ALM06 Who Killed the Husband?

by Hulbert Footner

"Yes. I wouldn't pretend that Jules was an easy man to get along with, but he was far from being the cold and selfish being that the newspapers make out. Sometimes while my friend was alive it made me angry to see the way he treated her. But Mona never complained. You see, she had fallen in love with him as a young man, before he became rich. She always saw him in that light. His second wife was a young actress--not that I have anything against actresses, but this one was a badhearted woman. She married him for his money and repented of her bargain. She was a flaunting, conspicuous creature, always getting in the newspapers, and she made Jules, who hated that sort of thing, very unhappy.

  "It was at this time that he looked me up. I was working as a saleswoman in a department store; poor pay and very hard work for a woman of my age. You can imagine my surprise when the rich man came to my shabby little furnished room. He had found some of my old letters to Mona, he said, and after reading them was convinced that Mona and I were the only good women he had ever known. He said it was not fitting that a friend of his dead wife's should be living in such poverty, and he arranged to have an annuity paid me that enabled me to give up my job and live in modest comfort ever since. What an act of kindness! To lift the awful dread of insecurity from my breast forever! I could never sufficiently express my gratitude.

  "In my new home he came to see me regularly. It relieved his breast to talk to me about Mona and to confide in me how the other woman wounded him in his pride. There soon began to be talk of other men in her life. I don't need to go into detail about that; it is long past. Matters went from bad to worse with his marriage; he finally paid the woman an immense sum of money and she went to Reno and got a divorce. So far, that was all right, but when she returned to New York, out of pure malevolence she made a statement to the newspapers that almost wrecked my poor friend."

  "What was that?" asked Lee.

  Mrs. Cressy blushed slightly. "Don't ask me to repeat it in detail. A coarse and shameless woman! She had his money and she had her divorce and she didn't care what she said. I only mention this to enable you to understand what happened later. What she said reflected on Mr. Gartrey's manhood; she intimated that...that he had never been a real husband to her. He was a proud man. There was nothing he could do but suffer in silence. Only I knew what he suffered. The wound that that woman dealt to his pride never healed.

  "Six years ago he married for the third time. I was not consulted in advance or I might have warned him--but I don't suppose it would have made any difference if I had. His new wife was a young girl living on the island of Barbados. He met her while he was cruising in the West Indies on his yacht. Her father was a clergyman; she had never been away from the little colony; she was innocent, simple, unsophisticated, and as beautiful as an angel. He thought she would make him an ideal wife; he thought when he introduced her to the great world it would be like fairyland to her and he the Prince Charming.

  "Of course, it didn't turn out like that. He made the initial mistake of settling a million dollars on her at the time of their marriage, so that from the beginning she had an independent income of forty thousand dollars a year. She was corrupted by luxury; her beauty made her famous and her whole character altered. It was the story of his second marriage over again, but this time he suffered worse and for a longer time.

  "Gradually he learned that she was unfaithful to him, though he had no legal proof of it. And she knew that he knew; she didn't care because she believed that he would put up with anything rather than face a second scandal. When they were alone together she was completely cynical; she twitted him with his advancing age. She made his life a hell on earth but he was a proud man and he never let the world guess it. As before, I was his confidante. I don't think anybody else ever knew except possibly Mr. George Coler, who was his closest male friend.

  "Finally, like the other one, Agnes Gartrey offered to go to Reno to divorce him, but she demanded such an enormous settlement that he refused. He could not bear, he said, after having given her one fortune to reward her unfaithfulness with another. He made up his mind that if there had to be a second scandal this one should not be at his expense. He was preparing to divorce her on statutory grounds here in New York State. Then he would not have to give her a penny. His suspicions settled on Alastair Yohe, the society photographer, and a precious young scoundrel!"

  "Have you ever seen him?" put in Lee.

