Cats Prowl at Night

8 Who Saw What?

Sergeant Sellers pushed open the door marked “EVERETT G. BELDER, Sales Engineer,” and stood to one side for Bertha Cool to enter.

“Don’t say we aren’t polite on occasion,” he muttered.

“You slay me,” Bertha said, marching into the office.

Imogene Dearborne glanced up from her typewriter. Bertha saw that she had been crying. The girl hastily averted her eyes, said, “Go right on in. He’s expecting you.”

Sergeant Sellers raised a questioning eyebrow at Bertha, and at Bertha’s almost imperceptible nod the sergeant sized up the girl at the typewriter.

Imogene Dearborne seemed to be aware of his scrutiny. Her back stiffened, but she didn’t look up. She continued flinging her fingers at the keyboard of the typewriter, beating out a staccato tune of business efficiency.

The door from the private office opened. Everett Belder said, “I thought I heard you come in. Good morning. Good morning! Step right this way, please.”

They entered Belder’s private office.

Sergeant Sellers settled himself in a chair, pulled a cigar from his waistcoat pocket, bit off the end and groped for a match. Bertha Cool sat down with the grim formality of an executioner calling on the condemned man. Everett Belder adjusted himself nervously in the big chair behind the desk.

Sellers got his cigar going, shook out the match, tossed it into a small fireplace where some papers were burning, looked at Belder and said, “Well?”

Belder said, “I presume Mrs. Cool has told you everything.”

Sellers grinned at Belder through blue cigar smoke. “I don’t think she’s told me everything, but she told me more than you intended her to tell.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Belder said, trying to be dignified.

“How about that second letter?” Sellers asked.

Belder said nervously, “I intended to tell you about that a little later, Sergeant. I just wanted a little while to think it over.”

“You’ve thought it over now,” Sellers said.

Belder nodded.

“And what was there you wanted to think over?”

“Nothing. That is, in the sense that you mean.”

“Shouldn’t have taken you long to think it over, then.”

Belder cleared his throat, “A young woman whom I used to know, named Dolly Cornish, called on me. She was glad to see me. I was glad to see her. I hadn’t seen her for a long time. She looked me up when she came to town, got my address out of the telephone book. She had no means of knowing I was still married.”

“What do you mean, ‘still’?”

“Well, I went with her for a while, and then — well, then I got married.”

“She didn’t like that?”

“Oh, she got married herself within a week or two.”

“But she didn’t like it when you got married?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask her.”

Sellers took the cigar from his mouth. His eyes bored into Belder’s. “Answer questions and quit beating around the bush.”

Belder said, “No. She didn’t like it.”

“Had you seen her since then?”

“Not until she came here.”

“Why did she come?”

“She’d left her husband. She — well, she wanted to see me.”

“Okay, you made a play for her?”

“I–I was glad to see her.”

“Kiss her?”

“Yes.”

“More than once?”

“I — well, perhaps. But that was all of it, just a kiss and — well, hang it, I was glad to see her. Just like you’d be glad to run across any old friend whom you hadn’t seen for a long time.”

“Date her up?”

“No.”

“Tell her you were still married?”

“Yes.”

“She leave you her address?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Locklear Apartments.”

“You been there?”

“No.”

“Called her?”

“No.”

“She ask you to?”

“Well, not exactly. She told me where she was staying.”

“Where did she sit?” Sergeant Sellers asked.

Surprise was on Belder’s face. “I don’t get you.”

“When she was here.”

“Oh, over in that chair, the one Mrs. Cool’s sitting in.”

“That’s pretty well over at the far end of the office,” Sellers said. “Take a look out, Bertha, and tell me what windows you can see across the street.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Belder said. “What bearing does that have on the case?”

Sergeant Sellers explained patiently. “The person who wrote that second letter must have been able to see what was going on here in the office when Dolly Cornish called. I notice there’s an office building across the street. It’s not a wide street. Along in the afternoon, the light would be just right so a person standing in an office across the street could see in here.”

Belder frowned for a moment, then his face cleared. “By George, that’s an idea! You think this person was spying on me from an office in the building across the street?”

Bertha Cool said, “Why monkey with that stuff? You have the answer right here in your office.”

Sellers frowned for her to keep quiet, suddenly switched his point of attack.

“How about the information in this letter. Who do you know who could have known about Dolly being in here on Monday?”

“No one.”

“Your secretary?”

“She doesn’t know anything at all about Dolly Cornish; thinks she’s a business acquaintance.”

“What time was this Dolly person in here Monday?”

“I don’t know, around — oh, I’d say around the middle of the afternoon.” Sergeant Sellers jerked his fingers toward the telephone. “Get her in here.”

