The Case of the Missing Corpse Read online

  Chapter III THE OFFICIAL REPORT IS ALTERED

  AND now that we’ve a chance, you big stiff—what the devil is this mystery about the Wyndham will?”

  When I shot this question at Alcott, we were sitting in the outer office of Stone, Granger and Reed awaiting the convenience of Mr. Elihu Stone. The reception room had been empty when we arrived; nonetheless, a seemingly omnipotent office boy, after taking our letter and bearing it off to parts unknown, returned to inform us it would be some time until Mr. Stone could see us. Indifferently, Alcott had shrugged and slumped into the first chair. I had followed suit, none too sorry for the opportunity to talk.

  “And when you finish telling me that, you can explain why in hell, you didn’t let me in on all this before!” I was all set for “inside stuff” and it was with some surprise that I saw Alcott grinning at me sheepishly.

  “Say, are you kidding me or am I kidding you?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Only that at this particular point, you’ll have to think up your own explanation of Miss Wyndham’s fool conduct. I’m afraid I can’t help you out just now, old punk.”

  “Can’t or won’t!” I said testily.

  I stopped short in order to recall to mind every detail of his conversation with Miss Wyndham. Carefully, painstakingly, I went over the entire scene, trying in the name of cold logic, to correlate it with what he had just said. In retrospect, all the eccentricity and suggestibility of Miss Wyndham’s behavior stood out in clear relief; but still there remained Alcott’s own definite innuendo about the will and even before that, his apt thrust about the strained relationship of sister and brother. My face must have shown my complete bewilderment for Alcott began to laugh.

  “Oh, come off, Ellis! You’ll be making me sound as didactic as a would-be Sherlock Holmes.”

  “What in hell do you think I’m aiming at, you big bum!” I said seriously.

  “Oh, anything to oblige you. Only the trouble is that certain things just won’t bear analysis, you know.” But I shook my head with an energy that drove him on.

  “Say! Haven’t you ever had your favorite picked in a horse race, your money placed, when suddenly the horses are led out and in a flash, for no conscious reason at all, you decide to play a sudden hunch?”

  “No,” I said bluntly. “I never go to the races. And as for what you call a hunch, I see that simply as an easy way of explaining what one’s too goddamned lazy to think out.”

  Alcott laughed indulgently. “Good Lord! As a kid I began to suspect Sherlock Holmes the moment he lapsed into his first analytical monologue. Now, I’m beginning to think his friend, Watson, must have driven him into rattling off those bogus explanations. Just the same, you ought to try the hunch system, yourself. Really! I recommend it highly.”

  “Keep your damn fool hunches. I’ll stick to logic!” We subsided for a few moments into silence. I knew Alcott too well to hope for anything further from him. At such moments he was about as unapproachable as some mystic on an inaccessible mountain peak. At some future date, with a few stiff drinks to the good, he might expand—but that distant prospect did not simplify my problem of getting two columns of news for the next edition. Consequently, I thought fast and furiously.

  “The chances are you took your pot shot at a strained relationship between Stephen Wyndham and that sister of his because you saw her face freeze over at the first mention of his name. Now that I think of it, I even got that myself!”

  Alcott grinned. “Anyhow, I see you were too smart to swallow the story about Wyndham having made a confidant of ye small town sports writer. That, of course, wasn’t true.” He laughed in immense, though solitary, enjoyment.

  What a fellow! With infinite reluctance I denied myself the pleasure of giving him a friendly jab in his already once broken nose. With a sudden burst of understanding, I perceived how Pete Alcott could have come by any of the half dozen scars which up until now I’d been so generously attributing to unheralded heroism in the great War. However, his ridicule, no matter how annoying, wasn’t going to deter me.

  “As for your hitting so aptly upon that will—”

  I got no further. Alcott’s hands went up in a gesture of mock surrender!

  “All right. Have it your own way.” He paused a moment, and his eyes were twinkling. “For years, you see, I’ve been noticing that all of our best families are a little touchy on the subject of wills. Anyhow, four out of five of ’em. When I was a kid, I remember planning, if ever I got in a jam with a boss who was big enough, I’d step up to him and say in a low aside precisely what I tried on Miss Wyndham today. With her, the formula worked like a charm.” He paused self-consciously. “For the love of Mike! Don’t you think ‘fool hunch’ sounded better than all that?”

