The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK® Page 7

  He dismissed the possibility that he had left from and returned to either 100 Carlton or 104 Carlton, for not only was he certain of the address, he was certain it was the center apartment house. With equal certainty he discarded the possibility that his apartment was 34, 234, 334, or anything but 134. Since he always climbed a single flight of stairs to reach it, it had to be 134.

  Glancing at his watch, he saw it was five-fifteen, too late to catch Helen by phone before she left work. Since she would be getting off a bus right where he was standing within another ten minutes, Harry decided to wait for her. The thought that they could tackle the problem together reduced his panic to mere worry.

  When Helen failed to alight from the five twenty-five bus, Harry was disappointed. When she was not on the five forty-five, he began to experience unease.

  When the five fifty-five passed without even slowing down, a cold chill crept along his spine.

  Forcing himself to at least surface calmness, he crossed the street to the gas station, located a pay phone on the wall, and then discovered he had no change in his pockets. He extracted a dollar bill from his wallet—and found that he was all alone.

  The station’s single attendant was outside gassing a car. Under the stress of his increasing nervousness, it seemed to Harry the man deliberately moved in slow motion when he finally hung up the hose and began wiping the windshield, though actually he was kept waiting no longer than a minute and a half.

  When the attendant finally entered the station, Harry thrust the dollar bill at him and asked for change to include some dimes. To his slight annoyance the attendant gave him ten dimes.

  Catching his expression, the man said, “Didn’t you want to play the machine?” For a moment Harry was puzzled, but then he noted the dime slot machine in one corner of the room. In Wright City you found slot machines everywhere: in filling stations, drug stores and even in barber shops. And of course in every tavern.

  “Phone.” Harry said briefly.

  Fishing from his wallet the slip of paper on which Helen had written the unlisted phone number of her boss, he dropped a dime and dialed the number. It rang several times before a woman’s voice answered, “Hello.” It was not Helen’s voice.

  “Is this Mr. Dale Thompson’s office?” Harry asked.

  “Yes. His home and his office.” The woman’s voice had a dulled edge, as though she had been crying.

  “This is Harry Nolan. Is my wife still there?”

  “Who?” the woman asked.

  “Helen Nolan. Mr. Thompson’s secretary.”

  For a moment there was silence. Then the woman said in a puzzled tone, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. You are speaking to Mr. Thompson’s secretary. My name is Miss Wentworth.”

  For a long time the constriction in Harry’s throat refused to let him speak. Finally he got out, “May I speak to Mr. Thompson, please?”

  On the other end of the wire there was a silence nearly as long. Then in a muffled tone the woman said, “I’m sorry. Dale…Mr. Thompson had a heart attack this morning. He died at Mercy Hospital at eleven o’clock.”

  The shock of it flooded over Harry like an icy stream. Not because of any particular feeling for Thompson, for he had never even met the news columnist. But the announcement of his death was like a closing door to Harry, an abrupt curing off of an avenue of escape from what was gradually assuming the proportions of a nightmare.

  He managed to stammer, “I’m awfully sorry to hear that, Miss Wentworth. But you must know my wife, Helen. She has been Mr. Thompson’s secretary for the past two weeks.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” the woman said with a note of finality. “I’ve been Mr. Thompson’s secretary for more than a year. And under the circumstances, I am hardly in a mood for practical jokes.”

  She hung up.

  In a daze Harry left the station, crossed the street and entered the building at 102 Carlton for a second time. Resolutely he climbed the stairs, paused in front of apartment 134 and took the Yale key from his pocket.

  Nothing in the past hour has really happened, he told himself. I’ve been suffering some kind of mental hallucination. Now I will put the key in the lock, open the door and find Helen with dinner ready, beginning to worry about where I have been.

  Sliding the key into the lock, he twisted it so hard it bent slightly. But it would not turn.

  He dropped it back in his pocket and rang the bell. The same red-headed woman appeared. When she saw him, she frowned in surprised annoyance, but then she noted the strained paleness of his face and withdrew a step in alarm.

  “Pardon me,” Harry said in an even tone. “Would you mind telling me how long you’ve lived in this apartment?”

  “Why…why going on four months. Why?”

  “Thank you,” Harry said, and walked away.

  * * * *

  The night desk sergeant said, nothing for a few moments after Harry finished talking.

  Then he said, “You left out one part.”

  When Harry only looked puzzled, the desk sergeant said, “The tavern you stopped in on the way home.”

  Panic was gripping Harry too tightly for there to be any room in his emotional system for anger. He said patiently, “I haven’t even had a beer in two days. And it wasn’t just the wrong apartment, because I went back to check a second time. Even if it was the wrong place, there’s no explanation for this Miss Wentworth where Helen worked never even hearing of her.”

  The desk sergeant drummed his fingers, finally shrugged and said in a tone indicating he was merely humoring a taxpayer, “I’ll let you talk to somebody in the Detective Bureau.”

  Lifting his phone, he pushed one of a bank of buttons on its base and asked for a Sergeant Murphree.

