The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  They walked to Tadich’s, and there, over his rex sole, he brought up the subjects they had discussed two days before.

  “By God, Tim, you’re just determined to rub your nose in that unholy mess, aren’t you? What the hell for?”

  “Because I like Hector Grimwood and I’m sure someone’s trying to railroad him. That’s one reason. Another is that Pete is getting pushed around because of it. Besides that, Amos, how deeply are you involved? Has it struck you that that little act of Kielty’s could’ve been staged to set you up for something?”

  “Set me up?” Ledenthal looked at him in astonishment. “Why should they? I’m clear out of it. Since I pulled out of Caldwell, Jolly I haven’t been involved with them at all!”

  “Well, you have been saying before God and everybody that Hemmet and Miranda were behind Munrooney’s murder, and I’ve not forgotten the look she gave you at the shop. Amos, you do fly off the handle pretty readily, and a conviction for assaulting a police officer could really prejudice a jury in the future—whether you’re the defendant or the victim. They may have dirty work in mind.” Ledenthal slammed his glass down on the tabletop. “Let ’em try!” he growled. Then he cocked an eyebrow and peered at Timuroff. “What is this, Tim? You’re making noises as if you think maybe I was right about them alter all.”

  “The idea’s growing on me,” admitted Timuroff. “The fact that Hemmet and Miranda have no motive we know about doesn’t automatically shut them out as suspects. Neither does their apparent dependence on Munrooney. And the way the chief and Kielty have been operating makes me wonder whether there may be more at stake than the election, or even the Parks Master Plan—a quick cover-up, for instance. Besides, it’s strange that nothing really seems to point anywhere else, except when Kielty and the chief are pointing it.”

  “I’m glad you’ve seen the light,” Ledenthal grunted. “Don’t misunderstand me, Amos. I’m not convinced, not yet. But it’s a new perspective. Mind if I ask a question?”

  “Poop ahead.”

  “Do you have any solid information—even if it’s something you aren’t free to talk about—linking Hemmet and Miranda to the killing?”

  “I told you, Tim. I don’t know a damn thing the whole world doesn’t know—but I know them. Okay, maybe it’s like Reese keeps telling me and I was a goddamned fool shooting off my mouth the way I did, but I know I’m right. You can smell ’em everywhere.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance that crazy dagger he was stabbed with. I was at Socrates’ party, and God knows there was enough confusion. Every collector and his brother came—Baltesar, Melmoth, Kalloch, even Tom Coulter. Then there were a lot of friends of Socrates’, and all the arms dealers except you, because you were away, and some weird professor who wrote a book about the Coptic scriptures. Jessie and I brought Reese along. Even Heck and Penny Anne showed up.”

  “Did all of them stay late?” asked Timuroff.

  “Socrates doesn’t often dish out hospitality, but when he does he’s pretty good at it. Even after the dagger had been locked up again—or anyhow its case—the party kept on going for an hour.”

  “Did you see him lock it up?”

  “Not exactly. After he’d passed it round in that morocco box he keeps it in, and everybody’d oohed! and auhed! enough, I sort of remember somebody putting it away, and Socrates, all smiles, twisting the combination dial. We’d had a lot to drink by then, and he’d already started hauling out all sorts of other junk to show us.”

  “Pete says no one agrees on who last handled it. Any ideas?”

  Ledenthal drained his wine glass, and held it out to be refilled. “Hell, I just got through telling you. The whole thing spells Miranda Gardner.”

  Timuroff, recalling his own ideas about the khanjar, looked dubious.

  “Think it over. Here’s a far-out weapon, covered with gold and jewels and worth a mint—sure to add more confusion and publicity. Then you come in—an expert hostile to the deceased. Besides, it’s a cruel-looking sticker—just the sort that’d appeal to her. Let’s say the two of them decided they had to kill off Munrooney. The time to do it would be before election—before he could get in again solidly. There’d be a hell of a lot more pressure then than afterwards, and they’d have a lot better chance to pin it on their scapegoat, Heck. He’s made to order for them. Real wild, and the khanjar fits right in. I tell you, Tim, Miranda must’ve brought the bowie in her handbag, with Hemmet covering for her while she made the swap.”

