Staircase 4 Read online

  Death strikes down a man on the eve of his wedding to a lovely girl. The verdict is suicide, but the girl is certain it is murder—certain because of a closing door. Inspector McKee wonders, too, and soon both he and the girl have their hands full trying to catch up with an ingenious murderer who leaves a corpse-dotted trail.

  Persons in the “Staircase 4”—

  GABRIELLE CONANT, a slim, lovely brunette, has given up her job in an advertising agency to marry Mark Middleton. She has pushed the date ahead to assure him—and herself?—that it is love rather than pity that is making her go ahead with the wedding.

  MARK MIDDLETON, wealthy, genial, worldly, has been reduced in three months from a strong man to a cripple, and for that reason has offered Gabrielle her freedom. Big, direct, generous, Mark is a man to whom right is right and wrong is wrong—nothing halfway for him.

  JOHN MUIR, long a close friend of Mark and Gabrielle, is handsome and competent. Too late to do anything about it, Gabrielle discovers that she loves John. And John comes to her on her wedding eve with a strange warning not to marry Mark.

  THE ROUND MAN, whom almost everyone becomes convinced is a vagary of Gabrielle’s imagination, is said by the girl to have had secret doings with the victim shortly before the murder.

  SUSAN VAN NESS, Gabrielle’s cousin, of whom she is very fond, is uncomplicated and domestic, and still in love with her husband in spite of what he has been doing to her and the children in the last five years.

  TONY VAN NESS, Susan’s charming, unscrupulous, irresponsible husband, is a highly paid illustrator, but much good it does him—or his family—since he rarely fails to gamble away his checks.

  TYRELL AMORY, clever and scholarly, is another of Mark’s close friends.

  ALICE AMORY, Tyrell’s small, dark, elegant wife, has ordinarily a sweet temper, but something seems to be putting a feverish edge to it.

  JOANNA MIDDLETON, Mark’s sister-in-law, disapproves of Mark’s marrying Gabrielle, and makes that disapproval subtly plain.

  CLAIRE MIDDLETON, Joana’s tall, shy daughter, stands to inherit her Uncle Mark’s fortune if he doesn’t marry—and for that reason her dislike of Gabrielle is burningly violent.

  BLAKE EVANS, Claire’s fiancé, is easy, debonair, and strikingly handsome. His almost feminine gentleness makes him popular with everyone.

  BRENDA HOLMES, whose name has often been linked with John Muir’s, is 31, beautiful, and an opportunist. She has never married, although she is made for love and has been groomed for marriage since infancy.

  PHIL BOND, Mark’s lawyer, is big, jovial, and not exactly a miracle of tact.

  E. P. GLASS, taxi driver who turns up suddenly in place of the regular driver, is a surly brute with a bullet-shaped head.

  FLORENCE NELSON, thin and badly dressed, is a possible clue to the round man.

  JUDGE SILVERBRIDGE, distinguished, well-liked, has been on the bench for 19 years, during which time no breath of rumor has touched his name.

  CHRISTOPHER McKEE, brilliant chief of the Manhattan homicide squad, is very tall, with a thin clever face, a courteous manner, and a reputation for solving extremely baffling murder cases.

  Copyright, 1948, 1949, by Helen Reilly.

  All rights reserved.

  Reprinted by arrangement with Random House, Inc., New York, N. Y.

  This story was published serially in

  The Woman’s Home Companion

  under the title “Remember Every Word.”

  All the characters and incidents in this novel are entirely fictional.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: The Round Man

  Chapter Two: Warning From an Old Love

  Chapter Three: Up Against a Stone Wall

  Chapter Four: A Ghost of a Case

  Chapter Five: Death by Invitation?

