Something for the Sweeper | Page 5

natural. Treat me like anybody else."
The clerk gulped. "Police! What--"
"Shut up," said Jones. "I said act natural. I want some information about a party who sent a message by one of your boys to Mrs. Hendrick Boone at Forty-five-fifteen Raleigh Street. Was it sent from this branch?"
The clerk nodded once, then again, and finally said, "Yes," in a frightened stage whisper.
"When?"
"About--about an hour ago."
"Did a woman send it?"
"Yes," the clerk said. He swallowed and then said: "Her 'name was Sarah Boone."
"So?" said Jones sharply. "And how do you know that?"
"Well, we have a rule about messages. A few months ago someone started sending poison-pen letters--anonymous--through our messenger service. Brought us a lot of bad publicity. Now, we require anyone sending a sealed message to sign it in our presence. This lady did."
"What'd she look like?" Jones asked.
The clerk stared. "Well, she was a woman--I mean, sort of young, I think. She was veiled. I didn't notice. She had a lot of birthmarks on her arms."
"Yeah," said Jones absently. He squinted thoughtfully at the clerk for a moment, then suddenly pulled one of the blank pads of paper on the counter toward him, picked up a pencil, and wrote rapidly You're a liar.
"I'm not!" the clerk denied, instantly indignant. "You--"
Jones slapped the pad down. "I thought so! You're a shark at reading handwriting upside down, aren't you? That's the why of your signature rule, to give you boys a chance to spot a poison-pen letter before it goes out. Now, what did Sarah Boone's message say? Don't stall me."
The clerk shifted uneasily. "Well, I can't repeat it, word for word. I didn't pay enough attention. I saw right away it wasn't anything like what we've been looking for. It was headed 'Dear Mother,' and it said something about a lot of serious trouble and for the mother to meet her right away at Ten-eleven Twelfth Avenue."
"Where?" Jones asked.
"Ten-eleven Twelfth Avenue. I remembered that on account of the sequence of figures--ten, eleven, twelve. I was thinking that ought to be a lucky address--"
"Maybe not so lucky," said Jones. "Keep this under your hat--if you have a hat. Thanks."
Half the pickets were gone out of the fence, and it swayed backward wearily toward the wet brown square of earth that had once been a lawn. The house was gaunt and weather-beaten and ugly, and it had boards nailed haphazardly across the windows on the lower floor. It looked long deserted. A sign beside the gate said For Sale or Lease and gave the name of a realty company.
Jones looked from the sign to the house and back again, squinting thoughtfully. He turned his head slowly. There were no other houses within a half block.
Jones said, "Huh," to himself. He dropped his right hand into the pocket of the trench-coat. He was carrying a pair of flat brass knuckles in the pocket, and he slid his fingers through the metal loops and closed his fist. He unfastened the middle button of the coat with his left hand and touched the butt of the .38 Police Positive he carried in his waistband. Then he nudged the sagging gate open with his knee and strolled aimlessly up the narrow walk.
There were some children playing in the street a block away, and their excited cries carried high and shrill in the stillness. Jones' feet made hollow thumps on the steps, on the damp-warped boards of the porch. The front door was open about an inch. Jones took his right hand out of his coat pocket and rapped with the brass knuckles. The echoes came back from empty rooms, hollow and thin and ghostly. Jones put his right hand behind him and waited. Nothing happened.
Jones closed the fingers of his left hand more firmly around the grip of the Police Positive and then suddenly kicked the door open and stepped to one side. The door swung in a dark, silent arc and banged against the wall. After about thirty seconds, Jones looked cautiously around the edge of the doorway and saw Mrs. Boone and Sarah.
Mrs. Boone was lying in front of the door. She wore a long, old-fashioned coat with a thin fur collar and an old-fashioned hat that sat high on her gray hair. The hat was tipped sidewise now at a grotesquely jaunty angle. She was lying on her back, and she had one arm thrown across her face.
Sarah was crumpled in a heap under one of the boarded windows, and the failing sunlight made a barred pattern across her broad face. A little trickle of blood on her cheek glistened brightly. One smooth white arm was flung limply wide. Jones could see the birthmark on it. The lax fingers just touched a stubby automatic lying there beside her.
Jones came inside the room, taking one cautious