ALM06 Who Killed the Husband? (26 page)

"Sure," they both answered. Fred added with a reminiscent grin, "Denman is quite a fellow, quite a fellow!"

"How do you mean?" said Lee.

"He's a sport," said Fred. "I been out with him. When he's dressed you would never take him for a servant; he looks like a college boy and spends money like his old man was worth a million. He has class!"

"He was only second man at the Gartreys' until Hawkins left," said Lee. "A second man doesn't draw much."

"I don't know," said Fred. "Those rich folks will pay big for a good-looking fellow with a figure like Jack Denman. Some guys has all the luck! Jack always has money to spend."

"He was out of the house at the time Mr. Gartrey was shot," said Lee. "Do you remember him going out that day?"

"Sure, I remember him going out, because I thought afterwards it was lucky for him he was out. I remember bringing him down in the car shortly after three o'clock. He didn't go right out, but hung around fifteen, twenty minutes gassing with Bill and me." Fred turned to his mate. "Remember, Bill? He had a little bottle of prime whisky and gave us a drink. Gee! I can taste it yet! We all went back in the locker room and finished the bottle. It was only a little bottle."

Lee kept a wooden face. "Is there any way by which you can get from the service stairway to the front stairway?" he asked.

"No, sir. Except through the basement here, or over the roof."

Lee stroked his chin. Over the roof, he thought; sixteen flights of stairs, a stiff climb! But if a man was nerved by a deadly purpose, that wouldn't stop him.

"I get you!" said Fred excitedly. "You think maybe Al went up the service stairs to the roof, then down the front stairs to Mr. Deane's apartment! That's a new theory!"

"Something like that," said Lee, "but keep it to yourselves...Will you take me up and let me see the roof?"

"Certainly, Mr. Mappin."

The elevator stopped at the sixteenth floor and Lee went up the last flight of stairs on foot. Fred accompanied him, full of curiosity. This house had been built before the setback style of architecture came into vogue and it had no terraces or penthouses. The roof presented nothing of interest; a huge water tank and the entrances to the two stairways, that was all. Fred explained that the roof was available to all the tenants in fine weather, but nobody used it except the servants, for the tenants were the sort of people who forsake New York as soon as the weather becomes pleasant. Lee crossed the roof to glance down the other stairway. Like the service stairway, it was of stone and steel construction, contained within a fireproof shaft.

"Are the doors to the roof ever locked?" he asked. "No, sir; there's no need of it because you can't get on this roof from any other roof."

Lee looked all around in order to make sure of missing nothing. The apartment house across the side street was of newer construction and a little higher; it had a penthouse. On the terrace in the sun sat an old lady in a wheel chair, all bundled up against the cold. She was gazing at Lee with the liveliest curiosity and impatiently clapping her hands. The hand clapping brought a nurse or companion out of the house behind her. The old lady issued an order, apparently, and the nurse went back. Lee, his own curiosity aroused, waited to see what would happen. The nurse returned with a pair of binoculars which the old lady put to her eyes. Lee smiled. What a stroke of luck if...He waved to the old lady in good will, and she waved back. He said to Fred:

"It was two weeks ago today when Mr. Gartrey was shot. Do you remember if it was a fine day?"

"Yes, sir. We was having a long spell of pleasant weather then. I remember it by the funeral."

"Good!" said Lee.

They returned to the elevator.

Lee entered the fine apartment house across the street and presented his card to the functionary in charge of the hall. Lee had been written up so much of late, it was not necessary to explain himself. The functionary was greatly impressed.

"Yes, sir, Mr. Mappin, sir, this is an honor. Who would you be wishing to see, Mr. Mappin?"

"What is the name of the old lady, an invalid, who occupies the penthouse?"

"Mrs. Bradford, sir."

"I want to send up a note to her."

There was a desk in an alcove off the hall, and Lee wrote: "Would Mrs. Bradford be good enough to see Mr. Amos Lee Mappin for a few moments? They just exchanged greetings from roof to roof." He enclosed this in an envelope with his card and sent it upstairs.

