Eye Witness

by George Harmon Coxe

  He shook his head, mouth twisting. ‘He says he didn’t tip you off. I say he didn’t tip you off. So who did?’ He straightened in his chair. ‘The killer, obviously. But not from Rigby’s office. He may have called Leonard from there; he may have forced Rigby to call me; but once he fired that shot he’d get out and put his call to headquarters from some close-by public booth, knowing Leonard and I were on our way, maybe even waiting until he saw Leonard before making the call to the police.’

  O’Brien looked troubled. He puffed absently on a pipe that was out, discovered the fact, and put it aside. He stood up and moved to the window, hands clasped behind him. Finally he turned and cleared his throat.

  ‘I don’t know’, he said. ‘You could be right. It’s up to Jason. If he thinks he’s got a case he’ll go for an indictment. But don’t get the idea we’re just sitting tight on what we have.’

  ‘I’m not saying my way has to be right’, Murdock said. ‘I’m only telling you what I think. What about Joe Apollo?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Where was he last night?’

  ‘At the Club Ebony—he says.’

  Murdock stood up and put on his coat, remembering now an incident that he had forgotten. ‘Did you send a couple of men out to Claire Emerson’s place yesterday morning?’

  ‘Yes. We had her down here quite a while.’

  ‘I went to see her and the landlady told me she went out with two men. I wondered about it.’

  O’Brien sat down again. ‘You think she knows something, don’t you?’

  ‘I think she knows more than she told you. I guess she was playing the piano last night between nine and nine-fifteen.’

  ‘She had a break, according to the bar-tenders, at nine; she went out to the back where the dressing-rooms are. She showed again at nine-ten. If she left by the back way, nobody saw her.’

  ‘I’d like to have another talk with her’, Murdock said. ‘I may see her to-night.’ He stopped in the doorway. ‘Have you checked on Jesse Thorpe?’

  ‘Thorpe?’ O’Brien scowled so hard his ears moved his spectacles. ‘What the hell has he got to do with it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Murdock said, ‘but he hired Rigby to tail his wife and Harry Usher. He had a gun on him the other night when I saw him but he said he had a permit to carry it.’

  He went out then before O’Brien could reply and when he glanced back as he left the outer room he could see the lieutenant still sitting behind the desk, and still frowning.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  AT ten minutes to ten that night Kent Murdock had established himself at a remote and obscure table in the Club Ebony’s outer room. He took his time with his drink, and from where he sat he was able, by craning his neck slightly, to see the dazzling, semi-naked figure of Claire Emerson at work at the raised piano. She wore black this time, a tight-fitting creation that contrasted startlingly with her white skin, and her blonde hair was brightly burnished by the spotlight.

  She finished presently and the light went out to signify her stint was over. She smiled brightly at the diehards at the bar who applauded loudly and called for just one more number, baby. There before her public she had a lot of poise and Murdock could tell she was saying something to her admirers though he could not hear her voice. She offered both hands to the bar-tenders who helped her down and escorted her along the aisle to the end of the bar. She continued quickly, hips swinging and holding with one hand the slight train of her skirt, then the glass door opened and she was gone.

  Murdock got his waiter, asking for another drink and the check. When it came he paid it and sat back to wait, glass in hand and hoping that the girl would not join some party or delay unnecessarily her departure. In this he was lucky, for she reappeared at twenty-five past ten wrapped in a velvet cloak and glancing straight ahead as she swept through the room.

  As soon as she vanished in the foyer, Murdock rose and followed. He did not bother then to reclaim his hat and coat but walked to the door which he opened just far enough to watch her climb into a taxi. Turning back at once, he stepped into the telephone booth behind the check room and dialled the Greene Hotel.

  ‘Just wanted to make sure you were still there’, he said when Walter Dorrance answered, ‘I’ll be along in about five minutes.’

