He broke in desperately. “Wait, Kathie! I’ll explain everything later—everything! Right now I must talk to Jeff.”
“There can’t be any explanation—certainly not any rational one—for this! Rushing away and leaving your bride on her wedding night! On her wedding night, mind you! Why, it’s preposterous! It’s—it’s immoral. I——”
He gritted his teeth and thundered into the mouthpiece, “All right, I’m crazy! I’m crazy—but I want to talk to Jeff!” He waited a second and then shouted, “Now!”
There was a gasp at the other end, and then his sister’s eloquent voice, inches farther away, was saying with a dark, overwhelming conviction, “He is insane! He is completely insane. I knew it!”
Boynton’s resonant voice crackled over the wire. “What the devil is this, Phil?”
Cabot said, “Jeff, for God’s sake——”
At that instant the connection was broken, and the lights flashed out.
Cabot sprang to his feet, and whirled instinctively toward the bedroom. He found his lighter and snapped it on as he went toward the bed.
Rand was lying there in the same position, and there was no change in the room itself.
Cabot turned back toward the study and plunged into its darkness, trying the lighter a second time. It flared once more, and then went out. He moved on, cursing softly that he had forgotten once too often to refill it.
He knew from the small current of air that he was now directly before the open door leading into the corridor. His whole attention was concentrated upon catching the first warning sound that would come. He was certain that he would hear it in time. For it could be nothing except sheer desperation that would seek to advance through that black space—past him—to Rand.
He knew presently that he had been standing there only a matter of seconds. But it was as though he had been weighing those seconds on a delicate intuitive scale and had found them somehow lacking in significance. This wasn’t it, he thought. He might have guessed that.
But why hadn’t Theresa Church screamed?
He groped his way through the study door, fumbled until he got the key turned in the lock, and felt along the corridor wall until his exploring fingers slid off into emptiness and he knew that he was once more in the hall.
He went on blindly, by some instinct which seemed dimly to know its way back. That was it, he told himself, go quickly, don’t try to remember, don’t count the steps.
But the persistent stillness pressed in more inexorably than the dark, and the silence became doubt. Someone, he felt, should have cried out long before now. If not Theresa Church, then Gail Rand.
It was then that he heard it—that peculiar sound which had the quality of remoteness and yet was quite close. He swerved toward it immediately, and his outstretched hand touched wood, the facing of a door.
He realized at once that this was it. This was Deb’s room.
He bent over, feeling frantically for the knob. His mind, too, was groping like his fingers, trying instinctively to identify the sound and to place it.
He found himself thinking, somehow, of a child, a very small child, who was being taught to dance. He knew that it was ludicrous, but in it seemed to lurk the hidden meaning of his own impression.
He recognized suddenly that it was because it had sounded so like toes—only toes—that were touching the floor as an awkward body swayed upon its strange new balance and sought to move.
His fingers found the knob at last, and his shoulder froze momentarily against the unyielding panel as he listened. He became more certain than ever that the sound was made by human feet. But he was equally convinced that the feet were neither walking nor tiptoeing; that little scuffling noise was inexplicably short—horribly short—of steps.
It was coming quite unmistakably from behind the locked door of the dead man’s room.
Chapter Five
His skeleton key met an obstruction in the keyhole; it could not turn the lock. He drew back and hurled himself against the invisible panel. The whole door trembled under the violent impact, but there was no splinter of wood, and the stout lock held.
On the other side the indistinct sound continued, no more and no less than before. Suddenly he knew what it was.
Once more he drove his aching shoulder at the same varnished panel, and this time the wood ripped. He thrust his numbed arm through the jagged hole and found the key in the lock.
The sound had been that of a body dragging itself across the floor, its shoes scraping the surface as it struggled on, crawling blindly toward the door.
He bent down and felt the hair of a head directly beneath him. It was the long hair of a woman, and beneath it, on the brow, there was the sticky, warm wetness of blood. He said, “Lie still. I’m Cabot. Can you talk?”
