Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter

by Tinsley, Theodore A.

  “And Webb?” Tracy asked Barbara. “Did you have a date to meet him later?”

  She denied it. She might be lying, but Tracy had no time to waste. Inspector Fitzgerald was coming toward the bench. The preliminary investigation of Huston’s murder was over.

  Tracy had no trouble convincing Inspector Fitzgerald that Shipley and his daughter could be safely released until their presence was needed. Barbara’s pale face was proof that she had suffered a terrific shock. The owner of the Daily Planet would vouch for them, Tracy said. Neither had any direct knowledge of the murder and were not in any sense of the word material witnesses. They could easily be reached at the Waldorf where they had an expensive suite.

  Fitz agreed with a troubled sigh. He was worried by the lack of clues or motive. The wealthy Midport publisher and his daughter hurried to the gate near the Administration Building, where they could hire a taxicab.

  Tracy faded toward the garden exit.

  “Where are you going?” Fitz asked. “I want to talk to you about this thing as soon as I get a chance to.”

  “You’ll find me over near the Aquacade show,” Tracy said. “I’ve had all the murder I want.”

  He headed through the darkened exhibit area toward the bridge over World’s Fair Boulevard. The free exhibit buildings had all been closed by this time and there were few people in sight along the quiet thoroughfares. But beyond the bridge there was still plenty of noise and excitement. The amusement area closed late. People were streaming along the shore of Fountain Lake where the final fireworks display would put a crashing period to the night’s festivities.

  Tracy followed the crowd. He hadn’t forgotten the girl in the Aquacade show he wanted to question, but he was afraid that if he delayed hunting up the mysterious Eric Lundy, he might miss him altogether.

  Lundy was standing outside the entrance of the enormous Three Ring Restaurant as cool as an iced radish.

  He said, smilingly, “Hello, pal. I knew you’d look me up.”

  His eyes at close range were like narrow lumps of pale blue ice.

  “Let’s skip the preliminaries,” he added. “George Huston was bumped a little while ago and you think maybe I did it. Well, I didn’t.”

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not crying. Huston was a louse. I wanted him dead and someone did me a big favor.”

  He was the most self-possessed guy Tracy had met in a long time. Well dressed, but nothing flashy about him. A mouth like a steel trap. Apparently quite willing to talk.

  This last was the thing that puzzled Tracy. Lundy answered his unspoken question.

  “I’m talking because my own nose is clean. I think I can tell you who did the kill, and why he did it. It means talking a little about myself but I’ll take a chance. I figure you’re smart enough to smell an undertaker a block away.”

  “You wouldn’t threaten me, would you?”

  Eric Lundy merely grinned.

  “Here’s where I fit in. Off the record, and underline that if you want to stay alive! I’m a political fixer in the thriving little town of Midport. How I work is none of your damned business, but I run things out there. Harold Shipley and his newspaper have a private tie-in with me. He also has a public tie-in with law and order. So he plays both ends and I help him play.”

  “What about—”

  “Shut up! This George Huston is an up-and-coming young lawyer. He does the crime crusading for Shipley’s lousy sheet. He’s so dumb that he got to taking his job seriously. So Shipley and I decided to get him married to Shipley’s daughter to pull the rein on him. Huston was so socially ambitious that a promotion seemed easier than a kill. In fact, to kill him would gum things up. I’m telling you this to show you that the job in the garden of the Babylonian Building wasn’t good business for me or Shipley. We had our man sewed. Someone else spilled the sap’s brains.”

  He stared at Tracy for a moment.

  “Now it’s your turn. Pick a card. Any one.”

  “Allen Webb,” Tracy said quietly.

  “I knew you’d do it. You’re smart.”

  There was no change in his flat voice.

  “I don’t say that Webb bumped George Huston, but I’ll tell you why I think he did.”

  It seemed to Tracy that there was a sudden undercurrent of eagerness in the man but he couldn’t be sure. Behind Tracy’s back was the noise and confusion of thousands of merrymakers winding up a boisterous evening amid the sights and noise of the amusement area. But Tracy had a shivery sensation that he was alone in an igloo, watching a pair of frozen eyes that blocked off the entrance to a smart frozen brain.

