A sudden icy thought made Jerry’s heart jerk. Had Fleeter done this thing? Had he been trailing Clancy ever since he had left the gym at noon? The murder had all the ear-marks of Fleeter’s explosive hot temper. Clancy evidently had known more about this thing than Jerry had suspected—and had paid for his knowledge with his life. A vivid picture of Fleeter’s lovely daughter swam suddenly before the columnist’s eyes, but he shook his head stubbornly at the monstrous notion. He still believed Tess Roland’s explanation of the girl’s mysterious undercover trip from Pittsburgh. Tess and Ethel were pawns in this thing. Paul Yager, too. They were being used by someone playing a deep game.
Tracy’s eyes narrowed. The dead man’s right hand lay clenched on the dingy surface of the desk. There was something gripped in his closed fingers. Jerry forced the fingers apart and the stub of a pencil rolled across the green blotter.
The columnist stared at the blotter. He could see multifarious ink smears but no sign of any warning scrawl.
He lifted Clancy’s head gently and the motion upset the dead body’s equilibrium and slid him from the chair. Tracy caught him, laid him quietly on the floor. He stepped back to the desk and examined the surface of the blotter where Clancy’s head had rested.
There were bloodstains where he had sagged forward. Evidently he had dragged himself from that ugly pool on the floor towards the desk. He had fallen weakly into the chair, had forced himself to seize the pencil stub and write. Tracy could see part of the wavering pencil scrawl. His breath sucked in as he recognized his last name. The rest was merged indistinctly with the smear of blood on the blotter.
Jerry tore the blotter loose and held it closer to the light. Held thus, the sheen of the graphite marks was faintly distinct in the blood smear. Clancy had died before he could complete what he was writing. The message or warning, or whatever it was, ended in a meaningless curlicue. But part of it was unmistakably clear:
Tracy pen +
The face of the Daily Planet’s columnist was haggard under the rays of the desk lamp. Not a sound stirred in the deserted gymnasium building. What the devil had Clancy been trying to write. Tracy. … Pen. … Plus. … He repeated the words under his breath and suddenly he gave a whispered cry of understanding. It wasn’t a plus sign! The poor devil had been trying to make a T when he died. Tracy pent—Tracy penthouse!
Again this whole dizzy case was pointing straight to Tracy himself. Tommy Fleeter’s first act, following his queer disappearance, had been that unexplained visit to Tracy’s penthouse where he had nearly scared the Chink to death. It was Tracy’s own home that was the center of this murder web, not the gymnasium. Fleeter himself was back of it! That was why Ethel had locked her lips when Tracy had tried to question her. That was why she had tricked Tracy and given him the slip. They were all pawns—Paul Yager and the Storm Signal and poor dead Clancy. And back of it all, Tommy Fleeter and his daughter from Pittsburgh!
Abruptly Tracy reached for the telephone on the long metal bracket alongside the desk. This was murder. Time for the cops! Friend or no friend, Tommy would have to come forward and face things. For a friend, Jerry was willing to go to lengths that few men in Manhattan would dare, but he had never once in his life condoned a murder or tried to impede justice.
He started from force of habit to call Police Headquarters. Then he remembered that Inspector Fitzgerald wouldn’t be there at this time of night. He hung up and called Fitz’ home. He’d give Fleeter that much of a break. Fitz was a personal friend of the ex-champ. He’d hold off the newspaper boys until both he and Jerry were convinced that Fleeter was responsible for the murder. After that—Jerry closed his lips and tried not to think of that part.
He got Fitz on the wire and spilled him the gruesome news.
“Everything points to Fleeter and his daughter,” Jerry said in a low voice, “but I want to be sure. Do me a favor and don’t call Headquarters yet. I’ll be down at my penthouse. There’s a bare chance that Fleeter may be there. If he is, Butch will have him sewed up for you. I left orders for Butch to jump him if he showed, and to hold him for me.”
“I never liked that mugg, Mike Clancy,” Fitz’ gruff voice barked over the wire. “That reform stuff of his was the bunk. He must have put the finger on Fleeter and the old boy let him have it. You know Tommy’s temper when he’s monkeyed with.”
“Yeah,” Tracy said listlessly. “But I don’t think Clancy was crooked. I’ve got a queer feeling that his skull was battered in because he was on the level and because he had found out something that the killer couldn’t let be known.”
