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Show ,k3 Hidden Wa By FREDERIC F. VAN DE WATER IY?". . SYNOPSIS David Mallory, in search of newspaper work in New York, is forced to accept a ot as switch-board operator in a swank apartment house, managed by officious Iimothy Higgins. There David meets Miss Agatha Paget, a crippled old lady, and her charming niece. Allegra. ceased. She made a feeble gesture ges-ture toward the door. "In there," her whisper rasped. "He's" Her body gave way. It grew so inertly heavy that Allegra and Hoyt and I had trouble holding it. Over the sagging head, I asked Higgins: "Can you get a key?" He nodded but still stood, gaping and uncertain, till a competent voice spoke from the Paget doorway. "Allegra, Bertha, Edward," it ordered. or-dered. "Pick her up. Lay her on my bed, Allegra. Keep her head down. Annie, take some cognac to Miss Allegra." Miss Paget sat on her threshold in a wheel chair. She trundled herself her-self into the hall to make way for those who bore the senseless woman and looked from Higgins to me. The elevator bell shrilled frantically and frightened voices called in the air shaft. "Just what," Miss Paget asked calmly, "was all this about?" Higgins answered in a husky voice, "Something's wrong in there," and nodded to the reticent door. There was an instant of silence. si-lence. Then the old lady asked politely: po-litely: "What are you waiting for, Timothy? Timo-thy? Or perhaps you two men would rather have me look." The superintendent fumbled in his uniform with a sickly grin. He looked at me with less dislike than he had shown all day. "C 'm on, Mallory," he ordered, and moved toward the door. He IB CHAPTER I Continued 2 "One minute," Miss Agatha commanded. com-manded. "I should really like to know how you ran across Kenneth Grahame." Again I heard the elevator bell. "In books, Miss Paget." She marked the broad servility in my voice and the wrinkles about her alert eyes deepened. "Then what," she asked, "are you doing in a job like this?" "At present I'm keeping the elevator ele-vator waiting. Excuse me." The bell was silent when I reached the outer hall. I took the car down. Eddie Hoyt was back. He frowned as I stepped from the elevator. "Fella," he said, "when you take that thing up you're supposed to bring it back again. Miss Ferriter had to walk up!" "Eddie," I said, "I've been ridden rid-den plenty." "Bad as that?" he asked. "Worse," I told him, "and listen: if that blood-sweating behemoth in the circus suit inspired your crack, ask him from me why he had the car skied for a half-hour while you were out." "Oh ho," said Eddie. "Oh ho, what?" I asked. He shrugged. "Just oh ho. You called at the Sphere again, Dave?" "I did. This morning. Once the answer was, 'No opening at the minute.' min-ute.' Now it's just, 'No opening.' " "Tough," he sympathized. "Why don't you ditch it and go home? This ain't your sort of work, Dave." "You're telling me," I replied. "I'll starve first, Eddie. And that may not be so far off either. Higgins Hig-gins is on the prod." "Easy," Hoyt muttered and, as the signal buzzed, retired to the switchboard. Higgins, still in his borrowed plumage, came lurching in from the sidewalk. The coals of earlier wrath smoldered in his little eyes, and I felt my own anger revive re-vive as he paused before me. "Mallory," he grumbled, "I want to talk to you." I thought of my job and of the odd expression on the face of the girl, Allegra, when I had talked back to Miss Agatha and, though common sense muttered unheeded warning, I said: "Shoot." My flippancy stung him. "What I want to know," he said heavily, "is what you meant by that crack about 'doubling in brass.' " "Simple," I told him. "A joke." I pointed at the gilt trappings of the doorman's coat. "Brass," I said. "Superintendent masquerading as doorman. Therefore There-fore doubling in brass. Begin to get it?" Higgins looked dubious and then insulted. "The trouble with you, me lad, is that you think 'you're too bloody good for your job. I'm " From the switchboard's alcove, Hoyt called: "Hey, Mr. Higgins, Ferriters' line must be on the blink. They've left the receiver off or something." "I'll tend to that presently," Higgins Hig-gins informed him. "What I want to tell you, Mallory, is " "Hey," Hoyt said tensely. "Hear