The coupé hummed along the drive to Iona. I turned up Iona, and followed it to Brady. I took Brady down to Astor, and turned again. On Astor and Knapp, a small apartment building. I sat in the coupé, and lighted a cigarette.
I took two puffs, and put the cigarette out. I left the car and went into the apartment building. Four names on the mail boxes of the lower hall and one of them was June Drexel’s.
The downstairs door had no lock; there was no buzzer. I went through it, and up the stairs. I started to think about those damned hands of hers, the pale hands.
Her name on the door, up here, and I pressed the bell button.
I could hear it ringing, inside, but nothing happened. I remembered how the line had gone dead. I trembled, for some reason. I tried the knob; the door was unlocked.
The door opened a crack, and I could see a light on, in there. I pushed it open a little more, and saw June Drexel.
She was sprawled awkwardly on the floor of her living room. I pushed the door open all the way, and went in.
There was a hole in her forehead, a small hole. One table lamp sent a dim light through the room, and the radio played softly. I thought a .22. It wouldn’t make much noise. I knew, now, why the line had gone dead. That speech of hers had been overheard, had meant to be overheard.
My eyes went to her hands, her now-quiet, pale hands. I saw something on the floor, about a foot beyond one outstretched hand, and I bent to pick it up.
I shouldn’t have touched anything, of course. I should have gone immediately to the phone. I looked at what I’d picked up, and a pattern began forming, a pattern I couldn’t believe. But the pieces came in, fitting themselves, making the picture.
I was still standing there when I heard the sirens, outside. Somebody else had phoned, evidently.
I reached over and put this thing I’d found in my shoe.
Sergeant Hutson, of homicide, was the first man to come through the door. He looked at me. “Johnny, for God’s sakes—” He looked at June Drexel, on the floor.
“I didn’t do it,” I told him.
“You phoned?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t phone. The murderer probably phoned, when he saw me come here. He knew I was coming.”
“We’ll have to run you in, Johnny,” he said.
I nodded. “Sure.” I kept my eyes from her hands. I tried to feel sorry that she was dead; one should mourn the dead.
It was a narrow cell, smelling of disinfectant, of dampness, of former occupants.
It was quiet, except for the deep breathing of other cell occupants, except for the occasional sound of voices from the lighted front room.
I sat on the hard cot, my head in my hands, thinking it all out, and worrying about Norah. Sergeant Hutson came along the corridor, to stand in front of my cell. “You want us to phone anybody else, Shea?”
“No,” I said. “I want to talk to him, first.” I looked up. “How about prints?”
“Plenty of ’em. The damnedest thing about prints, though. They’re no good unless you got somebody to tie ’em to. Or unless they’re prints on file someplace. What the hell good are they without that? We can’t check ’em against the whole city.”
“I’l give you somebody,” I told him.
“I hope so,” he said, and paused. “For your sake, Shea, I hope so.” He went back along the corridor.
He isn’t calling me “Johnny” any more, I thought. I’m on the other side of the fence now.
I thought about Norah, and June Drexel, about Peckham and his wife, about Peckham’s attorney, who saw too many movies, about Tom Alexander and Sammy Berg, about Bitsy Donworth – and about Peckham’s offer. In the adjoining cell, somebody began to snore.
Then there were feet along the corridor, and I stood up. The turnkey and Robert Justice Cavanaugh.
His voice was firm and reassuring. “Don’t you worry, Johnnny. The Star will back you. I’ll back you, all the way. It’s Peckham’s work; you can be sure, and—”
“Peckham,” I broke in. “You were certainly jealous of him, weren’t you? Until you got tired of her. Until you wanted to get rid of her.”
I could see him stiffen, as the turnkey went away. He said, “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Murder,” I told him. “This afternoon you worried more about what I knew about June than you did about the trouble in the DA’s office. That should have been a lead. You were always after Peckham. That’s another. When June phoned me tonight, she knew I’d lost my job. How? How many people knew that? Not Peckham. You did. It all ties up. Peckham wasn’t supporting her. You were.”
“You’re talking nonsense, Johnny,” he said. His voice was low. This afternoon, in his office, he’d called me “Mr Shea”. He was on my side of the fence, now.
“It took a gimmick,” I went on, “to show me the way. You must have dropped it; the catch must have broken.”
I reached down into my shoe, where the police hadn’t searched, and brought out the tiny jet elephant he always wore on his watch chain.
A silence, while he stared at it in the dim light. Then he made one more try. “It doesn’t prove anything, Johnny. It will only create a nasty scandal. They won’t get me. I’ve too much influence. But it will hurt the paper, hurt me.”
“They’ve got enough proof,” I said. “All they want is somebody to fit it.”
His voice was even quieter. “They don’t know why I’m down here.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “Unless June told others what she was going to tell me. It wouldn’t be so much of a scandal if you hadn’t always been so noble, such a campaigner. But murder’s a scandal, for anyone.”
The man in the next cell rolled over, and mumbled in his sleep.
Cavanaugh said, “Editor, Johnny. For more money than you’ll ever need. A job for life, Johnny.”
A job for life, with the biggest paper in town. Why not? What had June Drexel ever meant to me, except trouble? I thought of Norah and Junior. I said, “You can go to hell. That’s where you’re going eventually, anyway.”
Amateurs shouldn’t commit murder. He hadn’t even got rid of the gun. They didn’t need his confession, to burn him. Once they had the pointing finger, they tied evidence to him like ornaments to a Christmas tree. His old pal, Gargan, the DA, couldn’t handle it, so an assistant DA took over and did a fine, clean job.
The Courier has changed plenty, just as Peckham promised me. It’s a clean, family paper, and getting to be the biggest in town. We call ’em as we see ’em, and I’m proud to be city editor of a sheet like that. Norah is proud of me, too, and even Junior gives me a little, grudging respect from time to time.
THE DARK GODDESS
Schuyler G. Edsall
I checked the flight records at the Trans-Ocean Airline desk to make certain that the man I knew only as Leiderkrantz was on the Constellation due from Lisbon. Then I went down the stairs to the luncheonette and sat over a cup of coffee, listening for the flight’s arrival to be broadcast over the public address system. Watching the steam curl from my coffee, I began wondering again if I were inviting a brush with the police on this job and realized that there wasn’t much I could do about it now. The big clock on the wall above the gleaming coffee urns said 10:27 and already the big Constellation was probably radioing La Guardia Tower for a landing.
It was supposed to be only an escort job; and there wasn’t a lot to worry about if you looked at it from that angle. But, on the other hand, there could be trouble; and the fact that Schweingurt had hired me instead of getting the regular police to handle the assignment gave me something to think about. I couldn’t talk myself out of the argument that this was no routine private case. In the first place, Schweingurt had been restless and jittery when I talked to him earlier; secondly, the little package Leiderkrantz was bringing in from Europe made him a choice target for a slug or a knife in the ribs, or for a quick bath in Flushing Bay, somewhere around Whitestone where it would be dark and deserted. Lastly, I was pretty sure Leiderkrantz was smuggling in the Dionysus statuette; and this is what made me worry about getting messed up with the Customs authorities and the police.