Green Ace (13 page)

“Okay,
okay
!” Inspector Piper, whose memory was not quite what it once had been, often found the sergeant’s demonstrations useful, but they always rubbed him the wrong way all the same. “Was this Banana-Nose Wilson ever accused of any strong-arm stuff, especially involving women?”

Smitty looked blank. “Not as far as I know. As a rule most sneak-thieves avoid crimes of physical violence, going unarmed and trusting to stealth—” The sergeant was going good on chapter three of “the book” but the Inspector, who had after all helped to write it, cut him off with a curt nod. He was already on the phone, demanding records and photographs of Rollo Wilson.

“We had you looking in the wrong photo classification, Mrs. Fink,” he told the woman. “If you’ll just wait here a few minutes—”

Mrs. Fink, who had little or no choice in the matter, waited long enough to take a look at the photographs, front and profile, of Banana-Nose—and to admit wearily that apart from his not wearing hat or glasses, he looked like the man who had passed her on the stairs on his way up to Marika’s apartment.

Piper was beaming. “Smitty, give her
two
for the road before you take her home,” he commanded. “And an egg in her beer if she wants it.” He turned to the talk-box. “Pick-up order on Rollo Banana-Nose Wilson. To all precincts, sheriffs’ offices and state police, greater metropolitan area. Arrest on suspicion of homicide. Take no chances, this man is dangerous and may be armed …” He turned and whispered as a jubilant aside to Miss Withers, “Say, when we were arguing last night did I say something about having the killer in forty-eight hours? Make it twenty-four! Now what have you got to say about the police machine at work?”

The schoolteacher sniffed, but realized as she did so that it was not one of her more convincing efforts. The moments when Hildegarde Withers was nonplused were few and far between, but this time she was downstairs and waiting for a taxi before she thought of an adequate comeback.

“Police machine indeed!” she said. “It’s pure Rube Goldberg! From a crumpled hat and a description of a man seen momentarily on a dark stairway comes an artist’s sketch, and purely by accident an eager-beaver desk officer gets a peek at it and thinks maybe it looks like some obscure criminal he once saw somewhere, and now that poor unfortunate Mr. Banana-Nose is going to be rounded up and arrested and charged with the murder of Marika Thoren. He’ll, of course, prove his innocence eventually—” She stopped. But would he? Andy Rowan hadn’t.

Standing on that lonely, windswept street corner, Miss Withers suddenly felt very lost and ineffectual. Her world was out of joint. “Oh cursed spite,” she said aloud, “that ever I was born to set it right.
Hamlet
.”

A taxi-driver, who had pulled up and stopped just in time to catch the last of her soliloquy, eyed her dubiously as he held open the door. “You all right, lady?”

She didn’t answer for a moment, being occupied with watching a handful of noisy East-Side urchins go hurtling past on rollerskates, most of them already decked out six weeks or so in advance of the calendar in Hallowe’en costumes, masks, and all the other trappings of the old blackmail game of
trick-or-treat.

“Because it’s a new hack, lady, and I own it,” the driver went on, drawing certain erroneous inferences from the fact that she happened to be standing in front of a saloon. “You’re not going to be sick or anything?”

Miss Withers turned on him a countenance which was, for her, almost radiant. “No, I’m not going to be sick,” she told the man. “But between you and me and the lamppost, I know somebody else who is—and it serves him perfectly right!”

He pushed down the flag with unnecessary firmness, and the meter started clicking. But still Miss Withers lingered. “Driver,” she said as she finally climbed inside, “have you ever been hemmed in with the spears and then all of a sudden out of nowhere comes a patch of blue sky?”

“Look, lady. I should listen to your sad story? Maybe you’re from out of town. Maybe you seen movies and read articles about how all New York cab-drivers are characters, full of philosophy and whimsy and stuff. We ain’t. Maybe bartenders got to listen, but we don’t. You tell me where you want to go, I take you there, you pay me what it says on the meter—
finis
!”

He let out the gears, roared the motor, and the cab leaped ahead like a greyhound out of the starting box, jamming Miss Withers’ incredible hat down over her eyes. But even that cavalier treatment could not, at this moment, dampen her spirits. She started to give her own address, then changed her mind and said, “Driver, just what sort of place is the Duke Hotel?”

