“We’ll find some way of telling, all right,” Sellers said. “What about this plastic dish?”
“I’ve seen one just like that,” she said.
“Where?”
“Over in my studio. I have several of them over there. I use them to keep my paintbrushes in.”
“All right,” Sellers said. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. You were over in your studio yesterday afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“What time did you go over there?”
“I don’t know exactly what time it was. I would say it was about…oh, say…well, perhaps half-past three in the afternoon.”
“And you were alone when you went in?”
“Yes, I was alone when I went in, but I wasn’t alone…that is, someone else was there.”
“Who?” Sellers asked.
“My model.”
“Who’s that?”
“Sylvia Hadley.”
“How did she get in?”
“She has a key.”
“You have extra keys for your studio?”
“Yes, of course. I use models from time to time and I can’t have models sitting around in the lobby of the apartment house in case I’m late. When I’m using a model on a picture, I give her the key and let her come in and sit down. She returns the key when she finishes working as a model.”
“So Sylvia Hadley had a key?”
“Yes.”
“Was Sylvia there when you got in yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know how long she had been there?”
“She said just a few minutes.”
“You don’t know how long?”
“No.”
“Now then,” Sellers said, turning to me, “ you were at that studio yesterday afternoon?”
“Right.”
“What time?”
“A little after four-thirty…say, four-forty on a guess.”
“How long did you stay?”
“Fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“Would you say you were away at four-fifty-five, or by five o’clock?”
I said, “Make it five-fifteen and you can be sure of it.”
“When was the last time anybody saw Dean Crockett alive?” Sellers asked.
“I know he was alive shortly before sometime between four and five-thirty,” Melvin Olney said, “but that’s as close as I can fix the time.”
“How do you know he was alive at that time?”
“Because I saw him. That’s when he gave me the records that Denton is transcribing.”
“Where was he?”
“Right here in the office.”
“How about the door to that closet?”
“It was open.”
“How about the door from the closet to the inner study?”
Olney pursed his lips and thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to tell you,” he said, “not for sure. I think it was…no. I’m not going to make any guesses.”
“When did Crockett go back into that apartment?”
“I don’t know. It was shortly before I left.”
“When did you leave?”
“I had an appointment at five-forty-five. I’m sorry I can’t fix the time element any better than that, but I was away from here by five-forty because I was on time for my appointment.”
“Where?”
“Downstairs.”
“With who?”
Olney pursed his lips and said, “With whom?”
“With who?” Sellers asked. “Hell, you know who you had the appointment with.”
“It was a young lady.”
“All right. There are half a million young ladies floating around here. What’s her name?”
“She’s a newspaper reporter.”
“What’s her name?”
Olney took a deep breath, and said, “I think perhaps you misunderstand the situation. I had an appointment with her but she didn’t keep it. I talked with a man instead.”
“What man?”
“Jack Spencer. He’s a sports writer for the Sun-Telegram.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
“Because I…I wanted to be absolutely fair. I hadn’t expected to see Mr. Spencer, but he was waiting for me in the lobby and told me that he’d been sent to cover the story in place of the young woman writer that I had expected to meet.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I went out with Spencer and we were out until…oh, I guess ten-thirty, and then he left.”
“You can account for your time from five-forty-five until tenthirty?”
“Certainly.”
“After ten-thirty, what?”
“I went home.”
“Directly home?”
“No, not directly.”
“You’re being rather cagey,” Sellers said.
Olney shrugged his shoulders.
Sellers turned to Denton. “How about you? Where were you yesterday?”
“I wasn’t feeling well. I kept quiet all afternoon and evening.”
“What do you mean by keeping quiet?”
“I stayed in my apartment and caught up on some reading.”
“In your apartment all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Who else was around yesterday afternoon?” Sellers asked.
“Lionel Palmer,” Olney said.
“Who’s he?”
“He’s the photographer who has charge of taking all of the pictures on Mr. Crockett’s expeditions.”
“Where do I find him?”
“He has a photographic studio and darkroom in one of the loft buildings.”
“Whereabout?”
“At 92 East Rush—Rush is a short street that is only a couple of blocks long. It turns off—”
“I know the place,” Sellers said. “What was he doing here?”
“He came up to discuss some photographs with Mr. Crockett.”
“What sort of photographs?”
“I believe,” Olney said, “that you better get the story of that from Lionel Palmer himself. As I understood it, Mr. Lam had asked for or had been given some photographs. Lionel wanted to be sure it was all right to cooperate with Mr. Lam.”
“You mean Donald Lam, this guy here?”
Olney nodded.
“What did he want the pictures for?”
