by Jerry eBooks
Everything would have remained just as it had that morning. Hart wouldn’t have been exposed as both a crook and a coward and, possibly, woman killer. Joe and he wouldn’t be heroes due for a boost up the ladder. And Dotty would never have realized how much she had lost until it was too late. It all was there in a perfectly definite pattern. Removing his cap, Hanson said, “Thanks, Father. Thanks a lot.”
Then, somehow Cary was standing in front of him, her dear eyes filled with tears.
She touched his face with the tips of her fingers. “You were wonderful, Pete. And I’m so proud of you.” A determined look replaced her tears. “But I can’t take any more of this. You’ve got to stop thinking of Dotty and think of us for a while. What time do you get off duty?”
Captain Engles answered before Hanson could. “He’s off duty as of now. He hasn’t a thing to do for the rest of the day.”
Cary corrected him with spirit. “Oh, yes he has. He’s going right down to the license bureau.”
Engles nudged Hanson with his elbow. “You can’t win, eh, Pete?”
Hanson’s grin spread all over his face as he took Cary in his arms. “In such a case I should want to?”
THE LONG NIGHT
Philip Ketchum
There was evidence, there was a witness, but Joe’s faith in Mary Lambert’s innocence made him blind to the facts!
JOE PULASKI’S mother died when he was twenty-seven. Her death left a void in Joe’s life which he was sure he could never fill. He had idolized his mother, had delighted in doing things for her, and had always laughed when she suggested that he find some nice girl who would appreciate him. He didn’t want any other girl. No one could take his mother’s place.
Then suddenly she was gone and without her, Joe was lost, and bewildered, and frightened. She had been his haven, his source of comfort and encouragement. She had been the person to whom he had taken his problems, and who had always listened sympathetically, and who knew how to say the right things. Now, he had no one to go to, or no one with whom to spend his evenings. No one who understood him.
Other than his mother, he had never had any close friends.
For a time, then, Joe’s life was difficult. His work suffered and he lost weight and grew irritable. What might have happened, eventually, he didn’t know, but as things worked out, he grew interested in Mary Lambert. This interest, at first a very casual thing, developed swiftly to the point where Mary almost completely filled the space in his life which had formerly been his mother’s.
Mary was a thin, frail, rather quiet girl who worked in the same office with Joe. She wasn’t particularly pretty but she was neat and competent. There was always a clean, fresh look about her and she had friendly blue eyes. She didn’t seem to be a happy girl, for she almost never laughed, but then Joe was a sober and serious person himself.
Mary seemed close to no one in the office. Like Joe, she lunched alone, and this apparent similarity in their habits may possibly have had something to do with drawing them together. One noon, quite by accident, Joe sat next to Mary at the lunch counter in the building and afterwards came back to the office with her. Two nights later, he walked with her to the rooming house where she lived. Within another week, this became a regular routine. He enjoyed it.
Joe didn’t know he was falling in love. Mary would listen to him, just as his mother had. She made the same encouraging answers. And Joe discovered, suddenly, that she had a nice smile and that when she smiled she was pretty. In another week, they were spending their evenings together, sometimes taking long walks, sometimes sitting in the parlor at the rooming house, sometimes going to a show.
GRADUALLY Joe learned a great deal about Mary Lambert. She had come to New York from a small town in Ohio, immediately following the tragic experience which had certainly colored her life. Her mother, an invalid, had committed suicide, but an ambitious county attorney had tried to pin the crime on Mary, intimating that she had grown tired of caring for her mother and was greedy to inherit her mother’s estate. At the trial, Mary had been acquitted. With the memory of his own mother still strong in his mind, Joe could appreciate what Mary had had to endure. This story made him feel more: tenderly toward her.
“I loved her, Joe,” Mary told him. “I felt lost when she was gone. I still miss her.”
From the sound of her voice and the look in her eyes, Joe knew she was telling the truth. He put his arm around her and held her tightly. He said, “Mary, we need each other. We’ve both been lost.”
