Part 1

# Mission of fear ### By Coxe, George Harmon

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_Books by GEORGE HARMON COXE_

_Murder with Pictures (1935)_ _The Barotique Mystery (1936)_ _The Camera Clue (1937)_ _Four Frightened Women (1939)_ _Murder for the Asking (1939)_ _The Glass Triangle (1939)_ _The Lady Is Afraid (1940)_ _No Time to Kill (1941)_ _Mrs. Murdock Takes a Case (1941)_ _Silent Are the Dead (1942)_ _Assignment in Guiana (1942)_ _The Charred Witness (1942)_ _Alias the Dead (1943)_ _Murder for Two (1943)_ _Murder in Havana (1943)_ _The Groom Lay Dead (1944)_ _The Jade Venus (1945)_ _Woman at Bay (1945)_ _Dangerous Legacy (1946)_ _The Fifth Key (1947)_ _Fashioned for Murder (1947)_ _Venturous Lady (1948)_ _The Hollow Needle (1948)_ _Lady Killer (1949)_ _Inland Passage (1949)_ _Eye Witness (1950)_ _The Frightened Fiancée (1950)_ _The Widow Had a Gun (1951)_ _The Man Who Died Twice (1951)_ _Never Bet Your Life (1952)_ _The Crimson Clue (1953)_ _Uninvited Guest (1953)_ _Focus on Murder (1954)_ _Death at the Isthmus (1954)_ _Top Assignment (1955)_ _Suddenly a Widow (1956)_ _Man on a Rope (1956)_ _Murder on Their Minds (1957)_ _One Minute Past Eight (1957)_ _The Impetuous Mistress (1958)_ _The Big Gamble (1958)_ _Slack Tide (1959)_ _Triple Exposure (1959) CONTAINING_ _The Glass Triangle, The Jade Venus, & The Fifth Key_ _One Way Out (1960)_ _The Last Commandment (1960)_ _Error of Judgment (1961)_ _Moment of Violence (1961)_ _The Man Who Died Too Soon (1962)_ _Mission of Fear (1962)_

THESE ARE BORZOI BOOKS, PUBLISHED IN NEW YORK BY

_ALFRED A. KNOPF_

_MISSION OF FEAR_

Sam Adler appeared one afternoon at Marion Hayden’s door trying for the big payoff--Blackmail. The next day he was dead--paid off with a knife in the back--and for the Haydens the nightmare had just begun.

Adler’s story had been stunning enough before--now, with State Police Lieutenant Garvey pushing hard it could mean a murder indictment for both of them. And Garvey kept the questions coming fast--questions that all reduced to one: Was Ted Corbin alive? Ted Corbin--Marion Hayden’s ex-husband, and by every evidence dead these two years in an airplane accident.

Doris Lamar knew some of the answers--but she had her own good reasons for keeping them to herself.

John Hayden didn’t have any answers--yet. But he did have two photographs and a hunch; and that was why he was traveling desperately across the country now--in search of a dead man.

For if Corbin were alive he might know all the answers--might very well _be_ the answer.

This was John Hayden’s last chance: he had to find Corbin ... he _had_ to find him.

The pace and tension build in every page of this tale of greed, jealousy and hatred by the dean of American mystery writers. Here is one of George Harmon Coxe’s neatest, briskest performances.

MISSION OF FEAR

_George Harmon Coxe_

[Illustration: (colophon, a Borzoi dog)]

ALFRED A. KNOPF · _New York_

1962

_L. C. catalog card number_: _62-14612_

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK, PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.

_Copyright © 1962 by George Harmon Coxe._

_All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in the United States of America, and distributed by Random House, Inc. Published simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Random House of Canada, Limited._

FIRST EDITION

MISSION OF FEAR

_1_

The first word John Hayden heard about the stranger who had arrived in Morrisville to threaten his marriage came from Lee Cramer, who ran the filling station at the south edge of the village. It was a gray, damp, and windy day in early March, with no promise of spring in the raw air, and now, at five-thirty, it was nearly dark when Hayden, on his way home from his small factory near South Norwalk, angled the sedan into the service area and stopped opposite the row of gasoline pumps.

There were no other customers and Cramer popped out of the concrete cube which was his office and hurried forward, leaning a little against the wind and giving a tug to the zipper on the short woolen jacket he wore over his coveralls. He was a short but sturdy man with a rugged face and a lively manner, and as Hayden rolled the window down, Cramer remarked with some disgust that it was a lovely day. Hayden said yes but at least it was a change, it wasn’t raining.

“Fill it up?”

“Please. I think the front end is okay for now.”

