Rawne hauled down on the greasy rope. “If they catch you, baby, you’re in for a rough shuffle. Questions all night long. By morning line-up you’d have circles under your eyes you could trip over.”
The dumb-waiter box rattled up to the dirt-caked rectangle.
“Get in.” Rawne said. “I’ll stand on top and let us down easy — I hope.”
Lulie Nolan looked at him with terrified eyes. A bell rang and she jumped. With a hopeless expression she scrambled into the box. Rawne shot a strange glance at her. He lowered the box and muscled himself on top. At the bottom the girl was gone before he could get out. He picked up a rag, shrugging, and wiped his hands. She came back, trembling.
“Police!” Her voice was hoarse.
“It’s their party,” Rawne said.
They were in the furnace room. Pipes ran overhead and a naked bulb burned dimly. On the side wall next to a racked hose hung old work clothes, overalls, shirt, a boiler suit. A fire roared under a boiler and a scattering of coal was spread in front of the bin and the cement floor was covered with coal dust. A shovel lay near the wall under a fuse box which was open. The box was dusty, but there was no dust on the switch handle to the hall lights. A splatter of blood stipled the concrete wall. Rawne looked closely. The blood was fresh.
He took the girl’s hand. Her fingers gripped his. They were very cold. They went up a wooden stairs into a small storeroom that smelled of disinfectant and was cluttered with brooms and mops and squeegees. They went through a white, spotless kitchen to a bedroom furnished with double-decked walnut bunks and into the front room which faced the street. The Venetian blinds were shut and a bridge lamp was lit alongside a typewriter on a small metal desk.
Rawne went to the bathroom. When he came out, the blood was gone and his hair was combed.
“We’re in Schmidt’s apartment,” he said. “Schmidt the superintendent. This must be his quiet hour at the corner pub.”
The girl threw herself on the blue divan and put her hands over her eyes. Rawne looked at her thoughtfully, lower lip buried between his teeth, and then he took a turn about the room. The walls, rug and upholstery were a deep blue. A sheet of paper was in the typewriter. A white-enameled box in a corner was half filled with colored catalogs or something. On the long oaken library table the city’s business directory, was open to a page near the end.
Rawne took Lulie Nolan’s corde handbag and emptied it on the table. Among the jumbled contents were no hundred-dollar bills.
“Fork over,” Rawne said.
“I haven’t your dirty money,” the girl said bitterly.
“Do I have to search you?” Rawne said.
A loud pounding on the door cut off the girl’s retort.
“Any one in there?” a deep voice demanded. “Superintendent. You in there? Open up.”
Rawne’s eyes were harried. He stood in the center of the room, indecisive, looking at the door and then at the girl. He motioned toward the back rooms and the girl tiptoed across the rug. She had both hands to her mouth and her eyes were wide with terror when she went into the next room.
Swiftly Rawne got his clothes off and hung them in the closet. He stowed his gun and harness under sheets on the shelf, putting the girl’s bag with them. He rumpled his hair. When he opened the door, he was yawning and stretching.
“No vacancies,” he said drowsily.
A stout man in gray tropical worsted stuck his foot against the door. He wore a new light-cream panama. Purple veins mottled his cheeks. He had a thick, splayed nose and a double chin. He was grinning.
“What brand of sleeping pills you use, super?” he asked. “I want to get some for my wife.”
“Ask me tomorrow,” Rawne said, yawning.
“I probably will,” the stout man said. He came in, looked around quickly, and sat down, taking out a small notebook and a ball pen. “I’m Griffin. Lieutenant. Homicide. I ask questions in my sleep.”
“Homicide?” Rawne said with a note of disgust. “Where? Not in the hallway. I have enough trouble keeping this place clean.”
Rawne got his trousers from the superintendent’s closet.
“What do you know about Four A?” Griffin asked.
Rawne shoved a foot through a pants leg. “Four A? Greer? Jim Greer’s all right. A little slow on the rent, that’s all.”
Griffin jotted something in his book. The questions were routine and Rawne dressed while he answered them. Griffin stood up and put his notebook away.
“We’ll go up,” he said, “and view the stellar attraction. By the way, Schmidt,” he asked Rawne, “do you like perfume?”
“Huh!” Rawne looked at Griffin as though he hadn’t heard right. “Do I— Sure, sure.”
The hall lights were on, and Rawne’s palm left a moist trail on the railing. He kept wetting his lips. The fat man was puffing, but he wasn’t pouring sweat the way it was coming from Rawne.
“Relax,” Rawne told Rawne while he paused for breath on the fourth floor. “These stiffs never rise up.”
Rawne was rigid going into the apartment. Lee Searle was slumped unconscious in a lounge chair, head wobbly, and some one was working over him. There was coal dust on Searle’s shoe point. Rawne’s eyes swept about the room, not focusing on anything. Griffin was watching him. Griffin was looking at Rawne’s big hands.
The body hadn’t been moved. A photographer was still working and Rawne blinked when flash bulbs went off. Fingerprint men were throwing aluminum powder around. A neat little man with a black satchel stood by, waiting for the photographer to finish. Rawne went over and looked at the body, nodding at Griffin.
The homicide man jerked his thumb at Searle. “This guy got knocked hard. Concussion. Maybe a busted noggin. I think he can explain the knife in the wall. Searle’s his name. You said you’d seen him. Now and then he mutters the name Rawne. You know Rawne?”
Griffin was looking at him intently and Rawne gazed at the ceiling, rubbing his chin.
“Rawne. Rawne. The name’s familiar,” Rawne said. “But Greer had a parade going in and out all the time. I never kept track of his friends.”
“Okay, Schmidt.” Griffin grinned at Rawne. “Thanks for helping us. We’ll call you if we need you.”
Rawne went down the stairs heavily, hitting each step hard. He was talking to himself and his brown face was sulky. He had the expression of a child who has been caught in a shameful act. He went into Schmidt’s apartment, slammed the door and cursed loudly.
“Do I like perfume!” he spoke in an outraged tone. “Do I know Rawne!”
Lulie Nolan came out of the bedroom with that walk of hers. Her eyes were dry and she seemed more self-possessed. She held a book or something in a yellow cover. On the divan were strewn other books in colored covers, and the white-enameled box in the corner was empty.
“Griffin! Lieutenant! Homicide!” Rawne exclaimed. “He treated me like a water-brain.”
The ting-a-ling-a-ling of an ambulance came down the street and stopped outside. Rawne scowled and took a bite at his lip. The latch release on the front door buzzed and clicked and tramping steps went up the stairs.
“That Griffin!” Rawne exclaimed. “Cat-and-mouse stuff. Griffin had the effrontery to look at my hands. I don’t shovel coal. I haven’t any janitor’s callouses. The way he acted he must have found those work clothes in the furnace room. Schmidt’s boiler suit wouldn’t fit me. If Griffin likes me as Jim’s killer, why doesn’t he take me in?”
He went to the closet. Lulie Nolan swallowed. The green eyes followed him tensely. Footsteps were coming down the stairs now.
“You could have scrammed,” Rawne said.
“I was going to,” the girl said. “But I couldn’t trust myself. If a cop even looked at me, I would have gone to pieces screaming.”