by Kane, Henry
The bullet hole in the ceiling convinced me. I stooped, tore out a tuft of the red carpet, pocketed it and went to Donald Root. I put my ear against his heart to listen for a beat because that is the thing to do, but there was no question. Donald Root was dead. And the expression on his face had died with him: surprise and fear. I lifted the chin and looked at more of the face: surprise and fear. I let the chin go and touched a finger to the paper in front of him on the desk. It was his will and he had just changed it. His fountain pen was still in his rigid hand.
I read the will quickly. It was entirely in the handwriting of Donald Root. It was the will he had told me about, the one Warren Dodge had mentioned, a half page deal, leaving half his estate to Roger Aldridge and the other half to charity. There was no residual clause. It was signed, and attested by two witnesses. But he had added to it. Beneath his signature, between the attestation clause and the signatures of the witnesses, he had added, in his own handwriting:
“I hereby bequeath an additional two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to my nephew, Roger Aldridge.”
That was all. There was nothing else.
I bent over, examining the carpet at the point in which Roger’s shoe was caught, and that was my position when I thought I heard the elevator door open and close. I was slapping at Roger’s face, slapping him back to consciousness, when I saw two feet standing near me. I looked up to the white-pale face of Emerson Beach.
“What …?” he gasped. “What’s happened?”
“This is the way I found them. Five minutes ago.”
His fingers trembled in the direction of Donald Root “Is he …? Is he …?”
“He’s dead. You’d better call the police. Right now.”
CHAPTER 9
One hour later Roger Aldridge had been booked for murder and I was frantically trying to find Warren Dodge. I showed up at the Flatiron Building just as Mamie was closing up shop.
“You’ve been calling and calling,” she said.
“Have you heard from him?”
“No, I haven’t. But that’s not unusual. He left rather late.”
“When?”
“He left here at four-thirty.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“To Donald Root’s.”
“He never showed up there.”
“That’s not unusual, either. Mr. Dodge frequently gets detoured.”
Just then the phone rang. Mamie picked it up, said hello, listened. Her mouth opened and she turned greener than a yokel with his last drink on his first binge. She hung up. She said, “He’s in a hospital.”
“Where?”
“The Flower.”
We didn’t say a word to each other as the cab fought the going-home traffic. At the hospital I paid and we ran up the steps. We inquired at the office, and the elevator took us to the eleventh floor. A young doctor said, “You first,” to Mamie.
I said, “May I see him, too?”
“Wait here. We’ll be out in a few moments.”
I paced the corridor trying to forget the hospital smells and then they were out of his room and coming toward me, and Mamie was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.
“I told him you were here,” she said. “He wants to see you. He’s ordered me to go home.”
“Nothing you can do here,” the young doctor said. “He’s to stay at least overnight, perhaps more.”
Mamie squeezed my arm, then turned away and proceded toward the elevators. To the young doctor I said, “What happened?”
“Emergency when we picked him up. Severe concussion and a bad gash, eleven stitches in his head. He shouldn’t see visitors but he insists on you. Don’t stay more than five minutes.”
The smell of ether was strong in the room. The bed was cranked up to a half-sitting position. Warren Dodge had his eyes closed and his face was paper-white. He looked naked without his monocle. Bandages and adhesive tape made a tight skull cap on his head. He opened his eyes, saw me, tried for a smile and missed. He said, “Hi, Peter.”
“Hi.”
His eyes slid to the doctor. “I want to talk to my friend. Alone, if you please.”
“No more than five minutes.”
I nodded and the doctor went out.
“What happened?” I said.
Weakly he said, “I was slugged.”
“Where?”
“The downstairs lobby at Donald Root’s.”
“Who slugged you?”
“I told the police I didn’t know. I was slugged from behind.”
“Robbery?”
“No.”
His eyes closed again and there was silence except for the rattle in his throat from his breathing. Then his eyes opened.
I said, “Slugged. But why? What motive?”