  “I’ve got an odd one for you, Joe,” he said. “A guy’s lost his wife, but it’s not just a missing person deal. He claims a whole furnished apartment disappeared along with her.”

  After a pause he said, “You can get it from the guy. I’ll send him up.”

  “Take the elevator to the fourth floor,” he told Harry, after hanging up. “Go left two doors and you’ll find one marked Detective Bureau. Ask for Sergeant Murphree.”

  Following directions, Harry reached the door labeled Detective Bureau just as it opened and a thin, cold-faced man stepped out into the hall.

  Harry said, “Pardon me, I’m looking for Sergeant Murphree.”

  The man glanced at him without interest. “Why?”

  The abrupt question disconcerted Harry. “The man downstairs…” his voice stumbled. “On the desk, you know. He sent me.”

  “To see me? Okay, shoot.”

  “It’s a kind of long story, Sergeant,” Harry said hesitantly.

  The sergeant looked pained. Rather grudgingly he said, “My office is next door,” and moved toward it.

  Harry followed, his throat experiencing the now familiar constriction when he saw the door they were entering was labeled Homicide Squad. For the first time it occurred to him Helen might be dead.

  The room contained approximately a dozen desks arranged in three rows, like in a schoolroom. Only one in the far corner was occupied, and the man seated behind it laboriously typing with two fingers did not even glance up. Waving Harry to a seat next to a desk near the door, the detective sat behind the desk and said resignedly, “Shoot.”

  Harry repeated the tale he had told the desk sergeant.

  When he finished the detective asked, “What makes you think your wife is dead?”

  The question not only startled Harry, it crystallized a host of vague suspicions into a terrible fear. “I…I don’t think that,” he said desperately. “She couldn’t be dead, could she?”

  “How would I know?” the detective asked without feeling. “
But if you don’t think she is, why did that damn fool on the desk send you to Homicide?”

  Harry shook his head miserably. Then the door jerked open and a bull-necked man in plainclothes peered in at them.

  “You the guy with the missing apartment?” he demanded of Harry.

  Startled, Harry repeated, “Missing apartment? No…missing wife. I mean yes, both of them.”

  The seated detective looked at the one in the doorway with unmistakable distaste. Then he looked back at Harry. With a note of exasperation in his voice, he said, “I been wasting my time listening to one of Murphree’s cases. I thought you said Murphy.”

  “When did you learn to think?” the bull-necked man growled. “For ten minutes I been cooling my heels waiting for this guy.”

  “Tough,” the thin man said with deliberate lack of sympathy. To Harry he said, “This guy is Sergeant Joe Murphree of the Detective Bureau. I’m Sergeant Don Murphy of Homicide. Next time get the mush out of your mouth.”

  “I’m sorry,” Harry apologized stumblingly. “I thought… I mean, I didn’t know—”

  “Come on next door,” the bull-necked Murphree interrupted irritably.

  As they left the office Harry was surprised to see the two detectives exchange glances of profound dislike.

  A few moments later Harry was repeating his story for the third time. And this time he was gratified to find he was not met with total skepticism. Not that Sergeant Joe Murphree gave the impression he instantly believed the incredible tale, but neither did he give any indication of disbelief. His questions satisfied Harry he at least was reserving judgment until he had done some investigating.

  “You say you got married just a week ago?” Murphree asked. “What was your wife’s maiden name?”

  “Helen Lawson.”

  “Local girl?”

  “No. From Des Moines. We both are. I’ve been here about six weeks, but she only arrived three weeks ago.”

  “How’d you happen to move to Wright City?”

  “The Ajax people were running a labor recruitment drive,” Harry explained. “They advertised in the Des Moines papers for fit-up men and I applied. They offered fifty cents an hour more than I was making for fit-up work in Des Moines, plus moving expenses, so I grabbed it. After I got settled, I sent for Helen.”

  “And right away she got a job as secretary to this Dale Thompson?”

  “Well, about a week after she arrived. The Midtown Employment Agency sent her to Mr. Thompson. She was a trained secretary, so she didn’t have to worry about getting some kind of a job after she moved here.”

  “Where’d she stay until you got married?” the detective asked.

  “I got her a room up the street from mine. Then we looked for an apartment together, and soon as we located one, we got married.”

  “Let’s take a little ride,” Sergeant Murphree suggested.

  Instead of using a squad car, they went in Murphree’s own automobile, which to Harry’s surprise turned out to be a sleek Mercury convertible. Somehow, the thought of a policeman riding around in a convertible instead of a plain black sedan struck Harry as odd.

  The sergeant’s first remark after they climbed into the car struck him as odd, too. Glancing at his watch, Murphree announced it was nearly seven and time to eat.

  “Eat?” Harry repeated. “Before we find Helen?”

  The bull-necked detective said tolerantly, “Look, kid, according to your story, it’s two hours since you walked into your apartment and found everything different. Whatever it is happened to your wife, another half hour isn’t going to change things. But another half hour without food would change me. I work from four till midnight, and my suppertime is seven to seven-thirty.”

  * * * *

  Murphree drove to a moderately expensive restaurant a few blocks from Headquarters where he ordered a complete meal. Though Harry had tasted nothing since noon, he was unable to eat. He ordered a cup of coffee.