“Who?”

“Your secretary.”

Belder raised the receiver on the telephone, said, “Can you come in here a moment, please?”

A second later, when Imogene Dearborne opened the door, Sellers said, “Last Monday — a party by the name of Dolly Cornish. What time was she in?”

“Just a moment, I’ll consult my day-book.”

“She have an appointment?”

“No.”

“All right, take a look at your book.”

Imogene returned to her desk, secured her day-book, opened it, slid her finger down the page. “Mrs. Cornish came in at two-twenty Monday afternoon. She stayed until three-fifteen.”

“She didn’t have an appointment?”

“No.”

“Stranger to you?”

“Yes.”

“Know anything about her business?”

“No. Mr. Belder said not to make any charge.”

Sellers tilted back his head, closed his eyes. “What does she look like?”

“A blonde, good figure, fine clothes, attractive, still young, but sort of — well, sort of scheming and definitely selfish. If she wants something, she gets it.”

Belder said, “I hardly think that’s fair, Miss Dearborne, you—”

“I’m running this,” Sellers interrupted, his head still tilted back, eyes still closed. “She told you she wanted to see Mr. Belder, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And you asked her if she had an appointment?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She said Mr. Belder would see her if I’d tell him she was here.”

“Belder isn’t very busy,” Sellers said. “That appointment business is just a stall, isn’t it — kind of racket to impress callers?”

“Yes.”

“So you went on in to him and told him a Mrs. Cornish was here?”

“She asked me to announce her as Dolly Cornish; said just to say Dolly Cornish.”

“What did Belder do?”

“Why, he said to send her in, said she was a friend of his.”

“Any emotion?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“What happened when they met each other?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“Didn’t Belder come to the door?”

“He was part way around the desk as I held the door open for her. I heard him say her name as though he — well, as though he liked the sound of it.”

“And then?”

“I closed the door.”

“See him kiss her?”

Her cheeks flamed. “No.”

“When did you see her next?”

“Three-fifteen — when she came out.”

“Anyone else know she was here?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“No one waiting in the outer office when she came in here?”

“No.”

“Anyone shadow her when she left?”

“I can’t be certain of that, but I would say probably not. There was no one else in the office all the time she was in here.”

Bertha Cool interrupted. “What’s the use of beating around the bush. This is the party you want.”

Sellers frowned warningly at Bertha Cool. “I’m not so certain you’re right on that, Bertha.”

“I’m certain,” Bertha snapped.

Sellers looked through the window at the building across the street. “There’s some pretty strong evidence in favour of that office-window theory, Bertha.”

Bertha turned to Imogene Dearborne, zipped open her purse, pulled out the typewritten memo she had pilfered from Everett Belder’s files. “Who wrote this?” she demanded, thrusting the paper out at Imogene Dearborne.

“Why — why — why, I guess I did. That was a note I put on Mr. Belder’s—”

Bertha Cool said to Sergeant Sellers, “Let’s have those two letters.”

Sellers wordlessly passed them over.

Bertha Cool spread them out on the table. “Take a look at these, young woman. All written on the same typewriter, weren’t they?”

“I–I don’t know. What are you trying to do?”

Bertha said with cold-blooded callousness, “I’m trying to show you up, you little twerp. You were in love with your boss. You thought he’d marry you if his wife didn’t stand in the way. You wrote those letters to Mrs. Belder. You knew your boss was making a play for the maid. You listened at the door and peeked through the keyhole and knew what went on when Dolly Cornish called. You thought you’d got rid of a wife and two rivals all at once. You wrote those letters to Mrs. Belder and then put on your innocent act around the office. A smug, mealy-mouthed, goddamned hypocrite.”

Imogene Dearborne was crying now. “I didn’t,” she denied wildly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Bertha said remorselessly, “Oh, yes, you do. And now I’m going to prove it. Those letters were written by a skilled typist. She used a beautiful, even-spaced, touch system. She wrote ’em on a portable typewriter. It was a Remington portable, about the first model they put out. You have a portable machine, at home. You used it to write these letters. This memo wasn’t written on the machine you’re using in the office. I tricked you into giving me a specimen of the writing on that machine. You admitted that you have a portable at home. Now then, you’d better come clean and tell us—”

“Great Scott!” Belder exclaimed, as he stared down at the memorandum on the desk.

Bertha Cool smiled at him with calm assurance. “Hits you with something of a jolt, doesn’t it? Finding out that you’ve had a little twerp in your office who—”

“It isn’t that,” Belder interrupted. “It’s what you said about the Remington portable.”

