He bent instantly over the contents of the suitcase, examining something with almost frantic haste. And then he grinned widely. Merlini, a burning match halfway toward the cigarette in his mouth, stood motionless as granite and stared with a hypnotic concentration, as if trying, by some conjurer’s X-ray vision, to penetrate the sides of the suitcase and fathom its contents. He didn’t look as if he were having any great success. Gavigan seemed to be the one who was dealing himself aces now.
Then Grimm began speaking rapidly in the Inspector’s ear, in a fervent, excited whisper. What he said stimulated the Inspector even more—so much that I expected the ecstatic glow on his face would burst into incandescence at any moment. Once during Grimm’s recital he glanced across at me and grinned broadly. The man seemed not only to have cornered all the aces but the court cards as well!
When Grimm finished, Gavigan slapped the suitcase shut and said, “Are you all set for the grand finale, Merlini?”
Merlini brought the match up to his cigarette finally, just in time. Then he shook his head. “No. Not quite.” He turned to Sigrid and Gail. “Would you mind leaving us for just a moment? Thank you.”
They went into the library and closed the door. Merlini added, “I want to hear just one answer from Rappourt first.”
“Okay.” Gavigan beamed at him indulgently and waved his hand as if he were presenting the Metropolitan Museum with two new wings, fully stocked. “I don’t mind. Go get her, Grimm.”
“Just a minute.” Merlini stopped him. “Where is she?”
Malloy answered. “In her room. And boiling because Brady moved in with her.”
“And the others?”
“Arnold just went out to the kitchen. Domestic conference. Mrs. Henderson wanted to know how many for dinner. Watrous is lying down in his room says his head still bothers him—and Brooke’s in his, with Hunter on duty. Muller’s downstairs watching Lamb polish off the Scotch at that bar.”
“Very good. Do you mind if we see Rappourt in her room? And I’d appreciate it if Grimm would station himself on the sun deck outside and keep an eye on her window.”
It was Gavigan’s turn to look disconcerted now. But he shrugged and said, “Do that, Grimm.”
“And, Burt, you bring our friend, Mr. X.” Merlini started up the stairs. He reached Rappourt’s door first, pushed it open, and said, “Brady, will you station yourself in the hall here at this door, please?”
Brady, who was parked on the window seat with a newspaper, came forward quickly. Merlini stood aside and the rest of us filed in. Madame Rappourt sat in an easy chair as far from where Brady had been as she could get. She glowered at us and started to speak; but her mouth closed again, abruptly, without a word. Mr. X had entered.
“You know each other, I think?” Merlini said casually. Rappourt’s head started a negative motion, but Sandor burst out with a flood of what sounded like apologetic Hungarian. Rappourt’s black eyes snapped at him. Then she cut him off suddenly with a few biting phrases that I knew wouldn’t have been complimentary in any language.
Merlini didn’t give Gavigan a chance to take over. “That answers that question,” he said, his voice rising above its normal tones. “There is one other. You’re not going to like it at first, but I think you’ll answer it. As you can guess, we know how the footprints were made, and with whose help. We know what use you intended to put them to. We know that Watrous’s trick chair didn’t hinder your production of fraudulent psychic phenomena because there should have been two, with Brooke locked in the other. I know how the writing got on that slate. Instead of the more customary chalk, you used a well-sharpened slate pencil. Brooke did the writing by inserting the point through the loosely woven fabric of the bag. That accounts for the wobbly character of the writing. The sealing wax, the careful knotting and tying, and the signatures were merely so much misdirection on the general principle: Give the suckers so much to think about they can’t think straight. Also, we’ve found Floyd, and we know how he died. We know who moved his body and who, with a forged letter, tried to make it appear that he was still alive. We’ve found a suitcase full of 1779 guineas that are counterfeit and some very interesting Hussar relics that are genuine, but stolen. Do you have anything to say to all that?”
Rappourt simply looked at him. There was a defeated slump to her shoulders, but her eyes blazed.
