by Jerry eBooks
Bill took the Captain’s flashlight and sprayed it across the bloodstains on the pier.
“Take a closer look, Captain. These bloodstains were not made by dripping blood, but by blood that was smeared. I think the murderer brought his victim here, already dead and bleeding. He placed the body on the pier and tied weights to it. Luckily it hasn’t rained since that night and the evidence is intact. But, as you say, let’s wait and see.”
The diver grasped a powerful underwater light, climbed down the ladder and vanished amidst a cauldron of bubbles. Within five minutes he was signaling for a rope. One went down and then the diver came up. His helmet was removed.
“I found it, sir,” he told the Captain. “It’s weighted with a lot of old scrap iron. I think the fellow’s throat was slit. A line is attached. Just haul him in.”
Roberts gave the orders and soon they were all staring down at the flabby, chalk-white face of a dead man. Roberts emitted a sharp exclamation.
“Take his prints,” he ordered. “I think I know who he is though. Even a whole week under water couldn’t alter that face any too much. If I’m correct, that man is Goober Williams, so named because he had an incessant craving for peanuts. Wait just a minute.”
Roberts turned pockets inside out and discovered a few water-logged peanuts. He ordered one of his men to take the prints and check at once. Then Roberts faced Bill.
“Furthermore,” he said, “if that is Goober Williams—and I’m fairly sure of it—I know who killed him. We’ll settle this case in no time flat.”
“Good,” Bill nodded. “But how are you so sure of the murderer’s identity?”
“Goober,” Captain Roberts explained, “was a stool pigeon. A useful man to us, even if he was pretty low. Some weeks ago we arraigned an all-around gorilla named Benjy Stoddard on a burglary charge. Goober was going to testify against him. Benjy was out on bail—still is, and we know just where he is, because I’ve been afraid he might try to run out. Benjy has been suspected of slitting throats before this and he is usually armed with a razor-like knife. Oh, it’s Benjy all right.”
“At least,” Bill said, “you can pick him up on suspicion and hold him until Susie recovers. If it wasn’t too dark when the crime was committed, she may identify him. Or you can convince Benjy she is bound to.”
Roberts wagged his head. “Benjy is tough. We’ll see. Let’s drop over to Headquarters, confirm his identity from the fingerprints, then look up Benjy.”
The prints proved that the victim was “Goober” Williams. Captain Roberts studied some reports on the bail-free Benjy Stoddard and, with four well-armed men, he and Bill drove swiftly to the cheap little hotel where Benjy was known to be staying.
One patrolman collared the desk clerk to keep him from signaling Benjy. The others went upstairs, but Bill lingered in the lobby for a few minutes. He had a brief talk with the desk clerk.
“It’s no use hedging,” he said. “We know Benjy is here. You can save yourself a lot of trouble by answering a couple of questions.”
The clerk shrugged. “I should have known better than let a mug like Benjy in here. What do you want to know?”
“Has Benjy gone in and out much? Was he, for instance, out of his room in the past twenty-four hours?”
“Not Benjy,” the clerk said. “He ain’t been outside his room in a week. I think he is half crazy. He wakes people up yelling. He keeps his door locked, and we have to bring up his food, smokes and newspapers. Benjy is scared stiff of something.”
“Hm,” Bill mused. “That’s interesting. Thanks. I’ll do my best to see that you aren’t involved.”
BILL went to the floor where Captain Roberts and his men were busy forcing a door. They all had guns in their hands. The door went down under one final assault. Inside the room was Benjy. A dried-up little man with a nasty expression under ordinary circumstances, but right now he was too scared to look formidable.
He was cowering in a corner, shivering like a wet, cold and whipped pup. He stared at the guns covering him and the men behind them, as if he had been mesmerized. Then he began to laugh. A high-pitched cackle. Roberts approached warily and put handcuffs on him. The click of the mechanism and the feel of cold steel, made Benjy snap out of it. But he was still terror-stricken.
