ALM06 Who Killed the Husband? (16 page)

"This is some more of the work of that brute, Al Yohe!" cried Loasby.

Lee shook his head. "Impossible!"

"Why couldn't it have been?"

"You forget that Al Yohe admitted to me he was in the Gartrey apartment at the moment Jules Gartrey was shot. In fact, his story bore out that of Hawkins in every particular. What good would it do him to put the old man out of the way?"

Loasby stared at Lee with widening eyes. "Then...then, it must have been done at the order of that love-crazed woman! The most prominent woman in New York. My God, Mr. Mappin, this will blow off the roof of the town!"

Lee shrugged. "She's just a woman like any other!"

"We could never in the world convict her!"

Lee's lips were pressed out in a thin line. "I promise you I will, if she's guilty!"

"Will you come down to Philly with me?"

"No. There's nothing for me there. I'll go over the findings with you when you return."

Loasby hastened away.

Lee continued to pace the living room. "Poor old man!" he murmured. "His only crime was that he told the truth!"

Chapter 13

The Philadelphia murder occurred just at the moment when the Gartrey case was beginning to lose some of its first impetus in the press for lack of fresh fuel. On the following morning it blazed anew across the headlines of America in four-inch type. There was a kind of ghoulish joy in the reporting of the news. To the newspapers it was like a gift from heaven.

The printed description of the killer reminded everybody of Al Yohe, and the public (led by the press) instantly made up its mind that Al had added this second murder to his first. The police were roundly abused for allowing so dangerous a man to remain at large. A threatening undertone was heard in the angry mutterings of the street crowds. The electric chair was too good for such an inhuman wretch. Citizens who ought to have known better, expressed themselves in the newspapers to the effect that anybody who might come face to face with Al Yohe would be performing a public service by shooting him down.

Lee, reading all this, thought: "If Al were to call me up today, I would not dare advise him to give himself up."

He made up his mind to go and see Charlotte as soon as he had breakfasted. Lee's heart was very tender for the little wife. The poor thing had been through such frightful trials during the past few days that these hideous stories might well finish her.

It was about ten when he alighted in front of the flat on Park Avenue. He was very thankful that no hint of Charlotte's existence had as yet got into the newspapers. There was no crowd on the sidewalk. Upstairs the door of the apartment was opened to him by a plain-clothes man with an eager expression. The man's face fell when he saw who it was, and Lee smiled.

"Did you think your bird had come home to roost?"

"Well, I was hoping it might be something in the shape of a clue," the man grumbled.

"I want to talk to Mrs. Yohe."

"She's up on the roof with the kid. Go right up."

The last flight of stairs brought Lee out on the roof. It was a beautiful morning and warm for the season. His eyes took in the false floor protecting the roof proper; the posts and the lines strung from side to side for the tenants' washing. On either hand, an immense modern apartment house rose to the sky; a murmur of traffic came up from the street.

Charlotte was seated on the coping of the low wall that separated the roofs of the two smaller houses. The baby slept in his gocart before her. The girl did not immediately perceive Lee. She was knitting some sort of little garment of blue wool, and to Lee's astonishment her face was calm. Yet she had read the newspapers, for one of them lay at her feet. On the other side of the roof sat another plain-clothes man, bored and yawning. Lee thought: Wants to make sure she gets no message by carrier pigeon. All of Inspector Loasby's men knew Lee by sight, and this officer made no attempt to interfere between him and Charlotte.

Charlotte arose at Lee's approach, smiling delightfully, and flushing pink with pleasure. "Mr. Mappin! What a nice surprise! How good of you to come and see me!"

Lee was more than a little taken aback. She looked adorable. "Well...I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"I'm all right," she said with a lift of her chin. "I have to keep cheerful on Lester's account. The little fellow feels it when I give way...I don't like to go down in the street," she continued, "because the neighbors know that this house is being watched by the police, though they don't know why. I don't want anybody to connect it with Lester and me. Lester gets good air up here, and I can order anything I need for the house by telephone. Of course, it's a bore to have the police around all the time, but they're not bad fellows. They make it as easy as they can for me."

"Hum!" said Lee, caressing his chin. He sat down beside her. "Will it wake the young fellow if we talk?"

She shook her head. "No fear! He will sleep until his hour is up, though the heavens fall!"

"Hum!" said Lee again. "I see you've read the newspaper."

She poked it with her foot. "Yes. Such stuff!"

"I came to tell you," said Lee, "that I know, and the police know, that Al had nothing to do with what happened in Philadelphia last night."

She turned pink again. "It was kind of you to think of me, but as far as I'm concerned the assurance wasn't necessary." She smiled suddenly and bit her lip as at some humorous recollection.

Lee wondered what was going through her mind. "Even so," he said, "these ugly stories about Al must have distressed you."

"Oh, I don't pay any attention to what I read in the papers, Mr. Mappin. I knew that Al couldn't have been in Philadelphia at six o'clock last night."

"How?"

She laughed outright. "Because he was with me in New York until after four!"

Lee stared. "Excuse me," he said, "but I'll be damned!...
Where
 could you have seen him yesterday?...No, don't tell me," he quickly amended, "for after all, I'm working with the police."

"I don't mind telling you," she said, "because we won't meet again in the same place. It was in Central Park."

"What about your watchdogs?"

She laughed. "There was only one of them. I gave him the slip."

"How were you able to make a date to meet Al?"

"There was no date. It was this way. We were out of money and Al had gone out to get some."

"Where was he going to get it?"

Charlotte's lips closed tight. "I mustn't tell you that."

"Well, go on."

