Chapter 6

During the rest of Sunday the relations between Jermyn and his master were a little strained. Lee did not go out and wore his dressing gown all day. It was his custom to sup alone in his apartment on Sunday evenings. Lee was a sociable soul but, as he said, in order to fully appreciate good society, it is necessary for a man to spend certain hours in solitude. Late in the afternoon Jermyn came to him.

"Mr. Mappin, I dislike to ask an extra favor of you, you are always so considerate, but I have had a telephone message from my friend Abbott in Brooklyn--he's the one who came to this country with me--saying that he was ill and out of a place and asking me to come over and see him."

Lee was relieved at the thought of being spared the sight of Jermyn's long face for an hour or two. "Go by all means," he said.

"I'll serve your supper first, sir. Unless you would prefer to eat at the Club."

"I'll eat at home," said Lee. "Not in the humor for company."

"Very good, sir."

When Lee sat down to his supper he said: "You needn't wait, Jermyn. Get yourself a bite to eat and be off with you."

"Very well, sir, I will; and thank you, sir. Just leave everything until I get home, Mr. Mappin."

"On your way out," said Lee, "instruct the men in the hall downstairs that if anybody comes to see me while you're gone, the name is to be telephoned up to me."

"Very well, sir."

When he had finished eating, Lee returned to the fire, prepared to spend a comfortable evening with a book and a pipe. Lee had a secret fondness for the briar, but as he fancied it went very ill with his tubby little figure, he smoked it only when alone. "I am no Sherlock Holmes, alas!" he would say. He was reading The Case of Madeleine Smith in connection with his work. The pipe drew well, the case was well presented, but the feeling of comfort would not come. The sad, pale, tear-stained face of Mrs. Yohe rose between his eyes and the printed page. Half a dozen times he jumped up swearing, took a turn up and down the room, and sat down again with a determined effort to concentrate on the book.

The doorbell rang; the button was pushed three times, long, short, long. This was a private signal known only to Jermyn, to Fanny and Judy and one or two of Lee's closest friends. He heard it with pleasure and jumped up; anything would be preferable to his own nagging thoughts. Trundling down the hall without a thought of danger, he opened the door.

It was not a friend. Lee saw a tallish, well-made young man, very well dressed, smiling like a book agent. He had glasses on and wore a neat, black beard like a young doctor trying to make himself look more impressive, or a Bohemian from south of Fourteenth Street. His bared teeth gleamed with extraordinary whiteness against the black beard. He had blue eyes.

"Mr. Mappin," he began ingratiatingly.

Lee, angered by his effrontery, began to say: "I'm sorry, sir, I cannot..."

The elevator had gone down again and the little hall was empty. The young man suddenly lunged with his shoulder against the door, thrusting it open and sending Lee staggering back. He coolly entered, closing the door behind him, keeping his extraordinarily bright eyes fixed on Lee's face and smiling in that maddening fashion. In addition to the Yale lock, there was an ordinary lock in the door and the key was sticking in it. He turned the key and, pulling it out, dropped it in his pocket. He kept saying:

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Mappin! Honestly I hate to do this!"

He seemed to be struggling to keep from laughing outright, and that made Lee feel wild with anger. Suddenly he thought of the house phone on the wall. The young man thought of it at the same instant and reached it first. He already had a pair of cutters in his hand and he snipped the wires leading to the instrument.

"I'm so sorry!" he said, biting his lip.

A cold fear struck through Lee; the fellow was so much bigger than he, and twenty years younger. He was undoubtedly armed. Lee's gun was in the drawer of the chiffonier in his dressing room at the other end of the apartment.

"I must ask you to enter the pantry ahead of me," the young man said.

Lee was forced to obey. There was a miniature telephone switchboard in the pantry. Here incoming calls were received and could be plugged to the several extensions in different rooms. The young man snipped the main wires leading to the board.

"When I go out," he said deprecatingly, "I'll phone for a trouble shooter so service can be restored tonight."

Lee felt absolutely helpless. The building was of steel and concrete construction and it would do him no good to shout for help or pound on the floor. "What do you want of me?" he demanded. "I keep no money about me."

"I don't want your money," answered the young man, smiling afresh. "Lead the way to your dressing room, please."

They proceeded through the gallery. Lee's feeling that he had been betrayed by one whom he trusted was bitterer than fear. "How did you get up here?" he asked.

