“Fine,” he said, pleased with me for a change. “I’ll have Barney picked up if he’s still in town, and you can swear out a complaint in the morning.”
I knew what pleased him, and it wasn’t my sentiments about out-of-towners. He was simply glad of an excuse to hold the mobster while he worked him over about the Lancaster killing.
I said, “You haven’t inquired about my damages. If I didn’t know you regarded me practically as a foster son, I’d suspect you weren’t worried.”
Day grunted. “Where’d you get hit?”
“In the head. Twice.”
“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” he growled, and hung up.
10
I stood at the bar in the Sheridan from ten of eleven until a quarter after, and was about to forget the whole thing and leave when Mrs. Jones came in from the street door.
Smiling in my direction, she made straight for a corner table. I moved over from the bar and joined her.
“I’m late,” she said brightly.
“Yes. I noticed.”
Curiously she eyed the black and blue mark which had formed on my chin. “What happened to your face?”
“I had to break another date to get here. The woman was angry.”
She grinned at me. “You got off easy. Break a date with me sometime and see what happens to you.”
A white-coated waiter glided over to our table and bent from the waist, then waited soundlessly.
Mrs. Jones said, “Half a shot of Scotch, half a shot of bourbon, and water. Two of them.”
“One of them,” I corrected. “And a rye and water.”
When the waiter moved off, I said, “Well, Mrs. Jones?”
“Don’t be so formal. My name’s Isobel.”
“All right. Isobel. How’d you get out of the house?”
“Walked out. Harlan goes to bed on the stroke of ten, and an earthquake couldn’t wake him. We have separate rooms, so if I leave the house after ten thirty, he never knows it.” She laughed aloud, enjoying her cleverness. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
The waiter brought our drinks and neither of us spoke until he departed again.
Then I asked, “What’s on your mind, Isobel?”
She looked at me archly. “What’s on your mind?”
“Sleep, mainly,” I said dryly. “But I can spare a few minutes.”
She pouted. “If you’re going to be mean, I wish I hadn’t come.”
“I’m not being mean. But I assume you have something to tell me, or you wouldn’t be here. Spill it and I’ll be playful with you afterward.”
“How playful?”
I said cautiously, “As much as you can be in a place as public as the Sheridan Lounge.”
“Don’t you have an apartment?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “But it’s only one room and my poor old mother is a light sleeper.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
“So what’s on your mind?” I asked again.
Reluctantly she brought her thoughts around to business. “It’s about Willard Knight.”
I waited.
“You’re wasting your time looking for him. He couldn’t possibly have killed that man last night.”
“Why not?”
“He just couldn’t have.”
I waited for more, but apparently no more was forthcoming.
“Look, Isobel,” I said finally. “You’re a nice gal in an unbalanced sort of way, and I’d enjoy wasting time with you if I wasn’t busy looking for a killer. What do you expect me to do now? Say thanks very much and forget Knight?”
She nodded vigorously. “I’m sure he’s innocent.”
“Why? Do you know where he was last night?”
“I know he wasn’t near that night club.”
“How do you know? Were you with him?”
She looked offended. “If you’re intimating I’d have an affair with anyone,” she said with illogical virtue, “I’ll have you know I’m a respectable married woman. I just know Willard Knight wouldn’t commit murder.”
At that moment a tall, shaggy-haired man with a gaunt, Lincolnesque face entered the bar from the hotel’s downstairs hall. Isobel emitted a small shriek when she saw him. I looked at her inquiringly, noticing her face lose color.
“What’s the matter?”
“That man!” She faltered, then went on. “I know him. I mean he knows me. He’ll see us together.”
I glanced over at the man, who was approaching the bar. “And tell your husband?”
“No, not that. I mean yes, he’ll tell my husband.” She was so agitated, she didn’t know what she meant.
When the man reached the bar, he turned and glanced casually around the room. His eyes stopped at our table, blazed with amazement, and at once he moved directly toward us. He kept his gaze unwaveringly on Isobel’s face until the edge of our table prevented him from getting any closer to her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked harshly.
Isobel’s face had turned dead white. “This — this is Mr. Moon. George Smith, Mr. Moon.”
I looked him over. “Sit down and have a drink, George.”
Paying no attention to me, he repeated, “What are you doing here?”
Isobel said desperately, “Mr. Moon and I are having a business meeting. It’s — well, he’s a private detective.”
Smith’s eyes swung sharply down at me. He gave me a thorough examination, shifted his glance back at Isobel, and comprehension broke over his face.
“Hired by your husband, was he?” he asked, and when she simply looked at him blankly, added, “And now he’s offering to sell you the data he’s collected instead of turning it over to your husband.”
I said in a bored tone, “Back off of that one fast, Buster, or you’ll find your teeth all over the floor.”
Isobel didn’t even know what we were talking about. In a bewildered voice she said, “Mr. Moon is hunting a murderer. That Lancaster affair that was in all the papers. I’m just one of hundreds of witnesses he’s questioning.”
Again Smith looked down at me. “Hundreds, eh? You question them all in night clubs?”
