Mourn the Hangman

by Whittington, Harry

  He pressed his fingertips against his eyelids until comets and rockets burst red behind his eyeballs. It was all so hopeless that he might as well sleep. Except for one thing. Stella’s murderer walked free.

  Steve sat up again. Whoever had framed him had overlooked one plain truth. When they killed Stella, they had committed the last act that would hurt Blake on earth. He no longer cared what they did to him now. But he did care what happened to Stella’s slayer!

  He had respect for Ross Connell. Connell might find the man who had killed Stella, except for one thing. Every resource had been used to capture Steve Blake. As far as the police were concerned, they had all the evidence, circumstantial and actual, they needed to convict him.

  Connell might have found a slayer, except that he was looking for Steve Blake.

  Steve stood up and began to pad back and forth beside his cot in his stringless shoes. His shirttail was out and his trousers had slipped down on his hips.

  A turnkey opened his cell door.

  “All right, Blake,” he said. “Come on.”

  “Formal?” Blake inquired. “Or can I come like this?”

  The jailer just looked at him, stepped aside as Blake moved past him to the corridor. The jailer pointed with his nightstick. “Right that way, guy.”

  Steve shuffled down the damp flooring. At a paint-scabbed door with a lettered plaque screwed on its facing, the turnkey said, “Okay, this is it.”

  Steve read the plaque: CONNELL.

  The turnkey knocked on the door with his nightstick.

  “Come in,” Connell said.

  The cop opened the door and nudged Steve ahead of him into the room. Half a dozen men, besides Connell behind his desk, sat in straight chairs on the far side of the room. Two of them Blake recognized as reporters.

  There was a chair in the center of the room, directly in front of Connell’s desk.

  “Sit down,” Connell said. “We’ve some preliminary questions. You might as well answer them. This is the easy way.”

  Blake sat down. Some of the men stirred and coughed.

  “What time did you arrive home yesterday, Blake?”

  “A little after five o’clock.”

  “Tell us what happened,” Connell said.

  “When I came in, Stella was on the divan. She was dead. The room had been wrecked — ”

  One of the men sat forward on his chair. “She was dead when you got home?”

  Steve looked at him. “That’s right.”

  The man faced Connell. “The rest of this is useless, Connell. There’s nothing more we can do until the inquest. He’s got his lies fixed — unless you want to try to break them down.”

  Connell sat forward and leaned across his desk.

  “There are certain facts that are indisputable, Blake,” he said quietly. “And they seem to attest to the fact that your wife was not dead when you arrived home.”

  “She was dead,” Steve said.

  “Why did you run away then?”

  “I didn’t run away. I went out looking for the man who had killed her.”

  “Jesus Christ!” the man who had spoken before said. He was stout, with a short bright nose and thin lips.

  Connell laughed a little drily. “You just dropped the packages you were carrying inside the door, turned around and ran out of there looking for a killer? Did you see him running? And you followed?”

  “No. I couldn’t stand it in that room. I had to think. I had to get away.”

  “You had to get away. If your wife were dead when you arrived at home, Blake, why didn’t you call the police? That’s the first thing you should have done. As it is, let’s see what you did. As we see it, of course. You came in. You and your wife continued an argument that evidently had started last week. She started packing her bag — ”

  “Her bag was packed. She was unpacking! She was just arriving home.”

  “Oh? She’d been away? Your neighbor, Miss Grueter, says no. But we’ll let that go. She was packing. You argued in the bedroom. You fought. You picked up the small lamp from the right side of her vanity dresser. You hit her. She stumbled out into the front room. You kept hitting her as she fought you about the room, wrecking it. You kept hitting her until she was dead.”

  Steve looked at him despairingly. “How can I answer that? I weigh a hundred and ninety pounds. I’ve knocked out six foot men with a swinging right. Stella weighed a hundred and ten pounds. How many times would I have had to hit her with the heavy base of that lamp to — to kill her?”

  Some of the men leaned their heads together, whispering. “You’re big enough so that she might have eluded you. That would explain the wrecked room,” Connell said. “That would explain the number of times she was hit.”