The young man read his mind. "Jermyn didn't sell you out," he said. "I decoyed him over to Brooklyn with a fake telephone call. I guessed that the boys downstairs would be instructed not to let anybody up without telephoning, so I didn't ask for you; I just walked into the elevator as if I belonged in the house. `Top floor,' I said, and the operator was bluffed."

They entered Lee's little dressing room and the young man went direct to the chiffonier and pulled out the drawer where Lee's gun lay. Certainly if Jermyn had not betrayed his master, somebody had. Lee thought of the girls and his breast was curdled with bitterness. However, the first shock had passed and his wits were working again. The drawer was filled with socks and handkerchiefs and the young man had to dig for the gun. Lee was standing behind him at the moment and the dressing table was behind Lee. A crazy plan began to work in his brain. He felt behind him for a nail file and a tiny sewing case that lay on the table. He found the objects, and transferred them to the pocket of his dressing gown.

The young man dropped the gun in his pocket and turned around. "Shall we go into the living room and sit down comfortably?" he suggested. He had the pleasantest voice in the world, damn him! thought Lee.

Lee with an effort changed his face. "Well, I suppose I might as well make the best of it," he said.

"Sure!" cried the other. "I'm really not a bad sort of fellow. I mean you no harm. I want you to be my friend."

Lee had guessed who it was. Searching for a way of distracting the fellow's attention from himself, he said: "Will you have something to eat? My supper is still on the table."

"Thanks, I don't mind if I do," was the instant reply. "I've been so busy this afternoon I couldn't stop for supper."

"Preparing for this visit?" suggested Lee.

"Yes, sir. It took some close planning."

They proceeded to the dining room and sat down. There was plenty of food left on the table; a cold pâté, a salad, a Camembert cheese spreading on its plate. The young man's blue eyes glistened at the sight. Pulling the dishes toward him, he set to with a hearty appetite.

"You and I have similar tastes," he said.

Lee was listening intently. Faint sounds reached his ears which suggested that Tod Larkey on the floor below was having a party. One of Lee's living-room windows was open and there must have been an open window somewhere in the Larkey apartment also. It was the party which had given Lee his idea. He had only a nodding acquaintance with Larkey, but it would serve.

While the young man ate he kept a bright eye on Lee, but he could not look at him steadily because of having to attend to his food. Lee was trying to think of a way to escape from his eye for half a minute at a time. Half a minute would be enough.

Lee rose. "I'll fetch you a bottle of cold beer from the refrigerator."

"Sit down, Mr. Mappin!" said the young man quickly. "I can't risk having you pop out through the service entrance, you know. You sit here and I'll fetch the beer. Will you join me in a bottle?"

"Don't mind if I do," said Lee.

The young man went through the swing door into the pantry. Lee had gained his half minute. Whipping out his notebook, he wrote on a page: "Help! Lee Mappin," tore the page out and returned book and page to his pocket. The young man came in with the beer.

As he sat down again he said: "I reckon you have guessed who I am."

"I have guessed it," said Lee dryly.

The young man said with his gleaming smile: "The beard is false, the hair dyed and the spectacles unnecsary." As he spoke he transferred the glasses to his pocket. Lee recognized him as the host of the Sourabaya night club.

An appealing quality came into his smile. "I took an awful risk in coming here against your will, but I was desperate. Only you can save me and my little family."

Lee hardened his heart against him. "You took no risk at all," he said coolly. "Your errand was doomed to failure before you started."

"Don't say that, Mr. Mappin."

"Did you think you could win me over at the point of a gun? I may look like a timid little fellow, but after all!..."

Al Yohe's face fell. "I haven't pointed a gun," he said. "As a matter of fact, I didn't bring one."

"You've got mine!"

Al pulled himself together. "Well, anyhow, as long as I'm here, you might as well hear my story."

"I can't avoid hearing it," said Lee.

While they talked, his hand was busy in his pocket. The sewing case was a little roll of leather which contained two spools of thread, a few needles and pins, a thimble. Old-fashioned people call it a bachelor's companion. Unrolling it, Lee worked one of the spools out and measured off thread as well as he could in his pocket. He glanced at the height of the ceiling; say nine feet; he would need ten feet of thread.

Al said glumly: "This is not going to be easy if you have resolved to set your face against me...However, I must do the best I can." He spread Camembert on a cracker and put it in his mouth. "My interview with Mrs. Gartrey last Monday was a stormy one. She didn't mention that, I suppose."

"Were you in love with her?" asked Lee.

"No, that was the trouble."

"She was in love with you?"

"Yes, God forgive me, and how! I couldn't string her along any further. She insisted on what she called a showdown. There was..."

