Puzzle of the Red Stallion (19 page)

The hall was deserted except for a fly which buzzed noisily in the slanting ray of sunlight which poured through a narrow window at the farther end. There was a small table beneath this window holding a vase and a number of dusty wax flowers, evidences of a spasm of interior decoration on the part of a previous manager of the hotel.

For some time Miss Withers hesitated near the doorway of the apartment which had been Violet Feverel’s. There was a narrow transom above the door and it was slightly open. Through this opening faint sounds of voices came.

“It would be a shame to interrupt them,” said Miss Withers to herself. Her glance lit upon the table beneath the far window. It was but the work of a moment for her to put vase and flowers on the floor and to move the light table to a vantage point directly in front of the door of the apartment.

She drew a deep breath and mounted upon the table, teetering unsteadily and praying that no guest or employee of the hotel would come down the hall at this inopportune moment.

By clutching the edge of the transom with her fingers she was able to draw herself up to a point where she could see a chandelier and some ceiling of the living room inside. It was Latigo Wells who was speaking, for she could recognize that soft drawl anywhere. Miss Withers strained her ears for all they were worth, but she could barely make out what the young westerner was saying.

“There’s some that go in for yodeling,” he was telling his invisible audience. “But me, I don’t yodel. Though I don’t say I couldn’t learn to yodel….”

“Sure you could!” It was Barbara, her voice vibrant, ringing with misplaced enthusiasm.

“Anything to get away from the job I got now,” Latigo continued. “You know, I’m so sick of horses I hope to die if I ever see another horse….”

There was an exclamation from the girl. “But Mr. Wells—I thought all cowboys loved their horses.”

“You been seeing Tom Mix,” Latigo accused her. “Besides, now that we’re pals I don’t mind telling you that I never was no real cow-puncher. My old man, he run a livery stable in Butte for a while….”

There was a faintly disappointed “oh” from the invisible girl. Then, after a short pause, a chord was struck on the piano. A guitar chimed in and Latigo’s voice boomed out in the lugubrious strains of a ballad bewailing the fact that “He won’t see his mother—when the work’s all done next fall….”

Miss Withers, frowning, tried valiantly to open the transom a little wider. Then she started violently as a voice spoke just behind her.

“A true music-lover!” said Mr. Don Gregg.

She slid off the table, hoping that the noises inside the apartment would cover the sound of her descent. “And what, pray, are you doing here?” she demanded.

Gregg shrugged. “I could ask you the same thing, couldn’t I?”

Miss Withers told him somewhat sharply that he was in no position to ask questions. “So it was I and not the Thwaites whom you were shadowing!” she observed as she drew the young man out of the vicinity of the apartment door. “Might I ask why?”

The pouting expression was gone from the pale and untanned face of Mr. Don Gregg, though his eyes were still a little flitting, a little evasive.

“I had to know if you were suspecting Barbara,” he admitted evenly. “I—I just had to know.”

“Really?” Miss Withers sniffed. “Well, young man, I don’t see how it concerns you. But I don’t mind telling you that as far as I am concerned, I’m willing to give Barbara Foley a clean bill of health in this murder investigation.”

“In spite of this?” said Gregg, motioning toward the table on which she had perched.

“In spite of that. But what difference would it make to you?” Miss Withers went on. “I had my own reasons for snooping. Supposing I did suspect Barbara, suppose even that she were arrested …”

“She didn’t do it,” said Gregg breathlessly. “And if you did seem about to arrest her, I was going … well, I intended …”

“Not a confession, surely?” Miss Withers prompted.

He stared at the faraway window. “No, of course not.” He was suddenly a thousand miles away. “I don’t suppose there’s any use my asking you whom you do suspect?”

Miss Withers surprised him. “You, of course!” she said brightly.

Don Gregg turned two shades lighter than his prison pallor. “Did Thomas tell …?” His voice trailed away to nothing. “Don’t pay any attention to what I’ve been saying,” he told her bitterly. “I’m what they call stir-crazy—you get that way, rotting in jail. I’ll just be pushing along now….”

“Whither?” Miss Withers called after him. “I mean, where to?” Don Gregg turned and faced her.

“I’ve got to get home,” he said. Then he hurried on, out of sight.

“For a young man who’s been rotting in jail he was slow enough in deciding to seek the shelter of the family estate,” Miss Withers told the inspector half an hour later. “Could there be a reason?”

