Tough as Nails: The Complete Cases of Donahue From the Pages of Black Mask (8 page)

Donahue prowled around with a keen predatory look in his eyes. He touched nothing. He came back to the dead man and rolled him over with a foot. The man’s pockets had been pulled out. Bills and loose change and a rifled wallet lay on the floor near him.

Donahue sloped into the studio, snapped dark eyes around, stood spreadlegged in baffled chagrin, swinging a clenched fist at his side. Canvases on plain wooden frames were strewn about. Everything was in disorder—but in this studio it might have been put down to the artist Cros-by’s recent homecoming.

Cruising the living-room and the bathroom, Donahue finally came to the corridor door, glared at it, then yanked it open and went running down four staircases. He did not know where the houseman lived, so he opened the front door, pressed the button.

A minute later the man who had first opened the door appeared, and Donahue said, “Come upstairs with me.”

The little man followed, complaining that he was getting old, that it was a hard climb to the top floor. Donahue did not argue, but led the way up and then on into Crosby’s apartment. When he piloted the little old man to the bed-room he did not have to point out the dead man lying on the floor.

The little man gasped, “Mr. Crosby!” in a horrified voice.

“Just wanted to make sure,” Donahue said, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“It’s—Adler.”

“Okey. Now come into the living-room with me.” He took the little old man by the arm and marched him out of the bedroom, across the studio, and into the living-room. “Sit down,” he said briskly, and pointed to a straight-backed chair. When the man seemed not to have heard, Donahue put a hand on either shoulder and pressed the man down into the chair with firm, gentle persistence.

“Mr. Crosby!” the little man moaned. His face twisted up and a tear fell from each eye.

Donahue was crouched over him, shaking his shoulder. “Come on, Mr. Adler—snap out of that.”

“Uh—Mr. Crosby….”

“I know, I know all about that, but snap out of it. He was probably a good guy, lived here a long time, and you liked him a lot. Okey. But don’t slop all over the place now. You can do that later. But brace up…. Listen. My name’s Donahue. You hear? It’s Donahue. I’m a private cop. You hear me? I said I’m a private cop. Mr. Crosby called up the Interstate this afternoon and asked them to send a cop down. They sent me down. You get all that?”

Adler sat straight in the chair now blinking through his small spectacles. He sniffled. He gulped. “You’re—a private detective?”

Donahue slapped the man’s shoulder. “There! You’ve got it now! All right. Now pay attention. You remember when you let me in?”

“It was eight-thirty.”

“Okey. There was a man in this room when I came up. He said he roomed with Crosby.”

“No—nobody roomed with Mr. Crosby.”

“I know that—now—but I didn’t then. Now what time did you let that man in?”

“About seven-thirty.”

“He didn’t give a name, did he?”

“No. He just snapped, ‘Mr. Crosby.’ Like that. He was a big hard-looking man—”

“What? I mean, you say he was a big man?”

“Well, big as you… six feet… heavier than you, though.”

Donahue’s dark eyes glittered. “All right. He came in at seven-thirty. Now the man in here was a small man, no taller than you. What time did he come in?”

“I didn’t let anybody in but the big man.”

Donahue stood up and jammed fists against hips. He looked at the door and said, “This ain’t even funny,” and his upper teeth chewed on his lower lip. Then he looked down at Adler.

“Mr. Crosby came home from Europe—when?”

“Monday—three days ago.”

“Did you ever see or let in a small young man—say about twenty-eight—with hair black as mine only smoother. He has very white even teeth and a pleasant agreeable face. His voice is high but nice on the ear, and it’s a lively voice.”

“No, I don’t remember. I’m sure I didn’t.”

“All right. Now how about a woman a little smaller than you, say about twenty-six, with a small face, neat pointed chin, small teeth, and large brown eyes?”

“Well, I didn’t let a woman like that in. But I came in with mail for Mr. Crosby yesterday and a woman like that was sitting in that leather chair by the fireplace. I think she came over on the boat with Mr. Crosby or met him in Europe or something. He was over there four months, you know.”

“How old was Crosby?”

“Maybe thirty he was, and very successful, he was. He made covers for magazines. And he was so cheerful and seemed much younger than he was… like a boy, Mr. Donahue. And he was good to me. He’s lived here for six years, and I’ve been here ten. He used to give me clothes o’ his—lots of them that was almost new. And hats. And I could wear his socks. Sure, it was just yesterday morning he gave me a suit and a couple of hats with London labels and some socks. Ah, poor young feller!” Adler wiped an eye. “Somebody’ll be having to notify his uncle up in Westchester—Mr. Amos Crosby, a fine upstanding old man that loved young Mr. Crosby.”