  Chapter Six: New Fears

  Chapter Seven: The White Pills

  Chapter Eight: Missing Fortune

  Chapter Nine: A Pushing Hand

  Chapter Ten: Shadows of Doubt

  Chapter Eleven: The Search

  Chapter Twelve: Second Corpse

  Chapter Thirteen: The Blood-Stained Envelope

  Chapter Fourteen: Aftermath of Two Murders

  Chapter Fifteen: Ex-Wedding Gift

  Chapter Sixteen: The Long Finger of Suspicion

  Chapter Seventeen: The Third Murder

  Chapter Eighteen: Pieces of a Puzzle

  Chapter Nineteen: Through a Window

  Chapter Twenty: The Bloody Coat

  Chapter Twenty-One: Four Dead, One to Go

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Confessions by Two

  Bibliography

  Staircase 4

  Chapter One: The round man

  GABRIELLE CONANT SAW THE ROUND MAN for the first time on the twenty-fifth of June. She was lunching that day with Mark Middleton, the man she was going to marry, in Mark’s apartment on Central Park West. The round man came to see Mark. He arrived with the sweet. It was being placed on the table when the front doorbell rang. To Gabrielle’s surprise Mark answered the ring himself. He said to his housekeeper, Mrs. Pendleton, who was serving, “I’ll go, Etta,” and pushed back his chair.

  Phil Bond, Mark’s lawyer, and Phil’s wife, Julie, were there. They both protested. “Mark, must you?” “Look here, old man, let me—” They knew Mark well.

  Gabrielle knew him better. She said nothing. Three months earlier, out of a clear sky, Mark had been stricken with polio. It was a vicious attack. He recovered, he was very strong, but the disease had left him with damaged knees. The doctors told him that he was remarkably lucky to have got off so easily and that in time, with the proper treatments, his condition would improve. They couldn’t promise that he could play tennis or golf or ride again, at least not for a long while. Mark had always been active physically, was fond of sports, had been a runner-up for the amateur golf championship in ’46. The affliction was a bitter blow.

  He had offered to release Gabrielle from her engagement as soon as he was out of the woods. Gabrielle had smiled, tapping his cheek with slim fingers. “Trying to jilt me, are you? Very well, I’ll sue for breach of promise.” She had advanced the date. They were to be married on the twenty-third of August.

  That day in the dining-room, Mark said to Phil Bond, “Stay where you are, Phil, I won’t be a moment,” and picked up his canes.

  All three of them, Phil and Julie and Gabrielle, watched him make his difficult way from the table to the door, big body twisting from side to side, one shoulder higher than the other. His limping progress was heart-rending. He opened the door and went out. As he did so Gabrielle, and Gabrielle alone from her position, caught sight of his visitor.

  The living-room adjoined the dining-room. The foyer was at the far end of the living-room. The round man stood on the threshold of the foyer. Hot August sunlight striking through the west windows was full on him. He wore a gray suit and a gray soft hat and carried a briefcase under his arm. He was of middle height or slightly under and everything about him was round, his head, his face, his plump shoulders, his arms, his legs, his body, the thick-lensed glasses hiding his eyes so that he didn’t appear to have any. A seal dressed in male clothing would have had the same sloping contours. The door closed then, cutting off Gabrielle’s view.

  Mark wasn’t long, he came back in a moment or two. Gabrielle looked her interrogation but Mark said nothing informative. He picked up the thread of the argument he was having with Phil Bond about flight records when the interruption came, and she forgot about the round man for the time being.

  She saw him again eight weeks later to the day.

  It was on Wednesday, August the twentieth, and she and Mark were to be married on Saturday. They were to have met at the Devon for lunch at
one-thirty but Gabrielle was late. A disturbing telephone call had detained her just as she was leaving home. The trouble wasn’t new. Susan’s husband, Tony Van Ness, a magazine illustrator, was on the rampage again.

  Susan was Gabrielle’s cousin and the two girls had been brought up together. There ought to be a law against men like Tony Van Ness, Gabrielle thought vindictively, driving south. It was too bad the stocks weren’t still in existence—that was where Tony Van Ness ought to be made to take up permanent residence. For one thing he was an inveterate gambler and nothing would ever change him. For another he was completely undependable. All his magnetism, his good-humored gaiety and charm, couldn’t wipe out what he had done to Susan and the children, taking the roof from over their heads, the food out of their mouths with his debts, not once, but again and again. When he had completed a commission and had money he spent it, or gambled it away. Then there would be another period of poverty.

