14

In the main hall at Grand Central Station, the clock over the information desk in that cathedral said five minutes to midnight

In one of the arcades on the Vanderbilt Avenue side, many glass fronts were still open and lighted. One of these was a large room, lined with white tile and mirrors, over which hummed fans as big as the propellers of ocean liners. It dispensed such delicacies as frankfurters, hamburgers, and other foods which to one just arrived from England are as ambrosia of the gods.

Leaning against the marble counter, Sir Henry Merrivale had just polished off his fourth frankfurter and was considering the advisability of a further snack.

Aside from the paper napkin stuck into his collar, H.M. was decently and even properly dressed. On his head he wore a new loose-fitting Panama hat, bought on his arrival from Maralarch. In less than an hour and a half s time, he had accomplished much.

On his evil face there was still the look one who sees a long shot come home at sixty-to-one. But this did not predominate. Bafflement, hope deferred, even despair swelled his countenance into a look of malevolent suffering. The young man behind the counter, a square-headed youth whose name of Diedrich Brinker told of forebears in blameless Dutch graves, was concerned.

"Say, Pop," he inquired, "are you feeling all right?"

H.M., who would have got into conversation with a stuffed owl if there had been nothing else present, hastened to reassure him.

"It ain't the hot dogs," he said. "But I've got to get that 11:45 plane for Washington tomorrow morning!"

The other's face retreated. "No dough?" it asked coldly.

"Oh, I got plenty of dough," said H.M., producing a roll of bills which caused an electric start through other customers along the counter. "It’s a feller named Byles, Gil Byles.

"In the past hour and a half," pursued H.M., "I've had a long talk on the phone with a gal named Miss Engels, I've seen a gal named Irene Stanley and another named Flossie Peters..."

For his age, reflected the shocked Diedrich, this old boy was one heller with the dames.

"I’ve visited every chem—I mean drugstore— thaf s open. Oh, my eye! I know half of it! I've known half of it ever since I was in the wine cellar.

But the other half: I'm licked! If I could only…’


Here H.M. straightened up. He did see something. Reflected in the mirror opposite, from someone standing outside, was a vaguely familiar face. The man wore plain clothes, his pockets stuffed with newspapers; and then came recognition. It was the face of Officer Aloysius J. O'Casey.

"Now wait a minute!" urged Officer O'Casey, seeming to materialize at H.M.'s side in one bound. His tone was respectful and even reverent. "Will you listen to me, Sir Henry?"

(The inevitable term Pop, in addressing H.M., had disappeared from 0'Casey's vocabulary and even from his mind.)

"I'm not sore at you," O'Casey said earnestly. "I told Slats Ferris today, I said, I’m not even sore at him any longer. Because,' I said, 'he's not human.'"

"Well... now!" said the great man, considerably mollified. "Have a hot dog?" he invited.

"Thanks. One large frank and an orangeade!" yelled Officer O'Casey, and immediately lowered his voice, leaning conspiratorially with one elbow on the counter.

"Then I got to thinking again," he went on. "I don't go for this Yogi junk; see what I mean, Sir Henry? But I do go for brains. And I said to myself, 'Sir Henry Merrivale,' I said, 'knows more goddam tricks than any man alive.'"

The great man was still more gratified. "Hem!" he said modestly.

"'But,' I said to myself, 'there's one trick he hasn't guessed. And I have.'" Officer O'Casey now stopped quoting his thoughts. "I know how Mr. Manning got out of that pool."

"What's that, son?"

"I'm telling you," O'Casey assured him in a low voice. "And the secret is that water-polo ball."

H.M., as the other picked up the frankfurter roll and bit off a third of it, began to look still more bedevilled.

"Don't you remember there was a water-polo ball they were slapping around at first? What happened to it later?" demanded O'Casey, swallowing hard.

"Son, listen! I..."

"Mr. Manning's got the ball all prepared beforehand, see? So that nobody knows. He just dives in. He's got some contraption fixed up, see, so he can stick his head inside the ball and seal it up against water and breathe through the rubber. Then all he's got to do is tread water and look like a big ball."

H.M. gave Officer O'Casey a long, slow look.

