The Tragedy of Z (32 page)

“Now here's the funny part, Miss Thumm,” said Fisher slowly, “I counted 'em as they climbed into my bus—didn't have to, because on a special like this the bus-starter takes care of the arrangements, and all I have to do is drive; but I counted 'em out of habit, I guess, and there were nineteen of 'em. Nineteen men and women.…”

“How many of each?” asked Patience, her blue eyes kindling.

“Can't say, ma'am. So there were nineteen when we started from our terminal. And what do you think?”

Patience laughed. “I haven't the faintest of brainstorms, Mr. Fisher. What do
you
think?”

“Plenty,” said the bus-driver grimly. “When we gets back to the terminal, see, late afternoon—company rule always to start and finish at the Forty-Fourth Street station, ma'am—when we gets back there and my passengers start gettin' out, I counts 'em again and by God if there wasn't only
eighteen
!”

“I see,” said Patience. “Very odd, to be sure. But what has that to do with the disappearance of your friend Donoghue?”

“His friend Donoghue,” drawled the Inspector, “comes in later. You notice the plot's thickening. Go on, Fisher.” He stared out of the window at the grey walls of Times Square.

“Who was missing?” asked Patience. “Did you check up with the party?”

“No, ma'am. It all happened so fast. But in thinkin' it over I thought I knew who the bird was that hadn't come back with me,” replied Fisher, hunching his big torso forward. “I'd noticed him on the trip up because he was a queer-lookin' duck. Sort of middle-aged, and he wore a big bushy grey moustache—the kind you see in the movies. Regular soup-strainer. Tall gent. And he wore a funny hat, too—kind of blue colour. He'd kept to himself all day, now that I came to think of it—didn't pal with the others or talk to 'em. And now he was missing—hadn't been on the return trip with us.”

“Queer, hey?” said the Inspector.

“Very,” said Patience. “And what about Donoghue, Mr. Fisher? I still fail to see the connection.”

“Well, ma'am, it was this way. When we got to the Britannic, I turned my passengers over to Dr. Choate——”

“Ah, Dr. Choate,” said Patience brightly. “I've met the gentleman. Curator of the museum.”

“That's right, ma'am. He took 'em away and started showin' 'em around. My part of the job was done until we were due to go back, so I stopped at the door for a friendly word with Donoghue. Hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks, so we made a date to go to the fights last night at the Garden——”

“The fights, Mr. Fisher?”

Fisher looked puzzled. “Sure, ma'am, the fights, the—the boxin' matches at the Garden. I'm pretty handy with my mitts m'self, see, and I like a good fast bout.… Well, anyway, I told Donoghue I'd stop in for him last night after supper. He's a bachelor, see, an' he lives in a boardin'-house downtown in Chelsea. Well, then I went off after my passengers, followed 'em around, and when they were all finished I took them back to the terminal.”

“Was Donoghue at the door when you got your party out of the museum?” asked the Inspector thoughtfully.

“No, sir. At least I didn't notice. Well, after work last night I had a bite to eat—I'm a bachelor m'self, ma'am,” said Fisher, colouring, “and I called for Donoghue at his boardin'-house. But he wasn't there, and his landlady said he hadn't come back from work. I thought maybe somethin' kept him overtime, so I hung around there for an hour. No sign of Donoghue, so I rang up a couple of his pals. They hadn't seen nor heard from him all evenin'. By that time I was gettin' a little scared.”

“A big chap like you,” murmured Patience, watching him keenly. “And——”

Fisher gulped in a boyish way. “I buzzed the Britannic. Spoke to the caretaker—night-watchman, ma'am, name o' Burch—an' he told me he'd seen Donoghue beat it out of the museum that afternoon, before my party left an' while I was still there; but Donoghue hadn't come back. I didn't know what to do, so I went to the fights alone.”

“Poor boy,” said Patience sympathetically, and Fisher eyed her with suddenly aroused manhood. “And that's all?”

His big shoulders drooped, and the roosterish look went out of his eyes. “That's the whole blamed story, ma'am. This mornin' before I came here I went around to his boardin'-house again, but he hadn't been home all night; an' I called the museum an' they told me he hadn't reported for work yet.”

