If I Die Before I Wake

by Sherwood King

  AND I HAD JUST CONFESSED TO KILLING HIM!

  PART THREE

  I

  There was plenty of time to figure out what must have happened – plenty.

  They took me down to the old Homicide Court on Mott Street for what they called the arraignment. I was held without bail ‘pending action Grand Jury.’ Then they took me to the Tombs. That’s where the Bridge of Sighs is. The bridge goes over to the Criminal Courts building, where they try you. ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not guilty’ – that’s where you get the news.

  Because I’d signed the confession – and wasn’t that a smart thing to do; I had Grisby to thank for that – they had nothing else to do but hold me for the trial.

  While you wait you can play solitaire, or read a book, or see what the papers are saying about you.

  The papers were all saying the confession I’d made was phony. How could I have killed Grisby out on Bannister’s beach, on Long Island, and have his body turn up at the foot of Wall Street? It might have been an accident, my killing him, but if I had thrown him in the Sound, as I said in the confession, how could he turn up on Wall Street with his clothes dry?

  Not that they didn’t believe I’d killed him – or Broome, either. It was just that they couldn’t figure it out. They’d found witnesses who had seen me on the beach, and who had heard the shot. All said I’d been alone when they saw me. So they figured I must have gone down to the beach after killing Grisby on Wall Street, and then tried to make it look as though I had killed him on the beach, accidentally, as I’d said.

  But then Steve Crunch, the truck driver, told how I had run into him with Bannister’s car – he had the license number and everything, even Grisby’s card – and swore up and down that the man with me had been Grisby. He described him. He told about the cut on Grisby’s wrist. Sure enough, when they went to look, there was the cut, just as Crunch had said.

  Well, then! Since that was only a little while before the shot on the beach, when people had come running and had found me alone, how could I have got rid of his body unless I had thrown it into the Sound? People had seen me coming up from the pier, too – it all checked with my confession.

  And the money they’d found in my room had been traced to Grisby’s bank – he’d withdrawn it just that day – and I had seen him take it out! That had been one of Grisby’s bright ideas, too, that I should go with him – just to make sure I’d get the money when I’d done my job. Yes! Just to make sure that the police would believe I had killed him – I saw that now!

  But the main thing was, if Mrs Bannister had been right about the time that she saw me back in the garage, I couldn’t have taken Grisby – or his body – down to the foot of Wall Street.

  So there was the mystery that puzzled the papers – not who had killed Grisby (they’d even found my cap clutched in his hand) but how I had managed the thing.

  You’d think they’d got it into their heads, finally, that maybe someone else had killed him. They didn’t. They couldn’t see how I had killed him, maybe, but every clue pointed to me (just as it was meant to do, in Grisby’s ‘perfect crime’). Besides, what would I confess for if I hadn’t killed him? The police hadn’t given me any third degree. McCracken knew that, even if nobody else did. I had confessed of my own free will.

  Of course, I hadn’t confessed to killing Broome. Yet it was a cinch that Broome was killed to prevent his talking – the two crimes were tied up together. And I had confessed to killing Grisby, hadn’t I?

  Well, the papers had the explanation for that, too. A jury might agree I had killed Grisby accidentally, as I said. But it never could agree that Broome had been choked accidentally. So of course I hadn’t confessed to that.

  Not that anyone cared, even the District Attorney. With all the evidence against me, especially my seeing Grisby draw the money out of the bank, they felt sure they could laugh any ‘accident’ plea right out of court.

  But they knew they’d have to have some reasonable explanation, too, of how I could kill Grisby out on Bannister’s beach, throw the body in the Sound there, and then have it come up dry at the foot of Wall Street!

  McCracken came into my cell the second day to get the answer to that.

  ‘That was pretty clever, all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to hand it to you. But how’d you manage it? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  ‘I didn’t manage it,’ I said. ‘How could I?’

  ‘You still insist you threw the body in the Sound?’

  ‘Yes.’ I had in mind taking back the whole confession, but I had to figure it all out first. If I told what really had happened, they might just laugh at me. Besides, I wasn’t sure yet whether I ought to tell about how Grisby had planned to kill Bannister, because that might let me in for it, too, even if I got out of this.

  ‘Well, then,’ said McCracken, ‘if you still insist you threw the body in the Sound, how do you explain that Grisby’s clothes were dry when we picked him up at Wall Street?’

  ‘I can’t explain it.’

  ‘He couldn’t have floated there.’

  ‘No, I guess not.’

  He offered me a cigarette. We sat and smoked. All the while he looked at me.

  ‘You’re a cool one, all right,’ he said. ‘But about this – this mystery, as the papers call it. How could Grisby have got down there, after you shot him on the beach? He was seen with you, just a little while before. That truck driver – Crunch is his name, you told us about him yourself – he saw you with Grisby.’

  ‘Sure he did. I told you.’

  ‘Well, then, how could Grisby get down to Wall Street? It was just an hour after Crunch saw you with him that we found Grisby dead down on Wall Street. How could you get him there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, then, I’ll tell you. You took him down there in a boat – a speedboat!’

