The Lady in the Morgue (15 page)

Her eyes, her mouth, her chin were resolute. Crane stared at her admiringly, said, “I sort of go for you.” He leaned over so that his elbows were on his knees. “Look. I just want to find out one thing. Then I'll leave you and your husband alone.”

Her face guarded, she watched him.

He said, “I want to know who Miss Ross really was.”

She shook her head. “I'd like to know myself.”

“Do you think she was a society gal?”

“I don't know.” She handed him her empty glass. “I never had an opportunity to talk with her.” Her voice was grudging. “She was beautiful, though.”

Crane drained his glass, put whiskey in both the glasses and went into the bathroom for water. As he let the cold run into the wash basin he noticed the bottle of hair restorer had been taken from the stool. He opened the medicine cabinet and saw that the bottle had been placed on the top shelf. He brought the filled glasses out to her.

“Do you think your husband would know who she was?” he asked as he gave her the glass.

“I don't think he had any idea she was anybody but Miss Ross.” She peered up at him. “What makes you think she was somebody else?”

“Well, in the first place it's funny nobody claimed her. And, in the second, it's funny somebody would think it worth while to rob the morgue to get her body.”

She drank, agreed. “It is funny.”

“You don't know of any friends she had, or any family?”

“No.”

“Do you think your husband would?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you know why he didn't live with Miss Ross instead of just visiting her?”

“I don't think she would let him live with her.”

He tapped his fingers against his glass. “We don't seem to be covering much ground.” He frowned at her. “How do you happen to be working in that taxi-dance place when you've got three thousand in the bank?”

“Oh, I can't touch that.”

“Why not?”

“Sam gave it to me when he left me.” Her eyebrows curved like the arches in a Romanesque cathedral. “I won't touch a cent of it until he comes back.”

Crane looked at her with admiration. “You've got looks and character, baby.” He lifted his glass in a toast to her. “If he doesn't come back you can send for me.”

“He'll come back, all right.”

“Well, listen, baby. I'm sort of a detective. All I want to do is find out who Miss Ross was. I don't want to hurt your Sam, but I'd like to talk to him. Maybe he can help me.” He glanced at her composed face. “Won't you tell me where I can find him?”

She shook her head.

“Well, tell him this. If he feels like helping me out and at the same time avoiding trouble tell him to get in touch with me at the Sherman Hotel.” He finished his drink, stood up He found he was quite a little drunk. “The. name's William Crane to him but Bill to you, baby.”

Her murky eyes were questioning. “Avoid what trouble?”

“The inquest is still open on Miss Ross' death, and the police would be glad to have him for a witness if I tipped them off.” He swayed slightly.

She didn't seem especially frightened. “If I see him I'll tell him that.” She followed him to the door, stood there beside him. Her hair was fragrant. She said, “Thanks for escorting me home.”

“That's quite all right.” He wondered if he dared kiss her. He decided she'd probably kick him. “You're not afraid to be alone, are you? I mean, if you'd like me to stay I'd …”

“I'm not afraid.”

He nodded sadly. “I didn't think you would be.”

She said, “Well, good-by.”

“Good-by.”

He said, “There's no harm in asking, is there?”

“No. Good-by.”

He reached over and lightly pinched her cheek between thumb and forefinger. “I like you, baby.” He started down the hall, using his left hand as an additional means of locomotion by shoving himself from the wall every time he veered into it. At the end of the corridor he turned to wave to her.

She had already closed her door.

Chapter Eleven

AFTER HE had paid the cab driver at the Randolph Street entrance of the Hotel Sherman Crane paused to appreciate the sunrise. He felt that he was becoming a connoisseur of sunrises, and as one authority to another he spoke to the milkman.

“Pretty nice,” he said.

The milkman was loading cases of empty bottles on his white truck. He held one of the cases for an instant, looked east on Randolph Street. “Yeah,” he agreed, “it's good and red. Only I wish it'd rise in the west once in awhile, just for variety.”

Crane said, “I'll do what I can for you,” and entered the hotel.

