The Wrong Way Down (17 page)

“And here we go again,” said Limpeck, settling himself beside Gamadge. He concentrated on the cab ahead, which soon turned Eastward and continued in that direction until it reached Park Avenue. It then turned North again.

Limpeck allowed himself a cigarette. “Smileys home?” he asked.

“Yes. They say they never heard of Ashbury, Bowles or Mrs. Spiker. They're quite tough. Smiley waited to put on his gun before he came out to speak to me—he had it on his hip, I think. I shouldn't like to shoot it out with Smiley. I left.”

Limpeck laughed tolerantly. “Too bad I couldn't leave Ashbury.”

“Well, I didn't want to shoot it out. I found what I went for.”

“You did?”

“Of course. Ashbury went there to find where Bowles is; they know Bowles, and I shouldn't be surprised if he spent last night there after he finally quit work. I think his suitcase is there, and Mrs. Spiker's may be there too.”

“Say, listen,” said Mr. Limpeck, “we ought to—”

“The suitcases are gone by now, Limpeck, and we have to stick to Ashbury.”

“I can drive the bus. You get off and telephone them to send down and grab hold of those Smileys.”

“Our assignment is Ashbury. You said yourself that it needs two for this kind of job.”

“If Bowles is there that's more important…” Limpeck had his hand on the door.

“Bowles isn't there. Would they have opened up if Bowles had been there? They let me in as soon as I rang.”

“Big Shot, I don't think you're handling this right.”

“Don't get sidetracked, Limpeck. We've still got Ashbury, he doesn't know it, and where's he off to now?”

Mr. Limpeck took his hand off the door and sank back. He was dimly conscious of a change in the relationship between himself and his helper. The helper was the one who seemed to know exactly what he wanted, and to be doing it.

O.K. with me, thought Limpeck.

The end of the chase came in a quiet, expensive street between Park and Lexington in the Fifties, where big houses still stood behind handsome grilles, although there had been an incursion of small apartments and shops, a bar and a restaurant. Ashbury got out in front of a brick-and-marble mansion on the north side of the street. Gamadge stopped the car on the south side, farther down. Limpeck was out of the car and across the asphalt before Ashbury had paid off his cab.

Ashbury went up the low flight of marble steps, Limpeck loitered by. Ashbury rang and was admitted by a colored man in a white coat.

Limpeck came back to the car: “Asked for Mrs. Oldgate.” He was staring. “Has he stopped trying? Just paying a call on a millionaire?”

Gamadge had descended and was looking at the house; then he glanced at the small walk-up beside it, where a little old man was sweeping out the vestibule. He said: “I've got to get in there, Limpeck.”

“In where? Where Ashbury went?”

“Yes. I might get some information first from that superintendent next door.”

“What if Ashbury comes out again?”

“You take the car and go after him.”

“Listen, you said—”

“This is no sidetrack, Limpeck; the Smileys may have sent Ashbury here. I've got to get in. I haven't much time left for Ashbury anyway, I promised Nordhall to go up to the Park Avenue house at three o'clock, look after Miss Paxton's things and get the key from the cleaning woman.”

“You mean you want me to take your bus for the rest of the assignment?”

“Certainly. When you get through with it, get somebody to leave it up at my place.”

“If he don't go home after he comes out of here, I'll have him pulled in. If he ever does come out of there,” added Limpeck gloomily. “You can't tell on these streets with these big houses—there might be a back way.”

“All I want is to get in.” Gamadge went across the street and wandered back past the little old man, who was nonchalantly sweeping dust into the corner of the sunken vestibule.

T
HE SUPERINTENDENT
of the walk-up, a dreamy little Irishman without many teeth, leaned on his broom when Gamadge spoke to him, and put a forefinger politely to his front hair.

Gamadge said: “I used to know this street pretty well once, when all the houses were private houses. Changes, here.”

“And many everywhere. It was the zoning us for business did for us, sir; that meant the speak-easies came in. But we've quieted down since the liquor came back.”

Gamadge leaned against the railing that enclosed a row of privet bushes. “Across the street,” he said, watching while Limpeck drove to the Lexington Avenue corner and poised the car for flight: “that was Miss Fenson's house—the actress.”

“Beautiful inside. And the two ladies next door to her, they put on those balconies. I took care of all the furnaces in those days.”

“I don't suppose anybody knows the street better than you do.”

“Not so well as I did. I only take care of this house now. And since the war, sir, you wouldn't believe what's happened to the little place. People doubling in the flats that used to be considered a tight fit for one.”

Gamadge turned to look at the big brick house next door. “Do the same people live there still?”

“No sir, that old couple has gone. Brother and sister, if you remember, sir, nice old lady and gentleman. When she died he moved to the country, that was in the middle of the depression days, and a terrible time the agents had with the house afterwards, they couldn't rent or sell.”

“Regular white elephant?”

“It was, sir, and at last they rented to a dressmaker. The other householders on the block, they were tired of seeing the doorway littered and the signs up, and they resigned themselves. Madame had a big opening with mannequins, and some of the householders went, and came away quite pleased.” A half-smile appeared on the superintendent's wrinkled face. “But a year after, the patrol wagon came one morning and took the ladies all away.”

“No!”

“And only the postman wasn't astonished. But the postmen know more than the rest of us.”

“The house seems to have recovered.”

“We don't know much about it.”

“Don't you? What does the postman say?”

“He knows no more than the rest of us this time. They've been there these ten years, and the name's Oldgate; it seems like an old-fashioned kind of boarding-place.”

“I hope the boarders won't go off some morning in the patrol wagon.”

