Compartment K Read online

  He was in the middle of the long narrow corridor, walking toward her. His head was bent. He raised it, and caught sight of her in the gloom.

  “Rose.”

  There was no more than a couple of feet between them. They were both standing still. Daniel’s voice was just barely audible over the clacking of the rails, the noise of the storm. He was uncertain, embarrassed, miserable. He moistened his lips nervously, his eyes, very blue in his thin sensitive face, on hers. Fine carved nose, sweet mouth, he was the same Daniel he had always been, showing his emotions as openly as a boy of ten, because he had never learned to hide them, it had never occurred to him to do so.

  Rose didn't want to be alone with Daniel Font, didn't want him to say anything. He had said it, finally, in action, eight months ago. Besides, what could he say? “I thought I loved you and then I met Candy and I knew I didn’t love you, that I loved her, and I didn't have the courage to come and tell you in person.”

  She said lightly, “Hello, Daniel,” and tried to step past him. He was blocking her path. A sudden lurch of the train threw her forward. Daniel caught her. It was at that moment that Candy and Loretta Pilgrim arrived from the lounge car. It was Candy who spoke.

  “I hope we’re not—interrupting something?”

  Daniel’s arms dropped. His hands were clenched. On her feet again. Rose half turned. Candy’s glance wove between her and Daniel. She was serene, untroubled. Her lips were curved mischievously.

  Daniel stared at her, shocked. “Candy! Rose and I just met. . . . She almost fell—”

  The poor idiot, the poor pathetic idiot, infatuated with this stick of a girl he had taken to wife, this empty malicious puppet. . . . Rose smiled over her shoulder at Candy. She said, “You haven't interrupted anything important, Mrs. Font. This place is much too public for what you have in mind, don’t you think?” and turned her back and walked on down the corridor.

  Inside her compartment with the door closed, shaking with fury, she damned Daniel and Nils for leaving her alone, and Loretta Pilgrim and her daughter and the whole horrible journey. Under her rage there was bewilderment and a thin edge of fear.

  She had talked to Elizabeth over long distance on the day before she left New York. Elizabeth knew about Daniel and her, she hadn’t said a single word about Daniel, and Candy and Loretta’s prospective visit . . . Why?

  TWO

  Rose was right. Nils Gantry had met someone he knew. When he entered his bedroom in the car ahead to fill his flask, it was to find the small gray man who had been opposite him in the lounge car earlier ensconced in a corner of the seat beside the window gazing out at the storm. The little gray man in the dim gray suit was Detective Todhunter, attached to the New York Homicide Squad.

  Todhunter said, “Hello, Mr. Gantry,” and Gantry said, “Hello, yourself,” and glanced at him keenly.

  “I got your signal back there. Why didn’t you want me to recognize you? Business on board?”

  The little detective nodded. “I thought maybe I’d better have a word with you first.”

  “You’re tailing someone?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What for?”

  “Murder.”

  The haste went out of Nils Gantry. Sudden sharp interest replaced it. He straddled the single chair, folded his arms along the back and rested his chin on them.

  “Who?”

  Todhunter said mildly, “We don’t know yet, Mr. Gantry, and that’s a fact. I’m just keeping an eye open, in case. And not to lose touch.”

  He gazed thoughtfully at the younger man. He had known Gantry for more than ten years, since the days when Gantry had been a leg man at headquarters for one of the big dailies. Gantry was all right. He had made quite a name for himself in the writing line, and he was a friend of the inspector’s—but would he be discreet? He was mixed up with the O'Hara girl, and she was mixed up with those people. . . . Todhunter decided to take a chance. Gantry was a shrewd egg and might get on to it anyhow, when he saw the New York papers. Like all newspapermen, or men who had worked on newspapers, he read them thoroughly, and even though the item was small he might make the connection.

  “What do you know about a woman named Elizabeth Questing, Mr. Gantry? The widow of Humphrey Questing.’’

  Gantry eyed the detective. “She’s not on board. She’s up at Amethyst Lake in the Canadian Rockies, recuperating from a broken ankle.’’

  “Yes, I know. That's what we got. Well, now, I’ll tell you—but keep it under your hat.'' He began to talk.

