The Girl Who Kept Knocking Them Dead (5 page)

“You were expecting to find your sister here with Miss Bell?” Gibby asked.

For just a split second Milt Bannerman looked confused. Then he laughed.

“Of course,” he said. “You know her as Sydney Bell. That’s Ellie. That’s my sister.”

He made that gesture toward the table again but this time it was at the dead girl’s picture.

“Then what other girl were you expecting to find here with her?” Gibby asked.

Milty started to speak. The beginning of a syllable did come past his lips, something that sounded like “Jo—” but he bit off sharply and with a wary eye on the three of us he started edging toward the door. The cop wasn’t so much the fingerprint lab specialist that he didn’t quietly move with Bannerman, putting himself in the doorway behind him.

“Hey, what is this?” Bannerman asked. “Who are you anyway and where are the girls?”

Gibby introduced himself and while he was at it, he also introduced me and the officer who stood in the doorway.

Bannerman’s wary look took on a sharper edge. His eyes narrowed and there was that almost imperceptible change all over him under the decent blue suit. Muscles were settling themselves. Mentally he was pinning the combat infantryman’s badge back on his chest.

“You’ll have some sort of identification,” he said. “I don’t just have to take your word for it.”

Gibby showed him his identification. I brought mine out and the officer stood with his in his hand. It couldn’t have been more different from the previous time we had shown them. If Gibby had been questioning the readiness of those characters out in the street to take us on our own say-so, he could have no complaint of Milton Bannerman’s thoroughness.

He didn’t just look at our credentials. He made a study of them. He examined all three in turn and he was so long over each that he could have been memorizing them unless he was a very slow study. I didn’t think he was memorizing them. I thought he was playing for time.

 GIBBY was giving him all the time he wanted, but it couldn’t last forever. Eventually Bannerman handed everything back and stood waiting.

“Well?” Gibby said, trying to prod him a bit.

He didn’t take it. “Okay,” he came back. “I’m still asking the question. Where are the girls? Something’s happened. That’s obvious. How long are you going to play around with me? Tell me and get it over with. They’re all right, aren’t they? They’ve got to be all right.”

“We only know of one girl,” Gibby told him, “the girl who lived in this apartment and called herself Sydney Bell. You call her Ellie. Ellie Bannerman?”

“That was her right name. Eleanor. Eleanor Bannerman. Where is she? What’s happened to her?”

“When did you see her last, Mr. Bannerman?”

He didn’t even consider answering that one. By now he was showing every evidence of being thoroughly frightened and thoroughly angry.

“Now, look,” he said. “I’m through answering questions. I’m asking them from here on out. If Ellie’s in any kind of trouble, I don’t know the first thing about it and I’m the only one who has any right to know. I’m her brother. I’m the only one the kid’s got in the world and I want to see her. I also want to know what’s happened to Joanie and I’m not waiting either.”

“Who’s Joanie, Mr. Bannerman?”

“Never mind who’s Joanie. Now, look, mister. I’m going to have some quick answers or else.”

He had his hands in his pockets and the pockets were bulking big. He had balled his hands up into fists. He looked as though he might be just about ready to bring them out and start swinging.

“Suppose you cool down, Mr. Bannerman,” Gibby said. “It’s not going to help anything if we start blowing our tops.”

Bannerman blew his top. “I have no intention of cooling down,” he shouted. “I come here expecting to find my sister and my fiancée. They’re not here. You won’t tell me where they are and you start throwing all these funny questions at me. Now I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but I do know that I don’t have to answer anybody’s questions and I’ve got every right in the world to be asking a lot of my own. I’m asking them and I’m going to have the answers and quick, or else.”

“Or else what, Mr. Bannerman?” Gibby asked, slipping the question quietly into the echoes of Bannerman’s shouting.

Bannerman brought his hands out of his pockets. He looked at his fists for a moment and then slowly, reluctantly, opened them out till his hands were spread in front of him in a gesture of helplessness.

“Or else,” he said softly, “I’ll have to find me a lawyer. I don’t know where I stand here, but I do know there’s something wrong with all this…” He paused searching for the words. After a moment he came up with them. “There’s something awfully wrong with all this highhanded nonsense,” he said.

It was one of those situations. You may think Gibby was just playing the man, but there isn’t any easy way of handling it. Of course, you have to come out with the bad news sooner or later, but if you can get as much information as possible before you break it, it’s likely to be a big help. Once the word’s been spoken, once a relative has heard the word
death,
you can be a long time before you’ll get another question asked and a longer time before you’ll get one answered. Gibby hadn’t gotten much but he decided it was no use trying any longer. Milton Bannerman had dug in his heels. We had to give him some answers.

“Your fiancée,” Gibby began. “We don’t know anything about her…”

Bannerman broke in on him. “Don’t give me that, brother,” he said. “She’s been living right here with Ellie. She’s been here a whole week. Don’t tell me you don’t know anything about her.”

