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‘Then there was a list’, Palmer said.
‘What?’
‘The other night when those thugs came you said they wanted some list.’
‘Yes’, she said, her voice a whisper. ‘That’s right.’
‘They could be on that list.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And your uncle is frightened. There could be other things he hasn’t told you.’
‘Yes, I know. He wouldn’t have asked me to come otherwise. I don’t think he expected me to help him actually; I think it was just because he was so alone and worried and needed someone he could trust to talk to … I think he’d planned to go away. He hasn’t said so, but there have been little things I’ve noticed, like the other morning when I was up earlier than usual and saw him dusting off a suitcase.’
‘You mean, go away for good?’
‘I think so.’
‘And you still don’t know what’s in that package, or what he intends to do with it?’
When she shook her head, he touched her hand again and gave her a reassuring grin. It was not the time to tell her how proud he was of her, and the feeling of elation that was spreading inside him came not only from being with her and understanding that she now looked upon him as a friend, but from the unaffected loyalty and courage she had already demonstrated.
He said not to worry about it, at the moment believing it himself. He said he would do a little checking on Leo Flynn and see what he could find. When she picked up her bag, he said he would ride out with her as far as his car, but that she had better go home alone in case the police still had the house staked out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS NEARLY six o’clock when Larry Palmer returned to his apartment, and when he had shucked off his jacket he went to the telephone and called the office to report that while he had no definite results he did have some leads that he was still checking. He then called Leo Flynn’s apartment, but there was no answer, so he made a small highball and went back to the living-room to examine the notes he had made that day. There were three pages of these, and he placed them on the desk, anchoring them with an ashtray. When he had put three or four clean sheets into his pocket, he went out, driving downtown to a place which made up for its lack of style by the excellence of its food.
Although he realized that his actual progress towards a solution of the murder was indeed limited, his mood was nevertheless expansive, and without stopping to seek the reasons for this, he thought he could eat well tonight. He decided he could afford lobster, and having made the decision, he followed through by ordering a half-dozen Cotuits first. He passed up the clam chowder and selected Delmonico potatoes instead of French-fried. A green salad and a pot of coffee topped off the meal, and he took his time with the coffee, making additional notes as new things cropped up in his memory.
It was nine-thirty when he got to the Bond Hotel, and when he could not locate Leo Flynn, he questioned the headwaiter.
‘He was here for a few minutes,’ Louis said, ‘but he left. He’s probably out at the dog track.’
The musicians were getting ready for the early show, but Palmer had no interest in this, nor, at the moment, in Gladys Flynn. He did not consider an inspection of the dog tracks, partly because he was in no great hurry and partly because Leo Flynn’s owl-like attitude about daylight would probably bring him back to the hotel around one o’clock. Instead he went to his rooms, got rid of jacket and tie, and sat down at the typewriter in an effort to bring some chronological order out of his notes.
It was more of a task than he had expected because, as he wrote, new things kept occurring to him, leading to still others, so that to keep the continuity and time in the proper relationship he had to keep on writing.
He finally took a break at eleven o’clock and went to the refrigerator for a beer. Bringing this to the club chair and kicking off his shoes, he leaned back to relax. When he finished the beer he closed his eyes to rest them, more tired than he realized. It may have been the heavy dinner, or simply fatigue, but the next thing he knew he had waked with a start to the sound of violent pounding that seemed in his bewilderment to be threatening the very walls.
An almost equally sudden silence gave him no time to associate the sound with reality, and the first thing he saw with any certainty was the clock on the bookcase. The knowledge that the hands were pointing to one-fifty-five filled him with quick dismay and confusion when he realized it would be too late to find Leo Flynn at the Bond.
Before he could think beyond this, the pounding came again, and he knew it was from the door, and now he could hear the sound of someone calling his name.
He could tell, even as he reached for the door-knob, that it was a woman, and now, because he could think only of Janet Evans, a sudden panic took hold of him as he yanked at the door.
Gladys Flynn stood there, but it was a woman he had never seen before who lurched forward so that he had to scramble out of her way.
Her hair was down, her face chalk-white and distorted, the green eyes wide with terror. Clad only in nightgown, robe, and ballet-type slippers, she began to sob hysterically as he closed the door.
‘It’s Leo’, she cried. ‘He’s dead!’
‘He’s what?’
‘On the floor’, she said, the words all running together now. ‘I opened it and he fell … “Lock it!” he said … That was all …’
‘Wait a minute’, he said. ‘Gladys!’ he yelled when she began to moan again, the eyes still blank and sightless with shock.
‘How do you know?’ he demanded.
‘The blood … All over the front of him … I couldn’t call a doctor’, she added, as though trying desperately to make him understand. ‘There was someone at the door. I had to run, and I didn’t know where to go, and—’
He reached out and took her shoulders in both hands. ‘Stop it!’ he said, and shook her hard, pushing too so that he backed her against the couch. When she collapsed on it he said: ‘Stay there. I’ll be right back.’
