Nightmare Town: Stories (53 page)

Coler willingly rose and went away. He was gone half an hour. When he returned he said: “As near as I can learn, she’s been getting checks for several months at least and has been getting about all he deposited, with not much more than enough left over to cover his ordinary expenses.”

Guild said, “Thanks,” softly through cigarette smoke.

From the Seaman’s National Bank, Guild went to the Golden Gate Trust Company in Montgomery Street. A girl stopped typewriting to carry his card into the cashier’s office and presently ushered him into the office. There he shook hands with a round, white-haired man who said: “Glad to see you, Mr. Guild. Which of us criminals are you looking for now?”

“I don’t know whether I’m looking for any this time. You’ve got a depositer named Laura Porter. I’d like to get her address.”

The cashier’s smile set. “Now, now, I’m always willing to do all I can to help you chaps, but -“

Guild said: “She may have had something to do with gypping the Seaman’s National out of eight thou.”

Curiosity took some of the stiffness from the cashier’s smile.

Guild said: “I don’t know that she had a finger in it, but it’s because I think she might that I’m here. All I want’s her address – now – and I won’t want anything else unless I’m sure.”

The cashier rubbed his lips together, frowned, cleared his throat, finally said: “Well, if I give it to you you’ll understand it’s -“

“Strictly confidential,” Guild said, “just like the information that the Seaman’s has been nicked.”

Five minutes later he was leaving the Golden Gate Trust Company carrying, in a pocket, a slip of paper on which was written Laura Porter, 1157 Leavenworth.

He caught a cable car and rode up California Street. When his car passed the Cathedral Apartments he stood up suddenly and he left the car at the next corner, walking back to the apartment building.

At the desk he said: “Miss Helen Robier.”

The man on the other side of the counter shook his head. “We’ve nobody by that name – unless she’s visiting someone.”

“Can you tell me if she lived here – say – five months ago?”

“I’ll try.” He went back and spoke to another man. The other man came over to Guild. “Yes,” he said, “Miss Robier did live here, but she’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“She was killed in an automobile accident the Fourth of July.”

Guild pursed his lips. “Have you had a MacWilliams here?”

“No.”

“Ever have one?” –

“I don’t think so. I’ll look it up.” When he came back he was positive. “No.”

Outside the Cathedral, Guild looked at his watch. It was a quarter to twelve. He walked over to his hotel. Boyer rose from a chair in the lobby and came to meet him, saying: “Good morning. How are you? Anything new?”

Guild shrugged. “Some things that might mean something. Let’s do our talking over a lunch-table.” He turned beside the district attorney and guided him into the hotel grill.

When they were seated and had given their orders he told Boyer about his conversation with the Fremonts, the shot that had interrupted them, and their search for Wynant that had resulted in their finding his car; about his conversation with Chris – “Christopher Maxim,” he said, “book critic on the Dispatch”; about his visit to the Manchu and his meeting Elsa Fremont there; and about his visits that morning to the two banks and the apartment house. He spoke rapidly, wasting few words, missing no salient point.

“Do you suppose Wynant went to that Chinese restaurant, knowing the girl worked there, to find out where she and her brother lived?” Boyer asked when Guild had finished.

“Not if he’d been at Fremont’s house raising hell a couple of weeks ago.”

Boyer’s face flushed. “That’s right. Well, do you -?”

“Let me know what’s doing on your end,” Guild said, “and maybe we can do our supposing together. Wait till this waiter gets out of the way.”

When their food had been put in front of them and they were alone again the district attorney said: “I told you about Lane seeing Wynant going in this Chinese place.”

Guild said, “Yes. How about the fingerprints?” and put some food in his mouth.

“I had the place gone over and we took the prints of everybody we knew had been there, but the matching-up hadn’t been done when I left early this morning.”

“Didn’t forget to take the dead girl’s?”

“Oh, no. And you were in there: you can send us yours.”

“All right, though I made a point of not touching anything. Any reports from the general alarm?”

