The Inspector stood at the door of the bedroom. The woman’s body had gone, but the bed remained as she had left it. It was almost smooth, as though she had made little or no struggle. And there was no disorder in the room, save where the fingerprint men had left their smudge of powder. On the floor lay a discarded flashlamp, and Brent stooped and picking it up put it in his pocket. He was a tidy man.
His sergeant was standing in the hall when he went out. He closed the door behind him.
“Better stick around, Joe,” he told him. “I’ll be coming back. Nobody to go in, of course.”
He went slowly down the stairs, aware that Joe’s eyes were following him with something like pity. For this was his last case before he was retired, and it looked like a stinker. A man ought to be able to get out quietly, to end his long service with dignity. But this murder was front-page stuff. The big substantial house, the social standing of the family, ensured that it would be plastered all over the front pages of the newspapers. Already reporters were crowding the pavement outside. Soon he would have to call them in and tell them something. He didn’t know what.
The house was quiet. The precinct men had gone. So had the Homicide Squad, except for Joe. In the lower hall he called his wife over the phone. Her familiar voice soothed him, as usual. But her tone was sharp.
“Now see here, Tom Brent,” she said, “have you had any breakfast?”
“Just about to get it, Emma,” he told her pacifically.
“Well, see that you do. How are your feet?”
“Fine,” he said. “Just fine. Don’t worry about me.”
It was a lie, of course. He had a bunion on each big toe, and they burned furiously. What he wanted was to sit down somewhere and take his weight off them. But Emma kept on.
“I think I’ll go out and look over that place today, Tom,” she said. “The paper said four acres. It sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?”
He supposed that Joe, in the hall above, was listening. He’d know what it was about, too. Emma had set her heart on a chicken farm when he retired, but he hated chickens.
“Don’t be in too much of a hurry,” he said. “We’ll talk it over tonight. Just now I’m busy. I’ll call you later.”
He hung up and stood listening. Queer, how still a house was after tragedy. Even the street was quiet except for the voice of the patrolman trying to keep the crowd moving.
“Move on,” he was saying over and over. “There’s nothing to see. Move on, please.”
Brent knew that the girl and the young man were waiting for him in the library, but he did not go in immediately. Instead he wandered back to the dining room, with its mammoth Georgian silver tea service on the sideboard and a wide window overlooking a scrap of city yard. Standing there he saw a dog, a Scottie, apparently burying a bone. And he watched him for a minute or two. He liked dogs. One of his dreams when he retired was to have a kennel and raise them. But for some reason Emma was hell-bent for a chicken farm.
When at last he went into the library the girl had stopped crying. She sat, red-eyed and practically collapsed, in the corner of a sofa, and a man in his late twenties beside her had his arm around her. He got up as Brent entered.
“Can’t you put this off for a while, Inspector?” he asked. “She’s quieter now, but she needs rest. I’ve sent for some coffee for her.”
Brent eyed the young man. His name was Townsend, and the girl called him Ken. He was a likable-looking fellow, but Brent knew that looks meant nothing in a case like this. Angel faces sometimes committed murder. But his voice was friendly.
“I’ll be as easy as I can, son. Better sit down. You a friend of Miss Ingalls?”
“We’re engaged to be married.”
“I see. Mother approved of it, did she?”
The girl gave him a quick, almost desperate look. She was still in a negligee over a nightgown as she had been earlier. She must have been rather lovely, he thought, before long weeping had swollen her face and reddened her eyes. His own girl would have been about her age, had she lived. It was young Townsend who spoke, however.
“No use lying, Joy,” he said. “He’ll find it out sooner or later. No, she didn’t approve of it, sir. She didn’t approve of anything that would take Joy away from her. There are women like that. They hold on like grim death—”
He stopped abruptly, as though the word had been a mistake. The girl however did not seem to notice.
“She was sick,” she protested. “You know that, Ken. She had a bad heart. She needed me.”
Ken had recovered his poise.
“I’d like a postmortem to prove that,” he said grimly. “It’s a queer heart that only acts up when you take an evening out with me.” He glanced at Brent defiantly. “I suppose you’ll suspect me after that.”
“Not necessarily.” Brent lit a cigarette and eased his feet in his shoes. “But I’d like to know more about last night. You were here, you said, until one o’clock.”
“I was. We came in about twelve, and I stayed awhile. What’s more, I let myself out. Joy’s room is back of her mother’s, and I waited to see if the old—if her mother called her. When she didn’t I left. There’s a Yale lock on the front door. I tried it from the outside to see if it was all right.”
“And it was?”
“It was. Locked tight.”
“And after that?”
“I went home, believe it or not. I live in a walk-up apartment. Nobody saw me. I slept until seven o’clock, and I slept alone.”
“Sure making things hard for yourself, aren’t you?” Brent smiled faintly.
For the first time the girl showed some spirit.
“What are you trying to do, Ken?” she said. “What’s all that got to do with it? You went out. I heard you close the door.”
Brent looked at her. Was she afraid that young Townsend had done it? Certainly she had risen quickly to his defense. But the boy—he was that to the older man—gave her a quick look and went on.
“You’ll learn it all anyway, Inspector,” he said. “What’s more, I had the hell of a row with Mrs. Ingalls yesterday afternoon, because I wanted to take Joy out last night. I don’t remember what I said, but it was plenty. That Filipino in the kitchen heard it. Just ask him.”
The girl sagged again. Evidently this was what she had been afraid of. She sat back, looking at her fingertips from which Brent saw with annoyance that the ink had been poorly removed by the men who took her prints. But it was his method to put his suspects at ease when he queried them. He lit a cigarette and smiled at her.
“You remind me of a hen pheasant,” he said easily. “Ever see her try to lead somebody off from her chicks? She don’t fool anybody, but she sure gets ‘E’ for effort.”
Townsend grinned. He reached over and patted her.
“Thanks, darling,” he said. “Only don’t try to fool the Inspector. He knows his onions. You didn’t hear me close the door. Yours was shut before I left.”
Brent put down his cigarette. He was all policeman now. He fixed steady eyes on the girl and reached into his pocket and pulled out a long sheer silk stocking. “This belong to you?” he inquired.
She stared at it, looking sick.
“Was that—was that what did it?”
“Yes. Is it yours?”
“I don’t know,” she said feverishly. “They’re all alike. Don’t make me look at it,” she added, her voice faint. “I don’t want to see it. Put it away.”
Brent rolled up the stocking, but he still held it in his hand. He kept his eyes on the girl.
“It’s still kind of damp,” he said. “That mean anything to you?”
It did. He saw that. There was incredulity in her face—and terror.
“No, of course not,” she said. “Why should it? And don’t stare at me like that. I didn’t do it. I didn’t. My own mother!”
Brent put the stocking back in his pocket and got up. He was not satisfied, but it was hard to connect those two good-looking youngsters with murder. Nevertheless he tried.
“I think it belongs to you,” he said. “I think that last night before you went to bed you washed your stockings. My wife does the same thing, so I know about it. And you hung them in your bathroom to dry. There’s only one there now. The other is here in my pocket.”
The girl looked stricken. Young Townsend reached over and put an arm around her. “Easy does it, darling,” he said. But Brent’s face had hardened.
“I’ve been in your bathroom, Miss Ingalls,” he said. “To get to it somebody would have to go through your bedroom. How soundly do you sleep? You had to listen for your mother, didn’t you? If she called you?”