Merlini, strangely enough, seemed satisfied with her attitude. “We’ve discovered more than that,” he went on, firing his words at her. “Something that even you haven’t realized. The poison that killed Miss Skelton was in the capsule you gave her. And it wasn’t scopolamine—or sugar. It was cyanide. And yet—” his voice slowed—“I think you believed you were telling the truth when you swore it held nothing but sugar. Do you see what that means?”
On Rappourt’s face fear sprang suddenly and mounted.
“Someone,” Merlini said carefully, “was trying to poison you, Madame Rappourt, not Linda. You should know who that was. You escaped the first time. You might not be so fortunate again—if that person remains at large. I think you had better tell us.”
Merlini stopped there, and waited. Rappourt was motionless. Her eyes flickered once across all our faces and then stared again at Merlini—and beyond him. She said nothing for a moment. Then, when I was beginning to fear she wouldn’t speak at all, her lips moved.
“I—” And she got no further.
Behind Merlini the dark window exploded with a brilliant crash! The sound was close, blasting.
I heard Rappourt’s scream and saw the round dark hole in the window pane in the same instant. Jagged, radiating lines surrounded it.
Gavigan thundered, “Get those lights, somebody!”
I saw the switch and jumped for it.
“Grimm!” Gavigan shouted. “Where the hell—” He pushed up the window, and then threw himself aside as another shot cracked, “The other way, Malloy. Quick!”
Malloy must have simply lowered his head and charged toward the door. I got a smack that left me gasping.
I heard the creak of a window sash and then Watrous’s voice, high, excited, crying, “There he goes!” Quick footsteps pounded on the sun deck, and the Colonel’s short figure dashed past the window making for the sun-deck stairs.
“The damn fool!” Gavigan said. “He’ll get—” But no more shots came. Gavigan went through the window then, and I wasn’t far behind him. Detective Grimm was stretched out, flat and quiet, several feet away. The Inspector and I looked down over the sun-deck rail and saw Watrous in the square of light thrown on the ground from the living-room’s large French window. He stopped and picked up something at his feet. He turned toward the trees. The thing in his hand spit fire, loudly. He fired twice and stopped. Gavigan started over the rail.
“Saw him in the tree,” Watrous said quickly. “He climbed down, threw away his gun, and ran toward—”
From the direction in which Watrous had fired, another shot came. And, as Gavigan and I landed together heavily on the ground, Watrous took one backward step that was never completed. He fell slowly, his body turning. Then Gavigan’s gun exploded.
The sound of running, retreating footsteps came clearly. Gavigan shot forward from his crouching position like a runner leaving the mark, hurdled the still body lying in the center of the yellow square of light, and ran toward the trees.
I reached Watrous an instant later and saw the dark liquid stain spreading across his breast. I pulled the gun from his limp fingers, and ran after Gavigan.
I heard his gun crack out again, and then suddenly we were on the boathouse path. Before us was a dark figure, running. It stopped briefly, two bright flashes flared back at us, and the figure vanished in the deep shadows at the side of the path. I felt my own gun kick back suddenly with solid force against my palm. I heard footsteps pounding behind us and Malloy’s voice, “He’s trying to make the boathouse!”
As my longer legs began leaving Gavigan behind, he said, “Sprint for it, Ross. Carter ha
s no gun!”
I did my best. I didn’t tell Gavigan that I’m a lousy shot. I was within 20 feet of the boathouse when I saw our quarry again. He jumped suddenly into view, crossing the open space toward the wooden steps that led down the 10-foot drop to the landing. He was going great guns as he reached the head of the stairs and then—he seemed to do an odd sort of D.D. Home levitation and immediately vanished, like Merlini’s half dollar, into thin air!
I put all I had into those last few yards. A glow of light appeared below me as I pulled up short at the head of the steps. On the boards at my feet, and trailing off down the steps, lay a length of rope. Carter stood just at the foot of the steps. He held a flashlight and was addressing a prone figure on the walk before him.
“The Great Indian Rope Trick,” he was saying. “Hope you liked it.”
Gavigan, breathing heavily, stopped beside me, looked, and then vaulted down the steps.
Carter looked up. “Got him, Inspector. Figured he’d head this way. Rigged a line across the top of the steps and pulled it tight when he arrived. First-rate somersault he did, too. But he landed wrong way up.” There was no sympathy in Carter’s voice.
