“Ballistics,” he offered in a discouraged voice. “The slug hit a bone and was all mashed up, just like in the Lancaster killing. All they can give me is it was a thirty-eight. And since there was no casing found in the room, probably a revolver was used.”
“Unless the murderer stopped to pick up the ejected cartridge.”
“Yeah,” Day said. “So it might be the same gun used on Lancaster, or it might not. What I like about this case is all the scientific help we get from our hundred-thousand-dollar laboratory.
“Take fingerprints. Every time somebody gets killed, the public wants to know about fingerprints. Know how many usable fingerprints we found in Knight’s hotel room? One. Exactly one. On the underside of the dresser’s glass top. Probably belongs to the guy who set the top there when the room was furnished. Every other print in the room was so smudged it was useless for comparison. Look here.” Pulling a glass paper weight before him, the inspector rubbed it clean with his handkerchief. “Now there’s a perfect surface for fingerprints, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’d think so,” I agreed.
Gently he placed an index finger against the glass. “If I touch it lightly like this, I leave a nice print. But if I press too hard...” He illustrated by increasing the pressure. “...the print smudges. Fingerprints are wonderful for identification purposes, but I never yet solved a murder by finding fingerprints on anything.”
Picking up the paper weight, he tossed it from one hand to the other a half-dozen times, then shoved it toward me. “Take that up to the fingerprint bureau and I’ll bet you ten bucks they don’t bring out a single print good enough for comparison purposes.”
Knowing Warren Day’s eagerness to part with money was approximately equal to my eagerness to part with another leg, I declined the bet. “I’ll take your word for it, Inspector. I’m convinced scientific criminal investigation, television and the horseless carriage are all flops. The blacksmith, vaudeville and homicide cops who can’t read will have their day yet.”
“Oh, the hell with you, Moon. I try to educate you a little and you crack wise.”
A knock sounded at the door, Day growled, “Yes?” and a uniformed cop entered.
“Fellow named Robert Caxton asking to see you, Inspector.”
“Caxton?” Day repeated. “Oh, that taxi driver in the Lancaster case. What’s he want?”
“Wouldn’t say, sir. Wants to talk to you.”
“All right,” the inspector said impatiently. “Send him in.”
The little taxi driver came in, scowled at me also, then turned his attention to Warren Day.
“I figured I better bring this straight to you, Inspector. I got to thinking about this phone call I got yesterday morning, and the more I thought about it, the screwier it seemed.”
“What call was that?”
“From this guy who said he was a reporter for the Morning Blade. Got me out of bed about nine yesterday morning. Usually I don’t get up till noon, see, because I work the four till midnight shift. I was half dopey with sleep, or I might have tumbled something was fishy at the time, but I never thought about it until this morning when the phone got me out of bed again and some woman asked what radio program I was listening to.” He smiled with relish. “Bet the Hooper people scratch me off their phone list. Then when I got to thinking about this reporter’s call, I dressed and came right over.”
“Well, get to it,” the inspector said impatiently. “What’d he want?”
“Just getting background for a human interest story on the Lancaster case, he said. Wanted some dope about the witnesses. Asked how long I’d run a cab, whether I was married or not. That kind of stuff. When he was finished asking about me, he said kind of casual-like, ‘Let’s see, you’re the third witness I’ve called. Thomas Henning... that’s the doorman, Manville Moon, the customer who saw it, and you. What was the name of that fourth witness again?’ Being half asleep, I said, ‘You mean Miss Moreni, the lady who runs El Patio?’ and he said, ‘That’s it. Forgot the name for a minute.’ Then he thanked me and hung up.”
All three of us were glaring at him by the time he finished. Day and Hannegan continued to look at him, but I swung my glare at the inspector.
“So you put tails on the witnesses,” I said bitterly. “If the killer approached either of them, all you had to do was grab him. But being so scientific-minded, it never occurred to you he might make use of a modern invention like the telephone.”
Day’s nose was whitening at the tip when he swung it at me. “It never occurred to you either. You knew what the setup was.”
Not deigning to answer, I jerked his desk phone from its cradle and gave the police switchboard Fausta’s apartment number. When it had rung for three minutes without answer, I hung up and tried the bar phone downstairs. Since it was only ten A.M. and El Patio did not open till noon, I was not surprised that it took another three minutes before I got an answer there. The voice that finally answered sounded like it belonged to a colored porter.
“Fausta around?” I asked.
“No suh.”
“Is Mouldy Greene there?”
“Back in his room, maybe. Want I should look?”
“Get him to the phone fast,” I snapped. “Got that? I want him right now.”
“Yes suh,” he said in a startled voice, and I heard him drop the receiver on the bar.
Another two minutes passed before Mouldy’s belligerent voice said, “Who’s in such a rush?”
“Moon,” I said. “Where’s Fausta?”
“Oh, hello, Sarge.” His voice turned friendly. “Ain’t she showed up yet?”
I felt my stomach turn over. “Showed up where?”
“Wherever you was supposed to meet her.”
“Look, Mouldy,” I said desperately. “Try to get this the first time I say it. I wasn’t supposed to meet Fausta anywhere. The guy who killed Lancaster knows she was the fourth witness, and if a fake call came for her, it was from him.”
“Huh?”
“For cripes sake, get your brains together, Mouldy. A killer may have hold of Fausta.”
“A killer? Just a minute, Sarge.” There was a dull clunk as the phone was laid on the bar.
“Mouldy!” I said. When there was no answer, I yelled, “Mouldy, you goddamned moron!”
There was still no answer, and I sat there with the phone glued to my ear a full two minutes, frustratedly glaring from the inspector to Hannegan to Caxton and then starting the circuit over again. I was almost ready to hang up and start driving toward El Patio when Mouldy returned. And by then I was so mad I couldn’t speak.
“Hadda talk to Romulus a minute,” he said calmly. “He’s the porter who answered the phone. About an hour ago the bar phone rang and Romulus answered. Some guy said he was you and he’d been trying to get Fausta’s apartment, but something was wrong with her phone. Then he told Romulus to tell Fausta to meet you at the Sheridan Cocktail Lounge at ten o’clock. She called a taxi and left here at nine thirty.
“Meet you at the Sheridan,” he said, and hung up.
As I started for the door Warren Day said, “Wait a minute, Moon. What happened?”
I stopped with my hand on the knob. Over my shoulder I said, “Your killer used my name as a lure, and Fausta may be dead by now. If you want to help rectify the results of your clever trap, start phoning cab companies to find out who made a trip from El Patio to the Sheridan at nine-thirty.”
Pulling open the door, I passed through and slammed it behind me without waiting for a reply.
In the time it took me to cross the street and climb into my Plymouth, Warren Day must have started a couple of plainclothes men on my tail, for as I pulled away I noticed a blue sedan swing into a U-turn from in front of Headquarters and fall in behind me.