CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
With a sharp exclamation of excitement and triumph, Dundee read Penny'stelegram:
"HAMILTON EVENING SUN DATE OF MAY FIFTH NINETEEN TWENTY TWO PUBLISHED STORY OF SUICIDE ANITA LEE ARTISTS MODEL BUT PICTURE ACCOMPANYING WAS UNDOUBTEDLY NITA LEIGH SELIM'S STOP NO CORRECTION FOLLOWED STOP WHAT DOES IT MEAN"
"What does it mean?" Dundee repeated exultantly to himself. "It means,my darling little Penny, that _anyone in Hamilton who had any interestin the matter believed Nita Leigh Selim was dead, and thought thespelling of her name was wrong, not the picture itself_!... The questionis _who_ read that story and gazed on that picture with exquisiterelief?"
Two hours before he had dismissed as impossible or highly impracticalhis impulse to investigate the eleven-year-old scandal on Flora Hackett,who was now Flora Miles, as told him by Gladys Earle of the ForsyteSchool. Even more difficult would it be to find out why Janet Raymond'smother had taken her abroad for a year. Of course--he had ruefully toldhimself--Nita Leigh might have been lucky--or unlucky enough to runacross documentary proof of one of the scandals of which Gladys Earlehad told her, or had dared to blackmail her victim by dark hints, asMiss Earle had unconsciously suggested to her.
But this new development could not be ignored. A picture of Nita Leighas a suicide had appeared eight years ago in a Hamilton paper, and thepaper had either remained unaware of the error or had thought it notworth the space for a correction.... _Eight years ago!..._
Eight years ago in June three weddings had occurred in Hamilton! TheDunlap, the Miles, the Drake wedding. And within the last year and ahalf Judge Marshall, after proposing season after season to the mostpopular debutante, had married lovely little Karen Plummer. Suddenly asentence from Ralph Hammond's story of his engagement to Nita LeighSelim popped up in Dundee's memory: "And once I got cold-sick because Ithought she might still be married, but she said her husband had marriedagain, and I wasn't to ask questions or worry about him."
If Ralph Hammond had reported Nita accurately she had not said she was_divorced_. She had merely said her husband was _married again_! Why wasRalph to ask no questions? Divorced wives were not usually soreticent....
Had Nita planned to commit the crime of bigamy? If not, when and whereand how had she secured a divorce?
To Serena Hart, years before, she had denied any intention of getting adivorce, for two reasons--_because she did not know where her husbandwas_, and because, being married although husbandless, was a protectionagainst matrimonial temptations.
To Gladys Earle, a year ago in April, she had confided that she couldnot marry again, because she was not divorced and because she did notknow the whereabouts of her husband.
And so far as New York reporters had been able to find out, Nita Leighhad done nothing to alter her status as a married woman during the pastyear. Moreover, if Nita had secured either a divorce or a legalseparation, her "faithful and beloved maid," Lydia Carr, would certainlyhave known of it. And Lydia had vehemently protested more than once toBonnie Dundee that she knew nothing of Nita's husband, although she hadworked for the musical comedy dancer for five years. Surely if Nita,loving and trusting Lydia as she did, had entered into negotiations ofany kind with or concerning her husband during the last year, her maidwould have been the first to know of them. And yet----
Suddenly Dundee jumped to his feet and began to pace the floor of hishotel bedroom. He was remembering the belated confidence that John C.Drake, banker, had made to him the morning before--after the discoveryof Dexter Sprague's murder. He recalled Drake's reluctant statementalmost word for word:
"About that $10,000 which Nita deposited with our bank, Dundee.... Whenshe made the first deposit of $5,000 on April 28, she explained it withan embarrassed laugh as 'back alimony', an instalment of which she hadsucceeded in collecting from her former husband. And, naturally, whenshe made the second deposit on May 5, I presumed the same explanationcovered that sum, too, though I confess I was puzzled by the fact thatboth big deposits had been made in cash."
_In cash!_
Had Nita, by any chance, been telling a near-truth? Had she beenblackmailing her own husband--a husband who had dared marry again,believing his deserted wife to be dead--and justifying herself bycalling it "back alimony?"
But--wasn't it, in reality, no matter what coercion Nita had used ingetting the money, exactly that?... _Back alimony! And the price of hersilence before the world and the wife who was not really a wife...._
In a new light, Bonnie Dundee studied the character of the woman who hadbeen murdered--possibly to make her silence eternal.
Lois Dunlap had liked, even loved her. The other women and girls of "thecrowd"--that exclusive, self-centered clique of Hamilton's most sociallyprominent women--must have liked her fairly well and found hercongenial, in spite of their jealousy of her popularity with the men ofthe crowd, or they would not have tolerated her, regardless of LoisDunlap's championship of her protegee.
