The Silver Leopard Page 9

  Tom La Mott beamed. “It does clear her, doesn’t it, Inspector? Now she won’t have to be bothered anymore.” McKee was pleasantly noncommittal.

  It was Hat La Mott who raised the only objection. She did it prettily, trying to solve a dilemma. Brown brows flattened, the fingers of her small hands linked, she followed a chain of reasoning laboriously. “But—but I thought, perhaps I’m wrong, but I thought that according to what those people—The Findlaters—said, no one rang Mike’s bell after Angela left until Catherine got there.”

  It was a shrewd point. McKee demolished it, noting again that there was no love lost between the two cousins. Michael Nye had evidently been expecting someone before Catherine came and had gone to the door without waiting for the bell to ring.

  “I see,” Hat La Mott said. “Yes, that’s the way it must have been.”

  Angela Wardwell didn’t know who could originally have stolen the bonds. She said that after her husband’s death, Michael Nye and Jonathan Harris had taken complete charge of his affairs. Most of his securities, she thought, had been in the bank. There might have been a few things here in the house, she wasn’t sure.

  Obviously neither of the two men was the thief. Harris had a cast-iron alibi for the night of Nye’s death and Nye himself had called the lawyer to say he had recovered the missing securities.

  Catherine Lister, who hadn’t spoken during the quarter of an hour he had been in the room, said suddenly, “What about that man, Inspector? That man who was watching over there across the street, the small man in brown? He looked—”

  “How did he look, Miss Lister?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Queer. As if he were—well, he had a purpose. He wasn’t just standing there idly. Have you discovered any—?”

  Tom and Francine La Mott pricked up their ears. “What are you talking about, Catherine?” La Mott was testy. She told him.

  McKee said, “We’ve made some inquiries, Miss Lister, but nothing has turned up yet.” After a few more questions he took his departure, not without a final glance at the silver leopard gleaming under the late John Wardwell’s hand in the portrait over the mantel. When they had the explanation of why that enigmatic little silver toy had been removed from Catherine Lister’s apartment and used as a weapon with which to kill Michael Nye—the case would be broken.

  Meanwhile there were a good many things to be done. One of the first was to search Catherine’s apartment and Stephen Darrell’s and Nicholas Bray’s rooms for the bearer bonds in the bloodstained envelope. He was sure that the girl had known nothing of the bonds in advance, yet she had looked stricken when they came to light. Did she suspect that fine young bucko to whom she was engaged of having removed the bonds from Nye’s apartment on a return visit? Or Darrell?

  They were the only ones she could logically suspect. The bonds were the property of Angela Wardwell and what was hers would be more or less available for her niece, her nephew, and her nephew’s wife. Theft, complicated with murder, wouldn’t have been a necessity for them.

  Outside, he gave the rainswept dusk a keen glance. There was no sign of the detectives he knew were there. That was good, the way it ought to be. Nevertheless, as he got into the long black car parked at the curb, he was conscious of an uneasiness and dissatisfaction he couldn’t shake off. He was convinced that the truth was close to his hand, under his nose—and he couldn’t get at it. Kaleidoscopic facts, clear enough in themselves, kept floating around loosely and refusing to form into a definite picture.

  Meanwhile, an unidentified killer was a constant danger potential—He drove back to the office in a somber mood, gave curt directions to half a dozen men in the outer room, then went inside and attacked the pile of waiting reports.

  Chapter Nine - Two for the Price of One

  “MARRY ME, CATHERINE. I want you to marry me, now, at once.”

  “What—? Oh.”

  Catherine had been miles away. She looked up. Nicky was standing over her chair in the living-room of the apartment on Lorilard Place. It was almost seven o’clock. They had just come in.

  Cocktails at the bar at which they had stopped after leaving the Sixty-fourth Street house hadn’t done any good. Nor the laughing, talking people who had nothing to worry about, against whom no tragedy pressed, who didn’t keep asking themselves disagreeable and unanswerable questions.

