Under the tempest of surprised exclamations that followed Powers’ statement Stern heard a softly expelled sigh like a small wind in the room. He did not look in the direction of the sound but he shifted slightly in his chair, and his right hand disappeared in the cushions at his side. When the commotion had quieted Stern asked:
“So you know who the murderer is, Powers?”
“Perhaps I should not have said murderer, sir. But I did know that Mr. Murdock had employed an—er—confidential agent, shall we say, to keep him informed of what took place in the union.”
“How did you know that?”
“Mr. Murdock mentioned it to Miss Cosimo once in my presence—and on one occasion I saw the man talking to Mr. Murdock in the library.”
“Did you know the man’s name?”
Powers shook his head.
“Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Only in a very general way, sir. If you will remember, sir, I have already stated that I did not see his face.”
McArthur snapped, “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“I did tell you part of it,” said Powers simply. “At that time I did not understand the nature or extent of this man’s activities and felt that I was acting in my employer’s best interests in not mentioning them.”
Sheriff Christy, from his seat on the window ledge, said, “Holy cats,” and gave Powers a look of astonishment mingled with respect.
Stern continued his questioning: “Have you seen this man since?”
“I believe so, sir. I believe he was the man I saw looking in the basement window of Miss Cosimo’s house last night.”
“Wait a minute.” Captain Nicholson sat up tensely. “You said you saw this man squatting down on the sidewalk in front of the house?”
“That’s right, sir,” said Powers. “He was bending over with his back to me, and I naturally assumed that he was trying to see into the lighted basement windows.”
“How long was he there?” The questioner was still Nicholson. “About five minutes, to the best of my judgment. Then he rose and walked away in the opposite direction from where I was standing.”
Nicholson frowned and passed his hand over his face. Then he nodded slowly. “Well I’ll be damned,” he muttered, half to himself. “I’m a hell of a cop.”
Stern’s eyes twinkled. “Exactly,” he said, “and I’m a hell of a detective. I gave the murderer his opportunity and practically watched him taking advantage of it. But for all his cleverness, the fact that Powers saw him squatting there on the sidewalk and was able to describe him later gave him dead away. Powers said he was tall and——”
A sudden commotion caused Stern to pause and look up. Loud shouts and bangings came from the floor above, and an apparition came rushing down the stairs and into the room, neatly eluded the astonished trooper at the door, and shook a hairy fist six inches from Stern’s nose. “You dirty, double-crossing rat,” it shouted. “Try to put one over on me, will you?”
“Jackson,” said Stern. “How the hell did you get out?”
Jackson, a terrifying figure in pants and a bathrobe that gaped open to reveal his hairy chest and an array of bandages, threw back his head and laughed. “I locked the flatfoot in. What the hell are you trying to do, sidetrack me so you can find an out for this murdering stool?”
He swung around toward the seated longshoremen. Whitey Gordon and Sangster started forward, but Stern snapped sharply, “Sit still, all of you. Trooper, get this damn fool out of here and take him back to bed before he murders somebody.”
“Keep your hands off me, copper,” warned Jackson as the trooper advanced.
“Jack, you idiot,” began Stern and then cried, too late, “Look out behind you. He’s got your gun.”
The trooper clapped his hand to the leather holster at his side and whirled, but the tall man was already standing in the doorway, the heavy automatic in his hand.
Jackson said in a bewildered voice. “What the hell——”
“Stay still, all of you,” the tall man snarled, “or there’ll be a mess on the carpet. I’ve taken all I can stand. I’m going out of here and I’ll keep going, and you won’t catch me, you dumb coppers, but there’s one little item I gotta attend to first.” His beady eyes centered on Stern, and his lips drew back in a grin of pure hate. “You’ve played your last cat-and-mouse game, you dirty little kike,” he said, raising the gun.
Stern pulled the trigger of the gun he had been nursing in the cushions of the big chair next his hip. The bullet caught the murderer just above the belt buckle, and the gun in his hand exploded with a terrific crash, the heavy slug knocking plaster off the ceiling. His face contorted into a mask of agony, and he slumped slowly forward to writhe on the living-room rug, shot through the stomach. In the moment of comparative silence that followed the thunder of the shots Stern said, “All through this case I’ve been waiting for somebody to call me that.”
“Good God!” said Jackson. “You shot the wrong man.”
4. Postscript
Back in bed, under Maeve’s reproachful eye, Jackson was mournfully contrite. “I’m sorry,” he said for the tenth time, “but I just had to find out what this little shyster had up his sleeve.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t get shot again,” said Maeve. Her tone was unrelenting, but her fingers brushed his shoulder momentarily, and he reached up and caught them in his good hand.