They decided to get married the next week, but they didn’t. Three days later, at ten o’clock in the morning, two men came into the office, talked to the boss, and then to Mary. They took her away with them and within another hour, Joe heard the story of what had happened. Mrs. Selma Conners, who operated the rooming house where Mary lived, had been found in her bedroom, her head crushed by some blunt instrument. Mary had been charged with the murder. An hour later, Joe was down at police headquarters, talking to Detective Dan Hogan.
Hogan was a big man, square shouldered, tall. He had iron gray hair and a stern, rugged, scowling face. His eyes were sharp and hard.
“I’m sorry, Joe, but that’s the way it is,” he said flatly. “Mary Lambert killed the woman. I’d stake my reputation on it. We’ve more evidence than we need to prove the case. In the lining of Mary’s pocketbook, which she had at the office, we found the money which was missing from the strong box in Selma Conners’ room. Hidden in Mary Lambert’s mattress we found the jewels which had been taken. Another roomer, Mrs. Helen Taylor, actually saw the crime committed, through the back porch window, though at the time she didn’t realize what she was seeing. We found blood stains on Mary’s blouse, a blouse which had been wrapped in newspaper and dropped in a waste paper receiver on the corner. What can you say to that?”
Joe shook his head, stubbornly. “I don’t believe it.”
“But what I’ve told you is true.”
“I still don’t believe Mary is guilty.”
“But how can you believe anything else, Joe?”
“I know Mary Lambert,” Joe answered. “I know she wouldn’t have done a thing like that.”
His voice was shaky. He was perspiring and he was frightened. Frightened for Mary and for himself, for without Mary he would be lost again.
“Can I talk to her?” he asked.
Dan Hogan pulled in a deep breath. After a moment, he nodded. .
Joe Pulaski talked to Mary that afternoon, while three police officers listened. She told him just what he expected. She hadn’t killed Selma Conners. She had gone to Selma’s room this morning to tell her she would be leaving in another week. There had been no trouble between them. How the money found in the lining of her purse had gotten there she didn’t know. Nor did she know about the jewels found in her mattress, or the blood stained blouse.
MARY’S eyes didn’t waver as she talked to Joe. She was telling the truth. Joe was convinced of it more than ever when they told him he must leave.
“It was someone else,” he said to Dan Hogan. “Someone hid the money in Mary’s purse, and the jewels in her mattress. Someone else stained her blouse with blood and dropped it where it would be found.”
“But we have a witness to the murder,” said Hogan.
Joe shook his head. “Your witness is lying.”
“But why?”
“To protect the murderer.”
“And who do you think killed Selma Conners.”
“I don’t know,” said Joe. “I don’t know, right now. But I’ll find out.”
Joe hired an attorney for Mary Lambert that same day, and that evening, started on a course which he was to follow for months. He didn’t guess it then. He didn’t know what lay ahead, but the chances are if he had known, he would have acted in no other way. Dan Hogan, time and time again would say to some man at headquarters, “I just don’t get it. What is there that gives a man such faith in a woman that he’s blind to facts. I’ve seen some funny things in my time
, but nothing quite like this.”
He was referring, of course, to Joe’s stubborn insistence that Mary was innocent, and to Joe’s belief in Mary which wasn’t shaken, even during the trial. It was a conclusive trial. A bitter argument between Mary Lambert and Selma Conners was recalled by several other roomers. Though it shouldn’t have been a part of the case against her, the shadow in Mary’s past was brought to light by the newspapers. Once before, Mary had been charged with murder. She had been acquitted, but the acquittal was made to seem wrong. This time, at the end, it was a different story. This time, Mary Lambert was found guilty and the jury did not recommend leniency.
She was sentenced to die.
“But she didn’t kill Selma Conners,” Joe said to Dan Hogan. “I tell you she didn’t.”
This was a week after the trial, and a month after Joe had quit his job. He looked seedy, though he probably didn’t realize it. And he looked tired. He was thinner. There were shadows under his eyes and the skin across his face was bone tight.