In two of the tapestry-backed chairs, asleep, were Williams and O'Malley. Williams had his legs thrust out so that his heels alone touched the floor; his head was thrown back and his mustache quivered a little each time he snored. He awoke with a start when Crane touched his shoulder.

Crane asked, “What's the matter with your bed upstairs?”

“Nothing, except there's a couple of guys in it.”

“Cops?”

O'Malley was awake now. “A flock of 'em, all lookin' for you. They got a warrant.”

“The hell!” Crane's face expressed extreme distaste. “I need some sleep, too.” He thrust his hands in his trouser pockets, glanced at Doc Williams. “What'll I do?”

Williams was unsympathetic. “If you can just keep that nasty old sandman away for a couple of hours we could go out and see the left-handed, red-haired, undertaking gentleman.”

Crane simulated overwhelming vitality. “All right. We'll go. Right now.” He assumed a military posture. “The Queen expects every man to do his part.” He walked over to O'Malley, who had stood up, and embraced him, pretended to kiss his cheeks. “Sir, I wish to thank you for saving my life.”

O'Malley shoved him away, said, “Nuts.”

Williams eyed Crane with disgust. “You can stay drunk the longest …”

“You didn't have to sit up all night with a swell babe, did you?” Crane demanded. “You didn't have her ply you with drinks until your head whirled, did you? You bet you didn't.”

“All right. All right.”

Crane shook his head sadly. “The things a man has to do in the line of duty.” He led the way to the door. “It's ruining my character.”

O'Malley said, “I'll sit up with that Udoni babe any time.”

Once the cab had reached the outer drive and was heading south at forty miles an hour Crane asked:

“Where does this undertaker hang out, Doc?”

“Right by the Hyde Park police station, at 5217 Lake Street. It's called the Star Mortuary. The guy's name is Theodore Connell, and he works the night shift from mid-night until eight o'clock.”

Crane looked at his wrist watch. It was 6:11. He said, “We'll catch him easily.” He spoke to O'Malley. “How'd you ever get out of the jam in that dance hall?”

Suspended over the lake like an Orange Pekoe tea ball on a string, the sun was already uncomfortably warm.

O'Malley replied, “I'm a hero. It seems the dicks wanted that gunsel, Tony, on a murder rap, and they were glad to take what was left after I finished cuffin' him around.” He smiled reminiscently. “My story was that I bumped into them two accidentally on the floor and naturally got sore when they started to swear at me. When Tony pulled a gun I tried to take it away from him, and it went off and shot the Filipino.”

“Kill him?” asked Crane hopefully.

“Naw. You can't kill them Hershey bars. Anyway, some of the dancers backed up my story, and the cops thanked me very politely, and took Tony to the hospital, and tossed the other torpedo in the can.”

Crane nodded. “Naturally, Tony and his pal couldn't tell the police they were sent up there by Mike Paletta to get me.”

“I don't think they wanted to put you on the spot; just pull you in so's Mike could talk to you.” O'Malley grinned again. “You're a popular guy.”

“How'd the police get there so quick?”

“That guy with the bandaged ear—the one you slugged—called them when Paletta's boys got there. He recognized Tony and knew he was going to make trouble.”

“I suppose Tony was the one who shadowed us.”

“Somebody from Paletta's gang.”

With the whish of a sudden exhalation a compact seventy-mile-an-hour electric train on the Illinois Central tracks passed them. The broad drive was dotted with automobiles now, carrying people to seven o'clock jobs. The lake was so calm it looked frozen.

O'Malley was chuckling again.

“You seem to have gotten a lot of fun out of that dance hall,” Crane said.

“I was just thinking about those floosies working there. Boy, were they mad! Somebody stole the dresses of about twenty of them, and they had to go home in their B.V.D.'s.”

Crane said, “I stole 'em.” He told them how he and Miss Udoni had escaped down the fire escape and related his conversation with her. They were both amazed when he told them she was the woman he had been in bed with at the Princess Hotel. He concluded: “She's a nice dame. I may have to go back and see her again.”

“I'll go with you,” O'Malley said.

“No, you won't.”

