Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

Death of a Tramp by J. W. Aaron

It hardly can be considered a surprise when a lady of questionable repute is found in a bedroom with her shoes off. Even in a bedroom not her own. But why go through all that trouble of hanging the loose lady so tightly from the closet door? These murderers — always thinking up something new!

The phone woke me. Outside it was still dark, but in March that could mean anything. My watch was on the dresser. It was nearly eight.

Tillie Monroe, the switchboard operator at Devensville, seemed agitated. “Sheriff Marking,” she said, “you’re wanted out at the Williamson place right away. There’s... someone’s dead.”

The Williamson spread is twelve miles northeast of Devensville. My place is nearly five miles south of town. Besides being sheriff of Martin county, I ranch.

“Who is it?” I asked, fully awake now.

“I don’t know. Some woman. Hung herself. Leastways, that’s what they say.”

“All right,” I said. “I’m leaving right now.” I hated to admit that I hadn’t had breakfast. “Get hold of Sim Baker, Tillie, and tell him.”

“Well, mercy sakes, Tom,” she said irritably, “it’s him that’s a’ callin’ you. He’s on the line now.”

“Would you mind,” I asked her quietly, “if I talked to him?”

“Yeah, Tom,” Sim broke in. “I’m right here.” Sim is my deputy.

“Right where?”

“At home. I just found out about it. Called you up as soon as I heard.”

“Don’t wait for me,” I told him. “Go on out. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

Outside it was still gray and a blanket of dirty cloud-film lay motionless over the prairie. Underfoot the thin layer of ancient snow was hard and discolored, pock-marked here and there by occasional shoots of sturdy prairie grass stubbornly ignoring the winter elements. Above the eastern horizon a faint tinge of pinkish hue proved circumstantially the existence of the sun.

I took the jeep. There wasn’t enough snow to hamper driving, but the roads between my place and Williamson’s were rugged and I still hadn’t gotten over babying my new Buick.

Sim was waiting for me in the Williamson yard when I drove up. His Model-A was parked, near the house, next to a battered-looking, dusty 1946 Chevy. I parked and he climbed in beside me. He’s a compact man of sixty. A handsome head of white hair sets off his craggy face, and when he greeted me. I could that he was wearing his gleeming teeth. We sat in the jeep and smoked while he filled me in on the details.

“It’s Liz Peterson,” he said. “Know her?”

I knew her. Twenty-five or six, married twice, divorced twice, a drinker, a party girl — the town tramp.

“Couldn’t be sure at first,” he continued, “’way her tongue and eyes are stickin’ out, but it’s Liz all right. Hung herself on the closet door in one of the guest rooms upstairs.” He looked at me sourly. “Bartel is here, makin’ like Dick Tracy. He looks kinda’ rough. Wife’s outa town right now, visitin’ some folks in Denver. Bartel’s probably been tom-cattin’ pretty late these nights.”

I nodded. Charley Bartel is the Devensville Police Chief.

“Only three, dudes stayin’ here right now,” Sim said, “an’ they’re all in the same party. A woman an’ two men. They got separate rooms — if that means anything. The woman’s a real looker, an’ one of the men looks like an actor. Other one’s an old codger, fifty or so.” Sim looked at me and the expression on his face was wink-sly. “Charley’s been snoopin’ around the woman like a bird dog.”

I grunted. Despite the fact that he’s a married man, Charley Bartel is proud of his carefully cultivated “lady-killer” reputation.

Sim threw his cigarette outside and began at once to build another. “Mrs. Donald found the body. They’d been a party last night, I guess. Bottles an’ glasses strung out all over the place. She’d tidied up downstairs and went up to the guest rooms. Most of ’em empty this time of year, but this bein’ Saturday she dusts ’em anyway. Later, after the guests is up, she usually goes back upstairs an’ straightens out their rooms.

“Anyhow, Mrs. Donald barges right into this room that’s supposed to be empty an’ that’s how the body was found. Hangin’ on the closet door an’ damn near lookin’ Mrs. Donald in the eye.”

He paused long enough to light his cigarette; then, holding the dead match in one hand and the live cigarette in the other, he leaned back and sighed loudly. “Oh, lessee. What else? Oh! Yeah. Well, Charley comes out here by hisself and sorta takes over. After he damn well felt like it... that’s around seven-forty-five or so... he calls me up an’ asks am I up yet? Then he said that it looked like he had to do all the police work that’s done in this county, an’ asks if I’d mind callin’ the sheriff an’ gettin’ him out of bed an’ gettin’ him out here to do his job like he was elected to do?”

