Bones Don't Lie Page 7

  The attractive, powerfully built Chief Chemist did not show the same awe of Tracy’s rich surroundings as Ashley and Gaylord had exhibited. She seemed, in fact, as completely at ease as if the big office were her own little two-by-four cubbyhole on the second floor of the Test Department building.

  The General waited until she had seated herself before dropping his weight into the desk chair again. He leaned forward then, eyeing Clara Dunne appraisingly.

  “The death of your assistant must be a considerable shock to you, Miss Dunne,” he began.

  “I don’t know that I’m exactly shocked,” Clara said, “but I’ll certainly be frightfully handicapped. It’s like losing my right arm.”

  “Keene was a valuable assistant?”

  “He took a tremendous amount of detail from my shoulders. He’d been around the laboratory even longer than I. By handling routine matters he enabled me to devote a considerable amount of my time to training green help. We have a great many inexperienced girls at the laboratory these days.”

  “You have a very important position for a woman,” the General remarked.

  “Fair.” There was a note of dissatisfaction in her voice.

  “You’re extremely modest,” the General said. “I should think it would take unusual competence to assume responsibility for the entire chemical division of a plant this size.”

  “I have a Master’s degree from M.I.T.,” Clara told him. She did not say it in a boastful way. “The work in our laboratory is fairly cut-and-dried. Most of it could be handled by anyone with a couple of years college chemistry. It’s primarily simple quantitative and qualitative analysis.”

  “But it requires executive ability.”

  “I suppose so,” she said disinterestedly.

  The General glanced at Lambert and then at Ray Locke. “I suppose I’m getting to be an old fogey,” he said, “but somehow I can never quite get used to the idea of women around steel mills. Such heavy industry seems essentially a man’s job.”

  Ray was wondering about the General’s age. Not more than early forties, he judged, in spite of the man’s partial baldness.

  Clara Dunne said, “I was brought up in the steel business. It has no terrors for me.”

  “Indeed?” The General’s tone was politely inquiring.

  She said, “My father started as a blacksmith. He worked up to superintendent of a small metal-working establishment. When the first World War broke, he bought out the business. I used to play around his shop when I was a kid.”

  Her face clouded. “I thought then that I’d manage the plant for him some day, build it up and up…” Her voice trailed off, then stopped.

  “But you changed your mind,” the General suggested. “You decided to be a chemist instead.”

  “My father lost his business in the big wind, the 1932 depression. He didn’t live long after that. I had tough sledding even to put myself through school.”

  “1932, lots of people remember that year!” The General cleared his throat. “Well, to get back to Walter Keene. You were present, I understand, during the argument between him and Locke.”

  “That’s right.” Clara Dunne turned her eyes to Ray. There was no warmth in her look and no coldness. Her gaze was entirely impersonal. ‘Walter Keene went out of his way to insult Mr. Locke. Mr. Locke tried to avoid a scene, but Walter wouldn’t drop it. Finally Mr. Locke threatened to hit him. I stopped the quarrel.”

  “What was the argument about?” Lambert cut in.

  “Why, Walter was making nasty cracks about—”

  The General interrupted hastily. “Never mind. I don’t think that’s pertinent to the matter at hand.”

  A red flush crept into Lieutenant Lambert’s lean cheeks. The police officer half opened his mouth, then thought better of it. He subsided sulkily against the cushions of his chair.

  “I don’t blame Mr. Locke,” Clara Dunne said. “If I were a man and someone talked to me that way I’d knock his front teeth loose.”

  Ray said, “Thanks, Clara!”

  The General took no notice of either Ray or the sullen Lambert.

  “You told us over at the laboratory that you saw Locke go away from the test building while Keene was still around the laboratory?”

  “He went off around the corner of the machine shop,” Clara repeated.

  “What happened after that?”

  “I didn’t stay around much longer myself,” Clara said. “It was very late.”

  “Is it customary for you to work so late?”

  “Not that late, but we’ve been awfully rushed the last few weeks. I’ve been getting steadily behind in my paper work. I thought last night would be a good time to catch up.” She gave a disgusted little laugh. “I picked a good night, all right!”

  “So you cleaned up your paper work and then went home?”

  “I did not get caught up,” she corrected. “There was more work than I thought. After the interruption, I realized I couldn’t finish even if I worked all night, so I stopped.”

  “What time was it when you left the laboratory?”

  “I didn’t notice particularly. Around two, I think.”

  “That’s just about the time the Medical Examiner fixes Keene’s death.”

  She shrugged her chunky shoulders expressively. “What was Keene doing when you left?” the General asked.

  “Something in the back part of the lab, I don’t know exactly what. He was on night duty, you see. Supposed to be there until eight this morning and then off for twenty-four hours.”

  The General said, “Whom else did you see around the building before you left?”

  “No one. That is, not just when I left.”

  “How about Gaylord?”

  “He was in about eleven,” Clara said. “He went out then and I didn’t see him again the rest of the evening.”

  “Mr. Locke insists he saw the former Chief Inspector, Cannon, downstairs near Ashley’s office. You knew Cannon, I presume?”

