Hollow Needle

by George Harmon Coxe

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said I think you’ve got an idea about Prentice. Neely worked at the Caldwell estate as a guard, right? Prentice is married, to old Caldwell’s daughter. Somebody must have ordered Neely to come up to the Courier-Herald for some pictures Murdock took. And Neely was just the boy for that. He was a mean cop. It was a mistake to give a guy like that a badge and a gun and blackjack, but that kind gets in now and then. When Neely got the bounce he went in the army, and when he got out he went to work for Mike Quimby.”

  He stopped, as if just remembering something, and hauled out a large gold watch in a hunting-case. He snapped it open and made noises in his throat.

  “Where the hell is that guy?” he demanded of no one, referring, it seemed, to Mike Quimby. “He should have been here an hour ago.” He put the watch away and glanced up, his expression suggesting that he was trying to recall what he had been talking about.

  “Yeah,” he said. “So Neely does the job and maybe holds out, and Prentice comes looking for him. Now maybe you’ll be telling me that this has no connection with what happened to the butler down at the Caldwell place.”

  “I wouldn’t know if it had or not,” Blake said. “There has been no official statement made by the authorities, at least none to my knowledge.”

  “Okay,” said Bacon. “Forget that, too. That’s outside of my jurisdiction, hunh? What happened there is none of my business, is that it? Well what happened here tonight is my business. So far I haven’t got a very good story, and I’ll admit that Neely was the kind of guy that might get knocked off for a half a dozen reasons. But for now the only lead I’ve got is that Mr. Arthur Prentice came calling.”

  He rubbed his nose briskly and said, “Murdock says Prentice came here around a quarter of six.” He gave the photographer a scathing glance. “Of course your private dick friend didn’t stick around to see what developed. He hotfooted it for a phone and then went somewhere and got a beer, I suppose.” He hesitated again, as though realizing that his rancor was getting the best of him; at least when he continued his tone was more moderate.

  “A quarter of six,” he repeated. “And the examiner’s man says Neely probably died between five and six—as a guess. So I think I ought to have a small talk with Arthur Prentice.” He looked at Murdock. “If I can’t get any more information out of you.”

  “That’s the reason I came when Mr. Murdock telephoned me,” Blake said. “It occurred to me that someone ought to be on hand to protect Arthur’s interests—at least until he has a chance to tell his side of the story. Do you plan to make an immediate arrest, lieutenant?”

  Bacon did not get a chance to answer this one, because just then a plain-clothes man stuck his head in the door and announced that Mike Quimby was outside.

  “Took you long enough,” Bacon said when Mike came in.”

  “I was busy.” Quimby’s little eyes took in the room in a glance and were then ready for Bacon. He wore a black, double-breasted coat that accented his squat bulk, and his light-gray Homburg was centered exactly on his head. “I came soon as I could.”

  Bacon accepted the reply. He nodded toward the tattered club chair. “We found Ross Neely sitting there a while ago with two slugs in his chest. We figure he took it standing, because one slug went through him and shattered on that lamp standard.” He indicated the lamp. “There was a gun on the floor—it hadn’t been fired—that checked with the number on his permit. What was he working on?”

  Quimby’s fat face remained expressionless. He teetered once on heel and toe, settled back on his heels. “I don’t know.”

  “He worked for you.”

  Quimby shook his head. “I told Murdock about that this morning.”

  Bacon stepped to a table and unwrapped a handkerchief that had been rolled around the dead man’s effects, about all that was left to suggest that Neely had ever occupied the rooms. Murdock had been particularly interested in three negatives, but air earlier search had revealed no sign of them. The bureau drawers were empty except for some discarded odds and ends, and the wardrobe in the bedroom was bare. There was a packed Gladstone bag containing an extra suit and the usual accessories, but there were no papers or letters. The dead man’s pockets offered cigarettes, matches, keys, and change. There were a hundred and seventy dollars in the wallet, and now Bacon picked it up and flipped it open to disclose an identification card in the glassine pocket. He showed it to Quimby.

