through the door. He demanded to see the manager and was introduced to one Oswald Hicks, a Cuban-looking individual wearing a business suit, a Clark Gable moustache, and wavy black hair.
Andy Winslow identified himself and described the incident at West Adams Place.
Hicks’s eyes widened. He raised a carefully manicured, mahogany-coloured hand to his face. “Come with me!”
He led Andy Winslow back to the public office, asked the clerk on duty to tell him who had carried messages in the past hour and had not returned. The clerk didn’t have to look it up. “Not much business this morning, Mr Hicks. Martha’s the only messenger on duty. Martha Mayhew. She went out” — he checked his log book — “forty minutes ago. Night letter going to a Mr Foxx on West Adams.”
Hicks turned to Andy Winslow. “You’re sure she’s alive?”
Andy grunted an affirmative.
“And you summoned an ambulance?”
Andy repeated the sound.
“They would probably take her to St Ambrose’s. Let’s go there, sir.” He left the clerk in charge of the office and they headed for the street. Andy Winslow led the way to his roadster and piloted the Auburn through quiet, Sunday-morning streets, to pull in at the hospital. Martha Mayhew had been admitted and taken on a rolling gurney to the newly established radiology laboratory, pride of St Ambrose’s medical staff.
There was little for either of them to do at St Ambrose’s.
While Dr McClintock stood by, a young intern explained, they had taken X-rays of the patient’s head. The foreign object — the intern did not refer to it as a bullet — had entered at the rear of the patient’s skull, had passed through the channel between the two lobes of her brain, and had exited through her forehead.
It was a thousand to one chance, the intern said, then corrected himself, a million to one chance. A fraction to the left or right and severe, possibly fatal, brain damage would have resulted. But, as it was, the only concern was possible infection. The patient would be monitored, the entry and exit wounds kept clean, sulpha drugs applied if necessary. The entry and exit wounds were small enough to heal without further surgery. Barring the unexpected, she should be released in a few days, with only a small round scar on her forehead to show for her near encounter with the grim reaper.
Hicks asked, “How can that be? Thank heaven Miss Mayhew is alive, but as you describe the wound, Doctor — this is incredible.”
The intern, looking almost like a child costumed to play doctors, looked from Hicks to Winslow and back. “You know the brain is composed of two hemispheres. They’re quite separate from each other, connected only by a sort of bridge or highway, the
Shortly, the patient was in a private room. She had regained consciousness but had no recollection of being shot. “I parked my bike and climbed the steps. I remember I had the knocker in one hand and Mr Foxx’s night letter in the other. Then I–I don’t remember anything until I woke up in this bed.”
“You had the night letter in your hand?” Andy Winslow asked.
“Yes, I remember distinctly. I had it in my hand and — ”
At this point the door of the hospital room swung open and Lieutenant Adam Burke strode into the room, followed by a couple of uniformed officers. He glared at Andy Winslow. “You left the scene of a crime, Winslow.”
Andy looked innocently at the cop. “I did?”
“You know damned well you did. Who the hell do you think you are, letting a corpse into the house and then leaving her there on the floor to die.”
Andy grinned. “What corpse would that be, Lieutenant?”
“This one!” Burke jabbed a thumb at the slight figure on the bed.
“You mean Miss Mayhew, Lieutenant? I don’t think Miss Mayhew is dead. Are you dead, Miss Mayhew?”
The slim woman managed a wan, tiny smile. “I don’t think I’m dead. I don’t even feel sick. I do have a dreadful headache, though.”
Andy Winslow grinned, “You’re entitled to that.” Then, to the cop, “It’s true that Miss Mayhew was shot at Caligula Foxx’s house. I thought it was more important to make sure that she was all right, than to wait around for New York’s Slowest — er, pardon me, I mean New York’s Finest — to arrive.”
Burke frowned. “You rode in the ambulance with her?”
“No, I took my car.” He didn’t mention his detour via the Postal Telegraph office, but then he hadn’t exactly lied, either.
“And you, sir?” Burke whirled towards Oswald Hicks.
Hicks identified himself.
“The victim worked for you?” Burke asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“What was she doing at Mr Foxx’s house on a Sunday morning?”
“Postal Telegraph prides itself on its service, Lieutenant, seven days a week. A night letter came in from London, England, and Miss Mayhew was despatched to deliver it to the addressee.”
Burke stared at the slim figure beneath the bedclothes, then turned back to Hicks. “You always use girls for this kind of work? Isn’t it dangerous?”
Hicks said, “Would that bullet have bounced off the messenger’s skull if he’d been a boy instead of a girl?”
Burke growled. “All right, never mind. We’ll need statements from all concerned. That’s all for now.”
He strode from the hospital room, followed by his retinue. As soon as the police detachment was out of earshot, Andy Winslow asked Martha Mayhew if she’d mind his looking through her Postal Telegraph uniform, hanging now in the closet. Martha Mayhew managed a barely audible assent.
Winslow checked out the clothing, then turned back to her and to Oswald Hicks. “It isn’t there.”
“What isn’t there?” Hicks asked.
“The night letter. The message that Miss Mayhew was attempting to deliver to Caligula Foxx.”
“Could she have dropped it at the house?”
“I would have found it when I answered the door.”
Hicks rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose she would have left it in the basket of her bicycle.”
Winslow said, “I’ll check on that when I get back to the house but I doubt it.” He hadn’t told Hicks specifically about the LaSalle coupe that had pulled away from the house just as he answered Martha Mayhew’s knock, but that had been part of his narrative to Lieutenant Burke. “I have a feeling that whoever shot Miss Mayhew escaped in that LaSalle car. And I have a feeling that he committed the crime in order to prevent her from delivering it to Foxx. Most likely, he has the night letter now.”
Oswald Hicks said, “In any case, I think I’d best get back to my office. There will be paperwork to do, both for the company and for the police.”
Andy Winslow offered him a ride back to his office. As they made their way through the quiet streets, Hicks volunteered, “We’ll still deliver the night letter, you know. Postal Telegraph takes pride in its reliable performance.”
Winslow was startled. “How can you do that?”
“Oh, we have a copy of the message on file at the office. Two, in fact. It’s standard practice. And if we didn’t have it, there would be the original in London. They’d have to retransmit it to us, but that wouldn’t take very long.”
At the Postal Telegraph office Hicks located the night letter. It had been typed out and a flimsy sheet remained in the overnight file folder.
Winslow stared at it. The message was a lengthy one. “I’ll need to take this with me.”
Oswald Hicks assented.
By the time Winslow pulled his yellow Auburn into the garage at West Adams Place and entered the house, a
