A. Fair - Owls Don't Blink

“And just what did he do?”

She said, “I was telling him that I was tired of the way he did things, that I couldn’t stand that insane jealousy, and that I wasn’t ever going to see him again.

“The bar was crowded. I didn’t know what he’d do, but I did feel that if he tried to pull a gun or make any threats, there were enough people around to grab him before he could do anything. Even if there weren’t, I was just tired of living in perpetual terror of that man. Until he fell in love with me, he was simply wonderful.”

“You met him through Edna?”

“Yes.”

“How did he feel toward Edna?”

“I think he was — well, perhaps, playing around. I think he picked her up there in Jack O’Leary’s Bar, and they were going together for a while; then Edna told him her troubles, and he worked out this scheme by which she could fleece her husband. That must have been it. I can look back now and put two and two together.”

“But Edna never told you that?”

“No. She never confided in me the real reason she wanted me to take the apartment in her name. Just gave me some excuses as she did you when you first asked her. She didn’t let me know where she was. Paul Nostrander was the only one who knew that, but he claimed he didn’t. Every month Paul would give me enough money to cover all my living expenses, the apartment, clothes, meals, beauty treatments, and all the rest.”

“Did you give him the papers when you were served?”

“No. I tried to, but he wouldn’t take them. He said he had no authority. He told me Edna had simply arranged with him to give me money from a fund she’d left with him. He claimed he didn’t actually know where she was, and had no means of reaching her. He said she’d given him fifteen hundred dollars to apply on my expenses, that the money had nearly all been spent.”

“All right, you told Nostrander where to get off, and he took your purse. Then what?”

“Without a word, he walked out.”

“Pay the check?”

“They don’t have any checks there at Jack O’Leary’s. You pay for the drinks as you get them.”

“So he walked out and left you sitting there?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do?”

“I sat around there for a while, and a couple of soldiers who were on the loose started making eyes at me, and I thought, after all, why not? The boys were going to be shipped somewhere pretty soon. They were entitled to as much of a good time as I could show them, so I smiled back at them. They came over, and we had quite an evening. They were awfully nice boys, but they knew nothing whatever about New Orleans. It was their first night in town. They came from Milwaukee. I took them around and showed them some of the sights, told them stories about the Quarter, drank with them until they were just about able to navigate, and left them.”

“What did you do?”

“I walked home, every single, blessed step of the way.”

“You didn’t take a cab?”

“No. I didn’t have my purse; I didn’t have a cent.”

“And how did you intend to get in if you didn’t have a key?”

“I had a key.”

“I thought you said he took your key.”

“Took one of them, but there’s another key in the bottom of my mailbox. I always leave it there, just in case of an emergency. You see, there’s a spring lock on the door, and sometimes when I run down to the corner to get things from the grocery store, I’ll forget to take my key along, so I always leave an extra one there in the mailbox.”

“What time did you leave the soldiers?”

“Oh, about two o’clock, I guess. Somewhere around there.”

“And you walked home?”

“Yes.”

“What time did you get there?”

“At exactly twenty minutes past two.”

I said, “Why are you so positive in your time? Did you hear a shot?”

“No.”

“What did you hear?”

“I didn’t hear. I saw.”

“What?”

“My friend, Archibald C. Smith.”

I did a little thinking over that one, and said, “Wait a minute. You couldn’t have seen him. He was in New York that night.”

She smiled. “I saw him plainly.”

“What did he say to you? What did you talk about?”

“I didn’t talk with him. I saw him, but he didn’t see me.”

“Where?”

“Down in front of my apartment.”

“When?”

“Just as I’m telling you, at twenty minutes past two.”

“Go ahead,” I said. “What happened?”

She said, “I was very close to the apartment when he came past in a taxicab. He got out of the cab and ran up the three steps to the street door and rang the bell of my apartment.”

“Are you certain it was your apartment?”

“Well, reasonably certain. I could see the position of his finger. I couldn’t see the exact button he was touching, but it was — yes, it must have been my bell he was ringing.”

“And what happened after he found you weren’t home?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why? Didn’t he turn back and see you coming along the sidewalk just a step or two behind him?”

“No.”

“What did he do?”

“He went in.”

“You mean he entered the apartment house?”

“Yes.”

“How did he get in?”

“Somebody in my apartment pushed the buzzer for him.”

“And what did you do?”

“Up to that time I’d thought Paul Nostrander had taken my purse so that I wouldn’t have any money, and so he could go through it and-well, see if there was anything in there, a diary, or perhaps a letter from you, or something of that sort.”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on her. “And after you heard the buzzer sound?”

“Then I knew why he’d really taken it. He d gone up to my apartment, let himself in with my key, and was waiting up there.”

“A delicate approach,” I said.

“It wasn’t entirely that,” she said. “Of course that was part of it. The other part was that he d been accusing me all evening of being intimate with someone You see, the way I’d disappeared had made him feel that way. He’d advertised for me in the paper. A personal ad that had run for almost two years.”

“I know. I saw it.”

“Well, naturally, he thought I’d gone away with some man. I knew it was only a question of time until I’d run into him on the street somewhere, but I felt that the longer it was put off the more chance he’d have to fall in love with someone else and forget me. But he has that peculiar complex some men have — he only wants someone he can’t get. You know how some men are?”

I nodded.

“There he was,” she went on bitterly, “in my apartment, with his gun, and probably about two-thirds drunk, sitting there on the bed, waiting for me, and determined that he was going to find out whether anyone was sufficiently intimate with me to come to my apartment. He’d insisted that I’d promised you that if you’d go out without making any trouble, you could come back later, and — well, you know.”

“And so,” I said, “Archibald C. Smith pressed the doorbell at twenty minutes past two — and walked right into the middle of that situation.”

“Yes — he must have gone on up.”

“And you think Archibald Smith thought you would be in your apartment at that hour of the night, and would answer the bell?”

“Well, he certainly must have thought I’d be there, and the bell would get me up. It was reasonable to suppose that I’d at least pick up the telephone and ask who was there.”

“Did you hear any shot?” I asked.

“No.”

“Would you if one had been fired?”

“I don’t think so, not the way it was muffled by the pillow.”

“What did you do?”