  “This license says he worked for you.”

  “At the time that license was renewed, he did. Neely quit this morning.”

  “Nuts!”

  “My cashier will corroborate it.” Quimby was emphatic in a soft-voiced sort of way. “Neely came in this morning, got his things, and collected his pay.”

  Bacon’s gray eyes were baffled. “You feel pretty good about it, hunh?”

  “In the light of what happened tonight, yes.”

  “He just walked out on you. You don’t know why he quit or what he was going to do, and if you did you wouldn’t say so, is that it?”

  “He said he had a better job lined up.” Quimby fluttered a fat hand, ignoring the other implications. “I reminded him that it was customary to give notice, and he said the new job wouldn’t wait.”

  “Go back a ways,” Bacon directed. “Caldwell retained your outfit. In what capacity?”

  “The work varied.” Quimby glanced at Blake without turning his head, swiveled his eyes back to the lieutenant. “The Caldwell interests were nation-wide. We furnished reports that he could not get in any other way.”

  “What were you working on when he died?”

  Quimby allowed himself a smile, and his tone suggested that Bacon should know better than to make such requests.

  “I have the same privilege of confidence as a lawyer,” he said. “You know that as well as I do. Under the proper circumstances it is possible to subpena certain records; otherwise my relations with my clients are protected.”

  He elaborated on the subject, and when Bacon let him go on, Murdock had a chance to consider again the reports that had interested Arthur Prentice and Harvey Blake. He had originally kept silent about those reports because he did not know whether they had any connection with the murders at Caldwell Manor or not, and he did not want to involve those concerned unnecessarily. Because Prentice and Blake had resorted to underhanded methods to get these reports once they knew Caldwell was dead did not mean they were guilty of murder, and until Murdock found some indication that they were more seriously involved, he had not wanted to go to the police with his information.

  Now, having held out to this extent, he saw that he had little choice in the matter. Arthur Prentice would eventually be questioned, and Murdock wanted to talk to him first. He did not know just what he expected to learn; if the police came up with a good case against the man, either here or at the Caldwell estate through Captain Alger’s efforts, Murdock knew he would have to tell his story straight. Until then he decided to carry on as he had. It was not, he told himself, a matter of protecting a killer, but he had known others who, innocently involved in a murder, had suffered greatly from the attendant publicity, and his silence had been motivated by some inexplicable desire to protect those concerned until he had some reason to believe them guilty.

  “You assigned Neely to the Caldwell estate?” Bacon was saying.

  Quimby nodded. “I did. We usually had two men down there. We used to rotate them. They rode around with members of the family as a precautionary measure and kept an eye on the grounds. A couple of years ago Neely went down there, and later someone ran across some ex-flyer—I think his name was Nick something—and hired him.”

  “Nick Taylor,” Blake said, and explained how Nick had been transferred to Caldwell Manor.

  “So then,” Quimby said, “I only had to supply one man. For some reason John Caldwell took a liking to Neely and asked to have him there all the time.”

  “Who gave him his orders?” Bacon asked.

/>   “The Caldwells. I kept him assigned there but I had nothing to say about what he did there.”

  “Caldwell paid you, and you paid Neely.”

  “Exactly.”

  Bacon blew out his breath and reached for a fresh stogie. He had the air of a man who has about exhausted a subject, and with another glance at Quimby, he went over and opened the door.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thanks for coming down, Mike. We’ll get in touch with you later for a formal statement.”

  Quimby inclined his head in what might have been a bow and went out. Bacon took out a penknife and began to manicure the end of his cigar. Harvey Blake touched his mustache with his index finger and heaved out of the chair.

  “About Arthur Prentice,” he said.

  “Yeah?”

