The Man Who Died Twice

by The Man Who Died Twice (retail) (epub)

  “Johnny was right about him,” she said. “He always said there was something unsavory about Melvin. Can you imagine a more nauseous proposal?” she demanded. “Here he is, presuming to be in love with Alma and at the same time perfectly willing to do her out. of half of her rightful share so long as he’s properly paid.”

  She walked away and came back. “What did you tell him?” she said. “Did you agree to pay him?”

  “I told him I’d think it over.”

  “But you will, won’t you?”

  “Will what?”

  “Why, pay him, of course. You could write a check, couldn’t you?”

  “Why should I?” Ward said irritably. “Why pay him for something I’ll have to confess in a day or two anyway—assuming your friend Freddie doesn’t learn the truth about me before that? I’d rather tell him right now.”

  “Would you? Would you indeed?” She uttered another impatient sound. “Don’t talk nonsense,” she said. “You have to pay him. He was here the night Johnny was killed, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “The night someone broke in on Alma,” she interrupted. “How do we know what he might have seen or what he might know?” She walked abruptly away in the darkness and her voice came back to him, blunt and determined. “Wait here.”

  He sighed and leaned back against the rail as he considered what she had said. He saw a light go on in the front room and he moved to one side so the glare would not hit him in the face. Somewhere out front he heard a car start and then accelerate with a shifting of gears. Two or three minutes later he saw Kate come through the front room again; as the light went out he heard a second car start, and he listened to the rise and fall of its motor as someone jockeyed the throttle.

  “Here,” Kate said and took his hand in the darkness. She opened his fingers and now he felt the bills in his palm. “There’s a hundred pounds in ten-pound notes.”

  He tried to pull away but her grip was firm and she would not let go.

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll use your money,” he said.

  “You’ll be damned if you don’t.” She closed his fingers and pushed his hand from her. “It’s mine and I’ll spend it how I like. It’s worth it to me to keep our despicable little friend quiet for a few more days. Let him think you’re afraid of him and maybe he’ll go too far.”

  Here I go again, he thought. She wins every argument. I wind up doing what she tells me because whenever I get a good point she tops me.

  He listened for the car he had heard but it was gone now and finally he put the money in his pocket. “All right,” he said resignedly. “Now I suppose you’ll feel happier if I run right down with it tonight?”

  “As a matter of fact that’s precisely what I think,” she said, as though this was the most natural suggestion in the world. “You’ll need a taxi, though. I can give you his address but I’m very much afraid you’ll be unable to find it in the dark. We can telephone from here.”

  Then she had him by the arm, guiding him through the doorway and into the living-room. When she had turned on the light she motioned him to a chair and reached for the telephone directory. After that there was nothing for Ward to do but sit and wait while she ordered a car.

  16

  ALMA SIMMONS stood in the doorway of the study and watched Talbot and Major Gilette climb into the back seat of the police car. The itemizing of the safe’s contents had not taken very long and when the list had been initialed by Gilette and herself, Talbot tucked it into his portfolio. Now, as the car disappeared, she turned off the lights and went along to the drawing-room.

  It was not until she found it empty that she actually made up her mind as to what she should do. Osborne, she knew, would be off to tell Barbara Connant the news about his oil well; the Dunhams had probably gone home. As for Kate and Jim, she did not even speculate on their absence, but looked upon it as opportune, considering what she had in mind.

  Actually she was a frightened young lady and she knew it. She had been aware of it for some time now. It was this that prompted her to get her keys from the table and run out to the Vauxhall, but it was not until she was safely on the highway that she could consider the source of her fear and its implication.

  The source of her trouble was Johnny’s notebook and the lie she had told. She had an idea, even as she told it that morning, that Gilette had not believed her, but there was no feeling of regret at what she had done. That her actions might have been considered foolish did not occur to her, because she could not make herself believe the words that Johnny had written were responsible for his death. To come right out and explain what Johnny had in mind was something she could not make herself do—not unless there was some other evidence of guilt that was clear-cut and unmistakable.

  Because Johnny was quick-tempered and unpredictable—everyone knew that. He said things in anger that he didn’t mean, and even though he had written in the notebook his intention of changing his will, that did not mean he would actually do so. To tell all this to Major Gilette might be pointing suspicion at an innocent person and because she could not think him otherwise she was unable to accuse him. The trouble was that tomorrow she would have no choice. She could not go over that notebook word by word without telling Gilette the truth.

  That is why she had to see Melvin tonight.

  Melvin would listen to what she had to say and he would not argue with her. She was secure in her belief that Melvin would do anything she asked him to, even though she had told him last week that she did not love him.

  She had known for a long time that Johnny did not like Melvin but she had never shared his views entirely, for Johnny had two words he applied to Melvin: scoundrel and weakling.

  With the first she disagreed completely. There was, she was convinced, nothing vicious or actually mean about Melvin. She conceded that he might be weak, but in the way one is weak who has never quite grown up. His was the path of least resistance, and when she realized this she knew she could never marry him. She had told him so; she had said that he needed a girl with a little more of the mother instinct in her makeup, and he had argued that this was not true, that he would prove to her he could stand on his own feet.

