The Philadelphia Murder Story Read online

  “You’re not saying,” a skeptical voice said, “that Mr. Samuel Phelps whipped up to the ninth floor, pinched Myron’s script and beat it without anyone seeing him, are you? Did you ever try to find your way around the ninth floor?”

  The idea of the pompous and respectable Mr. Sam Phelps whipping around anywhere stealing manuscripts seemed pretty ludicrous to me.

  “All I’m saying is he didn’t show up in my office,” Fuoss said. “I waited ten minutes and forgot about him. I had a date.”

  “Tell Captain Malone the date was at a poolroom on Market Street and you’ll ruin the magazine.”

  That came from Art Baum, whose round face looked like that of a surprised if slightly weatherbeaten cherub.

  “Brother in sin, it’s the only alibi we’ve got.”

  The editor smiled a little dryly. “It will look fine in the magistrate’s court. Two of the editors playing three-cushion billiards for a tuna-fish sandwich; two of them—including the first lady—going across town to place bets on the horses with a headwaiter. Didn’t somebody take a world-famous author out to lunch?”

  “The Fifth Freedom,” someone said, “is the Freedom from Authors once a week.”

  “I don’t think Captain Malone is going to be as much interested in what you were doing at noon,” Colonel Primrose said, “as in what you were doing between a quarter past two and a quarter to three.”

  Someone interrupted abruptly. “Here he comes.”

  I heard the sound of heavy steps outside, and the limping hippity-hop of the gate swinging back into place. A very large man with very blue eyes and a flushed face, his shock of iron-gray hair parted in the middle, filled the door. He wiped a rather sheepish grin off his face and got himself into a seat, flushing a still brighter red.

  “You know Pete Martin, Colonel Primrose,” Ben Hibbs said.

  Before Colonel Primrose could speak, Captain Malone and a thin-faced, worried-looking man I hadn’t seen before came through the door, followed by two detectives.

  “I’m through on the ninth floor, colonel,” Malone said. “I’d be glad if you’ll have a look around up there. Mr. Hamilton here will take you up. You couldn’t find your way around.”

  Colonel Primrose hesitated for an instant and nodded, and we followed Mr. Hamilton out. He was from the manufacturing side of the Curtis company.

  “There’s no way across to Manufacturing on this floor,” he said when we got to the elevator. “There’s a fireproof wall divides the two sides, Editorial and Manufacturing. We’ll go down to the fifth and over and up the other side.”

  The noise of the machinery was deafening over there—the roar of presses and cutting machines and binders. It was like being in an inferno of thunder and speed. The floors were sticky with paraffin, it was hot as sin, and the jets overhead that humidified the air and kept down static electricity from the great rolls of paper whirring through the rollers sounded like a million snakes hissing at once. We walked miles, it seemed to me, through more fireproof walls and huge metal doors. Myron Kane was dead, but one million two hundred thousand magazines had to be printed that day.

  By the time we’d got into a freight elevator and gone up four floors, past the great double-X presses that roared even louder, to the electrotyping division, I felt as if I’d been through a perfect mechanized bedlam.

  It wasn’t quite so thunderous and Gargantuan on the ninth floor, but it looked even more complicated. We walked back another city block through it, and got to the foundry. A couple of detectives were there, and some of the Curtis people. Mr. Hamilton turned us over to Mr. Trayser, who was head of all the babel we’d come through.

  We went over by the detectives. I saw a long bench covered with graphite, and on it wax impressions of each complete and final page of the magazine on heavy metal. There were also three knives on the bench like the one they’d fished out of the goldfish pool. A good-locking young man covered with graphite, except for his face, which was clean and shining as an apple, was shaving off the excess ridges of wax on the plates with still another knife, like a woman shaving off the extra pastry around the edge of a pie. His name was Andrew Hesington, and it was his knife that had disappeared.

  He nodded to Colonel Primrose. “I left it right here when I went up to the tenth-floor cafeteria for lunch,” he said. “Of course I recognize it. I’ve had it ten years. I had it made myself. It’s one-hundred-ten-carbon steel and fits my wrist. I always leave it here, and it was here at twelve and wasn’t here at twelve-thirty. That’s all I know. I never heard of Myron Kane.”

