Too Many Bodies
Too many bodies... — spoil even the best of parties... unless, of course, it’s one of Miss Sedalia’s exclusive soirees — for murderers only!
Chapter One
During my fifty-five years I have lived what the tabloids would describe as a checkered career. I have been, in chronological order, a high school teacher, an associate professor of English literature at a state university, a successful burglar, an unsuccessful burglar, a convict, a women’s club lecturer on the subject,
The census bureau lists my work as “secretarial,” which is about as descriptive as listing the work of the President of the United States as “administrative.” About one-tenth of my job as personel flunky for the world’s most exasperating female concerns secretarial duties, and the other nine-tenths involves every hare-brained idea which conceivably could pop into the dynamic mind of a middle-aged virago which too much money and an overpowering curiosity about other people’s business.
That is, it concerns every possible duty but body guarding. In addition to my routine activities as chauffeur, butler, business manager, social secretary and errand boy, Sedalia Tweep might ask me to shadow a suspect, make an illegal entry, steal a swimming pool or perform any other implausible act which occurred to her on the spur of the moment. But I am safe from the doubtful honor of guarding her body for the same reason Joe Louis does not require a bodyguard. Sedalia has enemies, but a bodyguard would only get in the way of her long, looping right, or get tangled up in a judo hold as Sedalia pitched her attacker over a roof top.
My employer is not exactly a defenseless woman.
A duty not included in my agenda, but which I have set for myself, is keeping Sedalia Tweep as far as possible from Inspector Stephen Home. Not that I dislike the inspector personally. It is simply a matter of self-defense. The only three times in my life I have ever been hospitalized resulted indirectly from the inspector interesting Sedalia in murder cases.
Once, as a matter of poetic justice, the inspector ended up in the hospital bed next to mine, which should have taught him caution. But he has an asinine respect for what he terms “Miss Tweep’s cold, logical mind,” and I have never been able to convince him her success in unraveling mysteries is almost entirely due to the same unbelievable luck which made her a fortune on the stock market.
This particular Friday evening we were going to hear Rabenof, a matter which had required rather skillful manipulation on my part, for Sedalia’s culture was deplorably neglected in her youth and she would have preferred to attend the fights. I was having my after-dinner liqueur, and Sedalia her usual beer, when the phone rang.
I have come to be able to distinguish the difference in Inspector Stephen Home’s tone when he has a problem for Sedalia instead of merely a social invitation. He uses exactly the same words in either case, always saying, “Henry? Miss Tweep, please,” but he senses how I feel about him, and a note of belligerence creeps into the words when he plans to involve her in some unsavory matter.
Fortunately, our phone is located so that by keeping my voice low, Sedalia cannot hear me from the front room. Sedalia rents the entire top floor of the Sennett Hotel, which is not as extravagant as it sounds, since the Sennett is a small hotel. It gives her a private elevator which lets you out into a tiny lobby separate from the rest of the apartment, eight rooms and a long, narrow hall running from one side of the building to the other. The hall has the six rooms constituting Sedalia’s apartment on one side of it, my bedroom and the study wherein I perform my secretarial chores on its other side. The phone is in the hall a dozen feet from the door to Sedalia’s apartment, so that it is difficult for her to hear from her front room.
In a low voice I said, “Sorry, Inspector, but Miss Tweep is resting. Could I have her phone you?”
“Don’t talk so low, Hank!” Sedalia roared from the front room. “Speak up so I can hear you!”
“Wasn’t that Miss Tweep?” asked the inspector.
“Just the plumber come to fix a leak in the bathtub,” I said, still in a monotone. “I’ll tell Miss Tweep you phoned—”
From behind me Sedalia gently removed the phone from my ear. With her other hand she lifted me from the floor by the collar of my tuxedo jacket and set me to one side, a habit she knows infuriates me.
I said, “If we miss this concert, I resign!”
She frowned at me, then said into the telephone in a sweet bass, “Sedalia Tweep speaking.”
I strode to my room, put on my white scarf and a dark topcoat, gathered the concert tickets from my dresser and returned to the hall. Sedalia was just hanging up.
“That was Steve Home,” she explained unnecessarily.
I said stiffly, “We’re due at the concert in thirty minutes.”
Her eyes regarded me with an amiable twinkle. She is a big woman, nearly six feet tall, with thick arms and legs and a huge, solid-looking bust. On her doctored bathroom scales, which are set to register twenty pounds less than the correct weight, she weighs one-hundred and eighty-one pounds. None of it is fat.
A news columnist once described Sedalia as “the nation’s ugliest rich woman.” This was not quite fair, for though she has startlingly heavy features, including the largest female nose I have ever seen and huge ears which form right angles with her head, she has two attributes of beauty. Her complexion is such a creamy white, her skin seems almost transparent, and her soft golden hair, which she wears in a mass of coiled braids, is the envy of every woman in town. Personally, I consider Sedalia a not-unhand-some woman in her own striking and peculiar way.
Sedalia said gently, “We’re not going to the concert, Hank.”
“I quit,” I said.
“Oh, stop your dramatics,” she said crossly. “I couldn’t drive you away from here with a machine gun. Now shut up and get my coat.”
I was still seething when I climbed behind the wheel of the Cadillac and Sedalia gave me an address on Taylor Heights Boulevard. Knowing it was useless, I made no further mention of the concert, but I am afraid I exhibited my state of mind by deliberately breaking the speed law. I drove the whole distance at thirty-five, and the limit, of course, is thirty. In my reckless mood I even half-hoped some police officer would give us a ticket.
Our destination turned out to be one of those futuresque one-story bungalows which the moderately rich build along Taylor Heights Boulevard. The district, though new, was growing fast. In spite of having been opened less than two years before, we saw not more than a half-dozen vacant lots in the five-block stretch it included. Two of these happened to be either side of the house which was our goal, and since the house was also set back from the street some thirty yards, this made it relatively isolated.
It was a low, flat-roofed building of brick with a white stone front. In architectural circles I believe they are called ranch-house style, though I cannot imagine a space-loving cowboy residing in such cramped quarters. My own leanings are toward high ceilings and wide verandas with a few tall pillars.
Through a huge picture window giving onto the front porch we could see a number of people seated in the front room. Among them, but standing, I spotted two blue uniforms and the round figure of Inspector Stephen Home. When I pressed the button on the door jamb, musical chimes sounded within the house, causing a general stir among the people gathered in the front room.
The Chief of the Homicide Division himself came to the door. His broad face lighted with pleasure when he saw Sedalia, then became merely polite when he looked at me.
“Come in, Sedalia. Delighted you could come.” He sounded as though he were welcoming her to a tea. “Ah there, Henry. Good to see you.”
I sniffed and followed Sedalia indoors.
Inspector Stephen Home is a round, placid-faced man of almost studied neatness except for one item. His clothes are always pressed, his shoes carefully shined, and he always looks as though he just left a barber shop, where he had a haircut, shave and manicure. But he has a ragged, sandy-colored mustache whose individual hairs have no sense of direction.
After helping us remove our wraps and secreting them in a closet near the entrance, the inspector delayed us in the hall instead of taking us into the room where the others were.
“Reason I called you,” he told Sedalia, “I’m a little over my head. People in there too social register for an old rubber-hose cop like me. Thought maybe you’d help me out, since you know how to talk their language.”
This, of course, was intended for my consumption and was the purest balderdash. I had seen Stephen Home at Sedalia’s parties too often, amiably conversing with internationally known artists and playwrights and statesmen, to believe for a minute he would be impressed by the social position of anyone he might encounter in a murder investigation. He simply knew Sedalia would rather attend a murder than a concert, and was repaying her hospitality in his own peculiar way.
“Where’s the body?” Sedalia asked.
He led us to a small combination study and sitting room at the rear of the house. Outside the door two young men with a wicker basket between them patiently waited to cart off the body. Inside the room, we found no one but the corpse and a medical examiner.
The corpse was that of a woman about seventy, thin and unyielding and grim-faced even in death. She was lying face up near a small fireplace, her expression one of sour triumph, as though her last thought had been vindictive.
Such an air of malevolence seemed to hover over her, that in spite of myself I could summon no spark of pity for the poor woman. My only emotion was one of instinctive dislike for the harridan she most certainly must have been before dying.
In a tone somewhat like that of a tourist guide, Inspector Home said, “Her head’s bashed in. Can’t see it the way she’s lying. Name is Mrs. Agatha Chambers.” He paused to stare at the corpse placidly. “Widow, and lived here alone with a combination companion-maid. Maid’s been gone a week visiting relatives.” He pointed toward a small metal rack one side of the fireplace. “Weapon seemed to be some fire tongs in that. At least had blood on them. Gone now. Lab boys took them along to test for blood and fingerprints.” Then he looked at the medical examiner. “How you coming, Doc?”
The medical examiner rose and examined a thermometer. “All finished for now,” he said absently. “I’d guess six to ten hours ago. Tell you more accurately after an autopsy, if you tell me first when she last ate.” He paused. “If you want to believe her watch, she was killed seven and a half hours ago. At one p.m.”
Inspector Home raised one eyebrow, went over and lifted one of the woman’s wrists. “Hmm... Crystal broke. Watch stopped at one-oh-three. Could be, but could also mean the murderer deliberately set the hands. Nowadays they’ve all read mystery stories, and they try all the angles.”
He rose and brushed off his knees. The medical examiner closed his case, told the inspector he would send him a report in the morning and departed. As we followed him out of the room, the two young men entered with their basket.
“Haven’t really questioned anyone yet,” the inspector told Sedalia. “Except in a general way. Body was discovered by a whole bunch of people. Seems the old lady had scheduled a family meeting of some kind for seven-thirty, and all the relatives arrived more or less together. When nobody answered the bell, they figured something was wrong because there wasn’t a light in the place. Front door was on night lock, but somebody finally went around back, found the back door unlocked and let them all in. Sort of in a bunch they searched the house and found her. Just happened the assistant D.A. was with them, so we got the call quicker than we would have otherwise. It’s only about eight-thirty now.”
Sedalia looked interested. “The assistant D.A. was with them?”
“Yes. Not quite sure why. One of the things we’ll find out now.”
He opened the double glass doors into the front room and held them for Sedalia and me to enter.
Seven people were in the front room. Two were uniformed policemen who simply stood with their hands behind their backs waiting. Of the others two were women and three were men. All were in street clothes, and immediately I became conscious of my dinner jacket and Sedalia’s golden evening gown. We had dressed for the concert, of course, but it seemed rather incongruous costume for a murder investigation.
One of the men, a bouncing, dynamic young fellow with a cheerfully open face and ears nearly as large and perpendicular to his head as Sedalia’s, was standing in the center of the room asking questions when we entered. When the door opened he broke off, and Inspector Home introduced him as Alvin Christopher, the assistant district attorney. I noticed he and Sedalia examined each other’s ears with the interest of people who have something in common.