  McKee’s guess at her mental state was right. She knew now that Angela had deliberately kept still about the bearer bonds that were missing, that Hat’s telephone call to Tom and Francine had been a warning to them to follow her lead. And it was the bonds Francine and Tom had been discussing when she overheard them in the Wardwell living-room on the morning of the day Mike died.

  Tom had spoken to the inspector as though the bonds weren’t important. He hadn’t talked that way then. Nor had Francine. Oh, no. They were hot on the trail of them, wondering where the wretched things could be. Her own name had been mentioned as a possible possessor, and Stephen Darrell’s—which meant that the bonds had been stolen a long while ago—Stephen had been in the Pacific tor almost two years.

  She hadn’t said anything to Nicky about it. They weren’t his relatives. “Marry you?” She smiled up at him, forcing herself to lightness. “Who said I wasn’t going to? I did understand we were engaged. Or am I in error? Out of my way, Captain. I’m going to look in the icebox, you must be starving.”

  Nicky didn’t move and he didn’t return her smile. He kept on looking down at her, shoulders squared, hands thrust into his pockets. He was—different. Catherine was startled at the change in him. He wasn’t a boy any more, laughing and lighthearted and gay; he was a man, resolute, demanding.

  He said slowly, “I can see you’re pretty upset. No wonder. I want you to marry me at once, as soon as it can be arranged. Why should we wait? Angela Ward-well’s right. I hate to think of you being here alone. It isn’t safe. You’re not going to be alone any longer than I can help. Tomorrow’s Monday. We can get a license—and be married on Thursday. It takes three days.”

  He waited for an answer. Catherine didn’t speak at once. Their positions had been abruptly reversed. Until Friday, the day Mike died, it was she who had urged their speedy marriage, Nicky who had held back, because of his poor head, because he was afraid to let her take a chance.

  She said uncertainly, “Good heavens, Nicky! I—I don’t see how I could get ready that soon. There are a lot of things I have to—for one thing, there’s the office. I’d have to give Tanner two weeks’ notice. And I need clothes. And—”

  “Catherine—”

  “Yes?”

  He was looking at her strangely, a flush on his lean cheeks. He turned away, gazed at a picture on the wall, turned back. “Is it Hat?” he demanded. “Are you still angry with me about her? Because I deceived you—and went out with her the other night? Didn’t you believe what I told you—?”

  “Of course I believed you. Don’t be silly.”

  “Then—?”

  He was sweet and she was very fond of him and she had promised to be his wife. Moreover, she hated herself for that brief moment of weakness with Stephen Darrell last night, and determined that there weren’t going to be any more such moments. Anger at her own stupidity, contrition where Nicky was concerned, he hadn’t done anything, sent her up out of her chair with a rush.

  She put her hands on his elbows. “Darling, I’ll marry you whenever you wish.”

  Nicky was overjoyed. The rigidity, the stiffness went out of him. He took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly. “You won’t regret it, Catherine. I promise you won’t—” He began making plans eagerly. Fie hadn’t told her before, but he had a good chance of a job with Spencer and Wyatt, the propeller people. He was to see Spencer in the middle of the week. There was a future in it. Later, they’d get an apartment on the East Side, somewhere in the Sixties, and a car, and join a decent club on Long Island where they could go week-ends.

  What Catherine really wanted was a house in New England, an o
ld white house with a fanlight over the door and a big barn and trees. Whenever she thought of her life with Nicky, she thought of it within that frame. There would be horses and dogs and a garden—and later on, children. Nicky was wonderful with children and they adored him, perhaps because there was a good deal of the child still left in him.

  She said she’d rather live in the country than in the city and he said they would live anywhere she liked. “The country’s great. The birds, and all that—And we could swim in summer if we got a place near the Sound and near a good golf links—”

  Neither of them had had anything to eat and when his first transports had subsided, Catherine examined the icebox, but there was nothing in it. She hadn’t done her usual ordering on Saturday. So Nicky went around to the delicatessen for food.

  He was right, Catherine thought. Being alone wasn’t good for her. As soon as he was gone, the shadows came back. It had grown colder and the rain had changed to sleet. Icy particles tapped at the window whisperingly, and darkness, made up of innuendos and surmises and doubts, came out of the corners, filling her with a sensation of dread.