“Okay, okay, I killed Goober,” he chattered. “I’ll talk. I’ll say anything if you take me out of here. I dumped Goober in the river. He was dead when we got there. I listened to him die in the back of the car I was using. I tied weights to him and dumped him over and then, after the water closed around him, I heard him scream. It came up right from under the water and Goober was dead. He couldn’t scream, but he did scream, and I been hearing it ever since. In my sleep, when I’m awake. I can’t get away from it. Lock me up, only keep him away from me!”
“Well,” Roberts said, as he watched them take Benjy out, “that was a break, he killed Goober, tried to murder the kid at the hospital, stabbed the orderly, and now’s he gone off-balance. I wouldn’t wonder. Screams coming up out of the water!”
“Captain,” Bill said, “Benjy did hear something. Susie fell off the pier just after Benjy threw his victim into the river. Susie screamed and Benjy thought it was Goober. The scream haunted him, but for us it only means a lot more trouble.”
“How come?” Roberts queried with a puzzled frown.
“Benjy didn’t see Susie or he’d have known she did the screaming. So why, then, should he have wanted to kill her? He hasn’t been out of his room for a week, so how could he have been at the hospital? We’ve been following a wrong trail, but it’s veered off into the right channels now. Take me back to the hospital and on the way I’ll outline a little plan.”
CHAPTER IV
Reflection of Murder
IT WAS morning when Janet awakened Bill in the hospital room he had borrowed for a short nap.
“Captain Roberts is in the superintendent’s office, Bill,” she said. “Larkin and Girard are there, too, both of them furious because Captain Roberts ordered them to come here.”
“Oh, good.” Bill rubbed his eyes sleepily.
“I’ll be right down. Plan to be on hand too, Janet. We’ve a murderer to unveil.”
Bill, in his white uniform which was somewhat wrinkled and bedraggled from having been slept in, entered the office a few minutes later. He nodded pleasantly to those already there, went over to a telephone and dialed a number.
“Excuse me, folks,” he said happily. “This will require only a moment . . . Hello—hello, Dan. Well, how did it all come out? Is that so? I’m not especially surprised . . . Thanks a lot, and keep on digging. We’ll need all the facts.” Bill hung up, walked over to a chair parked against the further wall and sat down. He bestowed upon every one a particularly sunny smile that lingered on Janet longer than on the others.
“Last night,” he said then, “I was with Captain Roberts when the body of a murdered man was removed from beneath the pier where Susie had been injured. He was a police informer, and the man who killed him is now under arrest . . . Isn’t that so, Captain?”
Roberts nodded heavily. “I got him under guard in my car outside. I figured we should take him up to see Susie. I know the kid is still drugged, but Benjy doesn’t know it and maybe he’ll break down. He must have seen her, or he wouldn’t have made that attack upon her. Likely he thinks she is dead, so the sight of her may crack him.”
“Excellent,” Bill commented. “I’ll go with you. He stepped over to Larkin and Girard. “I figured you two would like to be in on this. Seeing that our friend Benjy had your uncle and your business partner murdered in cold blood.”
“I certainly would like to be in on it,” Larkin said harshly. “I’d even like to see them burn him.”
Bill wagged his head. “That’s going a bit far. I’ll be right back. Ready, Captain?”
In five minutes Bill and the police officers returned. Roberts had the confessed killer chained to his wrist and he handled him none too gently. Bill stalk
ed behind them, his face a cold mask. They all entered an elevator and went to the seventh floor. Janet entered alone, to see how Susie was. She signaled for them to enter. Susie was still in a drugged sleep.
“Janet,” Bill said, “the doctors told me last night that Susie would have to be fed this morning. Don’t you think a glass of milk or something like that would help give her strength and make her recover faster?”
Janet didn’t think so. Susie had been fed a short time before that hypo had been administered. But something about the way Bill asked that question seemed to require an affirmative answer, so she went and got a glass of milk.
Bill took it, placed it on a bureau near the door and promptly seemed to forget all about it. He dragged Benjy Stoddard over beside the bed. The crook and killer looked down at the child without betraying a twitch.
“Cool customer, isn’t he?” Girard whispered.
“They’ll warm him up properly,” Larkin grunted.
