“I’m not joking. I just called my place, and the police are there. They’re coming here for me.”
Julia Frye threw both arms around Tom Norfolk’s neck. Her eyes searched his face. He said nothing. Her own face was a hard, expressionless mask of alabaster, on which her make-up looked ludicrously red and untidy.
“I’m afraid I have to be getting to work, or I’ll lose my job,” Vivian said. “Good-by, everybody.”
No one paid the slightest attention to her as she got into the miniature elevator.
IX
KENNETH KILKENNY, DETECTIVE FIRST GRADE, put down the telephone and elbowed his way through the crowd of police experts milling about in Penelope Dunne’s apartment. There were more flash bulbs going off than at a charity bazaar opening, although there was hardly a Junior League air about the fingerprint men crawling among Pen’s stuffed dogs and Marie Laurencins, dusting powdered graphite and aluminum on all suspected surfaces. Nor would the society pages have been interested in the photographs of the late Pierre Laurence from all angles.
Detective Kilkenny made his way to the corner in which Haruzo Matsuki, mathematician, scholar, and dog walker, was being browbeaten by two plain-clothes men who had intercepted him at the elevator. Their questioning had little apparent result except to increase the yapping of the two Pekinese dogs he had in tow—a sound which did little to help the general confusion.
“No use, sergeant,” one of the plain clothes men said. “Looks like somebody scared the English clean out of him. He always answers in Chink.”
“Yu mei-yu?” asked Detective Kilkenny, who had once served for a month on the Chinatown squad before being transferred to homicide.
“Sorry, sah,” said Matsuki, “butto am speaking ownery Japanese ranguage.”
“See?” said the other plain-clothes man. “All he’ll talk is Chink.”
“He’s Japanese,” Kilkenny informed his subordinates. “Take him to the West Hundredth Street station and hold him until I get there.”
“Take the pups with him?”
“Ping ando Pong beronging to Missis Dunne. Are quite happy in this prace,” said Matsuki promptly.
“Take the damn dogs with you,” Kilkenny said. “I’ll figure out what to do with ’em afterward.”
He turned his back on the canine problem, thrust a cigarette between his lips without lighting it, and sauntered into the bedroom, where he stood in the presence of the corpse with his hat cocked irreverently over one eye. From beyond the chaise longue Dr. Joseph Rosenkohl, Assistant Medical Examiner, arose to his full height and said, “Hi, Kenny.”
“Hi, Rosie,” said Kilkenny.
Seeing them together, one might easily mistake the doctor for the detective, for of the two, Dr. Rosenkohl was built much more like a cop. A big, ample-boned, ham-fisted man, he had bushy black hair, a square jaw, and a prognathous profile that made him a tough-looking hombre—unless you noticed his mild, doe-eyed expression, or heard him speak in his mild, soft voice.
He and Kilkenny had been born in adjacent blocks on Avenue B, and had gone through Public School 25 together, where their friendship—and Joe Rosenkohl’s non-Semitic appearance—had earned them the neighborhood title of “Kenny and Rosie—the Eretz Erin Boys.”
The two of them were going to be cops together—perhaps because Kenny’s elder brother was already on the force and looked fine in his uniform. Rosie had to abandon his boyhood plans because Mamma and Papa Rosenkohl insisted that there should be a doctor in the family. Kenny almost had to abandon his because his physique didn’t develop along the same lines as his elder brother’s; he made the minimum height by an eighth of an inch, and had always remained rather slight and nervous and timid-looking for a police detective. His bald head didn’t quite go with his job, either, and if any of his superiors knew that when he got home at night and put on his carpet slippers, he wore glasses to read, he would probably have been transferred to some desk detail.
The two men hadn’t seen much of each other since Kenny went to Police Academy and Rosie went to Columbia for his pre-med courses. Kenny moved uptown, while Rosie lived on at the family apartment in Avenue B; it wasn’t so crowded there any more with two of his sisters married in Brooklyn and his brother married into the fur business and living on West End Avenue; just Papa and Mamma Rosenkohl and Elsa, who was still too young to marry.
