Death of an Old Sinner (9 page)

Jimmie agreed entirely. The funeral would be set for Monday. Meanwhile, he agreed also that it was best for the police to give the General’s room the usual treatment where there is a chance of murder, especially since the two unidentified people who had brought him home, a man and a woman, had accompanied him upstairs. It was decided also, that since there was an accommodation available, Mrs. Norris should stay the night at the Mulvany.

Mr. Tully then addressed himself to her: “While the boss and Mr. Jarvis are winding up their business, would you do me the pleasure of a cup of tea and a bit of talk?”

“I would dearly love the cup of tea,” she said bluntly. In the elevator, she tried to remember what she could of the detective from Jimmie’s days as his superior. “Do you still live in the Bronx, Mr. Tully?”

“I do,” he said, pleased that she remembered. “With my sister, you know, me being a widower fifteen years.”

“Ha!” she said. “I’m widowed over forty years myself. A sailor he was, lost at sea.”

The elevator operator looked around at them.

“Keep your eyes on your buttons,” Tully said. The elevator drew to a stop. “Were you that curious, young man, when you took General Jarvis upstairs?”

“I didn’t take him, sir.”

“Somebody else on duty?”

The boy bit his lip a moment as though debating the advisability of the truth. He plunged into it. “You see, sir, there weren’t many people in the lobby. It’s the lull between dinner and after theatre at that hour, and just as they were getting into the elevator, right there by the ashstand—” he pointed to the stone jar of sand a few feet before them—“I saw a bill, a two dollar bill it turned out. I stuck the rod in the door and went to pick it up. Maybe a minute was all ‘There’s another one,’ the fellow says, and I looked around. They were in the elevator by then, you see, and before I knew what was happening, he says, ‘Never mind, sonny. I’ll take it up.’ ”

“Sonny,” Jasper repeated.

“I don’t know why he called me that, sir.” The boy was over six feet.

“Because you’re so bright,” Tully said. “I suppose you had to walk up to the fifth floor then and get your machine?”

“Yes.”

“And they were out of sight by then?”

“No, sir. They were just going into the room, and I spoke out: ‘You shouldn’t ever do that, sir. It’s not allowed.’ Something like that, I said.”

“Did he answer you?”

“I don’t know whether you could call it an answer or not. He made a dirty gesture.”

Tully gave an almost imperceptible wink to Mrs. Norris, but he pulled a longer face on the operator. “Did you bring them down later?”

“No, sir. They must have left when I was on my relief—or walked.”

“What did they look like?”

Someone upstairs wanted down and the buzzer sounded. “The woman was fiftyish. I could smell her perfume in the elevator. Kind of beat-up pretty. Blond. He was strong looking, bossy, quick.”

“What would you say he did for a living?”

“Circus maybe. I better go up, sir. Maybe he was a fight trainer. May I go or I’ll be reported?”

“Let me have your two dollar bill,” Tully said.

“I’d like to keep it for a souvenir,” the boy said.

Tully put his hand in his pocket. “Here’s a three dollar denomination. It’s better. They aren’t making them any more.”

The young man was almost through the exchange before he realized that he was being ribbed. “Wise guy,” he said, “sir!”

Mr. Tully put his hand beneath Mrs. Norris’ elbow and steered her toward the drugstore. It was the only place of non-alcoholic refreshment open at that hour. “Kind of beat-up pretty,” he murmured, “sweet smelling. Like a stepped-on rose, I guess.”

The brightness of the chromium-streamed shop was a shock after the sedate softness of the Mulvany’s lobby lights. Mr. Tully ordered tea for two with a double order of tea bags, and sat opposite her in a booth. He had to apologize for knocking into her with his bony knees. His legs were hard to arrange in close quarters. And looking into his deeply lined face, Mrs. Norris wondered if ever she had seen a man so homely.

“Lost at sea, was he?” Mr. Tully said then. “Well, it’s a clean grave and deep, as my mother used to say.”

“Was she Irish?” Mrs. Norris inquired.

“She was.”

“The Irish have a great fear of shallow graves,” she observed.

“That’s a fact,” he admitted, and thought about it—or something else. He was not a man to rush a phrase. Their tea came then. “I suppose it’s because it’s a stony country. A drop or a squeeze, Mrs. Norris? Milk or lemon?”

