“I suppose,” she said sarcastically, “that in addition to my business worries, I can look forward to regular visits from the police.”
“Miss Faulkner, I’ll see you just once more. At the end of that next interview, I’ll either exonerate you or arrest you for first-degree murder.”
For a moment her eyes wavered.
He said quietly, “God knows I hated to do this. I warned you — not once but several times.”
She was silent.
“I don’t suppose,” Tragg said, “there’s any chance of getting you to look on me as a human being. After all, I’m only trying to find a killer. If you didn’t kill him, you shouldn’t fear me. I don’t suppose there’s any chance that we could be — well, friends?”
She said haughtily, “I am inclined to pick my friends for reasons other than that they happen to have been given employment on the police force.”
He turned toward the door without another word.
Her eyes were frightened as she watched him, carrying the gun by a string looped through the trigger guard, quietly open the front door.
“Good night, Lieutenant,” she said as he passed over the threshold.
He closed the door behind him without a word.
She stood there for a moment until she saw his car drive away, then she dashed to the telephone and frantically dialed the number of Carlotta’s residence.
There was no answer.
Chapter 7
Mason shamelessly used the prestige resulting from his association with Lieutenant Tragg. The manager of the apartment house, summoned once more to the door in the small hours of the morning, strove to conceal her natural irritation.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “The police again.”
Mason smiled. “Well, I’m not. That is, I’m not calling in an official capacity, although I’m trying to solve the case.”
He acted as though there could be no possible doubt of his welcome, and, entering the lobby of the apartment house, said, “I want to go up to see Coll for a minute, and I don’t want him to know I’m on the way. You might get me a key. Then I won’t have to bother you.”
Her face was swollen with sleep, her hair stringy, her skin still greasy with make-up, but she smiled coyly. “A key — to Coll’s apartment? I’m afraid...”
“Just the outer door,” Mason said hastily.
“Oh, that will be easy. I have quite a few extras. Just a moment and I’ll get one.”
As she walked into her own apartment, shuffling along in heelless slippers, Mason closed the door of the apartment house, and consulted his watch. He was fully conscious of the rapidity with which the precious minutes were ticking across the dial.
She returned with the key.
“Thank you,” Mason said, taking the key. “I’ll run up and see if he’s in now. What’s that apartment number?”
“Two hundred and nine.”
“Oh, yes. And thank you very much. I’m quite certain we won’t have to bother you but once more.”
“Once more?” she asked.
“Yes,” Mason said with a smile. “I think my associate, Lieutenant Tragg, will be here shortly. I’m afraid that we’ve pretty well disrupted your beauty sleep.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” she said, with synthetic sweetness. “I don’t mind at all. It’s a pleasure to co-operate with the police — particularly when they’re so nice about it.”
She was getting wider awake every minute, and quite evidently enjoying her rôle of unofficial assistant to the police. Minutes were too precious to indulge her so Mason merely smiled his thanks and took the elevator to the second floor.
He found two hundred and nine without difficulty. A light was coming through the transom.
Mason tapped gently on the door, and almost instantly heard the sound of a chair being pushed back and of feet on the carpet. Coll opened the door. It was quite evident he had been expecting someone else. The sight of Mason disconcerted him.
“What do you want?” he demanded. “I gave you her address. It’s the only one I have.”
“I want to ask you some questions.”
“Well, this is a hell of a time to be doing it. Who let you in the front door? Who are you? Are you a dick, too?”
“The name is Mason. I’m a lawyer.”
Instantly, the man’s face became absolutely void of expression. It was as though he had been able to shift a lever which threw out a clutch somewhere in his mental processes and divorced his features from any mental reaction. The look of annoyance vanished, leaving him like a graven image.
“Yes?” he asked tonelessly.
The lawyer was tall enough to look over Coll’s shoulder to glimpse a part of the apartment through the half-open door. As far as he could see, there was no one else in the apartment.
Mason said, “It’s going to be rather inconvenient asking questions here in the hallway.”
“And it’s going to be rather inconvenient having you in my apartment at this hour. Suppose you let it go until around noon.”
“These questions won’t wait,” Mason said. “Do you know who killed Lynk?”
The eyes narrowed for a moment, then slowly widened. They were so dark that, in the light which came from the hallway, it was impossible to see any line of demarcation between pupil and iris.
“What is this, a gag?”
“You didn’t know that Lynk was dead?”
“And I don’t know it now.”
“He was murdered, killed about midnight.”
Coll, his eyes still wide, said, “What’s your interest in it, Mr. Mason?”
Mason went on smoothly, “I am primarily interested in finding out who poisoned Miss Dilmeyer.”
“Poisoned her?”
“That’s right.”
Coll said, “Are you crazy, or is this your idea of a joke?”
“Neither. Miss Dilmeyer’s at the Hastings Memorial Hospital right now.” Mason, studying the expression of frozen surprise which was on Coll’s face, added a melodramatic embellishment. “Hovering between life and death.”
“How — how did it happen?”
“Someone shot him with a thirty-two caliber revolver — in the back.”
“No, no. Esther.”
“Oh, Miss Dilmeyer. Why, someone sent her a box of poisoned candy. Now what I want to find out is when that candy was received. Was it after she left here, or did she have it with her when she was here?”
Coll’s eyes ceased to show surprise. “What do you mean,” he asked, “when she was here?”
Mason said, “We know she was here earlier in the evening.”
“About what time?”
“I can’t give you the exact time. It was before eleven-thirty and after ten o’clock. We hoped you could help us on that.” And Mason, with the air of a man producing credentials, took from his pocket the handkerchief which he had found in the telephone booth.
Coll stretched forth his hand mechanically, picked up the handkerchief, looked at it.
“That’s her handkerchief, isn’t it?”
“How should I know?”
“But you do know, don’t you?”
“No.”
Mason raised skeptical eyebrows.
“That is,” Coll said, “I’m not going to identify it. It looks like the way she embroiders her initials on some of her things. I don’t manage her wardrobe, you know.”
“I understand,” Mason said.
He heard the metallic click of the switch on the automatic elevator. The lighted cage made noise as it slid down the shaft. Coll looked over Mason’s shoulder, said hurriedly, “Well, I’m sorry I can’t help you any more than that. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Mason, I think I’ll get to bed. I’m not feeling quite myself, and...”