Cramer activated the pump’s motor, and with the nozzle inserted and the automatic cutoff working, he picked a paper towel from the dispensing container, squirted cleaner on one side of the windshield, and began to polish it. He had finished half of this when he stopped and looked at Hayden.

“Say, did that fellow find your place all right yesterday afternoon?”

“What fellow?” Hayden said, leaning toward the open window.

“He drove in here and asked if there was a good motel in town.” Cramer walked around the hood and attacked the remaining part of the windshield. “I told him The Shady Maple was the only one we had, and then he asked if I knew you. I told him yes. I said you were a regular here and he asked how to get to your place. I told him.”

“Did he give his name?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

“What did he look like?”

Cramer heard the cutoff work in the nozzle and disappeared behind the car to remove it. When he had racked it in place and stopped the motor he said: “Three-eighty, Mr. Hayden. I’ll get the book.”

When he came out of the office with the charge book, Hayden repeated the question.

“Oh--average size, dark-haired, late thirties maybe. A snappy dresser with a city look to him. The cocky type. Nosy too.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“He said he was a friend of yours. Wanted to know if you didn’t have a factory that made citizen-band radios, and when I said yes, he asked how you were doing. By then I’d had enough. I told him if he was a friend of yours he could ask you himself. He said he would. That’s why I mentioned it to you in the first place. I thought he was going to look you up.”

Hayden signed the book and stepped on the starter, a frown working at his brown eyes as he tried to place someone who would fit Cramer’s description. When he failed he thanked Cramer for the information and drove down the main street toward Jerry’s Tavern to get his nightly after-work quick one.

In other days, before he had married and moved to Morrisville, he had commuted to a small apartment not far from the Greenwich station. Like so many of his fellow travelers, he had stopped at the Commodore or the Biltmore Men’s Bar to fortify himself with two martinis for the ride home. Since the habit was strong and since Marion seldom wanted but one cocktail before dinner, it was his custom on weekdays to stop at Jerry’s for that first drink to lessen the tensions of his work day and bring him home for his drink with his wife in a more relaxed and human frame of mind.

Jerry’s Tavern was almost directly across the street from The Shady Maple, a long, narrow, dimly lighted establishment that was part of an old building which had been sandwiched in between the more modern structures making up the rest of the block. The ancient and massive bar, the ornate back-bar, the woodwork, and the wide but uneven board floors suggested that it had always been a tavern, but under the present owner the kitchen had been modernized, so that Jerry could offer a so-called businessman’s lunch as well as dinner from an à la carte menu.

John Hayden parked opposite the tavern and fifty feet short of the motel office, which stood at the head of one of the two long rectangular buildings that housed the twenty-two units, noting as he did so that perhaps a dozen cars had been parked aslant in the quadrangle. He considered again the information given him by Lee Cramer as he crossed the wide, tree-lined village street, wondering some but not bothered as he entered the tavern and angled toward the familiar bar.

Jerry himself was presiding, as he usually did at this hour, a large and beefy man with a round balding head and very little neck. He wore white half-sleeved shirts winter and summer, thereby exposing a pair of hard and hairy forearms that tapered only slightly to his massive and formidable fists. Now, seeing Hayden enter, he reached for a bottle of bourbon, dropped ice cubes into an Old-Fashioned glass, added whisky and a twist of lemon.

“Evening, Mr. Hayden,” he said as he centered the glass and picked up the dollar bill. “When do you think we’ll see the sun again?”

“What are the odds?”

“Prohibitive.”

Jerry punched the cash register, put change on the bar, and moved away to draw a beer for another customer. Hayden took a sip of his drink and turned with one elbow on the bar to inspect the interior. He was a rangy-looking man of thirty-two, with good height and no more weight problem than he had when he was running the hurdles for the small Ohio university where he got his education. His dark brown hair matched his eyes, his brows were straight, his jaw angular but well cut beneath a wide mouth that was quick to smile and made one forget his face was a little gaunt to be handsome.

The smile came when his glance looked past the customers at the bar and he saw Doris Lamar give him a small and welcoming salute as she moved from the kitchen and began to set dinner places for a couple at one of the booths that stretched along the opposite wall. He did not recognize the pair, or the second couple who occupied the booth at the rear, but he took time to give his approval to the nicely rounded and supple body of the waitress as she went so efficiently about her work. It was as he turned back to his drink that he noticed George Freeman at the far end of the bar.

