Murder Plus: True Crime Stories From The Masters Of Detective Fiction

Few writers can claim to have sired a genre. Lawrence Treat is among the exceptional few. Before Ed McBain, J. J. Marric, and Dell Shannon, Treat was dazzling readers with his police procedural novels — and he’s continued to do so for nearly forty years. Always taut, always engrossing, he’s focused upon the detailed investigation of a crime told from the standpoint of the police. Whether concentrating on forensics, the mind-set of various detectives, or the painstaking checking and following of leads, Treat’s books have always been starkly realistic in detail. The story you are about to read is also a police procedural, a real one. Not content to present a drab account of a policeman’s heroics, Treat brings us the story of a New York City cop’s first big murder investigation — his sense of doubt, purpose, insecurity. And, sure, the noble cop ultimately triumphs against evil (it wouldn’t have appeared in Master Detective if he didn’t), but it is a harder-fought battle than most, and it is we, the readers, who reap the spoils of his victory.

The Body in Sector R

At 8:07 A.M. on September 10th, 1942, a police car drew up in front of the big apartment house at 252 West 87th Street and parked alongside a pair of radio cars. Detectives Clarence F. Cassidy and Walter Nitkin, of the New York police, got out, followed by two patrolmen.

Cassidy was a veteran officer, twenty-two years on the force and fourteen of them with the rank of detective. Homicides had rarely come his way. He’d worked on several of them in a subordinate capacity, but only once before had he had a real murder case all to himself, and that had been a routine stabbing, with the identity of the criminal as obvious as a red hat.

Cassidy had just passed his forty-seventh birthday, but he looked older. His hair was completely gray; his face was lined and patterned like a piece of ancient leather. His eyes blue-gray and keen, seemed the only vital part of him. You’d have taken him for a sea captain, just off a long, tired stretch on the convoy routes.

He was the first to enter the building. At the foot of the steel fire steps he spotted the insignia of the Air Warden Service tacked over a sign reading “Headquarters, Sector R.” An arrow pointed upwards and Cassidy climbed up the stairs.

A uniformed patrolman from one of the radio cars was guarding the door to a rear apartment. There, too, Cassidy noticed the air wardens’ insignia.

“Where’s the body?” asked Cassidy.

The patrolman motioned inside. “In the back room. This guy found it.”

“It’s Clyde Warner, one of our wardens,” piped up a small, dapper man.

Cassidy studied him. He had good, even features and a neat little black mustache. His face was tanned, as if from a sun lamp or a vacation. Cassidy noted the fact with the same precise observation that took in the room. A plank table with some stationery and a large, black ledger on it. Three charts tacked on the bare walls. A few bridge chairs, a broken down couch. Buckets, stirrup pumps, a shovel. Blackout curtains.

He crossed the room, went through a second room that was bare of all decorations and contained a long bench, a dozen chairs and another makeshift table of boards on which stood a half empty whiskey bottle and glass. Cassidy scowled at it and went on into a smaller room at the back. There he stopped.

Here, too, there was the same barrenness of discarded and insufficient furniture. But on the floor next to a canvas cot lay the body of a man.

He was about thirty-five and powerfully built. He had dark, straight hair and thick, flat lips. The body lay on its face, one arm outstretched. There was blood beneath it, apparently from a chest wound, and the blue eyes stared sightlessly.

For form’s sake, Cassidy bent down and felt for the pulse. There was no beat to it and the wrist felt cool. When he released his hold, the arm dropped with a thud. Rigor mortis hadn’t started yet.

Cassidy touched nothing. The experts would be here soon and he’d have to wait till they did their stuff. His job was to get spot impressions and to start things rolling. He’d do the leg work and then later on he’d have all the headaches. Right now, there was the sunburnt man in the front room. Cassidy turned his back on the corpse and retraced his steps.

He asked his questions in a dry, patient voice that seemed interested in eliciting facts and nothing else. He kept jotting down the endless information in a small notebook with a torn cover.

The dapper man said that he was an air-raid warden, that his name was Arthur Kraus and that he was married and lived at 298 West 86th Street.

“Know Clyde Warner’s address?” asked Cassidy.

“No, but you can look it up. In the file box.” Kraus approached the table and halted suddenly. “That’s funny,” he said.

“What?”

“The file box. The cards with the names and addresses of all the wardens. It’s always there, on the table.”

“Maybe it’s in the next room. What did it look like?”

