Kroll stood stock-still. Boynton, standing where he could look directly into Rand’s face, said huskily, “Go with him, Kroll. He’ll kill you.”
Darryl Rand said, “Make no mistake about that. Mr. Cabot has induced in me an almost overpowering delusion of being a murderer. I must get away for about ten minutes—before I do become one.”
Kroll said, “So you can dispose of the evidence?”
Rand said, “Yes,” and shifted his position very slightly. The muzzle of the automatic moved almost imperceptibly with his eyes as they fixed themselves upon Jan Utley, who was peering back half blindly.
They looked at each other across the room for a moment, and then Gail Rand gave a strangled cry and flung herself in front of Jan.
Rand laughed soundlessly. “How bright you are, my dear,” he said. “The one bullet would do for both, and that, perhaps, would be appropriate. But I shall not waste it now. Love was too clearly a luxury for me—and so was hate.” He stopped and then asked tonelessly, “Are you going, Captain?”
Kroll moved slowly into the hall, Rand behind him. They began advancing upon Fleming at the end of the corridor.
Cabot stood as immobile as the others. He knew why Rand had not taken the trouble to warn them against movement. It was too obvious that Kroll’s life was hanging upon the thread of chance.
Fleming’s voice rang out suddenly, “Captain! What the devil——”
It was Rand who answered. “Do you secretly dislike him, Fleming? Would you like to see him dead?”
There was silence again.
Cabot whirled into the bedroom to the house telephone. McCann answered after a moment.
Cabot said tensely, “The fire-escape, McCann—at once!”
He ran back across the study just as the first shot exploded into the stillness. The second came as he reached the hall.
Fleming stood there shooting through the French windows, which Rand had evidently locked behind him.
Kroll was racing up the third floor stairs.
Cabot spun into the hall and tore down the staircase.
He was nearly halfway down the lower hall when, from outside, the automatic and the .45 cracked almost together.
When he reached the foot of the fire-escape, he found McCann crouching there, holding his shattered wrist. His service revolver lay at his feet.
McCann gasped, “He winged me, but I got him in the leg! It must have been the big artery. That’s blood dripping down.”
Rand was floundering on the iron stairs, just below the second floor level. His automatic was still in his hand. He was dragging himself back to the balcony.
Behind him Fleming was trying frantically to get the stout windows open.
Kroll was coming down inexorably from the third floor.
Rand looked up, glimpsed him, and with a sudden movement put the automatic to his own head.
Kroll halted.
Frozen by the imminence of the shot, all of them stood in their tracks.
But the shot didn’t come. The arrested scene seemed to be hanging on interminably, with the dreadful persistence of a nightmare.
Cabot suddenly saw it with a brilliant clarity, as though a last great light had been turned on over all that had occurred. It had indeed been fear. The man lying above them was afraid to pull the trigger, even though he was still more terribly afraid of the fate which had advanced toward him down the narrow stairs and then had stopped. He was lying there now unable to act, suspended between terrors, while his life ebbed away from the torn leg.
Cabot stooped quickly and picked up McCann’s revolver. He took careful aim upward and fired.
The crack of the shot was followed by the shrill whine of a ricocheting bullet. The automatic appeared to jump out of Rand’s hand and fell over the railing.
Cabot dropped the revolver and began running up the stairs.
Kroll started down again.
Rand turned his head, and for a second Cabot glimpsed his contorted face. He could read the intention plainly, even before Rand pulled himself toward the edge of the balcony.
Cabot flung himself forward, but his outstretched hand touched only the heel of a shoe as Rand fell headlong.
Cabot looked down briefly at the body lying directly beneath the balcony. The whole form sprawled out grotesquely from the distorted angle of the broken neck.
He turned and found Kroll gazing at the pool of blood which was still running across the iron floor and dripping over the edge.
It was dripping upon Rand.
Forty-five minutes later, Captain William Kroll said dourly, “We may have had some luck, after all. This fellow Carlo Pugh didn’t really know anything. He just suspected a lot. And Rand suspected that he knew something.” He stopped, fishing gloomily in his pockets for the dyspepsia tablets. “That runt claims now that he solved the case. He says you didn’t have the least idea who the killer was until he told you——”
Boynton broke in preoccupiedly, “It was a psychological paradox. That vegetarianism, the cat’s devotion to him. It’s inconceivable that Rand’s sympathy for animals could have been feigned. It existed too long before these murders.” Cabot paused halfway across the drawing-room and looked back. “It wasn’t feigned, Jeff,” he said. “It was quite real. Rand simply utilized it, played upon it to help bring us to the wrong conclusions.”
Boynton was shaking his head. “Surely it would seem a natural conclusion,” he said, “that a man who wouldn’t eat a lamb chop because the lamb had been slaughtered would not be likely to commit mo of the most cold-blooded murders in the criminal annals of New York.”
Cabot said, “As odd as it seems, it is really fairly common. It stems from an emotional imbalance so involved that volumes could be written about it. We had better confine ourselves to the resolve never to eliminate a man as a murder suspect simply because he is an animal lover and a vegetarian. As you’ve probably heard—so is Adolf Hitler.” He went on into the library and dialed the number of his office.
Lib answered. “What’s happened? It’s late, but I’ve been waiting——”
“Lib, close that infernal place and get back to the apartment just as quickly as you can!”
“Oh!” She stopped. “You sound excited, Phil. You sound terribly excited. Is it something important?”
“Great Scott!” he exclaimed. “Is it important?”
There was a little pause. “It must be,” she said worriedly. “I’ve never heard you sound so—so upset. I’ll get back at once.”
He replaced the receiver and ran out of the library. Jefferson Boynton was standing in the drawing-room doorway, beckoning to him.
“Come in here, Phil,” he called. “There are some other angles of this thing we want to discuss.”
Cabot shouted, “I’ve got some discussions of my own!” and sped by.
Cotton was crossing the hall majestically, his great tail raised in the air, when the thundering footsteps sounded behind him. He scurried for cover, gained the sanctuary of the hatstand, and hissed sharply as Cabot dashed past.
Cabot ran out, hatless, into the street, past the patrol car that was disgorging additional members of the Homicide Squad. One of them cut over quickly, shouting something as his hand fell toward his revolver.
From the doorway Fleming called out hastily, “It’s all right, Stavinsky! He isn’t the murderer!”
Cabot found a cab, flung himself inside, and gave the address. “And step on it, please!” he entreated. “It’s urgent.”
The driver glanced back. “Yeah, I know,” he said. “I recognize your symptoms, brother. I’d recognize ‘em anywhere.” He changed gears. “A blessed event.”
There was no reply, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed that his fare was looking at him with a slightly wild expression.
“Say, what is the excitement, bud?” he persisted. “Are you becoming a papa—or ain’t you?”
“For God’s sake!” said Cabot. “Give me time!”
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The Whistling Legs Page 22