"There is a certain unfrequented spot in the park that Al and I call ours. I kept thinking that he might come there to look for me, so I asked my watchdogs, as you call them, if I could take Lester for his usual walk up and down the avenue, and they said yes. One of them carried Lester downstairs for me. Well, when we set off I took care never to look behind me, but I knew perfectly well that the man was following me. At Eighty-sixth and Park there is a big store that has two entrances, one on the avenue side, one on the street. At the avenue side I lifted Lester up and went in, leaving the gocart at the door. Outside the other entrance there's a taxicab stand, so I just got in a taxi and told the driver to take me in Central Park. He had to drive back to Park Avenue before he could turn and I saw my policeman watching the gocart and knew I was safe from being followed. So I went to our certain place in Central Park, and sure enough, Al came along..."

"Good God!" ejaculated Lee. "Disguised?"

"A little bit. But I knew him at once." Her laugh sounded. "Oh, it was clever! Nobody but Al would ever have thought of anything so simple!"

"Was he alone?" asked Lee grimly.

She hesitated. "I don't think I'd better answer that."

Lee thought: Then he was not alone!

"He sat down beside me," Charlotte continued, "and we talked. He was mighty thankful to see me. He gave me money and also the key to our safe deposit box. He told me how to cut some coupons if I needed more money. Lester was so glad to see his daddy, too. Al wasn't so much disguised but the baby knew him. He adores his father. I wouldn't let Al stay but a few minutes. We weren't far from Eighty-sixth Street and there was just a chance that one of the watchdogs might stumble on the spot. I drove back to the side entrance of the store in another taxi and when I came out of the Park Avenue entrance, there the man was, still watching the gocart. I made out not to see him. The whole thing didn't take more than half an hour, so I walked the baby up and down the street for a while before taking him in."

"You're a clever woman, my dear," said Lee soberly. "I am sorry to see you playing a losing game." Charlotte merely looked obstinate.

"Al can keep up this merry game of hide-and-seek for a while, but it can only have one end."

"Aren't you working for him?" she said.

"I am working to discover the truth."

"Well, if he didn't have anything to do with this Philadelphia murder, doesn't that prove that he didn't..."

"Robert Hawkins was probably killed by some friend of Al's who supposed that Hawkin's death would help Al."

"You mean that woman," Charlotte said coolly. "You are right, of course. And it was she who killed Jules Gartrey. I am surprised that you can't see that."

"Why should she?" asked Lee mildly.

"Because it was hateful to have to live with him. He hampered her liberty...And by his death she becomes one of the richest women in the country and free!"

"If she hired a man to put Hawkins out of the way, she was putting herself in the murderer's power for life."

Charlotte shook her head. "No. Because the murderer wouldn't dare say anything. And, anyway, she's a beautiful woman; she's able to reduce men to a slavish obedience."

"I'm not saying you're not right," said Lee.

There was a silence. The endless murmur of traffic in Park Avenue came up to them, ceased abruptly as the lights changed; commenced again. Lee watched a skywriter, a black speck against the blue, darting, turning, spinning out his gigantic white script. Charlotte's needles twinkled and clicked. Her lips were tight. She said at last:

"Do you know what I think? I think the story of Lester and me ought to be published in the papers."

"Good God, no!" cried Lee involuntarily.

"If that woman learned that Al had a wife and baby, it would put her in such a fury of rage that the truth might come out."

"But, my dear child, think what it would mean! Life would become impossible for you and the baby!"

Charlotte's chin went up again. "I could stand it. As for Lester, he's too young to know what's going on, thank God!" She bent over the gocart. "He still thinks the world is full of kindness and love."

"Have you discussed this with Al?" asked Lee.

"No, indeed. He would never consent to such a thing. He wants to spare me. But if I was sure it was the right thing to do, I would act without consulting him."

Lee laid a hand on hers. "No, my dear, no! Your position is difficult enough as it is!"

Lee continued on to his office. There he found Fanny Parran and Judy Bowles holding court for a dozen newspaper reporters. Ordinarily, the sight would have pleased him, for he was proud of the attractiveness of his office assistants and he liked to see them enjoying themselves. Lee insisted that he was an amateur and, as such, he said, no speeding-up process was necessary in his office. Consequently, Fanny and Judy adored their jobs. But this morning the gay wise-cracking back and forth made Lee sore. He thought ruefully: This damned case is spoiling my sunny nature!

Tom Cottar of the 
Herald Tribune
 acted as spokesman for the others: "Mr. Mappin, what do you think of this Philadelphia murder?"

"What a foolish question!" said Lee sharply. "A brutal, cold-blooded crime! What would you expect me to think of it?"

"Do you believe that Al Yohe had a hand in it?"

"I never express an opinion as to a man's guilt until after he is tried."

"Nobody but Al Yohe had any interest in Hawkins' death."

"The officer who saw the killer asserts that it was not Al Yohe."

"Maybe the cop was just trying to save his face."

"Maybe. But there is also another possibility."

"We are aware of it," said Tom Cottar dryly, "but we're not allowed to say anything about that." Lee shrugged.

He got rid of them at last. They went away and each cooked up his own story of the interview in which Lee had not admitted anything.

Fanny was as sweet as peaches toward her employer this morning. She was a little uneasy, Lee saw, and keen to find out what he was up to. She said casually: "I called you at eleven, Pop, but Jermyn said you'd been gone for an hour."

Lee kept an impassive face. "What did you want?"

"Inspector Loasby phoned to say he had returned to New York and would like to see you at his office. Or, if that was not convenient, he'd come up here."

"I'll go down to Headquarters," said Lee.