ALM06 Who Killed the Husband? (13 page)

"The elevator and the hall boys told me that Al worked at his photography in the place. He had many visitors day and night. Sometimes they made so much noise at night the other tenants complained. After all his visitors had gone, though it might be three or four in the morning, Al would change into his day clothes and go out whistling. Wouldn't return until late the next day. Was never there week ends, yet he didn't take a bag when he started out."

"What does this picture suggest to you?" asked Lee. "Why, that he had another hangout, and a woman waiting for him. It is she who is hiding him now."

"Obviously."

"If I only had a description of that woman!"

"Let us look over the photographs that were found in his place," suggested Lee.

Loasby sent for the photographs and they were presently put on his desk. The prints were contained in hundreds of manila envelopes filed alphabetically in two drawers. Al had generally used a tiny Leica which could be carried in his pocket; also there were many enlargements of the original negatives. Each envelope was endorsed with the name of its subject and there was a date on the back of each picture. Lee thumbed them over rapidly. Many of the greatest names in New York were included. He was surprised to find a picture of himself for he did not know that he had ever been the object of Al Yohe's attentions. It had been taken in La Sourabaya and made him look like a cross between an underdone apple dumpling and a baldheaded owl. He showed it to Loasby with a laugh.

"Let me destroy that," said Loasby scandalized.

"Not at all," said Lee putting it back in its envelope. "It adds to the gaiety of nations."

"Am I in there?" demanded the handsome Inspector apprehensively.

"No," said Lee, "I have been through the Ls."

At the back of the second drawer he found a bulky envelope without endorsement. He emptied the contents on the desk and went over the scores of little prints one by one. These, as he had hoped, proved to be the pictures Al had taken for his own amusement; views of New York, street scenes, odd characters--and the little wife!

"There's the girl," said Lee, tossing it over. "How can you be so sure?" said Loasby.

"She's the only girl in the lot who is not named."

Loasby studied her through his magnifying glass. "She's pretty," he said, "but so simple-looking. You wouldn't think Al Yohe would fall for that after the queens he was accustomed to."

"How little you know of human nature!" said Lee grinning. "Here's another of her...and another."

"A sweet little thing," said Loasby.

Finally Lee found a prize; a picture of Charlotte pushing a baby carriage. The baby unfortunately was asleep and did not show. "Look at this one!" he cried. "Al Yohe is married to the girl and they have a baby!"

"Your mind jumps to conclusions like a grasshopper!" grumbled Loasby. However, he had a great respect for Lee's mind, and was prepared to believe what he was told.

"Here's a picture of the baby," said Lee, tossing over another print. "The spitting image of AL"

Loasby studied it. "Damned if I can see it."

"Examine the eyes. It's the way the upper lid is folded that gives Al such a beguiling look, and the little fellow has it, too."

"How do you know it's a boy?"

"Oh, if you've had any experience of babies you can always tell." Lee's conscience felt easier now because Loasby was in possession of as much knowledge as he had himself; it was up to him to use it.

Among the pictures Lee found one of Al himself that had been enlarged. The young man was shown seated sideways on a wide window sill silhouetted against the light. The house across the street showed faintly in the background. Al's hair was gracefully touseled, his shirt open at the throat. "Al at his ease in his own place," Lee said, exhibiting it. "Let us see what this tells us."

"There are millions of windows in New York," grumbled Loasby.

"Not exactly like this window."

"It may not even be in New York."

"But it is New York. I'll prove that to you directly. Al would never choose a suburban hide-out. The transit facilities are not good enough at three or four o'clock in the morning."

"It might be Brooklyn."

"No. For Al to be continually taxiing over to Brooklyn in the small hours would leave too broad a trail. Why should he waste all that time when there are good places in Manhattan?" Lee went over the pictures again and found two that represented the interior of the same room without the inclusion of figures. The first showed a bit of the same window; the second a side wall of the room with a marble mantel. It was an old-fashioned room but luxuriously furnished. There was a "steeple" clock on the mantel. Lee spread the three pictures before him. "Now, we've got something to go on!" he said.

Loasby grinned incredulously. "Do you actually think you can locate that room from a study of the interior?"

"Let's see. For forty years it has been my principal diversion to mosey around this town. I know it pretty well...Notice the width of the window seat; ten or twelve inches; this house was built in the days when walls were walls, in the late 1870's, say, or the early 1880's. The style of the interior woodwork and the mantel bears out the date. It is not a one-family house but a flat; one of the walk-up flats which began to be built at that period. It has a brownstone front..."

"The front doesn't show in the photographs."

"All the houses built for respectable people at that time had brownstone fronts. This is obviously not a tenement house. Tenement houses may be much older, of course."

"How do you know it's a flat, anyhow?"

"In a dwelling house they would never put in so elaborate a mantel on the top floor."

"Wait a minute! What do you mean, top floor?"

Lee explained patiently. "I know it by the house across the street. Even at that distance the ground floor does not come into the picture. Al's flat must be on the fourth or fifth story."

"Why not higher?"

"The walk-up flats of that period were not built any higher. Elevator flats began to come in about 1888." Lee made a new study of the photographs. "It would be natural for Al to rent a walk-up flat," he continued, half to himself, "even if the little wife had to carry the baby up and down stairs. If there were hall boys or elevator boys the risk of their recognizing him would be too great...An old house but well kept up; notice the parquet floor, Loasby. Al has to pay a good rent for it because it is still in a smart neighborhood."

"Are there any old houses in smart neighorhoods?"