“A cardboard box, mottled like marble. It was about sixteen inches long and five inches wide. We used four-by-five filing cards. The box has to be there.”

Cassidy turned to one of the precinct patrolmen. “See if you can find it, Jim.” He stared thoughtfully at Kraus. “All right — go ahead.”

The warden explained that sector headquarters, under the reorganization which had taken place a few months previously, had to be manned twenty-four hours a day. The men divided up the night work. Some of them took two four-hour shifts a week; others, like Warner, preferred to put in a single eight-hour stretch and get it over with. At 8 A.M. they went off duty, in time to freshen up and reach their offices on schedule. Since the women who manned headquarters during the day didn’t report until nine, there was a gap of one hour. Kraus, being his own boss, filled in three times a week. If he was late getting to his office, it didn’t matter.

Cassidy frowned. Kraus was full of meaningless details, but the detective didn’t stop him. There might be something of importance, something unusual. Like the missing file box.

The patrolman returned and reported that he couldn’t find it. There were no places in the sparsely furnished apartment where a file box could get lost or be hidden. Why wasn’t it there? Who’d want to take a thing like that? What for?

Kraus kept talking. He liked to report a few minutes ahead of time. It meant nothing to him, but the men who were on duty all night were tired and—

Cassidy interrupted. “Men?”

“Yes. There are always two, except when I’m here from eight to nine.”

“Who was on with Warner?”

Kraus picked up the big black book. There were blanks for names and hours of duty. He pointed to the last item.

“Clyde Warner, David Schirmer. 12:01 A.M. till—” No further entry had been made.

Here was something at last. Two men had signed in at midnight. In the morning only one of them was there, and he was dead.

“Where does Schirmer live?” asked Cassidy.

Kraus shrugged. “His address is in that file box,” he said. “Listen — it must be here.”

Cassidy walked over to one of the charts. On it, he read, “Sector Commander, Herbert Streit, 267 West 87th Street. Trafalgar 7-0800.” The Sector Commander — he might know.

He instructed a patrolman to call Streit from outside. Nobody must touch the phone here. There might be fingerprints.

The next hour or so must have been a nightmare for Cassidy. The Headquarters staff arrived, the Medical Examiner arrived, the inspector of the division, the acting captains of the district and of the detective division arrived. The experts snapped pictures, dusted for fingerprints, examined the corpse. And meantime the Sector Commander and the Zone Commander of the Air Raid Service showed David Schirmer, the missing warden, lived in a furnished room at 323 West 88th Street.

Cassidy transferred himself to the meeting room with the long wooden bench. He asked his questions methodically. The brass hats interrupted and he had to bring all of them up to date, but he kept doggedly to his line of inquiry.

Herbert Streit, the Sector Commander, was a tall, serious man with thin shoulders and a tired face.

“I’m Streit,” he drawled. “Of Streit and Galbraith, Advertising.”

“So? What do you know about these two men? David Schirmer, Clyde Warner.”

Streit sat down. He was too tall to be comfortable in the folding chair and he kept wrestling with it, twisting his long legs around it and sliding gradually toward the edge.

Schirmer, he stated, was waiting for his induction notice and had volunteered to take charge of headquarters whenever necessary. He was on twice a week. Streit hadn’t met him until a few months before, when the air-raid service had started to function, but he had found him exceptionally likable.

Streit shifted to Clyde Warner. The latter was without question the most disliked man in the organization. He was bossy and aggressive and had threatened to resign unless he was made a squad leader. As a jewelry salesman, he was accustomed to carrying valuable merchandise. For that reason he had a pistol permit. When he reported for duty, he always placed his gun ostentatiously on the table, as if he were the real stuff and everyone else an amateur. His manner had made him many enemies. Streit was one of them.

He hesitated, as if he were not sure whether it was wise to proceed. Then, after a short pause, he hooked his leg through the chair rung and went on with his story.

Headquarters had been furnished almost entirely by the wardens and their families, he explained, and it was they who had contributed money for office supplies, phone service and other basic essentials. Despite a specific order to the effect that the Air Warden Service had no right to collect funds, Streit had written to a few residents in the sector suggesting that donations would not be amiss. Warner had heard of this and reported it to the Mayor, who had demanded Streit’s resignation. He had tendered it yesterday. The incident had caused considerable ill-feeling.

“You mean you had an argument with Warner?”

Streit smiled for the first time. “I was more inclined to thank him. The headaches I’ve had over this, the responsibility and the demands on my time and purse — they’re over at last. Do you know that I haven’t had a free evening since the war started?”

