The Tragedy of Z (33 page)

“Talk United States,” said the Inspector disagreeably. “Seventeen right?”

“Seventeen is the precise number,
m'sieu'
.”

“They've been seventeen since they checked in?”

“Ha,” said the
maître d'hôtel
, lifting a sleek eyebrow. “
Un gendarme
. I think I shall summon here the manager.”

“Answer my question, you idiot!”

“Seventeen,” said the
maître d'hôtel
firmly. He turned to the quaking ladies and gentlemen about the no longer festive board. “Compose yourselves,
mesdames
. I assure you this is a trifle, a nothing; something of a surety mistaken.”
Mesdames
and
messieurs
uttered little cautious sighs of relief. He faced Inspector Thumm with the brave dignity of a weary shepherd feeling the responsibility of his duty. “Please to be very brief,
m'sieu'
. This is most indecorous. We cannot permit our guests——”

“Listen, Lafayette!” howled Thumm, beside himself with rage, as he gripped the impeccable lapel of the
maître d'hôtel
. “How long have these people been stoppin' here?”

The
maître d'hôtel's
body gave an outraged little wriggle, and then froze with horror. The ladies of the party paled, and the gentlemen rose nervously and whispered to one another. Patience's pert little face went through a series of contortions.

“S—since Friday,” said the
maître d'hôtel
with a gulp.

“That's better,” grunted the Inspector, releasing the crushed lapel. “Beat it, you.”

The
maître d'hôtel
fled.

“Now let's talk this over,” continued the ogre, dropping into the spokesman's vacated chair. “Take a seat, Patty; this looks like an all-day job. God, what slugs! Here, you, did you count your people when you got into the bus yesterday noon?”

The spokesman, thus perilously addressed, said with haste: “No, sir, I did not. I'm really sorry——You see, we didn't think—I can't understand——”

“All right, all right,” said the Inspector in a gentler tone. “I'm not going to bite you. I'm just looking for information. I'll tell you what I want to know. You people say there are seventeen in your party. You were seventeen when you left Bohunkus, or wherever you come from; you were seventeen when you landed in New York; you were seventeen when you checked into this dump; you've been seventeen on your jaunts around the city. Right so far?”

There was a unanimous nodding of heads, executed with rapidity.

“That is,” continued Thumm thoughtfully, “up to noon yesterday. You'd chartered a bus to take you around. You went over to the Forty-Fourth Street and Broadway terminal of the Rivoli company, and you got into your bus. Were you seventeen on the way to the terminal?”

“I—I don't know,” said the spokesman helplessly. “I really don't.”

“All right, then. But one thing is sure. When that bus started out there were
nineteen
people in it. How do you account for that?”

“Nineteen!” exclaimed a stout middle-aged lady with pince-nez glasses. “Well, I noticed——I
wondered
what that man was doing there!”

“What man?” snapped the Inspector; and Patience dropped the spoon she had been toying with and sat very still, watching the mingled triumph and perplexity on the stout lady's face.

“What man, Miss Ruddy?” echoed the spokesman, frowning.

“Why, the man in that
outlandish
blue hat! Didn't any of you notice him? Martha, I believe I mentioned him to you before the bus started. Don't you remember?”

The bony virgin named Martha gasped: “Yes, that's right!”

Patience and the Inspector looked at each other. It was true, then. George Fisher's story had been based on verifiable facts.

“Do you recall, Miss—er—Ruddy,” asked Patience with a winning smile “other details of this man's appearance?”

Miss Ruddy beamed. “Indeed I do! He was middle-aged, and he had an
enormous
moustache. Just like Chester Conklin's, in the movies.” She blushed. “The comedian, you know. Except that it was grey.”

“And when Lavinia—Miss Ruddy pointed him out to me,” added the raw-boned lady named Martha excitedly, “I saw that he was tall and thin, too!”

“Anybody else notice him?” demanded the Inspector.

There were blank looks.

“And didn't it occur to you ladies,” continued Thumm sarcastically, “that a man you didn't know had no right being in your privately chartered bus?”

“Oh, it did,” faltered Miss Ruddy, “but I didn't know what to do. I thought he might have had something to do with the bus company, you see.”

