Carron was alone in there, listlessly turning the pages of a popular novel.
“How long have you been in here, Carron?”
Carron laid his book aside, yawned deliberately. “I must say I don’t like your tone, Mister—”
“Tracy. Jerry Tracy, of the Daily Planet. You damned well know who I am! How long have you been here in the library?”
“Oh … matter of ten or fifteen minutes.”
“Didn’t you just come in?”
“Of course not. As you can see, I’ve been curled up comfortably with a good book.”
“You wouldn’t lie to a pal, would you, Carron?”
“I might,” Carron said with easy impudence, “if I thought it would relieve me of the annoying attentions of the tabloid press.”
“I get it.” Tracy grinned suddenly. “You’d feel better, you mean, if I were a lot of miles away. In Siam, say. Where the Chaulmoogra tree grows.”
The effect on the suave Carron was astonishing. His face went as black as a thundercloud. He came leaping to his feet, the cords in his lean neck suddenly tense. He shook his fist wrathfuly in Tracy’s face.
“If you try to mix me up in this—this mess,” he snarled, “I’ll break every bone in your cheap, gutter-newspaper body.”
“Got a rotten temper, haven’t you, Mr. Carron?”
Tracy didn’t move back an inch from the furious stamp collector.
“Don’t like to give up things, do you? Stamps, for instance. Got blackballed from a club once for beating up a rival collector in a quarrel over your damned stamps. … I’ve got an idea, Carron, that in your own quiet little way, you’re dangerously close to being a monomaniac, aren’t you?”
He moved the collector’s trembling fist away from in front of his nose.
“And don’t try the tough stuff, sweetheart. I’ve mixed with tougher guys than you’ll ever see in a carload of blue moons. Get that paw of yours down or I’ll turn you into a pinwheel.”
Carron’s forehead was pale and moist. His sudden rage spilled out of him and left him a little smaller in stature, a little scared.
“You mustn’t take my—my temper too seriously,” he muttered with a forced smile. “I’m an excitable man. I mean you no harm, Mr. Tracy. And there’s no reason in the world why I should lie to you about my recent movements. I—I really wasn’t upstairs.”
“No?” Tracy said, and chuckled softly. “If you’ll think back, Mr. Carron, you’ll realize that I didn’t ask you if you were upstairs. I merely asked you how long you had been in the library here.”
The Daily Planet’s little columnist turned on his heel and left the discomfited Carron staring after him. The bump on Jerry’s pate was forgotten now. He was in high good humor. He walked back through the music room and on towards the drawn curtains through which he had passed earlier in the evening, when Hunter had beckoned him.
A hand touched his arm hesitantly. It was Griscom, looking at him with a curiously haggard eye.
Tracy shook his head curtly. “Sorry, Major, I’m busy.”
“Just a sec, old fellow. There’s some-thing that I—I—The truth is, I lied to you about Carron.”
Jerry gestured towards the closed dining-room doors behind which Inspector Fitzgerald was interrogating the widow of the dead man.
“Go in and tell Fitz. Don’t bother me.”
The thought of Inspector Fitzgerald suddenly reminded Tracy, with a feeling of grim incredulity, that the inspector had hardly begun his routine questioning of the witnesses to the murder. Tracy’s bizarre dashing about the house had occupied not more than—he glanced at his watch—not more than a bare twenty minutes!
Griscom tugged again at the columnist’s sleeve.
“Listen,” he whispered. “Carron was upstairs. I can swear to it. I saw him sneak down.”
“Yeah? That’s funny. You both seem to have been up there.”
“It’s a lie,” Griscom said faintly. “If Carron said that about me, he’s lying to save his own skin.”
“Carron didn’t tell me.”
“Who did?”
“Maybe I told myself. Or maybe—” Tracy’s voice got low and confidential “maybe I was told by—Lily Barker.”
He looked full into the white face on the pseudo Englishman. Watched raw terror writhing there. Then he walked onward to the curtain, lifted it and went quietly along towards the pantry to find Hunter.
The butler sighed with relief at sight of Tracy.
“What’s the matter, Hunter? You look a little sick. Head still bothering? you?”
