by Jerry eBooks
“After lunch, then, say about three,” Eaton told him, picked up hat and gloves and cane, and sauntered out.
He went to an art store and bought two or three prints of sculpture by not too well-known artists. Even if Petros recognized them he would only think that his client had been nicked for copies, consider him that much more of a sucker.
His final move was to call Flynn to the telephone. The detective answered gruffly. No genius had uncovered the strangling murder in the Headquarters experts; it had been strongly intimated that he would be the scapegoat in a suburban wilderness, swinging a locust stick; unless he turned it up.
“I’ve found out something about the Lucille Langdon affair that might interest you,” Eaton said. “It might close the case, it looks like real evidence to me. I can show it to you at half-past three this afternoon, if you’ll meet me.”
Flynn was not gracious about it. Amateur sleuths were always going off half-cocked. But, though he was not officially submerged and drowning, he was not averse to snatching at a straw or so.
“I’ll be there,” he said, “only I got no time to waste.”
“I don’t think you’ll be wasting it, Flynn,” Eaton answered mildly; “you see I have no authority to make an arrest . . .”
He hung up with Flynn blustering in the phone. He knew that would bring Flynn, on the dot.
ONCE more Eaton mounted to the private office, laid down his hat and gloves and cane, close to those of Petros, who received him cordially. No employees were present. The place was deserted, showroom and workshop locked. Petros studied the photographs and Eaton brought out checkbook and fountain pen, laid them beside each other on the carved table.
Finally Petros named a price. It was stiff, and Eaton hesitated.
“I shall have to think it over,” he said. He caught a flame in the strange eyes of Petros, that was not merely commercial chagrin, but revealed the swiftly flaring temper of the man. His lips smiled but his eyes were snarling.
Eaton started to stow away his checkbook. “It’s just a matter of income,” he said. “I may have to put it off for a week or two.” He glanced at his wristwatch. It was twenty minutes after the hour. “I told a friend to meet me here, if you don’t mind,” he went on. “He’s almost due now.”
It was tolerably clear that Petros was not keen on any delay in the departure of a new doubtful client. He said nothing. Eaton ignored his mood. He would have him at attention in a moment.
“I was reading about this strangling case,” said Eaton, with the air of one making conversation. Again he saw red flame in Petros’ orbs. They seemed to set, to stiffen in their sockets, regarding Eaton with malevolent intensity. “You know,” Eaton continued, “I’ve got an idea how it happened.”
Now the features of Petros had become rigid, his lips barely moved as he asked.
“How do you figure it out?” His mouth showed a slight sneer, but his attitude was that of a feral creature that might despise attack while every instinct was alert at the first sign of it.
“I get interested in these things,” said Eaton. “To me, the police lack imagination, they proceed too much along stereotyped lines. For instance, they overlooked the grim coincidence of these three strangled women having a lover by the name of Tod or Mort. Two Morts, so far; if there should be a fourth victim, no doubt they would find some record of a second Tod.”
“What does that prove?” asked Petros. There was no visible movement, but Eaton got the feel of a spring coiling, of a beast tensing, crouching for a leap. “That there were two different killers?”
Eaton fiddled with his fountain pen. “One,” he said. “Those two names may be diminutives but, to me, they seem to have a more significant meaning, they are a clew to the warped nature of the murderer, the grotesque working of his mind. For Tod, in German, is Death. So is Mort, in French.”
“Fla! That is ingenious. Yet, if they had nothing to do with the man’s real name, how does that identify him.”
The orbs of Petros, still fixed, were glowing like carbuncles. He spoke between clenched teeth. Eaton glanced at his watch again. He knew that he was face to face with a dangerous creature; as if he had entered a jungle clearing and encountered a tiger, half visible beneath the camouflage of its tawny stripes, the mask of its face less real than the gleaming eyes; the tailtip swaying back and forth, the body sinking, slowly, slowly, to the crouch; the leap.
He felt no fear, only exhilaration. He was not counting on Flynn for defense. Flynn might be like a “bearer,” with a second gun ready for emergency. Eaton stared back at the hypnotic orbs.
