The nurse had left the room.
Ignoring Luise Fischer’s laughter, he said: “No; you had better stay here, my dear.”
She said: “I will not.”
He shrugged. “Very well, but—” He went upstairs without finishing the sentence.
Luise Fischer went up behind him, but not with his speed. She arrived at the sickroom doorway, however, in time to catch the look of utter fear in Conroy’s eyes, before they closed, as his bandaged head fell back on the pillow.
Robson, standing just inside the door, said softly: “Ah, he’s passed out again.” His eyes were unwary.
Her eyes were probing.
They stood there and stared at each other until the Japanese butler came to the door and said: “A Mr. Brazil to see Fraulein Fischer.”
Into Robson’s face little by little came the expression of one considering a private joke. He said: “Show Mr. Brazil into the living room. Fraulein Fischer will be down immediately. Phone the deputy sheriff.”
Robson smiled at the woman. “Well?”
She said nothing.
“A choice?” he asked.
The nurse came in. “Dr. Blake is out, but I left word.”
Luise Fischer said: “I do not think Mr. Conroy should be left alone, Miss George.”
Brazil was standing in the center of the living room, balancing himself on legs spread far apart. He held his left arm tight to his side, straight down. He had on a dark overcoat that was buttoned high against his throat. His face was a ghastly yellow mask in which his eyes burned redly. He said through his teeth: “They told me you’d come back. I had to see it.” He spit on the floor. “Strumpet!”
She stamped a foot. “Do not be a fool. I—” She broke off as the nurse passed the doorway. She said sharply: “Miss George, what are you doing?”
The nurse said: “Mr. Robson said he thought I might be able to reach Dr. Blake on the phone at Mrs. Webber’s.”
Luise Fischer turned, paused to kick off her slippers, and ran up the steps on stockinged feet. The door to Conroy’s room was shut. She flung it open.
Robson was leaning over the sick man. His hands were on the sick man’s bandaged head, holding it almost face down in the pillow.
His thumbs were pressing the back of the skull. All his weight seemed on his thumbs. His face was insane. His lips were wet.
Luise Fischer screamed, “Brazil!” and flung herself at Robson and clawed at his legs.
Brazil came into the room, lurching blindly, his left arm tight to his side. He swung his right fist, missed Robson’s head by a foot, was struck twice in the face by Robson, did not seem to know it, and swung his right fist into Robson’s belly. The woman’s grip on Robson’s ankles kept him from recovering his balance. He went down heavily.
The nurse was busy with her patient, who was trying to sit up in bed. Tears ran down his face. He was sobbing: “He stumbled over a piece of wood while he was helping me to the car, and he hit me on the head with it.”
Luise Fischer had Brazil sitting up on the floor with his back to the wall, wiping his face with her handkerchief.
He opened one eye and murmured: “The guy was screwy, wasn’t he?”
She put an arm around him and laughed with a cooing sound in her throat. “All men are.”
Robson had not moved.
There was a commotion, and three men came in.
The tallest one looked at Robson and then at Brazil and chuckled.
“There’s our lad that don’t like hospitals,” he said. “It’s a good thing he didn’t escape from a gymnasium or he might’ve hurt somebody.”
Luise Fischer took off her rings and put them on the floor beside Robson’s left foot.
NIGHT SHADE
A sedan with no lights burning was standing beside the! road just above Piney Falls bridge and as I drove past it a girl put her head out and said, “Please.” Her voice was urgent but there was not enough excitement in it to make it either harsh or shrill.
I put on my brakes, then backed up. By that time a man had got out of the sedan. There was enough light to let me see he was young and fairly big. He moved a hand in the direction I had been going and said, “On your way, buddy.”
The girl said again, “Will you drive me into town, please?” She seemed to be trying to open the sedan door. Her hat had been pushed forward over one eye.
I said, “Sure.”
The man in the road took a step toward me, moved his hand as before, and growled, “Scram, you.”