Sim exhaled a stream of smoke. “That’s when I called you. And that’s about it. I called up Pete Hardy, told him I had a coroner job for him an’ to get hisself out to the Williamson place. He says, ‘I know, I know all. about it’, but he ain’t showed up yet which shows how people listen to me.”

I nodded absently, said nothing.

“Ed Williamson just got back from Rapid City. Flew in this mornin’ in that little plane of his. Bought some cows up there, I guess; He was real upset about the hangin’, a’course, an’ it didn’t help none when he walked in an’ caught the chief samplin’ some of his best drinkin’ liquor.” Sim chuckled heartily at the memory, then sobered. “By the way,” he said, “Ed says to tell you that he’s in the den and to drop around when you have time.”

We climbed out of the jeep then, walked across the yard to the impressive looking white-frame-and-brick house. This country is so big that most things in it look small. The Williamson house looks big.

Sim led the way upstairs to the death room. The blonde woman in the tight-fitting green dress was hanging from the closet door. Her nylon-clad toes missed scraping the floor by perhaps four inches. The rope around her neck snaked its way over the top hinge of the door and out of sight. The door was closed.

A yard from the suspended woman lay an upended straight-back chair. Beneath her reaching, searching toes — and two feet back away from the door — lay a pair of black, high-heeled pumps, tilted over on their sides: The backs of the shoes were bent, in and down, as though they had been small for her and she’d been forced to jam them on without a shoe horn.

In the middle of the room, his hands on his hips, stood Charley Bartel. Charley is a natty, smallish man of forty. He looks his age. He glanced at us briefly, muttered something under his breath, and looked away. I didn’t want to get into a jurisdictional dispute with him, so I didn’t ask him what he was doing this far from town. “What does it look like, Charley?”

“Suicide, like as not,” he said.

“How do you figure it?”

He transferred his hands from his hips to his back pockets and swaggered like a banty rooster around the dead woman. He regarded her from all angles in a queerly proud, almost possessive way, as if she were a tethered lioness and he had roped her.

“She made a loop in the rope,” he said. “Then she threaded the other end of the rope over the top hinge in the door and tied it to the inside door knob and closed the door.” He pointed to the fallen chair. “She pulled that over to the door and climbed up on it and stuck her head through the noose. Then she kicked the chair out from under her.”

He grinned nastily. “Before it was over,” he said, affectionately, “she did a lot of kicking. That’s how she lost her shoes.”

Sim moved close to the gently undulating form and studied tiny scratches on the hardwood door and on the wall beside the door. “She must’ve changed her mind after she kicked the chair away.”

The Chief nodded. “It was too late to change her mind. Door’s too wide.” To prove his point he took the woman’s limp right arm and pointed it toward the knob. Her fingers fell pathetically short. “See?” he asked. “From where she hung she couldn’t reach the knob. And the rope’s tied on the other side, so even if she could’ve reached the knob and opened the door, that’s still not saying she’d of been able to reach around and untie the rope.” He shook his head pleasantly. “No, boys, after she kicked that chair out, it was too late to change her mind, even if she’d a’ wanted to.”

“And Lordy,” Sim breathed, bending over and inspecting the tears in the toes of the woman’s stockings, “how she must’ve wanted to.”

I looked at Bartel. “Did you notify the coroner?”

“Sure. First thing.”

“Anyone else?”

“What for?”

I turned to Sim. “Get hold of Milo. He’ll be at his shop by now, most likely. Tell him to bring his camera paraphernalia. Police business, regular rates.”

When Sim was gone I turned back to Charley. “I wonder when the coroner will be along. I’d like to have a look at the rope inside the door.”

Charley strode to the door, grasped the knob, and swung the door open. “Hell, Marking, take a look. Hardy won’t mind.”

Even with the gruesome weight pulling against its hinge the door didn’t groan as it opened. The rope — apparently a portion of ordinary clothesline — stretched tautly from the hinge to the door knob. It was wrapped around the knob several times and tied clumsily. Up near the top of the door, I noticed a slight fraying in the rope, extending downward for perhaps twelve inches. I pointed it out to Bartel.

“Sure,” he said. “That hinge is sharp. Rope must’ve scraped against it.”

“With the door closed,” I said, “there wouldn’t be any slippage because the rope would be pinched in place. It couldn’t slip.”

