by Zelda Popkin
"What, no murderer? How could you, Chris. In a minute you'll tell me Mac choked himself. I've heard that suggested before. Or you'll come back to the neurotic widow. You and Judge Hodges."
"I used to think you were a pretty nice kid, Carner," Chris Whittaker answered. "I used to think you had some sense. Well, use it."
"I am, Chris. And that's why I say to you that it's all right for Heinsheimer to chase off after his Bill Smith, and Judge Hodges his iron widow. That gives us a clear field so that we can find the murderer of Andrew McAndrew, because the murderer of Andrew McAndrew was someone connected with this store—someone whose presence here would never be challenged any hour of the day or night. Someone who could come and go freely wherever he wanted without arousing suspicion or notice. Someone whose presence was usual and commonplace. Get me?"
"You bet I do."
"The very fact that neither you nor Pursell nor Blankfort nor any of those porters and cleaning women and window trimmers saw him, proves it—unless, and I admit the slight possibility, that McAndrew himself admitted his murderer, or that someone was hidden in the store or broke into the back door, which we know showed no signs of being tampered with. Our most important job is to find out why McAndrew was killed. Then we'll know who killed him. Are you with me?"
"Oke."
"Frankly, I don't like Pursell's stories. Particularly the Mrs. McAndrew one. And that accommodation elevator worries me. But I can't see Pursell in this-not yet-not at all, as a matter of fact, unless he's shielding someone. And my feeling is he might be shielding the mysterious Mr. Chase." She took up the bunch of keys. "Let's go upstairs," she said, "and pick over the leavings."
The main floor stretched before them like a grave-yard; showcases, like tombstones; tables, like mounds, shrouded in dark denim; lights dim and eerie. In the aisles the porters moved languidly, sweeping up the wreckage of the day's battle, hairpins, scraps of clothing, torn from embattled bargain seekers, wan trampled costume flowers, beads, papers. Mike, the porter, took them up in the elevator. Mike was sullen and uncommunicative.
"Who's up on the eighth floor?" Whittaker asked him.
"God knows."
"Anybody working there tonight?"
"Dunno."
"Katie Kovacs up there?"
"That dumb Hunkie!"
"Is she up there?"
"I'm not lookin' out for her."
"She can look out for herself," Mary Camer said, and smiled.
"Maybe she can. She's a goddamn fool, she is. She don't know when it's healthy to keep her mouth shut.''
"What do you mean, Mike?" Chris asked quickly.
Mike grinned at him, bitterly, secretively. "Nothing. Somebody got bumped off here last night because he was a wise guy. Maybe MacAndrew knew too much. Maybe he talked too much."
"About what?" both detectives said together.
"How in hell should I know? I dunno no more than my own business, and you and this whole murder business can go to hell for all I care."
"Look here," said Chris seriously, "if you know anything about this affair you'd better come across."
"Oh yeah. I don't know. An' if I did, who'd make me?" He stopped the car with a jerk. "Here's the eighth. If I was you I'd watch my step. That's all. I'd mind my own business and watch my step."
He shut the door, and shot downward with the car.
"Mike knows something," Mary Carner said. "Or Mike suspects."
Beyond the partitions where all day stenographers, typists and clerks toiled on the correspondence and accounts of the great department store, there was now darkness and silence. Ceiling lights above the reception desk flooded the center of the floor, and there were lights in the private offices. As the detectives stood surveying the eighth floor, the lights went off in the advertising office, and a wizened old woman stepped out, dragging a bag of papers, a floor brush and dustpan.
"Katie," she called, "how you comin'?"
"All right." The voice that answered her came from behind the door of Blankfort's office.
"I go down now. I be back."
They watched her drag her papers toward the freight elevator.
"Katie's got company tonight," Whittaker said. He inserted a key into the lock of McAndrew's office, and clicked on the desk light. Mary followed him into the office, and shut the door behind her. The little office was quite as they had seen it earlier in the day, bare, austere, clean, save for a light film of white powder around the edges of the furniture.
Chris Whittaker unlocked the desk. He fingered its contents rapidly, and turned to Mary Carner. His eyes were sober, his thin lips drawn tight. "Cleaned out," he said briefly. "Somebody else got in."
