A buzzing noise woke Sam Clay. He
woke cautiously, feeling the sun on his
face, but he did not open his eyes. From
the ache at the base of his skull, his taut
throat muscles, the coppery taste in his
mouth, the semiparalysis gripping his
limbs, he knew the shock of seeing sun-
light would kill him. He lay without mov-
ing, sweating a little and hoping he could
go back to sleep, but the buzzing dis-
turbed him.
“It was, he decided, either a fly or a
symptom of his hang-over. The latter
would be something new, even to him: a
buzzing hang-over. He pictured himself
trying to explain it to a doctor and re-
solved to give up drinking. He seemed to
recall blending brandy and champagne
at a bar somewhere. He also seemed to
recall drinking brandy in a taxi, and on a
roller coaster.
“The evening had a mixed-up, dream-
like quality. He remembered a row with
a doorman, a hundred-dollar check he'd
cashed at the 69 Club, a bottle of brandy
he'd bought somewhere else, a pretty








By Jonathan Latimer
DARK MEMORY
THE FIFTH GRAVE
RED GARDENIAS
THE DEAD DON'T CARE
THE LADY IN THE MORGUE
HEADED FOR A HEARSE
MURDER IN THE MADHOUSE


S | N N E R S
A N D
S H R O U D S
AN INNER SANCTUM MYSTERY BY Jonathan Latimer
3_ SIM ON AND SC H U S T ER
N E W YORK 1955


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION
IN WEIOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM
(3) 1955 BY JONATHAN LATIMER
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.
RoCKEFELLER CENTER, 630 FIFTH Avenue
NEw York 20, N. Y.
FIRST PRINTING
MANUEACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK, N. Y.


(74 /
/ 357
24 ºn
S | N N E R S
A N D
S H R O U DS
384


–== = =~ ~ ~）


chapter I
A buzzing noise woke Sam Clay. He woke cautiously, feeling
the sun on his face, but he did not open his eyes. From the
ache at the base of his skull, his taut throat muscles, the cop-
pery taste in his mouth, the semi-paralysis gripping his limbs,
he knew the shock of seeing sunlight would kill him. He lay
withoutmoving, sweating a little and hoping he could go back
to sleep, but the buzzing disturbed him.
It was, he decided, either a fly or a symptom of his hang-
over. The latter would be somethingnew, even to him: a buzz-
ing hangover. He pictured himself trying to explain it to a
doctor and resolved to give up drinking. At least, mixed
drinking. He tried to remember what he had drunk. Five
stingers with Tom Nichols at the Drake, then a bottle of red
wine and some brandy with dinner. Or did he have the brandy
later? He seemed to recall blending brandy and champagne
at a bar somewhere. He also seemed to recall drinking brandy
in a taxi, and on a roller coaster.
The evening had a mixed-up, dreamlike quality. He remem-
bered a row with a doorman on Walton Place, a hundred-
dollar check he'd cashed at the 69 Club, a bottle of brandy
3


he'd bought somewhere else, a pretty redhead smiling at him
in a smoky joint full of violin music, but he couldn't put the
memories in any order. And he had no memory at all of get-
ting home.
There was a sudden clamor of bells by his left ear. When
his muscles stopped twitching, he reached toward the sound,
found the telephone and brought it to his lips. The movement
sent waves of pain through his head.
“Hello.”
There was no answer.
“Well, speak up,” he said. “It’s your dime.”
There was a sharp click at the other end of the line. He tried
to put the phone on its cradle, missed, and the phone fell to
the floor. The noise made his head throb. The buzzing began
again and he opened his right eye, saw a bluebottle fly beating
at a copper screen under a pale blue ceiling.
He studied screen and ceiling for a time. The ceiling both-
ered him most. It was unmistakably blue, seen through either
eye. And it was not his bedroom ceiling, unless somebody had
painted it while he was out. Without moving his head he
looked to the left, saw chintz curtains, a Chinese print and a
dressing room with a mirrored table covered with perfume
bottles. By the dressing-room entrance was a chair on which
were wool socks, nylon shorts, a shirt and a gray flannel suit.
The clothes were his and he felt his chest and thighs and dis-
covered he had slept naked.
He sat up slowly, narrowing his eyes against the headache,
and stared at the twin bed to his left. A woman lay in it, her
face turned from him, her straw-colored hair gleaming on a
pillow. He could see a bare shoulder, a bare arm and the out-
line of a slender body under a white blanket. She looked
young.
Beside the telephone cradle, on an ivory table between the
4


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
beds, was a half-empty magnum of brandy. His stomach un-
settled by the musty, grape odor of the brandy, he swung his
feet to the rug and tottered uncertainly toward the dressing
room. He picked up his clothes and went through the opening
at the far end.
Fluffy towels lined one side of thenile-green bathroom and
under them was a tub with a single faucet shaped like a dol-
phin's head. A corner of the room held a shower stall with an
opaque glass door. He found a cylinder of Alka-Seltzer tablets
in a cabinet over the washbasin, put three in a glass of warm
water and then, while they sizzled, turned on the shower. He
picked up the glass and carried it into the shower with him.
While hot water poured over his face and chest, he tried to
place the girl in the bedroom. He knew lots of girls, but none
with straw-colored hair. The Alka-Seltzer finished bubbling
and he drank it. He put the glass outside the shower and when
the headache caused by bending had gone, he grinned and
sang: “You’ve got straw-colored hair; I only like straw-colored
hair...” He stopped, realizing the music he had in mind didn't
quite fit the words. It also didn't quite fit the truth, which was
that he liked red, black, brown and golden hair just as well,
and would, if green ever became fashionable, like that, too.
He felt much better when he came out of the shower. He
dried himself with one of the big towels, discovering in the
process bruises on his chin and chest and a cut under one eye.
He wet a corner of the towel, sprinkled on tooth powder and
rubbed his teeth. They were all still there. He found a safety
razor and, after he had lathered his face with a cake of scented
soap, he shaved cautiously, then rinsed off what was left of
the soap, dried himself and stared into the mirror.
He saw the familiar lean face with the hooked nose and
sandy eyebrows. Someone had once called him a Scotch Arab,
and he thought this morning he would look particularly well
5


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
covered her buttocks, her skin was tan. He grasped her shoul-
der and rolled her over on her back.
“Beautiful,” he began and broke off, staring at raw wounds
on breasts and belly, at a grotesque blot on the sheet beside
her where blood had seeped through into the mattress and
was drying a parchment brown.
She was beautiful, all right. She was also dead.
He looked at her face, saw pale skin that held no color be-
sides two crimson smears of lipstick and the violet of mascara
on the lids of the almond-shaped eyes. Her expression was
serene, as though she had died in her sleep. He dropped his
shoes and without taking his eyes off the body found the
brandy bottle, uncorked it and drank. For a second he was
sure he was going to be sick, then the liquor took hold, a
jagged sphere of flame in his stomach. He drank again and
put the bottle back on the table. He saw his hand was shaking.
He stared again at her face, but he did not know her. She
was a stranger. For a moment he felt relief, and then he real-
ized that not knowing her meant nothing. Not with the black-
ness that lay behind him. He felt fear again and drank once
more from the bottle. Then he sat on the twin bed and started
to put on his shoes, his hands fumbling with the laces.
He tried desperately to recall something about the night
that would tell him where he was and how he came to be there.
But it was no use. Beyond the few unreal memories of brandy
and roller coasters that had slid across his mind before, like
out-of-focus pictures on a dimly lit screen, there was only a
dark void. His shoes tied, he lifted the telephone from the car-
pet and put it back on its cradle. Then, after an instant's hesi-
tation, he covered the body with sheet and blanket, hiding the
composed face that might have been asleep. He found his
necktie, put it on, and then his coat. He wondered if seeing
7


the rest of the apartment would help him remember. At least,
he could find out who the girl was.
He went to the bedroom door. Beyond was a small hallway
with a red-lacquer-and-gold-brocade love seat and a Persian
carpet. He tiptoed through this and found himself in a living
room which held a black satin divan, two basket-shaped
chairs, chromium lamps, a mahogany desk, and by one of the
windows, another love seat, this time finished in white leather.
On the wall over the divan hung a copy of a Picasso clown.
Across the back of the divan, obviously tossed there, was a
mink coat, silky, dark and thick; and on the desk was a Mo-
rocco-leather folder containing a picture of the dead girl.
Nothing seemed familiar until, on the sand-colored carpet
by one of the chairs, he saw his felthat. He was moving toward
it when, from the bedroom, came the sound of the telephone,
strident, imperative and shocking. Fear tightened his muscles
as he hurried to the bedroom, took the phone off its cradle and
put it under the pillow he had slept on. The ringing had been
like a voice shouting at him. He waited tensely, the buzzing of
the fly loud in his ears, but no one came. The phone clicked
angrily under the pillow for a time, then became silent. A gilt
electric clock on a chest of drawers read 8:35.
He tried to piece together what he had seen. There had
been no evidence of a party in the living room: he must have
come up alone with the girl and gone directly to the bedroom.
But not uninvited, if the magnum of brandy meant anything.
On the other hand, he thought grimly, what had happened to
her was certainly uninvited. He looked around the bed for a
weapon that had made the wounds, but he found only a pair
of black evening slippers and two sheer stockings. His eye
caught sight of the black brassiere, noted a trailer of black
thread. He picked the brassiere up, discovered the hooks had
been torn loose. Quickly, he crossed to the dressing room,
8


was between the fifth and fourth floors, moving as quietly as
possible, when he saw a man bending over a trash can on the
landing below. The man was a hunchback and he was mut-
tering spitefully as he fingered cardboard boxes and torn
papers. Clay caught the words “... eye of a needle” as he
turned back and went through the door to the fifth-floor cor-
ridor. He pushed the elevator button and waited, hearing a
whirr of machinery, but no other noise.
At last metal doors slid open, revealing a pasty-faced boy
in a blue uniform. “Down?” he asked.
Clay said, “Yeah,” in a muffled voice and stepped to the
back of the elevator where the boy could not look at him. The
doors closed and the car started down. As the indicator regis-
tered 3, a buzzer in the car sounded and a red light marked 7
glowed. The buzzer pulsed, imperative, insistent, frantic.
The boy spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Somebody's
got ants in their underdrawers.”
Clay muttered “Yeah" again, and when the doors opened
he went out into a small lobby with two divans and an artifi-
cial fireplace. There was no one back of the reception desk.
In the street hot air pressed against his face. A doorman
and a nurse holding a chubby child by a harness were talking
near the curb. Two girls in shorts went by on bicycles. The
child gurgled at him, but he paid no attention. He turned left
and started along the sidewalk. He was two blocks away when
the police car slid past him, its siren moaning.
I0


Chapter 2
Brightly colored umbrellas, like mutant mushrooms, sprouted
from metal tables in the restaurant courtyard. Two Filipino
busboys, wearing freshly starched white coats, were distrib-
uting silver and napkins from a tea cart and near them, by a
long table, a plump woman was arranging marigolds in pot-
tery vases. She smiled as Sam Clay went by the table.
“You’re out early.”
He managed a twisted grin. “Couldn't sleep.”
“Want some coffee?”
“Maybe later.”
Keeping the grin fixed on his face, he went to the stairway
at the rear, conscious of her eyes following him. He turned to
the right at the top of the stairs, found his keys and unlocked
the door to his apartment. The sound of violins playing Noel
Coward’s “Zigeuner” came from the living room and he hesi-
tated before crossing the small foyer.
The living room was empty, but his Sunday paper was
spread out on the beige cotton-twist rug. As he stared at the
paper, noting the comics were missing, the built-in changer
clicked, abandoned “Zigeuner” for “I’ll Follow My Secret
Heart.” He knew paper and records were merely indications
II


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O.U IDS
and took off the rest of his clothes. One thing he noted with
satisfaction: there were no bloodstains. But then there needn't
be, not if he'd undressed before the girl was killed. He'd read
of French murderers who'd done that; it seemed to be a cus-
tom in France. Now, maybe, he thought wildly, it would be-
come a fad in the United States.
He took a clean pair of shorts from a bureau drawer. He had
these on and was searching for a shirt when someone spoke
from the bedroom door. “Welcome home.” He spun around,
dropping the shirt.
Gwen Pearson was leaning against the door-jamb, one hand
holding the Sunday comics and the other the front of a printed
Japanese-silk wrapper. Her legs and feet were bare and her
dark hair was piled in a bun on top of her head. She had on
no make-up and she looked about fifteen years old. She was a
television actress.
When he got his breath, he said, “How long have you been
here?”
She gave him her Mona Lisa smile.
“Next time I change clothes,” he said, “I’ll send you an en-
graved invitation.” He undid the shirt's top two buttons,
pulled it over his head. “What's wrong with your place?”
“No sun.”
“There will be. All afternoon.”
“This is morning. Or didn't you know?”
He jerked a pair of trousers from a hanger, stepped into
them. She moved from the door, put the comics on the bureau
and picked up the bracelet. “For me?”
His voice came out a hoarse croak. “Naturally. I had Harry
Winston make it up especially.”
The bracelet made a clicking noise on the bureau top.
“Costume jewelry!” she said disdainfully.
“Why don't you go home?”
I3


“Anice balcony with cushions,” she said, “and you begrudge
a girl a little sun-bathing?”
“Have you been out there without any clothes again?”
She twitched the hand holding the wrapper. “Want to see?”
A picture of the dead girl's torn body came into his mind.
“No." He was croaking again. “No!”
“It’s quite nice,” she said.
He slid the belt through the last trouser loop, wrenched it
tight around his waist. “Go away.”
“I’ll make you some breakfast.”
Before he finished dressing, he could smell the coffee per-
colating in the kitchen. He put on a linen coat, dropped brace-
let, matches and hat-check in a pocket and went into the living
room. As he was turning off the record changer, Gwen called
to him from the kitchen.
“Where did the blood come from, Sam?”
“BloodP’
“On the dish towel.” She appeared in the doorway, held out
a crumpled towel. “Look.”
He examined the towel. It was still damp and the bottom
portion was stained with what was certainly blood. There were
several heavy smears of dark maroon and a large area slightly
lighter in color.
“You must have done it last night,” Gwen said. “The first
time you came in.”
“The first time?”
She nodded. “About five o'clock in the morning.”
“I came in at five o'clock?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“No.”
“You shouldn't drink so much.”
He followed her back into the kitchen.
14


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“How'd you know I came in?”
“How could I help it?” She found coffee cups, switched off
the gas under the percolator. “You made enough noise, breath-
ing like a porpoise and trying about ten keys before you could
open your door.”
“I haven't got ten keys.”
“Well, it sounded like it.” She filled the cups. “And you fell
over something in the living room.” She put the cups on sau-
cers and started out of the kitchen. “There's toast in the oven.”
He got the toast and followed her into the living room.
“How long did I stay?”
“About five minutes.” She handed him a cup, accepted a
piece of toast. “You ran some water in the kitchen and then
you got a book from your bookcase.”
“I did what?”
She blushed. “I’m sorry, Sam. I shouldn't have, but I was
afraid you were sick.”
“Shouldn't have what?”
“I slipped over from my balcony and watched you for a
minute, just to make sure you were all right.” She gave him her
little-girl look. “Now I suppose you're going to beat me.”
He eyed her, feeling strange again. It was like hearing
about someone else, a brother or someone, who'd got himself
into bad trouble.
“Was I alone?” he asked.
“I think so.” She dipped a corner of the toast in the coffee,
popped it in her mouth. “I couldn't see very well. You didn't
turn on any lights.” She laughed. “You certainly looked funny
though, with that cloak wrapped around you.”
He shook his head. Cloak. Book. Bloody towel. It was be-
yond him. He wondered why, if he'd reached his apartment
safely at five o'clock, he hadn't stayed there. Probably because
I5


the girl was waiting for him, either in a taxi or at her place. He
shuddered and drank some of his coffee. It was bitter. The
telephone began to ring.
“That's your office,” Gwen said.
“Let it ring.”
She studied his face, her brown eyes soft. “You’re in trouble,
aren't you?”
“What makes you think so?”
“I can tell.” She crossed to him, put a hand on his cheek.
Her skin was cool. “Is it Alice?”
“Why Alice?”
“Wasn't she supposed to get the divorce yesterday?”
“She did.”
“You’re still carrying a torch, aren't you?”
“God, no!” He raised his voice to drown out the telephone.
“That's why I went out last night, to celebrate.”
She regarded him dubiously. “Then what is it?”
He felt an artery throbbing over one temple. He wanted to
think, but instead his head was a confusion of telephone bells
and questions. He stood up.
“When I need a confessor,” he said angrily, “I’ll call on
Bishop Sheen!” r
“I bet it's another girl.” Her eyes were sympathetic. “Is it,
Sam?”
“For God's sake!” he said. “Stop prodding me!” He released
his cup, let it fall on the cotton-twist rug and went to the front
door. He glared at her surprised face, then slammed the door
and went down the stairs, still hearing the phone ring.
He crossed the courtyard, dotted with people having break-
fast, and turned up Michigan Avenue toward the old water
tower. After a time he felt better. The street was peaceful,
with only light traffic. Shadows made cool pockets on the side-
I6


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
walk; cool air came in a steady stream from the lake. He grad-
ually slowed his pace until he was sauntering, like the other
Sunday pedestrians. He shouldn't have lost control of himself,
he knew, but he had to think. He had to decide what to do, and
he had to decide in a hurry.
There seemed to be only three choices. He could run away,
join the Foreign Legion or something, and spend the rest of
his life a fugitive. Or he could give himself up and hope that,
instead of the electric chair, he'd get off with a life sentence.
Or, finally, he could go about his business as if nothing had
happened and gamble on the police not picking up his trail.
Only he knew, if he did this, he would ultimately crack. His
explosion with Gwen had shown him that.
Three choices, and he didn't like any of them.
He saw a faded red neon sign reading TAPROOM down aside
street and swung toward it off the avenue. At the door he
nearly collided with a rotund man leading a white English
bulldog on a chain. “Parm us,” said the man, going by. Either
he or the bulldog smelled of beer. So did the chill, dim inte-
rior of the bar. Clay slid onto a leather stool and when the bar-
tender moved his way, said, “Ale.” He saw the bar was empty
except for a woman reading a book at the opposite end. She
was drinking coffee.
The bartender brought the ale, poured it into a tilted glass.
He was a squat Irishman with a turned-up nose. “You catch
the flash on WGNP” he asked.
“Flash about what?”
“Some rich babe getting herself knocked off round the cor-
ner on Delaware Place.” The bartender shoved glass and
bottle in front of Clay. He licked his lips. “Raped and knocked
off. Right in her own apartment.”
Some of the ale spilled from the glass when Clay picked it
17


up, but the bartender didn't seem to notice. “They found her
stark,” he went on. “Nude, that is. With her belly slashed to
ribbons.”
“Somerye,” Clay mumbled.
“Sure.” Still leaning against the bar, the bartender reached
down, produced a bottle of Mount Vernon and a shot glass.
“Cops got a dragnet out for the guy done it,” he said, filling
the shot glass. “Claim he's still in the neighborhood.”
Clay took the jigger, drained it, then drank some ale, chok-
ing slightly. The bartender eyed him. “Bad night?”
“Terrible.”
The bartender regarded him thoughtfully. His face seemed
to be getting larger and larger, like a big head close-up on a
television screen. “I guess some people get a bang out of it,”
he said finally.
“Out of what?”
“Sex fiendin’,” the bartender said.
He flicked the bar with his napkin, removed shot glass and
bottle and moved away. Clay felt a strange inclination to
giggle. He supposed it was hysteria, but he couldn't help it.
He remembered an insurance questionnaire he'd filled out and
he wondered what would have happened if under Occupa-
tion, instead of Newspaperman, he'd put down Sex Fiend.
And, naturally, under Hobbies, he'd have written Murder.
He poured more ale into his glass and drank, letting the
cold, bitter liquid run slowly down his throat. The humor, he
realized, was a variety of graveyard whistling. He was scared,
as scared as hell, and he didn't know what to do. Brother, what
a mess! he thought.
The bartender turned. “You say somethin’?”
Clay saw the woman looking at him over her book. “How
much?” he asked.
“Buck even.”
I8


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Clay put a dollar on the bar and went to the telephone
booth back of the woman. He put a dime in the slot and dialed
Tom Nichols' number. Presently Tom said, “Hello.”
“This is Sam,” Clay said.
“Hello, Sam.”
“Tom, you're a lawyer...”
“There are some who'll deny it.”
“Look,” Clay said. “Do lawyers have to tell the police what
their clients tell them?”
“What have you been doing, boy?”
“I asked you a question.”
“A lawyer is a legal priest.”
“I’m coming over.”
He hung up the receiver, took a handkerchief from his coat
pocket and wiped his face. He noticed the woman was still
looking at him. He felt sweat running down his back, but there
was nothing he could do about it.
I9


Chapter 3
He was thumbing the button under the card marked THOMAs
HOOD NICHOLs a second time when Camille Nichols opened
the door. She was a tall, dark girl with bangs and ink-black
eyes, and she had a Master's Degree in Education from Colum-
bia. She was wearing crimson lounging pajamas.
“Greetings,” she said. “How's the new-born bachelor?”
He went past her into the Early American living room. “All
right, I guess.”
“You don't sound it.” She came into the living room, exam-
ined his face. “You don’t look it, either.”
“Thanks.”
“Tom says you're in trouble.”
“Yeah.”
“Still Alice?”
“No.”
“That's a relief.” She curled up in a wing chair by the brick
fireplace. “I'm tired of that stinker,” she said. “You may quote
me if you wish.”
Tom Nichols came in with a bowl of potato chips and three
glasses of beer. “Hi,” he said.
He was a huge man, thick through chest and shoulders, and
20


S IN N E R S AND SH R O U DS
the kinky mat of black hair on his head made him look taller
than his six feet three. He was wearing bedroom slippers and
bluejeans. He gave Clay one of the glasses, handed another to
Camille.
“Well, son,” he said, “what's the difficulty?”
“It's kind of a long story.”
Amaple chair creaked under the big man's weight. “We got
nothing to do until Monday.”
Clay glanced at Camille. “It’s also unpleasant.”
Nichols' teeth gleamed over his beer glass. “I can tie her up
in a closet if you want.”
“I don't know,” Clay said gloomily. “I don't suppose it makes
much difference.”
“I’d pry it out of him later, anyway,” Camille declared.
“Is it a babe?” Nichols asked.
“Was,” Clay said. “I’m supposed to have murdered and
raped her.”
There was a long silence. Clay drank his beer, morbidly
pleased with the sensation he had caused. Finally Nichols
spoke. “You sure you got the order right, Sam?”
“Does it make any difference?”
“It would to me.”
Camille asked brightly. “Anyone we know?” Clay shook his
head. “Well, was it fun?”
“Look. I'm not kidding.”
"Of course not!”
“What'd you drinklast night?” Nichols asked. “Liquid mari-
juana?”
“I was sober enough when I found her body.” *
Nichols and his wife exchanged glances. “Where was this?”
Camille asked.
“Apartment on Delaware Place.”
Camille exhaled softly, glanced again at her husband.
21


“That's the one the janitor was talking about.” Her eyes were
wide. “Except he said it was a sex fiend.”
“That's me,” Clay said. He took the diamond-and-sapphire
bracelet from his pocket, cradled it in his hand. “Sex fiend,
murderer... and thief.”
He sent the bracelet in a glittering arc toward Nichols, who
caught it deftly. He examined it, then tossed it to Camille.
“Paste?”
Camille draped the bracelet over her wrist. “About ten
thousand dollars worth!”
Nichols lurched to his feet, poured beer from Camille's un-
touched glass into his own. “I’ll be damned!”
Camille asked, “Who was the girl?”
“I don't know,” Clay said.
“You mean you raped her without an introduction?”
“I don't know. I don't even know if I raped her.”
Nichols sank heavily into the maple chair. “Maybe you
better tell us what you do know.”
“Maybe I had,” Clay agreed.
He told them everything he could remember. The story
seemed almost funny, and somehow he began to feel better.
It was probably, he decided, the result of getting it off his
chest.
“You don't remember going up to the dame's joint?” Nichols
asked when he had finished.
“No.”
“Not even meeting her?”
Clay shook his head. Nichols went out into the kitchen and
returned with two bottles of beer. He filled Clay's glass first,
and then his. The cold beer put sweat on the outside of the
glasses.
“What do you think?” Clay asked.
“I think you got a problem,” Nichols said.
22


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“I’d better give myself up.”
“Don’t be hasty.” The big man found a cigarette in a copper
box, lit it with a kitchen match. “Let’s do a little analyzing
first.”
Camille eyed her husband. “What would happen if he did
give himself up?”
“Insanity plea, maybe.”
“But he didn't do it!”
“I don't know,” Clay said.
“Well, I do!” Camille crossed the room, perched on the arm
of his chair, put a hand on his shoulder. “I know my Sam.”
Nichols nodded slowly. “Okay. Let's proceed on that as-
sumption.” He put a potato chip in his mouth. “Which means
someone else killed her and framed Sam for the job.”
“That's better!” Camille said.
“You got any enemies, Sam?” Nichols asked.
“Alice!” Camille exclaimed.
“Alice?”
“Of course! She was always crazy jealous of Sam. I bet she
followed him up to the apartment and killed the girl.”
“And raped her?” Nichols asked dubiously.
Clay got to his feet. “To hell with this!” His knees felt un-
steady. “The closest cell for me.”
“No,” Nichols said. “Not yet, anyway.”
He explained at some length. Nothing good could come of
giving up now. Not even a gold star for Sam on his police de-
partment card. If it became necessary to make an insanity
plea, the time he gave up, or was caught, wouldn't make any
difference, because who could say what an insane man would
do? As for a not guilty plea, he declared, that depended en-
tirely upon somebody else being pegged for the job. Nobody
would believe Sam's innocence until that was done. Espe-
cially when he wasn't sure of it himself.
23


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
9:30
9:45
10:30 (?)
11:00 (?)
PPP
Andy left. Pass at hat-check girl. No
soap. Out into night.
(Note: Things begin to blur here.)
Clark Street. Couple of strip joints.
Liquor terrible. Girls, too.
Walton Place. (Taxip) High-class
trap behind iron fence. Very swanky.
Brandy and champagne at bar. Faint
recollection of talking to woman.
(Could this be girl?) Nice feeling
about woman.
Another place close by. Row with
doorman getting in. No drunks.
Showed press card. Newspapermen
never drunk. No memory of interior,
but think here bought bottle of
brandy. Woman along, but don't re-
member what she looked like. Warm
friends by now, though. Think left to-
gether.
Rest of memories completely dis-
jointed.
A. Roller coaster.
B. Violin joint. Think made pass here
at red-headed girl.
Home for 5 minutes. Why?
Must have gone to girl's apartment.
Woke up. Girl dead.
5:00
5:10
8:15
ADDITIONAL CLUES
. Green hat-check 67
2. Match pack from Riverview Park.
Roller coaster!!
3. Match pack advertising rectal oint-
ment. Believe has no bearing.
4. Bloody dish towel.
1


5. Bracelet!
6. Gwen.
Note: Remember now Gwen said took
book from case. Why? What
book? Modern Surgery?
He pushed the pad away and stood up. “This is crazy!”
“Let’s see.” Nichols thrust half a chicken sandwich in his
mouth, bent over the desk. Camille moved to his side. “Eat
something, Sam,” she called over her shoulder.
He tried one of the sandwiches, but the bread stuck in his
throat. In his glass he found a trace of beer. It was warm and
flat, but at least he could swallow it. He saw Camille's glass
was half-full, emptied that, too.
Nichols turned away from the desk. “Not bad at all,” he said.
“Plenty of leads.” He blinked cheerfully at Clay. “In twenty-
four hours we'll have the story.”
“In twenty-four hours I'll be in the clink.”
“Not if we get the breaks, boy.”
“I suppose I could hide out somewhere.”
“No. Business as usual, that's the program.”
“And what happens while I’m doing business as usual?”
“I’ve got a gent who specializes in digging up things. Amos
Bundy, by name. We'll turn him loose.”
Nichols' tone was cheerful, but Clay wasn't impressed.
Short of a miracle, he was cooked. He was cooked if he'd done
it, and he was cooked if he hadn't. He wished he knew which;
it would help him decide what to do. Mostly, at the moment,
he wanted to lie down.
Camille spoke from the desk. “You know something? It
would help a lot if we had the girl's name.”
“That's so,” Nichols said. “Bundy could start after her.”
“And me.” She met their surprised eyes. “Or did you think
I was just going to sit around baking saws in cakes?”
26


Clay's heart fluttered in his chest. “What are you talking
about?”
“Do I have to spell it out?” Talbot's voice was aggrieved.
“Mary Trevor. Rape and murder. Apartment 703. Fifty-five
East Delaware.”
There was a long pause. Finally Talbot demanded: “You
coming down? Or do we send the police?”
Clay replied weakly, “I’m coming,” and hung up. He saw
Camille and Nichols watching him.
“Get her name?” Nichols asked.
“Yes. I got it.” Clay blinked at them somberly. “Turns out
she was my grandmother.”
28


king
ved
-five
'You
S3W
Out
Chapter 4
Edwin Justin Standish, managing editor of the Globe, groped
under his mahogany desk, found one of the almonds he had
dropped on the Inca-blue carpet that had been woven in Are-
quipa, Peru, tossed the almond into his wastebasket. It made
a pinging noise against the metal side. He remained on his
knees, malevolently eyeing first the carpet and then the group
of editors and reporters facing him. He was a thin, dark, bitter
man with a twisted mouth.
“This is presumably a metropolitan newspaper,” he de-
clared, speaking slowly and distinctly. “Each week day six
hundred and thirty-four thousand, three hundred and eleven
persons buy copies of the Globe. Each Sunday more than one
million persons buy copies of the Globe.”
Still in search of almonds, he disappeared behind the desk,
his voice echoing through the knee-hole. “The Globe's revenue
last year was in excess of twenty-one million dollars.” He
crawled around the other end of the desk, dragging his game
leg behind him. “The Globe is housed in a modern, thirty-one-
story building, possesses a plant worth fourteen million dol-
lars, has twenty-three hundred trusted and valued employees
29


ket. “Canning,” he said, “you will set up an organization and
make the assignments. Parkinson will write the story. Sam,
you will...”
He broke off, studying Clay's face. “To my absolute knowl-
edge,” he said, “this is the first conference you have attended
in nine years without making a wisecrack. Are you ill?”
Clay shook his head. Standish regarded him intently. “Did
you know this girl?” he asked suspiciously.
“No,” Clay managed to croak. “I didn't.”
“That I doubt,” Standish said. “But in any event, you'll be
a combination clearing house and trouble-shooter. I want you
to take the hot leads personally, and to sift everything that
comes in.” He turned his torso so that his head faced Adair.
“Charley, you get busy and tap your stable of stool pigeons.
I want everything you can get: facts, rumors, guesses. Every-
thing!”
“Yes, sir.”
Standish turned his head again. “Mahoney, get on the tele-
type to the Post in Fort Worth. That's where the girl worked
before she came here. Where she grew up. I want to know
everything about her, whether she was breast fed, when she
started menstruating, the name of her Sunday Schoolteacher.”
“Yes, sir,” Mahoney said.
“Harry.” Standish swiveled around to Canning. “Get hold
of Laura Peterkins. The girl was in her department. She'll
have ideas.”
“Yes, sir!” Canning said.
“Okay. Now, has anybody anything to say?”
Clay felt pressure on his arm as Alma Plummer stepped for-
ward, her baby-blue eyes fixed on Standish's feet.
“Mr. Standish—” she began.
“Yes, yes! Go on!”
&2


