Читать книгу The House with the Blue Door - Footner Hulbert - Страница 10

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Inspector Loasby, the chief of the New York City detective force, stopped in at Lee’s office on his way down to Headquarters. They had been engaged together in investigating various cases in the past and were excellent friends. Today the Inspector’s handsome face bore a frown, and when he was seated opposite Lee in the latter’s private office he lost no time in coming to the point.

“Mr. Mappin, what is this crazy idea of Mrs. Nick Cassells’ to open a home for ex-convicts on Henry Street? Of all the crack-brained, immoral schemes I ever heard of! And I’m told you’re in it, too. I must say that’s hard to believe of a sensible man like you. How on earth did she rope you in?”

Lee leaned back in his chair with a smile and placed the tips of his fingers together. “A crack-brained scheme, I agree, Inspector. I have pointed that out to the lady with all the force at my command, but uselessly. However, I don’t see why you should look on it as immoral.”

“Yes, sir, immoral,” insisted the Inspector. “Herding a lot of hardened criminals together under the same roof. Making things easy for them. Who can tell what plots may be hatched there?”

“You, of course, believe in making things as hard as possible for released convicts.”

Loasby perceived no irony. “Certainly! And above all in keeping them on the move!”

“I assure you that the lady is acting from purely philanthropic motives.”

“Sure! Sure! I know these rich and idle women. Morbidly interested in crime! If you agree that it is a crazy scheme, why are you in it?”

“Well, Mrs. Cassells is an old friend, and I want to protect her as far as I can from being victimized. I have a feeling that it won’t last long, my friend.”

“Certainly it won’t last long. You can’t house a lot of criminals together without something ugly happening. But what am I going to do in the meantime?”

“I don’t see that you’re called on to do anything.”

“Certainly I’ve got to do something. It’s a public scandal, pampering criminals like that. Even Henry Street is complaining of such neighbors, and they’re not too particular.”

“What do you propose doing?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping that a quiet word to you would be sufficient. It’s just a headache. Mrs. Cassells is a rich and influential woman. If I closed up her house the newspapers would get after me like a pack of hounds.”

Lee, who knew his Inspector, murmured: “I’m afraid they would.”

“Can’t you say something to her, Mr. Mappin?”

“I have said plenty, Inspector. It falls on deaf ears!”

“It’s only an idle woman’s whim!”

“Sandra Cassells has a whim of iron!”

“Well, I’m going to keep a close watch on them, I can tell you,” said the irritated Inspector. “If the worst comes to the worst, I’ll put a man inside the house. I have plenty of genteel crooks on my pay roll.”

“Don’t do that—yet,” urged Lee. “Think how difficult it would make my position. Look here, would it be sufficient for the present if I watched for you? I am a frequent visitor there and my eye is not untrained. I will promise to let you know at once if I see anything going on that looks suspicious.”

“Well, that’s very decent of you, Mr. Mappin,” grumbled the Inspector. “I accept for the present. But just the same, the place ought to be closed up! A house of crime like that!”

“I’ll keep in touch with you,” said Lee.

When he saw Sandra later in the day, he told her of Loasby’s complaints. Sandra was indignant.

“It’s none of his business as long as they behave themselves.”

“Of course not,” said Lee. “Look, here’s an idea. Loasby is a handsome fellow and a ready talker. As the chief of the detective force he ought to be a good drawing card at one of your parties. Why not ask him?”

Sandra smiled comprehendingly. “Sometimes you display almost human intelligence! I’ll ask him for Monday night.”

On Tuesday morning Loasby dropped in at Lee’s office again. “I had supper at Brookwood, the Cassells place, last night,” he said carelessly.

“Really,” said Lee, registering envy. “You are favored!”

“Some party!” said Loasby solemnly. “A hundred people or more, sitting at little tables in what they call the conservatory with tropical palms and big ferns and orchids growing all around. Mrs. Cassells made me sit beside her.”

“So you made a hit!”

