Murderers' Row

by Donald Hamilton

  She flushed. “Well, Billy did say—”

  “Sure,” I said. “I suppose the two of you decided it would look better if you came alone. But the point is, he knew where you were going this morning. When you turn up missing, what do you figure he’ll do?”

  “Do?” Her voice was sharp. “He won’t do anything. He’s never done anything in his life except talk! He’s just a stuffed shirt, a pompous, moralizing prig; and I told him so last night. I told him he wasn’t my conscience, and if he thought I was going to humble myself in front of his snooty aunt or cousin or whatever she is—I told him I wasn’t going to do anything of the kind!”

  “But you did,” I pointed out.

  She licked her lips. She was still trying to see herself as a ruthless, conscienceless little adventuress, but her better nature was making it rough.

  “Well, I—I don’t know what got into me,” she said defensively. “I didn’t mean—when I got into the car I hadn’t the slightest intention of coming. I mean, who does he think he is, lecturing me like that!” She sniffed, on the verge of tears. “It’s all his fault. If it hadn’t been for him, if he hadn’t taken it so big, I’d never have dreamed of coming to see her this morning! I’d have been safe now instead of—” She stopped.

  “I see,” I said. “In other words, he doesn’t know where you were going. So we can’t expect much help from him.”

  She gulped, and nodded miserably. Well, I hadn’t really hoped for much from young Orcutt, any more than I’d counted on somebody checking at the hotel, learning I was missing, and taking action in time. It would be hard to say what action they could take without taking a chance of interfering with the job I was supposed to do. Jean had been supposed to make it on her own; presumably the same applied to me.

  “Matt,” the kid said. “That’s your real name, isn’t it? Matt?”

  “That’s right. Matt Helm, agent extraordinary, at your service, ma’am.”

  “Extraordinary!” she said. “I don’t see anything extraordinary about you, getting yourself caught here like a—like a rat in a floating trap!” She glared at me, angry again. “You fake! You—you sheep in wolf’s clothing! Pretending to be a—I knew all the time there was something phony about you!”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Well, I did! You don’t think I really meant for you to kill—you don’t think I was serious, do you? I knew all the time—I was just kidding you along, for laughs!” She sniffed and rubbed her nose with her forefinger. “I’m not fooling anybody, am I? What’s going to happen to us, Matt? What’s that woman going to do to us?”

  “Well,” I said, “first of all, I gather, she’s going to take us to meet a gentleman in whom you’ve expressed a certain interest.”

  She frowned. “A gentleman?”

  “A scientific sort of gent, named Michaelis.”

  “Papa?” Her eyes became wide and round. “You mean, he’s—” She stopped, afraid to say the word.

  “Alive?” I said. “Oh, yes, he’s alive. They wouldn’t kill him; he’s much too valuable. He may not be in perfect health—don’t forget he’s been a prisoner for some weeks—but he’s undoubtedly alive.”

  She licked her lips, watching my face. “But—but that’s wonderful, isn’t it? He’s alive!”

  “Yeah,” I said flatly. “It’s wonderful, I guess.”

  “Matt, what’s the matter? I don’t understand—”

  She didn’t understand, and I hadn’t the slightest intention of enlightening her. The knowledge in Dr. Michaelis’ head must not leave the country, Mac had said. That was what I was here for. It looked as if I might even accomplish it, now, and the happy expression on the face of a small, screwball blonde in green rompers had nothing whatever to do with the situation, except that it would have been nice if she’d stayed on shore where she’d belonged. Of all the witnesses I might have got stuck with, as the critical moment approached, I had to find myself sharing a cabin with Michaelis’ own daughter.

  “It’s wonderful,” I said without expression. “It’s marvelous, and I’m sure you’ll have a heart-warming reunion with your long-lost daddy. In fact, if things go the way Mrs. Rosten hopes, you’ll have lots of opportunities to talk over old times. She’s planning to put us all aboard a freighter for a long sea voyage, somewhere out beyond the three-mile limit, after which I suppose she’ll turn back with her schooner and head for home. How she expects to cover up afterwards, I don’t know, but she’s undoubtedly got some ideas on the subject, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they’d work. She’s a very competent lady, and she’s got lots of money and plenty of nerve—”

  “Oh, stop talking about her!” Teddy’s voice was breathless. “Who cares about her? What happens to us?”

