At four in the morning Harrison went home and threw himself, fully clothed, on his bed.
There was nothing then to connect this crime with Sarah, or with us; nor was there until seven-ten the following morning.
The body had been taken to the Morgue, Mr. Harrison was peacefully asleep, and Dick Carter had written his story of the murder and gone to bed, a blue-beaded bag in his coat pocket and forgotten.
At seven-ten, however, an excited telephone message was received at a local police station from a woman named Sanderson, a boarder in a house in an unfashionable part of the city, on Halkett Street.
She reported that one of the roomers, a young woman named Florence Gunther, was not in her room, and that as she never spent the night out she was certain that something was wrong.
In view of the crime the night before the call was turned over to the Inspector.
Breakfastless and without changing his clothing, he got into his car—always kept at his door—and started for Halkett Street.
The Sanderson woman, greatly excited, was waiting at the front door.
Her story was simple and direct.
She had not slept well, and some time in the night she had been annoyed by movements overhead, in Florence Gunther’s room.
“She seemed to be moving the furniture about,” she said, “and I made up my mind to talk to her about it in the morning.
So I got up at seven and went up, but she wasn’t there.
She hadn’t slept there.
And when I found all her clothes except what she had on I got worried.”
He told her nothing of the crime, but he examined the room with her.
The landlady, a woman named Bassett, had been ill for some time and did not appear.
It was clear to both of them that the room had been searched, although there had been an attempt to conceal the fact.
But the important fact was that Florence Gunther when last seen the evening before had worn a checked dress and blue coat.
He knew then what he had found.
He locked the room, put Simmons on guard at the door, sent word by a colored servant to Mrs. Bassett that the room and the officer were to be undisturbed, and with a photograph of the dead woman in his pocket had come to me.
“The point seems to be this,” he said.
“If this is the Florence who was in touch with Sarah, the same motive which led to the one crime has led to the other.
The possession of some dangerous knowledge, possibly certain papers—it’s hard to say.
The one thing apparently certain is that there was something, some physical property for which in each case a search was made.
Whether it was found or not—”
He broke the end from a toothpick with great violence.
“Curious thing to think of, isn’t it?” he went on.
“If you’d seen this girl yesterday she might be living today.
She knew the answer to Sarah Gittings’ murder, and so she had to go.
Now, if we knew how friendly they were, how they met, what brought them together, we’d have something.”
And, although we have learned many things, that association of theirs remains a mystery.
By what tragic accident they were thrown together we shall never know; two lonely women in a city of over half a million, they had drifted together somehow, perhaps during their aimless evening walks, or in a moving picture theater. We have no reason to believe that there was any particular friendship between them.
One thing, discovered by accident, held them together and in the end destroyed them.
The Inspector got up to go.
“I’m going down to headquarters,” he said. “Then I’m going back to that room of hers.
Whether the same hand killed both women or not, I imagine the same individual searched both rooms.
There’s a technique about such matters.”
“Still, I should think that a man who had just killed—”
“Not this one.
He’s got no heart and he’s got no nerves.
But there’s always a chance.
If he goes on killing, he’ll slip up some time, and then we’ll get him.”
With which optimistic words he left me!
Later on in the day I heard from him by telephone.
“Just to cheer you up,” he said.
“We have a clear slate for Walter Somers last night.
He played bridge from eight until three this morning, and won two hundred dollars.”
He hung up abruptly.
It was the first time I had known that the police were watching Wallie.
From the papers, ringing with another “shoe” murder, and from various sources then and later, I gained a fair idea of the unfortunate young woman.