Odor of Violets Page 8

  “If I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t be upset.” The Captain broke up a dozen pieces of the puzzle he had fitted together, carefully returned the fragments to the cigar box, and replaced the box in the drawer. “There are no rules of criminology which hold entirely good for a spy.”

  “The F. B. I. nailed three of them in the Rumrich case,” Spud reminded him. “A couple of Russians, Gorin and Salich, were convicted in Los Angeles, too.”

  “Yes,” Maclain admitted, “that’s true—but Rumrich turned against the others. Let’s consider this business of catching and convicting the hidden spy. First, the motive’s fairly obvious in an ordinary criminal case. Not so with the spy. Love of a mother country may be buried very deeply. The background of a suspect has to be thoroughly traced.”

  “You mean by that that everyone’s a suspect until they’re proved innocent?” Spud went around the desk and took a chair.

  “Exactly,” said Maclain. “If you’re in contact with anything which may be valuable information to another country—then you’re a potential spy. You may be selling out for money, patriotism, political disagreement with the government in power, or unwillingly for self-protection.”

  “Blackmail?”

  “Crude, Spud, but terribly true. Government agents of a foreign power may have dug up some secret in your past—or in the life of someone very dear to you. They kindly give you a Hobson’s choice of facing ruin and disgrace or accepting a nicely remunerative commission as a spy.

  “Once you’re in, you’re devilishly hard to catch. Al Capone built up an organization which nearly stifled a city—but the government put him away. He was a piker compared to the humblest of spies. When you become a secret agent—you have a government back of you.

  “All the resources of a powerful nation are at your command. False references, false passports, or any necessary records to give you a seemingly authentic background are easy to obtain. Money? You’re drawing on a national treasury.”

  “And where’s the weakness?” Spud asked.

  “That’s what I’m looking for.” Maclain thoughtfully tucked in his under lip. “It seems to me there are two. An ordinary criminal often has a police record—but a record is fatal to a spy. Once a spy is caught, his usefulness ends immediately. Let him become known to the authorities—and they’re forever more on guard against him.”

  “What’s the second?”

  “It’s even more important.” The Captain spread his restless hands flat on the desk and for a moment left them in repose. “General knowledge, available to the public, is of no value to the secret agent. His field is limited. The saboteur must confine his destruction to objects of military or naval importance—things which are carefully protected. In other words, Spud, the authorities always know where to look for threatened espionage, and sabotage. Locate the raison d’être. Saboteurs must have something to sabotage. Spies must have something worth-while on which to spy.”

  “I suppose you’re telling me, in your own peculiar way,” Spud declared, “that this fellow, Gerente, was killed by a spy.”

  “Don’t put flat statements into my mouth,” the Captain remonstrated patiently. “Form your own conclusions, as you usually do. Gerente had some Braille instructions to deliver to me from Colonel Gray, the head of our defense plans for New York City. Gerente was killed and those instructions stolen from his rooms—”

  “And brought to you anyhow,” said Spud. “Why?”

  “Maybe they were photostated on the way. Braille can be deciphered, you know,” Maclain reminded him drily, “even by people who can see.”

  “Just because I have eyes, you needn’t get sarcastic with me.”

  The Captain laughed softly. “A few things are clear. The man who brought those instructions here knew exactly what arrangements had been made for Gerente to talk with me. He knew also what the instructions said—except for the part in code, and that’s the part he most wanted to know. He took a chance—”

  “A long one.”

  “But a good one, that he might trick me. And another thing, if I hadn’t become suspicious of receiving delicately scented instructions from G-2—Gerente’s murder might have gone undiscovered until the following day.”

  “It’s the following day now,” said Spud. “It’s half-past four.” He stood up and stretched.

  The Captain followed suit. “We’ll have four hours’ sleep at any rate. Colonel Gray is coming here at nine.”

  “He wants to see you, not me.”

  The Captain smiled. “I promised you’d be there too.”

