by Ron Goulart
It was not the identity of the killer that concerned Bligh so much. It was the killer’s motive. If a blackmailer, threatened by the fear of arrest, had become desperate enough to murder Cord through Bligh’s calling in the police, then Bligh had no taste left for life.
“Why was Cord killed?” Ware demanded louder.
“Something just went wrong,” Rooper supposed.
“That leaves us where we were,” Ware griped.
“No, this is the link I’ve been trying to think out,” Bligh insisted. “Ware, the blackmailer didn’t murder Cord. His victim did. Cord was easygoing, but he had his scruples. Suppose he had learned something from the blackmailer that he could not forgive? It would have been the end of someone who had a comfortable home here and a sizable inheritance in prospect. That must be it!”
“Then you have a sulky blackmailer somewhere,” Ware snarled. “He must know that the one he had the goods on murdered Cord. So why doesn’t the blackmailer tip us off?”
“That is what blocked my thinking,” Bligh admitted. “But I see now that the blackmailer can’t speak. The moment he confessed he had tried extortion, you’d accuse him of murder. No one has a good enough alibi for that night to take a chance at flinging accusations about. Besides, how would he tip us off? With modern police scientific methods, it is hard to convey information without leaving a trail to yourself.”
“There’s one way he could tip us off.” Ware’s face was terrible, and Rooper cringed. “He could tell us he was Sherlock Holmes. He could tell us he doped it out of his head.” Ware grabbed Rooper as if he would kill him on the spot. “You little hand-fed louse! Spill it! Who’d you have the goods on?”
“No, no!” Rooper begged. “I swear! Bligh!”
“Don’t treat him like that,” Bligh protested.
Ware dragged Rooper out of the room.
Bligh followed them downstairs and out of the house. Ware flung Rooper into his car and got in too. Then he turned a face livid with rage to Bligh, saying fiercely:
“You better hope hard as prayers I get something out of him. Because don’t ever forget that if I don’t get someone else, you’re the patsy, and always were.”
Ware’s car shot away, a thick cloud pouring from the exhaust.
Bligh snuffled the gasoline stench out of his nose. He strode aimlessly from the house. He felt real pity for Rooper. Yet he realized the justness of Ware’s suspicions.
It could be Rooper. That hobby-minded young man was poorly fitted to face the world if someone told Silas Cord something that would cause Cord to turn Rooper out of doors.
A car careened to the house, braked violently. Tom Grayson leapt out and dashed into the house.
Bligh ran into the house. Grayson was at the head of the stairs. Bligh bounded up.
He was about to call when Grayson rushed into Louise’s room and slammed the door.
Bligh put his hand on the knob. He snatched it away and raced down the hall to Rooper’s room. Dropping into a chair at the table, Bligh threw switches, heard voices, from some room or other—Rooper had the switches identified with hieroglyphics.
Then Grayson’s voice burst from the speaker:
“I can’t stand it another minute! I’ll go mad, do you hear, mad!” He sounded as if he’d been drinking heavily.
“Get out!” Louise’s normally languid voice crackled. “You spineless sot, get out of this room and never enter it again, or I will tell them you did it.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Grayson gasped.
“I wouldn’t dare?” Louise’s voice dripped scorn, and it sounded as though she’d risen. “You think I wouldn’t have, if there’d been any reason? I’ve made up my mind about you, worm. I don’t want you at any price. I’ll tell them! Wouldn’t dare! No one ever said I wouldn’t dare anything, I’ll tell you—”
“You put that phone down!” Grayson screeched. “You won’t tell. But I will. I’ll tell them I’ve killed you!”
Bligh heard her sharp intake of breath.
“You?” she forced a laugh.
Then she screamed.
Bligh got out of Rooper’s room and down the hall faster than light. He flung open the door and burst in upon them.
Louise held a gun. Grayson crouched, advancing upon her. Her back was to the wall, her hand tightened over the gun, death like a black fascination in her eyes.
“Stop!” Bligh shouted.
Grayson sprang at her.