The Inspector rolled his eyes ceilingward. “Did you notice this bird on the return trip?”

“No,” said Miss Ruddy in a trembling voice. “No, I looked especially. But he wasn't with us.”

“Fine. Now we're getting somewhere. But,” said the Inspector with a grim smile, “that only makes eighteen. And we know there were nineteen of you yesterday in that bus. Come on now, folks, think hard. I'm sure somebody here must have noticed the nineteenth person.”

“I believe,” murmured Patience, “that that charming lady at the end of the table remembers something. I've seen a speech trembling on her lips for the past two minutes.”

The charming lady gulped. “I—I was only going to say,” she quavered, “that I
did
notice somebody else who—who didn't belong. Not the man in the blue hat. A different man——”

“Oh, a man, hey?” said the Inspector quickly. “What did he look like, madam?”

“He—he …” And she stopped. “I think he was tall.”

“Oh!” gasped an Amazonian woman with a wart on her nose. “Miss Starbuck, that's
wrong
!”

The charming lady sniffed. “Perhaps it is, but
I
saw him and——”

“Why, I noticed him, too!” cried the Amazon. “And I'm sure he was rather stocky!”

Light dawned in several pairs of eyes. “I remember now,” volunteered a chubby, gentleman with a bald head. “Yes, indeed. I'm positive he was small and thin and—er—fortyish.”

“Nonsense!” said the Amazon sharply. “You've always had a notoriously poor memory, Mr. Scott. I distinctly recall——”

“Now that I come to think of it,” ventured a little old lady timidly, “I believe I saw him, too. He was a tall, stout young man——”

“Time, time,” said the Inspector wearily. “We'll never get anywhere this way. It's pretty evident none of you knows what this nineteenth bird looked like. But do any of you remember if he made the return trip to the bus terminal with you?”

“I do,” said Miss Starbuck instantly. “I'm
positive
he came back with us. He got off just in front of me. After that I didn't see him any more.” And the charming lady glared at the Amazon as if daring her to contradict
that
statement.

But no one did. Inspector Thumm scraped his jaw in noisy meditativeness. “All right,” he said finally. “At least we know where we stand. Suppose I delegate you—what's your name again——?”

“Onderdonk. Luther Onderdonk,” said the spokesman eagerly.

“Suppose I delegate you, Mr. Onderdonk, to keep in touch with me for your party in case anything turns up. For instance, if any of you should see either of the two men who were on the bus with you yesterday, tell Mr. Onderdonk and he'll call me at my office.” He dropped his card on the cloth and the spokesman picked it up with cautious fingers. “Keep your eyes open, all of you.”

“You'll be acting as detectives,” said Patience brightly. “I'm sure it will prove the most exciting part of your stay in New York.”

The seventeen Indiana school-teachers beamed as one.

“Yeah, but don't go messin' around,” growled the Inspector. “Just sit tight and watch. How long you staying in the city?”

“We were scheduled to leave for home,” said Mr. Onderdonk with an apologetic cough, “on Friday.”

“Week's vacation, hey? Well, before you check out here, be sure and give me a ring, anyway.”

“I shall most certainly do that, Inspector Thumm,” said Mr. Onderdonk earnestly. “I really shall.”

The Inspector stamped out of the Park Hill's
salle à manger
followed meekly by Patience, scowled fiercely at a pale and deflated
maître d'hôtel
in the foyer, and led the way through the lobby to the Plaza.

Patience's meekness vanished. “I think you're horrid, father—frightening those people that way. The poor things were scared half to death. They're like a group of children.”

Unexpectedly, the Inspector chuckled. He winked at an ancient cabby drowsing at the kerb above a patient old nag. “Technique, kid, technique! With a woman it's just a matter of turning on the big baby lamps and smiling. But when a man wants something he's got to holler louder and make worse faces than the next guy, or else he doesn't get anywhere. I've always felt sorry for the little skinny guys.”

“How about Napoleon?” said Patience, linking her arm with her father's.

“Don't tell me he didn't have a loud voice! Listen, sweetheart, I've got those poor old schoolmarms eatin' out of my hand.”

“You'll be bitten one of these days,” predicted Patience darkly.

