Postmark Murder (19 page)

“Please look at this woman’s coat. It’s like Maria Brown’s coat, isn’t it? And she was wearing a black hat—they call it a beret. Is that the same kind of hat Maria Brown wore?”

Again Laura forced herself to look at the tragic figure on the floor. “It’s not like Maria Brown’s coat. Her coat was full and flowing. This is tailored; it has a belt. It’s—oh, it’s different, Lieutenant Peabody. But the black beret is about the same. They all look very much alike. Anybody can wear a black beret.” She didn’t want to ask; she had to know. “She was—murdered. Wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“How—” The word came out in a whisper. She knew that the close circle of figures around her—and the dead woman—was very quiet, listening.

“Strangled,” Lieutenant Peabody said shortly. “Has a bruise on her temple. The medical examiner is on his way here.”

“Who was she? Why was she here?”

Lieutenant Peabody gave her an odd, speculative look. The little circle seemed to tighten, listening and speculating, too. Peabody replied, “She went by the name of Catherine Miller. She was a cook and general houseworker, employed here, in this apartment house, by the woman who went upstairs just now, Mrs. George Grelly. She was found this morning by the engineer for the building. She’d been dead some hours. You can go now, Miss March. I’ll want to talk to you later.”

Again Lieutenant Peabody must have given a mute command to one of the policemen, for a slim young fellow, who looked as if he hadn’t been long out of the Army, stepped forward in an alert and soldierly manner. He said politely, “I’ll go up with you, miss.”

He walked beside her, back through the wide corridor with the ghostly gleam of washing machines and dryers looming up in the vast, dim stretches of the laundry. They passed the narrow corridor that wound through a huge storage section; Laura had her own storeroom there, a wire cage, full mainly of cartons of Peter March’s books. They reached the elevator again.

Another man, vaguely familiar, too, in khaki-colored shirt and trousers, stood there; he was excited. “The superintendent told me to take this elevator. He told me somebody had been murdered. Is that right, officer?”

The young policeman ushered Laura into the elevator. “That’s right, buddy,” he said. “Just take us up to—” He glanced at Laura. “What floor, miss?”

“The ninth.”

Already a rumor had coursed along the grapevine of the great apartment house. Two maids and a handyman were standing by the elevator at the ninth floor, talking furiously. They fell abruptly silent, watching, as the policeman and Laura came out; the silence continued until they turned from the service corridor into the main corridor.

Laura had not brought her key. She tried the door absently and then pushed the little bell. The young policeman stood politely at her elbow. After a moment Sergeant O’Brien came and opened the door. “All right,” he said, and the young policeman disappeared as Laura entered the apartment. Sergeant O’Brien eyed her. “The little girl woke up. I’m giving her her breakfast.”

Telephone to Matt, Laura thought. Tell him that a woman— wearing a brown coat and a black beret—had been murdered. Tell him she
could
have been mistaken for Maria Brown. Tell him that the police had already questioned her. She started toward the telephone. Sergeant O’Brien’s great bulk came between her and the table. “I wouldn’t if I were you, miss.”

“But I must phone—”

“Orders.”

“You don’t understand—”

“Lieutenant Peabody said you were to stay here until he came and you were not to telephone to anybody. Don’t you want to see how the little girl is doing?”

“Jonny? Yes—” She went to the kitchen and Jonny, in blue pajamas, was contentedly eating oatmeal.

The Sergeant noted the surprise Laura felt. “Didn’t I tell you, miss, I’ve got children of my own! Now then, understand, you’re not to make a move. Just wait for Lieutenant Peabody.”

He took Laura’s silence for consent and went back to sit in the chair beside Jonny and apparently resumed a story of Davy Crockett which he was telling her in English heavily laced with an Irish brogue. Perhaps Jonny understood one word in ten; she listened, fascinated; it was obvious she liked Sergeant O’Brien. Once he interrupted himself to glance at Laura who had sunk down in a chair. “Maybe you better have some coffee, miss,” he said. “To tell you the truth I needed it myself.”

It added a peculiar note of fantasy to the nightmare to watch Sergeant O’Brien’s great bulk moving very lightly and dexterously about the kitchen. He made toast, he boiled eggs, he made coffee.

After the first cup of steaming coffee Laura’s thoughts began to clear. Yet there was nothing she could do until Lieutenant Peabody came. There was something very solid and immovable about Sergeant O’Brien.