“Women sometimes do not remember numbers easily. They set down telephone numbers, in curious places. They can be traced. You, for example, have no one employed here by the name of Mort?”
Petros’ mouth began to stretch in a grin that suggested bared fangs. He shook his head.
“If there were,” he said, “suppose one of these Death aliases, to use your fantastic suggestion for a moment, could be so linked up, how would that show that he was with any one of the women, on the night she died?”
Petros appeared to be willing to listen, ready to break down; but, if things went too far, he was ready to strike. His hands rested on the edge of the table. Eaton was again struck with their power, their flexibility. The nails were trimmed short, well cared for, but they suggested talons, just the same.
“The police report no fingerprints, save those of the woman,” said Eaton slowly. “The murderer was gloved. He might have known that the maid wiped the woodwork every day with oil-of-cedar, clearing records. But this time he was careful. He was gloved all the time he was there. The very absence of fingerprints shows how careful he meant to be, how set upon his bizarre and outre crime. But gloves are not all alike, Petros.”
OUT of the window Eaton saw Flynn entering the open court from the street. For a man of his build the detective walked lightly. He gave a tiny nod. He would make no noise coming up the stairs.
“Take, for instance, gloves like you and I wear, Petros,” said Eaton. “Pigskin, good quality. Grained distinctively and with no possibility of any two pairs leaving the same prints—glove prints. Especially when the murderer left a perfect trace of both hands, thumbs, fingers, even the palms, as he rose from the lounge-chair in which he sat. The oil-of-cedar made the impression absolute. He rested part of his weight when he rose—to kill. He left an exact record. Plain to the naked eye. Under the microscope, reproduced by microphotography, as it will be at the trial, it will send the man who assumed the grisly aliases of Death to the chair. And I think that, by this time, the Medical Officer will have determined traces of oil-of-cedar on the neck of the strangled woman.”
“This is all your own conception?” asked Petros very softly, hissing the words. Another face seemed coming out of his set features, as if they had become suddenly plastic. It was the face of a fiend. His fingertips seemed to sink into the hard wood of the table, changing the color beneath his nails.
It was very quiet. It was Saturday afternoon. The two of them were alone. Eaton could feel his devilish purpose, almost as if it were his hot breath.
“When I left you before lunch,” said Eaton inexorably; I carried off your gloves. I left my own, like enough yours for you not to miss them. I compared prints I made from them with prints I took from the lounge-chair arms in Lucille Langdon’s apartment. That is why I know you were there, and that you . . .”
The beast leaped, with incredible agility. Eaton had been prepared for attack, but it took him unawares. Petros hurled himself across the table as Eaton got to his feet. His hands were pressed against Eaton’s cheeks, his thumbs viced down on the carotid arteries, the vagus nerve.
He was across the table, throttling, his mouth open now, with the red tip of his tongue showing, his eyes ablaze with the lust to kill.
A man may be killed within a minute in such a grip. Eaton felt himself swiftly losing consciousness, the blood in his brain seemed like a thundering Niagara, that col
ored all things.
He had just time to press the plunger on the fountain pen. Out of it there came a fine spray of methalon derivative into the nose, the open mouth, the eyes of Petros, filmy, swift as the poison of a spitting cobra; but not deadly. Enough to make Petros instantaneously insensible, to make his death-grip relax.
It was a close call. Eaton’s head was still pounding when he looked at Flynn, standing with his underlip shot out, his blue eyes cold as the metal of the gun in his hand.
“Lucky for ye I was on time,” he said.
Eaton did not contradict him. As a matter of fact, Flynn was late, according to Eaton’s watch, though he might not have been with his own.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get here sooner,” Eaton said huskily, gingerly massaging his neck. “Now I’ll have to explain it all over, so you’ll get it straight in your report. I’d put the cuffs on that bird, if I were you, Flynn. That’s your strangler. I’ll give you the proof. You can guess what he thought of it. It’s your case, Flynn. I don’t like publicity, except for my books. They ought to make you an inspector for this. It is really quite ingenious and novel. The damned fool thought he was protecting himself; but he should have worn suede, not pigskin.”
