Lay Her Among The Lilies

That brought him bolt upright in his chair. “Aren’t you letting your imagination run away

with you? I had a letter from her only last week.”

“That doesn’t mean much. Why did she write?”

“I asked her to sign some papers. She returned them signed, with a covering note thanking

me for sending them.”

“From Crestways?”

“The address on the note-paper was Crestways.”

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“That still doesn’t prove she isn’t a prisoner, does it? I’m not saying she is, but that’s

another thing we shall have to keep in mind.”

“We can find out about that right away,” he said briskly.

“I’ll write to her and ask her to call on me. I can find some business excuse for an

interview.”

“Yeah. That’s an idea. Will you let me know what happens? It might be an idea to follow

her when she leaves you and find out where she goes.”

“I’ll let you know.”

I stood up.

“I think that’s about all. You’ll remember to check on her bank statement?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Go slow on this, Malloy. I don’t want any blow-back. You

understand?”

“I’ll watch it.”

“What’s your next move?”

“I’ve got to do something about Nurse Gurney. I liked that girl. If she’s alive, I’m going to

find her.”

When I left him he wasn’t looking like the Graven Image any more. He was looking like a

very worried, much-harassed, middle-aged lawyer. At least, it showed the guy was human.

II

The desk sergeant said Mifflin was free and for me to go on up. He looked at me with

hopeful eyes, and I knew he was expecting me to name the winner of tomorrow’s races, but I

had other things on my mind.

I went up the stone stairs. On the landing I ran into redheaded Sergeant MacGraw.

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“Well, well, the Boy Wonder again,” he said sneeringly. “What’s biting you this time?”

I looked into the hard little eyes and didn’t like what I saw in them. This was a guy who

would enjoy inflicting pain; one of those tough coppers who would volunteer when there was

a softening job to be done, and how he would love it.

“Nothing’s biting me,” I said. “But if I stick around you long enough something may.”

“Smart—huh?” He grinned, showing small yellow teeth. “Keep your nose clean, Wonder

Boy. We’re watching you.”

“Just so long as you don’t shoot me through the head,” I returned, pushed past him and

went on down the corridor to Mifflin’s office.

I paused before I rapped and looked over my shoulder. MacGraw was still standing at the

head of the stairs, staring at me. There was a startled expression on his face, and his loose-lipped mouth hung open. As our eyes met, he turned away and went down the stairs.

Mifflin looked up as I entered his office and frowned.

“You again. For Pete’s sake don’t keep coming to see me. Brandon doesn’t like it.”

I pulled up a straight-back chair and sat down.

“Remind me to cry when I have time. I’m on official business. If Brandon doesn’t like it he

can go jump in the ocean.”

“What business?” Mifflin asked, pushing back his desk chair and resting his big hairy

hands on the desk.

“One of the nurses attending Miss Crosby has vanished,” I said. “Brandon should be

interested because this nurse is employed by Salzer.”

“Vanished ?” Mifflin repeated, his voice off-key. “What do you mean—vanished?”

I told him how I had called on Nurse Gurney, how the front-door bell had rung, how she

had gone to answer it and hadn’t returned. I gave him the details about the fat woman in the

empty apartment opposite, the plum stone on the escape and how simple it would have been

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for a strong man to have carried Nurse Gurney down the escape to the waiting car.

“Well, that’s a damned funny thing,” Mifflin said, and ran his fingers through his shock of

black hair. “About a couple of years ago another of Salzer’s nurses disappeared. She was

never found.”

“Did you ever look for her?”

“All right, Vic, you needn’t be that way,” he said angrily. “Of course we looked for her, but

we didn’t find her. Salzer said he thought she had run away to get married. Her father wasn’t

struck on her boy friend or something like that.”

“Salzer hasn’t reported Nurse Gurney is missing?”

He shook his head.

“He’d scarcely have had time, would he? Besides, she might have remembered something

and gone out to get it. There must be any number of reasons why she left the apartment.”

“Without shoes and stockings and in the middle of a conversation? Don’t kid yourself. This

is kidnapping, and you know it.”

“I’ll go over there and talk to the janitor. You better keep out of this. I’ll tell Brandon the

janitor reported it.”

I shrugged.

“Just so long as something’s done. This other case interests me. Who was the nurse?”

Mifflin hesitated, then got up and went over to one of his many filing cabinets.

“Her name was Anona Freedlander,” he said, pawed through a number of files, selected one

and brought it to his desk. “We haven’t a lot of information. Her father’s George Freedlander.

He lives at 257 California Street, San Francisco. She disappeared on 15th May of last year.

Salzer reported to Brandon. Freedlander came to see us, and it was his idea she had run off

with this boy friend, a guy named Jack Brett. Brett was in the Navy. A couple of weeks

before Anona disappeared he deserted. Brandon said we needn’t look too hard; we didn’t.”

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“Did you ever find Brett?”

“No.”

“I wonder how hard you are going to look for Nurse Gurney.”

“Well, we’ll have to be convinced she has been kidnapped. Brandon won’t act on your say-so. It’ll depend on Salzer.”

“This damned city seems to be run by Salzer.”

“Aw, now, Vic, you don’t mean that.”

I got to my feet.

“Find her, Tim, or I’ll start something. I liked that girl.”

“Just take it easy. If she has disappeared we’ll find her. You’re sure that horse Crab

Apple’s okay? I don’t want to lose five bucks.”

“Never mind Crab Apple. You concentrate on Nurse Gurney,” I said and stamped out of the

room.

I drove back to Orchid Buildings. Paula was waiting for me in my office.

“We go ahead,” I said, and sat down behind my desk. “I’ve seen Willet, and he’ll finance

an investigation, but he wants to keep his firm well in the background.”

“Plucky of him,” Paula said scornfully. “You take all the risks, I suppose?”

“He seemed to expect to pay a little extra,” I said, and grinned. I told her about my visit to

Headquarters. “This guy Salzer seems in the habit of making his nurses vanish. You note the

date? May 15th: the day Janet died. No one’s going to convince me her disappearance doesn’t

somehow tie up with Janet’s death.”