Manhunt. Volume 3, Number 1, January, 1955

The girl had tried very hard to be lucky, but it hadn’t done much good. When the cops found her, she was dead.

1.

She was a small girl, and she looked even smaller, lying there at the river end of the vast, empty pier. A tugboat captain had sighted her body off Pier 90, radioed the Harbor Precinct, and a police launch had taken her from the water and brought her ashore. There was a chill wind blowing in from the Hudson and the pale October sun glinted dully on the girl’s face and arms and bare shoulders. The skirt of her topless dress was imprinted with miniature four-leaf clovers and horseshoes and number 7’s, and on her right wrist there was a charm bracelet with more four-leaf clovers and horseshoes.

A sergeant and three patrolmen from the Uniform Force had arrived in an RMP car a few minutes before my partner, Paul Brader, and I. They had just finished their preliminary examination of the body.

The sergeant glanced at me and then back down at the girl. “They’d didn’t do her a hell of a lot of good, did they? The lucky symbols, I mean.”

“Not much,” I said.

“How old do you figure her for, Jim?” Paul Brader asked.

“Eighteen, maybe,” I said. “No more than that.”

“Well, we’ve got a homicide all right,” Paul said. “She sure wasn’t alive when she hit the water. You notice the skin?”

I’d noticed. It wasn’t pale, the way it would have been had she drowned. The river water was cold, and cold water contracts the blood vessels and forces the blood to the inner part of the body.

“And there’s no postmortem lividity in the head and neck,” Paul went on. “Floaters always hang the same way in the water, with the head down. If she had been alive when she went in, she’d be a damned sight less pretty than she is now.” He stepped close and knelt beside the girl. “How long would you say she was in the water, Jim?”

“That’s always tough to figure,” I said. “Taking the weather into consideration, and the fact that she’s a little thin, I’d say anywhere from three to five days.” I looked at the sergeant. “Any label in that dress, Ted?”

“No, sir.”

“How about the underclothes?”

“Just brand names. No shop names at all.”

Paul gently rolled the girl over on her left side. “Take a look at these lacerations on the back of her head,” he said.

I knelt down beside him. There were two lacerations, apparently quite deep, and about three inches long. But lacerations and other mutilations of bodies found in the water are often misleading. Marine life takes its toll, and bodies frequently bob for hours against pilings and wharves and the sides of boats before they are discovered.

“We’ll have to wait and see what the M.E.’s shop says about those,” I said. I looked at both the girl’s palms. There were no fingernail marks, such as are usually found in drownings. It’s true that drowning people clutch at anything; and when there’s nothing to grasp, they clench their hands anyhow, driving the nails into the flesh.

The girl had pierced ears, and the small gold rings in them appeared expensive. So did the charm bracelet, and the dress was obviously no bargain-counter item. There were four dollar bills tucked into the top of one of her stockings.

The uniformed sergeant removed the jewelry and the bills and listed them on his report sheet. “Four bucks,” he murmured. “Mad money, probably.”

Paul and I straightened up. “You want to wait for the doc?” he asked.

“Not much point,” I said. “He won’t be able to tell us anything until after he autopsies her. We don’t need him to tell us we got a homicide.”

“No I guess not,” Paul said. He stared down at the girl a moment. “Tough, Jim. There’s something about pulling a pretty girl out of cold water that gets me. Every time.”

I nodded, and we turned back toward our prowl car. I knew what he meant. We handle about four hundred floaters a year in New York, most of them in the spring and summer. The majority of them are accidental drownings. A number are suicides, though there are fewer than is generally supposed. An even smaller number are homicides. And of the homicides, only about one in ten are women.

I got behind the wheel and we drove along the pier and turned downtown toward Centre Street, where the Missing Persons Bureau is located.

“You going to hit the station house first?” Paul asked.

“No. We can call in from the Bureau. I’ve got a hunch we’ll save time if we go through the MP reports ourselves.” The first thing a detective does when he has an unidentified body — provided it’s a homicide and the body has been dead more than a day or so — is check the reports of missing persons. In the event of a routine drowning, the investigating officer’s report is sent to the Bureau and the description matched against MP reports by MP personnel.

