Alphabet Hicks

Nine

The slightly grandiose living room of the Dundee apartment on Park Avenue was dimly lit, and quiet, with only faint intrusion of the midnight noises of the city. The upholstery of the divan, and the cushions on it, were a dark rich red, which made an effective background for the gold-colored dressing gown Judith Dundee wore, with mules to match, and no stockings.

Hicks shifted his chair to alter his field of vision. He didn’t like bare legs with long skirts.

“I’ll keep my eyes open if I can,” Mrs. Dundee said. “I don’t often take a sleeping pill, but I did tonight. I was in bed when you phoned.”

“Sorry,” Hicks said gruffly.

“Not at all. Not if you have news for me.”

“I’ve got nothing that’s much good. There have been a few little developments.” The sharp glint of his eyes contrasted with her lackluster gaze from under heavy lids. “I thought you might be able to furnish some information that would help. Have you heard anything?”

She frowned. “Heard anything? You mean from my husband? No. As for information, I told you everything yesterday—”

“I don’t mean yesterday. Today.”

“No.” Her frown deepened. “I told you my husband refuses to discuss it with me, and anyway I haven’t seen him—”

“I have. And a few others. There has been a murder.”

“Murder?” Her lids opened wide. “Murder!” she repeated incredulously. “Who—” A cushion tumbled to the floor as she leaned to clutch his arm. “Ross? Dick? My son? My husband?” She pulled at him, shook him. “Don’t sit there glittering at me—”

“Not your son or husband. A woman named Martha Cooper.”

“They’re all right?”

“So far as I know. Did you know Martha Cooper?”

“No. What—”

“I’m telling you. Do you know a girl named Heather Gladd who works out at the laboratory at Katonah?”

“No.”

“Have you ever been out there?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Cooper is Heather Gladd’s sister. She went out there today to see her. Sometime between two-fifty and four-forty this afternoon, on the house terrace, someone hit her on the head with a brass candlestick and killed her.”

Mrs. Dundee stared at him. “How awful! There in the house at Katonah? Where my son lives?” A little shudder ran over her. “Who did it?”

“Not ascertained. Brager and Miss Gladd and I are out because we were all at the laboratory. Whereas Cooper, the husband, and Mrs. Powell and Dundee Senior and Junior were all at the house during that period—”

“Dick was there?”

Hicks nodded. “And still is. Also Ross. Both voluntarily. They’re not held by the police — not yet—”

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Dundee said sharply. “They don’t hit women with candlesticks. But for heaven’s sake, what was it? What were you all doing there? How did you get there?”

“Me, by train. I’ll tell you all about that if and when. When you’ve told me a couple of things; for instance how and where you’ve spent the day.”

“Where I have spent the day?”

“That’s right.”

Mrs. Dundee gazed at him, and, sleeping pill or no sleeping pill, her eyes did not lack luster nor did the lids droop. “Really,” she said, “I suppose I have no right to complain of your impudence—”

“Save it,” Hicks cut her off rudely. “You asked me to do a job for you and I started to work on it. I might have had more sense even if I did need a new suit. I’m not trying to find out if you have an alibi for the time a murder was committed, I’m merely asking where you were between noon and five o’clock today, which is not in itself an offensive question. The simplest way is just to go ahead and tell me.”

“Nevertheless — under the circumstances — it is impudent.”

“Okay, it’s impudent. Where were you? Here? At home?”

“No. I went out a little before noon. Shopping. Later to the Modern Museum.”

“Car and chauffeur?”

“No, taxicabs.”

“Did you go anywhere except shopping and the museum?”

“Afterwards I went to Rusterman’s with some friends—”

“I mean before the museum. Only shopping?”

“Yes.”

Hicks got out his wallet, took some bills from it, counted them, and laid them on a cushion of the divan. Then he stood up.

