Murder at Bridge Part 28

"Yes, sir, but I 'tended to her hot water and her garbage, too--twice a day it was I had to go and stoke the little laundry heater that heats the hot water tank in summertime when the steam furnace ain't being used. I live about a mile beyant the Crain place, that is, the house the poor lady was killed in--"

"Did you come to stoke the laundry heater Sat.u.r.day evening?" Dundee interrupted. "Excuse me, sir," he turned to the district attorney, "but this is the first time I've seen this man."

"No, sir, I didn't stoke it Sat'dy night," Rawlins answered uneasily.

"You see, I was comin' up the road to do my ch.o.r.es at half past six, like I always do, but before I got to the house I seen a lot of policemen's cars and motorcycles, and I didn't want to get mixed up in nothing, so I turned around and went home again. I didn't know what was up, but when me and the wife went into Hamilton Sat'dy night in our flivver we seen one of the extries and read about how the poor lady was murdered. But that ain't what I was gittin' at, sir--"

"Well, what _are_ you getting at?" Sanderson urged.

"Well, the extry said the police had found some footprints under the frontmost of them two side windows to Mis' Selim's bedroom, and went on to talk about the rose vines being tore, and straight off I said to the missus, 'Them's _my_ footprints, Minnie'--Minnie's my wife's name--"

"_Your_ footprints!" Sanderson e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, then shook with silent laughter. "There goes Strawn's case, Bonnie!" But immediately he was serious again, as the import of this new evidence came to him. "Tell us all about it, Rawlins.... When did you make those footprints?"

"Friday, sir. That's the day I gardened for Mis' Selim.... You see, sir, the poor little lady told me she was kept awake nights when they was a high wind, by the rose vines tapping against the windows. Says she, 'I think they's somebody tryin' to git into my room, Elmer,' and I could see the poor little thing was mighty nervous anyway, so I didn't waste no time. I cut away a lot of the rose vine and burned it when I was burnin' the garbage and papers in the 'cinerator out back."

"Is that all, Rawlins?" Sanderson asked.

"'Bout all that 'mounts to anything," the laborer deprecated. "But they was somethin' else that struck me as a little funny, when I come to think of it--"

"Well?" Sanderson prodded, as the man halted uncertainly.

"Well, it's like I told you, it was my job to burn the papers. That scar-face maid of Mis' Selim's put everything--garbage and trash--in a big garbage can outside the back door, and I burnt 'em up. So I was kinder surprised Sat'dy mornin', when I went to stoke up the laundry heater, to find somebody'd been meddlin' with my drafts and had let the fire go clean out. I had to clean out the ashes and build a new fire--"

"You're trying to say, I suppose, that you could tell by the ashes that someone had been burning papers in the laundry heater?" Sanderson asked, with a quick glance at Dundee's tense face.

"That's right, sir," Rawlins agreed eagerly. "You know what kind of ashes a mess o' paper makes--layers of white ashes, sir, that kinder looks like papers yit."

"Yes, I know.... And you found layers of white ashes, which you took particular pains to clean out?" Sanderson asked bitterly.

"Yes, sir. So's I could build a new fire--"

"Did you speak to the maid--ask her if she'd been 'meddlin' with your drafts'?"

"Yes, sir, I did!" the man answered with a trace of the belligerence he had undoubtedly shown to Lydia. "She said _she_ didn't open no dampers, claimed the heater was the same as usual when she left Friday night to go to a movie. So I reckin it was the poor lady herself, burnin' up love letters, maybe, or some such truck--"

"You're to keep your 'reckins' to yourself, Rawlins," Sanderson cut in emphatically. "Remember, now, you're not to tell anybody else what you've just told me.... If that's all, you can go now, and I'm much obliged to you. Leave your address with the young lady here. You'll be needed later, of course."

The relieved man hurried out of the room on Penny's heels. Sanderson shrugged, then, when the door had closed, began heavily:

"It looks like you're right, Bonnie, about that blackmail business.

As the astute Rawlins says, 'love letters, maybe, or some such truck....' Of course it all fits in with your theory that Nita had made up her mind to reform, marry Ralph Hammond, and be a very good girl indeed.... All right! You can have Penny in now. I think I know pretty well what you're going to ask her. And I may as well tell you that when Roger Crain skipped town with some securities he was known to possess, he hadn't got them from a safe deposit box, because he didn't have one," and Sanderson pressed a b.u.t.ton on the edge of his desk....

