He walked in and laid the file on Eglin’s desk. The chief inspector looked up.
“Gloria Hume,” said Eglin. “Here’s the dope on her. Clerk in Crider’s store at Avery and Mason. Been with him a year. Works from two in the afternoon till ten-thirty. Lives in an apartment five blocks from the Berkey’s. What do you make of it?”
“Avery and Mason. That’s a block south and a block east of the No. 1 store. Was it on Garfield’s beat?”
“It was.”
“Then she was the one.” Eagerness filled Jordan. The cold lump began to dissolve. “She was at Store No. 1 that night. She got Garfield killed.”
“Possible. But not likely.”
“Why not? How often has Crider been seen going in her apartment? Has he bought her any jewelry and stuff? Has she ever been seen with Garfield?”
“Are you beginning to fancy yourself a detective, Jordan? We’ll check those things as a matter of routine... No. You’ve let yourself forget the main fact. Bart wouldn’t lie if his sister was in the clear.”
“Maybe he didn’t lie. How about last night? Crider sent Gloria up there as sure as you sent me.”
“Probably. Could be he just wanted to know if the Berkeys were coming back to work. So he sent someone who knew them. Why are you suddenly so interested in clearing Elsa?”
“I just feel that you’re dead wrong, Inspector,” said Jordan. He spoke slowly. It was almost as though he were talking to himself, arriving at a final judgment he had long delayed. “She’s no better than she ought to be, but still she’s honest and— Well, I’ve never met a girl like her.”
Eglin gave him a long, thoughtful look. “That’s the way it is? First Garfield. Now you. One dead cop isn’t enough. Suppose you go back to your traffic corner.”
“No.” He spoke without thinking. That was what he had wanted once, but not now. “You assigned me to get the low-down on her. And I did. So?”
“Young cops,” said Eglin. He spoke bitterly. “The Lord save the public from young cops.”
Jordan felt annoyed. “Don’t you want an honest report?”
Eglin said, “Where do you carry your gun?”
Jordan tapped his left armpit, looked puzzled.
Eglin nodded. “If you have to get it out, keep the Berkey woman in front of it. As a favor to me, Jordan.”
4.
The steaks were nicely broiled. The meal was a man’s meal, and relaxing. Even Bart’s presence didn’t spoil it. Elsa had probably done some talking to her brother since last night, told him that Ron Jordan from St. Louis might stand between him and a bullet.
During dessert abruptly Bart got up and started limping around the room. Something had him scared. It was working on him now.
“Bart, listen—” began Jordan. He stopped short, aware he had almost given himself away. He had almost told Bart to stop worrying.
He blurted, “You wash the dishes, Bart, and I’ll dry. We’ll show Elsa we appreciate good cooking, huh?”
“I’ll do them,” said Bart shortly.
Elsa sent Jordan a warning glance: Let Bart do them. It’s something to occupy his time. He needs that.
She cleared the table, then came and sat beside Jordan on the couch. He took her hand; she pulled it away.
So that was the way it was going to be. He decided not to waste any time. “You’re not what?” he said.
“I don’t understand?”
“Last night as I was leaving, you were anxious to tell me that you were not something or other.”
She answered quietly, “I’m not a kindergarten teacher any more. But I was once — for a year.”
“Why did you quit?”
“Do you know what a school teacher’s salary is?” She looked steadily into his eyes. “I’m no sweet and innocent young thing, Ron. You saw that last night.”
He said, with a gentleness that surprised himself, “I want to hear it.”
“The starting salary for a probationary teacher wasn’t enough for two. I made more as a night-club singer, but not enough more. So I found a job where I waited on men and — used my looks to make selling easy and profitable. Until—” She dropped it there, smiling. “You see?”
“I see,” he said. He looked at her eyes and marveled that he had ever thought them hard. He saw that the maternal instinct in her held the quality of fierceness: Bart was the kindergarten class that was denied her by whoever determined the low salaries paid to teachers.
She expected him to walk out now. It was plainly there in her expression.
Elsa said, “Ron?”
“Yes?”
“That trouble I told you about — the policeman who was murdered. It’s not over. Bart knows something he hasn’t told.”
She was confiding in him, and he though of Eglin’s crack about young cops. “What?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Bart won’t tell me what it is. He’s terrified and — and I am, too.”
“Why don’t you go to the police?”
“I would but the man who was killed — I went out with him a few times. Bart is — well, you’ve seen. He’s dependent upon me, and jealous. He didn’t like this man, just as he doesn’t like you. What if...” Her mouth trembled. “He couldn’t have. He’s just a lonely and wretched boy without anyone to turn to but me. There are dark places in his mind but not that kind. I know he couldn’t have helped...”
The whisper dropped away to nothing. She did not need to finish. Jordan knew the rest of it. Did Bart help Joe Crider kill Garfield? That was what Eglin believed. That was what Elsa feared. He wondered if Bart had done the job himself. That would explain why he was not afraid of being attacked last night, his present troubled conscience.
She said quietly, “I’ve been using you, Ron. When you were a stranger I could do it and it didn’t bother me much. Now I know you and I can’t any more. You must leave. There’s danger here.”
He told himself that maybe she wasn’t really trying to get rid of him. Maybe this was a more subtle play for his aid. She had adroitly taken the sex out of the situation; now she was appealing to his manhood. Angrily, he pushed away the thought. He was getting as bad as Ben Eglin.
“What kind of danger?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But the man we worked for—”
She stopped when Bart came out of the kitchen.
“What is it, Bart?” asked Elsa.
“Nothing,” he said defiantly.
“Bart, I’ve got an idea,” said his sister. It was astonishing how soothing chat husky voice could be. “Tomorrow you can start painting my room.”
Bart straightened up. Animation came into his face. “Can I, Sis?” he said. He suddenly seemed a lot younger than he actually was. “Swell! I’ll paint it that celadon green you like. I’ll need a—” He stopped, his face unaccountably stricken.
Jordan caught Bart’s tortured expression, wondered what Bart could possibly need that would affect him in this way.
Elsa hadn’t noticed. She explained to Jordan, “Bart loves house-painting. He’s good, too.” Her pride was very apparent. “The owner of the store where we worked bought him some supplies and was going to let him paint the entire store. But then the — the trouble came up.”
Jordan sat quite still, on the verge of discovery. Bart had been about to paint the store. Crider had bought him the supplies; they should have been in the store that night. But there was no word of painting supplies in those reports in the murder file. No listing of paint, or brushes... What else would a painter need? A ladder, a canvas to spread on the floor— That was it! A waterproofed canvas.
Elsa, Jordan saw, had not finished her speech extoling Bart. Bart was always making or fixing something. That cedar flower box, he’d put it together just out of scraps. By laying the living room carpet, he’d saved them the thirty-six dollars that the carpet men wanted to charge for the job. Just yesterday he was puttering with the carpet, hammering some nails in, though he’d finished with that job sometime ago. And there was a lamp shade that never—