RGL e-Book Cover©
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.
RGL e-Book Cover©
Mystery Magazine, 15 Jan 1926, with "In The Rush Hour"
FIVE o'clock. The Grand Central.
Long, tiled underground passages. Muddy marble steps. Skiddy ramps.
From street and subway, hotels and office buildings, through a thousand swinging and revolving doors poured a seemingly inexhaustible, headlong throng of commuters, banker and clerk, matinée girl and stenographer.
Hustle, bustle, rustle.
Suddenly, above the muffle of voices and shuffle of feet out through the great arched concourse of the massive station shrilled a girl's wild cry.
"Maizie! Call the emergency hospital—quick! Help! Police!"
One little stream of the crowd forgot its homeward rush. Here was trouble, tragedy. It turned from frantic converging on the train gates toward the telephone booths and the cry.
Before a booth, over the body of a young girl prone before her, stood a little telephone operator, almost hysterical, calling to another girl at the switchboard.
"Here! I'm a doctor!"
Mary Mannix pushed her way through the crowd. In an instant she was leaning over the girl on the station floor.
"I just left the switchboard," cried the little operator with a frantic look back toward the now jangling buzzers, "to tell this girl I had her call, and to answer it. I flashed the light in her booth, but she didn't pay any attention. I tapped on the glass door, but she didn't answer that. She seemed huddled in the corner, crouched, bent over. Then I opened the door. She just slid out on the floor. I couldn't even catch her. Oh!"
Mary was looking carefully at the girl lying on the floor before her. Her hat had dropped off her boyish bobbed hair, revealing a face of unusual dark beauty, a well-shaped head crowned with dark curling locks.
The unwinking eyes, still open, were large and brown, and must have been appealing when she was herself. Her brows were daintily arched. Long lashes cast shadows over her olive cheeks. The nose was pert, slightly retroussé, and the mouth rather hard, whether from pain or revealing something in her past life.
The girl was daintily dressed. The day had been sultry, with a heat unappeased even by a light rain. Her thin gown of soft dark-blue crepe touched with white at the throat lay in soft folds about her slender body. Black suede pumps over the sheerest silk stockings revealed the slender beauty of her tiny feet and trim ankles.
"Stand back! Give this girl some air—please!" Mary spoke sharply over her shoulder to the curious crowd as she felt the pulse of the girl. She frowned and looked about quickly.
Still clutched in the girl's hand was a handbag. The little mirror hung on a narrow silk tape just below the catch. A quick rip and the mirror was off.
Leaning over the girl while the crowd gaped, Mary held the mirror to the girl's mouth and nose.
"No vapor! Not the least trace!"
Mary was looking closely at the girl's lips, startled and puzzled. "She's dead!"
There she was lying on her back on the cold floor of the station, big eyes still open, staring into the unknown.
Mary closed the eyes, gently.
MORE and more people had collected; a quiet, sympathetic, helpless crowd, waiting the arrival of and the confirmation by the railroad terminal emergency hospital doctor.
Through the throng a young fellow in a green cap pushed his way. He looked closely at the dead girl.
"Why, that girl was at the Message Exchange not ten minutes ago! I remember her."
Mary turned. "Are you in charge of the booth?"
"No. Just a messenger."
"What did she do?"
Asked if a message had been left for her."
"Do you remember the name?"
"Sure. I think it was Julia King."
"And was there a message?"
"Yes; in a big envelope. She stood there a moment and read it. Then she wrote something on some papers, legal-looking papers. Rested them on the corner of the desk when she wrote. I remember because she borrowed a pen. She sealed another envelope and left it to be called for just as she had called."
Mary was on her feet in an instant. A special policeman of the station had arrived by this time and established a line to keep back the crowd.
"Would you recognize the envelope?"
"I think so."
Take me over to the Message Exchange, then, quick and pick it out."
At the booth were several people claiming and leaving messages. The messenger made a hasty search through all the envelopes and parcels to be called for.
"I can't find it. Say, Jim, do you remember anything about an envelope left here by that sporty little flapper who said she was Julia King?"
"Called for. A man asked for it, giving the name Whitney, not five minutes after she left the booth. Why?"
