Murder on the Blackboard (13 page)

Lieutenant Keller put the reports and the ring carefully away in a drawer of his desk. “Private stock, eh? I wish I knew where that girl got her liquor.”

“I’m not worrying over that, yet,” said Miss Withers. “I’m interested in that wedding ring.”

“Oh, the wedding ring. Say—” the Lieutenant had a bright idea. “Did you ever see this Halloran dame wear a wedding ring?”

Miss Withers shook her head. “I did not. But there’s more to it than that.”

“Oh, you mean you don’t think that the burned body was this Halloran dame’s at all? You think somebody substituted the body of some other doll who happened to be married?”

And still Miss Withers was doubtful. “I’m trying to figure out why the ring was half melted away when the left hand of the body in the furnace was almost uninjured. They wear wedding rings on the left hand, or so I’ve always understood.”

“Right you are.” Lieutenant Keller sighed audibly. “I ought to know, lady. I’ve bought three of ’em in my time. It would of been four, but my second died instead of leaving town like the others, so I got double mileage on that one.”

Miss Withers was deep in thought. “If the ring was on her finger when she was thrown into the furnace, how did it get burned … and if it wasn’t, how did it get in there? People don’t go around tossing gold rings into furnaces.”

“At Reno when the dolls get their divorces they toss the wedding rings into the river somewhere outside of town,” the Lieutenant offered. “A cousin of mine who lived out there made a grappling iron out of fishhooks and did pretty good with it. He said—”

But Miss Withers was already in the hall, outward bound.

“H
ELLO, HILDEGARDE,” CAME WEAKLY
through the bandages.

Miss Withers surveyed her old friend from across the foot of the bed. “How do you feel, palsy-walsy?”

“Lousy,” the Inspector muttered. “Got any idea who hit me?”

“The nurse says I’m not to talk to you about that,” Miss Withers reminded him. “You haven’t any ideas, yourself?”

The bandaged head shook. “Just a steam-roller as far as I was concerned. Whoever it was could move quicker than a cat, quicker than two cats.”

Miss Withers’ eyes narrowed. “You were on your guard, then? It couldn’t have been, let’s say, a man who was drunk?”

“It could not! It tell you—”

“Never mind telling me. I’m doing my best to find out for myself. This is a personal matter with me, because it happened under my nose for one thing, and because you and I are friends for another. You lean back and relax.”

“I will, but not for long.” There was an impatient note in the Inspector’s voice. “Say, the Commissioner is going to be sore at me for this.”

“Why, because you’re left out of the murder investigation?”

Piper shook his head. “Because I’m not going to be able to speak at the dinner he’s going to give to welcome that big Viennese crime expert, Professor Pfoof or whatever his name is. It was scheduled for tonight, and the Commissioner was all steamed up. He won’t mind Sergeant Taylor taking over the murder case, but can you see Taylor, or even good old Keller, doing my speech?”

“I can’t see you doing it yourself, for that matter,” said Miss Withers. “But stop worrying about things. Professor Pfoof will have to be welcomed by somebody else. You just rest and get well. That must have been a terrible whack you got to make your thick head crack.”

“It was.” The Inspector lifted a weary hand. “Boy, what a headache I’ve got!”

“I’ll be running along in a minute,” she told him. “I just wanted to see for myself that you were still with us. I’ll be back tomorrow. What do you want me to bring you, flowers or candy, or a radio or what?”

“Bring me the scalp of the gorilla who did this,” Piper requested. “That dimwit of a Taylor will never get anywhere in a thousand years. I don’t see why the Commissioner left him on the case.”

“Nobody left
me
on it,” said Hildegarde Withers. “But I’m there just the same. Maybe the janitor did it and maybe he didn’t, but if he did it wasn’t for the reasons they’ve dug up yet. I’m going to keep on snooping, whether the Sergeant likes it or not.”

There was a rap at the door, and a white-capped nurse looked in. “You’re time’s up,” she announced. Miss Withers rose obediently.

“Wait,” said Piper. “Get me my clothes.”

“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” said the nurse. “You’re delirious. You won’t put on your clothes for two weeks, anyway. Come, now.”

“I don’t want to put ’em on,” Piper explained wearily. “I just want ’em.” Something of the old command came back into his voice. “Hurry up!”