“Yeah, but every time we open the door we release the pinch.” He shrugged. “Simple enough.”

“What motive would she have for suicide, Charley?”

“There’s something you maybe don’t know, Marking. Liz was pregnant. About three months, I understand.”

I hadn’t known. I lit a cigarette, and studied the dead woman. “I wonder what she was doing out here?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Bartel answered. “Mr. Carver would probably know.”

“Who?”

He smiled a yellow smile. “I forget, you ain’t met the guests yet. Mr. Carver is one of the dudes.”

“Where are the guests now?”

He shrugged. “Around someplace,” he said vaguely.

“Why don’t you round them up, Charley? Get them together in the living room downstairs. I’ll have a look at them after I talk to Ed.”

I found Ed Williamson behind the desk in his book-lined den. Ed is in his middle thirties, a year or two older than me. We’ve been friendly since our college days at A and M. He’s a wiry man with a high forehead and prominent cheekbones. His normally clear eyes were clouded, partly from the lack of sleep and partly, I supposed, from the after-effects of the tall drink he held in his hands, and those which had preceded it. Cattle-buying trips to Rapid City chronically develop into drinking bouts once the sale is over.

Williamson runs an authentic ranch. After his father’s death many years ago, he’d interested himself in breeding. From the beginning he favored a stout-hearted, white-face strain capable of shifting and foraging for themselves in a stern country, and now the Big W is by far the most famous brand in our locality.

Because he is single, because his ranch house is a local show place, and because it happens to be good business, he takes in dudes. His weekly rates — $75 and up — are fantastic for this part of the country. The dudes, mostly easterners, get privacy, atmosphere and relaxation in return. Most of them seem to think it’s worth it.

Ed is rich enough to be stuffy, if anything like that exists in my country. It doesn’t and he isn’t. After he fixed my drink and handed it across to me he flopped down heavily in his chair and propped his mud-crusted boots up on the highly polished, solid mahogany desk in front of him. When I had settled myself in the chair he indicated my own boots went right up there across from his, partly because he expected it and mostly because it was comfortable.

He waited until we got our cigarettes going. “Tough about the girl,” he said then.

“It is,” I agreed. “Know her?”

“Sure. Liz Peterson.”

“Any idea what she was doing out here?”

“None, Tom. She’s never had any business out here, if that’s what you mean. To my knowledge, she’s never been here before.”

I nodded. “Sim tells me you have three guests staying with you right now.”

“That’s right.”

“Who are they?”

“Miss Everly, Mr. Burns and Mr. Carver.”

“They’re here together?”

“Yep. Miss Everly is the novelist, Marsha Everly. Maybe you’ve heard of her.”

I shook my head.

Ed smiled. “I hadn’t either. Mr. Burns — Elton — is her agent.”

“And the other man? Mr. Carver?”

Ed shrugged. “A hanger-on. A nobody from nowhere.”

“He’s good-looking?”

Ed considered. “He’s pretty,” he decided at last.

“She keeps him?”

“Who?” he asked blankly.

“Miss Everly.”

Ed looked pained. “I didn’t say that, Tom. I don’t know.”

“Have any of the guests been here before?”

“Burns has. The agent. Three, four years ago, I think it was. The others are new to me.”

“Sim tells me you flew in this morning from Rapid,” I remarked, changing the subject.

“Yeah,” he said. “Been up there four, five days.”

“Buy any cattle?”

“Some. Not as many as last year. I don’t know, the way the market is right now...” He let it hang.

“Who looks after things when you’re gone?”

“You mean the ranch or the house?”

“The house.”

“Mrs. Donald comes in every day from seven to seven. She cleans up, fixes the meals, stuff like that. Then, when I know I’m going to be gone for more than a day or two, I’ve been having Charley come out from town and look in on things once or twice a day. Check the furnace and so on.”

“You mean Bartel?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice of him.”

“You know Charley. He thinks I have something to do with keeping him on as chief of that one-horse Devensville police force.”

“Do you?”

Ed smiled.

I drained my glass and set it on the desk.

“Another?” he asked.

I stood up. “No thanks, Ed. I suppose I should be getting back on the job. The coroner’s due any minute now.”

A flicker of amusement played in the man’s eyes. “I thought Charley was taking care of everything.”

The guests were in the living room waiting for me.

