“I suggest you wait till he makes his move and we’re sure,” Chambrun said. “I think you can count on Maxwell to tell us if it happens. If you show your hand, he’ll just wait, and we’ll have to wait, too. Let him think he’s in the clear and he’ll make his move as soon as he can get to Maxwell.”
“I feel like a goddam juggler,” Hardy said. “Two balls in the air. I’m looking for someone who hated Maxwell and I’m looking for someone who hated Sewall. I’m looking for someone who didn’t know that Sewall had planned a joke, and someone who did. You and your goddam theories, Chambrun!”
“I’m looking for someone who got himself a key to those balcony doors,” Chambrun said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“And maybe we’ll come up with that answer next Christmas,” Hardy said. “There are a handful of those lousy keys, none of them hidden away. The plans for the dinner have been public property for a week or ten days. Whoever it was had plenty of time to snitch one of those keys and get a copy made for himself. I suppose I could check out the thousands of keymakers there are in New York.”
The door to the little dining room opened and one of Hardy’s plainclothes men came in. Behind him was Watson Clarke. Clarke had obviously gotten to his apartment for a change of clothes. He was wearing a russet-brown tweed suit with a pale pink shirt and a brown knitted tie; very Brooks Brothers. I was struck again by his resemblance to Raymond Burr. He was Ironside without the wheelchair. He impressed with his physical strength and fitness for a man in his mid-fifties. I thought he was somebody I’d like to have on my team in a tight corner. He gave us a kind of tired smile.
“I understand I’m a murder suspect,” he said.
The plainclothes man was whispering to Hardy.
“Not really, Mr. Clarke,” Chambrun said. “Jerry Dodd, my security officer, thought of you when they determined the kind of gun that had been used. But we know you weren’t on the balcony when Sewall was killed.”
“That’s rather fortunate,” Clarke said. “Because, you see, I do own a 6.5 millimeter P-38 Walthers, German-made handgun.” He reached in his pocket and produced a brown shell briar pipe, rugged enough to go with his square-jawed face. He began to fill it from an oilskin pouch.
“My man says it doesn’t appear to have been fired,” Hardy said. “Not recently.”
“Not in my memory,” Clarke said. “I collect guns. I showed your man what I had that isn’t in storage. The Walthers isn’t a gun I’d use on safari, which is the only shooting I’ve done in recent years. I’m afraid my Walthers is a rather unpleasant coincidence.”
Hardy looked up. “Is it the kind of gun you’d have chosen to use if you had meant to shoot someone from that balcony, Mr. Clarke?”
Clarke held a lighter to his pipe. There wasn’t a nerve in his body, I thought.
“I have about thirty guns in my apartment,” Clarke said. “If I had been planning to gun someone down from that balcony, the Walthers is exactly what I’d have chosen. It’s light, deadly accurate if you know how to handle it. It would have been the perfect weapon.”
“Who else do you know who owns one?” Hardy asked.
Clarke’s laugh was easy. “My friend, there are hundreds of them around. It’s not a rarity.”
“But you have one in your collection.”
“My collection, Lieutenant, is not a collection of rare weapons or antiques, as your man will tell you. I collect the best modern guns of their type. The Walthers is such a gun.”
Hardy sighed. “I’m going to tell you something that may make you feel better, Mr. Clarke. The bullet they dug out of Sewall’s body was so scratched and damaged in the process that our ballistics man tells me we’ll never be able to match it to a gun.”
“I don’t feel any better than I did, Lieutenant. It wasn’t my gun that was used. It’s where it belonged, not recently fired.”
“At least recently cleaned,” Hardy said. “Mr. Maxwell is probably familiar with your collection, isn’t he?”
Clarke’s heavy eyebrows rose. “Doug? Sure he’s familiar with it. Are you suggesting he borrowed my gun so he could shoot himself? I mean, from the balcony—when he was in the lobby.”
“It was Sewall who was in the lobby,” Hardy said.
“But—”
“Doug has told us about Sewall’s blackmailing habits, Mr. Clarke,” Chambrun said.
“Oh, God!”
“Doug is also completely in the clear,” Chambrun said. “We know exactly where he was when Sewall was shot, and where he was when Shaw was beaten to death.”
