You’d think hope would have been all gone, but it wouldn’t die. It flickered up weaker each time, but somehow it still was there.
She sneezed at the breakfast table and blew her nose on one of those handkerchiefs, a pink one with a rabbit’s head on the corner. I said, “Where do you get those handkerchiefs?”
“Kringle’s. They come by the set, a half-dozen for a dollar.”
“You can’t buy them separate?”
“Yes, but you’ve got to buy them six at a time to get that price. All the girls are going in for them.”
All the girls — anyone at all could buy them. But honeysuckle, chocolate—
I said, “Did you take your shoe over to have it repaired?”
“Yes, last night, after you left.”
It flickered up again. Maybe she had the heel. Maybe... “How much is he going to charge you?”
“A dollar,” she said. She looked down at her plate and closed her eyes. “I lost the heel. He’s got to make me a new one. It fell down in that conduit where the trolley transmission-cable is laid.”
I said, “Where — what were you doing at six yesterday, what kept you out that long?” Trying to make my voice sound kindly, casual.
“I was having a soda at Gruntley’s...” She suddenly threw her hands over her ears. “Don’t! Don’t ask me, any more questions! I can’t stand it!” She got up and ran out, with a stricken look.
Maggie started to lace it into me. “What are you trying to do, practice up for your duties on her? The poor child didn’t sleep a wink all night!”
She pulled herself together in about five minutes, came out again, picked up her books, went past me into the hall. I said “Jenny,” got up and went out there after her. She was standing by the clothes-tree, getting her jacket. I said, “Don’t — wear that leather jacket any more, leave it here where it was.”
She didn’t ask me why not. I noticed that; as though she didn’t have to be told. I reached out and took the knitted cap off her head too. I let them both drop on the floor behind me. “Don’t go out in these things any more,” I said helplessly.
I half-stretched my arms out toward her, dropping them again. I said huskily, “Isn’t there... is there anything you want to tell me? You can tell me anything. Is there — any way you want me to help you?”
She just gave me a stricken look, turned and ran out with a sort of choked sob.
I went over to the window and stood there looking out after her. I watched her go down the street. A minute later a car came drifting along — very slowly, at a snail’s pace. It was going the same way she was. There was just a young guy in it, a sleek-looking young guy with a mustache. It was hard to tell exactly how old he was. He was inching along so slowly, you had an impression he was stalking somebody. If I’d seen him try to close in on her, I would have rushed out. But he didn’t, just kept his distance, creeping along so slow the spokes of his wheels didn’t even blur. I grabbed out my notebook and jotted down his license number.
I opened the bureau drawer where she kept her things and looked into the box of handkerchiefs. There were three left in it, two whites and a pink. The lid said they came two to each color. She’d taken one pink with her just now. The blue I’d seen between her books yesterday was in the laundry-bag. It was the only one in it. One blue was missing entirely.
I stopped in at Gruntley’s on my way to the precinct-house. I said to the soda-jerker, “Do you know my daughter, son?” When he nodded, I went on. “What, was that sweet stuff you gave her last night just before supper-time? It came near ruining her appetite.”
He looked surprised. “She didn’t come in here last night, sir. First time in weeks, too. I had her special kind of a sundae all made up waiting for her, but she didn’t show up. Had to finish it off myself.”
I started off with the usual, “Do you know of any reason why your husband should have been killed?” Holmes had already established Mrs. Trinker’s alibi, she hadn’t budged from her sister’s house in Mapledale for two whole days.
“No, Captain,” she said dully, “I don’t.”
This was only beating around the bush, and we both knew it. “Were there any other women in his life?” I blurted out.
“Yes,” she said mournfully, “I’m afraid there were.”
“He was killed by a woman, you know.”
“I was afraid of that,” she admitted.
“Can you tell me who they were?”
“I tried — not to find out,” was her answer. “I did my best not to know.”
“You want to see justice done, don’t you? Then you’ve got to help me.”
“Several times there were folders of matches in his pocket, from that road-house out at Beechwood, the Beechwood Inn. I never went with him there. I suppose somebody else may have.” She smiled a little. What a smile! “I tried not to look, I tried not to find things like that. I kept my eyes closed. That’s something to be grateful for: I don’t have to try — not to know — any more.”
She was a fine character. That didn’t make things any easier all around, either...
I had Jordan go out to the Beechwood Inn and lay the groundwork. “Find out just who the interest was out there, who he was seen with. When you’ve got that, call me for further instructions before you tip your hand.”
Prints called, all elated. “We’ve got the finest set of trade-marks you ever saw, clear as a bell. If you don’t go to town on ’em. Ed, you’re losing your grip.”
“Outside of his?”
“Sure outside of his. What’re you trying to do, be funny?”
Holmes reported in, after spending all morning casing the neighbors. “He had a bad rep. They all had a hammer handy when I brought up the name. The one next door told me a blonde dame rung her doorbell by mistake one morning about two months ago, asking if he lived there.”
It was the first good news I’d had all day long. Even if it was two months old, at least it meant another candidate.
I needed another candidate, even if it was only a straw one.
“Let’s have her,” I said eagerly.
He opened his notebook, read hieroglyphics that didn’t mean anything to anyone but him. “Tall, blonde, flashy-dressed, nightlife type. Blue eyes. Mole on chin. There was a man waiting outside for her in a car.”
“Did she give you anything on him?”
“Being a dame, she was only interested in this other dame.”
I said, “We’ve got to get that jane, I don’t care if she was only the Fuller Brush lady making her rounds. That the only time she saw her?”
“Only time.”
When I was alone in the room again I called up the license-registration bureau, read from my book: “060210.” That was the car that had dawdled past our place this morning. There had also been a car escorting the blonde, you see.
They gave me: Charles T. Baron, such-and-such an address, resort operator, height 6–1 (well, the guy following Jenny had been sitting down), weight 190 (well, he’d still been sitting down), age 45 (he’d looked younger than that to me, but maybe he’d just had a shave), and so on...
Jordon called me about five, from the Beechwood Inn. He said, “The party is a hostess here, name of Benita Lane.”
“Got any idea what she looks like?”
“I ought to, I’m sitting out there with her right now.”
“Tall, blonde, blue eyes, mole on chin?”
He gasped, “For pete’s sake, what are you, a wizard?”
“No, I’m a captain. You stay with her, get me?”
“I’ve got her going,” he said cheerfully.
“I want her prints,” I said, “and I want ’em as quick as I can get ’em. I’m going to send Holmes out there for contact-man. You get them across to him. Now here’s what else I want, I don’t care how you manage it, but these’re the things I gotta have: I want to know what perfume she goes in for. I want to know if she owns any colored handkerchiefs with animals’ heads on the corners. I want to know if she’s got a weakness for chocolate bars. I want to know if she’s short a pair of shoes, and why. I’ll hold off until I hear from you. If I’m not here, phone me at my house. If you want me to send out somebody to double up on it with you, say so.”