“Ramoth Ainsley?”
“Yes,” the woman said.
“Mrs. Willard Ainsley.”
“Yes. What is it?”
I pulled out my wallet and showed her my I.D. She gave me a cool look. “Nicholas Berkmin,” she said. “Come in, Mr. Berkmin.”
I followed her down a short, wide stairway to a large, sunken living room. Tall glass doors across the room opened on a terrace, as green as a landscaped park. The terrace offered a view of the lake, sparkling in the early sunlight Ramoth Ainsley paused near the concert grand and turned toward me. She wore a simple, silken dressing gown over her pajamas. It suggested the lines of a beautiful, supple body. There was strength in her face, and the wallet photo had failed to catch the texture and richness of her black hair.
She was lovely and fashionable, like many rich women. But she had an indefinable quality that money won’t buy. Call it a sensuous vitality. You sense it on rare occasions when a woman, possessing it, enters a room or passes on the street.
“I assume,” she said, “that something rather drastic has happened.”
I nodded, and she said, “To Will?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Has he been hurt?”
“No,” I said.
She continued to look at me. “He’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“It appears that someone killed him.”
“I see.” Her lips framed the words, but didn’t speak them.
I took her arm and guided her to a chair.
“Do you expect me to faint or have hysterics, Mr. Berkmin?”
“No,” I said. “But I must say you are taking it very well.”
“Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, there isn’t,” she said. “I’d like—would you please hand me a cigarette from that box on the table?”
I opened the ivory box, extended it, and when she had the cigarette between her lips, I picked up the lighter and struck it for her.
“Thank you.” She inhaled deeply. “When did it happen?”
“Last night, I think. We know very little yet. He was found by a boy on Kilgo Street.”
“Not a very nice place to end up, is it, Mr. Berkmin?”
“Do you know what might have contributed to his ending up there?”
“No.”
“It looks as if he was robbed. His wallet had been stripped of money. Did he carry much?”
“He considered five or six hundred dollars pocket change.”
“There are a lot of people who wouldn’t consider it that”
“I suppose.”
“What time did he leave here last night?”
“Right after dinner. Seven-thirty or so. ”
“Did he say where he was going?”
She didn’t answer right away. She smoked, then looked at the ash on the tip of her cigarette. “We’d had an argument. He slammed the door on the way out. ”
“Did you argue often?” I asked.
The cigarette ash broke and fell to the carpet “You’ll find out everything anyway,” she said.
“We try to.”
“We were on the point of splitting up, Will and I,” she said. “You see, I come from one of those old families with a hallowed name and social connections. And for the last generation, we’ve been worse than on our uppers. How we’ve managed—Anyway, I let myself be talked into marrying Will. I believed that I could—well, develop some feeling for him in time. I didn’t know then how domineering and cruel he could be.” She rose and got herself a second cigarette. “I’m sure you understand these things, Mr. Berkmin.”
“You’ve told me quite a bit” I said. “Do you remember what the fight last night started over?”
“He accused me of an indiscretion.”
“Was he in the habit of storming out?”
“The cruelest thing that he could think of—at the moment—that’s what he did.”
“Did you expect him back later in the evening?”
“I didn’t know. And I was certainly too angry to ask him what his plans were.”
“And you heard nothing more from him?”
She shook her head.
“Did he have many enemies?”
“More than his share.”
“Any who’d think of doing away with him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll need the names of his business associates and his attorney,” I said.
“I can supply those.”
“I’ll also need you downtown.”
“Right now?”
“It would be better to get the identification over with,” I said.
She nodded and started out of the room. Then she paused. “Murders like this—killing and robbing in an alley—are they always solved?”
“Not always.”
She went out of the room, and I stood there with the feeling that her husband’s murderer had a silent cheering section.
I slept for awhile and went back on duty at four-thirty. I wanted this case.
A list of facts was in. Willard Ainsley had been killed with a .32-caliber bullet. It had been removed from his body and turned over to ballistics. Death had occurred at about eleven the night before. Gumshoeing had turned up no one in the Kilgo district who admitted to having seen Ainsley around that time.
I checked the reports on Ainsley’s business associates. None had seen him since late on the afternoon of his death.
His attorney, Bayard Isherwood, was possibly the last of his acquaintances to have seen Ainsley alive. They had met in the elevator of the building, where they both had offices. Each had been on his way home. They had exchanged greetings. Ainsley, Bayard Isherwood had stated, had seemed on the point of bringing up a business matter, but had said that he would see Isherwood the next day. Isherwood had dined alone in his bachelor apartment. He had then attended a concert, alone. And he had retired immediately upon returning to his apartment.
Bayard Isherwood was the senior member of the city’s most sedate and respected law firm. There was no doubting his statement, nor the statements of any of Ainsley’s associates.
I closed the file and went over to the Cortez.
There were several people, a dozen or so, in the Ainsley apartment. I supposed it had started as a sort of wake, people dropping in on a sympathy call. It now had the earmarks of a party, as the memory of good-old-Will was washed clean with drink.
Mrs. Ainsley led the way to a den off the main hallway and closed off the noise in the living room. She stood with her back against the
