The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  I was shaky and Butler could spot the trembling in my voice. “Can’t take very much more of this kind of a game. If this keeps up, the fellow who wants to bump me off can’t have a straight run of errors. All he has to do is connect once and that finishes me.”

  And there wasn’t any doubt that my bodyguard had the same idea going through his brain cells. “Get some sleep if that’s possible. Tomorrow morning you go to the office and I’ll be at your side. As soon as I get a recording of everyone there we go straight to the Professor’s place. I’m not kidding myself either. Time is of the essence when you got Death stacking the cards against you.”

  Sleep was impossible and I wasn’t conscious of the pain in the hand; I just wanted to go on living and that didn’t seem to be an unreasonable desire on my part. If the someone we were looking for happened to be part of the office staff, that narrowed the search down. But cold sweat gathered on my forehead when I thought of the possibility it might be a person outside the office. Then we could never spot him.

  Roger Hartly was in charge of the art department. He was one of those fellows who could have been in his late twenties or early forties. You couldn’t win a bet guessing his age. He had a busy head of hair that told you, “either musician or artist.” Roger placed some drawings on my desk.

  “Here’s some nice stuff by the fellow who wrote us last week. Harold Gibson is his name. He’s been free lancing for some of the pulps out in Chicago and I think he’s going places.”

  I looked at the drawings and just nodded my head automatically. “Guess that accident last night unnerved you,” said Roger. “But as long as you got that nursemaid from the police department around, I guess your killer wouldn’t have an easy job making a victim out of you.”

  I felt like telling Roger to jump into the lake when I caught Herman’s eyes. It was first names now, especially when Death has almost given you a fatal kiss and you sort of feel a closeness to the man who is doing his best to keep you alive. I arose from my desk and went over to the corner of the room where my detective pal was going through some back issues of our magazines.

  “We better leave now,” he suggested in a low voice. “I got all the recordings we need. The sooner we get over to the Professor’s apartment, the better.” The suggestion seemed sound to me and we were on our way uptown in five minutes.

  I watched with eager eyes, like a kid of ten, as Professor Musterman played those recordings. He did it a second time, and then a third time. On a sheet of paper he had the names of the people.

  “Your man is Roger Hartly,” was his verdict. “New England in it, a bit of the Middle West, and that nasal touch. I can place a handkerchief over this speaker and show you a recording of the voice as it would be when it is disguised.” Five minutes later we listened to a second recording and there wasn’t the slightest bit of doubt as to the identity of the man.

  “Where does he live?” asked Herman.

  “Uptown, off Central Park West. I’ve never been there. He’s not a very sociable fellow and likes to keep to himself; I guess he has his own crowd and goes out with them.”

  The apartment house was relatively new and we went up to the sixteenth floor. My bodyguard rang the bell and an eye appeared at the peep hole. I told her who I was and she let us both in. Then we got the shock of our lives. She must have been about five feet six, thin, and in perfect proportion. Jet black hair drawn back and narrow eyes. She was dressed in a kimono! I got what was off my mind first.

  “Tell me—why they call you Butterfly,” I tried to remark in an offhand manner. It was a shot in the dark and it worked. My ego went up one hundred percent as she replied in a musical tone of voice.

  “I was born in the Orient. My parents were missionaries and Roger met me in Japan while he was painting some pictures for a millionaire. He gave me that pet name. Maybe I reminded him of the tragic heroine of a certain opera.”

  We waited and waited for Roger to come. If his wife knew anything was wrong, she never for once betrayed it.

  “Can I get you some drinks?” she offered as we heard the key turn in the lock.

  Roger looked at the three of us, and you could see a wild cast to his face.

  He pointed his index finger at me and demanded, “What kind of a cat and-mouse game are you playing with me? You knew all along I wanted to kill you. And I had every right to do so; you took my wife’s love away from me. Are you trying to drive me mad?”

  How do you reason with a madman? One who has let jealousy deprive him of the power of clear reasoning. Then Roger raised his other hand and it held a snub-nose .32 which he pointed directly at me.

