Crime on My Hands

by George Sanders

  I knew that I should have followed my first impulse and told the truth about the guns. Now that Sammy and Listless had further complicated the situation, I didn’t dare.

  Of course, when the reel of film was developed, it would prove me innocent. But in the meantime, if Lamar James got me alone in a small cell, he could take all night for an interview. My idea of a big night is not to spend it in a small town jail.

  Besides, there was the trap I’d set for the murderer. It had been interfered with enough already.

  I looked at Lamar James. “I see no need to toss me in the tank,” I said. “All you want is conversation anyway. Suppose we go to dinner and have a nice quiet chat.”

  James colored. “You can’t bribe me.”

  “Does asking a man to dinner constitute an attempt at bribery?” I demanded, with cold dignity.

  “In this case,” he said steadily, “yes.”

  He had me there. I wouldn’t answer his questions, and he wouldn’t go to dinner. This deadlock brought a strained silence.

  Fred broke it with, “There are three of us, George. We can teach this hick cop a lesson. I don’t like this illegal parking gag. I couldn’t make a country weekly with the yarn. Now if he wants to make it a murder charge–”

  “Stop dreaming headlines,” Melva commanded. She turned to James. “You can’t put him in jail. He has to work tomorrow, and he’d look like the devil if he didn’t get any sleep. We’re not going to let you put him in jail.”

  James paid no attention to them. “Come on, Mr. Sanders.”

  “I’d like very much to have a word about my own welfare,” I said. “If you – all of you – hadn’t come charging in here like the Light Brigade, I’d have had your murderer all wrapped up by now.” A thought struck me. “Not necessarily yet, however. Look here, if you’ll all be quiet for a few minutes, we’ll test it. I laid a trap for the murderer tonight, and maybe it isn’t too late to set it again. Will you agree to try it?” I asked James.

  “What kind of a trap?”

  I explained that Sammy was out spreading a story. “It doesn’t matter what the story is,” I said. “It’s enough to know that it was designed to draw the murderer here. It’s possible, of course, that he has been scared off by the lights and the convention we’ve been holding, but it’s also possible that he hasn’t started yet. All of you sit quietly while I put out the lights.”

  Without waiting for permission, I brought darkness again and cut the searchlight back into the circuit. “And don’t breathe heavily,” I said.

  ‘I’m between you and the door, Sanders,” James said. “Don’t make any breaks.”

  “That’s a lovely picture,” Melva murmured. “George resisting arrest on a parking charge, and getting shot for it. Mr. James, if you impair his earning capacity one cent, you’ll be combing me out of your hair from now on.”

  “Shoot him where it won’t show,” Fred said.

  “Be quiet!” I hissed.

  All we needed was a Fuller Brush man, and I hadn’t any doubt we’d have one before the night was out. If many more people got the itch to visit me, I’d have to butter a shoe horn.

  I tried to put myself in the murderer’s place, there in the dark. He had shot Flynne and planted the gun on me. The next development was almost inevitable: the gun would be found on me, I would be arrested, and the issue so confused that the killer might escape notice. But Sammy had taken the gun, and the investigation shot off on an unforeseen tangent. What had the murderer done then? As nearly as I could see, he hadn’t done anything. It was as if he had done a job, and had no further interest in the matter. He dusted his hands of the affair. But his interest had revived when I was driving in that stake.

  Why?

  Unless the killer was Sammy, he couldn’t have known what I was doing. He couldn’t have known that Listless had thrown the murder weapon away. Why, then, did he bludgeon me? Was my record as a screen detective so firmly fixed in his mind that he identified the reel man with the real?

  It could be. He could watch my reactions from the time I discovered the body. He could see me uncover the gun in the wagon; he could listen to my fairy tale to James and Callahan. He knew that Sammy knew we had an odd gun. He could see me and Sammy in whispered colloquy.

  Then he could remember: as The Saint and/or Falcon I had been attracted by crimes cast not in the common mold. And, as those super-sleuths, I always brought the culprit to bay. Justice prevailed, the innocent were exonerated, and the maiden who thought I was wonderful continued to think I was wonderful as her growing eyes faded into “THE END.”

