by Craig Rice
Could he speak? He swallowed hard, drew a long breath, and said experimentally “Hello?”
A faint echo said “Hello” right back at him, in an unpleasant tone of voice.
“This is just a nightmare,” Malone told himself firmly. “Shut your eyes and go back to sleep, and when you wake up again, it will be gone.”
He shut his eyes for a moment. The nightmare didn’t show any intentions of going away.
“You’re not only alive,” Malone told himself, “you’re awake.”
He wished he were asleep. He wished that he could open his eyes, somewhere in a warm, comfortable bed, and whisper “Where am I?”
As a matter of fact, where was he?
It felt like a tomb, and smelled like a cellar. An old, and long unused cellar. Otherwise there would have been odors of furnaces, and coal-bins, and trash to be carried out in the morning. It would have been warmer, too.
What was holding him upright? For one giddy instant he’d wondered if he were vertical or horizontal. Then he’d known, something was holding him up, his feet not quite touching the floor below.
Where am I?
How did I get here?
Before he could adequately worry about those two questions, another one struck him.
How do I get out of here?
He struggled vainly, kicking his heels against the wall. No use.
Maybe no one would ever come and release him. Maybe no one would ever find him. John J. Malone, disappeared. Presumed dead, after seven years.
There was one moment of frantic terror, of kicking and screaming in the dark, not knowing where he was, or why.
Then, suddenly, there was a light in the room.
Malone opened his eyes at once. It was, as he had guessed, a disused cellar. Someone was watching him from the other side of the electric torch. That didn’t seem to matter just then. He tried, through a frozen throat, “Where am I?” and got no answer.
It was then that he discovered what had been holding him. A simple device, as he realized later.
His coat had been nailed to the wall of the cellar. He was in the coat. And the coat had been neatly buttoned.
“Mr. Malone,” a voice said, “I’m sorry, but—”
“I could get down myself,” Malone said, “only I’m not tall enough.”
That was important, somehow. He wasn’t just sure why. Again, for a long, and slightly more pleasant moment, he decided that he was asleep after all. He was dreaming it all, and any second now he was going to wake up. Then the moment passed.
“Would you mind unbuttoning my coat?” Malone asked calmly.
“I’m really very sorry, Mr. Malone,” the voice said.
Malone recognized the voice. Huntleigh, of course. He should have known it would be Huntleigh. He remembered those last moments out in the snowstorm, and the butler’s voice croaking—
As though an echo of Malone’s thoughts, Huntleigh said, “Mr. Malone, where is she?”
Malone started to ask who “she” might be, caught himself, and said cagily, “Get me down from here, and I’ll tell you.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you to tell me first, sir,” Huntleigh said. His voice was almost incredibly well-bred.
Malone struggled once more against his bonds, then relaxed. He knew when he was licked.
“All right,” he said resignedly. “I’ll tell you on one condition. That you tell me first which she you mean. I know so many of them.”
There was a little silence. Evidently Huntleigh was making up his mind whether or not he was being kidded.
“I’m referring to Miss Lacy,” he said at last, in a very stiff, formal voice. “Miss Gay Lacy.”
Malone drew a long breath. “Believe me,” he said, “I don’t know where she is.” He hoped he was saying the right thing. He found himself remembering the early Karloff pictures, and his first impression of Huntleigh. The electric torch came a little nearer, and he closed his eyes.
“Tell me,” the little lawyer said feebly, “what makes you think I might know?”
“She left the house to find you, sir,” Huntleigh said. He paused and added, “I would be delighted to kill anyone who brought any harm to Miss Lacy, sir. I am devoted to Miss Lacy. I refer, of course, to Miss Gay Lacy.”
“I’m sure she appreciates it very much,” Malone murmured. He tried to sort out a few things in the squirrel cage his mind seemed to have turned into during the last day. Everybody seemed to be devoted to somebody. Gay Lacy and the butler. Elizabeth Fairfaxx and the unemployed actor. Glida, pronounced Gilda, and Kenneth Fairfaxx. While he, Malone, was only devoted to Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx. (He wondered if he would ever collect that retainer, and live to spend it!) And only the mutt was devoted to him. (He hoped Helene was taking good care of the mutt.)
