by Jerry eBooks
I scrambled to my feet and dived off the stairway at Roberts’ crouching body. Roberts sidestepped and I sprawled on the concrete. The skin peeled off my palms and I felt warm blood.
There was more light now, or else my eyes were getting used to the dark. Roberts grabbed the chair and hurled it across the room toward the paneled wall. I knew what he was trying to do—break the circuit on the electric eye and open the paneled wall as a means of escape.
I lunged at him in desperation. I heard the chair shatter against the wall. Something slugged out of the dark and slammed into my skull. Pinwheels flared in my brain. I folded up like an accordion and went down on the concrete floor.
In my dizzy brain I heard a crash like two locomotives meeting head on. And then I laughed like a crazy man—and everything went black . . .
Three hours later I sat in a chair in my office and acted like a hero while Marge “oh-ed and ah-ed” all over the place with her eyes bugged out like headlights in the rain. She shaved a little patch of hair off the welt of my skull where Roberts’ gun butt had raked it. And then she stuck a strip of tape on my noggin.
“Isn’t it thrilling?” she purred. “You solving two murders right under the noses of the police! Tell me all about it.”
“There wasn’t nothing much to it, Sugar,” I said. “When I went down the stairs after Roberts I flicked a switch. When he slugged me and threw the chair to open the paneled wall, it didn’t open because I had turned off the electric eye. In the dark he ran into the wall and knocked himself colder than a can of last year’s mackerel. It was easy for Morf to put the cuffs on him.”
“Why did Roberts kill Dilweg?”
“I told you. Roberts was flimflamming the old man out of a hundred grand a year with his phony Handicap Haven. Dilweg found it out, gave him thunder and threatened to expose him. So Roberts killed him.”
“Why did Roberts kill Elkins?”
“Elkins knew Roberts was guilty of murder, and tried to blackmail him. Roberts had to kill him, too.”
“Mrs. Lilli Franner. Where does she fit in?”
“We found out more about her. She’s been married four times. But her maiden name was Roberts. Yeah, she was Roberts’ sister. In addition to his Handicap Haven racket Carson Roberts was the unknown publisher of a matrimonial sucker paper on the Q.T. in East St. Louis. Roberts got Lilli into Dilweg’s house thinking maybe she could charm the old man into marrying her. Dilweg didn’t go for that. So Lilli and Roberts settled for the six grand they milked out of Elkins. We even got Elkins’ six grand back from Roberts, excepting a thousand he gave to Lilli for her share in the swindle.”
“How about Briggs?”
“He was a sap that fell for a dame. But the soldier, Hobson, will do all right. We found out Dilweg had had his lawyers looking all over the armed forces for Hobson. They were always a step behind him. In the old man’s will, he set up a trust fund for the guy—all the profit from the oil well he sunk on the kid’s land.”
Marge moved around and I saw things in her eyes that I’d never seen before.
“I think you’re wonderful,” she whispered down my neck. “Everybody’s happy.”
I held my head in my hands. “Everybody but me. I told homicide it was their headache. But I lost two hundred bucks when Dilweg was bumped off. I lost two hundred more when Elkins kicked the bucket. Morf got his name in the paper. Hobson got a barrel of money. All I got was crude haircut with a gun butt. Looks like homicide’s my headache.”
“Would this do for an aspirin?” Marge said, and she kissed me square on my big mouth.
Three days more and it’ll be legal for her to boil my coffee and burn my toast.
CLUE IN TRIPLICATE
Ray Cummings
It was a case of murder for art’s sake!
AS Randolf Hoag started for home, walking along the moonlit, palm-lined south Florida road, he had everything timed perfectly. He had left the millionaire Blaine, and his wife just a few minutes after ten-thirty. They would remember it. The big clock in their luxurious foyer had chimed the half-hour, and Hoag had mentioned the beauty of the clock. He would be home just before eleven, walking normally. It was barely two miles to the bungalow where he lived with old George Karney.
