Arrow Pointing Nowhere, page 2
“Whatever the client knows, it seems to have inspired the client with more confidence than anybody except one person—” Gamadge smiled at his wife—“ever had in me before. I feel a horrid sense of responsibility, and the worst of it is that I’m a week late. If I don’t hurry I may very well be too late, and hurry is impossible. And I’m taking on a job I really have no time for. I must make the most of this weekend.” He looked at Harold. “Are you with me?”
“I’ll start right in.” Harold rose. “But I won’t be able to work tonight. Mrs. Gamadge and I have a date.”
“Date?” Gamadge looked suspiciously at his assistant, and from him to Clara.
“Dinner and theatre. Arline Prady is coming, and a friend of mine off a boat.”
“I forbid it, I absolutely forbid it,” said Gamadge violently.
“Henry!” protested Clara. “Harold’s leave!”
“You’ll get no cab, the buses will be jammed, it’s starting to snow again, you’ll catch your death. And this man off a boat how horribly tough he will be!”
Harold was at the door. “Very nice feller,” he said, “and wants to see the Planetarium.”
CHAPTER TWO
Untouchable
CLARA’S AUNT, Miss Robina Vauregard, arrived in a hurry and said that she must dash away right after lunch. Gamadge allowed her to drink her cocktail and begin her lunch before he asked her to tell him all about the Fenways.
“Fenways? There’s nothing to tell about the Fenways. Clara, the gutters are a foot under water, and the taximan had to jump me across the curb.” Miss Vauregard was always cheerful and chatty. “Now we’re going to have more snow—in fact we are having it—and they say it’s going to freeze again. How is your cold?”
“She got over it,” said Gamadge. “She’s going to get a new one tonight. Tell me about the Fenways, Miss Vauregard.”
Her bright black eyes questioned him curiously. “Don’t say they’re in trouble! Nothing ever happens to them! At least—” she looked grave. “I shouldn’t say that, but I was thinking of Blake and Mott and Caroline.”
“Untouchables, are they?”
“The simplest, dearest creatures, and Blake is rather shy. I’ve always known them. Blake and Cort and I went to the same school here in New York when we were small; Mott was older, but I met him when I went to birthdays at Number 24. Old Mr. and Mrs. Fenway were always having parties for them. The school was Miss Denny’s, and the little boys were in the basement. We played in the park afterwards. Then we went to other schools, but they came to our parties and we went to theirs, and we met at dancing school. I used to lead the German with one or the other of them often. Blake was quieter, but Cort was romantic.”
“Just generally romantic?”
“Well, he was always in love with Belle Kane. He was nice to us all, but he was always in love with her. He finally married her, and she lives at Number 24 now. He died twenty years ago. Blake married such a lovely girl, just right for him. It’s too bad Caroline looks like him, and not like her.”
“Do you see much of them now?”
“Oh, no, I haven’t for ages. We drifted apart, as people do unless they have something in common. I see Blake at people’s houses sometimes, or at concerts or the theatre. Caroline is always with him now. She went to some college for a year or two—she’s very intelligent, I believe—but after her mother died she came home. She and her father are devoted. It’s such a shame—she had a most unfortunate experience with a man she was going to marry, but who married somebody else with more money.”
“I thought the Fenways had money enough for anybody.”
“She has none of her own yet. Blake and Cort were never great money-makers, you know; the money came from their grandfather, the one who sold all the original property. Blake’s father was an only son, and inherited the whole property; he left it to Blake and Cort for life, and the capital to their children after they died. Caroline won’t have her share until Blake dies.”
“Mr. Cort Fenway had a son, I think; he’s in possession of half the Fenway property now?”
Miss Vauregard’s face clouded again. “Yes.” After a moment she went on: “Blake’s income must be pretty large, but he insists on keeping up those two great old houses—Number 24 and Fenbrook. This Fenbrook is only a little way up the Hudson, you know; the original Fenbrook was near Peekskill, a lovely place, built long before the Revolution. Poor Blake does regret it so; Grandfather Fenway sold it to the Van Broncks, neighbors of his, and they pulled down the house. There’s a funny story about Blake which gives you a rather good idea of him, poor dear. Somebody once asked him about the old place, and he said it was torn down after the war. The person was surprised. ‘As recently as that?’ And Blake said in his innocent way: ‘I mean the Revolutionary War.’”
