The straw hat murders, p.4
The Straw Hat Murders, page 4
“You—you’re Inspector Cambourne?” she said at once.
“Right. Who are you?”
“I am Vilhelmina Berkheyd,” she said.
“Mrs. Vilhelmina Berkheyd—sister of—”
“Oh, sister, maybe—of patrol—ah—officer Aert de Gelder—who patrols this block?”
“Yah, sir. Von’t you come in?”
“Yes.” He was coming in now. Unimpeded quite, by any gloom or darkness, due to the simple fact that light was coming into the place from the door, not yet closed behind him, plus a huge brightly burning electric bulb over the doorway, on its inside. He saw nothing but a solid-looking firebrick wall, 10 feet or so on beyond the door, with an unusually broad doorway of its own in it, carrying a hinged and heavily barred padlocked iron gate, and, through the bars of the gate itself, a congeries of office furniture piled three pieces high, in some cases, and apparently going clear to what must be the front of the place.
To the left of the incoming door, built against the rear wall of the building, was a wooden stairway, a railing on the outside, which had never been painted. And had never even been finished as to its component boards. All of which was fully in line with the fact of old Emmanuel Goldfarb, Max’s father, having built this special “road” to his “studio” subsequently to the construction of the building itself, and which had been by his own father.
The woman was closing the door behind Cambourne.
“You vant dot I draw de bolt?” she asked.
He laughed mirthlessly as, turning completely around, he saw the gargantuan bolt on the inside of the alley-leading door, and the crudely handlettered ink placard that had been affixed to the door by Max Goldfarb, landlord. The sign read:
TENNANT. PLEES TO ALWAYS SHOOT BOLT SHUT WEN YOU COME IN FOR TO PRAKTISE MOOSIC. DISREPABLE KARACKTERS LIKE WINOS AND BUMS ARE SUMTIMES TO BE FOWND IN ALLIE AND UNDER L. AT LEAS IN DAYTIMES.
“What good instructions to shoot bolts closed?” he said dryly. “Rather, what good even bolts themselves around here—when rooftraps are unhooked and unnailed? As evidently five people now—have come to know? Or do people who are dead know anything about why they are dead, or—You’ve got a dead man upstairs, now, I take it? Is he—but here—wait—let’s get things clear as we go along. What relationship have you to this crime? Rather, this place?”
“I am scrubvumman,” she said dignifiedly. “For seferal blaces along here. De odder day did der young Greek who rents opstairs studdio stop off in vun my places vere I scrub and ask if he could get vumman to clean a small flat vunce veek. Dey call me in from back vere I am scrubbing. He talk to me—he say flat is not eckzacly flat but is studio—and make propsition. Vunce veek sveep vid broom, dust an’ vash valls—one tollar an’ half. An’ ve arrange it I meed him downstairs at alley door today at 2—or if you like it besser I put it dis vay, dat he meed me.
“Vell, he wasn’t hier,” she said. “But door—only door dere abbarently iss—in back—yah, she was open—oh, six inches.”
“And so you thought he’d gotten here early, and left it open for you, and went up?” She was nodding. “I can gather you got some shock when you got all the way up. Though fortunate for you—for you and your brother, in fact—you are both the stolid type! Well now tell me, find anything—anything on the stairway—as you went up? This is important.”
“Nein. Find nodding. But find blenty—opstairs! Goot t’ing I am not sqveamish—about dem t’ings. Aert unt me ve grow oop on farm in Holland vere our fadder dit butcher cattle, pigs, hogs, and sheeps himself, and—But ven I see vat I see—yah, heem!—I go qvick back downstairs—take off key I see hanging on nail at side uf door vere ef’dently he kept it ven insite—close door till lock she click, and run down alley to Praseedant Street, w’ere I boom into Aert coming ’round into South Street from Wabash. I tell him all. For maybe he, if he be first into de place, maybe he catch promotion.”
“Ah, the self-seeking motive, always, eh?” commented Cambourne sadly. “Well, go ahead?”
“Vell, Aert he go across sdreed—call you by phone in cigar store boot’—dey say you out for 10 minute, be be back—so he leave message. Den he come back to me. Ve come back hier. He go oop; I stay down hier to vait for you. An’ be vaiting since.”
“Well, all you both did is the thing, or things, I’d have wanted you both to have done. Very good. And for you and Aert’s keeping the set-up pristine—that is, from being messed up by reporters or squad-car cops and whatnot else—for handling it this way, Aert shall have his promotion, if any urging from me will have any weight. Now we’ll go on up, I guess—but wait.”