“No. She had a bell. She didn’t ring for me at all last night. And I was tired.”
“What about the dog? Didn’t he bark?”
“I didn’t hear him. I put him out when I was ready for bed. He sleeps at the head of the back stairs, and the door was closed.”
“But someone knew those stockings were there. Someone who knew his way about the house.”
“Meaning me, I suppose,” young Townsend said. “Well, that lets me out. I’ve never been upstairs in my life. By Mrs. Ingalls’s orders the newel post in the hall was my limit. And if you think Joy did it you’re crazy.”
“Who knew those stockings were there? The Filipino?”
“He never comes upstairs to our part of the house,” Joy said. “And he’s been with us for years. Anyone could have seen those stockings. It was hot last night. My door was open, and I keep a light in the bathroom all night in case Mother rings for me. Rang for me,” she added, and went if possible paler than before.
Brent felt vaguely dissatisfied. The girl had the best motive so far, but she had all the answers too. According to her anyone who could get into the house could have done it. The dog was shut off, the stockings in full view from the upper hall. But an outsider would have to get into the house, and apparently all doors and windows had been found locked that morning. He got up. The smell of coffee from below reminded him he had had no breakfast.
“I guess that’ll do for now,” he said. “There’s a police sergeant upstairs, but he won’t bother you. Just keep out of your mother’s room. That’s all.”
He went out to the front door. A dozen reporters and cameramen were there, and beyond them the usual curious onlookers. To escape the crowd he let the newsmen into the hall. He knew most of them and liked them. Also they knew it was probably his last case. They did not push him. They stood and waited.
“It’s like this, boys,” he said. “Mrs. Ingalls was strangled somewhere about three this morning. That’s what the medical examiner thinks, anyhow. If it was attempted burglary something scared the killer off. Nothing was taken. She was an invalid. Apparently she didn’t put up much of a fight. Nothing more so far.”
They grumbled a bit. They knew most of that already, so they fired innumerable questions at him. How had the intruder got in? Who was in the house at the time? Were there any prints? How was she strangled? At the last one he put a hand uneasily in his pocket, but no part of the stocking showed. And he had removed the one left in the bathroom. He knew their sharp eyes would discover it. In the end he let them go upstairs, on condition nothing was touched or moved.
“Keep an eye on them, Joe,” he called up the stairs. “Only the one room. No place else up there, and give them half an hour. That’s enough.”
One of the men did not go up at once, however. He was an older man, and he watched the others out of sight. Then he turned to Brent.
“Bad luck, Inspector,” he said. “The Commissioner has been on your neck for a long time. Unless you get a break on this it means trouble.”
“I’ve got to get one,” he said. “Just now I’ve given you about all I have. It isn’t much.”
The reporter hesitated. Then:
“I’d hate like hell to see you reduced before you retire,” he said. “He’d like nothing better. You’ve been too good. That’s his trouble. And the press likes you. It hates his guts. And he knows it. Would mean a cut in your pension, too. If I can do anything …”
“Thanks. I’ll call on you if I need to, Clarke. I—I appreciate your interest. You know that.”
He felt depressed as he watched Clarke go up the stairs. It was true and he knew it. Ever since the new commissioner took office he had resented him. It was notorious at Headquarters. Probably it was because there had been talk that Brent would get the job. After all he had been almost forty years in the service, and the newspapers had been for him. But it was a political plum, and so he lost out.
He grunted and turning to the back of the house went down to the basement kitchen. He did not expect to get any information there, however. He had already interrogated the Filipino cook, now busy over the range, and he was the only servant who slept in. The other, a woman, came by in the day, and had not yet appeared. And the Filipino, after the impassive quality of his race, had been of no use whatever. His room was on the third floor back. He had heard no noise, except once about three o’clock when he had heard the dog scratching at the door on the landing. And he had been the one to notify the police after he heard the girl screaming at seven that morning and had investigated.
Brent sat down on a kitchen chair and rested his feet.
“I’ll have some of that coffee,” he said. “It smells good. I missed my breakfast.”
“It’s ready, sir.”
The man brought a cup and filled it. He put sugar and cream beside it, and went back to the stove.
“Tell me something, Miguel,” Brent said. “You heard Miss Ingalls screaming and found her in her mother’s room. Had she moved the body? Or touched it?”
“I think no. No time. She say she touch a hand, and it is cold. She scream for me and I go up. She act faint, so I put her in a chair and run to telephone.”
“Could you see what had killed Mrs. Ingalls?”
“Not then, sir. All covered up. After the police came I see. It was a stocking of Mrs. Ingalls.”
Brent finished his coffee and felt somewhat better. The Scottie barked at the door to the yard, and Miguel let him in. He dropped what he was carrying and proceeded to rub his whiskers on the floor. But the linoleum did not help him. He came to Brent trustfully and scraped against his trouser leg. Brent leaned over and scratched his ears.
“Anything to oblige a friend!” he said. “What’s that he brought in, Miguel?”
“Just a cork. He bury; then he dig up. Is a nuisance, that dog.”
He picked up the cork and threw it in the garbage pail. After that he washed his hands and went back to the tray he was preparing. Brent watched him. There seemed no reason to suspect him. He was probably losing a good job at high wages.
“How come you’re the only help in the house?” he inquired. “It’s a big one.”
“No other servants to be had. I been here a long time. Now I get extra pay so I stay.”
“That makes sense,” Brent said casually. “What kind of woman was Mrs. Ingalls? Easy to work for?”
“Not good, not bad.” The man gave a faint smile. “You think I kill her, maybe? Why I go to the chair for her?”
It was logical, of course, provided the Oriental had not gone berserk in the night. Those fellows did that sometimes. But it was hard to imagine Miguel, in his clean white coat, going berserk at any time. When the Filipino started upstairs with the tray he followed. As he left, the little dog was digging frantically in the garbage pail.
The pair in the library were much as he had left them. Apparently Joe had got rid of the press, for the house was quiet again. Brent stood at a window while the girl drank some black coffee. Then he turned.
“Let’s go back over this, Miss Ingalls,” he said. “How about yesterday? What happened before Townsend had the fuss with your mother? How did she seem?”
Joy put down her cup. There was a little color in her face now.
“She seemed better,” she said. “She came down to tea when my cousin Harry Ingalls brought his new wife to see her. They’re on their honeymoon. Ken was here. He saw them.”
“And after that your mother and Mr. Townsend had some words?”
“Yes. He didn’t like Maud. She’s the wife, and—”
“Maud,” said young Townsend succinctly, “is a cheap Chicago tart. He had no business bringing her here.”
“And that led to the fuss?”
“Well, not exactly. He wanted to take me out last night, and she objected. That was really it.”
“And I didn’t like Harry,” said young Townsend. “He’s been hanging on her for years. Even lived here for a while. They came here for money yesterday, and they sure as hell got it. When I came in he was putting a check in his wallet.”
“It’s no good to them, now that Mrs. Ingalls is dead. They couldn’t cash it last night.”
“No. It’s the only satisfaction I’ve got out of the whole murderous business.”
So that canceled Harry and Maud, Brent thought stoically as he got into his car and headed downtown. And it sounded innocuous enough. Two people came in for tea, or highballs, or what have you. They had just been married, and they got a check for a wedding present. Maybe the bride was a wrong one, but how account for a man’s tastes?