Gladys Earle had found her "the sweetest, kindest, most generous personI ever met"--Gladys Earle, who envied and hated all girls who were morefortunate than she.
Serena Hart, former member of New York's Junior League and still listedin the Social Register, had found her the only congenial member of thechorus she had invaded as the first step toward stardom. And Serena Harthad the reputation of being a woman of character and judgment, a kindand wise and great woman....
Finally, Ralph Hammond had loved Nita and wanted to marry her.
Was it possible that Nita Selim's only crime, into which she had beenled by her infatuation for Dexter Sprague, had been to demand, secretly,financial compensation from a husband who had married and deserted her,a husband who, believing her dead, had married again?
But who was the man whose picture--to spin a new theory--Nita hadrecognized as that of her husband among the male members of the cast of"The Beggar's Opera," when Lois Dunlap had proudly exhibited the"stills" of that amateur performance?
With excitement hammering at his pulses, Dundee took the bunch ofphotographs which Lois Dunlap had willingly given him, and studied thepicture that contained the entire cast--the picture which had firstattracted Nita's attention. And again despair overwhelmed him, for everyone of his possible male suspects was in that group....
But he could not keep his thoughts from racing on.... Men who steppedout of their class and went on parties with chorus girls frequently didso under assumed names, he reflected. Serena Hart was authority for theinformation that Nita's had been a sudden marriage. Was it not entirelypossible that the man who married Nita in 1918 had done so half-drunk,both on liquor and infatuation, and that he had not troubled to explainto Nita his motives for having used an assumed name or to write in hisreal name on the application for a marriage license? Had Nita's privatedetective journeyed out to _Hamilton_ years ago in a fruitless attemptto locate "Matthew Selim?"
Bonnie Dundee lay awake for hours Friday night turning these and ahundred other questions over and over in his too-active mind, and sleptat last, only to awake Saturday with a plan of procedure which he wassensible enough to realize promised small chance of success.
And he was right. Not in Manhattan, or in any of the other boroughs ofNew York City, did he find any record of a marriage license issued toJuanita Leigh and Matthew Selim. Not only was it entirely probable thatJuanita Leigh was a stage name and that Nita had married conscientiouslyunder her real name, but it was equally possible that the license hadbeen secured in New Jersey or Connecticut.
When he gave up his quest at noon Saturday and returned to his hotel,Dundee bought at the newsstand a paper whose headline convinced him thatSergeant Turner was, at that moment, even more discouraged than himself.For the big type told the world:
JOE SAVELLI "GETS" BROTHER'S SLAYER
And smaller headlines informed the sensation-loving public:
"SWALLOW-TAIL SAMMY" SAVELLI'S DEATH AVENGED BY BROTHER WHO SURRENDERS TO POLICE; "SLICK" THOMPSON, ALLEGED MEMBER
OF SAMMY'S GANG, SHOT TO DEATH ON SIXTH AVENUE.
Still smaller head-type acknowledged that Joe Savelli, after givinghimself up, with a revolver in his hand, had disclaimed any knowledge ofor connection with the murders of Juanita Leigh Selim and DexterSprague.
Two hours later, Dundee received a long telegram from District AttorneySanderson:
"INFORMED BY EVENING SUN SAVELLI ANGLE COMPLETE WASHOUT STOP HAVE YOU MADE ANY PROGRESS ALONG OTHER LINES STOP HAVE INFORMED REPORTERS YOU WORKING INDEPENDENTLY WITH STRONG CHANCE OF SOLVING BOTH CASES STOP WOULD LIKE YOU HERE FOR ADJOURNED INQUESTS ON BOTH MURDERS MONDAY STOP MOTHER IMPROVED AM ON JOB AGAIN"
Since Dundee felt that there was little chance of following througheither on the scandals which Gladys Earle had hinted at, or on Nita'sstrangely secret marriage of twelve years before, he immediatelydispatched a wire to Sanderson, assuring him that vital progress hadbeen made and that he would leave New York on the four o'clock trainwest, arriving in Hamilton Sunday morning at 8:50. The concludingsentence of the wire was:
"SUGGEST YOU PACIFY PRESS WITH ONLY VAGUEST OF HINTS."
Sanderson's wire, with its confession of an interview on Dundee's tripto New York, had upset him and left him with a cold, sick feeling offear that, stumbling half in darkness, the district attorney hadunwittingly warned the murderer of Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague thathis special investigator was on the right track. But he consoled himselfwith the hope that the final sentence of his answering telegram wouldprevent any further damage.
But he was wrong. An hour before he reached his destination on Sundaymorning he went into the dining car and found a copy of _The HamiltonMorning News_ beside his plate. And on the front page was a photographof dead Nita, her black hair in a French roll, her slim, recumbent bodyclad in the royal blue velvet dress. Beneath the picture was thecaption:
"What part does the outmoded royal blue velvet dress which Nita Selimchose as a shroud play in the solution of her murder?... That is thequestion which Special Investigator Dundee, attached to the districtattorney's office, who is due home this morning from fruitful detectivework in New York, is undoubtedly prepared to answer."