He winked, but if he was trying for jauntiness, it misfired. He looked tired and old and pathetic. He said, “I told the police I didn’t know who but I do.”
“Then why didn’t you tell them?”
“Because it would have been my word against his and that’s no good. It’s not proof. And he doesn’t think I know which is good. It gives us a weapon.” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t understand it.”
“What happened, Mr. Dodge? We’ve only got five minutes.”
“I want you to work on it, lad. Bill me if necessary.”
“I’ll work on it. But let’s have the story.”
He drew a deep breath, and exhaled in an ether-smelling blast. “I was due at Mr. Root’s. I was a little early. I entered the lobby and pushed the button for the elevator. The indicator showed it was at 4. I turned my back on it as it was coming down. I was wiping my monocle when the blow came. The elevator had opened and a passenger had stepped out. As the blow came I glanced upward at the mirror and I saw him. Then it struck. It was the back end of a pistol. For the life of me I can’t understand it. That’s your job, Peter. If I ever get out of here, I want to know why he struck me. He doesn’t know I saw him.”
“Who, for heaven’s sake?”
“Jonathan Nolan.”
CHAPTER 10
Detective-lieutenant Parker tilted his chair back and blew cigar smoke. Parker, out of Homicide, was a straight cop with no angles. He set the chair back on its four legs, leaned his elbows on the desk, and said, “Who’s the dame, Pete?”
“Dame?” I said.
“Dame, gal, girl, quiff. Who was holding Aldridge up for blackmail?”
“Oh, that dame.”
“Yeah, that dame.”
“Aldridge wouldn’t tell you, would he?”
“No.”
“Then how do you expect me to? I play ball but I don’t stool on a client. You know that.”
“Yes, I know it.” He sat back and smoked his cigar. His office was small and neat. He looked it over and then his eyes came back to me. “Very gallant, Roger Aldridge. Part of his story is good, part of it stinks.”
“Matter of opinion. What’s his story? To you?”
“Same as it’s been to you, pal.”
“Well, let’s hear your version.”
“Dame was holding him up for a quarter of a million and he’d decided to pay it. Went to the uncle for a big loan. Was talking with the uncle, all alone, when the bell tinkled. Went to answer the door but there seemed to be nobody there. Suddenly, he got hit a blow on the forehead. The lights went out for him. When he came to, the old man was dead, the will was changed and the gun was in his hand. His own gun. That’s his story.”
“What’s your story, Lieutenant?”
“Mine has a lot of evidence to back it up, which is why dear Roger is in the can.”
“Where do the two stories differ?”
“Not at the beginning. We accept the first part of his story—that he went to the old man for dough. But from there on in, we see it different. We say the old man refused the loan. We say Aldridge got ideas. We say he used his gun as a threat for the old man to change his will. Under duress, the old man did just that. Then we say Aldr
idge knocked him off. Ballistics prove the bullet was from that gun. Serial number shows it was his gun. Paraffin shows he fired it. Then, we say, he tried to beat it, got his foot tangled in the carpet in his hurry to get out. It tore, and he flopped, hit his head, passed out, and that’s how you found him.”
“What about the bullet in the ceiling?”
“Missed, the first try.”
“Pretty wide miss.”
“Could happen when you’re excited.”
“Did you examine that torn carpet?”
“We examine everything.”
“Could it have been cut rather than torn?”
“Could have been, but we say it was torn. He’d have to prove different.”
“Would a guy use his own gun to commit murder?”
“He had it on him, he admits it. We say the idea was an impulse. We say he was on his way to get rid of it.”
“Would he have invited me to come there?”
“Same answer. The idea shaped up as impulse. He’d have been out of there, if he hadn’t tripped himself, before either you or the butler would have shown up. Why do you look at me cockeyed like that? You got a better story?”
“Not yet I don’t.”
“Hope to have?”