There was a sputter at the other end of the wire, and Tracy added with a jerk of nervous anger. “How can I tell? No reason at all. I just think so. … Get down here in a hurry and look things over. Then burn it up to my penthouse. I’ll be waiting for you—maybe with Fleeter.”
He hung up, stared for a second or two at the crumpled figure of Clancy. His eyes were veiled and expressionless. He turned and walked silently from the room.
There were plenty of nighthawk automobiles flitting north and south along the dimly lit avenue outside, but the sidewalk was empty of pedestrians. Tracy fixed the bolt of the spring lock so that the gymnasium door closed without locking. He wanted things to be as easy and quiet for Fitz as possible.
He went down the steps to the sidewalk in no particular hurry. A block southward was a subway kiosk and a dozing cab-driver. Tracy drove to the corner nearest his swanky penthouse and walked the rest of the way.
The hallman was someone that Tracy had never seen before. He had a uniform cap but no uniform. He asked the columnist what floor he wanted.
“I live here, dope,” Jerry snapped.
“Oh, I—I beg your pardon, Mr. Tracy.” The man’s eyes blinked. “I’m just filling in for Roy.”
“So I see. What’s the matter with Roy?”
“He’s sick. His stummick ain’t so good.”
“Drunk again, eh?”
The hallman grinned faintly.
“Anybody call to see me?” Tracy asked.
“No, sir.”
“No phone calls?”
“No, sir.”
“Okey. Up!” He stepped into the car, frowning. “I expect a visitor. When he comes, bring him up.”
“Yes, sir.”
The operator closed the doors and dropped the car out of sight almost before Tracy had stepped into the stone corridor on the penthouse level. A sudden suspicious thought made Tracy frown. Maybe Fleeter and his daughter were already hidden inside the apartment. A tip to that guy in the uniform cap would close his mouth as tight as a clam. He looked as shifty as hell. Abruptly Tracy thought of Butch’s huge head and heavy fist. If Fleeter had bribed his way into the penthouse, Butch, forewarned by Tracy’s own orders, would have stuck a rod in him the minute he showed his face.
Jerry rang the bell. A full minute passed and there was no answer. No Butch. No Chinaman. He didn’t ring the bell again. Instead, he fished for his key, inserted it noiselessly in the lock and opened the door very quietly.
The foyer lamp was burning brightly as usual, but there was no sign of either Butch or the Chinaman. The pantry was empty and so was McNulty’s bedroom adjoining. Tracy tiptoed onward, his gun steady in his hand. He peered into the little cubby where Butch slept. Empty. So was the living-room and the dining-room. The door of Tracy’s bedroom was shut.
The moment he opened the door, the reek of whiskey hit him like an acrid fume. He took one look and walked slowly, dazedly towards the bed.
A girl was lying there in a huddled ball, one arm trailing limply over the edge of the counterpane. Ethel Fleeter! Her head had fallen back and her eyes were closed. There was a half-filled whiskey bottle on Tracy’s night table, but the reek came from the girl’s parted lips. She smelled like a distillery. She was dressed in blue satin lounging pajamas; the rest of her clothing was scattered aimlessly all over the room.
He caught her roughly by the shoulder, shook her till her sluggish eye
lids fluttered open. “G’way,” she mumbled drowsily. Her eyes were moist and glazed.
Tracy dropped her with a sibilant oath and ran towards the bathroom. He found a bottle of smelling salts and jammed it under the drunken girl’s nose. Again the eyes opened. She began to whimper, to roll her tousled head away from the fumes of ammonia.
“Wake up!” Tracy snapped. He slapped her flushed face. “Come out of it! I want to talk to you!”
He heaved her upward, got one arm under hers. She struggled dazedly, knocked the ammonia bottle out of his hand. She began to laugh suddenly in a high pitched, ridiculous giggle. He couldn’t make her stop. In an effort to close off that senseless sound he clapped his left hand over her mouth. Her limp body toppled and pulled him off balance. He fell tangled with her on the soft mattress.
A voice said with slow, terrible softness: “God Almighty!”
