The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  Until then Rick had no plan, no ideas. He wanted only to stop the senseless tragedy he saw building and it finally came to him that there might be a way. Both he and Farrell were no more than innocent bystanders in this duel of wills. If he could step in front of Elinor he did not think she would shoot him, nor could Brainard fire at the woman.

  He yelled something to get their attention. Then, with the perspiration drying coldly on his spine, he took his first step, but even then he saw he was too late.

  Brainard picked up the telephone and Elinor was as good as her word. Ignoring Rick, she squeezed the trigger and the little automatic bucked in her hand. Almost simultaneously a heavier sound exploded in the room and Rick saw the slug strike the woman’s chest and knock her back into the chair. Somewhere above Brainard’s head the glass in a picture frame dissolved and fell with a tinkling sound to the carpet.

  Brainard stood as he was, the telephone in one hand, the gun in the other. It was at once clear that he had not been hit and Rick never knew whether Elinor had missed because she had fired with her left hand or whether, sensing in the final instant that this was the best way out for her, she had missed deliberately.

  In the moment of impact there was only a look of mild surprise on the face he had once thought so full of graciousness and courage and dignity. Slowly then, as the gun slipped from limp fingers and thudded to the floor, a slackness began to work on the features and the dark-blue eyes started to cloud. There was a small stain on the inside of the left breast and as he stared at it he heard the hoarse cry which tore at Farrell’s throat as he pushed Rick aside and dropped to one knee beside his wife.

  Rick swallowed hard and tried to close his mind against the things his eyes had seen. As he started for Brainard he understood that, ironically enough, the call which had been so important to the older man had never been made.

  The instrument lay forgotten beside its pedestal. Brainard had dropped into the nearby chair, head down and the gun dangling loosely between his knees. He did not look up as Rick dialed the operator and said what he had to say about the police and a doctor.

  When he hung up and glanced at Brainard he saw a crushed and beaten man as the shock of what he had done made itself felt. Reaction had erased for the time being the selfish and indomitable strains that had made him the man he was and Rick understood that, though justified, the memory of this night would remain with him forever.

  “It was self-defense,” he said, not looking up but still thinking of himself. “I gave her the first shot, didn’t I?… H—how is she?” he said in a voice Rick could hardly hear.

  Farrell was still on one knee beside his wife, his eyes wet and her hands in his. He was mumbling something about it being all right, and as she had so often done in the past, she cut him off.

  “Yes,” she said. “It will be all right, Austin. It is so much better this way.” She coughed and her head sank lower before she whispered: “I’m sorry. You did all you could and if you have to go to prison for a while you will be paid.… I lied about my will. I didn’t change it. It’s all yours now and—”

  Her voice trailed off and Rick could stand there no longer. He walked swiftly from the room and threw the front door wide open. He gulped air and tried to still the tremor in his legs. He forced his mind on while he waited for the first police car and somehow the image of his son appeared to quiet his thoughts.

  He would have to find out about the funeral from Brainard but for now it was enough to know that the boy would not be hurt by what had happened tonight. At twelve, and so far away, there would be no permanent scar. And Nancy—

  He stepped to the edge of the porch. As yet there was no sign of the police car and then, remembering his promise to call, he knew he had to talk to her before the inquisition began. He did not know just how he would begin or what he would say but it was terribly important that he hear her voice. Somewhere there would be another telephone in the house and now he turned and went back inside to look for it.

  AARON’S PERFECT PLANS, by Pauline Tyson Stephens

  Originally published in America’s Greatest Comics #3, 1942.

  The Grandfather clock in the hall of the rambling old Rawling house struck twelve just as Aaron Bogart, dissatisfied paint salesman, sneaked into the dark, pitch-black corridor.

  The house was silent and empty, just as he had known it would be, with the Old Lady Rawling and her granddaughter Lannie in Atlanta at Grand Opera.

  Easing to the head of the stairs, Aaron squinted through the keyhole of the adjacent bedroom door. The room was as still as a forgotten cemetery.

