The Removal Company

by S. T. Joshi

  Well, it had a bit more than that. It took some careful reading, but one fact of towering importance was lurking there if only you looked hard enough.

  It all lay in a few diary entries of early December 1929, only a few weeks after the death of Katharine’s father. The household was being broken up: the Hawleys had no more money left except the property they owned, and this was being sold in order to generate some income for Katharine and her mother to live on. What we find is this:

  December 3. I’ve just learned that all the servants will have to go—we’ll try to keep Soames, but that’s probably all. Oh, God, can things get any worse? How ashamed and humiliated I feel! What will I do without my María?

  Only a few days later there is this:

  December 6. Everyone’s concerned about how poorly I feel. That’s sweet of them, but I think I’m past help now. I just wish the earth would swallow me up! That would be the best thing that could happen to me.

  And then, the next day:

  December 7. I wish everyone would stop hounding me! They all want me to see a psychiatrist, or even check myself into a hospital. Oh, I’ll never do that!—never, never! Well, maybe I’ll take up María’s suggestion and see that Dr. Grabhorn. But I think it’s a waste of money—and we certainly don’t have very much of that now.

  “I think I’ll take up María’s suggestion....” That one sentence sent me back to Los Angeles.

  * * * *

  I walked into police headquarters in Pasadena pretty early on the morning after I arrived. By chance I met Detective Gulliver Crane in the hallway. He recognized me, accosted me with a grunt, and said:

  “Say, Scintilla, you still think your man is innocent?”

  “I do.” I really didn’t want to talk with him right now—I wanted to see Vance and ask what he knew about his wife’s former maid.

  “You want to see the police report? It’s pretty much done. We’ve already booked Vance for second-degree murder.”

  “Only second-degree?” I said. “That’s generous of you.”

  Crane shrugged magnanimously. “Well, I’m willing to believe it wasn’t premeditated. Heat of the moment, you know? Vance seems a bit on the agitated side, no?”

  “Yes.” I wished this guy would shut up.

  But Gulliver wasn’t about to quit. Grabbing my arm, he said: “Come on, take a look. Maybe you New York boys don’t think we know how to run a police investigation.”

  I didn’t feel like nurturing Crane’s inferiority complex, but I followed. Vance wasn’t going anywhere.

  Crane took me into his office and had me sit down in the chair in front of his desk, while he dropped himself heavily in his own chair. Pulling out a file from a side drawer, he shoved it in my direction.

  “Here. Read it and weep.”

  Why was Crane so gleeful? Did he really get some kind of pleasure out of all this?

  I decided to shake him up as best I could. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck tracking down who made that anonymous phone call that brought you boys down to the Grabhorn—er, Greer place so fast?”

  “No.” By Crane’s tone I could tell that he had made no effort to do so and considered it a waste of time even to bother trying.

  I looked at the file. It was the usual stuff—photographs of the crime scene, coroner’s report on Grabhorn/Greer, preliminary interrogation of Vance (not very informative), and suchlike. I flipped through it quickly, trying not to look at Crane’s smug face.

  Then one thing struck me. I pulled out a photograph—one of several of Vance.

  “Hey, Crane, look at this.”

  He bent forward a little suspiciously, as if I were going to play an unpleasant magic trick on him.

  “What is it?”

  “Just look at this picture. It’s of Vance’s hands. Right?”

  “Of course.” Crane leaned back; the self-satisfied smirk had returned. “We wanted an airtight case, Scintilla. Not only did we test Vance’s gun and bullet with the bullet that killed Greer—a perfect match, naturally—but we wanted to show that only Vance could have pulled the trigger.”

  “How do you prove that? Finger-prints?”

  Crane actually chortled. “That’s the easy part. Yes, of course, finger-prints: Vance’s, and only Vance’s, were on the gun. But we wanted to do more. Surely you know, Scintilla, that on almost any gun, and especially the large-caliber one Vance used, there are going to be powder marks on the hand that pulls the trigger. And that’s exactly what you see there.”

