The Classic Mystery Novel MEGAPACK®. Hay James
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girl at the Crockford exchange was vague and uninformative. “I’m sorry. I’ve been awfully busy. We’re always rushed at supper time.”
“This is vitally important.”
“I can’t help it. I may have handled the call, but I don’t remember it. Let me ask Edna.”
The second operator was similarly unproductive. Warning both girls to pay special attention to our number and to listen in on any future conversations that seemed suspicious, Harkway replaced the instrument and, looking very disappointed, turned to me.
“Now tell me what your caller said. In detail.”
“There isn’t much. The voice simply said that Jack and I were to be prepared for further orders.”
“What orders?”
“I didn’t hear. The connection was broken then.”
Harkway made a nettled gesture. “No use crying over spilled milk, I suppose, but it does seem too bad we flubbed the business.” His dark face brightened. “Anyhow, we’ve got another chance. Those girls will watch this line like hawk?. When the third call comes we’ll nail your caller.”
I personally considered the man behind the mysterious “voice” too clever to be caught in such a simple trap. He would, I felt, anticipate our move and provide against it. Harkway commenced a worried pacing of the floor.
“How about the voice, Mrs. Storm? Could you identify it this time? Did it seem more familiar?”
I shook my head reluctantly. I was confirmed in my previous conviction that the voice had been deliberately and skillfully disguised, that I had heard it elsewhere in a different connection, but further my mind refused to go. However, as I concentrated upon the conversation I recalled something that did seem of real importance. I turned in some excitement.
“There’s one curious thing I haven’t mentioned. Evidently the caller knew you were here with us. At any rate he spoke of the policeman at the cottage.”
“What’s that!”
“He warned me not to tell the policeman at the cottage about the call. Now how could he have known you were here?”
Jack’s eye kindled. “He must have seen the three of us together as we left the village. Or when we met on Main Street. Or as we drove here in the car.”
Swiftly we attempted to tabulate the persons we had seen that afternoon, but as we did so the realization came upon all of us that the task was hopeless. Harkway spoke first. “It could be almost anyone in town.”
“But,” said Jack, “in town. I knew all along local people were concerned. That call was made by a local man.”
Harkway glanced thoughtfully at his neat blue serge. “Also it was made by someone who knows me as a policeman when I’m not in uniform!”
With that and after requesting us to communicate with him or Standish in the event of another call, he returned to the village.
Jack and I sat down to a dismal supper. Jack was suffering from an over-active day, his head was aching and he scarcely touched his food. I also ate little. The second phone call following so swiftly on the first, the insolent boldness of the caller and his knowledge of our movements, had shaken me more than I was willing to admit. I cleared away the supper things. I curled up on the couch.
“Being rung up by a murderer,” I said presently, “isn’t my idea of the peaceful, country life.”
“If it’s any consolation,” said Jack with a thin smile, “it couldn’t have been the actual murderer who rang us up. It was our old pal—the black-faced man in the closet.”
“How can you know that?”
“Figure it out yourself, Lola. It’s really quite simple.”
After a puzzled moment I saw why Jack was right. Both phone calls had been made by the same voice. Lewis himself had been aware of the first call, had met us in accordance with the telephoned directions, and, except that his violent death intervened, eventually would have wound up at the cottage. Obviously then both phone calls had been made by the mysterious individual who awaited Lewis, crouched among the frocks and coats in my clothes closet.
“Even so,” said Jack, “the closet man remains a riddle. Either he was astoundingly persuasive, or else he had some strong hold on Lewis. I favor the strong hold myself. It’s quite a trick to persuade someone to fill a bag with money, ride twenty-five miles with two people he’s never seen before, and be prepared to walk into a house where you’re nicely set to ambush him.”
“You think the closet man meant to rob Lewis?”
“Rob and—murder him.”
Jack’s tone, the look in his eyes, made me shiver. He said, “It isn’t pleasant to think about, darling, and I hate to sound hard-boiled but I hardly believe Elmer Lewis—as a human being—was worth what you’re feeling now. He was a bad egg, Lola. If anything’s certain, that is.”
I said weakly, “We saw him only once.”
“Once was plenty. Elmer Lewis had an evil face—and you needn’t say that’s just my artist’s eye. No honest man needs travel disguised, under an alias, as Lewis did. We can be sure that when Elmer Lewis climbed into our car he was bound on some illegal mission.” Jack went on soberly, “It looks as though the gentleman met with the double-cross, but my guess is that circumstances had been reversed Elmer Lewis would not have hesitated to plant the knife in someone’s back. Be realistic, Lola. Isn’t that how he struck you?”
I had to nod. I remembered my own distrust of Elmer Lewis, the antagonism and aversion which had flared when first I saw him walking along the sidewalk through the crowd. It seemed quite logical that such a man should have earned himself two mortal enemies. One enemy who had killed him, and another who had been set to kill. But there my reasoning faltered. I could see no way in which we could connect those shadowy figures, a way in which we could identify them. And I retained the uneasy feeling that the repercussions of Elmer Lewis’s murder which had affected Jack and me would continue to affect us until the mystery was fully solved.
By bedtime I was so apprehensive that. Jack proposed we ask Silas to stay in the house again. The pasture path which climbed in an almost vertical line from the cottage to the Lodge was shorter, but it was also very steep and I preferred the road. Jack who carried a flash, preceded me. I remember the smell of the spring night as I followed. I remember hearing the rattle of tiny sliding stones, and seeing the stark outlines of the box and elm trees on the Coatesnash lawns as we rounded the hill. Monstrous shadows enveloped the mansion; it looked bleak, forbidding formidable.
Iron gates barred the driveway which gave on the road, but they were purely ornamental, since a line of leafless bushes grew on either side of the stone supports. Jack held back a bush, and somewhat nervously I crept through the hole. We were trespassing, and I couldn’t forget how much Mrs. Coatesnash would dislike it if she knew. I think Jack felt the same. We hurriedly mounted the bone-white drive—it glittered in the moonlight—and, our steps instinctively hastening, passed Hilltop House and descended to the Lodge in the rear.
Silas had retired. Spirited pounding finally roused him. He refused to spend another night on the sofa—flatly and without equivocation.
“No, siree, Mr. Storm. I’m staying here.”
“Maybe you’ll let us take Reuben.”
The hired man glanced doubtfully at the small sand-colored dog which yapped at us from the doorway. Jack produced dollar bill, and cupidity won. We got the dog.
“The better man of the two at that,” said Jack, as with one accord we turned down the short cut home. A brisk ten minutes’ walk carried us there.
Reuben wasn’t exactly a comfort. The small dog had an insane aversion to mice—guests common to country cottages—and throughout the night he barked frantically. I was too tired