Fashioned for Murder

by George Harmon Coxe

  “Hurry it!” he urged, and removed the sign. It said: Do Not Disturb, and it seemed now that Sam Duble was taking forever to get the door unlocked. “I don’t like this.”

  “Neither do I,” said Sam and then the lock clicked and he was opening the door and going through, Nason at his heels.

  They saw the man at once. It was impossible not to, for he sat slumped in an easy chair near the center of the room, one hand dangling, his head aslant and tipped back on the cushion. He looked as if he were sleeping, and now Nason could see the small table beside him and the glass bowl filled with ice and water, the whisky bottle, the two glasses.

  He remembered what Lieutenant Treynor had said about Irene Keith, and it occurred to him now that the scene was just about the same except that in this case there were two glasses instead of one and a precaution had been taken in the form of the Do Not Disturb sign.

  Although it seemed minutes that he stood there with Sam Duble, it was probably no more than a second or two. Now he felt no need to hurry, and there was no more nervous tension pulling at his muscles but only an over-all sense of weakness and discouragement as reaction hit him. He saw Duble move toward the still figure. For himself, he had little interest now, and, finding the sign still in his hand, he turned and hung it over the inner doorknob while his mind went back to elaborate on his earlier doubts and suspicions of Albert Wylie.

  For it was Wylie who sprawled in that chair, and, as Nason wondered what he could have done to prevent this, he saw Duble bending over the man, and walked forward, noticing the smooth, round face, the closed eyes, the thinning hair, still neatly combed, the immaculate perfection of the Oxford-gray suit, which seemed somehow to be Albert Wylie’s hallmark. But he was unprepared for what came next. He heard Duble’s soft but vicious curse, heard him speak, and still he did not believe it.

  “What?” he said, lengthening his stride.

  “I said he ain’t dead.” Duble had one of the glasses in his hand and was smelling it, holding it up to the light.

  “And it ain’t cyanide.”

  Nason was leaning down, making sure that Albert Wylie was breathing, and then he accepted everything and waited for Sam Duble to go on, his mind racing and the excitement stirring again inside him.

  “Julian gave him a Mickey,” he said in his relief.

  “Somebody did.” Duble indicated the trace of sediment in the bottom of one glass, stirred it with a finger, and tasted what stuck to the finger. “Could be anything. Chloral hydrate, sleeping-powders, half a dozen things. The other glass is clean.” He straightened, his chubby face wrinkled in thought.

  “We were here around twelve,” he said. “From the looks of the ice in the bowl, Wylie had his drink a couple of hours ago. He’s liable to come out of it pretty soon.”

  “He’s liable not to,” Nason said. “How do we know what he drank?” He gave his hat brim a tug, and there was new brightness in his narrowed eyes as he thought of other things and slid them neatly into their proper grooves. He knew what he wanted to do now, and he said, “Let’s get out. I’m going to borrow your car and you’re going to make another anonymous phone call.”

  “For the cops?” Duble considered this unhappily. “I don’t know.”

  “Look,” Nason said, a hard impatience in his tone. “Julian gave him the Mickey; you’ve got to figure it that way. He wanted Wylie out of the way, because he had things to do and Wylie knew too much. He wanted to make sure no one found Wylie, and that means he’ll be back. The way things look now he may finish the job.”

  “Okay,” Duble said. “I guess I’ll have to go along with you there. But not the cops. I’ll call the hotel from outside and let the manager come up. He can take it from there.” He surveyed Nason with one eye and then with both. “And what’ll you be doing?”

  “Taking a ride in the country.”

  “Is it all right to ask where?”

  Nason told him about Paul Sanford. He said there was no telephone but he had the address and he had to make sure. He said Raoul Julian might have the same idea.

  “How about me?” said Sam.

  “After you make your call, go over to Linda Courtney’s place and stay outside where you can watch it. There’s no way of being sure whether she went to San-ford’s or not. She may be in town and there’s a chance she might show up. If she does, you’ve got to make sure nothing happens to her—until I get back.”

