“No,” Leone cut in.
“
I wasn’t in the reception room then, Mr. Bell. I was introducing a new student to you for an interview. Don’t you remember?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Sorry.”
“I’ve already told you that, Mr. Bolling, haven’t I?”
“Yes, you did, Miss Webb, and if you have nothing new to tell me…”
Bolling went on speaking, but his words became inaudible as the door opened and, in a moment, closed. There was silence in the room. I waited a full thirty seconds before I eased open the door.
I was staring straight into the face of Mr. Oliver Bell. Fortunately, he didn’t see me. His eyes were tightly closed, his head slightly bent. He had his receptionist, Miss Leone Webb, clasped in his arms and he was kissing her. And he was a boy who was being kissed back. Miss Leone Webb was not being the cool, efficient Miss Leone Webb at that moment. In fact, her passion was a little alarming. I almost warned them to break it up… somebody might come in and catch them… but instead I hastily withdrew into the shell of my closet.
I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible. It looked as though I might be here for some time. It was all right for them. You can live on love. But me, I was without food or water.
“Darling,” Leone gasped, “darling… it’s so horrible… happening now, now when everything was going to be so perfect for us.”
“I know, my dear,” Bell cooed. “I know.”
“Can’t we go through with it anyhow, just the way we planned, no matter what happens? No one need find out.”
“But they would find out, my angel. The papers would get hold of it, those infernal columnists…” “What if they did? I wouldn’t care.”
“But how would it look, Leone, think of appearances. This ghastly business about Anita, my school involved… and you and I running off to be married in the middle of it all. It would seem so very callous.”
“Yes, of course, you’re right, Oliver. As usual. But can’t you come home with me? Now, I mean. My lovely apartment’s there, waiting for us…”
“Please,” Bell pleaded, “please, Leone. We mustn’t risk any gossip.” His voice turned playfully, coyly severe. “And I must say, your behavior just now during business hours… really, Miss Webb!”
“So sorry, Mr. Bell.” Leone was mocking her own efficiency. “We won’t let it happen again, will we? Well, just once more. Now, for instance.”
“Darling…”
After a long moment and some small murmurings, I heard a click and then the sound of a door opening and closing. I opened my door and shot through the darkened conference room. I got my gloves, hat, coat and purse out of my locker. I had a few things, which might or might not mean anything, to report to Steve.
The elevator
was so crowded that when its operator implored his passengers to face the front it was all I could do to obey. Theft I wished I hadn’t. My nose was practically flattened against the back of a young man’s neck. As I pulled back my head and my eyes focused, that neck, the ears above it, the set of the shoulders beneath it seemed familiar. I tried to place them. I was trapped too tightly in the now descending car to edge around for a look at the face, so I had to be content to work with what I could see.
Immediately, I eliminated Mr. Bell. Ear-wise, this couldn’t be he. Besides, Bell was taller, older. Then I eliminated Bob Spencer. Neck-wise, Bob was frailer, shoulder-wise, too. This young man had an athletic cast to him… and then I had it.
This was the young man whose voice I had first heard in Studio J, next heard making a phony excuse to a policeman for his presence at 11 Rhinebeck Place. This was a young man I wanted to know more about.
It soon developed that this was a young man in a hurry. Almost before I knew it I was chasing after him through the chill December night… up Madison Avenue, down into an Independent Subway Station, onto an E train bound for Long Island. My maneuvering to keep out of his sight proved unnecessary. He was slouched down in his seat. His hat was pushed so far back off his juvenile, clean-cut face that his crew cut was showing. He was scowling at the floor as though he disapproved of it. He was so engrossed in his own troubles that I could have sat on his lap without his noticing it.
We had a nice, long subway ride together.
He almost missed his stop; he came to just in time. I was lucky to get out between the closing doors. We were in Kew Gardens. I wondered, nervously, what in the world we were doing in Kew Gardens.
He walked rapidly through a business district. I stayed across the street from him. In the middle of the last block of stores, before the terrain went purely residential, was a still lighted stationery-tobacco type shop. He disappeared into it, leaving me with my mouth open, gasping for air. I leaned gratefully against a hobby shop window and waited.
