The Wrong Way Down (15 page)

“I think it's a poor relation,” said Harold.

“Or it might be the old feller's nominating his successor.” Nordhall took the cup from Theodore's tray, his eyes still on the replica of Martin.

“His what?” asked Gamadge.

“The old feller's getting on.”

“Don't, Nordhall; don't.”

“You want to be realistic about these things.”

“About Martin? He's only half real himself. Can't be realistic about cats.”

Nordhall waited until Theodore had gone. Then he said: “I understand you made an early morning call downtown.”

“Yes. Miss Vance wouldn't tell me anything.”

“Angels couldn't go where you go.”

“They wouldn't want to.”

“Just let you in and sat and talked to you, did she?”

“Why not? She isn't afraid of me personally. She's backing the Ashburys—she's badly in love with the boy—but you and I decided that she couldn't even have known there was a murder coming off last night.”

“I suppose even you didn't take it upon yourself to tell her there's been another killing?”

“Certainly not.”

“Wonder if that news would have made her talk.”

“No news would. At present she's in a complicated state of mind—she's being pursued by the Furies. She's had so many shocks, one on top of the other, that she thinks—or half thinks—the spirits are doing it all; to get even with her for insulting them when she was a child.”

“On the level?”

“Quite. Don't forget that she was brought up by zealots.”

Nordhall was getting out a folder of typed papers. “You might like to do a really useful job for us today—you and Bantz. If you're really so keen on this job.”

“I'm keen on it,” said Harold.

“The Ashburys are going to keep a lunch engagement at the St. Roche at one o'clock. The St. Roche is only a few blocks west of the Vance apartment house, on Fifth Avenue.”

“I know where it is.” Gamadge came over and sat opposite Nordhall.

“I'm just reminding you that it's within walking distance of their place. They each have a man looking out for them, of course, but if they split up they each need two. I don't have to remind you that we haven't our full quota of men yet, and the D.A. keeps reminding me that all we actually have so far is the match-up on those bullets.”

“Too bad,” remarked Harold.

“I know, but he's a lawyer. You know how they pick at things. The same mobster that may have aimed at Gamadge may have hung around and followed Mrs. Spiker and held her up when she came here.”

“What did she come here for?” asked Harold, restraining himself.

“To talk Gamadge out of suspecting Vance stole the picture,” said Nordhall. He looked up at Lady Audley. “That it?”

“That's it,” said Gamadge.

“If that's like old Mrs. Ashbury, then all I can say is, old Mrs. A. had a mean, smug face and no imagination.”

“The artist—er—saw his subject like that.”

“But old Mrs. A.
was
like that, according to Miss Paxton. If her son Lawson was anything like that, and he probably was, I must say I wouldn't have minded playing a joke on him myself, if I'd been the Vance kid. Well, what do you say about going down to the St. Roche?”

“I won't be able to eat lunch,” said Gamadge, with a sigh. “And there isn't a better lunch in town.”

“I'll eat the lunch,” said Harold.

“Fine. Then the Ashburys can't pull any backdoor stuff on our guys. They're young—the Ashburys—and they may think they can shake our guys off. They might at that. What we're hoping for, of course, is a contact with Bowles. We figure that they haven't heard from him at all since he lammed out after not shooting you last night.”

“Afraid to telephone?”

“He'd be, in case police were at the Ashburys'; they'd be, even if they knew where he was. Too dangerous now. Anyway, that's what we hope.”

“Harold and I will drive down to the St. Roche,” said Gamadge. “My car's on the next street.”

“That's fixed then; fine.” Nordhall sorted his papers. “Now I'll tell you how far we've got. A Mr. Halsey Bowles of Dallas, Texas, checked into the Hotel Lingard on Seventh Avenue last Tuesday week, the fourth. He checked out at twelve last night.”

“Nice work,” said Gamadge.

“Just routine. Well, the dates make it all perfect. Bowles, Mrs. Spiker and the two Ashburys arrived here on Tuesday the fourth, a nice little party of four, on from the West for a spree. Perhaps they all came on the same train—roomettes for the Ashburys, a lower for Mrs. Spiker, an upper for Bowles. If it was a murder party they must have been pretty sure of themselves; but it looks as if Mrs. Spiker didn't know it was a murder party until you crashed in on it.

“Bowles had a big suitcase with him; he and it have faded away. We can't find Mrs. Spiker's suitcase, perhaps we never will.

“Now for our San Francisco dope, and I'm glad to say we have a good deal. Ashbury's on his way, due here tomorrow. If he tries to leave his plane he'll run into trouble. They'll be watching out for him at every stop.

“He's always had a good position in San Francisco, good socially and in business. He was always crazy about the water, had a nice little seagoing yacht, but since the war he naturally had to give that up; he's been camping instead. He has a nice house outside town, nice country house, camp in the mountains. Nothing fancy, just comfortable. Nobody's heard anything about his being hard up since the war; took it for granted he'd saved plenty of capital.

“First wife, a Miss St. Helier, California girl, came from a fine family in reduced circumstances. Killed in a motoring accident—he wasn't along. All O.K., according to what they tell us. He never does seem to be on the spot when accidents happen, does he? But he certainly doesn't seem to have gained anything by her death except his liberty. He didn't marry again till five years later—that was ten years ago. And darned if the second wife wasn't a lady in reduced circumstances too; a Miss Chauncey from St. Louis, teaching school there when he met her. They came across each other while she was on vacation, visiting friends in Burlingame.”

“You must have had the social editors out of their beds at break of day,” said Gamadge.

