The Ghost Phone

CHAPTER IV THE MAID’S STORY

Detective Sam Frake worked in unusual ways at times, but he generally managed to get results by the application of common sense to the facts unearthed.

In the present instance he compelled the superintendent of the apartment house to set aside for his use a small, vacant apartment on the same floor, and to this he conducted Attorney Garder and Mr. and Mrs. Crend. Others would join them later, Frake announced, and then the affair would be investigated quickly, and he hoped with success.

He said nothing more after the announcement that it was murder rather than suicide, and he refused to answer questions for the time being. Detective Frake wanted these people to think of the affair until their minds were saturated with it. He wanted to pick up a few odds and ends of information, too.

Frake ordered dinner served in the vacant apartment from the cafe in the basement of the building, but the Crends and Attorney Garder seemed to have little appetite. About seven o’clock Marie Dolge returned from her automobile trip with Benny Ranley, was told of Mrs. Lennek’s death, and escorted to the apartment where the others were waiting. She sat in a corner, snuffling, apparently frightened and out of place.

Benny Ranley had been allowed to go about his business, with orders to return in case Frake wanted to question him. Peter Podd was questioned and sent to the apartment also, where he sat in a corner and tried not to notice the sniffs of Mrs. Howard Crend.

A little after seven o’clock, Mr. Madison Purden was ushered into the apartment. Frake had asked headquarters to pick him up, and headquarters had done so. Purden’s entrance was a signal for the Crends to exhibit their displeasure of him. But Purden, seemingly bewildered, only sat down near one of the windows and pretended not to notice the hostility his presence aroused.

Thus Detective Frake kept them waiting for a time, while he held a whispered conversation in the hall outside with the doctor. Another and a closer investigation had been made in the room of tragedy, and the body was to be removed. A finger-print man from headquarters had taken the prints of those who waited in the vacant apartment. Some of them had been frightened a little; in their minds they coupled finger prints with guilt. The finger-print man now was working in the boudoir, and Detective Sam Frake was waiting for his report.

“You’ve got a tough proposition, Frake,” the coroner’s assistant said.

“I know it,” Sam Frake replied. “But I’m working on their nerves, and that will help bring out the truth. I’m keeping all of them in that room. They are persons in different planes of society, and all of them are uncomfortable. They are in an atmosphere of crime and mystery. We’ve got a highbrow in the department who would talk a lot about psychology — but I call it making ’em nervous and getting their goats. I may be able, when I start, to jar loose some real information.”

“It’s a wild guess at best,” the doctor said.

“Well, we both guessed wild, then. There was the glass that had contained milk and poison. You decided that it was all a fake, that the poison had been administered in another manner. In that case somebody faked the suicide, of course. If we are wrong, it means that Mrs. Lennek really did drink the poison in the milk. But the time element, and other things, lead us to believe otherwise. We’ll see how it works out.”

The finger-print man came from the boudoir and reported. Detective Sam Frake grunted meaningly when he received the report and looked up at the physician.

“You can go ahead and remove the body now,” he said. “I’ll begin my little inquisition.”

Detective Frake went down the hall toward the apartment where the others awaited him. The finger-print man, his work done for the time being, was pressed into service to aid Frake. He remained in the hall, just outside the main door of the apartment, ready to run errands, and to see that Sam Frake was not disturbed.

Frake made sure that the shades were drawn at all the windows, and then he turned on all the lights in the big room. He sat down on a chair so that he could see all of them. They watched him nervously.

“Now I am going to ask a multitude of questions,” Sam Frake said. “We are going to try to get to the bottom of this thing as quickly as possible. Kindly pay attention to my instructions. I am going to question all of you, and while I am questioning one person I do not want any of the others to speak a word.”

“But —” Mrs. Crend began.

“Please, not a word!” said Detective Frake. “Leave the questioning to me. No matter what one person may say, I don’t want any other person to contradict or protest. They can utter their protests and contradictions when it comes their turn. That is fully understood?”

He waited until all of them had nodded assent. Then he placed another chair directly in front of him and beneath a light, not more than six feet away.

“Sit here, Miss Dolge,” he said.

Marie Dolge acted a bit nervous about it. She felt uncomfortable in the presence of Mrs. Crend, who glared at her and impressed upon the girl’s mind the fact that she was a servant. But the maid took the chair Detective Sam Frake designated, and looked up at him. Save that she was twisting her fingers, she betrayed no nervousness or emotion now.

“You were Mrs. Lennek’s maid?” Frake asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“How long have you worked for her?”

“Almost a year, sir.”

“Um! Long enough to become well acquainted with her habits, then, I suppose. Was she a good mistress?”

“She paid well, sir,” said Marie Dolge.

“With all respect to the dead, we must have the actual facts,” Frake said meaningly.

“She — she was difficult at times, sir.”

“Just so. In what way?”

“She was — well, cranky. I came to her soon after her husband died. I suppose his death made her that way, sir. She would have fits of despondency. Sometimes she would have an awful temper, and at other times she would cry.”

“How did she act to-day?”

“She did not seem to feel very well when she got up this morning, sir. She — she was in a temper.”

“In a temper, was she?”

“Yes, sir. She wanted me to stay in, but I told her that it was my Sunday afternoon off, and that I had an — an engagement. I just went ahead with my work, and got ready and left at the usual time.”

“I see. What time did you leave her?”

“About five minutes of three, I believe. It was my right to leave at two-thirty, but she kept me busy, and I had to dress. So I was a little late.”

“Then you left her about five minutes of three? She was all right then?”

“Oh, yes, sir!”

“Did she use the telephone between the time she got up and the time you left?”

“I do not know, sir. She could have used it while I was in the kitchen doing the work. The telephone is in her boudoir, sir, and the door often was kept closed.”

