Free Gentle Murderer by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Page A

lit the light. Then what?”
    “She sits down on the bed and pulls off her earrings. I’m standing there waiting for my money. I don’t like asking her for it just like that, so I asks her if I can get her anything, maybe call up a doctor for her. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she says. ‘Just open that window for me.’ If I’d had a block and tackle I don’t think I could of opened it. I pulled and I pushed and the sweat rolled down my back. I couldn’t open it. ‘Let it go,’ she says. ‘Please give me my purse.’ I gave her that in a hurry.”
    “Where was it?”
    “Down at the bottom of the bed.”
    “Open?”
    “Not when I gave it to her. She fumbled inside it and pulled out five dollars. Looked hard to make sure what it was. Whatever was the matter with her, I don’t think she was seeing so good. ‘Is this all right?’ she says. ‘Want change?’ says I. ‘No.’ ‘That’s swell,’ I says. ‘You better call a doctor, lady.’ I figured she had advice coming, anyway.”
    “What did she do with the purse then?” Holden asked.
    “She tossed it over on the dressing table. It didn’t make it. Fell on the floor. I picked it up and laid it on the table for her.”
    “Did you look around the room at all?”
    “Just while I was waiting. It was kind of messed up.”
    “As though someone had been through it?”
    “Naw. Like she just threw things around getting dressed. Underwear and stuff.”
    “Did you leave then?”
    “Just about. I was just going when she says, ‘There’s something I wish you’d do for me.’ ‘What?’ ‘Go into the kitchen and make sure the latch is off the hall door there.’ ‘No, ma’am,’ I says, ‘I don’t like to do that. I’ll stop by the desk and ask ’em to send up the janitor …’ ‘Never mind,’ she says. ‘I’ll manage.’ I beat it then. Boy, did I beat it. There was something about the whole business I didn’t like. As soon as I got out in the hall, I felt like I’d been in there a week maybe. I poked and poked at the elevator bell. The chains were going up and down but no cage. Then I saw the stairs sign and I ran down them. I was right by the service door when I reached the first floor so I scrammed out that way. Somebody pushed my cab down a ways. I just hopped into it and beat it. I picked up a fare on Fifth Avenue going to Riverside Drive and Ninety-sixth Street. That’s all.” He put his cigarette out beneath his foot.
    “And after the Ninety-sixth Street fare?”
    “I hopped over to West End. I cruised down there to about Seventy-fourth. I got a couple of dames there going to the Alvin Theatre.”
    “And then?”
    “I stopped over at Kavanaugh’s on Eighth Avenue for a corned beef sandwich.”
    “Keep going,” Holden said.
    The cabbie drew his record book from his pocket. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “A couple of sailors. Frenchies. I took ’em to Pier Sixteen. That’s around Fulton. I headed back up through Chinatown. Figured I might get some slummers. No soap. I didn’t get nothing till I was up around Washington Square. That was ten o’clock …”
    “Okay,” Holden said. “That’ll do it.” He swung around to Goldsmith. “Any questions, Sergeant?”
    Goldsmith got up from his desk and went over to the cabbie. “You didn’t by any chance go into the kitchen to make sure that door was locked?”
    The driver smirked nervously. “No sir. What I did do: going round to the stairs when the elevator didn’t pick me up, I tried that door just to make sure it was locked.”
    “Or to make sure it wasn’t locked?” Holden snapped.
    “No sir. If it wasn’t locked I was going right straight to the desk and tell ’em. Like I told you, I felt funny about being in that place. And I felt like I’d been in there a hell of a long time.”
    “That often happens,” Goldsmith said easily. “Our imagination distorts time on us under some conditions.”
    “Yeah, don’t it?” said the driver.
    “Did you see anyone