Alphabet Hicks

Nineteen

Hicks stood in the upper hall frowning at space.

The conference with Dundee and his lawyer in Ross Dundee’s room, where he had just left them, had made no inroads upon the world’s available supply of cordiality. Dundee had been splenetic, the lawyer croaky and coldly suspicious, and Hicks himself somewhat trying. The result had been conspicuously negative. Hicks would have walked out on them much sooner, only he wanted to allow plenty of time for Heather to get out of the house and to the car before moving to join her.

Now it was desirable to make sure that she had left the house, and inadvisable to make any inquiries. He went to the door of her room and entered, glanced around, went out again, and proceeded downstairs. Strolling about, he found that most of the rooms below were populated, but exclusively by males. Having covered all the rest of the territory, he asked a man outside the side door to the living room:

“Who’s in there?”

“There are several people in there.”

“I mean of us victims. Brager?”

“No. He’s upstairs. Mrs. Powell is with the district attorney.”

“When he’s through with her I’d like to speak to him. I’ll be out on the terrace.”

Hicks moved toward the outer door, but because he moved with no particular haste and the other man did, he didn’t reach it. The man was there facing him, his back to the door, in an attitude that was unmistakable.

“You can wait right here,” the man said. “There’s a chair.”

“I prefer the terrace. I can manage, thanks. I’ve been opening doors alone all my life.”

The man shook his head. “Orders. You’re not to leave the house.”

“Whose orders?”

“Chief Beck’s.”

“A general order? Or does it apply only to me?”

“You I guess. That’s the way I got it.”

“And if I assert my constitutional right to locomotion in any desired direction?”

“If you mean go outdoors, you don’t. You get taken for a charge.”

“I see.” Hicks pursed his lips and stood a moment. “As you were.”

He turned and went back through the dining room to the kitchen. The man in the Palm Beach suit and battered Panama hat was seated by the table reading a magazine. Without speaking to him Hicks headed for the back door and was halfway there when the man spoke:

“Hold it, son. Not an exit.”

Hicks stopped. “Meaning?”

“You stay in the house.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“For a nickel I’d test it.”

The man shook his head gloomily. “It wouldn’t do you any good. There’s a bellboy out there. This time they brought everything but the bearded lady. Listen, I hate to bother you so often, but I’ve got a kid in high school—”

Hicks got out his wallet and extracted a card and handed it over.

“How would you like,” Hicks asked, “to have a job slicing skunk cabbage? I think I can get you one.”

“That is not a friendly remark,” the man declared sadly.

“The hell it isn’t. It’s positively indulgent. Compared with taking orders from Manny Beck, slicing skunk cabbage would be paradise.”

The man arose and stepped over to Hicks and shook hands, and went back and sat down again, without saying anything, either with his tongue or with his face.

Hicks left, mounted the back stairs, went to Heather’s room, and sat down.

It was now, of course, not only necessary to leave the house, it was imperative. The two other outside doors he had not tried would unquestionably be guarded, and besides, they could be reached only through the living room. There were plenty of windows, but if troopers were stationed without, that was not feasible. Doubtless he could rush it, but in the hue and cry he might and he might not be able to get to the car in time to get away with Heather. He could go across the hall and poke Dundee’s lawyer in the snoot, which would be a satisfaction and a pleasure, and force him to change clothes, but there was no way of changing faces.

A stratagem was needed.

He sat for ten minutes, muttered, “It’ll have to do, I haven’t got all night,” arose and went downstairs to the side hall, confronted the man there and asked:

“Where’s Miss Gladd? She’s not upstairs. I want to see her if I’ve still got the right of free speech.”

“She went outdoors.”

Hicks looked startled. “She went where?”

“Outdoors.”

“When?”

“Oh, an hour ago.”

“Yeah. She said to call her if she was wanted. Do you want me to call her?”

“If you please.”

The man went to the open window and spoke through it to the terrace:

“Al, call Miss Gladd. She’s wanted.”

There was a bellow outside: “Miss Gladd!” A pause. “Miss Gladd!” After a long pause the bellow swelled in volume. “Miss Gladd!”

Another wait, and the bellow was down to a rumble. “She don’t answer. Shall I keep it up?”