  Mr. Trayser took us on through another open fire door to the composing room. It was a little more comprehensible to me here. The proofreaders were on one side, and a group of women were sitting at machines with typed manuscripts on racks beside them, copying them on the monotype keyboard. And directly on the main aisle of the huge room was the foreman’s desk.

  “That manuscript was right here,” Mr. Trayser said. He pointed to a basket at the side of the desk. “It comes over from Post Editorial and stays here till we get to it. If it hadn’t been for that Composition slip, nobody would have noticed it was gone; it could have been gone until somebody from Post Editorial called up and asked for it.” He shook his head. “This has never happened before.

  “I don’t know who would know where to come to get a manuscript,” Mr. Trayser continued. “I can’t believe that any of our employees——” He shook his head again.

  “You have a good many new ones, probably,” Colonel Primrose said.

  “Yes. Filling in for those in the service.”

  “Then if a man took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves and walked in here as if he knew what he was doing, it’s ten to one nobody would have stopped him?”

  “That’s true, colonel. But he’d have to know his way about. You see, it isn’t easy.”

  Colonel Primrose nodded. “He would also have to know where the manuscript was at that exact time,” he said slowly. “Which would be harder still, for an outsider.” He stood there for a moment, looking down at the desk and the basket, and over at the keyboard. “The foreman?” he said then.

  Mr. Trayser nodded. The keyboard foreman came up. His face had a look of mingled surprise and indignation, and the surprise increased at Colonel Primrose’s question.

  “I was wondering,” Colonel Primrose said quietly, “if you had a call about this manuscript this morning?”

  The foreman stared. “I was going to tell somebody about it,” he said. “Somebody called up from Post Editorial and asked where it was. I told them it had gone to the keyboard. Now they tell me they didn’t call.”

  Colonel Primrose’s black eyes sparkled. “Did he give his name?”

  “Oh, sure. I wouldn’t give anybody any information unless I knew who I was talking to—or thought I did. I recognize some of the voices, like Mr. Fuoss’. I don’t like to say, now he says it wasn’t him. But he said it was W. Thornton Martin.”

  “That’s Pete Martin?” Colonel Primrose asked.

  Mr. Trayser and the foreman nodded.

  “I thought it was funny he didn’t just say ‘Pete Martin’ instead of ‘W. Thornton,’ ” the foreman said. “But he used to be art editor before, and that’s not my department, so I don’t know his voice. But that’s who he said it was. And nobody in here took that manuscript, Mr. Trayser. I know all these people. They wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “Thank you,” Colonel Primrose said politely.

  We went on. The composing room seemed to be practically the whole side of the building. At the end of it, we were back to the fireproof wall dividing Manufacturing from Editorial. There was an open fire tower with a broad staircase at either end, but no one had gone out that way. There was also an elaborate series of service elevators, air shafts and ventilators, closets and storeroom and washrooms, a telephone pay booth and a tunnel leading across to the women employees’ cafeteria on the ninth floor of the publication side.

  We got to the front
elevator again.

  In the lobby, Captain Malone’s men were gone, except for one detective standing by the door. Myron Kane was gone. So was the man who had seen Benjamin Franklin. One of the watchmen had taken his place at the desk. The colors in the great glass mosaic had changed and deepened, as if the sun had really set behind the purple shadows of the gnarled, fantastic trees. There was a sense of emptiness in the marble hall, and a silence so profound that the vibration of the great presses on the other side of the wall hummed audibly.

  “Will you tell Mr. Hibbs I’ll see him later?” Colonel Primrose said to Mr. Trayser, who’d stopped at the door with us.

  He started to push it open, and stopped. He was looking at my hands. I looked at them too. My gloves, that had been clean when I came, were absolutely gray with the graphite dust from the bench where the cutting-down knife had come from. It was a little startling, because I had no memory of touching anything there.

  The colonel looked at his own hands. They were grimier than my gloves. Then he glanced at the plate-glass door in front of us. The detective standing there looked at it too. The whole side of the thick glass was covered with blurred fingerprints where people had gone out all day.