In the past year, however, since Dr. Rosenkohl had gone to work in the medical examiner’s office, and Detective Kilkenny had gone to the homicide squad, their paths had begun to cross again—at the scene of a crime, at the city mortuary, or in the Bellevue autopsy rooms. It was almost as if they had realized their common ambitions after all.
“Kinda tough you being called out on a job on Friday night like this,” said Kilkenny. “Or don’t your old lady make gefüllte fish any more for Shabbath dinner since the gals got married?”
“She still makes it,” Dr. Rosenkohl said. “Miriam and Bella come over every week for dinner, practically.”
“And I guess the old man still lights the candles and says the b’rocha every Friday night?” suggested Detective Kilkenny.
“Sure.”
“Your old lady could sure make swell gefüllte fish,” said the detective. “I can almost taste it right now with red horse-radish. And the knishes. And that apple strudel.”
“You used to do pretty well with her kasha soup,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. “You ought to come over for dinner again sometime.”
“Yeah, I ought to,” said the detective. “I bet I haven’t been below Fourteenth Street in two years. What about the stiff, here?”
“Gunshot, it looks like,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. “Find any weapon?”
“No sign of any.”
“Nobody hear any shots within the last two-three hours?”
“Nobody I talked to. We still haven’t picked up this bird Weaver who was supposed to be here.”
“Must be gunshot, all right,” said Dr. Rosenkohl, “but of course I won’t give out statements until I get him down to Four Hundred East Twenty-Ninth Street and start taking him apart. I’ll get the bullets for you tomorrow. I suppose ballistics will want them.”
“Sure, if there are any.”
“And listen, Kenny. Call off your print men, will you, on that handkerchief? They want to nitrate it for latent prints. I told them I’d wring their necks if they did. If they have to look for latent prints, tell them to use iodine vapor so I can still do something with the handkerchief afterward. I want to send it up to the serology lab.”
“For the bloodstains?”
“Bloodstains, yes, and then Doc Wiener’s got a trick new technique up there that I’d like him to try. I think it might do you more good than the fragmentary prints you’d be apt to find on a handkerchief.”
“Okay, Rosie. I’ll see that you get it.”
“And keep those nitrate hounds off it, will you, Kenny?”
“Sure, Rosie. There’s nothing else I ought to know?”
“I won’t know a thing before I get into him. You’ll be at Bellevue in the morning, won’t you?”
“Sure,” said the detective.
The two men were walking down into the living-room. As they entered, the moulage man came climbing in, through the window from the balcony, with his shellac sprayer in his hand.
“Hello, Exterminator,” said Kilkenny. “Find anything on the balcony?”
“Plenty,” said the moulage man. “The most marvelous deposits of pigeon droppings in New York, with the possible exception of C. Vanderbilt’s bronze redingote on the Forty-Second Street side of the Grand Central ramp—”
“No prints, wise guy?”
“Some footprints, yes. They’re pretty fragmentary, but I think I can make casts of them. I’m not casting the woman’s prints, though, because they fit the shoes I found in the closet. You don’t want ’em, do you?”
“Those would be Mrs. Dunne’s,” said the detective. “She’s due here any minute, now. I sent a car across the Park
for her.”
“I suppose you know that balcony runs clear across the front of the building. A good climber could probably come over or around that spiked-ironwork partition from the next apartment. There don’t seem to be any prints on the other side, though. I put an oblique light through the bars. If you want, I’ll get the super to let me in the next apartment and make a proper examination.”
“Not necessary,” said Kilkenny. “This job wasn’t done by an acrobat. Whoever killed Mr. Laurence came right through the front door. There’s been enough people up here, since he came, to hold a wake. I’ll check on that angle, though. When you get through we’ll look for prints on the spiked fence.”
“I’ll be pushing on,” said Dr. Rosenkohl. “You’re getting company. See you at the morgue.”
