The bathroom door opened and the two women came out. The police matron handed the inspector a .45 caliber Army automatic.
“In her purse,” she said laconically.
MRS. WADE’S normally pale face had become chalky, but her chin was high and her eyes steady as she returned our combined stares. Her lips trembled imperceptibly.
Day said: “Heavy artillery for a lady.”
“I have a permit.” She offered a bit of paper.
Day glanced at it briefly. “Illinois. No good in this state.”
Releasing the clip into his left hand, he tossed it to Hannegan. “Count ’em,” he said. Then he slammed back the slide until it locked open. “Chamber empty.” Inserting a thumbnail into the ejection slot as a reflector, he peered down the tube. “Clean. Hasn’t been fired.”
Hannegan, stuffing cartridges back into the clip, announced: “Seven. Full clip.”
“O.K., lady,” said Day. “Start explaining why you carry a loaded .45.”
“I didn’t realize you needed a different permit for each state. I thought a permit was good anywhere.”
“I don’t care about your blamed permit. Why do you need a gun at all?”
She said: “I play quite a bit. Roulette. Sometimes I win a lot—enough to invite robbery. I always carry a gun when I play, in case I win.”
Day’s expression was scornful. “That’s the weakest I’ve heard yet, lady. Any house will send you home with an armed guard on request. Try again.”
“It’s the truth. Honest. Why else would I want a gun?”
“That’s my question.” He moved his pointed nose up and down, examining her from the elliptical curve of her low cut bangs to frail, open-toed pumps. Then he gave her gun to Hannegan. “Come in and register this tomorrow, lady. We’ll keep it till then. Go on home. And be available when we want you.” To Hannegan he said: “Let them all go, except Wade and his stooge. Get names and addresses.”
As Hannegan and Mrs. Wade departed, I drifted over to one of the two windows on either side of Bagnell’s desk. It was locked, and from where I stood I could see the other was also. Turning the catch, I raised the window and tested the steel bars that ran the window’s vertical length about six inches apart.
“We tried them all,” Day said behind me.
My window looked out from the back of the building. About twenty yards away the interminable ten-foot iron fence ran parallel to the building’s rear. Beyond the fence lay the parking area, and two brilliant arc lamps suspended over it bathed the massed automobiles in bright glare, casting diffused light this side of the fence clear to my window. Pressing my face between the two center bars, I could see the iron fence continued on beyond the far edge of the building, separating the parking lot from the grassed area behind El Patio, to a point where both the lot and the lawn met heavily underbrushed woods. The fence disappeared in the woods, and from my window I was unable to guess which way it ran from there. But beyond the strip of woods, perhaps fifty yards from the lawned area, I knew the main highway ran.
I moved into the bathroom and switched on the light. Here the window was open, but the same type of bars made it impassable. Peering out, I saw the fence on this side was only about fifteen yards away and had a door-sized gate in it almost directly opposite the bathroom window.
I wondered if the gate were looked, and it occurred to me that ten feet of iron was lots of fence for a murderer to climb in an area partially lighted by arc lamps. Straightening away from the window, I tried to visualize in my mind just how the fence encircled the place. As you faced the front door of El Patio, Bagnell’s office was set in the right rear corner of the building. The iron fence started at the highway about a hundred yards to your left, followed the drive which passed in front of the building until it met the building’s left front corner, started again at the right front corner, and turned at right angles with the drive about fifteen yards farther on. Here it separated the drive from the right flank of the building, again turned sharply left at the parking lot behind El Patio and continued on behind the building until lost in the woods.
I became conscious of Inspector Day peering over his glasses at me from the bathroom door. I glanced casually around the white room, had an idea and lifted the porcelain top of the commode.
Day said: “We looked there.”
I replaced the top, glanced at the washbowl, and then looked closer. The bowl’s inside was wet and several minute, knobby bubbles ringed the outlet drain. I squeezed one flat with a forefinger and rolled the finger against the ball of my thumb.
“Oil,” I said.
Day peered into the bowl, his brow creased, then cleared again. He pointed to a bottle of brilliantine on a shelf over the stand. “Bagnell’s hair slick. There’s nothing in here. We went over every inch of both rooms. What you looking for?”
“Nothing. Just being nosey.”
I returned to the office and looked around. The area near Bagnell’s desk was a mess. Congealed blood matted his desktop, his chair and the rug behind the desk. Even in front of the desk, dark spots polka dotted the floor.
Day said: “He spilled all over everything.”
“Yeah,” I said, then abruptly: “You through with me?”
“Sure. Send in Wade on your way out.”
Fausta, Caramand and Greene still sat in the hall.
Danny leaned casually against the door jamb, a cigarette drooping from his mouth, and the Wade family talked privately a few yards away.
I said: “The inspector wants you, Wade.”
Wade turned toward me as I spoke and his face was flushed and sullen. Mrs. Wade patted his arm and shot a smile at me, her bright lips framing small, flashing teeth.
As Wade entered the office, I asked Fausta why she and the others continued sitting there.
“Inspector Day desires we stay where he can call us,” she said.
“Well, you don’t have to sit in the hall. Come out to the bar and I’ll buy a drink.”
