The Cases of Hildegarde Withers Page 2

  “Satisfied, Hildegarde?” demanded the Inspector. “Because if you are, I’d like to get down to headquarters and turn in my report.”

  “Quite,” she told him, and obediently followed Piper out of the room, without a backward glance at the suave but perspiring medico surrounded by the three detectives.

  But once in the Headquarters car she tapped the Inspector gently on the shoulder. “Oscar, would you do me a favor? Would you send out a broadcast to stop a car driven by a Mr. Vaughan Hemple? As a passenger he has Miss Corinne Lapham, and he’s bound either for Greenwich or for North Carolina.”

  “Huh?” was all the Inspector could manage.

  “Oh, I don’t mean he should be arrested, exactly. Can’t you hold him as a material witness or whatever it is?”

  “I could,” said the Inspector cautiously. “Look, Hildegarde—”

  “And after you arrange that,” she went on, “I wish you’d come with me to the residence of another witness. I haven’t, the address, but your detective who stood at Mrs. Lapham’s door is sure to have it. …”

  The Headquarters car pulled up before a small neat apartment house in the east Sixties. “Look, Hildegarde,” the Inspector burst forth, “I’m stringing along with you because once or twice in the past you’ve been right. But I warn you—”

  “I know what I’m doing,” she told him. And fervently hoped that she did. They came into the little lobby, and the Inspector started to reach for one of the bell-buttons. “Anyone but that,” said Hildegarde Withers hastily. She went him one better by pushing half a dozen buttons. Somebody upstairs clicked the door, and they opened it and started up.

  The stairs were dark and narrow, smelling faintly of ancient cabbage, of varnish, and of insecticides. “Here we are,” the schoolteacher said. “3A.”

  She paused, about to knock. Then she sniffed, wrinkling her long tilted nose and blinking. “Heavens above, I’m right!” she whispered softly. Another scent, new and harsh, came through.

  “What is this?” exploded the Inspector, and knocked heavily upon the door.

  After an appreciable pause it was opened from within by Dr. Parkhill. His froglike face was a human question mark as he saw who it was, but he stepped back and bowed. “Come in, come in!” said the Doctor.

  They came into a small living room in which an open fire blazed merrily. “Sit down, please,” Parkhill invited them genially. “I had an idea you might want some further information.”

  “Yes,” Miss Withers told him quickly. “Especially since what happened. Or haven’t you heard? Dr. Severance has proved a perfect alibi. He simply couldn’t have murdered the Pender girl.

  “He was appearing before a Navy Board from 5 to 7. The Pender girl was shot around 6.

  “Would you care to make any changes or additions to your statement?” the schoolteacher prodded. Parkhill didn’t answer, but stared at the fire. Finally he shook his head.

  But the schoolteacher stood up. “You’d better change your story,” she advised the doctor. “I see you’ve burned the gloves that Elsie Pender wore when she shot herself. How about the real suicide note?”

  He was on his feet suddenly. “Yes, I burned that too! So what are going to do about it!”

  Miss Withers heaved a deep sigh. But the man went on. “Sure, I was in the dark room, and I heard a shot outside. I came out, and there she was, with a scribbled note blaming it all on Paul. I knew the girl was a manic depressive—she threw acid on herself last year because some movie star she’d never met wouldn’t accept her proposal of marriage. She had a terrific crush on Paul—but I saw a chance to get back at him for keeping me in the background all these years. I just Substituted a phony note for the real one, and clean new gloves for the ones she’d worn—”

  “Next time,” said Miss Withers gently, “remember that a girl with good taste in clothes would never wear black gloves with a dark brown suit. That was the big mistake you made—”

  Parkhill didn’t seem worried. “I know where I stand,” he said. “You can’t pin much on me. Two or three years, for concealing evidence…”

  “That’s right,” the Inspector agreed. They were all standing up now, and Miss Withers edged toward the door. “You have it all figured out, Parkhill,” Piper was continuing. “Only you forgot one thing. The Pender girl was shot twice—the first one missed the heart, but the second one hit dead center. Her own attempt wouldn’t have been fatal, but you picked up the gun and—”

  It was a forceful, dramatic delivery, but ill-timed. Because suddenly, from underneath the sofa cushion beside him, Parkhill produced a nasty little snubnosed automatic.

