CHANCE MOLLOY HATED INDIRECTION. It was likely this had its bud in early youth; one time when he saw his father being abused by his employer, the stupid, brutish operator of a coalyard. The disagreement arose out of a misunderstanding about unloading a carload of coal into a wrong bin, but the genesis was unimportant; what was vital, what had ripped the boy’s soul bare, was that his father later, in the pitiful safety of his poverty-stricken home, said things he should have said to the brute during the incident. The suffering of his sensitive, kind, timid father frightened young Molloy. Reaction—determination never to permit such agony to himself—had made a fighter out of Molloy. It convinced him, and he still held the conviction, that a prompt fight was always better than a degrading surrender. He preferred action, direct blows, supreme effort, a quick decision, victory or defeat.
Yet much of his adult life had been spent in artifice, either using it himself or guarding warily against the cunning of others. This did not mean he had surrendered principles. He had, necessarily, struck a compromise, adopting methods that were practical without sacrificing a basic idealism substantially like his father’s—kind, gentle, considerate. He kept his ideals clean, intact, but he could box them up and stow them below decks in clearing for action when, and only when—which was an accomplishment—his antagonist wasn’t cluttered up with ideals himself. Chance Molloy had become, at thirty-nine, rich and powerful. He had, of necessity, fought many times, using the weapons at hand, ugly ones on occasion, if they happened to be the kind the foe was employing. The turn of a deft intrigue no longer was a novelty, but Molloy still took a sour view of cunning, in himself as well as others.
He consumed his steak heartily, however. He had learned not to let tension interfere with an essential like eating.
He noticed, by way of channeling his attention elsewhere, the unnerving headlong temper of the train. The irascible, fractious lunging of the diner, the composure-trying squeaking of the window at his elbow, annoyed him, but the irritation was buried pleasantly in the knowledge that more and more people would eventually learn you could avoid such things by traveling via air liner. Molloy owned an air line, so this was a satisfying thought.
The check was two seventy-five. He added a dollar tip, and the thought, unspoken, that air lines served free meals.
Compartment seven, car 10, was his. He passed it by.
He walked on through the train, the noise between cars hardly intruding on his attention; his face was arranged in flat, somber planes, for he had again taken up dark thoughts and bitter problems.
George had section 4 in car 9. The section was not made up for sleeping, and George was seated there.
George was Molloy’s employee, and in many ways somewhat more—George was an instrument, a weapon, a force, depending on how he was used. As an instrument George was neither delicate nor complex; he occupied about the same status in Molloy’s equipment as the bone saw in a surgeon’s kit.
Molloy seated himself beside George.
“He’s got a friend on the train,” George said.
“Walheim has?”
“That’s right.”
Molloy leaned back and glanced, with mild revulsion, at the magazine George held open on his crossed knees; he did not reply at all when George made one of his lusty comments on the illustrations.
George’s lechery invariably irritated him, as did other of George’s traits, notably a protruding self-assurance the man had. But dependability, indisputable loyalty, plus a lot of foxy intelligence, outweighed the less palatable facets of George. The man also had, Molloy knew, a certain code which he adhered to rigidly, and Molloy liked that; he liked a man to have a code. Certain rules—hard, inflexible, unbreakable—were as necessary to a man’s character, Molloy felt, as bones were to his body. George had been in Molloy’s employ several years, had always been a dependable weapon.
He switched his attention back to the matter at hand and asked, “Man or woman?”
“The friend? ... A man.”
Molloy stirred impatiently. “Don’t go coy on me!”
“Well, he’s a small fat man who looks soft but might not be, except his body. Brown suit, brown shoes, white shirt, a plain necktie, also brown. Ring on the middle finger of his left hand has a large yellow rock of some kind. Is in section 4, car 11. He got on the train at a place called Perryville.”
“Who gave you that information?”
“Porter.”
“Will the porter keep his mouth shut?”
“He’d better.”
Molloy’s feet, squarely planted on the floor, picked up a little tingling from the on-flying vibration of the pullman. He contemplated, wide-eyed, intent, unseeing, the ice-rimmed window.
“There is a small airport at Perryville,” he said. Then, selecting a fact from the deep knowledge of meteorology that years of flying had given him, he added, “The storm front is moving east ahead of us, and he could have gotten into Perryville by plane, a privately owned or chartered plane—Perryville is not an air-line stop—sometime this afternoon, before the weather closed in.”
