A Contradiction in Dates
(Saturday, September 15; 9 a. m.)
The next morning Markham and Vance and I breakfasted together at the
Prince George, and arrived at the District Attorney’s office a few
minutes past nine. Heath, with Cleaver in tow, was waiting in the
reception-room.
To judge by Cleaver’s manner as he entered, the Sergeant had been none
too considerate of him. He strode belligerently to the District
Attorney’s desk and fixed a cold, resentful eye on Markham.
“Am I, by any chance, under arrest?” he demanded softly, but it was
the rasping, suppressed softness of wrathful indignation.
“Not yet,” said Markham curtly. “But if you were, you’d have only
yourself to blame.—Sit down.”
Cleaver hesitated, and took the nearest chair.
“Why was I routed out of bed at seven-thirty by this detective of
yours”—he jerked his thumb toward Heath—“and threatened with
patrol-wagons and warrants because I objected to such high-handed and
illegal methods?”
“You were merely threatened with legal procedure if you refused to
accept my invitation voluntarily. This is my short day at the office;
and there was some explaining I wanted from you without delay.”
“I’m damned if I’ll explain anything to you under these conditions!”
For all his nerveless poise, Cleaver was finding it difficult to
control himself. “I’m no pickpocket that you can drag in here when it
suits your convenience and put through a third degree.”
“That’s eminently satisfactory to me.” Markham spoke ominously. “But
since you refuse to do your explaining as a free citizen, I have no
other course than to alter your present status.” He turned to Heath.
“Sergeant, go across the hall and have Ben swear out a warrant for
Charles Cleaver. Then lock this gentleman up.”
Cleaver gave a start, and caught his breath sibilantly.
“On what charge?” he demanded.
“The murder of Margaret Odell.”
The man sprang to his feet. The color had gone from his face, and the
muscles of his jowls worked spasmodically.
“Wait! You’re giving me a raw deal. And you’ll lose out, too. You
couldn’t make that charge stick in a thousand years.”
“Maybe not. But if you don’t want to talk here, I’ll make you talk in
court.”
“I’ll talk here.” Cleaver sat down again. “What do you want to know?”
Markham took out a cigar and lit it with deliberation.
“First: why did you tell me you were in Boonton Monday night?”
Cleaver apparently had expected the question.
“When I read of the Canary’s death I wanted an alibi; and my brother
had just given me the summons he’d been handed in Boonton. It was a
ready-made alibi right in my hand. So I used it.”
“Why did you need an alibi?”
“I didn’t need it; but I thought it might save me trouble. People knew
I’d been running round with the Odell girl; and some of them knew
she’d been blackmailing me—I’d told ’em, like a damn fool. I told
Mannix, for instance. We’d both been stung.”
“Is that your only reason for concocting this alibi?” Markham was
watching him sharply.
“Wasn’t it reason enough? Blackmail would have constituted a motive,
wouldn’t it?”
“It takes more than a motive to arouse unpleasant suspicion.”
“Maybe so. Only I didn’t want to be drawn into it.—You can’t blame me
for trying to keep clear of it.”
Markham leaned over with a threatening smile.
“The fact that Miss Odell had blackmailed you wasn’t your only reason
for lying about the summons. It wasn’t even your main reason.”
Cleaver’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise he was like a graven image.
“You evidently know more about it than I do.” He managed to make his
words sound casual.
“Not more, Mr. Cleaver,” Markham corrected him, “but nearly as
much.—Where were you between eleven o’clock and midnight Monday?”
“Perhaps that’s one of the things you know.”
“You’re right.—You were in Miss Odell’s apartment.”
Cleaver sneered, but he did not succeed in disguising the shock that
Markham’s accusation caused him.
“If that’s what you think, then it happens you don’t know, after all.
I haven’t put foot in her apartment for two weeks.”
“I have the testimony of reliable witnesses to the contrary.”
