much for her. It has unbalanced her mind. Crazy people are like that. They sometimes harm the ones that mean the most to them. Once she started killing, everything got mixed up in her mind.” 254 A Most Immoral Murder Spike lit another cigarette, blew a long cloud of smoke into the air. "I imagine,” he said quietly, “that that is just what Fairleigh and Maysie Ealing thought.” "How do you mean?". "Just what I said. Knowing the circumstances, knowing Linda's obsession, knowing that she was on the point of madness almost in her desire to find her child, Fairleigh and Maysie concluded that she had really tipped over the edge. That, I fancy, is why they've told so many godawful, clumsy lies on the one hand, or, on the other hand, shut up like clams and refused to talk at all. They believed that her brain had snapped, that in the first fit of madness she killed her uncle, and then killed old Mrs. Ealing and took a pot shot at Koenig. They were doing their best—although each one was working absolutely in- dependent of the other—to protect her, to befog the issue. "That accounts for Maysie Ealing's surprising statement that she was the mother of the child in question. She knew that if we found out the circum- stances, if we knew that the child was Linda Cross- ley's, and that for years she had been kept in ig- norance of its whereabouts, we might jump to the same erroneous conclusion that she had.” “Erroneous conclusion? What do you mean er- roneous conclusion ?" Herschman was slightly in- dignant. CHAPTER XXXII The Long Dead Past THE news- On the way to the hospital Spike stopped at a news- stand. "First edition of the World-Telegram out yet?” he asked. "Be here any minute," the news vendor assured him. “All right, I'll stick around. I'll take one of these while I wait.” He flipped a coin across the counter and picked up one of the morning papers. The reporters had worked fast, tracking down Linda Crossley, invading the quiet village of West Albion, putting an end to that brief, blissful period of reunion. There was a picture of the Polk house, a photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Polk. There was even a photograph of the faithful Mellett. But there was no picture of Linda Crossley nor of her son. "Miss Crossley refused to receive reporters or to make any statement. She retired to an inner room 258 The Long Dead Past 259 of the Polk house and sent out word through Special Detective Andrew W. Mellett, detailed by Inspec- tor Herschman of the Homicide Squad to guard her, that she had nothing to say, would not be inter- viewed and would not permit either herself or her son to be photographed. The boy she kept with her in the house. The foster parents of the child, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Polk, stated that ...". A truck drew up at the curb in front of the news- stand and a bundle of papers came hurtling through the air onto the sidewalk. “Here you are, Mister.” Spike grabbed a paper from the top of the bundle. He took one glance at the headlines and smiled with grim satisfaction. At the hospital he found Koenig sitting up in bed, his arm in a sling, reading the morning papers. Phys- ically, he seemed greatly improved, but his eyes held a look of infinite anxiety, and in his voice there was reproach as he greeted his visitor. "It is so long, my friend, since I have seen you, and there are so many things I've had to get them all from the papers.” He pointed to the morning's headlines. “Linda-tell me about her. You have seen her? She is safe? She is happy?" Spike drew up a chair and seated himself. He smiled gently at the little, round, anxious man in the bed. “Very happy," he said quietly. "I saw her last night.” Briefly he related the story of his trip to 260 A Most Immoral Murder West Albion. “She was almost beside herself with happiness. She had her child-at last.” “And what kind of a child is he? Does he love her as he should? And who are these Polk people?” "He's a nice lad, but just at present he's naturally a good bit bewildered. He hasn't had time to love Linda as he should. She has only just been thrust upon him in the midst of a puzzling turmoil. The Polks are the kind of people who are the salt of the earth. Mrs. Polk confided to me last night that Linda was going to stay with them for a while, or perhaps take a little cottage next door so that both may share the boy." Koenig lay back against the pillows with a con- tented