I got out of my car. The man in the road had started toward me when another man’s voice came from the sedan, a harsh warning voice. “Go easy, Tony. It’s Jack Bye.” The sedan door swung open and the girl jumped out.
Tony said, “Oh!” and his feet shuffled uncertainly on the road; but when he saw the girl making for my car he cried indignantly at her, “Listen, you can’t ride to town with—”
She was in my roadster by then. “Good night,” she said.
He faced me, shook his head stubbornly, began, “I’ll be damned if I’ll let—”
I hit him. The knockdown was fair enough, because I hit him hard, but I think he could have got up again if he had wanted to. I gave him a little time, then asked the fellow in the sedan, “All right with you?” I still could not see him.
“He’ll be all right,” he replied quickly. “I’ll take care of him all right.”
“Thanks.” I climbed into my car beside the girl. The rain I had been trying to get to town ahead of was beginning to fall. A coupe with a man and a woman in it passed us going toward town. We followed the coupe across the bridge.
The girl said, “This is awfully kind of you. I wasn’t in any danger back there, but it was—nasty.”
“They wouldn’t be dangerous,” I said, “but they would be—nasty.”
“You know them?”
“No.”
“But they knew you. Tony Forrest and Fred Barnes.” When I did not say anything, she added, “They were afraid of you.”
“I’m a desperate character.”
She laughed. “And pretty nice of you, too, tonight. I wouldn’t’ve gone with either of them alone, but I thought with two of them . . .” She turned up the collar of her coat. “It’s raining in on me.”
I stopped the roadster again and hunted for the curtain that belonged on her side of the car. “So your name’s Jack Bye,” she said while I was snapping it on.
“And yours is Helen Warner.”
“How’d you know?” She had straightened her hat.
“I’ve seen you around.” I finished attaching the curtain and got back in.
“Did you know who I was when I called to you?” she asked when we were moving again.
“Yes.”
“It was silly of me to go out with them like that.”
“You’re shivering.”
“It’s chilly.”
I said I was sorry my flask was empty.
We had turned into the western end of Hellman Avenue. It was four minutes past ten by the clock in front of the jewelry store on the corner of Laurel Street. A policeman in a black rubber coat was leaning against the clock. I did not know enough about perfumes to know the name of hers.
She said, “I’m chilly. Can’t we stop somewhere and get a drink?”
“Do you really want to?” My voice must have puzzled her; she turned her head quickly to peer at me in the dim light.
“I’d like to,” she said, “unless you’re in a hurry.”
“No. We could go to Mack’s. It’s only three or four blocks from here, but—it’s a nigger joint.”
She laughed. “All I ask is that I don’t get poisoned.”
“You won’t, but you’re sure you want to go?”
“Certainly.” She exaggerated her shivering. “I’m cold. It’s early.”
Toots Mack opened his door for us. I could tell by the politeness with which he bowed his round bald black head and said, “Good evening, sir; good evening, madam,” tha
t he wished we had gone some place else, but I was not especially interested in how he felt about it. I said, “Hello, Toots; how are you this evening?” too cheerfully.
There were only a few customers in the place. We went to the table in the corner farthest from the piano. Suddenly she was staring at me, her eyes, already very blue, becoming very round.
“I thought you could see in the car,” I began.
“How’d you get that scar?” she asked, interrupting me.
She sat down.
“That.” I put a hand to my cheek. “Fight—couple of years ago. You ought to see the one on my chest.”
“We’ll have to go swimming some time,” she said gayly.
“Please sit down and don’t keep me waiting for my drink.”
“Are you sure you—”
She began to chant, keeping time with her fingers on the table, “I want a drink, I want a drink, I want a drink.” Her mouth was small with full lips and it curved up without growing wider when she smiled.
We ordered drinks. We talked too fast. We made jokes and laughed too readily at them. We asked questions—about the name of the perfume she used was one—and paid too much or no attention to the answers. And Toots looked glumly at us from behind the bar when he thought we were hot looking at him. It was all pretty bad.