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“I thought you’d want to know. By your shoe there. Another
almond.”
For an instant Standish's eyes glazed. “Who is this crea-
ture?” he asked thickly.
“Alma Plummer,” Canning said.
“I’m the new Church Editor,” Alma Plummer said.
Standish looked from thick ankles past broad hips and
heavy breasts to Alma's plump, earnest, faintly sweaty face.
“Sweet Jesus!” he said. “Every man has a cross, but why
must mine be made of cast iron!” His face contorted with sud-
denrage. “Get out!” he screamed. “All of you! Get out!”
They fled, elbowing one another in the doorway to the
outer office. Just as Sam Clay was forcing his way through,
Standish called to him. “You, Clayl Come back here!”
Canning was still standing by the desk, his eyes on Standish,
and Clay, moving reluctantly to a position beside the big man,
saw his massive, craggyface was at once amused and contemp-
tuous. Standish lifted the lid off a blue-and-white China bowl
on his desk, ran his fingers around the inside. “Stupidity!” he
snarled. “Sabotage!” He turned the bowl upside down. It was
empty.
“You can relax now, Edwin,” Canning said. “You’re among
enemieS.
“Relax!” Standish snorted. “Who wants to relax?” He glared
at Clay. “Where'd she say that nut was?”
Clay pointed out the almond, and Standish picked it up.
“The eccentric genius...” Canning muttered.
Standish studied the almond from various angles. “That girl.
Selma...?”
“Alma,” Clay said.
“Alma's all right. Levelheaded. An almond missing. Find it.
Then go after the murderer. First things first.” He swallowed
33


the almond, suddenly grinned at them. “What'd you think of
the act?” The grin made him look younger.
“I always liked the one with the sword cane best,” Canning
said. “What happened to that?”
“I swallowed it!” Standish snarled, and then relaxed again.
“This is legitimate, Harry. Doctor's orders. Have to eat al-
monds. Too thin.” He frowned reflectively, eyeing Clay.
“Think I impressed 'em?”
“You impressed me,” Clay said.
“I want’em scared,” Standish said. “Scared enough to work
like hell, and to tell the others to work. This is a must assign-
ment.” t
Clay was about to say “Yes, sir” when Canning spoke. “How
deep do you want us to dig, Edwin?”
“All the way. Why?”
Canning's blue eyes gleamed frostily. “Might bring up some
things you, or maybe Fleur, wouldn't like.”
“Such as?”
Canning's voice was smooth. “Well, such as certain Sundays
... at your Indiana cottage.”
“One Sunday,” Standish said decisively. “Miss Trevor
wanted to see the dunes.”
“Oysters and champagne at the Shiproom,” Canning said.
“Chablis,” Standish said. “Oysters and chablis.” He leered
at Canning. “The next night, I believe, you fed her pigs’
knuckles and sauerkraut in the rarefied atmosphere of
Adolph's Hofbrau.”
“The wrestling matches,” Canning said. “A tete-à-tête in
the back room of the Goat's Nest.”
“Dinner at the Blackstone,” Standish countered. “And
L'Aiglon and the Red Star Inn.” He leaned forward, his voice
confidential. “How was she, Harry?”
34


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U D s
“Why, you randy chimpanzeel If anybody got to her, you
did!”
“A fatherly interest,” Standish said.
“And besides I'm not married!” Canning shouted. “Not even
unbigamously! I can take anybody I want to dinner!”
“Dinner?” Standish raised sooty eyebrows. “Was that what
you were doing at her apartment?” He bent over a sheet of
paper on his desk. “Eleven to one A.M. on the seventh of Au-
gust. Two A.M. on the tenth. Four A.M. on the fifteenth . . .”
Canninglet breath for another shout sigh through his teeth.
“Detectives ...”
“I like to know what my staff is doing.” Standish said vir-
tuously.
Big shoulders sloping, Canning edged around the desk.
“For eighteen years I’ve toyed with the idea of slugging you,
Edwin,” he growled. “At last I’ve made up my mind.”
“One slug,” Standish said, “and your dossier goes to every
criminal agency in the world!” Canning paused. At the same
time the telephone rang. Standish snatched the receiver off
its cradle. “I am not here!”
A voice said something at the other end and Standish's face
became bland, unctuous. “Yes, Mr. Widdecomb,” he said, and
listened for a moment. “That's not really necessary... She is!”
He listened again. “Yes, Mr. Widdecomb, I understand. Three
o'clock. I will meet you myself. And the apartment will be
ready. Yes, I know. Yellow roses. Depend on it.”
Mr. Widdecomb rangoff and Standish lowered the receiver.
“Hatchet Horace from Washington.”
“How come Washington?” Canning asked. “He was crawl-
ing around in the woodwork here last night.”
“Nevertheless he is just leaving Washington. By private
plane. With our beloved owner, Mrs. Cornelia Palmer. They
will be here at three to take personal charge of the manhunt.”
35


“Wow!”
“Very well put,” Standish said. He eyed Canning, all ani-
mosity gone for the moment. Both men had the grave expres-
sions of flyers about to embark on a suicide mission. “Storm
windows,” Standish muttered. “Medicinal brandy.”
“Weatherman says rain. Maybe the field'Il be socked in.”
“She still has her broomstick, Harry.”
“Yeah.” Canning stared morosely at his feet. “Which, no
doubt, she'll use across our backs.”
Clay asked, “Why Mrs. Palmer?”
“Why earthquakes?” Standish countered. “Why volcanic
eruptions?”
Head bowed in thought, Canning began to pace back and
forth in front of a stretch of mahogany-paneled wall. In turn-
ing he shouldered a tall lamp with a copper shade, caught it
before it toppled. “She’ll yell for the killer the minute she hits
the airport.”
“We'll give him to her,” Standish declared. “If we have to
frame somebody.” He grinned wolfishly at Canning. “How
would you like to volunteer, Harry?”
Canning removed his hand from the lamp. “How would
ou?”
!) “Unfortunately, I have an alibi.”
“So? What is it?”
Standish coughed delicately. “Please. A woman involved...
her reputation at stake.”
“Baloney!” Canning said. “You haven't been near a woman
with a reputation since you were nine years old.”
Head cradled in linked hands, Standish eased back in his
chair. “And what's your alibi, Harry?”
“Why don't you ask one of those goddam detectives of
yours?”
Their eyes clashed. Finally, Standish shrugged. “No. You
S6


S IN N E R S AND SH R O U DS
wouldn't do, anyway. Reflect on the Globe.” He became aware
of Clay watching in fascination. “What are you doing, stand-
ing around, eavesdropping—?”
“You called me back.”
“Get out!”
Clay went through the outer office, passing Miss Bentley,
Standish's secretary. She was a slender, haughty blonde with
remarkable breasts, and for the hundredth time he wondered
if they were real. He went into the big city room, spotted with
groups discussing the tragedy, and halted by Andy Talbot,
seated in Canning's chair in the center of the semicircular city
desk.
Speaking around a telephone held to one ear by a hunched
shoulder, Talbot asked, “What's the agenda?”
“Canning'll be here in a minute.” Clay started to go to his
desk, but Talbot said, “Stick around.” He put a plump hand
over the telephone's mouthpiece. “Roddy's going to have a
description.”
“Of what?” Clay asked, feeling his heart jump.
Alma Plummer detached herself from a cluster of reporters,
including O'Rourke and Fedderhof, by one of the windows
overlooking the river.
“Killer,” Talbot said. “Police been talking to the elevator
boy.” He stared at Clay. “What's the matter?”
Clay swallowed twice, then said, “Ulcers.”
The telephone control box buzzed and Talbot flipped a
switch, spoke into the telephone. Alma Plummer, at Sam's
elbow, said, “Mr. Clay...” Talbot said, “For you,” and handed
the phone to Sam. It was Tom Nichols. “How soon can you
get away, boy?” he asked.
“I don't know,” Clay said.
“We got Bundy and we're ready to go.”
“I’ll call you,” Clay said and hung up. Talbot was writing
37


something on a yellow pad. “I know I committed a faux pas
in Mr. Standish's office,” Alma Plummer said. “And I wanted
to ask you—"
Talbot spoke into the telephone. “Tall... lean, hungry face
... hooked nose... sandy eyebrows and hair? That's Clay all
right.”
“Oh, God!” Clay said.
“This may not seem important to you—” Alma Plummer
began.
“Full name's Sam Clay,” Talbot said into the telephone.
“Worked here for years.”
Clay felt as though someone had kicked him in the stomach.
He wanted to hide somewhere, but he couldn't move. He felt
his knees tremble.
“Want us to hold him?” Talbot said into the telephone, then
stared accusingly at Clay. “What in hell did you do last night?”
“The elevator boy,” Clay croaked. “How'd he know my
name?”
“Elevator boy! Don't kid me!” Talbot grinned crookedly at
Alma Plummer. “A dame, wanting to know if the Clay she
laid last night really works here.”
“My goodness!” Alma Plummer said.
“Adame?” Clay said, bewildered.
“You’re safe,” Talbot said. “She hung up.” He flicked a key
on the control box. “Roddy,” he said into the telephone. “What
ives?”
g Alma Plummer stared at Clay, round eyed, then hurried
away. Clay sank into Eddie Wynkoop's chair next to the slot.
He took a cigarette from Talbot's pack, dropped it on the floor,
picked it up and put it back in the pack.
“Did she give her name?” he finally managed to ask.
“She was stewed,” Talbot said. “No, not you, Roddy.”
38


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Canning came up behind Talbot, looked over his shoulder
at the yellow pad. “Anything yet?”
“Police still working the boy over,” Talbot said.
Canning turned to Clay. “Sam, you're to go over to the
apartment.”
“Apartment? What for?”
“Snoop around. Cops don't always get everything. Color,
too, if we decide to play it that way.” He examined the city
room, a general getting ready to deploy his troops. “And re-
port to me first, no matter what you dig up. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Clay said.
Talbot, still holding the telephone, gave his seat to Canning.
“Assignment sheet,” Canning said.
As Talbot was finding the sheet, Clay rose from his chair,
steadying himself on the desk. He thought irrelevantly, one
more near miss and I’m dead anyway!
“Roddy's still at the apartment,” Talbot said. He fingered a
switch on the telephone control box. “For you, Sam.”
Clay picked up Eddie Wynkoop's phone. “Clay?” a harsh
voice asked.
“Who’s this?”
“Pay no attention to that squarehead,” the voice said. “You
will report to me first.”
“Who's this?” Clay asked again.
“Almonds,” the voice said.
The light on the control box went out. “Get going!” Canning
said.
39


Chapter 5
A hearse and two black police cars squatted in front of the
apartment house, blocking the no-parking zone. In a rectangle
of shade under a tattered canopy lettered “Fifty-five East
Delaware” stood a uniformed policeman. On either side of the
canopy, in shirt sleeves and cotton dresses, were the strange,
faceless people who mysteriously appear at accidents, wed-
dings and funerals in a big city. The Observers, someone had
called them. People from another world. There were about
thirty of them, standing shoulder to shoulder, silent, motion-
less, watchful.
Sam Clay, making his way between hearse and police car
from his double-parked taxi, had an impulse to become an
Observer, too. He wished he was faceless and bodyless, so he
could go through the motions of covering the story unnoticed.
Especially by the elevator operator. For the tenth time he
wondered what he had told the police.
In the lobby, leaning one elbow on the reception desk, was
another officer. He was talking to a thin girl with black hair.
“. . . chicken pizza and green noodles,” he was saying. Clay
displayed his press card, keeping his head turned away from
40


S IN N E R S AND SH R O U DS
both of them. “Seven,” the officer said and added, “... yamake
'em with spinach.”
The bronze elevator indicator pointed to 9, but Clay found
he was unable to press the call button. He knew with utter
certainty the operator would recognize him the minute the
door opened. As he struggled inwardly, debating what to do,
metal clanked around the corner to his left. Avoice said, “Easy,
George,” and another voice said, “Hold them doors.” Clay
moved to the corner, almost collided with a stocky man carry-
ing the front end of a chromium ambulance bed. “Gangway,”
the man said.
Clay halted, staring at the sheet-draped mound on the litter.
It did not resemble anything human; in the dim light, swaying
gently with the motion of the men, fastened in place by two
canvas bands, without form or shape, it looked gelatinous,
like a jello mold made for a banquet. He watched the men
cross the lobby, then noticed a gnomelike face peering out of
the service elevator. “I knew her,” said the face. “I had an eye
on her.”
It was the hunchback who had been sorting trash on the
fourth-floor landing. Clay recoiled, then remembered the man
hadn't seen him. He moved to the elevator. “How about run-
ning me up to seven?”
The man was barely five feet tall. His fingers were thin,
gnarled. “Police?” he asked.
“Reporter.”
“Get in.”
The doors groaned as they slid together, and there was a
sound of chain striking metal as the elevator inched upward.
The hunchback's eyes, bright and furtive, flicked across Clay's
face.
“Harlot,” he said. “Woman of sin.”
The elevator creaked, then picked up speed with a series
41


of shuddering jerks. A door marked 2 went by. The man's
voice had a hollow sound, as though it was coming through
a DIOe.
P;e grew weary of her wantonness,” he said. “He sent His
Angel for her.”
Metal ground against metal as the elevator forced its way
past an obstruction, swayed past 3. The man hacked, spat
phlegm on the floor.
“Jezebel,” he said.
The numbers slid by. Clay's mouth tasted of cotton. The
corpse and the hunchback's croaking had unsettled his stom-
ach. He felt relief when 7 appeared and the elevator stopped.
“I had an eye on her,” the man said. “I was watchin' her.”
His face was ecstatic. “And I seen him. The Angel of the Lord!”
The door opened and Clay stepped into the hall, said
“Globe” to the policeman in front of 703 and went into the
apartment. A gray-haired man in a Palm Beach suit was seated
on the black satin divan cleaning the bowl of a briar pipe with
a penknife. There were shreds of caked tobacco on his pants.
He glanced at Clay.
“Ain’t you kinda late for the party?” he asked.
Clay stared at him unhappily. He had covered other homi-
cides handled by Lieutenant Diffendorf and he knew he was
one of the best men in the Bureau, an honest, intelligent officer
whose refusal to play politics had kept him from being Chief
of Detectives.
“Where's Roddy?” he asked.
“Back bedroom. Body's gone, thoug
“I saw it.”
Diffendorf knocked his pipe against an ash tray. “Ought to
be a law against homicides on Sunday.” He sniffed at the bowl.
“Especially ones that don't make sense.”
He cocked an eye at Clay, but Clay didn't say anything.
22
e
42


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U D s
The lieutenant's voice became faintly outraged. “Guy comes
up with girl God knows what time. Or meets her. Anyhow,
they drink brandy in the bedroom. Very gay, up to about five
o'clock, when he suddenly decides to cut her up. Which seems
to meet with her approval, because she don't resist. Then the
guy, doubtless wore out by his exertions, goes to bed and
pounds his ear until a little after eight.”
“How do you know that?” Clay asked.
“He answers the phone, even makes a joke. ‘It’s your dime,’
he says. 'Speak up.’” The lieutenant eyed Clay. “We got that
right from your own paper.”
“Yeah?”
“Lady called us. Laura Peterkins, by name.”
“Society editor,” Clay said. “Did she . . . recognize the
voice?”
“‘Muffled, she said. Thick, like a drunk. Big help.” Diffen-
dorf began to whittle at the pipe again. “The guy showers and
shaves and gets dressed, pockets the murder weapon and a
ten-thousand-dollar bracelet, but leaves a clip worth about
five, clubs the maid with the brandy bottle and waltzes out
in the Sunday sunshine...”
He broke off, stared at Clay. “You listening?”
Clay wasn't. His eyes were fixed on an object half hidden
behind Diffendorf on an end table. His hat! He had difficulty
resisting an urge to pick it up. The lieutenant turned to see
what he was looking at, lifted the hat between thumb and
forefinger. “How come?” he asked.
Clay managed to reply, “How come what?”
“The interest. You recognize it?”
“Looks like one of mine.”
“You better hope it ain't.” The lieutenant put the hat back
on the table. “Because so far it's about all we got.”
“How do you know it's his?” Clay asked weakly.


“Maid. Says it wasn't here yesterday.” Diffendorf's clear
blue eyes rested on Clay's face. “Want to claim it?”
“God, no!”
“Okay.” Diffendorf yawned. “And now, since you know
everything I do, why don't you go away?”
Clay turned and started down the hall. He knew the lieu-
tenant was joking, but he also knew it would take only a few
more jokes like that to arouse his suspicion, which would be
fatal. How could he have forgotten the hat? And what else had
he forgotten?
He went into the bedroom, found Roddy and the Tribune's
Kitty Kelly watching a bulky detective examine the dressing
room. From the doorway, except for a pile of used flash bulbs
in a corner and some cigarette stubs on the carpet, the bed-
room seemed unchanged, but Clay felt no particular emotion
of any sort.
Roddy came over to him, spoke out of the corner of his
mouth. “Too bad you missed her. A real dish.”
The detective heard him. “If you happen to like raw ham-
burger,” he said. He straightened up from a drawer, a bras-
siere dangling from one hand, and stared at Clay. There were
sweat stains under the armpits of his seersucker coat.
Roddy introduced him as Sergeant Storm. The sergeant did
not seem pleased to meet Clay. “You the guy stole the X-ray
plates in the Zimmerman case?” he asked.
“Now, Sarge,” Roddy said.
“Well, tell him to keep his hands in his pockets this time,”
Storm said, bending back over the drawer. “Both hands.”
Roddy shrugged. He was a mousy littleman who in twenty
years of covering the Detective Bureau had learned to like
cops. He had even married a policewoman. “Want the dope?”
he asked Clay, extracting a pencil-scrawled envelope from his
hip pocket.
4.
44


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Clay borrowed a pencil and another envelope and wrote
down: “Mary Trevor, 24, 55 E. Delaware, fashion reporter,
time of death undetermined, don't know if raped yet, body
to County for posting, bracelet, murder weapon missing, maid,
Clarissa Simpson, 22,3812.S. State, surprised killer, KO'd with
brandy bottle, still hysterical, Trevor dame no apparent rel-
atives in Chi, came from Fort Worth year ago, police there
checking, dragnet out here, pick up all registered sex offend-
ers, checkback on dame's last movements, question apartment
people, taxi drivers, night spots, all available men assigned
says Acting Chief Summerfield, promises quick arrest.”
Clay glanced over what he had written, asked dubiously,
“All available men?”
“Couple of dozen assigned,” Roddy said. “Most of 'em been
here and gone.”
“Probably back to bed,” said Kitty Kelly. She was a tiny,
intense woman with too-big eyes who specialized in stories
about the perils encountered by young women taking jobs as
B-girls, dance-hall hostesses, dental assistants and gun molls
in the big city.
“What about the elevator boy?” Clay asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Roddy turned the envelope upside down,
squinted at some chicken marks near the top. “Clarence Gil-
more, 19, 738 West Ashford.”
“Soprano,” Kitty Kelly said.
“Soprano?”
“Claims he's a singer,” Kitty Kelly said darkly. “If he is, he
sings soprano.”
“A jerk!” Sergeant Storm said from the dressing room.
Roddy looked at the envelope again. “Took a man down
just before the maid rang the bell.”
“Brown hair, tall, wearing either a brown or a gray suit,”
Sergeant Storm growled. “Fit half the men in the city.”
45


“Said he'd recognize him, though,” Roddy said.
“He wouldn't recognize his own ass,” Sergeant Storm said,
coming out of the dressing room. He scowled at Clay, then
went out the hallway door. Roddy put his envelope away.
“That's the works,” he said. “So far, at least.”
“The maid?” Clay asked.
“Diffendorf's got a man questioning her.”
“She knows something,” Kitty Kelly said.
“Everybody knows something,” Roddy said.
He went out the door and Clay stared after him, mentally
sorting out what he had learned. There didn't seem to be many
leads. The hat, which he doubted could be traced back to him;
the elevator boy, as long as they didn't meet, and even Laura
Peterkins didn't seem particularly dangerous. Not, at least,
until he was a suspect, God forbid! As for the maid, he de-
cided, he'd better keep out of her way.
“The wages of sin,” Kitty Kelly said.
“What?”
“This golden cage,” Kitty Kelly said. “You don't think she
paid for it herself, do you?”
“I hadn't thought.”
“How much do you suppose she made on the Globe?”
“Hundred a week, maybe.”
“Well ...?”
It was an idea. Somebody must have been keeping her. A
hundred a week would barely pay for maid and rent, he
thought, with little extra for clothes, jewelry and mink coats.
Unless she was an oil heiress, and in that case she wouldn't
be working on the Globe. At least he wouldn't, if he were an
oil heiress.
“... the manager,” Kitty Kelly said.
“What?”
“I said, find the manager. He'll know who paid the rent.”
46


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U D S
“Good idea. Where is he?”
“Think I'd be here if I knew?” She slipped between the beds,
picked up the phone and began to dial. At the same time she
said, “What's the matter with you today, Sam?”
“Dumb,” he said. “Just dumb.”
He got out the envelope he had borrowed and wrote: “Apt.
Mgr.—rent? What abt checking account? Where bot coat?
Where bot jewelry? Who paid maid?”
Kitty Kelly spoke softly into the telephone. “Pat? Kitty.
Body's gone now. County morgue. And I’m about cleaned
up. ... Sure, I'll hang on.”
Clay started toward the dressing table, remembering the
gold-beaded evening purse there, but near the dressing room
entrance his foot struck something that gurgled as it toppled.
He bent over and righted the brandy bottle, which had been
standing just where he had left it.
“Naughty, naughty!” Kitty Kelly said from the bed.
“Mustn't touch!”
He went on to the table, reached for the purse.
“First National,” Kitty Kelly said.
“What?”
“Her bank,” Kitty Kelly said.
Clay glanced at her over his shoulder. “How do you know?”
“Purse.”
“What about the mink coat?”
“Marshall Field.”
“Clothes?”
“Marshall Field.”
“And the clip?”
“I’m not psychic.”
“The hell you're not!”
He went through the dressing room into the bathroom. The
towel he had used was still crumpled on the floor and water
47


was dripping in the shower. He stood looking at himself in
the mirror. He seemed pale but composed, as the saying went.
He wished his brain was clearer though; there were probably
a dozen things he ought to be looking into. He felt like a cub
reporter on his first case. Or maybe a murderer, after his first
murder. His mouth felt dry and he drank some water out of
the glass in which he had put the Alka-Seltzer tablets. Then
he went back to the bedroom. Kitty Kelly had gone. He sat
on the bed he had slept in and dialed the Globe's number on
the telephone. Andy Talbot switched him to rewrite, to Delos
Parkinson.
“How much do you want?” Clay asked.
“Everything fit for me to hear,” Parkinson said primly.
He seemed to know most of the essential facts, but Clay
gave them to him again, anyway: described the apartment
and ended up with Kitty Kelly's idea about the manager.
“Name's Hill,” Parkinson said. “Playing golf. Brinks out
looking for him now.”
“Who found that out?” Clay asked.
“Damned if I know. Hold on. Desk wants you.”
Andy Talbot came back on the phone. “What a madhouse!”
he said. “People running like crazy!”
“Who found out about the apartment manager?” Clay
asked.
“Canning. Knows him, I guess. Why?”
“Just wondered.”
“Action, my boy, not wondering, is the watchword!” Talbot
said. “Grill elevator boy. Grill maid. Grill doorman, mailman,
milkman, ashman, beggarman, thief!”
“Okay.”
“And in your spare time, you better answer a few calls.”
“What calls?”
“Same drunk woman. No name. Will call back.” Talbot
48


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
rustled some papers, paused while he found the one he was
looking for. “Your wife, Alice. Call at once. Tom Nichols.
Ditto. Girl named Gwen. Ditto. What you got, boy, a harem?
Drunk woman again. Same routine. Camille Nichols. Please
call. Could this be Tom's wife? And does Tom know?” He
paused, took a deep breath. “One more. Man. Sinister voice,
sending shivers up and down spine. Mr. Almond. Says you
know where to reach him.”
Clay shook his head, trying to absorb this flood of informa-
tion. “That all?”
“All! You keep on and we'll need a special switchboard!”
He hung up. Clay dialed Standish's private number. The
receiver was lifted after the second ring. “Mr. Almond—” he
began.
“Peterkins,” Standish said. “Go talk to her.”
The line went dead, but Clay remained motionless on the
bed, phone in hand, thinking. If there was anything he wasn't
going to do, it was talk to Laura Peterkins. Yet if he didn't,
Standish would wonder why. Maybe he could pretend he had
lost his voice; write notes to her. Sure. Maybe he could wear a
mask in the apartment elevator, too. Just little things that
wouldn't arouse suspicion.
Two strange detectives came into the bedroom—middle-
aged men in rumpled blue suits. One carried a black case. He
put it on the bed beside Clay. “Who said you could use the
phone?” he asked.
“I’m from the Globe.”
“Get lost,” the detective said, opening the case.
As Clay stepped into the hallway, he heard Kitty Kelly's
voice in the living room. “What did you do after he hit you,
Clarissa?” “Jest lay there,” a voice replied. “Would you show
us?” Kitty Kelly asked. “Go ahead,” Lieutenant Diffendorf's
voice said. “Like to see myself.”
49


The door to the hall closet was open and Clay slid through
it, his heart pounding. He might have guessed they’d bring
the maid up! He pawed the coats lining one end of the closet,
pretended to search them as footsteps passed outside. It
sounded as though at least a dozen people were going by. His
throat tickled, but he managed not to cough. Finally there
was silence, and he moved back to the door. He felt something
under his foot, saw he had crushed a half-smoked cigarette.
He stepped out of the closet, came face to face with the col-
ored maid.
Her scream echoed crazily along the hallway and he re-
coiled violently, bumping head and shoulder against the par-
tially open door. She backed away, too, her eyes like poached
eggs on a piece of rye toast. She screamed again.
Diffendorf ran from the bedroom, followed by Kitty Kelly,
Roddy, Sergeant Storm and one of the strange detectives.
“What the hell goes on?” the lieutenant demanded.
“That man!” the maid said, pointing at Clay.
“No!” Clay heard himself gasp. “No!”
“Come right out of the closetſ” the maid said.
Diffendorf wheeled on Clay. “What's the big idea?”
He had to swallow twice before he could speak. “Just . . .
just looking around, Lieutenant.”
“Same guy used the telephone,” the strange detective
volunteered.
Everyone stared at Clay who said desperately, “I wasn't
the only one.” -
“Stool pigeon!” Kitty Kelly said.
“We all used it,” Roddy said.
Diffendorf threw up his hands disgustedly. “I got a notion
to lock up the whole bunch of you!” He took a half step, peered
past Clay into the closet. “What'd you find?”
“Nothing.”
50


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Diffendorf bent, picked up the crushed cigarette. “What's
this?”
“Cigarette,” Clay said.
“Thanks.” The lieutenant glowered at Clay. “Yours?”
Clay shook his head.
Diffendorf frowned at the cigarette. “Parliament.” He
looked at the maid. “What kind did Miss Trevor smoke?”
“Didn't smoke none.”
Diffendorf bent, peered down at the closet floor. “Hal” he
exclaimed, and picked up a second cigarette.
“An' I swept that out clean yesterday!” Clarissa exclaimed.
The lieutenant handed the cigarettes to Sergeant Storm.
“Stick 'em in an envelope and mark 'em lab. They might find
something.”
“Like what?” Kitty Kelly asked, interested.
“Tobacco, maybe.” Diffendorf turned to Clarissa. “Now let's
go through it like we said. Wait until we're in the bedroom,
then come in and do just what you did when you found her.”
Clarissa's pretty, milk chocolate face was frightened. “She
still in there?” she asked. “The body, I mean...”
Diffendorf said, “No,” and some of the tension left the maid’s
face. “As for you,” Diffendorf told Clay, “let us play detec-
tive.”
“I told him,” Sergeant Storm said.
“And I told you to get the elevator boy.”
Sergeant Storm went down the hall and out the front door.
Diffendorf and the others filed into the bedroom, leaving Clay
alone with the maid. “Dear God,” she whispered, “make 'em
leave me go!” She walked slowly toward the bedroom, holding
an imaginary tray on outstretched hands like a sleepwalker
out of a Victorian novel.
Clay went to the front door and peered into the outer hall.
The policeman was still there, but there was no sign of Storm
51


and the elevator boy. He started through the door, then re-
membered his hat and paused again. He wondered if he dared
steal it, and in rejecting the idea as too dangerous, remem-
bered something the salesman had told him about the hat
when he bought it. One of the features, along with a green
feather which he'd removed, was an adjustable sweat band.
If he couldn't steal the hat, he realized, he could alter it so it
didn't fit, which would be better anyway. He was just bending
over it, about to pick it up, when the detective in the rumpled
blue suit came into the room.
“For God's sake!” he said. “Are you at it again?” When Clay
didn't answer, he said, “Either go back where the Lieutenant
can keep an eye on you, or get out.” He picked up the hat by
the crown, eyed Clay belligerently.
“I’ll go quietly, Officer,” Clay said.
He circled the detective and went out to the elevator. The
indicator pointed to 1. “Storm's got it,” the policeman in the
hall said.
“I’ll walk,” Clay said.
He was going through the unmarked door to the stairs when
the policeman called, “Hey! It's comin' now,” but he went on,
pretending not to hear.


Chapter 6
They stood at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Walton
Place, just far enough from the curb not to attract cruising
taxis, waiting for Amos Bundy and debating what to do. At
least Tom and Camille Nichols debated, while Sam half lis-
tened, wrapped in moody forebodings. He didn't have any
faith in Amos Bundy or anybody else. It was nearly one
o'clock; various investigations had been going on for almost
five hours, and nobody had turned up anything anywhere.
Nor did anyone seem likely to.
Just before meeting the Nicholses, he had called the Globe.
Andy Talbot told him the apartment manager, questioned by
Brinks in a sand trap off the eleventh fairway at Glendale, had
said Miss Trevor paid her rent ($220 a month) in cash, which
didn't prove anything. The manager had also said he was
shocked by the tragedy and that Miss Trevor had seemed like
a nice girl. He was willing to be quoted to that effect. So were
building employees, neighbors and tradesmen unearthed by
other Globe reporters. They said they were shocked and that
she had seemed like a nice girl. “Who's kidding who?” Andy
had muttered, hanging up.
Clay had also called Roddy, who said the only thing new
53


at the apartment was that the police had sent out for coffee
and ham sandwiches; and also Gwen, whose phone didn't
answer. He was wondering if he should have called Alice
when Nichols nudged his elbow.
“You paying attention, Sam?”
“I guess so. Why?”
Nichols was looking at the schedule Clay had drawn up of
the previous night. “I said . . . maybe you can make a little
more sense out of this thing now.”
“I can try.”
It was hot on the sidewalk, and the heavy air smelled of
gasoline. Two chunky men in bathing trunks, dirty towels
around their necks, went by on their way to the Oak Street
beach. The Sunday traffic moved slowly along the avenue.
“Clark Street strip joints,” Nichols prompted. “Then what?”
“Just what I wrote down.”
Nichols read from the schedule. “‘Walton Place. (TaxiP)
High-class trap behind iron fence. Very swanky. Brandy and
champagne at bar. Faint recollection of talking to woman.
(Could this be girl?) Nice feeling about woman.’” He eyed
Clay hopefully. “What else?”
“Nothing.”
“Come now, son.”
“Damn it!” Clay felt sudden irritation. “If I remembered
anything I'd tell you!”
“Mr. Bundy says he knows the place,” Camille said.
“Remarkablel Especially since the street's all of three blocks
long!”
º sell Bundy short,” Nichols said. “He may look like a
Methodist deacon on stilts, but he's savvy.”
“The late Mrs. Bundy,” said a voice behind them, “always
referred to me as ‘the dishonest Abe Lincoln.’”
The voice belonged to a very tall, very gaunt man. He was
54


brella. The theory was not just a guess, he declared, but the
result of certain preliminary investigations. There had, for
instance, been a call to a colleague in Fort Worth. Quite pro-
ductive. The dead girl, according to the colleague, had gone
to school there, grammar school and high school, under the
name of Mary Baumholtz. Ward of a spinster music teacher
named Esther Baumholtz. Genteel poverty until Esther's
death in 1952 of a stroke. Then, two months later, like a butter-
fly emerging from cocoon, Mr. Bundy said, smiling deprecat-
ingly, Mary Baumholtz became Mary Trevor. A Mary Trevor
with mink coats, French imports, a Cadillac convertible and
a luxurious apartment, but with no apparent source of income.
He paused triumphantly, apparently feeling he had scored
an important point. Maybe it was important, Clay thought,
but he didn't see exactly why. Apparently Nichols felt the
same way because he asked: “What's the answer?”
“Blackmail,” said Mr. Bundy. “As pointed out.”
Clay asked, “Who’d she blackmail?”
“That we must discover.”
His colleague in Fort Worth, Mr. Bundy continued, had
arrived at a similar conclusion while looking into an insurance
claim for the loss of an eight-thousand-dollar diamond ring
bought by Miss Trevor late in '53. For a time the colleague
believed the girl was working a fake claim racket, hence the
research into her background, but he abandoned this line
when he discovered she had opened a checking account for
fifty thousand dollars soon after Esther Baumholtz's death.
Theorizing blackmail, Mr. Bundy added, since he was never
able to discover where the money came from.
“Inheritance, maybe,” Nichols suggested.
“The elder Miss Baumholtz,” Mr. Bundy said, “left her en-
tire estate, amounting to two thousand fifty-four dollars and
forty-three cents, to her cat.”
56


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
As they weighed this information, thunder rumbled in the
west. A summer storm was making up over Oak Park. The
thunder sounded like people moving planks in a lumber yard.
Mr. Bundy glanced at his umbrella. “Blackmail,” he said
agall.
ºld be,” Clay admitted. “But how do we run it down?”
Mr. Bundy ignored the question. “Did you,” he asked,
“make along distance call from the Delaware Place apartment
to Washington last night?” He took a small notebook from his
vest pocket, flipped it open. “At four thirty-one?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so.”
Mr. Bundy studied the notebook. “The number called was
Dupont 7-7689. The conversation lasted three minutes. One
dollar and five cents, plus federal tax.”
“Well, I'll be damned!” Clay said.
“You don'tremember?”
“Who was the call to?”
“Unlisted number.” Mr. Bundy closed the notebook. “How-
ever, a colleague in Washington has been notified.” He put
the notebook back in his vest, frowning reflectively.
Clay reflected, too. He might have been at the apartment
when the call was made, but he felt certain he hadn't made it.
He couldn't think of anyone in Washington he'd be calling,
drunk or sober. Yet it was a funny thing for the girl to do. Half
past four in the morning was hardly the time for a social call.
It was a mystery and he felt pleased. Something had been
going on and maybe Bundy would find out what. He looked at
the gaunt man hopefully.
“I have other leads,” the detective said. “I will not bother
you with them now.”
“What can we do?” Nichols asked.
Clay said, “I’ve got to get back to work.”
“A few moments more...” Mr. Bundy pleaded.