She was muttering, “It’s all right. It only stunned me.
I——“ Her voice trailed off for a moment. “I’m sorry, Mr.
Cabot. I waited too long to scream.”
He stooped closer. “Did you see who it was, Theresa?”
“No. I just heard it—in the dark.”
“It?” He straightened up quickly, recalling that the key had been in the lock—inside. “It’s still in this room, Theresa. It must be!”
“No. I——“ Her words dragged again. “I think it went out the window.”
He said tensely, “It couldn’t have gone out the window. This is the second floor.”
From far away, at the front of the house, there came the muffled sound of rapping and a man’s voice, calling.
A match flared unexpectedly in the doorway, and Cabot spun around, catching a glimpse of Gregory Rand’s big form, clad in the blue dressing gown. His blond hair was rumpled, and his handsome face was a mask of sulky drowsiness, out of which the sleepy blue eyes glared at Cabot half truculently.
“So it’s you,” he mumbled. “Still trying to see Deb. Smashing doors in——”
Cabot said, “Give me those matches.”
Downstairs the loud knocking continued without pause, and now a siren was wailing in the street outside.
Greg Rand muttered disbelievingly, “My God—it’s bedlam! What is this, anyway? I need some coffee——”
Cabot said, “You’re apparently a first-class fool. Go down there and let those people in.”
He struck a match and looked swiftly around the room. The glance convinced him that there was no one hiding there, although the bathroom remained an obvious possibility. He bent down quickly and looked at Theresa Church.
He saw at once that the wound was superficial. The blow had plainly been a glancing one which had merely dazed her. She was trying to get up.
An excited voice was calling from the hall, “Cabot! Cabot!”
He stepped on beyond Theresa, going all the way to the chair before he struck another match. The flame burned steadily above the dead man’s face, but Cabot did not look down at him. His gaze was fixed upon the window, where the still drawn curtains were billowing out in a fitful breeze. There was a rope tied to the head of the bed next to the raised window.
The excited voice was in the doorway now. It was shaking, but in the darkness it was difficult to determine whether it was from fear or an almost frenzied eagerness. It said, “Cabot! Cabot, has there been another murder?”
Cabot said, “No, Pugh. Get some candles. Wake up the cook. Find a kerosene lamp. Rush it to Rand’s apartment. Heat some water——”
Carlo stumbled off, crying in dismay, “But Mallie is deaf!”
The whole house was stirring now. The air palpitated with a succession of sounds that seemed to merge into one complex confusion. Rising clearly above the din came a ringing utterance that carried an overtone of sharp vexation.
“This way, Doctor! For Heaven’s sake, aim that little toy light of yours straight ahead, Kroll—straight ahead!”
The voice was unmistakable. Cabot thought: Of course! Jeff had the call traced.
He looked out and saw the miniature shaft b
obbing around on the landing. He called from the doorway, and the thin ray leveled out in his direction and came on with a shadowy surge of enormous figures behind it.
Jeff Boynton was big. He was bigger even than his voice, and now his voice came booming through the murk of the hall like an insistent foghorn. “What the devil, Phil?”
Cabot said, “Don’t be repetitious.” His gaze moved on beyond the broad shoulders of Boynton and the thin, wiry figure of Captain William Kroll of the Homicide Squad, and searched among the three indistinct forms behind them. “Where’s the doctor?”
Boynton said, “Here he is. Dr. Odom. We found him at the door.”
One of the men stepped forward and said quietly, “In here?”
Cabot answered, “This can wait. Your real job is down the hall.” He turned to Kroll. “Lend me the torch. You take the matches, Captain.”
As they were going out, he heard Boynton saying vigorously, “We shall have to get some light, Kroll! At once!”
The quiet doctor followed Cabot down the short corridor and waited silently while he unlocked the door.
Rand sprawled in the same twisted position, but his mouth had sagged open a trifle more and the tempo of the breathing was deeper, more stertorous.
