The Man who was Murdered Twice

by Robert H. Leitfred

  He lifted the top of a radio cabinet, and a miniature bar came to view. “Scotch or Rye?” he inquired.

  “Rye,” said his night visitor.

  Crole set a bottle of rye and two glasses on a small taboret which he moved into position between two deep-cushioned chairs. Fumbling for matches he again allowed his eyes to range over the room for the thing that disturbed him. He knew it was there. He was prepared to find it. And did.

  He sighed gustily as his big frame settled into the deep-cushioned chair. But his eyes were grave with suppressed fury.

  To his left, as he sat down, high on the wall, was a marine study done in oil by Frank Cuprien, a noted west-coast artist. It was a fairly large painting of the Pacific, depicting restless waves at sundown. There was no sun in the picture, only its reflection from the clouds. A restful scene of soft, luminescent upheavals of water.

  But to Simon Crole, as he sighed and faced his night caller, all the charm and restfulness of the painting had vanished. In its place was a savage resentment.

  During his absence the picture had been moved, tampered with, and now hung shamefully askew.

  And Simon Crole, filling his visitor’s glass with rye, knew, as though he had placed it there himself, what lay behind the crooked picture on the wall.

  XII. A NEW ALLY

  Dissembling, Crole smiled across the taboret. “How’s the rye?” he asked.

  “Fine. Mind if I have another?”

  “Help yourself.”

  The man helped himself, meanwhile studying the big, hard-muscled body of Simon Crole slumped lazily in the chair. Finally he spoke in a clipped voice. “I guess it’s time we got down to business, Crole. What do you say?”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to start talking. Go ahead. I’m a good listener.”

  “To get down to cases, Crole. I’m a private detective like yourself. I am or was a partner of Joe Coughlin.”

  “Didn’t know Joe Coughlin had a partner.”

  “Nothing like being wised to a certain fact, is there?”

  Crole blinked and lighted a cigarette. “The more I know about people, the safer I feel. You included. Tell me some more.”

  “Sure. Why not? Now listen. Joe was working independently on a case which I wasn’t in on. Sometimes we handle our work that way. But though he didn’t tell me what it was all about, I knew he was worried.

  He was so worried that he wrote a note and left it on my desk.”

  From his pocket the man took a small square of paper. “This isn’t the original, Crole. I got the real copy put away where it is safe. Want me to read what my partner wrote?”

  “If you’re not too ignorant.”

  “Forget the sarcasm. Here’s what he writes: T am afraid I will have to drop this case I’m working on. Already I’m into something that’s close to breaking a certain legal statute that carries a penalty of life imprisonment or death. Should Simon Crole interfere in my affairs, the result might turn out badly for me. For there is only one man in this city who I am afraid of—and that man is Simon Crole. I went into this case with my eyes open, but it looks, from the way things are shaping up, that I am going to be forced into something that will cause a Grand Jury investigation. I think I’ll have to see Crole and have a talk with him.’ How’s that strike you as a piece of evidence?”

  “Smack between the eyes. It’s some document, and no doubt genuine. Coughlin must have been scared as hell when he wrote it.”

  “Yes, I think he was—and with good reason.”

  “All this,” said Crole, “is highly instructive yet somewhat vague. Suppose we get down to hard facts. You have your reason for reading Coughlin’s reflections to me. He must have had something on his conscience when he wrote it.”

  “He had you on his conscience. He was afraid of what might happen to him. He was afraid you might learn so much of his activities that you’d become panicky and kill him to close his mouth.”

  Crole picked up a butt from the tray and lighted it. “You’re still shooting in the dark. I don’t consider myself dense, but your point, in spite of what you have already disclosed, still eludes me.”

  “The point is that I haven’t as yet taken this piece of evidence to the police. I thought I’d wait until I had a talk with you.”

  Crole inhaled deeply and allowed the smoke to dribble from nostrils and mouth in twin gray clouds. “I think I get your point. You want something from me in return for Coughlin’s written words. A form of shake-down.”