“After a minute. She probably — hey!”

But Hicks was through the door and inside the living room, and across to the table, his eyes blazing down angrily at Corbett’s pudgy face.

“Haven’t you,” he demanded furiously, “had enough corpses around here? You and your damn army?”

“What—”

“What what what! They ought to put it on your tombstone! What! That super-simp ordering me arrested if I try to leave the house, and letting that girl out alone unprotected! Now find her! Try and find her! When you do, remember you mustn’t move the body until the police arrive!”

“What girl?” Corbett’s face had lost some color. “What the devil are you talking about?”

The man from the hall said, “Miss Gladd went outdoors, sir. About an hour ago, maybe a little more. There were no orders to confine anyone but Hicks. She said she’d be around close and to call if she was wanted. Hicks said he wanted to see her and Al called her.”

“Was that the yelling I heard just now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did she answer?”

“No, sir.”

“Find her,” Hicks said witheringly, “and maybe you’ll understand why she didn’t answer. You ought to be up to that.”

Corbett stood up. “Why are you so certain she has been attacked?”

“I’m not certain. I didn’t do it. I’ve been in the house. But there have been two people killed here in two days, and one was her sister and the other her brother-in-law, and out she goes to wander around alone in the dark, and is that dumb? Will you kindly give me permission to borrow a flashlight and go out through a door? Or lock me in a closet and go yourself?”

“Shut your trap!” Manny Beck barked, striding across to the door to the hall. As he opened it the bellow came through from the terrace, “Miss Gla-a-a-dd!” Others followed him, including the district attorney. Mrs. Powell elbowed her way through them, muttering unintelligibly, and disappeared into the dining room. A man entered from the terrace and told Beck:

“She don’t answer. Do you want me—”

“Phone to White Plains for a basket,” Hicks said savagely.

“This is a hell of a note,” Beck snarled.

Corbett said curtly, “Get everybody here. Get Lieutenant Baker. Damn it, call them in here! If something has happened to that girl, with the whole damn barracks and the whole damn county...”

Men moved, including Hicks, but he did not join the general steam toward the terrace. Having noticed that the card collector, attracted by the commotion, had shuffled morosely in, Hicks went to the dining room and through to the kitchen. However, it was not empty. Mrs. Powell sat on the edge of a chair putting on rubbers. On the table beside her was a flashlight.

“You going out, Mrs. Powell?”

“I am,” she said resolutely. “This is the biggest set of tomfools—”

“What are the rubbers for?”

“They’re for dew.”

“It’s cloudy.” Hicks was directly behind her, and, since she was bent over tugging at a rubber, she was quite unaware that he was acquiring the flashlight. “There isn’t any dew.” Four steps took him to the door, it opened with its creak, and he was outside.

He swung the beam of the light to right and left and picked up no one. Shouted commands from around the corner of the house made it evident that all forces were converging upon the side terrace to be organized into a searching party. Without even bothering to deploy to the rear of the garage, he struck off to the right, made his way through the collection of cars parked on the graveled space, found a gap in the hedge, and a little farther on ran smack into a patch of briars. He got around it without using the light, found himself among white birches which had not been trimmed to head height, and in another two minutes emerged from that into what he took to be an orchard, since round things that he stepped on proved to be apples. The shouts from the direction of the house were now much fainter, barely audible. He bore right, going at a good pace, with a hand guarding his face after he got a twig in the eye, and when he stumbled onto the stone fence which bordered the road he turned left and followed the fence. In a hundred paces suddenly there was no fence, and his hands found the bars that were the gate to the lane. He slipped through, went cautiously not to bump into the car...

But there was no car.

He stepped down the little incline to the road and back up again. This was a let-down. Could this be the wrong lane? From up the road he could hear voices raised; since they were at the Dundee house, the distance seemed about right. He proceeded to settle the point by switching on the light and flashing it around — yes, there was the curve, there was the bush at the right — and there, perched on the stone fence, was a man — no, a boy, gazing into the light.

“Hello,” Hicks said, turning the light off and approaching the fence. “I didn’t know you were there. What’s your name?”

“My name’s Tim Darby. Are you a dick?”