  Herman got into action with words. “Look here—before you do any shooting with that gun; you can make a mistake and kill the wrong man. Why not ask your wife if there happens to be another man? And if so, let her name him.”

  “If you go for your gun, Mr. Detective,” warned Roger, “I’ll let you have it too.” Then he turned towards his wife and kept his eyes focused on us at the same time. “Is Joe the man?” was all he asked.

  Mrs. Hartly nervously bit her lower lips as she tried to avoid her husband’s piercing gaze. I guess I was about ready to sink to the floor; all she had to do was to mention my name and that was my finish. Whoever the other fellow happened to be, if she loved him, she probably wouldn’t betray him; I could be the sacrificial goat.

  Then, all of a sudden, the expression on Roger’s face changed as though he had suddenly become conscious of some fact he had long overlooked.

  “You don’t have to answer,” he recommended with sarcasm in his voice. “I think I know who has been responsible for all of this. I’ve been blind a long time but now I see things clearly.”

  His eyes shifted to me. “Sorry, Joe, for the mess I have made of things. The man who likes my wife must be the same one who suggested you were playing around with her. That rat is…” but he never finished the words. Four shots in rapid succession poured into his back as he slumped to the floor—dead.

  There was the glint of a gun-barrel in the door behind and Herman got out his gun and emptied its contents at the narrow opening. Then the door slammed tight. We smashed through that wooden door into a hall and then spotted the service door to the apartment.

  Butler opened it and commented as we looked into an empty hall. “The killer must have had a key to the apartment. All the time he was behind that door taking in every word being spoken. Well, Mrs. Hartly knows who he is; I’m going to take her to Police Headquarters and she’ll talk.”

  As we turned to retrace our steps we heard one shot. We raced back to the room to see Mrs. Hartly on the floor with her husband’s gun in her outstretched hand. She had put one bullet into her brain—which was all that was needed for the job.

  Detective Pierson came over with the boys from Homicide and they took charge of things; Butler saw I was ready to collapse. “I’m going to Kansas, where I have an aunt, for a rest or I’ll have a mental breakdown,” I said. “But first I’m going over to my boss’ place and tell him to get a new editor.”

  “I might as well go with you,” suggested Herman Butler. “After all there is a killer still on the loose. Whether or not he wants you, the law wants him. Its going to be my job to get him, even though we I haven’t the slightest clue as to his identity. If one of my bullets nicked him, he’s got to go to a doctor and the law requires a physician to make a report within twenty-four hours of such a case. Let’s go over to Mr. Parker’s house.”

  * * * *

  I saw Eleanor first and told her what had happened. “You certainly need a rest, Joe,” she said sympathetically. “My husband is in his library. Go on in and settle things with him.”

  I entered the library room followed by Detective Butler. I came right to the point and to my surprise found my boss very nice about it. “You take off as long as you want, Joe. A month, two, three, four or five. And remember, it’s with pay; I never forget the loyalty of a good man.”

  I extended my hand and we
shook with my nervous fingers holding his in a tight grasp. Then I saw the red trickle of blood coming down his sleeve and staining my fingers.

  “So you never forget the loyalty of a good man,” I echoed. “You killed Roger; his wife is dead because of you; and you nearly sent me to a grave.”

  “Don’t reach for your gun,” advised Butler, “because there is nothing I would like better than to say in my report that you were killed resisting arrest.”

  Three months later, after the jury had returned a verdict of guilty in the first degree, without a recommendation for mercy, Herman and I sat in Luigi’s. I had taken a two month’s rest and looked much better.

  “I’m going to continue with the magazines,” I told him; “Eleanor wants me to carry on. Somehow when you go through an experience like mine, you get a different attitude when you read fiction manuscripts.

  To think that Parker even told Roger to take the car and run me down. Parker was just as jealous as Roger; even though he had been cheating, making love to Mrs. Hartly, he thought I was making love to his wife. He wanted me out of the way as well Roger. Poor Butterfly. I guess I’ll always think of this as The Butterfly of Death. Parker had a gold key to her apartment and he always knew when her husband was out. Women are a funny lot.”