Besides, what could she have done aside from telephoning to Matt and Charlie and Doris and telling them—what? That a woman, a maid employed in the apartment house where Laura lived, had been murdered—and that woman happened to be wearing at the time a brown coat and a black beret.

She had a superficial kind of resemblance to Maria Brown, or, more accurately, to a description of Maria Brown; she was stocky, she had short dark hair, she wore a brown coat and black beret. Only someone who had never seen Maria Brown could possibly have believed that the maid was Maria Brown.

So there must be another explanation for the poor woman’s murder.

Lieutenant Peabody was clearly of the opinion that there was a connection with the Stanislowski murder—and with Laura. That was because the woman was murdered in the apartment house. That was because of the superficial resemblance, not to Maria Brown, but to Maria Brown’s description.

It was a strange morning, one that seemed suspended in a vacuum. The clouds were heavy, pressing lower upon the city. Oddly enough Laura was grateful for Sergeant O’Brien’s presence and the cheerful and normal matter-of-fact way he went about things. He talked to Jonny in his Irish brogue. He played with the kitten. He watched Laura with, she thought, a grudging flicker of approval as she went resolutely about her routine of housekeeping chores, thankful, too, for something to do. Jonny as usual put on a grave little housewifely air and trotted around with a feather duster. She paused for a long time to admire the tree and readjust some of the ornaments; she ran, struck by the thought, to her room and brought the yellow bird Charlie had given her. She showed it proudly to Sergeant O’Brien and then with his help fastened it, too, to one of the lower branches of the glittering tree. Sergeant O’Brien and Jonny then stood back to admire the bird, who bowed and bowed, rocking back and forth.

When the door buzzer at last sounded. Sergeant O’Brien and Jonny were intent over a game of checkers in the living room, at the card table, a lighted lamp shining down upon the Sergeant’s great red face and bulky blue figure and Jonny’s intent blue eyes and neat brown hair. The Sergeant said to Jonny. “The next move is yours,” and made a gesture with his hand which Jonny seemed to understand and went to the door.

Lieutenant Peabody came in. He looked, that gray morning, older than usual and very tired, yet there was also something grim and implacable in his lined face. He saw the interrupted checker game. “You might finish the game, Sergeant. Keep the child occupied.”

Sergeant O’Brien nodded. His eyes were very sharp and alert but he turned in a fatherly way to Jonny. “All right, kid,” he said, “let’s just take this checker board into your little room. We’ll finish the game there.”

Again Jonny understood; she had clearly taken an instantaneous liking to the big policeman. She gathered up the spare red and white checkers while he took the board carefully in his great hands, so as not to disturb the checkers in play, and led the way out of the living room.

Lieutenant Peabody said unexpectedly. “How about some coffee, Miss March? Is there any in the kitchen?”

There was the remainder of the great pot which Sergeant O’Brien had made. Laura brought it to Lieutenant Peabody with cream and sugar and some toast. He sat down at the bridge table and drank the coffee thirstily and munched through the toast without speaking while Laura waited, holding back her questions.

But then when he finished he moved to a lounge chair, and it was Lieutenant Peabody who questioned.

He began directly. “Miss March, if you have an alibi for the time between nine-thirty and say eleven-thirty last night, you’d better tell me.”

A
N ALIBI. ALREADY! SHE
tried to keep her voice steady. “I have for some of the time, Lieutenant. Matt Cosden was here to dinner. Then we trimmed the Christmas tree. I think he left about eleven—perhaps a little after. He might know exactly what time it was.”

“I suppose Jonny was asleep at that time?”

“Yes. Lieutenant, do you think that whoever killed that poor woman thought that she was Maria Brown?”

“Well, I can’t say exactly what I think. In fact, I’m not sure what I think. But I don’t like coincidence. She answered the description of Maria Brown. She was murdered here in the apartment house where you live. I cannot overlook either of these facts.”

“Nobody who had ever seen Maria Brown herself would think that this woman was Maria Brown. She wore a brown coat and black beret. She had dark hair and a rather stocky figure. Otherwise, Lieutenant, there was no resemblance at all.”

