The Listening House

by Mabel Seeley

  “Now that note wouldn’t mean anything, would it?”

  “Not to anyone who didn’t know the girl. Oh, a few old-timers might remember the case well enough to be mildly interested. But the lieutenant ought to make an effort to find the girl’s relatives, if there are any, and let them know.”

  “It’s meaning something to Mr. Waller,” I said grimly.

  We went to my apartment then; if the lieutenant called, he would call there. I thought about the Wallers as we waited; I couldn’t get them out of my mind. Mr. Kistler was restless and uncommunicative, too. I thought about Mr. Waller, young, in debt. His wife heavy with a baby. Crying about what it was going to cost. Mr. Waller, young, walking along his beat and thinking about his wife crying over where they’d get the money for the baby. A girl running to him in her nightgown, screaming. I thought about Mr. Waller running into the red-plush house and up the richly carpeted stairs, accustomed to the feet of Gilling City’s Prominent Men. Waller running, forgetting his crying wife now, running quickly down a hall and into a bedroom where a girl hung by a sheet.

  Mr. Waller working fast, taking the girl down and laying her on the bed, but knowing she was dead. Grabbing up the note and reading it. I thought about how Mrs. Garr would run in screaming, offering him money, a thousand dollars, two thousand, three thousand, five—anything, to help keep her out of bad trouble; it wasn’t any of her fault, and the law would get her; the law would get her, and she had plenty of money.

  “See,” she would cry, running out and coming back, “money, money, money!” She would give him all this, her hands full, she would give him more, she would pay him money the rest of his life. The girl was dead. Not taking money wouldn’t make her live again.

  I thought about Mr. Waller testifying in the court, with Mrs. Garr’s frantic little black eyes on him, promising, promising. I thought about Mrs. Garr’s hair whitening in prison to that lovely, pure white. And of Mr. Waller, thrown out with the rest of his fellows, to destroy himself on his own slow poison of memory.

  We talked fitfully, expecting every moment to hear the phone ring and the lieutenant’s triumphant voice announcing a confession.

  Hours went by. Then slow feet came into the hall; heavy, leaden feet that lifted someone slowly up the stairs. Just one pair of feet.

  “I’m sure that was Mrs. Waller,” I whispered. “Alone.”

  Still we waited. We heard Mr. Grant go out. We heard him return.

  We grew even more restless as the evening wore on. Hodge began making out a time sheet to keep his mind busy, a time sheet covering the Friday Mrs. Garr must have died.

  Excursion train due to leave . . . 8:05

  Mrs. Garr leaves station . . . 8:07

  Mrs. Garr seen by Mr. Grant . . . 8:25

  Mrs. Garr waits in storage room . . . 8:27 to 9:10

  Mr. Waller goes to cellar kitchen . . . 9:08

  Mrs. Garr confronts him . . . 9:10

  Murder . . . 9:12

  Mr. Waller searches kitchen, puts dog and two cats back in . . . 9:13 to 10:00

  Mrs. Dacres returns, sees one cat still out . . . 10:00

  Waller returns cat to kitchen . . . 10:55

  W. throws key in cellar window . . . 11:00

  Waller attacks Mrs. Dacres . . . 11:02

  “It’s lovely, and very logical, I’m sure,” I said. “But it doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Pooey to you, always yelping about proof.”

  “You can’t electrocute Mr. Waller for making away with a suicide note.”

  “Bigger crimes have been committed in the name of justice.”

  “I wish Lieutenant Strom would call up. Anyway, what was Waller hunting for in that basement kitchen?”

  “Maybe Mrs. Garr didn’t destroy that note as she said. How did he know she burned it? Maybe she was holding it over him.”

  “But why would he want it?”

  “Maybe Mrs. Garr was threatening to make it public.”

  “But what could she do with it after all these years? And anyway, it would be more dangerous to her than to him. Of course, maybe he thought that if she didn’t have it, he could force her to pay that two-thousand-dollar note—”

  “Exactly, my friend.”

