I told about my lost job, my finances, the ad in the paper.
“Ever know Mrs. Garr before?”
“Never saw her before.”
“Know anyone else in the house before?”
“No.”
“You’re pretty friendly with Hodge Kistler, I hear.”
“He’s amusing, I think.”
He grinned at me suddenly, a kidding grin.
“Watch your step there, sister. You may wake up surprised someday.”
“Thanks. He handles nicely.”
“How he’d love you for that!” He grinned once more before reverting abruptly to his former manner.
“Okay, now. Notice anything else peculiar after you moved in?”
“Well, there was that man we found dead at the foot of the drop in back of the house. That made quite a stir. You know, that gangster. But, of course, that didn’t have anything to do with this house.”
“That what you think?”
“Of course.”
“Okay again. What about inside the house?”
“Mrs. Garr. Mrs. Garr always seemed peculiar.”
“Any fights with her?”
“No.”
“Like her?”
“I can’t say I did.”
“Why not?” Like a shot.
“She was old and seemed—somehow unclean and evil. I sometimes thought she suffered from hallucinations or delusions.”
“What do you mean on that last?”
“About that snooping, for instance. She seemed to suspect everyone in the house of it.”
“Begin when you first moved in, and tell every instance.”
I did. I told that, and practically every word ever spoken to me by Mrs. Garr, or by me to Mrs. Garr, as far as I could remember at the time. I told how she had knocked at my door the night I’d turned my light on late. How she’d bawled Mr. Kistler out for lighting the gas heater. How she suspected the Wallers. Lieutenant Strom listened with careful attention to every word.
“Loony,” one of the men at the side contributed when I stopped.
“That’s what I thought, until I saw that prowler.”
“Any actual evidence after that?”
“Not until last Friday, when Mrs. Garr went to Chicago. I mean when she was supposed to—”
“Okay, now we’re down to Friday. Where were you Friday?”
“Working. I had a temporary job that lasted until Saturday night.”
“Um. Worked until when Friday?”
“Almost seven.”
“Then where’d you go?”
“To dinner with Hilda Crosley; she’s a regular copywriter at Benson’s, where I was working. You can ask her. We saw a movie, too.”
“When’d you get back here?”
“About ten, I think.”
“Tell me every move you made from then on, Friday night.”
“Why, I just walked in, and—”
“See anybody?”
“No. I—Wait a minute!” The scene flashed back into my mind. “Yes, I did see something. When I came into the hall, a cat ran downstairs and under the bookcase. She—that’s funny! The cat. Because she was back in there with the others when the door was opened tonight. Back in that kitchen downstairs. It was the one with the kittens.”
A stir went over the room. A man spoke up from the sidelines.
“If that’s the dope, then the old lady must have croaked after ten p.m., Strom. That’s what they all said—all three cats came out of there hell-bent when the door opened.”
I was shivering with the idea I’d caught.
“No, that may not be the dope,” I said, my teeth practically chattering. “Because, think. If Mrs. Garr didn’t die of her own accord—if she was . . . helped to die—there wasn’t anything to keep the murderer from catching the cat and putting it back in the kitchen with the others. He’d do that if he . . . wanted it to be the way it was.”
They didn’t answer right away. Then Lieutenant Strom spoke, softly.
“You’re a smart girl, sister, or else. If the old lady died naturally, why, the cat makes it pretty sure she went into that kitchen after ten o’clock Friday. But if she didn’t, somebody used his head pretty fast. Maybe this isn’t the first time you had that idea?”
9
THERE WE WERE, BACK on the old ground of suspicion.
I took a look at the men around the room again, and it seemed to me every face swam in suspicion. All the tiredness came back to me; my head felt so heavy I didn’t think I could possibly go on using it for a fighting weapon. But I had to.
“I haven’t even thought of that cat from that day to this minute,” I said wearily. “I didn’t even think about it when I saw her run out of that kitchen tonight. What do you think I did—go down and strangle the old woman with my bare hands?”
“You could have had a fight with her and given her a push so she fell over, and her heart did the rest.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Or you could have let someone else in the house.”
“For heaven’s sake, can you tell me one single, solitary reason why I should have wanted that poor old woman killed?”
Lieutenant Strom sighed, and I thought that, after all, he was probably almost as tired as I was. He hadn’t had any sleep, either. And while I’d sat waiting he’d been struggling with seven other people as he had with me, trying to get some clue to possible guilt.
“You’ve got me there, sister. Why the hell should anyone want the old woman killed? You ever hear of her having any money?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Ever mention money to you?”
“Well, she said once that she didn’t believe in banks.”
“Oh, she did, eh? When’d she say that?”
“When I was looking at the apartment. I said I wasn’t working but had a little money in the bank. She said she would never keep a penny in a bank.”
“Um. Ever hear any other reference to this?”
“That day I saw the prowler. When I wondered what frightened Mrs. Garr so, Mrs. Halloran said, rather significantly, that Mrs. Garr didn’t believe in banks.”
“Who all was in on this conversation?”
“Only Mr. Kistler, Mrs. Halloran, and I.”
“Mr. Kistler. Mrs. Halloran. You. Any more relatives around besides Mrs. Halloran?”
“Not that I’ve seen.”
“She says she’s the one and only.” He took out his watch, looked at it, turned to one of the other men.
“Nearly nine, Hitchcock. The bank’ll be openin’ pretty soon. Don’t forget what I said about keepin’ your
