the front entrance.”
“Are you sure she didn’t come out during the past ten minutes?”
No, he couldn’t be sure about that. He had been cooking his lunch.
We went down the long corridor into the cul-de-sac and into Nurse Gurney’s apartment.
We went into each room, but she still wasn’t in any of them.
“Not there,” I said. “How else could she have left the building without using the front entrance?”
After staring blankly at the wall, he said there was no other way out.
I poked a finger towards the opposite apartment.
“Who’s the fat woman who eats plums?”
This time his Adam’s apple went for good.
“Plums?” he repeated and backed away. I guess he thought I was crazy.
“Yeah. Who is she?”
He looked at the door of Apartment 244, blinked, turned scared old eyes on me.
“In there, mister?”
“Yeah.”
He shook his head.
“No one’s in there. That apartment’s to rent.”
I felt a sudden chill run up my spine. I shoved past him and sank .my thumb into the bell-push. I could hear the bell ringing, but nothing happened; nobody came to the door.
“Got a pass key?”
He fumbled in his pocket, dragged out a key and handed it over.
“Ain’t nobody in there, mister,” he said. “Been empty for weeks.”
I turned the lock, pushed open the door and went into a lobby just like Nurse Gurney’s lobby. I went quickly from room to room. The place was as empty and as bare as Mrs. Hubbard’s cupboard.
The bathroom window looked on to a fire-escape. I pushed up the window and leaned out. Below was an alley that led into Skyline Avenue. It would have been easy for a strong man to have carried a girl down the escape to a waiting car below.
Leaning far out I saw a plum stone on one of the iron steps. Pity she hadn’t swallowed it. It might have choked her.
Chapter III
I
There was a time when I proudly imagined I had a well-furnished, impressive, non-gaudy, super-de-luxe office to work in. Between us, Paula and I had spent a lot of hard-earned money on the desk, the carpet, the drapes and the book-cases. We had even run to a couple of original water colours by a local artist who, to judge by his prices, considered himself in the Old Master class: probably he was, although it was a pretty close-kept secret. But all this was before I had a chance of seeing the other offices in Orchid Buildings. Some of them were smarter than mine, some were not, but those I had seen didn’t make me wish to change mine until I walked into the office of Manfred Willet, the President of Glynn & Coppley, Attorneys at Law. Then I saw at a glance I would have to save many more dollars before I could hope to get anywhere near the super-de-luxe class. His office made mine look like an Eastside slum.
It was a big room, high ceilinged and oak panelled. A desk, big enough to play billiards on, stood at the far end of the room before three immense windows, stretching up to the ceiling. There were four or five lounging chairs and a big chesterfield grouped around a fireplace that could have been used as a hidey-hole for a small-sized elephant. The fitted carpet was thick enough to be cut with a lawn mower.
On the over-mantel and scattered around the room on tricky little tables were choice pieces of jade carvings. The desk furniture was of solid silver that glittered with loving care and constant polishing. Off-white Venetian blinds kept out the sun. A silent air-conditioning plant controlled the temperature. Double windows, sound-proof walls and a rubber-lined door insisted on complete silence. A stomach rumble in this office would sound like a ton of gravel going down a shoot.
Manfred Willet sat in a padded, swivelled chair behind the immense desk, smoking a fat oval cigarette fitted with a gold-tipped mouthpiece. He was tall and solid, around forty-five. His dark hair was flecked with grey, his clean-shaven, strikingly-handsome face matched the colour of his mahogany desk. His London-cut suit would have made any movie star green with envy, and his linen was as immaculate and as white as the first snowdrop of spring.
He let me talk. His grey-green eyes didn’t shift from the elaborate silver pen set on his desk. His big frame didn’t move. His mahogany-coloured face was as expressionless and as empty as a hole in a wall.
I began by showing him Janet Crosby’s letter, then told him about my visit to Crestways, the state of the place, that Maureen was supposed to be ill, that Janet had been playing tennis two days before she died of endocarditis. I mentioned Dr. Bewley, and that Benny Dwan, who worked for Dr. Salzer, had tailed me. I told him briefly of my visit to Eudora Drew, how Dwan had arrived and had strangled her. I dwelt on my interview with Captain of Police Brandon, and how he had warned me to lay off Salzer and Maureen Crosby. I mentioned casually that Brandon was prejudiced in their favour and why. I went on to describe how Dwan had tried to shoot me, and how he had been knocked off by someone who drove a car with diamond-tread tyres. I mentioned that Sergeants MacGraw and Hartsell had driven a car fitted with such tyres. I concluded by telling him of my visit to Nurse Gurney’s apartment, and of the fat woman who ate plums and how Nurse Gurney had vanished. It was a long story, and it took time to tell, but he didn’t hurry me or interrupt me or suggest I should cut out the details. He sat staring at his pen set, as still as the Graven Image, and I had an idea he wasn’t missing anything, that every little detail registered, and behind that blank, empty mahogany face, his brain was very, very much awake.
“Well, that’s the story,” I concluded, and reached forward to knock my cigarette ash into the ashtray on his desk. “I thought that you, as the Trustee of the estate, should know about it. I have been told by Brandon to return the five hundred dollars.” I took out my wallet and laid the money on the desk, put my finger on it and without any show of reluctance, pushed it towards him. “Strictly speaking that lets me out. On the other hand you may think there should be an investigation, and if that’s what you think I would be glad to carry on. Frankly, Mr. Willet, the set-up interests me.”
He turned his eyes on me and stared. Seconds ticked by. I had the idea he wasn’t seeing me. He was certainly thinking.
“This is an extraordinary story,” he said suddenly. “I don’t think I would have believed it if I didn’t know your organization by reputation. You have handled several tricky jobs for clients of mine, and they have spoken very highly of you. From what you have told me I think we have grounds to begin an investigation, and I should be glad if you would handle it.”
He pushed back his chair and stood up. “But it must be understood that such an investigation must be secret, and my firm must not be associated with it in any way. We will be prepared to pay your fee, but you must keep us covered. Our position is a difficult one. We have no business to pry into Miss Crosby’s affairs unless we are certain there is something wrong, and we are not certain of that, although it looks like it. If you uncover any tangible evidence that definitely connects Miss Crosby with these extraordinary happenings, then, of course, we can come out into the open. But not before.”
“That makes it awkward for me,” I pointed out. “I was relying on you to keep Brandon from bothering me.”
There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said, “I’m sure you will be able to handle Brandon without my help. But if the going happens to become difficult you can always quote me as your lawyer. If there was an assault I should be happy to represent you in court without charge.”