Both the women proved to be nieces of the dead woman. The youngest, a fresh-looking blonde girl with clear gray eyes and the trimly muscled figure of an enthusiastic sportswoman, was Miss Irene Chambers. I guessed her to be about twenty-five.
Mrs. Monica Madigan, whose stressing of her first name led me to believe she was a divorcee, was a dark-skinned, sleepy-eyed woman of thirty, slim but lushly developed. She barely glanced at Sedalia when she was introduced, but her slumberous eyes moved over my one-hundred and twenty pounds in an almost embarrassing examination. I felt myself flush, for I am not used to being examined by women in such a calculating manner.
The second man, a nephew of the dead woman, was named Gerald Rawlins. He was a blond, red-faced man of about twenty-eight with an athletic build, just beginning to go to fat, a round, not particularly intelligent face and a sulky cast to his mouth. He looked, I thought, like a spoiled brat.
The third man was named Jerome Straight, and turned out to be the attorney for the deceased Agatha Chambers. Perhaps sixty-five, he was a gaunt, humorless man with a gray face, sunken cheeks and wide brows jutting like a balcony over a thin sliver of a nose.
“Miss Tweep’s not here in any official capacity,” Inspector Home explained to the group. “Been of some service to the police in the past, as you may know if you read murder news, and just here as an observer.” He glanced at the young assistant district attorney. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you, Al.”
The young man waved it aside. “Just killing time till you got back. I’ll sit by and listen for awhile.”
Home nodded, ran his eyes over the two nieces and the nephew. “One of you tell me what this family meeting was all about, eh?”
There was silence for a moment as each of the three waited for one of the others to speak. Finally red-faced young Gerald Rawlins drawled, “It was just another of Aunt Aggie’s will-changing clambakes. She had ’em about twice a year.”
The inspector looked a polite inquiry, and the lush of Mrs. Monica Madigan elaborated. “Aunt Agatha had all the money in the family, you know. We three are her sole heirs, and she liked to punish us by alternately cutting us off. This time it was my turn. She was mad because I divorced my stinker of a no-good husband.”
“I see,” Inspector Home said. “She changed her will often?”
Blonde Irene Chambers laughed, a bitter mocking laugh. “You put it mildly, Inspector. She was as loopy as a roller coaster. Aunt Aggie had the bulk of her fortune divided into three amounts: a half million, a hundred thousand, and a mere one thousand. Sometimes I was scheduled to inherit the largest amount, sometimes Monica and sometimes Gerry, depending on which was the favorite at the moment. Or rather, depending on which was least out of favor. Aunt Aggie didn’t have any favorites outside of herself.”
The last remark was expressed with a cynicism which drew understanding smiles from her two cousins. Whatever emotions Mrs. Agatha Chambers’ relatives were undergoing as a result of her death, grief obviously was not one of them.
“Let me get this straight now,” Home said. “Mrs. Chambers was the aunt of all of you, but you’re all of different parents?”
Gerald Rawlins nodded. “My mother was Aunt Aggie’s sister. Monica’s father was her brother. Irene is the daughter of her deceased husband’s brother.” He paused and added resentfully. “That makes Irene not even a blood relation of Aunt Aggie’s, but she gets the pot of gold.”
“On the other hand,” Irene put in sweetly, “Aunt Aggie’s money originally came from Uncle Andrew, and you’re no blood relation of his.”
The inspector broke up the side squabble by asking, “How come none of your parents were included in your aunt’s will?”
“Our parents are all dead,” Monica said. “I told you before we were the sole heirs.”
Inspector Home mused a moment. “Did I understand correctly Miss Chambers currently is legatee of the largest amount?”
“Yes,” Irene said promptly. “But if you think I whammed the old gal because she was getting ready to cut me off, forget it. Monica was the one she was mad at this time.”
Monica said indifferently, “I imagine I was due to take a cut from a hundred thousand down to one thousand, if you like that for a motive. The only trouble with it is I could have waited a few months until Aunt Agatha got mad at Irene for something, and probably been back on top of the heap again.”
Gerald Rawlins said nothing, apparently assuming the lack of motive he would have for killing his aunt just before she increased his legacy from one thousand to a hundred thousand was too obvious to require comment.
Inspector Home turned to Jerome Straight, the murdered woman’s attorney. “Take it you were here to draw up a new will after the old lady properly bawled everybody out?”
The old lawyer frowned at the inspector’s choice of words, but nodded his gaunt head. “I assume that was the reason I was asked to be present. Mrs. Chambers did not actually specify what she wanted when she phoned, but past experience led me to expect a change of will.”
“And you?” the inspector asked, looking at Assistant District Attorney Alvin Christopher. “How’d you happen to be here, Al?”
The young man shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m as much in the dark as you are, Steve. When Mrs. Chambers phoned me yesterday and asked me to drop over at seven-thirty tonight on an important legal matter,
I assumed she wanted me as a lawyer rather than as a member of the district attorney’s office. But now I’m not so sure.”
When the inspector merely looked blank, he explained, “I have a private practice in addition to my work for the D.A., you know. Naturally I thought she wanted me to do some legal work for her. But since discovering she already had a lawyer, I’ve been wondering if she suspected someone wanted to kill her, and asked me over in my official capacity.”
Home glanced at Jerome Straight and said slowly, “Maybe she intended to change lawyers.”
Jerome Straight scowled at him. In a stiff voice he said, “I have no reason to believe Mrs. Chambers was dissatisfied with the legal service given her by Strong, Wilson and Straight. We’ve been attorneys for Mr. Chambers — and for his widow — for over thirty years.”
“All of you?” the inspector asked curiously.
“Strong and Wilson are dead. I’ve been alone in the firm for twenty years.”
Chapter Two
The Long Knife
Further questioning by the inspector divulged Aunt Agatha had set the meeting by mail a week previously, this much notice being necessary in order to give her three relatives time to get there. Irene Chambers lived in Chicago, where she was a dress designer, and it required an all-day train ride for her to visit her aunt. Mrs. Monica Madigan lived in Kansas City, which also involved an all-day train ride, and Gerald Rawlins came from Dallas, Texas, a trip of thirty-four hours by train. The latter had flown, however, and made it in only five hours.
All three exhibited ticket stubs to substantiate their methods of transportation. Inspector Home thanked them and kept the stubs. In their stories of traveling as they said they had could be checked, all three had iron-clad alibis, for Irene’s train arrived at three pm, Monica’s at four-thirty, and Gerald’s plane did not get in till seven, just in time for him to rush over to his aunt’s without even stopping to register at a hotel.
Gerald pointed to a suitcase standing next to the wall near the door. It still had half of a bright red baggage stub tied to the handle. “Brought my luggage along from the airport. Had trouble finding a cab and almost missed the meeting. I didn’t get here till a quarter of eight.”
“Forty-five minutes?” the inspector asked with raised brows. “Not more than twenty from the airport here.”
“If you can find a cab,” Gerald agreed.
Unlike the three cousins, Jerome Straight proved to have no alibi whatever. He said he had not been feeling well, had not gone to the office that day, and since he lived alone in a bachelor apartment, could not prove what he had been doing at the time of the murder.
The inspector seemed about ready to wind things up for the night and tell the whole group to go home, when Gerald Rawlins revealed there was another person scheduled to have attended the meeting who had never showed up.
“Adrian Thorpe,” he said. “He’s president of the company I work for. The Fibrolux Plastic Corporation of Dallas. Aunt Aggie’s company, really, for she was majority stockholder. Ad was supposed to get in on the noon train, but I guess he must have missed connections somewhere.”
“Any idea why he was invited to the meeting?” Home asked.
Gerald shook his head. In a voice indicating no love was lost between him and Adrian, he said, “Ad is a protege of Aunt Aggie’s. She thought he was some kind of a business genius and always voted him in as president at the corporation’s annual meeting. She could just as easily have picked someone in the family, if she wanted.”
Since Gerald himself seemed to be the only one of the family actively connected with the business, by “someone”, he obviously meant himself.
The inspector said, “Since you and this Adrian Thorpe were both coming from Dallas for the same meeting, how come he traveled by train and you came by plane?”
“I couldn’t get away so soon. We were having the annual audit and I’m treasurer of the company. So Ad went ahead and I caught a plane at the last minute.”
Something in the young man’s tone did not seem to me to ring quite true as he made this last statement. I could not quite decide why, except his voice suddenly seemed to contain an element of reluctance. Sedalia apparently noticed it too, for all at once her voice boomed out.
“What’s the rest of it, young man?”
Gerald threw her a startled look.
“Out with it,” she pursued. “What was it that held you up?”
“You a mind reader?” he asked. Then he shrugged. “The whole thing will be in the news eventually, I suppose. Adrian had been dipping in the company till. I was held up because the audit showed a hundred-thousand dollar shortage.” He smiled rather bitterly. “So much for Aunt Aggie’s judgment in proteges.”
Jerome Straight looked startled at this announcement, but neither Irene nor Monica exhibited the slightest perturbance. This struck me as strange, since a hundred-thousand dollar shortage in in inheritance of mine would have made me quite angry. Seemingly it struck the inspector as strange too.
“You ladies don’t seem upset over the losing the money,”-he remarked.
Both raised their eyebrows, but it was Monica who replied.
“Fibrolux Plastics wasn’t part of our inheritance. Aunt Aggie had that all tied up so nobody could get at it.”
Jerome Straight cleared his throat. “Fibrolux Plastics was founded by Mr. Chambers,” he said ponderously. “On his death a few years back Mrs. Chambers intelligently recognized she had no business sense and placed Adrian Thorpe in complete charge. He had been first vice president under Mr. Chambers for years and is a very able executive. I must say I am shocked to learn he is a thief. Mrs. Chambers felt the business would suffer if on her death the stock fell to her nieces and nephew and they voted in... ah... someone else as company president. So she placed her shares in perpetual trust, the dividends to go to her heirs, but voting power to remain with the administrator of the trust.”
“And who is the administrator?”
“At present I am,” the lawyer admitted.
Gerald Rawlins broke in. “Listen, I been stewing over something ever since we arrived and found Aunt Aggie dead. But it’s a kind of rought deal to accuse somebody of murder.”
Nobody said anything, waiting for him to go on, but he merely self-consciously wiped his red face with a handkerchief and looked embarrassed.
Sedalia broke the silence. “If this Adrian Thorpe arrived on a noon train like he was supposed to, he had plenty of time to get over here and bash the old lady. That what’s on your mind?”
He looked worried. “Yes,” he admitted. “But I just can’t imagine Ad killing anybody. Frankly I’m not too fond of him, but I want to be fair. Ad just plain would be incapable of murder.”
“His limit’s embezzlement, eh?” Sedalia asked. “Young man, our prisons are full of people who seem incapable of crime. Your aunt know of Thorpe’s misdeeds?”
Reluctantly Gerald nodded. “I phoned her just before I caught a plane.”
