I’ve been trying to remember so I could come and tell you as soon as I did, but I decided I’d better not wait.”
“She’s crazy,” Miss Leeds stated in her voice like a man. “She has been crazy for-”
Cramer gestured her into silence without taking his gaze away from Mrs. Chack. “But,” he rumbled, “you said that Roy Douglas killed your granddaughter. Do you remember how you know that?”
“Certainly I do,” she snapped. “He killed her because she knew he had killed Cora Leeds, and he was afraid of her. He was afraid she would tell someone. Isn’t that a good reason?”
“Yeah, it’s all right for a reason. Have you got any proof? Any evidence? Did you see him around there?”
“See him? How could I? I wasn’t there. When I got home she was dead.” Her voice got shrill. “I am eighty-nine years old! I went home and found my granddaughter dead! Could I sit right down and think it out? After I was in bed I knew he had killed her! I want you to get him! I want to see him face to face!”
“You will,” Cramer assured her. “Take it easy, Mrs. Chack. Do you remember why he killed Cora Leeds?”
“Certainly I do. Because he didn’t want to give up his pigeon loft. She was going to have it torn down.”
“I thought she had built it for him,” I put in.
“She had. She spent thousands of dollars on it. But after she hurt her leg and couldn’t go to the Square any more, she hated him and she hated everybody. She sent word to me that I had to move out, had to leave that house where I had lived for over forty years. And she told Leon he had to get out and she wouldn’t pay him any more for killing hawks. She had paid him twenty dollars for every hawk he killed. And she told Roy Douglas she owned the pigeons, he didn’t, and she was going to tear the loft down and he had to go. And she told her own daughter she had to stop going to the Square, and when she found out her daughter was secretly giving money to Leon for killing hawks she wouldn’t let her have any money for anything. That’s the way she acted after she hurt her leg and couldn’t go to the Square. It was no wonder I thought it was the Hand of God, especially when it happened on December ninth. But God forgive me, it wasn’t. And I knew it wasn’t, I knew it was Roy Douglas, because Ann told me-God forgive me.”
Cramer cleared his throat and asked, “From what you said, Miss Leeds, I understand you don’t agree with Mrs. Chack?”
“I do not,” Miss Leeds declared emphatically. “She’s crazy. She did it herself.”
“Did what herself? Made that up?”
“No, she did it. She killed my mother and she killed her granddaughter. I doubt if she even knows she did it. Nobody in their right mind would have hurt Ann. She was a nice child and everybody liked her.”
“Excuse me,” I put in. “You told me Monday that nobody killed your mother. You said she died of old age. Now you say-”
“And you said,” she retorted crushingly, “that you came there just to see Ann, and here you are. Didn’t I tell you, Army or police, it’s all the same? Here you are together, and what do you do about anything? In sixty years you haven’t moved a finger to stop the hawks entering the city. What was the sense of my telling you that that crazy old woman killed my mother? What would you have done about it? How did I know she was going to kill Ann too? I only came with her because-”
“Madam!” Wolfe said in a tone that stopped her. “If you yourself are sane, you can answer a question. Did your mother tell Mrs. Chack to leave the house?”
“Yes. It was her house-”
“Did she stop paying Leon Furey for killing hawks and tell him to leave also?”
“Yes. After she got hurt-”
“Did she tell Roy Douglas she was going to tear down his pigeon loft?”
“Yes. She couldn’t bear-”
“Did she quit giving you money and forbid you to go to the Square?”
“Yes. But I didn’t-”
“Then, madam, your diagnosis is faulty. Mrs. Chack’s mind retains all those details with accuracy, which is a creditable performance at her age. I wouldn’t advise you-”
The phone buzzed and Cramer took it. He listened briefly, said to wait, and spoke to Wolfe, “I’m through if you are.” Wolfe nodded, and Cramer told the phone, “Come and escort the ladies out and then bring him in.”
Escorting the ladies out wasn’t so simple. They weren’t through, whether Wolfe and Cramer were or not. Finally Cramer had to leave his desk to get them herded through the door, and by the time he got back to his chair in came a city employee with another visitor.
Chapter 11
Leon Furey wasn’t liking himself as well as he had been the last time I saw him. As he walked in, looked around at us, and dropped into a chair by invitation, he was not jaunty. It was doubtful if he had been in his pajamas until noon that day, because his clothes looked as if he had not taken them off at all. Sizing him up as he sat there, with lumps under his bloodshot eyes and a two-day growth of beard, I saw nothing inconsistent with the theory that he
