No Coffin for the Corpse

Chapter Four: Will-O’-the-Wisp

After kissing the boys at the police station good-by, I took the Parkway back into town at a more cautious rate of speed and without further mishap. From my apartment on East 40th Street I phoned the Wolff house. I suspected that Dudley might have issued orders to Phillips concerning calls from me so I boosted my voice up a couple of octaves and said, “Is this Mamaroneck 3824?”

Phillips admitted it.

“Hollywood calling,” I said then. “I have a call for Miss Kathryn Wolff.” Then I held my hand over my mouth to muffle my voice and create an effect of distance. “Hello. Hello. Orson Welles’s office. Is this Miss Wolff?”

That, I felt sure, would get her if anything would. But I was no Julian Eltinge. My female impersonations apparently needed another week of rehearsal and a tryout in Philadelphia before braving the Phillips criticism. He sounded like George Jean Nathan.

“Miss Wolff is engaged at the moment,” he said coldly, and then skeptically, “If Mr. Welles will call again in the morning—”

I gave in. “Okay, Phillips. It’s me she’s engaged to. Be a good skate and put me through. This is Ross Harte.”

Phillips was a skate all right — one of those flat fishy ones with a sting in its tail. “I thought so,” he said. “I’m sorry. That is impossible. My instructions—”

I hung up. Phillips sounded about as sorry as a man whose rich uncle has just contracted bubonic plague — and about as helpful. I thought it over gloomily and decided that perhaps, after all, it was just as well. Kay’s emotional upset, and mine too for that matter, would have a chance to settle overnight. We could discuss things the next day far more rationally and with greater hope of agreement than now.

I called again the next morning, and, this time, used a smoke screen that put less strain on my histrionic abilities.

“Police headquarters,” I announced gruffly. “Inspector Gavigan speaking. The 1941 maroon Buick Miss Kathryn Wolff reported stolen two weeks ago has been found. May I speak with her, please?”

This approach should certainly confound Phillips. The facts were all true enough; her car had been stolen. But I had taken the Inspector’s name in vain.

“Miss Wolff,” Phillips said, “is out of town.”

I blinked. I was sure he hadn’t caught on that quickly. On the other hand, I didn’t see why he would want to mislead the police department. I couldn’t very well stay in character, however, and express my doubts.

“Oh, I see,” I said. “Where can I reach her? It’s very important.”

My luck hadn’t improved any overnight. The Phillips voice was glacial. “I have no authority to give out that information. Besides, the police found and returned Miss Wolff’s car three days ago. Good day, Mr. Harte.”

The click of the phone as he broke the connection sounded as final as the trump of doom. But I was certain now that he was giving me the run-around. Having guessed who I was, he had reason for wanting me to think that Kay was out of reach. I put through a call to Peggy Shields whose daily column in the Press annotates the comings and goings of the uppercrust.

She promised to look into the matter. Fifteen minutes later she called back. There was disillusion in her voice.

“I thought I had a way with butlers,” she complained, “but the rock-ribbed specimen who answers the Wolff phone doesn’t third-degree very well. He insists that Mr. and Mrs. Wolff and daughter, Kathryn, are out of town but he won’t go into details. He refuses politely but firmly to say where they’ve gone, when they went, why they went, or when they’ll be back. It looks odd. I guess I’ll have to give up my Sunday morning nap and run out there for a personal appearance.”

“Look, sweetheart,” I warned. “Phillips can’t be had. Even if you took Hedy Lamarr, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Carmen Miranda, he’d still make noises like a clam. I know him.”

“But,” she said, “don’t clams have sex?”

“It’s possible, but I’m not so sure about Phillips. Work your wiles on someone else, but get going. Those senators are snapping at Wolff’s heels. He might be taking it on the lam.”

“Oh,” she said. “That would be interesting. I’ll let you know.”

Actually I didn’t think that running out was Dudley Wolff’s style. But I knew that baiting the hook with possible headlines would keep Peggy on her toes. I made a few calls myself, mostly to friends of the Wolffs’. I couldn’t turn up anything on them that dated later than press time the day before. No one seemed to be aware that they had had any intention of leaving town. A few persons who had engagements with one or the other of them within the next few days went so far as to think it all highly unlikely. I was beginning to feel sure that Phillips was perjuring himself in the line of duty when Peggy called back with the answer.