“But what,” persisted Patience, “has your friend Donoghue's disappearance to do with the missing passenger, Mr. Fisher? I'm afraid I'm a little dull this morning.”

Fisher's big jaw hardened. “That's what I don't know. But,” he went on in a stubborn tone, “this bird with the blue shap-po disappears, an' Donoghue disappears around the same time, an' I can't help feelin' there's a connection somewhere.” Patience nodded thoughtfully. “The reason I come here, like I said before, ma'am,” continued Fisher in a heavy tone, “is that if I went to the police Donoghue might get sore. He's no trustin' babe, Miss Thumm; he can handle himself. But—well, damn it, I'm worried about him and I thought I'd ask the Inspector sort of for old time's sake to try an' find out what happened to that thick Irishman.”

“Well, Inspector,” murmured Patience, “and can you resist such an appeal to your vanity?”

“Guess not,” grinned her father. “No dough in it, Fisher, and times are hard, but I s'pose we can scout around a bit.”

Fisher's boyish face lightened magically, “Swell!” he cried. “That's real swell of you, Inspector.”

“Well, then,” said Thumm in brisk tones, “let's get down to cases. Ever seen this man in the blue hat before, Fisher?”

“No, sir. Absolute stranger to me. And what's more,” said the bus-driver with a frown, “I'm pretty sure Donoghue hadn't, either.”

“How on earth could you know that?” asked Patience, astonished.

“Well, when I came into the museum with my nineteen chickadees, Donoghue got a good look at the lot, one by one. He didn't say anything to me about knowin' any of 'em, and he would have if he'd recognized one.”

“Doesn't exactly follow,” remarked the Inspector dryly, “but I imagine it's true just the same. Suppose you give me a description of Donoghue. I don't remember him any too well—haven't seen him for about ten years.”

“Husky build, about a hundred and seventy-five,” replied Fisher rapidly, “stands around five foot ten, sixty years old, strong as a bull, red Irish pan on him with a bullet-scar on his right cheek—you'd remember that, Inspector, I guess; couldn't ever forget it if you spotted it even once—walks like a slouch, sort of——”

“Swaggers?” suggested Patience.

“That's it! Grey hair now and damn' sharp grey eyes.”

“Good boy,” said the Inspector approvingly. “You'd have made a swell cop, Fisher. I remember now. Does he still smoke that stinkin' old clay pipe of his? That was one of his worst vices, I recall.”

“Sure does,” said Fisher with a grin. “When he's off duty. I forgot that.”

“Fine.” The Inspector rose abruptly. “You go back to your job, Fisher, and leave this to me. I'll look into it and if I find anything screwy about it I'll turn it over to the police. It's really a police job.”

“Thanks, Inspector, thanks,” said the bus-driver, and bowing jerkily to Patience he pounded out of the office, causing Miss Brodie's heart as he passed her in the ante-room to beat quite rapidly in maidenly tribute to his muscular bigness.

“Nice lad,” murmured Patience, “if a little on the uncouth side. Did you notice those shoulders, father dear? What a line-bucker he would have made if he'd cut his teeth on a Latin book instead of an emergency brake!”

Inspector Thumm sniffed mightily through his smashed nose, hunched his own wide shoulders, and consulted a telephone directory. He dialled a number. “'Lo! Rivoli Bus Company? This is Thumm speaking, of the Thumm Detective Agency. You the manager? … Oh, you are. What's the name? … What? Oh, Theofel. Say, listen, Mr. Theofel, have you got a wheel-wrestler on your pay-roll by the name George Fisher?”

“Yes,” said a slightly alarmed voice. “Is anything the matter?”

“No, no,” said the Inspector genially. “I'm just askin', that's all. Is he a big lad with red hair and an honest map?”

“Why, yes, yes. One of our best drivers. I'm sure nothing——”

“Sure, sure. I just wanted to check up, that's all. Say, he took out a party of hick school-teachers yesterday. Can you tell me where they're stoppin' in the city?”

“Certainly. The Park Hill, off the Plaza. Are you sure there isn't——?”

“Goo'-bye,” said the Inspector, and hung up. He rose and reached for his topcoat. “Put some powder on your nose, kid. We've got a date with the intell—intell——”

“Intelligentsia,” sighed Patience.