  Three nights earlier, on the night of August the tenth, a woman had been killed on a side street in New York, in the Murray Hill section. Very early on the morning of the eleventh her body had been found lying in a gutter between Lexington and Third Avenues, nearer Lexington than Third, on the north side of the street. The precinct men thought at first that she was a hit and run victim, that she'd been killed by a car. Then blood from her wounds spattered in minute drops over the sidewalk led them to the scene of the actual slaying. It was the courtyard of a large private house fronting on Lexington, and taking up the entire corner. The house was owned by Mrs. Elizabeth Questing.

  Gantry whistled softly. “That's where Rose and I are going to stay, with Mrs. Questing at Amethyst Lake. Rose is a cousin of Elizabeth Questing's."

  “I know," Todhunter said, “I heard you talking in the lounge car. Anyhow, we were called in. We don’t know the dead woman's name, who she was or where she came from. No pocketbook, cheap clothes that could be bought anywhere. All we do know is this. According to a lady named Mrs. Adams who owns the house next to Mrs. Questing's, the dead woman was pounding on the front door of the Questing house late that afternoon. The nearest we can place it is somewhere between 5:15 and 5:30."

  “Pounding on the door?"

  “That's right. Pounding on the door, punching the bell and making a lot of noise. Nothing happened. The door didn’t open and the woman couldn't get in. She sat down at the top of the steps, crying and wringing her hands and generally carrying on. Mrs. Adams saw her from the window of her own house next door. She watched for a couple of minutes and then, deciding that the woman was drunk, went about her business. When she looked out again, maybe half an hour later, the woman was gone. That would have been at around six, maybe."

  Todhunter said that Mrs. Adams was the only one they had found who saw the dead woman alive. “She’s positive it was the same woman who was banging on the Questing door, recognized her by her hair and her build and a green cotton dress she wore. Anyhow, the woman was killed roughly betveen 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. that night in the courtyard of the Questing house. The side of it is to the street. Behind the house there’s a wall with a high iron gate in it but the latch is broken and anyone could have opened it, all you have to do is to give it a good push.”

  “But the house was empty,” Gantry said. “Mrs. Questing’s been at Amethyst Lake for a month or more.”

  Todhunter nodded. “The house was closed up tight when we went in, dust sheets and all, but—again according to this Mrs. Adams—a man and a woman were in the Questing house earlier that day, the tenth—a Mr. and Mrs. Belding. The Beldings are employees of Mrs. Questing’s. They had been with her in Canada, had come down to New York on business for her. They weren’t staying in the house, they were staying at a hotel, but they went to the house to get some papers for Mrs. Questing shortly after noon. Mrs. Adams saw them arrive, and talked to them. At around two o’clock Mr. Belding went out. Mrs. Belding might or might not have been still in the house, Mrs. Adams didn’t know. She didn’t know the hotel they were staying at. All she could tell us, we talked to her on the morning of the eleventh, was that the Beldings were leaving that same morning on the Laurentian for Montreal where they were to pick up this train. I had about half an hour to make it.” Gantry asked how old the dead woman was and what she was like. Todhunter gave his head a shake. “We couldn't tell much what she looked like alive, her face was in pretty bad shape. Low income bracket
—permanent, dye job, clothes, scent. Teeth no good. False uppers and lowers, worn quite a while. The autopsy didn’t do much for us either. She was in her thirties, and had had at least one child. That was about all except for the contents of the stomach. Plenty of alcohol. She’d been drinking up to within half an hour of death—the Inspector's working that angle. Anyhow, there it is, and I’m off on a vacation to the Canadian northwest for my health.”

  Rain slashed the windows and lightning flashed. Outside in the corridor a woman gave a small scream. Thunder cut it in two. Tod hunter got up. At the door he said, ‘Tin in textiles, gray goods, we just met and you don’t know me from Adam," and oozed out of the bedroom after a glance to see that the coast was clear.

  Nils Gantry filled a flask with Scotch slowly and thoughtfully, and followed. Rose wasn't in the lounge car where he had left her. He retraced his steps to her compartment. Near it he flattened himself to let a man go past. The man went into the compartment next to Rose’s. Gantry pressed Rose’s buzzer.