Freeman was the acting manager of The Shady Maple while the owner and his wife were spending three months in Florida, a stubby pleasant-mannered man of forty or so, with a colorless and inconspicuous look that seemed somehow to present exactly the proper appearance for the job he performed. Hayden did not know him well, but he had heard that Freeman had become romantically inclined toward Doris in the past months. Now, sitting hunched over the bar on his solitary stool, there was a look of acute melancholia on his round, boyish face, and the dark glasses he wore seemed strangely out of place, considering the hour and time of year.

Because his attitude seemed so out of character, Hayden wondered about it as he took another sip of his drink. For Freeman was normally a friendly person in a shy sort of way, and to watch him when Doris was present, to see the way his eyes followed her about, was to know that he was very fond of her indeed. Even when he was talking to someone else, his approving glance sought her out, and his smile was quick and eager and obvious whenever he caught her eye. There was, somehow, a worshipful quality in that look, and the regulars who understood the relationship would wink and grin when they noticed it. But this was a different man. This was a sullen, brooding man, and when Doris came to get refills for the couple in the rear booth, Hayden’s curiosity got the better of him.

“What’s the matter with the boy friend?”

“Scotch and water and another daiquiri, Jerry,” she said before she acknowledged the question. “Hello, Mr. Hayden. You mean George? He’s sulking tonight.”

“Why the dark glasses?”

“He had a little accident.”

“Today?”

“Last night.”

“From you?”

“From the fellow I was with.”

She did not look at him when she spoke but watched her tray, and when the drinks were ready she went away. As she did so, George Freeman slipped from his stool and started for the door. Looking neither to the right nor the left, and acknowledging no one’s presence, he marched out, and it was then that Hayden noticed the discoloration under one eye that the dark glasses could not quite hide.

Jerry, who had moved opposite Hayden, watched Freeman’s stiff-legged exit and muttered softly.

“I asked him if he ran into a door and he said no.”

“Who’s the fellow Doris mentioned?”

“Never saw him before. Came in yesterday about this time. Had a few drinks and then dinner. He was kidding around with Doris and I guess she and George had had a tiff or something because she had her back up and went along with the kidding.”

“Was Freeman here?”

“Sure. That’s the reason she was putting on the act if you ask me. He stood here glowering for a while and when he couldn’t take it any longer he went over to the table and they had some words and George took off. That’s all I knew about it until this guy shows up at ten when Doris is getting through and drives off with her.”

He went away to serve another bar customer and Hayden, sensing some movement beside him, turned to find the girl at his side. She seemed at ease now that Freeman had gone and her green eyes beneath the penciled brows appraised him as she touched her hair to see if the curled ends at the back of her neck were all in place. It was blond hair, a chemical job but well done, and he decided it suited the rest of her face, which was perhaps a bit too coarse in some features to be pretty but attractive for all that if one overlooked the permanent aging at the corners of the mouth and the disillusionment that was mirrored in her eyes. About thirty he thought, or a bit more, but this light was very kind to her and he could understand why men might be attracted to her.

“I thought you and Freeman had things worked out.”

“Not quite, Mr. Hayden.”

“I had the idea you liked him.”

“I do. But he doesn’t own me. Not yet anyway. And I didn’t start that business last night; he did.” She made a small, deprecating sound and a corner of her mouth dipped. “He’s forty but I guess he hasn’t been around women much because there’s an awful lot he doesn’t know. Why he was even jealous of you.”

“Me?” Hayden said in quick astonishment.

“Because you drove me home that rainy night a week or so ago.”

Hayden remembered the night. He had worked late and stopped in about nine-thirty for one drink. Business was slack and he asked Doris if she had a ride and she said no, so he drove her to the small cottage she had rented, a three-block ride that lasted little more than three minutes.

“George stopped here a little after ten that night,” she added, “and Jerry told him he’d let me off early. It took George all the next day to stop sulking. When he went into the same routine last night just because he thought I was being too friendly to a customer, I decided to show him he couldn’t tell me what to do.”

“Jerry said he was a stranger.”

“He was, and if George hadn’t made such a fuss I probably wouldn’t have gone out with Sam later. Not that there was anything wrong with him. He was not bad-looking, the city type, a sharp dresser. You could tell he’d been around but then”--she tipped her head and gave him a lopsided smile--“so have I. I’ve seen a lot of Sam Adlers. Cocky, good spenders, always on the make for one thing or another. Hard to discourage but not hard to handle once you understand what makes them tick.

“After George had made his little scene and I finally got rid of him, I decided to teach him a lesson and Sam made it easy. He asked when I got off and I told him. He said would I like to go somewhere later for a drink and a dance and I said maybe I would. He picked me up at ten and we went to the Log Cabin,” she added, mentioning a run-of-the-mill night spot on the Post Road. “George must have followed us because he came storming up to the table and tried to get tough. Sam was agreeable. George swung but Sam beat him to the punch and the owner escorted George to the door. Poor George,” she said and then, as a new thought occurred to her, the green eyes sobered.

