Parachute Murder Read online

  “I know nothing about letter. I took only handkerchief.”

  “What is your real name?”

  “Kentaro Kawatami my name.”

  “Why did you call yourself Kiyoshi Nimura?”

  “The man who sent me to Mr. Morne to get job as valet said for me to call myself Kiyoshi Nimura.”

  “Lieutenant Brewster?”

  “I was his orderly in France.”

  “Then Brewster knew Chadwick Morne!”

  “Mr. Brewster, sir, try to get me job in New York. He heard Mr. Morne look for valet. Told me go and get job.”

  “Why did he want you to change your name?”

  “Please, sir, must I tell that? It reflect no great honor on myself.”

  “You must tell it to me or to the District Attorney.”

  “Lieutenant was in death danger from mad fellow officer. I struck at him with butt of Mr. Brewster’s revolver. He went down like log. We thought he was dead. Lieutenant Brewster say I save his life, and for me to beat it. He help me get out of France.”

  “A deserter from the army,” said Kemerson. “You struck an officer. Did he die?”

  “No, Mr. Kemerson, sir. He left hospital in week.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Lieutenant Brewster call him Jack. He was officer of Infantry.”

  “Did you tell Lieutenant Brewster that Chadwick Morne was flying on the Silver Lark?”

  Kiyoshi drew himself up very straight, as if about to salute a superior officer. “I not see Lieutenant Brewster for three months till that night at Mr. Vanuzzi’s.”

  “Did you send him that information by another, or by letter?”

  Kiyoshi again measured the distance to the closed window before answering. Again he squared his shoulders, standing stiffly erect.

  “No letter. No message. Lieutenant Brewster there today, somewhere else tomorrow; I not know where.”

  “Did Giulio Vanuzzi ask you to telephone to Miss Edith Vane warning her to say nothing of what she saw or heard on the Silver Lark?”

  “I not know Miss Edith Vane. Who is she?”

  “Never heard the name before?”

  “No, Mr. Kemerson, sir.”

  “Did you ever hear Morne and his wife quarreling at the theatre?”

  “Mrs. Morne a lady, sir. Never quarrel before servants.”

  “But you may have overheard something when she called at her husband’s dressing room.”

  “Once when she come, Mr. Morne send me out. When I come back his voice angry and carry through door. He say, ‘Don’t be a fool. I won’t have the brat around.’”

  “Do you know who the child was they quarreled about?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Very well, Kiyoshi. I have nothing more to ask you at present, but you will have to go with me to the District Attorney’s office and repeat what you have told me. The police are watching your movements. It will be useless to try to hide again.”

  “I not try to escape, Mr. Kemerson, sir. The police eye all-seeing. I have done nothing. It was just fear of U.S. Army finding out I am that Kentaro Kawatami who struck officer and ran out of army made me try to hide from you.”

  “Hold yourself in readiness to go to the District Attorney tomorrow. I’ll let you know when he wants to see you. And, unless you want to be returned to the army, you had better answer truthfully every question he asks you.”

  “I tell him truth same as I tell you,” said Kiyoshi.

  Kemerson nodded to Blake, and they left the valet standing beside the bed on which lay his crumpled pajamas. Mr. O’Toole was still snoring on the couch in the living room, and they closed the outer door softly not to awake him. Kemerson did not break the silence that had fallen between them until they were in a taxicab.

  “If one could subtract the false from the true in what Kiyoshi told us we’d be further along in solving the mystery of Morne’s death.”

  “I thought his answers very straightforward,” said Blake. “What has he got to hide? He didn’t fire the shot that killed Morne.”

  “Yet he may have given the information that led up to the murder. ‘Watash kereo karosu jo’—don’t forget that, Blake. That was a threat made in earnest.”

  “But so was my threat against Morne at the time I made it.”

  “That is why both you and Kiyoshi are under suspicion now.”

  Kemerson dropped Blake at Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue and proceeded to his apartment. He found Georgina asleep in a chair in the hallway.