They were sharing limp drugstore sandwiches and a can of coffee across one corner of his official desk at Centre Street.

Piper took a large bite of bacon, lettuce and tomato. “Who cares about him?” he mouthed crumbily. “If there’s anything in common with this pipe clue of yours you can give Don Gregg a clean bill of health. Because the pipe you found under the body had no points in common with the one you filched from him.”

Miss Withers shook her head dubiously. “That pipe clue bothers me, Oscar. Besides, I forgot to offer young Gregg an apple.”

“Apple? What’s that got to do …”

Miss Withers didn’t tell him. She pushed aside her coffee with an air of decision. “Oscar, the police aren’t getting anywhere with this case!”

The inspector grinned. “You’ll be glad to know that two of ’em are: Greeley and Shay, the boys who stepped out of line and arrested you along with young Gregg yesterday.” He picked up two green slips of paper from his desk. “Here’s orders jerking the boys off radio car duty and bouncing them out to walk beats among the vacant lots of Brooklyn.”

Miss Withers rose up in her wrath. “Oscar! Of all the senseless things!”

The inspector looked exceedingly blank. “But I thought you were thirsting for their blood?”

“Countermand that order, Oscar Piper, or I’ll take my doll rags and go straight home! Those men were doing what they imagined was their duty.”

“Okay,” said the inspector with a shrug. “It’s your dignity, not mine.” He took up the two green slips of paper and tore them across the middle. “You’re still on the case, Hildegarde.”

“I am, and I haven’t begun to fight!” she said belligerently. “You know, Oscar, it strikes me that it would be a good approach to this case if we cracked down on the most obvious liar.”

“Hm! You mean Don Gregg?”

She shook her head. “I was thinking of the hen tracks up in the country.”

For a moment the inspector stared at her. “Abe Thomas, eh? You know, I was intending to go up there and quiz him. I’ve been wondering about that guy all along….”

He stuffed a handful of cigars into his pocket. “Come along if you like, Hildegarde. Yes, sir, it’s a great idea and I’m glad I had it. We’ll solve this case or bust!”

“In the bright lexicon of youth there’s no such word as ‘bust,’” Miss Withers corrected him. “Or in any other lexicon, by the way.” She followed the inspector out of the office, smiling gently.

Enthusiasm fired by what the inspector fondly imagined to be his own idea, they rode slowly northward through the busy afternoon traffic of Manhattan. Piper himself had supplanted the usual uniformed driver of the little squad car. “I hope the Commish doesn’t get wise to my taking departmental property out of the city,” he observed. “But the next train isn’t until five this evening.”

Miss Withers was leaning back in the seat, her eyes closed. “You know, Hildegarde, I’ve been thinking about that pipe clue of yours,” he continued. “Maybe you’re right, but somehow I got a hunch that the pipe is nothing but a red herring drawn across the trail. Maybe somebody planted it there to get us looking for a guy of such and such description with false teeth. Maybe …”

He stopped as he realized that his companion was peacefully sleeping. Miss Withers slept all the way up to the Gregg farm, a pleasant and much-needed nap.

It was too bad, as she admitted later, that she had to wake up to hear the alarming music of a bullet whistling past her ears.

T
HE CAR HAD COME
to a stop in the driveway of the Gregg home, and the inspector was frozen half inside and half on the running board. His mouth was unbecomingly open.

Miss Withers blinked at him. “Oscar, what was that?”

“Keep your head down or you’ll find out!” he returned, drawing himself somewhat under cover. “Sounds like a declaration of war to me,” he added.

“Sharpshooting, eh?” Miss Withers peered toward the Gingerbread House in an interested fashion. “But I didn’t hear a shot!”

She heard one now—a sharp spat like the clapping of hands. Again she heard a sharp z-z-zing in the air overhead. This time the aim of the invisible marksman was either worse or infinitely better, for a fat sparrow who had been quarreling noisily with his fellows in the clear air overhead now did a perfect double inside loop and then shot away toward the distant thickets, leaving only a couple of silvery feathers to float lazily down upon the inspector and Miss Withers.

The face of a man presented itself momentarily at a bedroom window and was withdrawn. Piper straightened up, regained his hat.

“Wasn’t shooting at us, after all,” the inspector admitted.