“Maybe. If and when—I’ll let you know. By the way, you keeping Aldridge here overnight?”
“Yep.”
“Will I be able to see him?”
“Why not?”
“I’ll say this, Lieutenant. You’re a gentleman.”
“It’s just as easy …”
“Okay, pal, thanks. And don’t go overboard.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe I have a story coming up.”
“Make it a good one, shamus. You generally do.”
“I’ll try, Lieutenant. I’ll do my best.”
“It’s gonna be tough.”
“It’s been tougher. Thanks for letting me talk to you.”
CHAPTER 11
Anabel Jolly lived in a penthouse on Central Park South. I had taken her home several times but only to the door; I had never been in the apartment. It was on the 16th floor, with an orange lacquered door, and a sliding peephole with a mirrored front. She figured to be in. Anabel Jolly went to sleep in the morning; for her, then, evening was early afternoon. But she had run out on me at Jackson’s and she had refused to see me at the Jolly—so I wasn’t taking any chances.
The elevator took me up to the 16th floor, just the two of us, the young driver and myself. I said, “Do you know if Miss Jolly is in?”
“I think so. I ain’t taken her out.”
“Will you ring her bell, please?”
“Bell? What for?”
“Deliver a message.”
He put a stay against the elevator door and left it open. In the aisle near her door he said: “What’s the message, mister?”
“Me.”
“What?”
“I’m the message.”
His eyebrows moved down. “I don’t get it.”
I took a twenty dollar bill out of my wallet, waved it once and slowly, folded it and handed it to him. “You ring the bell, she flips the peephole, she sees it’s you, you say you got a message and I take it over from there. Okay?”
Now his eyebrows were up and his grin was a half grin, tentative but costly. I added a twenty to the twenty and he was convinced. He improved on my directions. He rang the bell and we waited. Then the peephole moved, an eye was applied, and Anabel’s voice said, “What is it, Oscar?”
“Got a package for you, ma’am.”
The door opened and I wedged a foot in. Then I shoved hard on the door, knocked her back, entered and shut the door behind me. And locked it. She came toward me, her green eyes hot with fury.
“Easy does it,” I said. “Remember me? We were going to ring bells together. Timothy Tiddle.”
“Bells,” she said. “Balls.”
“Easy, baby.”
“What the hell do you think you’re trying to pull here?”
Think? Who could think? Anabel Jolly was wearing a negligée and high-heeled house shoes. The house shoes were pink and open at the toes. The negligée was diaphanous. Diaphanous. If diaphanous is gauzy pink transparence, if diaphanous is a beautifully carved white marble moving statue veiled in the sheerest pink, if diaphanous improves the unimprovable, enhances the unenhanceable, sets the heart to hammering and beats the blood to the brain—then diaphanous is the word.
She kept coming at me, the wild green fury in her eyes and her hands out like claws. I grabbed her. Mostly in self-defense. Mostly. But not all. I grabbed her by the wrists, and forced her hands behind her and into the small of her back, bending her forward and toward me until her body was tight against mine, and then I captured her mouth with my mouth, and she struggled hard as I kissed her, and then she didn’t struggle quite so hard, and then she didn’t struggle at all.
I released her soft wet lips and moved my mouth to her ear. I said, “I’m not breaking in here to play potsy. A guy’s been murdered, and your name’s liable to crop up at any moment. That’s why I’m here.”
Then I let her go.
She remained where she was, motionless, her hands at her sides, the shine of faint tears in her eyes, the soft curves of her body molded to mine. Then her hands moved up and touched my cheeks and lightly, sweetly, without suction, she kissed a corner of my mouth. Then she smiled and said, “Come in, punk.”
A breeze from the terrace rustled through the living room. There were rose lights, and three large divans with many silk pillows, and two contiguous walls were entirely of amber-colored blocks of mirror. There was a fireplace and andirons and easy chairs and a bar and gay stools and an original Cobelle on one wall. Anabel moved about, pacing, flouncing, nervously slapping open palms against resonant hips, then she dropped into an easy chair and crossed her long legs and now the white marble of one thigh was exposed, gleaming in the rose light of the room. She said, “What’s it all about, Lover?”