  “Webb’s in love with Shipley’s daughter. Barbara’s in love with him. The payoff is that Webb and her old man are enemies. Webb’s father used to own the newspaper in Midport. Shipley was the managing editor. Shipley squeezed out Webb’s father and did it so neatly that the old guy hadn’t a chance to prove fraud. He died of a broken heart—if you like movies. The son tried to make things tough for Shipley and pretty well succeeded. So you can see how far he’d get as a preferred son-in-law. That brings us to Huston, the dead guy. Am I boring you, pal?”

  “I’ll tell you when you do,” Tracy said.

  “O.K. Huston’s engaged to Barbara, but Webb is the only man on earth to make her give. He may have already. They’re both full-blooded, if you know what I mean. Webb made threats to kill Huston if he couldn’t marry Barbara any other way. Trite, but I’m telling you facts. Webb also hates Huston because Huston was the lawyer that figured the stunt to hornswoggle Webb’s old man out of the newspaper. If he bumped Huston—and that’s your worry, not mine—the kill has a tie-up with the water show at the Aquacade. That’s where Webb went earlier this evening. That’s where he went right after the cops began to arrive at the Babylonian Building. And don’t waste any time hunting for him in the paid seats. He went in the performer’s entrance.”

  “Is that all?”

  “So long and it was nice to meet you.”

  “You got any personal reason why you’d like to see Webb do a wiggle in the electric chair?”

  Lundy laughed aloud for the first time.

  “If I had to, I’d frame Webb to his ears. But it just happens I don’t have to.

  I really think he lost his head and made things nice for Shipley and me.”

  He started to move off with tigerish grace, then halted and came back. His slow grip on Tracy’s wrist hurt to the bone.

  “Remember, you little punk, keep Midport politics out of it!”

  New York State Building, which housed the Aquacade, was a huge semi-circular structure that faced the shore of Fountain Lake. The stage was out on the water. Between the stage and the spectators was a brilliantly lit lagoon where the diving beauties and the swimming champs did their stuff in an eye-filling spectacle.

  Tracy had no trouble getting in the performer’s entrance. He had been there before to see how Marjorie Field was getting along.

  Marjorie was Tracy’s protégé. A lousy dancer but a nice kid with a streamlined figure. She could swim like a fish and that made it easy to help her into the Aquacade show after three nightclub managers had held their noses following her dance tryout in a floor chorus.

  Tracy hoped to find out from Marjorie if any of the girls in the water ballet had skipped the previous show.

  A lot of the girls were already leaving the stadium. The show that had ended a few minutes earlier was the final performance. Tracy stopped a girl in the exit corridor and asked for Marjorie Field.

  “I saw her a minute ago. Look in the reception room. That’s where the girls come through from the dressing room.”

  “Thanks.”

  There was no sign of Marjorie when Tracy got there, but he saw someone else that made him forget the girl temporarily. Pacing up and down and looking extremely nervous was the tall and very good looking Mr. Webb.

  There was no mistaking him. He looked more like Rhett Butler than ever at close quarters. H
e scowled as Tracy approached him and asked for a match. His hand trembled as he put the match box back in his pocket.

  “Waiting for someone?” Tracy asked mildly.

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you Allen Webb?”

  He gave Tracy a hard, unpleasant look. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Jerry Tracy of the Planet. I heard you were in town. You’re a lawyer from Midport and your father used to own a newspaper. There are some mutual friends of ours at the Fair tonight—Harold Shipley and his daughter Barbara.”

  “Did Shipley tell you I was here?” Webb snapped.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a liar! I don’t know what you’re snooping around me for. But I think I know who gave you the tip I was here. Was it Eric Lundy?”

  “Right and wrong. Sit down.”

  “What do you mean, right and wrong?”

  Webb was very pale. He sat down slowly in one of the padded reception chairs and Tracy dropped into a seat beside him.

