by Zelda Popkin
"Chris and I," Mary Carner told him, "decided that the Chase situation would bear close looking into. That girl of his had been buying a tremendous amount of merchandise, and certainly his income at the Empire City, if that was his only income, was most inadequate for the support of a wife and three children in New Jersey plus the luxury loving Miss Waverly. How those bills were going to be paid—if they were going to be paid—was our business. And, after all, this account, as far as the scraps of paper in his basket told us, was one of the very last things to occupy McAndrew's mind before he was killed. Besides, hadn't McAndrew made a date to meet Smith and possibly Chase this morning at the Empire City?"
"All right. I know that. You don't have to apologize for checking up on him. So what?"
"I went over to the Empire City," Mary went on."I asked for Chase. 'He's not in,' the receptionist told me. I asked for his secretary. I saw her. She repeated that he wasn't in. I asked when he was coming back. She said she wasn't sure. I asked whether I could make an appointment to see him. She said she couldn't make any appointments, because she wasn't quite sure of what he planned to do during the afternoon. 'Then he will be back?' I pestered her. She said, perhaps, she wasn't sure. I could phone and make an appointment. Of course she wanted to know what I wanted to see him about. I said it was a personal matter. And she just froze up. Try to get information from a bank employee! Of course we called his house. We called three times. But he wasn't in. Wasn't expected for dinner. They didn't know where and when we could reach him. And there we are again. The people we don't even suspect of murder, the people we just want to ask a civil question or two of, walk out on us. The people we do suspect walk right into our hands. If that isn't flukey, I don't know what is."
The Inspector's weary sigh came like a gust of wind over the telephone wires.
"Keep on trying, sister. I dunno what we're gonna get out of Chase, but keep on trying. I'll send a man up to the bank to stick around and if Chase turns up, we'll give you a buzz right away. I sent some men up to the McAndrew house. Boylan lives there. They went through the place. No torn shirts or neckties. And the place is so damn modern that you couldn't burn up a toothpick. One of those new style oil burning furnaces that you have to be a mechanical engineer to get inside of. Electric range. No fireplace. We even went through the garbage. If Boylan went out of the store with a torn shirt on last night, he sure did sneak it out of sight in a big hurry. The taxi driver said he drove them right to the house, and a man doesn't as a rule carry extra shirts if he's running into town for an hour or two. And as far as we could find out, he didn't leave the place till he escorted Celia in morning. But we're workin' on it, sister, I got two good men up there."
It was Mary's turn to sigh. "'We'll have to try some new pieces, eh, Inspector?"
"Sure. Got any new ones?"
"Not yet. Pursell called down to say that Blankfort decided we could open up McAndrew's office after five o'clock. And Chris has the list. It's smaller than we thought. Only about forty people. They've all been notified to report here at five."
"They're all working today, then?"
"I think so. It would be worth a man's job not to come down to the store today."
There was a brief pause.
"Nothing new out of Evelyn Lennon? Or Mrs. McAndrew?" Mary asked.
"Not yet. But we're working on 'em."
"Your finger-print man turn up anything?"
"Sure—a few prints of McAndrew in his office—nothing much else."
"How about the suitcase?"
"No prints of Swayzey. He's smart. He wears gloves. But a lot of smudged prints of your Miss Manton. She messed up anything else that was on it."
"That's not so hot."
"Nope. O.K., sister. See you at five."
"Now," said Chris Whittaker, as Mary replaced the receiver, "you'd better get back into the store. We've done all we can do right now. And God knows we've given this thing all the time we dare today. You'd better get back on the floor, Mary, before Pursell cans you. And keep your ears wide open."
CHAPTER XVI
The first day of the sensational, history making sale marking the fiftieth anniversary of Jeremiah Blankfort and Company had already passed its climax when Mary Carner emerged on to the main floor at four o'clock in the afternoon. The rush of early bargain hunters and the noontime crowd of office workers had receded, leaving limp, tired salesgirls, littered, ragged looking counters, and only a moderate number of shoppers. Wan looking customers still lingered around the bargain tables, in tens rather than in the milling hundreds of the early morning.
