The Girl at Central/Chapter 11

OOKING back now I can remember dressing the next morning, all trembly and with my hands damp, and my face in the glass, white and pinched like an East Side baby's in a hot wave. But there wasn't anything trembly about the thinking part of me. That was working better than it had ever worked before. It seemed to be made of steel springs going swift and sure like an engine that went independent of the rest of my machinery.

And, thank God, it did work that way, for it had thought of something!

The idea came on me in the second part of the night, flashed out of the dark like a wireless. I'd been wondering about the man who made the telephone date with Sylvia—the Unknown Voice they'd got to calling him. People thought as Jasper had said, that Reddy had found her with this man and there had been a terrible scene. But whatever had happened the Unknown Voice was the clew to the mystery. The police had tried to locate him, tried and failed. Now I was going to hunt for him.

My plan was perfectly simple. From what I had seen myself and heard from Anne Hennessey I was sure I knew every lover that Sylvia had had. I was going to call each one of them up on the phone and listen to their voices, and I wasn't going to tell a soul about it. Everybody would say—just as you say as you read this—"but all those men gave satisfactory alibis." I knew that as well as anyone, but it didn't cut any ice with me, I didn't care what they'd proved. I was going to hear their voices and see for myself. If I was successful, then I'd tell Babbitts and have him advise me what to do. I'd heard Jack Reddy had retained Mr. Wilbur Whitney, the great criminal lawyer, but I wouldn't have known whether to go to him or the police or the District Attorney and if I did it at all I wanted to do it right.

Now that there were three of us in the Exchange my holiday had been changed to Monday, and I made up my mind not to put my plan into execution till that day. I didn't want to be hurried, or confused, by possible interruptions, and also I wanted to hear the voices at short range and could do that better from the city. I telephoned over to Babbitts that I'd be in town Monday to do some shopping, and he made a date to meet me at the entrance of the Knickerbocker Hotel and dine with me at some joint near Times Square.

Monday morning I was up bright and early and dressed myself in my best clothes. From the telephone book I got the numbers of the four men who were known to have been Sylvia's lovers and admirers—Carisbrook, Robinson, Dunham and Cokesbury. I had found out from Anne what their businesses were and I had no trouble in locating them. With the slip of paper in my purse I took the ten-twenty train and was in town before midday.

On the way over I worked out what I'd say to each of them. I was going to ask Carisbrook, who was a soft, dressed-up guy, if he knew where Mazie Lorraine, a manicure who'd once been in the Waldorf, had moved to. It was nervy but I wanted to give him a dig, he having put on airs and treated me like a doormat. Robinson was easy—he had a common name and I'd got the wrong man. Excuse me, please, awful sorry. Dunham was a lawyer and I was a dressmaker that a customer wouldn't pay. And Cokesbury was easy, too—I'd heard Cokesbury Lodge was for rent and was looking for a country place.

I got Carisbrook first and he was as mad as a hornet.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Manicure? I don't know any manicure called Lorraine or anything else. I've never been manicured in the Waldorf—or any other hotel—in the city. The woman is a liar" and so forth and so on, sputtering and fizzing along the wire. I had hard work not to laugh and in the middle of it I hung up, for he had a thin, high squeak on him like an old maid scared by a mouse.

Robinson was a sport, I liked him fine:

"Don't apologize. It's the penalty of being called Robinson. Still there's a bright side to every cloud. It might have been Smith, you know."

It wasn't Robinson. He talked with a dialect that sounded like Jasper's, English, I guess.

Dunham was very smooth and awful hard to get rid of. He kept on asking questions and I had to think quick and speak unnaturally intelligent. In the middle of it—I'd got what I wanted—I said it was too complicated to tell over the phone and I'd be in to-morrow at two and my name was Mrs. Pendleton.

It wasn't Dunham.

When I tackled Cokesbury I ran into the first snag. I tried his office and a real pleasant young man (you get to know a young voice from an old one) asked me what I wanted. I said business, and he answered:

"What is the nature of your business, Madam?"

"I'd rather tell that to Mr. Cokesbury," I said.

