The House without the Door (8 page)

Harold said: "Somebody means business."

"Somebody means business. The other letters were printed, like this one: and the printing is very characteristic. The lower loop of every S bulges, as you see; every G is slightly askew; the middle horizontal of every E is as long as the top and the bottom one; not a single O is closed at the top, and the Rs have long tails. But how are we to get other printed matter to compare with this? What
do
people print besides anonymous letters?"

"They're told to print their names on their tax returns," said Harold.

"And how would you go about getting a look at somebody's tax return? The police might be able to manage it, if they showed cause; but I couldn't, and I have no time to try. I'm hurried, worried, and driven."

"Are you?" Clara looked at him anxiously.

"Very much so. Harold, I'd like you to transcribe the notes that I took when I interviewed Mrs. Gregson this afternoon; then you and Clara can read them and get an idea of what we're up against. Clara, your job is going to be a dull one. You're to get up bright and early and go down to the public library. Get all the newspaper accounts of the Gregson case from start to finish—the
Times
will do—and write me a short history of all the principals in the case. Include a certain obscure Miss Arline Prady, who worked at that time in her father's drugstore, and don't neglect a Mr. Paul Belden, now a resident of this city, but I think a native of Amsterdam, New York. I'm not so sure you'll get anything on Belden, though; everybody connected with the affair received attention from the press, no doubt; but he wasn't engaged to Miss Warren at the time."

"Mr. Schenck always knows everything about everybody," said Clara.

"Excellent idea. Call Schenck up, and see if he'll work on Belden; I want to know what he's like now. Harold, your job is a sinecure. You need a rest and a change, and you're going up to get it at Five Acre Farm."

Harold said: "That Tully woman."

"Most competent, agreeable person."

"She's very nice," said Clara, "but she does eat such lots of things out of paper bags, and she smokes cigarettes with perfume in them."

"When she's off duty she's entitled to a little relaxation; let her enjoy herself in her own way. I telephoned up there on my way home this afternoon, and she's taking Mrs. Gregson in on my recommendation—under the name of Greer, naturally. Nobody is to know where she is except Colby and the firm of Gamadge & Co. Harold's going to look after her, and his name will be Thompson."

"Tully and Lukes know me, all right."

"The patients don't, and neither does Mrs. Gregson. I wouldn't have her think I think she needs a chaperone for anything. I want her calm, not nervous; but I want her looked after."

"How am I to look after her?" Harold's face had assumed a lowering and doubtful look.

"Don't bother her; but I don't want her going off on long drives by herself, and that kind of thing. Best to be on the safe side—that's why I made her give Mrs. Stoner her car. If she wants to drive, you get them to let you drive her."

"Will Tully and Lukes know who she is?"

"Certainly not, and they won't tell her who you are. She's just supposed to be a lady friend of mine in need of a rest. I don't know why you look like that; you'll enjoy yourself very much. I'll get them to give you one of those rooms on the back terrace; then you can do a little night watching under Mrs. Gregson's window. You can sleep late in the mornings; that ought to suit you."

"If I'm to hang around windows at night, you'd better make an arrangement with Tully. She'd have the skin off my back."

"She won't know anything about it. I wish you'd co operate."

"Who's to know she's up there? Colby won't tell."

"You do what I ask you to. Anyhow, you'll get some decent food for a change."

Harold frowned. He would not be persuaded to eat with the family because he preferred to absorb strange nourishment at counters, in the company of the drifting population. Seeing his gloom, Gamadge said casually: "You'd better take my dressing-case."

This magnificent object had been a wedding present from Clara's aunt; Gamadge had faithfully lugged it about with him on their honeymoon, but had never opened it; and it was an object of admiration and respect to Harold, who could often be seen admiring it in its seclusion on a cupboard shelf. He dimly smiled. "I'll have to put my initials over yours," he said. "It will take me quite a while."

"Don't forget that you're Thompson now. You'd better do some shopping tomorrow; take Clara with you, for goodness' sake. She'll know the kind of shirts to get—I don't want you startling the patients up there. Early, now; you'll have to take a morning train to Five Acres."