Nevertheless, because it was the only lead he had, he decided to visit the honeymoon couple. Joy had said they were staying at the Davis House, and he headed in that direction. He knew it looked like an inside job, and that everything pointed to the girl. But he felt more than reluctant to turn her over to the wolves at Headquarters. Especially to the Commissioner. Everything else aside, it was a bad time to do it. Everyone in the organization knew he was working on his annual report to the Mayor, which always left him in a villainous humor.
He did not want to see him himself. He could visualize him behind his big desk, red-faced and scowling, if he appeared there. He would sit glaring at him.
“Don’t be a fool, Brent. This is your last case and it better be good. The girl did it, and you know it. Or else she let the Townsend fellow into the house and he did it. In either case, she’s guilty as hell.”
Yes, it would be like that, he thought, steering his way through traffic. And what could he say? That the girl was young and tragic, that she reminded him of the daughter he had lost? That it took a strong hand to strangle so quickly? That the body and bed were barely disturbed? The Commissioner wouldn’t even listen. He could almost hear his raucous voice.
“Get her down here, Brent. If you don’t, I’ll take the case away from you. I’m no fool about a pretty face. She had all the motives: the money and the fellow she wanted to marry. And don’t think she couldn’t do it. These modern girls are strong. They play tennis and golf. By God, my own daughter can throw a baseball harder than I can.”
He would know about the stocking, too. Brent put his hand in his pocket. It was still there, and still damp. It had been a smart move, using that stocking, if the girl was innocent. Maybe it had only been added later after the woman was dead. He’d have to ask the medical examiner about that.
He did not stop for breakfast, although he felt empty and his feet hurt like blazes. He drove directly to the Davis House, which proved to be a third-class commercial hotel, with Harry Ingalls and wife registered as on the third floor. He went up without being announced and looked for their number. The long hall was shabbily carpeted and empty, except that at the end a trained nurse in uniform was smoking a surreptitious cigarette at a window. Outside the Ingalls door he paused. There was acrimonious talking going on inside the room, but he could not hear what it was about.
The voices ceased when he rapped, and a sharp woman’s voice spoke through the door.
“We’re not ready yet, porter. I told you half an hour.”
He rapped again and the door was flung open. A small redheaded girl with hard eyes confronted him and stared at him.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded.
“I’d like to talk to Mr. Ingalls,” he said. “I’m afraid I have bad news for him.”
“You’re telling me!” she retorted. “With a check in my bag that’s no damned good! Come in if you like. He knows about his aunt. This cheap dump supplies radios.”
The room was a mess. Half-packed bags lay on the unmade twin beds, and the girl herself looked as though she had merely crawled out of bed, thrown on a negligee and let it go at that. Even so, with the remains of yesterday’s makeup still on her face, she had a pert sort of prettiness. She had a backless evening dress without sleeves over her arm. She flung it on a chair and eyed him.
“All right,” she said. “We know it. So what?”
Brent did not reply. He was looking at Harry Ingalls, a tall, scrawny man with a weak chin, just now covered with lather as if the news had come while he was shaving. He was pale, and he looked shocked. He did not get up from his chair. And the girl spoke for him.
“He’s kinda shot,” said the girl. “His own aunt! And that check was to get us out of this hole and home again. I’ve been to the cashier downstairs, but they know she’s dead. They won’t cash it.”
“Bad news all around, isn’t it, Mr. Ingalls?” Brent inquired. “I suppose you were fond of your aunt?”
“Doted on her,” said the girl. “Like a mother to him, she was.”
“Why don’t you let him speak for himself,” Brent inquired mildly. “All right, Mr. Ingalls. You saw your aunt yesterday?”
Ingalls moved. He lit a cigarette, but his hands were shaking.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve had a blow. She was all right yesterday. Never saw her better. Who are you, anyhow? Should I know you?”
“I’m a police officer,” Brent told him. “I’ll have to ask you both a few questions. As the last people to see her—”
“Not the last,” interposed the redhead. “That stuck-up daughter of hers. She was there last night too when it happened, wasn’t she?”
“She was, but as a matter of fact daughters don’t often murder their mothers,” Brent said, still mildly.
“Oh, don’t they? You’d be surprised!”
“Shut up, Maud.” Harry Ingalls had pulled himself together. He got up, wiped the lather off his chin, cleared a chair and asked Brent to sit down.
“I’ll be glad to help you,” he said. “I was fond of her. She’d always been good to me. Don’t mind if I take a drink, do you? I’m not feeling too good. Maybe you’ll have a snort yourself.”
Brent declined, and Harry Ingalls poured himself a substantial whisky out of a half-empty bottle. With the glass in his hand he gave the Inspector a long look.
“What are you?” he said. “Captain, Lieutenant? I don’t know much about the police.”
Brent took out the folder with his badge pinned to it and showed it to him. Ingalls whistled.
“High brass, eh?” he said. “Well, sorry if I acted upset, Inspector. I just got the news.
“Very understandable,” Brent told him. “As I said, this is only a matter of routine. But I’d like to know your movements last night. That’s my job, you know.”
“Last night?” Ingalls stared at the ceiling. “Well, I had that check in my pocket, so we blew ourselves to a large evening; dinner in the Rose Room at the Belmont and a show afterward. I expect I’ve got the ticket stubs somewhere.”
“And after that?”
“Home here and to bed. After all, when a man’s on his honeymoon …”
He grinned, but Brent eyed him steadily.
“Know what time you got in?” he inquired.
“About half-past eleven, wasn’t it, Maud?”
Maud lit a cigarette before she answered, indifferently.
“I ain’t got a watch, but it was early. I wanted to go somewhere and dance, but Harry said he was tired.”
It sounded all right, but Brent was taking nothing for granted. He was still watching Harry.
“I suppose the night clerk saw you come in?”
“Maybe, maybe not. The way this place is run … Say, what is this, anyhow? Can’t a fellow take his bride out for an evening without being suspected of murder?”
“I didn’t say you were suspected of murder,” Brent said smoothly. “But just to be sure I’d better have those ticket stubs.”
Harry looked startled. Then he smiled. “Sure,” he said. “We were there all right. Look in my dinner coat, honey.”
Maud found the stubs and brought them. After that she poured herself a drink and sat down on one of the beds. Brent put the stubs in his wallet, although he had no reason to question them. In fact, these people puzzled him. And Maud was looking entirely confident.
“If you’re after an alibi,” she said, “we were here all night. And we can prove it. Just ask the night nurse next door. When I took in our breakfast this morning she was just going off duty.”
Brent eyed the room again. Both beds had been slept in. There was nothing to disprove their story, and he felt fairly sure the night nurse in question would corroborate it. Rather unwillingly he got up.
“I guess that’s all then. But I advise you not to go to the house yet. Miss Ingalls is pretty much upset. And I’ll have to ask you to stay in town for a day or two. Sorry to keep you.”
“Not too long,” Maud said. “Without that money we’re busted.”
But Brent sensed relief in her voice. He stopped in the doorway, his hand on the knob.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Three days, and that’s plenty,” the girl said sourly. “Now we’re stuck in this hole, unless they throw us out.”
She slammed the door behind him, but he did not leave immediately. The nurse was no longer in the hall, and after a moment he tapped at the door of the next room. When she opened it he beckoned her outside. She looked suspicious, but she came.
“Look,” she said. “I’m busy. What’s it all about?”
“Not you, sister,” he told her. “I just want the name and address of the night nurse on your case. The one who was here last night. Do you know it?”
