by Jerry eBooks
Joplin said, his voice lower than it had been before: “But Frank had as much chance as the rest of us.”
“No, no,” she broke in. “He didn’t have a chance. He told me all about it for the first time last year. He felt he was going to be the unlucky one. I had just inherited my grandfather’s estate, and I got Frank a hundred thousand dollars in cash. Your rule was that the man who was chosen to die could contribute the cash to the fund, if he had it, in lieu of the policy.” Her gaze burned across the table at Joplin. “Frank had the money!”
For the first time her eyes left Joplin, swung around the table at the others, resting a moment on each of them. “You were all too greedy. You took his money, and then you killed him to get the insurance besides!”
THOSE PEOPLE were all so fascinated by the woman’s manner that they never glanced toward the doorway where I was standing. I had wedged over so I could peer through the crack between the left-hand door and the jamb, and I kept damned quiet. I had learned more in the last four or five minutes than I had learned in the long drive up with Braden, and I was beginning to think even less of my client than I had before. If Mrs. Stanton was right, Braden was as much of a murderer as the others—even more culpable, in fact, because Stanton had been his partner.
The woman’s breath was coming in short gasps now, her bosom was rising and falling quickly. She said huskily: “I loved Frank. You killed him. That’s why I’m here.” She pushed back her plate and rose, upsetting her chair. Her hand came up from under the table. She was holding the same automatic she had pointed at me, only now it was trained on Joplin.
“Joplin,” she said, her voice rising slightly, “I’m going to kill you. I know I could never prove in court that you are a murderer. So I’m going to kill you.”
But Joplin wasn’t slated to die right at that minute. The man sitting on her left suddenly swept up his arm. striking her wrist, and knocking the gun up in the air. It exploded, and the slug tore into the ceiling. The man who had struck her wrist seized her hand before she could fire again, twisted it behind her back. Her face white with pain, she uttered an involuntary gasp. The gun clattered to the floor.
The man grinned nastily, let her go. She sagged down into her chair, buried her head in her arms on the table. Her shoulders heaved spasmodically. She was sobbing silently.
Joplin said, coolly, for a man who had just faced death: “That was quick work, Gale. Thank you.” He added dryly: “Why did you bother? It would have saved the trouble of drawing lots.”
Gale flushed. He was a man of about fifty, with a long, thin face that contrasted strangely with his full, red lips. “I acted without thinking,” he said frankly. “I’m sure you’ll overlook the thoughtlessness, Joplin.”
Braden had sat through it all as if he were paralyzed. Right then and there I decided that I wasn’t going to be Mr. Braden’s hired man any more. I was beginning to entertain ideas of leaving there and getting Mrs. Stanton out with me, somehow. I couldn’t bring myself to feel very badly about her desire to kill Joplin, not after what I had just learned.
But I didn’t get far, because just then I felt something hard jabbed into my spine. A curt voice, which I recognized as Curie’s, said:
“Let the gun drop easy, mister, if you don’t want your backbone cracked in two!”
I let the gun drop to the floor. I could tell that Curie meant business. Also, I was sore at myself. I should have realized that Joplin must have heard the boards creaking when I crossed the lobby, and that when he whispered to Curie at the table, he was telling him to go around the back way and take a look.
I said: “Okay, Curie. You called the turn.” Curie ordered: “Now walk inside, slow and easy.”
Joplin, Braden and the others watched us come in. Braden’s face was a picture. I wish I could have caught it with a camera; any movie director in Hollywood would have signed him for a ten-year contract to register fear, consternation, terror and what not. Only Braden wasn’t acting.
The others were more or less surprised. The woman still had her head on the table, and Joplin had turned around in his chair to stare at me woodenly. I had to hand it to him for cool nerve. He had sat, with his back to the doorway, knowing that somebody was out there who might take a pot shot at him. He said:
“I don’t see how you got by Nick. You must be smarter than I thought.”
I didn’t say anything, because there wasn’t really anything to say. The next move was up to Joplin and his pals. And I wasn’t feeling so good.
