“Yes, sir.”
Two men left.
Lieutenant Strom stretched, yawned, and turned back to me.
“Now let’s get down to this attack on you last Friday night.”
I told that tale, too. He took down so little of it that I ended lamely; evidently, he’d heard it over and over from the other witnesses. I got down to the part where we’d all gone down into the basement and seen there was no one there.
“No one there,” I repeated. “No one—” The words themselves caught me up. “Why, if Mrs. Garr had been around the house we’d certainly have seen her then! We went through every room. Unless she was—unless—oh, my goodness, you don’t think she was lying there in that kitchen then, do you?”
Lieutenant Strom turned on young Jerry one of the nastiest looks I have ever seen on the face of man.
“That possibility has entered our minds,” he said.
“She might still have been living.”
“That also has crossed our minds. Knowing what you know now, can you remember any evidence that she might have been in the basement kitchen when you searched the house Friday night? Any sound? Any clothing seen? Any gesture on the part of anyone in the searching party?”
I thought desperately.
But I could not think of one bit of evidence that could have told me, that Friday night, of Mrs. Garr’s presence in the house, alive or dead.
“Just like the others,” groaned my questioner when I had admitted my defeat. “All as blind as bats. See what you expect to see, and that’s all. Now I want you to turn to something else. I want you to tell me, as well as you can remember, exactly what each person in this house said as to his or her activities that Friday night.”
Slowly, piece by piece, I did that, too. The activities given by the various people in the house that Friday night had been so simple that they were easily remembered. As I checked over each person in turn, Lieutenant Strom checked his sheets.
“Well, they all told the same story to me as they told Friday night,” he sighed at the end. “Not a decent alibi in the lot, except maybe Kistler’s. ‘Went to a movie.’ ‘Asleep in bed.’ Hooey! Who can prove it isn’t so? They might all have been slinking around the house, as far as those alibis go.”
The rest of my questioning went quickly.
I was asked to tell briefly what I had done since Friday night, how Mr. Grant had come last evening with his questions about Mrs. Garr, how we had approached the Wallers, our wait, the coming of the police, the finding of Mrs. Garr.
No, no one had looked to me as if they had expected what we’d found. Everyone had been horrified, to all appearances.
“Do you know where the Tewmans might be?”
“Mrs. Tewman said Sunday she had visited Friday night at her brother-in-law’s house. Mr. Tewman and his brother have a hamburger house somewhere.”
“M-m-m-m. That’ll be all now. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.”
I was dismissed.
—
GETTING OUT OF THERE, I had just one thought: sleep.
Opposite the stairs, I looked up at the sound of feet. Miss Sands was coming down, her eyes sunken, her mouth drawn, but as neatly waved, as rouged, as pressed as ever. She had her hat on.
“You’re going out?” It seemed incredible.
She gave me a bitter glance.
“Work.”
“F’heaven’s sake! Call ’em up. Tell ’em you can’t work. Tell ’em someone died—someone did die! You can’t work today!”
“There’s plenty waiting to grab a job.” She went on out.
For the first time I was glad I didn’t have a job. Not today, anyway. I was sorry for Miss Sands, but the pity couldn’t come up far through the tiredness. Mrs. Halloran was still sleeping unbeautifully in my armchair; I thanked goodness she wasn’t on the studio couch, and didn’t even feel ashamed of my selfishness.
The house should be safe with all those policemen littering the hall. I left the double doors wide open. Every movement like a slow-motion picture’s drag, I got out the softest blanket and a pillow, took off my shoes, and rolled onto the studio couch.
Sleep is very wonderful.
—
IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON BEFORE I woke up.
Whatever went on in the house that day is still unknown to me; I slept through it all.
When I woke, though, the events of last night were right there in my mind; I didn’t have to have it spring out afresh at me at all. I looked around for Mrs. Halloran. She was gone.
Still heavy with sleep, I stumbled out into the hall. The house was completely quiet; one policeman sat in the black leather chair in the hall.
“Hello, miss.” He greeted me with a grin. “Have some sleep? I seen you sleepin’.”
He was a young policeman, I saw when my eyes got focused so they could see anything as small as features; an Irishman with blue-black eyes, lashes, and hair, and very red cheeks.
“Looking at defenseless girls sleep is small potatoes around here,” I said. “Are you the only policeman left?”
“Yep, I’m all alone.” He grinned more widely. “If you want to bump anybody else off, all you’ve got to do is bump me first.”
“Oh, forget it.” I was sick of death. Policemen, too.
In my kitchen, I drank tomato juice and discovered I was ravenous. The only time I have any use for skipping meals is when I’m sick, and now I hadn’t eaten since dinner last night—nearly twenty hours ago!
When I came up for air, my icebox was as bare as a striptease artist at the end of her act. But I felt better.
It was a good thing I waited until after I’d eaten to take a good look at my rooms. They were an awful blow. The kitchen linoleum was gray with ground-in grime and ashes; I picked cigarette and cigar butts out of the sink, off the stove, off the floor, out of the cupboards, off the washbowl, off the toilet
