"I'm afraid it will be up to a court to decide that, Mr. Brice. We understand that you were on pretty intimate terms with Mr. Graham."
"More or less," Brice said, steadily.
"And that when he came into the office this morning, you called him over to your desk?"
"Yes."
"And what did you say to him?"
"I said, 'How did your bowels move last night with that laxative I told you about?' " Brice told them cheerfully.
Another voice interrupted. Less apologetic. "We want straight talk, Brice."
"And I want you gentlemen to shut your damned traps." Bill's voice was hard as a rock.
"Look, Mister," the unapologetic voice said. "You better get it straight who you're talking to. We're the law."
"As far as I am concerned," Bill said, "you are a group of servants--public servants, perhaps, but still servants--who seem to have forgotten your place."
A sound vaguely like a snarl drifted up the shaft. "Now," Bill went on, "if there are no more questions you have my permission to leave."
"You left your office at noon today," the hard-voiced cop said.
"You seem to know," Bill admitted. He had lost none of his composure.
"After you had talked to Graham? Answer."
"I might consider answering if you were to use a decent tone of voice," Bill said.
The apologetic voice took up again. "Don't mind him. He ain't very smart. Look: You talked to Graham this morning. Then, at noon, you ask the boss to let you off for the afternoon to bury your aunt. He lets you off, but you don't go bury your aunt. You get what I'm driving at?"
"Putting, Officer. Not driving. In my religion one retires to one's chamber for twelve hours of silent prayer on the demise of a relative."
"Yeah?" the hard-boiled man want to know. "What is your religion?"
"Bimetallism," Bill told him, impassively,
"What's that?"
"Well," Bill began, extemporizing hastily, "in our faith we believe that the holy communion should be served on platters of silver with a gold rim, representing..."
"Never mind. You'll be telling us next you believe in this Holy Roller business... ."
"Oh. We do. We do," Brice assured him. "We roll and roll and roll and roll ..."
"O.K. Cut the comedy. Is this the only entrance to your apartment?"
"I believe," Brice told them, "that there is a small opening in the bathroom. But I generally use that for getting rid of things."
Graham shifted his body in the dumbwaiter. He had never known Bill had all this starch in him.
"Better have a look around the place, Don," the apologetic voice said.
"Look ahead," Brice said. "Of course, you understand I shall bring charges against you of unlawful entry."
"You invited us in," the cop said. "That makes it legal. We don't even need a warrant."
"Huh," Brice sneered. "Can you prove that? Do you have it in writing? No, Officer. I shall tell the court that you pushed open the door, shoved your hand in my face and burst into the room. Felony, isn't it? One to twenty years? I forget exactly now. Anyway, go ahead and search the place. I have decided I will bring the charges against you anyway, whether you search or not. The entry is enough to convict you, I believe. You might as well look around. Why be hung for a lamb when you can just as easily be hung for a great big dumb patrolman?"
Graham pushed outward, trying to stretch himself. Something clicked ahead of him, and the shaft was flooded with light. He cringed back, startled, and realized that he was looking into the living room of the mate of Bill's apartment. It was barren and without furniture. Unoccupied. Fine. He twisted free of the dumbwaiter, and stood, for a moment, listening, his head thrust in the shaft.
The policeman's voice said: "What's in here?"
"Just the dumbwaiter," Brice said. "It's been broken for a week, now. Jammed. It won't move up or down."
Graham took that as his cue. He twisted a loop of the lifting cable around the dumbwaiter door.
From here on Bill was in the clear. He could take care of himself. Graham went to the hall doorway, pulled it open. The hallway was empty. He left the door a little ajar in case it should become necessary to retreat, peered down the stairwell. There was a blue uniform at the bottom. O.K. He would go up.
He went up the three flights to the roof quietly, walking on his toes, feeling the strain of the climb pulling at his chest. The roof was empty, if you disregarded various clotheslines and the array of slips, brassieres and other feminine appurtenances.
