He found the path that cut diagonally across the two vacant blocks and followed it. It was bordered with weeds nearly waist high. He was in the middle of the first block when a passing auto, with its cut-out open, whirled rapidly around the corner. He turned his head to look at it and saw spurts of flame from the driver’s seat, heard the whistling of bullets overhead. One of them knocked off his hat. He dropped instantly to the ground and crawled among the weeds as other bullets whined above him. He lay there, his heart beating wildly, and listened to the motor car speeding away. He did not move until the steps of a pedestrian along the footpath had come and gone. Then he found his hat, with a bullet hole through the crown, and made hastily for the station. He had been followed to Bayside, he was certain, by the murderer of Chadwick Morne, or his emissaries. That bullet hole through his hat brought home to him the seriousness back of Kemerson’s “Take heed,” scribbled on a corner of the warning note he had received.
He waited in a corner of the station, away from windows, until the train for New York came along. He mingled with the dozen or more passengers who got aboard. At the Pennsylvania station he took the subway to Fifty-ninth Street where he engaged a taxi to take him to the Maxwell Hotel.
An elderly man who had been seated in a corner of the lobby, reading a newspaper, got up as Blake entered and followed him to the elevator. He walked with a limp. The brim of his black felt hat was pulled down low on his forehead, and his eyes were concealed by a pair of large dark glasses. He continued to read his newspaper as the elevator shot upward. He got off on the same floor as Blake and took the same turn in the hallway, keeping four or five feet to the rear. As he inserted the key, Blake glanced up to find the man’s dark glasses directed straight towards him.
“Did you wish to see me?” Blake asked, his heart beginning to pound. The stranger stared at a point just above Blake’s eyes.
“An inch or two lower,” he said, “and where would Stephen Blake be?”
“Who are you?” asked Blake, sharply closing the door, which he had meantime opened, and facing the limping man.
“A friend.” He looked carefully around. “I want a word with you. This is no place to talk. May I come in?”
“I don’t admit perfect strangers to my room without knowing why they want to see me.”
“With a bullet hole in your hat, I don’t blame you. That bullet hole is one of the things I wish to speak to you about.” The man’s voice was throaty, almost a croak. Apparently he was suffering from a bad cold.
“What do you know about the bullet hole in my hat?”
“Nothing—except the reason for it.”
Blake glanced steadily at the man without speaking.
“A quarter! Thank you, Guv’nor! I’ll drink your health in a cup o’...coffee.” The stranger’s voice had changed until it was that of the panhandler who had accosted him in front of Mrs. Handsaker’s.
“You...You warned me before! Did Kirk Kemerson send you?”
“He knows I am here.”
“Come in then.”
The man advanced into the room as Blake switched on the light. The press agent turned to find his visitor had removed his hat and glasses and was smiling at him.
“Mr. Kemerson!” he gasped. “And I didn’t...
Why, you are two or three inches taller than you were a moment ago!”
“There’s nothing the matter with my leg now, you see. A man who limps is always a little shorter than if he didn’t.”
Blake grasped the actor’s hand and shook it hard. “It’s like one come back from the...That is, we feared you might have shared Morne’s fate. Mr. Brixton has had the entire force hunting for you.”
“And I’ve had hard work dodging them.”
“Then you disappeared purposely!”
“Certainly.”
“But to deceive even Mr. Brixton—”
“Did Walton get my message saying he would never see me again?”
“He got it all right, but—”
“There were things I had to know and which I could not learn in my own person. Morne’s murderers knew that I was hunting them down—and believed they had put me on the spot, so I let it go at that.”
“Murderers! Then there was more than one person involved in Morne’s death.”
“Aren’t two men already under arrest?” countered Kemerson.
“Oh, that! I don’t believe Rolf Perkin had anything to do with Morne’s death. Neither do you.”
“You never know the perpetrator of a murder until the evidence is all in,” said Kemerson.
“Then it is all in? You know?”
