The cool reserve in her voice when he identified himself surprised him greatly. She did not sound like the girl he knew and he found it awkward talking to her until he recalled that the funeral was to be this morning.
‘Would you like me to go with you?’ he asked.
‘Thank you, no’, Helen said. ‘I’d much rather go alone.’
‘Have you heard from Murray Leonard?’
‘Not this morning.’
Murdock hesitated while he tried to think of something to say. The best he could do was to tell her that if there was anything he could do he hoped she would call him.
‘I will’, she said in the same cool tones, ‘though I doubt if there’ll be anything.’
Murdock hung up, his lean face wrapped in a frown and his dark eyes puzzled. He rubbed the end of his nose, still frowning and then, in the next second, an answer came to him and he swore under his breath.
She thinks I tipped off the police about Murray.
That is what he thought and, remembering now how he had been at the table the other night when the man spoke of seeing Leonard outside the Greene Hotel on the fatal night, he understood something of what Helen must feel. The police had a tip of their own about Leonard’s being seen, but Helen could not know that. Leonard had been picked up and confronted with this evidence and when she found out about it Helen had jumped to a false conclusion.
He sighed audibly and said: ‘Oh, well’, half aloud, and then he looked again at the telephone directory for the number he had called the afternoon before.
‘Good morning’, he said when Leone Thorpe answered. ‘Is Jesse there?’
‘He’s out in the yard.’
‘I thought I’d call and see if everything was all right.’
She said: ‘Hah!’ an abrupt, humourless sound. ‘Hardly.’
‘Trouble last night after you got home?’
‘Not serious trouble. I got an earache from listening to Jesse.’ She hesitated as a new thought came to her and said: ‘Look! What happened last night when you followed Harry out of the club?’
‘Why?’
‘Maybe I’m a little confused, but out of Jesse’s ravings I thought he said something about hitting Harry—slugged him, is the phrase he used—and that if you hadn’t come along he would have given Harry what was coming to him.’
Murdock told her what had happened and of Harry’s decision not to tell her about the trouble. ‘Where is he now, do you know?’
‘He’s on the ten o’clock for New York’, Leone said. ‘At least he said he would be.’
‘He finally got smart.’
‘He said New York would be a lot healthier—if the police didn’t bring him back.’
‘Did you get the bracelet from him?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Last night when you were chasing around the block after Jesse.’ She lowered her voice before she added: ‘Do you remember Harry said he had an alibi for that time you saw him leave the State Hotel? Well, Harry was taking my bracelet to this jeweller here who makes those copies I told you about. Harry says he can prove it if he has to, and that because he had this date is one reason he wouldn’t go to the Greene when Lee Farnsley telephoned him that night after you left him in your room.’
Murdock found the sentence a little involved although he thought he knew what she meant. He also had the idea that if this was in fact the truth, then Harry might have called at Room 617 the next morning, entered with the key he had forgotten to turn in and, finding Farnsley, tipped off the police.
‘Harry got the copy made and gave it to you last night’, he said. ‘He’s going to sell the real bracelet for you? Will that give you the stake you want?’
‘With what I already have, yes. It’s not the first thing Harry’s sold for me. And anyway, I’ve had enough of Jesse. As soon as I can get some clothes together I’m flying to Reno.’
Murdock wished her luck. He said he had a lot of fun at the Studio Grill the evening before. ‘Even if you didn’t get a chance to take your shoes off.’
She laughed genuinely this time, a bright and merry sound. ‘Maybe’, she said, sounding as if she meant it, ‘we can try it again some day.’
Murdock sat on the edge of the bed for a while after he had hung up, and with his mind on women, his thoughts came naturally enough to the third one in the picture—Claire Emerson. He considered telephoning her, but when he carried the thought a step further he realized that she would probably hang up on him once he started to question her, so he got his hat and coat and left the room.
Outside, he walked the half-block to the parking lot and got his coupé. He found his way to the dingy brick house on the edge of the business district without trouble, parked at the front and, finding the front door unlocked as it had been the other morning he visited her, climbed the narrow stairs to her third-floor apartment. Here he knocked three times without getting an answer or hearing any sound of movement inside. A glance at his watch told him it was nearly eleven o’clock and the lack of response surprised him some when he recalled the late-rising habits of other entertainers he had known.
Knocking once more for luck he went downstairs and rang the outside doorbell which was answered presently by a stout, middle-aged woman clad in a corduroy housecoat, and a stained and wrinkled apron, her hair wrapped in a towel.
‘Yes?’ she said querulously.
‘I’m looking for Miss Emerson’, Murdock said.
‘She went out.’
‘Could you tell me when?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe an hour ago.… What time is it, anyway? Well, she went out with two men somewhere around ten o’clock.’
Murdock’s interest quickened. He asked if the woman could describe the men.
‘No’, she said. ‘I was in the back hall when the three of them came downstairs. All I could see was their backs. One of ’em was kind of big.’ And with that she turned away and shuffled back into the gloomy recesses of the hall.
