by Hank Janson
‘He’s interviewing witnesses,’ she said. She had a vague, childlike voice.
‘You know who?’
‘I can find out,’ she said eagerly. She came back to the phone, read out a list of the witnesses Sharp had interviewed. He’d have brained her if he’d known she was doing that!
‘And where is he right now?’
She told me. Right then, it seemed, Sharp was at Lulu’s apartment, testing her out for an alibi.
I chuckled to myself as I hung up. Lulu was a man-killer and Sharp was a prude. Interviewing her was a job that would scare the pants off him. She’d construe his every second question as an invitation to go to bed. I guessed he’d be sweating, and plenty!
I drove the car out to the Chief’s cabin. It was quiet there, with an uninhabited look. I knocked at the door, waited. I knocked again. Still no reply. That pleased me. Carter was following our instructions. I opened up with the key the Chief had given me, and Carter met me in the lobby, his face worried and his eyes anxious.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said, relieved.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I wanna talk with you.’
‘I want to see you, Mr Janson. I think I ought to go to the police.’
‘Cut that out,’ I said tersely. ‘I wanna talk.’
‘But I want to tell you,’ he said. ‘I think I ought to go to the police station and tell them …’
‘Shuddup!’ I gritted. I seized him by the shoulders, twisted him around and steered him back into the living-room. I thrust him down in a chair and said: ‘Hold it. Shut up. We’ve gotta talk.’
I hung my hat on the arm of a chair, sat at the table opposite him and pulled a sheaf of certificates from my pocket.
‘I’m gonna tell you a story, Carter,’ I said. ‘I’m gonna tell it briefly and to the point. I want you to listen to me. I don’t want a word from you throughout the whole time I’m speaking. Understand?’
He nodded, his eyes wide.
‘Not a word. Understand?’
He nodded again.
I leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling.
‘Once upon a time,’ I said, ‘there was a guy who got married. That wasn’t so unusual. They had a kid, too. That wasn’t unusual, either. He had the kid the first year he was married, and deserted his wife the second year. That was unusual. He deserted his wife and kid, leaving them penniless.’
Carter’s eyes were wide.
I fumbled through the certificates. I fished out one and put it down on the table in front of him. ‘Copy of his marriage certificate,’ I said. I added another to it. ‘Birth certificate.’ Then I riffled through and found another. I put that on top of the others. ‘That’s a divorce certificate,’ I said. ‘You see, the wife got herself another husband. His name was Clark. And being sensible folks and conscious of public prejudice, they changed the name of the little girl, too, so that she became Rita Clark.’ I added another certificate to the little pile in front of him.
Carter looked at them. His eyes were wide, staring at me.
‘Time passed,’ I went on. ‘Rita grew to be 17, attending college, her parents humble but careful. Then, three years ago, the worst happened. Mother and father were both killed in a car accident.’
I paused and Carter opened his mouth like he was gonna say something. ‘Hold it,’ I said. ‘You can talk later.’
I went on. ‘She was only a kid but she did her best. She got a job and tried to keep up her studies in her spare time. But things were tough. She drifted from job to job and finally got the position of hat-check girl at the Storkers Club. She wasn’t earning a fortune either. Just a bare existence.’
Again he opened his mouth like he was going to say something. ‘Shuddup, for heaven’s sake,’ I growled. ‘Let me finish, will ya?’
His mouth closed like a trap. He was about the most obedient guy I’ve ever met.
‘Well, round about a coupla years ago,’ I went on, ‘the girl’s real father got a pang of conscience. He began to check up on his daughter He found out what had happened to her. And that was when his conscience finally began to hurt. You see, either Rita Clark had been brought up to believe her mother’s second husband was her real father, or alternatively that her first father had deserted her mother. In the first place, she didn’t know she had a real father alive, and in the second place if she did know, she’d know he was a skunk.’