"Penny, do you know whether there is a concealed safe in the Selim house?"

The girl, startled, began to shake her head, then checked herself. "Not that I ever saw, or knew of when Dad and Mother and I lived there, but--" She hesitated, her cheeks turning scarlet.

"Out with it, Penny!" Sanderson urged, his voice very kind.

"It's just that, if you really think there's a secret hiding place in the house, I believe I understand something that puzzled me when it happened," Penny confessed, her head high. "I was at the Country Club one night--a Sat.u.r.day night when the whole crowd is usually there for the dinner and dance. I'd been dancing with--with Ralph, and when the music stopped we went out on the porch, where several of our crowd were sitting. It was--just two or three weeks after--after Dad left town.

Lois wouldn't let me drop out of things.... Anyway, it was dark and I heard Judge Marshall saying something about 'the simplest and most ingenious arrangement you ever saw. Of course that's where the rascal kept his securities--...' I knew they were talking about Dad, from the way Judge Marshall shut up and changed the subject as soon as he saw me."

"Who was on the porch, Penny?" Dundee asked tensely.

"Why, let's see--Flora, and Johnny Drake, and Clive," she answered slowly. "I think that was all, besides Judge Marshall. The others hadn't come out from dancing.... Of course I don't know whether or not it was some 'arrangement' in the house--"

"Where are you going, boy?" Sanderson checked Dundee, who was already on his way to the door.

"To find that gun, of course!"

"Well, if it's tucked away in the 'simplest and most ingenious arrangement you ever saw' it will stay put for a while," Sanderson said.

"Lydia's due here within half an hour, and you don't want to miss her, do you?"

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was exactly twelve o'clock when Lydia Carr, accompanied by Detective Collins of the Homicide Squad carrying a small suitcase, arrived at the district attorney's office.

"I kept my eye on her every minute of the time, to see that there wasn't no shenanigans," Collins informed Dundee and Sanderson importantly, callous to the fact that the maid could hear him. "But I let her bring along everything she said she needed to lay the body out in.... Was that right?"

"Right!" agreed the district attorney, as Dundee opened the suitcase upon Sanderson's desk.

The royal blue velvet dress lay on top, neatly folded. Dundee shook out its folds. It looked remarkably fresh and new, in spite of the years it had hung in Nita Selim's various clothes closets, preserved because of G.o.d alone knew what tender memories. Perhaps the beautiful little dancer had intended all those years that it should be her shroud....

"Oh, it's lovely!" Penny Crain, who was looking on, cried out involuntarily. "It looks like a French model."

"It's a copy of a French model. You can see by the label on the back of the neck," Lydia answered, her one good eye softening for Penny.

"So it is!" Dundee agreed, and took out his penknife to snip the threads which fastened the white satin, gold-lettered label to the frock.

"'Pierre Model. Copied by Simonson's--New York City'," he read aloud, and slipped the little square of satin into the envelope containing the murdered woman's will. "Well, Penny, I'm glad you like the dress, for I'm going to ask you to do the mannikin stunt in it as soon as Carraway arrives with his camera."

Penny turned very pale, but she said nothing in protest, and Dundee continued to unpack the suitcase. His masculine hands looked clumsy as they lifted out the costume slip and miniature "dancing set"--bra.s.siere and step-ins--all matching, of filmiest white chiffon and lace. His fingers flinched from contact with the switch of long, silky black curls....

"She bought them after we came to Hamilton," Lydia informed him, pointing to the undergarments. "Them black moire pumps and them French stockings are brand new, too--hundred-gauge silk them stockings are, and never on her feet--"

"Ready for me?" Carraway had appeared in the doorway, with camera and tripod.

"Yes, Carraway.... Just the dress, Penny.... I want full-length front, back and side views of Miss Crain wearing this dress, Carraway.... Flashlights, of course. Better take the pictures in Miss Crain's office," Dundee directed. "You stay here, Lydia. I want to talk with you while that job is being done."

"Yes, sir," Lydia answered, and accepted without thanks the chair he offered.

"I suppose you have read _The Hamilton Morning News_ today, Lydia?"

"I have!"

"May I have that paper, chief?... Thanks!... Now, Lydia, I want you to read again the paragraphs that are headed 'New York, May 25--' and tell us if the statements are correct."