“He had the range closely enough to make me feel uncomfortable,” the schoolteacher returned. “Come on—in the immortal words of the poet, let us storm their redoubt!” She led the way toward the porch of the Gingerbread House and pressed a resolute finger on the bell.

“Somehow,” she observed during the ensuing silence, “somehow, Oscar Piper, I have a feeling we are getting warmer.”

Mrs. Mattie Thomas opened the door and greeted them as long-lost friends. But behind the vast smiles her eyes glinted warily.

“We want to see—” began the inspector, and stopped.

“Say, Hildegarde, who do we want to see?”

“Everyone in the household,” Miss Withers prompted.

“You can’t see Mr. Gregg,” the woman told them. “He’s a lot better, but he can’t see anybody. He even sent out the nurse to say he couldn’t see his own flesh and blood.”

Miss Withers’s eyebrows went up. “Then—his son is here?”

Evidently Mrs. Thomas had made a mistake. “Who? Why—no, ma’am….” She managed another smile. “He was—but he’s gone….”

He hadn’t gone far. Don Gregg was coming down the staircase holding a rusty air rifle in his hand.

“Hello,” he said. “Owe you an apology, I suppose. But I didn’t think anybody would be in the driveway.” He held out the little gun. “Stumbled on this in my closet when I got home a little while ago—haven’t seen it for years. I was practicing shooting out of my bedroom window….”

“You’re quite a good shot with that thing?” Miss Withers hinted.

Young Gregg smiled. “I used to be—but it took two shots to get that sparrow. When I was a kid Thomas would have given me the raspberry if I didn’t do it first crack.”

“Oh—so the efficient Mr. Thomas taught you to shoot?” Miss Withers went on.

“Him?” Gregg laughed shortly. “No, Thomas could never hit anything. Bad eyes or nerves, I don’t know which. He could miss the barn when shooting inside the haymow. But that didn’t stop him from encouraging me.”

“A shot with the air rifle, eh?” Piper cut in. “Well, Hildegarde, that’s as good as …”

He was going to say “confession” and then suddenly realized that as yet the newspapers had carried no accurate information as to the way in which Violet Feverel had died. Also, his partner was shaking her head violently.

“So you haven’t seen your father yet?” Miss Withers asked. “Is Thomas with him?” Young Gregg shrugged.

“My husband has gone to the village,” said the fat woman from her vantage point in the doorway of the dining room. “Abe ought to be back pretty soon, if you want to wait. He had important business at the bank.”

“Really?” Miss Withers started for the stairs. “We’ll just have a word with Mr. Gregg’s nurse while we’re here.”

Mrs. Thomas protested, but the schoolteacher stalked resolutely up the stairs, followed by the inspector.

There was nothing wrong with the nurse. Miss Withers realized that point as soon as she gazed into the sensible, freckled face of the woman in the white uniform. There couldn’t be anything wrong with this nurse. Dr. Peterson had chosen well, for her name was Rogers and she stood foursquare upon her heels, a Gibraltar among nurses.

Miss Rogers had moderate respect for a gold badge. She closed the repaired door of the sickroom behind her and came into the hall.

“He’s better,” she pronounced. “Doctor was here a little while ago and said he could get up.”

“Rather surprising in a case of supposed apoplexy, isn’t it?” Miss Withers asked.

The nurse nodded. “It was a very slight attack, the slightest I ever saw,” she said. “If it weren’t for the bruises on his neck and shoulders, Mr. Gregg would be practically a well man. He seems to have had a very hard fall.”

The inspector frowned. “Just bruised up a bit, eh? Probably had convulsions in the attack. Yet is he really too sick to be seeing his only son?”

Miss Rogers’s face was impassive. “He isn’t,” she said shortly. “Mr. Gregg could see anybody he likes if they’d promise not to talk about horse races.”

“But why did he send word …”

“He doesn’t wish to see his son,” said Miss Rogers finally. “There seems to be some family feeling which I cannot discuss….”

“Of course,” agreed Miss Withers. “Then may we go in?”

The nurse nodded. “Not a mention of horses, mind!” She opened the door.

Old Pat Gregg was sitting on the edge of his bed reading a newspaper. He was dressed in underwear, trousers and shoes, and smoking a cigar. When he saw the nurse he threw the cigar away.

He stood up to greet the newcomers. “I’d have given ten to one that you would be back,” he said. “You can’t leave well enough alone—got to be stirring up trouble about a killing that was pure and simple a break for humanity.”