A deep pull from his flask once more steadied him. He drove on in the dark across the bridge, then with headlights on, set his course for home.
But not quite for home. Some five miles short of it he swung off the road, and following a lane, drove into a disused sandpit. There he hid the car among dense shrubs. Having removed his camps from the controls, he completed the journey on foot.
All went well till he was within sight of his house. He had approached through a spinney to avoid the road and was about to step out into the garden when he had a fright. The milkman was coming, hurrying with his bottles to the back door. Mrs. Tolley, before leaving at night, put out the empty bottle, taking in the fresh one on her arrival in the morning. Herbert threw himself down behind a shrub. The man glanced in his direction, but Herbert felt satisfied he had not been seen.
When the milk cart had gone he crept into the house. Though dog-tired, he was not yet finished. He went upstairs, got into his bed, and ruffled it up as from a night’s sleep. Then he did the same with the spa re-room bed. He washed and shaved, using the spare-room basin and towels. Almost fainting from hunger, he next prepared a large breakfast and ate it, using alternately two sets of table utensils.
He felt safe. Fleet naturally had left word at his private hotel that he would be out for the night. Mrs. Tolley had seen him at supper and would swear that he was still in the house when she left. She would also testify that two beds had been slept in and two breakfasts eaten. By the time inquiries were made she would have washed up, so the absence of Fleet’s fingerprints on the utensils could not be noticed. The photograph would prove that Fleet had not left before 8:53 that morning, after which Herbert would have an unbreakable alibi. There could be no doubt as to when the photograph was taken, for first, this was the only night Fleet had been at the house, and second, at 8:53 in the evening it was dark. It would indeed be obvious that the man had disappeared voluntarily. But even if by some miracle suspicion were aroused, no action could be taken in the absence of the body.
Yes, Herbert felt completely safe.
When Fleet failed to turn up the next day at his office, his manager began making inquiries. Dissatisfied with what he learned, he rang up the police.
Now, the police know a deal more of what goes on around them than is generally supposed, and they had not missed the gossip about Fleet and Joan. It therefore seemed possible that Fleet had gone to Herbert’s, and an Inspector called at the house. He thought it interesting that Joan should have been away from home on that particular night; all the same, Herbert’s story sounded convincing.
That evening the car was found. To the police the fact that Fleet had withdrawn none of his money ruled out a deliberate disappearance and they assumed foul play. But if it was murder, where was the body?
Then a further discovery strengthened their suspicions. With the idea of checking the new car’s performance, Fleet had been noting the gasoline bought, together with the date and mileage. The police found the car had done 74 miles more than could be accounted for by Fleet’s notes.
It is doubtful whether even then they would have got to Herbert but for a crowning piece of luck, good or bad according to the point of view. A group of boys, bathing in the Brender River, began diving from the bridge. One of them discovered the body.
When the police established that the distance from Herbert’s house to the bridge, and back to the sandpit, measured exactly 74 miles, they began to see daylight. Without much difficulty they imagined what Herbert could have done. Soon they had built up a strong case against him.
But against their theory was the seemingly incontrovertible evidence of the photograph. If Fleet had been at Herbert’s house at 8:53 in the morning, as the clock plainly showed, Herbert could not possibly be guilty. Could a man of his skill then have faked the photo? If he had, it could only have been with one aim.
The Inspector again examined the picture and this time smacked his thigh in delight. Then he called once more on Herbert. After chatting over the affair he said, “Mrs. Tolley tells me that after supper on the night of Mr. Fleet’s visit she put out the empty milk bottle as usual, and after 9 next morning took in the full one. Would you agree with that?”
Herbert could not deny what was obviously true.
“Then,” went on the Inspector, “at 8:53 in the morning there should be a milk bottle on your back-door step. Where is it, Mr. Rich, in this photograph?”
Herbert felt his heart turn to water as he gazed at the empty back-door step.
The Gatewood caper
by Dashiell Hammett[3]
Harvey Gatewood had issued orders that I was to be admitted as soon as I arrived, so it took me only a little less than fifteen minutes to thread my way past the doorkeepers, office boys, and secretaries who filled up most of the space between the Gatewood Lumber Corporation’s front door and the president’s private office. His office was large, all mahogany and bronze and green plush, with a mahogany desk as big as a bed in the center of the floor.
Gatewood, leaning across the desk, began to bark at me as soon as the obsequious clerk who had bowed me in bowed himself out.
“My daughter was kidnaped last night! I want the — that did it if it takes every cent I got!”
“Tell me about it,” I suggested.
But he wanted results, it seemed, and not questions, and so I wasted nearly an hour getting information that he could have given me in fifteen minutes.
He was a big bruiser of a man. something over 200 pounds of hard red flesh, and a czar from the top of his bullet head to the toes of his shoes that would have been at least number twelves if they hadn’t been made to measure.
He had made his several millions by sandbagging everybody that stood in his way, and the rage he was burning up with now didn’t make him any easier to deal with.
His wicked jaw was sticking out like a knob of granite and his eyes were filmed with blood — he was in a lovely frame of mind. For a while it looked as if the Continental Detective Agency was going to lose a client, because I’d made up my mind that he was going to tell me all I wanted to know, or I’d chuck the job.
But finally I got the story out of him.
His daughter Audrey had left their house on Clay Street at about 7 o’clock the preceding evening, telling her maid that she was going for a walk. She had not returned that night — though Gatewood had not known that until after he had read the letter that came this morning.
The letter had been from someone who said that she had been kidnaped. It demanded $50,000 for her release, and instructed Gatewood to get the money ready in hundred dollar bills — so that there would be no delay when he was told the manner in which the money was to be paid over to his daughter’s captors. As proof that the demand was not a hoax, a lock of the girl’s hair, a ring she always wore, and a brief note from her, asking her father to comply with the demands, had been enclosed.
Gatewood had received the letter at his office and had telephoned to his house immediately. He had been told that the girl’s bed had not been slept in the previous night and that none of the servants had seen her since she started out for her walk. He had then notified the police, turning the letter over to them; and a few minutes later he had decided to employ private detectives also.
“Now,” he burst out, after I had wormed these things out of him, and he had told me that he knew nothing of his daughter’s associates or habits, “go ahead and do something! I’m not paying you to sit around and talk about it!”