Penelope Dunne had just come in, flanked by two uniformed policemen, and preceded by a breath that constituted a fire hazard. She walked with great dignity and was obviously fighting hard to maintain control over herself.
“Where are my dogs?” she demanded regally.
Kilkenny assured her that the animals were in good hands.
“I hope you’ve told your men to be careful of my things,” Pen said. “They’re making an awful mess of this apartment. I suppose you’ll want me to identify the body?”
“In just a moment, Mrs. Dunne,” said Kilkenny, who had had previous experience with women identifying bodies and wanted to ask a few questions while she could still talk coherently.
“Have you found out yet how he got into my apartment?” Pen’s question was so casual that it sounded cagey to the detective.
“Somebody let him in,” said Kilkenny.
“But there was no one here after I left—was there?”
The detective did not reply. He reached into his pocket and consulted the back of an envelope on which he had made notes. He did not look at Penelope as he said, “You let him in, maybe.”
“I? But I left before he came.”
“How do you know what time he came—if you weren’t here?”
“I don’t know. I only know he was not here when I left. No one was here. I let the maid go home for the week-end. She went at about two o’clock.”
“What time did you leave?” Kilkenny looked up and fixed Penelope with a long, guileless stare. Penelope looked away.
“About four forty-five, I should say,” she replied.
The detective consulted the envelope again. “That seems to check,” he said. “I’ve got a sort of timetable here that the elevator boy gave me. He seems to remember the people he brought to this floor and took down. He says this Pierre Laurence came up about five minutes before you left.”
“That’s not true.” There was a clear ring of conviction to each word. Penelope’s chin was high as she tried to stare down the detective. “The boy is mistaken.”
“He seemed pretty sure.”
“He’s mistaken. He must be mistaken.”
“Even if he was mistaken, there’s still your brother who could have let the man in, Mrs. Dunne.”
“Anthony? But that’s impossible. I looked in his room before I left. He wasn’t here. He hasn’t been home since this morning.”
“He must have been home. The doorman says he called down on the house phone to be sure and not to let anybody up to see him unless they’d been here before.”
“I tell you there was no one here when I left,” Pen repeated. “I’m positive.”
Kilkenny nodded knowingly.
“You know a Miss Frye?” he asked.
“Julia Frye? I can prove she wasn’t here. I’ve just come from—”
“Who’s her boy friend?”
“Julia?”
“Yes, Miss Frye’s steady. Isn’t she engaged to marry some bright young man?”
“I suppose you mean Tom Norfolk.”
“I suppose I do,” said Kilkenny, making another note on the back of the envelope. “The elevator boy didn’t remember his name, but said he usually came here with a gal in a mink coat named Frye. Well, this fellow—what’s his name? Norfolk—came to your floor about ten or fifteen minutes after the dead man. He probably didn’t get in, because the elevator boy says he took him down again just two or three minutes later. So I’ll assume that Laurence was already dead by that time. Unless—Do you know a redhead named Sanderson?”
“Vivian Sanderson? She’s a cousin of mine.”
“Were you expecting her this evening?”
“No.”
“Well, she was here. The elevator boy knows her, evidently. Very neat number, he says. She came about ten minutes after Norfolk left—which would be about half past five. Is she a spiritualist, or something? I mean, did she ever wear tights and work for a magician—the lady who gets sawed in half—that sort of thing?”
“Vivian Sanderson is a very lovely girl,” said Penelope.
“That may be, but she did a very neat disappearing act. She came up in the elevator and then vanished in thin air. The boy remembers bringing her up, but swears he didn’t take her down again. She’s not in the apartment now. Neither is your brother. So there must have been quite a parade down your service stairway.”
Penelope passed her slim white fingers across her face. “This is a trifle fantastic,” she said. “Do you mind if I get myself some brandy? This is a little difficult to follow.”
“You may need the brandy later,” Kilkenny said. “Do you know a fellow named Weaver?”
“Certainly. But Barney was here much earlier. He left long before I did, Inspector.”