  “Anyway, I wish we’d get that call.”

  The doorbell rang then; we stopped talking to listen. The man on duty in the hall answered.

  The voice in the hall was Lieutenant Strom’s. I ran for my doors.

  “Has he confessed? Do you know now for sure?”

  Lieutenant Strom looked inexpressibly tired; he flopped into my big chair as if starch had left his muscles forever.

  “He’s sitting as tight as a wood tick,” he said disgustedly. “I can’t get another thing out of him.”

  “What does that mean? Does that mean he isn’t guilty?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  I made coffee and sandwiches; the lieutenant revived somewhat on those, but he was still thoroughly out of sorts.

  “If he did it he’s doing a damn good job of holding out.”

  “I take it few hold out on you?” asked Hodge.

  “Damn few,” replied the lieutenant arrogantly. “I get ’em.”

  He told us, then, about other cases he’d handled. One about a man who’d been picked up by a roadside, riddled by bullets. About how he’d gone out himself and picked up hitchhikers: one, two, three. And how he’d turned on the fourth with, “How much dough you pick off that guy whose car you stole after you shot him?” And the boy had screamed with telltale fear.

  One triumphant case followed another in his recital; past success poured confidence into him as he talked.

  “I tell you frankly, I’m good at getting confessions. I know I’m good. I’m not too good, though. I don’t make ’em confess crimes they didn’t do. If this Waller croaked Mrs. Garr and tried to croak you, Mrs. Dacres, he’s good. The trouble is, I’ve got to get a confession or else. I haven’t enough evidence to pin the thing on him—or on anyone else.”

  “Good motives for Waller, though,” Hodge said. “Mrs. Garr refusing to pay that note and threatening to turn them out. And I understand he admits Mrs. Dacres told him she knew he’d been on the force. One thing awfully dangerous for him to have come out.”

  “God, don’t think I haven’t been over that ground. As far as Waller is concerned, there isn’t any ground I haven’t been over.”

  “If you tip back any farther in that chair,” I told Hodge, “you’re going to have to put in a new buffet door for Mrs. Garr’s estate. You know what I think we should do? Take our minds off Mr. Waller for a minute, go back to the facts of the murder, and see what else we see.”

  “So what?” Hodge.

  “No, wait a minute. Not a bad idea.” The lieutenant. “Where would you begin?”

  “Begin where you began with those hitchhikers. How did you know it was the fourth one? Something that came out when you talked, probably.”

  “Okay, lady. Who would you say it was, forgetting Waller but taking into consideration everything else we know up to now?”

  “I can’t help it,” I said. “When I begin to ask myself who killed Mrs. Garr, I forget the Rose Liberry business. After all, we haven’t one single thing to prove that old case is actually concerned in the death. Nothing that counts, except that Mrs. Garr was a principal figure in both. I go right back to where I started. Who benefited by the death? The Hallorans.”

  The lieutenant and Hodge groaned in unison.

  “Now look here,” the lieutenant instructed me. “Does an alibi mean anything to you? The Hallorans aren’t bright enough to fake alibis like theirs. They couldn’t have made that pass at you Monday night.”

  “What proof have you that was the same person who killed Mrs. Garr?”

  They groaned again.


  “Didn’t we have that all argued out once?”

  “Yes, but there’s nothing has as many holes as an argument.”

  “Well, I’ll be cremated and eat my own ashes before I’ll start again that far back. You, Kistler, is your idea as bright as hers?”

  “Not unlikely.”

  “Shoot it.”

  “Dark horse. The same dark horse I’ve quietly ridden from the beginning. Buffingham.”

  “Aw, a guy with a name like that couldn’t commit murder.”

  “He didn’t do it with his name. Name didn’t keep his son from robbing banks and doing a little shooting.”

  “Reasons—any new ones?”

  “Just the old ones. Plus my feeling when I have the whole household in one room, which has happened on divers occasions lately, Lieutenant. I look about me and say to myself, ‘Who done it?’ And my forefinger practically lifts of itself to point out Buffingham.”