“Very well,” he said. “There’s what’s left of your two hundred. Seventeen dollars. The account is closed. I figure I don’t owe you anything, because I am not something you work with strings. Don’t sputter. If you hire somebody else, and I think you’d better the way things are going, I advise you to deal off the top, and don’t forget to tell him about your visit to Vail’s office today. But although you’re a liar, you deserve something for your money, which I’ve spent. Your husband has a sonotel, which is an electric eavesdropper, planted in Vail’s office, and the proof he had is a record of a conversation you had there with Vail on Thursday, September fifth. I suppose tomorrow he’ll have a record of your conversation today.”

Mrs. Dundee was goggling at him in consternation. “Good heavens!” she said, aghast.

“And goodness gracious,” Hicks said dryly. “You’re in a nice fix now. Happy landing.” He turned and was going.

He did not see her leave the divan, but the movement must have been swift, for he had gone only three paces when the grasp of her fingers on his sleeve stopped him; and when he wheeled sharply she held on and was jerked off balance, so that she had to use her other hand to seize support, a fold of his coat; and there she was against him, looking up at him.

“You listen to me,” she said harshly. “Maybe you think you’re picturesque, but you’re not going to quit me like this. My husband hasn’t got any record of any conversation I had with Vail in his office. I was never in his office in my life.”

“You were there today.”

“All right, I was. I was never there before. I went to tell him about this and tell him if he couldn’t get along without stealing Dundee formulas at least I wasn’t going to be dragged into it.”

“That was a good idea.” Hicks’s yellow-brown eyes slanted down to meet her upturned gaze. “He could explain to your husband just how he got the formulas and that would let you out. Did he give it to you in writing?”

Mrs. Dundee let go of his coat. “I know I made a fool of myself,” she acknowledged. “He merely said he has never got any Dundee formulas. And there’s nothing very picturesque about your sarcasm, either. When you asked me where I had been today, there was no point in admitting that I had been idiot enough to go and appeal to Jimmie Vail.”

She stepped to the divan and picked up the seventeen dollars, returned and stuffed it into his coat pocket, and demanded, “Is that all that’s left of it? Then you’ll need more I’ll give you a check.” She went back to her seat on the divan and put her hands to her forehead. “I’m getting a headache from that darned pill. Sit down and tell me about that record of a conversation that never took place. Did you see it or hear it?”

Hicks sat down. “You’re pretty remarkable,” he observed. “You haven’t asked how I knew you went to Vail’s office today.”

“What does it matter? I suppose you bribed somebody. With my money. I want to know about that record. There couldn’t be any such record. What does it say?”

“I didn’t hear it. Your husband told me about it—”

He broke off as a sound cut in.

“The doorbell,” Mrs. Dundee said. She stirred and sank back again. “The maids have gone to bed.” She glanced at her wrist. “It’s after midnight.”

“Shall I go?”

“Please.”

Hicks crossed the living room and passed through an arch into the large reception hall, traversed that, and opened the door. He did not swing it hospitably wide, but only enough for the breadth of his own shoulders; and after one glance into the foyer he kept his shoulders there.

Hicks said, “Hello.”

The man in the foyer said, “Hello.”

Hicks said to the elevator boy, who had waited there in his open door for the bell to be answered, after the custom in apartments with private elevator foyers, “Everything is under control, thank you,” and, after a fleeting moment of hesitation, the boy let his door go shut and the hum of the descending car followed.

Hicks, still blocking the door, met the cold gaze of the small gray eyes of the visitor. “Tag?” he inquired.

The man shook his head. “I’m as surprised as you are. Maybe more. And interested. I’m here to see Mrs. R. I. Dundee.”

“She has a headache. I’ll be glad to give her a message.”

“I’d like to talk to her.”

“At this time of night?”

“This is the only time there is right now.”

“Wait a minute.”

Hicks closed the door in the man’s face, made sure it was locked, returned to the living room, crossed to the divan, and told Mrs. Dundee:

“It’s Mr. Manny Beck, chief of the Westchester County detectives.”

“What—” Her jaw dropped.

