by Frances
The building shook with the press. It was any Wednesday morning. It was time to start planning the next week’s edition. There would always be a squabble about the planning board. That could be counted on. There would always be letters disclosing dire plots to destroy the rural character of Glenville, and heated rejoinders to the previous week’s letters to the same effect. (“Is progress to pass us by?”) There would be, this coming edition, a good story—a story full of names—about the tour of historic houses. (And where the hell was the copy for the brochure, if they wanted it by Friday?) The Board of Selectmen had an open meeting scheduled, and the lead story might come out of that. And—
He heard young Billy scrambling up the stairs, on an errand more important to him than any errand would be again, however long he lived. Even by next Wednesday, it would not be quite so important, and by the Wednesday after that—
Billy, breathless, brought to the editor of the Glenville Advertiser the first copy of the August 28 issue of the Glenville Advertiser. What could be more important than that? What other boy in all Glenville was so near the center of things—the very center of things—as that?
“Thanks, Billy,” Bob Oliver said, and took the paper from the boy urgently, began to scan it with ferocity, making clear in each response how vitally important it had been for Billy to race up the stairs, with not a second to be lost.
“Get the mornings, Billy,” Bob Oliver said, without looking up, and Billy gasped, “Yes sir” and was off, clattering down the stairs.
Bob looked up then, for an instant—with Billy safely out of sight—and smiled and thought, What a kid, and then went back to scanning. If there was a real catastrophe—if a whole page were printed upside down, for example, or the name of the First Selectman were misspelled, there would still be time to stop the press and replate.
He read rapidly; a layman, untrained to it, could hardly have believed he read at all. But—if there was something really bad—it would leap up at him, its teeth bared. There was not. There were a few things, of course. There always were. It was unfortunate, for example, that, just below an account of the previous Thursday’s meeting of Women’s Committee of the Glenville Improvement Association the filler should read: “The common house cat is known scientifically as Felis Domestica.” Such things happen; one does not stop presses and replate for such inadvertencies. (Replating costs money.)
Billy was returning, at a dead run, bringing the morning papers. Presumably, Billy thought of them as the competition, to be checked for scoops. (Not that that hadn’t happened. The first Glenville knew of the extensive damage to its new high school in a freakish tornado was what it read in the New York Times, not in the Advertiser. It learned from the Advertiser, however, that the board had saved money by not insuring the school against wind damage, knowing that tornadoes do not strike in Connecticut.)
“Tell Mr. Harkness to keep rolling, Billy,” Bob Oliver said and Billy said, “Yes sir” and clattered down again. Jimmy Harkness, who had, certainly, no other idea than to keep rolling would, Bob knew, accept this instruction gravely and even, if he was feeling up to it, with an expression of relief. It is good for boys to carry vital messages, at breakneck speed.
Oliver lighted another cigarette and started with the Daily Mirror to see what nonsense it was up to. The front page headline read: “Off-Duty Cop Routs Village Mugger!” That was the stuff to give the troops. None of this dull fodder about Dulles, off somewhere to consult with other Powers, which one would find leading the Times and, no doubt, the Herald Tribune. Bob Oliver turned to Page 3 of the Mirror.
There it was. Patrick Carboneri, an off-duty patrolman, had come out of a tavern on lower Seventh Avenue at a few minutes before midnight and been just in time to see a young woman struggling with a man. The man had his forearm locked against her throat. Patrolman Carboneri had drawn his gun and run toward them. The man—“heavy-set and swarthy”—had broken free and fled and Carboneri had fired one shot into the air and two after the running man. The mugger, although “routed” was apparently not hit. At any rate, he had kept on running.
His victim was—
Bob Oliver glared at the New York Daily Mirror, which made a statement surely preposterous.
The victim of the mugging was Miss Grace Farthing, “described as an actress” of—Commerce Street. She was rendered unconscious by the attack and had been “rushed” to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where her condition was described as fair.