  The Inspector froze and Miss Hildegarde Withers fainted. Or seemed to faint. Anyway, she slumped back against the wall with a heart-rending shriek, and perhaps it was only by blind luck that she hit the light switch and threw the room into comparative darkness.

  The gun spat twice, and then went sailing against the farther wall as Oscar Piper kicked it out of the doctor’s hand. Miss Withers put the lights on and all lights went out for Dr. Parkhill, over whose head the Inspector crashed the butt of his own gun.

  “I get the whole thing,” Piper was saying, as they sat in a night coffee pot a block from Headquarters. “Except one thing. Why did you make me send out a broadcast for this Vaughan kid? We picked him and his parents up and made them madder than wet hens, all for nothing.”

  “Corinne wasn’t with him, then?”

  The Inspector shook his head. “With him! Listen, that gal’s been busier than a one-armed paperhanger. She’s retained a criminal lawyer and the Pinkertons in behalf of her precious Doc Severance, called up two senators and an assemblyman, and practically kicked down the front door of the Tombs.” He sighed. “All between nine and eleven p.m.”

  “I knew she loved him,” murmured Hildegarde Withers. “Some men are like that, blast them.”

  The End

  The Riddle of the Yellow Canary

  THE soft April rain was beating against the windows of Arthur Reese’s private office, high above Times Square. Reese himself sat tensely before his desk, studying a sheet of paper still damp from the presses. He had just made the most important decision of his life. He was going to murder the Thorens girl.

  For months he had been toying with the idea, as a sort of mental chess problem. Now, when Margie Thorens was making it so necessary that she be quietly removed, he was almost surprised to find that the idle scheme had reached sheer perfection. It was as if he had completed a jigsaw puzzle while thinking of something else.

  Beyond his desk was a door. On the glass Reese could read his own name and the word “Private” spelled backwards. As he watched, a shadow blotted out the light, and he heard a soft knock.

  “Yes?” he called out.

  It was plump, red-haired Miss Kelly—excellent secretary, Kelly, in spite of her platinum finger nails. “Miss Thorens is still waiting to see you,” said Kelly.

  She had not held her job long enough to realize just how often, and how long, Margie Thorens had been kept waiting.

  “Oh, Lord!” Reese made his voice properly weary. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was five past five. “Tell her I’m too busy,” he began. Then—“No, I’ll stop in the reception room and see her for just a moment before I go. Bad news for her again, I’m afraid.”

  Miss Kelly knew all about would-be song writers. She smiled. “Don’t forget your appointment with Mr. Larry Foley at five-thirty. G-night, Mr. Reese.” She closed the door.

  Reese resumed his study of the sheet of music. “May Day—a song ballad with words and music by Art Reese, published by Arthur Reese and Company.” He opened the page, found the chorus, and hummed a bar of the catchy music. “I met you on a May day, a wonderful okay day. …”

  He put the song away safely, and reached into his desk for a large flask of hammered silver. He drank deeply, but not too deeply, and shoved it into his hip pocket.

  The outer office was growing suddenly quiet as the son
g pluggers left their pianos. Vaudeville sister teams, torch-singers, and comics were temporarily giving up the search for something new to interest a fretful and jaded public. Stenographers and clerks were covering their typewriters. The day’s work was over for them—and beginning for Reese.

  From his pocket he took an almost microscopic capsule. It was colorless, and no larger than a pea. Yet it was potentially more dangerous than a dozen cobras…a dark gift of fortune which had started the whole plot working in his mind.

  Three years ago an over-emotional young lady, saddened at the prospect of being tossed aside “like a worn glove,” had made a determined effort to end her own life under circumstances which would have been very unpleasant indeed for Arthur Reese. He had luckily been able to take the cyanide of potassium from her in time. She was married and in Europe now. There would be no way of tracing the stuff. It was pure luck.

