The Black Eagle Mystery Part 30

I knew the trains to Azalea-it was on the road to Firehill-and though one left at midnight, the last train on the branch line to the Azalea Woods Estates had long gone. The shortest and quickest way for me to get there was to take out my own car. This would also insure the necessary secrecy. I could bring her back with me and let her slip away in the crowds at one of the big stations.

It was a wild, windy night, a waning moon showing between long streamers of clouds. By the time I struck the New Jersey sh.o.r.e-after maddening delays in the garage and at the ferry-it was getting on for one, and the clouds had spread black over the sky. It was a fiendish ride for a man on fire as I was. For miles the road looped through a country as dark as a pocket, broken with ice-skimmed pools and deep-driven ruts. In the daylight I could have made the whole distance inside an hour, but it was after two when I came to the branch line junction and turned up the long winding road that led over the hills to the Azalea Woods Estates.

As I sighted the little red-roofed station and the houses dotted over the tract, the moon came out and I slowed up, having no idea where the cottage was or what it looked like. The place was quiet as the grave, the light sleeping on the pale walls of the stucco villas backed by the wooded darkness of the hills.

I was preparing to get out and rouse one of the slumbering inhabitants when I heard the voices of women. They were coming down a side road and looking up it I saw three figures moving toward me, their shadows slanting black in front of them. At the gate of a large, white-walled house, two of them turned in, their good-nights clear on the frosty air, and the third advanced in my direction. I could see her skirts, light-colored below her long dark coat, and her head tied up in some sort of scarf. By their clothes and voices I judged them to be servant girls coming back from a party.

As she approached I hailed her with a careful question:

"I beg your pardon, but I think I'm lost. Can you tell me where I am?"

"I can," she said, drawing up by the car. "You're in the Azalea Woods Estates."

"Oh, I _am_ a bit out of my way. The Azalea Woods Estates," I surveyed the scattered houses and wide-cut avenues, "I've heard of them but never seen them before. Doesn't a Mrs. Whitehall live here?"

The girl smiled; she had a pleasant, good-natured face.

"She surely does-in the Regan cottage over beyond the crest there. I'm living with her, doing the heavy work, until she gets settled. I belong on the big farm, but as she was lonesome and had no girl I said I'd come over and stay till her daughter joined her."

I smothered a start-_could_ Molly have made a mistake?

"Her daughter, eh? Isn't her daughter with her now?"

"No, sir. She's coming tomorrow afternoon, then I'm going home. We'll have the cottage all ready for her. She's not expected till the 2.40 from town. Do you know the ladies?"

I bent over the wheel, afraid even by that pale light my face might show too much. Molly _had_ made a mistake, sent me out here on a fruitless quest, wasted three or four precious hours. I could have wrung her neck.

I heard my voice veiled and husky as I answered:

"Only by hearsay. I knew Miss Whitehall was the head of the enterprise, that's all. Er-er-it's Azalea I'm aiming for. How do I get there?"

She laughed.

"Well you _are_ out of your way. You'll have to go back to the Junction on the main line. Then follow the road straight ahead and you'll strike Azalea-about twenty miles farther on."

"Thank you," I said and began to back the car for the turn.

"No thanks," she answered and as I swung around called out a cheery "Good night."

That ride back-shall I ever forget it! It was as if an evil genius was halting me by every means malevolence could devise. Before I reached the highway the moon disappeared and the darkness settled down like a blanket. The wind was in my face this way and it stung till the water ran out of my eyes. Squinting through tears I had to make out the line of the road, black between black hedges and blacker fields. I went as fast as I dared-nothing must happen to me that night for if _I_ failed her, Carol was lost. With the desire to let the car out as if I was competing in the Vanderbilt Cup Race, I had to slow down for corners and creep through the long winding ways that threaded the woods.

And finally-in a barren stretch without a light or a house in sight a tire blew out! I won't write about it-what's the use? It's enough to say it was nearly six, and the East pale with the new day, when I rushed into Jersey City. I was desperate then, and police or no police, flashed like a gray streak through the town to the ferry.

On the boat I had time to think. I decided to phone her, tell her I was coming and to be dressed and ready. I could still get her off three or four hours ahead of them. I stopped at the first drug store and called her up. The wait seemed endless, then a drawling, nasal voice said, "I can't raise the number. Lenox 1360 don't answer." I got back in the car with my teeth set-sleeping so sound on this morning of all mornings!

Poor, unsuspecting Carol!

The day was bright, the slanting sun rays touching roofs and chimneys, when I ran up along the curb at her door. An old man in a dirty jumper who was sweeping the sidewalk, stopped as he saw me leap out and run up the steps. The outer door was shut and as I turned I almost ran into him, standing at my heels with his broom in his hand. He said he was the janitor, took a bunch of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the door, fastening the two leaves back as I pressed her bell.

There was no answering click of the latch and I tried the inner door-fast, and all my shaking failed to budge it.

"Isn't Miss Whitehall here?" I said, turning on the man who was watching me interestedly.

"Sure," he answered. "Anyways she was last night. She talked to me down the dumbwaiter at seven and told me she wasn't going till this afternoon."

"Open the door," I ordered, speaking as quietly as I could. "She's probably asleep-I've an important message for her, and I want to give it now before I go downtown."

He did as I told him and I ran up the stairs, and pressed the electric b.u.t.ton at her door. As I waited I heard the janitor's slow steps pounding up behind me, but from the closed apartment there was not a sound.

"She ain't there, I guess," he said as he gained the landing. "She must have gone last night."

I turned on him:

"Have you a key for this apartment?"

