by Jerry eBooks
An instant later, he reeled and would have fallen if Tim had not caught him. Ogden gagged, clawed at his collar.
Frightened, Tim Fielding half carried him across the room and into the bedroom. He snapped off the light there. As Ogden clung to the head of the bed, Tim raised the shade and then the window, slowly and cautiously so as not to make any noise. He helped Ogden to the open window, and Ogden retched and spewed.
“What is it, Larry?” Tim asked.
Ogden gulped. “Gas . . . poison gas . . . coming in through those little grilles.”
“So that’s the way.”
“Only got . . . one whiff. Turn out all lights . . . open windows . . . be quiet . . .” They worked at the windows. In the kitchen, Ogden took a glass he had sterilized that evening, and drank water until he made himself vomit again.
“One whiff . . . and it almost got me,” he whispered. “We’ve got work to do.” Working cautiously, they turned off the lights and got the windows open.
There was a stiff cold breeze outside, and it swept through the apartment, draining it of the lethal gas as swiftly as it poured into the rooms.
In the darkness, Ogden gripped Tim’s arm and guided him to the front door.
“It can’t come far,” he whispered. “From some room above or below or on either side of this apartment. I felt a little breeze coming from that grille. Electric fan being used to blow the gas through tubing, I suppose.”
“But how?” Tim questioned.
“Repair men and cleaners went all over this wing during the last two weeks. Monk Stenner had a couple of his boys do it then, I suppose. Not much of a job for experienced men.”
“But the acid and poison pellets?”
“Stenner could get them somewhere. They could have been smuggled in.”
“Yeah. And that means help from somebody in this buildin’.”
“It also means that Stenner and Gus Yost are probably in the building now making that gas. Come on!”
He unchained the door and glanced out into an empty hall. They stepped forth, guns held ready.
THEY went first to the apartment across the hall, where the retired merchant and his wife lived. The man opened the door when Ogden pressed the button. “Ah! Come in, Mr. Ogden,” the man invited.
A glance revealed that he and his wife had been playing cards. The elderly woman smiled at Ogden and Tim.
“You all right?” Ogden asked. “Prowler in the building, and we’re trying to find him—”
“Everything’s all right here.”
They went on, to the adjoining apartment where the two old bachelors lived. They were in, and celebrating New Year’s Eve in a convivial fashion. Ogden told them of the prowler and had a chance to investigate the closets.
So they went on to the apartment of the elderly woman who was a radio fan. She let them search and insisted they remain for tea, but they declined.
Hiding their guns, they descended the rear stairs to the huge linen room beneath, where three women and one man were working, sorting soiled linen and getting out fresh for the next day. Ogden pretended they were making the rounds wishing everyone a Happy New Year. A few glances showed him and Tim nothing was wrong there.
“We’ve checked all but the apartment above,” Ogden told Tim.
“You know the girls who live there?”
“Only by sight. Oh, I’ve been introduced and have spoken to them in the lobby and elevator and all that. I know one is a secretary and the other a department store buyer. I think one told me they were cousins.”
“Let’s call on the girls,” Tim said.
“Sure!”
So they went on up the stairs to the floor above. They had their service pistols in their hands now, and were alert. Ogden choked back a cough frequently.
“Throat’s raw . . . chest choked up,” he whispered. “I’ll have to see a doctor soon as this is over.”
They tiptoed to the front door of the apartment and listened there. Not a sound did they hear. A faint streak of light beneath it showed that lights were burning inside. Ogden touched Tim on the arm and pointed, and they went around to the apartment’s service door.
Nobody had been in the hall to see them, and nobody could see them now. At the service door, they put their ears close to the casement. “Somebody movin’ around,” Tim whispered.
“One of the girls mixing drinks, maybe.”
“You’d think girls like them would be out on some party tonight.”
“That’s what has me wondering,” Ogden confessed. “Listen!”
