Twenty Plus Two

Chapter 12

The apartment house was just off 83rd Street, one of the older ones. The doorman was old, the elevator operator was well past his prime and had to remain seated in his car. The doorman would give out no information. It was quite obvious that the elevator man would not take Alder beyond the first floor until he had the approval and permission of the doorman.

“Mr. Alder of Los Angeles,” Alder told him in his most formal tone.

The doorman spoke into the house phone, listened and then said, “Thank you.” He turned to Alder. “I’m sorry, sir, but Mrs. Delaney is not receiving.”

“You spoke to her personally?”

“She is not receiving.”

“Will you do one thing — take a written message up to her?”

The elderly doorman pondered that carefully. “There has been no specific instruction against it.”

“Do you have some house stationery about?”

This also was not covered by specific instructions and the doorman weighed it. He decided correctly and went into a little room off the lobby. After a moment he returned with an envelope and a card bearing the monogram of the apartment house.

Alder wrote a single line on the card, inserted it in the envelope, and sealed it. He handed it to the doorman. “It’s for Mrs. Delaney personally. It should not be opened by a servant.”

“I’m afraid I cannot guarantee that,” was the deliberately thought-out protest.

“I’m sure Mrs. Delaney would not want the contents of this note seen by other human eyes.”

The doorman mulled that over. He was not ecstatic about the idea. Alder took a bill from his pocket, folding it carefully so that the denomination (a twenty) showed.

“If you will wait here, I’ll do my best, sir,” the old one finally said.

He stepped into the elevator. The door closed and Alder watched the indicator as it moved to four and stopped. It was at four for a long time. A tenant came into the building, rang for the elevator and it came down to the lobby.

The doorman was not in it. The elevator went up to eight, returned almost to the lobby, then stopped and went back up. It stopped at four. Then it came down.

The doorman stepped out. “You may find Mrs., ah, Mrs. Delaney a bit irregular.”

“Irregular? Peculiar?”

“I would rather not use that word. All right, Theodore.”

Theodore, the other oldster, was the elevator operator. He did not speak to Alder at all. When the elevator stopped at the fourth floor, Alder got out.

A door stood open near-by and he went to it. He could see into the apartment, but there was no one in sight. He pushed the door buzzer. A very old Negro finally appeared. His short, kinky hair was completely white and his face was like ancient, well-dyed Cordoba leather.

He said, “This way, please.”

Through a long hall, a musty old living room furnished in antique furniture, through it to a small sitting room at the front of the building. The shades were down almost to the sills, the Venetian blinds were arranged so that only a modicum of light seeped into the room. The room was virtually airless; the windows had not been raised since their weekly cleaning, which was at least six days ago.

Mrs. Delaney sat in a straight-backed, mohair chair. A heavy cane was in her right hand; it reached out, touched the floor. She did not wear high lace collars because the wearing of such was a generation ahead of her. She did, however, have a lace edging about the neckline of her dark blue dress and there was a cameo brooch at her throat.

She was perhaps sixty-five years of age. Possibly less.

Alder said, as he bowed: “Mrs. Delaney.”

Her eyes searched his face, drifted to his body and back to his face.

Finally she said, “You’re not what I expected.” With the hand that was not holding the cane, she reached to a stand beside her and picked up a small silver bell. She tinkled it.

Feet slithered on the thin carpeting behind Alder. He did not look over his shoulder, but he knew that the Negro had entered the room.

“Tell Hugo he will not be needed,” Mrs. Delaney said.

The Negro left and Mrs. Delaney said to Alder: “Hugo is my chauffeur. His driving does not take up much of his time, but I keep him here because I have felt it necessary to have a man here — Arthur is too feeble.”

“I will keep Hugo in mind,” said Alder.

“That is why I told you about him. Now, then,” she raised the white card from her lap. “If you will explain this.”

“Will you read it, Mrs. Delaney?”

“I have read it. That is why I permitted you into this room. I know that you are a scoundrel and possibly worse. Your handwriting is firm, bold I would even say. It indicates a certain strength of character. My late husband was a very strong man. But there wasn’t a dishonest bone in his body. And you, sir, you are not only a scoundrel, but you are a liar.”

She suddenly flipped the card toward Alder. It fell at his feet. He looked down at it.