  “And what about van Zaam?”

  “A hired killer, like the papers say.”

  “Then why was he killed?”

  “How do I know?” Ledenthal’s voice began to boom again. “To keep him quiet, I guess. Maybe Hemmet did the job himself, or one of Kielty’s cops. Dammit, Tim, can’t you understand? Those two aren’t human. Miranda’s worse because she’s smarter, but Hemmet’s like van Zaam, only more complex and sneakier. He gets his kicks from hurting people—his poor damn wife, for instance. Remember what he did to Reese awhile back?”

  “I was going to ask. What did he do to Reese?”

  “Damn! Reese wanted me to keep my stupid mouth shut, but I guess you’re going to hear it anyhow. It was just after Reese finished his second tour in Vietnam—when they were winding the whole business up—and he’d come back here to take his father’s place with me. There was a girl named Marianne Denham, whom he’d met somewhere way back when, and he’d been seeing her each time he was on leave. Reese is the kind who takes that part of living seriously. She was for keeps, and all his plans were based on her. Then Hemmet ruined it.”

  “Hemmet?” Timuroff was genuinely shocked. “For God’s sake, how?”

  “I don’t know. The son of a bitch has something, at least where certain women are concerned. Jessica always has detested him, but we were on friendly enough terms in those days. Anyhow, he met Marianne, and the next thing Reese knew she was halfway shacked up with him, and his wife had moved out across the Bay. Reese didn’t try to interfere; he’s too much of a gentleman to raise that kind of stink. Then, a few months later, we heard Hemmet had dumped her for something a lot younger, and she just disappeared. That was when Reese told me all he wanted was to get away, out of the country, and I let him talk me into a planned liquidation for the company.”

  “This I hadn’t heard,” said Timuroff.

  “No, we’ve kept it quiet, and I’ll ask you to do likewise. We’ve already shifted almost the whole business overseas. We’re going to operate mostly in South America and Africa to start, and maybe later on in Asia too, developing more modern river transportation.” Suddenly, Ledenthal’s voice rang with a new enthusiasm. “Brazil alone has half a world you can hardly reach except by river. With shallow-draft vessels and new techniques, plus helicopters, we can explore it, develop it, and do what people did right here years ago! Reese has already made half a dozen trips, bringing small outfits down there in on it. When we get rolling, he’ll stay down there and I’ll be doing the flying back and forth—”

  For the moment, Munrooney’s murder and its train of troubles were forgotten, and Timuroff listened to plans common enough in Albright’s day, but now too often red-taped out of existence before they started. Then he very gently brought the conversation back to the here and now, asking whether Ledenthal wanted to return with him to get the swords.

  “Hell, you don’t think I’m going to leave them with you?” Ledenthal roared so loudly that the waiter almost dropped his tray. “No, sir! I’ll be too busy to come down again, and there’s that sale of Kalloch’s Wednesday afternoon—you’ve heard about it, haven’t you?”

  “Not yet,” said Timuroff.

  “The greedy bastard bought Gottschalk’s whole collection, and he’s giving all his dearest friends first crack at it. I won’t dare miss it because Gottschalk did have a couple
of good blades.”

  Timuroff laughed. “So Kalloch’s doing it again! He’ll peddle off the cream, then try to unload the rest on me. He never learns. They’re always treasures from some great estate. They just don’t happen to fit into his collection, but I can make a fortune out of them. I always tell him no, I knew the man who owned them. Then he gets irritated and goes away. Well, you can count on getting potent drinks before the bargaining starts, so be careful.”

  After Ledenthal had picked up his purchases and gone his way, Timuroff tried to settle down to his correspondence. But now the albatross around his neck refused to be denied. “Albatross,” he said aloud, “let us take counsel with ourselves.”

