The Man in the Moonlight, page 3
Like most men of action, Foyle was a romantic. This fervent speech engaged his sympathy. But the man and woman were too absorbed to be aware of him.
“I can’t imagine why you insisted on this last meeting.” The woman’s voice was clear and cold as spring water. “My mind is made up. I told you that in November. It’s painful for us to see each other now and it doesn’t do any good. What’s finished is finished.”
“Give me another chance!” Foyle didn’t like to hear any man plead quite so abjectly. “Amy, darling, we could be so happy! You know we could.”
This time Foyle cleared his throat. The man looked up with a quick frown. “We can’t talk here.”
Foyle couldn’t hear the woman’s answer. But it silenced the man. He looked at her with an expression hard to analyse — more bitter than simple despair. Foyle wished he could tell him that in twenty years he would laugh at the memory of this as he would laugh now at the tragedies of his childhood.
It was the woman who signalled the waiter with a nod of her elaborately curled head. The man paid the check and pushed the change toward the waiter. The woman rose, drawing her long, deep blue coat around her with a flash of pale blue skirts beneath. About her throat was a short necklace of sapphire and turquoise. Her eyes were more nearly turquoise than sapphire — round eyes set wide apart with the perpetually startled expression of a blue-eyed kitten.
Alone in the garden, Foyle took out his pipe and fumbled for his tobacco pouch. His fingers encountered the sheet of paper he had found on the campus. By the fitful light of the paper lanterns he read it again:
…You have been chosen as murderer for Group No. 1…you will enter Southerland Hall from the east entrance just as the library clock is striking the hour of eight (8:00) in the evening of May 4 (Saturday)…
Foyle shook the ashes from his pipe and looked at his watch. Then he stuffed pipe and pouch and letter into his pocket and called for his bill. It was already 7:43. He must hurry if he wished to be at the east entrance of Southerland Hall when the library clock struck 8:00.
The moon had risen and was almost full. The Inspector felt as conspicuous as an actor on a spotlighted stage. Once inside the walls of the University, he left the path and walked in the shadow of the trees where the turf hushed every footfall. The long windows of the library blazed with light, but the chapel and Southerland Hall were dark. Foyle made a circuit of the Hall. As he rounded the southwest corner, he thought he heard the swift tapping of an expert typist. But every window was dark. When he paused to listen more carefully, he heard nothing. He decided that his nerves had played a trick on him.
He found a second entrance on the west side and tried the door. It was locked. He came back to the east side without seeing any sign of life. But the east door was ajar. He went up the steps and looked in — the corridor was dark and silent. He pondered the situation, then retreated and slipped between two syringa bushes to the left of the entrance. He had not been mistaken about the cover around Southerland Hall — the syringa hid him completely. Any of the other bushes opposite was tall enough to hide someone else from him.
Inside the shrubbery, he found himself next to the front window of the lecture hall where Prickett had conducted his experiment. Cautiously parting the branches, Foyle could see the front door. The moon bathed path and lawn. Only the blackness of the shadows betrayed the faintness of that deceptive light.
A sound startled him. It was the library clock. He counted the strokes — six…seven…eight. He drew a deep breath and waited. Something moved in the shadow under the trees. Through a lacy web of leaves, Foyle saw a man coming furtively across the turf. Not a professional criminal — a professional would realise that a furtive manner is more likely to attract suspicion than behaviour that appears normal.
The man had to pass into the moonlight when he mounted the steps. Foyle recognised Ian Halsey. His feet moved silently on rubber soles. Though he wore no hat or overcoat, his hands were encased in heavy gauntlets. He didn’t seem surprised to find the door ajar.
Halsey slipped into the building. The door closed behind him noiselessly. A moment later a tiny thread of light showed at one edge of the window beside Foyle. A dark shade inside the glass made it impossible to see more, and he could not have seen that much if he had not been standing inside the shrubbery.
He stepped out of the bushes as quietly as possible and tiptoed up the steps. He turned the knob so slowly that it made no sound and pushed the door open.
