Manhunt. Volume 6, Number 4, June, 1958

The set-up smelled phony, but I took the job anyway. You don’t say no to multi-millionaires...

1

The voice on the phone was precise. “Mr. Harold Stander?”

“Speaking,” I said.

“This is Mr. George Harbor, personal secretary to Mr. and Mrs. Joshua Wolfendon. Mrs. Wolfendon has asked me to engage you on a confidential matter. Are you available at the moment?”

“I’m available,” I said laconically. I had been available for some time. The private detective business is never very good in Miami, and it’s worse when you have to be temporarily careful to stay strictly within the law. I’d had a blunt warning from the Miami chief of police that one more step outside of it would lose my license, and I was being temporarily careful.

“Then Mrs. Wolfendon would like you to call at her home at exactly three P.M. today. Is that time suitable?”

It was an hour off, and the Wolfendons’ Miami Beach mansion was a forty-five-minute drive from my office. But you don’t say no to multi-millionaires. Joshua Wolfendon was chairman of the board of Wolfendon Plastics, which grosses some four hundred million a year.

I said, “I’ll be there.”

The Wolfendon home was big even by Miami-Beach standards. A uniformed maid answered the front door, led me through a front room resembling a hotel lobby, through a couple of others resembling ballrooms, and finally to a small, neatly-furnished study. George Harbor and Mrs. Wolfendon were in the study.

When the maid had moved off, I studied the two. The woman was about twenty-five, a lovely, delicate-featured blonde with the kind of body which made most other women look like slobs. I knew from newspaper accounts at the time of her Cinderella marriage three years before that she had been a photographer’s model in New York when she ran into Wolfendon.

George Harbor was a good-looking, well-muscled man of about thirty with jet-black hair and eyes to match. He looked me up and down too.

“You seem to have the physical qualifications, Mr. Stander,” he said finally. “What are you? About six three and two twenty?”

“About,” I said. “Physical qualifications for what?”

“Acting as a bodyguard.” Then he remembered he hadn’t performed introductions. “Marie, this is Mr. Harold Stander. Mrs. Wolfendon, Mr. Stander.”

I wondered at his familiar use of his employer’s first name. Later, when he referred to Mr. Wolfendon as Josh, I wondered still more. Still later I learned he was a first cousin of Joshua Wolfendon, and had more of the status of a family member than of an employee.

When Marie Wolfendon and I had murmured polite things to each other, Harbor said, “Show Mr. Stander the letters, Marie.”

Rising, she crossed the small room to a desk and removed two envelopes from a drawer. I couldn’t help admiring the graceful sway of her hips as she crossed the room. I wasn’t alone. George Harbor couldn’t help it either.

Returning, she handed me only one of the envelopes first. It was postmarked St. Louis and was addressed in crabbed longhand to Miss Marie Carling at a New York City address. There was no return address. I frowned when I noted the postmark date was three years old, but I didn’t comment. I withdrew the single sheet inside.

The letter, in the same crabbed handwriting, read:

I looked inquiringly at Marie Wolfendon.

“I got that just after Joshua’s and my engagement was announced in the newspapers,” she said. “It’s from a boy I used to go with in my home town of Washington, Missouri. His name is David Carr.”

“Show it to your future husband?” I asked.

She shook her blonde head. “I couldn’t. Not because I was afraid for him to know I’d had a high-school puppy-love affair, but because of the way David referred to him in the letter. I... I thought it might hurt his feelings.”

I knew what she meant. Josh Wolfendon had inherited his control of Wolfendon Plastics, and though he was chairman of the board, the only actual work he did was to preside at the annual stockholders’ meeting. Before his marriage, he’d spent most of his time in New York night clubs. The description was accurate enough to hurt, including the word “ancient.” He was double his wife’s age.

I grunted and looked pointedly at the second letter in her hand.

“Before I show you this other one, I want you to understand about David,” she said. “It wasn’t anything but a puppy-love affair. We broke up almost a year before I left Missouri for New York.”

When she paused, I asked, “Then why was he so upset about you marrying another man?”

“He never accepted the breakup. He made some awful scenes, including a suicide attempt on my front porch. He cut his wrists. He recovered and was committed to the state mental hospital. He was still there when I moved to New York. The next I heard from him was the letter you just read.”