He wondered why Gay Lacy had been looking for him.
“Look, chum,” he said in his most soothing tone, “I think you’re just overtired. Overwrought. You need a good rest.” He wished with all his heart that he had one hand free, and a cigar in it. Or, preferably, both hands free and a drink in the other one. “I don’t know why you’re so convinced that I had anything to do with Gay Lacy’s disappearance, but I can assure you, I didn’t even know she had disappeared.”
Maybe, he told himself, with rare good luck he could talk Huntleigh into turning him loose.
The electric torch was pretty close to him now. Malone opened his eyes, saw Huntleigh’s face in the reflected glare, and closed them again.
“Just consider,” the little lawyer said. “I left the Lacy house and went back to the Fairfaxx house. On the way I found Mr. Ernest Fairfaxx who had—who had fallen and been injured. I called for help and from that moment on, I was in the Fairfaxx house. Leaving, I—” He decided to omit the reason for his crossing the desolate gardens, “—I ran into you. Or rather, you ran into me. Just when did I have time to abduct Miss Gay Lacy and do her even the slightest harm?”
He’d gotten clients off before a tough jury with less convincing arguments. He looked, and saw that the torch was wavering a little.
“And if you don’t believe me,” he went on for a clincher, “chances are Miss Lacy is home and in bed by now. You just might investigate and find out.” He wondered if that was the right way to put it. “Or you might check on the times involved.”
“Mr. Malone,” Huntleigh said, “I may have made a great mistake—”
“You have,” Malone said, “and now get me down from here.”
“—but my devotion to Miss Lacy—”
“If she wants to see me,” Malone said, “she’ll undoubtedly be devoted to you if you unbutton my coat, help me unnail it from the wall so I can wear it, and take me to her.”
“But if what you say is true, Mr. Malone—”
“It is,” Malone said hoarsely, “and—”
“—I can find it out very easily—”
“Damn it,” Malone said, “get me down!”
“—which I will do immediately, sir. If you don’t mind waiting—”
“I do mind.”
The electric torch receded. There was a slight pause. Then Huntleigh said, “But if I may say so, Mr. Malone, this places me in a rather difficult position—”
“If you think you’re in a difficult position,” Malone said fervently, “think of me.”
There was an even longer pause. The electric torch played around the walls of the old cellar. Then Huntleigh picked up a thick slab of wood, and placed it carefully under Malone’s feet.
“I trust that makes you more comfortable, sir,” the butler said.
The torch moved toward what Malone assumed was a door. It flickered and went out there. “Mr. Malone. I would not like to leave you under any misapprehension as to my feeling for Miss Gay Lacy. It is purely one of—one of—”
“Of devotion,” Malone said. “I heard you the first time. Now go make sure she’s all right, and then come back and get me out of here.”
“Good night, sir.�
� There was the sound of a heavy door closing. The distant click of a latch.
Well, at least he was a little more comfortable than he had been.
But the chances were that Huntleigh would never return. He wouldn’t take the chance of being arrested for assault, kidnaping, and burying alive.
Again Malone struggled frantically against his bonds, again he gave up. That, he told himself, was what he got for buying expensive clothes. A cheap coat would have ripped to shreds by this time. Then all he’d have had to contend with would have been getting out of—out of—where?
“Where am I?” Malone demanded of the darkness.
This time the darkness didn’t even bother to send back an echo.
The back of his head ached. His arms and back and shoulders ached.
Suddenly he knew where he was, and the chances of his being found diminished. Diminished, in fact, to almost zero. Someday, ten, or fifteen, or twenty years from now, this old house would be torn down. His skeleton would be found in the cellar, a very worn out skeleton by that time. But the coat of his Capper and Capper suit would be as good as new, except for the nail holes.