Joplin said to Curie: “Pick up his gun from the floor, and leave us. I can handle him as long as he isn’t armed.”
CURIE nodded, picked up the gun, and went out through the hall. I was beginning to feel better. Joplin thought that was my gun. He didn’t know about my own .32 in the shoulder holster.
He got up from his chair, grabbed me by the coat collar. I thought he was going to lift me off the floor, but he didn’t. He just said, coolly enough:
“You’re a fool after all, Taylor. You would have been all right if you hadn’t butted in. Now you’ve learned too much.”
I couldn’t get at my gun on account of the way he was holding my coat. I felt like a small boy who was going to get a thrashing for stealing apples. Joplin kept his hold on me, turned to the men at the table.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I shall explain what this is about. Our good friend Braden was beginning to worry about drawing the deuce of spades. So he brought this man along to help him welch in case he was selected to commit suicide.”
Mrs. Stanton raised her head from the table while he was talking, and furtively dried her eyes with the back of her hand.
Joplin went on, talking to the men at the table, but keeping a corner of his eye on me and his big ham of a hand on my coat. “We all agreed at the outset of our—er—mutual undertaking, that any member who tried to trick the rest of us would automatically forfeit his life. What do you say, gentlemen, shall we take a vote on Braden instead of drawing lots?”
Braden started up in his seat, crying: “No, no. . .. Taylor, Taylor! Help me!”
I didn’t make any move to help him. I was busy getting set to help myself—and Mrs. Stanton. I was easing up my body so as to slip out of my coat. I figured it was the only way to do it, for there was no breaking Joplin’s grip.
Gale, the one who had knocked up Mrs. Stanton’s wrist, growled: “Let it be Braden.”
The others chimed in. It must have been a relief to all of them to find an easy goat like Braden for this picking.
Joplin boomed: “Well, that’s decided.” He swung his eyes on me. “You’ll have to take it, too, Taylor. You know too much.”
Braden suddenly got active. Fear of death will put grease in anybody’s knees. He leaped away from the table, ran, waddling, for the double doors. His face was twisted and chalky as he ran, and he started to yell something, but his breath was short, and he didn’t get it out.
The man, Gale, dug his hand in his hip pocket, brought out an automatic, raised it deliberately and fired three slugs into Braden’s back.
Braden was almost at the door when they caught him. He uttered a hoarse shriek, stumbled forward and hit the floor. He landed across the threshold on his face. His head and shoulders were in the lobby, the rest of him still in the dining room. He twitched convulsively, squirmed over on his back, clutched at the door jamb and then suddenly relaxed. He lay still.
Gale said dryly: “You boys will have to cover this up for me.” He stared at me, fishyeyed. “We can leave this gun in the detective’s hand when we take care of him, and make it seem as if he murdered Braden. I—”
That was as far as he got, because I had been getting set for my own little stunt. I had been standing with my body tense, my coat in Joplin’s grip. Now I raised my arms, twisted around and yanked myself out of my coat, leaving it in Joplin’s hand. I had done that same thing once as a kid, when a cop caught me shooting immies out of a bean shooter at him from around the corner. I never thought I�
��d have to repeat the trick as a grown man.
I got free, sidestepped just as Gale’s automatic barked again and a slug missed me by a hair’s-breadth. Joplin lurched after me, and I leaped across the floor in my shirtsleeves, reached the window and swung around to face that bloodthirsty crowd. I now had my own revolver out of the shoulder holster.
Gale was sighting for another try at me, and I snapped a single shot at him. I never miss when I shoot, which is a quality I’ve had to develop in order to survive in my business. My slug got Gale in the chest, flung him backward. He toppled against his chair, crashed to the floor.
THE OTHER MEN in the room apparently weren’t armed, for I didn’t see any more guns in evidence. I saw Mrs. Stanton standing, gazing at me wide-eyed. I also saw Joplin.
Joplin was coming at me now, barehanded, his face still an expressionless wooden mask. His huge body loomed in front of me, and his arms were outstretched as if he wanted to embrace me in a huge bear hug.
I swung my gun toward him, cried out shakily: “Hold it, Joplin!”
