“Do... do you suppose it’s... abduction?”
MacBride looked at the inside of his hat. “It has the earmarks, Mrs. Wayne.”
“Oh!”
He gestured with his hat. “In which case we can rest assured that he’s come to no bodily harm.”
“But... but it might be political opposition. It might be some gang. You know that as soon he gets in office he’s going to push through the Rittenmoore Bill. And if a gang—”
The skipper frowned. “I wouldn’t think of that, Mrs. Wayne.”
She muffled a sob in her handkerchief.
MacBride said: “If it’s a kidnap job, you’ll get word by tomorrow. A phone call. Or maybe they’ll make Cort write a letter. Whatever it is, let me know right off the bat.”
“But if they demand money — and if you interfere...”
“Cort’s an old friend of mine,” MacBride said. “You can bank on it that I’ll do whatever I think’s best for him. For the time being, try to be calm. You’re not going to gain anything by worrying. That’s an easy thing for me to say, but try it, anyhow. And do as I say. As soon as you hear, let me know.”
She said, haltingly: “And if you’re not in the office?”
“When a job like this breaks, I sleep at Headquarters.”
There were footsteps on a hardwood floor; they became muffled on a rug; drummed louder again on wood. Corinne looked towards the reception hall. A man came long-legged in through the doorway.
“Corinne—”
Seeing MacBride, his voice stopped and his footsteps slowed down. He was a tall man, darkly handsome; young and with a lean smooth poise. He bowed.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Corinne had risen. A hand started towards her breast, fell away back to her side.
“Captain MacBride,” she said. “Mr. Figueroa.”
MacBride got slowly to his feet.
Figueroa bowed again but remained where he had stopped. “How do you do.” And to Corinne: “I just heard over the radio—”
“Yes, yes,” she sighed, looking away.
“I came to see if there is anything I might do.”
She sighed. “Nothing. Nothing yet. Thank you so much, Manuel.”
Figueroa had taken a handkerchief from his breast pocket. He rubbed his palms on it, then patted his temples and shrugged his shoulders at MacBride. “It’s quite terrible,” he said.
MacBride, thinking of the woman, said: “I wouldn’t say that. It’s nothing to give a rousing cheer about, but on the other hand there’s no sense getting all steamed up.”
Corinne sat down, rested her elbow on an arm of the chair and sobbed quietly in her handkerchief.
Figueroa said: “Is there no clue?”
“We only got the report half an hour ago and everything’s being done.” MacBride buttoned his Chesterfield. “Remember what I told you, Mrs. Wayne. Good-night. Good-night, Mr. Figueroa.”
Figueroa’s voice was off-key — “I’m glad to have met you, Captain.”
“Thanks.”
MacBride strode to the door, went across the reception hall towards the front entrance. A maid appeared and opened the latch. MacBride, glancing in an elongated mirror beside the open door, saw Figueroa standing in the drawing-room doorway, watching him. MacBride’s step faltered. But he picked it up. He did not look around. He went out. He went down four veranda steps, passed beneath a white porte-cochere and took a pale cement walk that crossed a lawn between blue spruces. He could see the right front cowl-light of the police phaeton. He heard low querulous voices.
Achermann, the driver, was holding a spare figure by the arm and saying: “Nix, I said; nix.”
“Hey,” MacBride said.
“It’s this pest,” Achermann complained.
Kennedy said: “It’s getting so nowadays that a private citizen takes his life in his hands every time he goes out.”
“Yeah?” MacBride muttered. “Who’s been picking on you?”
“Achy, here—”
“Oh, yeah?” MacBride muttered. “Well, I told Achy to kick any stray newshawks where it would do good if they clowned around.”
“Ah, my pal,” Kennedy sighed.
Achermann said: “The reason I’m holding him up, Cap, is that the souse can’t stand. He fell out of a taxi, fell over the curb and started crawling up the path there on hands and knees.”
Kennedy’s tired smile wavered. “I’ve got to get a statement from Mrs. Wayne.”
“Put him in the back, Achy,” MacBride said. “Get in, Kennedy! Get in!” Impatient, he took Kennedy away from Achermann, lifted him bodily and piled him into the tonneau. Climbing in, he said: “Shoot, Achy.”
The phaeton moved, purred two blocks to an automatic traffic light, made a U-turn on the green and headed back towards midtown. The wind was raw and rowdy. Stars twinkled back of a mackerel sky. The canvas top rat-a-tatted petulantly and the wind whistled in varied keys past lights and braces.
Kennedy was slumped in one corner, his hat still as battered as when he had left George’s. Knuckles of his right hand were skinned. There was a ragged tear in his trousers.
“You make me sick,” MacBride complained. “What the living hell induced you to take a header off the water wagon again?”
“Well, it was about seven o’clock, and I was off duty, and at the time it bore the hallmark of a swell idea.”
“If you were off duty, you gonoph, then what’s the idea of this do-or-die monkey business over an interview?”
Kennedy hiccoughed. “I never — uh — thought of that.”
MacBride leaned forward and said alongside Achermann’s ear: “Twenty-five Olympia Street.”
Kennedy went to sleep. Number 25 Olympia Street had an electric sign swung out over the sidewalk. It said: Turkish Baths.
MacBride said: “Give me a hand, Achy.”
Sergeant Otto Bettdecken was holding down the central room desk. He lowered a half-eaten hamburger from his red jowls when MacBride came in and clamped a half-drunk bottle of Canadian ale between his commodious knees.
“Anything?” MacBride clipped, preoccupied.
“A lady’s Pomeranian pup ran away at 10:35 and answers to the name of Goo-goo and—”
“I mean about Wayne.”
“Oh, Wayne. Oh, yes. Oh, that Caddy coupe: Sorensen found it parked on Luke Street between Jockey and Havemeyer. It was empty. Jaekel went right down to look for fingerprints.”
“Any blood?”
“Sorensen says nope.”
“When’d he find it?”
“Just after you left. At twenty minutes past eleven.”
MacBride said: “Give Sorensen special mention. That was snappy work. And for crying out loud wipe the beer suds off your chin.”
He went down the wide corridor and climbed a flight of stairs. He walked with his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets and his eyes were still preoccupied. He entered his warm neat office, took off his coat, draped it on a hanger and clipped the hanger on a costumer. He absentmindedly flipped specks of dust from his hat and then put the hat on top of the costumer.
He went to his desk, picked up a charred briar and stuffed it from a glass jar of tobacco. He lit up. He watched the match burn till the flame almost touched his fingers. He popped the match into a glass tray.
Dropping into the swivel-chair with the worn leather cushion, he leaned back and propped his heels on the desk. Thought went round and round in his eyes.
He pressed a button and turned towards a rectangular brown box. A voice said: “Yes, Captain?”
“Did you notify all cars that Cortland Wayne’s coupe was found?”