"She just dropped dead over there in a telephone booth!"
"What!"
Jim paused at least ten or twelve seconds, then went back to work. He saw people throw fits, go into hysterics, pull all sorts of stunts with diseases, but they seldom died. However, this was in some other department. Jim went on with his work. "What did the man look like?" insisted Mary.
"Rather short—well-dressed," returned Jim.
"Would you recognize him?"
"If you could find him."
Mary was perplexed. What was she to do now? This had seemed such a straight way to find out something about the girl. She turned to the messenger in the green cap.
"Did you notice anything else Julia King did? Think, quick."
He shoved back his cap thoughtfully.
"Well, she read some note enclosed in that letter."
"Yes," urged Mary, her own eyes sparkling with excitement. "What did she do then? Keep it? Put it in the other envelope she left here?'
"No... Oh, I remember. She crumpled it up—dropped it in the basket, I think.
Mary glanced about, caught sight of the waste-basket. She upturned the basket on the marble desk and searched.
BUT there was nothing there, not a scrap that showed a thing about Julia King. A curious crowd collected even here, wondering what it could be all about, why a pretty girl should be messing around a waste-basket in the Grand Central.
"Are you sure she dropped it into the basket?"
"It might have gone on the floor."
Mary looked around. Far down the line she saw a porter sweeping the floor. He would scarcely have been trying to sweep at this end with that hurrying stream of humanity interfering.
With the messenger in the green cap Mary started to search, eagerly scanning the floor for any stray bit of waste-paper. Back and forth they made their way, to the annoyance of the crowds hurrying for Westchester trains—back and forth, searching the floor.
Mary was so engrossed in her search that she did not pay much attention to the people in the crowding throng. She remembered later that she had caught sight of one man, a slight acquaintance, Harper Perry. He was walking up and down as if waiting for someone. She did not think of it at the time, but it seemed as if he turned a little abruptly in his walk, away from her, as if avoiding recognition.
At last, almost up to one of the train gates, Mary spied a crumpled ball of paper that had been kicked along by the crowd. She smoothed it out anxiously, then deciphered it with a gasp:
Here's the $10,000—ten one thousand dollar bills, as agreed. Sign the affidavit and release, seal them in the addressed envelope, leave it at the message exchange, and telephone 8578 FitzRoy that it is there.
The note was not signed.
"Wasn't there something else in that package besides the envelope she sealed?" demanded Mary.
The messenger thought a moment.
"Oh, yes. There were two envelopes in the message. I forgot She peeked into one, and I saw her shove it into her handbag. It was the other she sealed."
Mary turned abruptly, hurried back to the crowd about the telephone booth and its secret. The emergency doctor had arrived.
As he was completing his examination, Mary picked up the girl's handbag again, examining it thoroughly. There was no envelope in it. She remembered now she had seen none when she opened it first.
The ten thousand dollars were gone.
Mary turned to the telephone operator. "Did any one speak to her, in the booth?" she asked suddenly.
"Why—yes—come to think of it. It must have been booth seven. Someone did open the door. There was a big crowd waiting for booths and numbers. Every coin-box booth was full, too."
"Who opened the door? A short man?"
"No. Rather tall. In a soft hat"
"You'd know him?"
"I don't know," rather doubtfully. "Maybe."
Keenly Mary was now inspecting the booth, the instrument, the walls, the floor. She betrayed nothing. But she had picked up, on the floor of the telephone booth, an imported French lipstick, a bit softened and twisted, worn down, jagged, on one side.
She happened to glance in, as the light struck where her shadow had been an instant before. Plainly, at that angle, there was something on the wall of the booth, thick, gummy lines, near the bottom. She took the corner of her handkerchief, rubbed off a bit of it. A red smudge on her handkerchief! She put the handkerchief and the misshapen lipstick into her own handbag.
A moment later Mary was bending over with the emergency doctor. He looked up. "She's been poisoned!" he exclaimed under his breath to Mary. "I'll bet it was that man who opened the door to the booth!"
Mary shook her head. "That poison is on her lips, I think. Cyanide! An old trick. Not a word! My name is Dr. Mary Mannix. I'd like you to follow the autopsy, and let me know in the morning what was found on her lips."
