Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky

by Johm Howard Reid

  “There are several things I don’t like. In the first place, I didn’t immediately phone for the police. I sat down right here. I was in a state of shock.”

  “That’s neither here nor there. I’m doing you a favor.”

  “What’s more important, you’ve left out everything I told you about the professor buying smuggled Ancient Egyptian relics.”

  “Look here, it’s been a long day. I’m tired. You’re tired. Why complicate things?”

  “Because it has a direct bearing on his death. He owed the smugglers money he couldn’t pay! He thought he would have a certain $8,000 in his hands – and he almost did!”

  “Come off it, Manning. There’s no suggestion of murder. The position of the body indicates that the deceased fell from the balcony right here. Sure, the coroner will order an autopsy, but what with the fall, the rocks, the water and the birds, there’s not much left to work on, so I’ll tell you right now what the verdict will be – accidental death! He was an old man. For some old mannish reason, he leaned too far over the balcony and he fell. End of story.”

  “He was going to disappear – that’s how frightened he was! And he told me that himself. These are big people. Smuggling ancient relics out of Egypt is a highly organized international racket.”

  “If that’s so, where are these relics? They’re not in this house, that’s for sure! We’ve searched it from top to bottom.”

  “I didn’t even bother looking,” I told him. “Ancient relics don’t like this moist, salt air. They’ll simply crumble into dust. They’ve got to be kept warm and dry, so the professor has them stashed away some place else.”

  “And where might that be?”

  “I’m not sure, but I can prove part of what I’m saying. The professor showed me a few Ancient Egyptian pieces he’d purchased just recently. They’re in his office at the university.” Despite my better judgment – and despite all the day’s disturbing events – I couldn’t help a little smile of triumph.

  Michaelson was angry. “Even if what you say is true, a few pieces don’t prove anything. He was a professor, you’ve told us, so naturally he’d have a few pieces of his own. Or maybe they actually belonged to the university?”

  “Not when they’re disguised as cheap metal paperweights, they don’t belong to any university! Pick them up and then go and get them examined by an expert. I’m an expert, but you don’t have to believe me. Get them examined by someone you trust. He’ll tell you they’re worth anything from fifty to two hundred thousand dollars.”

  One of Michaelson’s offsiders let out a whistle, and that sure didn’t make him any happier – in fact it forced him to stick to his guns. “It’s still a waste of time,” he maintained. “Even if everything you say is true. He was an old man. He fell.”

  “Why am I opening up and telling you all this? It’s so much simpler for me if he just fell. But if it was no accident, then I’m making myself a suspect and can look forward to having cops under my feet, day and night.”

  Michaelson didn’t waste any more of his valuable time in persuading me to sign his record of interview. He waved me to the door. “You’ll be hearing from us,” he said. “Don’t leave town without our permission.”

  16

  With Peter Tunning’s $8,000, I could pay off all my debts, and that would still leave me with a nice $2,000 in the clear. If the police wished to believe that Dune-Harrigan’s death was an accident, why should I try to disillusion them? In the meantime, I put that death to advantage by phoning the good news to Peter. To my surprise, he did not seem to be at all impressed. But maybe I’d phoned him at an inconvenient time?

  Come Monday, I was knocking on the door of Boss Kent’s office even before the great man himself arrived at the studio. So I waited for him in the corridor for fully half-an-hour and did Kent thank me? No, sir!

  “God damn it, Manning! I was ringing you all day yesterday. Where in hell were you? And what’s the use of having a mobile if you have it turned off all the time?”

  “Police business,” I answered. “Dune-Harrigan is dead.”

  “Who cares about Dune-Harrigan? I’ve just been talking to our lawyer. He tells me Brunsdon’s still all steamed up about his damned crossbow.”

  “It’s still missing?” I asked – even though I knew full well it was!

  But Kent didn’t rise to the bait. “Claims it’s some cockamamie antique. Planning to sue us for five thousand dollars. God damn it! I want you to find that thing, Manning. Call out the palace guard! Tear the place apart!”