It sounded plausible and Cassidy made no comment. He picked up the log book and read off the names of the two men who had been on the eight-to-twelve shift.

“They’d know who came on at midnight,” he said. “See if you can locate them and get them here, without telling them why.”

Streit nodded and, with an expression of relief, got up and went toward the phone. Cassidy headed for the back of the room to examine the small pile of objects taken from the dead man’s pockets.

Besides the pistol permit, there was only one thing of interest — a printed form, reading, “In case of accident, please notify—” The blank had been filled in with the name of Mrs. Clyde Warner, 50 West 79th Street, and then crossed out and the name of Harold Warner, 286 West 89th Street, substituted for it. The 89th Street house was Clyde’s address, too. Cassidy ordered Detective Francis Hanrahan to go there and hold Warner until questioned. Then he addressed the Medical Examiner.

“When was he killed?” he asked.

The Medical Examiner shrugged. “You guys always expect magic. I’d say around two or three in the morning. That’s a guess. I’ll check on it later and let you know.”

Cassidy swung around. “What about prints?”

A discouraged little man who was working with fingerprint powder and a brush looked up. “Either we don’t find any at all or we find too many,” he said glumly. “This time it’s too many. There’ve been a lot of people in and out of this place.”

“What about that whiskey bottle and glass?”

“Half dozen nice clear prints. But they all match up with the guy who was shot.”

The detective stood there gloomily until a patrolman called from the doorway.

“Hey, Cassidy — Schirmer’s here.”

Davis Schirmer was a well-built man in his twenties and he answered questions in a slow, earnest manner.

“Let’s have it,” Cassidy said. “Everything you did between eight last night and now.”

Schirmer’s account was brief. He said that he’d gone to bed at eight o’clock the previous evening, since he had expected to be up most of the night. He woke at eleven and started to dress. Then he heard the bell on his floor ring three times, which meant a phone call for him down in the basement.

It was Clyde Warner, declared Schirmer. Clyde told him there’d been a change in schedule and that Schirmer didn’t have to report. Schirmer had gone upstairs without speaking to anyone. He had read for a while and then gone to bed. He’d got up shortly before a policeman had knocked on his door and told him what happened.

Cassidy showed him the log book. “How about this?”

Schirmer studied the entry — “David Schirmer, 12:01 A.M. till—”

“That’s not my handwriting.”

“Let’s see your air-raid warden’s card.”

Schirmer took it from his wallet and Cassidy compared the signatures. There was no doubt that someone else had written Schirmer’s name in the log book.

“You say you spoke to no one after getting that phone call?” asked the detective.

“No. No one. I live alone.”

“You sure it was Clyde Warner you spoke to?”

“You couldn’t fool me on that voice. It’s always harsh and abrupt, as if he were giving orders.”

Cassidy frowned. “Your only alibi is a phone call that you say came from Warner, and the only proof it was Warner is your own statement.”

“I guess that’s right. But it’s the truth — I swear it! Look — why would I shoot Warner?”

“I don’t know,” said Cassidy, “but if you did, I’ll find out.” He turned and went out and down the stairs.

He walked the two blocks to Warner’s address. There, in an apartment on the tenth floor, he found Harold Warner glowering at the detective he had sent on ahead. The two brothers resembled each other. Like Clyde, Harold had dark, straight hair and thick lips.

At sight of Cassidy, he snapped angrily, “Why am I being kept here? You have no right to hold me — what are you trying to get away with?”

“I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“Sure. Go ahead. I don’t have to answer.”

“Where were you last night, from eleven o’clock on?”

Warner frowned and his chin stuck out obstinately. “That’s my business.”

“You can get in an awful lot of trouble,” said Cassidy quietly. “Either you talk, or you go right down to Headquarters in a patrol wagon. Better make up your mind quick.”

Warner’s small, brown eyes darted at Cassidy. “I was in Brooklyn.”

“What time did you get back?”

“Pretty late.”

“What time?”

“I just told you. Late.” His voice dropped and he added grudgingly, “Around four.”

“Whom were you with?”

“A friend,” Warner said. “Look, I got a right to know what this is all about, don’t I?”

“Sure.” Cassidy hesitated and then let him have it. “Murder.”

Warner scowled, started to speak and stopped. Finally he repeated, “Murder? Who?”

“Your brother.”

