Beware the Young Stranger

5

During the police preliminaries Ivy Ferguson Conway crouched in a chair and refused to move, like a child waking in the dark after a nightmare.

Her husband’s voice mingled finally with that of the uniformed policeman on duty in the foyer. Conway came in, shaking his head. “Lost him, John. He must have slipped the MG through that parking area at the shopping center. When I tumbled to it and backtracked, there was no sign of him.”

Vallancourt tilted his head in Ivy’s direction. Conway looked startled. He crossed the room, stooped over her, spoke quietly. Some of the blankness left her eyes. She moaned suddenly, grabbed her husband about the neck, and began to sob. He picked her up, glanced at a policeman, got a nod, and carried Ivy out of the room.

A lanky, sweating detective in a rumpled gray suit followed the Conways out. Vallancourt knew him; his name was Woody Britt.

Britt was in charge at least for the moment. He had questioned Vallancourt in a halting fashion, unsure of himself. The man was obviously dreading the important investigation that had fallen to him.

Vallancourt needed to get out of that room. He walked to the front door and lit a cigarette. An ambulance with Dorcas Ferguson’s body inside was vanishing around the curve in the driveway. He looked away from the heavy vehicle.

In one respect, he thought, Britt had shown tact, barring TV and newspaper reporters. Dorcas would not be subjected to the horror of having pictures of her battered corpse frontpaged all over the state.

A station wagon eased to a stop at the end of the string of parked cars. Ralph Hibbs backed out and came puffing up the driveway.

Behind his glasses, Hibbs’s gentle eyes were bewildered. His large, soft body was shaking.

“It’s true, John?” he said. “It’s true?”

“I’m afraid so, Ralph.”

“Those policemen guarding the driveway... I had a time convincing them I was a friend, not a reporter. Have they taken her away, John?”

Vallancourt nodded.

“I can’t believe it! How could it have happened?”

Easily, he thought. In a moment of violence, she was shoved, went over backward, and the edge of the table was waiting for the base of her skull. Very easily.

“The news is flying around town,” Hibbs babbled. “There was a special bulletin on TV. Said that she’d been murdered and her nephew was being sought. Have they caught him yet?”

“Not to my knowledge, Ralph.”

“Just think of it! A couple days ago we were playing golf with him, and Dorcas was full of plans for his future...”

There was movement behind Vallancourt. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the detective.

“Hello, Woody,” Ralph Hibbs said. “Terrible thing! Have they assigned you to the case?”

“I’d rather be chasing down a nameless punk,” said Britt gloomily. “Well, at least I can wrap it up quick and get it off my back.”

“It’s so damn unbelievable,” Hibbs said. “Dorcas had taken Keith in, was giving him the chance for a new start.”

“And got her head stove in for her trouble.” Britt added a bitter note: “Too bad you and Mr. Conway let him get away, Mr. Vallancourt.”

Vallancourt let it pass. He had been the victim of surprise, in a moment of shock. If Britt didn’t understand that, no explanation would suffice.

“What do you think happened, Britt?” he asked.

“It’s a cinch it goes back to that Florida murder,” the lanky detective said. “They almost had a case against him, you know, and Dorcas Ferguson was nobody’s fool. Something the boy said or did must have told her he was that girl’s killer, all right. The way she called her brother-in-law and you, Mr. Vallancourt, shows how upset she was. She wanted help and advice. I figure she wasn’t quite ready to pull the string on the murdering louse.”

The two men said nothing as Britt paused to light a cigar. “Miss Ferguson was alone, remember. It was the maid’s day off, and Mildred Morgan had taken the chauffeur-handyman to the center for the week’s shopping. We’ve just finished talking to them.

“Miss Ferguson was in her study when the servants went grocery buying. She must have been there when Keith Rollins showed, suspecting a chill wind was about to blow his way. A few words with his aunt convinced him of it.

“I don’t think the boy wanted or intended to kill her,” Britt frowned. “He got panicky, is all. Wanted to make tracks. He needed dough and had a fat chance of getting it from his aunt right then. But she always kept a metal cashbox in her desk. And, friends, that box is now missing.”

“But she wasn’t killed in her study,” Hibbs protested.

Woody Britt gave him a sour look. “He threatened her, see? And took the box. Started out of the house, coming through the doorway connecting the living room and study. You expect her just to sit there? Not Miss Dorcas Ferguson.

“In the living room, she catches up with him. She’s plenty put out after all she tried to do for him. She gets in his way, and Keith...” Britt made a shoving motion with his hands. “So she falls backwards and her head...” Britt snapped his bony fingers.

