ALM06 Who Killed the Husband?

by Hulbert Footner

  "Were you in love with her?" asked Lee.

  "No, that was the trouble."

  "She was in love with you?"

  "Yes, God forgive me, and how! I couldn't string her along any further. She insisted on what she called a showdown. There was..."

  "Wait a minute," interrupted Lee. "This doesn't exactly recommend you to me. Under the circumstances, why did you continue going to her house?"

  "Mr. Mappin, I'm not going to try to make myself out any better than I am. You may call me a buccaneer or worse, if you like, but I'm no murderer." He broke off to say with a boyish smile: "Lord! I wish I could call you Pop like the girls at the office. It suits you so well!" He paused, studying Lee's face, then said with a sigh: "But I guess I better not try it!"

  Lee said to himself: He's just turning on his "charm."

  Al resumed: "When I came to New York and was introduced to cafe society, those people, rich as Croesus, unstable as monkeys, empty as blown eggs, I made up my mind to prey on them in a perfectly legitimate way. They craved amusement, being too stupid to amuse themselves, and I was clever enough to furnish it. They were ripe for the picking! I amused them and I flattered them. My God! do you blame me? The merest fraction of Jules Gartrey's income would keep my family in luxury for years!

  "As to the reputation J have acquired as a great lover, I didn't foresee that. I swear to you, Mr. Map-pin, that I never made love to their women, you can believe me or not. If you were to ask an honest woman, a woman, say, like Delphine Harley, she would bear me out. As a matter of fact, those empty-headed bits of artifice didn't appeal to me. I like a more natural article. But 'making love' is the principal occupation of these monkeys, and out of sheer perversity, just because I didn't make love to them, the women began throwing themselves at my head. It became the fashion to fall for Al Yohe. My God, could I help it?"

  Lee was sufficiently well acquainted with the gilded crust of society to recognize the truth in what Al said. But it didn't make him feel any kinder toward Al. He said: "Perhaps not. But you haven't answered my question. Why did you continue stringing Agnes Gar-trey along when you saw how things were going?"

  "Excuse me, Mr. Mappin. I thought the answer to that was obvious. The Gartreys are topnotchers in that set. He was one of the richest men in New York and she is called the most beautiful woman. They were necessary to me. You may think I have an easy job. Well, so has the man who dances on a slack wire. But he can't relax. I was all puffed up by publicity, but a prick would have deflated me. I had to have eyes all round my head to watch for danger. After all, I was nobody; I had to hang on to those who had something. That's why the Gartreys were essential to me. Particularly the old man. It may surprise you to learn that that hard-boiled old geezer was susceptible to flattery. Well, he was, and I knew how to feed it to him. It was he who put up the money to decorate La Sourabaya in its present sumptuous style. A cool two hundred thousand. And, by the way, I wish somebody would give me a reason why I should have killed the goose that laid the golden eggs."

  "All right," said Lee dryly, "my question is answered. Let's get back to Monday afternoon."

  Al Yohe rose from the table. "Thanks for a swell meal," he said. "I feel like a new man. Shall we go into the living room?"

  They passed through glass doors into the larger room. Al looked around him appreciatively. "Gosh! what a swell place! It looks like the home of a gentleman and a scholar!"

  Lee pushed the embers of the fire together and put on fresh wood. Al accepted a cigar and, lighting it, drew in the smoke gratefully. "This must be a private importation," he said. "Such cigars are not for sale." He dropped on a settee at right angles to the fire, stretching his long legs before him.

  Lee looked down at him grimly. Handsome, well made, gay and clever, Lee could not help but be attracted. A young man nowadays finds the world a pretty rotten sort of place, he thought; can you blame him for turning buccaneer? He shook this feeling off. Are you going to let him charm you, too? he asked himself.

  Lee by this time had broken off ten feet of thread in his pocket, as nearly as he could judge it. He needed another minute alone in order to tie thread to nail file. He went to his little wall cupboard. "Have a liqueur?" he said. "I have brandy, Cointreau, and some of the veritable Chartreuse. For myself I prefer Scotch and soda."