“Clyde? He got killed?” Harold gave the detective a calculating look. He took a gold cigarette case from his pocket, opened it, selected a cigarette, tapped it on the back of his hand, and then seemed to forget all about it. Suddenly his closed-mouthed attitude vanished and he began to talk — so rapidly that Cassidy’s pencil had trouble keeping up.

“I haven’t seen Clyde since eleven o’clock last night,” he said. “We both went out together. He said he was going on duty at air-raid headquarters. I took a cab to Brooklyn — 388 Farragut Avenue. I spent the evening with a friend of mine, Joseph Poletti. I got back here around quarter after four and went to bed. The elevator man can tell you that.”

“Any idea who might have wanted to kill your brother?”

Harold shook his head. “Well — no. But he was married and he’d had trouble with his wife. They were separated and Clyde came here to live with me. He wanted to go back to her, but she wouldn’t have him. She was hell-bent on a divorce. That might have something to do with it.”

Cassidy’s pencil noted the name. “Where does she live?”

“At the Barbizon-Plaza, but she’ll be at work now. She’s with the Municipal Life Insurance Company.”

“Thanks,” said Cassidy. He motioned to the other detective. “Come on — let’s go.”

But downstairs he halted. “I’m going to send someone over to trail Warner. You stick here so you can point him out. Then go to the Farragut Avenue address, find Poletti, and check the rest of that story. I’m going to locate this wife of Clyde’s.” He rubbed his chin. “I wish I knew why somebody went off with that file box.”

A phone call was all Cassidy needed to learn that Bertha Warner was not at her office, and fifteen minutes later he was knocking at a door in the Barbizon-Plaza. The woman who answered was dressed for the street. She was smart and attractive, with frank, clear eyes.

Cassidy introduced himself and stated his business. She gasped and turned away from him.

“Clyde... murdered?” she exclaimed. “That’s horrible! How did it happen?”

“That’s what I hope you can tell me. Where were you last night?”

“Me? I had dinner with my parents. But you — you can’t suspect me!”

“What time did you leave?”

She sat down heavily. “Please — you don’t really think I could have killed him, do you? We were separated, but we were friends. There was no bitterness. We still liked each other. We hadn’t even decided definitely on a divorce. We were going to wait and find out. You can see I couldn’t have had anything to do with it, can’t you? All I want to do is help.”

“Then just answer my questions. Everything you did last night.”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” She took a miniature handkerchief from a small, initialed pocketbook and dabbed at her eyes. “I had dinner with my parents. They live on 90th Street, off Broadway. I stayed there until about ten. We played three-handed bridge. Then I took the subway to Fifty-ninth and walked across to the hotel. I read a little, took a bath and went to bed around midnight.”

“Why didn’t you go to work today?”

“I had the morning off. I’d worked late last Friday and I had time coming to me. I was going to shop and do some odds and ends. I have an appointment with the hairdresser downstairs. I made it a couple of days ago.”

“When was the last time you saw your husband?”

“I don’t know exactly. One evening last week. He had some papers for me to sign. The car was in my name and he was selling it. I had to sign the license or something. We had a friendly drink and then he left.”

“He wanted to live with you again, didn’t he? What did you have against him?”

“I? Nothing. It was just our marriage that didn’t work out. He wouldn’t let me live my own life, and I insisted.”

“What do you know about his brother?”

“Harold?”

Cassidy thought he detected a note of reticence in her voice. “I haven’t seen him since quite a while before Clyde and I separated. We used to see a lot of him, but—” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.

“But what?” the detective insisted.

“I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him or some of his friends he used to bring up to our apartment. That’s all.”

Cassidy wasn’t sure that was all, but he didn’t press the point at the moment. “He and Clyde get along all right?” he asked.

“Do you mean did he have the motive for killing Clyde?”

“You can put it that way if you want to.”

Bertha Warner looked down at the floor and frowned. “I don’t know,” she said slowly, “but it wouldn’t surprise me. Harold has a vicious temper and if he and Clyde had a fight, it might very well end in — in murder.”

Cassidy spent ten minutes trying to pin down these rather vague accusations and get something concrete. But about all he actually got was Mrs. Warner’s statement that she believed Harold capable of murder. She either didn’t have or wasn’t giving out any fact that could be counted as evidence.

The detective spent another half-hour in the hotel trying to find out what time Bertha Warner had come home. Nobody remembered her. The doorman said he’d been trying to get a couple of taxis around ten-thirty, which was when she claimed she’d returned. The desk clerk didn’t recall seeing her, but she carried her own key. The elevator man didn’t even know who Bertha Warner was. There were so many people.

