Sleep Long, My Love

by Hillary Waugh

  “Something was written on the sheet above this blank sheet. There’re faint indentations on it.”

  “Nothing legible. I looked.”

  “Not yet, anyway.” Fellows opened the door to the attic stairs beside the tiny table, found the wall switch, and climbed the steps slowly. Wilks stayed behind and waited while the chief had a look around and came down again shaking his head. “A year’s growth of dust on the floors. They never went up there.”

  “Don’t you trust me, Fred? I looked up there this morning.”

  “I trust you, Sid, I’m just not the executive type. I have to try everything myself.” He led the way past the fireplace, swept clean of ashes, and he paused to look at the knife and saw still lying on the hearth where Wilks had left them. They passed into the kitchen again, having made a complete circuit and then they went down to the cellar.

  The sheet that had covered the trunk and upon which the clothes had been laid was gone and the clothes themselves were neatly piled on top of the old washing machine. The trunk stood bare and open, dragged from its spot near the wall onto the bare floor by the furnace. Fellows looked it over carefully without touching it. The lid lay back and there was nothing inside it except grains of powder in the crevices. “The woman’s trunk and the woman’s suitcases, but nothing that belongs to the man.” He lifted the lid and let it fall shut, then bent and studied the old yellow initials that adorned it.

  “Tell you anything, Fred?”

  “Not much. The trunk belongs to the dead girl and she wasn’t married. I have to guess the man was.”

  “How do you know she wasn’t married?”

  “Stands to reason. These are old initials. The suitcase initials are new and they’re the same. No, Sid, the girl was single and the man was married. I’d put a fair-size wager on that.”

  “Not with me you won’t.”

  Fellows stared down at the trunk in the dim light of the naked bulb by the furnace. “But who is she and where does she come from? That’s the question.” Then, as if an idea had struck him, he lifted the trunk by one handle and turned it over. There, on the bottom, was a brand-new express label on which was printed in ink, “Mrs. John Campbell, 2 Highland Road, Stockford, Conn.” Wilks said, “Hey, boy,” and Fellows said, “Just happened to remember nobody looked at the bottom when the body was in it. Well, the trunk was shipped. That makes it easier.”

  Wilks said, “I’ll check the stationmaster first thing in the morning. If we can find out who the girl is, it shouldn’t be hard to find the man.”

  “You find out what date the trunk was shipped too, Sid. And see if anybody remembers it. I don’t guess our station would handle too many trunks.”

  They left the trunk on its back and climbed the stairs again. Wilks said, “Anything else, Fred?”

  Fellows nodded. He went through the living room to the telephone table and paused again at the pad. The indentations weren’t legible, but he tore the blank sheet off all the same and held it to the light. “Your inventory turn up any candles in this house, Sid?”

  “Five stubs in a drawer in the kitchen. I know this place better than my own home.”

  “How about iodine?”

  “Medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”

  “Get a candle and the largest spoon you can find, Sid.” Fellows went for the iodine and brought it to the kitchen where Wilks was lighting a candle stub and sticking it to a plate. He had laid out a big cooking spoon and Fellows carefully poured the bottle’s contents into it. “Now if you’ll heat this over the candle, Sid. Not accepted laboratory technique, but we might get some results.” Wilks held the spoon over the flame and when the iodine began to warm, Fellows held the blank sheet of paper above it. He moved it back and forth over the purplish vapors for three or four minutes until it was thoroughly permeated and then laid it aside to cool. Wilks put the spoon down and watched with interest. “Where’d you get this trick, Fred?”

  “Criminology books.”

  As they watched, the paper slowly took on a faintly bluish cast and as the cooling progressed, the indentations turned a slightly darker blue. When the process was complete, the writing was clearly legible. It was in a feminine hand and said, “Jean Sherman, 402 Westville Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut.”

  “Voilà,” said Fellows. “The missing girl.”

  “Nice of her to leave her name and address.”