“No, sir. It’s—it’s my sister I’m thinking of. I’m afraid she’s in danger. Do you think that whoever struck clown you and me might try to—to silence Charlotte, sir?”
“Mmmm. … ” Tracy’s brow furrowed. “Where is Charlotte now?”
“In her room, sir. She came to me rather unnerved after the inspector finished questioning her, and I told her to go upstairs, take an aspirin and lie down.”
“Where’s her room?”
“Servants’ hall. Two rooms from the end. Second door on the right. Just beyond the laundry chute, sir.”
“I see. By the way, there’s another angle I forgot. Have you seen anything of that discarded spray of orchids? Miss Barker’s corsage, I mean.”
“No, sir. Shall I look for it?”
“Don’t bother. I want you to do something more important. You go ahead up front where the guests are. Saunter in and make a bluff at picking things up. Or you might ask ’em if they’d like a cup of fresh, hot coffee. The trick is to keep a sharp eye on two people in there—Major Griscom and Mr. Carron. Don’t let either of ’em get out of your sight. You don’t have to be too obvious about it. Just be discreet and hang around. If either Carron or Griscom takes a sudden sneak, let me know about it right away.”
“Where will you be, sir, in case—”
“I’m going upstairs. Got a couple of questions I’d like to ask Charlotte. And incidentally, to make sure that she’s all right.”
“Tell her to lock her door,” Hunter paid in a worried voice. “And you, sir—better be careful.” Kerry’s smile got sunny and quite cheerful.
“We’re coming out of the fog, Hunter. The killer is the lad who’s got to be careful now. Pretty damned careful, if you ask me. He’s in what you might call a spot. As a matter of fact—” Jerry’s voice purred with satisfaction—“as a result of a little heavy bean work, I’ve finally decided just who the party is who invited me to this murder shindig tonight.”
He jerked his head towards the front of the house.
“Keep your eye on those two birds while I’m upstairs.”
A voice said, suddenly: “Good evening, gentlemen. Is there any chance for a cup of hot coffee, Hunter?”
It was Major Griscom, smiling and affable, with no trace of the terror that Tracy had observed a few moments earlier in his eyes.
“Coffee will be ready in a minute, sir,” Hunter murmured.
“Save a big cupful for me,” Tracy smiled. “Excuse me, Major. See you later.”
Griscom shrugged, matched Tracy’s smile, walked back with the columnist as far as the library. Tracy finally got rid of him and slipped away. He went through to the rear of the house and out the back door. There was a little breeze stirring and the air felt sweet and cool. A low moon hung over the ornate private garage of the Barkers, like a segment of golden coin. The garage was locked and dark; no noise came from the big house. Murder seemed suddenly as remote as the pale scattering of stars overhead.
Tracy got quietly busy with the prosaic job of looking through the garbage cans. He poked thoughtfully through the trash bin, examined a multiplicity of bedraggled objects with finicky care. He looked up from his task finally, and listened. After a while he went back into the house.
Charlotte’s door was not hard to find upstairs. It was closed and he knocked softly.
He got no answer and knocked again. Finally, with a frown, he turned the knob and the d
oor opened easily. He reached inside the casing and switched on the light. The room was empty. No sign of Charlotte. Just a chair, a rumpled bed, a plain dresser and mirror, a closet.
Tracy thought of the butler’s anxious forebodings of peril.
“I’d like to know where the devil Charlotte is,” he muttered. “If she came up here to go to bed—and evidently she did—she must have changed her mind in a hurry. Or somebody changed it for her!”
He stepped into the maid’s room and closed the door softly behind him.
Ten minutes later the Daily Planet’s wizened little columnist reappeared in the hallway.
He walked slowly towards the stairs, concentration. An idea occurred to him and he stopped short. Turned, and came back towards the laundry chute in the wall. He unlatched the square door and swung it open. Stuck his head in and tried to peer down the dark maw of the chute.
A sudden plunging attack threw him off balance, drove the breath from his body.