“None.”

“Anyway, we know he came to San Francisco. How about the circulars?”

“They’re being printed now – photo, description, handwriting specimens. We’ll get out a new batch when we’ve got his fingerprints: I wanted to get something out quick.”

“Fine. I asked the police here to get us some of his prints off the car. What else happened on your end?”

“That’s about all.”

“Didn’t get anything out of his papers?”

“Nothing. Outside of what seemed to be notes for his work there wasn’t a handful of papers. You can look at them yourself when you come up.”

Guild, eating, nodded as if he were thoroughly satisfied. “We’ll go up for a look at Miss Porter first thing this afternoon,” he said, “and maybe something’ll come of that.”

“Do you suppose she was blackmailing him?”

“People have blackmailed people,” Guild admitted.

“I’m just talking at random,” the district attorney said a bit sheepishly, “letting whatever pops into my mind come out.”

“Keep it up,” Guild said encouragingly.

“Do you suppose she could be a daughter he had by that actress wife in Paris?”

“We can try to find out what happened to her and the children. Maybe Columbia Forrest was his daughter.”

“But you know what the situation was up there,” Boyer protested. “That would be incest.”

“It’s happened before,” Guild said gravely. “That’s why they’ve got a name for it.”

Guild pushed the button beside Laura Porter’s name in the vestibule of a small brownstone apartment building at 1157 Leavenworth Street. Boyer, breathing heavily, stood beside him. There was no response. There was no response the second and third times he pushed the button, but when he touched the one labelled MANAGER the door-lock buzzed.

They opened the door and went into a dim lobby. A door straight ahead of them opened and a woman said: “Yes? What is it?” She was small and sharp-featured, gray-haired, hook-nosed, bright-eyed.

Guild advanced toward her saying, “We wanted to see Miss Laura Porter – 310 – but she doesn’t answer the bell.”

“I don’t think she’s in,” the gray-haired woman said. “She’s not in much. Can I take a message?”

“When do you expect her back?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure.”

“Do you know when she went out?”

“No, sir. Sometimes I see my people when they come in and go out and sometimes I don’t. I don’t watch them and Miss Porter I see less than any.”

“Oh, she’s not here most of the time?”

“I don’t know, mister. So long as they pay their rent and don’t make too much noise I don’t bother them.”

“Them? Does she live with somebody?”

“No. I meant them – all my people here.”

Guild turned to the district attorney. “Here. One of your cards.”

Boyer fumbled for his cards, got one of them out, and handed it to Guild, who gave it to the woman.

“We want a little information about her,” the dark man said in a low, confidential voice while she was squinting at the card in the dim light. “She’s all right as far as we know, but -“

The woman’s eyes, when she raised them, were wide and inquisitive. “What is it?” she asked.

Guild leaned down toward her impressively. “How long has she been here?” he asked in a stage whisper.

“Almost six months,” she replied. “It is six months.”

“Does she have many visitors?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember ever seeing any, but I don’t pay much attention and when I see people coming in here I don’t know what apartment they’re going to.”

Guild straightened, put his left hand out, and pressed an electric-light button, illuminating the lobby. He put his right hand to his inner coat-pocket and brought out pictures of Wynant and his dead secretary. He gave them to the woman. “Ever see either of these?”

She looked at the man’s picture and shook her head. “No,” she said, “and that ain’t a man I’d ever forget if I’d once seen him.” She looked at Columbia Forrest’s picture. “That!” she cried. “That is Miss Porter!”

The dark man, after a little pause, spoke to the woman. “That’s Columbia Forrest,” he said, “the girl who was killed up in Hell Bend yesterday.”

The woman’s eyes became round as the district attorney’s. “Well!” she exclaimed, looking at the photograph again, “I never would’ve thought she was a thief. Why, she was such a pleasant, mild-looking little thing -“

“A thief?” Boyer asked incredulously.

