“You were overheard to threaten Kiyoshi’s life.”
“Somebody else,” smiled Betterling, a cold gleam in his eyes.
“You persist in denying,” said Mr. Brixton, sternly, “that you saw the Japanese valet today?”
“I do.”
“Bring in Mrs. O’Toole,” ordered the District Attorney.
Kemerson went quickly to Betterling. “This is your last chance to tell where you were the night Morne was murdered, and to explain your presence in Kiyoshi’s room this morning. For the sake of Mrs. Morne I ask you to help us solve these two murders.”
“If I could help you I would. I swear to you solemnly that I know nothing about either one.”
Kemerson sighed. He took Betterling by the arm and led him to a window and continued to talk to him in tones too low to be overheard by anyone else in the office.
“I have been trying to keep Mrs. Morne’s name out of the investigation. I can do so no longer if you are not willing to help me. I have held back evidence pertinent to the case because I do not believe she is guilty.”
“She is no more guilty than you are—than I am, Mr. Kemerson. She was with friends on that night—friends who will protect her at any cost.”
“Would the cost to her be too great to tell the truth to me? To let me judge of its——”
“What do you mean?—’too great cost to her’?” Betterling turned on the actor in a spirit of hostility that caused Kemerson to throw up his hands.
“Mrs. O’Toole,” the District Attorney was saying, “is that the man who called on your Japanese lodger this morning?”
“It is, Your Honor,” asserted Mrs. O’Toole, her heavily beflowered hat shaking with emphasis. “I’d take my Bible oath on that. And there was a lady with him. She was veiled, but I’d know her, too.”
“You’ll have a chance to identify her presently. You heard this man threaten the life of Kiyoshi Nimura, or Kentaro Kawatami?”
“His voice was angry and threatening.”
“Could you overhear his words?”
“He said something about a letter and blackmail. I did not hear the rest as I did not want to eavesdrop.”
“Yes. I understand. You heard no actual threat uttered against the life of your lodger?”
“Not in words—no, sir. It was in the tone of his voice. It made the shivers run down my back.”
“Thank you, that will do. Wait, please, until the lady is brought in for identification. Now, Mr. Betterling, you still maintain you did not see the Japanese valet this morning?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Bring in the lady,” said the District Attorney. Mrs. Morne, without a veil, was accompanied into the office by a uniformed policeman. Mr. Brixton addressed himself to Mrs. O’Toole.
“Is this the lady who called at your apartment this morning with the man you have just identified?”
“It is, Your Honor. That’s the same dress she wore this morning.”
“You are positive in your identification?”
“Yes, sir. I’d know her anywhere.”
“That is all, Mrs. O’Toole. Thank you.”
When she had been escorted from the office, Mr. Brixton addressed Mrs. Morne. “That is evidence enough to hold you as a material witness, Mrs. Morne, if not on a charge of murder.”
“Murder!” gasped Mrs. Morne, turning so pale that Kemerson, fearing she was going to faint, helped her into a chair.
“The murder of your late husband’s valet, Kiyoshi,” he explained.
“But Kiyoshi is alive! I talked with him this morning!”
“There you are, Betterling,” observed the District Attorney. “Mrs. Morne admits talking with Kiyoshi. Where did you see him, Mrs. Morne?”
“At his room in West Forty-ninth Street.”
“Kiyoshi was murdered shortly after you left,” Kemerson now informed her. “He was shot as he sat in a chair by the open window.”
Mrs. Morne appeared dazed; her eyes went quickly to Betterling’s face in a look of bewilderment, doubt and horror. The District Attorney and Kirk Kemerson watched that intent stare and noted the slight shake of the head with which Betterling responded.
“Mr. Betterling and the Japanese were overheard to quarrel violently,” said Mr. Brixton. “Did Betterling threaten Kiyoshi’s life?”
“Not his life! Never!” cried Mrs. Morne.
“What was the purpose of your call on the valet?”
“You may wait outside, Mr. Betterling,” said the District Attorney. “I wish to question Mrs. Morne privately.”
