Free Gentle Murderer by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Page B

when you left by the back entrance of the building?” Holden asked.
    “Not a soul. I waved at the doorman when I was going round the hack. I figured he moved it. But I don’t think he saw me.”
    “If you’ll wait in the room out there,” Holden said, “the stenographer will type up your story. I’d like you to sign it.”
    “Sure.”
    The cabbie was at the door when Goldsmith called to him. “You said you did not get the window open. Is that right?”
    “Right. I couldn’t budge it.”
    Goldsmith nodded his thanks and the stenographer followed the driver out.
    Goldsmith returned to his desk. “There’s a lush private club down in the neighborhood she was heading for. I wonder if she didn’t have a date there.”
    “What kind of club?” Holden asked.
    “Where the rich and the famous relax in private. The girls sing, dance a little maybe on order. It’s a very tête-à-tête sort of place.”
    “Her kind of girl?”
    “Nope. She’d be there on invitation, the invitation of her escort. Then afterwards …” Goldsmith shrugged.
    “Where would the escort have met her?”
    “That’s something else again.”
    “If she had to stand him up there,” Holden said, “you’d think she would have called the club. You don’t disappoint people in her business. Not if you want a second call.”
    “It may be that she just had the name of her host and the address. Her phone isn’t listed. I’d guess it that way and put somebody with a delicate touch on it. With the right approach you might get the name of her host.”
    “You’re too busy, I take it,” Holden said with slight sarcasm.
    “I’ll take it if you say so, but I don’t think I’m going in that direction otherwise.”
    “We’ve got a few other delicate guys on the force.”
    “Good. I’ll be up at Dolly’s place for a while if you’re looking for me.”
    Holden picked up the inter-office phone. “You and Dolly,” he said to Goldsmith as the sergeant reached the door, “a couple of free-lancers.” Goldsmith tipped his hat.

15
    T HE SERGEANT HAD THE apartment to himself for the first time. It looked well-beaten, he thought, as he closed the door behind him. There was not a pin in it unaccounted for. As he stood in the foyer, taking in the place generally, it occurred to him that somebody was going to get a very nice apartment one day soon—the sunken living room, the large bedroom, a kitchen large enough for table and chairs, a foyer that could be used for dinner when there was company. The right size for him and his wife. A convenient neighborhood, too. He threw his hat on the table. An inconvenient rental. Very inconvenient.
    He looked at the door. One of the things he wondered about was why, with a kitchen entrance to the place, Mrs. Flaherty used this one. He went into the kitchen and examined that door. It was double-locked, the chain bolt now on. There was no such fixture on the. front door. That accounted for Mrs. Flaherty’s using it. There she could let herself in and out.
    Dolly Gebhardt had expected someone the night she was murdered, and she expected him to come in the back door. The inside lock was to be left off for him. It was therefore logical to suppose that he had a key to the other lock. It might also be assumed that he had used it before, indeed often enough to have his own key. Since none of the staff recalled a frequent visitor, he probably used the back stairs, as had the taxi driver. Why?
    Goldsmith refined the possibilities to two: the visitor was someone of such renown that he would be recognized in the lobby, or his person was so disreputable that he would be conspicuous and not especially welcome. Goldsmith favored the latter possibility since the subject fit the shirt collar.
    There was some pattern, too, in the sort of visitors Dolly brought home with her. Very few visitors came that she did not accompany. Except for one “gentleman” who called every week or so, most of her visitors were young men. In