“Oh, several things. Suspicions that are almost certainties. I want more than that. Mr. Brixton wants proofs that will convince a jury. If a little experiment I have been preparing turns out as I expect, Mr. Brixton will have his proof. Until I have that evidence I advise you to stay in your room. The next bullet may go an inch or two lower. You are a marked man—make no mistake about that. You’ve had two lucky escapes; the third may prove the unlucky time.”
“Two escapes? I have not been shot at before. Oh, you mean the night you warned me in front of Mrs. Handsaker’s.”
“Two men were waiting for you. They had been watching the house for two days. If you had gone up the street instead of down you would have been slugged or shot. I found out that a note of warning had been sent to you. I had to learn what was in that note and see the handwriting. I took the liberty of opening the envelope, and added my own warning. I thought it likely you would be calling for your mail, as Mrs. Handsaker, who let me in, said you had left no forwarding address.”
“The warning was from Brewster, I suppose. What I can’t understand is Brewster’s motive in waiting so long to kill Morne for having induced Mrs. Brewster to leave him. Why, she’s been dead several years, and it was several years before that that she acted in Morne’s company.”
Kemerson lighted a cigar and watched the smoke curling up.
“Did you ever hear of Ginevra Sterling?” he asked.
“She’s a free-lance artist. Makes drawings of stage stars and other celebrities for the Morning Press principally, though I have seen her work in other papers. Paints some, does interviews. She did a drawing of Morne in The Wife’s Turn last season. Something of a beauty, too. Why do you ask?”
“Know anything about her personal affairs?”
“Nothing.”
“Hum. Ever hear of her—”
The telephone rang at this moment, and as Blake started to pick up the receiver Kemerson thrust him aside.
“Better let me answer. You may have been trailed here.” He disguised his voice as he spoke into the instrument, then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “It’s the telephone operator. She says Daniel Dugan is in the lobby. He wants to see you. Better see him.”
Blake nodded and Kemerson instructed the operator to have him come up.
“Dugan can’t get it out of his mind I am mixed up somehow in the Morne murder,” said Blake. “I suppose he’s found something else he wants me to explain. He’s becoming a nuisance.”
“Dugan is slow, but he hangs on to the scent,” said Kemerson. “There’s going to be a lot of explaining needed when the Morne case finally breaks.”
Kemerson smiled as he spoke, but it was a chill smile, and Blake involuntarily shuddered. He forgot Kemerson’s interest in Ginevra Sterling while they waited in silence for Dugan to arrive. Kemerson opened the door to admit not only the detective but also David Jordan, reporter for the Star.
“Kemerson!” exclaimed Dugan. “God! We thought they’d got you, too! You been in hiding all this time?”
“No, I’ve just come here—”
“Then you’ve discovered the trail, too, have you?” Dugan was a little crestfallen.
“What trail?” asked Kemerson.
“The trail leading to Blake as the murderer of Chadwick Morne,” replied the detective, shortly, with a hard look at Blake.
“You amaze me, Dug
an,” Kemerson said, softly.
“And him, too,” said Dugan, nodding towards Blake who had gone pale. “He knows the game’s up. Got another alibi, Blake? It better be a good one this time.”
“How’s this for an alibi, Dugan?” queried Kemerson, and held up Blake’s hat with a bullet hole through the crown. “Somebody took a pot shot at him tonight.”
“He can’t fire a pistol, I suppose?” said Dugan, derisively. “He would faint at the sight of a firearm, I suppose. You still maintain you slept in your room at Mrs. Handsaker’s the night of Chadwick Morne’s murder?” Dugan fairly shot the question at the press agent.
“Certainly I slept there.”
“Just how long did you sleep there?” It was Jordan, the reporter, who asked that question.
“I don’t know exactly. About the usual number of hours.”
“A light sleeper, huh? Two or three hours is all you need, huh?” Dugan put all manner of scorn into that repeated “Huh?”
“I usually sleep seven or eight hours.”
“But not on the night Morne was murdered you didn’t. You were out most of that night. And you try to put the D.A. off with a phony alibi! Thought we believed every word you said! What were you doing in Philadelphia at two o’clock that night?”
