Strangers When We Meet, page 18
Steve smothered a yawn as he looked up at the lightening sky and from it to the luminous face of his strapwatch, astonished to see that it was already almost four-thirty. He would have to hurry if he were to get back to his room before daylight added to the hazards of his return. He quickened his pace and was turning into Blake Street, after circling the block, when, heralded by a warning pip on the horn, a car slowed to a halt beside him. His first thought was that his absence had been discovered, but then he recognized the car as Sarah Hamilton’s, and Sarah herself leaned across to open the door on the passenger’s side.
“I must admit you’re the last person I expected to see,” she confessed. “But can I give you a Eft?”
Steve recovered from his surprise and got in beside her. “And you’re the last I expected to see,” he said. “What are you doing, for Pete’s sake?” He was shocked at the thought of her driving alone through town at this hour, but she smiled, making light of it.
“I’m locum to a general practitioner—had you forgotten? As such I’m on call at any hour of the day or night. Actually I haven’t had many night calls, and this one was unavoidable. I had to deliver a baby.”
“Yes, but alone, after what happened? In heaven’s name, Sarah, it’s not safe!” The strength of his feelings was such that he felt almost angry with her. “Does Hennessy know you drive around at night by yourself?”
“Yes, I suppose so . . . I’ve never really thought about it. I mean it’s my job.” She flashed him a quick, sidelong glance and slipped the car into gear. “Don’t misunderstand this remark, Steve, but I imagine Mr. Hennessy thinks that both I and his niece are perfectly safe, so long as he keeps you under what he’s pleased to call ‘surveillance.’ But you’re not, are you?”
“Not . . .? Oh, under surveillance, you mean? No.” Steve reddened and, as briefly as he could, explained what he had been doing and how he had managed to elude his official guardian. Sarah listened, offering no comment.
“I presume,” she suggested, when he had done, “that you intend to return by the back garden route, from Plummer Street?” He nodded and she asked, “Did you find anything—or anyone—of interest at Harper’s Motors?”
“Well, I found a car like mine, that was all, and a child’s hair ribbon on the floorboards. A brown one, but unless it was Mary Ellen’s, I’m afraid it isn’t going to help much. All the same”—Steve shrugged—“I believe I might find a lead there, if I look hard enough. I figured I might go back, as soon as the police get through with me, and—”
“Get through with you? Oh, Steve, surely you’re not being interrogated again?”
“I have to report to headquarters at nine o’clock,” he answered, tight-lipped, “but I wasn’t told why. Anyway, like I said, as soon as they let me leave, I’m going back to Harper’s. They employ quite a large staff and I only saw one of the night men. Also there’s Mr. Chetwood Harper himself, who—”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Sarah put in gently, “but you can eliminate Mr. Harper, Steve. He’s a patient of Dr. Mason’s and he broke his right arm a couple of weeks ago. I know, because I’ve been keeping an eye on it, and the day I was . . . was attacked, I saw Mr. Harper in the downtown office for a routine check. His plaster was hurting, so I adjusted it for him.” She laughed ruefully and put out a hand to touch her throat, which was still covered with a chiffon scarf. “And I can, alas, vouch for the fact that the man who tried to strangle me had the full use of two very strong arms. Mr. Harper has not.”
Her laughter and the lightness of her tone caused Steve’s heart to contract. He had a sudden and quite irresponsible longing to put his own arms about her and hold her close to him, to tell her that she was safe, so long as she was with him, but he controlled it sternly. He had no right, he told himself with bitterness, no right, in his present circumstances, to take any woman into his arms . . . and then realised, with a sense of mounting happiness, that he hadn’t wanted to, for over a year. Not since Janie; he hadn’t looked at a girl since Janie’s death because he had been only half alive himself, yet now, almost without warning, he found himself looking at Sarah Hamilton and seeing her with new eyes.
Uncannily as if she had guessed his thoughts, Sarah observed, “The time will come, Steve—this can’t go on for ever. The police, Chief Hennessy . . . they’ll realise that they’ve made a mistake where you’re concerned, you must believe that.” “Oh, sure,” he agreed, despondent again. “I know, but it’s not very easy to believe anything any more. Not with my luck.”
“Your luck will change.” She slowed down, for the turn into Plummer Street, looking for the street name. “Is this right?”
