Whistle Past the Graveyard [= Give the Girl a Gun]

Chapter Seventeen

It took a bit of argument to talk Warren Day into letting me borrow the picture of Bubbles and the broad-shouldered man. The inspector was all for dragging the girl down to headquarters and sweating out of her the name of Ford’s confederate.

I finally convinced him that since I knew the girl personally and she seemed to have some liking for me, I could probably get more out of her than some strange cop.

The only other information I got from Warren Day was that Thomas Henry’s bond hearing at nine o’clock that morning had come to nothing. Despite the legal efforts of the expensive Harvey Brighton, the judge had refused to allow bond, declaring that the nature of the alleged crime indicated that the accused, if guilty, was too inclined to violence for the court to assume responsibility for loosing him on society even temporarily until a jury had decided whether or not he was to be released permanently.

When I left headquarters, I drove over to West Lucas and dropped by Jessup’s Jewelry Store. A gracious brunette with all the suavity of an undertaker’s assistant came forward to wait on me.

When I asked to speak to the proprietor, she wanted to know what about. I told her about some gold engraving and she looked politely interested, but when I failed to elaborate, she smiled pleasantly and led me toward the rear of the store with the air of a headwaiter showing me to a table.

Mr. Jessup, whose first name was Samuel according to the discreet gold lettering on the front window I had noted on the way in, was closeted in a tiny workroom containing nothing but a table, one chair and a rack of intricate tools. The table top was littered with rings, watches and other types of jewelry in various stages of repair, and at the moment the jeweler was resetting a stone in a rhinestone bracelet.

In contrast to his sophisticated clerk, Samuel Jessup was as homey as red suspenders. He was a plump man of about fifty with a benign face and an air of extreme patience. When the brunette announced in a soft voice that he had a visitor, he nodded without looking up and continued to work on the bracelet with a thin-nosed pair of pliers.

I waited quietly until he had made the last delicate adjustment, laid down the pliers and removed the powerful jeweler’s glasses from his eyes. For them he substituted a plain horn-rimmed pair, then blinked up at me inquiringly.

Handing him my license, I waited until he had studied it, then said, “I’m working with the Homicide Department on the Ford case. I have Inspector Day’s permission to ask questions in the name of the department and I’d like to ask you some. Maybe you’d like to check me by phone with Inspector Day first.”

He gave me a pleasant smile as he handed back my license. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Mr. Moon. I’m sure the help I’ll be able to give you will be so small it won’t matter whether you have police authority or not. As a matter of fact, I told some lieutenant everything I knew about Walter Ford over the phone.”

“That was Lieutenant Hannegan,” I said. “Mind going over again what you told him?”

Jessup said he didn’t mind at all. He still had the slip of paper on his desk containing the notes he had made from his files for Hannegan’s benefit, and he referred to it to refresh his memory as he talked.

“The only work we’ve ever done for Mr. Ford was the engraving of gold initials on the ivory grips of six twenty-five-caliber automatic pistols,” he said. “They all came in at different times, the first last March twelfth. It was picked up three days later. That was engraved M.S.”

“Madeline Strong,” I said.

“I wouldn’t know what any of the initials stand for. The next came in May second, was picked up on the fourth, and the initials were H.D. Then on May fifteenth we engraved one A.M.”

Apparently those were the two women the police had located through Ford’s address book and cleared as having no possible connection with the crime.

“Then we didn’t do any more until last month,” Jessup went on. “June eighth we engraved one E.K. and on June twenty-eighth B.D.”

Evelyn Karnes and Beatrice Duval, I thought, which jibed with the dates both girls claimed to have received their pistols from Ford.

“How about the last one?” I asked.

“That came in just a few days before Mr. Ford was killed. July seventh, to be exact. Our instructions were to engrave it T.H.”

“Did Ford bring all these guns in personally?”

“No. He sent them by Pickup Service and had them picked up the same way.” Then he frowned thoughtfully. “At least the last one came that way. I’d have to check with Leona about the others.”

When I looked at him without understanding, he explained, “Usually I don’t get out front much except when we’re rushed, and we’re hardly ever rushed. Leona handles the store trade and I work back here. Last week she was out sick and I had to handle everything, which is why this mess of work accumulated.” He gestured at the littered table top. “So I know Pickup Service brought in the last gun, but Leona would have received all the others.”

Rising, he walked to the workroom door, saw that the suave brunette had no customers and called her to the back of the shop.

“Those pistols of Mr. Ford’s the police phoned me about,” he said. “How’d they usually come in?”

“Mr. Ford always brought them in personally and picked them up again when they were finished.”

Jessup thanked her, and when she had gone away again he sat down in the lone chair and looked up at me uneasily. “Does that mean anything, Mr. Moon? The messenger brought along a note from Ford requesting a hurry-up job and asking us to have the gun ready the next day. I recall it was the same messenger boy who came after it.”

I frowned thoughtfully. “This boy have anything to identify himself?”

He looked even more uneasy. “I didn’t inquire, Mr. Moon. He just said he was from Pickup Service and gave me a large envelope containing the gun and note. Of course under ordinary circumstances I would require identification before releasing a customer’s property to a messenger, but since the same boy who brought the gun in came after it too, I hardly thought it necessary.”