  It was a practical point of view, but before I could discuss it with her, there were footsteps in the passageway. The knock on the door was hesitant, very different from Nick’s loud warning rap.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Petroni—I mean Helm?” It was Louis Rosten’s voice.

  “Yes?”

  “Stand back. Stand well back. Don’t try anything.”

  “Sure.”

  The bolt slid back and the door opened. Louis checked himself when he saw me sitting on the bunk, facing him across the narrow cabin.

  “If you jump me, it won’t really help you,” he said weakly.

  “It’ll get us out of here,” I said.

  “And what then? I haven’t got a gun for you to use. There’s only one on the ship, and you know who’s got that. And you can’t handle Nick without a gun, nobody can. Not to mention my dear wife herself and her smoothbore artillery, which I can assure you is loaded with buckshot in both barrels.”

  “All right. Come in and make your pitch, whatever it is.”

  He slipped inside and pressed the door closed beside him. He looked kind of shrunken inside his yachting costume. Beneath the bill of his natty cap, his handsome face was drawn and haggard. I thought I could detect hangover and fear in approximately equal concentrations.

  “You’ve got to tell me!” he said. “I’ve got to know; I can’t stand it any more. The way she looks at me! Is she just playing cat and mouse with me? Does she know, Helm? Have you told her?”

  I glanced around the cabin. “Is it safe to talk?”

  “Safe? What do you mean?”

  “This cabin isn’t wired for sound? I’ve known rooms not too far from here that were.”

  He shook his head quickly. “Oh, no. No, there’s no microphone in here, I’m sure. There’s nothing like that aboard. I’d have seen it. Well, Helm, or whatever your real name is? Have you told her? Does she know?”

  Teddy, crouching on the bunk by my side, looked at him curiously. “Does who know what?” she asked.

  “Mr. Rosten would like to know if his wife has been informed that, believing me to be a Chicago hoodlum, he hired me to kill her.”

  Teddy gasped. “You mean—you mean, he, too!” She giggled half-hysterically, and clapped her hand to her mouth.

  I said, “Oh, yes, the homicide business was booming there for a while. I thought I was even going to get to collect a little from the lady for killing her husband, but that deal fell through. She was just stringing me along.” I turned to Rosten. “She hasn’t been enlightened by me, and to the best of my knowledge, she doesn’t know. She had strong suspicions last night that it was you who hired me, but Miss Michaelis’ confession this morning apparently got you off the hook. It still hasn’t occurred to your wife that two people might have had the same idea simultaneously. Of course, the thought might come to her at any moment—independently or otherwise.”

  He stiffened. “That’s a threat!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s a threat, little man. I’m in a very tough spot and I love company. I can make things just as tough for you, simply by opening my mouth.”

  He was used to having me bully him as Lash Petroni: he was already broken in. He wilted instantly.

  �
��I know,” he said. “I know, I’ve been a fool. It was a crazy idea. But I had to do something, and it seemed like the only way. It was hopeless to try to reason with her. I couldn’t make her stop. We were getting in deeper and deeper. She’d forced me to help her and a man had been killed-—Nick killed him, but we were all there. I didn’t dare go to the authorities. I was too deeply involved; I’d lose everything if it all came out. I thought if—if she’d just die, quietly, maybe things would settle down and nobody would ever find out.”

  “Let’s clear this up,” I said. “Your wife is just about the last person I’d pick for an enemy agent. Just what the hell is she after, helping subversives to escape from the country and kidnaping people? What’s she getting out of all this?”

  He hesitated. We listened to the water rushing past the ship’s side. There was a steady vibration from the big diesel.

  “It’s a little hard to explain,” Louis said. “She’s mad, of course, quite insane. She should be in an institution.”