"Delighted to do so, Miss Mannix." The doctor nodded.
Aside, Mary was closely examining the handbag again, speaking in an undertone to the doctor. "She went to the telephone, just after she had sealed an envelope that was probably doctored with cyanide. The poison began to work. That person opened the door, reached in, took something from her handbag, closed the door, and disappeared. She was dead in the booth, then. Someone was waiting for her to die, waiting for the poison to act!"
In ten minutes Julia King had received ten thousand dollars, had been killed and robbed—at the peak of the evening rush hours, with thousands of persons about, crowding through the station within a few feet of her—poisoned and directed, as if by the long arm of Fate, to go to a telephone booth—to die!
MARY turned the handbag over to the special officer. Who was the girl calling? The little telephone operator had the number written on her sheet; 3578 FitzRoy! That was a clue. There had been two others in the handbag. On a card was written the name, Whitney, and after it, 1922 Terminal Bldg. Whitney had been the name given by the man who called for the envelope she left. On the other side of the card was a telephone number: Wall 10,000. Wall 10,000.
Mary knew that. That was the brokerage firm with which Harper Perry was connected.
Aside, at the switchboard, Mary got information. What of FitzRoy 3578? That was Broadway, 1400. The Whitney address was nearest. She would go there first.
As she padded down the hall of the office building on soft-soled shoes, Mary read the name Everett Whitney,, Attorney and Counselor at Law, on the door of 1922. There was a light inside. But Whitney would not talk. What use to see him?
Mary hesitated. Just then the elevator clanged. Some one was coming down the hall. Mary darted up the stairs to the next floor, paused, and watched over the rail.
Down the hall she caught sight of a slip of a girl hurrying nervously. Joan Perry! She knew her! She opened Whitney's door.
Mary tiptoed back, listened, strained her ears to catch something through the open transom. It was just a sentence.
"Did you get it yet?"
Mary could not catch the lawyer's answer.
That was strange—Joan Perry here. Now Mary recalled having seen her husband over in the station when she was searching for the crumpled note, and that he had avoided her. Harper Perry's number was on a card in Julia King's handbag, too.
Only a few years before, at school, Mary Mannix had known Joan Perry. Always a striking girl with charming manners, a bit impulsive and headstrong, Joan had ridden along on the crest of the wave of popularity, loved by everybody, spoiled by everybody. At home, at school, in society, she was the victim of her own beauty and charm. And as a young matron she expected persistent homage from a husband who had suffered the adoration received as the birthright of an only child.
Mary waited until she saw Joan slump out of Lawyer Whitney's office. All of Joan's natural gaiety and animation had disappeared. Her little shoulders slouched dejectedly. Under her eyes were deep circles. An excessive pallor on her cheeks betrayed Joan's first capitulation to worry. But nothing could dim the beauty of her appealing soft blue eyes or the brilliance of her sun-spun hair.
Mary started with astonishment when she saw Joan suddenly twist her body tempestuously and stop in the deserted corridor as if she might give way to good old-fashioned tears. Then Mary sauntered down the steps and the hall softly. She was almost up to Joan before the latter heard her and turned suddenly.
"Mary Mannix!" she exclaimed in a half whisper.
"Joan! What is it?"
Joan stiffened a bit.
"Nothing the matter—nothing. Nerves—too much gadding and dancing, I guess. More than I can stand."
"Yes, Joan. But one usually consults a doctor for nerves —not a lawyer!"
Only with a raise of her eyebrows did Joan answer.
"These nerves, Joan—could they have possibly been affected by Julia King's death?"
"Julia King—dead! What do you know about Julia King?" Joan was clutching Mary's arm now in a frenzy of horror and terror.
"Enough to know that you are deeply interested in her and that Mr. Whitney's name will be involved in the case."
"Heavens! What have I let him in for? Did you say she was—dead? How do you know ?"
"I happened to be in the Grand Central when it occurred. As a doctor I examined her. It has been found that Mr. Whitney received a sealed envelope from her, the last envelope, by the way, she will ever seal. Naturally, the police will be interested. If you are in it in any way, Joan, let me help you. Circumstantial evidence sometimes is most accusing. What you are holding back now, more unsympathetic people will find out later, and then the newspapers."