“Yes. If you wouldn’t mind stopping about half way along I’ll jump out . . . and you drive right on.” He grasped her hand, covering it for a moment with his own as it lay, small and competent, on the steering wheel. “Thanks for everything, Sarah. I’m very glad I saw you. And please don’t take any chances, will you?”
“I won’t, don’t worry. And telephone me tomorrow, to let me know how you got on . . . I’ll be at Dr. Mason’s from noon to about two, all being well.” She pulled up and turned to smile at him. “Good night, Steve. And good luck!”
“’Night, Sarah.” She drove straight on, as he had asked her to, and he waited until her car was out of sight before scaling the garden wall and cautiously retracing his steps across Mrs. Taylor’s lawn and through the garage, the prowling tom-cat his only witness. When he regained his room, he found the bedside lamp still burning and a glance from behind the window curtain showed him the stolid figure of Detective Mahoney, slowly pacing the sidewalk below. It was now ten to five and not a soul appeared to have noticed his absence; thankfully, he undressed and lay down on the bed, to fall asleep at once.
At seven-thirty Mrs. Taylor called him and at eight she served his breakfast, exclaiming in dismay at the appearance he presented.
“You slept badly, Mr. Gresham? Why, goodness, you look to me like you hadn’t slept for a week, and my, aren’t you thin! Mrs. Scott told me you’d been in hospital a long while and I promised her I’d look after you and try to put some flesh back on your bones.” She set a plate of appetisingly cooked ham and eggs in front of him and beamed, “There, just you tuck into that now. It’ll do you good.”
Steve did his best, though he had little appetite, and he was glad of the interruption when his hostess returned, ushering in Kathleen Scott, who held her small daughter by the hand.
“I’m just taking Mary Ellen to school,” she said, smiling as Steve rose to his feet. “But I couldn’t go without coming to enquire how you were.” She introduced the child, who shook hands with him solemnly and then skipped off with Mrs. Taylor, on the promise of a family of kittens to be inspected. Left alone with Steve, Kathleen faced him, her expression grave. “My brother left home ten minutes ago,” she explained. “And I don’t have to tell you that he wouldn’t approve of my calling on you like this. But”—she sighed—“I wish he could have seen you shaking hands with Mary Ellen just now. If he had, he couldn’t have gone on believing what I’m afraid he does.”
“I’m extremely glad you came,” Steve assured her gratefully. “Because I was racking my brains for some excuse to see you before I have to go to police headquarters at”—he looked at his watch—“nine o’clock. Mrs. Scott, following up the suggestion in your note—for which I’m very grateful—I did a bit of amateur investigating last night.” He told her of his visit to Harper’s Motors and then triumphantly produced the scrap of ribbon from his jacket pocket. “The sedan didn’t have city plates on it—but plates can be changed, I guess—and it was a black Olds a year older than mine. I found this under the front seat. Have you ever seen it before?”
Kathleen Scott inspected the hair ribbon and then, to his chagrin, shook her head. “It’s not Mary Ellen’s, Mr. Gresham, if that’s what you were hoping for . . . I’ve never seen it before, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, well!” Steve shrugged and returned the scrap of satin to his pocket. “It was just a chance. I guess I was a fool to set any store by it. The car’s three years old, it’ll have had kids in it during that time. But the Buick—the one that drove past her yesterday—was in the showroom window. I saw the night mechanic put it there. Mary Ellen was right about the licence number.”
Tears welled momentarily in Kathleen’s blue eyes. “She’s right about most things. That’s why I’m so positive that she’s right about you, but I’m sorry to say my brother doesn’t believe her. He hasn’t told me anything definite, Mr. Gresham, but this morning, at breakfast, he hinted that he . . . well, that he expected to get proof of your guilt this time.”
“You don’t know what proof?” Steve asked, a chill sensation in the pit of his stomach. She shook her head. They talked of his impending visit to police headquarters and then Steve said earnestly, “You won’t let Mary Ellen go to or from school alone, will you, Mrs. Scott?”
She did not pretend to misunderstand him. “No, I won’t, I . . .” she bit her lower lip, fighting for control. “You think that man, the one who was driving the Buick, might try again? Because he knows that Mary Ellen recognised him yesterday?”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Steve admitted. “I don’t want to alarm you or anything like that, but if you could only convince your brother that she might be in danger, at least he could have her guarded.”
