Merlini gave me a wink. “I don’t imagine the lock is anything too unusual. Come on.”
He didn’t wait for Keith to lead the way. He started off at once through the dark—quickly, as if the blackness of a circus lot was as familiar as his own bedroom. We went with him, skirting the menagerie top back toward the front door.
“Lot layout anything like this, last night in Kings Falls?” Merlini asked, his voice low and conspiratorial, in keeping with the illegality of our burglarous mission.
“Pretty much,” Keith said. “The Major’s trailer is parked in the same place.”
On our left now, I saw the lighted side-show banners across the midway, rising above the nearer ticket wagon and line of concession stands. The dark square shapes of several parked cars and trailers showed dimly before us.
“Who else parks here?” Merlini asked.
“Mac, Bob O’Hara—he’s the reserved-seat ticket superintendent—Brown, the treasurer on the ticket wagon, and Calamity. I park here sometimes. The Major’s trailer—” Keith stood still. “There’s someone in it! There’s a light.”
One trailer only showed a light, a faint glow from beyond the window curtains. Then the light moved.
“Flashlight,” Merlini said. “On your toes.”
There were two windows on this side of the trailer, one aft and one in the door. The window sash of the rear one, hinged at the top, had been propped open. We moved quietly toward it for a look.
As a Fenimore Cooper Indian, I’m a washout. Beneath my foot a discarded crackerjack box crunched loudly. It almost seemed to be connected with a public address system.
Instantly the light within the trailer vanished.
We halted abruptly and stood waiting. I swore under my breath.
For an instant I thought I saw, framed in the black rectangle of the open window, a lighter blur against the dark that might have been a face. It showed for half a second and then was gone.
“Windows. Other side!” Merlini ordered quickly. “Hurry! Watch them.”
I jumped, not bothering now about any noise I might make. The trailer’s occupant knew we were there. I circled the trailer, keeping in close to its side. There were two windows, both closed.
I heard Merlini rattle the doorknob, and I looked in cautiously. Then Merlini knocked.
There was no answer. After a moment of complete quiet I heard the faint click and scratch of metal on metal. I knew what that was. Merlini was picking the lock. Whoever was inside was completely surrounded— trapped. I felt the way an inexperienced speaker does just before he steps out with an impromptu speech to face a large and formal audience. I wondered how the person within the trailer felt.
The door’s hinges creaked then; and immediately after, the interior of the trailer was filled with light. I saw Merlini’s hand on the wall switch, reaching in through the partly open door. My eyes swept the interior.
There was no one there.
The furnishings of the trailer were obviously custom-built. The room was fitted out as an office and living-room. A desk of modern design and a tubular chair replaced the sink and kitchen equipment carried by most stock models. The walls were covered with circus memorabilia: posters, and photographs of performers, freaks, and animals. I noticed a miniature model of an ornately carved parade band wagon and, above the door, an elephant tusk. There was a table in the extreme rear flanked by built-in seats that, at night, could be converted into a bed.
Then Merlini’s figure filled the doorway, and he stepped in, picklocks still in hand, Keith behind him. I left my post, circled the trailer hastily, and went in after them.
It was then I saw the gun, a Colt automatic, in Keith’s hand.
Merlini noticed it also. “Where’d that come from?” he asked.
Atterbury, looking blankly around the room said, “Bought it this morning. I thought—”
“Good,” Merlini cut in. “Just point it this way.” He stood with one hand on the knob of a wardrobe door at the forward end of the trailer close to the outer door. “No one left by the open window. All the others, I see, are closed and locked on the inside. So—”
With the traditional gesture of the conjurer when he exhibits the magical cabinet that has previously been shown empty, Merlini turned the latch and swung the door wide. Just as with the conjurer’s cabinet, this time too, there was a young lady inside, a girl with golden hair and round, frightened blue eyes. She stood there, crouched back against the clothing on the hangers. She had a flashlight in one hand, and in the other, half upraised, a curious but familiar weapon, a heavy, rounded, three-foot length of wood that ended in a steel-pointed combination of prod and hook. I recognized it as an elephant goad. When the girl saw Keith, the bull-hook dropped from her fingers and fell with a solid thud to the floor.