Gamadge laughed, but said that Mr. Blake Fenway sounded agreeable.
“And he’s not a fool, you know; just rather attached to the past.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
“That could be arranged, I should think, because he collects books. You might—” Miss Vauregard stopped, and fixed Gamadge with a lively and suspicious eye.
“Henry, I will not turn you loose on the Fenways without knowing what you are up to.”
“You think I’d be bad for them?” asked Gamadge, smiling.
“I don’t think you could be, because they never get into trouble.”
“Let’s say that I know Mr. Fenway is interested in rare books. So am I. Won’t that do?”
“I’m sure I heard that since he retired from practice he collects books. The family has always been interested in that kind of thing. Grandfather Fenway wrote, or something, and I did hear that Caroline tried to.”
“And was Mr. Cort Fenway literary too?”
“If he was, he couldn’t have had much encouragement from Belle! We went to the same boarding school, and I can tell you that she wasn’t literary! A most beautiful, brilliant girl, though, and so full of fun. But she had a most awful mother; excellent family, you know, but so vulgarly determined that Belle should make a rich match. Anybody. The awful woman used to fling Belle at the heads of the most impossible men. Belle wouldn’t look at them, and we were all so glad when Cort Fenway got her at last. She was twenty-five by that time, and Mrs. Kane decided to relent. The other war was on—it was 1914. Cort was already there, a volunteer in France. He would be!”
“Like that, was he?”
“Oh, always. Belle and he were married in France, most romantic war wedding, and only came home in 1918 so that poor little Alden could be born here.”
“Poor little Alden?”
Miss Vauregard paid no attention to the question, but rattled on: “Then Belle took him back to Europe when he was four, and she and Cort settled there; but Cort died in this country a year later. Belle was very comfortable over there; old Mr. Fenway was dead, and poor Alden had his share of the money. With guardians, of course; Blake Fenway is one of them. Belle would never have come back to America if it hadn’t been for this awful war; and she was hurt getting on the awful boat they had to come home on.”
“You keep saying ‘poor’ Alden.”
“Such a tragedy! He was the loveliest baby, but when he was four they discovered that he would never develop mentally. Belle took him to all the foreign specialists, though, and she says they were wonderful; he’s now as intelligent in some ways as a child of six or seven. She says that until you try to talk to him he seems quite normal, and that he’s very handsome. Just a quiet, gentle creature, very well-behaved. You mustn’t breathe a word of all this, Henry; hardly anybody knows it except the family and the doctors.”
Gamadge was aware that Clara was looking at him with a certain anxiety. He asked: “Have you seen him?”
“No, but I’ve seen Belle. I called at Number 24 in the autumn of 1940, when I heard that she was at home. I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t been back again, but you know what it’s like in New York, and now there’s all the war work. I’m on at least four committees, and I never do anything else. Blake Fenway was an angel to them, Belle said; wouldn’t hear of her taking Alden to a hotel. Of course she can’t run a house or an apartment while she’s tied to a wheel chair, and she wouldn’t dream of putting Alden in an institution, even the best private one. She’s never been parted from him since he was born.”
“How badly hurt is she? Can she get about on crutches?”
“Not yet; the injury was partly to her back, and some nerves were involved. But she’s much better; she’s had regular surgical treatment and massage, and of course their old family doctor, Thurley, takes the best care of her. He brought Alden into the world. He says she’ll be walking in another year or less; he told me so himself when I met him at the movies only a month ago.”
“The boy has an attendant of some kind, I suppose?”