  Spud picked up the sheets of Braille and sniffed them as he took them to the safe to put them away. “Violets, eh? None of this makes sense, Dunc. It’s unbelievable that a man would confess to a murder he didn’t commit. Yet when you say this fellow Cameron isn’t guilty—well, if I personally saw him blow a guy’s head off, I’d still be inclined to let him go.” Spud stopped in the middle of the floor. “Say, Dunc. Do you remember the Axel Fish case four years ago? Fish confessed to a killing he didn’t do—but he confessed to save a girl.”

  “Your back is about to run into something,” said Maclain. “You’re traveling the right road at high speed—but you’re in reverse.”

  “Reverse?”

  “Certainly.” The Captain pressed his temples wearily. “When the police pick up this Lestrade girl as a witness she’s going to swear by all that’s holy that she never even heard of Paul Gerente.”

  “Did she?”

  “What the hell’s the difference?” asked Maclain. “Davis will probably have three highball glasses out of Gerente’s apartment with her prints all over them—and a moulage of her teeth where she bit Gerente on the neck after he fell to the floor. If that isn’t enough to hold her, they’ll set a bail that Garbo couldn’t raise—and spray the irate Miss Lestrade all over with violet perfume.”

  “I take it,” said Spud. “They mean to hold her in jail.”

  “Check,” said Duncan Maclain. “Cameron didn’t confess to a murder to save a girl—he confessed to a murder to get a girl out of his way!”

  CHAPTER X

  COLONEL MALCOLM W. GRAY arrived at Maclain’s penthouse apartment while Spud and the Captain were still busy with eggs and coffee. At Maclain’s suggestion, they transferred their coffee to the office from the dining room.

  The Colonel was far from being the erect military figure which anyone awaiting the head of New York’s defense plans might have expected to see. Instead, he turned out to be a chubby little fellow clad in an expensive salt-and-pepper business suit more reminiscent of Bond Street than Fifth Avenue. His cheeks were red from the cold outside and recent shaving. His graying hair brought to Maclain’s keen nostrils an inkling of the barber’s chair. The roundness of his chin and face and the crinkled corners of his eyes gave Spud the impression that the Colonel was always stopping on the verge of a smile. Oddly at variance with his other characteristics, Colonel Gray’s grip and voice were steel.

  He sat in the chair in front of Maclain’s desk and kept leaning over to make a point by gazing intently into the Captain’s eyes. Each time he did so, it seemed to disconcert him to find that Maclain couldn’t see. He’d turn away and make his point a second time by gazing toward Spud on the divan and speaking more forcefully.

  “I need good men,” he declared suddenly, breaking up the amenities. “I presume Mr. Savage is a good man, Captain Maclain, or he wouldn’t be associated with you.”

  “Last night he told me I was beautiful but dumb.” Spud blew a smoke ring up from the divan and watched it admiringly.

  “Dumb?” Again Colonel Gray almost broke into a smile.

  “Slightly exaggerated,” said Maclain. “—Spud has a tendency. I was figuratively speaking, that’s all—pointing out to him that the American public doesn’t believe in spies.”

  “Well, I do!” The Colonel took a straight-stemmed pipe from the pocket of his coat, put tobacco in it, and tamped it down with a well-manicured thumb. Fo
r a time he sat sucking on it moodily.

  Spud said, “There are matches on the desk, Colonel.”

  “I seldom smoke,” the Colonel remarked, staring at Maclain, “but I like to feel a pipe in my mouth. It gives me something to chew. Somebody killed one of my men last night, Captain Maclain. That’s the main thing that brought me here to you.”

  The Captain leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands on top of his head. It was always a sign of interest in Duncan Maclain when his fingers were still.

  “I wonder,” he remarked, “if you’d have any objection to my taking this conversation down?”

  The Colonel looked hastily around the office and said, “Down where?”

  “On a record,” Maclain told him. “I have Detecto-Dictographs set behind some panels in the wall. I find it very helpful, since I can’t make notes, to be able to go back later and hear what people had to say.”

  “Well, if you can get any help out of what I’m going to tell you, go ahead!” the Colonel said placidly. “Although I’m not particularly fond of having machines eavesdrop on me.”

  He swung around suddenly on Spud. “I wouldn’t be saying anything if I thought it would get beyond you two!”