  Susan had said over the phone, “Tony didn’t come back from New York last night with his check. He got it yesterday. No, Gabrielle darling, there’s nothing you can do—except if you see him don’t give him any money.”

  Gabrielle had no intention of giving Tony Van Ness a penny. She had already underwritten one of his major indiscretions with a considerable sum, the bulk of her backlog. Susan didn’t know about it. She was independent, proud, and it would kill her to know, Gabrielle thought, as she entered the lobby of the Devon.

  Mark was there, off to one side, leaning on his canes, big and wide-shouldered but too thin for his height, and with the pallor of illness still bleaching the tranquil planes of his face and making the shining green-brown eyes under straight brows seem too large for it. A little rush of tenderness went through Gabrielle at the sight of him. How brave he was—and how right she had been.

  She started toward him.

  Mark was facing in her direction but he wasn’t looking at her. He was gazing fixedly past her shoulder at someone or something beyond her. Gabrielle turned, looked where Mark was looking—and saw the round man, in the same gray suit and gray hat, trotting busily through the revolving doors and across the pavement to the curb. There was a car drawn up there. The round man got into it and it slipped into streaming traffic.

  Gabrielle turned back. Mark had hobbled across the lobby. His expression shocked her. He didn’t often lose control. When he did he grew cold instead of hot. White and coldly staring, utterly still, his face was a death mask of itself. He was pale with fury.

  The mask stirred. His lips parted. “So that was it,” he said in a low voice, “that was it.”

  Oblivious of where he was, of the hotel lobby with people passing to and fro, Mark was talking to himself. “Mark!” Gabrielle laid a quick hand on his arm. She had to speak twice before Mark heard her. He withdrew his gaze from the street slowly, looked down at her as though she were a stranger. Then his face cleared. “Gabrielle… I didn’t see you.”

  She said, “I know you didn’t. Mark, what is it? What’s wrong? Why were you so angry? Who is that round man?”

  “Round man?” Mark was puzzled.

  “The man who came to the apartment in June—the man in the gray suit who just went out.”

  Mark looked down at her. For a moment, rather a long moment, Gabrielle thought he was going to explain. If he was, he changed his mind. Straightening his shoulders, shifting a cane, he took her arm. “I’m not angry now. I’m hungry. That fellow is of no importance, none whatever. Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

  During lunch in the big cool dining-room with the fountain in the middle and bright birds hopping around in silver-gilt cages he was himself again, calm, cheerful, asking her whether she had had a good sleep, what she had been doing, describing his morning with the doctors. “I think they do it with mirrors, at a price. Oh, well, let the boys have their fun. Anyhow, my knees are much better. Dollars to doughnuts I’ll be beating you at tennis out in Phoenix before Christmas arrives. I wish that we could have gotten away sooner, though.” He was regretful.

  They were to spend their honeymoon in New York so that he could go on with his treatments for another two months. After that they were to go to the Southwest for an indefinite period.

  “Nonsense,” Gabrielle said. “I like New York. And I’d rather have my cake and not eat it. We’ll have the West to look forward to. As long as you’re getting better steadily, and we’re together—”

  Mark glanced down at the canes leaning against his chair and then across the table directly into her eyes. “You’re sure, Gabrielle?” His voice was deeper.

  Gabrielle didn’t have to steel herself to bear his glance. All that was gone, over and done with. It had been burned away, purged out, when Mark was ill and fighting for his life. Nevertheless, she was glad John Muir wasn’t in New York. It had made things easier. She said, smiling at Mark, “I absolutely refuse to answer foolish questions,” and put out her hand. Mark covered it with his.

  After that they talked plans. The wedding was to be very simple, a short church ceremony followed by luncheon at Sherry’s for their few relatives and one or two close friends. Mark said his sister-in-law, Joanna Middleton, and his niece, Claire, were in town. They had come down from the country that morning, were at the Waldorf. “Joanna wants us for dinner tonight. Get there as early as you can, will you, dear? I may be detained.”

  There was nothing Gabrielle craved less than a tête-a-tête with Joanna Middleton. Joanna didn’t like her, didn’t approve of Mark’s marriage, had made her disapproval subtly plain. Mark knew nothing about it. There was no reason why he should. Joanna Middleton’s likes or dislikes were of no importance.