Five minutes later he was still in there. The store had no side exits that he might have used. I was sure that he hadn’t known I was following him, so he wouldn’t have asked to use the store’s rear exit to elude me. I decided I had better investigate. I crossed the street, eased up to the glass door and saw immediately that, except for the chubby, youngish woman behind the counter, the store was empty. My man had gone.
I went into the store. There was a phone booth in the corner; there was no one in it.
“Yes, miss?” The lady’s voice was sweet as sugar. “Can I help you?”
“I saw a young fellow come in here a few minutes ago… I thought I recognized him…”
“You mean Jack Walston? He’s the last person came in.”
“Yes! Jack Walston! I haven’t seen him for years.”
“Not for years, huh? Where’d you know Jack?”
“We… we went to school together.”
“Really!” The lady was so pleased it made me wish Jack and I had gone to school together, any old school. “Grade or high?”
“Grade.”
“I thought it must be grade. Because I don’t remember you. You see, Jack and I went to high together, Flushing High. Course he was a few years behind me. He was in my kid sister’s class.”
“Imagine me seeing Jack again!”
“Yes, after all these years!”
“He was an awful cute kid.”
“And still is! Too bad you missed him.”
“Where did he go?”
“Out the back way. He just stopped in to pick up the car keys.”
“Well, Jack’s doing all right! He’s got a car now.”
“No, he’s borrowing my husband’s. He’s got to go to New Haven tomorrow. Up near New Haven.”
“Oh, New Haven.”
“That’s right. Say, what’s your name? You didn’t tell me.”
I said the first name that was coming into my mind nowadays. “Hester Frost,”
“Well, Hester, maybe you could catch Jack… but, no, I guess not. It’s only a little ways to the garage.”
“He’d be gone by now, you mean.”
“Yes. Too bad.”
“Yes. What’s Jack doing these days?”
“He’s a teacher… over at the Crescent Dancing School.”
“Oh. Crescent. I’ve heard of it.”
“It’s just temporary.”
“And is Jack married?”
“Not yet.” She smiled proudly at me. “He’s going to marry my kid sister.”
“Well, congratulations!”
“Thanks. They been sweethearts since high. They used to be a dance team. Maybe you caught their act someplace. Mostly in clubs around Long Island here. Harris and Walston.”
“Harris,” I said.
“Dottie Harris. Don’t tell me you know her, too!”
“Dottie Harris,” I said. “Dottie Harris.”
“She teaches at the Crescent School, too…”
Now I was getting places. My trip to Kew Gardens had been worthwhile. At least I knew why Dottie Harris had been able to give me the runaround. It hadn’t been a student who I had overheard talking with her in Studio J. Part of what she said had been the truth; she actually had had no lesson at that hour. She had been speaking to a fellow teacher, her fiancé, Jack Walston.
I had also discovered that whatever it was that Jack had wanted in Anita’s apartment, Dottie knew about it. And whatever it might be, it concerned in some desperate fashion the two of them.
Dottie’s sister was smiling at me. Now that she had told me, I could see the resemblance between her and her sister. In a few years, if Dottie didn’t heed the scales, she would be a chubby, overflowing bundle of sugar and spice like her older sister. Then I realized she had been speaking to me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”
Dottie’s sister said, “Jack.”
“Jack?”
She pointed toward the door.
“Here he is,” she said. “Back again.”
I looked, and there he was, back again. He was walking around the front of a black, two-door sedan. He had a raincoat over his arm. He came into the store and grinned at Dottie’s sister; I could tell he liked her.
“Louise,” he said, “I found Phil’s raincoat in the car. He might need it tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Jack.” She took the coat from him. “That was thoughtful of you.”
“Sure,” he said. “I’m thoughtful.”
He glanced at me without the slightest interest. For that I was grateful. But Louise had to open her lovely rosebud mouth. Her voice was hopping with excitement. She was going to love this.
“Jack!” she said.
“Yes?”
“Take a look at this young lady.”
He took a look at me.
He said, “I’m looking at her and I’m enjoying it. But… why?”
Louise giggled; this was rich.
She said, “She don’t mean a thing to you! Boy, you’re not kidding… memory sure plays tricks. Honey,” she said to me, “say something. Maybe he’ll recognize your voice. Speak!”
“Bow-wow,” I said. “Arf-arf.”
