had no compunctions whatsoever about interrupting such a serious matter as a game of chess. He was swarthy, bulkily built. In profile, his heavily defined features had an almost classic look. There was a dead-serious air of brooding intensity about him. This made his method of speaking, which was usually a form of cynical raillery, distinctly shocking to those who did not know him well. He addressed everyone except the very highest brass of the Department as “honey boy” or “baby doll.” He was Detective Lieutenant Romano, attached to Homicide at Manhattan West.
Dab had met Romano before at Philip Linton’s home. He recognized him, said, “Lieutenant Romano! What brings you out at such a witching hour?”
“A police officer?” said Pirtle. “What have you been up to, Dab?”
“I’m not quite sure,” Dab replied. “But if John George Arthur, the critic, has been found slain, I’m justly suspect. He once refered to me as ‘that moldy old Virginia ham.’ ”
“Well, I can give you an alibi from nine o’clock on,” said Pirtle. “You’ve been beating me at chess since then.”
Romano said, “Can I see you privately, honey boy?”
“Of course,” Dab answered. “We can go to my rooms. This must be serious, Lieutenant.”
“Kind of serious, I guess,” Romano replied. “Matter of murder. That ain’t a misdemeanor, honey boy.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Dab. “How on earth can it concern me?”
“Privately, baby doll. Privately,” Romano answered.
“You’ll excuse me, Pirtle?” Dab asked, rising.
Pirtle nodded, obviously swallowing questions he wanted to ask.
Dab led Romano up a short flight of steps to the lobby. Enormous, inscrutable old Madame Sorel, proprietress of the hotel, acted as night manager herself, because she suffered from insomnia. She sat behind the desk, adding figures in an old-fashioned ledger. She wore a rusty black dress, her rough-hewn face was pallid, she had keen dark eyes and a shock of bright red hair. Dab knew the hair was dyed. The woman was over seventy. She always reminded him of one of those calculating concierges dressed in bombazine whom Van Gogh loved to paint.
Dab lived on the second floor and did not use the elevator. Upstairs, the carpeting of the hall was threadbare and the plastering bald in spots. Madame Sorel was frugal. Dab occupied a corner suite that overlooked the park. He had occupied the same suite for more than a quarter of a century. The living room was so large it was barnlike. A crystal chandelier was suspended from the high ceiling. A coal fire was laid in the grate. The Washington Square was the last hotel in New York with fireplaces that really worked. Hotel furniture had been moved out to make room for gracious Sheraton pieces that Dab had shipped from the family home in Virginia when his mother died. One wall was covered almost completely by photographs of actors and actresses and framed theater programs. Over the mantel was an heroic oil of a handsome bearded gentleman in the gold-laced gray of the Confederacy—Major Joshua Ashton, of Lee’s staff, Dab’s grandfather.
Romano made himself comfortable in an overstuffed chair, accepted a drink of Bourbon that Dab poured from a crystal decanter.
“Tell me what this is all about,” Dab asked.
“I will,” said Romano. “Prepare yourself for a shock. Then don’t interrupt me with a lot of foolish exclamations. To get it over fast, your friend Phil Linton’s been murdered. Shot through the belly with a .45. Assailant unknown. One prime suspect. More about that later. Take a drink now, and I’ll give you what facts we have.”
“I—I can’t believe it!” said Dab inadequately.
“Nobody believes murder until it happens,” the swarthy detective answered. “According to the statistics six out of every hundred thousand persons living today are going to die from a slight case of murder. But no one believes murder can happen to him or anyone close to him.”
Dab opened his mouth. Romano raised his hand. He said, “A little after midnight a call came in to an uptown precinct station. It was a man, unidentified, call untraced. He said there’d been trouble at a certain address and the police had better investigate. Then he hung up. It was Phil Linton’s address. Prowl car reached there about twelve-twenty. Lights on downstairs. Door locked. French window to porch closed but unlocked, with a pane knocked out. Cops went in, found Linton shot to death, called Homicide. We found Linton lying beside a little coffee table. Carpet had soaked up a lot of blood. Pretty obvious he’d been shot by man standing just inside the room, in the window.
“Medical evidence Linton probably killed somewhere between eleven-thirty and twelve, may have lived some ten minutes after bullet hit him. Linton had those little fingerprint-symbol cards he uses in his lectures on the floor beside him. Some of them he’d arranged into a kind of order or pattern. A display, you might call it. Evidently he wanted you particularly to see this display, thought it would mean something to you. Something special, maybe. Anyway he’d propped a letter addressed to you against the leg of the table, like he wanted to attract your attention to the cards. We read the letter, I’m afraid. It didn’t seem very important. Said he couldn’t dine with you at the hotel Friday night. You were to come to his place instead, because there was going to be a kind of family dinner and his granddaughter had an important announcement to make. We’re pretty sure now what the announcement was.”
“This is awful. Awful!” exclaimed Dab. The actor’s face was drawn, bloodless.
“It’s worse than awful,” replied Romano. “I’m afraid there’s an even greater shock coming for you, Mr. Dab. Murder’s not the worst thing in the world, not from a cop’s standpoint, anyway. We like to solve a murder fast, but there’s no real urgency. The victim’s already dead. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. We can take all the time we want in tracking down a murderer. Years, sometimes. But kidnapping’s a different matter. In kidnapping, time’s the all-important factor. We have to solve a kidnapping in a matter of hours, days at most, or we almost always find the victim dead.”
“Kidnapping?” Dab’s expression was blank. “What’s kidnapping got to do with Phil’s death?”
“Patricia Linton, Phil’s granddaughter, has been kidnapped,” Romano said flatly.
Dab sank back in his chair. “Oh, no!” he cried. “Oh, my God, no! Not little Pat, Lieutenant! Not my little girl! When? How, man?”
“Don’t get impatient, honey boy,” said Romano. “It’s a tough story to tell, because it’s screwy. A little before one, while a dozen or so cops were stewing around at Linton’s house, another call came in to headquarters. It was from Detective Allan Walters. He was at a gas station, on a little country side road off the main highway in Westchester, just across the New York City line. He was pretty frantic. He’d had a date with Patricia Linton. It was a very important date. He was going to ask her to marry him. So he took her ’way up in Westchester to one of those farmhouse restaurants with candles on the table and prices high as a camel’s hump. Pat said yes, so they took a long time over dinner. Didn’t finish until nearly ten. They decided to do a little more celebrating at a roadhouse with a big-name band that was even farther up-country, but when they got there all the tables were taken, so they left and just drove around. The car had a heater, so they were cozy. Just after midnight, on the way back to town, they stopped at a roadside stand for hamburgers and coffee. Walters parked his car outside in a dark space near some trees. When they finished, he took a short cut, a side road, back to the main highway. He hadn’t got far
