Arrow Pointing Nowhere (12 page)

“I hope he comes and cheers you up at Fenbrook—Craddock does.”

“He did at first; the Dobsons are so fond of Alden, and they used to keep him amused while Bill and I took walks. But he's too busy now, and we haven't the use of the cars, so Alden can't come.” Her sad look changed, disappeared. “Of course his job comes first.”

Mrs. Dobson brought in apple pie. When it was consumed they rose, and Gamadge admired the stately room. “They couldn't keep even their dishes in anything small or mean, could they?” He ran his finger over the carving that framed a panel of one of the corner cupboards.

Hilda said laughing that one was a china closet and one wasn't. ‘‘But it all does look settled, doesn't it? Everything's so big!”

She led the way into the drawing room, and then, looking back at them, asked if they would like to see the library.

“Very much indeed.”

“But I'm afraid it will be dreadfully cold. We keep that side closed up unless I'm working; then I have a gas stove.”

“It may be cold for you.” Gamadge looked at the thin cotton of the lavender dress. “Put on my coat.”

Gamadge picked it up as they crossed the hall and hung it on her shoulders. She slipped her arms into it. “I'd like to keep it!”

Harold pushed back folding doors, and she switched on a light. It was a sombre old library, with latticed bookcases, framed engravings, ponderous mahogany, and furnishings of green rep. Gamadge said: “You can't have sent much down to New York; these shelves are pretty well tenanted still.”

“I've shoved books along. The gaps don't show. The hard work is clearing out those cupboards underneath; the old papers and things were so dusty.” She turned to a table heaped with papers and files. “I've been through every single one of them, because Mr. Fenway says a picture's gone out of a book. Did Mr. Mott tell you about it?”

“No. What?”

“Oh dear, the loveliest old book of views; at least I suppose it was lovely, Mr. Fenway says so. I remember what the set looked like—green-velvet bindings. A picture was missing when the books got to New York—torn out. A picture of old Fenbrook, the house they had at Peekskill. It can't be replaced. I was so sorry about it.”

“Mightn't it have been torn out after the books got to New York?” Gamadge, smoking, leaned against the edge of the table; Harold was looking through a folder of old photographs.

“Oh, no!” She looked startled at the suggestion. “Mr. Fenway found that it was gone the day after the books came. And nobody would tear it out in New York!”

Gamadge smiled. “It's so much easier, isn't it, to suspect the featureless dead?”

“I didn't mean that. I only meant that we know it couldn't have been torn out at Number 24.”

Gamadge stopped smiling as he looked at her drooping head. “Mr. Fenway doesn't blame you, I hope?”

“No, but I can't help wondering whether he thinks I handled it carelessly or something.”

Harold made one of his isolated remarks: “You'd know if you yanked a picture out of a book.”

“Yes, but I can't help worrying about it.”

“Have you looked about the house?” asked Gamadge.

“Everywhere, all through the closets and the trunks and boxes in the attic. There are one or two locked closets, but they're just dress cupboards, I've seen them often when they were open; I think they're only locked because they come ajar. The family really did move out this autumn, you know, and packed things away: They never did before, Miss Fenway says. Have you met her?”

“No, never.”

“She's so clever.”

“When was this lost picture seen by anybody—do you know?”

“Twenty years ago, I think.”

“Don't lose sleep over something that may have been lost before you were born,” growled Harold.

“I'm afraid I never do lose sleep.”

“Certainly must be quiet here at night.”

“Oh, it is.”

“Kind of lonesome?”

“No, I love it.”

“Just you and the Dobsons,” said Gamadge. “Are they near you at night?”

“Quite near; I have a southwest room on the next floor, and they're on the top floor in front.”

“Quite near, as you say; too near for you to have any qualms at night?”

“I've never been frightened here but once, and that was only a week ago Thursday, such a cold, stormy night. It was silly of me, because imagine a burglar coming on a night like that!”

“Imagine.” Gamadge smoked quietly, watching her.

“It wasn't a rat; Mr. Dobson says we have no rats. He thinks it was a squirrel; he says they sound just like people walking.”

“What did this squirrel do?”

“I thought I heard somebody on the back stairs—they run past my room. And I thought I heard a bumping.”

“Late at night?”

“Oh, yes. We were all sound asleep, it was after three o'clock. I thought that I'd first heard the noise in the attic. It's at the head of the back stairs. I wondered whether I ought to call Mr. Dobson, but the noises stopped, and it was so dreadfully cold, and I hated waking him. I did get up and look out into the hall,
but everything was quiet, I was glad next morning that I didn't wake poor Mr. Dobson; the windows were all locked fast.”

“It would have been rather a good night for a burglar, in one way, wouldn't it? His footsteps would have been covered by the snow.
”

“I think he would have been covered by the snow!”

“And he didn't come for the picture in the book of views, because it had reached New York by that time—hadn't it?”

“That very afternoon, and I never thought of it!”

“Why should you think of it?”

“Well.” She looked puzzled. “It is a kind of a coincidence, in a way, isn't it? Two queer things happening.”

“A picture goes, a squirrel comes?”

She laughed. “It's only because nothing queer has ever happened before at Fenbrook.”

Harold asked: “Who's this of?” and held up a big studio photograph, much faded.