  “Why don’t you explain it another way?” Steve demanded. “Why not somebody who took the time to wrap a towel around that lamp? Why not a man who would have had to fight Stella while he was swinging that lamp?” His voice dropped. “Why don’t you look for the man who killed her?”

  Connell smiled thinly. “I’ve looked, Blake. And I’ve kept finding you. Listen, Blake, there is a lot ahead of you today, tonight and tomorrow before you get to that inquest. We won’t let up on you. This is just to give you a chance to save yourself a hell of a lot of grief. You’ve been employed in the Arrenhower plant. That’s twenty-five miles from here, across the bay, in Tampa. And yet, for the past four weeks you’ve been coming into town from Jacksonville on the train, a distance of over two hundred miles. I have the word of the employees of the railroad for that.

  “Three times you rode with the same cab driver. You were in a hurry to get home. Yesterday, you were in no hurry — ”

  “I was hired as a private detective to work in Tampa. I drove up to Jax every week to be sure I wasn’t followed over here. Three times, I was in a hurry to get home — ”

  “But yesterday, you were in no hurry?”

  “I didn’t think Stella was home. I thought she was away.”

  “And yet you bought her candy and flowers? Were you attempting to patch up a quarrel, Blake? Weren’t you trying to keep your wife from leaving you? Weren’t you trying so hard to keep her from leaving you that you killed her?”

  Blake cursed. “That’s a certain way to keep her, Lieutenant.”

  Connell smiled at him. “The psychiatrists will look at you tomorrow, Blake. Your reasoning and emotions will be chewed over then.”

  “If I wanted her to stay why would I kill her?”

  “According to your neighbor, Miss Grueter, your wife had visitors. Is that what you argued about? According to your partner, Bruce Bricker, your wife was planning to leave you after last week’s flare-up.”

  Blake laughed shortly. “If they’ve all said it for me, what else is there for me to say?”

  “Not much, Blake. I’ll say this for you — a lot of the people we talked to insisted you couldn’t be guilty.”

  “Oh, well, you won’t let that influence you,” Blake said ironically.

  “No. We won’t,” Connell replied flatly. “Your wife’s friends, Nort and Paula Donaldson, saw you in a beer tavern. You were acting queerly. They went to call on your wife. There was no answer. They only came forward after hearing the report on the radio.”

  “Then who called you?” Blake demanded.

  “What’s the matter, Blake? Did you think you’d have more time to get away?”

  “I didn’t get away. You caught me in town, remember?”

  “You’d already been out of town once, Blake. A salesman named Frazer saw your picture in the paper. He remembers you on the bus. Morose. That was the word for you, according to Frazer.”

  “He didn’t give me a chance to say anything,” Blake said.

  Connell stood up. “Well, Blake, the evidence is all against you. There are no foreign fingerprints in your apartment. Looks like I’m going to have to turn you over to the boys.”

  “It’s all thin!” Blake snapped. “I was in love with my wife. We
hadn’t been married six months. I had no reason to kill her. You’ve got no evidence against me at all.”

  “We’ve evidence, Blake. But there’s one truth that will stand up — you ran. You ran and you kept running. You can sign a statement now, Blake, or you can sit with my boys for a few hours.”

  “I’ll sit with the boys,” Blake said tiredly. “I want to see if they’ve learned anything since I worked in this dump.”

  Connell pressed a button. The men in the chairs along the wall were whispering together. The jailer opened the door and stepped inside. “Back to his boudoir, Fred,” Connell said tiredly.

  “No boys?” Blake inquired.

  Connell just looked at him. “We’ll let you know when,” he said.

  Blake pulled up his wrinkled trousers and shuffled out of the door after the jailer.

  Exhausted, he sat down on the edge of his cot. He thought, when Arrenhower sets a trap for you, it has steel jaws.

  It would be bad enough, he thought bitterly, just fighting Connell, the cops and the district attorney’s office. But he had to fight Arrenhower and Arrenhower’s money and influence.

  He struck the wall impotently with his fist.

  And Stella’s slayer went on walking around free….

  If only he could produce an alibi, something or somebody who could swear for him. Anything to get him out of here. All he wanted to do was be alone with the man who had killed Stella.