  “When’ll that be?”

  Nason glanced at his watch and saw that it was six-twenty. “By nine, unless I run into something.”

  Duble opened the door and started along the hall, sighing resignedly and muttering to himself. “Sometimes,” he said, “I think I ought to get my head examined. The trouble is I’m afraid to. I’m afraid of what the doc’ll say when he finds out the sort of things I do for twenty-one bucks a day.”

  “You love it,” Nason said, able to kid a little now because he knew what he wanted to do and had confidence in his plan. “And you know it.”

  “It’s young guys like you that make we wonder,” Duble said. “You just don’t give a damn.” He grunted softly, shaking his head, grinning a little as he scuffed along toward the elevators, and Nason, amused by the little man’s remarks, thought of something he had been curious about from the first and decided to get the matter clear. “Why,” he said, “do you charge twenty-one bucks a day?”

  “That’s my price.”

  “But why not twenty? Or twenty-five?

  “Oh, that?” Duble grinned, his eyes wise. “I’ll tell you. I used to get fifteen bucks a day and glad to get it. But after the war I got reading where the government says all the automobile workers and the steel workers, and what have you, should get eighteen and a half cents an hour more. Nobody says where the scratch is coming from, but somebody tells the boss to get it up or else. So I figure what the hell, Sam. You don’t belong to anything but maybe the Brotherhood of Horse Players, so you can’t strike and who cares? But if those guys that put forty hours a week in a factory can get it, so can you.”

  He pushed the elevator button and stood back. “So I get a pencil and a piece of paper. I figure I work on the average twelve hours a day—seventy-two a week. I used to get ninety bucks—if I was lucky. That figured out a buck and a quarter an hour. So I add on the eighteen and a half cents—only I make it nineteen because I never was any good at fractions—and that gives me one forty-four an hour.”

  Nason did some rough arithmetic. “That doesn’t make any twenty-one dollars a day.”

  “Ahh,” said Sam. “But those guys get time and a half after forty hours, so why not me? So I get forty hours at one forty-four an hour, and thirty-two hours at two sixteen. Anyway, it worked out twenty-one something a day, and I throw the “something” away because I can never remember how much it is. Of course, they’ve got some improvements I ain’t got around to yet, like vacations with pay, and six or eight holidays each year with pay, and social welfare, and stuff like that. But I’m working on it. I’ll think of something.”

  He grunted and said, “The only trouble is, I can’t buy as much now as I used to buy with my ninety bucks in 1939, but I didn’t start it. I didn’t start askin’ for more dough until somebody else got the ball rolling and I don’t figure on being in the middle like some people have to be.” The elevator door opened, and Sam stepped in. “It’ll probably be more next year,” he said.

  It was a lot of talk for Sam Duble and he had no more to offer. When Nason left him in the lobby, he still did not know whether Sam was kidding him or not. He had an idea Sam had made up his mind and intended to stick to it.

  When he left the Hutchinson River Parkway, Jerry Nason had to stop and ask questions at a gas station, and, because it was nearly dark, he had some trouble finding Paul Sanford’s house, taking two wrong turns before coming to the narrow macadam road which curved up through a stand of woods that rose along a gentle slope and topped the brow of the hill.

  A white, reconverted farmhouse was perche
d on the summit with a wide yard and a split-rail fence out front, and, though Nason knew he was close, he did not stop in the darkness to examine the mailbox because the house seemed much too large when compared to the description Kate Harper had given him. But there was a light farther along, which winked at him through the trees, and, with the summit past, he coasted down and came at last to a sprawling, one-story house that looked black but upon closer inspection became barn-red with a white trim. Standing not far from the road, it had a driveway on the near side and an attached garage, and when Nason saw the convertible parked just off the road, he knew he was at the right place and was glad he made his approach by coasting.