“I think,” Inspector Home said, “we better put out a call on Mr. Adrian Thorpe.” He looked at Gerald. “Happen to know where he generally stays when he’s in town?”
Gerald shook his head. “Different hotels. One of the better ones as a rule. The Statler, Lennox or the Sheridan.”
Home turned to one of the silent policemen. “Phone headquarters to put out a pickup order on Adrian Thorpe. Get a description from this guy.” He jerked a thumb at Gerald. “Then phone the major hotels and find out if anybody that name is registered. Phone’s in the hall.”
A few moments later the inspector had the other policeman take down the local addresses of the three relatives and Jerome Straight, warned them not to leave town until they received clearance, and released them. By my wrist watch I noted it was only shortly after nine.
“We still have time for the last half of the concert,” I suggested to Sedalia.
She put an ivory-tipped cigarette in her mouth, watched me thoughtfully as I touched my lighter to it, and then shook her head as though she failed to understand me. She did not even bother to reply.
When the others left, Alvin Christopher had stayed behind, awaiting the results of the policeman’s phone survey of the hotels. He did not have a very long wait, for in a few minutes the man in blue entered the room.
“Second try, Sir,” he said to the inspector. “Thorpe’s registered at the Sheridan, and as far as they know he’s in his room right now. I told them not to ring his phone, because we’d be right over.”
“Good. We will.” He looked at Sedalia and the — assistant D.A. “Coming along?”
Both decided they would.
The manager at the Sheridan Hotel was very helpful. He personally assisted the inspector in questioning the desk clerk, who was very helpful in turn. The clerk said he came on duty at noon, and shortly after coining on Adrian Thorpe had phoned from Union Station for a reservation. He had not actually arrived to claim the room until shortly after seven, however.
“Number six-twelve,” he finished. “I believe he is in now, if you wish me to ring.”
“We’ll go up,” Inspector Home said. He looked at the slim, debonair hotel manager. “Got a pass key?”
“Oh yes, of course,” the man said. He fluttered off ahead of us toward the elevators.
On the ride up he smiled nervously at the inspector and said, “If this is an arrest, you’ll make it as quiet as possible, won’t you, Sir? We’re always glad to cooperate with the police, but there’s no need of the other guests knowing.”
“Be as quiet as possible,” Home conceded, and added, “If possible.”
Through an open transom we could see there was light in room six-twelve, and a radio was playing moderately loud. But no one answered the hotel manager’s repeated knock. Finally he smiled at all of us nervously, slipped a pass key in the door and pushed it open. He stepped aside to let the inspector enter first.
The rest of us waited either side of the door to see if there was going to be any shooting, but when no sound came from the inspector, we all trailed in behind him. We found him thoughtfully staring at the figure on the bed.
Adrian Thorpe was about fifty years old, sparse-haired and slight of build, and with a shrewd, intelligent face. He lay on his back, his head comfortably resting on a pillow. His left arm lay at his side, and his right hand clenched the hilt of what seemed to be a hunting knife.
We could not tell how long the knife’s blade was, for it was buried in his heart.
It was after eleven when we finally got away from the Sheridan. We had to wait until the last police technician had finished his duties and until Inspector Home had questioned everyone he could think of, of course. At a murder Sedalia is like an alcoholic at a party: she is always the last one to go home.
She also had to be the one to make it a murder instead of a nice simple suicide which would have neatly ended the whole affair. At first glance it seemed obvious Adrian Torpe had killed Agatha Chambers when she confronted him with his chicanery, then checked in at the hotel and killed himself in remorse. But as I may have mentioned, Sedalia is constitutionally incapable of minding her own business.
“No suicide would lie on a bed and stick himself with a knife,” she announced didactically. “Remember Ernest Fox, Steve?”
“That nutty kid doctor used to come to your parties?” the inspector asked. “He commit suicide?”
She frowned at him. “He wasn’t nutty and he wasn’t a kid. He was young, but he held a Ph.D. in abnormal psychology. His graduate thesis was on techniques of suicide, and it covered thousands of case histories. One of his conclusions was that suicide by stabbing is extremely rare, but when it is practiced, it always follows a definite pattern. The suicide
Home gazed at her in amazement. Finally he said, “That’s the silliest thing I ever heard in my whole life.”
“Silly or not, it’s a fact. Ernest pointed out that stabbing yourself is harder than it seems. It takes a lot of force to push a knife in your own chest, because you can’t put the weight of your body behind the thrust or get the leverage you can get when you’re stabbing at someone else. About the only possible way to do it is to put the point carefully between a couple of ribs and suddenly pull in with both hands. Ernest’s thesis lists dozens of cases who
In spite of himself Home seemed impressed. He walked over to take another look at the body, muttered something about it being up to the coroner, not up to him, and cast a mildly irritated glance back at Sedalia.
I am afraid I experienced vindictive pleasure at the inspector’s expression. After all, it was his fault we were not at a concert instead of in the same room as a corpse.
When a plainclothesman began looking through the dead man’s single suitcase, Sedalia said, “Turn your photographic memory on that, Hank.”
Obediently, I walked over and watched the man empty the suitcase of clothing, then return it again and latch the case. I saw nothing which seemed as though it could have any possible bearing on the killing, but what there was I filed away in my mind. Without further direction from Sedalia, I followed the plainclothesman around as he made a thorough examination of the rest of the room.
The inspector gleaned very little information from either the hotel personnel or nearby residents. No one had heard a thing, and aside from the desk clerk and the bellhop who had carried Adrian Thorpe’s luggage up, no one even remembered seeing the man. Until Sedalia broke in with a question, the bellhop was able to offer no information other than that he had left Thorpe alone in his room.
“How many bags he have?” Sedalia asked.
“Two,” the bellhop said promptly. “A suitcase and a small traveling bag.”
This naturally instituted a complete researching of the room, but no traveling bag was found.
When we finally got away Sedalia did not mention the case until we got all the way home, knowing I like to concentrate my whole mind on driving when I am behind the wheel. Following our usual ritual, she waited until I had prepared myself a nightcap and poured her a beer before speaking of the evening at all.
Then she asked, “What was in Thorpe’s suitcase?”
“Two shirts,” I said promptly. “Two sets of underwear and socks. Two handkerchiefs, one cravat, one pair of pajamas and a dressing gown. One small linen laundry bag for dirty clothes.”
“Any dirty clothes in it?”
I shook my head.
“No razor or toilet supplies?”
Again I shook my head, this time in a somewhat startled manner. “Those must have been in the missing traveling bag.”
“Yes,” she mused, “but he wouldn’t have put dirty clothes in it when he had a laundry bag for them.”
For a moment I puzzled over this remark, then caught up with her reasoning.
“That fixes the time as almost immediately after he arrived, doesn’t it?” I said. “After a thirty-four hour train ride, the first thing he would do when he finally got to his hotel room would be to take a shower and change clothes. Yet he was fully dressed except for overcoat and hat. And not having changed linen means he had not showered and redressed.”
Sedalia smiled indulgently. “You’re developing a logical mind, Hank. Now apply it to these three mysteries: what was he doing from the time he arrived on the noon train until he reached the hotel at seven-fifteen, why is his traveling bag missing, and why was there no luggage check stub tied to the suitcase which was left?”
One at a time I turned these questions over in my mind. For the first I arrived at a reasonable but improvable answer, but on the last two nothing even resembling an answer developed. By summoning up a photographic image of the suitcase the plainclothesman had examined, I did recall no stub was tied to the handle, but the information meant nothing to me.
I said, “If Thorpe actually was the killer of Mrs. Chambers, he must have gone straight to the house from the station. Afterward perhaps he simply wandered around in remorse for a few hours.”
“Lugging two bags with him?”
I thought this over. “Perhaps he checked them at the station when he arrived, then returned for them just before going to the hotel.”
She nodded. “Possible. Now the second question.”
I shook my head.
Sedalia looked surprised. “A simple one like that, Hank? Obviously the killer wanted something in the bag, but it was either too large to carry without awkwardness, or so distinctive it would have attracted attention. So he simply took bag and all. No one notices a person leaving a hotel with a traveling bag.”
“All right,” I conceded. “Now why was no luggage check tied to the suitcase?”
“That I don’t know the answer to either,” she admitted. She rose abruptly. “Get me up at eight, Hank. I want to be at headquarters at nine. And set the night lock on your way out.”
She disappeared into her bedroom and left me to finish my drink alone. A few moments later I set her apartment night lock as directed, crossed our private hall to my own room and went to bed myself.
In the morning Sedalia went off to headquarters alone, taking a taxi, and left me to catch up on her correspondence, write checks and supervise the cleaning maid who was due that morning. She returned shortly after the maid left at two, dragged me from the study and had me pour her a beer.
“Just to bring you up to date,” she informed me, “Steve Home contacted the main office of the railroad by phone, and the railway stubs Irene Chambers and Monica Madigan had seem to let them out. At least
I said, “All this is assuming Mrs. Chambers died at one PM?”
“It’s more definite now. They found a neighborhoom tea-room where she had lunch at twelve. An autopsy showed she died about an, hour later. Something to do with the rate of digestion.”
I thought this over. “That seems to leave only Jerome Straight as a suspect.”
“The old lawyer? Not necessarily. There’s young Alvin Christopher.”
“The assistant district attorney?” I said in surprise. “You certainly don’t suspect him!”
“I suspect everybody. It might even be someone we don’t even know about as yet. Possibly even that old standby, the tramp prowler.”
The way she expressed the last remark, I knew she actually gave it no credence at all, and her next comment proved I was right.
“The second murder pretty well knocks out the possibility of a prowler, though. I’m pretty sure the killer is one of the people we met last night.” Then she looked at me curiously for a moment and said, “I’ve got some chores for you, Hank.”
I braced myself for the worst. Whenever Sedalia’s plans for me are exceedingly unreasonable, she refers to them as “chores.”
“Mrs. Monica Madigan is staying in room seven-twelve at the Sheridan. Coincidently, it’s immediately above the room in which Adrian Thorpe was murdered. Irene Chambers is at the Statler in room thirteen-twenty-seven. Gerald Rawlins is there too, in room three-sixteen. Jerome Straight lives in apartment C of the Midway Apartments at Eight and Laurel. Alvin Christopher lives with his mother and a sister at 1712 Brigham Road. I want you to search all those places.”
I sighed, went to my room and slipped my wallet-sized burglar kit into my pocket. I knew there was no use arguing, because I had argued too many times in the past. The fact that entering other people’s homes without permission terrified me, and I had given up a successful career as a burglar nearly twenty years before in order to avoid a nervous breakdown, failed to touch Sedalia. She would have made the searches herself if she knew how, and she had no patience with timidity in others.
When I returned to Sedalia’s apartment, I asked listlessly, “What am I looking for?”
“A railroad baggage stub. The kind that ties to the handle of a suitcase.”
The assignment failed to surprise me. My first five years with Sedalia I spent in a state of constant surprise. Since then nothing has been able to surprise me. “Because Adrian Thorpe’s suitcase had none tied to the handle? You think the murderer killed him just for a baggage stub?”
