Ghost of a Chance (22 page)

The woman had brown curly hair. She was wearing a black coat and she was tall. But she was middle-aged, she was in her fifties. The girl we were looking for was young… she was going to inherit a fortune on her next birthday, she was…

People jostled by me and I scarcely felt them. No one had ever said on which birthday Sally Kennedy was to inherit the Hiram Kennedy millions. We had taken for granted that it would be the one on which she reached her majority and we had been wrong.

It came rushing back to me now, all of it. Thelma Kennedy’s story, the things she had told us. That she had married Hiram’s young brother… his
kid
brother… younger than Hiram by thirty years. And Sally was Hiram’s child. She would be the same age as her uncle, she would be a contemporary of Louis Kennedy, and of his widow, Thelma. Like Thelma, she would be middle-aged…

She was standing up now, moving toward the tracks. Desperately, I looked for Jeff. And then, in the mass of laces surrounding Sally Kennedy, I saw one that I knew.

It was the round, flushed lace of a country squire, the lace of a man we had met in a lodge on a mountain top. He was walking slowly, cautiously pushing his bulky body through the crowd. The hat was pulled low on Merrill’s head, but I could see the bright, silver-white fringe of his hair. I could see his eyes, fixed on Sally Kennedy, as he moved closer to her.

I turned and wrestled my way to the stairs. I flung myself down them, banging into people, elbowing by them. I was in the tunnel of the underpass, racing through it. I could hear the muted sound of a train approaching the station.

I ran up the stairway. The train, just slackening its speed, was sliding along beside the local platform. I saw Sally Kennedy. Her eyes wide with horrified disbelief, her face twisted in fear, she watched the struggle of the two men near her.

Jeff sprawled backward as Merrill shook him off with a desperate contortion of his great body. Merrill turned away. He took three short tottering steps before he plunged onto the tracks before the wheels of the train.

I lunged through the silent, horror-stricken crowd toward Sally Kennedy. Her hands were covering her eyes, her lips were moving soundlessly.

“Miss Kennedy,” I said.

“No,” she whispered, “no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t Louis, it couldn’t have been Louis.”

Jeff was at my side.

“Haila,” he said, “you take care of Miss Kennedy.”

“I will,” I said.

Carl dobbs turned away from
Sally Kennedy and looked at me. He settled back in his chair and snapped open his cigar case. Mr. Dobbs was making an effort to calm himself. He had had a bad time of it.

“It wasn’t until after you left my office,” he said, “that I began to worry. If the two of you should be right… if there was one chance in a million that Sally’s life was in jeopardy, she should be told about it. She should be warned and watched.”

The lawyer looked across the room again at Sally Kennedy. He seemed to be rechecking the fact that she was really safe, sound and sitting comfortably in room 807 of the Sultan Hotel. His lips wrinkled into the nearest thing to a genuine smile that I had seen on his face, and he shook a finger at Miss Kennedy in mock severity.

“My dear,” he said, “If you only knew what I’ve been through since then. Not being able to find you anyplace. I must have made a hundred phone calls. I was frantic.”

Miss Kennedy smiled at him. “I’m sorry, Carl. I just suddenly decided to run out to Long Island and spend the night with Beth Goodrich. I didn’t bother to tell anyone. All I did was phone Claire Cortland and tell her a little white lie to excuse myself from tea.”

“But my messages,” Dobbs said plaintively. “You must have got my messages when you came back to the hotel this morning.”

“Yes, Carl, dozens of them. But then that girl phoned and begged me to meet her at the subway station. She sounded so desperately in trouble that I decided just to let you wait. Of course, I thought you only wanted to see me about business, Carl, dear. You’ve always been just as frantic to get business done.”

“I wanted,” Carl Dobbs said in a wounded voice, “to save your life.”

“Well,” Miss Kennedy said, “It’s been saved now. And it was Frank, Frank Lorimer…” She lifted her hand to cover her eyes.

“Miss Kennedy,” I said quickly, “you didn’t suspect anything these last few days? About Louis and his gang?”

“No, nothing. That truck that nearly hit me… I thought, of course, it
was
an accident. How could I have suspected?”

“But Frank Lorimer must have tried to warn you.”

“Yes, I’m sure he tried. But the Sultan is such a respectable hotel. It’s likely that Frank couldn’t even get past the doorman… if he was as disreputable looking as he used to be.”

“But he must have tried to telephone you,” Dobbs said. “He must have left messages for you, just as I did.”

