The Missing Heiress

Chapter 14

The next morning as I was at my desk with coffee after breakfast, Wolfe called from his bedroom. “Telephone Saul,” he said, “and see if he can be here this morning at eleven.”

“Do I tell him what it’s about?”

“No, we will leave that until he is here,” Wolfe said, hanging up abruptly. The man has never learned phone etiquette and never will. I reached Saul Panzer on the first try, and he also was curious as to the reason for the summons, but I told him he would just have to wait, because I was in the dark, as is often the case.

Panzer had planted himself in the red leather chair with a cup of coffee when Wolfe walked in and rang for beer. “Thank you for coming, Saul. How well do you know Albany?”

“Not very. Oh, I’ve been there a few times, including one forgettable occasion when I did a job for a longtime state senator who said he was being followed and wanted me to find out who was dogging him. I ended up spending a cold night on dark Albany streets trailing the guy who was trailing the senator.”

“Don’t leave us in suspense. What happened?” I asked.

“Turned out the stalker, a hardware salesman, had been on wild goose chase. He thought the senator was having an affair with his wife, but when I got them to meet face-to-face, the cuckold realized he had followed the wrong man and apologized profusely. I was paid, but given my time plus the travel, the assignment was only barely profitable.”

“I hope the experience in that city has not soured you on the possibility of revisiting it,” Wolfe said.

“As Bugs Bunny might say, ‘I’m all ears,’” Saul responded.

If anyone else had delivered that line, Wolfe would have reacted with a scowl or a pfui, but given the esteem with which he holds Saul Panzer, he did not react. “As you know, we have learned through Fred that Maureen Carr took a train to Albany and has not been heard from or seen since.”

“Yeah, good work on his part, not that I’m surprised. I’m guessing you want me to hunt the lady down.”

“Your guess is correct. Do you see any impediments to such an undertaking?”

Saul shrugged. “The good news is that Albany is not all that big. Armed with a photo of Miss Carr, I can easily canvass the downtown hotels, and outlying ones as well, if needed. The bad news is twofold: one, we don’t know if she even stayed in a hotel; and two, it has been more than three weeks since she hopped that train north, so she might not even be in Albany anymore. But I’ve faced worse obstacles before, so I am ready to go.”

“Excellent. Archie, do you have anything to add?”

“Saul’s pretty well covered the situation. I’ll give Lily a call, though, just to find out whether she knows if Maureen has any friends or connections in Albany.”

“I can take a train up there today,” Saul said.

Wolfe nodded his approval and I called Lily, who said she knew no one or nothing to connect Maureen Carr to our state capital.

We did not hear from Saul until the next day, when he telephoned while Wolfe was having his afternoon session with the orchids. “I now can write a guidebook about the lobbies of Albany’s hotels,” he said, “although I wouldn’t bet on what kind of sales it would get. On the fifth place I visited, which is probably the best one in town, the desk clerk immediately recognized Miss Carr’s picture.”

“So she stayed there?”

“Right, Archie, for a grand total of two nights.”

“Did she use her own name when she checked in?”

“I’m getting to that. I asked to see the guest register, and, no surprise, I was told rather primly that peeking at that sacred book was against the hotel’s regulations. But the double sawbuck I slid across the counter to the clerk overrode those regulations as well as that primness. Our lady did indeed check into room 419 as Maureen Carr of New York City, and she checked out at noon on the third day.

“I then asked if she had visitors or got any telephone calls, and because the Andrew Jackson I had given the clerk still had wheels, he told me, albeit reluctantly, that a man had come into the lobby, and that he and the woman who’d registered as Maureen Carr left the hotel, and that she returned later — about an hour and a half later — the clerk thought. He described the man to me as ‘fiftyish, rather short, thin, well dressed, and balding.’ In answer to the question that you are about to ask, he said he’d never seen the man before.”

“Well, that’s something of a start. Got anything more to add?”

“The desk clerk, still impressed by the double sawbuck, introduced me to the switchboard operator, who said she had no record of the guest in 419 receiving any calls, and then he put me in touch with the bellhop, who remembered Maureen.”

“Did he also know anything about the man who came to pick up her up?”

“Like the clerk, he said he had never seen the guy before. But he did tell me that the next day, after she had checked out, he hailed a cab for her, and she took it to, of all places, the railroad station.”

“Which means she could either have got a train south down the Hudson, in the direction of New York City, or west, in the direction of Chicago.”

“You must have gotten good grades in geography,” Saul said.

“In high school, I memorized the names of all the Ohio counties, and in alphabetical order no less.”

“Okay, serves me right for bringing up the subject. Do I need to report to Wolfe, or can I trust you to accurately deliver the information to him?”