Graham peered over the front wall of the room. There were two green and white coupes in the street and a couple of bluecoats standing beside them. He checked the other sides. All clear. They obviously hadn't been sure he was here.
But there was no way down. The fire escapes were on the front of the building. If he went down that way he'd walk right into the arms of the cops--and any minute now they'd get suspicious of that stuck dumbwaiter and try the roof. He wished--vigorously--he'd stayed in the vacant apartment. Oh well. Couldn't be helped now. Have to get down somewhere. There was only a narrow gap between this building and the one on the right. Maybe you could jump it.
He went to the wall and stared over. No good. A ten foot jump. Probably couldn't make it ordinarily and sure as hell not now. He was too tired.
All right. Try the other side. He crossed the roof, feeling the gravel crushing under his feet. Ten foot drop to the other roof of the adjoining building here. Have to risk it. Even if these Village houses were a couple hundred years old and likely to have roofs you would fall through.
He lowered himself over the wall, hanging by a precarious grip, pressed himself outward; let go.
Then over the roofs, climbing over parapets, avoiding upstaring skylights, translucent studio ceilings, tangles of radio aerials, clotheslines, miscellaneous wreckage: seatless chairs, loose fragments of tiling, discarded window boxes ... feeling the white heat of the black tarpaper under the smoldering sun.
The heat rose from the roof in waves, dazing him, and the glare of light tortured his sleepy eyes. He clambered his way half round the block. At Cherry Lane there was a fire escape, easily reached--available without prowling past some frightened virgin's window. He lowered himself to the street.
He followed the diagonal course of Bedford Street to Seventh Avenue. It was three o'clock. Time to start for Ken Clark's office. Get coffee first, to wake up a little, and then go.
He turned into a hole-in-the-wall restaurant ...
Chapter XII
... AND IN MY LAWYER'S OFFICE
Graham followed the girl into Ken's office, noting the trim lines of her figure as he went. Funny. No matter how tired you were, your instincts kept right on working.
Ken looked up at him, said nothing until the girl had withdrawn. Then: "You should have given your right name, Larry. It's perfectly safe here, and I wouldn't have kept you waiting this way ..." He got up from behind his immense desk and extended his hand. The gesture seemed automatically to establish the client-attorney relationship. Ken withdrew his hand. "Let's forget about that. I'm treating you like a client. Here, sit down."
Graham dropped himself on a chair. "I suppose you've seen the papers?"
"Never touch the things myself," Ken said, cheerfully. "Don't believe in them. But I heard it over the radio." He grinned. "You're a mess, Larry. Don't you believe in changing your shirts any more?"
That was the right note. Graham felt the tension in his nerves, that he had come to regard as permanent, fading away.
"I expected you to call me," Ken went on. "I left word with the girl to get me out of court if you did. Where've you been?"
"Everywhere," Graham said. "What do I do now?"
"Well, supposing you give me the facts and I'll see what I can make of them."
Graham gave him the facts, chronologically, coherently--as coherently as they could be given--and kept his mind poised, like an editor's blue pencil, deleting extraneous matter.
/> "... Finally they followed me--the police, I mean--to Bill's place. I got out of there over the roof and I came here."
"Anybody follow you?" Clark asked.
"How could they? My God, man, I climbed over half the roofs in Greenwich Village getting here."
"Someone may have seen you on the streets. You never can tell about these things. It sounds to me as though whoever is chasing you has pretty extensive resources. And they're serious about it, too. Serious enough to frame you for murder. Look, sonny boy, gimme a couple of minutes to think this over. I'm going to call up the police and tell them I've been retained as your attorney, and to give me whatever information they have."
"O.K.," Graham said.
"You'd better wait in the other room. Hearing your attorney at work isn't necessarily the pleasantest kind of listening." Graham got up and headed for the doorway. "Wait a minute," Clark said. "Are you sure you've told me everything? Nothing has been left out? No little details that might not seem important at the time?"