  “What are you doing here at this hour?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Delano has been telephoning you every half hour since ten o’clock. She wants you to call her at once. Miss Vane has been kidnapped, she says, and maybe murdered.”

  CHAPTER XV — A KIDNAPPING AND TWO ARRESTS

  KEMERSON sent Georgina home with instructions not to show up until lunch time and took a taxi to the Times Square police station. There he learned an investigation into the disappearance of Miss Vane was already under way, Mrs. Delano having reported the kidnapping to the District Attorney. The Lieutenant on the desk sent a plainclothesman to keep watch of the building where Kiyoshi was hiding, and assigned a detective to accompany Kemerson.

  Mrs. Delano was waiting for them. She arose and came to meet the actor as a very perturbed butler showed him in. She clung to his hand with nervous strength, and Kemerson admired the control she exercised over her emotions despite the strain under which she was laboring.

  “I’m glad you are safe, Mr. Kemerson. I began to fear you had been kidnapped or murdered when hours passed and you had not returned home. I mustn’t forget to reward your housekeeper adequately for remaining at the apartment so long to give you my message personally. I called up Mr. Brixton when I couldn’t get you. He promised to assign detectives to search for Edith. One of them came here to see me, but I feel much better knowing you have the matter in charge.”

  “I am still pretty much in the dark, Mrs. Delano.”

  “Of course you are. I haven’t told you a thing except that Edith was kidnapped.”

  “Are you perfectly sure she has not gone away of her own accord?”

  “I was right in the room with her when she was set upon and gagged. At least, I suppose she was gagged, for she gave one or two frightened screams which were suddenly cut off. I could hear her struggling to get free.”

  “Where did this take place? Here?” Kemerson looked around for signs of a struggle, but found none.

  “It was in a house somewhere in West Forty-Ninth. I’d better begin at the beginning and tell it to you in sequence. Edith was called to the telephone an hour or two after dinner. She came to me very much distressed. The call was from a man who gave the name of Horner. He said a man had been injured in an automobile collision in front of his place—that the man, who had been taken into his apartment, was badly injured, and said that he was her brother Leighton and asked that she come to see him. The man who telephoned said they were trying to persuade her brother to go to a hospital as he was pretty badly hurt. I should have known at once that it was a made-up story, for anyone so badly injured in an auto accident would have been taken to a hospital instead of into somebody’s apartment: New Yorkers are not such good Samaritans as that. But Edith was very much upset. She had not seen or heard of her brother—he was a sort of ne’er-do-well—in several months. I thought she had been worrying about him for some time. She had gone out in the evenings sometimes to try to find trace of him.

  “I insisted on accompanying her to the address given—560A West Forty-ninth Street. She found the name of the man who had telephoned, Archibald Horner, and rang the bell. A man appeared almost immediately at the top of the stairway. I think he must have been waiting there, for I had not heard a door open, and my ears are very sharp.

  “‘Is that Miss Vane?’ he asked just a moment after she had rung. When she said that it was, the man came down the stairs to meet us.

  “‘Your brother is quite badly hurt, Miss Va
ne,’ he said. ‘I tell you now so you will not be so shocked as to cry out when you see him. The doctor is with him and wants him kept quiet. I’ll go on ahead and tell the doctor you are here.’”

  “He hurried up the stairway. I heard a door open and close. It was locked when Edith tried to open it. ‘The blind woman is with her,’ I heard a voice say in guarded tones. My suspicions were aroused then and I would have persuaded Edith to leave at once, but the door was opened immediately and a soothing, benevolent-sounding masculine voice bade us enter. I thought perhaps I had been unduly suspicious, and Edith was too agitated to pay any attention to me.

  “The benevolent voice said: ‘I must ask you to restrain your very natural emotion, Miss Vane, and be quiet and self-controlled. Your friend can wait here for you.’

  “‘I am going in with her,’ I said very determinedly. I felt a large hand under my elbow pulling me back, but the man who had met us on the stairs said: ‘She might want someone with her—the shock—,’ and I caught a faint whisper as though someone had formed the word ‘blind’ on his lips with hardly the strength of a whisper back of it.

