Odor of Violets Page 9

  “I presume, since you have all this information,” Maclain said slowly, “that you’ve questioned the girl.”

  The Colonel regarded a crease in his well-tended trousers and sharpened it between finger and thumb. “I talked with Gilbert Tredwill on the phone this morning, before I came here to see you. There are strong reasons why I don’t want anyone in the Tredwill household to know why Paul Gerente scraped up a friendship with Gilbert’s sister. I’m telling you this, Captain Maclain, because I need your help right now.”

  “I’ve promised it,” said Maclain.

  “Watch your step, Dunc,” Spud warned. “I’m afraid you’re dealing with a very clever man.”

  “Me, Mr. Savage?” The Colonel’s friendly face grew even rounder than before. “My superiors have accused me of childish naïveté. I’ve—”

  “Undoubtedly,” Maclain broke in, “that’s why they put you where you are. What were you about to say?”

  “Paul Gerente’s dead, but the country is very much alive. Someone must take up his work, Captain Maclain. I want you to go to Hartford today—right now. I’ve made arrangements for you to stay at The Crags—the Tredwill home. People who don’t know you are more than apt to underrate you, if you don’t mind my saying so. That’s beyond price in what I want you to do.”

  “Yes,” said Maclain.

  “I want to find out who’s getting information about the International Aircraft, and Tredwill’s plans—and how. That means painstakingly accumulating everything possible about the Tredwill family, and everyone in the vicinity. Mr. Carter, president of International, lives close by. He’ll co-operate with you.” The Colonel was still long enough to put his pipe away. “I want to know if, before he was killed, Paul Gerente saw the Tredwill girl. I—”

  “Just a minute, Colonel Gray. Tell me this: What am I supposed to be doing in Thaddeus Tredwill’s home?”

  “You’ve been retained by Thaddeus Tredwill to solve the disappearance of his only daughter,” the Colonel stated briefly. “Barbara vanished from the Ritter’s apartment last night and took all her clothes with her.”

  “I’ll go,” said Duncan Maclain, “but my dogs must go with me.”

  “Arrangements have been made for them, too.” The Colonel stood up.

  Spud helped the Colonel into his overcoat, and asked, “How much does Thaddeus Tredwill know?”

  “He’s expecting Captain Maclain,” said Colonel Gray. “I talked to him this morning as well as his son. I wanted to question his daughter privately. He got in touch with his younger son, Stacy, and learned that Barbara was gone. He called me back. It was then I arranged for Captain Maclain.”

  “You still haven’t said what he knows about Gerente,” the Captain reminded him.

  “Not much, I hope,” said Colonel Gray. “He knows that Gerente was friendly with Barbara—but he doesn’t know the real reason why. He knows from his son that Barbara had a date last night with—” The Colonel broke off abruptly and stood holding his hat in his hand.

  “Yes,” said Maclain, “that’s quite a possibility. Other fathers have done it before.”

  “What’s a possibility?” the Colonel demanded a shade impatiently.

  “What you were thinking,” Maclain told him unruffled. “That Thaddeus Tredwill killed Gerente for fooling around with his daughter.”

  “Damn it, sir,” said Colonel Gray, “I’ll thank you to quit reading my mind.” He started toward the door and turned back to Maclain. “It’s only fair to warn you, Captain. I’ll give you all the protection I can—but that may not be enough. The last war blinded you. The one going on now may end your career. The disappearance of that Tredwill girl wasn’t on the cards at all!”

  CHAPTER XI

  INSPECTOR LARRY DAVIS adjusted a window shade so that the slanting rays of the morning sun would keep out of his eyes. Under cover of the operation he winked at Sergeant Archer.

  The Sergeant received the wink impassively and began to drum his heavy fingers on the wooden arm of his chair.

  For a time the Inspector’s office at Police Headquarters was silent.

  Spud Savage broke the quiet with the scratch of a match. “They’ve now reached the stage of signaling each other with their eyelids, Dunc,” he remarked to Captain Maclain beside him.

  Maclain’s lips crinkled at the corners. “I heard it click. Davis always makes a noise when he winks.”

