AND GEOFFREY BENNETT, full of explicit forebodings and bitterness and all but disillusion, washed his hands of the affair of the Crooked Man. Only because he was too old and too cynical to feel disillusion was he spared that emotion.
The last moments before Bennett’s departure had little to do with the final, hopeless calamity of the case, but they were hectic on their own account, and even a little ridiculous. Hope had reached the summit of his humiliation. Sadly and impatiently, with sidewise glances of recurrent alarm, he paced up and down the lobby of the Plaza while Bauer put in two corroborating telephone calls. Bennett found the two men waiting for him when he came down.
“Sorry, sir,” said Hope fearfully. “I thought it best to warn you at once, sir. I—I was afraid the telephone—”
“Speak up!”
“The police want you, sir.”
“What?”
“They’re at our hotel, sir. I felt you should know at once. If you return, you’ll encounter them.”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“I’m very sorry, sir. Mr. Bauer can explain...”
Bauer explained quite simply that the process-server had gone to the police. He had sworn out a complaint against Bennett.
“They wish to arrest me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Nonsense. But on the other hand, perhaps I ought to surrender myself. Dare say it can be put right quickly. Hope, put through a call to the Embassy—”
“But then we won’t be permitted to sail, sir.”
“What? Oh. Yes. Ah. By the way, what’s your opinion, Bauer?”
Bauer thought twice, and at last admitted, “If I were you, sir, I’d slip on board your ship, and sit quiet and see nobody till she sails. Just as if you didn’t know anything about this trouble. Things won’t be any better for your going into court.”
“How did you learn of this, Hope?”
“A policeman came for you, sir.”
“Really? Then we shall go aboard at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Luggage?”
“It’s been sent to the ship, sir.”
“Good. Come quickly, then. No, damn it, wait! That chap’s been arrested for assaulting a policeman. Raymonds, I mean. Can he be got out?”
Bauer thought it could be done, either by a bail bond, or by the payment of his fine and a bit of damages. “How much?”
“I should think five hundred would cover it.”
Bennett opened his notecase, removed five hundred-dollar notes, and thrust them at Bauer.
A little incredulous, Bauer asked, “You want me to do this?”
“Precisely.”
“But why the hell—”
“At once, if you please! And tell him to keep his head, and stop with Aunt Emma. Do you understand? She will have urgent need for him, if I’m not sadly mistaken. Now go. Take a taxi, and meet us at the boat.
Then your responsibility, at least as for as I’m concerned, will be permanently relieved.”
At last Bennett, like an absconding company promoter, crossed the city to the River, and embarked with great precautions. Rain, darkness and an odorous fog hid him. Bauer gave his charge over to the discreet authorities on the liner, and departed. Bennett was left alone in his cabin, behind locked doors. Two sharp stewards had been posted to keep unauthorized persons away.
Bennett smoked his pipe, and read a mystery story, and brooded. Eventually, the ship’s whistle rumbled, the engines vibrated faintly, and the ship itself moved out into the open darkness of the bay...
2.
For five grim preceding nights, Louis Holcomb had worked late. The five days, too, had been out of joint. On Sunday evening, therefore; at ten minutes to eleven; he was chewing his fifth aspirin tablet in his tiny office opening on the rear of the theatre itself, and pressing his temples to relieve a thundering headache. Everything that happened seemed jerky and unreal through the ragged fog of his weariness.
He had reached out a hand towards the telephone. He had intended without thinking to call Mr. Boxworth, his superior. He had no superior, however. Unless he appealed all the way up to Mr. Lowes Levison—and as his hand touched it, the telephone rang.
“Hello. Holcomb talking.”
“Yes, sir. Backstage just reported that the watchman Lutz was seen again. Stage door talking, sir. I sent them two police in.”
“You sent—yes, O.K. Nobody leaves the building, understand? Has Mr. Levison been told? Then call him. When was it?”
“Wasn’t half a minute ago.”
“Notify Police Headquarters, a man named Tussard, as soon as you tell Mr. Levison. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
He hung up. He stepped out of his office, snapped his fingers to bring two ushers to his side, and sent them to watch the doors connecting backstage with the audience. The steps he took were prearranged, and precise. The apparition, whatever it was, had been bottled.