The well-built, spectacularly pretty dark-haired woman was slumped in a huge chair, smoking impatiently. The shortish man with the pot belly and the big cigar and no hair wore a frown as he stood by the window studying the scenery outside intently and working the cigar back and forth in his mouth. The young man standing beside him was tall and lean. He seemed bored. They stared at me bleakly as I entered the room.

I identified myself, suggested they return to their rooms and stay there. I told them that I. would be around shortly and interview them individually. I cautioned them to remember that this was merely routine procedure, and I expressed the hope that the entire matter could be disposed of quickly. I asked if anyone had a question. No one did.

I nodded and stepped to one side, indicating that I considered them free to leave. For a moment or two no one moved. Then I watched the woman casually dispose of her cigarette in an ash tray, and heard the gentle whine of her stockings as she uncrossed her legs and rose from her chair. Her movements were deliberate, almost contemptuous, as she sauntered past me to the stairs. The others followed her out.

Charley and Sim were in the kitchen drinking coffee. “Is the coroner here yet?” I asked them.

They shook their heads.

“Do you suppose we should take the body down?”

Bartel grinned. “You’d think they’d teach you kids more than that up at college. Hardy’d skin us alive if we touched that body before he sees it.”

“I’ll be upstairs, talking to the dudes. Let me know when he shows up.” Before I left them I motioned Sim to follow me into the dining room.

He looked at me questioningly. “Take a run into town,” I told him. “Find out what you can about Liz... who’s she been seeing lately, who her friends are. That sort of thing.”

He nodded, turned to go. I held his arm. “Then you’d better see the states attorney. Tell him I think he should be here. Tell him I think it’s murder.”

Sim stared at me.

“I’d use the phone and tell him myself,” I said, “but I don’t want the call going through Tillie’s switchboard. I don’t want everybody in town knowing about this until we’re sure.”

Elton Burns seemed friendly. “Come in, Sheriff,” he said. “Find a chair.”

I waited until he had seated himself. “You’re Miss Everly’s agent?”

“That’s right,” he nodded. “I’ve been handling her properties for... oh, nine or ten years now.”

“On vacation?”

“Partly. I’m in touch with some people in California concerning the possible sale of one of Miss Everly’s novels. Picture people. You might say that I’m combining business with relaxation.”

“And Miss Everly?”

He blinked. “How’s that?”

“Is she taking a vacation?”

“Oh. Yes, that’s about it. I was out here once before, several years ago. The country impressed me. I bragged it up a little, maybe. Anyway, when I told Marsha I was coming back here this year, she wanted to come along. She thought she might pick up some material. You know, local color. Stuff like that.”

“And Mr. Carver? Is this a vacation for him too?”

Burns snorted. “He’s been on vacation for thirty-three years.”

“He doesn’t look that old.”

“He is.”

I lit a cigarette. “There was a party here last night?”

“We had a few drinks.”

“It broke up early?”

He thought about it. “Around midnight, I guess.”

“Hear anything unusual during the night?”

“Nope. Slept like a log.”

“Sleep late, did you?”

“Around here?” He shook his head. “Not this morning. Sounded like a convention going on out in the hall.”

“That was the first you knew about the woman’s death?”

“It was.”

“Did you see her?”

“You mean this morning?”

“Yes.”

“Sure. We all did.”

“Ever see her before this morning?”

“Never.”

“I see. Did the Chief question you?”

“The little guy? Nope. He said you’d be around later.”

I smeared out my cigarette in an ash tray. “Do you get into town very much, Mr. Burns?”

“Twice, so far. Went to church last Sunday, and the Sunday before that.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Wednesday it’ll be three weeks.”

I smiled. “You don’t get around very much, Mr. Burns.”

He leaned forward earnestly. “Look, Mr.... ah, it’s Marking, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Look, Mr. Marking, I’m not trying to knock your town. But week after week, year in and year out, I get all the city living I want. I’m out here to get away from sidewalks and noise and stink.”

“The others. They feel the same way about it?”

“Marsha does. Rod — Mr. Carver — is in town half the time. Any excuse at all will do. He says he goes to the movies.”

“He gets home early, does he? From these movies, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m usually in the sack by nine.”

“I wonder what the dead girl was doing out here?”

He slapped his hands against his knees and shook his head. “You’ve got me, Sheriff. I wouldn’t know.”

I stood up. “That about covers it, Mr. Burns. Thanks for your time. You’ve been a big help.”

He looked at me searchingly. “It is suicide, isn’t it?”