“Sure I do. But she’ll be asleep. Don’t you go waking her. And while you’re at it I wish you’d shut up those people next door. Report it at the desk, or something. My patient’s going crazy. Fighting like mad, and the radio going at the same time.”
“Know what they were fighting about?” he inquired.
“I couldn’t hear much. I think she wanted to leave, and he didn’t. That’s all I got.”
She gave him the night nurse’s address, on the promise to let her get some sleep first, and he went rather unhappily down to the lobby. Here, however, he had no luck at all. The night clerk was off duty, and he had recently moved. Nobody knew where he lived.
Back in his car again he pondered his next move. So far the Harry Ingallses had accounted for their time shrewdly unless the night nurse could prove that one or both of them had gone out again after they came home. He could send one of his men to see her, of course, but he preferred to do it himself. She might be important. Or again she might not. It seemed a slim thread to hang a case on.
But he had the usual policeman’s aversion to a perfect alibi, and already he knew that the Ingallses had not been entirely truthful with him. They were planning to leave when the radio told them of the murder. That did not argue that they had no money. Then why the beef? Unless the check …
He thought that over. Suppose they expected to get a considerable sum by Mrs. Ingalls’s will? That would take time and the inability to cash the check would be a part of their defense. Why kill a woman when she meant badly needed cash in hand to you?
There was just a chance the night nurse would break their alibi, and rather reluctantly he turned his car downtown. The girl could have had only an hour or two of sleep. But murder could not wait. Twenty minutes later he drew up in front of a small walk-up apartment. He climbed to the fourth floor, and after repeated knocking was confronted by a sleepy and highly irritated young woman in a negligee over a nightdress. He did not tell her his business. He merely showed her his badge and asked if she had seen anyone from the room next door while she was on duty at the hotel the night before. She was slightly mollified and certainly curious.
“If you mean the redhead, I saw her this morning. What about her?”
“That’s all you saw? Nobody left or came into the room during the night?”
“Not a soul. And believe you me, I was there. You don’t know my patient.”
Brent was a modest man. He looked uncomfortable.
“But see here,” he said. “You must have needed to—well, to powder your nose, or something. You were on duty eight hours, weren’t you?”
“Sure,” she told him. “The day nurse is on from eight in the morning until four P.M. The family takes over until midnight.”
“The family?” he said. “Know where I could locate them?”
“All over town. Uncles, aunts, cousins, sons and daughters. It’s not a family. It’s a population.”
It looked hopeless. If Harry and Maud came back before twelve o’clock …
“So you never left your post for eight hours?” he said, avoiding her eyes. But she only laughed at his discomfiture.
“So I did. I’m human. I powder my nose every now and then. But before I leave that door for any purpose I have to ring for a bellboy and put him there. My patient’s a nervous case. She won’t let me lock her in before I go, and she won’t be left with the door unfastened. So I get a bellboy and he gets a dollar. If it’s over two dollars a night she raises the roof.”
Brent retired, somewhat flushed and certainly discomfited. So far as he could see the case was going to pieces under his feet. Undoubtedly the bellboy would be off duty for the day. Only the Belmont was left. He expected nothing from it and he was not disappointed. Evidently Maud had made an impression on the head waiter, who in shirtsleeves was overseeing the preparations for lunch in the main dining room.
“Redhead in a black dress,” he said, “and a tall lanky fellow with no chin? Sure, I remember them. They had table twenty-nine. Girl was a looker, all right. Man didn’t eat much but drank a lot. First cocktails, then champagne. Carried it pretty well, though.”
So that part of the alibi was all right, although Maud and Harry Ingalls spending their last cent for champagne was curious. Still some people lived that way, he thought, from hand to mouth although he and Emma, saving every cent for years for the chicken farm, would find it difficult to understand. Chickens! he thought, and tried to put them out of his mind.
He looked at his watch. He had had no breakfast. And this was as good a place as any to get it. The grill would be open, and it was not expensive. First, however, he called Joe at the Ingallses’ house. The sergeant himself answered the phone.
“How’s everything?” Brent inquired.
Joe lowered his voice.
“Bad for a while. Girl had a hysterical fit. She’s over it now. All right to let her put on some clothes?”
“So long as she keeps out of that room.”
“I got both doors locked,” Joe said laconically.
“Anybody try to get in?”
“Only the dog. He’s scratched at the door once or twice. The Filipino’s kind of hanging around, keeping an eye on the girl. And the fellow’s gone. Townsend. Went about half an hour ago.”
“That all?”
“Well,” Joe said with obvious reluctance. “The Commissioner’s been on the phone. He didn’t sound too good. I told him I’d have you call him soon as I heard from you.”
“Then you haven’t heard from me,” Brent said and hung up.
He went down to the grill and ordered a substantial breakfast. He never had worked well on an empty stomach, and he needed food before he called the Commissioner. So far he had got exactly nowhere. He was hot, too, and his feet were still bothering him. He reached down to unlace his shoes, and found the left side of his trousers sticking to his hand. He bent over and examined the spot. He could see nothing, but he could feel it, a long smear that felt like molasses.
It puzzled him. It was a fresh suit; Emma had sponged and pressed it the day before. Where and how had he got it? He was still wondering about it when he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Hello,” said a voice. “Thought you were counting eggs somewhere in the country.”
It was Carver, the hotel detective. Brent glanced up at him.
“That’s next week,” he said drily. “Still stooging for divorce cases?”
These courtesies exchanged, Carver grinned and sat down.
“Understand you’re on the Ingalls murder,” he said. “What was it? Robbery?”
“Nothing taken. Might have been scared off, of course.”
The waiter brought Brent’s breakfast at that moment, and Carver glanced at it and grinned.
“Ham and eggs and rolls,” he said. “Funny. What would you say about a man who ordered that same breakfast up in his room and then hid it in the tank of the toilet in his bathroom? Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
“Probably is crazy,” Brent said indifferently. “Still there? Better keep an eye on him if he is.”
“Gone. Checked out right after. Left fifty cents on the tray for the waiter, too. Can you beat it?”
Brent however was not interested. He ate hastily, knowing he would have to call headquarters when he finished. Carver talked on but he hardly heard him. It was almost twelve when he looked at his watch, paid his check and got up.
“Better follow that fellow up,” he said. “He might be dangerous.”
He left Carver there and went to a telephone booth. As he had expected the Commissioner’s voice was a blast in his ear.
“Where the devil have you been?” he roared. “This place is busy with reporters. What do you mean, hiding out when all hell’s breaking loose around here?”
“I’ve been working. After all I haven’t had much time.”
“You’ve had time to call me. Now see here, Brent, I want that girl down here for questioning, and I want her soon. I want the man too. Townsend. He’s in it up to his neck.”
“It may take a little time,” Brent said, thinking fast and ignoring what Joe had told him. “She’ll have to get some clothes on. And she’s in poor shape, too. Give me a couple of hours.”
“Make it an hour if you can,” said the Commissioner, and banged down the receiver.
Brent hung up slowly. There was an implied threat in what had been said. Do it and do it fast or else, was what it meant. He was to take the girl down to be mentally drawn and quartered, to be screamed about in the press, and to have the stigma of the interrogation to follow her the rest of her life. Or he would be demoted, even broken.
He thought of the future, of his pension cut, of Emma’s chickens, his own plan for a kennel. He even had a plan for one in his desk—the runways were to be painted green outside and whitewashed inside. Then he walked slowly out to his car and down to the Ingalls house.
