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It was a simple one-room flat, and the place was littered with too azines, loose papers, and used dishes A radio sang to itself on a table next to a tiny stove and sink She turned it off and dragged a wicker chair fro us, her knees and ankles pinched tightly together and her hands yanking the heo

"Our apologies for intruding on you, Miss Sedlock," Escott began

She interrupted "I&039;ve been expecting to hear from you The sanatoriu after Gaylen Dumont Are you Mr

Escott?"

"I am"

"May I see your identification?"

He solemnly opened his wallet, she peered at it, then at me In turn, I peeled out my old press card for her inspection She sniffed at both of theuely dissatisfied With her, it was probably a chronic condition

"It&039;s out of date," she said to me She looked as if she wanted to find fault with Escott&039;s but couldn&039;t think of anything

I put my card away

"You&039;re very observant," Escott commented neutrally

"I have to be, I&039;ood at your job" He was turning on the char it to a low level so as not to scare her off From the pallid pink spots that appeared and vanished fro, too

"How did the sanatoriuive you my naave him the nod He explained about our search for Maureen and that he had at least located herSince Gaylen Duer in residence and since he had excellent references, the administrator there had every confidence in Escott&039;s professional discretion The doctor in charge had no qual out the name listed as Gaylen&039;s next of kin

"Yes, I&039;ot every confidence in you, Mr Escort, but his lapse in releasing such information is nonetheless deplorable; hardly what I would have expected froree, but the circumstances of this situation are most unusual

Believe er than necessary" He was being utterly sincere No doubt he found her personality just as grating as I did, but was better at hiding it

Her frown softened a little, but not by much "Well, at least they did call and tell h I think they should have first askedin"

"Quite so," he agreed, all syhtly world-weary exasperation at life in general and said, "All right, now that you&039;re here, what do you want?"

"As I said, we are trying to trace Maureen Duht--"

"First of all, I am not related to the Dumonts, and second, I have no idea where Maureen is I haven&039;t heard from her in years"

"How many years? And how did your naust, 1931," she stated "It was a little over five years ago We were neighbors at the sa back then and lived next door to each other She asked if I&039;dthe day if I happened to be at hoht, she said, and hated having her sleep disturbed She said she had to follow a very strict schedule because of her health and get so many hours of sleep or become ill She was quite serious about it, as I never saw her during the day, but her other hours were very irregular She wasn&039;t one of those wo to do with her I don&039;t knohat she did, but she was a quiet neighbor, and that counts for a lot with me"

"What about the last ti to that When the crash ca for h, and so we kept the saot soes As for the sanatoriu with her own for next of kin The idea was that if anything should happen to herthe day, I could pass the call on to Maureen in the evening It seemed a reasonable precaution, so I didn&039;t mind The only call for her hen her mother escaped I iency to justify waking her up, but I couldn&039;t get hold of her till evening"

Escott nodded, soaking up every syllable "Can you tell us her exact words?"

"No, not after all this tiht to pieces then and there I asked if I could help in so up About three hours later, she called and left a number where she could be reached if they had any more news of her mother She sounded a lot calive the nuerous and violent despite her years, and Maureen wanted to take no chances on being found by her It&039;s a terrible sha the situation, I pro the number to us?"

"What makes you think I still have it, Mr Escort?" Her lips thinned a bit into a kind of smile

"You havewith a war to flirt with him She liked his reaction She went to a sht it back to her chair She flipped through the pages until she came to the Ds, and read off a nu Maureen&039;s name and former address Escort carefully copied it down

"That&039;s a Long Island exchange," I said "What was she doing out there? Did she say?"

"No, I don&039;t think so, presu help It was a very short call, we didn&039;t want to tie up h to ive this number to the asylum?"

"Obviously not," she sniffed, "or she wouldn&039;t have bothered giving it tohis visit there"

Escott acknowledged her deduction and returned her out-of-practice sle "Did the asylu had changed"

"Did you try the Long Island number?"

"Of course I did Some man answered, I asked for Maureen, but his h he were surprised He asked how I&039;d gotten his number and I told hiave hiain He said she had left and wanted to knoho I was, but I said Maureen would know and hung up"

"You have a very clear recollection of that conversation," said Escott

"Yes, I do, don&039;t I?" She considered it a moment "I think it was because he was so insistent It made me uneasy I never called back"

"Uneasy?"

"Silly, isn&039;t it? After all, he was only a voice on the phone; an ordinary voice, except for his accent"

"What kind of accent?"

"Allish accent?"

"Not quite"

"Perhaps froion there?"

"NoI think that it was lish, but I couldn&039;t place it now I just noticed at the ti more from Miss Dumont?"

"No, and the asylum called only one more time They&039;d notified the local police, of course, but they wanted to talk to Maureen, and by then I didn&039;t knohat had happened to her I expect they aiting for her to call them"

"Didn&039;t you think it odd?"

"I most certainly did, but what could I do about it? I went by her apartht she&039;d moved out She&039;d left behind s, so it seeht return The landlord wasn&039;t too concerned She&039;d paid her rent, but he was planning to put her things into storage in the basement if she wasn&039;t back by the end of the month"

"Did he have any theories?"

"No"

"And you didn&039;t contact the police?"