“He was there this afternoon. He’s investigating that murder. I don’t think he knows anything about your trouble with your husband. He says he didn’t follow me here, he came to see you, but I don’t know why. You can let him in or not as you please. If you don’t he’ll be back in the morning, and it might be more picturesque to take him on while I’m here. I came here, by the way, to discuss with you a confidential matter which is none of his business, and of course I have told you about the murder.”

Mrs. Dundee was sitting straight, her hands in her lap, the fingers interlaced, tight. “But I know nothing — What can he possibly—”

“Same here. Shall we find out?”

“Yes.”

“Good for you.” He patted her on the shoulder. “If he springs a surprise, shut your eyes and groan from your headache. I told him you’ve got one.”

He went back to the hall and opened the door and told Manny Beck:

“She really has got a headache, but you can have ten minutes with me present as timekeeper. To relieve your curiosity, she is interested in the job I’m doing for her husband, and I came to report on that. Naturally I told her about the murder.”

“Naturally,” Beck growled, and crossed the threshold.

If what Beck had was a surprise, it did not appear that he regarded it as one, for he made no effort to build up to it, and the question that revealed it came out quite casually. After acknowledging the introduction and taking the chair Hicks placed for him, he apologized, if not with urbanity, at least with civility, for intruding at that late hour, and even said he was sorry that Mrs. Dundee had a headache. Then he said he understood that Hicks had told Mrs. Dundee of what had occurred at the house at Katonah that afternoon.

She nodded, and pressed a palm to her forehead.

Beck asked, “Do you know Mr. George Cooper?”

“No.”

“Did you know his wife? Martha Cooper?”

“No. I’d never heard their names until Mr. Hicks told me a little while ago.”

“Yeah.” Beck scowled and then unscowled. “About Hicks telling you. I thought maybe you already knew about it.”

“About what?”

“What happened up there. The murder.”

“How could I?”

“I thought maybe it happened before you left. What time did you get there?”

Mrs. Dundee’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about? Get where?”

“Katonah. That house. This afternoon.”

Her eyes stayed wide. “I have never been to that house.”

“Before today?”

“This is ridiculous! I wasn’t there today.”

“You weren’t!”

“Certainly not!”

Beck emitted a grunt so skeptical as to be derisive. “Your son Ross phoned you at five minutes to six this afternoon, didn’t he?”

Her eyes went shut. “He—” The eyes opened again. “I don’t know what time it was that he phoned.”

“It was five fifty-five. He phoned from the extension in the upstairs hall. He asked you how and when you got there this afternoon, and what time you left, and you refused to tell him.”

“Wait a minute,” Hicks put in. “This is a—”

“It’s absurd,” Mrs. Dundee said scornfully. “I didn’t refuse to tell him. I told him he must be dreaming because I hadn’t been there.”

“And he said,” Beck growled, “that he knew you had been because he heard you talking.”

“Ah,” Hicks said.

“What?”

“I said ah.”

“Ah what?”

“Nothing. Go ahead. Two minutes left.”

“This,” Mrs. Dundee said emphatically, “is perfectly absurd. I told my son he couldn’t have heard me talking because I wasn’t there, and he said he must have been mistaken and told me to forget about it, and rang off.”

“Sure,” Beck agreed, “because he caught on that he was being overheard. So he hung up. Naturally he don’t want his mother mixed up in a murder investigation, and naturally you don’t want to be. Therefore, the best way to avoid that is to tell me what time you got there, and what you did, and how long you stayed.”

Mrs. Dundee looked at Hicks and said incisively, “This man is a fool.”

“No,” Hicks contradicted her, “he’s a little above the average. He merely has a bum steer. Do you remember, Beck, in the Atherton case I gave you my word that that bicycle you found in the pond had nothing to do with it? I give you my word now that Mrs. Dundee was not out there today. As a favor, to save you trouble.”

“Thanks,” Beck said in no tone of gratitude. “That settles it. Maybe, you think. People don’t go from New York to Katonah and back again on a magic carpet. Have you considered that?”

“Certainly. That’s what I meant about saving you trouble. If you won’t take my word for it—” Hicks shrugged. “The ten minutes is up. If there’s anything else you want to know, make it snappy.”