Bill nudged Benjy. “Ever see her before?”
“No,” Benjy declared. “Kids all look alike to me anyhow.”
“This girl,” Bill said, “saw you killing that man and throwing his body into the river. Didn’t you try to kill her?”
“No,” Benjy gulped. “But if I’da seen her, I woulda bumped her sure.”
Bill waved his hands. “There you are, Captain. A real nice confession which will be backed up by Susie’s testimony when she recovers her memory. Janet, you can feed that milk to Susie now.”
Janet picked up the glass and approached the bed with it. Bill was watching Larkin and Girard intently. He suddenly made a dive for the bed and took the glass from Janet’s hand. He walked up to Larkin.
“You look peaked, Mr. Larkin. In my opinion you need this milk more than Susie does.”
“I detest milk.” Larkin backed up a little. “Drink it!” Bill snapped. “Drain that glass, you killer. Drain it and prove at least part of your innocence. Or take it as the easy way out. That glass of milk is poisoned and you know it. Captain, search Benjy again. The side coat pocket away from you.”
CAPTAIN ROBERTS took out a small, slim vial. There were some colorless drops of liquid still clinging to its side. Bill sniffed of the contents.
“Poison all right. Now I suppose, Larkin, you’ll say that Benjy had this on his person, slipped it into the milk and hoped that Susie would get it and die.”
“What else?” Larkin shuddered. “Have you gone insane, trying to make me drink it? I’ve had quite enough of this. A hospital orderly can’t make me step around. Why, I could buy and sell a gross of men like you.”
“Not at the present moment you couldn’t,” Bill declared. “You’re in the process of selling every darn thing you own. Why? To clear up the deficits that exist in your business with the late John MacKenzie. You brought that vial of poison here. You put it into the milk which I conveniently left for you. Benjy couldn’t have had the poison because outside, in the car, we searched him so thoroughly he couldn’t have concealed a much-folded postage stamp. In fact, I saw you slip the vial into his pocket. See that mirror across the room? It was like a movie, watching you in it.”
Larkin was pale and dry-lipped. “But what sheer rot this is!” he protested. “Why should I want to kill the child?”
“If MacKenzie had died a natural death, it would have been all right,” Bill said. “If he was deliberately murdered, it wouldn’t be, because the police were bound to investigate his firm in searching for a motive. But if he died as the result of a murderer’s accident, it would be listed practically the same as a natural death so far as you were concerned. No investigation would have been made. It would require the Probate Court weeks to audit the business and by that time you could have made good or fixed up the books.
“So, when you learned MacKenzie was going to get better soon after his operation, and would be back in the office, you knew something had to be done. But what—with a measure of safety for you? Then you came to the hospital and made arrangements for MacKenzie. Girard was out of town. You knew all about Susie, and how it was expected she’d identify her assailant when she recovered her memory. The newspapers have been full of it.
“This made her a target for the criminal who apparently had struck her down, especially since it was assumed she had witnessed a crime being committed. You arranged to have MacKenzie put in this particular hospital and in the room next to Susie’s. That suited your well-made plans.
“Then you contacted Cooper, the orderly who would have done anything for money. He arranged the hypos so MacKenzie would get a fatal injection of poison, apparently meant for Susie, and Susie would get MacKenzie’s heavy dose of narcotic. So MacKenzie seemed to have died because of a murderer’s accident. Of course, Cooper knew too much to live. He’d have blackmailed you.”
Tom Girard backed away from Larkin.
“So that’s where he went that night! He insisted upon driving his own car here while I drove mine. Later we were to meet at a social affair. Larkin came rather late.”
Bill nodded. “Certainly he did. He returned here, lured Cooper into the cellar and stabbed him. Then he put the body in the morgue. It looked as if the murderer we thought Susie had seen was responsible. But Susie didn’t suffer at the hands of Benjy here. Benjy told the truth. He didn’t even know that Susie existed.
