The Eleventh Hour

by Robert Bruce Sinclair

  But he saw what he needed to. The car was comfortably filled; enough so that one passenger, more or less, would not be noticed. He could slow his pace somewhat, now, so that he would not be conspicuous, and he could see that the car had a green light and did not stop at Wilcox. A block farther on, at Cahuenga, it did stop; he was able to see people standing at the exit door. Conway relaxed; he could take it easy now. The timing would be right: he would reach the police station exactly when he would have had he been on the trolley.

  He mopped the perspiration from his face and hands. He’d have to cool off a bit in these three blocks. It would be natural to be perspiring somewhat, to be a little out of breath, when he arrived, but his present condition could hardly be excused by a three-block walk. He went over the details of what he would say. Everything had gone as scheduled, so far, exactly according to plan.

  His legs still ached and his clothing was moist, but he had regained his breath and the perspiration did not show when he arrived at the station. The sergeant at the desk looked up over his paper with some annoyance as Conway came up to him. The after-dinner rush of stolen car reports was over, and it would be a little while before the drunks started being hauled in; this was his rest period, and he disliked having it broken in on.

  “Sergeant, my wife’s disappeared, and so has my car.” Conway found that he did not have to simulate his breathlessness.

  “Yeah? What happened?”

  Conway related the story, much as he had before. “And after the police car drove off, I looked around some more,” he concluded. “Then a streetcar came along, and I decided I wanted to report it, so I jumped on the car and came down here.”

  “Why don’t you call up and see if she’s home now?” the sergeant suggested.

  “I did once, but — what time is it?” They both looked at the clock above the desk. “Ten twenty-four. I’ll try it again.”

  “There’s a phone booth in the hall,” the sergeant said, and returned to his newspaper.

  Conway dialed the number and, because the time had now been established and there was no longer need for haste, let it ring half a dozen times before he returned to the desk. “No answer,” he said.

  The sergeant reluctantly put aside his paper and reached for a form. “Sure you want to do this now?” he asked. “Why don’t you wait till morning? She probably just drove off with somebody to have a drink.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.” Conway wondered if he was playing the part of the fatuous, doting husband too convincingly. He had done everything he could to seem a ludicrous figure to the squad-car men. He did not want this pile of suet behind the desk to take him too seriously, either; on the other hand neither did he want to have to insist too much, in order to get the report on the police blotter. And it had to be there, in writing that even an assistant district attorney could read.

  “She’d never do anything like that,” he repeated. “She didn’t like to drive, and she wouldn’t go off in my car with anyone else — she wouldn’t be that inconsiderate.” Careful now, don’t overdo it, he cautioned himself. “Besides we know hardly anyone out here. Who would she meet to go anywhere with?”

  The sergeant rubbed his face with his hand, and Conway saw the smile he was trying to conceal — the same smile which had been on the faces of the radio-car men. The memory of the disappearance of Mrs. Yates was still green. But this grin was too obvious to be concealed — or to be ignored.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Conway said. “You’re remembering that woman who left her husband in the market and went off to a motel with that boy.” Indignation came into his voice. “Well, my wife’s not like that, and don’t go thinking she is.”

  The grin disappeared. “No, no — I wasn’t thinking of that at all. Nothing like it.” He was having difficulty keeping the smile off his face; he picked up a pen and bent over the desk. “Now, where’d you say this happened?”

  Conway went over the details again; there were two forms to fill out and he had to sign both of them. He started to leave as two policemen came in.

  “Just be sure to let us know if she turns up,” the sergeant called after him. Conway turned and nodded his assent. The sergeant’s grin was coming back; he could hardly wait to tell his story to an audience.

  Conway did not delay. He only hoped the sergeant would make it good.

  Conway was careful to stay in character on the bus, and when he reached home he did not even stop for the drink he had been longing for. He went directly to work.

  He put Helen’s soiled glove, which he had retrieved from the theatre, in one of the drawers of his dresser, and placed his own gloves in another drawer. The wallet he put in a metal box in his desk in which he kept his insurance policies. He turned the pocket of his coat, in which he had carried the mustache, inside out and vacuumed it.

  And always, in the back of his mind, there was the problem of Helen’s gloves: the new ones, the ones she had bought today and had worn tonight. He dared not burn them: a thorough investigation might reveal that she had purchased gloves today, and he would have no way of accounting for their disappearance. He examined them carefully, under the strongest light he could find: they were not really soiled, but neither did they have that pristine quality which white gloves seem to lose the moment they are put on a hand. Here was a gamble he had to take, because he had deviated from the plan. He found some cleaning fluid, poured it in the wash basin, dunked the gloves in it, hung them up, and turned an electric fan on them, to hasten their drying.

  Desperately he wanted that drink, but he refused to risk it. He made a sandwich and washed it down with a glass of milk. He longed to turn out the lights and get into bed; he had no fear of ghosts or conscience, he wanted only to relax, and forget his need for action or acting.

  But it might seem strange, later, if the lights were turned off too early, and besides, there were still things to do. When, finally, the gloves were dry, he took them to the kitchen and ironed them. When he finished he was satisfied it would take an expert to determine whether they had ever been worn. He put them back in Helen’s handkerchief drawer. Now he might have that drink.

