Francis Nevins - Night and Fear

Prints called, all elated. “We’ve got the finest set of trade-marks you ever saw, clear as a bell. If you don’t go to town on ’em. Ed, you’re losing your grip.”

“Outside of his?”

“Sure outside of his. What’re you trying to do, be funny?”

Holmes reported in, after spending all morning casing the neighbors. “He had a bad rep. They all had a hammer handy when I brought up the name. The one next door told me a blonde dame rung her doorbell by mistake one morning about two months ago, asking if he lived there.”

It was the first good news I’d had all day long. Even if it was two months old, at least it meant another candidate.

I needed another candidate, even if it was only a straw one.

“Let’s have her,” I said eagerly.

He opened his notebook, read hieroglyphics that didn’t mean anything to anyone but him. “Tall, blonde, flashy-dressed, nightlife type. Blue eyes. Mole on chin. There was a man waiting outside for her in a car.”

“Did she give you anything on him?”

“Being a dame, she was only interested in this other dame.”

I said, “We’ve got to get that jane, I don’t care if she was only the Fuller Brush lady making her rounds. That the only time she saw her?”

“Only time.”

When I was alone in the room again I called up the license-registration bureau, read from my book: “060210.” That was the car that had dawdled past our place this morning. There had also been a car escorting the blonde, you see.

They gave me: Charles T. Baron, such-and-such an address, resort operator, height 6–1 (well, the guy following Jenny had been sitting down), weight 190 (well, he’d still been sitting down), age 45 (he’d looked younger than that to me, but maybe he’d just had a shave), and so on...

Jordon called me about five, from the Beechwood Inn. He said, “The party is a hostess here, name of Benita Lane.”

“Got any idea what she looks like?”

“I ought to, I’m sitting out there with her right now.”

“Tall, blonde, blue eyes, mole on chin?”

He gasped, “For pete’s sake, what are you, a wizard?”

“No, I’m a captain. You stay with her, get me?”

“I’ve got her going,” he said cheerfully.

“I want her prints,” I said, “and I want ’em as quick as I can get ’em. I’m going to send Holmes out there for contact-man. You get them across to him. Now here’s what else I want, I don’t care how you manage it, but these’re the things I gotta have: I want to know what perfume she goes in for. I want to know if she owns any colored handkerchiefs with animals’ heads on the corners. I want to know if she’s got a weakness for chocolate bars. I want to know if she’s short a pair of shoes, and why. I’ll hold off until I hear from you. If I’m not here, phone me at my house. If you want me to send out somebody to double up on it with you, say so.”

He whined, almost like a kid, “Aw, don’t make me divvy this up with anyone, Cap; this is too good to split.”

“Well, see that you don’t muff it,” I warned him.

She’d be good for weeks, to wave in front of my men and the commissioner. I could get something to hold her on, even if it was only knowing Trinker, and hold — and hold — maybe until the case curled up and died of old age. It was a dirty trick but — place yourself in my shoes.

Holmes was back in under an hour. He must have just stuck his head in the place, gulped a beer, and beat it out again. He had a burnished metal mirror from her kit, about the most perfect surface for taking prints there is.

It seemed another hour before I got the report from Prints. It must have been much less than that, since all they had to do was compare the two sets under the slide. In the meantime I’d walked five miles around my desk.

The phone rang and I jumped.

“Doesn’t check,” Prints said. “Not at all similar to the ones we got up at Trinker’s place.”

Jordan’s second call came right on top of that, to give me the knockout-blow. “I’m up in her place now, Cap, upstairs over the Inn. She’s down there doing a number for the supper-trade, and she’s bringing up sandwiches and drinks.”

“I’m not interested in your social life,” I snapped.

He went on:

“The kind of gas she uses on her engine is called: gardenia. I promised to buy her a bottle. She can’t eat anything sweet, her teeth are on the blink. All her hanks are white with just her initials on ’em. The only thing I haven’t turned up yet is about the kicks. She admits she knows Trinker, but she doesn’t know he’s dead yet, I can tell that by the way she talks. Furthermore, she was singing downstairs here at six last night, like she is now, I found that out from the waiters. How’m I doing, Cap?”

I felt like saying, “You’re cutting my heart out.” But I managed a hollow, “Great stuff. Stick with it. Maybe we’ll pull her shortly, just on general principle.”

He sounded dubious. “Gee, I hope you pull her soon. I’m a married man, and I’m practically down for the count now.” He hung up abruptly, as though he’d heard her coming back.

I couldn’t stand it around the precinct any more after that. I flung them the usual, “Call me home if there are any new developments,” and got out. That got me home ahead of my usual time, so they weren’t expecting me. Maggie must have been out marketing. The kid was there, standing where the phone was, with her back to me. The front door didn’t make any noise opening. I could see her in there, in the room, from where I was, standing in the door. Her voice reached me; it sounded strained, furry with panic. “What do you want to see me about?”

Blackmail! That was the thought that exploded in my brain like a ghastly star-shell. Somebody had seen her — last night; somebody was threatening her with exposure.

Her voice dropped in defeated acquiescence. “The bandstand beside the lake, in the park... Yes, I know where it is... All right — I’ll come.”

She must have sensed me standing there out in the hall. Her elbow hitched abruptly and there was a click. I heard her give a frightened intake of breath. She didn’t turn around, just stood there with her head averted.

I walked slowly up behind her. I rested both my hands on her shoulders. I could feel the spasmodic shiver course up her spine.

“Who was that?”

“A boy I know in school.”

I made her turn around and look at me — but not roughly, gently. She didn’t want to, resisted, but I made her. I said, “Let me help you, little Jenny. That’s what I’m for.”

I couldn’t get a word out of her. A greater terror held her mute. Just a haunted look on her face, of one on the edge of an abyss. I dropped my arms finally, turned away. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was better not to talk about it, maybe it was better to finish it out in pantomime. To put it into words between us was to give it an even more ghastly reality than it already had.

Maggie came in, bustled around. The meal was an awful thing. We just sat there like two people in the line-up. I would have given anything for Maggie’s obliviousness, peace of mind. She said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with you two, after I go to all the trouble of cooking....” Afterwards she filled a basket full of jellies and things, said she was going to help out at her church bazaar or something like that.

I heard her go but it was like being in a trance. And then Endicott and his girl were left alone. An old war-horse who had had the tables turned on him, by some dirty trick of fate.

The phone rang again, and she heaved above her chair. Well, I kind of jolted too, why should I lie about it? I went over to it, but it was only Holmes. “Hey, Cap, Jordan hasn’t called back any more from the Beechwood. Don’t you think we should have heard from him again by now? He may be in a jam.”