The Case of the Petticoat Murder

Chapter Fourteen

ALBERT MILLER'S apartment house was a five-story. A walk-up just east of Riverside Drive, a very compact, modest-looking brick structure completely dwarfed by the much taller buildings surrounding it on all sides.

I glanced at the row of mailboxes in the foyer, noted Miller's apartment number, and walked across the deskless lobby to the stairway.

The man who answered my knock on the door of apartment 2-D was about an inch taller than I, and so abnormally broad through the shoulders as to appear almost misshapen. He was about fifty, with coarse gray hair, a slightly florid face, and a rather blunt nose that listed a little to the right. He wore unusually heavy-rimmed, perfectly round eyeglasses whose tinted lenses were just thick enough to slightly distort the dark eyes behind them.

“Mr. Albert Miller?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes. What is it, please?”

“Police officer,” I said, showing him my badge. “My name's Selby.”

He frowned. “At this hour?” he said. “Do you realize it's almost midnight?”

“Sorry, Mr. Miller,” I said. “May I come in?”

He hesitated for a moment, then opened the door a little wider and stood back. “I hope this visit is justified,” he said. “I was just going to retire.”

His flat, slightly nasal voice held an edge of controlled irritation; but I got the distinct impression that what he really felt was not so much irritation as apprehension.

“Better close the door, Mr. Miller,” I said.

He stared at me resentfully, then made an impatient gesture and shut the door.

I glanced about the room, then crossed to one of the two sling chairs opposite the small television set and sat down. In addition to the sling chairs and television set, the room contained an outsized sofa bed, a sort of freeform cocktail table with a red-plastic top, a small cellaret, a pair of captain's chairs at either side of the hall door, and an exquisite French Provincial desk so beautiful that it completely dominated the room and caused the rest of the furniture to look like just so many leftovers after a forced auction in the warehouse district.

Miller's face was that of a man who has been grievously imposed upon.

“I trust you'll find that chair comfortable, Mr. Selby,” he said. “If there's anything I can do to add to the pleasure of your visit, just let me know.”

“Why so hostile, Mr. Miller?” I said.

“Hostile?” he said. “I'm sure you don't mean that, Mr. Selby. Under the circumstances, I'd say your choice of words is an extremely poor one.”

“Maybe you're right,” I said, while I studied him. “Cops aren't any great shakes in the word department Most of their work is with their feet.”

“I can well believe it,” Miller said. “And now that we've taken care of the amenities, may I ask the reason for this honor?”

“You know a girl named Nadine Ellison?” I asked. “If you do, I'd like to ask you a few questions about her.” I was watching carefully for reaction, but the thick, tinted lenses of his glasses made his eyes difficult to read.

“About whom did you say?” he asked.

“Nadine Ellison,” I said. “She was murdered this morning, Mr. Miller. You may have read about it in the papers.”

“No,” he said. “As a matter of fact, haven't even so much as glanced at a newspaper all day.”

I see.”

“But let us assume I had,” he said. “Of what possible interest could your Nadine Ellison be to me?”

“Are you telling me you didn't know her?”

“I am indeed, Mr. Selby.”

“It's possible you knew her under another name.”

He started to say something, then shrugged. “All things are possible, of course,” he said. “Even that.”

“She's been known to use the name of Norma Edwards,” I said.

He shook his head. “That's equally unfamiliar, Mr.Selby. Would you care to try again?”

“She lived in the Village,” I said. “On Bleecker.”

He glanced at the hall door rather pointedly, then sighed and sat down in one of the captain's chairs. “Mr. Selby, is it being excessively optimistic on my part to hope that you'll eventually enlighten me as to the nature of your call?”

“See if this rings any bells,” I said, and then described Nadine carefully and in detail.

“She would seem to be a remarkably attractive young woman,” he said. “She would also seem to be no one of my acquaintance.”

“Even with the best descriptions, Mr. Miller, it's some-times a little hard to—”

“Then why bother to give me one?”

I leaned back in the sling chair and took a deep breath, wondering why it was that Miller's cop-baiting and overly precise speech should annoy me so much. A cop is supposed to hear what people say, not to be irked by what they say or the way they say it.

A cop's job is to listen, not to react.

“Miller,” I said, “just what the hell is bugging you?”

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You've been giving me a hard time ever since here, Miller. From here on in, cut out the bullshit.”

He was as powerfully built as any man I'd ever talked to, and it was plain he'd never had to take very much of the kind of talk I was giving him now. He seemed not to believe his own ears.

“I beg—” he began again. “What?”

“I'm not the kind of cop who tiptoes into a place with his hat in his hand and touching his forelock every time some citizen speaks a civil word to him,” I said. “I treat people just exactly the way I'd expect to be treated if things were the other way around.”

“That's very… very commendable,” Miller said. “Perhaps I've been under something of a… I think I owe you an—”

“All you owe me is a little cooperation,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, nodding almost eagerly. “Yes, of course.”

“That's fine,” I said. “And now that we've really got the amenities out of the way, tell me whether you have any serious enemies.”

“Enemies?”

“Yes — enemies. Say, someone who might go to almost any length to embarrass you.”

He shook his head. “I haven't any enemies at all,” he said. “That is, none of which I am aware. It's always conceivable I may have offended someone unknowingly, of course…”

“But no one who's really out to get you?”

“Why, no, Mr. Selby. Certainly not.”

“Think about this very carefully,” I said. “You in any kind of woman trouble? How about your job? Anybody you work with have a beef against you? Think it over.”

“There's just no one,” he said. “I sincerely believe I'ves never made what one might characterize as a real enemy.”

