Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... Part 8

But I shouldn't have done that! She's a good girl! She wouldn't squirt anybody!"

"Sure not, Mrs. Ebbermann. Does s.h.i.+rley have a key to your apartment?"

"Yes. I gave her her own key, a pretty one, with her initials on it, for her seventh birthday, so she wouldn't have to push the buzzer when she came home from school."

"Where's your husband?" I asked taking a look at Ramirez' notebook to get her address.

"s.h.i.+rley's father? Somewhere in Boston. We've been separated for two years. But I wish he were here!"

"Would you give me the key to your apartment, Mrs. Ebbermann? We'd like to take a look around."

She gave me a key. "But she's not there. I told you, that's the first place I looked."

"I know," I said. "We just want to look around. We won't disturb anything."

Then His Grace and I got out of there as fast as we could.

I keyed open the front door of the apartment building, and we went inside. Neither of us said anything. There was no need to. We knew what must have happened, we could see it unfolding as plainly as if we'd watched it happen.

Nestor had seen s.h.i.+rley sneak off from her mother and had followed her. In order to get into the building, he must have come right in with her, right behind her when she unlocked the outer door. Then what?

The chances were a billion to one against his ever having been in the building before, so it stood to reason that all he would have been doing is watching for an opportunity and--the right place.

The foyer itself? No. Too much chance of being seen. The bas.e.m.e.nt?

Unlikely. He must have followed her into the elevator, and she would have pushed the b.u.t.ton for the seventh floor, where her apartment was, so there wouldn't be much likelihood of his getting a chance to see the bas.e.m.e.nt. Besides, there was a chance that he might run into the janitor.

The Duke and I went into the old-fas.h.i.+oned self-service elevator, and I pushed number seven. The doors slid shut, and the car started up.

The roof? No. Too much danger of being seen from other buildings higher than this one.

Where, then? I looked at the control panel of the elevator. The b.u.t.ton for the bas.e.m.e.nt was controlled by a key; only the employees were allowed in the bas.e.m.e.nt, so that place was ruled out absolutely.

I began to get the feeling that we were on a wild goose chase, after all. "What do you think?" I asked His Grace.

"I can't imagine where he might have taken her. We may have to search the whole building."

The car stopped at the seventh door, and we stepped out as the doors slid open. The hallways stretched to either side, but there were no apparent hiding places. I went over to the stairwell, which was right next to the elevator shaft and looked up and down. No place there, either.

Then it hit me.

Again, I could see Nestor, like a scene unfolding on a TV drama, still following little s.h.i.+rley. Had he spoken to her in the elevator? Maybe.

Maybe not. He was still undecided, so he followed her to the door of her apartment. Wait--very likely, he _had_ made friends with her on the elevator. He saw her push b.u.t.ton seven--

_Well, well! Do you live on the seventh floor?_

_Yes, I do._

_Then we're neighbors. I live on the seventh, too. I just moved in. Do you live with your mommie and daddy?_

_Just my mommie. My daddy doesn't live with us anymore._

And, since he knew that mommie was in the park, he could guess that the apartment was empty.

All that went through my mind like a bolt of lightning. I said: "The apartment! Come on!"

The Duke, looking a little puzzled, followed me to the door of 706. I put my ear against the door and listened. Nothing. Then I eased the key in and flung the door open.

No one in the living room. I raced for the bedroom. No one in there, either, but the clothes closet door was shut.

When I opened it, we saw a small, dark-haired girl lying naked and unconscious on the floor.

Then there were noises from the front room. The sound of a door opening and closing, and the clatter of hurrying footsteps in the hall outside.

We both turned and ran.

In the hallway, we could hear the footsteps going down the stairwell.

The slow elevator was out of the question. We took off down the stairs after him. He had a head start of about a floor and a half, and kept it all the way down. We saw the door swinging shut as we arrived in the foyer. Outside, we saw our man running toward the corner. I started to reach for my gun, but there were too many people around. I couldn't risk a shot.

And then that amazing walking stick came into action again. The Duke took a few running steps forward and hurled it like a javelin, the heavy silver head forward. Robin Hood couldn't have done better with an arrow. When the silver k.n.o.b hit the back of the running man's head, he fell forward to the sidewalk.

He was still struggling to get up when we grabbed him.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The Duke and I were waiting for Dr. Brownlee when he came back from talking to Lawrence Nestor in his cell. "He's one of our zanies, all right," he said sadly. "A very sick man."

"He's lucky he wasn't lynched," I said. "Did he tell you what happened?"

Brownlee nodded. "Just about the way you had it figured. He had the little girl's clothes off when her mother came back. He heard her putting her key in the door, so he grabbed s.h.i.+rley and dragged her into the closet with him. The mother didn't search the place at all; she just went through the main rooms, called her daughter's name a few times and then left."

"That's what threw us off at first," I said. "We both accepted Mrs.

Ebbermann's word that s.h.i.+rley wasn't in the apartment. Then I realized that she wouldn't have taken time to look in all the closets. Why should she? As far as she knew, there wasn't any reason for s.h.i.+rley to hide from her."

"It's a good thing Mrs. Ebbermann did come back." Dr. Brownlee said.

"That was the only thing that saved the girl from rape and death.

Nestor was so unnerved that he just left her in the closet, still unconscious from the blow he'd given her.

"Any normal man would have gotten out of there right then. Not Nestor.

He went looking for a drink. Fortunately, he found a bottle of whisky in the kitchen. He was just getting in the mood to go back in after the girl when you two came charging in.

"He saw you run to the bedroom, so he knew the girl's mother must have called for help. He decided it was time to run. Too late, of course."

"Too late for a lot of things." I said. "Much too late far Angela Donahue, for instance. And, as a matter of fact, we were so close to being too late with s.h.i.+rley Ebbermann that I don't even want to think about it. I should have let Shultz go ahead and tell the newsmen. At least people would have been warned."