“Hi yuh, Sarge?” he inquired, merely waving the hand instead of fracturing my spine with it. Then he scowled at Fausta. “Romeo Seldon just come in and took his usual table. He asked for you, but I told him you had mumps.”
Fausta said quickly, “I’ll talk to you about it later, Mouldy,” and started to shoo him out of the office.
“Wait a minute,” I said, suddenly getting an idea. “What’s your opinion of Barney Seldon, Mouldy?”
Absently brushing Fausta aside, he said, “Same as Fausta’s. He’s a jerk. She tell you about last night?”
“Yeah. How come you were watching him so closely?”
“ ‘Cause he’s a jerk, see. Sometimes he don’t want to take my word for it Fausta’s busy, and starts back for the office on his own. Then I got to put my arm on him so he don’t bother her.”
Fausta stamped her foot. “You lie, Mouldy Greene!
Barney Seldon is a big romance in my life. I go now to supervise his dinner with my own loving hands.”
And she went out, slamming the office door behind her.
Mouldy stared at the closed door in astonishment. “Dames!” he commented. “She tells me to keep the jerk off her neck, now all of a sudden she’s nuts about the guy.”
“You told Fausta about Seldon’s peculiar actions last night, eh?” I asked.
“Sure. And she said to clam up about it. When the cops asked questions, I just pretended to be stupid.”
“That must have required wonderful acting. How about introducing me to Barney Seldon?”
“Sure, Sarge. If you think you can stand him.”
My meeting with Barney Seldon was not exactly a success, primarily because I don’t know how to be subtle with hoods. I can’t resist the impulse to push them around, even when they’re supposed to be big shots, for I don’t recognize degrees of importance in hoods. As I look at it, living in a mansion and riding in a Cadillac doesn’t give a hood any more social status than the punks you see in a morning police showup. No doubt this is a laudable sentiment, but it inclines to get me in trouble.
Barney Seldon was in his early thirties and looked like a movie idol. He had a wide, pale face with features like a Trojan’s and a nicely cleft chin. His shoulders didn’t require padding to make his dinner jacket look like it was supposed to look, and his waist would have suited a girl.
Apparently he had not yet ordered dinner, for he was sipping a cocktail when we went over to his table. Fausta was not in sight, presumably being in the kitchen preparing food for Barney with her own loving hands, or else having locked herself in her upstairs apartment until both Barney and I left. I had asked Mouldy to leave us alone and keep the waiter away until Barney and I finished our talk, so he moved off again as soon as the racketeer and I neglected to shake hands with each other.
Seldon waved me to a chair. “I’ve heard of you, Mr. Moon,” he said in a tone implying he did not care much for what he had heard. “Not as a private dick,” he added. “From Fausta.”
“She tells me about you too,” I said. “Understand we’re rivals.”
He gave me a sharp look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just an unnecessary crack,” I said. “What I wanted to talk to you about was Walter Lancaster.”
“Why?” he asked coldly.
“You were here last night, weren’t you?”
He shrugged. “So were a hundred or so other people.”
“But not all of them went out the side door just before Lancaster was shot, and came in again just after.”
His face stiffened and his big brown eyes narrowed. “Did I do that?”
“A bus boy saw you come in. Fausta doesn’t know about it, so don’t try to learn from her what bus boy.” I wasn’t sure his yen for Fausta would prevent him from taking revenge for squealing, and I didn’t want to find out.
“You’re a damn liar, Moon,” he said flatly. “Mr. Moon,” I said.
He shrugged indifferently. “Mr. Moon, if you prefer. You’re still a damn liar. I wasn’t away from this table except to get cigarettes.”
“Why’d you have him bumped?” I asked.
For a moment he didn’t reply, and when he did his voice could have frozen ice cubes. “Just from hearing about you, I didn’t like you, Mr. Moon. Now that we’ve met, I realize my first judgment was conservative. Stay away from me and stay away from Fausta, or I’ll make you a corpse.”