She fired and Grayson lost his impetus. Bligh leapt at her. She snapped the gun at him. It was Bligh’s life or her face. Bligh struck her down.
Bligh took the gun, then put her unconscious form on the lounge. He lifted Grayson to a chair. Grayson had been shot in the shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice the wound. He sat sobbing his heart out. Bligh phoned the doctor, then Ware.
“All right—” Bligh held a towel to Grayson’s bleeding shoulder—“you tried to blackmail your uncle. So she killed him.”
“You know?” Grayson’s face was as white as the huge idol’s.
“Yes—now. You knew the house was to be empty that night before anyone else knew. You pretended you’d asked friends in and that you were angry. You were allaying suspicion.”
“Understand this,” Grayson said emphatically, “I never meant to blackmail my uncle. I was only trying to scare Louise. You see, though I never liked her, she tantalized me and I couldn’t stand it.
She wouldn’t have anything to do with me. So I told her if she didn’t go out with me I would tell uncle lies about her. He could be terrible if women disgraced themselves by the sort of men they mixed with.
“I told Louise I’d invent stories about her and uncle would kick her out. I didn’t mean it. But she mocked me. Before I knew it, I’d done it. Uncle didn’t know who I was—I phoned him and said only that I knew something disgraceful about one of his wards and would reveal it if I didn’t get money. Louise was with me when I phoned. Uncle said he would pay. Then you got wind of it and sent for the police. I was scared sick.”
After a moment Bligh said, “But you made an appointment with your uncle on the night he was murdered. You were out with your friends and crazy drunk, but you remembered the appointment and tried to keep it. Your car ran out of gas and you even managed to walk.”
“I intended to tell uncle the whole thing was a joke in bad taste. But I had to get drunk before I could face him,” Grayson moaned. “Bligh, I didn’t want him or you to discover the real truth. Here is the truth—I threatened Louise that I would tell uncle lies about her. Then I began to he wonder what she did do with herself. I began spying, following her.
“Bligh, she’s the basest woman who ever lived. I could never have told a lie about her that would have been half bad enough. But I didn’t want uncle to know. I intended to tell him the whole blackmail scheme was a joke I’d been playing on Rooper.”
Bligh grunted. “How about the night of the murder?”
“I don’t remember anything,” Grayson confessed, “until I was standing in the hall. The study door was open a bit and I saw Louise. I knew she meant to do something terrible. She thought, you see, that I would tell uncle about her. I tried to tell her I wouldn’t. But she kicked me in the stomach. Then the light went out. A minute later she ran out the back of the house and I went after her. But I fell and couldn’t rise.
“I think I knew what she had done, and what danger I was in. I had a bottle of whisky in my pocket. I drank it all. With what I had already had, it made me so drunk that I had sort of an alibi. Next day she told me if the police ever found out I was the one blackmailing uncle, they would think I was also the one who I murdered him. I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut. But I know she killed him and I had to tell. I can’t go on.”
“It’s going to be tough proving it,” Bligh growled. “The fact that you were drunk isn’t going to make your testimony gilt-edged. She’ll have your uncle’s money to fight us with.”
“I don’t care—” Grayson threw his shoulders
back—“even if I’m arrested for attempted extortion. I can prove what places she’s gone to, what kind of people she’s been with and what she’s been doing. A lot of that is on film, and I have friends to testify to the rest. So I can prove she had reason to fear uncle might learn unpleasant truths about her. She can’t beat this case.”
Louise sat on the chaise longue, her hands in her lap, her face calm.
“You can’t yogi yourself out of this,” Bligh warned. “You’re in a jam. You have things to worry about, lady.”
“Have I?” she asked languidly. She stuck out her tongue, a capsule on the end of it. Then she took in tongue and capsule and chewed. She swallowed before Bligh could get to her.
Lieutenant Ware burst into the room.
“What is this?”
“I murdered my uncle,” Louise said.
“What?” Ware thundered. “Why?”
She said nothing, only gazed at Bligh.
The doctor had entered and was at work on Grayson, who also looked to Bligh.