He paid no attention, but kept on coming.
I hated to do it. It was massacre. But I didn’t want to get inside those arms of his.
I squeezed once on the trigger. My gun bucked, roared, and the slug tore into Joplin’s right shoulder, where I had wanted it to go. I expected it to stop him. But it didn’t. He didn’t even falter in his step. Only his eyes got a sort of dull, murky, dangerous gray. Desperately I shifted aim, squeezed the trigger again.
This time I wasn’t fooling; I sent the lead square into his chest. I could hear the sickening crunch of bones as a sort of echo to the explosion of my revolver, he was that close to me. A little froth of blood appeared at his mouth. His arms were almost around me, and his face was still wooden.
I heard myself shouting: “Stop, Joplin, I’ll kill you!” And then he was on me, blood gushing from his chest, his eyes blazing red in a wooden mask of a face. I jabbed my gun at him, let him have a bullet right through the forehead. It took that to stop him.
The momentum of his rush carried him into me, spattering me all over with blood. But he was dead. His heavy body slid down, struck the floor with a thud.
I stepped away from him, faced the rest of the room. There was no one there but Gale, who was dead; and Mrs. Stanton, standing white-faced by the table, and Braden’s body, across the threshold.
For a long minute we stared at each other across the room, and then there came from outside the sounds of starting motors.
I swung for the window, but Mrs. Stanton’s voice stopped me. “Let them go,” she said wearily. “The rats have left the sinking ship.” Her eyes rested somberly on the body of Joplin, and she swayed slightly.
I patted her shoulder. “Stout girl,” I said.
She murmured: “The murder syndicate—it’s broken up!”
I nodded, glanced at the three bodies. “They never expected three deuces of spades in the one deck!” I told her.
YOU CAN’T MINCE HOMICIDE
Robert S. Fenton
Baseball and murder are strange bedfellows. Detective Jim Toller knew that they didn’t mix well. And that made him one up on the killer. For the killer had yet to learn that . . .
Detective Jim Toller was half asleep. Out of the radio cabinet on the table near his elbow boiled the voice of an excited mike ragger, but his words barely registered on the headquarters man’s soporific brain.
“—Last of the eighth. It’s the Blues at bat, fans. They’ve got the only run of the game and this one run looks bigger every minute. This game means the pennant for whoever finishes out in front. Big Joe Waltham is up there swinging his big bat and the crowd is still making a lot of noise. Beginning to rain a little harder now—”
Jim Toller had wanted to see that game between the Centralia Blues and the Midville Mudhens. He guessed that about everybody in Centralia had gone to that night baseball game over in Midville. The town had been baseball crazy for a week. But Jim Toiler had had a tough day of it trying to get the goods on a pair of hot-car dealers. He yawned, stretched and reached out to turn the radio on louder.
“—Raining pretty hard now. There are no covered stands here in Midville, but the crowd doesn’t seem to mind about getting wet.”
Jim Toller idly reached out for a paper. Headlines barked at him:
FATHER’S MONEY SAVES PLAYBOY
FROM JAIL
Manslaughter Charge Against Young
Manther Dismissed
Case Settled Out of Court
The detective smirked.
Like most of the people in Centralia he had been hoping that Ted Manther would get the limit. The story had inflamed the citizens of the small metropolis for weeks. Young Manther had been in plenty of trouble long before running over and killing a child in the street. Jim Toller had been at police headquarters when Manther had been brought in. The millionaire manufacturer’s son had had no recollection of having hit anybody—he had been that drunk. A burly policeman had beaten a lot of the liquor fumes out of the playboy’s brain that night, and Jim Toller had itched for a chance to get in a few punches of his own. Outside the jail a crowd had gathered yelling for young Manther’s blood.
Jim Toller threw the paper aside and mumbled: “That kind of guy would get off. Been somebody like me—” He stretched, fell back in his chair and the voice issuing from the radio gradually grew fainter in his ears.
“—Raining pitchforks here now. Last of the ninth. The Mudhens have two more men coming up. Lefty Hoyt’s got one out. Only two more and the Blues win the pennant, fans.”