“That house is like a king’s palace,” Loasby went on. “And such eats and drinks! Beautiful women and dresses and jewels! Mrs. Cassells was the finest lady there! She’s a lovely woman, Mr. Mappin. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, now you have found it out for yourself.”

“Not at all what I expected,” said Loasby enthusiastically. “Was as easy with me as if I was her brother. A very intelligent woman, too. Has a real interest in my profession.”

Sandra and Lee were again dining at Hope House. Thus the establishment on Henry Street had been christened. Sandra went up to Letty’s room to powder her nose while Lee drifted back to the game room to talk to the boarders. There were two new men in the house; Johnnie Stabler, the ex-Wall Street clerk, a tall, pale, weedy young man, and Duke Engstrom, an older and rougher specimen with a quiet face that seemed to have been ravaged by passion. Lee didn’t care for either man; Johnnie was a feeble creature, always trying to impress you with his superiority, while the brawny Duke Engstrom was never at his ease. He had immense hands that he didn’t know what to do with. Duke was Sandra’s choice, his quiet, terrible face fascinated and terrified her. He was said to have held up a train singlehanded and escaped with two pouches of registered mail.

Hattie and Joe Spencer were also in the room. Lee went from one to another with a word or two of greeting. Each spoke to him with a lowered voice and side glances at the others. Lee was beginning to hate the place. Nobody trusted anybody else. It was impossible to relax in such an atmosphere, to have a good time. It seemed to him that there was an exquisite irony in the name Hope House. He had no part in bestowing it. Sandra’s impulse in starting it had been a kindly one, but it just didn’t work. Notwithstanding all the fresh paint and bright wallpaper, it seemed to Lee that there was a bad smell in the house—was it the smell of old crimes?

The slender figure of Sandra appeared in the doorway of the game room, clad in one of the elegant black dresses she affected. This one had touches of pale blue. Sandra always wore her prettiest clothes and her jewels when she came to Hope House, “for the psychological effect,” she said. That was a kindly impulse also, but a mistaken one, for the boarders, in awe of her expensive presence, became more self-conscious than ever. At the moment Lee perceived from Sandra’s widened, shortsighted eyes, helplessly searching the room for him, that something new had happened to upset her. He went to her and she murmured:

“Come into the front room. I must talk to you.”

The front room on the ground floor was used for a reception room and office. Sandra carefully closed the door.

“Lee,” she said, “I’m afraid we’re in for bad trouble.”

Lee smiled grimly and refrained from saying: I told you so.

“When I went into Letty’s room,” she continued, “her handbag was lying on the bureau. It had come open and a letter had partly slipped out. I recognized Blondy’s handwriting. Oh, I know he’s a favorite of yours, but I have always distrusted him and I thought I had better read it, for all our sakes. I knew Letty was down in the kitchen.”

“Well?” said Lee.

“Oh, Lee, there is something going on between those two!” she said distressfully. “It’s a good thing I did read it! Letty is inciting Blondy to something; I don’t know just what!”

“You must be mistaken,” said Lee soothingly. “If there was ever a woman in this world who was infatuated with her husband, it is Letty!”

“She is fooling you, Lee! Those quiet women are always the most dangerous. You can’t tell what is going on behind their smooth faces!”

“What was in the letter?”

“I didn’t dare take it, because Letty would have missed it and the fat would have been in the fire; but I copied it down for you.”

She unclasped her hand and Lee saw a crumpled scrap of paper on her palm. Smoothing it out, he read:

Dear Letty:

Your letter drove me near crazy. I don’t understand it. For God’s sake write again and tell me plainly what it’s about. I thought that Sieg meant everything in the world to you and so I held myself in and I would always have held myself in if it killed me. Now you write me this letter. Ever since I came out of stir I’ve been living in hell. I got out of New York to try and forget you but it only made it worse. It’s awful not to see you any more. I hate my life. Your face comes between me and everything I do. And now you write me this letter. What am I to think from that? Have I been mistaken about you and Sieg? Oh God! how I love you! It is a pain in my breast that gives me no rest day or night. It saps my strength. I am good for nothing. Write me quick what do you want of me?

