Death on the Double

by Kane, Henry

  Oh doctor!

  I wanted more but she said “Please not now, Peter” and we went back to the others.

  Time telescoped. Whiskey ran like a broken dam. Inhibitions melted like snow under sun. And people began to change partners. All except Blattner and Rollins, and Hill and Chambers. Rollins clung to Blattner and Chambers clung to Hill. The lights were very dim, the music was low and seductive, and there was much wriggling and giggling from the couches—when the police showed up.

  Ernest Falkner and two uniformed cops.

  The cops took up stations at the door and Falkner pointed a finger at me.

  “You,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  I took him to the dining room, sat him down, served him a drink, and told him a story—about nine hundred thousand bucks. When I was finished, he said: “Man, you’re nuts.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  He laughed, despite himself. “Knocking off a bank vault,” he said. “That’s one for the books.”

  “Somebody’s going to thank me.”

  “Or somebody’s going to put you in jail.” “Look, that was Hart’s dough. Certainly Miss Jessica Rollins doesn’t own nine hundred thousand dollars. No question Hart pulled it out of his vault, had her take a vault, and put the boodle there until the action blows over. Wait a minute!”

  “What now?”

  “That’s motive, boy.”

  “Motive?”

  “For Hart’s death.”

  “Yeah motive,” he said sadly. “But the guy was drowned. Drowned! How in all hell do we ever get over that?”

  “Is that certain? That he was drowned?”

  “Certain—unless the Medical Examiner needs a medical examination himself.”

  “Hold it, will you?” I bit a fingernail, spat it out, rubbed my hands together. “That little dame, that Jessica Rollins, she wouldn’t be smart enough, she just wouldn’t have the know-how. But she’s crazy about that guy, that Blattner, and he looks like he knows a thing or two …”

  1 started searching through my pockets.

  “What are you doing?” Falkner said.

  “That report. The report you gave me. That fingerprint thing.” I found it, still sealed within the envelope. “This thing is on friend Blattner. Let me grab a gander. Keep your fingers crossed, Sergeant.”

  I broke it out of the envelope and I looked at it. It was a long report, a full dossier on Mr. Timothy Blattner, and it showed that perhaps he was smart enough and perhaps he had the know-how, but most certainly, he was the type. He was born in Topeka, ran away from home, and joined a circus. He was a first class sword-swallower, glass-chewer, eater of nails, tacks and the usual startling array of foreign substances. He played the small wheels for ten years, and then he broke out of the circus for the more remunerative racket of narcotics traffic. That earned him his first jail sentence: one year at the state prison in Joliet. When he got out, he moved to the West Coast. There he was twice arrested for carrying a gun, without conviction; once arrested on an attempt-at-murder charge, without conviction; and once arrested for extortion, convicted, and did a two-year bit. Then he turned up in San Francisco. There he opened an office as an investment counselor, dabbled in imports and exports, dealt in objects of art, and finally was arrested as a confidence man in a swindle racket. Convicted, and served one year. There ended the saga of Timothy Blattner, true name Thomas Braun, other known aliases Tim Brown, Truman Browning, Thomas Burns and Timothy Bolan—all of which I read aloud to the blinking-eyed Ernest Falkner.

  “Uncross your fingers,” I said. “I smell a pigeon.”

  “Quite a guy,” Falkner said musingly. “No connection between him and Hart, except proximity. Yet …”

  “It’s worth a try. Let’s give it a whirl. You go get him, eh, Sergeant? He’s out in the living room. Bring him in here.” And as Falkner went for him, a real idea hit me.

  Then the Persian prince came swaggering in, Falkner behind him. The prince had the jacket of his costume off, exposing a broad hairy chest and muscular arms.

  “Mr. Blattner,” I said, “I won’t waste time.”

  “Won’t waste time about what?” he said.

  “About why the police are here.”

  “Tell you the truth,” he said. “I’m not interested.”

  “They’re here on a tip,” I said.

  “So?”

  “The tip involves you.”

  “Me?”