Jim Toller was asleep. The insistent ringing of the telephone woke him up almost an hour later. He glanced at the clock, forcibly banishing the sleep from his eyes, and reached for the jangling phone. The hands of the clock said eleven-fifteen as he barked: “Hello?” into the transmitter.
“Headquarters calling. Jim? We’ve been ringin’ for five minutes. Car’s on the way there now to pick you up,” a gruff voice ran on. “Nobody but T.J. Manther’s been bumped off. Yeah—Roy Manther found him when he got back from the ball game. Looks like that nogood rat of a brother of his got himself into a real jam this time.”
Detective Toller banged the phone onto its cradle, snatched up his topcoat and hat from where he had thrown them hours before, and went out of his little flat on the double. A police car was crowding toward the curb when he got out into the street. While it was still rolling the detective climbed in and fell into the back seat between two burly cops.
“Big stuff!” he cracked.
“You won’t need to do much snoopin’,” one of the cops said. “Y’know that Manther kicked the kid outta the house after he got him out of that last mess. Cost him close to fifty grand, I heard. Young Manther’s been next to broke an’ he got kicked out of his club. Been living in that little caretaker’s cottage right near the main road.”
“Yeah,” Jim clipped, “I guess I won’t never get a chance to show the chief anything. The only big bump-off since I turned in my night stick, an’ it’s all cut an’ dried. Nuts!”
The Manthers had a show place three miles outside of Centralia. It was a huge, gabled mansion half hidden by tall pine trees, and from the eminence on which it was built it seemed to look down with disdain upon the rest of the habitations sprawled around it. When the police car climbed the winding road and rolled into the big front yard, Jim Toller saw a long sleek coupé standing in front of the house, its lights still on. The detective eyed the ornamental car with a bit of envy as he followed the cops up to the door.
A tall man in his late thirties opened the door suddenly as they approached. His hat was off and a camel’s hair polo coat dangled loosely from his broad shoulders. Roy Manther’s face was pale, the whiteness accentuated by the hall light. Jim Toller had seen him around town a lot. The elder of the two Manther sons was like his father, as different from his brother, Ted, as milk is from wine. He was the son who had been content to go into his father’s business and
make a go of it.
Jim Toller followed the nod of Roy Manther who said in a tight voice: “In there.” All the men went into a large room that was lined with shelves on three sides, all completely filled with books.
A bulky man with iron-gray hair was slumped sidewise in his chair, one arm hanging over the arm, fingers just short of touching the rug. There was an ugly hole between his eyes and an unwholesome blue-white pallor to his face. In one corner of the room stood a thin, gaunt man, a soiled terrycloth robe wrapped around him, wide eyes staring at the dead body of the man known to the world as the great “T. Jay.”
Detective Toller said to the dead man’s son: “You—you’ve got a pretty good idea who did it, I guess. Sorry to have to speak so bluntly but—”
Young Manther nodded. “He’s down there in that cottage near the road. Hasn’t hardly drawn a sober breath since we got him out of jail. I went in there. He’s lyin’ on the bed with the pistol in his hand. He must—have—shot dad from the open window because he was not allowed in the house. He hasn’t a key and dad would have seen him if he had tried to get in through that window.”
Manther plunged his hands into the pockets of his loosely worn coat, idly took one out and looked at a folded square of pasteboard that it held. Jim Toller took swift notice, saw that it was a score card. He suddenly said:
“Where’s the coroner, Mike? He ought to be here.”
Roy Manther swore softly, and Toller thought that a little sob came out of his throat. “To think we have to go all through this after what has already happened. He must have sobered up—a little, then came up here to—He was a crack shot with any kind of a gun. He belonged to the gun club in town. He—”
Brakes squealed outside and tires bit into gravel. A few moments later a small, fat man bustled in breathing fussily. The cops stepped aside and let him have room to open his ominous black bag and go to work. Jim Toller knelt down and picked up an unlighted cigar from the floor. It bore mute evidence of the murdered man’s mood at the time of his death, for fully two inches of the rich weed had been chewed to shreds.