  Bacon concentrated on the cigar but there was a look of frustration in his eyes which had nothing to do with the panatela. Murdock could guess about the frustration. For Bacon was up against something that required more delicacy than was usually necessary. Ross Neely was the sort Bacon was used to handling. If Neely had been killed by one of his kind and Bacon had a clue, he would have wasted no time in making an arrest. Here, however, his only lead pointed directly to the Caldwell family. With them a certain delicacy was called for until he was on firmer ground, and he needed advice and counsel.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll have to get in touch with the D.A.’s office. I have an idea he’ll want to question Mr. Prentice. If he doesn’t, I will”

  “Just let me know in advance,” Blake said. “I don’t know where Arthur is now but I’ll try to get in touch with him. I’ll also suggest that he hold himself ready to surrender to you whenever you say.” He cleared his throat and buttoned his coat. “Do I understand that you will postpone any general pickup order, pending the results of your conference with the district attorney’s office?”

  Bacon hated to say it, but in the end he had to. “Yes,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow it’ll be different.” He watched the lawyer go out and close the door, and then, still watching it, he said, “Of all the lousy cases! The guy across the hall didn’t come home until after seven, and he couldn’t have heard the shots; nobody else around here who should have noticed them remembers a thing.” He broke off, turned, and then he remembered Mur-dock.

  “What the hell are you hanging around for?” he said irritably but not unkindly. “You and your private detective friend. Hah! I’ll lay you nine to five it’s Jack Fenner.”

  Murdock was already halfway to the door. He opened it. He said Bacon’s remarks were unfair and discriminatory, and if he was going to act like that the next time he, Murdock, found a dead man—which he hoped would never happen again—he would inform the Courier-Herald first and let Bacon and his cohorts read about it in the paper.

  Bacon grinned a little; not much, and reluctantly, no doubt, but enough to be noticeable. “Beat it!” he said. “But don’t get the idea I’m through with you.”

  Kent Murdock got back to his apartment around ten-thirty and went at once to the kitchen to make a drink. He had at least an hour to kill before he could expect to hear from Arthur Prentice, so he took off his shoes, put on his slippers, and stretched out on the davenport.

  Although he tried to discipline his thoughts he had no luck, and presently he was thinking of Ross Neely and bringing back into the forefront of his mind a pattern that had occurred to him earlier, but one that he had not explored.

  That Neely had been killed by the man who had sent him for the negatives, there could no longer be any doubt. The murderer, unable to come for them himself, had made this deal as the only way to save himself, not knowing that the negatives would show nothing in the way of proof, but being forced to act because he did not dare ignore the possibility that such proof might have been photographed. If Neely had been given explicit instructions, and this seemed likely, then Neely had known what to look for.

  He had found the negatives, missing the prints that Eddie Kelsey had hidden beneath the blotter, and to Murdock it seemed that a man like Neely would soon have discovered that the killer’s fears had been unfounded. The negatives had shown no conclusive proof of guilt, but at that point Neely was the only one who knew this. Had Neely told the truth and delivered the negatives, he could have been paid off and might well have constituted no permanent threat to the killer. What seemed more probable was that Neely, seeing a chance to strike it rich, had told his employer that the picture taken in the hall actually showed what the murderer hoped it would not show—his fleeing figure. Neely had held out the negatives for a price that would satisfy him and—

  The sudden ringing of the telephone cut Murdock’s theory short, and as he crossed the room he glanced at his wrist watch and decided that Arthur Prentice was arriving early for his appointment; instead of that the voice he heard belonged to T. A. Wyman.

  “What’re you doing?” said Wyman, who made a practice of coming directly to the point. “Can you get over here right away?”

  “Yes.” Murdock considered the time. “How long will I have to stay?”

  “Five minutes. Come right up to my office. Donald Caldwell is on his way here and he wants to talk to us.”

  19

  IT WAS ONLY A FEW MINUTES’ RIDE from Murdock’s place to the Courier-Herald, and he spent most of it wondering what Donald Caldwell would be doing calling on a mere managing editor. As it turned out, such speculation was a waste of time, for what Caldwell wanted to talk about was Eddie Kelsey, a subject that had not entered Murdock’s head.