2

The 17 School-teachers

The intelligentsia proved to be a group of assorted ladies and gentlemen, none of whom was under forty; they were predominantly female, with an awkward scattering of dry and dusty males; and they sat along a festive breakfast board in the main dining-room of the Park Hill twittering and chirping like a flock of sparrows on the first leafy bough of spring.

It was late morning and except for the teachers' party the dining-room was empty. The
maître d'hôtel
indicated the ladies and gentlemen with a negligent thumb. Inspector Thumm, unawed, stamped into the
salle à manger
(the Park Hill had Gallic pretensions in addition to its French
cuisine
) and ploughed his way through the underbrush of gleaming idle tables followed by a faintly giggling Patience.

At the Inspector's formidable approach the twittering wavered suddenly, peeped a little, and then stopped altogether. A host of startled eyes—the glass-protected mournful eyes of tutorship—swung like a trained battery to observe the intruders. The Inspector's visage had never been one to inspire sweet trust in the hearts of little children and shy, self-conscious adults; it was big and red and hard and massively bony, and its well-smashed proboscis added a slightly sinister note.

“You the school-teachers from Indiana?” growled Thumm.

A tremor of apprehension shivered down the board; elderly maiden ladies groped for their bosoms and the men began to lick their dignified lips.

A fat-faced man of fifty, painfully dressed—apparently the Beau Brummell and spokesman of the group—scraped his chair back from the head of the table and half-stood up, twisting about and clutching the back of the chair. He was quite pale.

“Yes?” he quavered.

“I'm Inspector Thumm,” said Thumm in the same savage growl; and for a moment Patience, half-hidden behind her father's broad back, thought there would be a general swooning of females.

“Police!” gasped the spokesman. “Police! What have we done?”

The Inspector swallowed a grin. If the fat gentleman chose to leap to the conclusion that “Inspector” was synonymous with “police,” so much the better. “That's what I'm here to find out,” said the Inspector sternly. “You all present and accounted for?”

The man's eyes wavered down the table dazedly; they returned, round and large, to the Inspector's forbidding face. “Why—uh, yes, certainly.”

“Nobody missing?”

“Missing?” echoed the spokesman blankly. “Ofcourse not. Why should there be?”

Necks strained back and forth; two ladies with gaunt scarified features uttered horrified little noises.

“Just askin',” said the Inspector. His cold eyes swept up and down the board, beheading glances like a scythe. “You people took a little joy-ride in a Rivoli bus yesterday afternoon?”

“That's right, sir. Yes, indeed!”

“You all went along?”

“Oh, yes!”

“You all came back?”

The obese gentleman sank into his chair, as if overwhelmed by the suddenness with which tragedy had struck. “I—I think so,” he whispered piteously. “Mr. F-Frick, didn't we all come back?” Thus appealed to, a thin little man with a high starched collar and watery brown eyes gripped the cloth with a start, looked all about as if for consolation, and mumbled: “Yes. Yes, Mr. Onderdonk. We did indeed.”

“Now, now,” said the Inspector. “Come, boys, you're shieldin' somebody. Who's missing?”

“It's barely possible,” murmured Patience in the appalled and palpitating silence which instantly fell, “that these good people are telling the truth, father.”

Thumm winked in ferocious prohibition at his daughter, but she smiled sweetly and continued: “You see, father, I've been counting them.”

“Well?” he snapped, and ran his eye swiftly down the table.

“There are
seventeen
.”

“What the devil have we run into?” muttered the Inspector, forgetting momentarily his role of ogre as he verified this startling intelligence. “Fisher said nineteen.… Here, you,” he bellowed in the spokesman's ear, “were you
always
seventeen?”

Mr. Onderdonk could only nod, although he swallowed bravely.

“Hey, waiter!” roared Thumm across the dining-room to the
maître d'hôtel
. The
maître d'hôtel
looked up, startled, from a menu he was studying. “Come here, you!”

The
maître d'hôtel
stiffened. He eyed the Inspector with disfavour. Then he stalked over like an annoyed grenadier.

“Yes?” he said with a musical hiss.

“Look this bunch over.” The
maître d'hôtel
complied with a bored inclination of his elegant head. “Is this the whole party?”

“
Mais, oui, m'sieu
.”