Kathleen promised that she would do her best and he accompanied her to the door, watched her set off down the street with the child and then, to avoid the indignity of being fetched by a police patrol car, took his own from the garage. His shadow sourly accepted the offer of a lift and they drove in silence to police headquarters.
The procedure was much the same as it had been on the previous occasion. Steve waited, with Dale Rayburn, and then joined a line of men for the identification parade, standing with them in the harsh glare of the arc lamps. This time, however, there was no screen between him and the witness who had come from Ellis County to identify him. She was a thin, angular woman in glasses, and although several times he sensed her eyes on him, when he looked at her she hurriedly averted her gaze. She stood with Chief Hennessy on one side, a second man, in rather untidy civilian clothes, on the other. Both men talked to her in low, urgent voices, and after a while, she silenced them by walking straight up to him and touching him on the shoulder.
“That’s the man, Sheriff,” she stated flatly. “I’m just about as sure as I can be of anything that it’s him.”
9
STEVE stood frozen with nameless horror, staring at the woman who had pointed to him, every vestige of colour draining from his cheeks. She was wrong, of course, he told himself despairingly, she had to be. But he saw Dale Rayburn rise from a seat on the far side of the room and knew an instant’s relief at the thought that he wasn’t being called upon to fight this battle alone. Before his lawyer could voice a protest, however, the woman from Ellis County said emphatically, “Yes, he’s the man I saw, Sheriff Cluny. Driving a black sedan with city licence plates—an Oldsmobile, I believe it was—and he stopped to ask me the way. He was alone at that time and he wanted to know how to get to some address on the far side of town. I told him as well as I could.”
Steve remembered her then as one of the passers-by who had misdirected him, when he had been searching for Andy Kersten’s house. He had driven all over the place, looking for it; small wonder, therefore, that he had been at or near the scene of the Ellis County crime and that this woman remembered speaking to him. He started to say so, stammering in his anxiety to make them understand, but the Ellis County Sheriff laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“You heard what the lady said, didn’t you?” he challenged grimly. “I guess I’m going to have to take you back with me. And I don’t need to warn you that if a charge is preferred, it’s liable to be one of first degree murder.” He gestured to the table in front of him. “Empty your pockets, will you? I have to be sure you aren’t carrying a lethal weapon.”
Steve did as he was told, numb with shock. As he laid the contents of his pockets on the table, he was more concerned about Kathleen Scott’s note than he was about the child’s hair ribbon he had found in the secondhand Olds-mobile . . . but it was the length of brown ribbon that drew the Sheriff’s attention. He picked it up, his eyes narrowed. “Well, what do you know?” he remarked to Mike Hennessy. “This looks like the pair to the one we found on the body of Christine Lubbock, Chief. I guess that settles it, don’t you? You were right—Gresham’s our man.”
Chief Hennessey leaned forward to turn Kathleen’s note over. He glanced at it, scowling as he recognised the handwriting. “Sure it does,” he agreed in a choked voice. “I never had any doubts. This guy is the rat we’ve been looking for, no question of it.” He brushed aside his colleague’s congratulations and, his back to Steve, murmured something to Dale Rayburn, who, with the man who had been sitting with him, had now joined the group about the table.
The lawyer touched Steve’s arm. “You can make a voluntary statement if you wish, Gresham, in my presence and that of the Assistant District Attorney. I’d advise you to do so, if you have an explanation to offer.” He lowered his voice, “But if you haven’t—”
The blood was pounding in Steve’s head. He answered thickly, his mouth dry, “Yes, by God I have! And I want to make a statement . . . for the sake of that child, for Mary Ellen’s safety.” He addressed Mike Hennessy’s uncompromising back, “Chief Hennessy, you’ve got to listen to me. Your niece is in terrible danger and maybe her mother too. She—”
“She is? That’s rich, coming from you!” Hennessy turned then, looking full at Steve, eyes ablaze in his white, tense face. For a moment he looked as if he were about to strike his prisoner, but with an almost visible effort, he controlled himself. He gestured to the note in his sister’s neat, round hand, and said disgustedly, “I reckon they’re both quite safe, so long as we hold you under lock and key, Gresham. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do, make no mistake about it! Whether or not Sheriff Cluny decides he has enough on you to charge you, I’m going to, and I’ll make the charges stick, if it’s the last thing I do. Why—”
“I think, Chief,” the Assistant District Attorney put in quickly, “that we’d be well advised to hear what Mr. Gresham has to say.”