We had another drink and I said, “Well, let’s slide along.”
She was nice about seeming neither too anxious to go nor to stay. The ends of her pale blonde hair curled up over the edge of her hat in back.
At the door I said, “Listen, there’s a taxi-stand around the corner. You won’t mind if I don’t take you home?”
She put a hand on my arm. “I do mind. Please—” The street was badly lighted. Her face was like a child’s. She took her hand off my arm. “But if you’d rather . . .”
“I think I’d rather.”
She said slowly, “I like you, Jack Bye, and I’m awfully grateful for—”
I said, “Aw, that’s all right,” and we shook hands and I went back into the speakeasy.
Toots was still behind the bar. He came up to where I stood. “You oughtn’t to do that to me,” he said, shaking his head mournfully.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You oughtn’t to do it to yourself,” he went on just as sadly. “This ain’t Harlem, boy, and if old Judge Warner finds out his daughter’s running around with you and coming in here he can make it plenty tough for both of us. I like you, boy, but you got to remember it don’t make no difference how light your skin is or how many colleges you went to, you’re still nigger.”
I said, “Well, what do you suppose I want to be? A Chinaman?”
THE FIRST THIN MAN
I
The train went north among the mountains. The dark man crossed tracks to the ticket-window and said: “Can you tell me how to get to Mr. Wynant’s place? Mr. Walter Irving Wynant’s.”
The man within stopped writing on a printed form. His eyes became brightly inquisitive behind tight rimless spectacles. His voice was eager. “Are you a newspaper reporter?”
“Why?” The dark man’s eyes were very blue. They looked idly at the other. “Does it make any difference?”
“Then you ain’t,” the ticket-agent said. He was disappointed. He looked at a clock on the wall. “Hell, I ought to’ve known that. You wouldn’t’ve had time to get here.” He picked up the pencil he had put down.
“Know where his place is?”
“Sure. Up there on the hill.” The ticket-agent waved his pencil vaguely westward. “All the taxi drivers know it, but if it’s Wynant you want to see you’re out of luck.”
“Why?”
The ticket-agent’s mien brightened. He put his forearms on the counter, hunching his shoulders, and said: “Because the fact is he went and murdered everybody on the place and jumped in the river not more than an hour ago.”
The dark man exclaimed, “No!” softly.
The ticket-agent smacked his lips. “Uh-huh—killed all three of them—the whole shooting match—chopped them up in pieces with an ax and then tied a weight around his own neck and jumped in the river.”
The dark man asked solemnly: “What’d he do that for?”
A telephone bell began to ring behind the ticket-agent. “You don’t know him or you wouldn’t have to ask,” he replied as he reached for the telephone. “Crazy as they make them and always was. The only wonder is he didn’t do it long before this.” He said, “Hello,” into the telephone.
The dark man went through the waiting-room and downstairs to the street. The half a dozen automobiles parked near the station were apparently private cars. A large red and white sign in the next block said taxi. The dark man walked under the sign into a small, grimy office where a bald fat man was reading a newspaper.
“Can I get a taxi?” the dark man asked.
“All out now, brother, but I’m expecting one of them back any minute. In a hurry?”
“A little bit.”
The bald man brought his chair down on all its legs and lowered his newspaper. “Where do you want to go?”
“Wynant’s.”
The bald man dropped his newspaper and stood up, saying heartily: “Well, I’ll run you up there myself.” He covered his baldness with a sweat-stained brown hat.
They left the office and—after the fat man had paused at the real-estate office next door to yell, “Take care of my phone if it rings, Toby”—got into a dark sedan, took the left turn at the first crossing, and rode uphill toward the west.
When they had ridden some three hundred yards the fat man said in a tone whose casualness was belied by the shine in his eyes: “That must be a hell of a mess up there and no fooling.”
The dark man was lighting a cigarette. “What happened?” he asked.