More movement, and then a cautious voice: “We’ll fan a little more of the stuff through the tubes, Gus. No sounds from below lately. Maybe they’ve got it by this time. All the windows closed—”
Ogden gripped Tim’s arm. “Hear that? They’re in there—Monk Stenner and Gus Yost.”
“We’ll blast ’em out!”
“Wait! Listen!”
They heard another cautious voice: “How about the girls, Monk?”
“Tied and gagged, they’re helpless.”
“Yeah, I know. But if they talk afterward?”
“It’d pin another murder on us, that’s all. The little dopes have come in handy. I learned that one was the sister of a man we’ve got dope on, and threatened to turn him over to the cops if they didn’t let us do as we pleased in their apartment.”
“And the other wren is engaged to marry the rat, huh?”
“Yep. Do anything to save him, those two. It’s been a tough job, Gus—worse than the other two. But I wanted to send Larry Ogden out in style. Maybe he knows by this time whether the hot seat or sad gas is easiest. Maybe he’s comparing notes with Eddie Hill by now.”
“How did you fix all this?” Gus asked. “With two of our boys working on the repair job, that wasn’t hard. A few holes in the walls, some tubing. We smuggled in the pellets and acid and the other stuff easily enough. Give that fan a little more juice, Gus, and do the same for the one in the bedroom closet. A little more, and we’ll get out of here.”
“The girls—?”
“Maybe you’re right, Gus. Might as well close their pretty mouths. We’ll be nice and give each of them a drink of water—with a pill in it. They know we’re up to something, but don’t know exactly what.”
THE listeners heard one of the men inside walk away. Ogden pulled Tim back from the door.
“You take the front door, Tim, in case they split and try to get out two ways,” he whispered. “I’ll take the service door. Alive if we can—but get ’em.”
Tim slipped out of the service hall and got to the front door. Ogden waited a minute, and then rapped sharply on the door with the barrel of his pistol.
There was silence inside a moment, and then, “Who is it? What do you want?” a man’s voice demanded.
“Open Up! Police!”
“Police? Why—why, you must be making a mistake. If you’ll go to the front door—”
“Open up!” Ogden repeated. “Make it quick, or we’ll smash down the door and shoot our way in. We’re after you and Gus Yost, Stenner. Your game’s up!”
Quick steps sounded inside. Ogden yelled to Tim: “Watch it in the main hall, boys!”
Ogden darted to where the service hall joined the wider corridor, so he could go into action in either direction. There was no long wait. The front door of the apartment was jerked open. Gus Yost came out shooting, bent almost double. Tim blasted away in reply, continued firing as he reeled back against the wall with a slug in his left arm.
The door of the service room opened as the firing began. Ogden had been expecting that. Monk Stenner dashed out and charged at him, gun flaming. Ogden heard a bullet whistle past his head. Calmly, deliberately, he was working his service pistol. He shot to wound badly, but not to kill. He sprang forward as the other fell and kicked his weapon away.
“All right here, Tim!” he shouted.
“Mine is a cold turkey,” Tim answered. “He nicked me, the cuss.”
People were coming into the hall from various apartments, men shouting and women screaming as they whiffed pistol smoke and saw Gus Yost’s body.
“Hey, you!” Ogden yelled at the man nearest him. “I’m Ogden, of the police. Call the switchboard and tell them to get headquarters. I want the homicide squad here. It’s all over. Go back to your rooms!”
He ran back into the kitchenette of the apartment. The poison gas was cooking there and being fanned into tubing that ran through the floor. Ogden smashed the windows and went on into the living room as Tim joined him.
“Got it in the arm,” Tim reported. “Nothin’ bad.”
In the living room, the two girls were bound and gagged and stretched on the floor, twisting and squirming and plainly enough badly frightened. Ogden shouted to them that the police were there and that they would be released soon. He and Tim finally found another dish of poison cooking in a closet.
“Open all the windows,” Ogden ordered, starting on one himself.