While he had been turned clear about, scanning bolt and instructions from Max Goldfarb, landlord, his ever-comprehensive gaze had taken in several things simultaneously. One of the things was, to be sure, quite unimportant. It was merely a wooden-lidded toilet seat over near the north wall, over which a doorless telephone booth had at some time been dropped. With its absence of door, and the glass everywhere in it, its crudely painted delineation of its status, minus an “I”—in short, PRIVATE TO LET, was somewhat of a misdescription to say the least. At the rear wall, off the toilet, so as to use the same down drain, was an old zinc lined sink, with a single greenish faucet. Establishing that piano practicers could perform ablutions—could get drinking water, when desired!
The other feature he took in was that there were four snapswitches at the side of the door, all of an unmistakable hexagonally-shaped type known as Distant-Snap; both that, and the fact that a number of small apparently 4-watt bulbs in the ceiling, directly above the stairway, were lighted. If, he knew, he got the right answers now to two questions he proposed to ask, he knew that everything was confirmed very beautifully. About a certain matter, that is! He proceeded to ask his questions.
“I take it that you yourself turned on the powerful light over the door here as you came in?—perhaps with that leftmost lower switch there?”
“Yah, I did.”
“But not the stairway lights themselves? With, I take it, the leftmost upper switch?”
“Dot is right. Dey vere alretty on.”
“Well, that confirms everything quite perfectly. Since the lights here are, of course, wired specifically for ‘distant-snap’. Meaning they can be turned on at either end, turned off at either end. It means the tenant turned on his doorway and stairway lights when he came in. Went on up. Turned both off upstairs. But that the Straw Hat Murderer—that’s the gentleman involved here, Mrs. Berkheyd, in case Aert hasn’t mentioned it!—the Straw Hat Murderer himself turned only the stairway lights on—after his job was done. Wanting light down the stairway flights, yes—but none falling atop him when he went out the door. Yes, quite clear. All right, Mrs. Berkheyd. Now we will go upstairs.”
“Yah—but vait. Just minute. So I can talk vere Aert not hear.”
He had himself turned toward the stairway. Turned back enough to fully face her.
“So that deGelder—your brother—not hear? Why, certainly. What did you want to say?”
“Didn’ van’ to say. Just ask. Do you t’ink Goldfarb, across sdreed, dis time get nailed? I mean—go to prison?” There was a look on her seemingly usually impassive face at this moment of definite hatred.
“Get nailed?—go to prison?” he repeated. “Well, I see by your words ‘this time’ that you know more of the cases devolving about this old building than I thought you did. Well, why did you—but wait!—since you do know more about these cases than I thought you did, did you convey any of—of the history of this place upstairs to the young Greek—who hired you to come here and do work?”
“Soort’ny not,” she said, with supreme dignity. “I am scrubvoman—not s’bosed to tell boss his own bus’ness. Besides,” she exculpated herself, “I t’ink dat, long lader, ven I know him besser, I dell him some dings.” Now she exculpated herself even more. “He even must know—must did know alretty.” She exculpated herself still further. “Sdill dat killin’ sduff anybody—me, too!—t’ink vas all ofer for good. Last vas two year back.”
He looked at her. Well, she had made a case, at that. He now asked the logical question.
“Why do you feel so deeply about Goldfarb getting nailed, ‘this time’? There was a sort of a look on your face—”
“Because he insolt my hosban’—vid a name—yah, a dirty name—den cause’ him to die.”
“To die? How?”
“My hosband, Brinker, he used to come regular’ to dis block on Sat’day afternoon. To stroll. He lik’ de odd Life on it, he say. He come hier not long afder Piggy-Bank Pete up the sdreet he come hier. Brinker come for years. He call dis sdreed his ‘strolling sdreed’. Vun Sat’day he stopped, in strolling, to rest in front of Goldfarb’s vindows across sdreed. Max Goldfarb run out and scream, ‘Get avay from addract’ addention from off my show-vindow you—you plush-horse.”
“Plush—horse?”
“Yah, Plush Horse. Poor Brinker! Maybe he do haf a bright Dutch blue suit on—high crowned white straw hat vid red ribbon on it—bright poorple necktie—shiny yellow shoes—he dress dat vay ven dress’ up.