Asking if I could use his phone, I looked up the number of Pickup Service and got hold of the dispatcher. After explaining who I was and that I was working with the authorization of Warren Day, I asked him to check his records for July seventh and eighth to see if he had any calls either from a Mr. Walter Ford or from anyone else for trips to Jessup’s.

After about a five-minute wait the dispatcher informed me the company had made no such delivery or pickup for Walter Ford or anyone else.

When I hung up, Jessup was looking worried.

“It’s the sort of thing anybody would be taken in by,” I reassured him. “Nobody will hold you responsible. I’d guess whoever it was had the engraving done simply hired some kid to act the part of a Pickup messenger. Probably he was waiting right outside the store while the boy was inside both times. How was the engraving paid for?”

“By the messenger, in cash.”

“It all fits,” I said. “The person who ordered the engraving couldn’t afford to let you see him because he wasn’t Walter Ford, and he had to assume the police would make at least a routine check with you eventually. You’ve been a big help, Mr. Jessup.”

Asking if I could use his phone again, I dialed Warren Day’s office. When I told the inspector what I had learned, he was silent for a moment.

Then he said, “We’ve got to get hold of that kid and find out who hired him.”

“How?” I asked. “There are probably ten thousand kids in town answering to the same description.”

“How about running a personal ad offering a reward if he’ll contact us? You know. ‘If the young man who delivered a package to Jessup’s Jewelry Store on July seventh and picked it up on July eighth will phone number so-and-so, it will be to his financial advantage.’ Something on that order.”

“And have the murderer read it too? We’d find the kid all right. Dead.”

“Yeah,” he said in a dissatisfied voice. “I guess we better just put out a general call. Let me talk to Jessup.”

When I relinquished the phone, apparently Day asked Jessup for a complete description of the messenger, for the jeweler said, “About seventeen, Inspector. Five-ten, I’d say, and about a hundred and thirty pounds. Brown hair in a crew cut and a kind of long face. What? I don’t know. Just an ordinary complexion. Neither dark nor light. Just ordinary. I don’t know what color eyes he had. Both days he wore brown cotton slacks and a plain yellow sport shirt with the tail outside his belt. No, nobody else saw him because my girl was out sick last week and I was here alone.”

When he hung up, I had the feeling that I was finally getting my teeth into the case. Day’s reaction to the fake messenger boy indicated he was now convinced Tom Henry had been framed, and from here on out I could expect an all-out effort on the part of Homicide to catch the real murderer instead of merely an effort to consolidate its case against my client.

As — except for vague suspicions that there was something phony about the evidence against Thomas Henry — this was the first definite progress I had made, it occurred to me Madeline Strong would want to know about it at once. Since her apartment was less than a mile from Jessup’s, I drove over instead of phoning.

Madeline’s place was on Park Lane near Mason Avenue, one of the most expensive residential districts in town.

Since the opposite side of Park Lane was Midland Park, the view from the apartment house was one of trees and well-kept grass as far as you could see. The view alone probably added fifty dollars a month to the rent, I thought, and wondered again just how much money the girl had.

Madeline’s apartment was 3-C. A virtually silent self-service elevator took me to the third floor and I waded along an ankle-deep carpet to the door of 3-C. There was no bell in evidence, but when I lifted a highly polished brass knocker in the shape of a knight’s shield, it caused a mellow tinkle of chimes within the apartment. When I released the knocker, it sank silently back into place instead of clattering against its metal faceplate.

Barney Amhurst came to the door. When he saw me, his dimples showed in a smile of pleasure.

“Come in, Mr. Moon,” he said hospitably. “Madeline and I were just talking about you.”

I followed him through a large living room furnished with quiet but expensive taste, through an equally tastefully furnished dining room and into a bright and immaculate kitchen. Madeline Strong was in the act of making a plate of chicken-salad sandwiches.

When Amhurst entered the room, she looked up at him inquiringly, then saw me. Dropping the spoon she was using to ladle mayonnaise, she came toward me with both hands outstretched.

“I was just thinking about calling you, Mr. Moon. Have you learned anything new?”

“A little,” I said, letting her work off emotion by squeezing both my hands. The emotion was for Tom Henry, I knew, and was transferred to me only because she hoped I could give her some news about her fiancé, but it was pleasant to be on the receiving end of even secondhand affection from such a pretty girl.

I glanced at the plate of sandwiches, then at a wall clock which said eleven forty-five. “I didn’t mean to barge in on you at lunch time. It didn’t occur to me you’d eat this early.”

“We had an early breakfast because we had to be in court by nine.” Releasing my hands, she glanced at Amhurst and said with a touch of self-consciousness, as though she felt called upon to explain his presence, “Barney was good enough to drive me down so I invited him for lunch. Will you stay too? I only have sandwiches and cake, but there’s plenty of both.”

As there seemed to be enough sandwiches on the plate to feed an average wedding party, I said, “Thanks. Be glad to. I can bring you up to date during lunch.”