2.

We found the matching MP report almost at once.

I scanned the rest of the MP form. It was all there — a close physical description of the girl, the skirt with the lucky symbols, the pierced ears and gold earrings, the charm bracelet. There was, however, one item of jewelry listed on the report which had not been on the girl when she’d been taken from the river. A diamond engagement ring, assumed to be about half a carat.

“You were off a year on the age, Jim,” Paul said, grinning.

“All right, so fire me,” I said.

“I’ll take it up with the commissioner,” he said. “You want me to handle the ID confirmation?”

“Might as well,” I said. “No use both of us killing time with it.” I glanced down at the bottom of the form. The report had been phoned in by a Mrs. Edward Carpenter, with the same address as the girl’s. Mrs. Carpenter, it seemed, was the girl’s aunt. I wrote down the name and address on a piece of scratch paper and handed it to Paul. “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “You get Mrs. Carpenter and take her over to Bellevue for the ID, and I’ll handle the paper work on this.”

“All the way through?”

“Sure. What’d you think?”

“You’ve got yourself a deal. You want me to take her home, after the ID?”

“Nope. Take her to the precinct... That’s if she isn’t too upset. If she takes it too hard, drive her home and call me from there.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, you might get her to fill you in on the girl, if you can. Don’t push too hard, unless you think she can take it.”

He nodded. “You going back to the station house now?”

“Uh-huh. I’ll ride that far with you, and then you can go on up to Seventy-second Street and get Mrs. Carpenter.”

3.

Back in the squad room, I finished typing up some 61’s in connection with other cases Paul and I were working on, completed several Wanted cards on a gang of Philadelphia hoods a stool had told me were now in New York, and then rolled a fresh 61 form into the Underwood and began the suspected homicide report on Lucille M. Taylor. I kept remembering how small she had looked there on the end of the big pier, and how angry the river had sounded as Paul and I stood there in the chill wind.

Paul came in an hour later. There were two people with him, a tall heavy-set blonde woman of about fifty and a small, wispy little guy with an almost completely bald head and eyes the color of faded blue denim. It took me a few moments to realize he was probably not much older than the woman. Of the two, the man seemed much the more upset.

“This is Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter, Jim,” Paul aid. “Folks, this is Detective Coren.”

We all nodded to one another and I pushed two chairs close to my desk and asked them to sit down. Mrs. Carpenter frowned at the chair, rook a large, flowered handkerchief from her purse and dusted it thoroughly, and finally sat down. Mr. Carpenter watched her closely, biting his lip. He didn’t sit down until she had settled herself. Paul Brader leaned a hip against my desk and lit a cigarette. He extended the package to the Carpenters, but both shook their heads.

I could sense that there was no point in condolences, and I was relieved. I knew Paul hadn’t got anything on the trip to Bellevue or he would have taken me aside and briefed me. Mrs. Carpenter was obviously the dominant member of the family, and I addressed my remarks to her.

“We’ll make this just as short as we can,” I said. “The first question, of course, is whether you know anyone who might have killed your niece.”

She sat very straight, almost rigid, staring at me unblinkingly. “I’m sure I couldn’t say.”

“You reported her missing as of eight P.M. last Monday, and the time of your report was ten a.m. Tuesday. Was it unusual for Lucille to stay out all night?”

“It was the first time she’d ever done that. She would never have had the opportunity for a second time, I assure you.”

“We’ll want to notify her parents.” I picked up a pencil. “What’s their address?”

“They’re dead. Lucille has been living with Mr. Carpenter and me ever since then. Almost a year now.”

“Did she go on a date Monday night, Mrs. Carpenter?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. We’d had very little to say to one another the last few weeks.”

“You have no idea at all where she was going? No idea whom she might have planned to meet?”

“None at all.”

“Was she wearing a coat or jacket when she left?”

“I told them what she was wearing when I called to report her missing. If she’d been wearing a coat, I would have said so.”

“It’s been very chilly the last week or so. I thought you might have forgotten—”

“I forgot nothing.”

