Colby - Secret of the Second Door

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Secretof the Second Door

byRobert Colby

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Copyright(c)1959 by Robert Colby.

Wildside

http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm

Mystery

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NOTICE:This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the originalpurchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppydisk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation ofinternational copyright law and subjects the violator to severe finesand/or imprisonment.

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_Other books by Robert Colby_

*Fiction*

_Beautiful but Bad_

_Executive Wife_

_The California Crime Book_

_The Captain Must Die_

_The Faster She Runs_

_Make Mine Vengeance_

_Murder Times Five_

_Run for the Money_

_The Star Trap_

_These Lonely, These Dead_

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*SECRET of the Second Door*

ROBERTCOLBY

WILDSIDEPRESS

_BerkeleyHeights, New Jersey_

Originally published by Fawcett Publications, Inc. in February1959. That Gold Medal edition Copyright (C) 1959 by FawcettPublications, Inc. This Wildside edition copyright (C) 2000 by RobertColby.

All rights reserved.

First Wildside Press edition: September 2000

_Secretof the Second Door_

Apublication of

_WildsidePress_

P.O.Box 45

Gillette,NJ 07933-0045

www.wildsidepress.com

SECONDEDITION

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_To Marcia_

_andfor_

_Tomand Diane Johnston_

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Chapter One

The clipping came to Shepard in the mail one day in early June.The envelope, typewritten and postmarked New York, bore the addressof a place he had not lived in for years. The address had beencrossed out and another written in ink. This too had been scratched-- out and the Florida address, his present one, scrawled in pencil.

There was nothing in the envelope but the clipping.

*Hotel Man Dies in Crash*

PaulKirby, 34, night manager of the Briteway Hotel near Times Square, waskilled instantly late last night when his car overturned on Saw MillRiver Parkway. State Police reported that Kirby was apparentlyintoxicated and driving at high speed. He failed to negotiate a turn,crashed into an island of the parkway, caromed off one tree, struckanother, and overturned. Kirby was alone and driving toward New York.

Thecircumstances surrounding the accident mystified authorities when itwas learned from Mrs. Corinne Kirby, wife of the victim, that Kirbyhad been missing since Friday night. Mrs. Kirby, 29, a strikingredhead who lives at the Westbridge Manor on Riverside Drive,explained that her husband had quit his hotel duties early on Fridaynight but had not returned home. She said she had no knowledge of hiswhereabouts from Friday night until news of the crash reached herjust before midnight Saturday. The situation was further shrouded inmystery when police discovered a .45 caliber automatic in a pocket ofthe dead man's clothing. Mrs. Kirby was at a loss to understand whyher husband would be carrying a loaded pistol or where he got theweapon. An investigation is underway.

Neil Shepard read the item through rapidly the first time withincreasing astonishment. He read it a second and third time slowly,studying each line until the facts were clear and he was finally ableto believe them.

There was nothing in the clipping to indicate when this hadhappened, and it seemed important to Shepard that he know. The papershowed little sign of age and had taken less than ten days to reachhim. Still, this proved nothing. It might have been mailed a longtime after, though that seemed unlikely.

He turned the column over to a partial account of the openinginvestigation of a well-known labor leader for the misappropriationof union funds. The investigation had been given wide publicity andShepard remembered it well. It had started three weeks ago.

With a sense of satisfaction, Shepard folded the item andcarefully tucked it in a compartment of his wallet. The satisfactioncame from knowing that Kirby had been dead less than a month. Thiswould mean that Corinne -- whom the reporter's glib understatementhad called merely a striking redhead -- would be still too mournfulover her loss to have become involved with one of the male vultureswho must be, even now, hovering near.

Or would she be mournful at all? Admittedly, Shepard didn'tknow. It had been nearly six years since he had had any realknowledge of her. And now he was a little surprised, a littleshocked, to find that he cared.

How quickly we forget abuses. How easily violent passions arerestored. They need only the small opening of a door long closed.

Shepard finished going through the rest of the mailautomatically, without interest -- mostly bills. He did somethingthen he hadn't done for years. Though it was only ten minutes aftereleven in the morning, he went to the liquor cabinet, took down abottle of good bourbon, and poured himself a double shot. His handtrembled slightly and a few drops spilled on his shoe before he couldget the glass to his lips. He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowedall of it as though it were some necessary medicine. He wiped hisshoe with a cloth and went to the expanse of picture window in theliving room. The window was round -- shaped like an immense porthole.

He looked down from two stories upon the graying,rain-spattered face of the ocean. It had rained a lot that June alongthe Gold Coast of Florida, while the few tourists there during theintermission between the winter stampede and the summer flurry wept.And the natives, as they laughingly called themselves, applauded,liking the change from the endless glare of sunny days.

Neil Shepard lit a cigarette and exhaled with a long sigh. Thetension was leaving him. It was ridiculous to conceal from himselfhis relief that Paul Kirby was dead -- or more accurately -- reliefthat Corinne was free. For he had not known Kirby, a man who hadnever been more to him than a name in a clipping, the first clippinghaving come in the same strange way, announcing the marriage. Thoughnow that Corinne was free, he had no idea, what, if anything, he wasgoing to do about it.

Shepard was a tall man and large. At thirty-two he had a lookof bigness and robust muscularity. He had a full head of dark blondehair, and his features were round and boyish, except for the hardthrust of jaw. His wide, pleasant mouth smiled easily, a helpfulasset in the tourist trade. Few people noticed that while he wassmiling his eyes were sometimes sad, sometimes cold.

The first clipping had come to him at the end of the Koreanhostilities, as he was about to embark for home. At college, he hadbeen a member of the ROTC, and this had brought him the dubiouspleasure of being sent to Korea as an infantry lieutenant. What hadever made him think that a walking, magnetic mine of a girl likeCorinne would sit bovine and docile, waiting for his return?

The newspaper item announcing her marriage -- marriage, notengagement to that stranger, Paul Kirby, came as a double shock. Hehad received a warm letter from Corinne only the week before. Andfurther, the Korean mess was over and soon he would be sailing forhome, busting with his stupid plans for a hasty wedding and eternalhoneymoon.

Nothing from Corinne -- just the clipping -- cold, anonymous,the address typewritten. It must have come from some jealous,frustrated female wanting to knife him for his neglect of her -- someevil dame he had long forgotten. The hell with her. It didn't matter.

He had written Corinne a six-page letter. He knew it was onlyan outlet for his emotions -- a useless crying in the wind. He toreit up. Then for years after, when she came unbidden to mind, he liedto himself that he didn't even care enough any more to hate her.