“I... we don’t know. Yet.”

Marsha Everly looked older, close up. She’d been working at a small desk near the window. In horn-rimmed glasses she looked almost matronly.

“Interruptions annoy me, Sheriff,” she said coldly. “Can we make this visit as short as possible?”

I remained standing. “I’ll try, ma’am.” I looked at the pile of hand-written manuscript on her desk. “You’re an author?”

“I’m a writer,” she sighed wearily. “There’s a difference.”

“And Mr. Burns is your agent?”

“He is.”

“Just... where does Mr. Carver fit in?”

“Tod? He’s... my fiancee. Why?”

I shrugged. “Just trying to get the picture.”

“Have you got it now?”

“I think I have,” I told her.

“Good.”

“There was a party here last night?” I asked.

“You could call it that.”

“And it broke up about midnight?”

“About then. If you know all the answers, why ask me?”

“After the party, you went to your room?”

“I did.”

“Did you go to sleep at once?”

“I bathed, read a little first.”

“Did you hear any unusual noises during the night?”

“I did not.”

“You were up early today?”

“About seven, I think. Mrs. Donald awakened me.”

“Did you see the body?”

“Yes. The... the Chief took us into the death-room and asked us to view the remains.”

“Had you ever seen the dead woman before this morning?”

“Hardly.”

“I think that’s about all, Miss Everly. Sorry I had to disturb you.”

“Don’t mention it. Close the door softly on your way out.”

Tod Carver was in the bathroom, shaving. He was naked from the waist up. He was a leanly well-built, well-tanned young man with a smooth, hairless chest. I found myself agreeing with Ed. He did come very close to being pretty.

I asked him the usual questions, studying his manner and trying to evaluate his reactions. He seemed bored, his answers were careless.

“Then the first you knew of the dead woman was when you were awakened this morning?”

“That was the first I knew she was dead.”

Maybe the surprise showed in my face. “You’d known her before?”

“I’d seen her around.”

“Any place in particular?”

He rinsed his razor. “The Rod and Gun Club.” He shrugged. “That other gin mill west of town. I forget the name.”

“The Saddle Club?”

“That’s it. The Saddle Club.”

“Ever date her?”

“Once or twice,” he admitted.

“Ever make her?” I asked him.

He looked at me and smiled. “Once or twice.”

“That could turn out to be quite an admission, Mr. Carver.”

“Liz was quite a girl.”

“You were seen with her?”

He shrugged. “It’s no secret. She had a reputation, and I’m a stranger. Small town people remember strangers.”

“What do you suppose she was doing out here last night?”

“Who?”

“Liz Peterson,” I said patiently.

“Good question. You got me.”

“You didn’t see her last night?”

“I sure as hell didn’t.”

“Has she ever been out here with you?”

He looked off in the direction of Miss Everly’s room and returned his gaze to me. “She sure as hell hasn’t,” he breathed fervently.

“Did Burns or Miss Everly know her?”

He shrugged again, carelessly. “I sure as hell don’t know.”

“You sure as hell better keep yourself available,” I advised him.

He stared at me. He was wiping his razor when I left.

The den was deserted. I used the phone on the desk. After a moment the shrill, nasal voice of Tillie Monroe filtered through the instrument.

“Operator,” she said.

“This is Sheriff Marking,” I told her. “Are we alone?”

“What?”

“Are we on a closed circuit, or can others listen?”

“It’s a closed circuit.”

“Good. I need some answers and I think you can help me,” I explained. “I must caution you not to repeat a word of our conversation to—”

“Why, Tom Marking!” she expostulated. “You know I never...”

“Of course, Tillie,” I soothed. “More a reminder than anything else.”

“Well, I should certainly hope so. I mean, after all.”

“Tillie, within the last two or three weeks have there been any calls for Mr. Rod Carver?”

“You mean long distance calls?”

“Long distance or local.”

“Well, there ain’t been any long distance calls. Local, of course, I wouldn’t be knowing about... unless I just happened to hear someone ask for him after I made the connection.”

“And did you?”

“What?”

“Just happen to hear someone ask for him?”

“Oh. Yes, once or twice, now that I come to think about it. It was a woman. Both times. She called from....” Tillie broke it off and backed up. “That is, as I remember, she called from the Rod and Gun Club.”

“I see. And Mr. Carver was at home in each instance?”

