No Pockets in a Shroud [Short Story]

Chapter Three Death at First Sight

I finished breakfast at 12:45 the following afternoon, just as my doorbell rang. It was Mrs. Wade.

She chose one side of the divan, crossed her legs and deliberately examined rounded knees to assure herself they were sufficiently exposed. I poured rye in two glasses and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Soda.”

I let fizz into her glass, added water to my own and relaxed in a chair facing her. She carried the same enormous bag she had the previous evening. Zipping it open, she produced a silver case.

“Cigarette?”

I shook my head and scratched a match for her. Her cigarette aglow, she leaned her head against the divan back and inhaled slowly. She showed no hurry to open conversation. By the time her cigarette was half gone and neither of us had spoken, I began to grow impatient.

I said: “What’s on your mind, Mrs. Wade?”

She smiled, making the corners of her eyes crinkle slyly. “Maybe I just want to get better acquainted.”

“Sure. Love at first sight. Every woman I meet feels it. Now, what’s on your mind?”

Her eyes remained bright, but she smoothed away the smile and let her face grow serious. “I want you to solve this murder.”

I fished a cigar from the end-table humidor and set fire to it before answering. Then I asked: “Why?”

The question seemed to surprise her. “What difference does it make why? I want it solved.”

“Don’t you think the police can solve it?”

“No.” She stated it definitely, as though there were no question in her mind.

“But you think I can?”

She punched out her cigarette and immediately took another from her case. I held a match for her.

“I don’t know whether you can solve it or not,” she said. “If what I think is true, you probably won’t be able to prove anything. That is, you won’t be able to find evidence enough to convict anyone. But I don’t care about that, if you can just find out what happened.”

“What do you think happened?”

She blew smoke from her nose, watching me from half lidded eyes. “Will you take the case?”

I grinned at her. “Meaning you tell me nothing until I commit myself?”

She nodded.

“O.K. I’ll take it. But before we go any farther, you’ll have to listen to a short speech I sometimes inflict on my clients. Ready?”

“You mean like anything I say may be used against me?”

“Something like that.”

“How dramatic. I’m ready.”

“Once I take a case,” I said, “I follow it until I get the answer. And I don’t care whose toes I step on in the process. If the investigation turns in a direction you don’t like, you may stop my pay, but you can’t take me off the ease.”

She thought about this for a minute. “I think I know what you mean.”

“A few minutes ago you remarked that all you wanted was the answer and you didn’t care about the murderer being convicted. I play for keeps. If I crack the case, the police get all the evidence I dig up.”

“You misunderstood me,” she protested. “I meant you probably wouldn’t be able to find evidence. He’s more clever than he looks.”

“Who?”

She leaned forward to kill her second cigarette and kept her eyes on the tray as she spoke. “Let’s stop fencing. We both think my husband hired Louis killed. I heard most of what you told the inspector.” Then she straightened and looked squarely in my face. “If Byron had him killed, I hope he hangs.”

I said: “They use gas in this state.”

She dug out a third cigarette while I filled her empty glass. When she was settled with both a light and a drink, she started to talk.

“I’m not familiar with murder,” she said, “so I don’t know how much you’ll have to know. Suppose I go back two years?”

“Sounds like a nice distance,” I agreed.

“Two years ago I was the wife of a man named Arthur O’Conner. He was a bookie in Chicago. One of Byron’s bookies. We weren’t any bargain as a married couple, but we got along. Then I met Byron.”

She paused and took a long drag on her cigarette. I imitated her with my cigar and waited for her to get started again.

“I’m not going to paint myself whiter than I am. I started playing around with Byron. But I was only playing. He gave me things Arthur couldn’t. Nice clothes and a little jewelry. I know it was wrong, but I never intended to leave Arthur. Not that I loved him particularly, but I was fonder of him than I was of Byron,

“Byron wanted me to divorce Arthur and marry him. I said no, but he kept insisting. Finally the situation became impossible and I told Byron I wasn’t going to see him any more. The next night Arthur was killed.”

She stopped and stared into her glass. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I said: “Yes?”

“He was run over by an elevated. They called it an accident, but no one decided just how he got up on the elevated track.”

She raised her head and looked squarely at me again. “Maybe I’m rotten for marrying the man I half suspect had my husband killed, but that’s what I did. I’m not making any bones about it. I married Byron because he had money. And of course I didn’t really know he was responsible for Arthur’s death. It was merely a possibility. But a second man dying is too coincidental. Is any of this important?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But it’s certainly entertaining. Keep it up.”

“What I think,” she confided, “is that Byron found out I was seeing Louis and had him killed, just as he had Arthur killed.”

I asked: “Did your husband know you were at El Patio last night?”