“You win,” replied Betterling. “I’ll talk. I did call on Kiyoshi this morning with Mrs. Morne. I threatened him. And I meant it, too. But I did not kill him. Someone else did that job for me—beat me to it.”
“Jim!” cried Mrs. Morne, and would have gone to him had not a policeman prevented.
“I’ll do the talking, Doris,” said Betterling. “I dragged you into this. There is no use in longer denying that I had murder in my heart. But someone else hated him, too. He’s got his just desert without his blood being on my conscience.” He turned to Mr. Brixton. “Let Mrs. Morne go. Leave her name out of this inquisition. She’s been tortured enough. I’ll tell you what you want to know, insofar as I can.”
“I have no wish to torture Mrs. Morne, but——”
Kemerson stopped the District Attorney’s words with a gesture. “I think we may safely spare Mrs.
Morne any questioning at present—at least until we have checked the information that Mr. Betterling promises to give us.”
After some whispered interchanges between the two men, Mr. Brixton consented to let Mrs. Morne return to her place of concealment. After she had left the office, Betterling lighted a cigarette and took the chair facing Mr. Brixton, as the latter indicated.
“I would like a full statement of your relations with Mrs. Morne. When did you first meet her?”
“I have known her for twelve years, Mr. Brixton. I engaged her to play ingenue roles in a stock company I was managing. She was barely out of her teens then. She was a beautiful girl, charming, sincere, ambitious to succeed. She worked hard and quickly proved she had a distinct gift for the theatre. I was interested in her professionally at first, but as I came to know her better that interest became personal. By the end of the season we were in love. I wanted to marry her, but my wife would not give me a divorce. We had been separated for a year or more at that time—my fault, but my wife had forgiven me and wanted me back. Doris, always quickly moved to sympathy and opposed to divorce, thought I ought to try again to make a success of my married life. I advanced her to second leads the next season. The venture did not prove a success and when I returned to New York, Doris accepted a stock engagement in Minneapolis. A year or so later I learned that she had married Chadwick Morne. When they came to New York I looked her up and was received as an old friend. I was still in love with her. After my wife died, a year ago, I urged her to divorce Morne and marry me. When she was convinced that he was strongly enough established as a star so that a divorce would not injure him professionally—she believed that he was capable of becoming one of the greatest of American actors—she agreed to seek her freedom. We intended to get married a few months after she had obtained her divorce. And then our plans were upset by the murder of her husband. It has been hard at times for me to keep my hands off Morne when I have had to stand by and see him abuse and torture her. He knew I was in love with her, but his confidence in her was absolute. He always felt that he could keep any woman merely by crooking his little finger at her.”
“That Mrs. Morne was planning to divorce her husband we already knew,” said Mr. Brixton. “That is why she has not been arrested on a charge of complicity in the death of her husband, despite the fact that she refuses to account for her movements on the night of his murder.”
“She was with friends, Mr. Brixton. They will come forward if it ever becomes necessary to defend her against any such charge. For the tim
e being, their mouths are closed lest another innocent person become involved.”
“I trust, and believe, that such an explanation will not be needed to prove her innocence,” said Kemerson. “But the matter in hand just now concerns the murder of Kiyoshi. Mrs. Morne not long ago accused him of stealing a letter from her boudoir. What was in that letter?”
“I never saw it.”
“Then why did you go with her to Kiyoshi and threaten him?”
“I know what the letter was about, but there again I must decline to answer. The valet had discovered something that he thought she would pay big money not to have disclosed. That first letter gave him a hint, which visits to the apartment after Morne’s death made appear to him as certainties, and he began trying to blackmail her, through me.”
“More letters bearing a Paris stamp?” asked Kemerson. “Like the one you tried to tear from my hands?”
“Perhaps. What does it matter? I would willingly have paid him a small sum, but he held out for fifty times the amount. Carried away with anger, I threatened to kill him if he ever made use of the knowledge he had obtained. I refused then to pay him even a dollar, knowing that he would try again, and hoping he would become more reasonable in his demands.”
