“Last week — Monday, I think — a week before he was killed.”
“Was that the time when you broke off with him?”
“Yes.”
“Have a row, or part friends?”
“Not exactly either. I just told him that I was through with him.”
“How did he take it?”
“It didn’t break his heart. I guess he’d heard the same thing before.”
“Where were you the night he was killed?”
“At the Coffee Cup, eating and dancing with friends until about one o’clock. Then I came home and went to bed.”
“Why did you split with Gilmore?”
“Couldn’t stand his wife.”
“Huh?”
“She was a nuisance.” This without the faintest glint of either annoyance or humor. “She came here one night and raised a racket; so I told Bernie that if he couldn’t keep her away from me he’d have to find another playmate.”
“Have you any idea who might have killed him?” I asked.
“Not unless it was his wife — these excitable women always do silly things.”
“If you had given her husband up, what reason would she have for killing him, do you think?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she replied with complete indifference. “But I’m not the only girl that Bernie ever looked at.”
“Think there were others, do you? Know anything, or are you just guessing?”
“I don’t know any names,” she said, “but I’m not just guessing.”
I let that go at that and switched back to Mrs. Gilmore, wondering if this girl could be full of dope.
“What happened the night his wife came here?”
“Nothing but that. She followed Bernie here, rang the bell, rushed past me when I opened the door, and began to cry and call Bernie names. Then she started on me, and I told him that if he didn’t take her away I’d hurt her, so he took her home.”
Admitting I was licked for the time, I got up and moved to the door. I couldn’t do anything with this baby just now. I didn’t think she was telling the whole truth, but on the other hand it wasn’t reasonable to believe that anybody would lie so woodenly — with so little effort to be plausible.
“I may be back later,” I said as she let me out.
“All right.”
Her manner didn’t even suggest that she hoped I wouldn’t.
From this unsatisfactory interview I went to the scene of the killing, only a few blocks away, to get a look at the neighborhood. I found the block just as I had remembered it and as O’Gar had described it: lined on both sides by apartment buildings, with two blind alleys — one of which was dignified with a name, Touchard Street — running from the south side.
The murder was four days old; I didn’t waste any time snooping around the vicinity; but, after strolling the length of the block, boarded a Hyde Street car, transferred at California Street, and went up to see Mrs. Gilmore again. I was curious to know why she hadn’t told me about her call on Cara Kenbrook.
The same plump maid who had admitted me earlier in the afternoon opened the door.
“Mrs. Gilmore is not at home,” she said. “But I think she’ll be back in half an hour or so.”
“I’ll wait,” I decided.
The maid took me into the library, an immense room on the second floor, with barely enough books in it to give it that name. She switched on a light — the windows were too heavily curtained to let in much daylight — crossed to the door, stopped, moved over to straighten some books on a shelf, and looked at me with a half-questioning, half-inviting look in her green eyes, started for the door again, and halted.
By that time I knew she wanted to say something, and needed encouragement. I leaned back in my chair and grinned at her, and decided I had made a mistake — the smile into which her slack lips curved held more coquetry than anything else. She came over to me, walking with an exaggerated swing of the hips, and stood close in front of me.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked.
“Suppose — suppose a person knew something that nobody else knew; what would it be worth to them?”
“That,” I stalled, “would depend on how valuable it was.”
“Suppose I knew who killed the boss?” She bent her face close down to mine, and spoke in a husky whisper. “What would that be worth?”
“The newspapers say that one of Gilmore’s clubs has offered a thousand-dollar reward. You’d get that.”
Her green eyes went greedy, and then suspicious.
“If you didn’t.”
I shrugged. I knew she’d go through with it — whatever it was — now; so I didn’t even explain to her that the Continental doesn’t touch rewards, and doesn’t let its hired men touch them.
“I’ll give you my word,” I said; “but you’ll have to use your own judgment about trusting me.”
She licked her lips.
“You’re a good fellow, I guess. I wouldn’t tell the police, because I know they’d beat me out of the money. But you look like I can trust you.” She leered into my face. “I used to have a gentleman friend who was the very image of you, and he was the grandest—”
“Better speak your piece before somebody comes in,” I suggested.
She shot a look at the door, cleared her throat, licked her loose mouth again, and dropped on one knee beside my chair.
“I was coming home late Monday night — the night the boss was killed — and was standing in the shadows saying good night to my friend, when the boss came out of the house and walked down the street. And he had hardly got to the corner, when she — Mrs. Gilmore — came out, and went down the street after him. Not trying to catch up with him, you understand; but following him. What do you think of that?”
“What do you think of it?”
“I think that she finally woke up to the fact that all of her Bernie’s dates didn’t have anything to do with the building business.”
“Do you know that they didn’t?”
“Do I know it? I knew that man! He liked ’em — liked ’em all.” She smiled into my face, a smile that suggested all evil. “I found that out soon after I first came here.”
“Do you know when Mrs. Gilmore came back that night — what time?”
“Yes,” she said, “at half-past three.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely! After I got undressed I got a blanket and sat at the head of the front stairs. My room’s in the rear of the top floor. I wanted to see if they came home together, and if there was a fight. After she came in alone I went back to my room, and it was just twenty-five minutes to four then. I looked at my alarm clock.”
“Did you see her when she came in?”
“Just the top of her head and shoulders when she turned toward her room at the landing.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Lina Best.”
“All right, Lina,” I told her. “If this is the goods I’ll see that you collect on it. Keep your eyes open, and if anything else turns up you can get in touch with me at the Continental office. Now you’d better beat it, so nobody will know we’ve had our heads together.”
Alone in the library, I cocked an eye at the ceiling and considered the information Lina Best had given me. But I soon gave that up — no use trying to guess at things that will work out for themselves in a while. I found a book, and spent the next half-hour reading about a sweet young she — chump and a big strong he — chump and all their troubles.
Then Mrs. Gilmore came in, apparently straight from the street.
I got up and closed the door behind her, while she watched me with wide eyes.
“Mrs. Gilmore,” I said, when I faced her again, “why didn’t you tell me that you followed your husband the night he was killed?”
“That’s a lie!” she cried; but there was no truth in her voice. “That’s a lie!”