I continued: ‘So the guy couldn’t let her know his real relationship to her. But he tried to make up to her for the trouble he had caused. He struck up an acquaintance with her and, having broken down her reserve, helped her in little ways where he could, paying for her schooling, making her presents of clothing, helping her in many little ways.’
I took out a cigarette, lit it, blew smoke towards the ceiling. ‘I kinda like him for that,’ I said. ‘Maybe he behaved badly in the beginning, but everybody makes mistakes. He was trying to make up for it.’
Carter half rose out of his chair with his mouth open, wanting to say something. I waved him back again.
‘Some months ago,’ I continued, ‘Rita Clark met Hugh Burden. He treated her like he treated all women. She was just the plaything of the moment. But she was innocent and she was young. She didn’t understand these things. She thought she was in love and when he ditched her there were unfortunate complications, She bottled it all up inside her – despair, futility, frustration and hopelessness – and to a girl of her age it seemed a much more terrible thing than it was. Finally, yesterday evening about six o’clock, her room-mate came home from shopping and found her writhing on the bed with a bottle of poison at her side.’
Carter was still staring at me, but now his eyes had hardened just sufficiently for it to be noticeable.
‘Her room-mate had sense,’ I said. ‘She called for an ambulance. She herself went with Rita to the hospital. They operated there. She lost the baby but her life was saved. Her room-mate, Jane, went on to the Storkers Club, and that night the girl’s father, who was known all this time as Williams, called to see Rita and found out what had happened. Not all the story, just enough to make him anxious.
‘He rushed over to the hospital and paced the wards for hours. Just the kinda thing a real father would do. He stopped there until they assured him she was out of danger and let him see her just for a little while.
‘Williams knew his daughter had tried to commit suicide. He’d also learned why. There was just one thing he wanted to know. The name of the man who had caused it. And I guess in those few minutes while he was with his daughter she whispered the name Hugh Burden to him.’
Carter leaned forward in his chair now, listening intently.
‘He felt the way most fathers would have felt. Moreover he knew just the kinda guy Burden was. There was only one thought in his mind then. Revenge!’
I waited a moment to let the effect of my words sink in. Then I went on quietly: ‘He went over to Burden’s house, found Burden, slipped a knife into his ribs.’
I got up, walked over to the window and stood looking out with my back towards Carter. ‘I can’t say I blame him for doing it,’ I said. ‘But, just the same, it was murder. The police are looking for the murderer now.’ Then I turned around and looked at him steadily. ‘I’ve got most of the facts,’ I said. I pointed to the pile of certificates on the table. ‘They build up a pretty clear picture. The police don’t know who the murderer is. I do know who he is.’ I looked at him levelly. ‘The trouble is, I can’t prove who he is – yet.’
His eyes were big like saucers.
‘I’ve followed this hunch all the way through,’ I went on. ‘It finally comes down to just one thing. Either Dane Morris was lying when he said he couldn’t get a reply when he rang the bell at Burden’s house this morning, or’ – I took a deep breath – ‘or you were lying when you said Burden was alive at the time Dane came around the house.’
He said quietly: ‘May I speak now?’
‘Just a m
inute,’ I said. ‘I just wanna make this clear, Carter. You thought you might get suspicion switched to Dane Morris by saying you saw him at Burden’s house this morning. But you’ll have to make that stand up in court. And there’s a dozen ways you may have slipped up. You musta taken a taxi from the hospital to Burden’s house. The taxi-driver will remember. You thought it was clever to answer the Chronicle’s reward offer for information leading to the arrest of the murderer. But every link in the chain of your defence will have to be tested.’ I indicated the pile of certificates. ‘All that will be produced in court. All that will stand against you.’
‘May I speak now?’ he said quietly.
‘I’m not going to let you get away with it, Carter,’ I said. ‘I’m gonna keep you here. If necessary, I’ll chain you down. I’ll keep you here until I find some way to prove you murdered Burden.’
‘May I speak now?’
‘Yeah,’ I breathed. ‘But it won’t do you any good. I’ll get you in the end.’