Turning a jaundiced eye, he said, “You wanta know? It’s a flea-bag, a meat and potatoes joint half a block off Times Square, full of bookies and rum-hounds and floozies and actors. Better you should go to the Martha Washington.”

“I think,” Miss Withers said firmly, “I’ll first try the Duke, just for size.”

“Here is another bead on the string of confusions.”

—
William E. Woodward

I
T WAS A NARROW, TORMENTED
little hotel, squeezed tight between a dark legitimate theater and an office building with a bar on the ground floor. The façade was vaguely classic; it must have had certain pretensions once, but that would have been when Miss Withers was in pigtails: Perhaps the great gilt mirrors in the lobby had reflected the glitter of Diamond Jim Brady and the flaming Titian of Lillian Russell’s hair, but now they showed even to the inquisitive schoolteacher a wavering and distorted parody of herself. The peeling leather chairs scattered between marble pillars were all empty, and uncomfortable enough looking to explain the fact. A hundred ancient odors, too mixed for any identification, pervaded the place.

The man behind the desk had little shiny dark eyes and rodent’s teeth, giving the impression that he had seen everything years ago and didn’t much like it. Looking Miss Withers up and down, he said a noncommittal “Yeyuss?”

“You have a Mr. Sprott registered here?” she opened bluntly.

Beady eyes turned briefly toward the slot marked 14B, which held a key fastened to a brass marker the size of a playing card. “They’re out to dinner, I guess. Any message?”

“No—” She hesitated a moment. “Yes, I believe there is.” Miss Withers reached into her handbag, and then placed a crisp five-dollar bill on the counter. “Shall we say it’s a message for you, young man? My inquiry isn’t official, and it probably won’t go any further. But was Mr. Sprott at home last evening?”

“Lady,
I
wouldn’t know.”

“Would you know for
ten
dollars? It’s just—just the matter of establishing possible witnesses to an accident.” After all, she temporized with her conscience, murder was a sort of accident, and a murderer was certainly a witness to his deed.

The man shook his head. “Oh,” continued the schoolteacher swiftly, “I know Mr. Sprott and his orchestra are playing at The Grotto. But between the dinner show and the midnight show there’s a couple of hours or more unaccounted for—”

He reluctantly refrained from picking up the money. “Lady, I’m trying to tell you. I wouldn’t know. I’m only on days. Come back after six o’clock and ask the night clerk.”

“Oh,” she said. “You may keep the money, perhaps it will help you to forget that I was here.”

“KO,” he said, and the five did a disappearing act. Miss Withers marched out into the street again. But half an hour later she was back, carrying a second-hand suitcase loaded with convincingly heavy oddments, a prominently displayed copy of
Billboard
and
Variety,
and, of course, her handbag and black cotton umbrella, which added up to quite a burden. The night man was a slightly more recent edition of the other, except that he had a bad cold and smelled of gin.

“Room and bath, please,” announced the schoolteacher. “Professional rate.”

His look added new force to the meaning of the word
askance.
“Professional how?”

Miss Withers, who had just written “Martha Vere de Vere” on the register slip, held the theatrical magazines so he could get a good look at the covers, and said haughtily, “I’m Aunt Abbie on the Sunshine Soap hour. Don’t you ever listen to the radio?” And as he hesitated, looking at her dubiously, she added, “I’ve just been auditioning for a TV program, that’s why I’m still in costume.”

“Okay,” the clerk said. “Most of our people are permanent, but maybe—” He looked at the slots, and chose a key. “I’ve got just one, with shower, three dollars. In advance.”

“I suppose that will have to do until you can move me to something better,” she said, and laid her umbrella down on the desk while she fumbled in her handbag. Then somehow her change purse slipped out of her fingers, spilling silver in a little cascade across the desk and down into the dark recesses behind it. “Oops!” she cried. “How
could
I be so clumsy!”

The man hesitated, and then with a heartfelt sigh bent down and began to pick up the money. He was red-faced and out of breath when he finally reappeared to plunk a handful of coins down on the counter with what seemed unnecessary firmness, only grunting at Miss Withers’ profuse thanks. She paid him three dollar bills for the room, and then was somewhat surprised to see him come out of his cubbyhole and pick up her bag.