My invitation was confined to Fausta, but everyone except Danny chose to accept. Mrs. Wade linked her right arm through my left, which brought Fausta out of her chair as though it were upholstered with tacks. She grasped my other arm so tightly, I halted and frowned down at her. With her eye corners on Mrs. Wade, she flicked her tongue at me, then relaxed her grip. We went into the bar three abreast, with Vance Caramand and Mouldy Greene trailing behind.
A rapidly diminishing crowd filed out singly as a cop at the door recorded names and addresses. No one at all sat at the bar. I slid onto a bar stool, Mrs. Wade took the one to my left and Fausta moved naturally in between us, smiling up at me vindictively.
I grinned down at her, crooked my finger at the man behind the bar and ordered five drinks. None of us said anything while the bartender put together our order. When it was served, Mrs. Wade raised her glass to me.
“To new acquaintances.”
We all raised our glasses and Fausta said: “To old acquaintance.”
We drank to both.
Mrs. Wade asked: “Could I talk to you privately sometime, Mr. Moon?”
“On purely business?” Fausta wanted to know, and she smiled her sweetest sulphuric smile.
“On purely business,” Mrs. Wade assured her. Her eyes lingered innocently on Fausta, then returned to me. “You’re a private detective, aren’t you, Mr. Moon?”
“My license says so.”
“When could I see you—on purely business?”
“Tomorrow.” I passed her a card. “My fiat is my office and I’m usually awake by noon.”
“I’ll be there at one.” She slipped the card into her purse and smiled sidewise at Fausta.
Fausta moved around to my right, dug her elbow into Mouldy Greene’s side and climbed onto the stool he suddenly vacated.
“Me, you never invite to your flat,” she hissed in my ear.
“You’re too young,” I hissed back.
Her dark eyes snapped, but a demure smile curved her lips as she quietly g
ouged a spike heel into my instep. I grinned down at her, undisturbed. She had chosen my aluminum foot.
CHAPTER THREE
Death at First Sight
I FINISHED BREAKFAST AT 12:45 the following afternoon, just as my doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Wade.
She chose one side of the divan, crossed her legs and deliberately examined rounded knees to assure herself they were sufficiently exposed. I poured rye in two glasses and raised an eyebrow at her.
“Soda.”
I let fizz into her glass, added water to my own and relaxed in a chair facing her. She carried the same enormous bag she had the previous evening. Zipping it open, she produced a silver case.
“Cigarette?”
I shook my head and scratched a match for her. Her cigarette aglow, she leaned her head against the divan back and inhaled slowly. She showed no hurry to open conversation. By the time her cigarette was half gone and neither of us had spoken, I began to grow impatient.
I said: “What’s on your mind, Mrs. Wade?”
She smiled, making the corners of her eyes crinkle slyly. “Maybe I just want to get better acquainted.”
“Sure. Love at first sight. Every woman I meet feels it. Now, what’s on your mind?”
Her eyes remained bright, but she smoothed away the smile and let her face grow serious. “I want you to solve this murder.”
I fished a cigar from the end-table humidor and set fire to it before answering. Then I asked: “Why?”
The question seemed to surprise her. “What difference does it make why? I want it solved.”
“Don’t you think the police can solve it?”
“No.” She stated it definitely, as though there were no question in her mind.
“But you think I can?”
She punched out her cigarette and immediately took another from her case. I held a match for her.
“I don’t know whether you can solve it or not,” she said. “If what I think is true, you probably won’t be able to prove anything. That is, you won’t be able to find evidence enough to convict anyone. But I don’t care about that, if you can just find out what happened.”
“What do you think happened?”
She blew smoke from her nose, watching me from half lidded eyes. “Will you take the case?”
I grinned at her. “Meaning you tell me nothing until I commit myself?”
She nodded.
“O.K. I’ll take it. But before we go any farther, you’ll have to listen to a short speech I sometimes inflict on my clients. Ready?”
“You mean like anything I say may be used against me?”
“Something like that.”
“How dramatic. I’m ready.”
“Once I take a case,” I said, “I follow it until I get the answer. And I don’t care whose toes I step on in the process. If the investigation turns in a direction you don’t like, you may stop my pay, but you can’t take me off the ease.”
She thought about this for a minute. “I think I know what you mean.”
“A few minutes ago you remarked that all you wanted was the answer and you didn’t care about the murderer being convicted. I play for keeps. If I crack the case, the police get all the evidence I dig up.”
“You misunderstood me,” she protested. “I meant you probably wouldn’t be able to find evidence. He’s more clever than he looks.”
“Who?”
She leaned forward to kill her second cigarette and kept her eyes on the tray as she spoke. “Let’s stop fencing. We both think my husband hired Louis killed. I heard most of what you told the inspector.” Then she straightened and looked squarely in my face. “If Byron had him killed, I hope he hangs.”
I said: “They use gas in this state.”
She dug out a third cigarette while I filled her empty glass. When she was settled with both a light and a drink, she started to talk.
“I’m not familiar with murder,” she said, “so I don’t know how much you’ll have to know. Suppose I go back two years?”
“Sounds like a nice distance,” I agreed.