“Do anything about the letter?” I asked.

“I didn’t report it to the police, if that’s what you mean. I wrote his folks in Washington, Missouri about it. They wrote back that he was just being dramatic, and to ignore it. They said that when he was released from the state mental hospital, his psychiatrist had told them he was emotionally immature, but perfectly sane and definitely not dangerous. I decided to take their advice and ignore the letter. I never heard from him again until this came in the morning mail.”

She handed me the second envelope, which was addressed, in the same crabbed handwriting as the first, to Mrs. Marie Wolfendon at her present address. The postmark was Miami and the date yesterday’s.

I slipped the letter from the envelope. It read:

Looking up from the letter, I said, “Have you reported this to the police yet?”

George Harbor said, “We don’t want any publicity, and if possible, we don’t want Josh disturbed by having to know about it. That’s why we called in a private detective.”

I looked at him so long, he reddened slightly. Then I said, “You have a slightly wrong slant on things. Private detectives are just supplements to the police, not substitutes. If I took this assignment without reporting the situation to the police, and Mrs. Wolfendon got killed despite my efforts, I’d lose my license before the funeral. Let’s get something straight right now. If I take this assignment, the police see those letters. I’d also suggest that you take Mr. Wolfendon into your confidence. He’s going to be a devil of a lot more upset if he learns about this from some cop who drops around to question him, instead of learning it from you.”

Marie Wolfendon said, “Oh,” and wrung her hands together.

George Harbor ruefully rubbed his nose. “I told you it would be best to tell Josh all about it, and call the police, Marie. Mr. Stander’s experienced in these things. We’d better take his advice.”

“Josh will be furious that I never told him about the first letter,” she said.

“He’ll get over it,” Harbor told her. “He might not if he found it out from some other source.”

We let her stew the matter over without further help from either of us. Finally she said in a small voice, “All right, if you both think it’s best. I’ll tell Josh as soon as he comes home.”

The decision made me feel better. A month previously I might have accepted the case on any basis she wanted. But temporarily I wasn’t doing anything at all which might offend, or even irritate the police.

I said, “Now let’s define exactly what you want to engage me for. Just as a bodyguard to keep constant watch over Mrs. Wolfendon, or as an investigator to track down David Carr and get him salted away?”

This brought on some discussion between her and Harbor. They finally decided they wanted some of both. The mansion was virtually impregnable, being equipped with burglar-proof screens in all windows and inside bolts on all doors. In addition it had a burglar alarm system. To top all this, everybody in the place, with the exception of a housekeeper and a maid who slept in, owned a gun and knew how to use it. Harbor said that pending apprehension of David Carr, he, Joshua Wolfendon and Mrs. Wolfendon would all sleep with pistols under their pillows.

It was therefore unnecessary for me to furnish bodyguard protection except when Marie Wolfendon wanted to leave the house. They decided that the rest of the time I could devote to trying to track down David Carr.

I said, “Will you give me a description of David Carr, please.”

“He’s just my age,” she said. “Twenty-five. He’s about six feet tall and weighs about a hundred sixty pounds. He’s rather thinly built, and stoops slightly. He has strawberry-blonde hair, worn long, and blue eyes. Of course this description is four years old, and he may have changed since then.”

“Got a picture of him?” I asked.

She shook her head.

2

As my client had no plans to leave the house any more that day, I arranged to show the next morning, and departed with the two letters. I took them straight to Miami Beach police headquarters.

I found Lieutenant Sam Curry going over reports in his cubbyhole of an office. At the moment I wasn’t in any better favor with the Miami Beach police than I was in the city, and I didn’t expect a friendly reception. I didn’t get one.

He looked up and growled, “What do you want?”

I handed him the two letters and told him about my conference with Marie Wolfendon and George Harbor. He thawed a little, but not much.

“What’s your angle?” he asked.

“Angle?”

“You don’t expect me to believe you’re interested in this for a mere body guarding fee, do you? Not after that smelly jewelry insurance deal you pulled. Or the equally smelly divorce evidences you have a habit of rigging.”

“Believe what you please,” I told him. “There’s no angle, and I’ve given you everything I know.”

