The Lady in the Morgue (6 page)

The woman's dark eyes were luminous with impotent rage.

He jumped up on the bed, quickly unscrewed the 125 watt bulb in the ceiling socket, jumped down again. Glancing around the darkened room, he saw the whiskey bottle, lifted it to the light seeping around the down-pulled shades, observed that it was a fifth full, took a long drink. He put the bottle back on the stand. “Slide over, tutz,” he said. He climbed into bed with the woman, adjusted the sheet so that it covered his shoes, his trousers.

“I'm sorry about the shoes,” he said. “I don't generally wear 'em in bed, but I may have to do some running.” After a moment he added, “I'm sorry about the trousers, too.”

In back of the hotel there was the sound of men running, talking, shouting. Finally someone called, “There's nobody down here now, captain.”

Captain Grady must have had his head out Miss Ross's window. He shouted back, “Look around some more.”

Presently there was a knock at the door. In a thick voice Crane demanded, “Whoosh ere?” The door opened a crack. “It's the night clerk.” The man put his head in the room, squinted in an effort to see through the gloom. Back of him in the lighted hall Crane could see Captain Grady. The clerk asked, “Have you had trouble with anybody passing through your room, Mister un-huh?”

“Go ri' head,” said William Crane loudly and thickly. “Pass on through.” He made a sweeping gesture with his bare arm. “No trouble 'tall. Glad t' be of co'venience, sir.”

The clerk said patiently, “We don't want to go through your room.” He pushed the button for the light, but nothing happened. “We'd like to know if you've seen anybody in your room.”

Crane had one hand on the woman's throat. As she tried to sit up he tightened his fingers warningly. “If y' don' wanna go through thish room,” he demanded logically, “whash idea of knockin' at my door?” He sat up in bed, exposing his bare chest. “Whash idea disturbin' sanktity priv' ci'zen? Hey?” He pretended he was going to get out of bed.

The clerk looked at Captain Grady. The captain shook his head. The clerk said, “Sorry,” and started to close the door.

Crane waved an arm at him. “Wash Bunka Hill in vain?” he demanded. “How 'bout Bos'on Teapot?” The door closed, he continued, “Who took th' letta t' Garcia? Net you, I bet.” He muttered to himself for a couple of minutes, then sighed heavily, sank back on the bed. He released the woman's neck.

Ten minutes later the police had gone, and he had finished the whiskey. He felt a great deal better and not so sleepy, and he climbed out of bed and put on his athletic top and his shirt. The woman's eyes, watching, brooded sudden death. He went into the bathroom, lifted the hairy man out of the tub and carried him back to the bed. He said to the woman, “I bet you could sell him to the zoo.” He straightened his hair with his fingers, looked regretfully at the bottle on the stand, bowed gallantly to the woman. “I hope I'll see less of you sometime, madam.”

He walked out into the hall, down the back stairs, through the lobby and out on the avenue. The sun was already well above the lake; sparrows on window ledges, in the gutters, were chirping. A man was sweeping the sidewalk. He glanced at Crane, said, “Looks like another scorcher, don't it?”

Crane said it did, indeed.

Chapter Four

FATLY, ANGRILY, recklessly, a blue-bottle fly circled the room, banged into the closed upper halves of windows, tickled the coroner's bald pate, caused the drowsy jury to break into fits of arm waving, head shaking. High in the sky the copper sun made the occasional breeze a torment to lungs. The air in the room felt as though it had been dusted with red pepper.

“Then, Mr. Greening, your testimony is practically identical to that of Mr. Johnson?”

Greening looked like a plump cherub. “Yes, sir.” His cheeks were rosy, his small eyes blue.

“And you would estimate the time Mr. Crane stayed down in the storage room as …?”

“At least ten minutes.”

“Do you recall any earlier conversations Mr. Crane had with the deceased? Any efforts to secure permission to remove Miss Ross's body?”

“No, sir.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Greening.” The coroner thumbed the untidy stack of papers on the desk in front of him. “Now, Captain Grady, you say you are unable to trace the man who asked to see the reporters just before the mur—ah—hem—tragedy?”