Donahue’s voice was low and husky saying, “It was rank murder, Mr. Adler—and somebody was looking for some-thing Crosby had—something he probably brought from Europe.” He shrugged, slammed fist into palm. “Well, now the police.”

He strode through the studio, into the bedroom, paused to stare moodily at the bloodied body, then went on to the little table and picked up the telephone. He called the dis-trict station-house, and when the connection had been made he said:

“Hello, is this you, Riley?… This is Donahue. Say, a guy’s been rubbed off down in Waverly Place. Real butch-er’s job…. Number 14. Guy name of Crosby—artist…. No, I don’t think it’s a crime of passion…. How did I? Well, Crosby called up Hinkle this afternoon and told him to send a man tonight. I came down…. No, we didn’t know why he wanted us. He’s just come back from Europe. So I came down, and when I got here Crosby was cold…. Yeah, I’ll hang around till you send the plain-clothes over.”

He hung up, rose, went over and stood beside the dead man on the floor. Among the articles that had been emp-tied from the wallet, was a small pin seal book with gold edges. Donahue knelt down, picked it up, flipped the pages. It was an address book with alphabetical indentations. He turned to C. He found Amos Crosby, Westchester 0040. He turned to T. He found L. T. scrawled in pencil, beneath it, Avalon-Plaza, and a Schuyler telephone number. He re-turned to the telephone and called that number.

When a voice said, “Hotel Avalon-Plaza,” Donahue said, “Will you connect me with Miss Tenquist?” There was a long pause, then the voice saying, “Sorry, sir. Miss Tenquist does not answer.” Donahue said, “Thanks,” and hung up.

He dialed the Agency next and said, “Burt. Hello, Burt. This is Donahue. Crosby’s been croaked…. Yeah. It’s a long story and the plain-clothes’ll be in any minute. All the time I was waiting for him he was dead in another room…. Absolute. A guy I’ve seen, a broad, and another guy I haven’t seen, are mixed up in it. Crosby has an uncle in Westchester. Money, I guess. We may get a job if you call him up and notify him of his nephew’s death. Spread it thick. Tell him the boy had engaged us. Number’s West-Chester 0040…. Okey, Burt. Be seeing you later.”

When he got back to the living-room, Adler was still sitting on the chair, head in hands. A bell rang loudly somewhere distant, and Adler started, got up.

“The front door,” he said, and hurried out sniffling.

Donahue was standing before the fireplace lighting a cigarette when the door opened. A man in plain-clothes came in followed by two uniformed policemen. The man in plain-clothes was tall, lank, lantern-jawed. He wore a faded gray overcoat and a soft hat that had been made shapeless by many rains.

“Hello, Donahue,” he said glumly.

“Hello, Roper.”

“Where’s he?”

“Across the studio.”

Roper had his hands in his pockets and his shoulders huddled up to his ears, as though he were chilly. The two cops were young, in bright uniforms. They followed Roper.

Adler came in rubbing his hands slowly together against his meager chest. He looked helplessly at Donahue. Don-ahue smiled reassuringly but said nothing.

Roper’s heavy slow footfalls came back across the bare studio floor, and then he came into the living-room.

“That’s nice,” he said. He looked at Adler. “Who’s this?”

“Houseman,” Donahue said.

Roper said, “Yeah?” and then moved towards the fire-place, pulled a chair up close to it and sat down with his back to the fire huddling his big bony shoulders. He looked mournful and detached.

“Now,” he said, “let’s go over it.”

Donahue, holding the little black address book in a clenched hand in his pocket, smiled with long narrow teeth and said, “Sure, Roper,” amicably.

When Donahue left the house in Waverly Place, it was ten-twenty, and the morgue bus was drawing up to the curb. There was no crowd, since no commotion had at-tended the quiet murder of Crosby, and crowds in Waverly Place are rare anyhow.

Donahue crunched stout shoes on freezing slush as he headed west, turned into Sheridan Square. He crossed the Square and went down into dark windy Grove Street. Where a dim yellow light glowed from a door submerged five feet beneath the level of the sidewalk. Donahue turned down the flight of stone steps, passed through the open doorway, turned right against a closed door, opened it, walked ten feet down a narrow corridor, opened another door, and entered a long bar at which stood eight scattered men.

