He cut through a narrow, dark alley, reached the street, and whistled at a passing cab. He sat back, breathing hard, his head pounding. Then he leaned forward and gave the driver his own address. He’d missed the logical starting point all the time. He knew the risk he was taking in going back to the apartment, knew the place might be swarming with cops. That was a chance he would have to take. If Mary had been involved in anything, if a clue existed, it was bound to be at home — in Mary’s things.
He used the back stairs, easing up them silently. When he came to the third floor, he scanned the corridor, saw that it was empty, and ran on tiptoe to his door. His key already in his hand, he opened the door, stepped quickly inside.
He paused just a moment; then he pulled all the blinds, every nerve on edge for the sound of a furtive movement, and turned on a small table lamp. He stood indecisively, wondering where to start. It was hard to think, for over and over came the realization that somewhere out in the sprawling city was a mother who had lost a daughter, a daughter murdered in his wife’s clothes. And he had lost a wife.
He shook the thought out of his head, went into the bedroom, and began pulling drawers open. Then he stopped, realizing this was all wrong. I need to conduct a planned search, he thought, I... The thought broke off as he saw the newspaper on the side of Mary’s dressing table. He picked it up. It had been opened, folded back, and he was looking at the classified ad section. An ad under Help Wanted was ringed with a pencil mark. It read: “Wanted, a competent nurse, excellent salary. Answer L-38 c/o The Journal.” He looked at the date, saw that the paper was a morning edition of four days ago. He crushed the paper in his hands, let it fall to the carpet. Mary, he knew, had drawn the ring about the ad, and he thought he knew why. He hadn’t missed the logical starting point after all. That ad would have had no point at first, but with what he knew now it made macabre, frightening sense.
The elevator was humming as he came out of the apartment. He barely squeezed into the entrance of the back stairs as the elevator doors opened, disgorging Hagan and a blue-coated cop.
The misting rain had stopped and fog was beginning to swirl us Bill again approached Blanche Pelman’s house. The front door was unlocked. He squeezed through, eased up the stairs to her room.
A startled gasp hissed between her lips when she answered his light knock. “I’m sorry, Mr. Aiken! I didn’t mean to tell the cop that! I...”
“It’s all right,” he said, catching her hand. “But be quiet.”
“I didn’t mean it, honest!” She was sobbing softly.
He crushed her hand to quiet her, glancing down the hall. Then he noticed how soft and white her hand was. He looked at her a long moment. “You don’t seem the housekeeper type,” he said gently.
“I... I’ve got a record, Mr. Aiken. I came out of prison a year ago, and I can’t get a job just anywhere.”
“You can help me,” he said.
“How? Please don’t ask me...”
“I’m not going to ask you who threatened you.” He knew he couldn’t rush her, frighten her more, but he wished he were out of this hall. And if his reasoning were right, he had a frantic need of speed.
“How long have you been at the Dresser place, Blanche?”
“A week.”
“Did Doctor Ordway hire a new nurse three days ago?”
“Why... why yes he did!”
So it had been Ordway who put the ad in the paper!
Blanche was staring at his face. “Mr. Aiken! Are you...”
“I’ll tell you in the cab. Come on, we’re going to the Dresser place!”
They rode five blocks, Bill begging the hackie for more speed, before Blanche said, “Are the new nurse and your wife...”
“Tied right together, both incidents,” he said bitterly. “Three days ago my wife disappeared and Ordway hired a new nurse the same day! Can’t you see it? He hired the new nurse because the old one would recognize Helen Dresser! That was Helen’s body there in the morgue! She had a heart that was in danger of stopping at any moment. It did stop, leaving Ordway and Shuler squarely in the middle. They had to have a substitute for Helen and quickly. They had a double motive, a very powerful motive for choosing Mary. She looked enough like Helen to substitute, and Mary, working right there in Shuler’s office must have suspected what they were doing with Dresser’s money.”
“Dresser’s money!”
“It’s simple. Ordway the family doctor, Shuler the family lawyer, a great team. When Dresser had a nervous breakdown, Ordway, a couple of months later, declared him insane and committed Dresser to an institution owned by Ordway, which, in Dresser’s case, was really a prison. Thus the Dresser money reverted to Helen. She couldn’t be excited, and that left Shuler, as family lawyer, in actual control of the money. He was dishing it out for the two of them.
“But then Helen died and they were in a spot. The money would now pass on and there’d be investigations. They decided to cover her death, snatched Mary, dressed Helen in her clothes, mutilating Helen’s face, and dropped her in the river. Ordway, Shuler, the old butler, whom they probably have intimidated, and the nurse were now the only living people who had seen Helen, because strangers had never been allowed in her room. They hired a new nurse, and that left Shuler and Ordway free — with the money.”
“But one thing,” Blanche’s voice quivered, “the whole world knows that Helen’s face was deformed. As you say, Ordway and Shuler had to have a stand-in for Helen. They couldn’t merely have an empty bed and not announce her death. There was always the chance that an outsider would get into her room. But to make the plan complete, won’t Ordway have to operate, perform some awful plastic surgery — if he hasn’t already?”
His words were thick: “I’ve been thinking about that...”
His automatic clutched in a perspiration-slick hand, Bill stood to one side while Blanche rang the bell. The door cracked open, and Bill stepped forward, pushing the gun into the humped little butler’s face. Suddenly ash gray, the butler staggered a step backward and Bill pushed through the doorway. “Where are Ordway and Shuler?”
“Up... upstairs, sir. In Miss Dresser’s room.”
“Take us up.”
“But, sir, no one is allowed...”
“I said to take us up.” He punctuated the words with the gun rammed in the butler’s ribs. The butler turned cautiously.
He led them down the hall, up a flight of broad stairs. He paused before a door, looking at Bill imploringly. “Really, sir...”
Without a word, Bill slammed the door open, shoved the butler into the room. Shuler, at a window across the room, whirled, and doctor Lewis Ordway looked up from his position beside an enormous canopied bed. He was a beefy man with a shining bald head and tiny, black eyes. He half rose, his face darkening.
Bill let Blanche precede him into the room. He stepped to where he could get a full view, and his blood turned to flakes of ice. There was a figure in the huge bed, the covers tucked up, leaving arms and hands free. In the right hand was a glass of black liquid, and he thought stormily: “So they’ve been drugging her...!”
But the most frightening part was the bandage that encased her head, leaving only her mouth free. “Take the bandage off, Ordway,” Bill said. “If you’ve already operated I don’t think I can help killing you!”
The soft red lips below the bandage breathed, “Bill!”
“It’s okay, kid,” he said around the lump in his throat. He watched as Ordway unwound the bandage; then he sagged with relief. She was the same, except for the glow in her eyes.