  But the important thing now was that she trusted him. He would tell her what she must do, and he would keep her confidence if she asked him to.…

  Broad Street was quite deserted at this hour and the steady pulsing of the car’s motor reverberated from the shop fronts as she passed. Now and then a plate-glass window picked up her headlights in reflection to mirror her passing, but she saw no one until she came to the group of sailors on shore leave from the destroyer which had anchored in Carlyle Bay that afternoon. She realized in passing that they were young officers on their way to the pier head and then she was rolling across the bridge, seeing the long lines of sailboats on the one side and the deserted inner basin on the left.

  She drove for perhaps a half mile along Bay Street and then, at the top of a rise, turned sharply left into the road where Melvin Tenney lived, a narrow street but paved, and marked on the right by a high stone wall bordering an estate that stretched off to higher ground.

  There were but four houses here, small frame structures standing well off the ground, and Melvin’s was the last. The street was empty as she parked, and when she had turned off her lights she slipped from behind the wheel and hurried up the path, aware that a small car had been pulled well back in the darkened driveway but centering her attention on the slits of yellow light that rimmed the drawn curtains.

  She ran up the steps and across the small veranda. Then she was knocking, and knocking again, and trying the knob and pushing into the lighted room to stop on the threshold and blink against the sudden brightness which confronted her.

  “Hello,” she said. “Melvin?”

  And then, her heart in her throat:

  “Melvin!”

  She saw him clearly now but she did not remember slamming the door behind her or running to him. She was
aware of nothing at all but the still figure on the floor and somehow she was on her knees beside him.

  “Melvin!” she said in whispered horror.

  He was stretched out on his side, his face turned away from her, and now she forced herself to take his shoulder, to try to shake it as she again whispered his name.

  The shoulder was limp and inert in her grasp, and she pulled harder in her panic. As she did so the thin torso rolled slowly towards her. She saw the dark and spreading stain on the shirt front, the darker stain on the threadbare carpet.

  Until then she had had no moment of conscious thought. She had moved by instinct born of shock. Now the sickness came, and her first impulse was to get a doctor but, having no strength yet to stand, she knelt there and reached for a bony hand that was limp and warm in her fingers, and somehow she pressed the wrist.

  Even when she concentrated she could find no sign of a pulse and now a small, choked sob tore from her throat, an unconscious manifestation that came not from sorrow but from incredulity and horror.

  It seemed important that she put the hand back exactly as she found it, and she did so. She straightened from the waist up and it was difficult to do this because in her reaction there was neither emotional nor physical strength on which to draw.

  Still on her knees, she looked about the poor, sparsely furnished room with its battered typewriter and desk, the covered army cot in the corner, the few chairs. Gradually other details became alarmingly clear to her:

  The pipe on the floor with the ashes spilling out of its bowl, the spectacles just beyond the outstretched hand she had just replaced. A small table had been overturned. A glass lay empty beside it and off to one side she saw finally the small automatic pistol.

  She had no capacity for speculation then but she knew she must get up, and somehow she managed to do so. She fought against the rising dizziness and began to breathe as hard and deeply as she could, hearing this as the only sound in the room as her glance moved up the wide doorway on the right leading to a dinette and kitchen, then to the left, to the opened door which led to the darkened bedroom. In the wall space between the doors was a small stand and the telephone, and she swallowed against her mounting nausea as she walked toward it on nerveless legs.

  The weakness was in her voice when the operator answered and she had to concentrate to make herself understood.

  “Central Police Station,” she said and closed her eyes. When a businesslike Barbadian voice answered she gave the address. “Please send someone right away,” she said. “A man has been shot.”

  She put the telephone down. She pushed away from the wall, breathing deeply again and knowing she must sit down. That was the last step she took.

  For what happened then came unexpectedly and without warning. Even if she had been alert and ready she would have been quite defenseless because the attack came from behind, from the doorway of the darkened bedroom.

  She heard no sound. Only a whisper of movement that seemed to stir the air about her and signaled a tardy warning, more instinctive than conscious.

  Something, she knew not what, pulled her nerve-ends taut as this new fear struck at her. She started to turn. Then something blotted out the room’s lights, covering her eyes with blackness and clogging her mouth and nostrils.

  Her struggle was as automatic as it was futile. The pressure tightened about her throat and she tried to scream and then something struck her on the head and she felt all strength leave her as consciousness slipped away.

  17

  DUNCAN WARD could find no explanation for the sense of urgency that kept nagging at him as the taxi sped through the dark, deserted streets. He felt the money Kate had give him and told himself he was in no hurry; he was not even sure he would find Tenney at home but he did not think of telephoning until after the car was under way.

  So if he didn’t find him tonight he’d find him tomorrow. What difference did it make? The deadline was not until noon and he was still not convinced that it was a good idea to throw away a hundred pounds even if it was Kate’s money and her idea.

