“Was Marcus North mad?”
“Not then,” Clarke said. “Very likely he got that way before he died. They say it’s catching if you live long enough with nuts.”
“Didn’t his family try to have him adjudged sane so he could get out?”
“They did not. Having him proved mad salved their honor in a way and they didn’t want that revengeful, extravagant devil out again. They administered the estate and there wouldn’t have been any to administer if he’d lived another couple of years outside of a psychopathic establishment. He’d been getting away with too much.”
“But the authorities are the people to decide that. They don’t want to keep people who don’t need them.”
Clarke shrugged his shoulders. “It may be a question of money. The North family could afford to pay big fees. That I couldn’t say. It ought not to be difficult for you to get particulars.”
“I’ll put David More on the case. I think I’ll run out to Fort Lee now. I’ll be in to-morrow to talk it over again.”
David More was a small melancholy looking man whom Trent had often employed in the more pedestrian tasks of obtaining facts. He was a shrewder judge of men than he looked. Since much of his life had been spent as collector for installment houses, there were no excuses or human evasions foreign to him. He was indebted to Anthony Trent for the little store which enabled him to live comfortably and had a great but silent admiration for the younger man.
More never asked unnecessary questions and his reports were concise and to the point. In adventuring for information he rarely antagonized. It was his custom to sell things at the door so cheaply that the help at the house where he needed information welcomed him gladly. His silk stockings, often sold below cost price, insured him a pleasant reception. More was not without pride in his work. He had been far more valuable to the installment house than he had ever known and he was delighted to see his patron again. One of his younger daughters just returned from High School was given charge of the store and More drove back to New York in Trent’s car.
He purchased an extensive supply of silken hosiery and rejoiced that it was a day when Judith O’Grady enveloped her calves in the same shade and material as the colonel’s lady. David More thought of the day when his excuse had been no more compelling than the offering of an accident policy. David More went to a hundred per cent talkie for the first time while Trent busied himself in the newsroom at the Public Library. They met at dinner later.
When Trent left the library he was in possession of many facts concerning Marcus North. Trent was struck by the comparative reserve of the newspapers of that period in dealing with a story that offered so many opportunities. In tabloid times it was different. But he learned the name of the State institution to which North had been committed. It was not in New York. David More would be the one to get him the more intimate knowledge he required.
At his hotel there was a wire from Roger Ellis to the effect that no new developments had occurred. The unfortunate Hubbard was now engaging Edwards’s attention and was proving an obstinate and unwilling witness. Edwards’s men had taken him only late yesterday afternoon. Within an hour, so Trent reckoned it, of his departure from Fairhaven.
When More had set out on his journey next day, Trent went to the office of the agency which had supplied Mr. Addison with his operatives. Trent encountered Evans as he went up in the elevator. It amused Trent to remember that the last remark Evans had addressed him was of a singularly biting nature. Now he was glad to remind the other of his existence. Evans felt he needed influential friends since his chief was not pleased with his work. Trent drew him aside.
“I think you had a rough deal in the Addison case,” he observed.
“That’s gospel truth,” Evans returned. “I wish you’d tell the boss that.”
“I want to see him. Can you arrange it?”
“You bet,” said Evans. “He’s in his private office right now I expect. I’ll get you in all right and I’d be mighty grateful if you’d say a good word for me.”
The agency manager contrived to know a great deal of what was going on in the world. He knew that Anthony Trent was a rich sportsman, a player of polo and the friend of some of New York’s important people. He therefore displayed extreme courtesy and offered, when Trent informed him he came at Mrs. Addison’s request, to put what information he had at his service. But he was a shrewd man and had to show a good balance.
“We haven’t had any answer to our request for payment of our account,” he said. “I suppose Mrs. Addison didn’t ask you to say anything about it?”
Trent took out his fountain pen and his check book. There could be no better way of gaining the man’s confidence.
“Mrs. Addison didn’t mention it, but she would want me to pay. Just now you will understand she is terribly upset.” Trent looked at the bill and wrote his check. The agency rates were high.
“That man Evans you sent down,” he said, “seemed always on the job. He even suspected me.”
“It was my impression he had bungled things, Mr. Trent.
“The breaks were against him, that’s all. The police haven’t found anything either. Mrs. Addison hoped,” and here Trent considered himself justified in stretching a point, “that you could tell me what your relations were with her husband. He kept her and his secretary completely in the dark.”
“We’ve had the police ask about it, too,” said the manager, “but we have no information. Mr. Addison wrote to us for men who could fill certain positions. We supplied them and when he disappeared our operatives were dismissed by Mrs. Addison at the request of the police.”
“A man with your vast experience,” Trent suggested, “must have some theories about the case. Why should a man of his peculiarly high type want all those husky men to guard him?”
“Mr. Trent,” said the manager, “I used to be a policeman before I took this up and I guess I know as much about men as most, but I’m learning more every day about ’em and it don’t make me think any the better. I guess Addison got into a jam and thought he’d be safer down there with our men than he would have been in his town house.”
“What sort of a jam?” Trent asked.
“Women I guess,” said the other. “My experience is that men of his age have a mushy spell for a bit when they’re the easiest things on earth. Maybe he fell for some tabasco baby. Then there was the war. Lots of men lost their moral bearings there, Mr. Trent.” He smiled tolerantly. A wholly virtuous world would have found him out of his job and he had his own expenses. “You were in the big war?” Trent nodded. “Then you get me.” There were few things the manager liked better to discuss than the less proper diversions of the high and mighty. “I read a piece in a magazine that said it was the chemicals and explosives that made men act that way. Interesting idea and it may be true. In my work it’s hard to believe in anyone. I may be all wet about Mr. Addison, but it looks like trouble with a woman or rather with the men that the woman has sicced on to him. You wouldn’t believe the time and trouble some crooks go to land a big fish like Addison. Mr. Trent, some of the high-grade crooks would make fortunes on the stage the way they can act. My guess is that one evening when his wife was away Addison went to a roof show and thought he had his youth back.”
Not a grain of comfort did Anthony Trent get from the agency manager. Indeed the man’s disbelief in the integrity of Addison was a blow, for it chanced that Trent had been very favorably impressed and he did not like to be proved wrong. He had merely paid out several hundred dollars to be told that all men were base.