“I didn’t fight with Mrs. Garr.”
“That’s your story. I’ve heard from others that she asked you to move out of her house. Now let’s have your story on why Mrs. Garr owed you money.”
“I loaned her the money a good many years ago.”
“What for?”
“What for?” He moistened his lips. “I guess she needed some money.”
“Hm. Waller, Mrs. Dacres says that when Mrs. Halloran came back from asking you why you paid no rent, she said she saw the note.”
Mr. Waller was silent.
“Why haven’t you presented that note to the estate for collection?”
“I didn’t want to be hasty. I thought I’d wait.” His eyes were focused on a point just over the lieutenant’s head.
“Thought you’d wait until the police were out of it, eh?”
“Oh no. I thought I’d just wait until—until it would seem more decent.”
“I see, just being considerate. Just being considerate about two thousand bucks. Mrs. Halloran, you see, was impressed by the amount.” He leaned forward. “Would you mind telling me when that money was borrowed?”
Mr. Waller swallowed, paused. “That—that has no connection. No connection at all.”
The lieutenant thundered in his strongest voice. “You’ve got that note on you, Waller. I ask to see it.”
“It’s purely personal. I’m not going to hand it over.” Mr. Waller fought back desperately.
“We’ll see about that. Van and Bill, do your stuff.”
The lieutenant’s two huge henchmen advanced on Mr. Waller, no doubt of their intentions and abilities in their stride.
Mr. Waller stared at their advance for a frozen second.
“No! Wait! I—it isn’t important enough to make a fuss over, Lieutenant Strom. I’ll let you see the note.”
The two henchmen fell back. Mr. Waller got to his feet, swaying a little; he took a wallet from his inside coat pocket, fumbled inside it, took from it a dirty piece of paper, folded once, which he laid before the lieutenant.
We waited while Lieutenant Strom, his face impassive, stared at the paper, folded it carefully away in his own wallet. But his eyes when he lifted them were alight, and his voice rang.
“You’ll get it back. It’s evidence now. Waller, that note is dated July 8, 1919! July 8, 1919! Will you please tell me what dealings you had with Mrs. Garr in the year Mrs. Garr went to jail?”
The excitement in his words was unmistakable. July 8, 1919, the lieutenant had said, as if that date were of surpassing importance, as if the key, the start of all this mystery, might have been that day, that month, that year; as if, stumbling in the dark, he had suddenly had a lamp thrust in his hand, and the lamp’s light had illuminated that date.
Mr. Waller backed to his chair, lowered himself into it with a careful, steadying hand on its back. His face was white, hard white.
“She came to me. Came to me for money.”
“Why to you?”
“I’d been to the house. I’d been there—selling. She knew I’d made some money.”
“Selling what?”
“Liquor.”
“Bootlegging?”
“No. Prohibition wasn’t—was it in yet? I sold on commission.”
“I see. So she just hunted you up. Said she needed money.”
“That was it.”
“Ever find out why she needed money?”
“Oh yes, it came out. It was in the papers.”
“You’re referring to the Liberry case?”
“I—yes.”
“So you financed her trial.”
“Oh, it must have cost her more than what she borrowed from me.”
“This two thousand dollars the entire sum you lent her?”
“No, there was more. Three thousand more. She paid that back.”
“But not the two thousand. She didn’t pay the two thousand back, while she was what I’d call squandering twelve thousand bucks on a trust fund for the Hallorans. That’s more generous than I’d have said she was. Ever say why she didn’t pay off this note?”
“She wouldn’t. Said we could take the interest out in living here.”
“Mrs. Dacres testified to hearing Mrs. Garr quarrel with you. She wanted you to leave the house.”
“Yes, that’s true. She was getting old. Old and, I think, queer.” He was answering quickly, desperately, as if this were at once uncertain and rehearsed. “She seemed to believe that the note wasn’t good anymore, because it was so old. She said she wasn’t going to pay it.”
“That sound reasonable to you, Mrs. Dacres?”
“It sounds characteristic,” I said.
“Waller, that’s absolutely all there is to this note?”
He moistened his lips again. “That’s all.”
For what seemed like five minutes the lieutenant sat completely silent, to stare at them. If it had been me he stared at so, I should have wanted to break and scream; I wanted to cry aloud to break the silence as it was, yet something held me from it. Mr. Waller’s eyes were still on the spot over Lieutenant Strom’s shoulder; Mrs. Waller’s gaze stayed where it had been, on her clenched hands.
“You can go.”
One of the lieutenant’s abrupt dismissals.
Mr. Waller put out a blind hand for his wife’s elbow; the two of them walked as if leaning on each other for support. We heard their heavy steps go up the stairs, sound over our heads in the hallway above. A door opened, closed. We heard no voices.
Lieutenant Strom leaped to his feet, to walk up and down with long, hungry strides.
“By God, I’m getting something. Did you see how scared they were? Why should they be so scared? There’s something there. I could feel it, even if I didn’t know it. July 8, 1919!”
“But what could it be—what’s July 8, 1919? Why’s that so important?”
The lieutenant whirled for another trip.
“Important! What happened in July 1919? Why, nothing at all, nothing at all. Except that in July 1919 a girl named Rose Liberry was found dead in Mrs. Garr’s house. Suicide. In July 1919, Mrs. Garr’s business blew up, and it very nearly blew up the police department. By November of 1919, there wasn’t enough left of the police force that had been running the town since the turn of the century to patrol a square block. Old Chief Hartigan’s dead now. I