“We don’t know why she did it,” Bligh snapped. “Temporary insanity, I suppose. All Grayson and I know is that she took poison and then confessed. Leave her alone! Can’t you see—well, you might figure she wouldn’t confess a thing like that if she couldn’t have depended on her poison to work fast.”
A BOTTOMLESS GRAVE, by Ambrose Bierce
My name is John Brenwalter. My father, a drunkard, had a patent for an invention, for making coffee-berries out of clay; but he was an honest man and would not himself engage in the manufacture. He was, therefore, only moderately wealthy, his royalties from his really valuable invention bringing him hardly enough to pay his expenses of litigation with rogues guilty of infringement. So I lacked many advantages enjoyed by the children of unscrupulous and dishonorable parents, and had it not been for a noble and devoted mother, who neglected all my brothers and sisters and personally supervised my education, should have grown up in ignorance and been compelled to teach school. To be the favorite child of a good woman is better than gold.
When I was nineteen years of age my father had the misfortune to die. He had always had perfect health, and his death, which occurred at the dinner table without a moment’s warning, surprised no one more than himself. He had that very morning been notified that a patent had been granted him for a device to burst open safes by hydraulic pressure, without noise. The Commissioner of Patents had pronounced it the most ingenious, effective and generally meritorious invention that had ever been submitted to him, and my father had naturally looked forward to an old age of prosperity and honor. His sudden death was, therefore, a deep disappointment to him; but my mother, whose piety and resignation to the will of Heaven were conspicuous virtues of her character, was apparently less affected. At the close of the meal, when my poor father’s body had been removed from the floor, she called us all into an adjoining room and addressed us as follows:
“My children, the uncommon occurrence that you have just witnessed is one of the most disagreeable incidents in a good man’s life, and one in which I take little pleasure, I assure you. I beg you to believe that I had no hand in bringing it about. Of course,” she added, after a pause, during which her eyes were cast down in deep thought, “of course it is better that he is dead.”
She uttered this with so evident a sense of its obviousness as a self-evident truth that none of us had the courage to brave her surprise by asking an explanation. My mother’s air of surprise when any of us went wrong in any way was very terrible to us. One day, when in a fit of peevish temper, I had taken the liberty to cut off the baby’s ear, her simple words, “John, you surprise me!” appeared to me so sharp a reproof that after a sleepless night I went to her in tears, and throwing myself at her feet, exclaimed: “Mother, forgive me for surprising you.” So now we all—including the one-eared baby—felt that it would keep matters smoother to accept without question the statement that it was better, somehow, for our dear father to be dead. My mother continued:
“I must tell you, my children, that in a case of sudden and mysterious death the law requires the Coroner to come and cut the body into pieces and submit them to a number of men who, having inspected them, pronounce the person dead. For this the Coroner gets a large sum of money. I wish to avoid that painful formality in this instance; it is one which never had the approval of—of the remains. John”—here my mother turned her angel face to me-”you are an educated lad, and very discreet. You have now an opportunity to show your gratitude for all the sacrifices that your education has entailed upon the rest of us. John, go and remove the Coroner.”
Inexpressibly delighted by this proof of my mother’s confidence, and by the chance to distinguish myself by an act that squared with my natural disposition, I knelt before her, carried her hand to my lips and bathed it with tears of sensibility. Before five o’clock that afternoon I had removed the Coroner.
I was immediately arrested and thrown into jail, where I passed a most uncomfortable night, being unable to sleep because of the profanity of my fellow-prisoners, two clergymen, whose theological training had given them a fertility of impious ideas and a command of blasphemous language altogether unparalleled. But along toward morning the jailer, who, sleeping in an adjoining room, had been equally disturbed, entered the cell and with a fearful oath warned the reverend gentlemen that if he heard any more swearing their sacred calling would not prevent him from turning them into the street. After that they moderated their objectionable conversation, substituting an accordion, and I slept the peaceful and refreshing sleep of youth and innocence.
