by Jerry eBooks
“He’s asleep. Whatever you have to say, you can say it to me. I’m his niece.”
I looked at her and suddenly knew why her face had seemed so puzzlingly familiar. It was a family resemblance.
“So you’re Gerald Cartwain’s sister.”
“Yes. I’m Sylvia Cartwain.”
“Put down that gun,” I said gently as I could. “I’ve got bad news for you. Your brother is dead. He’s the man your chauffeur murdered.”
Her cheeks went pale and she leaned against the stair rail.
“You—you’re joking.”
“I wish I were.”
She came down the last four steps, walked toward me.
“I don’t believe you,” she said tightly. “This is some monstrous lie.” Then, when I shrugged, she said: “Where is his—where is the body?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
I told her the whole story then, bluntly and quickly, and sparing her none of the details. I explained how Gerald had been knifed in the limousine, how Nixon had subsequently slugged me and escaped, somehow taking the corpse along with him.
“And now I’d better talk to your uncle,” I finished.
Dully she indicated the staircase. “His room is the first one to the right on the second floor. I’ll stay here and take care of Lora until the police come.” She looked at the still unconscious maid. “Poor Lora. No wonder she fainted when she heard you accusing Judley.”
“Nixon. Edgar Nixon. The Judley was an alias.”
“It doesn’t matter. Whoever he was, he and Lora were engaged to be married.”
In itself, this was a piece of information that interested me, because it clashed with the pattern I had formed in my mind. It was a wrong note, jarring, having no place in the picture.
But beyond all that, I thought of Sylvia Cartwain herself as she told it to me. There was something fine and selfless about this blue-eyed girl, a quality of character as shining as her golden hair. Grief-stricken and stunned by the murder of her brother, she could find strength to subordinate that grief in her sympathy for a servant. In my work you don’t often encounter people like that.
I suppressed an impulse to reach out, touch her hand. Instead I turned and went upstairs, found my way to the first door on the right in the upper hallway. I knocked, softly.
From the inside came what sounded like a low groan.
I RAPPED louder and the groan was repeated, distinctly. There was no question about it this time. I was hearing a man in trouble, in pain. I tried the knob, found the latch unfastened and gave the door a quick shove. The bedroom before me was dark, and once again came that deepchested groan.
Fumbling at the wall just inside the door, I located a light switch. Flipping it gave me illumination from an overhead fixture. I stared toward a big four-poster bed across the room—and at the elderly man on it. A man bleeding from a stab wound.
He was former Senator Cartwain.
Shaggy and leonine in flannel pajamas, he lay massively on a crumpled pillow; a giant of a man with an unruly mop of cotton-white hair and a heavy-jarred face gone flabby in the jowls. Over his right eye socket there was a black patch. The left eye looked milky and rheumily opaque, leaving no doubt as to its blindness.
His pajama jacket was drawn up away from the shallow gash across his ribs, and the bed covers were stained bright crimson. He rolled and tried to sit up, turning his head and cocking his ear as I went toward him.
“You son of a witch,” he said faintly. “So you’ve come back to finish me.” He made a groping gesture. “Old and blind and weak as I am, if I could get my hands on you I’d—”
“Hold on a minute, Senator,” I said, keeping out of his reach. “I’m not the one who stabbed you.
He strained his sightless face toward me. “I know that voice. You—you—”
“Don Palmer. I worked for your committee in the Senate. Investigator. Never mind that. Who knifed you?”
“Palmer,” he said, ignoring my question. “Palmer. Yes. Yes, of course. Now I remember.” His tone grew a little fuller, more resonant, with a hint of the oratorical quality he had put to such good use in his Washington days before his defeat for reelection. “Don Palmer. That profiteer case—and Nixon. Nixon, that sneaking, sniveling, cowardly—” The resonance faded, and Cartwain sagged against the pillow. “My side . . . ah-h-h—”
“Who did it?” I almost shouted at him. “Who stabbed you?”
“Bathroom,” he mumbled, and flapped a hand in its direction. “Bandages—iodine. Do something—stop bleeding.”
