Crimson Clue

by George Harmon Coxe

  In that next instant, as she froze there on one knee and stared up at the window with its webwork of tiny cracks centring around the small round hole, her thoughts were clear and she understood what had happened. Then, in delayed action, the terror struck at her and the panic came.

  Pivoting away, she let go of the dress and dropped to all fours. She began to crawl crablike away from the window and round the bed, heart pounding and fear driving her. She did not stop to think or wonder if she could still be seen from outside. She had one goal and five interminable seconds later she reached it.

  Only when she had gained the safety of the entryway did she stand up; then, as she tripped the switch and the welcome darkness descended about her, she felt the strength ooze from her body, and she would have crumpled there had she not had a wall to lean on.

  After a while she began to shiver. The shiver became a trembling. Her breath came in quick dry sobs and her shoulders shook, and now the darkness itself began to terrify her until, in desperation, she cried out against it.

  ‘Stop it!’ she said. ‘Stop it, you little fool! You’re all right, aren’t you?’

  The self-imposed discipline helped. She was still shaky but the pounding of her heart was quieting and she could breathe again. She groped her way to the bed and found the telephone. She did not want the clerk downstairs; she did not want anyone in the hotel. She wanted the only person she could trust.

  She did not know the number and she dared not turn on the light to look it up. ‘Operator’, she said when the downstairs switchboard answered. ‘Get me information. Hurry, please.’…

  Murdock made the trip in ten minutes flat, and as soon as he heard Audrey’s voice on the other side of the door asking who it was he felt instantly better.

  When the lock clicked and the door started to open he stepped into the darkness. In the interval before the door closed again he saw her vaguely in front of him. He put out his hand and asked if she was all right, and then she was close, clinging to him, her body stiff and trembling.

  She had told him what had happened over the telephone and now he stood with his arm about her waist and let his eyes adjust themselves to the darkness.

  ‘Take it easy, baby’, he said.

  ‘Yes’, she breathed. ‘I will. I’m all right. It’s just that I was so terribly frightened——’

  ‘Sure.’ He slid his hands along her arms and squeezed them reassuringly. ‘You stay right here while I have a look.’

  ‘He may still be there.’

  ‘I doubt it. And even if he is he can’t see in the dark.’

  He felt her relax a little and her fingers loosened on his shoulders. He backed away, locating the window now and feeling his way toward it. Beyond there was nothing but blackness at first, but as he waited he could make out the line of a rooftop or the parapet surrounding it. He could not tell how far away it was—he thought it might be twenty feet—and the line of it was about at eye level, a straight line in silhouette, with no sign of anyone waiting there.

  The bullet hole was to the left of centre, and when he stood in front of it he found it about level with his stomach; on the girl it would have been three or four inches higher. This told him how lucky she had been. Just thinking about it was strangely frightening and now he reached up and pulled the shade down below the sill.

  ‘All right’, he said. ‘Let’s have some light.’

  They stood blinking at the sudden brilliance for a few seconds and then he turned to the wall opposite the window. Here the slug had made a chipped and ragged hole a few inches lower than the one in the window to indicate a slightly downward course.

  He looked at Audrey. She had not moved from the entryway and he saw that her cheeks were still pale, her two-toned hair tousled where she had pulled her dress back on in the darkness, forgetting to pull the zipper which gaped down one side from armpit to hip.

  He grinned crookedly at her. ‘Zip yourself up,’ he said, ‘and then start packing.’

  She did the zipping automatically but when she spoke he knew she was still scared. ‘Packing?’ she echoed.

  ‘You’re going to be Murdock’s guest again’, he said. ‘But this time you’re checking out for good. Too many people know where you are and how to reach you. Tomorrow we’ll find you another hotel, but tonight——’

  He broke off and turned to the telephone. When the clerk answered, Murdock told him that Miss Wayne was checking out and to have her bill ready. When he stepped into the closet he saw there were two bags, a full-sized square one and a smaller, red-leather vanity case.