“Yes. She talked to him both times. Seemed to think she had some kind of date with him. He was always polite, talked to her in a low voice. Sounded like a real gentleman. From what little I heard, I mean.”

“And did Mr. Carver indicate to the woman in these conversations that he intended to keep the appointment?”

“I really couldn’t say, I’m sure,” she informed me loftily. “After all, I wasn’t eavesdropping!”

“Did Miss Everly receive any phone calls in the past two or three weeks?”

“No,” Tillie admitted, “she didn’t. But the man, Mr. Burns, did. Land, he must’ve run up sixty or seventy dollars in long distance tolls in the past week alone. Talking to California. It was about one of Miss Everly’s books. Mr. Burns... he’s her agent, I understand... an’ some fellow in California named Jefferson have been haggling over how much the book was worth. And land sakes, Tom, you’ve no idea how much that Jefferson fellow was willing to pay. No book in the world’s worth it to my notion, except maybe the Bible, but Mr. Burns kept laughing and telling him, ‘No, no Barney, you’ve got to do a lot better’n that,’ just like seventeen thousand dollars was cactus or something.”

“I see. Now about today. How about giving me a rundown on the calls made from here this morning, Tillie?”

“Well, about seven-fifteen or so, Charley called the coroner. Then, a little while after that — around eight, I guess — Charley called Sim Baker. Then... lessee... I think it must’ve been around eight-thirty, Sim called the coroner. Then, somewheres around nine, Sim called Milo Ennis at his photo shop here in town. That’s all the calls there was, Sheriff.”

“You’re sure you haven’t forgotten any, Tillie?”

“Listen here, Tom Marking, I’ve been handling this switchboard since you was still running around in knee britches an’ a snotty nose and I’ll have you know...”

I hung up; she was sure.

The coroner came with Milo Ennis. Milo looked grumpy. “You picked the day I’m due at the high school for class pictures,” he told me accusingly as he lugged his equipment upstairs.

Pete Hardy waddled across the room to me. The coroner is a short, heavy-set man in his sixties. A horseshoe of white hair tops his balding dome and accentuates the red of his face. Something was bothering him.

“Has the deceased’s family been notified?” he asked me in a low, confidential voice.

“She has no family that I know of, Pete.”

He frowned. “Was she a woman of means, or will the county have to, ah... defray the expenses?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “The bank could tell you if she had an account or not.” I checked my grin. “The phone’s in there.” I indicated the den. Most county officials double in brass and Pete is no exception. In addition to being the coroner, he also owns the Hardy Funeral Home. Devensville boasts two mortuaries, and Pete isn’t above using his official capacity to fudge a little on his competitor.

Pete was making his call when Bartel came out of the kitchen, wiping his mouth. “The states attorney just called, Marking. While you were upstairs. Said to tell you he was coming out. I’m to tell you he’s coming with Sim.”

“Okay,” I nodded. “And Charley, where’s Mrs. Donald? I haven’t seen her all morning.”

Bartel laughed. “Too much excitement for the old girl, I guess. She was running around here like a chicken with its head cut off. She wasn’t doing no good here. I told her to go home. Told her I’d square things if Ed asked about her.”

I nodded. “I can talk to her later, if necessary.”

He looked at me narrowly. “What the hell do you suppose Gib Dolan wants out here?”

“I invited him,” I said and went out in the yard. The registration card on the steering post of the dirty, beat-up Chevy listed Liz Peterson’s age as twenty-four. I looked around a bit, walked down the short driveway to the road, then went back to the house.

Upstairs I stood quietly and watched Pete Hardy make a perfunctory examination of the deceased.

Milo finished his pictures and left.

Ed Williamson was in the kitchen, fixing a lunch for Bartel and the coroner.

The guests were in their rooms.

Gib Dolan, Sim and I held our conference in the den. Sim filled us in on what he had learned in town. It wasn’t much, but one point was interesting: No one close to the dead girl seemed to know that she had been pregnant.

I gave them the information I had accumulated, trying to present the facts in an impartial manner. I spelled out my conclusions. The states attorney is a young man, competent and articulate. He’s also ambitious. He listened intently.

When I had finished, the room grew still. In the silence the elderly clock on the wall hammered out its endless story, punctuated at irregular intervals by the rasp of Dolan’s heavy breathing and by the roar of Sim’s cigarette hack.

At last Dolan looked at me. “It stretches the imagination.”

“It does,” I agreed.

“Can we get a confession?”