I raced from the room, raced back to the bed, and rolled the elderly man over on his side so I could get to the knife slash. One look told me it was painful but not serious. The blade had cut an ugly furrow but not a deep one.
I used a wet cloth to sponge away the blood, then poured iodine liberally. Cartwain winced, moaned. I slapped a pad of gauze against him, fastened it with strips of adhesive tape.
“Nowwill you tell me who knifed you?” I growled at him. “For heaven’s sake, Senator, talk!”
“He came in—the window over there—must have climbed—up the portico.”
“Who? Who was he?”
“I tried to—fight him off—but he cut me—and went back—-out the window. Nixon—Edgar Nixon, lawyer—Washington trial. He called himself Judley, chauffeur, but I recognized him—when it was too late.”
I sprang to the open window Cartwain kept mentioning. Rain was blowing over the sill in little gusts, and the carpet beneath was damp. Outside in the night there was a flat rectangle of roof with an ornamental balustrade around it. It was the roof of the portico below.
Nobody was on this roof, though, and if there had been footprints they had long since been washed off by the downpour.
It wouldn’t be too difficult for a man to shinny up one of the portico’s pillars, climb over the balustrade, come in the window and later get away by the same route; not too easy—but not too hard for a criminal with vengeance on his mind and murder in his heart.
“When was it?’ I went back to the bed. “How long ago?”
“Five minutes—ten—I don’t know. I tried to call out. I—wasn’t able to make anybody hear.” He broke in on himself, “Whatwas that?”
I’d heard it, too—a muffled scream, then a thud.
It came from downstairs.
Then a door slammed.
I started out of the bedroom, fast.
“Stay where you are, Senator,” I said over my shoulder, and I sped to the staircase, hurled myself downward three steps at a time.
A WHILE ago, I had left the maid, Lora, unconscious on the floor of the reception hall with Sylvia Cartwain looking after her. Now the taffeta-clad brunette was gone and Sylvia lay sprawled in her place, an ugly bruise on her temple.
“Judley!” She managed to whisper as I ran to her. She still thought of the chauffeur by that name rather than Nixon. “He came in, took Lora away. I tried to stop him—I tripped, fell.”
Outside, a car motor roared alive and wheels spun on wet gravel, seeking traction.
Then the treads caught hold and the machine thundered off, gone before I could get to the front door.
I went sprinting out into the storm, trying to reconcile this new development with the things I had already learned. The driveway stretched in a graceful curving slant ahead of me from house down to street, but the limousine I had left parked there was no longer in view. I cursed myself for leaving the key in the ignition, then I realized that Nixon would probably have had a duplicate in any event.
A crazy urge took hold of me, an urge to dash in pursuit of the vanished car. In the grip of this blind, unreasoning impulse I lowered my head to the pelting rain and ran toward the rear of the grounds where there was a garage building with the servants’ quarters above, like an old-fashioned plantation coach-house.
Surely, I reasoned, a family as well off as the Cartwains would own more than one automobile. After all, Marcus Cartwain
was said to have retired from politics with a comfortable bank balance. Moreover, I recalled that young Gerald Cartwain and his sister had inherited a fair-sized fortune which was under their uncle’s trusteeship, a fortune which likely would be entirely Sylvia’s now that Gerald was dead.
I WAS right about the extra cars. I found two in the garage—a convertible and a station wagon, the latter spattered with rain-drops as if recently driven. Its instrument panel heat indicator needle, too, was up above the pin. But there was no key.
And none in the convertible, either.
By that time I had come to the realization that it didn’t matter anyhow. Nixon had too big a start on me. There wasn’t the remotest chance of overtaking him.
Dripping wet again, I went back into the mansion—and in a night full of surprises, I found still another surprise awaiting me there. A sort of combination den-library was located just off the reception hall on the left, and Sylvia Cartwain had recovered sufficient strength to totter in there, and to throw herself onto a leather upholstered davenport.
That wasn’t what startled me, though. It was the sight of blind, hulking Marcus Cartwain bending over her, solicitously groping, trying awkwardly to comfort her.
