Parachute Murder Page 15

“No; he said nothing more about him, but he was afraid. He was still pale when we sat down at a table at Montini’s.”

  “Did you ever see in his possession a letter postmarked Paris?”

  “He never brought any of his mail to my apartment. I never saw any such letter.”

  Kemerson sat drumming his fingers on his knees for a moment, evidently disappointed.

  “Do you know who Edith Vane is?” he asked, sharply.

  Miss Latterby looked away: “I have read that she was a passenger on the Silver Lark the night Mr. Morne was killed.”

  “Did Vanuzzi ever mention the name to you? Think carefully before you answer.”

  “Not to me. I heard a Miss Vane mentioned once when he was talking to a man from the night club yesterday. It was his visitor that mentioned the name.”

  “What did he say?” asked the District Attorney.

  “He said, ‘Miss Vane wouldn’t believe that.’ Giulio closed the door then and I did not hear any more.”

  Kemerson and the District Attorney crossed glances, and the actor continued his questioning of Miss Latterby with a new keenness in his voice.

  “Miss Vane has disappeared. Did Vanuzzi say anything last night, to you or in your hearing, that would indicate he knew anything about her?”

  “No, sir; nothing.”

  “Did he receive any telephone calls? Or make any?”

  “Someone ‘phoned to him.”

  “What did Vanuzzi say? Do you remember any of his words?”

  “I did not pay particular attention. Something was said about an apartment, and it’s being all right. I do not remember exactly.”

  Kemerson considered a moment, interlacing his fingers. “What reason did Vanuzzi give for packing two suitcases?”

  “He said the police thought he was mixed up in the Morne case and that he was going away a few days until it blew over.”

  “How did he act? Nervous and afraid?”

  “He was afraid when he heard a loud knocking at the door. He made me slip into a dress hurriedly.”

  “Why didn’t he take you in the taxicab with him?”

  “He thought we might be followed more easily together. He told me to take the subway, go to my apartment and wait for him there.”

  Kemerson and Mr. Brixton consulted in low tones. “That is all for the present, Miss Latterby,” said the District Attorney. “We will have Vanuzzi here, and I will notify you after our talk with him if I want to question you further.”

  As the young woman got up to go, a uniformed policeman entered the office. “You are wanted on the ‘phone, Mr. Brixton. It is Carmody. Another murder.”

  Mr. Brixton reached for the French ‘phone on his desk. “What is it, Carmody?” He listened quietly for a time, and then interrupted sharply. “A Japanese? What’s his name?”

  “Not Kiyoshi Nimura?” cried Kemerson as Mr. Brixton replaced the receiver. He nodded slowly.

  “Yes, Kiyoshi. Shot as he sat by the open window in the room he had hired.”

  CHAPTER XVII — LIEUTENANT BREWSTER REPORTS A MURDER

  “AND Vanuzzi is locked up,” said Kemerson. “There’s more behind the murder of Chadwick Morne than any of us suspect. I will go there at once.”

  “Not yet, Kirk. Carmody is bringing in the man who found Nimura’s body—a Mr. Brewster. It may be the stunt aviator.”

  “Lieutenant Brewster? I shall be glad to have an interview with that man!”

  Mr. Brixton dismissed Miss Latterby. Kemerson followed her from the District Attorney’s office and asked her to remain in a small room off the hallway until Brewster had arrived.

  “A man is coming in here soon,” he told her, “and I want you to watch every person who goes through that door into Mr. Brixton’s office. One of them may be the man who frightened Mr. Morne away from Dalton’s restaurant.”

  Miss Latterby agreed to remain, and when Kemerson had arranged a chair for her in the proper position, he returned to Mr. Brixton’s office.

  “The case against Vanuzzi gets stronger,” he remarked. “He had the motive and the opportunity. And he had sworn to get Morne.”

  “So had Blake, years ago; and so had Kiyoshi recently,” interposed Kemerson, “and yet Morne did not fear any of the three. He did fear Brewster, if Brewster is the man I think he is. Kiyoshi knew that Morne was flying to Chicago. He told Vanuzzi and, I am quite confident, at least one other person. And why could not Brewster have been that other? He believes Kiyoshi once saved his life, and got Kiyoshi the job as Morne’s dresser out of gratitude.”