  I never got a chance to answer him. The office boy came in at that juncture.

  “Mr. Stone will see you now.”

  We followed him back to the most office-like of offices, where Mr. Stone rose stiffly to greet us. A chalky-faced, grey-haired individual he was, who looked as though he had worried his way to the top of his profession. I noted at a glance that the letter from Miss Wyndham lay opened on the desk before him, and I could tell from his overclose scrutiny of us as we entered that he had been somewhat surprised by its contents. Formalities exchanged, and once seated, he picked up the letter and bestirred himself to talk.

  “H’m! As you doubtless know, Miss Wyndham instructs me to present you with what data have been gathered in connection with her brother’s disappearance.”

  “That was the understanding!” said Alcott.

  “As her counsel, I must say her decision seems to me most ill-advised, but I assume she has her reasons for so acting.”

  “Very good ones!” Alcott spoke tersely and to the point.

  Mr. Stone rose to his feet deliberately.

  “Well, it’s all most contrary to her usual procedure. H’m, most contrary.”

  He walked up and down the office for a moment, surveying us dubiously and from his look I knew that any effort we might make to be disarming would only be love’s labor lost.

  “May I inquire what your connection with Miss Wyndham may be?”

  Alcott spoke with dignity. “I thought her letter would be sufficient introduction.”

  “H’m, of course!”

  Mr. Stone walked around his desk to a metal box which stood on the far side.

  “It is all most irregular, you know. Most irregular!”

  He shook his head so doubtfully that it was with genuine relief that I saw him turn the key in the box and raise the lid. A few official looking documents, a bundle of notes, most of them on pink stationery, one or two business letters and telegrams lay within. There was also a round, flat medallion in finely wrought gold. It looked so innocent and oddly out of place that I picked it up and turned it over. On one face minutely engraved were the initials “C. S.” Without even looking up I knew Mr. Stone was watching me intently. Then he began talking:

  “This comprises about all we have been able to learn of poor young Wyndham. You’ll not find it very helpful I’m afraid.”

  He drew forth two sheafs of typed paper and extended them to us with a cynical shrug.

  “These are the reports to date from the James A. Buchanan Agency. These are from Hoyles’. Are you familiar with either?”

  “With both!” I said drily. I took the Buchanan files and handed the other across for Pete’s surveillance. I’ve no idea how long I’d sat there thumbing through page after page of unimportant notations when I was suddenly aware of Alcott elbowing me none too gently. I looked up in surprise. With a finger to his lips for silence, he indicated Mr. Stone, who at that moment was standing looking out of the window, his back to us. Swiftly Pete pushed a pencilled note under my eyes.

  Last page missing from this report. Think you can reach it from waste basket on left. Large foolscap page with pink margin line. Corner showing.

  As quietly as possible I drew forth th
e page indicated.

  It was practically blank. At the top, was the page number. Lower down, a single line! I looked at Alcott quizzically. By way of answer he indicated a typed paragraph in the Hoyle report which he had been reading.

  “And last,” the report read, “it has been definitely ascertained that there was a poker crowd in Stephen Wyndham’s rooms at the Hotel Sevilla Biltmore on February 13th, at or about the hour that, according to all present indications, marked his last known appearance. The personnel of this party seems to have been as follows:

  I read down the list, recognizing some few of these names, wondering slightly at a few of the others. As I concluded, Alcott slipped the page that had been so singularly treated back into its proper place and I read with amazement the line that had been intended to conclude the report.

  “An eighth player seems to have been Mr. Charles Elihu Stone of New York, though this has not been checked as yet, due to Mr. Stone’s continued absence from the City.”

  Chapter IV “THE DEAD MAN’S CHEST”

  ALCOTT broke the silence.

  “Hope you don’t mind if we camp here, Mr. Stone. This box begins to look like a regular mine of information.”