Hoag was excited; not frightened, not even apprehensive. Just excited, with a tense, taut feeling inside him. One gets excited, on the brink of the culmination of ten years of planning and dreaming.
At twenty-five, when he had first realized that he could never be a famous painter, he had decided to become a wealthy and successful art dealer. He would have his own galleries, perhaps on Fifty-seventh Street in New York City. His reputation would be international. Why not? He had begun dreaming of it, planning it. And now it surely would come true. Tonight, when old George Karney was dead, the road would be clear before him.
Hoag was Karney’s secretary, and his agent in the buying and private selling of paintings, which was Karney’s hobby. He was also Karney’s companion, his valet, his chauffeur. Hoag was just about everything to the frail old man who was always in delicate health, and so shy that he was almost a recluse. For several years now, Hoag had made himself invaluable to his employer. Karney had been an important stepping-stone on the path of Hoag’s planned career. Then suddenly the old man had become a stumbling block, a menace that had to be removed.
All his life Hoag had done everything with careful planning. Now, at thirty-five, with the calmest deliberation, he had decided that he could eliminate Karney without the least danger to himself. He reviewed his plan as he walked briskly along the edge of the white sand road.
It had shocked him, when first he had contemplated the idea of killing. He was not a man inclined to violence. Quite the reverse. He flattered himself that he looked like a wealthy art dealer. He was a smallish, dapper fellow, always impeccably dressed, suave, sophisticated, charming of manner. The idea of killing Karney was shocking. But it became less shocking as he pondered the necessity of it. He was reminded of Pope’s lines,
Vice is a monster of so hideous mien,
As to be hated, needs but to be seen.
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
IT had been that way with him—that first time he had yielded to the temptation of juggling the sale price of one of Karney’s valuable canvases, and keeping a few hundred dollars out for himself. Then it was so easy to do it again; and to pad the purchase price of a Goya he had bought for Karney last year. A dozen little things like that; and Hoag had never thought that the fussy, shy, impractical old man whose mind mostly was on his health would ever suspect the secretary whom he seemed to trust so implicitely.
But suddenly now, without saying a thing, Karney was carefully checking all the records of his affairs which Hoag kept for him. It could be jail for Hoag—or at best, because the world of art is a small little circle, Hoag’s reputation would be ruined, his career forever wrecked.
With Karney’s death, there would be the reverse. A small legacy would came to him from the will. He understood it would be about eight thousand. He had another ten thousand saved up. And, with the old man out of the way, no one in the world would ever question the false inventory of his holdings which Hoag had prepared. He could easily purloin a Turner, two of the Goyas and several others, the purchase of which had had no publicity. They would yield thousands more when, in a few years, he sold them.
Randolf Hoag was all set to start off on his own in a fairly big way. There was just this thing to do tonight. He planned to keep it simple. He knew how he could plant a clue that would give him a perfect alibi. It was a clever conception—twin clues. Clue in duplicate. The police would find not one, but two clues. Evidence that of course could not be questioned.
It was ten fifty-five when Hoag arrived at the bungalow.
“That you, Randolf?” the old man called. “Come on in. Did you see the Blaines? Think you can sell ’em much?”
“I’ll be
right in,” Hoag called.
Karney was in his study down the wide dim hall. The little revolver with its silencer, was in Hoag’s bedroom, locked in a bureau drawer. He had been able to get it secretly so that its ownership could never be traced to him. It was loaded, ready.
He went quietly to his bedroom, put the little weapon into his jacket pocket. His mind was clicking with clear precision. He had planned every move of this so that there could be ho possible fumbling.
George Karney was seated in a big easy chair, by the table in his study. He was a thin little man, with a pinched face and straggling gray hair. The lamp on the table shed its glow on him, on the book he was reading. The windows of the small room had Venetian blinds. Hoag’s swift glance verified that they were down and closed.
Karney’s big chair was close against one of the blinds, with the table at the side of him. A little bottle of wine stood on the table. He took a sip from his glass and smiled at Hoag.