"Nice long day you're planning for us."

"I'll want a report from you every day; and you won't have to use code, because they have a telephone booth, and the patients can't switch in. I don't care to hear any complaints from the firm; I fully expect to be out and about half the night myself."

He went into the hall and got Benton Locke's boarding-house on the telephone. A foreign voice gabbled at him, and after a pause a weary masculine one asked who was talking.

"Henry Gamadge, I'm a document man—examine manuscripts, that kind of thing. Now and then I do a little private investigating; criminology, you know. Give you references, if you like."

The voice asked: "What are you calling
me
up about?"

"I'm a little worried about a Mrs. Stoner—Mrs. Minnie Stoner."

The voice asked, after a pause during which Harold winked at Clara: "What about her?"

"Can't talk over the telephone. I thought I might consult you this evening after dinner, if you can give me half an hour."

After another pause Locke's voice came over the wire, no longer in a drawl, but hard and sharp: "Who are you investigating for?"

"Explain when I see you."

"I'd like the explanation now." The voice added: "I'm too busy to waste time."

"I have been consulted by a Mrs. Greer."

Locke coughed. Then he said: "About Minnie Stoner?"

"Not specifically."

"I'm dog-tired; been working all day, and I'm giving a lesson tonight."

"I strongly advise you to discuss the situation with me, and as soon as possible."

"I don't know what Minnie Stoner—can't imagine what it's all about. I go out to meals; I can't be here until eight-thirty."

"Ha1f-past eight will suit me very well."

"I can't give you more than half an hour. I'm working on some choreography, and if I put off this lesson I'll be up all night."

"Half an hour ought to do."

"If you hadn't mentioned Minnie Stoner I shouldn't have seen you at all. What's this party—Greer—investigating, for Heaven's sake?"

"I'll tell you when I see you."

Gamadge came back into the library. "Mr. Locke is very uppish," he said.

"What's he uppish for?" Harold was gathering up the last of the Bendow correspondence, playfully assisted by Martin the cat.

"He's a serious dancer."

B
ENTON LOCKE LIVED NOT FAR
south of Mrs. Gregson's apartment, but his street ran between elevated railways and had long given up the struggle against shabbiness. Nor had his boarding-house atmosphere. A coat of fresh paint had lately been applied to its vestibule and double front door, but its high porch was grimy. A small place of business—lampshades, Gamadge thought, peering through the gloom of the area—was established in the basement. The combined smells of anesthetics and antiseptics billowed from a pet-hospital across the way.

Gamadge rang the bell. An amiable foreigner in a long black house dress and comfortable slippers opened one of the doors and peered at him through gold-rimmed glasses.

"Mr. Locke?" Gamadge spoke through an ascending blare of radios; there must be several, he thought, on every floor.

"Yes, third storey, rear."

Gamadge came in, and she closed the door. "Ma'am," he inquired, "do you ever feel the need for a silence like death?"

"Is it not dreadful?" She shook a flaxen head. "Half de time, I can hardly hear my own radio."

"What a shame. Is yours the quite loud one coming from the back parlour?"

"Yes. We must not be selfish; people must have deir pleasure."

"So they must." He climbed two steep flights of red-carpeted stairs, and knocked at a door. A resonant baritone voice told him to come in.

He obeyed, and found himself confronting a young man of magnificent physique, who had discarded his coat, his collar, and his tie. He wore slacks and sandals, and a blue shirt tucked in at the neck. He was a young man with no claim whatever to good looks, but Gamadge thought that he would make up strangely and effectively. He had a small head, flattish pale features, tow-coloured eyebrows over chilly blue eyes, and tow-coloured hair. He was quite ready for Gamadge.

"Have a seat," he said carelessly, indicating a hard chair. Gamadge sat in it, and Locke fell rather than sank upon a studio couch against the wall. This, which was upholstered in faded blue, the hard chair, a dresser, and a table, were—with the exception of a radiogram near the window—the only furnishings of the room. There was no floor covering, and the windows were fitted with dun-coloured shades.

"I'm dog-tired." Locke settled his head against the blue cushions.

