by Zelda Popkin
"I'm Reese," Johnny answered amiably. "Who're you?"
"Me?" The man stuck a bony, dirty, middle finger against his breast. "Don't you know me? I'm Henry. I brung back the cat."
"You brought back the cat? That cat?" The cat had stepped across the threshold, was padding around the room, mewing forlornly.
"That's Peterson's cat," Henry said.
The cat touched a paw daintily to the kitchen slime, raised its whiskers, returned to rub against Henry's leg. Johnny Reese stroked its fur. It hissed at him, arching its back.
"Friendly beast," Johnny observed. "How'd you come to have it?"
"He give it to me. To take care of for him."
"When'd he give it to you?"
"The day he went away."
"When he went away, hey? When was that?"
The old man's fingers combed his beard ruminatively. "Long time ago. Long, long time ago."
"Did he say where he was going?"
Henry's faded eyes seemed bewildered. "Why sure. Peterson said he was going back home to Sweden."
"To Sweden, hey? Say when he'd be back?"
"Nope." Henry shook his head. "Didn't say. Asked me to take care of his cat. Cat's name is Inga. He said: 'Henry, I'm going back to Sweden. I can't take Inga. Somebody gotta take care of Inga. I can't turn her loose in cold weather. Will you take care of Inga?' I said 'Sure.' He give me Inga, and he locked up the door and he said 'Good-bye, Henry, take good care of Inga.' I was gonna ask him when he's coming back, but he was kinda mad, so I didn't ask him."
"What made him mad?"
Henry raised a thin shoulder. "Don't know. Unless it was on account of he fall down on his suitcase."
Mary Carner stepped out of the interior gloom. She spoke up. "Do you remember whether Peterson was wearing his glasses the day he went away?"
Henry jerked back as if he had been shot. His mouth dropped open. His battered hat came slowly off a narrow, bald skull. "My gawsh." His voice was awestricken. "A female. In Peterson's house. How'd she get in?"
"By the front door," Johnny answered. "Come in here, will you, Henry. We gotta talk this thing over."
Henry stepped over the sill, looking side-long at Mary Carner. He sniffed. He retreated. "Not me," he said decisively. "Not in there. Smells damp in there. Damp as a grave."
"Pipe bust. In the kitchen."
"That so?" The visitor seemed mildly interested. "I figgered they turned the water off. I see the man come and turn the water off."
"Where'd you see him from?"
"My house," the man said vaguely.
"Where's your house?"
Henry's face tightened with caution. "Oh, over there…." His gesture swept the whole landscape.
"In the big gray house up on the hill?" Mary asked.
"How'd you know?" The man's little head came forward like a turtle's. "How'd you find out? Who're you anyways?"
She smiled reassuringly. "You needn't worry about us. We won't bother you. We're looking for Peterson. We're friends of his from New York."
"New York, eh? Over there?" The bony finger pointed down the road. "Way over there?" The voice was full of awe. "I never been there."
Mary said: "We haven't seen Peterson for a long time. Came out to see how he was getting along."
"Haven't seen him, eh? Well, neither've I. He's back to Sweden. That's where he come from. That's where he went back to. He don't like it here. I asked him: 'Peterson why you going back to Sweden?' And he said to me: 'Henry, I don't like this country. Too many bad people in this country.' Kinda lonesome up on this here hill all winter 'thout him. Glad he lef' the cat."
"Just you and Peterson live on this hill?" Mary persisted.
"Naw. We got lots of company." He pointed down at the graveyard. "We got them, down there. They give me work. I dig graves for 'em sometime."
Johnny Reese said: "You could use a dollar or so right now, I bet." His hand went to his pocket.
The old man's eyes twinkled. "I ain't askin' for it," he said warily. "Could use it. Ain't sayin' no. Ain't got a plug of tobacco in my pants. Ain't got a can of sardines for Inga. But I ain't askin'." His hand closed greedily over a crinkly bill. "Got some work you want me to do?"