  She turned on more lamps, emptied ash trays, put fresh wood on the fire, plumped the couch cushions, and went determinedly into the kitchen and started to make biscuits.

  Physical activity was a relief, an outlet. Flour, salt, baking powder, shortening, milk; she sifted and stirred, rolled out the board, floured it. She was turning out the soft dough when the downstairs bell rang. Nicky had either forgot his key again or his arms were full.

  She shook flour from her hands, pressed the button, put the door on the latch, and returned to the kitchen. She was using the roller when there was a tap on the door. Frowning, Catherine called “Come,” craned her head around the edge of the cabinet—and put the roller down in the middle of the sheet of dough, carefully.

  It wasn’t Nicky who had come in. It was Hat La Mott.

  “Hello, there.” Hat saw her and came quickly into the kitchen. Her face under a small brown cloche was flushed from the storm and whiteness clung to tendrils of her bright hair and lay in the folds of her sheared beaver coat. She was carrying a brown morocco suitcase.

  She put the suitcase down and pulled off her gloves. She seemed excited and strung up. “I hope you’re not going to kill me for barging in like this, Catherine, but I’ve got a reason. You’ll get a telephone call in a few minutes. If—”

  The bell shrilled as she spoke. Completely mystified, Catherine answered the phone. It was Francine. Fran-cine asked if Hat had arrived yet and when Catherine said, “She just got here,” Francine said, “That’s all right then. Now you’ll have someone with you. Hat volunteered off her own bat. It will take a weight off Angela’s mind; she was worried about your being alone. I’ll tell her when she wakes. She’s asleep now. Tom gave her a pill. We’re going to stay the night here. Have Hat call in the morning.”

  Catherine said, “I will,” and put the receiver slowly back on the hook. Hat, unprompted, had come down here to spend the night with her. Her emotions were mixed. She swung around, to find her cousin staring at her from a few feet away.

  Hat was smiling. Her eyes were very bright. She said gleefully, “Foxed her. Francine’s altogether too curious,” and then she came out with it in a tumbling flood. “Stephen and I are going to be married, tomorrow morning, up in Clearwater. It’s all arranged. We have to leave pretty soon. The only way I could think of to get out of the house without a fuss—the only possible way—was to say I was coming down here to stay with you. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Catherine’s fingers curled around the edge of the bookcase. One of her nails broke. Sleet flung itself against the panes, withdrew, came back again.

  She released her breath gently, retied the silk bow at her throat. She said calmly, “Mind? I don’t, Hat, my dear, but what about Angela? Why do you have to do it like this? Why couldn’t you wait—?”

  Hat threw her own words, the words she had used to Stephen Darrell about Nicky and herself, back in her teeth.

  “Wait? Why should we? We’ve waited long enough. Two years—”

  Was there something watchful, feline, in the bright glance, the tucked-in corners of her small, full, red mouth?

  Her expression changed. Worry clouded her eyes. “I do feel badly about Angela, about deceiving her. But—” she shrugged. “You know Angela. Wait and wait and wait—that’s what she’d say. And even when she thought it was all right, there’d be all sorts of delays. No. Stephen’s going away, and when he goes, I’m going with him. Once we’re really married, Angela won’t say a word. I think she’ll be grateful that we did it like this, without bothering her. And I couldn’t bother her now.”

  Talking to Hat was no use, and it wasn’t any of her business, but it was odd, Catherine reflected, how her cousin kept pushing her in the role of a spoilsport, a prig. This time she wasn’t going to play.

  “Well, it’s your affair,” she said with careless friendliness.

  Someone was bounding up the stairs. It was Nicky. The door burst open and he came in. His arms were full of bundles. He shook sleet from his shoulders. He was in high spirits. “Catherine, I hope you’re starving. Wait until I show you what I—” He started to put his load down on the table at the end of the couch, turned, and saw Hat.

  He stopped talking abruptly. The light went out of his eyes. He snapped erect. His mouth was a thin line. His gaze went from Hat to Catherine and back again.