"Wait a minute," interrupted Lee. "This doesn't exactly recommend you to me. Under the circumstances, why did you continue going to her house?"

"Mr. Mappin, I'm not going to try to make myself out any better than I am. You may call me a buccaneer or worse, if you like, but I'm no murderer." He broke off to say with a boyish smile: "Lord! I wish I could call you Pop like the girls at the office. It suits you so well!" He paused, studying Lee's face, then said with a sigh: "But I guess I better not try it!"

Lee said to himself: He's just turning on his "charm."

Al resumed: "When I came to New York and was introduced to cafe society, those people, rich as Croesus, unstable as monkeys, empty as blown eggs, I made up my mind to prey on them in a perfectly legitimate way. They craved amusement, being too stupid to amuse themselves, and I was clever enough to furnish it. They were ripe for the picking! I amused them and I flattered them. My God! do you blame me? The merest fraction of Jules Gartrey's income would keep my family in luxury for years!

"As to the reputation J have acquired as a great lover, I didn't foresee that. I swear to you, Mr. Map-pin, that I never made love to their women, you can believe me or not. If you were to ask an honest woman, a woman, say, like Delphine Harley, she would bear me out. As a matter of fact, those empty-headed bits of artifice didn't appeal to me. I like a more natural article. But 'making love' is the principal occupation of these monkeys, and out of sheer perversity, just because I didn't make love to them, the women began throwing themselves at my head. It became the fashion to fall for Al Yohe. My God, could I help it?"

Lee was sufficiently well acquainted with the gilded crust of society to recognize the truth in what Al said. But it didn't make him feel any kinder toward Al. He said: "Perhaps not. But you haven't answered my question. Why did you continue stringing Agnes Gar-trey along when you saw how things were going?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Mappin. I thought the answer to that was obvious. The Gartreys are topnotchers in that set. He was one of the richest men in New York and she is called the most beautiful woman. They were necessary to me. You may think I have an easy job. Well, so has the man who dances on a slack wire. But he can't relax. I was all puffed up by publicity, but a prick would have deflated me. I had to have eyes all round my head to watch for danger. After all, I was nobody; I had to hang on to those who had something. That's why the Gartreys were essential to me. Particularly the old man. It may surprise you to learn that that hard-boiled old geezer was susceptible to flattery. Well, he was, and I knew how to feed it to him. It was he who put up the money to decorate La Sourabaya in its present sumptuous style. A cool two hundred thousand. And, by the way, I wish somebody would give me a reason why I should have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs."

"All right," said Lee dryly, "my question is answered. Let's get back to Monday afternoon."

Al Yohe rose from the table. "Thanks for a swell meal," he said. "I feel like a new man. Shall we go into the living room?"

They passed through glass doors into the larger room. Al looked around him appreciatively. "Gosh! what a swell place! It looks like the home of a gentleman and a scholar!"

Lee pushed the embers of the fire together and put on fresh wood. Al accepted a cigar and, lighting it, drew in the smoke gratefully. "This must be a private importation," he said. "Such cigars are not for sale." He dropped on a settee at right angles to the fire, stretching his long legs before him.

Lee looked down at him grimly. Handsome, well made, gay and clever, Lee could not help but be attracted. A young man nowadays finds the world a pretty rotten sort of place, he thought; can you blame him for turning buccaneer? He shook this feeling off. Are you going to let him charm you, too? he asked himself.

Lee by this time had broken off ten feet of thread in his pocket, as nearly as he could judge it. He needed another minute alone in order to tie thread to nail file. He went to his little wall cupboard. "Have a liqueur?" he said. "I have brandy, Cointreau, and some of the veritable Chartreuse. For myself I prefer Scotch and soda."

"Me, too," said Al.

"You'll have to fetch ice cubes from the refrigerator, then."

"Sure!" Al hastened out.

Left alone, Lee measured his piece of thread against his arm. The length was about right. He tied the end to the nail file, and pinned the file through the note he had written. Hearing Al coming back, he thrust it all in his pocket.

The drinks were mixed and they sat down facing each other on the two sofas. "Go on with your story," said Lee.

"Agnes Gartrey was bent on having what she called a showdown," said Al contemptuously. "I expect you know what that means; crying, beating herself, pulling her hair out straight. Lord! if I could have photographed her then! Most men are scared out of their wits by that kind of show, but not me! It turns me hard."

"Did she want you to marry her?" asked Lee.

"No indeed, she had no intention of separating herself from Moneybags."

"Go on."