Clarke’s pipe had gone out. He relit it. “Well, thank the Lord for that!” he said. “But are you suggesting the killer was after Sewall and not Doug? I’d like to think so, but it doesn’t seem very likely. The killer would have to have known what Sewall was planning for the evening.”
“A lot of people knew,” Chambrun said, “including Diana Maxwell.”
“You have to be kidding!” Clarke said.
“Diana and her young man were good friends of Charlie Sewall’s,” Chambrun said.
Clarke bit down hard on his pipe stem. “And would have been delighted to have him make Doug look foolish.”
“Politics have always been a no-holds-barred brawl,” Chambrun said. “In the old days the brawling took place in a corner saloon or down a back alley. Today—the age of television, radio, computers—the brawling takes place in public. Everybody sees it happen while it’s happening. Ask the mayor of Chicago about it. Tell me, Mr. Clarke, what was your reaction when Maxwell came to you with his blackmail story?”
Clarke shook his head. “You have to understand that I grew up with Doug and Charlie,” he said. “We were kids together. We went to college together. I must have seen and been the butt of dozens of Charlie’s jokes. Sometimes they made me mad; sometimes I had to laugh at them even if the egg was on my face. Frankly, my first reaction was that Doug had been had by Charlie; that Charlie would never really use that confession against Doug. It couldn’t do Doug any harm. But as I thought about it, I realized that twenty-odd years ago it could have hurt Doug. The college would probably have fired Doug if Charlie had made a big smear of it. The more I thought about it, the angrier it made me.”
“But in relation to the present political picture?”
“It’s hard to judge how much it would hurt Doug right now,” Clarke said. “It might even help him, but that would be a big gamble to take. My suggestion was that he pay Charlie whatever he asked for until after the election. Then, win or lose, he should tell Charlie to drop dead—do his worst.”
“Has it occurred to you, Mr. Clarke, that somebody else now has that confession? That the ball game may not be over?” Chambrun asked.
For the first time I thought Clarke looked a little shaken. “That is the blackmailer’s M.O., isn’t it?” he said. “If I die of anything but natural causes, turn this over to the police.”
“Or use it for your own purposes,” Chambrun said.
“Does Doug have any ideas—?”
“Sewall has a girl friend who knows,” Hardy said. “He also has a lawyer named Hyland.”
“Dicky Hyland?” Clarke said. He laughed. “Dicky went to college with all of us. He’s a third-rate lawyer, making a thin living out of divorce case scandals. He is also a first-rate lush. He would love to try to control someone like Doug. The total failure ruling the destiny of the distinguished success. A miserable louse, Dicky Hyland. He’s just the kind of guy Charlie would use for his fun and games.”
“He’s already been in the hotel tonight looking for Maxwell,” Hardy said. “I thought of grabbing him, but Chambrun advises we wait until he makes his move. Right now he says he wants to see Maxwell about funeral arrangements. We can’t nail him for that.”
A muscle rippled along Clarke’s jaw line. “I’d like the chance to deal with that miserable little creep myself,” he said.
Chambrun had gotten up from his chair and was walking restlessly up and down behind the ta
ble. He was snapping his gold cigarette case open and shut without taking a cigarette from it. Finally he stopped his pacing and faced Clarke.
“If I were the strategist for the opposition political party and this story broke—the story of Doug Maxwell’s theft from the college twenty-three years ago—I’d ask some questions. Nobody could do anything to me for asking questions, could they? No matter what the questions implied?”
“What questions?” Clarke asked. He had abandoned his pipe and slipped it back in his pocket.
“If I were the opposition, I would consider some facts,” Chambrun said. “Charlie Sewall had it in his power to damage Doug Maxwell, perhaps beyond repair. Maxwell and his adviser, you Mr. Clarke, might have decided that Sewall had to be eliminated. Had you learned, since many people knew about it, that Sewall planned to appear without his pants in the lobby last night? If you did, you knew he would be a perfect target, and that everyone would assume the murder bullet was meant for Maxwell. Now it turns out that Maxwell has a perfect alibi, and that you have a perfect alibi.”
“Which should put an end to the questions,” Clarke said.