CHAPTER IV
House of Menace
MARCUS Cartwain’s vitality was enormous. He had put on a robe over his bloodstained flannel pajamas, and in spite of the weakening effects of the stab wound in his side he had fumbled his way downstairs to be with his niece when she needed him most. His heavy face was gray, almost to the whiteness of his unruly hair, and he turned his head as I came into the room.
“Who’s that?” he asked sharply.
“Don Palmer.”
I went over to the davenport, looked down into the blonde girl’s misty blue eyes.
“Are you all right, Sylvia?” I said. It didn’t even occur to me that I should have called her Miss Cartwain.
“I—think so. I was j-just telling Uncle Marcus about—Gerald.”
Cartwain’s massive hands bailed into fists, impotently. “That swine Nixon!” Then, more calmly: “How did it happen?”
“Gerald came to meet me at the airport and sent Nixon in to get me. When he took me to the car, Gerald was already dead.”
I repeated what I had previously explained to Sylvia—how the chauffeur had later knocked me senseless, and how he and his victim’s body had been gone when I came to.
Cartwain’s lips moved, almost soundlessly as they formed the question. “You’ve notified the police?”
“Yes.”
“Then why aren’t they here? Why don’t they come?”
I glanced at my wrist-watch. “It was only ten or fifteen minutes ago that I phoned,” I said. “They wouldn’t despatch a radio car here. They probably short-waved every cruiser in the neighborhood to keep moving, keep on the lookout for Nixon. What they’ll do is send us a squad from downtown Homicide, experts to ask questions, lift fingerprints, things like that.”
“I don’t like it,” he said, peevishly querulous. “That Nixon must be a madman! First killing Gerald, then attacking me and coming down here, knocking Sylvia unconscious—”
She patted his arm. “I tripped, Uncle Marcus. He didn’t knock me unconscious. He just grabbed Lora and said the police were after him, and they’d have to find a place to hide, start life all over again. I ran at him and stumbled. He never even touched me.”
“He might have killed you. He must have planned to wipe out the whole family! And here we sit without police protection—me blind, not knowing when he may come sneaking in again to knife us in the back!”
“But Mr. Palmer is here, Uncle Marcus,” Sylvia said. She smiled at me wanly.
I wondered if there might be a little irony in that. Thus far I had done little protecting of the Cartwains. I had arrived too late to save Gerald from death, the Senator from a wicked gash across the ribs, and Sylvia from a bump on the head. I seemed constantly to be one step behind these attacks, and I had a feeling that danger still hung over the big Colonial house, menacing, ominous and gathering force to strike again.
As long as this feeling persisted, I didn’t intend to let the blonde girl out of my sight until her brother’s murderer was under lock and key. Meanwhile, there was something I wanted to know.
“Senator Cartwain,” I asked, “why did Gerald have my agency send me down here from San Francisco to see him? What was it he wanted me to investigate?”
His heavy face twisted bitterly. “It was something that I considered a lot of arrant nonsense. You see, I had received several threats—”
“Uncle Marcus!” Sylvia said. “You never told me!”
“No. Gerald didn’t want to worry you, and as for me, I thought the whole thing was poppycock. A couple of anonymous phone calls, an unsigned letter—why, that sort of thing is commonplace to any man in public life. I’ve been threatened more times than I could count, and nothing ever came of them. How was I to know it was my own chauffeur getting ready for a spree of killing?”
“So Gerald wanted me to look into the threats, is that it?” I asked.
“Yes. And I suppose Nixon decided it was time to act, before you could trace the messages to him. So he stabbed Gerald, knifed me—”
“That’s a lie!” a low, vibrant voice said from the doorway of the little den-library.
I whirled, stared. Then, slowly, I put my hands in the air.
I WAS getting pretty tired of looking at guns being pointed at me by attractive young females, but I raised my hands anyhow. The girl in the doorway was Lora, and she had an expression in her unwavering dark eyes that warned me she would shoot if she was forced to.
