Midnight - Octavus Roy Cohen
MIDNIGHT
BY OCTAVUS ROY COHEN
Author of "THE CRIMSON ALIBI," "GRAY DUSK," ETC.
1921
TO DR. MILES A. WATKINS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I OUT OF THE STORM
II THE SUIT-CASE IS OPENED
III "FIND THE WOMAN"
IV CARROLL HAS A VISITOR
V MISS EVELYN ROGERS
VI REGARDING ROLAND WARREN
VII THE VALET TALKS
VIII CARROLL MAKES A MOVE
XI ICE CREAM SODA
X A DISCOVERY
XI LOOSE ENDS
XII A CHALLENGE
XIII NO ALIBI
XIV THE SUIT-CASE AGAIN
XV A TALK WITH HAZEL GRESHAM
XVI THE WOMAN IN THE TAXI
XVII BARKER ACCUSES
XVIII "AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH--"
XIX LABYRINTH
XX A CONFESSION
XXI CARROLL DECIDES
XXII THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED
CHAPTER I
OUT OF THE STORM
Taxicab No. 92,381 skidded crazily on the icy pavement of Atlantic
Avenue. Spike Walters, its driver, cursed roundly as he applied the
brakes and with difficulty obtained control of the little closed car.
Depressing the clutch pedal, he negotiated the frozen thoroughfare and
parked his car in the lee of the enormous Union Station, which bulked
forbiddingly in the December midnight.
Atlantic Avenue was deserted. The lights at the main entrance of the
Union Station glowed frigidly. Opposite, a single arc-lamp on the corner
of Cypress Street cast a white, cheerless light on the gelid pavement.
The few stores along the avenue were dark, with the exception of the
warmly lighted White Star restaurant directly opposite the Stygian spot
where Spike's car was parked.
The city was in the grip of the first cold wave of the year. For two days
the rain had fallen--a nasty, drizzling rain which made the going soggy
and caused people to greet one another with frowns. Late that afternoon
the mercury had started a rapid downward journey. Fires were piled high
in the furnaces, automobile-owners poured alcohol into their radiators.
The streets were deserted early, and the citizens, for the most part, had
retired shiveringly under mountains of blankets and down quilts still
redolent of moth-balls.
Winter had come with freezing blasts which swept around corners and
chilled to the bone. The rain of two days became a driving sleet, which
formed a mirror of ice over the city.
On the seat of his yellow taxicab, Spike Walters drew a heavy lap-robe
more closely about his husky figure and shivered miserably. Fortunately,
the huge bulk of the station to his right protected him in a large
measure from the shrieking wintry winds. Mechanically Spike kept his eyes
focused upon the station entrance, half a block ahead.
But no one was there. Nowhere was there a sign of life, nowhere an
indication of warmth or cheer or comfort. With fingers so numb that they
were almost powerless to do the bidding of his mind, Spike drew forth his
watch and glanced at it. Midnight!
Spike replaced the watch, blew on his numb fingers in a futile effort to
restore warmth, slipped his hands back into a pair of heavy--but, on
this night, entirely inadequate--driving-gloves, and gave himself over to
a mental rebellion against the career of a professional taxi-driver.
"Worst night I've ever known," he growled to himself; and he was not
far wrong.
Midnight! No train due until 12.25, and that an accommodation from some
small town up-State. No taxi fares on such a train as that. The
north-bound fast train--headed for New York--that was late, too. Due at
11.55, Spike had seen a half-frozen station-master mark it up as being
fifty minutes late. Perhaps a passenger to be picked up there--some
sleepy, disgruntled, entirely unhappy person eager to attain the warmth
and coziness of a big hotel.
Yet Spike knew that he must wait. The company for which he worked
specialized on service. It boasted that every train was met by a
yellow taxicab--and this was Spike's turn for all-night duty at the
Union Station.
All the independent taxi-drivers had long since deserted their posts. The
parking space on Cypress Street, opposite the main entrance of the
station--a space usually crowded with commercial cars--was deserted. No
private cars were there, either. Spike seemed alone in the drear December
night, his car an exotic of the early winter.
Ten minutes passed--fifteen. The cold bit through Spike's overcoat,
battled to the skin, and chewed to the bone. It was well nigh unbearable.
The young taxi-driver's lips became blue. He tried to light a cigarette,
but his fingers were unable to hold the match.