"I was afraid somebody would hear her. I knew Gartrey would be home sometime or other, though I didn't expect him so soon. I didn't want him to smell a rat. He has a mortgage on the Sourabaya. So I suggested to Agnes that we go somewhere where we could talk privately."

"Where could you go where you wouldn't be recognized?"

"To my place. It was all I could think of. She rose to that; thought she'd have me dead to rights in my place, but I didn't have any intention of taking her there. So she went into the next room, her dressing room, to get ready."

"Was the maid in there?" asked Lee.

"Yes."

"Then she must have heard all that was said."

"Sure. Probably had her ear glued to the crack of the door. However, I don't suppose that Eliza has many illusions about her mistress left. Women like Agnes feel pretty safe with their maids, because, you see, if a maid ever blew the gaff on her mistress and it became known, no other woman would hire her."

"I am learning," said Lee. "Go on."

"When Agnes went into the dressing room, she left the door partly open and we continued talking back and forth, though of course she wasn't cursing me like she did before. Then after a bit somebody pulled the door shut and I could hear no more from in there."

"You couldn't hear the two women talking?"

"Not a sound."

Lee got up. "Don't you find it a little chilly here?" he casually suggested.

"Suits me all right," said Al.

Lee went to the open window. That end of the big room was in darkness. Leaning out of the window, he satisfied himself that it was not the window immediately underneath which was open. So much the better. It gave him a larger area of glass to tap on. Keeping hold of the end of the thread, he dropped the nail file over the sill and had the satisfaction of hearing it knock against the glass below. He pulled down the sash, pinning the end of the thread under it.

"Lovely night," he said, returning to the fire, "but turning colder...Go on with your story."

"I was sitting in the boudoir, twiddling my thumbs while Agnes changed into street clothes in her dressing-room. Quite a while passed. I thought nothing of that, because getting dressed to a woman like Agnes is the most important thing in life." Al paused, staring straight ahead of him. "God! how vividly that moment comes back! Me sitting there in the pink boudoir surrounded by Agnes' gimcracks--she collects antique porcelain figures just because they're expensive...and the shot out in the foyer!"

He was silent so long that Lee was forced to prompt him. "Go on!"

Al passed a hand over his face. "It gave me a horrible shock! I guess things have always come to me too easy. First time I ever had to face anything serious...I thought Agnes had turned a gun against herself. I had never for a moment taken her seriously, but you can't tell about a woman. What a spot for me to be in! Made me feel sick. My one idea was to get out of the place, but I couldn't get out without passing through the foyer. I ran out there..."

"Which way?" put in Lee.

"By the corridor. Agnes was lying against the door into the foyer. But when I turned her over I saw she had no wound. She had fainted. I stepped over her and went into the foyer. I saw Gartrey lying on the parquet floor with a bullet hole in his head. I knew he was dead. I saw the gun and I thought he had shot himself. That made me feel a little better because it wasn't my fault if his wife...Well, anyhow, my one idea was to beat it away from there. Can you blame me? I got my hat and coat out of the hall closet and started for the service entrance. Unluckily I met the butler on the way out and that put the kibosh on my chances of clearing myself. Naturally I looked wild."

"When you ran into the foyer did you see anybody?" asked Lee.

"Nobody but the dead man."

"It's your idea, I take it, that Gartrey was shot by his wife?"

"I'm not saying so," said Al. "I want you to figure it out for yourself."

"What motive had she for killing her husband?"

Al shrugged. "How can a man tell what goes through a crazy woman's mind? A spoiled beauty like Agnes believes that nothing can touch her. She would figure that with her money and her position she could get away with it. Perhaps she thought that after she had inherited Gartrey's millions I would be crazy enough to marry her. But I don't think that. If she had all that money, why should she marry again? I believe she planned to plant the crime on me, thinking she could get me off later and that she would then have me under her thumb for keeps. Or perhaps in her rage she was deliberately trying to send me to the chair. That would explain the gun."

"How did your gun get there?" asked Lee mildly. Al shrugged. "All I know is, it was stolen from me."

"When?"

"I can't tell you that. I didn't miss it until after this happened. It's a couple of months since I have seen it."

"Where did you keep it?"

"In a chest of drawers in my bedroom."

"Did Mrs. Gartrey know it was there?"

"She did."

"Has she ever been in your apartment?"

"Sure!"

"In the bedroom?"

"Yes." Al smiled suddenly. "But not with me! She went in to powder her nose."

"Has Robert Hawkins, her ex-butler, been to your place?" asked Lee.