  “So this”—I held up the picture—“was taken at the crime scene?”

  “Oh, yes. Probably only minutes after the act, I’d say.”

  “Yes, maybe.” I moved forward, placing the photo on his desk, facing him. “But there’s something odd. Notice that there are only powder marks on Vance’s fingers—not on the back of the hand. How exactly do you account for that?”

  Crane peered down at the photo with the momentary thought that it might attack him. “Oh, come on, Scintilla, you’re reaching....”

  “But it’s true, isn’t it? What gives, Crane?”

  Gulliver fumbled for words. “Well...maybe he was wearing gloves....”

  It was my turn to smirk. “You’ll have to do better than that. If he’d been wearing gloves, there wouldn’t be any powder marks on his hand at all. And you didn’t find any gloves on him or anywhere near him, did you?”

  “No”—very quietly.

  “Well, then.”

  “Wait a minute, shamus. You’re trying to build up a case—or should I say you’re trying to destroy our case—on something so slim as that? It won’t work, Scintilla. No court in the world will follow you in that. You think that’s enough for ‘reasonable doubt’?”

  “No,” I said. “I think that’s enough to prove that Vance is innocent of murder.”

  For a few seconds Crane appeared unable to comprehend what I had said. Then he exploded: “What?”

  “Just calm down, man,” I said. “And give me your gun.”

  This comment seemed to take him aback even more than its predecessor. He could literally not speak for several moments. Finally: “What...what the devil do you want my gun for? You gonna blow my brains out—or yours?”

  “Hardly,” I said, chuckling politely at what I perceived—hoped—was a witticism. “Just give me the gun; and make sure to leave the safety on.”

  Like a man in a trance Crane did as he was told.

  “Okay,” I said, picking it up. “Now remember that Vance claimed that he had been struck by someone as soon as he came into the house, and woke up to find himself propped up on a wall in Greer’s bedroom, the gun in his hand.” I held up my hand to ward off the explosion I knew would come. “I know, Crane, I know—you don’t believe any of that. But let’s just go along with it for a moment, okay?”

  I surveyed his office quickly. It was small and congested, but I guess it would do. “Here,” I said, giving Crane back the gun, “take this and sit down on the floor over there—just prop yourself against those file cabinets.”

  Crane sputtered a bit more, but did as I said. His lumbering body didn’t go down to the floor easily or lightly. A pained or irritated grunt escaped him as he hit the floor.

  “All right. Now imagine that I am the fellow who coshed Vance. What do I do then? You see, I’ve already coshed Greer—that’s how he got that wound on the back of his head, not by hitting his head on the mantelpiece after he’d been shot. It would have been easy to have rubbed the blood on the mantelpiece afterwards.

  “So there you are. Vance is sitting up against one wall, Greer is propped against the wall of the fireplace. Both are unconscious. So what does the real assassin do?”

  I bent down to where Crane was sitting. I picked up his hand, which was holding the gun. I placed my hand over his own—it now covered the entire back of his hand. I pulled the trigger, using Crane’s own finger.

  “That’s it.”

  I got up a bit stiffly myself. My knees aren�
��t what they used to be.

  Crane was looking down at himself—at his hand, at his gun, and perhaps, in his mind’s eye, at the collapse of his case.

  He got up explosively, quicker than I thought possible for so stocky a man. “Goddammit, Scintilla! You’re just too clever for your own good! Who’s going to believe that? This isn’t some Sherlock Holmes story, man! It just won’t fly.”

  But he didn’t sound very sure of himself.

  “But it might fly as a case of ‘reasonable doubt,’ don’t you think?”

  He glared at me for an instant, then threw his gun on his desk. “Maybe,” is all he could bring himself to say. For a moment he kept his back to me; then he wheeled around and said:

  “So who is the gunman, Scintilla? You got him up your sleeve, too?”