“About the blackmail crack,” I reminded him. “Take all the time you want to apologize. Anything up to three seconds.”
He started to form a sneer on his face, then changed his mind and said indifferently, “I withdraw the remark. Nice seeing you again, Isobel. Give my regards to what’s-his-name, your husband.”
Without another word he turned and left the room by the same way he had entered.
“Queer friends you have,” I remarked.
Isobel was sliding from her chair, collecting her bag and gloves as she moved. “Let’s get out of here,” she said.
Dropping two one-dollar bills on the table, I followed her through the street exit. She made straight for a cab standing at the curb, glancing nervously over her shoulder once before climbing through the door I held open.
“Where to?” I asked when I had joined her.
“Anywhere. Just so it’s far.”
To the cabdriver I said, “Straight ahead three blocks.”
“You sending me home?” she asked as we pulled away.
“Yeah.”
She looked once through the taxi’s rear window, then, seeming to regain composure, leaned her head against my shoulder.
“Don’t send me home,” she said.
“It’s nearly midnight.”
“Let’s at least ride for a while.”
I shrugged, then said to the driver, “Keep going and swing through Midland Park. And don’t rush.”
We both remained silent as the cab rolled along Park Lane. What she was thinking about, I don’t know, but I was thinking I had wasted an evening. Isobel Jones gradually was taking form in my mind as a woman who grabbed at every passing man she saw. I was relatively certain she had been having some kind of an affair with Willard Knight, for she did not impress me as the type of woman who would
go to the defense of a man merely because he was her husband’s partner. And it also seemed certain the character we had just left at the Sheridan was, or had been a man in her life. Possibly, judging from her agitation at seeing him, one she was trying to ditch.
To clinch it, she was making a mild pass at me. Women don’t pass at men with faces like mine unless they are in the habit of instinctively making passes at every man.
We crossed Mason Avenue and moved slowly along the sweepingly curved drives of the park. It was a moonless night, but brilliant starlight barely prevented it from being pitch black.
“Put your arm around me,” she demanded.
I put my arm around her.
She turned up her face and closed her eyes. Her lips pursed expectantly, and I grinned down at her until she finally popped her eyes open. She looked cross when she saw my grin.
“Kiss me,” she said sharply.
I gave her a short, careless kiss, then pushed her erect and removed my arm. “Look me up between murders.”
She watched me uncertainly, chewing her lower lip. “Take me home,” she decided suddenly.
The cabdriver half turned in his seat. “Car without lights following.”
Craning to peer through the rear window, I saw it about a half block back. It kept the same distance while I watched it for two more blocks.
“Want me to lose him?” our driver asked.
“No. Take the lady home.”
The rest of the trip we made in silence. Isobel periodically glanced through the rear window at our shadow, her face nervous and her brow puckered thoughtfully.
As we neared her home, she asked the driver to let her out at the corner.
Getting out first, I held the door for her. Our tail, suddenly switching on his lights, rolled past as though he had no interest in our doings. It was a taxicab.
“That must be your friend, George,” I said to Isobel. “What’s on his mind?”
She shook her head. “I’ve no idea.”
She watched the taxi’s taillight until it disappeared around the next corner, then abruptly said good-bye and nearly ran toward her house. I got in the front seat with the driver and told him the address of my flat.
As we turned into Grand Avenue, the cabdriver said, “Our friend’s with us again.”
“Let him enjoy himself.”
I didn’t even bother to look around. When we reached my flat, the trailing taxi pulled in right behind us, his bumper nearly against ours. As I paid off my driver, I watched from the side of my eyes and saw George Smith step from the other cab. My driver pulled away and I waited for George to make a move. But when he merely glowered from under shaggy brows, I grinned at him and started up the walk toward the apartment-house door.
George caught up just as I reached it. I held the door for him to follow me into the lobby, then faced him, waiting.
His angry eyes burned up and down my frame as though he were calculating his chances. They halted at my jawline, and suddenly he swung.
My knees bent just enough so that his fist skimmed off my hat. A short left jab into his exposed ribs swooshed the air out of him. Then I snapped erect, crashed a right hook to his jaw, and he spun like a top. The second time around he pitched forward and I caught him in my arms. I lowered him gently to a seated position with his back against the wall.
When he returned to this world, I was seated on the lowest steps puffing a cigar. He wagged his head a few times, felt his jaw and focused his eyes at me with difficulty.
“Sleep well?” I asked.
He eyed me with distaste. “I ought to knock your block off.”
I blew smoke at him. “You can keep trying. But you’ll only end up punchy. What’s your grudge?”
Struggling to his feet, he groped for the outer door handle to hold himself up. “Stay away from Isobel,” he said.
“Why?”
He leaned toward me, nearly lost his balance and recovered. “Because I’ll beat your brains out if you go near her again.” His eyes burned with an emotion I suddenly realized was jealousy.
“Why, you’re in love with her, aren’t you?” I asked softly.
“That’s some more of your business,” he snarled, and pushing through the door, was gone.
11
While I am not a believer in astrology, I have come to the conclusion certain days are more auspicious for professional activity than other days. Wednesday was one of my inauspicious days, when I might as well have stayed in bed.