“On the contrary. The questions just begin. How handy that you and Doug are both in the clear. My question number one would, therefore, be: Did Maxwell and Clarke hire someone to do away with Charles Sewall? You can buy a gunman for chicken feed these days. My second question would be: Did Maxwell and Clarke provide the killer with the murder weapon? Isn’t it a remarkable coincidence that Clarke owns a Walthers P-38, the unusual kind of gun used by the killer? My third question: Did Stewart Shaw get a glimpse of the killer on the balcony? Shaw was in the hotel then. Did Shaw recognize him, realize that his beloved boss must be involved, wait for a moment when he could confront the killer, and got himself killed for his pains?”
Clarke drew a deep breath. “Are those all your questions?” He was, I saw, close to an angry explosion.
Chambrun gave him a thin smile. “I’m not saying I believe any of those things, Mr. Clarke, but if I were the strategist for the opposition, I would ask them. If the voting public gets to know that Doug Maxwell once stole some money, and then these questions are asked, I don’t think he would have the remotest chance of being elected, no matter how angrily you deny the implications contained in those questions.”
Clarke controlled himself. “Well, thank God you aren’t the strategist for the opposition.”
“Whoever is may not be a complete fool,” Chambrun said. “I’ve painted this picture for you to make it clear that Dicky Hyland, or whoever else may hold Maxwell’s confession of theft, must be handled with kid gloves if you have any wish to have Maxwell elected.”
“Have you put this to Doug?” Clarke asked.
“No.”
“I think I should, then,” Clarke said. “If Dicky Hyland gets to him, Doug might blow his stack if he isn’t aware of the possibilities.”
“He’s supposed to be resting,” Chambrun said.
“I think his rest should be interrupted,” Clarke said. “Have you any objection, Lieutenant?”
“No,” Hardy said, “but Mr. Chambrun’s questions are interesting, you know. I’d like to ask a couple of my own.”
“Shoot,” Clarke said, an edge of impatience in his voice.
“Tell me what you can about Stewart Shaw.”
“Stew?” Clarke seemed to make an effort to bring himself away from what was on his mind. “Some of this is sketchy, Lieutenant. Doug has talked about him, but I wasn’t particularly interested in Shaw at the time. He was a navy man. Long after Doug’s service in World War II, you understand. I suppose Shaw was thirty-five, twenty years younger than Doug. Shaw had served quite a number of years; enlisted, not drafted. He finally decided not to re-enlist. Someone Doug knew—the son of a friend, I think—was Shaw’s commanding officer. This officer sent Shaw to Doug at Barstow College with a letter asking Doug to do what he could about finding some kind of a job for Shaw. Doug interviewed him, liked him, hired him as part of the campus police force at Barstow.
“Shaw was grateful. He made a point of trying to do special services, outside his regular routine, for Doug. Doug came to count on him, eventually put him in charge of campus security. When the campus riots erupted last year, Shaw was in the middle of the action. Doug was in the middle of it, too. He didn’t hide away from it as many college administrators have. He walked the campus, took the insults and the obscenities, faced the activists, laid down the law, and eventually won over the majority of the student body. It was a dangerous time for Doug, and Shaw never left his side. Somebody wrote an article about Doug and Stew Shaw for one of the big national magazines. They both got a measure of fame out of it. It was what led to Doug’s being asked to run for the Senate. When he decided to resign from Barstow and make the run, Stew Shaw also quit and became Doug’s batman and bodyguard. Jack Mickly, the PR man, and a couple of secretaries also left Barstow to become part of Doug’s team. That’s about it, I think, Lieutenant.”
“Shaw was really devoted to Maxwell?” Hardy said.
“That’s putting it mildly, Lieutenant.”
“So if Maxwell was in bad trouble, Shaw would go to any lengths for him?”
“I’d say so.”
“Like shooting Sewall to keep him from unloading on Maxwell?”
“Oh, come off it, Lieutenant.”
“Why?” Hardy asked, a stubborn look on his face. “He was in the hotel when the shot was fired. He knew all about the arrangements, the locked balcony, the works. He had access to a Walthers P-38.”
“How?”
“Do you examine your gun collection every day, Mr. Clarke?”
“Of course not.”
