The Ghost Phone

Chapter I. An Afternoon Off

ONCE more old Peter Podd started impulsively toward the stairs, and then thought better of it and returned to the tradesmen's entrance. He stood before the open door and looked out at the clean alley. They kept the alley as clean here as the avenue in front, for the servants used it going to and from the street.

It was Sunday afternoon and almost three o'clock. Summer had come in earnest. Crowds were hurrying to the parks. The avenues and boulevards were thronged with automobiles. Couples of pedestrians went slowly along the walks. Children played at the edges of green lawns.

But old Peter Podd was not in the proper mood to enjoy the day. His scant hair was white, his face was seamed and wrinkled and weather-beaten, his shoulders were stooped and his hands gnarled. For almost forty of the fifty years he had lived, Peter Podd had been compelled to resort to hard labor to gain sustenance, and the struggle had left its marks upon him.

Since it was Sunday, he had put on a clean shirt from force of habit, and a pair of neatly-patched trousers, and he even had his coat handy. But even the fact that he was “dressed up” did not work psychologically to his advantage.

Now he stood back a short distance from the open door and looked into the alley without seeing anything. Peter Podd was living with his thoughts at the moment, and not with his eyes. His face grew stern, his lips moved.

“It ain't right!” he muttered thickly. “She ain't got any right to do it. A man's got his livin' to make. I'll see her and tell her so. And I'll ask her to change her mind and do the right thing. If she don't2”

He turned and looked toward the stairs again, If he went up just one short flight, he would be on the floor where Mrs. Madge Lennek had her expensive apartment. If he knocked at the door, the maid would answer.

Peter Podd liked the maid. She was about twenty-five, big and strong, and her eyes flashed in a way that said she could take care of herself. Marie Dolge had been with Mrs. Madge Lennek almost a year, so she had said.

The maid would come to the door, and Peter Podd, holding his janitor's cap in his hand politely, would ask to see Mrs. Lennek. Perhaps she would refuse to see him. But, if she did condescend to see him, Peter Podd would state his mind in this matter, make an effort to appeal to the woman's sense of justice—if she possessed one—and do what he could to save himself.

Once more he turned toward the stairs. This time he got as far as the second step, and there he stopped. Peter Podd, for all his years and his weakened body, would have offered fight immediately to any man who dared say he was afraid—and yet he was.

Mrs. Madge Lennek, he confessed to himself, was one human being he dreaded to face at any time. It came to him now how caustic her tongue had been whenever he had been at work in her apartment. She always had treated him like the dirt beneath her feet. Well, Peter Podd knew that he did not amount to much. And yet he was a human being. But he dared not face Mrs. Lennek now.

Yet he realized that something must be done at once. If he allowed the thing to go unchallenged, the end would come within a week. Peter Podd dreaded to contemplate that. He could not imagine what he would do.

He went back to the door again, and stood leaning against the casement, staring out at the sunlit alley. A wren sang her song near him, but Peter Podd did not hear. Some servants from the apartment house next door hurried through the alley toward the street and spoke to him as they passed, but Peter Podd did not answer. He did not know that they had passed and had spoken.

A tragic look came into his weather-beaten face. The kind old man disappeared, and in his stead was some sort of a fiend, such a fiend as injustice makes. Peter Podd began to breathe heavily. His eyes narrowed, and his hands were clenched.

“It ain't right!” he muttered again. “And it wouldn't be any more than justice if somethin' was to happen to her! It ain't right! She and her money!”

He remained staring out at the sunlit alley. Peter Podd was showing more emotion than he had shown for years. A long time before he had reached the conclusion that a man in his circumstances was a fool to show emotion, whether it was hate or enthusiasm. Emotion never had got Peter Podd anything!

He heard a voice behind him:

“Trying to keep the sunshine out, or me in? You're blocking the door, Mr. Podd!”

Peter Podd came to life quickly and whirled around. The grim expression in his face relaxed. A smile touched his thin lips for an instant.

“Excuse me, Miss Dolge,” he said. I didn't realize. I—I was thinkin'.”