“ ‘Tis Greek to me,” said Flynn, looking at the gloves that Eaton had picked up.
Petros was still out, in a chair, the upper part of his body lolling on the table. The handcuffs were on his too flexible wrists.
“I’ll give you a free translation,” said Eaton, “before you call the wagon.”
DANGEROUS GROUND
Charles Smith
Tom Parden Uncovers All the Angles in a Death Triangle!
DEEP shadows filled the quiet, deserted streets of the upstate town of Hadley. Patrolman Tom Parden stifled a yawn. He was resigned to another dull night on his beat.
Suddenly the silence blew apart to the sharp roar of a gun. The sound appeared to come from a small apartment building fifty yards down the street.
Parden’s slate-gray eyes narrowed, his shoulders stiffening beneath his uniform coat. He whirled and raced down the street, drawing his revolver.
Bolting into the dimly lighted entrance, he crashed headlong into Clyde Lukes, a clerk in the local hardware store. Lukes staggered back a pace, his eyes wide with fright, as frantic words tumbled from his lips.
“Parden!” he gasped. “I was just going for you. Jim Jordan’s been shot!”
Parden nodded tersely, swung Lukes back down the hall with him toward Jordan’s apartment.
“I was reading when I heard the shot,” explained Lukes hurriedly. “I rushed into Jordan’s place, saw him lying on the bed with the window open.”
They reached the apartment and flung open the door. A breeze was blowing the frail curtains. Jordan was sprawled on the bed half undressed with blood clotting his undershirt. Other tenants in the apartment house, attracted by the shot, were streaming into the hall.
“Maybe I’d better get Doc Frisby,” said Lukes nervously.
Eyes riveted upon the injured man, Tom Parden nodded absently as Lukes wheeled and scurried out of the room. People were crowding inside now. A woman uttered a stifled scream.
Moving swiftly to the bed, Parden saw that Jordan had been shot through the heart at close range. He grasped the man’s wrist. There was no pulse. Jordan was dead.
On the floor beneath the bed was the murder weapon. Parden took out a handkerchief and picked it up carefully.
“Say, that gun looks like the one owned by Clyde Lukes!” blurted a tall, red-headed man.
Parden whirled.
“Are you sure?” he demanded.
“Not positive,” came the red-headed man’s reply. “But it looks just like it. Lukes showed it to me once or twice. He used to keep it under the counter in Slade’s hardware store.”
Later, after the crowd had been chased from the room and the local chief of police had conducted a brief examination, Parden got John Slade out of bed and forced him to open his hardware establishment.
A careful search of the compartments under the counter revealed no gun. As for Clyde Lukes, it was discovered he had not contacted Doc Frisby. Instead, he had vanished into thin air.
GRIMLY Patrolman Tom Parden realized he had been duped by the hardware clerk. Lukes had been making his escape out the front door of the apartment house when Parden had bumped into him. Lukes had employed the ruse of going for a doctor to make his getaway.
The fact that the clerk’s apartment was directly opposite that of the murdered man’s had made quite plausible the story that he had heard the shot and was investigating.
But why Lukes should kill Jim Jordan, a local taxi driver, Tom Parden could not understand. However, he meant to find out, because the chief of police had threatened him with a long suspension for letting Lukes get away.
Late the next afternoon, before he was scheduled to go on duty again, Parden entered Jordan’s apartment and conducted a thorough search of the premises. The body had been removed, and Jordan’s nearest relatives in Chicago had been notified.
Going through the bottom dresser drawer in the bedroom, Parden found a bank book from a local institution. He was amazed to find a deposit for five hundred dollars made two days previous.
Where would a local taxi driver get that much money in a lump sum? It was something to think about, the patrolman decided.
A moment later he found a snapshot of a beautiful blond girl dressed in a shimmering black evening gown. On the back of the snapshot were two words written in ink in a fine hand.
