Nora. “No. David has something to show you.”
David takes from his pocket a sheet of paper, on which in the same crude printing as on Nick’s note is:
IF YOU WANT TO SAFE THAT DISSY DAME OF YOURN YOU BETER MAKE DANCER TELL HOW HE FOWND OUT LAST NIGHT PHIL BYRNES WAS POLLY’S HUSBIND
After they have read it, Abrams asks, “Haw’d it come to you?”
David. “It was under my door when I woke up today.”
Nick. “The same half-smart attempt at illiteracy as the one I got.”
Abrams. “Yeah — but that don’t have to mean that what it says is wrong. Running out yours got us something, so why don’t we run out this?”
Nick. “We’ll have to wait until you pick up your people. Now how about this Anderson?”
Abrams. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Charles, I don’t believe there ever was any Anderson, but you can—”
Nick. “Tut-tut — don’t be so skeptical; you read his fairy tales when you were a child.”
Abrams, patiently. “Okay, kid me — but what I mean is — I don’t believe this Anderson ever was, and I’ll show you why when we get upstairs. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe anybody took that apartment.”
Nora. “I took that.”
They look at her in surprise. She has gotten up from the chair and has gone over to an enlarged snapshot hanging on the wall.
Abrams. “You did what, Mrs. Charles?”
Nora. “I took that picture. They’re the servants we had at Ross. There’s Pedro,” she points them out, “Ella, Ann, et cetera.”
Pedro looks much as Nora remembered him, except that he is six years younger and his mustache, while not small, is definitely not long, nor is it as white as it was when we saw him.
They all get up to look.
Nick asks, “You’re sure that place you had wasn’t on Coney Island?” He turns to Abrams and says, “I apologize for the domestic comedy. Let’s go up and look at the apartment that you say wasn’t rented by a fellow whose name wasn’t Anderson.”
Abrams leads the way up to the next floor, unlocks the door, leading them into the apartment over Polly’s, saying to Nick “See the rug—” The rug is stained and very worn.
Nick. “I get it — it’s not a new rug.”
Abrams. “Yeh, that’s one of the things I meant. I’ve got something else to show you—” He points to a corner of the room where there is a pile of old and battered iron pipe. “But the chief things that we found was that Pedro had the lock changed on the door only yesterday and all the fingerprints we found in here are his.”
Nick walks to a window, raises it and looks down the side of the cliff. He says, “A nice drop from here. Would I be guessing wrong if I said that this apartment was right over Polly’s?”
Abrams. “No, I guess not.”
Nick asks, “Well?”
Abrams. “I don’t know, Mr. Charles, for a fact, but not putting a new rug in and only his fingerprints here makes it look to me like he was kind of using the place and not figuring on renting it.”
Nick asks, “And you think he changed the lock so he couldn’t get in again to keep tenants out?”
Abrams, patiently, as usual, says, “I told you there was something funny here. I told you I didn’t know what it was all about.”
Nick. “Pedro was killed first. What are you picking on him for?”
Abrams. “What do I know from nothing? If you can think of anything, play your string out.”
Nick. “No hard feelings. Don’t take me too seriously. Suppose you were going to put a rug down, what would you do first?”
Abrams. “I don’t know — I guess I’d get somebody to lug it upstairs.”
Nick. “Swell. And then what?”
Abrams. “Then you start at one end of the room and roll it across the floor.”
Nick asks, “On top of this one?”
Abrams scratches his head and says, “No, I guess not.”
Nick. “All right — let’s take this one up first, then.”
Abrams. “Okay. You take that corner and I’ll take this one.”
Nick. “Who, me? Haven’t you got hired men downstairs?”
Abrams. “Sure.” He goes outside the door and yells, “Hey, Francis — you and that other cutie who was trying to find a three-letter word for ape, come up here.”
Nora, in a hoarse whisper, asks, “What is it, Nick?”
Nick. “Do I know? Men are dying all around and you ask me riddles.”
There is a clumping on the stairs and the plainclothesman and the uniformed policeman who were working on the crossword puzzle come in.
Abrams says to them, “You boys roll this three-letter word meaning rug down to the other end of a four-letter word meaning ‘room.’ ”
They say “sure” very eagerly, push furniture out of the way and start to roll the rug up. They roll it halfway when Nick says, “Maybe that’ll do for the time.” He walks over to a spot they have uncovered where six floorboards have been cut across in two places to make about a square foot. “Let’s look at this.”
Abrams, followed by his two men, goes to the spot Nick has indicated. Abrams opens a pocket knife, puts the blade in, and the sawed boards come up in a section, leaving a square-foot hole. He looks down, then puts his hand in and brings up a pair of flat earpieces on a steel band such as telephone operators wear, attached to a wire running down into the hole.
Nick. “I suppose we know what this is. Send one of the boys downstairs to recite the alphabet in Polly’s place.”
Abrams jerks a thumb at the plainclothesman and says, “Go ahead, Francis.”
Francis goes out. Presently, from down below through the earpieces comes Francis’ voice. “A B C D E—” A moment of hesitation, then: “A B C D—”
Nick. “Okay for sound. It was for listening in, all right.”
Abrams. “Yeah, that’s that. What do you guess this Pedro was up to?”
(All through this scene, Asta shows that he is very fond of David, ignoring both Nick and Nora in favor of him.)
Nick. “Well, there’s still this junk to figure—” He turns toward the pile of iron pipe in the corner. Asta is busy chewing it. “Get away from the evidence, Asta.”
Abrams. “He won’t be hurting it much — there was only Pedro’s fingerprints on it. What do you guess it was for? I couldn’t be thinking anybody would pipe gas through it.”
Nick. “Why not? With a layout like this, you can pipe gas in several directions at once.” He sits down on the floor and begins to screw sections of the pipe together. (This is actually a ladder, but he keeps the rungs sticking out in all directions and keeps it from being recognizable until, suddenly, when he puts the last piece on and turns it around.)
Nick, holding the finished ladder up, says, “Fifty will get you two-fifty that it will just about reach to Polly’s window below, with this piece left over—” picking up an extra part from the floor, “for good measure when he got there.”
He takes the ladder to the window, lowers it and hangs it on the sill. It reaches exactly to the sill of Polly’s apartment below.
Abrams. “What do you guess he wanted to do that for?”
Francis sticks his head in the door and says, “We got Byrnes. Do you want her up? And we got Dancer and Lum Kee, too.”
Abrams looks at Nick and asks, “Will they clutter it up for you? Do you think you got as much out of this place as you want?”
Nick. “The more the merrier. Perhaps not as much as I want, but as much as I think I’m going to get.”
Abrams says to Francis, “Okay, feed them to us.”
Nick asks Abrams, “What kind of clothes did you find in the place?”
Abrams. “None — not a stitch. Nothing to show anybody ever lived here. That’s why I told you I don’t believe anybody ever did.”