“Pick it up!”

He stooped. Straightening, he read from the card: “Your daughter is alive.”

“You know nothing about her. You wanted to see me and you chose that scurvy way of gaining entry.”

“Mrs. Delaney, do you believe that your daughter is alive—”

“Of course she’s alive. If she were dead I would know it.”

“You believe in extrasensory perception?”

“A charlatan approached me with that drivel twenty years ago. I am disappointed in you.”

“I do not believe such things myself. I merely asked if you believed?”

“I do not. I know my daughter is alive, because if she were dead I would have heard from her.” Mrs. Delaney snorted, or came as close to snorting as an old woman could. “My daughter may not communicate with me while she is alive, but I am certain that she would leave a note, a message, in her effects that would be forwarded to me after her death. There’s nothing extrasensory about that.” She brought her cane in a few inches, leaned forward and put some of her weight onto it. “I am waiting to hear your excuse for writing what’s on that card!”

“Mrs. Delaney, what do you think happened to your daughter twenty-two years ago?”

“I want your answer!”

“Will you let me tell you in my own way?”

“I have not invited you to sit down because I have not yet decided how long I will permit you to stay.” Mrs. Delaney regarded him fiercely. “Sit down, Mr. Alder!”

Alder moved to the closest chair.

“Bring the chair here. I want to see your face. I shall know if you are lying.”

Alder carried the chair to within four feet of her. He set it down carefully and seated himself. “Thank you, Mrs. Delaney.”

He drew a deep breath.

“Two days ago, in Los Angeles, California, a woman was murdered — no, not your daughter — an older woman. Her name was Julia Joliet. She was a fan mail secretary to motion picture stars. The murder was a rather brutal one and I must go into some, well, rather intimate details.”

“I am old enough to be told of sordid things!”

“Thank you. The woman was savagely beaten. Knocked unconscious. Her brassiere was torn from her body. It was not, however, what the police call a sex murder. She was not attacked.”

“Raped, you mean.”

“Yes. Then why was her brassiere ripped from her body? Because women, some women, use their brassieres as a receptacle for hiding things. It is a natural thing with them. Hide something on the spur of the moment — in the brassiere.”

“You were not mincing words, Mr. Alder, when you said the details would be rather intimate. Go ahead. This woman was murdered because of something she had concealed in her brassiere.”

“That is my belief. Now exactly what she had hidden and what was taken from her, I do not know. Mrs. Joliet handled the fan mail of several actors. Could the thing she was killed for pertain to one of these persons? I do not know, but in her room, which was ransacked thoroughly by the murderer, the police found clippings from a newspaper containing the name of your daughter Doris Delaney.”

The eyes of the woman became mere slits. She did not speak, however. Merely made a sideward movement with her cane for him to continue.

“My occupation, Mrs. Delaney, is searching for missing heirs.” Her eyes opened wider, but she continued to hold her silence. He went on. “The Doris Delaney case is a classic case. I have always been intrigued by such things — the Dorothy Arnold case, the Judge Crater disappearance.”

“You are losing my interest,” Mrs. Delaney said abruptly.

“I will try to regain it. I have a friend on the Los Angeles Police Department. The mention of your daughter Doris had aroused my interest. I discussed it with my policeman friend. I was prepared to drop it, but I could not. A little thing happened. It could have been a coincidence, except that another small coincidence occurred immediately afterward. I do not believe in a sequence of coincidences, trivial though they may be. Julia Joliet was nothing, a miserable woman, eking out a paltry existence. There was no reason for her to be murdered. Robbery was not the motive — at least it did not appear to me that way. Why, then, was such a woman slain — and her person molested? For something she had? Something she knew possibly? An important name was injected into the case. An important name to millions of people who enjoy motion pictures. Had he, this important personage, killed Julia Joliet? I began an investigation of the man.”

“Leroy Dane?”

“Leroy Dane. A very cursory investigation revealed that the man’s facade was built of tissue paper. He was a liar, about virtually everything. And Julia Joliet,” Alder paused. “You knew his name!”

“I still read newspapers, Mr. Alder. A movie star’s name is important here as well as in your California. Go on.”

