“So even young Mr. Holden thinks Sedge is guilty?”
“He didn’t exactly say that! What he is saying is that even if Sedge is guilty, it doesn’t matter. On the set, they don’t give a hang that he killed a gorgeous girl we all knew and liked – just so long as he does his job with reasonable efficiency. That’s show business!”
“Maybe so, but as I told you before, I’m an old-fashioned policeman. I like to think there’s always another factor at work.”
I hate playing straight man, but I knew Borne wouldn’t proceed without his cue: “Such as?”
“You narrowed the list of suspects down to seven. I believe there are ten. When one of the ten is arrested, it relieves the pressure on the other nine.”
“Are you trying to hint that Sedge isn’t guilty after all?”
Borne’s answer was surprisingly frank: “I am.”
“Who then? I thought you’d cleared Boss Kent, Monty Fairmont, Ace Jellis, Oscar Varnie, Bingo Frobisher, Peter Tunning and Trevor Holden?”
“Aren’t you forgetting an important someone?”
“Sure, a man could have had an accomplice do the actual deed, but that still makes him responsible.”
“I’m not talking about accomplices.”
“And I’m not counting me either. I was on the set the whole time, remember?”
“We have only your word for that!”
“I was seen by at least a dozen people all the time!” I protested.
“No-one was watching you. Your guards were watching everyone else, but not you. Do you know how long it takes to walk from the set to your dressing-room?”
“Anything from six or seven minutes to two or three. Depends on where you start out. I bet you didn’t know that! Police investigators are notoriously sloppy. That’s why even a half-seasoned attorney can get so many confessed killers released from custody!”
“Now with Mr. Cornbeck, we know he was on the set for the whole time.”
“You know nothing of the sort. There’s often a break caused by technical or other problems. That’s why it takes three or four hours to tape a forty-minute TV quiz show. And even if he did stay on the set for the whole time – which is highly unlikely –what does that prove? He could have killed the girl before or after!”
“We thought so too. At first. But now we’re ready to admit we may have thought wrong.”
“That’s a pleasant surprise! A policeman actually admitting to wrong thinking?”
“Now we’re looking in other directions.”
“You’ve got a hell of a lot of lost time to make up. I’ve been looking in other directions from day one. I was very fond of Spookie. In fact I had great plans for her. If you don’t believe me, ask Peter Tunning.”
Even a seasoned professional like Inspector Borne could not disguise his surprise.
“So, besides me, who else are you including in your needs-further-investigation portfolio? Mr. Kent, I suppose. Now there’s a man who likes the ladies. Your theory no doubt is that Spookie repulsed him and that he killed her in revenge. No soap! I’ve already gone down that there trail. Kent likes ladies who are, shall we say, more fulsome.”
“We’ve already uncovered that fact!”
“Congratulations! Have you made any progress with Fairmont, Jellis, Tunning and Frobisher? What about old Oscar Varnie and young Trevor Holden? And let’s not forget all the women who help behind the scenes. And the office and security personnel? Have you questioned the gatemen thoroughly?”
“We’ve investigated the whole damn lot of you. The only one of you who has a really tight alibi is young Trevor Holden. He is placed on the set by at least four witnesses who swear he never left his post. But you were seen to be wandering around all over the place. On the other hand, Tunning, Jellis and Fairmont all alibi each other. They were in the control booth the whole time. So eliminating the cameramen and people like Frobisher who never left their posts, that leaves only Kent and you. Kent we’ve already eliminated, so that leaves…”
“For God’s sake, I was the one who narrowed the list down for you in Game One!” I shouted.
Borne was unmoved. Even his eyes didn’t blink. He held up a folder that had been lying on his desk. A familiar manila folder. I recognized it straightaway.
“We had some trouble getting this from the army, but in a murder investigation even personnel files are not untouchable. You know what’s in here, don’t you?”
“Captain Murray compiled that ridiculous report through purely personal animosity.”
“So you say. But Captain Murray is no longer with us. Also dead is Major Ellis who laid all these charges against you. In fact, you were due to be court-martialed when by a lucky chance, you dashed forward, picked up a live grenade dropped by a careless cadet and threw it into the brush and thus saved a whole platoon.”
“My ears still hurt. In fact, they stop functioning altogether if I find myself hemmed in by some desperate situation.”
Borne sighed. A sigh of condolence or irritation? Who knows? “The charge was dropped,” he continued, “and instead you were invalided out of the army as a hero. You went to Miami and made use of your hero status to join the police force. Now, you know me and I’m well aware how these things work. The army looks after its own.”
“Just like the police force,” I hit back.
“Exactly. Your record is full of charges. Insubordination. Striking an officcr. Conduct prejudicial. Suspected theft. Wrongful arrest. AWOL. Failure to report breeches of security. What a sorry record for a military policeman!”
“And why wasn’t I busted to the ranks? Or chucked in the stockade? Because they couldn’t make a single one of those ridiculous charges stick. Not a half-baked one of them!”
Inspector Borne smiled grimly. “They?”
I knew what he was getting at, but I gave him the answer he wanted anyway: “Murray and Ellis and all their kin.”
