by C. Daly King
He pressed the point of the key over the lock’s surface with his left hand, exerting slight pressure along the key’s shank with his right thumb and forefinger. At last the door was open. He prepared to climb into the compartment.
Behind him a figure hurried, noiseless in the snow, around the tail of the transport. An upraised hand and arm. A blow. Lord sank silently beside the ’plane.
The figure pushed the prone body before it, slightly out of the way under the fuselage; but not before it reached into the detective’s pocket and procured his flashlight. Then it climbed into the baggage compartment, leaned over Cutter’s body strapped to the stretcher. The compartment was pitch black. The movements were hurried but careful. Again a raised arm, a jabbingly lowered hand, this time.
Not until then was the light, so hazardously obtained, used. Dim behind it, the figure played the flash over the surgeon’s body, giving it a close inspection. And straightened with an abrupt exclamation . . .
Part IV – Cerebration
6200 FEET
The junior pilot came down the cabin. He was grinning. The stewardess still stood in the little space behind the chairs. ‘Good girl, Margy,’ the pilot said. ‘You sure brought us luck that time, kid.’
She was white and she was trembling a little, now that the landing had been made. She said, ‘I – I didn’t think you were going to make it, Hal. I guess – ’
He shot a warning glance toward the passengers, now stirring in their seats, getting out of the safety belts. He leaned down, bringing his lips close to her ear as he squeezed a cold little hand. ‘Didn’t myself for a bit, kid.’ Then he kissed the ear.
Marjorie Gavin blushed violently and jumped to one side, but did not forget to squeeze back with her hand. ‘Go along, boloney. You just did it to scare me. I know.’ However, her appearance was completely transformed. She smiled a real smile and pushed the pilot toward the door.
He looked out, preparing to jump down. ‘What the hell’s this?’
Beside the entrance the figure of Lieutenant Philips lay on its back in the snow. Lovett sprang out, lifted the flyer’s head with an arm around his shoulder, just as Lannings’ face appeared in the doorway above. ‘Hey, “Happy,” he’s fainted. Exposure, I guess; he’s practically green. What did he come out here for, anyhow?’
Between them the pilots lifted the fallen man and began carrying him slowly across the frozen ground toward the little house of the keeper at the edge of the field. Not until they had laid him on a sofa in the small front room did they notice the paper still clutched in his hand. Lannings loosened it and read the dampened message.
‘H’m. He’s got a message from Captain Lord here; must have seen him. Where the dickens is Lord, anyhow? Lord!’ There was no answer to his shout, and the pilot regarded the message doubtfully. ‘He must have given it to Philips to have it sent. I think this ought to go out.’
Lannings stepped into the tiny office and put the wire on the Teletype while Lovett chafed the lieutenant’s wrists, administered brandy and made him as comfortable as possible by loosening his clothing. The passengers from the ’plane commenced straggling in.
Lannings came back into the stuffy little room. ‘Well, folks,’ he announced, ‘we may be going up again presently, unless the snow is too deep on the field. This is the funniest storm I’ve ever seen. Looked like a blizzard half an hour ago, and now Parco reports on the tape that it is clearing rapidly there.’ He peered through a window. ‘Not coming down as heavily here now, either, I’d say.’
They stood about, most of the passengers huddling around the stove in the corner, although the room was warm, even hot. On the sofa Lieutenant Philips had regained consciousness and was struggling up on one elbow. ‘Take it easy for a few minutes, Philips,’ Lovett adjured him.
Lannings looked around the room; everybody was present except Lord. ‘Where the dickens is Captain Lord?’ he demanded again.
No one answered. Then Philips said, massaging his stinging hands, ‘I saw him. He was the first out of the ’plane. He gave me a message to – ’
‘Yes, that’s all right. I sent it while you were still out. But where did he go then, after he gave it to you?’
‘I haven’t a notion. I think he went up toward the nose of the ’plane, but I didn’t watch him particularly. He seemed to be in a hurry. I must have fainted almost as soon as he left me . . . My God!’ cried the flyer suddenly. ‘What are all these people doing here? Captain Lord told me especially not to allow anyone off the ’plane except the pilots and the stewardess. He was emphatic about that.’
