The Broken Vase

Chapter 14

On the outside the old house on East 83rd Street, though not exactly disreputable, was certainly dingy and dirty; on the inside it was still dingy but not dirty at all. On the contrary, it was extremely clean. In the lower hall and dining room at nine thirty that Tuesday evening, there was a pervasive odor of pork cooked with sour cream. In the kitchen the odor pervaded not only the room but also the breath of Frida Jurgens, which was to be expected, since she had just completed the consumption of four of the fillets with trimmings. Usually she was fairly satisfied with what she had got at the apartment of her employer, but on Tuesday, the day her aunt Hilda had Schweinsfilets mit sauer Sahne, she always left plenty of room.

She put down her knife and fork and eructed with pure pleasure, and was in so benign a mood that when a voice sounded from the front calling her name no faintest sign of protest accompanied the pushing back of her chair.

In the dining room her aunt Hilda had turned on the light and was squinting defensively at a strange man standing with an enormous flat book under his arm. His appearance was at the same time comical and maleficent; the former chiefly by reason of slick oily hair parted in the middle and enormous black-rimmed spectacles, and the latter by a jagged livid scar that slanted from his right cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. He had put his hat on a corner of the dining table.

“Sinsuss man,” Aunt Hilda hissed warningly at Frida.

“United States decennial census,” the man said sternly, the distortion of his lips by the scar making it indescribably sardonic.

“The census?” Frida demanded. “Already? The paper and the radio both said April second.”

“This,” the man said scornfully, “is the prolegomenon. The radio explained that.”

“I didn’t hear it. And at night like this?”

“Well.” The man leered at her. “If you wish me to report to the district administrator...”

“Now, now,” Aunt Hilda said anxiously. Aunt Hilda was constitutionally anxious. “Report you by us? Now, now.” She turned to Frida and sputtered a stream of German at her, and got a little of it back. At the end she told the man, “My niece speaks better English,” and bustled out of the room. Frida pulled out two chairs, sat on one of them, clasped her hands on her lap, and said with no expression whatever, “My name is Frida Jurgens. I am a naturalized citizen—”

“Wait a minute, please.” The man, sitting, got the book opened and cocked at an angle that kept its pages out of her range of vision. “First, the head of this household?”

Fifteen minutes later Frida was showing faint but unmistakable signs of strain. She had answered questions regarding two aunts, four cousins, and a brother who drove a taxicab, and the responsibility was heavy; for it was a general suspicion in that neighborhood that the census was some kind of a police trick and dire consequences might be expected. The trouble was her two cousins who belonged, as she knew, to a certain organization — she felt moisture on her forehead but dared not wipe it off — so when he finished with the others and began on her, her relief was so great that she failed to notice that the United States appeared to possess a greatly augmented curiosity in her particular case. Where was her present employment, how long had she been there, what was the nature of her duties, how many persons were there in the household, either constantly or occasionally, how many meals was she expected to prepare, what were her hours, how much time did she have off?...

She said she had plenty of time off, but just how much, it depended. The census taker declared, with a frown of dissatisfaction, that for the purpose of the employment census that was too vague. It depended on what?

“It depends on her,” Frida told him. “She don’t eat in much. When she don’t, I leave at seven, sometimes even earlier. But then again she tells me to leave at two o’clock maybe, or in the morning even, and not to come back that day. So the time off is fine.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Pretty often. Maybe a day in a week, maybe three days in a week.”

“Certain days? Tuesdays for instance?”

“Oh, no, not certain days. Just days.”

“How long has that been going on?”

“Ever since I’m working there. Over a year.”

“When was the last time it happened?”

Frida frowned. “I don’t lie,” she said resentfully.

“Of course not. Why should you? When was the last time?”

“It was Friday. Last Friday.”

“Perhaps Miss Tusar lets you go because she intends to go somewhere herself. She intends to be away and won’t need you.”

“Maybe. She don’t say!”

“Does she go out, or make preparations to go, before you leave?”

“No, she don’t.”

“Does she tell you about it in advance? Say the day before?”

“No. It mostly happens all of a sudden. Soon after Mr. Fish phones.”

“Fish?” The census man uttered a sociable little laugh.

“That always strikes me as a funny name. I know a fellow named Fish, a short fat man with a double chin. I don’t think it would be him phoning Miss Tusar, though. Is it? Short and fat with a double chin?”

“I don’t know. I never saw him. I answer the phone and he says to tell Miss Tusar Mr. Fish wants to speak to her, and I tell her.”

“And soon after, she tells you you can have the rest of the day off.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s a funny world.”

Frida agreed to that with a nod. The census man asked her a few more questions, more as a friend than an inquisitor, closed his book and arose and got his hat, and departed. Without, he marched to the corner and entered a Bar & Grill and sought a phone booth, dialed a number, and spoke:

“Inspector Damon? Tecumseh Fox. Regrettable news. The lobby and elevator staff of the Bolton Apartments have been holding out on you. A man whose name may or may not be Fish has been calling on Miss Tusar once or twice or thrice a week for over a year. I should say it calls for suasion. How about gathering them in? Right. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

At a moment well past midnight the atmosphere of Room Nine in the basement of police headquarters was permeated with tobacco smoke and ill humor. A dozen men of various ages and appearances and emotional conditions were on a row of wooden chairs at one end of the large room. Four or five plain-clothesmen sat or stood around. Inspector Damon braced his fundament on the edge of a rough wooden table and looked morose. Tecumseh Fox, his hair no longer slick and oily and the scar and spectacles gone, was at a water cooler in a corner taking a drink.