  Watching my actions, and remembering my scripted triumphs, the killer might easily have decided that I was up to no good for him.

  The question now was whether he had already been scared away by the lights and voices, or whether he would arrive in search of the film. It was a psychological certainty that he would make an effort to destroy the film. He had to, so he thought, for it contained something highly significant.

  All we had to do, then, was wait. And if he didn’t show up tonight, we could arrange another trap later. Provided, of course, that I could stay out of jail. Above the slight sounds of our breathing and shifting, and the surf’s whispered commands for silence, I heard a scuffing beyond the door. It was as if somebody had sneaked up to the trailer and now stood first on one foot and then on the other in indecision. This didn’t fit into my earlier conception of the murderer. He should have come openly. But then, I reflected, I hadn’t been correct on anything so far, except in insisting that Flynne’s death wasn’t accidental.

  The others heard it, too. All breathing ceased, and I hoped they wouldn’t hold their breaths too long. If everyone gasped for new breath at the same instant, whoever was outside would wonder how that steam engine had got in here.

  But the door, softly, softly, swung outward. Silhouetted amorphously against the moonlighted sand outside was a tall, slim figure. Her foot intercepted the photo-electric beam, and the daylight bulb gave us a vision.

  Wanda Waite had changed clothes again. She was in a shining black satin sheath and a black fur. Her hair was sleeked back over her ears. All she needed was a jade cigarette holder to double for the fascinating spy whom everybody suspected from the first reel. Even as she stood bewildered and blinking in the brilliance, she was an exciting pillar of intrigue.

  I fixed the lights, and Wanda examined us with defiant, if frightened, blue eyes. She gave Melva and Fred a frozen smile of recognition. She looked at me and James without expression, as she took a jade cigarette holder from her bag, fitted a cigarette into it, and waited for somebody to offer a light.

  I did so, trying to analyze the expression in her eyes. It was a combination of terror and bravado. Then, suddenly, her eyes changed. Where they had been veiled a moment before, they became liquid. Fascinated, I let the match burn my fingers. I shook out the flame abstractedly without removing my gaze from hers.

  Her eyes implored. None but the blind would believe that she had played a missionary’s wife. None but the impervious would think of murder when she looked like that.

  James, the impervious, said, “What are you doing here?”

  She didn’t shift her I-am-yours-forever look for a full half minute. Then she took her eyes from mine with an expression of infinite regret. She gave James a half smile that seemed to deplore but accept the inevitable. She shrugged her shoulders, gestured with the cigarette holder. James looked embarrassed. I felt my cheeks redden.

  Melva said, “Cornfield, here we come!”

  James repeated, “What are you doing here?”

  Wanda’s voice had an overtone of embarrassment, but was nonetheless loaded with husky implication. “Must I explain?”

  James glanced at me. He didn’t say anything, but envy showed near the surface.

  Melva said nastily, “That’s motive for murder too, sometimes.”

  James blinked, and looked as if he were coming out of a dream. He turned to Wanda. “I want
to know the truth,” he said, with a kind of forced grimness.

  She put a touch of sorrow in her eyes. “Would a woman make such an admission if it were false?”

  “I don’t know,” James said dryly. “I’ve never been a woman.” He turned to me. “This was your party.”

  I became Launcelot on a white charger. “I have no reason to doubt the truth of her statement,” I said.

  “Can’t we go where there’s more room?” Melva asked. “If any more gals come after you, we’ll all be smothered in the crush.”

  Fred, I noticed, had been standing motionless, his mouth open, since Wanda had come in.

  James refused to be sidetracked. “I’d like to have your fingerprints,” he said to Wanda.

  She was shocked. “Why?”

  “I want ’em, that’s all.”

  “The romantic cop,” Melva murmured. “A souvenir!”

  Wanda was frightened again. Her hands, clenched and shaking, opened to fumble with her bag. She took out her lipstick and began to take off the cap. It fell out of her hands.