Oh, there was a devil in him. “Neat,” she said.

And a little twitch trembled his eyebrow. “Am I wrong in thinking you would debate the General’s being drunk?”

“Him being as drunk as that prig of a desk clerk said, oh yes. I would debate that. He was a man of uncommon experience in many things, including the bottle.”

Tully nodded. “Of course if he was sick now, that would be something else, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose. But he had a good hold of himself, if you know what I mean, Mr. Tully. He wasn’t one to dribble his frailties like a mewling child.”

Tully drank deeply of the scalding tea. He was as leathery inside as out. “And he did have a spray of eloquent abuse for the desk clerk as he accounts it,” the investigator said. “A perplexing affair altogether. It wouldn’t bother me half so much, you know, if the two who brought him home weren’t so skittish. Would you mind sitting in while I talk with that clerk, Mrs. Norris? I don’t think it would hurt a bit to give him an extra going over tonight.”

T
HE CLERK COMPLAINED OF
having already told his story to the precinct men and a man from Homicide. Also, he was due to have gone off duty an hour before, having come on at noon.

“Then you were here when General Jarvis checked in,” Tully remarked.

“I was.”

“Sober?”

“I do not drink, sir.”

Tully sighed. “Was the General sober, by those exemplary standards of yours?”

“Perfectly.”

“And when he went out again, a few minutes before five wasn’t it—was he sober then?”

“I was busy then, but there was nothing abusive in his manner.” The young man smoothed his hair.

“So we come to the General’s return—when he was abusive. Between eight-thirty and nine, and roaring drunk. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Loud drunk,” the clerk qualified, with a look at Mrs. Norris that seemed to credit her with the qualification.

“Could he stand up?”

“With difficulty. And his companions were almost as drunk.”

“Ah yes, the companions,” Tully said. They were sitting in the manager’s office, the three of them, the clerk on the edge of his chair. “Why don’t you relax a bit and tell it—say, the way you will when you get home tonight.”

“If I get home tonight, I shall go straight to bed, sir.”

“Too bad,” Tully drawled. “Tell us about the woman with the General.”

“Well, I’d say she was oh,—I can’t judge a woman’s age…old young or young old!” He fussed with his hands, describing the inadequacy of his speech.

Mrs. Norris leaned forward. “Do you know what a flapper was?”

“Exactly!” the clerk cried. “Thank you very much, madam. And I thought she had a crying jag on at first. In fact she as much as told me she’d been crying. You see, the General upset me terribly with his profanity—just standing there, letting it fall out of his mouth like. I couldn’t stand to look at him.” The picture made Mrs. Norris and Tully exchange glances. “I gave the precinct officer a verbatim account. You don’t want me to go over that again in front of the lady?”

“God forbid,” Tully said.

“And the, the flapper—when she got his key, she said: ‘He’s been sayin’ things like that to me all night, so don’t you pay him no mind.’ ” The clerk imitated her drawl.

“Sounds like a southern lady, don’t it, Mrs. Norris?” Tully said.

Mrs. Norris nodded, and bit her own lip. It sounded like a voice she herself had heard once or twice before, and once that very morning: “Tell him to please call his broker’s office,” with the “please” sort of drawn out. “Do you mean to say he wasn’t able to walk up and get the key himself?” she asked then.

“Maybe he was able if you say so, madam, but he just stood there leaning on the man and said: “Give the lady the key to my suite you unspeakable—unspeakable—unspeakable.”

“Any witness besides yourself?”

“Oh, yes. The telephone operator, Miss Matson. There were guests in the lounge. Our clientele are not the kind to stare. I didn’t want to delay him. I gave her the key immediately.”

“The man—what would you say he does for a living?” Tully asked.

“Why…a salesman, I’d say. Gadgets, maybe to penny arcades. Or maybe juke box records.”

“Kind of sharp, huh?”

“Not sharp exactly, but terribly hep.”

Tully gave a sniff that wrinkled his nose. “Contemporary of hers or the General’s?”

“Closer to her, officer, unless he was tremendously well preserved.”

“He’ll probably turn out to be a Five Star General himself,” the detective said, gathering his legs under him. “I don’t suppose anybody called anybody else by name?”

“She called the General: Ransom, I know that, sir.”

Mrs. Norris gave a little moan. She could not hold it back.