  “Right nice.” The chief folded the paper carefully and tucked it in the bulging wallet he took from his hip pocket.

  Wilks said, “I wonder if she knew what was going to happen to her.”

  “I don’t think she’d wait. More to the point, though, is what actually did happen.” The chief went to the phone and called Dr. MacFarlane.

  The doctor didn’t have much to report. “This isn’t easy,” he said. “I can’t tell you how she died yet. Some of the vital organs are missing, so I can’t rule out poison. It could be a blow on the head or strangulation, but I can’t tell that without seeing her head and neck.”

  “Was she pregnant, Jim?”

  “No. That much I have been able to make sure of. The girl wasn’t pregnant.”

  “When did she die?”

  MacFarlane was hard put. “I can’t pin that down too closely yet. She’d been in that trunk in below-freezing temperatures for some time and parts of the body were frozen. I’d say at least four days and no more than eight.”

  “Probably last weekend sometime?”

  “Between Wednesday and Sunday. I don’t want to say any more than that. I should be able to cut it closer tomorrow.”

  When Fellows hung up, he and Wilks turned out the lights, locked up the house again, and left, taking with them the two green initialed suitcases. A new policeman was on watch, pacing and stamping in the bitter cold. He had the six-to-eight shift, for Fellows was changing the lonely guard duty every two hours. The patrolman had seen no one and the reporter’s car was gone.

  The two detectives drove back to headquarters, and Fellows briefed the sergeant on the next day’s activities. “Get these suitcases open, Sid, and inventory their contents. And when that picture of Campbell comes in, show it to Watly. I’m sure it’s not the same Campbell, we wouldn’t be that lucky, but we’ve got to make it official.”

  “And I’ll keep the men on the grocery-store detail.”

  “Yeah. I want the boy who made the delivery. Of course, you know what to do about the trunk.”

  “I’ll set Ed on that.” Wilks got out his tobacco. “I suppose you’re going to Bridgeport?”

  Fellows sighed unhappily. “Somebody has to.”

  CHAPTER VII

  Friday, February 27

  Fred Fellows had a session with the newspaper reporters Friday morning before he left. He told them the victim had not been pregnant and that they hoped to identify her soon. They did not know anything about the man. Yes, he said, they were checking out some clues, but he refused to say what they were. As he told Wilks in his office after the interview, “I don’t want those guys muscling in and messing things up. Mention that trunk and they’d be quizzing the stationmaster before Ed Lewis could get his car started.”

  “You didn’t tell them we know who the girl is.”

  “They don’t get that information until after her nearest relatives. I’m not having them phone her parents until after I’ve talked to them. When I get back, we’ll see.”

  It was a sunny clear day and traffic was light on the Merritt Parkway that morning, but the drive to Bridgeport wasn’t a pleasant one for Fellows. He had delivered the news of death many times in his career as Chief of Police, but he had never been able to develop sufficient callousness to inure him to the pain such a duty inevitably brought. Much as he hated ringing strange doorbells, bearing ill news, however, it was a task he never assigned to anyone else. Perhaps it was because it did pain him more than others, or perhaps it was a natural reluctance to assign to another a task he hated himself, but as always the trip was a torment. It was more so
than usual this time, because he had not only to deliver the sad tidings to an innocent parent, but because he also had to question that parent afterwards to learn the identity of the man the girl had run off with. It was his private opinion that people in grief shouldn’t be subjected to questions but, in his professional capacity, he recognized the need for speed in gaining information, even at the cost of people’s feelings.

  The house at 402 Westville Street was a one-family dwelling much like all the others on the block. The color was different and there was a wall holding up the embankment of lawn, but the size and shape was the same, a small two-story house with six or seven rooms.

  He parked the black police station wagon in front of the walk and climbed the steps. Dressed in his leather jacket, mittens and cap, with no insignia showing, he could have been anything from a house painter to the gasman. The temperature was higher this morning, but still below freezing and Fellows dressed himself and his force for comfort rather than looks.

