Chapter 1

He looked like he was going to break into a sweat. “I thought she was asleep, so I turned out the light and climbed in bed. She didn’t move when I kissed her. Then I put my arms around her. She was dead!”

“Why was she dead?” I asked.

“Because she was strangled.”

“You sure?”

“I think so. But I never saw a strangled body before. When she didn’t move, I turned the light back on. She had been on her side and I couldn’t see her face. I rolled her over, and then I saw her throat. There were big red bruises on each side of it. She was still warm.”

“When was the last time you had seen her alive?” I asked him.

“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes earlier,” he said. “She had been brushing her hair.”

He loosened his collar, and reached in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He wiped off his forehead, but he wasn’t sweating very much. He seemed to be thinking. I thought maybe he’d forgotten to talk.

“What did she do next?”

“She walked over to the table, right near her bed, and turned on the radio. She dialed in some music. Then I went in to take a shower. I pulled the door to the bath nearly closed. I got the shower stall, jerked the rubber curtain across it, and turned on the water.”

“Did you try to talk to her over the water?”

“No. The shower was making too much noise. When I was through in the shower, I dried off with a towel. I could hear the radio playing. Then I put on my pajamas and walked into the bedroom. She was in bed, on her side, facing away from me. I thought she was asleep. That was when I turned off the light and got in bed. Then I found she was dead.”

“That’s a hell of a way for a man to find his wife,” I said.

Very slowly, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a package of cigarettes. He shook one out and lighted it. Then he looked at me again and said very carefully: “But she wasn’t my wife.”

I opened the top drawer of my desk. I took out a stack of bills—big ones—and handed it back to him. He didn’t touch it, so I left it there on top of the desk.

“Look, Mr. Gibbs,” I said, “you better call the cops. What you told me, I’ll keep quiet about. You tell your own story any way you want to tell it—but tell it to them. There’s nothing I can do for you.”

Gibbs started patting his head with his handkerchief again. But this time he was sweating a little bit more. He said: “I can pay a lot more than that.”

I shook my head. “I think maybe you got me wrong, Mr. Gibbs,” I said. I don’t run that kind of an agency. Just because the sign says: ‘Breed Detective Agency’ on the door doesn’t mean I get loused up with murder. If you want plant guards or railroad dicks, I furnish ’em. If you want store detectives, I furnish ’em. Maybe you want me to take $500,000 pay roll from one end of town to the other—I’ll do it. And maybe I’ll even do a few other things if it’s worth while, but I don’t monkey with murder, Mr. Gibbs.”

Gibbs said: “You don’t get a walnut-panel office, with leather chairs, in the detective business without taking a few risks—somewhere—Breed.” He looked around the office.

“I’lltake the risks when I got a chance of figuring some odds,” I said. “But in murder there isn’t any odds. The house and the per cent are all on the side of the cops—they’ve got men, the science, and the law on their side. No thanks, Mr. Gibbs.”

Gibbs leaned back in his chair and lit another cigarette. The ash tray by his arm was piled high with butts, and a gray cloud of ashes billowed out each time he pushed another one in. “When I called you tonight on the phone,” he said, “I thought you were a man who had connections in this town.”

“Sure I have connections,” I said, “I got a hell of a lot of connections. Some of those connections are with the cops. I intend to keep ’em. No private dick can stay in business without plenty of help from the police. So I give you the best advice in the world: go talk to the cops.”

“But I can’t talk to the cops,” Gibbs said. “They won’t look any further. They’ll nail me. I was right there when it happened. I ought to be the killer. But by God, Breed, I’m not! And if they do find the killer, then my wife will have all the proofshe needs to take me to the cleaners.”

“She waiting for a chance to take you?” I asked.

“She’s been waiting for years. Why do you think I’ve been playing around? I’m no playboy.”

He wasn’t. Gibbs was short and a little fat. He had about enough hair to cover his head, but nothing extra. He looked about fifty, and was president of the Ajax Equipment Company. His clothes would have looked more at home if he had been twenty years younger, but they had cost enough still to look good—on him.

“You got a lot of dough?” I asked.

He flushed. “It depends on what you mean by a lot,” he said. “Ajax isn’t a large company. We’re simply dealers for heavy equipment. We sell steam shovels, tractors, bulldozers—all kinds of heavy equipment. I’ve been in it most of my life. I’m no millionaire, but I can pay my bills for what I buy.”

I began to like the guy a little. He wasn’t whining, and he was keeping good control. “Did your wife know about this other gal?” I asked.

“Not that I know of,” Gibbs said. “She’s been suspicious of me and very unhappy for years. I haven’t played around much, and when I did I was pretty careful. I knew if she ever did get any proof, she’d make the most of it. No-o, I don’t think she knew anything about Caroline.”

“Was that her name—Caroline?”

“Yes. Caroline MacCormick. At least she went by that name, and I never knew differently.”

“How long did you know her?”

Gibbs thought carefully. “Nearly two years. It was shortly after the Tower Hotel burned down. She used to live there, and after I met her I helped her find a new apartment.”

“How’d you meet her?”

“What the hell difference does it make? You’re not going to help.”

