Time Off for Murder (3 page)

  "Are you your girl friend's keeper? Suppose Miss Knight has gone away somewhere and left orders that nosy people aren't to be told where she is. Suppose you're just being told what she wishes you to be told, no more, no less."

  Mary shook her head. "No, the man at the office is worried too. I can tell by his voice. Look, Chris, would you mind very much if I took an earlier lunch hour today? I'd like to run down and talk to him."

  Just before noon, Miss Carner climbed out of the subway caverns into the gloomy canyons of lower Manhattan. She blinked at the sunlight that lay like a benediction over the grass and marble oasis of Trinity churchyard. She paused to envy the mid-day idlers, spreading their lunches on the flat gravestones, swinging their heels above dust of the centuries. Then she crossed Broadway, saying to herself how odd it was that that historic churchyard made one think only of peace and ageless beauty. It was the street of the living, rather, the narrow, sunless canyon of Pine Street, which gave one a chill of foreboding. Where there were living people, there was fear, for there was hate.

  On the forty-second floor of a tall office building, a door, black lettered "Phyllis Knight, Counsellor-at-Law," let into a reception room, sexless with worn leather upholstered chairs, long oak table on which the daily law journals, and the bulkier magazines of the profession were neatly stacked; carpet of taupe broadloom, stereotyped etchings of non-committal landscapes.

  An attractive young receptionist at a desk in the center dog-eared the page of her screen magazine, looked up with a bright "Good-morning."

  "Is Miss Knight in?"

  "Not at the moment."

  "Her secretary, Mister Struthers? He's in, isn't he?"

  "I'll see. Who shall I tell him is calling?"

  Mary gave her name. The girl wrote it on a slip of paper. "Will you have a seat?"

  Miss Carner took the edge of a chair. The receptionist disappeared behind a door in the partition. Mary heard the distant ringing of a telephone, the muffled sound of a masculine voice, answering the phone, then the man's voice and a girl's voice in colloquy. Then the door opened. The receptionist came in and behind her a stocky man with waxen face, yellow-dyed by either fading summer tan or jaundice, a freckled bald head, like a brown egg, and unhappy eyes behind a
pince-nez.

  "I'm Mister Struthers." The man surveyed Miss Carner. The inspection seemed to reassure him, for he added, almost politely: "Please step inside."

  He led the way to a window-less cubicle which held a book-case, a typewriter desk and swivel seat, and a single straight-backed chair. An electric light burned dismally below the ceiling. "This is my private office."

  Through an open doorway, Miss Carner could see a spacious, sunny room, a wide desk, easy chairs, corner windows spreading a panorama of water and sky, of undulating hills of Staten Island, of ships ploughing toward the sea. Mr. Struthers followed her gaze, and got up to close the connecting door. "Miss Knight does not care to have her office entered in her absence," he said stiffly. He pulled out the straight-backed chair for Mary Carner. He clasped his hands, put them up on a corner of his desk.

  "Now then," he said. "What is it you wish?"

  "I? Nothing but to get in touch with Miss Knight."

  Struthers smiled wryly. "I share your wish," he said. "You're the person who has been calling up, are you not?"

  "I'm Mary Carner, Miss Knight's friend."

  "May I ask what makes you so concerned over her absence?"

  "I've told you that on the phone. She didn't appear at our luncheon. I knew she had been ill. I thought she might be ill again." She paused, considered what she was about to say, watched his face, as she said: "I'm a detective, Mister Struthers. That's my business." Was it illusion that the man paled and his fingers twitched? "Not police. Department store," she added quickly.

  "Oh." He seemed relieved. "What makes you feel," he said, with what seemed to be eagerness, "that there's anything wrong about Miss Knight's absence?"

  "A sixth sense, possibly." She smiled to reassure him. "I gathered you were worried too." She fumbled in her bag. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

  "Miss Knight doesn't like it. Since her illness, she claims smoke irritates her throat. I've stopped it myself. I like a cigar once in a while. I've given that up, too. She might come in while you're here and she'd be annoyed."