“Down, boy,” Jack said. “What, is this?”
“Jack!” Louise cried. “It’s Hester Frost!”
“Hester,” Jack said, very slowly. “Hester Frost.”
The name had rung a bell with him. His memory wasn’t playing tricks. He was remembering, no doubt, that Dottie had told him about a babe named Hester Frost who had come snooping around, minding their business.
His face wasn’t pleasant anymore. His lips thinned into a hard, tough line. His eyes turned frigid. He looked like a kid who was handy with a switch blade and proud of it. He didn’t like me at all. His attitude started the fright churning inside me.
Louise was saying, “She went to grade school with you, she’s been telling me. Grade school!”
“Why, sure, yes!” Jack said. His voice was hearty, playing the big reunion, but his eyes were still frozen. “Sure, little Hester Frost! You sat beside me in Miss Koehler’s room. Whatever happened to you?”
“Whatever happened to Miss Koehler?” I asked.
“Say, do you remember Archie Hall?”
“That stinker? Well, it’s been swell seeing you again, Jack. I’ll be running along now…”
I started for the door. His hand was around my right arm, just above the elbow. I had no idea dancing teachers were so strong. This was painful.
“What’s the rush?” he said. “Let’s have a drink down the street… for old time’s sake.”
“Thanks… but no.”
“Go ahead, honey,” Louise said. “It’s all right. Dot-tie’s not the jealous type.”
“No, really… I’m late.”
“I’ll drive you there,” Jack said. “Wherever it is.”
“Don’t bother, I…”
“It’ll be a pleasure.”
He steered me forcibly toward the door.
“Drop in again, Hester,” Louise called after us. “This has been fun.”
Jack Walston pulled me into the front seat of the car. He flicked on the headlights and started the motor, his right hand still on my wrist. I never had liked one-arm drivers; I hated this one. At the first corner he turned right. He stopped, parked in the middle of the block. He let go of my wrist. He swung his body around under the steering wheel to face me.
He said, “Hester Frost… is that your real name?”
“Of course.”
He was silent for a moment.
“You got yourself a job teaching at Crescent… the morning after the murder. You got Anita Farrell’s job. Coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Somebody had to take her place,” I said.
“But then you start prying into other people’s affairs… why?”
I didn’t answer him; I couldn’t.
Again he said, “Why?”
I heard myself babbling something about being a special investigator for the police… that the cops wanted to know why he was so interested in Anita Farrell’s apartment… that if he’d answer a few questions I might consider giving him a break…
He was laughing at me. He wasn’t making any noise, but he was laughing.
“Hiya, Blondie,” he said. “You’re cute.”
“Now, listen,” I said, “I don’t want to have any trouble with you…”
“Mata,” he said. “Mata Hari.”
“You answer my questions and…”
“Oh, stop it,” he said.
“You just answer my questions and I’ll let you go.”
“You’ll let me go?” he asked quietly. “Look, you don’t have me. I have you.”
“Let’s put it this way… we have each other.”
He said, “Your hands are shaking.”
I clenched my hands together, tight.
He said, “They should be shaking. I have a very vicious streak in me. I fight people who bother me… and bother Dottie…”
With one of my shaking hands, I jammed down the door handle, shoved against the door with my shoulder. He grabbed at me and missed. I was out on the sidewalk. He got out the door on his side and started around the hood of the car toward me.
I scrambled back into the car, got the door closed and locked. I lurched across the seat and locked the other door just in time. I turned on the ignition, stepped on the starter. He was shaking the door handle.
The car lunged forward and sent him sprawling. As I turned the nearest corner, I saw him in the rear view mirror. He was on his feet again, his hands on his hips, watching me disappear.
I had got away from Jack Walston. I had learned a thing or two about him and Dottie Harris. I was doing better this evening than I had all day. But I didn’t feel better for it.
The Barton family was going rapidly to seed. Mr. Barton was the Waltzer, that maniac killer that the police of the world’s largest city were seeking. Mrs. Barton was, at the moment, driving the streets of Kew Gardens in a car she had stolen.
I abandoned it at the subway station. I parked it within sight of an honest looking cop and headed for home. I didn’t duck under the turnstile. I paid my fare and that returned to me a little of my self-respect. I wasn’t completely unregenerate yet.