  Kemerson proceeded to detail to the District Attorney the story that the valet had told him. “Someone knew of my visit to Kiyoshi and feared he might talk too much in order to save his own skin. I would think Vanuzzi committed this second murder if I could believe everything the Jap said, even though Vanuzzi was in custody at the time. He might have arranged for Kiyoshi to be put out of the way, just as Miss Vane may be.”

  As soon as Carmody entered, accompanied by Brewster, Kemerson went to the anteroom where Miss Latterby was waiting.

  “The big man is the one Mr. Morne was scared of,” she said. “I would know him anywhere.”

  “That is what I suspected, Miss Latterby. I hope it won’t be necessary to disturb you further.”

  “May I go now?”

  “Certainly, but don’t try to leave town. You might be locked up as a material witness if you do.”

  She promised with some reluctance. Kemerson returned to Mr. Brixton’s office and nodded for the District Attorney to proceed with his questioning of Brewster.

  “I understand it was you, Lieutenant Brewster, who discovered the body of the Japanese known as Kiyoshi Nimura. Tell us the circumstances under which you found him.”

  Brewster glanced keenly at Brixton and then at Kemerson. “I was trying to find another job for Kentaro. As I had heard nothing from him in two or three days and had learned of a man who wanted a valet, I went to the address the Jap had given me. His landlady said he had not got up yet. When he failed to respond to my knocking I tried the door and found it locked. I managed to push the key out and the landlady opened the door with her pass-key. Kentaro sat in a chair facing the window, his back to me, his head in an unnatural position. I called his name and was hurrying across to him when I saw a dark stain on the carpet under the chair. I knew what that was; I had seen it often enough in France. His pajamas were streaked with blood from a bullet hole in his chest. I told his landlady he was dead, and went down and informed the detective on guard.”

  “How did you know Carmody was a detective?” asked Kemerson.

  “From the fact that he was loitering in front of the house, and from his appearance. Kentaro told me the last time I saw him that the police suspected him of complicity in the death of Morne.”

  “You are sure he was dead?”

  “Not a doubt of it.”

  “The body was cold and stiff,” said Carmody. “He had been shot as he sat in front of the opened window.”

  “Could you tell at what angle the bullet entered his chest?” asked the District Attorney.

  “It looked to me as though it had been fired from a level with his body—perhaps from the third floor of a vacant building across the court. The bullet appeared to have gone straight into his body, a little to the right of the heart.”

  “Now, Lieutenant Brewster,” said Mr. Brixton, “what was your especial interest in the Japanese that you were so anxious to get him a job?”

  “He was my orderly in France. He looked me up when I got back to the United States and said he was out of a job. He had been an excellent orderly and I promised to help him. I heard of an actor who wanted a dresser and sent Kentaro to apply for the place. I gave him a reference.”

  “Who was the actor?” asked Kemerson.

  “Joseph Thurlow.”

  “How long did he remain with Thurlow?”

  “Several years, I believe. I was away from New York for two years ‘barnstorming’ at air
shows. When I returned, I called at the theatre where Thurlow was playing and learned that Kentaro had become dresser for Mr. Morne.”

  “Then you did not get him the job with Mr. Morne?” “No.”

  “Why should Kiyoshi say you did?”

  “I have no idea, unless it was that I had got him into theatrical valeting.”

  “Why did you urge him to change his name?”

  “Now that he is dead there can be no harm in telling. He got into some trouble—with a French girl—and deserted.”

  “You advised him to desert and aided his flight?”

  “I knew nothing about it until his absence was discovered.”

  “Did he ever have any trouble with the officers?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Insubordination. Striking an officer.”

  “Never to my knowledge.”

  “Were you under any special obligation to him?”

  “No, but he was a good orderly and, naturally, when he appealed to me for help in getting a job I could not refuse.”

  “He never saved you from an attack by a fellow officer whom you called ‘Jack’?”