  In an agony of suspense Harry spent the next half hour watching the big detective leisurely consume his meal. The minute the man finally sipped the last of his coffee and lit a cigarette, Harry grabbed the check and raced for the cashier.

  It did not occur to Harry until after they were back in the car that probably there was some regulation forbidding policemen to accept favors from complainants. However, the sergeant made no offer to repay Harry for his dinner, and since Helen was too much on Harry’s mind for him to bother over the expenditure of two and a half dollars, he dismissed the thought.

  The red-headed woman and her dark-skinned husband still occupied apartment 134 when Harry and the sergeant arrived at 102 Carlton. After Murphree identified himself as a member of the Detective Bureau, he and Harry were grudgingly invited in.

  The sergeant’s questioning revealed the couple were Mr. and Mrs. Kurt Arnold, that the redhead was a professional model and the man a bit actor in the theater. They claimed to have occupied the apartment for the past four months and to have slept there every night during that period except for one weekend they were out of town…and that weekend was nearly a month before Harry and his bride moved in.

  “What’s this all about anyway?” the dark-skinned man asked.

  “Nolan here is missing a wife,” the detective said vaguely. “Mind if we look around?”

  Kurt Arnold and his wife obviously did mind, but they reluctantly gave permission. Puzzled, they followed Harry and the sergeant from room to room as they investigated the whole apartment.

  There were only three rooms and a bath to investigate, and except for their layout Harry recognized nothing familiar in any of them. Even the wallpaper was different in every room. It was not until they had again returned to the front room that Harry suddenly recalled an item which might prove, at least to his own satisfaction, that this was the same apartment he had occupied for a week.

  “The bathroom window,” he said abruptly. “A triangle about an inch across is missing from the left upper corner. You have to raise the shade all the way to see it.”

  With all three of them behind him, he shade cord and allowed it to fly all the way strode back to the bathroom, pulled the up.

  The upper window pane was intact.

  Sergeant Joe Murphree made no comment as he and Harry Nolan left the apartment. He simply led the way downstairs and rang the manager’s bell.

  The apartment manager Harry had never met, as Helen had been the one to locate the apartment and she had also delivered the first month’s rent. It therefore did not upset Harry to have the man look at him without recognition, but when he denied all knowledge of any tenants named Mr. and Mrs. Harry Nolan and verified the Arnold’s story of having occupied apartment 134 for the past four months, a feeling of hopelessness, settled over him.

  Sergeant Murphree’s expression indicated he rapidly was losing his objective attitude.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Man Alone

  Using the manager’s phone, the sergeant checked Mercy Hospital and learned news columnist Dale Thompson had indeed died of a coronary attack at eleven that morning. He then drove Harry over to the Newbold Arms, where the bachelor columnist had lived alone in a seven-room penthouse which comprised both his home and his office. Though it was by now after eight in the evening, they found the woman Harry had talked to over the phone still there.

  Dorothy Wentworth was a tall, efficient-looking brunette. In answer to the detective’s question she explained she did not live in the penthouse and ordinarily would not have been there after five, but because Thompson’s nearest relatives lived in California, there was no one else to take the numerous calls which were coming in as the result of his unexpected death. Dale Thompson had been mildly famous, and already she had received calls from the governor, the mayor, two congressmen and fifteen or twenty other notables who phoned to expres
s condolences. During the ten minutes they spent at the penthouse, two more long distance calls came from friends who had heard the news over the radio.

  Dorothy Wentworth could shed no light whatever on the mystery of Helen’s disappearance. She said she had been Dale Thompson’s secretary for more than a year, had never missed a day’s work, and was positive no woman aside from herself had done any secretarial work for the columnist during that period.

  On the way down in the elevator Sergeant Murphree said, “Let’s see that paper you mentioned with Thompson’s telephone number on it.”

  Digging into his wallet, Harry handed over the paper on which Helen had written the number. After studying it a moment, the detective thrust it into his own wallet.

  He asked, “Can you say for certain your wife ever worked for this guy? You ever visit her here during office hours, or call the unlisted number before today?”

  Miserably Harry shook his head. “But why would she pretend to have a job she didn’t have? What would be the point?” The elevator emitted them at the ground floor. When they got off, the detective paused for a moment and regarded Harry dubiously.

  “Your wife talk much about her work with Thompson?”

  “Not about her work,” Harry said. “About him some. She said he was a nice guy to work for. But he made it clear to her before she got the job that he wouldn’t stand for any leaks whatever from his office. He said that until after it was published, she wasn’t to discuss anything at all scheduled to appear in his column, even with me. So she never talked about the stuff she had to type up.”

  Murphree said ruminatively, “Maybe that was to cover up that she wasn’t really forking for him at all.”

  “That’s just silly,” Harry protested, but in the face of Miss Wentworth’s evidence, he was conscious that his voice lacked conviction.

  For the first time it occurred to him Helen might have deliberately disappeared, and the thought upset him nearly as much as when he had faced the possibility that she might be dead.