Against his will, he dozed. He even dreamed. A dream in which he ordered a new suit with built-in nail-holes. A dream in which Huntleigh brought him a tray of whiskey and soda, and turned into a puff of smoke, vanished into the bottle, and emerged again as a streak of skywriting reading, “Where am I?”
“But I know where I am,” Malone said aloud, and woke up.
He realized that he must have slept for some time. When he opened his eyes he could see three little oblongs of windows, pale and gray. Then suddenly he realized he was hearing voices, a number of voices. More than that, a sharp little barking. The mutt.
Malone drew in his last bit of breath to yell, “Here!” No sound came out.
The barking was frantic now. There was a scratching somewhere on a door.
There was Helene’s voice. There was von Flanagan’s. He remembered suddenly that he was dodging von Flanagan. That didn’t matter now.
Vaguely, he heard the door burst open. He heard a joyous yelp from the mutt. Then there was only confusion, and half-heard voices, and the pale gray light of a winter dawn in Chicago.
Someone said, “Get a hammer. A claw hammer.” Someone else said, “Just open his coat and slide him out of it.” Other voices said things he couldn’t quite hear and never did remember. Then suddenly he was released, a pair of expert hands were examining him and a voice he couldn’t entirely remember except that he disliked it was pronouncing him alive.
Followed a dim recollection of being carried through trees and bushes that dripped wet snow, under an unfriendly gray sky. Then a few moments of blessed oblivion.
He woke in the warm soft bed of which he’d dreamed. Gentle, soothing hands were doing something to the back of his head, where the ache was. Any minute now, the ache would go away.
Something wet and rough touched his hand. He recognized it as the mutt’s tongue.
There were voices all around him. He opened one eye tentatively and saw that he was in a room full of people. Helene, Glida, Elizabeth and Kenneth Fairfaxx, Violet, Gay Lacy and her cross-looking mother. The frightened Bridie, her eyes filled with tears. And Huntleigh.
Malone closed his eye again.
He heard two well-recognized voices. Von Flanagan and Gadenski.
Someone held a glass to his lips. He drank automatically, spluttered, sneezed, and tried to sit upright. The same someone pushed him down on the pillows. Malone opened both eyes, wide, and gazed into the angry red face of Dr. McSmith.
And this time Malone managed to whisper, weakly, “—Where am I?”
17
Someone held a cool glass to his lips. Malone opened his eyes and looked into the calm, still-lovely face of the woman who called herself Violet, and who had been Liza Lavender.
He sipped slowly and wondered where she had learned that recipe. Cool and sharp, with a faint taste of coffee, an overtone of rum, and just a whisper of herbs. He sipped again, and the aches began to recede. A third sip, and he wanted a cigar. She lit one for him, puffing incongruously and femininely on it, and held it to his lips.
“For a man who’s just been buried alive,” Malone said, “I feel fine.” He propped himself up on one elbow and said, “Well? Would someone mind telling me what’s happened while I was reading the works of Sir Rider Haggard in King Solomon’s Mines?”
“Oh, Malone,” Helene said, “we thought you were dead!”
“That’s funny,” Malone said, “so did I.” He gasped at the cigar. “Did you find out what happened to Ernest Fairfaxx?”
Von Flanagan came over and said, “He recovered consciousness for a few minutes. He says he left the house to meet you, that he had just reached the meeting place, someone hit him, and that’s all.” He added, “He’ll pull through all right, but he doesn’t remember who hit him, or what.” He paused, and said, “But there’s no doubt he was hit on the head with a hammer. Looks like the same hammer that—” He realized there were ladies present, coughed, and was silent.
“That bashed in the heads of three innocent postmen,” Malone finished for him. “And speaking of hammers, one must have been used to nail me to the wall. Or doesn’t anyone care?”
“It’s about time you told us what happened to you,” von Flanagan said indignantly. “We woke up everybody in the neighborhood to search, and—”
There was a pause. The cigar slipped from between Malone’s limp fingers. Violet hastily retrieved it from the carpet.
“Malone,” von Flanagan said, “Malone, are you feeling all right?”
Malone didn’t move or speak.
“Damn you, Malone, talk to me,” von Flanagan roared. “Say something.”