"Mr. Cokesbury doesn't like to be interrupted in the office. If you'll tell me what you want to see him about"

"Say, young feller," said I, in a cool, classy way, "suppose we stop this pleasant little talk, and you trot into Mr. Cokesbury and say a lady's waiting on the wire."

"Very well," he answered, calm and cheerful, "I'll do just as you say."

There was a wait and then he was back.

"Mr. Cokesbury says it's impossible for him to come to the phone and will you kindly tell me what your business is."

"I guess I'll have to wait till he's not so busy," I answered, languid, like I've heard ladies when they're mad and don't want to show it, and I hung up.

Afterward I saw I'd made a mistake, for, when I called up two hours later that polite guy was still on the job and handed me the same line of talk.

I went into a drugstore and looked up Cokesbury—Edward L., residence. It was in the East Fifties and at six I tried him there.

I drew a man that I guess was a servant:

"Is Mr. Cokesbury home?"

"Who is it?"

"That doesn't matter. I want to know if he's home."

"I don't know, ma'am. Will you please give me your name?"

"Say, you're not taking the census or compiling a new directory, you're answering the phone. Tell Mr. Cokesbury a party wants to see him on business."

"I have orders, ma'am, not to bother Mr. Cokesbury with messages unless I know who they're from," said the voice, and then I knew he was there.

"I'm sure he'll come if you say it's a lady," I said, sort of coaxing and sweet.

"I'll try, ma'am," said the voice, and I could hear the echo of his feet as he walked off.

Presently he was back.

"Beg pardon, ma'am, but Mr. Cokesbury says he can't possibly come and please to give me the message."

By that time I was getting mad.

"You ought to get double pay, for you seem to be a District Messenger boy as well as a butler. If it's not too much trouble would you mind telling me what Mr. Cokesbury's friends do when they want a word with him over the phone?"

"They tell the butler who they are and what they want, ma'am. That's the orders in this house. Good-bye."

When Babbitts and I were sitting at a table in a little dago joint near Broadway, I couldn't help but tell him what I'd been doing.

He looked at me with his eyes as big as half-dollars and then began to laugh.

"Well, what do you make of that? Spending your holiday and your nickels rounding up a lot of men that rounded themselves up weeks ago."

"I want to get that voice."

"But everyone of them have proved that voice couldn't be theirs."

"Maybe they did," said I, "but I want to know it myself."

"Listen to her," he said, looking round the table as if a crowd was collected, "calmly brushing aside the police, the detectives, the might of the law and the strong arm of the press."

"And anything else that stands round trying to discourage me."

"Far be it from me to discourage you in any eccentricity that may develop. But there's no need in following up Cokesbury, for we know that he was marooned in Cokesbury Lodge."

"I don't care what we know. The only things I believe are the things I see myself."

"Thomas!" he said, laughing, and I didn't see any sense in his calling me that, but he often said things I wasn't on to. "Do you intend to camp on his trail all night?"

"I do," I answered. "As soon as you get through lapping up that red ink I'm going to go to the nearest pay station and ring up Edward L., residence."

"I'll toddle along," he said. "Anything goes with me that adds to the entertainment of Mary McKenna Morganthau."

He held up his glass as if he was drinking a toast, and something about the look of him—I don't know what—made me get all embarrassed. It never happened before and it took me so by surprise I blushed and was glad I'd dropped my gloves on the floor so I could bend down and hide how red my face was.

I tried Edward L., residence, at a drug store on Broadway and again I drew that butler gink, who was sort of sassy and hung up quick. Then we walked along and I could see that Babbitts was getting interested.

"Tell you what," he said, "that servant knows you. I'll make the connection, say I want to see Cokesbury on business, and if I get him, hand on the receiver to you."

We fixed it that way, went into a hotel, and I stood at the door of the booth while Babbitts got the house. Standing at his elbow I could see he was up against the same proposition as I had been. He finally had to say he wanted to see Mr. Cokesbury about renting Cokesbury Lodge.

He turned to me with his hand over the mouthpiece and said:

"He's there and he won't come."

"Has the servant gone to get him?"