“Two years ago I was the wife of a man named Arthur O’Conner. He was a bookie in Chicago. One of Byron’s bookies. We weren’t any bargain as a married couple, but we got along. Then I met Byron.”
She paused and took a long drag on her cigarette. I imitated her with my cigar and waited for her to get started again.
“I’m not going to paint myself whiter than I am. I started playing around with Byron. But I was only playing. He gave me things Arthur couldn’t. Nice clothes and a little jewelry. I know it was wrong, but I never intended to leave Arthur. Not that I loved him particularly, but I was fonder of him than I was of Byron,
“Byron wanted me to divorce Arthur and marry him. I said no, but he kept insisting. Finally the situation became impossible and I told Byron I wasn’t going to see him any more. The next night Arthur was killed.”
She stopped and stared into her glass. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I said: “Yes?”
“He was run over by an elevated. They called it an accident, but no one decided just how he got up on the elevated track.”
SHE raised her head and looked squarely at me again. “Maybe I’m rotten for marrying the man I half suspect had my husband killed, but that’s what I did. I’m not making any bones about it. I married Byron because he had money. And of course I didn’t really know he was responsible for Arthur’s death. It was merely a possibility. But a second man dying is too coincidental. Is any of this important?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s certainly entertaining. Keep it up.”
“What I think,” she confided, “is that Byron found out I was seeing Louis and had him killed, just as he had Arthur killed.”
I asked: “Did your husband know you were at El Patio last night?”
“Oh yes. He knew I went there every Monday and Wednesday, but he thought it was for roulette … At least that’s what I thought he thought, until Louis was killed.”
“Were you in love with Bagnell?”
She looked surprised. “Of course not. I found him interesting, but it wasn’t love.” She stared at me petulantly for a moment. “I know I’m making myself sound like a tramp, but I’m not one really. You have to know how I feel about Byron to understand. I never loved him, and I haven’t kissed him in over a year. Legally we’re married and Ave live in the same apartment, but I don’t feel married, so I don’t act it.”
“Is your husband normally jealous?”
She looked at me blankly.
I said: “I mean if you haven’t felt or acted married for a year, you must have had other interesting friends. Does Byron have them all killed?”
She puckered her brow. “I see what you mean. No, he never did anything before, and he’s had just as much cause.”
“Did you know Bagnell and your husband were business rivals?” I asked gently.
Instead of the wounded frown I expected, her expression brightened. “Of course! Byron probably had Louis killed because he controlled all the handbooks in town.” She seemed pleased at this solution and not at all touched in her vanity.
“But you still want him caught, even though his motive was purely commercial?”
“Yes. I still want him caught.”
“Why?”
“He splashed blood on my dress.”
My eyes jerked up at her. “Oh, he splashed blood on your dress!” Then, keeping the dialogue at its sensible level, I said: “I didn’t see any blood.”
“It was low. On the hem.”
I said: “My fee is five hundred in advance and five hundred more if I solve the case.”
She rounded her lips into a pouting O. “That’s pretty steep.”
“I don’t work often.”
She found a pen and checkbook in her bag and wrote a check for five hundred.
“Do you want to know anything else?” she asked.
“Yeah. Why do you carry a loaded .45?”
&nbs
p; “I-told you last night. You were there when the inspector asked me.”
I nodded my head resignedly and rubbed out my cigar in the ash tray.
“Where’d you get it?”
“From a soldier.”
I waited for elaboration, but she only smiled brightly as though she had made everything obvious.
“What soldier?” I asked finally.
“Just one I knew. A fellow named Joe.”
“Another interesting friend?”
She pouted. “You’re making fun of me.”
“No, I’m not. I want to know.”
She examined my face carefully for a sign of amusement, then said reluctantly: “I suppose you could call him that. I went dancing with him once or twice.”
“Where’d he get the gun?”
“I don’t know. Overseas, I suppose. He had several. German, Italian, English. All different types. He let me take my pick and I took the American one because he told me you couldn’t get bullets for the others.”
I said: “Tell me what happened last night.”
She put out her cigarette and for a change didn’t light another. “You mean everything, or just in Louis’ office?”
“Start with when you got to El Patio.”
After thinking a minute, she recited: “I arrived about 6:30. For a while I played roulette and lost about seventy-five dollars, all the money I had with me. Then I went back to Louis’ office. He was expecting me, because I usually had a few drinks with him every Monday and Wednesday night. I had him cash a twenty dollar check and then he ordered a bottle of Scotch and some soda from the bar. We drank and talked about an hour, I guess, and all of a sudden, just as I stood up to leave, a shot came from the bathroom and blood started spurting from the top of Louis’ head. That’s all I remember, because I fainted.”
“You didn’t hear a sound outside the window before the shot was fired?”
“No. I heard nothing at all until the shot.”
“And you’re sure your husband knew you were at El Patio last night?”
“Yes. Positive.”
“Is your husband still in love with you?”
She looked startled. “I hadn’t thought about it.” Her brow creased and she added slowly: “I suppose he is in a sullen sort of way. He’d like me back as his real wife again, but I think he’s resigned to not having me. Why? Is it important?”
No Pockets in a Shroud Page 3
