The Last Express

by Baynard Kendrick

  The rest of the affair was dressing—stage props to hide the ugliness behind the scene. Strong reasons had been disseminated with care to bring all the actors in a single drama to the Hi-de-Ho Club that night. For an hour since his arrival, his scalpel-sharp mind had probed and cut at the problem without result.

  A waiter leaned close to Maclain, interrupting his thoughts. “There’s a telephone call for Mr. Dearborn.”

  “He’s stepped out,” said Maclain. “Get the number, and I’ll have him call.”

  The sound of the waiter’s retreating feet grew fainter, and Maclain shifted uneasily in his chair. For once in his life he mistrusted his highly trained ears. He had heard the waiter approach and heard him leave, but someone was breathing close behind him. He strained to listen against the blare of the music and was certain he heard another set of footsteps move toward the front of the restaurant. For a split second he felt there was something stealthy and furtive in their tread, then they merged into the patter of other feet on the dance floor and were lost.

  The Twenty Terrors trooped in from behind the stage to add to the increasing cadence of the dance. Wilder and wilder the music grew. Brass blared it into a fantasy of the damned, urging the betailed Sebol after the half-naked Señorita in a speedy chase of lustfulness—which could only end in a disappointing crash of chords.

  Maclain gave way to the sound and built his own pageant—enhancing the scene with infinitely more beauty and life than it really deserved. “The Dance of the Inferno!” The pity was that no person of the many present could ever see with their eyes the scene conjured up by Duncan Maclain.

  To him the number of the Terrors increased with the tempo of the music. They flew off into space, transformed into millions of atomic female fiends. They became beautiful baby denizens of a bottomless pit; dancing in riotous seething shades of burning sulphur. Somehow they merged all together into a whirling ball of color.

  The feet scampered away on the shrilled notes of a flute. Maclain sighed at the click of returned lights and the laughter and applause.

  Close behind him, bringing him to himself completely, a voice said, “For heaven’s sake, Dunc, I didn’t know you were here! Who’s the sleeping beauty?”

  He recognized the voice as belonging to Charles Hartshorn.

  From across the dance floor a woman screamed, harsh as crackling rocks: “He killed her, I tell you! He killed her! I saw him drive that knife in her back. There he is—standing right there—talking to that blind man with the dog!”

  Maclain reached out a hand and touched the face of the girl sprawled over the table. It was unresponsive as a mask of papier-mâché. Amy Arden was dead.

  Chapter Sixteen: THE BOY IN THE YARD

  Spud climbed the intervening iron fences without much difficulty. They were of an old-fashioned type made of bent iron rods and were not over three feet high. He found the shed Archer had indicated and listened until the creak of the dusty back door announced Archer’s departure through the laundry. He turned to his own duties, which were distasteful enough to keep him well occupied.

  The inspector’s remarks in Maclain’s office had caused his quick impetuousness to force him into a grandstand play with Dreist. He grinned into the darkness at the thought of their frozen expressions when he stepped in from the terrace. He was, however, glad to have the capable dog along. Prowling around strange backyards at night was not to his liking and apt to be serious should some honest householder mistake him for a marauder.

  Two more windows in a near-by house showed radiant as somebody within turned on the lights preparing for bed. Spud was grateful for the dim illumination afforded to the yard. The house with the sloping roof in back which formed a shed received enough of it to prove the yard dirty and uncared for.

  He slipped the leash from Dreist’s collar but left the broad muzzle with the hard tip in place. The boxes were up against the house under the sloping roof as Archer had stated. Dreist kept close to his right leg as he moved about in the semidarkness. Police dogs usually work from the left, but Dreist, especially trained for Maclain, was an exception. The captain was helpless without Schnucke’s guidance, and her position was always on the left, so it was necessary to have a police dog which would work from the right on the rare occasions when Maclain wanted to use both dogs together.

