“Something I can do for you?” the man asked, obviously recognizing him as a policeman and wanting to avoid any disturbance. Frank couldn’t go anywhere without people knowing what he was.
“Is your manager here?” Frank asked in a tone that invited no questions.
The guard made his way hastily to a rear office, and in another moment a nattily-dressed man with a flower in his lapel anxiously approached Frank, the guard faithfully following at his heels.
“Could we handle this discreetly?” the manager asked, looking around nervously to see if anyone was disturbed by Frank’s presence. No one wanted a cop snooping around at a bank. It gave customers the wrong idea.
“I was looking for Peter Dudley,” Frank said.
“Dudley?” the man asked in surprise. “Whatever for?”
“Just send him out, will you?” Frank said impatiently.
The man glanced around again, making sure they weren’t being overheard. “He isn’t here.”
“What do you mean? Doesn’t he work here anymore?”
“Yes, of course he does, but… He didn’t come in this morning.”
“Is he sick?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. He didn’t send word.”
“Does he do this a lot?”
“He wouldn’t still work here if he did,” the manager sniffed. “He’s always been very reliable.”
Frank felt the back of his neck prickle. Something was wrong. It could just be that Dudley had decided he didn’t need this job anymore if he was going to marry Letitia. That was probably it. A man who’d seduce and elope with a young girl of good family probably wouldn’t hesitate to walk out of a job like this without giving notice either.
“I’ll just go check on him, then,” Frank said. “Make sure he’s all right. You know where he lives?” he added. Dudley was probably with Letitia, but just in case, he needed the man’s address.
“I most certainly do not know where he lives!” the bank manager said.
“Then find somebody who does,” Frank said with a friendly smile. “I’ll wait right here until you do.”
MOST ROOMING HOUSES were sad, smelling of cabbage and unwashed bodies, but the one where Peter Dudley lived was sadder than most. Paint was peeling off the front door and one of the shutters hung askew. The woman who owned the place was a slattern in a dirty apron, with a thin cigar dangling from her mouth. She even had a hint of a mustache.
“How should I know if he’s here or not?” she demanded when Frank asked after Dudley. “Do I look like his mother?”
Frank was in no mood for this. He’d already been to the Blackwell home. The butler, who appeared to be recovered from whatever illness he’d been suffering, had informed him he hadn’t seen Mr. Dudley that day. As usual, he hadn’t been very friendly about it, either.
“Just take me up to his room,” he told the landlady. “And bring a passkey. If he’s not there, I’ll still want to take a look around.”
The woman grumbled, but she complied. Frank followed her laborious progress up the steep, narrow stairs, taking care not to slip on the debris that had accumulated since the last time the steps had been swept. Frank figured it had probably been a year or more since a broom had touched them. Ahead of him, the landlady’s broad backside looked like two small boys fighting under a blanket. Frank tried his best not to watch the disturbing sight.
At last they reached one of the rear rooms, which lay down a stuffy, narrow corridor. The landlady knocked loudly. “Mr. Dudley, you in there?”
Frank nudged her out of the way and pounded even louder. “Dudley, it’s the police. Open up!”
A door at the other end of the hall opened, and a curious face peered out, but Frank ignored the other lodger. He pounded once more and, still hearing nothing, said, “Open it.”
Grumbling again, the landlady started searching through the keys on her large ring, looking for the correct one. After a couple of incorrect choices, she finally got the lock to turn and pushed the door open.
“I’ll wait here to lock it back up when you’re finished,” she said, scowling at him.
Frank stepped into the room, and instantly the smell of death overwhelmed him. Dudley lay crumpled on the floor in a tangle of bloody bedclothes. Cursing, Frank hurried to him. In the doorway, the landlady started screaming and swearing, and Frank could hear footsteps running down the hallway. The curious face was coming to see what had happened.
Dudley was still in his nightshirt and had apparently been attacked while he was sleeping. The bedclothes were pulled half off the bed and had wrapped around his legs as he struggled. His nightshirt was torn and soaked in blood, front and back. Frank started to turn him over, and he moaned.
“Oh, Lord in heaven, is he still alive?” the landlady cried.
“Just barely,” Frank said after a quick examination. “Send somebody for a doctor. Right now!” he shouted when nobody moved.
“Get Woomer!” the landlady said to the lodger. “You know where he lives. Tell him to hurry!”
Frank heard the pounding of feet going down the stairs, but he was too busy assessing Dudley’s wounds to pay much attention.
“What happened to him?” the landlady asked, coming closer but not close enough to help.
“From the looks of it, somebody stabbed him,” Frank said. “Hand me that towel over there,” he added, pointing to a peg where a ragged towel hung.
“You’re not getting my good towels all bloody!” the landlady told him indignantly.
Frank gave her his most evil glare. “Don’t make me knock you down and take your petticoats,” he warned.
She yelped in outrage, then stomped over to where the towel hung and snatched it from the wall. “I’ll charge him for this, I will. I can’t afford to be wasting towels on something like this.”
“You can’t afford to let one of your tenants die on the premises,” Frank informed her, pressing the towel to the oozing hole in Dudley’s chest. Out of spite, he jerked the sheet the rest of the way off the bed and used that, too.
She made a horrified sound, deep in her chest.
“Put this on his bill, too,” Frank said. “And if he dies, good luck collecting.”
Pushed beyond endurance, the landlady flounced out of the room, leaving the door standing open.
Frank was still trying to determine the extent of Dudley’s injuries. He appeared to have been stabbed several times, both in his back and in his chest, but only one wound was very deep. Stabbing someone in the torso was risky at best, as Frank had learned from years of observation. There were all kinds of bones in the upper body. Unless you used a slender blade and knew just where to aim, you were more likely to hit one of them than not. The result would be a shallow gouge, painful but hardly fatal.
Sure enough, the wounds on Dudley’s back were ugly but only bone-deep. His attacker must have come into the room and tried to kill him while he lay sleeping on his stomach. The pain would have awakened him, and he’d apparently struggled for his life. Now that Frank noticed, his left hand was bleeding from a gash across the inside of the fingers, as if he’d tried to grab the knife and gotten sliced instead. The attacker had landed three good blows on Dudley’s chest; the first one slid along his collarbone and the second had gouged the center of his chest. Neither had been powerful enough to break through the bones and had, like the ones in his back, produced ugly but only superficial wounds.
The attacker must have been getting frantic by then. Dudley would have been struggling like a madman. Fear would have given both of them unusual strength. Finally, the attacker had struck a vulnerable spot and driven the knife between two ribs. Chest wounds like this one were serious stuff. Dudley wasn’t dead yet, but he likely would be soon. Frank’s only hope was to get him to name his killer before he died.