He looked around. A street-car, bound for a suburb, passed noisily. It
paused briefly before the railroad-station, neither discharging nor
taking on a passenger, then clanged protestingly on its way. Impressed in
Spike's mind was a mental picture of the chilled motorman, and of the
conductor huddled over the electric heater within the car. Spike felt a
personal resentment against that conductor. Comfort seemed unfair on a
night like this; heat a luxury more to be desired than much fine gold.
From across the street the light of the White Star Cafe beckoned.
Ordinarily Spike was not a patron of the White Star, nor other eating
establishments of its class. The White Star was notoriously unsanitary,
its food poisonously indigestible; but as Spike's eyes were held
hypnotically by the light he thought of two things--within the circle of
that light he could find heat and a scalding liquid which was flavored
with coffee.
The vision was too much for Spike. The fast train, due now at 12.45,
might bring a fare. It was well beyond the bounds of reason that he would
get a passenger from the accommodation due in a few minutes. There were
no casuals abroad.
The young driver clambered with difficulty from his seat. He staggered as
he tried to stand erect, his numb limbs protesting against the burden of
his healthy young body. A gale howled around the dark Jackson Street
corner of the long, rambling station, and Spike defensively covered both
ears with his gloved hands.
He made his way eagerly across the street; slipping and sliding on the
glassy surface, head bent against the driving sleet, clothes crackling
where particles of ice had formed. Spike reached the door of the
eating-house, opened it, and almost staggered as the warmth of the place
smote him like a hot blast.
For a few seconds he stood motionless, reveling in the sheer animal
comfort of the change. Then he made his way to the counter, seated
himself on a revolving stool, and looked up at the waiter who came
stolidly forward from the big, round-bellied stove at the rear.
"Hello, George!"
The restauranteur nodded.
"Hello!"
"My gosh! What a night!"
"Pretty cold, ain't it?"
"Cold?" Spike Walters looked up antagonistically. "Say, you don't know
what cold means. I'd rather have your job to-night than a million
dollars. Only if I had a million dollars I'd buy twenty stoves, set 'em
in a circle, build a big fire in each one, sit in the middle, and tell
winter to go to thunder--that's what I'd do. Now, George, hustle and lay
me out a cup of coffee, hot--get that?--and a couple of them greasy
doughnuts of yourn."
The coffee and doughnuts were duly produced, and the stolid Athenian
retired to the torrid zone of his stove. Spike bravely tried one of the
doughnuts and gave it up as a bad job, but he quaffed the coffee with an
eagerness which burned his throat and imparted a pleasing sensation of
inward warmth. Then he stretched luxuriously and lighted a cigarette.
He glanced through the long-unwashed window of the White Star
Cafe--"Ladies and gents welcome," it announced--and shuddered at the
prospect of again braving the elements. Across the street his
unprotesting taxicab stood parked parallel to the curb; beyond it
glowered the end of the station. To the right of the long, rambling
structure he could see the occasional glare of switch engines and
track-walkers' lanterns in the railroad yards.
As he looked, he saw the headlight of the locomotive at the head of the
accommodation split the gloom. Instinctively Spike rose, paid his
check, and stood uncomfortably at the door, buttoning the coat tightly
around his neck.
Of course it was impossible that the accommodation carried a fare for
him; but then duty was duty, and Spike took exceeding pride in the
company for which he worked. The company's slogan of service was part of
Spike's creed. He opened the door, recoiled for a second as the gale
swept angrily against him, then plunged blindly across the street. He
clambered into the seat of his cab, depressed the starter, and
eventually was answered by the reluctant cough of the motor. He raced it
for a while, getting the machinery heated up preparatory to the
possibility of a run.
Then he saw the big doors at the main entrance of the station open and a
few melancholy passengers, brought to town by the accommodation train,
step to the curb, glance about in search of a street-car, and then duck
back into the station. Spike shoved his clutch in and crawled forward
along the curb, leaving the inky shadows of the far end of the station,
and emerging finally into the effulgence of the arc at the corner of
Cypress Street.
Once again the door of the Union Station opened. This time Spike took a
professional interest in the person who stepped uncertainly out into the
night. Long experience informed him that this was a fare.
She was of medium height, and comfortably guarded against the frigidity
of the night by a long fur coat buttoned snugly around her neck. She wore
a small squirrel tam, and was heavily veiled. In her right hand she
carried a large suit-case and in her left a purse.
She stepped to the curb and looked around inquiringly. She signalled the
cab. Even as he speeded his car forward, Spike wondered at her
indifference to the almost unbearable cold.
"Cab, miss?"
