The glittering eyes looked at him searchingly.
“You may be a salesman,” she said, “but you talk like an apartment manager.”
He smiled, shook his head, and, lest he should seem too eager, peered about in the closets and in the little kitchenette, making a critical survey; at the end of which he produced five five-dollar bills. “The name is Sam Pelton,” he said.
She scribbled a receipt. “When do you want to move in?” she asked.
“Right now.”
“Baggage?”
“It’ll come later.”
She nodded, handed him the key and said, “Good night.” She pulled the door shut behind her and Terry stood, listened to the business-like plunk-kerplunk-kerplunk of her flat feet as she pounded down the corridor.
Switching out the lights in his apartment, he opened the door and stood listening, until he heard the muffled bang of a door on the lower floor.
Terry slipped across the few feet of hallway which separated him from the door of Juanita’s apartment and once more his skeleton key clicked back the spring lock. Within less than ten seconds, he had picked up the portrait, tiptoed out of Juanita’s apartment and gently closed the door behind him. He walked into the apartment he had just rented and switched on the lights.
Terry removed the drawing-pins and pulled the canvas from the wooden frame which had supported it. He pulled an edge of carpet loose and inserted the canvas between floor and carpet. Then, replacing the carpet, he placed a chair directly over the spot which concealed the portrait. He broke the wooden backing into several pieces, moistened his handkerchief, scrubbed the pieces carefully, so as to remove any fingerprints, and stacked them on the shelf of the closet, picking the darkest corner he could find.
He was consuming his second cigarette when once more he heard steps in the corridor and this time he detected the rich, throaty tones of Juanita Mandra.
“...a liar. I’m the one that left at two o’clock with that painting. I can prove it. Why did I take it? I took it because that woman had hypnotized my husband. He was going to divorce me... How do I know whether she was serious or just playing around? All I know is he... fascinated by her... didn’t give a damn whether he did a little stepping...”
As they huddled together before the door and Juanita apparently bent over to insert her key in the lock, Terry missed some of the conversation. A moment later he heard the slam of the door.
Terry dragged a chair to the door, stood on it and listened through the open transom. From time to time he could hear bits of conversation, mostly exclamations from Juanita. Inspector Malloy’s voice was, for the most part, merely a suave rumble.
“No, I don’t know any Chinese girl!” Juanita half screamed. “What the hell do I care what she said?”
There followed the rumble of Inspector Malloy’s voice, then Juanita Mandra again, “You can’t pin that on me! I tell you I had the portrait. It’s been stolen!”
Apparently they moved into the bedroom. Their voices all became a mere murmur, punctuated from time to time by an occasional isolated word which meant nothing to Terry. After some ten minutes of fruitless eavesdropping, he heard the door of Juanita’s apartment open and Inspector Malloy’s voice sounded as distinctly audible as though he had been at Terry’s elbow. “Now don’t get all excited. We’re just checking up, that’s all. You see we’d heard about this Chinese girl who said she was a friend of Juanita’s, and naturally we got to wondering who Juanita was. It’s funny you haven’t any idea who that girl could have been, but, if you haven’t, that’s all there is to it. It’s too bad about that portrait. I’m going to tell the D. A. about that. But if it was stolen, why wasn’t something else taken?”
Juanita said defiantly, “I tell you the truth and you don’t believe me. Come, we will go see the manager. She saw the portrait in my apartment. She can tell you that it was here as late as seven o’clock, when I went out. Why do you bother me? Arrest the woman who painted the portrait! I tell you she killed him!”
The door of Juanita’s apartment banged shut, and Terry heard the trio pass directly beneath the open transom, heard them on the stairs, and, a few seconds later, the sound of excited conversation from the lower floor.
Because of her friendship for Sou Ha, Juanita was protecting the Chinese girl. And, in extending that protection, she had automatically thrown the cloak of her silence over Terry’s visit earlier in the evening. To have referred to Terry as a witness who had seen the portrait, would have been to involve Sou Ha. Despite her desire to enmesh Cynthia Renton in the toils of the law, Juanita was protecting her Chinese friend at all costs.
Terry waited until the sounds of conversation on the lower floor had subsided. He had fully expected that Inspector Malloy would take Juanita with him to headquarters for questioning. This would leave the coast clear for Terry’s escape.
He was surprised, therefore, to hear Juanita’s step on the stairs, and Inspector Malloy’s booming voice, “It’s too bad about that picture. I know how you must feel about it. And I’m all upset, finding that you’re Mandra’s widow. I wouldn’t have bothered you at a time like this for anything. I’ll be running along now, and we’ll try to get that portrait for you. You just leave everything in my hands. You’ll hear from me again.”
Juanita said nothing. She was, Terry reflected, hardly the type to be impressed by Malloy’s genial sympathy, a sympathy which always seemed directed towards some very definite goal.
Terry stood by the door, listening to the quick tread of Juanita’s feet in the corridor, the sound of her key in the lock. Slowly, he climbed down from the chair on which he had been standing. Inspector Malloy had traced Juanita, had learned of the portrait which she had left in her apartment. He had taken steps to check up on that portrait, and then had gone away!
Why?
Was he setting some trap for Juanita? Had he, perhaps, something else in mind, something more important than the checking of Juanita’s story? In that case, Malloy’s sudden departure would have to do with Cynthia Renton or with Terry Clane, and in either event it boded no good. Juanita had admitted her relationship with Mandra, had admitted that she was the woman who had been seen coming down the stairs at two o’clock in the morning, carrying the portrait of the dead bail-bond broker. She had insisted that portrait had been in her possession as late as seven o’clock; and, more to the point, she had produced evidence tending to prove it.
This made her a most important witness. It also brought her into the case as a logical suspect. If she had had that portrait at seven o’clock, as she claimed, then Cynthia’s alibi must be founded upon a forged portrait. If she hadn’t had the portrait, her admission that she had been at Mandra’s apartment at two o’clock in the morning would make her one of the last persons to have seen Mandra alive. In either event, the logical thing would have been for Malloy to have taken her to headquarters for questioning. Yet he had contented himself with apologizing for intruding upon her grief, had expressed his sympathies for the loss of the portrait — and had gone away.
Malloy’s action was, on the face of it, so completely inconsistent with the man’s character that Terry feared a trap, and, until he knew more of that trap, he was afraid to leave the apartment house.
He smoked several cigarettes, sitting tense, excitedly expectant, waiting for some event of major importance to take place, yet not having the slightest idea what that event would be.
He prowled around his own apartment, trying to find some better means of disposing of the portrait and the broken bits of wood. He could find none. To have tried to burn either the canvas or the wood would have been to fill the apartment house with smoke. To have pitched bits of wood out of the window might or might not have been a good move. He could only tell with the coming of daylight. Yet long before daylight he must find some way of leaving.