“Roger Aldridge.”
Her expression tightened. “You still butting into that?”
“It’s beyond that now.”
“Beyond what?”
“My butting in.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you know Donald Root?”
“No.”
“Ever hear of him?”
“No.”
I brought her a cigarette, breathed her perfume as I lit it for her, and lit one for myself.
She said, “Sit here. Near me.”
I sat where the view was better. Across from her.
I told her about Donald Root. I told her about Roger Aldridge. I told her about Jonathan Nolan. I told her about Warren Dodge. I filled her in from the time I was retained to right now. If she was hustling for blackmail, then my hunch was wrong, and I’d tipped my mitt—and let her take advantage of me. I said exactly that, and I was through. I sat back and let her take it from there.
She didn’t move. Her legs were uncrossed now, her knees apart, the pink négligée ruffled in little mounds at her heels. Her pinky was in her mouth and she was biting at the fingernail and the tiny pucker between her eyes was a frown.
She said, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Skip it.”
She said, “You’re nice.”
“Skip that too.”
She said, “You think Roger killed his uncle?”
“No.”
She said, “You’re sweet.”
“Honey, we haven’t got time for that kind of stuff now.”
She stood up, suddenly, wrapped the negligée around her, turned, and slowly walked away, swayingly. My breath caught in my throat. It was something to see diaphanous pink around a fascinating rise of firm white undulant marble. Then she was out of the room and I jumped for the bar and snatched another drink for resuscitation. I was in the process of snatching another drink for further resuscitation when she returned. She placed a folded packet in
my hand and she said, “You just earned yourself fifteen thousand dollars. Thanks again for the vote of confidence.”
I don’t unfold the packet.
She said, “Six letters. From Roger Aldridge to Anabel Jolly. Original letters. There ain’t no copies, no photostats, no nothing.”
I slipped the packet into a pocket. I said, “What’s the story, Miss Jolly?”
“Miss Jolly, huh?” She glared at me, crinkle-eyed. “Real stranger, all of a sudden. What’s the matter? Fifteen thousand bucks go to your head?” Then she moved to a divan, turned, said, “Sorry,” turned back, threw herself on it, lay there prone, every curve of her accentuated, and cupped her chin in her hands. I still had that second drink in my hand. I gulped it fast and got rid of the glass. She said: “I don’t know what the story is. But I can tell you my end.”
“Let’s have it, huh?”
Her hands moved out from under her chin. She cocked a finger, beckoned with it, then patted the divan beside her. “Come here, Lover.”
I went. Because it was business.
I sat rigid beside her and listened.
She turned on her side as she talked. “Roger wrote these things a long time ago. I save that kind of stuff. For laughs. That’s all the guy ever was to me—a couple of laughs. I pick my men. And they’re few and far between. It’s got to be a guy that gives me a tingle, a jingle, a guy I can ring bells with.”
“So?”
“Who can ring bells with Roger Aldridge?”
“So?”
“So, after a while, he cooled off and that was that. Now we come to Jonathan Nolan.”
“Could you ring bells with him?”
“I could ring bells with you, Lover.”
“We were up to Nolan.”
“Nolan was my lawyer. A flip guy, and a wise guy, but a shrewdie. He did me a favor once and I don’t forget a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Two years ago, I was contemplating opening the Club Jolly. I had to buy the building. I had a lot of jack at the time but I didn’t have enough. I was short twenty-five thousand bucks. Nolan was always quick with a dollar—to earn it, to spread it, to lend it. He was handling the deal. When this emergency popped up—these things happen in a deal—he advanced the dough. Of course he took back a mortgage and there was interest plus a bonus—but the guy was there with the buck when I needed it and I don’t forget.”