Joan shivered at the thought, covered her face hopelessly with her slender white hands.
"Woman's worst enemy, Joan, is herself. Let me help you. You have shown you know something about this Julia King. Tell me what it is—please. I know you too well to think you could possibly do anything criminal. But other folks don't."
Mary was using her keened weapon—fear of the press. Joan suddenly put her arm around Mary and cried:
"Julia King! How I hate her name! I was paying her blackmail, to keep out of scandal—scandal which was utterly false as far as anything wrong I ever did. Foolish—yes; but bad—no! Oh, what a mess I have made of things!"
"Come, Joan, we can't stay here. Someone will surely come." Down the dark end of the corridor Mary led her. "Tell me, so I can help you."
Joan was looking at Mary curiously. "What a vocation for a girl! Why are you playing detective, Mary?"
Mary's eyes glowed softly.
"You all said I was a rolling stone," she said with a smile. "But how else was a girl to get the edges rubbed off so she could fit in the world? Really, all the things I have done have been just so much training for this career of mine!"
AS they reached the end of the dark hall, past the cleaning woman in the offices, Joan said, nervously, on the point of tears:
"You know I was cabaret-mad—just like Harper and all the rest in our set. About a month ago he took me to task for it, raised the devil one night, told me I ought to settle down, give up all that kind of life—as he had since we were married. I resented it. He used stronger language than I had ever heard him use before. Oh, I was foolish. I told myself I would show him something. I was furious with anger."
Joan scowled down at the floor.
"Mary, why are we impelled to do these things against those we really care for? Is it because their criticism hurts most?" In spite of herself, Joan was dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief. "To myself I reasoned, The honeymoon is over. What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. I'm going out and do something devilish, just to show him. That's the way to hold a man... make him realize that other men want you... and he'll work harder to hold you. That's what all the newspaper writers say. I'm going to try it. I won't take orders from him.'"
Joan paused a moment, then continued her impulsive confession. "That night I went alone to the Mah Jongg Cabaret. Harper was supposed to be at his club. I met Bill Wright, an old admirer of mine, there. He is a wealthy builder, now, in the Middle West, from St. Louis. He was here on business, with his secretary, Donald Loney. Now that his business was finished up, he was all set for a good time.
"Julia King, one of the cabaret dancers, was with them. When I first joined the party it looked as if Julia were with Bill Wright. But Bill soon straightened that out by claiming me for all the dances. He said Loney was with Julia. For deviltry I stayed along with them, made it a regular party. We tired of the city cabaret. Then we were off in a big hired touring car—it was late—on a trip down to the roadhouses on the Long Island shore; Bill with me, Loney with Julia King.
"'Way on in the small hours of the morning, coming back—the railroad gates were down—the old car skidded and ran into a tree, smashed. We were all shaken up. I was out. But the thing that worried me most when I came to was how I was going to get out of it if the accident ever got into the papers.
"Then I found out why Bill Wright chummed along with Loney, his secretary. Loney had been his 'striker,' in the service, during the War. Loney wasn't hurt, just shaken up a bit. He started right in to cover things. And he could do it. It was all covered, successfully... I thought.
"But two weeks later, like a thunder-bolt, there came a demand from that girl for damages—and her slimy lawyer bounced up to bother me. They threatened to tell Harper the story, give him the names of roadhouses, waiters, and all that, the number of the car, call the chauffeur. And I had actually done no wrong—except my mere being there, in private dining-rooms. But who would believe me in these days?"
Helpless tears were gathering in Joan's eyes. "Mary, that girl knew my position in society. It was blackmail, hush money; she was shaking me down for ten thousand dollars! I knew I was in bad, too. I had been awfully extravagant the last few months and I didn't have ten thousand dollars left of my quarterly allowance. I didn't know what to do, which way to turn. I lay awake all one night trying to think up some way to silence them. It would never do to put this weapon into Harper's hands. I was worried. How was I to scrape up that money without taking someone else into my confidence?
