Crime Stories Page 41

  “Nothing you’ve forgotten to tell me, is there?” I asked, stressing the me a little.

  “No, I’ve told you everything I know—every single thing.”

  Walking over to California Street, I shook down my memory for what I had heard here and there of Bernard Gilmore. I could remember a few things—the opposition papers had been in the habit of exposing him every election year—but none of them got me anywhere. I had known him by sight: a boisterous, red−faced man who had hammered his way up from hod−carrier to the ownership of a half−million−dollar business and a pretty place in politics. ‘A roughneck with a manicure,’ somebody had called him; a man with a lot of enemies and more friends; a big, good−natured, hard−hitting rowdy.

  Odds and ends of a dozen graft scandals in which he had been mixed up, without anybody ever really getting anything on him, flitted through my head as I rode downtown on the too−small outside seat of a cable car.

  Then there had been some talk of a bootlegging syndicate of which he was supposed to be the head . . .

  I left the car at Kearny Street and walked over to the Hall of Justice. In the detectives’ assembly−room I found O’Gar, the detective−sergeant in charge of the Homicide Detail: a squat man of fifty who went in for wide−brimmed hats of the movie−sheriff sort, but whose little blue eyes and bullet−head weren’t handicapped by the trick headgear.

  “I want some dope on the Gilmore killing,” I told him.

  “So do I,” he came back. “But if you’ll come along I’ll tell you what little I know while I’m eating. I ain’t had lunch yet.”

  Safe from eavesdroppers in the clatter of a Sutter Street lunchroom, the detective−sergeant leaned over his clam chowder and told me what he knew about the murder, which wasn’t much.

  “One of the boys, Kelly, was walking his beat early Tuesday morning, coming down the Jones Street hill from California Street to Pine. It was about three o’clock—no fog or nothing—a clear night. Kelly’s within maybe twenty feet of Pine Street when he hears a shot. He whisks around the corner, and there’s a man dying on the north sidewalk of Pine Street, halfway between Jones and Leavenworth. Nobody else is in sight. Kelly runs up to the man and finds it’s Gilmore. Gilmore dies before he can say a word. The doctors say he was knocked down and then shot; because there’s a bruise on his forehead, and the bullet slanted upward in his chest. See what I mean? He was lying on his back when the bullet hit him, with his feet pointing toward the gun it came from. It was a thirty−eight.”

  “Any money on him?”

  O’Gar fed himself two spoons of chowder and nodded.

  “Six hundred smacks, a coupla diamonds, and a watch. Nothing touched.”

  “What was he doing on Pine Street at that time in the morning?”

  “Damned if I know, brother. Chances are he was going home, but we can’t find out where he’d been. Don’t even know what direction he was walking in when he was knocked over. He was lying across the sidewalk with his feet to the curb; but that don’t mean nothing—he could of turned around three or four times after he was hit.”

  “All apartment buildings in that block, aren’t there?”

  “Uh−huh. There’s an alley or two running off from the south side; but Kelly says he could see the mouths of both alleys when the shot was fired—before he turned the corner—and nobody got away through them.”

  “Reckon somebody who lives in that block did the shooting?” I asked.

  O’Gar tilted his bowl, scooped up the last drops of the chowder, put them in his mouth, and grunted.

  “Maybe. But we got nothing to show that Gilmore knew anybody in that block.”

  “Many people gather around afterward?”

  “A few. There’s always people on the street to come running if anything happens. But Kelly says there wasn’t anybody that looked wrong—just the ordinary night crowd. The boys gave the neighborhood a combing, but didn’t turn up anything.”

  “Any cars around?”

  “Kelly says there wasn’t, that he didn’t see any, and couldn’t of missed seeing it if there’d been one.”

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  He got to his feet, glaring at me.

  “I don’t think,” he said disagreeably; “I’m a police detective.”

  I knew by that that somebody had been panning him for not finding the murderer.

  “I have a line on a woman,” I told him. “Want to come along and talk to her with me?”

  “I want to,” he growled, “but I can’t. I got to be in court this afternoon.”

  In the vestibule of the Garford Apartments, I pressed the button tagged Miss Cara Kenbrook several times before the door clicked open. Then I mounted a flight of stairs and walked down a hall to her door. It was opened presently by a tall girl of twenty−three or—four in a black and white crepe dress.

  “Miss Cara Kenbrook?”

  “Yes.”

  I gave her a card—one of those that tell the truth about me.

  “I’d like to ask you a few questions; may I come in?”

  “Do.”

  Languidly she stepped aside for me to enter, closed the door behind me, and led me back into a living room that was littered with newspapers, cigarettes in all stages of consumption from unlighted freshness to cold ash, and miscellaneous articles of feminine clothing. She made room for me on a chair by dumping off a pair of pink silk stockings and a hat, and herself sat on some magazines that occupied another chair.

  “I’m interested in Bernard Gilmore’s death,” I said, watching her face.

  It wasn’t a beautiful face, although it should have been. Everything was there—perfect features; smooth, white skin; big, almost enormous, brown eyes—but the eyes were dead−dull, and the face was as empty of expression as a china doorknob, and what I said didn’t change it.