  “Hm.”

  “Desperate for money, too.”

  “A couple of Cs wouldn’t do his boy any good.”

  “He looks grief-stricken, too,” I put in.

  “Mrs. Sorry-for-the-Underdog speaks up from her corner. She’s sorriest of all when the underdog chloroforms her.”

  “It was ether. A dry cleaner.”

  “Well, you never heard of anyone being ethered, did you? Or dry-cleaned, did you? There isn’t any verb for that. It doesn’t sound lethal enough.”

  “Cut it out.” From the lieutenant. “Now, if you’d ask me, I’d say this murderer has to be one of two things. Either he’s smarter than anyone else I’ve ever come up against, so smart he can hide what he’s feeling and thinking. Or else he’s so dumb and tough he doesn’t have anything to show. I’ve had that kind before.”

  “The first description fits Mr. Kistler perfectly.”

  “Okay, baby, the second fits you.”

  “Does it? What I was really thinking was that it might be someone who kept his mind fastened so tightly on something else that it completely covers up what you’re trying to get at.”

  “Say, that would do for Buffingham, wouldn’t it? Nice work!”

  “A few other people, too,” the lieutenant broke in again. “Well, I’m going to have Buffingham down here and take another crack at him.”

  He ordered the detective in the hall to bring Mr. Buffingham down. Mr. Buffingham returned with him immediately.

  “Something’s come up that makes me have another go at you, Buffingham.” The lieutenant’s manner held its usual smooth threat. “I’ve been going into the records of the Liberry case. You didn’t come into that case directly, Buffingham, but I’ll stake plenty that you were connected with Mrs. Garr in that old business some way. What were you—a come-on?”

  “I never saw Mrs. Garr before I came to this house.”

  “How about knowing the Wallers?”

  “Know ’em? Sure. They been here a long time. Seen ’em around.”

  “Ever know Waller was once on the force?”

  Buffingham hesitated. “I don’t know. Had a vague idea he was.”

  “Know him at the time of the Liberry case?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, you’re sure. So you know when the Liberry case was?”

  “I remember the story in the papers. Big story.”

  “Yeah. Big story. What were you doing in those days?”

  “Oh, I was workin’, I guess.”

  “Where?”

  “Drugstore, it must of been. That’s all the jobs I ever had. Mostly jerking sodas.”

  Lieutenant Strom paused before his next question. The only movement in the room was the flicker of Mr. Buffingham’s restless dark eyes.

  “Did you ever work in the Stacy Drugstore at the corner of Cleveland and St. Simon Street?”

  Again, as on Wednesday, something came and went behind Mr. Buffingham’s eyes.

  “Yeah, I worked there once.” He laughed. “I worked in half the drugstores in town.”

  “When did you work there?” Sharply.

  “When—Let’s see. That was a while ago. Twelve years. Fifteen years. I don’t know. Hell, I worked in too many places. You know. You get took on for a rush season. Christmas. Or summer at the fountain. Then you get laid off.”

  “Stacy’s still running that drugstore, Buffingham. I can find out.”

  Mr. Buffingham’s shoulders shrugged.

  “Sure you weren’t working there the summer of 1919?”

  “Might of. I wouldn’t remember.”

  “There’s something to make you remember. Cleveland at St. Simon Street is only two blocks below 417 St. Simon. And there was plenty of hell popping at 417 St. Simon Street that summer.”

  “It didn’t have nothing to do with me. I wouldn’t know.”

  Was he tense, answering carefully? Or were his answers as casual as they sounded on the surface?

  The lieutenant appeared to have gone as far as he could see to go up that alley. He switched to another.

  “Now let’s get going on last Monday night, when Mrs. Dacres had this party we’ve heard so much about. You came in with Mr. Grant just after midnight. You go upstairs. You sleep. Now, Buffingham, you know doggone well there were noises going on in this house that night. It’s impossible to go downstairs, even carpeted stairs, in a house this age, without making some creaks. Mrs. Dacres heard ’em, the night Mrs. Garr was done in. You can’t—”

  He turned abruptly, called:

  “You, Jones out there, steal silently upstairs, will you?”

