Postmark Murder by Mignon G. Eberhart

murder.”
    “If he had arrived before the murder, that could have been postponed. Miss March says that the house was very quiet; it would be a logical assumption that a lodging house in that district would be quiet at that hour of the afternoon, when most of the roomers had not yet returned from work. She would have been able to hear the doctor’s approach. Remember, it takes only a minute or two to kill a man. But if the doctor had arrived before the murder, then it could have been postponed. Wait—” The Lieutenant put up a hand to check Matt’s protest. “I’m not saying that happened! I’m only saying that phoning to the doctor, which of course we can confirm, does not automatically clear Miss March. Remember this, Cosden, she found Stanislowski and she was the only one of you who knew he was here in Chicago. Or at least—admits it.”
    “Believe me,” Matt said, “I didn’t know it. Mrs. Stanley didn’t know it. Charlie Stedman didn’t know it. Miss March said that she told none of us and that’s the truth. Every word that Miss March has told you is the truth.”
    “I’m not saying it isn’t.” Suddenly Peabody’s voice became reasonable and rather friendly in a curiously disarming way. “See here, Cosden, I’m only doing my job. I’ll have to talk to the other two people interested in this man’s arrival. When I say that Miss March is the only one who admits knowing of him, I meant naturally that perhaps someone else, perhaps someone you don’t know, perhaps none of these three people but certainly someone in Chicago, knew that Stanislowski was here and had some reason to murder him.”
    “I can’t deny that.” Matt’s eyes were blazing but he still kept his voice quiet. “But consider this, Lieutenant. If Miss March had murdered him, as she didn’t, all she’d have had to do was keep quiet about the whole affair. Tell nobody that he had come to see her, refuse to go to the rooming house when the Brown woman phoned—”
    “The child saw him when he came here,” Lieutenant Peabody said dryly.
    “That’s no good. Jonny is only learning to speak English. Even if she had mentioned her father, say, to me, would I have believed that he had in fact been here? Wouldn’t I have believed rather that she was making some childish game or joke with me, or some reference in her mixture of English and Polish which I couldn’t understand? Wouldn’t I have believed Miss March if she denied it?”
    Lieutenant Peabody folded the envelope holding the ugly stained little handkerchief and put it carefully in his pocket. He said in a faraway voice, “I’m sure you’d have believed Miss March.”
    For some obscure reason it seemed to take the wind out of Matt’s sails. He hesitated, checked for a fraction of a second, and then went on too quickly. “The fact is there’d have been no credible witness to Stanislowski’s arrival here in Chicago. Somebody would have found him murdered, the landlady or somebody would have reported it to the police. You yourself say there were no means of identification found. Eventually he’d have gone down on the police record as an unidentified man found murdered in a rooming house. Nobody would ever have known anything more than that about him. That’s the fact, Lieutenant, and you can’t deny it.”
    “Can’t I?” The Lieutenant eyed Matt thoughtfully. Then he said with that disarming air of frankness, “Well, it’s a fact I’d like to identify this man. We’ll have to question the child, you know. An interpreter might help; I’ll get hold of one. Surely the child knew whether or not he was her father, and if she makes an identification that will simplify our problem to a degree.”
    Matt said tersely, “You mean that if Jonny says he was her father, you will include all of us in your list of suspects?”
    “That’s my business, Cosden,” the Lieutenant said. “But I don’t mind saying that I’ll include anybody on the list of suspects who had a