“Nothing. Outside of what seemed to be notes for his work there wasn’t a handful of papers. You can look at them yourself when you come up.”
Guild, eating, nodded as if he were thoroughly satisfied. “We’ll go up for a look at Miss Porter first thing this afternoon,” he said, “and maybe something’ll come of that.”
“Do you suppose she was blackmailing him?”
“People have blackmailed people,” Guild admitted.
“I’m just talking at random,” the district attorney said a bit sheepishly, “letting whatever pops into my mind come out.”
“Keep it up,” Guild said encouragingly.
“Do you suppose she could be a daughter he had by that actress wife in Paris?”
“We can try to find out what happened to her and the children. Maybe Columbia Forrest was his daughter.”
“But you know what the situation was up there,” Boyer protested. “That would be incest.”
“It’s happened before,” Guild said gravely. “That’s why they’ve got a name for it.”
Guild pushed the button beside Laura Porter’s name in the vestibule of a small brownstone apartment building at 1157 Leavenworth Street. Boyer, breathing heavily, stood beside him. There was no response. There was no response the second and third times he pushed the button, but when he touched the one labelled MANAGER the door-lock buzzed.
They opened the door and went into a dim lobby. A door straight ahead of them opened and a woman said: “Yes? What is it?” She was small and sharp-featured, gray-haired, hook-nosed, bright-eyed.
Guild advanced toward her saying, “We wanted to see Miss Laura Porter – 310 – but she doesn’t answer the bell.”
“I don’t think she’s in,” the gray-haired woman said. “She’s not in much. Can I take a message?”
“When do you expect her back?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“Do you know when she went out?”
“No, sir. Sometimes I see my people when they come in and go out and sometimes I don’t. I don’t watch them and Miss Porter I see less than any.”
“Oh, she’s not here most of the time?”
“I don’t know, mister. So long as they pay their rent and don’t make too much noise I don’t bother them.”
“Them? Does she live with somebody?”
“No. I meant them – all my people here.”
Guild turned to the district attorney. “Here. One of your cards.”
Boyer fumbled for his cards, got one of them out, and handed it to Guild, who gave it to the woman.
“We want a little information about her,” the dark man said in a low, confidential voice while she was squinting at the card in the dim light. “She’s all right as far as we know, but -“
The woman’s eyes, when she raised them, were wide and inquisitive. “What is it?” she asked.
Guild leaned down toward her impressively. “How long has she been here?” he asked in a stage whisper.
“Almost six months,” she replied. “It is six months.”
“Does she have many visitors?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember ever seeing any, but I don’t pay much attention and when I see people coming in here I don’t know what apartment they’re going to.”
Guild straightened, put his left hand out, and pressed an electric-light button, illuminating the lobby. He put his right hand to his inner coat-pocket and brought out pictures of Wynant and his dead secretary. He gave them to the woman. “Ever see either of these?”
She looked at the man’s picture and shook her head. “No,” she said, “and that ain’t a man I’d ever forget if I’d once seen him.” She looked at Columbia Forrest’s picture. “That!” she cried. “That is Miss Porter!”
Six
Boyer looked round-eyed at Guild.
The dark man, after a little pause, spoke to the woman. “That’s Columbia Forrest,” he said, “the girl who was killed up in Hell Bend yesterday.”
The woman’s eyes became round as the district attorney’s. “Well!” she exclaimed, looking at the photograph again, “I never would’ve thought she was a thief. Why, she was such a pleasant, mild-looking little thing -“
“A thief?” Boyer asked incredulously.
“Why, yes.” She raised puzzled eyes from the photograph. “At least that’s what the paper says, about her going -“
“What paper?”
“The afternoon paper.” Her face became bright, eager. “Didn’t you see it?”
“No. Have you -?”
“Yes. I’ll show you.” She turned quickly and went through the doorway open behind her.
Guild, pursing his lips a little, raising his eyebrows, looked at Boyer.
The district attorney whispered loudly: “She wasn’t blackmailing him? She was stealing from him?”
Guild shook his head. “We don’t know anything yet,” he said.
The woman hurried back to them carrying a newspaper. She turned the newspaper around and thrust it into Guild’s hand, leaning over it, tapping the paper with a forefinger. “There it is.” Her voice was metallic with excitement. “That’s it. You read that.”
Boyer went around behind the dark man to his other side, where he stood close to him, almost hanging on his arm, craning for a better view of the paper.
They read:
MURDERED SECRETARY KNOWN TO
N.Y. POLICE
NEW YORK, Sept. 8 (A.P.) – Columbia Forrest, in connection with whose murder at Hell Bend, Calif., yesterday the police are now searching for Walter Irving Wynant, famous scientist, philosopher and author, was convicted of shoplifting in New York City three years ago, according to former police magistrate Erie Gardner.
Ex-magistrate Gardner stated that the girl pleaded guilty to a charge brought against her by two department stores and was given a six-month sentence by him, but that the sentence was suspended due to the intervention of Walter Irving Wynant, who offered to reimburse the stores and to give her employment as his secretary. The girl had formerly been a typist in the employ of a Wall St. brokerage firm.
Boyer began to speak, but Guild forestalled him by addressing the woman crisply: “That’s interesting. Thanks a lot. Now we’d like a look at her room.”
The woman, chattering with the utmost animation, took them upstairs and unlocked the door of apartment 310. She went into the apartment ahead of them, but the dark man, holding the corridor door open, said pointedly: “We’ll see you again before we leave.” She went away reluctantly and Guild shut the door.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Boyer said.
“Maybe we are,” Guild agreed.
Words ran swiftly from the district attorney’s mouth. “Do you suppose she handled the details of his banking and forged those Laura Porter checks and juggled his books to cover them? The chances are he didn’t spend much and thought he had a fat balance. Then when she had his account drained she raised the last check, drew against it, and was running away?”
“Maybe, but -“ Guild stared thoughtfully at the district attorney’s feet.
“But what?”
Guild raised his eyes. “Why didn’t she run away while she was away instead of driving back there in another man’s car to tell him she was going away with another man?”
Boyer had a ready answer. “Thieves are funny and women are funny and when you get a woman thief there’s no telling what she’ll do or why. She could’ve had a quarrel with him and wanted to rub it in that she was going. She could have forgotten something up there. She might’ve had some idea of throwing suspicion away from the bank-
