Arrow Pointing Nowhere (4 page)

“Yes, I suppose he had. He's a big, good-looking feller; I thought he must be lame or sick; I wouldn't have known there was anything the matter with his brain. But of course I didn't know there was a mental case in the house, and it's no use now to say that I thought he didn't have any more expression than the face of a clock. Lots of people don't, anyway.”

“I'll take your word for his expression. Any more happenings?”

“As soon as the cab drove off, a nice car came along. Oldish man got out, nice-looking, carried a bag; looked like a doctor.

He went in the house. Then the old guy arrived, and started in with his broom, and I came away.”

“Very nice scouting. Bring your friend and Arline here for cocktails this evening.”

Harold's dark face was illumined by a slow smile. He said: “O.K. Like you to meet Corporal Lipowitsky. Quite a dancer.”

Clara said: “I can't wait. What an evening.”

G
AMADGE WENT OUT
into a thin, icy snowfall, and along streets piled high at the curbs with Thursday's snow. He crossed a deserted avenue, waited long for a bus, and when it came waded to it. Dismounting in the lower forties, he ploughed westward with his collar up, his hatbrim down, and his hands sunk in his pockets.

He went into a converted brownstone house where J. Hall occupied the second floor. J. Hall's show window was bare but impressive, with its reticent display of open folios, a map, a set of faded small octavos in red morocco gilt, and a framed copperplate engraving, dusky and mellow. Gamadge climbed dark stairs and opened a half-glass door, on which gold letters said merely:
J. Hall. Books
.

He entered a large front room which had once been somebody's parlor; books rose to its moulded cornices. Hall's desk stood beside the window, Hall's clerk's desk had its modest place in a corner, beside folding doors. These led to the back office, where Hall informally received a chosen few.

Hall's clerk was at his desk, reading under a green-shaded light. He was a serious young man, whose very hair looked dusty. He rose. “Mr. Hall's expecting you, Mr. Gamadge.”

“Thanks, Albert.”

“It's an awful day.”

“It's an awful day.”

Albert opened a folding door. Gamadge paused beside his desk. “What are you reading?
Men Working
?”

“Yes, sir. Business is a little slow.”

“You don't say.”

Gamadge went through the doorway into a sanctum warmed by a coal fire. J. Hall sat hunched over this, whiskey at his elbow, his face obscured by the large silk handkerchief on which he was blowing his nose. By birth an Englishman, he had been an American citizen for nearly forty years; but he adhered as faithfully as he could to the customs of his native land. Before he went home Albert would bring him a pot of tea.

He looked at Gamadge over his shoulder, and put the bandanna away. “I have a frightful cold,” he said. “Have some medicine?”

“No, thanks.” Gamadge sat down at the other end of the hearth.

“I'd retire, if I could find a cheap, sunny place with no arty people and no trippers. Did you come to buy something? The Cotter collection? Diaries, portraits—mostly proof impressions—and private plates of great rarity. Fine and scarce mezzotints. The whole bound up in half green levant by Rivière.”

“I read about it in your circular. Don't try me on it; try customers like—err—Mr. Blake Fenway.”

This produced a choleric stare from Hall. “Fenway? A lot you seem to know about Fenway. He doesn't buy that kind of thing, or much of anything. Not now. But he's fond
of books in his simple way, and I like to oblige him; he's a gentleman.”

“What's his contemptible hobby?”

“Latish American firsts, too late for big values. He likes to fill out the authors that his parents and grandparents bought as current literature; nice idea. The Fenway books are in mint condition—dare say they weren't read. But they were bought—Howells back to Hawthorne.” J. Hall got out his handkerchief again, sneezed into it, and went on: “We were in a quandary about Henry James, because the Fenways only possessed
Daisy Miller.
But we think we'll fill him out when the war's over.”

“That will be quite a job.”

“Quite. Fenway has stopped buying books until then, and who am I to protest? He'd trade, but he has nothing I want—naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“I have the
Elsie Venner
he wanted; his is the wrong one, the one that has no misprint in it. He was dreadfully dashed when he found that out. Dreadfully dashed.”

Gamadge said: “I might take yours off your hands if you don't stick me too much for it.”

“Good God! Albert—a sale.”

The dusty Albert appeared, smiling.

“Wrap up the
Elsie Venner
for Mr. Gamadge. We have no boys, Gamadge; will Albert have to drag it uptown for you, or will you take it yourself?”

“Since you put it like that, I'll take it myself.”

“I don't mind delivering it, Mr. Gamadge.” Albert had climbed up on a stepladder, and was removing two faded brown volumes from a shelf.

“I don't mind taking it. I'm going home in a cab—I'm not dressed for Alpine climbing. Is that novel in there for sale, Albert? The one you're reading?”

J. Hall stared. “Novel? Current novel? Why don't you go to your corner rental library?”

“I want to buy it.”

Albert had retired to his desk, and was wrapping the parcel. He desisted, to say: “You can have it, Mr. Gamadge. I can get myself another on my way home.”

“Mighty good of you.” Gamadge handed Albert the retail price and tax, and Albert included
Men Working
in the package. “By the way.” Gamadge pulled on his gloves. “Did you jot my name down in pencil on one of the office envelopes, Albert, and then mail it by mistake?”

“If he did,” said J. Hall from his armchair, “I'll fire him. We waste no stationery nowadays.”

Albert, looking mystified, had shaken his head. “No, sir. I never jotted your name down anywhere.”

Gamadge jerked his head towards the back room, and soundlessly inquired: “Did
he
?”

Albert shook his head again. “No, sir.”