“You looked like you were ready to fight,” Marie Dolge told him. “What's the trouble now?”

“Trouble enough!” exclaimed Peter Podd. “She—she has been makin' some more for me!”

“Mrs. Lennek?”

“The same!” said Peter Podd. “Mrs. Lennek—your mistress! And by the looks of your own pretty face, she's been raisin' a rumpus of some sort with you.”

“What's the matter with my face?”

“It looks rather pale,” Peter Podd declared. “That woman2”

Marie Dolge stepped closer, glanced back through the hall, and spoke in whispers.

“She's a regular fiend to-day, Mr. Podd,” the girl said. “She jumped on me about nothing at all. She wanted me to stay in, instead of taking my regular Sunday afternoon off—on a day like this, and me with a date and all. And not a bit of sense in it, either. I told her that I wouldn't. And she kept me busy, doing things there was no sense doing, until just a minute ago. No sense in it at all. She's a fiend!”

“And what do you think she's done to me?” Peter Podd asked. “I'm an old man. I've worked like a dog all my life, and six months ago I managed to get this janitor's job. It's downright easy compared to the work I'd been doin'. And now I'm goin' to lose it.”

“Lose it?” the girl said.

“And all on account of her! She's been pesterin' me every day about somethin'. And now she's told the superintendent that I wasn't courteous to her. I don't know what lies she's told!”

“I'm sorry!”

“She's made me mad enough to choke scores of times, but I always held my tongue. And now I'm to be turned off. I don't know where I can get anther job. Jobs ain't easy for an old man like me to find. And real hard work would kill me, so the doctor said. I ain't got money or folks2”

“Oh, I'm sorry!”

“She's the one ought to be sorry!” said Peter Podd. “I never did her a wrong. She ain't got any heart—curse her!'

“Mr. Podd! Don't say that—don't!”

He turned and looked in wonder at the girl's face, which was suddenly white again.

“Never curse anybody like that!” she said. “Things will come out right.”

“Not unless she'll tell the superintendent that she'll overlook it this time, miss. And I was thinkin' of beggin' her to do that. But you say she's in a tantrum to-day.”

“Don't ask her now!” Marie Dolge said. “You'll just make her that much worse, if you do.”

“But 1f I don't, I'll be discharged. The superintendent's goin' away day after to-morrow. If she don't tell him it's all right before then, he'll get another man.”

“You wait!” the girl said. “You wait awhile and let her cool down,”

“Maybe it would be best.”

“Promise me that you'll wait.”

“I'll wait, miss,” Peter Podd replied. “I'll try to see her after she cools down.”

“That's right. You do that. And now I've got to hurry. It is three o'clock.”

“Just exactly three,” said Peter Podd, glancing at the clock on the corridor wall.

“I'm going out with Benny Ranley, the chauffeur for the people next door. They've gone visiting. I'm to meet Benny downtown, and go for a ride.”

“He's a likable lad,” Peter Podd admitted. “If I was young and strong like Benny Rantey2”

“Don't worry so much, Wait until she gets over her spell of temper and then go see her. Tell her just how it is. You've got to keep your job, course. Me—I'm going to leave her flat as soon as I can get another place.”

Marie Dolge stepped through the door and hurried along the alley toward the nearest street. Peter Podd looked after her. A fine girl, she was, but peculiar and mysterious at times! Foreign blood in her, Peter Podd had decided long before. A girl who could take her own part with anybody! Not a spineless old creature without any aggression, like Podd!

Marie Dolge was looking particularly well in a new white dress and white hat. She reached the street and hurried down it toward a car line. She boarded a trolley car and rode some distance, down into the heart of the city. When she left the car, she saw that it was twenty-five minutes after three.

Hurrying into a corner drug store, Marie Dolge went into a telephone booth. Emerging some minutes later, she went to the soda fountain, ordered and engaged the soda dispenser in conversation. He was a young man who had noticed Miss Dolge several times before and wished that he might become better acquainted with her.

As she finished her drink, Benny Ranley came into the store from the street. A tall, broad-shouldered young fellow was Benny Ranley, not particularly good-looking, but with something attractive about him. He had a winning smile.