  “You might call it that.”

  “Or possibly, blackmail.”

  “Call it anything you want to. I’m out for the dough—a big chunk. You’ve got plenty. So I figured that the original of what I just read to you would be worth more in your hands than—say the hands of the District Attorney for instance.”

  “Got it all figured out, eh?”

  “Yes. And it adds up right either way.”

  “How much are you demanding?”

  “Ten grand. Cash. In the morning.”

  Simon Crole exhaled noisily. “Whew! That’s a lot of money. Too much. I’d like to have that piece of evidence. It would make me quite happy. But I’d never buy it from you. It isn’t worth it. Besides, I never pay out blackmail. It’s against my principles.”

  “I’m simply telling you how it is, Crole. You know damned well that you bumped off my partner. So does the D.A. This piece of evidence would provide the motive that District Attorney Minifie failed to uncover when his investigators were in your office after Joe Coughlin’s murder.”

  Crole’s ordinarily pleasant eyes began to cloud over. He said: “What’s your name? I don’t remember that you told me.”

  “I didn’t. My name doesn’t matter.”

  “Then I’ll call you one. Right to your face. You’re a rat—a vicious, snarling rat trying to cash in on your partner’s death. There may be a form of human scum lower than you are, but I have yet to discover it.”

  He got up from his chair and stood towering above the other man. His eyes slitted, and unconsciously his fists knotted. He stepped back, however, as the chunky muzzle of an automatic jammed against his stomach.

  “I’ve got a permit, Crole, to carry this gun. Make a pass at me, and I’ll spill your supper all over the carpet.”

  Crole continued to back away, his lips twisted in their smile of surprise. Slowly he raised his hand, the left one, palm upwards and extended it towards the marine picture on the wall.

  “It won’t be necessary to take down the picture to see what’s behind it. I know what’s there without having to see it—a small microphone for trapping the human voice. There’ll be wires running to an artificial diaphragm that exactly reproduces our voices on a wax phonograph record. The stylus cuts a wavy line that never lies. It was a cheap set-up and hardly worthy of a brainy man like our District Attorney.”

  A thin smile of admiration curled the other man’s lips. “Smart, aren’t you?”

  “Not too smart,” said Crole, wagging his bald head from side to side. “Just disappointed in the man who tried to make use of you to frame me with something so crude as blackmail.”

  He sat down abruptly and poured himself a drink. His voice had a cutting edge. “You can get the hell out of my apartment anytime now, and take your wires and dictaphone apparatus with you. I suspect the rest is hooked up in an adjoining apartment. Take it and get out—before I lose my temper and kick you out.”

  He watched his caller rest his gun arm on a table while he lifted the receiver of the telephone and called a number.

  District Attorney Minifie, red-eyed, his nerves raw from the constant bickering of news reporters, sat behind a cluttered desk in his home. There were two telephones on the desk. One was a private wire to his own office. The second was for outside calls. This second one was ringing now.

  He took down the receiver. His voice reflected the deep weariness of an over-worked body. “Yes,” he said.

  “Leahy speaking,” said a voice. “I’m at
Crole’s apartment.”

  A hopeful light came into the District Attorney’s eyes. “Well?”

  “What’ll I do? The plan fizzled. I don’t know why. But it did.”

  District Attorney Minifie picked up a pencil and placed the point against the desk blotter. In a space not already covered with other pencil markings he drew a circle. Inside the circle he drew a square. The square he divided into four right angles. “Get anything at all on the record?”

  “Nothing but abuse.”

  “Hmmm! He knew about the apparatus, then?”

  “As if he’d installed it himself.”

  The District Attorney grined dourly. “Well, it’s too bad. Convey him my apologies. I don’t want him sore at me.” He hung up.

  Leahy pocketed his gun and said: “The D.A. says he’s sorry he done you wrong, and for you not to get sore. That make you feel better?”

  “There’s still some rye left,” said Crole. “And Leahy, who the hell’s idea was this in the first place?”