I looked at Mr. Carpenter. “How about you, sir? Do you have any idea of whom Lucille planned to see that night?”

“He knows nothing about it,” Mrs. Carpenter said crisply.

Mr. Carpenter glanced furtively at her, then dropped his eyes and shook his head. “She didn’t mention,” he said.

I turned back to Mrs. Carpenter. “You said she was wearing a diamond engagement ring when she left. There was no such ring on her hand when we found her.”

“She was wearing it when she left the house. I’m quite certain of it.”

“Whose was it?”

“Why, her own, of course.”

“I mean, who gave it to her? Who was the man?”

Mrs. Carpenter had very thin lips, and when she pursed them, as she did now, she gave the impression of having no lips at all. “I’m afraid I don’t know,” she said finally.

Paul Brader leaned forward. “Mrs. Carpenter, do you mean to tell us that your niece was engaged to a guy, wearing his ring, and you don’t know who he was?”

Mrs. Carpenter took a deep breath, staring at Paul fixedly. “I don’t like your tone, young man,” she said. “I—”

“I’m sorry,” Paul said. “It’s just a little hard to understand, that’s all.”

“She began wearing the ring about a month ago. It was shortly after the time Lucille and I — well, you might say we stopped confiding in one another.”

“And why was that?” Paul asked.

“Because I discovered certain things about her. At first I was of a mind to ask her to leave my house.” She turned her head slightly to glare at her husband.

“You mind telling us a bit more about it?” I asked.

“Not at all. Why should I pretend to protect the reputation of a girl like Lucille? She was an extremely pretty girl... she liked to flaunt herself. Especially around Mr. Carpenter.”

“Now, Cora...” Mr. Carpenter began.

“Please be still, Mr. Carpenter,” she said coldly. “You’ve defended that disgraceful person often enough already.”

“It just don’t seem right somehow,” he said. “Her being dead and all, and—”

“That’ll do,” Mrs. Carpenter said. She looked at me. “As I said, she flaunted herself. She thought nothing of going through the house in her slip, or parading from the bathroom with just a towel wrapped around her. Why, once she even—”

“We’re interested only in finding the one who killed her, Mrs. Carpenter,” I said. “Now, can you tell us anything else that might help? For instance, do you know whether she was in fear of anyone? Had she ever said anything at all that might give us a lead?”

“No, she never did. It seems quite plain to me that she was robbed.”

“Why so?”

“Because she wore the ring when she left the house, and yet it was not on her finger when her body was found.”

“A lot of things could have happened,” I said. “Robbery’s a possibility, of course.”

A knowing look came into her eyes, and when she spoke there was a subtle suggestiveness to her voice. “Unless something else happened, that is. Unless, let us say, one of the people who found her took a fancy to the ring. It would be quite simple for him to appropriate it.” She smiled faintly. “Such things have been known to happen, have they not?”

“Just a minute,” Paul said sharply. “If you’re trying to say that we—”

“Hold it, Paul,” I said. “Mrs. Carpenter is just upset, that’s all.”

“I’m not in the least upset. I never permit myself to become up-set.”

“About this man she was engaged to,” I said. “We’ll want to talk to him. Can you tell us anyone who might know who he is? Any girl friends Lucille had who might know?”

“She had few friends. Naturally, the way she twisted herself around, showing off all the time, she’d be lucky if decent girls even spoke to her.”

“Did she have a job?”

“Yes. She worked for a photographer.”

I lifted the pencil again. “Where?”

“His name is Schuyler. The studio is somewhere on Fifty-seventh Street.”

“You know the address?”

“No, I don’t. You’ll have to look it up.”

I studied her a moment. “Can you think of anything else that might help us, Mrs. Carpenter? Surely she mentioned friends or acquaintances. A young girl would have some social life. How about church groups, or clubs, or night courses at one of the colleges?”

“I’ve told you all I can,” she said. “It was only during the last two or three months that she began going out much. Before that, she went out only now and then. And if she ever told me the names of any of her men friends, I’ve long since forgotten them.”

“One more thing,” I said. “She was nineteen, and she had a job. If things were strained between you two, why did she continue to stay with you?”