  "No! And I have no wish to!...In order to further the affair, Mr. Gartrey made friends with Yohe and even lent him a large sum of money to refurnish his night club. Mr. Gartrey engaged private detectives to watch the couple, but nothing came of that. He then arranged with one of his own menservants to inform him by telephone when Yohe came to the house. I assume that it was such a message which took him home so early on the afternoon he was killed."

  "There can be no doubt of that," said Lee.

  "That is my story," said Mrs. Cressy. "About a month ago, when Mr. Gartrey was in my apartment, he tore up the will he had made in the woman's favor and burned the pieces. At that time he wanted to make a will leaving me a great sum of money, but I protested against it. He put off making another will and now, I suppose, she will inherit his fortune anyhow."

  "Certainly the greater part of it," said Lee. "Unless she should be convicted of his murder."

  Mrs. Cressy's eyes widened. "Do you think...do you think?..." she stammered.

  "Ah, that I can't say," said Lee. "All the evidence so far appears to point to the young man."

  "I've told you the story for your own information," said Mrs. Cressy. "I am not a revengeful woman, but I should like to see her punished. Even if it was the young man who fired the shot, morally she is just as guilty as he."

  "So it would seem," said Lee. "I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mrs. Cressy. You have thrown much light on a dark subject. I shall respect your confidence."

  Chapter 10

  Later in the morning, Lee and Inspector Loasby were in conference at Headquarters. Loasby said:

  "Yesterday I asked Jules Gartrey's personal secretary to come and see me, and she stopped in after office hours. A beautiful girl, and very intelligent; name of Coulson. She said that Mr. Gartrey had received a message over his personal telephone on the afternoon of the third--she was in his office at the time, and it threw him into considerable agitation. This was at three o'clock. He sent for Mr. Coler, but word came back that Mr. Coler was not in his office. Mr. Gartrey then went home without a word to anybody and was never seen again at his office. It looks as if he had been lured to his death, Mr. Mappin."

  "Possibly," said Lee.

  The Inspector had another piece of information to impart. "I asked Mr. Alan Barry Deane to come down this morning on the pretext that I wanted to question him further in respect to the visit that he said Al Yohe had made to his apartment on the afternoon of the murder. I had the receiving teller of the Girard National Bank in the building, and I arranged that he was to come into my office while I was talking to Deane and lay some papers on my desk. After Deane had gone, the bank teller positively identified him as the man who had deposited five thousand dollars to the credit of Robert Hawkins. What do you think about that?"

  "It does not surprise me," said Lee. "We are dealing with amateur plotters here."

  "I don't see that it gets us much farther forward," said Loasby. "There is no charge that I could bring against Deane."

  "Let it go for the moment," said Lee. "Deane is of no importance as compared with the woman who sent him to Philadelphia. The fame of a beautiful woman is apt to obscure the fact that she is a fool. This foolish woman is almost certain to bring disaster on herself and everybody connected with her before we are through."

  Loasby was very glum; criticism in the press had risen to such a point that the Mayor had talked to the Commissioner of Police about it. Loasby feared for his job. Lee's conscience was troubling him sorely, for he possessed a clue that would very much have simplified Loasby's search for the elusive Al Yohe. Having suppressed it in the beginnin
g, Lee could not very well bring it forward now--at least not openly. He determined to feed the information to Loasby by degrees.

  Loasby was saying: "The Stieff Building where Al had an apartment is on Fifth Avenue near the Plaza. Stieff's store is at street level. It's a small building but the rents are very high because of the choice address. Al's flat consists of kitchen, dinette, living room, bedroom and bath. He has set up a portable dark room in the dinette. The building furnishes maid service to the tenants and the maid told me that Al never slept there more than two nights a week and sometimes not at all for a week running. He never kept any food in the place except maybe a box of biscuits or the like, but there was a whole closet full of liquor. We broke into it. Nothing there but liquor, the most expensive brands. We sealed it up again.

  "The elevator and the hall boys told me that Al worked at his photography in the place. He had many visitors day and night. Sometimes they made so much noise at night the other tenants complained. After all his visitors had gone, though it might be three or four in the morning, Al would change into his day clothes and go out whistling. Wouldn't return until late the next day. Was never there week ends, yet he didn't take a bag when he started out."