Apparently he decided to believe me, with reservations. He rubbed a large hand over his crew-cut and scowled. “Got a description of this joker?” he asked.

I passed on the description Mrs. Wolfendon had given me, and forestalled his next question by telling him no pictures were available.

“We’ll send a man out to interview her,” he said. “Put out a want on David Carr. Stake out the Wolfendon home. Any other suggestions?”

“Might check with the Washington, Missouri, police,” I said. “He has folks there. Possibly they have his Miami address.”

“Yeah,” Curry said. “We’ll try it for size. Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Just that Mrs. Wolfendon wants her letters back. She wants to show them to her husband.”

The lieutenant frowned, but he let me have them back. However, he admonished me to hang onto them, as they’d be needed as evidence when and if David Carr was picked up.

3

The next morning I arrived at the Wolfendon home at nine sharp. The maid showed me into a dinette where Joshua Wolfendon and his wife were having breakfast. George Harbor wasn’t present.

Joshua Wolfendon was bronzed and still muscular at fifty, with a full head of graying hair and a relatively unlined face. He seemed a little petulant about being brought into his wife’s confidence at such a late date, but otherwise he was pleasant enough.

“Sit down, Mr. Stander,” he said after introductions. “Had breakfast?”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll just take coffee.”

He told the maid to bring me some coffee.

I gathered from the ensuing conversation that Marie had told him the whole story when he returned from a yacht race the previous afternoon. Apparently it upset him, but he had gotten over it, as George Harbor had predicted he would.

I learned that a police officer had interviewed Mrs. Wolfendon shortly after her husband had arrived home, and she had repeated the same story she told me. The officer had told them that the house would be kept under surveillance, and suggested that Mrs. Wolfendon go out as little as possible, even when accompanied by me as a bodyguard.

Wolfendon asked if I still had the letters, and I showed them to him. He scowled at the reference to himself as a notorious and ancient playboy, but made no comment. When he handed them back, I put them in my pocket.

“I think the arrangements you made with my wife yesterday are adequate, Stander,” he said. “With George and me in the house, there’s no point in your staying here nights. My room is right across the hall from Marie’s, and I could get to her in seconds if she yelled. I’m a dead shot with a pistol. As a matter of fact, Marie is, too. Taught her myself. And all of us will keep pistols in our rooms for the time being. Not that I think we’ll need them. It would take a professional burglar to get in this house.”

A phone bell sounded. Without getting up, Marie reached across to lift an extension phone from a wall nook near the table.

“Wolfendon residence,” she said.

Her husband and I could clearly hear the low-toned voice of the caller. “Marie?”

“Yes.”

“David, honey.”

Marie drew in her breath in a gasp.

“I’m coming to get you, Marie,” the voice droned on. “Not this minute, but soon. Don’t think you can escape by staying in that prison you live in. I can break any lock ever invented, and short any burglar alarm system there is. And don’t think the police you have around your house will protect you. I saw them there. I walked right past them an hour ago. I’ll walk right past them again when I come for you. Expect me.”

A click sounded and Marie slowly hung up the phone. “My God!” she said. “He really means to kill me.”

Before either Wolfendon or I could say anything, George Harbor burst into the kitchen. “I heard it,” he said excitedly. “Marie, I picked up the extension in my office at the same time you answered.”

Then he saw me and gave me a nervous nod of recognition. He turned to Wolfendon. “This Carr must be a maniac, Josh. Could you hear what he said?”

Wolfendon said, “I heard it.”

“Maybe he is a lock expert. Maybe he does know how to short the burglar alarm system. And maybe he could walk past the police. I think we’d better reconsider and have Stander move in here. There’s plenty of room.”

Wolfendon looked at me and I shrugged. He looked at his wife and she said in a low voice, “I think I’d feel safer. If David did manage to break in somehow, there’d be nobody to stop him until he got to the top of the stairs. Mr. Stander could sleep in the downstairs bedroom and act as a sort of first line of defense.”

Wolfendon looked back at me, and I said, “You’re paying the fee. I’ll play it any way you want. Only the first thing to do is report that phone call to the police.”

I rose, rounded the table to the phone and dialled police headquarters.