“The only girl I ever knew who could be on time!” he said laughing.

“And you are five minutes late,” she accused. “It is thirty-five minutes after three. You said three-thirty. You have kept me waiting.”

“Blame the traffic cop who held me up at a corner,” Benny Ranley said, laughing again. “Let me pay for that soda now, and then we'll hop into the car and drive out into the country, where there aren't any traffic cops.”

The young soda dispenser sighed as he watched them go out to the street. He decided to quit his present job and become a chauffeur. Now and then a chauffeur, it appeared, had a chance to take a girl riding and go out into the country where there were no traffic cops.

Chapter II. Peculiar Messages

BENNY RANLEY was busy for some time guiding the big car through the heavy traffic. He did not have many opportunities to look at the young woman beside him, and conversation was carried on in monosyllables. But finally he turned into a speedway, and after a time reached a country road, and left the city behind. And then he slackened speed and gave some attention to the girl at his side.

“I'm sure glad you finally made a date with me,” said Benny Ranley. “I've been trying to get a date with you for more than three months. I'd just about decided that there wasn't any sense trying, and all at once you get kind and promise to meet me and take a ride. Got your heart melted at last, have I?”

Marie Dolge turned toward him and smiled.

“Don't get mad if I say that you're looking tired,” Benny went on. “You sure are, girl. Been working too hard, or is it just the weather?”

“A little of both, I think. Do I look so bad?”

“Your face looks rather pale. I hate to see a pretty girl like you feeling bad. It's not natural.”

“I don't work at the pleasantest place in town,” said Marie. “I'm going to leave Mrs. Lennek as soon as I can get another good place. She's not human at times.”

“Cranky?”

“Yes. And she's unfair, too. She tried to get me to give up this afternoon off, and there wasn't a bit of sense in it. I told her that I had an engagement, and I just dressed and came away.”

“And I'm sure glad that you did,” said Benny Ranley. “Now it is up to you, girl, what we do with the afternoon. I don't have to be back until ten o'clock, to go to the depot.”

“I must be back back by seven,” Marie said.

“All right. Where shall we go and what shall we do? I'll leave it to you.”

“It—it won't be much fun for you, Benny, but I'd rather just go to some nice, shady place and rest. That's the way I feel,” the girl said.

“Suits me,” Ranley said. “I may mention that I have a lunch in the back of this boat. And I know a dandy shady place a few miles from here, right beside a creek.”

“Take me there,” she said. “And don't be mad if I don't talk much. I'm not feeling any too well. I like to rest when I get a chance.”

“You're my style, girl. Most girls would want to go to some amusement park and dance their heads off. Of course, I stand ready to take you some place like that, if you want to change your mind.”

“You drive to that shady place,” she said. “I want to rest and forget Mrs. Lennek.”

“Terror, is she? She doesn't look it.”

“Huh! You never can tell by a woman's looks how she treats her servants,” Marie declared. “You know old Peter Podd?”

“Sure!”

“She complained about him—and for nothing at all, I'm sure. And Peter Podd is going to lose his job. She's not human sometimes, I tell you. I—I hate her!”

“Poor old Podd!” Ranley exclaimed.

“I met him in the hall as I came away. He was thinking of asking her to tell the superintendent to let him stay. But I told him she was having a fit of temper and to stay away from her until she cooled off. I hope he did!”

Benny Ranley drove on along the tree-bordered country road, intent upon reaching his destination, and Marie Dolge leaned back against the cushions and thought of Peter Podd.

Podd had been undergoing a mental struggle. After Marie Dolge had gone down the alley, Podd had watched the rear stairs, and half a dozen times he had been on the verge of going up to the Lennek apartment and presenting his case.

But he remembered what Marie Dolge had said. Still, he did not want to wait too long. Mrs. Lennek might have visitors—Podd might not get a chance to speak to her at all that day. He watched the clock on the wall, waited until half past three, and then approached the stairs again, gulped, and started up them.