Graham flashed backward through his mind. No. There was nothing he had forgotten. Clark knew everything, now. Of course, he hadn't mentioned the advertisement he'd received in the mail, or the detective who turned him down. But there was nothing that related to this business he'd left out. He shook his head. "That's all," he said.
"All right. You wait outside."
Graham sat in a wickerwork chair in the outer office, studying the upper torso of the girl. She was bending over the typewriter--a dictaphone head-set blocking her eyes, mechanically transcribing words with flickering fingers. There was no other sound in the office.
Graham thought: ... and the voice of the typewriter was heard in the land. Wish she'd stop that. It's putting me to sleep. He struggled manfully with his heavy eyelids, resorting, finally, to a study of Life Magazine.
The inner-office door opened and Clark thrust his head through. "C'mon in, Larry."
Graham dragged himself across the floor and inside. He grinned at the girl as he passed her desk. "Getting to be a regular commuter by here, aren't I?"
She nodded. Politely. And raised the corners of her mouth in a detached way. Graham sat down.
Clark clasped his hands on the desk before him in a professional pose, studied his enlaced fingers for a moment, said: "Well, Casanova, you seem to have gotten yourself in pretty deep this time. I don't know, quite, what to say. Naturally, I'll handle the case for you. And I don't think, really, that we'll have much trouble in working you out of this. There's always something. Some little thing. Are you sure there's nothing you've forgotten to tell me?"
"Not a thing."
"Well, this is where we stand. The girl was killed, so the medical examiner says, between five and eight last night. Now what, exactly, did you do during those three hours?"
Graham thought back, quickly. "I left the office at five. Made special arrangements to get off, too. Because she'd phoned me earlier and said it was very important..."
"Keep going," Clark said.
"After that I had dinner and ..."
"Where?" Clark demanded.
"Downtown cafeteria," Graham said.
Clark's fist banged down on the counter. "No. No damned good. Why can't people learn to eat in places where they'll be remembered? O.K. Go ahead."
"I sat around and smoked a couple of cigarettes. Then I rode uptown on the I.R.T. I figured Lois might be a little early, so I went right to the corner and stood there until I called her house. I called there three times, like I told you. Then I called Information--wait a minute--do they keep any record of calls to Information?"
Clark said: "We'll find out." He picked up the phone and dialed hastily--4--1--1. A pause. Then Clark said: "Information, do you keep any records of phone calls to Information?
"No? ... Oh, thanks very much." Clark replaced the receiver and faced around toward Graham. "No luck," he said. "Wouldn't do any good anyway. Probably had a thousand calls in that exchange during the same period. Anyway, this was around nine. Same time you called me. Pretty late to do any good." He tapped his fingers on the desk . Thoughtfully.
Graham said: "I guess that covers the whole period, then."
Clark kept tapping on his desk. "Now look, Larry. There are three ways to prove a man is innocent of a crime in court. The first is to demonstrate that it was somebody else who did the job. The second is an alibi--means in Latin: somewhere else--that is, prove you weren't there when the murder took place. The third is related to the second, in a way, although it comes more under the 'shadow of a doubt' angles. First, there is no motive to be proved against you. That isn't enough, alone. If the weight of the other evidence is against you they'll decide they simply don't know your motive--a jury will, I mean. But the second thing is this phonograph record you were telling me about. You have the man's card still?"
Graham pulled out his wallet and flung the card on Clark's desk. Ken was watching him intently. He seemed, somehow, disappointed.
After a while Clark went on: "See, the girl wouldn't be likely to hang that on the tail end of a phonograph record that way unless it meant something. We'll subpoena the record into court. Interesting. First time I ever heard of a subpoena duces tecum being issued for a phonograph record in a criminal action. O.K. That's two points in your favor. The third is a little doubtful, but I think we can bring it off. The medical examiner said there wasn't much blood in the room. Now, when you shoot somebody dead center there isn't necessarily a flood of blood. Not necessarily. But there is generally, just the same. If we can convince a jury that the lack of blood proves she was killed somewhere else, the prosecutor would have a hell of a time convincing them that one man--yourself--could manage to bring the body to the room and install it there just to convict himself. See what I mean?"
