Vincent Starrett - The Blue Door

In the morning he called Pemberton again, and learned with genuine alarm that still there had been no word of him. The operator was brusque and indisposed to answer questions.

Norway’s elastic conscience again smote him. If anything had happened to Pemberton, he was to blame. He didn’t know where Pemberton worked, or he would have called his office. Maybe Pemberton didn’t work at all; he looked like a bit of a capitalist.

“Ought I to call the police?” asked Norway, addressing the scratch pad on his telephone. There was no reply to his question, which, in consequence, remained unanswered. He fell into a panic of thinking.

If he called the police and nothing had happened to Pemberton, his friend might be angry. A lot of undesirable publicity might result about nothing. After all, Pemberton didn’t owe him any explanations. Pemberton wasn’t bothering him with telephone calls about his health.

Monday evening Mr. Norway was seized of a brilliant idea. He had them at times. Before leaving the office he telephoned one Honeywell, an old friend whom he had neglected in recent weeks, and asked him to dinner at the Belle Isle. Mr. Honeywell was charmed to accept. They met in the lobby and went into conference over the oysters.

Bartlett Honeywell was a name well known to a vast section of the American public. It was a name that appeared over exciting mystery tales in popular magazines for sale at all newsstands. But Bart Honeywell was known to Arthur Norway chiefly because they had attended high school together. In those days Norway had worked out Honeywell’s mathematics for him, and in return Honeywell had written Norway’s “compositions.” Although their ways lay widely apart, they were still friends, and each admired the other as much as he deserved to be admired. Honeywell admired Norway because he made a great deal of money in an office, and Norway admired Honeywell because he wrote stories that editors bought and printed and that other people read.

The amateur detective nodded sagaciously throughout his friend’s recital, and seemed to understand perfectly.

“So there you are,” concluded Norway. “Pemberton’s probably missing—God knows where!—and it’s my fault. Now the question is, ought I to go to the police—I’ve told you why I don’t like to—or just go on making inquiries myself? Or ought I to forget the whole business?”

“Forget nothing,” answered Honeywell promptly. “The man may be murdered!”

Norway hadn’t admitted that possibility even to himself. He jumped nervously. “By Jove!” he observed, weakly inadequate.

“What we’ve got to do,” continued Honeywell, “is find him ourselves. I’ll help you. You can’t do it yourself; you’ve got to be at the office during the day.”

“Oh, I could get away,” said Norway easily.

“Well, if I need you,” conceded Honeywell, “we’ll think about it.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Not much to go on, I’m afraid. I wish you hadn’t been so drunk, Norway. You forget the most important details.”

“We can find the house again,” protested Norway. “I’d recognize it in a minute.”

“You don’t even remember the name of the street,” commented the writer, “yet you remember Pemberton mentioning it. And you can be sure of one thing: that old scoundrel with the cab won’t be there during the day. He’s the night lookout. The policeman, too, is a night man, and probably he won’t admit anything. It’s one thing to ask a policeman what you did when you’re drunk, and another thing to ask him when you’re sober.”

“I wish I’d never seen him,” declared Norway earnestly. “Well, we’ve got to do it at night then, Honeywell.”

“Yes,” agreed the other, “I guess we’ve got to do it at night. This night, as a matter of fact. Already too much time has been allowed to elapse. You’re sure you never heard anything about Pemberton’s place of business?”

“I know I never did. He’s a new acquaintance, as I told you; and that’s the worst of it. A nice fellow that I meet, whom I like and who likes me; and first shot out of the box I run him into this!”

“Well, he must have a business some place, where they may know what’s become of him. Some place where people are agitated about him. Anyway, there’s the club. You’d better try it again, before we start out. He may have come back.”

However, Pemberton had not been heard from by anyone at the club; but in the telephone booth of the restaurant Norway had a shock. In the side pocket of his light overcoat he found a strange card.

“Now, how the devil did that get there?” he asked his friend, as they stood together in the lobby, preparing to go out.

The author-detective took the card and read: “Mademoiselle Marie Stravinsky, Russian Dancer.” He turned his peering, thick-lensed eyes upon his friend.

“You never heard of her?” he asked.

“Never in my life.”

“Of course,” said Honeywell, “a man gets a great many cards thrust at him. Some of them he accepts and absently drops into his pocket.”

“No,” asserted Norway, “nobody handed it to me. I’d be sure to remember.”

“I’m inclined to doubt it; but maybe! What you are thinking, of course, is that this card was put in your pocket, by someone in the speakeasy while you were intoxicated.”

“Something like that,” admitted Norway.

“Did you take your overcoat off?”

“I don’t know. I think it was off when I went in. Oh, hang it, I don’t remember!”

He knotted his brows for an instant. “Wait a minute! Honeywell, I’ll bet I found that card in the cab. It just popped into my head. I can’t swear to it, but I have a hazy sort of recollection about it. I seem to remember finding something on the seat when I climbed in.”

“Why should you stuff it in your pocket?”

“Good God, why should I do any of the things I did? Why should I want more liquor? Why should I ask a policeman for directions to a gin palace?”

The amateur detective was thoughtful. “You may be right,” he said, after a moment. “If you did find it in the cab it’s important—or may it be. Of course, someone else may have dropped it there. In fact, someone else did drop it there. Of course! It’s an admission card, see? It’s one way of getting into the place with the blue door.”

Again he was thoughtful.

“Or possibly it was dropped there by Pemberton, and you picked it up after he had climbed in. In which case it’s a clue also, for she will be a friend of Pemberton’s and may have heard from him.”

Mr. Norway again felt inclined to say “By Jove!” and said it before he could stop himself. “Bart,” he added with enthusiasm, “you’re a marvel!”

“No, I’m not,” said Honeywell, who knew very well his limitations; “but the card is something to work on, anyway, and I’m glad you found it. Look here, Norway, this is only Monday night, after all. Pemberton may be all right. Let’s give him until morning to show up at the club. Meanwhile, I’ll take this card and try to get a line on Mademoiselle Stravinsky. If she’s at all well known somebody will know where she lives; and I’d like to be able to call on her to-morrow.”

“All right,” agreed Norway, “whatever you think best.”

Vastly relieved by the knowledge that his clever friend was at work on the mystery, he went about his own business, while Honeywell, proud of his first real detective case, immediately set to work to discover the whereabouts of the Russian dancer.

“She’s probably not a Russian,” muttered the amateur detective, “and probably not much of a dancer, or it wouldn’t be necessary to have that kind of a card to advertise her. On the whole, I fancy it’s an admission card to the place with the blue door. Now, if I only knew how to find that place!”