“Well, never mind now. Call Captain Bartholdi again.”
“You’re right. That’s what I should do.”
“Do you feel up to it? Do you want me to call for you?”
“No, no, I must do it myself. Thank you very much.”
He put both hands on the arms of the chair and hoisted himself to his feet. Turning, he walked with exorbitant care to the telephone. He had just lifted the instrument from its cradle and pointed a finger at the dial when Ben’s voice sounded crossly from the open doorway.
“Damn it, Fanny, what’s keeping you? I thought you were going upstairs to get some gin.”
Fanny whirled, an index finger bisecting her lips in a gesture commanding, for God’s sake, silence. From behind her came the ratchet-like sound of the dial, unnaturally loud.
“This is Jay Miles speaking. Captain Bartholdi, please... Captain Bartholdi? Jay Miles. I’ve had news of Terry... Yes, a telephone call... What?... I’m not sure. About an hour and a half ago, I think. I couldn’t reach you... Yes, everything. Complete instructions... No, no. No mistake... What?... All right, I’ll be here.”
He hung up and returned to his chair, easing himself into it as if his bones might snap under the effort. Now that he had reached Bartholdi, he seemed relieved of a great burden. But he also seemed left in a lassitude that made it difficult to take another decisive step, about anything at all.
“Captain Bartholdi’s coming out,” he said drearily.
Ben said, “Why? Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?”
“Surely it’s obvious,” Fanny said. “Terry has been kidnapped, although I never really believed she’d been. Jay has received a call from the kidnapper.”
Ben’s voice was all of a sudden dry and precise. “What did he want?”
“I assume he wants money. Isn’t that what kidnappers generally want? Is that right, Jay? Did the kidnapper demand money?”
Jay had removed his glasses. He held them by one ear piece in his right hand, his right arm dangling limply over the arm of the chair. His eyes were shut. He answered without opening them.
“Captain Bartholdi said not to talk about it until he gets here.”
“I wish he would hurry,” Fanny said. “How long will he be?”
“He’s on his way. I think you two had better not be here when he arrives.”
“Are you telling us to leave?”
“That,” said Ben, “is just what he’s telling us. Do you have to have it written out for you?”
“Well, I don’t see what harm it would do to have us here.”
“Excuse me.” Jay’s eyes were still shut. “You must excuse me.”
Clearly dismissed, and as clearly reluctant to accept the dismissal, Fanny nevertheless permitted herself to be impelled into the hall by Ben, who was somewhat rougher about it than she felt was necessary.
“I didn’t get a chance to invite him to share the ragout,” she said. “I’ll go back and do it.”
“To hell with the ragout,” Ben said. “What I’m interested in now is the gin. Jump upstairs like a good girl and get it, will you, Fan?”
20
Had it worked? Had it, after all, really worked? He had taken a long chance against the odds and the best judgment of his superiors; he had held from the beginning very little hope for success. And that wasn’t all of it. If the thing had leaked, or broken wide open, there would certainly have been some bad publicity accompanied, no doubt, by assorted nastinesses directed against the department. It might even have become necessary to lop off somebody’s head, and any head that rolled should have been, in all justice, his own. At that, it had been a close call.
There had been evidence of sniffiness on the part of the press; it was blind luck that no reporter had managed to nose his way to the neighborhood of the Skully place. The families of Charles and Vernon were not practiced in the art of deception.
Well, Bartholdi reflected as he drove toward The Cornish Arms, it would break now. With a bang. Before that happened, though, perhaps a kidnapper and murderer could be trapped. He felt, thinking this, a vast uneasiness. Withholding information from the public was one thing, but withholding it from the criminal engaged in the desperate business was another. What kind of kidnapper-murderer would have left his victim’s tomb unobserved for three full days and remained in ignorance of all that had happened in the meantime? What kind of egomaniac? There lay the slim chance. Delusions of grandeur so monstrous as to make the killer indifferent to ordinary caution. It took a nut, after all, to commit this type of crime.
Bartholdi drove into the alley and parked on the apron. There was room for five cars there, and two of the places were taken. Getting out, he stood for a moment in the early November darkness to survey the rear of the buff brick building. The wall was broken by the bedroom windows of the four apartments. There was light behind the blind of the bedroom window to his lower left as he faced the building. Ben Green or Farley Moran, or both; apparently in. The one above this was dark. Fanny Moran was apparently out. The window on the lower right, beyond the rear entrance, was dark; but there must be a light at the front, unless Jay Miles was waiting for him in the dark.
Bartholdi’s glance darted up the wall to the window above. The blind moved, erasing a thin crack of light that had been there an instant before. Someone in the apartment of Otis and Ardis Bowers was curious, Bartholdi thought. Watching and waiting. For what?
A car turned into the alley. It was an old car, but it ran quietly. Turning onto the apron beside Bartholdi, it parked and Farley Moran got out. He peered at Bartholdi over the top of Bartholdi’s car, which stood between them.
“Is that you, Captain?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Making a call on Jay Miles. He’s got some information for me.”
“What kind of information?”
“You may as well come along with me and find out.”
“Don’t tell me he’s heard from the kidnapper!”
“He has, as a matter of fact. You sound incredulous.”
“I never really believed in the kidnap theory, to tell the truth. There could have been so many other reasons for killing Terry.”
“And so many others capable of doing it?”
“I didn’t say that. After all, it takes a rather special kind of kook to kill, it seems to me.”
“Fortunately. Come on.”
Jay, opening his door in response to Bartholdi’s knock, evinced no surprise at seeing Farley, too. He seemed, indeed, to be beyond surprise, or any emotion. He sat down again and removed his glasses and began to polish them with an air of industry. Bartholdi, retaining his topcoat and holding his hat, sat down facing him. Farley remained standing just inside the door, feeling like an interloper.
“How do you feel?” Bartholdi asked Jay.
“All right.” Jay replaced his glasses and folded the handkerchief into a neat square as if it were a task of great importance. “Don’t worry. I won’t fall apart on you.”
“Can you remember exactly what was said to you on the telephone?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Begin at the beginning.”
“Well, the phone rang, and I answered it, and there was this voice. It was a man’s voice, I think, but I can’t be positive. It was muffled, a kind of whisper that was very penetrating. It seemed to come from a great distance. Maybe it was my imagination, I don’t know. Anyhow, it told me not to talk, only to listen, and that’s what I did.”
Jay paused, staring at the square of handkerchief he had smoothed on one knee, which still lay there. He seemed to be listening again to the strange, faraway whisper on the telephone. Bartholdi waited patiently.
“The voice told me that Terry was alive and unharmed and would be released after payment of fifty thousand dollars. The money was to be in unmarked bills of small denominations. I broke in to say that I didn’t have that kind of money. But the kidnapper, whoever he is, knows about Terry’s inheritance, as you suspected. He said the money could be got from the estate; it would require only a phone call on my part and a quick transfer of funds. I kept trying to stall, to see if I could recognize the voice, and I said the executor of the estate wouldn’t just take my word about the kidnapping. But that did no good, either. The kidnapper knows I reported Terry’s disappearance to the police. He said corroboration by the police would convince the executor. He seems to know everything. He’s been watching me all the time.”