“I take it you got her the job?”
“No, I didn’t. I don’t know who did. I ran into her in the elevator one afternoon. She told me she had been working there for two weeks. I offered to buy her a drink. She told me she realized I was up in the high brass and she was only in the filing department. She said she wanted me to know she’d never embarrass me.
“It’s things like that about Stella that make you like her. She’s so natural, always so perfectly frank and easy. Look here, Miss Castle, I’m worried about her. I’m going up to her apartment and make sure she’s all right. It might be a good thing if you came along.”
“Perhaps she’s just late and—”
“Not Stella. She’d have phoned if she’d been detained. Waiter, let’s have a check, please.”
Peggy didn’t tell him she had had no dinner. She merely nodded and gave him a smile she hoped was reassuring. “I’ll be glad to go with you,” she said, “but I thought Stella told you that you mustn’t go to her apartment.”
“That’s right, but I think that with you with me it’ll be all right. We’ll say you and I had a date for tonight — that we’re together. And anything you may find out isn’t for publication. Come on, let’s go.”
The apartment house was ornate in front, but rather shabby after one had passed the foyer. Almost mechanically Don Kimberly fitted a key to the front door, opened it, escorted Peggy through the foyer, back to the automatic elevator, and punched the button for the fifth floor.
“You have — a key?” she asked.
“Don’t be silly. That’s the key to my own apartment house. Almost any key will fit these outer doors.”
Peggy knew that was so, knew also that Don Kimberly hadn’t so much as hesitated or tentatively tried his key. He had fitted it to the lock, turned it with complete assurance, and gone in without pausing.
She found, herself wondering whether this was the first time he had tried his own key in that lock. The fact that she hated herself for having the thought didn’t erase it from her mind.
Then the rattling elevator came to a stop. Kimberly held the door open for her and slid the steel door of the elevator shut behind him. “Down to your left,” he said. “Five nineteen.”
She turned left, and Kimberly, catching up with her, pushed the bell button of Apartment 519.
They could hear the sound of the buzzer, but no sound of motion.
Kimberly waited a few moments, then tried the door. The knob turned, the door opened, and Peggy, looking in, saw a well-ordered, plainly furnished apartment.
“Anybody home?” Kimberly called.
Peggy clutched his arm.
“What is it?” he asked.
“That coat over the chair.”
“What about it?”
“It’s a coat she’d have worn going out for the evening. Why would she have left it here?”
She pointed to a swinging door that evidently led to a kitchen. Her voice sounded high-pitched with excitement. “Let’s make sure she isn’t here.”
Kimberly pushed back the swinging door. Peggy, who was standing where she could see through the half-open door, gave an exclamation.
The stockinged legs of a girl were sprawled out on the floor. A bottle of whiskey was on the side of the sink. A glass had rolled from the girl’s limp fingers, leaving a trail of liquid along the linoleum. The figure was attired in a strapless bra, a voluminous petticoat, shoes, and stockings.
Kimberly suddenly laughed and called, “Stella, come on, wake up! You’ve missed the boat!”
The woman didn’t move.
Peggy, moving forward, noticed the peculiar color of the girl’s skin. She dropped swiftly to her knees, picked up the limp hand, and suddenly dropped it. “She’s dead.”
“What!”
“Dead. It must have been her heart.”
Kimberly said, “Call a doctor.”
Peggy said, “A doctor won’t help. She’s dead. Just touch her, and you’ll know she’s dead. We’d better...”
“Better what?”
“Better call the police.”
Kimberly hesitated. “What’s that on her leg?”
Peggy looked at the girl’s right leg. Attached to the reinforced top of the sheer nylon stocking was a beautiful butterfly pin with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds giving a splash of glittering color.
“Good heavens,” Kimberly exclaimed, “how in the world did she get that?”
“Why, what about it?” Peggy asked, realizing that Kimberly’s face had turned white.
“Ever hear of the Garrison jewel theft?” he asked.
“Who hasn’t?”
“Our company insured the Garrison jewels. We’re stuck to the tune of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars — and that butterfly looks exactly like the famous Garrison butterfly. Now, how in the world did Stella get that?”
Peggy unfastened the butterfly pin and dropped it into her purse. “It won’t do any good to have the police find that,” she said.
“Look here,” Kimberly protested. “You can’t do that. It may be evidence.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know. I only know you can’t do that.”
“I’ve already done it.”
“But— Look here, let’s call a doctor and — we don’t need to wait. Let the doctor do whatever’s necessary.”
Peggy said, “It’s a job for the police. Do you notice that froth on her lips? And there’s ail odor that I have been trying to place. Now I know what it is.”
“What do you mean, an odor?”
“An odor. Bitter almonds. That means cyanide. So does the color of the skin.”
He looked at her dubiously. “You seem to know a lot about — suicides.”
“I do,” Peggy said. “I’ve done newspaper work. Now, since we’re already in it this deep, let’s take a look around.”
“What for?”
“To protect ourselves. Let’s make certain there are no more corpses, for one thing.”
She moved swiftly about the apartment, her quick eyes drinking in details.
“If this is suicide, what you’re doing is probably highly illegal,” he said.
“And if it’s murder?”
“Then it’s doubly illegal.”
She said nothing, moving quietly around the rooms. Her gloved hands occasionally touched some object with the greatest care, but for the most part her hands were at her sides.
There was an odor of raw whiskey about the place, perhaps from the spilled drink in the kitchen. However, this odor was stronger in the bathroom.
Peggy dropped to her knees on the tiled floor, picked up a small sliver of glass, then another. She let both slivers drop back to the tiles.
In the bedroom, the dress Stella was to have worn was spread out on the bed. The plunging neckline seemed to go nearly to the waist.
Kimberly, looking at the V-shaped opening in the front of the dress, gave a low whistle. “Peggy,” he said at length, using her first name easily and naturally, “this is going to make a stink. If it should be murder— I don’t see how it could be, and yet that’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Suppose it’s suicide?” she asked.
“Then there wouldn’t be too much to it — just a few lines on page two, or perhaps a write-up in the second section. And Old E. B. hates bad publicity.”
“Are you telling me?”
“Well, then,” he said, “do you think we really have to notify the police? Can’t we just call a doctor and leave?”
“Do you want to be Suspect Number One in a murder case?” she asked.
“Heavens, no!”
“You’re filing nomination papers right now with that sort of talk. There’s the phone. Call the police.”