“Maybe I’m beginning to see a way to make some dough,” I said. “And maybe I’m beginning to think you didn’t kill her. Keep right on talking.”

“Well, I first met her at a party. There was an equipment manufacturers convention and I went to see the exhibits. That night, while the convention was still on, some of the exhibitors I knew decided to give a party. One of the salesmen knew some girls and rounded them up to come to the party. It was thrown right in the hotel. That’s about all—there was a lot of drinking. Caroline, I guess, came in with the crowd. At least I met her there.”

“So you kept on seeing her?”

“Yes. We both lived here in Chicago. She seemed like a decent kid.” Gibbs looked me straight in the eye. “I liked her. She never tried to take me; she never caused me any trouble.”

“You in love with her?”

“No. I wasn’t in love with her. I didn’t have any illusions about her, but I liked her.”

“But you were keeping her?”

“Not exactly,” said Gibbs. “I used to give her presents she could use. And quite often I’d give her money. But I wasn’t paying her rent or giving her an allowance to live on.”

“She have any other boy friends?”

“She had some, naturally. How friendly she was with them, I couldn’t say.”

“Any one of them jealous enough to strangle her?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Gibbs. “Caroline never mentioned anyone she went with very much. I guess she had a good time.”

“You couldn’t have been jealous enough to strangle her?” I asked.

“I told you I didn’t kill Caroline,” said Gibbs. “Don’t you believe me?”

“Yeah, I believe you.” I looked at my watch. It was nearly three in the morning. “Where were you supposed to be tonight, Mr. Gibbs?”

Gibbs looked very tired. “I told my wife I had to fly to St. Louis in the afternoon on business and I’d be gone overnight. I said I’d call when I arrived back in town.”

“Anyone see you go in MacCormick’s apartment?”

“I rode up to her floor on the elevator.”

“Elevator boy know you?”

“I don’t think he knows me by name. But he’s seen me before when I was with Caroline.”

“He see you leave?’

“No. After I found she was dead, I dressed, stuffed my overnight stuff back in my overcoat pockets and looked out in the hall. No one was around. I walked down the stairs at the end of the corridor till I reached the first floor. You can walk out either through the lobby or through a fire exit on the street. I went out the fire exit.”

I picked up the stack of bills which was still lying on the desk. It was a lot of money. I held it up so Gibbs could see it. “I’ll make you a deal—this dough will buy you just exactly seven days of time.”

“What do you mean?”

I said: “I can keep the cops off you for one week—I can’t buy them off—but I can help you keep one jump ahead of them. At the end of that time they’ll catch up to you, which means your wife will too. In a week maybe we can find someone else who will interest the cops more. If we can prove you didn’t do it, there’s a chance the cops will keep your end out of the papers.”

Gibbs started mopping his head again. “I don’t have much choice,” he said.

“You don’t,” I agreed.

“I’ll buy it,” he said. “And if you need more money let me know.”

“Okay,” I said. “Remember, half a million dollars doesn’t do a guy a bit of good when he’s hanging on the end of that rope.”

“What do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I want you to go to a good hotel. Register in under your own name. Call your wife up in the morning and tell her you didn’t get to go to St. Louis. Tell her you were held up late over business. Go to your office and keep right on as usual.”

“All right.”

“Before you go, have you got a key to Caroline MacCormick’s apartment?”

Silently Gibbs handed me a key. On it was stamped the figures 716.

“What’s her address?” I asked.

“One ninety-nine East Delaware,” he said. He started mopping his head again. This time he was really sweating.

Chapter 2

I humped over to 199 East Delaware. It was a tall, thin, twelve-story apartment building right on the corner. Two blocks down you could hear the lake roaring away at the breakwater. The front of the building had a light, gray-stone finish. The side of the building where it ran past the corner was finished up in red brick. A hood-shaped metal canopy ran like a caterpillar from the curb right up to the entrance. The building didn’t look bad, but it didn’t look too good either. You see a lot of them like that on the narrow little side streets and courts of the near north side of Chicago.

I drove past and parked in the middle of the block. Then I walked back to 199 East Delaware. Around the corner and near the back of the building I found the fire door Gibbs had told me about. It was made out of heavy metal, with two small panes of glass in it containing wire mesh. The door was locked. You could open it by pushing down a bar on the inside, but you needed a key to open it from outside. I didn’t want a night watchman to catch me breaking the lock, so I left it alone.

Through the front doors I could look into the lobby. It was furnished in a beat-up French château style. At one end was a rounded, rough-finished cement fireplace which stuck out a little into the lobby. Three phony beams ran the length of the ceiling. At the other end was the clerk’s desk. I looked hard and couldn’t see him. The elevator door was slightly ajar and held back by a metal hook. I figured the clerk and elevator man were in the back of the building—probably having coffee. So I walked into the lobby. About ten feet to the right of the elevator was an arched doorway which I thought should lead back to the stairway. I went through it and found the stairs. Then I started climbing.