Graham grinned weakly. He saw. He saw that Ken was making the best of a bad case.
"Besides," Clark went on, "there really is no such thing as a perfect murder. There can't be, in the nature of things. Murders are executed in haste and excitement, otherwise there'd be no murder at all. I'm sure I can fight this case on what we have now, and there will be other little details turning up as we go along. There always are. There's enough, now, to sway a jury your way. The others would finish it." Graham thought: Cheerful bastard, sitting there beaming confidence.
"What should I do now? Right now, I mean?" Graham asked.
"Well," Clark said, slowly, "if I were in your position--I know this is going to sound funny--I'd go and turn myself in at the nearest police station ... Wait a minute! Don't get all excited, now. First, it would show good faith if the case goes to a jury. I can't think of a single murder case in recent years where the man has surrendered voluntarily where he's gone to the chair--except Lepke, and that was different. He surrendered to Federal authorities, but the state got him later on. The second thing is that you're safer with the cops. You don't know who these people are that are after you. They might be anybody. I might even be one of them, for all you know. In jail you'd be safe. Understand?"
"No dice," Graham said, firmly. "I'll take my chances in the nice fresh air of the great out-of-doors. I've got enough dough to last a few days--a month, even, if I'm careful. By that time you may be able to dig up enough to clear me. If not--well, I'll surrender for trial then. I'll take a room in a hotel, and spend most of my time there."
"Well," Clark said, "that's up to you. But if you do get picked up, or anything else develops, get in touch with me right away." It was a sort of dismissal phrase.
Ken was standing now, looking out the window toward Madison Avenue, ten floors down.
Graham got up, wondering if there wasn't something more to be said. Should be. You couldn't settle anything as serious as this in such a brief time. But there wasn't.
"So long," he said. Ken waved at him from his post at the window.
He went through the outer office into the hall, punched the elevator button and waited, staring with unseeing eyes at the twin globes over the elevator door. The down-glo
be lighted and the door opened. He crowded into the jammed machine, and felt the floor falling away under him--his stomach rising.
There was a laxness in his system, now. A feeling that there was no longer any need to be wary. From now on it was out of his hands. Ken would take care of everything.
Graham paced through the marble-walled lobby, pressed through the revolving door, stepped onto the sidewalk. The evening rush had begun. The street was jammed with traffic. The tops of the buildings were gilded-- no, just yellowed, and the sidewalks flooded with pedestrians pushing and abusing one another on their way home from work. Graham stepped out to the curb. He wanted a taxi. Any other conveyance would be too much--exhausted as he was.
There was an ambulance parked to one side of the open space in front of the building. He allowed his eyes to fall on it briefly, and then turned back, looking for a cab.
Abruptly a voice shrieked: "Look out!" He heard the roar of a racing motor--leaped backward, instinctively. Something hurtled past his face and body.
There was an ear-splitting, jangling crash. The ambulance, sprawled on its side where it had landed after striking the wall of the building, was in flames. It had been aiming directly for him!
The flames from the burning ambulance surged higher. He heard police whistles up the avenue, now.
Graham turned, weakly, and re-entered the building.
Chapter XIII
ENTER THE PHARMACOPOEIA
The elevator crawled up the shaft with the mad deliberation of the hand of a clock. Graham watched the tiny lights on the indicator flashing the floors. Eight--nine--ten.
The car slowed, stopped. The operator pulled at the elbow, and Graham stepped through the opened door. Clark was facing him.
"I saw it," Clark said, "I was coming down, until 1 saw you turning back into the building. Here. Come into my office." He led the way through the outer office, and together they leaned from the window--staring down at the conflagration below. Already the street had filled with the clangor of fire-trucks, the shattering shrillness of police whistles, the hum of human voices, the sounds climbing from the depths of the street canyon.
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