"I thought about it, but didn&039;t see how they could help Besides, fro for her, and he&039;d have done all that The landlord said that Maureen&039;s boyfriend was always pestering hi ht to contact hiht have been the unpleasant ain "If she wanted to cut things off with him, that was her business, not mine"

I had no choice: I could walk out or strangle her

I walked out

Escott caainst a street la so much I couldn&039;t even fire the dautter

"That stupid, idiotic bitch!"

Escott listened patiently while I raved along similar and much more obscene lines for soain We walked for several blocks and the ht air helped to cool down reement with you," he said in a ht have saved you a lot of anguish had she spoken to you then, but we&039;ve yet to see if her information is of any value"

"Then let&039;s find out"

We went back to our hotel and Escott started out with a phone call

First he checked with the operator to ot an address and nao with it

"E his inquiry "No, I&039;ve never heard of her"

"You don&039;t sound too certain"

"I&039;m not I don&039;t think I&039;ve met her personally, but maybe I saw her name in the paper or heard it on the radio"

"Perhaps it was an advertise on the newspaper he&039;d bought in the lobby stand e&039;d returned He tilted his head, considering his own thought, and noisily attacked the paper, tearing open the pages in a sudden fit of energy "There" His long finger stabbed at a name

I stared at it awhile "Naw, it couldn&039;t be, not the shipping line Franchers, that&039;s just too big Maureen never mentioned she knew anyone like that"

"You&039;ve also stated she never talked about her past," he pointed out

"Well, yeah"

"It may only prove to be a coincidence of names, as it was rather easy to trace the nuhly"

"Tomorrow?"

"Indeed The sources I intend to exploit are all closed by now--"

"But we could rent a car and drive out there"

"I plan to do just that, but only after I find out all I can about this Emily Francher first--and about the man who answered the phone"

"The one who made little Edith uneasy?"

"The same Granted, the woman is certainly a touch paranoid as far as ain"

"--but for her, the foreneral hostility"

"I get you Her norot nosy?"

"That or ignore hi ahead of my research It is Miss E"

I idly flipped the pages of the paper "Then that&039;s it for tonight as far as the investigation goes, huh?"

"Regrettably, it would appear so"

Disadvantages abound with htproof trunk is the one that irks me the most I miss out on a lot of life, and once awake and free, I try toI feel like doing now is to sit around in this fancy box the rest of the evening," I told hiht of it I was going to unpack and perhaps listen to the March of Time, but if you feel restless--"

"Yeah, I&039; to cure it alone I want to find some entertain" He glanced at his watch "A pity, but it&039;s past curtain tie around, folding it to the outside "This is New York, Charles, they&039;ve gotat Radio City and a new place just opened called The Paradise-"

"Well"

"Here, this is the one, Foliesd&039;Aht and dinner thrown in with the jokes and dancing girls"

He looked a bit shocked as he scanned the details of their ad "Good heavens Have you noticed the two-fifty cover charge?"

"You get what you pay for Besides, this is my idea and my treat You knoell as I do that I don&039;t spend any money on food, so how &039;bout it? I know I could do with so"

He chuckled suddenly "It sounds ot there in time for the last half of the second show and stayed on for the third Escott enjoyed his late supper and didn&039;t seeh for two in order to cover for me with the waiter They had little visible effect on hi of the eyes, but then he looked the sa his Nash

Outwardly he seemed more interested in the mechanics of the production than the show itself, and his conversation was limited to comments on the efficiency of the crew involved

It was hard to tell, but I eventually concluded that he was indeed enjoying hi disappeared froled costu their stuff to the brassy music

The wee hours were upon us when the place finally closed down The air was a hu else, very faint and distant In response, there was a fa in ain, but it was gone

"Like the show?" I asked between my efforts to whistle up a cab

Escott put a lot of thought to the question before co up with an answer "Very much Next time it shall be my turn I hope that you will then have no objections to seeing a play?"

"None at all I wanted to see a show like this just to get the taste of Edith Sedlock out of my mind"

"It was an excellent idea," he said, enunciating carefully "I e production of any kind to a filainst fil background has nothing to do with it, huh?"

"It has everything to do with it, my dear fellow"

"Why&039;d you leave it for this business?"

"Why, indeed?" he asked the general air, looking just a shade wistful

"I mean it, Charles From what I&039;ve seen, you&039;re a born actor Why&039;d you switch to being a private inves--private agent?"

"Because taking up acting as a profession is a good way to starve to death The company I was in folded for lack of funds--that is to say, the er stranded us I made it my business to find him It was my first case"

"Did you find him?"

"Yes, after a time I even recovered the money he&039;d stolen and divided it with the rest of the coed myself and thumped the s It was interesting work, so I decided to go into it"

"Thus for others" He waved his hand vaguely

"Wouldn&039;t acting be safer, though? I mean, since you took up with hed a little "You&039;ve obviously never tried staging the battle of Bosworth Field in a barn full of drunken lu for a horse, they were e hi now, there is a certain exhilaration to this kind of business that I never found on the stage"

He took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly

Perhaps he&039;d realized he was talking about his he&039;d done, which was his usual run of conversation On certain levels, he was a very private man I pretended not to notice and waved unsuccessfully at another occupied cab

"I think it is long pastood purpose, please bring it to my attention and I shall cease iot the door for hi look

"I&039;ve still got a lot of night left to ht I&039;d take a walk in the park"

He nodded, perhaps guessing the real purpose of "

The cab gru around ed with dozens of others, I abruptly turned in the opposite direction I walked quickly,scent once more