On the davenport, Sylvia gasped and pressed against her uncle as if trying to shield him. I stood motionless, studying the brunette maid, and studying the stubby .32 automatic in her hand. It was my own Colt, the one Edgar Nixon had stolen from me when he had knocked me senseless on the way from the airport. Nixon must have given it to Lora.
But why was she back here in the house? What insane errand had brought her?
“You got away once,” I said. “You should have stayed away.”
Her body shivered under her rain-soaked, clinging black taffeta uniform.
“Stayed away on what? It takes money. I have some coming to me. I want it. I want my wages. They’re past due.”
“And Nixon’s?”
“His, too.”
“Was he afraid to come in himself?”
“You ought to know.” She glared at me. “You’re the one who accused him, framed him for something he didn’t do. But don’t think you’ll make it stick. You won’t even catch him. We ditched the limousine. And before I came back in here, we made sure the police hadn’t arrived yet.”
“They’re here now,” I said. “Right behind you.
Old as the trick was, she believed my lie and pivoted in panic. It was what I had hoped she would do.
The instant she moved, I launched myself at her. I didn’t have to worry about the gun now. While it was pointed at me, I didn’t stand a chance, but as soon as she started to turn it made the gamble worth trying. Springing, I got my hands on her shoulders. My weight bore her to the carpet, and I pinioned her there.
“Nice bait,” I said.
She writhed, squirmed. “Let me g-go!” Then: “Bait?”
“I’m going to hold you,” I said. “Maybe Nixon will get tired waiting. Maybe he’ll start to worry. Maybe he’ll come in to find out what happened to you. Then I’ll have him.”
Abruptly she stopped struggling. “No,” she said in a curiously quiet voice. “Don’t do that. You won’t have to. He didn’t kill Gerald.”
“Didn’t he?”
“No.” She sighed wearily. “I did.”
“Lora!” Sylvia Cartwain cried out sharply in a shocked voice.
Her uncle made a blind, groping gesture, his face registering disbelief; or perhaps it was disillusionment.
I had no illusions to lose. I got up, hauled the
maid over to a chair, installed her and stood over her.
“So you murdered Gerald. Why? What was your motive?”
“He promised to marry me. He reneged.”
“Wait,” I said. “You and Nixon were engaged.”
“Nixon can worry,” she said cynically. Too cynically. “It was Gerald I wanted. It was Gerald I thought I had. At least he had me. The heel. He could twist a woman around his finger. He made me believe he loved me. Me, a servant, a maid. And him rich, high society, a Senator’s nephew.
Or anyhow a former Senator’s. I guess it flattered me. Anyhow I fell for his line.”
“And Nixon?”
“I was just stringing him along for kicks.” She was hard about it. She overdid the hardness.
“So when it came time for wedding bells, Gerald backed out,” I said. “Is that the way of it?”
“That was how it was. And when he went to the airport tonight to meet you, I followed him: I waited until he was alone, sitting so high and mighty in the limousine. I killed him.”
“You say you followed him. How?”
“I drove.”
“In one of the other family cars?”
“Yes. You think I’ve got a car of my own on my wages? Wages two months overdue?”
“Which car did you drive?” I said.
“The—” She hesitated. “The convertible.”
I picked up my gun from the floor where she had dropped it. I beckoned Sylvia Cartwain, and when the blonde got up from the couch I handed her the weapon.
“I’m going to phone the police and see what’s delaying them. Keep Lora covered with this.”
“You don’t have to keen me covered,” Lora said. “I’ll take my medicine, just so you keep Nixon out of it. He’s innocent.”
AS IT developed, I didn’t have to phone Headquarters, either. Just as I went toward the reception hall phone, the doorbell rang. I answered it and admitted three plainclothes detectives out of Homicide. They had a fourth man with them, a thin man in a wet, badly fitting topcoat—my topcoat, covering a brown, soggy whipcord livery.
The law had caught up with Edgar Nixon.
One of the detectives was a man I had known in my earlier days on the Coast, before the war—a sinewy little lieutenant named Otto Kleinstadt. He had a face as narrow and sharp as an ax, eyes like gimlets.