“Bellhops both out somewhere,” he said over his shoulder. “This way, Aunt Abbie.” They rose haltingly skyward in an elevator that really should have gone to the Smithsonian as a relic of Mr. Otis’ first efforts, and she was taken down a dimly lighted hall and let into a small room smelling of stale cigarettes, mildew, and human feet. Miss Withers gave the man a quarter to go away, and when he looked at it pointedly she almost reminded him that the change he had retrieved from the floor was seventy-five cents short.

At last alone, she was about to sit down on the bed and plan future operations when she took a second look at the coverlet and decided it would be more restful to stand up. But at least she was inside the hotel. And clutched in her hand was Riff Sprott’s key, which she had deftly hooked with the tip of her umbrella while the clerk was down on his hands and knees. She was now on the fifteenth floor, which meant that she had only one flight of stairs to descend.

Only it was a bad hour for prowling. People would be coming home from work, or going out to dinner. And most of the guests were permanent, the clerk had said. That meant that a stranger would stand out like a sore thumb.

But a quick look told her that the hall was empty, and she whisked out and down the stairs like a ghost. In the middle of the lower hallway she was caught flat-footed by the sudden opening of the elevator door. A young man and a not-so-young woman came mirthfully and unsteadily toward her, carrying clinking packages and evidently well on their way toward tomorrow’s hangover. Miss Withers resisted the tendency to scuttle back toward the stair or to hide her face, and gave them a critically disapproving stare, with the result that they quieted down and hurried on past with what seemed a distinctly sheepish air.

An attack was the best defense, she reminded herself, and marched on toward the door of 14B. Entering, she quickly closed it behind her and switched on the lights. She found herself in the living room of a suite that was furnished and decorated in a surprisingly pleasant manner, with a new carpet, chairs covered in rose and green slips, and bright pillows on the divan. There was a large radio-phonograph-television set, a spinet piano, two vases of asters and zinnias on the mantel and a lot of late, frothy magazines and even a few books, not all of the latter dealing with music.

Miss Withers went on into the bedroom, put down her handbag and umbrella, and made a quick survey. Someone had bathed and changed recently—the bath was soggy and steamy, and a mist of powder floated in the air, mingled with some heavy perfume. The bedspread was rumpled, with an open, almost full box of chocolates and a magazine or two nearly crowding the phone off the bedside table. Not much of a housekeeper, the singer Riff Sprott had married on the rebound. But she took excellent care of her belongings. Dozens of pairs of shoes hung in pockets on the inside of the closet door. On hangers were rows of evening dresses, most of which the schoolteacher thought would be apt to give the wearer a bad chest cold. These, in addition to some slacks and sweaters and a few negligees, were evidently about all that Chloris ever wore.

Bits of trumpery jewelry, earrings and the like, were scattered over the top of the dressing table. But no sign of any necklace—that would have been almost too much to expect.

Miss Withers was not at all sure what she was looking for, but she had an idea that she would know it when she found it. It was her pet theory that while almost anybody might under the right circumstances commit a murder, he then suffered a change that set him apart from the rest of the human race. The dark secret locked in the recesses of his heart must subtly poison everything about him from that time forward. He would never react exactly the same as a non-murderer under any stimulus. He would be overalert and suspicious, defending himself from attacks that were only imaginary, fleeing when no man pursueth.

And a man’s home, like his handwriting, reflected his personality. If Riff Sprott had killed a girl a year ago last August, if he had killed again last night out of an unreasoning, superstitious fear that a professional medium would disclose his secret, then there should be traces, signs, tracks in the snow here, if anywhere.

She searched the living room meticulously, though not quite as the police would have done. The law looked for concrete clues, for hidden documents or jewels or concealed weapons. But the schoolteacher was trying to delve one layer deeper, convinced that every action must have its reaction—and leave its traces.

Miss Withers brightened when on a shelf in the living room closet she came upon an old manila envelope containing part of a song-poem set to scribbled music, the sheets torn twice across but mended with scotch tape. The title was “Tall and Terrific” but that had been scratched out and changed to “Witchingest Gal.” There was no dedication, though after she had sung the words to the haunting, incomplete melody she felt that it needed none.