Give ’Em the Ax

8

The place I wanted turned out to be a three story brick apartment house with a stucco front. It didn’t have a switchboard. The front door was kept locked with a spring catch, and there was a row of bell buttons with speaking tubes and cards.

I’d picked out the name, STANBERRY, A. L., and pressed a button. After a few seconds, a speaking tube emitted a shrill whistle. A moment later, a voice said, “What do you want?”

I put my mouth up to the speaking tube. “Archie Stanberry.”

“Who wants him?”

“My name’s Lam.”

“What do you want to see him about?”

“You guess.”

“Newspaper?”

“What do you think?”

The buzzer sounded on the door, and I pushed it open and went in.

Archie Stanberry’s apartment was 533. An automatic elevator that really moved whisked me up to the floor. I walked down to apartment 533 and tapped on the door.

Archie Stanberry was about twenty-five or twenty-six. His complexion was about the color of pie-crust that should have been left in the oven another fifteen minutes. His eyes were swollen and red from crying, but he was trying to be brave. The apartment was swank and looked as though Archie had lived there for some time.

“It’s been an awful shock to me,” he said.

“Of course.”

I didn’t wait for an invitation, but walked on in calmly, picked out a comfortable chair, sat down, took out one of the packages of cigarettes Billy Prue had sold me, jiggled out a cigarette, lit it, said, “What’s your relationship?”

“He was my uncle.”

“See him frequently?”

“We were inseparable.”

I pulled a notebook out of my pocket. “What’s your draft status?”

“Four F,” he said, bristling defensively. “And I see no reason for giving you details.”

I grinned at him and said, “Neither do I.”

That made him feel better.

“When did you last see your uncle?”

“Yesterday night.”

“Ever hear him speak of Billy Prue — the young woman who lived in the apartment where the body was found?”

“No.”

“You didn’t know that he knew her?”

“No.”

“Know what he was doing there?”

“I don’t,” Archie said, “but I can assure you that whatever it was, it was something that was on the up-and-up. My uncle was a paragon of virtue.”

He mouthed the words as though he’d been making a nominating speech.

“Lived here long?” I asked.

“Five years.”

“Who owns the building?”

“Uncle Rufus.”

“Left rather a considerable estate?”

He said almost too hastily, “I don’t know. I know very little about his financial affairs. I’ve always gathered that he was affluent.”

“You work?” I asked.

“At present,” he said, “I am not working in the sense of having employment. I am doing research work for an historical novel.”

“Ever had anything published?” I asked.

He flushed and said, “I don’t think that needs to enter into it.”

I said, “I thought you might like the publicity — that was all.”

He said, “This is an idea for an historical novel that appealed to Uncle Rufus.”

“He was financing it?” I asked.

For a minute the eyes avoided mine, then came back to look at me — bloodshot, restless eyes that seemed afraid of something. “Yes,” he said, “and now I suppose I’ll have to drop it.”

“What’s it about generally?”

“The Coast Guard.”

“And historical?”

“Back to the days of the real Merchant Marine,” he said with a note of enthusiasm coming into his voice. “Back when San Francisco was a real port, a real city that had ships from all corners of the world crowding in through the Golden Gate. Days that are past, but days that will come again when once more American merchandise begins to move in American bottoms, when you can stand on a headland anywhere along the coast and look out and see the smudge of smoke on the horizon, when...”

“Nice stuff,” I interrupted. “Your uncle wasn’t married?”

“No.”

“Any other relatives?”

“None that I know of.”

“Leave a will?”

“Really, Mr....”

“Lam.”

“Really, Mr. Lam, I don’t see the pertinency of that question. May I ask what paper you’re with?”

“None.”

“What!”

“None.”

“I understood you were gathering material for the press.”

I said, “I’m a detective.”

“Oh!” The exclamation was short and sharp.

“When did you hear about it?”

“About my uncle’s death?”

“Yes.”

“A very short time after the body was found I was notified and asked to go over — to the apartment where the body was found.”

“Nice place you have here,” I said.

“I like it. I’ve told my uncle several times that I could get along in a smaller apartment, but he insists that I should have this. It’s rather elaborate — two apartments merged into one.”

He blew his nose again, abruptly said to me, “There’s something in my right eye. Will you excuse me for a moment?”

“Yes.”

“A little cinder or something,” he said.

He twisted a handkerchief, moistened the end, went over to a mirror, and pulled down the lid of his right eye.

“Perhaps I can help you,” I said.

“Perhaps.”

He rolled his right eye up. There was a little brownish speck down at the very bottom of the eye. I speared it with the handkerchief, and he said, “Thanks.”

We went back to our chairs and sat down.

“Have you any clues as to — as to how it happened?” he asked.

I said, “I’m not with the police. I’m private.”

“A private detective?”

“Right.”

“May I ask who employed you, what your interest is, why you...” He stopped and looked at me.

I said, “I’m interested in a very incidental angle. I believe your uncle was about to sell the Stanberry Building.”

“I think he was.”

“Did he say anything to you about it?”

“Just generally. I knew that a sale was pending.”

“Know what the price was?”

“I don’t know, and if I did, I see no reason why I should communicate the information to you. After all, Mr. Lam, it seems to me that you’re being rather impertinent in your inquiries.”

“How old was your uncle?”

“Fifty-three.”

“Ever been married?”

“Yes.”

“Widower?”

“No. There was a divorce.”

“How long ago?”

“About two years, I believe.”

“You knew his wife?”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“Where is she now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did she get the divorce, or did he?”

“She did.”

“A property settlement?”

“I believe so, yes. Really, Mr. Lam, this is taking the inquiry very far afield, don’t you think?”

“Did you tell the police any more than you told me?”