Al looked at him quickly. "Why do you ask that?...Oh, I see, you are canvassing all the possibilities. Yes, Hawkins has been there on two occasions. The old boy had an interest in photography, and I told him to come around and get a few pointers on developing. The last time was about ten days ago. I left him in the kitchen, washing prints while I went into the dark room I have improvised. He could have gone into the bedroom without my knowing it."

"And the maid, Eliza Young?"

"She has been to my place three or four times with notes from Agnes. Agnes considered telephoning unsafe because the calls at her home went through a switchboard in the pantry. Eliza might have been in my bedroom--she's a sly one !--because sometimes I was busy with my work in the kitchen when she came and had to let her wait in the living room for a while."

"Have other people visited your rooms?"

"Oh, many others. It was a kind of hangout; there was always something to drink there. They made themselves free of the place; they would roam around. I was often busy in the dark room or kitchen...I'll make a list of everybody I can remember and send it to you."

"Thanks," said Lee dryly. "I have not yet promised to give my time to this matter."

Al smiled in his most ingratiating manner. "What have you got against me, Mr. Mappin?"

"Let's not go into that. Answer one question. If it is true you thought Gartrey had killed himself, it is not unnatural you should have thought only of getting out of the place; but next day, when you read the newspapers and learned that he had not killed himself, that, in fact, you were accused of the crime, why didn't you give yourself up? That's the natural impulse of an innocent man."

"Try to put yourself in my place, sir," Al said cajolingly. "Hawkins' story was enough to send me straight to the chair! And such an honest-looking old bozo; anybody would believe him. I could see that I was already convicted in the minds of the public. What kind of a defense had I? I could only clear myself by accusing Agnes. What would everybody have said then? Believing that we were lovers, they would say that I had allowed the woman to do the killing so we could come together, and was now accusing her to save my own skin. By God! I couldn't bear that. I would sooner..."

At this moment the bell of Lee's apartment sounded. Al jumped up all alert. "You'll have to go to the door," he said. "They know you're home."

Lee's first thought was regret that he had hung out his tick-tack so soon. He wanted to ask Al more questions. Somebody began to pound on his door and voices called for him. Al was already halfway through the dining room; Lee followed him. Through the pantry door he went; and into the kitchen. He opened the service door. With his hand on the door, smiling still, he said:

"Good-by, Pop. You're a good fellow! Sorry I couldn't win you over!"

The door slammed, and Lee stood staring at it blankly. A renewed uproar at the other door recalled him to himself. Running to it, he shouted to those on the other side. "This door is locked and the key is gone! Alastair Yohe is on his way down the service stairs!"

"Who?" they shouted.

"Alastair Yohe!"

"My God!"

"Ring for the elevator and cut him off at the bottom! Some of you run down the stairs in case the elevator is slow in coming."

"Use the house phone!" a voice shouted.

"I can't! The wires are cut."

He heard the door to the stair well being pulled open and running feet on the steps. He doubted, however, if any of Tod Larkey's guests were nimble enough to beat Al Yohe to the bottom. All would depend on how quickly the elevator came up. Lee returned to his living room and mixed himself a stiff drink.

In ten minutes or so they were back at Lee's door. They had the superintendent of the building with them, who brought a duplicate key. Half a dozen men pushed in through the door. Tod Larkey's party, it appeared, was a stag affair. His guests were flushed and a little unsteady on their pins.

"He got away!" they all cried at once.

In spite of the self-discipline he had exerted, Lee's first feeling was one of gladness. He took care to hide it. One man cried:

"I saw him! I ran around the corner to the service entrance and he was getting in a car. The engine was running. The rear light was out and I couldn't read the license number."

All together they demanded to know what had happened.

Lee was in no humor to take this noisy bunch into his confidence. "I'm sorry," he said, "I can't tell you the story until I have reported it to the police. You'll learn it soon enough. Mr. Larkey, if you'll allow me, I'd like to call up Inspector Loasby on your phone. My wire is out."

They trooped down the single flight of stairs to the Larkey apartment. Larkey and his guests had their ears pricked to hear Lee's report over the phone, but upon getting Loasby at his home, Lee merely said:

"Inspector, can you come down to my place right away? It's important."

"Well," said Loasby reluctantly, "I have guests. Can't you tell me what it is over the phone?"

"No," said Lee.

Loasby knew, of course, that Lee was neither a trifler nor a scaremonger, and he wasted no more words. "Okay," he said, "I'll be there in ten minutes."

Declining all offers of a drink, Lee, after thanking his "rescuers," went back upstairs.