Blow Hot, Blow Cold

12

There were several things that Lieutenant Masters had to do at headquarters the next morning, the foremost of which was to convince his chief that further investigation of the Connor case was justified. More, that it was mandatory; and Masters said so as clearly as he could.

“Are you sure, Gus?” the chief said. “By God, you’d better be.”

“I’m sure,” Masters said. “I’d be tickled to death to drop the case if I weren’t.”

“But you have to have something to base it on. And don’t bother to tell me again about the air-conditioners and the key that’s missing. Accentuate the positive.”

“Well, there’s something I got onto yesterday. It almost got past me, it was so obvious.”

“Well, well?”

“It’s evidence that Lila Connor was murdered by someone not her husband, who probably murdered her husband, too.”

“There you go again! Damn it, if ever there was a case that seemed closed as soon as it opened, this was it! All right, Gus. What’s this evidence you’re talking about?”

“Yesterday afternoon I was sitting here wondering whether to go on or give the case up, and all of a sudden I remembered something I’d seen in Connor’s office. I remembered seeing him lying on the sofa there, his right arm dangling over the side. He was in his shirt sleeves, and on his wrist below the edge of the cuff was a watch. On his right wrist. It’s not incontrovertible, but it strongly indicated that Larry Connor must have been left-handed. So I called his secretary, Ruth Benton, for verification, and I was right. Connor was left-handed.”

“So what?”

“The fingerprint report established that Larry Connor’s prints — and his only — were on the handle of the murder weapon. The prints of his right hand. But he was left-handed! Don’t you see what that means?” In his enthusiasm Masters poked the chief’s collarbone with his forefinger, which was as horny as a dragon’s claw, and the chief recoiled. “It means, Chief, that those prints of Connor’s were planted on that letter-opener by someone who hadn’t noticed or didn’t know or simply forgot that Connor was left-handed! Which logically means that they were planted after Connor died, in his office! Which means the murder weapon was only then taken to the Connor house to kill Lila Connor with! Which means the husband couldn’t have murdered her! And if he didn’t murder her, why would he commit suicide?”

“Wait, wait,” the thief groaned, holding his head. “Can you prove the letter-opener was taken from the office to the house?”

“It follows, Chief.”

“So does my dog a bitch in heat,” said the chief coarsely, “but it doesn’t mean he gets it.”

“Chief,” said Masters. “Ruth Benton, Connor’s secretary, will settle this — she’s coming in this morning to look at the letter-opener. She says it sounds like the one Connor kept on his office desk, but she’ll be able to say definitely when she sees it.”

The chief, rocking like an old lady, cursed softly. He obviously foresaw bad times.

“You win, Gus. Go ahead with it. But I’m not authorizing any three-month la-de-da. How long do you figure you need?”

Masters thought rapidly. He figured it would take a week. “Ten days,” he said.

“I’ll give you a week. Any idea who’s getting the nose-ring?”

“Not yet.”

“You’re lying. All right, go to it.” As Masters turned to leave, the chief said, “When you do pull the pinch, you better be sure.”

“Sure, Chief.”

“Damn sure,” the chief said grimly.

The detective went back to his office. On the way he noted that the clock in the hall stood at a few minutes past nine. Ruth Benton had agreed to come in at nine-thirty.

In the meantime there were a few other items on his agenda. Lila Connor’s second husband, he recalled, was said to have been a suicide. If so, there would be a police record; and Masters called Kansas City headquarters and asked for it and any other information pertinent. The police report alone, however, wasn’t likely to contain the kind of material he was after. He put through a second call, to a private K.C. agency, and commissioned a quick investigation, supplying as many leads as he could in order to expedite matters. Whereupon Masters sat back to wait for Ruth Benton, with fifteen minutes to go. Only three of them had passed when his phone rang. He recognized the voice at the first word. What a voice!

“This is Nancy Howell speaking,” the voice said. Temple bells, pure temple bells.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Howell. I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”

“Because of yesterday, you mean?”

“Yes. I definitely got the impression that I was off your calling list.”

“Well, something’s come up that changes things. Would you like to hear what it is?”