“They’ve gone all right,” she reported. “I checked the air lines. Ten-thirty plane for Miami. Unless they’re headed for South America I expect to find them registered at the Lido Club Hotel where they always stay. But it doesn’t look very suspicious from here. And, if it was, it wouldn’t make headlines in this man’s paper. A little bird at the office just told me that we have a new publisher. Somebody named Dudley T. Wolff, of all things. Is that why you’re interested in Kay?”

“No. It’s the other way around. And you’re only half right. You’re working for him, but I quit last night when he fired me. Thanks for the answers. I’ll stop in some day and treat you to lunch. And, by the way, don’t talk back to your new boss unless you just don’t care what happens. He isn’t used to it.”

I hung up quickly before the conversation could develop into an interview, called Western Union, and sent Kay a wire addressed to the Lido Club Hotel. I wrote a letter too and sent it out air-mail special. I stayed at home all evening waiting for an answer to the wire. None came. At eleven I put through a long-distance call. I got Dunning.

My subtle Machiavellian attempts at deception had all panned out so badly that, this time, I tried a simple direct approach. I told him frankly who was calling and asked politely to speak to Kay. I think he was a bit surprised at having been traced so quickly, but the shock was in no way fatal.

“Miss Wolff isn’t in,” he said promptly. “May I take a message?”

I trusted him about half as much as I did Phillips. “Yes, you might tell her I called.” I hung up, adding to myself, “But I doubt it.”

I tried a night letter then, and asked Western Union to sit tight and try to get an answer. I shouldn’t have bothered. A wire came through less than an hour later. Time magazine never ran anything as curt, clear, complete, or half as upsetting. It read:

If you know of any better excuse for getting tight, I don’t want to hear it. I spent a couple of hours in a bar on Lexington Avenue and managed to forget my troubles temporarily. But they were all back again the next morning, along with some new ones. Item one was the headache I had when I awoke. Item two was the fact that, having failed to set my alarm, I didn’t wake until nearly eleven. The time specified on that court summons was 9:00 a.m.

It was, consequently, noon when I arrived again in Mamaroneck. The judge, a strict disciplinarian, was in no mood to listen to excuses even if I had had any. I pled guilty and let nature takes its course. It added up to twenty-five bucks on each count, plus a few unminced words and some caustic advice from His Honor.

Sergeant Lovejoy, seeing the glum look on my face as I went out, said, “Great Scott, young man, what happened? You look as if he gave you the chair!”

“Well,” I said smiling half-heartedly, “he didn’t exactly kiss me on both cheeks. I’ve got other worries. See you again some time.”

He grinned. “I hope not.”

I could put something in here about coming events casting their shadows, but, not wanting to be tagged as a had-I-but-known writer, I’ll leave it lay, saying merely that the sergeant’s wish did not come true. I saw him again all too soon and under circumstances that gave me even greater reason for looking down at the mouth.

His remarks did serve to call my attention to the fact that I was going to have to do something about my state of mind before I started out to hunt a new job. As I drove back to town I tried hard to push Kay and thoughts of her down into my subconscious and file them under Postponed Business. But the going was tough. I think I managed to erase the expression the sergeant had commented on. I may even have deceived a few of the editors I approached into thinking that I was bright and cheerful. But I didn’t fool myself.

I tried arguing, telling myself that, if Kay could call it all off as easily as she had and for as little reason, perhaps it was just as well. Logically that was sensible enough. I told myself that, too. But it didn’t make me feel any better. Then, on Saturday, I made a withdrawal at the bank that was all-inclusive in its scope, and did what I had known I would do all along. I packed a bag and took the next train out.

I had twenty-tour hours en route in which to think. And I argued myself, more successfully this time, into believing that perhaps Dudley Wolff, being the sort of totalitarian dictator that he was, might be censoring his daughter’s mail before she saw it, and confiscating all notes from foreign powers. And I had, furthermore, no good evidence that the telegram I’d received had really been sent by Kay herself. Dunning could have held back the fact of my long-distance call and, under orders from his employer, been responsible for the wire. The more I considered the theory, the better I liked it. I felt better too. Not a lot, but some.