  “Say, what is this?” From Jones.

  “Do what you’re told!”

  “Okay.”

  Jones stealing upstairs was so evident I giggled.

  “Swell burglar Jones’d make,” the lieutenant interrupted himself further before going back to Buffingham. “Hear that, Buffingham? We know that kind of noise was going on in this house Monday night. Not as loud as that, but some noise. And you can’t saw a bolt without a whine. Not quick, the way this guy had to do it. Little Quick Ears here was out. So was Kistler. Sands and the Wallers said they had been in bed a long time; they might have been sleeping hard, if it wasn’t one of them that was up and about. But, by God, I’d like to hear your reason for not hearing things. Your room’s right at the head of the stairs. You’d just got in. If you didn’t hear anything, Buffingham, it sounds doggone suspicious to me.”

  Mr. Buffingham hadn’t smoked this time. But now he took out a cigarette and began revolving it rapidly with both hands, his eyes fixed on it.

  “I wouldn’t want to get nobody in trouble,” he said at last.

  “Let me worry about that. You can’t get anyone in trouble he didn’t get himself into. What’d you hear?”

  “Creaks, you know. In the hall. Going down the stairs. Like them he made. Jones. Only not so loud.”

  “Where’d they start—other end of the hall?”

  The cigarette revolved more slowly.

  “I guess not. My end. I guess they went past my door.”

  “Past your door. From Grant’s or Kistler’s rooms?”

  “He”—Mr. Buffingham motioned with his head toward Hodge—“he wasn’t in yet. I don’t think. I hadn’t gone to sleep yet.”

  “Grant, then!”

  No reply.

  “Grant,” said Hodge. “Baloney.”

  “Or someone hiding in your rooms, Hodge,” I said.

  “Grant!” the lieutenant repeated briskly, his eyes alight. “I’m always getting around to that guy. He hated her, too. Said he did. I’m going to have him down. No, Buffingham, you stay here. Grant!”

  22

  THE OBLIGING JONES WENT upstairs for Mr. Grant. While we waited, Hodge laughingly showed Lieutenant Strom the timetable he had worked out. The lieutenant, not laughing, added the pa
per to a bunch for his pocket.

  “Nice evidence if it turns out you did it,” he said.

  When he came in Mr. Grant looked so old and frail that Hodge automatically offered him a chair. Mr. Buffingham, without being asked, dropped into one, too.

  The lieutenant opened fire at once.

  “Walk in your sleep, Mr. Grant?”

  “I? No, certainly not.”

  “Sure?”

  “I am certain.”

  “Mr. Buffingham here has had one of those sudden memory attacks always affecting people in this case. Didn’t bring it up before out of not wanting to get anyone in trouble. Says he heard someone walking Monday night, the night Mrs. Dacres was attacked. Someone who started at your door, walked down the hall and down the stairs.”

  Mr. Grant turned his mild proud eyes on Mr. Buffingham; he appeared to ponder his answer before making it.

  “That is perfectly true,” he said finally, quietly.

  The lieutenant made a startled exclamation; whatever he’d expected, it couldn’t have been that quiet admission. I was dumbfounded, and I could see Hodge was the same. Mr. Grant talked on.

  “I did walk down the hall. I walked along the upstairs hall, down the stairs, and then on down the cellar stairs. I did not say so the other day because it was entirely irrelevant. Nothing came of it.”

  “You could have let me judge that,” barked the lieutenant. “Mind letting me in on why you took this stroll?”

  “Not at all. It was something I heard.”

  “So you heard things, too!”

  “Well, I thought I did. Something rather peculiar. You’ll be amused, I know. I couldn’t imagine why anyone should be doing so at that time of night.” He spread his hands. “It was an extremely odd sound for that time of night. A brushing sound. The only thing I could liken it to is—sweeping.”

  “Oh, so you heard sweeping.” The lieutenant’s voice bristled with withheld meanings.