Again Mrs. Carpenter glared at her husband. “She didn’t realize the full extent of my dislike, I’m quite sure. Mr. Carpenter prevailed on me not to ask her to leave. Then, too, we charged her considerably less for her board and room than she would have paid elsewhere. Even so, things were coming to a head. I had almost determined to give her notice.”

I stood up. “I guess that’ll be all, Mrs. Carpenter,” I said. “Mr. Carpenter, will you come with me a moment?”

He glanced at his wife, as if for permission, and then he got slowly to his feet and followed me back through the squad commander’s office to one of the interrogation rooms.

“We’ll be only a moment,” I said. “I wondered if you had anything to add.” I grinned. “I thought maybe we could talk a bit more freely back here.”

The expression on his face told me he was genuinely surprised to find that anyone was willing to show him any consideration.

“Cora’s just plain wrong about Lucille,” he said in a voice that sounded as if it were accustomed to making apologies. “Just plain wrong. Lucille was a pretty girl, and I reckon she knew it well enough, but she sure never did anything wrong around the house. She... well, I guess she just figured I was her uncle, and that it wasn’t a heck of a lot different than if it was her father. Maybe she did run around the house half naked sometimes, but she sure never done it for my benefit. She just never thought anything about it, that’s all.”

“I can understand why she might have kept things from your wife, Mr. Carpenter,” I said, “but I thought she might have said something to you. About the man she was engaged to, I mean.”

“Nope. She never did.”

I nodded. “Can you think of anything that might help?”

“No, sir, I can’t. Not a thing.”

We went back to the squad room. I arranged for an unmarked car to take Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter home, and then I typed up the results of the interview and added them to the file on Lucille Taylor.

“That guy Carpenter bugs me a little,” Paul said. “Being in the same house all the time with a girl like Lucille could give a man a lot of ideas. Maybe he got charged up, and she nixed him, and he got mad about it.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Or maybe she didn’t nix him, and his wife found out about it, and she got mad.”

“Could be,” I said. “You feel like some coffee?”

“Always.”

“Let’s grab a cup, and then go see her boss.” I found the address in the directory, and then Paul and I signed out and left the squad room.

4.

The Schuyler Studios, Inc. was on the fourth floor, with windows opening on Fifty-seventh Street. It was apparently a good-sized outfit, judging from the number of lettered doorways we passed on our way to the reception room. The reception room itself, however, was quite small. We told the male receptionist who we were, and after he’d talked a moment on an intercom, he led us back to Schuyler’s private office.

“That’ll be all, Mr. Stacy,” he said, rising. “Won’t you gentlemen sit down?”

We sat, and I told him our business. He was a big man, about forty, with hair grown gray at the temples and a face that would have been rugged except for the eyes. The eyes were strangely soft, with that moist sheen that women’s eves sometimes have. When I had finished, he picked up a letter opener from his desk and turned it over and over in his fingers, shaking his head slowly.

“It’s hard to believe,” he said. “She was such a young girl, and a very pretty one — and to die like that...”

“We’re trying to get a line on her friends,” I told him. “Can you help us?”

He thought a moment. “You know, that’s very strange. She was a very quiet, unassuming girl, but quite personable. And yet, now that you ask, I can’t remember her ever mentioning anyone.”

“How about other employees here? She must at least have gone to lunch with someone.”

“She was the only girl. All the rest are men. And I’m almost certain she never went to lunch with any of them. She wasn’t exactly a cold person, but she did tend to keep aloof from the men here. I’ve heard them talking about her, now and then — as men will. I gathered that none of them had ever dated her, or in fact even talked to her very much, except as pertaining to business.”

“How did you get along with her, Mr. Schuyler?”

“Quite well. I was very fond of her. She did her job, and my clients seemed to like her. Especially the women. And in this business, that’s important. We deal with a great number of account executives and art directors, and many of them are women. Lucille was quite a favorite with them.”

“You ever see her outside the office?”

His mouth tightened a little, but his eyes retained that almost feminine softness. “Just what do you mean?”

“I mean, did you ever see her socially? Did you ever take her out?”

