The Listening House

after the death of the girl’s mother and aunt, hastened by the family tragedy, the girl’s father, John Grant Liberry, did not abandon his fight to clear his daughter’s name . . . Appearing as John Grant, he traced Mrs. Garr’s movements after her release from Waterford, until he found her as the keeper of a now-respectable lodging house. Altered in appearance by his sufferings, he evidently was not recognized by Mrs. Garr. He took rooms in her house, and there it is probable that he kept up his search, hoping he might find some clue to his daughter’s death.

Father Sees Note

Lieutenant Strom, while questioning the lodgers in the house relative to the death of Mrs. Garr, accidently dropped a copy of the Rose Liberry suicide note, as reproduced by the former patrolman, on the floor. It was seen by Mr. Liberry. He fainted, but on revival manifested an interest in the note so normal that no great mark was taken of it.

At approximately nine o’clock this morning, however, a young woman lodging in the 593 Trent Street house, made anxious by his nonappearance, knocked at Mr. Liberry’s door. The door swung open. The ceiling light was on. Mr. Liberry, even to her inexperienced eyes, was dead. Lieutenant Strom, called immediately, found a note—the last words of an old news story that ranks as the most sensation Gilling City has ever given to the world. This was the note:

I am John Grant Liberry. I am very happy tonight; I cannot wait to go to her.

Down the middle of the page, the Comet ran the old pictures—the one of Rose Liberry I had seen in the Comet of May 26, 1919. John G. Liberry and the governor of the day. Miss Rachel Staines, now deceased, her death hastened by family tragedy. Mrs. John G. Liberry, too, plump and dark. A broken sentence Mr. Grant had once spoken sounded in my ears:

“Girls whose mothers died crying aloud—”

“I am very glad Mrs. Garr is dead,” I said, blowing my nose. “Lieutenant Strom was decent, wasn’t he?”

“I like to see you change your mind; you do it so seldom. Lady, lady, what a story. If they’d break like that often, I’d be willing to give up my beggar’s independence and go back to prowling streets for the Comet. But it doesn’t happen often, regretfully.”

“You’re hateful! You don’t care what awful things happen, just so there’s a good story!”

“Is that fair, when I’ve forsworn reporting? Ye gods! Me with two dumb repairmen working on my press! See you tonight!”

He hurtled out again.

—

MR. GRANT’S FUNERAL WAS on Monday. It was on Tuesday that Mrs. Halloran knocked to say the phone was for me.

The voice on the other end of the wire had me clutching the receiver with surprise. It had been so final that last time I’d heard it that I’d taken it for granted I’d never hear it again.

“Hello! Been reading the papers?” Genially.

“Yes, I have.”

“Mad at me?”

“No, I’m not. I think you were awfully decent.”

“I had that in mind. Nice not to be a suspect anymore?”

“That’s right! I’m not, am I? I feel almost forlorn.”

“I pay my debts. Would an ex-investigator like the best dinner in town tonight?”

“An ex-investigator and who else?”

“No one else.”

“You mean I should go out to dinner with a married man? Why, Lieutenant Strom!”

“What makes you think I’m married?”

“You look married.”

He swore fluently; the telephone rules say it’s not permitted, and he was an officer of the law, too.

“You’ll get your telephone taken away from you,” I said.

“Now I know what keeps Hodge Kistler where he is,” he said. “I know it isn’t your face. I’ll be around at seven o’clock.”

I put on my best bib and tucker, and spent all afternoon dressing. When I came downstairs from taking my bath, Mr. Waller was in the hall; he’d started upstairs but stepped back when he heard me coming; he stood half turned away with his head bent.

It’s sad to see a man as broken as that, even if he’s done an evil thing.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Waller.”

He mumbled something, dragged himself upstairs.

Lieutenant Strom came smack on the dot of seven; he was all shining and pressed, and set to do the town. He took me to the Athletic Club for dinner, which, he explained kindly, only big shots could afford to belong to; after that he took me to the Orchid Room at the Plaza, which has the best dance floor and the best bartender in town. I’d never been either place before, which shows how much money the men I know have. It was fun, but most of the fun was the fighting.

We fought over every detail of the case from beginning to end; on his solution with Mr. Grant as the murderer, we did a pitched battle that lasted well into dawn.

He had an awfully good case, of course, such a good one I was really beaten down. He began illustrating his logic with other cases he’d handled; by that time I was so contrary, I questioned the handling of those, too. The more he talked and drank, the more furious he was; we’d be dancing, and he’d push me off to roar in my face some new argument he’d thought up.

It was wonderful.

He drove me home in the good old police car.

“The Foreign Legion ought to import you,” he said. “Anytime they couldn’t scare up a war, you could always give ’em a little excitement.”

“Battles on request,” I said. “Or I could charge fifty cents a battle.”

“You couldn’t keep yourself from giving ’em away,” he said grumpily, but he laughed.

When we came into the hall at 593 Trent Street, Hodge Kistler was sprawled asleep in the black leather armchair. He woke up right away.

“Where the hell have you been?” he wanted to know crossly. “If Miss Sands hadn’t sworn up and down you’d gone out with Lieutenant Strom and weren’t home yet, I’d have busted in your new lock.”

“I was out,” I said. “With Lieutenant Strom. Celebrating the triumphal