"Your work must be very exacting." Gamadge spoke respectfully.

"Exacting? I teach ballroom dancing, I work at summer resorts, I practice at my own work every day, and now I've just landed a job with the Diehl ballet."

"No, really? Congratulations."

"You like dancing?"

"I'm a fan."

"You fans don't know what the work is. If I hadn't the strength of a horse I'd have given up long ago. Of course all this, even the Diehl, is preparation; I'm working up my own choreography, and when I have capital I shall dance alone."

"Really alone? No partner?"

"I want no partner for my dance." He turned his head, and gazed into some dream of the future. Against the blue of the pillow, under the light of the unshaded bulbs, his face in profile looked like a modern plaster cast; ugly, interesting, all flat planes and rough modeling. "I have the hardest part of it done," he said. "A friend in an art school has designed costumes for me, and I know a girl who plays the piano. She'd tour with me. She has a first-rate sense of rhythm."

"You're ambitious, Mr. Locke—admirably so."

"Dancing is all I ever cared about, but you can't even dance without money. Not if you want an audience."

"I suppose you're not telling what your dance is going to be like: descriptive, symbolic, classical? I haven't the knowledge to put my question intelligently."

"It describes a personality and its development throughout the ages."

"This is very tantalizing."

"You won't see it unless I raise some money," said Locke, sombrely. "This war is going to set me back, and by the time I get going I may be too old to do my stuff. Dancing isn't a thing you can drop and pick up again. I ought to have had my chance five years ago."

"Too bad Gregson wasn't interested."

Locke was immediately alert. He sat up, got a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and offered it to Gamadge before he replied. Gamadge declined the cigarettes, and lighted one of his own. Locke pushed a brass dish towards him with his toe, and said airily: "I didn't expect any help from Gregson while he lived."

"Bellfield probably wasn't highly aware of the arts. I dare say you didn't get much encouragement in your art while you lived there."

"I never lived in Bellfield."

"Didn't?"

"No; Gregson's house was the place where I ate and slept."

"A dour household, perhaps."

"It never seemed so to me; I wasn't part of it. Nobody in it cared about me, or I about them—except poor old Minnie, of course, and she loves everybody." He leaned back against the cushion, and for a while his archaic profile looked motionless as stone. Then he said: "Gregson wasn't the kind of person you like or dislike, and I felt no particular gratitude to him; he took me in because he was fond of my father. He ignored me, after he found that I was determined to dance. He would certainly have thrown me out, only my father was his best friend. I don't know how Father put up with him; but Gregson used to come to our place, and he liked it. He was lucky—you don't meet people like my father every day. Gregson would never have come within miles of knowing him if they hadn't gone to college together."

"Didn't Gregson recognize the obligation?"

"We didn't beg of him, if that's what you mean. My father died of pneumonia; we didn't exactly roll in luxury, and he never did take care of himself."

"So Mr. Gregson adopted you—and let it go at that."

"He didn't adopt me legally, and he certainly let it go at that. I couldn't have borrowed money from him. I think poor old Minnie Stoner is the only person I ever did borrow money from; but she was a human being, you know."

"Wasn't Mrs. Gregson a human being?"

"I didn't know her well; she was just an uninteresting woman to me, and of course she had no money of her own to give away."

"Miss Warren?"

Locke turned his head and lifted an eyebrow. "Cecilia Warren hadn't a penny; and besides, she'd had all the humanity killed out of her. She was for herself, first, last, and all the time. You don't know much about poor relations. You don't know what it's like to be a hanger-on." Locke smiled. "Minnie used to go down to the cellar in the middle of the night in midwinter and stoke up the old hot-air furnace so we shouldn't freeze to death next morning in the attic. Gregson was sure to make a row, too, if he thought the consumption of coal seemed abnormal. Minnie used to make sandwiches for us and hide them in our rooms so that we could have a snack when we came in late. When she lent me that money to pay for my lessons, all she had on earth was some few hundreds she'd saved from her husband's insurance. I'm glad that the poor old girl has that annuity and a snug berth with Mrs. G."