The patrolman was still there on the pavement, trying to marshal the crowd.
“Keep moving,” he was saying monotonously. “Nothing to see. Keep moving.”
Brent nodded to him and went inside. Joe was at the top of the stairs, and he went up to him.
“Anything new?” he inquired.
“The laboratory reported. No prints in the room except the woman’s and the daughter’s. The doc says plain strangulation. That’s all so far.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“Downstairs. Townsend hasn’t come back.”
He found Joy in the library. She had put on a black dress and touched up her lips. And in spite of reddened eyes she looked very pretty. Very pretty and very innocent, Brent thought. She even tried to smile when she saw him.
“Ken went to get a lawyer,” she said. “He seems to think I need one. That’s silly, isn’t it?”
“Well, it won’t do any harm,” Brent said guardedly. “Fact is, Commissioner wants to talk to you. Might be as well to have somebody around to look after you.”
She looked appalled.
“The Commissioner! Then they think I did it!”
“Not necessarily,” Brent said stoutly. “Just a few questions. That’s all. Better get your hat, or whatever you girls wear these days. I’ll take you down.”
He watched her as she went out. Maybe she played golf and tennis. Maybe she could throw a baseball hard and fast. But to think of her killing her mother was as impossible as to see her in a chair at headquarters, surrounded by hard-faced men firing question after question at her. He lit a cigarette and wandered unhappily back to the dining room window. The Scottie was again in the yard, but he was not digging. He was sniffing at the hole from which he had retrieved the cork. All at once Brent remembered the little dog wiping his nose on his trouser leg, and he went down the back stairs and into the kitchen. The Filipino gave him an unpleasant look.
“How long we have police hanging around here?” he demanded.
“Not long, I hope,” Brent told him. “Where’s that cork he carried in?”
“He take it out again.”
Brent went out into the yard. The Scottie was still sniffing around the hole, and Brent bent down and dug his fingers into it. The dog grumbled and nosed at him angrily.
“It’s all right, old boy,” Brent told him. “I got business here.”
For already he had found the cache from which the cork had come. It was a small bottle, and whatever had been in it had leaked out. Brent sniffed at it, and then put a finger inside. He stared at his hand and whistled. Then he carried the bottle into the kitchen.
“Ever see this before?” he asked.
The Filipino looked at it and shook his head.
“No see,” he said laconically. “Not mine.”
Brent dropped it in his pocket and went rapidly up the stairs. Joe was sitting in a hall chair, half asleep, and the girl was moving about in her room. He roused the man with a touch.
“When she comes out tell her I’ve gone, but I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he whispered. “Where’s the key to the room?”
Joe gave it to him, and he slipped quietly through the door, closing it behind him. The room was as he had left it. The bed still bore the imprint of the dead woman’s body, but careful examination revealed nothing else. Brent straightened and surveyed the room itself. It was elaborate, with its taffeta hangings, its handsome toilet set on the dressing table, and the chaise longue with a half-dozen lace-trimmed pillows.
Except for traces of print powder apparently nothing had been disturbed. It was the room of a woman accustomed to comfort, even luxury. And almost certainly Social Register. No wonder the Commissioner was having a fit, he thought drily.
But he did not give up easily. He heard the girl go down the stairs, and Joe tell her he was out. Then very cautiously he got down on his knees and examined the floor. It looked hopeless. The heavy pile of the carpet had been disturbed by many feet, and his eyes were not as good as they had been.
He had accumulated quite a bit of dust and he was sweating profusely when at last he drew a small magnifying glass from his pocket and went over the floor inch by inch. It was slow work. He had left his flashlight in the car, and the light was not too good. Nevertheless he found one or two almost infinitesimal objects and put them carefully into an envelope in his pocket. He was looking more cheerful when he went out into the hall.
“Girl’s gone down,” Joe said. “Do I get lunch, or don’t I?”
“Try working on the Filipino,” Brent told him heartlessly. “Perhaps he’ll feed you. Just sit tight for a while, Joe. Maybe it won’t be long before this thing’s sewed up.”
Joe glanced at him.
“I sure hope so. It’s likely to be your last case. Only I hope it’s not the girl. She’s a nice kid.”
Brent went down the stairs. His feet did not hurt him anymore, or at least he did not notice them. There was almost a spring in his walk. From the voices in the library he judged that young Townsend had returned, but he did not go there at once. Instead, and breathing hard, he made for the telephone, called Carver at the Belmont.
That gentleman seemed annoyed when he heard his voice.
“Look, Brent,” he said. “I was at my lunch. What’s eating you anyhow?”
“It’s about the fellow who hid his breakfast this morning,” Brent said. “Got any idea who he was?”
“Sure I have. Name’s Somers. Comes from Cincinnati. As if I care!”
“You said he wore a goatee, didn’t you?”
“I did. I was curious about the guy. Gray hair, mustache and a goatee, according to the chambermaid. What makes, Brent?”
“Don’t know yet. When did he leave?”
“I told you that. Between eight and nine this morning. Only here one night.”
“How about his room? Has it been cleaned yet?”
“God knows,” Carver said. “With these conventions and service what it is …”
“Well, see here, Carver. Do something for me, will you? Go up yourself and lock it. I don’t want it touched.”
“Ha! Getting interested, are you? What’s happened? Commissioner take you off the other case?”
“He’s going to, in about an hour.”
“Like that, is it? I’m sorry, Brent. Well, what if the room’s already done. Still interested?”
“Lock it anyhow. I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”
Back in the library he faced an enraged young man, with his fists clenched and his face flushed with fury. Joy Ingalls, wearing a hat and coat and looking more frightened than ever, had evidently been trying to calm him. Townsend whirled when he heard him.
“You’re not getting away with this,” he shouted. “She’s not going downtown to be interrogated. She’s not going anywhere. And if you try to pull a fast one I’ll forget your age and give you something you won’t forget in a hurry.”
Brent winced not at the prospect of a beating, but at this reference to his age. Perhaps a little of his exuberance died. His voice however remained mild.
“How about taking her to lunch at the Belmont?” he said. “Find a quiet corner, so people won’t notice her, and give her a drink. I expect she needs it.”
Townsend looked astonished.
“The Belmont? But I thought—”
“Never mind what you thought. Do what I tell you. I’ll drop you there if you like. Any back way out of this house? There’s a crowd and a patrolman out front.”
“There’s an alley,” Joy said. “We can go out through the yard.”
Townsend was still not convinced, however.
“If this is a trick,” he said, “what I said before goes. And then some.
“No trick, son,” Brent said blandly. “I’ll meet you down the street at the corner. And it’s the Belmont. Nowhere else.”
He called up the stairs to Joe.
“We’re going out. I’m taking Miss Ingalls downtown,” he said. “Through the yard. There’s a crowd in front.” And he added rather wryly, “If there are any messages just hold them. I’ll be back.”
“They’ll murder her at Headquarters,” Joe said somberly.
“Before they’re through with her she’ll think she did it in Her sleep.”
Brent grinned and, going back to his little party, led the way down the stairs to the kitchen. There he confronted an outraged Oriental with a large carving knife in his hand.
“You take her to jail?” he demanded.
“Don’t be a fool, Miguel,” Brent told him. “They’re going out to lunch. Only I don’t want it known. If anybody asks where they are you haven’t seen them. That clear?”
