I said, “Quick! Get out of here and...! No, it’s too late.”
Bertha had spotted the agency car. I saw her tap Sellers on the shoulder and point. Sellers went over and looked at the license number. They talked together earnestly for a minute, then moved toward the door of the apartment house.
A moment later Billy Prue’s bell made noise.
“What do I do?” she asked.
She was looking at me with eyes that were wells of dismay.
“Sit down in that chair,” I said. “Don’t move! Don’t make a sound no matter what happens. Do you promise?”
“If you want me to.”
“No matter what happens! Understand?”
“Yes. Anything you say, Donald.”
The bell didn’t make any more noise.
I opened the door to the corridor, made certain the spring lock was working. “No matter what happens, don’t make a sound. Understand?”
She nodded.
I pulled the door closed, dropped down on my hands and knees and put my ear to the crack along the floor.
I was in that position when I heard faint steps down the corridor. I moved slightly, and the steps suddenly stopped.
I got to one knee, felt in my pocket for my collection of skeleton keys, took them out and tried out one on the lock.
The steps sounded again.
I whirled with the guilty start of someone who has been detected in an unlawful activity.
Sergeant Sellers was right on top of me.
“So,” he said, “got a key to the joint, have you?”
I tried to whip the keys back into my pocket.
Sergeant Sellers’ fingers clamped my wrist.
“Well, well, well,” Sellers said as his other hand snapped the key container out of my nerveless grasp. “So your agency plays around with skeleton keys, does it, Bertha?”
Bertha said, “Damn you, Donald, I told you a long while ago to get rid of those. They’ll get you in trouble.”
I didn’t say anything.
“What,” Sellers asked, “is the big idea?”
I said, “I wanted to get in for a look around.”
“I gathered you did. How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know — four or five minutes, maybe.”
“That long?”
I said, “I rang the bell three or four times to make sure there was no answer, then I... well, I got in through the outer door.”
“Then what?”
“Then I came up here and knocked. Then I listened for quite a while. I didn’t want to take chances on going in until I was sure the place was empty.”
“It’s empty?” Sellers asked.
“Yes. I think she moved out.”
“Then why did you want in?”
“I wanted to check something about the position of the bathtub.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see where two people would have to stand if they lifted the body into the bathtub. It would take two men to...”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Sellers interrupted. “I’ve busted the case wide open.”
“You have!”
“Yes. I want that jane.”
“Why?”
“We’ve identified the hand ax. She bought it at a hardware store three blocks down the street.”
I tried to make my voice sound unconcerned. “She’s probably at the Rendezvous now. You didn’t go out on that ambulance case?”
He grinned. “I thought that could have been a red herring, Donald. I wanted this Prue girl.”
“But someone went out to that Orleans address?”
“Sure.”
“And they won’t let Crail get away?”
“No, sweetheart, and you won’t get away, either. Come on. We’re going places.”
“Do I get my keys back?”
“Naughty, naughty.”
“Take the damn things and throw them away,” Bertha said angrily. “I’ve warned the little devil about that.”
Sellers said, “Come on, quit stalling.”
I followed them down to the street. I said, “I’ll take the agency car and...”
“The hell you will!” Sellers said. “You’ll stay right here, my lad, until I’ve put the bracelets on that little girl’s wrists. You won’t pull any slick little job of getting in to a telephone and tipping her off...”
“The bracelets on her wrists!”
“Sure. What did you think?”
“Don’t let him stall you,” Bertha said. “He knows. He’s a smart little bastard. He was going to tip her off. My God, how he falls for women! That’s the trouble with him.”
Sellers said, “Listen, Donald, she’s the one who did the killing. Don’t get tangled up in it.”
I looked at him and laughed. “Anyone could have picked up the hand ax,” I said.
Sellers rose to the bait. “I’ve got the deadwood on her. Under an assumed name she rented an apartment in the Fulrose Apartments. She’s had it for a month, always being careful never to go in except when Rufus Stanberry was out. She’s been searching his apartment. The day of the murder, just after Stanberry had been bumped off, she showed up and made a good job of it. She went through the safe that time.”
“How do you know?”
“Archie Stanberry tells me some things are missing from the safe.”
“But how do you know she did it?”
He laughed and said, “She was smart when it came to going through Stanberry’s apartment. She didn’t leave any fingerprints. But she wasn’t smart when she lived in that apartment under an assumed name. Hell, it wouldn’t have done her any good anyway. She couldn’t have lived there for a month without leaving fingerprints.”
“You mean you’ve found her fingerprints in that apartment?”
“Sure. The one she rented under an assumed name. What’s more, the manager and one of the clerks identify her photograph absolutely.”
“Gosh!” I said.
“Don’t let it get you, lover,” Bertha said cheerfully. “She never was anything but a little gold digger with pretty legs.”
“How did you get wise?” I asked Sellers.
“Shucks, there was nothing to it. You went out to see this man Cullingdon. She went out to see Cullingdon. Your cars were parked side by each, or end to end — whichever you want to call it. She knew where your car was. She knew whose car it was. You let her drive you away. After you left her, she had ample time to drive out and ditch the murder weapon in your car. She thought she was being smart as hell when she did it. It was one of those things that looked good at the time, but it stuck her head in the noose.”
Bertha said suddenly, “Listen, Frank, I don’t want to go back with you after you’ve made the pinch and have Donald in the car with that little tart. Suppose Donald and I take the agency car and follow right along behind you. I’ll see that he doesn’t telephone.”
Sellers thought that over for a moment and said, “Okay.”
He walked over to the agency car with me.
I reached in my pocket for the keys. A sinking feeling developed in the pit of my stomach. I’d left the car keys and my driving gloves on the table in Billy Prue’s apartment.
“Well?” Bertha said.
I know now how people feel when they get stage fright. There probably wasn’t anything I could have said then that would have stalled the thing off, but if there had been, I couldn’t have said it. I was absolutely tongue-tied. I just stood there fumbling through my pockets.
“Where are they?” Bertha said.
“I must have dropped them there on the carpet when I took these other keys out of my pocket.”
Bertha looked at Frank Sellers.
Frank Sellers said softly under his breath, “Why you dirty double-crosser!”
The next second I felt his left hand grab my wrist. I saw the flash of steel and heard the ratchet of handcuffs. Steel bit into my wrists.