“Witnesses!” The word seemed to force itself from Cleaver’s compressed
lips.
Markham nodded. “You were seen coming out of Miss Odell’s apartment
and leaving the house by the side door at five minutes to twelve on
Monday night.”
Cleaver’s jaw sagged slightly, and his labored breathing was quite
audible.
“And between half past eleven and twelve o’clock,” pursued Markham’s
relentless voice, “Miss Odell was strangled and robbed.—What do you
say to that?”
For a long time there was tense silence. Then Cleaver spoke.
“I’ve got to think this thing out.”
Markham waited patiently. After several minutes Cleaver drew himself
together and squared his shoulders.
“I’m going to tell you what I did that night, and you can take it or
leave it.” Again he was the cold, self-contained gambler. “I don’t
care how many witnesses you’ve got; it’s the only story you’ll ever
get out of me. I should have told you in the first place, but I didn’t
see any sense of stepping into hot water if I wasn’t pushed in. You
might have believed me last Tuesday, but now you’ve got something in
your head, and you want to make an arrest to shut up the newspapers——”
“Tell your story,” ordered Markham. “If it’s straight, you needn’t
worry about the newspapers.”
Cleaver knew in his heart that this was true. No one—not even his
bitterest political enemies—had ever accused Markham of buying kudos
with any act of injustice, however small.
“There’s not much to tell, as a matter of fact,” the man began. “I
went to Miss Odell’s house a little before midnight, but I didn’t
enter her apartment; I didn’t even ring her bell.”
“Is that your customary way of paying visits?”
“Sounds fishy, doesn’t it? But it’s the truth, nevertheless. I
intended to see her—that is, I wanted to—but when I reached her door,
something made me change my mind——”
“Just a moment.—How did you enter the house?”
“By the side door—the one off the alleyway. I always used it when it
was open. Miss Odell requested me to, so that the telephone operator
wouldn’t see me coming in so often.”
“And the door was unlocked at that time Monday night?”
“How else could I have got in by it? A key wouldn’t have done me any
good, even if I’d had one, for the door locks by a bolt on the inside.
I’ll say this, though: that’s the first time I ever remember finding
the door unlocked at night.”
“All right. You went in the side entrance. Then what?”
“I walked down the rear hall and listened at the door of Miss Odell’s
apartment for a minute. I thought there might be some one else with
her, and I didn’t want to ring unless she was alone. . . .”
“Pardon my interrupting, Mr. Cleaver,” interposed Vance. “But what
made you think some one else was there?”
The man hesitated.
“Was it,” prompted Vance, “because you had telephoned to Miss Odell a
little while before, and had been answered by a man’s voice?”
Cleaver nodded slowly. “I can’t see any particular point in denying
it. . . . Yes, that’s the reason.”
“What did this man say to you?”
“Damn little. He said ‘Hello,’ and when I asked to speak to Miss
Odell, he informed me she wasn’t in, and hung up.”
Vance addressed himself to Markham.
“That, I think, explains Jessup’s report of the brief phone call to
the Odell apartment at twenty minutes to twelve.”
“Probably.” Markham spoke without interest. He was intent on Cleaver’s
account of what happened later, and he took up the interrogation at
the point where Vance had interrupted.
“You say you listened at the apartment door. What caused you to
refrain from ringing?”
“I heard a man’s voice inside.”
Markham straightened up.
“A man’s voice? You’re sure?”
“That’s what I said.” Cleaver was matter of fact about it. “A man’s
voice. Otherwise I’d have rung the bell.”
“Could you identify the voice?”
“Hardly. It was very indistinct; and it sounded a little hoarse. It
wasn’t any one’s voice I was familiar with; but I’d be inclined to say
it was the same one that answered me over the phone.”
“Could you make out anything that was said?”
Cleaver frowned and looked past Markham through the open window.
“I know what the words sounded like,” he said slowly. “I didn’t think
anything of them at the time. But after reading the papers the next
day, those words came back to me——”
“What were the words?” Markham cut in impatiently.