  He felt his way to the mantel and slipped his big-knuckled hand behind the picture above. When he pressed the button a tiny door flew open. By his pencil-flashlight he looked inside the wall cavity.

  There were the rolls of bills right where he’d seen the Old Lady put them the night before. Lucky for him he’d eased up the stairway just as she and Lannie were talking about them. But there was one thing sure—Lannie wouldn’t put them in the bank tomorrow, as she’d made the Old Lady promise to let her do.

  By the tiny light, Aaron took down the bills and counted them.

  He smiled. It was just as he thought. Ten thousand dollars. That would buy a lot of the stocks he’d marked in the paper last night. It hadn’t taken him long to get across the hall to the room he rented and used every other week-end, and find out what he wanted to do with the money. One thing certain. In a few months now, Lannie Rawling would be glad enough to forget that silly aristocratic pride of hers, and marry him.

  In a moment Aaron had tiptoed down the stairs. Outside the house, he went straight to the Stygian-dark barn, mentally praising himself for the plan of hiding the bills right on the premises—the last place they’d look for them.

  He fumbled in the barn until he found the next item in his plans—the cage of rattlesnakes. Silly Old Lady Rawling, to keep a cage of snakes just because they’d belonged to a dead grandson.

  The barn smelled of rotted leather and commercial fertilizer. Aaron sickened at the combined odors, but he brushed the sensation aside and carefully turned the cage bottom side up. The snakes fell with at dull thud, and their hissing sent cold chills down Aaron’s spine. But he went on with his work.

  On the bottom of the cage he laid the bills. From his pocket he drew some thumbtacks and cardboard. He tacked the cardboard to the wooden bottom of the cage and then turned the snakes top side up.

  Gliding around the barn, Aaron stumbled over a pile of hay. He cursed and shivered at the slight deviation of his plans.

  * * * *

  In another hour he was back in Doverell, forty miles away. He climbed up the fire escape which he had walked down only a few hours before. He was safe now. The hotel folks could swear he’d been there all night. Nothing to do now but await developments. The Old Lady and Lannie would yell to high heaven, but the police would never think to look right on the place for the dough.

  Before he went to sleep that night, Aaron reviewed every detail of the plan which he had just carried out. It was a perfect plan and it couldn’t miss.

  The next morning, Aaron smiled as he made the rounds of the paint stores. Sales were good and life looked rosy. At noon he settled himself at a corner drug store and turned the radio dial to the Athens station for the news report.

  He listened all the way through. Then he snipped off the radio, disappointed. They had said nothing at all about the loss of the money. That seemed queer, for the Old Lady and Lannie had planned to be back home early, and they’d be sure to report it first thing.

  Late that afternoon, he devoured the newspapers, but found nothing of the stolen money. Irritated, he flung the paper aside. Nervously, he drove to the next town—ahead of schedule.

  That night he listened to the radio again. Still there was nothing. This time Aaron was plainly disturbed. He slept poorly.

  The following morning, the mirror told Aaron that his face looked like a starved war prisoner’s. His mouth felt
dry, and his pulse was jumpy. He frowned and bit his lips.

  Two more days passed, and still there was nothing in the newspapers or on the radio. That night, Aaron stared glassily at the telephone. Finally he picked up the receiver, but slammed it back again. Suddenly, he snatched it up once more. This time he jerkily asked for “Long Distance.” Then he called for Athens.

  His lips worked convulsively while he waited.

  Eventually, Lannie answered.

  Aaron swallowed a lump, and tried to sound casual. “How is everything, Lannie?”

  There was a pause, during which Aaron scarcely breathed.

  “Oh, all right, I guess,” Lannie said calmly. “Only—well, since you’re sort of home folks, I might tell you, Aaron. Grancy’s money’s been stolen, but don’t mention it. The police are keeping it quiet, to throw the thief off guard.”

  Aaron’s eyebrows drew closer together. Trying to sound solicitous, he said, “I hope they find it.”

