Drury Lane’s Last Case

1 The Man in the Blue Hat

On the twenty-eighth of May, which was a Tuesday, Miss Patience Thumm, whose office hours were elastic, entered the ante-room of the Thumm Detective Agency at a few minutes to ten, smiled cheerily at the sad, moon-eyed Miss Brodie, the agency’s official stenographer, and burst into the inner sanctum to find her father listening intently to the heavy earnest tones of a visitor.

“Ah, Patty,” said the Inspector. “Glad you came so early. This is Mr. George Fisher and he’s got an interesting little story. My daughter, Fisher. Sort of her father’s keeper,” he chuckled. “The brains of this outfit, so you’d better spill it to her.”

The visitor scraped his chair back and rose awkwardly, fumbling with his cap. It was a peaked cap with a soft crown; a small enameled plate above the peak said: “Rivoli Bus Co.” He was a tall, broad, pleasant-looking young man with unholy red hair; a smart uniform of blue-grey fitted his bulky figure snugly; his chest was bisected obliquely by a black strap which met his broad belt at the waist; and his stout calves were encased in leather.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Thumm,” he mumbled. “Ain’t much of a case—”

“Do sit down, Mr. Fisher,” said Patience with the smile she reserved exclusively for good-looking young clients. “What’s the trouble?”

“Well, I was just givin’ the Inspector an earful,” said Fisher, his own ears reddening. “Don’t know if it’s anything, y’see. But it might be. This bird Donoghue’s my pal, see, and—”

“Whoa,” said the Inspector. “We’d better start at the beginning, Fisher. Fisher drives one of those big sightseeing buses that park around Times Square, Patty. Rivoli Bus Company. He’s worried about a friend of his; and the reason he’s come to see us is because this friend, fellow by the name of Donoghue, often mentioned my name to him. Donoghue’s an ex-cop; I seem to remember him as a nice husky old boy, good record on the force.”

“Is Donoghue employed by your company, too?” Patience asked, inwardly sighing at the prosaic beginning of the story.

“No, ma’am. He retired from the force about five years ago an’ took a job as special guard at that museum on Fifth an’ Sixty-Fifth — the Britannic.” Patience nodded; the Britannic Museum was a small but highly esteemed institution for the preservation and exhibition of old English manuscripts and books. She had visited it several times in the company of Mr. Drury Lane, who was one of its patrons. “Donoghue an’ my old man were together in harness, see, an’ I’ve known him all my life, ma’am.”

“And something’s happened to him?”

Fisher fumbled with his cap. “He’s — ma’am, he’s disappeared!”

“Ah,” said Patience. “Well, father, that seems to be more in your line. When a staid and respectable gentleman of past middle age vanishes it’s generally a woman, isn’t it?”

“Oh, no, ma’am,” said the bus-driver, “not Donoghue!”

“Have you notified the Missing Persons Bureau?”

“No, ma’am. I... I didn’t know if I’d ought to. Old Donoghue would be sorer’n a pup if I raised a fuss for no good reason. Y’see, Miss Thumm,” said Fisher earnestly, “it may be nothin’. I don’t know. But it looked damned funny to me.”

“And it is funny,” said the Inspector. “Queer set-up, Pat. Go ahead and tell Miss Thumm what you told me, Fisher.”

Fisher told a strange tale. A party of schoolteachers from Indianapolis, in New York on a combined group vacation and educational tour, had chartered one of the Rivoli Bus Company’s mammoth machines to conduct them about the city on an itinerary arranged in advance of their visit. Fisher had been told off to drive the party about the city on the previous day, Monday. They had embarked promptly at noon from the company’s starting-point, Forty-Fourth Street off Broadway. The last destination on the day’s itinerary had been the Britannic Museum. The museum was not on the bus company’s regular sightseeing route for obvious reasons: it was a distinctly “highbrow joint,” remarked Fisher without rancor, and most sightseers were content with viewing Chinatown, the Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (from its classic exterior), Radio City, the East Side, and Grant’s Tomb. However, the party of visiting schoolteachers was not composed of the usual sightseers; they were teachers of Fine Arts and English in the hinterland and, in Fisher’s unadmiring proletarian phrase, were “a bunch of highbrows.” Inspection of the famous Britannic Museum had long been contemplated by the visiting æsthetes as one of the features of their New York tour. At first it had seemed as if they would be doomed to disappointment; for the museum for several weeks past had been closed pending extensive repairs and alterations of the interior, and indeed was not scheduled to be reopened to the public for at least two months to come. But finally the curator and the Board of Directors of the Britannic had granted special permission for the party to visit the museum during its restricted stay in the city.

