That last was easy for me, harder for Mrs. Garr and Mrs. Tewman, who answered the doorbell. The others scattered to their rooms, to work, or elsewhere; the house seemed unusually empty that day, perhaps in contrast to the constantly going and coming crowds outside the house. People hung around the sidewalks and the backyard, leaned over the railing. Every now and then throughout the day I saw policemen emerging from other houses in the neighborhood, too; they must have been canvassing the whole vicinity for any clues to the man’s identity or death.
It wasn’t until the Comet extras were cried on the streets around noon that we began to know anything about the slain man; a radio flash on a midmorning news program gave only the briefest details of the discovery. The Comet extra played the story up big:
MYSTERY MAN SLAIN
Stranger Found Shot; May Be New York Man
The body of a man who had been shot and then dumped down the cliff side of Capitol Hill, to fall sixty feet to Water Street, below, was discovered this morning by a young woman resident of one of the houses on upper Trent Street. Police were immediately called to the scene and arrived within ten minutes of the discovery. The only clue to the identity of the slain man was in a New York State driver’s license, issued to Samuel Zeitman, 37, New York City. As 37 is the dead man’s approximate age, Gilling City police are already in touch with New York City police in an effort to discover if the slain man is the Samuel Zeitman to whom the license was issued.
City Residence Unknown
An investigation is now underway of hotels and lodgings to ascertain the Gilling City residence, the activities, and the acquaintances of the dead man. Any Gilling City residents having information that might concern the dead man are asked to bring such information to the police. The deceased was about 37 years of age, had dark hair, a swarthy complexion, was five feet six and one-half inches tall, wore a large diamond ring on his left little finger, had a dark mole on the left temple. He had been shot through the heart with a .38-caliber pistol, at a time estimated by Police Surgeon Thomley as approximately midnight. A pistol, which is now being tested to ascertain if it fired the fatal shot, was found beside the body. Fingerprints on the gun are all those of the dead man, indicating that he was shot with his own gun. However, the fact that, according to Dr. Thomley, the man was thrown over the cliff at least fifteen minutes after death does away with the probability of suicide.
The rest of the account I won’t give; it repeated the story of the discovery. A picture of the man lying facedown in the weeds accompanied the story; one of those sickening pictures the papers are going in for nowadays under the guise of honest realism.
Mrs. Waller knocked at my door early in the afternoon to ask if I’d go to the morgue with her. Mrs. Garr had already gone with Mrs. Halloran, both all agog. Mr. Waller went with us, although he didn’t have to go; he agreed with our questioner of the morning that it was a gangster killing. He elaborated on his theory all the way downtown.
The morgue is down by the river; it is a yellow brick building that looks like a factory but smells vilely of disinfectants. I tried to see and feel as little as I could on that trip; heaven knows, it wasn’t enjoyable. We told our errand to a gray, toothy young man in a glassed-in cubicle, were led down a scrubbed, hospital-like corridor to a small scrubbed room with one operating table in it, and a mound on the table.
The rubber-soled attendant silently pulled a cloth back from the face; it was a thin face, mean even in death, the hair dark and oily, the forehead bumpy, the eye sockets close to the fleshy nose, the chin too narrow. I turned away after the briefest possible glance, hurried out into the corridor again, Mrs. Waller right on my heels. I stood there for a moment until my stomach subsided; we went, tiptoeing, I remember, back to the cubicle, where we signed statements as to our ignorance of the dead man, and that we possessed no information whatsoever concerning his death.
Getting out of there was like getting out of a—well, like getting out of a morgue. We hurried three blocks as fast as we could walk, then had to stop to breathe, because we were still trying to breathe as little as possible. That is, I was, and I think Mrs. Waller was; Mr. Waller was stodgily matter-of-fact about the whole thing.
The regular evening edition of the Comet came out with a story that corroborated Mr. Waller. It ran:
SLAIN MAN IDENTIFIED
Is Sam Zeitman, N.Y. Gangster. Gang War Hinted
New York police this afternoon identified photographs of the man found shot on Water Street this morning as Samuel Zeitman, suspected of connection with the New York restaurant racket ring, which was broken this last winter by the vigorous persecution of rackets now being conducted in New York City. Sam Zeitman, the New York police indicated, fled the city this spring to evade the roundup of racketeers; the discovery of his body this morning was the first news they had of his subsequent whereabouts.
Police Hint Gang Flare-Up
Lieutenant Peter Strom, in charge of the Gilling City homicide squad, said that the death was in all probability due to an attempt to muscle in on some of the small local gangs who have been attempting to establish rackets in Gilling City. Although such activities are well under control, police indicated, sporadic attempts are made to extort revenue by such means, or through the use of slot machines and similar gambling devices.
It may have been