  “It’s an affliction,” announced Davis. “A tic.” He tried to look pleased with himself and succeeded in donning a Machiavellian expression. “It’s brought on by worry at the thought of you going away.”

  “Not bad.” The Captain looked like a school-teacher pleased with a boy. “Although the spelling is dissimilar—and the French pronunciation is tēk. Usually—”

  “Quit spoiling his fun, Captain,” Archer put in. “Who ever heard of an Irishman speaking French? We’re all upset because you have to rush off today.”

  “I have plenty of time,” said Maclain. “At least enough to wait until I can talk with the Lestrade girl.”

  “Okay,” said Davis. “It can’t do anything more than waste time—and you’re worse than a cockle-bur. She won’t admit anything, but talk to her—talk to her all day. We have proof she was there.”

  “In Gerente’s apartment?” asked Spud.

  Davis nodded and said for the Captain’s benefit, “Certainly. Where else do you think she was?”

  “That’s your little police wagon,” Spud declared innocently. “I wouldn’t know.”

  The Inspector pushed a button. “Bring up the Lestrade girl,” he ordered the man who looked in the door.

  The man saluted and disappeared quietly.

  “It was time you gave him a promotion.” Maclain shifted uncomfortably on the hardness of his chair. “Shaugnessy’s always been a good man.”

  The Inspector picked up a sheaf of papers from his desk and irritably thrust them into a drawer. “There are thousands upon thousands of cops in this city,” he declared, shaking his head. “Do you spend your spare moments having a list of promotions transcribed into Braille just to annoy me?”

  “Yes,” said Sergeant Archer ponderously. “I’ll bite, too. I hate guessing games. How did you know Shaugnessy was promoted? How did you know that was him just now at the door? He’s been out of the building for an hour or more.”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant. I didn’t realize that my unfortunate habit of thinking out loud might upset you.”

  “You and F. D. R.,” said Davis. “Both of you think out loud when it’s something you want the public to know.”

  The Captain saluted him gravely, military fashion. “At least you’ve compared me with a remarkably able man, Inspector. There’s nothing mysterious about Shaugnessy, I assure you. You saw him and I heard him, that’s all.”

  “I thought maybe you smelled him,” Archer suggested. “You kept us long enough last night while you were chasing down a smell of perfume.”

  “Which I’ll thank you not to mention,” Maclain retorted in a tone both officers knew.

  “You mean that, Captain Maclain?” Davis’s heavy eyebrows were set in a straight line.

  “Yes, I most certainly do.” The Captain tempered his admonition with a smile. He turned his head in the direction of Sergeant Archer. “Speaking of smelling Shaugnessy—it’s not impossible. There’s a distinctly spicy odor to you. Shaving cream, unless I’m wrong.”

  The Sergeant grunted, and Davis laughed. “What about Shaugnessy at the door?”

  “Spud can tell you that,” said Maclain.

  “Shaugnessy was wounded in a gun fight,” said Spud. “That’s why you have him working in your office. He limps. Dunc heard his step outside the door, that’s all.”

  “Oh. And you tasted his promotion, I suppose—or felt the stripes on his arm.”

  “Hearing again, Inspector. As Spud and I came through the outer office, somebody asked where Sergeant Shaugnessy was. He was Patrolman Shaugnessy—not Sergeant—the many times we
’ve been here before.” The Captain’s head moved slightly up and sideways. “I hear him coming now with the girl.”

  “I’d like you to listen to Archer’s belly when you get a chance,” said Davis. “I’ve been suspicious for some time that there was more in there than beer.”

  Archer’s protest was cut off by the opening and closing of the office door.

  “You can wait outside, Shaugnessy,” Maclain heard Davis say. “Sit down, Miss Lestrade.”

  There was a rustle of silk, then the sound of Shaugnessy’s departure, and the creak of an occupied chair.

  A room was always audibly alive to Duncan Maclain. People about him breathed in different tempos; marked themselves by tiny coughs and unnoticed sniffles. Some of them clicked their teeth. Others had bones which cracked sharply when they moved.

