“Here, you,” grunted the man in the bath robe, “you can’t bring the dog in here!”
But Sidney Zoom paid no attention. His long legs were working like pistons as he went up the stairs, two at a time.
But the officers were debouching from the elevator as Zoom reached the upper corridor. The stairs emerged at the end opposite from the elevator shaft, and the apartment they wanted was close to the elevator.
One of the men pounded upon the door.
It was opened almost immediately by a girl in a kimono. She stared at them in wide eyed silence.
“Oh!” she said, after a moment.
Sergeant Gromley pushed unceremoniously past her.
“We want to ask you some questions,” he said.
The others crowded into the little room, which was used as a sitting room during the daytime, a bedroom at night. The wall bed had been let down, apparently slept in, but the sheets were folded neatly at the corners. The girl must be a quiet sleeper, or else had not been in bed long.
She was robed in a kimono of bright red which enhanced the gleam of her eyes, the red of her lips, the glitter of the lights upon her hair, glossy black as a raven’s wing.
“You’re Eva Raine?” asked Sergeant Gromley.
“Yes. Of course. Why?”
“Know Harry Raine who lives at 5685 West Adams?”
“Y-y-yes, of course.”
“Why say ‘of course’?”
“He’s my father-in-law.”
“You married his son?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the son’s name?”
“Edward.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
“When did you see Mr. Harry Raine last?”
She hesitated at that, made a little motion of nervousness.
“Why, I can’t tell. Yesterday afternoon, I think. Yes. It was yesterday afternoon.”
“Weren’t very certain, were you?”
She lowered her eyes.
“I’m a little confused. What is the idea of all of you men, who seem to be officers, coming here and asking me these questions? I’ve taken nothing — done nothing.”
Sergeant Gromley nodded, a swift, single shake of the head, belligerent, aggressive.
“No one accused you of it — yet.”
“What do you want?”
“Information.”
“About what?”
“About who might have had a motive for murdering Harry Raine.”
The girl came to her full height. The face paled. The eyes widened until the whites showed upon all sides of the irises. The forehead wrinkled into a suggestion of horror.
“Murdered?” she asked.
Her voice was weak, quavering.
“Murdered!” snapped Sergeant Gromley.
“I... I don’t know.”
“Was there bad blood between you?”
She hesitated, then became regal in her bearing.
“Yes,” she said, “and I’m glad he’s dead — if he is dead. He was a brute, parsimonious, narrow-minded, bigoted, selfish.”
Sergeant Gromley nodded casually. The character of the dead man was of no consequence to him. It mattered not how much the man might have deserved to die. It was the fact that the law requires vengeance which mattered to the officer.
“Who murdered him?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“Have you a necklace of strung rubies, or imitation rubies, or red glass beads? Think carefully. Your answer may mean a lot to you — and don’t lie.”
“What have red beads got to do with it?”
“Perhaps nothing, perhaps a lot. Have you such a necklace?”
Her lips clamped tightly.
“No!”
“Do you know any one who has such a necklace?”
“No!”
These single syllables of negation were explosive in their staccato emphasis.
Sergeant Gromley remained undisturbed. There was a lot of ground to cover yet, and the veteran investigator feared no lie. The only thing that caused him consternation was a suspect who would not talk. Given one who would answer questions, and he was always certain of ultimate triumph.
“Where have you been since nine o’clock?”
“In bed!”
The answer came as though it had been rehearsed.
Sergeant Gromley raised his eyebrows.
“In bed?”
“Yes.”
“Since nine o’clock?”
“Yes.”
The answer was surly this time, defiant, as though she had been trapped into some answer she had not anticipated and intended to stick by her guns.
“What time did you retire?”
“At the time I told you, nine o’clock.”
The sergeant’s smile was sarcastic.
“You went to bed at nine o’clock?”
“Yes.”
He looked over the graceful lines of her figure, the striking beauty of the face.
“Rather early for a young and attractive widow to retire on a Saturday night, isn’t it?”
She flushed. “No matter what you are investigating, that is none of your business. You asked me a question, and I answered!”
Sergeant Gromley’s smile was irritating. His manner was that of a cat who has a mouse safely hooked in its claws, who is willing to play for a while to torture the animal.
“Rather a coincidence that I was the one who selected the hour of nine o’clock, and you answered so promptly. I am just wondering, Miss Raine, if you hadn’t resolved to give the bed story as an alibi, and when I asked you where you had been since nine o’clock, rather than asked you where you had been during the last hour, you said ‘in bed’ because you had expected the question to be different. Then, having said it the first time, you decided to stick to your story.”
She was cool, defiant, but her shoulders were commencing to rise and fall with more rapid breathing.
“Your reasoning is too complicated for my childlike brain. Just confine yourself to necessary questions, please.”
The sergeant continued to press the point.
“It is rather a peculiar coincidence that I should have been the one who predicted the exact time of your retirement by asking you the question, isn’t it?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“That, also, is a matter upon which I cannot give you an answer.”
She swept her eyes momentarily from the boring eyes of the sergeant to the ring of curious faces which watched her, faces which formed a background, semicircled about the door, just inside of the room.
And, as Sidney Zoom caught her glittering eyes, jet black, shiny with excitement, his long forefinger raised casually to his lips and pressed firmly against them.
Her eyes had left his face before the significance of the gesture impressed her. Then they darted back with a look of swift questioning in them.
But Sidney Zoom, taking no chances that his signal might be seen and interpreted by one of the officers, was scratching the side of his nose with slow deliberation.
The girl returned her eyes to the sergeant, but now there was a look of puzzled uncertainty in them.
“Do you know what the weather is like?” asked Sergeant Gromley.
“It’s showering.”
He smiled again.
“Really, Miss Raine, you are remarkable. It was quite dear at nine o’clock. The showers started about nine forty-five and continued quite steadily until just before midnight.”
She bit her lip.
“And you were asleep?” pursued the sergeant.
Quick triumph gleamed in her eyes as she swooped down upon the opening he had left her with that eagerness which an amateur always shows in rushing into the trap left by a canny professional.
“I didn’t say I was asleep.”
“Oh, then, you weren’t asleep?”
“No, not all the time.”
“And that’s the way you knew it was raining?”
“Yes. The rain beat against the window. I heard it, got up and looked out. There was some lightning, thunder, rain.”