He pulled up short before her.
"Yes." Her tone was almost curt. She had her hand on the door handle
before Spike could make a move to alight. "Drive to 981 East End Avenue."
Without leaving the driver's seat, Spike reached for her suit-case and
put it beside him. The woman--a young woman, Spike reflected--stepped
inside and slammed the door. Spike fed the gas and started, whirling
south on Atlantic Avenue for two blocks, and then turning to his left
across the long viaduct which marks the beginning of East End Avenue.
He settled himself for a long and unpleasant drive. To reach 981 East End
Avenue he had to drive nearly five miles straight in the face of the
December gale.
And then he found himself wondering about the woman. Her coat--a rich fur
thing of black and gray--her handbag, her whole demeanor--all bespoke
affluence. She had probably been visiting at some little town, and had
come down on the accommodation; but no one had been there to meet her.
Anyway, Spike found himself too miserable and too cold to reflect much
about his passenger.
He drove into a head wind. The sleet slapped viciously against his
windshield and stuck there. The patent device he carried for the purpose
of clearing rain away refused to work. Spike shoved his windshield up in
order to afford a vision of the icy asphalt ahead.
And then he grew cold in earnest. He seemed to freeze all the way
through. He drove mechanically, becoming almost numb as the wind,
unimpeded now, struck him squarely. He lost all interest in what he was
doing or where he was going. He called himself a fool for having left the
cozy warmth of the White Star Cafe. He told himself--
Suddenly he clamped on the brakes. It was a narrow squeak! The end of the
long freight train rumbled on into the night. Spike hadn't seen it; only
the racket of the big cars as they crossed East End Avenue, and then the
lights on the rear of the caboose, had warned him.
He stopped his car for perhaps fifteen seconds to make sure that the
crossing was clear, then started on again, a bit shaken by the narrow
escape. He bumped cautiously across the railroad tracks.
The rest of the journey was a nightmare. The suburb through which he was
passing seemed to have congealed. Save for the corner lights, there was
no sign of life. The roofs and sidewalks glistened with ice. Occasionally
the car struck a bump and skidded dangerously. Spike had forgotten his
passenger, forgotten the restaurant, the coffee, the weather itself. He
only remembered that he was cold--almost unbearably cold.
Then he began taking note of the houses. There was No. 916. He looked
ahead. These were houses of the poorer type, the homes of laborers
situated on the outer edge of the suburb of East End. Funny--the
handsomely dressed woman--such a poor neighborhood--
He came to a halt before a dilapidated bungalow which squatted darkly in
the night. Stiff with cold, he reached his hand back to the door on the
right of the car, and with difficulty opened it. Then he spoke:
"Here y'are, miss--No. 981!"
There was no answer. Spike repeated:
"Here y'are, miss."
Still no answer. Spike clambered stiffly from the car, circled to the
curb, and stuck his head in the door.
"Here, miss--"
Spike stepped back. Then he again put his head inside the cab.
"Well, I'll be--"
The thing was impossible, and yet it was true. Spike gazed at the seat.
The woman had disappeared!
The thing was absurd; impossible. He had seen her get into the cab at the
Union Station. There, in the front of the car, was her suit-case; but she
had gone--disappeared completely, vanished without leaving a sign.
Momentarily forgetful of the cold, Spike found a match and lighted it.
Holding it cupped in his hands, he peered within the cab. Then he
recoiled with a cry of horror.
For, huddled on the floor, he discerned the body of a man!
CHAPTER II
THE SUIT-CASE IS OPENED
The barren trees which lined the broad deserted thoroughfare jutted
starkly into the night, waving their menacing, ice-crusted arms. The
December gale, sweeping westward, shrieked through the glistening
branches. It shrieked warning and horror, howled and sighed, sighed
and howled.
Spike Walters felt suddenly ill. He forgot the cold, and was conscious of
a fear which acted like a temporary anesthesia. For a few seconds he
stood staring, until the match which he held burned out and scorched the
flesh of his fingers. His jaw dropped, his eyes widened. He opened his
lips and tried to speak, but closed them again without having uttered a
sound save a choking gasp. He tried again, feeling an urge for
speech--something, anything, to make him believe that he was here,
alive--that the horror within the cab was real. This time he uttered an
"Oh, my God!"
The words seemed to vitalize him. He fumbled for another match, found it,
and lighted it within the cab. It seemed to have the radiance of an
incandescent.
