“On the question of hushing up the crime that I’ve learned about in the course of duty,” he said stiffly, “I’ll have to refer you to my superior.”
Thorne Duncan’s eventual nod of agreement surprised him, and so did the new, cool note in Duncan’s voice.
“Let me assure you, trooper,” he said, “that I appreciate both your position and your readiness to take on heavy odds, here tonight. You’ve no objection to an appeal to a superior?”
“None at all. I’m not exactly thick-headed, Mr. Duncan. You’ve certainly some mighty good reason for wanting to suppress the report. But, frankly, I doubt if Lieutenant Howard—”
“Who is Lieutenant Howard?”
“My immediate boss. The officer I report directly to. His headquarters are a couple of counties down state. In the barracks at Princetown.”
Thorne Duncan looked long at Bradley, a peculiar light in his eyes.
“Suppose you had orders from the commander-in-chief of the state police to erase all this from your memory? Would that be sufficient?” he asked quietly.
“From Major Anderson? Naturally.”
As Duncan slowly shook his head, Bradley was aware that others awakened by the nurse’s scream were hurrying down the broad stairway. A plump man in a flapping bathrobe was in the lead. Bradley, taking hasty stock of him, placed him as an upper servant. Then Thorne Duncan reclaimed his attention.
“No, I didn’t have Major Anderson in mind,” he was saying in the same quiet voice. “Is there no one above him? How about the Governor, trooper?”
Bradley wore the faintest of smiles as he nodded. “The Governor, of course,” he said. “He’s boss of everything in the state — all departments.”
The plump man in the oversized bathrobe had joined them then, eyes popping at sight of Bradley’s uniform. Behind him was a taller and slimmer man in a padded dressing-gown, gray-haired, shrewd-eyed, erect of carriage. His was another face that Bradley thought he had seen somewhere before.
“Of course, the Governor,” repeated Thorne Duncan. “Tonight, trooper, it happens that I have the honor of having him under my roof.” His eyes went to the straight, gray man in the dressing-gown and Bradley’s eyes followed. “You are looking at him now,” said the master of High Acres — “Governor Morton Wendover!”
Chapter VIII
The Lady Who Phoned
The terrifically flustered plump man was Ludlow, the Duncan butler. Bradley, under personal orders from the Governor to stand by, was left with him to parry frantic questions while Thorne Duncan and Morton Wendover went into conference in the library.
A quarter hour had passed when a call from them rescued Bradley from the inquisition in the front hall.
“We have come to the conclusion,” Duncan said, “to take you fully into our confidence, trooper. To begin with, you will understand that nothing you now know of what has happened here tonight and nothing you will hear shall be repeated. Not only is the case not to be reported, it is not to be whispered.”
“Orders,” nodded the Governor. “Observe them strictly, please.”
Briefly, then, pacing the priceless rug as he talked, Thorne Duncan described the kidnaper’s raid and informed Bradley of their demands.
“I tell you all this,” he concluded, “so that you may keep silent with a clear conscience. So you will realize that police activity and newspaper notoriety could work only harm in this particular case.”
“The orders of the Governor,” Bradley said, “would have been enough. What’s all right with his conscience will always be all right with mine.”
His eyes, ever since Duncan had stated the kidnaper’s price, had been fixed upon Morton Wendover. Joe Veronalli’s name he had known; mention of it had caused him a start. It was a name familiar to every law enforcement officer in half a dozen states. Racketeer, hi-jacker, wanton killer, Veronalli was awaiting execution of the death sentence for a singularly atrocious gang murder in the metropolis of the commonwealth — a murder which he had been imported from New York to do.
If ever a man deserved the chair, Joe Veronalli did. No voice save that of his high-priced counsel had ever been lifted in his defense. Even the women’s clubs, solid against capital punishment, had neglected to make their usual protest when he was convicted and sentenced to death. The newspapers, the public, for once the pulpit, too, had agreed that here no lesser avengement by organized society would fit the crime and the criminal. It would be, certainly, the equivalent of political suicide for Morton Wendover to pardon Veronalli.
The Governor, it seemed, could read eyes. At least, he saw the question in Bradley’s, and calmly he proceeded to answer it when Duncan had finished.
“There are bigger things in life, trooper,” he said, looking steadily back at Bradley now, “than even the highest public office. One is friendship and another is heart. Poor Duncan’s child — his world — is in the hands of desperate men. There is no question but that they will execute their threat against her if there is no surrender by us. Quoting at random, but quoting from a wisdom profound — ‘it is better that a hundred who are guilty shall walk free than that one who is innocent shall suffer.’ Yes, I shall sign a pardon for Joseph Veronalli tomorrow, a full and free pardon, and so keep peace with my conscience. And you two, God help me, are the only mortals who will ever know from me why the pardon was granted!”
A great man, Bradley told himself, as presently he went trundling back to his billet at a low-pressured and moody sixty-five. A greater man, this Morton Wendover, than the state had ever suspected; the sort of man who really should be down in Washington. As a New England favorite son he had been heading in that direction. Now, because he was what he was, he was through. There weren’t any two ways about it. Thumbs would be down on him from the moment he signed the Veronalli pardon.
In general the last man to become a hero-worshiper, Trooper Bradley was bowing at a worthy idol’s feet tonight. Homeward bound, pledged to silence but to nothing else, he swore an everlasting blood feud against the ghoulish crew who would own the responsibility for bringing that idol down. Some day, somewhere, Thomas Scudder and his tommy-gun twins would cross his path again. When that day came, there would be no quarter, none asked by State Trooper Bradley and none given. Meanwhile, as he had solemnly promised at Little Moose Lake, he’d be seeing Dutch Gompert and that bird of ill-omen called the Crow.
It was well after midnight when Bradley got back to his quarters, to discover there that the turn of twelve hadn’t meant the end of one day’s work for him, but just the starting of another. A few minutes before his arrival there had been a hurry call for him. A woman who said she was alone in her home — a Mrs. Liggett, who lived, according to the memorandum on Bradley’s slate above the telephone, far out on that same road where he had been the target of the New York tommy-gun — wanted help, and wanted it quick.
Bradley, dog-tired and suffering a reaction from the blow of the pistol butt, got the Liggett number from the information operator and immediately called back? Devoutly he hoped that the emergency, whatever it had been, was a thing of the past; but apparently it was not. The woman’s voice that answered was tight with terror.
“Please come up — please come! — and come as fast as you possibly can,” she begged him. “I’m miles from my nearest neighbor and a rough-looking man is lurking in the woods across the road. My husband’s in Boston tonight and I’m absolutely defenseless. Right this minute I’m half crazy.”