Eye Witness

by George Harmon Coxe

  ‘Because you probably wouldn’t have gone’, Wyman said, ‘and anyway we needed confirmation on that tip about Larson.’ He laughed and said: ‘What’re you screaming about? You’ve got an expense account, haven’t you?’

  Murdock argued some. He fumed restrainedly—since there was a limit to what one could say to his boss—and finally, because he had a sense of humour and knew he was whipped, a new thought came to him.

  ‘All right’, he said, ‘you’ll get your pictures. Plenty of them. It may take awhile … I may have to get a suite to entertain in’, he said, adding that he expected to have breakfast in bed and that the entertainment expense would be on a scale befitting his position.

  Wyman laughed again. He said anything within reason would be all right, and how did Murdock make out with Helen Farnsley. Murdock told him briefly and said he was going to put in a call for Walter Dorrance. He did so immediately he hung up, and when Dorrance answered he said, making no reference to Wyman’s trickery since it was not Dorrance’s fault: ‘The news isn’t too bad, Walter.’

  ‘Really’, Dorrance’s reply was quick and eager, his interest undisguised. ‘Have you seen Helen?’

  ‘I just left her a few minutes ago. Also I had a talk with Murray Leonard.’

  ‘How did he strike you?’

  ‘All right’, Murdock said, ‘I liked him.’

  ‘What about Lee?’

  ‘I haven’t been able to locate him yet but I’ll probably see him before the day is over.’ He paused, his expression doubtful, ‘I’m still not so sure it’s a good idea for me to proposition him.’

  ‘I know how you feel’, Dorrance said, ‘and knowing Lee it’s not going to be easy. But I still think the offer should carry more conviction coming from you than it would from a lawyer. I think he’ll believe you because he knows the sort of man you are. However, if you don’t feel you want to—’

  ‘Suppose we wait and see’, Murdock cut in. ‘I don’t mind telling him how it is, but to be frank about it I don’t think he’ll go for it. Why don’t you call me here, Room 617, in the morning? By then I may be able to give you the whole story.’

  Dorrance said he’d do that. He was profuse in his expressions of appreciation; he was sure that if anyone could straighten out the mess he’d made, Murdock could.

  Murdock said he hoped so, and as he hung up he was able to consider the matter in its true perspective, to understand that anything he might do that would help to insure Helen Farnsley’s future happiness was far more important than any newspaper assignment, even a legitimate one.

  As he began to unbutton his shirt he walked over to the window. Below him the city spread out in the late afternoon shadows. In the distance he could see the smoke haze that hung over the railway yards and roundhouse, the glint of silvery water that marked the inner boundary of the harbour. Looking down, he watched for a while the crawling traffic; then, grunting softly, he turned away in search of a clean shirt.

  You’re getting soft, Murdock, he thought. Then, in his own defence, he thought, What are friends for?

  The address printed on Simon Rigby’s card proved to be a run-down, three-storied brick building on a narrow side street not far from the hotel. The ground floor entrance, between a stationery store and a lunchroom, led to a gloomy hall, the stairs were worn and creaky, and Rigby’s office which stood at the end of a transverse corridor and overlooked the street was not much of an improvement on the hall. There was a small anteroom beyond the frosted-glass panel which said: Simon Rigby—Investigator, and the private office which adjoined this had the same musty smell he had noticed on the stairs; the same thin covering of dust lay evenly over the battered oak furniture, the bookcases, the filing cabinet, the water-cooler.

  Simon Rigby fitted so perfectly into his surroundings they might have been devised as a protective colouring. He rose to shake hands, a thin, round-shouldered man in a commonplace brown suit, well-stained across the front and permanently wrinkled. His skin was muddy, his hair mouse-coloured—what there was of it. His age was indeterminate, though he was not old, and only his eyes gave any clue as to his business. Flat-brown and, unlike the rest of him, seldom still, they seemed to warn of some secret mental activity, as though weighing each word in the light of its shades of meaning and possible significance.

  ‘Glad to see you’, he said in his hoarse, low-pitched voice. ‘Sit down. Take off your coat and have a little snort before we go out to eat.’