He explained what he wanted. From the dimly remembered
bar behind the iron gates (which, by the way, said Mr. Bundy,
was the Vendome) to the dead girl's apartment lay Mr. Clay's
dark, tortuous trail. In effect, terra incognita, Mr. Bundy de-
clared. Unknown territory which Mr. Clay had to re-explore.
“That might take weeks!” Clay protested.
No, Mr. Bundy said. He did not think so. Once a few blazes,
so to speak, were sighted, the way would be easy. It might
even be that Mr. Clay's memory would return. If not, other
people would remember for him. Mr. Bundy listed them. Bar-
tenders, waiters, hat-check girls, taxi drivers, doormen—all
potential guides. And, he added, there was the woman Mr.
Clay had met in the Vendome. Who was she? Where had Mr.
Clay taken her? What light could she throw on the evening?
“Tune in for tomorrow's installment,” Camille murmured.
Clay asked, “Even if I can back-track, what good will it do?”
A great deal of good, Mr. Bundy asserted. He needed clues.
Clues, and a picture of the events leading up to the murder.
They had agreed to work on the supposition someone else had
done the killing, and that someone had to be found, had to be
dug up out of either the girl's past or the hitherto blank night.
And who, better than Mr. Clay himself, could give substance
to the night?
Clay's feeling of hope began to fade. Bundy sounded more
and more like a medicine man selling Hadacol. And, besides,
he doubted if he could even begin to give substance to the
night. In fact, he'd almost rather it stayed blank. And anyway,
there wasn't time. He couldn't just walk off an assignment,
vanish from sight, without somebody at the Globe getting
ideas. Standish, for sure, and very likely Canning, since they
both needed a victim to toss to Mrs. Palmer.
Suddenly the street corner conference, the three of them
chatting politely with Bundy like parishioners consulting
58


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
their minister about a church social seemed insane. “Nuts to
this!” he said.
“I know,” said Mr. Bundy. “My manner. Far too theatrical.”
He eyed Clay solemnly. “But even if I am a charlatan, what
have you to lose?”
Clay looked at his watch. It read 12:58. The Canadian edi-
tion was already on the presses, and the Bulldog deadline
wasn't until four.
“Okay,” he said. “A half hour. Where do we start?”
Mr. Bundy aimed his umbrella at a two-story brownstone
building a block down the street. “Vendome.” Then, after tell-
ing them to report any discoveries by telephone to his office,
he lifted his fedora, bowed to Camille and departed.
59


Chapter 7
The Vendome seemed to be closed, but both the metal gate
with the cast-iron V and the gray door with the painted black
V were unlocked. They moved tentatively into a marble-
floored hall with the gilt-edged mirrors and pink walls. To the
right was the bar, the imitation zebra-skin upholstery looking
dingy in sunlight that slanted from two narrow windows.
Back of the bar a bald man wearing a cotton undershirt was
dumping crushed ice from a sack into a storage compartment.
He didn't look up when they came into the bar. “We ain't
open,” he said. There was an eagle tattooed on his left arm.
Camille asked, “Could we see the bartender, please?”
The man needed a shave. “You’re seein him.” He shook the
empty sack over the container, tossed it to a corner of the bar
and picked up another sack. “So now blow.”
In a less assured voice, Camille began, “Mr. Clay was here
last night...”
“Yeah?” The man straightened, glanced at Clay and
yawned. “The big brandy-and-champagne boy.”
“And there was a woman . . .”
The bartender's eyes, bloodshot and knowing, slid up
Camille's legs and thighs to her face. “You his wife?”
“No. But he'd like to find the woman.”
60


“I’ll just take that dough back,” Nichols said, moving to-
wards the bar.
“A moment.” Emile held up a thin hand. “I think.” He
turned to Clay. “You try to buy the magnum of brandy, no?”
Clay stared at him blankly.
“You sure did,” the bartender said. “Got sore when we
wouldn't sell you one. Social injustice, you said.”
“Oh, my God!” said Clay.
“The lady say we go to the Little Club,” Emile said. “She
say she is known there.”
“Remember?” the bartender asked Clay.
“No.”
“Well, that's where you was heading when you left here.”
Nichols said, “That's where we better head now.”
“Closed,” the bartender said. “Ain’t open Sundays.”
Emile snapped his fingers. “Jacques!”
“That's real bright,” the bartender said. “Give him a jingle.”
Emile went out into the hall. “Headwaiter over there,” the
bartender explained. “Frog, like Emile.” He began to polish
glasses. After a while Emile returned, holding a sheet of paper.
“He remembers,” he announced. “Martel. Twenty-three
dollars.” He thrust out the sheet of paper. “Also the lady.”
“Hold out for another fiver,” the bartender advised.
“Look, brother,” Nichols said angrily, “I already gave
OUI––
y “Okay, okay,” the bartender said hurriedly. “Give it to 'em,
Emile.”
On the paper in Emile's spidery handwriting was: “Mrs.
Patricia Bruce, Melrose Manor, 3469 Edgewater Court.” The
name meant nothing to Clay.
Camille, leaning over his shoulder, asked, “You’re sure that's
the right name, Emile?”
“I write what Jacques tell me.”
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“What color hair?” Nichols asked.
“Brownlike,” the bartender said.
Clay felt relieved. The dead girl's hair might be described
as golden, platinum, corn or strawlike, yellow, tawny, saffron
or even xanthic, but never brownlike. Which indicated Mrs.
Bruce was somebody else, and that there'd been three women:
the redhead, Mrs. Bruce and Mary Trevor.
As Emile took the five-dollar bill, the bartender asked:
“Why the search, if you'll pardon the curiosity?”
“Fifteen bucks, brother,” Nichols said, “and we'll pardon
anything.”
“I mighta known.” The bartender blew on a highball glass,
began to spread the mist about with a discolored cloth. “For-
get I mention it.”
They went out through the mirrored hall, hearing Emile's
voice demanding, “Fifteen bucks? What he mean, fifteen
bucks?” and walked back to Michigan Avenue.
The taxi driver had never heard of either Edgewater Court
or the Melrose Manor, but with the help of a city street guide
borrowed from a policeman, he finally found both. The Court,
only half a block long, had evidently once been the parklike
access to four massive, red-brick houses, but now it was a
wilderness of tangled bushes, unkempt grass and flowers, and
elms spotted with some kind of a blight. On the last house
was a tarnished metal plaque reading MELROSE MANOR, and in
front of the plaque an overturned trash can had scattered card-
board boxes and torn newspapers across the walk.
The front door creaked, stuck open as they went into the
vestibule. The air inside had a musty smell. To the right were
six recessed mailboxes, and on the next to the end box was
glued a piece of paper on which had been printed in violet
ink: Mrs. Patricia Bruce. Above the box was a black button
63


and Nichols pressed it with histhumb. After a time he pressed
it again, but there was no answer. He tried the vestibule's
inner door, found it was open.
“What's her number?” he asked.
“Five,” Camille said.
The inner stairway was unlit and the worn carpet felt slip-
pery under their feet. Somewhere on the first floor meat and
onions were cooking and toward the rear of the building a
radio was broadcasting a ball game. Apartment 5 was at the
end of a hall on the second floor.
Their knocking echoed inside the apartment, but no one
came to the door. “What'll we do?” Camille asked. Nichols
turned the doorknob, pushed and the door opened a crack.
“We housebreak,” he said. They followed him inside.
The room was dark except where the light from outside,
seeping through heavy curtains, outlined the squat shapes of
chairs, glistened on silver picture frames and faintly illumi-
nated a rectangle of green carpet. A clock ticked by one of the
windows. Clay jumped as Camille called softly, “Anybody
home?” He didn't like the feeling the apartment gave him, and
he liked it even less that there was no answer.
“Steady, son,” Nichols said.
He went to a window, parted the curtains. Sunlight, flecked
with golden dust, sheeted the floor, brightened the green of
the room's walls. It seemed to be a sort of living-dining-bed-
room. On one side was an alcove with a painted table and
three chairs, and in a recess on the opposite side, half-con-
cealed by moth-frayed velvet drapes, stood a pull-down bed.
In the main part of the room were two lumpy overstuffed
chairs, one yellow and one green, and a sofa with cotton show-
ing through split seams. On a table by the sofa's head was an
empty gin bottle.
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Do you suppose House Beautiful has seen this?” Camille
asked in an awed voice.
Nichols bent over the yellow chair. “What’ve we got here?”
He unpinned a torn piece of paper from the arm, held it to a
patch of dusty light and began to read aloud:
“Cleo—Love Nest for passion fruit. Walpurg night!
Cool, girl, cooll Rendez-me soonest Pat.”
They pondered this message in silence. Finally Camille
asked, “What's it mean?”
Nichols pinned the note back on the chair, then stared in-
quiringly at Clay. “You’re the family friend, boy.”
“Love Nest's a dive,” Clay said. “Queers.”
“Our Mrs. Bruce!” Nichols exclaimed in a shocked voice.
He went into the dining alcove. Clay followed, leaving
Camille in the living room section. “This place spooks me,” he
said. Nichols went into the pullman kitchen.
On the kitchen sink were dirty dishes, an egg that had been
cracked but not used, a half empty bottle of milk, a slice of
bread out of which a bite had been taken, and a dish of par-
tially melted butter. The milk smelled sour.
“Not the housekeeping type,” Nichols observed, opening a
cupboard.
“What do you think you're looking for?” Clay asked.
“Mrs. Bruce,” Nichols said, opening the icebox.
She wasn't there. As Clay uneasily watched other cupboards
being opened, Camille's voice, urgent, almost hysterical, came
to them. “Tom! Sam!”
“I knew it!” Clay exclaimed.
He followed Nichols into the living room. “In here!” Camille
called.
They went through a door by the folding bed, found her
65


standing in front of a small dressing table, peering at some-
thing on the table. “What is it?” Nichols demanded.
Camille could barely speak. “Look,” she said, pointing at
the dresser. “That photograph!”
The men bent forward to look. “Well, Jee-sus!” Nichols said.
“Jee-sus H. Ker-ist!”
Clay, squinting in the uncertain light, saw the photograph
was of a bride and groom standing under an arbor covered
with huge roses. The bride was pretty and she had on a veil
that fell from her head to a swirl of material at her feet. The
groom wore an Ascot scarf, a cutaway and a silk hat, and
under one of his arms was an enormous brandy bottle. Clay
bent closer, saw to his utter amazement that he was the groom
and that his free arm was linked to a woman he had never seen
before in his life. He knew, though, that she was Mrs. Bruce,
because under the picture was written in violet ink:
Sammy and Pat
66


Chapter 8
On Sunday the big drugstore in the southwest corner of the
Globe building resembled a cathedral. There was a hushed
quality about the interior, even with fans rustling the one-
cent-sale pennants that hung from wires like dry, festooned
flowers in a Mexican church, and the clerks went solemnly
about their business, attending the occasional customer like
priests performing rites, walking softly and speaking in low
tones. The displays, too, had a special quality on Sunday: the
pyramids of bottled mouthwashes and vitamin pills, of tooth-
paste and Kotex boxes, of soap bars and douche bags and razor
blades seemed like shrines, to be knelt before in silent prayer.
Sam Clay, remembering this feeling of peace, stopped at
the drugstore counter for a Coke before going up to the
Globe's city room. He needed a moment to pull himself to-
gether and to think, if either was possible, before plunging
into the hue and cry upstairs. He wanted mainly to think about
the photograph, but it was so inexplicable, so impossible, that
his mind refused to do anything but reject it. No matter how
drunk he had been, he kept assuring himself, he would never
have gotten married. Especially not to a woman he'd picked
up in a bar.
67


But then, another part of his mind assured him, neither
would he ever murder anyone. Yet it seemed more than likely
he had. With murder done, can marriage be far behind? he
thought incoherently, and ordered another Coke.
One thing, though: the marriage should be cleared up fairly
soon. The Nicholses were on their way to the Love Nest, to
Mrs. Bruce (he refused to think of her as Mrs. Sam Clay) and
she'd tell them what had happened. Maybe she could clear up
a lot of other things, too. Mr. Bundy had said it was important
to find out what he'd done during the night, and Mrs. Bruce
should be an authority on that. Why in hell couldn't he re-
member?
A man sat down on the next stool. “Most excitement since
Lincoln assassinated,” he declared, wiping sweat from his
puffy face with a paper napkin. It was Saul Blair, the paper's
veteran rewrite man.
“I thought you were on vacation,” Clay said.
“No longer.” Saul took a fresh napkin, wiped the folds of
skin under his collar. “Back to the engine house.” If he felt
the cathedral-like atmosphere of the drugstore he wasn't let-
ting it bother him. “Son!” he called to the soda jerk. “Banana
split and a double Bromol”
Startled, the boy let a triangle of chocolate pie slide from
a plate in his hand. It fell on the floor with a soft plop. He
started to bend over it.
“Leave it!” Saul shouted. “The Bromo! Pronto!” He rolled
the second napkin into a ball, flipped it over his shoulder.
“Damn miserable shame!” he said, his voice charged with
emotion.
“The pie's only a dime, Saul.”
“Pie?” Who's talking about pie? The Baumholtz girl.”
“Baumholtz?” For a second Clay was bewildered and then
68


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
he remembered. “The Trevor girl!” He felt a sudden interest.
“How'd you know her name was Baumholtz?”
Saul began tossing the Bromo-Seltzer from glass to glass,
like a magician doing a card trick. “Knew her aunt. High
school orchestra with her. Bass viol. Laura Peterkins, too. Won
the state contest.”
While Clay sorted this out, Saul noisily gulped the Bromo.
Some of the foam stayed on his nose. “Esther Baumholtz.” He
smacked his lips meditatively. “Fine woman, Esther.”
“You tell Standish about her?”
“He knows.” Saul lunged half over the counter, eyed the
nearly completed banana split. “Heavy on the whipped cream,
son.” He went on without turning his head. “If he doesn't,
somebody'll tell him. Half the staff's from Fort Worth–Can-
ning, Parkinson, Charley Adair, Laura Peterkins, me, Ma-
honey. Standish, too.”
“That's so.” Clay suddenly recalled hearing that when
Simon Palmer had bought the Globe in 1937, he had moved
in with most of the key men from his Fort Worth paper. “I’d
forgotten.”
Jowls trembling with the motions of his jaw, Saul began to
eat the banana split. Clay watched him for a time, feeling
there was a question he should ask, but not knowing what it
was. It was odd Standish had pretended to know solittle about
the girl: they must have talked about Fort Worth when they
were together. Canning, too. Why were they covering up?
Torn between eating and breathing, Saul finally chose
breathing. He leaned back from the counter, gasped, “What's
important ... her from Fort Worth?”
“I don't know,” Clay said. “Except maybe to find out who
brought her here.” -
Saul eyed him shrewdly. “Think a man's involved?”
“Could be.”
69


“Nope. Laura Peterkins hired her. Out of friendship for
Esther.”
Well, that's that, Clay thought, and then he remembered
something else. “You ever talk to the girl?”
“Couple of times.”
“She tell you why she changed her name?”
“Real name's Trevor probably.”
“You never asked her?”
“Why should I?” Saul balanced a huge spoonful of peach
ice cream, chocolate syrup, marshmallow sauce, chopped nuts,
whipped cream and cherries in front of his mouth. “None of
my business.” He engulfed the spoon with his lips, then said,
“Kibdledhertoutitoncetow.”
“What?”
“I said, I kidded her about it once, though.” He turned to
Clay, black eyes twinkling above the discolored liver blots.
“Mary Trevor ... Larry Trevor.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“For Pete's sake! Oklahoma badman. Larry Trevor and the
Hooded Nun!”
“Burl Ives,” Clay said.
“Him,” Saul agreed, “and every other guitar thumper in the
country.”
“But the song's made up,” Clay protested. “Folklore, like
‘Frankie and Johnny.’”
“Folklore, my eyel Oklahoma history. Pair robbed fourteen
banks, killed eleven men in twenty-eight days spring of '32.
Robbed three banks in one morning!” Saul took a deep breath,
began to chant in a whisky-cracked voice:
“Their third that day was the Ardmore bank,
With Cashier Earl and President Frank
Because he moved when Trevor said, ‘Halt!’
The President died in the open vault.
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
The Cashier knelt by the Forty-Five,
Promising all if they'd leave him alive.
When Trevor said, ‘Earl, I'll pass you by;’
Cried the Hooded Nun, “That man must die!’
‘He saw my face, cried the Hooded Nun.
From under her robe she drew her gun,
A blue-steel Colt en-laid with pearl,
And that was the end of Cashier Earl.””
Saul let his voice fade to a ghostly whisper with the final
“Cashier Earl,” giving the song a sinister tone. The entire
drugstore was silent, except for the rustling one-cent-sale pen-
nants.
“Should have stuck with voice and the bass viol,” he said.
“Wouldn't have cirrhosis now.” He began on the ice cream
a 91a1n.
g still don't get it,” Clay said. “What you were kidding her
about.”
“Play on names. Larry Trevor—Mary Trevor. Asked her
how many banks she'd robbed.” Saul was getting bored with
the conversation. “Nincompoop, like you. Never heard of
Larry Trevor.” He pointed a carbon-blued finger at the soda
jerk. “Boy, lay another scoop of peach on this mess.”
Clay wanted to ask about the Hooded Nun with the pearl
en-laid pistol, but he realized the adventures of the Oklahoma
pair, no matter how fascinating, had nothing to do with him.
He paid his check, said, “See you later,” and left Saul bent
over his banana split, a plump man engaged in digging his
grave with a long-handled spoon.
In the city room the atmosphere had changed. There were
no groups of gossiping reporters now, no running feet, no
* Larry Trevor and the Hooded Nun. Copyright 1934 by Elmo Peterkins.
71


shouting, no confusion. Instead, a sort of electric tension, a
sense of urgency hung over everything. There was no talking
at the ordinarily relaxed copy desk; the rewrite men were
working hard, hunched over their typewriters with almost
identical scowls, and a dozen legmen were carrying on tele-
phone conversations in earnest voices. Even the copy boys
had a sober air. It was like the feeling before a deadline, but
magnified a hundred times.
Canning lifted his massive head from a sheaf of copy as Clay
came up to the city desk. “Got anything?”
“Not much.”
“What'd Laura Peterkins have to say?”
“I haven't had time to see her yet.”
“Well, get on it.” Canning's eyes were bleak. “Couple of
other things, too. Want you to talk to the elevator boy. Gil-
more.”
Fear knotted Clay's stomach. “He’s here?”
The pale eyes studied him. “No, but we'll find him for you.
Meantime, go see the Plummer girl. She's got a summary of
what's come in.” Canning lowered his head, began to X out a
paragraph on the sheet in front of him. “Read it and we'll
talk.”
The knots loosened as Clay crossed the city room, but he
still felt queasy. Laura Peterkins and Clarence Gilmore. The
two people he couldn't face, and Canning was pushing him at
both. He was wondering how long he could dodge when he
reached Alma Plummer's desk. She retreated to the far edge of
her chair, her skin turning an unpleasant shade of pink. “Mr.
Canning said—” she began in a fluttery voice.
“I know,” Clay said. “Where's the dope?”
Alma pointed to some folded sheets of yellow paper beside
her typewriter. “Police reports, what our people have found
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
This was a surprise, but he didn't know if it made him feel
better or not. It certainly didn't make him any safer. He lis-
tened to the others discuss the matter. Canning thought it
ended the sex fiend angle, but I. P. Geisel didn't agree. He
pointed out that the mutilation of corpses was a well-known
sexual deviation, citing Krafft-Ebing. “Go on,” Standish told
Clay.
“‘Chemical analysis of stomach not completed. Time of
death: 4:15 to 4:30 A.M.’” Clay lowered the sheet. “That's
funny!”
Standish unplugged the razor, put it in a drawer. “What is?”
“Somebody made a long distance call from the apartment at
4:31.”
“How do you know that?”
“Friend in the telephone company.”
About to fill a glass from the silvered thermos on his desk,
Standish paused to stare at Clay thoughtfully. “After she was
supposed to be dead?”
Clay nodded. “Call was to Washington, to an unlisted num-
ber.”
“Know whose it is?”
“Not yet.”
“What was the number?”
“Dupont 7-7689.”
There was a tinkling crash as the thermos glanced off the
desk, fell to the Inca-blue carpet. Water and broken glass
spewed from its mouth. Standish remained immobile, his
empty hand poised over the desk. “What?”
Clay repeated the number. He glanced from Standish to
Canning to I. P. Geisel. The three men all had the same fixed,
'in-looking, vacant expression, as though they had simultane-
ously become idiots. “Whose number is it?” Clay finally asked.
75


Standish was the first to speak. “Miss Bentley, for God's
sake, clean up this mess!” He toed the broken thermos, then
chuckled. “You think what I thought, Harry?”
Canning said, “I sure did.”
Miss Bentley picked up the thermos, muttered, “... rag,”
and went out of the room. Standish chuckled again. “Change
one digit around, Sam, and what number do you think we've
got? The White House!”
“Dupont 7-6789,” I. P. Geisel said.
Standish grinned at Canning. “Get our Washington people
on it, Harry.”
“Right.”
Clay thought, Right, hell! Who were they kidding? He
wished he knew what the number of the White House was.
He'd ram it down their throats. He was wondering if he should
call their bluff anyway, when he realized they were staring at
him. “Well, Sam,” Standish said. “We’re waiting.”
He read from the sheet again. “‘Elevator boy and maid re-
leased after questioning. Not implicated. City-wide check
being made with retailers on hat left in apartment. Also on
night clubs and restaurants to determine where girl spent eve-
ning and who with.’”
He paused a second as Miss Bentley crossed in front of him,
knelt on the rug and began to push glass into a dustpan with
a damp rag, then read the next paragraph.
“‘Fingerprinting of apartment completed. Wire-photos to
FBI. Expect reports backsoon. Exclusive from Roddy: During
fingerprint examination, trace of sticker found on brandy
bottle. Laboratory examination under ultra-violet light dis-
closed lettering: TLE CLUB. This doubtless the Little Club on
North Avenue. Sergeant Storm assigned to find out who
bought bottle and when. Believe this best lead to killer yet!”
Clay's voice broke a little as he read the final sentence. It
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
was the best lead, all right. It was the lead that would nail him.
He felt the stirring of panic.
Standish was frowning at him. “We can do without the
inflection,” he said. “This is a report, not a dramatic reading.”
“Yes, sir,” Clay said. “That's all from the police.”
He tried to unfold the next sheet and found he had suddenly
developed palsy. He dropped the sheet, caught it, finally man-
aged to get it open. At the top was typewritten: STAFFREPORTs.
“This is from our people,” he began.
“No need to go into that,” said Canning, “I’ve already given
Edwin the highlights of what we've got.”
Standish regarded him suspiciously, then held out a claw-
like hand. “I’ll take a look just the same.”
Canning grunted as Clay handed over the sheet. “Faith,” he
said. “It’s wonderful!”
The next page was headed: MY VERY own scoop! Standish,
smoothing his sheet out on the blotter, snarled, “Go ahead.
Time's getting short.”
“This is from Alma Plummer,”Clay said, and read: “‘Roddy,
phoning in labels on girl's clothing, listed sapphire mink stole
from Weingartner's. Know Mr. Weingartner well from Beth
Israel Temple. Telephoned him and miracle of miracles! The
lamb remembered! Sold sapphire stole just two weeks ago for
$795 wholesale. Buyer was Mr. Standish from our own paper!
How's that, Mr. Clay?’”
Standish seemed to be trying to push the sheet in front of
him into the blotter, his palms moving back and forth convul-
sively. Canning quoted in a mincing voice, “Just a fatherly
interest.” I. P. Geisel made a tsk-tsk sound with tongue and
teeth. And Miss Bentley, rising from her knees, hit Standish
on the side of the head with the dustpan, sending glass all over
the rug again.
77


“And I got dyed rabbit!” she exclaimed. “You double-cross-
ing son of a bitch!”
She marched out of the room, head and breasts high in out-
rage. I. P. Geisel began to tsk-tsk more rapidly, sounding like
an eccentric Geiger counter, but the tsk-ing was abruptly
drowned out by Canning's laughter. The laughs came from
deep in his belly, shaking his body and turning his face purple.
Unable to stand, he fell into a leather chair, pounded the arms
with his fists. He laughed, choked, laughed again. “Oh, God!”
he gasped. “I have not lived in vain!” Another spasm shook
Standish sat through this quietly, his face impassive. He
waited until the laughter had died away, then said softly, “I
will remember this, Harry.” His left ear was red from the im-
pact of the dustpan.
Canning choked, fought back further laughter. “Me, too!”
he said in a strangled voice.
Rising from his chair, Standish turned to one of the win-
dows, stared down at the river below and spoke into the
Brewster green drapes. “Satyriasis. An insatiable venereal ap-
petite, Webster says.” He swung from the window. “So I got
it.” He smiled crookedly. “Now let's get on with the business
at hand.”
I. P. Geisel leaned forward until his chest was almost touch-
ing his knees. “One thing, Edwin. Did you...?”
“I never reached first base, so help me!”
“And you, Harry?” I. P. Geisel flicked a piece of lint from
his trousers. “Edwin tells me you ...”
The laughter died in Canning's throat. He frowned,
growled, “No hits.”
“Good. Though what the police will make of the stole...”
The lawyer shook his head somberly, peered through sparse
eyebrows at Clay. “The other sheet in your hand?”
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Just a message for me.”
“The airport, then.” I. P. Geisel raised his long body from
the couch in a series of disjointed, jerky movements. “And
Mrs. Palmer.”
Standish came around the desk, put a hand on Clay's shoul-
der. “I know we can count on your discretion, Sam.” His voice
was warm. “After all, you're one of the family.”
“You can,” Clay said, “if you'll answer a couple of ques-
tions.”
“Shoot.”
“Why didn't you or Harry tell Mahoney to check the girl in
Fort Worth under the name of Baumholtz?”
“Baumholtz?” Standish turned puzzled eyes to Canning.
“Harry?”
“I never heard the name.”
“Nor I.” Standish continued to press Clay's shoulder.
“Where did you run across that?”
Clay hesitated, then said, “Saul Blair. Told me she was the
ward of a Fort Worth music teacher named Esther Baum-
holtz.”
Standish nodded approval. “Good lead. We'll put a man on
Esther right away.”
“She died three years ago.”
“So? Still a lead, though.” He raised the hand to pat Clay's
shoulder, then, frowning, halted its downward motion. “Is
there something important about this?”
“I don't know,” Clay admitted. “But it seemed odd she
didn't tell you, all the times you and Harry talked to her.”
Standish grinned slyly. “I don't think either of us was in
terested in her childhood, Sam.” -
Clay felt a disturbing conviction he was telling the truth.
After all, there wasn't any special reason for the girl to volun-
79


teer the information. It was neither natural nor unnatural. He
felt a little foolish.
“Well, okay,” he said. “But how about leveling with me on
the Dupont number?”
“Now, Sam.” Standish's smile was chiding, “I thought we
explained—”
“I can check the White House in two minutes.”
The smile faded. “Suppose you do that,” Standish said
slowly. “Now!” He jerked the telephone cable, caught the
telephone as it slid off the desk, thrust the handpiece at Clay.
“Washington information!” Crimson circles, like splotches of
rouge, colored his cheeks. “And when you've made your call,
you'll either apologize or start looking for another...”
He broke off, staring at the door. Al Feldman, one of the
dayside reporters, was standing there, his panama hat tilted
over his eyes, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. He looked
like the movie version of a Miami gangster. “Chief—” he
began huskily, but Standish cut him off. “Get out of here!”
Feldman took an involuntary step backward. “But, Chief,
I got something.” The gangster look was gone. “Might be big.”
Crouching, feline, Standish started to stalk him, but was
halted abruptly by the telephone wire. “Call me Chief once
more—” he strained against the wire like a tethered tiger
“—and Monday you peddle papers in Cicero!” He watched the
effect of this and then, apparently satisfied, asked, “Well, what
is it?” º
Feldman took the cigarette from his mouth. He took off the
panama. “I have the elevator boy, Mr. Standish.”
“And so?”
“He didn't tell the police everything.”
“Why not?”
“Dough.” Feldman rubbed thumb against forefinger as
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
though counting hundred-dollar bills. “Figured he had some-
thing to peddle.”
“Has he?”
“Well, he claims he can describe two men and a woman who
were frequent visitors.” Feldman's voice was more assured.
“And, he thinks, the killer.”
“Informer, eh?” The telephone wire dropped into a loop on
the rug as Standish went back to his desk. “Bring him in.”
Feldman leaned through the door and called, “Okay, Clar-
ence.” Frozen, Clay stood motionless for a moment. Then,
impelled by an animal instinct for shelter, he sidled toward
shadows at the rear of the room. He reached them just as the
elevator boy entered. “Clarence Gilmore,” Feldman an-
nounced as though presenting royalty.
Nattily dressed in a size-too-smallseersucker suit, open-toed
sandals, egg-yolk yellow socks and a matching necktie, Clar-
ence resembled a costumed Easter rabbit. He halted a few
steps from the door, his nose twitching, his pink-rimmed eyes
blinking in the light from the river windows. “The man told
me,” he began, then started all over again in a deeper voice.
“Five hundred dollars!” His wrist bones showed below his
cuffs.
I. P. Geisel moved between him and the others. “We will ask
for a notarized deposition.”
“A what?”
“In effect, an affidavit.”
“I can give you that, I guess.”
“Five hundred then, to be paid on signature.” I. P. Geisel
paused. “That is, provided the information warrants it.”
“Oh, I got the information. Yes, sirree!” Clarence's smile
was smug. He was on familiar ground again. “You see, I'm a
musician. Vocalist. Trained memory. All musicians got to
work on their—”
81


“Some other time,” I. P. Geisel said. “The descriptions,
please.”
“Well, sure.” Clarence put a palm to his forehead, the dra-
matic gesture of a man dredging his memory. “First of all
there's this fat lady. Floppy hats, orange-colored hair in a bun,
polka dot dresses, handbag as big as a suitcase—”
“Laura Peterkins,” Canning said.
“Righteel Heard the girl call her Laura.” He peered trium-
phantly around I. P. Geisel at Canning. “And then there's this
hulking monster, crush-you-to-his-manly-chest type. Butch
haircut, big jaw, about fifty ...”
His voice dwindled away as he stared at Canning, not be-
lieving what he saw. “Well, go on,” Canning growled.
Still uncertain, Clarence slowly turned from the big man to
Standish. “Then this second fella. Dude. Cane and spats. Sort
of Adolphe Menjou character . . .”
This time the voice ended in a frightened squeak. Clarence's
hands fluttered. His Adam's apple, bobbing vertically, made
the yellow tie twitch. He said something that sounded like
“Aawk,” looking down apprehensively at Standish, who in
turn, regarded him with a sinister half-smile. For a second
time Clarence said, “Aawk,” and then, pulling himself to-
gether, pried his eyes from the desk and directed them to the
far corner of the room to where Clay was standing.
“Of course, the big thing's the killer,” he said hurriedly. “I
got a good look...” He halted again as Clay's face came into
focus. “Good look ... good look . . .” He sounded like a de-
fective phonograph record. *
“Go ahead, man,” Standish said impatiently.
“Oh, God!” Clarence said wildly. His knees buckled a little.
“I got to go!”
“What about the killer?” Canning demanded.
“Killer?” Clarence stared imploringly at Clay. “Killer? Why,
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
he was a . . . big fellow. Great big fellow. Three hundred
pounds. Beard. Long curly hair...” His jaw kept working but
no further words came out.
“That all?” Standish asked.
“I got to go,” Clarence said. Feldman took hold of his arm.
“But you told me—”
Clarence jerked the arm away. “I was kidding. Honest!" He
circled Feldman, edged crabwise toward the door, his eyes
still on Clay. “Money. Torture. Still know nothing . . .” He
vanished.
Everyone stared in astonishment at the empty doorway.
Shaking his head, I. P. Geiseltsk-ed, said, “Demented!” Stan-
dish and Canning exchanged glances. “Manly chest,” Standish
murmured. “Adolphe Menjou,” Canning retorted. Feldman's
eyes widened. “He was describing you two!”
“Until,” said Standish with satisfaction, “we scared the holy
crap out of him.”
“But he'll high-tail it to the police!”
“Let him,” said Canning.
“He won't,” Standish said. “Man silent, fears underworld
vengeance.” He turned to Clay,made a beckoning motion with
a finger. “Still want to make that Washington call?”
Clay wanted, most of all, to disappear, but he nodded. At
the same time the phone rang, Standish picked up the receiver.
“Yes? She what! Five minutes ago?” He lowered the receiver.
“Disaster!” His lips worked convulsively. “Mrs. Palmer has
landed!” He leaped to his feet, started across the room.“Where
in hell are those yellow roses! Miss Bentley! Miss Bentley!” He
plunged through the door and the others, led by I. P. Geisel,
plunged after him.