Spike had hoped that his first impression would prove to be a mere
figment of his imagination; but now there was no doubting. There,
sprawled in an ugly, inhuman heap on the floor, head resting against the
cushioned seat of the cab, was the figure of a man. There was no doubt
that he was dead. Even Spike, young, optimistic, and unversed in the ways
of death as he was, knew that he was alone with a corpse.
And as he gazed, a strange courage came to him. He found himself
emboldened to investigate. He was shivering while he did so, shivering
with fear and with the terrific cold of the night. He could not quite
bring himself to touch the body, but he did not need to move it to see
that murder had been done.
The clothes told him instantly that the man was of high social station.
They were obviously expensive clothes, probably tailor-made. The big
coat, open at the top, was flung back. Beneath, Spike discerned a gray
tweed--and on the breast of the gray tweed was a splotch, a dark, ugly
thing which appeared black and was not black. Spike shuddered. He had
never liked the sight of blood.
The match spluttered and went out. Spike looked around. He felt
hopelessly alone. Not a pedestrian; not a light. The houses, set well
back from the street, were dark, forbiddingly dark.
He saw a street-car rattle past, bound on the final run of the night for
the car-sheds at East End. Then he was alone again--alone and frightened.
He felt the necessity for action. He must do something--something, but
what? What was there to do?
A great fear gripped him. He was with the body. The body was in his cab.
He would be arrested for the murder of the man!
Of course he knew he didn't do it. The woman had committed the murder.
Spike swore. He had almost forgotten the woman. Where was she? How had
she managed to leave the taxicab? When had the man, who now lay sprawled
in the cab, entered it?
He had driven straight from the Union Station to the address given by
the woman--straight down East End Avenue, turning neither to right nor
left. The utter impossibilty of the situation robbed it of some of its
stark horror. And yet--
Spike knew that he must do something. He tried to think connectedly, and
found it a difficult task. Near him loomed the shadow which was No. 981
East End Avenue--the address given by the woman when she entered the cab.
He might go in there and report the circumstances. Some one there would
know who she was, and--but he hesitated.
Perhaps this thing had been prearranged. Perhaps they would get him--for
what he didn't know. When a man--a young man--comes face to face with
murder for the first time, making its acquaintance on a freezing December
midnight and in a lonely spot, he is not to be blamed if his mental
equilibrium is destroyed.
Wild plans chased each other through his brain. He might dump the body by
the roadside and run back to town. That was absurd on the face of it, for
he would be convicting himself when the body was found. It would be
traced to him in some way--he knew that. He was already determined to
keep away from No. 981 East End Avenue. There was something sinister in
the unfriendly shadow of the rambling house. He might call the police.
That was it--he would call the police. But how? Go into a house near by,
wake the residents, telephone headquarters that a murder had been done?
Alarm the neighborhood, and identify himself with the crime? Spike was
afraid, frankly and boyishly afraid--afraid of the present, and more
afraid of the future.
And yet he knew that he must get in touch with the police, else the
police would eventually get in touch with him. He thought then of taking
the body in to headquarters; but he feared that his cab might be stopped
_en route_ to the city and the body discovered. They would never believe,
then, that he had been bound for headquarters.
Almost before he knew that he had arrived at a decision, Spike had groped
his way across the icy street and pressed the bell-button on the front
door of the least unprepossessing house on the block.
For a long time there was no answer. Finally a light shone in the hall,
and the skinny figure of a man, shivering violently despite the
blanket-robe which enfolded him, appeared in the hallway. He flashed on
the porch light from inside and peered through the glass door. Apparently
reassured, he cracked the door slightly.
"Yes. What do you want?"
At sound of a human voice, Spike instantly felt easier. The fact that he
could converse, that he had shed his terrible loneliness, steadied him as
nothing else could have done. He was surprised at his own calmness, at
the fact that there was scarcely a quaver in the voice with which he
answered the man.
"I'm Spike Walters," he said with surprising quietness. "I'm a driver for
the Yellow and White Taxicab Company. My cab is No. 92,381. I have a man
in my cab who has been badly injured. I want to telephone to the city."
The little householder opened the door wider, and Spike entered. Cold as
the house was, from the standpoint of the man within, its hold-over
warmth was a godsend to Spike's thoroughly chilled body.
The little man designated a telephone on the wall, then started nervously
as central answered and Spike barked a single command into the
transmitter:
"Police-station, please!"
"Police?"
"Never you mind, sir," Spike told the householder. "Hello! Police!" he
called to the operator.