  There was a peculiar smile creeping over Detective Butler’s face. “Women are a funny lot? Which reminds me. I get married next month and you are going to be my best man.”

  MORGUE REUNION, by Norman A. Daniels

  Originally published in 10-Story Detective, November, 1946.

  There were four at the corner table of the exclusive restaurant. Four men ranging in years from Tommy Nast’s twenty-five to Walter Manning’s forty-seven.

  Of them, the outstanding one, as far as looks were concerned, was Pete Reed, an attorney. Reed was the tallest, the most carefully dressed—and the most puzzled.

  “Now, listen,” he said slowly, “I insist that someone did phone me and invite me to this little affair. I didn’t just walk in, see you three and join you. The man who phoned didn’t give a name. I did not recognize his voice, although I assumed that he expected I did.”

  “What difference does it make, Peter?” Tommy Nast queried. “You’re welcome anyway.”

  “Certainly you are.” Thirty-year-old Willis Lally beamed over his cocktail glass. “We’re all friends.”

  Walter Manning, the eldest, had a few fringes of hair left at the sides of his head. He had a nervous habit of brushing them back, as if they were thick, curly tresses. He was a manufacturer, successful and poised.

  “Just the same,” he added his bit, “it’s odd that whoever of us invited you could have forgotten doing so, Peter. We three alone knew about this little dinner. In fact, the dinner has no real meaning at all. Just a friendly get-together of Martha Nast’s grandnephew, her prospective grandson-in-law—if you ever get the nerve to ask Nancy, Willis.”

  Willis Lally laughed and called for more drinks.

  Manning went on, “And lastly, myself. All three of us owe a great deal to Martha Nast. Without her help, I could never have got my start in business. And you are her attorney, Peter, so you’re in the family too, practically.”

  “Well,” Peter Reed chuckled, “it doesn’t make any difference how I got here. I’m here and I intend to enjoy myself. First evening off I’ve had in weeks. Incidentally, how is your great-aunt or grandaunt, or whatever she is, Tommy?”

  Tommy Nast nodded and waved his upraised glass. “She’s a tough old lady, Pete. Two weeks ago she reached eighty-eight and said she felt fifty. She acts fifty too. It’s a lucky thing I’m not the kind that sits and broods waiting for her to die so that I’ll get my half of her money. The fact is, I wish she’d live forever. Even if it meant that I had to go to work.”

  They laughed at that. Peter glanced up at a clock on the further wall. It was nine-twenty, and he remembered to set his watch which had run down. A waiter was approaching the table. He bowed slightly.

  “Mr. Manning, you are wanted on the telephone, sir. The first booth from the checkroom, sir.”

  Manning arose. “Excuse me, fellows. Be right back. Business follows a man wherever he goes.”

  They talked about Manning while he was gone. About his struggles for success as a manufacturing chemist. Of his products which were good, but needed expensive promotion and how Martha Nast had furnished the necessary money. The biggest break a man ever got, they all agreed.

  Manning returned, frowning slightly. “That was one of my employees. He tells me that James Burnett is dead. They found his body a short time ago. He was murdered.”

  Peter Reed stood up instantly. “I’m sorry, boys. I’ve got to go. Oh, Manning, is the James Burnett you mentioned, the man who is your friendly business rival?”

  “Why, yes. I don’t know any other James Burnett.”

  “And he was murdered?”

  “That’s what Ed—the fellow who called me—said. He got it over the radio a few moments ago on a news broadcast. What’s wrong Peter? You seem upset. Naturally, we all are because we all knew him. He was a friend of Martha Nast just as we are, but I didn’t think he was close enough to cause that expression I see in your face now.”

  “I’m very sorry,” Peter Reed said again. Then he turned and walked abruptly away. After a few more minutes, Tommy Nast called for the check, paid it, and the other three men left.

  Peter Reed hailed a taxi and had himself driven straight to the building where he maintained his offices. They were on the seventeenth floor and spoke in silent eloquence of success. He unlocked the door, for it was long after regular business hours, stepped in and closed the door behind him. Then, on a hunch, he double-locked the door.

