“Yes, I know all that,” Captain Stanwick said. “But you still haven’t told me exactly how it was that you happened to be at the apartment at the psychological moment that Ed Conway entered. You haven’t told me how it was that you knew he had the necklace. You haven’t told me a single damned thing.”
Bob Crowder raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders.
“Well,” he said, “I can’t tell you anything more than I’ve told you already.”
“You mean you won’t tell me anything more than you’ve told me already.”
“No,” Crowder said, “I’m perfectly willing to tell you anything within reason that you want to know.”
“You get the results — yes — but your methods are going to get you in trouble some day, young man. I’d hate to see your license revoked; particularly after the success you’ve had. But I just want to tell you you’re skating on thin ice.”
“But,” protested Crowder, “exactly what did I do?”
Captain Stanwick groaned.
“I’ll be damned if I know,” he said, “and I guess nobody else does. There was a lot of hooey about a young woman being lowered from the apartment where Conway was captured. Some fellow was standing below and apparently using her as a target for a gun. There was a string of pearls dangling from her wrist.”
“But why should a man have used the woman as a target?” Crowder asked innocently.
“That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for two or three hours,” Captain Stanwick said. “And, do you know, Crowder, I’m commencing to think that I know the answer.”
“Indeed?” said Crowder, with courteous interest.
Captain Stanwick sighed wearily.
“Oh hell,” he said, “what’s the use?”
“Is that all you wanted to see me about?” Crowder asked.
“No,” said Stanwick, “that’s not all I wanted to see you about. Our men picked up Ethel Peters, the tenant of the apartment at 9204 Western.”
“Good work,” said Crowder noncommittally.
Captain Stanwick flashed him a searching glance.
“She had a pretty bad bruise on the side of her temple,” he said.
“Women of that sort always get beaten up,” said Crowder. “That’s what I understand. They tell me that she’s a typical moll. What was she doing when you picked her up? Trying to escape.”
Stanwick nodded.
“Well,” asked Crowder, “what’s her story?”
“She hasn’t got any,” said Captain Stanwick. “She’s keeping quiet, except when she turned loose to tell the detectives something about their maternal ancestry.”
Crowder shook his head lugubriously.
“Isn’t it awful,” he said, “when a woman talks that way?”
“Well,” said Stanwick, “I don’t think she’s going to give us any great amount of information. In the event she should tell us anything it might mean that she was held as an accessory after the fact, but I was just wondering if you happened to know anything about who the woman could have been that was lowered out of the window in the apartment.”
Crowder frowned thoughtfully, after the manner of one who is thinking.
“You say she was shot?” he asked.
“Three or four shots hit her dead center. The witnesses all agree on it. They could see the body jump when the bullets hit.”
Bob Crowder said slowly, “That’s no way to treat a woman.”
Suddenly Captain Stanwick chuckled.
“Well,” he said, “that’s a new way of looking at it.”
There was silence for a period of several seconds, then Captain Stanwick said, “Frank Belman tells me that when he made out the checks for the reward you insisted on having two checks, one of them made out to you, in the sum of five thousand dollars, and one made out to Trixie Monette in the sum of five thousand dollars.”
Crowder said, “That’s right, Captain,” as though praising the police officer for some bit of first-class detective work.
“Why,” said Captain Stanwick, “did you have the reward paid in just that way?”
“To be perfectly frank with you,” Crowder said, “I did it in order to give a young woman a surprise.”
“Ah,” said Captain Stanwick, “so there was a woman in the case then?”
“Yes,” said Crowder, “there was a woman in the case.”
“One of those shrewd little tarts who pick up stuff on the fringes of the underworld?” asked Captain Stanwick.
“No,” said Crowder, grinning, “this young woman was very beautiful, and you might say that she was dumb.”
“The woman that got the check?” Captain Stanwick asked.
“No,” said Crowder, “the woman who assisted me in getting the pearls.”
“You mean the woman who was lowered out of the window?”
“I’m not mentioning any names or making any admissions,” said Crowder.
“No,” Stanwick said, “you wouldn’t. But the woman who was lowered out of the window certainly is dumb by this time. The witnesses are positive that she got at least three heavy slugs shot into her body.”
Crowder made clucking noises with his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“Horrible,” he said.
“That,” Captain Stanwick said, “would be murder unless...”
“Unless what?” asked Crowder.
“Unless,” said Captain Stanwick, looking at him shrewdly, “there should be some connection between the woman who was lowered out of the window, and the report that came in about an hour ago from a department store in the district, that a display dummy had been taken from the show window.”
Crowder looked extremely innocent.
“A dummy?” he asked. “Stolen from a window?”
Captain Stanwick nodded.
“Well,” said Crowder, “perhaps someone was playing bridge and wanted a fourth for a dummy.”
Captain Stanwick’s face purpled.
“You,” he said, “get the hell out of here!”
Time for Murder
Chapter One
George Brokay latchkeyed the front door of his palatial residence, where he maintained deluxe bachelor quarters. There was a yawn twisting his lips, and complete boredom in his eyes.
The hour was but five minutes after midnight, which was no time for a wealthy, eligible young bachelor to be returning home. And George Brokay was doing it only because he could think of no better place to go.
His hand reached for the light switch and was almost on the point of pushing the button, when he noticed a ribbon of light coming from under the side of a doorway at the end of the hall.
He paused, staring at the ribbon of light.
Grigsby, the butler, should have retired long since. Brokay had left specific orders that his valet was not to wait up for him. There was, therefore, no good reason why anyone should be in the library. Yet, unmistakably, a light was burning in there, and, as Brokay watched the strip of yellow which showed beneath the door, he saw moving shadows cross it.
There was someone in the room; someone who was moving.
Brokay stepped silently into the little den which was at the left of the corridor. He noiselessly opened the drawer of a desk and took out an automatic. Moving as silently as a shadow, he slipped through the dark corridor and paused, with his hand on the knob of the door to the library.
He listened and could hear nothing.
He turned the knob slowly, exerting pressure on the door as he did so, so that the latch would give no audible click. When he felt the knob turn as far as it would go, he pulled on the door, opening it an inch at a time.