The Blue Door, page 17
“It is all very clear now, of course,” interrupted Lavender. “You retraversed the ground you had covered, and at Wabash and Congress you saw a strange woman hand something to a strange young man. It looked like your letter.”
“That is exactly what happened. But it wasn’t my letter, so I continued the search. I didn’t find the letter.”
“You must have turned east into Congress Street. Why did you do that?”
“But I don’t think—No, you are right! We had already turned the corner to get at Mr. Kingston. We were headed east in Congress Street all the time. We drove up a block and circled back to Wabash.”
“That is why Kingston thought you were following the woman in black. It was the way she went. When did you again suspect Mr. Kingston?”
“The next day. You may tell me that it was an error, but you must remember the state of mind I was in. At that desperate moment the only solution of the loss was that my letter had been picked up by that woman and given to Mr. Kingston, and that he had not showed me what he received. He had thought it none of my business, and had given me that silly card. So there was only one thing for me to do, and that was to find that young man again.”
Lavender smiled understandingly. “So you went back to the same corner, at the same time, the next day, where you saw him again?”
“How did you know that?”
“Minds run curiously in the same channels. It is exactly what Kingston did, and that is why you happened to see him again. He didn’t see you; he was really looking for the other party in the mystery, the woman in black.”
“How fortunate I must have been to find him!”
“It was almost a miracle,” agreed Lavender, “but a curious fate seems to operate sometimes in affairs of the sort. A perverse fate. Having started you on the wrong track, the perverse abstraction was making things easy for you.”
“Anyway, I saw him, and I followed him in the car until I saw where he worked, and where he lived. You can imagine my horror to discover in him a newspaper reporter! Everything seemed to check then. I saw myself as the victim of some nightmarish plot, and every day I expected to find that letter in the newspaper.”
“You didn’t go back to Dawson, of course?”
“I couldn’t. I hadn’t his letter to give him. I called him up and told him I was ill, but that I would come in as soon as possible. He was amiable enough; he said to take my time.”
“He could afford to be amiable,” commented the detective sardonically.
“Then I told Ted all about it. Ted is only a boy, but he’s fond of me, and he would do anything for me. Well, he was wild. As I say, he wanted me to tell Gregory, and suggested that he and Gregory go and thrash Mr. Dawson.”
“A very sound idea,” said Lavender.
“I’m sorry I didn’t think so,” smiled Miss Allison. “But I wouldn’t hear of it, and finally Ted agreed to help me in my own way. It was mad, I suppose, but once he had undertaken it Ted was enthusiastic. It pleased him, I think, to play the part of a romantic burglar. He’s only eighteen.”
“He would make an excellent burglar,” laughed Jimmie Lavender.
“I don’t know how he got into Mr. Kingston’s apartment the first time,” continued the girl, “but the second time he managed to get an apartment next door to the one he wanted to enter.”
“That perverse fate again, you see,” explained Lavender. “Because he was headed all wrong, everything conspired to help him. He actually found an empty apartment next door; it wouldn’t occur again in twenty years. How did he get into the newspaper office?”
Jane Allison looked queerly at him. “You mentioned that before. It’s very odd; but he didn’t get in. He couldn’t!”
It was Lavender’s turn to stare. After a moment he smiled. “By Jove, Gilly,” he said, “it’s a perfect comedy of errors. The affair at the office was purely fortuitous, it would seem. That’s a little mystery that Kingston will have to solve for himself. Probably some fellow reporter looking for a pencil, or some cigarettes.” He chuckled delightedly.
“You know about Ted’s trick with the box of fire. Well, that failed, too. I don’t know what we would have done next, if you hadn’t forced an entrance here to-day.” She smiled a bit wearily. “Ted, I suppose, is working out new and dreadful plans.”
Lavender stood up and trod softly about the room for a moment or two. “Miss Allison,” he said at length, “your letter is in the hands of Weatherby Dawson; both letters, that is. He stole his own from you the day you visited him. He is now doubly armed against you.”