  She opened the door only a little way. Gantry said, "Sorry, I met a man.” Rose didn't want a drink then. "I’m tired. I think I’ll rest for a while. Let’s have a couple before dinner. What time is it now?’’

  They both looked at their watches. It was all but 6 o’clock.

  Rose said, "Give me an hour or so. O.K.?”

  Nils said O.K. and returned to the lounge car. The big guns were moving up, thunder was now practically continuous. It was almost dark. The train drove on furiously, cleaving the storm, tossing it contemptuously aside.

  In spite of the storm, pulling down the shades to shut out the lightning, Rose did fall asleep. She hadn’t had much sleep the night before and the scene of a few minutes earlier had completed her exhaustion. So it was evidently to be open war. Candy Font had been deliberately provocative. ‘Are we interrupting something?’

  There was nothing to interrupt, and yet—Rose prodded a pillow against the end of the seat into shape—she was aware of the conflict at the back of her mind. Nils meant a great deal to her, sometimes she didn’t like to dwell on how much, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate Daniel. She had tried to, and failed. He was selfcentered, yes, and thoughtless, and carried off by the impulse of the moment, but he was sweet and gentle and kind, and she would always be fond of him.

  Her eyes closed on that. Somewhere in broken dreams a tire exploded and the convertible in which she was riding went spinning into space. There was a lot after that. She couldn't remember it later.

  She woke abruptly. Something had roused her. She didn’t know what it was. She blinked and sat up, pulling the pillow from behind her and stretching. The click-clack of the rails was fast. The storm was raging as furiously as ever. Her watch said 6:16. She was blinking sleep, less than twenty minutes worth of it, out of her eyes when the door opened. There was no knock, no ring. The door opened suddenly. It was Daniel who came in.

  Daniel closed the door, put his back against it, and stood staring straight ahead of him at nothing. He didn’t look at her. She was frightened.

  “Daniel,” she exclaimed sharply and half rose. She sank back, boneless.

  Daniel didn’t say anything. He seemed to be listening—or in a daze. His face was absolutely colorless. One hand was thrust into a pocket, the other hung nervelessly at his side. His eyes were a dark sparkle between half-drawn lids. His mouth was out of shape, a ridge. Rose thought, He’s ill . . . something terrible has happened. . . .

  “Daniel,” she cried, “what is it?”

  Still no answer. Without speaking, Daniel turned, locked the door, lurched across the compartment and dropped down on the opposite seat. He sat there, his shoulders hunched, as though he found breathing difficult. He looked exhausted, almost as if he were dying. His mouth opened. His eyes were on hers now, beseeching her, for what she didn’t know. He tried to speak and couldn’t. Finally he managed to get the words out.

  “Don’t . . . Don’t let anyone in. A minute . . . I’ve got to have a little—”

  This, Rose knew, was no sentimental interlude. Something frightful had happened. Daniel was like a man who had just heard his own death sentence pronounced, without warning or hope of reprieve. He kept on gazing at her pleadingly. A deep shudder went through him. He gave himself a shake, and sat up.

  “Have you got—any liquor?”

  Rose went to the smaller of her two bags under the cabinet beyond the end of the seat. She opened the bag and took out a bottle of bourbon. Daniel drank from the bottle, throwing his head back and letting the liquor roll down his throat. He took the bottle from his mouth and rested it on one knee, took another long drag, wiped his mouth, and handed her the bottle, as if she were a bartender, or a maid.

  Rose held its coolness tight between her hands. The whiskey began to do its work. Thunder crashed deafen ingly, rolled off boom ing. Outside in the corridor people went by. Voices. A woman laughed. The voices receded.

  “Daniel." Rose was quietly firm. “Stop gibbering." He reached for the bottle. “No," she corked it. “You’ve had enough for now. Tell me what happened. What is it? What’s the matter?"

  Daniel moved his head from side to side, his fingers at his collar as though it was too tight.

  “You don’t know him, Rose. You never spoke to him.”

  “Who are you talking about?"

  “Gil Davidson.”

  Gil Davidson, the man who had joined her in the lounge car. who said he was Elizabeth’s cousin, and who had been so interested in why Elizabeth had asked Loretta Pilgrim and the Fonts to be her house guests.