He was in the kitchen no more than a minute and when he returned he carried a glass with an ounce and a half of whisky and about an equal amount of water. It seemed then that she had not moved a muscle during his absence. He had to shake her again to make her look at him and when she did there was little recognition in her eyes.
‘Here’, he said bluntly. ‘Drink it.’
His brusqueness took command of the situation and she obeyed like a small child, holding the glass in both hands and drinking greedily so that a little of it spilled on her chin. He felt like wiping it off, but he didn’t; instead he knelt on one knee before her and took her hands.
‘Start at the beginning’, he said. ‘You’ve got to tell me. You were home, right? And Leo was out somewhere.’
‘He didn’t come to the hotel, so I came right home. I undressed and put on a robe to wait up for him.’
She took a breath and now, with the hysteria subsiding, the eyes focused and the slow, unwanted tears began to come.
‘Then I heard this sound at the door’, she said, swallowing fast. ‘Not a knock, a sort of scratching sound that frightened me, like someone fumbling at the knob and the keyhole.’
‘Go on.’
‘I thought it might be Leo and that maybe he was drunk. I opened the door and he staggered in a step or two, and I could see the blood and that awful look on his face and—’
She choked up again and he squeezed her hands hard and said to take it easy, and suddenly she fought back against all those things that were destroying her will. Her chin came up and her voice hardened, as if some new anger and a desire for vengeance were stirring inside her.
‘I’m going to find out who did it’, she said.
‘Sure’, Palmer said. ‘He staggered in and then what? Did you call a doctor, or the police?’
‘I couldn’t’, she said and then she went on, making sense now, all unmindful of the gaping robe and the thin nightgown underneath. So, at the moment, was Palmer.
Once again she hesitated, the rise and fall of her breasts quickening as some new tension gripped her. This time Palmer waited and presently she continued:
‘Then I knew someone was trying to get in. There was a knock and I sort of froze there and the voice said: “Come on, I know you’re in there”, and the knob turned again. After that I guess I panicked. I must have. All I could think of was that Leo had been shot and that he had been followed here and that somehow the man would get in and if he did he would have to kill me too … I ran’, she said, her breath whistling out.
‘The back way and down the stairs. I was in the alley before I remembered that you lived only around the corner from there, but there was no way of getting up here the back way so I had to come the other way.’
‘I’m glad you did.’ Palmer stood up. ‘I’ll go over there now. You can stay here. Would you like another drink?’
She nodded, the red-blonde hair bobbing. ‘Yes, please’, she said.
He took her glass into the kitchen and made another drink with less whisky and more water. On his way back he stepped into the bedroom and took a flannel robe from the closet. She stood up when he held it for her, slipping her arms inside and then shivering as she fumbled for the belt. He put the drink on the table.
‘Just stay right here’, he said. ‘I’ll call you back in five minutes or so.’
The street was quiet and the sidewalks empty as Palmer hurried down the brownstone steps and turned right towards the corner fifty yards away. Here and there a car had been left out all night in violation of the city ordinance, but he saw no one as he loped down the street to the alley.
About to duck into its black length, he saw a pair of headlights swing round the corner up ahead, the sound of the accelerating motor indicating that the car had only recently been under way. But it was moving swiftly now and he stopped to watch it pass, a light-grey late-model Cadillac convertible. As it rolled past, still accelerating, he noted the well-illuminated five-digit licence number, and although it meant nothing to him at the time, the sight of the car was enough to make him modify his plans.
Instead of proceeding along the alley, he took time out to make a preliminary investigation of the street beyond, hurrying on to round the corner and come presently to the small, foreign-looking car which had been left at an odd angle in front of the apartment house.
He saw at once that the lights had been left on, and seconds later he knew it was a tan Zephyr sedan, the metal sign of Chapman Motors on the back. It was when he looked past the lowered window that he saw the wet dark stains on the leather upholstery, and now he wheeled away, breaking into a run as headed for the corner.
He had no trouble with the darkness as he moved into the alley. He found the proper doorway and felt his way up the metal-treaded stairway that reversed itself once to each floor. The door he sought was ajar and he could see the light beyond, so he pushed in, moving quickly through the kitchen to the small hall and on into the living-room.
Leo Flynn lay as his wife had described him, on his back now, the arms outflung and ankles crossed as though they had come to rest that way when she turned him over. The jacket was thrown back and the red-stained shirt was open, the thin terrier face oddly pale and empty-looking in death.
Everything was just as Gladys Flynn had described it, as his own imagination had pictured the scene, yet for all of this it took him a while to make the necessary emotional adjustment to the sight of violent death.
Here, at last, was the man he had been looking for, and now it was much too late for questions. Understanding only that somehow Leo Flynn had known more about the death of Ethel Kovalik than he had been willing to admit, he stood where he was, making no attempt to move closer or inspect the still figure. Finally, when he had pushed back the inner turbulence which in the beginning was akin to nausea, he was able to think objectively as he had been trained to do.
