The sixth gun was the one found in Tom Henry’s workshop drawer.
“That leaves one still floating around somewhere,” I remarked.
The inspector shrugged. “Probably turn out he gave it to some woman who isn’t listed in the address book.”
I said, “Has it occurred to you as a bit odd that all the pistols Ford gave away were given to women, except for Tom Henry’s? Why would a woman chaser like Ford make a gift to a man he barely knew when he didn’t customarily give presents to even his closest male friends?”
“I can’t say, but there’s evidence he actually did make the gift. In the first place, we traced the guns to the Tulsa Arms Company, and the serial number on Henry’s gun proves it was one of the original dozen. In the second place, we located the jeweler who did Ford’s engraving for him. Jessups, over on West Lucas. It was Ford who ordered the ‘T.H.’ initials on young Henry’s gun all right, just as he ordered the engraving on the other five initialed guns.”
“Only five? You mean the missing seventh gun was never engraved?”
Day shook his head. “Not at Jessup’s anyway. If it had been, we’d have located whoever Ford gave it to by now.”
I said thoughtfully, “Offhand it looks like that seventh gun was never given away. Ford would hardly break his habit of having them engraved.”
“Maybe it was the first one he gave as a present, and it didn’t occur to him to start having initials engraved on the grips until he got to the second.” He paused a moment and added reluctantly, “Except for something Hannegan said.”
“Hannegan said something? It must have been important to make the lieutenant open his mouth.”
“Just one of those odd things nobody but Hannegan would notice,” the inspector said. “I doubt that it means anything. This gun case is a velvet-lined box with velvet-covered spring clips which clamp around the barrel of each pistol to hold it in place. The guns were in three rows of four each. According to Tulsa the twelve serial numbers were consecutive and they were packed in the case in chronological order. In checking the serial numbers of the missing guns against the dates Ford had them engraved, Hannegan figured out he had started with the gun in the top left corner of the case and worked straight across. And the gun unaccounted for is the seventh, not the first.”
I thought this over dubiously, then asked, “Hannegan talk to this jeweler personally?”
“Just over the phone. He intended to follow it up with a visit.”
“I’ll save him a trip by making that check myself,” I said. “I’ll let you know what I get. Find anything else of interest in Ford’s apartment?”
Day grinned sourly. “Not bearing on his murder. They found a few dirty pictures.”
I raised my brows. “Oh? Got them here?”
“You reached the stage where you like to look at dirty pictures?” the inspector demanded.
“According to Ford’s wife, he used them for blackmail,” I said patiently. “Blackmail makes a lovely motive for murder.”
For a moment he scowled at me, then pulled open his top drawer, took out a large manila envelope, withdrew a number of glossy five-by-eight prints and tossed them to me.
There were eleven pictures altogether, and all the poses were approximately the same. A man sat on the edge of a bed, his back to the camera so that his face was invisible, and a woman lay in his arms, her back across his knees. In addition to the pose, all had three other things in common. Despite only his back being visible, the same man was identifiable in each picture, the bed and room were the same, and in each case both the man and woman were naked.
The women were all different, however. The camera angle was such that although the man’s face could not be seen, his companion’s face in each picture was clearly visible.
“You mean to tell me you didn’t even suspect these were blackmail pictures?” I inquired.
“I assumed they were just standard pornography Ford had bought under the counter somewhere to gloat over in private,” Day said. “That man in the pictures isn’t Ford. Too broad through the shoulders.”
“Ford’s confederate,” I told him. “I’d guess these were infrared pictures. It’s not a new gag. In the dark the guy in the picture maneuvers the woman into the proper position, then Ford snaps the picture from some concealed spot. She wouldn’t even know a snap had been taken until either Ford or his confederate offered to sell it to her a few days later.”
The first time I had shuffled through the photographs, I had done it rapidly, barely glancing at each one. Now I went through a second time in a more leisurely manner. Halfway I stopped and whistled.
“What’s the matter?” Day asked.
I began to suspect that I had done the inspector an injustice, and he actually hadn’t as yet given the pictures a close inspection. For if he had, I am sure he would have recognized the face which caused my whistle as quickly as I did.
I tossed the glossy print over to him.
He studied it with gradually widening eyes. There, lying in the broad-shouldered man’s arms and smiling up at him lazily, was Bubbles Duval.
Chapter Seventeen
It took a bit of argument to talk Warren Day into letting me borrow the picture of Bubbles and the broad-shouldered man. The inspector was all for dragging the girl down to headquarters and sweating out of her the name of Ford’s confederate.
I finally convinced him that since I knew the girl personally and she seemed to have some liking for me, I could probably get more out of her than some strange cop.
The only other information I got from Warren Day was that Thomas Henry’s bond hearing at nine o’clock that morning had come to nothing. Despite the legal efforts of the expensive Harvey Brighton, the judge had refused to allow bond, declaring that the nature of the alleged crime indicated that the accused, if guilty, was too inclined to violence for the court to assume responsibility for loosing him on society even temporarily until a jury had decided whether or not he was to be released permanently.
When I left headquarters, I drove over to West Lucas and dropped by Jessup’s Jewelry Store. A gracious brunette with all the suavity of an undertaker’s assistant came forward to wait on me.
When I asked to speak to the proprietor, she wanted to know what about. I told her about some gold engraving and she looked politely interested, but when I failed to elaborate, she smiled pleasantly and led me toward the rear of the store with the air of a headwaiter showing me to a table.
Mr. Jessup, whose first name was Samuel according to the discreet gold lettering on the front window I had noted on the way in, was closeted in a tiny workroom containing nothing but a table, one chair and a rack of intricate tools. The table top was littered with rings, watches and other types of jewelry in various stages of repair, and at the moment the jeweler was resetting a stone in a rhinestone bracelet.
In contrast to his sophisticated clerk, Samuel Jessup was as homey as red suspenders. He was a plump man of about fifty with a benign face and an air of extreme patience. When the brunette announced in a soft voice that he had a visitor, he nodded without looking up and continued to work on the bracelet with a thin-nosed pair of pliers.
I waited quietly until he had made the last delicate adjustment, laid down the pliers and removed the powerful jeweler’s glasses from his eyes. For them he substituted a plain horn-rimmed pair, then blinked up at me inquiringly.
Handing him my license, I waited until he had studied it, then said, “I’m working with the Homicide Department on the Ford case. I have Inspector Day’s permission to ask questions in the name of the department and I’d like to ask you some. Maybe you’d like to check me by phone with Inspector Day first.”