But that's not what she means when she says he hurt her.
He broke my honey's heart.'
She was speaking of her mistress as if she was not present. But Miss Wiesenfeld did not object. She just kept smiling emptily, face untroubled, eyes staring into the middle distance.
'Oh la!' she said. 'Broke poor Sylvia's heart.'
I was not certain of the depth of her dementia. She seemed to flick in and out, sometimes in the same sentence.
She was lucid in speech and controlled in manner, and then suddenly she was gone, flying.
'Ma'am,' I said, hating myself, 'what did Godfrey Knurr do with your money? When you were married?'
'Ohh,' she said, 'bought things. Pretty things.'
Mrs Livingston leaned towards me.
'Women,' she said throatily. 'High living. He just pissed it away.'
That 'pissed' shocked me. It was hissed with such venom that I thought Godfrey Knurr fortunate to have escaped the vengeance of Mrs Harriet Lee Livingston. She would have massacred him.
'Harriet,' Sylvia said in a petulant, spoiled child's voice,
'I want to get up again.'
'Sure, honey,' the housekeeper said equably, lurching to 409
her feet. She helped her mistress stand. Miss Wiesenfeld dragged her leg back to the bird cage.
'Chickie?' she said. 'Chirp for me?'
There were other questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to probe deeper, explore the relationship between Sylvia and Knurr, discover how the marriage had come about, when, and why it had dissolved. But I simply didn't have the stomach for it.
It seemed to me that all day I had been poking through the human detritus Godfrey Knurr had left in his wake. I was certain Roscoe Dollworth would have persevered in this investigation, but I lacked the ruthlessness. He had told me never to let my personal feelings interfere with the job, but I couldn't help it. I liked all these victims, shared their misery, their sad memories, and I had heard just about all I could endure. Probing old wounds was not, really, a noble calling.
When I departed from the living room, Sylvia Wiesenfeld was still at the bird cage. Her forefinger was reaching through the bars. 'Chickie?' she was saying.
'Dear, sweet Chickie, sing me a song.'
I didn't even thank her or say goodbye.
Out in the hallway, Mrs Livingston helped me on with my coat.
'You going to mash him?' she demanded.
I stared at her a moment.
'Will you help?' I asked.
'Any way I can.'
'I need that marriage licence,' I said. 'And the letter from the Mexican lawyer, if you can find it. But the marriage licence is most important. I'll try to get copies made this afternoon and bring the originals back to you. If I can't get copies made, I want to take the originals to New York with me. I'll return them; I swear it.'
'How do I know?' she said mistrustfully.
'I'll give you money,' I said. 'I'll leave fifty dollars with 410
you. When I return the licence, you return the money.'
'Money don't mean nothing,' she said. 'You got a pawn that means something to you?'
I looked down at myself.
'My wristwatch!' I said. 'My aunt and uncle gave it to me when I was graduated from school. It means a lot to me. But it's a cheap watch. Not worth even fifty dollars.'
'I'll take it,' she said. 'You bring the marriage licence back, or mail it back, and you gets your watch back.'
I agreed eagerly and slipped the expansion band off my wrist. She dropped the watch into one of her capacious pockets.
'You wait right here,' she commanded. 'Don't move a step.'
'I won't,' I said, and I didn't as I watched her climb the carpeted steps to the second floor. That was really a leviathan behind.
She came stepping down in a few minutes, carrying two folded documents. I took a quick look at them. A marriage licence issued to Sylvia Wiesenfeld and Godfrey Knurr by the State of Indiana, dated February 6th, 1959, and a letter from a Mexican attorney dated fourteen months later, informing Sylvia that a divorce had been granted to Knurr.
I refolded both documents, slid them into my inside jacket pocket.
'You'll get them back,' I promised once more.
'I got your watch,' she said, and then grinned again at me: that marvellous, warm, human smile of complicity.
'Thank you for all your help,' I said.
'I don't know why,' she said, 'but I trusts you. You play me false, don't never come back here again — I tear you apart.'
On the early evening New York-bound airliner, a Scotch-and-water in my hand, I relaxed gratefully. The seats on both sides of me were empty, and I could sprawl in
comfort. I emulated the passenger across the aisle and removed my shoes. I wiggled my stockinged toes, a pleasurable sensation at 33,000 feet, and planned the defeat of Godfrey Knurr.
It seemed to me that our original assessment of the situation had been correct; in the absence of adequate physical evidence the only hope of bringing the Kipper and Stonehouse cases to satisfactory solutions was to take advantage of the individual weaknesses of the guilty participants. If we had failed so far in trying to 'run a game' on them, it was because we did not have sufficient leverage to stir them, set one against the other, find the weakest link and twist that until it snapped.
By the time we started our descent for LaGuardia Airport in New York, I thought I had worked out a way in which it might be done. It would be a gamble, but not as dangerous as the risks Godfrey Knurr had run.
Also, it would require that I mislead several people, including Detective Percy Stilton.
I was sorry for that, but consoled myself by recalling that at our first meeting he had given me valuable tips on how to be a successful liar. Surely he could not object if I followed his advice.
I arrived home at my apartment in Chelsea shortly after 11.00 p.m. It looked good to me. I was desperately hungry, and longing for a hot shower. But first I wanted to contact Percy Stilton while my resolve was still hot. I had rehearsed my role shamelessly, and knew I must be definite, optimistic, enthusiastic, I must convince him, since as an officer of the law he could add the weight of his position to trickery that would surely flounder if I tried it by myself.
I called his office, but they told me he was not on duty. I then called his home. No answer. Finally I dialled the number of Maybell Hawks' apartment. She answered:
'Hello?'
'Miss Hawks?'
'Yes. Who is this?'
'Joshua Bigg.'
A short pause, then:
'Josh! So good to hear from you. How are you, babe?'
'Very well, thank you. And you?'
'Full of beans,' she said. 'Literally. We just finished a pot of chili. Perce said you went to Chicago. You calling from there?'
'No, I'm back in New York. Miss Hawks, I — '
'Belle,' she said.
'Belle, I apologize for calling at this hour, but I'm trying to locate Percy. Is he — '
'Sure,' she said breezily, 'his majesty is here. You got something to tell him about those cases?'
'I certainly do,' I said heartily.