  Already in Wyman’s office when Murdock arrived and looking neat and well groomed as always, Caldwell was sitting in the big chair next to the desk, his hat in his lap and his gloves in the hat. He seemed ill at ease in the casual informality of the office, and his thin-nosed face was concerned as he nodded to Murdock.

  “Mr. Caldwell wanted to talk about Eddie Kelsey,” Wyman said.

  “Yes.” Caldwell cleared his throat. “Harvey Blake phoned me at the Copley to tell me about Ross Neely.” He digressed to say that although they were not burying his father until the day after tomorrow, a meeting had previously been called for executives in the various plants, and since they had come from all over the country it seemed best to go ahead with the dinner and the conference in spite of the death in the family. “I called Mr. Wyman at once,” he said. “I didn’t know what Neely had done until Blake told me.”

  “Your nephews didn’t tell you about my equipment case being searched that night I was at Caldwell Manor?” Murdock asked.

  “No, they did not.”

  “He wants to know the story on Kelsey,” Wyman said.

  Murdock explained what had happened. He said the elevator operator had given a description of a man that fitted Neely, and that he, Murdock, was convinced that Neely had made the attack.

  “And then this evening,” Caldwell said, “someone killed Neely.” He was visibly distressed as he considered the things Murdock told him, and he finally said, “I don’t pretend to know the answer, and there is no point in discussing Neely now except where this young photographer is concerned. I knew Neely was a brutal man, but he was quiet and obedient, and Father seemed to have confidence in him. And, since Neely worked for us, I feel responsible for what he did the other night.”

  He nodded toward Wyman, continued to Murdock. “Mr. Wyman tells me that the young man is recovering nicely, but I’m extremely upset about the whole thing. Coming on top of what has already happened—”

  He broke off, looking just as upset as he said he was. He tapped nervous fingers on the chair arm and came finally to the real purpose of his call.

  “I want to do whatever is right for this young man Neely attacked. I want all the doctor and hospital bills sent to me, and I’d like to do something for him to help repay him for Ms pain and suffering.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary, Mr. Caldwell,” Wyman said. “I understand how you feel, but—”

  Donald Caldwell was not used to b
eing interrupted. He eyed Wyman sternly, put his hand up in a plea for silence.

  “Please,” he said. “I insist on doing something for this boy. I could have sent our lawyers—I have no doubt that the boy could institute a suit of some sort if he wished—but I feel too strongly about it.”

  “Really, Mr. Caldwell—” Wyman began.

  “No.” Caldwell’s under jaw came out a quarter of an inch, but his voice stayed pleasant. “That’s why I came here. It’s just a question of what you think might be the right thing to do. It’s a little embarrassing to offer money, buf I don’t know of any other way. I’d like to write out a check tonight—”

  “May I make a suggestion?” Murdock said.

  Caldwell looked a bit surprised, but he recovered quickly. “Certainly.”

  Murdock was thinking of Eddie Kelsey. He was a little embarrassed at what he was about to suggest, but he decided that since Caldwell had made up his mind to do something for Eddie, the gift might as well be something Eddie would like.

  “Your company supplies diesels for three or four people who have an ‘in’ with automobile manufacturers,” he said, “and I thought maybe you would be in a position to get a car in a hurry if you wanted to. Eddie hasn’t got a car. If you really want to do something that—”

  Caldwell’s face brightened. He smiled at Wyman as he interrupted Murdock.

  “Of course. Why didn’t I think of it? A splendid idea!”

  “Eddie’d really go for a small convertible,” Murdock said, deciding he might as well go all the way with the suggestion.

  “A convertible it shall be, then.” Caldwell gathered his gloves and stood up. “You tell the young man he shall have one delivered to him within a day or two. And you’ll remember what I said about the bills, Mr. Wyman? Well, thank you. Thank you, too, Mr. Murdock. That was a fine suggestion.” He nodded, smiled, put on his hat, and went out.

  “Well!” said Wyman. “What do you know about that? A damn nice thing to do, you know that, don’t you? Young Kelsey will blow his top when he finds out about it.”