The Second Reginald Bretnor Megapack

by Reginald Bretnor

  He handed it to Pete.

  Pete glanced at it, drew his breath in sharply, read it through again.

  “Would you mind reading it aloud?” said Faraday.

  Pete did so, very slowly. It was from a gubernatorial mansion in one of the North Atlantic states.

  Dear Mayor Munrooney:

  As you have known since our conversations at the last Convention, I am deeply impressed by your progressive attitudes and policies, your political genius, and your great sincerity.

  After much consideration, I have decided that there is no man in the United States whom I would rather have as my running mate if I have the good fortune to be nominated for the Presidency.

  Needless to say, this must be held in complete confidence for the time being—there’s no point in giving advance information to our enemies. However, I would appreciate your giving it your immediate and serious consideration, and advising me of your decision as soon as possible.

  With all good wishes for your continuing success.

  Cordially yours…

  The letter was signed by his party’s front-running candidate.

  “May I see it?” asked Faraday.

  Pete gave it to him, and he examined it. “There’s no doubt that this is genuine,” he said. “Do you know what his decision was, Mr. Wallton?”

  “Yes, sir. I guess they thought the limousine partition was closed all the way. What he said was, ‘The bastard means I can get him lots of votes.’ Then the character in the back seat with him asked, “You’re going to turn him down, aren’t you?’ And Munrooney came back with, ‘Are you crazy? Turn down a chance to get within one jump of the White House? Hell no, I’m going to accept.’ The other fellow sort of gasped. He said, ‘Errol, what about the Master Plan?’ And Munrooney said, ‘It’s down the drain—it and a lot of other stuff.’”

  “And who was the man he said this to?”

  “It was his partner, that lawyer Judson Hemmet.”

  “Mr. Wallton, would you be willing to testify to all of this in court? Perhaps in my court?”

  “I would,” said Dennis Wallton.

  Now Faraday stood up, the letter in his hand. “Tim, this is your lucky day. Here is your motive for Munrooney’s murder. It is concrete evidence which cannot be denied.” His eyes flashed. “Very well, I’ll listen to your tapes.”

  CHAPTER XIV

  A Crash in Uruguay

  The next three days were busy ones for Timuroff. The first order of business, of course, was listening to Reese Guthrie’s tapes, or rather to those of them that Pete and Edstrom thought would be especially interesting to him. Guthrie had delivered the originals, and had assured him that a set of copies was now in one of Ledenthal’s filing cabinets; and Pete, oli duty, had undertaken to do the preliminary scanning, with Edstrom helping whenever possible. It was a fascinating but sordid business. Half the conversations were between Miranda Gardner and Hemmet. Most of the rest—and these were often the more interesting—were between her and a variety of other people, men and women, some of them trapped in debt, others whom she controlled by other means, and a few who, seemingly unafraid, simply appeared to be in league with her.

  Pete listened carefully, keeping a log of every name, of each address, of each transaction. He worked at home,’ after he and Edstrom had gone over the apartment and found it clean, and every afternoon and evening the judge would join him, look the log over, and choose the tapes he wished to listen to. Timuroff stayed away, to avoid attracting any attention. He had asked Pete to note those tapes that contained references to the relationship between Hemmet and Mrs. Gardner, and especially any in which, behind his back, she hinted at friction or distrust or possible betrayal on either side.

  His was a very special interest, and at first nothing turned up that satisfied him. By Friday evening, though Pete and Edstrom and Clayton Faraday were excited by what had been disclosed, he was impatient, and his impatience had communicated itself to Liselotte, to Olivia, who had come back to work, and to Dr. Grimwood, who was beginning to feel left out of things. He did his best to pacify them, but succeeded only with the doctor, who at least had some idea of what was in the wind. Liselotte, presciently apprehensive, had given him a bad time on Friday night, and he was sure that Olivia, who had been looking at him reproachfully all day, was doing the same for Pete.