  He snapped on the desk lamp to ward off the gathering dusk, took a bottle of whisky from a drawer, and found some paper cups at the bottom of a dusty container. He poured two drinks, added water from the cooler, and offered a cigarette. ‘Cheers’, he said, and drank.

  Murdock, keeping his coat on, watched the routine in straight-faced silence. He downed his drink and found the whisky good. He sat down in a cracked-leather chair and stretched his legs, cigarette in hand.

  ‘How’s business?’ he asked, not particularly caring though he knew other detectives in Boston and could not help making comparisons.

  ‘Well, I’m not exactly sleeping in the street.’

  ‘Much competition in town?’

  ‘Not much. A couple of other operators. We all get by.’ Rigby settled back, the chair springs creaking with the movement. ‘So long as there are jealous guys and dames, and people that stray off the reservation, there’ll be work for guys like me.’

  ‘Much rough stuff?’

  ‘Nah. Of course sometimes a guy has to be fast on his feet.’ He made a small, twisted movement of his lips that could have been a grin, and examined his cigarette, which was wet on the end and no more than an inch long. He held it between the nails of his thumb and index finger and worked on it some more. ‘I’ve crashed some places—roadside cabins and motels and things like that—with the box.’ He indicated a battered camera case on top of the bookcase. ‘But never alone. Also, on jobs like that, you don’t stick around long enough for things to get tough.’

  ‘Mostly divorce stuff?’

  ‘Mostly. Sometimes a little undercover assignment on a petty larceny plant. You know, some light-fingered clerk raiding the cash box. Things like that.’

  ‘Carry a gun?’

  ‘A gun?’ Rigby chuckled and reached for a drawer. He opened it, pawed through it, closed it and tried again. The third time he hauled forth a short-barrelled revolver. ‘The last time I packed this was in ’48. Did a little turn as a watchman for a trucking company.’

  He finally gave up on the cigarette stub, dropping it into an ash tray. He flipped out the cylinder of the revolver, glanced at the shells and then, holding the gun towards the light, peered through the barrel. ‘Ought to clean it’, he said, and put it away in the centre drawer.

  ‘Yeah’, he said, ‘it’s a living. And now and then something comes along that pays off a little better. Like this thing here—if it works out right.’ He hesitated, his eyes obscured by the shadows beyond the lamp, but probing. ‘I hear Dorrance is a big wheel in the legal racket up in Boston.’

  ‘Used to be.’

  ‘He wrote to some lawyer here asking who might take the job and I got the nod. He’s been paying me twenty-five bucks a week ever since—for what amounts to one day’s work. The last letter he said if this came out right there’d be a small bonus. He didn’t say what he meant but the way I figure it this Farnsley marriage is on the rocks and that’s the way Dorrance wants it. He wants the dame to give Farnsley the air, right?’

  ‘Right’, Murdock said, watching the detective pour two more drinks. ‘The girl has plenty of grounds, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘I understand Farnsley’s been chasing around with some girl who plays down at the Club Ebony.’

  ‘Name of Claire Emerson.’

  ‘Is she the only one?’

  ‘The only regular. There’s another he sees once in a while when the number one man is out of town.’ Rigby settled back and found another cigarette. The second drink seemed to ma
ke him more expansive and his glance was less calculating.

  ‘This one is married to an older man with money. She’s a looker and I guess she don’t like to stay put. There’s a lad in New York that gets up here every couple weeks and she sees him when he’s in town. The way I get all this’—he gestured with one hand, giving the movement an air of importance—‘is that I work for the husband.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a good set-up. Steady. Been on it for months.’

  ‘What’s the husband want?’ Murdock asked. ‘Divorce?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s got plenty for that. I think he’s just jealous, and one of these days he’s liable to make some trouble and go on the warpath with a gun. Then I’ll be out of a client.’

  He went on to say that in any case it was none of his business and Murdock, listening absently, brought his mind back to the details that most interested him.

  ‘What about this Murray Leonard?’

  ‘I checked on him. He seems okay. Comes from Springfield. Good family, not wealthy but solid.’