The corridor was almost in darkness, but there was a faint, fan-shaped glow from the door of Prickett’s lecture hall which stood half-open. Farther down the corridor, on the other side, moonlight filtered through the dusty panes of a window at the end of a passage where the janitor kept his mops and pails.
Foyle touched the hinges of the front door. A film of grease came off on his fingertips — someone had gone to great trouble to make that door noiseless tonight. He left it ajar. The tiled floor made it possible for him to move forward without fear of creaking. The stairway was opposite the door of the lecture hall. By standing in the shadow under the stairs he could look into the room without being seen. What he discovered puzzled him more than ever.
The only illumination in the room came from a candle Halsey was lighting in a green china candlestick on the table. The black mat was gone. In its place stood an array of objects that suggested a rather frugal picnic. A sherry glass and a bottle of wine labelled California Wine Growers Association. A tin of Chesterfields, a folder of matches and a glass ash tray. A box of Butterthin Biscuits. A glass bowl filled with strawberries. A Corona portable open and ready for use. A book with a gay paper jacket — Victorian Murderers, by Wilson Steele.
In the still air, the candle flame stood straight as a spear and Halsey’s shadow, monstrous against the wall, moved only when he moved. He dropped his lighted match on the tiled floor where it burned itself out. He poured a glass of sherry and sipped it while he ate the strawberries one by one with gloved fingers. When he had finished, he pushed the bowl aside. Under it lay a greenback — Foyle couldn’t see the denomination. Halsey folded it and put it in his breast pocket. He lit one of the Chesterfields from the tin, and dropped his second match on the floor, treading out the flame. Then he began turning the pages of the book, pausing to read every few moments.
He’s a cool young devil! And I don’t like those gloves — the Inspector was thinking of fingerprints.
Halsey looked at his wristwatch. Still moving slowly, he crushed his cigarette in the ash tray and lit a second one, dropping the match in the tray. The cigarette hung limply from his lower lip as he sat down at the table and began to type. He glanced at the open book from time to time as if copying something. The steady tap-tap-tap reminded Foyle of the sound he thought he had noticed when he walked around the building. Only that was before Halsey appeared.
Abruptly the boy dropped his second cigarette in the tray and pulled the paper from the typewriter. Going to the other side of the table, he sat down again and began with a pencil to correct what he had typed.
The Inspector heard a quick, resolute step. He had heard it only once before, but he would have known it anywhere. The candle flame choked, and the shadows danced as the front door was flung wide. The round face of the moon peered through the opening and the tall figure of Dr Konradi followed his own shadow down the corridor swiftly.
Foyle’s eyes remained on the front door. It was moving — closing. He dashed forward — just too late. He heard a key turn. As he stood wrenching vainly at the doorknob, he heard a shot. It was followed by a scream from Prickett’s lecture hall — an inhuman scream that clung to a high note, wavered, and fell a long way into silence.
Foyle ran into the lecture hall. Halsey was standing with his gloved fist against his mouth, staring toward a door to the next room. It opened upon darkness — the moon was on the other side of the building. Across the threshold sprawled the body of a man, face down. The top of his skull was smashed like an eggshell. Before Foyle knelt and turned the head gently to see what was left of the face, he knew it was Konradi. A thimbleful of powder and an inch of lead had reduced a rare and ardent mind to this ugly thing.
Foyle saw the revolver beside Konradi’s hand. The explosion had gone into the head through the roof of the mouth. No other mark of violence. No smell of chloroform, no visible symptom of a narcotic drug. How often had he heard medical examiners say that these things together were clear proof of suicide, and yet — Please understand that, Herr Inspector, and remember it. No matter what happens — no matter what seems to happen — I shall not commit suicide. Foyle felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up.
Halsey’s grey eyes were cloudy and unfocused. He stuttered, “H-How did you get in here?”
“That’s beside the point now,” said Foyle bitterly. “Turn on the lights, will you?”
Halsey walked to the nearest switch as if he were wading knee-deep in water. He fumbled for the button. Every movement was heavy with the conscious effort of a man fighting against drunkenness or sleep. There was a click, but no light. “The lights won’t go on!” His voice cracked. “Let’s get out of here!”