Miss Kennedy shook her head. “No, there were no messages. Oh, I’ve been gadding all around town, I haven’t been in much. But my secretary was usually here. She would have told me if Frank had…”

“Your secretary?” I said.

“Yes. Miss Vinson. I was so fortunate about her. The day my boat docked a lovely young lady offered to work for me. She isn’t here just now. She went off someplace yesterday afternoon, but I expect that…”

“Miss Kennedy,” I said, “this lovely young secretary… what color is her hair?”

“Red,” Sally Kennedy said. “A perfectly beautiful shade of red.”

I told them about Red. I told them how she must have kept Frank Lorimer away from Miss Kennedy, how she had kept Jeff and me stalemated by impersonating her employer. When I had finished with Red there was no chance of her ever getting her job back.

There was a ratatat on the door and Jeff walked in. He nodded briefly to the lawyer, then went to Miss Kennedy. He sat down beside her.

She said, “Louis…”

Jeff said, “He was killed instantly.”

Miss Kennedy turned away for a moment. “I suppose it’s better that he should have killed himself,” she said quietly. “I suppose it’s better that way.”

“I think so, my dear,” Mr. Dobbs said.

“To think that for all these years lie’s been planning my death, that lie’s thought of nothing else since he staged his fake drowning in the Sound…” She stopped suddenly and her eyes opened wide. “Carl!”

“Yes, Sally?” the lawyer said.

“Do you remember my riding accident, Carl, just after father passed away?” She turned to us. “Louis and I were out riding. I was thrown and Louis’ horse nearly trampled me… nearly trampled me to death. Frank was back with us then, he’d come for just a little while. He never believed that it was an accident. He kept insinuating to me that Louis’ horse hadn’t shied and stampeded accidentally, that Louis had goaded him into trampling me. Well, Frank was right, wasn’t he? Louis did try to kill me once before. And then, when Frank saw him this time, he must have known…”

“Yes,” Jeff said, “that’s the only explanation. Louis was supposed to be dead. But Frank must have seen him and recognized him. He must have known that the only reason Louis would have pretended to be dead was in order to try to kill you again. Frank did everything he could. He tried to see you and had no luck. He tried to see Mr. Dobbs, but Mr. Dobbs was out all day. He couldn’t go to the police because he’d jumped his parole. So he came to us.”

“Fortunately for me,” Miss Kennedy said. “Otherwise Louis’ plan would have succeeded. It almost should have succeeded,” she added grimly, “all the years that he spent arranging it.”

“He didn’t expect it to take years,” Jeff said. He rose and walked back and forth across the room. “You ruined all his plans, Miss Kennedy, when you went abroad in 1938.”

“Yes, and it must have broken his black heart when I was interned in Austria. I’m so sorry that the war proved such an inconvenience for Louis… having to wait so long for me to come home so that he might murder me. How he must have worried that I wouldn’t get here before this birthday! Unless I were to die before tomorrow, he would get nothing at all, you know, he and Thelma.”

“We know Thelma,” Jeff said.

“Now I see! Of course! With Louis pretending to be dead, and with me dead, Thelma would get everything. I suppose it was arranged to look as if Thelma had had no part in this… she must have provided herself with an absolute alibi.”

“Yes,” I said. “She’s at her hairdresser’s right now. Probably sitting under a dryer reading a movie magazine.”

“Then, Miss Kennedy,” Jeff said, “your death was to look accidental. That was an added protection. There was to be no question of murder. But if something should slip… well, Thelma had her alibi and Louis was apparently dead.”

“Darling,” I said, “what about Kramer and the others?”

“Kramer?” Dobbs said. “Who is Kramer?”

“One of the gang Louis needed to pull off his plan,” Jeff said. “The police have Shorty and Joyce, Haila. And they’re on their way to Chappawan Lodge now. Of course it was Louis who actually killed Frank Lorimer, but the others have enough charges against them to add up to years and years at Ossining.”

“My dear boy,” Miss Kennedy said to Jeff, “won’t you stop roaming about and sit down? You’ve earned the right to be comfortable.” “Is something bothering you, Jeff?” I asked.

“No,” Jeff said, “nothing at all.”

But he kept on pacing. I tried to catch his eye and he avoided me. “Darling,” I said, “did you know that Red was planted here as Miss Kennedy’s secretary?”

“I imagined she was.”