  ‘I didn’t! In the first place, I wouldn’t have had time. I went right to the garage from the beach. Ask Mrs Bannister. Could I have got down there and back, even in a speedboat, before eleven o’clock?’

  ‘No, you couldn’t – unless you got Mrs Bannister to lie about the time you were back at the house.’

  So that was it!

  ‘I didn’t!’ I said. ‘She’d have no reason to lie for me, anyway – why should she?’

  ‘All right, then. If you didn’t take him down there, who did? He couldn’t have taken himself down!’

  ‘Why not?’ My voice was shaking.

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Because there was no way for him to get down. He didn’t take the train; we checked that. He didn’t drive, or we’d have found the car. And he didn’t take the speedboat, because how could he have got it back?’

  ‘Back! Back where?’

  ‘Why, back at Bannister’s beach, where you bumped him!’

  ‘Back at Bannister’s beach!’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘But – Why, it couldn’t be!’

  I began to tremble all over. Something was wrong somewhere. That boat couldn’t have got back by itself – unless by Grisby’s ghost!

  ‘You mean it wasn’t there when you were with him?’ he asked.

  Chills raced up and down my spine.

  ‘Oh, it was there, all right—’

  ‘Well, then, what was to stop you from taking him down in the boat and then coming back that way yourself?’

  ‘I told you, there wouldn’t have been time!’

  ‘All right, then – either you had someone working with you or he took himself down and the boat just drifted back.’

  I changed the subject.

  ‘What would he go down to Wall Street for?’

  ‘People who are shot do funny things sometimes. Or maybe he didn’t think the wound was serious, or at least as serious as it was, and that he’d have a doctor come up and fix it at the office. Remember, he was due there. That would be as good
a place as any to have it looked over, and easy to get to in the boat. The office is only half a block from the river. It looks like he got out of the boat and started for the office, but couldn’t make it.’

  ‘Maybe he’d already been to the office and was coming back to the boat when he died.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘The night watchman would have seen him. He checks everyone in and out at that hour.’

  ‘Maybe he went in and out the back way. Would the watchman have seen him then?’

  ‘No, but the back door was locked from the inside – he couldn’t have come in that way. Besides, the position of the body shows that he was coming toward the building, not going away. No, if you’re going to try to squeeze out of this, you’ll have to find a better angle than that. What you’re trying to do is show that someone else might have killed him, isn’t that it?’

  ‘All I mean is that my shot might only have stunned him, and that he would have been all right if someone else hadn’t shot him down there.’

  ‘Well, you can forget about that, then. He was only shot once – and at close range.’

  ‘Who found the body down there – Bannister?’

  ‘No. The copper on the beat found him. He recognized him and told the night watchman in Grisby’s building. The watchman called Bannister, and they went out to make sure it was Grisby. It was, all right… and with your cap in his hand.’

  ‘Well, but if Grisby took himself down there, that lets me out, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Why? It was still your shot that killed him. The only out you have – maybe – is that you shot him accidentally. I’m just trying to figure out how the whole thing could have happened.’

  Just then a man came in. He was short, with a bumpy red face and bright black eyes.

  ‘Oh, hello, Meade,’ said McCracken. ‘Got the report yet on that Grisby bullet?’

  ‘Yep. And the bullet that killed Grisby doesn’t check with the gun the kid here had.’

  ‘It doesn’t! You mean the gun that was found in the car?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He turned and looked at me. ‘Now, you – what’d you do with the gun you used, throw it in the Sound?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘That was the only gun I had.’

  ‘Sure,’ said McCracken. ‘It had his fingerprints on it – and one shell had just been fired! How about that?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said Meade. ‘I’m just telling you.’

  II

  It was a mix-up, all right. The only thing was, I was the most mixed up of all.

  I said I had plenty of time to figure it out. I did. But that’s all the good it did me.

  The way I figured it, Bannister had found out about the plan to kill him. He’d been suspecting something like that to happen, otherwise why had he put Broome out there to watch? Well, Broome had been snooping around, probably, and had found the note I’d written to Bannister. You know, the note telling about Grisby’s perfect crime, and which I’d later torn up. He’d told Bannister, of course. And Bannister, knowing all suspicion was to be thrown on me, had let Grisby go ahead – up to the point of the murder. Then he’d turned the tables. He’d got Grisby first.

  That was the way I figured it. It was the only way I could figure it.

  There was only one thing wrong with the picture. Bannister had been waiting for Grisby in their offices. The night watchman, who checked everyone in and out of the building, said (according to the papers) that Bannister hadn’t gone out. Then how could he have shot Grisby? Had he fired at him from a window? It would have had to be some shot – half a block in dim light.

  Anyway, that’s not what happened. It couldn’t have been. McCracken said Grisby had been shot at close range. And the bullet had entered just about like it would have if I had fired with him sitting next to me in the car.

  And what about Broome?