‘I don’t get it.’ Lannings shook his head in puzzlement. ‘You say he went toward the nose of the ’plane. But what for? And where could he have gone, then? There is nothing around this field but wilderness. There is nothing he could have gone for.’
Dr Pons spoke up. ‘Maybe he went to look after Dr Cutter’s body. In the baggage compartment.’
‘But it can’t have taken him all this time to look in there. Where the dickens could he have gone, then?’
‘I think,’ said Pons, ‘we had better go take a look for him. Come on, let’s go.’
At the doorway, just as the pilot and Pons were stepping out, Michael Lord came staggering up through the now thinly drifting flakes. ‘We were just going out to look for you . . . Man, what’s the matter with you?’
The detective made a negative motion with one hand; he wanted to save his breath. He came into the room and leaned heavily against the wall beside the doorway. ‘Who’s not here?’ he snarled.
Lord’s appearance contrasted entirely with the calm he had exhibited during the previous journey. He had no hat, his clothes were wet with the snow he had lain in. On the side of his head there was an ugly bruise, from which a small trickle of red disappeared underneath his crushed collar. His eyes held pain, and his expression was angry and menacing.
Someone said, ‘Everybody is here.’
‘Who came in last?’
Apparently no one knew. Pons asked, ‘What is it all about, Michael? You look as if someone had hit you.’
‘You’re damn right someone hit me,’ grated the detective. ‘Someone knocked me out at the door to the baggage compartment, and then someone went in and murdered Dr Cutter.’
Everyone in the room appeared thoroughly astonished. ‘But – but he was killed this morning,’ Fonda gasped.
‘Hell, no. He wasn’t killed then. That was a specially prepared bulb I gave him, all right, but it didn’t kill him; it just put him in a trance.’
A chorus of bewilderment greeted the terse statement. ‘In a – ’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘But – I’m going out – ’ Alone of those present, Dr Pons seemed not entirely amazed. ‘I thought there was something phoney about this set-up all along,’ he murmured to himself. He nodded his head sagely.
Isa Mann repeated, ‘I’m going out to him. Are you sure he is dead? How was he killed?’
‘Stabbed,’ Lord answered bluntly. ‘You’re going nowhere, and neither is anyone else. The lot of you are staying right here.’ He turned to the army man abruptly and snapped: ‘And what the hell happened to you, Philips? I told you to let nobody off the ’plane. If you had tended to business this wouldn’t have happened.’
The lieutenant said in a low voice, ‘I’m sorry. I fainted.’
‘Is that so? Isn’t that queer?’ Into the detective’s jumbled thoughts swam notions of foreign spies in the American Army. ‘Sure you didn’t follow me around the ’plane, pull the job and then come back and fall in the snow?’
‘That’s not fair, Lord,’ Lovett protested. ‘He came out there when he was just about all in, to thank us for getting him down to the field. I saw you go out the cabin door as I was coming down the aisle. It was less than a minute when I got out myself and found him unconscious beside the ’plane. He was out all right; it took us over five minutes to bring him around after we had gotten him to this house. He couldn’t have done anything.’
Lord looked
at the two flyers with eyes that were clearing. ‘Give me some brandy,’ he demanded. He gulped the drink, shuddered involuntarily as the hot liquid went down his throat, pulling himself together. When he spoke again his voice had returned to its normal tone. He addressed the two flyers on the sofa. ‘I see. That let’s him out, all right. Rather a wild idea of mine, I guess. Sorry, Philips, old man; it’s pretty plain you couldn’t help it.’ He paused a few moments, then looked appraisingly around the small room, confirming for himself that everyone who had been in the ’plane was present. ‘All right, ladies and gentlemen,’ he continued grimly. ‘I’ve been bluffing so far on this trip, but I’m not bluffing now. If I have appeared to consider matters lightly, it was because nothing outside my own prearranged plan had happened. What about my telegram to New York?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I wrote out a message that everything was O.K., but probably that hasn’t been sent if Lieutenant Philips fainted.’
