clothes, with black cloth gloves.”
“How old?”
“Not very. His beard was thin, patchy, and he had a boyish face.”
“Notice his eyes?”
“Blue; his hair, where it showed under the edge of his cap, was very light yellow, almost white.”
“What sort of voice?”
“Very deep bass, though he may have been putting that on.”
“Know him if you’d see him again?”
“Yes, indeed!” She put a gentle finger on her bandaged nose. “My nose would know, as the ads say, anyway!”
From Miss Eveleth’s apartment I went down to the office on the first floor, where I found McBirney, the janitor, and his wife, who managed the apartment building. She was a scrawny little woman with the angular mouth and nose of a nagger; he was big, broad-shouldered, with sandy hair and moustache, good-humoured, shiftless red face, and genial eyes of a pale and watery blue.
He drawled out what he knew of the looting.
“I was fixin’ a spigot on the fourth floor when I heard the shot. I went up to see what was the matter, an’ just as I got far enough up the front stairs to see the Toplins’ door, the fella came out. We seen each other at the same time, an’ he aims his gun at me. There’s a lot o’ things I might of done, but what I did do was to duck down an’ get my head out o’ range. I heard him run upstairs, an’ I got up just in time to see him make the turn between the fifth and sixth floors.
“I didn’t go after him. I didn’t have a gun or nothin’, an’ I figured we had him cooped. A man could get out o’ this buildin’ to the roof of the next from the fourth floor, an’ maybe from the fifth, but not from any above that; an’ the Toplins’ apartment is on the fifth. I figured we had this fella. I could stand in front of the elevator an’ watch both the front an’ back stairs; an’ I rang for the elevator, an’ told Ambrose, the elevator boy, to give the alarm an’ run outside an’ keep his eye on the fire escape until the police came.
“The missus came up with my gun in a minute or two, an’ told me that Martinez – Ambrose’s brother, who takes care of the switchboard an’ the front door – was callin’ the police. I could see both stairs plain, an’ the fella didn’t come down them; an’ it wasn’t more’n a few minutes before the police – a whole pack of ‘em – came from the Richmond Station. Then we let the Toplins out of the closet where they were, an’ started to search the buildin’. An’ then Miss Eveleth came runnin’ down the stairs, her face an’ dress all bloody, an’ told about him bein’ in her apartment; so we were pretty sure we’d land him. But we didn’t. We searched every apartment in the buildin’, but didn’t find hide nor hair of him.”
“Of course you didn’t!” Mrs. McBirney said unpleasantly. “But if you had -“
“I know,” the janitor said with the indulgent air of one who has learned to take his pannings as an ordinary part of married life, “if I’d been a hero an’ grabbed him, an’ got myself all mussed up. Well, I ain’t foolish like old man Toplin, gettin’ himself plugged in the foot, or Blanche Eveleth, gettin’ her nose busted. I’m a sensible man that knows when he’s licked – an’ I ain’t jumpin’ at no guns!”
“No! You’re not doing anything that -“
This Mr. and Mrs. stuff wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I cut in with a question to the woman. “Who is the newest tenant you have?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Jerald – they came the day before yesterday.”
“What apartment?”
“704 – next door to Miss Eveleth.”
“Who are these Jeralds?”
“They come from Boston. He told me he came out here to open a branch of a manufacturing company. He’s a man of at least fifty, thin and dyspeptic – looking.”
“Just him and his wife?”
“Yes. She’s poorly too – been in a sanatorium for a year or two.”
“Who’s the next newest tenant?”
“Mr. Heaton, in 535. He’s been here a couple of weeks, but he’s down in Los Angeles right now. He went away three days ago and said he would be gone for ten or twelve days.”
“What does he look like and what does he do?”
“He’s with a theatrical agency and he’s kind of fat and red-faced.”
“Who’s the next newest?”
“Miss Eveleth. She’s been here about a month.”
“And the next?”
“The Wageners in 923. They’ve been here going on two months.”
“What are they?”
“He’s a retired real-estate agent. The others are his wife and son Jack – a boy of maybe nineteen. I see him with Phyllis Toplin a lot.”
“How long have the Toplins been here?”
“It’ll be two years next month.”
I turned from Mrs. McBirney to her husband.
“Did the police search all these people’s apartments?”
“Yeah,” he said. “We went into every room, every alcove, an’ every closet from cellar to roof.”
“Did you get a good look at the robber?”
“Yeah. There’s a light in the hall outside of the Toplins’ door, an’ it was shinin’ full on his face when I saw him.”
“Could he have been one of your tenants?”
“No, he couldn’t.”
“Know him if you saw him again?”
“You bet.”
“What did he look like?”
“A little runt, a light-complected youngster of twenty-three or -four in an old blue suit.”
“Can I get hold of Ambrose and Martinez – the elevator and door boys who were on duty last night – now?”
The janitor looked at his watch.
“Yeah. They ought to be on the job now. They come on at two.”
I went out into the lobby and found them together, matching nickels.
They were brothers, slim, bright-eyed Filipino boys. They didn’t add much to my dope.
Ambrose had come down to the lobby and told his brother to call the police as soon as McBirney had given him his orders, and then he had to beat it out the back door to take a plant on the fire escapes. The fire escapes ran down the back and one side wall. By standing a little off from the corner of those walls, the Filipino had been able to keep his eyes on both of them, as well as on the back door.
There was plenty of illumination, he said, and he could see both fire escapes all the way to the roof, and he had seen nobody on them.
Martinez had given the police a rap on the phone and had then watched the front door and the foot of the front stairs. He had seen nothing.
I had just finished questioning the Filipinos when the street door opened and two men came in. I knew one of them: Bill Garren, a police detective on the Pawnshop Detail. The other was a small blond youth all flossy in pleated pants, short, square-shouldered coat, and patent-leather shoes with fawn spats to match his hat and gloves. His face wore a sullen pout. He didn’t seem to like being with Garren.
“What are you up to around here?” the detective hailed me.
“The Toplin doings for the insurance company,” I explained.
“Getting anywhere?” he wanted to know.
“About ready to make a pinch,” I said, not altogether in earnest and not altogether joking.
“The more the merrier,” he grinned. “I’ve already made mine,” nodding at the dressy youth. “Come on upstairs with us.”
The three of us got into the elevator and Ambrose carried us to the fifth floor. Before pressing the Toplin bell,