sigh. "Linda, dear Linda," he murmured. "At last. ..." Slowly the smile faded from Spike's face. He grew troubled. "I'm afraid, though,” he said, "that it is not going to be all smooth sailing." "What do you mean?” : “I mean I'm afraid it's going to take some hard stretching to make the police believe Linda's version of the night of June 4, the night her grandfather was murdered.” Koenig sat up in bed. Like Spike, he was suddenly sober and thoughtful. “What does she say of her whereabouts the day Mrs. Ealing was killed ?” he demanded. “She doesn't say. I didn't ask her. I couldn't The Long Dead Past 261 spoil those first ecstatic hours with her child. I couldn't smear them over with questions and prob- ings and murder and suspicion." Again Koenig was thoughtful. Then suddenly he turned to Spike. "Look here,” he said, "it is self-evident, is it not, that these murders were done by the same person?” “Yes," Spike admitted, “I think we may safely infer that. The person who murdered Crossley is identical with the person who murdered Mrs. Ealing, and tried to get you but missed. In each of the three instances the murderer has left a trade mark-one of the valuable Crossley stamps." “Very well, then," Koenig went on, "what if the police don't believe Linda's story of her movements on the night her grandfather was murdered? What if she has no logical, credible alibi for the day on which Mrs. Ealing was murdered? What about the third murder-or rather I should say the third at- tempted murder-me?”. “Yes, what about it?" "Why, is it not plain enough? That night, the night on which the attempt was made on my life, Linda was safe in the apartment of Maysie Ealing. She couldn't possibly have made the attempt on my life, so it must follow that she is equally innocent of the other two crimes.” Koenig finished off with a little flourish of tri- umph and again lay back against his pillows in great contentment. Spike rose from his chair, took 262 A Most Immoral Murder a turn up and down the room. At last he paused be- side the bed, looked down at Koenig. "As a matter of fact," he said quietly, "Linda wasn't at Maysie Ealing's apartment that night.” Koenig stared at him. “What—what are you saying?" “I'm saying that she wasn't at Maysie Ealing's that night.” Koenig's mouth dropped open. He stared at Spike. “But that telephone call ?" “That was a fake." "A fake?” “Yes, it was my man, Pug. He was lying." Koenig's hands worked convulsively with the covers. "But why-why?" “Because " Spike broke off. His eyes swept the white hospital room, disconcerted, uneasy. "Look here, Koenig, we can't talk here, and we've got to talk. Do you feel well enough—do you think you could go home, now, today?" For answer Koenig reached for the electric bell on the bedside table, and at the same time threw off the covers. There was red tape and irritating details a for- mal discharge to be signed by the doctor; a stiff, starchy superintendent of nurses fussing about and adding to the complications. Koenig was still a bit wobbly and Spike insisted that he go home in the ambulance. It was fully two hours before they were The Long Dead Past 263 finally back in Koenig's little rear-of-the-shop-apart- ment on East Thirty-sixth Street. The ambulance at- tendants took their leave, and Spike stowed away in a dressing alcove the bag containing Koenig's clothes brought from the hospital. Koenig himself was propped up against the high pillows of his own bed. He had dismissed his clerk for the afternoon and closed the stamp shop. They were quite alone. “Now, my friend,” Koenig said at last, "now, go on. You were telling me - -" He waited for Spike to take up the thread of the conversation they had begun in the hospital. Spike drew up a chair and sat down beside the bed. "I was telling you that Linda Crossley was not at Maysie Ealing's house the night you were shot, and that that telephone call was a fake. It was Pug, my man, and he was lying." “But why should he lie?" “Because " Spike broke off in uncertainty. “Look here, Koenig, I know everything, the whole story, the how's and the who's and the when's. There's just one thing I don't know and that is the __” Again he broke off. He rose from his chair, kicked it away from him almost savagely and strode over to the opposite side of the room where he had laid his hat and the afternoon paper he had bought on the way up to the hospital. He snatched it up, thrust it at Koenig. 