“I am not,” Hicks said emphatically. He was close enough to the boy to see that he had eyes and a mouth. “My name’s Al Hicks. How long have you been here? I mean sitting here.”

“Oh, I’ve been here for a considerable time. You’re not a cop, because you haven’t got a uniform.”

“No, I’m just a man. The reason I asked, I left my car here and now it’s gone. Somebody must have stolen it, and I thought maybe you saw them. Did you see a car here?”

“Sure I saw a car here. I live right down the road.”

“Did you see it go away?”

“Well, I—” That was as far as Tim got.

“You see,” Hicks explained, “if I knew what time it was taken it might help. I wouldn’t expect you to squeal on anyone. All I want is to get my car back.”

“You’re a liar,” the boy said. “It’s not your car, it’s one of Dundee’s cars. The Cadillac sixty-one. I’ve rode in it with Miss Gladd often and Ross too. And you’re a double liar because your name’s not Hicks!”

“Why isn’t my name Hicks?”

“Because it isn’t! You’re not so smart. Because he couldn’t—” Tim stopped abruptly.

“You’re wrong, Tim,” Hicks asserted. “I’m no more a liar than I am a dick or a cop. When I said it was my car I merely meant I was driving it. That’s a manner of speaking. You know that. I drove that car here from New York this evening. Now about the name. I’m astonished that you call me a double liar when I say my name is Hicks, because you look pretty intelligent. This evening around eight o’clock you were with a bunch of people around a cop up at the Dundee entrance. Weren’t you?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Sure you were. I saw you. Didn’t a man go up to that cop and say his name was Hicks?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Wasn’t that man me?”

“How can I tell? I can’t see you.”

“I beg your pardon.” Hicks turned on the light and aimed it at his own face. “What about it? Am I that man?”

“Yes, you are.”

“Well, do you think I was lying to the cop too, when I told him my name? Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know.” Tim sounded stubborn. “But—”

“But what?”

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“I know you have. I knew you had reasons when you were so positive I was lying about my name. And I’ll bet I know what they are.”

“I’ll bet you don’t!”

“I’ll bet I do. You’re a friend of Miss Gladd, aren’t you? Since you go riding with her?”

“I sure am.”

“Okay, so am I. I’ll bet she took that car, which of course she had a right to do. I’ll bet she stopped at your house and asked you to come and stay here, and gave you a message for a man named Hicks when he showed up, and told you to be mighty careful not to give the message to anybody else. And that was your idea of being mighty careful, telling me I was a liar when I said my name was Hicks. Now you know my name is Hicks, so you can give me the message. Huh?”

“But you sent the message!” the boy blurted. “It was signed ABC, but she told Ross it was from Alphabet Hicks!”

On account of the dark, there was no necessity for Hicks to control his gape of surprise. It delayed his reply a second, however.

“You say,” he demanded, “she told Ross that?”

“Sure she did! When she was telling him to get out of the car. She didn’t want him to go with her.”

“Tim, look here.” Hicks put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m not a liar, and I’m a friend of Miss Gladd’s. Get that straight. Okay?”

“Okay. But—”

“No buts. Miss Gladd is in danger. I didn’t send her any message. If she got a message signed ABC it was a fake. It was from someone who wants to hurt her, maybe kill her. How did she get the message? Who brought it to her?”

The boy had slid off the fence. “But gee, I don’t—”

“Who brought it to her?”

“I did.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Mom took it on the phone. He — you telephoned—”

“I did not telephone. It was a fake. What did he say?”

“He said she was to drive to Crescent Road and he was in a car parked half a mile beyond Crescent Farm. License JV 28.”

“JV?”

“Yes. And Ross said—”

“Where was Ross?”

“He was sitting here in the car with her.”

“How did you know she was here?”

“He said on the phone. He said she’d be here in the car and she was, only he didn’t say anything about Ross, only Ross is all right. He said he didn’t think it was from you.”

“He was right. Did Ross go with her?”

“Sure. He wouldn’t get out. He’s nuts about her.”

“How long ago did they leave?”

“Well, I must have sat—”

“About how long?”

“I guess it must have been about ten minutes before you came. Maybe fifteen.”

“Where is Crescent Farm?”