“The murdered woman was a treasure trove of information — about movie stars. Glamorous people. Why, in addition to her glamor people, should she be interested in Doris Delaney, a girl missing twenty-two years? And if she was interested, why should her murderer then kill her for that information? To get it — to suppress it? It offered interesting possibilities, especially if her murderer should turn out to be the famous motion picture star.”

“Is he the murderer?”

“I have not yet closed the door on that. I came to New York. I had scarcely arrived than I was approached by a man whom I had seen in California, prowling about the premises where Julia Joliet was killed. This man, Mrs. Delaney, is a scoundrel, a man who has spent half of his life in prison. He is interested in Julia Joliet. He is also interested in a missing person — not your daughter, however.”

“There is just one thing I do not like about your story, Mr. Alder,” Mrs. Delaney said. “Your occupation. You say you search for missing heirs. Why?”

“For my livelihood.”

“I repeat, why? A man such as you obviously are—”

“Perhaps I am not what I seem to be.”

“That will require an explanation.”

“I meant — I think you know what I meant.”

“You are an intelligent man. You are strong. At least you seem to be. Unless there is a hidden weakness— How old are you, Mr. Alder?”

“Forty-one.”

“And you are engaged in the occupation of finding missing heirs! Isn’t such a vocation somewhat out of character for a man of your talents?”

“Perhaps my talents are precisely what are needed for such an occupation.”

“You are rich, Mr. Alder?”

“Decidedly not.”

“You have no desire to be rich? To be famous? To do important things?”

“I am exceedingly normal, Mrs. Delaney.”

“You are concealing something, but I will not pry. Not now. Mr. Alder, I have listened to you at length.”

“There is only a little more.”

“I will let you finish. But first I am going to tell you some things about myself. My daughter disappeared twenty-two years ago. I loved her very much, so much, in fact, that I was afraid of the love. I loved her more than I did my husband. That is a hard thing to say, but it is true. My life was centered about her. That is the reason I suggested putting her into the boarding school. My daughter had to grow up, find her own place in the world. I did not want to mold her character too strongly, make her life too utterly dependent on me. And then, in one instant my life was shattered. My daughter disappeared, perhaps met a fate so dreadful that knowledge of it would kill me. Oh, I went through all of it, the agony of the search, the dread of hearing — of learning. I am a stern creature today. Why? Because I have shed all the tears a human being can shed. There are none left in me. There is no love in me, no tenderness, nothing but dry, arid life. I maintain a tiny spark of life, enough to respond to the one call that I still exist for — the call of my daughter. I have no other interests. I contemplated suicide many years ago. I did not commit it because I believed that I had to be here, should Doris return.”

“And if she does?”

“I want no hidden nuances, Mr. Alder. Say what you mean.”

“I am sure you have explored and considered many possible reasons why your daughter ran — disappeared?”

“There are none that I have not thought of”

“Then there is nothing you would not forgive?”

“I just bared my soul to you, Mr. Alder. Why do you ask the question?”

“Because I have studied the case, Mrs. Delaney. It has been suggested that your daughter, in spite of her age, might have been...”

“Pregnant?”

“Yes.”

“Jonathan could not bear that suggestion. Yet he would have accepted it. He did accept it here in his home. It was not a... a stumbling block. Or anything worse that your trained mind could suggest.”

“Mrs. Delaney, what do you think happened to your daughter?”

“You made a slip a moment ago. You used the word ‘ran.’ You believe my daughter ran away?”

“It is an opinion.”

“I have always felt that my daughter did precisely that — ran away. I never believed any of the other things — white slavery, kidnaping.”

“Could you make a guess as to the reason she ran away?”

“I never found an answer to that question. I asked it and asked it, and I could not answer it. Not the pregnancy, if she was pregnant. Her reason had to be a stronger one than that. And it is what hurt the most. She had not the trust in me that I had in her. Nothing... nothing she could have done would have caused me to fail her. But she did not know that. She did not know, deep in her heart that she could come to me, at any time, with any trouble, and that I would have loved her and protected her. There is a strange look in your eyes, Mr. Alder. You are a man who has suffered. A woman?”

“Mrs. Delaney,” Alder said harshly, “you’ve told me some things about your daughter that I did not know before. Just one thing more — can you show me some pictures of her?”

“You’ve seen them in the newspapers.”

“I’ve seen one picture. I would like to see others — all that you have.”