“I believe it was so he could get a clue as to who had stolen the blowgun and the jade statue. You had better ask Mr. Lam. All I know I got secondhand from Lionel Palmer.”
Sellers looked at me, “You sure as hell get around,” he said.
I said nothing.
“What did Crockett tell Palmer?” Sellers asked Olney.
“All I know is that I heard Lionel Palmer ask Mr. Crockett about furnishing some prints of pictures to Mr. Lam.”
“And what did Crockett say?”
“Crockett laughed and told him not to be a damn fool, that Lam was his detective and was entitled to any cooperation he wanted.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Mr. Palmer wanted to know just what Lam was doing, and Mr. Crockett explained that Lam had been hired by him to find out who had stolen a blowgun and a carved jade idol which had disappeared from the penthouse here the night before, during a party.”
“And what was said next?”
“Lionel seemed upset. He grabbed Mr. Crockett by the coat lapel and said, ‘Now, look here, Mr. Crockett, I want to know, am I trusted or am I not? If I’m under suspicion and you hired detectives to start checking up on me, I want to know it.’”
“Then what?” Sellers asked.
“Crockett doesn’t like to be touched—I mean, he didn’t like to be touched. It’s hard to think of his being dead.”
“Never mind all the verbs and syntax and grammar and what the hell,” Sellers said. “We’re after facts. What I want to know is what Crockett did.”
“He put his hand in the middle of Lionel’s chest and pushed h
im back.”
“Hard?” Sellers asked.
“Pretty hard.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Damn you! Don’t ever grab hold of my coat. Don’t ever start pulling and hauling at me. Don’t touch me. I hate to be touched. You know that.’ ”
“Then what?”
“Then he turned to me and told me once more that he wanted me to be sure to get hold of Wilbur Denton and have him here ready to start transcribing these records early in the morning, and…well, he sort of ignored Palmer.”
“What did Palmer do?”
“He…well, he went into the other room.”
“How did he act? Sullen? Angry?”
“Angry and sullen, I guess. I don’t know. I never have been able to figure Lionel too well. He’s rather emotional, and I can’t tell just how he does feel.”
“But he went out before you left?”
“No. He went into the transcribing office. He was there when I left—but Mr. Crockett had gone back to his own study and closed the door.”
“You went out by five-forty-five?”
“Shortly before. I was down in the lobby by five-forty, perhaps a couple of minutes before that…but Mr. Crockett was back in his study before that. Perhaps you’d better let me explain. I know approximately when I came and when I left. I was here over an hour in all, but I can’t reconstruct the event sequence to help you very much on the time element. I was working on a lot of things, making a lot of calls while I was waiting for Mr. Crockett to come out of his study. I can’t recall the exact time everything happened, but I know it was all between four and five-thirty.”
Sellers whirled to Mrs. Crockett. “How long did you remain in your studio?” he asked. “Let’s say Donald Lam left around five o’clock. How long did you stay there after he left?”
“Perhaps another hour.”
“Then you went out?”
“Yes.”
“The model with you?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you after that?”
“I came up here.”
“Have dinner here?”
“Yes.”
“Who else was here?”
“No one. I was here alone…that is, my husband was in the penthouse here but he was closeted in his private apartment. No one ever disturbs him in there.”
“But there was an extra key to those doors? You could get in there if you had to?”
“Yes. I opened the doors this morning.”
“You knew there was an emergency key?”
“Naturally.”
“You knew where it was kept?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the safe.”
“Who had the combination to that safe?”
“My husband and myself.”
“No one else?”
“As far as I know, no one else.”
“And you were here alone?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband didn’t open the door and come out?”
“No.”
“How long were you here?”
“All evening.”
“What did you do?”
“I watched television for a while, then I read and then went to bed.”
“You and your husband have the same bedroom?”
“Yes. There’s one bedroom with twin beds.”
“You don’t occupy the same bed?”
“No.”
“How about the beds? Were they made up this morning?”
“Certainly.”
“Who makes them up?”
“We have a maid service by the day.”
“You didn’t have any company last night?”
“No.”
“You were here all alone?”
“Yes.”
Sellers thought things over, said, “Okay. I guess we’ll talk with this Lionel Palmer…I don’t suppose by any chance he was doing any modeling for you, was he?”
“No.”
“You know him?”
“Of course.”
“He’s taken photographs of you?”
“Certainly. Hundreds of them.”
“But he didn’t have any key to your studio over there?”
She started to answer, then checked herself.
Sellers’ eyes snapped to attention. “He had a key?”
“He has one at the moment, yes.”