That was definite enough to be understood. I pushed back my chair, stood up and looked down at him. “Better bring your gang along to do it, Junior. I was weaned on wilder milk than you.”
He got out of his chair too, and when he started around the table, I thought he was coming after me. But he strode right on past toward the cocktail lounge.
Probably too angry to eat, I thought, and it gave me pleasure to think I might have spoiled his appetite. Then I shrugged, collected my hat from the cloak room and left.
7
It was six thirty when I left El Patio, and I was beginning to get hungry. But with the time I intended to spend on dinner, it would have been a waste of money to dine at El Patio.
I stopped at a hamburger stand for a sandwich, and was making my next call by seven. It was not a far drive from El Patio, for Willard Knight’s home was also on the South Side.
I was rather surprised at the lower-middle-class neighborhood Knight had picked for his home, for while it was not exactly a slum area, it hardly seemed the proper environment for an investment broker. The little frame cottage had no bell, so I pounded on the screen door. The inner door was open because of the heat, and when no one answered my knock, I peered through the screen door just in time to catch a woman peering at me also. She stood in a doorway across the small living room, and the moment my face neared the screen, she faded back out of sight.
Twice more I rapped, and when nothing happened, I tested the screen and found it unlatched. I brought the woman out of her hiding place by slamming it back and forth until it shook the house.
When she suddenly appeared the other side of the screen door, I saw she was a squat, middle-aged woman in a faded house dress. Her projecting lower lip and flaming eyes may have been generated by my knocking technique, but somehow I catalogued her as the type habitually discourteous to door salesmen. I could almost read her mind trying to classify me and settling on insurance salesman.
Before she could open her mouth to deliver the verbal blast I could feel coming, I said rapidly, “I’m investigating a murder. If you’re Mrs. Knight, I’m looking for your husband.”
Her lower lip remained outthrust, but all expression faded from her eyes and her face paled. After a moment of mental adjustment, she stepped aside and opened the door without saying a word. In her living room I picked a hard sofa as probably the most comfortable of an assortment of cheap furniture and settled myself at one end. Slowly lowering herself to the edge of a straight-backed chair, the woman clasped hands in her lap. Still she did not speak.
“You are Mrs. Knight, aren’t you?” I asked.
Her head gave a quick, frightened bob. For a woman who spit fire at door salesmen, she had certainly become a docile lamb.
“Where is your husband, Mrs. Knight?”
Instead of answering, she said in a scared voice, “What’s he done?” Her voice surprised me. It was more than merely husky. It was deep as a man’s.
I cocked an eyebrow at her. “Nothing I know of. What do you think he did?”
She said, “Tell me. You can tell me. I’ll have to know anyway. What’s he done?” She clasped and unclasped her hands nervously.
“Don’t get excited,” I said soothingly. “A man your husband knew was killed. I’m just making a routine check.”
Her eyes searched mine with suspicion, then hope. “You’re not after him?”
I shook my head. “I think I’ve given you the wrong impression. I’m not from the police. I’m a private investigator.” Fishing my license from my wallet, I handed it to her. “I just want to
talk to your husband.”
As she examined the license, some confidence returned to her bearing. “Moon,” she said, still looking at the license. Then she handed it back to me. “He’s out of town, Mr. Moon. On business.”
“What’s his out-of-town address?”
“I don’t know.”
I kept my eyes on her face until she flushed and looked at her hands. Then I said, “The information I have which connects your husband with the dead man I got from his secretary. She hasn’t told the police. If I can talk to your husband and get a reasonable explanation, maybe the police will never have to know Mr. Knight threatened the murdered man a few hours before the murder. But if I can’t, I’ll have to give what I know to them and let them pick him up. Do you have a phone?”
Fright showed in her expression again and her hands began to work together. “I really don’t know Willard’s address. He said he’d send it.”
“Why’d he leave?”
“I don’t know. Something he saw in the papers, I think.”