Tommy Fleeter was standing rigidly in the doorway like a dead man. He watched Tracy roll awkwardly away from Ethel and bound to his feet. Fleeter’s eyes glared at Tracy, at his drunken pajama-clad daughter, at her clothing scattered all over the room. His throat made a thick, sobbing sound.
Tracy cried swiftly: “Listen, Tommy—”
Ethel had raised herself unsteadily on one elbow. She was staring fixedly at her father but there was no recognition in her drunken grimace.
“God!” Fleeter whispered, “It’s true.”
He began walking slowly towards the columnist. Tracy saw madness in the man’s eyes and he backed step by step towards the night table where his gun lay. He was afraid to move too fast. Words bubbled softly from his lips, low-toned, persuasive words. He knew Tommy wasn’t listening.
Fleeter sprang suddenly. Tracy whirled, scooped the gun from the table. Fleeter’s rush knocked columnist and table to the floor. In an instant ice-cold fingers were clamped on Tracy’s wrist. The gun was wrenched from his grasp and went clattering across the bedroom.
Tracy struck at the white face and managed to roll free. He sprang to his feet and Fleeter went after him like a steel spring. What followed was one of the strangest, most insane perversions of reality in Tracy’s whole career. He was fighting for his life, cool-headed, pale as a ghost, trying to box with one of the greatest boxing champions that ever stepped into a ring. And getting away with it!
Fleeter had forgotten that he was a boxer. He was a cave man, whimpering, flailing blindly with fists like awkward stone hammers. His eyes were drained of everything but the lust to kill this man who had betrayed his friendship. Blood streamed from his nose where Tracy had jabbed desperately. He followed the retreating columnist with no attempt at footwork or science. Jerry couldn’t elude him. A terrific swing caught Tracy on the jaw and staggered him. The hooked fingers clawed for Tracy’s throat.
Ethel Fleeter’s strangled scream gave the columnist a second’s dazed respite. Her father lifted his face, peered dully at her. Tracy tore his gasping throat free and threw up a protecting arm.
“Father!” Ethel moaned. “Don’t—don’t!”
The blank drunken look was gone from her eyes. There was fear in them, horror, a terrified pleading more potent than the sound of her scream.
She tried to rise from the bed and fell dizzily. Fleeter staggered across, threw an arm about her.
“Listen, Tommy!” Tracy begged. “You don’t understand. This is a fake, a frame-up. I’m your friend.”
“Friend?” Fleeter gasped hoarsely. “You call this—friendship?”
Ethel was trying to talk. She couldn’t articulate; her words were without meaning.
“You brought her from Pittsburgh,” Fleeter mumbled. “You hid her here. Did you think I didn’t know it? Do you think I didn’t trail you?”
“Tommy, I swear to God, I had nothing to do with this. Someone is trying to frame all three of us. Someone who killed Mike Clancy.”
“You killed him! I followed you.”
Jerry groaned. “He was dead when I got there. Who told you that your daughter was in New York?”
“Tess Roland. She warned me. And then Clancy told me more—after I had telephoned to Pittsburgh and found out that Tess was telling the truth.”
“Tommy, she lied like hell.”
“I followed you to the gym,” Fleeter said thickly. “You went through a tenement in the back and busted a window. I saw Clancy’s body with his skull battered in. I didn’t care about that; I wanted to save Ethel. I knew that you’d lead me to her if I kept after you. I trailed you out the front door of the gym and down to a taxicab. I took another. And right here in your own home—I find the two of you—my friend and my daughter—stinking with liquor—”
“No!” Ethel cried. “Dad, you’re wrong. Tracy had nothing to do with this. He didn’t kill Clancy. Clancy’s murderer brought me here. He forced me to drink that liquor at the point of a gun. It wasn’t Jerry, Dad. It was—was—”
Her voice choked off in a scream. She stared frozenly past her father’s back.
Good evening, folks,” a sneering voice said.
Tracy whirled.
The man in the bedroom doorway was Paul Yager. There was a gun in his hand and it menaced the three in the room with murderous impartiality. He looked as natty and neat as a clothing ad. A taut grin curled his thick lips. Only his muddy eyes betrayed him; they were unsteady, blinking, haunted by a grim urgency. Tracy read ruthless murder in those blinking eyes.
“It was you,” he gasped. “Not Tess.”