it?" Above someone screamed and I saw the red fade from Higgins' face. The sound ceased. It broke out again, louder, shriller, as though horror had abolished all self-control. It soared and fell and rose again like a siren gone mad. Higgins crossed himself. Hoyt babbled from the switchboard with the receiver still clamped to his ear: "It's up in Three B." "Nobody on the switchboard," he stuttered. "I'll go down meself," and rushed from the room. Miss Agatha called after him: "Timothy. Be sure the door is locked behind you." "Yes'm," he replied and we heard it slam. The old lady looked hard at me as I moved toward the hall. "It might be well," I explained, "to look through the rest of the apartment." She shook her head. I have seen few murders, even at my age, but I understand it is best to do nothing till the police come. Usually thereafter, there-after, they follow your example." She sat quite still in her chair by the door and her eyes searched slowly through all the room. After a moment she asked, nodding nod-ding toward the concealing couch: "When did he come in?" "I don't know," I replied. "I never saw him." She leaned back in her chair, her hands folded in her angular lap, her eyes narrow with thought. She asked at length: "When did lone Miss Ferriter come in?" "I think it was she who rang the bell while I was in your apartment. She had to walk up." She appeared to turn this over in her mind. The clock ticked loudly. Miss Agatha emerged from whatever what-ever inner communion she had held and looked at me again. "You heard her screaming. What did you think of it?" I did not answer for so long that she shrugged at last and said: "That was a silly question. Forget For-get it." "No, it wasn't," I replied slowly. "It's just that I hadn't thought of it before. You mean there was something some-thing mre than fright in the sound?" "Do I?" she retorted. I went on: "Well, I mean it then. She was frightened by finding a man dead on her floor. There was something some-thing else. A deeper terror perhaps." per-haps." Her gaze abashed me a little. I grinned and shrugged. "That's probably all imagination," imagina-tion," I told her. "Anyway, Miss Ferriter is a gifted screamer. She sounded like the Eumenides on the wing." Her thin eyebrows arched. Again I felt that she regarded me as a curiosity and once more it irked me. "They were surprised" I grinned at that patrician, puzzled face: "when I spoke to. the waiter in Greek." She started to reply and turned her head sharply as the outer door opened. Higgins and a hard-breathing patrolman entered the room. "Over beyond the couch he lays," the superintendent informed the policeman po-liceman with a discoverer's pride. The fear that had been a bond between be-tween us was gone now. He stared at me and growled: "Go downstairs, Mallory. Miss Paget, there'll be nobody let in here now till the Hommycide Squad comes." Hoyt brought the car down and came to lean against the switchboard switch-board with a shaky grin. "Whew!" he said. "That girl do it?" I said "No," prompted more by a vestige of chivalry than knowledge. knowl-edge. Hoyt glanced over his shoulder shoul-der at the loiterers in the foyer, and strove to keep the secret that for a few minutes made him their superior. He mumbled: "He had a black beard, eh? When did he come in? We'd 'a' spotted him, wouldn't we? A guy with a beard, hey? When did he get in? Tell me that." "I can't," I said. I was shaky and I ached for another cigarette. "Maybe he tame in September and hid till he grew it." "Aw," said Hoyt and stared toward to-ward the front door. The policeman police-man on duty there had admitted a half-dozen men in civilian clothes and then had barred the way to others oth-ers who strove to follow. The intruders tramped down the hall toward us, satchel-laden, indifferent indif-ferent and unspectacular as the first half-dozen men off a suburban train. A man with reddish gray hair like embers and a stubborn freckled face, paused and said to Hoyt: "Homicide Squad, Mac. Take us up." Eddie obeyed. Lingering tenants, when I evaded their questions, wandered wan-dered back to their apartments. Higgins emerged from his basement base-ment apartment. He had doffed Wilson's Wil-son's regalia, evidently on the theory the-ory that one uniform at the door was all the house required. He squinted about the foyer and then ambled over to the switchboard. His breath was heavy with the fumes of a recent drink. I envied him. Alcohol had softened him and something less apparent worried him. He bent confidentially toward me. "Listen, Mallory," he said with the glibness of rehearsal. 