The Ghost Phone Read online

  THE GHOST PHONE

  Johnston McCulley

  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 weatherbeaten, 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’t — “

  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 woman — “

  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 another 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 folks — “

  “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 if 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 Ranley — “

  “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, of 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 a 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 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. He came to the turning and saw Peter Podd. Podd was just outside the door of the Lennek suite.

  Purden hurried on toward the door, 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 was 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.