“Why, yes.” She raised puzzled eyes from the photograph. “At least that’s what the paper says, about her going -“

“What paper?”

“The afternoon paper.” Her face became bright, eager. “Didn’t you see it?”

“No. Have you -?”

“Yes. I’ll show you.” She turned quickly and went through the doorway open behind her.

Guild, pursing his lips a little, raising his eyebrows, looked at Boyer.

The district attorney whispered loudly: “She wasn’t blackmailing him? She was stealing from him?”

Guild shook his head. “We don’t know anything yet,” he said.

The woman hurried back to them carrying a newspaper. She turned the newspaper around and thrust it into Guild’s hand, leaning over it, tapping the paper with a forefinger. “There it is.” Her voice was metallic with excitement. “That’s it. You read that.”

Boyer went around behind the dark man to his other side, where he stood close to him, almost hanging on his arm, craning for a better view of the paper.

They read:

N.Y. POLICE

Ex-magistrate Gardner stated that the girl pleaded guilty to a charge brought against her by two department stores and was given a six-month sentence by him, but that the sentence was suspended due to the intervention of Walter Irving Wynant, who offered to reimburse the stores and to give her employment as his secretary. The girl had formerly been a typist in the employ of a Wall St. brokerage firm.

Boyer began to speak, but Guild forestalled him by addressing the woman crisply: “That’s interesting. Thanks a lot. Now we’d like a look at her room.”

The woman, chattering with the utmost animation, took them upstairs and unlocked the door of apartment 310. She went into the apartment ahead of them, but the dark man, holding the corridor door open, said pointedly: “We’ll see you again before we leave.” She went away reluctantly and Guild shut the door.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Boyer said.

“Maybe we are,” Guild agreed.

Words ran swiftly from the district attorney’s mouth. “Do you suppose she handled the details of his banking and forged those Laura Porter checks and juggled his books to cover them? The chances are he didn’t spend much and thought he had a fat balance. Then when she had his account drained she raised the last check, drew against it, and was running away?”

“Maybe, but -“ Guild stared thoughtfully at the district attorney’s feet.

“But what?”

Guild raised his eyes. “Why didn’t she run away while she was away instead of driving back there in another man’s car to tell him she was going away with another man?”

Boyer had a ready answer. “Thieves are funny and women are funny and when you get a woman thief there’s no telling what she’ll do or why. She could’ve had a quarrel with him and wanted to rub it in that she was going. She could have forgotten something up there. She might’ve had some idea of throwing suspicion away from the bank-account juggling for a while. She could’ve had any number of reasons, they need not’ve been sensible ones. She could’ve -“

Guild smiled politely. “Let’s see what the place’ll tell us.”

On a table in the living-room they found a flat brass key that unlocked the corridor door. Nothing else they found anywhere except in the bathroom seemed to interest them. In the bathroom, on a table, they found an obviously new razor holding a blade freshly spotted with rust, an open tube of shaving-cream from which very little had been squeezed, a new shaving-brush that had been used and not rinsed, and a pair of scissors. Hanging over the edge of the tub beside the table was a face-towel on which smears of lather had dried.

Guild blew cigarette smoke at these things and said: “Looks like our thin man came here to get rid of his whiskers.”

Boyer, frowning in perplexity, asked: “But how would he know?”

“Maybe he got it out of her before he killed her and let himself in with the key on the table – hers.” Guild pointed his cigarette at the scissors. “They make it look like him and not – well – Fremont for instance. He’d need them for the whiskers, and the things are new, as if he’d bought them on his way here.” He bent over to examine the table, the inside of the tub, the floor. “Though I don’t see any hairs.”

“What does it mean, then – his coming here?” the district attorney asked anxiously.

The dark man smiled a little. “Something or other, maybe,” he said. He straightened up from his examination of the floor. “He could’ve been careful not to drop any of his whiskers when he hacked them off, though God knows why he’d try.” He looked thoughtfully at the shaving-tools on the table. “We ought to do some more talking to her boyfriend.”