  “‘Perhaps you are right,’ said the benevolent sounding voice, and I was led forward, behind Edith, not at her side. We went into another room, or through,an alcove, for I brushed against some kind of drape. ‘He is here,’ said the first man. There was a silence after that, during which I heard a door close behind me. Then two or three screams, terrified, blood-chilling, were cut off as quickly as they had started. I knew it was Edith screaming, and that something horrible was happening.

  “‘Edith!’ I cried, ‘What is it?’ and started to go towards her but was held back by that enormous hand on my arms.

  “‘Be quiet!’ commanded the voice that had before sounded so benevolent but was now harsh and threatening. I heard a creaking sound as though someone had sprung hurriedly out of a bed. I cried Edith’s name again, and was jerked back off my feet and would have fallen had I not bumped into the man who was holding me. He threw an arm so tightly across my face that I could hardly breathe.

  “‘We’ll have to gag the old dame,’ said a voice. ‘Get me a towel. Take the young one along—you know where.’

  “Then I was gagged, my hands tied behind my back, and thrown upon a bed. ‘Better tie her feet, too,’ said another voice. ‘No need of that,’ said the man I had taken for a doctor; ‘she’s blind. Lock her in. That’s enough.’

  “I heard a shuffling of feet as though three or four men were carrying something out of the room. It was Edith, and I was helpless. I tried to cry out, but could make but a feeble moan; struggled to get out from under the hand that held me fast on the bed.

  “‘Now, just be quiet for a few minutes, Mrs. Delano,’ said the same voice, ‘and no harm will befall you—or the girl either. You’ll have to stay here until Mr. Horner gets home. You can explain to him and he’ll put you in a taxi. Sorry I can’t leave you in a more comfortable position.’

  “A few minutes later I was left alone. I heard the man lock the door. I was up off the bed in a moment, stumbling about the room until I found a door. I could reach the knob by turning my back and raising my hands sidewise, but the door was locked. I felt about the room, trying to find another door, and bumped into a small stand, knocking something off that fell with a clatter upon the floor.

  “‘Number please,’ I heard a faint, metallic voice say, and could have cried out for relief, except that I was gagged. I had knocked a telephone off the stand! I got down on my knees and felt around with my tied hands until I found it. I put my mouth down to it and tried to cry, ‘Help!’, and achieved only a muffled mutter, so I tried to put fear into my uncouth noises. To imitate the sounds of a struggle, I knocked over the stand, and rattled on the floor with it.

  “‘Give me the police station, quick!’ I heard the startled, metallic voice say, and knew that my attempted cries had been understood. I must have wept for very relief though I did not know it until I felt the tears trickling down my face.

  “How I got through the time until I heard a young Irish voice outside the apartment, directing someone to unlock the door, I don’t know. I could have hugged that Irish policeman—in fact, I believe I did—when he took the gag out of my mouth and untied my hands. When I had told him everything that had happened, he telephoned the police station and brought me home.

  If you can ever do anything for him—Edward Galligan is his name—do it and you’ll have my blessing, if you care for any such nonsensical thing. I’ve been trying to get you on the ‘phone ever since I got home.”

  “You did not recognize any of the voices? Was any of them that of Vanuzzi?”

  “I had never heard any of them before.”

  “Vanuzzi must have learned that Miss Vane went to the District Attorney with her story of the happenings on the Silver Lark and taken this means of shutting her off. Locking the barn door after the horse is stolen.”

  “Do you think he will...?” She hesitated, and neither Kemerson nor the detective finished the sentence for her. They knew the question she would have asked, and Kemerson tried to reassure her.

  “I think he will be satisfied to keep her quiet. Perhaps he feared that she would go to the authorities, not knowing she had already done so. But we must lose no time. Miss Vane did not utter any name when she cried out?”

  “None at all. It was just a scream of the utmost terror.”

  “Was the voice that telephoned to her the same that had warned her to keep quiet about the events of the night of Morne’s murder?”

  “I think she would have told me had it been the same.”