The nurse went across the room to a narrow closet, unlocked it with a key from her pocket, and brought out some well-worn gray tweeds.

“Just the vest,” said Piper. She brought it to him. Waving away the proffered aid, he fumbled until he found what he was looking for. He unpinned it, polished it on his pillow, and then handed the golden shield to Miss Withers.

It was his badge of office, presented to him by subscription of the Force on the completion of his twentieth year as a police officer. “I want you to take it until I get on my feet,” he told the surprised schoolteacher. “I’ll send word to the Commissioner that I want you sworn in as a special deputy or something.”

Miss Withers took the badge, and pinned it beneath the lapel of her serge suit. “This is all I need,” she informed him. “I’d rather I wasn’t made a policewoman or anything like that. This way I’m responsible only to you. The more unofficial I am, the better I like it.”

She caught his bloodless hand and pressed it. “I’m going now, because the young lady over there seems to think I’ve been here too long as it is. But I want to say just one thing, Oscar Piper. Maybe it sounds silly, coming from me. But I’m going straight home and thank God on my knees that you have such a thick skull. This would have been a lonely old town for me if you—if you—”

“Quit it,” said the Inspector uncomfortably. “Go on, get out of here and see how that badge works for you. And if you don’t come back tomorrow I’ll send a squad car after you.”

Miss Withers got out of there. As she came from the elevator on the first floor of the hospital she saw a familiar face.

Georgie Swarthout, the sole remainder of a squad of “college cops” taken on by the Commissioner in the previous year, was leaning against the desk in close conversation with the telephone girl.

Miss Withers paused. She knew that this boyish, ruddy-faced youth was intensely loyal to the Inspector, and that under his flippant exterior he had a good working knowledge of half a hundred trades and tricks.

He looked up and saw her. “Aha!” he said. “And they told me the Inspector couldn’t be seen! Schoolteachers rush in where detectives fear to tread, or something. How’s the boss?”

“He’s doing all right, but he isn’t to be seen,” Miss Withers told him. “You’ll have to cool your heels until tomorrow.”

“Cooling my heels is what I do best,” Swarthout admitted. “The worthy Sergeant doesn’t seem to have much use for me on the Halloran case. Says it is all sealed anyway, now that he’s nabbed the janitor. I’m supposed to be looking for a missing girl named Curran but that’s not much of an assignment.”

Miss Withers looked at him. “Maybe the case is all settled, as you say. And yet—”

“And yet you’re going ahead on your own? I might have guessed that, after the way you mixed into the Stait murder last year and picked everything the Inspector and I did to little pieces.” Georgie’s face brightened.

Miss Withers showed him the gold badge. “I’m going ahead,” she admitted. “But not entirely on my own. I don’t happen to agree with the Sergeant, at least not with every point of his case. He hasn’t scratched the surface of this business, young man. I’m starting in digging, this very day. Want to put a finger in the pie, and tag along?”

“Both hands,” said Georgie Swarthout. “Head, neck, and heels. Let’s go.”

Another and even larger blue-coat stood in the doorway of Jefferson School, in Mulholland’s place. But he stepped back smartly at the flash of the gold badge. “Hello, Sunshine,” Swarthout greeted him, as they passed on. The sad-faced cop only grunted. Miss Withers calmly led the way back through the empty building to the cellar stair.

“Somewhere in this basement,” she told Swarthout, “a man stepped out of nowhere, or maybe it was a woman for all we know, and struck the Inspector over the head with a blunt instrument. And somewhere in this basement Anderson the janitor managed to get himself very drunk, avoid two thorough police searches, and then walk calmly out into the midst of us upstairs.”

The young detective nodded. “You don’t think they were both the same person?”

“I do not. There’s one thing Sergeant Taylor has forgotten. Somebody sneaked down the top-floor hall and slid out the fire-escape, while I was searching the classrooms upstairs. He couldn’t have got in the building again, whoever he was. And Anderson came up out of the cellar. They weren’t the same person—and that means that we have to account for the person who slid out of the fire-escape … or at least who opened the door of the fire-escape and set off the alarm.”

Swarthout nodded. “I see that. Do you suppose they could have been hiding in the same place in the cellar?”

“Impossible. Because at the time our unknown friend made a getaway via the fire-escape, the cellar was full of officers. He must have hidden somewhere on the second floor after hitting the Inspector, and then waited his chance to go on from there. He had time to leave the cellar while I was out phoning the police.”