  Mary dropped her cigarette case back into her handbag. "You certainly follow instructions," she began. Then she halted, realizing the import of what he had said. "You're expecting Miss Knight back any moment, aren't you?"

  "Why, certainly," Ben Struthers answered. "She has work to do. She has a title closing here this afternoon at four. She has to be in court tomorrow at ten. She's given me no instructions to change those appointments."

  "When did she make the appointments?"

  "Last week. Before she left."

  "This is Monday. You've had no word from her since last Wednesday and yet you expect her to keep her appointments?"

  "I do. Miss Knight always keeps her appointments."

  "She didn't keep them Thursday, or Friday or Saturday, did she?"

  "No." Struthers seemed reluctant to make the admission. "It was most troublesome. We - Miss Getch and I - that's Miss Knight's clerk - did the best we could. We put people off. It was very difficult. There's one default judgment - Oh, that'll be a headache, that will. I do wish she'd get back."

  "Yet when she left here Wednesday, she gave you no hint that she was changing her plans? No notion of where she was going?"

  "Why, certainly." Was that a shadow of a smile on Struthers' face? "She told me where she was going. She said she was going to the movies."

  Now that was preposterous! A busy attorney had walked out of her office, announcing she was going to the movies, and had been gone for nearly a week. Was the man joking? No, apparently not. His expression was serious, anxious even.

  "What movies?" Mary asked sharply.

  "I have no idea."

  "Was she alone?"

  "I believe so."

  "Was she to meet anyone?"

  A brief hesitation. "I could not say. Miss Knight does not tell me her personal affairs."

  "Have you been in touch with her house? Have you suggested that they notify the authorities to search for her? Have you spoken to her father?"

  Distress cut deep lines alongside Mr. Struthers' nose. His words were tangled in a stutter. "I don't know whether you know it, Miss,- Miss Knight wouldn't like me to discuss her family - her housekeeper is a bit difficult."

  "I've found that out."

  "All I've been able to get out of her is that Miss Knight hasn't been home since she left her residence Wednesday morning. I haven't been able to talk to her father at all."

  "Did she leave any writing, any papers, any letters that might indicate her plans? Anything on her desk? In her desk?"

  "Miss Knight is very meticulous. She clears up all current matters before she leaves. She never leaves anything on her desk. It's locked. It's always locked. She has the keys with her."

  "Could you show me her appointment sheet?"

  Struthers stiffened. "Of course not. I would not dream of revealing the details of Miss Knight's business to anyone."

  "I hope," said Miss Carner gravely, "you'll not have to reveal them to the police."

  Again the pallor, deepening under the ecru skin. But Struthers was silent. Miss Carner picked up her purse. "Then there's nothing we can do but wait."

  The furrow creased Struthers' face again. "I trust she will return today," he said. "There's the payroll, her appointments. There are so many things …"

  The telephone rang at that moment, and the secretary lifted the receiver…. "John 8 - Yes, this is Ben Struthers…. Yes…. Yes, Mister Rorke…No, Mister Rorke…. Yes, Mister Rorke, I will inform her." He hung the receiver up.

  Mary said: "Mister Rorke is anxious, too?"

  "He has telephoned every day."

  "May I ask who Mister Rorke is?"

  "Miss Knight has not informed me. I do not feel free to speculate about her acquaintances."

  Miss Carner stood up. "You're very well trained," she said. "To mind Miss Knight's business and your own."

  A faint pink colored Struthers' face. "I try to," he said. "I wish Miss Knight to be satisfied. I trust, Miss, I have allayed your curiosity."

  "Quite the contrary," Miss Carner answered. "Quite the opposite."

  Mr. Struthers shrugged his shoulders wearily. "There's nothing else I can do. Nothing I can say."

  Washington Square had shut its windows, turned on its oil burners against the sharp wind, blowing north by west across the Hudson. Busses and motor cars rolled, dark and secretive, past the deserted benches of the park, past pedestrians, scurrying like the autumn leaves, blown by the wind; past solitary dogwalkers, shivering at the curbs.