“Belle was very lucky about that. While they were trying to get to Marseilles—such an awful experience—ghastly—an old school friend of ours turned up; when I knew her she was Alice Horton. She’s a widow now, Alice Grove. She had a young niece in tow, or rather her husband’s niece, who’d been at school in Switzerland. Alice’s money was all tied up in Paris, so Belle instantly took her on as courier and companion. Most fortunately; because Belle was injured before they ever left the dock at Marseilles. Alice Grove took care of her on the voyage, and takes care of her now; she doesn’t need a nurse any more.”
“What became of the niece?”
“She’s at Number 24 too, doing some kind of secretarial work for Blake Fenway; or didn’t they say that she was very outdoor, and spends her time up at Fenbrook? Well; who should turn up on the dock but a young fellow named Craddock, whom Alice knew. His parents were old friends of her husband’s. He was a newspaperman in China, and he was going home because he’d acquired some obscure kind of germ, and had intermittent fever. He was the perfect companion for Alden, Belle says he’s wonderful with him. She dreads the time when he’ll be well enough to be drafted.”
“And he’s at Number 24?”
“Oh, yes; a fixture.”
“And this Mr. Mott Fenway—”
“He’s always been there, or at Fenbrook. He failed in business when he was a young man, and he’s lived with his cousin Blake ever since. I believe he does estate work and accounts for him.”
“The household consists, then, of Mr. Blake Fenway, from whom all blessings flow; his daughter Caroline, whom Clara thinks sarcastic, and who may have some reason for being so; Mr. Mott Fenway, an elderly dependent; Mrs. Cort Fenway, crippled and tied to an invalid chair; her son, a mental invalid; his attendant, a semi-invalid with recurrent fever; her companion and the companion’s niece, indigent.”
“You sound so grim, Henry!”
“It can’t be a jolly house, now can it?”
“But the Fenways never think of Mott as a poor relation, they love having him there; and the Fenway sense of family obligation is very great—of course they’d have Belle and Alden. They’re as well off as Blake, you know; probably better off than he is, because they haven’t his expenses. And Alden is no trouble; I told you he’d had all those specialists—Viborg here, until he was four, and then everybody in Europe. Belle said he had the best men in Austria, and Fagon in Paris. She was with him at the most wonderful sanatoria. And then this fearful war came, and it set him back. The travelling and the hardships were bad for him. He’s more silent now.”
“Still, he’s a liability in a household.”
“Belle insists not. And young Craddock is getting well. And the Groves earn their salaries, I suppose.”
“Is there any record of mental disease in the Fenway family—or on the Kane side of the connection?”
“Not that I ever heard of. The only neurotic I ever knew about was Mrs. Kane, and with her it was only hysterics and bad temper.”
“Why on earth didn’t she allow her daughter to marry Cort Fenway in the beginning?”
“He wasn’t a catch then. Mrs. Kane wouldn’t care anything about family or distinction, she only wanted money to be kept in luxury on. Cort didn’t have much until his father died.”
“Did the old gentleman know that Alden Fenway was mentally deficient when he left him the capital of half his property?”
“Good Heavens, no! He died when the poor child was only two. I don’t think he and old Mrs. Fenway approved of that match, you know; they detested Mrs. Kane. But they had a horror of family dissension, and they were so fond of Cort, and Belle was supposed to have settled down; then Mrs. Kane died, and Cort was given a nice income. It’s so sad—he didn’t live to enjoy it more than two or three years.”
“And the name of Fenway dies with the unfortunate Alden. How about old Mrs. Fenway, Cort’s mother? When did she depart?”
“Just before old Mr. Fenway did.”
Gamadge passed cigarettes to Miss Vauregard, took one himself, and lighted hers and his own. He asked: “Did you see this Mrs. Grove when you called on Mrs. Cort Fenway two years ago?”
“Yes. It’s extraordinary how little changed she is since boarding school. She must be fifty-five at least, she was a year or so older than Belle; but she’s the same quiet, determined little thing, only drier and cooler. She had a lot of moral influence, you know, and a will of iron. I thought Belle seemed very meek with her even now; she was laying down the law to poor Belle about their fancywork. They’re doing an immense job of needle point for the drawing-room furniture.”
