The Lady in the Morgue

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Did you see her?”

  “Say, I wouldn’t miss a thing like that. Not little ol’ Edgar.” Eyes glistening in memory, the bellboy continued. “I came to work early especially t’ take a peep at her. She was the kind of dame it takes more than two bucks to see. Her legs—”

  Crane cut him off. “Was she still hanging up then?”

  The bellboy shook his head. “Naw, they cut her down right after they found her.” He swung the varnished door around so the white enameled seat of the toilet was no longer visible. “The only thing left was her footmarks on the door.”

  There was a small, green bathroom scale back of the door. Crane squinted at it, then asked, “Footmarks? On the door? What was she, a human fly?” The scale was not new, and the arrow pointed at 5, even though there was nothing on the foot-square platform.

  Kneeling now on the magenta carpet, his face close to the back of the door, the bellboy was saying, “You can still see the marks—” 3° pointing a finger at some smudges two feet above the floor—“where she beat her heels.”

  Crane bent over. “They’re marks all right.” His handkerchief was still damp. He rubbed one of the smudges; it disappeared. He straightened his back, rapped sharply on one of the higher panels with his fist. He examined the place closely, saw there was no mark, and prepared to strike the door again.

  “For Krizakes, don’t,” said the bellboy. “You’ll have the coppers up here lookin’ for spooks if you make any more noise.”

  “I was trying to figure out what made those marks.”

  “Water.”

  “Water?”

  “Yeah, water.” Like a Cossack dancer, the bellboy swung around on bent knees, allowed the door to open again. “She took a bath before she strung herself up. See, the water’s still in the tub.”

  Half a foot below the tub’s edge, half an inch below the drain pipe, was placid pale-green water. On the porcelain flat between the wall and the back of the tub were a nail brush, an orange washrag. There was a pink blob on the bottom of the tub by the stopper. White sleeve thrust up above the elbow, Crane plunged his arm in the water, retrieved a soft, fatty cake of soap. It had a scent of carnation. He dropped it back in the water, sent ripples circling the tub.

  “Soap must have been there ever since she took the bath,” he observed.

  Returning to the bedroom, he examined the smudges on the back of the door again. “I suppose the water ran down her body to the heels, then made the marks on the door where they touched the wood.”

  The bellboy said, “That’s what the dicks figured.”

  Crane stood on the foot-high scale, saw it read 182, deducted five pounds for the error, three pounds for his clothes, said, “I better quit drinking beer.” Then he asked, “Was this dame a hooker?”

  “No sir, she was high class.” The bellboy’s voice was positive.

  “Anybody visit her?”

  “One guy.”

  “You see him?”

  “Yeah.”

  Crane was balancing with one foot on the scales like the Greek statue of the discus thrower. “What did he look like?”

  “He was a good lookin’ guy about the same—” The bellboy drew back a step. “Say, you better look out, or you’ll break your neck.” He went on, “The same age as you. About your size, too. He was real dark, though, and kind of woppish lookin’, somethin’ like George Raft in the movies.”

  “Know his name or what he did?”

  “I got an idea he was in some band.” He thought for a minute. “I think I seen him carrying some kind of a case for a musical instrument.”

  Crane stepped down off the scales. “An instrument?” He looked at the boy. “Are you sure he had a musical instrument in the case?”

  “Jeez!” The bellboy’s eyes widened. “Y’ think maybe he was a mobster?”

  “A instrument case is as good a place to carry a tommy-gun as any.” Crane drew out a crumpled pack of Lucky Strikes. “Have one?” He lit the bellboy’s, his own, tossed the match out the window. “Can you think of anything distinctive about this fellow? A scar, or a lame leg, or something?”

  Scowling, the bellboy said, “He wore a black Fedora hat.”

  That was all he could remember, but he promised to tell Crane if he thought of anything else. He said, “I better be gettin’ downstairs. Mister Glaub’ll be wondering what’s happened to me.”

  Crane held the twenty between his thumb and forefinger. “A couple of more questions. Who was the first to find her?”

  “Annie. She’s the maid for this and the third floor.”

  “What’s her last name?”