“We haven’t been here a whole week, Mr. Bannerman,” Gibby said patiently. “We came in only today and as far as we know there’s been only the one girl living here, the girl who called herself Sydney Bell.”

“Yes, that’s Ellie. Sydney Bell, that’s the name she uses on her job.” He stopped short. Something had gone a bit wrong with his breathing. He swallowed hard and spoke again. “You said ‘called herself Sydney Bell,’” he muttered. “What do you mean ‘called herself’?”

“Sydney Bell is dead,” Gibby said gently. “The woman who cleaned for her came in early this afternoon and found her dead.”

He stood quite still for a moment, stunned. Then he shook himself, just as a dog does coming out of water.

“Is this some kind of a gag or something?” he asked. “It isn’t funny. It isn’t a bit funny.”

“It isn’t funny,” Gibby said. “She was killed. Murdered, Mr. Bannerman.”

“Ellie? You’re crazy. Who’d kill Ellie? What would anyone want to kill a kid like her for?”

“We’re going to have to find that out.”

Bannerman charged toward Gibby. He grabbed up a big fistful of the front of Gibby’s coat.

“Joanie,” he said. “Was Joanie here? What’s happened to Joanie?”

Gibby made no move to push him off.

“I know this is rough,” he said, “But you must see that we’re not giving you a hard time. It’s the facts about your sister that are rough. There’s nothing we can do about those right now, but there may be something we can do about your fiancée.”

Bannerman shook Gibby a little. “You leave Joanie alone,” he stormed. “You hear me? You leave her alone.”

Gibby backed him toward a chair and pushed him down into it.

“Now look,” he said. “I’m laying it on the line. We don’t know the first thing about Joanie. We hadn’t the first idea that she was supposed to be here. Just try to remember we’re on your side. You want to find her and we want to help you find her. We can’t even get started unless we know her name. We’ll try to find her for you, but give us her name. Give us a description. Answer some questions, man.”

Bannerman spoke but the words were coming through tight, stiff lips. We had to strain to hear them.

“She came here last week,” he said. “She wanted to shop and Ellie invited her to come stay with her. Ellie was helping Joanie with her shopping, Ellie knowing the stores here and all. I was supposed to be coming in tonight and the way we had it fixed I’d go to the hotel and wash up and come right over here. They were going to be here waiting for me. I got an earlier train and I thought I’d surprise them. Now this.”

“Your fiancée?” Gibby asked. “Does she know anyone else in New York? Anyone she could have gone to?”

He shook his head. “Nobody here in New York,” he said. “Nobody at all in the East except some cousins she’s got in Boston. She was…” He broke off and beat his fists against his forehead.

“Come on,” Gibby urged. “Come on. Don’t stop to think.”

Bannerman sighed. “No,” he said. “That’s no good. She wouldn’t be up there now, expecting me here tonight.”

He explained that Joanie had planned to go up to Boston for a couple of days during her week in New York. She had promised to visit these cousins of hers but he felt certain that she would have done that earlier. She couldn’t possibly have planned it so that she wouldn’t be in town for his arrival.

“Do you know the name of these cousins?” Gibby asked.

“Hale. Mrs. Stephen Hale. They live on something I think it’s called Fenway. Is there a street called Fenway up in Boston?”

“I hope there is,” Gibby said. “We’ll try it. Is that Joanie’s second name, Hale?”

“No. Mrs. Hale’s her cousin. It’s Loomis—Joan Loomis.”

I picked up the phone and dialed long distance. I got Boston Information and had them dig for the number.

“There is a Fenway,” I said. “They’re looking up Hales.”

“Thanks,” Bannerman murmured. He turned back to Gibby. “Tell me about Ellie,” he said. “How did it happen? You’re sure she’s dead. Not just missing or anything like that? Dead?”

“She was strangled,” Gibby told him. “Killed. It’s murder. I’m going to have to ask you to identify the body, since you’re the next of kin.”

It occurred to me that it had hardly been established that he was the next of kin. All we had was his own word for it that he was the dead girl’s brother. I put the thought aside. It didn’t matter too much at that point. If he was lying to us, confronting him with the body could do no harm and there might be a lot of use in it.

There wasn’t any recoil from the idea of seeing the body.

“I want to see her, poor kid,” he said. “I want to take her home to bury her, of course. Ellie, murdered. How does a thing like that happen to a little kid like Ellie?”

Information came up with the number.

“They’re ringing the Hales,” I said.

Gibby dropped his hand on Bannerman’s shoulder. “Do you suppose you could talk to them?” he asked. “There’s no use telling them anything and throwing a scare into them if we don’t have to. Just ask if she’s up there or been up there. She could be on a train coming down right now, not expecting you till later tonight.”