Then she stepped from the wardrobe, and the light shone scarlet on the bolero vest and flaring trousers of her wire-act costume. She blinked in the light, the fear in her alert eyes replaced now by relief and, as she looked at Merlini and myself, by curiosity.
Keith said one word, “Joy!”
He stepped forward and grasped her arm. “What are you doing here?”
Joy’s eyes sought the door through which we had come. “The door, Keith. It was locked. How did you—”
Merlini jingled the picklocks on the key ring and dropped them back in his pocket. “Locks are made to be picked, Miss Pattison. Aren’t you going to introduce us, Keith?”
Atterbury was still looking at the girl with a completely bewildered expression. Still watching her, he said, “This is Merlini, Joy. You remember, Sigrid told us about him. And his friend, Ross Harte. But why— what were you doing here? Did you climb in at the window?”
Joy’s voice had a cool liquid quality that was easy on the ears. “Yes,” she said. “I was looking for the Major’s will.” Her statement was simple, matter of fact.
Merlini went toward the open window. “Wasn’t this one locked like the others?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, “but there’s a hole in the pane. I reached in and turned the catch.”
Merlini examined the neat semicircular opening from which a section of glass had been removed.
“You used a glass cutter?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I found the pane that way. I noticed it this afternoon. So tonight, after the wire act, when Pauline told me the Major hadn’t made a will, I—”
“Pauline said that?” Keith asked sharply.
“Yes. And she said that he wouldn’t have left me anything in any case.”
Keith turned quickly to Merlini. Excitedly he said, “So that’s the gaff. I should have thought of it. There won’t have to be another murder after all; this is just as good. Pauline simply destroyed the will!” (A gaff is a secret device. In carnival games, the unseen gadget which sets the layout so the player cannot win. In conjuring, a “gimmick” serves the same purpose.)
“No other relatives, then?” Merlini asked. “The Major dies intestate and Pauline gets it all? Like that?”
Keith nodded. Joy was staring at him. “Murder?” Her eyes were wide. “Another murder? Keith, what do you—”
“Easy, kid,” Keith said, his arm around her. “I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that. The Major’s auto smash—” His voice trailed off; his eyes had fastened on the ten-gallon cowboy hat that lay near the desk on a chair. “Merlini,” he said slowly, “the Major always wore a hat. One of those. Sensitive about his baldness. I suspect he wore one to bed. But there was none with the body or in his car. I forgot to tell you that. And this is the one the Major was wearing last night.”
Joy paid no attention to the hat. She insisted, her voice thin and tight, “What about the accident?”
Keith turned to her and told her what he had told us. I watched Merlini pick up the hat.
“Gaudy,” he said, half to himself, “but not too neat.”
There were more than the usual number of dents in the hat’s crown, and a smudge of
dirt on its gray surface. Merlini turned the hat in his hands and looked inside the crown. For a brief second he hesitated, motionless, saw me watching him, and then said, a shade too calmly, “Size seven and three-eighths.” He placed the hat carefully back upon the chair as he had found it.
Merlini began investigating cupboards and drawers. Suddenly he interrupted Keith’s recital. “Miss Pattison, you said you, were looking for a will. Did you find one?”
“No. I had just started to look when I heard you outside.”
“Sure that was all you were looking for?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Why, yes. O£ course.”
“What were you intending to do with that bull-hook?”
“The bull-hook? I—I don’t know. I was frightened. I saw the three of you outside, watching the trailer. I couldn’t see who you were. Then I heard you at the door. I’d noticed the hook lying on the desk, and I picked it up almost without thinking as I started for the wardrobe.”
Merlini took it from the floor. “It’s not yours, then? Is it the Major’s?”
