by Zelda Popkin
"Whose voices did you hear? Did you recognize them?"
"Did you see anybody?"
"Hollering is far away—maybe other side store. I see nobody. I donno who is hollering. I mind my own business."
"Who did you see in the store?"
Katie shrugged her plump shoulders. "I donno all man's names. I see Mike. I give him dirty look. I see this man here." (She indicated Whittaker) "I see him by window."
"Was any of those voices you heard a woman's?"
"Naw." Katie Kovacs' voice registered her amazement. "Naw. Woman don't talk like so. What a woman be doing there?"
"Katie," Inspector Heinsheimer said soberly, "did you know a man was killed in the back of that store last night?"
Katie's mouth dropped open. It stayed open while she crossed herself. "Oh, Holy Mother," she panted. "What you tell me? Who was?"
"Mr. McAndrew."
"No! Such a good man. I talk with him. I say good night to him. He is working by his desk. Who do such thing to him?"
"That's what we want to find out."
"Oh my, my. That is bad. Mister McAndrew. My, my. I betcha he is killed by man that said bad names."
"I wouldn't be at all surprised."
"You didn't recognize the man's voice? You haven't any idea whose voice you heard?" Inspector Heinsheimer persisted.
Katie Kovacs was silent, pondering, with visible effort. She looked from one to the other in the room, as if seeking help. Then she exhaled sharply. "No," she said positively. "I donno who can be. I never hear such words."
"Didn't the voice sound like anybody you ever heard?"
"No. I tell you. I am far away from voice. I donno who is."
"Was it McAndrew's voice?"
"Naw. I no think so."
"Why did you open the front door yourself?"
"Nobody is by door. I want to go home. That's why."
Blankfort put out his cigarette. "I believe," he said, "that this woman has told all she knows. You can let her go to her work now and get the others in quickly. Your stenographer has her statement written down."
I can go now?" Katie asked anxiously.
"O.K."
Katie stumbled from the room. Mike the porter passed her on the way in, and she glared at him.
Sure, Mike admitted, he had taken Katie Kovacs down to the basement in the elevator. What if he had kidded around a little bit. He didn't mean anything by it. Those women always imagined things. He took her down, and then went on down to the sub-basement with the paper sack, and then he shot his car up to the first floor. No, he didn't hear any voices. He brought his car up to the first floor, snapped out the light and then the head porter called to him and he had to go over and help clean up something near one of the side windows. No, he didn't hear a fight. If that woman said she heard something it must be her imagination again. Did he see any strangers in the store last night? Mike shrugged his shoulders. He didn't. Were any doors except the front door open? That wasn't his business. He had nothing to do with doors. They used the front door last night, all of them. Magruder was on it. Aw, he was around late. Half past eleven anyway before they got done cleaning up last night. The window trimmers weren't out 'til eleven. They were the last ones in the store. He and the other porters—Joe the head porter, and Sam and Tony and Red—finished up, and Magruder locked up and went out with them. The night watchman was there, sure. But the night watchman wasn't responsible for the door. Magruder knew everybody in the store. That's why he watched the door. The night watchman-faugh! All he ever did was sleep down in the sub-basement. He was around somewheres last night. Mike saw him in the sub-basement. But Mike didn't know anything about any front door. He was a porter and he ran the freight elevator last night. Yeah, another elevator was running too. In the middle bank. The big shots used that one. Nobody stayed in the car steady. The night buzzer rang and anybody that was handy took the car up. That was how it was. He took Katie down to the first basement level and left her there. Just like he said. She musta walked up the short flight of steps to the main floor like she said—unless—He didn't see her any more that night. He didn't have to make another trip above the main floor after that. The window trimmers finished up and got their I:things in the employees' locker room and went home. Naw, he didn't hear any noises or fights, and he didn't see Mr. McAndrew coming down either.