His wide eyes were fixed on mine. He said quietly: ‘I’ve been trying to tell you, Mr Janson. You wouldn’t let me tell you when you first came. I want to go down to the police station. I want to confess that I murdered Hugh Burden.’
I gaped at him. ‘You want to confess?’
He nodded. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing this morning. After I’d killed Burden I wanted to run away, yet I wanted to be near Rita. I couldn’t bear not to be near her and know what was happening. So then I thought I’d try to involve somebody else. Anything so I could remain free and keep in touch with Rita. That’s why I came to your office and told you about Dane Morris.’
I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That’s lets out Morris, anyway.’
‘It was a wicked thing for me to do,’ he went on quietly. He put his hand to his head as though it ached. ‘I think I was out of my mind at the time. I would never have let them do anything to him.’ He screwed up his forehead as though he was suffering from some pain. ‘I’m not afraid to pay for what I did. It’s just that – I was out of my mind.’
‘You don’t have to feel so bad about it,’ I said. ‘Hugh Burden’s got a bad reputation. When you tell the court the facts, tell them about Rita and what happened to her, you’ll get clemency.’
‘No,’ he said anxiously. ‘They mustn’t know that. They mustn’t know anything about that.’
I stared at him. ‘Are you crazy?’
‘Don’t you see?’ he pleaded, and there were tears in his eyes. ‘I’ve already harmed Rita too much. She doesn’t know about me. She knows me only as Williams. And if it all comes out – she’ll know then that her father is a murderer, too!’
It kinda stunned me for a moment, seeing it in that light. I said: ‘Well, what are you going to do? You’ve gotta look after yourself. You’ve gotta enter a plea of some kind.’
‘No, Mr Janson,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve been thinking it over all the time I’ve been here. I’m going to admit I killed Hugh Burden. I’m going to say I had no reason. I worked for him and I disliked him, and in a moment of temper I killed him.’
‘You won’t be able to go through with it,’ I told him. ‘You might have the best intentions now. It’s when you’re in court, when you know you’re on trial for your life, when you realise that the chair is the ultimate end, that you’ll wanna fight. Everybody fights to live. It’s the law of life.’
He shook his head sadly. ‘It’s different for me, Mr Janson,’ he said. He touched his chest just about where his heart would be. ‘I’ve been under the doctors for a long time. They gave me three years to live, four years ago. My heart’s very bad. I’m liable to drop dead any time.’ He worked up a weak smile. ‘I’ve thought about dying quite a lot,’ he said seriously. ‘You get a feeling, you know. You know it’s gonna be all right. You know what the doctors say isn’t really so serious. And then later you get another kinda feeling. You know that, after all, the doctors were right. You’ve got a feeling inside you that tells you –’ He paused, licked his lips, and added: ‘You don’t have to worry about me, Mr Janson. The law can inflict no penalty that worries me.’
He added quietly: ‘If I ever pay the penalty.’
After he’d finished talking, I stood for a long moment thinking in silence. I felt a new respect for this man. I felt mean about the role I was playing. But one has to be a realist. One has to face facts.
‘Would you like to tell me how it happened? For the paper, I mean.’
‘It was very simple,’ he said. ‘As you remember, during the party I had a headache. I went out for a walk to clear my head. I went for a long walk through Central Park. I walked all the time and then came back during the early morning.’ He looked at me meaningfully. ‘You understand that perfectly, don’t you?’
I understood well enough. He was covering up the fact that he had been at the hospital waiting for news of Rita Clark.
‘And this is what really happened,’ he said. ‘I let myself into the house. It was about half-past six. The place was a shambles as you know. But the door of the little room next to the kitchen was open and I could hear Burden snoring. Up until then I hadn’t any definite plans. I just knew I wanted to kill him. I wondered what I should use for a weapon, and remembered the paper-knife in the study.
