Ричард Деминг - The Second Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®

The shock of it flooded over Harry like an icy stream. Not because of any particular feeling for Thompson, for he had never even met the news columnist. But the announcement of his death was like a closing door to Harry, an abrupt curing off of an avenue of escape from what was gradually assuming the proportions of a nightmare.

He managed to stammer, “I’m awfully sorry to hear that, Miss Wentworth. But you must know my wife, Helen. She has been Mr. Thompson’s secretary for the past two weeks.”

“I’m afraid I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” the woman said with a note of finality. “I’ve been Mr. Thompson’s secretary for more than a year. And under the circumstances, I am hardly in a mood for practical jokes.”

She hung up.

In a daze Harry left the station, crossed the street and entered the building at 102 Carlton for a second time. Resolutely he climbed the stairs, paused in front of apartment 134 and took the Yale key from his pocket.

Nothing in the past hour has really happened , he told himself. I’ve been suffering some kind of mental hallucination. Now I will put the key in the lock, open the door and find Helen with dinner ready, beginning to worry about where I have been .

Sliding the key into the lock, he twisted it so hard it bent slightly. But it would not turn.

He dropped it back in his pocket and rang the bell. The same red-headed woman appeared. When she saw him, she frowned in surprised annoyance, but then she noted the strained paleness of his face and withdrew a step in alarm.

“Pardon me,” Harry said in an even tone. “Would you mind telling me how long you’ve lived in this apartment?”

“Why…why going on four months. Why?”

“Thank you,” Harry said, and walked away.

The night desk sergeant said, nothing for a few moments after Harry finished talking.

Then he said, “You left out one part.”

When Harry only looked puzzled, the desk sergeant said, “The tavern you stopped in on the way home.”

Panic was gripping Harry too tightly for there to be any room in his emotional system for anger. He said patiently, “I haven’t even had a beer in two days. And it wasn’t just the wrong apartment, because I went back to check a second time. Even if it was the wrong place, there’s no explanation for this Miss Wentworth where Helen worked never even hearing of her.”

The desk sergeant drummed his fingers, finally shrugged and said in a tone indicating he was merely humoring a taxpayer, “I’ll let you talk to somebody in the Detective Bureau.”

Lifting his phone, he pushed one of a bank of buttons on its base and asked for a Sergeant Murphree.

“I’ve got an odd one for you, Joe,” he said. “A guy’s lost his wife, but it’s not just a missing person deal. He claims a whole furnished apartment disappeared along with her.”

After a pause he said, “You can get it from the guy. I’ll send him up.”

“Take the elevator to the fourth floor,” he told Harry, after hanging up. “Go left two doors and you’ll find one marked Detective Bureau . Ask for Sergeant Murphree.”

Following directions, Harry reached the door labeled Detective Bureau just as it opened and a thin, cold-faced man stepped out into the hall.

Harry said, “Pardon me, I’m looking for Sergeant Murphree.”

The man glanced at him without interest. “Why?”

The abrupt question disconcerted Harry. “The man downstairs…” his voice stumbled. “On the desk, you know. He sent me.”

“To see me? Okay, shoot.”

“It’s a kind of long story, Sergeant,” Harry said hesitantly.

The sergeant looked pained. Rather grudgingly he said, “My office is next door,” and moved toward it.

Harry followed, his throat experiencing the now familiar constriction when he saw the door they were entering was labeled Homicide Squad . For the first time it occurred to him Helen might be dead.

The room contained approximately a dozen desks arranged in three rows, like in a schoolroom. Only one in the far corner was occupied, and the man seated behind it laboriously typing with two fingers did not even glance up. Waving Harry to a seat next to a desk near the door, the detective sat behind the desk and said resignedly, “Shoot.”

Harry repeated the tale he had told the desk sergeant.

When he finished the detective asked, “What makes you think your wife is dead?”

The question not only startled Harry, it crystallized a host of vague suspicions into a terrible fear. “I…I don’t think that,” he said desperately. “She couldn’t be dead, could she?”

“How would I know?” the detective asked without feeling. “But if you don’t think she is, why did that damn fool on the desk send you to Homicide?”

Harry shook his head miserably. Then the door jerked open and a bull-necked man in plainclothes peered in at them.

“You the guy with the missing apartment?” he demanded of Harry.

Startled, Harry repeated, “Missing apartment? No…missing wife. I mean yes, both of them.”

The seated detective looked at the one in the doorway with unmistakable distaste. Then he looked back at Harry. With a note of exasperation in his voice, he said, “I been wasting my time listening to one of Murphree’s cases. I thought you said Murphy.”

“When did you learn to think?” the bull-necked man growled. “For ten minutes I been cooling my heels waiting for this guy.”

“Tough,” the thin man said with deliberate lack of sympathy. To Harry he said, “This guy is Sergeant Joe Murphree of the Detective Bureau. I’m Sergeant Don Murphy of Homicide. Next time get the mush out of your mouth.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry apologized stumblingly. “I thought… I mean, I didn’t know—”

“Come on next door,” the bull-necked Murphree interrupted irritably.

As they left the office Harry was surprised to see the two detectives exchange glances of profound dislike.

A few moments later Harry was repeating his story for the third time. And this time he was gratified to find he was not met with total skepticism. Not that Sergeant Joe Murphree gave the impression he instantly believed the incredible tale, but neither did he give any indication of disbelief. His questions satisfied Harry he at least was reserving judgment until he had done some investigating.

“You say you got married just a week ago?” Murphree asked. “What was your wife’s maiden name?”

“Helen Lawson.”

“Local girl?”

“No. From Des Moines. We both are. I’ve been here about six weeks, but she only arrived three weeks ago.”

“How’d you happen to move to Wright City?”

“The Ajax people were running a labor recruitment drive,” Harry explained. “They advertised in the Des Moines papers for fit-up men and I applied. They offered fifty cents an hour more than I was making for fit-up work in Des Moines, plus moving expenses, so I grabbed it. After I got settled, I sent for Helen.”

“And right away she got a job as secretary to this Dale Thompson?”

“Well, about a week after she arrived. The Midtown Employment Agency sent her to Mr. Thompson. She was a trained secretary, so she didn’t have to worry about getting some kind of a job after she moved here.”

“Where’d she stay until you got married?” the detective asked.

“I got her a room up the street from mine. Then we looked for an apartment together, and soon as we located one, we got married.”

“Let’s take a little ride,” Sergeant Murphree suggested.

Instead of using a squad car, they went in Murphree’s own automobile, which to Harry’s surprise turned out to be a sleek Mercury convertible. Somehow, the thought of a policeman riding around in a convertible instead of a plain black sedan struck Harry as odd.