Chapter 9
Clay found his back hurt where it had pressed against the wall.
In fact, it seemed to be stuck there. He pushed himself away,
walked shakily to the desk and collapsed in Standish's chair.
He couldn't believe it. It was like being shot at, point blank,
and coming out without a scratch. Or, he reflected, like the
reprieve that arrives an instant before the switch is pulled. It
couldn't happen, but it had.
He thought about Clarence, the Easter bunny in a den of
wolves. There was, he realized, a sort of cockeyed logic in
what he'd done. He'd been scared. Scared enough, what was
more, to do a lot of thinking before he went to the police.
Which meant time hadn't quite run out. The problem, though,
was what to do with it. He was like a man, he decided gloom-
ily, running on a treadmill against an unspecified time limit
that was subject to change at any moment. It was a tough race
to win. If he could win.
He swiveled the chair around to Standish's private tele-
phone and dialed long distance. When the operator answered,
he said, “Washington, D.C., please. Dupont 7-7689,” and after
a pause, gave her Standish's number. He wondered what
Standish would say when he saw the charge on his bill. There
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
was another pause, then Washington answered, repeated the
Dupont number and began to dial. He felt his heart beat
quicken. The phone rang once; there was a click, a humming
noise with an undercrackle of static, and a man said: “Dupont
7–7689.”
There was a strange quality about the man's voice. He had
no accent, but he sounded foreign, pronouncing, enunciating
each word a little too perfectly.
“This is the Chicago Globe,” Clay said. “We'd like—”
“Please make your message brief,” the man interrupted.
Clay suddenly remembered an interpreter who had at-
tempted to teach his air group basic Japanese during the war.
That was what the man sounded like: a language instructor.
“Who is this?” he asked.
He waited, but there was no answer.
“Look,” he said. “Would you have the person under whose
name your number is listed come to the phone? It's impor-
tant.”
The man remained silent.
“Can you hear me?” Clay demanded.
For a moment it seemed as though there wasn't going to be
any reply to this either. Finally the man said, “You have thirty
seconds. Please finish.”
“Thirty seconds!” Clay began to get angry. “We’re paying
for the call, not you! Whose residence is this?”
Ten seconds went by, followed by the humming-static
noise, and with a second click the line went dead. Clay sat
quietly, holding the receiver to his ear. He had an eerie feel-
ing, as though he had, by a quirk of electronics, been acciden-
tally connected to a Martian outpost on earth. Or to the Rus-
sian Embassy. It was spooky. His thoughts were interrupted
by a cheerful this-world voice saying: “Your party has discon-
nected. Do you wish us to ring the number again?”
85


“Never mind.” He put the handpiece back in place, said,
“Moses!” and swung the chair around to the desk. There was
undoubtedly an explanation, but he didn't have it. The con-
versation was unlike any he'd held in twelve years of calling
up people as a reporter. Maybe his mind was going. Or maybe
the whole thing was a nightmare after all. He stood up. He
found he was still shaky, but he was also angry.
Clay crossed the city room to Alma Plummer's desk. She
wasn't there, but by her typewriter he found a carbon marked:
STAFF REPORTs. It contained a long summary of what the vari-
ous reporters had done sofar, but beyond indicating that Can-
ninghadassigned every available person to the story, revealed
nothing of importance. He put the carbon back, saw the car-
bons of the other two sheets and remembered he hadn't looked
at Talbot's note. It was in his coat pocket. He straightened it
out, discovered it contained three pencil-scrawled sentences:
Alice you-know-who says vital you contact her.
Man named Bundy wants you to call. Tip from
underworld pal. Shouldn't repeat, but never liked
arrogant one-armed bastard it involves: namely
Charley Adair of our sheet. Seems he had the girl
with him on night club beat last P.M.
ANDY
He looked over to the city desk for Talbot, but Eddie Stein-
kamp was sitting in his place. Charley Adair! That was a block-
buster, if true! It probably was. Andy's source must have been
pretty reliable, Clay realized, or he wouldn't have passed the
information along. He recalled that Saul Blair had listed Adair
among those who'd come to the paper from Fort Worth. A
tie-in there, all right. Then there was the fact that Adair hadn't
mentioned being with the girl. Of course neither had he, but
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
it would be interesting to find out why Charley had remained
silent.
And there was still another thing. Adair was reputedly rich.
Oilroyalties, Clay remembered having heard, so the girl could
have been blackmailing him. It was sounding better all the
time. If he just smoked Parliament cigarettes!
Picking up Alma's phone, Clay got the direct wire to the
detective bureau. Clive Thompson answered, his voice muf-
fled by something he was chewing. Clay told him to ask Lieu-
tenant Diffendorf for the lab report on the cigarettes found in
the apartment closet.
“Diff's still out, but I can check the lab direct,” Thompson
said indistinctly. “Call you back.”
By the time Clay had reached his own desk, the phone was
ringing. “Moisture content of tobacco high, indicating butts
weren't there long.” Thompson reported. “No trace of nar-
cotics. No lipstick on filter tips, indicating male user. End of
transmission.”
“Thanks, Clive.” Clay hung up and the phone immediately
rang again. A woman's voice, high pitched, asked, “Sam?”
“Yes.”
“This is Gwen. Oh, Sam, I found them!” Her words tumbled
out unevenly. “I didn't mean to. In the bookcase. I found
them!”
“Found what?”
“Oh, I'll never tell. To the grave. I promise. I’m leaving
now. All packed. Freddie English. He's been asking me. We'll
just drive and drive—"
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“Good-by, Sam.” Her voice was choked. “And bless you
even ... even...” She sobbed, hung up.
Clay stared at the telephone incredulously. Either he or
Western Electric, he thought, had better consult a psychia-
87


trist. He tried to remember what he had in the bookcase. No
pornography, except possibly the Memoirs of Casanova, and
he doubted if there was anything in the six volumes Gwen
didn't already know. Something had wound her up though.
He wondered who Freddie English was. It was going to be a
memorable trip, if he was any judge, for good old Freddie.
Canning, coming into the city room, called, “Clay!”
“Just a second.” Clay dialed Amos Bundy's number, gave
his name to the woman who answered. “Mr. Bundy would like
to see you at once,” she said in a clipped, British voice.
“I can't make it just now.”
“Come as soon as you can, please.”
“Right-o!”
“Thanku.”
“Q,” said Clay.
He went across the room to Canning who was thumbing
through a three-inch pile of copy. Eddie Steinkamp, in Tal-
bot's place, was fighting a losing battle against the call lights
flashing on the telephone control box. “Give you rewrite,” he
said into his phone, flipped a switch, said, “City desk, hold
on,” flipped another switch, said, “Be with you in a sec,
O'Rourke,” flipped a fourth switch, said, “City desk, hold on.”
Across his back, sweat had turned his pink shirt lavender.
Canning spoke without looking up. “Standish is about to
blow a gasket.” He could read copy and talk at the same time.
“Let him,” said Clay.
“So say I. But don't get out on a limb.” Crumpling a two-
paragraph 4-head, Canning dropped it on the floor. “Any
ideas?”
“I wish we'd get something from Fort Worth.”
Canning frowned at the next page, picked up a pencil and
destroyed three sentences. “The sex fiend angle doesn't send
me either.”
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Not with that telephone call.”
The pencil halted. “Remember the limb.”
“But God damn it, Harry!" Clay said. “I’m going to find out
about that number sometime!”
“Maybe.”
“No maybe about it! I'll ...” He broke off, realizing he was
sounding like a petulant child. “Okay. Maybe.”
Tossing two dismembered stories into the wire basket be-
side him, Canning growled, “Copy!” Still flipping switches,
Eddie Steinkamp yelled, “Copy!” A frightened-looking boy,
black hair hanging over his eyes, darted up, said, “Copy,”
seized the stories and trotted to the copy desk.
Clay said, “There's one thing new. I don't know how it fits
though.” He told Canning about the half-smoked Parliaments
and what the police laboratory had reported. “Could be the
guy was hiding in the closet,” he concluded.
Canning was giving him his full attention now. “That's
damn interesting.” He reached behind him, put his hand in
the pocket of the coat hanging on his chair, pulled out a rec-
tangular silver case, thumbed it open. “Cigarette”
“Thanks.” Clay took one from the case. As he bent over the
flame of the offered lighter, he felt an icy prickling between
his shoulder blades. The cigarette was a Parliament.
“Cotton filter.” Canning's china-blue eyes examined Clay's
face speculatively. “Stinks like hell if you get down too far.”
Clay let smoke come out his nose. “ITl remember.”
“Yeah. Do that.” The lighter's top, snapping, snuffed out
the flame. “But right now you'd better get busy on Laura
Peterkins.”
“I’ll call her.”
“Go out there.”
“Why?"
“Standish says she wants to see you in person.”


Startled, Clay sucked in too much smoke, coughed. The
telephone conversation! She had recognized his voice. But
why hadn't she told Standish? He coughed again.
“I don't know why either,” Canning said, misreading his
thoughts. “Maybe she wants to get laid.”
Clay grinned feebly, started to turn away. Canning said,
“Sam,” halting him in the middle of his first step. “One thing.”
Amusement softened the harsh lines on the granite face.
“Standish smokes Parliaments, too.” -
On his way to the building's lobby, Clay thought about that.
So everybody smokes Parliaments. That is, if Charley Adair
did. Smoke Parliaments and be a murder suspect. Maybe he
could sell the idea to Benson & Hedges for an advertising
campaign. Alvin, the white-haired operator of the executives'
elevator, looked at him dubiously as he entered the car. “I’m
supposed to hold for Mrs. Palmer,” he said. “She's coming in
from the airport.”
“She wouldn't want you to neglect your duty, Alvin,” Clay
said. “Thirty-one.”
The top two floors of the Globe building, served by Alvin's
elevator alone, held the offices of all the high executives ex-
cept Standish. On thirty were such people as I. P. Geisel,
David Crawdor, vice president in charge of advertising; Julius
Rubin, whose brother, Jake, had been a gangster, circulation
manager; Joe Weatherby, personnel, and when he was in
Chicago, Horace Widdecomb, hatchet man for all the Palmer
publications. On thirty-one were Mrs. Palmer, likewise when
she was in town, and, surprisingly, Charley Adair. No one had
ever figured out why he rated such eminence except, it was
conjectured, as a suave bachelor Mrs. Palmer could call upon
to entertain guests, and herself, when the need arose. This was
quite likely since Adair, in addition to being a Rhodes scholar
and a war hero who had lost an arm somewhere in Asia, was
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
a darkly handsome, literate and, when he wanted to be, ex-
tremely charming man.
However, he never wasted any of the charm on Globe un-
derlings, and when Clay found him on the hedge-enclosed
terrace outside his office sharing brandy-laced tea and finger
sandwiches with a statuesque blonde and two men in Oxford-
gray suits, Adair pretended not to see him.
“... a neglected instrument, the kazoo,” he was saying: “A
cock's challenge in Red McKenzie's hands, raucous and lewd,
a braggart, a bully, a flap-wing lover.”
“Oh, yes!” the blonde breathed, entranced.
“The quintessence of Chicago-land style,” Adair declared.
As the others nodded their heads, Clay moved a pace for-
ward and asked tentatively, “Could I see you a minute?”
Adair appeared to notice him for the first time. “What's
that?” Clay repeated the question and Adair frowned. “Can't
it wait?”
“It's pretty important.”
“Nuisance!” Adair put down his teacup, smiled resignedly
at the others. “Be right back.” He walked with Clay into his
office, paused to close the plate glass door. “What is it?” The
white glove on his false left hand changed shape as the metal
claws inside released the knob.
Clay took his eyes off the glove, said, “I’m supposed to be
running down leads on the Trevor girl.”
“I attended the conference.”
“I know.” Clay wasn't quite sure how to begin and before
he could speak Adair was back of his desk, tapping the black
Formica top with an impatient fingernail. “Well?”
Clay felt his ears start to burn. “Well, to be blunt, I got a
tip you were with the girl last night.”
A small breeze coming from the air conditioner back of the
desk made yellow curtains tremble by the window framing
9I


the north half of the city's skyline. The fingernail clicked
against the Formica, remained there, rigid, but Adair's face,
lean, brown and, because of the pencil-thin black mustache,
Italian looking, was impassive.
“So?”
“So, were you with her?”
“Are you asking that on your own initiative?”
Clay nodded.
“Well, this is a surprise.” Adair scowled thoughtfully, then
turned to the ceiling-high book shelves on the rear wall, his
back towards Clay. “Are you asking me to help you?”
“I’m asking for an answer.”
The books were mostly French. Clay saw the names of Ver-
cel, Proust, Anatole France, Flaubert and a whole line of
paperbacks from the Série Noir. In a vacant space on one
shelf was an African woodcarving of a mule's head; from an-
other peered a Toltec stone face.
Adair said, “Suppose I won't give you an answer?”
“Look,” Clay said. “I’m trying to give you a break. I could
go to Standish or—”
Adair swung around, his face ugly. “A break! That's one for
the birds!” His eyes glittered through narrow slits. “You’d
better get out of here while you can.”
“The hell I will!” Anger flushed Clay's face. “Were you with
her or not?”
“Very well.” Adair's voice was harsh, but he had it under
control. “I’ll answer that.” He bent, took the grain-leather lid
off a tape recorder on a wrought iron stand beside the desk.
“And then I'm going to beat hell out of you.”
He uncoiled the recording mike, dropped it on the desk
and turned on the machine. It crackled, then was silent and
Adair stepped back of the desk. He spoke in a steady voice:
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“This is Charles Adair. Time: 3:05 P.M., Sunday, August 24.
Will you put the question to me again, Mr. Clay?”
Puzzled, Clay stared at Adair's dark face. “Why the ma-
chine?”
“I want a record of this conversation.”
“All right. Question: Were you with Mary Trevor last
night?”
“I was. At eight o'clock I met her for dinner at the Bismark
Hotel. At ten, having eaten, we went to Dick & Eddie's. Be-
tween eleven and two we also visited the Encore, Chez Gus,
the Silk Hat and the Minuet.” The perfectly controlled voice
slowed for emphasis. “At two Ileft her at the Minuet bar.”
“And then?” Clay asked.
“I came to the office and wrote my column. Around five I
went home. I did not see her again.”
Adair switched off the recorder. “So much for the answer.”
He came around the desk. “Now for part two.” His right arm,
fist clenched, was cocked for a punch.
“Look,” Clay backed away. “I’m just doing a job.”
“Put up your hands.”
“I don't get it. What are you sore about?”
Holding his false arm stiff against his side, Adair hit him on
the cheekbone. The blow sent him against the wall. Right arm
still cocked, Adair moved forward.
Clay said, “You know I can't hit you.”
“Can't you?” Teeth gleamed under the thin mustache. “So
much the better.” Adair struck again, a hook with his shoulder
behind it and Clay's head hit the wall. For a second the room
spun crazily and he found he was sitting on the floor. Nausea
gripped his stomach, left a sour taste in his mouth.
Adair looked down at him dispassionately."The well-known
streak,” he said. “Men and hyenas.”
93


“You bastard!” Clay said. “You one-armed bastard!”
He rolled, scrambled to his feet between desk and bookcase,
and when Adair came for him, flung the recorder at his knees.
Glancing, the machine crashed to the floor, tubes bursting,
amber tape uncoiling. Adair, sent off balance, crashed into the
bookcase. Clay took a wild swing at his head, missed, and in
turn was shaken by a kick that jolted his ribs. He tried to
move in, tograpple, but Adair swung him hard into the book-
case. Books, African mule, Toltec face toppled to the floor.
Adair caught him with a glancing hook, a straight right be-
tween the eyes, another hook to the left ear. Dazed, he barely
avoided a fourth blow, swung and missed again. By now Adair
was three foggy, dancing men, dealing out punishment at will.
A fist smashed against his jaw, against his neck, against his
head. He finally blocked two blows with his elbows, but Adair,
turning, brought the false left arm around in a flat circle as
though cracking a whip, and metal struck bone below Clay's
temple . . .
At first there was blackness, a throbbing, pain-warped black-
ness that came from nowhere and went nowhere. Then the
blackness began to change. It changed to gray and the gray
changed to white, as though gauze was being peeled off his
eyes, a layer at a time. He saw pink-veined marble and a door
and a pair of shoes that didn't belong to anybody in particular.
He saw a hand with a bloody thumb. The hand moved and it
was his, and so were the shoes. He pulled them under him and
sat up and the blackness came back.
After a time he got to his feet, pressing both palms against
the marble wall to steady himself. The movement made him
sick and he retched once, but nothing happened. The retch-
ing hurt his ribs, his head, his back. He swallowed, and his
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
throat hurt. He pushed himself away from the wall, and at the
same time someone came toward him down the corridor.
It was Lieutenant Diffendorf. He looked smaller than he
had in the apartment, a medium-sized, nondescript man in a
Palm Beach suit that needed cleaning. He halted, appraised
Clay briefly, incuriously, and then removed a tobacco pouch
and his brier pipe from a pocket. He unzipped the pouch.
“Nothing like a marble floor,” he said, tapping tobacco into
the pipe. “For resting, that is.”
Clay grinned feebly. “Not when you're tired,” he agreed.
“You look real tired.” The lieutenant's eyes, rising from the
pipe, were tinged with amusement. “Nose is leaking, too.”
Clay put a finger to his upper lip, felt a coating of warm,
sticky fluid. He saw his coat and shirt front were bloody.
“Want a handkerchief?”
“I’ve got one.”
While Clay gingerly daubed at his nose, Diffendorf held a
kitchen match to the pipe. He took his time lighting it, exam-
ining the bowl twice to make sure the tobacco was burning
properly. He started to drop the burnt match on the corridor
floor, then changed his mind and put it in his pocket. Finally
he sighed, emitting a stream of blue smoke.
“Know where I find a fellow named Charley Adair?”
“You bet,” Clay said. “Right through that door.”
95


Chapter 10
Cushioned by two doubled beach towels, a bottle of Old Tay-
lor, corked against moisture, within arm's reach, Clay sat in
his shower stall, let steam and hot water soak his body. He had
been there twenty minutes and the whisky and the heat, the
steady rush of water and the swirling mist that dimmed the
overhead light, all working together, had calmed his nerves,
taken away most of the pain from the beating.
After an examination of his body, he had concluded that
Adair was a boxer, not a puncher. Nothing was broken, not
even his nose. The only really painful injury was below his
temple where the metal arm had caught him, and it only hurt
when he moved his jaw. Once that was well, he had decided,
he would demand a return match. Thirty-first Floor title, free
punches barred, winner take all.
Now, head bowed to the falling water, he tried to figure out
why it had happened. If he'd ever done anything to Adair,
stolen his girl or a record from his jazz collection, it would
make sense. But he barely knew him. Yet there had been
hatred there. Class A hatred. The one-armed hero had wanted
to kill him. It couldn't be because he'd discovered Charley was
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
with the girl. That was bound to come out sooner or later.
Then why? He didn't know.
There were too many things he didn't know. He felt he
should be putting them in order, giving them their proper
weight, analyzing, eliminating, deducing, but instead they
skittered around his brain like dry leaves in a windstorm. Ciga-
rettes, the telephone call, blackmail, the dead girl's strangely
composed face, his hat, Charley Adair, the elevator boy,
Laura Peterkins, the Angel of the Lord, the brandy bottle,
Mrs. Bruce, the wedding photograph...
He picked up the Old Taylor, took along drink. For instance,
he thought, take Laura Peterkins. Why, if she'd recognized his
voice on the telephone, hadn't she told the police? Or, at least,
Standish? No answer. Then there was the mysterious voice in
Washington. What was the explanation of that? Or of Stan-
dish's attitude about the number?
He would have liked to stay in the shower, cloaked from the
world by opaque door and swirling steam, but he forced him-
self to his feet. He turned off the water and began to towel his
body. He was stepping into a clean pair of shorts when the
phone rang in the living room. He caught it on the fourth ring,
lifted the receiver and listened without speaking.
“Sam?” Alice's voice asked. “Is that you, Sam?”
He hung up. He didn't want to hear anything Alice had to
say. She was on her way to the Lake Forest house, the place in
Bermuda, the society page photographs she had always
wanted. Why couldn't she leave it alone? He went back to the
bedroom, kicked his bloody clothes into the closet and finished
dressing. Briefly he thought of their parting after eight years
of marriage. It had been accomplished with an economy of
words Chekhov might have envied. He had come home one
night and found her in the living room, her bags packed.
“Where are you going?” he had asked.
97


“Away.”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
“You want a cabº"
“I’ve got one, thanks.”
There it was, in all its stark Russian simplicity. The parting
of Dante and Laura, of Abelard and Heloise, of Darby and
Joan. It was only later he learned she'd already made a deal
with one Lucian B. Marsden, broker, clubman and stuffed
shirt.
He glanced at himself in the mirror above the bureau. Out-
side of a certain puffiness and the welt under the temple, his
face looked all right. Surprisingly, he felt all right, too. Prob-
ably because about everything had now happened to him that
could. Divorce, murder, a beating. Turning from the bureau,
he noticed the Sunday comics lying on the floor. The comics
made him think of Gwen, and thinking of Gwen made him
remember that she had babbled something about the book-
case over the telephone.
As he went into the living room, he recalled another event:
the presumed marriage to Mrs. Bruce. Still more everything!
Examining the bookcase, he noticed two volumes of the Ox-
ford English Dictionary out of line on the second shelf. Every-
thing, he thought, short of being nabbed by the police. But in
bending to straighten the line, he suddenly saw he was wrong.
More was coming. Between the two volumes, deep on the
shelf, metal gleamed. He knew what it was instantly, feeling
the bottom drop out of his stomach. Slowly he removed one
volume, took out a pair of heavy shears, the long pointed
blades stained with dried blood.
98


Chapter 11
It was a hundred-year walk from the Bundy Agency reception
room, with the blond furniture, the switchboard, the electric
typewriter and the automatic water-cooler to the dim interior
of Mr. Bundy's office. It was a change of centuries, a trip to a
museum, a visit to a certain Springfield law office. Clay, seated
in a huge, springless leather chair and watching Mr. Bundy's
stub pen scratch the pages of a cloth-bound ledger, felt as
though he had inadvertently wandered into the fourth
dimension.
It was mostly the furnishing. The golden oak hatrack, for
instance, from which hung Mr. Bundy's umbrella, his black
fedora and a plaid mackintosh. He couldn't recall when he
had last seen a hatrack. Or a mackintosh, for that matter. Or
a china cuspidor. Or green-glass-shaded oil lamps. Or lace
antimacassars. Or a grandfather's clock, the remembered tick-
ing still inexorable and still too slow.
Mr. Bundy had been writing a long time. He had made
notes on pieces of paper while Clay, still unnerved by the
scissors, had produced a jumbled resumé of everything that
had happened since the discovery of the body. Now he was
transferring the notes to the ledger. Finally finished, he put
99


the pen with others in a pewter mug, closed the lid of the ink-
pot that had been made from a deer's hoof.
“I will review,” he said, bending over the ledger. “And in
so doing, present a theory.”
“You’ve got a theory?”
“I have.” Reaching across the oak desk, Mr. Bundy pressed
the plunger on a silver bell, caused it to send out a musical
note. “An extremely interesting one.” Aspinster lady appeared
in the doorway. “Tea, please, Miss Dewhurst. Then telephone
an establishment called the Love Nest. Either Mr. or Mrs.
Nichols.”
“At once,” said Miss Dewhurst, disappearing.
“Now,” said Mr. Bundy slowly, “we will reconstruct the
murder.”
He pulled the ledger closer, peered down at it near-
sightedly. Time: approximately 4:30 A.M., he read. Present:
Mr. Clay and the murderer. And of course Miss Trevor. How
had the murderer gotten there? Quite easily. No elevator op-
erator from midnight to 8 A.M. During these hours the mur-
derer could have gone up and down unobserved. (Parentheti-
cally, Mr. Bundy disgressed, it was very possible he had been
observed, was the “Angel of the Lord” described by the
janitor.) How did he get into the apartment? A key obtained
from either Miss Trevor or her colored maid. Why not from
someone else? A Mr. Robert Hill, the apartment manager, had
supplied the answer to this. Two weeks ago Miss Trevor had
arranged for a new lock on her door, asking specifically there
be no pass key. Just two keys, one of which Miss Trevor had
given to the maid in Hill's presence.
“Very significant,” Mr. Bundy said, looking up from the
ledger. “Even then, apprehension.”
“We'd better get hold of the maid.”
“A man has been assigned.”
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S IN N E R S AND S H R O U DS
Mr. Bundy was about to go on when Miss Dewhurst ap-
peared with the tea. As she arranged cups and saucers, a plate
of lemon slices and a large flowered teapot on the desk, she
said, “I was unable to reach either Mr. or Mrs. Nichols.”
“Had they been there?” Mr. Bundy asked.
“Yes. The person to whom I spoke said Mrs. Nichols had
been gone for some time.” She peeped into the pot, satisfied
herself the tea was ready, and began to fill the cups. “Mr.
Nichols left later with someone named Cleo.” She eyed Clay.
“Lemon?”
“Thank you.”
“Q.” Miss Dewhurst smiled faintly, put a slice on one of the
saucers. She looked more like a governess than a secretary.
“The person to whom I spoke added something I failed to
understand.”
“What was that?” asked Mr. Bundy.
She handed cup and saucer to Clay. “The person said, and
I quote: ‘Seven passion fruits and zowie! They blew, Cleo
zigging and the gent zagging.’”
Mr. Bundy's eyebrows arched.
“A drink they serve there,” Clay explained. “Powerful. Like
a zombie.”
“My goodness!” said Miss Dewhurst. “Seven!”
“Try the Nichols' home,” Mr. Bundy directed. Miss Dew-
hurst went out, shaking her head.
“Cleo's the one the note was for,” Clay said. “They must
have gone to look for Mrs. Bruce.”
“The question is,” said Mr. Bundy dryly, “will they know
when they find her?” He tasted his tea, smacked appreciative
lips. “Let us continue.”
Important clues, he declared, consulting the ledger again,
had been unearthed in the apartment. One, the half-smoked
cigarettes, indicated the killer had hidden in the closet, which
IOI


in turn indicated he had arrived before Mr. Clay and the girl,
had waited for an opportune moment to commit the crime.
Which was after Mr. Clay had gone to sleep.
This was a new thought to Clay. It made sense, however.
Nothing short of an atomic blast would have wakened him
once he'd passed out. It was a grisly idea, though: murder
being done while he lay there. He shivered, for the first time
thinking of the killer as another person, a shadowy, dangerous
antagonist.
Mr. Bundy continued. Another clue was the peaceful ex-
pression of the dead girl. It could only mean that she was
asleep, too, when the murder was committed. There were the
ripped garments, of course, but they could have been torn
after she was dead.
“Why did he bother with the clothes?” Clay asked.
“To make it appear you had attempted to attack her.”
“Why not rape her then? Make it airtight?”
“I imagine he would have liked to, but couldn't.” Mr. Bundy
rang the bell. “And this very inability causes me to believe we
are dealing with a sexually normal man, rather than a psycho-
ath.”
p Miss Dewhurst came into the room, put another flowered
teapot on the desk. Bundy picked it up, asked, “Hot water?”
Clay shook his head, said, “Okay. I buy so far. But how do
the scissors fit?”
Miss Dewhurst coughed delicately, and when they glanced
at her, said, “I have Mrs. Nichols.”
“You may bring the phone in here.” Mr. Bundy turned to
Clay. “If you would be so good—I distrust electricity.”
Dragging the extension cord behind her, Miss Dewhurst
returned. Clay took the telephone, said, “Camille, this is Sam.”
“What have you done?” Camille demanded. “Taken refuge
in the British Embassy?”
I02