The fat man looked sharply sidewise at him. “Didn’t you hear?”
“Only what the ticket-agent told me just now”—the dark man leaned forward to return the lighter to its hole in the dashboard—“that Wynant had killed three people with an ax and then drowned himself.”
The fat man laughed scornfully. “Christ, you can’t beat Lew,” he said. “If you sprained your ankle he could get a broken back out of it. Wynant didn’t kill but two of them—the Hopkins woman got away because it was her that phoned—and he choked them to death and then shot himself. I bet you if you’d go back there right now Lew’d tell you there was a cool half a dozen of them killed and likely as not with dynamite.”
The dark man took his cigarette from his mouth. “Then he wasn’t right about Wynant being crazy?”
“Yes,” the fat man said reluctantly, “but nobody could go wrong on that.”
“No?”
“Nope. Holy hell! Didn’t he used to come down to town in his pajamas last summer? And then when people didn’t like it and got Ray to say something to him about it didn’t he get mad and stop coming in at all? Don’t he make as much fuss about people trespassing on his place as if he had a gold mine there? Didn’t I see him with my own eyes heave a rock at a car that had gone past him raising dust once?”
The dark man smiled meagerly. “I don’t know any of the answers,” he said. “I didn’t know him.”
Beside a painted warning against trespass they left their graveled road for an uneven, narrow crooked one of dark earth running more steeply uphill to the right. Protruding undergrowth brushed the sedan’s sides and now and then an overhanging tree-branch its top. Their speed made their ride rougher than it need have been.
“This is his place,” the fat man said. He sat stiffly at the wheel fighting the road’s unevenness. His eyes were shiny, expectant.
The house they presently came to was a rambling structure of gray native stone and wood needing gray paint under low Dutch roofs. Five cars stood in the clearing in front of the house. The man who sat at the wheel of one of them, and the two men standing beside it, stopped talking and watched the sedan draw up.
“Here we are,” the fat man
said and got out. His manner had suddenly become important. He put importance in the nod he gave the three men.
The dark man, leaving the other side of the sedan, went toward the house. The fat man hurried to walk beside him.
A man came out of the house before they reached it. He was a middle-aged giant in baggy, worn clothes. His hair was gray, his eyes small, and he chewed gum. He said, “Howdy, Fern,” to the fat man and, looking steadily at the dark man, stood in the path confronting them squarely.
Fern said, “Hello, Nick,” and then told the dark man: “This is Sheriff Petersen.” He narrowed one eye shrewdly and addressed the sheriff again: “He came up to see Wynant.”
Sheriff Nick Petersen stopped chewing. “What’s the name?” he asked. The dark man said: “John Guild.”
The sheriff said: “So. Now what were you wanting to see Wynant about?” The man who had said his name was John Guild smiled. “Does it make any difference now he’s dead?”
The sheriff asked, “What?” with considerable force.
“Now that he’s dead,” Guild repeated patiently. He put a fresh cigarette between his lips.
“How do you know he’s dead?” The sheriff emphasized “you.”
Guild looked with curious blue eyes at the giant. “They told me in the village,” he said carelessly. He moved his cigarette an inch to indicate the fat man. “He told me.”
The sheriff frowned skeptically, but when he spoke it was to utter a vague “Oh.” He chewed his gum. “Well, what was it you were wanting to see him about?”
Guild said: “Look here: is he dead or isn’t he?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Fine,” Guild said, his eyes lighting up. “Where is he?”
“I’d like to know,” the sheriff replied gloomily. “Now what is it you want with him?”
“I’m from his bank. I want to see him on business.” Guild’s eyes became drowsy. “It’s confidential business.”
“So?” Sheriff Petersen’s frown seemed to hold more discomfort than annoyance. “Well, none of his business is confidential from me any more. I got a right to know anything and everything that anybody knows about him.” Guild’s eyes narrowed a little. He blew smoke out.
Crime Stories Page 93