264 A Most Immoral Murder The little round man propped the page up in front of him and his eyes slowly covered the headlines. STAMP MURDERER VISITS POLICE HEADQUARTERS Crossley-Ealing Killer Escapes City Hall Trap- But Marks Trail With Stolen Stamps Koenig reached for his reading glasses on the table beside his bed. Then slowly he read the story of those three tense hours that District Attorney Tracy, Inspector Herschman and Spike had spent the previous afternoon with the wily Crossley-Ealing murderer just beyond their grasp. When he had finished he laid the paper down slowly, folded it neatly, placed it on the reading table. He took off his glasses and placed them on top of it. "I think,” he said quietly, "I will get up and put on my clothes.” "Do you think you're able?” Spike asked, but the question seemed purely rhetorical. He made no move to help the sick man. Koenig retired to the dressing alcove where Spike had put the bag containing his clothes. It was a long time before he emerged, but when he did he was fully dressed. He had managed even to achieve something of his old air of the dandy, despite the The Long Dead Past 267 were nurses. One of them was killed. The hospital she was working in was shelled. The Germans weren't the only ones who shelled hospitals. The English did it and the French. We all did it. It was all part of the whole murderous debauch. “It murdered your body and debauched your soul!" Koenig's voice rose, impassioned with the horrible memories of 1914-18. "I went to war to kill and be killed. But I only killed. I was one of the charmed ones. I never even got what the English used to call a 'blighty'-a nice, easy wound that invalided you back to the rear, to the peace and quiet and cleanliness of a hospital, away from the bloody, stinking front. For four years I killed. I killed with bayonet and I killed with bul. lets and grenades and gas and liquid fire. “In the trenches we lived in slime and muck and filth and vermin. And when we were relieved and went to the rear we lived on cheap women and rotten liquor. Our souls were caught up in that mad, beastly frenzy. We couldn't live like men because men don't make war. It's only beasts that kill and mangle and torture each other. So we lived like beasts. Our souls were dead-dead, rotting and stinking like the corpses that were piled up all around us. “And yet "Koenig paused and his voice softened. “Yet sometimes there was a spark, a stir- ring beneath all the blood and beastliness. There must have been. Otherwise I would never have known David Ealing. He would have been just an- 268 A Most Immoral Murder other one of that unnamed, unnumbered company I had killed and murdered and mutilated and tor- tured.” For a few moments there was no sound in the room. Koenig had stopped his pacing now and was seated once more quietly in his chair. Spike had lighted a cigarette, but it hung dead and smokeless from his right hand. His eyes were on Koenig, strangely fascinated. "It was in October 1918," Koenig went on. “We were entrenched east of the Meuse in the woods near Samogneux. The trenches held by the Americans were a hundred yards in front of us. Our artillery laid down a barrage and we advanced under cover of it. We struck the Americans at a weak point. We were three to their one. "I can remember going under the wire, over the top of the American trench. We were using the bay. onet. I got two of them with my first lunge down. After that, it was mostly hand-to-hand fighting. We cleaned them out of the trench. Then we charged the dugouts. I rushed into one. There was a man there. He raised his gun, but I raised mine first. He went down on his face, and his helmet slewed over on one side. It looked silly, grotesque that way. "Something stopped me. I don't know what it was. At times like that, there's no reason in what you do. There isn't even instinct. It's just mad, silly, berserk fighting. You do things for no reason at all. For no reason at all, I stopped right in the middle of the The Long Dead Past 273 to those that came out of it with their bodies whole. Their spirits were warped and twisted. "I used to get out those letters and re-read them. Of all the men I'd killed he was the only one I'd ever known. And I felt that I did know him. I could reconstruct his whole pleasant, simple, wholesome life-mother, sister, sweetheart. The ecstasy of those last mad days before sailing. Then France-mud and cold drizzle, trench drill