  Of course, if Broome had seen the note I’d written and had told Bannister of the plan, and if Bannister had then killed Grisby, he’d naturally want to be sure Broome didn’t talk. Because Broome would be the only one, then, who would know of his motive for killing Grisby – outside of me, that is. With Broome out of the way, the police wouldn’t know of the motive… not unless I told them.

  Well, why couldn’t I tell them?

  Bannister would have had that all figured out, just as I was figuring it out now. He’d know I wouldn’t dare tell the truth. It would be too damaging. I’d have to admit my part in the scheme to kill Bannister. And how would it help me to prove I didn’t kill Grisby by admitting that I was trying to help Grisby kill Bannister? If I would do that for money, why wouldn’t I kill Grisby for money – supposing I could get more that way? And they’d say that’s just what happened, and show the five thousand to prove it. They wouldn’t believe it if I said that Grisby had threatened to kill me if I didn’t go through with it.

  Not only that, but what was my word against Bannister’s? I was just a chauffeur – and maybe sore at Bannister, to boot. I’d started to leave my job, hadn’t I? Besides, I was fighting for my life. Naturally I’d try to pin the murder on someone else.

  The third day I was in jail the guard came and told me someone wanted to see me. He led me to a room with tables divided by a screen.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said.

  I sat down at a table and looked across at Elsa Bannister. She was wearing a black dress low at the neck, a black hat, and a veil down to the tip of her nose.

  ‘I would have come before,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I couldn’t.’

  She looked pale and worried, but still very beautiful.

  For a minute we just looked into each other’s eyes.

  I felt weak, and at the same time so strong I could have torn the screen open to get at her, if she’d asked me.

  Her lips twitched into the sad-sweet smile that always made me want to crush them – hard.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ I said. The guard was listening.

  ‘I had to see you,’ she whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have come, even now. I had to.’

  ‘You mean that Bannister knows about us?’

  ‘No; but he mustn’t. It would spoil everything.’

  I looked at the guard. He wasn’t much interested. He was chewing one end of a mouse-colored moustache.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Why, nothing.’

  ‘But the confession—’

  ‘Oh, that. If I have to, I’ll just take it back. You didn’t believe it, did you?’

  ‘I knew if you had done it, it must have been an accident, just as you said it was.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it wasn’t an accident. And I didn’t do it.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I’m glad to hear you say it.’

  ‘Who do you think did do it?’

  ‘I’m afraid to think.’

  ‘Bannister?’

  She caught her breath and looked up at the guard.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said that, maybe,’ I whispered, ‘but I can’t see who else could have done it. Can you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m afraid, Laurence – I only know we mustn’t let them find you guilty. You’ll have to have a lawyer.’

  ‘I haven’t any money for a lawyer.’

  ‘I know. But you won’t need any, Laurence—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have come here.’ She leaned forward and whispered intensely, ‘If my husband knew, he’d refuse to help you.’

  ‘Help me!’

  ‘Yes. He has quite made up his mind to it.’

  ‘But he’s the one I think—’

  ‘I know. But, Laurence, whatever else you say – whatever anyone says – he is one of the best criminal lawyers in New York county. He’s never lost a big case – never!’

  I shook my head.

  ‘The State has lawyers,’ I said. ‘The
y’ll give me one. If I’d really killed anyone, it might be different.’

  She leaned forward, frowning.

  ‘Laurence, you’ve got to listen to me. We can’t take any chances. Everyone believes you’re guilty – you even signed a confession. You need the best defense counsel you can get. What if Marco did – what if he is responsible for Mr Grisby’s murder? Then he would know you weren’t guilty! That would be all the more reason for wanting to save you, wouldn’t it?’

  I thought that over, but there was something about it that didn’t strike just right. If he knew I’d been in this thing against him, with Grisby, what would he want to help me get off for? He wouldn’t. He’d want to see me go to the chair. Even if he’d killed Grisby himself. He’d want to get both of us.

  ‘After all,’ she said, ‘you worked for him. Naturally, he’d want to help you, if only for the looks of the thing.’

  ‘Does he think I did it?’

  ‘I don’t know. He says he doesn’t think you’re the type to have done it. He prides himself on being able to read character. Anyway, he really wants to take the case—’

  ‘I’ll bet you put that idea into his head.’

  ‘Oh, no – really. It was his own idea, entirely. I do think it’s a real break for you. I came down to make sure you would accept. I thought that maybe you might believe he had done it, and would refuse.’

  ‘That’s just what I do think.’

  ‘But you must let him help you, don’t you see? Please, Laurence – for my sake – won’t you?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ll know better what to say after I talk to him.’

  We looked at each other until the screen between us seemed to vibrate. Then her eyes clouded over and tears came into them. She put a handkerchief inside her veil. The perfume started my head reeling.

  ‘I can’t lose you now,’ she said.

  My eyes began to smart. She seemed to fade away in a blur.

  ‘I’ll be out soon, don’t you worry,’ I said. And that’s the first time I thought maybe I wouldn’t.

  ‘I do worry. Laurence, you have to accept his help. It may be your only chance. Promise me!’