The seventh-floor corridor was deserted. Dim amber lights gleamed faintly at intervals along the wall in imitation candle brackets. The walls were painted a nondescript tan and the floor was carpeted in a deep red. I walked softly along until I got to 716. The key fitted in without any trouble and I opened the door. The apartment was very quiet and very dark.

I closed the door and switched on the light. I was standing in the living room. It wasn’t very big. On the floor was the same kind of deep red carpet I had seen in the hall. Two windows had drapes that matched it. A writing desk stood near the windows with two easy chairs near it. Both chairs had slip covers in a green and white print. Across the room was a pale green studio couch with a coffee table in front of it. A cabinet victrola was centered in the middle of the third wall with a statue of a white pottery horse on it. In one corner was a triangular-shaped series of hanging shelves with little pots of ivy, some tobies, and other pieces of bric-a-brac. There were some pictures on the wall. They were lithograph reproductions. Nothing in the room was mussed up. There were no obvious signs of a fight.

A door led directly into the bedroom. When I turned on the switch, the first thing I saw was Caroline MacCormick lying on the bed. She was on her back. Gibbs said he had turned her over from her side. She had long blond hair which streamed over the pillow. She was wearing a light blue nightgown which you could see through. And what you could see was all right. She looked around twenty-seven or twenty-eight. She had been a good-looking woman. But she wasn’t good looking the way she looked now. Her eyes weren’t closed. I didn’t bother to close them.

A clock on the table by the bed said 4:10 A.M. Gibbs had told me it was 1:00 A.M. when he finished taking his shower. MacCormick had been alive approximately fifteen minutes earlier. That meant she had been dead between three and three and a half hours. I touched a finger to her shoulder. It was cool but it wasn’t cold. The room temperature was about normal; no windows open; she hadn’t been covered with sheets or blankets when I found her. I bent over and looked at her throat. You could see her bruises all right. So far Gibbs’s story held up.

I looked around. In addition to the double bed, and the table beside it holding the clock and radio, the bedroom contained a dressing table, a chest of drawers, and a small upholstered bedroom chair. The bathroom had all the usual equipment, plus a shower stall with a rubber curtain. The floor was damp with small puddles of water all over; a sopping bath mat; a big wet bath towel thrown in a corner.

Since I had come in the place, I hadn’t touched anything except light switches. But now I hauled out a pair of gloves and opened the medicine cabinet. I found nothing of any interest. Just ordinary prescriptions a girl buys at any drug store. There was a razor and a shaving brush, slightly damp, standing on the first shelf. I didn’t know if they belonged to Gibbs, so I put them in my pocket to be safe.

Next I went back to the bedroom. I went through the vanity and chest of drawers, and found nothing but the usual woman’s clothes you’d expect to find. Nothing out of the ordinary in the bedroom closet, either, as far as I could see. Lying on the small upholstered chair was a light blue maribou negligee. It was very fluffy.

Back I went into the living room. A few things were beginning to straighten out. Over the doorway leading from the outside hall was a small buzzer. I opened the door slightly and peered out in the corridor; it was empty. By the door jamb was a small white electrical button. I pressed it—quickly—just once. The buzzer rang briskly but not too loud. I closed the door, and back in the apartment got down on my hands and knees and started sighting up and down the carpet, like a golfer lining up on a putting green. It was there all right. Not evidence that would hold up in court—or even evidence to impress the cops. But enough to make me believe Gibbs some more.

About three feet back from the door were two short parallel lines which had been scuffed against the nap of the rug. A swipe of my hand would erase them. And near them was a light, tiny feathering of maribou.

That helped make Gibbs’s story hang together. From the beginning, I couldn’t figure a killer walking in the apartment, back in to the bedroom, and strangling Caroline in bed. Not with Gibbs in the bathroom right next to her. Yet Gibbs thought that had happened. Hell no! It hadn’t.

But I could see the killer ringing the buzzer, and Gibbs not hearing it over the water. Then Caroline goes into the living room to answer the door and send him away. But she never gets the chance. She opens the door in her negligee. The killer walks in and grabs her by the throat, and strangles her right there. He starts to drag her a short way, then picks her up and carries her into the bedroom instead. He dumps her on the bed. Gibbs has turned off the shower and is drying himself. The killer doesn’t know he’s there, until he gets Caroline as far as the bed. Then he throws her negligee over the chair and walks out of the apartment leaving Gibbs a perfect fall guy.

I figure this killer is one hell of a good one. Cool, fast on his feet, and very, very sharp.

I took off my coat and hat and put them on the studio couch. Then I went to work! First I started in on the light switch, then on every surface of every piece of furniture and every object in the apartment. I had no idea where Gibbs might have left his fingerprints so I had to go over every damn thing in the place. I didn’t know if I could get all of them, but I could try. And if I got them all, I figured that would give Gibbs a few days’ start on the time I promised him.

When I was through, I went over to the writing desk. I took out all the papers in it and stuffed them in my pockets—all except one. It said: please do not disturb. I hung it on the door as I went out. Maybe it would keep the maid out all day. If it did, there was another day picked up for Gibbs.

No one was in the hall. My watch said six eighteen. I went down the stairway and out the fire exit to the street. I walked around the block to my car and drove away. I drove slowly.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2