Women, mostly, filled the wooden benches in the narrow room where inquests were held at the County Morgue. There was a general leaning forward of bodies, a craning of necks. The newspapers had played up the mysterious Italian visitor.

From his seat between two of the homicide men the captain spoke in an aggrieved tone. “My men are doin' the best they can, Coronor, but it's a diff …”

“I am sure they are doing everything that can be expected, Captain Grady. Now I would like to call—” papers rustled on the coroner's desk “—Mrs. Liebman.”

Captain Grady helped her to the stand, squeezed her arm. She was a large, shapeless woman with red hair and a brand-new black dress. She gave Captain Grady a look in which there was more warmth than might have been expected from a widow of eight hours. She pulled her skirt around her ankles.

First glancing importantly at the newspaper men around the table opposite the jurors, the coroner leaned over his desk, said gravely, “Mrs. Liebman, I wish to assure you of the deepest, the very deepest sympathy of myself and of these jurors, and it will be my endeavor to shorten your painful appearance here as much as possible.” He swung back in his chair, looked at the reporters for approval.

Three of the newspaper men were matching pennies. A small girl reporter from the
Tribune
was reading a Modern Library edition of
The Magic Mountain
. The
City Press
man, who was supposed to supply news to all the papers, was asleep.

Slightly depressed, the coroner continued, “Now, Mrs. Liebman, will you give me your full name?”

“Gertrude Finnegan Liebman.” She cast a sly look at Captain Grady. “Me father was for many years a desk sergeant at the Warren Avenue Station.” She rolled the r's in Warren.

“Your home address, Mrs. Liebman?”

“1311 North St. Louis Avenue.”

“How long had you been married to Mr. Liebman?”

“Twenty-seven years this September.”

“Have you any children?”

“No, sir. He … Augie … was all … I had.”

“Now, Mrs. Liebman, try to be brave.”

Mrs. Liebman tried. She mopped at her eyes with a piece of linen the size of a postcard, blew her nose vigorously. She smiled through her tears at Captain Grady. She smoothed her skirt.

The coroner looked at a piece of paper, asked, “Was your husband right- or left-handed, Mrs. Liebman?”

“Why, right-handed.”

The coroner glanced at Crane, who nodded his thanks for the inquiry.

Further questioning brought out that Mr. Liebman had worked for the coroner's office as night morgue keeper for six years, that he was in no financial difficulties, that he had no enemies, that he was, in fact, the best-hearted man in the world, without exception.

The coroner asked, “Your husband was in no trouble of any sort?”

“No, sir!” Mrs. Liebman glared at the reporters matching coins. “Anybody that says that is a dirty liar.”

“Then you have no ideas who was responsible for his death?”

“Yes, sir; I have.”

The
Tribune
girl looked up from her book.

“You have! Who, Mrs. Liebman?” asked the coroner.

“The young fellow sittin' over there … that calls himself William Crane.”

Conversation, like a breaking Atlantic roller, deluged the room. A woman in the audience said, “He doesn't look like a killer to me.” One of the jurors awoke with a start, looked bewilderedly at his five companions, asked, “Is it time for lunch?” The reporters swung around from their table, stared at Crane. Captain Grady looked pleased. The coroner shouted:

“Order! Order! Please. Order! If we can't have order, I shall have to clear this room.”

The blue-bottle fly was trying to force his way through one of the panes. His buzzing was loud in the sudden silence.

“Mrs. Liebman, you are making a very serious statement,” the coroner stated. “Are you basing it on personal knowledge?”

Mrs. Liebman tossed her red head about like a high-spirited horse. “Well, the captain said he was the only one who could have done it.”

“The captain?”

“Captain Grady, here, to be sure.”

“And the captain's idea is the only basis for your statement?”

“Well, the captain said …”

“I am afraid, Mrs. Liebman, I shall have to ask the jury to disregard your statement.”

Guided tenderly by Captain Grady, the widow passed William Crane on her way to a seat at the back of the room. “Murderer,” she hissed, like the outraged mother in a pity-the-poor-working-girl melodrama. Crane, his nerves jangling from lack of sleep, wished for a minute he
had
killed her husband.