“If you think there’s any point in it—”
“I do, Chief Hennessy,” Dale Rayburn said. “After all”—he pointed to the woman, who was being led away by a uniformed policeman—“what is Mrs. Bloom’s identification worth, when you consider it? Gresham has never denied being in Ellis County on the night the Lubbock child was murdered there, and in his first statement he mentions having stopped several passers-by in order to ask them to direct him to Mr. Andrew Kersten’s house. He says they misdirected him. He told you he drove all over town, didn’t he? The fact that he stopped and spoke to Mrs. Bloom near where the little girl’s body was found doesn’t prove that he killed her—rather the opposite, I would imagine. The murderer wouldn’t have risked stopping, in case he was recognised. But Gresham stopped because he had no reason to fear recognition . . . the act, surely, of an innocent man, not a guilty one?”
Sheriff Cluny nodded thoughtfully, but Chief Hennessy’s expression didn’t relax. “Save your arguments for the jury, Counsellor,” he retorted, his tone aggressive. “You’ll need them, and you won’t find it so easy to explain your client’s possession of that hair ribbon. Keeping that in his pocket isn’t the act of an innocent man, not the way I see it.”
Steve, nearing the end of his endurance, attempted to speak, but the lawyer motioned him to silence. “Maybe we should go along to your office, Chief Hennessy,” he suggested, with deceptive mildness. “Mr. Gresham has volunteered to make a statement and I guess we should all reserve judgement until we’ve heard what he has to say . . . if my friend from the D.A.’s office agrees? My own view is that only a man who hadn’t the least idea of its significance would have retained possession of a hair ribbon belonging to the murdered girl—if, indeed, it did. To have come here with such an incriminating piece of evidence on his person would be—if my client were guilty of the crime— an act of foolhardy madness. Always supposing that this ribbon can be proved to have belonged to Christine Lubbock. We don’t yet know for sure whether it can, do we, Sheriff?”
Thus appealed to, Sheriff Cluny conceded that he could not be sure. “But,” he added with a gruff sincerity that carried conviction, “I’ll be very surprised if it’s not hers, Counsellor. When I examined the body, the hair was done up in two plaits, one tied with a brown ribbon, similar to this, and one loose. We searched for the missing ribbon and didn’t find it, so . . .” he glanced at Steve and then away, as if reluctant to meet his gaze. “I guess we should hear what Mr. Gresham has to say. He’s entitled to make a voluntary statement if he wants to, and if he makes it in the presence of his attorney, no one can say that the police put any undue pressure on him.”
Mike Hennessy led the way to his office in silence. He said curtly, “I’ll have a stenographer in, to take notes. While we’re about it, I guess it wouldn’t do any harm to have the two officers who have had the suspect under surveillance in as well, so that they can confirm or deny any claims he may make. I take it you’ll have no objection to their being present, Counsellor Rayburn?”
“None at all,” Dale Rayburn replied, with equal curtness.
He took his place at Steve’s side, but didn’t speak. They waited for the two detectives to be summoned, Steve’s head throbbing unmercifully. Sitting there he wondered, as he mentally rehearsed his story, whether any of them would believe it—even Rayburn. He could offer no proof of his early morning visit to Harper’s Motors, unless he asked for the mechanic to be called in order to confirm it. Even then, he could not prove that he had found the ribbon on the floor of the secondhand Oldsmobile—the mechanic hadn’t seen him get into the car, hadn’t seen him leave; he had taken pains to ensure that he didn’t. And although Sarah Hamilton had met him on his way back, she had only his word for where he had been . . . his brow was suddenly clammy with sweat. He hadn’t really found out anything . . . anything definite, that was to say. He himself might believe that the killer had used the Oldsmobile, substituting its licence plates and then, presumably, changing them back to the originals, but he couldn’t prove that this had been done. He had omitted to examine the plates and he could not tell them who the killer was, because he didn’t know.