  He was not more than a minute late when he knocked on the door of Dorrance’s room, and when he saw the questioning look on the lawyer’s face he knew it was time for an explanation. For while he had telephoned Dorrance earlier saying that he might want his help a little later if Dorrance had no other plans, he had not gone into any detail, merely stating that he was working on an idea that he did not want to discuss at the time.

  He had done a little investigating on his own after he had left O’Brien in the late afternoon and as a result the nebulous plan he started with had grown to have a certain form and substance. Before he could do more he had to talk with Claire Emerson, and because he hoped Dorrance could help he spoke of this now.

  ‘You know criminals’, he said, ‘and you’ve got that tough, aggressive way of talking that impresses people. You may be able to get the truth out of her. I think she’s home now and I’d like to go over to her place and see what happens.’

  Dorrance turned and sat down, his expression thoughtful. ‘You think she’s the key to this thing?’

  ‘One of the keys, anyway’, Murdock pushed his hat back and marshalled his thoughts. ‘She told me a story the morning Farnsley was found that could have been close to the truth. She knows Apollo was waiting for Farnsley, she may know a lot more than that about Apollo, but he got to her when the police started talking to him and she changed her story. She told me she saw Lee Farnsley alive and walked out on him.’

  ‘She denies that now?’

  ‘She has denied it for two or three days. But the point is, if she did see Farnsley, his mood being what it was, she could have hit him with that candlestick—and kept hitting him. Don’t forget she tried it once before down at the Club Ebony, only that time she used a metal lamp.’

  ‘She’s out on bail, you say? This Joe Apollo put it up?’ Dorrance crossed his legs and began to massage the knuckles of one hand. ‘Is it your idea you might tie her into this Rigby murder too?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Murdock took off his hat, examined the crease. ‘I can’t promise a thing because this may be one of my wilder pipe dreams. You said this morning I might get a hunch, so let’s call it that until we find out.’

  Dorrance remained thoughtful. ‘Rigby was murdered because he was blackmailing someone. Supposing the girl killed Farnsley or became involved as an accessory of some sort, would anyone in her position have enough to make the blackmail worth Rigby’s while?’

  Murdock had not considered this and he saw it was a good question. ‘I don’t know how much money she had or how much Rigby wanted. And anyway, there are other things besides money.’

  ‘True enough.’

  ‘I don’t say she killed either of them, but I’d like to get the truth out of her. I thought I might have a better chance if you went with me.’

  ‘Sure I’ll go’, Dorrance said and hauled himself out of the chair. ‘Hand me my coat, will you?’

  The narrow-front brick building where Claire Emerson lived showed lighted windows on the second and third floors, and because of this the house seemed somewhat less depressing than it had by day. Satisfied now that she had come home as he hoped she would, Murdock stepped back while Dorrance paid the driver. It was then that he noticed the parked car a short distance away, one of several in the block.

  The parking lights were on and he could not tell if it was occupied or not, but something about its low lines and modern breadth seemed familiar and he wondered if he had not seen it before. For just an instant his mind went back to another night when he had been forced to take an automobile ride he did not enjoy. Then, realizing that there must be a hundred such cars in town, he dismissed the thought and crossed the sidewalk with Dorrance,
finding the outer door unlocked as usual, and then climbing steeply through semi-darkness tainted with the smell of stale food and disinfectant that somehow seemed more noticeable than it had before. At the top he knocked, and when, after a lengthy pause, the door started to open, he moved with it, crowding forward so that Claire Emerson had to get out of the way.

  He glanced about the cheap, untidy room, not yet looking at the girl as he said: ‘Hello, Claire.’ He moved aside as Dorrance entered. He said: ‘We want to talk to you’, and heard the door close. Finally he turned to face her, and what he saw sent a quick excitement racing through his veins.

  She had not yet changed her clothes since returning from the club and still wore the strapless black dress which revealed so enchantingly her full-blown figure. But it was not this, the gleam of white shoulders and the curve of breast, that held Murdock’s attention; it was her face. That day she came to his room he had thought her bright and ingenuous. The night at the club when Harry Usher had joined them she had been defiant, pouty, and finally concerned. Now her young face was chalky and stiff across the cheekbones, and her wide-open eyes were bright with fear.