I shrugged. “That depends.”

He waved his arm wearily. “It doesn’t matter. Be a little cleaner, maybe, but... what the hell. First, show us, Marking.”

I led the way up to the death-room. Liz was gone. So was the rope. But I told them. “When I examined the body this morning, I noticed that a section of rope inside the closet was frayed. The fraying was not caused by opening and closing the closet door. That simply won’t hold water.”

Dolan frowned. “How so?”

“Well, to begin with, when the door was shut, it would pinch against the rope and hold it in place. In other words, there’d be no slippage, and the hinge could hardly fray the rope. Now, when the door was opened, it’s possible that the weight of the woman’s body might cause the rope to give a little and scrape itself against the hinge. But in that case, the frayed portion would have been on the outside of the door, not on the inside.”

Dolan nodded. “Sounds reasonable,” he said.

“And if it wasn’t suicide,” I went on, “it had to be murder.”

“But how was the job done?” Jim asked. “There was no sign of a struggle.”

“I figure Liz must have been pretty drunk, if not completely unconscious. He slipped the noose around her neck, then pulled her to the closet. He opened the door and threaded the drag end of the rope over the top hinge. Then he went around to the other side of the door and towed on the rope until he had managed to pull her off the floor.”

Dolan nodded again. “That must have been the way it happened,” he agreed, reflectively. A new thought struck him. “What makes you think we’ll find his prints on her shoes?”

I lit a cigarette. “Liz wasn’t any lightweight,” I said, “and hoisting her off the floor hadn’t been as easy as he had thought it would be. When he finally got the job done, her feet didn’t clear the floor by more than four or five inches.

“She may have been drunk when he hooked the rope around her neck, but she sobered up fast and died hard. She was fighting for her life and she wasn’t passing up any bets. I figure she slipped her pumps off and eased them down onto the floor upright. By stretching her toes, she could reach the backs of the shoes and stand on them. That would account for the indentations we found in the backs of the pumps. It couldn’t have been much support, but it must have relieved some of the tension from the rope; and it was probably keeping her alive.”

“And he pulled them away?”

“Sure. That’s why we found them where we did — lying together and only two feet away from the door. If she’d lost them in her struggles, they’d have been scattered and probably further from the door.”

Dolan sighed. “That about ties everything in place, Tom. And real neat too, if it holds up.”

“I think it will.”

Nervously Dolan began pacing the floor, ticking off his assets on the fingers of his left hand. “I can show a motive,” he said, “and I can prove opportunity and ability.” He stopped pacing suddenly and turned to Sim and me. “Let’s do this thing by the numbers. Sim, round up the coroner and the Chief. Get them in here. Let’s lay all our cards on the table and see what we’ve got.”

As Sim was leaving, Dolan turned to me. “It’s circumstantial without a confession. I can get first-degree without it,” he said with a smile, “but I’d rather have the confession.”

Charley Bartel trailed Pete Hardy into the den. Sim tagged along behind them. Dolan leaned against the closet door where Liz had hung a short while before. Gib looked at the coroner. “You’ve finished your examination?”

Hardy nodded. “It didn’t take long.”

“What’s your conclusion?”

Hardy tipped his head and raised his eyebrows. “There ain’t a mark of violence on the body. Outside of the rope marks around her neck, I mean.”

“Are you going to order auautopsy?”

The coroner blinked. “I ain’t give it much thought, Gib. I can.”

Dolan lit a cigarette and nodded to me.

“Charley,” I asked, looking at the little Chief, “how did you know Liz was pregnant?”

He shrugged. “Heard it around somewhere, I guess. I don’t know.”

“Her roommate hadn’t heard. She didn’t know a thing about it.”

He shrugged again. “She wouldn’t.”

“Her friends at the Virginia Cafe, where she worked, hadn’t heard about it.”

“They wouldn’t either.”

“But you would?”

“I did,” he answered defiantly.

“What time did you get here this morning?”

Bartel squinted at the ceiling. “Oh... must’ve been around seven, I guess.”

Dolan ashed his cigarette delicately. “Who called you?”

“Nobody.”

Dolan frowned. “Then what were you doing out here at seven in the morning?”

Bartel smiled. “I come out here every day while Ed’s been away. Look things over, see that the furnace is okay, make sure everything is in working order. Why?”

“We know. Ed told us,” I said. “But there are a few questions I’d like to ask you.”

He seemed curious. “Such as?”