behind the lines, cheap French wine at the estaminet, women too willing, lousy billets, long jolting journeys in crowded trucks. "Mail from home, the only bright spot in all the muck of war. The letter from his sweetheart telling him. His fears and his pride, his hope and his hap- piness and his terror, all mixed into one. Afraid for her. Afraid for himself. Afraid he might never get back to her—and to his David 'At least I hope he's a David.' "And then at last the order to move up to the front. Raw, green boys facing that awful hell of fire and death. Trembling inside, trying to armor them- selves with tough, masculine indifference. Days in the trenches. Mud up to your ankles if you stepped off the duck boards. Rats as big as cats and as bold. Corpses rotting in the sun. Stench. The constant scream and whine of shells, and every once in a while somebody's brains flung in your face. "And then at last, attack. They're coming, the Boche! The bloody Huns! That's what their officers told them, but we weren't bloody Huns, we were just The Long Dead Past 275 fell in love, desperately, irrevocably. But they couldn't marry. She couldn't leave her mother to go to England, and he couldn't leave England to come here. He had younger brothers and sisters. Both of them tied, separated by responsibilities, eating their hearts out, getting older all the time. "And then there was the third life-Linda. Ah, sweet, lovely Linda, my child! Your little David, the only thing you had left of your great love, torn from you. Never, never to see him as long as that old vulture lived. Never to know where he was or what he was like. Slowly going mad with the weight of your own aching tragedy. "And I, I was responsible. I had killed him. If I hadn't it never would have happened. He would have come back. He would have married Linda. And Maysie would have married her English boy. And old Mrs. Ealing would have been a placid, con- tented grandmother, and life would have been happy. But I had sown tragedy and desolation. I had ruined them. "But there was a little hope left—something might be saved-something of happiness and con- tentment. For the old woman, no. Death was best for her. And so I killed her. And now her daughter can marry the man she loves before it's too late and she's too old. And I killed Crossley, so that Linda can have the child she loves, before it's too late and she's too old. "You may say that I am demented, mad myself. 276 A Most Immoral Murder But you're wrong. What I've done, I've done with the cool, hard light of reason. I don't believe in an avenging God or a tortured hereafter. I don't be- lieve in the false ethics of man-made laws. I believe in the rational here and now. And so I have done that for which you and your man-made laws will de- stroy me. But I am content.” Koenig turned, faced Spike. His hands were out- flung in a magnificent gesture of surrender. He seemed to grow tall and splendid and his voice had a ring of triumph to it. "I've rescued the happiness of three people. I've redressed as best I could the wrong I did when I put a bullet through the heart of David Ealing in a French dugout fifteen years ago. "I'm your murderer. I'm a murderer many times over. I've murdered hundreds and thousands. And each time I've sown desolation and tragedy. Each time-except the last two. Take me! Destroy-me! You can't hurt me now !". CHAPTER XXXIII Just Nosey THE LATE afternoon sun slanted over the little gar- den at the rear of the apartment, shining through the white sprays of syringa, dappling the grass with light and shade. It was like a tiny oasis in a desert of brick and mortar and steel. Spike stood in the doorway, looking out over its incongruous greenness. It was very still. He could feel the agitated beatings of his own heart. Within there surged a strange mixture of emotions. He could almost hear as if repeated by an echo that cry of triumph and surrender. “Take me! Destroy me! You can't hurt me now !” For a long time he stood looking out into the garden. Then presently he turned. Koenig stood be- side the table, staring into the black, empty fireplace. He seemed shrunken, crumpled. At last Spike broke the silence. "A clever scheme, Koenig, damnably clever." There was something almost of admiration in his 277 278 A Most Immoral Murder voice. "But not quite clever enough. You fooled me for a long time, but not quite long enough. You had me guessing, but not — Koenig held