Stern, leaning over the foot of the bed, said dryly, “I hope you’re satisfied. You damn near spoiled the show.”
“You won’t ever tell Whitey, will you?” begged Jackson. “He’d never get over my suspecting him of being a stool.”
“I won’t tell him,” assured Stern.
“Won’t he guess?” asked Maeve.
Stern grinned. “He’ll never guess this big lug is that dumb.”
“But look,” said Jackson desperately. “That clock in Mayme’s car—I thought he set it ahead, and even if he didn’t he knew it was fast and didn’t say anything. I’d been suspicious ever since I saw him in Murdock’s office the morning of the accident, and it looked like he needed an alibi. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was. And when that slug banged into my shoulder tonight and I turned around and saw him with a smoking gun in his hand it never occurred to me that he had shot out the window instead of at me. I had just one thought—to get my hands on his throat. Man, it was lucky I passed out when I did. One thing I still can’t understand is where Whitey got his hands on a gun.”
“I can tell you that—I got it for him. I didn’t think you’d be in any real danger out here, but if you were Whitey was the best bodyguard I could think of.” Stern left the foot of the bed and sat down in a chair by the window. He was very tired, and somewhere in the back of his mind was the numbing thought that he had probably killed a man. He wondered if he would see the man before him next time he shot at the target in the range at headquarters.
Dr. Stevenson came briskly into the room, followed by Whitey Gordon. “Well, everything’s cleaned up, and everybody’s gone,” said the doctor. He sounded a little regretful, as though he had enjoyed the excitement.
“How’s the patient?”
“What patient?” said Jackson. “I’ve had worse knocks than this on the docks and worked the day out.”
“Will you stop bragging?” said Maeve.
Stern looked up. “Is he dead, Doctor?” he asked softly. He already knew the answer.
The doctor nodded. “Internal hemorrhage. If it hadn’t been for that we might have saved him for the state.”
“Did he recover consciousness at all?”
“Just for a minute or two. Captain Nicholson was there and got a confession, but there wasn’t time to get it signed.”
The doctor sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at Stern speculatively. “I followed the case in the papers,” he said after a moment of silence, “and I had sense enough to know the murders were linked together but I don’t see how you sing
led him out from the other suspects. I think you owe us a resume.” Whitey said: “I had a hunch it was him all the time. It didn’t surprise me none. But how the hell did he turn on that gas?”
“Won’t it wait till morning, Nunky?” said Maeve. “Joey’s tired.”
Stern gave her a grateful smile. “I am tired,” he said, “but I’d rather get the post-mortems over with.” He turned to Dr. Stevenson.
“We may as well take it from the beginning,” he said. “Murdock had a labor spy planted in the union whose job was to get Jackson out and Weller and his crowd back in. The spy stole Jackson’s longshore hook, filed it, and planned to use it to frame Jackson as soon as the strike broke. Something happened to change his plans the night of the union meeting—either Riorden saw him plant that spy report and tried to blackmail him, or he was afraid Riorden had seen him and couldn’t take a chance. Anyway, he got Riorden in that dark street behind the parked truck and killed him and planted the hook and clothes in garbage cans where he was sure the police would find them there. Then he went home and framed his alibi by reaching in through his landlady’s window and turning her clock back. Then he rang the bell and established the time by knocking on his landlady’s door. Later he came back downstairs, went outside again, and reset the clock. It was a simple alibi but it was a tough one to break because the landlady didn’t suspect anything and was absolutely honest in her conviction that he was in the house at ten minutes past twelve.
“The next day the spy went to work as usual, but he managed to slip off the dock and get across the river to Murdock’s. He had probably done this before when he wanted to report to Murdock without being suspected. Again, I doubt that murder was planned; what probably happened was that there was a quarrel and the spy became frightened that Murdock would turn him in—so he eliminated Murdock.
“That left him in the clear, except for Nellie Cosimo. Nellie knew who the spy was—was pretty friendly with him evidently, since he used her basement as a workshop. For a day or two he trusted Nellie not to give him away—and then the fear maggots in his brain became too strong, and he planned one more murder that would eliminate the last danger and really put him in the clear.
“This time his victim was suspicious and on her guard, and the police were watching, so he had to plan something really good and he did. He evolved a method of murder that was all but perfect.”
Whitey interrupted. “I may be dumb,” he said, “but I still don’t see how that gas was turned off and on again while we were in the house.”