“That’s a rather unusual question.”

“There’s nothing personal,” I said. “We have to follow a certain routine, Mr. Schuyler.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you do. The answer to your question is no. I have had a number of young women working for me, during the fifteen years I have owned this studio. I have made it a strict personal rule never to become involved, in even the most innocent way. Sometimes girls — especially ones as young as Miss Taylor — misinterpret a friendly interest. And even so, I am quite happily married. I have a daughter fifteen and another seventeen.” He smiled, and the friendliness came back into his voice. “Does that answer your question?”

I nodded. “How long had she worked here, Mr. Schuyler?”

“Let’s see... Oh, about three months. I can check and be exact, if you wish.”

“That’s close enough,” I said.

“Wait!” He leaned forward. “Maybe I can help you after all. You asked about her friends. Well, up until about six weeks or two months ago Lucille used to receive calls from some man. Someone named Vince. He called quite often. I’d hear her mention his name when she said hello, of course.”

“But he hadn’t called her recently?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Were their conversations friendly, would you say?”

“Yes. Judging from Lucille’s tone of voice, I’d say they were a bit more than friendly — if you know what I mean.”

“You ever hear her mention his last name?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I couldn’t help but overhear, of course, but I didn’t make a point of tuning in. I’d just hear her say ‘Hello, Vince,’ or ‘Good-by, Vince,’ — you know.”

“Uh-huh. Can you think of anything else that might help us, Mr. Schuyler? You remember anything else from these telephone conversations — anything to indicate that she and this Vince might be planning to get married?”

“Married? Why, no. I’m sure she would have mentioned such plans to me, though. That is, if she planned to take some time off, rather than just quit outright. She’d almost have to, you know.”

“Yeah. Well, is there anything you can tell us, Mr. Schuyler?”

“I only wish I could. As I said, I was very fond of Lucille. I’d be only too anxious to help, if I could.”

On our way down in the elevator, Paul turned to me and grimaced. “A real cold fish,” he said. “As long as something doesn’t scratch him or his own family, he doesn’t give a goddamn. But I’ll bet if one of his daughters got looked at cross-eyed by some guy, he’d be after us to put the guy in the electric chair.”

5.

We drove back to the station house, checked the message spike for calls, read the flimsies in the alarm book to see if there had been any new arrests or detentions that concerned us, and then I called the morgue at Bellevue to see how Lucille Taylor’s autopsy was coming along.

The assistant M.E. to whom I talked said it had just been completed. The cause of death had been a severed spinal cord, resulting from a blow or blows to the back of the neck and head. The lacerations appeared to have been made with a blunt instrument, such as a length of two-by-four. One or more of the blows had dislocated the vertebrae enough to sever the cord, after which the vertebrae had slipped back into place. The assistant M.E. seemed quite pleased that he had discovered this so quickly.

I told Paul the result of the autopsy, changed the official designation of Lucille Taylor’s file from “Suspected Homicide” to just plain “Homicide,” and added the autopsy finding to the original Complaint Report form.

Then Paul and I got down to routine. We collected all the arrest records for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, divided them equally, and began going through them for pickups made near the Hudson River. It was our hope that Lucille’s killer might have been pulled in on some other charge after he had put Lucille in the water. There had been several pickups, but most of them had been too far downriver to look right for us.

Next, we checked the list of men pulled in for morning lineups, starting with the one held Tuesday morning. There was nothing for us there, either.

The phone on my desk rang and Paul, who was closer, answered it. He nodded to me, and I picked up an extension. It was Schuyler, the photographer for whom Lucille Taylor had worked.

“I’m afraid the shock of Lucille’s death affected my memory,” he said. “I’ve just recalled that I did hear her mention that man’s name. That ‘Vince’ I told you about. I remember now that she called him once, while I happened to be passing near her desk. She asked someone to call him to the phone, and she used his full name. I don’t know why, but for some odd reason the name seems to have stayed with me.”

“Fine,” Paul said. “What is it?”

“Donnelly. Vince Donnelly. I remember distinctly.”

“Thanks very much, Mr. Schuyler,” Paul said. “That’s a real help.”