  “You’re right about Eric Lundy, but wrong when you say you don’t know why I’m bothering you. A man was murdered over in the exhibit area tonight. Are you interested?”

  Webb took out a handkerchief and mopped his damp forehead.

  “All right. I know that George Huston is dead. But I had nothing to do with killing him. I wasn’t near the Babylonian Museum tonight until after the police arrived.”

  “We’ll save time by sticking to the truth,” Tracy said. “You met Barbara Shipley outside the building at least ten minutes before the murder was discovered. You made a quick sneak to the rear of the Museum and then I don’t know where you went. Maybe you went into the garden.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Webb said.

  “Who are you waiting for here?”

  “A girl I happen to know in the water show.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Okay. That makes it police business.”

  Tracy started to get to his feet. Webb wilted and grabbed him appealingly by the arm.

  “Wait a minute. The girl I came to see used to know Huston. He gave her a dirty deal but she’s still crazy about him. I wanted to see her alone and break the news of his death. I—”

  A cheery voice sounded suddenly across the room.

  “Hello, Jerry! What are you doing here tonight?

  A very pretty blonde had entered the reception room through the swinging door that led to the dressing area. She wore a smart tailored suit and swung a glossy patent-leather bag from one of her grey-gloved hands. A perky little hat sat jauntily athwart her blonde curls.

  Tracy smiled and beckoned her over. She was Marjorie Field, the girl for whom he had secured a job in the water ballet. He wished she had delayed her entrance a while.

  But he got a surprise when Marjorie approached the chair where Webb sat partly screened by a potted palm. She stopped short. A strange look of wonder blanked her face.

  “Allen Webb, of all people! This must be old home week at the fair!”

  “You two know each other?” Tracy asked.

  Then he realized the truth. Marjorie was the girl Allen Webb had come to see, the girl who was supposed to be crazy in love with the dead George Huston. He saw the truth of it in the pallor that spread over Webb’s face and transferred itself to the staring girl. Marjorie either guessed that something was badly wrong, or knew it already. She was trying to hide sudden fright.

  Before Webb could say anything Tracy cut in with a question.

  “I knew when you came to me to get you a job that you were from out of town, but you didn’t say where. Was it a town out in the middle west called Midport?”

  “Yes. I thought you knew. Why?”

  Marjorie had too much make-up around her eyes. The lids were pinkish and puffy under the cosmetics. She’d been crying.

  But she didn’t quiver when Tracy informed her curtly that George Huston was dead.

  “I don’t believe I know him,” she managed to murmur.

  “It’s no use, Marjorie,” Webb interposed with a resigned gesture. “I told Tracy you were nuts about Huston. He’s been doing some questioning. He seems to think that I killed the guy.”

  “And you suggested that maybe I did?” Marjorie said harshly.

  “Not at all,” Webb protested. There was a sleek something in his voice that Tracy didn’t quite like. “How could I make such an asinine suggestion? You have an alibi. You were swimming in the water show at the time the murder took place.”

  “That’s quite correct,” Marjorie said. The strained look in her eyes was suddenly deeper. “Do we have to talk about this here? Jerry, I thought you were my friend? Are you trying to trap me, or something? Am I supposed to be under suspicion of murder?”

  “I don’t quite know what you’re supposed to be,” Tracy said slowly. He felt discomfited and unhappy at the turn things had taken. He had come to the Aquacade to get a line from Marjorie on the identity of the mystery girl in the Babylonian garden. Now it looked as if Marjorie herself might be the fugitive in the swim suit! He wished grimly that he had made a clean breast of the whole murder set-up to Inspector Fitzgerald. By trying to hold back and solve it alone, he had gotten himself in over his head.

  “Maybe we better eliminate you at once by proving you took part in the final water show,” he told Marjorie. “Can you prove it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’d like to look at your bathing suit.”

  “This is a damned outrage,” Webb spluttered. “You’ll do nothing of the kind. Who the hell do you think you are—the detective bureau?”

