Our First Clew
The house in which Moore had taken his rooms was of the ordinary
brown-stone type and had once been occupied, presumably, by a single
family. Now, owing to changes in the neighborhood and ever-mounting
rents, it had been split up into apartments.
The basement was occupied, he told me, by a grocer, his wife and two
children. The first floor served as office and home for a young
doctor, while the second floor had been subdivided into two smaller
apartments of three rooms each, with a bathroom common to both, Of
these two, the front apartment belonged to a returned soldier and his
somewhat shrill-voiced French bride. Moore had rented the back part of
this floor, consisting of a bedroom, a small kitchen and a
living-room. The third floor was unoccupied, but was similar in design
to the second.
The house was a large square one, each apartment on the second floor
being self-contained and well-lighted, with the common bathroom
between, lit only by a small shaft and skylight above. The door to
Moore’s rooms was just at the head of the stairs and opened into his
living-room. This room looked out on to the back garden, so called, as
did his smaller bedroom beyond. His kitchen was the same width as the
hall and was the continuation of it, but opened into his living-room
and not into the hall, so that the rooms had a single door into the
hall. This was fitted with a Yale lock.
The common bathroom was, of course, the difficulty and was probably
the reason why he had found the rooms empty. With the somewhat
embarrassing sociability of some old southern and a few old New York
houses, this bathroom had three doors, one into the hall, one into the
front flat, and one at the back, into what was now Moore’s bedroom. Of
these, only the door into the hall was now in use, the other two being
nailed up.
There was only one door-bell to the house, which rang in the basement,
and for a small monthly gratuity the grocer’s wife or one of her
numerous children opened the door for all visitors. The tenants had
keys.
Moore got home first and was waiting at the front door of the house to
let me in. He ushered me proudly into his living-room, furnished in
seedy-looking plush and china ornaments that looked as if they had
been manufactured by an absent-minded anarchist in his moments of
relaxation. The door was open into his bedroom beyond, and the first
thing I noticed was a lot of wire lying on the floor in there.
“What’s all that—the telephone?” I asked.
“Yes, I have put one instrument in already, and I have the batteries
and the instrument for your end. We’ll put that in later. I’m a bit of
an electrician and the job was an easy one. As for my own instrument,
I’m going to keep it in my clothes closet and keep the closet locked,
you see. It will have a buzzer, but not a loud one, so that you can
get me when I’m here, but mostly I imagine I’ll be calling you up. You
see, I’ll have to have a fashionable studio or something somewhere, to
carry out my part of the dilettante lounge lizard. This place would
never do as my official residence from a social point of view. But it
ought to be handy as an ‘earth’ perhaps.”
“What’s the idea of keeping it in the closet?” I asked.
“Well, some one will have to clean the room, and I don’t want some
estimable cleaning woman messing about with it. Trust nobody is our
motto, old boy.”
“And my end of it?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter so much. You can trust Larry, can’t you?
We’ll put it in your bedroom, and you can tell Larry not to let any
one else in there. How’s that?”
“That’s all right I should think,” I told him. “Now, suppose we go
over to my rooms and finish the job on the other instrument, and then
we can do the wiring later, when all’s quiet?”
“Right,” he said; “and, Clayton! I forgot to tell you that you have an
account with the Guaranty Trust on which you can draw up to any amount
not out of bounds of reason. Don’t forget that, because you may need
it. You won’t need to itemize your expenses. I fixed that up with the
Chief. Now let’s go.”
We spent an insane sort of a night. First of all we installed the
other instrument, batteries and induction coil in my bedroom, with an
additional buzzer in Larry’s room for safety. We had no trouble in
getting the thing into working order.
But we decided that it was too early for the wiring, so Moore and I
sat talking and smoking until about 2 a.m. I also called in Larry, and
told him that if the buzzer rang at any time in my absence he was to
drop everything else and answer it, and to follow Moore’s instructions
to the limit.
Moore did another good bit of work that night all on his own too, for
he won Larry over completely.
It was amusing to watch. He got me to call Larry in, and then he
jumped to his feet, for the first time dropping his drawl and his
affected manner. “Look here, Clayton,” he said, “we’re all in this
together. Suppose you introduce me, like a good fellow?”
