Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

“Sure.”

“You like the life you’re leading? Working private, scuffling around?”

“It seems to suit me.”

He thought it over, nodded. Then he started for the stairs and I followed after him.

Later that evening I managed to reach Ruth Wittlauer. I bundled the stereo into a cab and took it to her place. She lived in a well kept brownstone a block and a half from Gramercy Park. Her apartment was inexpensively furnished, but the pieces looked as if they’d been chosen with care. The place was clean and neat. Her clock radio was tuned to an FM station that was playing chamber music. She had coffee made and I accepted a cup and sipped it while I told her about recovering the stereo from Cary McCloud.

“I wasn’t sure whether you could use it,” I said, “but I couldn’t see any reason why he should keep it. You can always sell it.”

“No, I’ll keep it. I just have a twenty-dollar record player that I bought on 14th Street. Paula’s stereo cost a couple of hundred dollars.” She managed a smile. “So you’ve already more than earned what I gave you. Did he kill her?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. “He’d kill if he had a reason, but I don’t think he did. And if he did kill her he’d never have taken the stereo or the drugs, and he wouldn’t have acted the way he did. There was never a moment when I had the feeling he’d killed her.”

“And you’re sure my sister killed herself?”

“No. I’m pretty sure someone gave her a hand.”

Her eyes widened.

I said, “It’s mostly intuition. But there are a few facts to support it.” I told her about the chain bolt, how it had proved to the police that Paula’d killed herself but how my experiment had shown it could have been fastened from the corridor.

Then I showed her the pictures I’d obtained from Guzik. I selected one shot which showed the chair with Paula’s clothing without showing too much of the window. “The chair,” I said, pointing at it. “I wanted to see a photograph taken at the time to make sure things hadn’t been rearranged by the cops or McCloud or somebody else. But that clothing’s exactly the way it was when I saw it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The supposition is that Paula got undressed, put her clothes on the chair, then went to the window and jumped.” Her lip was trembling but she was holding herself together and I went on talking. “Or she’d taken her clothes off earlier and maybe she took a shower or a nap and then came back and jumped. But look at the chair. She didn’t fold her clothes neatly, she didn’t put them away — and she didn’t just drop them on the floor either. I’m no authority on the way women get undressed, but I don’t think many people do it that way.”

Ruth nodded. Her face was thoughtful.

“That wouldn’t mean very much by itself. If she were upset or stoned or confused, she might have thrown things on the chair as she took them off. But that’s not what happened. The order is all wrong. The bra’s underneath the blouse, the pantyhose are underneath the skirt. She took her bra off after she took her blouse off, obviously, so it should have wound up on top of the blouse, not under it.”

“Of course.”

I held up a hand. “It’s nothing like proof, Ruth. There are any number of explanations. Maybe she knocked the stuff onto the floor and then picked it up and the order of the garments got switched around. Maybe one of the cops went through the clothing before the photographer came in with his camera.”

“But you think she was murdered.”

“Yes, I guess I do.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I think I’ll poke around a little. I don’t know much about Paula’s life. I’ll have to learn more if I’m going to find out who killed her. But it’s up to you to decide whether you want me to stay with it.”

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it probably won’t lead anywhere. Suppose she was upset after her conversation with McCloud and she picked up a stranger and took him home with her and he killed her. If that’s the case, we’ll never know who he was.”

“It’ll take you some time. I suppose you’ll want more money.” Her gaze was very direct. “I gave you two hundred dollars. I have three hundred more I can afford to pay. When the three hundred runs out, you can tell me if you think it’s worth staying with the case. I couldn’t afford any more cash right away, but I could arrange to pay you later on or something like that.”

I shook my head. “It won’t come to more than that,” I said, “no matter how much time I spend on it. And you keep the three hundred for the time being, all right? I’ll take it from you later on if I need it, and if I feel I’ve earned it.”

“That doesn’t seem right.”

“It seems right to me,” I said. “And don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m being charitable.”

“But your time’s valuable.”

I shook my head. “Not to me it isn’t.”