The man’s teeth were yellowish clamps on his cigar. “Only he ain’t out of the woods, not by a long shot. He’s in the living room with her dead body, and two men are walking in on him, Mr. Conway and you, Mr. Vallancourt. He ducks behind the drapery, hoping you’ll take one look and run like hell to get help, giving him a chance for a getaway.”

“That’s all pretty much guesswork, Britt,” said Vallancourt.

“Sure, but how the hell else could it have happened? You figure another way, Mr. Vallancourt?”

Vallancourt shrugged. “Do you mind if I leave now? I’ve given you all the help I can, and I’m anxious to get back to my daughter.”

“Sure. Go on. If I need you, I’ll give you a ring. But I don’t think I’ll have to. We’ll have him behind bars by nightfall. The state patrol’s been alerted, roadblocks set up. We got this Rollins kid bottled up in this section of the state. If he gets out, it won’t be alive.”

Charles and Mrs. Ledbetter had heard the news. Vallancourt called them into his study and briefed them on the details, concluding with the thought uppermost in his mind: “It’s possible, perhaps probable, that Keith Rollins will try to contact Nancy.”

The Ledbetters, he suspected, had already considered the possibility. Charles said, “We’ll bear it in mind, Mr. Vallancourt.”

They left and he placed a call to the dean’s office at the college. When Dean Hansbury was on the line, he said, “This is John Vallancourt. I’m reluctant to disrupt her schedule, but can you have someone contact my daughter in class and have her call home? It’s urgent.”

As he hung up, the sound of a voice drifted in. He went out quickly. Charles was at the front door, firmly insisting that he would have to determine if Mr. Vallancourt was home.

The caller was Sam Rollins. Vallancourt said, “It’s all right, Charles.”

Rollins’s clothing flapped about his scarecrow frame. Beads of sweat glistened on the sharp planes of his face.

“We can talk in the study,” Vallancourt said. Rollins preceded him, and he closed the door behind them.

Rollins pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and massaged his palms. Then he teetered on the balls of his feet. “What are you and Howard Conway up to, Vallancourt?”

“I don’t believe I follow you.”

“The hell you don’t! Accusing my boy of murder!”

Vallancourt’s eyes went cold. It was rather late for the man to be putting on the conscientious father act.

“I’ve accused no one of anything, Mr. Rollins. I simply told the police what happened.”

“You didn’t see Keith do anything, did you?” Rollins punctuated his words with a soiled finger. “You bet you didn’t! Even that lunkhead Keith wouldn’t hang around after a killing. You scared him, he lost his head and ran. If he’d killed her, he wouldn’t have panicked. Maybe later, but not then. He’s cold as a snake when he’s in a corner. I’ve seen him...” Rollins suddenly broke off, as if he had said too much.

“Yes, Mr. Rollins?” Vallancourt prompted.

“I mean, I’ve seen him as a kid when he had to take a licking. Go cold as turkey. Not a nerve. Afraid of nothing. Couldn’t reach him if you used a razor strap. Him being in Dorcas Ferguson’s house today don’t prove a thing.”

He was pretty damned cold and nerveless behind the drapery, Vallancourt thought, primed for anything.

“I’m not trying to prove or disprove anything, Mr. Rollins.”

“A stinking, lousy break,” Rollins said. He dropped into a leather chair and his face drooped. “A square shake for my kid, that’s all I’m after.”

“He’ll get one.”

“Like hell. It’s stacked against him. All the Ferguson heirs, the Ferguson interests. They’ll throw him to the wolves. Fat chance my boy’ll have of saving his skin, much less collecting a dime of his inheritance.”

So that was it!

Vallancourt’s teeth acquired an edge. He reminded himself that he was a civilized man.

“What is it that brings you to me, Mr. Rollins?”

“Your girl, of course. I’ll lay you six to one Keith tries to contact her. If we play it right, she’ll lead us straight to him.”

The study door sighed open. Charles said, “A call for you, Mr. Vallancourt.”

Vallancourt reached for the phone on the desk. “Yes?”

He listened.

His face went bloodless.

He said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

Rollins came sliding up from the chair, looking interested.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Mr. Rollins.”

“Now listen here! You can’t dismiss me like I was some kind of—”

“Get out of here, Rollins.”

When the door clicked, Vallancourt reached for the phone. He would start the search here and now, calling everyone she knew.

But his hunter’s instinct told him he already had the answer.

His caller had been Dean Hansbury. Nancy had attended none of her classes today. She had not arrived at the college this morning.

She must have gone to a rendezvous with Keith. Innocently, in the manner of that other girl in Port Palmetto, Florida.