When she only grinned, I said irritably, “Maybe there never was a stub tied to it. Probably he just stuck it under his berth instead of checking it through.”
She shook her head. “The lack of a toilet kit in the suitcase indicates he carried it in his hand bag. There was nothing in the suitcase he needed on the train. Possibly he carried both pieces of luggage with him, but the obvious thing for him to have done was to check through the larger piece so he wouldn’t have to bother with it. Why the murderer removed the tag, I have no idea, but there’s an excellent chance he did remove it.”
“All right,” I said. “If I find the stub the first place I look, may I stop there?”
She nodded. “But if you don’t find it at all, I have a second chore for you. Go back to the same places and leave one of these envelopes at each place.”
She handed me five small envelopes, unsealed. Dubiously I opened one and found nothing except one of Sedalia’s engraved calling cards. But on the back had been written in ink,
Without enthusiasm I asked, “Just where at each place do you wish these left?”
“Leaning against their telephones, so they can’t fail to see them the first time they answer the phone.”
“I see,” I said. “Against their telephones. I’m glad I asked, because I might have done something silly like dropping them in their mail boxes.”
“After they are asleep,” she went on. “Be sure they are in bed asleep before you leave any cards.”
For a minute I stared at her. “You mean you expect me to enter these people’s rooms while they are actually in them?”
“Probably Alvin Christopher and Jerome Straight have their phones somewhere other than their bedrooms,” she reassured me.
I continued to stare at her. “And the three who live in hotel rooms? You suppose their phones are down in the lobby somewhere instead of right next to their beds? Within
“Two of them are women,” she said impatiently. “If they awaken, they won’t grab you. They’ll only scream. Don’t be such an old maid.”
So I stopped being an old maid. I took a drink to steady my nerves and started out.
I do not like to talk about the illegal entries I am sometimes forced to make as an employee of Sedalia. Neither my skill at burglary nor my ability to find
During the first round I made I was lucky in finding no one home at any of my visits, and I finished by six o’clock. I found three baggage stubs: one attached to an extra suitcase in Mrs. Monica Madigan’s room, and white airline stubs tied to Gerald Rawlins’ suitcase and satchel. Irene Chambers apparently had brought only an overnight bag and had not checked it through.
I assumed none of these stubs would count, but in the forlorn hope that they might, I phoned Sedalia before starting the second round.
She said they did not.
The second round took me until two in the morning because I had to wait for everyone to go to sleep. Although I encountered no actual difficulty, the experience of entering five occupied bedrooms, one possibly occupied by a murderer, is something I do not care to dwell upon. Suffice to say all five had bedside phones, in spite of Sedalia’s suggestion that two of the visits would be easy, and by the time I disposed of the last note I was a nervous wreck.
When I arrived home Sedalia was still sitting up waiting for me, and hall door to her apartment was open. I walked by, ignoring her, slammed the door of my own room and went to bed.
Later I discovered it was four-thirty in the morning when the shots sounded, but at the time all I knew was that it was still dark. There must have been eight of them, spaced so closely they sounded like the roll of a heavy drum.
I came awake sitting up, not at all uncertain as to what had awakened me, as you sometimes are when it happens in the middle of the night, for at least half of the shots sounded after I was fully awake and aware of my surroundings. They came from Sedalia’s apartment across the hall.
Automatically I reached for my bed lamp, pulled the chain, but nothing happened. In the darkness I swung out of bed, groped my way to the wall and clicked the switch to the ceiling light.
Again nothing happened.
There is something panicking about unexpected darkness. I am not afraid of the dark... at least not-much. But being unable to dispel it unnerved me more than the shots had. I make no claim to bravery, but I am morally certain I would have rushed into Sedalia’s apartment had I been able to turn on the lights, for exasperating as she is, I have a certain fondness for the woman. As it was I managed to get my bedroom door open, but then I stood straining my eyes at blackness, unable to move a foot outside my room.
I was almost relieved when a flashlight glared into my eyes from the door to Sedalia’s apartment. But the relief was short-lived. Flush against the side of the flashlight, and protruding beyond the lens perhaps two inches, was the muzzle of a black automatic. Later, after the police examined the slugs found in Sedalia’s apartment, I learned the gun was a .38 caliber, whatever that means. But I know nothing of guns, and had I been asked to describe it, I would have said the hole looked about the size of a shotgun’s bore.
Imagination, no doubt.
With the light directly in my eyes, I could see nothing beyond it, not even the hand holding the gun. The person holding the flashlight stepped toward me and I stood frozen to the spot. Then the intruder backed down the hall, both the light and the gun still centered on me. Except for my head moving to follow the retreat in fascination, I made no movement whatever.
At the end of the hall the light suddenly winked out, the front door pulled open and then slammed shut. From outside a key turned in the lock.
It was at least a minute before I was able to do anything but stand there and shiver. My inability to move was sheer fright, I confess, but the shivering was at least partly due to the cold, for I sleep with a window open and it was freezing in the room.
Then I turned, tripped over a chair, finally made my way to the window and pushed it closed. Fumbling at my bedside stand, I found my cigarette lighter and by its glow located my robe and slippers. Holding the lighter aloft like a torch, I shuffled across the hall, flicked the switch just inside Sedalia’s door and for the third time was rewarded by continued darkness.
“Sedalia!” I shouted.
From somewhere beyond, her muffled voice called, “Is he gone, Hank?”
I felt a flood of relief. At least she was still alive. “Yes!” I yelled. “Where are you?”
I moved toward her bedroom, reached it just as a door bolt clicked back, and in the wavering light Sedalia opened her bathroom door. I had just time to see she too wore a robe and slippers when my lighter sputtered and went out.
“There’s candles on the mantel in the front room,” Sedalia said matter-of-factly. “And a paper of matches between them.”
Turning, I groped through darkness again, located the candles in their holders and lighted both of them. With one in either hand I returned to Sedalia’s room,
“What happened?” I asked.
“The killer found my card and took direct action, just as I expected,” she said smugly. “After you went to bed I phoned each suspect, then hung up when they answered. They couldn’t miss seeing the card when they answered the phone, of course. Four were simply puzzled, but the fifth, being impulsive, immediately assumed I was accusing him of murder.”
“How do you know the murderer is impulsive?”
In the flickering candlelight her eyebrows raised. “I thought it was obvious. Adrian Thorpe was killed because he knew who murdered Agatha Chambers, of course. Possibly he even witnessed the crime. Both murders have all the earmarks of sudden impulse, rather than long planning. I guessed he would immediately attempt to kill me, so I conveniently left both my apartment door and the outside door unlocked for him.” Parenthetically she added, “I am using the masculine pronoun only for convenience, you understand. The two women are still suspects.”
“How did you manage to survive all those bullets?”
Again she smiled a trifle smugly. “I built a dummy of pillows in my bed, built another bed on the bathroom floor and locked myself in.”
“My God!” I said. “And he fired all those shots at the dummy?”
In the dim light from the candle flames she looked thoughtful. “No. Our killer is a little smarter than I anticipated. Apparently he... or she... discovered the dummy, realized it was a trap of some kind, and tried to shoot off the bathroom lock. Fortunately it was bolted as well as locked, because I think the shots managed to wreck the lock.”
I looked at her in a sort of outraged awe. “And just what do you think you’ve accomplished by almost getting killed?”
Sedalia wagged her head reproachfully. “You have no imagination at all, Hank. Not one of our suspects lives less than a twenty-minute taxi ride from here, providing a taxi can be found at all this time of night. We now proceed to phone each of our five suspects, which should require no more than five or six minutes, and Presto, the one not home is it!”
Chapter Three
Drink and Be Merry...
Taking one of the candleholders from my hand, Sedalia walked majestically through her front room and out into the hall. After setting the candle on the telephone stand, she consulted the phone book, placed the receiver to her ear and reached a finger toward the dial. Then she frowned, moved her finger to the rest instead and clicked the bar up and down.
Lowering my candle slightly, I peered at the floor. “Your killer has been smarter than you anticipated a second time,” I remarked dryly. “The cord’s cut.”
Some of Sedalia’s smug assurance faded. “Quick! Downstairs to the lobby booths! We’ll both start phoning and still make it.”
Rapidly she moved down the hall to the front door. I waited where I was, knowing what she would find because I had heard the key turn as the intruder went out.
“It’s locked!” she called, a note of urgency appearing in her voice.
Turning, she cupped her hand in front of the candle flame to keep it from blowing out and raced back to her apartment door. She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, reappeared again a moment later.
“The back door, too! And the key’s gone.” She stared at me, suppressed rage in her expression. Then her eyes widened. “Your kit! Get it fast and get one of these doors open.”
I shook my head. “Sorry. You may recall I installed those locks myself as a special precaution against murderers because of your peculiar affinity for getting them mad at you. I can get them open, but it will take me the best part of an hour.”
“Take the hinges off!”
I shook my head again. “They are center-hung. You can’t get at them from either side unless the door is open. And the doors are three inches of solid oak. It would even take too long to chop through with a fire axe, which we don’t possess anyway. I thought of everything when I made those doors safe.”
“Everything but this!” she yelled at me. I have never seen Sedalia so frustrated.
“It wasn’t I who left the doors unlocked,” I reminded her. “And has it occurred to you the killer may be sitting right outside the front door waiting for you to get it open and barge out? I don’t know what you’re going to do, Sedalia, but I’m going to throw the inside bolts on both doors, see if I can fix the lights, and go back to bed. I’ll open the doors in the morning.”
For a long time Sedalia simply glared at me. Then her sense of humor suddenly came to her rescue and she burst out with a roar of laughter. She was still chuckling when she walked into her bedroom and slammed the door.
It took me some time to track down the trouble with the lights. After replacing a fuse in the box over the kitchen door only to have it promptly blow, I began checking light sockets. Finally I discovered the killer had inserted a penny in one of the lamp sockets in the hall. I removed it, replaced the fuse a second time and went back to bed.
I slept until eight, prepared breakfast and served it to Sedalia in bed, then went to work on the locks. By nine-thirty I had both doors open, had called the phone company from the downstairs lobby and had received a promise the phone would be fixed by noon.
At ten Inspector Stephen Home arrived.
“What’s wrong with your phone?” was the first thing he asked.
“Sedalia underestimated a murderer,” I told him, and explained what had happened.
The inspector frowned. “That explains all the phone calls I got at home this morning. Got me out of bed. Supposed to be off on Sundays, you know.”
Striding into Sedalia’s front room, he stared at her, the frown still marring the normal placidity of his face. Sedalia looked up with an expression of supreme innocence and offered him a drink.
“At ten in the morning?” he asked. “Sedalia, what put such a crazy idea in your head?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Crazy? If it weren’t for Hank’s silly locks, it would have worked, and then you’d think I was brilliant.”