“What's all this?” J. Hall craned to look at Gamadge. “Did you get such a thing?”

“Yes. Minor mystery; if I solve it I'll try to remember to tell you about it.”

“You might solve Fenway's mystery for him.”

“Fenway's?” Gamadge, his parcel under his arm, went and looked at the back of J. Hall's head. “What mystery?”

“He's lost a plate out of an old book of views. Wants another, but I think it's unprocurable. That collection is in private hands or museums of Americana. Not much value.”

“What was the plate?”

“Colored plate of the old place they had up the Hudson—Fenbrook. I'll advertise, but I don't think he'll get one.”

“When did he discover the loss?”

“Last week. Telephoned me about it on Monday.”

“What happened to his rule about not buying until after the war?”

“Oh, the rule doesn't apply to his book of views. That's a family matter; he'd pay anything to get his picture back.”

Gamadge took his departure. As soon as he reached home he put the parcel of books away in his office, and then called Miss Vauregard.

“I have the information we need,” he said.

“Then won't you just dictate a letter, Henry? I'll get a pencil.”

When she returned to the telephone he had prepared a couple of notes. He said: “You'll probably want to put in something about being sorry you never see them any more just to break the ice.”

“I should think so!”

“And you'll want to ask how Mrs. Cort Fenway is getting along, that kind of thing. Then you might say: ‘My niece's husband, Henry Gamadge, has been hearing about your American first editions from Jervis Hall, the bookseller, and he's dying to see them. I think he buys books himself from Mr. Hall sometimes, in a modest way. If you'd care to call him up, I know he'd be much gratified. The trouble is, it would have to be rather soon, because he's going away again on some war work.'”

“Oh, Henry,” wailed Miss Vauregard, “are you?”

“Well, not immediately; that's just to hurry him up a little. Then you might put in something about being quite fond of me, and what a nice intelligent fellow I am. But for Heaven's sake don't say anything about crime.”

“Crime? Oh—your cases.”

“Mightn't they scare him?”

“Well—if he's heard about them he'll still be willing to meet you, for my sake; but he may not let you meet the family!”

“I must try to make a good impression on him. And I can't tell you how I appreciate this. Can't begin to.”

“It's all right, dear.”

“You'll send it around by hand?”

“He'll have it in an hour.” She paused. “Henry—you're not getting some kind of occupational disease, I hope?”

“What kind?”

“Thinking things are wrong when nothing is wrong?”

“Perhaps I am. I'll go carefully.”

As the cocktail hour approached, Harold came into the library to find Gamadge sitting on the chesterfield in front of the fire, his cigarette going out between his fingers and his eyes fixed on vacancy. Harold asked: “Find out anything from Hall?”

“My message didn't originate in his office. Fenway isn't my client—he telephoned to Hall on Monday.”

“Somebody standing over him with a gun, perhaps.”

“They wouldn't risk it. He might get something to Hall in code. Lots of chances when you're talking old books, as my message proves.”

“I don't think he can be the client.”

The telephone rang. Harold went into the hall and brought the instrument back on its long cord. He said: “Mr. Blake Fenway to speak to Mr. Gamadge.”

Gamadge said: “Mr. Fenway? This is Henry Gamadge speaking.”

A pleasant voice replied: “I'm very glad to find you at home, Mr. Gamadge. I've just come in myself, and found a note from our dear Robina Vauregard. If you're really interested in my books I shall be delighted to show them to you.”

Gamadge said: “Thank you very much indeed. Miss Vauregard was here to lunch with us. She said she'd write.”

“I have
your
charming books, and I shall be greatly
honored to meet the writer. I hope Hall warned you that I'm a mere amateur at book collecting.”

“We're all mere amateurs to J. Hall.”

Fenway laughed. “You should see him looking for Melville and Poe among my Aldriches and Stocktons!”

“The only trouble is, Mr. Fenway, that I really have only a very few days—”

“So I understand. Could you make time tomorrow, and drop in after lunch for coffee? I'm sorry to say that I have a lunch engagement; our local citizen's committee meets when it can.”

“Half past two?”

“Splendid. I'm sorry that I shan't have all the family books to show you; a good many of them are still up at Fenbrook. I'm having the more valuable things sent down by degrees. I never realized until now, when I have a certain amount of leisure, that Fenbrook isn't the safest place for books in case of fire.”

“These are not times to risk losing anything that's old.”

“No, are they? Tomorrow, then.”

“Thank you very much.”

Gamadge returned the telephone to Sergeant Bantz. He said: “Mr. Blake Fenway is not my client. He goes where he likes.”

“I heard that part of it. Nice-sounding feller.”

“I should judge him the kindest, most considerate and least harmful of created beings.”

“Which makes it all a little crazier. What's going on in his house?”

The first of the cocktail guests entered the library; Miss Arline Prady, a tall, plain, bony girl with large dark eyes. She was a ballet dancer out of a job, at present engaged in filling out programmes for camp entertainments. She liked to wear the latest thing, if that thing happened to be inexpensive
and conspicuous, and this evening she wore a knitted woolen head-shawl or fascinator of the brightest purple, a short, woolly coat, a red dress, and high boots. The slightly leftist effect of the costume was far from Miss Prady's intention, for she had no politics.

Corporal Lipowitsky was not far behind her, and Clara hurried in a minute later, dressed in her best for the corporal. Gamadge exerted himself for the party, which (but for Clara) looked as if it were going to be a solemn one. Gamadge rather wished he knew what the dinner conversation was going to be like. He poured cocktails, passed canapés, and tried to introduce a note of frivolity into the proceedings. At last he adjusted snow boots to Clara's feet, and saw the revellers off.