  "What does this picture suggest to you?" asked Lee. "Why, that he had another hangout, and a woman waiting for him. It is she who is hiding him now."

  "Obviously."

  "If I only had a description of that woman!"

  "Let us look over the photographs that were found in his place," suggested Lee.

  Loasby sent for the photographs and they were presently put on his desk. The prints were contained in hundreds of manila envelopes filed alphabetically in two drawers. Al had generally used a tiny Leica which could be carried in his pocket; also there were many enlargements of the original negatives. Each envelope was endorsed with the name of its subject and there was a date on the back of each picture. Lee thumbed them over rapidly. Many of the greatest names in New York were included. He was surprised to find a picture of himself for he did not know that he had ever been the object of Al Yohe's attentions. It had been taken in La Sourabaya and made him look like a cross between an underdone apple dumpling and a baldheaded owl. He showed it to Loasby with a laugh.

  "Let me destroy that," said Loasby scandalized.

  "Not at all," said Lee putting it back in its envelope. "It adds to the gaiety of nations."

  "Am I in there?" demanded the handsome Inspector apprehensively.

  "No," said Lee, "I have been through the Ls."

  At the back of the second drawer he found a bulky envelope without endorsement. He emptied the contents on the desk and went over the scores of little prints one by one. These, as he had hoped, proved to be the pictures Al had taken for his own amusement; views of New York, street scenes, odd characters--and the little wife!

  "There's the girl," said Lee, tossing it over. "How can you be so sure?" said Loasby.

  "She's the only girl in the lot who is not named."

  Loasby studied her through his magnifying glass. "She's pretty," he said, "but so simple-looking. You wouldn't think Al Yohe would fall for that after the queens he was accustomed to."

  "How little you know of human nature!" said Lee grinning. "Here's another of her...and another."

  "A sweet little thing," said Loasby.

  Finally Lee found a prize; a picture of Charlotte pushing a baby carriage. The baby unfortunately was asleep and did not show. "Look at this one!" he cried. "Al Yohe is married to the girl and they have a baby!"

  "Your mind jumps to conclusions like a grasshopper!" grumbled Loasby. However, he had a great respect for Lee's mind, and was prepared to believe what he was told.

  "Here's a picture of the baby," said Lee, tossing over another print. "The spitting image of AL"

  Loasby studied it. "Damned if I can see it."

  "Examine the eyes. It's the way the upper lid is folded that gives Al such a beguiling look, and the little fellow has it, too."

  "How do you know it's a boy?"

  "Oh, if you've had any experience of babies you can always tell." Lee's conscience felt easier now because Loasby was in possession of as much knowledge as he had himself; it was up to him to use it.

  Among the pictures Lee found one of Al himself that had been enlarged. The young man was shown seated sideways on a wide window sill silhouetted against the light. The house across the street showed faintly in the background. Al's hair was gracefully touseled, his shirt open at the throat. "Al at his ease in his own place," Lee said, exhibiting it. "Let us see what this tells us."

  "There are millions of windows in New York," grumbled Loasby.

  "Not exactly like this window."

  "It may not even be in New York."

  "But it is New York. I'll prove that to you directly. Al would never choose a suburban hide-out. The transit facilities are not good enough at three or four o'clock in the morning."

  "It might be Brooklyn."

  "No. For Al to be continually taxiing over to Brooklyn in the small hours would leave too broad a trail. Why should he waste all that time when there are good places in Manhattan?" Lee went over the pictures again and found two that represented the interior of the same room without the inclusion of figures. The first showed a bit of the same window; the second a side wall of the room with a marble mantel. It was an old-fashioned room but luxuriously furnished. There was a "steeple" clock on the mantel. Lee spread the three pictures before him. "Now, we've got something to go on!" he said.

  Loasby grinned incredulously. "Do you actually think you can locate that room from a study of the interior?"

