Behind That Curtain (16 page)

“You gave no promise,” her husband said. “And if the woman's done nothing wrong, I don't see—”

“Look here,” broke in Flannery. “You came back to tell us something. What is it?”

“You came back to tell us that you have seen Jennie Jerome?” suggested Miss Morrow.

Mrs. Enderby nodded, and began to speak with obvious reluctance.

“Yes—I did see her—but not before I talked with Sir Frederic. I told him the truth. I hadn't seen her then—that is, I had seen her, but I didn't notice—one doesn't, you know—”

“But you noticed later.”

“Yes—on our way home. Going down in the elevator. I got a good look at her then, and that was when I realized it. The elevator girl in the Kirk Building night before last was Jennie Jerome.”

Captain Flannery got up and took a turn about the room. He was a simple man and the look on his face suggested that the complexities of his calling were growing irksome. He stopped in front of Eileen Enderby.

“So—the elevator girl in the Kirk Building was Jennie Jerome? Then you lied a few minutes ago when you told Miss Morrow you hadn't seen her?”

“You can't hold that against her,” Enderby protested. “She's come back of her own free will to tell you the truth.”

“But why didn't she tell it in the first place?”

“One doesn't care to become involved in a matter of this sort. That's only natural.”

“All right, all right.” Flannery turned back to Mrs. Enderby. “You say you recognized this girl when you were going down in the elevator, on your way home after the dinner? And you let her see that you recognized her?”

“Oh, yes. I cried out in surprise: ‘Jennie! Jennie Jerome! What are you doing here?'”

“You saw what she was doing, didn't you?”

“It was just one of those questions—it didn't mean anything.”

“Yeah. And what did she say?”

“She just smiled quietly and said: ‘Hello, Eileen. I was wondering if you'd know me.'”

“Then what?”

“There were a thousand questions I wanted to ask of course. Why she ran away that time—where she had been. But she wouldn't answer, she just shook her head, still smiling, and said maybe some other time she'd tell me everything. And then she asked me if I'd do this—this favor for her.”

“You mean, keep still about the fact that you'd seen her?”

“Yes. She said she'd done nothing wrong, but that if the story about how she left New York came out it might create a lot of suspicion—”

“According to your husband, you made no promise?” Flannery said.

“No, I didn't. Under ordinary conditions, of course, I'd have promised at once. But I thought of Sir Frederic's murder, and it seemed to me a very serious thing she was asking. So I just said I'd think it over and let her know when I saw her again.”

“And have you seen her again?”

“No, I haven't. It was all so strange. I hardly knew what to do.”

“Well, you'd better keep away from her,” Flannery suggested.

“I'll keep away from her all right. I feel as though I'd betrayed her.” Eileen Enderby glanced accusingly at her husband.

“You were not in her debt,” said Enderby. “Lying's a dangerous business in a matter of this kind.”

“You're lucky, Mrs. Enderby,” said the Captain. “You've got a sensible husband. Just listen to him, and you'll be O.K. I guess that's all now. You can go. Only keep this to yourself.”

“I'll certainly do that,” the woman assured him. She rose.

“If I want you again, I'll let you know,” Flannery added.

Chan opened the door for her. “May I be permitted respectful inquiry,”
he ventured. “The beautiful garment marked by iron rust stains—it was not ruined beyond reclaim?”

“Oh, not at all,” she answered. She paused, as though she felt that the matter called for an explanation. “When I saw that man on the fire-escape I became so excited I leaned against the garden railing. It was dripping with fog. Careless of me, wasn't it?”

“In moment of stress, how easy to slip into careless act,” resumed Chan. Bowing low, he closed the door after the Enderbys.

“Well,” said Flannery, “I guess we're getting somewhere at last. Though if you ask me where, I can't tell you. Anyhow, we know that Sir Frederic was looking for Jennie Jerome the night he was killed, and that Jennie Jerome was running an elevator just outside his door. By heaven, I've a notion to lock her up right now.”

“But you haven't anything against her,” Miss Morrow objected. “You know that.”