Holcomb himself strode down the ramp towards back-stage. He looked over the audience, huge and placid, watching the last showing of the picture. They would know nothing. Backstage, at the control board, the employee who had given the alarm sat calmly waiting at his post.
“I could just make him out, Mr. Holcomb. He moved around kind of funny, and then when he saw I saw him, he ducked away.”
“Has the stage been covered?”
“Sure, they’ve been over this ground already and they’re on their way up. He must have gone up. Couldn’t get downstairs anywhere. I called stage door the first second I set eyes on him, so—”
“All right. Sure it was Lutz?”
“Looked like him. Uniform coat and hat. That’s all I could see.”
Holcomb looked into the depths of the vast stage, eerie in an unstable, liquid light from the picture screen. Abruptly the metallic voice of the emergency communication system interrupted him, and filled the air with sound. It was Levison, asking for Holcomb. Holcomb took up the telephone, dialed Levison’s office, and explained the direction of the search.
Levison said, “Good. Take the south side, will you?
I’ve got a man looking after them on the north. Can’t get away.”
“O.K. I’ll keep in touch.”
Holcomb climbed the stairs. He passed one policeman, then another, then an usher, guarding against the quarry doubling back. He caught up with the searchers.
There were passages, and room upon room, dressmakers’ rooms, wardrobe rooms, audition rooms, offices, rehearsal rooms...The emergency speaking system talked on. The words beat dully in the pounding of Holcomb’s headache. Of course, the guy they were hunting could hear them, too. He’d know what they were doing. But that didn’t seem to matter.
He put another aspirin in his mouth, and went down to take a look at the audience. Calm, unaware, they were beginning to drift out. Arrangements had been made for them to be watched carefully, in case their quarry tried to sneak his way out among them.
He learned that Tussard had arrived. What crazy business this was, anyhow! At quarter past eleven, he was asked to call Levison. Levison’s voice, sharp and strange, said they’d found her. Her? The telephone went dead. Holcomb stopped to smooth his hair thoughtfully and catch his breath. Then he went to dismiss the searchers, most of whom could go. He would want a few to inspect the remainder of the building, as a precaution.
He asked, “Who’d they find?”
One of the squad said, “Don’t know, sir.”
“Where are they?”
“Mr. Levison’s office, sir.”
“All right. We’ll start there. You come along with me.”
The passage outside the executive offices had fallen entirely into the hands of the police. Holcomb could rouse no great interest in this official activity, this triumphant coming and going on the outer hinge. He made his way through it, to the door of the secretary’s office, where Lowes Levison stood scowling, with his arms folded, looking both hurt and angry. Tussard, holding the watchman’s coat and hat in his thick hands, was triumphant at Levison’s elbow. Beyond them, and momentarily visible in Levison’s office when somebody came out through the intervening door, sat Ann Crofts, between two policemen. Her appearance startled Holcomb, shocked him. He had only a glimpse of her, and the door was shut. Her face was white, hard, tense; her lips were pressed in a thin line. She seemed dazed.
Levison at that moment made a move as if to go into his own office, but Tussard blocked his way. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said gruffly. “You’re not running this show.”
Levison’s face darkened angrily. Putting on a thin assumption of bantering, he drawled, “I’d like to see you bum in hell, Tussard,” and flung into Christien’s office, banging the door after him. The bang made Holcomb wince.
Chalky and mask-like, Tussard’s face nevertheless looked pleased. He said to Holcomb, “It’s all over now.”
“Yes. What’s all over?”
“There she is. We caught her hiding in there. We found this stuff right in her hands.” ‘This stuff’ was the watchman’s tunic and cap. “She tried to bluff it out, but it didn’t work.”
“She’s the man you were looking for?”
“She’s the man.”
“Did she say so?”
“She will.”
Holcomb’s eyes ached. He rubbed them. Everything and everybody, Tussard and the policemen and the familiar offices and furniture, seemed a little garish and unconvincing. He heard himself saying, “Somebody’s crazy. I heard she got married this morning and went to Chicago.”
“I had a man on the train with her. She didn’t know it.”
“How did she get here?”
