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Show U Hidden Wa T .W - .. By FREDERIC F. VAN DE WATE.R ZTlll SYNOPSIS David Mallory, in search of newspaper work in New York, is forced to accept a job as switch-board operator in a swank apartment house, managed by officious Timothy Higgins. There David meets Miss Agatha Paget, a crippled old lady, and her charming niece, Aliegra. One day, talking with Higgins in the lobby, David is alarmed by a piercing scream. David finds the scream came from the F'erriter apartment, not far from the Pagets'. The Ferriters Include Lyon and Everett, and their sister, lone. Everett, a genealogist, is helping Agatha Paget write a book about her blue-blooded ancestors. an-cestors. Inside the apartment they find a black-bearded man dead. No weapon can be found. The police arrive. Higgins, Hig-gins, who actively dislikes David, informs in-forms him that he is fired. David is called to the Paget apartment. There he finds elderly, prim-appearing Agatha Paget sipping a cocktail. She offers him a job helping write her family history which will unearth a few family skeletons. skele-tons. He accepts the offer. Meanwhile, police suspect Lyon Ferriter of the murder. mur-der. Jerry Cochran of the Press offers David a job helping solve the murder. David accepts. He is to keep on working for Miss Paget. Later David meets Grosvenor Paget, Allegra's brother. -- vator. I went loudly down the first flight of stairs. Then I tiptoed back, crossed the hall and pressed the Ferriters' bell. CHAPTER VI Deep in the Ferriter apartment, the bell shrilled. It was so loud in the silence that I jerked my finger fin-ger from the button. I heard the far-off torrent of traffic traf-fic and the muffled squawk of a radio, filtering in from the area. I heard a steady thumping in my own ears and wind muttering in the elevator ele-vator shaft but no sound, no hint of movement beyond the Ferriters' door. I pressed the button again and held it down just to show the bell that its noise didn't scare me. It stopped, when at last I dropped my hand, as abruptly as the voice at the telephone had been checked the day before. I was sweating and inside in-side me the wise, or timid, voice had begun again: "It's none of your business, Dave; it's none of your business." I was mired too deep now, to climb out and walk away priggishly while Aliegra and Miss Agatha and that fool boy teetered on the brink ill ? "Which is, of course," he said, "the correct answer. It is none of 1 your business. But if you insist on making it so. go ahead. I'll only say that you lie." I could have smacked him down with great joy, but I held myself in. "I'm not a cop," I reminded him. He had picked his course. He was going to bluff it out. "No," he said, "you're not. You're my aunt's hireling." I think he knew how close he came to a sock in the nose, for he half rose and his eyes widened. I didn't move. I only said: "Thanks for putting me in my place. That makes everything simpler. sim-pler. I won't keep you any longer." We heard the front door open and women's voices. They stirred more panic in Grosvenor than I had. He got up with a hiss of breath. "Sit down, you ass," I told him softly. "Sit down and get hold of yourself." He obeyed. I rumaged in my rmind and then recited, loudly: "D'Armhaillac was the greatest I ever saw. Utterly unbeatable if you let him come to you. His composed com-posed attack was like a song. Once you were on the defensive you were lost. He had a disarming trick that was sheer wizardry. I saw his epee jerk Kurthoff's and throw it away. And Kurthoff was no weakling. I learned the elements of that stunt once myself, but it's over a year now since I last touched a sword. Fencing is " I jerked up from my lounging position po-sition against the desk. Grosvenor rose and gave a weak smile as Aliegra Al-iegra Paget pushed her aunt's wheel chair into the room. The old lady looked at me. Behind her I saw the girl stare at her brother and I wondered won-dered how much she knew. The thought made me sick. Miss Agatha Aga-tha said, crisply: "David, I hired a writer. Maybe you thought I said 'lodger.' " I felt Aliegra look at me but I kept my eyes on the sharp old face before me and grinned. "My fault," I said. "I started home an hour ago, but we got to talking about fencing and I never know when to stop." "H'm," Miss Agatha said and turned upon her nephew who once more was a fashion plate for what the half-dressed man should wear. "I thought you were going to bed, faker?" "I started to," he said, "but I couldn't leep." "You