  “A waste of time and manpower,” I suggested. “We won’t find it anywhere on the premises. Some strong-fingered, bulky overcoated member of the audience probably swiped it.”

  “That’s just where you’re wrong, Manning. Just where you’re wrong! Why do I have to do everything here myself? Why doesn’t someone else ask the questions and furnish the answers? Frobisher tells me the thing was still on the stage after the audience left. Just lying there with Brunsdon’s other junk.”

  “That was not my impression,” I countered.

  But Kent ignored me. “Crossbow lying on the stage! You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “One of the technicians took it.”

  “Congratulations!” So saying, Kent entered his office and slammed the door in my face. He didn’t even give me a chance to tell him that Brunsdon’s crossbow would have to wait. I was off to the university to interview Doctor Ainslee Norman, professor of Archaeology.

  Although considerably shocked to hear of Dune-Harrigan’s demise, Doctor Norman took a lot of convincing before she agreed to open up the museum and assist me to turn the place upside down.

  I’d spent half the night puzzling it out and I’d finally hit on the solution. Dune-Harrigan had hidden his contraband in the museum. Where else to hide a tree but in a forest? The place was air-conditioned too. Nothing could be sweeter!

  We recovered the paperweights from Dune-Harrigan’s desk and Doctor Norman confirmed the garish paint disguised a genuine article. The figurines would all have to be cleaned before their true worth could be established, but at a guess she dated them from the late dynastic period and they were thus far less valuable than I thought. As it turned out, this limited success was the only joy I had from the day. Not only was Dune-Harrigan’s desk ransacked, but every display case was prized open, and every shelf and plinth thoroughly searched. Despite our earlier success with the paperweights, we turned up nothing but the dusty, documented, long-time museum junk.

  What was worse, if Dune-Harrigan had another address, he’d kept it secret from the uni. He’d lived at the Palm Beach place for the past twelve years or so, except for a short period when he had the old house torn down and the new monstrosity erected in its stead.

  At least Doctor Norman was quick to agree with me that salt air would irreparably damage any collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts. Nevertheless, although Doctor Norman had heard tell of Dune-Harrigan’s collection and some of its wonders – even from the great man himself – she inclined to the view that the whole thing was purely legendary and that Dune-Harrigan was merely using this fiction to big-note himself in the Anthropology league.

  “Extremely dry conditions would de rigueur here, Mr. Manning. That rules out bank vaults, safety deposit boxes of all sizes, warehouses and general storage units. Even our own museum here is far from ideal, Mr. Manning. In fact, part of our collection has already deteriorated. No government wants to spend money preserving the past. Millions for weapons research and rockets to Armageddon, but not a cent for the Book of the Dead or the crumbling glories of Amenhotep.”

  I didn’t argue with her. I knew! Thirty years ago, I had seen with my own eyes what Dune-Harrigan was smuggling out of Egypt: spoons and steles, armbands and pendants, figurines and ushebtis, jewel boxes and perfume jars – anything small and reasonably portable. Of course, he could have sold the pieces, but that wasn’t Dune-Harrigan’s way at all. He was a collector. How he’d frozen with f
ear just the other day when I’d threatened to smash his paperweight Anubis!

  But where was this hoard of a lifetime? It didn’t exist claimed Doctor Norman. But I knew better. It wasn’t at the professor’s house-on-the-cliff. It wasn’t at the museum. Dune-Harrigan had no close friends when I knew him and there was nothing to suggest he’d made any in the meantime. All his students hated him and his colleagues utterly despised him. And I never saw Dune-Harrigan with a woman – or a man either for that matter. In fact, he went out of his way to make enemies rather than friends – and somehow he’d over-reached himself. In any event, he didn’t trust anyone, and there was no way he would separate himself from his collection of Ancient Egyptian artifacts. They had to be easily accessible. But where in hell were they?