The first mistake in my military campaign was a disastrous one. I neglected to scout the ground in advance, breezed into the Lido Club Hotel quite openly, and found Dudley Wolff there in the lobby as big as life and twice as snappish, a welcoming committee of one. He saw me before I could take cover. His greeting was nor exactly the ticker-tape, key-to-the-city kind.

He scowled like a hungry shark and came toward me with the same sort of headlong dive. I couldn’t do anything but stand pat and take it, though I did manage to get in the opening shot.

“You don’t look well,” I said. “What is it? Gout?”

His scowl grew still blacker.

I knew the value of appeasement policies and decided to stick to shock tactics. “Careful!” I warned. “Rigor mortis might set in. Or has it? That scowl of yours always seems to be the same.”

“Young man!” he growled. “If you’re here because you think—”

“My presence,” I cut in, “is your own fault. If you hadn’t fired me, I’d have had to stay in New York on the job.”

That thrust penetrated his hide, but it was far from being fatal. It only made him roar louder.

“You’re wasting your time! You can take the next train back because you are not going to see—”

“Don’t tell me you’ve bought a controlling interest in Florida too?” I was enjoying myself now, and feeling more certain than ever that it was not Kay who had sent that wire. If those sentiments were hers, Dudley would hardly need to protest so strenuously.

“Besides,” I added, “I just came down for a swim and some fishing. But I didn’t expect to catch a crab so soon, and in the Lido lobby! Boy!” I beckoned a bellhop and jerked a thumb at Old Faithful. “Send this down to a taxidermist. Get it stuffed and mounted. With its mouth open — like this.”

I demonstrated, then turned and walked out before Wolff could put in a call for a house dick and have me thrown out. Getting through to Kathryn after this was going to take some doing. Wolff would have all the barricades manned. My direct frontal attack had been intercepted too soon, its surprise element lost. I would have to lay out a new and much better planned campaign.

I returned to my own hotel, a smaller one where the uniformed help didn’t wear so much gold braid and the rates were not computed in astronomical units, picked up my bathing trunks, and headed oceanward. I swam out to the farthest float, climbed aboard, and stretched out in the sun to do some concentrated, and highly involved thinking.

Wolff, being the tyrant that he was and disliking me as heartily as he seemed to, was quite capable of keeping his daughter in her room — locked in, if necessary — until I should give up and wheel away my siege guns. I could almost imagine him shipping her off to the nearest nunnery if there should be a nice impregnable one handy. It was going to be difficult.

Of course, if this were light fiction or a Grade B movie, I’d simply disguise myself as Room Service and go in carrying her breakfast tray. But, in real life, that somehow didn’t seem so simple. And, in the Lido, the necessary fix money might very well run to more than I could afford. False whiskers were not in my line either. And, if Dunning was half as experienced as Phillips, which was likely, any act I might put on by phone would be expertly nipped in the bud. Besides, it was still just possible that Kay had sent that wire after all. I much preferred to see her in person.

I surveyed the problem from a dozen angles without being able to crack it to my satisfaction. Finally, I went back to my hotel for dinner still trying to evolve some sort of definite plan. Then, thinking that perhaps the bribe a bellhop would demand for a little fifth-column activity might be within my means, I returned to the Lido Club. I approached more warily this time, watching to see if Wolff had thrown out any advance patrols. None being evident, I picked a likely-looking boy, crossed his palm with some folding money, and showed him my press card.

“I want you to find out if Miss Kathryn Wolff is in. And, if not, see if you can find out where she might have gone.”

He looked at the bill I had given him with interest, but not much enthusiasm. “Why don’t you ask the desk clerk?” he said.

“Because I suspect he’s been told not to give out information to anyone answering my description. But my city editor won’t take that for an answer.” I gave him another bill. “Is that enough?”

He estimated my probable Dun & Bradstreet rating with one shrewd look and decided correctly that, enough or not, it was all he was going to get. “It’ll do,” he said. “Wait here.”

He gave full measure for moneys received, even though the answers weren’t at all what I wanted. His first one was a distinct shock.