  “I don’t know.” The bellboy’s eyes were hungry on the twenty. “But I’ll find out for you, mister.”

  “How long had this Miss Ross been here?”

  “Just one night before she knocked herself off. She come in about three o’clock in the morning.”

  “All right. Now, where’s the rope?” Eyes momentarily leaving the twenty-dollar bill to look at the bathroom door, the boy asked: “You mean the rope she used?” Crane said, “Yeah.” The boy said, “The deputy coroner took it.” His cigarette, stuck to the lower right-hand corner of his mouth, twitched when he spoke. “That and her pocket-book were the only things the cops took, though. They left everything else just as it was.”

  “O.K.” Crane gave him the bill. “You’ve got an extra key to this room, haven’t you?”

  “A passkey.”

  “Well, leave it here with me. I want to look around some more. I’ll lock the door when I’m through and give it back to you then.”

  In dubious, reluctant agreement, the bellboy said, “You better wait and give it to me tomorrow night.” He took the key out of the door, handed it to Crane. He backed out into the hall. “For God’s sake, don’t let nobody catch you in here.”

  Crane closed the door behind him and locked it, leaving the key in the hole. He went over to the bed and sat on the violet cover.

  It was just about daybreak. Changing from navy to robin’s egg blue, the brightening sky made the lights in the room wan. In the next block a milkman was pounding up and down wooden back stairs, banging his heavy case on back porches, clashing empty glass bottles together. Automobiles were beginning to pass along Michigan Avenue, on the front side of the hotel.

  Crane wished very much to lie down on the bed, which was springy, but instead he went into the bathroom and opened the medicine chest. A regiment of beauty aids, toilet articles, stood on the glass shelves like gaudy German toys in a display case. Tall silver-labeled jars stood next to squat white jars; three Dr. West toothbrushes were sprouting from a red, flower-potlike container; a round cardboard box was half filled with pale orange dusting powder; loose platinum-shaded. Hump hairpins were scattered along one shelf; on another lay a tube of Ipana toothpaste, a metal-sheathed lipstick. The jars were filled’ with a variety of facial creams. There was also a bottle of Fitch’s shampoo, a smaller one of Odorono, and a prescription bottle of eye drops. He took the number off this: 142366, and the name of the drugstore: Boyd’s at Wabash and Twenty-second Street.

  Next he went into the closet, which was large and had been converted into a dressing room. At least there was a small chest of drawers, tinted pink and decorated with blue fleur-de-lis, in the closet, and a round mirror. On the chest were a pair of nail scissors, an orangewood stick, a nail buffer, a brush and comb, a bottle of Shalimar perfume. He turned on the bulb hanging from the ceiling and pulled out, one after the other, the three drawers in the chest. They were all empty. He fingered the clothes on the wire hangers at the other end of the closet. There were two silk chemises, a faintly pink silk nightgown with delicate needlework around the neck and sleeves, a sky-blue silk slip, a darker blue dress and a tan camel’s hair polo coat. They all bore Marshall Field’s label. From a wall hook hung a flesh-colored girdle with garters attached. From another hung some very sheer silk stockings. He looked around for a brassiere, but, remembering the firm breasts on the c
orpse in the morgue, he was not surprised not to find one.

  Then, almost frantically, he searched for shoes. He examined the closet floor, peered up on the shelves, felt under the chest of drawers, looked in the bathroom, under the bed, back of doors, even out the windows. He went over every inch of the bathroom, the closet, the bedroom. It didn’t do any good. There weren’t any shoes.

  Bewildered, he stood in the center of the bedroom, mopped his dripping face and muttered, “What the hell!”

  His eye caught some dark marks on the rug near the door connecting with the room at the right. The marks were long and thin and clean, as though somebody had been rubbing the rug with a washcloth. He tried the connecting door. It was locked.

  He went back and inspected the clothes in the closet again. The dress felt quite new, but the stockings were worn. The chemises had been washed, all right, but they showed no signs of wear. There were no laundry marks on any of the garments. He was looking at the girdle when someone tried the knob of the hall door.

  A voice said, “This is the room.” There was the sound of a key being fitted into the hole.