  He made a highball, took it to his room, and started to undress. The drink was only half-finished when he was ready for bed. He remembered to go downstairs and turn on the porch light, and he left the hall light on. Then he closed his door, turned out the lights in his room, and got into bed to think out his program for tomorrow. But before he had even decided what time to get up, he was asleep.

  Chapter five

  Conway wakened slowly, dazedly, from a heavy, druglike sleep. Something in his subconscious kept jabbing him with a reminder that he must get up, but some part of his nervous system refused to let him move, to disturb the utter pleasure of this trancelike state. How long this tug of war went on, he did not know, but suddenly he was all awake, with a full realization of where he was, what had happened, and what still remained to be done. He sat up in bed and listened for a moment; for what, he did not quite know. He heard nothing but a wonderfully peaceful silence.

  He called the Hollywood police station after breakfast, and was not surprised to learn that they had no report on either his wife or his car. At lunch time he decided it was simple prudence to avoid people as much as possible: no matter how well he played it, it was too easy to make a slip. He was in the clear, he knew that; discovery was possible only if he gave himself away. The fewer people he saw, the less chance of anything going wrong. He wanted to stay out of restaurants and bars, so he went to the nearest market and laid in a supply of meat and canned goods which would last him several days.

  The neighbors, fortunately, were no problem: both he and Helen had retained the New Yorker’s habit of aloofness with neighbors who, because of propinquity, might conceivably impinge on one’s privacy. He barely knew by sight the people in the houses next door.

  When he returned home, the house seemed cold and a little musty, although it was hot outside. After his dutiful call to the p
olice station, he opened the windows in the living room, and the warm breezes flowed in and through the house. He got a bottle of beer and sat with his feet up on a table, and was suddenly conscious that he liked this place which had so recently been a prison. He was free and relieved of care; he had never known a feeling of such complete well-being. Perhaps, once — yes, it reminded him of that time. They had been fighting north of Rome; the outfit was relieved, sent to a rear area, and the gang got furloughs together. They’d gone to recently liberated Rome, and had rooms in a hotel, and even had baths. They had been clean and free: the grim weariness, the discipline, the fear of death which had been the most important things in life for so long were suddenly effaced. They had all felt it then: the ineffable peace, the sensation of being in a world where there was no war, no conflict, no unpleasantness even; where there were no orders to obey, no one to please or propitiate. It had been a Godsend then, for without those few blissful days they might all have cracked, as he did... This present surcease had come none too soon; he might, indeed, as Helen had predicted, have cracked again.

  But not now. Not any more. He took a long pull at the beer. He was free now. He had peace. He could live, now, and work. And it was time to get to work.

  He went upstairs and sat down before the typewriter. But he was hearing the ring of every telephone in the neighborhood, and between going to the stairs to be sure it was not his, and looking out the window every time it seemed a car might be stopping, he accomplished almost nothing. About five o’clock his phone did ring, and he had to rehearse his “Hello” three times before he dared lift the instrument and speak the word into the mouthpiece. But it was a wrong number, and he returned to his room nervous and let down.

  He found he had neither the ambition to cook dinner nor the appetite to eat it. He had a sandwich and then tried, first, writing, then reading, then solitaire. Finally he sat and stared at the ceiling.

  By one o’clock he felt that he might sleep. He dozed off almost as soon as he was in bed, and was wide-awake in half an hour. He spent the rest of the night alternately smoking, reading, drinking hot milk, pacing the floor, drinking beer, and trying to sleep; giving up, and then repeating the whole routine. A little after seven he did doze off, and was awake at eight. He got up then and faced the bloodshot, dark-ringed eyes in the mirror. Because he was so sure it was only a matter of minutes, he shaved, showered and dressed before he went downstairs. He called the police station, and it was no longer a routine call. Because his anxiety was so genuine, he tried to curb it, and wondered, as he did, whether it sounded less convincing than when he was play-acting.

  The morning was as interminable as the night had been. How long, he wondered, could one stand going on in this vacuum? He puttered about the house, emptying ashtrays, washing dishes. It had been two days before the waitress had been found, he knew; he had even counted on a similar lapse of time. He opened the windows, but the breezes that wandered in had lost their magic. That couple who had seen him park the car: how long would they wait before reporting it? The longer the better, he tried to tell himself. He wished that he might go into the garden and do some physical labor; it might get his mind off this gnawing worry. But he might be spoken to by one of the neighbors; better not to risk it. He stared at the sheet of paper in the typewriter, and told himself that as soon as the suspense was over, he’d be able to work.

  About one o’clock he went to the kitchen, looked at the steaks and chops and cold chicken he had brought home, and made himself a cheese sandwich. He ate in the kitchen; the cheese seemed dry and tasteless and it was an effort to down it. He gave up when he had eaten half of it, threw the remainder away, and took the plate and the knife he had used to the sink.