  Let us assume, he thought, that Amos is right about Hemmet and Miranda. Where do we stand? Obviously, they’ve been aware of the phantom ever since the murders, but they don’t know who he is, or at least aren’t sure, and they can’t know about his new activities. Next, whether or not they know that Heck and Penny Anne are staying with us, they know that Pete and I are on his side, and that we’ll do everything we can to keep him and Hanson from being railroaded. For the moment, because of their power position, they seem invulnerable, but they’re under pressure—the upcoming election, the possible activities of people like myself, the phantom. No matter how desperate their urgency may seem, they can’t afford unnecessary risks. But they can’t afford not to act if the necessity arises. Or to slow down. And where does that leave us? He paused. We’re much more vulnerable. Heck and Hanson are already being attacked. Pete’s job leaves him wide open, but while they’d probably neutralize him legally, they’d have a harder time defusing me. So my own vulnerability may actually be greater. Liselotte, Olivia, Penny Anne? No, that’s the kind of stuff they can’t afford. The phantom—he’s something else again.

  It seemed to hang together nicely. The question of who the phantom was he put aside. There were too many possibilities. Even Judson Hemmet might be a candidate—who knew what his relations with Miranda really were?

  All right, where do we go from here? he asked himself; and the immediate answer was a simple one. He, Timuroff, would have to keep on sticking his nose into other people’s business—but Pete would have to stay as far out of the case as possible, at least until some sort of break made it worthwhile for him to take the risk. I wonder if I can persuade him to, he thought. It’s all speculation up to this point, but the point does seem to be pointing somewhere. Might as well follow it.

  The phone rang. He answered it. Would Mr. Timuroff speak to Mrs. Miranda Gardner’s secretary?… Mr. Timuroff said that he would, and the secretary’s voice came on, fluting delicately. Mrs. Gardner wanted to come down, but she was very, very busy—could she come immediately? It was about the pieces Mr. Timuroff had set aside for her the other day. Would fifteen minutes be too soon?

  Timuroff said he’d be in, and hung up, wondering at the coincidence. Could someone have been tailing Amos Ledenthal? Even after the Kielty episode, that seemed unlikely. More probably, he was the one being watched, either officially or unofficially. He shrugged, and started Glinka’s A Life for the Czar going on the record player.

  By the time Miranda Gardner arrived, he was solemnly reading a Swiss auction catalogue. He put it face down on his desk, conspicuously, and bowed her in, marveling again at the contrast between her lovely legs and youthful figure, the taste and flair of her coiffure and everything she wore, her sculptured, carefully decorated face, and her hard, watchful, unrevealing eyes. This time her secretary was with her, a tall and willowy young man, full of sighs and posturings, and with a brand-new permanent of which he seemed extremely proud.

  In Timuroff’s office, she sat down, glancing at the bar; and he obligingly poured her Canadian on the rocks. “You’ve met Jeffie, haven’t you?” she said. “Find yourself a seat, Jeffie, and tell Mr. Timuroff what you want to drink.”

  Jeffie obediently sat down, and asked if he could have a crème de menthe. Timuroff poured it, made himself a highball, smiled at them both, and proposed a toast “To my customers,” he said.

  Miranda Gardner’s thin, scarlet lips drew back very slightly from her teeth. She drank. “Mr. Timuroff,” she said, “could you find Jeffie a book to look at while we’re doing business? He’s terrified of weapons.” She patted Jeffie’s thigh. “He says they make him feel all creepy-crawly.” She laughed, a high and strangely hollow sound. “I can’t imagine why.”

  Jeffie shuddered obligingly, and Timuroff found him a copiously illustrated volume on the religious art of southern Russia. Then, for almost half an hour, he showed Miranda Gardner knives and daggers. She bought the two he’d put away for her, and asked for more. As he brought them to her one by one, and as together they surveyed his cases, she became, if not friendly, at least so avid, so obviously excited, that he could detect in her none of the frozen antagonism of her previous visit. Very much to his surprise, where he had expected at least some attempt to influence or intimidate him, she made no reference whatsoever to the murders, or to his own role in the case. Instead, she discussed technicalities, of origin, of workmanship, and of the weapons’ actual use.