Joe, the porter who had been erstwhile operator of the elevator in the middle bank, had a fairly complete recollection of those whom he had taken down and carried upstairs all evening. He had taken down the gentlemen of the advertising department, the merchandise manager and his associates, and at about a quarter after nine or thereabouts, the gentlemen of the store's directorate. The lights on the eighth floor were still on, and he asked Mr. Pursell who came to the elevator with the gentlemen, if anybody was still working on the eighth floor. Mr. Pursell said MAndrew was, and he and Mr. Blankfort would be there a while yet. And so he went downstairs, and he worked around the second floor, then some time around ten he heard the buzzer in his car. And he got in and ran it up to the eighth floor. While he was on his way up, he heard another car coming down, down at the other end of the elevator bank, and when he got up to the eighth floor all the lights were out and there was nobody there. He figured somebody must have run a car up and taken down whoever was still up there.
"But you were the only man on the elevators last night?"
"Yeah. But that don't say I was the only man here that could run one. All us porters know how to run elevators. The night watchman he can run one. Plenty people here can run the elevator. They're automatics anyway. Press the button. Why even you, Mr. Pursell, many's the time I see you run a elevator."
"Yes," said Pursell, quietly. "That was probably I whom Joe heard taking the car down. Mr. Blankfort and I had been talking in my office, and when we were through we went over to the elevator bank, rang the buzzer. It was around ten o'clock—maybe a few minutes after ten. We waited a while and there was no car coming up. Then I saw this empty car down on the end. Someone had apparently taken it up, and left it there. Mr. Blankfort and I got in and went down in it."
"How about Mr. McAndrew? How did he get down?" Inspector Heinsheimer persisted.
"I'm sure I don't know," Pursell said emphatically. "I had said good night to him some time earlier. I don't know who took that other elevator up either. I only know it was there, and we rode down in it."
"Mr. McAndrew may have gone down the steps then, with the person who rode up in that car?" Blankfort suggested.
"It's a possibility. The elevator may have been there all evening, and again it may just have been brought up. I'm sure I don't know."
"You did not see Mr. McAndrew after he said good night to you?"
"No," he said emphatically.
"You did not hear the other car coming up?"
"No. I wouldn't have noticed it, if I did hear it. Elevators travel up and down in this store continually."
"Did you and Mr. Blankfort leave the store immediately after you came down?"
Pursell hesitated. "No," he said slowly. "Not immediately?. We took a look at some of the windows that were finished."
"On the Forty-seventh Street side?" the Inspector snapped.
"Yes," said Pursell. "On the Forty-seventh Street side. And the Forty-sixth."
"And you heard nothing of this quarrel that Katie Kovacs mentioned?"
"No," he said, positively, "nothing."
"How long after this did Mrs. McAndrew come to the store?"
"I met her when I was on my way out, I told you. It was sometime shortly after ten."
The Inspector turned to Joe, the elevator operator again. "Did you take a man and woman up to the eighth floor after ten last night—a heavy-set man and a small middle-aged woman?"
Joe shook his head. "I didn't take anybody up. I only took people down after nine o'clock."
"Mrs. McAndrew couldn't have gotten here by ten, if she arrived at Grand Central at five to ten. We know she was upstairs.
Who, then, took her up?"
"She says I did," Pursell answered. "I say I didn't." He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows? It may have been her husband himself who took her up, to prove that his mistress wasn't anywhere on the premises."
"But this cleaning woman—Katie Kovacs—said she heard the noise of a quarrel in the back of the store at ten o'clock."
"Aren't you putting two and two together too fast, Inspector?" Pursell said. "Katie Kovacs, having no watch, says something happened at ten o'clock. She heard certain noises, which may or may not have been related to the accident that befell Mr. McAndrew. They may, of course, have been an entirely unrelated quarrel between other persons. Or the time may have been considerably earlier or later than this cleaning woman supposes. It is really quite amusing to find all of these people so explicit in the matter of the hours and minutes of their movements. One would think that all these persons had done nothing all evening except watch the time. The average person, you know as well as I do, has no notion whether it is half past ten or quarter of. He thinks it's somewhere around ten. But unless he's running for a train, or something of the sort, he can't possibly be aware of the exact time."