Bannerman nodded. He got out of the chair, came over and took the phone from my hand. He was shaking.

After a couple of moments he spoke into the phone.

“Mrs. Hale?” he said. “Gert?… You don’t know me. I’m Milton Bannerman.”

That produced one of those joyous cries at the other end. There’s a certain pitch the voice of an excited woman can reach at the telephone that makes it carry like nobody’s business. It’s only certain types of voices that will do it and this was one of those voices. Bannerman must have caught the zing of it against his eardrum because involuntarily he moved the receiver about an inch away from his ear and held it there. It was coming over like a public address system. We could all hear it.

“Joanie’s Milton Bannerman? We’ve been hearing all about you. You have to come up and see us. We’re dying to meet you, but Joanie’s already told you that. Is she with you now?”

“No, she isn’t, Gert. As a matter of fact that’s why I called. You see we’ve got crossed wires or something down here. I got into New York a little early and went around to my sister’s thinking I’d surprise the girls. Well, they’re not here, not either of them, and I just thought maybe Joanie was with you and would be coming down on a train that would get her in just before I was supposed to turn up.”

“Oh, no, Milton. She was up here. She told you she would be coming up for a couple of days. Well, she did. We had a lovely visit and she left last night. It was later than I liked but there are these friends I did so want her to meet and I couldn’t get them over before last evening and Joanie said it wasn’t as though she hadn’t already been in New York and didn’t know the way. She was sure she could get a cab at Grand Central and go right over to your sister’s even though it was going to be all of three in the morning when she got in. I wanted her to stay and take an early train this morning, but she said you were coming today and she didn’t want to take any chances on not being there when you arrived.”

Bannerman had been white when he first took up the phone. Now he had turned the color of wet ashes.

“You say her train got in at three o’clock this morning?” he moaned.

“Oh, dear,” Mrs. Hale laughed. “Don’t sound so tragic. The porters in Grand Central are the sweetest things. They’re like somebody’s grandfather, really. And cab drivers are so reliable, especially the ones that work out of the railway stations. You just wait. They’re out shopping. After all, they aren’t expecting you this early. Now when are you bringing Joanie back to visit us?”

He mumbled something and got off the wire. He turned to us and began to repeat it.

“We could hear,” Gibby said.

Bannerman swayed on his feet. He shut his eyes tight and breathed hard for a moment, getting a grip on himself.

“Oh, God,” he groaned. “Ellie and now Joanie, too. Three o’clock this morning.”

“Hold it,” Gibby said. “It’s bad enough as it is. Don’t build it. Does Miss Loomis know the train you were supposed to be coming in on?”

“Yes, but they weren’t going to go to meet me. Ellie said you can miss people so easy in stations. She said for me to come over here. They’d be here.”

“All right. Miss Loomis got here at three in the morning. Your sister had been dead for quite a while by then. She rang the bell and got no answer. She’s gone to a hotel and she’ll be back here in time to be here for when you were expected or else she’ll go to meet the train she’s expecting you on. We’ll cover both. We’ll have someone waiting here in case she comes. We’ll go with you to meet the train. One way or the other we’ll find her.”

It sounded all right to me but it wasn’t my sister who had been strangled and it wasn’t my fiancée who was missing. Bannerman took more convincing than that.

“You don’t know Joanie,” he said. “I do. She wouldn’t come turning up here at three in the morning to ring bells. It would have to be that she had a key and could come in without disturbing Ellie. She would have a key, staying here with Ellie, Ellie would certainly have given her one so she could come and go. She came in here and Ellie was dead but there was someone here. It’s the both of them. I know it’s the both of them.”

The point wasn’t too badly taken. I couldn’t see any such complete certainty of it as he was proclaiming, but it certainly had to rate as a disquieting possibility. Gibby, however, made a good stab at pulling him together.

“If we want to start imagining things,” he said, “we can imagine it any way at all. There’s nothing to go on. For one thing; how certain are you that she was staying here with your sister at all? Just look around. There’s only the one bed. It’s a double bed, but there’s only the one. If she stayed here, they shared the bed. There’s nothing else like a sofa or anything that could be made up into a bed. If you’re going to argue that she had to have a key because she would be too considerate to ring bells at three in the morning, can’t you argue on exactly the same basis that she wouldn’t come here at all at three in the morning when it would mean coming into this one room, getting into the one bed? Wouldn’t that be just as disturbing as ringing the bell?”

“I don’t know. Gosh, I don’t know. When Ellie said she should come and stay here, I thought sure Ellie had an extra bed. I don’t know what to think about anything now.”

It was an opening for Gibby. He suggested that Bannerman try not to think at all. There was still a great deal we were going to have to know. We were going to have to ask many questions. If he would try to keep his mind on that, it would help him with the waiting.