"Uh-huh," he said. "But wouldn't it have been a bit embarrassin' if somebody smacked that ball while his face was inside? Or if we saw a water-polo ball climb up out of the pool and walk away on legs?"

"Cut the clowning," O'Casey said. "How long did you actually watch the pool?" "Hey?"

"For five minutes, maybe, before we got there.

The DA. asked you, and you said that. And for ten minutes after we got there, say. O.K.! So he's a gone goose, I admit, unless he's got protection."

"That's what I keep telling you, son!"

O'Casey shook his head.

"Look, Sir Henry." He tapped the counter after finishing his frankfurter. "There was one time, when you were sitting in that swing talking about Robert Brownfield and wet paper wads and pruning shears, that every single one of 'em crowded around you with their backs to the pool. Get it? That's the time when Mr. Manning crawls out of the pool in his headpiece and walks away."

"Listen, son. Will you stop addin' to my worries? You yourself dived in the pool and said he wasn't there!"

Officer O'Casey shook his head.

"Just remember, sir," he said, "I was swimming on the bottom of the pool. I was looking for a dead joe. If he'd kept his feet up, I wouldn't have noticed him."

And now O'Casey, to add mystery, bent forward and tapped H.M.'s shoulder.

"That's not all," he muttered. "How do you feel about the electric chair?"

Again Sir Henry Merrivale gave him a long, slow look.

"I feel," replied H.M., "that I don't want to sit in it Is there a general consensus of opinion that I ought to?"

"No, no! I mean the electric chair I found on the terrace at that house!" It was at this point that Cy Norton, who had heard every word of this conversation from outside, entered the hot-dog emporium.

Cy was just in time to see H.M., purple in the face, clutching with both hands at a wabbling hat.

"Gemme another hot dog," H.M. said weakly. "They're all scatty, but this feller's the scattiest. Oh, my eye! Electric chair!"

Officer O'Casey, deeply serious, addressed Diedrich on the other side of the counter. Diedrich, who had been consulting a newspaper under the counter, nodded back.

"I'm the discoverer of the electric chair," declared O'Casey, with galvanic effect on the other customers. "It says so on page 26 here. Didn't you know about the electric chair, Sir Henry?"

"Easy, son! What in the name of... ?"

"Read it," invited the other, whipping a newspaper out of his pocket and unfolding it to a marked column.

H.M., evidently adjusting his mental balance, took the paper and adjusted his spectacles as well. Though not a lead, this part of the newspaper story had a very fair amount of space.

"Well, whadd'ye know?" muttered O'Casey. "He didn't even learn about that chair!"

"He was too cockeyed," explained Diedrich, in sympathetic defence. "The paper here says he was all ginned up anyway."

For some reason an intense silence settled under the whirring fans. Most of the customers here had read their evening papers. They stared at him, motionless, as though expecting some kind of atomic effect

Slowly H.M. put down the newspaper on the counter. His mouth was open, and stayed open. He was looking straight ahead at the opposite mirror, without seeing it deep in rearranging evidence.

Then H.M. woke up. A moment later he found his voice.

"I’ve got it!" said H.M. "By the six horn's of Satan, I’ve got it!"

Cy Norton, who knew better than to intervene before then, darted forward and grabbed H.M.'s arm.

"Come on!" he said. "Bob Manning and the two girls are waiting at the information desk, where you told us to meet you! I thought you were on the loose again and probably trying to wreck the subway. Come on!"

"I'm comin'," agreed H.M. slowly.

But, before he put money on the counter and turned away, he shook Officer O'Casey's hand.

"Son," he said, "if anybody ever gets credit for solvin' this business about the swiming pool, most of it ought to go to you."

"You mean I'm right about the water-polo ball?"

What H.M. actually said was "No," but it was drowned by the cries of those who wanted explanations; and all the time, maneuvering with some skill, Cy was pushing him out of the place, away from it and finally into the main hall.

There H.M. stopped and turned round a countenance of wrath.

"Would you mind explaining to me," he asked,

"why nobody said a word to me about that ruddy electric chair on the terrace?"

Those were Byles's orders."

"Byles, hey? If that reptile's tryin' to do me in the eye..."

"He wasn't trying to do you in the eye," Cy protested. "He thought the dummy chair was unimportant and would only distract you."

