There was a laugh.
“Kamerad!”
He swore under his breath, stepped out into the doorway. She was sitting back in Helbourne’s chair, her feet cocked upon the desk. There was a pile of letters in her lap, a flashlight in one hand and a short-barreled .32 in the other.
“Imagine meeting you here,” he said dryly. “I phoned the Policewomen’s Bureau for you. They knew from nothing!”
Sergeant Dixon took her high heels off the desk. “I’ve been using the super’s passkey every night for the last two weeks. How’d you get in?”
He jangled the keys. “Property of T. Chauncey Helbourne. For the evidence clerk.”
She looked at him sharply. “Evidence? Is Helbourne... dead?”
Teccard sat down on the edge of the desk. “That’s what happens when you take a slug under the fourth rib.”
“Who shot him, Jerry?” The sergeant tossed the letters on the desk, stood up.
“There seems to be a general impression I did. The bullet came from my Regulation, all right. But I’d say the killer was the same one who did away with Ruby Belle.”
She saw the bandage on the back of his head. “Jerry! You were in it! You’re hurt!”
“Yair.” He managed a lop-sided grin. “That was no love-tap. Somebody dropped the boom on me, but good.”
She reached up, lifted his hat off gently. “That was close, Jerry.”
“They meant to kill me, at first. Changed their minds when they fished through my pockets, found my badge.”
“They? Were there two of them?”
The lieutenant nodded. “One K.O.’d me while I was putting the gun on the other one. I went bye-bye before I got a square look at either of them. They both scrammed. Now they know we’re closing in, they’ll be foxier than ever. If they’ve got anything on fire, they may try to pull it off before they do the vanishing act. But we’ll have to move fast, if we’re going to catch up with them. That’s why I came down here, to see if there might be any other poor boobs readied up for the kill.”
“You might have asked me. Just because I spent two years putting fortune tellers out of business and running around to disorderly dance halls, doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how to use my mind.” She held up a sheet of pink notepaper. “I dug this out of Helbourne’s private postoffice, there. It has all the earmarks. Box KDD. A Miss Marion Yulett, seamstress of Algers. Thirty-three. Possesses certain means of her own. Has a cheerful, homeloving disposition, yet is full of pep. Miss Yulett encloses five dollars to secure the address of a certain Peter Forst who’s apparently been giving her a buildup about his charms.”
“He live in New York City?”
“Can’t find any folder for Mr. Forst. Peculiar. Not even any letters to him — or from him.”
Chapter Four
Teccard chewed on his pipestem. Was Forst another one of Willard’s aliases? Had Helbourne been putting one over when he claimed to know nothing about other letters from the mysterious individual who always wrote from Manhattan? “When did this deluded dame come through with Helbourne’s fee?”
“Week ago today.”
The lieutenant reached for the phone. “Hustle me through to your super, pal. Supervisor? This is Lieutenant Jerome Teccard, New York Police Department, Criminal Identification Bureau. Talking from Bryant 32717. Yair. Get me the chief of police of Algers, New York, in a hurry, will you? Algers is up near Whitehall. Yair... I’ll hang on...”
While he was waiting, Teccard tried the only-flat key, from Helbourne’s bunch, on the locked middle drawer of the desk. It fitted. In the drawer was an empty cigar carton, some paper matchbooks, an overdue bill from one printer and a sheaf of estimates from another, a half-full flask of Nip-and-Tuck Rye, and a torn, much-folded plain-paper envelope, addressed to the Herds of Happiness, Box KDD!
The envelope was postmarked three weeks ago, from Station U, New York City.
Helen looked up Station U. “East One Hundred and Sixth Street, Jerry.”
“Same precinct as the bones. And friend Willard. One will get you ten that’s where we find brother Forst, too.”
There was a voice in the receiver. Teccard held it to his ear, muttered “Yair” a few times, added “Much obliged, Chief,” racked the receiver.
“Too late. Sucker Yulett left Algers on the morning train.”
Helen punched the files with her fist, angrily. “For New York?”
“Didn’t know. Southbound, anyway.”
The hurt look came into her eyes again.
Teccard shoved his hands into his pockets, gloomily. “All he did know — she had her suitcase, and the station agent said she was wearing a corsage.”
She showed teeth that were clenched. “Those damned flowers again!”
“They’ll probably last just long enough to be used on her casket,” Teccard brooded. “Wait, though. We might still be in time.”
“It wouldn’t take her all day to get to New York!”
“It might. Station master didn’t tell the chief what time the train left, this a.m. Might have been late morning. And those trains up north of the capital run slower than a glacier. If the Yulett girl had to change at Albany, and wait...”
Helen got the phone first, called train information. It was busy. The sergeant kept pounding the desk with her fist until she got her connection.
Before she hung up, Teccard was asking: “Can we stop her?”
“Only train making connections from Algers to New York arrives at Grand Central, eight forty. Gives us about twenty minutes.”
He caught her arm. “Hell it does. We’ll have to burn rubber to make it. We can’t wait until she gets off the train. We’ll have to find her, convince her we’re on the level, tip her off what she’s to do. Chances are, Forst’ll be waiting for her. We’d scare him off before we spotted him.”
She was streaking down the corridor toward the elevator. “We catch the train at a Hundred and Twenty-fifth, come in with her?”
“If she’s on it. If we can locate it. And if she’ll listen to reason. That’s a hell of a lot of ‘ifs.’ ”
The department sedan zoomed over to Park and Thirty-fourth — went through the red lights with siren screeching. They didn’t stop to park at a Hundred and Twenty-fifth, sprinted up the stairs as the conductor gave the “Boa-r-r-r-d!”
The sergeant saw the bunch of lilies-of-the-valley first. “That sweet-faced one, in the dark blue coat and that God-awful hat, Jerry.”
“Yair. You better break the ice. She’ll be suspicious of a man.”
Helen dropped into the empty seat beside the woman in the unbecoming hat. The lieutenant stayed a couple of paces in the rear.
“Miss Yulett?” the sergeant inquired, softly.
“You’re Miss Marion Yulett, from Algers, aren’t you?”
The woman smiled sweetly, opened her bag, produced a small pad and a pencil.
Swiftly she wrote: Sorry. I am hard of hearing.
Teccard smothered an oath. It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been crippled or scarred up — Helen would have been able to fix it so the Yulett woman could step into a ladies’ room, somewhere, and give her instructions to handle the man she was going to meet. But there wouldn’t be time to write everything out in longhand, without arousing “Forst’s” suspicions. And if the killer had an accomplice, as the lieutenant believed, this deaf woman couldn’t hear what “Forst” and the other would be saying to each other — and that might prove to be the most important evidence of all!
Helen scribbled away on the pad. Teccard sidled up alongside so he could read.