  He sprang suddenly to his feet. He made an angry grab at Tracy and started to push him around. To Tracy, Webb’s anger seemed phoney, an overdone act. Thoroughly sore, Tracy hauled off and clipped him in the stomach.

  Before they could mix it up any further someone gasped a quick remonstrance from the doorway. A young man had entered from the exit corridor. He was a meek looking youngster about twenty-two with a thin, student face and timid eyes.

  Marjorie recognized him with a cry of relief.

  “Richard, make them stop. Please!”

  Richard didn’t look as if he could stop much of anything. He moved ineffectually between the two men, pushing awkwardly at them in an effort to avert further hostilities. Tracy ended the argument by turning his back on the fuming Webb and staring at the new arrival

  “Who’s Richard?” he asked the girl. “Another of your boy friends from Midport?”

  Marjorie was near tears but Tracy badgered her grimly. He hated to do it, but he wanted to shatter her poise.

  He knew he had failed when Marjorie laughed. Her laughter was even and metallic.

  “Richard is my brother. He studies at Columbia. He also owns a small car. Every night when the last show is over Richard drives out to the Fair to take me home. If you want proof of that, ask the doorman at the stage exit.”

  “I’d still like to have a look at your swim suit,” Tracy said.

  “All right. Why not?”

  She turned abruptly toward the swinging door that shielded the dressing room. Tracy followed her. So did Webb and the girl’s brother. Webb looked white around the lips. But Richard Field’s face showed nothing more than dumb, uncomprehending wonder. Nobody had taken the trouble to explain a thing to him.

  He kept saying shrilly: “Marjorie, what’s the matter? For the love of Pete, what has happened?”

  She didn’t answer. With tight lips, she led the way toward her wardrobe locker. She flung the metal door open and handed Tracy her white silk swim suit. The suit was bone dry. So was the inside of the cape with Aquacade printed in bold black letters on its back.

  “I thought you said you swam in the last show,” Tracy said. “Well?”

  “This suit is dry.”

  “I didn’t wear this suit.”

  “Where’s the wet one that you did wear?”

  Her voice was soft en
ough to melt butter.

  “My regular suit got smudged in the show. After the last performance I turned it in to the wardrobe mistress for laundering.”

  “And where’s the wardrobe mistress?”

  “She’s gone home,” Marjorie said. “Would you like her telephone number? Or would you care to hunt for the wet suit in the laundry?”

  Richard Field said plaintively, “What’s all this about? What’s my sister done?”

  “She seems to be trying to get away with murder,” Tracy snapped.

  “Murder?”

  Pay no attention to him, Dick,” Marjorie said harshly. “He’s talking through his hat.”

  “If I am, you ought to know,” Tracy rejoined. “You were in the Babylonian Garden when my hat was yanked down over my ears. You were the one who lured George Huston there. Huston was playing around with you in Midport before he got ambitious and dumped you so he could get himself engaged to Barbara Shipley. What did you do? Send Huston a note? Warn him that if he didn’t meet you tonight in the museum garden that you’d queer his wealthy marriage?”

  “You don’t have to talk,” Allen Webb warned the girl quickly. “There’s no legal reason why you have to pay the slightest attention to the ravings of a dirt columnist on the make for phoney news.”

  “I wasn’t in the garden,” Marjorie said.

  Tracy stared at her set face.

  “Then you better do a lot of quick explaining. The girl who saw Huston murdered was wearing a white silk swim suit and an Aquacade cape. When I chased her she was rattled enough to run around the garden pool instead of swimming across it. That was bad for her because a wet suit would have given her a perfect alibi. She wouldn’t have to invent a phoney tale about a soiled suit and a missing wardrobe woman to explain how she could swim in the last Aquacade show and still have a dry swim suit in her dressing-room locker.”

  “Did you tell the police this nutty tale?” Webb asked.

  Before Tracy could reply the question was answered from an unexpected source.

  “No, damn him! He didn’t!” The swinging door that led to the dressing room flew violently open. A man shoved into view. At sight of his tall, erect figure and the mane of snow-white hair, Jerry Tracy felt a twinge of dismay.