“Call me old-fashioned, but no smoke without fire is what I believe – no matter how many times you were lucky or clever, or up against just plain inefficiency. I have here an army psychologist’s report.”
“A quack.”
Borne closed the file. “You may be right,” he sighed. “But there are too many coincidences here for my liking. I give you fair warning: I now regard you as a suspect. Our era of co-operation is now at an end. Please remember, however, that you are still obliged to hand over to me any material you discover relevant to my inquiries.”
“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” I quipped bitterly. “But come to think of it, I probably won’t notice any difference. You were never top-level frank with me, so I give you fair notice: I intend to bust this case wide open and hand myself all the glory. And if that puts you in Dutch with the D.A., you’ll have no-one to blame but yourself.”
35
Although I didn’t know it at the time, my participation in the semi-final was my last as an 80 Questions contestant. My team won all right and I was scheduled to make a fool of myself in the Final, but that appearance was called off by an incident even more terrifying than any of the bizarre events that had gone before.
As he had intimated, Inspector Borne and his comrades slackened their hold on Sedge. Why they now had reason to doubt his guilt, or what other suspect had moved more firmly into their sights, I wasn’t told. In fact, Borne kept his word. I saw very little of him or his police. On the other hand, I saw a great deal of Sedge. Confiding that he was about to get out of the business, the quizmaster offered to teach me his trade.
Actually, Sedge was a near-neighbor. Installed in an aggressively ritzy penthouse with luxuriously picturesque views of the scimitar-curving sands of the beach, he was less than a fifteen minute’s drive from Dune-Harrigan’s cliff-top Ittfadal. Legally, of course, I wasn’t supposed to move into Ittfadal until Dune-Harrigan’s will had been probated, but who was going to stop me?
Away from the probing cameras, Sedge was a different man entirely. Of course, I knew about the highly-strun
g bit. All that assurance, all those unflappable smiles he exuded in front of an audience, were a joke. Some nights, it had been a major, concerted effort to get him onto the set. But once there, once the red light flashed and the autocue lit up, and as soon as he received the signal to smile, he had become Sedge Cornbeck of the easy charm, the casual but confident schoolmaster of the nation’s living rooms, with all the arcane knowledge of the world at his fluttering fingertips. It was a role he had played for twenty years. Now he was tired of its limitations. Success had staled, recognition meant nothing, and money was less than dust. He’d made his pile. Now he was going to enjoy it!
But first, he would content himself with my discipleship and the company of John Barleycorn.
“Only one thing you have to remember,” he advised me. “You’re the star. The contestants are your props. They’re there to make you look good.
“Yours is the face that will launch a thousand ads – everything from toothpaste to underpants, Gucci umbrellas to toe tweezers. You’re a salesman, but remember you’re selling a commodity that’s no different than the opposition’s. In fact it’s probably much less useful and far more expensive; but fortunately it’s not the uniqueness of the product or the quality that counts, it’s simply how you sell it!”
Although Sedge was still supposed to be reporting to the police regularly, I never saw him do so. One night, when we were entering the final countdown – just two shows to go (the second semi-final tomorrow night and the final the week after), he was obviously in a receptive mood, so I asked him straight out, “How come you’re now a trusty?”
“You never colorfully believed there was anything between Spookie and me, did you, Merry?”
“An absurd notion,” I agreed, “but you know what the police are like – no stone unturned, no matter how ridiculous or unpromising.”
“Not only unturned, but turned again. And turned again. And turned again.”
“So you finally convinced Borne there was no romance?”
“More importantly, I finally convinced him I didn’t send the threatening 2x3 cards.”
“I thought that was all tidied up at the court? The case against you was dismissed! Laughed out of court!”
“But that didn’t satisfy Borne. In fact, it made him mad as hell, and even more keen to prove that he was right and the judge dead wrong.”
“So how did you finally dissuade Borne from his ridiculous crusade against you?”
“I had a witness. Tunning! He was there visiting me at the bloody hospital that afternoon while I was writing the letters. But you know what Peter’s like? Half dead, half asleep, and stingy to the nth degree. And wouldn’t put himself out if you were begging for help – unless of course, it suited him! Anyway, he left before I finished the damn letters. I’d intended that he take the letters to the studio with him and deliver them personally. So Peter’s defection forced me back to my original plan and I got the nurse to post them for me!”
“Well, whatever happened to your letters? We never got them!”
“I’m coming to that. It turns out that Peter hadn’t actually gone back to his office but was waiting outside the room. He follows the nurse downstairs, waits until she puts the stamps on the letters and then offers to deliver them personally.”
“Why didn’t he make the offer before she put on the stamps?”
“You know what Peter’s like: How slow his damn brain works! Typical Peter! He has to think over everything ten or twenty times and then divide the answer by four or five.”
“So what happened to your letters?”