“Tess, hell,” Yager grinned. “I fooled her the same as I fooled you. She thought she was helping Fleeter and his boob daughter. I told her the finger was out for Fleeter—but I didn’t tell her it was my finger. And I didn’t tell her it was a double-barreled stunt to get Fleeter and wise Jerry Tracy at one crack.”
“But, Paul,” Fleeter faltered. “I—I don’t understand. You’re a good guy. You’re my friend.”
“That’s what you think,” Yager snarled. “You’re gonna make me two hundred grand. I’ve got Paddy Elkins fixed to Jose his title bout next Thursday. I had to make sure of the referee—and you’re just too damned honest to live!”
Tracy cut in with a tremulous whisper. “But why drag in me and an innocent kid like Ethel? I don’t get it.”
“Oh, yes you do! I can see it in your eyes. Tracy, the dirt slinger! Caught at last in his own dirt.” Yager chuckled horribly. “Betrayed father finds daughter and famous Broadway columnist in latter’s million-dollar bedroom. Kills both and commits suicide. How close do you think the boxing commission will come to the truth?”
In the back of Tracy’s brain was a single, numb thought. Inspector Fitzgerald! He must already have left the gym. Tracy had cautioned him to beat it straight down to the penthouse. There was a bare, life-and-death chance.
“I gotta hand it to you, Paul,” he said dully. “But can’t you protect your dough without murder? Can’t you—”
“Nuts,” Yager growled. “You think you can stall me that easy, you little punk?”
“You croaked Clancy, didn’t you?” Jerry added persistently.
“The hell I did! Fleeter himself did that little job—didn’t you, Tommy?”
“He’s a liar. He killed Clancy. I was there. I saw him do it!” Ethel’s voice shrilled hysterically from the bed. Her face was dead white and there was no trace of drunkenness in her eyes.
Yager watched her over the barrel of his gun. “Tell ’em some more, kid,” he said blandly. “Maybe you know more about it than me. Let’s hear how much you really do know.”
“Keep quiet, Ethel,” Tracy warned. “Don’t open your mouth.”
But Fleeter’s daughter was beyond all fear. Her face was pale with loathing as she stared at the smiling killer. Her voice was a scornful whiplash. “I heard everything Clancy said before you murdered him,” she breathed, “Clancy accused you to your face—and you killed him. You had the whole thing figured.”
“For instance?” Yager said in a silken murmur.
“You spilled a few vague
hints to my father and got him worried. Then Tess told father the lies you had fed her and she warned him to pay no attention to anything Tracy might say. In the meantime you looked up Clancy and told him that Tracy and—and I were living secretly together in Tracy’s penthouse. It was a clever scheme, because you could pretend you were afraid to say anything directly to Tommy Fleeter, for fear he wouldn’t believe you, being Tracy’s friend, Clancy fell for the trick; he did exactly what you figured he’d do—he disclosed the fake seduction news to my father. And father phoned promptly to Pittsburgh, learned I had come to New York, and went haywire with rage. He grabbed a gun and tried to trail Tracy secretly, after he had become convinced that Tracy was trying to elude him. You made him think that Tracy was not a pal, but a rat.”
“Nice beanwork,” Yager grinned. “Very smart. Clancy got his for the same kind of smartness.” His eyes became coldly opaque. “I think I’ll hand it to you and Tracy first. Tommy will get his last—in the temple—to make it look like a nice suicide. You appreciate a joke, Tracy; why don’t you laugh?”
Tracy’s glance remained steadily on the opposite side of the room. He tried to fight down the sudden flick that came into his harrowed eyes.
Yager’s gun muzzle shifted towards the girl like a flash of light. Tracy didn’t move, although he saw the trigger finger of the murderer tighten.
There were two shots, spaced barely a second apart.
Inspector Fitzgerald had fired first from the doorway. His bullet ripped through Yager’s arm and deflected the murderer’s slug six inches to the left of its target. It went through the pillow and the headboard of the bed and missed Ethel Fleeter completely. She toppled sidewise in a dead faint.
In an instant the bedroom was a turmoil of action. Inspector Fitzgerald sprang from the doorway followed by the resolute figure of Tess Roland. Yager ran full-tilt into the two of them. He butted Fitz in the pit of the stomach and knocked him against Tess.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 50