“Very much. Why don’t you come downtown and tell me?”

“It would be better if you came up here. There’s something I want to do that I need your help for. It’s a — well, an experiment.”

“Can you be a little more definite?”

“I’d rather not. All I will say now is that we must get into the Connor house to do it.”

“The Connor house? You bet, Mrs. Howell! See you soon.”

He had just hung up when Ruth Benton, a few minutes early, arrived. Masters saw at once that Ruth Benton had been having a bad time. A secretary did not develop such bags under her eyes through sorrow over a mere kindly employer.

“Thank you for coming in, Miss Benton,” Masters said. “This will only take a minute. As I told you over the phone, I want you to look at the weapon used to kill Mrs. Connor.”

He had the lethal letter-opener in a paper-lined box on his desk. He removed the lid, revealing the blood-caked weapon. Ruth Benton closed her eyes, then opened them again.

“Yes,” she said. “That’s Larry’s letter-opener. He always kept it on his office desk.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Would you be willing to testify under oath to that effect?”

“I suppose so, but why? Does it mean that Larry didn’t kill his wife, or that he did?”

“It may prove that he didn’t.”

“Then who did?”

Masters rose. “Thanks for coming in, Miss Benton.”

The girl rose, too, accepting her dismissal with a shrug. “If Larry was guilty, I don’t blame him. If he was innocent, I’ll do anything I can to help prove it.”

In Shady Acres, Masters parked before the Howell house and went around to the back door. He found Nancy Howell, adorable in a crisp lavender housedress, pulling the stems from strawberries, which gave her hands the rather startling illusion that she had been dipping them in fresh blood. He entered, hat in hand, humbly, to be invited to sit at her kitchen table. Her offer of coffee thrilled him to the bone. It meant that he had been paroled, if not pardoned outright.

“Sorry I was held up, Mrs. Howell — oh, thank you,” said Masters, accepting the coffee. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting?”

“That’s all right, Lieutenant,” said Nancy, “there’s no rush. Actually, I’ve decided I owe you an apology. One never feels in any particular hurry to apologize to someone, does one?”

“As far as I am concerned, Mrs. Howell, go no further. You owe me nothing. Certainly no apology.”

“Why, thank you, Lieutenant. That’s very generous of you.”

Masters sipped his coffee. He really wanted cream and sugar, but he was afraid to ask for them. The coffee was also bitter, from having been standing on the range for God knew how long. Nevertheless, he sipped it with every appearance of relish.

“Well!” said Masters. “Now what about this experiment of yours, Mrs. Howell? You said something about getting into the Connor house?”

“You carry a key to the house, don’t you? I want you to take me inside.”

“Why do you want to go inside?”

“I want to try the light in Lila’s bedroom. To see if it will go on.”

Masters blinked. “I don’t suppose you’d mind explaining?”

“I happened to remember that on the night Lila was killed the light in her bedroom was on — I mean after Larry left. I definitely recall seeing it. But the next day, when we found Lila’s body, the light was off.”

“You don’t say.” Masters regarded her with admiration and respect. This might prove an important confirmation of part of his theory. “You’re assuming that the light was turned off by Lila?”

“Or by somebody else. In either event, it shows that somebody was in that house after Larry left — and that ought to go a long way toward clearing Larry’s name.”

“Unless, of course, the bulb simply burned out.”

“Of course. That’s why I want to examine the bulb.”

“It won’t be necessary, Mrs. Howell. The bulb was not burned out. We’ve had it on since then.”

“The bedlight, too?”

“Bedlight? No... Could it have been the bedlight you saw?”

“I doubt it. But there’s no sense in leaving any possibility unexplored, is there, Lieutenant?”

“You’re right there! Let’s go over and settle the matter, shall we?”

They entered the Connor house by the front door and went directly upstairs to Lila’s bedroom. Masters, preceding her into the room, stepped aside.

“It was your idea, Mrs. Howell,” he said archly. “You try them.”

The room was full of shadows, and Nancy moved reluctantly through them to the hapless double bed. The bedlight came on readily. She turned it off again just as Masters flipped the wall-switch that operated the ceiling fixture.