  He turned off his motor at once. He switched off his lights fifty yards from the driveway, easing the car to the roadside and letting it stop just short of the convertible. He was careful getting out and eased the door back, not bothering to latch it, seeing now that, while reflected light glowed from several windows, it was brightest at the left side of the house.

  Picking his way carefully across the lawn and skirting the foundation planting, he moved along the front of the house until he could look into the end room, and then he was very glad he had come.

  The room that stretched in brightness before him was a living-room that ran the depth of the house. The fireplace from an outside chimney filled the center of the left side, and next to this were two sets of French doors opening on a covered porch. The windows on his side matched others at the rear, and, though he could see the divan and a chair in front of the fireplace, he had to circle out and to his left to see more.

  He saw Linda Courtney first. She was sitting in a chair next to a refectory table, her back to the divan; she wore a print dress, and her hair was golden in the room’s brightness. She was staring intently at something Nason could not see until he moved two more steps to the left.

  Raoul Julian was beyond Linda and to the right, half facing Nason so that he ducked back instinctively before he remembered that it would be impossible to see from a lighted room into darkness, so long as he kept back from the window. He could see Julian talking but could not hear what he said; he also saw the foreign-looking automatic in the big man’s hand and discovered that it was pointed in the general direction of Paul Sanford, who at the moment stood before a round wall safe, his back to the room as he worked the combination.

  For perhaps ten seconds Jerry Nason waited, studying the room, finding two doors in the right wall, one near the front that apparently gave on the entrance hall and one that was cut in the far corner leading to some room behind the hall. He was ready then, knowing what he had to do, moving back the way he had come and around the house to the back door.

  It was black here in the shadow of the house, and the ancient apple tree that spread its gnarled limbs overhead seemed to accent the blackness as he turned toward the steps leading to the back stoop, taking off his topcoat as he did so. There were three of these steps, flanked by a handrail, on which he hung his coat, and he tiptoed up, needing a break and offering a silent prayer as he palmed the doorknob and turned it.

  His prayer was answered. The door opened, and there were no squeaks—no sound at all save his own breathing. Then there was linoleum under his feet and he was in a kitchen, wondering about the door and finally decding to close it lest some draft betray him.

  He was keyed up and tense as he waited there and gave his eyes a chance to accustom themselves to the unfamiliar darkness, but inside he felt confident and inspired and eager to get going. For it was clear now that there was no alternative; there was no time to go tearing down the road for help; he could sneak in, hoping that Raoul Julian remained with his back to that rear door, and take his chances. Period.

  A crack of light at the bottom of a door held his attention now, and when he saw that the crack was equally apparent on the left side he knew it was a swinging door. Since it led in the proper direction, he moved toward it, opened it soundlessly, clinging to it with his finger tips as he let it swing back so that there would be no noise when he let it go. Then he was in a small dining-room, and the sound of voices came to him, Julian’s first, and then Sanford’s.

  “It is understandable that you are nervous,” the big, man said in his foreign-sounding way, “but not so nervous you cannot make the combination work.”

  “I’m trying to,” Sanford said.

  “Concentrate,” Julian said, “and make sure that this time you open it.”

  Nason moved five feet across the carpeted floor during the exchange. He had another five feet to go before he would reach the doorway itself.

  He put one foot out, touched it down, transferring his weight as he pushed with his hind foot, swinging forward, still on one foot, then putting the second foot down, toe first, the muscles pulling in his calves and thighs. Once more he tried, and there was silence all about him now and he knew that he was nearly close enough.

  Raoul Julian stood perhaps eight feet beyond the opening, his back half turned as he watched Sanford and the girl. He was directly in line with the French doors to the right of the fireplace. He did not move, and now Nason was in the doorway, still unnoticed but seeing the edge of the chair in which Linda sat and finally the girl herself.