  “Detained?” Gabrielle asked. “But you will be there?”

  Mark shrugged. “Probably. If I can’t make it, I’ll call. I’ve still got a lot of odds and ends to attend to.”

  It struck her suddenly that he was tired, that his face had a closed, white look to it. The doctors had warned him not to overtax his strength. “Don’t try to do too much,” she pleaded.

  He laughed. “I’m not likely to—loafing’s my meat.”

  There was a faint undertone of bitterness in him she didn’t understand. At thirty-eight Mark was a vice-president of the firm in which he owned a large block of shares. He was taking a year’s leave of absence which, he said himself, was merely a formal gesture, as he seldom had anything to do except to sit at a big desk and twiddle his thumbs. But his mother had been a very wealthy woman and he was accustomed to leisure. Early in life he had learned to play and enjoy it. Inherited wealth hadn’t made him selfish. His charities were personal and extensive and he was always ready to help a friend out of a jam, sunnily and without ostentation. He wasn’t sunny now.

  Gabrielle studied him. Something was worrying him that he didn’t want to talk about. “Mark,” she said on impulse, “take the afternoon off. Let’s drive out into the country somewhere—get away from New York. Let’s—”

  He shook his head. “I wish I could, dear. I can’t. There are certain things. I’ve got to wind up. Then I can rest—and forget about them.”

  The shadow was back in him again. It was more than a shadow, it was a terseness, a hard, cold, cutting edge with which she was totally unfamiliar. For a moment he looked like a different man. What was he worrying about? She didn’t insist. The waiter brought the check.

  Outside, in front of the cloakroom, Mark gave her the pearls.

  It had rained earlier and Mark had a raincoat with him—even in the warmest weather he had to be careful. The attendant handled his coat clumsily and the box fell to the floor. Mark’s canes handicapped him. He made a move but Gabrielle picked up the box. It was of green leather, beautifully tooled. She extended it to Mark. He sprang the lid, and Gabrielle looked at palely shining bubbles against ivory satin. It was a string of pearls. The pearls weren’t large but they were exquisitely matched. She said, “Oh, Mark, you shouldn’t have—”

  He said, “Nonsense. Bought them for you this morning—
but I didn’t give them to you because the catch is defective. I’ll have it fixed. I thought you might like to wear them Saturday.”

  Saturday. The day they were going to be married. In less than seventy-two hours she and Mark would be man and wife. It would be a relief to get it over with. Not that she had any last-minute doubts. If her own misdirected and undisciplined nature had led her into devious bypaths, she was back on a straight road.

  They left the restaurant, parted on the pavement outside at a few minutes after three. Mark was going down to his office, Gabrielle was going home to do some packing. “Don’t forget,” Mark said, “dinner with Joanna and Claire at seven. I may be late.”

  “Don’t be,” Gabrielle begged. “What could possibly keep you so long?”

  He said vaguely, “Oh, this and that,” kissed the tip of her nose, put her into the waiting cab, closed the door, and waved good-by to her with a cane.

  Ten blocks to the north Gabrielle stopped her cab and got out. She felt the need of exercise. She was too tense. Midafternoon light, syrupy and straw-colored and uninspiring, filled the streets. There was a dreamlike drowsing quality to the day, like a slow-paced halfhearted dance. She had always disliked August, the month without drama, the turn of the year, with summer fading and autumn not yet ready to take its place. The pavements were hot underfoot, the city heat-blanched and stickily depressing.

  At Thirty-Eighth Street she turned east into the Murray Hill section. How delighted she had been to get an apartment there when Susan was married five years ago. Now she was glad she was leaving it. Mark’s huge duplex on Central Park West with the trees a vast green lake below was infinitely nicer. There was space there, and you could breathe. She was to have her own sitting-room on the second floor. When Mark had had the room done over for her, he said, “I know you’ll want to be alone sometimes. You can have your books and pictures and close the door whenever you like and no one will disturb you.” How understanding he was! She had lived an individual life for so long that occasional solitude was a necessity to her. Yes, it would be pleasant to make the change. And Mark’s apartment held no memories.