  He rang the bell and turned his back to the door, studying the neighborhood. It was a quiet street in a quiet suburb, inhabited by quiet people who led quiet lives. But one of those inhabitants had broken out of the bonds of conformity that the identical houses spelled, had, as one of his daughters put it at dinner, “transgressed,” and that one had lost her life.

  The door was opened by an attractive young brunette in her late twenties, a quite pretty girl, yet stamped with a wallflower look. Her manner was quiet and efficient and capable, but she had no flair, no spark to make her stand out in the crowd. She didn’t notice the police car out front or, if she did, she didn’t connect it with the visitor on her porch. She looked at Fellows with a slightly challenging, quizzical expression and said politely, “Yes?”

  Fellows sized her up with a trained glance that took in the cheap quality of her clothes, the lack of lipstick, the lack of a wedding ring. He said, “Is a Jean Sherman known here, miss?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, but was otherwise noncommittal.

  “I wonder if I could speak to someone close to her. Her father, perhaps.”

  “My father’s at work.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She’s been dead six years. What do you want?”

  “Are you her sister?”

  “Jean’s sister?” The girl smiled. “I don’t know what you’re selling, mister, but you’re doing it all wrong.” She observed the police car now, and her eyes darted back to his face. “Something’s happened. What is it?”

  Fellows said, “I’m sorry. This is something I can only discuss with the Sherman family.”

  Her brow clouded. “Well if it’s about me, I feel I have a right to know.”

  For once in his life, the chief was startled. “You?”

  “Yes, me. I’m Jean Sherman.”

  “Then who—?” He stopped and started again. He introduced himself and asked to come in. He thought she paled a little at the mention of “police” and “Stockford,” but at the moment he was so befuddled he wasn’t sure what was happening.

  She brought him into a small and comfortably furnished living room and motioned him to the couch in front of the windows. He took off his cap and waited until she sat in the facing chair before he lowered himself uneasily onto the cushions. “Now please,” Jean said. “Would you tell me what this is all about?”

  “Well,” Fellows laughed haltingly. “Maybe you can tell me. What do you know about a man who calls himself John Campbell?”

  She paused for a moment and then said, “Nothing at all. Why?”

  “You don’t know anyone by that name?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then tell me by what name you know the man who lives at 2 Highland Road in Stockford.”

  She shook her head again. “I don’t know anybody in Stockford. I don’t think I even know where it is.”

  Fellows was baffled. He found himself coming up against one blank wall after another. “Then I’ll have to ask you where you were and what you were doing last weekend.”

  The girl licked her unrouged lips. She was nervous, but whether it was because she was lying or because she was being questioned by a policeman he couldn’t be sure. “I went to New York,” she said. “I spent the weekend with my sister and her husband.”

  “When did you go and when did you come back?”

  She hesitated and stared beyond Fellows through the window. “I went down Friday night and came back Sunday night.”

  “And the week before—the whole week?”

  “I was here. I’m always here.” She leaned forward. “What’s happened? What’s the matter?”

  “You deny ever having known a man by the name of John Campbell? Tall, medium slender, dark hair, middle thirties?”

  “I do.”

  “Your name,” the chief said, “and your address, Miss Sherman, were found written on a pad in a house rented to a John Campbell at 2 Highland Road in Stockford, which is twelve miles north of Stamford.”

  “I don’t know how it could have got there.”

  Fellows leaned forward. “I don’t think Mr. Campbell found it in a crystal ball, Miss Sherman. This is a serious matter. I warn you you’d better be telling the truth.”

  She said very evenly, “Why should I lie?”

  “There are several reasons why you might. But, assuming you’re telling the truth, please think carefully. Have you recently, say within the last month, met any man, never mind what his name was, who fits the description I just gave you?”

  She did think, or she pretended to, but only for a couple of seconds. “I keep house for my father,” she said with a trace of bitterness. “How would I get to meet any man?”

  “You haven’t met any men in the past month?”

