Hollow Needle

by George Harmon Coxe

  She hesitated, and when Murdock did not speak she said, “Now may I ask my question? Will you tell me about that report?”

  Murdock gave her a fresh cigarette. “You asked me how much I knew about them,” he said when they had lights, “so let’s say I know enough to get the idea that if Donald Caldwell found out about it, he probably wouldn’t stay engaged to you very long. Also,” he said when he had pursued the thought a little farther, “I sort of think that Arthur Prentice would presently find himself divorced. I guess you two weren’t very discreet.”

  “We were most discreet,” Monica said with some feeling. “But that old man must have had spies everywhere. He didn’t like me and he didn’t like the idea of Donald marrying me and he went to some lengths to say so.”

  “But you were going to marry him? I mean before you knew about the report.”

  “I don’t know.” Monica’s red mouth was petulant. “In the beginning, yes. We’ve been engaged four months, and until I got to know Arthur—”

  She broke off as she finished her drink and leaned forward to put the glass on the floor. As she did so, the handbag slipped from her lap and landed with a thud that was surprisingly loud. Murdock reached for it before she did, and when he felt the hard, compact object beneath the fabric, he turned to look at her. She had started to take the bag from him, but now, seeing the quick suspicion in his eyes, she pulled down her dress and settled back, her expression resigned. She made no move to stop him when he unfastened the catch and removed the .25 automatic.

  “Hmm,” he said, inspecting the gun. “Full clip and everything. Is this the way you usually travel?”

  “Not usually, but there are times.”

  “Like when you call on strange men in their apartments?”

  She did not bother to reply, and his expression remained unchanged while he returned the gun to the bag. Abruptly she gave a sigh of impatience and her eyes were baffled and morose.

  “Oh, hell!” she said with sudden inelegance. “I didn’t come here to do a lot of talking. I always had the idea that newspaper photographers were untidy little men with dirty necks and no manners. I guess I didn’t pay enough attention to you today to know better, or maybe I haven’t been at my best the past few days. Anyway I came here tonight to see if we could reach some agreement about the reports.”

  She opened her bag again and took out a thin packet of new twenty-dollar bills.

  “I thought perhaps a thousand would be enough to induce you to keep what you know to yourself until things were settled one way or another.” She put the bills back, closed the bag. “I’m sorry.” And now her smile was quick, and she said, “If you’ll make another drink I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Murdock mixed the highball with alacrity, glad that things had happened as they had and feeling somehow that his luck had changed. He did not stop to wonder why she had offered to talk. He had an idea that she might tell him only what she wanted him to know, and that some of this might be suspect. But he liked her easy self-reliance and found her sardonic appraisal of the situation refreshing. As for Monica Sutton, she was no different from others who had talked to Murdock in the past. Women seldom tried to impress him after the first few minutes, not only because he was a good listener, but because he had the sort of dark, well-groomed good looks that women found pleasing in a companion, and because they seemed to sense that he enjoyed being with them, not with any ulterior motives or hopes in mind, but simply because they interested him at the moment.

  At any rate Monica Sutton leaned her head back, and with her gaze fastened on the ceiling, began to tell him about herself. With what she said and what he already knew about her, he got the familiar picture of a girl whose family had moved in the best circles and who had gone to the best schools, always mingling with the wealthy, yet with no inherited or invested wealth behind her. Her father had earned a good salary as an executive in a brokerage house, her ambitious mother spent every nickel of it and put her best thoughts on marrying off her only daughter, the only qualifications of the husband being his financial soundness.

  In the end Monica had compromised, taking a little less financial worth but getting a boy she liked, or thought she did. The marriage had lasted three years, which was about par among her more intimate friends, and with the divorce there had been a modest settlement. After that there had been some war work, and the business of being a house guest at fashionable spots whenever there was an invitation, and finally Donald Caldwell.

  “I don’t know if I loved him or not,” she said, “but he was nice, and attentive, and considerate. Neither of us was getting any younger—he’s over fifty—and I knew that even if it wasn’t love I’d at least have something more substantial than I got the first time I married.”

  She took some of her drink and said, “Then I got to know Arthur.” We found we had a lot in common. He was brought up the same way I was, and he had ability but never the necessity of putting it to good use. He has a few dollars from his father’s estate, and a lot of friends, and he was handsome enough to interest Evelyn. Do you know her?

  “Well, she’s the predatory kind,” she said when Murdock shook his head, “who’s never satisfied with what she has, who seems ta think she can keep from getting old by rushing off to some new place whenever she’s in the mood, and by having an affair now and then to prove to herself that she’s still attractive. Well, she saw Arthur and she wanted him, and she had a lot to offer a man of forty-two, all things considered. She’s an attractive wench for forty-seven, with a world of style and money to go with it. She’s not mean or malicious, either; she just doesn’t seem to know any better.”

  “So she got Arthur, and it didn’t work out?”