There was no response.
“I got him into this,” von Flanagan said brokenly, “and he’s gotten himself killed. Dr. McSmith—”
“He’s perfectly all right, outside of a slight bump on the head,” Dr. McSmith said.
“Dr. McSmith is a damned liar,” Malone murmured, his eyes still closed. “Obviously I’m a dying man.” He’d had time to think now. He sat up suddenly, a pain shot through his head and he ached in every limb. “I wish I knew what happened to me.”
Violet put the cigar back between his fingers and relighted it for him. He smiled at her gratefully.
“Incidentally,” Malone said, “was I hit with this particular hammer?”
Dr. McSmith said stiffly, “I would say, no.”
“What happened, Malone?” von Flanagan demanded.
Malone said, “I’ll tell you the simple honest truth. After I left the house here I—” He thought fast. No, this was no time to confide that he’d been trying to dodge Gadenski at the front gate. “I thought I’d take another look around the grounds. Something hit me on the back of my head. The next thing I knew, I was nailed to the wall in somebody’s cellar.”
“Malone,” von Flanagan said hoarsely, “if you could tell us who hit you—”
Malone looked across the room at Huntleigh. The ugly butler’s face was expressionless.
“I’d tell you if I could,” Malone said, “but frankly, I don’t know. I couldn’t even guess.”
“Mr. Malone—” Huntleigh said suddenly.
Malone said, “Yes?”
There was a pause, and Huntleigh said, “Would you like some hot coffee, sir? You might be getting a bad chill, after your—experience.”
Von Flanagan said, “Just give him a drink.” He gulped and said, “You mean, Malone, you don’t know who attacked you?”
“How could I?” Malone said innocently.
“Perhaps a glass of hot milk?” Huntleigh said.
Abby Lacy rose. “Perhaps the man would like some rest, and a little less conversation. I trust you will feel better in the morning, Mr. Malone.”
“So do I,” Malone said. “Any morning.”
Somehow Abby Lacy made her five foot one tower over everyone else in the
room. She said, “Come, Gay. Come, Huntleigh.” And achieved an exit that would have made even the best of actresses turn a pale shade of green.
A moment later Glida jumped up and said, “The twins. I’ve got to go home.”
Kenneth Fairfaxx reddened and said, “But darling—”
Helene said, “Jake is terribly sick, and I’ve got to get home—”
“Hell,” Malone said, “let’s all go home. There’s nothing more we can do here except abuse these people’s hospitality and drink their liquor.” The mutt nipped his finger, gently. “All right,” Malone told the mutt, “I’ll buy you a beer.” He looked at von Flanagan. “Of course you’re releasing Mr. Rodney Fairfaxx, under the circumstances.”
The big police officer opened and shut his mouth silently a few times and then said, “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Malone said. “It may lead to trouble.” He stood up. For a moment his knees threatened to fold like a pair of old concertinas.
Suddenly he remembered something. “By the way,” he told von Flanagan, “I understand you’ve been looking for me. Now that you’ve found me—”
“You’re damned right I have,” von Flanagan said. He drew a long breath and the resolution to keep his temper showed in every line of his face. “Malone, we did a little questioning in the neighborhood this afternoon. A Dr. McSmith, next door—what did you say?”
“Nothing,” Malone growled.
“He stated that he saw you pick up something in the alley, examine it carefully, and put it in your pocket. Malone, if you’re concealing evidence—”
“Rocks,” Malone muttered.
Von Flanagan’s face turned purple.
“A rock,” Malone added. He fished through his pockets, finally found it and handed it to von Flanagan. “You can have it if you want it. But I don’t think it’s exactly evidence.”
The police officer examined it and said, “What were you keeping it for?”
“I’m going to train a dog to throw it at Dr. McSmith,” Malone said. “And if that’s all—” He yawned.
“I’ll drive you home,” Helene said sympathetically.
Suddenly everyone said at once, “Mr Malone—I must talk to you.” It was said in a number of variations by everybody except Violet, and her eyes said the same thing.