When he came to the top and started along the hall, he began to feel fear again. He hated to face Mrs. Lennek and make a request of her. Peter Podd was afraid that he would be repulsed with hard words, and he did not feel that he could endure hard words just at the moment. Podd had endured about all that he could.

But he went on slowly along the hall toward the door of the Lennek apartment. He had to make the attempt, he told himself. Perhaps, through some good chance, he would catch Mrs. Lennek in an amiable mood.

It was about this time that Madison Purden came strolling down the avenue and turned in at the apartment house. He did not use the elevator, but walked up the wide marble stairs in front, after nodding toward the clerk in the lobby.

Purden reached the head of the stairs and started along the hall. came to the turning and saw Podd. Podd was just outside the door of the Lennek suite.

Purden hurried on toward the and Peter Podd passed him with a nod of his head and went to the front of the hall, where he fussed around with some potted plants, opened a window, and in other ways made himself useful. He glanced back along the hall and saw that Madison Purden had disappeared.

A tenant came from a suite and held Peter Podd in conversation, wishing to know how certain furniture could be moved. Peter Podd talked to the tenant for about ten minutes. Then he went back along the hall.

He passed the door of the Lennek suite and continued toward the rear of the building. A short distance past the door, he happened to turn around. He saw Madison Purden come from the Lennek suite and hurry toward the front. Purden's face, Podd saw, was white, and the man evidently nervous. He carried his hat in his hand, and he did not put it on until he reached the top of the stairs. Peter Podd looked after him and curled his lips in a sneer, then went on down the back stairs. Mr. Purden, he observed, had called at three-thirty precisely, and had remained less than fifteen minutes.

About three-thirty a scene was being enacted in the apartment of Mrs. Howard Crend in a building some four blocks away.

Mrs. Howard Crend was artificial in every thought, word, and deed, a specimen of the hothouse sort of woman. She liked to be thought ultrarefined, delicate, helpless, and managed to demonstrate to the knowing that she was quite a distance from true refinement indeed.

At three-thirty she was pacing back and forth in the living room of her apartment, her face aflame, her hands doubled at her sides, breathing stertorously. Her husband was sprawled across the foot of a divan, puffing a cigarette and watching his wife. He was listening to her tirade, too, because he could not help himself.

Mrs. Howard Crend was the sister of Mrs. Madge Lennek, who had been a widow for a little more than a year. She was three years the older and formerly had dominated her younger sister to a great extent. But Madge had married Lennek, the millionaire shoe man, who had a hundred dollars where Crend had a cent, and that had changed things.

While Lennek was alive, his wife lorded it over her elder sister, and Mrs. Crend felt that she should tolerate it. But when Lennek died, she attempted to become the domineering elder sister again and deluged Madge Lennek with advice, not all of which was good.

But Madge Lennek had learned the lesson of independence and refused to allow her elder sister to manage her as she had before her marriage. Hence, there was a continual turmoil, almost a warfare.

And on this Sunday afternoon she paced the floor in a state of excitement and anger, until her meek husband felt called upon to protest.

“Quit it!” he advised. “You'll be a nervous wreck!”

“I am a nervous wreck already,” his wife informed him. “Quit it, indeed! Stand idly by and let things go to the dogs, I suppose!”

“I fail to see how you can better things,” Crend retorted.

“Something must be done about it! Are you spineless? Haven't you brains that can be put to some use?”

“What can I do?” Crend asked.

“Do you want Madison Purden for a brother-in-law?”

“Not if it can be avoided,” Crend admitted. “Madison Purden isn't quite my idea of a man. But what can I do about it? Can I go to Madge and demand that she cease receiving Purden? That would be the surest way of driving her into the scoundrel's arms—and her fortune with her.”

“I am glad that you finally thought of the fortune,” his wife said with some sarcasm in her voice. “If Madge does not marry again, I shall inherit her money. If she marries Madison Purden, we'll not get a cent of it.”

“Seems to me you're shooting rather wild,” Crend observed. “Madge is a bit younger than you and is in excellent health. The chances are that she'll outlive you by ten years or more.”

“Accidents may happen,” Mrs. Crend reminded him. “A person can never tell.”