“Sit down, Randolf,” he said. “Tell me all about it. Did you describe the Goya nude to them? Are they interested at that price?”
“Yes,” Hoag said. “I gave them a good pep talk. They’re interested all right.”
He didn’t sit down. His mind was on the time. It was almost eleven o’clock now. Queer that he should be so breathless inside! His hand went to his jacket pocket for cigarettes. It bumped the little revolver. His fingers tightened convulsively on its handle, then relaxed.
“Well, go ahead—tell me all about it,” Karney was saying.
This millionarie, Blaine, whom Hoag had just interviewed, was new to the South Florida colony. He had bought a tremendous home. He was a retired steel executive, and he and his wife had become patrons of the arts—a little boost to get Mrs. Blaine into the proper society. Karney had sent Hoag there to interest them in buying some paintings.
“They don’t know much about art,” Hoag said. He smiled ironically. “But they’re willing.”
It occured to Hoag how easily he could have been on that mission, representing himself, instead of being Karney’s agent. That was the way it would be in a year or two now. People like these Blaines could be made to yield fifty thousand or more for a single painting.
“You concentrated on the Goya?” Karney asked. “That Goya nude of mine hasn’t had the publicity of Goya’s ‘Nude Duchess’, but it’s a finer work. You told them that?”
“Yes. Sure I did.”
HOAG’S mind was hardly on what he was saying. There was just a vague chance he had been wrong about Karney’s suspicions. He must find out now, definitely. And suddenly it seemed to Hoag, now that he was faced with this thing, that desperately he wished he could avoid it! He pulled in his breath.
“Something I wanted to ask you, Mr. Karney,” he said. “Aren’t you satisfied with the way I keep your books?” He hadn’t meant to say it like that. It had just slipped out.
Karney’s eyebrows went up. He looked startled. He took another sip of his wine, as though to give a moment’s thought before he answered. Then his eyes had narrowed. He seemed suddenly taut, wary.
“Why do you ask that?” he said.
“Well, I don’t know,” Hoag said. He knew he was blundering. It seemed impossible to say anything, without perhaps arousing Karney’s suspicions if none as yet existed. “I—I just got that impression,” he stammered. “I’ve seen you poring over the books, sort of—well, I mean—”
What difference did it make what he said? In his heart he knew that Karney was going to find it out. And if there had been any doubt, it was now suddenly dispelled.
“You mean checking on things, Randolf?” Karney said crisply.
“Why, I—”
“You’ve told me now what I want to know,” Karney said with abrupt brusqueness. “That guilty look. I imagine you think you’re clever, but you’re not.” Hoag stood leaning against the door casement. The feeling of sudden confusion that swept him was frightening. His brain shouldn’t be like that. It was always clear, precise. Those thoughts swept the background of his mind as he heard himself stammering:
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“That’s the trouble! You do!” Karney’s anger seemed rising with his words. He was sitting forward in his big padded chair. His little gray eyes were flashing. “I wasn’t going to speak of it till I was dead sure! Well, I am now! I’ve trusted you, Randolf. That’s what makes me so mad about it! I trusted you so absolutely. And all you were thinking was what a fussy, silly little old man I am. Well I’ll show you quite a bit different!”
Why wait? He knew it now! Why wait?
Hoag’s hand was in his jacket pocket. But still he stood there numbed, fascinated with horror. And then he knew that his hand was out of his pocket, leveling the gun. Karney saw it. His jaw dropped.
“Why—why, are you crazy?” he gasped. “Randolf! Put that—”
The plup of the little report through the silencer mingled with his gasp. He was trying to get out of his chair. Hoag knew that his outstretched hand was shaking. The shot had missed! The bottle of wine split and crashed.
“Don’t let him attack you!”
The wild crazy thought, as though little Karney were some horrible, fearsome antagonist, leaped at Hoag as he aimed again. That did it! The second shot struck Karney in the head. He was partly out of the big chair and he wilted back, twitching. Then he slumped over the big padded chair arm with his arms hanging down and his head dangling.