  “Did Captain Malone have this fingerprinted?” Colonel Primrose asked.

  The detective shook his head. “Waste of time. What would you get but a lot of blobs?”

  Mr. Trayser went outside with us.

  “It may be a waste of time,” Colonel Primrose said, “but I’d be glad if you’d have those doors propped open and left for me. Graphite has a way of sticking. The handle of that knife was covered with it. And it’s like blood—there are spots where you don’t think of looking.”

  If it didn’t come so close to that had-I-but-known sort of thing that’s so irritating, I would say that at that moment Colonel Primrose had the gift of the prophetic tongue.

  8

  There was no question, of course, of “had I but known” about why I’d been taken on the educational tour of the ninth floor of the Curtis Building. Nor why Colonel Primrose hadn’t stopped on the sixth floor on the way down, instead of sending a message by Mr. Trayser. He wanted to see the Whitneys before anyone else did.

  And it was his anxiety not to waste time: about it, I suppose, that made him start down the steps without seeing the little man across the street. He was not easy to see. He was as drab and colorless as the barren earth of Independence Square behind him. Conscious as I’d become of his existence in the last twenty-four hours, I wouldn’t have noticed him if it hadn’t been for the policeman who was keeping the street clear. He had stopped and was looking over our side, and the policeman took two or three steps across the car tracks. “Move on, there. I’ve told you twice now. Move on.”

  That was when I saw it was Albert Toplady, and by then he was moving on. He was going quickly, but I thought unsteadily, and it occurred to me that he must have known what had happened.

  The policeman came back. “You wonder what they expect to see,” he said. “That guy’s been hanging around the last hour or more.”

  “It might be a good idea to find out why,” Colonel Primrose said placidly.

  We went along, leaving the policeman looking a little startled. I glanced at Colonel Primrose. I couldn’t tell whether he’d recognized Mr. Toplady or not. It didn’t occur to me, until we got to the corner, that having none of the background I had on Mr. Toplady and his letter which he had given me to deliver to Myron Kane, and the mess that somebody taking it from Abigail Whitney’s room had caused, he had no reason to be concerned over the little man’s presence there, even if he’d recognized him as the bookkeeper who hadn’t showed at the bank that morning. He hadn’t seen Myron Kane turn a sick gray-green at the mention of Albert Toplady’s name or heard him at the foot of the stairs outside Abigail Whitney’s room, broken-voiced and shaken, saying he’d be ruined if the letter wasn’t found. Nor had he heard Judge Whitney at Travis Elliot’s house, talking about irreparable harm.

  Perhaps, I thought, the policeman should have stopped him, and at that point I think I would have said something myself, if I’d had a chance. But there weren’t any cabs in sight and there was a streetcar on the corner. A lot of other people were getting into it, and by the time we’d got to the door, Mr. Toplady had disappeared, going along the square as fast as he could in the direction of the water front.

  It seemed ridiculous anyway. Unless Albert Toplady was a consummate actor, which seemed unlikely, I could have sworn he had no wish or intention to ruin Myron Kane by writing him a letter. The breathless awe with which he’d spoken of his being at Mrs. Whitney’s, the way he’d called him the great foreign correspondent, were too earnestly sincere to mask any attempt to injure him. And at that point I got such an abrupt shock that Mr. Toplady went completely out of my mind.

  We’d got into the crowded streetcar. When I got my balance back from the jack-rabbit start it made across 6th Street, I found myself facing right, looking down at the front of the Curtis Building. Coming down the steps was Sgt. Phineas T. Buck, and with him was a girl. That m itself was extraordinary enough, but the startling thing was that the girl was Laurel Frazier. I could have mistaken the gray Persian-lamb coat with the black velvet collar, but there was no mistaking the crown of auburn curls above it.

  In the brief glimpse I got as the car crossed the street, she was holding out her hand to him. I didn’t see any more, but that was enough. The fact that she was coming out of the building meant she had been in it, and it just wasn’t the place for Judge Whitney’s secretary to be at that time. Not, I thought, if anybody else had overheard the scene between her and Myron Kane in the Broad Street Station the afternoon before—or even if they hadn’t.