  Even when people thought themselves in utter repose, they were inclined to shift in unconscious embarrassment before Maclain’s blindness. Inevitably, their presence was betrayed by a dozen or more lifetime habits of movement, which couldn’t be controlled in a single day.

  “This is Captain Duncan Maclain, and Mr. Savage,” Inspector Davis told the Lestrade girl. “Captain Maclain’s blind.”

  “So are the police,” said Hilda Lestrade. “I’m being held for something I know nothing about. At least I can refuse to be questioned by everybody in New York every hour of the day.”

  “We all make mistakes,” Spud remarked in his friendly disarming way. “If you’re being detained in error—certainly you can’t be harmed, Miss Lestrade, by anything you might say.”

  “Unless,” Maclain added, “you insist on saying something which is untrue.”

  “And where do you fit into the picture?” Hilda demanded frostily. “So far, the police, and that louse, Cameron, are the only ones who have said anything untrue.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to prove, Miss Lestrade. I’m a private investigator, who happens to believe that somebody has taken out a private grudge on you.”

  “Now, hold on, Maclain,” the Inspector interrupted. He stared from Maclain’s bland face to the troubled features of the girl, who glared back at him defiantly. “There’s a little matter of some fingerprints on highball glasses in Gerente’s apartment which needs some explaining away.”

  “Were there any teeth marks on the dead man’s neck?” Spud wanted to know.

  “This is a hell of a time for cheap humor, Spud,” Archer whispered loudly.

  “Excuse me.” Spud looked contrite. “It was just a passing idea of Captain Maclain’s.”

  “Well, let it pass.” Davis searched for a toothpick and failed to find one. “Cameron claims Miss Lestrade was in the apartment when this fellow was murdered.”

  “And I say he’s a liar!” exclaimed the girl.

  “That’s your privilege,” Davis continued with his cold eyes fixed on Hilda. “We work on proof. If either you or Captain Maclain can tell me how your fingerprints—”

  “Obviously we can’t,” Maclain broke in, raising his hand. “Still, I’d like to hear what Miss Lestrade has to say.”

  “I’ve plenty to say, mister.” Hilda’s voice had a slightly hopeful ring. “I’ve known Arnold Cameron for two or three months—that’s all. He’s a phoney and a four-flusher, if you’re asking me—an egg importer.”

  “A what?” asked Archer.

  “Eggs,” said Hilda, giving him a disdainful glance. “Eggs.” She held her thumb and forefinger up in the shape of one.

  “Get it, Sergeant?” Spud asked eagerly. “The things that roosters don’t lay.”

  “From Australia,” the girl went on. “At least that’s what he told me. We had dinner together last night and—”

  “Where?” asked Maclain.

  “In Cameron’s apartment. I cooked it for him—”

  “What?” The Captain stopped her again.

  “Blini,” she said. “That’s pancakes served with caviar and sour cream. I’ve told them to check the garbage if they don’t believe me. They’ll find the empty glass caviar jar I threw away.”

  “We found it.” Davis was impatient. “That part of your story is probably true.”

  “Blini.” The Captain pursed his lips and meditatively scratched a place over his right eye. “That’s a Russian dish, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Hilda answered promptly. “And I think that Cameron’s a Russian, too. He took me to a Russian café on Second Avenue several weeks ago. I got the recipe for the blini there. The place is full of long-haired reds. They knew him, too.”

  “And after dinner last night?” Maclain persisted.

  “We had a few drinks when the dishes were cleared away. Then he got a phone call from some girl and told me I had to go.”

  “And you left without going to Gerente’s apartment upstairs?” asked Maclain.

  “I’ve told the police, and I’m telling you, I’ve never seen this man Paul Gerente, dead or alive, nor have I ever heard his name before.”

  “And suppose your fingerprints weren’t only on the highball glasses?” the Inspector asked smugly. “Suppose we found some on the grand piano, too?”

  “I don’t give a damn if you found them all over the bathtub and the john,” the girl declared hysterically. “I didn’t put them there.”