Even then he might not have got away with it except for Joy. She put a hand on his arm and smiled at the Filipino.
“That’s right, Miguel,” she said. “The Inspector’s our friend.” She turned trusting eyes on Brent. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
He nodded. It was true. It was as true as hell. He felt like a man on a wire over Niagara Falls with all he had to help him an infinitesimal scrap in his pocket and a vague hope he could get across. But he managed to smile.
“Out with you,” he told them. “I’ll pick you up in a minute or so.”
He watched them go. The Scottie tried to follow them, and they had to send him back. He waited while the little animal trotted resentfully to the house. Then he turned to the Filipino.
“If you’re the lad I think you are,” he said, “you’ll give that dog the best meal he ever had.” But he added, “Or choke him to death. He may have cost me my job.”
The crowd on the street had largely dispersed. He sent the precinct man away and got into his car. He had a picture in his mind of the Commissioner waiting behind his desk instead of eating his usual hearty lunch at the club. He felt a trifle sick at the thought, but he had gone all out now. Either his hunch was right or it was dead wrong. If it was wrong …
He picked up two dazed young people at the corner and drove them rapidly toward the Belmont. Behind him they were quiet, as though they were still bewildered. Young Townsend spoke to him once, however.
“I’d like to know what’s changed your mind, sir,” he said to Brent’s back. “If you don’t mind saying.”
Brent negotiated a corner before he answered. Then: “It’s like this, son,” he said. “I’ve been in the service a long time, and you get to know people that way. You learn to listen when they talk, and you learn to know what they can do and what they can’t. I nearly slipped up this morning because I didn’t listen when I should have.”
“That’s the hell of an answer,” said Ken, and relapsed into silence.
He left them in the lobby of the hotel and went to Carver’s office. Carver was smoking an after-lunch cigar and he eyed Brent curiously.
“Room’s the way he left it. Want me to take you up?”
“It’s not necessary. All I need is the key.”
Carver gave it to him, but he was still inquisitive.
“I’ve been up. There’s nothing there, Brent.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Brent said. “If you want to be useful, get a description of Mr. Somers. How he acted. If the waiter saw him. What luggage he had. Anything you can pick up.”
“I told you a lot of that before.”
“Sorry. I had other things to think about just then.”
“I noticed.” Carver grinned. “Your feet, wasn’t it?”
Brent left that unanswered, and went upstairs. The room when he entered it had obviously not been touched. Only in the bathroom two large soggy rolls and a substantial slice of ham had been removed from the tank and placed on top of the porcelain washstand. Brent examined them and left them where they were. But he gave the washstand itself a good going over before he abandoned it.
The room itself offered nothing at first. The ashtrays had not been used, but a burned match on a windowsill indicated that Mr. Somers had just possibly emptied them out the window. Brent opened it and looked out. The hotel doorman was standing just beneath. And he permitted himself a wry smile. He wondered what would have happened had Somers attempted to dump his breakfast the same way.
He went over the bedroom carefully. The bureau showed no use whatever. If the late occupant had emptied his pockets before he went to bed, or even placed a pair of brushes on it, there was no sign of it on its virginal cover. But Brent wasted no time on it. He went to the bed and stood looking down at it. It was unused, as though someone had lain in it, but the creases were rather shallow. Mr. Somers had not slept hard, or long. Then he struck gold. He moved a pillow and there it was. It was his case. All he had to do now was to prove it.
He knew how and why Mrs. Ingalls had been murdered. He was fairly sure who had done it, and he was confident that if his evidence held up the girl would not be arrested. But he grunted as he prepared to leave. It was up to the Commissioner now, and to his cooperation. Or was it? Perhaps he could go a step farther first.
He called Carver on the house telephone and instructed him that the room was to be left as it was. Then, locking the door behind him, he went down to the elevator and stopped at the desk.
“Will you see if you have a card for an F. C. Somers, from Cincinnati?” he asked the clerk. “Think he checked out this morning.”
The clerk grinned.
“Fellow who dumped his breakfast in the can?” he said. “What do you want to know? He left this morning about eight, traveling light on a cup of coffee.”
“When did he get here?”
“Last night, about nine-thirty. Carver’s been looking up his card, so I know. Some asylum looking for him?”
“Remember what he looked like? He must have paid his bill.”
The clerk looked bored.
“Look, Inspector,” he said, “we had two conventions here. One of them came in last night. One left this morning. How in blazes could either the cashier or I remember that fellow? His card says he paid for one night in advance, so he probably had no luggage. That’s all I know.”
Nor was the waiter who had taken up the breakfast any help. Mr. Somers apparently had been in the shower when he got there. The hall door was open, so he merely left the tray. He hadn’t noticed anything later when he went back for it. The money for the check was on it. And a half-dollar tip. Somers had gone. But the waiter had seen one thing. There had been a small black overnight bag on the bed.
“And that’s all?” Brent inquired. “There was no other luggage?”
“That’s all I seen, mister.”
He gave the man a dollar and went to the dining room. Ken and Joy were still at the table. They had found an inconspicuous one in a corner, and were quite openly holding hands.
“Just a question or two and I’ll let you go,” he said. “Either of you been to any masquerade parties lately where you had to dress up, and so on?” The speech was to them both, but it was Townsend he watched. And it was he who replied.
“Not since college,” he said. “And that wasn’t a party. It was a play. What’s the idea, Inspector?”
“How long ago was that?”
“Seven or eight years ago. There’s been a war since, I seem to remember.”
Joy, when queried, had never been to anything of the sort. Brent had an idea that parties of any sort had played a small part in her life. He smiled at her and got up.
“Just thought I’d inquire,” he said. “You may be asked that later on. It’s all right. Don’t worry.” He got stiffly to his feet. Damn a man’s knees. First his feet go, then his knees. Maybe Emma was right, and he ought to go to church oftener. Keep them exercised. He glanced down at the young couple.
“Just stick around,” he told them. “If the waiter gets upset wait on the mezzanine. I’ll be back. I may be a little while.”
Ken had risen when he did.
“Does this mean …?” But Brent shook his head.
“Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what the hell it means. Not for sure. But I’ve got an angle and I’m following it up.”
He glanced at his watch after he left them. His two hours were up and he hoped to God someone had brought the Commissioner his lunch. Or at least coffee and a doughnut. He could not hope for anything more.
He needed a wash and a brush-up, but there was no time for either. As he got into his car he felt the stubble on his face, and that his collar was soaked with perspiration, and as he felt the familiar wheel under his hands he realized that he would not have it very long. He felt a real affection for it. There was a bullet hole in one of the doors, where he had almost lost his life a year or so ago, and the glass had been replaced more than once. He would miss it, he thought. It had been a part of him for several years.
He grunted, and before he drove off he unlocked the glove compartment and took out his police positive. He examined it and put it back again. He did not like carrying a gun, and this time he did not think he would need it. Still it was best to be sure it was around.
After that he drove to the theatrical district, and to a certain part of it. The traffic was heavy there, however, and after a time he parked the car by a fire hydrant and saved time by making his rounds on foot.
However, his feet were agonizing and he had visited a half dozen places before he found what he was looking for. He took out the bottle he had found in the garden and showed it to the man in charge. The label was gone, but the druggist recognized it at once.
“Sure,” he said. “Handled it for years. Not much doing this time of year though. Not the season.”
“Sold any the last day or two?”
“Sold one yesterday, as a matter of fact,” he acknowledged. “Just remembered. Girl bought it. Kinda funny, too. Most of our customers for it are men.”
