Lady Killer

by George Harmon Coxe

  Such a story was written for the Courier, pending further developments, but when Murdock went back to his car he found himself unable to get his mind off one clue that he had purposely neglected to tell Bacon. That clue was a pale-blue handkerchief initialed R, and every time he thought about Sidney Graham he had also to think of Elsie Russell and the things that had happened between them years ago. Perhaps that is why he found himself driving along Commonwealth Avenue in the direction of Kenmore Square and why, a few minutes later, he stopped his car in front of an apartment house not far from there.

  He sat there a moment after he had killed the motor, aware that he was not even sure that Elsie still lived here. It had been over a year since he had come here and it seemed unlikely that she would have maintained such an apartment during the months she had been abroad. He did not know what he was going to say to her even if she lived here, and was home, but something he could not explain prompted him to get out of the car. Once out, he went the rest of the way, walking through the foyer, past the untenanted switchboard, and into the automatic elevator.

  Elsie Russell opened her door on a chain lock and peered around it. “Yes?” she said, and then, seeing Murdock, she added an, “Oh?” that seemed both surprised and uncertain. “Just a minute, Kent.”

  She went away, leaving the door on the chain, and when she came back to unfasten it she was zipping up a pastel-blue hostess gown. The things she said when he went in were polite and hospitable, but her gray eyes were questioning, embarrassing him so that he did not know how to begin.

  “You were getting ready for bed,” he said.

  “Sort of.”

  “I won’t stay long.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m glad you came.” And now she smiled. “Even if you did make me declare that brooch.”

  He glanced about, deciding that the tastefully furnished living room did not look as if the owner had been absent for six months. It looked neat and clean and well-polished. He spoke about it and she said:

  “I let some friends have it. They didn’t move out until Sunday. I think they left some Scotch, if you’d like a drink.”

  Murdock said he’d love one, and could he help, but she said no and presently she was back with a tray which she put on the coffee table in front of him. He stood until she had seated herself on the divan. He poured a very small drink for her as requested, a medium-large one for himself, added soda. When he had tasted the mixture he sat down and brought into mental focus the first item in his thoughts.

  “Is this yours?” he asked, pulling out the pale-blue handkerchief.

  Elsie glanced at it and smiled. “Heavens no,” she said, not bothering to examine it. “I never had a blue handkerchief in my life. Why? I mean what made you think it might be mine?”

  “It has the initial, R, on it.” Murdock opened it up to show her.

  “No.” She shook her head after she sipped her drink. “Where did you find it?”

  “In Harry Felton’s apartment.”

  She examined him with wide-open eyes that presently grew amused. “Oh, Kent,” she said, her laugh bubbling. “Actually now, you don’t really think—”

  “I was just asking,” Murdock said, feeling a little foolish.

  “You know I was never one of Harry’s girls. I’ve never even been in his apartment.” She was still watching him, the traces of her smile playing with her mouth. “You didn’t come out here just to ask me that, did you?”

  Murdock said no. He said it was an afterthought. “I wanted to ask you about that man you were with when I took your picture this afternoon,” he said. “The slim, dark fellow.”

  “Oh, that was Louis Tremaine. I meant to introduce you but Harry Felton came up just then, and somehow, when I thought of it again, Louis had gone.”

  She talked easily, her accents light, her glance fastened on the glass in her hand. She took a small sip, put the glass down and reached for the leather cigarette box. Murdock found matches, gave her a light. He waited, not wanting to crowd her, to see if she would add any other information about Louis Tremaine but she seemed not to be aware of the silence as she leaned back in the corner and fluffed out a cushion.

  “A Frenchman?” he said finally.

  “Yes.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He’s a writer. He wrote that picture I was in and sort of co-produced it.” She inspected him idly, a half smile on her mouth. “He’s on his way to Hollywood, just like I am. You know how they are out there. Let them see some importation they like and they’ll hire the star, director, writer—whoever they think they’ll need to duplicate the performance.”

  Murdock nodded but stuck to his own line of reasoning. “Was he here tonight?”

  “Louis? Yes. He stopped by at eight thirty and left just a few minutes before you came.”

  Murdock sipped his drink and wondered why he pursued such a course in the face of the evidence Bacon and Orcutt had gathered. Felton had been killed before eight o’clock, and from the standpoint of an alibi Tremaine might very well have none at all. Until it was known who had been waiting in the darkened room when Murdock went to see Felton, Tremaine might still be in the picture but—

  “I’m sorry,” he said, aware that she had spoken.

  “I said, is something wrong?”

  “He seemed awfully bothered about that picture I took of you this afternoon. He asked me about it.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Also, he came to the office this evening to give it another try,” Murdock said. “I wondered what made it so important and why he should tell me his name was Mason.”

  With that she put her glass down and turned slowly, eyeing him squarely as she slid one knee up on the divan.

  “What is it, Kent? What is it you’re trying to say and why can’t you say it?”

