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 Café 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 Café. 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!