  A light rain sounded noisily on the top of the makeshift shelter. Spud secured one of the boxes, stood it on end beside the seven-foot wood fence, and looked over. The adjoining yard obviously formed the back of the Hi-de-Ho Club. An attempt had been made at one time to convert it into an outside eating place—unsuccessfully, he judged, from the battered appearance of the four yellow tables standing bleakly in the rain.

  Dreist, standing beside the box, looked up inquiringly. Spud signaled with outstretched hand to stand. The dog, like all well-trained police dogs, unhesitatingly obeyed commands by word or gesture. Many desperate criminals had learned to their sorrow that there was one command not necessary for the master to give—the command to attack. Such a command was readily conveyed to the dogs by the threatening actions of an aggressor; an upraised arm, a clenched fist, the sight of a gun, or a motion to get one, or any molestation of his master formed an instant and emphatic command for a police dog to fly into action.

  Spud stepped down from the box and went back under the shed. His look over the wall told him why Archer was so sure the shed formed an efficient point of vantage. The backyard of the Hi-de-Ho Club was hemmed in on the side opposite the board fence by the blank wall of a five-story building. Anyone desiring to exit from the club from the rear must either scale the high fence he and Dreist were guarding or climb a low iron fence similar to the two they had just crossed. Such a maneuver would give access from the club to the rear of the boarded-up house fronting on West 10th Street, but, with Archer guarding its front door, the house would prove nothing more than a trap.

  Minutes dragged wearily along as the windows of surrounding houses winked on and off. Spud settled himself comfortably as possible on an up-ended box and wished he had the patience of Dreist, resting complacently at his feet. Once the back door of the Hi-de-Ho Club was opened, emitting a clatter of dishes and the faint strains of Weiser’s orchestra.

  Dreist stood up, noiselessly alert, and Spud made another trip out into the rain to peek cautiously over the fence. The surrounding window lights had grown dimmer. He peered through the darkness, but could see nothing except the four silent garden tables. He returned to his place under the shed, muttering soft curses. Another half-hour slipped by. He was beginning to fidget on the uncomfortable box top and wonder about Archer’s delay in coming back to release him when Dreist stood up again.

  The dog made no sound. Spud slipped one hand under his throat close to the collar and felt the ripple of muscles caused by a suppressed growl. There was no mistaking the signal. Dreist’s ears and nose, far keener than any human’s, had detected the presence of someone close by.

  Spud sat quietly, his eyes fixed on the top of the board fence, then suppressed a grin. A yellow cat had appeared on the fence top with a wraithlike quietude. Spud leaned forward, staring more intently, and saw he was mistaken.

  The glint of yellow he thought was a cat was, in reality, the back of a hatless human head, combed sleek and smooth. It turned as Spud watched, and a glint of light touched the handsome face of a boy.

  Steadily the head rose higher, followed by arms and shoulders. A second later, with oily fluidity, the boy was over the fence and standing not 15 feet away. He wore a light belted raincoat, and for a moment he stood close to the fence smoothing the rumpled garment into place after his climb. Then, without a glance in Spud’s direction, he started across the yard.

  “Where you going?” Spud asked pleasantly, out of the darkness.

  The question electrified the boy’s figure into startled action. He spun a half turn on his toes and a hand darted in beneath his raincoat quick as the strike of a snake. The movement brought his face into the light,
and Spud could see the round-eyed expression of incredulous surprise, but before he could speak, the boy whirled again, lifted up his impeding raincoat, and took the first three-foot iron fence with a clean running jump. “Stop!” Spud yelled sternly. “I’ll put a police dog on you!”

  The youth never faltered in his stride but cleared the second fence. The basement door where Spud had entered the yard was not more than 20 feet ahead of him. Spud took his hand from Dreist’s throat and said, “Get him.”

  The dog left like a gray shadow flying through the night, cleared the first fence with a ten-foot jump and was three feet behind the running figure when he went over the second.

  “You’d better stop,” Spud yelled, but he was too late. Dreist hurtled himself sideways at the back of the flying legs. Football players call it “clipping”—the surest, and most dangerous, form of stopping a runner—so dangerous that the rules have barred it completely.