"Distract me," said H.M., in a hollow voice like an oracle. "Oh, blow my kite to Egypt! Don't you see that dummy electric chair answers the other half of the mystery?"

"Are you serious?"

"What I said to the copper just now," returned H.M., raising his hand and crossing his heart, "was as serious as fallin' off the Empire State building. There were two halves to this problem; didn't I tell you that?"

"Yes!"

"I solved the first half; good! And why? Because I saw the principle of it was just the same principle I used myself when I hocussed the turnstiles in the subway."

"Do you mean that riot in the subway is in any way related to this?"

"It's got the same principle. A simple little trick you don't need a magician to do; anybody could do it."

"But you're not explaining a damned thing! You're only..."

H.M. held up his hand austerely.

"Now the second half of the problem," he argued, "looked easier but was much harder. It seemed impossible for Manning to time his trick. But, when you come to the fake electric chair or its equivalent, the sun shone out again. Anyway, it’s finished!"

Dismissing this, with new fever and flurry, H.M. dug into his pocket after money.

"I got an errand for you to do, son," he said. "Ill meet Bob Manning and the gals at the information desk. Then I'll take 'em"—he nodded up towards the immense dome, painted a faint blue—"up where we're goin'. In the meantime ..."

Now it was Cy who hesitated.

"We've had a devil of a time with Jean," he said. "She wouldn't leave the house until Dr. Willard practically threw her out. Crystal and Bob aren't exactly themselves either. Do you think this is the right time to...?"

"You trust me, son."

"I hope I can. What do you want me to do?"

"The Airways Terminus is just across the street Nip over there"—H.M. pressed money into his hand—"and book me a seat on the eleven-forty-five plane for Washington tomorrow morning. Tell 'em I’ll be driving from Maralarch. Then follow us to Irene Stanley, from Jean's directions."

"Have you got any luggage besides that Gladstone bag?"

"I got a trunk. But ifs been shipped on to Washington. Sling your hook, now!"

Cy slung it. He had only to cross Forty-second Street, and go up the escalator in the Airways Terminus. Though in point of time it did not actually take long to get the ticket, every second chafed him.

He had some parley with a girl who made mysterious phone calls, apparently designed by Dr. Fu-Manchu. No, Sir Henry would not leave from the terminus. No, he did not want the vehicle which airline companies persist in miscalling a "limousine,'' and look deaf or aloof when you firmly use the honest word bus.

A few minutes more, and Cy was back in the main hall at Grand Central. . His sense of foreboding, which had not yet failed, warned him now of disaster. Apart from anything else, there would be an emotional scene when the children met their father's girl friend. Cy knew that he gritted his nerves against it But why was it necessary to find Irene Stanley so quickly?"

"Stop it!" he said to himself. "No thinking!"

Cy glanced round the marble hall, with its immense windows set in every wall, and its marble mezzanine gallery. Skirting through the crowd, Cy made for the north-eastern side, where he found an arch with the words To Terminal Office Building cut above it

Inside a marble staircase led upwards, and then turned back on itself; he was in the broad gallery now. To his left Cy saw large glass doors, past the Tourists' Information Aid, and the carved lettering of Office Building.

Once inside those glass doors, he might have been in the foyer of an ordinary office building late at night. It was very quiet, except for the faint distant bustle below. On his right were three large elevators. One of them whisked up into sight almost as soon as he pressed the button.

"Top floor," Cy told the Negro elevator man, who wore a dark red uniform cap.

It seemed to excite no surprise. This building, Cy had been told, had six floors devoted to railroad offices; and a seventh, the top, devoted to private concerns which had no connection with the railroad.

The idea of somebody having an apartment here, Cy thought, was as grotesque as the idea of a luxury flat above Victoria or Paddington. The elevator fled upward, with glimpses through the glass of marble corridors and dark offices.

"Top floor," said the operator.

The elevator doors closed with a soft slam and descended.

"Something wrong here!" Cy said aloud.

If this were an apartment floor, it was the queerest one he had ever seen. His footsteps grated on a bare concrete floor. Overhead, a single naked bulb hung from a high ceiling.

Turning to the right, Cy walked with echoing footfalls along the passage until, at his left, a broad staircase of bare iron ribs ascended the wall and again turned right on a long corridor.