“Now here’s the funny part, Miss Thumm,” said Fisher slowly, “I counted ’em as they climbed into my bus — didn’t have to, because on a special like this the bus-starter takes care of the arrangements, and all I have to do is drive; but I counted ’em out of habit, I guess, and there were nineteen of ’em. Nineteen men and women...”

“How many of each?” asked Patience, her blue eyes kindling.

“Can’t say, ma’am. So there were nineteen when we started from our terminal. And what do you think?”

Patience laughed. “I haven’t the faintest of brainstorms, Mr. Fisher. What do you think?”

“Plenty,” said the bus-driver grimly. “When we gets back to the terminal, see, late afternoon — company rule always to start and finish at the Forty-Fourth Street station, ma’am — when we gets back there and my passengers start gettin’ out, I counts ’em again and by God if there wasn’t only eighteen!”

“I see,” said Patience. “Very odd, to be sure. But what has that to do with the disappearance of your friend Donoghue?”

“His friend Donoghue,” drawled the Inspector, “comes in later. You notice the plot’s thickening. Go on, Fisher.” He stared out of the window at the grey walls of Times Square.

“Who was missing?” asked Patience. “Did you check up with the party?”

“No, ma’am. It all happened so fast. But in thinkin’ it over I thought I knew who the bird was that hadn’t come back with me,” replied Fisher, hunching his big torso forward. “I’d noticed him on the trip up because he was a queer-lookin’ duck. Sort of middle-aged, and he wore a big bushy grey moustache — the kind you see in the movies. Regular soup-strainer. Tall gent. And he wore a funny hat, too — kind of blue color. He’d kept to himself all day, now that I came to think of it — didn’t pal with the others or talk to ’em. And now he was missing — hadn’t been on the return trip with us.”

“Queer, hey?” said the Inspector.

“Very,” said Patience. “And what about Donoghue, Mr. Fisher? I still fail to see the connection.”

“Well, ma’am, it was this way. When we got to the Britannic, I turned my passengers over to Dr. Choate—”

“Ah, Dr. Choate,” said Patience brightly. “I’ve met the gentleman. Curator of the museum.”

“That’s right, ma’am. He took ’em away and started showin’ ’em around. My part of the job was done until we were due to go back, so I stopped at the door for a friendly word with Donoghue. Hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks, so we made a date to go to the fights last night at the Garden—”

“The fights, Mr. Fisher?”

Fisher looked puzzled. “Sure, ma’am, the fights, the — the boxin’ matches at the Garden. I’m pretty handy with my mitts m’self, see, and I like a good fast bout... Well, anyway, I told Donoghue I’d stop in for him last night after supper. He’s a bachelor, see, an’ he lives in a boardin’-house downtown in Chelsea. Well, then I went off after my passengers, followed ’em around, and when they were all finished I took them back to the terminal.”

“Was Donoghue at the door when you got your party out of the museum?” asked the Inspector thoughtfully.

“No, sir. At least I didn’t notice. Well, after work last night I had a bite to eat — I’m a bachelor m’self, ma’am,” said Fisher, coloring, “and I called for Donoghue at his roomin’ house. But he wasn’t there, and his landlady said he hadn’t come back from work. I thought maybe somethin’ kept him overtime, so I hung around there for an hour. No sign of Donoghue, so I rang up a couple of his pals. They hadn’t seen nor heard from him all evenin’. By that time I was gettin’ a little scared.”

“A big chap like you,” murmured Patience, watching him keenly. “And—”

Fisher gulped in a boyish way. “I buzzed the Britannic. Spoke to the caretaker — night-watchman, ma’am, name o’ Burch — an’ he told me he’d seen Donoghue beat it out of the museum that afternoon, before my party left an’ while I was still there; but Donoghue hadn’t come back. I didn’t know what to do, so I went to the fights alone.”

“Poor boy,” said Patience sympathetically, and Fisher eyed her with suddenly aroused manhood. “And that’s all?”

His big shoulders drooped, and the roosterish look went out of his eyes. “That’s the whole blamed story, ma’am. This mornin’ before I came here I went around to his roomin’ house again, but he hadn’t been home all night; an’ I called the museum an’ they told me he hadn’t reported for work yet.”