“Den Goldfarb, looking at him, shout, ‘Vy you don’t, on Sat’days, go on boat excoorsion to Mich’gan City—or Milvaukee—like sane peoples, instead of be poppyjay on Down-at-Heel Row—’”
“Poppyjay—popinjay, eh? Well, he could have used the word maybe ‘dude’ or ‘dandy’ or something like that, but not pop—”
“So poor Brinker,” she went on in a virtual monotone now, “he do just dat next Sat’day. He take passage on excoorsion boat City of Milvaukee. It capsize—about halfvay between. It haf blenty of lifeboats—plenty of life belts. Eferybody get saved—drift in to shore. All but Brinker. Brinker never do. Strange he never get place in boat—nor belt? Strange—” She shook her squarish head frustratedly. Now her face grew hard again. “But he, Goldfarb, he cause’ him to go on dat boat. He cause him to die. I give an’thing to see Goldfarb in prison—not in pretty blue Dutch suit and yellow shoes and straw hat wit red ribbon—but—but in black and white striped prison costume. Yah!”
There was a hatred profound in her tired face. Cambourne shook his head.
He wondered sadly, too, if it wasn’t the old case all over again. Another woman! He had encountered many cases in his life of “dudes” and “dandies” and otherwise highly-dressed individuals who liked to “stroll” being mixed up—or getting mixed up eventually—with “the Other Woman”. Had Brinker Berkheyd, when the City of Milwaukee went down, drifted in boat or belt to the Wisconsin shore—become somebody else? And was today raising cabbages or strawberries or melons—and maybe children? Who could tell? He hoped not.
“I’m sorry to say,” he gave dictum, “that, with respect to your implied—no, stated—wishes with respect to Goldfarb, he won’t be ‘nailed this time’—nor be in prison at all. He had—always has had—a legal right to rent out that space upstairs. Had in previous cases, too. But never a moral right. No, he won’t be in prison. In striped costume in lieu of Dutch blue suit, straw hat with red ribbon, yellow shoes, period!”
“So–o?” she said, as one in whom quaint hopes this day had arisen—and been dashed. “I sort of t’ink dis time dey nail him. An’ make convict out of him. A—a—a—a plush-horse convict!”
He stood helplessly.
She had apparently no more to say. Nor did he.
But speak he did, on point other than what had just been discussed.
“Well, suppose, again, now, we go upstairs.”
And turning, he crossed to the stairway base, and commenced the plodding ascent up, she following stolidly—docilely, even—in his rear. He wishing oddly, at this second, that he was a stolid Hollander himself. For, even though he was a policeman, he was dreading the grisly sight he knew quite well he was shortly to see!
CHAPTER X
Found Under a Stairway
At the top of the stairway was revealed, though only by the tiny 4- or 5-watt bulbs in the ceiling above the staircase, a floor which was, right here, cut off its entire length from west to east by a firebrick wall. A broad open doorway off the stairway was barred, as below, with a wide iron gate, powerfully padlocked, and by the dim eerie light emanating from the tiny bulbs in the ceiling could be seen, through the barred gate only, of course, more office furniture—but particularly, on this floor, old adding machines, typewriters, whatnot. It was more than plain that Mr. Max Goldfarb—and no doubt his father before him—and even his grandfather before him—was in position ever to outfit, not just a fly-by-night office opened by some third-rate entrepreneur—but an entire business of many connecting rooms with business furniture. Indeed, it was plain, by the stuff viewable here, that Max could throw an 8-room office together in 5 hours, and have clicking typewriters and banging billing machines—given the operators—to operate them.
Here the new stairway, unfinished as before, and leading to the topmost story—the latter being the studio itself—ran east and west. It could be seen to carry matchboard partition, at least on its one outer side, cutting most of its underside—indeed, all of its underside—off. Why this was so was anybody’s guess; Cambourne guessed that firefighting equipment had been kept under there once, safe from being jammed, suffocated, and tangled up with other things. Perhaps it had only been mops and pails! This, anyway, was where, so it was hypothesized, the killer always waited till he should hear his prey coming up the other stairway, and turning over onto this one; here under this stairway which led squarely into the studio, he waited till his prey was subsequently engaged in pounding out arpeggios or whatnot on the grand piano. And when he did hear this, he came out from under the stairway, rounded it backwards, tiptoed quietly up it, found himself squarely in the studio able to watch his prey, then crossed over to the rear of his busily-playing victim-to-be. So went hypothesis. And quite reasonable hypothesis, to boot, when one went one floor further.
