“Let’s quit the cat and mouse, Miss Grange. York said you were like a mother to the kid and I should suppose you’d like to see him safe. I’m only trying to do what I can to locate him.”
“Then don’t classify me as a suspect, Mr. Hammer.”
“It’s strictly temporary. You’re a suspect until you alibi yourself satisfactorily then I won’t have to waste my time and yours fooling around.”
“Am I alibied?”
“Sure,” I lied. “Now can you answer some questions civilly?”
“Ask them.”
“Number one. Suspicious characters loitering about the house anytime preceding the disappearance.”
She thought a moment, furrowing her eyebrows. “None that I can recall. Then again, I am inside all day working in the lab. I wouldn’t see anyone.”
“York’s enemies. Do you know them?”
“Rudolph . . . Mr. York has no enemies I know of. Certain persons working in the same field have expressed what you might call professional jealousy, but that is all.”
“To what extent?”
She leaned back against the cushions and blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. “Oh, the usual bantering at the clubs. Making light of his work. You know.”
I didn’t know anything of the kind, but I nodded. “Anything serious?”
“Nothing that would incite a kidnapping. There were heated discussions, yes, but few and far between. Mr. York was loath to discuss his work. Besides, a scientist is not a person who would resort to violence.”
“That’s on the outside. Let’s hear a little bit about his family. You’ve been connected with York long enough to pick up a little something on his relatives.”
“I’d rather not discuss them, Mr. Hammer. They are none of my affair.”
“Don’t be cute. We’re talking about a kidnapping.”
“I still don’t see where they could possibly enter into it.”
“Damn it,” I exploded, “you’re not supposed to. I want information and everybody wants to play repartee. Before long I’m going to start choking it out of people like you.”
“Please, Mr. Hammer, that isn’t necessary.”
“So I’ve been told. Then give.”
“I’ve met the family very often. I know nothing about them although they all try to press me for details of our work. I’ve told them nothing. Needless to say, I like none of them. Perhaps that is a biased opinion but it is my only one.”
“Do they feel the same toward you?”
“I imagine they are very jealous of anyone so closely connected with Mr. York as I am,” she answered with a caustic grimace. “You might surmise that of any rich man’s relatives. However, for your information and unknown to them, I enjoy a personal income outside the salary Mr. York pays me and I am quite unconcerned with the disposition of his fortune in the event that anything should happen to him. The only possession he has that I am interested in is the boy. I have been with him all his life, and as you say, he is like a son to me. Is there anything else?”
“Just what is York’s work . . . and yours?”
“If he hasn’t told you, I’m not at liberty to. Naturally, you realize that it centered around the child.”
“Naturally.” I stood up and looked at my watch. It was nine fifteen. “I think that covers it, Miss Grange. Sorry to set you on your ear to get in, but maybe I can make it up sometime. What do you do nights around here?”
Her eyebrows went up and she smiled for the first time. It was more of a stifled laugh than a smile and I had the silly feeling that the joke was on me. “Nothing you’d care to do with me,” she said.
I got sore again and didn’t know why. I fought a battle with the look, stuck my hat on and got out of there. Behind me I heard a muffled chuckle.
The first thing I did was make a quick trip back to the filling station. I waited until a car pulled out then drove up to the door. The kid recognized me and waved. “Any luck?” he grinned.
“Yeah, I saw her. Thought she was an old bag?”
“Well, she’s a stuffy thing. Hardly ever speaks.”
“Listen,” I said, “are you sure you saw her the other night?”
“Natch, why?”
“She said no. Think hard now. Did you see her or the car?”
“Well, it was her car. I know that. She’s the only one that ever drives it.”
“How would you know it?”
“The aerial. It’s got a bend in it so it can only be telescoped down halfway. Been like that ever since she got the heap.”
“Then you can’t be certain she was in it. You wouldn’t swear to it?”
“Well . . . no. Guess not when you put it that way. But it was her car,” he insisted.
“Thanks a lot.” I shoved another buck at him. “Forget I was around, will you?”
“Never saw you in my life,” he grinned. Nice kid.
This time I took off rather aimlessly. It was only to pacify York that I left the house in the first place. The rain had let up and I shut off the windshield wipers while I turned onto the highway and cruised north toward the estate. If the snatch ran true to form there would be a letter or a call sometime soon. All I could do would be to advise York to follow through to get the kid back again then go after the ones that had him.
If it weren’t for York’s damn craving for secrecy I could buzz the state police and have a seven-state alarm sent out, but that meant the house would crawl with cops. Let a spotter get a load of that and they’d dump the kid and that’d be the end of it until some campers came across his remains sometime. As long as the local police had a sizable reward to shoot for they wouldn’t let it slip. Not after York told them not to.
I wasn’t underestimating Dilwick any. I’d bet my bottom dollar he’d had York’s lines tapped already, ready to go to town the moment a call came through. Unless I got that call at the same time I was liable to get scratched. Not me, brother. Ten G’s was a lot of mazuma in any language.
The lights were still on en masse when I breezed by the estate. It was still too early to go back, and as long as I could keep the old boy happy by doing a little snooping I figured I was earning my keep, at least. About ten miles down the highway the town of Bayview squatted along the water’s edge waiting for summer to liven things up.
A kidnap car could have gone in either direction, although this route was unlikely. Outside Bayview the highway petered off into a tar road that completely disappeared under drifting winter sands. Anything was worth trying, though. I dodged an old flivver that was standing in the middle of the road and swerved into the gravel parking place of a two-bit honky-tonk. The place was badly rundown at the heels and sadly in need of a paint job. A good deodorant would have helped, too. I no sooner got my foot on the rail when a frowsy blonde sidled up to me and I got a quick once-over. “You’re new around here, ain’t you?”
“Just passing through.”
“Through to where? That road outside winds up in the drink.”
“Maybe that’s where I’m going.”
“Aw now, Buster, that ain’t no way to feel. We all got our troubles but you don’t wanna do nothing like that. Lemme buy you a drink, it’ll make you feel better.”
She whistled through her teeth and when that got no response, cupped her hands and yelled to the bartender who was busy shooting trap on the bar. “Hey, Andy, get your tail over here and serve your customers.”
Andy took his time. “What’ll you have, pal?”
“Beer.”
“Me too.”
“You too nothing. Beat it, Janie, you had too much already.”
“Say, see here, I can pay my own way.”
“Not in my joint.”
I grinned at the two of them and chimed in. “Give her a beer why don’t you?”
“Listen, pal, you don’t know her. She’s half tanked already. One more and she’ll be making like a Copa cutie. Not that I don’t like the Copa, but the dames there are one thing and she’s another, just like night and day. Instead