  On Saturday, he went with Dr. Grimwood, Penny Anne, and Liselotte to the services for Amos Ledenthal, and while everyone was gone the Ledenthal residence was quietly burgled. A TV repair truck pulled up in front of it, and two men forced the door latch with a plastic card after ringing the bell ostentatiously. They carried tool kits and a large carton. Presently they came out, once more carrying their gear. Several readily salable articles were stolen—a stereo set, a portable TV, some silver and some jewelry, a shotgun, and a pocket watch. So were the tapes, together with a few oddments from the study. A couple of Bill Traeger’s men, observing from the house of a cooperative friend of Ledenthal’s almost a block away, recorded the proceedings with a telephoto lens; and Timuroff, when he heard that everything had gone off as anticipated, temporarily forgot his own frustration—until Pete called him at eleven o’clock that night to tell him that the tapes still had not yielded what he wanted. When Mr. Rop Millweed phoned at a few minutes to midnight to say excitedly that a national syndicate might be interested in the Timuroff memoirs of the case “as told to Rop Millweed, internationally known correspondent,” his answer was so picturesque that Liselotte refused to speak to him for half an hour.

  Sunday began more favorably. By noon, the tapes had all been listened to, and Pete had phoned to tell him a couple of them might be what he was looking for. He drove out to the Cominazzos’, first dropping Dr. Grimwood off at Kemble Street, and listened to them. After he had listened to them twice, he decided that they could scarcely be better for his purpose. He told Pete he wanted copies made, and learned that Pete and Edstrom had anticipated him.

  Shortly afterward, Judge Faraday arrived, was given a quick summary of the final tapes, and listened to pertinent sections of a number of them. Abruptly, then, court was again in session.

  “Gentlemen,” the judge said, “can you sum the situation up for me as it now looks from the police point of view? Naturally, I’ve formed my own opinion, but I would like to hear what you think.”

  “Pete and I are pretty much agreed,” said Edstrom. “Go ahead, Pete, you tell him.”

  “Sir, we’ve got enough to wreck the works,” Pete stated. “But almost none of it is stuff on which we can act instantly. I mean, we have a map telling us where to go and how to get there—but we’ve still got to drive the distance, and look for signs, and maybe ask our way. There’s a hell of a lot of police work to be done before we get the thing wrapped up—unless we want to run the risk of blowing it. We need Miranda’s personal papers, but God knows where they are, since Guthrie spooked her.”

  “That’s my opinion too.” Faraday nodded. “Still, somebody must know exactly where she keeps them. The problem’s who. And how will you find out? Remember, there must be no mistake. Any warrant issued on faulty information could ruin us.”

  “Judson Hemmet knows,” Timuroff said quietly. “He must know.”

  “He’ll never talk,” Pete protested. “No more than Miranda would.”

  Timuroff’s jaw muscles tightened. “He’ll talk to me. Under the right circumstances, I think he’ll tell me everything he knows.”

  “What are those circumstances?” asked Clayton Faraday. Timuroff evaded the direct question. “I can arrange them—with a little help,” he said.

  “I…see.” The judge looked at him narrowly. “My instinct as a man urges me to press the point until you tell me what you have in mind. However, my intuition as a judge instructs me to the contrary. There are some things it is perhaps better for judges not to know, and
I suspect that this is one of them. I will ask you one favor, though—for Liselotte’s sake, not my own.”

  “Sir?” said Timuroff.

  “Tim, I really know you very well.” Faraday smiled, and his face shone suddenly with kindness and concern. “I quite agree with Lise that you belong in an earlier century than our own. I hope you won’t do anything anachronistic that could get you into serious trouble in this one.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Timuroff promised him.

  There was some further conversation about what could be done with the information the tapes contained. Then Faraday left, after accepting Timuroff’s dinner invitation for the Tuesday following.

  “Okay,” said Pete, after the door had closed behind him. “What kind of crazy plan have you cooked up? How’re you going to pry that information out of Hemmet—with a sword?”