Cassidy located the night clerk and the night elevator man. Some time after two — had they seen Mrs. Warner? The detective described her. The clerk admitted he’d dozed off a few times. The elevator operator, however, was definite. An attractive dame at two in the morning? Sure he’d have remembered her, but he hadn’t taken her up. Could she have walked up? He laughed. Climb nine flights of stairs when there was a car running? What for?

Cassidy bore down. He didn’t want to know what the operator thought a dame would do. He wanted to know whether or not she could have done it. The elevator man shrugged. He didn’t spend his time watching the stairs. If she wanted to walk up, she had a pair of legs. While he was on one of the upper floors, he wouldn’t have seen her.

Cassidy returned to Sector R headquarters. His brain must have been spinning by then. Three red hot suspects — Schirmer, Harold, Bertha. And Harold and Bertha Warner were practically accusing each other.

Why?

And yet, Schirmer loomed as the Number One possibility, except that no motive had been unearthed. But Cassidy didn’t care what the motive was. He wanted to know who had shot Clyde Warner, and how.

Schirmer might have done it. But the two wardens on the eight-to-twelve shift had been located and stated that Warner had arrived alone, saying Schirmer would be along any minute and that they should go. When they had pointed out that headquarters was supposed to be manned by at least two men he’d gotten angry. They’d obeyed him to avoid a fuss.

Harold Warner was a guy who didn’t seem to like cops for some reason and he’d claimed to have an alibi which might or might not be okay. Mrs. Warner didn’t look like the kind of woman who would shoot a man, but she didn’t have anything that could be called an alibi, either.

Cassidy collected reports. The fingerprintmen had developed innumerable prints, mostly blurred, but they had no hope that any of them would be of much use. At least fifty wardens had been in and out of the apartment during the last twenty-four hours. They had rubbed their hands on chairs and tables and walls. A dozen different persons had used the phone and there wasn’t a decent print on it. Just smudges.

The Medical Examiner had phoned in that Warner had been drinking and that death had taken place between two and three in the morning. He had been shot in the heart and killed outright.

Ballistics had the slug. It came from a .45 which was the caliber of the gun for which Clyde Warner had a permit. But you can’t tell from which gun a bullet has come unless you have the gun, and the murder weapon had disappeared.

It was Streit, the Sector Commander, who had the only item of real interest to report. He came in suddenly from the hall and announced excitedly, “The cards from the file box. I’ve found them!”

“Where?”

“In the trash basket out in the hall.” Streit’s narrow shoulders straightened up. “What do you think of that?”

“I think,” said Cassidy, “that I’d like a duplicate of that file box. Come on out and help me get one.”

Cassidy returned to the precinct house with a duplicate file box under his arm. He had a glimmering of an idea, but he was far from sure.

Inspector Kennedy, in charge of the division, and Captain Lauterback, of the precinct detective division, were waiting for him. They had the facts now on Harold Warner’s alibi and it apparently left Cassidy with only two suspects. When questioned by Detective Hanrahan, Poletti had corroborated in every detail Warner’s statement that they were together all evening.

“Hanrahan’s doing a check on Poletti now,” Lauterback finished. “And we’re keeping a tail on him, too, just in case.”

Cassidy made his report, describing his conversations with Harold and Bertha Warner. Then he leaned back and listened as his superior officers discussed the case. But he said little himself. He wanted more facts. For one thing, he wanted to know why someone had dumped those records in the trash basket and walked off with the file box.

The day wore on. Every patrolman in the precinct who wasn’t needed elsewhere had been put on the case. Cassidy did paper work and stared at a box. The Captain was handling things and giving the orders.

Around four o’clock, Patrolman Keenan knocked on the door. He had been canvassing the neighborhood under instructions to find out all he could about wardens, and he’d struck pay dirt.

“You know that lunch counter around the corner from Number 202?” he said. “The Greek who runs it said Schirmer was in there for a cup of coffee around 4 A.M. He knows Schirmer and identified him from the photo.”

The Captain smiled grimly. “Bring Schirmer in.”

Schirmer, when he arrived, didn’t try to deny the fact. Instead, he changed his story. He still insisted that Clyde Warner had called him and that he had never been to sector headquarters. But now he stated that he had wakened around three in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. He had gone to bed at eight, he kept repeating, he’d had enough sleep. He’d gone out for a cup of coffee. That was all. Why hadn’t he mentioned it? He answered that he hadn’t thought it important enough.