  He shuffled over to the cot and lay down. His eyes burned. He closed them against the light. He could hear the laughter and the talk from the cells along the corridor. The sounds drifted away as smoke drifts on a lazy breeze. Somebody was laughing and then there was silence. And Blake was asleep.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked up. It was the turnkey. “Why, Fred,” Blake said, “are the boys ready for me already?”

  He sat up, pushing his hands back through his rumpled, dry hair. His mouth tasted like burnt matches. Silently, the cop handed him his belt and his shoestrings. “Put ’em on,” he said.

  Blake stared at him. He frowned. He stood up and slid the belt through the belt straps on his trousers. Then he laced up his shoes. Funny, he thought, you never realize how little things like a belt and shoestrings can make you feel like a human being.

  “All right,” Fred said. “Let’s go.”

  Puzzled, Blake went along the corridor. He could see that it was night. He looked at the white place on his arm where his wrist watch should be. He wondered what time it was.

  “Where to, lover?” he said to the cop.

  “Right through there,” Fred answered.

  “But that’s where I came in.”

  “That’s right.”

  They stopped him at a desk. His watch and wallet were returned to him and he receipted a slip for them.

  His heart slugging against his ribs, Blake walked across the room to a second desk. The sergeant there just looked at him and shoved a legal document at him. “Don’t read it, fella,” the sergeant said. “Just sign it.”

  As he was signing his name, two men in expensively tailored topcoats and suits stepped up behind him. He turned slowly to face them.

  “Blake,” the shorter man said. “My name is Alder Harrison. Attorney. Tampa. This is Mr. Arnoldson. Mr. Arnoldson provides bail bonds to any amount. I brought him along in case I met any difficulties.”

  Blake just stared at Harrison. He was a dapper, dark haired man of fifty. “You mean I’m free? I can walk out of here?”

  Harrison nodded. “Temporarily, you are free, Blake. And you can walk out of here.”

  Blake shook his head. “Where’s Connell?”

  Harrison smiled. “Lieutenant Connell? Why, I believe he is wearing a restraining jacket at the moment. But he isn’t our consideration just now. If you’ll come with me out to the curb, there is someone I’d like you to meet — the man responsible for your temporary release.”

  Blake just nodded. Numbly, he followed Harrison and Arnoldson out to the street. There was a shiny black Cadillac at the curb. The back door stood open, a man hunched forward watching through it. A swarthy chauffeur stood at attention beside it. “I’m Arrenhower,” the man in the car said. “Mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammed — so here I am.”

  9

  ARRENHOWER put out his pudgy hand. Blake hesitated a moment and then took it. Arrenhower smiled genuinely enough and seemed not to notice the pale look of puzzlement in Blake’s face.

  Arrenhower was a fat little man, with barrel chest and bantam weight legs. But there was a look of innate power about him. He appeared well-fed, prosperous, in his two hundred dollar tailored suit and hand-tooled felt hat. His jowls were heavy. But in his eyes and about his movements was the inborn condition that made him feel powerful and that made bigger men instinctively fear and obey him.

  He said, “Well, Mr. Blake. I’m glad you’re free.”

  Blake released his hand and stepping back from the car, straightened a little. “I’m afraid I don’t get it, Mr. Arrenhower. But I agree with you. I’m glad I’m free.”

  He could feel the presence of Harrison and Arnoldson at his back. The chauffeur at his side sported a broken nose, cauliflower ears and a wide chest that was beginning to slip a little. The chauffeur was standing at attention at the open door, but Blake had the upsetting feeling that the man was on the balls of his feet, ready to spring and that though he wasn’t touching anything, the big hands at his sides were not relaxed.

  Blake decided there was no such thing as freedom, not on this earth, not any more. You meant something to somebody: taxes, labor, gain or knowledge. He would probably have been safer with the district attorney and twelve citizens in a jury box.

  He determined to get the waiting over as quickly as possible. “Well, thanks, Mr. Arrenhower. I can’t repay you for what you’ve done.”

  “Maybe you can,” Arrenhower said casually.

  “Can I? How?”

