Dark Tunnel

by Ross Macdonald

  When I reached the fifth floor, I could see from the head of the stairs that Alec’s door was open, throwing a cone of light across the hall. When I reached the door, I saw that one corner of the ground-glass pane in it was broken. I stood in the doorway breathing heavily, and looked into the room.

  The green-hooded lamp above the desk was on, and it cast a greenish light over the woman who was sprawled on the floor beneath the window. I went to her and saw that it was Helen. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was quick and light. It looked as if she had simply fainted. I straightened her out on her back, pulled her skirt down over the bare gooseflesh of her thighs, and let her lie. As long as she stayed unconscious I didn’t have to tell her.

  When I stood up, I noticed that the receiver of the telephone dangled on its cord from the shelf below the lamp, hanging almost to the floor. It was swinging slightly, making little clicks against the corner of the desk. Just as I reached for it, I remembered fingerprints and got down on my knees to put my ear against it where it hung. I could hear nothing, not even the dial tone. Then I heard voices, very faint as if from a long way off, like voices on a record-player when the tube has blown out. I could not understand what they were saying. The rustling voices ceased and I stood up again.

  The only sign of a possible struggle besides the dangling receiver was the broken glass in the door. But I had heard the crash. Helen must have broken it to get into the office after Alec fell. Perhaps she heard him fall, perhaps she had even seen the Schneiders running away. Or was it Peter Schneider alone?

  I stepped around the woman on the floor to look at the window. The lower half was open, a single steel-framed pane about four-feet square that opened at the bottom and swung outward from the top. The top corners of the pane slid down oiled grooves in the upright sashes at the sides when the bottom was pushed out, so that when the window was wide open, it formed a horizontal plane midway in the four-foot square, supported by steel arms. The window was only partly open now. The outswung pane formed an angle of about thirty degrees with the vertical sashes where it met them at the top, leaving room for Alec to have crawled out at the side and jumped from the concrete sill.

  But the window was not wide open, as it would have had to be if Alec had been pushed. He had not been dead or unconscious when he fell: he had yelled and thrown up his arms. Had the Schneiders partly closed the window after pushing him out? I had seen nor heard nothing. And why had they turned on the light?

  I remembered the light in the window on the fourth floor beneath Alec’s office, and a sudden doubt took hold of me. Had Alec been pushed from the Dictionary office? I had been taken by surprise in the dark, and with my glasses broken, I could be mistaken about the window.

  I ran down the stairs to the fourth floor. The door of the Dictionary office was open and the light was on. All the windows were closed and fastened. The door to the inner room where the files were kept was open and I glanced in. It was dark and there was no sound. I turned out the light in the outer room and went back to Helen.

  Her breast was rising and falling more slowly and regularly. I put my ear to it and heard her heart beating strongly. I wet my handkerchief at the drinking-fountain in the hall and wiped her face with it. Her eyelids fluttered and she began to stir.

  Then, for the first time, I thought of the police. To avoid touching Alec’s phone, I went down the hall to my own office to call them. The Lieutenant at the desk said he’d come right over himself, and I told him to bring a doctor for Helen.

  I went downstairs to let the police into the building. When I opened one of the glass doors at the front, the police car was drawing up to the curb. Two men in dark uniforms got out and came up the walk and mounted the steps. They walked quickly but laboriously, as if every building were a tomb.

  “My name is Branch,” I said as they came up between the pillars. “I just called you.”

  “I’m Lieutenant Cross,” said the wider of the two policemen. Their backs were to the light from the street and I couldn’t see their faces. “This is Officer Sale.”

  “Did you call a doctor for the girl?”

  “Yeah, this is probably him now.” Cross jerked his head at a car that had just turned the corner. “Go and get him, will you, Sale?”

  Sale went to the car that had stopped at the curb and came back with a middle-aged man in a camel’s-hair coat and a dither.

  “Dr. Rasmussen,” Cross said to me. “I guess you better look at the body first, doctor, just to make sure.”

  “Very well, Lieutenant. Where is it?”

  I took them through the building and out one of the back doors.

  “You said the dead man’s name is Judd,” Cross said. “Is that the Judd on the War Board?”

  “Yes.”

  I could see the body on the sidewalk, lying as still as if it had always been lying there.

  “There he is,” I said.

  The policemen turned their flashlights on the dead man.

  “Jesus,” Cross said, “he certainly is mashed up.”

  The doctor squatted down by the body, drawing his light coat up around his hips so its hem wouldn’t draggle in the blood on the sidewalk. He stood up shaking his head:

  “He was dead the minute he hit the sidewalk. Did he jump from the roof?”

  “Fifth floor,” I said. “But he didn’t jump.”

  “From that window there?” Cross said, pointing at the lighted window of Alec’s office.

  “Yes. That’s where the girl is.”

  “Oh, yes, the girl,” Rasmussen said. “I’d better get up there. Nothing I can do here.”

  I unlocked the door, which had relocked itself, and the doctor followed me in.

  “Second from the end on the fifth floor,” I said. “The light’s on and you can’t miss it. I think she just fainted, and she may be conscious now.”