“It was the killer, using your keys. And with your address,
if not already known, obtained from your wallet.”
“But Gwen said—” Clay began.
“A most interesting point. What Miss–Miss Pearson saw
was a figure wrapped in something she described as a cloak.
Naturally, she assumed it was you.” He paused impressively.
“I am quite certain it was the janitor's Angel of the Lord.’”
Clay had an eerie conviction that Mr. Bundy had suddenly
gone mad. “The Angel's nonsense!”
“I wonder.” Mr. Bundy's voice was reflective. “How would
a cloaked figure, coming and going in the dead of night, be
rationalized by an addled religious fanatic?”
“But even sol” Clay exclaimed. “Would a killer wander
around the city in an opera cloak”
Mr. Bundy frowned thoughtfully. “We must find an ex-
planation.”
Clay shook his head dubiously. It had sounded fine up to
the Angel angle, but that was completely cockeyed. Some-
thing right out of left field. He felt a momentary loss of faith
in Mr. Bundy and then he realized the theory was still good,
better in fact, without the Angel. He felt relieved.
Mr. Bundy was eyeing him speculatively. “You realize, of
course, there is still one major question.”
“No, I don't.”
“Why didn't the killer notify the police after he left for the
second time—after returning your keys? So they would be
certain to find you?”
Clay shook his head again. It was a major question, and he
had no answer. Before he could say so, Miss Dewhurst ap-
peared at the door. “A Mr. Ellenstein,” she announced.
Bundy said, “Ask him to wait,” and went on. “In the answer
to why he did not lies the crux of our problem.”
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The crux, he repeated with satisfaction. And very possibly
the flawed link in the chain the killer had attempted to fasten
around Mr. Clay's neck. It concerned the alibi, or rather, Mr.
Bundy corrected himself, the lack of an alibi. Was this clear?
No? Then he would put it another way. The killer had not
called the police because he had needed time to establish the
alibi. An hour, two hours, perhaps more. To reach a summer
cottage in the Indiana dunes. Or a house in the suburbs. Or
to type a column that should have been completed earlier. Or
for some equally valid reason. There were many possibilities.
But all of them, Mr. Bundy declared, led to one conclusion:
he had to be where he should be when the murder was dis-
covered.
“Since he would be notified,” Mr. Bundy added as an after-
thought.
“Why would he be notified? Unless he was a cop or a
newspaperman?”
“A newspaperman,” said Mr. Bundy, “is what I believe him
to be.”
Clay felt his spine tingle. His own theory! It was possible,
all right. More than possible. With the girl and half the staff
from Fort Worth, it almost had to be. That is, if the business
went back to 1952 when she'd changed her name, suddenly
began to spend money. Blackmail, Mr. Bundy had said on
Walton Place. Blackmail started in Fort Worth and continued
in Chicago. That was why she'd come to the Globe, worked
for a salary that meant nothing to her. She'd wanted to keep
an eye on her victim.
Mr. Bundy was watching his face. “You do not entirely re-
ject my theory?”
“No,” Clay said. “Except I don't see how I fit.”
“You are chance. The ragged stranger. The blind man in
I05


the square.” Mr. Bundy tried the teapot. It was empty. “You
were there so the murderer made certain alterations in his
plan. Improvements, so he thought.”
“How could he have guessed I'd black out?”
“He couldn't. I don't imagine he even considered the pos-
sibility. He wasn't concerned with your mental processes. It
was enough that you be incriminated so completely it would
make no difference whether you protested innocence or not.”
“He arranged that, all right.”
“But,” Mr. Bundy countered, “in so doing he also arranged
certain leads for us.” He enumerated them slowly. “We now
know what to look for in the way of an alibi; we know the
period to be considerably longer than first supposed; we have
the Angel of the Lord (I use this melodramatic term for lack
of a better one); we have the key, the cigarettes, the testimony
of the manager, the knowledge that the killer had been in
contact with the girl and that she was frightened of him...”
He paused for breath, then added with satisfaction, “All in
all, he would have done better to have selected another night.”
“I wish you'd gotten hold of him.”
Ignoring this, Mr. Bundy picked up the ledger. “We now
have certain suspects.” He turned two pages. “Adair, Standish,
Canning, your friend, Mr. Blair.” The ledger closed slowly.
“We are checking the movements of each. But which we sus-
pect most depends upon what we learn in Fort Worth.”
“You haven't heard anything more?”
“No. But soon, I trust. And from Washington. I, too, called
the Dupont number, carried on a conversation very similar to
yours.”
“Sounded like some kind of a foreigner.”
“Possibly. Possibly not.” Mr. Bundy eyed him thoughtfully.
“A call just at the time of death. Very strange. We must find
out whose number it is and who received the call and what
I06


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
the call was about. And quickly!" His voice became faintly
apologetic. “I have instructed my Washington colleagues to
use all measures necessary—short of murder.”
“Murder's okay, too.”
Mr. Bundy rang his bell. “I hoped you would approve.” To
Miss Dewhurst, whose head had appeared in the door, he
directed: “Mr. Ellenstein.”
Before she could reply, amiddle-sized man in a French-blue
linen suit pushed past her. “If it's my wife, Bundy,” he said
loudly, “she's got a nerve, after what I give her!” His eyes,
blinking angrily behind horn-rimmed glasses, looked too big
for his head.
“It’s not Mrs. Ellenstein.”
The man halted in front of the desk, light gleaming from
gold-nugget cufflinks. “Then it's that little twitch from the
Bomb Shelter!” Butterflies danced on his silk tie. “For her,
phooey!” Spittle accompanied the last word.
“This has nothing to do with fornication,” said Mr. Bundy
sharply. “We merely want some help.”
Ellenstein exhaled heavily. His eyes stopped blinking. He
unfurled a pongee handkerchief, patted his forehead. “In my
relief—anything!”
Mr. Bundy took the green hat-check out of an envelope,
laid it on the desk. “Is this from one of those nefarious traps
you maintain about the city?”
“Traps!” Ellenstein was outraged. “People got to have a
place to put hats and things, ain't they? Otherwise people
would steal 'em.” He gave the check an oblique, distrustful
glance. “Minuet. Mitzi France.”
Clay felt a surge of interest. The Minuet. That was where
Charley Adair said he'd left the girl. And if the check meant
anything, then he'd been there too.
“Mitzi France?” Mr. Bundy was asking. “The attendant?”
I07


“Alias Sophie Skouloudes. Old man runs a dirty spoon in
Chicago Heights.” Sudden apprehension made the eyes be-
hind the thick glasses blink. “Trouble?”
“No trouble. A few routine questions.”
Still faintly dubious, Ellenstein produced a small memo
book. “Mitzi,” he read. “1125 Diversey. Apt. 9A Edgeview
2-3206.” He looked up from the book, “Better give her a jin-
gle first.”
“We'd rather approach her directly.”
“She’ll have company, if I’m any judge. And I am.” Ellen-
stein sighed in reminiscent awe. “Them Greeks!”
He would have gone on, but Mr. Bundy, taking his elbow,
started to escort him to the door. “Indebted,” the detective
said courteously.
Ellenstein rose to the occasion. “Yours very truly,” he re-
plied and went out snickering. His day had been made.
Mr. Bundy came back to the hatrack, removed fedora and
umbrella. “Let us proceed,” he said, looking like Abraham
Lincoln about to address the crowd at Gettysburg. “The
damosel awaits.”
I08


bunching on his shoulders. “Mind?” he asked as though he
didn't understand.
The living room, curtained against sunlight, was littered
with strewn clothing, empty bottles, ash trays and glasses.
Clay was thinking it must have been quite a party when the
man, reaching behind him into a chalk-stripe coat draped over
a chair, produced a short-barreled .38, leveled it at Mr.
Bundy's stomach.
“Mind?” he repeated. “Yeah, I mind.”
Mr. Bundy ignored the weapon. “It will be to Miss France's
advantage to speak to us.”
“In a pig's eyeſ” the man said. “Blow!” The pistol's safety,
thumbed off, clicked ominously.
“Put that away,” said Mr. Bundy.
“Yeah?” The man grinned mirthlessly, showing crooked
teeth. “Gonna be a dime comic, is it? Pete Gromek pushed
around by an old man.”
“A private investigator,” corrected Mr. Bundy. “Inquiring
into the murder of a young woman named Mary Trevor.”
“So?” Something flickered back of the man's eyes and he
added, “So we read about it. And Sophie don't know from
nothin’,”
“Not even who took Miss Trevor home from the Minuet
last night?”
“She don’t know from nothin'.”
“She must have seen someone.”
“I told you. I told you twice. Sophie never seen nothin'!”
Anger made his face dangerous. “I’m sick of sayin' it!” His
knuckles, tightening around the revolver, whitened. “Don’t
make mesay it no more.”
“Let’s go,” Clay said.
“Do that,” the man said, shifting the revolver. “While
you—
II0


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
The umbrella, handle forward, hooked his wrist, sent the
revolver spinning across the room. The man snarled, dove at
Mr. Bundy who stepped aside, reversed the umbrella and
lunged, the point held Adam's-apple high. The man's knees
buckled and he sank to the rug, both hands clutching his
throat. Mr. Bundy examined the umbrella tip and, ascertain-
ing it was undamaged, nodded with satisfaction. The man
pulled at his throat with writhing fingers, heaved his chest
spasmodically, but no air came to his lungs. On his sweat-
beaded face the skin began to turn black.
Clay stared in horror, certain he was dying,
At last air rasped through the constricted throat and at the
same time a dark-haired girl came down the hallway. She had
on a filmy green nightgown and light from the bedroom be-
hind her outlined legs, curved hips and shoulders. “For
heaven's sake, Petel” she called. “Why lie? I told you I saw
the guy went home with her.”
She came into the living room. Brown nipples on heavy
breasts showed through the nightgown. She halted as she
caught sight of the man kneeling on the rug, breath still
rattling in his throat, and turned puzzled ripe-olive eyes on
Mr. Bundy. “I saw him,” she said. The eyes moved to Clay.
“The murderer...” she added mechanically. Then her mouth
opened, her eyes rolled up into her skull until only whites
showed and it began. A wild animal's screaming, frenzied,
uncontrolled, insane.
III


Chapter 13
Creeping bent, mowed so close it had the pile and texture of
a broadloom rug, grew between the Peterkins house and the
street. On the lawn sprinklers whirred, sending up a mist that
glittered in the still-high summer sun. To the east of three oak
trees stretched shadows the shape of exclamation points, and
on the house ivy rustled in air moved by the sprinklers. Tulips,
in garish postcard colors, grew by the side of the house.
Circling a sprinkler on his way to the front door, Sam Clay
had for the tenth time that day the feeling of being in a dream.
It might be, he thought, a delayed reaction from the scream-
ing, which had persisted like a short-circuited air-raid siren
even after he and Mr. Bundy had fled from the apartment
building, but it seemed to have more to do with the Peter-
kinses front yard. The too-perfect grass and the trees and the
monotonously whirling sprinklers made him feel alien. There
was a remoteness about the yard, a timelessness, as though it
had been this way—grass, trees, water, shadows and ivy—since
creation and would remain so forever. As though, he thought,
it had nothing to do with anything alive.
But when he neared the porch steps he saw this impression
was wrong. In the center of the tulip bed were two living
/.
II2


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
creatures: a man and a silver Persian cat. The man was on his
knees, troweling leaf mold from a burlap sack into the bed,
and the cat was watching him. Relieved, Sam crossed to them,
asked, “Mr. Peterkins?”
“Laura's expecting you,” the man said. “That is, if you're
Mr. Clay.”
As Clay was saying he was, Peterkins got to his feet. He
was a very smallman, close to seventy, with a wrinkled brown
skin and a gentle face. Over a dark suit he wore blue-and-
white striped coveralls. He looked like the engineer on a chil-
dren's railroad.
He said, “Laura's taking a nap.”
“I can come back later.”
“No, No. Wake her.” Vague lilac eyes searched Clay's face.
“You see, we're to have dinner with Mrs. Cornelia Palmer
tonight.”
“That's nice.”
“Is it?” The eyes were troubled. “Yes, I suppose it is. But
what does one talk to Mrs. Cornelia Palmer about?”
Clay said he didn't know. He said he'd never talked to Mrs.
Palmer.
“Nor I.” Peterkins smiled shyly. “Perhaps I shouldn't worry.
Laura always talks for us both anyway.” He pointed the trowel
toward the rear of the house. “Laura's in her studio. I'd guide
you but I'm not permitted.”
Accompanied by the cat, Clay went along a curving flag-
stone path past tulips and rose bushes to a tiny frame structure
on the back property line. The structure seemed more wood-
shed than studio, but an out-of-plumb chimney and a Chinese
red door with a brass knocker gave it a fairy-tale look, as
though a dwarf lived in it. He halted by the door and the cat,
five feet behind him, halted too.
He did not want to see Laura Peterkins, but he lifted the
IIS


knocker, let it drop. He had to face her. Mr. Bundy had in-
sisted. He'd pointed out that if she had recognized his voice,
something had kept her from informing Standish or the police.
It was essential they find out what it was, he'd declared, even
if it meant telling her the whole story. It was possible the
something, if there was a something, might incline her to
shield Clay for a while longer. It was a gamble they had to
take.
He tried the knocker again, then the knob. The door was
unlocked and he pushed it open, called, “Mrs. Peterkins...?”
and went into the studio.
It was bigger than he had imagined. On one long wall
shelves of books reached to the ceiling, and at the far end was
a large brick fireplace in which rested three creosote-stained
Illinois Central ties. The floor was of hand-pegged oak, the
satiny finish shining in north light from long windows. A
canary chirped in a wicker cage, and on an enormous, pillow-
littered divan under the windows lay Laura Peterkins.
He knew she was dead, but he went to her anyway. She was
on her side, partially wrapped in a lavender kimono, one fat
knee drawn up against her stomach. Blood and broken skin
by her earmarked the place where her skull had been crushed.
Her eyes were open, staring accusingly at a water-smooth
statuette of a naked girl on the floor. One of the girl's arms
was freshly broken off, the exposed stone a chalky white. She
was smiling impishly.
Clay stared down at the dead woman He felt no particular
shock; it was almost as though he had expected her death. He
wondered if she had been killed in her sleep, like the girl. He
didn't know enough about corpses' eyes to tell. He reached
down to adjust the kimono, and a book, caught in a fold of
cloth, fell from the divan to the floor. Awake, he decided. Prob-
ably reading when it happened.
II4


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
He looked around for a second door the murderer might
have used, but found none. However, one of the long windows
was open a crack. The murderer could have come in there,
just stepping over the sill from the garden. As he moved to-
ward the window, he caught sight of papers strewn around a
knee-hole desk in the corner.
He went to the desk, saw it had been ransacked. The
drawers, half open, were rats' nests of pencils, crumpled
papers, ink bottles, rubber bands, carbons, newspaper clip-
pings, shorthand notebooks, old letters. On the desk was a
ripped accordion manila folder, evidently the source of the
papers on the floor. In an old Corona typewriter, turned at an
angle, was a sheet of yellow copy paper on which was written:
“One of the loveliest of summer brides, in a bouffant gown of
white nylon tulle outlined with seed pearls, was Miss Linda
Jane Griswold, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Alfred...” The story
stopped there. Evidently Laura had either been interrupted
or had decided to take a nap.
From the jumble of papers Clay could get no idea of what
the killer had been looking for, or if he'd found it. The only
thing apparent was that he hadn't bothered to conceal the
fact he had been searching for something. Most likely some-
thing written, since he'd concentrated on the desk. As Clay
was wishing Mr. Bundy was there a strange feeling of exulta-
tion began to take possession of him. He began to realize what
he should have realized at once. This second killing meant
almost certainly that he hadn't done the first, hadn't murdered
Mary Trevor. Almost certainly, hell! He hadn't murdered her!
He felt a surge of lightness, a giddiness, that made him want
to shout. The gnawing ulcer in his stomach, composed of fear,
of guilt, of self-loathing, vanished. He felt like a new man. He
felt hungry. He felt wonderful.
Suddenly reality closed down again. He felt better, but he
II5


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Blew off his face, the side of his head:
Before he hit ground, the Sheriff was dead!
The Deputies ran for cover to hide,
More shots rang out; three Deputies died,
Just two were left for Heaven or Hell,
When the hammer clicked on an empty shell.
Tall Larry turned to the Hooded Nun:
“Now shoot!” he said. “The victory's won!”
His voice was lost in the silent air.
The Nun had gone. No one was there.
Like smoke she'd gone. Like a spectral sight
That fades to mist on a summer's....
A thump, a scratching noise, a weird fluttering, another
thump constricted his throat, swung him around in a spasm
of terror. He found himself staring at a yellow bird beating
soft, frantic wings against the bars of a slowly rotating wicker
cage. Below the cage, its silver tail twitching, the Persian was
crouched for a second leap. He flung the book at the cat,
watched it streak out the door. The bird fell to the bottom of
the cage, made a drumming noise against paper. He began to
shake, a man with malaria. Icy sweat oozed back of his ears,
under his arms, along his spine.
He walked stiffly to the door, went through it and closed it
behind him. He tried the knob, found the catch was holding,
and started along the curving flagstones to the front of the
house. His mouth tasted of bile.
Peterkins, shaking the last of the leaf mold from the burlap
sack, spoke as he neared the tulip bed. “Have trouble waking
Laura”
“A little.”
“I heard you call.” He doubled the bag, then doubled it
again. “Laura sleeps hard.”
117


“Yes, she does.”
The cat came over to them, sat, and began to clean its paws.
A current of warm air made the tulips nod. Peterkins sighed,
tucked the sack under his arm.
“I suppose Laura wants to sleep some more?”
“Yes. I wouldn't disturb her. Not for a while.”
“Oh, I wouldn't think of it.” He smiled shyly, the lilac eyes
deprecatory. “I’m not permitted.”
“Well, good-by...”
“Good-by, Mr. Clay.”
The old man and the cat, both motionless, watched him
walk to the street. Mist rose from the sprinklers, sparkled on
the grass, and shadows stretched deep under the quiet oaks.
II8


The head read: SEx FIEND KILLs GOLD COAST GIRL, and only in
the third paragraph was the girl identified as an employee of
the Globe. The story was handled straight, with no hint of a
possibility the murder was anything more than a sex slaying,
and the only trace of sensationalism was the “Gold Coast” in
the head, a name used by newspapers to describe a presum-
ably glittering section of the city along the lake front just
north of Chicago Avenue.
Reading the story Clay felt mildly let down until he thought
of Laura Peterkins. If her death didn't bring on a rush of ex-
cited prose, then nothing would. He threw the paper back on
the coffee table, wondering how the Tribune and the Sun
would handle the two murders. They would present a neat
problem. Conflicting with the general policy of minimizing
scandal within the profession would be a once-in-a-lifetime
chance to plunge a knife deep into a rival newspaper's back.
He had an idea the knife would win out.
He crossed to Standish's private telephone, dialed Mr.
Bundy's number. Mr. Bundy was out, but Miss Dewhurst,
British as ever, had a bit of news.
“Anent bracelet and clip,” she said briskly. “Traced by our
expert to Magin et Cie., retail jewelers, Fort Worth, Texas.
Sold there in August, 1936, to one Simon Bolivar Palmer.
Price: thirty-five thousand dollars.”
“What!" Clay exclaimed.
“I repeat. Thirty-five thousand dollars.”
“No! The namel Palmer! Are you sure?”
“Simon Bolivar. Identified as a newspaper publisher.”
Clay forgot to say “Q.” He forgot to hang up, even after the
line went dead. That was something! True, it didn't fit any-
where except into a general feeling he had about the whole
business, a feeling it had started in Fort Worth, but he was
sure it was important. It was a road sign. It pointed to Fort
I20


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Worth and it pointed to the Globe, even though old man
Palmer had been dead for nine years. He wished he could talk
to Mr. Bundy. He'd have ideas.
And besides, he had to tell him about Laura Peterkins. He
had to tell somebody about her. Bundy or Tom Nichols. And
also about the crazy ballad. He dialed the morgue on the inter-
office system, asked Atkinson to send down the clips on Larry
Trevor, and then called the Nicholses’ number on the private
phone. A very angry Camille answered.
“That drunken bum!” she exclaimed. “One call, about
twenty minutes ago.”
“What'd he say?”
“Muttered something about searching up vistaed hopes and
down labyrinthine ways and hung up! Didn't even tell me
where he was!”
“He'll turn up,” Clay assured her.
“I’ll kill him!” she said and slammed down the receiver.
Clay hung up, feeling hurt she hadn't inquired how he was
making out. It seemed to him a man fighting for his life was
more important than a temporarily missing husband. He
leaned back in Standish's chair and reflected that fighting for
his life, besides being a cliché, wasn't quite right. He was more
like a man shooting rapids in a rowboat, and what fighting
there was consisted mostly of trying to keep afloat. So far, by
blind luck, the boat had bounced off each rock, but sooner or
later, to coin another cliché, disaster would strike. He decided
he liked the boat analogy. Either it would smash on some un-
foreseen rock, or one of the holes already punched in it would
open. God knows, he thought, there were enough. Biggest of
course, both literally and figuratively, was Laura's body. He'd
bought some time by not telling Peterkins about it. But once
it was discovered, once Peterkins told the police of his visit,
he was sunk. He was also sunk the moment Sergeant Storm
I2I


found out who bought the brandy bottle. He was sunk if his
hat was traced. If Gwen talked. And the elevator boy. And
the hat-check girl, when she stopped screaming. And probably
as a result of a dozen ifs he didn't know about.
He was worrying about these when Miss Bentley slouched
into the office looking like Sadie Thompson. She opened the
door to a mahogany paneled bar-refrigerator, pulled out an
ice tray.
“Want some poison?”
Without waiting for a reply she filled two glasses with
Scotch and soda, stirred them with a pencil, at the same time
saying, “For a Mexican peso I’d get stinko.” She brought one
glass over to Clay, hip bones showing under her tight skirt.
“And for another I'd blow the joint up.” She gave him the
glass. “Not that ITl have to.” Her green eyes were maliciously
amused. “Mrs. Palmer is seeing to that.”
“What's she done?”
“Nothing a typhoon couldn't do almost as well.” She went
back to her drink, tasted it, added more Scotch. “She's got Mr.
S. on the ropes. Canning, too. Suspended Charley Adair until
the police clear him.” She tasted the drink again, then downed
it. “Offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for the killer, had
the Mayor on the carpet for three quarters of an hour, ordered
Chief of Police Gillis back from his summer place at Traverse
City, put everybody on a twenty-four hour shift, sent for the
FBI, called out the militia, had the coroner move the body
from the morgue to a private undertaker...”
She eyed her glass reflectively, then filled it. Clay asked,
“What gives with Adair?”
“You knew he was with the girl last night? Well, it seems he
left her around two and went to his office to write his column.
Fortunately for Charley one of the watchmen stopped in at
I22


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
four for coffee. Not a perfect alibi, but good enough to keep
the handcuffs off.”
“He still could have made it,” Clay said.
“Now, laddie. Let's concentrate on Mr. S. He's the boy I
want to see fry.”
She drank again, leaning a thigh against the bar-refriger-
ator. She looked perfectly capable of frying Standish herself,
the lip scar, pale against brown skin, giving her face a cruel
slant. Clay wondered how she got the scar.
“Fleur,” she said bitterly. “Three ex-wives. A red-head in
an efficiency apartment near Jackson Park for quick ones on
the way to the dunes. A room at the Chicagoan, catch as catch
can. Ebony stuff from Kenwood Avenue. Poles from Mayfield.
Chinese from Thirteenth Street. Mary Trevor. Me.” She
sloshed Scotch into her glass, not bothering to add soda, and
downed it. “What d'you say we say to hell with it?”
“I can't tonight.”
“Oh yes, you can. Could even while you were married.”
Scotch gurgled from the bottle. “Which reminds me, she's
been calling.”
“I know.”
“They're real,” Miss Bentley said after a moment.
“What are?”
“Don’t think I haven't seen you looking.”
“At what?”
“Do I have to diagram it?” She straightened up, swaying a
little. “Muffins. Biscuits. Cantaloupes. Bazooms. Knockers.
McGuffeys.” She would have gone on if Atkinson, the pale
night attendant in the Globe's morgue, hadn't entered the
office.
“Don’t mind me,” he said, dropping an envelope on the desk
in front of Clay. “Out our way we call 'em groceries.”
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“A fine thing! Aloof! After giving me the eye for...”
She broke off as Standish hurried into the office. He came
to an abrupt halt as he caught sight of the two at his desk. “Oh,
God!” he said, staring wildly at Clay. “You!” He darted around
the desk, took hold of Clay's arm. “Quick. Out. While there's
time. Back elevator.” He pulled Clay to his feet, started him
toward the door. “Police. After you. I'll explain later.” He
thrust Clay through the door. Call me the minute you...” He
made a hoarse noise, halfway between a grunt and a cry and
dropped Clay's arm.
At the outer office door, bulky body planted squarely in the
opening, stood Sergeant Storm. Under one arm was the mag-
num of brandy.
“Sergeant!” Standish's voice quavered, grew hearty. “I was
just bringing him to you.”
“Yeah, I see,” said Sergeant Storm. “Into the office. Both of
you.”
Backing through the door, Clay glimpsed a crowd of people
behind Storm. They seemed to fill the corridor. He caught
sight of Alma Plummer's alarmed face, recognized Talbot,
Fedderhof and Mahoney, still wearing the green eyeshade,
and saw in addition detectives, some strange women, two uni-
formed policemen and a tall Negro.
Storm came slowly into the office, turned stony eyes on
Miss Bentley. “Out!”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “Yes, sir!”
Empty glass in hand, she brushed past a young detective at
the door. Storm spoke to the detective. “Hold the others out
there, Marshak.”
“Right, Sergeant.”
Storm put the bottle on the desk, swung to face Clay. He
had a marksman's eyes, cold and unwavering, and his jaw was
thrust out. He took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.
125.


“Okay, Clay.”
He was moving forward, at the same time opening the
handcuffs, when Standish swung into action.
“Over my dead body!” he shouted. “Who do you think you
are? A McCarthy investigator?” He planted himself in front
of Storm, a gamecock facing a bulldog. “Where's your au-
thority for this?”
“I got it,” Storm said.
“On what grounds?”
“Enough evidence for a dozen convictions.”
“Such as?”
Storm's jaw tightened. “I’ll present it at the proper time.”
“You’ll present it now!” Standish's face grew dark with fury.
“This is the Globe office. Mr. Clay is a Globe employee. He is
the Globe. No cop with dirty underwear can push the Globe
aroundſ”
“I can,” Storm growled. “When it's my duty.”
“Your duty, my thick-headed friend, is to show cause for
arrest. If you can, fine.” Eyes glittering, he glared at Storm.
“You want me to call Chief of Detectives Mulroney?”
For the first time, Storm's face showed indecision. “That's
not necessary.”
“Then present your evidence.”
“Okay. I'll just do that.” He spoke over his shoulder.
“Marshak.” - -
“Wait!” Two steps took Standish to the office door “Miss
Bentley! Get I. P. Geisel. At once!” He glowered at Storm.
“We'll see this is done legally.”
I26


His voice was bland, too bland, and Storm scowled. He
started to say something, then shrugged. “Okay. It's my neck."
I. P. Geisel said, “You will confine yourself to the facts.”
Mrs. Palmer, balanced on an arm of the couch, said huskily,
“Let the sergeant alone, I.P.” Her opal eyes neither friendly
nor unfriendly, were on Clay. “We’re not in court yet.”
“I know what I’m doing, ma'am,” Sergeant Storm assured
her.
“In that case—” Diffendorf coughed diffidently “–maybe
you ought to ask a couple of things before you start, Sergeant.
It's sort of customary.”
“What things?”
“You might ask Clay where he was last night.”
Storm laughed. “I don't have to. I know.”
“Fine. That's always useful.” The hat in the lieutenant's
hands began to rotate slowly. “The other thing is: did he kill
the girl?”
Everyone looked at Clay. “I didn't,” he said quickly.
“No?” Storm eyed him stonily. “We'll see. Marshak!”
The young detective stepped into the office. “Yes, sir?”
“Tell 'em about the phone call you got hour or so ago.”
“No name,” Marshak said. “But I recognized the voice. The
elevator boy.”
“What'd he tell you?”
“That the killer was on the Globe. That he'd seen him,
talked to him at the Globe.”
Storm nodded, pleased. Clay kept his face blank. I. P. Geisel
frowned, said, “He named Mr. Clay?”
“He didn't know the name,” said Marshak.
“But he described him?”
“No. He had the jitters. Bad.” Marshak glanced at Storm.
“Rang off before I could question him.”
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“He was in a bus station,” Storm said. “Marshak could hear
horns and engines.”
“Am I to understand,” I. P. Geisel demanded, “that you are
unable to produce this anonymous caller?”
“How can we when he's on a bus?”
The lawyer raised long, exasperated arms to the ceiling.
“I.P.,” warned Mrs. Palmer.
“Good as got him though,” Storm said. “General alarm out
for him.”
Standish, from the desk, asked, “You’re basing your case on
this?”
“We got more. Lots more.” Storm picked up the brandy
bottle. “This, for instance.” He held it out to Clay. “Remem-
ber it?”
“Sure,” Clay said guardedly. “If it's the one I saw up in the
apartment.”
“Brought up, you mean.”
I. P. Geisel asked, “How do you arrive at that?”
“Fingerprints, for one thing. His!”
Standish blinked at Clay. “What about that, Sam?”
Clay stared at the bottle. Fingerprints! He'd overlooked the
most elementary thing, the first thing any criminal, or any
reader of detective stories for that matter, would have thought
of Fingerprints! A child would have known enough to erase
them.
“Sam?” Standish prompted.
Before he could reply, Diffendorf asked, “You handle the
bottle while you were up there, Clay?”
“Yes,” he said, grateful for the diversion. “I knocked it over,
picked it up. Kitty Kelly saw me.”
Diffendorf nodded. “She told me.”
Storm's voice was savage. “Whose side you on, Lieutenant?”
I29


“I saw the same report you did.” Diffendorf turned to Mrs.
Palmer. “Unfortunately, before I reached the apartment, Mrs.
Palmer, and before the fingerprint men came, reporters and
cameramen were admitted.”
“Before I got there, tool” Storm declared.
“I know.” The lieutenant continued to speak to Mrs. Palmer.
“Not being told the fingerprint men hadn't come, the reporters
handled some things. No blame, at least as far as the press is
concerned, and no real damage. Just meant we had to sift a
few extra prints.”
“Then you have the murderer's?” Mrs. Palmer asked.
“You betwegot'em!” Storm said. He swung around to Clay.
“Smart, weren't you? Leavin' prints before and after!”
I. P. Geisel said, “Don’t answer that.”
“Okay, okay. He don't have to.” Storm stared triumphantly
at the lawyer. “Because I can prove he bought the bottle.” He
jerked his head at Marshak. “Get Jordan in here.”
Jordan proved to be the tall colored man. He wore a black
suit that fell perpendicularly from his shoulders, as though
draped on a hanger, and pointed brown shoes so long and nar-
row it didn't seem possible there were feet in them. When he
admitted, eye whites showing nervously, he was the doorman
at the Little Club, Clay felt his throat tighten.
“See anybody you know, Jordan?” Storm asked.
“No, sir.”
“I don't mean socially,” Storm growled. “I mean the man
you had the beef with last night.”
“Don’t see him.”
“Damn it!” Storm said. “Look around!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well?”
Jordan's eyes rested briefly on Clay. “It might be him.” The
eyes went away. “An' then it mightn't.”
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Didn't you tell me you'd know him?”
“No, sir. Just said I might.”
“But the man, when you wouldn't let him into the club, said
he was a reporter, didn't he?”
“Yes, sir. Said he was a reporter.”
“Well, this man's a reporter!”
“Now, now,” cautioned I. P. Geisel. “I must object.” He
turned to Jordan, his face sympathetic. “I imagine you'd like
to tell this in your own way.”
Jordan, shifting inside the perpendicular clothes, seemed
poised for flight. “Ain’t much to tell.”
“Let us decide that, Mr. Jordan.”
“Well, the gentleman come with a lady. Mrs. Bruce, I think
her name. He was shoutin’, ‘Brandy, brandy everywhere and
not a drop to buy, and I asked him to please be more quiet or
I couldn't let him in and he said he was a reporter and didn't
have to be quiet.”
“And then?”
“He went in.”
Sergeant Storm said, “And bought the brandy!”
“A moment, please.” I. P. Geisel stared reflectively at the
colored man. “You saw him buy the brandy?”
“No, sir. But he come out carrying a bottle, and the lady
sort of carrying him.”
Clay felt Mrs. Palmer's eyes on his face. Storm said, “He
bought the bottle from a bartender named Jacques.”
“And where is this Jacques?” I. P. Geisel inquired.
“Out on a goddam picnic!”
“Careful, Sergeant!” Standish warned.
“I don't mind,” said Mrs. Palmer. She examined Clay with
amused eyes. “Are you in the habit of having ladies carry you
around?”
“Just big ladies,” Clay said.
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S IN N E R S AND SH R O U DS
It was jail either way. Conscious of everyone's eyes on him,
he raised it, put it on his head, discovered to his amazement
that it settled down over his ears, over the bridge of his nose
like a burlesque comic's hat. It was at least two sizes too large.
“Christalmity]esus!” said Sergeant Storm.
Clay removed the hat. Together, he and Storm turned to
Diffendorf. The lieutenant's face was blandly interested. “Too
big, eh?”
“You had it,” Storm said. “Couldn't be you...?”
“Why, Sergeant!” Diffendorf's voice was injured."You know
the penalty for tampering with police evidence.”
Storm's normally ruddy face grew pale. “Well, if this ain’t
a dilly! Maybe I don't live right.” He took two deep breaths,
his hands clenching and unclenching. “But I still got the big
ace!”
“Good,” Diffendorf said composedly. “I was beginning to be
afraid you'd made a mistake.”
“Marshak!” Storm pivoted, faced the young detective at the
door. “Bring in the dame.”
There was a commotion outside and then Marshakreturned,
escorting a theatrical-looking woman in a silky mink coat.
Brown hair, in an out-of-date long bob, hung over her shoul-
ders; lipstick, looking as though it had been applied in the
dark, made a vermilion slash of her mouth, and her eyes were
glassy behind heavy mascara. She had on gray slacks under
the mink coat. Clay recognized her instantly from the wed-
ding photograph. Mrs. Bruce. Mrs. Clay!
Storm moved protectively to her side. “This is the lady who
went to the Little Club last night,” he announced. “Who was
recognized by the doorman. Who was there when the brandy
was bought. Who went with the defendant to the Minuet.” He
paused dramatically. “And who was ditched at the Minuet—
for Mary Trevorſ”
183