  “What about Mr. Davidson?”

  “He’s dead."

  Rose stared at blue lightning around the edges of the drawn shade. Dead. Finished. Done with. It couldn’t be true. No man was more alive, more assured of continuing and successful life. She had been with him less than an hour ago . . .

  Daniel went on tonelessly, "I walked into his compartment just now. He was sitting there. . . . There was blood all over him. The train swung and he started to fall sideways. I caught him. His eyes were open. He fell back. He sat in the corner and didn’t move. He wasn’t breathing. I felt his heart, tried to get a pulse. There wasn’t any. I was going to ring for help when I kicked something, ft was a bullet. It was lying on the floor. Maybe he shot himself. Maybe he did. Only—"

  “Only what?"

  “There was no gun. I looked.”

  No gun. Rose had difficulty with her own breathing. She steadied herself. Take it slowly. No wonder Daniel was in a state of near collapse. And yet . . . wasn’t he—a little too shaken? From what she had gathered Davidson was no more than an acquaintance. . . .

  Tightness constricted her throat. Her mouth was dry. Why had Daniel come to her? Why hadn't he given the alarm, rung for the porter, for help? Had he come to her because he thought she would shield him if—

  “Did you have anything to do with his death, Daniel? Did you kill him?”

  “I, Rose? Did I kill him? Good God, no. I hardly knew him. He was a friend of Loretta’s and Candy’s. He came to the house occasionally with people. I don’t suppose I’ve seen him more than half a dozen times.”

  Rose dug into her pocket for a cigarette. “Then you have nothing to be afraid of.”

  It was there that desperation came into Daniel. He evaded her eyes, looked past her. Sweat beaded his forehead. A drop made a channel down one blue veined temple.

  “It’s not—that simple, Rose. I think Davidson was infatuated with Candy. I think that’s why he came along on this trip. He had money, could do as he pleased.”

  “That was what made you go to his compartment?”

  Daniel nodded. “Yes, that’s why I went—to tell him to keep the hell away from my wife.”

  Rose wras appalled. A jealous husband—a dead lover. Daniel had a hot temper. . . . But there was more to it than that. A bullet— Davidson had been shot. Whoever had killed him had gone to his compartment prepared, armed with a weapon. It wouldn’t have been
difficult to slip into the compartment unobserved, shoot, close the door and walk away. The noise of the train and the thunder would have kept the shot from being heard. More lightning, simultaneously a smashing crack overhead; her ears rang.

  Daniel was talking, dully. “They’ll say I shot Davidson because of Candy. It isn't true. Three months after we were married Candy told me she wanted a divorce. I told her to go to it, I wouldn’t stop her but,” he shrugged, “she changed her mind.”

  There was no bitterness in him, there was a weary acceptance. Rose wras wrung. So that was what it had come to in so short a time, Daniel’s great adventure. He had broken with her to marry a girl he had fallen madly in love with and within three months the marriage was on the rocks. It was evidently going to be a habit with Candy.

  Young as she was she had already shed one husband. Would there be a succession of them?

  Daniel went on tonelessly, "Davidson didn’t know Candy. He thought, as I thought, as most men think, that that childish air, that little girl innocence, is real. . . . There’s nothing behind it, nothing. Don’t get me wrong. Candy's not bad. She simply doesn't mean what her looks say she means. It just isn’t there. She’s not built that way. Money, plenty of money is what she needs—she likes to buy things, to own things. ... If I could make more money she would be perfectly happy. . . ."

  He sat up straighter and his jaw firmed. “Candy is my wife. I didn’t want Davidson hanging around and making her conspicuous, making all of us conspicuous . . . but will the police believe that. Rose? Will they? They will not."

  Pie was right. Whatever Daniel’s feeling toward Candy now was, it certainly wouldn’t impel him to kill, Rose thought. He couldn’t deceive her where his emotions were concerned. She knew him too well. But the police didn't know him, and Candy was beautiful. ... A husband, a wife and the other man—the police would follow the obvious line. When they found out . . . need they find out? Daniel had opened a door, had come on a dead man, and had beaten a retreat. That was all, nothing more.