Vincent Starrett: The Blue Door

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” he apologized, when he had almost forced an entrance into our rooms at the Bellingham, “but I am in great trouble and I need you badly. My niece has disappeared in the most alarming circumstances, and I am desperately afraid that something very serious has happened.”

The intruder gazed at us with pleading eyes, set deeply in a face that was lined with anxiety.

“Sit down, Mr. Coolbrith,” said Lavender kindly. “You are the architect Coolbrith? I am sorry to hear your news. You won’t mind my asking you how you knew where to find me?”

The older man seated himself heavily and continued to look at us out of his pouched and haggard eyes.

“Your arrival was mentioned by the newspapers several days ago,” he replied. “For hours I have been calling up hotels, hoping against hope that you were still in town. Mr. Lavender, you must help me, for I am nearly frantic! For two days I have had no sleep!”

“I like to help when I can,” nodded the detective, “but may I ask why you have not been to the police about your niece’s disappearance?”

“The police!” gestured the architect wildly. “It isn’t a New York case, Mr. Lavender. It happened on an island—miles from here—off the Connecticut coast. The only police are village police, and I have notified them. But what can they do? They are as mystified as I am.”

“I see! Forgive my cautious questionings, and tell me what you know of the matter.”

Our visitor passed his hand over his high bald forehead as if to soothe the turmoil within.

“It must have happened Sunday night,” he began. “God! I know so little about it! The island is mine, Mr. Lavender. It lies in Long Island Sound, about a mile off shore, near Grantford. There is an old house on it, dating back to the days of the Revolution, when a collateral branch of our family occupied it. We use it now as a summer cottage, and for two weeks Marian was there alone except for an old housekeeper, a Mrs. Mumford, and an old man servant, Andrew Prior. No, there was a dog, too! Before that, the place was pretty well filled with visitors, friends of ours, and Marian preferred to stay on alone until I could get away to join her. I was going down next week, or as soon as I could get away, with another party of friends.

“All that happened, I have had to guess from Mrs. Mumford’s story. On Sunday afternoon, late, a boat from Grantford visited the island, bringing a message to Mrs. Mumford. She was told that her sister was ill, probably dying, in New Haven; and she left at once in the boat that brought the message. In Grantford she caught a train for New Haven and hurried to her sister’s home—to find her not at all ill, but quite well and surprised to see her.”

He told us the details of the message brought to Mrs. Mumford as he had heard them from her own lips, and of the disappearance of Prior and the dog.

“Neither Andy nor the dog had returned when Mrs. Mumford left, and there appears to be no reason to suppose that they returned afterward. That is enough to hint at what may have happened, and it is terrible. Mrs. Mumford was alarmed, and called up Dr. Ransome. He told her that he knew nothing of the man calling himself Howard, and of course that he had sent no message. Then she told Ransome the entire story, and the doctor, realizing the seriousness of the situation, called me up by long distance. But I was away, and he didn’t reach me till early Monday morning. Well, I went crazy! I caught the first train for New Haven, and hired an auto to take me to Grantford, and at Grantford I hired a motorboat and was taken to the island. That was yesterday.”

He paused, and again passed his hand over his forehead. Then, speaking more slowly, he continued: “Mr. Lavender, she wasn’t there! Nobody was there. The house was empty, and the island was deserted. There wasn’t a trace of her anywhere. I can’t tell you what I thought as I stood there in that empty house!”

“I can imagine,” said Jimmie Lavender, touched by the man’s emotion. “But you must keep your head now, Mr. Coolbrith. I am definitely going to help you, and I want to know everything. What did you do when you found the house deserted?”

“I think I must have come close to insanity. I ran around that island like a crazy man. I made the man who came in the boat come with me, and we both looked. Together we combed that island from end to end; but there wasn’t a sign of her.”

“Nor of Andrew Prior or the dog, either?”

“Nor of Andrew Prior or the dog! Well, I went back to the mainland. I made inquiries all up and down the coast. Not a soul had seen her. Then I went to the island nearest to ours, and nobody there had seen or heard a thing. You see, it stormed on Sunday night, with a high wind and a wild, driving rain.”

“Yes,” said Lavender, “I’m sorry for that.”

“Finally I went into Grantford and reported to the police. They were sympathetic, and they promised to do what they could. They sent a man back to the island with me, and we searched again. It was no good. Late last night I returned to New York, stopping only in New Haven to talk with Mrs. Mumford. I came back because I remembered having seen your name in the papers, and I had heard of you many times. Nobody could tell me where you were stopping. It was only an hour ago that I learned you were here. Then, when I called you, you were out.”

Jimmie Lavender rose briskly to his feet, looking at his watch.

“You can tell me anything else I may want to ask as we go along,” he said crisply. “How soon can we get a train for New Haven?”

And that was the way it came about that, instead of returning to Chicago, Lavender and I found ourselves hurrying to the seaside with Robert Coolbrith to search for a missing girl.

In the train the architect replied to Lavender’s searching questions until the detective must have been as fully informed of Miss Coolbrith’s character and appearance as was her uncle himself. He learned the circumstances of her life and career to the minutest detail. She was an orphan, and Robert Coolbrith was her nearest relative. In time she would be his heir, for he was a childless widower. The girl’s associates, her family history, and all that Coolbrith could tell of the island and its surroundings, also came in for the sharpest inquiry. It was not until we were within a few miles of New Haven that my inquisitive friend was satisfied that he had exhausted the possibilities of a purely mental investigation. Then, fortified with his astonishing record of fact and recollection, he quietly leaned back in his seat and became lost in thought.

We made the trip from New Haven to Grantford by auto, as Coolbrith had done before us, and paused in the village only long enough to learn that the police had accomplished nothing of importance.

“Sergeant Hovey is in charge on the island,” vouchsafed the officer at the village hall. “He’s been there since Mr. Coolbrith went away, but nobody’s come back,” he concluded with a dismal shake of the head.

“I hope,” said Lavender, “that he has orders to keep everybody off the island who has no business there.”

“He has that!” responded the official. Then again we were on our way.

“They seem actually to expect somebody to come back,” I observed cynically, as we drove down to the water. “That’s a bit of extraordinary optimism!”

The detective shook his head.

“It’s a wise precaution, Gilly,” he retorted. “Hovey’s presence on the island is all that will prevent me from leaving you there, if I have to go away.” He turned to Coolbrith. “Mrs. Mumford has not returned to the island?”

“She’s still at her sister’s,” answered the architect. “She wanted to come back, but I told her to wait until she heard from me.”