I didn’t say anything, merely continued to look at her. Her lips trembled and she went on.
“He was all right till breakfast. Well, maybe a little grumpy, but not excited like he was after he saw the paper. At first he seemed elated, like the stock market had boomed or something, but when I asked him what the good news was, he looked kind of thoughtful and told me maybe it was a mixed blessing. Then the more he thought about it, the more upset and less glad he seemed. He never did tell me what it was he saw in the paper, just told me to shut up when I asked a second time. Then he packed a suitcase and told me to phone the office he had a prospect who would keep him out of town a few days. He phoned a taxi, and when it came he said he’d write me.” Her voice turned faintly bitter. “I knew he wouldn’t tell me any more if I asked, so I never asked.”
“What taxi did he call?”
She thought a moment, then shook her head. “I didn’t pay any attention.”
“And you never found out what it was in the paper that upset him?”
She shook her head again. “I thought maybe it was something he saw in the financial section, because sometimes he gets upset over stock-market reports. I read over the market list after he left, but I couldn’t find anything about any sensational rises or drops in prices.” Her eyes widened at a sudden idea. “You said a murder. You don’t mean the one …” Her voice faded out.
I nodded. “Yes, I do. Where was your husband last night?”
“At a board meeting.”
“Where?”
“At his company. Jones and Knight Investment Company.”
My eyes flickered around the room, noting the flimsy wallboard construction and the second-rate furniture. It didn’t fit with a man who was one of the two principal stockholders in anything at all. She caught my appraising glance and flushed.
“It’s just a small company, and not very old,” she said.
“How long did the meeting last?”
“I don’t know. He was gone from six till after one in the morning.”
I rose. “I guess that covers things. Mind if I use your phone?”
She caught her breath. “You’re not — not going to phone the police?”
“I’m going to phone your husband’s partner.” Casually I added, “Jones flew to Kansas City last night. Seems funny he’d do that on the night of a board meeting, doesn’t it?”
Her face went pale. Without a word she rose and led me through a narrow dining room into a back hall where a phone sat on a table.
In the telephone book I found a residence listing for Harlan Jones and dialed the number. A female with an intriguingly throaty voice answered.
When I asked for Jones, she said, “Just a moment, please.” There was a suggestive croon to the voice which built interesting pictures in my mind.
I stared at the hall’s dim wallpaper design until a pompous voice said in my ear, “Jones speaking.”
“Manville Moon,” I said. “I’m trying to locate your partner.”
“Sorry, Mr. Moon. Knight is out of town. May I help your?”
“Out of town?” I repeated. “Did he present my proposition at your board meeting last night?”
“Board meeting?” He sounded puzzled.
“Didn’t you have a board meeting last night?”
“No …” slowly. “I wasn’t even in town last night, Mr. Moon. But I don’t quite understand what you mean anyway. We have no board of directors. We’re not incorporated. Knight and I are sole owners. What was your proposition?”
I hung up quietly.
Mrs. Knight’s squat figure was centered in the dining-room door. Her hands rigidly clasped each other and fright peered from the back of her eyes. All I did was look at her without any expression on my face, but she backed into the dining room as though terrified.
I followed her without hurry. “Where is he?” I asked in an easy voice.
“I don’t know! Honest I don’t!” Then words tumbled from her in a deep-toned stream. “I don’t know where he goes. He says board meetings and comes in at all hours, and I know it’s not board meetings because his company has no board. But it isn’t drinking either. I’ve smelled his breath after he’s asleep. I don’t know where he goes or what he does.”
She stopped with fat shoulders pressed against a wall. Her frightened face tilted upward and she licked trembling lips.
I said, “Don’t you ask where he goes?”
“I couldn’t. If you knew his temper, you’d see I couldn’t. All I know is he makes good money, but we never have anything. If I said right out I didn’t believe his board meetings, he’d — he’d kill me, like as not.”