“I don't think so this time, sir; elderly people, some of them men.”

“I might try there for a friend of mine.”

“Well, sir, you might; but it's hard to get into any kind of a place just now.”

“What's the proprietor like?”

“I've never laid eyes on the person, sir. But I'm seldom out on the street meself.”

Ashbury came out of the house in question. Gamadge turned his back to light a cigarette. He offered one to the old Irishman, and gave him a light; then he went up the two steps to the pavement, watched Ashbury walking towards Lexington, and mounted the marble flight next door. He rang a bell sunk in a bronze rosette.

The colored houseman came promptly; a tall, efficient little mulatto with good manners. He said he would speak to Mrs. Oldgate, but he didn't think they had a vacancy.

Gamadge produced his card, and was ushered into the depths of a shadowy hall. The houseman disappeared through a curtain near the foot of a broad, winding stair.

The hall or lobby widened at the far end, and became a circular reception room with a high white fireplace. The dark-blue carpet, though a little worn, was still soft to the feet, and the furniture was heavy, solid, and designed to match the Empire style of the ceiling and walls. There must have been much gold on the white woodwork in the days of the old couple, but it had been painted over now; otherwise there could not have been much change. This background had certainly never been specially chosen for a type of person likely to be rapt away in a streamlined Black Maria.

An elderly woman in black was descending the stairs on noiseless feet. As she advanced Gamadge saw that she was wearing a shiny dark wig, and that she peered at him as if she could not see very well. Her black dress was long for the fashion, and over her stooped shoulders she wore a knitted cape of black wool.

She looked up at him from the card in her hand. “Mr. Gamadge?” Her curiously toneless voice was low.

“Yes. Mrs. Oldgate?”

She stood in front of him, quietly observing him, with now and then a lizardlike movement of her head from side to side. Gamadge was unable to place her in any category of human beings known to him.

“Raymond said you were inquiring about accommodations for a friend.”

The words were few, but Gamadge was now able to place Mrs. Oldgate geographically; place her, at least, south of the Mason and Dixon line. He said: “Yes, an old friend—an elderly man friend,” and began to rack his brains.

“I am always very careful,” said Mrs. Oldgate, “about references.”

Gamadge had dredged up something, after desperate mental effort, that he hoped would do. “I heard of you,” he said, “from Miss Botetourt.” He gave it what he remembered as the regional pronunciation. “Old Miss Botetourt.”

Mrs. Oldgate accepted old Miss Botetourt calmly, but her head swayed in negation: “I don't call her to mind. I suppose some friend mentioned me to her.” The low voice died. She opened the black velvet bag that was hooked to her belt by a silver clasp, and extracted a box. From the box she took a lozenge, put it in her mouth, chewed it thoughtfully, swallowed it, and spoke more clearly: “I have a very choice clientele, very quiet people. They are particular.”

Gamadge felt as though he were cradled in a vast calm, out of space and time, where hours were as days. He said: “That would suit my old friend Winterberry.”

Mrs. Oldgate raised heavy-lidded eyes. “He could be quiet here.”

“That's what he wants. A charming old gentleman,” said Gamadge, who had begun to visualize Winterberry as an expensively dressed solitary with a hoary moustache—perhaps even a beard—who wore a fur-lined coat and carried a thick silver-headed cane.

By some telepathic method he had got Winterberry across. “Raymond is very good at valeting,” said Mrs. Oldgate, “but of course he has not much extra time.”

“Winterberry would bring his own man, of course. He's quite well except for a touch of rheumatism; the trouble is that he's been disappointed in his reservations for Biloxi.”

Gamadge didn't know much about Biloxi, but he didn't want Mrs. Oldgate to think that Winterberry was a mere spending type who wintered at Florida resorts from pure lack of imagination.

Biloxi passed. “If it were for a short stay,” said Mrs. Oldgate, “there might be a chance. We could make your friend comfortable. The table is very good, and the guests can be served with their own sherry and so on at table. There are pleasant evenings here, cards and music, but the guests can keep entirely to themselves if they prefer it. No criticism, no talk. Absolute privacy.”

“It sounds pretty wonderful, Mrs. Oldgate.”

“There's just a chance; one of the ladies is waiting for
her
reservations.”

“Could I possibly see the room? You know how it is—I'd like to describe it to Winterberry. He's adaptable, but old people want to know what they're in for.”

“I'm sure Mrs. Beaupré wouldn't mind; she loves company.”

They went slowly up the winding stairs, Gamadge reflecting confusedly on the various and violently contrasted types of humanity that had climbed them in the past…On the first landing a little white dog rushed to meet them, yapping.

Mrs. Oldgate glanced over her shoulder at Gamadge. She said: “We allow animals.”

“Good. Winterberry can't be separated from his brindled bull.”

“We have a very responsible dog walker.”

“Splendid. Such a problem in bad weather.”

They mounted another flight, and went along another white-paneled, blue-carpeted hall towards the rear. Mrs. Oldgate tapped on a door, waited, and then put her head in.

“A gentleman would like to see the room, Mrs. Beaupré.”

“Gentlemen always welcome,” cackled a voice. They entered a large bedroom, comfortably furnished, with a coal fire in the grate and a large parrot cage in one window. Beside the other window an old lady sat in an armchair. She wore a flowered hat, a quilted dressing gown, and big gold bracelets. There was a robe over her knees. She was cozily surrounded by a strong aroma of Bourbon whiskey.

“Well!” she said.

“This is very kind indeed of you, Mrs. Beaupré,” said Gamadge.

“Not at all. I'm trying on my new hat.”