Lannings spoke up from the window through which he was watching the storm. ‘It’s gone, Captain. As I recall it, it said, “Everything O.K. according to plan.” I found it in Philips’ hand when we brought him in here. I put it on the Teletype for you . . . Looks as if it was out of date already. If you want to send another, it can go back to Cheyenne on the Teletype any time you say.’
‘No, I guess not. Not right now, anyhow; there will be plenty of time for that later. Now,’ Lord went on, ‘up to the time we landed here no crime had been committed. A crime has been committed now, and the crime is murder. Let me make it perfectly plain to all of you that from this point on I’m not fooling . . . We’ll be here for the night, I suppose, Lannings?’
The senior pilot shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t know. It’s certainly letting up some now; and farther west they report it practically clear. If the snow stops presently, and if we can clear a track across the field, we may be able to go on again in a few hours.’
‘H’mm . . . Well, the first thing is obvious anyhow. I intend to interview everybody separately, and find out where they have been and when. Is there a room in this house I can use for the purpose?’
It appeared that the little house boasted three rooms: the one where the passengers were now gathered, and from which the entrance door gave access to the field, and, opening off this to the left and rear respectively, the tiny office with its Teletype machine and weather instruments, and a fair-sized bedroom. Lord chose the bedroom for his investigations.
‘I’ll take the pilots first,’ he announced from the doorway in the rear wall. ‘So they can be free to make any arrangements they want about our going on.’
Neither Lovett nor Lannings, however, who went in after him, could supply any information of value. They had been the first out of the ’plane after the detective; they had found Philips in the snow and carried him to the house, where Lannings had sent off Lord’s telegram. By the time this had been done, and Philips had shown signs of returning to life, a number of the passengers had already arrived, but neither of the pilots had noticed exactly who was present and who absent. ‘I don’t think either of the girls were here then,’ Lovett contributed; and Lannings added, ‘Nor the big man with the grey hair. I’m not really sure, though.’ The one point on which they were certain was that no one had left the cabin of the ’plane before they did.
‘All right,’ Lord acknowledged, making a few entries in his open note-book. ‘If that’s all you can tell me, then that’s all. Too bad,’ he murmured, ‘because you two and Pons are the only ones I can completely trust. And the stewardess, of course. By the way, do either of you happen to have known Miss Gavin for any time? I can trust her, I suppose?’
The senior pilot said nothing, but Lovett was emphatic. ‘You bet you can, Captain. Margy’s a swell kid, and bright as they come. Anything she says goes.’ The flyer’s face took on a slight flush, and Lord noted in his book, ‘Lovett – Gavin (?)’
‘O.K. Thanks. That’s all just now, then. Send in Philips, will you please?’
The army man limped in and sat down on the bed, but his testimony was even more meagre than that of his fellow pilots. Apparently he had fainted at almost the very moment when Lord had left him beside the ’plane. He could only say that when he had come to on the sofa in the front room there were a good number of people already there from the ’plane, but he was not acquainted with the passengers or their appearance, and was unable to make any conjecture as to the individuals who may not have been in the room.
‘Who is that man in the corduroy trousers and the mackinaw?’ the detective asked.
‘That’s the field keeper, I guess.’
‘I see. Ask him to step in here for a few minutes, will you?’
Lord looked up as the keeper shuffled into the room. He was an awkward, ungainly man of middle age and plainly upset by the unexpected invasion of his accustomed solitude. He advanced from the doorway, halted, stood first on one foot, then on the other, obviously ill at ease.
‘Come in,’ the detective invited with a friendly smile. He pointed to the recently vacated bed. ‘Have a seat. It’s your mattress, after all. Will you let me know your name?’
‘Ginty.’ The man sat down gingerly on the very edge of the bed.
‘All right. My name is Lord. What can you tell me about this situation, Ginty?’ ‘I dunno. Reckon I can’t tell you much, mister. What you want to know?’
‘Well, first, let’s see where you were. Did you come out to the ’plane when we landed?’