Lieutenant Peabody eyed Laura for a moment and said unexpectedly, “That’s what Mrs. Radinsky said, too. You remember—the landlady at Koska Street. She said flatly that it was not Maria Brown and that nobody who had ever seen Maria Brown herself would have mistaken this Catherine Miller for Maria Brown. It did occur to me that possibly Maria Brown was using another name, Catherine Miller, and perhaps she had gone to the rooming house in order to meet Conrad Stanislowski and murder him; then when she disappeared she could have simply gone back to her real identity as Catherine Miller. But I was wrong. And we have certain identification for Catherine Miller. She has worked for this Mrs. Grelly for three years; Mrs. Grelly has her home address. Catherine Miller lived in a rooming house for women here on the near north side. She was well known there. She had no Polish accent, no Polish connections of any kind, so far as we’ve been able to discover. No quarrel with anybody. The truth is, Miss March, the only reason for her murder that I see at the moment is the fact that that poor woman happened to work in this apartment house and unfortunately happened to choose to wear a brown coat and a black beret.”

It wasn’t fair, Laura thought; it was tragically unfair. Catherine Miller, drawn into the dark orbit of murder, dead because she happened to wear a brown coat, because she happened to be at exactly that address, at that time. She said, “Why would anybody murder Maria Brown?”

“Well,” Peabody said deliberately, “of course, you realize that we have scarcely begun the investigation into the Catherine Miller murder, but if there’s anything to the notion that her murderer believed her to be Maria Brown, then there are two possible reasons for it. One is a very obvious one; her murderer believed that Maria Brown had evidence which would be very dangerous to Conrad Stanislowski’s murderer. If that is true, then whoever killed Catherine Miller, killed Stanislowski. As a matter of fact, Miss March, there’s another reason for my feeling that the two murders are connected. Lightning may strike twice in the same place, but usually it doesn’t. If murder strikes twice in the same place, or I should say in proximity to the same people, then I’m inclined to suspect the same agency. More exactly, the same murderer. Murder is, statistically and factually, in relation to other crimes, an unusual and very desperate crime, springing from desperate and driving motives. Money—fear—are two such motives. It is certainly possible that the murderer believed that she was Maria Brown and that she was coming to see you and might tell you some evidence which would be incriminating.”

“But when Maria Brown came to see me yesterday afternoon, she didn’t tell me anything. She only asked about Jonny.”

“Thus automatically and very definitely tying Maria Brown in with the Stanislowski murder. Is that what you mean?”

Laura paused, and then met the subtle challenge directly. “She did come here, Lieutenant. She did ask about Jonny. There must be a reason for that. And she did say that she knew how to hide and that you’d never find her.”

“Well, we haven’t found her, that’s true enough,” Lieutenant Peabody said grimly. “And it looks as if whoever killed Catherine Miller couldn’t find the Brown woman either. Now then—”  He paused and stared at the rug for a long time. Finally he lifted his eyes to hers; deep in them there was a kind of steely spark. “I’m going to tell you exactly what we know of this. I want you to see exactly what your position is. This woman, Catherine Miller, finished up her work, according to her employer, probably about nine-thirty or ten last night. Mrs. Grelly did not know the exact time because she and her husband went out after dinner, which the maid had prepared, leaving her to clear up the dishes and finish her work. The maid had her own key to the kitchen door; she let herself out. The custom is for the maids in the apartment house to go down by way of the service elevators, as I expect you know. These service elevators during most of the day have elevator men; there are four men whose job it is to turn their hands to any necessary task. However, the elevators are self-service. Sometimes, especially during the late evening hours, the maids themselves use the elevators. So far we have discovered nobody, no other cook, none of the men who saw Catherine Miller leave. So I’m inclined to believe that she left the Grelly apartment, rang for a service elevator, and went down to the basement.”

Laura broke in. “But who would know—who would see her?”

Peabody continued. “There is a side entrance, a service entrance, as I’m sure you know. If you’ll remember, it was a very foggy night. We have found this bit of evidence which may be important. The doorman at the front was standing on the side walk just outside the foyer, at something after eleven. He is not sure of the time. It was not busy, however, at that time of night and he admitted that he had edged around at the side of the entrance, there’s a pillar there that makes an angle, in order to smoke a cigarette without being seen. He saw a woman come along the street which runs past the service entrance. He merely happened to notice her because she was alone. He did not see her face and did not happen to know the maid, Catherine Miller; however, he says the woman was dressed as Catherine Miller was dressed; he is sure she is the woman he saw. She crossed the street and waited for a time at the bus stop.”