  He picked out a spot in back of Julian’s legs, hoping she would not see him and give things away. He slid his left foot slightly forward so he could take off; then, as he gathered himself, Julian pivoted abruptly and stepped back, his gun swinging.

  For that brief instant, as he started to move, Nason nearly went through with it. He saw the surprise in Julian’s face, and there was this moment when Nason thought he could make it. But if Julian sensed what was in his mind, so did the girl.

  “No!” she cried, the sound of her voice startling him. “No, Jerry!”

  It was this frightened warning that checked him, and having faltered, not really knowing why, it was too late. He caught himself as the pistol leveled down, straightened in the doorway. He watched Julian back slowly toward the corner so that he could cover both men. Then the big man smiled, white teeth flashing.

  “Come in, Nason,” he said, motioning with his gun, “and join us. Watch what you’re doing!” he said to Paul Sanford. “This time you will make sure.”

  The stiffness was still in Nason’s legs and in his back. It seemed funny to be standing on his feet instead of on tiptoe. He moved slowly into the room the strain still bothering him, the perspiration starting to come.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  PAUL SANFORD STOOD by the wall safe. It was open now, but he paid no attention to it in the next few moments. He stared incredulously at Nason, and now Linda Courtney was on her feet, her eyes wide open, her face white, one hand still touching the chair arm, as though not trusting herself to stand alone.

  Nason put down his bitterness, and it was a hard thing to do because he had been caught and he felt like a fool. He did not know yet what had given him away, and the thought of this was galling until his mind probed ahead and he could view the matter philosophically and take comfort in the fact that he was here, with Linda, that she was all right.

  “Jerry,” she said, no fear in her voice but relief and something else that might have been gratitude.

  “Hi, baby,” he said. “Hello, Mr. Sanford. I guess I muffed it,” he said to Julian. “Too much noise?”

  “You were very good.” Julian jerked a thumb at the French doors behind him. “I did not hear you, but the door was like a mirror when you moved into the light. I was fortunate to see this.”

  Paul Sanford cleared his throat. His smooth face was moist with strain, and he wiped it with a handkerchief from his breast pocket. He rubbed his palms dry, one eye on Julian, and said, “You saw us through the front windows, Nason? And came round through the back door?” He moved his shoulders in a gesture of regret. “It’s too bad you couldn’t have made it.”

  “Why, Jerry?” Linda said. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” Nason said. “But this was the only other p
lace I could think of. I was afraid Julian might think of it, too.” He glanced at the big man, noting with approval the discolored swelling around the cheekbone. “Who hung the mouse on you?”

  Julian ignored him. He was watching Sanford and now he said, “Empty the safe, please. Everything. Put it on the table by Linda.”

  Paul Sanford turned regretfully to his task. He brought out an envelope-sized portfolio done in red leather, a stack of papers held by an elastic, and then, one after the other, the five velvet rolls containing his garnet collection.

  “What else?” Julian said when these were on the table.

  “That’s all,” Sanford said.

  “Stand over here. You, too, Nason. In front of the fireplace.”

  Sanford backed round the table and in front of the divan. Nason joined him while Julian watched, gun ready. Then Julian backed to the safe, thrust his hand inside and brought out a small box, no longer wrapped but one that Nason recognized at once. He looked at Linda, brow crooked in a grin because he knew that in the box were the six emeralds she had claimed from the hotel safe that morning.

  Linda flushed. Her voice was mildly defiant and edged with embarrassment. “This was the safest place I knew, Jerry. I was afraid the police might think of it, and I knew they were suspicious of you and—”

  “They did think of it,” Nason said. “You got it just in time,” he said, and told about Lieutenant Treynor.

  “Then I’m glad,” Linda said. “I just didn’t know what else to do, Jerry.”

  Julian had the cover off the box and was unwrapping the stones one at a time, arranging them in a line but not daring to look long upon their fiery brilliance. When he finally gave his attention to his prisoners, his black eyes were thin and bright and beneath his mustache his mouth was grim.