"You think—"
"I think nothing. Somebody took the Chase folder out."
"Don't get excited. Chase was in this morning. He may have asked for it. And they found it and got it out for him. It may have been put away in another place."
"Look in the files. See if it's there." He bent over her shoulder as she swung the drawer open and without speaking, they ran through manila folders and ledger sheets, anxiety deepening on both their faces.
A scream cut the silence. A woman's voice rose once in a hoarse shout of terror. Mary clutched the detective's sleeve. Her breath came fast. Chris Whiitaker flung open the door.
"What's that?" he shouted.
The empty floor, dark now save for its center light, sent back an echo of his voice.
"Katie," he shouted again. "Katie." He seized Mary Carner. "Stick close to me, Mary."
"There's nobody here," Mary answered him reassuringly. "Katie's not here. Someone of those cleaning women got hysterical somewhere in the building. This thing's got them keyed up."
"Stay close to me, Mary," Chris Whittaker answered. He moved slowly across the lighted space, to the door of the advertising department. Holding a revolver before him, he swung the door open and fumbled for the light switch. In an instant the room was flooded with brilliance. A single glance told the detective that the room was clean, empty, and apparently had been undisturbed since the charwoman had left it a short time before.
"Katie was in Blankfort's office, remember?" Mary whispered.
They left the lights in the other room burning and ran toward the president's office.
Chris jerked the door Open. "Katie," he shouted. "Katie, are you in there?" A sound that was half sigh, half groan answered him. He groped along the paneled wall. "Where in hell's the switch? Got a match?"
Mary fumbled in her purse. She found a book of matches, struck one with trembling hands. Its faint light picked out the sight they had feared to see. On the floor, directly inside the door, her head pillowed on a gunny sack of papers, lay Katie Kovacs.
Mary Carner dropped on her knees beside the charwoman's body and felt for her pulse. Chris, lighting a second match, found the electric switch button.
"She's all right, Chris. Get some water fast." She rubbed the woman's wrists, her cheeks, pressed on her ribs. The woman stirred, sighed, color began to seep into her cheeks. "I think she's all right," Mary said.
A whimper came from Katie Kovacs' parted lips. Her eyelids flickered, then opened. She stared at the two faces that leaned anxiously above hers. Fright gave way to relief. "Oh," she said faintly. She raised her hand to her throat. "Hurts me," she said, and she whined a little. "Hurts me here."
"What happened to you, Katie?"
"Hurts me here." She rubbed her neck. She tried to raise her head. Mary's arm slid under it, lifted it gently. On the charwoman's plump white throat they saw a spread-out, bright red mark ending in five small spots, spaced like the fingers of a hand.
"This time he didn't finish his job," said Chris.
Katie Kovacs sat upright and pulled down her skirt.
"I don't think he meant to kill this time. Only to frighten," Mary said.
"Who?"
"The man who killed Andrew McAndrew, who felt that Katie Kovacs might know too much." Katie Kovacs listened to them anxiously. "Wh
at happened, Katie? Tell us what happened."
"It is dark," Katie began slowly. "I don't see nothin'. I am finish. Nobody is in office. I put out light. I go out. I am going to elevator. I remember I have not got paper bag. I leave paper bag by door when I put out light. I come back. There is my paper bag. I take in my hand. From no place comes something, holds me by neck. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I only know I try to holler. And then lights is on and you are here. And I am not dead." The woman crossed herself.
"The person who choked you said nothing? You didn't see whether he was big or small?"
"Nothing. Nobody."
"Who knew Katie Kovacs was in here?" The detectives exchanged glances.
"Mike," Chris said. "The other cleaning woman. Who else?"
"Perhaps," said Mary thoughtfully, "it wasn't Katie Kovacs the strangler was interested in. Katie had been in here, had gone out and not been molested. It may have been you or me the killer was waiting for. Did you ring for the elevator before you came back, Katie?''
"No. I no ring. I go to elevator. I remember I leave bag. I come back."