'Maybe I was a mite hasty a while ago. We'll let bygones be bygones. Listen: Lis-ten: They'll be questionin' all of us. See? There's none of us to be leavin' the buildin' till they're through. You do me a good turn, now. I was upstairs when Miss Paget came in. Sure I was. But I was on the roof, lookin' at the water tank. It's been leakin'. Will ye--" (TO BE COTl.UED) "May I ask what you intend to do now?" unlocked it but stood aside for me to enter. The furniture sat in self-conscious, orderly rectitude. There was a trophy tro-phy of arms above the fireplace rapiers, claymores, sabers and less familiar blades, which shone coldly in the wintry light, and there was a long couch beside the hearth. "Everything's oke," Higgins said more to himself than to me. "Maybe "May-be she's gone daffy; maybe she got bad news or something. She could of been stewed. Let's look around the rest of the place." "Hold on," I told him. "What?" he jerked. "The phone," I said. It stood on a table between the couch and the wall. The receiver hook was empty. Something else was out of place. A fringed lampshade lay on the floor beyond the couch. I peered over the sofa's back into the space beyond be-yond and saw the lamp's overturned standard and beside it I heard Higgins' low moan. I felt his breath come and go upon my neck. I said: "He's been killed." "Who?" Higgins asked in a whisper. whis-per. A man lay on his back beside the fallen lamp. His head was tilted tilt-ed so that his black beard pointed upward like a charred stump at the telephone receiver dangling from the table. His hands were drawn up as though he had tried to clutch the lapels of his coat and the left side of his vest was glistening and sodden. I answered, slowly, for my mouth was sticky. "I never saw him before." A low but steady sound came toward to-ward us. Higgins held his breath. I tiptoed toward the door as Miss Paget propelled herself into the room. She looked at us with a parental pa-rental severity. "Well?" she prompted. In relief we babbled our discovery. I began, but Higgins' heavy speech beat mine down and took command. "Right over there, Miss Paget," he rattled. "Behind the couch where nobody'd be likely to see him. If you'll roll forward just a little " The old lady's calm voice sheared through his babbling. "No doubt," she replied. "May I ask what you intend to do now?" Higgins stared. "In such cases," she told him, "it is usually customary to notify the police, I believe." The superintendent blundered toward to-ward the telephone, shrank back from the presence of the concealed body and, reaching across the couch back, picked up the instrument He waited, impatiently rattling the hook and then, with a grunt, set down the telephone. CHAPTER II Higgins' rush thrust me aside. He slammed the door in my face as I reached the elevator. I ran for the stairs and took them three at a time toward the screeching that tore the pious silence of the Morello to tatters. tat-ters. I reached the third floor ahead of the ancient car. Before the closed door of the Ferriter Fer-riter apartment, Allegra seemed to wrestle with Miss Ferriter. Nearer me, in the hall, someone in a maid's uniform hopped about, making silly sounds, and on the threshold of the Paget flat, a stout, older woman wrung her hands and gaped. I heard Allegra gasp as she tried to control the wrenching body: "lone! What is it? Answer me." A new spasm shook lone Ferriter. Ferri-ter. She began again those long-drawn long-drawn bursts of screaming and over Allegra's shoulder I saw a white face, wide-mouthed, distorted, like a Greek tragic mask. Hoyt came toiling up the stairs be-Bind be-Bind me. Higgins blundered from the elevator and stood, quaking, in the halL "Hey," he bawled. "What's all this?" Another shriek tore through his query. I caught Miss Ferriter's shoulders and shook her. She gasped. I shook her again. "Stop it," I bade. "Stop it, do Lyou hear? What's the matter?" Beneath my hands, I felt her twitch and quake but the screaming |