“Gus Cooney sent me,” I said.
“Who the hell is Cooney?” she demanded.
That was that. If she’d known him, I’d have detected some slight sign of it in her eyes. “Maybe,” I said, “I’ve made a mistake. You are Mrs. Dorne?”
And while I made up that name I knew I hadn’t made any mistakes. I faced a small table on which was a photo in an imitation leather easel. Two people were in the picture. June — and Paul Manning, the secretary who kowtowed to Ernest Doane.
“The name,” Mrs. Doane told me, “is D-o-a-n-e. Not Dorne. Haven’t you eyes good enough to read? My card is tacked below the bell.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said.
“I’m not.” June sat up and pushed back her blonde hair. “Ma — let him stay. He wants something. I saw him last night outside the club.”
I sighed and nodded, then grinned foolishly. “Some guys do all sorts of things to meet a doll,” I told her. “Maybe you never noticed, but I’ve been at the table near the palms every night for the past week. I like your singing and — stuff. I wanted to meet you and last night I couldn’t rake up the nerve.”
“He’s lying. He smells copper to me,” Ma put in.
“He looks good to me, Ma.” June came a little closer. She used too much perfume, but it was the right type for her, seductive — and I wondered what goofy name they had for it.
I wanted out. I said: “I’ve made enough of a fool of myself. I... I’ll be going now. Maybe tomorrow night, outside the club...? Supper and champagne, perhaps.”
Ma was certainly no dope. “Champagne from a guy who wears thirty dollar suits and one buck ties? What’s your angle, mister? Who are you? June, bring me that newspaper on the table.”
June winked at me signifying we’d just made a deal, but she got the newspaper. Ma looked at the headlines and threw it down. “You mentioned the name of Gus Cooney when you came in here. Cooney is dead — murdered. I think the cops would like to talk to you. June — get on the phone.”
“Oh, now look, Ma...” June pleaded.
“Call the cops. You heard me.”
My departure didn’t demand formalities. I did manage to scoop up my hat and make for the door. Ma threw something at me and it hit the door as I closed it behind me. No self-operated elevator ever went so slowly. I was afraid the precinct might happen to contact a radio car in the same block and I wanted no fuss with Westover. Not now. Things were too hot and so was I.
On my hasty way home I did some mental arithmetic and came up with a total that didn’t mean a thing. June knew Paul Manning who worked for Ernest Doane. Manning had warned me to stay out of it. There was a hood named Hazy who liked me just enough to spill my blood in copious quantities. I had met Anna Doane, the first wife of Lila’s father and she knew the ropes. Of them all Anna was the most dangerous. What did it add up to? In my book, one nice big zero.
But there was something. Not much as yet. Somebody had hired Cooney and killed him because Cooney was the type to prowl and learn things and make a little blackmail touch. A private detective’s normal and honest income wouldn’t supply the kind of an office Cooney maintained. Whoever hired him was trying to get at me now, on the theory I was of the same stripe as Cooney.
And back of all this lay a motive. Ernest Doane was wealthy, so money probably was behind it. As potential heirs I had Lila, Anna Doane, June Doane and Kate Bradford, the aunt. I was one hell of a private eye. Without a license I was strictly limited. With three years in stir hanging over my head, I was in a straitjacket so far as carrying out an investigation was concerned. I did the only thing I could. I telephoned Stuart Sedley.
“Things are getting hot and confused,” I said. “No beef on the Cooney murder yet, but if Westover gets the case he’ll consider me as a suspect. He remembers me with every two-bit case that comes his way. I need help. Do you know who Ernest Doane’s attorney is?”
“Yes,” Sedley said. “All three of us belong to the Uptown Athletic Club where we meet often and exercise with glasses containing scotch and soda. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve got to see this lawyer and he must understand I’m on the level before I go there. He must also accept me at face value which isn’t much. Can you fix it?”
Good old Sedley. He arranged things so that Attorney Thompson greeted me with an inhaler of old brandy which I needed. He listened to my story, by no means in full, but I convinced him Ernest Doane might be in danger.
Thompson stuck his nose in the brandy inhaler and sniffed generously. He didn’t look like a Man of Distinction doing that, but I knew you could get very tight inhaling the stuff. I preferred to drink it.
When he came up for air, he put the glass down and reached for a cigar. “I shall violate all the ethics of my profession,” he said. “Because I think you’re right and Doane may be in danger. For ten years his will left half the estate to Lila, a quarter to June and a quarter to Anna, his first wife. About six months ago he changed it. Lila gets the whole shebang. June and Anna get headaches.”
“What about Aunt Kate?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Kate doesn’t need any money and Ernest knows it. Grant that she-devil her due, she’s a big shot at a hospital and the place runs like clockwork. She lives within her means. In fact I know how much she is worth and it’s plenty. Every dime goes to the hospital at her death.”
“Couldn’t Anna, his first wife, break that will?”
“Not so long as I have a signed forfeiture of all rights to Doane’s money. She signed it to bleed him for plenty when he divorced her. Anna can’t get a thin dime. Have another brandy?”
With the news he gave me I needed the whole bottle. The only theory I had just blew up in my face. Doane’s money wasn’t behind the scheme and when money isn’t back of murder, the real motive is always hard to determine.
That was the way the situation lay when I climbed into bed. No loopholes, no clues. The only man who might tell me anything was dead and my only rainbow was the fact that I was a hundred bucks ahead. I decided that with all this on my mind I’d never sleep and I conked off in two minutes.
In the morning I spent some time around the building where Gus Cooney had maintained his offices. I talked to people who worked in the building, but they knew nothing about his clients. He maintained a secretary who worked part time only. I knew the cops had questioned her and if I went over the same ground it would only result in my being tagged for making like a sleuth. That angle was too dangerous for me to tackle.
I was about at the end of my rope by dinner, with every possible loophole in the case closed up tightly. I even gave way to reasoning that Cooney’s murder might not be connected with this case at all, but the work of someone he’d blackmailed. When I start thinking in those weak terms, I’m really whipped.
At seven o’clock, right after dark, I was in Bryant Park. I didn’t exactly know why I went there except that I’d become used to the place and I enjoyed this quiet oasis in a city teeming with noise. Here the traffic along Forty-second Street, Fifth Avenue and Sixth, seemed muted and far, far away.
I was seriously considering a movie about the time I heard those high heels chatter against the cement. They were the steps of someone who knew exactly where she was headed, for casual visitors to the park just stroll. Then she was close enough so that I recognized her. June slowed up, stopped and looked down at me.
“Hello, Rick,” she said. “May I sit down?”
“Sure. I’m glad you came.”
She sat beside me and I wished she wouldn’t use that perfume. Whoever made it knew their stuff. She was close — very close and, I thought, she wouldn’t mind being a bit closer. I didn’t give her any encouragement. That’s me — he man.