“There’s no Miss Kathryn Wolff registered,” he said.

I didn’t believe it. This, I thought, is another sample of Dudley’s genius for organization.

“I see,” I said. “No Kathryn Wolff. What about a Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Wolff? And a man named Dunning? Don’t tell me the desk clerk never heard of them. I know better.”

“They’re not registered either,” he said calmly. “They were, up until about an hour ago. But they checked out. Funny too. Their suite was reserved for another two weeks.” He gave me a suspicious look.

I gave him one in return that Dudley Wolff couldn’t have bettered, said, “Damn!” and then turned and legged it for the nearest phone, muttering other expletives not nearly as printable. I was beginning to have an uneasy feeling that I had been outsmarted in a big way. I realized suddenly that, except for that telegram whose antecedents were doubtful, I had never had any good evidence that Kay had ever left New York at all. It was quite possible that Wolff, discovering I thought she was with them, had done what he could to further the impression. It would suit him only too well if I spent my time chasing after her a thousand miles in the wrong direction.

I called the airport. “Miami News,” I said. “What planes checked out in the last hour?”

“The Chicago plane left at nine.”

“Were there any seats reserved in the name of Dudley T. Wolff?”

The clerk hesitated. “Did you say this was the News?”

I put a city editor’s growl in my voice. “I did. Hurry it, will you?”

“Well,” he said doubtfully. “Just a moment.”

I waited, dithering. Finally his voice came back. “No, not for Chicago, but he has seats on the New York plane. It’s just leaving now.”

I heard it in the phone behind his voice — the low, distant roar of a plane taking off.

“Through tickets?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“When’s the next one leave?”

“Ten-thirty.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, knowing that the fare was going to give my financial rating a disastrous body blow, “I’ll be out. Save me a seat.”

This game of transcontinental hop-skip-and-jump was proving too much for me. I decided that the next time I fell in love it would be with an orphan.

I returned to the hotel, checked out, and took a taxi to the 36th-Street Airport. I am apparently allergic to sleep in both Pullman and plane berths. As a matter of fact, for the past week my sleep had not been of the best quality in my own bed. Consequently, when I landed in New York the next morning, the picture I presented of a man who has just had a relaxing restful swim in sunny Florida waters would have been a distinct shock to the Miami Chamber of Commerce.

I phoned Peg again and asked her to find out if the Wolffs were back in Mamaroneck, whether or not they intended to leave for Cape Horn, and where Kathryn had been all this time.

“Phillips,” she reported back a few minutes later, “grudgingly admits that his employer is once more in residence, but insists that Miss Wolff is still out of town and refuses to divulge any further details on that point. He also states that no South American trip is scheduled. I don’t think Cape Horn sounds reasonable myself.”

“That’s just why I suspect Dudley Wolff might go there,” I growled. “Keep one eye on them for me, will you? And if you see any sign of his daughter I want to know. I’ll be here. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Sleep? At nine in the morning? And what were you up to all night, or am I being personal?”

“Chasing wild geese and counting sheep, believe it or not.”

“What’s that? A special assignment for Country Gentleman?”

“Something like that. I edit the joke page. You’ll get a rejection slip in the mail. ’By.”

I went to bed and dreamed that Dudley Wolff had left with Kay on the 8:15 rocket to the moon. I stowed away on the next flight out — the nonstop Lunar Flyer. But my additional and unsuspected weight upset the navigator’s calculations. The ship promptly curved back and headed for a watery grave in mid-Atlantic. I heard the warning bells that signaled a crash landing. Then, waking, I shut off my alarm clock, took an aspirin, showered, dressed, and went out for lunch, unhappily.

Afterward, I walked cross town toward Times Square. I had some vague idea that perhaps I might be able to circumvent the censors at the Wolff house and get a letter forwarded to Kathryn, wherever she was, by using code or maybe invisible ink. Since The Great Merlini’s Magic Shop was the local headquarters for that sort of thing, I went there. A course of “Ten Easy Lessons in Clairvoyance and Applied Crystal Gazing” might be a good buy, too.

But I purchased none of those things. I even forgot to ask for them. I should have stayed in bed and continued with the dream. A few minutes later I found myself watching a man being buried alive.