“Well, I certainly hope so. It was unforgivable of me not to have thought of it sooner.”

“It’s only natural, sir,” Paul said. “We appreciate your calling us.” He spoke a moment longer, and then hung up.

“We’ve got a package on a guy by that name, Paul,” I said.

“Yeah. I know. Want me to pull it?”

“Uh-huh. Seems to me he lives on Seventy-second Street, just the way Lucille did.”

Paul went to the next room, brought back the package on Vince Donnelly, and put it down on my desk. “You’re off again, Jim,” he said. “He lives on Seventy-third Street.”

“All right,” I said. “So fire me again.”

Vince Donnelly was twenty-three years old, had drawn a suspended sentence in 1950 on a grand larcency charge in connection with a stolen car, and had been convicted on a similar charge in 1951. He had done eighteen months. Since then he had been pulled in twice for questioning, but had not been booked. He lived less than two blocks from the address where Lucille Taylor had lived with her aunt and uncle.

“Maybe we’ve got ourselves a boy, Jim,” Paul said.

“Maybe. Let’s see what he’s got to say.”

6.

We spent the better part of two hours looking for Vince Donnelly, and then gave up and went back to the station house. Donnelly had moved from the Seventy-third Street address some two weeks before, and we were unable to turn up anyone who knew his present whereabouts.

I called Headquarters, gave them Donnelly’s description, and asked that an alarm for him be sent out. In a few minutes the teletype machine in the squad room began to clack, and Paul and I walked over to it and watched the words form across the paper, just as they were doing in all the other squad rooms in New York.

“I haven’t eaten yet,” Paul said. “How about some chow?”

I nodded. “Good idea.”

“How about the Automat? I like those pecan rolls.”

“Okay. Sign us out, will you, while I put Donnelly’s package back in file?”

“Check.”

When we got back to the squad room there were two messages for us. One was from Lieutenant Mason, at the Twentieth Precinct, saying they’d picked up Vince Donnelly and were holding him for us. The other was a note to call a Miss Peggy Webb, who had phoned to say she had important information in connection with Lucille Taylor’s murder.

I called Miss Webb at the number she had given. She impressed me as intelligent and sincere, and very tense. She assured me she knew who had killed Lucille Taylor, but she said that she didn’t want to talk about it over the phone. When I asked her to come down to the station house, she refused. I arranged to meet her at the entrance of the Jacoby Camera Supply, on Sixth Avenue between Forty-seventh and Forty-eighth.

I told Paul about the call. “I guess we’ll have to split up,” I said. “You’d better get over to the Twentieth and start in on Donnelly. If this Webb girl has anything. I’ll call you there.”

“Sure,” Paul said darkly. “Naturally. Of course. I go tangle with a damned punk, and you go off to see the girl. I sit over there in a hot squad room with a thief, and you sit in a nice cool bar, making time with...” He broke off, sighing. “I think I’ll take it up with the commissioner.”

I grinned. “You’ve got the commissioner on the brain.”

“What brain? If I had a brain, I’d never have been a cop in the first place.” He reached for his jacket. “Well, I’ll get over there and see what gives with our friend Donnelly. Don’t get lost with that girl, Jim.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said.

7.

Peggy Webb turned out to be a very thin, very plain girl of about thirty. She kept twisting her handbag in her hands and, except for the moment it took me to introduce and identify myself, she never met my eyes once.

“I read the story in the paper,” she said, staring out at the traffic on Sixth. “Right away I knew who did it.” She glanced at the doorway of the camera shop and then back at the traffic again. “I work here now. But I used to work for the Schuyler Studios, I worked there for four years — until Lucille came there.”

I leaned back against the plate glass front of the shop, studying her. “Who do you think killed her?”

“Schuyler killed her.”

“That’s a pretty serious accusation, Miss Webb.”

“I realize that.”

“How do you know he killed her?”

“It had to be him. I know it, just as well as I know I’m standing here. It caught up with him, that’s all.”

“You mind explaining?”