The slack-faced barman, who was idly picking his teeth, said, “’Lo, Donny.”

“Bunt,” Donahue said. “Scotch and soda.”

“How’s the racket?”

“On the up and up.”

While the barman was uncorking the Scotch, Donahue walked the length of the bar, entered a telephone booth. The sound of the nickel dropping in the slot was audible outside the booth. Donahue talked for a minute, hung up. Then another nickel made a noise. He talked again, hung up, came out and picked up a pickle from the lunch counter on his way to the bar. He downed the Scotch straight, chased it with soda, rang a half dollar on the bar.

He said, “Be seeing you, Bunt,” and walked out.

Returning to Sheridan Square, he went down a West Side subway kiosk, took a northbound local to Fourteenth Street, left the local and caught a northbound express. Ten minutes later he left the express at Seventy-second Street, took a local to Seventy-ninth, got off and climbed the stair-way to Broadway. He walked one block west and turned south into West End Avenue.

The Avalon-Plaza was a small apartment-hotel better than middle class, just short of swank. Donahue passed a braided doorman, pushed a revolving door around, climbed three marble steps, turned right and climbed three more, and then walked down a narrow quiet foyer. To the corpu-lent complacent man at the desk he said, “Will you tell Miss Tenquist that Mr. Donahue is calling?”

The man said, “Certainly,” and repeated the names to the switchboard operator. When he turned back to Don-ahue saying, “Yes,” Donahue asked, “What number?” And the man said, “A-455.”

A small silent elevator whisked Donahue to the fourth floor, and the elevator boy leaned out to point and say, “Down that way, sir, around the bend.”

There was a brass knocker shaped like a harp on the door marked A-455. Donahue raised it and let it fall back to its brass base.

The latch clicked and Miss Tenquist looked quizzically at Donahue. She had loose brown hair and wore a blue peignoir casually and becomingly.

He eyed her steadily with round hard brown eyes and showed his long narrow teeth in a fixed smile.

Without saying anything, the woman stepped aside and looked around the room vaguely, and while she was doing that Donahue walked into a small but not inexpensive living-room. To the left were two doors. One led to a bath-room; the other to a bedroom.

When she had closed the door, Donahue, hat in hand, said, “I called you from downtown.”

“Yes?” She was eying him strangely, uncertainly, and color was creeping into her cheeks.

He was smiling at her fixedly. “I didn’t tell you over the phone that Crosby’d been murdered.”

Her small white fingers flew to her mouth but did not succeed in stopping an explosive, “Oh!” that burst from spread lips. Her brown eyes dilated wide with sudden horror. Then the lids wavered, the eyes rolled a bit. Dona-hue took a step toward her, arms outthrust. She backed away, putting the back of her hand against her forehead. She sank to a divan and said breathlessly, “Oh… mur-dered!” tragically.

“Yes,” Donahue clipped. He went on rapidly in a blunt incisive voice, “He’d been murdered when you got there. He’d been murdered before I got there. He was lying in his bedroom all the time and I didn’t know it.”

She said, “Oh, oh,” behind teeth that tried to close hard, and a harried look battled in her eyes.

“Listen,” Donahue said, sitting down beside her. “You were worried when you came there tonight. Who are you? How long have you known Crosby?”

“I’ve known him—quite a while.”

“Not so long. I happen to know you came over on the boat with him.”

She caught her breath, trained her eyes on the carpet. “Yes, I did. I knew him in Europe. We met in Europe.”

“Listen. When you came in tonight, how did you get in?”

She had her handkerchief pressed against her mouth now. She looked squarely at Donahue with her wide-open eyes. “Why, what do you mean?”

“I mean, ordinarily you ring the front door bell to get in that house. You didn’t. You came right in. You must have had a key.”

She swallowed. “Who are you?”

“I told you my name. That’s not answering my question. Did you have a key?”

She got up and started walking around the room. Dona-hue got up and trailed her around the room, asking, “Now did you, did you?” She whirled and cried, half in tears. “What if I did have a key?”

He stopped and spread his hands palmwise, saying, “That’s what I wanted to know. Then you had a key. You must have been a very good friend of Crosby’s.” He smiled crookedly. “Very intimate, eh?”

She looked confused. “If you want to put it that way.”

“That’s all right by me,” he grinned. “We’ll forget all about that. But here’s something else. That guy I said was Crosby’s room-mate wasn’t. Why didn’t you tell me no-body lived with Crosby when I made that crack?”