"Bill and Loney had gone back to St. Louis the week before, the day Bill got out of the hospital. Finally, in desperation, I sent Bill Wright a night letter, asked him to lend the money to me. Instead, he telegraphed ten thousand to me, not exactly a loan, under the circumstances, I suppose, a gift"
"You foolish girl! Then what?"
"I went right to my lawyer, Mr. Whitney, told him the whole tiling, asked him to get in touch with the lawyer for Julia King, arrange things, the release, silence, payment of the money any way the girl demanded, anything."
"Didn't he advise you to fight it?"
"Oh, yes. But I was afraid. That was just what I didn't want to have happen!" Wearily Joan brushed her forehead—a little moth drawn pretty close to the flame.
"And this girl, this Julia King—is dead!" she exclaimed, as Mary's presence reminded her. "It will look worse than ever! It will all come out. No one will believe that Bill Wright would send me ten thousand dollars if there wasn't something to it. Mary—what shall I do?"
"Don't lose your head, Joan. Did Whitney get the papers?"
For a moment Joan hesitated again, raised appealing eyes to Mary helplessly. "Yes!" suddenly she exclaimed. "I must go in there and tell him. He doesn't know Julia King is dead. I hate to do it. He told me to fight it, just gave me a talking to, worse than any Harper ever gave me."
"May I go with you?"
"Oh, will you? I wish you would!"
A MOMENT later, in the inner office, Whitney was searching Mary's face shrewdly. He had betrayed no excitement over the murder of Julia King, except that possibly a slight flush had passed over his inscrutable face at the mention of his name being known to have been on the envelope he had called for at five-ten, as arranged by the other lawyer. To Mary there seemed to be a certain callousness in the way he received the news. This dapper little man was extremely self-possessed, calm, and circumspect.
"Who was the lawyer for this Julia King, may I ask?" inquired Mary.
"One of these uptown Broadway lawyers around Forty-Second Street—Herbert Speare, by name."
Toying with the telephone book, Mary found that Herbert Speare's number was the 3578 FitzRoy at the address 1400 Broadway she had learned from Information. Herbert Speare was the man Julia King was calling, had been directed to call, to notify that the papers were signed and the money delivered to her.
"What do you know of him?" she asked.
Whitney shook his head indulgently, a peculiar smile on his face. "I do not belong to what the afternoon picture papers call the Broadway and Forty-second Street Bar Association."
"Who was this chauffeur?" continued Mary.
"A chap named Berg—Emanuel Berg, I believe," he answered.
"Do you know him?"
"I have seen him. He delivered my papers, the affidavit, the release and the envelope, just as Speare had agreed would be acceptable after I submitted them to him for his approval, before I sent them over to the Message Exchange with the money."
"Who wrote this note?" Mary spread out the crumpled paper she had found on the Grand Central station floor.
"Speare stipulated that it be enclosed," was the suave answer. "Berg brought it back with the other papers."
"I see." Mary still did not seem satisfied. "Mr. Whitney, I don't ask for that affidavit or the release which Julia King signed. Just give me the envelope. Thank you!"
Mary folded the envelope, flap inside, and put it in her bag carefully.
Outside again, with a quick word of reassurance, Mary left the almost haggard Joan and walked quickly over to Broadway.
TALL, slender, furtive was Herbert Speare. Mary felt little respect for the type of attorney represented in the blackmail lawyer for Julia King. His upper lip was short and he was always smiling. But somehow one felt he was likely at any moment to pull that lip all the way back and show a snarling set of fangs.
Then the way he swallowed intrigued her. Every sentence seemed to create such a flood of saliva that he was constantly gulping. In spite of his poise, his clothes, his looks, his assurance, he was to Mary one of the most unprepossessing men she had ever met.
As Mary entered, she noticed on Speare's desk a bankbook of the Day and Night Bank. She seated herself calmly at Speare's invitation.
Before he could ask her her business, she told him:
"Julia King is dead. Did you know it?"
He seemed to take it calmly enough; too calmly, perhaps. His attitude was as if he said: "Well, what business will that bring?" Except for a watery gulp, there was not the least emotion. Finally he did speak.