The coroner's physician, Dr. Bloomington, testified expertly, rapidly. Death was caused by concussion, the result of a blow on the skull. In his opinion the blow was of an unusually violent nature. No, he could not say positively what instrument was used. A guess, a pure and simple guess, would be the butt of a heavy automatic pistol.

Fingers rustling his papers, the coroner then asked Captain Grady, “Where is Mr. A. N. Brown, of San Diego?”

The pleased smile fled from Captain Grady's face. He compressed his lips, spoke. “The man has disappeared.”

“This is highly irregular.” The coroner's fingers beat a rapid tattoo on the desk. “Can't you keep track of your witnesses, captain?”

On his feet now, one hand resting on the back of his chair, Captain Grady said, “The man was not a material witness, anyhow, Mr. Coroner.” He was addressing the reporters, his back to the jury, his side to the coroner. “We took the man to Miss Ross' hotel early this morning and showed him her clothes, which he could not identify.”

The reporters were sliding back of the coroner, around the jury, through the audience, bound for telephones. In thirty minutes husky men in trucks would be throwing bundles of papers to news-stand operators in the Loop; banner lines reading “Heat Wave Kills Seven” would be replaced by “Witness Vanishes in Morgue Mystery.”

Once more tumbling his papers with nervous hands, the coroner said, “Since this case is obviously connected with that of the young lady whose body was removed from the morgue, Captain Grady, I am going to ask you to tell the jurors the circumstances of her suicide.” He turned to the jury. “As you know, gentlemen, another jury, sitting in the case of Miss Ross, has already found that she committed suicide while temporarily insane.” He pointed a finger at the empty witness chair. “Tell them in your own words, captain.”

Stiffening their backs, the jurors displayed interest. The six looked oddly alike—threadbare clothes, wispy hair, wavery eyes, smudgy skins with the water line just at the Adam's apple. They also shared a common inability to keep awake.

The captain was saying, “The woman's body was discovered by Miss Annie Jackson, the black chambermaid on that floor of the hotel. She was entirely naked (the woman, I mean)—” the captain smiled indulgently while the jurors guffawed “—and she was hanging from a rope thrown over the bathroom door. Under her feet was a bathroom scale which she had obviously used to stand on while she was adjustin' the rope. Before killin' herself she had taken a bath, and you could make out th' places where her wet heels had beat the door.”

Hot rays from the sun burned William Crane's back through his shirt. He slid his chair into shadow.

“The body was discovered about one o'clock in the afternoon, and the coroner's physician reported she had been dead approximately twelve hours, so she must have killed herself about midnight.” Captain Grady produced a silk handkerchief, rubbed his face, the back of his neck. “We have not been able to find anyone who knew her as yet, but we should have someone soon. It is known she received a visit from a, har-rump, gentleman caller.”

There was a whispering, a nodding of heads, among the ladies in the audience. Gentleman caller, indeed!

“We should be tracing him soon, unless, which is likely, he read of her death in the papers and made himself scarce.” The captain nodded his head as though that were probably the case. The jurors, hanging upon his words, nodded, too. “'Tis almost certain the poor lady was worried over financial affairs,” Captain Grady went on. “She had only four dollars in her purse.”

The coroner bent over his desk. “Captain Grady, have you any opinion as to why her body was taken from the morgue?”

Aluminum-colored eyebrows drawn into a V over his nose, the captain said, “I have a very good idea.” He was looking at Crane. “I believe the girl came of a prominent family somewhere and that her people heard she was dead and did not wish her to be identified.” He loosened his collar, running his forefinger between it and his neck. “I think the snatchers did not intend to kill poor Augie—Mr. Liebman—but hit him too severely tryin' to knock him out, as Mr. Crane suggested.”

Everyone looked at William Crane, while the captain, with the gratified air of a man who has been able to set a motorist on the right road, climbed down from the stand.

The coroner said, “Well, Mr. Crane, you're the last witness.”

Deep and fairly comfortable, the witness chair had arms on which to rest his elbows. He gave his name as William Crane, his residence as New York, his occupation as private detective, and then settled back while the coroner rustled his papers, tried to think of his first question.

At last the coroner asked, “You were the last person to see the deceased alive, Mr. Crane?”