Gentleman Called Read Online Free Page B

few minutes later, Tully agreed with the detective’s estimate. Shrewd or slow-witted, it was hard to tell at first. But Johanson measured his every answer before giving it. Mrs. Sperling’s building was the furthest uptown he worked.
    “I have good addresses, my other buildings,” he said. “Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue, and I get good references from any of them I can tell you. I am a reliable man.”
    Tully was sure he would have good references, making that point of it. He sat back and listened to Greer’s questioning.
    “How long have you worked for Mrs. Sperling?”
    “Five years last April,” the man said slowly.
    “How often are you in this building?”
    “Every morning I come here at six o’clock. Because I live across the street I come here first. At five o’clock in the afternoon, wintertime, I come also. It is a very old furnace in the basement.”
    “Did you see Mrs. Sperling regularly?”
    “I do not know what you call regular, sir. One day I saw her and maybe not the next. I would see her at least two or three times a week.”
    “In her apartment?”
    “No, sir. In the vestibule.”
    Tully marked his own notes: that the victim had occupied the first floor apartment.
    “When were you last in her apartment?” Greer asked.
    “Not ever until I went in with the officer.”
    “Didn’t Mrs. Sperling interview you before hiring you?”
    “Yes, sir. In my own living-room across the street.”
    “It doesn’t seem just right, you having a key and never being in this apartment in five years’ employment. Don’t things go wrong with the plumbing in these old houses?”
    “Sure. But Mrs. Sperling, she was a very handy woman.”
    “She must have been,” the lieutenant said sourly. He enquired then about the other tenants, eliciting nothing that seemed pertinent to Tully. Then he asked about any visitors Johanson had ever encountered with Mrs. Sperling.
    “I’ve been thinking about that,” the man said. “Now I could tell, Lieutenant, you don’t believe me when I say Mrs. Sperling was a handy woman. I don’t like to be called a liar by anybody. You listen to this—all of you.” He looked about to include Tully and the police stenographer.
    Tully nodded solemnly. Greer’s nerves were not as steady. “Get on with it,” he snapped.
    “One morning about three weeks ago,” Johanson proceeded at his own deliberate pace, “I found a leak in the joint of one of the furnace pipes. The pipes were knocking. There was a note to me in Mrs. Sperling’s handwriting about how I should fix it first thing. Now that pipe, Lieutenant, ran along the basement ceiling, and it goes up through the floor into her apartment. I was trying to fix it, but I could not do it alone, you understand. And being up high where I was on the ladder, I could hear voices in her apartment. I heard a man’s voice. So I went upstairs and I rang her bell, and her being in a night gown, I said maybe she would send down the gentleman to help me with the pipe.”
    Tully and Greer exchanged glances. The stenographer paused to blow his nose. But Johanson proceeded blandly, apparently to this day unaware of his lack of discretion. “She says, ‘What man are you talking about? I’ve got the radio on.’ And she came down to the basement and held that wrench for me herself. But I didn’t hear the radio when her door was open or any more when it was closed till she went upstairs again and turned it on. That time I knew it was a radio. So, I don’t like to be called a liar or a fool. I went home to my breakfast and I told my wife to bring it to me where I could look out of the window. At eight o’clock the man on the third floor left. I know him, he is the tenant. At twenty minutes to nine, the man on the second floor left and his wife with him. And then, by God…” Johanson slapped the flat of his hand on his knee…“at nine-thirty out comes the man who wasn’t there at all!”
    He looked from one to the other of the police in