  Arrenhower looked up at him. He was no longer smiling. But there was no malice in his face, either — just that look of authority. Just the certain knowledge that he would always be able to accomplish anything he wanted. He could even with bond, bribe or legal technicality, get a suspected murderer temporarily freed from jail. In Arrenhower’s face there was no expression of wonder that this should be true, just placid acceptance.

  But Blake knew that Arrenhower wanted something from him. Something that could not be had while Blake remained in jail.

  Arrenhower’s voice was deceptively soft. “Are you in any hurry, Mr. Blake? Any dates, engagements?”

  “I’ve a date with a killer, Mr. Arrenhower. But I guess it can wait.”

  “Get in,” Arrenhower said, and then added, softly, “won’t you?”

  Blake could feel a fragile silence in the dark street before the police station. It was as though the three men walling him in were, for the moment, not even breathing.

  “Thank you,” Blake said. The three men exhaled.

  He stepped into the rear of the car. Arrenhower moved over to the far corner and Blake flopped into the seat beside him. Harrison slid in beside Blake. The chauffeur went around the car and got in under the wheel. Arnoldson smiled at all of them, closed the back door and got in the front beside the driver.

  The car moved swiftly from the curb, made a U-turn in the middle of the street and was hitting forty in second gear.

  Blake relaxed between Arrenhower and the lawyer. They were gliding past every car going north on Fourth street. The silence grew slightly tense. The lawyer took out a pack of Luckies, looked at them longingly and then let them slip back into his pocket. Obviously, Blake thought, Mr. Arrenhower doesn’t smoke.

  Arrenhower spoke at last. “Al White, my chauffeur,” he said to Blake. “He was a heavyweight boxer a few years ago. Did you ever see him in the ring, Blake?”

  “Yes. A few times, out at Soldiers’ Field,” Blake said. He let his voice lift a little. “He was always pretty slow on his feet.”r />
  Arrenhower smiled chidingly. “It’s no use, Blake. You can’t ride him. Punched a little too much in the head. Slightly deaf.”

  Again there was silence. It grew warm in the big car. Finally, Harrison said, “You understand, Blake, you are out under heavy bond. It wouldn’t do for you to attempt to jump. You have no idea how many people would be after you.”

  Blake said, “That’s where you’re wrong. I do have an idea.”

  Harrison shrugged. “Just so you understand.”

  Arnoldson turned slightly and smiled from the front seat.

  “That’s the trouble,” Arrenhower said, half to himself, “the smart men. They’re always working against me. And usually for peanuts. You know, I could have used a smart man like you in my outfit, Blake.”

  Blake smiled grimly. “I’ve heard that for years, Mr. Arrenhower. Nobody can ever understand why you’re working at the job you have. It isn’t ever good enough. Why are you wasting your brains and your talent? I’ve heard all that. There’s just one answer. To eat. No matter how smart a man is, he’s got to have the breaks. It would have just been the breaks if I’d gotten a job in your outfit. In fact, I got one. But I never got to show what a master mind I had.”

  Arrenhower nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right. It’s just that men in charge of other men don’t see it quite that way. When we see a smart man and know that we have a place for him, we halfway blame that man for not making his knowledge at least available to us. Since we’ve become aware of you, we have made an exhaustive study into your background. Isn’t that right, Harrison?”

  The lawyer nodded. “We’ve investigated you pretty thoroughly, Blake.”

  “I’m flattered,” Blake said. “Do you do that with every hit-and-run victim?”

  There was charged silence in the car.

  Arrenhower spoke finally. “Hit and run. You should think more about that idea, Blake. Do I appear to be a man who would order such a thing done?”

  “How many teeth do I lose for answering that one?”

  Arrenhower smiled thinly. “All right. I have my answer. You think I do. Well, you’re wrong. You’ve been listening to Dickerson. Don’t you see, Blake? His company was in trouble with the government. And the way to get off the hook was to get us on it. And you can always raise a stink with Uncle Sam by yelling profiteer. That’s why I’m trying to break off with American Materials and Dickerson. I don’t want his men in my plants. I want men like Dickerson kept out — and when they work for Dickerson, I want men like you kept out.”