He gave me a pleasant smile as he handed back my license. “I don’t think that will be necessary, Mr. Moon. I’m sure the help I’ll be able to give you will be so small it won’t matter whether you have police authority or not. As a matter of fact, I told some lieutenant everything I knew about Walter Ford over the phone.”
“That was Lieutenant Hannegan,” I said. “Mind going over again what you told him?”
Jessup said he didn’t mind at all. He still had the slip of paper on his desk containing the notes he had made from his files for Hannegan’s benefit, and he referred to it to refresh his memory as he talked.
“The only work we’ve ever done for Mr. Ford was the engraving of gold initials on the ivory grips of six twenty-five-caliber automatic pistols,” he said. “They all came in at different times, the first last March twelfth. It was picked up three days later. That was engraved M.S.”
“Madeline Strong,” I said.
“I wouldn’t know what any of the initials stand for. The next came in May second, was picked up on the fourth, and the initials were H.D. Then on May fifteenth we engraved one A.M.”
Apparently those were the two women the police had located through Ford’s address book and cleared as having no possible connection with the crime.
“Then we didn’t do any more until last month,” Jessup went on. “June eighth we engraved one E.K. and on June twenty-eighth B.D.”
Evelyn Karnes and Beatrice Duval, I thought, which jibed with the dates both girls claimed to have received their pistols from Ford.
“How about the last one?” I asked.
“That came in just a few days before Mr. Ford was killed. July seventh, to be exact. Our instructions were to engrave it T.H.”
“Did Ford bring all these guns in personally?”
“No. He sent them by Pickup Service and had them picked up the same way.” Then he frowned thoughtfully. “At least the last one came that way. I’d have to check with Leona about the others.”
When I looked at him without understanding, he explained, “Usually I don’t get out front much except when we’re rushed, and we’re hardly ever rushed. Leona handles the store trade and I work back here. Last week she was out sick and I had to handle everything, which is why this mess of work accumulated.” He gestured at the littered table top. “So I know Pickup Service brought in the last gun, but Leona would have received all the others.”
Rising, he walked to the workroom door, saw that the suave brunette had no customers and called her to the back of the shop.
“Those pistols of Mr. Ford’s the police phoned me about,” he said. “How’d they usually come in?”
“Mr. Ford always brought them in personally and picked them up again when they were finished.”
Jessup thanked her, and when she had gone away again he sat down in the lone chair and looked up at me uneasily. “Does that mean anything, Mr. Moon? The messenger brought along a note from Ford requesting a hurry-up job and asking us to have the gun ready the next day. I recall it was the same messenger boy who came after it.”
I frowned thoughtfully. “This boy have anything to identify himself?”
He looked even more uneasy. “I didn’t inquire, Mr. Moon. He just said he was from Pickup Service and gave me a large envelope containing the gun and note. Of course under ordinary circumstances I would require identification before releasing a customer’s property to a messenger, but since the same boy who brought the gun in came after it too, I hardly thought it necessary.”
Asking if I could use his phone, I looked up the number of Pickup Service and got hold of the dispatcher. After explaining who I was and that I was working with the authorization of Warren Day, I asked him to check his records for July seventh and eighth to see if he had any calls either from a Mr. Walter Ford or from anyone else for trips to Jessup’s.
After about a five-minute wait the dispatcher informed me the company had made no such delivery or pickup for Walter Ford or anyone else.
When I hung up, Jessup was looking worried.
“It’s the sort of thing anybody would be taken in by,” I reassured him. “Nobody will hold you responsible. I’d guess whoever it was had the engraving done simply hired some kid to act the part of a Pickup messenger. Probably he was waiting right outside the store while the boy was inside both times. How was the engraving paid for?”
“By the messenger, in cash.”
“It all fits,” I said. “The person who ordered the engraving couldn’t afford to let you see him because he wasn’t Walter Ford, and he had to assume the police would make at least a routine check with you eventually. You’ve been a big help, Mr. Jessup.”
Asking if I could use his phone again, I dialed Warren Day’s office. When I told the inspector what I had learned, he was silent for a moment.
Then he said, “We’ve got to get hold of that kid and find out who hired him.”
“How?” I asked. “There are probably ten thousand kids in town answering to the same description.”
“How about running a personal ad offering a reward if he’ll contact us? You know. ‘If the young man who delivered a package to Jessup’s Jewelry Store on July seventh and picked it up on July eighth will phone number so-and-so, it will be to his financial advantage.’ Something on that order.”
“And have the murderer read it too? We’d find the kid all right. Dead.”
“Yeah,” he said in a dissatisfied voice. “I guess we better just put out a general call. Let me talk to Jessup.”
When I relinquished the phone, apparently Day asked Jessup for a complete description of the messenger, for the jeweler said, “About seventeen, Inspector. Five-ten, I’d say, and about a hundred and thirty pounds. Brown hair in a crew cut and a kind of long face. What? I don’t know. Just an ordinary complexion. Neither dark nor light. Just ordinary. I don’t know what color eyes he had. Both days he wore brown cotton slacks and a plain yellow sport shirt with the tail outside his belt. No, nobody else saw him because my girl was out sick last week and I was here alone.”
When he hung up, I had the feeling that I was finally getting my teeth into the case. Day’s reaction to the fake messenger boy indicated he was now convinced Tom Henry had been framed, and from here on out I could expect an all-out effort on the part of Homicide to catch the real murderer instead of merely an effort to consolidate its case against my client.
As — except for vague suspicions that there was something phony about the evidence against Thomas Henry — this was the first definite progress I had made, it occurred to me Madeline Strong would want to know about it at once. Since her apartment was less than a mile from Jessup’s, I drove over instead of phoning.
Madeline’s place was on Park Lane near Mason Avenue, one of the most expensive residential districts in town.
Since the opposite side of Park Lane was Midland Park, the view from the apartment house was one of trees and well-kept grass as far as you could see. The view alone probably added fifty dollars a month to the rent, I thought, and wondered again just how much money the girl had.
Madeline’s apartment was 3-C. A virtually silent self-service elevator took me to the third floor and I waded along an ankle-deep carpet to the door of 3-C. There was no bell in evidence, but when I lifted a highly polished brass knocker in the shape of a knight’s shield, it caused a mellow tinkle of chimes within the apartment. When I released the knocker, it sank silently back into place instead of clattering against its metal faceplate.
Barney Amhurst came to the door. When he saw me, his dimples showed in a smile of pleasure.