  For another second he stared at her, unable yet to be sure of her reaction. Then, the excitement still building, some obscure intuitive mechanism tripped a warning signal in his brain.

  He took time to look again about the room, his perceptions sharpening. It seemed now that the odour of tobacco smoke was unusually strong and he considered again the car he had seen outside. At the end of the room an open doorway led into the darkness of the hall and other rooms. Over in the corner a door, apparently giving on a closet, was closed to a hairline crack, but there was no physical sign of anyone’s presence, and he dismissed the thought which had been growing in his mind as a trick of imagination aroused by his senses rather than by reason.

  Claire Emerson had seated herself on the edge of the daybed, her hands tightly clasped, the white mask of her face unchanged. ‘Why don’t you leave me alone?’ she said, her voice shrill.

  Murdock made no reply to this, but when she kept looking right at him, waiting, all that fear still there, he began to talk about Simon Rigby, not knowing just what he said because the rest of his brain was seeking answers for more important things, testing certain conclusions he thought were right.

  At last her eyes moved, and just as suddenly Murdock stopped talking. It was as though the key piece of a puzzle, long obscured, had revealed itself so that all the other pieces fell into their proper places. For once he knew the reason for her fear he had the answer, though it took him a moment to accept it and go on from there.

  He had done a lot of thinking in the past few hours and he was ready now to incorporate other details that had somehow escaped his attention. Luck, circumstances, and his own poor judgment had involved him in one murder, a deliberate plan on someone’s part had involved him in another. Now luck was ready to even the score, luck and the remembrance of seemingly unimportant minutiae of speech and conduct.

  ‘You went to the Greene Hotel the night Lee Farnsley called you from Room 617, Claire.… Don’t lie now’, he said bluntly. ‘This isn’t the time for it. Farnsley phoned you and you went over there to see him. You did see him. You saw Joe Apollo and told him that Farnsley was in my room.’

  He sat down on a chair arm close to her, and now he could see the film of perspiration along the edge of her blonde hair, the shiny layer of eye shadow, the almost imperceptible trembling of her painted lips. He went on, selecting each word with care.

  ‘Forget about Joe Apollo’, he said. ‘You told me the truth the first time. You went in to see Farnsley and you had your talk and he wanted you to stay. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  She nodded, the capacity for resistance cracking wide open.

  ‘You told him you wouldn’t stay’, Murdock continued. ‘You left him there. You walked along the hall towards the elevators and somewhere along the way you passed a man. When you ran for the elevator you glanced back and saw him knock on a door. An older man, you said. A man you had never seen before.’

  He took a breath. He said: ‘Tell the truth, Claire’, and pointed his finger at Walter Dorrance. ‘That’s the man, isn’t it?’

  For just an instant her stare moved to Dorrance and locked with his. There was a convulsive movement in her throat as though a sob had been stifled.

  Then she nodded, the barest inclination of her blonde head. She nodded again, her cheeks pasty. Finally she said: ‘Yes’, and there was defiance in her tone and the fear began to go.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Dorrance had been leaning against the table. Now he straightened. ‘Are you crazy, Murdock?’

  Murdock’s breath came out and there was an odd hollowness deep inside him where the excitement had been. His voice had a faraway quality as his mind went back to the night Lee Farnsley had taken over his room at the Greene Hotel.

  ‘It took me a long time’, he said, ‘a hell of a long time. Every time I’d go over those who might have walked in on Farnsley that night I’d eventually come up against the idea that he might have been killed by a man who had walked in on him by mistake. The missing wallet seemed to substantiate such a supposition. The trouble was I didn’t like that theory. It meant that a stranger had done the job and already there were too many others who might have liked the opportunity. It meant that until that stranger was found I’d always be under some suspicion.’