George considered this a few moments, moved his thick shoulders vaguely, said, “Reason I got wise to him, he paid Walheim a visit.”
“In Walheim’s compartment?”
“Yes.”
“You have any luck eavesdropping?”
“Not a bit. Couldn’t hear a thing. There’s more noise in this train than a boiler factory, when you want to overhear something ... But they took a funny kind of a stroll through the train.”
“Funny?”
“Just a walk ahead through two day coaches. Walheim walked about twenty feet ahead of the fat guy. In the second coach Walheim stopped to get a drink, and the fat boy turned back without speaking to him.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing. Walheim went back to his compartment, the fat friend to his seat ...” George stopped and stared at him. “What’s the matter?”
Molloy, leaning forward, jaw muscles ridged, in a harsh, urgent voice said, “When they were walking—did Walheim give any kind of a sign?”
“Sign?”
“A signal, gesture—anything to draw attention to a girl in one of the coach seats. Think! Think hard!”
George pondered, stroked his jaw. “I didn’t catch anything,” he said uncomfortably. “But for a thing like that, fingering somebody, they would use something hard to spot. A hand in a pocket, or something like that.” George’s solid fingers, acting, seemingly, apart from his attention, rolled the magazine into a tight cylinder, and finally he concluded, “I missed it, if that’s why they took the walk.”
“It was!” Molloy made, with his right hand, a quick, decisive gesture. “Walheim pointed out the girl to this fat man.”
“Is that bad?”
George’s stolid way, the apparent inability of a crisis to touch George deeply, had always irritated Molloy, and it did so now. An imperturbable nature was an asset, but it was a jarring thing to behold sometimes.
“Bad enough”—Molloy struck deliberately at George’s composure—“if it is their plan to kill the girl.”
George turned the magazine in his hands, closed one eye, and peered thoughtfully into the end of the cylinder he had made of it.
“Kill her?”
“Yes.”
George grunted. He placed one end of the rolled magazine to his lips and blew gently into it.
Annoyed, Molloy leaned back and, frowning darkly, let his thoughts handle the ugly chance that Walheim had brought a hired murderer aboard the train. He must warn the girl, Julie Edwards. Doing that meant he would have to tell her what was happening, and this eventuality, quite alarming because it would entail betraying his position and plans to the girl, was one he had hoped to avoid until there should come a time and place of his own choosing for disclosures.
He felt the matter demanded secrecy, a program of hidden action, anonymity, the gaining of his end without making a physical intrusion into the scene. He wanted no publicity, no excitement. A silent stalk, a wise biding of time, selection of the ripe opportunity, then a quick pounce and a silent retreat with the prize—that was his general plan. He did not, resenting indirectness as he did, like the moral tone of such methods. But there was such a thing—it confronted him now—as a time of bitter necessity.
So far he had given no one, not even George, the details of the matter. In George’s case there had been no real opportunity; Molloy had come first to New York alone, had taken first steps alone, then, realizing there was great urgency—confronted, starkly, by horror—he had radioed for George and Kiggins, and they had arrived by plane from the South American head office last night. There had been barely time to assign George the job of shadowing Walheim and set Kiggins to watching Martha ... He would, he decided, give George the story now.
At this point the train hit a curve with reeling force; he was thrown to the left in the seat; the curtains in all the made-up berths swayed to the left. But nothing drastic happened; there was a drunken recovery, a relaxing of the centrifugal force that held him pinned to the left, the wheels stopped howling underfoot, and they hurled onward.
He straightened, addressed George.
“Thirty days ago I bought a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of aircraft engine parts and shop equipment,” he said.
George, swinging his eyes to Molloy, gave Molloy attention, respect, a compliant manner.
Molloy said, “Something queer is happening to the deal.”
“Queer?”
“Damned strange ... But let me give you the rest of the background. A man named Paul Roger Copeland built up, during the war, large aircraft and engine holdings on the Pacific Coast. The concern was—is rather, for it still partly exists—named Transfa Air Industries. Copeland, because of ill-health, began liquidating his business—selling out everything—slightly more than a month ago. Because of his illness he handed the job of selling his property to a Mr. N. N. Nesbitt, general manager of Transfa.” He paused and, frowning at George, asked, “How much of that did you already know?”
“I knew Transfa was going out of business,” George said.
“So you know Copeland, the owner?”
“Not personally. I might know him on sight, from pictures I’ve seen of him in aviation magazines.”
“What about Nesbitt, the general manager? Know him?”