“But what,” persisted Patience, “has your friend Donoghue’s disappearance to do with the missing passenger, Mr. Fisher? I’m afraid I’m a little dull this morning.”

Fisher’s big jaw hardened. “That’s what I don’t know. But,” he went on in a stubborn tone, “this bird with the blue shap-po disappears, an’ Donoghue disappears around the same time, an’ I can’t help feelin’ there’s a connection somewhere.” Patience nodded thoughtfully. “The reason I come here, like I said before, ma’am,” continued Fisher in a heavy tone, “is that if I went to the police Donoghue might get sore. He’s no trustin’ babe, Miss Thumm; he can handle himself. But... well, damn it, I’m worried about him and I thought I’d ask the Inspector sort of for old time’s sake to try an’ find out what happened to that thick Irishman.”

“Well, Inspector,” murmured Patience, “and can you resist such an appeal to your vanity?”

“Guess not,” grinned her father. “No dough in it, Fisher, and times are hard, but I s’pose we can scout around a bit.”

Fisher’s boyish face lightened magically, “Swell!” he cried. “That’s real swell of you, Inspector.”

“Well, then,” said Thumm in brisk tones, “let’s get down to cases. Ever seen this man in the blue hat before, Fisher?”

“No, sir. Absolute stranger to me. And what’s more,” said the bus-driver with a frown, “I’m pretty sure Donoghue hadn’t, either.”

“How on earth could you know that?” asked Patience, astonished.

“Well, when I came into the museum with my nineteen chickadees, Donoghue got a good look at the lot, one by one. He didn’t say anything to me about knowin’ any of ’em, and he would have if he’d recognized one.”

“Doesn’t exactly follow,” remarked the Inspector dryly, “but I imagine it’s true just the same. Suppose you give me a description of Donoghue. I don’t remember him any too well — haven’t seen him for about ten years.”

“Husky build, about a hundred and seventy-five,” replied Fisher rapidly, “stands around five foot ten, sixty years old, strong as a bull, red Irish pan on him with a bullet-scar on his right cheek — you’d remember that, Inspector, I guess; couldn’t ever forget it if you spotted it even once — walks like a slouch, sort of—”

“Swaggers?” suggested Patience.

“That’s it! Grey hair now and damn’ sharp grey eyes.”

“Good boy,” said the Inspector approvingly. “You’d have made a swell cop, Fisher. I remember now. Does he still smoke that stinkin’ old clay pipe of his? That was one of his worst vices, I recall.”

“Sure does,” said Fisher with a grin. “When he’s off duty. I forgot that.”

“Fine.” The Inspector rose abruptly. “You go back to your job, Fisher, and leave this to me. I’ll look into it and if I find anything screwy about it I’ll turn it over to the police. It’s really a police job.”

“Thanks, Inspector, thanks,” said the bus-driver, and bowing jerkily to Patience he pounded out of the office, causing Miss Brodie’s heart as he passed her in the ante-room to beat quite rapidly in maidenly tribute to his muscular bigness.

“Nice lad,” murmured Patience, “if a little on the uncouth side. Did you notice those shoulders, father dear? What a line-bucker he would have made if he’d cut his teeth on a Latin book instead of an emergency brake!”

Inspector Thumm sniffed mightily through his smashed nose, hunched his own wide shoulders, and consulted a telephone directory. He dialed a number. “’Lo! Rivoli Bus Company? This is Thumm speaking, of the Thumm Detective Agency. You the manager?... Oh, you are. What’s the name?... What? Oh, Theofel. Say, listen, Mr. Theofel, have you got a wheel-wrestler on your pay-roll by the name George Fisher?”

“Yes,” said a slightly alarmed voice. “Is anything the matter?”

“No, no,” said the Inspector genially. “I’m just askin’, that’s all. Is he a big lad with red hair and an honest map?”

“Why, yes, yes. One of our best drivers. I’m sure nothing—”

“Sure, sure. I just wanted to check up, that’s all. Say, he took out a party of hick schoolteachers yesterday. Can you tell me where they’re stoppin’ in the city?”

“Certainly. The Park Hill, off the Plaza. Are you sure there isn’t—?”

“Goo’by,” said the Inspector, and hung up. He rose and reached for his topcoat. “Put some powder on your nose, kid. We’ve got a date with the intell... intell—”

“Intelligentsia,” sighed Patience.