“Ditched, hell!” said Mrs. Bruce in a sleepy voice. “Raffled
him off to the highest bidder.”
Storm smiled indulgently. “This is Mrs. Patricia Bruce.”
“Lovely people,” Mrs. Bruce mumbled. “Hello.” Her
blurred eyes wandered from face to face, finally settled on
Mrs. Palmer. “Well, well,” she said. “Sophie Gimbel in per-
son.” She smiled vaguely.
“Mrs. Bruce,” said Sergeant Storm quickly. “I now ask you
to do what you came here for. Identify the man you were with
last night.”
Mrs. Bruce nodded agreeably. “Put the finger on him.” She
was still examining Mrs. Palmer.
“Do you recognize him?”
Turning slowly, Mrs. Bruce asked, “Which one?”
Storm, thumb and forefinger making a revolver of this hand,
pointed at Clay. “Him!”
Mrs. Bruce took her time. She bent forward, finally got her
eyes focused on Clay's face. She studied him intently, then in
a bored voice said, “Never saw the bastard before in my life.”
134


Chapter 16
Peering near-sightedly through dank hair hanging over his
eyes, a wax-paper-wrapped sandwich and a dented cardboard
container balanced in one huge paw, Lothar, the Globe's
senior copyboy, wandered around the city room like a bewil-
dered sheepdog. He kicked over a wastebasket, ran head on
into a cement pillar, toppled two chairs. Finally, just before
bringing the entire building down in ruins over his head, he
discovered Clay at his desk.
“You was sittin' with Mr. Talbot,” he said accusingly.
“I’m still the same hungry refugee, though,” Clay assured
him.
Lothar dubiously put sandwich and container on the desk,
said in his precise English, “You hadn’ auto of moved.”
Clay unwrapped the sandwich. “Pork!”
“Din' you say pork?”
“I said roast beef. And a chocolate malt.”
“Din' you say root beer?”
“If I said root beer, it would be coffee. If I said coffee . . .”
Clay sighed. “Lothar, that's my autobiography. Beer and skit-
tles for some people. Pork and root beer for me.”
I35


“You din' say nothin’ about skittles,” said Lothar, “or I
would of brung'em!” He went away, vindicated.
The pork sandwich, heavily spiked with mustard, wasn't
too bad. Clay ate it slowly. It was the first food he'd had, as far
as he knew, since dinner with Andy Talbot at the 69 Club.
That was almost twenty-four hours away. A full day. An ex-
tremely full day, he corrected himself. And not exactly, as the
English were supposed to say, all beer and skittles. Particu-
larly the last ten hours. Particularly the last thirty minutes. He
started to review the scene in Standish's office and recalling
Storm being led away, Dick Tracy in a state of advanced
schizophrenia, was forced to grin. Maybe a skittle there, at
that. But he'd be damned if he'd go through it again. And if
Storm ever caught up with him now!
He hurriedly put the idea out of his mind, went back to the
scene. A good part of it was completely inexplicable. The
doorman, undoubtedly, had really failed to recognize him.
Probably because the entrance to the Little Club was dimly
lit. But what about Mrs. Bruce? No explanation. What about
the hat? No explanation. Absolutely no way of accounting for
either, short of divine intervention.
Two miracles and a bushel of blind luck. Luck with the fin-
gerprints, the doorman, the elevator boy and Jacques, the
picnic-happy barman who'd sold the brandy bottle. And
earlier, luck with the bracelet and the blood-stained scissors.
Luck with Gwen and the hat-check girl. Ten straight passes
at craps. Zero five times running at roulette. Seven races in a
row at Washington Park. Once-in-a-blue-moonluck. It was too
bad he couldn't quit while he was ahead because it wouldn't
last much longer, might even have run out somewhere in the
city at this very moment. One word to a policeman, one fact
seen in a different light, one new witness, one piece of new
evidence, and the whole house of cards—
I36


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Like smoke she'd gone; like a spectral sight that fades to
mist on a summer's night...” whispered a hoarse voice.
Startled, Clay spun around, saw Saul Blair grinning at him.
The plump man had a paper cup in his hand. “That damn
ballad!” he said. “Can't get it out of my head.” He thrust the
cup at Clay.
Shakily, his heart still pounding, Clay held the cup to his
lips, emptied it. Whisky, faintly diluted with water, seared his
throat, set his teeth on edge. He drank some of the root beer.
“Can't take it, eh?” Saul asked.
“Which? Bourbon, or what's been happening?”
“I did hear you had a little ruckus with the rangers.”
“Miss Bentley, I bet.”
Saul nodded. “From whom all gossip flows.” His brown eyes
were friendly. “Anything I can do?”
“I don't think—waitaminute, maybe there is. Off the record,
that is.”
“You call it, son.”
“I’ve got a tip, more than a tip, that some of the Trevor girl's
jewelry was originally owned by old man Palmer. About thirty
thousand dollars worth.”
Saul whistled.
“Yes. And what I'd like to know is how she got hold of it.”
“When’d Simon buy the stuff?”
“August 36.”
“Esther Baumholtz.”
“How Esther?”
“Simon had a crush on her for years. Wanted to marry her,
but she had too much sense. Maverick, Simon was. Uncurried
critter full of burrs and ticks. But openhanded in an ornery
way. Be like him to give her expensive jewelry. Something a
poor music teacher couldn't wear.”
“And she left it to the girl?”
137


“Why not?”
Why not was right. It made sense. The report from Fort
Worth had said the girl changed her name, began to spend
money only after Esther Baumholtz died. It was certainly
logical to believe she had inherited jewelry and money. Both
could be handed on secretly without being made part of the
estate. Only the income tax people, Clay reflected, would be
interested.
Saul was frowning. “Thing surprises me is Esther would
accept jewelry.” He took a tentative sip of Clay's root beer.
“How'd she get along with Mary?”
“Fine, far as I know.”
From the city desk came shouts. Canning, echoed by Andy
Talbot, was summoning reporters. In different parts of the
room, like jack-in-a-boxes, Lamson, Brinks, Peters, Feldman,
and half a dozen others sprang from chairs, trotted forward.
Saul drank the rest of the root beer, muttered, “The third
that day was the Ardmore bank...”
“I wish you'd stop that.”
“why?”
“Gives me the creeps.”
“How come?”
“Saul, I've got a spooky feeling the murders have something
to do with Larry Trevor.”
Saul's eyes, over the dark liver pouches, grew sharp. “Mur-
ders?”
“I meant murder.”
“Oh.” The eyes were inquisitive, not wholly convinced. “Far
as I know Larry's still in the Oklahoma pen. He got a hundred
and fifty years.”
“What if the girl was his daughter?”
A curious change came over Saul's face. Behind jowls and
fat the bone structure took shape, the outthrust jaw thinning
IS3


S IN N E R S AND S H R O U DS
cheeks and mouth. He no longer looked soft. He looked capa-
ble and dangerous.
“If I were you,” he said, “I’d forget that idea.”
“why?"
“You might regret it.”
“Are you threatening me, Saul?”
“I’m giving you some advice.”
“It sure sounds like it!” Clay stared at him belligerently.
“You know something, don't you?”
“I know one thing—” Saul broke off as Peters brushed by
them, jerked his seersucker coat off the back of a chair. “Cops
just made a pinch!” he announced, struggling with the coat.
“Apartment janitor! Searched his broom closet and what d'you
think they found?”
They eyed him blankly.
“Fifty-seven pairs of silk panties!” Still trying to work the
coat up over his shoulders, he hurried away.
Clay turned back to Saul. “What's the one thing?”
“I won't have Esther Baumholtz's name dragged in the
mud!”
“For Pete's sake! I'm not trying to drag her name in the
mud! I'm trying to find out who killed Mary Trevorſ”
“For what? A pat on the back and a two-hundred-buck
bonus!” Saul's voice was contemptuous. “A woman's good
name for thirty pieces of silver.”
Clay said, “How in hell can you make me out a Judas
when . . .” A hint of pain in the steady brown eyes brought
him up short. “You liked her, didn't you, Saul?”
Folds of flesh dropping back into the familiar creases made
the round face melancholy. “Simon and me.” All the fire was
gone. “Wouldn't have either of us.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry?”
IS9


S IN N E R S AND S H R O U DS
“Not in,” said Miss Dewhurst cheerfully. “But he'll meet you
here in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll do my best. And in the meantime, give him a message.”
“Yes?”
He lowered his voice. “There's been another death.”
“He knows.”
“What!”
“I said he knows. Twenty minutes. Q.” She rang off.
Dazedly, Clay put the telephone back in place. He tried to
think how Bundy could possibly know about Laura, but he
couldn't even make a guess. Too many things had happened
too fast. His mind was exhausted. His nerves were shot. He
was numb, dead, buried. He wished, momentarily, he'd done
the murders. Then all he'd have to do was give himself up.
Maybe he would anyway. As far as he ...
A hand shaking his shoulder woke him. He sat up, rubbing
his face where it had rested on his typewriter. The hand be-
longed to Lothar. “Wancha upstairs,” he said. “Mrs. Palmer.”
“Okay, Lothar.” He looked at his watch. He had been asleep
less than three minutes. “Any messages for the lady?” He got
to his feet. His face still hurt.
“Yeah,” said Lothar. “Tell her give me raise.” Laughter
shook his thick body, bent him double. “Big raise.”
Passing Andy Talbot at the city desk, Clay mumbled, “What
gives with Canning?”
“Brother!” Talbot flipped a switch on the call box, spoke
into one of two phones lying on the desk in front of him. “Still
there?” An outraged voice began, “Where the sweet J....” and
Talbot snapped the switch closed, glanced at Clay. “The Little
Club bartender, Jacques something ... ?”
“What about him?”
“Trib's got him. Exclusivel”
“How?”
141


“Kitty Kelly. Found the crazy Frenchman on the roof of
his apartment building. Caviar, champagne, three babes. Al-
ways picnics there Sundays!”
For some reason the news didn't affect Clay at all. Possibly
because he was still half asleep, or more likely because he'd
reached the saturation point. He grimaced vaguely at Andy
and went out through the door into the corridor. One thing
less to worry about, he was thinking fuzzily, when Alma Plum-
mer, her cheeks flushed a cherry red, intercepted him at the
door to the men's room.
“I was just going to look for you!” she exclaimed breath-
lessly. “I tried to call.”
“I’ve been sort of busy.”
“Oh, I know!” Her moist eyes were admiring. “With every-
body reporting to you, it must be awful.” Her mouth drooped
at the corners. “And I failed!”
For a second Clay had a wild impression she was talking
about what they were talking about last. Getting laid. But
the idea vanished when she added, “Clarissa Simpson. Her
maid. I was sure she would tell another woman things she
wouldn't tell the police. And I went to her home at 3812 S.
State Street and nobody, but nobody would say where she
was until a little girl playing jacks on the sidewalk, her sister,
I guess, told me she worked nights in a cathouse on the fourth
floor at 421 West Thirty-first Street and I went there and the
most unpleasant fat colored woman said the most awful things
to me and slammed the door in my face and then a horrible
man came out, reeking of alcohol, and stared and stared . . .”
Her eyes grew wide with the memory. “I’ll write it all down
for you.”
“Tell Canning,” Clay said. “I’ve been suspended, pending a
security check.” He started to push open the door.
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Mr. Clay.”
“Yes?”
“What is a cat house?”
The men's room was restful. Gray light, filtered through
glazed windows, gave urinals and washbasins a ghostly ap-
pearance as though they were illuminated by some inner radi-
ance of their own. It made irridescent bubbles of glass soap
containers, gleamed softly on chromium fixtures and blended
with the battleship gray of the toilet doors. An exhaust fan
drew off air with a low hum, hushed outside noises. Even the
periodic rush of water from the urinal's automatic turn-ons
was pleasantly subdued, like the sound of small rapids in a
trout Stream.
Clay took his time washing. He soaped face and hands,
rinsed with hot water, then filled the bowl with cold water,
using two paper towels to stop the overflow, and put his head
in it. After a while he began to feel better. The drowsy,
drugged sensation left his head, his eyes cleared and his skin
tingled. It was a little like the feeling of novocaine wearing
off after a trip to the dentist. He plunged his head into the
basin a final time, was jerking more paper towels from the
roller when someone came into the room. “Are you Mr. Clay?”
the someone asked.
The voice was so feminine that he glanced at the urinals to
assure himself he was in the men's room before turning. He
found himself facing a pretty, pink-and-white man in a linen
suit. The man was frowning, albino eyebrows pulled flat over
garter-blue eyes, red lips pursed. He was about forty, but he
looked like a well-preserved choir boy.
“Did you hear me?” he asked petulantly.
“Yes, I'm Clay.”
143


“I have been waiting.” As Clay stared blankly, he went on
acidly. “I am Horace Widdecomb. Mrs. Palmer's executive
assistant.”
“Oh, sure.” Clay folded a towel, began to dry his face. “I
was just coming.”
“No need now.” The fluty voice was caustic. “I have come
to you.”
“That's nice.”
“I am not entirely satisfied with your story.”
Clay stopped rubbing his face, stared at the man over the
towel. An arrogant white mouse, he thought, feeling the be-
ginning of anger. Mrs. Palmer's white mouse. He checked the
anger, asked, “Why not?”
“You seem, for one thing, to have sources of information not
available to the Globe.”
“What information are you talking about?”
“Well, the Dupont number.” The garter-blue eyes were
accusing. “You called it, didn't you?”
“After a fashion.”
“And what did you learn?”
“What's this to you?”
“Just answer my question, please.”
Clay crumpled the towel, dropped it into the paper con-
tainer. The petulance stamped on the girlish face with the
pink skin, the retroussé nose and the red lips could only come
from real authority. “Okay,” he said. “I called, got some gent
who wouldn't do anything except take a message.”
“And you don't know whose number it is?”
“No.” He pulled his coat from the top of a toilet door, pushed
an arm through a sleeve. “But I'll find out.”
“You will drop the inquiry.”
“I will?” He peered at the pretty face, suddenly reminded
I44


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
of a Dresden porcelain shepherd. The same fresh colors, the
same fragility. “This your idea?”
“It is.”
“It couldn't be your number, could it?”
“I shall not answer that.”
“When people hit you,” Clay asked, “does it take glue to put
you together again?”
Widdecomb considered this, frowning, then took a Boy
Scout knife from his pocket, pulled open a blade and began to
clean his nails. It was a big knife for cleaning nails, and the
nails didn't need cleaning. “What have you found out about
Esther Baumholtz?” he asked.
“Where did you hear about Esther?”
“I knew her quite well... a long time ago.” He raised his
left hand, examined the shell-pink nails. “Well?”
“You knew Larry Trevor too, didn't you?”
The hand closed convulsively. The blue eyes fluttered. A
tongue tip wet carmine lips. “Larry Trevor! I... I never heard
of him.”
“The hell you haven't!” Clay moved a step forward. “I hap-
pen to know you were in Fort Worth when he was operating.”
“Well... perhaps...”
“Perhaps, nothing!” Clay took another step. “Dupont num-
ber! Baumholtz' You've got some dangerous ideas rattling
around in that tiny skull of yours!”
“Please. I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Sure! Pure coincidence!” Clay found he was shouting. “You
come in here, put a cute little pinkie on the two most impor-
tant points in the case, warn me to lay off, go into epilepsy
when I mention Larry Trevor, but you don't know what I'm
talking about!” He felt a vein twitch in his neck. “Where were
you around four-thirty this morning?”
I45


“I was in ... in Washington.”
“Can you prove it?”
“I... I'll talk to you later.”
“You'll talk now!” Clay reached out a hand for the frail
neck, then drew it back abruptly. The knife, held expertly for
an underhand thrust, was aimed directly at his belly. Widde-
comb's face, lips drawn from clenched teeth, was deadly.
“Try something,” he snarled. “Just try something!”
Muscles frozen, Clay eyed the knife. The blade was at least
three inches long.
Widdecomb began to back towards the door. “I used to gut
pigs.” The voice was fluty again. “It’s fun. Warm blood.” The
knife closed with a snap. “Lots of warm blood.” He went out.
Clay discovered he was holding his breath. He exhaled,
drew in air and discovered he was sweating. The little bastard,
he thought. He really would have stuck me. He waited a mo-
ment, then stepped cautiously into the corridor. It was empty.
Relieved, he walked slowly back to the city room.
Canning caught him at the desk. “Couple of things—” he
began briskly, and then broke off to stare at Clay's face. “You
look like you've seen a ghost.”
“My own,” Clay said.
“You ain't the only one. Place'll belousy with ghosts, includ-
ing mine and Edwin's, if we don't wrap this thing up quick.
What's from Laura Peterkins?”
“Laura”
“You went out to see her, didn't you?”
“Oh, yeah.” Clay tried desperately to think of a convincing
lie. “She didn't have much.”
“She must have had something.”
“She thinks... the man on the phone... the one she talked
to before the girl was found ... ?”
146


Globe operator answered. There was a click and a hoarse voice
demanded:
“Know a good lawyer?”
“Who’s this?”
“Nichols.”
“Where are you?”
“In the sneezer.”
“In jail? What for?”
Nichols' voice was apologetic. “I didn't do quite as good as
you, Sam.”
“What are you talking about? What are you in for?”
“Rape,” Nichols said. “And attempted murder.”
148


“Mrs. Palmer wants you.”
“Stall her,” Clay said. “Tell her I’m eating.”
“I did that. Fifteen minutes ago.”
“Tell her I eat in Milwaukee.”
Talbot said, “Brother!” and hung up.
Clay sat on the bench again. The old lady spoke to him in
Italian. He shook his head. She said something else, to herself
this time. The cockroach backed out of the crack, backed
across the bench and fell six hundred feet to the floor. A police-
man brought in a gray-haired man in a blue suit, stood him in
front of the desk. “What now?” Sergeant Grimsey asked.
“Indecent exposure.”
“My zipper was stuck,” said the man indignantly. “Still is.”
It was. The whore put a card on Clay's lap. It read:
WANT A
P P P
ELOISE SU 9-3207
The cockroach limped to a tin spittoon, took refuge under it.
Wild horses raced across the sky. The wino stirred uneasily,
rested a hand on Clay's shoulder. Clay pushed it away. The
door marked CAPTAIN opened and I. P. Geiselbeckoned.
The office smelled of disinfectant. A photograph of the sur-
vivors of the Haymarket riot, mustached policemen carrying
long billies, hung on the wall over a rolltop desk. Against an-
other wall leaned a dusty glass-front bookcase, and on this, on
an ebony block, was a baseball autographed by Hack Wilson.
A torn green shade cloaked the open window.
“Where's Tom?” Clay asked.
“Back in his cell.”
“You couldn't spring him?”
“Not yet.” The lawyer frowned. “Are you sure this is con-
nected with the murder?”
I50


“Shoot him like a dog!”
“A very human reaction. But you, Captain, are first of all a
police officer. Sworn to uphold the law.”
“I still say...”
“Impartially,” I. P. Geisel went on smoothly. “Fairly. With
due regard for a citizen's rights.”
“Citizen!” Captain Grady wheezed. “Him a citizen?”
The lawyer's long face became melancholy. He shook his
head sadly. “I—we are disappointed, Captain.”
“Disappointed?”
“The Globe has had its eye on you. A family man. A just
man. A man it would like to see heading a certain depart-
ment.”
“Well, now,” said Captain Grady.
“And it would appreciate your allowing its lawyer and one
of its reporters to examine Nichols' statement.”
“Irregular,” said Captain Grady.
“In the interest of justice.”
Captain Grady sighed. “The old malarkey. Kiss today; hot-
foottomorrow.” He got up wearily. “You'd think I'd learn.” He
glanced at the typewritten pages. “In the interest of justice,
I'll be back in ten minutes.” He went out the inner door.
The statement, faded elite type on transparent flimsies, was
obviously the police stenographer's first draft. It had no head-
ing, gave no indication as to who was present when it was
taken. Clay and I. P. Geisel read it together, bending over
the desk. It began:
Q. Give your full name and occupation.
A. I already did.
Q. This is for the record.
A. Thomas Hood Nichols. Lawyer. Age 35.
Q. You admit you attacked this girl, this Cleo,
Hughes?
I52


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
I don't admit anything.
You said you would make a statement.
I will. I am.
Well, did you or did you not attack this girl?
She attacked me.
Answer the question.
I didn't attack anybody.
Come now, Nichols.
I thought you were going to let me tell this
in my own way.
Q.
-Yeº-ºk-tell-it-like-we-weat-it-Strike.
that -ettt go ahead Nichols.
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
Where do you want me to start?
You start it.
I was born in Kentucky of poor mountain folk
Ne-b-e'--the-face--Sergeant-
Grey--ekey-s---P-14-talk---Just-keep--that:
baboon-away-frem-me-
Q.
A.
left
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
Well? -
It started at the Love Nest after my wife
after we picked up Cleo.
You mean after you picked her up.
We. My wife helped me.
Your wife helps you with these things?
She does them herself sometimes.
You-dropped your-glassess--Captain.-
Helps me question people.
Your story is that you were questioning this
Cleo?
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
A.
Q.
For a client.
Who?
The name is Nameless. Nameless Nameless.
Are you drunk?
Of course I'm drunk.
Strike that from the record.
153


A. You can't strike that from the record. I'm
a lawyer and you can't strike that from the record.
Q. Let it stand then.
A. You're goddam right, let it stand. Where
was I?
Q. In the Love Nest.
A. Passion fruit. Wow.
Q. What?
A. The poison I had to drink to get her friendly.
Wow. Gallons. Loosened her up finally and she
agreed to help me find Mrs. B who she was supposed
to meet and we started off after Mrs. B in a taxi.
And let me tell you don't ever get in a taxi with
Cleo.
Q. Who is Mrs. B? º
A. Her name is Nameless.
Q. Your client?
A. No. He's another Nameless. Suppose I call
him Mr. Q. That'll help. Mr. C was why I played
patty-cake with Cleo to get her to take me to Mrs. B
to get her to tell me what she knew about Mr. C and
a certain Miss T. Get it?
Q. Gaptein-,--ſ--suggest--we-beat--the--beyesus-
out-ef.
Q. Let him tell it in his own way.
A. We never did find Mrs. B. We searched for
her in joints where women wore men's clothes and
joints where men wore women's clothes. We
searched for her in taxis and on foot, through
Strange apartments and hotel lobbies-–and some-
where I learned I didn't need to find Mrs. B at all.
Q. Why not?
A. On account Cleo knew everything Mrs. B knew
on account she was the redhead Mr. C remembered
and on account she was with Mrs. B and Mr. C most
of the night. Are you listening, Mr. C.?
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Q. This is not a radio program.
Q.-Gaptain++f-yet--d-just-Petrime
Q. We'll straighten this out later.
A. Straightened one thing out for sure. The
photograph. Seems all three went to Riverview
Park. Roller coasters. Fun house. And had a
gag picture taken in wedding clothes. Mr. C
and Mrs. B. that is.
Q. Is this a divorce case you claim you were
working on?
A. It's connected with divorce. And after
Riverview. after a couple of other stops the three
of them ran into Miss T at the bar of a club with
a French name.
Q. Minue tº
A. Thanks---Cepte-in--4--doº-º-tº-dah-ee-
Q. Why--Captai-n--d-idh-'-t-y-oth-sey-we--she-Hºdn'-t-
A. J-kaew-P-4+)-ow---4-1-G s-t #y-temperºr--C-F-G-S-S-
a 4-4--tha-t -out--you--dańn--fool-
Q. Now, was this club called the Minuet?
A. Yeah. And Miss T. according to Cleo, was
scared of something. Didn't want to go home
alone. So she glommed onto Mr. C., her escort
Charley having left. That's important. Miss T
being scared.
Q. Let him talk. Sergeant.
A. These other th 1 ngs could be important too.
Picked them up plecemeal when Cleo wasn't busy
fill ing or emptying her kidneys. Cleo said that
while she and Miss T were in the lad les room
Miss T put in a call to Washington. Told someone
evidence was safe with--only Cleo didn't catch
the name. Then Miss T hung up muttering about
a mechanical man.
Q. Mechanical man? -
A. That's what she muttered. * Mechanical man.
155


And then Miss T got an airplane schedule out
of her purse, began looking up flights to Wash-
ington. Like she had to get there quick, Clco
said, and at the same time scared and not knowing
what to do. Scared peeless, Cleo said in her
elegant way.
Q. Now look.
A. Washington, evidence safe, mechanical man
and scared peeless is about all Mr. C because
Cleo and Mrs. B left.
Q. That is all. Period. We don't give a
tinker's damn about this crap with Miss T at the
Minuet. We want your story.
A. Very well. While I was digging all this out,
Cleo started falling over things. Over things
and off things. She also got sick. So I said
coffee and she said her apartment.
Q. ll East Oak?
A. All I know it was on the sixth floor and the
elevator boy had to help me lug her in. Pretty
elegant place. Dumped her on the sofa and went
out into the kitchen to make the coffee. And
then came the crash?
Q. Crash?
A. Damnedest you ever heard. Like an earth-
quake at a glass blowers' convention. I ran to
the bathroom.
Q. Why the bathroom?
A. Are you stupid? There was this dame in the
tub, naked as a jaybird, thrashing around in
about three feet of perfume bottles.
Q. Perfume bottles?
A. Well, water, perfume and blood too, but
mostly bottles. About fifty, all broken. Oh yeah,
and what was left of two glass shelves. Seemed
she'd slipped getting in the tub, grabbed the
I56


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
shelves and pulled the whole shebang, bottles
and all, down with her.
Q. Why was she taking a bath?
A. How the hell would I know?
Q. Go on.
A. Fished her out of the tub. You ever wrestle
a greased pig in a junkyard, Captain?
Q. No.
A. You can see where I cut my hands, and
started to carry her into the bedroom and there
were these people.
Q. Who?.
A. We never got around to introductions. The
elevator boy. A cop. Some others.
Q. And then?
A. I tossed the dame at the cop and would have
got out only some bastard tripped me.
Q. That's your story?
A. Can you think of a better one?
I. P. Geisel turned the page, but there was nothing under
it. He glanced at Clay. “Illuminating.”
Clay didn't say anything.
“A call to Washington. A mechanical man. Frightened.”
“What about Nichols?” Clay asked.
“Miss T.,” I. P. Geisel murmured. “And Mr. C.”
“A writ of habeas corpus?” Clay suggested.
I. P. Geisel eyed him thoughtfully. “Don’t you think I'd
better apply for two while I’m at it?”
157


Chapter 18
Except for a kidney-shaped desk the size of a Hollywood
swimming pool, Mrs. Palmer's outer office resembled an apart-
ment living room. Bright chintz covered a couch and three
overstuffed chairs; Dufy paintings hung on paneled walls;
yellow roses, petals closed, slept in silver vases; and in a
marble fireplace were birch logs so white they looked as
though they had been dry cleaned. Back of huge windows at
the end of the room sparkled the city's lights. *
Sam Clay, sitting in a corner of the couch, drowsily watched
Mary Lou Converse, the pretty receptionist, get ready to go
home. She had already put on lipstick and eye shadow,
combed out her dark hair, rolled a piece of gum in paper and
dropped it in a wastebasket, and now she was adjusting the
seams of her stockings. “No peekin’,” she warned from behind
the kidney-shaped desk.
Clay asked, “Are you-all fixin' to leave me here alone, Mary
Lou?”
“Four hours overtime! No dinner!” Mary Lou said. “And
the man wants me to stay!” She straightened up, began turn-
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
ing dials on a machine that looked something like a dicta-
phone. “And besides Her Majesty'll be getting around to you
any minute now.”
“Who’s in there?”
“Widdecomb, Standish and a detective.”
“Heavy-set man?” Clay asked, alarmed.
“No. Thin. Gray hair.” She touched a switch on the machine.
Soft greenlight lit the dials and from within came a humming
sound. She depressed a lever on the telephone control box,
picked up the nearest telephone and listened. Clay could hear
a woman speaking, but he couldn't make out what she said.
After a moment Mary Lou put the phone back in place.
“What's that gadget for?”
She smoothed her skirt, then picked up her purse. “Tele-
recorder.” She came around the desk.
“What's a telerecorder?”
“How ignorant can you-all get?”
“Plenty.”
“For incoming calls, stupid.” Her eyes crinkled at the cor-
ners when she smiled. “Answers the phone, records what you
have to say and then hangs up. Electronics or something. For
heaven's sake, don't touch it.”
“I won't.”
“’By, you-all.” Buttocks moving jauntily under the thin
skirt, she went out the door.
Clay settled back on the couch. It was the first chance he'd
had to think since I. P. Geisel had left him in the outer office
ten minutes ago. I. P. Geisel was impaled on the horns of a
dilemma, if that was what a dilemma had. As a citizen he was
duty bound to report what he'd learned about Clay from Tom
Nichols' statement. As a lawyer he was duty bound to keep
the information confidential until otherwise instructed by his
I59


client. He'd gone down to his office on the thirtieth floor to
interview his conscience, was still interviewing it as far as
Clay knew.
He started to think about the Minuet and what Cleo had
said about Miss T. It was pretty incoherent, coming as it did
in a sort of triple play from Cleo to Tom to a police stenog-
rapher. Airplanes to Washington. The phone call to Washing-
ton. The first of two phone calls to Washington, counting the
one from the apartment. If only he could remember. He tried
to visualize himself at the bar with the three women, but noth-
ing came. The blackout was still in effect. Irritated, he went to
the desk and picked up one of the phones. The machine
clicked, its dial lights flickered, it hummed and Mary Lou's
voice said: “Mrs. Palmer's office. This is a telerecording.
Please give your name and message.” He put the handpiece
back on its cradle, tried another phone, got a dial signal and
called Bundy's number. “Sam Clay,” he said when Miss Dew-
hurst answered.
“Oh, Susan, I'm so sorry!” she exclaimed.
“Susan?”
“I know I’m late, Susan, but Mr. Bundy is being ... inter-
viewed.”
He finally got it. “Police?”
“I should be free quite soon, though.”
“Can you give him a message?”
“Why yes, Susan, I think so.”
With occasional pauses for additional “Yes, Susans,” Clay
gave her a quicksummary of Nichols' arrest and his statement,
ending with the call to Washington, the “evidence safe” line
and the reference to the mechanical man.
“That's terribly exciting, Susan,” Miss Dewhurst said. “Be-
cause a most interesting person has the Dupont number.”
“Who?”
I60


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Tell you when I see you, dahling. Must ring off now.”
Clay put down the phone wondering why the police were
questioning Bundy. It could be about some other matter, but
it didn't seem likely. Not with Miss Dewhurst acting the way
she had. And if they were after Bundy, it meant—
Widdecomb came out of Mrs. Palmer's office. Albino eye-
brows arched, baby-blue eyes widened as he caught sight of
Clay. “You!” He halted theatrically.
“Why not?”
“Mrs. Palmer didn't tell me she . . . she . . .” He started to
go back into the office, then glanced again at Clay, suddenly
alarmed, and hurried out of the room. His heels raised staccato
echoes in the corridor.
Standish and Lieutenant Diffendorf appeared next. Stan-
dish scowled at Clay. “Detectives! Lies!” he snarled. “Benedict
Arnold!” He went out into the corridor.
Diffendorf, lingering to light his pipe, observed quietly,
“You ain't a very popular fellow.”
“I guess not.”
“Anything you want to tell me?”
Clay shook his head.
“Pity.” The match flame above the pipe's bowl was yellow.
“Storm's a little on the trigger-happy side.”
“I imagine.”
“Might plug me, too, after what happened with the hat.”
Match still poised over the bowl, he gazed at Clay thought-
fully. “Could be we're playing for the same ball club.”
“I hope so.”
“You wouldn't want to swap information?”
“I’ll callyou later.”
“You mean it?”
“I promise.”
Diffendorf broke the match, dropped it into an ash tray.
I61