“No, I haven't. However, the newspapers are howling for an arrest. They always are. I could give ‘em Jennie Jerome—a pretty girl—they'd eat it up. Then, if nothing else breaks against her, I could let her off, sort of quiet.”

“Such tactics are beneath you, Captain,” Miss Morrow said. “I trust that when we make an arrest, it will be based on something more tangible than any evidence we've got so far. Are you with me, Mr. Chan?”

“Undubitably,” Chan replied. He glanced up at the frowning face of the Captain. “If I may make humble suggestion—”

“Of course,” agreed Miss Morrow.

But Chan, it seemed, changed his mind. He kept his humble suggestion to himself. “Patience,” he finished lamely, “always brightest plan in these matters. Acting as champion of that lovely virtue, I have fought many fierce battles. American has always the urge to leap too quick. How well it was said, retire a step and you have the advantage.”

“But these newspapermen—” protested the Captain.

“I do not wish to infest the picture,” Chan smiled, “but I would like to refer to my own habit in similar situation. When newspapers rage, I put nice roll of cotton in the ears. Simmered down to truth, I am responsible party, not newspaper reporter. I tell him with exquisite politeness to fade off and hush down.”

“A good plan,” laughed Miss Morrow. She turned to Barry Kirk. “By the way, do you know anything about this elevator girl? Grace Lane was, I believe, the name she gave the other night.”

Kirk shook his head. “Not a thing. Except that she's the prettiest girl we've ever employed in the building. I'd noticed that, of course.”

“I rather thought you had,” Miss Morrow said.

“Lady, I'm not blind,” he assured her. “I notice beauty anywhere—in elevators, in cable cars—even in a lawyer's office. I tried to talk to this girl once or twice, but I didn't get very far. If you like, I'll try it again.”

“No, thanks. You'd probably be away off the subject—”

“Well, it all sounds mighty mysterious to me,” he admitted. “We thought Sir Frederic was on the trail of Eve Durand, and now it seems it must have been a couple of other women. The poor chap is gone, but he's left a most appalling puzzle on my doorstep. You're all such nice detectives—I don't want to hurt your feelings—but will you kindly tell me whither we are drifting? Where are we getting? Nowhere, if you ask me.”

“I'm afraid you're right,” Miss Morrow sighed.

“Maybe if I locked this woman up—” began Flannery, attached to the idea.

“No, no,” Miss Morrow told him. “We can't do that. But we can shadow her. And since she is one who has some talent for walking off into the night, I suggest that you arrange the matter without delay.”

Flannery nodded. “I'll put the boys on her trail. I guess you're right—we might get onto something that way. But Mr. Kirk has said it—we're not progressing very fast. If there was only some clue I could get my teeth into—”

Chan cut in. “Thanks for recalling my wandering ideas,” he said. “So much has happened the matter was obscure in my mind. I have something here that might furnish excellent teeth-hold.” He removed an envelope from his pocket and carefully extracted a folded sheet of paper and a picture post-card. “No doubt, Captain, you have more cleverness with fingerprints than stupid man like me. Could you say—are these thumb prints identically the same?”

Flannery studied the two items. “They look the same to me. I could put our expert on them—but say, what's this all about?”

“Blank sheet of paper,” Chan explained, “arrive in envelope marked Scotland Yard. Without question Miss Morrow has told you?”

“Oh, yes—she mentioned that. Somebody tampering with the mail, eh? And this thumb print on the post-card?”

“Bestowed there last night by digit of Paradise, Mr. Kirk's butler,” Chan informed him.

Flannery jumped up. “Well, why didn't you say so? Now we're getting on. You've got the makings of a detective after all, Sergeant. Paradise, eh—fooling with Uncle Sam's mail. That's good enough for me—I'll have him behind the bars in an hour.”

Chan lifted a protesting hand. “Oh, no—my humblest apologies. Again you leap too sudden. We must watch and wait—”

“The hell you say,” Flannery cried. “That's not my system. I'll nab him. I'll make him talk—”

“And I,” sighed Barry Kirk, “will lose my perfect butler. Shall I write him a reference—or won't they care, at the jail?”