  The fleeing youth never had a chance. He turned a complete somersault and landed with a crash. Before he could make an attempt to rise, Dreist was standing over him, growling fiercely.

  “Stay where you are—and don’t move!” Spud yelled a warning as he vaulted the first fence. The youth had no intention of defying the bristling menace which looked the size of a lion in the dimness of the yard.

  The basement door burst open before Spud got over the second fence, and Spud yelled, “Stand, Dreist!” as he recognized the bulky form of Sergeant Archer.

  “Come on,” the sergeant yelled. “There’s hell to pay in the Hi-de-Ho!” He stopped short, almost stumbling over the supine form, and drew back hastily from the growling Dreist.

  “Stand!” Spud yelled again, as he came up. He snapped the leash on Dreist’s collar. The sergeant leaned over and struck a match.

  “What the hell!” he said.

  Round eyes, frightened and filmy, stared up into his.

  “Madonna!” said the sergeant grimly. “Now ain’t that just too bad!”

  Reinforcements had already arrived from the precinct station when Spud and the sergeant reached the canopied entrance to the Hi-de-Ho with their crestfallen captive between them. The sergeant had lost no time in frisking the slender youth and was greatly surprised to find him unarmed.

  “I’m certain I saw him reach for a gun,” Spud said, as they walked around the block.

  “You probably did,” the sergeant agreed. “His breed do it out of habit, whether they have one or not. Ain’t that right, Madonna—or did you have one and throw it away in the yard?” Madonna remained gloomily silent, and the sergeant continued, “Never mind—we’ll find it if it’s out there.”

  Two patrolmen, who were holding back the inevitable crowd already gathered about the entrance, passed them inside, with a glance of inquiry at Spud’s evening clothes and the disdainful Dreist.

  “What’s going on?” one of the patrolmen asked Archer. “There’s another dog inside there now.”

  “It’s a dog show,” the sergeant told him. “Look out you don’t get bit.”

  Chapter Seventeen: TABLES AND CRACKERS

  The clinical simplicity of Benny Hoefle’s private office on the second floor of the Hi-de-Ho Club bespoke the $10,000 spent on its furnishings; $2500 of the $10,000 had gone into the black-topped, modernistic desk which decorated one end of the office. Back of it sat Duncan Maclain, a courtesy accorded him by Inspector Davis. At his right sat District Attorney Dearborn, his face strained into the pastiness of underdone piecrust. The inspector, phlegmatic even when homicide broke under his nose, was at Maclain’s left, forming the third member of a grim tribunal.

  The inspector was losing no time. The stories of witnesses changed with the rapidity of scurrying snowflakes, and altered at each casual contact with a gossiping tongue. He finally had a murder he could tie up in a box and present to the D. A., intact and without apology. There were 200 or more people downstairs: 50 of them at least were ready to send Charles Hartshorn to the chair with their pointing fingers.

  Davis reassured himself by glancing at the two police stenographers, ready at a small desk close by. Deliberately his gaze circled the room, pausing briefly at Spud and Sergeant Archer on a leather-backed couch, Dreist at their feet; traveling thence to the neatly uniformed figure of Lieutenant Healy from the precinct station, and finally stopping with apparent friendliness on the rigid face of Charles Hartshorn.

  Chick was seated in a straight-backed armchair a few feet in front of the desk, facing Maclain. His hands were in his lap before him. As he felt the brunt of Davis’s look, his fingers clasped together in unconscious nervous energy, then freed themselves slowly—as surgical tape is removed from a tender wound.

  “I can’t understand why you killed her.” The inspector’s voice closed the matter once and for all.

  “I didn’t. I tell you I didn’t.” Chick spoke so flatly he hardly seemed to be protesting.

  “Did you love her?” asked Dearborn.

  “I’m engaged to Miss Zarinka. I never saw the girl who was killed before tonight.”

  “Why did you go to the table ?” Davis began to bark his questions.

  “To speak to Dunc—to Captain Maclain.”

  “You knew he was in the restaurant earlier in the evening—why didn’t you go then?”