  Finally, standing beside him with a scissors-katar in one long, blood-rubied hand and her glass in the other, she said, “Your shop is wonderful, Mr. Timuroff. You choose your things so well. I’d really miss you if you went out of business.”

  Timuroff smiled at her again. “I’ve no intention of it, I assure you. I’ve prospered here, and built up a good stock.”

  Her fingers closed and opened, working the three blades of the scissors-katar so that the two outer ones opened with a dry, harsh, shearing sound to reveal the third. “The Indians were so imaginative,” she said. “I’ll have to buy this too.” She looked around the room again, “Your inventory must be quite valuable,” she commented. “Isn’t there a high risk involved? I mean, burglary?”

  “Well, actually the rarer and older your weapons are, the less chance you take. It’s a lot harder for the average thief to get rid of a several-thousand-dollar sword or snaphaunce than a hundred-dollar shooting iron. But of course I have insurance, and good alarms, and my locks are the best ones I could buy—though that’s just to delay anyone breaking in. You can’t stop a real expert from picking them.”

  The scissors-katar fascinated her. Its blades opened, and closed again hungrily. “Unless you fill your locks with melted lead,” she replied abstractedly. “But then you’d have a hard time getting in and out.” And the katar’s blades opened and closed again.

  “So would my customers,” laughed Timuroff, “and that would never do.”

  His expression did not change, but he thanked the powers that be that she was watching the katar and not, like an astute Hong Kong jade dealer, the pupils of his eyes. Amos’s conjecture no longer was an albatross around his neck. Now he was certain it was right.

  When she was through, Miranda Gardner had bought seven more items from him. Most were from India and the Near East, needle-pointed, curiously curved and blood-guttered, but there was also an enormously expensive seventeenth-century main gauche and an ancient Japanese kwaiken, or woman’s dagger. She accepted a final drink, wrote him a check for all of them, ordered Jeffie to his feet, and, still smiling her artificial smile, bade him a brisk good-bye.

  Locking his door again, he walked back slowly to his chair. The realization that she knew about the lead-filled lock had shocked him, but there was more than that. She had not threatened him. She had not probed for information. And had her mention of the melted lead really been accidental—or was she testing him? He decided that, under the circumstances, the chances were heavily against its being deliberate—but the doubt remained.

  Then he sat down—and the idea hit him suddenly. Whatever else she was, Miranda Morphy Gardner was completely and coldly practical. Perhaps, for reasons best known to herself, she seriously expected that he’d go out of busines
s. Perhaps she simply had decided to buy up what she wanted while he was still around.

  The notion was, to say the least, disquieting. Timuroff thought about it, and about what could be done about it, and came to the conclusion that there was nothing he could do but wait—at least nothing overt. The next move must be theirs. But there were other things that he could do. If he could get Pete out of town, that would help—it would look as though he and Pete were giving up. And there were the lines of inquiry he had already opened.

  He phoned Hector Grimwood at Kemble Street, learned that Evangeline was practically complete, and said, “Heck, while I think of it, there’s something I’ve been going to ask you. You mentioned a lawyer called Jefferson, who represented Mrs. Albright. What happened to him?”

  “He died quite a long time ago, right after Mrs. Albright did. In fact, the other members of his firm had to finish winding up her estate. The firm was Braidstone, James, and Jefferson, and—”

  “Braidstone?” interrupted Timuroff.

  “Yes, John H. Braidstone. He was the last of them to go, and of course that was after Baltesar and Hemmet and Munrooney had been taken in. Why? Is it important?”

  “I don’t know, Heck,” Timuroff said, “but it’s interesting. It’ll take some looking into, and we can talk about it later on.”

  They exchanged pleasantries, and he hung up, feeling that a window had been opened, that light was being let in—into the problem, and into the dark chamber where Muriel Fawzi watched the iron door and its leaded lock.

  Then he called Norman Edstrom, the Treasury agent, who immediately turned the conversation on to guns, suggested that they meet for lunch at noon next day, and asked Timuroff to pick him up near the new Federal Building.