  ‘You can do this better than I can’, he said when he had put them on the bed. ‘I’ll wait right here.’

  She did not argue. She opened up the bureau drawers and tossed things on the bed; then packed with quick efficiency. When she was ready they went downstairs and he stayed right with her while she paid her bill. He could tell she was still scared when they got into his car, and he wanted her to stay that way until he had a chance to find out what was behind this attempt on her life. He started almost at once, a harsh compulsion in his voice.

  ‘What do you know about Neil Garvin that you haven’t told me?’

  She was huddled on the seat beside him. He could feel the warmth of her shoulder as it pressed against his arm but it was stiff and unyielding. When she answered, her voice was small and barely audible.

  ‘Nothing. I can’t remember anything.’

  ‘There must be something. Why do you think you were shot at tonight?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course you know.’ Murdock’s voice continued blunt and aggressive; he kept it that way on purpose. ‘Last night somebody wanted that envelope Garvin gave you. Somebody got it. Tonight somebody stood on that roof. Except for luck and the grace of God you’d be dead right now.’

  He took a breath and pressed on. ‘The guy that did the shooting didn’t want any envelope, or anything else you have. He shot to kill. Why? Because you know something, or he thinks you do. Something that may put him in the chair. What is it?’

  There was no answer, no movement beside him. He took another tack.

  ‘What did you and Jeff Elliott talk about tonight?’

  ‘Jeff couldn’t have done it’, she protested. ‘There wasn’t time.’ She caught her breath, as though the thought was too horrible to contemplate. ‘He wouldn’t have anyway. I know he wouldn’t. He couldn’t have got to the roof. He let me out in front of the hotel. I saw him drive off.’

  Murdock waited until she ran out of breath.

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Lots of things.’

  ‘Garvin?’

  Silence.

  ‘Did you discuss Neil Garvin?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘What did Jeff want to know?’

  ‘About my trip. What Garvin said and what he was like.’

  ‘What did Jeff tell you about Garvin?’

  More silence.

  ‘Look!’ Murdock said. ‘Somebody took a shot at you and missed. If you don’t think he’s going to try again, one way or another, you’re crazy. Maybe you don’t want to live; maybe you just don’t give a damn.’

  She turned on him then in her exasperation, her voice ragged. ‘Oh, why can’t you leave me alone.’

  Murdock kept his eyes straight ahead, driving in silence, feeling an odd revulsion at himself for crowding this girl who was already bewildered and distraught, but knowing no other way to make her talk. He kept his speed down in the hope of waiting her out, and in the end he won the battle of silence. He felt her stir beside him and knew that she was watching him. Finally she spoke.

  ‘I’m sorry’, she said. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  He waited another thirty seconds. ‘What did Jeff tell you?’ he said.

  ‘He made me promise not to tell anyone.’

  More silence.

  ‘If I told you, you’d only go to the police … Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I might.’ He turned
the corner and began to slow down as he approached his house. ‘That doesn’t mean I tell the police everything. I’m not sure I care who killed Garvin. It’s not my job to solve murders. I got my camera and equipment back. The other’s a police job. The only thing I want to do now is keep you alive and even on that I can’t get any co-operation.’

  She considered all this as the car stopped and he cut the motor. He removed the keys and turned, sliding his arm round her hunched shoulders; after a moment he felt them relax and she leaned closer, as though in some primitive desire for warmth and comfort.

  ‘If you go to the police,’ she said, her head still bent, ‘I’ll simply deny everything. I mean it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Jeff’ll deny it too.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And anyway, all it proves is that he didn’t do it.’

  ‘Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  ‘All he said,’ she continued, as though she had not heard, ‘is what the Lieutenant already guessed.’

  Murdock said: ‘Ahh’, under his breath, and somewhere in his chest a nerve tightened. ‘Jeff admits Garvin went to the house … To collect on those letters?’