up his hand for silence. The hand trembled slightly. “Please," he said. His voice was low and very hoarse. "If there are any questions you would like to ask-I will answer them—but, please-no gloating " “Why shouldn't I gloat?" Spike put in impa- tiently. “I beat you at your own game, Koenig, and a damnably clever game it was. And it would have worked too if Linda Crossley hadn't thrown a mon- key wrench into the works." As the girl's name was mentioned, Koenig turned suddenly, faced Spike. "You do not think after all I have told you that she had anything to do with " “No, no. Don't worry about that. I know she's innocent. I'll tell you here and now that Linda Crossley has been at my house on Sark Island every minute until last Saturday morning when she left and went straight to Fairleigh's office and then to West Albion. But you didn't know that. And you didn't know that I was hep to you a long time ago. I was hep to you but I didn't have any proof. And then you murdered Mrs. Ealing and I got an idea. An idea I thought would force your hand. "I fixed it up with my man Pug to pull a big lie on you, to make you think that Linda had left early the morning Mrs. Ealing was killed. I wanted to AN EPILOGUE Involving Two Disreputable Characters U "OF COURSE, Richard, the scandal will be awful.” Spike, fortified against infamous contingencies by four double whiskies, sprawled at ease in a deep up- holstered chair in his brother's office. On the oppo- site side of the room equally fortified and equally at ease was Pug. The district attorney stood between the two of them, shocked and distrait. "Fierce," corroborated Pug complacently. "Com- poundin' a felony. If you get put in the jug, Spike, I'll bust loose at a cop or somethin' and get jugged with you. I always stick by a pal," and suddenly in the emotion of the moment Pug burst into song. "Comrades, comrades, ever since we were boys.'”. "I will probably," Spike went on unmindful of the tuneful interruption, “make the front pages of the tabs. They'll love it. 'D. A.'s Kin Shields Linda from Law's Wrath.' The tabs are so chummy and informal." "And there'll be pitchers," Pug supplemented. 286 Involving Two Disreputable Characters 287 “'Famous Ex-Prize Fighter, Prisoner's Pal.' 'Com- rades, comrades, ever since in The district attorney pounded in exasperation on the desk and the song ceased. "Philip,” he barked, turning to his brother, “I must demand an explanation of this outrageous thing you've just told me. I realize that you are at present in no condition to think clearly, nevertheless I must ask you " "Can it, Richard, can it. I'll come clean. You don't need your third degree. The dame simply fell into my arms. And the next thing I know, a bunch of your flatfeet are all over the place looking for her, saying she bumped off that old Crossley buzzard. I should throw a beautiful woman to the flatfeet - No, no, I mean to the lions I mean to you, Rich- ard. Why should I throw you a beautiful woman, Richard? You've got Hilda." “If you ask me," Pug put in, “I'd rather have a lion." The district attorney turned on him, his irrita- tion bursting into sarcasm. “I am not aware that anyone has asked you anything, Mr.-ah " “Just call me Pug." Pug helped himself to a Corona-Corona from the box on the district at- torney's desk. "Public sympathy," Spike announced, “will be with me. A woman, innocent, defenseless, hounded by the police, and I open my arms to her and - " "Philip, do you mean to tell me that in addition Involving Two Disreputable Characters 289 spector Herschman and myself—were aware from the beginning of the whereabouts of Linda Cross- ley—but for certain-ah-strategic reasons we deemed it inadvisable to make her whereabouts known. Or rather I should say, wemah—feared that she was marked as the next murder victim and we felt that in the interest of-ah-her own safety, wemah " "It's all right, Richard. All right." Spike rose unsteadily from his chair, motioned to Pug. “Any- thing you say goes. Only I haven't got time to listen. We're celebrating. It's our anniversary. Four months ago tonight we spent in jail together. And now we're celebrating. We're going to get drunk.” He put a fraternal arm about Pug. They gazed with deep emotion into each other's eyes, and as they wended their wavering way down the hall they burst into song: “Comrades, comrades ever since we were boys, Sharing each other's sorrows, Sharing each other's joys. ..."