The suasion, which had been forceful in spots though never violent, had been totally unproductive. The manager, the assistant manager, the doormen, the hallmen, the elevator men, all maintained that they had never seen or heard of a Mr. Fish, that Miss Tusar had no habitual or even frequent visitor, male or female, that they wouldn’t dream of withholding evidence from the police and that they wanted to go home. That had been going on for over two hours.

Damon crossed over to the corner where Fox was. “We might as well let them go,” he muttered disgustedly. “They’re all lying. Or the maid invented Mr. Fish. Or Miss Tusar postponed her preparations for going out until after the maid had left. Take your pick.”

Fox shook his head. “You’ve left out one. Since they’re here we might as well try it. Maybe they’re all telling the truth for a change, including the maid. When is a Fish not a Fish?”

Damon grunted. “You mean he gave another name and pretended he was calling on someone else? But we’ve already—”

“Nope. Who could enter as often as he pleased, and go up in the elevator, without giving his name at all?”

“I don’t— Oh.” Damon considered. “I see. And if he phoned from inside it had to go through the switchboard—”

“I doubt that. He wouldn’t have done that. He’d have phoned from somewhere else. If you think it’s worth the effort we’ll just have to start at the top and work down.”

“No effort at all,” Damon said sarcastically. He walked back to the table, sat down, and aimed his gaze at a tired-looking neatly dressed man who was prematurely bald:

“Mr. Warren, I’m afraid we’re not through. I want to ask some questions about your tenants. How many have you?”

“Ninety-three,” the manager replied without hesitation.

“How many on the twelfth floor? That’s the top, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Eight.”

“What are their names and who are they?”

“Well, starting at the south end, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Bellows. Mr. Bellows has a real estate office...”

A plain-clothesman sat at the end of the table with a notebook and at the end of another hour had a voluminous record of the occupants of the top five floors of the Bolton Apartments, but there did not appear to be among them any likely candidate for the role they were trying to cast, though three or four had been reserved for further investigation. Like all searches for a nugget in a pile of what may be nothing but sand, it was a dreary and tiresome task, and most of those present were bored and half asleep when Tecumseh Fox suddenly interjected, “Ha!”

“Ha what?” Damon demanded sourly.

“That name. Mrs. Piscus.”

“What about it?”

“Piscus is Latin for fish.”

“The hell it is.” Damon turned back to the manager. “What’s she like?”

Mr. Warren gave details. Mrs. Harriet Piscus had rented 7D, which was two small rooms with bath, in January, 1939. She lived somewhere out of town, the manager didn’t know where, and used the apartment only during her trips to New York, which were frequent — she made an appearance on an average of twice a week. None of the staff knew anything of her family or history. She never brought guests to her apartment and none ever called. She was prompt with the rent, which she paid in cash, generous with tips, and extremely uncommunicative. She was large of frame, shy in manner, and old-fashioned in dress, and her voice was a sort of quavery falsetto. As to her face, it was hard to say, because she always wore a thick veil. Like a mourning veil. It was the romantic assumption among the staff that the tenant of 7D came there to be alone with sorrow.

When had she last been there?

That called for discussion, but finally a doorman, a hallman and an elevator man agreed on the preceding Friday. Fox muttered something to Damon, and after the inspector muttered back he turned to the manager:

“We’ll go up there and take a look at 7D.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Warren protested, was told that a search warrant could not be procured until morning and requested not to enforce the delay, and reluctantly consented. Room Nine was left to its tobacco smoke and stale air, and they all emerged into the night, breathed, and filled three police cars. The trip to the Seventies took less than ten minutes through the deserted streets. The staff was told to wait downstairs, and only the manager accompanied Damon, Fox and two detectives up to 7D.

The pool contained no fish. Since the apartment was rented furnished, there was furniture there, but that was all. The closets and cupboards were bare; there was even no toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet. After a hurried but thorough inspection, during which doorknobs and drawer pulls were touched only with gloves, the manager stated that every article in the place was the property of his employers.

Damon scowled at a detective: “Get busy. Fox and I’ll go down and ask foolish questions.”

In the manager’s office at the rear of the lobby the staff was collected and tackled again, but nothing new was learned of Mrs. Harriet Piscus. None of them had ever seen her without the veil. None had ever suspected she was a man, though now they admitted it was quite possible — she walked like one and she had big feet. She always arrived in a taxi... She never phoned from her apartment or was called there... No mail ever came for her and no packages were delivered...

Shortly after the assemblage was dismissed the detectives came downstairs and reported: “Not a damn thing. Not a scrap. Not a single print on anything anywhere.”

Fox grunted, “Gone for the duration.”

“And now,” Damon said bitterly, “the police will investigate. We’ll find taxi drivers who picked her up in front of the Public Library. Fine. After losing a night’s sleep what do I know that I didn’t know before? That Piscus means fish.”

“Oh, I know more than that,” Fox declared. “Lots more. For example, that fish have gills. As in Ted Gill. Or that Dolphie or Dolphin is a common diminutive for men named Adolph, and a dolphin is a fish—”

“Nuts,” Damon said, and stamped out.