"Surely. An old house will often be left standing next door to a swanky apartment house to protect its light on that side."

Loasby came around the desk to study the pictures over Lee's shoulder. "This house is on one of the wider streets," he said, "judging by the distance of the house across the street."

"Right," said Lee, smiling.

"It might be West Fifty-seventh Street. That's one of the widest streets and it has both old and new houses. Also Seventh-ninth, Eighty-sixth and Ninety-sixth are all wide."

"They weren't built upon as early as 1880."

"Then let's go over and take a look through Fifty-seventh."

Lee shook his head. "This is a street running north and south."

"How do you know that?"

"Thanks to Al's methodical habits. All these photographs of the room are dated the same day, May 23rd. I am assuming that they were taken about the same hour. Notice the clock on the mantel; quarter to one. Now note that as Al sits sideways on the window sill the sun is just coming around into his face. That's why he placed himself in that position. Opposite his face the window frame is in shadow. At one o'clock in the afternoon that must be a window on the east side of a street running north and south."

"My God!" murmured Loasby. After a moment he went on: "That complicates the search because all the north and south avenues are wider than the cross streets."

"Right, but not as wide as this one. Take a good look at the picture, Loasby. Notice the distance of the house across the way. There are only two north and south streets as wide as this indicates; upper Broadway on the West side and Park Avenue on the East."

"That's right," said Loasby excitedly. "But there's also the Grand Concourse in the Bronx."

"A new street. It has no houses as old as this one...Upper Broadway is out, too."

"Why?

"In the 1880's it was called the Boulevard and was lined with country houses. It never had any buildings like this one."

"Then it's on Park Avenue!" said Loasby excitedly. Lee smiled.

Loasby's face fell. "No, it won't do, Mr. Mappin." He rapped the photograph. "You said yourself this was built for a middle-class house. There were never any middle-class houses on Park Avenue."

Lee took a pinch of snuff. "You forget, Loasby. Park Avenue was not considered a desirable street in 1880. The top of the railway tunnel was open and the locomotives filled the air with smoke and sulphurous fumes. It was not until the railway was electrified that Park Avenue began to grow exclusive."

"It's three miles long," said Loasby glumly. "Surely; but any house built as long ago as 1880 will stick out like a sore finger."

Loasby got up. "Well, let's put it to the test." He did not sound hopeful.

"We mustn't use a car with police plates," said Lee. "I suggest you order a convertible town car. With the top up we can see without being seen as we drive through the streets."

"Right."

A few minutes later they were on their way. Loasby was in civilian clothes. Deprived of his usual motorcycle escort with blaring sirens, the chauffeur had to take his chance with the traffic and the Inspector became very impatient at the slowness of their progress. It was a long way uptown.

"By God! what a lot of imbecile drivers there are in the streets!" he cried.

Lee smiled.

At Thirty-third Street Lee suggested that their chauffeur use the motor tunnel. "We don't need to bother with this part of Park Avenue. Murray Hill has always been fashionable; there were never any middle-class flat houses. Let's begin on the other side of Grand Central."

Issuing from the tunnel at Fortieth Street, they crossed the viaduct, encircled Grand Central Station, and dove under the arches of the New York Central Building beyond. Issuing at Forty-sixth Street, the magnificent vista of Park Avenue stretched away to the north before them. For the first few blocks the street was built solid on both sides with palatial apartment houses, hotels, and an occasional grand church. Above Fifty-ninth Street, relics of the past began to appear between the modern buildings and the chauffeur was instructed to slow up and keep as close as possible to the curb.

Here and there Lee was able to point out an old building that answered in a general way to what they were looking for, but not exactly. Loasby began to get excited.

"There are things in New York you never see until they're pointed out to you," he said sententiously.

They drove on slowly for a mile and a half further. Suddenly Lee said with complete confidence, "There it is!"

He was pointing to a pair of old-fashioned flat houses with brownstone fronts in the middle of the block between Eighty-seventh and Eighty-eighth Streets. Obviously they had been left standing to save the light of two huge modern apartment houses, one on each corner. The old houses had neighborhood stores at the street level. Though out of date, they were well kept up. It could be seen by the curtains at the windows that well-to-do people lived in them.

"How are you so sure it's one of these?" demanded Loasby.

"Look at the apartment house across the street. That's the building in the background of the photograph."

Their chauffeur found a parking space at the curb. Loasby was all keyed up now. "I might take a look at the names in the vestibule," he suggested.

"Won't do you any good," said Lee calmly. "You certainly won't find the name of Yohe there." He looked up and down the street. "Judging from the number of babies I see, this is the fashionable hour for their parade. If Mrs. Yohe has the baby out for an airing, she'll be bringing him home presently to be fed."

They waited; Lee watching the sidewalk throng with a half smile; Loasby chewing a cigar and fidgeting.

In the end, up at the corner Lee saw Charlotte coming. She was pushing a folding gocart with the baby in it. He waited a moment, savoring his triumph, then said very casually:

"Here she comes, Inspector."

Loasby's full blue eyes seemed to start from his head. "My God, it's miraculous!"

Lee was helping himself to a pinch of snuff. "Elementary, my dear Watson," he murmured.

"What's that?"

"Nothing. I was only talking to myself."

Charlotte, with the deft, assured movements of the young mother, lifted little Alastair from the gocart and planted him on the house step. She folded the cart, and picking up the baby, seated him within her arm, took the handle of the cart in her free hand, and disappeared within the house.

"What a sweet little mother!" murmured Loasby. "Seems a kind of a shame!"