“Captain, pause and listen,” pleaded Chan. “We have nothing here to prove Paradise fired fatal bullet into Sir Frederic. Yet somehow
he is involved. We watch his every move. Much may be revealed by the unsuspecting. We hunt through his effects. To-day, I believe, he enjoys weekly holiday. Is that not so?” He looked at Kirk.

“Yes, it's Black Thursday—the servants' day off,” Kirk said. “Paradise is probably at the movies—he adores them. Melodrama—that's his meat.”

“Fortunate event,” continued Chan. “Cook too is out. We return to bungalow and do some despicable prying into private life of Paradise. Is that not better Captain, than searching through crowded atmosphere of movie theaters to make foolish arrest?”

Flannery considered. “Well, I guess it is, at that.”

“Back to the bungalow,” said Kirk, rising. “If Miss Morrow will lend a hand, I'll give you tea.”

“Count me out,” said Flannery.

“And other liquids,” amended Kirk.

“Count me in again,” added Flannery. “You got your car?” Kirk nodded. “You take Miss Morrow then, and the Sergeant and I will follow in mine.”

In the roadster on their way to the Kirk Building, Barry Kirk glanced at Miss Morrow and smiled.

“Yes?” she inquired.

“I was just thinking. I do, at times.”

“Is it necessary?”

“Perhaps not. But I find it exhilarating. I was thinking at that moment about you.”

“Oh, please don't trouble.”

“No trouble at all. I was wondering. There are so many mysterious women hovering about this case. And no one is asking you any questions.”

“Why should they?”

“Why shouldn't they? Who are you? Where did you come from? Since you're not very likely to investigate yourself, perhaps I should take over the job.”

“You're very kind.”

“I hope you won't object. Of course, you look young and innocent, but I have your word for it that men are easily fooled.” He steered round a lumbering truck, then turned to her sternly. “Just what were you doing on the night Eve Durand slipped from sight at Peshawar?”

“I was probably worrying over my homework,” the girl replied. “I was always very conscientious, even in the lowest grades.”

“I'll bet you were. And where was this great mental effort taking place? Not in San Francisco?”

“No, in Baltimore. That was my home before I came west to law school.”

“Yes? Peering further into your dark past—why, in heaven's name, the law school? Disappointed in love, or something?”

She smiled. “Not at all. Father was a judge, and it broke his heart that I wasn't a boy.”

“I've noticed how unreasonable judges are. Times when they've talked to me about my automobile driving. So the judge wanted a boy? He didn't know his luck.”

“Oh, he gradually discovered I wasn't a total loss. He asked me to study law, and I did.”

“What an obedient child,” Kirk said.

“I didn't mind—in fact, I rather liked it. You see, frivolous things never have appealed to me.”

“I'm afraid that's true. And it worries me.”

“Why should it?”

“Because, as it happens, I'm one of those frivolous things.”

“But surely you have your serious side?”

“No—I'm afraid that side was just sketched in—never finished. However, I'm working on it. Before I get through you'll be calling me deacon.”

“Really? I'm afraid I've never cared much for deacons, either.”

“Well, not exactly deacon, then. I'll try to strike a happy medium.”

“I'll help you,” smiled the girl.

Kirk parked his car in a side street, and they went round the corner to the Kirk Building. It was Grace Lane who took them aloft. Kirk studied her with a new interest. Strands of dark red hair crept out from beneath her cap; her face was pale, but unlined and young. Age uncertain, Kirk thought, but beauty unmistakable. What was the secret of her past? Why had Sir Frederic brought to the Kirk Building that clipping about Jennie Jerome?

“I'll be along in a minute,” Miss Morrow said, when the elevator stopped at the twentieth floor. Kirk nodded and preceded her to the roof. She followed almost immediately. “I wanted to ask a question or two,” she explained. “You see, I gave Grace Lane very little attention on the night Sir Frederic was killed.”

“What do you think of her—now that you've looked again?”

“She's a lady—if you don't mind an overworked word. This job she has now is beneath her.”

“Think so?” Kirk took Miss Morrow's coat. “I should have said that most of the time, it's over her head.”