“Leroy Dane?”
“Leroy Dane. A very cursory investigation revealed that the man’s facade was built of tissue paper. He was a liar, about virtually everything. And Julia Joliet,” Alder paused. “You knew his name!”
“I still read newspapers, Mr. Alder. A movie star’s name is important here as well as in your California. Go on.”
“The murdered woman was a treasure trove of information — about movie stars. Glamorous people. Why, in addition to her glamor people, should she be interested in Doris Delaney, a girl missing twenty-two years? And if she was interested, why should her murderer then kill her for that information? To get it — to suppress it? It offered interesting possibilities, especially if her murderer should turn out to be the famous motion picture star.”
“Is he the murderer?”
“I have not yet closed the door on that. I came to New York. I had scarcely arrived than I was approached by a man whom I had seen in California, prowling about the premises where Julia Joliet was killed. This man, Mrs. Delaney, is a scoundrel, a man who has spent half of his life in prison. He is interested in Julia Joliet. He is also interested in a missing person — not your daughter, however.”
“There is just one thing I do not like about your story, Mr. Alder,” Mrs. Delaney said. “Your occupation. You say you search for missing heirs. Why?”
“For my livelihood.”
“I repeat, why? A man such as you obviously are—”
“Perhaps I am not what I seem to be.”
“That will require an explanation.”
“I meant — I think you know what I meant.”
“You are an intelligent man. You are strong. At least you seem to be. Unless there is a hidden weakness— How old are you, Mr. Alder?”
“Forty-one.”
“And you are engaged in the occupation of finding missing heirs! Isn’t such a vocation somewhat out of character for a man of your talents?”
“Perhaps my talents are precisely what are needed for such an occupation.”
“You are rich, Mr. Alder?”
“Decidedly not.”
“You have no desire to be rich? To be famous? To do important things?”
“I am exceedingly normal, Mrs. Delaney.”
“You are concealing something, but I will not pry. Not now. Mr. Alder, I have listened to you at length.”
“There is only a little more.”
“I will let you finish. But first I am going to tell you some things about myself. My daughter disappeared twenty-two years ago. I loved her very much, so much, in fact, that I was afraid of the love. I loved her more than I did my husband. That is a hard thing to say, but it is true. My life was centered about her. That is the reason I suggested putting her into the boarding school. My daughter had to grow up, find her own place in the world. I did not want to mold her character too strongly, make her life too utterly dependent on me. And then, in one instant my life was shattered. My daughter disappeared, perhaps met a fate so dreadful that knowledge of it would kill me. Oh, I went through all of it, the agony of the search, the dread of hearing — of learning. I am a stern creature today. Why? Because I have shed all the tears a human being can shed. There are none left in me. There is no love in me, no tenderness, nothing but dry, arid life. I maintain a tiny spark of life, enough to respond to the one call that I still exist for — the call of my daughter. I have no other interests. I contemplated suicide many years ago. I did not commit it because I believed that I had to be here, should Doris return.”
“And if she does?”
“I want no hidden nuances, Mr. Alder. Say what you mean.”
“I am sure you have explored and considered many possible reasons why your daughter ran — disappeared?”
“There are none that I have not thought of”
“Then there is nothing you would not forgive?”
“I just bared my soul to you, Mr. Alder. Why do you ask the question?”
“Because I have studied the case, Mrs. Delaney. It has been suggested that your daughter, in spite of her age, might have been...”
“Pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Jonathan could not bear that suggestion. Yet he would have accepted it. He did accept it here in his home. It was not a... a stumbling block. Or anything worse that your trained mind could suggest.”
“Mrs. Delaney, what do you think happened to your daughter?”
“You made a slip a moment ago. You used the word ‘ran.’ You believe my daughter ran away?”
“It is an opinion.”
“I have always felt that my daughter did precisely that — ran away. I never believed any of the other things — white slavery, kidnaping.”
“Could you make a guess as to the reason she ran away?”
“I never found an answer to that question. I asked it and asked it, and I could not answer it. Not the pregnancy, if she was pregnant. Her reason had to be a stronger one than that. And it is what hurt the most. She had not the trust in me that I had in her. Nothing... nothing she could have done would have caused me to fail her. But she did not know that. She did not know, deep in her heart that she could come to me, at any time, with any trouble, and that I would have loved her and protected her. There is a strange look in your eyes, Mr. Alder. You are a man who has suffered. A woman?”
“Mrs. Delaney,” Alder said harshly, “you’ve told me some things about your daughter that I did not know before. Just one thing more — can you show me some pictures of her?”
“You’ve seen them in the newspapers.”
“I’ve seen one picture. I would like to see others — all that you have.”
Mrs. Delaney pulled out the drawer of the table beside her chair. She took out a small photograph album, a thin one. But she held it on her lap.
“Tell me something, Mr. Alder. Are you going to find my daughter?”
Alder exhaled heavily. “I think so, Mrs. Delaney.”
She handed him the album.
The black album paper was well thumbed. There were three pictures on the first page. The first must have been taken shortly after Doris’ birth. She was with her mother, a beautiful woman with a tenderness in her face that was hard to believe if one looked immediately at the woman across from Alder.
In the second picture, Doris was possibly two or three months old. She was alone in the picture, lying on her back, on a big silken pillow. The third picture showed her sitting up, leaning against the same pillow. She was four or five months old.
She progressed in age on the following pages. She was a year old, two. Then three. She was walking now, a Dresden doll of a child with flaxen hair.
At the age of six she was on her father’s lap. Jonathan Delaney had been a big man.
“When did Mr. Delaney die?” Alder asked without looking up from the pictures.
“Fourteen years ago. Shortly after the end of the war. September, 1945.”
“Seven, almost eight years after—”
“Yes.”
The pictures continued. Doris at ten, at twelve. She became prettier with each passing year.
Then he came to the famous picture, the one that had been published in almost every newspaper in the land, that had been sent to virtually every organized police department in the United States — and most foreign countries.
But there was another picture in the album on the page following the famous portrait.