That he knew who had killed Moore?” “Yes,” I said. “If I had wanted to make something up I could have done better than that.” Before the night shift was through I met other acquaintances, after we got down to Centre Street. Not Hester Livsey. The dick who was sent for her came back with a report that her mother, with whom she lived in Brooklyn, had stated that her daughter was not there and had not been home that evening because she had gone straight from work to Grand Central to catch a train, to spend the week-end with friends in Westport, Connecticut. She had furnished the name of the friends, and they had been phoned to. No answer. But Cramer and his boys were moving fast and in all directions. They had phoned the Westport police, who had made a call on the friends and reported back that Hester Livsey was there, snug in bed, having arrived on a train that had reached Westport at one-nine A.M.
Since it takes around seventy minutes, not eight hours, for a train to go from Grand Central to Westport, the caller had insisted on speaking to Miss Livsey and had done so. She had stated that she had decided to take a later train and that how she had spent the evening in New York was her own business. Told of the death of Kerr Naylor, she repeated her statement, and said that she knew nothing about Mr. Naylor and that her association with him was extremely remote, since he was head of a large department and she was merely a stenographer. Asked if she would return to New York in the morning so the police could talk with her, she refused, saying that she couldn’t possibly tell them anything helpful.
There was a report from a sergeant who had had a chat with Sumner Hoff in his apartment in the East Fifties. Hoff had been able to contribute nothing, but was quite willing, as a responsible citizen, to cooperate with the police in the investigation of a crime—which sounded to me like a distinct and encouraging improvement in his manners.
Bell ringing and door knocking had produced no results at the Greenwich Village room-and-bath tenanted by Rosa Bendini. In her case there was no mother around to get information from, and no one else in the building knew where Rosa was. I had a healthy conviction, knowing as I do what a liking for companionship can lead to, that when Rosa showed up her mind would be a blank as to where she had spent Friday night, but that was one of the things I didn’t communicate to Cramer, not wanting to lower his opinion of American womanhood. They thought they might find her with her husband, where he lived with his folks on Washington Heights, but no. Harold Anthony, hauled out of bed, dressed and came down to Centre Street without being asked. His story was that he hadn’t seen Rosa since Wednesday evening, when she had left him and me to fight it out on the sidewalk in front of Wolfe’s house; and as for him, he didn’t know Kerr Naylor from Adam, and had spent Friday evening at a basketball game at the Garden, where he had gone by his lonesome, and had then walked all the way home—some six miles—to use up energy.
I asked him, “So you got some energy back in the short space of forty-eight hours? After what I took out of you?” “What the hell,” he bragged, “I’d forgotten about that the next day. What do they want Rosa for? Are they fools enough to think she would kill a man? What have they got?” He had actually come clear down to Centre Street at that time of night through anxiety for his wife! Loyalty is a very fine thing, but it shouldn’t be allowed to get the bit between its teeth. I told him not to worry, the cops were just shaking it all through a sieve. Regarding his energy, I didn’t believe him.
Three of my kidney punches do not kill a man, but neither do they fade utterly from recollection the next day.
But that was along toward the end. Before that we had had a session with Ben Frenkel, one of the first things after our arrival at O’Hara’s office. At the moment Cramer was seated at the big desk and I was standing behind him, looking over his shoulder at the carbon copy of my reports to Naylor-Kerr, which I had stopped off at Wolfe’s office to get. A dick towed Frenkel in and planted him in a chair at the end of the desk. I had thought his hair was undisciplined when he came to see me on Thursday, but now no two hairs were parallel. He was trying to look nowhere and at no one, which really cannot be done unless you go at it with all your might and shut your eyes.
“Hello there,” I said.
He returned no sign of recognition.
Cramer growled at him, “You’re Benjamin Frenkel?” “Yes, that’s my name.” “Are you under the impression that you killed Kerr Naylor?” Frenkel gawked at him, then made another try at looking at nothing, and did not speak.
“Well, are you?” Frenkel looked straight at me and cried, “You rat! I told you that in confidence!” “You did not,” I denied. “I told you I couldn’t keep a confession of murder confidential.” “I didn’t confess to a murder!” “Then do it now,” Cramer urged. “Confess now. Come on, let’s have it, get it off your chest, you’ll feel better.” That didn’t work at all. Put straight that way, an invitation to confess to murder seemed to be just what he had wanted for his birthday. He quit trying to look at nothing, his big bony shoulders went to the back of the chair for normal support, and his voice, though still intense, had no note of panic at all as he said: “I was told I had to come here to answer questions. What are the questions?” He smiled sweetly and sadly.
Cramer asked the questions and he replied. He had last seen Kerr Naylor around three o’clock Friday afternoon, at the office, and knew nothing of him since that hour. After work he had gone to his room on Ninety-fourth Street, bathed and changed his clothes, eaten dinner alone in a restaurant around the corner on Broadway, and taken the subway downtown to call for a young woman who lived on Twenty-first Street with whom he had an engagement for the evening. He preferred not to mention her name. They had gone to Moonlight, on Fiftieth Street, and stayed there, dancing, until after twelve. He had taken the young woman home and then gone home himself, arriving about one o’clock. He would not give the young woman’s name because there was no reason why he should. If for any good reason it became necessary the name would be forthcoming.
What about his impression that he had killed Waldo Moore?
That, he had decided, was one of the mental vagaries to which high-strung men like him were subject. He had often been bothered by them. Once he had become obsessed with the idea that he was secretly a Nazi, and had gone to a Bund meeting at Yorkville to get rid of it. He did not state categorically, but strongly implied, that his coming to me had been the same thing as his going to a Bund meeting, which did not increase my affection for him.
Hadn’t he come to me only for one purpose, to find out if Naylor had mentioned his name in connection with Moore’s death?
No, that wasn’t true. He hadn’t even thought of that until it occurred to him during the conversation.
Did he know Gwynne Ferris?
Yes, she was one of the stenographers in the stock department.
Had he spoken with her on Friday?
Possibly; he didn’t remember.
Hadn’t she told him that Naylor had stated that he knew who had killed Waldo Moore?
No, not that he remembered. But of course, he added, he had known that Mr.
Naylor had made that statement. Everybody did. It was being discussed all over the department.
That was news to me. I goggled at him. I took it away from Cramer and demanded, “When?” “Why, today. Yesterday. Friday.” “Who did Naylor make the statement to?” “I don’t know—that is, I only know what I heard. The way I got it, he made it to you and you reported it to the president’s office.” “Who did you get it from?” “I don’t remember.” Frenkel had reverted to form. His rumble was low from deep in his throat and his eyes were probing me again. “It is not a quality of my mind to cling to factual details like that. Whereas matters which have an intellectual content—” “Nuts.” Cramer said in bitter disgust. He had thought for one shining moment that he had a confession coming, and now this blah. He aimed a half-chewed cigar at Frenkel’s face, brandished it, and asserted: “Gwynne Ferris told you! Didn’t she?” “I said she didn’t.” “And I say she did! I happen to know— What do you want?” The question was for a city employee who had approached the desk. He answered it. “Sergeant Gottlieb is here, sir, with the Ferris woman.” Cramer scowled at him. “Keep her until I get through—no. Wait.” He looked at Frenkel and then at me. “Why not?” “Sure, why not?” I agreed.