“What about it?” Bertha asked.

“That’s my wife’s machine.”

The door from the outer office opened. Carlotta Goldring, her prominent blue eyes taking in everything and everybody in the room, said, “There was no one in the reception-room, so I came on in. I hope I’m not—”

No one paid any attention to her. Bertha Cool pointed her finger at Imogene. “Look at her. You can tell I’ve called the turn. The twerp may have managed to write these letters on your wife’s machine at your house, but she wrote those letters! She—”

“It’s a lie!” Imogene screamed. “And what’s more, the portable I have at home isn’t a Remington. It’s a Corona!”

Carlotta, wide-eyed, moved around to the edge of the room, stopped near the fireplace, her back to the fire, regarding the scene with speechless amazement.

“Try to deny that you’re in love with your boss,” Bertha accused. “Try to deny that you thought if you could only get rid of his wife, you’d have easy sailing; that you wrote these letters—”

“Wait a minute,” Belder interrupted. “She couldn’t have done it, Mrs. Cool. She wrote that memo one day when I had my wife’s machine at the office — taking it home after an overhaul. Imogene tried it out. I remember the whole thing very clearly now.”

“Then she wrote both letters that same day,” Bertha charged.

“She couldn’t have. That was before either of these women — before Dolly entered the picture.”

Sellers said to Belder, “Who else had access to this typewriter?”

“Why — no one, I guess. My wife’s family—”

Sellers’ eyes were narrowed and hard. “And the maid, of course.”

“Sally?”

“Yes. Who else would I be talking about?”

Belder said, “Why — yes — but why should Sally have written a letter to my wife suggesting that she was playing around with me? It’s cock-eyed. It’s crazy.”

“But Sally could have had access to that machine,” Sellers insisted.

“She could have, yes.”

Imogene Dearborne slumped down in a chair, her handkerchief at her eyes. The sound of her sobs filled the room whenever there was a lull in the conversation.

Sellers said to Bertha Cool, “You may be right. You may not be right. There’s something screwy about this whole business... Belder, get up and quit stalling around. Put this chair in just about the same position it was when Dolly Cornish was sitting in it... Okay, it was sitting in that position. All right — now let me sit there. Let me see what’s visible through the window from this angle.”

Sergeant Sellers moved his body back and forth enlarging the angle of his vision as far as possible.

“Imogene, cut out that damn bawling, take your pencil and make a note of these places: Dr. Cawlburn, physician and surgeon... Dr. Elwood Z. Champlin, dentist... The dentist looks the most promising. We’ll take a chance on him first; dental chairs always face the windows. I can look across and see a patient in that chair right now. Get those telephone numbers for me, Imogene... Come on, snap out of it!”

Imogene might not have heard him. She sat in the chair sobbing.

Sergeant Sellers got up out of his chair, reached across, grabbed her shoulder, gave it a quick shake, said, “Snap out of it. Do your bawling after office hours. I’m working on a murder case. Get out there and look up those numbers.”

Imogene glanced up at him and, at the expression on his face, suddenly got to her feet, crossed to Belder’s desk, picked up a telephone directory and began looking up numbers, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief from time to time.

Belder handed her a pencil and a memo pad. He patted her arm awkwardly. “There, there, Miss Dearborne,” he said. “Don’t feel that way about it.”

She jerked her arm away from his touch, wrote out the telephone numbers, tore the sheet off the memo pad, and handed it to Sergeant Sellers.

Sellers picked up the telephone, dialled a number, said, “This is Sergeant Sellers of Police Headquarters. I want to talk with Dr. Elwood Champlin, personally... Okay, put him on... Police Headquarters. Tell him it’s important...” While he was waiting, Sellers picked up the cigar which he had deposited on the desk, puffed it into renewed activity, and held it tilted at an aggressive upward angle. Abruptly he removed it, said into the mouthpiece, “Hello, this Dr. Champlin?... That’s right. Yes, Sergeant Sellers from Police Headquarters. Look at your appointment book and tell me what patients you had in the chair in your office last Monday between two o’clock and three-fifteen... No, just the names of the patients... All right, what’s the next name? H-a-r-w-o-o-d. All right, I’ve got that. Who’s next?”

A slow grin came over Sergeant Sellers’ face. “Miss or Mrs?” he asked.

“I see. All right, thank you very much, Doctor. I’ll get in touch with you later on... Yes, that’s all I wanted to know.”

Sellers dropped the receiver back into place and grinned at Bertha Cool.

“The second patient in Dr. Champlin’s office,” he said, “from two-fifteen to two-forty-five was a Miss Sally Brentner.”