The buyer of costume jewelry caught Mary Carner's eye: "Tough day," she whispered. ""Nellie got one. She had a mink coat on, but just the same she wasn't paying for jewelry. I thought I saw Gussie Finkel.You remember her. Yeah, that's the girl. She's been up in Auburn. I thought I saw her around. But when I got Donovan, Gussie had disappeared. Nellie Donovan's all right; but she's not as quick as you are. Where were you all day?"
"Busy," Mary answered laconically.
"On the McAndrew affair?"
Mary nodded.
"Have they found out who killed him?"
"No."
"I hear they arrested his wife."
"News travels fast."
"Say, we haven't ever had anything like that around here before. What would you expect us to do? Not talk about it?"
"Who'd you talk to?"
"Any number of people."
"Who told you about Mrs. McAndrew?"
"Pursell."
"He ought to know what he's talking about," Mary said.
"He's pretty upset about the whole business," the jewelry buyer went on.
"I shouldn't wonder," said Mary.
The buyer looked at her quizzically. "Can't get much out of you," she laughed.
"Talk's not my business."
"You're right. But that needn't stop me. Regina Donlon got a break yesterday. She sold two needlepoint bags at $275 a piece, and a wrist watch—$1250 with sapphires and diamonds—to one customer. How's that? Some women have money to spend."
Mary lifted her brows with an air of interest.
"One of our regular customers?"
"Oh, yes, we've sold that woman goods before. Expensive stuff. She's the kind that can spend money. She doesn't have to work for it."
"Not the Waverly girl?"
"How did you guess it? Know her? She's a knockout. And it wouldn't make me sore if I had a sugar daddy like hers."
"Who is he, do you know?"
"A banker, I hear. A man named Chase."
"Was she in today?"
"I didn't see her. Her kind never comes to sales."
Mary drifted away from the jewelry counter toward the perfume display, paused there a moment to watch a pale, shabbily dressed girl who looked yearningly at the expensive flacons and jars. Then she moved on slowly, from toilet goods to gloves, gloves to hosiery, hosiery to handbags, and found herself eventually in Peggy Manton's silk underwear department.
"Well," Peggy hailed her, "how's the female Sherlock?"
"Shut up."
Peggy Manton smiled wryly. "I'll never get over those dirty looks you gave me. Chris was worse than you. He bawled hell out of me for not bringing that suitcase down sooner. That sweet old man—he's the District Attorney, isn't he?—made him let up. He said the suitcase wasn't really important anyway."
"Oh, no." Mary raised her eyebrows.
"He was just being nice, I suppose. I realized right away that it was important. But honestly, Mary, I didn't have a chance to get down with it before. Of course I could have given it to the section manager to take down for me, but—" she grinned, "I really wanted to be in on the excitement myself. Gee, if I had known there was going to be a murder right back here last night I wouldn't have gone home at all. You'd be surprised what a crowd we've had in this department all day. I guess they thought maybe we were going to run a side show. Ten cents to have a look at the murdered man."
"Can'
t you ever be serious?"
Peggy Manton laughed. "If you could see the books of this department today, you'd never want to be serious. We packed them in. And sold them merchandise. A murder a day would be swell for us." She paused, and her expression sobered. "Listen, I made inquiries about that man with the suitcase. Nora Ryan says she saw him around the nightgown tables just before five. And Mildred McHenry ran into him over by the dressing rooms. She was waiting on the Waverly woman, and they were coming out of a dressing room near the door, when Waverly ran smack into him. They never suspected anything. But of course, a good looking man with a suitcase was only a good looking man with a suitcase to those clucks."
"The Waverly woman was here yesterday?"
"Sure. She bought plenty. She told Mildred she was going to Europe. Her sugar daddy's doing all right by her. You'd think she'd wait 'til she got to Paris to do her shopping. But no. Blankfort's is good enough for her. I bet she's got more negligees right now than Wallis Simpson. Tell me the truth, Mary, what have those women got that I haven't got?"