Then her eyes grew even wider and the back of one hand pressed against her mouth. “He wouldn’t really,” she whispered. “He wouldn’t kill anybody.”
I looked down at her thoughtfully until two tears seeped from the corners of her eyes and dribbled across her cheeks. Then, suddenly, I felt infinitely sorry for her and a little ashamed of myself.
I said, “Take it easy, Mrs. Knight. Your husband may be able to explain the whole thing.”
She shook her head. “You’ll tell the police. I know you will. And they’ll arrest him for something he didn’t do.”
Her shoulders hunched and she bowed her head into upturned palms as sobs began to shake her body. As quietly as I could, I got my hat from the front room and left, feeling somewhat like a heel.
From a drugstore booth I phoned Warren Day at his home.
“How does this sound?” I asked. “Three hours before Lancaster got it, a guy threatened to fix him. The guy’s wife says he has a temper, and he wasn’t where he told his wife he was at the time of the murder. Also, he’s taken a powder.”
Day said, “Who’s the guy?”
“Willard Knight. Jones and Knight Investments.” I told him the same story the secretary-bookkeeper had told me. “He’s the kind of guy who invests all his money in stock and lives in a five-thousand-dollar shack.”
“Where’s the shack?”
I told him the address.
“I’ll have Hannegan get a picture from his wife and we’ll send out the word. That all?”
“All for now.”
“Okay. Good-bye.”
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“Huh? Oh, you mean you want thanks. Listen, Moon, I been off duty for hours and I was watching a television show. I should thank you for pulling me away from Hopalong Cassidy?”
His receiver slammed in my ear.
8
Harlan Jones’s house was on Park Lane over on the West Side. It was a modest but substantial place, along in the fifteen-thousand-dollar class. I contrasted the broad, well-kept lawn and solidly built brick bungalow with Willard Knight’s strip of unkempt yard and his flimsy frame house. Before ever seeing him I bet that Mr. Jones never took fliers on the market.
It was just eight P.M.. when I pushed the button next to the front door.
The woman wh
o answered my ring was as much a contrast to Mrs. Knight as her home was to the Knight home. Sleek and serene, she escaped thinness by that slight margin stylists call willowy, which is between slender and skinny. Golden hair pushed back from a broad unlined brow in careful waves. Her eyes were wide spaced and green, and her nose arched slightly but delicately over a soft, humorous mouth. She looked thirty, but by the barely discernible crow’s-feet at her eye corners, I judged her a well-preserved thirty-five.
I said, “Mrs. Jones?”
“Yes.” It was the same throaty voice I had heard over the phone.
“Mr. Jones in?”
“Not at the moment. He just stepped down to the drugstore, but he’ll be right back. Will you come in?”
I said, “Thanks,” and let her lead me into a tastefully furnished living room equipped with modern furniture which was neither new nor worn, but had an air of much comfortable use.
“I’m Manville Moon,” I explained when we were settled in easy chairs with a knee-high glass-topped table between us. “I phoned earlier.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I answered the phone.” She laughed lightly. “Harlan will be glad to see you. He was upset when you hung up on him.” Her tone grew an edge of tolerant cynicism. “Harlan is always upset when he thinks he’s lost a chance to make a nickel.”
Then, apparently realizing her flippancy was not exactly diplomatic with one of her husband’s prospects, she looked contrite. “I shouldn’t say that. I’m always saying things I shouldn’t.”
“It won’t hurt your husband’s business,” I said dryly. “I’m afraid I left a wrong impression with Mr. Jones. I’m not in the market for stocks and bonds.”
Fishing out my wallet, I handed my license over for examination for the third time that day. She read it carefully, then looked at me with an amused quirk lifting the corners of her mouth.
“A detective! How dramatic! Don’t tell me Harlan is secretly a criminal.”
I shook my head. “My interest isn’t in your husband.”
“Neither is mine,” she said frankly, then colored to the roots of her hair and emitted a throaty little laugh. “Don’t I say the damnedest things?”
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