The Knave of Hearts (16 page)

Quite handy for disposing of Mary Ellen, especially
after dark, as it had undoubtedly been. Provided you had a
flashlight; because you couldn’t switch on the light in the shed
even if you knew it was there. He walked on, to the boundary of the
property that side, where the next garage cut off the view of that
yard, and discovered that you could see into the shed: the door was
half open and he could make out part of a shelf and the earth floor.

He wondered who lived in that house now and whether
they boasted about living there, showed visitors the shed, or kept
quiet about it. He walked on up the alley, and there was nothing at
all out of the way to see. Back yards, patio furniture, fences, wall.
Four garages this side with alley entrances; most of the garages on
the right side, toward the rising hill above, had alley entrances. On
that upper side, you couldn’t see into the back yards as well
because the hill rose quite steeply there, and probably only patches
of those yards nearer the houses were leveled to make patios and
drying areas.

He turned around and came back, stopping to look over
at the little shed again. The inspired hunch did not visit him;
nothing said anything to him. He walked on moodily, head down, and
about a dozen steps on collided violently with something.

"Oh, excuse me!"

"My fault, not looking where I was going,"
said Hackett. The young man had emerged, apparently, from a fancy
iron gate in a tall hedge on the upper side of the alley. He’d left
it open behind him, and Hackett could see a flight of worn stone
steps leading up toward the house level. The young man was about
twenty-five, blonde and nice-looking, with a friendly grin.

He looked at Hackett, and he said, "You must be
the new roomer. Mrs. Andrews said you’d be coming in today. Looking
at the garage?—it’s a damned narrow spot to turn in or out, but
it can be done, unless you run something brand-new. I don’t have
any trouble, but I’ve got an old Plymouth, which you probably
noticed—I’m your stablemate."

"Well," said Hackett cautiously, "as a
matter of fact—"

"Somebody did tell you which garage? Ma Andrews
isn’t always very definite—nice woman, but she doesn’t have any
more to do with us than she can help, which is a welcome change from
most landladies, isn’t it? It’s the one next— Look here,"
said the young man suddenly, "let’s not shout. Come up
here—there’s that Smithers woman out in her yard, and I don’t
want to get Ma Andrews in trouble. Not that we know the Smithers
would, but better safe than sorry." He drew Hackett inside the
gate. "It’s the next garage down, belongs to Mrs. Markstein
next door. She lets Mrs. Andrews—they’re old friends, you see."

"I see," said Hackett. In a dim way, he
thought he did.

"I suppose she told you to be careful. Er—going
and coming and so on. I mean, you never know—just takes one of
these letter-of-the-law people, and Ma Andrews’d be out of luck."

"I see," said Hackett again. A doubtful
small excitement rose in him. Did he? The young fellow had evidently
assumed he was turning in this gate. "Er—" he said,
"suspicious neighbors?"

"Oh, well, no, or she couldn’t have kept it up
this long, but you know how people are—I understand there’s a
couple of new families around, who don’t know her, and let just one
whisper get out about devaluing the property—"

Hackett shoved his hat back a little and remarked
conversationally, "That’s right, hit them in the pocketbook
and they really feel it."

"Too true. And while there are a few
drawbacks—she doesn’t like you to keep a bottle around, but she’d
never dream of poking her nose inside your room to see, you know—very
welcome change from most landladies—and they’re all much more
comfortable rooms than you’d find anywhere else, as you know or you
wouldn’t be here. Well, I won’t keep you, I’m late for a date
now—my name’s Robbins, by the way—let’s see, you’re Garner,
aren’t you?—nice to have met you, I’ll see you around."
And with another friendly grin he swung off down the alley. Hackett
waited where he was, head cocked, and heard garage doors pulled back,
the coughing protest of an old engine warming up; it died away down
the alley.

And here was something they had missed.

Zoning, he thought. I’ll bet that’s it.

He came out to the alley again, and counted houses
down to its mouth. The sixth one in. He walked up the hill to Archer
Street, turned left, and counted down. A big, dignified old
Mediterranean stucco, ten to twelve rooms, probably: grass a little
too long in the strip of front yard, a couple of loose tiles on the
roof.

