Richard Deming - Tweak the Devil’s Nose

“Seldon didn’t bump Knight,” Day muttered. “The Illinois cops have been tailing him for me, and he was at a dinner in Madden, Illinois, with fifty other people when Knight got it.”

“All his guns got alibis too?” I asked dryly.

The inspector rubbed his head wearily. “I know Seldon’s alibi doesn’t mean anything. But Knight’s death doesn’t necessarily remove Knight as a suspect in the Lancaster killing either. Maybe he bumped Lancaster and the Jones woman bumped him.”

“Oh for cripes’ sake!” I said.

“According to you she was gone from the bar about ten minutes after Knight went upstairs,” he said doggedly. “She says she went to the ladies’ lounge, but she could just as easily have spent the time knocking off her lover.”

“The elevator operator would have remembered taking her up. And don’t tell me she walked fourteen flights, shot the guy and walked down again, all in ten minutes.”

“The elevator operator took lots of people up and down last night,” Day growled. “He wouldn’t remember one lone woman.”

“He would a good-looking one like Isobel Jones. Bet you ten bucks if you ask him about Fausta going up with me, he’ll remember her.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” the inspector said with such lack of conviction I was convinced he had already discovered the elevator boy recalled Fausta. But to myself I had to admit only a dead man would have missed her in that dress.

“Mrs. Jones phoned Knight I was on my way up,” I told him for the dozenth time. “She didn’t even know he was dead.”

“Maybe a cover-up,” he muttered. “Anyway, we’re holding her awhile.”

“What’s her husband think?”

Frowning at his ashtray, the inspector began to search for a long butt. “He thinks we’re the Gestapo, apparently. Doesn’t believe his wife had a lover. Doesn’t believe his partner would have deceived him even if his wife would. If he wasn’t so upset, he’d have had a lawyer down here prying her out of jail, but apparently it never occurred to him. He hung around here half the night waiting for somebody to let him see her.”

“Why don’t you let him?”

“We will, soon as we get a straight story from Mrs. Jones.” Finding a cigar butt which suited him, the inspector blew it free of ashes and stuffed it in his mouth. “So far she insists she met Knight accidentally. Claims she went to bed last night the same time as her husband, couldn’t sleep and got up to take a walk. She dropped into the Sheridan simply because it was close to her home, and ran into Knight at the bar. When we jumped her about seeing him there the previous evening when she was with you, she blandly explained she assumed he had just dropped in for a drink, and she didn’t realize he was staying there. The reason she gives for introducing him by a fake name is as screwy as the rest of her statement. She says she knew you and the police were hunting Knight, and if she identified him, she’d be called as a witness. Then her husband would discover she’d been out with you instead of home in bed.”

Knowing both the inspector and Hannegan had been up half the night questioning Isobel, I couldn’t repress a grin, for I could visualize how her faintly mad manner must have slowly driven them both toward insanity. Day scowled when he saw the grin, and I erased it hurriedly.

“What did you make of the bank-deposit slip in Knight’s pocket?” I asked.

For a long time Day glowered at me over his glasses. Then he asked in a soft voice, “How did you know it was in his pocket? As I recall your statement, you didn’t touch the body at all.”

“Just enough to make sure he was dead,” I said easily. “You mentioned it yourself. Matter of fact you almost yelled it.”

He continued to regard me suspiciously, but I could see he wasn’t sure. He was so worn out, and had been in so many towering rages during the night, he wasn’t sure himself what he had said or not said. He decided to skip it.

“We haven’t made anything of it yet. I sent a man over to Riverside Bank when it opened, but he isn’t back yet. Jones didn’t know what it meant either. I sprang it on him about nine this morning and he nearly had a conniption fit. He took off in the direction of the bank like a scared rabbit.”

The phone rang at that moment and the inspector answered it. “Day,” he said, then grunted twice and hung up.

“Ballistics,” he offered in a discouraged voice. “The slug hit a bone and was all mashed up, just like in the Lancaster killing. All they can give me is it was a thirty-eight. And since there was no casing found in the room, probably a revolver was used.”

“Unless the murderer stopped to pick up the ejected cartridge.”

“Yeah,” Day said. “So it might be the same gun used on Lancaster, or it might not. What I like about this case is all the scientific help we get from our hundred-thousand-dollar laboratory.”

“Speaking of the laboratory, did you give Isobel Jones a paraffin test?”

Over by the wall Hannegan emitted a snort.

The inspector said, “We stopped using it.”

“Huh?” I asked in surprise.

“You’re behind the times,” Day said irritably. “We stopped taking paraffin impressions six months ago. What’s the use, when they’re no good in court?”

“I didn’t know they were no good.”

“Well, you know now. Light a cigarette with a kitchen match and the paraffin test will prove you fired a gun even if you never had one in your hand. Get a little inaccurate in the bathroom, forget to wash your hands, and the same thing. Urine gives the nicest positive reaction you’d ever want to see.” Reaching under his coat, he produced his short-barreled Detective-Special. “On the other hand, you can fire a good tight gun like this all day long, and the paraffin test will prove you never touched it because there’s no flashback.”

“Well,” I said. “You learn something every day.”

Putting the gun away, Day said, “And take fingerprints. Every time somebody gets killed, the public wants to know about fingerprints. Know how many usable fingerprints we found in Knight’s hotel room?”

I admitted I didn’t.

“One. Exactly one. On the underside of the dresser’s glass top. Probably belongs to the guy who set the top there when the room was furnished. Every other print in the room was so smudged it was useless for comparison. Look here.” Pulling a glass paperweight before him, the inspector rubbed it clean with his handkerchief. “Now there’s a perfect surface for fingerprints, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’d think so,” I agreed.

Gently he placed an index finger against the glass.

“If I touch it lightly like this, I leave a nice print. But if I press too hard” — he illustrated by increasing the pressure — “the print smudges. Fingerprints are wonderful for identification purposes, but I never yet solved a murder by finding fingerprints on anything.”

Picking up the paperweight, he tossed it from one hand to the other a half-dozen times, then shoved it toward me. “Take that up to the fingerprint bureau, and I’ll bet you ten bucks they don’t bring out a single print good enough for comparison purposes.”

Knowing Warren Day’s eagerness to part with money was approximately equal to my eagerness to part with another leg, I declined the bet. “I’ll take your word for it, Inspector. I’m convinced scientific criminal investigation, television and the horseless carriage are all flops. The blacksmith, vaudeville and homicide cops who can’t read will have their day yet.”

“Oh, the hell with you, Moon! I try to educate you a little and you crack wise.”

A knock sounded at the door. Day growled, “Yes?” and a uniformed cop entered.