“Still think you’re brilliant,” he said shortly. “Always did. But you can’t go setting yourself up like a target. And you’ve got to stop using Henry as a burglar. With his record, they’d send him up for life if he ever got caught.”
“Oh posh! I’d take the rap for him.”
The inspector shook his head wearily. There was a time when he would have given Sedalia a tart lecture on lawbreaking being just as wrong when your motives were pure as it was when you indulged in it for personal gain, but that time was as far in the past as my ability to be surprised. As a policeman he could never condone some of Sedalia’s unorthodox methods, but as a realist he knew the only way he could change her was to throw her in jail. If he was ever tempted to that length, he never showed it, but his restraint may well have stemmed from practical considerations as much as sentiment. Without overpowering evidence, it would have been difficult to jail a woman who called the governor, the mayor, the police commissioner and nearly every judge in the state by his first name.
Changing the subject, Home said all five suspects had phoned him that morning after getting nothing but busy signals from Sedalia’s phone. Irene Chambers, Monica Madigan and Gerald Rawlins had been merely curious as to what the notes meant, which of course the inspector was unable to tell them, but Alvin Christopher had been angry, and Jerome Straight wanted to sue Sedalia.
“Couldn’t simply have had Henry drop them in the mail boxes, I suppose?” he concluded.
“I wanted them to see the notes last night,” Sedalia said, as though that excused everything. “On what grounds does Straight think he can sue me?”
“Couldn’t quite make out. Defamation of character, maybe. Called him a murderer, didn’t you?”
Sedalia shook her head? “I simply informed a number of people a murderer was invited to call at the pm today. The cards made no mention of who the murderer was. Incidently, Steve, you’ll be here at three too, won’t you?”
He stared at her. “You mean you really think he’ll come?”
“Oh yes. Not as an overt murderer, of course. But as soon as the phone is fixed, I’ll have Hank phone all those who got cards and tell them the invitation stands whether they ever killed anyone or not.”
“Why?”
“Why gather them together? Self-defense, Steve. Now that my original plot failed, I want to assure the murderer it was only a trap, and I have no actual knowledge of his identity. I don’t mind being a target for one night, but I don’t want to spend all my time peering around corners.”
The inspector changed the subject again. “Traced the knife to Adrian Thorpe. Bought in a sporting goods store on Seventh about three on Friday afternoon. Just a few hours before the second murder. Clerk can’t remember what the buyer looked like, but knives with six-inch blades have to be registered. Buyer gave his name as Adrian Thorpe.”
I said, “So it was suicide after all!”
Both the inspector and Sedalia looked at me.
“Anybody can give a name,” the inspector said briefly. “Hardly think anyone would have tried to shoot Sedalia if Thorpe was a suicide.”
“We might find out which one of our suspects own guns,” Sedalia said thoughtfully. “The killer wouldn’t have been able to go out and buy one in the middle of the night, so he must have already owned the one he tried out on me.”
I said, “He’s not one of our five then. I don’t know much about guns, but I know an automatic when I see one, and that’s what our killer pointed at me. There is a-shotgun at Alvin Christopher’s house, a revolver at Jerome Straight’s, and no weapons whatever in the hotel rooms of the other three.”
“Could be carrying it with him,” Home commented. For the third time he changed the subject. “You have any luck with your phone calls, Sedalia?”
“Some. I’ll tell you about it at three. I didn’t learn anything very startling.”
“What phone calls were those?” I asked, surprised.
Sedalia said, “Some I made yesterday afternoon while you were looking for a baggage stub. Our local police don’t seem to have a phone.”
The inspector’s face reddened. “We just don’t waste taxpayers’ money.” He turned to me. “We wired for the same information she phoned about. Not in the habit of making private citizens run up their phone bills to gather police information, but the woman’s too impatient to wait for a telegraphed answer. If I made a long-distance call every time Sedalia suggested it, be out of a job in a month.”
“Who have you been phoning long distance?” I asked Sedalia.
“You’ll learn about it at three,” she said laconically.
Under the circumstances, Sedalia’s Sunday afternoon party would have been a strained and uncomfortable affair even if she not had insisted I prepare a bowl of what she calls “Pale Dynamite”. The recipe, in the event you ever wish to throw a drunken orgy, calls for two quarts of grain alcohol, cleverly disguised in two quarts of grapefruit juice, one gallon of sparkling water, a half pint of lemon juice, sugar to taste and the usual lemon rinds and cherries dumped in to dress up the bowl.
The resulting punch has a most innocuous taste, hardly seeming to contain any alcohol at all. But if you are adept at arithmetic, you can figure out from the formula its strength is roughly equivalent to one-hundred proof whiskey cut half-and-half with soda. The above quantity is sufficient to render eight normal drinkers unconscious.
As there were eight persons present, this would have been just the right amount, except that Sedalia and I both knew what was in the punch, and Inspector Stephen Home began to suspect after the second glass. Consequently only our five suspects eventually became thoroughly drunk, and the inspector merely grew gently wobbly.
The insidious thing about Pale Dynamite is that you can drink two or three glasses before you begin to feel any effect at all. After that you do not have to drink any more, for you already have in your stomach enough alcohol to constitute a full day’s supply for an alcoholic. As straight alcohol is absorbed into the blood stream much more rapidly than liquor, you naturally become drunk more rapidly. Before you realize you have underestimated the potency of the punch, it is much too late to do anything except relax and enjoy your stupor.
I served it in our largest punch cups, and by the second round the party noticably lost its sense of strain. Up to then Sedalia played the chattering hostess, keeping the conversation on a small talk level and furnishing most of it herself, which failed to cover the obvious fact that no one else was much interested in small talk. But as I circled the room to pour the third round, she got down to business.
As it happened, this timing was perfect, for though not a person in the room was more than mildly stimulated at the moment, each glass of punch carried the equivalent wallop of three normal highballs, and within thirty minutes all our guests except the inspector were destined to be thoroughly intoxicated. On the third round I got refusals from no one except Inspector Home, who frowned thoughtfully at the punch bowl as he shook his head.
“In a way this is a business meeting as well as a social gathering,” Sedalia said when I had completed replenishing glasses. “As you probably all understand by now, if Hank made himself clear over the phone, the rather unorthodox invitations I sent out were designed to make the murderer of Mrs. Chambers and Mr. Thorpe panic. And as you also know, he did panic, attempting to kill me last night because he thought I knew his identity.”
“He?” Alvin Christopher asked.
She waved one hand impatiently at the assistant district attorney. “Or she. As Hank has so frequently pointed out to me that I’m bored with the subject, the English language should contain some personal pronoun like ‘hiser’ to cover inclusive use of both sexes at the same time.” She paused, then went on with a strange note of emphasis in her voice. “While my trap failed to catch the murderer, it did settle one thing. It-removed all doubt that the killer might be someone other than one of the five of you who received cards.”
A small stir went around the room and the guests glanced at each other with a kind of surreptitious fascination. The assistant district attorney weaved erect angrily.
“Do I understand you include me as a suspect?” he demanded.
Sedalia grinned at him. “You were with the group who discovered the body, and Mrs. Chambers had invited you to the meeting. You must have had some kind of connection with her, or you wouldn’t have been invited.”
“Before she phoned and invited me, I never heard of the woman,” Christopher said hotly. “As a matter of fact I didn’t even know there was to be a meeting. I assumed she wanted legal advice and it would be a private conference between the two of us.”
“Relax,” Sedalia said. “I haven’t accused you of anything.” She looked around at the group. “I really got you together for two reasons. The first is that I don’t care to be a target for a killer, and I want the murderer to know I have no idea which of you five he is.”
Monica Madigan drained her third glass. “Three of us have pretty iron-clad alibis. We could hardly have killed Aunt Agatha if we weren’t even in town.”
Sedalia nodded agreeably. “Alibis can be manufactured. If it was a premeditated murder, it would be strange for the killer not to have an alibi.”
“Just how would I get hold of the stub of a ticket which was used on the four-thirty train from Kansas City if I weren’t on the train?” Monica demanded.
“Any number of ways. You might have arrived much earlier, killed your aunt and then gone to the station to meet the four-thirty train. Perhaps you knew someone coming in on the train, and contrived to get his stub, or perhaps you sized up the male passengers getting off, approached one and asked for his used stub with the explanation it was on a bet of some kind. Or perhaps you simply saw someone throw away the stub and picked it up.”
“I never heard anything so silly in my life!” Irene Chambers inserted.
“I’m not saying any such thing actually happened,” Sedalia said. “I’m simply pointing out alibis can be manufactured.”
Gerald Rawlins rose to carry his empty glass toward the punch bowl, staggered slightly, looked surprised and set the glass down instead of holding it out to me for a refill. He returned to his chair walking rather carefully.
“It would be difficult to blow my alibi up in the same way you blew up Monica’s,” he said. “The airlines keep a passenger list.”
Jerome Straight suddenly put in, “You remarked it would be strange for the killer not to have an alibi. I haven’t, so that let’s me out.”
Sedalia exploded this self-interested reasoning. “I said if the murder were premeditated. In some ways this one has all the earmarks of a spur-of-the-moment crime.”
Without amplifying this remark, she changed the subject. “The second reason I gathered you all together was to see if we could get a little light on information I got by long-distance phone yesterday. I made calls to people I know in Dallas, Kansas City and Chicago.”
Who these people were she did not divulge, but I knew one of them was a mayor, one a circuit judge and one a police commissioner. Sedalia’s network of influential friends throughout the country gave her sources of information almost superior to those available to the police.
“I learned some interesting things,” Sedalia went on. “For one thing, Mrs. Madigan, I learned you did not divorce your ‘stinker of a no-good husband,’ as you termed him. He divorced you. I won’t publicly disclose the grounds, but you remarked to your lawyer if your aunt ever heard the full story, she would cut yon out of her will permanently.”
Monica flushed. “My lawyer had no business violating a client’s confidence.”
“No,” Sedalia agreed. “But what people tell often depends on who asks them. Anyway, that seems to give you an excellent motive.”
Monica shrugged. “You’ll have a hell of a time proving I wasn’t on that four-thirty train, because I was.”
Sedalia turned to Irene Chambers. “Apparently you were in no immediate danger of having your inheritance reduced, Miss Chambers. But it seems you have bad luck at roulette. I understand a character named Farewell Gus has given you just thirty days to raise the twelve thousand dollars you owe him.”
Irene’s expression was astonished. “How... how did you learn that?”
“Chicago’s mayor is one of my closest friends. Apparently he put the whole police force to work digging up your history. In case you’re interested, it took them two hours to learn everything you’ve done in the past ten years. Very efficient police department you have in Chicago.”
“Apparently,” Irene said. She finished her drink with a defiant gesture. “You’ll have as much trouble proving I wasn’t on the three pm train from Chicago as you have proving Monica wasn’t on the other one.”
Rising from her chair, she started to cross the room to where I stood next to the punch bowl. But after two steps a peculiar expression grew on her face. Carefully, she turned around, set her cup on an end table and resumed her seat.