"What is it to you?" His smile was almost wolfish. "Why come to me?"
"Oh, I merely closed her eyes, as a doctor," retorted Mary casually. "She had just asked for your number over the telephone a moment or two before she died, as requested in your note, to call. That is why I am here. Who is this Julia King?"
"Who is she? She was—according to what you say—was a client of mine." Mary had the impression of something equivocal in the answer, quibbling.
"I just happened to stumble into this case," she went on serenely, "and there are some things I would like to know before I make out a report of her death. That's all. What do you know of a man named Berg?" she added without waiting.
Speare shot a covert look of guarded surprise at her. "Taxi stand, up at a cabaret, the Mah Jongg, I understand. Keeps his cars at a garage on the next block."
"Also a client of yours?"
"Yes; in small matters. He consulted me when his father, a photo-engraver, set him up in the business."
"Do you trust him?"
"Trust him? Not for much. Oh, you don't mean for money? Well, he is my errand boy, often. I have always trusted him for that. He carries papers, serves subpoenas, sometimes, drives me when I want a taxi."
"Was he in this—er—Perry case, with Julia King?"
"Miss Mannix, that I couldn't say. How should I know? I was not the father-confessor of Julia King—or Mannie Berg, either." He paused a moment, seeming to resent the cross-questioning. "All I have to say is that Harper Perry is a lucky dog—that's all. I suppose you found out that Julia King was close to Harper Perry—you know so much? He had known her for years!"
Mary wondered why he shot that out. "Why, what had Harper Perry to do with it?" she asked naively.
He leaned over. "I'll tell you a bit of gossip. Do you know, little Miss Fixit, that Berg tells me Julia King had been seen with Harper Perry again? Maybe she was double-crossing Berg—if he was in it with her, as you suppose—playing with this woman's husband. Maybe this Broadway butterfly got in bad—eh? Julia seems to have shaken down his wife; maybe the husband was to be next. How about it? These pious bankers can pull some raw stuff these days and get away with murder."
Dragging in Harper Perry seemed a bit weak to Mary, at first. Still, she felt that she could use it, play one against the other. "Harper Perry intimate with Julia King," she repeated. "Then that explains something I saw."
"How?" queried Speare, with concealed eagerness.
"I saw Harper Perry in the Grand Central just now."
"You did?" He grasped at it quickly and shrewdly, as with an almost malicious delight "Perhaps he was in on it, then. I've known bankers who needed ten thousand dollars—to say nothing of keeping their names out of little demi-monde scandals!"
Speare seemed to sense that Mary was secretly weighing his innuendoes. He rose, significantly, straightening his desk.
OUTSIDE, and up on Longacre Square, Mary paused at a telephone pay station. She knew Harper Perry's club, and called it, on a chance, since it was dinner-time.
"Mary Mannix speaking, Harper Perry."
"Why, yes, Mary. What can I do for you?"
"Meet me at the Rita. I want to see you about something very important—for you. I shouldn't have bothered you at the club, otherwise. I'll wait for you there."
It was not long before Harper Perry appeared. He also was a tall, slender, rather distinguished young man. He seemed decidedly nervous and uneasy, but was too much of a gentleman to refuse Mary an interview.
"Shall we go over to a quiet corner?" Mary suggested, endeavoring to banish all trace of nervousness and formality.
Perry acquiesced, led the way, and they settled themselves, he with a curious look of inquiry on his face.
"Harper," she began, "I'm going to get right down to cases. It is getting late."
"Yes? About what?" He was making an effort to appear nonchalant, not to betray anxiety.
"About Julia King. You know she dropped dead in the Grand Central station. Did you know the police have her bag? In the bag was your telephone number. Rather unpleasant, I should say, for you."
He leaned back, stretched his legs for a minute, closed his eyes, then looked at her intently. "Why are you doing this, Mary?" he asked quickly.
"For Joan—and for you, too, Harper." Her voice lowered. "I saw you—and others must have seen you —down at the station, when Julia King was lying dead by the telephone booth. Your telephone number was in her bag, too. It is so easy to piece things together when the police must make someone the goat. The publicity of it all—it will hurt your pride—and your business, too. Customers like their bankers to be persons of moral integrity."