  “Possibly,” Timuroff replied, not smiling. “Actually, my plan is pretty much complete, but I’m going to have to bring Heck in on it, and Bill Traeger too. Why don’t we get together this evening out on Kemble Street, if it’s all right with Heck? Then I can tell you what I have in mind, and we can go over it step by step.”

  Pete agreed grudgingly, and Edstrom said he could arrange to be there at about eight. Timuroff thanked them, and took his leave. He drove directly home, and called Wade Kalloch. Kalloch said, no, he wasn’t busy, and for a few minutes they chatted inconsequentially about old weapons. Then Timuroff asked casually which of Gottschalk’s rapiers Hemmet had used when he killed Amos Ledenthal, and learned it was a monstrously long German blade. “God damn the bastard!” Kalloch shouted. “I got it back after the cops said self-defense, but it’s got a sort of scratch all along one side, I guess where it rubbed against that Jap sword Amos tried to cut him with, and even that’s been damaged. The guard was bent all out of shape when Amos dropped it, and there are scratches on it too, only I’m not sure they weren’t already there. By God, sometimes I think I’ll start collecting clocks instead!”

  “Hickory, dickory, dock,” Timuroff said sympathetically, and wished him luck.

  Next, he phoned Florencio Pambid, who was out working, and asked his wife whether one or both of them could be available later in the week, he wasn’t sure just when. She told him that, even if he was engaged, Florencio would be glad to cancel for Mr. Timuroff; and he promised to call again that evening.

  Finally, he played the tapes he had received from Pete and Edstrom, listened to them very carefully, marked them, and went out to Kemble Street, where he found Bill Traeger in the library.

  “I know Heck’s busy with Evangeline,” he said. “I’ll see him later. Right now, I want to talk to you.” And he told Traeger how Judge Faraday and Pete and Edstrom had heard the tapes, and how they had agreed that only the seizure of Miranda’s personal files could crack the case wide open. “I have a plan,” he said. “I think I can make Hemmet talk, if Pete and Edstrom go along with it. Bill, it’s going to be rough. I’m going to explain it this evening, and then you can decide. Meanwhile, I’ve brought you a few tapes. They contain the makings of what Hemmet has to hear Miranda saying. I’d like to know if you can cut out what we don’t want and put the rest together so nobody’ll know.”

  “That’ll be simple,” Traeger answered. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t touch it—it’s more in Hanno’s line. But this time—if we can make it work—the bastard has it coming.” Timuroff left him and joined Hector Grimwood and Evangeline, now comfortably settled in her room.

  “Heck,” he asked, “would it be too much of a job to reprogram our pretty little friend?”

  The doctor patted their pretty little friend with pride. “Not really. This time, I have her tape-controlled, like a computer. It takes a little planning and a little time, that’s all. Her conversation can be coordinated with her actions—turning her head, smiling, using her hands and arms.” He beamed. “I’m really very pleased with myself, Tun. Her mouth responds to the words she uses just as if she were really speaking them. I’d hardly hoped to succeed so well.”

  He activated an unseen remote control, and Evangeline turned toward Timuroff, lowered her fids demurely, raised her hands even more demurely to her decolletage, smiled, and said, in Penny Anne’s soft voice, “I like you, Mr. Timuroff. Dr. Grimwood thinks you’re very nice, and so do I.”

  Hector Grimwood chuckled delightedly, and switched her off.

  Timuroff bowed to her, and congratulated her creator. “Heck, she’s wonderful! I could’ve sworn her mouth formed those words, and I must admit I find them much more pleasing than if she’d quoted Longfellow as Eric does. Besides, I’m glad to hear that she’s so adaptable. It happens to fit in with what I have in mind.”

  Grimwood sat down and pointed to a chair. “So something is developing? Tim, I hope at last we’re going to put an end to this! Tell me about it.”

  Timuroff told him very much what he had already told Bill Traeger; and they agreed to meet in the doctor’s library at eight o’clock to talk over his plan. Then he went downstairs again, and listened to Traeger’s report on the four tapes.