“Over on Crescent Road. If you go straight on past Dundee’s, you take the first right, about a mile and a half, and on through Post’s Corners about two miles. There’s a lot of barns and a big white chicken house, on the right.”

“Is there a car at your house?”

“Yeah, but it’s not there, my dad works nights. Only Aunt Sadie’s car’s there, she came over on account of the excitement. Listen, if this is a plot you don’t need to worry Miss Gladd will get hurt, because Ross is with her and he’ll fight like a tiger. He’s strong. Once—”

“That’s fine, but I’ll go and see. Where’s Aunt Sadie’s car?”

“Over in the yard.”

“Come along and show me.”

“Sure.”

As they went down the road Hicks explained:

“No matter how strong Ross is, Miss Gladd might get hurt. So I want to get there as quick as I can. Would Aunt Sadie let me use her car if I asked her? What’s she like?”

“She’s a pain in the neck. Boy, is she stingy! The only way to do, we’ll just get in the car and go. Gee, it’s an emergency, isn’t it?”

“It sure is. But you can’t go, Tim. I’d love to have you, but it’s against the law. You’re a minor and I could be arrested and put in jail for kidnapping you. It’s a crazy law, but that’s it. We turn in here? Are they on the porch?”

“Naw, they’re inside. Gee, I want to go!”

“I know you do and I want you to, but that’s the law. Anyway, you’ll have to explain who took the car and why, or if they hear it leaving they’ll report it stolen. That’ll take a lot of nerve. Have you got enough nerve to do that?”

“Sure I have. But—”

It took persuasion to get Tim to agree to stay behind, but, being by nature a reasonable man, he finally consented. He would wait until the car was safely out of the yard and on its way, and would then apprise his womenfolk of the situation.

Luckily the key was in the dash. Hicks got the engine started with as little noise as possible, told Tim he was proud of him and Miss Gladd would be too, eased the car softly down the drive to the road, and turned right.

That, the short way to Crescent Road, took him past the Dundee entrance, but he went right on by at a good clip without meeting any attempt at interference. Evidently Aunt Sadie took good care of her property, for the car, a small sedan, without any pretensions to grandeur, nevertheless ran like a dream. In three minutes he came to the first right, which he took, and in another three minutes a cluster of outbuildings, the largest one square and white, told him that he was passing Crescent Farm; so he slowed down.

He crept along, entering a wood, but saw no car. A mile. Two miles. Three miles. The wood was far behind. At a widening of the road he turned around and started back, keeping a sharp eye to either side; but in another five minutes he was back at the cluster of outbuildings and had certainly had no glimpse of a car, neither a JV 28 nor a Dundee Cadillac. In a smaller building, apart from the others, with trees around it, there was a light and a radio going, and he drove into the lane, got out, and walked across the yard to a door.

“Is this Crescent Farm?” he asked a man in overalls who came and peered through the screen at him.

“This is it, yes, sir. Mr. Humphrey’s place is up the road. I’m Walt Taylor, the farmer. You looking for Mr. Humphrey?”

“No, I’m looking for a friend of mine. I thought maybe he stopped to use your phone. Has anybody asked to use your phone the past hour or so?”

The man shook his head. “Nope.”

“I was expecting to find him parked down the road. Half a mile beyond Crescent Farm, he said. If you—”

“A big black sedan?”

“That’s right. License JV 28.”

“I didn’t notice the license, but a big black sedan was parked there around five o’clock when I went by to get a load of hay, and it was still there an hour later when I came back with the load.”

“It must have been him. What did he look like?”

“Didn’t see him. Neither time. Just the car. I kept an eye out, because I figured maybe he was after pheasant, but I didn’t hear any shot up to dark.”

“Did you hear one after dark?”

“Nope. Not that I was expecting one. It’s kind of hard to shoot pheasant when you can’t see ’em.”

“Have you noticed a car going by in the last half hour? Either direction?”

“No, I’ve been listening to the radio.”

Hicks thanked him and left, went back to Aunt Sadie’s car, and headed east. Arriving at the four corners, he pulled up at the side of the road, and sat scowling at the clock on the dash. His fingers, with no command from higher up, took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and extracted one. Minutes later he was still sitting motionless, still scowling, and the cigarette had not been lit.