“She got off the train at Harmon. So did her husband. They came back to town, but not together.”
“I must be crazy. I’ll be damned.”
“She came back here to put on her act again, with the idea she’d have an alibi because she was supposed to be on the train. She didn’t know we saw her get off. Well, she put on her act once too often, and she got caught That’s the way it goes, Mr. Holcomb. If she’d put it over, you’d have said to yourself, well, it can’t be Ann Crofts or her husband, because they’re in Chicago, so it must be somebody else. That was the whole idea, only it didn’t go over.”
“Maybe you’re right,” said Holcomb. “Only a woman with that coat and hat on, wouldn’t fool me. Her skirts or her shape would give her away. Or maybe I’m crazy.”
“Maybe so. She tied a handkerchief over her bee. She kept where it was dark. Nobody saw anything but the uniform part of it. Think it over.”
Holcomb fished out a cigarette, lighted it, and yawned deeply. “Where’s her husband? Where’s Anthony Suttro?” he asked.
“Haven’t found him yet. I think he must have got it out of her on the train, what a bad one she was, and turned right back for New York. He’ll turn up soon.”
“She could have found a better place to hide than in Levison’s room.”
“Anyhow, that’s where we found her.”
“And she killed the cripple, and Lutz, and old John Boxworth?”
“Sure she did.”
“Why?”
“They had something on her. I can’t tell you about the details. Just say to yourself, she wanted to marry Suttro for his money, and she didn’t want to let anything stand in her way.”
“Is she strong enough for a job like that?”
“She’s plenty strong. A pretty healthy kid.”
“It’s all washed up, then? Everything’s settled?”
“I’m satisfied, and so is the District Attorney. Anybody who don’t agree can always write letters about it to the newspapers.”
Holcomb rubbed his eyes again. The police case, he realized, was fixed and settled, permanently and unalterably. Discrepancies could not be pampered, but merely forced to fit. It was done. The solid flesh of Percy Tussard personified the system. Aspirin or the cigarette had upset Holcomb’s stomach, made his mouth taste sour.
“I got to go on and give the rest of the place a look,” said Holcomb. “Then I’m going home to get some sleep. I won’t be here early tomorrow, so if there’s anything you want, let’s hear about it now.”
“No, I won’t want you. I’ll be here a while longer, maybe half an hour, so let’s have a word from you if you find anything.”
“Sure, I’ll let you know.”
It occurred to Holcomb to say something about getting a doctor for Ann. She looked so strange, as if she might go to pieces. Still, it was none of his business. He had a job to keep. He turned away, gathered his squad, and led them off into the silent building.
3.
Between half past eleven and midnight, Holcomb opened the door into the high ‘cellars,’ which offered better opportunities for hiding than any other part of the building. He would have expected Ann to know it.
He led his men across the iron bridge. They flashed the beams of electric torches into the darkness. Holcomb’s head roared like a blast furnace each time he stooped to make his way under one of the pipes or flues in his path.
“There’s something. What is it?”
“Hat. A man’s hat.”
“All right,” said Holcomb. “One of you climb down.”
One of the ushers descended to the arching plaster, and crawled carefully and precariously along a thin steel ladder. He swung his beam of light. He stopped, took up the hat, and called, “Something else.”
“What?”
“Looks like blood.”
“Go on down a bit.”
The usher made his way among tangled struts and girders, down the steeper sides of the arch. These grew perpendicular at the base, far below the bridge. The man disappeared, his light lost itself in the depths. Holcomb held his head in his hands and waited, considering the advisability of another aspirin.
Out of the darkness, the usher called up to them, “Here it is.”
“Mice,” said one of the ushers on the bridge.
“Shut up,” said Holcomb.
“Hey, somebody give me a hand,” called the voice.
“Go on, give him a hand,” said Holcomb.
The torch beams flickered crazily. There were sounds of clambering. Slowly the men came up into sight.
“One slip down there, and you break your neck,” said the first explorer, resting to get his wind.
“What’d you find?”
“Looks like a man. I didn’t go close to it. Afraid we couldn’t get back. Got to get a rope.”
“Where is he?”
“At the bottom, in the narrow part.”
“Alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Holcomb sent for Tussard.