Murdock wondered quite a lot about the two men in the next hour or so. From almost the beginning he had felt that Claire Emerson knew more about the murder of Lee Farnsley than she had admitted. The story she had first told him—not necessarily a true one—she had changed because of pressure or threats from Joe Apollo, and he wondered now if Apollo was protecting himself further by making sure that the girl was not around to change her story once more, or whether the two men were nothing more than a couple of plainclothes men dispatched by Lieutenant O’Brien to bring the girl in for further questioning.
He stopped thinking about this only when he reminded himself that he had no further interest in the case, that his primary interest now was getting back to Boston. He checked twice with the hotel desk to see if Walter Dorrance had returned and then had a solitary lunch in the dining-room. He was waiting in the lobby when Dorrance came in at five minutes to two, and he immediately attached himself to the lawyer and rode up to his room.
Dorrance seemed to be in excellent spirits as he got rid of his hat and coat. He moved about the room with quick, vigorous steps as he listened to Murdock’s complaint, opening the window a couple of inches, examining himself in the mirror while he adjusted his tie and ran a comb through his thick grey hair. He nodded from time to time and when he turned from the mirror his light-blue eyes were interested and amused.
‘You want to get back to Boston, hunh?’ he said, settling his blocky figure in a chair and reaching for the telephone. ‘Well, I can’t say that I blame you.… Did you go to the funeral?’
Murdock said no, adding that Murray Leonard had been questioned by the police and that Helen apparently had decided that he, Murdock, had tipped them off.
Dorrance asked other questions about Leonard as he waited for his number and when he finally got his man he said: ‘Mr. Gates? This is Walter Dorrance. I’ve just been talking to Kent Murdock and he wants to know what you think his chances are of getting back to Boston.’
He listened awhile, spoke
briefly once or twice. ‘I understand perfectly’, he said finally. ‘I’ll wait here for your call.’ He put the telephone back and turned to Murdock. ‘He wants to check with Jason, the state’s attorney. He’s going to call me. Where’ll you be?’
Murdock stood up and said he’d be in his room. ‘I’ll wait until I hear from Gates and let you know’, Dorrance said. ‘After that I want to see Helen and Leonard.’
Murdock had a nap for the next hour and a half. He had not intended to, but once he stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes he drifted into sleep which remained unbroken until the telephone rang and jarred him awake. He groped for it groggily and when he spoke Walter Dorrance answered him.
‘Gates is having trouble locating Jason, Kent. He’s going to keep after it but I’d like to see Helen so I told him to phone you direct.… Okay?’
Murdock said he’d wait and then rolled over on his back after he hung up. He lay a while staring morosely at the ceiling until he tired of this, and finally he roused himself sufficiently to get his feet on the floor, the restlessness coming again. He looked at himself in the mirror, snapped on the overhead light, glanced at his watch again and groaned half-aloud from sheer boredom.
Finding nothing better to do, he undressed and went into the bathroom and shaved again, going over his face lightly and taking his time. When, finally, the telephone rang it was nearly five o’clock and the news was favourable but not specific.
‘Jason thinks it’ll be all right for you to leave town in the morning’, Gates said. ‘He’s going to talk with O’Brien and he wants you to check with him in the morning before you leave.’
Murdock thanked the lawyer. He took a shower. He dressed carefully, though he was going nowhere, recalling now his date with Leone Thorpe the previous afternoon and finding only regret at the thought that he could not repeat the performance. When he was ready he went downstairs to the hotel bar and killed three-quarters of an hour over two Scotch-and-waters and as he came back to the desk to leave the key before going out he saw the slip in his box, a telephone message from Walter Dorrance saying that he was having dinner with Helen and Murray Leonard and inviting Murdock to join them.
Murdock called Dorrance’s room, expecting no answer and getting none. And so he went out on the street and turned absendy along it, a solitary figure, mumbling under his breath in an effort to sell himself the idea that he wouldn’t have accepted the dinner invitation anyway, Helen Farnsley thinking about him as she did.
The truth was, though he did not recognize the symptoms, he was lonely. The feeling of mild despondency persisted all through his dinner and accompanied him along the streets afterwards while he walked eight blocks in a roughly circular course that, with time out for window shopping, ended finally at the hotel doorway. Stopping at the news-stand long enough to get the evening papers, he went directiy to his room and telephoned for soda and ice. It came presently, delivered by a freckle-faced, tow-headed waiter, who was just opening the soda bottle when the telephone rang.
‘Murdock?’ said a hoarse, flat voice. ‘Simon Rigby. I’ve got to see you right away.’
Murdock looked at his watch and spoke half to himself. ‘Five past nine.’ To Rigby he said: ‘Now? Why?’
‘I can’t tell you over the phone. Just do me a favour and get down here as fast as you can.’
Murdock hesitated but a moment, for he recognized the urgency in the detective’s tone. ‘All right’, he said. He glanced reluctantly at the ice as he reached for his coat, and told the waiter to leave it. He handed over a tip and said he hoped some of the ice would be left when he got back.
Chapter Eighteen
THE restaurant adjoining the narrow entrance to the ancient building where Simon Rigby had his offices was still open when Murdock passed it. The stationery store, however, was dark; so was the foyer Murdock entered, the single light which burned somewhere above doing what it could to dispel the shadows, but finding it a hopeless job.