  Spud grinned. “Go ahead—Dunc’s blind, and I’m deaf and dumb.”

  “And sometimes,” said Colonel Gray, “I think I’m all three.”

  He turned back to Maclain. “Do you happen to remember what this fellow who brought my Braille instructions said to you?”

  “Certainly,” said Maclain. “I can do even more; I can play the entire conversation back to you.”

  He reached down and took a record from a bottom drawer, slipped it onto the Ediphone, and a moment later the sound of the conversation was filling the room. “I have a hookup with the Capehart,” Maclain explained.

  The Colonel sat nursing his fireless pipe until the record was through. “Well, thank God for one thing!” he remarked as Maclain clicked off the machine. “He didn’t get much out of you. Look, Captain, the police have told me about your visit to Gerente’s last night. I’m going to be frank, dangerously so, with you and your partner too. I’m pretty good at defense strategy, but I don’t hold myself out to be much of a criminologist. I’m forced to leave that unpleasant phase of my work up to the police, the F. B. I., and men who have made a study of it such as your partner and you.”

  The Captain leaned back still farther in his chair. “We’ll do everything we can.”

  Spud said, “That goes for me, too.”

  “I’m in a peculiar position,” said Colonel Gray. “Gerente was killed, and I want to know why, but I can’t tell everything I know to the police. Nor can I tell everything I know to you.”

  He put his pipe away and tried to move his chair.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave it where it is,” said Spud with a grin. “It’s screwed down to the floor.”

  “What the—” the Colonel began.

  “When I walk around the room,” said Captain Maclain, “I want to know where the furniture is.”

  “I was speaking about Gerente,” said Colonel Gray. “First, let me say this. To find out the key points which could sabotage this city, there are a hundred people in the United States who would have killed Gerente in the handiest way.”

  “That sounds like a man-sized undertaking to me,” said Spud.

  “What?” said Colonel Gray.

  “To sabotage New York City.”

  “That’s just the trouble,” the Colonel told him bitterly. “It’s just about man-sized. That’s what’s keeping me on hot eggs every day. Half a dozen power stations and four main water tunnels that could be valved down in two hours control the life of this town. One single electrical station in the northern part of the state can be thrown in, and that’s all we have in case of emergency. There’s a method of cutting off the sewage disposal, too. You’d be surprised, Mr. Savage, to know how many men it would take to accomplish such a project. Perhaps I’d better say how few.”

  “While you’re at it, Colonel,” Maclain suggested quietly, “why not tell him just what such sabotage would do?”

  “Do! Why—” The Colonel seemed to be feeling around for some strong enough expletive. He finished by saying, “It would raise hell. That’s what it would do. Do you gentlemen play chess?”

  “Dunc does,” said Spud. “He calls out his moves and I push around the pieces so he can checkmate me.”

  “All right,” Colonel Gray continued. “New York City’s like a Queen. She’s so strong and powerful, and so mobile, that she’s constantly subject to attack. It’s wise to remember that a single pawn can take her out of the game.

  “Suppose some organized band struck effectively—simultaneously ruined the six power stations, cut off the sewage disposal, and valved down the four main water tunnels. In an incredibly short time the streets of New York would be tied up in an inextricable traffic snarl.

  “Automobiles would begin to run out of gas—there are hundreds just at that point on the streets at every hour of the day. They couldn’t get any more—because filling-station pumps are operated electrically. The ones which have gas couldn’t get out of town. The pumping systems in the tunnels would cease—immediately fouling the air. Bridges and ferryboats would be hopelessly jammed. Anyone will know I’m not exaggerating, if he’s ever crossed the Queensborough Bridge on a holiday. It can be tied up for hours by a single stalled car.”

  The Colonel paused. Maclain heard his quickened breathing, and Spud’s uneasy moving on the leather divan. He said softly, “Tell him about fire, Colonel Gray.”

  “Havoc!” the officer exclaimed sharply. “Devastation! The engines couldn’t get through the impeded streets. If they got through the water would be gone. Milling mobs would take possession—mad with fear. Police can’t move. Troops can’t move. Then, with the sewers out of commission—comes pestilence.” He lowered his voice. “The terror by night. The Queen is dead. New York City is gone.”

