The Interpretation Of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld Read Free Book Online Page B

then asked where he could find
the Balmoral's chambermaids. They pointed him downstairs.
        In the basement, Littlemore came to a
hot low-ceilinged room with pipes running along its walls and a clutch of maids
folding linen. All knew who Miss Riverford's girl was: Betty Longobardi. In
whispers, they confided to the detective that he wouldn't find Betty anywhere
in the building. She was gone. Betty had left early without saying good-bye to
anyone. They didn't know why. Betty was a handful but such a nice girl. She
didn't take any lip, not even from the wing manager, the women told Littlemore.
Maybe she'd had another fight with him. One of the maids knew where Betty
lived. With this information secured, Littlemore turned to go. It was then that
he noticed the Chinaman.
        Clad in a white undershirt and dark
shorts, the man had come into the room carrying a wicker basket overflowing
with freshly cleaned sheets. Having deposited the contents of this basket onto
a table filled with like items, he was walking out again when he attracted the
detective's attention. Littlemore stared at the retreating man's thick calves
and sandals. These were not in themselves particularly interesting; nor was his
gait, which involved the sliding of one foot after the other. The result,
however, was arresting. Two wet stripes were left on the floor in the man's
wake, and these stripes were flecked with a glistening dark-red clay.
        'Hey - you there!' cried Littlemore.
        The man froze, his back to the
detective, shoulders hunched. But the next moment he started off again at a
run, disappearing around a corner, still carrying his basket. The detective
sprang after him, turning the corner just in time to see the man pushing
through a pair of swinging doors at the end of a long corridor. Littlemore ran
down the corridor, passed through the doors - and gazed out at the Balmoral's
cavernous and noisy laundry, where men were laboring at ironing boards,
washboards, steam presses, and hand-cranked washing machines. There were
Negroes and whites, Italians and Irish, faces of all kinds - but no Chinamen.
An empty wicker basket lay on its side next to an ironing board, rocking gently
as if recently set down. The floor was thoroughly wet, disguising any tracks.
Littlemore pushed up the brim of his boater and shook his head.

 
        Gramercy Park, at the foot of
Lexington Avenue, was Manhattan's sole private park. Only the owners of the
houses opposite the park's delicate wrought-iron fence had the right to enter.
Each house came with a key to the park gates, offering access to the small
paradise of flower and greenery within.
        To the girl emerging from one of
those houses early Monday evening, August 30, that key had always been a
magical object, gold and black, delicate yet unbreakable. When she was a little
girl, old Mrs Biggs, their servant, used to let her carry the key in her tiny
white purse on their way across the street. She was too small to turn the key
by herself, but Mrs Biggs would guide her hand and help her do it. When the iron
gate released, it was as if the world itself were opening up before her.
        The park had grown much smaller as
she grew up. Now, at seventeen, she could of course turn the key without
assistance - and did so this evening, letting herself in and walking slowly to
her bench, the one she always sat on. She was carrying an armload of textbooks
and her secret copy of The House of Mirth. She still loved her bench,
even though the park had somehow become, as she got older, more an attachment
to her parents' house than a refuge from it. Her mother and father were away.
They had repaired to the country five weeks earlier, leaving the girl behind
with Mrs Biggs and her husband. She had been delighted to see them go.
        The day was still oppressively hot,
but her bench lay in the cool shade of a willow and chestnut canopy. The books
sat unopened beside her. The day after tomorrow, it