  “No,” I said. “I have some ideas on that, but nothing definite to go on. Frankly, this murder case is only part of a bigger picture—there’s other things I have to do. But you might query Greer’s neighbors to see if they saw some other man fleeing from the place about the time of the murder. And while you’re at it”—I couldn’t resist this—“you’d better ask which one of them called the police.

  “I think you’ll find that none of them did.”

  With that, I left him.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Scintilla!” Vance burst out when he saw me coming toward his cell. “What are you doing here? Did you find out something about Elena Cavalieri?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “But I may be on to something else.” I looked him in the face. “Do you happen to know the last name of your wife’s maid—the maid she had before she married you?”

  “Katharine’s maid?” he exploded. “How on earth should I know anything about her maid? And who cares about her maid anyway?”

  “Vance, you little fool.” I wanted to throttle him just then. “That maid was the one who tipped your wife off to Dr. Grabhorn.”

  Vance was thunderstruck. It actually shut him up for several moments.

  “Her maid.... Her maid!” The thing seemed beyond his comprehension. “What on earth...? What’s going on, Scintilla?”

  “I don’t know—yet. Maybe it was dumb luck—although I very much doubt it.”

  “You think”—Vance was all eagerness again, scarcely realizing that he himself was still under indictment for murder—“you think that this maid and Grabhorn were in cahoots, or something?”

  “The maid, Grabhorn, Sanderson—maybe all of them are in it together. With the...er, hefty fees that Sanderson was charging for his ‘services,’ he could afford to hire a whole army of underlings, sidekicks, and drudges of various sorts.”

  “I knew it, Scintilla! I knew it! I knew there was something funny about this whole business.... Forget about this maid: you have to go back to New York and take my wife away from this Greenway fellow....”

  I was having trouble following his train of thought. “Vance, what are you talking about? I’m not taking anybody away from anyone. We’re not at that stage yet, and may never be. One thing at a time....”

  “Goddammit, Scintilla,” Vance roared, almost dancing with rage, “don’t you see that I’m right in everything I’ve said? What’s the—”

  “No!” I shot back, banging the bars of his cell in my own fury.

  That brought both of us up short. We both took some deep breaths.

  “Vance,” I said, as quietly as I could, “get a grip on yourself. I know this situation has been difficult for you, but you have to stay calm. Running ahead of yourself and flying off the handle isn’t going to get you anywhere.

  “You don’t seem to grasp that there are two separate phases of this whole matter. There’s all the stuff leading up to your wife’s going to the Removal Company, and then there’s the stuff that may or may not have happened afterward. The two things may or may not have anything to do with each other.

  “Don’t you get it?” I said impatiently. “No matter what kind of system Sanderson had to get his ‘clients’—no matter how many maids or psycho-analysts or whoever he had or has in his pay—his whole operation may still be on the up-and-up...he naturally has to act covertly, given what he’s trying to do.

  “Right now we’re on the track of his channel of communication. Beyond that, we don’t have anything. We have no suggestion that he’s not what he says he is—an assister in suicide—and on top of that, I’ve found no evidence that this Elena Cavalieri woman is not who she says she is.

  “Arthur,” I said, gently, “you still need to face the possibility—or even the probability—that your wife is dead.”

  Vance’s face twisted up in a grimace of pain and grief. I was about as sorry for him as I had ever been. It’s been a long time since I loved a woman, but I still knew how it felt.

  But I’ll say this for Arthur Vance: he wasn’t a quitter. After a few moments he became galvanized again, spinning around to face me.

  “But what about Grabhorn’s murder, Scintilla? What about that?”

  “What about it? I’m convinced now that you didn’t do it”—that made him jolt backward in surprise—“but we don’t know where it fits in yet. We don’t have much to go on as far as that’s concerned, so I’m not going to pursue it for a while.”

  “But...but what’s going to happen to me?” Vance said worriedly. “Are they going to...am I going to be put on trial? God, that would be awful to my family....”

  “Rest easy, Vance. I talked with Detective Crane; I think he sees things a little differently now. You’re not in the clear yet, but I’m confident the charges against you will be dropped eventually. At least you may now be able to get out on bail.”