  “I didn’t know he was there—he was back of some palms.”

  “Then how did you see him?”

  “Evelyn saw him. She said I should go speak to him.”

  “And you thought you could kill that girl before the lights came up. Maclain’s blind—he couldn’t see you. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “That’s a lie.” Chick was cold and steady. “Why should I kill a girl I’ve never seen?”

  “You admit you killed her, then ?” Dearborn snapped.

  “You can twist things any way you want to,” Chick flared at him. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “You just asked why you killed her,” said Davis. “I’ll tell you why: She knew you blew up Zarinka!”

  Chick put one hand to his head. “You’re mad!—insane! He was Evelyn’s brother!”

  “You lost $130,000 of his in Wall Street—or more! How did you find out this girl knew it?”

  “She didn’t know it—because it’s not so.”

  “Then why did you phone all these people to come here tonight?”

  “I phoned no one.”

  “Not even Miss Zarinka?” Dearborn suggested.

  Chick whitened. “Yes, I phoned Miss Zarinka. I found a message at my apartment that she should be here to learn something about her brother.”

  “Who sent it?” Davis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Chick admitted. “I don’t know. I suppose it was the same person who phoned the rest of the people.”

  “How do you know anybody phoned them?”

  “You just said so.”

  “That’s a lie,” said Davis. “I didn’t say so. I said you phoned them—and you promptly lied to me about that.”

  Chick’s eyes, bloodshot and haggard, fixed themselves on Maclain’s impassive face and traveled down to the captain’s fingers. Maclain had come upstairs carrying a dish of crackers from the restaurant table. One by one, he had laid them out in two parallel lines, surprisingly straight for a man who could not see what he was doing.

  At the sight of the crackers Chick lost control entirely and shouted, “God Almighty, Dunc, can’t you say anything—can’t you do anything! Don’t you hear them? They’re tearing me to pieces!”

  The room was silent except for a swish of paper as the two police stenographers simultaneously turned their notebook pages.

  “I’m afraid I can’t interfere, Chick,” Maclain said sadly. “The inspector has allowed me to be here on sufferance. There’s nothing I can do without his permission.”

  Davis leaned back in his chair and grinned at the D. A.

  “I don’t know what anybody could do, do you, Mr. Dearborn—when you have a restaurant full of eyewitnesses to a murder? I’d b
e glad to hear from Captain Maclain. What about you?”

  “Go ahead, Maclain. If you can get a man out of a jam like that, you’re a wizard! Of course, anything you bring out may be used against Hartshorn when this comes to trial.”

  Maclain’s expressive lips crinkled at the corners, but so swiftly that it passed unnoticed. “You hear that, Chick. It makes it mighty precarious for me to speak. Would you prefer that I kept silent?”

  “I’d prefer you do anything. God knows, you can only do me good!”

  “I’m glad you feel that way.” Maclain turned his head to address the inspector. “I’m sure, Inspector, that you haven’t told us all you know. I hardly think it’s necessary. With so many creditable witnesses, anything you might say would be redundant to an extreme. But there are a few interesting points.”

  He made an almost imperceptible motion with his hand, and Spud approached the desk, leading Dreist. “If you don’t mind, Inspector,” Maclain continued, “where was the witness sitting who announced the murder by her screams?”

  “Almost directly across the room from you—only one table farther away from the stage.”

  “Shall I mark it?” Spud asked.

  “If you please,” said Maclain.

  Spud picked one of the crackers from the desk and broke off a corner, then laid it back carefully in place. The D. A. leaned forward to get a better view. He counted the crackers. There were two rows of nine each. “Are you sure that’s the right number of tables, Maclain?”

  “The right number bordering the dance floor—and they’re the ones I’m interested in. There’re two additional rows, though, on each side of the room—eight in the second row from the dance floor, and seven in the third.”

  “Who told you that?” Davis asked.

  “Schnucke, and my own senses. To reach our table, I walked the length of the room from the front door between the first two rows bordering the floor. It’s Schnucke’s business to keep me away from tables, so I counted those to my right and left as I passed.