Overmire said dryly, "Why didn't you call the police, Mrs. Benbrook? The phone was certainly handy enough."
She bit her lip. "I was afraid—terrified. Lieutenant. My only thought was to get out of this horrible place without a second's delay."
Overmire's cold eyes came over to me. He wet his lips and said, "Your turn, friend."
I told him what I could: about getting the list from Mrs. L Benbrook the day before, about checking against it to learn if any of Benbrook's property was in the vicinity of where he'd caught me tailing him, and about coming out here for that reason. It was such a reasonable and simple explanation , that it sounded a little silly put into words, as the truth often does.
Overmire leaned back in his chair, hung his arm~ over its : back and crossed his legs. "I blame myself," he said quietly.
"I really do. Ever since I stepped into this case I've taken the easy way. A man named Wirtz had something to sell and he v^ent around killing people who got in his way. It was just that simple, I told myself. Find Raymond Wirtz and you've found the killer. No complications, no tangles, as easy as looking for a filling-station stick-up mob,
"But now Wirtz himself is dead and all that is changed." He ran a finger along the table edge and looked absently at it. "Either Wirtz did kill the first three, then was killed himself—or he murdered no one and the same person has four corpses to his credit. But that's only one side of it. What if this old manuscript—which no one I've talked to has ever actually seen—what if it isn't the real motive for these murders at all ?"
He shook his head and sighed heavily and was silent for a long moment. Flash bulbs had stopped throwing brief bright flashes from the living room, but the Police Lab boys with their vacuum cleaners, tape measures and glassine envelopes were still at work in there.
He said, "Take the three stories I've just heard. Your husband has been dead only a few hours, Mrs. Benbrook, and you're a very wealthy woman. Yet you come running away out to the other end of town because you think maybe a house you own is on fire. And you, Mrs. Wirtz., you just happen to drop in at Pine's office exactly when he's starting out for the place your husband lies dead—murdered. . . . And you, Pine, sitting in your office thinking, when—bingo!—you know exactly w^here the man you've been hunting for days is hiding out. What's the matter with you people—you think the Department is full of nothing but idiots?"
I let out my breath gently and looked at the stricken faces of two beautiful women. Rain tapped an invitation at the
windows, an invitation to come out and get soaked. Nothing would have made me happier.
"Well," Overmire growled, "I'm through coasting. I'm holding all three of you, and I'm going to keep on holding you just as long as I can make it stick. And you're going to get questioned, singly and together and over and over—until ! I can dig out of one of you some of the truth about this business that you're keeping from me."
Constance Benbrook crushed her cigarette savagely into the saucer. "I can't speak for these two people, Lieutenant Over-I mire, but I'll tell you one thing. I know nothing at all about what's been going on and I'm not going to spend any time having policemen breathe in my face and yell a lot of nonsense in my ears. I'm going to call my attorney and I'm going to call him now. You don't frighten me even a little bit." j[ Overmire's lips moved under a polite smile that seemed al-' most sad. He said, "We might as well get started," and began i to rise from his chair.
I said, "Let me say something. Lieutenant."
It got me stared at by the three of them. Overmire frowned. "This time you don't talk me out of it. Pine. I mean it."
"I was given a job to do," I said, "and I muffed it. It happens to all of us, but this is one I didn't want to drop."
I ground out my cigarette and lighted another and sat there turning the matchstick slowly between my fingers while I thought of what I wanted to say.
"Well," I said, "like it or not, I muffed it. And for the past three days now Bishop McManus has been holding a hand .light and day on his phone, waiting for word from me that I've done the job he hired me to do. Getting that manuscript kneans more to him than anything else in the world, Lieuten-'mt. Not alone for personal glory—although I'm sure bishops
I
are human enough to want that too—but for what it would mean to the Church."
Overmire shifted impatiently. "Get it over with, Pine. You're not saying anything."
"I think I am. I'm saying I've loused up a job and that I'm entitled to make my report to my client, just as he's entitled to have his suspense ended one way or the other and without delay."
"All right. Call him up and tell him. I don't object."