  “Oh, they will,” Lannie said cheerfully. “They’ve got a lineup. But it was so much money to lose, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes—yes, it was,” Aaron answered listlessly, anxious to stop the conversation.

  * * * *

  The next few days were terrifying eternities for Aaron Bogart, who raged at himself for his uneasiness. The uneasiness had not been part of his plans, and it made him extremely angry.

  That night he went back to Athens.

  Lannie greeted Aaron in the living room, just as though nothing had happened. She offered him a chair and gave him a cup of hot tea.

  And Old Lady Rawling chattered as provokingly as ever, her patrician chin trembling.

  “I’ve told Lannie, and told her,” she sputtered, “that we ought to have the news broadcast, so police would be on the lookout for that thief.”

  Lannie smiled indulgently. “No, Grancy, you let me handle this. The Athens police know who got it, and it’ll just be a day or two now before they catch him.”

  Aaron strangled on his tea, but Mrs. Rawling rattled on.

  Up in his room, just to reassure himself, Aaron again went over the plans he had made. Now, he chided himself for his weakness in planning to move the money. Of course nobody could know it was under the rattlesnakes. He’d just sit tight and say nothing.

  Aaron awoke. He felt choked and stifled. Then he knew—knew he’d have to move the money after all. He went to the window, and saw to his disappointment that the moon was shining.

  But at midnight, the moon went behind a heavy cloud. Almost instantly, Aaron was outside. In the barn, his thigh bumped against the fender of his own car. The blow brought a stifled curse to his lips, and the hisses of the snakes sent shudders through his body.

  Suddenly he stiffened, and his blood seemed to clot like jelly. Was that a step?

  The noise came again. It seemed hours that he waited in the foul-smelling barn. The moon came out then, and he dared not try to move the money. At length another cloud came, and like a frightened lizard, Aaron scuttled back to the house.

  Between watching the barn door and listening to the Old Lady’s continual chatter, Aaron never knew how he got through the next day.

  * * * *

  That night Aaron sat silently by his bedroom window and stared at the barn. The wind, hissing through the tree-tops, reminded him of the snakes and sent more shivers through his body. Impatiently, he waited for the household noises to die down.

  Finally, lights went out. Quietness came, but Aaron still watched. Then, heavy clouds suddenly obscured the lowering moon. Downstairs, the grandfather clock struck two. Aaron turned from the window and slipped on a dark coat.

  “Fire!”

  It was not a loud yell, but Aaron heard it and stared from his window, petrified at what he saw.

  For flames were creeping up the side of the barn!

  Aaron was speechless with horror. Red-hot hands seemed to clutch at his brain as he envisioned the money—the precious money that he had risked years in jail to get—turned to ashes.

  Suddenly, he was hysterically alive and running down the steps, two at a time. Then he was leaping toward the barn. In a half-delirious state, he opened the barn door, and scrambled around his own car, without thinking of it. After another breathless interval he emerged from the barn holding the rattlesnakes’ cage by the handle.

  “Did you get the money?” A low voice at his side asked.

  “Yes, yes,” Aaron gasped hysterically. Then instantly, he bit his tongue, and terror wrenched his face.

  For by the light of the flames, he saw that he was speaking to Officer Callahan, from the Athens Police Department.

  In a moment of blinding fury, Aaron knew that water was being poured on the flames. Callahan was saying, “Why’d you drag out snakes, Bogart—when your car was in there to be saved?”

  In the glare of a flashlight, Aaron saw Lannie and the Old Lady.

  “Hold him, George,” Callahan said to another officer.

  Callahan flung the cage of rattlesnakes to its side. He ripped the strip of cardboard from the bottom, and the bills fell to the ground. Watching him, Aaron bit his lips until the blood came.

  “All here,” the officer said, after counting the money.

  He turned to Lannie. “Now tell me, Miss Rawling, what made you think Aaron stole ’em?”

  Lannie replied, “I found that newspaper with the stocks marked, so I knew he wanted money. Then when I talked to him over the telephone he—well, sounded scared. He agreed that it was a large sum to be stolen. Yet I’d named no figures at all.”