  I looked at Colonel Primrose, disturbed about him, too, as a matter of fact. He was apparently too involved in his own thoughts to have noticed. He had never been so silent and uncommunicative in all the time I’d known him, and I didn’t like the set of his jaw or the obsidian chill in his eyes as they met mine over the orange-feathered hat of the colored woman between us in the aisle. I was even a little frightened. There’s a sign up in the Curtis Building, which I saw later, that might have saved me a lot of trouble if I’d seen it then and taken it to heart. It says, “Each and every member of this staff MUST CONSTANTLY bear in mind that conduct savoring of bullheaded obstinacy or any lack of proper consideration and politeness in dealing with each other in the conduct of this business is strictly prohibited.” But, like most people, I probably wouldn’t have realized it was I who was being bullheaded and obstinate anyway. Having been told so many times—and by Colonel Primrose himself—to keep out of other people’s affairs, I no doubt would have convinced myself that that was what I was at long last doing.

  We got off the streetcar at the corner of Rittenhouse Square and went along to Abigail Whitney’s.

  Colonel Primrose turned to me. “Tell Mrs. Whitney, when you see her, that I’d like very much to talk to her,” he said equably. “I’ll be at her brother’s next door until I hear from her. Please tell her also that I’d like to see Myron’s room.” He turned at the door. “If you can make Mrs. Whitney understand that Myron’s being a guest in her house imposes some pretty definite obligations, it would be wise to do so. Good-by.”

  I watched the door close behind him, not entirely sure that he wasn’t saying a good deal more than was immediately apparent. He was as urbane as usual, but rather grimly so. I wondered if he thought the Whitneys were involved in either the disappearance of the manuscript or Myron’s death, whether he could hope there’d be much in the way of tangible evidence left up there by now.

  I started up the stairs. At the first mirror, I was aware that if Abigail Whitney was resting, she was doing it by her own unique method of Concentrating on Something Else. And as I rounded the head of the stairs, I could see Elsie Phelps even plainer. She was standing in the door, as irritatingly smug as before, and quite in control of the situation whatever it was or was to be.r />
  “Oh, Mrs. Latham,” she said, “my aunt would like to see you. We’re dreadfully sorry about all the trouble we’ve put you to.”

  I didn’t know whether she was being callously efficient or just didn’t know. She gave me the kind of smile the lady of the manor might give to a feeble-minded member of the village canning society, and stepped back for me to go in.

  Abigail Whitney was sitting up against her yellow cushions, bright-eyed and erect, alert and chipper as a sparrow. Standing in front of the carved-marble mantelpiece was Elsie’s husband, Sam Phelps, the light glancing off his polished bald head. He was looking very imposing and immaculate indeed, and if there was a smudge of graphite on him, it was certainly not visible. His ego was blooming like a cabbage rose and, in fact, there was an air of complacent triumph about both of the Phelpses that was a little hard for me to take, with the image of Myron Kane’s pallid face, the weeds from the pool dripping from his black hair, still haunting my memory.

  “Oh, Dear Child,” Abigail Whitney said. She held out her hand to me. “You must forgive me for not seeing your detective. But Sam has Settled Everything.”

  I looked at him, my mouth open, I suppose. He tilted back on his heels, his gold watch chain inscribing a slightly pompous arc across his piqué-piped vest, and nodded his head. As irony it was superb, but I couldn’t tell. At least it seemed impossible that Elsie knew Myron was dead. She looked too pleased and proud. And Abigail Whitney was looking at Sam Phelps as I imagine she’d looked at men all her life—that sort of “isn’t he wonderful?” look that no man born of woman seems immune to at any age.

  “We should have left it in this Dear Boy’s hands from the beginning.” Her voice was soft as rose-colored velvet. “He’s got Myron’s letter back for him. We’re going to get the document Laurel gave him. And there’s nothing in the Profile of my Brother anyone can seriously object to. Sam has read it. I know you will be very pleased, Dear Child. Now we can All Relax.” She started to, and stopped. “We should let All the Rest of them know,” she said brightly.