"Nope," Johnny answered. "That's for taking care of Inga."
"Peterson sent it, hey? Didn't think he would."
"Why not?"
Henry's thin lips arched over toothless gums. "Why not? He…he…he. You don't know Peterson good. He'd skin a flea for its hide and tallow. Peterson don't give up nothin'."
"But he left all these things here," Mary said.
The old man's head wagged, affirming. "That's what he did. That's just what he did."
"Then he made up his mind to leave very suddenly?" Mary asked.
Henry combed his board again. "Suddenly? Why no. No, I don't reckon so. He was all night makin' up his mind. I seen his lamp burnin' all night long. I figgered Peterson wouldn't use up all that oil if he wasn't sick or somethin'. I come to the door couple a times. He would'n' let me in. Not 't all. Till the morning. He had two satchels all packed up and he says: 'Well, good-bye Henry, I'm going away.' I says: 'Gonna be away long?' He says: 'Maybe. Who can tell?' I says: 'Peterson, don't you want me to stay in your place while you're away? Take care of your things?' He says: 'No, I don't.' I says: 'Peterson, don't you want to give me your groceries? If you're goin' away, you ain't gonna need them.' He says: 'I ain't giving nothing away.' But he did. He give me the bread he had left from breakfast and a nice big hunk of cheese. And a can of sardines and a can of salmon. That was for Inga. I give her some of it. I let her have some of it. That was all he give me. He was mean. 'My things can take care of themselves,' he says to me. 'I don't need nobody.'" Henry's face screwed itself into a tight knot of spitefulness. "I'm glad his pipe bust. I'm glad it happened to him. If he'd of let me stay in here, I'd of took good care of it for him."
"Mister Henry," Mary said seriously, "you're a very good rememberer. There's one thing more we want you to try to remember for us. Was there anyone else beside Peterson in the house the night before he went away. Or the morning he left?"
"Especially," Johnny Reese added, "a woman. Was there a woman with Peterson? A little blonde woman?"
"A woman?" Laughter split the seams of the weather-beaten face. "A woman. With Peterson? Hell, no." Mirth cackled in his throat. "Peterson don't believe in women. He don't have nothing to do with them. Him and me. Women's all bad. Women makes nothing but trouble in this here world. Ain't no woman with Peterson. No siree."
"And so the next move's to the cable office," Mary summed up, as Johnny Reese drove toward the ferry. "If he went back to Sweden, it was, most likely, to the town he came from. You've got to have a passport to sail abroad, with birthplace on it. If he really sailed for Sweden it should be possible to trace him. Peterson must be found."
"It'll be a lot of trouble to locate that old crab, sister, and I ain't so sure it'll be worth the bother. Because he didn't see the murder after all. He'd ducked out by the twentieth of October, because that's when he stopped taking his mail out of the box. And Phyllis didn't die till a couple of weeks after that, at the earliest."
"But something happened to Peterson in the house at fifty-nine to scare the glasses off his face and the gun out of his hand. This Henry - that was a character to turn up - old Henry, the Staten Island hermit. Somebody ought to put him in a novel - Old Henry saw him moving around his house all night, packing his things. And early in the morning, Peterson gave away his cat, locked his door, and went down the hill to start for Sweden."
"Well, what of it?" Johnny interrupted.
"Let me finish. Henry, the hermit, made quite a point of Peterson's stinginess. Wouldn't give him his groceries. Wouldn't let him occupy his house. You, yourself, brought back the word that he refused to sell his Manhattan property unless he got a good price for it. Peterson hung on to his possessions. Money meant a good deal to him. Now, when a man like that suddenly ups and abandons his property - lets t
he mortgagee sell his house, lets his bungalow go to mold and ruin - something's happened to him. He's either got an exceedingly important mission to go on - something that means more to him than money - or will bring him money - or else he's scared. Peterson gave Henry no explanation, except that people were too wicked for him in the United States. They weren't too wicked before the nineteenth of October, were they? But on that night when he was so frightened he wouldn't open the door for Henry, they had become too wicked. He was so scared that he walked out on all his possessions and never came back for them. What could have scared him so? Something he saw, or something he did? Did he recognize someone at the table in the basement? Did he see something happen to Phyllis? Or did he do something to Phyllis?"