“In Dallas I learned something too,” Sedalia said, glancing at Gerald Rawlins. “Nothing nearly as sensational, but rather interesting. The auditing firm which went over the books of Fibrolux Plastics confirms the hundred-thousand dollar shortage and traced it to Adrian Thorpe, but they didn’t report it to you. They reported it to a company official named Jonathan Toomey. Unfortunately, my informant can’t reach Mr. Toomey until tomorrow.”
Gerald waved one hand impatiently. “Jonothan is first vice president. Naturally they’d report it to the senior executive after Ad. Jonathan relayed the information to me.”
Sedalia shook her head. “That isn’t the reason they gave. They said they would have dealt with the company treasurer except they couldn’t understand how he had missed the shortage himself. It was pretty obvious.”
Gerald’s normally red face turned even redder. “A polite way of saying I didn’t keep the books too efficiently, eh? Not too polite at that.” Then he shrugged. “All right. So I’m a figurehead treasurer, and I don’t look at the company books twice a year. Ad himself supervised the bookkeeping department, while I played golf, if you want to know. Aunt Aggie insisted I work for the company, but she also refused to let me have any responsibility. So I said the hell with it, and let Ad run things.”
“About the way I got the picture,” Sedalia said.
Chapter Four
Somebody Dies Tonight!
For the first time, Inspector Home spoke. “Not sure exactly what you’re trying to do, Sedalia, but seems to me you’re counteracting your assurance to the killer that you don’t know his identity. You’re demonstrating you know how to dig things up, and letting him see you’re a pretty formidable opponent. Suggest you turn over what you have so far to me and drop out of the case. Kind of short fuse, this killer seems to have, and I got an idea he won’t wait till you catch him before trying to stop you.”
This brought a sudden silence.
Then Irene Chambers said, “Thish is...” She stopped, looked startled and tried again. “This ish...” This time her halt was more abrupt. Her lips tightened and she sank back in her chair, obviously deciding to keep her mouth shut if she was not able to control it.
Slowly Jerome Straight rose from his chair, a peculiar half smile on his long, gaunt face. Opening his mouth wide, like an opera singer preparing for a high note, he took a deep breath.
Then, with all eyes on him, he carefully reseated himself, smiled benignly around at all of us — and went to sleep.
Monica Madigan struggled erect, stood swaying and said in an incredulous voice, “We been Mickey Finned! By God, we been Mickey Finned.”
Staggering slightly, she crossed the room and grabbed both my arms to hold herself erect.
“Henry,” she said reproachfully. “You didn’t have to spike my drinks. I love you — I’ve always loved you!”
I looked at her in horror. Sedalia threw back her head and roared with laughter. I glared at her bitterly.
“So now what are your plans?” I asked. “What did you expect to accomplish by getting everyone in this condition?”
Sedalia’s amused glance took in her guests. Jerome Straight was asleep. Irene Chambers was sitting dignified but glassy-eyed with her hands sedately folded in her lap. Alvin Christopher was looking puzzedly at a package from which he was having difficulty extracting a cigarette. Only the inspector and Gerald Rawlins were still more or less in possession of their full faculties, the inspector because he had stopped at two glasses of punch, and Gerald apparently because he had a large tolerance for alcohol.
“You must admit tongues were loosened a bit,” Sedalia said. “But I do confess I hadn’t thought of what would happen beyond the present point.”
This I might have known. When Sedalia had an idea, she went ahead with a single-mindedness of purpose which took no regard of possible consequences. And now that we had a house full of intoxicated people, she was entirely capable of blithely going out for a walk and leaving me to handle the situation as best I could.
Monica’s hands on my arms were beginning to lose their grip and her expression was suddenly sleepy. Holding her erect, I looked down to where Sedalia was sitting.
“I suggest a mass napping period,” I said. “Suppose you let Miss Chambers have your bed, and I’ll put Mrs. Madigan in mine. The rest of the guests can distribute themselves on couches and the daybed while you carry Mr. Straight into the guest room.”
Sedalia nodded agreeably, rose and heaved the gaunt-faced lawyer into her arms as she would a baby. I started to lead Monica into the hall when Sedalia called after me.
“Don’t stay too long, Hank. I think Mrs. Madigan is after you.”
Refusing her the satisfaction of a reply, I led the sleepy woman to my room, let her sink back on the bed and removed her shoes. Her eyes stared up at me dreamily.
“Why’d you get me drunk, Henry?”
I said stiffly, “It was Sedalia’s idea.”
“But now that I’m drunk and practically helpless you take me to your bedroom. You didn’t have to get me drunk, Henry.”
I felt myself blushing furiously. Rising from my seat on the bed, I strode to the door. As I pulled it shut behind me Monica emitted a mocking little laugh, and I realized she had deliberately been amusing herself by teasing me. For some reason the thought made me furious. Not that I would have expected a woman as attractive as Monica to seriously throw herself at a man a quarter-century her senior, but no man likes to have a woman laugh at him. At that instant I would have been glad to learn Monica was the killer.
In Sedalia’s apartment I discovered Irene Chambers and Jerome Straight had been safely bedded down. Alvin Christopher lay on the daybed in the front room, and Gerald Rawlins was stretched full-length on the couch. The assistant district attorney was already asleep, but Rawlins was puffing on an unlighted cigarette and making a desperate effort to look sober. When I entered the room, the cigarette dropped from his hand, he smiled at me foolishly and closed his eyes.
“Think I’ll run along,” Inspector Home said in a ponderous tone. “Wife expecting me for dinner, you know.”
He moved toward Sedalia, weaving slightly, started to make a slight bow, thought better of it and walked out into the hall to obtain his coat, brushing the door jamb on one side as he went out. Accompanying him to the front door, I found his coat in the hall closet, held it for him and handed him his hat.
“Are you all right, Inspector?” I asked.
“Quite,” he said with dignity, unsuccessfully fumbling with the door knob.
Reaching past him, I opened the door, took his arm and guided him to the elevator. I pressed the signal button and waited with him as the car rose ten stories.
When the elevator door opened, I asked, “You’re not driving, are you?”
He shook his head. “No. Perfectly capable if I was though. Took a taxi.” He peered at me suspiciously. “Don’t think I’m drunk, do you, Henry?”
“Oh no,” I said.
“Never been drunk in my life.”
He entered the elevator, carefully pushed the down button, and stared at me owlishly as the door closed between us. Feeling mild relief at having disposed of at least one intoxicated guest, I returned to Sedalia’s apartment.
At first I didn’t see her, because I did not glance down at the floor. I walked right past where she was lying, glanced in her bedroom and saw Irene Chambers sleeping on her bed, walked through the dining room and peered into the guest room where Jerome Straight slept, checked the sun room and finally the kitchen.
When I found her none of these places, I called, “Sedalia!”
There was no answer. Perhaps she had gone up to my room for some reason, I thought, or into the study. I was puzzled rather than worried when I went back into the front room.
But this time the moment I entered the room, I saw Sedalia. She was stretched out face down just to one side of the front door, and I had walked right past her. My heart stopped for an instant as I saw the bright red staining the massive golden coils of her hair and forming a minute pool on the floor next to her head.
One glance at the heavy fire tongs next to her body explained what had happened. With a sickening sense of realization, I knew one of our five guests was shamming drunkenness and. was actually as sober as I. The instant Sedalia had turned her back, the murderer had struck her with the first weapon handy, then reassumed the appearance of being in a drunken sleep.
Moving to Sedalia’s side, I felt her pulse and was amazed to feel it beating strongly. Immediately I ran to the door, intending to phone the house doctor from the hall, but I stopped when it occurred to me this would put Sedalia beyond my line of vision.
Grabbing her by the ankles, I dragged her face down out into the hall. Anyone trained in first aid would have frowned at this procedure, but I considered it less dangerous than leaving her out of sight, where the murderer might decide to employ the fire tongs once more and make sure of the job. Then I picked up the tongs so as to have a weapon in case I needed it and dialed the switchboard.
“Send a doctor to Miss Tweep’s apartment at once,” I said. “It’s an emergency.”
The house doctor, a fussy little man with horn-rimmed glasses arrived within five minutes. He removed bobby pins carefully and unwound the two long braids which reached to below Sedalia’s waist when they were not coiled around her head. Gingerly he felt the gash he found underneath all the hair.
“Probably only a mild concussion,” he said. “She’d be dead if it weren’t for all that hair. It made as good protection as a football helmet. I don’t think she’s in serious danger, but I’d suggest we play safe and get her to a hospital.”
Sedalia picked that moment to groan, sit up and clutch her head with both hands.
“Are you all right, Sedalia?” I asked inanely.
Her eyes opened but remained pinched with pain. Dazedly she looked at the tongs I still held.
“Hank!” she said in amazement. “Did you clout me?”
“Of course not. Are you all right?”
She smiled bitterly. “Course I’m not all right. My head is split wide open and I think I’m going to die.” Struggling to her feet, she stood swaying. “But first I’m going to make somebody pay for this headache.”
“You shouldn’t be standing,” the doctor said. “We’re going to get you to a hospital.”
“Nonsense,” Sedalia said in a stronger voice. “I’ll be all right soon as I eat a few aspirin. Hank, let’s find out which of our guests is playing possum.”
But we were unable to find out. We even had the doctor examine them all, but his only conclusion was that all of them could either be unconscious or shamming. We did find proof that one of them was sober, however, though which one it was impossible to tell. A vase on the end table which had been between Jerome Straight and Irene Chambers contained the contents of at least two punch cupsful. And since this end table also contained a cigarette box on which all our guests had drawn freely, I recalled everyone had been near it at some time or other with a cup in his — or her — hand.
We were right back where we had started, with five suspects.
Three aspirins and a small strip of adhesive tape were all the medical attention Sedalia would accept. The aspirin apparently eased her headache, but it had no effect on her disposition. When the house doctor insisted he would not be responsible if she refused to go to a hospital, she growled that he did not look very responsible anyway, and shooed him out of the apartment.
When the doctor had gone, I said fearfully, “Now we’re alone with the murderer again. The minute we relax there may be another attempt to kill you.”
“Who’s going to relax?” she snapped at me. “I have no intention of turning my back again, and if any killers want to get tough, they’ll end up without an unbroken bone in their bodies.”
“Why did you turn your back in the first place? What happened anyway?”
Sedalia fitted an ivory-tipped cigarette in her holder and I held a light for her. With her milk white complexion and her long braids hanging down either side of her face, she looked like a little girl blown up to six times normal size.
“I was starting to clean up,” she said. “I had carried some of the glasses out to the kitchen, and when I came back in to the front room I opened the hall door to look out and see what was keeping you. I heard something behind me, started to turn, and the roof fell in.”
I thought a minute. “Then Mrs. Madigan is eliminated at any rate. She wasn’t in the apartment.”
