Give ’Em the Ax

6

We went back to the bedroom. She was shaking with nervousness.

I said, “Sit down. We have a little talking to do.”

“I don’t know a thing about it,” she said. “You know as well as I do that I wasn’t up here long enough to...”

I said, “Let’s let that go and start with facts. What happened?”

“I’ve already told you. I came in here and started to undress. I headed for the bathroom, switched on the lights and... and...”

“You switched on the bathroom light?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t on already?”

“No. I switched it on, and then I saw him and... well, I just ran back and grabbed the first thing I could throw around me and ran down to get you.”

“Pretty much of a panic?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were frightened?”

“Of course.”

“You didn’t know he was here?”

“No, I...”

“Take another look.”

“I...”

“Go ahead. Look.”

I pushed her over to the bathroom door. She grabbed at the side of the door. The coat fell open. She had on a bra, panties and dark lustrous stockings. She gave a short, sharp exclamation and kept clinging to the side of the door, not bothering about the coat. “Take a good look,” I said.

She said, “What is there to see? Just a dead man in a bathroom.”

She twisted out of my grasp, darted back to the bedroom.

I carefully closed the bathroom door. “Where’s the telephone?”

“Right there.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. I sat down and took one of the packages of cigarettes she had sold me that afternoon from my pocket, shook a cigarette a third of the way out, extended it to her, “Smoke?”

“No, I...”

I took the cigarette from the pack, tapped it on my thumbnail, put it in my mouth, lit it and settled back in the chair.

“The telephone,” she said. “It’s right there.”

I nodded.

“Aren’t you going to call the police?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you.”

“What about me?”

“To think up a better story.”

“What do you mean?”

I said, “The police won’t believe that story of yours. That will make it bad — for you.”

A hot flash of anger crossed her face. “What do you mean?”

I inhaled cigarette smoke and slowly exhaled it.

“If you don’t call the police, I’ll call them,” she threatened.

There were magazines on the table. I picked up one, settled back in the chair and started turning the pages, looking at the pictures. “Go ahead.”

The silence lasted for ten or fifteen seconds, then she moved toward the telephone. “I’m not kidding. If you’re not going to call the police, I’ll call them.”

I kept turning the pages of the magazine.

She picked up the telephone receiver, started to dial, looked back at me and then slammed the receiver back into place. “What’s wrong with my story?”

“Two or three things.”

“Bosh!”

“One thing,” I said, “that the police will notice. A couple of other things they won’t.”

“What’s the thing the police will notice?”

“The thing that proves you’re lying.”

“I don’t like the way you’re saying that.”

“I don’t like the way I have to say it.”

“All right, if you’re so smart, tell me what’s wrong with my story.”

I pointed to her purse on the table.

“What about it?”

“Your keys were in that purse.”

“Naturally.”

“How many keys do you have?”

She showed me the leather key container with its open zipper. There were four keys on the inside.

I said, “All right, you took out your keys downstairs. You opened the zipper, selected the key to your apartment. I take it that key opens the spring lock on the door downstairs?”

She nodded.

I said, “You kept the key out because you wanted to enter your apartment. You came up here and entered your apartment. Then what did you do?”

“I’m telling you, I started to change my clothes and...”

I said, “The natural thing was to have closed the zipper and dropped the key container back into your purse.”

“Well, I... Well, certainly. That’s what I did. Good Heavens! I didn’t have to tell you every single solitary move I made, did I? I put the keys back in the purse, put the purse on the table. I walked across to the bedroom. I switched on the bedroom lights. I was undressing before I’d made two steps in the bedroom. I kicked off my skirt. I went to the bathroom. I opened the door of the bathroom...”

“Go on from there.”

“I switched on the lights and saw that man and didn’t even stop to take a good look at him. I dashed down...”

“Did you know he was dead?”

“No, of course not. I wasn’t certain but what he might have been waiting for me.”

“To harm you?”

“Well, yes — or perhaps—”

I said, “They make passes at a girl in your position?”

“Don’t be silly, they make passes at attractive women in any position.”

“Most men think you’re easy because you wander around and show your legs?”

“It’s a natural assumption, isn’t it? You can’t blame them too much.”

“They follow you to your apartment?”

“They have.”

“Try to date you up occasionally?”

“Of course.”

“How did you know this wasn’t a Johnny who had staked himself out?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then you thought that when I opened the door I might have a battle on my hands.”

“I didn’t know.”

“You didn’t say anything.”

“I wanted you to see — what I’d seen.”

I shook my head and said, “You knew he was dead.”

“Is that the point in my story you say the police will disbelieve?”

“No.”

“What is it?”

“Your key, and your purse.”

“What about it?”

I said, “According to your story, you were in a panic. You had on a bra and panties. You grabbed up a fur coat, wrapped it around you and dashed downstairs to call me. That doesn’t fit with the facts. If you’d put your keys back in the purse and put the purse on the table and really were in a panic, you certainly wouldn’t have stopped to open the purse, take out the keys, put the purse back on the table and then run down to find me. You’d have grabbed up the purse and looked for the keys after you’d got downstairs.”

“And that’s it?” she asked somewhat scornfully.

“That’s it,” I said quietly. “The fact that you had the key to the apartment in your hand when you came downstairs showed that you knew you were going to have to use it.”

“Certainly, I knew I was going to have to use it to get back into the apartment house and also into my apartment. There are spring locks and automatic door closers on both doors.”