“No,” said Joy, “it’s Irma King’s. I don’t know why it should be—”
Keith said, “I do. Pauline had it when she came in here with the Major last night. I saw her.”
“Um,” Merlini said meaninglessly. Then to Joy, “Just where did you look for this will besides in the desk there?”
“No place,” she answered at once. “I’d just started on that when you—”
She stopped, seeing that Merlini had stopped paying attention. He had suddenly dropped on his knees to examine some shiny particles that sparkled in the light on the linoleum floor. He looked up at Keith and Joy.
“Did Major Hannum wear glasses?”
Keith said, “Reading glasses. Pair of horn-rimmed ones. Carried them in his breast pocket. Why?”
Without answering, Merlini took one of his business envelopes from his pocket and carefully brushed the dozen or so small bits of broken glass into it. He folded down the flap without sealing it and placed it on the desk top. He took Joy’s flashlight from her, went to the window with the cut pane, and snapped the light on. He held it at an oblique angle and peered closely at the window glass, moving his head slowly from side to side.
“Miss Pattison,” he asked, “where were you last night between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock?”
Keith started to say, “Now look here, Merlini. What do you mean by—”
“Act your age, Keith,” Merlini cut in. “You’ll hear that question fired at a lot of people from now on. Well, Miss Pattison?”
She frowned. “That would be during the concert. I was in my trailer getting ready for bed. We had a long jump this morning, and nearly everyone turned in as soon as they could. Then at one o’clock when we heard about the Major—”
The latch on the trailer door behind us clicked over.
We all started with guilty apprehension as the door slammed inward. A girl came through. She wore a white satin cloak over pink tights. Merlini and I immediately recognized an old friend, our determined lady of mystery—Miss Mildred Christine.
Mac Wiley, behind her, stopped halfway through the door, one hand on the jamb, staring at us.
Joy’s startled half-whisper said, “Pauline!”
Mildred Christine-Pauline’s words shot at us like a rapid staccato burst of machine-gun fire.
“What does this mean? What are you two—”
Only Joy and Keith had registered on her consciousness until then. Now she saw Merlini, and it stopped her cold.
Mac came to life briefly. “What the hell goes on here?” he blurted. “This trailer is supposed to be locked. What—why—” He bogged down.
“I’m afraid I owe you an apology, Miss—Christine,” Merlini said gravely. “We’re guilty of an illegal entry, a custom that is, unfortunately, all too common.”
Pauline glared at him, angry but uncertain. “What are you doing here—in this trailer?”
Merlini had the answer to that. And he gave it to her, politely but without warning. I could see the white deadly wake of the torpedo as it went.
“We are investigating your father’s murder.”
Chapter Six
Fingerprints
THE EXPLOSION HAD THE solid reverberating thud of a direct hit. But before it there was one instant, a long-drawn-out instant of deadly quiet. One thing only, the tinny festivity of the distant side-show band, came to make a disturbing ripple in the tense, tight silence that held us.
Pauline seemed to sway under the impact of Merlini’s words as if they were hard, driving physical blows. Her lithe body was taut and rigid, her fists clenched as if she were trying frantically to grasp at something that would keep her from hysteria. The dark eyes were round staring circles, and the full red lips opened as if to speak.
But it was Mac’s voice that thundered and smashed the silence.
“What the blazing everlasting hell are you talking about?”
“Murder,” Keith said. “If the Sheriff is still on the lot, you’d better get him.”
Mac didn’t move.
Keith added, “If you don’t, I will.”
In answer to that, Mac made one swift movement. His hand was on the doorknob, and he turned it with a decisive jerk. The holt clicked over.
“No, I don’t think so. Merlini, will you explain—”
“Mac! I’ll handle this.” Pauline’s voice had no hysteria in it now, only sharp, crisp authority. Her words were slow and precise, eyes narrowed and careful. She took a step toward Atterbury. “All right, Keith,” she said. “Spill it. And fast.”
