“Don’t you think you’re making a mistake?” I urged. “Don’t you think you’d better tell me the whole thing?”
She opened her mouth, but only a dry sobbing sound came out; and she began to sway with a hysterical rocking motion, the fingers of one black-gloved hand plucking at her lower lip, twisting and pulling it.
I stepped to her side and set her down in the chair I had been sitting in, making foolish clucking sounds — meant to soothe her — with my tongue. A disagreeable ten minutes — and gradually she pulled herself together; her eyes lost their glassiness, and she stopped clawing at her mouth.
“I did follow him.” It was a hoarse whisper, barely audible.
Then she was out of the chair, kneeling, with arms held up to me, and her voice was a thin scream.
“But I didn’t kill him! I didn’t! Please believe that I didn’t!”
I picked her up and put her back in the chair.
“I didn’t say you did. Just tell me what did happen.”
“I didn’t believe him when he said he had a business engagement,” she moaned. “I didn’t trust him. He had lied to me before. I followed him to see if he went to that woman’s rooms.”
“Did he?”
“No. He went into an apartment house on Pine Street, in the block where he was killed. I don’t know exactly which house it was — I was too far behind him to make sure. But I saw him go up the steps and into one — near the middle of the block.”
“And then what did you do?”
“I waited, hiding in a dark doorway across the street. I knew the woman’s apartment was on Bush Street, but I thought she might have moved, or be meeting him here. I waited a long time, shivering and trembling. It was chilly and I was frightened — afraid somebody would come into the vestibule where I was. But I made myself stay. I wanted to see if he came out alone, or if that woman came out. I had a right to do it — he had deceived me before.
“It was terrible, horrible — crouching there in the dark — cold and scared. Then — it must have been about half-past two — I couldn’t stand it any longer. I decided to telephone the woman’s apartment’ and find out if she was home. I went down to an all-night lunchroom on Ellis Street and called her up.”
“Was she home?”
“No! I tried for fifteen minutes, or maybe longer, but nobody answered the phone. So I knew she was in that Pine Street building.”
“And what did you do then?”
“I went back there, determined to wait until he came out. I walked up Jones Street. When I was between Bush and Pine I heard a shot. I thought it was a noise made by an automobile then, but now I know that it was the shot that killed Bernie.
“When I reached the corner of Pine and Jones, I could see a policeman bending over Bernie on the sidewalk, and I saw people gathering around. I didn’t know then that it was Bernie lying on the sidewalk. In the dark and at that distance I couldn’t even see whether it was a man or a woman.
“I was afraid that Bernard would come out to see what was going on, or look out of a window, and discover me; so I didn’t go down that way. I was afraid to stay in the neighborhood now, for fear the police would ask me what I was doing loitering in the street at three in the morning — and have it come out that I had been following my husband. So I kept on walking up Jones Street, to California, and then straight home.”
“And then what?” I led her on.
“Then I went to bed. I didn’t go to sleep — lay there worrying over Bernie; but still not thinking it was he I had seen lying in the street. At nine o’clock that morning two police detectives came and told me Bernie had been killed. They questioned me so sharply that I was afraid to tell them the whole truth. If they had known I had reason for being jealous, and had followed my husband that night, they would have accused me of shooting him. And what could I have done? Everybody would have thought me guilty.
“So I didn’t say anything about the woman. I thought they’d find the murderer, and then everything would be all right. I didn’t think she had done it then, or I would have told you the whole thing the first time you were here. But four days went by without the police finding the murderer, and I began to think they suspected me! It was terrible! I couldn’t go to them and confess that I had lied to them, and I was sure that the woman had killed him and that the police had failed to suspect her because I hadn’t told them about her.
“So I employed you. But I was afraid to tell even you the whole truth. I thought that if I just told you there had been another woman and who she was, you could do the rest without having to know that I had followed Bernie that night. I was afraid you would think I had killed him, and would turn me over to the police if I told you everything. And now you do believe it! And you’ll have me arrested! And they’ll hang me! I know it! I know it!”
She began to rock crazily from side to side in her chair.
“Sh-h-h,” I soothed her. “You’re not arrested yet. Sh-h-h.”
I didn’t know what to make of her story. The trouble with these nervous, hysterical women is that you can’t possibly tell when they’re lying and when telling the truth unless you have outside evidence — half of the time they themselves don’t know.
“When you heard the shot,” I went on when she had quieted down a bit, “you were walking north on Jones, between Bush and Pine? You could see the corner of Pine and Jones?”
“Yes — clearly.”
“See anybody?”
“No — not until I reached the corner and looked down Pine Street. Then I saw a policeman bending over Bernie, and two men walking toward them.”
“Where were the two men?”
“On Pine Street east of Jones. They didn’t have hats on — as if they had come out of a house when they heard the shot.”
“Any automobiles in sight either before or after you heard the shot?”
“I didn’t see or hear any.”
“I have some more questions, Mrs. Gilmore,” I said, “but I’m in a hurry now. Please don’t go out until you hear from me again.”
“I won’t,” she promised, “but—”
I didn’t have any answers for anybody’s questions, so I ducked my head and left the library.
Near the street door Lina Best appeared out of a shadow, her eyes bright and inquisitive.
“Stick around,” I said without any meaning at all, stepped around her, and went on out into the street.
I returned then to the Garford Apartments, walking, because I had a lot of things to arrange in my mind before I faced Cara Kenbrook again. And, even though I walked slowly, they weren’t all exactly filed in alphabetical order when I got there. She had changed the black and white dress for a plushlike gown of bright green, but her empty doll’s face hadn’t changed.
“Some more questions,” I explained when she opened the door.
She admitted me without word or gesture, and led me back into the room where we had talked before.
“Miss Kenbrook,” I asked, standing beside the chair, she had offered me, “why did you tell me you were home in bed when Gilmore was killed?”
“Because it’s so.” Without the flicker of a lash.
“And you wouldn’t answer the doorbell?”
I had to twist the facts to make my point. Mrs. Gilmore had phoned, but I couldn’t afford to give this girl a chance to shunt the blame for her failure to answer off on central.
She hesitated for a split second.
“No — because I didn’t hear it.”
One cool article, this baby! I couldn’t figure her. I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now, whether she was the owner of the world’s best poker face or was just naturally stupid. But whichever she was, she was thoroughly and completely it!