A glance at his watch told him that it was only a few minutes past two and as he started for the telephone he knew that this was a beat for the Bulletin, that there was still plenty of time to replate if the editors thought it advisable. After that the pattern of the night before was repeated with little variation.
He said what he had to say and his orders from the city desk confirmed the routine. The same radio car, the same pair—Reece and Labine—riding it. They arrived less than four minutes later, and when Palmer opened the door they shook their heads and spoke with an irony that was somehow touched with awe.
‘Boy,’ said Reece as he focused his camera, ‘are you hot!’
‘Like a pistol’, said Labine.
‘What?’ Palmer said.
‘A month we ride around’, Labine went on. ‘Five nights a week. If we’re lucky we may get an accident or a tavern brawl. But you’—he sighed—‘two nights in a row you walk smack into murder.’
He watched Reece work and then said: ‘One thing, the Standard gets clobbered this time. They’ll probably think it’s a plot … You called the cops yet? Go ahead’, he said when Palmer shook his head. ‘It’ll look better if you do the talking. Might as well ask for Neilson. He’ll probably draw the duty anyway.’
Reece, who had taken four pictures, walked round the body and opened the door. ‘I’m gone’, he said.
‘Tell the desk I’ll stick until Neilson bounces me’, Labine said. ‘It probably won’t be long,’
CHAPTER TWELVE
AS WAS THE case the night before, two radio-car policemen who had been alerted by the turret operator at Headquarters arrived first, to be followed by the Division sergeant and two detectives. Lieutenant Neilson made it a minute or so later, with a fingerprint man and photographer and two other detectives in tow. When he saw Palmer and Labine, he eyed them suspiciously and his hard-jawed face grew tight with resentment.
‘Who found him?’ he demanded.
‘I did’, Palmer said.
‘Just like last night. The good old Bulletin. First on the scene, hunh? Like in that radio programme … You came in and found him like that on the floor, is that it? … Well, how’d you get in?’
‘The back door.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’ Palmer said, understanding the lieutenant’s annoyance but not letting it bother him.
‘Why should you come here at all?’
‘His wife told me what happened.’
‘Oh?’ Neilson counted the roll in the crowded room as if to make sure there was no woman present. ‘Well, where is she now?’
‘Over at my place.’
‘Your place?’ Neilson peered at him from under the pushed-back hat brim. ‘What the hell’s she doing there?’
‘She was scared. She ran out. She didn’t know where to go until she remembered I live only a block and a half away’. He took a breath. ‘Maybe I’d better start at the beginning’, he said.
‘That might help’, Neilson said. ‘Go ahead.’
Palmer told what he could, repeating the things Gladys Flynn had said, and now he had their attention. Even the police photographer stopped his work to listen, and Neilson made no comment until Palmer spoke of the convertible he had seen.
‘You don’t know that it was parked out front here?’ the lieutenant asked.
‘All I know is that it came around the corner and picked up speed.’
‘Did you get the number?’
Palmer repeated it and Neilson said: ‘Well, we can check that in five minutes.’ He snapped an order to one of the detectives, who stepped immediately to the telephone, and now Palmer spoke of Flynn’s demonstrator.
‘It’s parked out front’, he said. ‘An English car.
When I saw it, the lights were on. I think there are bloodstains on the front seat.’
Neilson motioned to another detective, and the precinct sergeant spoke up, saying he’d go down and give the interior of the car a quick look.
‘Good,’ Neilson said, ‘and maybe we’d better leave a man there to keep people away from it. We’ll probably want to tow it away and let the lab boys go over it.’ He glanced round as he spoke and noticed Labine, who had been staying well in the background. ‘Do you know anything about this?’
‘No.’
‘Then get moving. If you want to wait, do it on the sidewalk with the rest of the newspaper guys.’
‘Yes, sir, Lieutenant’, Labine said with mock deference.
He went out with the sergeant and the detective, and Neilson turned to Palmer to ask where he lived; then nodded to the detective who had just used the telephone.
‘Okay, Lynch. Bring her in.’
‘I’d better call her’, Palmer said, and picked up the telephone.
‘Wait a minute’, Neilson said, instantly suspicious, not at anything in particular but simply because that was the way he was built. ‘Why should you?’
‘Because she’s scared.’ Palmer began to dial. ‘You send a man over there banging on the door and she probably won’t let him in.’
‘Gladys’, he said a moment later, ‘the police are here now. A detective by the name of Lynch will be over to get you … And Gladys—you’ll find a topcoat in that closet just inside the door. You can wear that over here and leave the bathrobe, if you like.’
Lynch went out, and an assistant medical examiner came in, and now the telephone rang. Neilson scooped it up.
‘Yes’, he said. ‘This is Neilson.’ He listened, brows lifting slightly. When he hung up he sounded pleased. ‘That car you saw,’ he said to Palmer, ‘is registered in Waldo Banton’s name … Find him’, he said to his last remaining detective. ‘Invite him over.’