Chapter 19
Outside the big windows the summer dusk had gone, leaving
the city lights crystal bright, like lights on the moon. A taxi
horn asked a question thirty-one stories below, was answered
by distant thunder. In the room the yellow roses slept, undis-
turbed by the beating of Clay's heart.
At last he managed to say, “What makes you think I killed
Mary Trevor?”
“Weren't you with her last night?” Her hand, capable look-
ing but still feminine, moved on the desk. “She told me you
Were.
“She told you!”
The hand stopped moving. “Then you didn't trace the Du-
pont number?”
“It's unlisted.”
“It’s mine.”
He blinked at her in astonishment.
“Miss Trevor telephoned me at five-thirty this morning.
From her apartment. And mentioned you.”
“She made the call at four-thirty.”
“Not Washington time, Mr. Clay.”
As his surprise diminished, Clay realized he shouldn't have
I64


that had written etaoinshrdlu instead of the weather report,
and in fairness she was willing to listen to an explanation be-
fore issuing a discard order. He felt the stirring of anger at
being classed as a statistic, a cog, a wheel, but what could he
expect? A comforting kiss? A pat on the back? He wondered
what would happen if he leaned over the desk and kissed her.
He sighed, finished his Scotch.
“I guess it's tell.”
“Get yourself another drink.”
He filled his glass, then started at the very beginning, with
Tom Nichols at the Drake celebrating the final decree from
Alice. From there he went on to the dinner with Andy Talbot,
to the Vendome and Mrs. Bruce, to the Little Club and Cleo
and the brandy, to Riverview Park and the wedding photo-
graph. He found the story flowed smoothly, the earlier gaps
now filled with the information supplied by Bundy, Cleo and
the various people encountered along the way. He paused at
the Minuet to make a third drink for himself, a second for Mrs.
Palmer, and then quoting Nichols' police statement, recreated
what had happened there. For the first time Mrs. Palmer
seemed interested. She made him repeat the business about
the airplane schedule and the phone call to Washington.
“Frightened,” she said. “And trying to get help.” Her voice
was low. “Poor child.”
“Where were you when she made the first call?”
“In bed. I'd left instructions not to be disturbed.” She added
softly, “She didn't give the butler her name.”
“I suppose the schedule meant she was thinking of flying
there.”
“She was afraid of someone in Chicago.” Steady topaz eyes
met his gaze. “She told me that.”
“Did she say who?”
I66


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“No.”
“What did she say?”
“Don’t you know, Mr. Clay?”
“I don't know anything. That's the trouble. If I did I
wouldn't be in this jam.”
“I’m afraid I don't quite understand.”
Angered by the calm, impersonal voice that might have
been discussing the growing of yellow roses, he demanded,
“Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘blind drunk, Mrs. Palmer?”
He rattled the ice in his glass. “Have you ever heard of black-
outs? Of blanks?”
Coolly she asked: “In that case, how do you know you didn't
kill her?”
“Because . . .”
He was about to tell her of his discovery of Laura Peterkins'
body, but he suddenly realized he couldn't. That was too
much to expect anyone to believe.
“Because,” he repeated lamely, “I wouldn't.”
“Do you recall being in the apartment at all?”
“Yes,” he said, and told her of waking up and finding the
body. From there he went on to his discovery of the bracelet
and, later, the scissors, and to his experience with Tom Nichols
and Mr. Bundy. He also, at her suggestion, poured two more
drinks. He told her about the discovery of the wedding photo-
graph, about Gwen Pearson, the elevator boy, the hat-check
girl, about Mr. Bundy's blackmail theory, the janitor’s “Angel
of the Lord,” Saul Blair's rendition of “Larry Trevor and the
Hooded Nun,” about Esther Baumholtz and the girl's sudden
wealth after her death and the changing of her name to
Trevor. He even told her about the Fort Worth report on
Simon Palmer's purchase of bracelet and clip, knowing he
was on delicate ground, but wanting to get everything out in
167


the open. Near the end he found himself repeating and broke
off, suddenly realizing the whole story sounded as though it
had been spewed out of a cement mixer.
“We will now open the forum for questions,” he said.
The joke, if it was a joke, crawled off in a corner to die un-
mourned. A petal fell off one of the roses like a yellow tear.
Air going nowhere sighed outside the building. He lifted his
glass to his lips, found somebody had already emptied it. He
found he could see Mrs. Palmer through the bottom. She
looked like Ingrid Bergman.
But when she spoke she sounded like Mrs. Palmer. “I’m to
believe all this?”
“You can check most of it.”
“I suppose.” Her square-shaped fingernails, flesh tinted,
played scales on the desk. “Have you any idea how the girl
got Simon's jewelry?”
“I’d guess through Esther Baumholtz. He was in ... liked
her.”
“He bought the jewelry in August 1936?”
“Yes.”
“The year we were married,” she said reflectively. “He
might have given her money, too.”
“Saul Blair says she wouldn't have taken it.”
“He could be right, of course.” The fingers stopped playing
scales, gently pushed the old-fashioned glass forward. Clay
got it, took it with his to the bar. He was starting to feel the
whisky, but obviously Mrs. Palmer wasn't. Her voice, behind
him, was steady. “And hardly consistent with the blackmail
theory.”
“Then you buy that?”
“I don't know.” Her face, when he came with the drinks,
seemed softer, almost friendly. Maybe the liquor was work-
ing. It certainly was on him. He wished he'd slugged her drink.
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
She'd be a friend in a million. Thirty, no forty million. Accord-
ing to Dun & Bradstreet. He'd like them for friends, too.
She was saying, “I think I should tell you of my two con-
versations with the girl.”
“Two?”
“One was in the office here. About three weeks ago. She
told me then she was having trouble with someone in the
organization.”
“Not me. I didn't even know her!”
A suspicion of a smile plucked at the corners of the wide
mouth. “I think it was someone even higher placed than you,
Mr. Clay.” It was a smile. “Someone in authority. She wanted
to know how I’d feel if the trouble came to a head. I had the
impression, although she didn't say so, that the someone had
been threatening her with me. I told her, of course, that I'd
stand by her no matter who was involved, if she were in the
right. I'd do that for anyone.”
“Low-placed reporters?”
“Even low-placed reporters.” Amusement colored the husky
voice. “I tried to find out who it was but she wouldn’t tell me.
All she wanted, she said, was an assurance that I’d be im-
partial.” She paused, her topaz eyes thoughtful. “I concluded
she was being pushed into an affair or had been pushed into
one and wanted out. By someone influential.”
“Canning,” said Clay. “Standish.”
“Both deny it.” She smiled reminiscently. “Vigorously.”
“Including the mink stole?”
“A platonic gesture.”
“You don’t know Standish.”
“‘Satyriasis,” she quoted. “An insatiable venereal appe-
tite.’”
Staring at the calm, high cheek-boned face that belonged
in Czechoslovakia or Hungary, to a peasant or a princess but
169


nowhere between, Clay decided she knew a lot more than
he'd thought. Probably more than he did. Or Diffendorf. Or
anybody short of the killer. He was glad they were getting
along. She was speaking again.
“The second conversation was over the phone. The call we
were discussing.” Recollection flattened tawny eyebrows, put
a Vof flesh between them. “I won't try to give her exact words.
She was a trifle ... incoherent. I gathered, though, that she
was in danger, that she was frightened, badly frightened, and
wanted to see me. I urged her to call the police but she said
she was safe for the moment. She had, and that is where she
mentioned you, Mr. Clay, a temporary protector.”
“I sure did a great job.”
“She asked me if I’d be home at two-thirty Washington
time. Apparently she had a certain plane in mind. I said I
would.”
“But no clue as to who she was afraid of?”
She thought this over, the V deepening. “I don't know,” she
said slowly. “Perhaps one thing. I suggested that instead of
coming to Washington, she see Horace Widdecomb since he
was in Chicago. And she said . . .”
“Said what?”
“She said no. Not Horace Widdecomb! It sounds queer
now when I think about it. She was so emphatic.”
“And besides, he wasn't in Chicago.”
“Yes, that's another queer thing. He was in my study when
I came downstairs Sunday morning. He was the one who told
me about the girl's death.”
Something besides whisky warmed Clay's stomach. Horace
Widdecomb! It was an unlikely name for a murderer, and he
didn't seem to be the type to behaving an affair with a girl, but
stranger things had happened. And there was still the black-
mail angle to fall back on. He'd be a fine target. And the Boy
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
lease!” The glass sounded like a castanet. He lowered it. “Re-
lease from what?”
“Come now, Mr. Clay.” She smiled indulgently. “You can't
have expected me to shelter you.”
“You said you believed me.”
“I do.”
The fuzzy feeling left his head. “I don't get it.”
“Consider my position. I believe you, as I've said twice now.
But if I let you go, and in the end you proved to be the mur-
derer, I'd be an accessory after the fact.”
“Not going to prove to be the murderer!” It sounded hollow
and too loud as he said it and he added, “Okay. So it's a gam-
ble. Be human. Take it.”
She leaned over the desk. “I’m not human, Mr. Clay. I'm an
accurate, unbiased news story. I'm the market quotations, the
baseball scores, the minutes of a P.T.A. meeting, a report from
the United Nations. I’m ink, paper and type. A news service.
A newspaper.” For an instant her face was wistful. “As a
woman, I might gamble. As a publisher, I can't.”
“Then what?”
“You’d best go to the police.”
To hell with that, he thought. It was easy enough to sit
there, give advice, Athena on Olympus or whatever mountain
she sat on, when she didn't have to take it. He demanded:
“What do you think would have happened if I’d called the
police when I found the body?”
She didn't answer. -
“ITl tell you. They would have found the bracelet in my
pocket, the scissors in my apartment; they would have talked
to Gwen, half a dozen other people, brought the elevator boy,
the Little Club bartender, Mrs. Bruce, the Minuet hat-check
girl to identify me, and then they would have beat hell out of
I73


me until I confessed.” He stared at her detached, almost un-
interested face and went on angrily: “I confess easy, Mrs.
Palmer. Especially with a lemon squeezer attached to my
testicles. That's why I'm not going to the police until I have
tol”
“Things have changed since this morning.”
“Because why? Because I've been around to stir them up.
And there's still stirring to be done.”
“And stirrers,” she said. “Your Mr. Bundy. Your friend
Nichols, when he's freed. The Globe staff. I. P. Geisel. Me.”
“Fine. But I’m going to stir to the last drop, too.”
“But how can I let you go now?”
“Easy. You never saw me.”
“At least four people know I saw you.”
“Okay. You saw me. We exchanged credentials, cut up a
few jokes and I left.”
She considered this. “I would certainly have asked you
about being in the apartment when the girl called. That's my
only excuse for not havingtold the police.” She shook herhead.
“No, Mr. Clay. Jokes won't do.”
“They've got to do! Because I'm walking out of here. Now.
And I might add, cold sober.” -
He put down his glass, had reached the door when sh
called softly, “Mr. Clay. Come back.”
It was a Luger and it looked as though it belonged in the
motionless, capable hand. It had all a Luger's standard fea-
tures, the clip with wooden tabs for thumb and forefinger, the
wooden handle cross-etched like tweed for better holding, the
rounded trigger-guard, the blue-black metal barrel and the
blue-black muzzle with the deadly bottomless hole.
Slowly, he went back to the desk. Her eyes, smoky rather
than topaz now, but gold flecked, watched him. A vein pulsed
I74


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
in her throat. “Not too close,” she said. Her breasts, under the
black suit, moved with her breathing. “I’m sorry, but there's
no other way.”
Eyeing the Luger again, he saw the catch above her thumb's
second joint, on the recoil carriage, was down exposing the
German lettering.
“Gesichert,” he read. º
“I know. It's on safety. But don't think for a second—”
He dove, breasting the desk, and caught her wrist with both
hands. His impetus carried him into her, swung her chair
around, tumbled both of them onto the carpet. He rolled,
hearing air whoosh from her lungs, and whip-cracked the
pistol out of her hand. There was a sharp crash of glass, a
tinkling noise and the window back of the desk suddenly had
an eye. A second later from the twenty-ninth floor came the
sound of the pistol striking the parapet. He got to his feet,
steadying himself against the wall. t
“I’m sorry,” he said mockingly. “But there's no other way.”
“You fool!” She pulled her legs under her, not bothering to
straighten her skirt. “You crazy fool!” On one sheer stocking,
from garter clasp to calf, was a run. Her flesh matched the
beige nylon. “Can't you see I’m trying to help you?”
She stood up, back to him, and went around the chair to
the desk. She pulled down a lever on the telephone call box,
picked up the telephone, spoke into it quietly. “Operator.”
From behind he caught her suit jacket, dragged her from
the desk and swung her to one side. He felt the jacket's buttons
give, heard the rip of torn fabric. He bent over the desk and
pushed the lever back in place.
She was on her way to the door, head high, back straight,
walking, not running. This time he hooked an arm around her
waist, pivoted to put himself between her and the knob. Her
I75


stomach, bared from skirt to brassiere by the torn jacket, was
like a boy's, the muscle sheath firm and flat. “Look,” he said.
“Just give me five minutes head start...”
She spun within the circle of his arm, brought her knee up
into his groin. He grunted, yellow pain blinding his eyes, and
she tore free of the arm, started back to the desk. He caught
her by the shoulders with both hands, the pain making him
rough. “God damn it!” he began, shaking her.
“God damn you!” She tried to knee him a second time, but
he blocked the thrust by turning. She clawed at him, her face
wildly furious, feline, insane. Her nails seared his neck, a
cheek, and when he closed with her she bit his arm through
the sleeve of the linen coat. He brought an elbow up trying
to fend her off, but she bent under it, bit again. He grappled
with her, holding her close by neck and waist, and they began
to turn slowly, alternately off balance, each straining against
the other in an awkward parody of a dance. She was solid and
strong, as strong as he was, and she smelled of English
lavender.
Her fist, striking upward, brought the pain back, caused
him to lose his balance completely. Still clutching her, he fell
across a corner of the cocktail table, shattering the plate glass
top. The impact stunned him and she spun free. Glass
crunched as he crawled from the table, started to get to his
feet. She was already on her knees, but instead of going for
the door she came for him, nails reaching for his eyes. He got
her wrists in time, deflecting the clawing hands to either side
of his head, but her body's weight flattened him against the
rug. She jerked an arm loose, ground knuckles into his lips,
bringing blood to his mouth. He turned, pinning the other
arm to the rug, and tried to swing her off. She stopped knuck-
ling his mouth, bracing herself against the pressure of shoul-
der, hip and leg. For a moment nothing happened. Then,
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
slowly, he began to shift her, feeling her body writhe in an
agony of resistance. He slid her to the rug, forced a leg be-
tween hers for leverage, and rolled on top of her. He caught
the free arm, pushed it and the other back over her head, let
his weight rest on her. She struggled frantically, legs thrash-
ing, hips swiveling, back arching, and then, abruptly, she
quit fighting. She exhaled; a long sigh: her eyes fluttered, her
body trembled, she moaned once and then lay still, breasts
pressed against his chest, smoky eyes glowing, her face remote
and mysterious.
“You son of a bitch,” she said huskily.
He released her arms, got to his knees and then to his feet.
She watched him, not moving, the breasts under the white
brassiere rising and falling evenly like the breasts of a sleeping
woman. He crossed to the desk and jerked telephone and
telephone wire from the control box. The movement hurt his
groin. Walking stiffly, he crossed to her again, stood looking
down ather. She looked back, her eyes large and luminous and
blank. Under the eyes, turning the tawny skin the color of
skimmed milk, were half circles of exhaustion; under the
cheek bones were blue shadows. Her cherry-ripe lips were
flaccid.
He said hoarsely, “A rope?”
She made a faint negative movement with her head.
“Your stockings’ll have to do then.”
“No.” Her voice, deep in her throat, was muffled. “Five
minutes. I promise.” The words got clearer. “And then God
help you!”
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S IN N E R S AND SH R O U DS
She said, “You’re not very polite. Suppose I don't want to go
down?”
“Look,” he began again and then said, “Jesus! You'll never
change, will you?”
“And neither, apparently, will your language.”
Like the tail of a meteor, a light slid down the figure column
on the control panel: 21, 20, 19. . .
She said, “Even an ex-wife deserves some respect.”
“If you'll stand back, I'll genuflect.”
“You’re bitter.”
... 12, 11, 10, the light read.
She said, “You know in your heart it was best for both of us.”
“Sure.”
“We were so young, so inexperienced when ...”
. . . 5, 4, 3, the light read, and then the elevator slowed,
settled to a cushiony halt.
“... when we married,” she continued. “So immature.”
The doors opened on an empty lobby.
“Good-by.”
She caught his arm. “Sam. Can't we be friends?”
She'd always talked like a B movie, but this was a new low,
even for her. He felt a sudden rush of sympathy. “Alice,” he
said, “I don't mean to be abrupt. But I'm in a jam.”
“You can spare two minutes.”
“I can tell you we’re friends in two seconds. We're friends.
Ilike you fine, Alice, and I'll always think of you as a-—”
Sound erupted in the lobby. A gong clanged on the rear
wall. The telephone by the street doors began to ring, insistent
and shrill. A deep voice on a loudspeaker somewhere said:
“Attention, all Globe employees...”
“Bitch!” he exclaimed. “Double-crossing bitch!”
Wounded, she released his arm. “Sam Clay!”
Another bell joined the clamor. He headed for the doors,
I79


hearing the deep voice say: “... detain reporter Sam Clay. He
is wanted...” He quickened his pace to a dogtrot, not quite
daring to run. “... for questioning. Wanted for questioning.”
Alice called, “Sam!” in a different tone of voice. He went
by the ringing telephone, thankful there was no guard on
Sunday, and out the doors to the street. Bitch! he thought
again. Her and her five minutes! The loudspeaker voice said:
“Attention. Detain reporter Sam Clay.” He started up the
street toward the river.
“Sam!” Alice came through the doors, came running after
him. “Sam! Wait!” Wind molded the pink dress to heavy
breasts, wide hips, fluttered the blond hair.
Realizing he couldn't lose her without running, he slowed
his pace. She closed rapidly, continuing to call: “Saml Sam!”
“For God's sake!” he said as she caught up. “Stop yelling
Sam! Yell Tony or something.”
“I didn't know...”
The deep voice, muffled by distance but still distinct, said,
“Attention Globe employees...”
“I told you I was in a jam.”
“Here.” Breathing hard, trotting to keep up with him, she
fumbled with her purse. “What I’ve been . . . trying to . . .
reach you for.” She took out an envelope, thrust it at him.
“From Laura Peterkins.”
He stopped walking. “Laura!”
“Terribly important, she said.”
He started walking again. “How did you get it?”
“She couldn't find you... so she thought of me. Sent it this
morning . . . by messenger. Said nobody else on the Globe
must see it.”
He stuffed the envelope in his pocket. “Thanks.”
“If there's anything...”
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U Ds
“Beat it. Before you get shot.”
She halted, wide eyed, and he went on alone. The building
called after him: “Wanted for questioning. Wanted for ques-
tioning...” He heard it long after he was out of hearing range.
181


two years ago, on November 6, 1950, of a heart
attack.
I will take your questions in order. The records
show:
He had no visitors in the nineteen years he was
at McAlester.
He wrote and received no letters.
He had no prison friends.
His body was unclaimed.
He made numerous attempts to escape, the last
only a month before his death. In one, in 1945, in-
volving a leap from a fifty-foot wall, he broke his
back and both legs.
He never revealed the identity of the so-called
Hooded Nun.
He never disclosed the hiding place of the
money he stole.
So much for the records. He did tell me, when
in the prison hospital with the broken back and, I
believe, under the impression he was dying, that
he was married. He told me, if I recall correctly,
that the marriage took place in 1931, in Clear-
creek, Oklahoma. If you were born in 1982, as you
say, it is quite possible, as far as the time element
is concerned, for you to be his daughter, but I am
certain he knew nothing of your existence.
At the time of our hospital conversation, the
only long talk I had with him in ten years as As-
sistant Warden and Warden, he gave me a letter
to be posted in the event of his death. Upon his
recovery, and at his request, I destroyed it.
As he reached for page three, fierce wrangling broke out by
the door. The two old men, leaning forward, crimson face to
crimson face, pushed beer caps back and forth across the table,
shook fists, gobbled at one another. Finally the fat man in the
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
undershirt, with the air of a conjurer, produced a milk bottle
from his pants, put it on the table and said something in Polish.
This broke everybody up. Stan doubled hysterically, crossing
his arms over his belly; the two old men cackled, fell back in
their chairs, tears running from their eyes, arms waving help-
lessly; even the fat man laughed. It was a very funny thing.
Maybe the funniest thing that had ever happened. Clay stared
blankly, then turned back to the letter.
I now recall, having seen your name, that
Trevor's letter was addressed to an Edna (or
Esther) Baumholtz in Forth Worth, Texas. Could
this be the woman who told you on her deathbed
that you were his daughter?
There is little more I can add. I believe the un-
usual sentence, 150 years rather than death, was
the result of pressure brought by the Bankers' As-
sociation in the hope he would ultimately reveal
the hiding place of the stolen money, more than
$100,000 by all accounts.
I was also once told by a Deputy delivering a
prisoner from Idabel, where Trevor was captured,
that Sheriff Wattling and his men were acting
upon information supplied them by the so-called
Hooded Nun. This betrayal, if betrayal it was,
would account for Larry's escape fixation, since
he would naturally have a burning desire for re-
venge.
It is my belief, and incidentally the Deputy's,
that the Hooded Nun was a boy, or a young man.
There would seem to be no purpose in the dis-
guise except to conceal the sex of the wearer, and
the descriptions of the fair-skinned face would fit
a boy as well as a girl.
That is all I can tell you. If you will take the
advice of an old man who has spent more than
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
No, by God! Not the hiding place, because she'd asked the
warden about that. Sudden wealth unaccounted for, and
blackmail still the best angle. But who would she be black-
mailing? Moses! he thought, suddenly excited. The Hooded
Nun! It was a natural. Boy or young man in 1932, he'd be a
man somewhere now. And no special reason for his not bein
a newspaperman. No special reason for his not being Charley
Adair or Widdecomb, or Canning, Standish, Saul Blair for that
matter. What had Mrs. Palmer said about the person Mary
had told her she was having trouble with? Someone in the
organization, someone highly placed! A perfect fit! And the
trouble wouldn't exactly be blackmail, just a demand for a
share of the loot. That fitted in better with his impression of
the girl, even though he remembered her only as she looked
after she . . .
The street door opened and a woman carrying a purple
umbrella and wearing something resembling an old-fashioned
touring duster, backed into the saloon. All play at the table
stopped abruptly. The woman backed to the exact center of
the floor, eyes on the door, and then surveyed the card players
with evident distaste. Clay saw it was Miss Dewhurst, but
before he could rise she had backed to the booth, was sitting
down, her face still toward the door.
“What's the matter?” he asked.
“Followed . . .” Miss Dewhurst whispered. “Police.”
Alarmed, Clay slid along the seat. “Let’s get out of here!”
“No.” She was breathing hard. “Almost certain . . . threw
them off.” She turned, narrowly missing his head with the
purple umbrella, and moved into the booth.
“Where's Mr. Bundy?”
She put the umbrella on the table. “Poor man. In jail.”
It sounded like “Porman ingel,” and while he was decipher-
ing, she went on: “Detectives about to leave just after your
187


work figures at the table. As he stepped into the street he
looked back over his shoulder, saw Miss Dewhurst approach-
ing the bar, the purple umbrella held in a clubbing position
like an elongated hatchet. He heard her say, “Now then!” as
the door swungshut.
190


the muted notes more distinct, and the voice sang: “... where
dogies grazed on buff'lo grass...”
Soft earth in a flower bed gave under his feet as he moved
to one of the tall windows, peered past half-drawn curtains
into the room. Wan light from a cast-iron lamp diffused by a
yellow shade made pastels of book jackets in the ceiling-high
cases, faded the red bricks of the fireplace. On the canary's
cage was a linen cover and on a table under the lamp, lid open,
a portable phonograph relayed guitar and plaintive voice
singing: “... now Frank James rides the piebald sky...”
The ballad, continuing, “... on a piebald horse with a pie-
bald eye . . .” gave him an eerie feeling. It had a funereal
quality all right, but it seemed an odd thing to play at a wake,
if wake it was. He moved closer so that he could see more of
the room. There was no sign of the police. No sign of anybody,
for that matter. Just a disembodied voice rising in an empty
room from a machine that nobody had started.
What the hell? he thought and stepped across the shaft of
light from the window to peer from another angle. What he
saw froze him in startled surprise. On the enormous divan,
backpropped up by pillows, head swathed in a white bandage,
was Laura Peterkins. A plaid lap robe covered the lower part
of her body and on a stand beside her were a whisky bottle
and a half-empty tumbler glistening with sweat beads. Smoke
curled from a cigarette in an ash tray by the bottle.
For a broken second he was unable to believe what he saw,
and then relief, followed by exultation, filled him. It was all
over! Troubles gone like summer smoke, he thought excitedly,
unconsciously paraphrasing the Larry Trevor ballad. With
what she knew and what he knew it was just a matter of com-
paring notes. He pushed open the window, pushed curtains
aside and stepped over the sill.
He called softly, “Mrs. Peterkins ...” and moved towards
I92


Almost expecting an answer, icy sweat on face and palms,
Clay stared at Laura Peterkins. He realized now that the skin
on her face, under heavy rouge and smeared lipstick, was
bloodless, that the bulging eyes were sightless.
“No,” Peterkins said. “I’m not insane.” He went to the divan,
snuffed out the cigarette. “At least I don't think so.” He lit
another cigarette, put it in the ash tray. “Would you care to
judge?”
“I’m no judge.”
“A trap,” Peterkins said, watching the blue smoke uncoil.
“An ambush set by Laura and me.” He bent, blew on the
cigarette. “For the killer's return.”
Clay felt a rush of relief. Things, some things, began to
make sense. Cigarette, bandage, whisky and music were props
to make it appear Laura was still alive. So the killer would try
agal11.
ºn. was changing the record on the phonograph. “If
you will sit on the bench, Mr. Clay,” he murmured. “Out of
sight.”
*... Wing” played on a jew's-harp came from the phono-
graph. Shifting the Winchester from under his arm to an up-
right position between his knees, Peterkins sat on the bench
beside Clay. “It was fortunate you called to Laura,” he whis-
pered. “It saved your life.” He fingered the rifle. “Of course, I
should have known. Your age.”
“My age?”
“He would have to be at least forty.”
“The killer?”
A hand, the color and grain of old parchment, touched his
arm. “You must speak softly. You see, I did not call the police.”
Before Clay could place this in context, Peterkins was whis-
pering again. “I realized he would come back if I made no
report. To see what had happened. If he had failed the first
194


“Winged him!” Mr. Peterkins' voice was anguished. “Just
winged the bastard!”
Excited voices soared from near-by houses. A bulb, turned
on back of a second-story window, lit the mist overhead. A
door slammed somewhere. In the cottage, shrill above music,
the telephone began to ring. Claybacked into the mist, turned
and started for the street. A rose bush tugged at his coat,
scratched his hand; crushed tulips made sighing noises under
his feet. He began to run as he neared the sidewalk.
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S IN N E R S AND S H R O U DS
chest. “Spoke deep down. Hands too strong.” Her voice was
muffled by his coat. “Whisky on breath. Man's breath...”
“It was a man?”
She sighed, pushed her head under his chin. He shook her
again.
“Why did he want the key?” º
The door opened and the tallest Negro Clay had ever seen
came into the room. He had on black trousers and a white
shirt and his feet were bare. In the dim light his skin, taut over
a cruel, narrow face, was purple. His eyes had too much white
showing, like the eyes of a pinto horse. He came to the bed,
stared down at the girl.
“Tired of drumstick, hon?” he asked hoarsely. “Tired of
dark meat?”
The girl clung to Clay but he shoved her away, at the same
time watching the Negro. He saw now that the man's eyes
were the color of spoiled lemon juice, jaundiced whites and
pale irises so nearly matching that he looked blind. He looked
blind and he looked insane.
“That the idea, hon’?” he asked. “Gonna try breast for a
change?”
The girl fell over on the bed moaning softly. The Negro
moved a step closer. His long hands, attached to arms that
reached his knees, twitched. Cotton saliva bubbled from his
mouth.
“Giblets and drumstick not good enough,” he said. “Gotta
have white meat.”
Clay remained rigid, one knee touching the girl's leg. “Jose,”
she murmured. “Didn't mean nothin', Jose.”
“Half naked,” the man said. “But didn't mean nothin’.”
One hand closed on Clay's neck, pulled him to his feet. Then
the hand pushed him toward the door. It was an impersonal
205


push, as though he was a piece of furniture. The other hand
reached for the girl.
“Jose!” she wailed imploringly.
“Teach you what nothin' means,” the man said.
In the hallway, with the door swinging shut behind him,
Clay let breath escape from his lungs. He couldn't remember
when he'd been as scared. Half as scared. The man had pushed
him away but he might as easily have strangled him. It was
just that he hadn't thought of it.
Across the parlor entrance, blood dribbling from her mouth
onto the pine floor, lay the woman in the green wrapper. Be-
side her were the red garters, both torn. Clay stepped over
her, crossed the parlor and plunged out into the black pocket
that seemed safe and friendly now.
206


Chapter 24
The ring signal two thousand miles away persisted tiredly, an
intermittent snoring that seemed to grow fainter as the sec-
onds dragged by. In the gaps between snores Clay could hear
women's voices whispering and a hiss of static, like the sound
of wind in telephone wires.
From behind him Camille said, “I ought to shoot you.”
A woman said, “Kansas City oper...” and the line went
dead. Then the ringing began again.
“Tom in jail, maybe for life,” Camille said. “Me a widow,
our child an orphan, and now...”
Clay impatiently spoke into the phone. “I know they don't
answer, operator. Keep trying.”
“...you're ruining us with long distance calls,” Camille con-
cluded.
“I’m a desperate character.”
“Don’t I know it! You should hear how they describe you
over the radio. Makes Jack the Ripper look like...”
A reedy, querulous voice came over the telephone. “Hello
... hello...”
Clay shouted, “Bethany poor farm?”
“Hello... hello...” said the voice.
207


“I want to talk to the superintendent... the man in charge.”
“No time to be calling,” said the voice.
“Chicago police,” Clay shouted. “Official business.”
“How's that? Police?”
“Are you in charge?”
“Ed Jessup,” said the voice.
“Are you in charge, Mr. Jessup?”
“Just told you.” The voice was still querulous, but stronger
now. “What do you want?”
“Some information about Larry Trevor ... if you can give
it to us.”
Something came out of the phone that sounded like: “Auto
bubbly thurbly how!”
“What was that?”
There was a moment of silence and then Mr. Jessup said:
“Dad-gum store teethl Fixed 'em! I said, ought to be able.
Thirty years here now.”
“You were there when Larry was released from the farm?”
“Wasn't released. Ran away, summer of 30. Year before he
took up bank robbin'.”
“Did any of the other boys go with him?”
“Caught all but two.”
“Who were the two?”
“Tom Middern and the Cherokee. Bone they called him.
Got killed in a knife fight later, down Banner way.”
“This Middern.” Clay thought for a second. “Was he a small
fellow, white eyebrows, blue eyes, pink-and-white skin?”
“Blue eyes, all right. Brown hair. Skin might have been
pink.” There was a cackle of laughter from Mr. Jessup. “Never
washed him to see!”
“Who butchered the hogs in those days?”
“All the boys. Took turn. What you drivin' at, mister?”
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“We’re trying to tie up someone here with Middern. Would
you describe him as a choir boy type?”
“Never seen a choir boy.”
“Girlish, then?”
“Couldn't be you're thinkin' of the girl at the convent? One
Larry used to talk through the fence to? One the other girl
came here three, four years ago got so excited about?”
“No. I mean a man. Wait a minute! What girl three or four
years ago?”
“Real beauty. Hair like cornsilk. Young, too. Figured she
might be Larry's daughter, way she talked. Went on over to
the convent ... Are you there, mister?”
“Yes,” Clay said. “To get back to Middern. Have you ever
heard anything from him?”
“Heard he was real sick with TB over in Texas. Don't know
if he died or not.”
“Where in Texas?”
“Your guess as good as mine. Kin tell you all about Larry,
though. Had a story 'bout him in the Bethany Light...”
“We're interested in Middern right now, Mr. Jessup. You
think of anything, call us collect. Detective Bureau. Lieuten-
ant Diffendorf. Night.”
He broke the connection with his thumb, then released the
plunger bar. The line was silent. Camille had moved from be-
hind him, was seated on the edge of a rocker. She wore black
lounging pajamas stitched with scarlet thread and her eyes,
under the dark bangs, were solemn.
“Sam,” she said. “What if they find you here?”
“Tell them I pulled a knife on you.”
“I’m not worried about me. Or Tom, now that I know where
he is. But from the way the radio was screaming, they'll shoot
first and . . .”
209