Beck stood up. His little gray eyes bored down at Mrs. Dundee. “If you weren’t involved in that business out there, Mrs. Dundee, you’re not acting sensible. Believe me. You’re not acting sensible.” He wheeled and stooped to tap Hicks’s knee with a blunt forefinger. “Listen, bub. You made a monkey out of me once. That’s enough. Once.”

He turned and marched off. Hicks followed him out to the door, and stayed there until the elevator arrived. Beck, entering it, turned and held up a stiff finger.

“Once,” he growled. “Plenty.”

The door slid across.

When Hicks got back to the living room Mrs. Dundee was bent over with her elbows on her knees and the heels of her palms pressed against her eyes. He sat down and folded his arms and regarded her with one side of his mouth screwed up. After a minute he said gruffly:

“I’ll beat it and you take another pill and go to bed.”

She shook her head. In a moment she raised it. “This is ghastly, simply ghastly.” Her voice had the metallic hardness that made it a new voice. “And that woman murdered — there — today — it’s simply grotesque!” She made a gesture. “Tell me. That record. Tell me...”

When Hicks left, at one o’clock, he had another check in his pocket, but no additional information of any importance. Mrs. Dundee had arrived at Vail’s office a little after twelve noon and spent twenty minutes there, receiving for her pains only cool courtesy and a flat denial that he had ever obtained Dundee trade secrets by any means whatever. The phone call from her son around six o’clock had lasted only a minute or so and had been as Beck had reported it. She had tried twice to call him back but the wire had been busy. She insisted that she had never been in Vail’s office before that day. She knew quite well what a sonotel was; indeed, one had been installed in her own apartment for purposes of experiment, until after a month she had insisted on its removal, something over a year ago.

When Hicks arose to go she accompanied him to the door, and he drew his finger back from the elevator button to say:

“By the way, that picture you gave me yesterday. That photograph of yourself. Have you been passing them around?”

“Not indiscriminately. Why?”

“I just wondered. I happened to be in Brager’s room up there, and I noticed he has one.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “That could be funny if anything could be funny now. He asked for it and I gave it to him.” The frown tried to be a smile but didn’t make it. “He has it in view? Then he doesn’t adore me any more. A fresh calamity. If he did he would keep it in a secret drawer. Are you by any chance asking if I have bestowed favors on Mr. Brager?”

“Lord, no,” Hicks said hastily.

“I assure you I haven’t. At my age adorers get to be more of a rarity and things like pictures go much more cheaply.”

“You even gave me one,” Hicks agreed, and pressed the elevator button.

On the street, he walked around the corner to where he had parked the car. Driving downtown, he considered taking it to a garage on First Avenue, but decided to save a dollar by leaving it on the street, and spend the dollar on a bed he knew to be vacant on the floor above his own. Not only that, he would transfer George Cooper to the upper floor, if necessary by portage. That mattress was his own property, a good mattress being one of the few items of impedimenta which, in his blueprint of life, a free man might reasonably encumber himself with.

But he didn’t lie on it that night.

Leaving the car at the curb, he mounted the two flights, let himself in with his key, switched on the lights, and saw an empty bed. He stared at it a moment, then tramped out and down to the next floor. No George Cooper was in the bathroom. He returned upstairs, stood scowling at the bed, decided that the occasion required the eating of chocolates, crossed to the bureau and opened a drawer — and the scowl became ferocious.

“Good God,” he said aloud in accents of consternation, “the damn louse stole my candy!”

He sat on the edge of the bed and considered the situation. It had already been sufficiently cloudy and complex, what with three plausible theories regarding Mrs. Dundee’s trouble and at least four regarding the murder, and now it was chaotic. If Cooper was merely a guy with a screw jolted loose by shock and grief, nothing was altered by this latest development besides the candy, but if theory number four on the murder was the true one, it was quite a different matter. There might be a second murder before the night was out.

It might already have happened... it might be happening now...

He went out and down the stairs to the street and climbed in the car. The dashboard clock said half past one as he turned north on First Avenue.