“And it must have been she,” Sally Kennedy said, “who called me this morning. She was very convincing. She said she was from my detention camp in Austria, that she was in horrible trouble and that I must come to her at once. After years over there, one doesn’t think it strange to meet someone in a subway station. The subway…” She stopped. It was Frank Lorimer she was thinking of, not Louis Kennedy. Tears started to her eyes, and she shook them back. “Did you see Frank at all? Did you speak to him? After he left us, I neglected him. But I was away so much… of course, that’s no excuse.”

“Frank got along all right,” Jeff said. “He liked the way he got along. You and I mightn’t have, but Frank did.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Miss Kennedy said. “I know…” She looked up at Jeff. “Young man, why are you so restless? Won’t you please sit down?”

“All right,” Jeff said, “I’ll sit down. And maybe a drink would be good for what ails me.”

“Why, of course!” Miss Kennedy said.

“A drink!” Mr. Dobbs said. “That would be fine.”

Jeff took over. He reached for the phone. “I’ll order,” he said. “Miss Kennedy, what would you like?”

“Whiskey and water, I think.”

“Haila?”

“The same.”

“And you, Mr. Dobbs,” Jeff said. “What’s yours?”

“A martini, if you don’t mind,” the lawyer said. “A martini made with sherry.”

Miss Kennedy laughed. “I could have told you that. It’s always the same thing for Carl. And, young man,” she said to Jeff, “what will you have?”

Jeff put the phone back on the desk. “On second thought,” he said slowly, “I don’t believe I want a drink.”

“My dear boy, what is it?” Miss Kennedy looked closely at Jeff. She put her hand on his arm. “What are you worried about? Everything is all right now. Isn’t it, Carl?”

“It seems so to me,” the lawyer said. “Everything is taken care of, we’ve settled everything.”

“Have we?” Jeff asked. He turned to Miss Kennedy. “Who paid Frank Lorimer the monthly pension your father willed him? Who, therefore, knew where he lived and was able to get to his boarding house before we did? Who bribed the landlady to lie about Frank, to say that she’d never heard of him? Who got her out of town before we could question her some more?”

“Well,” Miss Kennedy said, “perhaps…”

Jeff went on. “Who was it,” he said, “that tipped Red off that we were on our way to the Sultan Hotel, who told her to be all ready to intercept us there and lead us on a wild goose chase to Chappawan Lodge? Who was it that was correlating all the movements of the gang, giving the right orders at the right times?”

“Louis, undoubtedly,” Mr. Dobbs said. “It had to be Louis.”

Jeff shook his head. “Louis wasn’t in a position to do all that. There was only one person who was. He was in the Belfast Bar the first time Haila and I went there. He knew then what Frank was afraid of, Frank had told him. He tried to buy Frank off, or scare him off and he failed. So he watched Frank until he left the bar and then he gave the order for Frank’s death.”

Miss Kennedy leaned forward toward Jeff. “But who,” she said, “who…”

“I didn’t see him in the bar that afternoon,” Jeff said. “He was sitting in one of the booths with a friend, a short, squat man, a member of the gang. He sent that short, squat man to the bar to order him a martini. Not a martini made with vermouth. A martini made with sherry.”

Carl Dobbs put his cigar carefully on an ashtray. He said, “Are you saying… are you implying that… but, no. No, that’s impossible. You’re an intelligent young man, you…”

“It was you in the bar, Mr. Dobbs,” Jeff said. “You told us that Frank Lorimer had tried to reach you, but that you had been out. That wasn’t quite true. Frank
did
reach you. He told you that he had seen Louis Kennedy and that that could only mean that Miss Kennedy was to die. You laughed at him, of course, but… if I’m wrong, Mr. Dobbs, why are you heading for the door?”

The lawyer kept on moving away from us.

“It’s ludicrous, it’s fantastic… Sally, you don’t believe… you surely don’t believe…”

He was two steps from the door now. He lunged for it; he clawed it open, and he was gone. Jeff watched him go.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Hankins is waiting for Mr. Dobbs at the elevators.”

Miss Kennedy turned to face us. “Do you mean,” she said, “that Carl… that it was Carl Dobbs who planned all this… that it was he who…”

“Yes, Miss Kennedy,” Jeff said. “You’ll have to get yourself a new lawyer, I’m afraid.”

She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she tried to smile at us. “You two people,” she said, “the two of you…” Then she did smile, successfully. “And do you realize that I don’t even know your names?”