He could not describe the girl, however. It had been raining, and she had sort of a waterproof hood effect over her head.
“Think she had a fellow with her,” he said. “He didn’t come in, though. Just hung around outside. Maybe it was for him.”
Unfortunately he had not noticed the man, except that he was tall, and Brent could get no more out of it. His evidence, he realized, could fit Joy Ingalls and even young Townsend. And as a result he was depressed as he went back to his car. There was a young traffic man standing beside it, near one of the back fenders, with a pad in his hand.
“Just in case you don’t know much about our fair city,” he said acidly, “this hydrant is intended for the sole use of the neighborhood dogs and incidentally the fire department.”
“Smart, aren’t you?” Brent said. “Well, brother, if you want to stay in that uniform you’d better look at the bumper of this car. You’ll find a little shield on it which says P.D. And it doesn’t mean pretty damn funny either.”
He left the traffic man looking about to faint and drove away. He was tired to the point of exhaustion; his time was up long ago. And he had a strong conviction that even coffee and doughnuts—if he had got them—would not take the place with the Commissioner of his usual substantial meal.
Certainly it was no time to see him. He drove around uncertainly, thinking of Emma and what he would tell her. One thing he was sure—she wouldn’t get her chickens, although why any one wanted to keep them puzzled him. You couldn’t talk to a hen, or take her for a walk. Or even watch her bury a bottle. Which last brought him back to his problem again. Somehow, the night before, Harry Ingalls had got out of the Davis House and strangled his aunt. He knew it, but he could not prove it. And he had lost time. If he had only paid any real attention to Carver that morning it would have helped, but he had been busy with his feet and the smear on his trouser leg.
“Gray-haired guy,” Carver had said. “Wore a goatee, too. Only a fellow with a weak chin wears a thing like that.”
Fool that he was, it was not until he had found the bottle of spirit gum that he had remembered and knew what it might mean: that someone, preferably Harry Ingalls, had built up a beard to cover something, probably a receding chin, put on a gray wig and almost certainly got away with murder.
His mind went back to the untidy room at the Davis House. They couldn’t have burned the stuff there. It would have smelled to high heaven. But he was confident it had been Harry at the Belmont. Harry, whose bits of glued beard had come off in the hotel bed as it had on his aunt’s carpet. Harry, who, afraid of losing his disguise, had carried the bottle of spirit gum in his pocket and lost it. And Harry, who, completely unnerved by what he had done, had been unable to eat his breakfast and in a fit of desperation had put it in the tank.
He must have been in a bad way to do the idiotic thing he had done. But at least it had given him time to dispose of the bag and its contents, and to take his shattered nerves back to Maud, who had no nerves whatever. Where had he made the shift? he wondered. There were thousands of places: men’s rooms anywhere, comfort stations, even a back alley. But perhaps he had kept the bag. In that case …
He did not go to the Davis House at once. He stopped at the Belmont to go to the mezzanine and discover Joy sitting alone and Townsend pacing the floor impatiently. He sat down beside the girl to notice that she was quietly crying. He reached over and took her hand.
“I’m sorry, my dear,” he told her. “These things happen, and after all death comes to all of us, sooner or later.”
“Not like that,” she said brokenly. “And Ken thinks I did it. Not intentionally, but that’s what he thinks. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”
He glanced at Ken. That young gentleman was carefully avoiding him. He stood at the edge of the balcony, gazing at the crowd below, and his tall body looked sagged, as though the youthful exuberance had gone out of it.
“What do you mean, not intentionally?” he asked.
“He asked me if I ever walked in my sleep,” she said. “I used to, when I was a child. I told him that, and he’s been queer and sort of upset ever since. You see, the house being locked and all that—”
“I’ll talk to him,” Brent told her. “I don’t think you did, and I’m the one who matters.”
He got the name of the family lawyer from her before he walked over to Townsend and touched him on the shoulder.
“You young fool,” he said. “What’s the idea of scaring the girl into a fit? She didn’t do it, in her sleep or any other way.”
The younger man brightened.
“Oh, God,” he said. “Am I glad to hear that! I’ve been going slowly crazy. She’s such a gentle little thing, but the way her mother treated her …”
“Forget it,” Brent told him briefly. “Go over there and get down on your knees and apologize. And stick around a little longer. I want to know where you are.”
Down on the main floor, however, he had a shock. The reporter, Clarke, was standing there, staring up at the gallery. He grinned when he saw Brent.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “That’s no place to hide the girl. I suppose you know there’s an alarm out for her. And Headquarters is a madhouse. The Commissioner—”
“Listen, Clarke,” Brent said. “Give me an hour or two, won’t you? She’s staying there, so you won’t miss anything.”
“So you’re on to something,” Clarke said shrewdly. “Well, so long as I’m in on it I can walk. What have you been doing with yourself? Rolling in the gutter?”
But Brent was in a hurry. He started off, then turned.
“If you’re a friend of mine,” he said, “you’ll see that someone sends the Commissioner his lunch. It might help some.”
Clarke grinned again.
“Last time I saw him he was hurling doughnuts out the window,” he said. “All right. I’m all for you. But you’d better make it snappy. He’s watching the clock.”
Brent caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror before he left the hotel. He was dirty and unshaven, and his trousers were a disgrace. Moreover he found himself limping, as though he had picked up a blister somewhere. He had no time to worry about his appearance, however. He might know who had killed Mrs. Ingalls, but he knew he still had no case. It had been skillfully and carefully planned, and carried out.
He even had a motive, when during a brief visit to the Ingallses’ lawyer he prodded that unwilling gentleman to the admission that Harry profited by the will to the extent of fifty thousand dollars. But without the bag or its contents he was lost. Under ordinary circumstances he could have alerted a hundred men or more to the search. The circumstances however were not ordinary, as he discovered when he called his office at Headquarters from a booth in the hotel. To his surprise it was Joe who answered the phone.
“What are you doing there?” Brent inquired sharply.
“You’re asking me?” Joe said. “They’ve pulled me in and it looks as though I’m in for it, letting that girl escape. Where the hell are you hiding her, anyhow? The whole force is after her.”
“Who pulled you in, Joe?”
“Maguire’s got the case now. He did it.”
So that was it. He was not only off the case. He would probably be broken, and retired as a lieutenant. It was the hell of a slap at a man who had only been doing the best he knew how. Brent hung up and stood still, mopping his dirty face with a dirtier handkerchief. He was not through however. With an air of dogged determination he got into his car and drove to the Davis House.
There, however, bad luck pursued him. A hard-faced clerk told him the Ingallses were out—probably paying a funeral call on Joy—and refused to let him examine their rooms.
“Got a search warrant?” he demanded.
“No. I can get one, of course.”
He produced his badge, and the clerk looked up from it coldly.
“Radio says you’re off the case,” he said. “Guess that settles it, mister.”
After some argument, however, he got permission to speak to the nurse on the sixth floor, but he felt slightly sick and not a little dizzy as he left the elevator. Here, though, he had a bit of good fortune. The day nurse was once more standing at the window, smoking and looking out. She jumped when he touched her on the shoulder, and turning gave him a black look.
“What’s the idea, scaring me to death? Oh, it’s you again. Police, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I wanted to see the people next door. But they seem to be out.”
“Yes, thank heaven. That radio of theirs has been going all day. What did they do? Kill the old woman?”