"You mean he might have been the one shot her? Peterson himself?"
"I don't think he shot her, because Phyllis wasn't shot the night she had a date with Peterson. But the wickedness that was too much for him might well have been Phyllis'. We thought of her as his friend and benefactor. But something might have happened to change the relationship. And only one person knows what that was. Peterson himself."
"And so we go through hell and high water to find Peterson." A shiver rippled down Johnny Reese's spine. The steering wheel wobbled in his hand.
"What's the matter, Johnny?"
"Damned if I know. That was a funny one. Me shimmying like a jitterbug."
"Caught cold? Oh, you did. Your shoes are sopping. Don't get sick now, Johnny, please. When we've so much to do."
Johnny Reese touched her hand. "That's what I did it for. To get a little sympathy. Don't worry about me. I'm strong as a horse."
But at nine o'clock that evening, he called Miss Carner's apartment, and his voice was thick. "Guess where I am?"
"At Headquarters."
"Nope. In bed. With two aspirins and a hot lemonade waiting till I make this call. Must of caught a cold. Shouldn't go to the country. Too much fresh air. 'S bad for you."
"Any fever?"
"A little. Listen. I just had the Chief on the wire. He saw Rockey all right. And he got slapped right down. Rockey says to him: 'I ain't takin' no moider raps for nobody. I got my own troubles. I'm sitting in the can, taking it on the chin for a lot of suckers so the D.A. can get himself a reputation. But you can't pin no moider raps on me. I don't care whatcha found and whatcha know, you gotta convince a jury before you can tie a moider onto me. I don't know nothing and I ain't sayin' nothing.' The boss asks him does he know a cop named MacKinoy and he looks him square in the eye and he says: 'Me no speak English, Inspector.' And he asks him did he ever visit the Gordon dame, and he gives him the same answer: 'No speak English.' So that means he knew them both all right. And he asks him if it's a fact he spent the whole evening of the nineteenth with Vigo. And he says: 'If Gene says so.' And then he tells him the Knight girl has been found killed. And Rockey says: 'Now ain't that too bad. If she was one of my friends, I'd send a wreath.' And there's a cable went off to Stockholm police tonight. But we can't get to the steamship lines and the passport office till tomorrow. That's all, sister. Did I give you something to think about? See you tomorrow. Nighty-night."
When Miss Carner hung up the receiver, the hawk-nosed gentleman who sat on her living room sofa, said stiffly: "I suppose it was that Reese guy."
"You're right again, Chris"
"Seeing a good deal of him, aren't you?"
"Not enough for you to get worried."
"I'm not worried."
"Oh no, you're not. You just came down here tonight to see a man about a dog."
"Practically." Chris Whittaker grinned. "I'll never be any good at keeping up a feud. By rights, after the way you walked out on me on a busy Saturday, I hadn't ought to ever speak to you again. But what do I do? I tell the boss you came down with the grippe and come around to prove to myself that I'm a liar. That's me all over. Just tell me you're sorry for what you did and you'll be back tomorrow."
"Oh no. Grippe takes a long time. Days and days. I couldn't make a liar of you."
"The store'll be sending flowers."
"It won't be necessary. At least I hope it won't."
Chapter XII
The sealed walnut casket stood in the window bay, aloof and secretive. Reluctant sunlight threw the skeleton shadow of the rubber plant across a blanket of white gardenias, pillow of purple orchids, sheaves of roses, virginal pink and white. The air was heavy as cream with the odor of decaying blossoms.
Sliding doors, between parlor and hall, parlor and dining room had been rolled back; the undertaker's folding chairs set in precise rows.