I said, “And you knew you were going to have to use it. That’s why you kept it in your hand, why you went in and tossed the purse on the table. Then you went into the bedroom, tossed the keys over on the bed, slipped out of your skirt, blouse, and jacket, wrapped up in the fur coat, popped your head in the bathroom to make sure the body was still there, then grabbed the keys and ran down the stairs.”

“Phooey!” she said scornfully, picked up the telephone again and said, “Now I’ll dial Police Headquarters.”

“And on that pillow,” I said, “which is a very soft one, you can see the place where the keys landed when you tossed them onto the bed.”

“Why, I...” She dropped the telephone receiver, jumped up and ran to the door of the bedroom, looked inside and then came out saying scornfully, “What a smart detective you are. The bed is covered with a bedspread that completely covers the pillows. Even if I’d thrown the keys on the pillows there wouldn’t have been enough indentation through that heavy bedspread to have let you see what it was.”

“That’s right.”

“Then what did you mean by saying there was an indentation there?”

I said, “If you’d actually been telling the truth and the keys had been in your purse all the time, you wouldn’t have rushed to the door in a panic to see if there actually was an indentation there.”

She thought that over for a moment, then sat down.

I said, “So much for the police. From my own viewpoint, there are other things that don’t check. You were anxious to let me see that you had on just panties and a bra under the fur coat so as to give authenticity to your story. And you were very suddenly in a great dither to find out something about Irma Crail — something that you could use as actual proof in case you had to, and you were trembling all over when you came out of Cullingdon’s apartment. You were so nervous you could hardly shift the gears in your automobile. The way I put that together, you came home, took off your clothes, went to the bathroom, saw the body of Rufus Stanberry in the tub, convinced yourself he was dead, sat down and thought for a moment, smoked that one cigarette about half through (the one single long stub with the red lipstick on it in this ash tray) put your clothes back on and went out, being very, very careful to leave absolutely nothing which indicated you’d already been in your apartment and discovered the body. You overlooked the cigarette.

“Then you went to Cullingdon’s in very much of a hurry. You’d found I’d been there and that upset your plans. I picked you up as you came out, and that bothered you still more. You sparred for time while you were doing some thinking — you needed some witness to show that you had entered your apartment innocently and this dead man was occupying your bathtub. After all, why wouldn’t I be a better witness than someone you’d pick up to back your play. I’d be sincere and disinterested. I’d tell a story the police would believe. So you elected me as the fall guy. You drove up to the apartment house. You got out with your key in your hand. You went upstairs. You put the key down on the bed, leaving your open purse on the table in the other room. You jumped out of your skirt and blouse, put the fur coat on, gave a quick look to see everything was as you’d left it in the bathroom and then came down and pulled your act on me. You thought I’d fall for it, telephone the police and vouch that you’d gone up to your apartment, hadn’t been gone more than two or three minutes and...”

She said wearily, “All right, what do you want? Give me a cigarette.”

I gave her a cigarette. “I want the truth,” I said.

“All right, it happened just about the way you thought it did. I didn’t realize the keys would betray me.”

“You found him here just before you went out to see Cullingdon?”

“Yes.”

“Know who he was?”

“Of course.”

“Found out he was dead?”

“Yes.”

“And did what?”

“Naturally, I thought Mrs. Crail was playing me for a fall guy. He’d been with her. Now he was in my apartment — dead. I didn’t like the smell of it. No one could prove I’d been here. I decided to go out, get what I could on Mrs. Crail and then go to see her and call for a showdown — or else pick up some witness who could come to the apartment with me and... well, sort of give me an alibi. Then you showed up and, while I was annoyed at first, I finally decided you’d be a good witness.”

I said, “You’re not going to like my next question.”

“What is it?”

I jerked my head toward the bathroom. “He ever been here before?”

She met my eyes. “Yes.”

“Social or sexual?”

“Neither.”

“No passes?”

“That wasn’t what he came for.”

“But he did make passes?”

“He tried an awkward clumsy approach, just to see if it would get him anywhere. He seemed almost relieved when he found out it wouldn’t.”

“What did he want?”

“Wanted to find out whether Rimley was doing a good enough business to stand for a boost in rent.”

“Did he find out anything?”

“Not a thing.”

I said, “Let’s go take another look at that body.”

“We aren’t supposed to touch it, are we, until...?”

“No,” I said.

We went back through the bedroom and into the bathroom. She was calmly practical now, with no trace of panic in her manner.

As well as I could without disturbing the body, I looked it over. Evidently he had been killed by a single hard blow on the left temple with some object that had left an oblong depressed fracture of the skull. I looked in the right-hand inside pocket of the coat. There was a billfold in there. It was filled with folding money, lots of it. I put it back. The side pocket on the left held a notebook. On the front page the words had been written in pen and ink, “Rufus Stanberry, 3271 Fulrose Avenue. In case of accident notify Archie Stanberry, 963 Malolo Avenue. My blood type is 4.” I closed the book, slipped it back in the pocket.

I saw an expensive wrist watch on his left wrist. I looked at the time. It was five thirty-seven.

I consulted my own watch.

The time was exactly six thirty-seven.

That did it. I backed away from the body as though it had had leprosy.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, watching me. “What’s wrong with the watch?”

“Nothing,” I said, and took her out to the other room. “It’s all right. We call the police now.”