“Depends on how long you were gone. She could have sneaked down from your room while I was in the kitchen, hidden in my bedroom, clouted me with the fire tongs and got back to your bed before you returned, if you took very long to let the inspector out.”
I thought again. “It must have been three or four minutes at least. Possibly even five. The elevator was on the first floor and I waited with the inspector until it came up and he started it down again.”
“Then nobody is eliminated.”
Again she made a rapid tour of all our guests with me trailing behind her. Only this time she carefully searched each one.
“What are you looking for?” I asked. “The baggage ticket again?”
“Weapons,” she said shortly. “Long as they’re unarmed, I can handle any one of these characters. Or all of them put together for that matter.”
Finally satisfied that none of them possessed firearms, Sedalia moved a chair into a corner of the front room from which she could see both slumbering occupants and at the same time keep her eye on the apartment door, the door to her bedroom and the door to the dining room.
“Now bring me a beer,” she said grimly.
I did not much care to leave her alone. Not that I feared for her safety now that she was alert to possible danger. On the contrary I felt that any overt move on the part of the killer would probably be his or her last. But I myself am not particularly athletic, and I doubted that I would be a match in a death struggle for any of our guests with the possible exception of the elderly Jerome Straight. In spite of self-assurance that the killer could have no possible interest in me, I kept glancing over my shoulder all the time I was alone in the kitchen.
As quickly as I could, I got a tray and glass from the cupboard, opened a bottle of beer and got myself back into the front room, where Sedalia could protect me as well as herself, if necessary.
Nothing further of interest transpired, however. About seven o’clock our guests began waking up completely sober, another of the peculiarities of Pale Dynamite. Just as the concoction brings on intoxication more rapidly than any other drink with which I am acquainted, so does it wear off more rapidly. Its effect seems to be to shoot a large quantity of alcohol into the bloodstream at once, producing quick and thorough intoxication. But as soon as the alcohol in the blood is burned up, revival starts, for there is none left in the stomach to replenish the bloodstream, as there would be with some more slowly absorbed liquor such as whisky.
Jerome Straight was the first to rejoin us, a fitting thing since he had also been the first to depart from consciousness. He appeared in the doorway from the dining room, blinked at us grayly, looked faintly nonplussed at Sedalia’s hanging braids, then took in the sleeping figures of Alvin Christopher and Gerald Rawlins.
“I was going to say I was sorry for making a spectacle of myself, Miss Tweep,” he announced in a stiff voice. “But I see I was not alone. Was there something in the punch?”
“A little alcohol,” Sedalia said laconically.
He moved across to the hall doorway, turned to survey us both with unmistakable disapproval. “Thank you for an enjoyable party. I’ll leave now.”
I said, “I’ll help you with your coat.”
“I’ll find it,” he said coldly, and passed through the door.
In a few moments we heard the outer door open and close.
“Now if you would turn your back and get attacked again, we could eliminate Jerome Straight from the field,” I suggested.
“Shut up,” Sedalia said amiably. “I’m thinking.”
And she remained with her brow puckered in a thoughtful frown as the remainder of our guests awakened, bade her subdued good-byes and departed. After Jerome Straight, their order of awakening was Monica Madigan, Irene Chambers, Gerald Rawlins and Alvin Christopher. Except for the elderly lawyer, none of them seemed to harbor any particular animosity for having been trapped into intoxication.
When the last guest had departed, I threw the front door bolt and began to prepare dinner. Sedalia was still seated in the front room, thinking, when I called her at eight.
“You know, Hank, I’ve been wondering why the killer took such a chance to get rid of me. I don’t think it was just Steve Home’s remark about my being a formidable opponent, because waiting until night to make a second attempt would have been safer than with all these people around. The only answer I can see is that I must have said something this afternoon which made the killer think I was closer to an answer than I actually am. So I had to be stopped at the very first opportunity.”
I said, “I don’t recall your saying anything particularly revolutionary aside from your description as to how Monica Madigan could have built an alibi.”
“Perhaps that’s it,” she said slowly. “In my blundering way perhaps I described exactly what she did.”
In spite of still being rankled by Mrs. Madigan’s laughing at me, I felt it only fair to point out an item which seemed to me to eliminate both women from the murder of Adrian Thorpe at least.
“Don’t forget the person who bought the knife found in Adrian Thorpe was a man,” I reminded her. “Doesn’t that tend to eliminate the two women as suspects?”
She shook her head, causing her braids to jiggle. “Thorpe himself may have bought it as a souvenir, and the killer merely have seen it in his room and grabbed it up as a handy weapon. Our murderer has a tendency to use whatever is convenient, as witness the employment of fire tongs twice. Or perhaps the killer stopped a bum on the street and hired him to make the purchase. There are too many possibilities to make the purchase of the knife by a man mean very much.”
“Then have you tentatively settled on Mrs. Madigan?” I asked.
She rose to come to dinner. “I haven’t tentatively settled on anyone. Aside from suggesting how the Madigan woman could have framed an alibi, I can think of one other thing I said today which might have forced the killer to act fast.”
“What was that?”
“My announcement that I expected to hear from Jonathan Toomey, the first vice president of Fibrolux Plastics, tomorrow.”
“You mean he might tell you something which would disagree with Gerald Rawlins’ story?”
“That’s a possibility,” she agreed as she moved into the dining room. “But you may recall the other night Jerome Straight said something about Mrs. Chambers leaving her Fibrolux stock in trust with Mr. Straight as the administrator. If we can get hold of Jonathan Toomey tomorrow, I think I’ll inquire just what Jerome Straight’s connection with the corporation is beyond his voting power as administrator of the estate. It would be interesting to know whether under the terms of the will he could vote himself in as president of the corporation.”
I held Sedalia’s chair for her. “Well at least we can wait till tomorrow before worrying about any more murders,” I said philosophically.
“Think so?” Sedalia asked. “Bet a nickel the murderer tries to kill me again tonight.”
On this pleasant thought we sat down to our Sunday night supper.
Chapter Five
Fire Down Below!
In spite of Sedalia’s grim prophecy, I went to bed without worrying about any attempts the murderer might make that night. My ease of mind was entirely due to our specially constructed doors, of course, and not because I disagreed with Sedalia that he might make another attempt to kill her. With their inside bolts thrown even I could not have gotten through those doors from outside, and I doubted that our killer was a more accomplished picklock than I.
It never even occurred to me the killer would be insane enough to try to burn down the hotel.
The most infernal clangor I ever heard brought me out of a sound sleep. It sounded like ten thousand alarm clocks going off at once, and it took me from bed and out into the hall in my pajamas.
By the time I had switched on a light in the hall I realized the sound was coming from the elevator lobby and I also realized it was the fire alarm for our floor. Ducking back into my room, I got on my robe and slippers and returned to the hall just as Sedalia burst from her apartment pulling a robe over her nightgown.
“It’s the fire alarm,” I said before she could speak, and started toward the front door.
“Wait, Hank!” she called sharply.
It is frightening to be on the tenth floor of a hotel when a fire alarm goes off, and my face must have been pale when I stopped and turned, for Sedalia gave me the same sort of reassuring smile mothers give children frightened by thunder. The smile embarrassed me and I attempted nonchalance by feeling in my robe pocket for a cigarette, I offered her one, but she shook her head.
“Let’s not go off half-cocked, Hank,” Sedalia said. “There may be a killer sitting out there with a loaded gun. What time is it?”
I glanced at my wrist watch. “Three o’clock.”
“Phone the switchboard and find out if there’s really a fire before you start unlocking any doors.”
I nodded, and to show how unperturbed I was, returned to my bedroom for my lighter and lit my cigarette before going to the phone. Then I laid the lighted cigarette on my bedside ash tray and returned to the hall carrying the lighter in my hand. I was reaching for the phone when it rang. I dropped the lighter, picked it up again and answered the phone.
“This is the switchboard,” said a feminine voice. “There is a small fire in the hotel, but nothing to get excited about. Please listen carefully and don’t get excited.”
I said, “I’m not excited.”
“The management wishes all personnel to leave the hotel in as orderly a manner as possible. There is little danger that the fire will reach your apartment, but we don’t wish to take any chances. Please leave by the fire escape instead of using your elevator.”
“If there is no danger, I think we’ll stay right here,” I said.
The woman’s voice sharpened. “I’ll have to ask you to get out of the building at once. The management cannot be responsible—”
“Where is the fire?” I interrupted.
“Right below you. But there is nothing to get excited about—”
I said, “We’ll stay here and hope you can put it out.”
Suddenly her voice lost control. “You old fool! The whole ninth floor is in flames! Either get out of there or burn!”
The line went dead and I slowly replaced the receiver.
“We have to get out,” I told Sedalia, and added hopefully, “Our killer wouldn’t burn up a hundred people just to get at you, would he?”
She was stooping over and feeling the floor. “Feel this, Hank.”
I bent and followed her example. The floor felt slightly warm.
I said, “I haven’t smelled any smoke yet. Maybe they’ll get it under control.”
At that moment a wisp of smoke drifted from my bedroom. Both of us rushed to the door at once. I got there first, saw the cigarette I had laid down had fallen from the tray and the doiley of my bedside stand was smoldering. Carrying it into my bathroom, I threw it in the drain.
“We’ve got enough trouble without you starting additional fires,” Sedalia snarled at me.
Going to my open bedroom window, I pushed it farther open and leaned out to look down at the floor below. I could see no sign of fire, but at that moment sirens began to sound in the distance.
Drawing my head back in, I said, “I’m going to phone the switchboard once more before we rush out to get shot by a murderer.”
When I returned to the phone the same woman I had talked to before answered immediately.
“Yes?” she said, and then the phone went dead. At the same instant the alarm in the outer lobby stopped clanging.
Attempting to keep my voice steady, I said, “Apparently the wiring is going out. Maybe we had better do something before the lights go.”
“If we only knew which door the killer was watching,” Sedalia said.
“Maybe he isn’t watching either,” I said without any conviction.
Sedalia’s eyes were narrowed in thought. “If he were waiting at the front door and we never opened it, he would be trapped if the elevator went out. My guess is that our murderer is now sitting on the fire escape, so let’s try the front way.”
Since almost any action seemed better than staying where we were and roasting, I accepted her reasoning without question. Before I could weaken, I ran to the front door, drew the bolt and threw it open. I was met by a haze of smoke which set me to coughing.
Behind me Sedalia muttered through a handkerchief thrust to her face, “I don’t see any flame or any killers. Get moving.”
Lacking a handkerchief, I held an edge of my robe across my face and ran toward the elevator. As usual it was on the ground floor, and as I pressed the button and watched the floor indicator slowly rise, my eyes began to smart from the smoke.
The indicator stopped halfway between seven and eight. Frenziedly I pushed the button again, but the needle did not move.
And then all the lights went off.
There was no point in waiting longer. By mutual accord we stumbled back into the apartment and I locked and bolted the door. The last was simply reflex action, for if we were unable to get out the front way, there was certainly no way for a murderer to get in.