  “It worked all right, I guess—until Arthur began to see that the prince-consort business was not exactly his cup of tea. That’s one reason Evelyn’s in Paris, to think it over and see if she wants a divorce. If so she’ll probably make Arthur a nice settlement like she gave her other husbands—”

  “And with that, plus what you’ve got,” Murdock said, “you and Arthur would have enough to try again.” He hesitated, his thoughts sober now as he forgot the woman and considered again the matter of murder. “It sort of makes those reports important, doesn’t it? It sort of gives Arthur a nice motive for murder.”

  “You may think so. I don’t.”

  “Does Arthur wear a ring on his right hand?” he asked, and when he saw her look of uncertainty, he told her what had happened in the library.

  By the time he had finished her eyes were veiled. “What does that prove?” she said, her husky voice expressionless. “There were two reports. Only one of them concerned me—and Arthur.”

  Murdock felt a mild exultancy as he realized now that he had been right. If she knew there were two reports, she knew that one of them concerned Harvey Blake, the lawyer, and this could only mean that she had seen the reports, which would not have been possible had not Arthur Prentice shown them to her.

  Carrying on the theory a step farther, his exultancy quickly went away. For he realized now that Prentice had stolen some papers from John Caldwell’s study files—in all likelihood the original from which Larkin’s copy was made. If this were true, then Prentice need not necessarily have been the man who hit him in the darkness of the library, though this was still possible.

  “That’s right,” he said when she reached for her jacket. “So why not tell me about Harvey Blake?”

  “He and his wife are getting a divorce,” she said in that same expressionless voice. “They’ve been fighting about a settlement and alimony, and Harvey’s never been too smart about his women. He’s been carrying on with some entertainer in New York—I can’t recall her name—and John Caldwell, who apparently knew everything, found out about it and investigated.”

  “Is that why Blake’s firm lost out on the company business under the new will?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea, though I imagine if his wife heard about it the divorce might be
more expensive for Harvey.” She rose, her mouth set now and her eyes again calculating as she stood before him. “About the reports,” she said. “Since you do not have them, you could hardly testify as to what was in them. I mean, it’s only your word now, and what you think you remembered.”

  Her remarks rolled his thoughts back to Eddie Kelsey and the man named Ross. Monica had said that John Caldwell seemed to know everything, and though an overstatement, this was obviously well founded in fact. But the investigation done for Caldwell was not the type likely to be done by company cops, nor by thugs like Ross, or by inexperienced youngsters like Nick Taylor.

  Just who was responsible for the reports that worried Monica was something Murdock intended to find out in the morning, but now all he said was, “That’s good figuring as far as it goes, Miss Sutton. I don’t know who did the investigating, if that’s what you mean. But it was evidently done by a trained operator. There aren’t too many good ones. I doubt if it would take the police more than a few hours to find their man, once they knew what to look for.”

  She gave him a scathing glance, but it did not quite come off. Deep down the fear had begun to work on her, and the contempt she tried to put in her voice was superficial.

  “I should have known better than to expect something for nothing,” she said, “but do you have to tell the police everything?”

  Murdock said he didn’t know, for he was thinking, not only about Kelsey, but about Larkin, and all the old uneasiness came back when he began to wonder where his responsibility began and ended. When he saw she was waiting for his reply, he opened the door.

  “If I ever get the idea that Prentice killed Larkin,” he said, “I’ll do what I can to prove it. If not—”

  He broke off as she whirled away from him and stepped into the hall. When she started down the stairs, he closed the door, still not knowing just what he ought to do.

  12

  ORDINARILY MURDOCK HAD most of his meals out, but the next morning, because he had no intention of going to the office and thereby subject himself to the questions of the curious, he opened a small can of tomato juice, iced it while the coffee was making, and supplemented both with two pieces of toast.

  When he had cleaned up the kitchen he telephoned the hospital where Eddie Kelsey had been taken, and was fortunate in locating the doctor who had attended him the night before. The report on Eddie’s physical condition was good. X rays had been taken and revealed no fracture. Eddie was doing nicely, and there was no further cause for worry, but at the moment the patient had regained consciousness only briefly and could not, therefore, supply any of the information Murdock wanted.

  Thus reassured, Murdock telephoned the office of Jack Fenner, his private detective friend, and asked him if he was busy. Fenner said yes, but Murdock, who knew the detective was given to wisecracks and evasive replies, doubted this aloud.

  “If you were busy, you wouldn’t be parked in that chicken coop you call an office studying the racing-form.”

  “I am in conference,” Fenner said patronizingly. “I have with me the president of the United Nations and the delegate from Lower Balbaria.”

  “Okay,” Murdock said, “but I’ve got a job that pays cash money.”

  “Whose?”

  “And if you do not want it,” Murdock went on, ignoring the question, “I’ll call Carlos Black.”

  “Black,” said Fenner airily, “never bothers with photographers.”

  Murdock cursed the detective with explicit directness. “Do you want the job or not?” he yelled.

  “Certainly I want the job—I think. Who pays me?”

  “The paper.”

  “And what do I do first?”

  “You tell me what you know about the company police layout at Caldwell Diesels.”

  “Oh—oh!” Fenner grew cautious. “I don’t like to fool around with people like that. They play rough when they don’t like you. And, anyway, I don’t know anything about the setup. They’ve got a police force, like any other outfit, and they don’t call the town cops in except when things get out of hand, which isn’t often.”