  Mr. Stone shrugged for answer. “Help yourself! At seven, however, I must leave you. I have an appointment at my Club.”

  I pushed my memo book toward Alcott.

  “Get a copy of that poker list,” I begged him sotto voce. Then aloud, “How did you manage to get hold of the names of the crowd in Wyndham’s rooms?”

  “Through Mr. Wyndham’s friend, Mr. Ford. His radio communications should be there.” Stone indicated the box and Alcott dug them out without delay.

  “H’m. All sent from aboard a yacht. . . . ‘Seven Seas’ Longitude W.92°, Latitude S.3°....” Alcott knit his forehead as he glanced through the dispatches. “I notice Ford states he will be cruising around the Galapagos Islands for the week. Interesting corner, that!”

  He broke off abruptly and turned his attention to the flesh tinted parcel of letters, opening one after another idly.

  “And just how did you come by these?”

  The question was addressed quietly and for once the old lawyer answered as though off guard.

  “Those letters were found in the dead man’s safe deposit box.”

  Alcott raised his eyebrows. “The dead man’s box?”

  Mr. Stone spoke testily. “We may as well face the facts it seems to me. Months have passed without word.”

  Alcott smiled. “Yes, but no corpse has been found as yet . . . at least, none that we’ve heard of. But perhaps you ...”

  Mr. Stone interrupted angrily. “No! no! Of course not. However, after weeks of search when no clues of any kind were revealed, I obtained a court permit to open Mr. Wyndham’s vault in the hope of finding something that might give us a lead. This was done yesterday morning in the presence of a member of the family and an officer of the bank.”

  Alcott nodded in a non-committal fashion but I was agog.

  “What else did you find in er—your dead man’s chest?”

  Stone looked at me with annoyance.

  “Very little of interest. It was about the usual rich man’s box—with the exception of—er—that bundle of letters.”

  “Letters, aha!” I said facetiously, but my tone sounded as out of place as a jazz band at a funeral. “Let’s have a look.”

  Meditatively, Alcott tossed a handful over to me. “Since you’re all set for taking notes,” he said with a smile, “you’ll want a few on these, Johnny. ‘Lolita Caros’ is signed to the formal ones. ‘Lola’ as the letters grow warmer. All are written from Havana. All point to an affair.... I’d say of the sizzly sort. All except this one are dated at least a year before Stephen Wyndham’s disappearance. From the postmark on this last it seems to have been written only a short time before young Stephen shot the works.” Alcott tapped the desk thoughtfully with the note.

  Overcome by curiosity, I took it from him. Round, unformed handwriting sprawled over two pages.

  DEAREST STEVE: I saw your friend, Mr. Ford, yesterday and he say to me that you are coming here in two, maybe three weeks more. My happiness it is so great, if this is true. I do like you tell me about José, but what the use? I do not love him. I never, never can.

  I have read your letters so many times over since you go away. You love me a little when you wrote those letters. You will again, querido mio.

  I count the days these two, three weeks. Then maybe I am in your arms again, and again I know what real kisses once more can mean.

  Lola.

  “Whew,” I whistled softly as I finished, making a gesture as though to fan away the semi-tropical heat waves that engulfed me. My efforts were wasted. Alcott had his head bent over a business letter, and Mr. Stone was once more gazing, with that ever slight expression of worry, out of the window at the fantastic skyline of lower Manhattan, that stood out so majestically just then against the frosty stars of early dusk.

  “Say, what have you got there?” I had caught the glint of suppressed interest in Alcott’s eyes.

  He looked up nonchalant as always. “This is a copy of a letter from Wyndham to his brokerage firm, Manning and Wilson. It’s dated last January, and instructs them to extend to his friend, Ford, unlimited power-of-attorney to buy and sell, to deposit or withdraw funds from his—Wyndham’s—account. It may be important. It may not be. It’s hard to say.”

  “Who the devil is this guy Ford? This is the third time we’ve bumped into his name.”

  “Hugh D. Ford,” Alcott read out from the letter, his tone matter-of-fact, as always. “He does occasional political articles for the better magazines, I think.”