The next morning I was taken before the Superior Judge, sitting as a committing magistrate, and put upon my preliminary examination. I pleaded not guilty, adding that the man whom I had murdered was a notorious Democrat. (My good mother was a Republican, and from early childhood I had been carefully instructed by her in the principles of honest government and the necessity of suppressing factional opposition.) The Judge, elected by a Republican ballot-box with a sliding bottom, was visibly impressed by the cogency of my plea and offered me a cigarette.
“May it please your Honor,” began the District Attorney, “I do not deem it necessary to submit any evidence in this case. Under the law of the land you sit here as a committing magistrate. It is therefore your duty to commit. Testimony and argument alike would imply a doubt that your Honor means to perform your sworn duty. That is my case.”
My counsel, a brother of the deceased Coroner, rose and said: “May it please the Court, my learned friend on the other side has so well and eloquently stated the law governing in this case that it only remains for me to inquire to what extent it has been already complied with. It is true, your Honor is a committing magistrate, and as such it is your duty to commit—what? That is a matter which the law has wisely and justly left to your own discretion, and wisely you have discharged already every obligation that the law imposes. Since I have known your Honor you have done nothing but commit. You have committed embracery, theft, arson, perjury, adultery, murder—every crime in the calendar and every excess known to the sensual and depraved, including my learned friend, the District Attorney. You have done your whole duty as a committing magistrate, and as there is no evidence against this worthy young man, my client, I move that he be discharged.”
An impressive silence ensued. The Judge arose, put on the black cap and in a voice trembling with emotion sentenced me to life and liberty. Then turning to my counsel he said, coldly but significantly:
“I will see you later.”
The next morning the lawyer who had so conscientiously defended me against a charge of murdering his own brother—with whom he had a quarrel about some land—had disappeared and his fate is to this day unknown.
In the meantime my poor father’s body had been secretly buried at midnight in the back yard of his late residence, with his late boots on and the contents of his late stomach unanalyzed. “He was opposed to display,” said my dear mother, as she finished tamping d
own the earth above him and assisted the children to litter the place with straw; “his instincts were all domestic and he loved a quiet life.”
My mother’s application for letters of administration stated that she had good reason to believe that the deceased was dead, for he had not come home to his meals for several days; but the Judge of the Crowbait Court—as she ever afterward contemptuously called it—decided that the proof of death was insufficient, and put the estate into the hands of the Public Administrator, who was his son-in-law. It was found that the liabilities were exactly balanced by the assets; there was left only the patent for the device for bursting open safes without noise, by hydraulic pressure and this had passed into the ownership of the Probate Judge and the Public Administrator—as my dear mother preferred to spell it. Thus, within a few brief months a worthy and respectable family was reduced from prosperity to crime; necessity compelled us to go to work.
In the selection of occupations we were governed by a variety of considerations, such as personal fitness, inclination, and so forth. My mother opened a select private school for instruction in the art of changing the spots upon leopard-skin rugs; my eldest brother, George Henry, who had a turn for music, became a bugler in a neighboring asylum for deaf mutes; my sister, Mary Maria, took orders for Professor Pumpernickel’s Essence of Latchkeys for flavoring mineral springs, and I set up as an adjuster and gilder of crossbeams for gibbets. The other children, too young for labor, continued to steal small articles exposed in front of shops, as they had been taught.
In our intervals of leisure we decoyed travelers into our house and buried the bodies in a cellar.
In one part of this cellar we kept wines, liquors and provisions. From the rapidity of their disappearance we acquired the superstitious belief that the spirits of the persons buried there came at dead of night and held a festival. It was at least certain that frequently of a morning we would discover fragments of pickled meats, canned goods and such débris, littering the place, although it had been securely locked and barred against human intrusion. It was proposed to remove the provisions and store them elsewhere, but our dear mother, always generous and hospitable, said it was better to endure the loss than risk exposure: if the ghosts were denied this trifling gratification they might set on foot an investigation, which would overthrow our scheme of the division of labor, by diverting the energies of the whole family into the single industry pursued by me—we might all decorate the cross-beams of gibbets. We accepted her decision with filial submission, due to our reverence for her wordly wisdom and the purity of her character.