Doc Williams asked, “How are you going to locate her husband? All you know is that his name is Sam and that he plays in a band.”

“I'm thinking about that.” Crane scratched the back of his neck. His hand still hurt, and he examined his knuckles to see if he had broken them in hitting the man with the bandaged ear. “I got an idea the guy's a swing artist.”

O'Malley said, “I thought you said he was a musician?”

The knuckles seemed sound. Crane turned his hand with a flourish. “You fellows don't know how us musical artists talk. A swing artist is a hot musician.”

After another mile along the lake they turned right on Fifty-third Street, went under the Illinois Central tracks and turned left on Lake Street. It was just 6:30. They came to a stop in front of a two-story, gray-stone building with a smudgy display window, the upper portion of which was decorated with gold lettering, reading STAR MO TUARY. The first R in mortuary was missing.

Groaning, the glass-paned front door opened under Williams' hand. The air in the green-carpeted reception room was musty. There was an odor of floor polish and embalming fluid, aromatic, sweet and sickening. Williams said, “Mr. Connell.” Three-quarter-drawn blinds made the light gloomy.

Williams spoke louder. “Mr. Connell!”

“Maybe he's in the back,” suggested O'Malley.

Under their feet the uneven floor creaked, trembled. At the end of a corridor was a large room with bare walls. A shaft of molasses-colored sunlight angled from an east window, disclosed coffins on the uncarpeted floor. Beside an imitation ebony coffin with ornate silver handles was half sitting, half lying, a man, his head bent so that his chin rested on his chest. Blood from a wound on his neck had pooled on the floor, marooned the seat of his white Palm Beach trousers.

Williams bent over, touched the back of the man's neck, drew his hand away quickly. “Somebody beat us to him.”

“It's the red-haired guy!” O'Malley exclaimed.

Crane said, “Sure it is. How long has he been dead, Doc?”

On hands and knees Williams was examining the floor. “Quite a while. He's cold.” He rolled the body away from the ebony-finished coffin. “I wonder what they cut him with?”

“Looks like a slash from a good-sized knife,” O'Malley observed, examining the red-haired man's throat. “Damn near took his head off.”

There were freckles on the red-haired man's face; his eyebrows were the color of straw after it has been on a stable floor for a time; his ears were large and they stuck out from the sides of his head. He was about thirty years old.

Crane examined his wrist watch again. It was 6:47. He said, “We've got time to take a look around. Doc, you go through the guy's pockets. O'Malley and I'll case the joint.”

They searched through drawers, desk pigeonholes, cabinets, even two cutaways hanging in a closet, but all they found was that a nice funeral with two cars for mourners could be secured from the Star Mortuary for as little as ninety-seven dollars and fifty cents. Crane discovered an imperial quart of Dewar's White Label (his favorite whiskey) standing in the bottom drawer of a maple filing cabinet, and, judging that it was kept there for the use of too affected relatives, he pulled out the loosened cork and took a long drink.

He dropped the bottle, closed his eyes, clutched at his throat and tried to yell, but he couldn't. His vocal muscles were constricted. He could feel the inside wall of his stomach being burned away. He tottered blindly about the room.

O'Malley's eyes goggled in amazed alarm.

Crane staggered to the water cooler, poured glass after glass of tepid water down his throat, spilled some of the liquid on his coat. His breath came in gasps.

“For God's sake!” exclaimed O'Malley. “What's the matter?”

Crane dramatically pointed his free hand at the Dewar's bottle, said between gulps: “Embalming fluid.”

O'Malley's deep laughter, rumbling like a cannon fire, brought Williams on a dead run from the back of the building. His face was indignant. “For the love of Mike, cut it out. You'll wake somebody up.”

Between convulsions O'Malley described Crane's pleased expression at the discovery of the whiskey; the shocked surprise, the pain after the long drink; the blind search for water; but Williams didn't think the incident funny at all.

“There's a murdered guy lying back there,” he said, “and you horse around like a couple of comics in a burlesque show. Besides, we're supposed to be working.”

Crane had a partially filled glass of water in his hand. “I'm dying,” he said. “Do you call that horsing around?”