  “But how’d you know it was in the barn?”

  “He couldn’t keep his eyes off that barn, and I saw him sneak out there last night. I threw a piece of coal to scare him. I was sure enough then to gamble on putting gasoline on that pile of hay by the barn and setting fire to it. You see how it worked.”

  Aaron clenched his hands until the nails cut into his palms. In the light of the moon which had come from behind the heavy clouds, his eyes were as glassy as the eyes of the rattlesnakes in the cage.

  BUTTERFLY OF DEATH, by Harold Gluck

  Orriginally published in Smashing Detective Stories, September 1951.

  On that particular Friday evening I was exeedingly tired. Working for Frank Parker, of Parker Publications, wasn’t exactly the type of work in which you could take it easy. My job was to edit three of his magazines, Detective Adventures, Science and Crime and Private Eye. It meant spending hours reading all kinds of manuscripts, good, bad, and indifferent. Which all accounted for the fact that at about 7:30 I tried to relax in the easy chair that faced the street, in the living room of my apartment on East 53rd Street.

  I closed my eyes to get some kind of relief. The meal I had eaten at Luigi’s was light; there were thousands of little round red dots dancing around my two eyeballs. I opened both eyes as though to chase them away; it was futile.

  The phone rang twice. “Odd” was the only comment I made to myself; I had a private, unlisted, number—known only to my editor, the printer, and my personal physician. Not once had my phone rung during the past year. I arose, went over to my desk, and lifted the receiver from the hook.

  A muffled voice asked, “Joe Delaney?” Mechanically I replied, “Yes, who is this and what do you wish?”

  A queer kind of a chuckle hit my eardrum. “You’re Joe Delaney,” repeated the voice, and then it added, “So you think you can take my little Butterfly away from me and nothing will happen to you?”

  Remember, I was tired and that accounted for the fact my brain cells failed to react quickly. Something had to be said and I went searching for words. Then I found them. “What kind of a trick is this?” was what finally came from my lips.

  “This isn’t a gag,” was the reply. “I’m going to make your life a living hell, just like you made mine. And don’t think I’m kidding; you’re going to be tortured and when you have suffered enough, then I’ll kill you.”

  Nice words to hear over a phone. I was g
etting back to myself and trying to think a mile a second. “There are lots of Joe Delaneys in the phone book,” I protested; “You got the wrong one.”

  “No,” was the reply, “I got the right one. The one who works as an editor at Parker Publications and thinks in his spare time he can play around with my wife. You damaged my butterfly; I’m going to damage you.”

  This was getting on what was left of my nerves. “I’m going to hang up now,” I shouted through the mouthpiece of the phone.

  “Still think I’m kidding,” the voice continued. “I’ll show you I’m not bluffing. Wait fifteen minutes, then walk down on the east side of 47th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, and see what happens. Then you’ll know whether this is a joke or the beginning of the end for you, Joe Delaney.”

  That was all. I heard a little laugh, and then I, too, hung up.

  Back I went to my easy chair to try a bit of thinking. This is all a joke on me. Some fools are having a little celebration and someone who knows me is having fun at my expense. My inner brain snapped back, But if you don’t take that dare and walk out, you will never know whether it is a joke.

  I arose from my easy chair and looked at my wrist watch. If I walked quickly, I could just make it. When I got downstairs, my heart was beating so rapidly, I realized it would be silly to walk; I hailed a cab and got out at 47th Street and Ninth Avenue. I walked slowly towards Tenth Avenue. As I passed an alley, I turned instinctively, just pressing my head to one side. From somewhere out of the alley, came a baseball, thrown with tremendous force, just missing my skull. It hit against the side of the wall and fell to the ground. I gasped for breath, then came a little unconscious hysterical laughter from my lips.

  “Some kids playing baseball,” I said to reassure myself.

  I picked it up and walked down the alley, looking for the kids, so I could return that ball. Yet I knew deep down in my heart, I wouldn’t find any youngsters.