“It’s all over, Joe,” said Dan Hogan, and he tried to make his voice kind. “You’ve done what you could for Mary, all any man could be expected to do for her. Why don’t you go away somewhere, start all over again.”
“But she’s innocent,” said Joe. “I can’t go away. I’ve got to prove it.”
Dan Hogan’s scowl came back. He realized, suddenly, that he had put up with a lot so far as Joe was concerned. Joe had questioned all the roomers at the rooming house where Mary had lived. Several had complained to Hogan. He had warned Joe to leave them alone and had been sure Joe would, now that the trial was over. But he wondered about that.
“What are you going to do, Joe?” he asked bluntly.
“I’m going to find the guilty party,” Joe answered.
“But the case is closed.”
“Not to me,” said Joe. “It will never be closed to me so long as Mary is in jail.”
“If you start bothering people again,” Hogan promised, “you’ll be in jail yourself.”
Joe shrugged his shoulders. He turned and marched toward the door.
IT DIDN’T seem to Joe Pulaski that he was doing anything unusual. To him, the problem he faced could be stated quite simply. Mary Lambert had been accused and convicted of a crime of which she was innocent. Somewhere was the truth, and it was up to him to find it. Up to him because he loved Mary, and because there was no one else to continue the search for the truth.
Joe was an accountant, or rather, had been an accountant before he had quit his job. He had the trained and mathematical mind of an accountant. It was a mind which worked this way: A true column of figures added up to an exact result. If the column of figures wasn’t true, the result, even though mathematically exact, couldn’t be true. The conviction of Mary Lambert wasn’t true because the facts which added up to her conviction ignored the kind and gentle nature of the girl, as he knew her, and as he was convinced she was. And so in his own mind, Joe threw out the conviction of the court.
But Selma Conners had been murdered. That was a fact. Someone other than Mary Lambert had killed her. That was a fact. And if those two facts were true, so were these: The person who had killed Selma Conners had stained a blouse with blood, had hidden the money in Mary’s purse, and the jewels in her mattress. What he had to do was find that person.
At a far stretch of the imagination, a stranger could have committed the crime, but it seemed to Joe that the guilty person was more likely one of the three other roomers living’ in the rooming house, or Bill Conners, Selma’s husband. So there were four on Joe’s list of suspects: Bill Conners; Helen Taylor, who had testified to seeing the murder committed; Ed Morris, a photographer; and Frank McBride, who had some independent source of income and was unemployed. Joe had talked to all four of his suspects many times. He had learned considerable about them, but nothing conclusive.
One evening a week after his conversation with Hogan, Joe stood in the shelter of a tree across the street from the rooming house. The rain was coming down steadily. It had soaked through the light coat Joe was wearing. He was chilled to the bone, but hardly conscious of it. His eyes watched the shadows occasionally visible on a curtained window of the rooming house.
A man, hurrying down the street, saw him and stopped. The man said, “Joe? Joe Pulaski?”
Joe glanced around. He nodded. “Hello, Morris.”
“Still at it, huh,” said Morris. “Who is it tonight?”
Joe made no answer, but Morris apparently guessed the answer. “Helen Taylor, huh?” he said aloud. “And maybe she’s not alone in her room. Maybe Bill Conners is with her, but what does that prove? Bill’s wife is dead and if Bill’s the kind of man who can go for a faded blonde, he’s got one handy. It’s a cold, wet night, Joe. Give it up and go home.”
“I’ll never give up,” said Joe sharply.
Morris shrugged. He stared at Joe for a moment, then moved on across the street and entered the rooming house. He was a man of about forty, neither tall nor short. He didn’t go to work until late in the morning and sometimes worked late at night. On the morning of Selma Conners’ death he had still been in bed when the police arrived, summoned by Helen Taylor. Or at least, that was the story.