  Murdock nodded thoughtfully. ‘Anything between him and Mrs. Farnsley that her husband could use to strike back with?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so. They have lunch several times a week, go out a couple of times at night. Just about what you’d expect, and nothing wrong with anything I’ve seen. I guess she gives him dinner at her place once in a while because he goes in about that time, or takes her home from the office and goes in. He’s always out of there by eleven.’

  He tipped his head to keep the smoke from his eyes and said: ‘Of course a shyster might make something out of that if Farnsley wanted to fight, but if you want my opinion I’d say he didn’t have too good a chance. He’s got too many strikes against him.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘Publicity mostly. For the matchmaker at the Arena, a couple of nightclubs, the boxing promoter. He beats the drums for the local hockey team, things like that, runs around with all the sharpshooters. Also he’s in a little trouble with Joe Apollo.’

  Murdock leaned back and waited, in no hurry and wanting all the information he could get. Rigby rocked gently in his chair. His thin face moved in and out of the circle of light cast by the desk lamp, and the noises of the city filtering through the window accompanied the faint creaking of the chair.

  ‘Apollo’s a gambler. Runs a local nightspot, too, but gambling’s his real racket. I understand Farnsley’s been playing some. The way I hear it he’s hooked for a few bob and Apollo don’t like it. Apollo wants his and Farnsley can’t get it up. I understand it’s around eight or nine hundred.’

  ‘Apollo’s tough?’

  ‘Tough enough to know how to handle welchers, and he can get help when he needs it.’

  Murdock thought it over, none of what he heard surprising him much. Then he considered something else. ‘Tell me about the girl Farnsley’s been seeing. This Claire Emerson.’

  ‘Sure.’ Rigby blew smoke at the lamp. ‘Only “seeing” is hardly the word. They’ve been going around together ever since I’ve been on the case. Until a couple of days ago. The kiss-off came at the Club Ebony.’

  ‘Where she plays the piano.’

  ‘Yeah.… You know about her? A blonde. Pretty but dumb. Just a kid but not so young she don’t know her way around, if you know what I mean. And Farnsley must have told her they were washed up because she went for him with one of those metal lamps they have on the tables down there. He held her off until the waiters broke it up, but they say she was a wildcat for a couple of minutes.’ He straightened in his chair, accompanied by a final protesting squeak. Brushing the ashes off his vest, he reached for the bottle.

  ‘Let’s have one more snort’, he said, ‘and then we’ll eat, huh?’

  Chapter Four

  SIMON RIGBY discussed food as they went down the stairs and along the street, and when he found out that Murdock would settle for broiled lobster he selected a bar and grill where the quality of the food and cooking made up for the lack of style. Once they went to work on the job of dismantling their crustacean fare there was little opportunity for conversation, and by the time they had coffee and a brandy they were too full to do much talking.

  Murdock paid the check and when they went out on the sidewalk some time after eight-thirty, Rigby wanted to know if Murdock still was interested in finding Lee Farnsley.

  ‘I’ll snoop around some’, he said, ‘and if I get a line on him and it ain’t too late I’ll give you a ring or maybe come to the hotel.’

  Murdock said that would be fine, and for the next three-quarters of an hour he prowled around, calling at the Arena office again, and the nightclub Helen Farnsley had mentioned earlier, a dreary establishment peopled principally by waiters.

  He was back at the hotel at nine-thirty and he immediately called room-service and asked for some ice. He had a flask in his bag, and the evening papers, and it was his intention to have a nightcap, possibly two, and then go to bed if he did not hear from Rigby. He was just making his first drink when someone knocked at the door; when he opened it he found Lee Farnsley standing in the hall.

  Farnsley did not wait for an invitation. Making no effort to shake hands he sauntered forward, teeth shining in a smile, his expression indolent and superior. ‘Hello, Murdock’, he said, ‘hear you’ve been looking for me.’

  Murdock closed the door and followed the other to the centre of the room. Here, where the light was better, he could see that Farnsley’s face was flushed, the eyes hostile as they surveyed the room. The voice, however, was casual and assured as he asked if it was all right to have a drink. He poured one, tasted it, and then, as if he owned the place, slipped off his gaberdine topcoat, adjusted his pin-striped suit. This done he settled himself in the one comfortable chair.