  “That’s right, Mr. Blattner. Seems you’re being accused of the murder of Robby Tamville plus you’re being accused of the theft of a rather valuable ring.”

  Falkner looked baffled. He hid it by rubbing a hand across his face.

  Blattner heaved a deep sigh, his massive chest rising.

  “Who’s accusing me?” he said.

  “At the moment, Mr. Blattner—I am.”

  “You? Why, you …” He started coming at me.

  “You willing to listen?” I said.

  He stopped. “Yeah. I’m willing to listen. You’ve got something crazy on your mind. Okay. Get it off your mind.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Blattner,” I said. “First off, let’s start where you and George Benson were competing for the purchase of a ring from Mr. Tamville. Any contest on that?”

  “None,” he said.

  “Agreed on that?” I said.

  “Agreed.”

  “I believe,” I said, “that will be our last area of agreement, Mr. Blattner.” I smiled at him, most politely.

  “Talk,” he said. “We’ll see.”

  “Good enough, Mr. Blattner.” I began to pace, speaking without looking at him. “I say that early this evening, you went to Mr. Benson’s place. I say you rang his bell, ducked back against a wall, and when he put his head out for a look, you slugged him.”

  Ernest Falkner was quick on the pick-up, even though he had no idea in which direction we were going. “You clipped his clown costume,” he said, “and you clipped his gun, and then you left him there, securely bound and gagged.”

  “All right,” I said. I addressed myself to Falkner. “Then, at Tamville’s place, he deposited Benson’s stuff somewhere upstairs, hid it out. Then, when the knight requested the Persian prince to visit with Tamville—he had Benson’s gun with him. Benson’s gun, with a silencer stuck over the barrel. Inside, Tamville showed him the ring, they began a discussion, and then he used the gun—one bullet through Tamville’s face. Then he came out of there, went upstairs, put Benson’s clown costume over his own, went back to Tamville’s room—supposedly as Benson—got to the French doors, took the silencer off, fired three shots into the garden, threw the gun on the floor, and ran. He got rid of the silencer, got rid of the clown costume, doubled back into the house, and, in all the excitement, he was one of the guests again—the old Persian prince. How’m I doing, Mr. Blattner?”

  “You stink.”

  “Why, pray?”

  “Because you forgot about that everybody was frisked.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning if I killed the guy, I killed him for that ring. And if I stole that ring—pulling the deal you said I pulled—they’d have found it on me when they frisked me. You know what they found? Nothing, that’s what they found. I didn’t have it then, and I don’t have it now.”

  “Oh yes you have, Mr. Blattner. As I shall demonstrate …”

  I clipped him.

  That was the first step in the demonstration.

  I clipped him good, hard, sound and solid. I caught him on the point of the jaw and he went down like he’d been hit by a falling piano. I stood over him for a moment but he was out colder than last year’s ox in this year’s deep freeze. I bent to him, put my hands under his arms and dragged him by the heels toward Patricia’s office. I called to Falkner: “Get the devil, kid. Get her quick. And don’t let Miss Rollins leave. Keep your boys on her.”

  In the office, I pulled him up behind the fluroscope machine, held him while H
ill and Falkner entered, said, breathing hard, “Get that do-jigger going, doctor. This fella needs an examination.”

  Then there was scuffling about, things lit up, and then Falkner’s voice came exultantly, “Great, Peter! Just great! I see it, clear as day.”

  “Where?” I grunted.

  “I see it through this fluroscope thing. Clear as day. Inside him. Stomach, someplace. The ring with the damned stone in it. Clear as goddamn day. Come out and take a look.”

  “And who the hell will hold him up?”

  “Me,” Falkner said.

  We changed places and there it was, a wonderful outline through the infernal machine, a ring and a stone in brilliant silhouette through the fluroscope.

  “Sure,” I mumbled. “Thomas Braun, otherwise known as Timothy Blattner, who can swallow nails and tacks and stuff, good enough to do the circus wheel for ten years. Sure,” I said. “What a hideaway, eh, Sergeant? Go frisk a guy, when he’s got the loot in his stomach.”