“That's Mrs. Fenway when she was young. Wasn't she lovely? But Aunt Alice says you can't tell
how
lovely, from a photograph. She had such wonderful color, and such blue eyes, and such glorious hair.”

Gamadge looked at the picture of the tall girl in evening dress. “Beautiful woman,” he said.

“She still is, I think. Mr. Hendrix, isn't it awful to think what can happen to people in only twenty-five years? She had everything; and now here she is, with no husband, and so badly hurt, and poor Alden to worry about, and only Aunt Alice to look after her.”

“I suppose she could have had any number of people?”

“She wanted Aunt Alice because they're such old friends. She depends on her more and more. Even when the masseuse comes, she wants Aunt Alice there. Aunt Alice never leaves her at all, now.”

“Doesn't come up to see you?”

“Oh, no. She can't. Only when they all come.”

“Is this Mrs. Fenway's husband?” asked Harold, taking another photograph from the same folder.

“Yes, that's Mr. Cort Fenway. Wasn't he sweet?”

Gamadge agreed that there was sweetness in the long, smiling face.

“And that's Miss Fenway,” said. Hilda. “I think she's wonderful-looking, don't you?”

“A little disdainful?”

“People must irritate her because they're so dull. She's much kinder than she looks in that photograph, and so amusing. I wish I could talk to her.”

Harold asked gloomily: “Is there some law?”

“I don't know enough,” said Hilda, smiling at him. “I don't know anything.”

A muffled hooting interrupted the conversation. Hilda gave Gamadge his coat, and he and Harold got hastily into their things. Gamadge said: “I won't try to thank you, Miss Grove, for your truly Christian hospitality.”

“It's Mr. Fenway's.” She smiled up at him. “I was only doing what he would have done; but I liked doing it! I've had such a nice time. I wish you could both come again.”

As the taxi trundled out of the Fenway drive, Harold began to mutter. His mutterings at last became words:

“The picture gets torn out of the book the day the book gets to the Fenway house in New York. That night it's brought up and stowed in the Fenbrook garret. She's looked in the garret for it, but she didn't look where it was. Wonder what would have happened if she'd met Craddock coming down the back stairs. It was Craddock; Mrs. Grove couldn't make that hill from Rockliffe Station on a stormy night.”

“She's fond of Craddock.”

“Because she's known him all her life. What does she know about him really? He's knocked around, may have been up to anything. He'd be able to get a key to the house; probably lots of them down at Number 24.”

Gamadge was frowning in the dark. He said: “Don't you go bumping in the attic; not until I tell you to. And don't take a room at this inn that has no telephone in it. I may call you tonight, you know; I certainly will if I get results at that house, and in any case I'll ring you tomorrow. The deuce of it is that tomorrow's Monday, and I have to be in that office at nine. I have a lot of appointments. Don't know when I'll be able to take the books up to Fenway.”

“That girl's kept up at Fenbrook to be out of the way of the blackmailers, it's a cinch she is. I don't know why the family stands for it—she's as lonely as the devil, whatever she says, and wasting her time.”

“I'm afraid Miss Fenway doesn't want her at Number 24.”

“How about Mr. Blake Fenway, so darned philanthropic as he is?”

“I'm afraid Mr. Blake Fenway thinks she's much happier at Fenbrook than she'd be at a business school or in an office.”

“What was that stuff about a drawing of a head that looked like an old master?”

“Oh. Three heads—
Love Between Cruelty and Anger
.”

Harold said after a pause: “Don't let anything happen to her, client or no client.”

“My client doesn't want anything to happen.” He turned his head and gave Harold a sardonic glance. “You don't mind staying up at the Oaktree now, do you?”

“At least she knows I'm there.”

T
HE DIM AND STUFFY LOCAL
crawled to a stop at sixteen minutes to nine. Gamadge hurried up the ramp and across the concourse to the nearest telephone. He called the Fenway number.

Mott Fenway answered. “Who is it? Who is it?” He sounded eager.

Gamadge replied in a kind of gobbling voice that astonished himself: “This is Charles Hendrix speaking, from the Vernon Club. Is this Mr. Mott Fenway?”

“Yes. Is this really Hendrix?”

“Himself.”

“You sound as if you had a bad cold, Hendrix.” The old gentleman chuckled.

“Touch of laryngitis. That bridge game, Fenway; could you join us tomorrow instead of Tuesday?”

“Tomorrow will suit me, old man.”

“Er—as soon after nine as I can get there.”

“You always were a punctual fellow.”

The chuckling laugh was in Gamadge's ears as he rang off. He redeemed his books from the checking office, and went for a cab.

He stopped the cab at his own street, parked his books in a friendly drugstore, and continued the journey uptown. He descended a block below the Fenways'. As he paid the driver, that individual remarked that there seemed to be some kind of trouble on the next corner.

“Trouble?” Gamadge looked up.

“People stopping there—at that big house.”

Gamadge crossed the street and reached the small crowd almost at a run. An officer was on the nearer flight of the front steps, another beyond them; the radio car stood at the curb. The house door was open; it sent a stream of yellow light on staring faces. Blake Fenway and Craddock stood just outside the vestibule; Craddock's hand steadied the other, who half leaned against the side of the entrance doorway.