Dundee was still seething with futile rage when he climbed the stairs tohis apartment. On the floor just inside his living room door he found anenvelope--unstamped and bearing his name in typing.
The note inside, on paper as plain as the envelope, was typed andunsigned.
"If Detective Dundee will consult page 410 of the latest WHO'S WHO INAMERICA, he will find a tip which should aid him materially in solvingthe two murder cases which seem to be proving too difficult for hisinexperience."
A wry grin at his anonymous correspondent's unfriendly gibe was justtwisting his lips when a double knock sounded on the living room door,which he had not completely closed.
"Come in, Belle!"
A morose, slack-mouthed mulatto girl in ancient felt slippers sidledinto the room.
"Howdy, Mistah Dundee," Belle greeted him listlessly. "You got back, lakde papers said you would, didn' yuh? An' I ain't sayin' I ain't glad!Dat parrot o' yoahs sho is Gawd's own nuisance--nippin' at mah fingahsan' screechin' his fool head off.... 'Cose I ain't sayin' it's_his_ fault--keepin' dat young gemman on de secon' flo' awake las'night.... But lak I say to Mistah Wilson, when he lights into me dismawnin', runnin' off at de mouf 'cause I fo'got to put Cap'n's covah onhis cage las' night, I ain't de onliest one what fo'gits in dis hyarhouse.... Comin' home Gawd knows when, leavin' de front do' unlocked deres' o' de night, so's bugglers and murderers and Gawd knows who couldwalk right in hyar----"
Dundee, itching to consult his own copy of "Who's Who", flung a glanceat the parrot's cage, intending to pacify the mournful mulatto byscolding his "Watson" roundly. But he changed his mind and consoled thechambermaid instead:
"Just tell Mr. Wilson that for once he's wrong. You did _not_ forget tocover Cap'n's cage, Belle. Look!"
The girl's dull eyes bulged as they took in the cage, completely swathedin a square of black silk.
"Gawd's sake, Mistah Dundee!" she ejaculated. "_I_ didn't put dat covahon dat bird's cage! An' neithah did Mis' Bowen, 'cause she been laid upwith rheumatiz eveh since you lef, an' eveh las' endurin' thing in disol' house has been lef fo' me to do!"
"Then I suppose the indignant Mr. Wilson came up and covered Cap'nhimself," Dundee suggested, crossing the room to the bookcase whichstood within reaching distance of his big leather-covered armchair.
"Him?" Belle snorted. "How he gonna get in hyer widout no key? 'Sides,he'd a-tol' me if'n----"
"Belle, how many times must I ask you not to misplace my things?" Dundeecut in irritably, for he was tired of the discussion, and angry that hiscopy of "Who's Who" was missing from its customary place in thebookcase.
"Me?... I ain't teched none o' yoah things, 'cep'n to dus' 'em and lay'em down whar I foun' 'em," Belle retorted, mournfulness submerged inanger.
Dundee looked about the room, then his eyes alighted upon the missingbook, lying upon a shelf that extended across the top of anold-fashioned hot-air register, set high in the wall between the twowindows. The thick red volume lay close against the wall, itsgold-lettered "rib" facing the room.
"Belle, tell me the truth, and I shall not be angry: did you put thatred book on that shelf?" Dundee asked, his voice steady and kindly inspite of his excitement.
"Nossuh! I ain't teched it!"
"And you did not put the cover over my parrot's cage, although I hadtipped you well to feed Cap'n and cover him at night," Dundee saidseverely.
"I gotta heap o' wuk to do----"
"And you say that Mr. Wilson, one of the two young men on the secondfloor, left the front door unlocked when he came in last night?" Dundeeasked. "Does he admit it?"
"Yassuh," Belle told him sulkily. "He say he was tiahed when he got home'long 'bout midnight, an' he clean fo'got to turn de key in de do' an'shoot de bolt."
"Thanks, Belle. That will be all now," and Dundee did a great deal todispel the chambermaid's gloom by presenting her with a dollar bill.
When she had gone, the detective read the note again, then lookedat it and its envelope more closely. They had a strangely familiarlook.... Suddenly he jerked open a drawer of his desk, on which his newnoiseless typewriter stood, selected a sheet of plain white bond, androlled it into the machine. Quickly he tapped out a copy of the strange,taunting message.
Yes! The left-hand margin was identical, the typing and its degree ofblackness were identical, and the paper on which he had made the copywas exactly the same as that on which the original had been written.
The truth flashed into his mind. It was no coincidence that he had acopy of the very book to which his unknown correspondent referred him.For the note had been written in this very room, on stationeryconveniently at hand, on the noiseless typewriter which had been farmore considerate about not betraying the intruder than had the parrotwhose slumbers had been disturbed.