  "Let's see. For forty years it has been my principal diversion to mosey around this town. I know it pretty well...Notice the width of the window seat; ten or twelve inches; this house was built in the days when walls were walls, in the late 1870's, say, or the early 1880's. The style of the interior woodwork and the mantel bears out the date. It is not a one-family house but a flat; one of the walk-up flats which began to be built at that period. It has a brownstone front..."

  "The front doesn't show in the photographs."

  "All the houses built for respectable people at that time had brownstone fronts. This is obviously not a tenement house. Tenement houses may be much older, of course."

  "How do you know it's a flat, anyhow?"

  "In a dwelling house they would never put in so elaborate a mantel on the top floor."

  "Wait a minute! What do you mean, top floor?"

  Lee explained patiently. "I know it by the house across the street. Even at that distance the ground floor does not come into the picture. Al's flat must be on the fourth or fifth story."

  "Why not higher?"

  "The walk-up flats of that period were not built any higher. Elevator flats began to come in about 1888." Lee made a new study of the photographs. "It would be natural for Al to rent a walk-up flat," he continued, half to himself, "even if the little wife had to carry the baby up and down stairs. If there were hall boys or elevator boys the risk of their recognizing him would be too great...An old house but well kept up; notice the parquet floor, Loasby. Al has to pay a good rent for it because it is still in a smart neighborhood."

  "Are there any old houses in smart neighorhoods?"

  "Surely. An old house will often be left standing next door to a swanky apartment house to protect its light on that side."

  Loasby came around the desk to study the pictures over Lee's shoulder. "This house is on one of the wider streets," he said, "judging by the distance of the house across the street."

  "Right," said Lee, smiling.

  "It might be West Fifty-seventh Street. That's one of the widest streets and it has both old and new houses. Also Seventh-ninth, Eighty-sixth and Ninety-sixth are all wide."

  "They weren't built upon as early as 1880."

  "Then let's go over and take a look through Fifty-seventh."

  Lee shook his head. "This is a street running north and south."

  "Ho
w do you know that?"

  "Thanks to Al's methodical habits. All these photographs of the room are dated the same day, May 23rd. I am assuming that they were taken about the same hour. Notice the clock on the mantel; quarter to one. Now note that as Al sits sideways on the window sill the sun is just coming around into his face. That's why he placed himself in that position. Opposite his face the window frame is in shadow. At one o'clock in the afternoon that must be a window on the east side of a street running north and south."

  "My God!" murmured Loasby. After a moment he went on: "That complicates the search because all the north and south avenues are wider than the cross streets."

  "Right, but not as wide as this one. Take a good look at the picture, Loasby. Notice the distance of the house across the way. There are only two north and south streets as wide as this indicates; upper Broadway on the West side and Park Avenue on the East."

  "That's right," said Loasby excitedly. "But there's also the Grand Concourse in the Bronx."

  "A new street. It has no houses as old as this one...Upper Broadway is out, too."

  "Why?

  "In the 1880's it was called the Boulevard and was lined with country houses. It never had any buildings like this one."

  "Then it's on Park Avenue!" said Loasby excitedly. Lee smiled.

  Loasby's face fell. "No, it won't do, Mr. Mappin." He rapped the photograph. "You said yourself this was built for a middle-class house. There were never any middle-class houses on Park Avenue."

  Lee took a pinch of snuff. "You forget, Loasby. Park Avenue was not considered a desirable street in 1880. The top of the railway tunnel was open and the locomotives filled the air with smoke and sulphurous fumes. It was not until the railway was electrified that Park Avenue began to grow exclusive."

  "It's three miles long," said Loasby glumly. "Surely; but any house built as long ago as 1880 will stick out like a sore finger."

  Loasby got up. "Well, let's put it to the test." He did not sound hopeful.

  "We mustn't use a car with police plates," said Lee. "I suggest you order a convertible town car. With the top up we can see without being seen as we drive through the streets."