“They’ll have to be told, but not until this afternoon. Give it to them in time for a stop press,” Adams went on. “You’ll have all day to-day and most of the night to get something for the morning’s papers. This is the first killing we have had recently. They’ll go to town it. The Herald’s been picking on the Administration now for months. This will give them a club to beat us with unless we crack it fast.” He reached out a thin, dry hand and patted Fay’s knee. “She didn’t amount to a damn while she was alive, but dead, Donovan, she becomes a very important person. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes at this moment, and you don’t need to know, but this killing could be dynamite: a lot of people in the Administration could lose their jobs. It only wanted this to happen to set off the spark. Lindsay Burt has the backing of the press; the voters love him. He’s been after the big boys for years, and in case you don’t know, the Commissioner is a big boy, and Burt hates his guts. Burt’s got a lot of ammunition. This killing could be his gun. Here in Lessington Avenue, less than a hundred yards from City Hall, is an apartment house full of tarts. Won’t that make juicy reading after the Commissioner has stated again and again that this town is as clean as a whistle?” He stubbed out his cigarette into the ash bowl on the bedside table and fixed his eyes on Donovan’s face. “I’m telling you all this so you don’t kid yourself this case doesn’t mean much. It does. It’ll be headline news for as long as the case is unsolved, and you, Donovan, are going to solve. You can have all the help you want. You can have my advice for what it’s worth, but the work, the credit or the discredit, is yours. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
So here it comes, Donovan thought; the little punk has been after me ever since he took over his job. He knows this is a hell of a case to crack — any guy in town could have knocked her off — and he’s going to use it to get rid of me. That’s my luck. A dame gets knocked off, and I find myself in the middle of a political jam.
“It won’t be easy,” Adams went on. “The guy who killed her might be a nut.” He paused while he crossed one thin leg over the other, lacing his fingers across his knee. “Do you ever say your prayers, Donovan?”
The big man flushed, stared at Adams, then seeing he was serious, he muttered, “I guess so.”
“Then take my tip and pray as you’ve never prayed before that this guy isn’t a nut. If he is he may have enjoyed the experience of sticking this doll, and he may do it again. He may get into another cat house and give the press another club to hit us with. This isn’t the only cat house in town. So get after him, Donovan, just in case he is a nut and is planning to do it again.”
A tap sounded on the door and Donovan opened it.
Jackson said, “Doc’s here, sergeant.”
Adams joined Donovan at the door.
“Come on in, doc,” he said, and waved to the bed. “She’s all yours, and you’re welcome.”
Doc Summerfeld moved across to the bed. He was a big, fat, red-faced man, bald and placid looking.
“Hmm, a nice clean job, anyway.”
Adams wasn’t interested in Summerfeld’s remarks. He went into the sitting-room where the police photographer was setting up his camera.
“Take your orders from Sergeant Donovan,” Adams said to him and Fletcher. “He’s handling the investigation.”
Donovan saw the two exchange startled glances.
They know, he thought bitterly. The first killing in two years, but I get it. They’re not fools. If this had been an easy one I wouldn’t have got it. Well, okay. Maybe for the first time in my life I’ll get a break. I’d like to see the little punk’s face if I did crack it.
“What’s your first move, sergeant?” Adams asked.
“I want to know who she was with last night,” Donovan said slowly, carefully picking his words. “She didn’t work the streets, so the guys either knew her or were recommended to her; that puts them in a different class to the ordinary masher. From what the cleaner woman tells me, this girl went for the middle-aged, upper income lecher. Maybe she tried blackmail and got knocked off to keep her mouth shut.”
He saw both Fletcher and Holtby the photographer, were gaping at him.
Gape, you punks, he thought. You didn’t imagine I had any ideas, did you?
“While doc’s working on her, I’ll go talk to the occupants of the other apartments. They may have seen the guy,” he went on.
“You have a lot of faith, sergeant,” Adams said. “That’s all a tart lives for — to give information to the cops.”
Holtby sniggered.
“One of their own people’s been killed,” Donovan said quietly. “May give them an incentive to talk.”
Adams lifted his eyebrows. He stared at Donovan, his eyes suddenly thoughtful.
“Quite a psychologist, sergeant,” he said.
Donovan turned to Fletcher who hurriedly wiped a grin off his face.
“There’s an ice-pick in the bedroom. Check it for prints. Snap it up! I want a little more action and a lot less standing around from you.”
Fletcher stiffened.
“Yes, sergeant.”
Donovan walked out of the apartment.
Adams stared after him, then he went back into the bedroom to talk to Summerfeld.
II
Raphael Sweeting heard the urgent ring on his frontdoor bell, and he hastily wiped his sweating face on the sleeve of his dressing-gown.
He had seen the police cars arrive, and he knew, sooner or later, the front-door bell would ring.
What had happened? he asked himself. Something in the apartment above. He could hear the heavy footfalls overhead. His mind flinched away from murder, but he was sure she had been murdered. Just when he was settling down; just when he had been certain he had succeeded in dropping out of sight.
The bell rang persistently, and he looked hastily around the dusty, shabbily furnished room. All evidence of his evening activities had been hastily hidden. It had been a business to clear the room, but the arrival of the police cars had at least warned him a police visit was pending.
The big cupboard against the wall had been crammed with the mass of papers, envelopes, directories and the telephone books he used in his work, and the key had been turned. They wouldn’t dare open the cupboard unless they had a search warrant. Even if they did open it, they couldn’t pin anything on him, but it would tell them he was still up to his old tricks.
Leo, the Pekinese, crouched in the armchair, staring across the room at the front door. The dog breathed heavily, and looked with frightened eyes at its master as if it knew an enemy was on the far side of the door.
Sweeting touched the dog’s head gently, but the dog sensed his fear and wasn’t reassured.
Sweeting crossed the room, turned the key, braced himself and opened the door.
He stared up at the big man who towered above him, and it was a relief to see it wasn’t Lieutenant Adams. This man he had never seen before.
“Did you want something?” he asked, trying to smile, but succeeding only in making a fixed grimace.
“I’m a police officer,” Donovan said. He was asking himself where he had seen this fat little man before. His slow-thinking mind groped into the past, but failed to pin-point the irritatingly familiar features. “Who are you?”
“Sweeting is the name.” The little man held the door against him, obstructing Donovan’s view into the room. “Is something wrong?”
“A woman’s been murdered in the apartment above,” Donovan told him. “Did you see anyone going into her apartment last night?”
Sweeting shook his head.