Cabot held the flashlight while Dr. Odom felt the wrist and pushed back Rand’s eyelids for a glance at the strange, blank eyes.
Cabot said, “My guess is that this was some powerful narcotic. Chloral, veronal—something like that.”
The physician replied cryptically, “Yes,” and opened his case.
Cabot switched the ray to the bag and waited a moment. “What do you think?”
Dr. Odom shrugged. “I don’t think it’s been too long. But——“ His half reluctant voice trailed off into the preoccupation of filling a hypodermic syringe.
Cabot became aware that someone had come into the room out of the darkness of the corridor. He turned his eyes without moving the hand holding the flashlight.
A very fat woman stood in the doorway holding a lighted candle. She was gaping at them with a curious mixture of fearful fascination and mournful awe. She spoke in a sepulchral wheeze. “I’m Mallie O’Dare. I’m the cook.”
Cabot smiled at her encouragingly. “Come on in, Mallie,” he said. “We need that candle. And we need you.”
She came on hesitantly, without appearing to have understood anything except the smile. Halfway to the bed she halted, a sudden expression of horror on her rugged Irish features, and Cabot realized that the sibilant breathing had registered upon her defective hearing more clearly than his own voice.
“I know that sound!” she exclaimed. “My own dear father made it, and so did Tim O’Dare! It’s death.”
Cabot turned and spoke very distinctly. “It’s not that bad, Mallie. Don’t be afraid. Put the candle down on the table.”
She held back, peering at them in growing suspicion. She said, “Would you be the doctors now—or the undertakers?”
Cabot replied loudly, “This gentleman is a doctor. I want you to stay here, and help him until we can get a nurse.”
She was shaking her head lugubriously. “Poor Mr. Rand!” she said dismally. “Who would have wanted to kill him? Such a kind man he always was.” She was inching nearer, a morbid interest gradually overcoming her dread. “Such a kind man, even to animals. Refusing to eat so much as a lamb chop now—being that considerate of the lamb.”
Cabot, turning away, gave a final, startled glance at the bed. The disclosure that Rand was a vegetarian was more than an irrelevant fact; in it there seemed to lurk an obscure significance.
He hurried out into the dark corridor and bumped into someone just outside the door.
He said, “Is that you, Pugh? I want to talk with you.”
Carlo grasped his arm and spoke in a feverish undertone. “I am asking this, Cabot,” he said, “in the interest of science. Has something happened to Darryl Rand?”
Cabot said, “He has been heavily drugged. I don’t know whether it was an attempt to kill him or simply to put him out for the night.”
Carlo caught his breath sharply. “That settles it!” he exclaimed. “It is a different case! Come with me, Cabot!”
Cabot switched on the tiny flashlight, and they went out of the corridor into the first doorway opening upon the hall. He turned the small, darting beam around the room and had a brief view of walls lined with hundreds of books, most of which were in the brilliantly colored jackets of mystery novels. On a small table near the window there was a large microscope; the desk contained both test tubes and a typewriter; and a narrow open door on the left revealed a glimpse of a photographer’s darkroom.
Carlo said, “You’ll find that chair very comfortable. But I’m afraid your light will be quite inadequate to examine the slides and the enlargements.”
Cabot said, “Lord, man, I haven’t time to look at slides and enlargements! I want only the facts—and in few words.”
“Very well,” agreed Carlo. “I shall be succinct.” He paused for a moment and then launched out. “My observation of the events in question began, Cabot, at exactly 1:52 on the morning of May 12th of the current year. At the time alluded to I was in bed——”
Cabot said, “About two weeks ago. All right. Go on.”
“At 1:52 a.m., precisely,” said Carlo, “I was awakened by the sound of someone passing my door and turning into the corridor. I presumed that it was Darryl, and from his peculiar, shambling gait I deduced that he was partly intoxicated.”
“Was that common?”
