The House without the Door (10 page)

"I could make a story up, you know." Locke smiled.

"You could; but sometimes there's no better evidence than false testimony."

"I don't agree with you there; and you'll have to give me time to concoct something, true or false."

"There is no time."

Locke, startled, glanced quickly at him. He asked: "Are you trying to make my flesh creep? You sound very sure of yourself…"

"Glad to give the impression."

"Tell you what; I'll go over to the flat tomorrow and confer with Aunt V. and Minnie Stoner."

"You can't."

"Why not?" His face was again lowering.

"Mrs. Stoner is driving up to Pine Lots, and Mrs. Gregson is about to disappear. Tonight, if she has any sense at all, she will be incommunicado."

Locke, regarding Gamadge with a strange smile, said that caution did seem to be indicated.

"I've recommended another precaution; Mrs. Gregson is thinking of changing her will."

"Change her—" Locke drew his feet under him.

"Leave her money to cats, or some other deserving charity; temporarily, she hopes."

Locke sprang up. This time his face was so convulsed with fury, and his attitude so threatening, that Gamadge rose too; but a possible crisis was averted by a knock at the door. Locke paid no attention to the timid rap; he was still glaring at Gamadge when it was repeated. He said, without turning his head: "Come in, come in; what are you waiting for?"

A tall, thin girl entered, and hesitated meekly on the threshold. She had a plain face, ardent dark eyes, and a mass of curly brown hair. She wore a pullover sweater of once violent but now faded pink, and pink cotton shorts; the laundress had creased these sharply at the sides, so that they stood out like an inverted Japanese fan. Her long, bare legs ended in socks and tennis shoes.

She said in a tinny voice: "I'm sorry."

"All right, Mr. Gamadge is going." He added, with a grin: "I think he has some questions to ask you, though."

She turned large, timid eyes on Gamadge. "Ask me?"

"You are Miss Arline Prady?" Gamadge spoke gently, but she did not do more than glance at him; her eyes, eager and worshipful, were again on Locke. She said: "Yes. Are we going over those steps, Benny?"

"When Mr. Gamadge gets through with us." Locke went with long, noiseless strides to the radiogram, and turned a switch; the room was instantly filled with an odd, halting tune.

Gamadge said, laughing, "I won't interrupt the lesson."

She looked wonderingly at him. "Did you want to ask me something?"

"No; as Mr. Locke said, it would be a waste of time."

He went without more ado out of the room, and down the crimson stairs.

W
HEN GAMADGE REACHED HOME
he found his wife and Mr. Robert Schenck playing chess. Clara was gazing at the board and biting a finger; Mr. Schenck's rather foxy face had a thin smile on it as he watched her.

"Go ahead and take it," he said.

"You have to give me fifteen minutes; I'm entitled to fifteen minutes," mumbled Clara. Mr. Schenck was not the kind of person she had been brought up with, but she did not seem to be aware of the fact; she liked him very much.

"Whatever man he's offering you," said Gamadge from the doorway, "take any piece on the board but that one."

Schenck rose. "You better look out," he said, "leaving Mrs. Gamadge home for young fellers like Harold and me to entertain."

"Harold's working on the dressing-bag," said Clara.

"You seem very cosy here." Gamadge went over to a coffee-table, on which had been set out whisky glasses, a siphon, and a container of ice. He poured himself a drink. "Schenck, has Clara asked you to look up a Mr. Paul Belden for us? I don't know what firm of architects he's with."

"Jones, Hammond, and Green. Do I go this blind, or do I get to know why you're interested in him?"

"He's engaged to a young woman I'm interested in—a Miss Cecilia Warren, secretary-companion to a Mrs. Smiles."

"Smiles?"

"She lives up on the corner of Park; here's the address."

Schenck went into the hall and consulted the telephone book. He emitted a low whistle. "Mrs. Joseph Smiles," he said, coming back into the room. "Joe Smiles—remember who he was before he died and probably didn't go to Heaven?"

"Smiling Joe Smiles—of course I do."

"Senator Smiles, and his widow must be richer than mud. If she could stand being married to that old robber she must be fairly tough."

"Oh, I hope not; I'm going to try to pay her a call this evening—it's only a little after nine."

"Rushing things, ain't you?" Schenck looked at him curiously.

