by Jerry eBooks
They were whispering again. Stevens took out his watch. Two of them looked at it with him. Queer. They all seemed waiting. That was queer, too. Waiting for what?
The big sergeant seemed to be bending over looking at his watch for an eternity. Then he got up, began poking around the room again.
For a minute he stood by the radio. He looked at the little electric clock.
Its hands marked 10:30. Nothing was wrong, yet somehow Hoag was frightened. Terribly frightened. It was suddenly as though all these tense waiting men were hostile, menacing.
Why didn’t somebody say something? What in heaven’s name were they stalling around for?
“Is there anything I can do to help, Sergeant?” Hoag asked.
“Not a thing,” Stevens retorted.
That seemed to make one of the other policemen laugh, a short, ugly, ironic laugh.
Five minutes passed. Ten. An eternity more. Then at last Stevens was checking his watch again, and another policeman was down on the floor behind the table. They whispered.
“Yeah, that does it,” Stevens said. “We sure got him!”
“You—you’ve got some ideas on the thing?” Hoag heard himself murmuring.
HE didn’t want to say anything. He was trying to keep quiet. Above everything he must not look guilty! This could just be some bluff to frighten him. It was impossible that Randolf Hoag, who always had prided himself on having a calm, logical mind, should find himself just the reverse in an emergency.
Karney had told him he looked guilty! He was looking guilty now, and he knew it.
And then the grim Sergeant Stevens was confronting him.
“We’ve got you dead to rights,” Stevens said gruffly. “You with your phony clues! One of those wise guys, huh?”
The room swayed around Hoag. “Phony clues?” he stammered.
“That ten-thirty business,” Stevens said. “So you got a perfect alibi! Sure you were at the Blaines’ at ten-thirty! Who said you weren’t?”
“You—what you mean by that?” With a desperate effort, Hoag got his wits to working. “Of course I was there. Are you trying to tell me that I’m suspected of killing Mr. Karney? Is that it?”
“That sure is,” Stevens retorted. “Karney’s wrist watch got broken when he was killed? How did it get broken? There was no struggle here. Karney was in the chair—a big, heavy, padded chair. The killer was over by the door and shot him in the head. He slumped in the chair, slumped over the big padded chair arm. So what did that handsome, shock-proof wrist-watch hit that stopped it and broke its crystal?” Stevens snorted vigorously. “I’ll tell you what it hit! Not a blasted thing. The watch didn’t stop till the killer smashed it himself for a phony time clue!”
But there were two clues! A duplicate clue.
“That little electric clock,” Hoag murmured. “It also stopped at—”
Again one of the policemen laughed.
“Sure it did,” Stevens said. “But did the killer stumble over the cord by accident? He did not! You say a Mrs. Blake is housekeeper here?”
“Why yes,” Hoag stammered. “She goes home at suppertime each night. What has she got to do with it?”
“She doesn’t dust the place often,” Stevens said. “There’s a lot of dust on the furniture here. You can just about write your name on the top of the radio. That clock is standin’ there, and you can see by the dust it hasn’t been moved. Nor the cord that dangles from it either. Now how can anybody stumble over an electric cord down on the floor, pull the plug out of the socket without moving the top end of the cord? It just can’t be done! Want to try it and see? The clock would probably be pulled right off the radio! Or slued around anyway!”
The numbed Hoag could only stare blankly.
“So that’s the second of your phony clues,” Stevens added inexorably. “You gave a careful twitch of the cord, and pulled out the plug! Then you reset the clock, as you did the watch.”
“That’s a lie!” Hoag gasped. “Maybe somebody else did all that! I didn’t!” He fought to steady himself.
None of this proved that he was guilty. It was all negative. Just the same as though no clue had been left at all.
“You don’t know what time the killer was here!” he cried defiantly. “It could have been any time!”
“But we do know!” Stevens cut in. “As it happens, you left a real authentic timepiece! Take a look.”
They were shoving him up to the window, behind the table and the body in the chair.
“Two shots were fired,” Stevens was saying. “The first missed him, hit that bottle of wine, knocked it onto the floor here.”