“Did he have one yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was having him photograph some of my paintings.”
“What’s the idea?”
“You can’t carry paintings around with you,” she said. “I have him make photographic copies of my paintings on four-by-five colored film. Then, when I want to show someone my paintings without going to the bother of going over to the studio and getting the canvases out, I simply take this collection of four-by-five colored transparencies and I can discuss the pictures.”
“How many photographs has he made?”
“I’ve painted something over two dozen pictures. He has colored films of all those. Those photos were made over a period of time. There were two new pictures he hadn’t photographed as yet and I wanted those photographed. I…I presume he made the photographs sometime yesterday. That’s when I told him to make them.”
“What time?”
“I didn’t give him any time. I saw him the night of the party and gave him the key to my study and told him to go in there whenever it was convenient to photograph the pictures, but I told him to phone to be certain I wasn’t working, because if I was, I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
“You described the paintings you wanted photographed to him?”
“Yes. They were both on easels.”
“You don’t know whether he went over and photographed the paintings or not?”
“No.”
“Well, we’re getting around,” Sellers said. “This is just a preliminary talk. You people are going to be interrogated in more detail later.”
Denton cleared his throat and said, “If you are interested in tracing all the keys to Mrs. Crockett’s studio, I have extra keys in my desk.”
“You have what?”
“Extra keys.”
Mrs. Crockett hastened to explain. “Whenever I want some model to go in there, in case it is not convenient for me to meet her and give her a key before she arrives, I instruct her to come up here to get a key. Then I’ll telephone Mr. Denton and tell him to give the girl a key.”
“How many keys have you got?” Sellers asked Denton.
“Two.”
“Where are they?”
“In my desk drawer.”
“Take a look,” Sellers said.
Denton went over to the desk drawer, said, “I keep them in this little stamp box.”
He opened the drawer, then opened the box and stood frowning down at it.
“Only one key here,” Sellers said.
“Yes,” Denton admitted.
“There should be two?”
“There were two the last time I looked.”
“When was that?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“And there should be two?”
“I would say yes.”
“Well, then, go ahead and say it.”
“Yes.”
“You keep this desk locked?” Sellers asked.
“No.”
“Well, what do you know!” Sellers said. “One key missing. You’re sure both of them were here a couple of days ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“ You didn’t give one to anyone?”
“No, sir.”
“Okay,” Sellers said. “There’s no question but what Crockett was killed by somebody that shot a dart into his chest from that studio apartment over there across the light well. Probably the blowgun was fired through the bathroom window.”
He turned to Inspector Giddings and said, “Get a bunch of men, Inspector. S
tart making inquiries of all persons who have apartments here in the place. See if anyone noticed a blowgun pointing out of the bathroom window. If so, find out what time it was and see if they had any opportunity to see the face of the person using the blowgun.
“That’s all for now. I’m not going to detain you any longer at this time. Now, I don’t want anybody to go near that door to the office there. In fact, you folks had all better get back in the other room. We’re going to have officers coming and going in here and there’ll be some newspapermen on the job any minute now. You folks can do what you please about talking to the newspaper people. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing the police want to hush up about this.”
“I am free to tell them about the missing key?” Denton asked.
“You’re free to tell anybody anything you damn please,” Sellers said. “Now, you can go on about your business. We’re going to go to work.”
Chapter Thirteen
I walked into the Cool & Lam offices, and Lionel Palmer jumped up from a seat back of the filing case where he had evidently been talking with Eva Ennis. Her face was slightly flushed and she was smiling in that peculiarly self-conscious but tolerant way a girl has when somebody has been handing her a pretty good line.
Palmer came striding across the office toward me.
“Hello, Palmer,” I said.
“What the hell!” he stormed at me. “What was the idea of putting me on the spot with Dean Crockett?”
“Did I put you on a spot?”
“You know damn well you did. As soon as you were hired to get those stolen articles back, you made a beeline for my shop. That makes it look as if you felt I’d been mixed up in the theft. Crockett thinks so, and Olney thinks so. You know, I should smack you right in the kisser and teach you a lesson.”
I took out my cigarette case, opened it, extended it to him. “Cigarette?”I asked.
“To hell with you,” he said.
I took a cigarette, put it in my mouth, lit a match, and said, “What difference does it make whether I wanted to start out by looking at pictures or by looking at people?”
I saw that Eva Ennis had been edging up, looking at Lionel Palmer with the admiration which a girl of a certain type shows for a man who is talking big.
“Hell,” he said, “you pumped me for all the dope on my friends. You’ve caused me so much trouble I think I’ll just take it out of your hide in installments, and—”
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