  The capsule was his own idea, a stroke of genius. He rolled it in his fingers, then looked at his watch. It was fifteen minutes past five. The lights of Times Square were beginning to come on, clashing with the lingering dullness of the April daylight. Reese picked up a brown envelope which lay on his desk, crossed to his top-coat and pocketed a pair of light gloves. Then he stepped out into the brilliantly lighted but deserted outer office.

  The first door on his right bore only the figure “i” on the glass. It was unlocked, and he stepped quickly through. It did not matter if anyone saw him, he knew, yet it would be safer if not.

  Margie Thorens leaped up from the piano stool—the room was furnished so that it could be used by Reese’s staff if necessary—and came toward him. Reese smiled with his mouth, but his eyes stared at her as if he had never seen her before.

  There had been a time not so long ago when Arthur Reese had thought this helpless, babyish girl very attractive, with her dark eyes, darker hair, and the hot sullen mouth. But that time was over and done. He steeled himself to bear her kiss, but he was saved from completing that Judas gesture. She stopped, searching his face.

  “Sit down, Margie,” he said.

  She dropped to the stool. “Sit down yourself,” she told him. Her voice was husky. “Or do you have to rush away? Making another trip to Atlantic City this week-end?” Her words dripped with meaning. She played three notes on the black keys.

  “Forget your grouch,” said Reese. “I’ve got news.”

  “You’d better have!” She swung on him. “You’ve got to do something about me. I’m not going to sit out in the cold. Not with what I’ve got on you, Lothario.”

  She had raised her voice, and he didn’t want that. “Good news,” he said hastily. Her eyes widened a little. “Oh, it’s not the Tennessee song. That stuff is passé. But I finally got Larry Foley to listen to May Day, and he thinks it’s great. Another Echo in the Valley, he says. So I’m going to publish it. He’s willing to plug it with his band over the air, and he’ll make a play to get it in the picture he’s going to do in Hollywood. You’re a success! You’re a song writer at last!”

  Margie Thorens looked as though she might fall. “It’s all true,” he assured her. As a matter of fact it was. Reese had known that it would be easier to tell the truth than to invent a lie. And it wouldn’t matter afterward. “I’m rushing publication, and there’ll be a contract for you in the morning.”

  She was still dizzy. “You—you’re not going to horn in as co-author or anything? Truly, Art?”

  “You look dizzy,” he said. He pulled out his flask. “How about a drink to celebrate?”

  Margie shook her head. “Not on an empty stomach,” she pleaded. “I’d like a glass of water, though.”

  The carefully designed plan of Arthur Reese rearranged itself, like a shaken kaleidoscope. He hurried to the water-cooler in the corner, and after a second’s pause returned with a conical paper cup nearly full. “This will fix you up,” he told her.

  Margie drained it at one gulp, and he breathed again. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was five-twenty. The capsule would hold for four to six minutes. …

  “Better still,” he rushed on. “I got an idea for a lyric the other day, and Foley likes it. If you can concoct a good sobby tune to go with it…”

  He fumbled at his pockets. “I’ve lost the notes,” he said. “But I can remember the lyric if you’ll write it down.” He handed her a yellow pencil and the brown envelope which held her rejected manuscript of Tennessee Sweetheart. “It begins—Good-bye, good-bye—”

  He dictated, very slowly, for what seemed to him an hour. He stole a glance at his watch, and saw that four minutes had elapsed. He found himself improvising, repeating a line. …

  “You gave me that once,” protested Margie. “And the rhymes are bad.” She raised her head as if she had suddenly remembered some unspeakable and ancient secret. “Turn on the lights!” she cried. “It’s getting—Art! I can’t see you!” She groped to her feet. “Art—oh, God, what have you done to me. …”

  Her voice trailed away, and little bubbles were at her lips. She plunged forward, before he could catch her.

  Reese found himself without any particular emotion except gratitude that her little body had not been heavy enough to shake the floor. He left her there, and went swiftly to the door. There was no sign that anyone had been near to hear that last desperate appeal. He congratulated himself on his luck. This sort of thing was far simpler than the books had made him suppose.

  He closed the door, and shot the bolt which was designed to insure privacy for the musicians. Then he began swiftly to complete his picture—a picture that was to show to the whole world the inevitable suicide of Margie Thorens.