“Maxwell and Shaw were in and out of your apartment fairly often during the planning of tonight’s dinner, weren’t they?”
“Well, yes, they were.”
“It’s possible, then, that Shaw managed to slip that gun out of your house, isn’t it?”
“And how did he get it back there after the shooting?” Clarke asked.
“Your apartment is just around the corner from Maxwell’s house, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Hardy spread his hands. “You may remember that Shaw was sent to the house earlier this evening to ‘get some things’ Maxwell needed? He could have hidden the gun after the shooting, retrieved it when he had a moment, and taken it, cleaned, back to your apartment.”
“How did he get into my apartment?” Clarke asked.
Hardy shrugged. “How did he get into the balcony in the lobby? He was some kind of key genius.”
“And who killed him and why?” Clarke asked. He was angry again. “Not Doug. You had him covered. Not me. A dozen people know I was in the Trapeze Bar when the riot started. Haskell here knows that. Who, then?”
“A friend of Charlie Sewall’s?” Hardy was asking himself the question. “There are two men who came into the hotel with Sewall who haven’t yet been identified. Maybe the man who now holds the evidence against Maxwell?”
Clarke laughed. “Dicky Hyland? Shaw could have broken him in half with one arm tied behind him.” He shook his massive head. “You don’t seriously believe Doug and Stew Shaw planned to murder Charlie, do you?”
“It’s a question Mr. Chambrun’s opposition genius might ask,” Hardy said. He looked satisfied with himself.
Clarke’s early affability had left him. “Can you give instructions to the hotel switchboard, Lieutenant, so that I can get through to Maxwell? I think he should know how rough the going may be.”
Hardy picked up the jacked-in phone on the table beside him and asked to be put through to 14B. He handed the phone to Clarke. Maxwell himself evidently answered.
“It’s Watty, Doug,” Clarke said. “I’m afraid I woke you up…No, I can imagine…I’m with your friend Chambrun and the police lieutenant. They’ve made some rather extraordinary suggestions to me that I think you should hear…Yes, now…Sure. I’ll come right up.” Clarke put down the phon
e. “He wasn’t sleeping, which isn’t strange.”
Hardy turned to his plainclothes man. “Take Mr. Clarke up to Fourteen B,” he said.
“You think I need protection, Lieutenant?” Clarke asked.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Mr. Clarke, until we’ve gone through the business of checking tonight’s guest list name by name. I’ll be ready for you in half an hour. I hope you’ll be through with Maxwell by then.”
Hardy watched Clarke and the cop leave the room. He reached in his pocket for one of his long, thin cigars. He put it in his mouth but he didn’t light it.
“You think there might be anything to my theory about Shaw, Chambrun? That he could have done the job for Maxwell? Oh, I know Maxwell’s your friend. But it could be. And Shaw could have been done for by one of Sewall’s two friends. We have no way of knowing that they ever left the hotel. One of them might have seen Shaw on the balcony and waited to get him.”
“It’s a neat little package,” Chambrun said, “but aren’t you just juggling one ball now, Lieutenant? There’s still the very logical possibility that the man with the gun thought he was killing Maxwell. I have a hunch the District Attorney’s office is going to ask you why you aren’t looking for someone who meant to get Maxwell.”
“You won me over to the other side,” Hardy said.
“Find the man who managed to get a key to that balcony and you’ll know which side of the street to play,” Chambrun said. “Jerry Dodd’s working on that now. I’m going to check with him.”
Chambrun gestured to me to go with him. We walked out into the deserted lobby together. We saw Jerry Dodd talking to Karl Nevers, the night reception clerk at the front desk, and Chambrun headed for him. I looked at the clock over the desk. It was going on three o’clock. All the bars and the Blue Lagoon were closed. The cleaning crews were at work everywhere.
“It’s a dead end,” Jerry said, his shrewd face twisted by frustration. “To start with, we’ve been trying to check to see whether anyone saw a bloodstained man taking a powder. You couldn’t do the kind of butcher-boy job that was done on Shaw without getting splattered by his blood. But tonight there were dozens of bloodstained people running around while those kids were wrecking the joint. It almost wasn’t noticeable, there were so many of them. No lead there.”
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