  Lamp light glowed behind the diaphanous window curtains of the Square. In the high, gracious rooms of sedate brick houses, chairs were drawn up before open fires. Their hospitable warmth seemed to pass through their curtained windows, and hurrying by them, Mary Carner opened a button of her topcoat. Then, she caught herself buttoning it again and unbuttoning it and she said to herself: "I'm nervous. Why am I so nervous? What's to be afraid of? I'm merely going to Phyllis' house. This is New York. It's eight o'clock. There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing can happen to you on a New York street at eight o'clock."

  A young man, with a wire-haired terrier on leash, cut in front of her, toward a fire hydrant. A taxi drew up at a curb and a couple in evening attire came out, entered a house. Two men in tweeds, arguing, with widely gesticulating arms, jostled her. "I'm not alone. This is a thoroughfare. I'm safe as a babe in its mother's arms. What makes me nervous?"

  The residence of Lyman Knight and his daughter Phyllis was on the south side of the Square. Three stories high, of mellow red brick, with beautiful Grecian columns framing its doorway, leaded window panes, and a fence and gate of graceful wrought iron, it was part of that row of magnificent private dwellings which are the pride and joy of modern New York, the tangible reminder of the graciousness of the city's earlier way of life.

  Steep stone steps led to the front door. A grilled gate was shut over the basement entrance. The facade seemed wholly dark. But as Mary looked closely at it, she fancied she saw pin points of light through the shades drawn over the front basement windows and two windows on the second floor.

  She looked quickly up and down the street. Around the rim of the park, the lights in apartment buildings and offices were an exquisite frieze. The man and dog had disappeared; the arguing pair were down near the corner. A tall man, whose contours seemed vaguely familiar, was strolling leisurely at the far end of the block. The man ducked into a basement areaway, half a dozen houses down, and passed from Mary's speculations.

  Mary mounted the steps, ran her hand over the black moulding of the entry, hunting a bell. She struck a match.

  Behind the curtained glass of the front door, something seemed to move - the outline of a head, jumping back, and two white eyeballs, illumined by the match flare. She thought she heard the tick of footsteps, running up the stairs. She flattened her nose against the glass, peered into the darkness. She saw nothing, heard nothing.

  She pressed the bell, listened to its remote, imperious buzz. Then silence. She found the bell again, held her finger against it. Someone was at home. There was no doubt of that. From the top of the steps she could see plainly that there was light behind the basement shades. She tapped her toe impatiently.

  Suddenly, a light clicked on in the hall and the door opened. A towering, square-jawed woman, dressed in long-sleeved, black servants' poplin, peered out. Mary Carner set her foot in the opening, her hand on the knob. "Is Miss Knight in?" she asked pleasantly.

  "No." The single syllable was a bark.

  "I'm so sorry. I had to see her tonight."

  "She isn't home."

  "I realize that now. Can you tell me when she'll be in? You see," she coaxed, "I've been trying for several days to reach her."

  "Call her office. You're a client, ain't you?" The slight inflection of curiosity was encouraging.

  "I'm a friend. A very good friend. Is her father at home? May I see him?"

  The woman looked quickly over her shoulder. "I dunno," she said.

  Mary followed her glance. There was movement in the shadows at the head of the staircase.

  "Please see whether he's in. It's very important. I must speak to him."

  "Wait a minute." The servant lifted Mary Carner's fingers from the door-knob, brushed them with a movement that was like a slap across the knuckles, nudged the detective's knee out of the doorway, closed the door, locked it.

  Through the curtained glass, Mary saw her back mounting the staircase. She leaned against the door, trying to see inside, to hear. Behind her, motors honked, tires slithered, heels clicked on the pavement. Within the old house was the dark silence of a tomb.

  Then she saw the woman coming back down the steps, stopping in the middle of the staircase, waving her arm. It was the sort of admonitory gesture a parent makes to a refractory child. The door was opened - just a crack this time.

  "He's gone to bed. Mister Knight's fast asleep. Go away."

  The door slammed. The light in the hall went off.

  The wind whipped Miss Carner's skirts. She buttoned her topcoat, dug her hands into her pockets.