Jane Allison was overwhelmed with alarm.
“Oh, no!” she cried with pathetic emphasis. “It couldn’t be! He didn’t know I had it with me.”
“You undoubtedly opened your bag while in the office,” insisted Lavender. “The action would be automatic on your part, and you would not be likely to remember it. Of course, he may have just suspected that you had it, but I don’t think so. Anyway, he has it. In some way he attracted your attention and got the letter. I think you had given him a glimpse of it. Was there anybody else in the office?”
“I certainly saw no one else.”
“Was your bag in your hands all the time?”
“Why, I thought so,” answered the girl, desperately. “I can’t swear to it now. You make me doubt everything, Mr. Lavender. I may have laid it on the desk for a moment.”
“I think you laid it on the desk for a moment before you remembered the letter inside. Before it occurred to you to threaten him. I think you opened the bag automatically—perhaps to get your handkerchief, as you did later—and that he saw and recognized the letter. When you threatened him with it he determined to get it back. His amiability, since then, would suggest that he succeeded. He knows you are at his mercy.”
“But how could he have done it?”
“Did anything fall to the floor while you were there?”
The young woman thought frantically for a time. “My umbrella,” she said at length. “Yes, my umbrella fell, and he recovered it for me. It was all over in an instant.”
“It was on the desk, or leaning against the desk?”
“I don’t know.”
“I suggest that it was leaning against the desk, and that Dawson in reaching for something contrived to knock it to the floor. I suggest that he apologized and came around the desk to recover it, before you could stoop for it. It was at the height of your altercation, I have no doubt. I suggest that he came between you and the desk, and that your bag was at that instant open on the desk, although perhaps turned toward you. In stooping for the umbrella, he rested his hand on the desk, extracted the letter, and as he came upright pocketed the letter on the side farthest from you. He may even have snapped the bag open, although probably he wouldn’t have to. He may have snapped it shut afterward; it would depend upon whether you had replaced your handkerchief.”
The girl sank back into her chair. “You make it all seem very real and very easy,” she said.
“It was not difficult,” agreed Lavender. “You were not expecting it, and you were excited. I could have done it myself, and I assume that Dawson could have done it; that he did do it.”
“And now?” she asked.
“Now, I want you to tell Mr. Bantock all about it.”
“I was afraid you would ask that. I have felt it. Oh, I have wanted to, a hundred times I have wanted to. But must it be done? Is there no other way? If he should misunderstand!”
“He will not misunderstand,” said Lavender quietly. “I should be glad to tell him myself, if you cared to have me.”
She rose to her feet. “Very well,” she said. “I have told you, and I have told Ted, and you have both advised me to tell Gregory. But I would rather pay the five thousand dollars. Oh, if he should misunderstand!”
“He will not misunderstand,” said Lavender again. “Men are queer sometimes, Miss Allison, but they are often most dependable when you least expect it. They do occasionally understand. It is far better that Mr. Bantock should hear of all this now, than later from somebody else; and he might, you know.”
She left the room without further speech, and in a few minutes returned with Gregory Bantock. The introductions were brief, and Lavender at once began to talk.
“You will be astonished by what I have to tell you, Mr. Bantock,” he began, “but I will ask you to hear me to the end before you reply, before you form any judgments. Then I want to ask you to aid us in a little matter that requires attending to.”
The narrative that followed was sympathetically and incisively told. Only once did Gregory Bantock interrupt.
“Pardon me, Mr. Lavender,” he said quietly, at one point, “but do you know who that man is? Will you tell me his name?”
“Yes,” replied Lavender, with a smile of understanding. “Yes, to both questions. But hear me through first, if you please.”
The narrative proceeded to its close. Then Gregory Bantock spoke, rising to his full height.
“Dawson,” he observed with a queer smile. “So that’s his name, is it? Dawson!”