  “Right,” he said, and started up the stairs. I went out to the sidewalk where Cross and Sale were still standing.

  “What happened to the light on the corner of the building?” Sale asked. In the light of the lieutenant’s torch I could see that he was a tall man of thirty or so with a sallow skin and a broken nose.

  “What light?” said Cross.

  “This is the way I go home and there’s always a light here. On the corner.” Sale turned his flashlight on the corner of the building. The light was there all right, and the bulb was in place.

  “We’ll look at that later,” Cross said. “Maybe it just blew out.

  He turned to me. “You got any idea how this happened, Mr. Branch? You said he didn’t jump.”

  “I saw him fall from that window. I think he was pushed. I know he didn’t commit suicide.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I knew him. He wasn’t the kind of a man who would kill himself, and he had no reason.”

  “That you knew of?”

  “He had no reason. I talked to him on the telephone half an hour before this happened.”

  “Oh, you did? You say you saw him fall. Where were you when he fell?”

  “Walking on this sidewalk. About where you’re standing.”

  “You say you think he was pushed. Did you see somebody push him?”

  “No. I didn’t see anybody. I simply know that Judd was not capable of committing suicide.”

  “The damnedest people do,” Cross said. “What did he say on the telephone?”

  “He wanted me to come over here.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “No.” I wanted a more receptive audience before I brought the Schneiders in, and I had to have a talk with the president of the university.

  “Where does the girl come in?”

  “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her. She was Alec’s fiancée. She must have been in the building and heard him cry out when he fell. She broke into his office and looked out of the window and saw him down here on the sidewalk and fainted.”

  “Jesus,” Sale said. “Tough on her.”

 
“You’re not accusing her of pushing him?” Cross said.

  “Of course not,” I snapped. “They were going to be married. This thing is going to ruin her life.”

  “Looks like suicide to me, Lieutenant,” said the man with the broken nose.

  “I don’t know,” Cross said. “I’m going to call the Detective-Sergeant. Can I phone around here, Mr. Branch?”

  “There’s a phone in my office on the fifth floor.”

  “Same floor as the room he jumped from, eh? I want to look at that room.”

  We entered the building and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor.

  Dr. Rasmussen met us at the head of the stairs. “Miss Madden has regained consciousness,” he said. “I put her on the settee in the Ladies’ Room down the hall.”

  “I want to ask her some questions,” Cross said.

  “Not just now, Lieutenant. She’s had a shock and you’d better let her rest for a while. You can question her later, perhaps.”

  “Yeah, how much later?”

  “I’d say give her an hour anyway. If she wasn’t a good strong girl, I’d send her to the hospital for the night. But she’s got a stiff upper lip.”

  “Did you tell her, doctor?” I said.

  “She knew. I confirmed what she knew.” After a pause Rasmussen said, “Well, I can trust you gentlemen to see that she gets home safely. I might as well toddle home for a snooze. I think I’ll have a delivery before morning.”

  “O.K., doctor, good night,” Cross said. Rasmussen picked up his bag and waved his hand and went downstairs.

  “Is that Judd’s office?” Cross asked as we passed the open door.

  “Yes.”

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” said Sale, “the glass in the door is broken.”

  “I think Miss Madden broke it. I heard the crash after Judd fell.”

  “I get it,” Cross said. “You might as well stay here and look around, Sale. I’ll be right back.”

  I took Cross to my office and he called the Detective-Sergeant. When he had finished, I picked up the receiver.

  “Going to make a call?” Cross looked as if he felt he should be suspicious of me but couldn’t quite make the grade. His broad, weather-reddened face was set in unimpressive creases of earnestness and his blue eyes were puzzled.

  “I’m going to call President Galloway,” I said. “He’s got to know about this.”

  “I guess that’s right,” Cross agreed. “Stick around, though, will you? The detective’ll probably want to ask you some more questions.”

  “I’ll stay in the building.”

  Cross went out the door and I dialed President Galloway’s number. He lived in the presidential mansion, which was a university building on the opposite side of the campus from McKinley Hall.

  While the phone rang, I looked at my watch. It was just after 12:30. How long ago had Alec died? It was midnight when I left my apartment. It must have taken me about five minutes to get here. Perhaps six. Alec had been dead about twenty-five minutes. In another twenty-five minutes, I hoped to have his murderer. But first I had to talk to Galloway.

  On the fourth ring, a maid answered the phone. “President Galloway’s residence.”

  “This is Robert Branch, professor of English. May I speak to the President?”

  “It’s very late. Could I have him call you in the morning, or take a message?”

  “Tell him it’s important university business. If he’s in bed, you’ll have to wake him up.”

  “One moment, please.”

  I waited a number of moments. Then I heard the President’s voice say, “Galloway speaking,” with the exaggerated briskness of a man still half asleep.

  “Robert Branch speaking. Alec Judd has been killed.”

  “Judd killed! Good heavens. How did it happen?”

  “He jumped, or was pushed, from the window of his office in McKinley Hall. I think he was pushed and I think I know who pushed him.”

  “You do?”