4

The rest of that day was uneventful. I drove back to my Miami apartment, packed a bag and returned to Miami Beach. I found the front door bolted when I got back. George Harbor peered at me through the thick glass before opening it. Obviously the phone call had brought on a maximum security effort.

They put me in a guest room on the first floor next to the servants’ quarters. Nothing happened all day except a phoned report from Lieutenant Curry that David Carr had still not been apprehended, but that an intensive search was underway for him.

We all retired at eleven P.M. Before going to bed I accompanied Joshua Wolfendon on a tour of the entire house while he inspected each window and each door bolt.

It didn’t seem very likely to me that, despite his boasts, David Carr would get into the house that night.

A ringing phone awakened me. I glanced at the luminous face of my watch, saw it was three A.M., and sleepily reached for the bedside phone before I realized I wasn’t in my own bed. Coincidentally the extension was in the same relative place that my own bedside phone is.

I put it to my ear just as Marie Wolfendon’s voice said, “Hello.”

I heard the click of still another extension phone being lifted, then a low voice rasped, “It’s not hello, Marie. It’s good-by.”

“David!” Marie gasped.

“Yeah, David, honey. Expect me. Expect me at any minute. I’m coming after you right now.”

The phone went silent. I continued to hear the sound of Marie’s breathing, then two clicks as two extension phones hung up.

Cradling my phone, I leaped from bed, groped for the bedlamp switch, pulled a robe over my pajamas and grabbed my gun. I didn’t bother with slippers.

A small night light in the upper hall furnished enough illumination for me to see my way up the stairs. I took them three at a time. At the top I found Joshua Wolfendon’s bedroom door open and Wolfendon, wearing only pajamas, in the act of reaching for the knob of his wife’s bedroom door. At the far end of the hall George Harbor was just coming from his room dressed in a robe. Both men had pistols in their hands.

I started to yell, “Hold it!” to Wolfendon, but it was too late. He already had the door open and stood framed in the darkened doorway, the dim glow of the nightlight in the hall silhouetting his form to his wife inside the room.

I sensed the tragic mistake that was going to happen, and braced myself against the roar of the shot even before it sounded. In the close confines of Marie’s bedroom it sounded like a cannon.

Josh Wolfendon went over backward like a falling timber. I didn’t have to move any nearer to see that he had died instantly. The slug caught him squarely in the center of the forehead and took along a section of skull as big as a tennis ball when it exited at the back of his head.

A dozen feet away George Harbor halted with his mouth gaping open.

Hugging the wall to one side of the door to Marie’s room, I called, “Hold your fire, Mrs. Wolfendon. Turn on your light.”

“Is he dead?” her voice came thinly.

“Yeah,” I said in a dry tone. “Turn on your light. I’m coming in.”

Light came up in the room and I cautiously stepped through the door. Marie was sitting up in bed in a filmy nightgown through which her flesh showed pinkly in the glow of the bedlamp. She held a snub-nosed thirty-eight in her hand. When she saw me, she let it drop to the bedspread.

“You sure he’s dead?” she asked fearfully.

“Certain,” I said. “Better put on a robe.”

She glanced down and became conscious of the filminess of her nightgown. Flushing, she pulled the sheet over her bosom. I picked a thin robe from the foot of her bed, tossed it to her and returned to the hall.

George Harbor was standing over his dead employer, looking down at him blankly. He glanced at me, his mouth still open.

“She thinks she shot David Carr,” I said. “I’ll let you handle the hysterics when she comes out. I’ll be phoning the police.”

I went into the dead man’s room to phone. Before I could dial, Marie stepped into the hall and went into the hysterics I had phophesied.

Stepping back to the doorway, I watched Harbor’s ineffectual efforts to quiet her screaming. I shouted over the racket. “Who’s the family doctor?”

It took two shouts to get the question to him. He said preoccupiedly, “Dr. Philip Hudson,” and returned to his back patting.

I phoned the doctor before I phoned the police. He got there first and had Marie back in bed under a sedative before the police arrived.

Lieutenant Sam Curry was the chief investigating officer. He talked to me first, and after hearing my account of events, he talked to George Harbor. It developed that Harbor had heard the phone conversation between David Carr and Marie too.