  "Me, too," said Al.

  "You'll have to fetch ice cubes from the refrigerator, then."

  "Sure!" Al hastened out.

  Left alone, Lee measured his piece of thread against his arm. The length was about right. He tied the end to the nail file, and pinned the file through the note he had written. Hearing Al coming back, he thrust it all in his pocket.

  The drinks were mixed and they sat down facing each other on the two sofas. "Go on with your story," said Lee.

  "Agnes Gartrey was bent on having what she called a showdown," said Al contemptuously. "I expect you know what that means; crying, beating herself, pulling her hair out straight. Lord! if I could have photographed her then! Most men are scared out of their wits by that kind of show, but not me! It turns me hard."

  "Did she want you to marry her?" asked Lee.

  "No indeed, she had no intention of separating herself from Moneybags."

  "Go on."

  "I was afraid somebody would hear her. I knew Gartrey would be home sometime or other, though I didn't expect him so soon. I didn't want him to smell a rat. He has a mortgage on the Sourabaya. So I suggested to Agnes that we go somewhere where we could talk privately."

  "Where could you go where you wouldn't be recognized?"

  "To my place. It was all I could think of. She rose to that; thought she'd have me dead to rights in my place, but I didn't have any intention of taking her there. So she went into the next room, her dressing room, to get ready."

  "Was the maid in there?" asked Lee.

  "Yes."

  "Then she must have heard all that was said."

  "Sure. Probably had her ear glued to the crack of the door. However, I don't suppose that Eliza has many illusions about her mistress left. Women like Agnes feel pretty safe with their maids, because, you see, if a maid ever blew the gaff on her mistress and it became known, no other woman would hire her."

  "I am learning," said Lee. "Go on."

  "When Agnes went into the dressing room, she left the door partly open and we continued talking back and forth, though of course she wasn't cursing me like she did before. Then after a bit somebody pulled the door shut and I could hear no more from in there."

  "You couldn't hear the two women talking?"

  "Not a sound."

  Lee got up. "Don't you find it a little chilly here?" he casually suggested.

  "Suits me all right," said Al.

  Lee went to the open window. That end of the big room was in darkness. Leaning out of the window, he satisfied himself that it was not the window immediately underneath which was open. So much the better. It gave him a larger area of glass to tap on. Keeping hold of the end of the thread, he dropped the nail file over the sill and had the satisfaction of hearing it knock against the glass below. He pulled down the sash, pinning the end of the thread under it.

  "Lovely night," he said, returning to the fire, "but turning colder...Go on with your story."

  "I was sitting in the boudoir, twiddling my thumbs while Agnes changed into street clothes in her dressing-room. Quite a while passed. I thought nothing of that, because getting dressed to a woman like Agnes is the most important thing in life." Al paused, staring straight ahead of him. "God! how vividly that moment comes back! Me sitting there in the pink boudoir surrounded by Agnes' gimcracks--she collects antique porcelain figures just because they're expensive...and the shot out in the foyer!"

  He was silent so long that Lee was forced to prompt him. "Go on!"

  Al passed a hand over his face. "It gave me a horrible shock! I guess things have always come to me too easy. First time I ever had to face anything serious...I thought Agnes had turned a gun against hers
elf. I had never for a moment taken her seriously, but you can't tell about a woman. What a spot for me to be in! Made me feel sick. My one idea was to get out of the place, but I couldn't get out without passing through the foyer. I ran out there..."

  "Which way?" put in Lee.

  "By the corridor. Agnes was lying against the door into the foyer. But when I turned her over I saw she had no wound. She had fainted. I stepped over her and went into the foyer. I saw Gartrey lying on the parquet floor with a bullet hole in his head. I knew he was dead. I saw the gun and I thought he had shot himself. That made me feel a little better because it wasn't my fault if his wife...Well, anyhow, my one idea was to beat it away from there. Can you blame me? I got my hat and coat out of the hall closet and started for the service entrance. Unluckily I met the butler on the way out and that put the kibosh on my chances of clearing myself. Naturally I looked wild."