  “Have they got any authority outside company property?”

  “Only courtesy authority.”

  “Who would operate under cover?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you do,” Murdock said, “only with more cleverness and efficiency.” He took a breath and tried to explain what he had in mind. “There must be a lot of jobs where one of the Caldwells wanted some investigation made. Work like that would have to be done with properly licensed men.”

  “Has this got anything to do with that piece in the paper about the mysterious shooting of the Caldwell butler?”

  “No,” lied Murdock.

  “Hah!” said Fenner. “How you talk!”

  “Do you know if the Caldwells retained any agency, or don’t you?”

  “I have heard it said,” replied Fenner, “that Caldwell retained Mike Quimby’s agency. I don’t know how else Quimby ever got that big unless he had some fat account like that.”

  “Will you find out for me?”

  “Sure. Call me back in an hour or so,” said Fenner and hung up.

  Murdock had one more call to make, but he had a little trouble getting the party he wanted. He was connected with Caldwell Manor without difficulty, but he had to do some explaining and hold the telephone for several minutes before Fay Kenyon answered.

  “Good morning,” he said. “I called you to ask if you’d do a favor for me. I want to find out if that guard you have down there named Ross is around.”

  “Oh.” The girl’s voice sounded uncertain. “I’m not sure—”

  Murdock went quickly ahead. “I’d like to know his full name,” he said, as though she had already consented to grant the favor, “and I want to know what time he left the house last night.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fay Kenyon said, sounding just that way, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to help you, Mr. Murdock. We are not allowed to give out information about members of the family or the servants. You might ask Mr. Donald Caldwell, but he’s terribly busy this morning and I’m not sure I could get him for you.”

  “Let me put it another way.” Murdock paused, thinking fast, knowing what he had to do. He liked this girl and her genuine, unaffected ways. He did not want to threaten or even to bluff her, but he wanted to know about Ross, and he could think of no other way of getting the information. “I think you ought to make an exception in this case,” he said. “Because I can do you a favor if you’ll do this one for me. At least I think I can.”

  Fay Kenyon said she did not understand, and Murdock said, “The managing editor here has been putting a lot of pressure on me. He wants me to swear out a warrant for Nick Taylor’s arrest.”

  This time her “oh” was shocked and distressed. “But—but why?”

  “You know why. You know he came to my office yesterday morning with Ross. They slugged me and took away some pictures by force.”

  “But Nick didn’t hit you, you hit him.”

  “It’s called assault with a dangerous weapon when a man uses a blackjack, Miss Kenyon,” he said, “and the fact that Nick came with Ross makes him equally guilty in the eyes of the law. It’s a prison offense and if I should swear out that warrant, those gates and that high wall you have down there wouldn’t do Nick any good. Because the Courier-Herald would be behind that warrant, Miss Kenyon, and the police like to play ball with the press.”

  He swallowed and said, “I think you ought to think it over. The only reason I didn’t have Nick arrested before was because I sort of liked him and I liked you. But I have to know about Ross, and if you can’t tell me about him I’m afraid I’ll have to do what the managing editor says.” He gave her his number. “I’ll wait here for another half hour,” he said. “Good-by, Miss Kenyon.”

  He gave her no chance to argue or to think up additional excuses. He believed he had scared her a little, and he had an idea that the more s
he thought it over the more she would be convinced that he was telling the truth. And in this he was right, for just twenty-five minutes later the telephone rang, and he jumped for it.

  “Will you promise not to have Nick arrested if I tell you about Ross?” Fay Kenyon said.

  “If you tell me enough, I’ll forget about what Nick did yesterday.”

  “All right, then.” He could hear her take a breath, and then she said, “Ross’s last name is Neely. Ross Neely. And he’s not here now.”

  “Where was he last night?”

  “I don’t know. His things are gone from his room now, and he must have left sometime last night, but I don’t know when.”

  “The gateman should know.”

  “He doesn’t, though,” the girl said. “I asked him. He only checks on cars that come in. At night he just opens the gates when cars go out. With the headlights on, he can’t always tell who’s in them.”

  Murdock did not believe this, but he did not say so. It occurred to him that someone had warned the gateman against giving out information, and that the story Fay Kenyon had told him had been told her, so he thanked her and let it go at that.

  He repeated the name silently after he had hung up. When, ten seconds later, he realized he was still standing there holding the instrument, he walked over to the cushion-back chair by the windows. There was a pipe rack and a mahogany humidor on the end table beside it, and he took his time packing the long-stemmed brier he selected. He lit it carefully and evenly, knowing now beyond a doubt that Neely had been the logical man for last night’s job.

  Neely was familiar with photography. He was sufficiently skilled to have made the prints from the pool picture Murdock had taken the previous morning. There was, obviously, a well-equipped darkroom at Caldwell Manor, and it was highly probable that everyone connected with the house knew that Neely could take and develop pictures. Neely had been the one who had spotted the infrared flash bulb that Murdock had discarded in the upstairs study, and he had quickly made the proper deduction. He had been sent, together with Nick, to get that negative. In this his orders had come from Donald Caldwell by the way of Larkin, but that fact was of no value now.