He went up and rang the doorbell, and in a minute
took off his hat to a p1easant—faced gray-haired woman in a printed
cotton housedress.

"Yes?"

"I’m Sergeant Hackett from
headquarters—police," and he showed her his I. D. card. "I’d
like to talk to you for a minute if I may, Mrs. Andrews—isn’t
it?"

Her expression tightened a little. "There was
another man—just the other day. I don’t—oh, well—"

"Yes," said Hackett, and came in as she
stepped back with a reluctant gesture. Old, good furniture, nothing
fancy, but the living room looked lived—in, comfortable. Some
sewing piled on one chair; she picked it up, the needle still stuck
in it, held it on her lap as if to remind him he’d interrupted her.

Hackett sat down opposite and gave her his big, warm,
reassuring smile. She looked like a nice woman, and a fairly sensible
one: he thought the best way to get at her was direct. He had a
straightforward mind, compared to Mendoza’s more devious one. On
the rare occasions when they were annoyed with each other, Mendoza
was inclined to call Hackett’s a simple mind, and Hackett to
believe that Mendoza really preferred to go the long way round (like
a cat stalking a bird).

"Yes?" she said again a trifle impatiently.

So he told her why they were asking questions, what
they were working on up here and why. This fellow, who might be
anybody—so little evidence on him—and such a dangerous one. She’d
have been reading about it in the papers? (She nodded, eyes down.)
She’d understand they had to grasp at any straws in this hunt. And
the odds seemed to be that he was a single man, fairly young, of good
address: a man probably living in a rented room or a small apartment.

"Yes. I told the other man—I don’t know why
I should be expected—"

“
Well, Mrs. Andrews, you didn’t tell the other
man quite all the truth, did you?" asked Hackett gently. The
random chance: this was it. You couldn't blame whatever man had
covered this street. They couldn’t—either from the standpoint of
legality or manpower—search every house: no reason—impossible.
They hadn’t the time or the men. They asked questions and wrote
down the answers they got, that was all.

"What do you mean?" she exclaimed sharply.
"Of course I—"

"You don’t live here alone, do you? You have
several young men renting rooms. Now don’t start to protest and
evade, please—I’m not from the assessors’ office or the zoning
commission, and I couldn’t care less. I’m not goin’ to run down
and turn you right in for it. But you look like a sensible woman to
me, and I don’t think I need to point out to you that you might be
hindering us a lot in this investigation. You wouldn’t want this
fellow to keep on killing innocent women and getting away with it,
would you? I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask you questions and I’ve
got to have the right answers."

She looked at him in silence for a moment and then,
unexpectedly, she begun to cry. In the midst of her tears she was
embarrassed and angry at herself, it was obvious; and Hackett was
embarrassed too. He said vague soothing things; he found the kitchen
and brought her a glass of water. It was a big house, just as he’d
thought; and he supposed—guessing at the situation—that there had
to be laws about these things, but it did seem a little unfair that
you shouldn’t be allowed to do what you wanted with your own
property.

He never did tell her how he’d found it out: and it
turned out to be—when she was finally prodded to tell him the
story—about how he’d figured. She and her husband had retired,
come to California, and bought the house in 1946, just after the war,
when prices were way up; they’d paid thirty thousand for it, and
even then it was too big a house, of course, but she used to
entertain a lot, and it didn’t seem extravagance by what they had.
A substantial private pension from his old firm, and savings. But
when he died a few years later the pension stopped, and prices kept
going up, and the income from savings investments didn’t go up, of
course, and she was at her wits’ end. There were no children, no
relatives. She tried to sell the house, but they told her she
couldn’t ask more than eighteen thousand, nobody wanted old houses
now, and she probably wouldn’t get that if she sold it. She found
out why when it had been on the market for a year. The people who
wanted that big a house and in this kind of neighborhood wanted
something new, more convenient, in a more newly fashionable area: the
young people wouldn’t look at it, they wanted a modern ranch-style
in the suburbs. The taxes were higher than in most newer districts
because it was so close in to town, but of course it would never be
potentially valuable business property. And by now a lot needed to be
done to it—paint, the roof, electrical connections, a new faucet in
the main bath—It was property, it was value, but it wasn’t paying
any dividend; it was eating up the pittance she had, and she couldn’t
get rid of it, turn it into cash. It might seem to the casual glance
that she was well enough off: widow of a white-collar man, with a
little capital invested in stock: certainly not indigent, all that
implied. People didn’t stop to think. There’d been times she’d
really gone hungry, until . . .