  He looked toward Mr. Stone for confirmation. Stone nodded, but nodded hesitantly, as though he were doing a rash thing indeed, to thus express himself without special writ from the Supreme Court.

  “Not the red-headed Hugh Ford who married the steel king’s daughter some six weeks ago?” I asked in interest.

  Again Stone bowed agreement.

  “Jesus!” I said aloud, thinking inwardly that this Wyndham case was getting to be a sort of social register for old Manhattan. Yes, I knew all about Hugh D. Ford! A few weeks before the Wyndham case had broken, Ford’s elopement with Kay Devereaux, the wealthiest gal in the country, had furnished what then was thought a pretty good feature. Somehow, and no one knew how, that couple had managed to dodge the usual Mendelssohn and orange blossoms, get themselves a license and a wedding ring without the press even getting a look-in at the show. Of course, I remembered Hugh D. Ford. Red-headed, red hot young political commentator! Perversely, I even remembered a headline that almost slipped by at the time, “RED FORD WINS FORTUNE.”

  Then I was off on a new line. “By the way, Mr. Stone, you mentioned a will having been found in Mr. Wyndham’s box. Are you acquainted with the terms?”

  “Slightly. A member of my firm drew it.”

  “Can you give us a general idea of the contents?”

  “The bulk of his estate, real and personal, passes to his sister, Miss Isabella Wyndham, in the event of his dying without wife or issue.”

  “I see. Then, from a financial standpoint, Miss Wyndham stands to profit very substantially from young Wyndham’s death?”

  Mr. Stone nodded, and with an air of long suffering, he began making a neat stack of the letters we had scattered about the desk.

  “Lucky break for her!” I burst out impulsively. “Especially since the feeling between those two doesn’t seem to have been exactly clubby.”

  Mr. Stone made a deprecating gesture.

  “It wasn’t a case of sentiment; it was a case of law. The terms of young Stephen’s will were laid down by the conditions under which he had inherited from his father.”

  “I see. And do the same conditions hold with regard to Miss Isabella’s will?”

  “Er—only in a slight measure.” He spoke with professional restraint, and again I felt, looming behind him, a w
hole life-time of conservatism and caution. However, if I was supposed to have been silenced, I wasn’t.

  “Pretty queer, the whole business!” I remarked, acidly. “Especially since from what I’ve found, the old man doted so on his son, Stephen.”

  Mr. Stone spread his hands in a gesture of mute acknowledgment of all the profound irrationality of the Universe.

  “I’ve every confidence that Miss Wyndham will prove a faithful steward of the family wealth.”

  “Just why?” I shot the remark out so suddenly, that Mr. Stone flushed and bit his lips.

  “I see no necessity to explain myself,” he remarked coldly.

  Well, I couldn’t blame him. There we sat; Alcott, looking for all the world like a high class bum, his slouch fedora on the back of his head, his walk-up-a-flight suit unpressed, I would have been willing to bet, for over two weeks, while I—well, maybe I looked a shade better, but I wasn’t too confident about that. Anyhow, to Mr. Stone, we were two strangers, in from nowhere, who, armed with a letter from a client, proceeded to interrogate, to demand, to cross-examine, until I couldn’t wonder at his very evident annoyance.

  But to all of this Alcott seemed just about as cheerfully unperceptive as a steam roller.

  “Since you prefer not answering on that ...”

  But Mr. Stone’s mood underwent a swift change. “I resented the manner, not the substance, of your—er—friend’s question. My confidence in Miss Wyndham happens to be based upon years of acquaintance during which time I have observed her interests have always been of a most worthy nature. In fact, I happen to know that a substantial part of her fortune has been pledged quite recently to the up-keep of a certain Chinese mission.”

  “A Chinese mission? Indeed!” Alcott paused thoughtfully. “Now, a few questions about this letter of Wyndham’s to his broker. I see nothing here as to what’s been happening on that score.”

  Mr. Stone looked sharply at us. “I hesitate to speak on that matter, not because of any lack of confidence in you, gentlemen, but because certain facts in that direction are so—er—er—peculiar, so very peculiar that I think it would be wiser to await more definite information before expressing myself.”