  “I’ll take another drink,” said Leahy. He poured the rye, regarded it seriously, said: “Daniels’ idea. I’m the sucker who was picked to see it through since I was an unknown to you. But what I said about Coughlin was correct. We were partners in that we shared the same office, though we worked independent of each other, sharing the fees between us.”

  Crole clasped his hands around his knees. “I’m sorry about calling you a rat, Leahy. But I had in mind a man selling his dead partner’s murderer freedom for the ten grand you mentioned.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “You still running the business now that your partner is dead?”

  “Sure. What else can I do?”

  “Working on anything right now?”

  “This little job for the D.A. He said it ought to be good for a few days more. Looks like it’s washed up now.”

  “It is, Leahy.” Crole searched for a butt, failed to find one, so was forced to roll his cigarette. When all this was attended to he found his glass empty. He filled it. He emptied it. He smacked his lips, said: “I seem to be busy as hell doing nothing in particular.” He leaned back in his chair and studied the man. “How’d you like to work for me?” he asked.

  Leahy toyed with his glass. His hat up to this moment had remained on his head. He took it off. His hair was sandy, thin, but well combed. He had large blue eyes and an undistinguished face. From the band of his hat he took a square of paper. He grinned as he placed it on the taboret.

  “The original, Crole, of that thing I read to you.”

  “It doesn’t mean anything to me, Leahy.”

  “Probably not. I’m showing you that I have it. In other words I’m laying it in your hands if you want it—for nothing.”

  “The hell!” grunted Crole, rising up. “A few minutes ago I would have liked that piece of paper as an interesting keepsake. It revealed a strange fact, Leahy. Coughlin was afraid of me. He shouldn’t have been—unless he broke some law that might involve me.”

  “Don’t you ever go outside the law, Crole?”

  “My enemies say I do—but they’ve never proved it.”

  “Why was Joe afraid of you? But before you answer—I’ll be damned glad to work for you or with you, whatever you say.”

  Simon Crole nodded absently. “Consider yourself hired. Now to get back to your former partner. The legal statute he referred to was an attempted kidnapping. The victim was a young woman—the secretary to the late James Gillespie. The snatch wasn’t a success. A man named Anderson took the girl from her abductor. That man was a client of mine. And Coughlin knew it. And because he knew it, he was afraid that—well, you know how he felt.”

  “Yes, that’s plenty clear.”

  “Another thing,” Crole resumed. “I have a notion that Coughlin wanted to get clear from the people he was working for. He knew, or should have known, that he was in for trouble if he didn’t. But whoever he worked for would not loosen their hold. They forced him to come to my office and borrow my gun in the name of the District Attorney.”

  A startled look appeared in Leahy’s blue eyes. “That explains a certain telephone conversation. Hell, Crole. I remember now. It was a half or three quarters of an hour before he got bumped off that the phone in our office rang. He answered it. Someone must have been urging him to something he wasn’t willing to do. He finally said that he’d see this guy and talk it over with him. Then he went out.”

  “And you made no effort to trace this call or sound out Coughlin?”

  “Why should I? It was his case, not mine.”

  “Did you know, Leahy, that while this telephoning was going on I was in the District Attorney’s office? He had me on the carpet on another matter that was brought about by a strange man telling him over the wire that I was no doubt responsible for Gillespie’s murder. While I was out of my office Coughlin comes in and tells my secretary the District Attorney sent him after my gun.”

  He slapped both knees with the palms of his hands. “And I had hardly more than returned to my office when Coughlin comes weaving in, a bullet through his insides. I carried him to my couch. He was sinking fast. He tried to tell me who did it. He thought before he passed out that he had told me. But his whispers were too faint. He did, however, murmur something about making a snatch and failing, also something about...”

  “About what?” asked Leahy.

  “This is the delicate part,” smiled Crole, “and we’ll have to take each other on trust.”