  Crane ran on tiptoes to the right-hand window, leaned over the sill. There was a roof about two floors below. It looked like a dangerous jump.

  Another voice demanded querulously, “What’s the matter?” It was the voice of Captain Grady.

  The first voice said, “I can’t get the key in.” There was a clash of metal against metal.

  The gray light of daybreak showed another window about three feet further along the wall to the right. Crane backed out of his window and stood up on the sill, his hands holding onto the bottom of the fully opened frame. He pushed his left hand along the wall, caught hold of the similarly opened frame on the other window.

  The original voice in the hall said, “There seems to be another key in the door.”

  “A key!” Captain Grady’s voice was deep. “You mean somebody’s inside the room?”

  “Looks that way.”

  His left foot firmly planted on the cement outer ledge of the other window, his left hand anchored to the frame, Crane shifted his weight, pulled himself away from Miss Ross’s window. He heard the captain roar:

  “Sergeant, break the door down.”

  He slid into the other room. Clothes were strewn in disorder about the floor, over chairs, a bureau, the double bed—a man’s and a woman’s clothes. Silk stockings, silk panties hung from a chair by the bed; wrinkled linen trousers and a Brewster green dress lay on the carpet; a shoe with a brown sock in it rested on the dresser; a pair of B.V.D.’s were draped over a brass light fixture on the wall. Under the bed, beside two green French-heeled slippers, were empty gingerale bottles; on the small table by the head of the bed were glasses, an imperial quart of Dewar’s White Label Scotch whiskey.

  A woman sat up suddenly on the near side of the bed, drew the sheet up to her neck, took a gasping breath. He leaped, got one knee over her hip. Teeth bruised his hand, but he kept it in her mouth until he could get hold of the stockings hanging from the chair. She struggled, beat the mattress with her heels, squirmed, but he held her with his elbow, his knees; finally forced the wadded silk into her mouth, gagged her by tying the other stocking tightly around her head.

  Beside her, on the other half of the bed, a man breathed heavily, painfully, in a drunken stupor.

  The woman was naked. Crane rolled her over, tied her wrists behind her with his necktie. Then he tied her feet with the Brewster green dress and half covered her body with the sheet. “You’ll be all right, if you behave,” he said. She turned on her side and glared at him. She was young and dark, and her skin was fresh. She worked herself further under the sheet.

  Next door there was a crash, a splintering of wood, a trampling of feet, loud talk.

  Crane went to the door and opened it a crack. A fat policeman stood in the hall, swinging his club. He closed the door quickly, pondered a second, then crossed to the windows. He pulled down the green shades, came back to the bed and took hold of the man under his arms. There was black hair on the man’s legs, on his chest. “Upsie daisy,” he said, and dragged the man into the bathroom, where he put him in the tub and pulled the shower curtain around him. Some men ran by in the hall. He came back into the bedroom, took off his shirt and the top of his two-piece athletic underwear and mussed his hair with his hands.

  The woman’s dark eyes were luminous with impotent rage.

  He jumped up on the bed, quickly unscrewed the 125 watt bulb in the ceiling socket, jumped down again. Glancing around the darkened room, he saw the whiskey bottle, lifted it to the light seeping around the down-pulled shades, observed that it was a fifth full, took a long drink. He put the bottle back on the stand. “Slide over, tutz,” he said. He climbed into bed with the woman, adjusted the sheet so that it covered his shoes, his trousers.

  “I’m sorry about the shoes,” he said. “I don’t generally wear ’em in bed, but I may have to do some running.” After a moment he added, “I’m sorry about the trousers, too.”

  In back of the hotel there was the sound of men running, talking, shouting. Finally someone called, “There’s nobody down here now, captain.”

  Captain Grady must have had his head out Miss Ross’s window. He shouted back, “Look around some more.”

  Presently there was a knock at the door. In a thick voice Crane demanded, “Whoosh ere?” The door opened a crack. “It’s the night clerk.” The man put his head in the room, squinted in an effort to see through the gloom. Back of him in the lighted hall Crane could see Captain Grady. The clerk asked, “Have you had trouble with anybody passing through your room, Mister un-huh?”