It was Anthony Suttro. He was alive, but unconscious. His left leg dangled from a broken thigh. Face and head were badly lacerated. He had fallen from the steel bridge near the north door of the ‘cellars.’ Or, as Tussard pointed out, he had been shoved. He had plunged down in the steepest and darkest place, between the ceiling and the outer wall.
The nurse had not yet gone home. She was sent into the room where Suttro had been carried. When she came out again, Holcomb asked her what had happened. “They wanted me to bring him to, so he could talk.”
“Did he?”
“Just a few words. His mind isn’t very clear.”
“What did he say?”
“They asked him if his wife had tried to kill him, and he didn’t say anything. They told him they’d caught her, and he nodded. They said did he know she was a murderer, and he said yes. Then they asked him again if his wife had shoved him off the bridge, and he said yes. Then he began to cry, and they let me give him a shot to quiet him. I’m just waiting for the ambulance now. I’m afraid he got a bad knock on the head.”
“All right,” said Tussard, coming to the door, “you can all clear out of here now.”
Holcomb, suffering a dull nausea, went away. He let his men go home. He wanted to go home too. He thought it best to tell Mr. Levison, and he found him walking up and down the passage in front of his office.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said Levison, “if somebody came up to tell us we’d struck oil in the lobby, or a middle-aged whale had given birth to quintuplets in one of the water tanks. I couldn’t be surprised.”
“I think I’ll go home, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes, go home, Holcomb. I think—”
Levison’s door opened suddenly. A policeman ran out through the secretary’s office, vanished down the passage. Through the open door, Holcomb could see the girl’s figure stretched out on the floor. Tussard kneeled beside her, shaking her limp arm in his hand. The other policeman clumsily patted water from a carafe on her white, slack cheeks.
“Stay out of here,” Tussard barked. Then the door was kicked shut.
The nurse came. Two other men, vaguely official and preoccupied, crowded into the office. Then three more came, two of these in white, carrying a folded stretcher, and the third in furious haste.
Holcomb pressed his temples, feeling that time had jumped curiously, like a broken clock; slipping from swift empty hours into long, heavy, thumping seconds. He waited at Levison’s side.
The door opened again, at last, and the stretcher, with Ann Crofts on it, was carried out. A parade of frowning men followed it. Tussard came last, and stopped to say a word to Levison.
“Too bad,” he said.
“What’s the matter with her?” Levison demanded.
“She just went to pieces. When I told her I’d found her husband, and he was alive to accuse her, she just passed out. Your nerve can’t last forever.”
“Where is she being taken?”
“Hospital.”
“Under arrest?”
“For the attack on her husband. That ought to be good enough to hold her for now. Well, I’ll be leaving.
The place is yours, and I won’t be bothering you any more...”
4.
“Twelve o’clock,” Levison said. “Aren’t you going home?”
“Yes. I’m going now.”
“In case you’re interested, Holcomb; I think Mr. Christien will be back with us, if he recovers.”
“How is he?”
“Improving. I’m going to turn out these lights.”
“Wait a minute. I ought to telephone.”
“To your wife?”
“No. Emma Whittacker. Damn it, Mr. Levison, I feel that somebody ought to do it...”
At midnight, Miss Emma Whittacker plodded blindly and blundering through the tangle of her business accounts. Figures danced, and pages made a glaring blur before her eyes. Raymonds, drinking soda and silently shuffling through the stacks of canceled checks, gave dejected assistance. She in a panic of dread, he rather hopelessly, they started up when the telephone rang. Aunt Emma listened, and heard Holcomb’s brief story of the arrest of her niece for attempting to murder her husband, the great Anthony Suttro.
Aunt Emma did not cry. She merely asked, “What are we going to do, Hobey?”
“Where’s my coat?”
“I put it on the radiator to dry. What are we going to do?”
Hobey put on his coat as he went to the door.
“What are we going to do, Hobey?”
“You go and see her. Don’t wait for me. I’ll do something.”
“Where are you going?”
“Get some help.”
He was gone, running down the corridor towards the elevators. Ineffectually, poor Aunt Emma started after him with his hat, but too late. She heard the elevator doors open for him, and shut. She was left alone.