  Falkner pulled him out and put the manacles on him and Dr. Patricia Hill used her professional artifices to bring him to.

  “What’s it all about?” she whispered to me.

  “Tell you later,” I whispered back at her.

  “The guy’s awake,” Falkner said.

  Blattner sat up, shook a groggy head, but Blattner, groggy head or no, was smart enough to know when he was licked.

  “The thing’s in your belly,” Falkner told him.

  “Okay, okay,” Blattner said. He got to his feet, came to me, touched his manacled hands to my chest. “You said the police come here on a tip?”

  “That’s what I said, Mr. Blattner.”

  “Can I know where they got this tip?”

  “Guess,” I said.

  “I don’t want to guess. I want to know.”

  “A lady,” I said. “Now guess.”

  Sharply he said, “I don’t want to guess, fella.”

  “A lady,” I said, “who was slightly averse to sharing nine hundred thousand cash bucks with a guy she figured was expendable.”

  He looked like he was going to faint. “But how … how … how the hell do you know about …?”

  As long as I was lying, I made it good.

  “The tip was given up there,” I said, “in Tamville’s place. After the shooting and the robbery. The tip was given by the Lady Eve, on condition that the cops would never mention who did the stooling.”

  “You’re mentioning it right now, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not cops. You want me to go on?”

  “Yeah, yeah, please.”

  “But cops are cops,” I said, “and they were very curious as why a lady should peach on her boy friend. She had told them that she had done a private checkup on you, that your real name was Thomas Braun, that you’d done a couple of jail raps, and that you used to be a professional swallower-of-things in the circus. That put you front and center as a suspect—but the cops figured on letting you run your string for a while.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “Because they were curious as to why the lady was singing. They had a Court order on that bank vault of hers—that was routine on the Hart investigation. So now they used that Court order in a hurry and they came up with nine hundred thousand cash bucks. They figured that you and she were close enough to that nine hundred thousand to kind of have made plans for it—and now they understood why she had tipped on you. With you convicted of Tamville’s murder—the little lady figured to wind up with the entire pot of gold.”

  His jaw muscles worked like he was eating his teeth. “The bitch of a bitch,” he grated, “Maybe I’m going—but that little bastard is going with me.”

  “You mean she’s a party to Tamville’s murder?” I said innocently. “Not Tamville. Hart. She killed him. Do you know that? Do you know that?”

  “Sure we know that.” I smiled at him with all the insouciance I could muster.

  “But how do you know?”

  “That’s cop business not my business,” I said. “They’re holding her on that right this minute. But I’ll tell you something that’ll kill you, really kill you. Even on the Hart deal—she hooked you in.”

  “Did, huh?”

  “She says it was your idea. Blew the story out there, while you were unconscious in here.”

  “My idea, huh?” His manacled hands reached out. “Somebody give me a cigarette.” I gave him a cigarette and lit it for him. He smoked for a few moments, dragging one hand after the other, as he used the cigarette. “Okay,” he said, “so I got my ass caught in the swing. Okay. But that little rat is going to sit in the same chair as me. Maybe I get it on Tamville, but she’ll get it on Hart, and it’ll be my personal pleasure to testify on that.”

  “Would you explain to the Sergeant just how that worked.”

  “How what worked?”

  “The Hart deal. They’ve got her version—where she piles it all on you. I’d like the Sergeant to get the straight story. It might even help you a little bit with the D.A. on your own matter.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said. “Take this thing away from me.” I took his cigarette and chopped it out in an ashtray. “It started with Hart and the revenue boys,” he said. “He had mine hundred thousand stashed away in his vault in cash. Once the Feds began to make inquiries, once they started his audit, he knew they’d lock up his box sooner or later. So, early, he took the stuff out. He was crazy about her, trusted her like she was his mother. So he had her take out a box in her name, and he put the stuff in there.”

  “If she had it,” Falkner said. “If she had it all, in cash, why did she have to kill him to take it?”

  “Exactly what she said—and what I talked her out of.”

  “Why?” Falkner said.

