QED (12 page)

In the first few minutes they learned all about Brock's illegal subrentals of three of his five rooms and the events of the night before. Brock's threat to put Mrs. Wodjeska and her children on the street for nonpayment of rent came out in a rush. The theft of Hank Graham's three thousand dollars had been registered by the aggrieved ex-G.I. immediately. Even landlord Finger's ultimatum to Brock twenty-four hours earlier was in Sergeant Velie's notebook, Mr. Finger deciding that candor about a little rent conspiracy was preferable to being mixed up in a murder.

And Ratsy Johnson, found cowering in his room, meekly undid the chain with his own hands and apparently was so overwhelmed by his plight—caught by the police, hunted by boss mobster Frank Pompo, and now up to his stringy neck in a murder rap—that he confessed his theft of young Graham's money and told all about his Tuesday night deal with Brock.

It was all very clear—except who was lying about what went on in Charlie the Chiseler Brock's dirty bedroom between 8:00 and 8:30 Wednesday evening.

Landlord Harvey Finger had arrived at the apartment house for his payoff from Brock a few minutes before 8:00
P
.
M
. He had been permitted to enter 4-A, but on coming out a few minutes later he was stopped by detectives; and after Brock's corpse was found at 8:30, when they entered the apartment to arrest Johnson, the little fat landlord insisted he had left Brock alive.

Hank Graham said he had visited Brock's room after Finger's departure, spoken to Brock for five minutes or so, and claimed he too had left Brock alive.

Ratsy Johnson said he had not seen Brock on Wednesday evening at all, and Mrs. Wodjeska said the same thing. The hoodlum had no alibi, and Mrs. Wodjeska's two little girls could not corroborate their mother's claim, as they had been playing hopscotch all evening in the alley behind the tenement with other children.

So it all came back to the pretty blond girl found standing over the body, the gun in her hand.

She had been revived by Ellery and her frantic husband and now she was in one of Brock's chairs, pale and trembling.

“Why did you kill this man?” Inspector Queen said to her.

“She didn't kill him,” Hank Graham shouted, “and for God's sake cover him up.”

Sergeant Velie obliged with the evening paper.

“I didn't kill him,” Juney Graham said, not looking. “I came in here to talk to him and this is what I found.”

“And the gun?” Ellery asked gently.

“It was on the floor and I picked it up.”

“Why?”

She did not reply.

“Innocent people who walk in on corpses and immediately pick up the gun are common in the movies and television,” Ellery said, “but in real life they'd rather pick up a live rattlesnake. Why did you pick up the gun, Mrs. Graham?”

The girl's hands twisted. “I—I don't know. I wasn't thinking, I guess.”

“Did you ever see the gun before?” Inspector Queen asked.

“No.”

It went on that way for some time.

“Now as I get it,” Inspector Queen said to Hank Graham's pretty bride, “your husband went to Brock's room to demand the return of his three thousand dollars that Brock had promised to get back. Brock offered him a thousand dollars in settlement, your husband lost his temper and refused, and he came rushing back to your room all set to call the police. And that was when he told you he'd saved three thousand dollars of his overseas pay and it had been stolen from him, Mrs. Graham? That's the first you knew about the whole thing?”

June Graham nodded stiffly.

“Why did you talk your husband out of calling the police?”

“I was afraid Hank would get beaten up or—or something, I never did want to rent this room. I didn't like Brock's looks.”

Sergeant Velie had been studying the girl's curves. “Brock ever make a pass at you?”

“No! I mean—well, once, when Hank was out. I slapped his face and he walked out laughing. But he never tried it again.”

“You didn't tell me that,” Hank Graham said slowly.

Inspector Queen and his son exchanged glances.

“Now about that gun, Mrs. Graham,” Ellery began.

“I've told you about the gun!”

“You talked your husband out of phoning the police and you went to Brock's room to see what you could do,” the Inspector said. “Take it from there.”

“But I've told you!”

“Tell us again.”

“I knocked,” June Graham said wearily. “He didn't answer. I tried the door. It opened. I went in. He was lying on the floor all … all messy. There was a gun beside the body. I picked it up and then you all came in.”