  Doctor Norman induced the registrar to show me Dune-Harrigan’s personnel file. This gave me only one item I didn’t already know, namely the name of his lawyer. I phoned the legal eagle right then and there, and after a great deal of humming and hawing – and the personal intervention of Doctor Norman – I persuaded him to send a copy of Dune-Harrigan’s will to Sergeant Michaelson.

  The university still coveted Dune-Harrigan’s figurines. I told Doctor Norman there was no way in the world that anyone could or would dispute the university’s ownership.

  After this little triumph, it was a cinch to get myself appointed as an unpaid yet substantive official of the university’s Archaeological Department.

  Thus the day was fritted away and it was less than ninety minutes to tape time before I finally checked back in at Kenovarnie’s. I expected to hear that Boss Kent had been screaming for me the whole day long, but it was producer Monty Fairmont who grabbed me by the arm as soon as he caught sight of me and demanded to know where I’d been all day.

  “What’s the problem?” I asked, dodging the question.

  “Sedge is the problem. He won’t go on.”

  “I warned Mr. Kent to expect more poison pen notes today. Didn’t he tell you?”

  “He told us, but that didn’t help. Sedge won’t go on!”

  “I’ll tell him myself. Where is he?”

  “In his dressing-room. Where else?”

  Monty and I were already marching down the corridor. Sedge’s door was open. The floor manager Brian “Bingo” Frobisher, the director “Ace” Jellis, and Miss Spookie Williams were already inside. Even as Monty and I squeezed ourselves in, we could heard Sedge exclaiming, “Not going on! I’m definitely, positively not going on!” He was obviously determined to be theatrical about it, even though he was actually fully dressed and made up for his role.

  “Do something, Merryll, say something!” yelled Monty, appealing to me.

  Sedge laughed.

  I held my hand in front of his face. “All threats are off!” I claimed, “Dune-Harrigan is dead. What’s more, I’ll station one of my men at each corner of the set. Men that I know and trust. And the set itself will be cleared. I’m not even going to allow our director on the set, only our absolutely essential personnel: Myself, Miss Williams and ‘Bingo’ Frobisher, two cameramen, the sound man, a security guard disguised as a cameraman, a make-up repair girl, the set dresser, an electrician, one of the assistant directors, plus the autocue operator and his assistant. Nobody else gets anywhere near the set to push over any towers or cause any mischief at all. Nobody! I guarantee it.”

  “The set’s as secure as Folsom Prison!” Monty added.

  “Tight as a drum,” agreed “Bingo” Frobisher.

  “And what about when I’m right in front of the crowd, egging them on? Who’s going to stop one of them having a crack at me? I’m just two feet away.”

  “You’ve done it for years,” I argued. “You’re safe as houses. Dune-Harrigan wrote the notes, and he’s dead.”

  “How does Manning know it’s him?” Monty asked Jellis in a stage whisper we could all hear plain as a cannon. “Didn’t we all get the same crazy notes? What was his game?”

  “He was just a mad, old, self-centered bastard who loved to make enemies,” I told them. “He hated everyone and everything – except Ancient Egypt. But now he’s dead. Dead, dead, dead!”

  “That’s right,” Monty agreed. “Dead right!”

  “What have you and ‘Ace’ got to worry about?” Sedge asked. “You’re both nice and safe, locked up in the booth,” he added. “And Peter’s nice and safe too. It’s just me and Manning out in the open.”

  “With the support of my four trusted security men,” I noted. “But nothing’s going to happen tonight. Dune-Harrigan is dead. I saw the body myself.” (What was left of it – and from a distance – but I wasn’t about to make these facts public).

  “Dune-Harrigan? Is that all you can think of? He’s not the only threat in the world!”

  “He told me himself he sent the notes,” I lied. “And I saw his body. He fell off a cliff.” At least that line was true.

  “And the tower?” Sedge asked. “Who pushed it over?”