  He first donned his light gloves. It was no effort at all to lift the girl to the wicker settee, although he had to resist a temptation to close the staring dark eyes.

  He reached for the tiny gold-washed strap-watch that Margie Thorens wore around her left wrist. Here he struck a momentary snag. Reese had meant to set the hands at five of six, and then smash the thing in order to set the time of the “suicide,” but the crystal had broken when she fell.

  The watch was not ticking. He removed one glove, and carefully forced the hands of the little timepiece ahead. The shards of broken glass impeded their movement, but they moved. He put his glove back on.

  Reese did not neglect to gather up the fragment or two of glass which had fallen on the oak floor, and place them where they would naturally have been if the watch had been broken against the arm of the settee in her death agony. Luckily the daylight lingered.

  The paper cup was on the floor. He was not sure that finger-prints could be wiped from paper, so he crumpled it into his pocket. Taking another from the rack, he sloshed a bit of water into it, and then dropped in a few particles of the poison which he had saved for some such purpose. The mixture he spilled about the dead mouth and face, and let the cup fall where it would have fallen from the nerveless fingers. On second thought, he picked it up, placed it in the limp hand of Margie Thorens, and crumpled it there with his gloved hand.

  It was finished—and water-tight, he knew that. Who could doubt that a young and lonely girl, stranded in New York without friends or family, disappointed in her ambitions and low in funds, might be moved to take her own life?

  Reese looked at his watch. The hands had barely passed the hour of five-thirty-five. He had twenty minutes to establish a perfect alibi, if he should ever need one.

  There still remained a ticklish bit of fine work. He unlocked the door and looked out into the main office. It was still deserted. He stepped out, leaving the door ajar, and put his arm inside to turn the brass knob which shot the bolt.

  Pressing the large blade of his jack-knife against the spring lock, he withdrew his arm and swung the door shut. Then he pulled away the knife, and the latch clicked. Margie Thorens was dead in a room which had a window without a fire escape, and a door locked on the inside.

  In two minutes Reese was laughing with the elevator boy on his way down. In five more he st
epped out of the men’s room at the Roxy Grill, washed and groomed, and with the paper cup and the folded paper which had held poison and capsule all gone forever via the plumbing. When the big clock above the bar pointed to ten of six, Reese had already stood Larry Foley his second round of drinks. He was softly humming May Day.

  Inspector Oscar Piper called Spring 7-3100 before he put on his slippers. “Anything doing, Sergeant?”

  “Nothing but a lousy suicide of a dame up in Tin Pan Alley,” the phone sergeant said. “Scrub woman found her, and the precinct boys are there now.”

  “I’ll stop in and have a look in the morning,” decided the Inspector. “These things are all alike.”

  The morrow was a Saturday, and Miss Hildegarde Withers was thus relieved of the necessity of teaching the young how to sprout down in Jefferson School’s third grade. But if she had any ideas of lying abed in luxurious idleness, they were rudely shattered by the buzzing of the telephone.

  “Yes, Oscar,” she said wearily.

  “You’ve often asked me how the police can spot a suicide from a murder,” Piper was saying. “Well, I’m on the scene of a typical suicide, perfect in every detail but one and that doesn’t matter. Want to have a look? If you hurry you’ll have a chance to see the stiff before she goes to the morgue.”

  “I’ll come,” decided the school teacher. “But I shall purposely dawdle in hopes of missing your exhibit.”

  Dawdle as she did, she still rode up the ten stories in the elevator and entered the offices of Arthur Reese, Music Publisher, before the white-clad men from the morgue arrived. Her long face, somewhat resembling that of a well-bred horse, made a grimace as the Inspector showed her the broken lock of the little reception and music room, and what lay beyond.

  “Scrub women came in at midnight, and found the door locked. They got the night watchman to break it, since it couldn’t have been locked from the outside, and thought somebody was ill inside or something. Somebody was. The medical examiner was out on Long Island over that latest gang killing, and couldn’t get here till a couple of hours ago, but he found traces of cyanide on her mouth. The autopsy will confirm it, he says.” Miss Withers nodded. “She looks awfully—young,” she said.