The Mystery of the Magic Circle - M. V. Carey [24]
“I do not,” said the woman.
“There was a man named Charles Goodfellow,” said Jupe. “Do you know what became of him?”
She shrugged. “He just dropped out of sight.”
“I see,” said Jupe.
The boys left, and walked down the drive to the car, where Beefy waited.
“She doesn’t know anything that can help us,” said Bob.
“She thinks Bainbridge murdered Desparto,” Pete put in. “I think she’s really afraid of Bainbridge.”
“Elliott Farber suggested as much,” said Jupe. “I wonder if Ted Finley will have any information we need.”
“I wonder if Ted Finley will even talk to us,” said Bob.
“I imagine he will,” said Jupiter. “Madeline Bainbridge is big news today, after the theft of those films. Ted Finley won’t object to being associated with her.”
Jupe proved to be correct. After a quick lunch, he telephoned Ted Finley from Beefy’s apartment. He got an answering device, but Ted Finley called back almost immediately. The old character actor was cheerful and co-operative. He quickly admitted that there had been a coven, and that he had been a member. However, although he expressed great admiration for Madeline Bainbridge, he denied that he was ever in touch with her.
“Nobody keeps in touch with Madeline,” he said. “That chauffeur of hers — that Gray — he took over completely once Madeline retired. He always answered the telephone, and he always said she didn’t want to talk to anyone. For a while after Desparto died, I tried to keep her from being a complete hermit. It didn’t do any good, and after a while I gave up. Maybe things will be better, now that her pictures have been sold to television.”
“And stolen,” Jupe reminded him. “They’re being held for ransom.”
“And they’ll be ransomed,” predicted Finley. “They’re priceless. Now that you young folks will have a chance to see them, I expect I’ll be getting a lot of calls about Madeline.”
“Just one more thing, Mr. Finley,” said Jupe. “Do you know what happened to the man named Charles Goodfellow? He’s the only one of Madeline Bainbridge’s close friends that I haven’t been able to locate.”
“Goodfellow? No, can’t say that I do know. He was kind of a dim young man.
Maybe he went back home—wherever that might be—and got a job clerking in a hardware store or something.”
Jupe thanked the actor, and Ted Finley hung up.
“Nothing,” Jupe said to his friends. “He doesn’t know anything and hasn’t been in touch with Bainbridge for years.”
“We haven’t contacted Gloria Gibbs yet,” Bob reminded Jupe. “You have the name of the broker she works for.”
Jupiter nodded. “I’ll call her, but I think we’re wasting time.”
In a dogged and discouraged way, Jupiter dialled the number of Gloria Gibbs’s employer. The woman who answered the telephone turned out to be Gloria Gibbs herself. She was even less helpful than Madeline Bainbridge’s other friends had been, and more hostile. “That was all a long time ago,” she said, “and I don’t feel that I’m any more important because I once knew that blonde witch.”
“Yes, she was a witch,” said Jupe quickly. “You were a member of her coven, weren’t you?”
“Yes, and it was a big bore. I don’t like staying up late just to dance around in the moonlight.”
Gloria Gibbs then brusquely denied ever being in touch with Madeline Bainbridge, or with the missing coven member, Charles Goodfellow. She announced in sharp tones that Clara Adams was a poor, beaten-down creature in whom nobody would be interested, and she hung up.
“Unpleasant woman,” was Jupe’s comment. “However, she only confirms what others have told us. There was a coven, but if that’s the sinister secret in Madeline Bainbridge’s memoirs, it isn’t making anyone nervous. We don’t know about our missing coven member, Charles Goodfellow, but no one else is worried about witchcraft. So that’s not it unless …” Jupe stopped and frowned. “Jefferson Long!”
he said. “He’s the only one who wouldn’t admit to being a member of