“But wait,” objected Swarthout. “The janitor could have hit the Inspector over the head, and then gone back to wherever he hid out. And this other person might have been hiding on the second floor all along—for some other purpose.”

“The person who hit the Inspector wasn’t dead drunk,” Miss Withers reminded him. “And the doctor says that Anderson was full to the brim. That means another criminal—or an accomplice.”

The basement lights, such as they were, were still on. The two intruders looked at the furnace, commonplace enough now. They poked among piles of old benches, stacked scenery from last year’s pageants and class plays, and all the other lumber which accumulates in an old schoolhouse. But nowhere was there a cubbyhole big enough to hide a man.

They surveyed the half-dug grave, in the far corner of the dank expanse. “I should think digging into this hard earth would sober up anybody,” Swarthout suggested. “Couldn’t Anderson have been drinking, but still quick enough to swing a shovel or whatever it was?”

“The doctor says he showed signs of being very drunk indeed. Besides—there was something else that made me sure he was drunk. His eyebrows, that was it! His eyebrows had bits of straw in them when he was arrested, I remember noticing.” Miss Withers stared speculatively at the young detective. “I should think a man would have to be pretty intoxicated indeed before he’d tumble face down in the straw. And straw in the eyebrows isn’t a detail that a person would likely think of faking, either.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” said George Swarthout. “We forgot something. We’ve been all over this place, from the little room under the stair to the grave up at the other end. Would you mind telling me
where
there was any straw?”

Miss Withers looked blank. “Straw? Why—that’s right. There wasn’t any straw! How could Anderson roll in the straw when there is nothing here but dust and coal?”

“I’ll give you odds that the janitor was the guy who slid down the fire-escape,” offered Swarthout eagerly. “And he came right back in a cellar window, bringing the straw from wherever he’d been!”

“Excellent,” Miss Withers told him. “Only those windows are no more than six inches wide, and they don’t open. Look for yourself.”

Swarthout doggedly investigated each of the four narrow slits at the top of the west wall. Through the thickly grimed glass he could glimpse the playground outside, but there was no way on earth a man, or even a mosquito, could have entered. The roar of the “El” came faintly to his ears, and somewhere in the street a boy cried “Extra!”

Miss Withers rubbed her nose vigorously. “Do you happen to have a flashlight?”

Swarthout pulled out of his overcoat pocket a long black tube, with a powerful lens that threw a circle of blinding white light.

“Somewhere,” Miss Withers began, “somewhere in this place there’s got to be some straw. Maybe it’s only a particle, so small that neither the police nor you and I today noticed it. But it’s got to be here. Let’s find it.”

“Okay,” said Georgie Swarthout. “Say, I got an idea. There’s a lot of territory to cover here. Let’s get Sunshine Willis, the flatfoot at the door, to come down and help us. The boys call him Sunshine because he’s got a face like a sad bloodhound, but he’s a thorough old codger, and maybe he’ll strike a scent. He’s not serving any purpose at the door, and one flash of your badge ought to fetch him.”

It fetched him, though not without certain grumblings. “Never worry about that,” Swarthout told him. “A little smart detective work on your part, and a lucky break or two, and you’ll be jumped up to the second-class. Fifty bucks more a month, Sunshine.”

“Yeah, and if the Sergeant finds this out, I’ll be transferred to a bicycle beat somewhere in the suburbs,” Willis retorted. But he came along, his own flashlight in his hand.

“Georgie, you start along the wall to the right from the foot of the stairs, and, Willis, you go left,” Miss Withers directed. “I haven’t got a flashlight, so I’ll work down the center of the room, where the overheads cast a little glow. Lend me a box of matches, one of you, and if I see anything that looks interesting I’ll light a match and get a better view. Go slowly, now, and make sure you don’t miss a thing. If this doesn’t work we’ll mark the floor off in squares and go over every inch of it systematically.”

The hunt began. Officer Willis squatted down on his hams, made an inch-by-inch survey of the floor about him under the rays of his flash, and then hopped froglike for a few feet and made another. Georgie Swarthout’s technique was to move forward on hands and knees, forgetting the damp cement and the damper dirt floor in the excitement of the chase. Miss Withers moved ahead more swiftly down the center of the room, her angular body bent almost at right angles.