The Waverly girl. The beautiful Waverly girl. There was no more chance of escaping talk about her in the store today, Mary Carner decided, than there was of escaping comment on the murder of Andrew McAndrew. Two sensations they had, in addition to their anniversary sale, the extravagance of beautiful Lucille Waverly and the strangling of a credit manager. The name of the girl and her generous benefactor kept popping up at every turn. Was it another of those strange coincidences that had filled the mystery of Andrew McAndrew's death with so much complexity—the coincidence of Bill Smith's telephone calls and of his disappearance, of Celia McAndrew's nocturnal visit, and Joe Swayzey's prowling and Evelyn Lennon's pregnancy? She turned the question over in her mind as she made her way to the elevators. Obviously, she told herself, it had to be another coincidence. A banker—even a salaried one—had other opportunities for making money. If he chose to permit his mistress to spend lavishly before a trip abroad, that was his business. The credit manager might be concerned with it, but it need not necessarily involve the murder of that credit manager. A question of financial responsibility could be settled without murder. If McAndrew and Bill Smith were in truth planning to shake him down, to blackmail him, under threat of telling his wife—and that, she bore in her mind, was still only a supposition and not an established fact—they had not yet done so. The date had been made for Empire City Bank for the morning—for a time twelve hours after Andrew McAndrew's sudden death. You don't murder a man for trying to blackmail you before you know he wants to blackmail you, even though you might want to afterwards. The District Attorney was probably right, after all. Mrs. McAndrew and her brother had been in the store. The woman was hysterical and maddened by jealousy.
As she stepped off the elevator at the eighth floor Mary encountered Irene Gates. The girl's face was grave. She smiled with relief as she saw Mary Carner.
"I was just coming down to look for you," she said. "How's Evelyn?"
"I don't know. They've got her down at police headquarters."
Irene shuddered. "The poor kid. It's a damn shame to torment her like that. She's feeling sick and rotten; and this shock knocked her to pieces. She was crazy about Mac. It's a shame to torture her like this."
"If she'd only come across with the truth, they'd let her go. It won't do her any good to try to keep secrets now. After all, she told about you. Your reputation's messed up already, and Andrew is dead. The only one she might try to protect now is Smith—and by all accounts he means more to you than to her."
"Mary, I swear I don't think she really knows more than she told you. Bill and Andrew were awfully close mouthed about their affairs. We both knew they had a racket of some kind, but you can third degree both of us all you like but you'll never get anything out of us, because we don't know. And that's on the level."
"Well, then, how about that note?"
"That's what I was coming to see you about. Come here."
She led the way through the reception room, and the door marked "Advertising Department," to her flat topped desk in a corner near the window.
"I want you to take a look at something on my desk," she whispered to Mary. "Just look and see whether it means anything to you. Don't say a word. I'll meet you in the rest room right after."
Daly, the advertising manager, looked up as Mary Carner passed his desk.
"Well," he said, "you're one up on us. Your department gets free space. We have to pay for ours."
"It was too bad, wasn't it, that Blankfort couldn't keep it out of the papers?"
"We tried our best," Daly answered. "I called every city desk myself, but those skunks in the police department wouldn't play ball with us."
He looked after her curiously as she went on to Irene Gates' desk. "I want to talk to you, Miss Carner," he called after her.
"About me," Irene whispered through her teeth. ""A damn dick's been hanging around all afternoon and Daly's sore as hell at me. Daly wants to get all the dirt on me, so that he can fire me." Her whisper had a hint of agony in it, but even as she spoke her face bore a gay smile. She shuffled through the papers on her desk, held up a bright sketch. "Here, look at this. Make believe it's what you came for. Now. He's not looking. Take a look at these papers. The front page. See what I mean. That up near the top of the page. I'll come down and tell you about it," Irene murmured, and aloud she said, "You don't think much of the picture, do you? Well, Daly likes it, and he thinks it's going to cause as much talk as those Macy ads. We're going to try it out in the New Yorker."