“Seems obvious it was just an unfortunate accident,” Curry said. “Damn shame, a thing like this happening. Wolfendon should have known his wife would be so upset after that call that she’d shoot when he opened the door.”

“He didn’t have time to think,” I said. “He was rushing to protect her.”

Curry said, “Well, there isn’t anything we can do tonight. The doc says she’s under a sedative and can’t be questioned. Not much point in questioning her anyway, since we know what happened. Have to eventually, of course, as a matter of routine. She’ll possibly even have to appear at an inquest. But that will be routine too. I’m convinced it was an accident. Any idea where that call came from?”

Harbor shook his head and I said, “No. But I’ll bet Carr never intended to make a try for her tonight. Or any other night, for that matter.”

The lieutenant raised his brows. “Why do you say that?”

“If he’s serious about killing her, why does he give advance warning? Tonight, for instance, he’d know his call would alert the whole house, plus the police outside. He’s a nut, but he can’t be that stupid. I think he’s just been trying to scare her pants off, and never intends to do anything else.”

He thought this over, finally said dubiously, “Maybe, but we’ll play it like he’s serious. I’m doubling the outside guard.”

“Get a reply back from Washington, Missouri yet?” I asked.

He nodded. “Early this evening. A long, chatty wire from the chief of police which boiled down to nothing. He verified the story of Carr’s confinement to the state mental hospital. Even knew about the threatening letter he sent Mrs. Wolfendon before she was married. His folks discussed it with him when she wrote them about it. But he has no idea where Carr is now. His folks died in an auto accident two years ago, and Carr was back for the funeral. Hasn’t been seen or heard from since. At the time he was playing in an orchestra in St. Louis. Played the clarinet.”

“Hmm,” I said. “Miami police co-operating in the search for Carr?”

“Yeah. If we don’t find him soon, I’m going to ask for a house-to-house search.”

It was nearly five by the time the body had been taken away and the police had left. Harbor and I made another check of the doors and windows and went back to bed.

5

The next morning Dr. Hudson dropped by with a nurse, gave Marie another sedative and told the nurse not to let anyone disturb the patient all day. George Harbor retired to his office to make funeral arrangements, and I sat around doing nothing.

At nine I phoned Lieutenant Curry and learned that David Carr was still at large.

At ten I decided to do at least something to justify my fee, and made a long-distance call to St. Louis. I called the Exeter Investigating Service and got hold of Carl Exeter himself.

“Harry Stander from Miami,” I told him. “Got a chore for you.”

“Fine,” he said. “Shoot.”

“I want a check on a man named David Carr, last known to be playing clarinet with a St. Louis orchestra about two years back.” I gave him the description. “At present he’s holed up somewhere in Miami or near by. See if you can track down some former associate who knows his address here.”

“That all you got on him?” Exeter asked. “You don’t know what orchestra he played with?”

“No,” I said. “I know it’s not much. I’m playing an outside chance.”

“Do the best I can,” Exeter said. “Where can I reach you?”

I gave him the Wolfendon telephone number.

At noon the housekeeper prepared some lunch for Harbor and me. The nurse took Marie’s lunch up to her room. Shortly afterward Lieutenant Sam Curry phoned to tell me the inquest was scheduled for the day after tomorrow and ask my opinion as to whether I thought Marie Wolfendon would be sufficiently recovered from shock to attend by then. I told him he’d have to ask Dr. Hudson.

At one P.M. Carl Exeter phoned me from St. Louis.

“This was an easy one,” he said. “All I had to do was phone police headquarters.”

“Oh? What’d you find out?”

“October sixth last. Just a little over a year ago. He committed suicide.”

“What?” I said. “You mean he’s dead?”

“Suicides usually are.”

“That can’t be,” I said slowly. “He’s been sending letters and making phone calls from Miami.”

“Not this guy. Name fits, description fits, and he played clarinet in a local night-club orchestra. Birthplace was Washington, Missouri.”

“What were the circumstances?” I asked.

“Blew his brains out. Left a note asking that a woman friend be informed of his death.”

“What woman friend?”

“Someone down your way. A Mrs. Marie Wolfendon. The police sent her a routine letter explaining his death.”

I didn’t say anything for a time. Then I said, “Thanks a lot. Send me your bill.”