Steel fingers clamped on his throat. His startled cry died unuttered. Desperately he tried to squirm about, to confront his assailant; but the grip on his throat was as tight and immovable as a vise. His lungs burned with agony. He forgot his mysterious foe, the peril of death, everything! All his fainting brain could think of was to breathe, to suck horribly for air. …
Dimly he felt his body lifted from the floor. His convulsive fingers clawed at wood, were torn ruthlessly away, but the momentary hold had kept his body head up. He fell, feet foremost, down the chute, into space. He had barely time to think, when a jouncing, curiously soft impact laced his ribs with pain and sent him bouncing headlong against hard concrete. Instantly, all thought and feeling left him. …
Consciousness returned gradually to him. His tongue felt heavy and slimy, as though coated with cobwebs. His body ached when he tried to move. He couldn’t see anything in the gloom that surrounded him, but he knew, of course, where he was. In the cellar. By some miracle of God he had plunged feet first down the laundry chute—and was still alive!
His groping fingers reached out and touched the soft mound that half buried him. Soiled linen, a huge hamperful that stood under the chute, had broken his fall and saved his neck. Mechanically, he touched his throat—and remembered the murderous fingers that had squeezed his windpipe from behind.
He fumbled weakly for a pad of matches, lit one, held the flame tremulously aloft. The cellar, all right! Tubs, a washing machine, a long, narrow table, covered with a white, shroudlike sheet. … The flame burned his shaking fingers and the match dropped and went out.
He was reaching for another when the rustle of stealthy footsteps reached his ear. The sound seemed to come from below the dark underslant of the staircase. A beam of light—thin, pencil-like—snapped briefly into view. It jumped across tubs and table and stabbed vividly at Tracy’s slumped body. He couldn’t see the face of the intruder a the flashlight was held carefully low and carefully shielded.
A faint chuckle sounded and the beam snapped out.
Tracy tried to kneel, tried to brace himself with his left hand—and went over backwards like a ninepin as the shadowy figure dived murderously at him. Blows rained on his undefended head. He tried to squirm away, to crawl. …
And, gradually by some queer magic, he was all alone again in a pain-filled darkness that seemed to throb with a peculiar hum as though in tune with the beat of his own pulse.
Concrete was still under Tracy’s fingers. It felt greasy and for a moment he thought it was blood. He sucked his smeared finger—grease, a taste like oily sludge. He could hear that rhythmic throbbing in the air more clearly now. The bulky monster beside which he lay took slow form, became familiar and coherent. An automobile Beyond it were dark, heavy doors. He was in a garage, locked up alone with that shadowy car that kept purring like a fool kitten. … By God—the engine! Running!
He froze suddenly with cold terror. Carbon monoxide! He was trapped, sealed up for death. Colorless, odorless, tasteless! Swift—sure death!
It took him years to hang to the running-board and get the car’s door open. It took him centuries to grope for the ignition key and find it gone.
He was lying in a tangle on the floor of the car, his cheek pressed against the cold metal of the clutch. He got up like a floating feather, clung fuzzily to the circumference of the steering wheel. He laid a hand that felt absolutely devoid of weight or feeling on the horn button.
To his amazement the horn began to blare monotonously.
He wanted to laugh, it was so silly. How could the thing yawp like that, when his hand on the button didn’t weigh a damned ounce! Funniest thing God ever heard of, Tracy said stubbornly to himself, away off in sleepy space, higher than the dimmest, drowsiest star. …
The brutally insistent smack of a palm on his face roused Jerry Tracy. Cool, fresh air was in his lungs. His eyes opened. He was lying flat on his back on the gravel in front of the Barker garage. Sergeant Killan’s heavy palm kept slapping him monotonously.
“Easy, Killan,” he gasped. “I’m all right.”
“Boy, I sure thought you were gone for good! Feel better now?”
Tracy groaned. “Where’s Fitz? Where’s everybody?”
“Inside the house. I heard that automobile horn of yours yelping and I tore out to the garage on the run. Just in time, too! Who put the finger on you, Jerry?” He swore viciously. “This thing is beginning to drive me nuts!”
“You came out here alone?” Jerry asked slowly. “Is everyone else in the house?”
“Sure. Fitz thought the horn gag might be a trick. He thinks he has the killer okey—but me, I’m not so sure now.”
“Who is he arresting?”
“The daughter. Lily Barker.”