The Inspector grunted. "Yeah, but we have gotten somewhere. A woman says she heard a quarrel in the back of the store around ten o'clock, a little after the time McAndrew said good night to you. You admitted Mrs. McAndrew and her brother somewhere between ten and a quarter past. There was an empty elevator on the eighth floor. Someone had gone up in it. No one remembers taking McAndrew down. But unless our time elements are wrong, Mrs. McAndrew got here after her husband was dead."
"That seems to be indicated," Pursell said. "Unless—I want to repeat this—the cleaning woman was mistaken about the time, and the sounds she heard."
"Which of course is perfectly possible," Blankfort interrupted. "Let's have Magruder in and get over with this."
The watchman, Magruder, had undergone a change since the morning. He had acquired a sense of responsibility. Since that moment when he had blithely identified the slippery Swayzey as a late-departing customer, he had suffered the torments of conscience. Up to that moment he had borne his watchman's duties lightly. As a matter of fact he had considered himself in the light of a genial host for Jeremiah Blankfort's. The night door was his pleasant duty, his the task of saying, "Good night, Mr. O'Connor;. pleasant evening, isn't it?" "Good night, Mr. Daly. It's been a warm day, hasn't it?" The duty of saying, "No, ma'am, the store's closed; no more customers admitted"—a social task rather than a watchman's. There was in fact a night watchman to go around trying the locked doors, closing transoms, putting out lights, prowling around for signs of fire or trouble. Mr. Magruder never looked for trouble. You could find enough in the evening paper, without looking for it yourself, he said philosophically. He left trouble for the night watchman. But when early in the day he had been introduced to one Joseph Swayzey, to whom he had cordially said "Good night" the evening before, had learned that a theft had been attempted, assault and murder committed in the establishment where he played the genial host, Mr. Magruder's conscience smote him. For whereas he had been lax indeed in giving no thought to the sinister possibilities of Mr. Swayzey's presence in the store after closing time, he had been still more lax later on. And here, in the presence of the cops and his big bosses, he was forced to admit his indiscretion. He wouldn't have minded the cops so much—but once Pursell knew it, Tom Magruder needn't hope to hang on to a job any longer. But there was no concealing it. It had to come out, as soon as they told him that Pursell himself had admitted a lady and a gentleman to the store after ten o'clock, and where was he that was supposed to be tending the door? He had to admit it. He had been down in the sub-basement, with the night watchman, and a bottle of rye, and his brother-in-law's cousin. It was the brother-in-law's cousin's fault. He had had a quarter of a ticket on a winner in the Irish Sweepstakes and he won four hundred dollars, and they were celebrating. Who had admitted his brother-in-law's cousin? He had himself. What time? Some time around half past nine. After the gentlemen that were upstairs—the big shots—had gone home. His brother-in-law's cousin, a fellow named Malloy, Dick Malloy, sure they could get him if they wanted him, came around, and he thought nobody'd notice if he went downstairs with him for a couple of minutes to have a little drink with the watchman. No, nobody was on the door. But then nobody could have come in. It was locked, wasn't it? And the fellers that were left in the store could let themselves out, couldn't they? He didn't think he was away long. They were still workin' on the windows when he came back. It couldn't have been, long. Not more than an hour anyway. (He stammered and looked fearfully at Pursell as he made the admission.) No, he didn't admit anyone else. No, positively not any gentleman who asked for McAndrew. Nobody, nobody at all except Dick Malloy. No, he didn't hear no noises in the back of the store. How could he? The night watchman's little office was way up front, under the entrance. All you could hear there was footsteps on the glass grating. He might have heard some, but he didn't notice. You know how it is when you have a little party on.
"Watchmen!" Chris Whittaker groaned. "A fine establishment! Murder and robbery while the watchmen are drinking in the basement."
Pursell turned on him, sharply. "You yourself were around the main floor, last night," he said. "You kept your eyes and ears open, didn't you? Where were you when Mrs. McAndrew and her brother came in? You'll tell us you were drinking champagne in the attic, I suppose."
"No," said Chris. "I was with the window trimmers, and you know it. You saw me there, and Mr. Blankfort saw me there when you both came down. You spoke to me. My job was to stick with those men."