  He rubbed the dampness from his palms and said: ‘I wasn’t smart enough to take the idea a step further, to twist it just a little so that it would fit. What I should have considered was what might happen if a man went to the right room and found the wrong person there. That’s how it was, isn’t it, Walter?’

  He paused and said: ‘I called the Courier-Herald that first afternoon and yelled at Wyman for giving me a silly assignment. I called you and gave you the good news about Helen and her decision to get a divorce. You were to call me back in the morning but you got thinking it over and decided to drive down that evening—it’s only three hours and I remember it was a nice day. You got in your car and came down. You left it in that parking lot down the street from the hotel.’

  He grunted softly, his tone resigned. ‘You even tipped me off about that but I was too busy worrying about my own neck to know it. Remember the afternoon when I rode out to Helen’s with you and you told me to take your car back. You said you’d take a cab. You said to leave the car in that parking lot down the street from the hotel. Later you told me you hadn’t been in town in ten years. You drove straight to the police station the afternoon you came to help me, didn’t you? Your bag was still in the car. Yet you knew about that parking lot; you knew it because you used it the night you killed Lee Farnsley.’

  He said: ‘You walked into that hotel, a stranger no one could identify or remember. You went directly to my room and walked in on Lee. You’d hated each other for years and Lee was drunk and abusive because he was going to lose Helen and her money. The rest of it happened the way the police figured, and if you had called them in right then you probably could have——’

  Dorrance interrupted. As a lawyer he had battled with the best of them in various courtrooms, and he admitted nothing now. His hard-muscled face was set, but his voice was curt and contemptuous.

  ‘What nonsense’, he said. ‘This girl says she saw me in the hall outside Room 617. I say she didn’t. It’s as simple as that.’

  ‘Not now, it isn’t. There’s still Simon Rigby.… I guess if it hadn’t been for him you’d have been completely clear because you had the breaks. Too many others figured in the Farnsley thing for anyone to consider you. Old Murdock was the number-one man in the beginning. Joe Apollo wanted to collect a debt from Farnsley. Claire’—he glanced at the girl—‘went to see Farnsley and she’d tried to attack him before. Murray Leonard, who had it in his mind to have it out with Farnsley and stopped just in time, was seen outside the hotel at the right time. There was Harry Usher; Farnsley had phoned him to come
over. There was even Jesse Thorpe, who wanted to get Usher and might not have known Usher had moved out of 617. But not Walter Dorrance. Dorrance was in Boston; he didn’t know that Farnsley had taken over my room.’

  He shook his head and said: ‘You walked out of there and back to your car. You drove home and went to bed. I don’t imagine you suffered much remorse either; neither were you much worried, were you? You got most of the breaks. Claire saw you but that was unimportant until now. What you didn’t know until later was that Simon Rigby saw you, and that really fouled things up.’

  Dorrance had leaned back against the table. He said nothing, and nothing showed in his rugged face as he waited for Murdock to continue.

  ‘The Farnsley business was simple’, Murdock said. ‘With Rigby it was different. With Rigby you had to have a plan because you knew you’d have no alibi and you had to keep suspicion from touching you. Leonard and I were still the likeliest suspects on the Farnsley murder so you picked us, not knowing just how it would work out, but knowing if one of us got caught the police would do the rest. You almost made it’, he said resentfully. ‘If it hadn’t been for a very small and unimportant accident that held up the police car, the cops would have grabbed Leonard before he could leave Rigby’s office.’

  He glanced about, wondering if there was a telephone. ‘It’s a little hard to figure’, he said. ‘A lawyer like you could have got by with self-defence on Farnsley’s death. Now it’s too late. I checked with the parking attendant before dinner to-night. He remembers your car with its Massachusetts plates.’ He hesitated, deciding a lie or two would do no harm. ‘O’Brien is following that one up. He’s checking your garage in Boston to see how long your car was out that first night. If you killed Rigby with his own gun that means you had one of your own to threaten him with while you searched for his. Maybe you still have it.’