"Out of the room perhaps a minute or two, and someone entered it. You stay here with her, Mary. I'm going to search the offices."
Katie stood up, a trifle unsteadily, holding Mary Carner's arm for support. The bag of papers had spilled. She looked down at it ruefully. "I cleaned up so good. Now I must clean some more. Is so late now, and I not done."
"Don't worry about it, Katie. You just be thankful you're still alive. You go over there and sit down. I'll pick this up for you. No, don't worry about it. It's all right. I'll clean it up for you. Just take it easy." She gave the charwoman a friendly push. "Go on, sit down, till you feel steady on your feet."
Katie Kovacs, demurring faintly, sank down in one of the heavy armchairs. Her heart was pounding. She felt a little nauseous. And she was glad to sink into the deep leather chair and rest her aching head on its cool smooth cushions. But as she sat there, she saw the well dressed young lady do a funny thing. Instead of gathering together the scattered papers that had fallen from the burlap bag, she picked the bag up by the lower end and shook all of its contents, the scraps Katie had so painstakingly garnered from floors and wastepaper baskets, out on the clean carpet.
"Don't," Katie protested. "Don't. You make so much dirt."
The young lady failed to heed her. She scattered the papers, and then did another funny thing. Picked them up one by one, and looked at each one closely. Some she put back into the sack, and others she thrust into her leather handbag-dirty scraps of paper that Katie Kovacs was carrying down to the waste bins in the cellar. She even kept out a torn and crumpled newspaper—idiotic thing to do, thought Katie, when there were clean and fresh ones to be had on the stand at the corner. Some people did that, just to save a couple of pennies. Katie had seen them in subway stations, going through rubbish cans. But this looked like a rich young lady. Katie sighed in perplexity.
When Chris Whittaker returned, most of the papers had been stuffed back into the sack, except those scraps the young lady had decided she wanted for herself. Moreover, the young lady's eyes were shining, and she was so excited that she could barely wait for Whittaker to finish his brief report of "Nobody and nothing. Except a door ajar in the inner office. A door to the passageway near the staircase. He must have come in and gone out by that door. I went down. Nobody, nothing—"
"It's here, Chris." She held up a handful of scraps. "Ledger sheets-torn to tiny snips. The Chase file. In John Blankfort's office. And the torn front page of an office copy of the Telegram." She stood up and brushed off her skirt. "I'm going up to see Lucille Waverly. That's the lead that will take us to Andrew's murderer."
CHAPTER XX
After Chris Whittaker had finished a supplementary interrogation of Mike the porter, of the other porters, of the perpetually somnolent night watchman, the cleaners, and elevator operators, and had obtained from them mystified but emphatic denials that they had seen or heard anyone leaving or entering the eighth floor via the staircase, Mary Carner left the store. She went alone because Chris had decided to take the puzzled, excited charwoman, whose protestations that husband and babies awaited her at home availed her not at all, to police headquarters so that the story of the mysterious assault on Katie Kovacs might be officially entered on the records and officially investigated. As Mary went out the front door, a man stepped from the shadows of the entrance arch and came toward her. Momentarily, her heart thumped, and then she saw the round amiable face of Reilly, the policeman. She exhaled sharply with relief and smiled at him.
"What is this? Are you doing twenty-four hour duty on this corner?"
He failed to return her smile.
"I was waitin' for you, Miss," he said soberly. "I had something to tell you. That flower woman told me to tell you. She told me to tell you she recognized somebody. One of the men she sold a white gardenia to at six o'clock last night." He drew closer to her, looked around suspiciously, whispered a name. Mary's behavior was very strange. She registered no astonishment. All she did was to say emphatically: "That settles it," and to signal for a passing cab. Just one request she made of Reilly. "Call headquarters and tell them, if they don't get a phone call from me within an hour, they're to send a squad car to 908 West 58th Street. That's all. Wish me luck, Reilly."
A jeweler's clock, looming like a bright moon in the light-spangled Fifth Avenue night, told Mary Carner that the time was eleven fifteen. Her weary limbs and body told her as much too. Fourteen hours now, she had been toiling on the McAndrew case, fourteen hours without rest, or very much food. A sandwich and a cup of coffee in Tony's and half a package of cigarettes had sustained her through the exhausting day. Strangely enough, she was not hungry now. Just tired. She needed little food when she was working. Excitement sustained her; hunger sharpened her wits.