In pitch dark we felt our way along the wall to the door of Sedalia’s apartment, groped through the front room and dining room into the kitchen and eventually arrived at the back door. Here we both paused and I could hear Sedalia’s heavy breathing, as though she had been running uphill.
“Think we can afford to wait until it gets really hot?” I asked into the darkness.
Sedalia said, “Feel the floor again.”
Stooping, I pressed my palm against the floor and found it noticeably hot. Having had no previous experience with fires, I had no idea whether this could have been caused by radiated heat from a blaze not necessarily right underneath us, or if the ceiling below was actually on fire. But I had a mental vision of the floor suddenly bursting into flame, crumbling beneath our feet and plunging us into an inferno.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I’ll go first.”
I threw the bolt, started to pull open the door, and Sedalia said tensely, “Wait!”
I stood holding the door a quarter inch open.
“All right,” she said.
Not understanding what was on her mind, I pulled the door wide, letting moonlight mixed with smoke pour into the room. Then turning to look at Sedalia, I saw her poised with a kitchen chair over her shoulder, ready to hurl it through the door at the first indication of anyone awaiting us on the fire escape. But the platform outside was bare.
I started to step through the door, but Sedalia said softly, “Hold it, Hank.”
Then she peeled off her robe, draped it over the chair and tossed the chair out onto the fire escape. From the roof overhead an automatic spat bullets in a chattering roar.
I had just time to see the chair dance on the platform like a crazy thing as bullets smashed into it, then I had slammed the door and thrown home the bolt.
“Let’s stay here and roast,” I said in a quavering voice.
“You might as well get the candles again,” Sedalia said calmly.
So while Sedalia repaired to her bedroom for another robe, I located the same candles we had used approximately twenty-four hours before and made a little light in the front room. Then we sat down, Sedalia with a beer and me with a high-ball, and conversed as though neither of us had a care in the world. Sedalia sounded entirely calm, but in the dim light of the two candles I could not make out her expression very well, and perhaps she was as frightened as I. If she was, she was exceedingly frightened, for I have never experienced such panic in my life as I did during the next forty-five minutes, as we sat there talking while the floor gradually grew so hot we could feel the warmth on our feet even through a thick rug.
“Do you really think the murderer set this?” I asked.
Sedalia took a long pull on her beer. “Obviously. It would be too much of a coincidence for him to be on the roof otherwise. If we don’t burn up, we’ve definitely got him now.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He wouldn’t go to such desperate lengths unless it were not absolutely essential to remove me tonight. He’s not making these frantic attempts because he simply fears me as an opponent. The only possible reason he could be so desperate is that he can’t afford to let me talk to Jonathan Toomey. So, by the process of applied logic, if we live to talk to Toomey we’ll have the answer.”
“Then our killer is Jerome Straight?”
“I don’t know,” Sedalia said. “We’ll never know unless we get to talk to Fibrolux Plastics’ vice president.”
When nearly a half hour had passed we suddenly heard a sound something like that of a huge vacuum cleaner. I was trying to classify the sound when there was a roaring immediately under our feet and the floor began to vibrate.
“The floor’s giving way!” I yelled, leaping to my feet.
“It’s just a fire hose,” Sedalia said matter-of-factly. “They’re playing a stream of water on the ceiling downstairs.”
I sank back in my chair feeling foolish, hope beginning to form in my breast that we would get out of our situation after all.
The hope materialized, for about fifteen minutes later a pounding came at the kitchen door. We went back to the kitchen together, and after satisfying ourselves that a fireman instead of the killer was on the fire escape outside by shouting back and forth through the door, I threw the bolt and let him in.
Incredibly, Inspector Stephen Home was with the fireman.
“Desk sergeant got me out of bed when a report on the fire came in,” he announced in explanation. “Knew you lived here and thought I’d want to know. You all right, Sedalia?”
“Just fine,” she said. “Have a beer, Stephen?”
The inspector shook his head, not even seeming surprised by the invitation. The fireman, an axe in one hand and a flashlight in the other, made a tour of the apartment and came back looking disappointed that he had found nothing to chop.
“You people should have gotten out,” he said. “Might as well stay now, though. The danger’s over.”
“Anyone hurt?” Sedalia asked.
“Woman sprained her ankle on a fire escape. Nobody burned, though the floor below here is pretty well gutted. Lucky the whole she-bang didn’t go up. Somebody poured gasoline all over the hall downstairs and pitched a match in it.”
He went out the way he had come.
“Our killer was on the roof a little while ago, Steve,” Sedalia said. “This was started to smoke me out apparently. He fired a number of shots and ruined the kitchen chair I threw out on the fire escape.”
“Noticed it,” he said. “Guessed something like that happened when I saw the holes in your robe. Checked the roof before I came in here, but there’s four other escapes he could have taken down.”
Suddenly, for no reason at all, an odd memory item popped from my subconscious into my conscious mind. This happens to me sometimes. I have what is known as a photographic memory, being able to reproduce in my mind vivid images of things I have seen in the past, for example whole pages of printed matter. Once the talent earned me a living on the stage, and now it is of occasional service to Sedalia.
I said, “Sedalia, what does this mean? Friday night when we were at the scene of the first murder, Gerald Rawlins pointed out his suitcase standing in the hall and remarked he had not had time to park it anywhere because he had come straight from the airport. It had a bright red baggage stub tied to its handle. But later when I searched his room, the stub was white and he also had an additional bag with a white stub.”
In the flickering candlelight Sedalia looked at me for a long time. Finally she said, “Have you been carrying that in your mind long, Hank?”
“Not consciously,” I said.
“It’s a good thing,” she told me grimly. “If you’d mentioned it right after searching Rawlins’ room, the case would have been solved right then.” She looked at the inspector. “No wonder the killer couldn’t afford to let me talk to Jonathan Toomey. Now I know what to ask Mr. Toomey.”
But she refused to tell us what she intended to ask, insisting she had no intention of accusing anyone of murder and arson until all the evidence was in. Instead she talked the inspector into having all five suspects picked up and at his office at nine in the morning, at which time she would make her long distance call to Dallas and then present the inspector with his murderer.
“The fire put my phone out of order again,” she said. “So this call will have to be at public expense.”
Whereupon she shooed the inspector out via the fire escape and we went back to bed.
When we arrived at headquarters the next morning, we found the five suspects already gathered together in the inspector’s office. Sedalia greeted them all courteously, borrowed the inspector’s phone and put in her call to the Fibrolux Plastics Corporation in Dallas. While waiting for this she asked the operator to get her the Statler Hotel.
Then she handed the phone to Inspector Home. “When you get the clerk, ask what time Gerald Rawlins registered on Friday.”
No one said anything as Home asked the question, grunted at the reply and hung up. He glanced at Gerald Rawlins.
“Desk clerk says he didn’t check in till about nine, which would be shortly after we released him after we questioned everyone at Mrs. Agatha Chambers’ home. But he phoned for the reservation from the railroad station at twelve-fifteen.”
“That ties it up,” Sedalia said. “We won’t even have to wait for Jonathan Toomey’s verification.” As the inspector reached for the phone she added quickly, “But don’t cancel the call. We’ll need the evidence. While waiting I’ll tell you how Mr. Gerald Rawlins performed these murders and why.”
Everyone turned to look at Gerald Rawlins, whose face had turned deathly pale, but who managed a cynical smile. He made no comment, simply staring defiantly at Sedalia as though daring her to go on. Sedalia obliged him.
“Rawlins managed to distort the picture of what really happened a bit,” she said. “But it was not really clever planning. It was merely incredible luck. What actually happened, of course, was not that Gerald phoned his aunt to disclose the hundred thousand dollar shortage, but Adrian Thorpe phoned her. Gerald was on a train at the time, en route to the family meeting. In spite of Gerald having fixed the books to make it look as though Thorpe was the embezzler, Mrs. Chambers knew her nephew well enough to put the blame where it belonged. Consequently, when Gerald arrived at his aunt’s house, he was met by a denunciation and Mrs. Chambers informed him he was not only permanently going to be cut out of her will, but a member of the district attorney’s office would be present at the meeting that might to take him into custody.”
She turned to Alvin Christopher. “That’s why you were invited, Mr. Christopher.”
“Wait a minute,” Inspector Home said. “If Rawlins came in by train, how did his name get on the airline passenger list?”
“That was the incredible luck. Either he had originally planned to go by plane, made a reservation and later decided to go by train and turned his reservation over to Adrian Thorpe to use, or perhaps Thorpe had asked Gerald to buy him a plane ticket and Gerald absent-mindedly made the reservation in his own name. Whichever it was, there is no doubt that it was Thorpe who rode the plane on a reservation made in Gerald Rawlins’ name, and Gerald came in by train.
“The phone call from the station making a reservation at the Sheridan for Adrian Thorpe was made by Gerald, of course. At the time Gerald didn’t know he was going to commit a murder in less than an hour, and was merely doing Thorpe a favor. No doubt Thorpe had asked him to make him a reservation, knowing he would have little time between the time his plane was due in and the time of the meeting. Another example of Gerald’s incredible luck was that the desk clerk at the Sheridan later assumed it was Thorpe himself who phoned for the reservation.
“Mrs. Chambers was killed in blind rage, without premeditation, but after committing the crime, Gerald did his best to wriggle out of it. Remembering the plane reservation was in his name, he tried a desperate plan. He bought a hunting knife, registering it in Thorpe’s name, then went to the Sheridan, waited until Thorpe was alone in his room, walked in and killed him. It was a simple matter to get Thorpe’s airline stub from his pocket, substitute his own train stub and remove the baggage stubs from Thorpe’s suitcases so that he could later attach them to his own. But in his first panic after killing his aunt, apparently he left his suitcase in the hall, where it remained all the time the police were investigating. Unfortunately, for Gerald, it still contained the red railroad baggage stub, and Hank noticed this.
“The handbag which disappeared from Thorpe’s room of course contained the evidence of Gerald’s embezzlement. No doubt the auditors will be able to put it together again, now they know what to look for.
“Finally, the reason Gerald had to get me out of the way was that he knew I intended to talk to Jonathan Toomey. On a routine police report by telegraph, where the police are chary with words in order to save the taxpayers expense, there was an excellent chance the only information coming from Dallas would be a verification that the audit showed Thorpe guilty of embezzlement. Certainly it would not have mentioned anything about the modes of transportation used by Thorpe and Rawlins. But Gerald knew if I personally talked to Toomey by phone, it would inevitably come out that Thorpe had flown. For it was Thorpe Mr. Toomey turned the auditors’ report over to, not Gerald. At the time Gerald was halfway between here and Dallas on a train.”
Sedalia took a deep breath. “Got anything to add?” she asked Gerald Rawlins.
“Yes,” he said in a tight voice. “I’m sorry I didn’t swing those fire tongs a little harder.”
At that moment the inspector’s desk phone rang.
“Here’s your Dallas call,” he said, handing it to Sedalia.