Gavigan knelt down. I saw the shine of handcuffs and heard the metallic clicking of the ratchet as it was drawn tight. The still figure stirred slightly, and groaned.
“And that,” Gavigan said bitterly, “will be enough out of you, Mr. Charles Lamb.”
Chapter Twenty:
HANDCUFFS
AS CARTER PULLED LAMB to his feet, Gavigan said in an icy voice, “If you’ve done anything to Grimm or Muller that can’t be fixed—so help me, I’ll pull the switch at your hot-seat party myself.” And he meant it.
But Grimm seemed to be convalescent. We met him, running toward us as we started back. Quinn was with him.
“Muller?” Gavigan asked at once.
Their looks were both blank at first. Then they saw who was wearing the cuffs. Quinn turned wordlessly and sped back toward the house.
“Did he get Rappourt?” Gavigan asked.
Grimm shook his head. “No. Heard Merlini say it was a miss by nearly two feet.”
“Watrous have any chance?”
“No. He got it right in the ticker.”
“And what the blue blazing hell,” Gavigan bellowed, all his concern over Grimm’s welfare suddenly gone, “were you doing out on that sun deck? Taking a beauty nap?”
“I was not,” Grimm replied stiffly. “And I’d like to know just how this big cheese—” he indicated Lamb who was being pulled hurriedly along between Gavigan and Malloy—“managed to sneak up on me so damn quiet. One minute there wasn’t a soul in sight on that sun deck; I was watching the stairway, too. The next thing I knew, I saw stars, and then Quinn was trying to bring me out of it, and I heard someone shooting a long way off. I’ve got a beaut of a splitting headache, and I’ll forget about all those off days I’ve got coming if you’ll just let me take one good—”
“Maybe I will,” Gavigan broke in. “But save it. Here, help Malloy. I’m going ahead.”
He started off at a dogtrot, and I shifted into second along with him. He gave me a look, “That gun, Ross. Give me.” I did. “And don’t ever let that happen again, understand? Watrous’s prints and yours will have ruined Lamb’s.”
The house blazed with light and movement. Gavigan saw an open cellar window at the foot of the stairs, brightly lighted. He got down before it. “How is he, Gail?”
The Doctor’s voice said, “Still out. He got a whisky bottle over the head. Cut a bit. But I’ll have him around—”
A quiet voice from the steps above asked, “Catch him?”
“Yes.”
“Who?” Merlini asked.
“Lamb. I thought you knew.”
“What does he say for himself?”
“He doesn’t yet. He’s still out on his feet. Took a lovely header down the boathouse steps.”
“Odd gunnery score he chalked up, wasn’t it?” Merlini came down the steps. “Awfully inconsistent. Headquarters has been after you on the phone. Say they have a wire for you from Washington.”
The Inspector started for the side door. He’d gone nearly a dozen feet before he wheeled and asked, “What do you mean—inconsistent gunnery score?”
“Look at that. In the wall just above your head.” Merlini pointed with the flash he carried. Seven feet above ground level and perhaps a foot below the underside of the sun deck, I saw a dark core of metal protruding slightly from the center of a roughly circular, chipped area in the wall.
“Bullet,” Merlini said. “The tree’s 35 feet away from Rappourt’s chair. The first shot missed her by a good two feet—and she’s no small target. The second, as you see, missed even the window, 10 feet to one side and five too low. While the third scored a perfect bull’s-eye on the Colonel from a considerably greater distance. Wouldn’t you call that erratic?”
“Sure. But what’s it prove?” Gavigan didn’t wait for an answer. He disappeared into the house.
“Well, what does it prove?” I asked as Merlini turned to follow him.
“Misdirection, Ross. And lots of it. With curves, too.” He slid away from me.
Ten minutes later Gavigan stood in the living-room and watched Brady ink Lamb’s fingers and press them, one at a time with a slight sideward roll on a sheet of white paper. He took the paper almost before Brady lifted Lamb’s hand at the last impression. Placing it under the table lamp, he leaned above it with a magnifying glass. He looked from the prints to a photograph that he held in his left hand, and then back again.
