The front of the house was dark but there was an oblong of light shining on the snow from an unshaded French window on the right side. Norton noticed he had to pass the window on his way to the front door.
He came to the window and looked inside. The room beyond was a library. Lamplight shining on wine red damask chairs and curtains looked warm and inviting to Norton as he stood outside in the windy winter night. Kimball was relaxing in an armchair with a book in one hand and a highball on the table beside him.
Mrs. Kimball had just come in from the street. She was casting her wraps aside on the sofa. As Norton watched she sank into a chair and lit a cigarette. They were talking but he could not hear what they said. It was like a scene from an old silent film.
Norton went on toward the front of the house and rang the bell. Kimball himself came to open the door.
“My dear Norton, what on earth are you doing here? You should have called. You’re lucky to find me home this evening. Come right in! You look as if you could use a drink.”
“I’ve had a busy and a tough time of it all day,” said Norton. “And I just had to see you immediately.”
Inside the comfortable living room Kimball turned to the reporter and said, “Mr. Norton — my wife.”
Norton shook hands with Mrs. Kimball. She smiled and said, “I was just going to my room. I can see that you want to talk to Mr. Kimball. I’ll leave you two together but I hope you can stay for dinner, Mr. Norton.”
“Thanks—”
She left the room and they heard her go upstairs.
Kimball gestured Norton to a large wing-chair and then walked across the room and unlocked an old-fashioned tantalus and brought out a cut glass whiskey decanter. Norton took a long pull at the drink Kimball handed him.
Kimball sat down behind his writing table and looked at Norton. “Well?”
“As I’ve just said, I’ve had a busy time,” Norton said. “But I believe I’ve got the murderer.”
Kimball was startled. “Are you sure? Suspicion is one thing and legal evidence another.”
“Here’s the evidence. You’re a lawyer and you can tell me if I’m right or wrong.” Norton produced the black disc. As he outlined its history Kimball grew more and more perturbed.
“Marie Chester has testified there was no black disc behind the radiator the morning before Diana Clark was murdered,” said Norton. “Diana Clark didn’t drop the button fastener herself because she didn’t have a fur coat with her. I saw all her belongings at the district attorney’s office. Her only coat was velveteen. The disc couldn’t have been dropped by a man. Men don’t wear fur coats. Or so rarely it can practically be ruled out.
“That eliminates two chief suspects — Daniel Forbes and Martin Stacy. It also rules out Max and Benda and the hotel men, bellboys, detectives, policemen and reporters who visited the scene of the crime after the murder. There were no women detectives or women reporters working on the case — that was one of Marie Chester’s grievances. The only women who have visited the scene of the crime were the hotel maids and Jean Stacy. Maids don’t wear fur coats when they’re cleaning a room. Jean was wearing a tweed coat.
“Therefore, the button fastener must’ve been dropped at the scene of the crime by some other woman who had no legitimate business there and everything suggests that this woman was the murderer. Diana Clark was shot with a woman’s gun — a twenty-two. Marie Chester saw a woman leave the Clark suite the night of the murder. She went down the corridor to the fire stairs and she was wearing a long, brown coat. It was doubtless a fur coat, though Marie didn’t recognize it as fur in the dim light of the hotel corridor.”
“It’s quite plausible as far as it goes,” said Kimball. “But there are so many women in Pearson City who own long, brown fur coats and this button fastener could have come from any one of them.”
“Oh, no, it couldn’t!” A gleam rekindled in Norton’s tired eyes. “That’s where I got a lucky break. That’s why I’m here now. This particular button fastener is made of bindersboard instead of the usual pasteboard or leather. Only one retail furrier in Pearson City has been using button fasteners of bindersboard — Newton and Brill. They’ve only been in use the last six weeks. It’s a cinch Newton and Brill have sold only one fur coat in six weeks to a woman who knew Diana Clark.
“As soon as we see Newton and Brill in the morning we’ll have the murderer’s name in black and white. This little disc of bindersboard is going to send her to the chair. I might be sorry, if I hadn’t seen Marie Chester after Leo Benda’s gang got through with her.”
“What did they do to her?” demanded Kimball.
Norton told him. Kimball’s face, usually ruddy, turned deathly pale. He muttered incoherently, “Unspeakable... why did they also have to torture her!”
Norton nodded grimly. “Mrs. Forbes deserves all that’s coming to her.”
“Mrs. Forbes?” The name was a shock to Clement Kimball.
“What other woman had a motive for murdering Diana Clark? Mrs. Forbes was wearing a long, brown rabbit’s fur coat when I saw her and she recognized the button fastener the moment she saw it. She’s the sort of woman who would do anything to help her husband. Perhaps she rationalized the murder by telling herself she was protecting her child’s future.”
“No doubt, but—” Kimball passed a shaking hand across his forehead. “I’ve known Nancy Forbes all my life! I’m not a criminal lawyer and I’m not used to this sort of thing.” He rose. “I’d better phone the district attorney and see if he can come over at once. Excuse me—”
Alone, Norton finished his drink and helped himself to a cigarette from the box on Kimball’s writing table. As his gaze wandered around the room he wondered if he would ever be successful enough to own a home like this where hidden lights brought out ruby highlights in the gleaming surface of wine-red damask and old mahogany. Out here on the edge of the city it was extraordinarily quiet and peaceful. He heard no sound but the moaning of the wind outside.
Suddenly, Alec Norton saw the telephone on Kimball’s writing table — a perfectly ordinary dial telephone. Superficially, there was nothing alarming about it. But — Kimball had left the room in order to telephone the district attorney.
Why hadn’t he phoned from here?
Norton put the receiver to his ear. He heard the dial tone. The instrument was not out of order.
He replaced the receiver. Again his glance swept the room but this time it was alert, puzzled, searching. On the surface everything seemed normal — green-shaded reading lamp, book shelves rising row on row until they were lost in the shadows of the lofty, ceiling, cut glass decanter of whiskey glinting amber and gold in the lamplight.
Norton’s glance came to a halt. Mrs. Kimball’s wraps were still lying on the sofa where she had cast them down — a brown fur hat, brown suede gloves, and the dark, supple mink coat she had worn at Kimball’s office the first day he saw her. A long brown coat. A fur coat!
In four strides he crossed the room and seized the coat. Sewn to the rich brown satin lining was a label — Newton and Brill. In the pelt, under the button, where there should have been a neat slit, there was a wide, jagged tear. The button had been wrenched off and then replaced by someone ignorant of the furrier’s craft.
The lips of the tear were roughly basted together with brown silk and the tape on the under side of the button had been sewn to the surface of the fur. There was no button fastener inside. But the other buttons were held in place properly by a tape passing through a neat slit in the pelt to the inside of the coat. Under each button Norton’s probing fingers felt a round, flat disc concealed between fur and lining.
He snatched a pair of scissors from Kimball’s writing desk and sawed at one of the slits until it was two inches wide. Then he pulled the button. It parted company with the coat. On its under side, dangling from a loop of tape, was a button fastener — stiff and black, with a smooth, hard-rolled finish. Bindersboard!