The stairs, dimly outlined and mounting straight ahead, put the narrow hall beside them in utter darkness and Murdock went up, hearing the wood treads creak under his weight with startling clarity in the stillness that seemed now to occupy the building. At the landing he saw that the light burned on the floor above, and he turned along the transverse corridor to his left, aware that the doors fronting the central hall were all dark.
Here, in this smaller corridor, which if anything was more obscure than the main hall, he passed a door on the left and another on the right, seeing the words lettered there but unable to read them. Ahead of him was the dimly lighted panel of Rigby’s door, and now as he moved along, his steps echoing hollowly in the passageway, he began to wonder why the detective had been so insistent on the telephone and just what he wanted. Too busy hurrying—he guessed it to be a fouror five-minute walk from the hotel—to speculate before about the reason for this summons, he found his thoughts focused on the hope that Rigby had discovered something on the Farnsley murder that he wanted to discuss before going to the police.
Admitting to himself that this was perhaps wishful thinking, he nevertheless clung to the hope as he reached for the doorknob, turned it, and stepped inside. He took one more step, releasing the knob, aware that the anteroom was in darkness and that the light he had seen through the frosted-glass panel had come from the inner office, the door of which was slightly open to show the brightness beyond.
What made Murdock stop right there he never quite knew. Busy with his own thoughts and having no premonition of trouble until that very moment, he suddenly felt some intuitive force lay hold of him, shocking him strangely as the accompanying tension spread instantly inside him.
It may have been the physical aspect of his surroundings that warned him that something was wrong—the darkness of the anteroom, the fact that the door to the office, heretofore open, was now almost closed; more likely it was no more than a normal instinctive element fashioned by nature as a protective measure in times of danger and granted to all men in some degree.
‘Rigby!’
That was all he said. For now his perceptions were mirror-bright and sharply tuned, and even as he spoke he moved, away from the door he had just opened, sensing now the rush of movement at his left and turning as best he could to meet it.
He felt this stir of air close by and tried to duck, to throw up a protective arm. By some trick of vision he saw a moving shadow darker than the rest and knew that this man had waited for him behind the opening door. Then the shadow closed in on him and he could not get his arm up in time, nor duck effectively, and the fist caught him alongside the head with stunning force.
There was no pain, just the impact of the blow.
He felt himself going down and grabbed wildly to find nothing but emptiness. He hit the edge of the table as he went back and his heel caught, and then he fell, turning as he struck.
He heard the door slam as he rolled over and his hat fell off. He tried to push up and the darkness confused him and his head banged the edge of the settee.
For what seemed like a minute and a half, but in reality was no more than four or five seconds, he struggled to untangle himself and regain his feet. When he finally made it and turned towards the door to the hall he could hear no sound but his own breathing and the clatter of his feet.
But he went on, not thinking yet but moving under the compulsion of his outraged feelings. He got the door open and ran along the corridor to the intersection. Here he stopped to listen and there was still no sound, no sign of anyone on the stairs which led to the street.
For a second or two he stood still, breathing hard, thinking now as he glanced back along the main hall and up the flight of stairs which led to the electric bulb above. Then, because he had no desire to waste time in aimless exploration, he turned reluctantly and went back along the corridor to the anteroom, coming finally to the office door which stood ajar.
He pushed at this and light struck him in the face. For an instant he blinked against its brightn
ess; then he saw Simon Rigby.
Rigby sat in his desk chair, the upper half of his body slumped forward and his head turned sideways and resting on the desk a few inches from a short-barrelled revolver. From the front only the thinning mousecoloured hair was visible, and Murdock, forcing himself to move closer, could see no mark on the side of the face which was exposed; he only knew that it looked white and pasty in the glare of the goose-necked lamp.
Without realizing yet what had happened, it seemed to Murdock that Rigby was dead and it took him a few seconds to digest the thought and do anything more. He stood there, his eyes busy now as they pried into the shadowed corners of the little office before coming back to the revolver that lay in the centre of the desk. It looked exactly like the gun Rigby had so jokingly shown him that first afternoon he had come here, and he remembered that the detective had put it in the centre drawer.
He did not touch the gun, or anything else except the man’s right wrist.
Both arms hung straight down from the slumped shoulders, the fingers curled inward as they touched the threadbare rug, and as Murdock knelt beside the chair he could see the wet stain there and the small dark spots on one thigh.
The bony wrist was limp and warm, but there was no pulse.
He let go of it. He hunkered back, thoughts racing as the depression closed about him. Finally he straightened, eyes darkly brooding. It was then that he heard the rising moan of the siren.
With his mind still struggling against the feeling of shock and incredulity which still gripped him, it took another moment before he could identify the sound and grasp its significance. What he did then was foolish and prompted by a sudden panic that had as its basis the remembrance of how circumstances had involved him in the murder of Lee Farnsley.
He turned, his stomach a vacuum, and cold all over, strode swiftly into the anteroom, remembering his hat and retrieving it as he passed, intent only on getting out of there before it was too late.
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