“How did you know that rope was tied around the door knob?”

“What the hell are you talking about, anyway?”

“About this morning, Charley. When Sim and I first came. I asked you how it looked to you. You told me then that the rope was tied around the inside door knob. How did you know?”

“Why I’d... I’d already opened the door. How the hell do you suppose?”

“But later, in the kitchen, when I suggested that we take the body down, you told me I should know better. You said the coroner would skin us alive if we moved the body before he had seen it.”

“So?”

“So if you opened the door, like you just said, how did you know the rope was tied around the door knob? How did you know it wasn’t merely slipped over the hinge and dangling on the inside and that the body wouldn’t fall when you opened the door? Then you’d have been responsible for moving the body.”

“Why, I...” he sputtered. “I assumed the rope was tied.”

The coroner looked angry. “You’d be a hell of a lot better off if you quit ‘assuming’ things and started using your head.”

“Okay,” Bartel choked. “Okay. I made a mistake. But the rope was tied and the girl’s body didn’t fall. No harm done.”

I let it pass. “You knew Liz Peterson pretty well?”

“I knew her,” he admitted.

“Ever date her?”

“Once or twice.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“About fifteen minutes ago,” he snapped.

“I mean alive.”

“Four, five days ago, I guess. Maybe longer. How the hell should I know? I don’t keep track.”

“But you didn’t see her today, or last night?”

“Alive?”

I nodded.

“No.”

I moved close to him, close enough to see the tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead, almost close enough to smell the fear. “How did you get out here this morning, Charley?” I asked him.

“I... I drove.”

“Where’s your car?”

“Ain’t... ain’t it outside?”

I sighed. “Why don’t you save your wind, Charley? Your car isn’t here because you didn’t drive it out here. You came out with Liz Peterson, in her car, last night after all the gin mills had closed. You knew Ed was gone. You knew the guests would be in bed. You knew you could have all the free liquor you could drink and, afterwards... you knew there were plenty of spare bedrooms upstairs. But the one thing you apparently didn’t know was that Mrs. Donald showed up every morning at seven.

“Sometime early this morning, Liz overplayed her hand. She told you that she was pregnant, and that you were the father of her unborn child. She wanted money, didn’t she, Charley?”

Bartel shook his head angrily. “You’re nuts. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sober,” I said, “Liz probably wouldn’t have attempted blackmail. Had you been sober yourself, you might not have killed her. But you weren’t sober, and you did kill her.”

“You’d better be able to prove that,” Bartel whispered vehemently.

“Mrs. Donald’s arrival this morning, just as you were leaving, tore it. The only thing you could do then was try to bluff it out. Give people the impression that you had been notified of the death and that you were out here in the line of duty.”

“Prove it,” he repeated tightly.

“You sent Mrs. Donald home not because she was distraught after you let her find Liz but because you wanted her removed from the area. Mrs. Donald would tell us that there was only one car in the yard when she drove up, and that it wasn’t yours.”

“Prove it!” he rasped. “Liz was pregnant. Don’t forget that. That’s a hell of a good motive for suicide.”

I shook my head. “Liz wasn’t pregnant, Charley. She just told you she was.”

Bartel stared. “Who the hell was the genius that figured that out?”

I turned to Hardy, who verified my statement with a nod.

Bartel turned back to me and laughed. He jabbed a thumb at the coroner. “You ain’t going by what that ambulance chaser tells you, are you? How the hell would he know? It takes a pathologist to conduct an autopsy, and he sure as hell ain’t no pathologist. He ain’t even a good undertaker.”

“I’m good enough to know she wasn’t pregnant,” Hardy replied calmly. “Other doctors will back me up. Any bets?”

I stood over Bartel. “She sandbagged you, Charley,” I told him. “In doing so, she left you with a motive that couldn’t possibly fit anyone else.”

“You can’t prove a word of it! I deny everything. You’ve got nothing!”

“We’ve got everything,” I told him quietly. “We’ll print her car, and we’ll find plenty of your prints. We’ll print her shoes, and we’ll find your prints on them too. We’ll print every bottle in this house and we’ll find some with your prints. Unless I’m mistaken we’ll find Liz Peterson’s prints on the same bottles. We’ll...”

At first, as I watched his narrow body shaking, I thought he was coughing. Then he buried his face in his hands and bobbed his head hopelessly. “Somebody shut that sonofabitch up,” he moaned. “Just shut him up and leave me alone.”