  Catherine thought with a sensation of surprise, “Why, Nicky hates her—”

  There was a small, sharp pause. Unconsciously, she tensed herself. Hat broke the uncomfortable silence with a little trill of laughter, fresh as running water. “Nicky, hello. You haven’t heard my news.” She told him. Stephen had a friend, a judge, who would sign the necessary waivers. So she and he—

  Nicky’s black humor fled. His face warmed to life again. “Catherine,” he dumped the last of his bundles unceremoniously on the table. Ignoring the clinking of bottles, the spilling of cans, he went quickly to her, took her by the shoulders.

  “Do you realize it? Do you?” He stuttered a little as he always did when he was excited. “If Hat and Darrell would let us go with them, if—”

  Hat said from behind. “Oh, I see. So that’s the way it is. Two for the price of one—Why not? There’s no reason why Stephen should object.”

  “Then,” Nicky drew Catherine closer, smiled lovingly down into her face, “we won’t have to wait at all. We can be married now, right away, the first thing in the morning.”

  “Nicky,” Catherine said, “Oh, Nicky, don’t be foolish—The police wouldn’t let us leave the city. If we tried, they’d stop us. They’d—”

  Hat interposed again. Propped against the arm of a chair, compact in hand, she snapped open the lid of the gold case and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes had dancing lights in them. “Don’t worry about the police, darlings, Stephen—” she glanced at the tiny jeweled watch strapped to a slender blue-veined wrist, “will be here in a few minutes, and Stephen has a plan.”

  Chapter Ten - Stephen Has a Plan

  THE THERMOMETER had dropped fourteen degrees since six o’clock, and the night was bitter. Sleet drove steadily from the northeast. Pavements, roofs, houses, everything that stood, as well as the ground itself, was beginning to be coated with ice. In the back garden of No. 1 Lorilard Place, first-grade Detective Krantz tried to insinuate his bulk farther under the wretched protection of a vine-stripped pagoda, cursing the day he was born, and more particularly the day he entered the Police Department. His neck had a crick in it from looking up, his feet hurt, wetness crept down inside his collar, and he was chilled to the bone.

  At nine-ten-and-a-half, the lights went out in Miss Lister’s apartment. Krantz didn’t move.

  The men at the front, Detectives Benson, Steinbeck, Carr, and Aderholt were in better shape than Krantz. They were under cover. At nine-eleven, the street door of Number 1 Lorilard Place opened and four peo
ple came out, the Lister girl and Captain Bray, Harriet La Mott and Mr. Stephen Darrell. The two girls had on heavy coats and kerchiefs were tied over their heads, Lister’s was red, La Mott’s green. The two men, carrying umbrellas, further shielded them.

  They walked to the corner, and hailed a cab standing at the curb. Stephen Darrell stuck his head through the front window.

  “Fare, driver?”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “Uptown.”

  “Okay. Get in.”

  They got in.

  The Ruffianly individual reading a racing form by the inadequate light of the dash lamp, first grade Detective Carr, put aside his paper and started the engine. Behind the cab, creeping north up the Avenue of the Americas with caution, came three other cars, not pressing, but not getting too far behind. One was a limousine with a drunk in dinner clothes in it, one was a second hack with no passenger, and the third was a 1926 Chevy with battered fenders whose engine much belied the wretched repaint job.

  The passengers in the lead vehicle debated a destination. They couldn’t agree on a movie. Proposals and counter proposals. “Oh, no, I saw that. It’s awful,” “Well, what about Hands Down?”

  “Lousy.”

  “The review of Before Morning was good.”

  Divide and conquer—it was finally settled that Miss Lister and Captain Bray would try and get seats for The Turret at the Belvedere, and Miss La Mott and Mr. Darrell for Going West. They were to meet afterward in the lobby of the Astor and go on for supper somewhere.

  So far, so good. Carr dropped the first pair at Forty-third and Broadway. Behind him, the black limousine sidled to a stop in front of a fireplug, and the drunk wavered unsteadily to the sidewalk, fairly full of people in spite of the weather. The chauffeur got out, too. Carr then dropped Miss La Mott and Mr. Darrell at Forty-fifth and Seventh.