  “I knew him, of course. But if he was around the plant last night it’s news to me.”

  “What about Mr. Tracy’s secretary, Miss Jacqueline North? She was there when you and Keene came down.”

  Clara said, “Yes. She and Mr. Locke were together.”

  “And Locke left before she did?”

  “Miss North, if that’s her name, went off right after Mr. Locke had gone.”

  “You don’t know Miss North?”

  “Never saw her before.”

  “Peculiar you wouldn’t know the big boss’ secretary,” Flint observed.

  “Why?” Clara Dunne asked calmly. “An office girl practically never comes inside the plant. We have no contact with any of the office employees—except, of course, the big shots, the superintendents.”

  “Then what was Miss North doing here last night, particularly at such a late hour?”

  “You’d better ask her,” Clara said. “She made no explanations to me last night.”

  “Didn’t you ask?”

  “I rather thought she came with Mr. Locke,” Clara said. “As a matter of fact, she left right after he did. To tell the truth, I wasn’t particularly interested. We have so many people around the lab all the time. And I don’t mind saying I was upset last night. It bothers me to get so much behind in my work.”

  U. G. Flint sat for a moment without speaking. His big, blunt fingers drummed restlessly on Tracy’s desk pad.

  Then he said, “Miss Dunne, you strike me as being a young woman of considerable ability. I think you have a mind and know how to use it. Suppose you were sitting on my side of this desk. Where would you look for the murderer of Walter Keene?”

  Very coolly, Clara Dunne said, “Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Flint, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to do much on this case. There are too many people who might ha
ve killed Walter!”

  “Too many?” The General’s eyes lighted up with sudden interest. “You mean Keene had a great many enemies?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know if Walter had any enemies at all. But this is a very large plant. More than twenty thousand people are employed at Ironton. Any one of them could have killed Walter.”

  “Don’t you think it likely that Keene’s murderer was someone who knew him rather well? Someone, probably, closely associated with him at the Test Department in the course of his daily work?”

  She considered a moment before replying. “In other words, you think the murderer is another employee of the Test Department? That could be true, naturally. But, then again, some hunkie from a loading gang might have come in and hit Walter over tire head.”

  “Considering the fact that there are three shifts during the twenty-four hours,” the General pointed out, “only about a third of the twenty thousand would have been in the works at the time of Keene’s murder. That cuts your number of suspects by roughly twelve thousand, right away.”

  “Any of the others could have come back into the plant on their own time if they’d wanted to,” Clara pointed out. “I still think you’ve got one chance in twenty thousand of finding the person who killed Walter.”

  The General slapped his hand smartly against the desk top. “I can’t agree with you, Miss Dunne!”

  Clara Dunne’s plump, pretty face crinkled in a smile. “I don’t care whether you agree or not. It’s still my opinion. You asked me and I’ve told you.”

  Ray Locke drew in his breath sharply. The pert comeback of the stocky Chief Chemist had bordered closely upon impudence.

  U. G. Flint, however, did not take offense. “You don’t realize it, Miss Dunne,” he boomed, “but you’ve made this rather sordid affair vastly more interesting to me. I cannot fail now to find the murderer. Odds of twenty thousand-to-one against my success are a challenge I could never overlook. I thank you sincerely.”

  He got to his feet and bent again slightly at the hips, a signal that the interview was terminated.

  Ray’s fingers closed upon the dice in his vest pocket. When he glanced at them they showed a five and a two. “A natural!” he said aloud and snapped his fingers.

  * * * *

  The General spoke again briefly into the intercommunication box.

  “I’m sorry,” Jackie North’s voice floated back. “Mr. Harris is out in the plant just now with Mr. Tracy.”

  “All right,” said the General. “Suppose you step in yourself for a few moments.”

  He flipped the switch and tilted back in the desk chair.

  “I’m quite surprised at Miss Dunne’s attitude,” he said speculatively. “It was distinctly on the defeatist side, and Ed have sworn she was anything but the frustrated type.”

  Lieutenant Lambert grinned sardonically. “Maybe she’s been disappointed in love.”

  Somehow the idea of Clara Dunne eating her heart out with unrequited love struck Ray as ludicrous. The muscular little Chief Chemist was always so self-contained and efficient he simply couldn’t picture her in a setting of moonlight and kisses.

  Not that she was unattractive. But Ray had a swift mental picture of Clara Dunne cooking breakfast eggs as she would heat a beaker of hydrochloric acid in an analysis of carbon-vanadium drillings. The idea of Clara Dunne, complete with laboratory coat, in the kitchenette of a three-room apartment seemed incongruous.

  The General spoke into the desk box again. “Miss North! We’re waiting for you.”

  There was no answer.

  “Go and see what’s keeping her,” he said to Ray with swift impatience. “We want to finish this questioning today, not next month.”

  Ray opened the connecting door to Harris’ office. He gave a startled exclamation.

  “Something’s happened to Miss North!”

  The girl lay on the floor halfway between her desk and the door. Her dark hair was a glossy fan against the green of the office rug. The red-framed glasses, fallen from her nose, lay on the floor just beyond her outflung hand.