Interrupted, the assailant had fled without taking Miss Farthing’s purse. In the purse, the police had found papers which led to her identification.
That, then, was what the New York Daily Mirror asked him to believe. His mind formed the thought so, and with indignation. He was being asked to accept this—this preposterous coincidence! As if, already, he hadn’t been asked to accept enough of them. As if—
There was, obviously, no sense in shouting (if silently) at the New York Daily Mirror, which could not hear him and could hardly care less and was, further, clearly not responsible. The Mirror—at least in this instance—reported what had happened. The preposterous element lay there.
And, of course and like all the rest of it, coincidence still was possible. A mugger after a purse could hardly be expected to care that, if by chance he chose this particular purse to try for, he would be presenting a man almost sixty miles away with an unpalatable occurrence. If—
Bob Oliver realized, with a sudden quickening of his mind, precisely what it was (aside from the general indigestibility of further coincidence) that made this off chance extremely unlikely. When he and Lois had called on Grace Farthing, a couple of hours before she had been attacked on the street, she had said she was about to go to bed. She had, to bear this out, been wearing a robe. If he was any judge, and he was probably as good a judge as the next, she had worn under the robe only a nightgown, if that. There had been a man in the apartment, hidden. But the man—it was highly probable—had been the man who had left the building, alone, a few minutes later. Presumably, then, left Grace alone in the apartment, with nothing to keep her from going to bed. But—it was evident she hadn’t.
It was still, looked at coldly, a handful of air. She might have gone out to get a drink, or to buy aspirin, or to pick up a morning newspaper. Or she might have experienced a sudden need for friendly counsel and put her clothes on and gone out—
Anything might have happened, and had nothing whatever to do with the chance—the entirely unproved chance—that she had, two days before, impersonated (but to what purpose?) an ancient woman in a more ancient house. And the answer, the angry answer in Bob Oliver’s mind was: The hell it might! The hell it did!
Grace Farthing had been attacked not by a man who wanted her purse but by one who wanted something else. To kill her? It was quite possible. To warn her? That was equally possible. To warn her not to talk? Especially to a small-town newspaper editor who had suddenly shown up (with a country cousin) on, admittedly, a fairly transparent pretext.
There was no use sitting there guessing aimlessly. The thing to do was to find out. It is by finding out that newspapermen justify their existence. So—
The MG wore a new tire. It was invigorated by a change of sparkplugs. It exceeded the speed limit to the Saw Mill River Parkway, and on the Saw Mill River Parkway. It was at the Hawthorne Circle, waiting to enter, when Bob Oliver swore suddenly, and aloud.
If one woman is attacked to be kept quiet, another woman may be. Even in Glenville, little frequented by muggers. And here he was, miles away, with only one idea in his thick skull, leaping—as usual—before he looked.
He let a gap in the circle traffic go uninvaded. A car behind him honked in exasperation. A motorcycle cop pulled alongside and said, “Help you, mister?”
It was, clearly, nothing more than a new brainstorm. Lois Williams would be all right in Glenville. Everybody was all right in Glenville, in the ordinary course. No new emergency had, in fact, arisen.
He saluted the patrolman and sm
iled at him, and shot the little car through the next traffic gap….
He found a place to park only a block from St. Vincent’s Hospital, and walked the block. At the desk, he wondered whether he might see Miss Grace Farthing, if she was allowed visitors. The name was repeated, file cards were flipped through, one card was stopped at.
“I’m afraid—” the girl began and stopped, looking at a tall thin man with a drooping face who had come up and now stood beside Bob Oliver.
“This Miss Farthing,” the tall man said, and spoke sadly, “she was a friend of yours?”
“Of my wife’s, actually,” Bob said, and realized what he had heard. “Was?” he said.
“I’m afraid so,” the tall man said and shook his head. “Half an hour ago. It’s a risky business, mugging. A little too much—of your wife’s, you say?”
“Former wife,” Oliver said. “Well—”
So that was out. He couldn’t ask Grace Farthing what she knew, because now she didn’t know anything.