"I have no time at all." Gamadge swallowed the last of his whisky.

"Well, tomorrow I'll try to find somebody that knows one of Belden's partners; that's the best I can do."

"I want to know what Belden's like."

"You'll get me kicked out of my job yet. I'll have to think up some story."

"Wouldn't impose on you, but the matter's urgent."

"Really urgent?"

"Er—probably life and death."

Schenck whistled again. Gamadge went on: "While I'm calling on Mrs. Smiles, Clara will give you an outline of the case. Did Harold transcribe my notes, Clara?"

"Yes, he did." Clara, poring over the board, had not heard the conversation. She now exclaimed: "I see it!"

"Then take back that knight's move," said Schenck, "and we'll go on from there."

Gamadge went into the hall, looked into the open telephone book, and dialled. The chess players frankly listened.

"This Mrs. Smiles' apartment? Henry Gamadge speaking. I should like to speak to Miss Cecilia Warren; tell her, if you please, that I'm acting for Mrs. James Greer."

He blinked at his wife and Schenck, and said: "Manservant. English." Presently he spoke into the mouthpiece again:

"Oh, Mrs. Smiles? I'm very sorry indeed to disturb you, but I—of course. Naturally you wish to protect Miss Warren from annoyance; I dare say she's had a great deal…No, I'm not a newspaper man. I really am doing some business for Mrs. Greer; you could call her up…Oh, thanks very much. I'll be with you in half an hour."

He came away from the telephone smoothing the back of his head and screwing up his eyes. "Nice old thing she seems to be, but officious. Wants to have a finger in whatever's going on. Sounds as if she were fat. She evidently knows who Mrs. Greer is, all right. I have a feeling that if I'm to get the best results I'd better change into evening clothes. Hope they'll give me confidence. Well, I'm off. You may never see me again—I have a notion that if I upset Miss Warren, Mrs. Smiles may kill me."

'Are you going to upset her?" asked Clara.

"I upset Mr. Benton Locke. He finished by springing to his feet, clenching his fists, and making the kind of face you see on a totem pole. That's more or less the kind of face he has anyway. He's a trifle primitive."

"Excuse me." Schenck raised a hand, and Gamadge paused in the doorway. "Who
is
Mrs. Greer, if I may ask?"

"Mrs. Greer is Mrs. Curtis Gregson." Gamadge fled before Schenck's clamour, and hurried to his room. There he changed into dinner clothes, and took from its box a new bowler hat of rakish and knowing cut which Harold had pronounced too young for him. He put it on, looked with satisfiction in the mirror, and went downstairs. As he quietly passed the library door, he was amused to see that Schenck sat absorbed while Clara recounted to him the story of Mrs. Gregson.

Gamadge's walk was somewhat ungainly, but it got him from one place to another with considerable speed. He covered the few blocks to Mrs. Smiles' apartment in a few minutes; and then, standing with his hands in his overcoat pockets and his bowler tilted to the back of his head, surveyed the front of an ornate and elderly building—elderly, at least, for New York. Columned portals framed the entrance on the side street, and a stone balcony, jutting out above it, lent a massive dignity to the façade.

He found, when he went into the high and gloomy hall, that tenants coped with their own visitors; there was no switchboard. No doubt tenants owned their flats. An elevator, run in a leisurely fashion by an ancient operator, took him to the fifth floor.

The manservant who had answered Mrs. Smiles' telephone ushered him into a lobby, took his coat and hat from him, and announced him at the door of a huge, two-storied living-room. But huge as it was, Mrs. Smiles was not lost in it; no space could have absorbed her. She was a vast, short woman, with little eyes in an immense face, and a small, humorous mouth. She sat in a Jacobean arm-chair, her antiquated black silks and laces flowing about her, and held out a short, bare, shapeless arm on which a gold bracelet two inches wide looked like a handcuff.

Gamadge hastened across twenty feet of rug to shake hands.

"Sit down, Mr. Gamadge. Cecilia will be with us in a minute—she is dressing to go out." Mrs. Smiles had a wheezing treble voice, which sounded emotional.

She loves all creation, thought Gamadge. He sat down in another Jacobean chair, and found a tray at his elbow laden with repoussé silver and cut glass.

"Old-fashioned, sir, or highball?" asked the manservant. Gamadge agreed to a highball, and it was mixed for him; after which the butler or major-domo glided from the room.