  “See if I’m wrong,” said Traeger. “I’m to cut out all the names and crud where Miranda’s talking about Hanno and that other guy—the one who runs the warehouse—and make it like she’s talking about Hemmet?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay, I’ll have it ready by tomorrow. I can’t guarantee he’ll fall for it, but nobody’ll ever know that it’s been touched. Let’s run them through again, and you can show me exactly what to do and where.”

  They played the pertinent sections of the tapes, and Timuroff indicated the cuts, insertions, and change of sequences.

  “That gal’s real weird,” Traeger commented when they had finished. “Did you listen to that boyfriend she was talking to? The guy sounds like a nance. Do you suppose she sleeps with him?”

  “I’d imagine so, though I’ve not speculated on the details. She’s had a lot of these young men, and they’ve all been alike. As soon as one disappears, another comes along. Maybe she eats him up after they’ve mated.”

  “Of her, I could believe anything.” Traeger grimaced. “Anyhow, you’re in business.”

  Timuroff thanked him, promised that he’d be back at eight, and drove downtown again to look in at the shop, check his mail, and brave Olivia’s silent disapproval. Even after he had attended to the correspondence and glanced through the one sale catalogue that had come in, from Paris, there was still time to kill. Liselotte and Penny Anne had taken off for the maestro’s. Hector Grimwood was having dinner at the Engineers Club with an old friend who was going to pick him up and bring him back again. And Olivia rather conspicuously said nothing about his dining with the Cominazzos. Finally, to quell his sudden doubts and apprehensions, he left her to close up, and went out to the Russian restaurant on Hayes Street. There he spent an hour or two trading nostalgic reminiscences with the proprietor and with the cook, who was from Vladivostok, and, while he ate his dinner and drank a bottle of good Gamay Beaujolais, reviewed his plan of action. It cheered him. When he returned to Kemble Street, he was once more optimistic.

  Pete and Edstrom were already there, talking to Bill Traeger in the library, and Hector Grimwood joined them a minute or two later. Sensing their eagerness, he began almost without preamble.

  “Gentlemen,” he asked, “what is your opinion of Judson Hemmet? Does he impress you as fundamentally a brave man? Do you think that under great pressure he would refuse to break?”

  “He’s a murderer, not a hero,” Pete answered. “But he’ll never break without trying to bend every which way.”

  “From what I’ve heard,” said Edstrom, “I think it’d depend on the degree of pressure. Hit him hard enough, and he might come apart.”

  “I intend to hit him hard enough,” Timuroff told them; and he proceeded, step by step, to outline his
plan. They listened to him spellbound, without question, without comment. His plan was simple. It only took him fifteen minutes to give them every detail. But before he was even halfway through, he realized that they would not support him.

  He finished, and waited for their comments.

  “My God, Tim!” Pete exploded. “Just how anachronistic can you get? Look, Norm here and I are cops—there’s just so much we can get away with, anytime. Sure, it’s a great plan—if everything you say is right, which maybe it won’t be. But how many felony counts will there be against you and all of us if it just doesn’t jell?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Timuroff,” said Edstrom. “I’ve got to go along with Pete. Anyhow, are we in all that hurry? Hemmet has his tapes. He probably feels safe again. Do we have to push it all that hard?”

  “I think so,” Timuroff told him.

  “So do I,” Bill Traeger said. “Maybe it won’t work, but my hunch is to try it. What else can we do?”

  “We can wait and start our police work,” Edstrom answered, and Pete nodded his agreement.

  For a few minutes, they argued back and forth, with Timuroff successfully concealing his annoyance, and no one challenging his position. Hector Grimwood, distressed, spoke of hiring some high-powered legal aid instead. “No, no, no!” he said. “Think of the personal risk that you’d be running, Tim. Suppose that everything went wrong? I never would forgive myself. And what would Liselotte say? No, no, we mustn’t even think of it.”