Touch and Go. Литагент HarperCollins USD

answering questions about Mrs Muriel Probert when I disclosed my interest as an old friend of the deceased who had lost touch and been shocked to hear of her death. As instructed, I produced photograph. Though taken over two years ago Miner recognized it immediately, commenting the subject was thinner and the features more lined when he knew her. During the last six months he had driven Mrs Probert to the Mount Sinai Medical Centre at least once a week.

      Engaging him in conversation Miner said she was a nice lady, and talked to him when she was well enough. Because he had been sympathetic to her condition it got that he was the driver she always asked for. (Confirmed by Mr Sherrett, Manager for Argus, who said Miner was in fact the only driver Mrs Probert would have.)

      ‘Did Mrs Probert make calls anywhere else on these trips?’ I asked Miner.

      ‘Not often. Lately hardly at all except mebbe she’d ask me to stop at her bank—that’s Chase up by the hospital. Early on she used to do some shopping and get me to wait at the department stores for her. But not for the last month or so. She got pretty low what with the treatment and all …’

      ‘I just wondered why she didn’t stop off and visit with some of her old friends.’

      ‘I suppose the treatments just tired her out … I’d help her into the cab when the nurse at the hospital brought her down, and all she’d do was wrap that Scotch rug of hers round her knees and say: “Get me home quick, Frank.” She’d probably just about had enough. She weren’t in no fit state to go visiting.’

      ‘I brought the conversation round to the weeks immediately prior to Mrs Probert’s death. Miner remembered she’d visited her bank. It had been cold and she’d put the rug round her shoulders when she went in because she said she might have to wait, and she had it over her arm when she came out. (I didn’t press the questions here as I understand the visit to the bank has been confirmed.) My instructions were not to arouse any suspicion in Mr Miner that this was anything more than the concern of an old friend. He volunteered the information about the rug because he’d told Mrs Probert that his aunt had brought one like it from Scotland, but it did give me the opportunity to ask if Mrs Probert was ever forgetful and left it in his cab. He was indignant at that and said she was never forgetful—and not like some of his passengers.

      I then asked him about her last visit to the hospital. Without any prompting from me Miner told me what happened.

      ‘Surprised me no end when she wanted me to make a stop on the way home. I’d taken her to the hospital, usual time of two o’clock. I was to be back same time as always, three-thirty. Nasty day, it was, there’d been snow and the streets were slushy, so I was a bit late getting back but it didn’t matter, she wasn’t ready anyhow. When she did come out the nurse had to help her. She looked really done up. Anyways, once in the car she said to take her to these lawyers, Eikenberg and something, and gave me the address. Like I said, it were slow driving so it must have been well after five when we got there. I got her out of the cab and in at the door but she wouldn’t let me take her no further. Said I’d just to wait. She weren’t in there more’n half an hour. When she came out I helped her into the car and drove her back to her apartment.’

      As this was the last time Miner had driven Mrs Probert I was able to press his memory of the occasion.

      ‘I guess she knew it were the last time,’ he said, and he shakes his head.

      I asked him why he thought that, and at this point he made a series of rambling remarks which I summarize.

      Miner had become quite attached to Mrs Probert, said she was a pleasant lady, not like some he had to drive. When the car was not re-ordered he telephoned the apartment to be told by the Concierge that his services would no longer be required as Mrs Probert was now too ill to go out. Miner said he was not surprised. When she left the hospital that afternoon the nurse had said goodbye to her, usually she said see you next time. He thought that meant they had told Mrs Probert they could do no more for her, and that was why she made the visit to the lawyers. Stands to reason, he said, she wanted to make her will. I was able to ask him at that point if she was perhaps carrying anything like that when she came out of the door at Eikenbergs. He said she was carrying nothing except her crocodile-skin handbag, and that was closed. He had jumped out of the car as soon as she appeared in the lobby and taken her arm to help her across the slippery sidewalk.

      ‘Just the weather for that tartan rug,’ I said to him, which made him stop and think.

      ‘Funny you should say that … She never had it with her that day … I don’t remember seeing it since her visit to the bank … Anyways, once in the car after visiting these lawyers she just lay back on the cushions as if she were exhausted and she never moved at all on the drive home. I made sure all the car windows were up. It was freezing outside and I didn’t want her to get a chill on top of her other troubles.’

      As my instructions were to ascertain, if possible, the state of Mrs Probert’s mind at the time, I endeavoured to draw him out. This was not difficult, for Miner was only too ready to talk about her and the sadness of her situation.

      He said her condition was much worse that day than it had been even the previous week. Miner put this down to the harshness of the treatment—he thinks chemotherapy does nothing except make people’s hair fall out—but he did say that on the drive to the hospital she seemed to be angry. He’d never known her like that before. She’d never been bitter about the disease which had come upon her but she’d said to him that day that ingratitude was the hardest thing to bear, and that to find your trust in someone has been betrayed was worse than any illness. Miner had not taken much notice at the time, he was concentrating on the road conditions and anyway he was used to his passengers talking to themselves in his hearing but as I talked to him these words of Mrs Probert’s came back. He is a slow-thinking man but in my opinion, honest. I do not think he could have made them up.

      When he drove her from the hospital to the lawyers and on the way home Miner says Mrs Probert spoke little, but he scoffed at any idea that she might have been seriously disturbed in her mind. In the way she gave him his instructions to stop at Eikenbergs she was matter of fact and precise.

      I terminated the interview at this point as I was afraid he would become suspicious of further questions. I believe he has told us all he can.

       Wednesday, July 3—Report by Alfred Orme

      Mr Orme’s second report was short and businesslike. He had interviewed the superintendent, the doormen, porters and concierge staff at the building where Mrs Probert had her apartment. This time he had no need to pose as other than Eikenberg & Lazard’s representative checking up on the safety arrangements for the premises in the absence of an actual owner. The lease still had three months to run, the rent was paid up, and the servants were occupying as caretakers until such time as the furniture could be cleared.

      The doormen knew the late Mrs Probert by sight, and confirmed seeing her coming and going to the hospital. They were also well-acquainted with Frank Miner and often passed the time of day with him when he waited for her. The concierge staff produced notes of the times the car was ordered by telephone, and the messages relayed to Argus Automobiles. Sometimes the instructions had come direct from Mrs Probert herself, latterly from Dr Seifel and occasionally from the housekeeper, Mrs Hermanos.

      Mr Orme reported that he could detect no slackness either in the record-keeping or the security. The rents of these apartments were high and the occupants expected value for money, twenty-four-hour vigilance and the door never left unattended. Therefore, Mr Orme concluded, if the staff in the downstairs lobby said that the late Mrs Probert had had no visitors during her last two weeks except for her doctor and the night nurse he had recommended, then there could be no doubt.

      Mr Orme’s interview with Dr Seifel could not have been easy, and Kemp grinned as he relished the sparsity of the report. Doctors are notoriously suspicious of any inquiries pertaining to their patients—particularly dead ones—and Dr Seifel was no exception. He pointed out to Mr Orme that the late Mrs Probert’s lawyers had had full access to all her medical records since he had taken her on as his patient when she came first to New York—indeed it had been Julius Eikenberg himself