  “Because you can’t steal like that from a guy while he’s alive. If we lammed with that dough, Hart would get after her. Hart was no dope. Even if he had to give the information to the Federal people and turn himself in—a guy gets desperate when he gets played for a sucker. No. We could have it, we could have it all, and we could have it clean, if Hart was dead. And with his ticker—it could happen, anytime.” He cackled suddenly, something like laughter. “She even tried to love him to death, in that king-sized bed he bought her.”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  “But if you had that going for you,” Falkner said. “Why did you pull the Tamville thing?”

  “Because it was ripe and ready to be taken. We’d have to sit on that Hart dough for a while—she couldn’t just get up and blow after he died. And I could turn the other thing into cash the minute I was clear on it.”

  “Let’s stay with Hart,” I said. “Suppose the heart attack didn’t happen until he pulled back his dough?” “I made it happen. And we’d have gotten away with it, believe you me, if that little chick—like all the rest of them—didn’t try to go for the whole pot.”

  “Not true,” I said. “The cops knew it was murder not a heart attack. Autopsy showed that.”

  “Autopsy?” He looked bewildered. “Why an autopsy? Why an autopsy on a guy who died of a heart attack?”

  “Cops have mysterious reasons of their own.” I flicked a glance of small triumph at Falkner, and returned to Blattner. “Okay,” I said, “let’s get it over with.”

  “Anyway, I thought my idea was a pip,” he said, “and I still think so.”

  “Let’s hear,” I said.

  “The guy was always getting these small attacks in the office, and that Doctor Waterman was coming in and treating him and telling him to go home and he never went home, he always stayed. I told her the next one, the next one of those attacks, we’d pull it, right then we’d pull it, and it would be clean as a death because of a heart attack.”

  “Pull what?” Falkner said.

  “Like this. He’s had one of his attacks. The Doc has come and gone. Now she goes into his office. She’s alone with him. She clips him over the head with a book or something.”

  “Explains the b
ump on his head,” I said to Falkner.

  Blattner was talking and Blattner was loving it. It’s psychological: I have never seen it to fail. Once they start singing, they seem to enjoy it—it pours out of them. “Okay,” he said. “First she clips him. Now he’s out. Then she pours some of that club soda from his refrigerator into the ice-bucket and she sticks that under his nose and mouth and holds it there. Doesn’t have to take too long. Pretty soon the guy’s good and dead. Then she pours the carbonated water down the drain or out the window. She poured it out the window. Then she puts everything back in place, wipes his face, leaves him there, goes out saying he doesn’t want to be disturbed, and there you have it, period. Somebody finds him, and he died of a heart attack.”

  “That the way it happened?” Falkner said.

  “Yeah. Except he called her in for dictation, and she took the dictation first. Then he put his head down on the desk, kind of to sleep, and she let him have it. The rest she did like I told you.”

  “Explain your drowning?” I smiled at Falkner.

  “Perfectly.”

  “And please remember,” I said, “that I’m the guy that screamed for the autopsy.”

  “I’ll remember,” Falkner said.

  “Remember it real good, please, when you discuss nine hundred thousand clams with the D.A. Nine hundred thousand clams that happened to turn up at Headquarters.”

  “I’ll remember it real good,” Falkner said.

  “And remember about everything that happened here, when you talk to the D.A. And give the guy a little credit. And by the guy—I mean me.” “I’ll remember,” Falkner said. “And I’ll give the guy a lot of credit. And by the guy—I mean you.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chambers.”

  21

  And so they carted them off, separately, Mr. Timothy Blattner and Miss Jessica Rollins, and soon the remainder of the doctor’s guests departed, and I was all even with my conscience, and all of my fees were well-earned, but the best part of all that had happened was that I had met the doctor, and we were alone, the doctor and I. The pink of dawn began to brighten the sky and we were still alone, the doctor and I, and I was roaring drunk, drunk as a pirate should be drunk, except that I was no longer dressed as a pirate and she was no longer dressed as a devil. “Tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me the story. You promised. Start at the start and tell me the story.” The pink of dawn had begun to brighten the sky and I had not even begun my story.