“When can you take the next rattler back?”

“Funny you should ask. I’m at the Albany depot right now, and a southbound express, not a rattler, is due in fifteen minutes. The trip takes just over three hours.”

“Which means you should get in by a little before nine. When you get in, give me a call from Grand Central. Instructions to follow. And go easy on the drinks in the bar car.”

“Wow, spoken like an executive. I’m impressed.”

“As well you should be.”

When Wolfe descended, I told him Saul could be here to report after our dinner of pork tenderloin in casserole. He dipped his chin an eighth of an inch in approval, rang for beer, and dove into his latest book, Berlin Diary, by William L. Shirer.

Saul phoned when we were in the office with coffee, and I told him to come ahead and said I would give him a scotch if he hadn’t overimbibed on the train.

Saul must have wanted that scotch badly, because he rang the doorbell twelve minutes later. “The bar car was too raucous for my taste,” he said as he came in and peeled off his coat. “A bunch of commuting types from Upstate who couldn’t wait to begin celebrating the end of the workweek. I retired to a quiet coach with a newspaper.”

“Good evening, Saul,” Wolfe said as he dog-eared a page in his book and set it down. “I hope your trip was not too onerous.”

“I survived it, sir,” Saul responded and nodded his thanks when I handed him a scotch. “I am not proud of my results in Albany. You probably should have sent someone else.”

“I will be the judge of that,” Wolfe said. “Proceed.”

Saul gave the same summary I had heard from him, with one addition. “Just before I boarded the train back to Grand Central, I showed the ticket agent in the Albany station the picture of Maureen and gave him the date and the approximate time she would have been in the depot.

“‘Nope, I was here all that day, and I didn’t see her,’ the agent said, handing the photo back. ‘And I sure as heck would have remembered the face.’”

“What does that tell you?” Wolfe asked.

“One of two things. That Maureen paid for her ticket on the train going south out of Albany, or she had bought a round-trip fare at Grand Central.”

“You like to give odds, Saul. Where was she going?”

“Twenty to one, south from Albany. What’s to the west? Syracuse? Rochester? Buffalo? Even Chicago? I see her going only south, getting off somewhere in Westchester County, possibly, or much more likely, back to New York.”

Wolfe turned to me. “Might she have returned to her residence?”

“Hard to believe,” I said. “Lily has been calling her number every three hours for days, without a response. Oh, I suppose it’s possible she’s there and isn’t answering her phone, but that seems unlikely. Want me to go and take a look?”

“Not yet,” Wolfe said, “although we may call upon Miss Rowan soon to investigate. Does either of you have a theory as to why Miss Carr went to Albany?”

“Beats me,” Saul said. “Archie, you are said to be an expert on attractive women and their foibles. Any thoughts?”

“I don’t know who credited me with such expertise, but whatever insights I am supposed to have about the fairer sex have been greatly overrated, as Lily will be only so happy to point out. I pass.”

“I am at a loss as well,” Saul said. “Miss Carr’s trip to Albany left us with more questions than answers.”

Wolfe drew in air and exhaled. “Archie, we need to keep our clients apprised of the latest developments — Mr. Jurek’s rancorous visit and Miss Carr’s decamping to Albany and her subsequent evaporation. Can you arrange to have them here tomorrow at eleven a.m.?”

Arrange I did. Lily said she was anxious for the opportunity to get caught up, while Mason grumped that he should have heard from us sooner.

When our clients arrived at the brownstone the next morning, their moods of the previous day had not changed. Lily was eager and questioning, while Eric Mason crossed his arms over his chest and stewed. Wolfe entered the room, detoured around his desk, and favored our guests with the slightest of bows.

“Will either of you have something to drink, coffee perhaps? Fritz has brewed a fresh pot.” Lily said yes to coffee, Mason shook his head.

“I have asked Mr. Panzer to be present with us this morning, as he, along with the two of us, have some developments to report, although you will not find them to be wholly satisfactory.”

“I hope I haven’t come here for nothing,” Mason said.

“I echo that hope,” Wolfe replied. “Let us begin with a visit paid here by Stanley Jurek, Sofia’s husband, a couple of days ago.”

“That must have been interesting,” Lily said.

“There are myriad definitions of interesting, Miss Rowan,” Wolfe responded. “I will leave it to you to determine which of them best describes the situation. The gentleman was less than pleased with me because of his contention that my questioning of his wife was overzealous and demeaning. He vigorously disputed my version of events, became violent, and had to be forcibly restrained.”

“Bravo to Archie!” Lily said, clapping.

“No, bravo to Fred Durkin,” I corrected her.