  Murdock saw the trouble in her gaze and knew he owed her an explanation. He was going to tell her about Harry Felton but he did not want to trick her. For he had always liked this girl, not because she was beautiful, since beauty was generally a matter of opinion, but because of the things inside her which to him were reflected in her voice and her eyes and her forthright acceptance of life’s problems. Because she had been independent and a little headstrong when she was young she got the reputation of being wild, though a possible contributing cause may have been the fact that her mother had died when she was a child, leaving the discipline to a father who had not always been able to give her the guidance she needed.

  Vivacious and popular in those days, though frowned upon by the mothers of her friends, she had gone her own way, obeying the whim of the moment, enjoying herself without being a hoyden, and being thoroughly photographed by the press in the process. Understanding all this, Murdock could see why she had wanted a career and why she might have been receptive to the aggressive blandishments of Sidney Graham eight or nine years ago. She had, through no fault of her own, been saved from making a foolish marriage. She had made a mistake, admitted it, and accepted the publicity that went with it; he did not think she would make the same mistake again.

  He glanced about the room as these thoughts came to him, finding it in character with the woman as he knew her. Feminine but not fluffy, it looked comfortable and expensive. The Oriental rug was worn but good and she had put down plain-color scatter rugs in front of the divan and two easy chairs. The breakfront looked old and authentic, and there was enough plain color in the upholstered pieces to contrast nicely with those which were patterned. He had an idea that much of it had come from her home after her father’s death, and he knew that while she had a small income she was dependent to some extent on what she could earn. And then, realizing that all this was just his way of postponing the issue which had brought him here, he forced himself to meet the inspection of her eyes.

  “Harry Felton was killed tonight,” he said. “Beaten up and stabbed.”

  He heard her quick gasp of protest, saw the shocked incredulity in her eyes. Then he was talking fast, not
looking at her now, not giving all the details or explaining how he himself had been used. He said that apparently Felton had smuggled in some jewelry for Sidney Graham and then tried to run off with it.

  She sat quietly beside him when he finished, her glance inspecting his face. “So that’s why you asked me about the handkerchief,” she said softly. “You found it there when you found Harry. But you didn’t tell the police because you weren’t sure—”

  Her words trailed off and for another moment she waited. “Because we’re friends?” she said.

  The soft, misty look in her eyes did something to Murdock and there was a strange glow in his chest where none had been before. He did not know quite what to say but some words finally came and he used them.

  “Maybe,” he said, “because I once was a little bit in love with you. Just a little.” He held his thumb and forefinger an eighth of an inch apart. “Just about that much.”

  Nothing changed in her eyes but she reached out, her gesture telling him more than words could have done how she felt about him, and covered his hand with her own. She pressed faintly on his fingers and let the hand stay there for awhile and then she said: “Thank you, Kent.”

  She pulled her hand back, folding it in her lap, and as she grew quiet again her glance gradually became remote. She reached for her glass, an odd expression on her face; then she put the drink back untasted. After a moment she sighed and her voice when she spoke had new undertones.

  “Louis won’t care about the picture now.”

  Murdock waited. When she did not go on he said: “Why should he have wanted it in the first place?”

  “Because he didn’t want anyone to identify him. He came to Boston especially to see Harry. He had waited for more than a year for the opportunity—because of what Harry did to his sister.” She sighed again and said: “I couldn’t talk him out of it. No one could. He wanted to kill Harry but he was afraid he would be caught, and he said he would not trade his life for Harry’s.”

  Murdock wanted to interrupt but he didn’t. He sat still, his lean face somber, his dark eyes intent, believing that she would continue. Presently she did in that same faraway voice.

  “You know how Harry was with women—didn’t they use to call him the Lady Killer? At any rate he apparently had no conscience whatsoever along those lines. If he liked you he pulled out all the stops, and when he was tired of you, that definitely was that. He never appealed to me—and I imagine he knew it because he never bothered me—but there were others who were always ready to come to him at the snap of his fingers. Look at Ginny Arnold. She was married to that piano player, whatever his name was …”

  “Bert Carlin,” Murdock said.

  “… and Harry made a campaign out of it,” she said, as though she had not heard. “He was big and good-looking, and he got pieces in the paper about Ginny and finally she left the piano player and got a divorce. Then Harry began to think of excuses and when he got a chance he went to Europe as a correspondent.”

  “I remember,” Murdock said. “She took it pretty hard for awhile.”

  “But she kept on singing and she always was a pretty little thing. She went to parties and met new people. One of them was Wilbur Arnold. I remember how some of us talked about it when he started asking her out because he’d always been the sort whose involvement with women seldom went beyond an occasional luncheon or theatre invitation. This time he was serious, and he finally proposed, and Ginny was smart enough to accept. Arnold was a lot older, but he was distinguished-looking, and he had money and position, and all the other little things Ginny wanted.… Louis’ sister wasn’t so fortunate.”

  She paused and said: “Harry met her in France in ’45, and I think they had a little affair, and that was all right, I guess. But Harry went back last year to do some special stories, and he looked her up again. It seems she hadn’t learned her lesson because—” Her voice trailed off and a sadness grew in her face.