Clay spoke into the phone. “Yes, I'm through with the call,
operator. But I've got another. Am I still connected with Okla-
homa City?”
A faraway voice said, “This is Oklahoma City, sir.”
“The Convent of the Good Shepherd at Bethany. Anyone
who answers.”
This time the phone was picked up after the third ring.
“Sister Cecelia speaking,” a cheerful voice said.
Clay went through the police routine again, then said,
“We're inquiring about a young lady who visited the convent
in 1952. In either October or November. Would there be any
way of checking?”
“A Miss Baumholtz?”
“You talked to her!”
“No, but I remember her well. So pretty. An angel's face.
She talked to Mother Germaine.”
“Do you know what about?”
Sister Cecelia hesitated. “Well . . .”
“It's very important.”
“She was asking about a girl who was with us a long time
ago. So it was said, at least.”
“The girl who was a friend of Larry Trevor?”
“Larry Trevor?”
Clay tried again. “Was your girl the one she was looking
for?”
“Mother Germaine didn't say. But...” Sister Cecelia hesi-
tated again. “... we thought it must be. Because afterwards
Mother Germaine said, ‘God moves . . .’” Static blurred the
next few words. “‘... miracles to perform.’”
The doorbell rang, lifting Camille off the rocker. She stared
wide-eyed at Clay. The doorbell rang again sharply.
On the phone Sister Cecelia said, “I’m sorry I can't be of
more help.”
210


“Two planes between five and seven. Not a popular time.”
Miss Dewhurst handed him some papers. “Lists and your en-
velope, as per telephonic instructions.”
Clay put the envelope in his pocket, spread the lists on a
table. The first read:
CAPITOL AIRLINES-FLIGHT TWENTY-ONE
Lv. Chicago 5:55 A.M. Ar. Washington 9:50 A.M.
Frank Furnas
Maxine Gammage
Mrs. G. W. McClure
W. O. Richards
Emil Gautereaux
William M. Devers
Woodrow W. Lapiezo
Alice Nicewonger
* Dean Trevor
F.O. Robey
Sister Angelica
Sidney Stickelberg
Mrs. Curtis Trickel
Wadham Gay
H. D. Bailey
Paul Jones Dines
A. Karabatsos
Pearl Perrin
Chicago, Ill.
Milwaukee, Wis.
Chicago, Ill.
Quincy, Ill.
Paris, France
Chicago, Ill.
Detroit, Mich.
Beloit, Wis.
Galesburg, Ill.
Chicago, Ill.
Mundelein, Ill.
Washington, D.C.
St. Louis, Mo.
Washington, D.C.
Chicago, Ill.
Des Moines, Iowa
Blue Island, Ill.
Chicago, Ill.
He pushed the list away, turned to the other. It was shorter:
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
AMERICAN AIRLINES-FLIGHT 201
Lv. Chicago 6:20 A.M. Ar. Washington 10:15 A.M.
Note: This through flight from Los Angeles so
only listed passengers getting on at Chicago.
Felix S. Lyman Washington, D.C.
Norma Patterson Chicago, Ill.
Horace Widdecomb Washington, D.C.
Theo. K. Phomlin Grand Rapids, Mich.
Mrs. Louise Patton Grand Rapids, Mich.
Joseph Aupperle Chicago, Ill.
Clay felt his skin begin to tingle. “Bingo!” he exclaimed.
“Good old Horace!”
“What is it?” Camille asked. “What did you find?”
He waved the second list in the air, said: “Master Ridley,
with this we shall today light such a candle as shall never be
put out!”
“Hugh Latimer,” said Miss Dewhurst. “Executed 1555.”
Clay thrust the lists into his pocket with the envelope.
Camille asked, “You’ve got something, Sam?”
“I told you. A candle,” he said excitedly, starting for the
kitchen. “Now for a match to light it!”
213


Chapter 25
Off the sports department, which in turn was off the city room,
were three small offices. One belonged to Al Zimmerman,
sports editor; the second to Larry Kane, sports columnist, and
the third and smallest to Silas Brown, racing editor favorably
known in two-dollar circles as Augur, Tom Thumb and Con-
sensus. His office was also known, in newspaper circles, as the
Augurian Stables, an obscure pun launched by Delos Parkin-
SOIn.
Hunched over an old-fashioned rolltop desk littered with
racing forms, Washington Park programs, multi-colored pari-
mutuel tickets, unanswered fan mail, a jockey's cap and a
gilded horseshoe, Clay had struggled for nearly an hour
against heat, Silas' beat-up Underwood and his own tired
brain. The story wouldn't jell. He had written half sentences,
half paragraphs, half pages, crumpled them up and written
them again. Sweat had soaked his shirt, filmed the desk, fallen
in shiny drops on the typewriter; mangled cigarettes had piled
high in a copper ash tray. The story wouldn't jell.
Finally, in desperation, he had gone ahead with it anyway,
forcing himself past points he would have liked to rewrite,
214


someone (undoubt-
edly the killer) holding an importagt 2.
position lºw.
º: ~~~~~agº * † 9 0.
£4.1%ller wownedFºe
(Police, supplied with this infor-
mation, began at once to trace the
killer's path through a complex maze
of conflicting clues and witness
reports.
UMost important lead is the bullet
wound, inflicted by Elmo. Peter-
kins, the dead woman's husband, when
he surprised the killer trying to re-
enter the studio in search of evidence
Mary Trevor is believed to have given
the society editor. &reeks—are—being
Two major witnesses are beingſ&e-
itaired for further questioning. One,
impson,) Miss Trevor's maid, j *
\s is settsvett reported to have gi a. ºr z -
82, inun, whom she now positively identi-
Sºyº'ſ fies as a man, to make a copy of the key
” tº | to the dead girl's apartment. e
; UThe other, Mrs. Patricia *
31, of 34.69 Edgewater Court, is
per-tre+, to have been with Miss Trevor at
the Club Minuet shortly before the
murder and to have overheard a tele-
phone conversation which indicated:
a) that the girl had given Laura Peter-
kins important documents, and b) that
the girl was concerned over the flights
218


“No." Talbot made a pushing motion with his plump hands.
“Not me.”
“Yes, you. Get going.”
A robin fascinated by a snake, Talbot stared at the copy.
His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Then he saw some-
thing, brightened. “Never get by, anyway,” he said. “No ban-
ner line.”
Clay shuffled racing forms, found a sheet of paper and
began to print with the pencil. “Thanks, Andy.” He worked
for a moment, then put the sheet with the copy. On it was:
Wounded 'Ghost’ Sov6+7
sh, T] /N GLOBE SLAY/N6-S
“How's that?” he asked.
“Mmmm,” said Talbot.
“All you've got to do is lug it down to composing.”
“Mmmm,” said Talbot.
“Well ... ?”
“What if somebody down there calls Standish?”
“They won't. Not on a Mrs. Palmer must.”
“Suppose Ravenscroft's still there?”
“Andy, for God's sake!” Clay exclaimed impatiently. “For
thirty years Ravenscroft's been going out to eat at one. They
set clocks by him. Do you think he'll start fasting tonight?”
Gingerly, as though picking leaves from a clump of poison
ivy, Talbot began to gather up the sheets of paper. “If this
don't work,” he said, “I’m the one who'll start fasting.”
“How many times have you sent, carried down a replate?”
“Hundred, maybe.” Talbot folded the sheets so no writing
could be seen. “But this is the first one wrapped around an
atom bomb.”
220


lation that the killer had been wounded late yes-
terday attempting to re-enter the North Side stu-
dio where the body of his second victim still lay.
Dead in the mysterious Sunday...
It looked fine. Maybe even Saul would like it. And a fine
cigar for Andy. Services above the call of duty. He became
conscious of Adair watching him. Some of the color had re-
turned to his face but he didn't look very happy. That was fine,
too.
Clay scowled, asked: “This paper, Charley. Where did you
get it?” Even to him, his voice sounded ominous.
Adair licked his lips, raised the white glove higher.
“Where?”
“Why, the boy gave it to me... minute or two ago. By the
elevator.”
“Why did you beat me up, Charley?”
“I... I thought...”
“I know. Thought I killed the girl. Left her with me at the
Minuet. Gentleman's code wouldn't let you tell. Just adminis-
ter a sound thrashing. Very pukka.”
Adair didn't say anything.
“Who’s champ of the thirty-first floor now?”
“You are.”
“Who doesn't play the kazoo?”
“Red McKenzie.”
“You got anything you want to say?”
“No.”
Clay tossed the paper to him. “Amuse yourself.” His legs
ached and he sat on the edge of the desk.
Adair pretended to read, covertly watching Clay around
the paper. Then he stopped pretending. He bent over the
page, eyes narrowing in concentration. His mouth, under the
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S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
Mrs. Palmer's voice, when she finally spoke, was so faint
they could barely hear it. “I did ...” Involuntarily, her eyes
went to the corpse, clung to it in a mixture of fright, horror and
fascination.“He came at me saying, Betrayer... betrayer...’”
She got the eyes away, shook her head in bewilderment. “I
didn't betray him. I didn't know anything about him.”
“That was me,” Clay said.
It took almost an hour to tidy things up. Many persons came
and went, their faces sober, their voices hushed. So many, in
fact, that Clay became confused as to both cast and continuity.
Some men came and took photographs. An expert from Ballis-
tics went away with the Luger. A physician from the Coroner's
office certified the body was dead. Standish and Canning
rushed in, their eyes wild. Mrs. Palmer told them how to play
the story. They rushed out. The Coroner's physician un-
wrapped the bandage on the dead man's arm, said, “Flesh
wound. Bullet.” An Assistant State's Attorney asked if he could
have some statements. Nobody paid any attention. Some men
took the body away. Diffendorf picked up the knife. A re-
porter from the Sun got as far as the inner office door, was
ejected. Clay called Miss Dewhurst, talked with her for a
while. She didn't know where Mr. Bundy was. I. P. Geisel
stood beside Mrs. Palmer while she made a statement. It was
merely an elaboration of what she had said before. She had
been alone in her office waiting for I. P. Geisel and Lieutenant
Diffendorf. Widdecomb had appeared in the doorway wear-
ing the nun's costume. She had known at once that he was in-
sane. He had stood in the doorway holding the newspaper in
one hand, the knife in the other, and gibbering, “Betrayer ...
betrayer...” and then had started for her. I. P. Geisel inter-
polated it was a fortunate thing Widdecomb had paused in
227


the doorway because it had given Mrs. Palmer time to take
the Luger out of her desk. Mrs. Palmer added it was fortunate
her husband had taught her to shoot. Everybody agreed. It
was very fortunate. Clay went over his story a second time.
Lieutenant Diffendorf showed the Assistant State's Attorney
the papers Clay had given him: the airline passenger lists, the
note from Laura Peterkins and the letter to Mary Trevor from
Warden Griscomb. The Assistant State's Attorney said it was
the damnedest case he had ever heard of. Everybody agreed.
Sergeant Storm poked his head through the door, scowled
regretfully at Clay and went away. So did Charley Adair. So
did a couple of detectives who had been just standing around
anyway.
Mrs. Palmer, seated back of the desk, sighed. “He was
Simon's friend,” she said wearily. Crow's-feet framed her
smoky eyes; tiny wrinkles pulled down the corners of her
mouth. She looked tired and ill, but still beautiful.
“Dr. Bernstein?” I. P. Geisel asked solicitously. “Hadn't I
better call him?”
Mrs. Palmer shook her head slowly. “A drink, maybe.”
Clay mixed four drinks at the recessed bar. He gave a Scotch
over ice to Mrs. Palmer, Scotch and soda to I. P. Geisel and
Lieutenant Diffendorf, both of whom were standing by the
door, apparently undecided whether to stay or leave, and kept
the last Scotch and soda for himself.
Mrs. Palmer, watching him, said, “I’m not sure I exactly
approve of what you did, Mr. Clay.” She tasted her drink.
“Why didn't you come to me with the information?”
“Or me?” Diffendorf asked.
“Rubber soles,” Clay said.
They stared at him.
“If I had 'em,” he said, “I wouldn't have slipped in the cor-
ridor.”
228


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“Slipped... ?” said I. P. Geisel.
Clay nodded. “And if I hadn't slipped, I wouldn't have to
explain why I didn't go to Mrs. Palmer.” He smiled crookedly
at her. “Or why she really killed Widdecomb.”
229


Chapter 27
“She almost threw me,” Clay told the men. “Sitting back of
her desk like a plaster saint when I came in. Did throw me
until I got thinking a few minutes ago.”
Speechless, untouched whiskies in frozen hands, I.P. Geisel
and Diffendorf eyed him incredulously. Mrs. Palmer's face
remained blank. What he was saying apparently hadn't regis-
tered.
“Thinking about how she started to pant after we were all
here. A hundred in nine flat. That's what it took to shoot Wid-
decomb, open up his Boy Scout knife, slide on the nun's cos-
tume and get back to the desk before anyone came.”
Mrs. Palmer shook her head in bewilderment. “Have you
lost your mind?” I. P. Geisel demanded. Diffendorf cleared
his throat, frowning. Mrs. Palmer asked, “Do you really be-
lieve I did all that?” I. P. Geisel started to speak again, but
Diffendorf cut in. “Let him talk a little.”
“Slander,” I. P. Geisel warned. “Severe penalties.”
“I agree with the lieutenant,” said Mrs. Palmer.
While I. P. Geisel was muttering something that ended,
“... irregular!” Clay turned to Diffendorf.
“One thing first,” he said. “I didn't figure on Widdecomb
280


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
being killed. Ithought the story would scare him, stir up a row
between him and Mrs. Palmer. Smoke out some counter-accu-
sations I could tune in on.”
I. P. Geisel began, “I refuse to dignify...” and was silenced
by the lieutenant's upraised pipe.
“If he's got ideas,” Diffendorf said quietly, “this is the best
place to hear'em.” He put the pipe in his mouth. “Now, what
about Widdecomb?”
“To get to him,” Clay said, “I’m going to have to start way
back. With the girl.”
“I thought you wrote all that in the story.”
“I did. Except for the convent at Bethany.”
“Poor farm, you mean,” said Diffendorf.
“Poor farm and convent,” Clay said. “Convent of the Good
Shepherd. That's where, in 1952, Mary Trevor finally found
her mother.”
“She found her mother in a convent?” Mrs. Palmer asked in
a surprised voice.
“Well, in a way.” Clay went on hurriedly to forestall further
questions. “As I said in the story, after Mary learned from
Esther Baumholtz that her father was Larry Trevor and from
the warden at McAlester that he was dead, she began a search
for her mother. Among other places the search led her to the
poor farm at Bethany. Back-tracking, I suppose, on every pos-
sible lead. Anyhow, she went there. I told you how I got that
by telephone. But what I didn't tell you was that she found,
as I did, that Larry'd had a girl at the convent next door. So
she went there and showed the Mother Superior a name she'd
copied from the marriage records for 1931 at Clearcreek, Okla-
homa.”
I. P. Geisel asked, “You know that she went to Clearcreek?”
“No. But wouldn't you? If you were looking for your mother
and was told that's where she married your father?”
231


“Only a theory, then.”
“One turned out pretty good for a fellow named Einstein,”
Diffendorf observed mildly.
I. P. Geisel blinked and Clay went on:
“The name she copied, the maiden name of Larry Trevor's
wife, was the same as that of a girl who'd run away from the
convent in 1930 when Larry and his pals left the poor farm.”
“You got the girl's name?” Diffendorf asked.
“No. But I can get it. And I haven't told you the important
thing. The Mother Superior not only identified the name; she
did something better. She told Mary who and where her
mother was.”
Mrs. Palmer leaned over the desk, her expression at once
interested and skeptical. “You spoke to the Mother Superior?”
“No. She's dead.” Clay realized he wasn't making the im-
pression he'd expected, but he continued anyway. “One of
the sisters told me about it. And from the convent Mary went
to her mother, put the bite on her. The woman who had
dumped her on a doorstep when she was a baby, never both-
ered about her while she was growing up. It was a real deep
bite, but the mother sat for it.”
“But why would she sit, if I understand your meaning?”
Mrs. Palmer asked. “Even if Mary were her daughter?”
“Forty million bucks.”
Nobody seemed to get it.
“For God's sake!” Clay said. “How many tag lines do I have
to say?” He scowled at Mrs. Palmer. “When did you marry
Simon Palmer?”
“In 1936.”
He swung around to the men. “Larry Trevor didn't die until
1950.”
This did make an impression. Especially on I. P. Geisel. He
232


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
looked as though a cigar had exploded between his teeth. “Are
you trying to say Mrs. Palmer...” he spluttered.
“Bigamy,” Clay said. “Larry was never divorced. No papers
were ever served on him in jail.” He eyed the attorney. “What
would happen to the Palmer estate if it was discovered it was
being illegally held?”
“Revert to the rightful heirs,” I. P. Geisel replied automati-
cally. “After an accounting.”
“Forty million bucks,” Clay said again. “Now do you see
why she paid?”
“Preposterous!” A second cigarhad exploded in I. P. Geisel's
face. “A nightmare...”
“A nightmare,” Mrs. Palmer agreed. “But a fascinating one.”
She smiled at Clay. “Let me get this straight. You are accusing
me of being Mary's mother, of bigamy and of paying black-
mail?”
“And of Widdecomb's murder.”
By a supreme effort.I.P.Geisel reassembled his features. But
he forgot his voice. It came out a phlegmy croak. “Evidence
... of these alleged blackmail payments, Clay?”
“Of the initial one. In 1952. Sapphire-and-diamond jewelry.
Cash.”
“I thought you'd be getting around to that,” said Mrs. Pal-
mer. “But didn't we agree Simon gave the jewelry to Esther
Baumholtz?”
“And fifty thousand dollars, too?”
Mrs. Palmer shrugged. “It would have been like him. But of
course I wouldn't know.” She inched her glass forward. “Could
I have another drink, please?”
Clay made it for her, deciding against one for himself. As
he gave her the glass, she said, “The next step, I suppose, is to
identify me as the Hooded Nun.”
288


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
from 36 to '52, everything was dandy. Simon died in’47, never
having had the slightest idea of the deception, and she be-
came ruler of the Palmer empire. Then in ’52, Mary Trevor
appeared.”
He paused dramatically, but it wasn't the right place. “Am
I boring you?” he asked.
“It ain't so much that it's boring,” Diffendorf said, eyeing
him dubiously.
“Go on,” said Mrs. Palmer.
“Mary wasn't so bad as long as she represented exposure
of the bigamy angle. Worst that could happen was loss of the
empire, and over the years the mother had probably stashed
away a fortune. But next Mary, to get a bigger share of the
loot, accused her of being the Hooded Nun. Exposure of that
meant hanging or the gas chamber or whatever they use in
Oklahoma. Because there's no statute of limitations on mur-
der.”
“That's true,” Diffendorf agreed. “But what gives you the
notion Mary rang in the Hooded Nun?”
“Laura Peterkins' note. Read the second paragraph.”
The lieutenant found the papers Clay had given him in a
coat pocket, found the note. He read slowly:
“‘Just can't name names until we talk—the thought so ter-
rible, so repugnant, so impossible!’”
Clay said, “Words like those wouldn't be applied to bigamy.
Have to be something worse.”
“But not necessarily a Hooded Nun,” Mrs. Palmer mur-
mured.
“No. Not necessarily,” Clay admitted. “You got some other
idea?”
“One second, please.” I. P. Geisel's long face was thought-
ful. “Let us recapitulate. Let us admit Larry Trevor's wife was
235


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“You got me.”
While Clay stared, bewildered, I. P. Geisel moved forward.
“I suggest you defer the music, soothing as it might be. We've
all had an exhausting day. Mrs. Palmer especially...”
“And you were just at such an interesting place in the story,”
Mrs. Palmer said.
“Okay.” Clay turned to the man. “Leave it in the outer
office.”
“Miss D. said I was to stick around.”
“Then stick.” As Clay frowned at the man's retreating back,
Diffendorf prompted, “A couple of weeks ago ... ?”
“That's when Mrs. Palmer decided murder was the only way
out. When she dressed up as a nun, met Clarissa Simpson at
the Holy Name Cathedral, got the key from her and had a
duplicate made.”
“The nun was a man!” Diffendorf exclaimed disgustedly.
“You told us yourself the maid said so.”
“Believed so from the whisky on her breath. Whisky on her
breath now.” Eyeing Mrs. Palmer's startled face, he went on:
“Again dressed as a nun she used the key to get into the apart-
ment Saturday night. Around four-thirty, after I'd passed out
and the girl had gone to sleep, she went to work. Murder. Plus
such fancy touches as ripping the clothes and slashing the
body to make it look as though I'd done it. And planting the
scissors at my place. That's when Gwen Pearson saw what she
thought was me in a cloak, when the janitor saw his Angel of
the Lord.’ Then, informed of the girl's death back in Wash-
ington, she flew back to Chicago in her private plane, knocked
off Laura Peterkins and sat down to see what happened.”
There was a long silence. Atlast Diffendorf said, “I like Ein-
stein's theory better.” -
I. P. Geisel said, “Theory? A disordered dream ...”
“Yeah.” Diffendorf grinned sardonically at Clay. “This hop-
237


scotch between Washington and Chicago, for instance. Your
apartment at five and then home in time to be told of the girl's
death?”
“Brother!” Clay exclaimed. “I almost forgot. Plane. Under
three hours. Look at the passenger list I gave you.”
The lieutenant found the papers again. “She traveled as
Horace Widdecomb ... ?”
“The other list.”
Diffendorf studied it, said, “Sister Angelica?”
“Right.”
“What's to prevent its being a Sister Angelica?” I. P. Geisel
protested.
“You ever hear of a nun traveling alone?”
For the first time Diffendorf was impressed. He made a
whistling noise around his pipe, cautiously eyed Mrs. Palmer.
The skin over her nose was wrinkled in a puzzled frown.
“I must admit it's odd,” she said. “But I'm sure there's an
explanation.”
“Some kind of an emergency,” suggested I. P. Geisel.
“Very likely.” She regarded Clay thoughtfully. “To go back
for a moment to my convent childhood. What if I told you I
grew up on a farm near Waco, Texas? And that my foster par-
ents are still living there?”
Clay didn't answer.
“They would dispose of the first part of your story, wouldn't
they? And Sister Angelica. Finding her would dispose of the
second part.” She lifted her glass, then put it down again. “I
almost forgot. My breath.” She smiled at Clay. “The most
shocking thing of all.”
He knew then that he'd lost. Foster parents, a Sister An-
gelica, all she needed would be produced with the money that
could produce anything. Records would be altered, officials
greased, inquiries hushed, a proper criminal background
288


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
framed for Widdecomb. And if he persisted in his charges,
the money would produce a little accident. Might produce it
anyway. With about thirty-nine million nine hundred and
ninety-nine thousand dollars to spare. He should have had
better sense.
“You got anything more to say?” Diffendorf asked.
“Yes,” Clay said. “I generally get my strait jackets from
Brooks Brothers.”


Chapter 28
“Do you know,” Mrs. Palmer mused, “I don't believe there's
even a word for it.”
The glasses were full again, the Scotch poured this time by
I. P. Geisel. Some sirens had wailed far out on the west side of
the city, fire trucks answering a call. An airplane had gone by
low over the lake front. A drink had been given to the blond
man waiting in the reception room. What conversation there
was had been uneasy, the conversation of strangers at a
funeral. A funeral in which the deceased, Clay kept thinking
gloomily, was a gent named Sam Clay. -
“Matricide,” Mrs. Palmer mused. “Patricide. Infanticide.
But what is it when a mother kills a grown-up daughter?”
Nobody answered.
“Not a very nice thing to do, anyway.” She nibbled reflec-
tively on the edge of her glass. “Nor to be accused of.”
“He has admitted he was wrong.” I. P. Geisel said placat-
ingly.
“Half-cocked,” Clay muttered.
Mrs. Palmer eyed him, her lips still touching the glass.
“That's just it. Mr. Clay's thinking he should have waited. Ob-
240


be wrong. He went to the bar, bumped shoulders with the
blond man.
“Just freshening her a little,” the man whispered, hastily
putting down a bottle of Scotch.
Retrieving the bottle, Clay recalled Miss Dewhurst's mes-
sage. Chopin from cherry blossoms. What in hell did that
mean? The recorder, of course, was Bundy's mechanical man.
And maybe what Cleo heard the girl mention at the Minuet.
But Chopin?
Back of him Diffendorf was refusing a final drink. “I’m due
for some shut-eye, Mrs. Palmer,” he said. “Been due for about
two days.” *
Tilting the bottle, Clay let whisky dribble into his glass.
“Chopin,” he said. “Polonaise. Mazurka. Prelude. But what
for a time like this?”
“I can think of something very appropriate,” said Mrs.
Palmer. “Probably his best known composition. Marche
Funèbre.”
“Funeral march!” Scotch from the inverted bottled over-
flowed the glass, pooled on the bar. “Jesus!" Clay swung
around to the blond man. “You know how to work that thing
you brought?”
“Natch. That's why they had me get it at the airport.”
“Hook her up!”
Back of one of the chintz couches the blond man found a
plug-in for the cord that dangled from the canvas-wrapped
bundle. The cord was short so he put the bundle on the couch.
He drew off the cover disclosing a duplicate of the machine
in the outer office. “Seal on it when it came,” he said. “Miss
Dewhurst had me watch her take it off. In case we had to
testify.” He turned a dial; green lights glowed and the ma-
chine began to hum.
242


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U DS
“What in hell is it?” Diffendorf asked.
“Telerecorder!” Clay said excitedly.
The blond man turned another dial and the machine
squawked. He hastily turned back the dial. “Should be a
cinch,” he said. “Use one almost like it for wire tapping.”
“We want the play-back,” said Clay.
“What would I think you’d want?” the blond man de-
manded. “Toscanini?” He pulled down a lever.
Mrs. Palmer was watching them curiously. “Where did it
come from?”
“Cherry blossoms,” Clay said.
“I don't understand.”
“Where they have 'em. Washington, D.C.”
“It’s mine ... ?”
Another squawk came from the machine, followed by static
and a deeper hum. “Got it!” the blond man exclaimed trium-
phantly, adjusting dials with both hands. The static cleared
and an angry voice said:
“Thirty seconds! We're paying for this call, not you! Whose
residence is this?”
They waited but nothing else happened. The machine re-
sumed its humming, the greenlights soft. “That was me,” Clay
said. “Calling the Dupont number.”
“We never doubted that you made the call, Mr. Clay,” said
Mrs. Palmer. “We believe your story.”
Clay spoke to the blond man. “Won't it go further back?”
Bending over the machine, the man peered through a slit at
the rear. “You’re right,” he said. “We’re in the middle.” He
depressed a lever and the telerecorder began a delirious chat-
tering of words said backwards. The delirium ended and he
raised the lever. The machine purred again.
Seconds went by like Sunday drivers on a two-lane high-
243


way. Hours went by. Days. Seasons changed, geological ages
passed. The earth lost its air and turned to pumice. Nobody
was left alive to hear a girl's frightened voice saying:
“She's not there? Oh, of course. Not there ... But just in
case . . . The evidence is safe. Safe with a family friend—a
friend... where it can't be touched ...”
The voice faded away on a breathy note that was almost a
sigh. Clay turned from the machine. Everybody was alive after
all. “The girl!” he said. “The messagel From the Minuet!” He
turned back to the machine. I. P. Geisel and Diffendorf moved
closer, fascinated.
This time they recognized the place where another record-
ing had been made. The hum was different and there was a
crackling noise. But for a while nothing came out. Someone
had called the Dupont number, but was leaving no message.
Suddenly Mrs. Palmer's voice, sharp and imperative, de-
manded: “What do you want? What are you doing in here?”
Another voice, Clay's, blurred but gradually getting louder,
said. “Couch too lil. Wake up ... pretzel.”
“Go back to the living room!”
“Wanna bed. Wanna light too. Can't see. Washwrong...
this bed?” There was a sound of springs, a satisfied groan.
“Won'ſul bed. Mary?”
“What?” demanded Mrs. Palmer's voice.
“Bye-bye.”
“All right! Bye-bye!”
“Raveled sleave . . . of care,” Clay's voice mumbled. “Un-
raveled now ... Say! Tha's funny nigown you got on, Mary.
Black.”
“Go to sleep!”
“Am. Funny though ... black nightie. Look like ... a nun
. . . a. Illlll . . .
A long rumble that might have been a snore or a defect in
244


Chapter 29
By two massive wooden doors, above steps worn smooth by
ten million feet, they waited uneasily. The false dawn was
coming and the false wind of a hot morning poked tentatively
at paper scraps in the street. The wind smelled of sweat and
sleeping people. It was breath warm, but the men by the
doors were cold. They waited uneasily, the silent cathedral
towering above them.
Two stood together, each enveloped in his own particular
chill. One was Lieutenant Diffendorf and the other was Sam
Clay. The policeman was thinking of a swarthy man who long
ago wet the smooth stone with his life blood, of Hymie Weiss,
machine-gunned by rival gangsters as he climbed the steps to
sanctuary. Clay was thinking of a dead girl.
After a time he stopped thinking, asked softly, “How long?”
Lost in the past, the lieutenant didn't reply.
“Crazy hunch, anyway,” Clay whispered.
Diffendorf heard him this time. “Not if she was convent
raised, like you said.” His face, pale in the half light, floated
closer. “And this is where she met the maid.”
“Still a hunch.”
“No. It figures, like the others. They all figured... except
246


S IN N E R S A N D S H R O U D S
maybe the one about the recorder. That kinda flew in from
nowhere.”
“Flew in from Bundy.”
“How come?”
“Just being thorough, his secretary said.” The whispering
made Clay feel like a conspirator plotting an assassination.
“Guessed the mechanical man was a recorder at the Dupont
number. Already working on the four-thirty call. So he told
his Washington pals to grab it.”
“It sure grabbed her,” Diffendorf said somberly.
A dissolute-lookingpigeon, evidently on the way home from
an all night brawl, dropped onto the landing. They watched
it unhappily.
“Worst thing about a city,” Diffendorf hissed. “Pigeons!”
“Worst thing about cities is cities.”
“Maybe you're right.” Diffendorf raised an arm. Under the
impression peanuts were being flung, the pigeon waddled
away. “Why'd she dress as a nun?”
“Worked before. Perfect disguise, too, for a woman as well
known as Mrs. Palmer.”
“Parliaments?”
“Planted there... by Benson & Hedges.”
The pigeon came back, eyed them blearily. Dust, a paper
bag, some leaves slid by the steps. The cathedral remained
silent.
“One thing I don't get,” Clay whispered. “Mrs. Bruce. She
knew me.”
“We had a talk after your name came out in the open. Seems
she had blackmailin mind, too.”
“That was a break.”
“Not for Mrs. P.” After a pause, Diffendorf murmured,
“Should have junked that recorder.”
“Widdecomb probably fouled that up. He was in her study
247


I





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