They went down the hall to the last door on the right. There was no light showing at the sill; no sound from within. Pedley knocked.
Slippers slapped on the floor. Lights went on. A soft voice inquired:
“Who is it?”
Pedley elbowed the fat man.
“It’s Mr. Rossman,” the furrier said.
The door opened a crack. The girl had a figure made for sweaters; she was wearing thin pajamas and a gauzy negligee. Cornsilk hair tasseled about her shoulders. Pedley thought she might have just stepped out of a bedroom advertisement, except that her eyes were bright with alarm. He pushed past her and walked into the one-room apartment.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Rossman!” She pulled the negligee up over her bosom.
“It’s Mary...” the manufacturer began.
“Your sister’s been hurt. I’m from the Fire Department.” Pedley switched on the light in the tiny bathroom; he stared at the array of toilet articles on the wash bowl.
“There’s been a fire?” Rena put the hack of one hand to her mouth. “At the shop?”
“Was tarrible,” Rossman muttered.
“Mary’s over at the hospital. Pretty badly burned.” The Marshal noticed the in-a-wall bed with its rumpled covers; the pink silk thrown over the back of a chair. “If you want to go to her—”
“Yes. Yes. Of course.” The girl backed away. “It’ll only take me a minute. Is Mary — will she — live?”
Rossman started to exclaim, but Pedley cut in, quickly. “One of my deputies is over taking her deposition, now. But she’s in pretty bad shape.”
She cried, “If you don’t mind waiting. Out in the hall. While I get dressed.”
“Snap it up,” Pedley answered.
It was five minutes before she hurried out, in smart tweeds and a silver fox neckpiece. She ignored her employer and addressed the Marshaclass="underline"
“The fire wasn’t accidental, was it?”
Pedley noted her tightly compressed lips and the sharp lines between her eyes. “What makes you think it wasn’t?”
She sat in the rear seat of the sedan. “Because Mary’s been afraid of something like that.”
The furrier twisted around. “Rena! What you saying!”
“What I believe, Meyer Rossman. That you’ve been figuring on pulling a fast one, on account of sales were so lousy with you.”
Rossman held up his hands. “Yi, yi, yi! It ain’t enough we’re burned out! Now mine own employees turn against me!”
Pedley got the car rolling. “Keep right on turning the crank, Miss Fallucci. Business with Beautifurs wasn’t so good?”
The blonde lit a cigarette. “Rossman’s in the red clear up to here. If his books don’t show it, it’ll be because he’s been doctoring ’em after Mary set down the facts.”
The fat man chattered with rage. “For God’s own sake, Rena! Is that why I should pay you sixty a week, so you could lie me into prison?” Her voice was brittle.
“You’re not kidding me, Meyer. You haven’t been pulling the wool over Mary’s eyes, either. She told me two weeks ago you were readying yourself to go into bankruptcy — if you couldn’t find some other way out of your difficulties. I guess this fire is your other way. And if you think I’m going to keep my mouth shut for any lousy sixty bucks a week — while you put Mary in the hospital or in her grave — you’re damn well mistaken.”
Rossman spluttered incoherently, pawed the air in desperation. But he didn’t make any answer that was intelligible to the Marshal. The model’s accusation put the picture in a different light. If the manufacturer had been planning an incendiary job for the past fortnight or so, maybe he’d already arranged for some hire-out firebug to torch the shop. And, in that case, it was possible that Rossman hadn’t been able to get in touch with his arsonist after the sale of those squirrel coats, a transaction which might have put the business back into the black. In that case, an insurance payment wouldn’t have been necessary.
The tip of Rena’s cigarette glowed brightly in the rear view mirror. “Mary said you were working on figures to give your lawyer so he could prepare the bankruptcy petition, or whatever it was. She was looking around for another job already, so instead she lands in a hospital. If you had anything to do with putting her there, you fat little rat, I’ll do more about it than just talk—”
Rossman squealed, came up out of his seat gibbering and slapping at the back of his neck. Sparks dropped from his coat collar to the seat cushions. Rena calmly tossed away the cigarette she’d ground out on the fat man’s neck.
Pedley braked to a stop. “Lay off the vendetta stuff. Miss Fallucci. I brought you along so you could see your sister, — not to start any private roughhouse. Rossman, siddown. Stop blubbering. If one red-hot cigarette hurts you that bad, imagine what fifteen or twenty thousand volts will do.”
That stopped the talk until they reached the hospital. The Marshal herded them into the Emergency entrance, down a luminous corridor smelling of ether and antiseptic, to a door at which Shaner stood guard.
“They’re having a hell of a time keeping her heart going,” the Deputy murmured. “She hasn’t been conscious a second.”
Pedley motioned Rena into the room. The model’s face was frozen, her eyes glassy, as she went up to the cot.
“Mary! Oh, Mary!” She began to sob, convulsively. “It’s Rena, Mary. Don’t you know me?” She pillowed her head by the bandage-swathed arm.
The white-coated interne busied himself with a stethoscope. Pedley scowled down at the pitiful heap of burned clothing which had been cut from the dying girl’s body; the warm flannel skirt was scorched brown; there wasn’t anything left of the jacket.
“How much longer, doc?”
The interne shrugged. “Hard to say. Amazing vitality. Hour or two. Maybe three.”
The Marshal patted Rena’s shoulder. “Won’t help any, for you to stay here.”
She lifted a mascara-streaked face. “I won’t leave her. You can’t make me leave her.”
He nodded, gravely. “All right.”
In the corridor, he growled to Shaner: “Keep close enough to hear a whisper. And keep an eye on this sister. She seems to know some of the answers.”
“Okay, Skipper.”
The Marshal gestured brusquely to Rossman. “Time we had a sworn statement out of you.”
Chapter Four
Salesman Jack Boyne
They started back to the red sedan. Rossman protested: “About mine own predicament I should be bothered. But it’s nothing compared to what that poor girl suffers.”
“Rena?”
“Pfui! Should I care how Rena feels, after what she lied about me? No. It’s Mary. With her I’m dying a thousand deaths.”
“Wasting your sympathy on the wrong sister. Mary hasn’t any pain, now. That’s all over. Even if she snaps out of it for a few seconds, she’ll be so full of morphine she won’t suffer much. But the other kid — all the rest of her life she’ll remember how her sister looks and what she went through.”
The furrier rubbed the back of his neck. “About this I ain’t caring. Only three years Rena’s been on mine payroll. Twelve years Mary handles all Beautifurs confidential matters. If it ain’t for her, why would I hire her sister in the first place? Now Rena stabs me — in the back.”
“This stuff about your preparing a petition in bankruptcy. That on the level?”
The man’s face was greasy with sweat. His pale eyes bugged out with fear. “What’s good denying it?”