  James stooped to retrieve it. Wanda held out her hand, already forming a tight smile of thanks. But the deputy put the lipstick carefully in his pocket.

  Wanda’s hand began to shake again. “I’ll have that, if you please.”

  “Later,” James said. “Maybe.” He went to the door. “This is evidence. Don’t leave town.” He went out.

  A puzzled silence fell over us. Wanda was definitely in a blue funk. Melva eyed her curiously. Fred just eyed her.

  “That,” I said thoughtfully, “was one my script writers missed. A new way, to me, of getting reluctant fingerprints.”

  “What have I done now?” Wanda whispered. “I never meant to hurt anybody in my life, and now I’m being treated like a criminal.”

  She turned and ran from the trailer.

  Chapter Ten

  Melva said, “That left everybody standing on one foot!”

  “What’s that cop interested in Wanda for?” Fred asked.

  “Somebody shot Severance Flynne,” I pointed out. “It could have been Wanda.”

  “Was it?” Fred asked tensely.

  “No. She didn’t kill him.”

  “Then why don’t you tell the cop?” Melva demanded. “He’s wasting time on her if she’s innocent.”

  ‘I’m not ready to tell him yet. I honestly believe that I should have trapped the killer here tonight if you two hadn’t got the bright idea of dropping in. Now, we may as well go to dinner. The killer must have been scared off by this time.”

  Melva took up a position between me and the door. Hands on hips, she stood on widespread feet and glared at me. “So you’re not ready to tell him! You listen to me, George Sanders. You give up any dopey ideas you may have about solving this murder. You’re up here to make a picture, and if you don’t do a good job I’ll never be able to get you another big part. And you can’t do a good job of acting if you mess around on this, aside from the fact that you may get yourself killed. So you just run along and tell that cop what he wants to know.”

  “He’d arrest me if I did.”

  “But why? You said you didn’t kill him, didn’t you?”

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said patiently, “and I think I can prove it. But the very proof which I can offer will incriminate me to some extent. It will probably absolve me, but at the same time it will show that I not only lied but that I have interfered with the investigation and perhaps destroyed any chance of the police finding the murderer. In self-defense, I must keep quiet.”

  “All right then, keep quiet.”

  “But I can’t sit idly by and let the killer escape. My self-respect won’t allow it.”

  “Nuts to your self-respect. You’re an actor, your contract says so. It doesn’t say anything about being a detective.”

  “You may as well save your breath, Melva. I’m in this, and I’m staying in. How about some food?”

  “Do you think you can find out who killed him?” Fred said.

  “I think so. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  “Then I’ll fix up a series of releases. Police baffled, but Sanders is working on it and promises developments. We’ll keep shooting those in and then really spread it when you catch the guy.”

  “You do,” Melva said grimly, “and I’ll stake you out on an ant-hill and spread cake icing all over you. If George must be an idiot, the safest thing he can do is be one secretly. Why give the pot-shotter a motive to ring up a bull’s eye on George?”

  “I don’t want the story in print, anyway,” I said. Fred was incredulous. “You don’t what? You must want publicity; that’s what you hired me for. Why, this thing is a natural. Every editor on the coast would go for it. There’s thousands of dollars’ worth of publicity in it.”

  “I’d look a prize fool,” I said. “If I had been asked to aid the police, I’d say go ahead. As it is, it would be regarded as a publicity stunt.”

  “So what?” Fred said. “Since when is publicity bad for an actor?”

  “But I’m not doing this for publicity. I’m doing it first because I must, second because I think people who murder other people oughtn’t to get away with it. And here’s another point: if you announce that I’m working on the case, wouldn’t I look silly if I didn’t solve it?”

  “But you said you could.”

  “And I think I can. But I’m not Superman. I’m not even the Saint. I’m just Sanders.”

  “This isn’t like you, George,” Fred said.

  “My gastric juices are aflow,” I said. “Let us go. This conversation is futile.”

  We went to the hotel, so that Fred and Melva could register. The night clerk seemed happy to see smooth faces. “Me and my little grandson started to play ‘Beaver’ before I come on shift,” he said. “Counted so many beards we get hoarse yellin’. Enough stuffing in this town to keep a mattress factory hummin’ for a week. You two married?”