“Why did you take Mrs. Morne with you?” asked Mr. Brixton.
“She insisted on going. She thought a woman’s pleas, backed up by a man’s strength, might have some effect on him. She appealed to his loyalty to her husband—and learned that the Jap hated Morne. He was cunning and cruel—taunted her with his knowledge, which he but half understood and misinterpreted. I could have choked him with the greatest satisfaction. He was armed, however, and I did not wish to risk my life, nor to embroil Doris in any scandal.”
“The Japanese knew something about Mrs. Morne’s past life then, I take it,” said the District Attorney.
“Or something that would affect her future. I must leave you to your speculations on that point.”
“You had the motive for killing the valet, by your own confession,” continued Mr. Brixton. “You knew where he was hiding; visited him in his room. From his window you could see the vacant building across the back yards. Easy enough to entice him to the window by a telephoned message and shoot him when he appeared.”
“I did not notice any vacant building. I was too angry to pay attention to anything outside his room.”
“A man with murder in his heart can notice many things even in his murderous rage, as I have learned,” said Mr. Brixton. “The plan could easily have come to you in its entirety in a flash.”
“It could have, but it didn’t,” commented Kemerson, dryly. “Betterling was in the Jap’s room when the valet was called to the telephone and instructed to sit by the window and await a certain signal. He was shot by someone he trusted—someone who feared what the valet might reveal if hard pressed by the police. Better-ling was waiting in your office while I was being trailed by Kiyoshi’s murderer and locked up in the vacant building.”
Mr. Brixton looked sternly at his chosen investigator for a moment. “You seem determined to prove every suspect innocent.”
“Yes? Well, prepare yourself for another shock. Vanuzzi did not fire the shot that killed Morne. Two innocent men are under arrest for a crime that neither committed.”
“Then will you be good enough to tell me who did kill Morne and why he is not under arrest?”
“I don’t know who killed Morne. So far, I know only who didn’t. He is still at large and has committed a second murder to cover up the first.”
“If Vanuzzi is not guilty why did he frighten Miss Vane on the Silver Lark and kidnap her after she had visited my office?”
“A fair question, Walton, and you have me there. I do not know. It is related in some way to Morne’s murder, though I cannot yet see the connection.”
“Vanuzzi may have issued the order for Kiyoshi’s death,” said Mr. Brixton. “I do not yet see the Italian out of the picture. Mr. Betterling does seem out of it, for the moment at least.”
“Then I take it you are through with me?” said Betterling.
“For the present, yes. You could easily have had a confederate telephone to Kiyoshi while you were arguing with him.”
“I cannot prove that I didn’t. It is up to you to prove that I did.”
“That point will come up again,” said the District Attorney, rising. “Good day.”
When Betterling had gone, Mr. Brixton faced Kemerson sternly. “I presume you had some reason for wanting Betterling to believe that our suspicions of him were allayed?”
“My dear Walton, you may have suspicions of James Betterling. I have none.”
“Then why waste my time by having him here for questioning?”
“My adventure in the empty house has given me a stronger suspicion in another direction—to someone that Morne feared. He did not fear Betterling: he twitted him about his love for Mrs. Morne. He did not fear Vanuzzi; he patronized him.”
“It is Brewster you suspect then?”
“Brewster is a hard nut to crack, and I haven’t the right nut-cracker. What had Brewster to do with Morne? Kiyoshi might have told us. Now we may never know.”
CHAPTER XXI — THE CAPTIVE LOVERS
BLAKE was not armed. It would have done him no good had he been, for the fat Oriental-looking man had him covered. The frowsy woman, her moans diminishing, got up from the floor, nursing an injured hand.
“I told you no good would come of this,” she said, scowling at the man. “With him locked up.”
“We had our orders,” said the man. “They haven’t got the best of me yet.”
“They will have very soon,” said Blake, Miss Vane’s arms still tight about his neck. “Squads of police are scouring every building in the block. You couldn’t get through the cordon by yourself, let alone with two prisoners.”