  “Bernard Gilmore,” she said without interest. “Oh, yes.”

  “You and he were pretty close friends, weren’t you?” I asked, puzzled by her blankness.

  “We had been—yes.”

  “What do you mean by had been?”

  She pushed back a lock of her short−cut brown hair with a lazy hand.

  “I gave him the air last week,” she said casually, as if speaking of something that had happened years ago.

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Last week—Monday, I think—a week before he was killed.”

  “Was that the time when you broke off with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have a row, or part friends?”

  “Not exactly either. I just told him that I was through with him.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “It didn’t break his heart. I guess he’d heard the same thing before.”

  “Where were you the night he was killed?”

  “At the Coffee Cup, eating and dancing with friends until about one o’clock. Then I came home and went to bed.”

  “Why did you split with Gilmore?”

  “Couldn’t stand his wife.”

  “Huh?”

  “She was a nuisance.” This without the faintest glint of either annoyance or humor. “She came here one night and raised a racket; so I told Bernie that if he couldn’t keep her away from me he’d have to find another playmate.”

  “Have you any idea who might have killed him?” I asked.

  “Not unless it was his wife—these excitable women always do silly things.”

  “If you had given her husband up, what reason would she have for killing him, do you think?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” she replied with complete indifference. “But I’m not the only girl that Bernie ever looked at.”

  “Think there were others, do you? Know anything, or are you just guessing?”

  “I don’t know any names,” she said, “but I’m not just guessing.”

  I let that go at that and switched back to Mrs. Gilmore, wondering if this girl could be full of dope.

>   “What happened the night his wife came here?”

  “Nothing but that. She followed Bernie here, rang the bell, rushed past me when I opened the door, and began to cry and call Bernie names. Then she started on me, and I told him that if he didn’t take her away I’d hurt her, so he took her home.”

  Admitting I was licked for the time, I got up and moved to the door. I couldn’t do anything with this baby just now. I didn’t think she was telling the whole truth, but on the other hand it wasn’t reasonable to believe that anybody would lie so woodenly—with so little effort to be plausible.

  “I may be back later,” I said as she let me out.

  “All right.”

  Her manner didn’t even suggest that she hoped I wouldn’t.

  From this unsatisfactory interview I went to the scene of the killing, only a few blocks away, to get a look at the neighborhood. I found the block just as I had remembered it and as O’Gar had described it: lined on both sides by apartment buildings, with two blind alleys—one of which was dignified with a name, Touchard Street—running from the south side.

  The murder was four days old; I didn’t waste any time snooping around the vicinity; but, after strolling the length of the block, boarded a Hyde Street car, transferred at California Street, and went up to see Mrs. Gilmore again. I was curious to know why she hadn’t told me about her call on Cara Kenbrook.

  The same plump maid who had admitted me earlier in the afternoon opened the door.

  “Mrs. Gilmore is not at home,” she said. “But I think she’ll be back in half an hour or so.”

  “I’ll wait,” I decided.

  The maid took me into the library, an immense room on the second floor, with barely enough books in it to give it that name. She switched on a light—the windows were too heavily curtained to let in much daylight—crossed to the door, stopped, moved over to straighten some books on a shelf, and looked at me with a half−questioning, half−inviting look in her green eyes, started for the door again, and halted.

  By that time I knew she wanted to say something, and needed encouragement. I leaned back in my chair and grinned at her, and decided I had made a mistake—the smile into which her slack lips curved held more coquetry than anything else. She came over to me, walking with an exaggerated swing of the hips, and stood close in front of me.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked.

  “Suppose—suppose a person knew something that nobody else knew; what would it be worth to them?”

  “That,” I stalled, “would depend on how valuable it was.”

  “Suppose I knew who killed the boss?” She bent her face close down to mine, and spoke in a husky whisper.

  “What would that be worth?”

  “The newspapers say that one of Gilmore’s clubs has offered a thousand−dollar reward. You’d get that.”

  Her green eyes went greedy, and then suspicious.

  “If you didn’t.”

  I shrugged. I knew she’d go through with it—whatever it was—now; so I didn’t even explain to her that the Continental doesn’t touch rewards, and doesn’t let its hired men touch them.

  “I’ll give you my word,” I said; “but you’ll have to use your own judgment about trusting me.”

  She licked her lips.

  “You’re a good fellow, I guess. I wouldn’t tell the police, because I know they’d beat me out of the money. But you look like I can trust you.” She leered into my face. “I used to have a gentleman friend who was the very image of you, and he was the grandest—”

  “Better speak your piece before somebody comes in,” I suggested.

  She shot a look at the door, cleared her throat, licked her loose mouth again, and dropped on one knee beside my chair.

  “I was coming home late Monday night—the night the boss was killed—and was standing in the shadows saying good night to my friend, when the boss came out of the house and walked down the street. And he had hardly got to the corner, when she—Mrs. Gilmore—came out, and went down the street after him. Not trying to catch up with him, you understand; but following him. What do you think of that?”

  “What do you think of it?”

  “I think that she finally woke up to the fact that all of her Bernie’s dates didn’t have anything to do with the building business.”

