“He strangled Stella Petrucchi and Donald Katz under difficulties,” said Ellery. “Conditions were not as favorable to him in those two murders as in the previous ones. Undoubtedly he had to run bigger risks, invent more lies to account for his absences at least in the Katz case; how he managed it in the Petrucchi case, especially on the night of the murder itself, after the Cat Riot, I’d love to know. It’s reasonable to suppose that his wife, the Richardsons, began to ask embarrassing questions.
“Significantly, it’s those three who’ve gone to Florida.
“Hesse saw Mrs. Cazalis ‘arguing’ with Cazalis at the gate to the train. It’s an argument that must have started days ago, when Cazalis first suggested the Florida trip. Because it’s a certainty Cazalis was the one who suggested it, or who saw to it that the suggestion was made.
“I’m inclined to think he worked it through his sister-in-law. Mrs. Richardson was his logical tool. In her Cazalis had an excellent argument for his wife, who must have been hard to persuade: Della could stand a rest and a change of scene after what had ‘happened,’ she leaned heavily on her sister, and so on.
“However Cazalis managed it, he got the Richardsons to leave town and his wife to accompany them. Unquestionably he explained his inability to go with them on the double ground of his remaining patients and his promise to the Mayor to clean up his end of the investigation.
“Anything to get his wife and in-laws out of the way.
“Anything to give himself freedom of movement.”
Jimmy said. “There’s still the maid.”
“He’s given her the week off,” said the Inspector.
“And now they’re all out of the way,” nodded Ellery, “he has unlimited opportunity and mobility, and the Cat can really go to work on the delightful problem of Marilyn Soames.”
And he did. Cazalis went to work on Marilyn Soames as if getting his noose around her throat was of the utmost importance to his peace of mind and he could no longer hold himself in.
He was so eager he was careless. He went back to his shabby topcoat and old felt hat; he added a motheaten gray wool muffler and scuffed shoes; but otherwise he neglected to alter his appearance and it was child’s play to keep track of him.
And he went hunting in daylight.
It was evident that he felt completely sure.
He left his apartment early on Tuesday morning, just after Detectives Hesse and MacGayn took over from Goldberg and Young. He left by way of the service entrance, slipping out into the side street and walking rapidly toward Madison Avenue as if his destination lay westward. But at Madison he veered south and walked all the way down to 59th Street. On the southeast corner he looked casually around. Then he jumped into a parked taxicab.
The taxi headed east. Hesse and MacGayn followed in separate cabs to minimize the danger of losing him.
When Cazalis’s cab turned south on Lexington Avenue the detectives tensed. It kept going south but as it did it worked its way farther eastward until it reached First Avenue.
It went straight down First Avenue to 28th Street.
Here Cazalis’s taxi made a four corner turn and drew up before Bellevue Hospital.
Cazalis got out, paid his driver. Then, briskly, he began to stride toward the hospital entrance.
The cab drove off.
Immediately Cazalis stopped, looking after the cab. It turned a corner, heading west.
He retraced his steps and walked rapidly toward 29th Street. His muffler was high around his neck and he had pulled the snapbrim of his hat over his eyes as low as it would go without looking grotesque.
His hands were in the pockets of his topcoat.
At 29th he crossed over.
He walked past 486 slowly, looking the entrance over but without stopping or changing his pace.
Once he looked up. It was a four-story building of dirty tan brick.
Once he glanced back.
A postman was trudging into 490.
Cazalis continued to amble up the street. Without pausing he strolled around the corner to Second Avenue.
But then he reappeared, coming back at a fast clip, as if he had forgotten something. Hesse barely had time to step into a doorway. MacGayn was watching from a hallway across the street, out of sight. They knew that at least one of the detectives assigned to guard Marilyn Soames was in 486, probably at the rear of the downstairs hall, in the gloom behind the staircase. Another was on MacGayn’s side of the street somewhere.
There was no danger.
No danger at all.
Still, their palms were sweating.
Cazalis strode past the house, glancing in as he passed. The postman was now in the vestibule of 486, slipping mail into the letter boxes.
Cazalis stopped before 490, looking at the number inquiringly. He fumbled in an inner pocket and produced an envelope which he consulted elaborately, glancing from time to time at the house number above the entrance, like a collector of some sort.
The postman emerged from 486, shuffled up the street, turned into 482.
Cazalis walked directly into 486.
Detective Quigley in the hall saw him look over the letter boxes.
He studied Soames box briefly. The paper name plate bore the name Soames and the apartment number 3B. There was mail in the box. He made no attempt to touch the box.
Quigley was having a bad time. The mail was delivered at the same time every morning and it was Marilyn Soames’s habit to come downstairs for it within ten minutes of the regular delivery.
Quigley fingered his holster.
Suddenly Cazalis opened the inner door and walked into the hall.
The detective crouched in the blackest corner behind the stairs.
He heard the big man’s step, saw the thick legs pass and disappear. He did not dare to make the slightest movement.
Cazalis walked up the hall, opened the back door. The door closed quietly.
Quigley shifted his position.
Hesse ran in and joined him under the stairs.
“In the court.”
“Casing it.” Then Hesse whispered, “Somebody coming down the stairs, Quig.”
“The girl!”
She went into the vestibule, unlocked the Soames box.
Marilyn wore an old bathrobe; her hair was in curlers.
She took out the mail, stood there shuffling letters.
They heard the snick of the rear door.
Cazalis, and he saw her.
The men said afterward they expected the Cat case to be written off then and there. The setup was ideaclass="underline" the victim in the vestibule in a bathrobe, bound to come back into the gloomy hall in a matter of seconds; no one about; the street outside almost deserted; the court for an emergency getaway.
They were disappointed. Hesse said, “Hell, he’d probably have tried to drag her behind the stairs, the way he did O’Reilly over in Chelsea. Where Quigley and I were parked. The crazy bastard must have had a premonition.”
But Ellery shook his head. “Habit,” he said. “And caution. He’s a night worker. Probably didn’t even have a cord along.”