  “Skip the diagnosis. Just give us the symptoms. What form does this madness take?”

  “Well,” he said, “she has declared war on the United States of America.” There was a brief silence, broken by a startled giggle from Teddy. Rosten glanced at the kid, and looked back to me, challengingly. “I told you. She’s crazy. First it was the bridge, you see—”

  “The bridge?”

  “Yes, she had a model dairy farm north of town. I don’t know why she bothered with it, it didn’t make much money, but it meant a great deal to her. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “You didn’t, but she did,” I said. “Go on.”

  “They condemned a right of way through it for the approaches to the bridge. She fought them through the courts, every step of the way, but lost. Of course, she got adequate compensation, but she couldn’t see it that way. That was years ago, right after the war, but she never forgot it. And then they took Mendenhall. I told you about that. I told you she went down with a gun to hold them off. Well, she changed her mind before there was any actual shooting. She came back home. I’ve never seen her like that, absolutely livid, furious. That was when she—” He paused.

  “Declared war?” I murmured.

  “Yes. She said, if that was the way they wanted it, that was damn well the way they could have it. She could get just as rough as any lace-pants bureaucrat in Washington. They’d damn well wish they’d thought twice before they tangled with Robin Orcutt Rosten. That was how it started. She found some men with unsavory connections, I don’t know how; communist agents—”

  Teddy stirred. “But hasn’t it occurred to Mrs. Rosten what will happen to her and her property if those people ever get into power?”

  Rosten laughed shortly. “I tried to make that point. My dear wife says she’ll worry about the dreadful reds if and when the time comes. She says she knows from bitter experience what happened to her under the people who are actually in power now. They took her land, she says, and she has to hire batteries of high-priced lawyers and tax experts to keep them from taking her money, too, and giving it away to people who are too lazy to work and nations that are too stupid to—Well, you can complete the argument for yourselves. She says it came to her when she was down at Mendenhall preparing to stand them off with her shotgun: instead of peppering a few stupid yokels in soldier suits, she was going to do some damage where it really counted. She might not win, but those bureaucrats in Washington would know they’d been in a fight, by God!” He grimaced. “I told you. She’s insane.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Insane.”

  He was right of course. The lady was cracked; she had to be. And still, there was a kind of romantic appeal in the idea of a lone woman in a sailboat setting out to wreak vengeance on the forces of progress: the taxes, the bridges, the military installations. Even if you didn’t agree with her point of view, you could have admired her—or at least her courage—if she’d only been a little more careful, or patriotic, about picking her associates; if she’d refrained from kidnaping and killing people. I stopped that line of thought, as something changed around us. Aft, the diesel went silent; the engine vibrations stopped. I glanced out the porthole. The schooner was rushing along with apparently undiminished speed. I looked at Rosten.

  “What does that mean?”

  “My wife seems to have shut down the auxiliary,” he said. “The wind has been rising steadily; she must figure we’ll do well enough from now on under sail alone.”

  I said, “There’s a storm to the south of us, I understand.”

  “A little more than just a storm, Mr. Helm,” he said, rather pompously. “There’s a hurricane off the Carolinas; but it’s veering out to sea, according to the latest weather reports. However, we’ll get the fringes of it before the night is over. I hope you have a strong stomach. The Freya is seaworthy enough to take anything we’re apt to run into, but she can get quite active in a blow.” He laughed, with a hint of malice. “She looks like a pretty big boat, doesn’t she? I think you’ll find her looking somewhat smaller shortly.”

  I said, “If things get good and rough, we’ll have a better chance for a break. The timing will have to be right. Are you willing to help?”

  He hesitated, and avoided answering directly. “Anything you do had better be done before we reach Mendenhall tonight,” he said uneasily. “There’ll be two men bringing Dr. Michaelis aboard—you heard about that; I heard my wife telling you. These men are trained professionals, like you. After they get on board, you won’t stand a chance against all of them.”

  Teddy started to speak angrily. I put my hand on her knee. “I think we’d better wait for her daddy to get aboard, if we can,” I said, and tried not to notice the quick look of gratitude she gave me.