  “My hole card is that piece of paper,” said Leahy, “written by Joe.” He picked it up, shredded it in small pieces, dropped it in an ash tray and set fire to the torn pieces with a match. “That’s the way I feel about the whole thing, Crole. I wasn’t nuts about the idea of trying to frame you, but when I read that thing to the D.A. he seemed to think there was something behind it. But it was Daniels who arranged the blackmail trap.”

  He got to his feet and crushed a felt hat to his head. “I don’t need anything you’ve got, Crole. I tried to sneak over a fast one on you, and you called the deal, though how the hell you did it I don’t know—or care. You’ve got no reason to trust me, and I’m not holding it against you.”

  “That being the case,” Crole drawled from the deep-cushioned chair, “sit down. We’ll kill what’s left of the rye, then be on our way downtown.”

  “The rye,” said Leahy, “is something I can understand. But what’s downtown this time of night?”

  “Your office, Leahy.”

  “There’s nothing there, Crole. .

  “Oh, but there is,” insisted Crole. “There’s something there that Joe Coughlin whispered about when he lay dying in my office. A something or other, Leahy, that Joe Coughlin called his ‘Secret File.’ And I’ll pay you well if you’ll help me obtain it.”

  A frown of annoyance creased Leahy’s forehead.

  Crole sensed a checkmate. “Maybe you don’t understand what it is I mean?”

  “I understand all right. It was a small memorandum book with loose leaves. It was in Joe’s desk when the District Attorney’s men descended on the office and grabbed everything movable and took it with them for examination.”

  Simon Crole grinned ruefully. “Well, it’s too bad. I had a hunch that I’d find the key to the solution of a couple of murders in that secret file.”

  Leahy’s face brightened. “Maybe I can get it,” he said. “They don’t know themselves what it’s all about. And it’s possible that they haven’t made out a list of what they took from the office. At least they haven’t given me any kind of receipt.”

  For several moments Crole rubbed his bald head. The book in question, he knew, was safe in the District Attorney’s office. In times past things had been taken from the prosecutor’s files—things of a harmful nature that involved big men in the state.

  But he, Simon Crole, was not a big man. Nor was Anderson. They were just two ordinary people. It had been on his mind earlier in the evening to attempt a small burglary by
visiting Coughlin’s former office and searching the records for this particular item.

  Whether he would have actually gone through with his plan he did not know. He had been toying with the idea, testing its feasibility and chances of success. Meanwhile the investigators had jumped in and taken everything, and the one thing he wanted and needed was jammed in with a lot of other records in the property room of the Municipal building where Minifie had his offices.

  He looked up suddenly into the blue eyes of the other man. “Leahy,” he said, “I want that loose-leaf book that Coughlin called his secret file, not because there’s anything in it incriminating to me, but for other reasons. And I wouldn’t think of asking you to go down to the D.A.’s office and deliberately steal it. That wouldn’t be ethical.”

  “It might be done at that,” mused Leahy.

  “But if such a thing could be accomplished without risk,” Crole resumed, “I would be immensely pleased. So pleased, you understand, that I’d be willing to show my appreciation to the extent of five hundred dollars.”

  “The money,” said Leahy, approvingly, “I could use to pay off the balance on a car I bought two months ago.” A wide grin split his face. He extended his hand. “You’ve hired a new operator for a few days. I’ll go down to the D.A.’s office in the morning.”

  Crole took the extended hand. “Fine. I like your directness, Leahy. But remember this. No man ever feared or hated me because I was on the wrong side of law and order. I play a straight game, but I don’t overlook any tricks, provided I can get away with them.” He sighed lugubriously. “Sorry the rye is gone. If you want some gin...”

  “Hell with gin,” said Leahy. “I’m going home and get some sleep. See you tomorrow.”

  After his caller had gone, Crole wandered to the front window and watched him move down the street. Then he went downstairs himself and leaned against the switchboard in the front hall.

  “You’re more intelligent, dear,” he told the girl, “than most young ladies. Here’s for the tip you passed on to me when I came in with the gentleman who just left.” He extended a twenty-dollar bill.