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Pauline pressed her hanky tightly between her palms.
“Is this going to help me?”
“Yes, I think so,” I said slowly.
Would Frank Scott try to implicate a typist in the disappearance of valuable documents unless he was behind it himself? But why would he be, when he himself stood to make a pretty penny from the very deal that disappearance was thwarting?
“What about the mistake you thought you might have made?” I asked as Mrs. Meadows appeared with tea for her daughter. Did you get it corrected?”
She broke into a smile.
“I hadn’t made one after all. Everything was exactly right. Thanks, Mother. I know I look a mess, but I’m not feeling nearly so weepy.”
Her mother patted her shoulder, gave me a nod, and left.
Unfortunately, Pauline’s after-hours trip to the building, on top of the page from her desk compounded her appearance of guilt. Her swollen eyes and the smile of pride that had flashed over the correctness of her work suggested a different story.
“Tell me about the person Mr. Scott was taking to. Was it a man or a woman?”
“I couldn’t see. They were in a car. The other person, I mean. I’d come in and out the front, which is what the girls all say you should do because there’s a light there. This car was parked at the side door. I’d... forgotten to turn my lights on until I’d backed up — it’s different driving at night than it is in the daytime, isn’t it? So when I did — turn the lights on — all at once the other car was there. Not close, though, which was lucky. Mr. Scott turned around and I saw it was him, but I don’t know who it was he was with.”
I remembered how dark it was at the side door. Handy for running in to retrieve something from your desk, I supposed. But likewise a good choice if you didn’t want to be seen.
“Was it someone dropping Mr. Scott off, do you think?”
Her forehead wrinkled in thought.
“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I saw another car farther back. I didn’t really notice, though. It all happened in a second or two, it seemed. Turning my lights on, and Mr. Scott straightening up and looking around.”
“He was leaning into the car?”
“Like when you talk to someone. The driver. That’s the side he was standing on.”
It wasn’t the smartest spot for a clandestine meeting, right in your own back yard.
“Then what?”
“Then I came home. I was already headed back to the street by then, and really concentrating and I honestly can’t even remember driving home. I was just so glad when I got here.”
I had to smile at her woebegone sound.
“Driving gets easier. Don’t give up on it.”
I sat forward, resting my arms on my knees.
“Look, I don’t care a bit how you answer this next thing. I won’t tell. How did you get into the building? I know they lock up at night.”
She was drinking some tea. A hum of pleased importance escaped her. She glanced around and lowered her voice.
“The girls who work there have two keys they pass around. Promise you won’t tell. I don’t want to get them in trouble. Mrs. Hawes has a key that we’re supposed to sign for if we know we’ll need to come in, but she makes you go through a whole rigamarole, especially if the girl needing it happened to get on her bad side that day. Sometimes she makes a girl come back two or three times because she claims she’s busy and can’t be interrupted. Then you have to sign for it, and sign it in again the next morning.
“I guess maybe it’s a good idea, but it’s mostly to show she’s more important than we are, and we’d better stay in her good graces. Anyway, before I started there, one of the girls got the idea she could use the key she’d checked out to get one made. So she did, and then somebody else did the same thing. Whoever used it last gives it to somebody else to take care of. It just happened it was my turn to have it.”
Her animation faded. She gave a great sigh.
“And I thought, ‘Boy am I lucky!’”
***
If someone wasn’t setting Pauline up, I’d eat my best hat. The handsome technician she’d spurned came to mind, but there were other possibilities. Anyone who’d seen her driving it, either that night at C&S or when her brother was teaching her, would have found it an easy matter to ‘borrow’ the car from the shed in back.
Someone other than Pauline had used it to follow me. A man had been driving when it almost rear-ended me. Same when it had parked across from my office. Had the car been insurance in case I spotted whoever had tailed me, or a deliberate attempt to throw me off track? Either way, the page which had turned up in her desk now seemed too convenient. It also suggested I was getting closer than someone liked.
Setting the brown car aside for the moment, I now had two leads to follow. There was Scott’s possibly shady meeting in the parking lot, and then there was the newly closed lamp shop. I weighed both options as I drove. The meeting might have nothing to do with the problems at C&S Signals. Maybe Scott was stepping out with a married woman. The lamp shop, on the other hand, was in the area where Tremain had vanished.
After I’d hung up my hat at the office I ran upstairs to powder my nose. When I came back I stuck my unsharpened pencil in the telephone dial and spun the number for Tabby Warren. The rich men I’d had dealings with got up and out early, making more deals and more money. Rich women, I’d discovered, were far more likely to simply enjoy their creature comforts. Catching them in the interval when they’d been awake long enough to take calls but before they headed out to lunch was an art form.
A cheerful male voice answered at Tabby Warren’s place on the first ring.
“This is Maggie Sullivan. I wonder if I might speak to Miss Warren for a few minutes. It’s about a building she owns, or used to own, on West Fifth.”
“Just a moment,” the voice said, still cheerful.
When was the last time I’d heard a butler sound merry? Did Tabby Warren have a husband, or maybe a boyfriend? The address for her in the phone book was upper-crust enough to match what Seamus had told me about her fortune. It was hard to imagine its occupants not having household staff.
“This is Tabby Warren.” A new voice interrupted my speculations, this one a light but firm contralto. “I understand you’re interested in my Fifth Street gaud. I’m afraid it’s not for sale.”
“I’m not interested in buying it, lovely as it is. I need to reach the man who used to operate the lamp shop there.”
“Used to? Good heavens. I bought several lamps there. It’s the only place in town to get something that’s not stultifyingly virtuous.”
“Do you happen to know how to reach him?”
“Mr. Benning? I’m afraid not. A real estate firm takes care of the property.” She paused. “May I ask what this is about?”
I took a breath.
“I’m a private detective.”
Some people hung up at this point. Others started to blather that they didn’t know anything.
“How delicious,” said Tabby Warren. “I presume the real estate firm is being discreet and won’t give you information?”
“I don’t know how to reach the real estate firm. The sign that says the place is for rent doesn’t have a name or a phone number.”
For about four seconds she was silent.
“That’s hardly the way to run a business, I’d say.” On the surface she was as pleasant as ever. Only the direction of her questions showed new caution. “How, if I may ask, did you know I owned the building? I haven’t had anything to do with it directly for years.”
“A policeman friend who raided it when it was a speakeasy remembered you owned it.”
Delighted laughter bubbled over the line.
“Someone remembered that? Do tell me who.”
“I’d rather not.”
“If you want information from me, I think you’d better. No, wait. It wasn’t that lovely Constable Hanlon, was it?”
I hesitated, reasoning that since she’d guessed, there was no harm in it.
“It’s Sergeant Hanlon now, but yes.”
“Very well, then. I don’t know who looks after the building, but I’ll give my business manager a call. I should have the particulars by the time you get here. Shall we say half an hour?”
She hung up.