There was a pause, then Spike went on:
"This is Spike Walters--Yellow and White Taxi Company. I'm out at No. 981
East End Avenue. There's a dead man in my cab!"
The weary voice at the other end became suddenly alive.
"A dead man!"
"Yes."
"Who is he?"
"I don't know. That's why I called you."
"When did he die? How?"
Spike controlled himself with an effort.
"Don't you understand? He has been killed--"
"The devil you say!" replied the voice at headquarters, and the little
householder chimed in with a frightened squeak.
"Yes," repeated Spike painstakingly. "The man is dead--killed. It is very
peculiar. I can't explain over the phone. I called up to ask you what I
shall do."
"Hold connection a minute!" Spike heard a hurried whispered conversation
at the other end, then the voice barked back at him: "Stay where you
are--couple of officers coming, and coming fast!"
It was Dan O'Leary, night desk sergeant, who was on duty at headquarters
that night, and Sergeant Dan O'Leary was a good deal of an institution on
the city's force. He hopped excitedly from his desk into the office of
Eric Leverage, the chief of police.
Chief Leverage, a broad-shouldered, heavy-set, bushy-eyebrowed
individual, looked up from the chess-board, annoyed at this interruption
of a game which had been in progress since ten o'clock that night.
O'Leary grabbed a salute from thin air.
"'Scuse my botherin' ye, chief, but there's hell to pay out at East End."
O'Leary was never long at coming to the point. Leverage looked up.
So, too, did the boyish, clean-shaven young man with whom he was
playing chess.
"An' knowin' that Mr. Carroll was playin' chess with ye, chief--an' him
naturally interested in such things--I hopped right in."
"I'll say you did," commented the chief phlegmatically. "I have you
there, Carroll--dead to rights!"
O'Leary was a trifle irritated at the cold reception accorded his news.
"Ye ain't after understanding" he said slowly. "It's murder that has been
done this night."
"H-m!" Carroll's slow, pleasant drawl seemed to soothe O'Leary. "Murder?"
"You said it, Mr. Carroll."
Leverage had risen. It was plain to be seen from his manner that the
chess-game was forgotten. Leverage was a policeman first and a
chess-player second--a very poor second. His voice, surcharged with
interest, cracked out into the room.
"Spill the dope, O'Leary!"
The night desk sergeant needed no further bidding. In a few graphic words
he outlined his telephone conversation with Spike Walters.
Before he finished speaking, Leverage was slipping into his enormous
overcoat. He nodded to Carroll.
"How about trotting out there with me, David?"
Carroll smiled agreeably.
"Thank goodness my new coupe has a heating device, chief!"
That was all. It wasn't David Carroll's way to talk much, or to show any
untoward emotion. It was Carroll's very boyishness which was his greatest
asset. He had a way of stepping into a case before the principals knew he
was there, and of solving it in a manner which savored not at all of
flamboyance. A quiet man was Carroll, and one whose deductive powers Eric
Leverage fairly worshiped.
On the slippery, skiddy journey to East End the two men--professional
policeman and amateur criminologist--did not talk much. A few comments
regarding the sudden advent of fiercest winter; a remark, forcedly
jocular, from the chief, that murderers might be considerate enough to
pick better weather for the practice of their profession--and that was
all. Thus far they knew nothing about the case, and they were both too
well versed in criminology to attempt a discussion of something with
which they were unfamiliar.
Spike Walters saw them coming--saw their headlights splitting the
frigid night. He was at the curb to meet them as they pulled up. He
told his story briefly and concisely. Leverage inspected the young man
closely, made note of his license number and the number of his
taxi-cab. Then he turned to his companion, who had stood by, a silent
and interested observer.
"S'pose you talk to him a bit, Carroll."
"I'm David Carroll," introduced the other man. "I'm connected with the
police department. There's a few things you tell which are rather
peculiar. Any objections to discussing them?"
In spite of himself, Spike felt a genial warming toward this boyish-faced
man. He had heard of Carroll, and rather feared his prowess; but now that
he was face to face with him, he found himself liking the chap. Not only
that, but he was conscious of a sense of protection, as if Carroll were
there for no other purpose than to take care of him, to see that he
received a square deal.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Carroll, I'll be glad to tell you anything I know."
"You have said, Walters, that the passenger you picked up at the Union
Station was a woman."
"Yes, sir, it was a woman."
"Are you sure?"
"Why, yes, sir. I couldn't very well be mistaken. You see--o-o-oh!
You're thinking maybe it was a man in woman's clothes? Is that it, sir?"