Clunk, clang rattled his footfalls on the iron-ribbed steps. Everything here was painted and varnished white down to breast height on the walls; below it was painted a fire-bucket red.

Now the broad long corridor loomed before him. A few more electric bulbs kindled the same decorative scheme. Concrete ribs and steam pipes were white, as in a silent and deserted garage. On his right he saw a line of doors, set at broad intervals apart, each door painted the same fire-bucket red.

Cy approached one door to see the gilt lettering on one of the doors.

"'Myron T. Kirkland,'" he read. Who the devil was Myron T. Kirkland? The next door bore the name of a well-known picture magazine. Cy, strolling slowly down the lofty corridor, noticed that most of these places seemed to house photographic studios or perhaps commercial artists.

Wrong! All wrong! And yet...

Why did H.M. need to find Irene Stanley in such a hurry? There were two possible explanations. Manning, according to H.M., meant to run away with the woman. In that case, she probably knew his plans. She knew of that appointment in the cenotaph, knew the person Manning was to meet there: she could be dangerous to the murderer.

On the other hand, Irene Stanely might be herself the murderer...

A rush and shuffle and clatter of footsteps, striking across Cy's nerves as well as his ears, woke him up. The three Mannings, Bob between Crystal and Jean, seemed to appear out of the right-hand wall, from behind a deep projection of this wall beyond.

"Cy!" Crystal appealed to him. Even her soft voice sounded too loud in that girdered place. "I'm glad you've got here! I can't hold these two in check!"

Jean spoke in a high voice, with attempted calm.

"I am going to be insolent," she said, "and show I mean it."

Bob, shuffling his feet, stared at the floor and clenched his big hands.

"Haven't you seen her yet?" asked Cy.

"No. If s like"—Crystal groped—"if s like waiting for the dentist. Look there!"

Where the projection ended, a deeper length of wall indicated smaller rooms now. The red door was inscribed in gilt letters, Stanley Studio.

"H.M., it seems, is having a preliminary conference," said Crystal. "That woman is..."

"For God's sake, take it easy!"

"Oh, I know." Crystal's eyes were a still darker blue in a white face. She tapped her foot on the floor. "I made all sort of civilized excuses, didn't I? I showed how inevitable it was."

Here she paused for a moment because she was breathless.

"But the plain fact is," Crystal went on, "that she's persuaded Dad to run away, she's let him smash his work, she's at least the indirect cause of why he's within an inch of death now. Do you expect us to be civilized about that"

Embarrassment, hatred, even a sort of fright, these swirled now like physical currents. Cy could feel them. Then H.M. opened the red door.

"Right," he growled. "Will you come in?"

Crystal marched first, with an affectation of poise. Jean followed swiftly, then the hesitating Bob. Cy, who dreaded scenes more than he dreaded death, held his shoulders stiffly and went after them. H.M. closed the door.

Cy, attempting to keep his gaze roving round the baseboard of the walls, had only the impression of a high but not too large room with some grey walls. But he was top shaken. He had to glance up briefly.

A soft and quiet-looking woman, with something of real beauty in her face, sat on a sofa against the opposite wall Her legs were tucked up under her; her hands trembled on an open book. There was no light except a lamp at her right, which left the other side of her face in shadow.

And, if a flood of embarrassment or fright poured out from the three Mannings, it was equalled by the embarrassment or fright of the woman.

Then each of the Mannings spoke out, instinctively, with what was in his or her mind. The words followed and tumbled over each other, struggling in an emotional sea. The first to speak was the inarticulate Bob.

There was Bob's blurted: "There's something wrong here. I thought..

There was Jean's high loftiness: "I want it understood I didn't want to come here at all."

There was Crystal's cold: "I'm afraid, Miss Stanley, we've intruded on..

And H.M.'s bellow: "Shut up!"

It was as though, in the middle of a symphony orchestra concert, every instrument stopped dead on a beat.

Then H.M. pointed to the woman sitting on the sofa.

"That's the woman," he said, "called Irene Stanley. That's the woman who was goin' to run away with your father. That's the woman you've though was so degraded. That's the only woman he's ever loved."

After a pause H.M. added, "That's your mother."

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