  “Well, that does not give us much to work on,” said Kemerson. “You had better go to bed, Mrs. Delano, and get what rest you can. The police are already busy trying to trace Miss Vane, and I shall follow out a line of my own.”

  “Telephone me, please, the moment you learn anything.”

  Kemerson promised and took his leave, accompanied by Detective Cassidy. At Broadway and Seventy-second Street he went into a drug store and telephoned to Blake to met him at Broadway and Fifty-ninth Street. “I’ve got a hunch we should take Vanuzzi into custody before something worse happens to Miss Vane. Take a taxi and break the speed laws.”

  He had to wait but five minutes for Blake. He ordered the chauffeur to drive to the Traymore Apartment House in Greenwich Village where Vanuzzi lived. Dawn was beginning to break and the life of the city was reawakening; motor vehicles and pedestrians passed at lessening intervals. Kemerson told Blake briefly of Miss Vane’s kidnapping as Mrs. Delano had conveyed it to him.

  “I was certain you would want to help in running down her kidnappers,” he said. “She seems to have made a very serious impression on you. I don’t blame you, Blake; she’s a very charming girl.”

  “I admire her pluck tremendously,” said Blake, “but wasn’t aware I had showed it so plainly. If it was Vanuzzi who kidnapped her, you don’t expect to find him in his apartment, do you?”

  “If he is not there—and I’m not so sure but that he may be, just to give the impression of innocence—we may learn something about his movements tonight.” The outer door of the Traymore was still locked, but they found the janitor tending the hot-water fire. At sight of Detective Cassidy’s badge, the man unlocked the door and ran the elevator up to the tenth floor, guiding them to Vanuzzi’s apartment.

  Kemerson stationed Blake and the janitor at the back entrance to the apartment, keeping the detective with him. Their repeated ringing of the bell and pounding on the door brought no response, though for a moment Kemerson thought he had detected a slight noise as of someone walking softly within. Detective Cassidy took hold of the knob to give the door a vigorous shake; it opened at his touch.

  “Unlocked!” he cried. “And we’ve made enough racket to scare away every crook in the building! “

  They rushed into the four-room apartment, and found it deserted. But there was an intangible something about the place—a mingling of cigarette s
moke, of perfume and whiskey, faintly perceptible—which bespoke the very recent presence of human beings.

  “He’s been here,” said Cassidy, sniffing at the odors. “He’s just slipped out.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know—the feel of the place, I guess.”

  “Well, here’s evidence more tangible than the feel of the place—evidence that even a jury can’t dodge,” said Kemerson, and advanced to a non-overturnable ash receiver from the depths of which came a faint, wavering line of smoke.

  “And here’s still more,” observed Cassidy from the bedroom. “The bed’s still rumpled and warm. And it’s been occupied by two people. Vanuzzi must have a new girl. And they’ve both just vanished.”

  “The fire escape!” cried Kemerson, running to the window. It opened on the fire escape, but there was no one descending by it, nor in the court below. “Quick, Cassidy! Up the fire escape to the roof!” cried Kemerson. “I’ll go up the inside stairway! Wait, here’s a grip and a suitcase, both packed and locked. They left too hurriedly to take them.”

  “Yeah, we got here just as he was making his getaway,” said Cassidy, already ascending the fire escape.

  Kemerson ran into the outer hall, calling to Blake and the janitor to follow him, and dashed up the stairway two flights to the roof. Cassidy was just climbing over the escarpment, revolver in hand.

  “Too late! “ cried Kemerson, after a swift look about. “He’s given us the slip.”

  “He can’t be far away if he had a skirt tagging along,” said Cassidy. “He’s in the building. They likely followed the fire escape to the apartment of a confederate. Here, you,” he called to the janitor. “Who are Vanuzzi’s friends in the building?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t see him about very often.”

  “Who’s the jane he’s got now? Know her name?”

  “It’s probably that girl he calls Vida. She used to come here a good deal until a month or so ago. I saw her yesterday for the first time in several weeks.”

  “Vida Latterby,” said Kemerson. “But all this is not helping us—“ He broke off at a cry from Blake who stood at the building wall, looking down into the front court.