“What really happened was that Susie was playing with a doll on the edge of the pier, but protected by a tool shed. She witnessed part of the crime wherein Benjy disposed of the body, and it affected her terribly. She tried to get away, as a child would, but she slipped and fell off the pier into a boat. Her head struck a seat on the boat. I found her blood and some of her hair adhering to the seat.
“I realized then, that the murderer on the pier hadn’t seen her or injured her. So the whole motive for killing her was out. I looked for other motives. Girard was the only heir of his uncle’s estate. Large enough to murder for. Larkin had no motive, so I sent auditors to check the business. That’s why I had Captain Roberts bring both of you to the hospital this morning. I didn’t want Larkin to know what was going on in his office.”
“By whose right did you do that?” Larkin bellowed. “A menial hospital orderly taking charge like that! It required a court order to examine books that way.”
“I know,” Bill said. “I gave the order myself. In writing. This morning I knew it was you, because the books were off and you had a motive too. But I also realized that since Benjy had been caught, you’d have to kill Susie so her true story might never be told. Therefore, the milk, so you might poison it. You seemed to be an expert on poisoning. Not on shooting though. It was you on the pier trying to kill Janet and me. I’d told you I meant to investigate things and you followed us. If we had died, the blame would be attached to Benjy.”
LARKIN made a half-hearted attempt to get out of the room. He ran smack into two husky detectives outside. Girard seemed stunned, but he recovered his wits enough to ask a question.
“Bill,” he said, “you just said you issued the order to have Larkin’s accounts gone over. How in the world could you issue such an order?”
Captain Roberts was gaping. “How? Good heavens, man, don’t you know that Bill is a Supreme Court Justice? The youngest one on the bench, and before that he was the shrewdest District Attorney we ever had? He can order practically anything.”
Bill felt a tug on his arm. Janet was looking up at him, her face scarlet.
“Oh, Bill!” she said in a weak voice.
He grinned. “I’ll talk to you later. Janet—if you had known I was a Supreme Court Justice, you’d never have given me a tumble. It’s always been that way. I’m a volunteer orderly, trying to help out because of the war. I insisted that my identity remain a secret. I wanted to help, not be pampered. I even worked regular, full time hours to maintain that illusion.”
“But—but—” Janet leaned against him weakly. “You win, Bill. Mr. Justice Bill.”
DEATH IN THE GROOVE
; Thorne Lee
I’m the guy who gave Eddy Delgado, the Lung, his muscles. Of course I didn’t realize this would indirectly be the cause of Leland Stokes’ death, and while Stokes was a strictly nogood character who deserved killing, the law says even newspaper columnists have a right to live.
AROUND Hollywood they don’t go by names any more. They go by features. You’ve heard of The Voice, of course? The Body, and The Horn? Also, The Look? Well, I am known, generally, as The Arm.
In the phone book I am Bert Harrigan, body trainer, the guy who tries to manufacture muscle where the pretty boys have only artificial padding. I am most famous for my connection with the murder of a certain Hollywood nuisance and also for my picture on the cover of Whim magazine, the one where I have my arm stretched out at arm’s length and that singer, Eddy Delgado, is chinning himself on it. You may recall the title: ARE CROONERS GROWING MUSCLES?
That picture was a follow-up to the knockout punch that rocked a nation. Just for the record I wish to explain my own relations to said punch. I am the guy who invented it.
This Eddy Delgado first came to me to buy some muscles with which to poke a man by the name of Leland Stokes upon the nose. I will say this—that Stokes had a nose which deserved poking, being always in other people’s business, which is how a movie columnist makes his living. Stokes had not only referred to Eddy in his column as The Lung, but he was also making regular literary passes at Vivian Ryan, who danced to Eddy’s songs.
After a week’s workout I decided that Eddy might someday get strong enough to break an egg with his bare fist, but he would never get near the nose of a rugged customer like Stokes. I sort of liked the kid, so I dug into the old brain tissue and came up with an idea.
The set-up was not hard to arrange. Eddy was singing with Dustin Mills’ band at the Shadyside Club and he simply paid off the electrician to douse the spotlights at the proper time. I invited Leland Stokes to the club myself and we rated a ringside table right down within blasting range of the brass section.