“I don’t think I told them as much. Your questions are rather — rather personal.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You see I...” I choked in midsentence, coughed, gagged, muttered, “Bathroom, quick!”

He ran to a door, opened it. I lurched through. He ran across the bedroom, opened the bathroom door. I went in, waited five seconds, then opened the door. I could hear his voice in the living room. He was telephoning.

I took a quick look around the bedroom. It was neat and well kept. The closet was filled with clothes. A shoe shelf had nearly two dozen pairs of shoes all neatly treed. On the inside of the closet door were two necktie racks that must have held something over a hundred neckties. On the dressing-table, brushes and comb were neatly arranged. The brushes were clean and so was the comb. There were, perhaps, a dozen framed photographs on the dresser, or hanging on the walls. Directly across from the bed was an oval space measuring about twelve inches the long way, about eight inches the other, just a little different color from the rest of the wall. On the dresser, a cigarette had been torn in two, and both ends lay there. It was the only bit of litter in the room.

Abruptly the door opened. Archie Stanberry stood in the doorway looking at me reproachfully. “I thought you wanted to go to the bathroom?”

“I did. Nice place you have here.”

“Mr. Lam, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I don’t like your methods.”

“Okay by me,” I said. I walked out to the sitting-room. Stanberry made something of a ceremony of moving across and flinging open the outer door, then standing in statuesque dignity.

I didn’t go out. I walked back to the easy chair and sat down.

For a moment Stanberry maintained his pose. Then he said, “I’m asking you to leave. If you don’t leave, I shall have to do something about it.”

“Go ahead,” I invited.

He waited, then slowly closed the door.

For a moment we looked at each other. Then Stanberry said, “I did you the extreme courtesy of permitting you to intrude upon my grief because I thought you were a gentleman of the press.”

His tone was reproachfully cultured.

“I told you I’m a detective.”

“Had you told me that earlier, I should not have admitted you — particularly had I known you were a private detective.”

“A detective has to look around,” I said.

“Mr. Lam, I don’t know just what your game is, or what you’re trying to do, but if you don’t leave at once, I shall call the officers.”

“Suits me,” I said. “When you call them, call Frank Sellers. He’s connected with Homicide. He’s working on your uncle’s death.”

I sat there and Archie Stanberry stood there. After a moment, Stanberry walked dubiously to telephone, then detoured and sat down. “I can’t understand the reason for this rudeness,” he said.

I said, “In the first place while you are a meticulous little man with neat habits, you aren’t that neat.” I jerked my thumb toward the bedroom. “You are the favorite nephew of a rich uncle who owns the joint. Therefore, you get maid service — and how. That bedroom of yours is as clean as a new pin.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” he asked.

I grinned and said, “That’s the weak point in your armor.”

“What do you mean?”

I put all the assurance in the world in my voice. “The maid,” I said, “will be able to tell what picture was taken down from that wall — that’s where you made your mistake. You shouldn’t have taken down the whole frame. You should have pulled out the back of the frame, removed the picture, put in another one, and hung the frame back in place. As it is, you can see a little difference in color where the frame was removed. And, of course, there’s the little hole in the wall left by the steel push-pin that held the picture.”

He looked at me as though I’d hit him in the stomach.

“So,” I said, “go ahead and call the police. When Frank Sellers comes, we’ll bring the maid in here and show her Billy Prue’s picture and ask her if that’s the one that was removed from the wall right across from your bed.”

His shoulders sagged as though both lungs had gone flat.

“What... what do you want?”

“The truth, naturally.”

“Lam, I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone else — something that I’ve never expected to admit to a single soul.”

I didn’t say anything, but just sat there waiting.

He said, “I dropped in at the Rendezvous every once in a while. It’s only natural that I should have.”

“Getting material for your novel?”

“Don’t be silly, I was getting relaxation and looking around. When a man is doing a lot of brain work, he has to do some playing.”

“So you played around with Billy Prue?”

“Will you please let me finish?”

“Go ahead.”

“Billy Prue sold me cigarettes. I looked her over and thought she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.”

“So you made passes?”

“Naturally. And I got absolutely nowhere.”

“Then what?”

“Then I became even more seriously interested, and I’m afraid my uncle... well, I’m afraid my uncle didn’t approve of the manner in which I was — doing what he called losing my head.”

“What did he do?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Lam. I give you my word of honor that I don’t know.”

“But what do you think?”

“I don’t even think.”

I said, “Perhaps I can do some thinking for you.”

He looked at me with swollen, bloodshot eyes and acted as though he were a wounded deer asking me why I’d shot him.

I said, “Your uncle thought she was a gold digger?”

“I think that was rather obvious from what I said.”

“So he went to see her and told her that if she’d give you a thorough jolt so it would cure you — if she’d run off with someone else or let you catch someone else in her apartment, or do something that would completely disillusion you, he’d give her more money than she could hope to get by making a legitimate matrimonial alliance and then trying to collect alimony.”

Archie took a soggy handkerchief from his hip pocket, started twisting it around and around his fingers. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t think that Uncle Rufus would have done anything like that. I don’t think Billy would have listened to it. I think she would have... resented it.”

“With a hand ax?” I asked.

“My God,” he said, “you’re driving me mad with those cynical nasty cracks of yours. Of course not! Billy wouldn’t harm a flea. We’ve got to keep Billy out of this! We must!”

“How about the picture?”

“I took it down as soon as I found out that... well, about what had happened.”

“She gave you the picture?”

“No. I found out what photographer took her publicity pictures and bribed him to take a nice pin-up picture for me. She didn’t know I had a print.”

I said, “So far you’ve been one hundred per cent.”

“One hundred per cent what?” he asked.

“Rat,” I said and walked out leaving him gazing reproachfully after me, a tear-soaked handkerchief held to his nose.