Since Cambourne himself was first official “examiner” on the spot today—and knew the place hadn’t been combed yet by anybody “official”—he decided at once to make instant search under this stairway or “hideout”. Called back to the woman with just the words, “Wait a minute.” Passed along the stairway base and its matchboard siding. And round the further end of the same. Looked in, and under; could not see, at this moment, anything, so dark was it. So he threw on a pocket torch, and directed the beam in.
The beam of the torch revealed that there was nothing in the way of firefighting equipment, mops nor pails under there, but it did bring out a white label lying in there on the floor.
He stepped in, inclining first his head, then stooping his whole body, and picked it up. Printed on it were the words:
POST-SEASON TAKE-’EM-AWAY-AND-PUT-’EM-AWAY-FOR-NEXT-SUMMER SALE.
Price 39 cents for this hat!
He shook his head. Particularly as he saw the full significance of what he held. A straw hat sale ticket! And realized the picture it portrayed. A great open bin, perhaps in Goldblatt’s down the street, or Sears, or anywhere else, heaped high to the ceiling with all summer’s unsold straw hats. Countless people fighting, scrabbling, shoving, trying them on, doffing them, and trying on larger, smaller, better, or worse. Taking each, his acquisition, to the nearest cashier booth. Taking it away in a bag given forth with his change and cash-register slip.
“Take ’em away!” he said dryly. “As a clue to this murder, the straw hat—if it’s up there as usual—will be worse—than useless!”
CHAPTER XI
—As Even the Killer Himself Had Stood!
He came out from under the stairway, restoring the torch to his hip pocket and stowing the label in his inner jacket breast pocket. The woman was waiting for him, stolidly, deferentially.
He took the lead again. Trudged on up that final flight. Seeing, before his head even got level with the next floor, the wood-runged wall-ladder, some feet off the stairway head, that led down from the rooftrap above to third-floor level—the ladder by which the killer always entered this “impregnable place”.
Now Cambourne’s head was reaching floor-level. Now it was above. He was turning it automatically now to take in the great windowless area above. And which was brilliantly lighted by a ceiling-affixed neon tube, not too far from the stairway top.
The entire floor, up here, was carpeted with brown carpeting undoubtedly picked up at a sale—a sale that probably was a real “distress sale”. It was thus carpeted so that, perhaps, the floor’s original creator could take long walks on it, up and down it, around its edges, across it. Sitting down only occasionally, perhaps, to play “the songs that mama loved so well.” If any original stairway came up elsewhere, from old construction days, long gone, its opening had been boarded up, and covered with the carpeting—was gone. As for the walls, they had all been painted a beautiful white—were white still, and not yellowed. The modern powerful neon fixture in the ceiling, it could be noted by anyone, had been placed at the streetwise end of the area—not the alley end, nor the middle—so that it illuminated particularly the segment up front. Obviously, it was something Max had put in for his illicit but paying tenants. Old Emmanuel had doubtlessly used gas up here.
Straight across that top-story area, from the stairway top, about 20 full feet, as one could only judge, its rear against the further wall, was the famous grand piano itself. A magnificent thing of rich and beautiful mahogany, plainly, studded generously over certain areas with artful bits of inlaid pearl substance. And placed there, that piano—so it had become known—because certain solid pillars on the floor below had permitted it to be screwed or bolted firmly there—and made thus to give forth always its finest notes. This, the expensive piano that Emmanuel Goldfarb, Max’s father, had decreed legally should never be moved. So that perhaps, though in spirit only, he could continue to return to it. And which never had—been moved. But there was more across the carpeted floor from the stairway top than just—the piano! Or, as one might more completely put it, the piano and its last laid-out piece of music! For the latter, in the form of an entire folio or perhaps even opera, stood there, outspread, on the music rack. For, seated on the drawn-out piano bench, though sprawled forward upon the keys, as Cambourne, ascending and ascending even further, and turning his head full roomward as he did, was a human figure, its back of course to the stairway top. It could be seen, even in this position, to at least be wearing grey-belted mauve trousers, and a white silk shirt, with sleeves apparently rolled up to the elbows to expose forearms. For the arms were slightly outspread as though playing a single majestic chord when arrested thus–the fingers of each outspread hand were even themselves outspread, atop the very keys, as though plucking forth, at that instant, from a core of possible tones, a specific chord. A chord which might honor its striker—for the hair atop the fallen forward torso and head could be seen to be black—to be longer than usual—to fall so deeply on the white nape of the neck that it parted slightly there, automatically. And bespoke musician. Lost, lost, lost, lost, in some perhaps divine second—in the chord he was playing.