“Shapiro,” the tall man said. “I’m a detective.” He said this with a kind of apology, and as if it would probably be disbelieved. “I was supposed to talk to her. See if she had recognized—” He shrugged rather narrow shoulders, admitting defeat. “Not that they ever do,” he said. He was, evidently, a morose detective.
“Well—” Bob Oliver said again.
“Only thing,” Detective Shapiro said, “seems her telephone rang half an hour, forty-five minutes, before it happened. And—she answered it and went out. Anyway, that’s what the next apartment says. Thin walls some of these places have, mister—”
“Oliver.”
“Oliver,” Shapiro said. “Doesn’t mean anything, probably. They thought she ought to be asked about that but—there it is. You live in the neighborhood, Mr. Oliver?”
“No. Up in Connecticut. I just—”
He stopped. There was, unquestionably, a look of expectancy on the detective’s drooping face. And—a look of interest.
“Knew her pretty well?”
“Not especially. As I said, she was a friend of my wife’s and I read—”
“Of course,” Shapiro said. “You just told me that, didn’t you? Stupid of me. You happened to be in New York this morning and read about the attack on Miss Farthing and thought you’d drop around in a friendly sort of way. Friend of your—you did say former?—wife—and everything. Used to see a good deal of her probably. You and your former wife.”
“Well—”
“You did happen to be in New York, Mr. Oliver?”
Why the hell did he hesitate? Let this sad detective—an errand boy of a detective, it appeared—see him hesitate.
“I was home,” he said. “That is, at my office. In Connecticut.”
Detective Shapiro looked increasingly sad. Also, he evidently waited.
“Glenville,” Oliver said. “I read about it there and—” He paused again.
“Came right in,” Shapiro said. “Not many would have done that, Mr. Oliver. To cheer up a woman you didn’t know especially well and—when was it you and your former wife used to see a good deal of her?”
“Years ago,” Oliver said. “And, I never saw much of her. My wife’s friend, more than mine. As—”
“As you told me,” Shapiro said. He had mournful brown eyes. “You smoke cigars, Mr. Oliver?”
“Smoke—oh.” He felt himself begin to grow angry, realized he was beginning to glare at the sad detective. “What the hell—” He managed to stop.
“The way it is,” Shapiro said, without giving any indication he was aware of being glared at, “seems there were several people in Miss Farthing’s apartment earlier last night. Before she went out. Neighbors, you know. You know how neighbors are. You didn’t say whether you smoke cigars.”
“No,” Oliver said. “I don’t smoke cigars, Mr. Shapiro.”
“But,” Shapiro said, “you know why I asked, don’t you? How, Mr. Oliver?”
Bob Oliver, in the practice of his trade, had conducted a good many interviews, and frequently to ends not anticipated by those interviewed. He was still not entirely sure how this doleful man—this errand boy of a detective—had brought him to the point where the single word, “How?” had so much pertinency. How indeed?
“There is,” Bob Oliver said, “a little more to it. Not what you think, but—more.”
“I don’t think anything in particular,” Detective Shapiro said. “I’ll admit, though, I wondered.” He was quite apologetic in saying this. He seemed to wish the whole matter had never come up….
There had been no compulsion about it. None whatever, as Detective Nathan Shapiro made clear. It was merely that, if Mr. Oliver—Robert Oliver, that was right?—didn’t mind, they would be more comfortable at the office than standing here on the hard, antiseptic floor of St. Vincent’s Hospital. And it was only a few blocks uptown to Twentieth Street and since Mr. Oliver obviously had a car—Since there was a “little more to it.”
Not, Shapiro said—still sadly, as they drove the few blocks in the MG—that there was really a great deal of hope they would get anywhere. They didn’t, often, with muggings, unless they caught the mugger red-handed. If Carboneri, off duty or not, had been a little better shot—But there, regrettably, it was. Carboneri probably had had a few beers. Nothing against that, when a man was off duty. Threw his timing off a little, probably. But there it was. It appeared that, for Detective Nathan Shapiro, a good many things were there, and with nothing much to be done about them. Rather a resigned detective.