  “Go ri’ head,” said William Crane loudly and thickly. “Pass on through.” He made a sweeping gesture with his bare arm. “No trouble ’tall. Glad t’ be of co’venience, sir.”

  The clerk said patiently, “We don’t want to go through your room.” He pushed the button for the light, but nothing happened. “We’d like to know if you’ve seen anybody in your room.”

  Crane had one hand on the woman’s throat. As she tried to sit up he tightened his fingers warningly. “If y’ don’ wanna go through thish room,” he demanded logically, “whash idea of knockin’ at my door?” He sat up in bed, exposing his bare chest. “Whash idea disturbin’ sanktity priv’ ci’zen? Hey?” He pretended he was going to get out of bed.

  The clerk looked at Captain Grady. The captain shook his head. The clerk said, “Sorry,” and started to close the door.

  Crane waved an arm at him. “Wash Bunka Hill in vain?” he demanded. “How ’bout Bos’on Teapot?” The door closed, he continued, “Who took th’ letta t’ Garcia? Net you, I bet.” He muttered to himself for a couple of minutes, then sighed heavily, sank back on the bed. He released the woman’s neck.

  Ten minutes later the police had gone, and he had finished the whiskey. He felt a great deal better and not so sleepy, and he climbed out of bed and put on his athletic top and his shirt. The woman’s eyes, watching, brooded sudden death. He went into the bathroom, lifted the hairy man out of the tub and carried him back to the bed. He said to the woman, “I bet you could sell him to the zoo.” He straightened his hair with his fingers, looked regretfully at the bottle on the stand, bowed gallantly to the woman. “I hope I’ll see less of you sometime, madam.”

  He walked out into the hall, down the back stairs, through the lobby and out on the avenue. The sun was already well above the lake; sparrows on window ledges, in the gutters, were chirping. A man was sweeping the sidewalk. He glanced at Crane, said, “Looks like another scorcher, don’t it?”

  Crane said it did, indeed.

  Chapter Four

  FATLY, ANGRILY, recklessly, a blue-bottle fly circled the room, banged into the closed upper halves of windows, tickled the coroner’s bald pate, caused the drowsy jury to break into fits of arm waving, head shaking. High in the sky the copper sun made the occasional breeze a torment to lungs. The air in the room felt as though
it had been dusted with red pepper.

  “Then, Mr. Greening, your testimony is practically identical to that of Mr. Johnson?”

  Greening looked like a plump cherub. “Yes, sir.” His cheeks were rosy, his small eyes blue.

  “And you would estimate the time Mr. Crane stayed down in the storage room as …?”

  “At least ten minutes.”

  “Do you recall any earlier conversations Mr. Crane had with the deceased? Any efforts to secure permission to remove Miss Ross’s body?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Greening.” The coroner thumbed the untidy stack of papers on the desk in front of him. “Now, Captain Grady, you say you are unable to trace the man who asked to see the reporters just before the mur—ah—hem—tragedy?”

  Women, mostly, filled the wooden benches in the narrow room where inquests were held at the County Morgue. There was a general leaning forward of bodies, a craning of necks. The newspapers had played up the mysterious Italian visitor.

  From his seat between two of the homicide men the captain spoke in an aggrieved tone. “My men are doin’ the best they can, Coronor, but it’s a diff …”

  “I am sure they are doing everything that can be expected, Captain Grady. Now I would like to call—” papers rustled on the coroner’s desk “—Mrs. Liebman.”

  Captain Grady helped her to the stand, squeezed her arm. She was a large, shapeless woman with red hair and a brand-new black dress. She gave Captain Grady a look in which there was more warmth than might have been expected from a widow of eight hours. She pulled her skirt around her ankles.

  First glancing importantly at the newspaper men around the table opposite the jurors, the coroner leaned over his desk, said gravely, “Mrs. Liebman, I wish to assure you of the deepest, the very deepest sympathy of myself and of these jurors, and it will be my endeavor to shorten your painful appearance here as much as possible.” He swung back in his chair, looked at the reporters for approval.