Time Off for Murder by Zelda Popkin Page B

all it was. My husband told me. 'Don't take a girl like that into the house,' he said, 'they're no good. None of them.' I should of listened to him. What can I do? I felt sorry for the girl. I gave her a chance. Believe me, I learned my lesson. I got four tables of bridge coming tonight. It's my turn for the club and I can't call it off. Look at the house. Look at how it looks. And I got sandwiches to make and an ice box cake to fix. Who's gonna do it?"
    Â Â "Don't look at me, lady. I can't bake a cake."
    Â Â "You're a friend of Sophie's, ain't you? I wish I could get my hands on her. That's all I want. Just to get my hands on her. Imagine what she did! She gets up in the morning and goes out to buy the rolls and newspaper and when I come down stairs I find the rolls and paper on the kitchen table and the change from a quarter and a letter. I'll show it to you. You can see what kind of a person your friend is…." From a wrinkled bit of wrapping paper, the housewife read aloud: "'I have to go away. I hope the baby is all right. Sophie.' That's all. No thanks. Nothing."
    Â Â "Do you owe her any wages?"
    Â Â "Say, who are you? What's it your business? Oh, a detective. She's in trouble again, huh? So that's it. I bet it's on account of the Knight case. That's it. She knows something." The woman shuddered. "Ooh my, I had a girl like that in the house. A murderer. A kidnapper. A God knows what."
    Â Â On Tuesday Johnny Reese wielded a shovel, with the assistance of two of his colleagues, until his hands were blistered, and every inch of the seven by twentyfive foot plot of earth in the rear of Lyman Knight's house was turned over. He viewed a choice agglomeration of rusted tin cans, old beef and chicken bones, stones and astonished insects, scuttling to shelter, and sweated under the angry reproach of the housekeeper.
    Â Â A uniformed policeman stood beside Agnes in the basement doorway. The woman glared at him. He maintained a bland neutrality.
    Â Â A second policeman stood at the front door. A cluster of the curious was at the curb, staring at the policeman and the silent house.
    Â Â Behind the darkened windows of the second floor, Lyman Knight lay in his bed, a vinegar soaked cloth on his forehead. He snored stertoriously, worn out by the tearful rage that had wracked him when the police diggers had appeared.
    Â Â Tip-toeing past his room, the detectives had gone, when their digging was done, up to the third floor, and down to the sub-basement. They had opened every closet. They had ransacked every trunk. They had peered into the furnace, raked over the ashes. They had tapped the walls. They had left the tracks of their number eleven shoes in the dust of the decades. But they had found not one single thing - no bloodstain, or sign of struggle or concealment - that might have given evidence of the fate of Phyllis Knight.
    Â Â On Tuesday evening, Johnny Reese called Miss Carner. "Excuse me, sister," he began, "I meant to keep you informed. But honest, I was too busy. I don't know why I do this anyway. Maybe it's because you told me about that Cerberus. Say, that hit the chief right between the eyes. Well, we done a lot of chasing around, but we're just where we started from. Plenty of mail. The whole United States is writing in, but not a thing you could stick your teeth into. I wish I could find that Sophie. I bet she knows something. But gees, it's plenty to be lookin' for one woman, without lookin' for two."
    Â Â Mary answered: "That was smart of you, recognizing Struthers."
    Â Â "That? That was nothing. Just old Tanglefoot Reese. Stick around, sister, you'll learn something about the detective business. And say, that's on the level about her going to the movies. That's exactly what she told Struthers - Clarkson - she was going to do."

    ***
    On Wednesday evening Detective Reese, in person, not a telephone call, rang Miss Carner's apartment bell, to say: "It's all over. I was