Joe watched Morris disappear from sight, then glanced up at the window. It was Bill Conners who was in Helen Taylor’s room, and maybe it didn’t prove anything, but maybe it did. If Bill Conners had been tired of his wife and had been in love with Helen Taylor—
The light in the room Joe was watching finally went out. Joe glanced at his watch. It was eleven o’clock. He turned and hurried up the street to a tavern which he had visited on many other occasions. As he had half expected, Frank McBride was there at the bar, sipping a beer and talking to two other men. Joe took a seat in a vacant booth. He gave his order and after he had been served he sat there, watching McBride. McBride, a thin man, was stoop shouldered, and had gray hair at his temples. He was a nervous, high strung man, quick tempered—a gambling man, for Joe had overheard him telephoning bookies. He also was a man who drank too much, which Joe had witnessed.
McBride suddenly turned, as though conscious he was being watched. Anger colored his face. He left the bar and marched to where Joe was sitting.
“What are you doing here?” he snapped.
“Having a beer,” said Joe mildly.
“You’re lying,” thundered McBride. “I won’t have it, I tell you. I won’t have any more of your snooping. Get out.”
Joe shook his head, not quite sure what would happen next. For a moment he thought McBride might try to throw him out, but the moment passed. McBride jerked away and crossed to a phone booth. He was grinning when he walked back to the bar.
THE reason for this was apparent half an hour later when Dan Hogan came in, glanced around the room, then came immediately to the booth where Joe was sitting. The detective’s scowl was heavier than usual.
“I won’t permit this, Joe,” said Hogan, grimly. “I can’t let you go on annoying people.”
“I’m only having a beer,” said Joe. “Then after tonight, buy your beer somewhere else. Quit following McBride. We checked his alibi for the morning of the murder. He’s in the clear.”
Joe leaned forward. “Would it interest you, Hogan, to know that Bill Conners and Helen Taylor are—”
“No it wouldn’t,” interrupted the detective. “Leave them alone, too, Joe. This is your last warning. Now get started for home.”
A few days later Joe and Mary Lambert were staring at each other through the wire grill in the visitors’ room. Mary was twisting her hands together in her lap, Joe was clenching and unclenching his fists. Then after almost a minute of silence, they spoke.
“Hello, Mary.”
“Hello, Joe.”
“They’re treating you all right?”
“Yes.”
“I haven’t found out yet who killed Selma, but I will.”
“You mustn’t worry about it, Joe.”
“Of course I must.”
“But it’s so hopeless.”
“It’s not hopeless. Don’t say things like that.”
Joe was suddenly smiling and after a moment a smile came to Mary’s lips. “All right,” she nodded. “I won’t, Joe.”
“I’m going to Oklahoma,” said Joe, “so I won’t get to see you until I come back.”
“Oklahoma?”
“Yes. Selma Conners came from Oklahoma. That was mentioned at the trial. Don’t you remember?”
Mary shook her head. “What about your job?”
“I’m taking time off,” Joe lied.
“You mustn’t take too much time off, Joe.”
“I’ll be thinking of you every night.”
“Every night,” said Mary.
FOR three months Dan Hogan didn’t have a report on Joe Pulaski, and didn’t know what had happened to him. Then one morning, a thin, haggard looking man in clothing which was almost ragged showed up at headquarters, insisted on seeing him, and was shown into his office. And at first, Hogan didn’t recognize the man.
“I’ve got it,” said Joe. “I’ve found it. Found what I’ve been looking for.”
There was a high note of excitement in his voice. Hogan scowled. He glanced at the calendar. It lacked ten days of the morning set for the execution of Mary Lambert. “What is it, Joe?” he asked bluntly.
“I’ve been to Oklahoma,” said Joe.
“Yeah?”
“Selma Conners came from there, from a town called Langsdale.”
The detective shrugged his shoulders.
“But her name wasn’t Selma Conners,” Joe continued. “Her name was Selma Dennison. She was married to a man named Frank Dennison.”
Hogan waited. He wondered what wild story would follow and what he should do about it. And he studied Joe Pulaski. There was an almost wild look in Joe’s eyes, a crazy look. “I’ll have to lock him up,” Hogan told himself. “I’ll have to vag him until after the execution.”