The answer was not long in coming down: "Mrs. Bradford would be pleased to see Mr. Mappin."

Lee was left waiting for some minutes in the pleasant living room of the penthouse. The sun streamed in through a row of tall French windows giving on the terrace. When the old lady was wheeled in by her attendant, he saw the reason for the delay; she had undergone a complete change of costume in preparation for her visitor. She now wore a pretty silk dress with a lace shawl over her shoulders and a silken coverlet over her knees. She had a coquettish black bow in her white hair and a touch of rouge in her withered cheeks; her eyes were bright with anticipation. She carried a tortoise-shell fan--not that she needed a fan, but merely as a becoming stage property. She extended her hand with an air--undoubtedly she had been a great belle in her youth.

"How do you do, Mr. Mappin. It is an event for me to have a visitor--and especially such a distinguished visitor."

"The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Bradford," Lee said with his best bow.

When the wheel chair was placed to her satisfaction, she dismissed her attendant. She signed to Lee to seat himself close to her.

"It was very naughty of you, sir, to wave to me from the roof across the way!" She tapped his wrist with the closed fan and sadly shook her head. "Ah, and it was much naughtier of me to wave back again! It brought back old times for a moment. Do you remember that story of de Maupassant's in which the little Comtesse nodded to a strange gentleman from her window and he came right upstairs? A dreadful story, and so true to life! But you waved first! However, when one is as old as I, there is, unfortunately, no danger!"

Lee said: "
L'esprit
 never grows old, Mrs. Bradford."

She shook her fan at him. "You have a beguiling tongue, Mr. Mappin!...Seriously, the old have a thin time of it. People forget that they exist. I am crippled with arthritis, as you see. They carry me from my bed to my chair and from my chair back to my bed again. Is that living? Sunshine is supposed to be beneficial to me. I could go to Florida, but I will not live among other invalids. They have warped minds. So my son took this penthouse with a southern exposure and every fine day they wheel me out on the terrace, and there I sit, doing nothing, seeing nothing. I am too high up to see into the street. Before the weather grew cold, it used to amuse me to watch the servants spooning on the roof opposite, but nobody comes up there any more. So you can imagine how interested I was when you appeared on the roof a while ago. I must apologize for the rude way I stared at you."

"I was flattered by your interest," said Lee, "and here I am, you see!"

She tapped his wrist with the fan. Lee let her run on, perfectly willing to play the game of 1890 philandering with her because he could see that she was no fool. She knew that he had an object in coming, and in the end she asked him plainly what it was.

"It was the binoculars that gave me the idea," said Lee. "You are perhaps in a position to do me a very great service--and a service to others besides me."

"Tell me what it is, Mr. Mappin! I am consumed with curiosity!"

"This is Monday," said Lee. "I am thinking of another Monday two weeks ago. The sun was shining as it is today, but it was later than now, say shortly after three o'clock. Can you remember that afternoon?"

Mrs. Bradford spread out her hands. "All my days are so exactly alike! If there was something to fix that day in my mind...!"

"Another man on the roof across the way."

"Why yes, of course!" she cried. "That was the last person who appeared on the roof until I saw you today. He came out of one door, crossed the roof and went through the other door."

"Can you be sure it was Monday?"

"Let me see," she said; "even so small a thing makes a big difference in my afternoon...Yes, that was the afternoon I broke a cup. My nurse brings me tea at four and I remember I was telling her about the man I saw when the cup slipped off the saucer and broke. Monday two weeks ago."

"Did you get a good look at the man?"

"I did. Through the binoculars."

"Would you recognize him if you saw him again?"

"I certainly would."

"Mrs. Bradford," said Lee, "is your condition such that you could appear in court to identify the man?"