Contempora, in its new spring tailleurs and silly hats, its white gloved hands decorously laced in laps, took up six rows.
In the front row sat dowagers, with high-bridged noses and high-boned net collars, piebald sealskin capes drawn over aristocratic spines, creaking genteelly on the narrow chairs, sending forth waves of lavender and camphor and the pleasant tinkle of jet. Beside them, aged gallants leaned on gold-headed canes, twirled waxed mustaches, tugged at pepper and salt vandykes.
"Where on earth did they come from? " Terry Cayle whispered to Mary Carner. "Out of the woodwork - or the wax-works?"
"Hush! They're the family. Cousins. Bluebloods, darling!"
At the foot of the staircase, Agnes Ramsgate watched the open front door, her eyes gleaming sullenly under the black scoop of an ancient felt cloche.
People dribbled in: flat-footed plainclothesmen, pall-bearers in black morning coats, reporters, press cards in their hats; Miss Knight's erstwhile receptionist and clerk, Saxon Rorke in gray spats and black derby.
Rorke greeted Agnes courteously. He saw Miss Carner, nodded to her, then made his way to the front row, rested his hat on his knees, his chin on his hand, contemplating the casket.
Henrietta Wickliffe leaned over Mary's chair, breathed down her neck: "Is that the fiancé?"
"It's Rorke."
"Phyllis knew how to pick them. Will there be court mourning or can a girl try right away?"
"Ghoul! If you're robbing graves, here's Van Arsdale, the collar man."
Henrietta Wickliffe turned up her nose at the short, pudgy, baldish man, with rimless spectacles on a moon-face, who walked gravely to the casket, bowed his head, covered his eyes with a gray-gloved hand. A sympathetic susurrus drifted against his back, but Miss Wickliffe murmured: "Nothing doing. He's bread and butter. Give me the crepes suzettes."
The young receptionist from Phyllis' erstwhile office stopped beside Miss Carner's chair. "You're the detective, aren't you?" she said. "You were right. There was something to worry about."
"Where's Mister Struthers?" Mary asked her.
"Haven't seen him since we closed the office. Well, what do you know! Here's our homicide case."
A girl in a shabby green coat, collared with malodorous rabbit, had stumbled into the parlor. She was a large girl, flat-nose flour white, blobs of rouge on broad cheek bones. She teetered in the doorway, her blue eyes circling the room. As they reached the window bay where the casket stood, they retreated, round and dulled with fear.
Mary stepped to the girl's side. "You're Sophie, aren't you?"
The girl inclined her head in a slight nod of affirmation.
Mary extended her hand. The girl touched it with icy fingers.
"Don't be afraid," Mary said gently. "Come in. You've a right to be here. Phyllis was your friend. Sit with me." She linked her arm in Sophie's, drew her down into a chair. The girl pulled her hat low over her forehead, her coat collar higher about her chin. Mary could see the poor creature's knees knocking together.
"Family reunion," Mary thought. "Rorke. Van Arsdale. Sophie Duda and Contempora. The reporters. Everybody but Struthers and Peterson. And Johnny Reese…. His cold. I should have telephoned him. I'll call right after the funeral."
The undertaker's men closed the front doors. Chatter dwindled, leaving a residue of creaking chairs, rustling garments. Heads turned toward the hall. Lyman Knight move
d slowly down the staircase, clinging to the arm of his housekeeper, the two black clad figures, dramatic against the turkey red carpet. Lyman Knight's eyes were lustreless, his hair disordered. Agnes settled him gently in an armchair at the back of the room.
"Dearly beloved," the clergyman began. "We are assembled here to say our last farewells to one cut down untimely, one who now stands before the merciful seat of judgment."
At Mary Carner's side, Sophie Duda sobbed in bubbling gurgles.
The room grew stifling. The minister's voice droned: "I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me…. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever…."
Agnes buttoned Lyman Knight into his overcoat. Wilfred Van Arsdale took the old man's arm, led him toward the steps. Newspaper cameras winked in their faces.