‘Burden was lying on the settee, fast asleep. He wasn’t even wearing a shirt. I crept up to him, knelt down beside him and poised the paperknife carefully. I could see the outline of his ribs and it was easy to aim between them. I did it quickly, darting forward, pressing down my whole weight. I was surprised how easily it went in. He gave a loud cry and his arms waved like he was trying to fight off somebody. Still the knife still hadn’t gone all the way in and I thrust harder. It needed all my strength to make it go in up to the hilt. And it kinda jammed between his ribs. Then one of his fists caught me and knocked me over.’
‘He didn’t die right away?’
‘It was an awful thing,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘If it had been anybody else I should have felt terrible about it. But it seemed so right for him, so right he should suffer himself after causing so much suffering to others.’
‘Did he know it was you?’
Carter nodded. ‘He kept on moaning. He musta been in dreadful pain. And when he saw it was me he pulled himself up off the settee. I could see he wanted to launch himself at me, smash me the same way as he used to punch other fellas. But he hadn’t the strength. He stood there swaying, staring at me and pulling on the knife-handle trying to get it out. But he didn’t try very hard, he hadn’t the strength.’
‘Were you wearing gloves?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t use gloves,’ he said. ‘But there was a garment lying on the floor by the side of the settee. I think it’s called a G-string. I wrapped that around the haft of the knife before I used it.’
I nodded. ‘I’ve seen it,’ I said.
Carter went on: ‘I don’t know where he got the strength, but he staggered across to me like he was going to attack. I backed away from him and he followed me out of the little room, along the passage and into the lounge. It was dreadful to see him that way. He musta been in agony. And yet somehow he was keeping himself on his feet. He followed me half-way across the lounge before his knees finally gave way beneath him. He lay on the floor, and all the time he was looking up at me accusingly. I stood there watching him. I don’t know how long I musta stood there watching him. It may have been minutes, it may have been longer. And then quite suddenly I realised he wasn’t alive any longer.
‘I was just going out through the front door when I heard somebody coming up the path. It was Dane Morris. I didn’t want him to see me. He did ring the bell, and finally he went away. I followed out almost immediately after him.’
‘That’s just how it happened?’
‘Just that way.’
I said awkwardly: ‘D’ya mind if I phone into my paper? They’d like to get the news first.’
‘I’d like you to d
o that, Mr Janson,’ he said. He smiled wryly. ‘I understand that the prestige of your paper is at stake.’
I got through to the Chief, gave him the full story. He took it down, word for word, as I gave it to him. He said: ‘Give me half an hour, will you, and I’ll have it on the streets!’
‘It’ll take all of that for Sharp to get out here,’ I said.
‘Good enough,’ he replied. ‘I’ll have every news-hawk in town at the police station waiting to see them when they come in.’
I turned around to Carter. ‘Ready now?’ I asked quietly.
He nodded. ‘I’m ready anytime. We go now?’
‘Better than that,’ I said. ‘We make them come here.’
I dialled the Homicide Department. I asked for Sharp. He’d just arrived in the office.
‘Janson here,’ I told him.
‘What’s biting you?’ he demanded.
‘I’ve got the murderer here. It’ll look good if you come out and get him. It’ll be better than if I bring him in.’
He almost burst. ‘Where are you?’ he demanded.
I gave him the address. He smashed down the receiver without saying goodbye. I guessed he’d be ordering out squad cars and plenty of cops like he was bringing in a homicidal maniac. It amused me he’d taken my word for it without even asking the identity of the murderer.
‘You will help me, won’t you?’ said Carter. ‘You understand my position. Rita must never know I’m her father.’
‘There’s only you and me know that,’ I said. I gathered up all the copy certificates, put them in the fireplace and applied a match to them.
‘I knew you were kind the first time I met you,’ he said. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a cheque book. ‘Would you do one other thing for me?’
‘Anything that’s possible.’
‘I’ve saved a little money,’ he said. ‘Just over a thousand dollars. It’s all I have in the world. I’d like Rita to have it. She mustn’t know it’s from me. If I make the cheque out to you, will you see she gets it? She’ll need medical attention and something to help her with her studies.’