Mrs. Delaney pulled out the drawer of the table beside her chair. She took out a small photograph album, a thin one. But she held it on her lap.

“Tell me something, Mr. Alder. Are you going to find my daughter?”

Alder exhaled heavily. “I think so, Mrs. Delaney.”

She handed him the album.

The black album paper was well thumbed. There were three pictures on the first page. The first must have been taken shortly after Doris’ birth. She was with her mother, a beautiful woman with a tenderness in her face that was hard to believe if one looked immediately at the woman across from Alder.

In the second picture, Doris was possibly two or three months old. She was alone in the picture, lying on her back, on a big silken pillow. The third picture showed her sitting up, leaning against the same pillow. She was four or five months old.

She progressed in age on the following pages. She was a year old, two. Then three. She was walking now, a Dresden doll of a child with flaxen hair.

At the age of six she was on her father’s lap. Jonathan Delaney had been a big man.

“When did Mr. Delaney die?” Alder asked without looking up from the pictures.

“Fourteen years ago. Shortly after the end of the war. September, 1945.”

“Seven, almost eight years after—”

“Yes.”

The pictures continued. Doris at ten, at twelve. She became prettier with each passing year.

Then he came to the famous picture, the one that had been published in almost every newspaper in the land, that had been sent to virtually every organized police department in the United States — and most foreign countries.

But there was another picture in the album on the page following the famous portrait.

Alder looked at the picture for a long time. He said, finally, “When was this last picture taken?”

“At Christmastime, just before — before she left.”

“And this one?” He turned back a page.

“Several months before, around Easter of 1937. It was the best picture we ever had of her. Her father’s favorite.”

“Is that why he released it to the police? To the press?”

“It was an excellent likeness of her.”

“No,” said Alder, “it is not as good as the later picture.”

“It is a better picture of her.”

“At the age of fifteen, yes, not at the age of sixteen — less two months.”

“There isn’t enough difference to matter.”

“There is a great deal of difference, Mrs. Delaney. You are her mother, you would not have noted such a difference. Look.” He got up and crossed to her. Laying the open album on her lap, he pointed with his finger. “This is the picture of a child. This—” He turned the page to the last picture. “This is a flower in full bloom.” He touched his finger to the breasts of the girl in the picture, ran the finger gently down in a curve.

“I am surprised, Mr. Alder,” said Mrs. Delaney in a strained voice. “I did not think you had a mind like that.”

“I am a normal man, Mrs. Delaney. I am aware of a woman’s breast. I am aware of a girl’s breast. Very much aware.”

It was a moment before she looked up at him. “That is important to a man!”

“Yes, Mrs. Delaney.”

She began to muse. “A father watching a child grow up — he is proud of the child, but he thinks of her as a child. Unconsciously he might resent her growing up. What would attract him in a grown woman might be resented by him in his own daughter — the mark of maturity.”

Alder nodded. “A girl in a middy blouse, a girl with a beautiful face, but scarcely budding breasts, a child. The face does not change much in a few months, but between fifteen and sixteen — a girl not in a middy blouse, but wearing a sweater — she is not a child any more. The police were searching for a child.”

Mrs. Delaney stared at the last picture of Doris Delaney. Alder moved away and looked down at her.

“I am sorry, Mrs. Delaney,” he said.

“For pointing out a vital fact I had not seen? For talking to me about — about my daughter’s breasts? It is perhaps an indelicate subject. If it were not important. It is important, isn’t it?”

“It might well be the most important thing in all the world — to you.”

She closed the album and looked up at him. “Forty-one,” she said. “You were nineteen in 1938. You know, Mr. Alder, I wish my daughter had met you in 1938.”

“You could not have said a kinder thing, Mrs. Delaney.”

“I meant it. For you — as much as for poor Doris. Perhaps — perhaps if you had met her, there wouldn’t be as much steel in you as there is. There might not have been — the haunted look that there is in your eyes.”

He stepped up to her again, bent and kissed her on the forehead. “Goodbye, Mrs. Delaney,” he said softly.

“Not goodbye, Mr. Alder. I don’t think it is. I believe you will find my daughter.”

He turned away from her. In the next room he saw the aged Negro servant. The man went to the door with him. As Alder went out, the Negro said, “Goodbye, Mr. Alder.”