  “Louis would never tell me just what happened. I don’t know whether his sister committed suicide after Harry deserted her again or what. I do know she died and in Louis’ mind Harry was responsible for her death. Louis said there was only one way he could pay Harry back short of killing him.… Oh, I know how it sounds,” she said. “It’s melodramatic, and savage, and barbarous. Louis admitted it and yet—” She let the sentence dangle as she glanced up; then she said, as though it explained everything, “And yet about other things he was not that way at all.”

  Murdock did not argue. He had taken too many pictures of man’s violence to man to be surprised at anything. Such incidents had happened before and would happen again, the only difference in this case being that the victim happened to be someone he knew. Those close to Felton called him Lady Killer and it seemed now that Louis Tremaine was the first to consider violence as a means of stopping the Killer’s further activities.

  “Tremaine was going to Hollywood,” he said. “He had a contract. He was willing to lose out on that contract for the sake of beating up Felton. He’d go to jail for an assault like that, you know.”

  “Louis didn’t think so. He had gone over it in his mind and he did not think Harry would dare have him arrested because then the truth about the sister and what Harry had done would come out. Louis didn’t think Harry would dare have all that made public.”

  Murdock heard all this but now he was thinking of something else. He was comparing Louis Tremaine’s slim, wiry build with Felton, who stood a good six feet tall and weighed close to two hundred pounds. He mentioned this now; he asked just how Tremaine was going to do the job.

  “Oh, he had Commando training,” Elsie said. “Also—” She stopped here to reach for the cigarette box and Murdock moved ahead of her. He lifted the cover and gave her a light, noticing the slim graceful lines of her hands and the even perfection of the polish that covered her nails. He leaned back, waiting; finally he said:

  “Also what?”

  Her gray eyes inspected him as her head came round. Apparently it took a second or two for her to understand what he meant and to recall the thought she left unfinished.

  “Oh,” she said then. “Well, he had one of those—I don’t know what you call them—ugly-looking metal things you put over your fingers. You know,” she said, though Murdock as yet had not been able to understand her, “heavy, medieval-looking objects you use to hit another man with.”

  “Brass knuckles?”

  “Yes. And Louis had one in case he needed it.”

  Somewhere in Murdock’s chest a nerve tightened. For in fancy he was back in the darkness of Felton’s room seeing the metallic glint of what had seemed a disembodied object cut in a vicious arc towards his head. Then the nerve relaxed and there was no exultancy in the answer that presented itself.

  “What?” he said, more mixed up than ever in his mind but aware that she had spoken.

  “I said I’m sorry about what happened to Harry,” she said. “I’ve been sick about it, Kent, I really have. I tried to warn him—”

  “Oh?” Murdock interrupted her because he had been wondering about this very thing. “How?”

  “On the boat. Harry didn’t know who Louis was when he came up after you had taken that first picture, but later I told him. I said Louis had come to Boston especially to find him.”

  “What did Harry say?”

  “He laughed. I couldn’t tell whether he believed me or not. He said he could take care of himself.”

  She said other things but Murdock was no longer following her. He got his hat and coat. He had an idea Elsie might be in love with the Frenchman and the things he had learned depressed him strangely. He could see that Elsie had not yet stopped to think that Tremaine not only had the opportunity to kill Felton, but a motive as well. Such an idea might occur to her later but Murdock knew it was not his job to tell her so now. He thanked her for the drink and got out as quickly as he could.

  6

  THE Rendezvous that Ginny Arnold once graced with her presence had u
ndergone several changes in decor as well as ownership during the past years, but it was still doing business in the same location and it still had Bert Carlin playing the piano. The war had claimed him for three years, but he had come right back with his discharge to take up where he had left off, drawing his ninety-a-week and quite content, it seemed, to stay there forever.

  It was late when Murdock got there and not more than a half dozen tables were occupied. Carlin, slouched a little on the piano bench, was playing easily in a relaxed, full-chorded style. There was nothing of the bebop pyrotechnics in his method and very little of the society-type piano; rather he sounded like a modified Joe Sullivan, playing the same sort of harmony but with a somewhat lighter touch.

  The head bartender explained that Bert was finishing up some last request numbers before closing, so Murdock told the captain what he wanted and took a small table along the wall not far from the piano. Carlin saw him as he sat down and nodded; when the captain went over and spoke in his ear, Carlin nodded again and modulated at the end of the next chorus into his closing theme, a signal to the habitués to call for their checks and think about going home.

  Carlin came to the table a few minutes later. He shook hands and said how were things at the Courier-Herald. Yes, he’d have a drink, thanks.

  “You haven’t been in lately,” he said.

  “I guess it’s been a couple of months.”

  “Not getting tired of my tired piano?”

  Murdock said no. He was silent while a waiter served the drinks and Carlin let his glance roam, taking in the small stand which held two baby grand pianos, a microphone, and enough additional space to accommodate a singer, or possibly a quartet if they stood close together, moving finally to a curtained doorway at one side which led to some rooms in the rear. Having satisfied himself that all was in order he nodded to Murdock and lifted his glass in salute.

  “Cheers,” he said, and drank.