In the middle of the questioning Cassidy was called out. Hanrahan, whom he had sent to check on Poletti, was on the phone.

“I think I’ve got something,” he reported. “I start checking on this Poletti and I run into an OPA investigator who’s doing the same thing. It seems they got a hunch that he might be tied in with the mob that’s been dishing out those phony gas coupons that hit the East Coast a few weeks back. If they’ve got a case and if Warner spent the evening with Poletti — well, it has possibilities.”

Cassidy agreed. “I see what you mean. I’ll contact OPA and find out just what they’ve got. See what else you can dig up.”

He returned to Captain Lauterback’s office. The Captain hadn’t been able to break Schirmer down, but there was too much against him to turn him loose. He was being held as a material witness. They wanted a confession before making any formal charge.

“I got the laboratory reports, too,” said Lauterback. “They looked over his clothes for bloodstains. There weren’t any.”

“There was no struggle,” said Cassidy. “Warner was shot down in cold blood. You can’t expect stains.”

“I didn’t expect them. I was just hoping.”

There was another knock on the door and Detective Redfern called in excitedly, “Captain — we’ve got the gun!” He shoved in a short squat man in the drab uniform of a street cleaner.

Cassidy’s face lit up. The street cleaner was carrying a cardboard file box under one arm.

In broken English he told how he had been on a Department of Sanitation truck that was picking up refuse from the rubbish bins along Broadway. He always put his hand in first and felt around. He’d heard of somebody who once had found a gold watch that way and he’d always thought it might happen to him, too. So when he’d seen the file box he had picked it out and opened it, and here it was.

Cassidy lifted off the cover. There was a gun inside. A .45 Colt revolver. He exchanged a look with Lauterback and then he noticed a few tiny slivers of glass.

“What else was in there?” asked Cassidy.

“A drinking glass, but it was no good. Broken. I throw away.”

“Well,” Cassidy said philosophically, “we’re not exactly getting the breaks this trip. Unless the fingerprints that were probably on that glass are also on this.”

He took a pencil from his pocket, pushed it through the trigger guard of the gun and lifted it from the box. Captain Lauterback went upstairs with him and watched as he dusted it with fingerprint powder. It was a discouraging process. Not a sign of a print showed.

“Wiped clean,” the Captain said disgustedly. He reached for the revolver and examined the chambers of the cylinder. One cartridge was missing. Then, squinting and holding the gun at an angle, he read off the numbers. It was the weapon for which Clyde Warner’s permit had been issued.

Lauterback wrote out a tag for identification and tied it through the trigger guard.

“I’ll send it downtown to Ballistics,” he said. “There’s not much doubt that this is the murder gun, but they’ll confirm it. I think, too, that I’ll have another session with Schirmer.

“We know now pretty much how it happened. Warner got there first. Maybe he really called Schirmer so that the latter wouldn’t come, or maybe not. That’s something we don’t know — yet. Anyhow, this is the way it was.

“Clyde Warner takes out his gun, like always. Then this other person comes. They have a couple of drinks and then they get into an argument. The gun is there, staring them both in the face. Maybe this other person grabs it and that’s why Clyde runs all the way to the back room before he gets shot.

“The murderer is pretty cool. He’s lucky so far because nobody noticed the shot. Maybe a truck went by, maybe people thought it was a backfire. That’s happened plenty of times. So the murderer picks up the glass and the gun and looks around for something to put ’em in. That file box is just the thing. He empties it. Then he sneaks downstairs without being seen, drops the box in the nearest rubbish basket and goes home.”

Cassidy nodded. “Sure,” he said. “But I wouldn’t use a file box. Would you?”

Lauterback stared at him, and Cassidy went on.

The following morning a brain trust gathered in the detectives’ room at the precinct station. Present were Captain Lauterback, Inspector Kennedy, in charge of the division, Assistant District Attorney Charles H. Burns, Cassidy and two other detectives.

Cassidy arrived late and had to be told the latest developments. Schirmer hadn’t broken yet. He had been questioned most of the night and had stuck obstinately to his story of the phone call. His landlady, Mrs. Ruth Kaminov, had corroborated the fact of the phone call and said it was a man’s voice, but more than that she couldn’t say.