“I’m checking up on them. May be something, may be nothing. I don’t suppose you saw either of them this morning when you came on duty?”
“I saw him about nine o’clock. He’d been out for a paper.”
“Didn’t carry a small bag, did he?”
“A bag? No. Just the paper. Why?”
The picture was complete now. Harry Ingalls had not gone out for a paper. He was coming home, to Maud and fifty thousand dollars. And he had not brought anything back with him to incriminate him. Somewhere between the Belmont and this hotel he had got rid of his disguise.
Well, this was it. He had to have help and have it fast. There was no use telephoning. He had to tell his story and hope to God the Commissioner would listen to it. He left her staring after him, and went down to the car. He drove crazily to Headquarters and took the elevator upstairs. The operator eyed him queerly, and he was aware not only that the news was all over the building, but that he himself looked as though he had been rolling in the gutter. There was no time even to wash, however. He pulled up tired shoulders and entered the Commissioner’s office. That gentleman immediately let out a yelp that could be heard for a considerable distance, and then out of shear fury was silent. Brent was rocking on his feet, but his voice was steady.
“I’m reporting on the Ingalls case,” he said.
“You’re reporting! You damn fool, you’ve been off that case for the last two hours. I told you I’d break you, and I will. Never before,” roared the Commissioner recovering his voice, “have I had one of my top men behave in this manner on a job like this. What in God’s name were you doing? Sleeping. And where’s that girl? Where have you hidden her?”
“She’s not hidden. She’s on the mezzanine of the Belmont Hotel. She didn’t do it, Commissioner. I know who did, only now I need help and need it right off.”
“You don’t need a thing, unless it’s a bath.”
“If you’ll just listen—”
“I’ll listen to Maguire. It’s his case.”
For the first time Brent saw a man standing by a window When he turned he saw that it was the district attorney.
“Why not let him tell his story?” he said, eyeing Brent. “Maybe he’s got something.”
“I’ve got it all,” Brent told him, “if I can find a black bag somewhere between the Belmont and the Davis House. It’s got some false hair in it, a gray wig, and some loose hair, to build up a beard. Or it may be empty, but the bag itself will help.”
He steadied himself against the desk. “That bag will solve the case, Commissioner,” he said doggedly. “We need it. We’ve got to have it. And soon. It may be in a locker room at the railroad station, or checked there. It may be in a trash or garbage can, or in some areaway or alley. All I know is that it’s somewhere between the Belmont Hotel and the Davis House. And I’d like some prints of a room at the Belmont. It’s locked Man’s name was Somers, registered from Cincinnati.”
Then, because his feet would not hold him any longer—or indeed his body—he sat down abruptly.
The Commissioner inspected him. After all, he had been in the service for almost forty years. And he did not look as though he had been asleep. He looked more like a man at the end of his string and desperate.
“All right, let’s have it,” he said. “And it better be good.”
He told his story to both men, producing the hairs from the murdered woman’s carpet and from the room at the Belmont Hotel, the fact that Harry Ingalls had often stayed in the house and so must have had a key to it, that he inherited under the will, and last of all the bottle the dog buried in the garden.
“It was a nice plan,” he said. “Ingalls and his wife ate at the Belmont and went to the theater. She stayed there, but he didn’t. He went somewhere, put on the wig, built up the hair on his face with the spirit gum out of that bottle. And registered at the Belmont as Somers. He probably wiped out his prints in the room there, but it won’t hurt to try for them.”
The district attorney looked puzzled.
“What put you on to him?” he asked.
Brent put his head back. The chair felt wonderful.
“Well, it was two things,” he said tiredly. “The dog burying the bottle was one. People don’t generally have spirit gum around, and Harry Ingalls must have had it in his pocket when he went there last night. He couldn’t take a chance on a struggle and that goatee of his coming loose. It probably rolled under the bed, and the dog found it there. Anyhow it was his. I located the place where he bought it.”
“And the other thing?”
He smiled faintly. “Well, that’s funny too,” he said. “It was because Ingalls was too scared to eat his breakfast this morning at the Belmont. He was afraid to leave it, so he hid it in the toilet tank in his bathroom. I happened on that by accident,” he added modestly.
“That’s the hell of a place to hide a breakfast!” said the district attorney.
“Well, maybe you never tried it,” Brent said. “But you can’t flush two large rolls and a slice of ham down a toilet, and you can’t very well throw them out the window. That’s where Harry Ingalls outsmarted himself. He didn’t want the waiter to know he was too scared to eat, so he hid them in the tank.” He yawned. “The wife’s in it too. She bought the gum. He waited outside.”
He glanced at the Commissioner. Why, the old buzzard was actually looking excited. He braced himself and went on.
“Ingalls was still Somers when he checked out of the Belmont this morning. All the luggage he had was the bag. He got rid of the hair and the bag somewhere, bought a morning paper and went back to the Davis House, as if he’d just gone out.”
But that was as far as he went. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was very tired, and his feet hurt like hell. He unfastened one shoe and slid it loosely off his heel. That was better. And after all he had done his work. The rest was up to the other men. Let them go around dumping garbage pails. He was through with that. As from a great distance he heard the Commissioner yelling into the intercom, and uniformed men hurrying in and out of the room.
“I’m sorry about Maguire, Brent,” the Commissioner said, in the comparative silence which followed. “But look at it from here. I hadn’t heard from you, and—”
He stopped abruptly. Brent was sound asleep. His reply was merely a snore, and suddenly the Commissioner smiled. He looked quite human when he smiled.
So he’s going out in a blaze of glory after all, he thought. Him and his wife’s chickens! It’s a pity these fellows have to quit when they’re still as good as that.
But of course he did not know about the dogs, preferably Scotties, on which Brent had decided before he slept, or the two young people in a taxi, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. In this last instance only the driver knew, and it meant nothing to him. Nor did the fact that the wig had been already found in a trash can and the bag in a locker at the railroad station, or even that Harry Ingalls was on his way in due time to the chair, with Maud as an accomplice.
“Them police ain’t so. smart,” he said to his wife that night over the midnight edition of a morning paper. “Got the fellow right off. He must have bungled the job.”
Brent himself did not read any papers that night. He sat at home with his feet in a basin of hot water while Emma fed him and fussed over him. She did not mention the chicken farm. Nor did he. There would be plenty of time for that. All the time in the world, he thought uneasily. But as he rested he felt better.
“The Commissioners’s not so bad,” he said. “He was pretty decent, as a matter of fact.”
“Why not?” said Emma. “You’d done a fine piece of work for him, and he’ll get all the credit for it.”
“I liked the girl, Emma. She reminded me of ours. I guess that’s why I knew she was innocent.”
She bent over and rather awkwardly kissed him.
“What’s over is over, Tom,” she said stoutly. “How are your feet?”
He lifted one and inspected it.
“Fine,” he said. “Looks like the blister’s going down.”
She looked at him. He was no thing of beauty. He was a tired elderly man who needed a shave and a bath, but he was hers, and she loved him.
“That dog helped you a lot,” she said. “Maybe it means something, Tom. If you still want the kennel you’d better have it. I guess barking is no worse than cackling, although I never knew a dog that could lay an egg.”
It was surrender, and he knew it. He reached up and patted her hand, while his mind saw the runways he meant to build. Green outside and whitewashed inside. He got a towel absently and dried his feet.
“Better take a bath and get to bed,” he said. “I’m still on the job for a while, you know.”