On February 18, a subhead on page 1 read: POLICE BAFFLED BY MYSTERY OF DORIS DELANEY. The story was a rehash of the main facts, conceding that no clues had been unearthed. The efforts of the F.B.I. were not revealed. They rebuffed all questioners.
Alder turned the pages to the classified section. Under the Personal column, with an inch of white space below and above it, was the announcement:
A liberal reward will be paid to the person or persons who can give information leading to the whereabouts of Doris Delaney, who disappeared on February 13th. Address all replies to
Jonathan Delaney
c/o Winters, Meadows & Winters,
Attorneys
551 Fifth Avenue
As he studied the advertisement an idle thought struck Alder. He turned back the pages to Section 2, Page 4. In leafing quickly to the classified section an irregularity in the newspaper had imprinted itself in his mind. He found it now. A gap in the third column, a gap of one column and about three inches in depth. Below the gap was a short filler article, pertaining to a festival being held in Yorkville by a German Bund Verein. Above was a two-inch item. It had a lower-case, two-line heading.
The body of a man was discovered last night in a poorly furnished room in a lodging house at 716 E. 79th St. The dead man was identified by a letter in his pocket as Danny Koenig, a minor hoodlum, according to the police. Koenig, 25, was dead of a bullet in his left temple, which could have been self-inflicted. Police, however, are of the opinion that Koenig quarreled with another hoodlum, who had been seen entering the building shortly before the time of the shooting. The name of the second hoodlum was withheld pending his arrest, momentarily expected.
Alder looked up from the newspaper. His eyes met those of the morgue attendant. “Somebody’s cut a piece out of this file copy.”
The custodian came over. “Beats all. They’ll steal ’em, mutilate ’em, do anything...” He turned the binder around. “Important?”
Alder took out a packet of bills, skimmed off another twenty and dropped it on the counter.
“Wait,” said the old man.
He went off to his files. He was gone a good three minutes, then returned with a bound volume, much more dusty than the one already on the counter.
“Let’s see, February 18, 1938.” He opened the volume and turned pages. Suddenly he exclaimed.
“Be damned!”
Alder leaned forward. Same date, same page, same gap. A neatly cut-out rectangle.
“Now I’ve seen everything,” said the old man. “Who’d cut out two pieces of the same newspaper?”
“Do you have a third file?”
“Two’s all. Oh, might be some old copies in the storeroom. There’s about fifty tons of newspapers there. We clean out a few tons, whenever we need more space, but seems to me I saw some papers there awhile ago around this date. Maybe a few years later.” He frowned. “Take a month of Sundays to search. Couldn’t do it myself because I’ve got to stay here in the room.” He looked at the paper’s date. “February 18, 1938. Bout the time of the Doris Delaney case.”
“You remember the case?” Alder asked.
“Remember it? I worked on it — used to be in the slot. Rewrite.”
“Then you know the man who covered it, Desmond Slocum?”
“’Course I know Des. A real two-bottle man. Drank himself outta the business. Not a newspaper in town’d give him a job.”
“But he’s still alive?”
“Was two-three months ago. Sneaked in here, put the bite on me.”
“Sneaked?”
“They won’t let him in the city room any more. Helluva way to treat a man. In his time Desmond was the best police reporter in the city, maybe in the country. He covered them all, the Lindbergh kidnaping, the Judge Crater case, Doris Delaney.”
“What’s your theory about Judge Crater?”
“He was a Tammany man, wasn’t he? I’d say he’s down at the bottom of the East River wearing a concrete overcoat.”
“And Doris Delaney, what’s your opinion about her?”
The former rewrite man rubbed his stubbled chin with the back of a thumb. “That one beats me. Just didn’t make sense. I’d a said she run off with a man. But that’s twenty years.”
“Twenty, plus two.”
“Yeah, twenty-two years. She run off with a man she’d have come back sometime. Especially when her pa died and left her five million. No man’s worth five million, not after all that time. Anyway, she couldda picked up the five million and still kept her man if she wanted. She didn’t.”
“You think she may have been murdered?”
“Your guess is as good as anybody’s. Come to think of it, I used to talk to Desmond about it. He had some theories, but dammed if I can remember them now. Everybody had a theory and you get my age, you just remember — but you can’t remember how you got it, or when. Maybe from reading the pieces I wrote myself. I dunno.”
“You said Desmond touched you for money only a short time ago. He happened to mention where he was living?”
“The Bowery, probably. No... no, Desmond never liked the Bowery. He used to do his drinking up on Third Avenue — around Yorkville, seems to me. Yeah, remember one time, I stopped in to get a glass of lager. He was there. Got into a fight with a customer and they threw him out. When he was top dog on the paper, nobody threw out Desmond Slocum. Nobody. He knew all the precinct boys, knew where the bodies was buried.”
“Thank you, old-timer,” Alder said.
“It’s a pleasure to talk with a gentleman,” declared the custodian as he creased the second twenty-dollar bill and stowed it away in a vest pocket.
On Seventh Avenue, Alder waited for a taxicab. Twenty minutes later, after bucking some heavy cross-town traffic, the cab deposited him at 86th Street and Third Avenue.
Chapter 8
Alder stood on the corner and looked down the cross street at the signs of the German Bierstuben and turner halls. They were tourist places. A man like Desmond Slocum would not be patronizing them. He started down Third Avenue, on the west side, north of 86th Street. There were three taverns in the block. He went into all of them, had two glasses of beer and studied the customers. All orderly, all normal.
He crossed the street, went into the single tavern in the middle of the block. Two tipsy sailors were singing with a man in civilian clothes, but the civilian was too young to be Desmond Slocum.
He crossed 86th Street, entered two taverns and without ordering anything looked around. He shook his head, continued to 85th Street, then worked back up the west side of the street. Three more taverns. In one was a bleary-eyed man of about sixty. He sat at the bar, his head propped up on his cupped hand, the elbow of which was resting on the bar.
“Your name Desmond Slocum?” Alder asked.
The man’s eyes blinked stupidly.
“Desmond Slocum?” Alder repeated.
“Don’t mind if I do,” mumbled the man.
The bartender came up
“You payin’ for it?” he asked Alder.
Alder put out a five-dollar bill. “Have one with us.”