“Well, as near as I could make out, they were: ‘Oh, my God! Oh, my
God!’—repeated two or three times.”
This statement seemed to bring a sense of horror into the dreary old
office—a horror all the more potent because of the casual, phlegmatic
way in which Cleaver repeated that cry of anguish. After a brief pause
Markham asked:
“When you heard this man’s voice, what did you do?”
“I walked softly back down the rear hall and went out again through
the side door. Then I went home.”
A short silence ensued. Cleaver’s testimony had been in the nature of
a surprise; but it fitted perfectly with Mannix’s statement.
Presently Vance lifted himself out of the depths of his chair.
“I say, Mr. Cleaver, what were you doing between twenty minutes to
twelve—when you phoned Miss Odell—and five minutes to twelve—when you
entered the side door of her apartment-house?”
“I was riding up-town in the Subway from 23d Street,” came the answer
after a short pause.
“Strange—very strange.” Vance inspected the tip of his cigarette.
“Then you couldn’t possibly have phoned to any one during that fifteen
minutes—eh, what?”
I suddenly remembered Alys La Fosse’s statement that Cleaver had
telephoned to her on Monday night at ten minutes to twelve. Vance, by
his question, had, without revealing his own knowledge, created a
state of uncertainty in the other’s mind. Afraid to commit himself too
emphatically, Cleaver resorted to an evasion.
“It’s possible, is it not, that I could have phoned some one after
leaving the Subway at 72d Street and before I walked the block to Miss
Odell’s house?”
“Oh, quite,” murmured Vance. “Still, looking at it mathematically, if
you phoned Miss Odell at twenty minutes to twelve, and then entered
the Subway, rode to 72d Street, walked a block to 71st, went into the
building, listened at her door, and departed at five minutes to
twelve—making the total time consumed only fifteen minutes—you’d
scarcely have sufficient leeway to stop en route and phone to any one.
However, I sha’n’t press the point. But I’d really like to know what
you did between eleven o’clock and twenty minutes to twelve, when you
phoned to Miss Odell.”
Cleaver studied Vance intently for a moment.
“To tell you the truth, I was upset that night. I knew Miss Odell was
out with another man—she’d broken an appointment with me—and I walked
the streets for an hour or more, fuming and fretting.”
“Walked the streets?” Vance frowned.
“That’s what I said.” Cleaver spoke with animus. Then, turning, he
gave Markham a long calculating look. “You remember I once suggested
to you that you might learn something from a Doctor Lindquist. . . .
Did you ever get after him?”
Before Markham could answer, Vance broke in.
“Ah! That’s it!—Doctor Lindquist! Well, well—of course! . . . So, Mr.
Cleaver, you were walking the streets? The _streets_, mind you!
Precisely!—You state the fact, and I echo the word ‘streets.’ And
you—apparently out of a clear sky—ask about Doctor Lindquist. Why
Doctor Lindquist? No one has mentioned him. But that word
‘streets’—that’s the connection. The streets and Doctor Lindquist are
one—same as Paris and springtime are one. Neat, very neat. . . . And
now I’ve got another piece to the puzzle.”
Markham and Heath looked at him as if he had suddenly gone mad. He
calmly selected a _Régie_ from his case and proceeded to light it.
Then he smiled beguilingly at Cleaver.
“The time has come, my dear sir, for you to tell us when and where you
met Doctor Lindquist while roaming the streets Monday night. If you
don’t, ’pon my word, I’ll come pretty close to doing it for you.”
A full minute passed before Cleaver spoke; and during that time his
cold staring eyes never moved from the District Attorney’s face.