  “You all saw Dune-Harrigan. He was built like a wrestler. Of course he pushed the tower.”

  “Why?”

  “His idea of a joke or revenge.”

  “How did he get in?” someone asked.

  “How do I know? Maybe he offered someone real cash for their free ticket.”

  “Not a rejected contestant after all,” complained Spookie Williams. “After all that work!”

  “I’d definitely call him a dejected contestant,” I added.

  But Sedge wasn’t buying. “I’m far from convinced. In fact, I’m not convinced at all. I think you’re all barking up the wrong tree. I, for one, would have noticed Dune-Harrigan in the audience. I do the warm-up, remember?”

  “Never mind all that! What’s past is past!” complained producer, Monty Fairmont. “Will you go on tonight, Sedge? You can see how Manning will protect you!”

  “On the set, maybe! But what about when I’m lecturing the mums and dads, the tourists and passers-by? Not going to do it! No way! I aim to stick my neck out just so far.”

  Blank looks all around.

  “I’ll do the show, but I won’t do the warm-up,” Sedge explained.

  Monty relaxed. “Great! I knew you wouldn’t let us down. ‘Bingo’ will do it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding, Monty! How in hell can I do the warm-up with at least a hundred things to see to on the floor.”

  “Ace will do it, won’t you, Ace?”

  But for once his off-screen companion was none too agreeable. “Monty! That’s just so impossible. I’ve got to be in the booth for the demo.”

  “It looks like you’re elected, Trev!”

  “Don’t be bloody stupid! While I’m lining up the cameras and autocue? Checking mikes and buzzers?”

  All eyes focused on me. “The gods must be crazy! I’m still supposed to be a contestant. Suppose one of the keen and cozy fans at home recognizes me?”

  Trev shook his head. “No chance of that! Two weeks is a Jurassic lifetime in television.”

  “What about repeats?” I urged.

  “We can take care of that,” smiled Sedge. “Can’t we, Monty?”

  “Come along to wardrobe,” urged producer Monty, taking my arm. “We’ll soon fit you out.”

  “Even your old lady won’t recognize you,” agreed Ace Jellis.

  Haven’t got an old lady! “How the hell can I do the warm-up? Haven’t a clue what to say.”

  “We’ll soon take care of that,” urged Monty.

  “You wanted to see the crowd up close?” Sedge gloated. “Now you’ll really see it up close. Real close!”

  17

  “You look beautiful,” smiled Spookie Williams.

  “I look like a proper fool. And that’s what I feel like too!” Me and my black wig, and red, handlebar mustache, plus the ridiculously over-sized checkered coat – standard wear for third-rate, stand-up comics in the dying days of vaudeville.

  “Do you remember what I told you?” Spookie continued.


  “How can I remember a blessed thing, when you’re standing so close to me?” I stretched out my arms and grabbed her around the waist. Pleasingly, she made no effort to dislodge me. On the other hand, she didn’t warm up either. I decided to move my hands a little lower. Still no response.

  “Finished?” she finally asked.

  “I could cuddle you all day – and all night! Time has no meaning when I’m with you.”

  “I’ve heard that line before. Don’t you boys ever try something new?”

  “I’d stand on my head if that would please you.”

  “It will please me if you can force yourself to remember half of what I told you. If the ratings go down and the station cancels, we’re all of us out of a job.”

  I didn’t have the heart to reveal that sponsor, Peter Tunning, was itching to dice the program anyway. Instead I murmured: “Whatever happens, I’ll look after you. I love you!”

  No response.

  “I mean it! I really mean it!”

  “You and ninety-nine other guys. I’ve heard that line before. And where did it get me?”

  “A job here at Kenovarnie’s?”

  She smiled. She actually smiled! I pulled her towards me as close as possible, kissed her lips and held her tight. But instead of words of love, she whispered: “Just remember what I told you. Don’t look at the faces. Focus on the wall just above their heads and you’ll be all right.” She winked. “An old sergeant-major should be used to parades.”