“Um!” Sam Frake grunted. “Did you do anything for her just before you left?”

“I helped her to dress, sir, about half an hour before I left. And then I got her milk ready.”

“What’s this about milk?”

“Mrs. Lennek took some medicine, sir, in ice-cold milk. A tablet of something. I think that it was for her nerves. Just before I left she asked me to get the milk.”

“And you got it?”

“Yes, sir. I filled a glass and took it to the boudoir.”

“Did she drink it?”

“Not then, sir. She was sitting at her desk writing, I think. I put the milk on the end of the desk. Then I went. out. I supposed she would dissolve the tablet in it and drink it right away, as she always did. I’ve heard her say that she did not like milk unless it was ice cold.”

“Where did you get that milk?”

“From a bottle in the refrigerator, sir.”

“Opened a fresh bottle?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Use all of it?” Frake asked.

“About half of it, sir. The bottle is still there, I suppose — to the right on the top shelf.”

Detective Frake went to the door and whispered to the finger-print man, and then returned to his chair.

“Now, Miss Dolge,” he said, “was Mrs. Lennek acting as usual this morning?”

“Yes, sir. Except that she seemed to be a bit nervous, sir, and in a temper.”

“Do you happen to know what caused her to be in a temper?”

“No, sir,” said Marie Dolge. “She was that way when she got up, sir.”

“Anything unusual happen last night, as far as you know?”

“No, sir.”

“All right,” said Detective Frake. “So you got the glass of milk for her. And then what did you do?”

“Then I went out.”

“How?”

“Down the rear stairs, sir.”

“See anybody?” Frake asked.

“I saw Peter Podd, the janitor,” Marie Dolge answered. “He was standing in the doorway.”

“Talk to him?”

“Yes, sir. Peter Podd was all fussed up, sir. He said that Mrs. Lennek had complained to the superintendent about him, and that he was going to lose his place. He said that it wasn’t fair, sir, that he had done nothing to cause the complaint.”

“What else?” Frake asked.

“He told me, sir, that he was going to ask her to tell the superintendent it was all right this time. Mr. Podd was worried about it, sir. He said he was an old man, and he didn’t know what he’d do if he lost the job.”

“Give him any advice?”

“Yes, sir. I told him that Mrs. Lennek was in a tantrum, and that he’d better not speak to her about it until she had cooled down a bit.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said that he would wait a bit, sir.”

“Then you left the building?” Frake asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“What time was it then?”

“Three o’clock, sir. Mr. Podd and I noticed the time. There is a clock on the wall in the rear entrance. I remarked that I had to hurry.”

“All right. Where did you go?”

“I took a car and went downtown, sir, to keep an engagement.”

“Tell me all about it,” urged Frake.

Marie Dolge mentioned the drug store. “I went in there And telephoned a girl friend, and told her that I could not go to the park with her, because I was going riding with Mr. Ranley. Then I bought a soda and waited until Mr. Ranley came.”

“Sure about the time?”

“Yes, sir,” the maid said. “The soda clerk can tell you that. When Mr. Ranley arrived, it was three-thirty-five. I told him that he was five minutes late, and he blamed the traffic cop for it.”

Frake made notes to get the soda clerk’s evidence, and to check the three-thirty telephone call from the drug store.

“Then what?” he asked.

“Then I went riding with Mr. Ranley, sir. We went out into the country and spent the afternoon. It was a few minutes of seven when I got back.”

“Very well! So you left Mrs. Lennek’s apartment about five minutes of three, spoke to Mr. Podd downstairs about three o’clock, was in that drug store telephoning about three-thirty, met Mr. Ranley there at three-thirty-five, spent the afternoon with him and returned here at seven?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When you left everything seemed to be as usual?”

“Yes, sir. Except that she was in a tantrum, as I have said.”

“I mean her boudoir. Nothing was — er — mussed up, or anything like that?”

“No, sir.”

“What was she doing when you last saw her?”

“She was at her desk, sir, and I believe that she was writing. I scarcely noticed, sir. I put the milk there and hurried away. I was a bit afraid that she would begin on me again to remain at home.”

“Any special reason why you should have done so?”

“No, sir.”

“She didn’t complain of being ill, and wanting you to remain on that account?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know whether she expected any callers during the afternoon?”

“Not that I know of, sir,” said the girl.

Detective Frake turned toward Peter Podd.

“Mr. Podd,” he said, “you have heard how Miss Dolge has answered me. Were her answers, in so far as they concern you, substantially correct? She held that conversation with you at the rear entrance?”

“She did, sir,” said Peter Podd.

“And it was at three o’clock?”

“Yes, sir. I looked at the clock, and the time was mentioned between us. The young lady said she would have to hurry, or she’d be late for her engagement. She said it was with Benny Ranley, and I told her he was a likable lad.”

“And she went out the alley toward the street?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now are you sure, Podd, that she could not have returned within the next half hour?”

“If she did, sir, she never came in the servants’ entrance,” Podd declared. “I was right there until three-thirty.”

“Very well. She could not have returned and spent many minutes in the building and yet reached that drug store downtown by three-twenty-five, of course,” said Detective Frake. “Miss Dolge, I believe that I am through with you for the time being. Thank you for answering my questions so well. Kindly return to the chair in the corner and wait until I have finished the investigation.”

“Yes, sir,” said Marie Dolge.

She got up and walked across the room to the chair she had occupied before. Her face was drawn and her lips trembled slightly. Detective Sam Frake watched her until she had seated herself. Then he glanced at the others.

“Attorney Garder, I’d like to question you next, if you please,” Detective Frake said.

“Certainly!” replied the attorney. He got up and walked across the room and took the chair beneath the light.