“I’ve already told most of the story; so here’s the rest.” He gave a
soft mirthless laugh. “I went to Miss Odell’s house a little before
half past eleven—thought she might be home by that time. There I ran
into Doctor Lindquist standing in the entrance to the alleyway. He
spoke to me, and told me some one was with Miss Odell in her
apartment. Then I walked round the corner to the Ansonia Hotel. After
ten minutes or so I telephoned Miss Odell, and, as I said, a man
answered. I waited another ten minutes and phoned a friend of Miss
Odell’s, hoping to arrange a party; but failing, I walked back to the
house. The doctor had disappeared, and I went down the alleyway and in
the side door. After listening a minute, as I told you, and hearing a
man’s voice, I came away and went home. . . . That’s everything.”
At that moment Swacker came in and whispered something to Heath. The
Sergeant rose with alacrity and followed the secretary out of the
room. Almost at once he returned, bearing a bulging Manila folder.
Handing it to Markham, he said something in a low voice inaudible to
the rest of us. Markham appeared both astonished and displeased.
Waving the Sergeant back to his seat, he turned to Cleaver.
“I’ll have to ask you to wait in the reception-room for a few minutes.
Another urgent matter has just arisen.”
Cleaver went out without a word, and Markham opened the folder.
“I don’t like this sort of thing, Sergeant. I told you so yesterday
when you suggested it.”
“I understand, sir.” Heath, I felt, was not as contrite as his tone
indicated. “But if those letters and things are all right, and Cleaver
hasn’t been lying to us about ’em, I’ll have my man put ’em back so’s
no one’ll ever know they were taken. And if they do make Cleaver out a
liar, then we’ve got a good excuse for grabbing ’em.”
Markham did not argue the point. With a gesture of distaste he began
running through the letters, looking particularly at the dates. Two
photographs he put back after a cursory glance; and one piece of
paper, which appeared to contain a pen-and-ink sketch of some kind, he
tore up with disgust and threw into the waste-basket. Three letters, I
noticed, he placed to one side. After five minutes’ inspection of the
others, he returned them to the folder. Then he nodded to Heath.
“Bring Cleaver back.” He rose and, turning, gazed out of the window.
As soon as Cleaver was again seated before the desk Markham said,
without looking round:
“You told me it was last June that you bought your letters back from
Miss Odell. Do you recall the date?”
“Not exactly,” said Cleaver easily. “It was early in the month,
though—during the first week, I think.”
Markham now spun about and pointed to the three letters he had
segregated.
“How, then, do you happen to have in your possession compromising
letters which you wrote to Miss Odell from the Adirondacks late in
July?”
Cleaver’s self-control was perfect. After a moment’s stoical silence,
he merely said in a mild, quiet voice:
“You of course came by those letters legally.”
Markham was stung, but he was also exasperated by the other’s
persistent deceptions.
“I regret to confess,” he said, “that they were taken from your
apartment—though, I assure you, it was against my instructions. But
since they have come unexpectedly into my possession, the wisest thing
you can do is to explain them. There was an empty document-box in Miss
Odell’s apartment the morning her body was found, and, from all
appearances, it had been opened Monday night.”
“I see.” Cleaver laughed harshly. “Very well. The fact is—though I
frankly don’t expect you to believe me—I didn’t pay my blackmail to
Miss Odell until the middle of August, about three weeks ago. That’s
when all my letters were returned. I told you it was June in order to
set back the date as far as possible. The older the affair was, I
figured, the less likelihood there’d be of your suspecting me.”
Markham stood fingering the letters undecidedly. It was Vance who put
an end to his irresolution.
“I rather think, don’t y’ know,” he said, “that you’d be safe in
accepting Mr. Cleaver’s explanation and returning his _billets-doux_.”
Markham, after a momentary hesitation, picked up the Manila folder
and, replacing the three letters, handed it to Cleaver.
“I wish you to understand that I did not sanction the appropriating of
this correspondence. You’d better take it home and destroy it.—I won’t
detain you any longer now. But please arrange to remain where I can
reach you if necessary.”
“I’m not going to run away,” said Cleaver; and Heath directed him to
the elevator.