“I’m surprised at you, young man,” said Dr. Stevenson. “You really should develop your powers of observation.”
“Don’t tell me you know how it was done, Nunky,” exclaimed Maeve.
“Certainly. Certainly, I do. I knew how it was done the moment I heard the butler’s story.”
“You mean about his seeing someone looking in the basement window?”
Dr. Stevenson nodded. “It was obvious what that man was doing. He was tampering with the gas connection.” He looked at Stern. “I’m right, Joey, am I not?”
“You are, Doctor,” said Stern, “and I must admit there’s nothing wrong with your powers of observation. The average person walks over those little squares in the sidewalk a dozen times a day without noticing them or connecting them with anything in particular. I had to step on the one in front of Nellie Cosimo’s house and realize it was loose before I tumbled to the significance of that kneeling figure Powers told us about.”
“You mean those little square plates with a G on them?” said Whitey, his eyes wide with sudden realization. “Gee, I never thought of the gas being turned off from there. I thought you had to have a special kind of wrench——”
Stern smiled. “You do, Whitey. Remember the metal tubing we saw in Cosimo’s basement—that was what it was used for, and I, for one, was an idiot not to tumble sooner than I did. You see, those sidewalk gas outlets are about three feet deep with a square iron nut at the bottom. You have to have something that will fit over that nut with a handle long enough to reach. Our clever stool pigeon made himself such a tool out of that metal piping. He carried it under his coat that night and after he had turned the gas off with it and then back on again he probably threw it in the river.”
“But how did he know the gas would be on?” asked Maeve.
“He knew a lot about Nellie and her habits. He knew she had a cold and a deathly fear of drafts. He knew the cough mixture she was taking was a mild opiate. He could see the flicker of the gas radiator against her curtains after her light was out. All he had to do was wait until he was fairly sure she was asleep and then manipulate the flow of gas as he did. He had a much greater difficulty to overcome, but that was solved very nicely for him when I sent away the detective who was guarding the front of the house. That’s why I feel partially responsible for that woman’s death.”
Maeve leaned over and patted his knee. “You mustn’t feel like that, Joey dear,” she consoled. “You couldn’t know.”
Jackson, who had been listening quietly, asked, “But why did he try to shoot me? And how did he know I was out here to begin with?”
“You stuck your neck out by telling everyone who would listen that you knew who the murderer was.” Stern grinned ruefully. “As for his knowing where you were, I spread the word on that myself.”
“You mean—you——“ gasped Maeve.
Stern nodded shamefacedly. “I used Jackson as a decoy. I had to get the murderer out in the open. But I didn’t think he would strike so soon and I had one of Nicholson’s men as a special guard on him.”
“So he gave the cop the slip,” said Jackson.
“Going and coming,” said Stern. “He had sense enough to figure the ferries would be guarded on the way back, so he hopped a truck and rode in with a load of potatoes. He got rid of his gun on the way.”
“All of this still doesn’t explain how you spotted the right man,” said Dr. Stevenson testily. “Or were you just bluffing downstairs?”
“I wasn’t bluffing,” said Stern. “I knew there was only one person it could be, because only one possible person fitted Powers’ description.”
“Nonsense,” blustered the doctor, “there were several tall suspects, and anyway Powers’ description was too vague.”
“Powers described a tall, active man,” said Stern patiently. “Of course Powers was himself a suspect and might have told his story of the Peeping Tom just to throw us of! the track but Powers didn’t fit into the stool-pigeon theory, and there was no other motive connecting him with the murders, so I believed he was telling the truth and that he had actually seen the murderer at work.
“His story eliminated Jackson and Whitey, who were with me at the time, and Burke, who was in jail. Colletti was too small and Melius too fat and slow-moving. Powers described the man’s face as a white blur, so it couldn’t have been the Negro, Sangster. That left only one person—Painter—but then I had settled on Painter some time before through a similar process of elimination. Only the fellow was too clever, and I didn’t have any real proof.”
“Doc Painter.” Jackson spoke the name almost sadly. “I actually accused him of being a stool pigeon once but I didn’t really suspect him.” He looked at Whitey out of the corner of his eye. “Boy, what an idiot I was,” he said.
“You’re just naturally too trusting,” said Whitey. “If you was a mug like me you just wouldn’t trust anybody. Why I even suspected you for a while, Jack.”
“Oh, Whitey,” said Maeve. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“Not me,” said Whitey stolidly. “A stool pigeon’s like the guy who steals your dame—he’s usually the last one you’d suspect.”
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Death on the Waterfront Page 29