“No.”
“Martha Baxter—know her?”
“No.”
“Employed by Transfa as purchasing agent. Tall girl, red hair, blue eyes, an active, direct, and confident sort. A quite pretty girl—‘attractive’ is a better word—who dresses, almost invariably, in shades of gray.”
“I don’t know her.”
Molloy said, “I took her out a few times, about a year ago, and six months later ... Martha called me, thirty days ago, with the tip that Transfa was going to sell engine parts and tools. She happened to know that I—that BETA—needed such equipment. I had asked her to keep an eye open for such material. After the telephone call I went to Los Angeles and closed a deal with her. I was to take delivery in thirty days and pay cash at time of delivery. The deal was made entirely with Martha, who had authority to negotiate for Transfa.”
He removed a cigarette from the case, closed the case, tapped the cigarette on the case thoughtfully, and, on the point of reaching for his lighter, found George holding a match toward him. He leaned forward and drew flame to the tobacco; then, mixing out-moving smoke and blunt words, said:
“I was to pay Martha Baxter ten thousand dollars.”
George held the match in his fingers, upright, turning it slowly as it burned. “Ten thousand is a nice piece of change,” he said.
“It was not a bribe.”
A gust of leaking air from the window, icy breath of the storm whipping past outside, extinguished the match. George did not speak.
Molloy said, “Engine parts and shop equipment aren’t growing on trees right, now. They’re scarce. BETA needs such supplies urgently—so do others. I had told Martha Baxter previously it was worth such a sum to me to find me the equipment.” He paused, frowning at George, irked by George’s continued silence and the possible implication, unspoken, of underhand methods used. He added sharply, “Do not get any wrong ideas about Martha. She is more innately honest than nine out of each ten people I know!”
George nodded. “Okay.”
“Martha has disappeared!”
That hit home to George; his head came up. “Yeah?”
“A week ago, wishing to prepare to take delivery and make payment, I cabled Martha. The reply I received was, while signed with Martha’s name, obviously not from Martha. I had arranged with Martha for the use of a simple code in radio, cable, or written communication about the deal, the sole object being privacy. The person sending the cablegram signed ‘Martha’ clearly did not know the code. I came to New York at once.”
He leaned forward, hard of jaw, bleak of eye.
“There is a girl in New York pretending to be Martha who isn’t Martha!” he said.
George blinked. “Martha isn’t Martha?”
“Exactly.”
“For Pete’s sake!”
“This Martha,” said Molloy grimly, “is tall, has red hair—dyed, I imagine; it isn’t the same shade as Martha’s—and wears grays. But her face does not resemble Martha’s, even in bone structure. She affects an energetic manner, a directness and efficiency that are more an effort to be like Martha than they are genuine.”
“What’s this phony doing?” George asked.
“Working for Paul Roger Copeland.”
“The sick guy who owns Transfa?”
“Yes.”
“As Martha?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be damned!”
Molloy said bitterly, “Here is something that belongs in the story: Martha wrote me, three weeks ago—which was a week after our deal—that she was going to New York to work as Copeland’s executive secretary. Copeland, who had been in ill-health for two years, wanted someone with him who knew the Transfa company thoroughly, and he had offered Martha the job, at a pay increase, on the strength of good things he had heard about her. He did not, Martha said, know her personally, had never met her.”
“Oh!” George grinned thinly. “If Copeland didn’t know Martha by sight, any girl who looked a little like her might take her place.”
“It wouldn’t be that simple.”
“But—”
“The substitute would have to know a great deal about Transfa.”
“Yeah, that’s right. ... To fool Copeland she would have to know plenty about his aircraft company. The odds are against this Copeland being a dope—guys who make the dough he has usually aren’t.”
“Copeland could be a party to the deceit.”
“You think—”
“I don’t know that he is. The possibility must be kept in mind ... Oh, yes, you had better know this, too. You know that Roy Cillinger was in New York recently?”
“Roy Cillinger? Our vice-president?”
“Yes. I cabled Roy Cillinger to find Martha an apartment in New York, because Martha had mentioned in the letter that she was worried about locating one. Roy Cillinger got one, cabled the information to me, and I in turn cabled Martha not to worry, she had an apartment. I told her in the cable to phone Roy Cillinger when she got in, and he would take her out to the apartment and give her the key.”
“Did Martha do that?”
Molloy nodded gloomily. “Yes. Roy Cillinger came back to South America and said she came. He mentioned enough about the girl, her hair mostly, to make me think he’d met Martha.”