“That is true, of course. But I do not anticipate any accident of a serious nature happening to Madge. She is the sort that always dodges accidents.”

“That man, Madison Purden, has infatuated her,” Mrs. Crend declared. “He began to attract her before Lennek had been dead a month. He played on her sympathy. She'll not listen to me any more. I told her the truth about Madison Purden—that he's a schemer and a scoundrel, and that decent men won't have anything at all to do with him. And she told me to attend to my own business, that she was capable of picking her friends without any outside assistance. Outside assistance! Her own sister!”

“If you ask me what to do, I say drop the whole thing,” Crend said. “Ignore her little affair with Purden, or laugh at it. Kill it with ridicule. Let her get over it. Madge is a sensible woman, Purden will make some fool break that will show her just what kind of man he is. Leave it to Madge!”

“She'll marry him—that's what she'll do!” Mrs. Crend declared. “I'm a woman, and I can read the workings of another woman's mind. Don't you suppose that I can see how things are going? She'll marry him—and he'll run through her fortune. We'll not get a cent of it.”

“We haven't a chance, anyway,” Crend assured her. “I'd just drop the whole thing.”

“She is my sister, and I want to save her, aside from any thoughts of the money.”

“That is very noble of you,” Crend replied sarcastically.

The telephone bell rang. Since the maid had gone out for the afternoon, Mrs. Crend answered the call herself. The anger was gone suddenly from her voice. She did not know who might be at the other end of the line.

“Hello!” she called. “Is that you, Laura?”

“Yes, Madge.”

“I just called you up to—to say good-by.”

“Good-by? Madge, what do you mean?” Mrs. Crend cried.

“That's all—good-by!”

The receiver at the other end of the line was snapped into place. Mrs. Crend whirled toward her husband.

“Now, what do you make of that?” she asked, excited again. “That was Madge. She said she called up to say good-by.”

“What?” Crend cried.

“That's all she said—and then she hung up. You—you don't suppose she's eloping with Madison Purden? That would be the last straw. Get your hat—we're going right over there.”

She rushed for her own hat. A little clock in the corner of the room chimed the half hour. Howard Crend glanced at it—half past three!

A few moments later, Attorney Milton Garder, a successful man of fifty-five, sat in his library reading of an interesting case before the supreme court of the State. Attorney Garder handled but big things now, among others the fortune left by the late Mr. Lennek. A buzzer sounded, and Attorney Milton Garder put down the pamphlet he had been reading and reached for the telephone.

“Hello!” he said.

“Mr. Garder?”

“Yes. That you, Mrs. Lennek?”

“Mrs. Lennek—yes! I—I wish you would come to my apartment, Mr. Garder—at once.”

“My dear lady! Is it something that cannot wait until to-morrow?” the attorney asked.

“It—it is very important, Mr. Garder. Please come at once. It is a matter of—oft life and death.”

“My dear lady! What on earth2”

Attorney Milton Garder realized at that instant that he was talking into a dead telephone. He grunted his disgust and returned the receiver to the hook. There had been something tragic in the words that had come to him over the wire, and in the tone in which they had been spoken. Mrs. Lennek, the attorney reflected, was not much given to tragic utterances.

Attorney Garder punched a button that notified his chauffeur to get the car in front of the house as speedily as possible. He got up and hurried from the library toward the front of the house. From force of habit he glanced at his watch.

It was three minutes after half past three.

Chapter III. Not Suicide

IT took Attorney Milton Garder about fifteen minutes to motor from his residence to the apartment house where Mrs. Madge Lennek had her expensive suite. On the way he fussed and fumed and told himself that it probably was nothing important at all, and that silly women who had been left fortunes were the bane of his existence.

Mrs. Lennek probably had suddenly made up her mind to purchase a country place, or something of the sort, and thought that the matter of funds, title, and deed transfer could not wait for twenty-four hours. Attorney Garder told himself that he would be sarcastic with the lady.

The apartment house reached, Attorney Garder got out of the car and turned a patient face toward his patient chauffeur. These two men understood each other well.