“You didn’t see young Craddock or the Grove girl?”
“No, he was out walking with Alden, and I think the girl was up at Fenbrook. She was going over the books up there for Blake, and Belle said some of them were turning out to be quite valuable. They had book catalogues on the table; quite keen they were.”
“I ought to get on with the whole family—when you’ve given me that letter of introduction to Mr. Blake Fenway.”
“Henry, if I’m to introduce you I must know why!”
“It’s part of an enquiry on behalf of a client who wishes to remain anonymous.”
“Please do it, Aunt Robbie,” begged Clara. “You know Henry wouldn’t ask you unless it was very important.”
“Well, I suppose I can oblige with a clear conscience; there can’t be anything wrong at Number 24.”
Clara’s chow stepped into the room. He paused to convince himself that there was no feline presence on the hearth, and then walked over and lay down in front of the fire.
Gamadge said, smiling at Miss Vauregard: “We have two tawny animals in the house. They belong to races that don’t as a rule get on, but they get on very well; if they didn’t, one of them would have to go, and they know it as well as Clara and I do.”
“Yes, but Henry, these are animals!” When he said nothing, but continued to smoke and to look at her smilingly, she waved her hands, expressing surrender. “Very well, but you’ll have to tell me what to say.”
“I’d like to call you up after I’ve seen a bookseller named Hall. Blake Fenway has dealings with him, and he may give us a lead.”
Gamadge rose. “It’s Saturday, but I don’t think he’ll have left his office; he practically lives there. I’ll call him.”
The telephone conversation took only a couple of minutes. When he came back, Gamadge said: “He’ll be in the office. When I’ve seen him I’ll call you. Do you think you could send the note around to Mr. Fenway afterwards by hand?”
“Of course; but you seem to be in a dreadful hurry.”
“I am; and I’m more grateful to you than I can ever—”
Miss Vauregard would not listen. “It’s nothing, nothing at all. Good gracious Heavens, can it be three o’clock?”
“We didn’t finish our cocktails,” said Clara, “till after two.”
“So we didn’t. I must run.”
Half an hour later Harold strolled into the library.
“I hung around Number 24 from two-thirty on,” he said, “but nobody threw anything out of a window.”
“The postman doesn’t call on Saturday afternoon. Of course there was no paper ball.”
“The old man came around at three-fifteen and went over the premises with a microscope; picked up everything in sight, and dusted snow off the steps and sidewalk. Snow kept on coming down, so he finally gave it up. The paper ball didn’t come out of any of the basement windows, they’re icebound; those on the front, I mean. The ones on the avenue are clear, and one was partly open; kitchen, I suppose. I don’t think the paper was thrown from the top story, it wouldn’t have cleared the roof of the bay window without falling outside the railings. It came from the middle bay window on the second or third floor.”
Clara said: “Alden Fenway didn’t throw it out; nobody with a six- or seven-year-old brain made up that message.”
“Somebody might get him to throw it out for them,” suggested Harold. Then he stared at her. “Do you mean he’s a child of six or seven?”
“He’s twenty-five; mentally retarded,” said Gamadge.
Harold asked, after a pause: “Could he be trusted to throw a message out of a window without letting anybody see him do it?”
“Could be, perhaps; I don’t know. Wouldn’t be, if discovery of the message meant serious consequences to the sender.”
Harold frowned. “We don’t know how crazy he is. He may not be as crazy as they think. Suppose Mr. Schenck is right, and he has lucid spells, and is trying to get some information to you while the spell lasts?”
“Alden Fenway was pronounced mentally incurable when he was four years old, by a great authority on brain disease. His mind developed a little, but it could never develop into a mature mind. He wouldn’t have lucid spells; he’d always be on the same low level of intelligence, if he didn’t eventually sink lower.”
“What do you think of this, then? At three-five a young fellow came down the left-hand steps—it’s a double flight—and hailed a cab; big light-haired feller, quite handsome, stoops a little. Just as the cab came along to the curb he crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it away.”
