Unexpected Night (7 page)

“And you didn't hear a thing after that?”

“I thought I heard a door closing, but like a fool I never connected the sound with him.”

“I guess there wasn't any reason why you should. He doesn't seem to have taken a thing with him, Mr. Sanderson; not even his toothbrush.”

“Didn't he?” Sanderson looked puzzled. “Well, he never waited on himself, you know, or carried parcels. He may actually never have thought of it. Or perhaps Atwood had things ready for him, up there, in case we retained his luggage.” He laughed, sardonically. “No fear of that. Besides, you know,” and he laughed again, with bitterness, “the idea was that he was going to rough it.”

“Thought he could, did he?”

“I don't know what he really thought about it. He always liked to pretend that he could, if he wanted to. If we'd stuck to his original plan, I was supposed to send his stuff after him, or take it to him.”

“How was he going up?”

“That's one of the things that show you what a decent kid he was; he wouldn't take the car—it's his, you know. He was going to hire one.”

“Leaving you to face the music?”

“I told him I should certainly stay and face the music. That was one of the things I hoped would keep him from trying to go, at the last minute.”

“You know about that will he had with him, Mr. Sanderson?”

“Yes. Colonel Barclay says it's disappeared.”

“Where would you say it had got to?”

“Don't ask me, Mitchell. He was a great one for losing things.”

“Still, Mr. Gamadge here says he put it in his pocket, at the Barclays'.”

“He's lost plenty of things out of his pockets.”

“You wouldn't say it was funny, his losing that paper?”

“I suppose it is funny. Isn't it here, in his bag, or in that dressing case? I imagined it would be found, somewhere.”

“You don't seem to attach much importance to the document.”

“Well, no; I don't. It wasn't signed or witnessed. Why should I attach importance to it?” Sanderson looked surprised.

“You know what was in it?”

“Oh, yes. He consulted me—or did what he called consulting me. He seldom followed my advice. He was very independent, you know.”

“I'd be very glad to know what was in the thing.”

“One hundred thousand dollars to Mrs. Cowden, one hundred thousand to Lieutenant Barclay, one hundred thousand to Arthur Atwood, a thousand to me, and the rest to his sister.”

“My goodness, he was no piker!”

“No; he wasn't. I thought it a very good will, except for the Atwood bequest; but that,” and Sanderson gave a wry smile, “was supposed to be dedicated to the interests of the drama.”

“Oh. Atwood was to administer it, was he?”

“I made a feeble attempt to get it put into some form of trust.”

“This Atwood must have had him hypnotised.”

“Sometimes I thought it almost amounted to that.”

“He didn't leave you much, Mr. Sanderson.”

“I thought it a generous legacy, considering that he had only known me a couple of years, and that I spent my life bedeviling him, poor kid.”

Gamadge spoke from the void. “Have you looked in the car?”

“What say?” enquired Mitchell, turning sharply to look at him.

“That document; couldn't it have been dropped in the car—on the way up here from the Barclay cottage? He was sick; there must have been more or less fuss and bother; mightn't it have been lost then?”

“I never thought of that.” Sanderson considered it. “Possible.”

Mitchell was already at the telephone. He pulled it over to him without leaving his chair, and spoke to the office: “I want the garage.” After a moment he said: “Garage? This is the police. You know the Cowden car? Anybody been near it since it came in last night?…How do you know? Where's the night man?…Told you not a soul came near the place after it got in? Well, Mr. Sanderson will be down with the keys. He'll lock it up. I'm coming down later, and I'll go over it. Keep an eye on it. Thanks.”

He put up the receiver. Sanderson rose. “I'll have a word with the Colonel,” he said. “He wants me to go over to the Centre with him again before lunch. I offered to drive him, but we'll have to use his car again—if it lasts the trip.”

“Just one minute more, Mr. Sanderson.” Mitchell caught his eye, and held it. “Would you mind telling me what you think happened down there on that cliff?”

Sanderson's face changed, and hardened. He said without hesitation: “I would mind, Mitchell; I have no ideas on the subject, and if I had, they wouldn't be worth listening to. I can't imagine what happened.”

“You can imagine his going down there, and having a fatal heart attack, the one you were all expecting at any minute, day and night, and falling off that rock—can't you?”

“Yes. No doubt that is what happened.”

“You think Atwood drove down there—”

“I don't even know whether Atwood got a message, asking him to come.”

“Say he did, and drove down. He might have gone up to the top of the cliff, and waited, and then gone back again, thinking the boy hadn't been able to make it.”

“He might.”

“Wouldn't see the body, perhaps, in all that fog.”

“Quite likely.”

“You know the feller; if he had seen it, would he be the kind to go on back to the Cove without doing anything about it?”

“That's what I don't care to theorise about. I have no particular liking for Atwood; but I have no right to make wild guesses as to what he might or mightn't do. It would be absurd.”

“I'm not asking you to gossip, Mr. Sanderson; I merely want your opinion, based on what you know of the feller's character.”

“He's a complete enigma to me.”

“You said he was irresponsible.”

“He always seemed so, to me. How far it goes, I can't say.”

“Well, thanks. I guess that's all.”

When he had gone, Mitchell observed, in a dissatisfied tone: “I wish I had some kind of a line on all these people; nobody knows 'em, up here. But that kind of enquiry takes time.”

“How about letting me telephone my assistant? He's good at that sort of thing, and he'd do the routine stuff without publicity.”

“What does he assist you at?”