"Let me know what reactions you get to it."
"Sure." Then she whispered. '"Beat it now. I'll be in the fifth floor rest room in ten minutes."
Daly followed Mary Carner out of the room. ""About Miss Gates," he began, "I hear she is mixed up in this McAndrew affair. She lives with the Lennon girl, I know, and I hear they're both involved in it."
"Lord," Mary said, ""how gossip gets around this store!"
"But I think it's my business to know about people in my own department."
"Well," said Mary brusquely, "find out. I won't tell you."
She left him scowling and went on her way to the elevators.
CHAPTER XVII
Did you see what I meant?" Irene asked anxiously. "Did it give you any ideas?"
"I saw the front page of the Sun and the Journal. And they both had a story about McAndrew's death. Is that what you meant?"
"I never thought you were stupid, Mary." Irene shook her head impatiently. "I suppose that when you see things all the time you don't see them. Didn't you notice those two words in red ink on those front pages?" Irene's excitement increased. "The newspapers that come into the store around noon every day—the first editions we get to check up on our ads—all have that stamp: 'Office Copy' in red ink on page one. And do you remember now that I called your attention to a spot of red on that note that was sent to Evelyn—on the bottom edge of the scrap of paper? Well?"
Miss Carner looked surprised, and somewhat incredulous.
"You want me to believe that that note was written on a scrap torn from a newspaper delivered to this office? You want me to believe that a faint red smudge proves that?"
"It may not prove it. But it's a good line to work on."
Mary nodded. "Who gets the papers first?"
"They are delivered, when they come in, to Margaret Rogers' desk in the reception room. She gets about two dozen of each paper and distributes them to all the executives. Our boy picks our papers up from her desk and brings them in here. I'm not sure whether Margaret stamps them or whether the newspapers do. At any rate all copies of the daily papers circulated on the eighth floor are red stamped 'Office Copy.' That, I've been told, is so that nobody will take them out on the corner and re-sell them." Irene chuckled. "This corner looks like a country fair any way, without anybody selling papers—there's the old lady that sells gardenias, and sometimes, a crippled fellow who peddles song sheets and a youngster with dancing dolls. It's
Reilly's fault—that corner policeman—he's a character—he's as soft as a sissy."
Mary smiled: "I know. We actually have to compel him to arrest our shoplifters. But to get back to the papers. Anybody on the eighth floor—or anybody walking through—could pick up a paper from Margaret's desk?"
"I suppose so."
"And your idea is that somebody took one of those papers, ripped off an edge of it, and used that to write a note to Evelyn."
"It's a good enough possibility. But then I might be all wrong. That small red dot may mean nothing at all."
"But granting it was from an office copy. That someone, whoever it was, was so accustomed to seeing that red stamp that he or she never noticed it."
"Uh-huh. Just as you didn't see it until I pointed it out."
"And you say that the papers might have been picked up by anyone at all from Margaret Rogers' desk? What time do they get there?"
"Well, the Journal's up early. Usually before eleven. But the first editions of the Telegram and the Sun don't get up before noon. Sometimes a little later. They're usually sent in to us at once, so that we can catch any errors in our ads before the later editions are printed, and find out how much Macy is asking for the dresses we're advertising 'Special: Ten ninety-five. I was downstairs—you remember, I was sent for at about eleven, and I didn't get up again 'til after two—'til that fat inspector said O.K. So that I can't tell you what happened to those papers today."
"But Margaret would know."
"Margaret might." Irene paused, opened her mouth as if to speak again, but changed her mind and remained silent.
"Come on, what's on your mind? Out with it."
"All right. Margaret Rogers is on my mind. She was one of the few people on the eighth floor who knew about Andrew and Evelyn. She minds everybody's business, she does, and she's in and out of everyone's private office. A receptionist is in a good position to get all the scandal and gossip. And I have an idea she once liked Andrew herself. She worked here long before Evelyn came, you know."