He was alive for just a moment with that bullet in his brain. Then he was gone!
The end of it. Really so simple! So exactly as Hoag had planned. He stood panting, still gripping the weapon, with the room reeling, and with cold sweat breaking out all over him.
But there was nothing to be afraid of now. He told himself that, over and over, until in a moment, his logical triumph conquered his terror. He had had a bad panic, facing Karney, arguing with him. But that was over now, and the road was clear before him.
Hoag wiped off the handle of the gun and dropped it to the rug. Just two things to do now—arrange his duplicate clues.
Karney always wore an expensive wrist-watch. It was on the wrist which now was dangling over the chair arm. Hoag took out his penknife and, with the butt of it, smashed the watch crystal. Carefully he set the hands back, to exactly 10:30. He made sure that the watch was not running.
Now the duplicate clue. There was a radio near the chair and table. A small electric clock stood on the table. The cord dangled down one side to the floor, and then connected with a base socket in the wall by the floor a couple of feet away. It was a double socket. Both the radio and the clock were plugged in there. Carefully Hoag knelt down. He twitched out the clock cord. The clock stopped, and he set the hand back to exactly 10:30.
THE murder time! The detectives would not be able to miss it. Karney’s watch had been broken as he was killed, and the killer had stumbled over the clock cord, pulling out the plug. Two little things that had happened which would place the murder time clearly, incontestibly at a time when Mr. and Mrs. Blaine would remember that Randolf Hoag had been with them, admiring their big clock in their foyer, nearly two miles from where George Karney had been killed.
There was nothing else to do here. With a last look around, Hoag went out the door, closing it after him. The door had a spring lock, which locked it when it closed. The upper half of the door was of glass, with neat little curtains. Hoag stopped to verify that the body lying in the chair could be seen through the slit of the curtains. Then he went to the telephone in the foyer and called the police.
His voice was shocked, breathless, as he told them he had been with Mr. and Mrs. Blaine, and had just come home, and found that George Karney was lying dead in his locked study.
Half an hour later he was telling the police his carefully rehearsed story.
“Well, Sergeant, as I told you on the phone, I left the Blaine’s about halfpast ten,” he said quietly. “I happen to remember the time, because I had noticed it when I ha
d been admiring an extraordinary beautiful big clock in their foyer. I—”
“Okay, I understand,” the police sergeant interrupted.
He was a big fellow, this Sergeant Stevens. He seemed impatient, gruff, but he was friendly enough.
Hoag had waited in the foyer with his hat in hand after calling the police, and Stevens and a few other uniformed men had come in a few minutes. They had forced open the study door, taken a look around, and telephoned for the County Medical Examiner and for Stevens’ superior. The study was a blaze of light now, with policemen poking around.
They weren’t chimb, these policemen.
“Looks like it happened at ten-thirty,” one of them said.
“And the electric clock stopped, same time,” Stevens said. “Killer must have got his feet tangled in the cord.”
They didn’t comment on the fact that at that exact time, Hoag had been in the Blaines’ foyer, two miles away. Why should they? He wasn’t under suspicion.
Or was he? It startled Hoag to find that they didn’t want him standing around in the study. He stood at the door, smoking, watching, listening. Stevens was over by the body, which still lay slumped in the big padded armchair. He and one of the men knelt down on the floor. They were partly behind the table, between it and the big window where the Venetian blind was pulled down. They seemed to be looking at something down there.
Looking at what? They didn’t touch it, they just looked. Then they were whispering. It all sent a queer little pang of apprehension through Hoag. But he told himself that was foolish. His alibi was perfect. He had established it, and it was so obvious that no one had even mentioned it.
“Something—interesting over there?” Hoag suddenly heard himself asking.
Stevens shot him a look. “Yeah,” he said in his laconic fashion. “Guess so. Tell you later.”