How well Hoag remembered it! And how little he had thought of it! The broken bottle of claret was lying now close under the window—a little crimson pool of wine into which the thin white cord of the Venetian blind was dangling.
“Any liquid is drawn up into a fabric by what they call capillary attraction,” Stevens said. “See it there—nice red wine, climbing up into a white cord?”
Hoag saw it—the dangling white cord with its bottom segment stained red by the climbing moisture.
“Queer thing about capillary attraction,” Stevens said conversationally. “It proceeds always at a uniform rate. You can’t argue with a timepiece like that. And we’ve been timing its rate of climb. In the last fifteen minutes it’s risen one-fifth of its total! And the correct time now is twelve-fifteen. Any kid in school could figure out when it started. Eleven o’clock! And that’s when you phoned us that you’d just discovered the murder! Talk yourself out of that one, Hoag!”
But Hoag could only stand in mute horror. Clue in triplicate! Two so obviously phony! One so obviously fatal! Randolf Hoag knew then that murder is a tricky thing to pull off with safety!
POP GOES THE QUEEN
Bob Wade and Bill Miller
Death plays the uninvited guest on the quiz program vacation of the Conovers, who must know all the answers—or else!
ODELL walked hesitantly toward the office. His right hand was plunged into the coat pocket of his brown suit. It clutched a crumpled telegram.
The barrel of the .32 under his left arm still felt warm.
He knocked. A man’s bass voice rumbled, “Come in.”
The office was big and leather-fitted, with a huge desk backed up against the plate-glass window. Outside the window were the stucco buildings of Azure. In the distance, the Salton Sea mirrored the sunlight. “I was wondering what had happened to you,” the man behind the desk rumbled.
Barselou was massive. Careful grooming played down the height and weight and boldness of feature. His pale blue sports suit was tailored by a creative artist. The jet hair was kept carefully combed back. Barselou was shaved twice a day and powdered to reduce the dark cloud about his heavy jaw. But his mouth was pleasant and his colorless eyes picked up the blue of his suit.
These eyes transfixed Odell. “What’s happened?”
Odell slid the telegram across the desk to Barselou. The big man read it silently.
MEET ME IN LAS DUNAS HOTEL PRONTO PER ARRANGEMENT WON POT ON QUEEN HIGH STRAIGHT
It was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. John Jones, General Delivery, San Diego.
There was no emotion on the stony face. “Let’s have it.”
“It’s Anglin. It’s the doublecross. After he reported to you this morning, he went to the telegraph office. That’s the wire he sent. I used my deputy sheriff’s badge to get a copy.”
Barselou wadded the paper. “Then he’s found the Queen—no matter what he said.” He asked softly, “Where you holding him?”
Odell shifted uncomfortably. “Well—I lost him.”
Barselou stood up quickly. “You let him get away?”
“He knew I was on his tail. I tried to stop him. I shot at him but I—”
Barselou flattened both palms on the desk top. “Odell, if you’d killed Anglin I’ve have broken you in two. I’m not going to lose the Queen after all I’ve spent tracking her down. You did go
od getting that telegram. But don’t start thinking for yourself.”
BARSELOU scowled out at the twilight view of Azure. It spread out before him, sloping away till the grayish-brown desert blended into the deep blue of the imprisoned sea. Now the heavy shadows of the Santa Rosa Mountains were darkening the white, buff and lemon of Azure’s pseudo-Spanish architecture.
Azure. The Winter Paradise.
He had visualized before its birth the town that now spread out like a gaudy carpet from the Santa Rosa foothills. In the center of the town was his business office, the Azure Development Company. Its assets included Azure’s biggest movie theater, the only department store and a multitude of restaurants, bars and other tourist businesses.
Odell stirred uneasily. “What’s the next step?”
Barselou wheeled slowly, his anger gone. “Find Anglin. Alive. Obviously, Anglin has found the Queen and he’s trying to sell her address to somebody else.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Jones, huh?”
“Find Anglin, before he gets to the Joneses, whoever they are.”