  Spud asked: “What about the telephone? I suppose it would go too.”

  The Colonel shook his head. “That’s one of the companies which have had enough foresight to prepare for emergency. They have a secret power plant of Diesel engines safely hidden away.” He swung around on Maclain. “I hope you understand how invaluable you can be—a trained intelligence officer who can move around in darkness as well as in the light; a man who knows every street of this vast city.”

  Maclain nodded soberly. “Yes, Colonel Gray. I know.”

  “Good.” The Colonel took out his pipe again, lighted a match, and let it burn down without applying it to the tobacco. When the match was out he threw it away. “Gerente was working on two things,” he said. “He was helping me on defense plans for one. Secondly, he was playing around with a girl.”

  “Hilda Lestrade?” Maclain sat up straight in his chair.

  On the divan, Spud grinned quietly.

  “Maybe.” The Colonel bit down on his pipe-stem. “The police have her in custody along with a chap named Cameron, who has confessed to Gerente’s murder. Have you read the morning papers?”

  “No,” said Spud. “They weren’t delivered. We’re supposed to be out of town.”

  Maclain asked, “What did they say?”

  Colonel Gray hesitated. “They gave Gerente a big play. He was well known on the stage a few years ago. Crime of passion—”

  “I mean about the Lestrade girl.”

  “Not much, Captain Maclain. Mysterious woman—and all that sort of thing—”

  “But he was playing around with her,” Maclain persisted—“at least from what you say.”

  “You misinterpreted my statement, Captain. I said Gerente was playing around with a girl. It was you who mentioned Hilda Lestrade, and I said ‘Maybe.’ I still mean it. Maybe she was girl number two. Her appearance in this affair has rather complicated things for me—another reason I came to you.”

  “Perhaps there’re more,” Spud suggested. “This Gerente seems to h
ave been quite versatile with the ladies.”

  “A valuable trait in some phases of my unpleasant duties,” said Colonel Gray. “For the moment, I want to concentrate on a young lady from Hartford, Connecticut. Her name is Barbara Tredwill.” He paused and added, “Did you ever hear of her before?”

  The Captain thoughtfully shook his head.

  “Was she the girl that a columnist hinted about in the paper yesterday?” asked Spud. “I noticed Gerente’s name.”

  “That’s the one. Her father’s Thaddeus Tredwill, a prominent producer. Oddly enough, his present wife was married to Paul Gerente ten years ago.”

  “But what—” The Captain took up a flexible ivory paper cutter and began to bend it back and forth.

  “Barbara Tredwill’s brother, Gilbert, is a designing engineer with International Aircraft,” Colonel Gray supplied. “There have been leaks from that plant. Gilbert Tredwill invented the bombing sight used on our planes. He has an even better one almost perfected today. Young Tredwill has a workshop in The Crags, his father’s home.”

  “He lives there?” asked Maclain.

  “With his wife, Helena. She’s naturalized French—maiden name of Helena Corte.”

  “You sound suspicious of her,” said Spud bluntly.

  “I’m suspicious of everyone,” said Colonel Gray. “I’m even suspicious of Gilbert Tredwill himself. He might be inadvertently giving information away. That’s why Paul Gerente made it his business to become acquainted with Gilbert’s sister, Barbara. He’s been trying to learn all he could about the Tredwill family from the girl.”

  Maclain laid the paper cutter down with a snap. “You mean he might have learned too much to stay alive?”

  “You’re quick to get an idea. Gerente had an appointment with the Tredwill girl for dinner last night—and later, he had an appointment with you.”

  “Then the girl was in New York?”

  “And most of her family, too,” said Colonel Gray. “Her father was at the Waldorf-Astoria. Gilbert Tredwill and his wife stayed there too. Barbara Tredwill and a younger brother, Stacy, were guests of Frederick Ritter, who has an apartment on Park Avenue—but the Ritters are away. They turned over their apartment to the girl and her brother.”