“Why did you pick up the gun, Mrs. Graham?”

“I don't
know
, I tell you.”

“Then suppose I tell you,” Ellery said. “You picked it up because you recognized it.”

“No!” It was almost a scream.

“Instead of bulldozing the poor kid,” Hank Graham muttered, “why don't you find my three thousand dollars?”

“Oh, we found them, Graham. We found them right here in Brock's room, stashed under the arch support of an alligator shoe. The shoe, by the way, was on Brock's foot.” Inspector Queen smiled. “But let's not change the subject, Graham. Your wife is lying about that gun.”

“I'm not!” the girl said despairingly. “I never saw it before.”

“Good try, Mrs. Graham,” Ellery said, “but not good enough. The fact is it's your husband's gun—an Army .45. When you found it beside Brock's body after Hank had been arguing with him, you naturally thought Hank had shot him. Isn't that it?”

“Hank, no! Don't!”

“No use, honey.” Hank Graham shook his head. “Okay, Mr. Queen, it's my gun. But I didn't shoot Brock. I left him alive.”

“That's your story,” Inspector Queen said sadly, for he was a notorious softie about young love. But he signaled Sergeant Velie.

“Hank!” The girl flew to him and clung, sobbing.

“A story with one chapter missing,” Ellery said, eying June Graham tenderly. “You left something out, Graham.”

Hank Graham was stroking his wife's hair. He did not bother to look up. “Did I?”

“Yes. The one fact that clears you, you idiot, and pins this murder where it belongs!”

And Ellery had them bring Brock's killer in.

“You kept saying your money was stolen from where you'd hidden it in your room, Graham, and Johnson admitted he'd been the thief. But what you forgot to tell us, and what Johnson carefully neglected to say, was where in your room the money was hidden.”

He requisitioned the official envelope containing the evidence and from it he took Graham's money.

“These three one-thousand-dollar bills were tightly rolled up, and the top bill is oil-stained,” Ellery said. “You'd therefore hidden your money, Graham, in something narrow and tubelike whose insides are oily. Hank, why didn't you tell us you'd rolled up the bills
and slipped them into the barrel of your .45 for safekeeping
?”

“Holy smokes,” Hank groaned.

“Then it wasn't money Ratsy Johnson was after when he went on the prowl in your room, it was your .45. He had no gun and he figured a newly returned G.I. might have one. It was only when he examined the .45 later that he found the three bills in the barrel.

“So the money places the gun that shot Brock in your possession, Ratsy,” Ellery said to the suddenly green-faced fugitive. “You sneaked into Brock's room after Graham left tonight, shot Brock, looked for the money he'd hijacked from you, couldn't find it, lost your nerve, and ducked back to your room. Juney Graham must have just missed seeing you as she went to Brock's room to find him dead.” Ellery turned and grinned at the newlyweds. “Any questions?”

“Yes,” Hank Graham said, drying his wife's tears. “Anybody know where I can find an honest real estate agent?”

Miracles Do Happen

The moment Henry pecked her cheek that night, Claire knew something was wrong. But all she said was a wifely, “How did it go at the office today, dear?”

“All right,” Henry Witter said, and Claire knew it was not the office. “What kind of day did Jody have?”

“About the same, dear.”

Henry put his coat, hat, and rubbers in the hall closet while the other three children hunted through his pockets for the candy bars he always brought home on paydays.

“It's the teentsy size again,” little Sal lisped indignantly.

“I wanna big one!” five-year-old Pete wailed.

Eddie, who was ten and knew the financial facts of life, merely scuttled off with his share of the loot.

“Aren't you two ashamed?” Claire said to Sal and Pete.

But Henry said in a queer voice, “Why should they be? It's true,” and he went into the back bedroom to see Jody, who had been lying there for the last three of her eight years.

After dinner, which was beans baked around an irreducible minimum of Mr. Scholte's cheapest shortribs, Claire put Sal and Pete to bed, parked Eddie at the TV set, fixed Jody for the night, and hurried back to the kitchen. She helped Henry finish the dishes, and then the Witters sat down at the kitchen table for their weekly session—Claire with her budget notes, Henry with paper and pencil and his pay check between them.