The old lady clapped her hands on the arms of her chair and partly raised herself. Her eyes widened like a child's. "Go to court!" she cried, "Me? How wonderful! What a break in my dull life! I would like to see anybody stop me from going to court if I was wanted!"

"I would, of course, see that you were taken and brought home in comfort," said Lee.

"I'll go if they have to carry me on a stretcher, Mr. Mappin!"

After he had left Mrs. Bradford, Lee spent an hour darting from place to place in taxicabs. First to the Fulton National Bank to have Agnes Gartrey's check certified in case that unstable lady changed her mind; then to his own bank to deposit the check; to Police Headquarters to hand his own check to Inspector Loasby and to give him the great news. To Loasby he said:

"You and I will go up to Greenwich tomorrow morning and fetch him down together--if a word of this gets out in advance, it will spoil everything."

"It will not get out through me!" said Loasby.

Lee then drove up to his own office. Fanny had come in, having satisfactorily performed her errand, and the two girls were having a belated lunch. Lee dictated a letter.

Dear Johnny:

Everything is shaping up well. A ten-thousand-dollar reward has been offered for your capture. This naturally will excite the Rennerts. They are poor people and it is not fair to put so heavy a strain on their loyalty. Tell Matt Rennert and his wife immediately (if you can get word to them before they read the papers, so much the better) that you have decided to give yourself up and that they may have the credit for it. Tell them that if they should try to take you in themselves, some smart guy would be sure to horn in on the reward. Inspector Loasby and I are coming up to fetch you at eleven o'clock tomorrow and they can then hand you over and take a receipt for you.

Tell Charlotte that I have built up a pretty good case and there is no cause to worry.

Yours,

Pop.

Meanwhile, Lee had ordered a car with the driver he had used on the previous day. To the driver he said:

"This letter must be dropped in the Greenwich post-office before the mail goes out at four. You have a good hour and a half. Should you be delayed and miss the mail, carry the letter direct to Mount Pisgah and give it to somebody at the cottage inside the gate."

Soon after the man had departed, the extras were out on the streets, announcing the reward for information leading to the capture of Al Yohe. It occurred to Lee that this would afford him an excuse to call again at the Gartrey apartment. Stuffing one of the papers in his pocket, he drove uptown.

Denman showed a little surprise upon seeing him so soon again. He showed Lee into the salon and went away to consult his mistress. Almost immediately he was back, saying:

"Mrs. Gartrey will see you, sir. Please follow me." This did not suit Lee's plans at all. "You needn't trouble to show me, Denman," he said offhandedly. "I know the way."

"Very well, sir. Mrs. Gartrey is in the boudoir." Denman turned back toward the pantry while Lee started through the music room, keeping the tail of an eye on the servant. He lingered for a moment, affecting to examine a picture. The moment the service door swung to behind Denman, Lee ran across the foyer as fast as his short legs would carry him and pushed the door open again. He had pad and pencil ready. He was in time to hear Denman start dialing. Concentrating all his attention on the job, Lee made lines on his pad to suit...seven lines.

Denman got his connection at once. There was no greeting; the servant merely said: "Mappin is back again." Lee, waiting to hear no more, slipped back into the foyer. Here he came face to face with Agnes Gartrey, who had come looking for him. Her eyebrows went up to their highest. Lee, having got what he wanted, was not in the least abashed.

"Denman," he said mysteriously; "I have noticed that whenever I come here he always telephones the news to somebody. I was trying to find out who it was."

"And did you?" asked Agnes.

"No. No name was mentioned over the phone." Agnes was disposed to be angry. "I've had enough of this. I will question Denman."

Lee did not greatly care--now--whether she did or not; however, he said: "It would oblige me if you said nothing to him. Leave Denman to me and I'll catch him out yet."

"Do you suspect who it was?" she demanded.

Lee lied in his blandest fashion. "I have no idea."

Agnes, suspicious, angry, puzzled, scarcely knew how to take Lee. She said in an uncertain voice: "Will you come into the boudoir?"