“Very uncommon. So much so that it caught my attention at once. I knew that Darryl had of late shown signs of intense nervous strain, which I attributed to overwork, and that he had been drinking more than usual. But I had never seen the man actually inebriated, and even now I do not insist that it was that. It may have been the effects of great mental agitation.”
Carlo stopped momentarily and then resumed in a thoughtful tone. “I had just fallen into a light doze when I was aroused again—at, to be exact, 2:04—by the sound of the telephone ringing in Darryl’s study. I wondered then whether something wasn’t wrong, and I thought of going to his apartment.”
“Did you?”
“No. But I was now too wide awake to go back to sleep, and after lying there for a time I got up and opened my door. The hall was dark, and I could neither see nor hear anything at all. However, I left the door open just a crack and sat down to smoke a cigarette. It was while I was smoking that I heard a very peculiar sound.”
Cabot said, “Peculiar?”
Carlo seemed to be hesitating. “It’s rather embarrassing, Cabot,” he replied presently, “that a person like myself, who realizes so clearly the importance of strict observation, should be unable to describe this thing with exactitude. At the time I knew only that it was the sound of someone passing that open door, going in the direction of the corridor. And yet it was not the sound of footsteps.”
“Then what——”
“It was,” said Carlo, “the sound of legs.”
“Legs!”
“I mean,”. Pugh hastened on, “trouser legs. Or pajama legs. Or, at all events, something like fabric, moving by at approximately the rhythm of deliberate steps.”
Cabot said in annoyance, “For lord’s sake, Pugh, why didn’t you simply say you heard the rustle of cloth?”
“It wasn’t a rustle. That’s the point.”
“Well, then, swishing.”
“It wasn’t a swishing. No! It was more of a murmur, a whispering, a sort of soft whistle. I’m not sure that it was cloth. Certainly it was not silk. It was not wool. It was something unusual and—strange.”
Cabot said, “All right. Let’s go on from there.”
Carlo Pugh continued. “This was at 2:28. One minute later, or at 2:29, the telephone rang again in Darryl’s study. I was convinced by then that something was up, and my impression was promptly confirmed by several developments.
“The first of these was
a repetition of the same odd sound which I have attempted to describe: It passed my door again, going in the opposite direction and much more rapidly than before. By the time I got to the door I could no longer hear it and, of course, I could see nothing. But while I was still standing there, I heard the sound of low voices in the corridor, and someone soon began walking toward the hall quite audibly.”
“What did you do?”
“I climbed back into bed rather hastily, as I didn’t want to be found in the position of a spectator. I had barely done so when somebody barged in and threw the ray of a flashlight upon me. I lay still, pretending to be asleep, but after an interval I stole a glance and discovered that it was Darryl Rand. I saw immediately that he was greatly perturbed. He appeared, in fact, almost terrified.
“I crept to the door as soon as he went out and I watched him go down the hall with that flashlight. He paused before each room and listened for some time before he went on to the next. Finally he turned abruptly and started back, and I got hurriedly into bed again.”
Pugh paused, and Cabot said, “What happened after that?”
“Nothing happened except that I lay awake for a long time, thinking it over. I knew that some remarkable mystery was involved, and I was determined to get to the bottom of it. Since the events had had their center in Darryl’s apartment, I decided to pursue my investigation at that point. Accordingly, I went there as soon as he left the next morning and I made an examination which uncovered some small but sufficient clues.
“The first thing which caught my interest as I entered the bedroom was an empty whisky bottle on the small desk near the bed. Darryl’s automatic was also lying on the desk, rather than in the drawer where it is usually kept.
“Both facts were, of course, highly significant, and they caused me to make a close scrutiny not only of the desk itself but also of the surrounding area of the carpet and even the wastebasket. In the wastebasket I found an empty envelope from the War Department. It was addressed to Darryl and had evidently contained a letter which, judging from the postmark, had reached him the preceding day.
The Whistling Legs Page 5