  ‘Yes. Jeff says Neil got there about eleven in the morning and wanted money. Jeff and his uncle Todd talked to Neil in the library, and they were willing to pay him a little just to save trouble, but Neil had already had something to drink and they were afraid to trust him. They offered him another drink, a stiff one, Jeff said, and they put some sort of drug in it because they wanted to keep him where they could watch him until the reception was over.’

  ‘They put him in that third-floor closet’, Murdock said. ‘When was that?’

  ‘Jeff said it was about twelve-thirty.’ She glanced up, eyes wide and darkly disturbed. ‘He was all right when they looked in on him at three-thirty, before they went to the church. They didn’t kill him. Jeff didn’t know anything about it until he went up later to see if he was still unconscious. Then they just had to get him out.’

  ‘That’s what Jeff says’, Murdock said.

  ‘I believe him. It’s the truth. I know it is.’

  It occurred to Murdock that a woman’s trust was a wonderful thing but he did not say so. Audrey wanted to believe Jeff innocent and therefore would continue in that belief. There was, however, a sizable flaw in the conclusion she had drawn and he told her so.

  ‘Maybe Jeff’s telling the truth. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is.’

  ‘I know he is.’

  ‘You know he is. They drugged Garvin and hid him in the closet. That’s all Jeff knows.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But somebody did kill Garvin. Someone who knew right where he was. We’ll say Jeff didn’t do the job but he can’t know that his brother, or one of those two uncles, didn’t do the killing. Whoever it was that decided on murder probably did so knowing that the body would have to be taken out and disposed of, hoping that even if it was identified it could not be proved that Garvin had ever come to the house. Your story, and Syd French’s, fixed that but the killer couldn’t know about you two at the time.’

  He reached across in front of her and unlatched the door but it was a few seconds before she moved. She straightened on the seat and then glanced back at him. Her mouth moved as though she was about to say something more and then she closed it and got out of the car. Murdock hauled out the two bags and followed her up the stairs.

  When she was in the bedroom, he telephoned Lieutenant Bacon at his home. He said nothing about the things that Audrey had told him because he wanted more time to think; what he did say had to do with the attempt that had been made on her life that very night.

  ‘Where is she now?’ Bacon asked.

  ‘Here. At my place.’

  ‘Are you going to keep her there until morning?’

  ‘Yes’, Murdock said. ‘And no cracks.’

  ‘We’ll be around after we’ve checked the layout at the Forbes.’

  Murdock said all right, but not to make it too early.

  Chapter 15

  WHEN Murdock opened his eyes the next morning he yawned and stared at the ceiling a moment before he remembered he had company. Once more the stimulating smell of coffee came from the kitchen and he listened to the girl’s movements as she set the table before calling to her.

  She appeared in the doorway and said good morning. She gave him a smile but it was different from the one he had seen the morning before. This one lacked spontaneity, and although she looked as neat and attractive as ever, her green eyes seemed tired and her voice was subdued.

  ‘You might make some extra coffee’, he said. ‘Bacon will be along after a while. Do I have time to shave?’

  She said yes so he stood up and padded barefooted through the bedroom to the bath. He got a clean change of clothing after he had showered, and when he reached the kitchen Audrey was pouring his coffee. They had the same breakfast—frozen orange juice and toast made from stale bread—and their conversation was desultory and uninspiring. She asked about Bacon and he said he had telephoned him last night after she had gone to bed.

  ‘So he could have your room checked, and the rooftop where the shot was fired.’

  She took the cigarette he offered, and the light. ‘It took me a long time to go to sleep’, she said absently. ‘It kept trying to think. I still don’t know why anyone would try to kill me.’ She hesitated, a sort of quiet desperation in the cadence of her voice. ‘What should I do now?’