Claire read off the items in a loud and casual voice, and Henry wrote them down in his bookkeeper's copperplate. The prorated expenses—rent, gas, electricity, telephone, TV installment, life insurance, health plan, personal loans. The running expenses—food, laundry, Henry's allowance. The “extras”—new shoes for Pete, school notebook for Eddie, repairs for the vacuum cleaner. And then—in that dread separate column headed “Jody”—medicines, therapist, installment on surgeon's fee for last operation …

Henry added the two columns in silence.

“Expenses, $89.61. Take-home pay, $82.25. Debit balance, $7.36.” And Henry's tic began to act up.

Claire started to say something, but she swallowed it. It was the Jody column again. Without the Jody column they would be in the black, have a small savings account, and the children could get the clothes they desperately needed … Claire shut
those
thoughts off.

Henry cleared his throat. “Claire,” he began.

“No,” Claire cried. “
No
, Henry! Maybe you've given up hope on Jody, but I haven't. I'm
not
going to send a child of mine to a state institution, no matter what. She needs her family—the love and help we can give her—and maybe some day … Hen, we'll have the phone taken out, or send the TV back. You're due for another raise in a few months. We can hold out.”

“Who said anything about sending Jody away?” Henry's voice was very queer indeed, and Claire felt a chill. “It's not that, Claire.”

“Then what is it? I knew there was something wrong the minute you came home.”

“It's Tully. He phoned me at the office this afternoon.”

“Tully.” Claire sat still. Last year, when Jody had needed her second operation and they had exhausted the annual health plan benefits, Henry had been forced to go to a loan shark for the money. “What's he want?”

“I don't know.” Henry reached for his cigarets. But then he remembered that he had smoked his quota for the day, and he put the pack back in his pocket. “He just said for me to be at his office tomorrow night—at seven o'clock.”

“But you paid him last month's interest on the loan. Or—did you, Henry?”

“Of course I did!”

“Then why—?”

“I don't know, I tell you!”

Dear God, Claire thought, nothing more
now
, please. She got up to go over to Henry and put her cracked and reddened hands on his thin shoulders.

“Darling … don't worry.”

Henry said, “Who's worrying?” But he wished his tic would stop.

“Sit down, Witter.” Tully indicated the only other chair in the dingy office. He had Henry's folder on his desk and was leafing through it.

Henry sat down. The room held nothing but an old desk and swivel chair, a filing cabinet, a big metal wastebasket, a costumer, and the “client's chair”—yet it always managed to seem crowded. Everything looked cheap, used hard, rubbed off, like Tully himself. The loan shark was a paper-thin man with eyes like rusty razor blades.

“Nice clean file,” Tully said, tossing it aside.

“I try to meet my payments on time.” Henry thought of all the empty-stomached lunch hours, the cigaret rations, Clair's incredible economies, the children's patched clothes, and he felt a gust of anger. “Just what is it you want, Mr. Tully?”

“The principal,” Tully said indifferently.

“The …” Henry found himself half standing.

The moneylender leaned back with a swivelly creak that crawled up Henry's spine. “I've run into a little recession, you might call it. You know? Overextended. So I'm calling my loans in. Sorry.”

“But when I took the loan, Mr. Tully, you assured me—”

“Now don't give me that.” Tully flicked some papers from the folder, his murderous eyes suddenly intent. “There's a demand clause in these notes, friend. Want to read it over?”

Henry did not try to focus. He knew what the fine print said. But last year he would have signed anything; he had borrowed the limit from legitimate loan companies and Tully had been his last resort.

Tully lit a big cigar. “You've got forty-eight hours to hand me a certified check for $490.”

Henry put his finger on the tic. “I haven't got it, Mr. Tully.”

“Borrow it.”

“I can't. I can't get any more loans. I have a crippled child—the operations, a therapist who comes in every day—”

The moneylender picked up a letter opener with a sharp point and began to clean his fingernails. “Look, Witter, you got your troubles and I got mine. Be here Thursday night nine o'clock with your check, or I take action.”