I looked the place over and said, “Whenever the management goes to the extent of putting in brilliant light globes, you know the place is dark as hell in the daytime,” and switched out the lights.
Instantly the place became dark, gloomy and depressing. What afternoon light filtered in through the window was so badly dispersed that it gave the place an atmosphere of gloomy unreality.
I noticed a knifelike ribbon of light coming from under the door of the bathroom.
Crail said, “For God’s sake, switch that light back on.” I clicked the switch.
“Well,” Crail said, “she’s probably gone out to get something. She’s packing. I guess we...”
“What do we do?”
“Wait.”
I said, “Okay, sit down.”
Crail took the lumpy overstuffed chair and tried to fidget himself into a position that was comfortable.
I walked over to the occasional table which would be by the head of the bed when the bed was let down, and looked in the open drawer.
There was a small bottle in there with the cap unscrewed. The bottle was empty. The label said, “Luminal.”
I thought for a moment, looked at my watch, then said to Crail, “What time did she leave the office?”
“About four-ten,” Crail said. “She said she wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. I told her to go ahead.” I said, “Did you notice anything peculiar?”
“About what?”
“About the way she said good-by.”
He looked at me with tortured eyes, then nodded his head slowly.
I didn’t ask him what it was, but he volunteered the information. “There was a certain feeling in the way she said it. Something of finality. I guess she read my mind.”
I looked at my watch. It was five-fifteen.
I sat down in a chair opposite Crail and took out a package of cigarettes. “Want one?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I lit a cigarette, and Crail sat watching me. The hundred watt light in the ceiling showed small, almost microscopic beads of perspiration on his forehead.
“How,” Crail asked, “did you happen to know — that she was going, I mean?”
I looked at him and said, “How did you happen to know that your wife had been driving behind Rufus Stanberry?”
His eyes shifted for a moment, then came back to mine. “She told me.”
I grinned at him.
His face flushed. “You don’t believe it?”
“No.”
His mouth tightened. “I’m not accustomed to having my word questioned.”
“I know,” I said sympathetically. “Lying comes hard to you. Was Georgia driving her car, or did you borrow it?”
He couldn’t keep the consternation out of his eyes.
I settled back in my chair and puffed on the cigarette.
“How did you know Georgia’s car was there?” he asked.
“One of the parties to the automobile accident took down the license numbers of a whole flock of automobiles.”
He said, “They must have got the wrong license number.”
I smiled and said nothing.
“All right,” Crail blurted, “I borrowed her car. She didn’t know anything about it. I... I mean what I wanted it for. I darn it, Lam, I was such a despicable cad that I followed my wife. I wanted to know... well, I thought she had an engagement to meet someone, and I wondered... well, you know, that Stanberry Building.”
“I know,” I said.
He didn’t say anything for a while.
I said, “When you realized your wife was in trouble, you decided that it didn’t make any difference what it was, you were going to stand by her. But you knew that Esther Witson had got her name and address as well as the license number of the car in connection with that automobile accident, so you wanted it settled.”
He didn’t say anything.
I said, “Life is a peculiar phenomenon, or rather a whole series of phenomena. Lots of times it’s hard to do something without hurting someone.”
I saw him look at me searchingly, but I kept my profile to him and kept on talking abstractly. “Lots of times in affairs of the heart, you have to hurt either one person or another no matter which you do. Sometimes you hurt several people. But when you have to choose the person you don’t want to hurt, you sometimes get hypnotized into choosing the person who doesn’t want to be hurt. Do you get what I mean?”
“I don’t see what this had to do with it,” he said.
I said, “Sometimes a woman who really loves you will remain in the background so that you don’t realize the full extent to which you are hurting her. On the other hand, there are lots of women who are adept at putting it up to you in terms of ‘I don’t want to be hurt.’ ”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Crail asked.
“Your wife,” I said, and stopped talking.
There was a long ten seconds of silence.
“By God!” Crail said in a choking voice, and got to his feet.
I didn’t say anything.
“I should hit you,” he said.
“Don’t do it,” I told him. “Go look in the bathroom instead.”
Crail gave me one tortured, anguished look. Then he got to the bathroom door in three steps and jerked it open.
Georgia Rushe was lying in the bathtub, fully clothed. Her eyes were closed. Her face was slightly pallid and her jaw was dropped.
I crossed over to the telephone, dialed Police Headquarters and said, “Connect me with Frank Sellers of Homicide — quick!”
It was only a couple of seconds before I had Sellers on the line.
“Frank,” I said, “this is Donald Lam. Send an ambulance to two-o-seven West Orleans Avenue. The party you want is in apartment two-forty-three. She’s tried to commit suicide by taking Luminal. It hasn’t been over forty-five minutes since she took the dose and a stomach pump and stimulant should fix her up.”
“What’s her name?” Sellers asked.
“Georgia Rushe.”
“Why do I bother with it?”
I said, “Ellery Crail is here and he’ll have a story to tell you if you talk to him about it.”
“I get you.”
I said, “And have one of your men get hold of Frank L. Glimson of Cosgate & Glimson. They’re lawyers. Tell Glimson that Irma Begley, who was the plaintiff in a case against Philip E. Cullingdon has confessed to fraud and has made statements that implicate Cosgate & Glimson. Ask them if they care to make any statements. And keep them away from the telephone.”
“This Georgia Rushe,” Sellers said, “will she talk?”
“No. The party you want is Ellery Crail.”
Crail, just emerging from the bathroom, said, “What’s that? Who’s mentioning my name?”
I said, “I was trying to get some hot coffee sent up. We’d better get her out of the bathtub and see if we can put some cold water on her.”
I hung up.
Crail and I lifted her out of the bathtub.
“She’s drugged!” Crail said. “We’ve got to do something!”
I said, “Put some cold towels on her forehead and on her chest. I tried to get some hot coffee sent up, but they won’t send it. I’m going down and bring up some black coffee.”
Crail looked desperately at the kitchen and said, “Perhaps we can make some coffee here.”
“We haven’t time. There’s a restaurant down the street,” I said, and bolted out of the door, leaving Crail behind with Georgia Rushe.
17
I drove the agency car fast, taking chances on a speeding ticket. It would have been a good plan to have parked it a block or two away from Billy Prue’s apartment, but I didn’t have the time. I drove right up to the apartment house, parked the car in front of the door, ran up the steps and rang Billy Prue’s bell.
It was one chance in ten — one chance in a hundred. If she was there at all, she would be packing up, but... I rang the bell again.