“Wait,” the attorney ordered. “How long, I do not know. I am calling on a—er—a lady client. She says that it is a matter of life and death, so I am of the opinion that I'll be at least ten or fifteen minutes.”

The chauffeur, an old and valued employee, grinned, and Attorney Garder did not rebuke him for it. He turned his back, went up the steps, entered the apartment house, and stepped briskly up to the desk.

“I presume that Mrs. Lennek is in?” he asked the clerk. “She telephoned me,”

“I believe that she is, Mr. Garder, the clerk replied. “Mr. and Mrs. Crend went up a few minutes ago.”

Attorney Garder refused the elevator and walked slowly up the wide marble stairs. So Mr. and Mrs. Howard Crend were calling, were they? Possibly that explained things, the attorney thought. Mrs. Lennek and her sister always were quarreling. There were times, Attorney Garder told himself, when he was ready to take an oath never to handle another big estate. Members of the families always were quarreling, and he detested such things.

He came to the top of the stairs and started along the hall. Mr. and Mrs, Howard Crend came suddenly around the nearest turn. They rushed toward him, excitement in their manner, horror in their faces. Garder stopped and watched their approach in surprise.

“Mr. Garder!” Mrs. Crend cried. “Oh, Mr. Garder!”

“What is it?” Attorney Garder demanded, feeling a premonition that all was not right.

“My sister! She—she is dead!”

“Dead!” Garder gasped.

“Killed herself!” said Crend.

“Great heavens!” Attorney Garder exclaimed. “Why—what2 It can't be possible!”

“She telephoned us—such a peculiar message—and we hurried over right here,” Mrs. Crend said. “And we found her2”

“Try to be calm, Laura,” her husband advised.

“She telephoned me, too,” Garder said. “Killed herself? You saw her?”

“She—she was dead when we arrived,” Mrs. Crend explained. “The hall door was unlocked and open for about half a foot or so. She did not answer us when we rang, and so we hurried inside. Oh, Mr. Garder! My poor sister!”

Attorney Milton Garder was an experienced and methodical man. He dealt with cold facts. After the first shock, violent death was nothing horrible to him. And now he glanced at these two, noticed the state they were in, and took charge of things.

“Quiet!” he commanded. “Come!”

His first instinct was to guard his client's interests, though his client had ceased to exist, to make certain about the facts of the affair and prevent a scandal if possible. He hurried along the hall, and the Crends followed, but stopped at the hall door. Attorney Garder went inside the apartment.

He passed through the lavishly-furnished living room and hurried to the door of the boudoir. It stood open. Attorney Garder looked inside and gasped.

Mrs. Lennek's body was stretched across a divan. She was dressed in a becoming afternoon gown. Attorney Garder could see her face from where he stood in the doorway; it showed that she had died in agony.

On the floor beside the divan was a tumbler. Attorney Garder knelt and picked it up, examined it, sniffed at it, and then put it back exactly where it had been. The tumbler, he saw, had contained milk. It also had contained poison.

He stood up and glanced quickly around the room. Mrs. Lennek's desk, which stood in a corner against the wall, was in disorder. Everything else seemed to be as usual.

Attorney Garder hurried back to the hall door and beckoned the Crends inside.

“This is an emergency where we must control our grief for a time,” he said, “in order to bring our minds to bear on the problem and serve the best interests of all. The coroner and the police will have to be notified, of course. Sit down, please, and I'll telephone down to the office.”

The Crends sat down. Mrs. Crend began weeping softly. Her husband sat beside her, staring straight ahead, his face white and lines of horror in it. Attorney Garder was compelled to return to the boudoir of tragedy to use the telephone on the desk there. He was careful to touch nothing else.

Garder notified the clerk in the office below and then telephoned the coroner and police headquarters. And then he went back to the living room and sat down before the Crends.

“This is indeed terrible,” he said. “I cannot understand it at all. I saw Mrs. Lennek yesterday morning on business—she called at my office downtown—and at that time she was looking into the future, making certain plans about some of her property. She certainly did not act like a person about to commit suicide.”