This line of investigation soon proved valuable. A woman across the street said she had seen Pauline working at a sewing machine a few minutes before 3 o’clock. A window from the neighbor’s home gave her a view into that part of the house.
Another neighbor provided a lead. About mid-afternoon, she said, she had looked from a window when she heard the screech of brakes. She was in time to see a truck bearing the name of a large downtown hardware company grind to a halt several doors up the street.
The truck, narrated the neighbor, backed up and halted in front of the house. The driver jumped out bearing a small package. He disappeared up the driveway. At this juncture the neighbor had left the window. She heard the truck pull away later, she said, but did not know just how many minutes had elapsed.
Another neighbor told substantially the same story. Detectives hurried back across the street to check this information with the family.
Had they ordered anything from the hardware store? They said no. Occupants of the upper flat, who had not been home at the time of the murder, also were interrogated in like vein. They, too, said they had bought nothing from the hardware company.
Why then had the truck driver gone into the home, we asked ourselves. Had he discovered the girl home alone, made advances and then slain her in murderous passion? It would bear checking.
The line of interrogation so far had seemed to establish one thing fairly definitely — that the murder probably had taken place between 3 and 4 o’clock that afternoon of March 29, 1926. Fanning out, detectives asked countless questions of excited neighbors. Another lead developed. A silk stocking salesman had made a house-to-house canvass in the neighborhood that afternoon.
The salesman had visited the house, we discovered. A card bearing his name and a notation to the effect he would return at a later date had been left at the side door. He lived on Crescent Avenue not more than a mile from the murder scene and was located at dinner.
Any suspicions we had that he might have been the man we sought were dispelled after a few minutes’ conversation. He told a straightforward story. Yes, he had called at every home in the vicinity of the murder. He had left his card at the murder house when he had been unable to get any reply to the buzzer. That was approximately at 3:30 o’clock.
It seemed certain then that Pauline had been dead at that time. Perhaps the killer had been in the house when the hosiery salesman rang the buzzer. At any rate our time was narrowed down to 30 fateful minutes. What had gone on in them?
Another thing the salesman told us seemed important. While he was walking at Tacoma and Sterling avenues, he said, he had seen a man hurrying along with blood dripping from his face.
“Dripping?” he was asked.
“Well,” he replied, “there were several good sized drops. He really did have bad scratches on the right cheek. Anybody would have noticed it.”
From neighbors we also gleaned another clue. It was of the fantastic variety but it had to be checked. A peculiar incident had taken place near the house about the time of the murder. Three men, apparently of foreign birth, had been observed walking down the street. Two were delivering handbills. A third followed, carrying on one hand several razor strops. He was talking excitedly in his native tongue and the three paused occasionally to engage in heated verbal tiffs. But had they any connection with the murder? We began looking for the handbills.
In the interim we were checking the hardware company driver. Armed with the address given us by his superiors, we went to a modest Elm Street home. He was not known there! Thinking that perhaps we had the wrong address, we doubled back to the store, checked its employees’ list and made certain we had the right address. That was peculiar. Did it mean the driver was our man?
We looked over our files of wanted persons. The driver’s name did not appear in them. We checked our arrest lists. So far as we knew he had never been picked up. But he was going to be, if we had our way. But we had no clue as to his whereabouts. That meant we would have to wait until morning and see if he reported for work. If he did not know he was being sought, perhaps he would report as usual. Time enough to worry if he didn’t. There was other work to be done.
We turned to the investigation of the man with the blood-smeared face, the handbill distributors, and their strop-carrying acquaintance. With regard to the former, hours of work brought no results. But a check of the handbills left at North Park homes showed they were advertising a sale. We sped to the store, checked the list of distributors and later came up with two frightened men.
They had, they admitted, been in the vicinity of the murder house, but they protested they had no knowledge of the crime. And their assertions served also to clear their strop-carrying friend. He had been making a canvass of barbershops with his wares. They had been with him about the time of the killing and could establish an alibi for him. The distributors shook their heads in answer to our query as to whether they had seen a man with a scratched and blood-smeared face.
It was at this juncture that Dr. Danser called with his report. It made us forget our previous failures for it placed an entirely different light on the situation. The girl, said the medical examiner, had died, as he thought from the first, from the bullet wound. Entering her right breast, the bullet hit a rib, veered and pierced her heart.
The medical examiner’s next statement startled us. Pauline Sokolowska was not criminally assaulted. She died a virgin!
That placed an entirely different complexion on the case. At a stroke it ruled out the whole foundation of our original investigation. We were seeking a sex criminal but there had been no sex crime. Dr. Danser said there was no evidence on the body of any attempt at a criminal assault. Obviously it was not a case of death during an attempted rape.
We sat down to consider what the news of the medical examiner meant. Here we were in the midst of an intensive check, trying to form a list of sex criminals who either might know the Sokolowska girl, or who might live in the neighborhood. Now that was out.
We went to interview the dead girl’s grief-stricken mother. She was a widow and, sobbing, told us how happy she had been when Pauline found work. Her wages, though small, meant much to the family. We tried to glean from our conversation whether she knew of anyone who might have wanted to harm the girl. But she did not.
Still we pressed on. What about an incipient romance? Was there a chance a jealous boy friend might have been the killer? After more questions, we at last located the girl who apparently had been Pauline’s closest confidante.
She blushed when we asked if Pauline had ever had any trouble with boys. Had any ever got fresh? Well, she answered, Pauline had slapped a boy’s face a week or two before. That incident had taken place on an automobile ride. The boy had tried to steal a kiss and received a resounding slap on the face. After that he had been ultra penitent and decorous.
Just on a chance we hunted him out. But it was evident from the start that he was not our quarry. A ruddy-faced youth, he seemed genuinely shaken at the girl’s death. Questioned about the face-slapping incident, he shamefacedly admitted it was true.
“Sure, she slapped my face and I guess I deserved it,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on her head. She was swell.”
Next morning we raced to the hardware company on receiving a call that the driver we wanted had reported for work. He was a lanky, raw-boned fellow.
After telling him we were policemen, we questioned him about the erroneous address. But he was not perturbed.
“Oh, that,” he said. “Well, I used to board with some people there. But when they moved I did, too. Been bunking with a friend and never thought to tell the company.”