I started to go through the closets, and I'd reached the hall closet when I found what I thought I would. The late John Dawsey, recently with the Australian Army Tank Corps, fell out on me as I opened the door. He'd been neatly garotted and his eyes stared accusingly at me, as though if it weren't for me, he'd still be alive and kicking. He was probably right, at that, I admitted. Whoever they were, they'd taken the sure way of seeing to it that I didn't pull anything out of John Dawsey. Dead men don't talk, as someone found out a long, long time ago.
I was beginning to feel grimly angry as I went out the back door. A good lead had blown up in my face. I'd damn near been immortalized in copper, and I hurt like hell all over, especially my cut knees. A little hostess named Judy loomed big in my mind. I was going to have a long and fruitful talk with her — right now.
I retrieved the car and drove to The Ruddy Jug. It was, as I'd figured, closed by now, but there was a narrow alleyway alongside it with a small window on the alley. A garbage can stood beside it; I picked up the lid, waited till a passing truck filled the night with its roar, and smashed the window. Reaching in, I unlocked it and opened it carefully. I'd had enough of jagged objects for one night.
Once inside, I found the office — a little cubbyhole at the rear of the place. A small desk lamp gave me all the light I needed. There had to be some employee files and finally I found them — too damned many of them in a dusty cabinet — small cards for apparently everyone who'd ever worked in the place. I didn't even have a last name, so the alphabetical filing didn't do me a bit of good. I had to go over every stinking card and look for the name Judy on it. Finally I found it — Judy Henniker, age twenty-four, born in Cloncurry, present address Twenty Wallaby Street. It was a street name I'd casually noted as I drove out there and not too far away. I put the file back in its place and left the way I'd come.
Twenty Wallaby Street was an ordinary, brick building of six stories. Judy Henniker's name was on a neat card stuck in the doorbell name slot. It wasn't a proper hour for formal visiting, so I decided to make it a surprise party. Her apartment was on the second floor, 2E, obviously on the east side of the building. I saw a fire escape running conveniently up the outside wall and leaped up to catch the bottom rung of the ladder. The window of the apartment on the second floor was open, just enough for me to get through by flattening myself out.
I moved very slowly and quietly. It was a bedroom window and I could see the girl's sleeping form in the bed, the steady rhythmic sound of her breathing loud in the silence. I walked softly over to the bed and looked down at her. The make-up was off her face and her brown hair cascaded onto the pillow around her head. Her face, asleep, had taken on the softness that must once have been there, and she looked quite pretty, almost sweet. She was also sleeping in the nude and one breast, beautifully round and high, rosy-tipped with a small, neat point, had freed itself from the sheet that covered her. I placed my hand firmly over her mouth and held it there. Her eyes snapped open, took a moment to focus and then went wide with fright.
"Don't start screaming and you won't get hurt," I said. "I just want to take up where we left off."
She was just lying there, staring up at me, terror in her eyes. I reached over and snapped on a lamp by her bedside, still keeping one hand over her mouth.
"Now, I'm going to take my hand away from your mouth," I said. "One scream and you've had it. Cooperate with me and well have a nice little visit.
I stepped back and she sat up, instantly pulling the sheet up to cover herself. I smiled as I thought of how incongruous women were about modesty. There was a silk bathrobe across the back of an upholstered chair near the bed. I tossed it to her.
"Put it on, Judy," I said. "I don't want anything to inhibit your memory."
She managed to get the robe on while keeping the bedsheet up in front of her — then she swung herself out of the bed.
"I told you before, Yank," she said, "I don't know anything about any John Dawsey." Her smoke-gray eyes had returned to their normal size now, and the fear was gone from them. Her figure, under the clinging folds of the silk robe, was firm and compact and her youth was somehow much more a part of her now than it had been at The Ruddy Jug. Only the smoldering eyes gave away her worldly wisdom. She had gone over to perch on the arm of the upholstered chair.
"Now, listen, Judy," I began very quietly, with a deadliness in my voice that was not there for effect. "I was almost burned to death not very long ago. And your pal Dawsey won't be coming to you to make any more phone calls for him. He's dead. Very dead."
I watched her eyes as they steadily widened. They began to protest before her lips did.
"Now, wait a minute, Yank," she said. "I don't know anything about any killings. I'm not going to get caught up in any muck like that."
"You're already caught up in it," I said. "Dawsey was killed by the same gents who tried to give me a course in copper smelting the hard way. Who were they, dammit? You made that call for Dawsey. Start talking or I'll wring your neck like a chicken's."
I reached out and grabbed her by the front of the robe. I yanked her from the chair and dangled her with one hand, as the terror leaped into those smoky eyes.
"I don't know their names," she stammered. "Only their first names."
"You knew where to reach them," I said. "You had a phone number. Whose was it? Where was it, damn you."
"It was just a number," she gasped out. "I called and a recording took down my message. Sometimes I left word to call someone, sometimes to call me back."
"And tonight you left word that they were to contact Dawsey," I concluded. She nodded and I pushed her back into the chair. A phone stood on the end table beside the bed.
"Make that call again," I said. She reached over and dialed, straightening her robe first. When she'd finished dialing. I grabbed the phone from her hand and put it to my ear. The voice on the other end, constricted and flat with the unmistakable tone of a recording, instructed me to leave my message when the buzzer sounded. I put the phone down. She'd been telling the truth about that much, anyway.
"Now let's have the rest of it," I said. "Let's start with where and how you fit into this setup."
"They started to talk to me a long time ago, at The Ruddy Jug," she said. "They said they were businessmen looking for people they could use. They were especially interested in servicemen who seemed to be unhappy or were having a hard time of it. They said they could do a lot of good for the right man. They asked me to let them know if I heard of a sailor or soldier who might like to talk to them."
"And of course dissatisfied servicemen were y to come by at a place like The Ruddy Jug. And when you found one you contacted your friends, right?"
She nodded.
"You put them in contact with John Dawsey," I said, and again she nodded, her lips tightening.
"Did you put them in contact with a lot of servicemen?" I asked and she nodded again. That much figured, too. They'd have to make numerous contacts until they found one that would do.
"Do you remember the names of everybody you put in contact with them?" I questioned further.
"Lord, no," she answered.
"Does Burton Comford mean anything?" I pressed, and she frowned as she thought back. "Can't say it does," she finally answered.
"What about an Air Force lieutenant?" I prodded. "Name of Dempster."
"I do seem to remember an Air Force chap," she said. "Came in a few times and I got to talking with him. He was an officer, that I remember."
I grimaced and the girl frowned again. "I didn't pay all that much attention to them," she said. "I just made the introductions and that was that. I thought I was doing them pretty much of a favor."