Manhunt. Volume 2, Number 10, December, 1954

“First, though, did you hear anything unusual over there this morning? Anything that sounded like an argument or a struggle?”

“Just before the shot, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I did. I heard her cry out — not actually scream, you understand — but just cry out, as if she had been surprised by something.”

“How long was this before the shot?”

“Oh, just a few seconds.”

“And then what happened?”

“Well, then I heard sounds... well, as if she were putting someone off.”

“Putting them off?”

“Yes. As if some man wanted to kiss her, and she was trying to goad him on by pretending to—”

“You hear the man’s voice?”

For once she looked truly sad. “No, I didn’t.”

“Can you tell me anything more?”

“I... I’m afraid not... Oh, yes! Just before the shot there was a sort of thumping sound.”

“As if a piece of furniture had been overturned?”

“Precisely. As if they’d knocked something over.”

From the hall I heard the elevator doors slam open, and then the sound of heavy steps in the hall, and I knew that the tech crew and the assistant M.E. had arrived. A moment later, the sounds faded to nothing. I listened closely. I knew there would be a lot of talking and moving around in the next apartment, but I could hear nothing. Not a sound.

I took out a cigarette and started to light it.

“I’d rather you didn’t smoke, if you please,” Mrs. Hallaby said.

I rubbed out the cigarette in a tray. Mrs. Hallaby glared at the butt with pretty much the same expression she might have used if I’d dumped a pail of garbage in the middle of her floor.

“Mrs. Hallaby,” I said, “there are several men in the next apartment now. They’re making considerable noise, and yet I can’t hear a thing. I’m wondering how you were able to hear so much.”

The reaction I’d expected and the reaction I got were two different things. She smiled, turned abruptly, and walked to a small carved table. When she returned she was holding a clear crystal water tumbler. She held the tumbler up for my inspection, and her smile became knowing.

“This is how I heard,” she said.

I stared at her.

“Come with me,” she said. She walked to the wall between her apartment and the murdered girl’s and placed the bottom of the tumbler against the plaster. Then she leaned her head against the open end of the tumbler in such a way that her ear was inside it.

I didn’t say anything.

She straightened and extended the tumbler to me. “Try it,” she said. “The tumbler picks up sounds and amplifies them. I’m surprised that a police officer doesn’t know such things.”

I went through the routine with the tumbler. What she had said was true. I could hear the different voices distinctly enough to identify each of them, and I could hear the sound of footsteps and the popping of flashbulbs.

Mrs. Hallaby stood with her hands on her hips, smiling triumphantly. “Well, young man...?”

I handed the tumbler back to her. “Amazing,” I said.

“Isn’t it?” Her eyes began to shuttle between the tumbler and the wall, and I knew she was itching to listen in on the activity over there.

“About her men friends,” I said. “Can you remember any of their names?”

“Well...” She frowned.

“It’s very important to us, Mrs. Hallaby. I know you’d like to help the forces of the law.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Well, I remember only one, really. That’s the man that apparently spent the night with her.”

“Last night, you mean?”

“Yes. Of course I couldn’t swear he was there all night, but—”

“Exactly what happened, Mrs. Hallaby?”

“Well, I awaken quite early — around six o’clock, most mornings. Usually my first act is to place the... well, telephone against the wall. If I hear nothing, I prepare breakfast. Otherwise—”

“You remember this man’s name?”

“Quite well. It was—” she paused dramatically — “Jeffrey Stone.”

“Was their conversation friendly, would you say?”

“No, indeed. It was far from that.”

“How do you mean?”

“They’d been keeping up a running argument for several weeks, she and this Jeffrey Stone. It seems that Mr. Stone was jealous of her other men friends. He apparently wanted her to devote herself entirely to him.”

“You hear him threaten her?” She hesitated. “Well... no, I couldn’t say he actually threatened her.”

“You ever see this man?”

“Why, no.”

“Or the girl?”

“Oh, yes. I saw the girl. Several times. In the hall and in the elevator, and several times on the street.” She made a clucking noise. “A shame. She was such a pretty little thing, to be so utterly abandoned.”

I turned toward the door. “We’d like to get a statement from you, Mrs. Hallaby,” I said. “Would you mind if—”

“A statement? Why, I’ve just given you one.”

“I know. I meant a written one. Would you mind if we drove you down to the station house? We’d like you to dictate—”

“Is it absolutely necessary?”

“It’s the usual routine, Mrs. Hallaby.”

“Then, of course, I shall be glad to.”

“We’ll send someone around for you a little later in the day,” I said. “Will that be all right?”

She nodded, trying very much to look like a martyr. It was the first really successful expression she’d had since I’d met her.