“That’s why I called you, isn’t it? Schuyler and Lucille were having an affair. I was his right hand around that place for four years, and then one day Lucille shows up. Right off he starts breaking her in on my job. And that’s not all. He started her in at more money than I made, after I’d been there four years. Oh, it made me sick to watch the two of them. They thought nobody knew what was up. But they were wrong. Here he was, more than twice her age, and she sitting there smiling so prissy and nice — it made me want to throw up.” There was a hard set to her features now.

“Still,” I said, “that’s hardly—”

“Have you talked to Schuyler?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you he was married?”

“Yes.”

“Did he also tell you that he was just a photographer’s assistant, till he met his wife? Did he tell you that she was a very wealthy woman, and that he married her for her money?... No? No, of course he didn’t.” Her voice grew tighter. “He isn’t dumb. Not that one. He wouldn’t have let go of his wife any sooner’n he would let go a gold mine.”

“I don’t quite follow you,” I said.

“Well, you’ll soon begin to.” She was staring at the knot in my tie now. “Why would a man buy a girl an engagement ring — if he was married to a gold mine, and meant to stay that way?”

“You mean he bought one for Lucille Taylor?”

“That’s right. He bought it at Lormer’s, on Fifth Avenue. They made a mistake somehow, and sent the bill to the office. I opened it, right along with all the other mail, and put it on his desk. About ten minutes later I overheard him giving Mr. Lormer hell. He said he’d specifically told the clerk there not to send a bill, either to his office or his home. He was so mad that he was almost shouting. And then, about two or three days later, Lucille shows up with a big diamond on her finger. When I asked her who the lucky man was, she just simpered like the silly fool she was, and acted coy. I thought I’d have to go to the window and be sick.”

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but it could have been a—”

“A coincidence? Oh, no — it was no coincidence. Schuyler bought that ring for Lucille, and she wore it. And if you were a woman, you’d know from the way she acted around there that she thought she and Schuyler were going to get married.”

I thought it over.

“That’s the whole thing, can’t you see?” she asked. “Schuyler was after something, but he couldn’t get it without promising to marry her. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too. I mean he didn’t have any intention of giving up his wife’s money, but he wanted Lucille. So he told her he was going to divorce his wife and marry her. He was just sharp enough, and she was just dumb enough, and he pulled it.” Her eyes came up as far as my mouth, but no higher. “And that couldn’t go on forever, could it? When it came to a showdown, and Schuyler had to admit that he’d been playing her for all he could get—” she shrugged — “well?”

“You didn’t care much for Lucille, did you?”

“I loathed her.”

“And Schuyler?”

She took a deep breath. “I... I guess I was in love with him once. But no more. After Lucille had been there a couple of months, he called me in and fired me. Just like that. He didn’t even give me a reason — because there was no reason. He didn’t need two girls, and so he just kicked me out on the street. Why, it was all I could do to get him to write a few references for me. And that after I’d been there all those years...”

I nodded. “A tough break, Miss Webb.”

“When will you arrest him?”

“We’ll talk to him again.”

“But isn’t it plain enough? What more could you possibly want?”

“We’ll talk to him,” I said again. I got out my notebook and took down Miss Webb’s address and phone number.

“I see I’ve wasted my time,” she said.

“Not at all,” I said, making it friendly. “I’m very grateful to you. As I said, we’ll—” But she had turned quickly and was walking off down Sixth Avenue. Once she hesitated a moment, as if she might turn back, but then she went on again, walking even more rapidly than before.

I went into a drug store and called the Twentieth Precinct. Paul Brader told me that Vince Donnelly hadn’t opened his mouth, except to demand a lawyer. Paul had been able, through other sources, to establish that he was the same Vince Donnelly who had gone around with Lucille Taylor, but that was all. We had nothing at all on Donnelly, and unless we came up with something within the next few hours we’d have to let him go.

“I got a feeling about this guy,” Paul said. “I think we’re on our way.”

“Yeah? Why so?”

“I just sort of hunch it, that’s all.”

“Well, keep at him. I’m going to check out a couple things with Schuyler, and then I’ll be over to help you.”

He laughed. “Schuyler — or the girl?”

“Schuyler.”

“Okay. See you later.”

