Orchids to Murder
A young woman disappeared the day that she had supposed to mary her love.
Where are she? What happened?
Lee, one of her friend, is detective and will search for all this entangled affair. Bad news and great mystery are waiting for him and for you.
Mr Footner is a great writer and you will appreciated him, for sure!
Summary
Mr. Mappin and the Major
Researching
Nina’s Words
Lee With Jack
Connecticut
Miss Dordress Who Employed Blanding
Investigate
Testify
Release Blanding
Restorick came back from Mexico
Always Searching
Mary's Body Found
New Indication
Barmby or Restorick?
The Confrontation
Restorick's Saturnine Humor
A New Witness
My Helicopter
Arrested in Custody
The Diamond
The Truth
Conclusion
Miss Dordress Who Employed Blanding
Jack Fentress dropped Lee at the railway station in Bridgeport. By taking an express to Grand Central, he could save an hour. He ate his dinner in the dining car. The saddened Lee had little desire for food, but he made it a practice always to take nourishment at the proper hours.
Upon buying a New York evening paper, he found that even the bare announcement of Mary Stannard's disappearance was big front-page stuff.
In town, his first act was to call up Inspector Loasby. In any criminal investigation, Lee made it a rule to take the police into his confidence, though sometimes he found it rather a handicap. Loasby was at home, and he made a date to go up there.
He found the handsome police officer at his ease in velvet smoking jacket and slippers. Loasby, though somewhat vain of his middle-aged good looks and cleverness, was an excellent fellow, and they were old friends. Lee now told him the whole story of the disappearance of Mary Stannard so far as he knew it.
"What a sensation!" said Loasby. "Multimillionaire, beautiful actress. It has everything! This will set the whole nation agog!"
"Well, let's not give it to the press until we're a little surer of where we stand," urged Lee.
Loasby agreed. "I will take immediate steps to have Restorick arrested," he said.
Lee shook his head. "Better not! The evidence is not sufficient, Inspector. I'm not satisfied that Restorick is the man we want."
Loasby stared. "But his surprise visit at night to his country house! The handkerchief!"
"Quite so. But Mary Stannard had been a frequent visitor to Black Maple."
Loasby looked at the handkerchief. "It is clear this was dropped on the flower bed since the last rain."
"Surely." A momentary spasm of pain crossed Lee's face. "Her body may be there some place. I searched as well as I could to see if the ground had been disturbed, but of course it was not a thorough search.
Send a couple of men up there tomorrow to look further. Let them be men of good appearance who can make out that they are thinking of buying the place. There's a trash pit alongside the garage that has been partly filled in. That should be looked into."
"I'll do that. In the meantime, Restorick ought to be detained."
Lee still shook his head. "That's up to you. I'm against it. We'll know in the morning if he went to Mexico City. A man like that cannot disappear easily."
Loasby grinned a little ruefully. "Well, sometimes I've been sorry in the past when I didn't listen to your hunches. I'll wait."
"Heard anything further about the other suspect, Ewart Blanding?" asked Lee.
"Not a word."
Lee called up Stan Oberry at his home. Stan had news for him. He said: "Ewart Blanding called up his employer, Miss Dordress, at one o'clock today. I couldn't get hold of you.
Blanding informed her with regret that he had smashed up her car last night on Pelham Bay Parkway. The accident happened shortly after nine o'clock. A passing motorist carried him to Pelham Manor, where Blanding reported the accident to a garage and engaged them to tow the wreck in.
Miss Dordress ordered him to come to her and report in person, but he declined with apologies. Said such an interview could only be painful to both. He promised her he would pay for the car just as soon as he could earn the money, and hung up. Boy! was she sore!
"She telephoned the Packard repair shop to send up to Pelham Manor and get the car and send her an estimate of repairs. Blanding lodged in a room in the neighborhood of the Dordress garage. She went around there, but found that he had already been to fetch his things and was gone. She said she was going to lay a complaint with the police, but I don't think she meant it."
"Upon hearing this," Oberry continued, "I hustled right up to Pelham Manor. Had a look at the smashed car in the garage and found out precisely where the accident occurred. Went to the scene. There was no other car involved.
Blanding, traveling north at great speed, simply left the road on a curve and wrapped his car around a tree. Found a householder who witnessed the accident.
Another car had stopped, he said, and the driver of the wrecked car carried a woman, who appeared to be unconscious or dead, to the car which had stopped. They got in and were driven away. Blanding was alone when he turned up at the garage a few minutes later, and of course the garage people knew nothing about any woman."
"Could the witness describe the woman?" asked Lee anxiously.
"He wasn't close enough to give me a detailed description. Young and slender, he said, had medium blonde hair and was wearing a black tailored suit. If she had a hat, it had fallen off."
Lee groaned. "Sounds like her. Was Blanding hurt?"
"He was limping when he turned up at the garage. Said it was nothing serious. While I was in Pelham, I inquired at the hospital and at the offices of the four doctors. Results negative; no injured woman had been brought to any of them."
That was all.
"Well, I'll be goddamned!" said Loasby when this was repeated to him.
"We're suffering from an embarrassment of evidence," said Lee without smiling. "Better spread a net for Blanding at once. As far as I know, he has no money and he must start looking for a job. Let us put a personal ad in all the newspapers asking the motorist who picked him up to come forward and testify."
Inspector Loasby reached for the telephone.
...