At the offices of Homicide, Manhattan West, which are in the West Twentieth Street station house, Shapiro had said, “Don’t mind waiting a minute, do you?” in a tone which suggested that Oliver would be well within his rights if he did mind, and then had gone into a private office. He had come out in ten minutes or so and said that the captain would like to see Mr. Oliver, if that was all right.
The captain was a thinnish man of medium height, or a little more, and a man who looked as if he might follow any occupation—any within, that was, a suitable range. Oliver had known newspaper reporters who looked much the same, and lawyers and doctors and business executives who got in enough golf. The thinnish man stood up behind an unimposing desk, and shook hands across it, and said his name was William Weigand. And said that Detective Shapiro thought he—Oliver, wasn’t it? —might be able to help them out on this mugging they were up against. “Right?” Captain Weigand said.
It was, Bob Oliver had said, all pretty vague—so vague that he hardly knew where to start, or that there was actually anything to start with. He doubted, Bob said, that it would help. It began, if it began anywhere, with the sound of a voice, and not a sound that he, himself, had actually heard. That was how vague it was—how nebulous—how far from the cruel pressure of a forearm against an unprotected throat. But if they thought—
“Right,” Captain Weigand said. “You can never tell, can you?”
After that, Weigand merely listened. He did not prompt, did not question, was patient and attentive. Once or twice he nodded his head, briefly. When Bob had finished he nodded his head again, and said that it had been made very clear. He said, “You’re still a good reporter, Mr. Oliver,” and at that Bob blinked slightly. He could not remember that—
“The name seemed familiar,” Weigand said. “So—”
“So,” Bob said, “you checked up.” He spoke abruptly.
Weigand smiled. He had a pleasant smile. He said, “Right.”
“As to making it clear,” Bob said, “I can’t say it is to me.”
“No,” Weigand said. “Quite fuzzy. But—fuzziness can be made clear, can’t it? This lawyer Graham—he seems a cautious man. A man who checks up. With the doctor, with the man at the bank. Right?”
“Yes,” Bob said. “That’s where the catch comes in, isn’t it?”
“The man leaving the apartment house,” Weigand said. “You didn’t recognize him? But you’d have said if you had. This man Keating? Heav
y-set and swarthy, by any chance? Because, if there is anything, we come to Keating, don’t we?”
“No,” Bob said. “Neither. That is—Keating’s sort of—plump. I don’t know what, precisely, the patrolman means by “heavy-set,’ of course. Only—it isn’t a term I’d use of Keating.”
“For that matter,” Weigand said, “I don’t know precisely how anybody could tell he was swarthy, in the light there must have been. The man leaving the place—he could have been Keating?”
“I don’t know,” Bob said. “Not much light.”
“No,” Weigand said. “You haven’t talked to the local men—the men in Glenville; the State Police, I’d suppose—about your suspicions? Those of Mrs. Williams? She seems an observant young woman.”
“She is,” Bob said. “As to going to anybody—with what?”
He spread his hands, to show them empty.
“Actually,” he said, “the more I think about it—talk about it—the vaguer it all seems.”
“The doctor’s a good man?”
“I think so. Everybody in town thinks so. And in places like Glenville, if a man isn’t—” He shrugged.
“Right,” Weigand said. “And we can assume the bank man is, in his line.” He drummed on his desk with agile fingers. “What you seem to have,” he said, “is suspects—Keating and his aunt rather stick out, don’t they?—but no crime. Therefore—why kill Mrs. Banks, née Farthing?”
“I said there was nothing tangible,” Bob said. “I realize I’ve wasted your time.”
“A dead woman,” Weigand said. “A cigar butt in her apartment. A telephone call which may have summoned her out late at night. And—a yellow wig. Very good wig, they tell me. Very professional. Tangible enough, Mr. Oliver.”
