“What has he been seeing Wallace about?”
“I don’t know yet.” Ritter pushed his dark soft hat to the back of his head. “Seems last night’s his day off and I can’t locate him. I’m on the point of putting out a six-state alarm for him, but little Patty talks me out of it. She guarantees to produce him for me at eleven o’clock this morning. Want to come along?”
“Maybe I’d better. How does the girl explain her visits to Wallace?”
“She don’t know he’s a crook, she says. Friend of her dad’s, she says. Ran into him in New Orleans when she was studying music down there, then lost sight of him for a few years. When he sees her picture in the papers after she wins that opera whoopdedoo, he looks her up here in Northbank. She goes to see him a few times to talk about her family and maybe drink a glass of sherry or two. That’s all. She has no idea who killed him or why.”
“What about that stuff you collected from the medicine cabinet in Wallace’s bathroom?”
“I got it here.” Ritter pulled a plastic bag from his bulging pocket. “It ain’t much. Aspirin, toothpaste, bicarb, hair tonic, and this bottle of pills from some drug store in Cleveland.”
Dr. Coffee uncorked the last item, sniffed, shook a few of the brightly colored tablets into the palm of his hand, sniffed again, and poured them back. He picked up the phone.
“Get me the Galenic Pharmacy in Cleveland,” he told the operator. A moment later he said, “This is Dr. Daniel Coffee at the Pasteur Hospital in Northbank. About a month ago you filled a prescription for a man named Wallace. The number is 335571. Could you read it to me? Yes, I’ll wait... I see. Diasone. Thank you very much. No, I don’t need a refill, thank you.”
Dr. Coffee’s face was an expressionless mask as he hung up. He pondered a moment, then picked up the phone again. He dialed an inside number.
“Joe? Coffee here. Has the undertaker picked up that body we were working on this morning?... Good. Don’t release it for another half hour. Dr. Mookerji will tell you when.”
The pathologist took off his white jacket, hung it up carefully, and reached for his coat. He took the detective’s arm and marched him out of the office. As he crossed the laboratory, he stopped to tug playfully on the tail of the Hindu resident’s pink turban.
“Dr. Mookerji,” he said, “I wish you’d go down to the basement and wind up that autopsy I started this morning. I need more tissue. I want a specimen from both the inguinal and femoral lymph nodes, and from each earlobe. When you’re through, you may release the body. Doris, when you make sections from this new tissue, I want you to use Fite’s fuchsin stain for acid-fast bacilli. Any biopsies scheduled, Doris?”
“Not today, Doctor.”
“Then I won’t be back until after lunch. Let’s go, Max.”
The office bistro of the Northbank Tribune staff was on the ground floor of the building next door. There reporters and desk men could refuel conveniently and could always be found in an editorial emergency. It was whimsically named “The Slot” because the horseshoe bar was shaped like a copy desk with the bartender dealing fermented and distilled items to the boys on the rim — like an editor meting out the grist of the day’s news for soft-pencil surgery.
There was a pleasant beery smell about the place, and the walls were hung with such masculine adornment as yellowing photos of prizefighters and jockeys, moth-eaten stags’ heads, mounted dead fish, a few Civil War muzzle-loaders, and framed Tribune front pages reporting such historic events as the sinking of the Titanic, the surrender of Nazi Germany, the dropping of the first atomic bomb, and the winning of the World Series by the Northbank Blue Sox.
The masculine decor was no deterrent, however, to invasion by emancipated womanhood. A series of stiffly uncomfortable booths had been erected at the rear of the barroom, and from one of them, as Dr. Coffee and Max Ritter entered, emerged a dark-eyed, flaxen-haired cutie who, from the swing of her hips as she advanced toward the two men, might have been a collegiate drum-majorette — except for the set of her jaw, the intelligent determination in her eyes, and the challenge in her stride.
“Hi, Patty,” said Lieutenant Ritter. “Where’s the fugitive?”
“Fugitive!” The girl flung out the word. “I warn you, I’m not going to let you frame Bob Rhodes. Who is this character you’ve brought along — a big-shot from the State Police, or just the F.B.I.?”
“Patty,” said Ritter, his Adam’s apple poised for a seismographic curve, “Dr. Coffee is maybe the only friend you and your lover boy have in the world — if you’re both innocent. Doc, meet Patty Erryl, the girl who’s going to make the Met forget Galli-Curci, or whoever they want to forget this year. Where’s Bob?”
“He’s been delayed.”
“Look, Patty baby, if you insist on obstructing justice, I’ll have lover boy picked up wherever he is and we’ll take him downtown for questioning without your lovely interfering presence.”
“Don’t you dare. If you—”
“Just a minute, Max,” Dr. Coffee cut in. “Remember I’ve never met Miss Erryl before. I may have a few questions—”
The pathologist was interrupted by a crash near the entrance. A man, sprawled momentarily on all fours, immediately rose to his knees, trying to recapture the bottles that were spinning off in all directions.
Patty Erryl sped to his rescue. She caught him under the armpits, straining to get him to his feet. “Bob, please get up. They’re trying to railroad you, and I’m not going to let them.”
“Come, my little chickadee, there’s no danger.” Rhodes had recaptured three of the elusive bottles. “There are no witnesses. There is no evidence. I did not kill Fuzzy Face.”
“Bob, you’ve been drinking.”
“No, my little cedar wax-wing. Only beer. My own. If only Mr. Slot would stock my Danish brand. You know I never drink until the sun is over the yardarm. Which reminds me. We have passed the vernal equinox. The sun must be over—”
“Bob!”
“Rhodes,” said Max Ritter, “the desk clerk saw you at the Westside last night.”
“That near-sighted pansy!” Rhodes exclaimed. “Don’t you ever try to prove anything by his testimony. And don’t tell me that anything I say may be used against me, because even if this place is bugged I’ll deny everything. You’ve drugged me. You’ve beaten me with gocart tires. You’ve kicked my shins black and blue. I’ll swear that you’ve—”
“Stop it, Bob.”
“May I ask a question, Mr. Rhodes? I’m Doctor—”
“Sure, you’re the learned successor to Dr. Thorndyke, Dr. Watson, Dr. Sherlock, Dr. Holmes, Dr... Indeed, I’ve heard about you, Dr. Sanka. Go ahead and ask.”
“What were you doing at the Westside Apartment Hotel last night?”
“I was on assignment.”
“From whom?”
“I’m not at liberty to say. The highest courts of this state have ruled that a newsman is not required to reveal his sources. Privileged communication.”
“This ain’t a matter of privileged communication,” Ritter said. “This is a matter of murder in the first degree. Look here, Rhodes—”
“Just a minute, Max. Mr. Rhodes, were you inside Apartment Twenty-six last night?”
“No.”
“Did you see a man named Paul Wallace last night?”
“No.”
“But you know that Paul Wallace was killed in Apartment Twenty-six last night, don’t you?”
“Sure. I read the papers even on my day off.”
“Did you see anyone go into Apartment Twenty-six last night?”
“No.”
“Did you see anyone come out?”
Rhodes hesitated for just the fraction of a second before he said, “No.”