“I don’t care! I don’t know what you’re implying, and I don’t care!”
“Did you ever lend him money, Mrs. Hearst?”
“I... no! Never! He’d never have taken it, never have borrowed money from a woman, never!”
“All right,” Cordwink said. Privately he wondered how much, and when. “Then you didn’t lend him any money, say, this morning?”
“No!”
“Did you see him this morning?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When I was shoveling off the walk, about seven-thirty.”
“What exactly did you say to him?”
“I said... I said, ‘Earl you can’t go like that, in just a sweater and slacks, it’s winter, you’ll catch cold.’”
“And he said?”
“That he’d sent his coat to the cleaner’s and that anyway he wasn’t cold. I asked him where he was off to, so early. And he said he was going downtown to see about selling his car. He said it wasn’t working so well, it was just a nuisance in the winter, so he thought he’d sell it, and then, in the spring, maybe he’d — he’d be feeling better and could work more and buy a... a new car. I said, just joking, how about a Cadillac, then you can take me for a ride. And he said there — wasn’t anyone he’d rather take for a ride in a Cadillac than... than me.”
She looked toward the window as if she was trying to see, not the dark of a winter night, but a morning in spring, with Earl well again and at the wheel of his new car.
“As you know now,” Cordwink said, “he didn’t send his coat to the cleaner’s. It was here all the time, locked inside the wardrobe. He had approximately forty hours to dispose of it, but he apparently made no attempt to. That’s curious, don’t you think, Mrs. Hearst?”
“Curious,” she repeated dully. “Yes. It’s curious. Everything’s curious.”
“Do you clean Loftus’ roo— apartment?”
“Go on, call it a room. It’s not an apartment, it’s just a room. I know it’s just a room, and Earl knows it and everyone...” She stopped, holding the back of her hand to her mouth. “I clean it twice a week, Tuesday and Saturday. I don’t have to do it, it’s not included in his rent. I do it for — because I like to,” she added defiantly. “I like to clean.”
“Take another look around now, Mrs. Hearst. Is this the way his room usually looked?”
“No.”
“What’s different about it?”
“A lot of his things are gone.”
“Clothes?”
“Not clothes. Personal little things, like his desk set, for instance. He had a very nice desk set, onyx, quite expensive. His mother gave it to him. His mother’s picture is gone too, it was in a silver frame. And his radio — he used to keep his radio on the table over there.”
“Have you any idea what happened to the missing objects?”
“They could have been — s-stolen.” But she stumbled over the answer. It was fairly obvious, both to Meecham and to Cordwink, that she didn’t believe the articles had been stolen.
“Or pawned, maybe,” Cordwink said. “Was he in the habit of pawning things?”
“He — when he had to, when he was desperate. He had such terrible expenses. And then there’s his mother, he sends her money. Last fall he scrimped and saved to send her some and when he did she blew it all in — went out and bought the desk set I told you about, and mailed it to him. It was a nice gesture, of course, only it was such a foolish thing to do. But then, she’s very refined, she doesn’t realize that people have to scrounge around for money these days.”
“You think, then, that Loftus pawned this stuff of his that’s missing?”
“Yes.”
“Any idea where?”
“There’s a little place in the east end, right next to the bowling alley. Devine’s, it’s called.”
“Did Loftus tell you that’s where he usually went?”
“I... no. No, he didn’t.” Her skin looked flushed. “I found a pawn ticket once when I was dusting his bureau. It was for his wrist watch. He never got the watch back. He told me he’d lost it. It wasn’t a real lie, Earl never lies. It was just a fib to save his pride. Being poor,” she said, “having to pawn things, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. But Earl isn’t used to it the way some people are. His father was well-to-do — he was a broker in Detroit before he died — and of course when Earl was working steadily he got a very good salary. Being poor is new to Earl. It’s his disease that’s dragged him down, his disease and his mom— No. No, I won’t say that. His mother can’t help herself, she’s very refined.”
Cordwink lit a cigarette. He rarely smoked, and the package from which he had taken the cigarette looked as though it had been in his pocket for months. He said, “When did you last see Loftus wearing this trench coat?”
“Saturday night. I was on my way to the hockey game, one of my boys is on the team. I met Earl on the sidewalk out in front of the house. I stopped to chat, I always do, and Earl said he’d just finished dinner downtown and that he was going to bed early because he was tired.”
“After the game you got home around...?”
“Eleven, it was just about eleven. Earl had gone to bed by that time.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Well, I thought he’d gone to bed. It never occurred to me that he hadn’t, and his lights were off.”
“Did you see him on Sunday at all?”
“No, Sunday’s my day off. I always go over to Chelsea to visit my sister and her kids. My sister and I had a little disagreement, nothing serious, but I left earlier than usual. I got home around 8:30. Earl’s light was on, I saw it shining under the door when I went into the hall. I thought of dropping in on him a minute, I was upset and Earl always cheers me up. But when I stopped outside his door he was talking on the telephone so I went on up to my room.”
“How long did you pause there, in the hall?”
“Oh, half a minute, no longer.”
“And you heard him talking?”
“Yes.”
“But not necessarily on the phone.”
“I... no, not necessarily, but...”
“In fact, there may have been someone in here with him.”
“Well, I can’t swear to it, of course, but I’m sure there wasn’t anyone here. Earl never has company.”
“No girl friends?”
Mrs. Hearst frowned. “No, none. Of that I am sure. He doesn’t bother with girls, young girls.”
“Was it a question of money?”
“No. Earl considers himself... well, deformed. He told me once that he couldn’t expect any woman to go out with a freak like he was.” She rubbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. “He isn’t a freak. It hurt me, his saying that. He isn’t a freak. A lot of women would be glad to — to look after him, see that he got the proper rest and food and didn’t go traipsing around in the cold without his galoshes and overcoat. A lot of women would be... would be...”
She hid her face in her apron, in silent grief. Watching her, Meecham wondered if the grief was for Loftus, or for all the women like herself who wanted a man to look after.
His eyes shifted to Cordwink. Cordwink’s face was grim and the cigarette he was smoking was chewed at one end like a cigar. He opened his mouth, and Meecham thought he was going to say something to the woman. But the Sheriff didn’t speak. Instead, he went over and helped Mrs. Hearst out of the chair and guided her out into the hallway as if she were blind.
When he came back he slammed the door shut behind him and looked bitterly across the room at Meecham. “Okay, you got any smart cracks to make, Meecham?”