But this was all residential-zoned up here, it was
illegal to rent out rooms; if it hadn’t been for a few old
neighbors being sympathetic, she’d never have managed it as long as
this. She usually had four or five young men, and Minnie Markstein
next door rented her garage to two of them; so a garage went with
those rooms, you could say. She’d never dared advertise, but one
told another, and they were nice big clean quiet rooms in a good
neighborhood-better than average. And besides—

"I’ve been far more careful, I’ve had to be,
than most—" She didn’t like the word landladies: her mouth
was wry, saying it. The sense of this belated thought calmed her
agitation, and she blew her nose, sat up straighter. "Really, if
you’re thinking that this criminal you’re looking for could ever
have— Why, it would be quite impossible! I’m very careful to have
only the most respectable, quiet, irreproachable men—no drinking on
the premises at any time, and I—"

"Mrs. Andrews," said Hackett patiently, "a
man like this may be all of that and more. Men like this don’t go
roistering around the way a lot of people seem to think, and they can
just as easily be well-educated and—er—gentlemanly as not."
Her eyes disbelieved him; he sighed. Even people who weren’t—as
Mrs. Andrews was—elderly, nice-minded (as they’d call it), and
conventional, had difficulty grasping the fact that a rapist-murderer
didn’t necessarily have to be a lunatic, and if he was, it wouldn’t
necessarily show and he might not be a lunatic all the time, in every
area of life.

"Do you ask references?"

Her mouth worked a little; she dabbed at it with her
handkerchief. "I—sometimes, sometimes not. I’ve had several
young men—at various times—who’d just come to California, and
besides—well, people don’t expect to be asked for references
these days, before renting a room. D-do they? I do go a great deal by
personal impressions. Only twice in ten years have I been forced to
ask someone to—find other accommodation .... Well, most of them
have stayed quite a little time, seldom less than six months—I have
two young men with me now who have lived here for almost two years.
One way I do judge is by what sort of work they do, you see. I don’t
ever take ordinary workmen, tradesmen—if a man works in an office,
or a bank, or somewhere like that, I know he’s of better class,
and—”

Very convenient, thought Hackett, the little
general-type slots. "Yes. Do you keep any records, Mrs.
Andrews?"

"I’ve had two medical students, and a young
lawyer just getting started— Records? Well, I—" She dabbed
at her mouth again. "They—I always have them pay me—in
cash," she muttered unwillingly.

Yes, of course: no records for the tax people. Like
Prohibition, he thought fleetingly: inviting normally honest people
to subterfuge. And probably the late Andrews had taken all the
business responsibility, and she’d be rather vague about that kind
of thing. He went on asking questions .... Well, no, she didn’t
keep any books, it wasn’t necessary, the money came in and she paid
the bills in cash. She gave the roomers receipts, and she kept the
kind of receipts that were for legitimate deductions, personal
medical expenses, and so on, but . . . The names. She didn’t know
(miserably, defiantly, she didn’t know) that she could recall to
mind the whole list—every young man she’d had in her rooms in ten
years. There had been some who stayed only a few months, and there
were usually five of them all the time.

God, thought Hackett. Call it thirty, forty men
altogether. More? Try to pry the names out of her; try to chase them
down and have a look. (On top of those they were still looking for
and at.) And if she couldn’t remember all the names, and if this
was the place Romeo had been, she might so easily not remember just
the one vital name. Also, he guessed shrewdly, the whole business had
always been so distasteful to her that she’d stayed as clear as
possible of her roomers (she did not, for instance, assume any
cleaning duties—that was strictly their responsibility), and who
could say, if she was now confronted with a man, whether she could
say for certain that he’d once rented one of her rooms—and when?