But her head ached now, and her limbs. She leaned back on the leather seat of the cab, saw the shop windows and lights of the Fifties sliding by through eyes that were blurred by fatigue. "After all," Mary Carner asked herself, "why don't I go home to bed? What am I going to this woman's apartment for at this hour of the night? My own idea. Who am I to go rousing people up around midnight because I get ideas? They've got Smith down at headquarters. They've got Mrs. McAndrew. Evelyn Lennon. They've got Katie Kovacs. She heard the murderer's voice. They can get Irene Gates. They can get Mike the porter, the elevator operator, Magruder, Pursell, the other people who were around the building last night. They're the ones who can tell them something. Torn up ledger sheets in Blankfort's office might mean nothing in a matter like this. The Chase file is a store affair, business and nothing else. Mine's a wild goose chase. And I'm the goose."
The taxi pulled up before an apartment house canopy. The driver reached for the door handle. Mary Carner hesitated a moment. Tell him to drive on to my house. Why not? I'm dead tired. But she thought of a torn newspaper and a white gardenia. And the edge of her excitement prodded her sharply; she dug into her purse for change, paid the chauffeur and entered the apartment house.
Miss Lucille Waverly lived in the lap of modern luxury. A foyer of gleaming black and silver assailed Mary Carner's weary eyes. There were low deep chairs, upholstered in smart modern fabrics of gray and blue squares and triangles, serpentine metal lamps, canary yellow hangings. A doorman, deferential of manner, but wary of eye, intercepted her halfway to the elevators. "Miss Waverly's apartment," she said quickly.
"Is she expecting you?" His manner become stiff, alert. He took in Mary Carner's tired face, her neat but none too festive clothes.
"She is expecting me," Mary answered quickly.
"What name, please?"
"It isn't necessary."
"I'm afraid it is. Miss Waverly has left instructions that all callers must be announced. That's my orders, Miss."
"This is a very personal matter. Miss Waverly is expecting me. The name doesn't matter."
"Just a moment."
He plugged in a c
ord on the house switchboard. Mary Carner, waiting impatiently, anxiously, heard his voice.
"A young lady to see you, Miss Waverly. Says it's a personal matter. Doesn't want to give her name… .Young woman. Yes, I think so. Very well."
"I'm sorry, Miss." His tone was haughty. "Miss Waverly has retired. She can see no one."
"But this is very urgent."
His tone and manner softened a bit before beauty in distress. "If you can tell me your name, Miss, give me some idea of your business. Just so she'll know…I realize you wouldn't come here at this hour unless it was important…Tenants don't like to be disturbed…."
"You can tell Miss Waverly that it's in reference to Mr. Chase. I think she'll see me then."
Once more he plugged in on the house phone. She heard him repeating her message …waited through a long pause…and then, "O.K., Miss Waverly. Good night."
"I am sorry, Miss. Miss Waverly says she has retired for the night. She says that anything you have to say to her can wait for the morning." He paused. "She says you've got a nerve bothering her at this time." He watched her with an aloof sort of curiosity.
Mary Carner smiled up at him. "Well, that sounds like she means no. She's going away soon, isn't she?"
He froze. "I'm sure I don't know."
Mary Carner opened her handbag. "Look here," she said desperately. "My name's Carner, Mary Carner. I'm a detective. You can verify that by calling Inspector Heinsheimer at police headquarters, if you think this badge in my bag is phony. My business with Miss Waverly is urgent. I've got to see her at once, tonight. And here's a five spot to show my appreciation for the help you're going to give me in seeing her."
The man's face was amusing. It began to melt, its frozen stare yielding gradually to a half nod of understanding. He palmed the bill with an almost imperceptible gesture.
"We don't want trouble here, Miss. This is a quiet house. Never have any trouble. None of these racketeers or phony chorus girls here. But I'll tell you—I'll tell you why you can't see her now. She has a gentleman up there with her now…."