Margery Allingham - Ellery Queen’s Anthology. 1960

I darted a glance around. The barber chairs were all empty. Fickler and three of the barbers, Jimmie, Ed, and Philip, were seated along the row of waiting chairs, in their white jackets, each with a dick beside him. Tom was not in view.

Purley had guided me to the corner by the cash register. “How long have you known that Janet Stahl?” he demanded.

I shook my head reproachfully. “Not that way. You said I was needed and I came on the run. If you merely want my biography, call at the office any time during hours.”

Purley’s right shoulder twitched. It was only a reflex of his impulse to sock me, beyond his control and therefore nothing to resent. “Some day,” he said, setting his jaw and then releasing it. “She was found on the floor of her booth, out from a blow on her head. We brought her to and she can talk, but she won’t. She won’t tell us anything. She says she won’t talk to anybody except her friend Archie Goodwin. How long have you known her?”

“I’m touched,” I said with emotion. “The only chat I’ve ever had with her was here today under your eye, but look what it did to her. Is it any wonder my opinion of myself is what it is?”

“Listen, Goodwin; we’re after a murderer.”

“I know you are. I’m all for it.”

“You’ve never seen her outside this shop?”

“No.”

“That can be checked, maybe. Right now we want you to get her to talk. She’s stopped us dead. Come on.” He moved.

I caught his elbow. “Hold it. If she sticks to it that she’ll only talk with me I’ll have to think up questions. I ought to know what happened.”

“Yeah.” Purley wanted no more delay, but obviously I had a point. “There were only three of us left — me here at the front, and Joffe and Sullivan there on chairs. The barbers were all working on customers. Fickler was moving around. I was on the phone half the time.”

“Where was Janet?”

“I’m telling you. Toracco — that’s Philip — finished with a customer, and a new one got in his chair — we were letting regular customers in. The new one wanted a manicure, and Toracco called Janet, but she didn’t come. Fickler was helping the outgoing customer on with his coat. Toracco went behind the partition to get Janet, and there she was on the floor of her booth, cold. She had gone there fifteen minutes before, possibly twenty. I think all of them had gone behind the partition at least once during that time.”

“How bad is she hurt?”

“Not enough for the hospital. Doc let us keep her here. She was hit above the right ear with a bottle taken from the supply shelf against the partition, six feet from the entrance to her booth. The bottle was big and heavy, full of oil. It was there by her on the floor.”

“Prints?”

“For Pete’s sake, start a school. He had a towel in his hand or something. Come on.”

“One second. What did the doctor say when you asked him if she could have been just testing her skull?”

“He said it was possible, but he doubted it. Come and ask her.”

I had never been behind the partition before. The space ran about half the length of the shop. Against the partition were steamers, vats, lamps, and other paraphernalia, and then a series of cupboards and shelves. Across a wide aisle were the manicure booths, four of them, though I had never seen more than two operators in the shop. As we passed the entrance to the first booth in the line, a glance showed me Inspector Cramer seated at a little table across from Tom, the barber with white hair. Cramer saw me and arose. I followed Purley to the third booth, and on in. Then steps behind me and Cramer was there.

It was a big booth, eight by eight, but was now crowded. In addition to us three and the furniture, a city employee was standing in a corner, and, on a row of chairs lined up against the right wall, Janet Stahl was lying on her back, her head resting on a stack of towels. She had moved her eyes, but not her head, to take in us visitors. She looked beautiful.

“Here’s your friend Archie Goodwin,” Purley told her trying to sound sympathetic.

“Hello, there,” I said professionally. “What does this mean?”

The long, home-grown lashes fluttered at me. “You,” she said.

“Yep. Your friend Archie Goodwin.” There was a chair there, the only one she wasn’t using, and I squeezed past Purley and sat, facing her. “How do you feel — terrible?”

“No, I don’t feel at all. I am past feeling.”

I reached for her wrist, got my fingers on the spot, and looked at my watch. In thirty seconds I said, “Your pump isn’t bad. May I inspect your head?”

“If you’re careful.”

“Groan if it hurts.” I used all fingers to part the fine brown hair, and gently but thoroughly investigated the scalp. She closed her eyes and flinched once, but there was no groan. “A lump to write home about,” I announced. “Who did it?”

“Send them away and I’ll tell you.” I turned to the kibitzers. “Get out,” I said sternly. “If I had been here this would never have happened.”

They went without a word. I sat listening to the sound of their retreating footsteps outside in the aisle, then thought I had better provide sound to cover in case they were careless tiptoeing back. They had their choice of posts, just outside the open entrance or in the adjoining booths. The partitions were only six feet high. “It was dastardly,” I said. “He might have killed you. You’re lucky you’ve got a good, strong, thick skull.”

“I started to scream,” she said, “But it was too late.”

“What started you to scream? Seeing him, or hearing him?”

“It was both. I was in the customers’ chair, with my back to the door — and there was a little noise behind me, like a stealthy step, and I looked up and saw him reflected in the partition glass, right behind me, with his arm raised, and I started to scream, but before I could get it out he struck—”

“Wait a minute.” I got up and moved my chair to the outer side of the little table and sat in it. “These details are important. You were like this?”

“That’s it. I was sitting thinking.”

I felt that the opinion I had formed of her previously had not done her justice. The crinkly glass of the partition wall behind her could reflect no object whatever, no matter how the light was. Her contempt for mental processes was absolutely spectacular. I asked, “Did you recognize him?”

“Of course I did. That’s why I wouldn’t speak to them. That’s why I had to see you. It was that big one with the big ears and gold tooth, the one they call Stebbins, or they call him sergeant.”

I wasn’t surprised. I knew the power of her imagination now. “You mean he hit you with the bottle?”

“I can’t say it was him that hit me. I think people should be careful what they accuse other people of. I only know it was him I saw standing behind me with his arm raised, and then something hit me. From that anyone can only draw conclusions, but there are other reasons, too. He was rude to me this morning, asking me questions, and all day he has been looking at me in a rude way, not the way a girl is willing for a man to look at her. And then you can just be logical. Would Ed want to kill me, or Philip or Jimmie or Tom or Mr. Fickler? Why would they? So it must have been him, even if I hadn’t seen him.”

“It does sound logical,” I conceded. “But I’ve known Stebbins for years and have never known him to strike a woman without cause. What did he have against you?”

“I don’t know.” She frowned a little. “That’s one of the first things you must tell me, how to answer things to the reporters. That’s how you’ll earn your ten per cent.”

“My ten per cent of what?”