  "When you ran into the foyer did you see anybody?" asked Lee.

  "Nobody but the dead man."

  "It's your idea, I take it, that Gartrey was shot by his wife?"

  "I'm not saying so," said Al. "I want you to figure it out for yourself."

  "What motive had she for killing her husband?"

  Al shrugged. "How can a man tell what goes through a crazy woman's mind? A spoiled beauty like Agnes believes that nothing can touch her. She would figure that with her money and her position she could get away with it. Perhaps she thought that after she had inherited Gartrey's millions I would be crazy enough to marry her. But I don't think that. If she had all that money, why should she marry again? I believe she planned to plant the crime on me, thinking she could get me off later and that she would then have me under her thumb for keeps. Or perhaps in her rage she was deliberately trying to send me to the chair. That would explain the gun."

  "How did your gun get there?" asked Lee mildly. Al shrugged. "All I know is, it was stolen from me."

  "When?"

  "I can't tell you that. I didn't miss it until after this happened. It's a couple of months since I have seen it."

  "Where did you keep it?"

  "In a chest of drawers in my bedroom."

  "Did Mrs. Gartrey know it was there?"

  "She did."

  "Has she ever been in your apartment?"

  "Sure!"

  "In the bedroom?"

  "Yes." Al smiled suddenly. "But not with me! She went in to powder her nose."

  "Has Robert Hawkins, her ex-butler, been to your place?" asked Lee.

  Al looked at him quickly. "Why do you ask that?...Oh, I see, you are canvassing all the possibilities. Yes, Hawkins has been there on two occasions. The old boy had an interest in photography, and I told him to come around and get a few pointers on developing. The last time was about ten days ago. I left him in the kitchen, washing prints while I went into the dark room I have improvised. He could have gone into the bedroom without my knowing it."

  "And the maid, Eliza Young?"

  "She has been to my place three or four times with notes from Agnes. Agnes considered telephoning unsafe because the calls at her home went through a switchboard in the pantry. Eliza might have been in my bedroom--she's a sly one !--because sometimes I was busy with my work in the kitchen when she came and had to let her wait in the living room for a while."

  "Have other people visited your rooms?"

  "Oh, many others. It was a kind of hangout; there was always something to drink there. They made themselves free of the place; they would roam around. I was often busy in the dark room or kitchen...I'll make a list of everybody I can remember and send it to you."

  "Thanks," said Lee dryly. "I have not yet promised to give my time to this matter."

  Al smiled in his most ingratiating manner. "What have you got against me, Mr. Mappin?"

  "Let's not go into that. Answer one question. If it is true you thought Gartrey had killed himself, it is not unnatural you should have thought only of getting out of the place; but next day, when you read the newspapers and learned that he had not killed himself, that, in fact, you were accused of the crime, why didn't you give yourself up? That's the natural impulse of an innocent man."

  "Try to put yourself in my place, sir," Al said cajolingly. "Hawkins' story was enough to send me straight to the chair! And such an honest-looking old bozo; anybody would believe him. I could see that I was already convicted in the minds of the public. What kind of a defense had I? I could only clear myself by accusing Agnes. What would everybody have said then? Believing that we were lovers, they would say that I had allowed the woman to do the killing so we could come together, and was now accusing her to save my own skin. By God! I couldn't bear that. I would sooner..."

  At this moment the bell of Lee's apartment sounded. Al jumped up all alert. "You'll have to go to the door," he said. "They know you're home."

  Lee's first thought was regret that he had hung out his tick-tack so soon. He wanted to ask Al more questions. Somebody began to pound on his door and voices called for him. Al was already halfway through the dining room; Lee followed him. Through the pantry door he went; and into the kitchen. He opened the service door. With his hand on the door, smiling still, he said:

  "Good-by, Pop. You're a good fellow! Sorry I couldn't win you over!"

  The door slammed, and Lee stood staring at it blankly. A renewed uproar at the other door recalled him to himself. Running to it, he shouted to those on the other side. "This door is locked and the key is gone! Alastair Yohe is on his way down the service stairs!"

  "Who?" they shouted.