“I’ll bring him in—in one piece.”
Odell leaned against a corner of the desk. He was padded enough not to feel it. Around town he was called “Little B,” a smaller edition of Barselou. Actually, he bore little resemblance to his employer. Where Barselou was impressive, Odell was as unimposing as an erasure.
“How about the Joneses?” he asked.
Barselou sat down. “A couple from San Diego checking into Las Dunas this evening shouldn’t be hard to spot.”
* * * * *
“Welcome to Azure, sir. And now if you’ll please put your John Henry right here . . .”
The thin desk man spun the registration card around. The guest wrote, “Mr. and Mrs. John Henry.” After a pause for effect, he added “Conover.”
John Henry was no taller than average, with shoulders that were inclined to stoop and a body that was inclined to fat. Wavy brown hair and pleasant. But his chin was strong and moved forward indomitably oftener than John Henry realized.
He was dressed all in brown—sport coat, slacks, loafer shoes, and open-neck shirt.
Gayner, the assistant manager of the Las Dunas, smiled professionally.
“Your bags, Mr. Conover?”
“They’re in my car.”
Gayner struck a chime hanging on the stucco wall behind him and a boy in a maroon field marshal uniform emerged from a junior jungle of potted palms.
“Vernon, Mr. Conover’s baggage.” Gayner flipped him the car keys.
“It’s in the first row of your parking lot. Green sedan.”
John Henry looked around for St. Clair. She was backed against one of the ornate pillars, nodding her burnished red head, but wearing a fixed smile as she listened to the woman who held her in conversational captivity. John Henry sauntered over.
“Darling!” St. Clair said. “You took so long.”
“Sorry, Sin.” He smiled at the other woman. She was past thirty and imperatively blonde. Her blue eyes hinted shrewdness.
“I’d like to present my husband—John Henry,” Sin said. “This is Mrs.—oh, yes, Loomis.”
“Miss Loomis,” the blonde corrected. “Thelma Loomis.”
“How do you do, Miss Loomis.”
“I thought I recognized your wife, Mr. Conover. I’m with Fan Fare”
Sin explained, “That’s a movie magazine, darling. Miss Loomis writes for it.”
“Well,” said Conover. “That’s nice.”
“Gossip stuff,” Thelma Loomis said in a machine-gun voice. “Features on the stars—marriages, divorces, love and the atom bomb.” Miss Loomis, it seemed, had made a mistake. “A natural one,” she maintained, “considering how attractive your wife—did you call her Sin?—is.”
“That’s a nickname,” Conover explained for the thousandth time. “Her name is St. Clair.” The British pronunciation made it Sinclair and usage made it Sin. Sin never minded. The nickname fitted her—even in the simple beige traveling suit mussed by the San Diego-Azure ride.
THE THICK hair, to her shoulders, was nearly the color of a cherry coke. Sin’s face was piquant, but not so pretty as it was surprising. Her skin was a clear and delicate bronze that contrasted disquietingly with slanting green eyes. Her happy mouth kept Sin from being completely sirenish but still added up to a picture of lighthearted deviltry.
“I have to be on the qui vive for any of the Hollywood clan,” Thelma Loomis was saying brassily. “So I’m a lobby-haunter.”
“All we did was win a quiz contest, Miss Loomis.” Sin began telling all about it. She had been one of the contestants on the Be Bry-Ter Quiz Show in Hollywood. “The jackpot question was to identify a quotation—and I did.”
“So here we are with a free vacation,” chuckled John Henry.
“What was the quotation?” Thelma Loomis scribbled some shorthand.
“I can’t remember,” Sin said plaintively.
John Henry came to his wife’s rescue. “She can’t remember now. Honest, Miss Loomis. That’s the way Sin’s memory works.”
Baggage clattered on the red-tiled floor. Vernon panted gloomily, “I’ll show you to your cottage now.”
Sin was ready but the writer was after her. “What does your husband mean about your memory, Mrs. Conover?”
“Oh, it isn’t much.” The redhead was getting annoyed. “A party trick mostly. I remember nearly everything I read, that’s all, until I’ve once repeated it.”