“A beginning scoundrel of the first water,” added Lavender. “In a little while you and I, Mr. Bantock, and Gilruth here, will call upon Mr. Dawson, informally, and terminate the episode.”
Bantock’s hands were in his pockets, and his pockets were curiously bulged. A tight little smile lay upon his lips, which in a moment softened as he turned his eyes upon the girl who watched him.
“Jane,” he said, almost happily, “I wish to goodness that you had told me all this before. I might even have handled it alone. When do we start, Mr. Lavender?”
5.
A little light was burning in the offices of Weatherby Dawson on the seventh floor of the Bowman Building. Blackmailers often work after hours. It was not late, however, as we left the elevator at that floor; only a little past seven in the evening. No doubt Mr. Dawson was thinking happily of a well-earned meal in the not far distant future of that evening.
We strode briskly along the corridor, and it was Gregory Bantock’s knuckles that rapped imperatively on the glass panel. It was Lavender’s hand, however, that was laid quickly upon the doorknob, and Lavender who entered without ceremony and without waiting for a reply. A great deal may occur in a moment or two, and it was not the detective’s idea to allow anything to be destroyed or hidden in the interval between a knock and a response.
Weatherby Dawson sat behind an oaken desk, over which burned a shaded electric light. He looked up in surprise at our insolent entrance, then quickly rose to his feet. I think there was fear in his eyes.
He was a handsome rascal, a bit dissipated in appearance, but surprisingly attractive.
“Sit down, Mr. Dawson,” said Lavender evenly, before the man could speak. “We have come for a few moments of conversation. My name is Lavender; this is my assistant, Mr. Gilruth, and this gentleman you already know by name, I believe. He is Mr. Gregory Bantock. Perhaps you can guess the object of our visit.”
Dawson licked his lips, and faced us with an attempt at a smile.
“Not only can I guess it, gentlemen,” he replied, “but I am glad to see you. You have come for Miss Allison’s letter, and you are very welcome to it. I am sorry I have occasioned her so much anxiety. It was really only a bad joke of mine. I had no intention of carrying it out, you know. I have too high a respect for Miss Allison, and for Mr. Bantock.”
It was, I suppose, a superb attempt to avoid disaster. Bantock immediately stepped forward.
“Just a minute, Bantock,” said Lavender quickly. To Dawson he said, “Where is the letter?”
“It is here on my desk. This is it. I am really very happy to turn it over to you.” He handed across a letter, which Lavender quickly unfolded, then passed to Bantock.
“Is that Miss Allison’s handwriting?” he asked. “Good! Put it in your pocket. Now the other letter, if you please—the one you wrote to Miss Allison.”
Dawson’s handsome jaw dropped visibly. He began to stammer.
“Come, come,” ordered Lavender impatiently. “The sooner you respond the sooner you will be through with us. I want the letter you wrote to Miss Allison demanding money for the return of hers; the one you abstracted from her bag the day she visited you.”
“Suppose I tell you I have destroyed it?” snapped Dawson, with sudden bravado.
“I shall search the place for it, nonetheless.”
“What do you intend to do with it?”
“That is none of your business. However, I don’t mind telling you that I intend to keep it myself, purely as a guarantee of your future good behavior.”
The blackmailer stood for an instant in scowling indecision.
“I’ll give it to you,” he said at last. “I had intended to destroy it. I’m sorry now I didn’t. I know you, though, Mr. Lavender; I know your reputation. If you tell me you are not planning to use it against me, I believe you. There it is.”
He fairly snatched another letter from his desk and passed it to the detective.
“Thank you,” said Jimmie Lavender dryly. “Now, Dawson, there is one thing more. You won’t like it, and I don’t care whether you do or don’t. Under your eyes here I am going to go through your desk and your safe, which stands conveniently open. I shall take nothing that you have a right to own; but I am very much interested to discover whether other letters, similar to Miss Allison’s, exist in your collection.”