  “No,” Fred said. “Damn it.”

  “Don’t make no difference,” the clerk said. “I’ll put you in the same room if you want. I always say if people are gonna sleep together, separate rooms won’t stop ’em. All it does is give one or t’other a cold, runnin’ up and down the halls barefoot. There’s nothing vacant but one big room with a double bed, and a little rat nest on the top floor that I charge two dollars for. It’s pretty lousy, if you ask me. Too much money, too.”

  “I’ll take the little one,” Fred said. “Give her the other.”

  “Makin’ a mistake, young feller.” He looked at Melva through, over, and under steel-rimmed spectacles. He spread a snaggled grin. “Big mistake.”

  “Never mind,” Fred said, through clenched teeth.

  “No call to get het up,” the old man said. “Most natural thing in the world. Fun, too. I ain’t forgot. Never will, I reckon. Sign here.”

  Fred and Melva signed. She took her key and went up to wash her face. We promised to meet her in the bar next door, and started out.

  We found almost everybody in the bar. Everybody except Sammy. There were Paul, Riegleman, Curtis, the boss cameraman, and a frieze of bearded extras. I stopped at Riegleman’s table.

  “Is there a decent eating place around here?” I asked.

  “I tried that counter joint down the street,” Paul answered. “I ordered a filet, medium. When I stuck a fork in it, it whinnied. All that steak needed was a good vet, and you could enter it at Santa Anita.”

  “I say,” Riegleman objected, blinking. “You didn’t really get horse-meat?”

  “Oh no?” Paul said. “Then why did it flinch when I rattled my spurs?”

  Riegleman stared for a moment, then his long face relaxed. “I see,” he said. “You’re having me on.”

  I thought that now was as good a time as any. “I’ve taken rather a liberty,” I said, “but in a good cause, I trust.” I gave Riegleman an apologetic smile. “I’ve removed the reel of film that was being shot at the time of the murder, and put it i
n a safe place.”

  Jaws dropped. Riegleman grew a “how-dare-you” look in his eye. Before he could speak, I said lightly, “Don’t worry about the film, it’s hidden in my trailer.”

  “But why?” Paul demanded.

  “It points out the murderer,” I said. “And my detective training seems to be getting the upper hand. as soon as I get that film into Hollywood and get it developed and a print made, I’ll be able to call in the police and say, ‘There’s the man.’ “

  “Who do you think did it?” Riegleman asked idly.

  “I didn’t. And nobody else who was in the scene. It must have been someone behind the cameras. I have it narrowed down to two.” I grinned. “You’re both alibied, I suppose.”

  Riegleman looked at me in the same way he had stared at Paul. Presently, he smiled. “You’re guying us, George.”

  “Maybe. There must be something highly significant on that reel. I think it will point out the murderer.”

  “No kidding?” Paul asked. He frowned. “You’d better not spread the word until you’re sure, George. You’ll get yourself bumped.”

  “Where is your bodyguard?” Riegleman demanded. “I issued orders.”

  “Fred and Melva,” I told him. “They just came up. They’ll keep me safe from harm. God help anybody who tries to incapacitate me while Melva’s around. She’d bite his jugular. “

  “You must let the police handle this, George,” Riegleman said, suddenly grim. “You’re too valuable a property. If you have any ideas about the identity of the murderer, tell the sheriff. We cannot allow you to run risks.”

  ‘I’m on my way to the sheriff’s office now,” I lied. “Then I’m going to eat.”

  Melva came along, was highly cordial to Riegleman, and we went out. We met Sammy coming in.

  ‘I’m sorry, George,” he said, “but I had carburetor trouble, and I’ve been in a garage since I left you. I haven’t told anybody.”

  “I told Riegleman and Paul, Sammy. You get the others. We’re going to dinner. Know a good place?”

  “Up the coast about ten miles,” Sammy said. “Lee’s Kitchen. Good food, but too expensive.”