Cornell Woolrich - Nightwebs (A Collection of Stories)

Sarecky, who had gone through the man’s clothes, said: “The name was Leo Avram, and here’s the address. Incidentally, he had seven hundred dollars, in C’s, in his right shoe and three hundred in his left. Want me to go over there and nose around?”

“Suppose I go,” Nelson said. “You stay here and clean up.”

“My pal,” murmured the other dick dryly.

The waxed paper from the sandwich had been left lying under the chair. Nelson picked it up, wrapped it in a paper napkin, and put it in his pocket. It was only a short walk from the automat to where Avram lived, an outmoded, walk-up building, falling to pieces with neglect.

Nelson went into the hall and there was no such name listed. He thought at first Sarecky had made a mistake, or at least been misled by whatever memorandum it was he had found that purported to give the old fellow’s address. He rang the bell marked superintendent , and went down to the basement entrance to make sure. A stout blond woman in an old sweater and carpet-slippers came out.

“Is there anyone named Avram living in this building?”

“That’s my husband — he’s the superintendent. He’s out right now, I expect him back any minute.”

Nelson couldn’t understand, himself, why he didn’t break it to her then and there. He wanted to get a line, perhaps, on the old man’s surroundings while they still remained normal. “Can I come in and wait a minute?” he said.

“Why not?” she said indifferently.

She led him down a barren, unlit basement-way, stacked with empty ashcans, into a room green-yellow with a tiny bud of gaslight. Old as the building upstairs was, it had been wired for electricity, Nelson had noted. For that matter, so was this basement down here. There was a cord hanging from the ceiling ending in an empty socket. It had been looped up out of reach. “The old bird sure was a miser,” thought Nelson. “Walking around on one grand and living like this!” He couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for the woman.

He noted to his further surprise that a pot of coffee was boiling on a one-burner gas stove over in the corner. He wondered if she knew that he treated himself away from home each night. “Any idea where he went?” he asked, sitting down in a creaking rocker.

“He goes two blocks down to the automat for a bite to eat every night at this time,” she said.

“How is it,” he asked curiously, “he’ll go out and spend money like that, when he could have coffee right here where he lives with you?”

A spark of resentment showed in her face, but a defeated resentment that had long turned to resignation. She shrugged. “For himself, nothing’s too good. He goes there because the light’s better, he says. But for me and the kids, he begrudges every penny.”

“You’ve got kids, have you?”

“They’re mine, not his,” she said dully.

Nelson had already caught sight of a half-grown girl and a little boy peeping shyly out at him from another room. “Well,” he said, getting up, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your husband had an accident a little while ago at the automat, Mrs. Avram. He’s gone.”

The weary stolidity on her face changed very slowly. But it did change — to fright. “Cyanide — what’s that?” she breathed, when he’d told her.

“Did he have any enemies?”

She said with utter simplicity. “Nobody loved him. Nobody hated him that much, either.”

“Do you know of any reason he’d have to take his own life?”

“Him? Never! He held on tight to life, just like he did to his money.”

There was some truth in that, the dick had to admit. Misers seldom commit suicide.

The little girl edged into the room fearfully, holding her hands behind her. “Is — is he dead, Mom?”

The woman just nodded, dry-eyed.

“Then, can we use this now?” She was holding a fly-blown electric bulb in her hands.

Nelson felt touched, hard-boiled dick though he was. “Come down to headquarters tomorrow, Mrs. Avram. There’s some money there you can claim. G’night.” He went outside and clanged the basement-gate shut after him. The windows alongside him suddenly bloomed feebly with electricity, and the silhouette of a woman standing up on a chair was outlined against them.

“It’s a funny world,” thought the dick with a shake of his head, as he trudged up to sidewalk-level.

It was now two in the morning. The automat was dark when Nelson returned there, so he went down to headquarters. They were questioning the branch-manager and the unseen counterman who prepared the sandwiches and filled the slots from the inside.

Nelson’s captain said: “They’ve already telephoned from the chem lab that the sandwich is loaded with cyanide crystals. On the other hand, they give the remainder of the loaf that was used, the leftover bologna from which the sandwich was prepared, the bread knife, the cutting-board, and the scraps in the garbage-receptacle — all of which we sent over there — a clean bill of health. There was clearly no slip-up or carelessness in the automat pantry. Which means that cyanide got into that sandwich on the consumer’s side of the apparatus. He committed suicide or was deliberately murdered by one of the other customers.”

“I was just up there,” Nelson said. “It wasn’t suicide. People don’t worry about keeping their light bills down when they’re going to take their own lives.”

“Good psychology,” the captain nodded. “My experience is that miserliness is simply a perverted form of self-preservation, an exaggerated clinging to life. The choice of method wouldn’t be in character, either. Cyanide’s expensive, and it wouldn’t be sold to a man of Avram’s type, just for the asking. It’s murder, then. I think it’s highly important you men bring in whoever the fourth man at that table was tonight. Do it with the least possible loss of time.”

A composite description of him, pieced together from the few scraps that could be obtained from the busman and the other two at the table, was available. He was a heavy-set, dark-complected man, wearing a light-tan suit. He had been the first of the four at the table, and already through eating, but had lingered on. Mannerisms — had kept looking back over his shoulder, from time to time, and picking his teeth. He had had a small black satchel, or sample-case, parked at his feet under the table. Both survivors were positive on this point. Both had stubbed their toes against it in sitting down, and both had glanced to the floor to see what it was.

Had he reached down toward it at any time, after their arrival, as if to open it or take anything out of it?

To the best of their united recollections — no.

Had Avram, after bringing the sandwich to the table, gotten up again and left it unguarded for a moment?

Again, no. In fact the whole thing had been over with in a flash. He had noisily unwrapped it, taken a huge bite, swallowed without chewing, heaved convulsively once or twice, and fallen prone across the tabletop.

“Then it must have happened right outside the slot — I mean the inserting of the stuff — and not at the table, at all,” Sarecky told Nelson privately. “Guess he laid it down for a minute while he was drawing his coffee.”

“Absolutely not!” Nelson contradicted. “You’re forgetting it was all wrapped up in wax-paper. How could anyone have opened, then closed it again, without attracting his attention? And if we’re going to suspect the guy with the satchel — and the cap seems to want us to — he was already at the table and all through eating when Avram came over. How could he know ahead of time which table the old guy was going to select?”

“Then how did the stuff get on it? Where did it come from?” the other dick asked helplessly.