should have come to your Uncle Stanley's," she told him. "Aliegra "Al-iegra and I dozed so much that now we're wide awake again. Take some beer, Grove. It's relaxing and it's plebeian. It would be good for you on both counts." "It might at that," he admitted. Aliegra was watching him so hard that I feared her aunt would see it. I picked up my hat and said loudly: "I'm really going now. And I'll be a less permanent resident, hereafter." here-after." . "No," Miss Agatha corrected. "We'll all have beer and cheese as a nightcap. My tastes get lower as my age increases. Aliegra, my dear, ring for Annie no, don't. She's probably gone to bed. Grove, if you can pull yourself out of your insomnia in-somnia and actually wake up, you can help me in the pantry. We'll be right back." The girl started to follow them. She checked herself at the door and watched them down the hall. I saw her brace her shoulders before be-fore she turned around. "You're fast on your feet, aren't you?" she asked me. "I think you actually fooled my aunt." Something rode her. She seemed calm and there was a mocking glint in her level eyes but I could feel her worry. Thought of where it might lead made me feel sick again. I wanted her in my arms for many reasons. Not the least of them was that I knew she was scared. I grinned. "I fooled you!" I told her. "We were just talking." She brushed that aside. Her eyes admitted her fright and her bright mouth trembled. "You and he have been quarreling," quarrel-ing," she whispered. "What about?" I almost told her but I knew that it wouldn't be square, after what I'd said to Grove. I knew, as she stood near me and seemed to forget I was a hallman emeritus, that I needed my self-respect because I wanted her. She was one of the people who make you more decent than you are. So I said: "You're wrong. We were just talking. talk-ing. Ask him yourself." It didn't satisfy her. "He's a fool," she said half to herself, "but a dear fool. What's he been doing?" "You don't retain very well, do you?" I asked. "I said he'd been talking to me." "You lie like a gentleman," she said and smiled. I heard the clink of glass in the hall, and dropped my voice. "Merely a vestige," I told her. "We were talking about fencing. If he were to ask me himself, that is all I could remember." I think she understood what I did not say. She gave me a look that winded me again and then, turning, helped her brother guide a laden tea-wagon over the threshold. Behind Be-hind it, Miss Agatha propelled her chair into the room. (TO HE CUM IM iDl CHAPTER V Continued 7 "But how did he get out again?" I then asked. "That," Cochrane said and grinned at me, "is something to be disclosed to our readers in a later installment. And, by the way, our friend Blackbeard had been places. The Medical Examiner says he had been shot in the chest. Not recently. recent-ly. In a war perhaps World or rum. It may mean much, or nothing, noth-ing, like the rest of this case. The Ferriters are at the Babylon, eh?" I nodded and was galled once more by the feeling that somehow I was betraying Miss Agatha. Then I looked at the clock and knew I was. As we left, Cochrane asked: "Still living in the basement?" I gave him my address. "You can find me there any evening," eve-ning," I told him, "but not till late tonight. I've a lot still to go over when I get back to the Morello." The maid, Annie, let me in. Remorse Re-morse for my neglect hurried me down the hall. I came into the room so quickly that I caught Aliegra and her brother off guard. They became in an instant two beautiful, well-bred youngsters, yet in the split second of surprise I thought I saw fear on the boy's face and I was certain the girl's eyes held tears. She had turned toward the window. Grosvenor spoke pleasantly pleas-antly enough but I was sure suspicion suspi-cion echoed in his voice: "We thought you had gone for the day, Mr. Mallory." "I don't wonder," I said. "I was delayed. If you're busy I can wait." "No," he said nervously, "oh, no, no; not at all." Aliegra turned from the window and smiled. It wasn't a great success. suc-cess. Neither was the carelessness she pumped into her voice. "Grove and I were having another of our squabbles, Mr. Mallory. You'll get used to them." She went to the door, trying so hard to appear at ease that she was pitiful. She said from the threshold: "Well, it's just as unsettled as when we began, Grove." And this I knew was sheer play-acting that hid something. The boy lingered after she had left, wandering about the room, peering at titles on the bookshelves. I sat