The fat man made no response. Still keeping Blake and Miss Vane covered, he addressed the woman. “Telephone Paul for instructions. Tell him there’s a wounded detective in the kitchen, and this bird has found the girl.”
The woman, still rubbing her injured hand, started to protest volubly, urging him to let the girl go.
“Shut up. We are taking our orders from Paul now!” shouted the man harshly. “Beat it to the ‘phone.” Under the ugly, sinister threat in his voice, the woman went sullenly to obey his command.
“Unless you want the girl hurt, or perhaps killed, you’d better keep quiet,” he barked at Blake. “She doesn’t go out of here alive at all except by orders.”
The press agent quelled the impulse to rush the man and try to knock the revolver out of his hand. “I’ll be quiet,” he said, and gave Miss Vane a look of encouragement. “The block is surrounded by police,” he whispered, as he lowered his face caressingly against hers.
In a few minutes the frowsy woman returned. “Paul says to take them across the roof to the vacant flat. After dark he’ll send a limousine and a chauffeur to take them away. A man’s coming to help you; he’ll be here in five minutes.”
“You be ready to clear out as soon as you let him in. Go to Jack’s and wait till you hear from me.”
“The detective?” She nodded towards the kitchen.
“Don’t worry about him. Winged, unconscious, but he won’t die.”
“And the canary?”
“Take it with you. Also that volume of O. Henry’s stories, and Lecky’s ‘History of European Morals’. I’ve not finished reading them. Don’t go to the door unless you hear the right signal.”
The woman vanished, and their captor told Blake and Miss Vane they could sit down. “Spoon all you like. This may be your last chance.” Miss Vane shuddered at the malicious grin on his face.
Blake drew two chairs close together, keeping an arm about his fellow prisoner after they sat down.
“O. Henry is one of my favorite authors,” he said to their jailer. “He knows New York, and he knows human nature.”
“You are right there,” replie
d their captor. “He knows how to tell a story—knows the human mind likes to be surprised, taken off its guard. That was the secret of his success. He always found the unexpected, surprising twist that brought a smile of delight to his readers. But it wasn’t life; it was art, artifice. Now, he’d have found an unexpected, happy twist for an ending to the situation in which you and the young lady find yourselves. That would have been literary art. But life’s different, as you’ll soon learn. Life is brutal, cruel, malicious. It’s like a lighted candle that’s put out by unexpected little draughts. The candle can be rekindled, but it’s a different flame. The flame that’s blown out never comes back.”
The man seemed to take keen delight in foreshadowing the fate that was in store for them, obscurely, but with looks and intonations that made his meaning perfectly clear.
Blake whispered in the girl’s ear: “Nothing can rob me of these last few minutes with you. Life has been worthwhile for that.”
She smiled at him, a tragic little smile that went to his heart, for her lips trembled and he felt a shiver pass over her body.
In a little while a short, muscular young man, dark-complexioned, wearing a cap, was admitted by the frowsy woman.
“Paul ‘phoned me you needed help. This the fellow? He ain’t no dick. I’ve seen him at—you know where. Well, let’s be on our way. You take the dame and lead. I’ll follow with this mug. Plug ‘em if they try to escape or to give an alarm. Them’s orders, understand?”
The fat man nodded, arose and took Miss Vane’s arm. “Come along peaceable and quiet and you won’t get hurt. We can continue our literary discussion, young fellow, for the rest of the afternoon, if you like, when we’ve moved to our new apartment.”
Blake had a wild idea of making a break for it when he reached the outer hallway, but abandoned it when he felt the end of a revolver in the short man’s coat pocket jabbed into his ribs. He followed up the stairway to the roof, across two intervening buildings and then down the stairs to the third floor of what appeared to be an empty building. It had the dusty, moldy smell of a house long vacant. Its few windows were thickly coated with dust and cobwebs. At length they were conducted into a small room with but one high window which gave upon a blank brick wall two or three feet away; a table with a few chairs about it and several newspapers lying on it. A deck of dirty playing cards and a candle-stick with a half-burnt-out candle in it completed the furniture in the room.
The Parachute Murder Page 18