“Back to Mr. Jurek,” Wolfe said. “He entered this office unhappy, and he left it unhappy. Also, he seemed to have little interest in Miss Carr’s disappearance. Has either of you had occasion to meet him?”

“Not me,” Mason said. “I’ve only met Sofia once, when I picked Maureen up to go to the theater. And we only exchanged a few words.”

“I’ve never met Mr. Jurek, and I have seen Sofia several times,” Lily put in. “She has often served drinks and hors d’oeuvres at gatherings of our women’s groups. But like Eric, I have barely spoken to her. She seems pleasant but shy and is very self-effacing.”

“That would be natural,” Wolfe said, “given the duties she is asked to perform in her employer’s residence. Now we come to a trip Miss Carr has taken.”

That got the attention of Lily and Mason, and they started talking over each other with their shocked questions. “Please!” Wolfe said, silencing the cacophony, turning to Saul, and saying, “You will want to hear from Mr. Panzer.”

Saul proceeded to describe his encounter with the doorman at Maureen’s building that led to his learning that a taxi had taken her to Grand Central a while back.

“That was lucky,” Mason remarked.

“Mr. Panzer has a way of making events appear to be lucky,” Wolfe remarked, nodding to Saul to continue.

“The real credit goes to Fred Durkin, whose name you heard a couple of minutes ago,” Saul said. “Given the time of day that Miss Carr headed for the big station, I had guessed she might have taken the Twentieth Century Limited. Armed with her photo, Fred followed up and found a redcap at Grand Central who hauled her bag and remembered she was going to Albany.”

“Why would Maureen go to Albany?” Mason asked. “Seems strange.”

“Do you have any thoughts, Miss Rowan?” Wolfe posed.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t. Maureen and I were in a group that went up there two years ago to appear before a state panel that wanted to learn more about existing facilities in New York for unwed mothers. I recall her saying that it was the first time she had been in Albany.”

Wolfe drank beer and dabbed his lips with a handkerchief. “Mr. Panzer has learned a little about Miss Carr’s more recent visit to that city.” Saul then proceeded to describe his discovery that Maureen had left the hotel with a man said to be “fiftyish, short, balding” and she returned alone an hour and a half later.

“And nobody at the hotel knew anything about this mystery man?” Mason asked.

“Neither the desk clerk nor the bellhop told me they had ever seen him before,” Saul replied.

“Did the guy take Maureen away from the hotel in a car?”

“I asked, and nobody had paid any attention to them, or to the car, either, for that matter.”

“Why not?” the adman demanded.

“Why should they? No one at the hotel had any reason to be suspicious,” Saul said. “For all they knew, it was just a man picking up a woman to go out on a date, dinner maybe. That likely happens all the time.”

“Mr. Panzer is right,” Lily said. “Neither Maureen nor the mystery man, as Eric refers to him, were known to the staff at the hotel. What would they have to be suspicious about?”

“So it seems that we really haven’t learned anything substantive,” Mason said, “despite all your efforts.” He made a sweeping arm gesture meant to encompass Wolfe, Saul, me, and presumably, the absent Fred Durkin. “Did Maureen leave Albany?”

“She apparently did, that day,” Saul replied. “The bellhop put her in a cab to the station. I showed the ticket taker at the depot her picture, and he had no recollection of seeing her board a train, so we’re left to assume she went back south, presumably to New York on a round-trip ticket.”

“Miss Rowan, I understand you make a telephone call to Maureen Carr’s residence every few hours,” Wolfe said.

“I do. There is never an answer, obviously, except once when Sofia answered, hoping, so she said, that it might be Maureen. She was there to do dusting, as she has twice a week since Maureen has been... gone.”

“It is time to again check Miss Carr’s mail. Can you see to this?”

“Of course,” Lily said. “And I suppose you want me to bring the mail to you?”

“Yes,” Wolfe replied. “It will once again remain unopened, but there is a possibility, albeit slim, that something in the post will provide a suggestion as to where she is.”

“Sounds like you are really grasping at straws,” Mason said.

“Perhaps, sir, but even straws can be helpful in telling which way the wind blows.”

“I don’t know about the wind, but I’m paying to find out where Maureen is, and I will spend whatever it takes. There ought to be some way for you to find out who she was with in Albany.”

“Isn’t it possible that Maureen’s luncheon partner that day was her own brother?” Lily posed.

“It is, although unlikely,” Wolfe replied. “However, your point is well taken. We have neither a photograph nor a description of him. Has Miss Carr ever mentioned his physical appearance?”

“No, not once. I haven’t any idea at all about his height, his hair color, whether he wears glasses, nothing whatever,” Lily said.