I played up of course, and introduced them in due form. Moore shook
hands, smiling in a taking way he had. “Glad to meet you, Larry,” he
said. “I’ve heard a lot about you and how you’ve stood by Clayton
here. Real friends aren’t so easily come by.”
Larry was covered with confusion, “Sure, sor,” he stammered, “I ain’t
done much.” Then he turned fiery red.
“Nonsense! And look here, Larry. Clayton has let me in on this search
of his, so the three of us are all in it together now. And I’m hoping
that you’ll stand by me too, if the occasion arises. From what I’ve
heard of you, I can’t think of a man I’d rather have in a pinch!” He
held out his hand again.
Larry hesitated a moment, and then reached out and took it in a grasp
of iron, his confidence suddenly returning with the sudden and obvious
liking induced by Moore’s charm.
“I’ll do that same, sor,” he said simply.
Now I had not said a word to Moore about Larry’s distrust of him. But
Moore must have sensed it, and my respect for my fellow-worker went up
another notch.
It was some time after this that the melodramatic part of the evening
began. Larry entered into the spirit of the thing. He ripped off the
baseboard in my bedroom and ran the telephone wires along it to the
window. Here, with a drill he bored a hole straight through the
outside wall of the house and ran the wires out on to the fire-escape.
Then he replaced the baseboard, so that not an inch of wire showed in
the room itself. We put the instrument on a tiny table and put a big
chair in front of it, and then nothing showed at all.
When this was finished we climbed out on to the fire-escape and
prepared for the big task.
Luckily for us a rain-pipe ran straight down alongside the fire-escape
to the ground. Moore had bought thousands of brads, and with these we
fastened the double wire to the brickwork, getting the wire as nearly
as possible behind the pipe and out of sight. But it was awkward work,
leaning far out from the fire-escape and nailing the wire in behind
like that.
This was not the worst of it, however. For we had to work in pitch
darkness and without making a sound. We dared not flash a light, for
fear we might be seen from one of the houses near by. And the tiny
noise we made with the hammer kept us on the _qui vive_ most of the
time.
There was a funny side to it too. As we clambered lower and lower on
the iron structure, we passed window after window of respectable
apartment owners, now lost in slumber and “little dreaming” of the
fell deeds that were going on just outside their windows. Once Larry
slipped and swore under his breath in the most approved style, and I
grabbed for him, shaking with laughter, and bade him keep quiet.
Somehow, working with Moore lent the whole business a spice of
melodramatic comedy that stood out in striking relief against the dark
background of what came after. But our work that night, arduous as it
was, was glamored with a humorous good-fellowship very welcome after
six months of despairing anxiety.
We reached the ground without mishap, unrolling and tacking up the
wire as we went. There we ran it along the base of the building
against the ground and up to a wooden fence that divided the yard of
the apartment house from the one next door. We covered it as well as
we could with dirt so that it would not show.
We had little difficulty with the wire. The fence was a high affair
made of wooden palings dovetailed together and finished off at the top
with a flat board, about two inches wide, which extended out beyond
the palings a little on either side. Larry ran the wires along the top
of this fence, under the eave of this top board, where it could not be
seen, until he reached the back fence. We climbed this and ran the
wire along the side fence of the yard of Moore’s house and up to the
house itself. But here we stuck. For while there was a rain-pipe near
his bedroom window, there was no fire-escape to help us reach it. But
Moore solved this problem. He went back the way we had come, climbed
the fire-escape again to the eighth floor and let himself quietly out
the front door of my apartment, shutting the door after him. Then he
went round the block to the front door of his new abode, let himself
in with his key and went up to his own rooms. He had an ordinary
telephone here, and on this he called up the young doctor who lived on
the floor below, begging that infuriated young man to hurry around to
my apartment.
In the meantime I hurried back up the fire-escape and prepared to
receive him.
