ney’s office. Two women, talking on the steps of a house across the street, had also seen Falsoner, and had seen Madeline Boudin and her friends drive away.
Third, Jerome Falsoner’s heir and only near relative was his niece, Sara Falsoner, who, by some vagary of chance, was marrying Hubert Landow at the very hour that Fanny Kidd was finding her employer’s dead body. Niece and uncle had seldom seen one another. The niece — for police suspicion settled on her for a short space — was definitely proved to have been at home, in her apartment in Carey Street, from six o’clock the evening of the murder until eight-thirty the next morning. Her husband, her fiance then, had been there with her from six until eleven that evening. Prior to her marriage, the girl had been employed as stenographer by the same trust company that employed Ralph Millar.
Fourth, Jerome Falsoner, who had not the most even of dispositions, had quarreled with an Icelander named Einer Jokumsson in a gambling-house two days before he was murdered. Jokumsson had threatened him. Jokumsson — a short, heavily built man, dark-haired, dark-eyed — had vanished from his hotel, leaving his bags there, the day the body was found, and had not been seen since.
The last of these clippings carefully read, Alec Rush rocked back in his chair and made a thoughtful monster’s face at the.ceiling. Presently he leaned forward again to look into -the telephone directory, and to call the number of Ralph Millar’s trust company. But when he got his number he changed his mind.
“Never mind,” he said into the instrument, and called
a number that was Goodbody’s. Minnie, when she came to the telephone, told him that Polly Vanness had been identified as one Polly Bangs, arrested in Milwaukee two years ago for shoplifting, and given a two-year sentence. Minnie also said that Polly Bangs had been released on bail early that morning.
Alec Rush pushed back the telephone and looked through his clippings again until he found the address of Madeline Boudin, the woman who had visited Falsoner so soon before his death. It was a Madison Avenue number. Thither his coupe carried the detective.
No, Miss Boudin did not live there. Yes, she had lived there, but had moved four months ago. Perhaps Mrs. Blender, on the third floor, would know where she lived now. Mrs. Blender did not know. She knew Miss Boudin had moved to an apartment-house in Garrison Avenue, but did not think she was living there now. At the Garrison Avenue house: Miss Boudin had moved away a month and a half ago — somewhere in Mount Royal Avenue, perhaps. The number was not known.
The coupe carried its ugly owner to Mount Royal Avenue, to the apartment building he had seen first Hubert Landow and then Scuttle Zeipp visit the previous day. At the manager’s office he made inquiries about a Walter Boyden, who was thought to live there. Walter Boyden was not known to the manager. There was a Miss Boudin in 604, but her name was B-o-u-d-i-n, and she lived alone.
Alec Rush left the building and got in his car again. He screwed up his savage red eyes, nodded his head in a satis-
fied way, and with one finger described a small circle in the air. Then he returned to his office.
Calling the trust company’s number again, he gave Ralph Millar’s name, and presently was speaking to the assistant cashier.
“This is Rush. Can you come up to the office right away?”
“What’s that? Certainly. But how – how – ? Yes, I’ll be up in a minute.”
None of the surprise that had been in Millar’s telephone voice was apparent when he reached the detective’s office. He asked no questions concerning the detective’s knowledge of his identity. In brown today, he was as neatly inconspicuous as he had been yesterday in gray.
“Come in,” the ugly man welcomed him. “Sit down. I’ve got to have some more facts, Mr. Millar.”
Millar’s thin mouth tightened and his brows drew together with obstinate reticence.
“I thought we settled that point, Rush. I told you —”
Alec Rush frowned at his client with jovial, though frightful exasperation.