  “I had no fellow officer called ‘Jack’.”

  “He never knocked an officer on the head with the butt of a revolver to save you from being shot at in a quarrel with that officer?”

  “No.”

  “He told me that he had; that you both thought the officer dead, and that you urged him to flee and aided him in getting to a neutral country. Why should he make up a story like that if there is no truth in it?”

  “I suppose he did not want to own to you that he had been mixed up with a white girl. He knows what that means in this country.”

  “You prevented my assistant, Blake, from overtaking Kiyoshi or Kentaro, in Vanuzzi’s night club. Why did you interfere?”

  “I just wanted to tell him that I knew Kentaro and could vouch for him. I was confident, and still am, that he had nothing to do with the death of Morne.”

  “Did you know Chadwick Morne in France?” Lieutenant Brewster hesitated for a moment. “I had seen him once or twice at Y.M.C.A. entertainments. I was not acquainted with him.”

  “You still have your service revolver?”

  “No. It was taken from my room in a San Francisco hotel when I was performing in an air circus.”

  “What were you doing in Mr. Morne’s apartment three nights ago?”

  “I have never been in Mr. Morne’s apartment. I do not know where he lived. I came here to tell you the circumstances under which I found the body of Ken-taro Kawatami. Your questions seem to indicate I am under suspicion.”

  “The Japanese valet is not free from suspicion,” said the District Attorney, “and your efforts to protect him need clearing up.”

  “I have explained my interest in Kentaro. If there is nothing else you wish to ask I presume I may go? Or am I to be held under suspicion along with Mr. Vanuzzi and Rolf Perkin?”

  “There is no charge against you, Lieutenant.”

  “One more question, Brewster,” interposed Kemerson as the aviator arose. “If you and Morne were not acquainted, why was the actor afraid of you? Why did he get hastily back into a taxicab with Vida Latterby when he saw you in front of Dalton’s restaurant a few weeks ago?”

  A look of uncontrolled rage appeared momentarily in Brewster’s eyes, and was as quickly gone, but it gave Kemerson the impression that he was playing with dynamite in the person of the stunt aviator. He could not be sure whether Brewster’s anger was at his questioning or a deep-seated animosity towards Morne.

  “If the young lady said that she is very much mistaken. I have not seen Morne, save at one performance of The Bed of Virtue, since I returned from France.” Brewster’s tone was easy, natural and disarming.

  Kemerson pounced upon his reply. “What young lady? I said nothing about a young lady.”

  Brewster seemed nonplussed for a moment, and Brixton spoke up sharply: “What is her name? Where did you see her?”

  “The young woman you had waiting in the ante-

  room,” Brewster replied, coolly. “Vida Latterby she calls herself—Vanuzzi’s light o’ love. She was at the Happy Hours night club last night—and only three days after the murder of Chadwick Morne for whom she left Vanuzzi. Is she a stool pigeon that you place any trust in her information?”

  “She was with Morne the night—“ began Kemerson when a disturbance in the anteroom caught his ear. A man’s high voice was remonstrating:

  “I came here to see the District Attorney and I’m going to see him.”

  Three or four men speaking at once drowned out the high voice. Brixton nodded to Dugan who went out to see what the trouble was, and instructed Carmody to get Brewster’s address.

  “That is all for today, Lieutenant. I do not think it necessary to hold you as a witness in the murder of the Japanese, but, as you probably know more about him than anyone else, I may want to question you later.”

  “I shall not run away, if that is what you mean,” said Brewster. “Kentaro was only a Jap valet to others; to me he was a faithful servant and I want to see his murderer brought to justice.”

  As Carmody accompanied him from the office, Dugan reappeared, followed by a little walrus-mustached man whose face was purple with anger and who was still declaring that he had come to see the District Attorney and intended to see him.

  CHAPTER XVIII — TRAPPED!

  “This man says Miss Vane was kidnapped from his flat,” said Dugan.

  “You are Archibald Horner?” asked Brixton.