As soon as the doctor had dressed and started on his visit, Moore
descended and opened his front door with a skeleton key. He made his
way to the doctor’s back windows, and, with the aid of Larry from
below, managed to run the wire up to where it could be reached from
his own window. At the same time Larry made a burglarious entry into
the doctor’s rooms through the window, and after shutting the windows
and leaving all tidy, he and Moore closed the doctor’s front door
again and went on up to Moore’s rooms, where, with his drill, Larry
brought the wire through the house wall and along under the footboard
to the closet, connected it up and made a finished job of our
telephone.
In the meantime I had hastily got out of my coat and vest, changed my
canvas shoes for bedroom slippers, and had climbed into a
dressing-gown and mussed up my hair. When the sleepy young doctor got
there I was looking pale and interesting and suffering from a variety
of afflictions obviously beyond his simple powers of diagnosis. I
think he vacillated between appendicitis, galloping consumption and
epileptic fits, but I must admit my descriptions of my symptoms was
both confused and confusing. Finally, however, he gave it up, mentally
washed his hands of the case, and prescribed a simple remedy which I
recognized as something in the nature of a faith cure. He then advised
me to consult a specialist and took his annoyed and sleepy departure.
But I had kept him there for nearly an hour, and I knew that Moore and
Larry must have finished their job.
Moore had insisted upon a _bona-fide_ call, as otherwise, if we had
sent the young doctor on a wild-goose chase, he would have become
suspicious and looked for and possibly found traces of Moore’s
presence in his rooms, which might have led to all sorts of
complications. Anyhow, I never paid a doctor’s bill with a stronger
sense of value received than when I paid his a little later.
Larry returned about dawn and, as the doorman knew him, got back to
the flat again without difficulty.
Our telephone was completed without a hitch and was in running order,
as I soon ascertained by ringing up Moore. Then we settled down to a
well-earned sleep, Larry at least in a state of pleasurable
excitement.
The following week marked the début of Moore and myself in the social
game. Moore took a studio in Greenwich Village, furnished it superbly,
dabbled in sculpture and invited his ever-growing circle of friends
and acquaintances to come to tea, discuss art and view what he
described to me as his atrocities.
For my part, I visited old friends in search of introductions in what
I thought might be likely quarters and followed these up assiduously.
Moore maintained his dilettante pose and went in for the milder forms
of dissipations and indiscretions, doing his best to attain the
appearance of evil without boring himself with the thing itself. I
followed his advice and took to myself the pose of a disillusioned
worldling of esthetic tastes.
Night after night we held long conversations over our telephone,
comparing notes so as to avoid each other’s tracks as much as
possible. In this way we seldom saw each other.
However, I came across his traces once or twice. In answer to a
charming letter from Mrs. Furneau, I called and did my best to
convince her that I had given up all hope of finding Margaret. I was
cynical, disillusioned and self-centered to a point where I wondered
how she could stand having me in the house.
However, she was most charming and sympathetic, introduced me to a
number of her friends and invited me to become a regular caller at her
pretty brown-stone house. She had a distinct charm of manner, arising
from her perfect confidence in herself and her power to please, and I
found her circle a wide one and promising for my purpose. Here one
afternoon, much to my amazement, I overheard two feminine social
butterflies discussing Moore.
“You know, my dear, he must have heaps of money to keep that place
going—and he never works except at his sculpting, and I’m sure he
never makes any money at that.”
“They say he’s fearfully dissipated,” cut in the other. “But I thought
he was charming. Such a bored air and so perfectly self-possessed. He
told me that I understood him as no one else did.”
“Yes, I dare say,” answered the first, unsheathing a claw. “He really
needs some pure young thing like you to take him in hand and reform
him. It’s such a pity to see him going to pieces like that.”
At this point I moved away, overcome by my emotions; but I repeated
the whole conversation to Moore later on and advised him to seize his
chance of reform if she gave it to him.
But it was about ten days after we first launched ourselves upon
society that Moore got what he believed to be our first clew.
I had come home late from a small private dance, bewildered and bored
by the shifting panorama of small intrigues and light love affairs
impossible to avoid seeing.
I sat in my bedroom, slowly undressing and wondering what future lay
ahead for these girls when some of their charm was gone, when I heard
the familiar buzz of our private line. This must be something special,
because we had already compared notes of our evening’s plans at
dinner-time.