When that had been done, the girls were untied and had their gags removed.
“Sit up and be thankful you’re alive,” Ogden told them. “No questions now! We’ll talk to you later.”
Tim had gone to the front door, to see heads of the curious sticking out of other apartment doors. The elevator stopped at the floor and disgorged policemen who had been stationed in front of the building and in the lobby.
“Take over!” Ogden ordered them. “Keep everybody quiet until the squad arrives. Tim, let the medical examiner have a quick look at your arm. Then he can give me what I need.”
He broke off to go to the telephone and put a call through the switchboard below. A man answered—Laurie Carr’s father. “This is Larry,” Ogden told him. “Everything’s all right. We got Monk Stenner and his pal, Gus Yost.”
“Laurie was afraid to answer the phone. Afraid it might be bad news. Here she is!”
“Larry, oh, Larry!” she cried into the phone. “I’ve been so terribly afraid. What—”
“No time to tell you now,” he broke in. “But I’ll be there in an hour or so. We’ll drink a toast to the New Year.”
WRONG NUMBER
John L. Benton
Ambition and envy stir up a seething cauldron of crime!
Mary Marshall fumbled in her evening bag, seeking the key to the apartment door. From an open window at the far end of the long seventh floor corridor a chill wind swept toward her, and she remembered it had started to snow as she got out of the taxi and entered the lobby.
“Having trouble?” a voice asked.
She turned to find a man standing in the open doorway of the apartment across the hall. The room behind him was dark and he loomed tall and shadowy in the doorway, his dark eyes gazing at her intently. His suit was blue and his shirt a dark gray, his tie bright red.
The suit and shirt blended with the shadows so that only his face and necktie were clearly visible.
“No trouble, thank you,” Mary said, and she found it hard to make her tone casual and impersonal. “I was just looking for my key.”
She found the key and drew it out of the bag, and then glanced up. He was still watching her. She wondered how long he had been standing there. She was sure his door had not been open when she left the elevator and came along the hall, and yet she had heard no sound until he had spoken.
“You are Miss Mary Marshall,” he said finally. “I’m Lansing Cooper, and I have a message for you.” He stepped out from the shadows and she saw he was older than she had thought at first. “A rather strange message.”
“A message for me?”
The wind that blew along the corridor was stronger now. Mary could feel the damp chill through the mink cape she wore—a breeze ruffled her blonde hair. She unlocked the door of her apartment, swung the door open, then turned to Lansing Cooper.
He closed the door behind them as he followed her along the short hallway of the apartment. She switched on the lights in the big living room and turned to face him again. His hair was thick and dark, but there was a lot of gray at the temples, his face was lean, and he wore his clothes with the casual air of one who selects the best of everything as a matter of course.
“I’ve been trying to think of a way to explain about the message without sounding completely wacky,” Cooper said with a smile. “It is hard to do.”
“At least it sounds intriguing,” Mary said. “Do sit down.”
She tossed her cape aside and sank into a chair. The clock on the mantel over the fireplace told her it was just two-thirty in the morning. She wondered if she hadn’t made a mistake in going to a night club with Tom Bradford after the show, for she was very tired. Still she was very fond of Tom. He was young, attractive, and his work as a first grade detective gave him so little time off that it had been nice to do as he wished tonight.
“About the message?” Mary asked, noticing Cooper was staring at her strangely.
“Oh, yes, about midnight my phone rang,” he said. “I answered and a man asked if I lived in the same apartment house with Mary Marshall the actress. I said I believed you lived across the hall from me, though we had never met. He said he had been trying to reach you all evening, but got no answer.”
“Naturally, since I was at the theater acting in the show,” said Mary. “Go on.”
“Here’s the silly part of the whole thing,” said Cooper. “The man on the phone said, ‘Give Mary Marshall this message—tell her this is Barton Thorne calling and she is going to die before morning.’ ”
“Barton Thorne!” Mary stared at Cooper, and there was fear in her lovely eyes. “But he’s been dead for ten years!”
