her bracelet, Spencer saw it. Hesson will have a job to explain how it got into his room.’
‘We’re not bad for amateurs, are we?’ Bernie said.
‘If we were amateurs we’d be good. See you tonight.’
It was four o’clock and growing dusk when I drove over the Oakland Bay bridge and stopped on Harrison Street to inquire the way to Lennox Street.
The cop told me to make for India Basin.
I left the Buick in a vacant plot and walked down the dirty street, at the end of which was Lennox Street. Tenement houses, faced with iron escapes, stood starkly against the darkening sky. Here and there lights showed in upper windows.
I paused outside No. 3. It was a narrow high building with a bunch of dirty, ragged kids sitting on the bottom step. They stared fixedly at me, nudging one another.
I said, ‘Sam Hardy live here?’
‘Yes, but he’s out,’ one of the boys said. He shifted a little to let me pass, and as I walked up the dirty, worn steps, the kids turned to stare after me. The front door was ajar and I pushed it open and entered a bare, dirty hall.
A thin negro was sitting on an upturned box with his back against the wall, reading a racing sheet. He looked up and stared at me, his eyes tired and bored.
‘Where do I find Jake Hesson?’ I asked and showed him a dollar bill.
His eyes lit up.
‘Third floor, boss. Room 10.’ He reached for the bill and I let him have it.
‘Is he in?’
‘Sure, boss. He hasn’t been out all day.’
I nodded and began to climb the stairs. I kept on until I reached the third floor. A radio was blaring from behind one of the doors. I went quickly along the passage to room 10, paused to listen with my ear against the panel, then hearing nothing, I rapped.
No one told me to go in.
I turned the door handle and gently pushed. The door swung inwards.
Jake Hesson lay across the bed. His dirty white shirt had a crimson patch just below where his heart was. Growing out of the patch was the handle of a knife. From the look of his waxen, yellowish face, he had been dead some hours.
CHAPTER THREE
I
Lieutenant Marshall of the Homicide Squad, a big, red-faced man with a neat moustache and a jutting, aggressive chin, stuck a cigarette on his lower lip and set fire to it. He looked across at me as I leaned against the wall, keeping out of the way of the fingerprint men as they worked in the small room. All that now remained of Jake Hesson was a splash of blood on the dirty bed cover.
‘Tom Creed will want to take care of this,’ Marshall said. ‘If what you say is right, it starts from his end.’
‘Who’s he?’ I asked.
‘Captain of police, Welden. Last year he asked us to check the Swallow Club where this girl Benson was supposed to have worked, but we didn’t turn up anything.’ Marshall gave me a hard smile. ‘Looks like you’ve managed to make a monkey out of me this time.’
I had worked with him in the past and I had a certain respect for his intelligence and capabilities.
‘I should have said your father was more responsible for that than I am,’ I said gravely.
Marshall laughed. He turned to Sergeant Hamilton, his second in charge.
‘I’ll leave you to it, Dick. Me and the bright boy will go and talk to Creed. Drive over when you’re through. You can take me back.’
Hamilton nodded.
‘Okay, Lieutenant.’
‘Come on,’ Marshall said, taking my arm. ‘You can run me to Welden. Creed will be interested to hear your story. He was worked up about the girl’s disappearance, but as he didn’t find a body, he had to drop the case.’
‘Let me have a photograph of the remains,’ I said to Hamilton. ‘I’m staying at the Shad Hotel.’
Hamilton looked at Marshall for confirmation.
‘Let him have it,’ Marshall said. ‘I’m in the picture too. It’ll be good publicity.’
‘Don’t rely on it,’ I said. ‘Fayette may block you out. We have to be careful how much horror we print.’
‘Come on - you!’ Marshall said, and we went down the stairs together.
On the way to Welden, I went over my story again so Marshall could be sure he hadn’t missed a point.
‘Well, we seem to have a few new leads to work on now,’ he said when I was through. ‘I always thought there was something phoney the way Farmer died. Where does this Nichols girl fit in?’
‘I wish I knew,’ I said. I swerved past a truck, then went on, ‘What’s Creed like? Think he’ll let me work along with him?’
Marshall shrugged.
‘I guess so. There isn’t a cop on the coast who doesn’t want his picture in your rag. He’s a good guy, but he doesn’t like being kept out of things. You should have seen him before you went after Hesson.’
‘For the love of Mike!’ I exclaimed. ‘I only arrived yesterday. I was going to see him as soon as I had talked to Hesson.’
‘Just watch your step with him. By the way, you still working with that fat script writer from Hollywood?’
‘I wouldn’t call it working. He’s still drinking at the magazine’s expense.’
‘He’s a smart guy. You’d have thought he could have done something better than hack for Crime Facts.’
I laughed.
‘Everyone thinks that. It’s just the way his head’s shaped.’
It was around eight in the evening when I pulled up outside the Welden police headquarters.
‘I expect Creed will have gone home by now,’ Marshall said, getting out of the car. ‘Let’s see.’
But the desk sergeant said the captain was still in his office, and after he had put through a call, he told us to go on up. Police Captain Tom Creed was a tall, powerfully built man in his late fifties with a strong, hard face, piercing blue eyes and a shock of greying hair.
He shook hands with Marshall, and when Marshall introduced me, he smiled, seemingly pleased to meet me. ‘Your magazine does a fine job,’ he said. ‘You report from our angle, and that’s what I like.’
I grinned.
‘If we don’t keep in with the cops, we don’t eat. You want to hear what we think of you lot when we’re away from a typewriter.’
‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ Marshall said. ‘He’s a great kidder. Captain, this guy has been doing our work for us. He’s turned up some new dope on the Fay Benson case.’
Creed sat down, motioned us to chairs and looked hard at me.
‘My editor thought it might be an idea if we did an article on the case,’ I explained. ‘I came down here to pick up the background and was lucky to stumble on something you haven’t got in the dossier. You probably know about it by now.’
‘Tell me,’ Creed said, and taking a pipe from his pocket, he began to fill it from a worn pouch.
I went over the story again.
Neither Creed nor Marshall interrupted, and when I had finished there was a long pause. I could see Creed didn’t like being scooped.
‘You should have reported this to me right away,’ he said. ‘I would have grabbed Hesson before he left town.’
‘I hadn’t anything on Hesson nor had you,’ I said. I took the gold apple out of my pocket and rolled it across the desk towards Creed. ‘By the time I found this, he was dead.’
Creed looked at Marshall.