“Then—”
“Roy Cillinger met the fake. He had never seen the real Martha.”
George scowled. “What’s behind it?”
“That is not clear. The motives involved—Copeland’s included, if he has them—are something yet to be unearthed.”
George peered thoughtfully into the end of the tight-rolled magazine. “Walheim? Where does he hook in?”
Molloy shook his head. “That is not yet clear. Walheim is a friend of Martha’s—the fake Martha. I say ‘friend’ with reservations; he may be a fellow conspirator. He has visited her repeatedly, taken her out evenings, and so forth.”
“Boy friend, eh?”
“Yes—along with whatever else he is ... I have not, naturally, performed any act that would draw their attention to me. Too much is involved—Martha’s safety, and now the safety of this girl on the train—for careless or abrupt action. For four days I have watched them closely, made circumspect investigations, and drawn a blank. I searched the woman’s apartment—and found many of Martha’s personal things, including, incidentally, a photograph of the girl on this train. There was nothing—at least I found nothing—to indicate Martha’s whereabouts or fate. I lifted the woman’s fingerprints from the apartment, taking prints from a water glass, a hand mirror, a cold cream jar, and finding they were identical. These prints, together with copies of a snapshot of the woman which I made without being observed, have gone to the FBI, the New York Police Department, the Los Angeles Police Department. The New York police reported no record. There has been no time to hear from the others.
“The first action break”—Molloy was winding it up—“came last evening. A telegram was delivered to Martha’s apartment, causing immediate excitement and indications of terror. Martha, the interloper, went wildly to Walheim’s hotel. Walheim caught a plane to Chicago at once. We caught the same plane.”
George stirred uncomfortably. “Mind if I ask a question?”
“Why not?”
“This Martha—if she’s not found—does that blow up the deal for engine parts and shop equipment?”
“Conceivably.”
“That would be bad, wouldn’t it?”
“Very bad.” Molloy put his gaze on the window coldly, watching, without interest or close attention, the lights of a village drift past in the icy void outside. He felt on edge, increasing difficulty to wait, to do—in effect—nothing. It seemed to him he was doing nothing. It plagued him. Searching for reasons for being so unreasonably upset, he wondered if he had overlooked something; was there, at this moment, something he should be doing? He had the feeling there was.
He distrusted hunches, half-baked ideas, vague impulses. All of his advances, if at all possible, were well thought out beforehand. He liked to know where he was stepping, see a clear path. Yet it was difficult, when he felt the appalling need for action that he felt now, to go carefully.
He said, “I talked with this girl on the train.”
“Yeah?” George’s interest was sharp.
“Name is Julie—Julie Edwards. She is Martha’s friend. Employed, I gathered, in a doctor’s office, and presented with an unexpected vacation when the doctor went elk hunting. She is using the vacation to visit Martha and to seek employment in the city.”
“As innocent as that!” George said.
“Yes.” The color of Molloy’s mood, dark red, was reflected in the cast of his jaw. “Yes, as innocent as that.”
“I wouldn’t,” George said, “care to be in her shoes, not if Walheim’s fat friend is a hired killer.”
“I plan to warn her ... Incidentally, I showed her the woman’s photograph. She became upset, understandably so, when I said it was Martha. She left the table.”
“She know the dame? The phony Martha?”
“No.”
“Then, if she gets to New York and finds Martha ain’t Martha, the cat will be out of the bag.”
“That is obvious.” The tension Molloy felt was getting into his voice and manner. “Here is her description: name, Julie Edwards. Five feet seven or eight, rather thin, about a hundred and fifteen, dark gray suit, black bag, black shoes. She appears to be about twenty-two, probably is four or five years older. An inward sort, easily upset, but hides her feelings well and is inclined, I imagine, to camouflage a natural introverted stoicism with a flow of language—”
George had come upright in his seat. “Didn’t you say she left the dinner ahead of you?”
Molloy frowned. “Yes.”
“Then she should have come through this car ahead of you? She’d have to, to reach the day coaches.”
“About ten minutes ahead of me ... What is wrong?”
“She didn’t. I remember a girl of that description passing, headed toward the diner ... She hasn’t come back.”
Molloy considered this information bleakly. His “For God’s sake!” was spoken in a low and guttural voice. He arose and went toward the rear of the train.
Breath left George’s lungs quickly, violently, throwing his lips outward. He got to his feet and followed Molloy.