After I hung up, I sat thinking for a long time. Then I rose, left the house without telling anyone and drove to Miami. I drove to the apartment of Professor Emertis Harlon Manners, who is a retired Miami University Professor, and knows as much about handwriting as anyone in the country.

It took the old man about ten minutes of study with a magnifying glass to come to a conclusion.

“It’s a good forgery,” he said. “But this second letter wasn’t written by the same person who wrote the first. I can show you in detail why, if you’re interested.”

“Never mind,” I told him. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Back at the Wolfendon mansion George Harbor met me at the door. “Where have you been?” he asked angrily. “You’re supposed to be protecting Marie.”

“Against what?” I inquired. “She’s not in any danger. Except possibly from the law. Let’s go talk to her.”

He followed me to the stairs, protesting, “Dr. Hudson said she’s not to be disturbed.”

I didn’t pay any attention to him. He followed me clear to her room door, still protesting. I gave the door a gentle knock.

When no one answered, I opened it and looked in. Marie was asleep on the bed, and the nurse was out of the room. I went in, held the door for Harbor to follow me, and closed it behind us. I touched Marie’s shoulder and her eyes popped open.

I took a chair and waved Harbor to another. He glared at me and remained standing.

“Suit yourself,” I said. “But you’ll take this better sitting down. This was a pretty cleverly executed murder.”

Marie’s eyes suddenly slitted and George Harbor’s face smoothed of all expression. “What are you talking about?” he said.

“The murder you and Marie engineered of her husband. It was a smart idea, getting me in as an impartial witness so that I could testify how the ‘accident’ happened. It wouldn’t have stood up nearly as well with only George to testify. Somebody might have guessed you were lovers and had made up the story.”

Neither said anything.

“I’ll spell it out for you so you can be sure I’m not just guessing,” I said. “Over a year ago Marie got word from the St. Louis police that David Carr had committed suicide. When the two of you decided to dispose of her husband, she got the brilliant idea of making use of that old crank letter he’d sent her three years before. She forged a second letter, or maybe you did, George, and sent it to herself. Then you called me in, ostensibly to protect her from Carr, but really to act as an unsuspecting witness to the ‘accident.’ You, George, were the voice on the phone. Both times.”

“You’re crazy,” he spat at me. “I was here in the house both times.”

“Sure,” I said. “You dialed the service number. Every exchange has a number you can dial which makes your own phone ring. It’s for the convenience of repair men and isn’t listed, but you can find out what it is easily enough. Any telephone repair man could tell you. You dialled the service number from one of the extensions, then disguised your voice.”

Harbor started to open his mouth, but Marie gestured him to silence. “What do you intend to do about it?” she asked coolly. “Inform the police?”

I shook my head. “Cut myself in, baby. How many millions do you inherit from Joshua? Twenty? Thirty? I’ll be easy on you. I’ll settle for one.”

“And if we say no?”

“Lieutenant Curry wants those two letters back for evidence, you know. It’s extremely unlikely he’d have the handwriting compared. Unless I suggested it. Once he did, you’re both finished. A comparison would prove the danger from David Carr was not only a myth, but a deliberate fraud. He wouldn’t stop then until he had you both in jail for murder. He’d find out just what happened to Carr, just as I found out, and discover you’d been informed of his death over a year ago. Then he’d dig for evidence that you two are lovers. I imagine he’d find some. You two didn’t come to the point of murder just looking at each other across the dinner table. There’ll be tourist-court owners who will be able to identify you as the couple who registered as man and wife on certain dates. And Curry will find them. He’ll build a case you couldn’t possibly beat.”

Marie looked at me silently for a long time. Then she said in a totally calm voice, “I don’t see anything we can do except agree to Mr. Stander’s terms, George. One million dollars. As soon as the estate is settled.”

She looked at him and a message of understanding passed between them. It was a message which meant, “We’ll agree now, and take care of him later. Just as we took care of Josh.”

I felt a little tingle along my spine. I hadn’t expected to make a million dollars in absolute safety. It was going to be a contest. Either I’d collect or die. But it was worth the risk. I was willing to keep one eye over my shoulder.

If I could manage to live I’d be a millionaire.