Downstairs they found the manager waiting in the lobby for them. She stood in front of them using a bright smile to invite speech.

Guild said: “Thanks a lot. How far ahead is her rent paid?”

“Up to the fifteenth of the month it’s paid.”

“Then it won’t cost you anything to let nobody in there till then. Don’t, and if you go in don’t touch anything. There’ll be some policemen up. Sure you didn’t see a man in there early last night?”

“Yes, sir, I’m sure I didn’t see anybody go in there or come out of there, though the Lord knows they could if they had a key without me -“

“How many keys did she have?”

“I only gave her one, but she could’ve had them made, all she wanted to, and likely enough did if she was – What’d she do, mister?”

“I don’t know. She get much mail?”

“Well, not so very much and most of that looked like ads and things.”

“Remember where any of it was from?”

The woman’s face coloured. “That I don’t. I don’t look at my people’s mail like that. I was always one to mind my own business as long as they paid their rent and don’t make so much noise that other people -“

“That’s right,” Guild said. “Thanks a lot.” He gave her one of his cards. “I’ll probably be back, but if anything happens – anything that looks like it might have anything to do with her – will you call me up? If I’m not there leave the message.”

“Yes, sir, I certainly will,” she promised. “Is there -?”

“Thanks a lot,” Guild said once more, and he and the district attorney went out.

They were sitting in the district attorney’s automobile when Boyer asked: “What do you suppose Wynant left the key there for, if it was hers and he used it?”

“Why not? He only went there to shave and maybe frisk the place. He wouldn’t take a chance oh going there again and leaving it there was easier than throwing it away.”

Boyer nodded dubiously and put the automobile in motion. Guild directed him to the vicinity of the Golden Gate Trust Company, where they parked the automobile. After a few minutes’ wait they were shown into the white-haired cashier’s office.

He rose from his chair as they entered. Neither his smile nor his bantering “You are shadowing me” concealed his uneasy curiosity.

Guild said: “Mr. Bliss, this is Mr. Boyer, district attorney of Whitfield County.”

Boyer and Bliss shook hands. The cashier motioned his visitors into chairs.

Guild said: “Our Laura Porter is the Columbia Forrest that was murdered up at Hell Bend yesterday.”

Bliss’s face reddened. There was something akin to indignation in the voice with which he said: “That’s preposterous, Guild.”

The dark man’s smile was small with malice. “You mean as soon as anybody becomes one of your depositors they’re sure of a long and happy life?”

The cashier smiled then. “No, but -“ He stopped smiling. “Did she have any part in the Seaman’s National swindle?”

“She did,” Guild replied, and added, still with smiling malice, “unless you’re sure none of your clients could possibly touch anybody else’s nickels.”

The cashier, paying no attention to the latter part of Guild’s speech, squirmed in his chair and looked uneasily at the door.

The dark man said: “We’d like to get a transcript of her account and I want to send a handwriting man down for a look at her checks, but we’re in a hurry now. We’d like to know when she opened her account, what references she gave, and how much she’s got in it.”

Bliss pressed one of the burtons on his desk, but before anyone came into the room he rose with a muttered, “Excuse me,” and went out.

Guild smiled after him. “He’ll be ten pounds lighter before he learns whether he’s been gypped or not and twenty if he finds he has.”

When the cashier returned he shut the door, leaned back against it, and spoke as if he had rehearsed the words. “Miss Porter’s account shows a balance of thirty-eight dollars and fifty cents. She drew out twelve thousand dollars in cash yesterday morning.”

“Herself?”

“Yes.”

Guild addressed Boyer: “We’ll show the teller her photo on the way out just to be doubly sure.” He turned to the cashier again: “And about the date she opened it and the references she gave?”

The white-haired man consulted a card in his hand. “She opened her account on November the eighth, last year,” he said. “The references she gave were Francis X. Kearny, proprietor of the Manchu Restaurant on Grant Avenue, and Walter Irving Wynant.”