“You will have to prove that I was there at that hour, Dugan.” Blake assumed a jauntiness he was far from feeling.
“You were seen,” said Jordan, evenly, “by Donald MacAdam at the Pennsylvania station. He’s seen you often enough in New York to know you. You’ve given him tickets to a show a number of times.”
“I know Don MacAdam, certainly,” replied Blake. “So he’s in Philadelphia. I did not know what had become of him.”
Dugan was apparently infuriated by the nonchalance of Blake’s response and advanced threateningly towards him. “You waved to him when he shouted your name, but didn’t wait to speak to him. Didn’t want him to see the face of the girl you were with. Girl, huh? Mrs. Chadwick Morne, if you ask me! You bustled her out of the station in a hurry when MacAdam called your name. You were going to an airport to get a plane in which to follow the Silver Lark so you could shoot Chadwick Morne while he was floating down in the parachute. And it was you who persuaded him to do it for a publicity stunt! Plenty of publicity for him! Only it don’t do him no good!”
“What airport did I go to, Dugan? And what plane did I charter? And who piloted the plane for me? I am not an aviator.”
“That’s what we are going to find out,” growled Dugan, a little less confidently. “We got ways of finding out things down at headquarters.” The last was said with an ugly leer.
“If I shot Morne then who’s trying to murder me?” asked Blake. “I was shot at tonight in Bayside—”
“In Bayside?” interrupted Kemerson.
Blake nodded, and returned to the detective. “Three nights ago Kemerson saved my life just after I’d received a warning to lay off the Morne case if I did not want to share the same fate.”
“Any bright young man might write himself a note of warning to bolster up a false alibi,” said Dugan..
“So you thought the detective department nutty enough to fall for that, did you? Will you come quietly or do you want to wear these bracelets?” He dangled a pair of handcuffs which he had extracted from a pocket.
Blake turned to Kemerson who had stood idly at one side during this colloquy, with a half-interested, tolerant smile on his lips. Blake appealed to him.
“Mr. Kemerson, you don’t believe I am the murderer of Morne? I’ve done what I could to help you solve the crime.”
“You have not told me all that you know, Blake,” said the actor. “Jordan, how did you discover he was in Philadelphia at two o’clock on the night of the murder?”
“A letter from my friend, MacAdam, remarking upon the fact that he had seen Blake in Philadelphia that night—and with a girl whose identity he tried to hide.”
“He says girl, and not a woman? How old a girl?”
“He wrote ‘girl’ without mentioning the age.”
“A girl can be of any age,” said Dugan.
“Blake,” said Kemerson, “are you willing to talk freely to me now? Before you are locked up? I’ve waited two weeks for you to give me a full account of your movements the night of the murder.”
“I have told you all that I can,” replied Blake.
Kemerson nodded to Dugan. “Lock him up. We might as well have one or two more men under arrest charged with the murder of Morne. Out of half a dozen suspects we ought to be able to find one murderer, if not two or three. At any rate, he’ll be safe behind bars.”
“The D.A. will be mighty glad to know you are safe,
Mr. Kemerson,” said Dugan, as he adjusted the handcuffs about Blake’s wrists. “He’s had half the force hunting for you. Just wait till I tell him you are—”
“No, no!” interrupted the actor. “He must not know I am alive. Don’t tell him you have seen me, or heard anything about me. There has been one attempt on my life that almost succeeded, and if the hunt for me should be relaxed now, giving certain persons a suspicion that I am not dead, it will mean another attempt to get me just when I am on the point of apprehending the murderers.”
“There was more than one, you think!” exclaimed Dugan. “Vanuzzi and—“ He nodded towards Blake.
“There have been two murders growing out of Blake’s unfortunate publicity stunt,” said Kemerson. “I intend to see the District Attorney tomorrow morning, but I have certain measures to take first. Mr. Jordan, I rely on you not to disclose verbally nor in the columns of your newspaper that I have been seen. In return for your word to that effect I promise to give you an exclusive interview regarding the attempt on my life, and my reasons for going into hiding, even from my friend, Walton Brixton. If you refuse, the chances are about even that you will have been the cause of my murder.”