  The General and Lambert came through the door as Ray went down on one knee beside the prostrate girl. He slipped his arm around her slim shoulders, and carried her over to the leather couch near Harris’ desk. She was limp and surprisingly inert.

  U. G. Flint was peering over Rays back at Jackie. She was breathing rapidly, but her eyes were tightly closed.

  “Not hurt!” Lambert diagnosed. “Fainted.”

  “Watch out!” the General warned suddenly. “Her glasses.”

  The big man retrieved the red rims almost from under Lambert’s feet. “We’ll put these away for safe keeping,” he said. “Where’s the case?”

  He stepped to Jackie’s desk, slid open a drawer, then another. The General picked up the girl’s big red handbag, clicked open the snap.

  In another moment he had stepped back beside Lambert. “Look here!” he said. In his hand was a small blue notebook of the cheap nickel variety sold at any five-and-dime store. Across the blue cardboard front had been written in ink: Walter Keene.

  “What d’you suppose she’s doing with this?” the General muttered. He wasn’t asking a question, he was simply talking to himself.

  He flipped the notebook open. It appeared to be entirely blank. He riffled the pages. Near the middle of the book, one page had been filled.

  Ray got up and bent around one of the General’s shoulders, while Lambert looked over the other.

  The characters and figures on the page were in the same thin, spidery hand as Keene’s name on the cover. They appeared to be idle jottings, with a sprinkle of doodlings around the edges.

  “Nothing,” Lambert said with disgust.

  The General said, “If it weren’t for the e on the end of the word lock, I might agree. But that one letter…”

  “That one letter makes it my name!” Ray cut in excitedly. “But what…”

  “You’ve expressed it all very succinctly,” the General said quietly. “What!”

  “Looks like he was drawing a picture of a milk bottle,” Lambert commented.

  “To me,” the General admitted, “they look like hieroglyphics on a Babylonian cuspidor.”

  Ray frowned at the equation at the top of the page. “Wait a minute, sir,” he said. “That formula—I saw it in the book I was studying last night. It’s the reaction of nitrogen in a blast furnace to produce the small amount of cyanogen always present in blast furnace gases.”

  “Ah!” breathed the General. “Nitrogen.”

  “And that’s what the figures represent,” Ray went on. “He’s put down the atomic weight and the melting and boiling points of nitrogen. The V stands for valence.”

  “The milk bottle,” said Lambert sourly, “must have been filled with rot-gut hooch!”

  “Maybe he was thinking of a laboratory flask. No! I’ve got it. He was thinking of a blast furnace, and those doodlings are supposed to be the furnace.”

  “Now we know all about it,” Lambert said with heavy sarcasm. “All we have to do is put the murderer under arrest.”

  “Nevertheless,” the General said seriously, “this is an important find. What we want to learn now is how Keene’s book got into the possession of this girl.”

  He went back and stood over the girl. Her eyelids twitched slightly.

  “If we had some smelling salts,” Ray began. “Maybe if I call the switchboard…”

  The General was eyeing the prostrate form of Jackie North intently. “Wait!” he interrupted.

  He drew a fresh cigar from his pocket, clipped the end and struck a match. When he had the Perfecto drawing he bent over the couch and, before Ray knew what he intended, had thrust the end under Jackie’s nose. The smoke curled up directly into her nostrils.

  Jackie coughed, almost strangling. H
er eyes flew wide open.

  “I thought that would bring you around,” the General said. There was a gleam far back in his dark eyes. “Not too convincing an act, young lady.”

  Jackie said, “I—I don’t feel well. I—I’m sick.”

  “Maybe,” U. G. Flint said, “you simply don’t want us to question you. It was a convenient time to faint. Is that it?”

  Jackie sat up.

  The General said, “I want you to tell us what you know about the murder at the laboratory last night.”

  “I don’t know anything about it. I just heard about it this morning.”

  Ray helped the girl to her feet. She shook herself from his supporting arm, went over to her desk and sat down.

  “It won’t do,” the General said. He held the blue notebook toward her. “I want you to tell me how you got this.”

  The girl’s eyes flickered around the office quickly as if she were seeking a means of escape. “There’s nothing to tell. I was at the laboratory last night. You know that. I found the notebook and picked it up. I intended to return it to Mr. Keene today.”

  “When did you find it?”

  “Just after he”—she jerked her head toward Ray Locke—“just after he left.”

  “Tell us all about it,” the General insisted remorselessly. “Where were you? How did you happen to find it? Where? Everything!”

  Jackie North got up abruptly from her desk. For an instant Ray thought she was going to run out of the office. But she only walked over to the couch near Harris’ desk and seated herself again.

  This morning she was wearing powder blue. But the red silk scarf knotted loosely around her throat provided the exact shade to match her lips. She crossed her legs as she settled herself. Jackie North had pretty legs, rounded and graceful.

  It occurred to Ray suddenly that he could never afford to have a secretary as pretty as Jackie North, not even if he personally owned the entire American-Consolidated Steel Company, because such a pretty secretary would definitely keep his mind away from business.

  A secretary of his own. Ray wrenched his thoughts back to reality. He would be lucky if he had a neck of his own when everything was over.