  In his private office he dropped hat and topcoat on a chair, walked purposefully to a large steel cabinet and unlocked this with a key from his pocket. He took out a metal fireproof box which had been tucked far back in the steel locker.

  Peter Reed sat down behind his desk, reached for the box and then hesitated. He got up again, went to the window and started to draw the shade. It was stuck. He yanked impatiently at it because the shade was new and should have worked. Still it wouldn’t so he finally gave up and wondered why he’d ever spent the money for it anyhow. Shades on the windows of an office building of this modern type were not exactly usual.

  He unlocked the steel box. It contained a single long, legal-sized and sealed envelope. He leaned back, holding the envelope up before his eyes. It was inscribed in a woman’s handwriting. The script was that of someone educated many years ago. It was almost Spencerian.

  OPEN ONLY IN THE EVENT OF THE VIOLENT DEATH OF JAMES BURNETT AND IF ANY PERSON IS DIRECTLY ACCUSED OF JAMES BURNETT’S MURDER.

  Peter laid the envelope down. As an attorney, his duties were plain. Mrs. Martha Nast had sent him this envelope almost ten months ago. The instructions were plain. He could not open it yet. Only one part of the conditions had been fulfilled. James Burnett had died violently, but as yet no one had been directly accused of his murder. Until that happened, the envelope must remain sealed.

  Very reluctantly, he put it back in the tin box and reflected that his hunch about it was being fulfilled. He’d deemed the envelope so unusual and perhaps important, that he hadn’t placed it in the office safe to which his employees had access. He’d selected the steel locker in which only his own things were kept and to which only he had a key.

  “But maybe someone has been arrested for his murder,” Reed mused aloud.

  He lifted the phone and called Police Headquarters. He was told that an investigation was being made, but that so far no one had been arrested. So the envelope could not be opened. He put the steel box back in the locker. For a moment he was tempted to phone Martha Nast about it, but decided against that Mrs. Nast had issued strict instructions. She’d expect them to be carried out.

  Peter Reed drifted into a movie later on. He wanted to get rid of the morbid feeling that had taken possession of his brain. The mo
vie, light as it was, didn’t provide the cure. He bought a newspaper and read the article on Burnett’s murder for the first time.

  There wasn’t much, so far. Burnett had been alone at his home. His wife had been out for a short time. When she returned, she found him sprawled on the living-room floor. He had been shot through the back of the head and probably never knew what hit him or who had used the gun. The police stated that they expected to make an arrest soon. A picture of Burnett’s wife was included in the article. She seemed young and very attractive.

  Reed crumpled the newspaper and dropped it into the next refuse can. He went straight home to his apartment and tried to get a good night’s sleep.

  He had only moderate success in that endeavor for he was possessed of an ominous foreboding. As Martha Nast had prophesied that James Burnett would be murdered—and that prophecy came true—probably the rest of her forecast would be true also. Someone was going to be arrested for the murder.

  * * * *

  The morning papers had it. Burnett’s wife had been locked up and formally charged with the murder of her husband. Police stated that she had been seen near the house, acting in a suspicious manner just before the time of the killing. She maintained she had been far from the house at that time.

  Furthermore, the police claimed, Mrs. Burnett was much younger than her husband, very attractive. She admitted she had taken steps to obtain a divorce only a matter of days ago, and the dead man had warned her he’d fight the action bitterly.

  But what really made Reed gasp was the identity of the man with whom Mrs. Burnett said she was in love. It was Tommy Nast! Instantly Reed’s mind began to click. That strange phone call inviting him to the dinner. Tommy could have made it to establish an airtight alibi for the time of the killing. He wasn’t a particularly strong character, inclined toward laziness and probably not above guarding himself while his intended bride-to-be murdered her husband.

  Reed didn’t finish breakfast. He rushed back to the office. For a moment or two he held his breath as he went in. He was quite calm as he took the steel box from the locker, placed it on his desk and used his key again.