Стюарт Стерлинг - Collection of Stories

The gentleman standing behind us is Police Lieutenant Teccard. He’ll see that you get to a hotel. Stay where he tells you to until I can get in touch with you.

Teccard gripped Helen’s shoulder. “No you don’t. You take Miss Yulett to the hotel. I’ll meet pal Peter.”

Sergeant Dixon looked up at him. “What evidence do you think you’d get out of him, Jerry? He’s not the same man you ran into uptown, is he? As things stand, you haven’t a thing on him.”

“I’ll sweat the evidence out of him, all right.”

“Maybe you couldn’t. There’s always the possibility this fellow’s on the level. If he is, I turn him over to Miss Yulett. If he isn’t, I’ll be able to give first-hand testimony as to how he operates. This is a job only a policewoman can handle effectively.”

Teccard grimaced. “Put your gun in her bag, then. And don’t be dainty about using it. Another thing: I’m going to turn Miss Yulett over to one of the pick-pocket squad in the terminal and tail you and your intended.”

“All right, as long as he doesn’t spot you.” Helen adjusted the ridiculous brim of the hat, snapped the beads around her neck. Hastily, she used the pad once more.

Did Forst tell you where you were to stay in New York? Or how soon you’d get married?

“As soon as we could get the license.” Tears glistened in the woman’s eyes again. “He said I could stay with his family. But I don’t know just where they live.”

“I bet Peter doesn’t, either,” Teccard muttered, beneath his breath. He watched Helen go through the contents of Miss Yulett’s bag — the little leather diary, the packet of envelopes like the one in Helbourne’s desk drawer, the savings bank book.

The train slid alongside the concrete platform, redcaps kept pace with the slowing cars.

Helen put her arm around Miss Yulett’s shoulders, hugged her lightly. Teccard pulled down the worn, leather suitcase from the overhead rack. “I’ll get a porter for you.”

“Don’t be silly.” The sergeant hefted the bag, easily. “ She wouldn’t spend a quarter that way. So I won’t.” She nodded cheerfully at the woman, joined the procession in the aisle.

Teccard got out his notebook, penciled: I’m going to get a detective to take you to the Commodore Hotel. Right here in the station. Register and stay right in your room until Sergeant Dixon comes for you. Don’t worry about your bag, or expenses. We’ll take care of them. Understand?

She didn’t hide her fear. “Yes. But I’m afraid.”

He patted her shoulder. “Nothing to be scared of—” he said before he realized she wasn’t reading his lips. He followed her out to the platform, located one of the boys on the Terminal Squad, told him what he wanted done. “Keep her here on the platform for a while, too. Better take her out through one of the other gates — in case the man we’re after is still waiting there. Phone my office and tell them her room number. Notify the desk at the hotel to route all calls to her room through the office of one of the assistant managers.”

He tipped his hat to Miss Yulett, left her staring blankly at the bandage on the back of his head. The poor soul must be scared stiff, he knew. Well, better than being a stiff...

He had managed to keep sight of Helen’s abominable hat, thirty or forty yards ahead. He put on steam to catch up with her. She was playing the part of the timidly anxious woman, to the hilt — searching the faces of the crowd lining the gate-ropes with just the right amount of hesitancy.

Teccard couldn’t see anyone who resembled the snapshot. He was completely unprepared for what happened. A young man of thirty or so stepped abruptly out of the thinning crowd and took the suitcase out of the sergeant’s hand.

Except for the exaggerated sideburns, his thin, clean-cut features could have been called handsome, in a sinister sort of way. If it hadn’t been for the cream-colored necktie against the extravagantly long-pointed soft collar of his mauve shirt, he might have been considered well-dressed. There was no goatee, none of the full roundness of the face in Miss Yulett’s snapshot. Yet Teccard was sure he recognized the man. He had only seen those dark eyebrows in side view — the deeply cleft chin had been covered with a towel when the lieutenant had pointed a gun at him. But this would be Harold Willard, beyond much doubt.

Teccard couldn’t get too close to them. “Willard” or “Forst,” or whatever his name was, would be certain to recognize the man who had crashed the room on Eighty-eighth Street! How could the lieutenant shadow them without being spotted himself?

Evidently “Willard” knew that Miss Yulett was deaf, he showed no surprise when Helen offered him the pad. But apparently there was some difference of opinion going on. The sergeant was shaking her head, as if she were bewildered.

When her escort took her arm and led her across the great central lobby, toward the subway entrance, she evidently protested. She made her way to one of the marble shelves alongside the ticket windows, pointed vehemently to the pad. “Willard” began to write, furiously...

Teccard bought a newspaper, unfolded it, kept it in front of his face so he could just see over the top. He edged, unobtrusively, within a dozen feet.

“But I don’t understand.” Helen gazed at “Willard” in obvious fascination. “You’re so much better-looking. Why did you send me the other man’s photograph?”

The youth favored her with a dazzling smile, proffered her a sheet from the pad.

She read it, crumpled it, seemed to thrust it into the pocket of her jacket. “I would have liked you even more, Peter — if you had trusted me — told me the truth.”

They moved on toward the Lexington Avenue subway. Willard was having difficulty holding up his written end of the conversation. He kept setting the bag down, scribbling rapidly, then seizing her arm and rushing her along again.

Teccard followed them through the stile, downstairs to the uptown platform. They boarded the rear of one crowded car. The lieutenant squeezed onto the front platform of the car behind. He saw Helen’s hand release the crumpled paper, before she was pushed into the car. People surged in like a mob pressing to the scene of a fire. Teccard struggled through the door over the car-couplings, into the space Helen had just vacated. He stooped, retrieved the paper.

He held it down at his side, unfolded it.

I wanted to be certain you were not attracted to me merely because of my looks, darling. That’s why I sent you the other picture. Now I am sure you will love me, for what I really am — not merely what I seem to be. Is that not better, dear one?

Teccard spat out a sibilant, jammed the paper in his pocket. The doors closed, the train rumbled out of the station.

He searched the crowded car aisle, ahead. They must have found seats somehow.

He unfolded the paper again, elbowed his way slowly forward.

They were nowhere in the car. Long before the brakes had screamed for the Eighty-sixth Street stop, he knew they were nowhere on the train.

Teccard was in a cold rage as he shoved through the throng and up to Eighty-sixth Street. “Willard” had made a sucker of him with the old on-again, off-again, Finnegan — gone in the rear door, made his way, with Helen in tow, up by the side door at the middle of the subway car and — at the last instant — stepped off to the platform while the lieutenant was perusing the note Helen had dropped.

Of course, the sergeant couldn’t have stopped the man without giving her hand away. Of course, also, “Willard” must have caught a glimpse of Teccard. Now, the make-love-by-mail guy would be on his guard — and likely to suspect Helen. Teccard had dragged her into this mess, by requesting her assignment from the Policewomen’s Bureau. Now she was literally in the hands of a cold-blooded killer!