Tracy scowled with a grim disgust. “Of all the crackpots—Fitz is the worst!” He got up on his feet and found that he was not as weak as he had thought. Fitz’s dumb play in arresting Lily Barker acted on him like a shot of stimulating liquor.
“Back into the house,” he snapped. “It’s time we put the crab on this little show. Come on, keed.”
“You got a slant? Who done it, Jerry?”
“Get a move on and you’ll see.”
Inspector Fitzgerald scowled as Killan and Tracy came into the music room. Most of the guests were assembled there, staring at one another with suspicion and uncertainty. The only one definitely smiling was Lily Barker. Her smile was bitter, ironic. The inspector didn’t seem to like looking at it.
“What goes on?” Fitz asked Tracy harshly. “What the hell have you been doing with yourself?”
“Solving a murder—and a lot of other things,” Tracy said calmly.
“Oh, yeah?” The inspector’s unhappiness gave way to a puzzled hopefulness. “Mind telling me all about it?”
“Not at all. I’m going to enjoy putting an end to the hectic doings in this gilded dump.” He felt his damaged scalp tenderly. “Somebody cracked me on the dome upstairs and did the same for Hunter. Twice somebody tried to murder me. In addition to that, three separate attempts have been made to rifle the safe upstairs in John Barker’s bedroom—and two of the attempts were successful. … Yeah, I sure think I’ll enjoy talking, Fitz.”
He glanced keenly at the inspector. “Everybody in here now?”
“You mean—”
“I mean everybody in the house. I want all of ’em here—guests, servants, guest towels and cockroaches. Let me know when they’re all here, Hunter. Scram!”
Hunter looked at Fitzgerald questioningly and the inspector nodded. “You heard what he said. Go get ’em.”
“Very good, sir.”
Tracy said softly: “Come here, Fitz. Little Jerry wants to whisper some info to papa. … Killan, you go out to the back of the house, reach under the wooden step and bring me what you find.”
The face of Inspector Fitzgerald got wooden as he listened to the Daily Planet columnist. He glanced at the crowd but his eyes didn’t seem to dwell on anyone in particular. Men and women wa
tched him with a stark, puzzled interest.
Sergeant Killan came back and Tracy said: “Thanks. Put it on that table for a minute.”
“Everyone is here now, sir,” Hunter reported. “If I may say so, sir, the cook is quite angry.”
“That’s tough,” Fitzgerald growled.
Jerry Tracy was facing his silent audience. A little spot of color came into his lean cheeks. Nice to be in the spotlight again! He had been an awful dope for the last hectic half hour; but now he was frankly enjoying himself.
“I know exactly who killed John P. Barker,” he said slowly. “I know exactly who the guy is—or should I say the person?—who bopped Hunter and myself on the head. I know the two things that were stolen from Barker’s safe—and why.”
He paused and his eyes roved coolly about the room.
“More important than that—I know who sent me the phoney invitation to come here tonight—and the reason why it was done. It was done to facilitate a cowardly murder for profit. Somebody remembered that old Mother Goose rhyme: ‘Will you walk into my parlor?’ said the Spider to the Fly. Somebody thought I’d make a swell fly. But this is one time the foxy spider made a bum guess.”
He smiled at Killan.
“Gimme that orchid spray a minute, Sarge. Thanks. … This is the corsage that Lily Barker wore tonight. It wilted and she threw it away. I found it hidden underneath the trash barrel in the rear of the house. If you’ll notice, the white-topped corsage pin is still stuck in the spray. Lily jabbed it back again when she discarded her flowers. In other words, there were two pins used here tonight. Lily Barker’s pin did not kill her father. A substitute pin was used. The murderer took advantage of the fact that Miss Barker always threw away flowers the moment they began to wilt.”
Tracy’s voice hardened. “Gimme those handcuffs, Sarge.”
He began walking slowly forward. Killan walked along beside him. The columnist sauntered straight towards a small group of staring people. Towards Major Griscom and Mr. Carron. Carron was trembling badly but Griscom was like chilled white steel. Both of them stared at the blazing eyes of the approaching columnist and neither of them backstepped an inch.
“And now,” Tracy said, “I think that this tragic little adventure in Mother Goose draws to its finish.”
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 29