“Yeah, then you came upstairs,” Lindfors said, interrupting her with finality. “Was his door open?”
“Yes, it was. I went in and right away I smelled the gas stronger. I tell you I nearly fainted. I ran into the kitchen and there was the poor soul lying there with his head in the oven.”
“Well, people do things like that,” Lindfors said, with a philosophical shake of his head. “Was he sick or anything?”
“No, no. Mr. Sternmueller was the most cheerful man I think I ever knew. He was such a sweet person.” She put a handkerchief to her red eyes. “Full of fun and little jokes all the day long.”
Mark put his notebook away and strolled to the front windows. He pulled the curtains aside, and glanced down into the street; and a tiny frown gathered over his eyes. These windows, he realized, overlooked the spot where Dave Fiest had been killed. That didn’t mean anything necessarily but he found the coincidence thought-provoking.
Lindfors had gone into the kitchen. Mark returned to the dining room and glanced at the cabinets that were built against the walls.
“He collected time-tables,” Miss Elmira said. “From all over the world. He had thousands of them right here in this room. It was all he cared about.”
Mark picked up a few letters from a desk and looked through them. They were from various parts of the world, England, Sweden, Africa, and related to time-tables received, dispatched, discovered or desired. Time-tables were a big thing, he decided.
He stepped into the kitchen where Lindfors was on his knees beside Sternmueller’s huddled body.
“This character was in the Division this afternoon,” Lindfors said. “I remember him now. He lost a blanket from his car.”
“That’s no reason to commit suicide,” Mark said.
The coincidences were piling up in a curious fashion, he was thinking.
“Did you take care of him?” he asked Lindfors.
“No, Nolan did.” Lindfors bent over the body, humming under his breath. “See, he must have rolled over and hit an edge of the stove when he passed out.” He pointed to a faint discoloration along the old man’s jawline.
“He didn’t tell you about the blanket, then,” Mark said. “Nolan told you that the old man had lost a blanket.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Lindfors said. He got to his feet and dusted off the knees of his trousers. “I’ve got enough. The landlady tells me he’s got no relatives that she knows about. You ready to go?”
“No, I’ll stick around and see if I can pick up some background.”
“Okay.” Lindfors walked through the dining room, evaded Miss Elmira’s attempts to repeat the details of what had happened, and went out the front door.
Mark lit a cigarette and strolled into the living room. He sat on the edge of an arm chair and pushed his hat back on his forehead.
“You can’t think of any reason he’d kill himself?” he said to Miss Elmira.
“Oh, no. He was always so happy.”
“I see. Where did he keep his car?”
“Car? He didn’t have a car.”
Somehow Mark wasn’t surprised. He was tired and faintly bitter, but he wasn’t surprised. Everything fell inevitably into place. It was like a Greek tragedy, awesome, powerful but predictable. The plot just wasn’t any good.
“He didn’t have a car, eh?” Mark said. “Do you know if he was a sound sleeper?”
“Well, now that you mention it, he wasn’t. He napped in the afternoon, of course, and he used to say that kept him from sleeping at night. But I always say old folks don’t need so much sleep as the young.”
“That’s probably right,” Mark said. He glanced at the open windows, the curtains bellying slightly in the draft. “I’ll bet he sat over there where he could get a breath of air.”
“That’s right, so he did. He used to sit there and smoke his pipe at nights.”
“Thank you very much.”
“He was such a nice man,” Miss Elmira said, coming with him to the door. She began to weep. “He was such a nice little man.”
Mark patted her shoulder. “Yes, I’m sure he was,” he said quietly.
Sergeant Odell was alone when Mark came in ten minutes later.
“Is the Lieutenant in?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, sure. Did you get the suicide, all right?”
“Yes. Anything else doing?”
“No, everything’s quiet.”
“Fine.” Mark walked over and tapped on Ramussen’s door. Ramussen called out, “Come in.”
He was at his desk, glasses on, reading reports.
“Hello, Mark. What’s on your mind?”
Mark sat on the edge of his desk and said, “I’d like to talk about Nolan, Lieutenant.”
Something changed in Ramussen’s face. He removed his glasses and looked up at Mark with cold eyes. “I don’t want to hear about it, Mark. I was under the impression we understood each other on that subject.”
“Are you telling me you won’t listen?”
“I’m telling you that I’m running this Division and I don’t need your help.”
“Very well. Let me say just this much.” Mark lit a cigarette and tossed the match over his shoulder. “Reporters work pretty close to the Police Department here in Philly, and all over the country, I suppose. That’s okay on routine stuff, where it’s just a matter of taking names and addresses off forms. But occasionally something comes along where the private interests of the police and the reporter’s job of getting a story come into a conflict. Most reporters look the other way and play it the way the police want it played, because they’re liable to find themselves on the outside if they don’t.”
“So?” Ramussen said.
“So, this is to tell you I’m going after the story of Barny Nolan, with or without the Police Department. I’ve got a case against him, and if you don’t want it I’ll take it down to my managing editor. That’s not an attempt to scare you. I know you better than that. But neither is it a bluff. You know me better than that.”
Ramussen stared at him with cold bright eyes. Then, slowly, deliberately he put his glasses on and picked up a report.
“That’s it, eh?” Mark said.
“That’s it.”
“Okay.” Mark put his cigarette out in Ramussen’s ash-tray and walked to the door. He turned the knob and then glanced back at the Lieutenant.
Ramussen was watching him, frowning.
“Okay,” he said. “I’m a cop first. I’ll remember this a long time, but let’s have it. What’s your case against Nolan?”
Mark let the knob go and walked back to Ramussen’s desk. “First Nolan gave a friend of mine twenty-five thousand dollars to keep for him the day after he killed Dave Fiest. I’ve seen the money.”
Ramussen’s mouth was bitter. “Okay, Mark, who’s this friend?”
“A girl named Linda Wade. She’s a singer at the Simba and also a friend of Nolan’s.”
“I see. Nolan figured Espizito wouldn’t guess that he’d given the money to a dame.”
“She’s not a dame.”
“She’s anything I want to call her, get that?”
“Okay,” Mark said. “I don’t know what Nolan figured. I’m not a cop, so crooked angles don’t occur to me instinctively.”
Ramussen looked down at the blotter on his desk for a moment and then he shrugged. “You didn’t need to say that, Mark. Every citizen in town will be saying it when the story on Nolan breaks. They’ll say, ‘There’s a typical cop for you. A lousy thief.’ ”
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Mark said, and he was, genuinely sorry.
“Let’s get on with the case. What else have you got? The twenty-five thousand doesn’t prove anything but larceny.”
“You don’t think Nolan murdered Fiest for the money?”