down, switched on the desk light and bent to my work. Twice I thought he was going to speak. At last, he said, with a wide yawn: "I'm dead on my feet, I think I'll pass up supper tonight and go to bed now." "Pleasant dreams," I told him. He smiled uncertainly and left. It was nine o'clock when I finished. fin-ished. I stacked the papers neatly on the desk, swung about in the swivel chair and glanced upward at the narrow strip of sky above the upper row of lighted windows in the area wall. There were stars. I started to rise, checked myself and sat, staring. Those dark panes across the way were in the Ferriter apartment and behind one of them I had seen a light turned on. It showed the corner cor-ner of a bureau, the foot of a bed and a man's moving figure. One of Shannon's cops, I thought, still searching the flat for what plainly was not there. Belatedly, the intruder came to the window and drew the shade. I saw his face clearly for a second. It was Grosvenor Paget. I sat still. For a few minutes my mind didn't work at all. It kept jumping at theories and falling short. Its first sensible act was its counsel: "It's none of your business, Dave; it's none of your business." But I knew it was. The boy was deeper in this thing than anyone dreamed. That wasn't entirely his business. It was his sister's and his aunt's and, since I owed Miss Agatha much, mine as well. I thought of Cochrane, too, and swore to myself. When I looked again, all windows across the court were dark. I sat down and stared at some papers. I heard the latch of the front door turn. Feet crept along the hall. A door closed. I waited a minute. Then I picked up my hat and coat and rang the desk bell. "Will you tell Miss Paget," I asked the maid, "that I'll be back promptly at nine tomorrow?" She led me to the door and let me out. I did not ring for the ele- I saw his face clearly for a second. of a slough. 1 couldn't make Grosvenor Gros-venor a murderer at least not this murderer. He hadn't the brains. He hadn't had even the common sense to pull down the shade before turning turn-ing on the light. Yet the flat's silence si-lence damned him. It proved that he, unknown to the police, unknown to Higgins, had a key. The wheedling voice inside me died away. Shannon was no fool. Shannon might have set a trap into which a young idiot had stumbled. I knew now what I must do. I crossed the hall and rang the Pagets' Pag-ets' bell. Grosvenor himself opened the door and the lie I had prepared for Annie served for him. "Sorry," I said; "I forgot something," some-thing," and stepped forward. He was in a dressing gown but his hair was sleek and his eyes were quick. I walked to the room where I had worked and turned on the lights. He stood in the hall, watching me and he looked in his brocaded, tasseled robe like a poster for men's socks. I could see he was relieved it was only I. He was easy to read. "Could you come here a minute, Mr. Paget?" I called and I closed the door when he had entered. That frightened him. He turned white but he had enough backbone to keep his face stiff. He sat down and pulled his robe about him. I leaned against the desk. He cleared his throat, looked up at me and asked: "Well?" The way he spoke made me feel clumsy. It was hard to begin and I found myself saying aloud: "It's none of my business, but " There I stuck. His eyelids flickered. I felt my muscles jerk as he slid a hand into the pocket of his. robe. He took a cigarette from a silver case and then, remembering his manners, offered one to me. I held a match for him and then lighted my own. Then I tried again: "I'd like you to believe that I'm not horning in. I'm not asking for your confidence, but I'll be glad to help you in any way I can." His eyebrows arched a trifle. "Kind of you," said he and his upstage stuffiness irked me. I picked my words less carefully: "I've proved that already, whether wheth-er you like it or not. If I weren't in your corner, I'd be phoning Captain Shannon now. You can drop the air of patrician bewilderment, if you don't mind. All I really want to give is advice. The next time you prowl about the Ferriters' apartment, apart-ment, pull down the shades before you light up." That hit him. He turned green and creased his lips to keep them from trembling. He did not heed the ash that shook from his cigarette ciga-rette onto his knees. "If," I told him, "you want to leave it there, that's your affair. After Aft-er all, it's none of my business." He had got hold of himself. He took a long drag on his cigarette and ground out the butt in an ash tray. |