Some of Clyde’s actions on the night of the murder had been painstakingly traced. He had left his house shortly after eleven and stopped at a bar just off Broadway. The bartender remembered him and said he’d had a Scotch and water. The bartender was vague as to the time he’d left, but was fairly certain he had not made a phone call. It was obviously possible that he had phoned elsewhere, although none of the shopkeepers remembered him.

Both Bertha and Harold Warner were brought in and questioned again. Each stuck to his original story and hinted again that the other might be responsible. Clyde Warner’s papers shed no additional light on the case, nor could any of his acquaintances add anything relevant. The case, therefore, had to rest on the evidence already at hand.

Cassidy coughed nervously. “I think I can swing it,” he said. “I’ve got an idea, and if it works we may get a confession. I need somebody to fake an identification. Redfern can do that. All he has to do is pretend he isn’t a cop and pick up the cue from me. And I need this.” He reached for the murder gun, pressed his finger on the trigger guard and dusted it with powder so that even an amateur could see the clearness of the print. “That’s why I had Ballistics return the gun,” he added.

“This is kind of screwy,” said Burns, from the District Attorney’s office, “but I might go along if you tell what’s behind this idea of yours.”

Cassidy looked miserable. “I’m not sure,” he said. “But we’re up against a stone wall and we’ve got nothing to lose. I just want to question Schirmer and Harold and Bertha Warner together, and show them the print on the gun.”

Lauterback looked at the faces gathered around the table. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead.” He raised his voice and called out, “Bring ’em in!” Harold and Bertha Warner entered, followed by Schirmer. They all looked tired, but defiant. Cassidy knew that what he planned wasn’t going to be easy. He pointed to the empty chair at the large table.

“Sit there, Mr. Warner. We’ve turned up a lot more evidence since the last time anybody talked to you. For one thing, we have the gun.”

Harold Warner sat down, scowling. “I wasn’t anywhere near that air-raid headquarters last night and you know it. I was in Brooklyn. You talked to Poletti. He told you that, didn’t he?”

Cassidy nodded. “Yes, I saw him. He corroborated your alibi. He said you were together until about three-thirty in the morning. But there’s one little difficulty. Poletti may not be on hand to tell that story for you in court.”

Warner jumped to his feet. “What? Why not?”

“He’s not at home this morning. He packed up last night and took it on the lam. He skipped.”

“But... but you’ve got his statement.”

Cassidy nodded. “Yeah. But the OPA is after him on a gas coupon counterfeiting charge. When that comes out, the jury may not want to pay much attention to his statement.”

Warner looked at Cassidy and said nothing.

“And,” the detective continued, “when the OPA agents went through Poletti’s rooms they found evidence that gives them a charge against you, too.” Then Cassidy added ominously, “But you may not have to worry about that after I get through with you.” He shoved the file box forward and opened it so that Warner and the others could see the gun that lay inside. “This is the murder weapon,” he added, lifting the revolver out and turning it so that Warner could see the smudge of fingerprint powder on the trigger guard.

“The killer tried not to leave any prints. But a gun isn’t too easy to wipe clean. He missed this. It’s not a complete print, but it’ll be enough to send him to the chair.”

Warner’s jaw tightened. “It’s not my print,” he insisted.

“We’ll see about that,” Cassidy said. He turned to one of the detectives and ordered, “Take him out and get his prints.”

Warner got slowly to his feet, an obstinate look on his face. “You can’t—” he began.

But Cassidy paid no attention. He looked at Schirmer. “I think I’ll have yours, too. Any objections?”

Schirmer seemed anything but pleased at the prospect, but he didn’t argue about it. There was a brief hesitation before he answered, then he said, “No,” and stood up.

The detective jerked his thumb toward the door and the two men left with him.

Cassidy watched them go, then sat silently looking at the gun on the desk, frowning a bit. He leaned forward, picked the gun up and studied the fingerprint in a satisfied manner.

Then, suddenly, Mrs. Warner stood up and the noise her chair made as it scraped along the floor when she pushed it back was loud in the stillness. “You don’t need Harold’s prints,” she said in a tight, tense voice. “Someone else might have touched that gun. The fingerprint is probably his, but even if it isn’t — Harold killed Clyde. I know he did. And I know why!”

Cassidy said, “Yes?”

“Clyde threatened to tell the police about Harold’s black-market racket. He thought Harold had something to do with our separation. He thought Harold and I—” Her voice stopped and she looked at the floor.

“Did you?” Cassidy asked.