“The Commissioner got busy last night. You haven't heard the half of it.”

“I'm hanging on your words.”

“That's right. Well, the children were left to their own devices after their mother died, and they picked schools and colleges in the East. Never came home except vacation times, and when they were home ran around with a gay crowd. Nothing against them personally except a few tickets for driving violations and that kind of thing. Ashbury Junior was drafted into the Air Force, and was just going overseas when the surrender came.

“Now comes the interesting part—the other side of the picture, you might call it: I said Ashbury liked sailing. He was crazy on the subject, and the society bunch complained because he was always dragging the first Mrs. A. off on long cruises with him, right in the middle of the doings. She was well liked, and her friends missed her from the club dances and card parties and whatever they do. Sports, too—she never got a chance at her tennis and her golf and her riding. Always off on these cruises with Ashbury.

“After she died he didn't go around much; never cared for the regular social life, and cared less and less for it. Went camping, hunting, fishing, mostly alone with his chauffeur and some other men he hired. Then in nineteen thirty-five he met this girl from St. Louis. She was well liked too, a whiz at games and parties; but danged if he didn't start hauling her off with him on those cruises too, and when that stopped, on the camping trips. She didn't have the staying power the other one had, and she folded—lung trouble or something.

“She's been a semi-invalid ever since, more or less out of circulation; half the time in rest cures in Arizona.

“And I can't get a thing about him personally except that he's pretty fond of his own way. And it might take months to find out whether he did have capital to fall back on when his business collapsed, and whether a hundred thousand might mean something to him in cash just now. Or why,” said Nordhall, folding up his papers and sitting back to look at Gamadge earnestly, “that kind of man makes love matches.”

“There's a type,” said Gamadge, “that would never marry a woman he couldn't patronize.”

“Push around, you mean? If he's a man that has to have some well-brought-up woman entirely dependent on him—”

“He evidently isn't expected to approve of his son's love match with Miss Vance. Perhaps because she hasn't the background that suits him.”

“I guess that type would be what they call conventional,” said Nordhall. “On the surface, anyway.” He made a face. “Doesn't sound so good to me. Well: he got three long-distance calls last night; the first one from the Department, telling him that Miss Paxton had had the accident—that went through about ten-fifteen. The third was the one I made, a little after twelve-thirty; the second came through from a pay station at something after midnight. That was Bowles, of course, saying he was checking out of the Lingard for good and sufficient reasons, and probably giving a new address.

“Ashbury made one call himself at nine minutes to one, the call to his children at the Vance apartment building. I wasn't far out.”

“No.”

“They're acting on his instructions. Well, that's all for Ashbury just now. About the autopsy report on Miss Paxton, there isn't a thing to show that she wasn't killed by falling from the old front door to the pavement. The pavement is still the blunt instrument, so far as the medical examiner knows, and her coat saved her from any other injuries.” He smiled at Gamadge.

“I'm glad
you're
still with me,” said Gamadge. “If you are.”

“I am. I have the pleasure of your acquaintance.” Nordhall rose. “Get going, you two, and I wish you luck.”

Nordhall left. Gamadge and Harold went around to the Club garage and got the car. They drove down Fifth Avenue to the old, famous and still fashionable St. Roche, all white brick and green balconies, which faced West on a quiet corner near the Arch.

They went up the white steps. A man lounging just outside the revolving doors of the lobby put up a finger in greeting.

“Hello,” said Gamadge. “You know me?”

“You was described when Lieutenant Nordhall told us you'd be down.” He added: “Green eyes, good dresser, left shoulder drops.”

“Could be worse. What would you have done if Bantz and I hadn't been able to come? Just played your luck?”

The plain-clothes man looked surprised. “Lieutenant said you'd come.”

“But that was just now, wasn't it?”

“Eight this morning, before we went on duty at that interesting old landmark over on Third.”

Gamadge said: “My life's being arranged for me. This gentleman here with me is even supplying me with an endless chain of yellow cats. All right, we're here.”

The plain-clothes man was evidently one of those who expect oddities in conversation. He said: “I always have a wired fox. Miss Ashbury walked in here a minute ago with her brother, me just after them, Limpeck a block behind. I'm hers, Limpeck is the Ashbury feller's. Lim's across the street there.”

A little man in brown stood in the doorway across the Avenue, hugging himself against the cold.

“Can watch the side entrance from there,” said the plain-clothes man. “You on Ashbury?”

“Yes, I rather think I am.”

“Give Limpeck a sign.”

Gamadge turned and raised his hand in salutation of his partner. The little man in brown unwrapped one arm from about himself and flapped a hand in return.

“If you're looking for lunch,” said the plain-clothes man, “I may have got you in bad. The doorman's deathly afraid we're going to make a pinch; when I showed him my badge he almost cried.”

The doorman, in fact, scowled a little as Gamadge and Harold came through into the lobby. They made for the news-stand on the right, which was flanked by palms; sheltered by these, they looked out over the semicircular high-ceiled place, with its red carpet, its crystal chandeliers, its white-and-gold pilastered walls.

Ashbury and his sister sat side by side on a settee almost opposite the entrance. They were motionless, and Ashbury held an afternoon paper up as though he were reading from it. Janet Ashbury sat looking straight in front of her. Gamadge would hardly have known her, she was so correct and demure. Her hair was up under a fashionable but conservative little hat, her make-up was toned down to the faintest emphasis of her natural coloring, her dress and fur cape were the perfection of youthful elegance. White gloves covered the hands that clung rigidly to the handbag on her lap, and she wore a corsage of white orchids.