Keith glanced sidewise at Merlini, and then said, watching Pauline, “Mac, when the Major left the front door last night, where did he say he was going?”
“You were there. Weren’t you?” Mac replied gruffly.
“Yes. He said he was going over to his trailer to get a slicker. But did he, at any time, say anything to you about leaving the lot?”
“No,” Mac scowled. “And so what? He didn’t tell me every—”
“All right, Pauline,” Keith said. “Let’s have it. Where was he going? What’s the story you’ve rigged up? I warn you it’ll have to be good, very good.”
“Atterbury”—Pauline’s voice had an Arctic cold in it—“you’re fired! Starting now. Get your money from the wagon and get off the lot.”
“No, wait, Miss Hannum,” Mac interposed hastily. “That won’t do. I’m not going to have him running to the cops with whatever he thinks he’s got before I know what it is. Nobody sets foot outside this trailer until this is straightened out!”
Keith started toward the door. “I’m afraid this is something our legal adjuster isn’t going to be able to adjust as smoothly as usual. Get out of my way, Mac!”
Mac stood directly before the door. He was a much older man than Keith and half a head shorter, but it was obvious that he was perfectly confident of holding his own. He stood lightly poised on his feet like a boxer.
“You heard her,” Keith said. “I don’t work here any more. I’m leaving.”
“Not yet you aren’t.”
Merlini’s voice cut across the tension in the room in the nick of time. “Miss Hannum,” he said, “I have no authority to ask questions or to expect any answers. But unless someone can and does explain the very peculiar behavior of the Major just before he died last night, then Keith is right; the police will have to be notified.”
“Merlini!” Mac shouted. “For God’s sake! You don’t believe Calamity’s beefing is—”
“Mac,” Pauline ordered sharply, “I said I’d handle this.” She faced Merlini. “What peculiar behavior?”
“Where was the Major going when he left the lot last night?”
“I don’t see that that is any of your business.”
“It isn’t. But unless someone can supply a decent answer, it’s police business. If you would prefer to tell them, that’s your privilege. That is, if you know?”
“If I do
n’t know, does that prove anything?”
“No. It only makes his death look even queerer.”
“I don’t understand you. As it happens, I do know where he was going.”
Merlini blinked. “You know why he left the lot in the face of a possible blowdown? And why he was in such a great hurry on a road that goes nowhere in particular?”
“Yes.”
“When did you last see him alive?”
Pauline’s answers were all hesitant, but when she did speak the words came swiftly, with a sudden jerk.
“At dinner,” she said.
Out of the tail of my eye I saw Keith start and open his mouth to protest. Merlini cut in quickly.
“Is that when he told you about his plans for the evening?”
“Yes.”
“And they were?”
“I’ve already told you that it doesn’t concern you.”
“Yes, I heard you. I’m glad that you know the answers, because the police are going to want them.”
She studied him a moment. “You’ve got some other reason for saying that. What is it?”
“Show Mac the photos, Keith. Perhaps you’d better not look, Miss Hannum. They were taken at the scene of the accident, and are not very—”
She snatched them from Keith’s hand as he drew them from the envelope. She looked with wide eyes, Mac crowding behind her.
Merlini spoke rapidly: “The photos were snapped by the man who found the body, before anyone had touched it. The face and neck are severely lacerated. There is no blood except for a very insignificant amount across the top of the head. The deduction is—that the cuts were made a considerable time after death.”
Both Pauline and Mac looked up and stared at him.
Before either of them could speak, Merlini added, “Mac, is that the hat the Major was wearing last night?” He pointed.
Mac was thoroughly alarmed now. He turned his head nervously, biting at his thin lips. But he was still cagey.
“Maybe,” he said. “What about it?”
“Keith says he was wearing it and that there was no hat found on the scene of the accident, although the Major, because of his baldness, invariably wore one. We found that hat here in this trailer; and inside, on the inner surface of the, hat’s crown, there is a smear of dried blood.”
Headless Lady Page 6