Quinn, Gail, and Muller were still downstairs. Hunter was outside with the body. Everyone else, except the Hendersons, was in the living-room. Sigrid stood by the fireplace, her face white. Madame Rappourt, not quite as self-possessed as usual, sat on the davenport against the wall, an alert, thoughtful expression on her dark face. Ira Brooke leaned against the heavy cabinet radio in the corner. His hands were slowly tearing a paper match cover into small pieces. Arnold stood in the center of the room, his hands in his pockets, his teeth tight on the stem of his unlighted, unfilled pipe. They were all watching Lamb, whose gross, heavy movements were slow and painful. He put his hand to his forehead once, rubbed its back across his eyes and seemed surprised because the other hand came up with it. He looked vacantly at the steel that joined them as if seeing it for the first time.
Inspector Gavigan stood up at last, faced Lamb and said with deep satisfaction, “Charles Lamb, I arrest you for murder!”
Merlini, on the davenport near Rappourt, scowled sleepily and inquired, “For one, two, or three murders, Inspector?”
“For a couple of dozen,” Gavigan said. “Mr. Lamb happens to be otherwise known as Joe (The Boss) Garelli, retired gangster, racketeer, and ex-kingpin of the Chicago rackets. Front Street, Auckland, New Zealand, my eye! That address was just to give us something hard to check.”
Sensation! That was the mildest word any paper would use. I made a half movement toward the phone.
Arnold said, “But didn’t they find Garelli on the bottom of the Chicago River a year or so ago with his feet in a tub of cement?”
“You shouldn’t believe all you read in the papers,” Gavigan replied. “The Boss had made his pile and wanted to get out. Mobs don’t accept resignations. Besides, some other people figured that part of the dough he was taking with him belonged to them. But he thought he was smart. He picked out someone else to take the rap, same general description. Filled him with machine gun slugs, a lot of which messed up the face. Dropped him in the river. I’ve always wondered why the hands were missing and how come he went in at a spot where the body couldn’t very well have been expected to remain undiscovered—right where some divers were doing repair work on a bridge foundation. He had to have the body found, you see. So his pals would stop trying to trace him.”
“What tipped you off, Inspector?” Merlini didn’t seem sleepy any longer.
Gavigan turned to him. “Headq
uarters got the pilot of the plane that high-tailed it out of here this morning. You knew Lamb was the guy that was waiting for it as well as I do. No clothes in his room, no shaving stuff, no nothing. What happened to them? Obviously he’d packed up. He had the stuff with him in a suitcase; and, when he saw the police launch coming and saw he was going to miss his plane, he ditched it. Leach’s been looking for it up at the other house, but no luck. Lamb added a couple of rocks and dropped it in the river probably. Novak could get it, but I won’t need it. The pilot was Curley Branner.”
“The guy who used to pilot the Boss’s bullet-proof plane and who disappeared about the same time! I’ll be—” That was Grimm, speaking out of turn, unable to help himself.
Gavigan let it go. “There was a little matter of some hair straightener, hair dye, and some freckles that washed off, but the identification was positive. Lamb here didn’t need to wear any false whiskers. It wouldn’t have done him much good anyway, with his beef. But he’d allowed for that from way back. Always awfully shy of photographers; and they were damn shy of him after a couple that tried to shoot him, got shot themselves—only with another kind of camera. The Mystery Czar of Crime, the magazine articles called him. He’d seen to it that even among his pals only a very few knew what he looked like. But he had one spot of tough luck. He was so sure the F.B.I. didn’t have his fingerprints. He had always worn gloves, even to bed. He didn’t know that silver—” Gavigan grunted oddly—“silver nitrate can pick up fingerprints off fabric. The Washington boys managed to snake one of his gloves. They got part of a thumb and half an index print off the glove, at the edge where he’d pulled them on. His valet should have done that for him, too. The F.B.I. rushed his prints up by telephoto. I’ve pinned down four points of similarity in the thumb and six in the forefinger. I only need two more, and, if the boys at the lab can’t dig those up when they start checking fork angles and ridge lengths, I’ll turn in my badge.”
Footprints on the Ceiling Page 22