  ‘How’re things at the Courier these days?’

  ‘Oh—about the same.’

  ‘Still the big-shot button-pusher up there, hunh? Picture chief, they tell me.’

  Murdock could tell now that Farnsley had been drinking, and knew he was in a nasty mood. Because of this he ignored the remark and sat down on the edge of the bed, determined to keep his temper and hold his resentment in check.

  ‘I tried to locate you earlier’, he said.

  ‘Why?’

  Murdock allowed himself a discouraged sigh. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘You talked to Helen.’

  ‘Certainly. I would have talked to you but no one seemed to know where you were.’

  ‘I was around.’ Farnsley gulped half his drink and examined the glass. ‘Helen called me around six-thirty. Said you were in town and that she’d decided to get a divorce.’ His chuckle was forced and bitter. ‘That’s a laugh, her getting a divorce.’

  ‘She has grounds, hasn’t she?’

  ‘So have I, son.’ Farnsley sat up and his mouth twisted. ‘So have I.’

  Murdock concentrated on keeping his voice level. ‘Walter Dorrance has been getting reports on you for several months.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘A private detective here in town.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘He knows Helen has all the grounds she’ll ever need, but because he doesn’t want to make it any more unpleasant for her than he has to he’s willing to pay a little something for your co-operation.’

  ‘That’s big of him.’ Farnsley let his lids come down when Murdock made no reply, and after a second or two of speculation he said: ‘How much is it worth to him?’

  ‘Ten thousand dollars.’

  Farnsley leaned back and laughed aloud. ‘That’s good’, he said. ‘Ten thousand when she’s worth a half-million.’

  ‘She’s worth more than that, Lee. Make it three-quarters of a million.’

  The frank admission seemed to surprise Farnsley and he was momentarily silenced. He stood up and made himself another drink. When he had tasted it he said:

  ‘What’s your cut?’

  Murdock eyed him morosely, saying nothing.

  ‘Y
ou’re not being front man just because you love dear Uncle Walter, are you?’

  Murdock realized now that he would make no further progress, and as he remained stubbornly silent his thoughts went back to the days when Farnsley had worked for the Courier-Herald. He had come originally from Albany and his tenure of employment in Boston was not much more than a year. Unfortunately for Helen, his stay coincided with her six months’ stint in the advertising department.

  Farnsley demonstrated early the facility he had for getting words on paper, what was not suspected until later was that he was weak on facts that required any extensive leg-work or research, an omission that was not always fatal in the occasional feature story he did but which was a cardinal error in straight reporting. Eventually he was fired for just this sort of laxity, but the city editor was a long time in catching up with him and by that time Lee was ready to marry Helen and he did not particularly care.

  Helen’s father, who made his money in the printing business, was a stockholder in the Courier-Herald. T. A. Wyman had been a friend of his and had known Helen as a young girl, and it was to him that she turned when she decided she wanted to work. She had no interest in the editorial aspects of the paper—she maintained that English had always been her poorest subject—but she had great enthusiasm and a desire to see if she could earn her own way, and the result of all this was a job in the display department, the duties hardly more than those of an office boy in the beginning. All this came as something of a shock to her friends in the Junior League and the Vincent Club, but she had a creative turn to her mind that brought her finally to the business of helping with layouts for some of the smaller advertisers who had no advertising staff of their own.

  Until she met Lee Farnsley her experience was, as she had said, largely limited to college boys her own age, and it was understandable that she should find his company more stimulating than some. He was reasonably good looking, he dressed well, and he had an easy, superficial smile that fooled a lot of people, most of them women. He took her to places she had never been—on passes: the fights and wrestling matches, the hockey games, the dog races. And because she was not yet equipped to evaluate the qualities beneath the surface charm, she found Farnsley’s company both different and exciting. She accepted him at face value, believing his practised, offhand statements, not knowing he was a liar and that he appeared to be a better man than he was or ever had been.