  “I haven’t met any men in the past year.”

  Fellows sighed and stood up. “I’m going to have to check with your sister, Miss Sherman. You want to write out her name and address?”

  “What do you have to check for? What’s happened?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not at liberty to talk about it. May I have your sister’s name and address please?”

  “Yes, certainly.” She hunted through a table drawer for paper and pencil saying, “You’ll find I was there, don’t worry.” She scribbled rapidly, tore off the sheet, and handed it to him a bit peremptorily. She expected him to thank her and leave, but instead he studied the name and address carefully, then reached for his wallet and produced a faintly blued slip of paper with light blue writing and matched it alongside. He said, “Miss Sherman, this is just a guess, but I’d be glad to back it with a small wager that handwriting experts will be willing to get up in court and swear that these two samples were both written by the same hand.”

  Miss Sherman went white. “What two samples?” she whispered. “What’s that other piece of writing?”

  “Your name and address. The paper we found in Mr. Campbell’s house.”

  The girl staggered slightly and clutched her throat saying, “Oh no,” as she sank back into her chair. She sat motionless staring at nothing, and the chief carefully replaced both papers and put his wallet away. Finally he said, “You want to tell me about it Miss Sherman?”

  She stirred. “No. There’s nothing to tell.”

  Fellows made a face. He said, “Miss, either you tell me about it now, or I call the Bridgeport police and take you in. It’s as simple as that. Where’d you meet Campbell?”

  She started to cry a little. “On the train.”

  “When you went to New York?”

  She nodded and fumbled for a handkerchief she didn’t have. Fellows gave her his, and said, “Now don’t be upset. I’m not going to bite you. Just tell me the whole thing exactly as it happened.” She cried a little more and blew her nose and clutched the handkerchief in her lap. When she spoke, she mumbled so that Fellows had to stand close to hear. “I went to a shower Friday night. One of my girl friends. I was going to New York, but this came up and I took a late train.”

&
nbsp; “What time was this train?”

  “I got it here in Bridgeport at nine fifty-three. It was the William Penn. It goes to Penn Station.” She dabbed at her eyes and brushed her red, wet cheeks. “I sat next to a woman who got off at Stamford and then John got on. He took her seat and we started talking. He was such a nice man, so friendly and charming. I don’t know when I’ve met a man half as charming as he was. Not for a long long time. He was interested in me. I don’t know why. I’m not the type who interests men, but he did seem to like me.” She wept a little more. “I’m not a cheap flirt,” she explained. “I don’t go around letting strange men pick me up, but he was so nice and he invited me to go dancing with him. I couldn’t. I was going to visit my sister, and I couldn’t. But he said he wanted to see me. He didn’t want it to end right there.” She paused and braced herself. “I didn’t want it to either. I don’t know any men and—I suggested that maybe he could come to my sister’s, but he didn’t like that. He said he wanted to see me alone, not with a lot of other people. He said we couldn’t get to know each other with a lot of other people around. I didn’t know what to do. I had to go to my sister’s. I couldn’t let her down when I was going to see her.

  “And then the train came into the station and I was afraid it was all going to be over and it was going to be good-by. I was feeling pretty low because I thought—well, I don’t have any boy friends and here was this wonderful, charming man, and he was going to say good-by and it would be just as though we’d never met. I thought Fate had meant us to meet and now it looked like— like the end. But he felt the same way. That’s what he said. When we got off the train, he said, ‘I’m not going to let it end like this,’ and he said that if he couldn’t take me out this evening, at least we’d have a drink before I had to go to my sister’s.

  “I was so glad—well, I—it meant something. He took me to some quiet cocktail lounge which was very romantic. I don’t know the name of it. It was around Times Square, I think. I don’t know New York very well. We talked and it was like we’d known each other all our lives and I got very bold and asked if he couldn’t see me while I was visiting my sister and he said he couldn’t. He had engagements and all and he asked when I was going back and when I told him Sunday night, he said he was going back Sunday too.