  I decided to hold it till he came over. “I’d prefer not to tell you over the phone. Can you come here now, sir?”

  “Of course, Robert, of course. Where are you?”

  “In my office in McKinley Hall. I can’t leave here because the police want to question me. Fifth floor.”

  “You’ve called the police?”

  “I called them as soon as it happened. I saw Alec fall.”

  “It must have been a terrible shock. You were close friends, weren’t you? You called the local police, of course?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll be right over,” Galloway said, and hung up.

  I replaced the receiver and leaned back in my swivel-chair and looked at the telephone. I thought of the receiver dangling from the shelf beside Alec’s window. Had he been phoning when he was attacked? If so, whom had he been phoning?

  My mind jumped like a shot deer. He was phoning me! The line was cut off while I was writing ‘taillour’ on the envelope. I stiffened up and the chair tilted me forward.

  Then I relaxed again and blew air out of my lungs. The deer had been missed by a mile after all. It couldn’t have been much after 11:30 when he phoned me. Besides, he said that he was phoning from the Dictionary office on the fourth floor. What was he doing in the Dictionary office?

  A sharp-nosed man in plain clothes with a beady eye and a clipped black moustache put his head in at the door. “I’m Haggerty,” he said, “Detective-Sergeant Haggerty. Are you Professor Branch?”

  “Yes. I believe you want to ask me some questions.”

  “Can you wait a few minutes? I want to examine this office down the line first.”

  “O.K., Sergeant,” I said, and he took his nose away with him.

  I went on sitting in my chair. There was no sign of Galloway yet. The dangling receiver still bothered me. Suddenly it occurred to me that I could do something.

  I dialed ‘O’ and the night operator answered, “University operator speaking.”

  “This is Professor Branch of the English Department. I’m investigating a certain matter for the President and I wonder if you can give me some information.”

  “What about? It depends on what it is,” she said in the cagey way switchboard operators have.

  “Is the line to Professor Judd’s office still open?”

  “Yes, it is. I turned my key a few minutes ago and there was nobody on the line. I asked if the line was being used and a policeman came to the phone and told me to leave it open.”

  “How long had the line been open? I mean, when was the call put in?”

  “The original call from Professor Judd’s office? I don’t know, maybe an hour ago. I don’t remember exactly.”

  “Did you hear anything that was said over the line?”

  “Say, who is that talking? Are you really Professor Branch?” The false culture flaked off the surface of her voice like old fingernail polish. There is nothing like fear for a job to remove culture from a voice.

  “Do you want me to quote some poetry to prove it?”

  “No kidding, you’re not trying to put me on the spot, are you?”

  “Of course not. I’m Branch and I don’t know or care who you are. Did you hear anything?”

  “I’m not allowed to listen to conversation,” she said more calmly. “But when a line has been open for quite a while, we’re allowed to switch in and make sure it’s busy, that’s all.”

  “Was Judd’s line busy?”

  “Well, it was open for about twenty minutes or so, so I turned the key and somebody was talking all right and I switched out again.”

  “About when was this?”

  “I switched in about midnight, I think. No, it was just after midnight. The tower clock had just struck.”

  “How long after midnight?”

  “Two or three minutes, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t hear anything that was said?”

  “We’re not supposed to listen and I couldn’t tell you anyway, Dr.
Branch. It wasn’t anything, anyway. It sounded like a gag.”

  “It was no gag. Can’t you tell me anything?”

  She said: “Sorry I have to go now. The policeman in the office wants to talk to me.”

  She clicked off.

  CHAPTER VI

  I HEARD QUICK, HEAVY steps in the hall and got out of my chair. President Galloway came through the door with his head down as if he were butting his way in. He had on trousers and a shirt and a grey suede windbreaker. The shirt was open at the neck and I could see the matted grey hair on his chest. He had obviously come in a hurry and I wondered why he had taken so long.

  “A terrible business, Branch.” His lined face was pale and needed shaving. I had never seen Galloway look perturbed or disheveled before. He was a former head of the department of psychology, a good judge of men and a smooth and subtle politician. Maybe statesman is a better word: he presided with considerable dignity and some wisdom over a university community as large and complex as an ancient city-state. But he was upset now.

  “I’m glad I was able to get in touch with you, sir,” I said, “and that you could come over.”

  “We’ve got to do what we can. Branch, do you think Judd’s death had anything to do with the War Board?”

  “I’m sure it had.”

  “I’ve been worried about the War Board,” Galloway said. “I heard indirectly at the time of the Detroit indictments that evidence was turned up which led in our direction.”

  “Alec said something of the sort this afternoon.”

  “It was evidently a blind alley,” Galloway went on, “but I called up one of the Federal men with the Detroit office who happens to be a friend of mine. Former student, in fact. I wanted to keep it unofficial. He came down here last week and we talked it over—off the record, of course.”

  “It might be a good idea to make contact with him now. This is likely to be a Federal matter.”

  “I called him before I left the house.” A tired smile twitched the sagging muscles of Galloway’s face. “As it happened he was at the Bomber Plant to-night and it took me some time to get in touch with him. But he should be here before long.”