"But why did my unknown friend risk arrest as a burglar if he wanted togive me an honest tip?" Dundee remarked aloud to the parrot, who croakedan irrelevant answer:
"Bad Penny! Bad Penny!"
"I'm afraid, 'my dear Watson,' that those words will not be so helpfulin this case as they were when your mistress was murdered," Dundeeassured his parrot absently, for he was studying the peculiar situationfrom every angle. "Another question, Cap'n--why did the unknown botherto take my 'Who's Who' out of the bookcase, where I should normally havelooked for it, and put it on that particular shelf?"
Warily, for his scalp was prickling with a premonition of danger, Dundeecrossed the room to the shelf, but his hand did not reach out for thered book, which might have been expected to solve one problem, at least."_Why the shelf?_" he asked himself again. Why not the desk top, or themantelpiece, or the smoking table beside the big armchair?
The shelf, with its drapery of rather fine old silk tapestry, offered noanswer in itself, for it held nothing except the red book, a Chinesebowl, and a hum
idor of tobacco. And beneath the shelf was nothing butthe old-fashioned register, the opening covered with a screwed-on metalscreen which was a mass of big holes to permit the escape of hot airwhen the furnace was going in the winter....
Suddenly Dundee stooped and stared with eyes that were widened withexcitement and a certain amount of horror. Then he rose, and, standingfar to one side, picked up the fat volume which lay on the shelf. As hehad expected, a bullet whizzed noiselessly across the room and burieditself in the plaster of the wall opposite--a bullet which would haveploughed through his own heart if he had obeyed his first impulse andgone directly to the shelf to obey the instructions in the note.
But more had happened than the whizzing flight of a bullet through oneof the holes of the hot-air register. The "Who's Who" had been jerkedalmost out of Dundee's hand before he had lifted the heavy volume manyinches from the shelf. Coincidental with the disappearance of a bit ofwhite string which had been pinned to a thin page of the book was ametallic clatter, followed swiftly by the faint sound of a bump farbelow.
Dropping "Who's Who" to the floor, Dundee flung open his living roomdoor and raced down three flights of stairs. He brought up, panting, atthe door of the basement. It was not locked and in another minute he wasstanding before the big hot-air furnace. Above the fire box was a bigmetal compartment--the reservoir for the heated air. And set into thereservoir, to conduct the heat to the regions above, were three hugepipes.
With strength augmented by excitement, Dundee tugged and tore at one ofthe pipes until he had dislodged it. Then thrusting his hand into theheat reservoir, he groped until he had found what he had known must bethere--_Judge Marshall's automatic, with the Maxim silencer screwed uponthe end of its short nose_.
At last he held in his hands the weapon with which Nita Leigh Selim andDexter Sprague had been murdered.
The ingeniousness of his own attempted murder moved him to such profoundadmiration that he could scarcely feel resentment. If, in the excitementof hunting for a promised clue, he had gone directly to the shelf,standing in front of the hole in the register into which the end of thesilencer had been jammed, so that it showed scarcely at all, even toeyes looking for it, he would now have been dead. And the gun andsilencer, after hurtling down the big hot-air pipe behind the register,could have lain hidden for months, even years, in the heat reservoir ofthe furnace.
With the weapon carefully wrapped in his handkerchief, Dundee went upthe stairs almost as swiftly as he had gone down them, meeting no one onthe way to his rooms on the top floor.
"My most heartfelt thanks to you, Cap'n!" he greeted his parrot. "If youhad not squawked last night and so frightened the murderer that he madethe vital error of covering your cage, I should never have annoyed youagain with my Sherlock ruminations on cases which do not interest you inthe slightest."
The parrot cackled hoarsely, but Dundee paid him scant attention. Hepicked up the now harmless "Who's Who" and turned to page 410, a cornerof which had disappeared with the string that was still fastened to thehair-trigger hammer of the Colt's .32. Very clever and very simple! Themurderer of two people and the would-be murderer of a third had had onlyto unscrew the metal covering of the register, wedge the end of thesilencer into one of the many holes, replace the screws, and paste theend of the string, drawn through another hole hidden by the tapestry, toa page of the book he had selected as the one most likely to appeal to adetective as a clue source....
No, wait! He had had to do more! Dundee bent and examined the metalcover of the register. The circumference of the hole the murderer hadchosen as the one which would be directly in front of Dundee's heartgleamed brightly. It had been necessary to enlarge it considerably. _Themurderer had left a trace after all!_
But the book was open in Dundee's hands and his eyes rapidly scannedpage 410. And he found what the murderer had not expected him to live toread, but which he had counted on as an explanation of the note whichthe police would have puzzled over, if all had gone well with hisscheme....