I did stay in bed till nearly noon, as a matter of fact, but since I usually rise late, there was nothing in this to indicate the day was going to be a complete bust. In a way I feel justified in perennially spending mornings in bed, incidentally, for I often work while others are sleeping. For some reason I have never quite been able to put my finger on, I always find myself doing leg work at midnight when I get on a case.
Any cops working on the same case knock off at five, go home and forget about it until the next morning, when they start off bright and early again. But not night-owl Moon. I have to stay up half the night, with the result it is noon before I can get started again.
When I had showered, shaved and put away some eggs and coffee, I phoned Warren Day at Headquarters.
“I assume you haven’t caught up with Barney Seldon,” I said, “or you’d have been after me to come down and swear out a complaint.”
“Apparently he scooted back across the river before his goon jumped you,” he growled. “I doubt that he’ll come back as long as we hold the goon, but you’d better come down and sign the complaint anyway.”
“How about extradition?”
The inspector snorted. “On an assault charge? With the lawyers he’s got? We’d get hold of him about Christmas.”
“Where’s the goon?” I asked.
“City Hospital. His name’s Percival Sweet, incidentally.”
“It’s what?” I asked incredulously.
“Percival Sweet. And it’s no phony. He had an Illinois permit to carry a gun on him.”
I told him I would be down later to swear out complaints against Barney Seldon and Percival Sweet, and hung up.
The day started to become inauspicious when I arrived at City Hospital. Immediately I got myself wound up to the neck in red tape.
It started when the middle-aged woman in the registrar’s office told me Percival Sweet was in ward sixteen. Then, as I started to walk away, she called after me, “But I don’t think you can see him.”
Coming back, I looked at the sign on the wall over her head, which stated visiting hours were one to two and seven to eight, checked my watch against the wall clock, noting both read two minutes after one, and asked, “Why?”
“Ward sixteen is the prison ward. You have to have permission.”
“From whom?”
She looked uncertain. “Maybe you better see the chief nurse,” she suggested. “Unless you’ve got some kind of legal paper.”
I denied that I had some kind of legal paper.
“Usually visitors up there do,” she confided. “Things like habeas corpus and so on. Mostly the visitors are lawyers.”
The chief nurse, similarly stumped by my lack of a legal paper, shunted me off to the chief of staff, who passed me on to the hospital superintendent. By the time I reached the latter’s office, I was getting mad.
“Look, Doctor,” I started to say.
“Not doctor,” he corrected. “I’m not a physician.”
He was a thin, precise man with gold-rimmed glasses and an air of waiting for someone to hand him papers to sign. A discreet desk marker announced his name was M. M. Witherspoon.
“All right,” I said. “Mister, then. I’m trying to see a patient, but all I get is the run-around.”
He glanced at his watch. “Visiting hours are on now. See the registrar. Room one hundred.”
I said, “I’ve seen the registrar. I’ve seen the chief nurse. I’ve seen the chief of staff.” I drew a chair from next to his desk, sa
t in it and stretched out my legs. “You have any influence around here, Mr. Witherspoon?”
He snapped a sharp, dignified look at me. “I beg your pardon?”
Sliding my license across his desk, I said, “I want to talk to a patient named Percival Sweet. He was brought in with multiple contusions last night. He’s under arrest in ward sixteen.”
His eyes raised from the license to my face. “I know the case.” He glanced back at the license, said, “Private detective,” and looked up again. “Sorry, Mr. Moon. You’ll have to have police permission.”
Retrieving my license, I politely asked to use his desk phone, and when he granted permission with equal politeness, I told the switchboard operator to get me Homicide.
“Get me either Inspector Day or Lieutenant Hannegan,” I said.
Warren Day came to the phone. “Yeah?” he growled.
“Moon,” I said. “I’m in the superintendent’s office at City Hospital. Will you tell him it’s all right for me to see Percy?”
“Can’t get in, eh?”
“Oh, sure. I can get in. That’s why I phoned. To tell you I can get in.”
He laughed, apparently in one of his pixie moods. “What you want to see Percy about?”
I removed the phone from my ear long enough to scowl at it. Warren Day in a sour humor, which is his normal state, is hard enough to get along with, but when he feels playful he is impossible. I could visualize myself begging and pleading for clearance for an hour unless I stopped him cold.
I said, “I want to ask his lawyer’s name. You’re holding the man on an assault-and-battery charge, and no one’s even sworn out a complaint. The poor guy hasn’t done anything. As I remember it, Percy and I were having a friendly talk in the alley when he tripped over a garbage can and banged himself up on the concrete.”
No reply came out of the phone.
“I can’t spare any more time,” I said. “I’ll phone my own lawyer.”
In a heavy voice Day said, “Let me talk to the superintendent.”
I passed the phone over to M. M. Witherspoon, who listened for a minute, said, “All right, Inspector,” and dropped the instrument back on its cradle.
Ripping a sheet from a three-by-five pad on his desk, the superintendent scribbled a few words on it and pushed it toward me. The note authorized me to visit Percival Sweet in ward sixteen.
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