"Yeah," said Inspector Heinsheimer, "around this dump it don't matter if you kill a man, so long as you don't walk off with five dollars' worth of bum joolry."
A flush spread over Chris Whittaker's sallow cheeks. "After all," he began, "murders don't happen in department stores as a rule, but larceny does. And larceny is our problem."
"Yeah," sighed the Inspector. "Murders under your own noses, and you don't hear nothing or see nothing. Porters, watchmen, window dressers, roamin' around the building, and only one cleaning woman knows enough to take notice of a deadly quarrel. You two," he turned to Pursell and Blankfort, "you two up on the eighth floor, when a man's walking out to his death, possibly with his murderer, you don't hear or see nothing either. Too busy with your own affairs. An empty elevator is where it has no business to be. All you think of is that it's an accommodation for the boss. No idea how it got there. Something's damn fishy about the whole business."
"Nonsense," said Blankfort. "Nonsense. Crime's your business; retail merchandising is ours. We don't think in terms of crime before it happens. And certainly," he sighed deeply, "you can't complain about the cooperation you're getting from us. Here it is almost nine. We've held up the work of the store-kept all these people around, Mr. Pursell, myself—and here," he threw a bunch of keys on the desk, "here's the key to Mr. McAndrew's office. Help yourselves, and good luck to you. I'm going now."
He rose, a little unsteadily. His hand had barely touched the door knob, when the door was flung open in his face. He started back. "Excuse me, sir," a uniformed policeman muttered. "Inspector, they're calling you on the night phone. Headquarters. I didn't know how to get you connected. They've turned up that Smith guy. Found him over in Brooklyn."
CHAPTER XIX
In a moment they were gone—the police officers, the detectives, the representatives of the District Attorney's office and all. Bill Smith, the man who held the key to the mystery of the murder of Andrew McAndrew, was in custody. No sense in fooling around here any longer with porters and charwomen, with tedious and nearly fruitless questioning. Smith was in custody. The slippery man of mystery had been turned up. The exodus was prompt and thorough. In their excitement they neglected even to pick up the keys that Blankfort had flung upon Whittaker's desk. Pursell and Blankfort had departed. Only Chris Whittaker and Mary Carner remained of all the crow
d that had filled the store detective's room.
"Give me a cigarette," demanded Mary Carner.
Chris passed the package over to her. He looked at her closely. Her face was haggard. Her hand trembled slightly as she held a flickering match to her cigarette.
"You need to go home and go to bed," he said. "You look all in.
"I'm tired as the devil."
"I'll take you to supper, and then you'll go home."
Mary sat quietly a moment, drawing on her cigarette.
"It's all over but the shouting. They've got Smith now," Chris said.
"The Inspector is as sure of Smith as the District Attorney was of Mrs. McAndrew this morning," Mary said slowly.
"A man who runs away and hides is always a man to suspect."
"That's kindergarten stuff, Chris. Find out what persons acquainted with the deceased are missing from their usual haunts and accuse them. If I had killed a man and wanted to escape police suspicion, I'd stay right where I was, and they'd never think of me."
Chris smiled. "Like hell you would. You'd be scared to death that you'd betray yourself. You'd beat it like all of them do."
"Maybe. But I'd feel a whole lot safer if I didn't run away. I'd know then what was doing—whether they were catching up with me or not. I'd be able to cover my tracks."
"With your reasoning, you'd be willing to suspect everybody that was in the store last night. Even me."
It was Mary Carner's turn to grin. "You didn't exactly cover yourself with glory last night, Chris. It's none of my business, but a store detective who's on the job should have seen all these murderers meandering around his store at night. He might have seen Celia McAndrew and her brother. He might have seen the Smith guy—if he did come here. Might have seen him going out with a torn necktie and a mussed-up shirt. Unless he had a distant relative with a bottle of rye."
"Oh, shut up," said Chris Whittaker. "You needn't start on me. I've been picked on enough today. It's a fair enough bet that the reason I didn't see any murderers with torn shirts meandering around was because there weren't any."