Moore’s voice was tense. “Hello, Clayton? Good! Damned glad you’re
home. Old man, I think there’s something stirring at last!”
“Great! What is it?”
“Well, you know I went up to a party on Riverside Drive to-night. My
host made his pile doing construction work for innocent and confiding
suburban municipalities. Now I guess he’s trying to drown his memories
in one of the finest cellars in New York and finding plenty of friends
to help him. I never saw him before and I never want to see him again,
except in the way of our business, but I got what I think is a clew
there, and that’s the main thing.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“It was just before I left. I’d gone to one of the bedrooms used as a
men’s cloak-room, to get my hat. The party had been pretty wild—one
woman nearly had her clothes torn off her by our playful and animated
host—and I was straightening up a bit when a young fellow blew in,
looking for _his_ hat.
“I’d already spotted him as a well-known young rip, with a lot more
money than either wits or decency, and I’d been casually introduced to
him in the early part of the evening. But now he fell on me like a
long-lost friend. ‘Not a bad party, eh?’ said he. ‘But the women
aren’t up to much. Too damned stand-offish for my taste. Only the same
old booze, too. Gee, you oughta been on the party I was on th’ other
nigh’. Say, I thought I was ’n heaven.’
“I tried to shake him off and get out of there, but he wasn’t having
any. ‘Wai’ a minut’, I wan’ tell ya ’bout it,’ he said, in an injured
tone, so I waited.
“He held a waving finger before me and went on: ‘I’ was like par’dise,
I tell ya. I dunno what they gave us, but I was lost to the worl’ till
the next mornin’. They kept me there all nigh’.’
“‘Where was it?’ I asked him.
“‘Damned ’finno. Somewhere out town. But ol’ Babylon and Corinth
hadn’t a thing on that party. I paid $200 to go, an’ I wouldn’t ’a’
missed it for a thousand—girls an’ divans and strange things to drink
that gave ya the most won’erful dreams, Gee, what a party! They tol’
me special that I wasn’t even to mention it, but that’s only a
a’vertising dodge. Ya can’t fool me. That was one of the conditions.
Made me swear not to tell before they’d take me!’ He went off into
fits of laughter here.
“Some one else came in just then,” Moore continued, “and I noticed
that the new-comer stared pretty hard for an instant at the young
hopeful. I don’t know why. Anyhow this fellow had some more to say
that convinced me he might be useful.”
“Sounds like drugs, doesn’t it?” I cut in.
“Wait,” Moore continued. “When this young fellow had stopped laughing
I pumped him gently about the party.
“‘I dunno,’ he said, ‘what they gave us. Must ’a’ been some kind of
drug, for I had a rotten head the next day.’
“I asked him again where it was.
“‘Search me,’ he answered. ‘They took me there in a closed car and
brought me away in one. Mighta been anywhere a’most.’
“At this point,” Moore continued, “the fellow looked up and caught the
new-comer’s eye and it seemed to sober him. He smiled in a sickly sort
of a way and began a wild search for his hat. The other man went out
right after that. But I had a good look at him, and I think I know who
he is. Anyhow, the young rip wouldn’t talk any more—seemed scared and
sobered—and I came away. But I got the young fellow’s address from
him.”
“What’s your idea?” I asked.
“Why, follow him up and try to find out who asked him to the party.
Then work it so that you or I get an invitation.”
“Sounds promising,” I said.
“You bet it does,” said Moore. “Anyhow, I’ll follow it up to-morrow.
I’ll try to get in touch with the young rip and wheedle some
information out of him. But I knew you’d want to know about it first.
Besides, it’s as well to keep in touch with each other’s movements, I
think. This young fellow lives on West 44th Street, in the Branscombe.
I’ll go up there to-morrow afternoon.”
“Right. Good luck!” I answered with a good deal of feeling.
“Any news at your end?” Moore inquired.
“Not yet,” I told him reluctantly, and we rang off.
But, as you shall see, that night marked the end of the overture and
the rising of the curtain on the first act of what was to prove a very
serious drama.