  "Alastair Yohe!"

  "My God!"

  "Ring for the elevator and cut him off at the bottom! Some of you run down the stairs in case the elevator is slow in coming."

  "Use the house phone!" a voice shouted.

  "I can't! The wires are cut."

  He heard the door to the stair well being pulled open and running feet on the steps. He doubted, however, if any of Tod Larkey's guests were nimble enough to beat Al Yohe to the bottom. All would depend on how quickly the elevator came up. Lee returned to his living room and mixed himself a stiff drink.

  In ten minutes or so they were back at Lee's door. They had the superintendent of the building with them, who brought a duplicate key. Half a dozen men pushed in through the door. Tod Larkey's party, it appeared, was a stag affair. His guests were flushed and a little unsteady on their pins.

  "He got away!" they all cried at once.

  In spite of the self-discipline he had exerted, Lee's first feeling was one of gladness. He took care to hide it. One man cried:

  "I saw him! I ran around the corner to the service entrance and he was getting in a car. The engine was running. The rear light was out and I couldn't read the license number."

  All together they demanded to know what had happened.

  Lee was in no humor to take this noisy bunch into his confidence. "I'm sorry," he said, "I can't tell you the story until I have reported it to the police. You'll learn it soon enough. Mr. Larkey, if you'll allow me, I'd like to call up Inspector Loasby on your phone. My wire is out."

  They trooped down the single flight of stairs to the Larkey apartment. Larkey and his guests had their ears pricked to hear Lee's report over the phone, but upon getting Loasby at his home, Lee merely said:

  "Inspector, can you come down to my place right away? It's important."

  "Well," said Loasby reluctantly, "I have guests. Can't you tell me what it is over the phone?"

  "No," said Lee.

  Loasby knew, of course, that Lee was neither a trifler nor a scaremonger, and he wasted no more words. "Okay," he said, "I'll be there in ten minutes."

  Declining all offers of a drink, Lee, after thanking his "rescuers," went back upstairs.

  Chapter 7

  Jermyn got home before Inspector Loasby arrived. The good fellow was flabbergasted when he learned what had happened. "I'll never leave you alone in the apartment again!" he vowed.

  "Nonsense!" said Lee, "This sort
of thing isn't going to happen twice!"

  "My friend wasn't sick at all. It was a fake call, Mr. Mappin."

  "So Al told me," said Lee dryly. Lee could not help but believe Jermyn; his honesty was transparent. It was clear, however, that somebody else had furnished Mr. Al with advance information.

  Loasby was astonished and outraged when he heard the story. "The fellow is a devil! a devil!" he cried.

  "Well, after all he didn't do me any harm," said Lee; "though I confess it is rather humiliating to be kept a prisoner in your own house...Anyhow, I'm in this case up to my neck now, but I'm working with you, Inspector, not with Al Yohe."

  "Good!" cried Loasby. "We'll soon collar him...What do you suggest, Mr. Mappin?"

  "You must comb the town. We know the nature of his disguise now, and he's hardly likely to get up another as good. Every young man with a beard of any color should be detained for questioning."

  "Sure. Somebody is keeping him under cover. Some woman."

  "Undoubtedly." Though he knew he was doing wrong and suspected that it might very well get him into trouble with the police later, Lee simply could not bring himself to tell Loasby about the little wife and her baby.

  After the excitement in the apartment house, Loasby insisted that they must give the story of Al Yohe's visit to the press. "They'll get a garbled version of it anyhow from those guys downstairs, and if the newspaper boys get the idea that we're holding out on them, they'll sour on us."

  "I wouldn't care if they did," said Lee, "but I suppose it's important to you."

  "Sure! Sure!" said Loasby seriously. "In a free country every public official has to keep in with the press."

  So the story was given out. But not the whole story. They took care to omit all reference to Agnes Gartrey and her maid.

  Lee gritted his teeth when he read it next morning. It put him in a ridiculous light with the public. Wounded thus in his professional pride, he hardened his heart anew against the beguiling Al Yohe. I'm going to bring him in, he vowed to himself, if I have to do it singlehanded!