“That settles it,” Nancy said. “No burned-out bulb, and it was definitely the ceiling light I saw. The bed-light casts most of its light on the bed, and anyway it’s much less bright.”

“You’ve established an important point.” Masters looked around. “By the way, as long as we’re here, there’s something else I want to look for. Do you mind waiting?”

“What is it you’re after, Lieutenant?”

“A key. A key to the back door. We found Lila’s in the key-case in her purse, so hers is accounted for. But her husband’s is missing.”

“What grisly fun,” Nancy said. “Do you mind if I help you look for it, Lieutenant? I’m not much good at standing around waiting. I get itches in all the inconvenient places.”

“Well,” Masters said doubtfully. “It’s against the rules—”

“Whose rules — that doddering old police chief’s?” Nancy said with scorn. “Or—” and Masters flinched under the beautiful fire that leaped into her eyes — “or am I still a suspect, Lieutenant Masters?”

“No, no, no,” he said hastily. “By all means help me look!”

For the better part of an hour they worked their way through the house, searching every place they could think of where a key might have been left or lost or hidden. But they failed to find it. At last they came back to the room in which they had begun; and Nancy, conceding defeat, sat down on the edge of Lila’s elegant chaise. But Masters went once more around the room, and then disappeared in the bathroom. When he came out he was looking rather inscrutable.

“If you ask me,” Nancy said, “this is a waste of time. I told you the back door was unlocked when I tried it Sunday afternoon. I don’t see why you persist in thinking that it was locked before.”

“Is it reasonable that the Connors left their back door unlocked? Even at night?”

“No, but they may have neglected to lock it that particular night. After all, they’d been drinking a lot of beer and quarreling. A drinkie-fightie episode can make married people forget to take their shoes off when they go to bed, let alone a little thing like locking the back door.”

“No, the murderer couldn’t have counted on that, Mrs. Howell. He would still have had to bring the back-door key with him, in case the door was locked.”

“Then maybe he still has it.”

“That would make him out an idiot,” said Masters, “and, whoever it is we’re dealing with, he’s certainly no idiot.”

“Or just threw it away.”

“Maybe.” Masters sounded cryptic.

“Lieutenant, you know something!” Nancy was so excited that she grabbed Masters’s arm, leaning very close to him. Masters closed his eyes momentarily; her perfume made him feel faint. “Come on, what is it? Tell me!”

“Well, I do have an idea,” he said weakly.

“What?”

“I’d rather not say now. It may be all wet.”

This clearly closed the subject, so Nancy let Masters walk her back to her house. On the terrace he lifted his hat and was about to depart when Nancy said, “Oh, I almost forgot!” and detained him a little longer, belatedly recalling Stanley Walters’s confession about having talked to Lila that night after Nancy went back into her house. Masters listened with mounting bitterness, glaring at the alley where Stanley had been standing on the night under discussion.

“That settles it,” the detective growled when Nancy had finished. “Why didn’t Walters himself tell me this?”

“Don’t blame Stanley too much, Lieutenant,” Nancy said. “He’s in mortal terror of his wife. Mae can be very unpleasant where other women are concerned.”

Recalling Mae Walters, Masters did not doubt it. Just the same, he was boiling mad.

“Walters should have told me,” he said. “It’s a serious offense withholding evidence in a murder investigation. It’s cost me a lot of time and headaches. I could have got off to a flying start on this case, instead of floundering around in the swamp of my own thick head!”

“Stanley didn’t withhold it,” Nancy said quickly, a little frightened by this unexpected side to Lieutenant Masters. “He was just a little late in giving it, Lieutenant. He actually asked me to tell you.”

Masters grunted. “I’ll deal with Mr. Walters later. The point is, the evidence is now conclusive. Lila Connor was definitely alive after you saw Larry Connor leave home, and that practically puts the clincher on the conclusion that he didn’t kill her, and consequently didn’t commit suicide, either. Walters’s testimony fits with other evidence I have. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no doubt now that we’re dealing with a live murderer of two people; and unless I’m going soft in the head, he’s living somewhere around here.”

And Masters stalked off toward his car.