  He was holding the plate under the faucet when the bell rang. It sounded with such clarion loudness that he dropped the plate, smashing it, and stood staring at the source of the startling sound. It was the front doorbell, which happened to be on the wall over the sink, and he had heard it so seldom in all the time he had lived in the house, that it was several moments before he realized what it was. He dried his hands and went to the door.

  “Mr. Arthur Conway?” Conway nodded wordlessly. “My name’s Larkin. Homicide Bureau. Mind if I come in?”

  Conway opened the door wider and stepped aside. He had expected a telephone call; that would have given him time to prepare himself for the inevitable police interview. He’d had two days to prepare, true, but he needed those few minutes between the call and the meeting. This detective, here without warning — did it mean something had gone wrong?

  “What is it?” he said, and his mouth was dry.

  “Sit down, Mr. Conway,” the detective said. “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you.”

  “You’ve found her?” Conway sat, but only so that he could watch the detective’s eyes more closely. He had to determine how much the other knew.

  “We’ve found your car.”

  “But Helen — Mrs. Conway—”

  “This is going to be a shock, Mr. Conway. There was a body in the car, and I’m afraid it’s your wife. I’d like you to come down with me now to identify her — if it is her.”

  “What happened?” Larkin hesitated and looked at the floor. “Tell me,” Conway insisted.

  “Found the car a little over an hour ago. Then they discovered her, on the floor, covered with a coat. She’d been strangled.” The detective seemed to have finished.

  “But — what else? I mean, how did it happen — and when? Tell me.”

  The detective rose. “There’s no use your getting all upset when we don’t even know for sure if it’s her. You come along now — then if it is — well, we’ll talk about it.”

  Conway looked at him for a moment, trying to assay how much the detective was withholding. The eyes were guileless, but he might be acting, too. “I’ll get a tie and my coat,” Conway said. “I’ll be right down.”

  A uniformed patrolman was at the wheel, and Conway and Larkin sat in the back for the long ride downtown. They drove for some time in silence, with Conway staring out the window. That, he was sure, was all right — normal behavior. But he was conscious that the detective was eying him from time to time, and he had to make another effort.

  “Isn’t there anything else you can tell me?” Conway asked. “No clues? Nothing?”

  “Not yet. Time we get downtown, they might have something.”

  “When did it happen? How long had she been—?” He stopped himself, remembering that, in fiction at least, the bereaved next of kin were always unable to utter the word “dead.”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Conway turned and again stared out the window. So the police had not yet got to the couple who had been on the porch. Or perhaps Detective Larkin simply hadn’t been told about it. If the car had been found only an hour ago, there had been little time for investigation. He was chilled momentarily at the realization of how important that couple were to him: they were the crucial figures in his whole scheme, for it was they who had to establish when the car had been parked. And that, in turn, was what Conway counted on to prove — if it had to be proved — that the man who had parked the car could not have been himself. But he refused to be alarmed; he enjoyed the sense of relief that the waiting was over.

  The session at the Morgue was mercifully brief. He steeled himself before they went in; someone lifted the cloth which covered her face, he nodded, and then they were in an office. He signed some forms, and they went out to the street and got into the car.

  “We’ll go over to Headquarters now,” Larkin said. “They’ll want to get all the information you can give ’em.”

  Conway was inwardly, as well as outwardly, calm when they went through the door lettered HOMICIDE BUREAU. He was ushered into a private office, and there Larkin introduced him, quite formally, to two plainclothesmen, a lieutenant in uniform, and Captain Ramsden, Chief of the Homicide Bureau. Almost immediately the door opened and a youngish man, who looked like a salesma
n and a none too successful one, entered.

  “This is Mr. Conway, Sergeant Bauer,” Ramsden said. Bauer acknowledged the introduction, took a small notebook from his pocket, and sat down at the side of the captain’s desk.

  They asked Conway to tell everything that had happened from the time Helen and he had left the house to go to the movie, and he did. The story was not too pat; he would skip some detail, then remember it a little later, and fit it in chronologically. He was not too accurate about times; he knew they could, and would, check those later. He made it very clear that their marital life was completely happy. He gave the names of their few acquaintances and friends; he knew of no enemies. They asked further questions about parts of his account, and he repeated or enlarged on what he had already told them.

  After a little more than an hour, Captain Ramsden rose from his desk.

  “I guess that’s about all we can do here now,” he said. “We’ll want your fingerprints, or course. After you get them, Sergeant, you’d better take Mr. Conway out to the parking lot and go over the ground with him.”

  Conway broke in. “Can’t you tell me anything, Captain? Any clues? Any suspects? It won’t bring her back, I know, but I’d hate to see whoever did this get away with it.”

  “I can understand how you feel. But it’s too soon yet to have anything much. The car was found over on Fulton Street, about three miles from the theatre. One of our squad cars recognized the license as being on the stolen car list, then they found the body. A girl, a Miss — er—”

  “Elsie Daniels,” Bauer prompted.

  “Yes — was sitting on the porch Monday evening—”

  “With her boy friend, Fred Bissell,” Bauer added.

  “Yes — when the car was left there.” Conway surmised that that was the extent of Ramsden’s information, for the captain turned to Bauer. “Have you talked to her yet?”