"Yes. He wouldn't say whether his boss was home or not, but his willingness to take the message gave him away. Now stand close and if it's a new voice I won't say a word, just get up and let you slide into my place." He started and turned back to the instrument. "Yes. What?" I could see a look of surprise come over his face. "Soon? You don't know—in a few days. Hasn't any idea of renting. Thanks. That's all—good-bye."

He hung up and turned to me:

"It was the servant. Cokesbury hasn't any intention of renting and is leaving for Europe."

"For Europe!" I cried out. "When?"

"The man didn't know exactly. He said he thought in a few days."

We walked down the street silent and thoughtful. The only feeling I had at first was disappointment. I didn't get the whole thing clear as Babbitts did. It came on him all in a minute, he told me afterward.

We were on Broadway as light as day with the signs and people walking by us and crowding in between us as if they were hurrying to catch trains. I felt Babbitts' hand go round my arm, steering me into a side street. It was darker there and there were only a few passers-by. We slackened up and still with his hand around my arm, he bent his face down toward my ear and said low, as if he was afraid someone was listening:

"Kiddo, are you on?"

"To what?"

"Cokesbury. Don't you get it? He won't answer the phone."

"Do you mean he won't answer at all?"

"Not unless it's someone he knows. He's got his clerks in the office holding the fort and his servants at home."

We were just under a lamp and I stopped with my mouth falling open, for sudden, like a flash of light, it came to me.

"Soapy!" I gasped and wheeled round on him. His face bent down toward me, was intent like a hunting dog's when it sees a bird, his eyes, bright and fixed, looking straight into mine.

"You've made the first real discovery in this case, Molly Morganthau. Cokesbury's scared, dd scared, so scared he's lost his nerve and is lighting out to Europe."

We walked round into Bryant Park and sat down on a bench. We were so excited we didn't notice anything—that I'd grabbed Babbitt's hand and kept hold of it, that it was freezing cold, that we'd got on a bench with a drunk all huddled up on the other end. We were as certain as if he'd confessed it that Cokesbury was the Unknown Voice and that he'd killed Sylvia Hesketh. We just brushed his alibi aside as if he'd never made one and planned how I was to hear him before he got away to Europe. We laid plots there in the dark, sitting close together to keep warm, with the drunk all lopped over and muttering to himself on the seat beside us.

When Babbitts left me at the Ferry we'd fixed it that he was to call me up the next day and tell me what he'd done in town and I was to tell him what I'd accomplished at my end of the line.

The next morning I tried Cokesbury's office with the same results. At one Babbitts called me and said he'd tried twice to get him as a test and been told that Mr. Cokesbury wasn't down to-day and his whereabouts were unknown. By inquiries at the steamship offices he'd found that Our Suspect—that's what we called him on the wire—had taken passage on the Caronia for the following Saturday. That was four days off—four days to hear the man who wouldn't answer the phone.

That afternoon I had an idea, called up Anne Hennessey and asked her to meet me at the Gilt Edge for supper. She came and afterward in my room at Galway's I told her—I had to, but she's true-blue and I knew it—and she agreed to help. She was to come to the Exchange the next morning, call up Cokesbury and say she was Mrs. Fowler, who wanted to bid him good-bye before he left. While she spoke—imitating Mrs. Fowler—I was to listen. We did it—though she'd have lost her job if she'd been found out—and I heard the clerk tell her that Mr. Cokesbury wasn't in his office, that he didn't know where she could find him, and that it was very little use trying to get him on the phone as he was so much occupied prior to his departure.

When Anne came out of the booth I was crying. I guess I never before in my life had my nerves as strung up as they were then.

It wasn't long after that that I had a call from Babbitts. He'd been able to do nothing. When he heard of my last attempt he said:

"He's not answering any calls at all now. His own mother couldn't get him. It's no use trying that line any more. We've got to think up some other way."

That was Wednesday—I had only three days. Three days and I hadn't an idea how to do it. Three days and Jack Reddy was waiting indictment in Bloomington jail. We couldn't stop Cokesbury going or get anybody else to stop him unless we could light on something more definite than a hello girl's suspicions.