The Inspector grinned. “Hey, taxi!”

3

The 19th Man

The taxicab deposited them precariously in a clutter of monster buses lined up at the kerb on the south side of Forty-Fourth Street near Broadway. They were vast gleaming machines decorated whimsically in a motif of pink and blue, like acromegalic infants primped out by a sentimental mother. Their nurses, to a man young stalwarts attired in smart blue-grey uniforms, sleek-calved and military, lounged on the sidewalk outside a little pink-and-blue booth, smoking and talking.

Patience stood waiting on the sidewalk before the booth while the Inspector paid off the taxicab driver, and she was not unconscious of the frank admiration in the eyes of the young men in uniform.

Apparently she pleased one of them considerably, a blond-haired giant, for he tipped his cap forward over his eyes, strolled over, and said pleasantly: “'Lo, babe. Hahzzit?”

“At the moment,” said Patience, smiling, “uncomfortable.”

He stared. A young brute with red hair gaped at her, and then turned angrily upon the blond giant. “Lay off, you,” he growled, “or I'll clip you one. This lady——”

“Why, Mr. Fisher!” exclaimed Patience. “How gallant! I'm sure your friend meant no—er—disrespect. Did you, you big male Venus?” Her eyes twinkled.

The giant's mouth fell open; after a moment he blushed. “Sure not, ma'am.” And he effaced himself in the group of bus-drivers, who broke into guffaws.

George Fisher removed his cap. “Don't mind these guys, Miss Thumm. Just a bunch of wisecrackin' gorillas.… Hallo, Inspector.”

“Hallo, yourself,” said the Inspector shortly. His shrewd eyes swept the crowd of young men. “What's been going on here? Hey, Patty? One of these pups been gettin' fresh?”

The young men became very silent.

“No, no,” said Patience hastily. “How nice to see you again so soon, Mr. Fisher!”

“Yeah,” grinned Fisher. “Waitin' for my call. I uh——”

“Hrrmph!” said the Inspector. “Any news, bub?”

“No, sir, not a thing. Been callin' Donoghue's boardin'-house and the museum ever since I left your office. No sign of that thick-headed old Mick, blast him!”

“Seems to me those museum people ought to be getting kind of worried,” muttered the Inspector. “How'd they sound, Fisher?”

Fisher shrugged. “I only talked to the caretaker, Inspector.”

Thumm nodded. He took a cigar from his breast pocket and casually bit off one end. As he did so he permitted his eyes to travel from one face to another before him. The drivers continued to preserve a discreet silence; the blond giant had slunk to the rear of the group. They seemed a rough, honest lot. Thumm spat the snip of tobacco on the sidewalk, looked directly in the open pink-and-blue booth, and met the eyes of the man who stood in there clutching a telephone. The man looked quickly away; he was a white-haired, red-faced customer in the same uniform as the others, but the inscription above the peak of his cap displayed in addition to
Rivoli Bus Company
the word
Starter
.

“Well, maybe we'll find out something,” said the Inspector with sudden geniality. “Keep your shirt on, Fisher. Come along, sis.”

They stepped by the silent group into the doorway of one of the disreputable old structures with which the Times Square section is infested, and mounted a flight of creaking black stairs. At the top they came to a glass door inscribed:

J. T
HEOFEL
Manager

RIVOLI BUS COMPANY

The Inspector knocked, a man called: “Come in!” and they entered a small dusty office illuminated by the rays of the typically feeble New York sun which crept in through a high-barred window.

J. Theofel proved to be an oldish young man with deep lines incised in his face. “Yes?” he said sharply, looking up from a chart. His eyes lingered over Patience, and then turned upon the Inspector.

“Name's Thumm,” growled the Inspector. “Miss Thumm. I'm the guy called you this morning about Fisher.”

“Oh,” said Theofel slowly, leaning back. “Sit down, Miss Thumm. Just what's the trouble, Inspector? I'm afraid I didn't get it straight this morning over the 'phone.”

“No trouble. Not even a case.” Thumm stared hard. “How'd you know I'm an Inspector?”

Theofel smiled briefly. “I'm not as young as I look. I remember the time when your picture was in the paper darned near every day.”