He stepped forward as he spoke, and coolly shoving the blackmailer to one side, seated himself in the vacated desk chair. “Mr. Gilruth and Mr. Bantock will hold you, if necessary, to keep you quiet,” he added casually, as he began to shuffle papers and open drawers.
The face of Weatherby Dawson was past all description. He almost sobbed with rage as he witnessed this calm burglary of his office, which he was unable to prevent. He had just enough sense left, however, not to interfere.
Armloads of papers Lavender carried from the safe to the desk and back again, examining them quickly but thoroughly before replacing them neatly where he had found them. A few, from time to time, he laid to one side for further consideration; and at such times Dawson’s features writhed impotently. In half an hour the detective had finished, and rising for the last time he pocketed some two dozen letters and papers that he had reserved.
“I think that is all,” he observed dispassionately. “Your future good behavior ought to be assured by these papers, Dawson. I imagine we shall have no further trouble with you. Since you have been sensible enough to remain quiet throughout this trying ordeal, I shall restrain my natural desire to thrash you within an inch of your life; and I shall ask Mr. Gilruth to be similarly calm. I have no control over the actions of Mr. Bantock,” he added with a little smile, “and I really could not blame him if he were to feel that entire justice had not been done in this case. But that is his own affair. It may be that he will have some words to exchange with you; so Mr. Gilruth and I will delicately step outside until he rejoins us.”
A sudden laugh of pure happiness issued from the lips of Gregory Bantock as we moved toward the door.
I would have given much to have seen that battle; but Lavender, his eyes sparkling with amusement, closed the door promptly upon my dilatory departure. From the sounds and cries, and the heavy breathing, that came from the other side of that door, I am certain that the affair was a masterpiece. At one time, I thought the office furniture was coming out through the wall; and I strolled apprehensively toward the elevator, to arrest any interference from that point.
Then silence fell upon the place, peaceful and profound, and in a moment the door softly opened and as softly closed after Gregory Bantock. He slid out quietly and joined us without a word. He was not unscarred, but he was smiling joyously, and on the whole he presented a very creditable appearance. Beside Weatherby Dawson, I should think he would have appeared immaculate.
“Well,” said Jimmie Lavender briskly, “if you and Dawson have finished with your little chat, we may as well be moving.”
6.
It was in a taxicab, some moments afterward, that my bright idea occurred to me.
“Lavender,” I cried, “everything has been cleared away but the original mystery! For heaven’s sake, who do you suppose the woman in black was?”
“That’s a fact,” answered the detective, “and it reminds me that I must telephone Kingston at once, before he prints anything he will be sorry for. I’ve given that old lady some thought, Gilly, and have even consulted a telephone directory about her. Are you in a hurry, Bantock?”
“Well, perhaps not,” replied Gregory Bantock, with some hesitation.
“I fancy you are,” smiled Lavender. “Let’s see, where are we now? Van Buren Street! It’s pretty close, but I think we won’t detain you, Bantock. Our respects to Miss Allison, if you will. Gilly and I will drop off here, and go back a block, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not,” said Bantock; “but say, I haven’t half begun to thank you—”
“I hope you won’t say any more about it,” Lavender replied quickly. “I understand, and it’s quite all right. I haven’t been very brilliant, you know. Kingston and Miss Allison—not to mention Ted—both contributed to the outcome. I merely came in at the finish.”
“Well, thanks enormously, anyway,” said Bantock. “I guess you know where to find a friend, if you ever need one. By the way, do you mind telling me what you intend to do with all those letters you took away?”
“Not at all,” replied Lavender. “Except for the blackmail letter, I intend to burn them all, unread. But don’t tell Dawson,” he smiled. “As long as he thinks I have them, he’ll be a good boy.”
“I see,” said Gregory Bantock, with admiration in his voice.
As we walked back to the intersection of Wabash Avenue and Congress Street I was a highly curious individual.