  “I am, and I’d like to know what the city is coming to,” said the man in a peculiarly high voice, “when a man’s home can be invaded by kidnappers and gangsters during his absence. What are the police for, what is the District Attorney’s office for, if not to protect decent, law-abiding citizens in their homes? Here I leave the house in perfect order when I go to work and come back in the morning to find the furniture overturned and marred, cigar and cigarette butts and ashes all over the floor, my liquor—“ He broke off suddenly, mouth agape.

  “I’m not concerned with what you drink,” said Mr. Brixton. “Have you any suspicions as to who invaded your home?”

  “None at all. That is why I have come to you. The policeman on the beat said a girl had been kidnapped from my flat and an old woman, bound and gagged, left in it.”

  “That is the report I have. It was the work of someone who knew your habits. They knew you would be away. Do you live there alone?”

  “No, sir, but my wife and children are in Connecticut for ten days with her people. I work nights. I’m a linotype setter.”

  “Do you keep roomers?”

  “Not for a month or two. It was too much work for my wife.”

  “Who was your last roomer?”

  “A young fellow named George Groat.”

  “How long since you have seen him?”

  “He called to see me last week. He’s a waiter, or was, at some sort of club.”

  “Was it the Happy Hours night club?”

  “Why, yes, it was. He mentioned it several times when he roomed with us.”

  Kemerson and Mr. Brixton exchanged glances. The District Attorney nodded slowly.

  “I think,” he told his visitor, “that we will be able to lay our hands on the man who made use of your flat in your absence.”

  “They ought to be sent up the river. And that young man who called on me today and woke me up. He acted suspicious, and admitted he was not from the police. Said his name was Blake, and he was a friend of the young woman who was kidnapped.”

  “He is working on the case with me,” said Kemerson. “Did he discover anything he regarded as significant?”

  “Nothing but a cigarette case, hidden at the side of a cushion in a chair. It was of silver, and quite worn but I could make out the initials, D.V. engraved on it. It wasn’t mine so I let him take it.”

  After a few more perfunctory questions, Mr. Horner was dis
missed, mollified. Kemerson and Dugan went to the scene of Kiyoshi’s murder. The body had been viewed by the medical examiner and awaited instructions for removal to the morgue.

  “The Jap was shot from that building across the court,” said the policeman on guard. “The medical examiner said the bullet was fired at a height level with the Jap’s body. It went straight in, Dr. Bradley said, and so must have been fired from that vacant building directly opposite.”

  Kemerson, followed by Dugan, examined the room, noted the blood stains under the chair, searched through his belongings, discovering nothing that seemed to have any bearing on the case, though Kemerson pocketed two or three pieces of paper without saying anything about them to Dugan. Kemerson then motioned to Mrs. O’Toole, who had been hovering in the doorway, to come in.

  “Did you hear a shot, or anything that sounded like one?” he asked.

  “Nothing. I was busy with my work after the gentleman and lady called to see Mr. Kawatami—”

  “He had visitors this morning, you mean? Can you describe them?”

  “The man was tall, clean shaven, and he wore a gray suit with small green stripes. The lady’s face was veiled, but she was a lady, sir, in spite of her hennaed hair. It was bobbed and brown with quite a lot of red in it—too much red for my taste. She wore a gray dress—filmy, kind of like smoke—”

  “A large woman?”

  “No, sir. Not so tall as I am, quite. The kind of a figure that makes men turn in the street to stare after a woman.”

  “Did they give their names when they asked to see the Japanese?”

  “No, sir. They said to tell him a gentleman and a lady wished to speak with him.”

  “How did Kiyoshi address them?”

  “Kiyoshi, sir?”

  “Ah, he went by the name of Kentaro Kawatami.”

  “He didn’t call them by name at all, sir. I thought it was funny for he seemed to know them—to be expecting them. He just stood at the door of his room and smiled—well, it was a queer smile—and said, ‘Come into my room if you want to talk to me,’ kind of commanding like. They went in and Mr. Kawatami closed the door. I could hear their voices but couldn’t make out any words. They were still talking when there was a telephone call for the Jap—Mr. Kawatami. He came out into the hallway to answer.”