  “You can count on that,” Vance said with a peculiar grimness. I wasn’t sure what he meant.

  “Look, Vance, that’s not the point right now. Let’s get back to this maid. It’s important. If you don’t remember her full name, do you know anyone who does? Your mother?”

  “No,” Vance said ruminatively, “I don’t think so.... Your only chance may be with Mrs. Hawley—you know, Katharine’s mother. I’m sure she knows!”

  “Yes,” I said, “that seems likely. But I’m not acquainted with her. Do you think your mother can be prevailed upon to make the inquiry?”

  “Of course,” Vance said. We could have been talking about setting up a bridge game. “She’ll be happy to. And, Scintilla, you were planning to stay with us while you’re here, weren’t you?”

  “I hadn’t expected it, but that’s nice of you.”

  We shook hands and I left.

  * * * *

  From Mrs. Hawley, via Mrs. Vance, I found that the elusive maid was one María Rivera. That was not helpful. I didn’t even want to contemplate how many María Riveras there were in southern California.

  Well, there was nothing to do but begin the hunt. I had had Mrs. Vance ask where María had come from, and Mrs. Hawley gave the expected answer—some employment agency for domestic servants, she couldn’t remember which. I pulled out the Los Angeles yellow pages, and found to my astonishment that there were as many as seven such establishments, with perhaps several others who didn’t specialize in domestics but who might have handled them. I knew that my hunt would be long and tedious. At least Mrs. Vance was not a stickler about how much gasoline or tire rubber I used up.

  And I used up quite a bit of it. The first four employment agencies were eliminated, although at considerable effort. One of them had three different María Riveras, but none of them seemed to be the woman I was after. I began to wonder whether the maid had used a fictitious name, but dismissed the thought as unlikely: it would have caused her too many complications. Grabhorn/Greer had found that out when he did his name-switching act.

  The fifth place rung the bell. This establishment prided itself on catering to the refined needs of the upper classes. María Rivera had registered with the agency as far back as 1923, having come up from Mexico. At that time she had given her age as eighteen. She had been taken on, so I was told b
y the agency’s manager, because she herself was unusual for foreign domestics: spoke English perfectly, although with an accent, and had a thorough knowledge of clothing, cosmetics, even hairdressing—a perfect maid for the lady who wished to look her best. María’s employment record was as follows:

  September 1923–May 1925: Miss Harriet Lindsay, 9769 South Van Ness Avenue, Inglewood.

  June 1925–February 1927: Mrs. Edgar Grantham, 6214 San Vicente Boulevard, Santa Monica.

  March 1927–December 1929: Miss Katharine Hawley, 416 Huntington Drive, San Marino.

  January 1930–September 1931: Miss Priscilla James, 1324 North Mar Vista Avenue, Pasadena.

  November 1931–November 1932: Mrs. Henry Gold, 2921 East Slauson Avenue, Huntington Park.

  It was an impressive list, judging by the addresses alone. María had not come cheap, evidently. But a few things puzzled me. I turned to the manager—a Mr. John Coryell—and said:

  “It seems to me that she had a lot of different positions—or rather, positions at a lot of different households. Scarcely more than a year at some places. Isn’t that a bit odd?”

  Coryell was suave and ingratiating. “Well, Mr. Scintilla, one can never tell about the predilections of these upper-class ladies. The matter of a personal maid is a very sensitive one, as you can imagine. In no case was María dismissed for cause, and none of these ladies had anything but the highest praise for her work. As you can see, she was hired almost immediately to her next position after she had left the previous one. She was much in demand.”

  I let that go; I didn’t know much about maids, or the women who used them.

  “Where is María now?” I asked. “What happened to her when she left this stint last November?”

  Coryell winced at the word “stint”—perhaps it was a little too vulgar for him—but was otherwise unflappable. “Oh, María said she had to return to her family in Mexico. I was sorry to lose her....”