“I have not seen you for a week, Mr. Kemerson,” said Jordan, soberly. “There’s my hand on it, but you must not say anything later that will get me in dutch with my paper.”
“Agreed,” said Kemerson, and shook the reporter’s hand. Then he turned to Blake. “You, of course, will say nothing to anyone to indicate you know anything about me or my movements—for the sake of the child.”
The last was spoken so low that only Blake caught the words. His face reddened and then paled before the cold threat in Kemerson’s eyes.
“You...You have found out...”
Kemerson nodded curtly. “Take him away, Dugan.”
CHAPTER XXVI — WHOSE CHILD?
AS Walton Brixton left his apartment the next morning to go to his office, an unkempt, bearded old fellow got up from the steps and shambled gruntingly across the walk and opened the door of the limousine waiting at the curb. He touched his dirty, faded, greenish hat with one hand in an attempt at a smart salute.
“I ain’t had nothin’ to eat this morning, Guv’nor—”
“Get away from there I” shouted the chauffeur. He leaped out of the car and seized the old man roughly by the shoulders. “These panhandlers are overrunning the best residence districts, Mr. Brixton.”
“Let him be,” said the District Attorney, and tossed the old fellow a quarter.
“Thanks, Guv’nor. Are you Mr. Brixton—District Attorney Brixton?”
“Yes, I happen to be.”
“That’s a bit o’ luck! I was just goin’ to your office after gettin’ a bite to eat—if I could raise the price—”
“Go away,” ordered the chauffeur, and raised his hand as though to strike.
“Don’t let him hit me, Guv’nor!” begged the old man, shielding his face with raised arm.
“Clear out then!” commanded the chauffeur.
“Not so fast, Begby. You wanted to see me? What about? If it’s a job—”
“I’m too old for a job,” whined the old fellow. “I came all the way from Thirty-ninth Street to see you,, but the man at the door wouldn’t let me in. He wouldn
’t announce me. Said you wouldn’t want to see me, but I knew better. I knew you’d want to hear what I know about the man you’ve been huntin’ for all week. I just can’t remember his name off hand—”
“Kemerson? What about him?”
“Kemerson; yes, that’s the name. They nearly got him.”
“He’s alive then. Thank God for that!”
“Lord love you, Guv’nor! Yes, he’s alive, but in great danger—”
“What danger? Where is he?”
“Take me to your office, Guv’nor. If they was to see me talkin’ to you here in the street, it would be that for me,” and he made a gesture of slitting the throat, and glanced warily about. “They’ve been shadowin’ me.”
“Get into my car then.” Mr. Brixton placed a hand under the old man’s elbow and helped him into the limousine, and sat down beside him. “To the office, Begby. Now then tell me what you know about Kirk Kemerson.”
“Lord, Walton, give me time to get my breath,” said the old fellow in a changed voice.
The District Attorney’s jaw dropped in his amazement at being so familiarly addressed, and he turned angrily. “What the devil—?”
“Am I so good, Walton? You know my voice, my face, my every gesture and intonation—”
“Kemerson!” shouted the District Attorney in a big voice, and grabbed his friend’s hand and shook it, and cried again: “Kemerson!”
“Good God, man! Do you want to get me shot?
And perhaps yourself into the bargain? Do you think for a moment I came to you in this disguise for a lark?”
Kemerson lowered the shades at the back and sides of the limousine, and hunched back into a corner.
“I’m sorry, Kirk, but the relief and the surprise...Were you followed here?”
“I believe not, but your apartment and your office are being watched and if anyone heard you call my name—well, you might have a third murder in the Morne case. I’ve worked unmolested for several days, but the murderer of Morne has learned since yesterday that I am not dead, as he supposed, and I don’t trust overly much to disguises.”
The Parachute Murder Page 22