“The title is Detective first grade. The name is Kilkenny. Well, this Weaver must have come back. He’s probably the one who found the body. He came a little after half past five, according to the elevator boy. At six minutes to six somebody called headquarters to report the murder. Must have been Weaver, because two minutes later he was on his way down in the elevator.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“You’d better—unless the elevator boy has pipe dreams. Anyhow, when the squad cars got here at two minutes to six, Weaver was gone, Miss Sanderson had evaporated, and Laurence was dead.”
“I—it’s too extraordinary. Was—was anyone else here besides those you’ve mentioned?”
“Just a Japanese boy from some dog-walking service. You’d left instructions that he was to have a key.”
“Yes, that’s right. Matsuki. When was he here?”
“He left about five minutes before Mr. Weaver.”
“And didn’t—You’re sure no one else called?” Kilkenny caught the quavering overtones of anxiety in Penelope’s voice.
“Whom were you expecting?” he countered.
“Why, no one.”
“Sure there wasn’t somebody with a grudge against Laurence who you thought might have been here?”
“No, of course not. Shall we go inside now?”
“Just a minute,” said Kilkenny. He turned his large ear to a plain-clothes man who bent down to whisper that the superintendent of the building was outside. “Wait, Bannigan,” he said. “Just one more question, Mrs. Dunne. Who lives in the apartment across the hall?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.”
“How long have you lived in this building, Mrs. Dunne?”
“Eight or ten years. I’ve known New Yorkers who lived in the same place for forty years without knowing their next-door neighbors.”
“You share the same balcony with them, more or less. Don’t you know anything about them?”
“Only that they’re a strange-looking couple, quite noisy, who do a lot of drinking, judging from the sounds I hear when the windows are open in the summer. Their name is Franklin, I think. Or Francen. Something like that.”
“Tell the super to come in,” said Kilkenny to the plainclothes man.
The superintendent was a large, somewhat popeyed man with one cauliflower ear.
“Apartment opposite?” he said. “Nobody lives there.”
“But Mr. Wurtzel, the Franstons?”
“Who rented it?” Kilkenny asked.
“Fellow name of Redman. Old fellow, sort of, with a beard. Took a two-year lease and paid three months in advance, but won’t move in for another couple of weeks, prob’ly. Been living in California, and is shipping his furniture and stuff out by the canal.”
“How long since this Redman’s been around to see the apartment?” the detective persisted.
“Not for a couple of months, maybe,” the superintendent replied. “He went back to California to get his wife. ‘Don’t do nothing about redecorating till my wife gets here,’ he tells me. So I don’t. Nobody’s been near the place except I opened it up a couple of times maybe to let the express people in. Some of his stuff came already. A raft of trunks one time, and some crates another time. Furniture and stuff, I guess.”
“I guess,” interrupted Kilkenny. “Well, thanks, old man. If I need you again I’ll call you. Shall we go in to the other room now, Mrs. Dunne?”
“Certainly,” said Penelope. She stood up. A shadow trembled across her face. When it passed, she was very pale. The eyes she turned upon Detective Kilkenny very definitely said that she wasn’t as brave or as hardboiled as she thought, and that she was terrified by this business of identifying a corpse which had once been someone very close to her. But despite the fear, the reluctance in her eyes, there was determination in the angle of her chin. She walked on ahead of Kilkenny, walked proudly and firmly into the bedroom, walked halfway across the bedroom without stopping, even after she caught her first glimpse of the dead man. She was still walking, in fact, when her knees buckled suddenly, her legs twisted under her, and she fell in an insensible heap.
Kilkenny was beside her in an instant, trying unsuccessfully to lift her into the chair her head had just missed striking.
“I should have known it,” he muttered to himself. “I should have known she’d keel over if the liquor wore off before I let her look at him. Only I thought she was still pretty tight. What are you standing there gawking at, Bannigan? Give me a hand, will you? And get me some cold water.”
See You at the Morgue Page 7