"I wouldn't have you think," said Mrs. Smiles, "that I wish to intrude upon my dear Cecilia's private affairs; but I try to stand between her and the world. You know her history?"

"I only know what the public knows, Mrs. Smiles."

Mrs. Smiles' great face sagged into lines of pity. "Such a beautiful girl, and so unfortunate. Do you know how I met her, Mr. Gamadge? Did Mrs. Gregson tell you about it?"

"Not a word."

"I read about her in the papers during the trial, and I saw her pictures. They said she was an orphan, with no money, and no relative but Mrs. Gregson. I wondered what would happen to her if the trial went wrong. Some friends of my husband's have a little influence, and they got me into the courthouse on the days when she gave her evidence and was cross-examined."

"They must have had plenty of influence, Mrs. Smiles."

"My husband was very good to his friends, and some of them think for some reason that they ought to be grateful to
me
. You have no idea what that trial was like, Mr. Gamadge, or what the town was like. I can't describe it."

"I've read descriptions."

"Nothing could do it justice; it was frightful. I thought I should be crushed to death, but I didn't care. I was not actuated by curiosity, Mr. Gamadge; my great interest is humanity."

"Could there be a more commendable one?"

"When I am privileged to give in charity, I go personally to look into the cases. I go to prisons and hospitals. It was in the same spirit that I went to that trial. That lovely girl, Mr. Gamadge, and what character she has! That lawyer—Mrs. Gregson's lawyer; I suppose he thought he was doing his duty by his client, but his methods were outrageous. He didn't frighten Cecilia; she sat there like a statue.

"I got in touch with the prosecuting attorney, who had been a young friend of my husband's. He managed an introduction for me, and Cecilia and I took to each other on the instant. It's all a pattern, Mr. Gamadge; Cecilia and I were part of the design, and we were woven together from that moment."

Gamadge's face assumed the polite but slightly dazed expression that it always took on when symbolism became too much for him.

"Cecilia says she won't marry until people have forgotten," continued Mrs. Smiles. "But will they ever forget? And meanwhile Paul Belden is waiting for her. I really don't know how I shall get on without her when she does marry, but if I could make it possible I should do so tomorrow. Smoke, please."

The highball, his second within the hour, was beginning to permeate Gamadge's system with a warm glow. It had been even stronger than the first. The room was hot, and Mrs. Smiles' monotonous treble had a somnolent effect on him. She began not to seem quite real; a gigantic good fairy, capable at any moment of disappearing into a cloud. He lighted a cigarette. "Kind of you," he said. He meant her request that he should smoke, but she understood him otherwise.

"Not at all. Mr. Belden has had reverses, and is not at all well off, but he is charming, and Cecilia has loved him almost from their childhood. Unfortunately, I can do very little for anyone. My husband left money, Mr. Gamadge, as you may know; but I only have my portion of his estate during my lifetime. I save as much as I can," she told him with some pathos, "but there are many calls upon me. When I die the principal will go to the Senator's children by his first wife, and to the college he founded."

Gamadge mistily thought of Smiles College, the strings attached to its endowment, and the dreadful efforts of faculty and trustees to sever them. He murmured something.

"But while I live," said Mrs. Smiles, "Cecilia will have a home."

Gamadge wondered whether he might not be able to amass considerable information about Mr. Paul Belden there and then; information which Schenck would never learn from Belden's partners. Mrs. Smiles was very loquacious, and her gossip highly personal. But at this moment a young woman came through the room from the lobby, and advanced straight upon them. She passed him, to bend over his hostess. He got to his feet, feeling invisible.

"How is the ache in your shoulder, dear Mrs. Smiles?" she asked.

"Much better." Mrs. Smiles patted her hand. "Here is Mr. Gamadge, Celia, and I only hope his business is as agreeable as he is."

Miss Warren acknowledged Gamadge's bow with a nod.

"I only hope your poor cousin is in no trouble." Mrs. Smiles put her hands on the arms of her chair, and began to rock herself backwards and forwards; no doubt as a preliminary to getting upon her feet. She said: "I'll leave you."

Miss Warren gently restrained her. "Don't think of it." Her voice was low and clear, and Gamadge was sure that it had been carefully cultivated since its owner left Omega, N.Y.

"But his business with you seems to be private."