“No. But Clyde thought so. And—”

“And,” the detective broke in, “when you and Clyde separated, he moved in to live with the man he suspected of having come between him and his wife. That sounds a little bit odd, doesn’t it, Mrs. Warner? You aren’t a very good liar.

“And trying to pin it on Harold is another mistake. I wondered if you might try that when you thought his alibi wouldn’t hold up. You see, there’s really nothing much wrong with Harold’s alibi. I just tried to make it sound that way. When I said Poletti had taken it on the lam, I neglected to mention one little thing. Poletti skipped, all right, but he didn’t get far. My men and the OPA agents were on his tail. They picked him up when he tried to shove off by plane from LaGuardia Field. He’ll be in court, all right.”

Bertha Warner sat down again. She stared at Cassidy and her hands gripped her chair until her knuckles were white.

Cassidy didn’t give her any time to think. “Never try to pin a murder on a man who couldn’t have done it,” he went on. “Besides, even if he didn’t have an alibi, I wouldn’t suspect him too much. The real clue to the murderer is not that fingerprint on the gun, at all. You’re wearing the same clothes you wore last night as I asked you to, aren’t you?”

She nodded wordlessly.

“And that’s the same purse you carried?” He pointed to the small cotton bag.

She looked at it in bewilderment, but she nodded.

“That,” Cassidy said, “is the clue. That and this file box. If Harold Warner had killed his brother and had wanted to remove the gun from the scene, he wouldn’t have needed to conceal it in that file box. He’d have simply stuck it in his pocket. But you haven’t any pockets big enough to hold a .45 and your purse is much too small. That’s why you used the file box.”

Some of Bertha Warner’s fear dropped away. She almost smiled. “That’s pretty thin,” she said. “That might apply to any woman. You can’t prove that I—”

Cassidy raised his voice. “Let’s have Redfern,” he called.

The door opened and a uniformed patrolman came in with Redfern. Cassidy asked, “Is that the woman you saw come out of 252 yesterday morning, some time after two o’clock?”

Redfern studied her. “Yes,” he said.

“Was she carrying a file box like that one?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Warner shrank away from Redfern, shaking her head. “No!” she exclaimed half hysterically. “No, no!”

Cassidy merely said, “I’ll have your prints now, Mrs. Warner.”

The calm, completely confident way he said it apparently told Bertha Warner that she was licked. She broke. Hysterically, disconnectedly, prodded by Cassidy’s swift, unrelenting questions, she told her story.

She left her mother’s around ten. Passing a movie, she had an impulse to go in. She left the theater around eleven-thirty and was on her way to the subway when she met Clyde.

He told her he had to speak to her. He said it was important, something about Harold, and that he was on his way to Sector R headquarters and that she should come with him. He said they’d be alone, that all he had to do was phone Schirmer and tell him not to report.

Bertha Warner, believing that Clyde had some family problem concerning Harold, consented. Clyde went upstairs first and told her to follow in about five minutes and not let the elevator boy see her. Only wardens, he said, were supposed to be in the apartment.

She obeyed his instructions and he was alone when she arrived. He had a flask of liquor with him and he set two glasses on the table. They had a couple of drinks and he kept postponing the matter she’d come to discuss. Presently he began to plead with her to come back, and tried to make love. She said all she wanted from him was a divorce. He refused to let her leave the apartment. She ran to the back room, intending to lock herself in. Then she saw his gun, partly concealed under the pillow of the cot.

He followed her and she raised the gun. Suddenly it occurred to her that if he were dead, she wouldn’t have to worry about the divorce. He shouted at her, and in a blind fury she fired.

She knew at once that she’d killed him. She thought of putting the gun in his hand to make it look like suicide, but she was afraid of a slip-up. She decided to remove all traces of her presence. She hadn’t been seen coming in, and it was a simple matter to wait until the elevator had gone upstairs and then to run out.

She threw the file box containing the gun and glass into the nearest rubbish basket. Then she went back to her hotel, sneaking in and walking all the way up.

In December, 1942, Bertha Warner was tried in Special Sessions for the murder of Clyde Warner, her husband. She admitted she had shot him but she pleaded self-defense. The prosecution pointed out that there was absolutely no evidence of a struggle and that the position of the body indicated Clyde had been shot suddenly without warning.

After six hours, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree. Several of the jurymen intimated later that the coldblooded way in which she had sought to make Harold Warner pay for her crime weighed heavily against her.

She was sentenced to a term of from twenty years to life.