“Typical Peter! He damn well forgets to deliver them! So then I told him to take them into Borne, and tell bloody Borne exactly what happened. Well, to give bloody Peter his due, he does try to make amends. He takes the letters into Borne, and tells bloody Borne the whole story, and of course it knocks blind-as-a-bat Borne’s case against me from here to hell. End of story. I should sue the pants off the stupid bastard, but I’m not going to. We now have a sort of private, non-stated agreement that we will each stay out of each other’s way. In fact, we each pretend the other doesn’t even exist! So you ask me why I don’t report to the police as per the terms of our agreement, I answer: What report? What police? What terms? What agreement?”
“So Borne’s let you right off the hook?”
“Knocked his case to colorcornia. Keep it to yourself, old mate. You’ll be reading some more in the papers soon. Lift our show into the stratosphere. I’ll be right up there in the You-Name-It Book of Records. The highest rating of any TV show in the world. Just let any bastard try to break it or come anywhere near it. He’ll have to commit bloody murder first!”
To hide his faux pas, I said quickly: “So you’ll go out in a blaze of glory? They won’t forget Sedge Cornbeck in a quantum leap. No famous nonentity of yesteryear for old Sedge.”
Was I pouring it on a bit too thick? Sedge turned his back and poured himself another jigger of rum. “Too right.”
“So what’s Borne doing now? Back to square one?”
“Borne’s all right. He’s hooked on motive. ‘Show me the motive and I’ll show you your criminal.’ You know how he is. You were well in the running there for a while. Right at the top of the colorful list, matter of fact.”
“Me?”
“Well, look at you! Motives from non-hairy head to flavorsome foot! What were you two months ago? A nothing! A less than nothing. Minus nought!”
“And what changed our great Sherlock’s mind?”
“Monty says he even heard you having a whacking great argument with Spookie. I’m telling you straight: You were number one!”
“I never argued with anyone in my bloody life!”
Sedge put his finger to his lips. “Monty says different.”
I was shocked. I honestly thought the producer liked me. He’d asked me to compère his show, and even thanked me! “Why would he do that?” I asked.
Sedge raised his hand in a dismissive sweep. “You don’t know the slimy snake, Merry. I’ve been with Monty thirteen years, and let me tell you: With that puff-adder, it’s Monty first, Monty last, and Monty always.”
“Which makes him no different from anyone else!”
Sedge swayed on his stool. “Merry, you’re an innocent in a cruel, shitty world. You want to know what I thought happened to Spookie? Slimy Monty! Only, I don’t think that now.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Who changed my mind? Ace! Ace Jellis. He says Monty’s shacked up with a new little piece of talent from one of the soapies. Got her little heart set on playing the lead in Death’s Ten Thousand.”
“Her little heart? I thought Monty and Ace were a number.”
“Were is correct. Monty is bi! But this time, he’s thrown over Ace completely – no doubt at the urging of his new little friend. Ace is fuming. He and Monty aren’t even talking to each other. Hadn’t you noticed?”
“Not particularly. I’ve still got Inspector Borne breathing down my neck. Can’t get rid of the bastard. Now he’s trying to tie me in with Spookie. Blabbermouth Peter told him we were a number.”
“And were you?”
“I was trying hard, but I didn’t get much further than my arm around her waist.”
“I’m surprised you even got that far. She obviously liked you.”
“She did.”
“So that’s the pattern? But take my tip: A man is best off living by himself. Look at the pack of trouble Monty’s caught himself up in. His little friend has got him fair and square in her clutches. And Ace Jellis is jealous as hell. He even turned down Monty’s request that he help him with Death’s Ten Thousand.”
“What the hell is this Death’s Ten Thousand?”
“Merry, Merry, like I keep saying, you’re a Jurassic innocent. It’s only the greatest Monty Fairmont Production to hit the air waves. Next year. Budgeted at fifty grand an episode. Think of it – fifty grand!”
“About half what they used to spend on
an old Gene Autry movie,” I muttered.
All the same, I was furious with mealy-mouthed Monty. He’d carried tales to Inspector Borne: Lies! And he’d never mentioned a bar of his big plans for next year. I’d compèred his cheesy quiz for him – and done it proud – when nobody else would give it a shot. And all the thanks I’d got was a pat on the back.
But Sedge was no longer with me. He was staring into the mirror as if seeing himself for the first time. Oh, mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the fairest face of all?
I had to break the spell. “If it’s not Monty, how do you know it’s not me?”
“While I waited in the corridor, you were already on the set, You stayed there until the end of the show. If I didn’t do it, you didn’t either.”
“So who is Borne’s number one suspect now?”
“Couldn’t be Monty or Trev or Al or Peter or Bingo or Ace or Oscar. They were all on the set too. So there’s just one left: Mr. Arthur Colorful Kent!”
“Borne told me Kent had been thoroughly checked out!”
“That’s just one more reason for putting Boss Kent in the catbird seat. Who else could it be? Why do you think I kicked up all that fuss about the dressing-room? Am I frightened of ghosts? Not on your life! I wanted an ‘in’ to his royal office.”
“Find anything?”
“Letters. Our high and mighty Mr. Kent has a little friend on the side.”
“Anyone we know?”
“Never heard of her. But Borne and his boys are checking her out all the same. Maybe she has a tie-in with one of the contestants? Eighty thousand bucks up for grabs!”
Merryll Manning Is Dead Lucky Page 17