Yours,

Blondy.

“I don’t understand it!” said Lee, shaking his head. “If ever I saw love in a woman’s eyes ...”

Sandra took the paper from him and prepared to burn it in an ash tray, but Lee recovered it.

“We may need this later. The original will be destroyed. It will be safe in my wallet.” He put it away.

“What are we to do?” faltered Sandra. “If Sieg knew about this he would kill Blondy.”

“Provided Blondy doesn’t kill him first.”

“Oh, why did I give him a car? It’s only a twelve hours’ drive from Cleveland.”

“I’ll write to him,” said Lee. “May not do any good, but it can’t do any harm either. I believe in that lad.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” said Sandra. “I’m going to engage detectives in Cleveland to watch Blondy and to let me know if he starts for New York.”

“Well, that can’t do any harm either.”

A bell for dinner sounded through the house.

“Come on,” said Lee. “We must put a good face on it. Perhaps it’s not as bad as we think. Lots of foolish letters are written.”

“It’s all that woman’s fault,” said Sandra. “Such women ought to be locked away from men. How can I sit down at table with her and be polite?”

“Watch me,” said Lee.

They descended the stairs.

Dinner was a pretty gloomy affair. Lee got out of the house afterward as soon as he could. He wrote a brief letter to Blondy, dispatched it by air mail.

Dear Blondy:

Do you remember what I said about getting in a jam? Has it come? If so, give me a chance to talk things over with you before you take any action on your own. Very often when a case seems absolutely hopeless to a young head, an old one can see a way out.

Always your friend,

Lee Mappin.

No answer was ever made to this note.

On the morning after he had sent it, Lee dropped in at Police Headquarters and proceeded to Inspector Loasby’s office.

“Loasby,” he said, “if you have the right man to put in as a boarder at Hope House, I believe the time has come for it.”

“What’s the situation, Mr. Mappin?”

Lee put him in possession of the facts as far as he knew them.

“Does it have to be an ex-convict?” asked the Inspector.

Lee said: “I doubt if you’ve got a good enough actor to play the part.”

“You have always underrated my force,” said Loasby sorely.

“I’m willing to be shown,” said Lee. “If you have a man who can get away with it, send him up to me without loss of time. There are still a couple of vacant rooms at Hope House, and I can get him in. But I don’t need to tell you that he will be closely watched. He ought to be a husky guy, too, in case of trouble.”

“I’ll have him at your office before twelve o’clock,” said Loasby.

The Inspector was as good as his word. The man gave the name of Harry Boker, his age as forty-two. Lee took to him at once, for not only was he a muscular fellow with an air of quiet assurance, but there was a glint of humor in his gray eyes. A little humor wouldn’t come amiss at that gloomy dinner table, thought Lee. Boker had a good command of prison slang, which he accounted for by saying he had spent a couple of months in a cell at Sing Sing on police work. Lee spent a couple of hours with Boker, composing the story he was to tell at Hope House and rehearsing him in it.

“You mustn’t have come out of Sing Sing now,” said Lee. “Sieg Ammon knows the place too well. Are you acquainted with Philadelphia?”

“Sure,” said Boker.

“Then you have just been released from Moyamensing Prison, see? and you have come to New York to get a start in fresh surroundings. Your name is George Tappan, but your friends call you Jidge. You’re a younger man than the real Tappan, but as none of those people on Henry Street ever saw him, that will be all right. He died a couple of years ago, shortly after his release from prison, but as he was then living under an assumed name, they can’t have heard about that. Ten years ago, Jidge Tappan went to prison for accepting bribes in connection with paving contracts. In fact, I helped to send him there. It was a famous case in its day with widespread ramifications. I wrote it up and if you’ll study the book, you can get Jidge Tappan’s whole career by heart from the cradle to the grave.”

Lee gave Boker—or Tappan—a letter recommending him to Sieg Ammon. Before the day was out he had the satisfaction of hearing from Sieg himself that Tappan had been accepted as a member of the Hope House family.