“I told you the whole thing was silly.” Cooper rose to his feet and began to pace the floor. “Probably the work of some crank who knows you’re a popular actress and wants to annoy you.” He paused and stared at her. “Though I didn’t like the way he said you were going to die before morning. That sounded like an actual threat.”
“You mean you think I might be murdered?” Mary asked like a frightened little girl.
“I doubt it,” said Cooper. “But there’s no sense in taking any chances. Perhaps we had better report the whole thing to the police.”
“And have them think it is just an actress trying to work a publicity stunt?” said Mary. “They will think that you know.”
“I guess so.” Cooper dropped into a chair. “Tell me about this Barton Thorne, who was he and what happened to him?”
“He was an actor,” Mary said slowly. “We both started our careers together fifteen years ago. Just a couple of kids who wanted to go on the stage, and were lucky enough to get a break. We did a dance routine in one of those reviews with a lot of young people in the cast. After that I went in for dramatic acting and Barton kept on as a dancer.”
“And you were a success and he never amounted to much,” said Cooper. “That it?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Mary shook her head. “He was drowned while swimming at a beach in New England one summer about ten years ago. The body was never found.”
“Then there is no reason for his threatening your life, even if he was still alive,” said Cooper, getting to his feet. “That message must have been a joke. I’m going now, and if I were you I would forget all about it, Molly.”
She just sat staring at him as he went toward the short hallway between the living room and the front door of the apartment. For the first time she noticed that he walked with a decided limp. She heard the door open and then close softly.
“Ten years,” she thought. “I was eighteen then and Barton was twenty-seven. He did resent my becoming more successful than he was and told me so before he went to New England that summer.”
She remembered the note that had been found in Barton Thorne’s coat on the beach. He had evidently plunged into the sea fully dressed save for that coat, and in the pocket had been a suicide note addressed to her. “I’m a failure and you are a success, so this is goodby.” the note had read.
Mary stood up feeling very old and tired. Here she was the star of one of the most successful plays on Broadway this season, and only twenty-eight, yet nothing seemed to matter much.
She walked over to the large doll with the wide hoop skirt that stood on a table in one corner of the living room. She hesitated and then turned away. She picked up her fur cape and went into her bedroom. The apartment seemed strangely lonely, almost sinister. Her maid went home nights.
In the bedroom Mary undressed, got a nightgown and went into the bath and took a shower with the door closed. When she had finished she put on the nightgown and came out.
The phone rang and Mary went to it and picked up the handset.
“Hello?” she said. “Mary? . . . This is Tom Bradford . . . I don’t know why, but I have been worried about you . . . Everything all right?”
Mary glanced at the mirror of her dressing table as she listened to Tom’s voice coming over the wire. Suddenly a hand holding a large pair of scissors appeared from behind a curtain to her left. She screamed as the scissors cut the telephone wire near the base.
She dropped the phone and ran into the living room. She was standing in front of the hoopskirted doll a few moments later, when Lansing Cooper stepped out of her bedroom, the sharp pointed scissors still in his hand.
“I’m glad you didn’t try to get away,” he said as he moved nearer to her. “That you didn’t rush to the door and scream for help. I wouldn’t have liked that at all. You see I have planned this for a long time.”
“I know, Barton,” Mary said. “You see I really thought you were dead. I didn’t recognize you at first, your face is changed.”
“That’s right.” He nodded. “I was badly injured in a train wreck ten years ago after I faked that drowning in New England. Plastic surgery gave me a new face. I have been in South America for the past ten years. I didn’t want to come back to this country until the war was over.”
“You lied to me about having received a phone message, of course,” Mary said. “Made the whole thing up to frighten me. But why, Barton?”
“Because I want you to suffer as I have,” said Barton Thorne. He glanced at the scissors in his hand. “I wonder if your face was scarred and disfigured if you still would be such a great success, Molly.”