“To Daddy,” Parden read.
He scowled. As far as he knew Jordan had never married. Did this snapshot, therefore, mean he was secretly married, or had been married previously, and that this girl was his daughter? Or did it indicate a relationship of another sort?
Tom Parden had to laugh at that idea himself. On the face of it, it was ridiculous. About the only man in town who might be called a “sugar daddy” was the wealthy perfume manufacturer, Howard Ross, whose mansion overlooked the town of Hadley from a high, wooded knoll.
Parden recalled that since the death of Ross’ first wife, the millionaire had been running around with some showgirls on his periodic visits to the city. In fact, Parden could remember one Broadway columnist who dished up a bit of scandal about Ross which also involved Charles Tallman, a noted artist and illustrator who rented a summer cottage in Hadley. The item had been blunt enough.
Is it true that Howard Ross, wealthy perfume magnate, may change his will now that lovely Barbara Benson, the showgirl Ross was planning to wed, is carrying a flaming torch for Ross’ artist neighbor, Charles Tallman?
Rumor has it that Ross was leaving half his estate to Barbara, the rest going to charity. Barbara, you’d better reconsider.
Continuing his search for clues in Clyde Luke’s apartment across the hall, Parden was about to give up in despair when he found a small paper-wrapped package thrust behind the molding of a clothes closet.
A startled exclamation burst from Tom Parden’s throat when he found the package contained a snapshot of Lukes and a blonde girl. The girl was the same one who had appeared on the snapshot in Jordan’s possession! Lukes and the blonde had their arms around each other, and the girl was looking up at him archly.
There was nothing written on the photograph. Parden asked himself just what the blonde meant to the two men. What relation was she to Lukes or Jordan, both of whom were old enough to be her father? Was she no relation and were both in love with her?
PARDEN’S mind was in a turmoil as he tried to figure out all the angles. And he was thrown into complete confusion when he saw that the other item in the package was a bank book. He was amazed to find Clyde Lukes’ account amounted to almost five thousand dollars.
That was a lot of money for an ordinary hardware clerk. But what was more interesting was the fact that Lukes had made a withdrawal of five hundred dollars. And the date of that withdrawal was a day prior to Jim Jordan’s deposit of a simila
r amount in his account!
Some cold and sure instinct warned the patrolman that this withdrawal and deposit were definitely linked with Lukes’ killing of Jordan.
It was dark when Parden finally completed his search and reported for duty. He was entering the small police office, intending to put his findings before the chief, when the telephone jangled.
The office was empty. The chief had stepped out for a minute, probably. Parden picked up the phone, then gasped as Charles Tallman’s voice came over the wire.
“Parden! I’m glad I caught you in. You’ve got to come out here right away!”
The artist’s voice shook with emotion. “Howard Ross has been murdered!”
Parden didn’t wait to hear any more. He dashed to the small police car parked outside, got in and drove the half mile to the Ross mansion. When he arrived he found Tallman and a platinum-haired girl waiting for him. Both seemed very much upset.
“All right,” snapped Parden. “Where is he?”
“In the living room,” Tallman said. He was a dark-haired, powerfully built man in a gray, double-breasted suit. “Ross had invited Miss Benson and myself, together with some other friends, to a party tonight.
“I guess we were the first to arrive. Ross usually dismisses the servants when he has a party. But when he didn’t answer our ring, we found the door open and walked in.”
The platinum blonde said nothing, but her blue eyes were wide with a strange, numbed fear. Something had clicked in Tom Parden’s brain when Tallman introduced her as “Miss Benson.” She must be the Barbara Benson with whom Ross had been in love. Ross certainly had a big heart, Parden decided, if he could invite both the girl and his strongest rival to the same party.
Now as they walked into the well-lighted study, Parden did not even look at Howard Ross’ body slumped limply in the chair. He glanced instead at Barbara Benson while the blood began to pound in his head.
After a moment he looked away, and turned his attention to Ross, who had been shot through the temple from a distance. Death had been almost instantaneous, for not much blood had seeped out of the raw wound.