Tully almost covered it, complaining of age as he got to his feet. “All right, my lad. Let us have the key to Mrs. Norris’ room, and we’ll give you the green light for home.”

“You’re very lucky, madam,” the clerk said, when they had gone out to where his relief man was on duty and got her the key to 512. “There’s only the one room vacant on five.”

“It’s queer, some people’s notion of luck,” Tully said, rocking back and forth, his hands in his pockets. “I heard somebody the other day sympathizing with the bad luck of English hangmen. They’re going to be out of work soon.”

The clerk gave Mrs. Norris’ key into the detective’s hand, and looked up at him with a truly cherubic face. “I dare say they’ll find other employment when they get to know the ropes, sir. Good night.”

Tully’s face broke into a slow smile. “Bull’s-eye,” he said. There was nothing in all the world as unpredictable as the human being, he thought.

“Excuse me, young man,” Mrs. Norris laid her hand on the clerk’s sleeve. “Just one more question. You’ve been very patient. Was the General carrying anything?”

“I don’t think so, madam. But the lady was, I remember it now: a black sort of case, maybe twelve inches long. If I were asked to speculate, I’d say a half dozen steak knives.”

Mrs. Norris nodded. “It was the General’s medals,” she explained, thinking he deserved to know it. “So,” she said, as much to herself as to Tully on their way upstairs, “he didn’t get them till the last minute.”

“Did he keep them in a safe?” Tully ventured.

“They were as often in a pawnshop as they were at home. And I was thinking to myself coming in the car tonight—it would take a particular type of merchant to loan much money on them. Their metal worth can’t be more than a few dollars.”

“That will bear looking into,” Tully said. He put the key in her door, tried to turn it, and discovered the door already unlocked. He was unostentatiously careful, lighting the wall switch, and looking over the room, not wanting to alarm her. Only a forgetful chambermaid, he decided, and put the key in Mrs. Norris’ hand. “Goodnight. I hope we meet again soon.”

When Mrs. Norris lifted her head to speak to him, a scent of perfume wafted under her nose. She caught the detective’s arm and crinkled her nose as she sniffed about the room. Tully then got a whiff of it, too. Without a doubt someone wearing perfume had been in the room not long ago, and they both remembered the operator’s remarking that he could smell the scent of the General’s companion after she had left the elevator. Questioned now, he could not even smell perfume in the room, much less identify it. Tully could understand that: it was illusive stuff, perfume. Nothing you could put back in the bottle when you’d had enough. Checking with the weary day clerk, he learned that it was not at all possible for the perfume to have belonged to the chambermaid. “In fact,” he said, “very vice versa.”

Tully regretted having to do it, but he got the girl out of bed to answer the phone. She had been in 512 about eight-thirty, a last check of towels, ashtrays, etc. and she was in the habit of leaving the door open while in a room. She remembered turning off the lights, locking the door, hanging her key ring inside the linen closet door until she went to the maid’s room and changed out of uniform, a matter of maybe five minutes’ time. Then, as was her custom, she took the key ring downstairs to the desk and went home for the night. She had not heard or seen any activity at 519—almost across the way—to arouse her curiosity.

“Well,” the detective said, although nothing in the room indicated the presence of the General’s last known companions except the findings of Mrs. Norris’ nose, “they were here all the same, I think. And they borrowed her key to lock 519. The General’s was inside on the table. Too clever, I’d say, for respectable folk. Looks like they figured on police and reporters cluttering up the halls. They probably just stood in here and waited, could be with the door open a crack. All of which doesn’t mean much, except it seems like a lot of precaution to take just because you brought home an old friend drunk. Don’t you think?”

Mrs. Norris nodded, her eyes filling with tears of wrath, frustration and sorrow. Tully patted her hand with awkward solicitude. “I don’t suppose he ever mentioned her name in your presence?”

“He did not, the old sinner.”

M
RS. NORRIS AWOKE WITH
so violent a start she gave herself a headache, and contrary to her habit, had to lie abed a few moments to get her bearings. It was the second morning out of three she had awakened in an unaccustomed place. But then, these were unaccustomed days. The General was gone, not to some foreign duty—unless a person was romantic about these things. Mrs. Norris was not: dead was dead. And so far as the General was concerned, Mrs. Norris was inclined to be glad fate was that way. He had always had a nasty habit of making his presence felt even when you knew he was five thousand miles away.