  “Do you know that they didn’t?”

  “Do I know it? I knew that man! He liked ‘em—liked ‘em all.” She smiled into my face, a smile that suggested all evil. “I found that out soon after I first came here.”

  “Do you know when Mrs. Gilmore came back that night—what time?”

  “Yes,” she said, “at half−past three.”

  “Sure?”

  “Absolutely! After I got undressed I got a blanket and sat at the head of the front stairs. My room’s in the rear of the top floor. I wanted to see if they came home together, and if there was a fight. After she came in alone I went back to my room, and it was just twenty−five minutes to four then. I looked at my alarm clock.”

  “Did you see her when she came in?”

  “Just the top of her head and shoulders when she turned toward her room at the landing.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Lina Best.”

  “All right, Lina,” I told her. “If this is the goods I’ll see that you collect on it. Keep your eyes open, and if anything else turns up you can get in touch with me at the Continental office. Now you’d better beat it, so nobody will know we’ve had our heads together.”

  Alone in the library, I cocked an eye at the ceiling and considered the information Lina Best had given me.

  But I soon gave that up—no use trying to guess at things that will work out for themselves in a while. I found a book, and spent the next half−hour reading about a sweet young she—chump and a big strong he—chump and all their troubles.

  Then Mrs. Gilmore came in, apparently straight from the street.

  I got up and closed the door behind her, while she watched me with wide eyes.

  “Mrs. Gilmore,” I said, when I faced her again, “why didn’t you tell me that you followed your husband the night he was killed?”

  “That’s a lie!” she cried; but there was no truth in her voice. “That’s a lie!”

  “Don’t you think you’re making a mistake?” I urged. “Don’t you think you’d better tell me the whole thing?”

  She opened her mouth, but only a dry sobbing sound came out; and she began to sway with a hysterical rocking motion, the fingers of one black−gloved hand plucking at her lower lip, twisting and pulling it.

  I stepped to her side and set her down in the chair I had been sitting in, making foolish clucking sounds—meant to soothe her—with my tongue. A disagreeable ten minutes—and gradually she pulled herself together; her eyes lost their glassiness, and she stopped clawing at her mouth.

  “I did follow him.” It was a hoarse whisper, barely audible.

  Then she was out of the chair, kneeling, with arms held up to me, and her voice was a thin scream.

  “But I didn’t kill him! I didn’t! Please believe that I didn’t!”

  I picked her up and put her back in the chair.

  “I didn’t say you did. Just tell me what did happen.”

  “I didn’t believe him when he said he had a business engagement,” she moaned. “I didn’t trust him. He had lied to me before. I followed him to see if he went to that woman’s rooms.”

  “Did he?”

  “No. He went into an apartment house on Pine Street, in the block where he was killed. I don’t know exactly which house it was—I was too far behind him to make sure. But I saw him go up the steps and into one—near the middle of the block.”

  “And then what did you do?”

  “I waited, hiding in a dark doorway across the street. I knew the woman’s apartment was on Bush Street, but I thought she might have moved, or be meeting him here. I waited a long time, shivering and trembling. It was chilly and I was frig
htened—afraid somebody would come into the vestibule where I was. But I made myself stay. I wanted to see if he came out alone, or if that woman came out. I had a right to do it—he had deceived me before.

  “It was terrible, horrible—crouching there in the dark—cold and scared. Then—it must have been about half−past two—I couldn’t stand it any longer. I decided to telephone the woman’s apartment’ and find out if she was home. I went down to an all−night lunchroom on Ellis Street and called her up.”

  “Was she home?”

  “No! I tried for fifteen minutes, or maybe longer, but nobody answered the phone. So I knew she was in that Pine Street building.”

  “And what did you do then?”

  “I went back there, determined to wait until he came out. I walked up Jones Street. When I was between Bush and Pine I heard a shot. I thought it was a noise made by an automobile then, but now I know that it was the shot that killed Bernie.

  “When I reached the corner of Pine and Jones, I could see a policeman bending over Bernie on the sidewalk, and I saw people gathering around. I didn’t know then that it was Bernie lying on the sidewalk. In the dark and at that distance I couldn’t even see whether it was a man or a woman.

  “I was afraid that Bernard would come out to see what was going on, or look out of a window, and discover me; so I didn’t go down that way. I was afraid to stay in the neighborhood now, for fear the police would ask me what I was doing loitering in the street at three in the morning—and have it come out that I had been following my husband. So I kept on walking up Jones Street, to California, and then straight home.”

  “And then what?” I led her on.

  “Then I went to bed. I didn’t go to sleep—lay there worrying over Bernie; but still not thinking it was he I had seen lying in the street. At nine o’clock that morning two police detectives came and told me Bernie had been killed. They questioned me so sharply that I was afraid to tell them the whole truth. If they had known I had reason for being jealous, and had followed my husband that night, they would have accused me of shooting him. And what could I have done? Everybody would have thought me guilty.

  “So I didn’t say anything about the woman. I thought they’d find the murderer, and then everything would be all right. I didn’t think she had done it then, or I would have told you the whole thing the first time you were here. But four days went by without the police finding the murderer, and I began to think they suspected me!