  ‘We’ll get you a room in another hotel. You’ll have to stay there——’

  The buzzer interrupted him and he went through the living-room to admit Bacon and Keogh. They sauntered in, Bacon in advance, their eyes busy. Murdock told them to sit down and began to pull the blanket and sheets from the davenport. He was folding them when Audrey came in carrying two cups of coffee.

  They gave her a quick, professional inspection as they accepted the cups and thanked her. She said there was sugar but no cream, and they said they liked it black. Then Bacon turned to Murdock.

  ‘We checked the room and the roof’, he said. ‘We found the shell. An automatic .32. So was the slug in the wall. It was twenty-two feet from the edge of the roof to the window. I can’t figure how the guy missed, unless it was deliberate.’

  ‘Why should he want to miss?’

  ‘Maybe he just wanted to scare her’, Keogh said.

  Audrey had come back from the kitchen and Murdock asked her to tell the lieutenant exactly what had happened. When she finished, Bacon nodded. ‘You had a lot of luck, Miss Wayne’, he said. ‘Where were you before you came back to the hotel? What were you doing?’

  He listened attentively while she told about her dinner with Jeff Elliott and then he spoke to Murdock.

  ‘A guy would have to know where Room 531 was first,’ he said, ‘and where the window was. Once he found it was next to that roof the rest was easy. Next door there’s a plumbing supply house on the first floor, a stairway next to that leading to some offices on the second floor. The third and fourth are used for storage. You can get to the roof from inside through a door next to the freight elevator shaft, and there’s a fire escape in the back alley. We think that’s how it was done.’

  ‘There were a couple of empty packing cases’, Keogh added. ‘They look as if they’d been moved recently. A guy could climb up on them and reach the iron ladder without much trouble. All he had to do then was wait for her to turn on the light and move over to the window and reach for the shade.’

  ‘If the guy had cased the layout first,’ Bacon said, ‘it wouldn’t take much time … Could Mr. Elliott have made it up there after he let you out of the car, Miss Wayne?’

  Audrey shook her head. ‘No’, she said emphatically.

  Bacon apparently expected that answer, for it bothered him not at all. ‘He could have set it up for someone else,’ he said, ‘and probably did.’

  The girl protested. She said she did not believe it.


  Bacon ignored her comment. ‘He took you to dinner; he could bring you home whenever he liked.’ He watched her shake her head again, then said: ‘Neil Garvin went out to the Canning house——’

  ‘But you’ve told us all that.’

  Bacon took a breath and exchanged glances with Keogh. Reading the signs in the veteran’s bony face, Murdock thought he was going to stop arguing, but in another second Bacon’s jaw set stubbornly and he had his say.

  ‘You can think what you like, Miss Wayne. You don’t want to believe Jeff Elliott had anything to do with this. It’s a natural reaction. No one ever thinks his friends or acquaintances could be guilty of murder, yet every killer has friends or acquaintances who think the same thing.’

  He paused, measuring his words. ‘I say the Cannings and Elliotts are in this thing together. They’re covering up and so are the servants. One of them killed Garvin. Maybe the others know which one and maybe they don’t. It doesn’t matter much. Some of them moved the body and I think they’ve got Saul Damin mixed up in it, and maybe Lew Klime, and in the end I’m going to crack one of them. When I do——’

  He broke off impatiently and glanced at Murdock. Then, in a tone that suggested he was referring to some inanimate object, he jerked his head at the girl.

  ‘What’re you going to do with her?’

  ‘Get another hotel for her. I thought the Copley. There are no roofs near that.’

  Bacon said it was a good idea and maybe she should register under another name. ‘If I were you, Miss Wayne,’ he added, ‘I’d stay there and tell no one.’

  ‘But I have an audition at eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Maybe we’d better take her down and hold her as a material witness’, Bacon said to Keogh. ‘That way we can be sure she’ll stay alive.’

  Keogh came in on cue. ‘Sure’, he said, and stood up, ready to go. ‘That’s the way to handle it.’

  The girl said no weakly, her resistance visibly crumbling.