“Yes. A girl friend. Young girl, about eighteen. The reason I remember her is that one of the elevator boys told me this girl was living here for about a week — with Hope Miller.”
“Know who she was?”
“Another show girl, I guess. They often do that. One of them gets broke and the other will take her in till she gets a job.”
Byron left.
The cop at the door was still there. “Well, how’d it go?”
“Cold turkey.”
He walked in the rain, not particularly conscious of it; his felt hat was crushed out of shape and water dripped from the brim onto his face. He walked, thinking only of the apartment, and then, in his mind’s eye, putting her in it: doing the normal things of life, eating and sleeping, playing the radio, watching late television.
He stepped into a drugstore and phoned from a booth.
“There was a girl that lived with Hope Miller.”
“Yeah, we know. She was the twist this Joel Martin was stuck on, and the reason for the fight. But she left a day before the murder, and Hope Miller’s still good friends with her — anyway, she won’t tell who she is or where we can find her. So far nobody knows this dame. Not that it matters so much, this case being like it is. You stick to what you’re supposed to do and don’t worry about any other angles.”
When he came out of the drugstore he flagged a taxi. He knew he was trying to punch a hole in the best airtight confession Homicide had had for months. In ordinary circumstances he could have seen things clearly, weighed values, but now he didn’t know whether he had a hunch or was just trying to prove he was lucky.
He went to the night club and had a look at her dressing room. They hadn’t done much to it. The beaded gown she wore when she was under the spotlight still hung in the closet. Her cosmetics were on the dresser. He went through the drawers. There were matches and a half-empty pack of cigarettes. He picked a wilted orchid out of the wastebasket. He looked around, then he stuck it in his pocket. He found one of her professional portraits and thought of taking that too, but he didn’t.
He went out and found the stage manager.
“Yeah,” the manager said, “Mr. Martin picked her up now and then, but there were other guys too. She didn’t play favorites much. And she didn’t hang around when her turn was done.”
Byron went out.
He followed the routine circuit for the next two days and didn’t dig up anything startling. Then they asked him to see a kid named Roger Harding who was merely one of the many names listed among her acquaintances. They didn’t think Harding was important because he was younger than Hope, and she always picked older men. It was just that she’d known him.
“The Hardings are more social than rich since their crack-up on Wall Street,” the first-class man had told him, “but they have got prestige, so go easy on the kid. When you get the report in on young Harding we’ll probably take you off the case. Everything’s pretty well sewed up against her. Only, of course, we’d like to find this girl that lived with her...”
So he went to see Roger Harding. The kid lived alone in an apartment. His folks were in the country.
He was a tall good-looking youngster with curly black hair, a pale face, and dark eyes. He was a chain smoker, and walked up and down, while a pop-eyed Boston bull sat on a silk cushion in one corner and blinked at the proceedings.
Byron went down the routine list of questions. Yes, Roger had known her — known her fairly well. He had always thought she was a fine girl. No, he didn’t know anything about the murder.
Then Byron thought about the Grand Central Station number scrawled in the brown book, and he went on his own for a moment. All his life people had said he was lucky the way things broke for him. So he played his luck now, stabbed out without knowing what he was talking about.
“This girl that left town on the train the night of the murder... how about her?”
“What girl?” Roger Harding took the cigarette out of his mouth.
“You know, the one you were sweet on.” Just luck, Byron thought, play it, ride it. He could tell now that the boy knew something definite, the way he acted.
Harding laughed. “Oh, you mean Helen.”
“Helen?”
“Helen Wood. Hope’s known her for a long time. She goes to school in Virginia. Comes to New York only once in a while.”
“I see. She’s your girl?”
“I’m engaged to her, if that’s what you mean.”
Byron said, “Then of course you know what school she’s in?”
Harding knew. Byron had bluffed over the first stumbling block, and it was all easy from there on in. This was the girl who had vanished. This was the girl the first-class men wanted to see. As if Hope Miller’s confession wasn’t enough, they had to build up more evidence against her: establish motive sworn to by witnesses. This was the angle they wanted on the missing girl, and Byron had it now.
Only when he was on the street again he changed his mind about sending in the report. He’d gone this far alone, so he might as well go the rest of the way. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to hurt Hope Miller if he could help it.
They took him off the case, but he asked for two days’ leave of absence and got them.
He flew to Virginia.
Helen Wood was very pretty, and sweet, yet adult-looking. She seemed more than her eighteen years. She didn’t know anything of what had happened — hadn’t heard of or read about the murder.
“It’s about Joel Martin that I came,” he said, and strictly speaking that was right. “We just want some facts about him, and we thought you could answer a few questions for us.”
She laughed. “But what could I tell you?” She had red hair and delicate features; her skin was very soft.
Hope had red hair too, and looking at Helen, Byron said, “What’s the connection between you and Hope Miller? You staying with her, and that stuff?”
For a moment she didn’t answer, then she said, “Hope’s my sister.”
“Sister?”
She nodded. “Miller is only a stage name. But — well, Hope doesn’t tell about us being related because — since our folks died a long time ago, she’s sort of taken care of me, and she wanted me to marry into a good family. She thought that her being a show girl might hurt my chances.”
“Oh.” Byron just looked at her.
“As for Mr. Martin, the night-club owner, he did take me around a little while I was in New York, but that was all Roger’s fault.”
“Roger Harding?”
“Yes... I’m engaged to him, but — well, sometimes he’s such a little nut. He took me to Mr. Martin’s gambling place, then deliberately left me alone. Mr. Martin noticed how embarrassed I was and offered to take me home. He said Roger had been drinking and wouldn’t be leaving for hours.”
“So you went with Martin?”
“Just to spite Roger, of course. I had dinner with Mr. Martin the next day.”
“Did you see Roger Harding again?”
“Yes. But he acted awfully funny. As though he were sick. He didn’t seem to be interested in me any more. He took me out on my last night in New York, but then he got terribly drunk, and I left him. I went to my sister’s club and told her I’d have to go to the station alone. You see, Hope had a show at midnight — just the time the train was pulling out.”
“Did you see Martin again?”
“No. I went back to Hope’s apartment and got my bag, then took a taxi to Grand Central.”
“One more thing. Does your sister own a gun?”
“Yes. It belonged to my father. She tells people she keeps it under her pillow. It’s sort of a joke among our friends.”
Byron nodded. “And did she know you were going around with Mr. Martin?”