“He helps me to analyse paper, ink, glue, handwriting, print, and other things connected with books and manuscripts.”

“And looks up people for you?”

“And takes care of the cat. And helps Theodore around the house.”

“Who's Theodore?” Mitchell was amused.

“Old coloured man that takes care of me. I live in an old house in the Sixties—where I was born, as a matter of fact; but I've turned half of it into workshops, now.”

“What is this business of yours, Mr. Gamadge?”

“It has no name. But if somebody wants to sell you a rare old pamphlet about Nell Gwyn, with Charles the Second's autograph on the flyleaf and marginal notes by Louis the Fourteenth, I'll perhaps be able to tell you whether it was made later than 1900, and what part of Michigan it came from.”

“You make a living that way, Mr. Gamadge?”

“That's telling. People pay me for doing it, though.”

“I don't know about telephoning; especially through this exchange.”

“Oh, Harold and I have a code.” Gamadge fished a little green book out of his pocket, and ruffled the pages with an air of resignation.

“Code, have you?” Mitchell watched him, very much tickled.

“Yes. He made it up. He's very young, you know, and he likes to imagine that our occupation is romantic and risky. Perhaps he thinks that some maddened forger of colophons will get after us. Trouble is, whenever I use the thing—which is about once a year—I feel like a fool.”

“Pick that receiver up the way I did.”

“Right you are.”

Gamadge asked for Long Distance, and then gave a number.

“Where'd you get hold of this Harold?” enquired Mitchell, while they waited.

“He got hold of me…That you, Harold? How are you? How's Theodore? How's Martin? Off his feed, is he? Of course he's off his feed. Never let anybody tell you cats have no feelings. He's moping for me. What's that? Something he
ate
? If it's something he ate, you're fired, and I'll have Theodore's life.

“Have you got your little green book there? Good. I want you to take down some names; friends of mine up here that have had a bereavement. Young man killed—you'll see about it in the papers. These relations of his will all be back in New York tomorrow or next day, and I want you to get in touch with them, and offer your services. Look up the addresses, you know. Here are the names: Mrs. Francis Cowden, Miss Alma Cowden (that's her niece), Colonel Harrison Barclay, his wife, and his son Frederic; and a Mr. Hugh Sanderson, the tutor of the boy who was killed. Got all that? All right. Er—Potto.” He hung up.

“What's ‘Potto'?” enquired Mitchell, laughing.

“Don't ask me what it is. Harold says it's a South American animal. It means: ‘Full information required on the foregoing'—or at least, I hope it does.”

“How will he get the information?”

“Don't ask me that, either; but if it's to be had, he'll have it.”

They went out into the hall, and Mitchell, after locking the door, sealed it with several strips of gummed paper. “They tell me nobody came in here since last night,” he said, “but I might as well get the place printed.”

“Who tells you?”

“Colonel Barclay. He telephoned up to the hotel for me, and found out. That the fire escape, out there?”

“Yes. The only wooden one now in existence. It's stronger than it looks.”

They went out on the platform, and Mitchell looked up, and then down. A narrow spiral stairway encircled the open shaft of the freight elevator, its only guard a single rail.

“I wouldn't want to use this myself, not on a foggy night,” said Mitchell. He glanced out at the peaceful view before him; cottages and ocean to the right, pines to the north, rolling golf course to the west. Immediately in front was the garage, and beyond it was the little clubhouse, its flag waving gently in the land breeze. A voice from the corridor made him turn. It said: “Good morning, Mr. Gamadge. Will you introduce me to the detective?”

CHAPTER FIVE

M
RS. BARCLAY, WEARING
a pink woollen coat and skirt, white beach shoes, and a large white felt hat, stood outside the door of Room 21, clutching a knitting bag to her breast. The two men stepped into the corridor, and Gamadge performed introductions.

“You want to see me, ma'am?” asked Mitchell.

“Yes, I do.”

“That's good. It saves me a trip to your cottage.” He tried the door of Number 22, which opened. “Step in here, Mrs. Barclay. It don't seem to be occupied.”

“You too, if you'll be so good, Mr. Gamadge,” said Mrs. Barclay. Her eyes were red, but her expression showed less grief than anger and determination. She walked in, followed by the others. Gamadge closed the door.

“Dreadful thing, Mr. Gamadge, isn't it?” Mrs. Barclay sat down on the edge of the bed, her beach shoes close together. “I have been trying to see my niece, but Eleanor tells me she is prostrated. I brought a tonic for her. My sister-in-law does not seem to feel that she would be the better for it.”

“I think they had Baines,” said Gamadge.

“Who will give her the inevitable sedative, and depress her still further. What do you make of this terrible affair, Mr. Mitchell?”

“That's what I was going to ask you, ma'am.”

“Not one of us knows what to think. My son, who was as intimate with Amberley as anybody, simply cannot imagine what got into him. It was bad enough for him to be planning to go at all; but for him to creep off like that, in the middle of the night, without a word to anyone! And after all my sister-in-law had done for him! Of course, Mr. Mitchell, my nephew Amberley was very much spoiled. They gave way to him in everything.”

“That so, ma'am?”

“It wasn't only that he was an invalid; he was also very generous to them. Not that my sister-in-law had no money of her own; far from it. My brother left her comfortably provided for. Her income is not what it was, but she is independent.”

“That's good.”

“She has always supported my niece Alma, who has nothing, poor child; or practically nothing.”

“Had, Mrs. Barclay,” said Mitchell. “I understand she has plenty, now.”