"I've a key for every apartment," he answered, holding out the bunch in his hand.

"Then open the door. If she's not here I've got to know it."

He inserted a key in the lock and in a minute we were inside. The morning light filtered in through drawn blinds, showing a deserted place, left in the chaos of a hasty move. Everything was in disorder, trunks open, furniture stacked and covered. The curtains to the front bedroom that I'd always seen closed were pulled back, revealing the evidences of a hurried packing, clothes on the bed, bureau drawers half out, a purple silk thing lying in a heap on the floor.

She was gone, gone in wild haste, gone like one who leaves on a summons as imperative as the call of death-or love!

"She's evidently gone to her mother or some friend for the night," I said carelessly. "She'll be back again to finish it up."

The janitor agreed and asked if I'd leave a message. No, I'd phone up later. I cautioned him to keep my visit quiet and he nodded understandingly-took me for a desperate lover, which Heaven knows I was.

But in order to run no risks of his speaking to those who would follow me, I sealed his lips with a bill that left him speechless and bowing to the ground.

I was in my own apartment before Joanna and David were up, ready to be called to breakfast from what they, in their fond old hearts, thought was a good night's rest. Sitting on the side of my bed, with my head in my hands, I struggled for the coolness that day would need. Of course she'd gone to Barker-nothing else explained it. The state of the apartment proved she had intended leaving for the cottage, her mother had unquestionably expected her, not a soul in the world but myself could have warned her. Only another command from the man who ruled her life could account for her disappearance. Some time that night she had heard from him, and once again had gone to join him. I tried to dull my pain with the thought that she was safe, kept whispering it over and over, and through it and under it like the unspoken anguish of a nightmare went the other, "She's with him, flown to him, in his arms."

There was fury in me against every man in the Whitney office, but I could no more have kept away from it than I could have from her if she'd been near me. At nine o'clock I was there and found the chief, George and O'Mally already a.s.sembled. The air was charged with excitement, the long, slow work had reached its climax, the bloodhounds were in sight of the quarry. I could see the a.s.surance of victory in their faces, hear it in the triumphant note of their voices. I don't think any man has ever stood higher in my esteem than Wilbur Whitney, but that morning, with the machinery of his devising ready to close on his victim, I hated him.

Immediately after I arrived they sent a phone message to her. I sat back near the window, to all intents and purposes a quiet, un.o.btrusive member of the quartette. When the reply came that the number didn't answer they concluded she was out, arranging for her departure that afternoon. The second message went at 9.30, and on the receipt of the same answer, a slight, premonitory uneasiness was visible. A third call was sent a few minutes before ten and this time central volunteered the information that "Lenox 1360 wasn't answering at all that morning."

The chief and O'Mally kept their pose of an unruffled confidence, but George couldn't fake it-he was wild-eyed with alarm. After a few minutes' consultation O'Mally was sent off to find out what was up, leaving the chief musing in his big chair and George swinging like a pendulum from room to room. I had to listen to him-he only got grunts from his father-and it took pretty nearly all the control I had to answer the stream of questions and surmises he deluged me with.

When O'Mally came back with the news that the bird had flown, the fall of the triumph of Whitney & Whitney was dire and dreadful. The announcement was met by dead silence, then George burst out sentences of sputtering fury, heads would drop in the basket after this. Even the chief was shaken out of his stolidity, rising from his chair, a terrible, old figure, fierce and bristling like an angry lion. I don't think in the history of the firm they'd ever had a worse jar, a more complete collapse in the moment of victory.

But O'Mally and the old man were too tried and seasoned timber to let their rage stand in the way. The detective had hardly finished before they were up at the table getting at their next move. All were agreed that she had had another communication from Barker and had gone to him.

They saw it as I had-as anyone who knew the circ.u.mstances would. The first message had been by phone, the second might have been, and there was the shade of a possibility that she might have phoned back. If she had there would be a record, easily traced. The power of the Whitney office stretched far and through devious channels. In fifteen minutes the machinery was started to have the records of all out of town messages sent from Lenox 1360 within the last week turned in to Whitney & Whitney.

It was what I'd feared, but I was powerless, also I thought the chances were in her favor. Barker, no matter how he loved her, might not dare to trust her with his telephone number. Judging by the way he had frustrated all our efforts to find him, he was taking no risks. It would have been in keeping with his unremitting caution to hold all communications with her by letter. That kept me quiet, kept me from bursting out on them as they schemed and plotted close drawn round the table.

The next move was suggested by the chief-to find Mrs. Whitehall and bring her to the office. In default of the daughter they would try the mother. All were of the opinion that the older woman was ignorant of the murder, but it was possible that she might know something of her daughter's movements. And even if she didn't, that attack by surprise which was to have broken down Carol Whitehall might, tried in a lesser degree, draw forth some illuminating facts from her mother. It was nearly midday when George and O'Mally set out in a high-powered motor for the Azalea Woods Estates.

I spent the next few hours in my own office, sitting at the desk. Every nerve was as tight as a violin string, hope and dread changing places in my mind. Awful hours, now when I look back on them. The whole thing hung on a chance. If her recent communications with Barker had been by letter, if her mother knew nothing, there was a fighting hope for her.

But if she knew his number and _had_ phoned-if her flight had been planned and Mrs. Whitehall _did_ know! I remembered her as I'd seen her in the country, a fragile, melancholy woman. What chance had she with the men pitted against her?

I don't know what time it was, but the sun had swung round to the window, when I heard steps in the pa.s.sage and a woman's voice, high and quavering. I leaped up and entered the chief's office by one door as Mrs. Whitehall, George and O'Mally came in by the other.