I shook my head. "I take my cases in person and I make my final reports the same way."
He thought about it for a long time, not really believing me, trying to guess what I was really after. Finally he nodded twice and his expression was knowing. "It won't work. Pine. You have a feeling he can talk me out of putting you through the wringer. Not a chance, friend."
I leaned back and slapped a hand down on my thigh, "Brother! You guys must have one hell of a union. You get so you even think alike. Okay, I'll give you an angle to look at. Lieutenant. Frankly it's about as weak as angles can get, so far off the beam I hate to throw it in at all."
Overmire perked up for the first time. Mention of an angle did that; he was where even the farfetched ones were welcome.
"Wirtz's killer got the manuscript tonight; otherwise he couldn't afford to kill him. But now that he's got it, what can he do with it? He's smart: he'll bury it until the heat dies, then turn it into cash. The Church will be his best bet, but not through the Bishop. Directly to Rome with it this time. That's the intelligent thing for him to do, the thing intelligent people will expect him to do."
Overmire said heavily, "You said something about an angle. I'd like to hear it."
"Sure. What If the guy does the one thing no one expects ? What if he goes straight to the Bishop and makes his deal? What if he's there right now?"
There went the last of his respect for me. "Jesus! You call that an angle ? The Bishop wouldn't touch the thing in these circumstances."
"I agree with you. I said this was away out of line when you think intelligently about it. So you throw it out, just as the killer figured you would. Thing is, Bishop McManus doesn't know Wirtz is dead. Nobody's supposed to know he's dead until this guy Snyder gets back from Europe, or until the smell in here is so bad it crawls out on the sidewalk."
Beside me, Lola Wirtz made a sound deep in her throat.
Overmire lifted one corner of his Hps. "Hunh-uh. I'm still throwing that one out, mister. Come to think about it, though, you seem to know a lot about this mystery man. Let's hear about him some more."
I shrugged. "It all goes into my report to His Grace, Lieutenant—if I ever get the chance to make it."
He sat there and thought about it, chair tilted back an inch or two on its back legs, one hand braced against the table iedge. Connie Benbrook lighted another cigarette, looked impatiently at the two of us, started to say something and then thought better of it.
The legs on Overmire's chair came down against the lino-;leum with a small thud. "You know. Pine, I'm beginning I to learn about you. I think you'd level with a client where lyou'd hold out on the Department. If we didn't have com-Ipany and it wasn't so late, I'd drop in on the Bishop with you fand listen in while you made your report." I "Sure. And if he didn't want you to, you'd show him your ibuzzer."
"You know better than that. I wouldn't want to and I
wouldn't have to. A man in his position doesn't go in for playing things cute."
I JDrushed ashes off my tie and nodded at him. "It's not for me to say. He's in his office, or the hedroom next to it, waiting for his phone to ring. You want me to call him ?"
"What's the number?"
"Wabash 9900. He'll answer."
He stood up abruptly and went ofif down the hall. Lola Wirtz said, "Is he really going
to hold us, Paul? For questioning, I mean ?"
"He's going to try to. He'll make it stick, too, unless the Bishop talks him out of it,"
"The man's a fool!" Connie Benbrook said sharply. "If he thinks for a minute he can keep me "
I said, "Play that record to him, Mrs. Benbrook, and you'll sweat off a few pounds before you're sprung."
Overmire was back minutes later. "He'd like to see us, Pine." He stressed the "us" slightly. He looked at Constance Benbrook and Lola Wirtz and frowned thoughtfully,
I said, "This won't take long. Let them come with us, Lieutenant. I don't think His Grace will mind."
Rain was still with us, dripping dully against the sills of the study windows beyond the lowered metal blinds. A tired water-soaked breeze crawled in under the one window that was open a crack and swayed the blind there, with a tiny clicking sound.
Light from the desk lamp furnished the room's only illumination. Light, mellow and soft, giving a sheen to the rich redwood paneling and gleaming on the glass of the bookshelves. In the shadowy corners loomed the huge globe on its redwood stand and the severe lines of the cabinet radio.
HALO FOR SATAN 195
The strain of the past few days had left its mark on Bishop McManus. He was still courtly and dignified in the Old World way most clergymen are, but his mild blue eyes were weary and a little dull and the puffiness about them even more evident. He was fully dressed, wearing a fresh dickey and a spotless collar. A lock of iron-gray hair had slipped its moorings slightly and come down a quarter-inch on his forehead.
Lieutenant Overmire and I were sitting in redwood and tan leather chairs directly across the desk from him, with the women apart and further back. Introductions were over with and there was that moment of unwieldy silence you get when waiting for someone to trot out the first word.
The Bishop cleared his throat almost harshly, gave us a reserved smile by way of apology, and said, "You seem quite solemn, Mr. Pine. Just how bad is this going to be?"
That surprised me enough to glance around at Overmire. The lieutenant shook his head. 'T merely asked His Excellency if he'd see us at this time of night, that the details would have to come from you."
I said, "Raymond Wirtz is dead and the manuscript gone, with no chance of getting it back. I'm afraid I threw this one into the stands for you, Your Grace."
He closed his eyes and the muscles of his throat moved. Nothing more. Then he was looking at me steadily and his ■voice was almost gentle. "Please don't distress yourself, Mr. Pine. Fm sure you did your best."
"Fd like to agree with you, sir. But I was three steps behind from the start. In spite of getting more help than I had 'any right to expect."
Silence. I was the center of attraction, the main event, the roasted apple in the pig's mouth. I lighted a cigarette and Iropped the match in the exact center of the huge ashtray on
I
the desk. I leaned back and blew smoke through my nose and brooded at myself.
I said, "Three people I know of, besides you. Your Grace, wanted that manuscript. Myles Benbrook was one—a very wealthy man but not so wealthy he'd pass up this kind of jackpot. He killed two men trying for it—Vito Postori and Sergeant Frank Tinney—^then got the bony finger himself. Lieutenant Overmire has been told my idea of how and why Postori and Tinney died, and I'll pass over that now, if you don't mind."
"As you wish."
"Number two of the three is worth some time telling about," I said. "It was through him I learned about the third person. Number two has been on our side all along. He was out to get the manuscript and hand it over to you. A twenty-five-million-dollar gift."
He was staring at me like a lady missionary at her first heathen. "Mr. Pine, I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about."
"There's no way you could. His name. Bishop McManus, is Louis Antuni."
Both Overmire and the Bishop gaped at me and mumbled their surprise.
I waited until they recovered, then said, "Antuni's an old man and a dying man. He's got a hospital full of things wrong with him and very little hope of a glorious resurrection."
Overmire said, "I'll be god " He caught himself,
coughed and started over. "This thing is really a dilly. I never thought I'd see the day when Mr. Big showed up in this town again. What is this manuscript, anyway?"
I said, "Something holy is the best way to describe it, I guess. Which is vvhv Antuni wants it. He wants to buy
HALO FOR SATAN 197
himself a halo and a harp, just as he used to buy State's Attorneys, judges and jurors. He thinks the kind of life he's led won't lead to salvation unless the Church intercedes for him. So he figures if he can do something big as penance, the Church will go to bat for him."
"That is a fallacy, Mr. Pine," the Bishop said soberly. "A man's salvation rests betw^een him and his Maker. Sincere atonement is all that matters."
,. "Sure. But when it comes to such things Antuni is a simple soul. He wants insurance—and to him a Solemn Requiem High Mass is that insurance."
He sat there, marveling over the story. "Incredible," he murmured. "Louis Antuni, whose black deeds have become legends. I think I should like to meet him, Mr. Pine. The man needs spiritual guidance, if for no other reason than peace of mind." I "Guidance," I said, "would be fine. But nothing's going to ' satisfy him except that manuscript."
More silence. The Bishop cleared his throat harshly, leaned back to open the center drawer of his desk and took out a throat lozenge wrapped in silver paper.
While he was peeling it, Overmire crossed his legs the other way and said, "We've gotten off the track, I think. I Who's this third party Louie told you about?"
I put cigarette ashes in the tray and leaned back again. Off
i to one side of where I was sitting, Lola Wirtz and Connie
I ...
t Benbrook were quiet and beautiful in their chairs. As nice as
I the Bishop's study was, the two of them added something
' worth while to the place.
"From here on in," I said, "I'm going to sound like Eric Ambler with a hang-over. It couldn't miss sounding that way when you consider a twenty-five-million-dollar prize is pulp fiction all by itself.
"Louie gave me the name of a party to watch out for. A storybook crook, whom no one can describe or tell anything about. You'll have to remember Antuni knows a lot of people all over the world—most of them crooks themselves, I suppose—who think a lot of Louie and keep him posted."
I yawned before I realized one was coming up. For some reason that yawn right then made the whole idea of an international crook seem a little ridiculous. The Bishop peeled himself another lozenge from the middle drawer and Lieutenant Overmire rubbed the side of his neck, rasping the stiff hairs there.
"Antuni," I said, "called this modern Raffles—to coin a phrase—Jafar Baijan. He even went so far as to say it could be a man or a woman; that's how undercover Baijan really is. At the time I laughed at him—^to myself—for saying it.
"Anyway, Antuni told me Baijan has been on the trail of this manuscript for quite a while. He traced it to Los Angeles, where it passed into Wirtz's hands, followed Wirtz to this town and found him at once. Don't ask me how; I'm told he's smarter than you or I or Einstein.
"He tailed Wirtz here to the rectory and he tailed him to Benbrook's. What scared him the most, I would say, was having Wirtz come here. That told him where the guy expected to sell the manuscript, and he knew if you ever got your hands on it, he was out of luck entirely. The manuscript would end up in the Vatican's vaults and not even Jafar Baijan could pry it out.
"But you were out of town, Your Grace, and that gave Baijan a two-week breathing spell. He must have made some effort during that time to learn where Wirtz had stashed the manuscript; it was too big to carry in a pocket and for that reason must have been hidden somewhere. Just where we'll never know."
I got up and walked up and down to keep my legs from going to sleep. Lola Wirtz gav
e me an uneven smile but avoided my eyes. I figured I knew why. The two men watched me, frowning a little, wanting to ask questions but not knowing just what questions to ask.
I sat down again and lighted another cigarette, just for something to do, and went on flapping my jaw.
"Then," I said, "the same day Wirtz made his second call at the rectory and talked to you. Your Grace, Jafar Baijan lost him. Then I came into the case and got my name in the paper and that would make it a cinch he knew about me—if he hadn't before then. He found out about Wirtz's car being in the Cushman Garage about the same time I did, I'd say.
• "The night I followed Wirtz's car, Baijan held onto my coattails. After the smash-up, he parked a block away and came up behind the wrecked Chewy and listened in on my talk with Benbrook. He knew right away, naturally, that I was wrong in fingering Benbrook as Wirtz; and when it looked as though I was going to run the man in, he stepped out and sapped me.
I ' "His idea might have been to force Benbrook into leading him to Wirtz—your guess is as good as mine. But Benbrook, nervous as a wet cat, grabbed my gun as I blacked out, and got himself shot for his pains."
They sat there, looking thoughtful and interested. Constance Benbrook was snuffling a little into a handkerchief from her bag, but her heart wasn't really in it. Overmire fumbled around in his pockets and came up with a bulldog pipe and a stained chamois tobacco pouch. He dug the pipe .bowl into the pouch, tamped the flakes down with a stubby : thumb and struck a kitchen match against his shoe sole. He puffed a time or two, blew out the match and got rid of it.
lie said slowly, "While he was at it, why didn't he blast you?"
"Don't sound so disappointed," I said. "Maybe because he hoped I might lead him to Wirtz. There's a lot of angles to this business I don't know and probably never will. I came here to make a report, not solve any murders. But I couldn't help picking up an idea or two along the way and I'm giving them for what they're worth. If anything."
The Long escape Page 17