“Oh yes. He knew I went there every Monday and Wednesday, but he thought it was for roulette... At least that’s what I thought he thought, until Louis was killed.”

“Were you in love with Bagnell?”

She looked surprised. “Of course not. I found him interesting, but it wasn’t love.” She stared at me petulantly for a moment. “I know I’m making myself sound like a tramp, but I’m not one really. You have to know how I feel about Byron to understand. I never loved him, and I haven’t kissed him in over a year. Legally we’re married and Ave live in the same apartment, but I don’t feel married, so I don’t act it.”

“Is your husband normally jealous?”

She looked at me blankly.

I said: “I mean if you haven’t felt or acted married for a year, you must have had other interesting friends. Does Byron have them all killed?”

She puckered her brow. “I see what you mean. No, he never did anything before, and he’s had just as much cause.”

“Did you know Bagnell and your husband were business rivals?” I asked gently.

Instead of the wounded frown I expected, her expression brightened. “Of course! Byron probably had Louis killed because he controlled all the handbooks in town.” She seemed pleased at this solution and not at all touched in her vanity.

“But you still want him caught, even though his motive was purely commercial?”

“Yes. I still want him caught.”

“Why?”

“He splashed blood on my dress.”

My eyes jerked up at her. “Oh, he splashed blood on your dress!” Then, keeping the dialogue at its sensible level, I said: “I didn’t see any blood.”

“It was low. On the hem.”

I said: “My fee is five hundred in advance and five hundred more if I solve the case.”

She rounded her lips into a pouting O. “That’s pretty steep.”

“I don’t work often.”

She found a pen and checkbook in her bag and wrote a check for five hundred.

“Do you want to know anything else?” she asked.

“Yeah. Why do you carry a loaded .45?”

“I-told you last night. You were there when the inspector asked me.”

I nodded my head resignedly and rubbed out my cigar in the ash tray.

“Where’d you get it?”

“From a soldier.”

I waited for elaboration, but she only smiled brightly as though she had made everything obvious.

“What soldier?” I asked finally.

“Just one I knew. A fellow named Joe.”

“Another interesting friend?”

She pouted. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m not. I want to know.”

She examined my face carefully for a sign of amusement, then said reluctantly: “I suppose you could call him that. I went dancing with him once or twice.”

“Where’d he get the gun?”

“I don’t know. Overseas, I suppose. He had several. German, Italian, English. All different types. He let me take my pick and I took the American one because he told me you couldn’t get bullets for the others.”

I said: “Tell me what happened last night.”

She put out her cigarette and for a change didn’t light another. “You mean everything, or just in Louis’ office?”

“Start with when you got to El Patio.”

After thinking a minute, she recited: “I arrived about 6:30. For a while I played roulette and lost about seventy-five dollars, all the money I had with me. Then I went back to Louis’ office. He was expecting me, because I usually had a few drinks with him every Monday and Wednesday night. I had him cash a twenty dollar check and then he ordered a bottle of Scotch and some soda from the bar. We drank and talked about an hour, I guess, and all of a sudden, just as I stood up to leave, a shot came from the bathroom and blood started spurting from the top of Louis’ head. That’s all I remember, because I fainted.”

“You didn’t hear a sound outside the window before the shot was fired?”

“No. I heard nothing at all until the shot.”

“And you’re sure your husband knew you were at El Patio last night?”

“Yes. Positive.”

“Is your husband still in love with you?”

She looked startled. “I hadn’t thought about it.” Her brow creased and she added slowly: “I suppose he is in a sullen sort of way. He’d like me back as his real wife again, but I think he’s resigned to not having me. Why? Is it important?”

“It might be. And your answer isn’t very definite. Do you really think he still loves you?”

She thought for a long time, her forehead puckered with concentration. “He’s not jealous of me,” she said finally. “But I’m sure he’s still in love.”

I rose. “That’s all the questions I have now. Where can I reach you?”

She took the dismissal with good grace, getting up immediately and slipping on her coat. “Sherewood Apartments. Cleveland 3106. I’m always in mornings.”

As I opened the door for her, she half turned toward me and smiled mischievously. “I came mostly on business, but partly to become better acquainted. You’re an interesting man, Mr. Moon.”

“Sure. Old ladies, children and dogs go crazy for me.”

“I must be an old lady.”

Suddenly she placed a gloved hand beneath my chin, swayed her body at me and pressed her lips solidly against my mouth. Then she was through the door and her laugh floated back from the hall.

The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I was one of those men you read about who attract women because of the rugged homeliness of their features. Going into the bathroom, I studied my face in the mirror, noting hard, flat lips, an obviously bent nose and one eyelid that drooped slightly where a brass knuckle had caught it. Even with fresh lipstick on my mouth, I couldn’t convince myself that I was ruggedly homely. I’m downright ugly.