“Where do you work, Mr. Miller?”

“I'm with the McMurdon Dental Laboratories.”

“Doing what?”

“To put it succinctly, I construct dentures for people who have undergone major oral surgery.”

“You ever hear of a Doctor Clifford Campbell?”

“Is he a dental surgeon?”

“No. Neurosurgeon.”

“I don't think so. Should I know him, Mr. Selby?”

“No. It just occurred to me in passing.”

He looked at me for a moment. “I think you can appreciate my position, Mr. Selby,” he said. “In all friendliness, I think I have a right to know why you are here.”

“The police receive a great number of spite letters and phone calls and telegrams and so on,” I said. “We received one about you, Mr. Miller. It accused you of a crime.”

Once again I watched closely for reaction; and once again I saw nothing beyond what, under the circumstances, I should have expected to see.

“Are you serious?” Miller said. “A telegram about me?”

“Yes.”

“And you say someone accused me of a crime?” He leaned forward. “Accused me of what?”

“Of murdering Nadine Ellison,” I said.

His enormous shoulders stiffened visibly and his mouth very slowly sagged open in what was either consternation or, if not, then something for which I could find no ready-made label.

“Good Lord,” he said softly. “Who would do a thing like that? Who could do a thing like that?”

“You still say you have no enemies?”

“I–I must have. I never realized a man such as I could ever affect another person so negatively that he…” He shook his head. “Whatever I did, I did unknowingly. I would have been willing to take an oath that—”

“No use punishing yourself,” I said. “It may have been a crackpot. Nine-tenths of them act just like everybody else — until they're alone. Then they do some pretty weird things. Chances are, this is just another instance.”

“You — you think so, Mr. Selby?” he said almost pleadingly. “I'd very much like to believe that. The thought that someone might have cause to… Well, you know what I'm trying to say, I'm sure.”

“If you're sure you don't know Nadine Elli—”

“Oh, but I am! Until you came here this evening, Mr. Selby, I'd never even so much as heard of her.”

“The telegram said we would find proof that you'd killed her.”

“Mr. Selby, may I see that telegram?”

“It was read to me over the phone.”

“Is it possible there may have been some mistake in the name? There are, after all, a great many Millers, you know.”

“No mistake,” I said. “It said the evidence was in the bottom drawer of your desk.”

His eyes swung toward the desk; then he rose, walked to it, and turned to face me. “Would you care to examine it, Mr. Selby?” he asked.

I crossed to the desk and watched him as he pulled out both of the bottom drawers and emptied them of their contents.

The drawer on the left held a miniature Speed-Graphic, old but well cared for, a Rolleiflex without a carrying case, a Leica, another 35 mm camera that looked as if it might be Japanese, and an assortment of flash guns, sun shades, interchangeable lenses, and filters in individual boxes.

The drawer on the right contained what was perhaps two hundred rolls of 35 mm film in aluminum cans, six or eight flat file boxes filled with transparencies, and a small, futuristic-looking color-slide projector.

Miller looked up at me, waiting.

“Thanks,” I said.

He sat rubbing the ball of his thumb back and forth against the back of the Leica case thoughtfully for a moment, then shrugged and began to return everything to its place.

“Not precisely 'evidence,' Mr. Selby,” he said. “Except of a rather expensive hobby, perhaps.”

I nodded, thinking about Burt Ellison's call to Headquarters and the anonymous telegram addressed to me personally; and that the phone call and the telegram had all come in within a comparatively short period of time.

There was probably no connection between the two.

Still…

“I asked you about Nadine Ellison, Mr. Miller,” I said. “How about men with that last name? The particular first name I have in mind is Burt.”

He replaced the last box of transparencies in the drawer very carefully and shook his head. “The name 'Ellison' has been going around and around in my mind ever since you first mentioned it,” he said. “I'm certain I've never known anyone with that name, Mr. Selby.”

“Let's take a wild stab at nothing,” I said. “You know any young man, say, about twenty-six, with brown hair and eyes and a V-shaped scar on his right wrist?” I thought a moment. “He'd be a fairly recent acquaintance, if you do know him.”

“No one with a scar, no,” he said. “In all truth, I know hardly any younger men at all. I'm — one might almost say a recluse. Except for my work, and picture-taking strolls here and there, I lead a very withdrawn existence.” He closed the drawers and straightened up. “What was the nature of the evidence, Mr. Selby?”

“What?”

“Didn't the telegram tell you what to look for?”

“No.”

“In that case, it might be just anything at all, mightn't it?”

“Yes,” I said, “I suppose it could.”

“Then I suggest we continue with the desk, and then proceed in any way you like.”

“Why not?” I said. “One starting place is as good as another.”

“It's just that I have all my cameras and things in here,” he said. “I'd much rather handle them myself, Mr. Selby. You know how it is, I'm sure.”

I nodded. “Let's get started.”

“At least we'll have the exercise,” he said as he turned to pull out another drawer. “Perhaps it will help us enjoy a much sounder sleep.”

It takes a lot longer to search a one-room apartment when you don't know what you're looking for than it does when you do. When you have no idea at all, it's largely a matter of lifting and shifting and pawing and shuffling, and wishing you had taken the examinations for the Fire Department.

But there are tricks in every trade, and I used every one of them. I worked hard and rapidly, and, to my surprise, so did Albert Miller. It was he who did most of the lifting and shifting, and I who did most of the pawing and shuffling. For a man of his age, his energy was almost as amazing as his strength.

Even so, my search of Miller's apartment, including the removal of the back of the television set for a look inside the cabinet, took almost an hour. And when I'd finished, I knew no more about Miller than if I'd searched my own.