I hung up, located the after-business-hours number of the Lormer Jewelry Shop in the directory, and finally got through to Mr. Lormer himself. He lived in a hotel on Lexington Avenue, and asked me to come up. From him I learned that the diamond engagement ring, while large, had been of the lowest quality he carried. I asked if Schuyler had brought a young woman to the shop for a fitting, and Mr. Lormer said no. Schuyler had asked that the engagement ring be made up in the same size as a small intaglio he wore on the little finger of his left hand. And then — very reluctantly — Mr. Lormer told me that Schuyler had returned the ring yesterday morning. He had not wanted a cash refund, but had applied the refund value of the ring against two jewelled wrist watches, to be delivered to his two daughters.

I took Mr. Lormer to his shop, impounded the ring, signed a receipt for it, and took him back home. Then I drove to Seventy-second Street and got a positive identification of the ring from Lucille Taylor’s aunt and uncle.

I located Schuyler’s home address in the directory, picked up Paul Brader at the Twentieth, and we drove downtown toward Schuyler’s apartment house.

8.

In his office, Schuyler had been as cool as they come. Standing in the doorway of his apartment, with his wife and daughters just behind him, he was something else again. We had counted on surprise and the presence of his family to unnerve him, and we weren’t disappointed. He had divided his life into two parts, and we had suddenly brought the parts together. He stared first at Paul and then at me, moistening his lips.

I had the engagement ring in the palm of my hand, and now I opened my fingers slowly and let him see it.

“What is it, dear?” his wife asked, and one of the girls moved a little closer, her eyes questioning me.

“I... I can’t talk here,” Schuyler said, in what he probably thought was a whisper. “My God, I—”

“Get your coat,” I said.

He nodded rapidly. “Yes, yes — of course.”

We rode down in the self-service elevator, phoned in a release for Vince Donnelly, and crossed the street to the RMP car. Paul got behind the wheel and I got into the back seat with Schuyler. Paul eased the car out into the heavy Lexington Avenue traffic.

“We have the ring, Mr. Schuyler,” I said. “We got a positive identification of it. You returned it after Lucille Taylor had been murdered. We’ll have no trouble taking it from there. Not a bit. We’ll put a dozen men on it. We’ll work around the clock. We’ll get a little here, and a little there — and pretty soon we’ll have you in a box. The smartest thing you can do — the only thing you can do — is make it a little easier on yourself.” I paused. “And make it a little easier on your family.”

“My girls!” Schuyler said. “My God, my girls!”

“Tell us about the other girl,” I said softly. “Tell us about Lucille.”

It was a long moment before he could keep his voice steady. “She threatened me,” he said at last. “She said she was going to my wife and daughters and tell them about — about us. I knew I could have patched it up with my wife, but... my daughters... God, I—”

“You admitted to Lucille that you’d never intended to divorce your wife and marry her?”

He nodded almost imperceptibly. “I had grown a little tired of her. She was pretty, but so — so immature. I told her, and she became enraged. I was surprised. I hadn’t thought she was capable of so much fury. We had walked down Seventy-second Street to the river. We were sitting on one of those benches down there, watching the tugboats. When I told her, she began to curse me. She was almost screaming. I couldn’t see anyone else nearby, but I was afraid someone would hear her. I tried to calm her, but she got almost hysterical. Then she slapped me, and I grabbed her. I... I don’t know just what happened then, but somehow I made her head hit the back of the bench. And then I kept doing it — kept beating her head against the back of the bench.” Suddenly he covered his face with his hands and his body slumped. “And then — and then I carried her to the railing across from the bench and threw her into the water.”

I watched the neon streaming by. “But not before you stripped that ring off her finger, Schuyler,” I said. “You sure as hell didn’t forget the ring, did you?”

He didn’t say anything.

As we neared the Harbor Precinct, I could hear a tugboat whistle, somewhere out there on the cold Hudson, a deep, remote blast that was somehow like a mockery.

“God,” Schuyler murmured. “My poor girls, my poor little girls...”

And don’t forget poor little Lucille Taylor, I thought, while you’re feeling sorry for your victims.