“Why can’t we?”
Joe Peel winced. “Now, look, Otis…”
“If it’s that important…”
“Damme,” said Peel savagely, “why can’t I learn to keep my mouth shut!”
Beagle put on his hat and got his cane. “The best time is now. Becker won’t expect us to work so fast…”
Peel regarded Beagle bitterly for a moment, then sighed wearily and followed the big man out of the hotel room.
Otis Beagle bought an afternoon paper on the way to the Lehigh Apartments and from it he and Peel learned that the murder of Helen Gray had been discovered shortly before two o’clock. An elderly man named Koch had found the body. His apartment was directly across the hall. According to his story he had rung the bell of Apartment #504, with the intention of borrowing a cup of sugar. There was no answer and he had tried the doorknob. It turned under his hand and — well, there was Helen Gray, lying on the living room floor… a bullet in her forehead.
Koch had been in his apartment all day; he hadn’t heard the shot although he admitted that he had heard a door slam around one o’clock. It could have been the shot, although in a place like the Lehigh Apartments people were always slamming doors. And radios… they blared all day long and far into the night. There ought to be a law against it…
“Right across the hall,” said Beagle, refolding the paper. “I’ll talk to him while you’re in the girl’s apartment.”
“Naturally,” said Peel. “I do the dirty work.”
“Don’t be like that, Joe. You’ve been in the apartment before, you know what to look for. Besides, I’ll keep Koch’s door open and if a policeman should happen to come along…”
“You’ll whistle!”
As it turned out, the whistle wasn’t necessary, for as they entered the Lehigh Apartments they came upon Wilma Huston, waiting for the automatic elevator to come down to the first floor. It was a drawn, weary Wilma Huston.
“You,” she said, when she saw Joe Peel.
Peel nodded. “Miss Huston, this is Otis Beagle…”
“Ah,” exclaimed Beagle, “Miss Huston!” He took off his hat and bowed. “We were just calling on you.”
“I’ve just come from the police station,” Wilma said, “they had me there for almost two hours. I don’t think I’ve got any more to say…”
“But you’re my client, Miss Huston,” said Beagle. “It is of utmost importance…”
At that moment the elevator reached the floor and the door opened automatically. Beagle stepped aside, permitting Wilma to enter, then crowded in after her, Joe Peel followed and pushed the button for the fifth floor.
“I can’t understand your feelings, Miss Huston,” said Beagle, “your dearest friend cut down in brutal fashion…”
“Helen Gray wasn’t my dearest friend,” said Wilma. “I hardly knew her.”
Beagle looked sharply at her. “But she was your room-mate — you shared your apartment with her.”
“A lot of people share apartments who aren’t dear friends.”
The elevator reached the fifth floor and Joe Peel held open the door. Wilma Huston and Otis Beagle stepped out and walked off. Joe Peel followed and caught up as Wilma was unlocking the door.
She turned the key in the lock, then hesitated. It was Beagle who pushed open the door. As they entered, Wilma’s eyes went instantly to a dark spot on the rug that was still wet. Beagle was completely oblivious.
“But you must have known Miss Gray,” he persisted.
“The rent here,” said Wilma, “is sixty dollars a month. A little stiff for me, so I put an ad in the paper. Helen Gray was one of about a hundred girls who answered. I liked her looks, so she moved in…”
“When?” asked Peel.
“Five weeks ago.”
“In five weeks you could get pretty well acquainted,” said Otis Beagle.
“She was still sleeping in the morning when I went to work,” Wilma said. “When I got home she’d usually be out. She got in late at night… or sometimes I would… I saw Helen on Sundays and once or twice during the week for a few minutes.”
Wilma Huston threw herself on the couch and stared at the wet spot on the rug. Otis Beagle seated himself in an easy chair and planted his cane on the floor in front of him. He placed his fat hands on the head of it and leaned forward.
“Miss Huston,” he said pompously, “I’ll lay my cards on the table. You came to my office this morning and engaged us to perform a task for you…”
“It was worth twenty-five dollars for me not to be bothered.”
Beagle looked at Joe Peel, who was peeking into the kitchen. “Just what do you mean — bothered?”
“Well, what would you say of a man who sent you flowers and five pound boxes of candy—”
“No jewelry?” Peel asked from the kitchen door.
Wilma shot him an annoyed glance. “A man,” she went on, “whom you had never seen.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Beagle said, “How you could be, ah, Jolliffe’s friend and not see him…”
Joe Peel went into the kitchen at that point, but he heard Wilma’s blundering protests. Then the byplay in the living room became merely an annoying hum as he dropped to his knees before a metal wastebasket under the sink and scooped out charred bits of paper.
There was a perplexed frown on his face as he studied the bits of paper. They were all very small, but here and there he found a piece large enough to see that it had contained print.
A few of the pieces of paper were stuck together and in separating them, Peel noted that they were damp on the inside, as if the whole mess had been immersed in water. He got to his feet and looked into the sink. Yes — there were bits of ash and a tiny piece of paper adhering to the metal screen which fed into the drainpipe. Someone had burned paper in the sink, and failing to burn the stuff small enough to go through the little holes, had scooped it out and dumped it into the wastebasket.
Nodding thoughtfully, Peel returned to the wastebasket. Sorting out the burned paper he came across one piece that was larger than — and foreign to — the others; the printed address from an envelope: Peel could distinguish a fragment of the address:
…ting Co.
3 Palms, Calif.
Peel put the piece in his pocket and surveyed the kitchen. It was cleaned up tidily, all the dishes washed and put away in the cupboards. He opened the little refrigerator. It contained two bottles of beer, a half quart of milk and two tomatoes.
He closed the refrigerator and walked back into the living room. Both Beagle and Wilma Huston were on their feet.
“Keep the twenty-five dollars!” Wilma was saying, hotly. “Keep it, but let me alone. I’m sorry I ever heard your name…”
“Where did you hear it?” Peel asked.
Stiffly, Otis Beagle headed for the door. With his hand on the knob he turned. “Coming, Joe?”
Joe nodded and followed Beagle. But at the door he paused. “I’ll give you a ring, Wilma…”
“Don’t bother!” she exclaimed.
Peel followed.
The elevator was still at the fifth floor and he and Beagle stepped into it. Then Beagle exploded.
“I never listened to so much bosh from a woman in all my life. She insists she never so much as laid eyes on Wilbur Jolliffe.”
“I don’t think she did. It was Helen Gray — not Wilma.”
“Eh?”
“Helen used Wilma’s name.”
Beagle stared at Peel for a moment. “But how could she do that? Jolliffe called on her at the apartment…”