  The Captain took out a fountain pen and removed the cap. A leather-bound notebook followed from his side coat pocket. He flipped the notebook open in his left hand and braced it on his knee. Guiding his right hand with outstretched little finger, he scribbled hastily.

  Conscious that the occupants of the room were watching him, he deliberately recapped the pen and put it away. “Inspector. Do you mind if I show Miss Lestrade what I’ve written here without revealing it to you?”

  Davis indulged in an official frown. “She’s a witness, not a criminal, Captain Maclain,” he said after a moment. “We have no desire to read her personal mail.”

  “Thank you, Inspector.” The Captain extended the notebook toward the girl.

  She took it from his hand, glanced at it quickly, and passed it back again. Suddenly she twisted around to face Davis and sat up straight in her chair.

  “If you’ll get a stenographer,” she said venomously, “I’ll tell you the truth about what went on last night in Gerente’s room. Cameron’s a rat. He found out that I was seeing Paul—and—and—” Her voice broke and she steadied herself with an effort. “He struck Paul down without giving him a chance.”

  Davis’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

  “It was premeditated murder, Inspector—murder in the first degree. I don’t care about anything now, except to send Arnold Cameron to the electric chair!”

  The Sergeant jumped to his feet with astounding agility. “Listen, lady! You better be sure of what you say!”

  “Take her outside, Archer, and get a statement.” Davis waved a commanding hand, and waited until Archer and the girl had gone. “Now what the hell did you write?” he demanded of Maclain.

  A muscle moved in the Captain’s chin as he handed over the notebook. The inspector stared at it gloweringly.

  A murder suspect with a single witness is in a much worse fix than you.

  Davis shook his head. “How the devil could that make her switch her story that way?”

  “Search me,” said Maclain. He stood up. “I’m afraid we’ll have to go.”

  “You’ll get out of here over forty dead policemen unless you tell me what that means,” the Inspector warned him.

  “It’s a sympathy note.” The Captain smiled. “A note to bring her cheer. She’s a quick girl, Davis. Almost as fast on the uptake as you. Cameron decided to drag her into this mess—and I, speaking as a friend, implanted the idea in her head that she might make things tough for Mr. Cameron, too.”

  “Speaking as a friend,” Davis mimicked. “What ever gave that wise baby the idea she had a friend in you?”

  “I’m not quite sure, Inspector,”—the Captain took a step toward the door,—“although I’d give
a lot to know. I think it was the ink which Spud put so carefully into my fountain pen this morning.”

  “The ink?” said Davis. “What ink, Captain? I think you’d better tell me before you go.”

  “The violet ink,” said Duncan Maclain. He sniffed with deep appreciation. “Violet, Inspector—the color of that strange elusive smell!”

  CHAPTER XII

  HUMANS, THROUGHOUT the ages, have found it comforting to huddle about a fire. Warmth and propinquity minimize life’s tragedies and multiply its joys. Barbara’s disappearance had gathered the Tredwills together in the living room.

  Thaddeus Tredwill stood in front of the fireplace gazing at the semicircle of faces which looked to him for leadership in a crisis. Outlined against the leaping flames, his tall aristocratic frame showed gaunt and spare.

  Gil’s wife spoke from out of the shadows beyond the group: —

  “But it’s too fantastic, Thaddeus. The man’s blind. What does he expect to find with that dog—groping around in Barbara’s room?” Her accent was a shade more noticeable than usual, although her English remained precise and clear.

  Thaddeus looked toward his son with an expression which seemed to say, “You answer her, Gil. You brought her here.”

  “There’s a State Trooper with him, Helena,” Gilbert reminded her. The engineer, when he spoke seriously, looked much like his father. Both had a high forehead and jutting nose. Both used their hands to make their points clear. Gilbert, on the surface, appeared more stable. Thad had a touch of wildness at times, probably due to his frenzied thatch of whitish-gray hair.

  “I’ll bet he’s good,” said young Stacy from his place on the bearskin rug. “I wouldn’t want his dogs after me.”

  “Good,” Thad repeated slowly, weighing the word. “Fantastic. Words—words—words.” He gazed down at his younger son. The boy moved uneasily and put one hand in the open mouth of the bear.