“I want to hit her before she leaves for work,” I said. “You mind holding things down a while?”
“Not this time, Pete. That Edna Hardesty is one girl you can have all to yourself.”
“Thanks.”
“No sacrifice, believe me.”
I had almost reached the door when the phone rang, and I paused while Stan answered it, listened for a moment, and then replaced the receiver very carefully and shook his head.
“Who was it?” I asked.
“Pickled Lii,” he said. “You're in bad trouble, Pete. She says if you don't arrest her letter carrier by noon today, she'll have the FBI arrest both of you.”
“Well,” I said as I turned to leave, “another day has officially begun.”
Chapter Eighteen
EDNA HARDESTY'S apartment at the Misener was on the twenty-first floor. She seemed completely unsurprised to see me and invited me in with no more than a brief nod and a quick glance to see that her housecoat was properly drawn together.
“You'd better sit on the sofa, Mr. Selby,” she said. “I wouldn't trust a man your size in any of the chairs.”
“They do look a little fragile,” I said as I sat down. “Very handsome chairs, though, I'd say.”
“They're hideous,” she said. “And the word isn't 'fragile,' Mr. Selby. It's 'flimsy.'”
With her black hair brushed back in loose waves and her small round face much more softly made up than it had been at Campbell's office, she was almost pretty.
“The management's been promising me new chairs for the last six months,” she said.
I watched her as she sat down on a hassock, folded her arms about her knees, and sat frowning at the chairs, first at one and then another, as if I had arrived by appointment for the express purpose of discussing them. She was, I reflected, using the chairs just as Dr. Campbell, in a similar situation, had seized upon the pineal body in the jar on his desk.
“I take it you expected to see me,” I said. “Why?”
“I don't know,” she said. “I mean, I don't know why you should think Doctor Campbell had anything to do with it.” She paused. “But I knew you would want to talk with me. After all, I was around him more than almost anyone else.”
“Was?”
“I was fired yesterday afternoon.”
“For tuning in the intercom a little too often?”
“I don't think that's amusing,” she said. “No, it certainly wasn't that.”
“But you did tune in on our talk with Dr. and Mrs. Campbell.”
“Yes, I did.”
“What is it you're so sure Dr. Campbell didn't have anything to do with, Miss Hardesty?”
“With what happened to that girl down in Greenwich Village, of course.”
“You know any reason why we should suspect Dr. Campbell?”
“Certainly not.”
“How long had you known her?”
“Known whom?”
“Miss Ellison.”
She looked at me directly for the first time since she'd sat down. “Known her! Why, I'd never even seen her.”
“You're sure of that?”
“Of course I'm sure.”
“You do own a very expensive alligator handbag, though.” I said. “That is, you did own it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We found your bag in Nadine Ellison's apartment.”
“What?”
“Which is one of the reasons I thought you might have known her,” I said. “Another one is—”
“In her apartment?”
“Yes.”
“So that's what happened to it!”
“You had some doubts about it, did you?”
“Well! No wonder she was upset.”
“You're losing me a little, Miss Hardesty.”
“I mean Susan. Mrs. Campbell. She told me she'd lost it in a taxi.”
“Are you telling me it wasn't your bag, or that you lent it to Mrs. Campbell — or what?”
“It was Susan's.”
“My information is that it was yours.”
“It was, originally. A friend of mine gave it to me, and I gave it to Susan.”
I didn't say anything for a moment, trying to think of all the implications of what she had just told me.
“Well!” she said again. “No wonder!” She was, it seemed to me, beginning to be very gay about something.
“You pretty fond of Mrs. Campbell, are you?” I asked.
“I detest her.”
“Then why give her such an expensive bag?”
“Because, for one thing, I don't care for alligator. And second, she was my employer's wife. I didn't think she liked me any more than I did her.”
“Is that the reason women give other women expensive handbags?”
“It's the reason I did.”
“You have a better opinion of Dr. Campbell, do you?”
“I respect him as a doctor.”
“That isn't what I meant, Miss Hardesty”
“I know very well what you meant. And my answer was that I respected him as a doctor.”
“Pretty bitter about his firing you?”
“He didn't. It was Susan.”
“You mean, indirectly?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Campbell tell you so?”
“He didn't have to. I know she was behind it.”
“Why should she want you fired?”
“I don't know. I think it must have been because of something that happened last week.” She paused. “Actually, I'm not too sure just what did happen.”
“Maybe I can help you figure it out.”
“It was such an odd thing, really. I happened to run into her on my lunch hour, and we decided to stop in this little place and have a quick sandwich and a coke. I was in a hurry, and so was she. But, just as we sat down at the counter, Susan got the strangest look on her face. I didn't know what to think; and then I saw that the waitress behind the counter was staring at her. Susan actually turned white. Then the waitress smiled at her and said, 'What's the matter, Suzy? Don't you remember me?' And then Susan — why, you'd think the woman had slapped her! She just whirled around and practically ran out of there.” She paused. “That was the beginning of the end, Mr. Selby. After that, Susan would scarcely speak to me.”
“No explanation whatever?”
“No. When I caught up with her outside, I asked her what in the world had happened. She just shook her head and walked off without even saying good-by.”
“Where's this place located?”
“Just West of Third on Fiftieth, McConnery's, I think it's called.”
“What'd the waitress look like?”
“She was very heavy. About thirty, I think. Kind of brassy hair.”
“Pretty weird occurrence, Miss Hardesty.”
“I was completely baffled by it. I still am.”
I stood up and walked to the door. “If there's anything else you'd like to say to me, Miss Hardesty,” I, said, “now's the time.”
She rose and crossed to the door to open it.
“I suppose you'll be talking to Susan now?” she said, smiling.
“Does that please you?”
“You must have forgotten she cost me my job.”
“I'm not forgetting,” I said.
“She'll be in the city today. If anyone should happen to want her for anything, they just might find her at the Verlaine Drapery Shop.” Her face was a little flushed, her eyes very bright. “It's at Forty-seventh and Fifth.”
“You're sure?”
“I made all the arrangements myself, Mr. Selby. Her appointment with the salesman is at eleven o'clock.”