I found Inspector Warren Day glumly reading reports in his office. Easing into his spare chair, I snaked a cigar from the desk humidor before he could snap the lid on my fingers. He only glared when I asked for a match, so I dug out one of my own.

I said: “I’m on the Bagnell case.”

“Ha! By itself murder isn’t enough. Now I got you.” He picked up his papers. “Go away.”

“Be sensible,” I said. “We’re both after the same thing. Let’s compare notes.”

He shook his head emphatically. “I’ve bitten on that before. I give out and you give me the runaround. Who’s your client?”

I ignored his question. “Wade didn’t hire it done.”

He glanced up quickly and suspiciously. “Is Wade your client?”

“No.” I waited while he fished a dead cigar butt from a cluttered ash tray, examined it and stuck it in his mouth. Then he slumped back in his chair, folded his hands across his stomach and waited for me to go on.

I said: “Everything points away from Wade planning it.”

“That wasn’t your story last night.”

“Last night I didn’t know what I do now.”

We sat looking at each other while three minutes ticked by. I broke the silence.

“Answer me three questions and I’ll tell you about Wade.”

We sat through another pause. “All right,” the inspector said resignedly. “Shoot.”

“What did the autopsy show?”

The inspector sorted through his papers, picked out one and frowned at it. “He was killed by a .45, slug. In nontechnical terms, it caught him from the left and lifted off the top of his head. The direction from which the bullet must have come and estimated distance of the weapon makes it probable the shot came from the bathroom window. The bullet was imbedded in the opposite wall at a height indicating the pistol was fired from about window sill level.”

I twisted sidewise in attempt to read the paper spread in front of him, but he scooped it into his lap.

“That’s not an autopsy report,” I said. “They don’t put stuff about bathrooms and window sills in autopsy reports.”

“So you’re getting more than you asked for,” Day growled. “This is my summary of the whole case. Any kicks?”

“No. You’re doing fine. What did you get from Mrs. Wade’s gun?”

He pretended surprise. “Get from it?”

“Don’t play innocent. You ran ballistic tests.”

“It hadn’t even been fired.”

I drew on my cigar, folded my hands and waited.

“O.K.,” said Day. “So we don’t take any chances. It wasn’t the murder weapon. What’s your third question?”

“Whose alibis have you checked, and who hasn’t got one?”

“That’s two questions.”

“Don’t quibble.”

“It’s too big a question. We’ve checked fifty or more. All Wade’s guns have nice prearranged ones. Nobody else matters.”

“All of them, eh? How good are they?”

“Perfect. Wade’s mob is clear to the last man. Too clear for coincidence.”

“Hmm,” I said, wondering if my original theory of Wade being the murder engineer might not be correct after all, and my present reasoning sour. For a minute I thought about it, then decided my new reasoning had to be right.

I said: “I guess that covers what I wanted to know. About Wade... His wife went to El Patio every Monday and Wednesday, and he knew it.”

“You mean he knew she was fooling around with Bagnell?”

“No. He thought she went for the roulette.”

Inspector Day unsuccessfully mulled this over. “Well? S6 what?”

“If you arranged a killing, would you pick a time when you knew your wife would be in the area?”

He sat up attentively. “I see what you mean. You think he’d almost certainly pick one of the five nights his wife didn’t go there?”

“I would, if I had planned it.”

“What makes you sure he knew his wife would be there?”

“Never mind. I’m sure.”

He took the cigar butt from his mouth, looked it over carefully and exchanged it for another in the ash tray. He dusted ashes from the second before putting it in his mouth.

Then he asked: “If Wade didn’t know Bagnell was due, why all the circus at your place?”

I shrugged. “You guess. Maybe he needed an alibi for something else, and Bagnell getting it when he did was coincidence. What else happened last night?”

“Nothing. Two bar room fights and a ten dollar stickup.”

“Maybe what Wade had on ice went sour.”

A rap sounded on the door and: Hannegan came in. “Just got a new stiff, sir. A woman.”

“Murder?” asked Day.

“Probably suicide, but the coroner wants you to have a look. A fisherman got her out of the river. Doc says she drowned last night.”

I pricked up my ears. “What time?”

“About eight.”

“Any identification?”

“Some. She wore an ankle slave bracelet with a name on each side. The outside says ‘Gerald Poster’, the inside ‘Margaret O’Conner’.”

I let out a low whistle.

“What’s the matter?” asked Day.

“This could be the something else we’re looking for.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Mrs. Wade’s first husband was named Arthur O’Conner.”