“Incidentally, Sam asked about you.”

The statement reminded Hayden of the information Lee Cramer had given him at the gasoline station and suddenly an odd and unaccountable feeling of uneasiness started to work inside him. A frown dug in above the bridge of his nose and the brown eyes narrowed slightly as he studied her.

“You say his name was Sam Adler?”

“That’s the name he gave me.”

“What did he look like?”

He listened carefully as she gave her description, and the picture that came to him corresponded with the one Cramer had drawn. To this Doris added a thought of her own.

“He gave me the idea he was some sort of business acquaintance, but if you ask me you’d be more likely to find him at the race track than you would in an office.”

Hayden finished his drink and put the glass down, the uneasiness expanding and his thoughts uncertain. Sam Adler, whoever he was, had been in town since yesterday afternoon and he knew where the Haydens lived. But Marion had said nothing about receiving a caller yesterday. So maybe Adler hadn’t called yesterday. Maybe he’d called today.

He tried to remember whether his wife’s manner and actions had been any different when he came home last night and remembered now that there had been one small change. She had had a drink before he came in last night and this in itself was unusual. But he understood that women who were four months pregnant were likely to do unusual things now and then, and he had not given it a second thought. Now, aware that there was no point in letting his imagination get off the track, he knew that it was time to go home. He glanced at his watch, thanked the girl for the information, and, in the act of turning away, stopped abruptly.

“Have you seen him since last night?”

“Yes. He was in for lunch. He’s staying over at The Shady Maple if you want to talk to him. Room twelve.”

Hayden thanked her again. He said maybe he would talk to Adler, but not now. He went out quickly then, his bony face somber and signs of worry beginning to show in the dark brown eyes.

_2_

John Hayden knew as he walked into the living room of the ranch-style home they had bought six months earlier that something was definitely wrong; he knew it even before he saw his wife and the empty Old-Fashioned glass on the end table beside the wing chair.

He had parked the sedan next to the station wagon that Marion used to run around in and had come through the small breezeway to the kitchen. The door to the dining room area at the end of the living room was open and the lights were on but there was no sound and this in itself was disturbing. Always before, she was waiting for him in the kitchen by the time he had parked the car and always, even when she did not feel well, there was a smile and a kiss for him, a moment when she stood close when his arms tightened about her.

Before that, in the rented house where they had spent their first eight months of married life, there was not even a garage and she somehow always managed to hear him arrive and meet him at the door. Now he saw the ice bucket and the bottle of whisky and the steak which had been put out to defrost; the potatoes, which had been scrubbed for baking, were still on the counter and the oven had not yet been turned on.

“Marion?”

There was no answer as he crossed to the open door and he called again, his voice carrying an edge that worry and anxiety had put there. He was in the other room then, hurrying a little until he saw her in the chair, the light from the floor lamp burnishing her soft dark hair. Even then there was no reaction until he stopped in front of her.

“Oh, hello,” she said, not looking at him.

“Hi, darling.”

He bent down to kiss her and she turned her head slightly, so that his lips found a cheek that was soft, fragrant, and discouragingly cold. He straightened slowly, greatly disturbed now and a little scared. It took an effort to contain himself and he did not know whether to sit down and ask for some explanation or pretend that he was not yet aware that anything was wrong. Because he wanted to give her a chance to make the first move, he kept his tone unconcerned.

“Hey,” he said lightly. “You’ve already had a drink.”

“You always stop for one at the tavern, don’t you?”

“Sure, sure.”

“So what’s wrong with me having one too if I want it?”

“Nothing, sweetheart. Just making an observation. I’ll fix a fresh one.”

“Do that,” she said. “I think you’re going to need it. And make another one for me, a strong one, please.”

“Right.” He leaned down to take her glass. “Shall I turn the oven on?”

“Oven?” she said, as though she had never heard the word before.

“For the potatoes. Do you want me to put them in now?”

“If you want to.”

By the time he had reached the kitchen he was thoroughly upset and he stood a moment by the sink and let his breath out slowly. Somewhere in the back of his mind was the thought of a stranger named Sam Adler, but he could not yet accept the intuitive prodding that told him this man might be the key to his wife’s strange conduct. Instead his glance moved idly about the modern room and he recalled how delighted Marion had been when they first inspected the house. The owner, who had built it two years earlier, had been transferred by his company to the Pittsburgh office, and they had been lucky to get something that suited them so well at a fair price.