  He made himself sit back and watch the houses lining the streets. Here and there a light was visible through blinds and curtains, but in the poorer section the wooden shutters were so tightly closed it seemed impossible that any air could either enter or leave the houses. He asked the driver about this.

  “Why do they seal the houses up like that?”

  The man chuckled. “Keeps out de night spirits, sir. Lots of colored folks don’t feel safe with de windows open at night.”

  He turned back to his driving, sounding his horn now and then as they approached cyclists, all of whom carried lights. There was little motor traffic and the near-accident they encountered on Bay Street was as startling as it was unexpected.

  There was a curve here and on the left a high wall followed the turn as it swung upgrade. The taxi was halfway around this when a car’s headlights flashed in front of them, coming fast and cutting across the angle of the curve.

  Ward’s driver cursed and swung as far left as he could while he applied the brakes. The onrushing headlights swerved at the last moment, leaning with the car as the tires screeched their protest. Then the vehicle flashed past, careening violently as the driver tried to straighten out; an instant later there was only the sound of its motor and the indignant mutter of Ward’s driver as he craned a neck to get a glimpse of the offender.

  He shifted and let out the clutch. “That boy drives like he in a hurry,” he growled as he got under way. “He hit somethin’ some day and then he not be so frisky.”

  Ward said it was too close for comfort and started to settle back when, at the top of the rise, the car swung left in a narrow street and came to a stop behind a sedan that looked familiar. When the driver told him this was the place, Ward stepped out and moved up to the light-gray Vauxhall, and though he was not sure of the number, he had driven the car enough to understand that it must be Alma’s.

  The conclusion left him perturbed and disgruntled, and not entirely because his talk with Tenney might have to be postponed. He was tempted at first reflection to turn round and go back to Highpoint; that he did not was probably due to a streak of stubbornness partially motivated by twinges of jealousy. He knew then that he was going in. What he would say or do would depend on many things but the odds on his getting a ride home with Alma looked good.

  He paid the driver, thanked him, and said he could probably get a ride home. The driver said if Ward changed his mind he would be glad to come back.

  “Just ask for Cyril, sir.”

  He pulled into the driveway to turn around as Ward walked up the path and climbed the steps; then he was gone and Ward was knocking, at first politely, then more loudly and, finally, with determination.

  There was no answer to any of this, and when he listened no sound came from inside. It never occurred to him to be alarmed; his mental reaction was something quite different and he might well have given up had the taxi not departed. Trying not to think, but with a growing annoyance motivated by the same stubbornness that had started him up the path in the first place, he finally reached for the knob. When the latch clicked he opened the door a crack. He yelled: “Hey!” through the opening. When there was still no reply he pushed quickly inside.

  It was then that the fear hit him, engulfing him on the heels of that first instant of shock when he saw the two sprawled figures on the floor so close together.

  He would not have known one of these was Alma if he had not seen her car, because she lay in a heap, her head away from him and obscured by her body, her tanned bare legs pulled up at the knees. But the stain on Tenney’s chest had spread darkly and it was the association of this sight with the girl that chilled his blood and made his heart stand still.

  “Alma!” he said, his voice ragged. “Alma!”

  Two involuntary strides took him to her side and he saw now the dark hair spread about her face, the cotton bathrobe which lay in a shapeless mound beside her.
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  He brushed it aside as he dropped to one knee and then he had his hands under her armpits, lifting her, turning her towards him, still speaking though he knew not what he said. Somehow he knew that she was breathing and now there came a soft moaning sound and finally, miraculously, she stirred in his arms and he saw her eyelids flutter.

  Looking now along the front of her dress he could see no mark; there was none on her face when he gently pushed the hair back from her forehead. Just then she opened her eyes and in that instant before recognition set in he could see the stunned and terrified expression in their depths.

  “Are you all right?” he demanded. “Are you hurt?” And now he could breathe again and that awful pressure began to leave his chest. “It’s all right now, isn’t it?”

  Her lips moved. She tried to sit up but he held her a moment longer and she said: “Yes,” unsteadily. “It’s—it’s just that my head—”

  She let the words trail off and he slid one hand beneath her knees and lifted her, coming to his feet and carrying her quickly to the cot in the corner.

  He lowered her gently and reached for the reading lamp that was there. When he had turned it on he said: “Let me see,” and pulled her head close to his chest so that the light shone full on the soft tangle of her hair. “Hold still,” he said, and she obeyed, and now he parted the hair and inspected the scalp until he saw the bruise near the top, a discolored spot that had begun to swell but showed no break in the skin.

  “Yes,” he said. “I see now. Who hit you? Tenney?”

  Her head moved slowly from side to side as he lowered it, and traces of fear still lingered in the dark-blue eyes that inspected his face.

  “Not Melvin,” she whispered. “Someone else. I don’t know who it was. He must have been behind me. In the bedroom.”

  She would have said more but he stopped her. He said it did not matter now, that she must be quiet. When she tried again he leaned down to press his lips gently to hers, to hold them an instant, to say: