Murder Round the Clock

by Hugh Pentecost

  The living room was a shambles. The card table with Norman's typewriter on it had been overturned. The big overstuffed armchair lay on its back. The telephone on the end table by the couch was on the floor, the receiver off its cradle. The window overlooking the street was wide open. I think I've said it was a brisk fall day, and by that time in the afternoon the wind through the curtains had a touch of winter's chill in it.

  Sprawled in a sitting position under the window, on the floor, was Norman. A little trickle of blood ran out of one corner of his mouth. He looked at Jerry, glassy-eyed as a fighter who has been down for the count. The front of his shirt was ripped and Jerry could see an ugly scratch on his chest, as if he'd been clawed.

  Johnny Thacker closed the window, and between them they helped Norman to his feet and over to the armchair, which Jerry had righted.

  "What happened, Mr. Geller?" Jerry asked.

  Johnny Thacker put the phone back on its cradle, ending Mrs. Veach's participation.

  Norman moved his head from side to side gingerly, as if he wasn't sure it was still attached to his neck. "Some lunatic barged in here—kind of stocking mask pulled over his head— just charged at me. I—I wasn't ready for him—He dragged me over to the window—got it open and started to heave me out."

  My rooms are on the second floor, but the second floor is four levels above the street. You don't get up and walk from that height.

  "I—I know a little about karate," Norman said. "I just did manage to clip him one in the throat, and that sent him back away from me, choking. I tried to make it to the door, but he was on me like a wildcat. I had half a chance now because I was ready, but he was no dummy. He knew the holds too.

  You—you can see." He waved around the room. "I threw him once, and that knocked the telephone loose. I figured I wasn't going to make it, so I started yelling for help, hoping the operator would hear me."

  "She did. That's how we got here," Jerry said.

  "He pulled me over by the window again," Norman said. "I managed to get in a good kick to his kneecap. I could hear him gasp with pain, and he staggered back. I saw the counter-punch coming to my windpipe, and I managed to tuck in my chin. His punch was like the kick of a mule, and I went down—partly out, I guess. The next thing—you were coming through the door."

  Jerry did all the right things. He notified Chambrun and sent for Doc Partridge, the house physician. He ordered Johnny to stop handling things in the room. He got a wet towel for Norman to use on his cut mouth and scratched chest.

  Chambrun and Hardy arrived together in a few minutes, during which time Norman wasn't able to contribute anything more to Jerry. His description of the man was vague—big, powerfully built, strong hands, reasonably gifted in the techniques of karate. He had no look at all at the stocking-covered face.

  Chambrun was solicitous. "You're not badly hurt, Norman?"

  "Nothing broken—I think," Norman said. "I'm one solid ache, I don't mind saying."

  "How did he get in?" Hardy asked.

  "Through the door. I was sitting at my typewriter, and he just barged in."

  "Door wasn't locked?"

  "Of course it was locked," Norman said. His eyes widened. "Sure it was locked. I was keeping people out of here. That's a joke, son."

  "Did you hear someone turning a key in the lock?" Hardy asked.

  "No-o," Norman said. "But I was typing pretty steadily—redoing a page of dialogue. If he was quiet about it, I—I might not have heard. I was concentrating—"

  Hardy looked at Jerry Dodd. "Hotel thief?" he asked.

  "Not ever," Jerry said. "A guy standing outside the door with a passkey, let's say, would hear the typewriter going. A thief wouldn't come into a room he knew was occupied."

  "He was no thief," Norman agreed. "He was out to get me. I was supposed to get heaved out the window."

  "Why?" Hardy asked.

  "I've been thinking," Norman said. "Boy, have I been thinking!"

  "With what results, Norman?" Chambrun asked patiently.

  "If I went out the window—and there was a little note in my typewriter saying I killed Frank Hansbury and couldn't face it any longer—well, a lot of people would be off a great big hook, wouldn't they?"

  Hardy's face was grim. "Could it have been Robert Saville?" he asked.

  Norman shook his head. "Not tall enough. Saville's quick and wiry. This man was square and all power."

  "Brimsek, the athlete-lawyer?"

  Norman grinned and winced. Smiling hurt his mouth. "Not George," he said. "He taught me all I know about karate. I couldn't begin to handle him."

  It didn't take long for Hardy to get up a full head of steam. He and Chambrun went quickly to Saville's suite on the nineteenth floor, leaving Norman to gather the scattered pages of his script.

  Saville was definitely not alone. Paul Drott, the network vice-president, was there, and Brimsek, and Sally Bevans, busy at a typewriter, and a young man who was introduced as Walter Cameron. Saville had already got in his new writer, and they were deep in what is called a "story conference."

  "I just can't stop to talk to you now, Lieutenant," Saville said. "We're revising the script. It has to be ready by Monday. Unless it's absolutely necessary—"

  "It is," Hardy said.

  "Does Norman know he's not the writer anymore?" Cham-brun asked.

  "There's always more than one writer," Saville said. "If Norman comes up with something good, fine. But we can't risk it. Wally, here, is—"

  "What about Richter?" Chambrun asked. "Doesn't the director usually sit in on story conferences?"

  "Nuts to Karl," Saville said impatiently. "He's always trying to work in Significance! This is a straight adventure series. It doesn't have any message except good is good and evil is evil."

  "Someone just tried to murder Norman," Chambrun said, as casually as if he were commenting on what a nice afternoon it had been. It was a neat little bombshell. "Evil is evil," Chambrun added.

  "Who did it?" the vice-president asked in a small voice.

  "It could have been the Masked Crusader," Chambrun said. "Stocking mask over his head and skilled in karate. He tried to throw Norman out the window."

  "Knock it off," Saville said angrily. "I'm not interested in gags, Chambrun."

  "It's not a gag," Chambrun said. "It just happened—half an hour ago."

  A broad smile lit George Brimsek's face. He glanced at his watch. "It is now thirty-three minutes after five," he said. "We began this conference at about three o'clock. Not one of us has been out of this suite since then—not even out of this room except to go to the John. Will that speed you on your way, gentlemen? We have work to do."

  "I have been in this business a long time," Hardy said in a harsh voice. "I don't think I've ever run across such callous attitudes as I've found in this room. Don't you even want to know whether or not your writer is hurt?"

  "Of course we want to know," Sally Bevans said quickly.

  "He was pretty badly beaten up, but he's all right," Hardy said. He fixed Brimsek with a cold stare. "You're the karate expert around here, Brimsek."

  "I've just told you, Lieutenant, none of us has been out of this suite since three o'clock."

  "Geller has already told us it wasn't you or Saville. Man was a different build and not so expert as you, Brimsek."

  "Well, bully for Norman," Brimsek said.

  "Why would anyone want to hurt Norman?" Sally asked.

  "The suggestion," Chambrun said, "is that the man who attacked him intended to throw him out the window and leave a suicide note in Norman's typewriter, confessing to the murder of Hansbury. That would have ended the murder investigation, got you all off any sort of hook you may be on, and allow 'The Masked Crusader' to be born, unhampered by unpleasant publicity."

  "So it didn't work. But how do you tie us into it, Chambrun? We were here. Our hands are clean."

  "There is enough money interest in this room to hire a hundred assassins," Chambrun said.

 
"Oh, my God!" the vice-president said. "I think I better call T.J."

  "You just sit tight, Paul," Saville said. "This whole story sounds as if it just came out of Norman's typewriter."

  Hardy gave the actor a disgusted look. "It wasn't his typewriter that slugged him in the jaw and clawed his chest," he said. "I'm sending a police stenographer in here to take individual statements from each of you, stating that you didn't leave this suite between three and five-thirty P.M."

  "We don't have to sign statements, do we, George?" Saville asked.

  The muscular lawyer shrugged. "Here or at the precinct station house," he said. "Please, let's get it over with as quickly as possible, Lieutenant. We're running out of time on a very important project."

  Just about the time I got back from Gillian's apartment, Chambrun, Hardy, and Jerry Dodd had returned to the Great Man's office.

  Jerry was reporting. "I've checked out the floor maids, the housekeeper for that area, bellhops, elevator operators. No one saw anyone come to or leave Mark's apartment—no reason anyone should have particularly. Certain the guy took off his mask before he came out of the apartment. Nothing to make him stand out from anyone else."

  "Except a limp," Chambrun said. "Norman gave him a flying kick in the kneecap. Norman knows how. The man is lucky his leg wasn't broken."

  "I've still got to round up that fellow Richter," Hardy said. He was studying his notebook.

  "He's in the Trapeze Bar," Jerry said, "or was about fifteen minutes ago. Been in and out of there most of the afternoon. According to Mr. Del Greco, the maitre d' in the Trapeze, he must have taken on quite a snootful by now. Not showing it, though."

  Chambrun is Chambrun. He didn't ask me a single question about my visit with Gillian while Hardy was there.

  "We'll have to move your friend somewhere, Haskell," Hardy said. "I'd like to turn my boys loose in your living room. Geller's attacker must have left a few fingerprints around."

  "He can use Miss Ruysdale's office until your men are finished with Mark's place," Chambrun said.

  "I'll get him," Jerry Dodd said. "I'd like to ask him some more questions. He didn't see the man's face on account of the mask, but there are other things he might remember now that the excitement's over. There could have been something distinctive about the hands—a scar, a broken finger, the color of the hair growing on them. There might have been a smell—hair tonic he used. And the suit. What color? What kind of material? Shoes? We might begin to build a picture."

  "Go ahead," Hardy said. "I'll have Richter brought up here. He may have some ideas."

  "Oh, yes, he'll be full of ideas," Chambrun said. He walked over to the sideboard and filled a demitasse cup from the Turkish coffee machine.

  Jerry and Hardy took off.

  "Well?" Chambrun said to me.

  I gave him a blow-by-blow of my talk with Gillian. He listened, eyes hooded, sunk back down in his desk chair.

  "The alibi doesn't quite make it for Norman," he said when I'd finished. "Six until a little past eight."

  "He was at his apartment."

  "You've asked him?"

  "No. I came straight here. How is he?"

  "He'll do," Chambrun said. "Gutsy little guy. From the looks of things, he fought like a tiger."

  "Somebody is trying to pin the tail on the donkey— Norman," I said.

  "It has all the earmarks," Chambrun agreed.

  Hardy was suddenly back with a couple of typewritten sheets of paper in his hand.

  "How do you like this for apples?" he said. "Something we missed in Geller's room—1927. Camera picked it up. Wheel marks on the carpet in the room."

  "Come again," Chambrun said.

  "Wheel marks! Narrow, rubber-tired wheel marks. A wheelchair!" Hardy said. "There was a wheelchair in that room carrying weight. Someone riding in it."

  We had Norman in there fast. He looked a little pale and disheveled. He kept blotting at the corner of his mouth with a bloodied handkerchief.

  "We've come up with something," Hardy told him. "Yesterday afternoon, while you were still in your room, did Saville come to see you?"

  Norman shook his head slowly. "They wore out the telephone, but I wasn't letting anyone in. I was trying to finish."

  "Saville didn't come to see you in his wheelchair?"

  "You mean that gimmick he uses for going out through the crowds? No."

  "Some other time that day?"

  "No. He wouldn't have to disguise himself to come and talk to me. What's up?"

  Hardy showed Norman the Homicide report. "There was a wheelchair in your room since the last time the maid cleaned and vacuumed."

  Norman's face was blank. "Certainly not while I was there," he said. Then his eyes widened. "Do you suppose that's the way they brought Frank's body into my room?"

  For the first time since Frank Hansbury's body had been found in Norman's closet, we had a break in the case. It came as a result of Hardy's efficient Homicide team, which had detected the wheel marks on the carpet, and Jerry Dodd's dogged legwork. Jerry found a witness on the hotel staff— Mrs. Kniffin, the housekeeper on the nineteenth floor.

  Mrs. Kniffin is a motherly type who has worked in the Beaumont as far back as the memory of anyone connected with the hotel. In those years Mrs. Kniffin has encountered all the "unexpecteds." Jerry brought her to Chambrun's office where she had a story for us.

  "Mrs. Kniffin saw the wheelchair go into Room 1927," Jerry said.

  Mrs. Kniffin's plump face showed wrinkles of distress. "I hope I didn't do wrong not reporting it, Mr. Chambrun," she said. "It—it seemed perfectly all right."

  "I'm sure your judgment was perfectly sound, Mrs. Kniffin," Chambrun said. "Just tell us what you saw"

  Mrs. Kniffin's arthritic fingers twisted the apron of her housekeeper's gray uniform. "That whole corridor was kind of exciting, Mr. Chambrun. Actors and actresses, writers, big-time advertising executives, all scurrying back and forth between the rooms. And, of course, especially Robert Saville. I mean, things were more interesting than usual."

  "Robert Saville is a favorite of yours, Mrs. Kniffin?"

  Mrs. Kniffin giggled. "I'm too old to admit it," she said. "Spencer Tracy stayed on my floor once. It was a little bit like that."

  "For God's sake get to the wheelchair, woman," Hardy said.

  "Let her tell it her own way, Lieutenant," Chambrun suggested, giving Mrs. Kniffin an encouraging smile.

  "It was last night," Mrs. Kniffin said, "just before I went off duty."

  "Which is when, Mrs. Kniffin?" Chambrun asked, for Hardy's benefit.

  "Eight o'clock. I always go off at exactly eight. Mrs. Lawler, who takes over, is never late. I guess it must have been about ten minutes to eight. I was in the hall, and the door of Mr. Saville's suite opened, and they brought him out in that wheel-chair."

  "Him?"

  "Mr. Saville," Mrs. Kniffin said. "I'd seen him before in the wheelchair. It's wonderful what he can do with makeup. He wears a gray hairpiece and black glasses and his overcoat collar turned up around his chin—black hat. You'd never dream it was him. He gets wheeled right by people, and they don't even look at him. A regular Lon Chaney, if you know what I mean."

  "I think I do," Chambrun said. "Naturally, you were fascinated when you saw him being wheeled out of his suite last night."

  Mrs. Kniffin lowered her eyes. "I have to admit I pretended being busy about something near the linen closet when I really wasn't."

  "Quite natural," Chambrun said. "After all, Mr. Saville is a kind of hero to you. Who, by the way, was pushing the chair, Mrs. Kniffin?"

  "Why—why one of his people, I suppose," she said.

  "You suppose?"

  Mrs. Kniffin looked positively kittenish. "I really didn't notice," she said. "A man wearing a raincoat and a hat, I think. But I really didn't notice, Mr. Chambrun. I—I was so interested in Mr. Saville and how he managed his—his disguise."

  "So they came out of Mr. Saville's suite. You're sure of that?"
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  "Of course, sir. I thought they'd be going past me to the elevators, the way they always do when Mr. Saville wants to get out through the lobby without being noticed. But instead they stopped at the door of Room 1927." She glanced at Norman, who was leaning forward in his chair, handkerchief pressed to his mouth. "Mr. Geller's room, sir."

  "And then?"

  "They went in," Mrs. Kniffin said. "Then I went into the linen room, and Mrs. Lawler was there waiting to relieve me. I went right home."

  "Let's not go home quite so fast, Mrs. Kniffin," Chambrun said, his smile gentle. "You say they went into Room 1927. Did Mr. Saville knock on the door or ring the bell?"

  "Oh, no, sir," Mrs. Kniffin said. "I was watching him every second. He never moved a muscle. Have you ever watched him in that wheelchair, Mr. Chambrun? He sits there like a statue. It must take wonderful physical control."

  "So the other man—the one you don't remember—either knocked or rang the bell?"

  "I suppose so," Mrs. Kniffin said. "I—I don't think I ever took my eyes off Mr. Saville. I mean—"

  "I understand, Mrs. Kniffin," Chambrun said. His patience bordered on the miraculous. "So someone opened the door and let them in?"

  "The door opened, and they went in," Mrs. Kniffin said.

  "Did you see who opened it, Mrs. Kniffin? Was it Mr. Geller?"

  She frowned. "I—I didn't actually see who opened it," she said.

  "And you didn't actually see the man in the raincoat knock or ring the bell?"

  "I have to admit I didn't," Mrs. Kniffin said.

  "Could he have opened the door with a key, Mrs. Kniffin?"

  Mrs. Kniffin stared at Chambrun. "I—I don't honestly know, sir," she said. "Only later, as you may know, Mrs. Lawler let Mr. Saville and his secretary into Mr. Geller's room. They thought something might have happened to Mr. Geller.

  They didn't have a key then, sir. Mrs. Lawler used her passkey. Mrs. Lawler said she was all goose bumps, standing right next to Mr. Saville, talking to him."

  Chambrun picked up the phone on his desk. "Please ask Mr. Cardoza to come to my office at once," he said.

  Mr. Cardoza is the captain in the Grill Room, where Robert Saville had, in theory, been having dinner at ten minutes to eight last night. Chambrun put down the phone and leaned back in his chair. He made a little gesture of resignation to Hardy. He, personally, was finished with Mrs. Kniffin.