enough for discoloration to have got well under way. She was lying on her back. The tan flannel bathrobe—apparently a man’s—she had on had fallen open to show pinkish lingerie. She had on stockings and one slipper. The other slipper lay near her.
Her face and throat and what was visible of her body were covered with bruises. Her eyes were wide open and bulging, her tongue out: she had been beaten and then throttled.
More police detectives joined us and some policemen in uniform. We went into our routine.
The manager of the house told us the apartment had been occupied by a man named Harrison M. Rockfield. She described him: about thirty-five years old, six feet tall, blond hair, gray or blue eyes, slender, perhaps a hundred and sixty pounds, very agreeable personality, dressed well. She said he had been living there alone for three months. She knew nothing about his friends, she said, and had not seen Mrs. Chappell before. She had not seen Rockfield for two or three days but had thought nothing of it as she often went a week or so without seeing some tenants.
We found a plentiful supply of clothing in the apartment, some of which the manager positively identified as Rockfield’s. The police department experts found a lot of masculine fingerprints that we hoped were his.
We couldn’t find anybody in adjoining apartments who had heard the racket that must have been made by the murder.
We decided that Mrs. Chappell had probably been killed as soon as she was brought to the apartment—no later than the night of her disappearance, anyhow.
“But why?” Chappell demanded dumbfoundedly.
“Playing safe. You wouldn’t know till after you’d come across. She wasn’t feeble. It would be hard to keep her quiet in a place like this.”