‘Naw.’
‘I see. Have a cigarette, Ginty?’ Lord extended his pack, and the keeper took one. He snapped a match alight with his thumbnail and took a long draw on the detective’s Piedmont. The diversion appeared to put him somewhat more at ease. ‘Where were you when we landed, then?’
‘I was standing in the door to the house. Didn’t want to go out on the field and get hit when you come down.’
‘And you stayed here all the time?’
‘I’ll tell you, mister. It’s thisaway: At eight-twelve I got a message on the tape to floodlight the field, that 90 wanted to land. The snow has bolluxed up the radio somehow. So I lit up and went to the door to watch for you. I seen your flare. Then first the little ’plane come down; and then you come down after it. So I went in and sent a “PX” off on the tape sayin’ you’d landed. When I got back, and started across the field toward you, I seen the pilots comin’ across carryin’ someone, so I jest helped them bring him in and put him on the sofa.’ Ginty drew a deep breath and expelled it in a loud sigh after his lengthy speech.
‘I suppose you know the exact time when we landed? You put the time on the teletype, don’t you?’
‘It was eight-twenty-eight, mister.’
‘And then what did you do?’
‘Then I hung around. The senior pilot come into the office to send off a message on the tape, and I come in with him. I was lookin’ out of the window while he was sending it, but I couldn’t see the ’plane across the field for the snow. It’s way down the other end, far away as it can get. Then I come back in the front room with him, and I been there ever since.’
‘Now tell me this, Ginty: When you came back into the front room from your office, was anyone else there besides the three pilots? Had anyone else come in yet from the ’plane?’
‘No, but a couple of gents come in just after we went back to the front room. And then pretty soon the rest of them come in.’
‘You wouldn’t know who the first two were, would you?’
‘Naw.’ The keeper shook his head, then his eye brightened. ‘But the first one had a funny tie, like a black muffler, and his pants and coat was different.’
‘Bellowes,’ said Lord. He thought a moment. ‘Do you remember what time it was when Lannings sent off that message for me from your office?’
‘Sure, I know that. I know them tape times by habit. It was eight-thirty-six.’
Lord wrote in his note-book: ‘Bellowes arrives house 8.37 (keeper). Some other man behind him.’ He looked up again
. ‘And that is the only one you noticed, the man with the black tie?’
Ginty scratched his head. ‘Yes, I think so.’ He seemed to be struggling with some further memory. ‘Oh, yeah; I seen a woman comin’ along through the snow when I was lookin’ out the office window.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Yep, I seen her all right coming across the field . . . But that’s all, I guess.’
Into the note-book went: ‘Woman approaching house, 8.36 (keeper).’ But that was all, for the keeper had now been induced to part with all the information he possessed.
Isa came in stiffly and sat down stiffly at the foot of Ginty’s bed. She spoke before Lord could say anything. ‘I want to go out and see my uncle. It is possible that if he has been stabbed there may still be something that can be done for him.’ Her lips were set in a straight line, and to the detective it appeared that she was labouring under a considerable stress.
Lord answered her quietly. ‘I am sorry, Miss Mann, but that is quite out of the question. I don’t want to upset you further with an account of the details, but, if it will relieve you at all, I can assure you from the nature of his wounds that Dr Cutter is beyond any help whatsoever.’
Isa said in a dead voice, ‘It’s terrible. I thought he had been killed this morning; but to find out that he was really all right, and then to have this other – ‘ She stopped abruptly.
‘You were closely attached to your uncle, Miss Mann?’
‘No . . . No, I am not “closely attached” to anyone; but I admired him; and it is imperative that he should get to Reno. For the divorce. Anne will never go through with it unless she is pushed. You don’t know my mother.’
Lord admitted his lack of acquaintance with Cutter’s sister by a nod. He said, ‘Naturally, I am in the dark about that, but I take it you are anxious, at any rate, to assist me in finding out who stabbed him. Will you please tell me exactly what you did from the time the ’plane landed until you reached this house? You realise that, by checking everyone up, I may be able to make some progress toward the criminal.’