I found one more of the Banbrock girls’ friends before I called it a day. Her name was Mrs. Stewart Correll. She lived in Presidio Terrace, not far from the Banbrocks. She was a small woman, or girl, of about Mrs. Banbrock’s age. A little fluffy blonde person with wide eyes of that particular blue which always looks honest and candid no matter what is going on behind it.
“I haven’t seen either Ruth or Myra for two weeks or more,” she said in answer to my question.
“At that time — the last time you saw them — did either say anything about going away?”
“No.”
Her eyes were wide and frank. A little muscle twitched in her upper lip.
“And you’ve no idea where they might have gone?”
“No.”
Her fingers were rolling her lace handkerchief into a little ball.
“Have you heard from them since you last saw them?”
“No.”
She moistened her mouth before she said it.
“Will you give me the names and addresses of all the people you know who were also known by the Banbrock girls?”
“Why—? Is there—?”
“There’s a chance that some of them may have seen them more recently than you,” I explained. “Or may even have seen them since Friday.”
Without enthusiasm, she gave me a dozen names. All were already on my list. Twice she hesitated as if about to speak a name she did not want to speak. Her eyes stayed on mine, wide and honest. Her fingers, no longer balling the handkerchief, picked at the cloth of her skirt.
I didn’t pretend to believe her. But my feet weren’t solidly enough on the ground for me to put her on the grill. I gave her a promise before I left, one that she could get a threat out of if she liked.
“Thanks, very much,” I said. “I know it’s hard to remember things exactly. If I run across anything that will help your memory, I’ll be back to let you know about it.”
“Wha—? Yes, do!” she said.
Walking away from the house, I turned my head to look back just before I passed out of sight. A curtain swung into place at a second-floor window. The street lights weren’t bright enough for me to be sure the curtain had swung in front of a blonde head.
My watch told me it was nine-thirty: too late to line up any more of the girls’ friends. I went home, wrote my report for the day, and turned in, thinking more about Mrs. Correll than about the girls.
She seemed worth an investigation.
III
Some telegraphic reports were in when I got to the office the next morning. None was of any value. Investigation of the names and addresses in other cities had revealed nothing. An investigation in Monterey had established reasonably — which is about as well as anything is ever established in the detecting business — that the girls had not been there recently; that the Locomobile had not been there.
The early editions of the afternoon papers were on the street when I went out to get some breakfast before taking up the grind where I had dropped it the previous night. I bought a paper to prop behind my grapefruit.
It spoiled my breakfast for me.
Mrs. Stewart Correll, wife of the vice-president of the Golden Gate Trust Company, was found dead early this morning by her maid in her bedroom, in her home in Presidio Terrace. A bottle believed to have contained poison was on the floor beside the bed.
The dead woman’s husband could give no reason for his wife’s suicide. He said she had not seemed depressed or...
I gave my eggs and toast a quick play, put my coffee down in a lump, and got going.
At the Correll residence I had to do a lot of talking before I could get to Correll. He was a tall, slim man of less than thirty-five, with a sallow, nervous face and blue eyes that fidgeted.
“I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this,” I apologized when I had finally insisted my way into his presence. “I won’t take up more of your time than necessary. I am an operative of the Continental Detective Agency. I have been trying to find Ruth and Myra Banbrock, who disappeared several days ago. You know them, I think.”
“Yes,” he said without interest. “I know them.”
“You knew they had disappeared?”
“No.” His eyes switched from a chair to a rug. “Why should I?”
“Have you seen either of them recently?” I asked, ignoring his question.
“Last week — Wednesday, I think. They were just leaving — standing at the door talking to my wife — when I came home from the bank.”
“Didn’t your wife say anything to you about their vanishing?”
“No. Really, I can’t tell you anything about the Misses Banbrock. If you’ll excuse me—”
“Just a moment longer,” I said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you if it hadn’t been necessary. I was here last night, to question Mrs. Correll. She seemed nervous. My impression was that some of her answers to my questions were — uh — evasive. I want—”
He was up out of his chair. His face was red in front of mine.
“You!” he cried. “I can thank you for—”
“Now, Mr. Correll,” I tried to quiet him, “there’s no use—”
But he had himself all worked up.
“You drove my wife to her death,” he accused me. “You killed her with your damned prying — with your bulldozing threats; with your—”
That was silly. I felt sorry for this young man whose wife had killed herself. Apart from that, I had work to do. I tightened the screws.
“We won’t argue, Correll,” I told him. “The point is that I came here to see if your wife could tell me anything about the Banbrocks. She told me less than the truth. Later, she committed suicide. I want to know why. Come through for me, and I’ll do what I can to keep the papers and the public from linking her death with the girls’ disappearance.”
“Linking her death with their disappearance?” he exclaimed. “That’s absurd!”
“Maybe — but the connection is there!” I hammered away at him. I felt sorry for him, but I had work to do. “It’s there. If you’ll give it to me, maybe it won’t have to be advertised. I’m going to get it, though. You give it to me — or I’ll go after it out in the open.”
For a moment I thought he was going to take a poke at me. I wouldn’t have blamed him. His body stiffened — then sagged, and he dropped back into his chair. His eyes fidgeted away from mine.
“There’s nothing I can tell,” he mumbled. “When her maid went to her room to call her this morning, she was dead. There was no message, no reason, nothing.”
“Did you see her last night?”
“No. I was not home for dinner. I came in late and went straight to my own room, not wanting to disturb her. I hadn’t seen her since I left the house that morning.”
“Did she seem disturbed or worried then?”
“No.”
“Why do you think she did it?”
“My God, man, I don’t know! I’ve thought and thought, but I don’t know!”
“Health?”
“She seemed well. She was never ill, never complained.”
“Any recent quarrels?”
“We never quarreled — never in the year and a half we have been married!”
“Financial trouble?”
He shook his head without speaking or looking up from the floor.
“Any other worry?”
He shook his head again.
“Did the maid notice anything peculiar in her behavior last night?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you looked through her things — for papers, letters?”
“Yes — and found nothing.” He raised his head to look at me. “The only thing” — he spoke very slowly — “there was a little pile of ashes in the grate in her room, as if she had burned papers, or letters.”