John Henry started his wife toward the glass doors. He put an end to the conversation with an over-the-shoulder, “Glad to have met you, Miss Loomis.”
Thelma Loomis put her little notebook into the pocket of her yellow linen dress. A glance across the lobby and her eyes sharpened.
A man in an immaculate white suit was sitting militantly in an armchair. He watched Sin sway down the steps with interested gray eyes. His hawk face was deeply tanned and in vivid disparity to his silver hair. A white sun helmet was perched on the arm of his chair.
And behind his shiny mahogany counter, Gayner gazed after the Conovers until they had wound out of sight along the flagged path. Only then did he bring his eyes back to the registration card before him.
Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Conover. San Diego.
He picked up the telephone, spoke to the operator.
“Give me Mr. Barselou, please.”
CRICKETS chirruped like traitors every place but where Anglin stepped across the grass in the rear of the Las Dunas. Weirdly muted, came the sound of the orchestera in the Oasis Room.
The wound in his shoulder had opened again. The blood trickled down over his hand. Odell had been smarter and faster than he looked.
It was a good thing the cottages were white stucco. They strung out for him to count. He couldn’t read the numbers because the moon hadn’t shown up yet.
“Nothing better go haywire,” he growled.
He wanted to get rid of the whole thing and clear out. The tenth cottage. Just four more to go and he could deliver the goods and vanish.
Ah, here it was. He stepped confidently up to the blue wooden door. From inside came the murmur of voices and a little light seeped through the
Venetian window blinds onto his dirty leather jacket. Anglin was a squat man with skin as weather-beaten as his clothes. He braced himself against the white stucco and shook his foggy head. His calloused hand left a smear of blood.
He squeezed the door handle and stepped into the small living room. Light came from the open door to the bedroom. Beyond that somewhere, a man was singing.
A woman spoke from the bedroom, her voice startled.
“Who’s that?”
She was as jumpy as he was. But she ought to be better trained. He told her in a low voice, “Shut up, for the luvva Mike.”
Anglin could see her now, standing before the dressing table. The brush she’d been punishing her red hair with dropped from her hand to the thick rug.
He hadn’t expected to know he
r. The big boy used different girls for different operations. This one was a looker, but why didn’t she catch on?
“Get out!” she whispered. “Get out or I’ll scream.”
“Quit it,” he said, leaning wearily against the door jamb. “Where is he? I got it for him.”
“If you don’t get out, I’ll call the police.”
What was she talking about, anyway? “You’re from ’Dago, ain’t you?”
She nodded.
“Then for the luvva Mike get him.”
Her glance went to the phone beside the bed. Anglin put his hand in the pocket of his leather jacket, so when she looked back at him, he held the little black automatic in his horny palm.
“I don’t know what you got in mind, sister. But I ain’t got much time.”
Behind the closed bathroom door, the man began to sing again. Anglin gestured with the gun.
“Get him.”
“What are you going to do?”
He felt dizzy as the room swam around. He brushed the woman aside and rapped the muzzle against the door panel.
“Okay, okay,” said the singer inside.
Anglin threw the bathroom door open and stood staring. The man inside was a young fellow, not too big but stocky, and his body was faintly pink from a vigorous fowling. He wore blue rayon shorts.
“What the heck!” he said.
“Oh, Johnny be careful,” the girl quavered.
Something was screwy here. The advance arrangements had been specific about their cottage number. The only unknown had been the when and Anglin had wired that this morning. Was this more of Barselou’s bunch?
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled and began to back toward the living room door. “Reckon I made a mistake.”
The stocky young man moved forward. “What’s this all about?”
“Never mind, son. I—” Anglin opened the door and stumbled off the porch onto the soundless grass.
MR. TRIM came back to his booth.
“That was my company long-distance,” he apologized. “Business. I’d never be able to afford a place like this except on business.”
“Oh, is that so?” Thelma Loomis commented.
She really should ask the little bore what his business was, but she’d been asking questions all day and was tired of it. She was watching Sagmon Robottom.