"Yes... Oh, I admit it. I was in the station, at the Lexington Avenue end, to meet Julia King, at quarter after five."
"Why?" persisted Mary.
"Oh, Mary, I say! There are some things a man can't tell!"
"There are some things, Harper Perry, a man had better tell for his own good. Perhaps you would rather tell it at headquarters."
Harper startled. "I'm rather ashamed, Mary, to tell why. Julia King had promised to prove to me something about Joan." He had the good grace to lower his eyes as he finished.
"So you would rather go to Julia King to find out than to question your spirited little wife?"
"Oh, hang it, Mary, Julia was nothing to me. Never had been—er—very much." He hesitated. "Always a little trouble-maker, as far back as I can remember, long before I was married to Joan. She was the horse leach's daughter—if you'll pardon me." He smiled nervously at Mary and seemed desirous to end the interview. It was too uncomfortably personal.
"Just how recently have you seen Julia ?" Mary eyed him closely.
"Now, Mary, I haven't seen her." His manner told her he was lying.
"Was it last night, Harper?"
"You are a persistent questioner. I suppose I might as well admit it. Yes! I saw her last night. She told me she would have something on Joan today." He spoke sullenly. A new thought seemed to strike him. "Say, Mary, that lawyer—did Whitney send you to quiz me?"
"Mr. Whitney does not know that I know you, or that I'm here. No one is in my confidence. There is another lawyer in this case who knows you and your habits quite well, though."
"Who?" quickly.
"Did you ever hear of Speare—Herbert Speare ?"
Harper leaned forward. "Do you know him, too? What did he tell you about me? It seems you are so darned well informed, there is no need for me to answer anything more." His lip trembled either with anger or nervousness.
"Harper, do you want a divorce from Joan?"
"No—no, of course not. I love Joan."
"Well, you shouldn't pose as such a model of virtue before Joan. When you chase about with little gold-diggers you can expect trouble yourself. You'll get it, too. Heaven only knows how much Julia King has in her apartment about you. You can rest assured any little photograph or letter won't be missed by the police or the reporters."
"Mary—I'll not stand for this. I don't intend to talk to you any more tonight." He stood up nervously to terminate the interview.
"Harper, I hear that Rockwell Gilt Edge Oil has gone down. You're pretty deep in that, are you not? Have you been hit?"
Perry was exasperated. "I refuse to answer!" His face was white with anger. What was this girl implying, anyway? What did not this uncanny person know?
Perry turned on his heel, stalked away, with scarcely a curt nod, still muttering nervously to himself.
HERE was a new tangle to Mary. Harper Perry had known Julia King in his cabaret life. Had Harper Perry figured in this thing, too? Was he ineptly trying to cover himself?
Mary thought. Julia might even have taken him up to the office of Whitney, his wife's lawyer, and showed him the signed paper, if she could get the lawyer to do it. At least she could show him the ten thousand dollars hush money. Or this Speare might have corroborated it. Was there any truth in the nasty innuendoes of Speare?
Mary stopped at one of the private laboratories, left the lipstick and her smutted handkerchief; also the envelope addressed to Everett Whitney. After that she called up an investigator she knew, setting him to work on another question that was in her mind.
Then she decided to wait until the morning, still revolving every aspect of their tangled motives in the case. If this blackmail on Joan worked, why not, indeed, try it on the husband, too? Was that the scheme? These young people were fools with lots of money. Or had that lawyer, Speare, sought to remove the blackmailer, and at the same time get her ten thousand dollars?
IN the morning, with a quiet smile, Mary read the report of her laboratory on the analysis of the lipstick and of the smudges on her handkerchief. There was a separate report on the envelope that bore the name of Everett Whitney.
She had scarcely finished when Joan Perry called up. "And, oh, Mary," she cried breathlessly over the telephone, "they tell me my husband was seen in the Grand Central last night at five-fifteen, as if waiting for someone! What of that? He said he had given up the cabaret life. But he hadn't! He was waiting for her—that woman!"
"Who told you?"
"That lawyer called up again!"
"I see!... Get Mr. Whitney. Then ask Perry to meet you at those telephone booths to the station—at eleven. Be there with Mr. Whitney."