  Rosten said, “But that’s ridiculous! We’ve got to act while we—” He checked himself, confused.

  I said, “So now it’s we. Thanks.”

  He ignored that. “—while we have the advantage of numbers, at least. Let me get on deck. I’ll leave the door unlocked. I’ll station myself where I can reach the shotgun. When you slip on deck, forward, and create a disturbance, I’ll grab the gun and we’ll have them.”

  It sounded beautifully simple and easy. I had to act as if I was tempted by the idea. To tell the truth, I was.

  “Well—”

  Teddy asked quickly, “What about Papa?”

  “After we get control of the schooner,” Rosten said, “we can radio the authorities and have him rescued. He’s being held in the wine cellar of the old Orcutt mansion on the island. My wife discovered it as a child, playing among the ruins. It was her secret, and she covered the entrance with brush and rubble so no one else would find it. No one has, not even the Marines. They don’t really use the island for anything; they just keep people off because it’s right in line with a small-arms range they have on shore. The men holding Dr. Michaelis have plenty of supplies in there, and a rubber boat, and a portable radio receiver—”

  “Ouch,” I said. “What makes you think they won’t be listening when we start broadcasting for official help?”

  Rosten said impatiently, “That’s a risk we’ll have to run. Anyway, even if they’re warned, how far can they get in a little rubber boat on a stormy night? Our first concern is to take over the Freya while we have a chance.”

  Teddy said hotly, “Maybe it’s your first concern, but—”

  “All right,” he said irritably. “We won’t use the radio. We’ll land somewhere and find a telephone.”

  “Ha-ha,” she said. “How many places along the Bay can you land an eighty-foot schooner drawing ten feet of water, and who’s going to take her in with a gale blowing? You?”

  He said stiffly, “I can handle the Freya, Miss Michaelis.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen you! You put us aground in the James River in broad daylight, the time Papa and I came cruising with you all. It took high tide and a couple of powerboats to get us off, remember? If you do that here, Papa dies or vanishes again.” S
he turned to me, breathlessly. “Matt, you’re a government man. You know Papa is an important man, you said so. You think we’d better wait, don’t you?”

  I didn’t trust Louis Rosten very far, and I didn’t want him thinking I considered Dr. Michaelis particularly important, in case he should talk out of turn.

  I said, “Well, rescuing Dr. Michaelis isn’t strictly speaking in my department—”

  “There’s an alternative,” Rosten said quickly. “We take over the ship and sail to the rendezvous ourselves. The two men with Dr. Michaelis won’t be expecting trouble when they come on board. We should be able to overpower them easily.”

  The kid asked quickly, “And what makes you think you can bring us into Mendenhall Bay in the dark, no better than you navigate? I know I couldn’t. Do you even know the right place? What if there’s a special signal? There must be some kind of a signal to bring them out. Do you know what it is?”

  I was watching Louis while she threw her objections at him. Maybe they were valid and maybe they weren’t, and I could see it didn’t matter in the least, because Louis had no intention of effecting a rescue at the slightest risk to himself. I could see his mind working as clearly as if his skull had been transparent. He wasn’t brave, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He had the essential point clearly in mind: the fact that when we finished taking over the ship according to his plan, he would be the man holding the shotgun.

  Once we’d helped him dispose of his wife and Nick, he was thinking, he wouldn’t really need us any more, not even to work the schooner. At the worst, he could get the big sails down somehow, turn on the engine, and go where he pleased. Less drastically, he could force us to do the safe and prudent thing, and to hell with Dr. Michaelis—or so he thought.

  Actually, in his hands, a shotgun probably wasn’t quite the magic wand he believed it to be; but the sly, unreliable look in his eyes was the important thing, from my point of view. Going after Michaelis involved too many imponderables, anyway. I couldn’t afford to let myself be dazzled by any glittering, gold-plated shortcuts. There was only one reasonably certain way for me to carry out my mission here, and that was to let Michaelis be brought to me.