Hagan had become a living dynamo, shouting orders into a phone, as Bill left the morgue building. He stood on the sidewalk, darkness closing in on him, people swirling about him, wondering frantically what to do, how to start. Then he thought of Jacob Shuler again, Mary’s employer. He had already told Hagan where Mary worked. The cop would no doubt see Shuler as soon as he got his forces marshalled; but Bill suddenly wanted to talk to Shuler himself. The lawyer, he thought, was the logical starting point.
He hurried to the drug store down on the corner, elbowed his way through the people at the fountain. From the booth in hack he called Shuler’s home and a servant answered.
“Is Mr. Shuler there?” Bill asked.
“I’m sorry, he isn’t. He’s at the Dresser residence, I think.”
“Dresser?”
“Mr. Jonathan Dresser’s home. Shall I tell Mr. Shuler you called?”
“Never mind. Thanks.” He hung up, grabbed the phone book, and looked up Dresser’s number; then he decided not to phone but to go in person. He made a mental note of Dresser’s address and left the drug store.
On the way down in a cab that seemed to be creeping, Bill found himself thinking of Jonathan Dresser and Dresser’s family.
“Tragic,” Mary had described the family. Dresser was one of Shuler’s wealthiest clients, and Bill remembered Mary shivering the time she told him how two years ago Dresser’s wife died in a blazing automobile, screaming, after the car had gone over an embankment. Dresser’s daughter. Helen, was a bedridden invalid with a heart so erratic a walk downstairs might stop it. Dresser had spent his life zealously guarding her from strangers or excitement. From excitement because of her heart, from strangers because her face was twisted and ugly. He had once struck a new maid who started into Helen’s room.
And of them all. Dresser himself was probably the most tragic He had made millions in the manufacture of patent medicine. Then, six months ago, he had had a nervous breakdown; two months later he was hopelessly insane, committed to a private institution.
Getting out of the cab, Bill looked at the big brick house. It was surrounded by a broad expanse of lawn, enclosed by a massive, well-trimmed hedge. Yet in the darkness lowering dismally over the pointed roof Bill could sense the grim tragedy that had struck the Dresser family.
A withered little butler with downy white hair answered Bill’s ring. The butler’s head was hunched deeply into his shoulders.
Looking down at him, Bill said, “I’m looking for Mr. Shuler. I understand he is here.”
“Just a moment, sir.” The butler closed the door softly, and Bill could hear him moving in the hall. Then the door opened again and the butler said, “Mr. Shuler will see you. This way, sir.”
Bill entered into a vaulted hall, followed the butler, who pulled apart double doors of rich, dark wood.
The room was a library, with leather-bound volumes hiding the walls, a scroll-legged walnut desk, deep, leather-upholstered chairs. In the center of this magnificence stood a man no larger than the butler. But this man had a long, narrow face, a thin nose, eyes grown calculating from years of legal procedure.
He dismissed the butler with a brisk, bird-like movement of his hand. After regarding Bill a moment, his eyes lighted with recognition. “You’re Mr. Aiken. I remember now; you’ve come by the office to pick up your wife after work.”
Bill nodded. “I wanted to ask you about my wife.”
Shuler looked faintly startled. “I was just going to ask you the same thing.”
“You mean...” Bill began hoarsely. “You mean my wife wasn’t at your office today?”
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Aiken, she hasn’t been there for three days. I was going to ask you when she’s coming back. She should have phoned... left me with lots of work. She...” His voice died sharply. He said, “Where is your wife?”
Licking his lips did Bill no good; they kept feeling parched and thick. “I... I don’t know. She’s gone — just gone.”
Shuler pursed his lips, his eyes clouded.
Bill said, “What was she doing? In her work, I mean. Anything unusual? Anything that would cause someone to...”
Shuler shook his head. “She was merely doing her usual routine. Making briefs, taking dictation, drawing up legal forms. But... but you, Aiken!”
“I?”
“You’re a chemist, aren’t you? Your wife mentioned your doing war work. Perhaps someone wants formulas, production figures.”
Maybe he’s got something there, Bill thought frantically. His work was important; it had taken him to Washington, warranted a permit to carry a small automatic.
“But why haven’t I been contacted? Why...”
“Maybe you will be later.” Shuler started to say more but the phone on the desk buzzed. He picked it up. “...Yes... yes. I’m coming right up, Ordway.” He replaced the phone. “I’ve got to go upstairs. Here on business. But if I can help, don’t fail to phone me, Aiken.”
Bill thanked him and turned to go. He came through the library doorway and saw her, a woman standing in the hall. She was wearing a tiny, frilly apron, flat-heeled shoes. Her garb didn’t conceal ravishing, blonde loveliness.
She looked at Bill. Beneath the creamy glow of her skin she was very pale, her blue eyes wide. It upset Bill strangely — the image of her stunned expression stayed in his mind as he went toward the darkness of the street.
He was halfway down the walk when he heard his name spoken. “Mr. Aiken!” It was a hoarse, fierce whisper, demanding that he wait.
Quick footsteps were sounding on the walk as he turned. The blonde girl’s hand was on his arm.
“I... I overheard what you said in there to Mr. Shuler,” she was breathing hard. “I haven’t time to talk now, but I’ll be off work for the night soon. Come to seven fourteen Maxton Street in... in two hours, nine o’clock, and ask for Blanche Pelman.”
She started to go, but Bill asked quickly, “Why? Why should I come there?”
“Because,” her voice vibrated almost fiercely in the growing darkness, “I can tell you where to find your wife!” Then she was gone.
A misting rain had begun to fall when Bill, his shoulders hunched in the trench coat he had taken from his apartment, approached seven fourteen Maxton. The street lights were pale blurs in the mist; damp, rancid odors rose from the trash-littered gutters. Somewhere in the crumbling brick houses across the street a tipsy man was singing off key; down the street a few doors reflected light and a sudden, loud burst of laughter came from a pool room.
Bill mounted the steps and knocked.
A thin, hawk-faced landlady with a broom in her hand answered the door. “Yes?” she demanded in a piping voice.
“I want to see Miss Pelman.”
The landlady pulled the door back, examining Bill in the wan light that came from the single, naked bulb in the hall. Then she said, “Right up there at the top of the first flight of stairs. Room on the left.”
“Thanks.” He had to keep himself from running up the stairs. He was conscious of the thud of his heart. Blanche Pelman’s promise about Mary echoing in his mind as he neared the room.
He tapped on her door, and the blonde gill opened it a crack, saw him, and pulled it wide.
She closed the door, standing with her back to it. Breathlessly, she said, “Your wife’s first name is Mary?”
“Yes,” Rill said tightly.
“Then I was right. It is your wife.”
He stood in the middle of the room; his voice sounded far away. “Tell me from the beginning.”
“Several days ago a man named Jordan moved into this house. I’ve talked with him some, and yesterday he had too much to drink. He spoke of a woman named Mary Aiken.” She moved away from the door, sat down on the edge of the bed.