Mary called the young doctor at the emergency hospital in the station. The findings of the autopsy were ready.
"Please meet me at that booth, Doctor, at eleven, with a copy of the report."
"Glad to be there, Miss Mannix."
Mary hurried down to Speare's office. Evidently Speare had been turning the matter over in his legal mind overnight.
"You know," he remarked casually, "the person who reached in and took the ten thousand dollars from that girl did not necessarily murder her."
"N-no." Mary paused a moment. "No. And the person who called for the envelope she sealed and left at the Message Exchange did not necessarily kill her, either!"
Speare gulped.
"If you don't object, get a car, and have Berg drive us over to the Grand Central right away."
"But why should I go over there?" returned Speare coldly.
"You must go. She was your client, was she not? The doctor will be there with a report. I think it would look odd if I gave it out to the papers that you refused to go with me—under the circumstances!" Ungraciously, he agreed.
AT the Grand Central Mary nodded to Berg to park his car and carry a grip she had with her. Down the steps she ran into Joan and Whitney. It was only a moment for the man at the Message Exchange to identify the dapper Whitney as the man who had called for the envelope.
A round at the booths, the telephone operator seemed to half start from her seat as she saw Harper Perry greet them. She seemed about to speak when she caught sight of the slender and tall figure of Speare, and hesitated.
Across from them came the young doctor.
"You have the findings in the autopsy?" inquired Mary,
"Yes, Miss Mannix, symptoms were of cyanide poisoning—the paralysis of the breathing, everything. On her lips there were traces of cyanide; deadly. Just as you suspected. What of the lipstick. Miss Mannix?"
"Just an ordinary lipstick. Nothing. Not a trace of poison there."
Quietly Mary produced her own laboratory reports. "The flap of that envelope addressed to Everett Whitney had been painted over with cyanide. Nothing new in that. But—"
Mary paused.
"Someone," she went on slowly, "conceived the scheme, put it over, using the King girl, decided on the way it was to be done—all done in less than ten minutes, in the Grand Central, in the suburban home rush. That person painted over the gum of the addressed, unsealed flap of the envelope with the poison—to get Julia King. That person double-crossed Julia King, to get the whole ten thousand dollars, and get her out of the way, If she were dead, he would have the whole ten thousand, no split...."
Mary swung the door to booth seven open. She flashed a little pocket flashlight into the darkness. There was the scrawl on the wall still. She reached into her own handbag. Slowly she drew out the lipstick, crumpled a bit, worn down on one side.
"What's your first name, Berg?"
She had turned suddenly on the lanky driver still holding her little grip.
"Emanuel."
"Do they ever call you Mannie?"
"Y-yes."
Again Mary flashed her light into the booth. "If you'll study these marks you can just make out the letters—MAN."
Berg snarled a reply. But the doctor had stepped beside him. There were too many people about to make a break for it, too.
"You were the messenger between the lawyers when they were arranging the release, were you not? There was an addressed envelope to Mr. Whitney among the papers. You had access to that, too."
The driver lapsed into a sullen silenced
"An investigator tells me, Berg, that he has your pedigree given to a taxi bonding company, that you have a forfeited bond. Your father, in the photo-engraving business, was on your bond. The photo-engraving business uses cyanide. I think we'll have no trouble showing possession; nor opportunity, nor motive, either."
Mary now took a step closer to Berg.
"Julia King's throat, her breathing were paralyzed. She had just strength enough to make the dying accusation against you, Mannie. Analysis shows that the particles of pigment that make these letters here were from this, and only this, unusual brand of lipstick, which I picked up with her bag on the floor of the booth!"
Berg, versed in criminal ways, had shut up.
"Sure! I didn't get him—in cap!" The little telephone girl jumped up from her desk, snatched the cap off Berg. She looked about, lifted a soft hat from Perry's head, clapped it on the chauffeur. "Sure! That's the guy opened the door!"
Mary, next to Perry, hatless, had taken his arm. She was edging over toward Joan.
"And, by the way, Harper," she whispered, "people who live in black pots shouldn't throw stones at black kettles!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.