“The front door’s locked.”
“Locked?” Halsey ran to the window. He put forth all his strength trying to raise it. “It’s nailed down.” Gasping for breath, he beat his fists against the glass. “Let me out! You devil! Let me out! Oh, God, I forgot!” He sank to his knees with a sob. “Unbreakable glass in all the ground-floor windows.”
The two looked at each other. They both heard a stealthy sound — the unmistakable sound of a door opening.
“What are we going to do?” Halsey’s voice was shrill. “We’re locked in with a murderer!”
4
Exasperation
The sound appeared to come from the next room. Foyle took out his revolver. (In New York, all policemen are required to carry arms off duty — even chief inspectors.) He walked to the table and blew out the candle.
“You — you won’t leave me alone in the dark?” whimpered Halsey.
“That light was too good a target.” Foyle groped his way toward the door into the next room and paused by the threshold. There was a rustling sound beyond in the darkness — like dead leaves stirring in the wind. He had to step over the body to enter the room.
With the revolver in his right hand, he felt his way along the wall with his left, moving as quietly as possible. His eyes grew accustomed to the faint light that came through unshaded windows from the open night, and he could see the glitter of glass. This was a chemical laboratory and it must be Konradi’s, for he had said he was the only chemist in the building.
Foyle’s groping hand encountered a wire cage and he saw something move within. Little eyes, shiny as black pinheads, caught the faint light — mice for some experiment. They had made the rustling sound when they were roused from sleep in their straw bed.
There seemed to be no other living thing — no sound of human breathing or movement — no sound at all but the slow drip of a leaky faucet. Whoever had been in this room a moment ago had escaped into the hall.
As Foyle moved cautiously, he heard a thunderous crash of breaking glass. A bell began to ring — the shrill, nagging clamour of a burglar alarm. He forgot caution and ran into the corridor. Four closed doors faced him, but he remembered the window in the janitor’s passage. He collided with a mop handle, and cool outdoor air bathed his face. A jagged hole gaped in the dusty glass — large enough to admit a man. So this was their unbreakable glass!
Beyond the shattered window the moonlight flooded a lawn that sloped upward to the campus. One of the bushes near Southerland Hall began to move. It was a human figure moving into the moonlight out of the shadow cast by a bush. As Foyle started to climb through the window, he had a blurred impression of a solitary figure running over the crest of the hill.
A heavy grip fell on Foyle’s collar, twisted it viciously and dragged him through the window, while a triumphant voice shouted, “Gotcha!”
The Inspector shook off his assailant with a jerk of his shoulders. “If this is a sophomore’s joke—”
The man wasn’t listening. He called to a figure that came running out of the shadows. “Here he is, sir! Th’ other fella got away, but I caught this one red-handed — the dirty bum! He was tryin’ to escape an’ broke a window. Lissen, you!” The grip descended on Foyle’s collar again. “You’ll have ta pay for that window!”
Again Foyle shook himself free. “If you’ll listen—”
“Inspector Foyle! What are you doing here?”
Foyle turned. The man was Prickett. “I apologise,” he panted. “Woodman — our watchman — is a little impulsive.”
“Is this guy a cop?” The watchman retreated.
“Yes, Woodman. I’m afraid we’ve made a mistake. But it doesn’t make much difference.”
“Oh, doesn’t it?” Foyle controlled his temper.
“My dear Inspector, I can clear up the whole thing. It’s just an experiment in the psychology of crime. Not a wholly original experiment — I’ve borrowed freely from Blane and Bickford. But I’ve also introduced a few improvements of my own. At least, I like to think they’re improvements. The burglar alarm for one thing. And the unbreakable glass for another.”
“And Dr Konradi lying in there with his brains blown out!” roared Foyle. “Is that part of the original experiment? Or one of your little improvements?”
“You…you’re joking!”
“I don’t joke about crime. I don’t experiment either.”
Woodman’s mind moved more slowly than Foyle’s, but at last he caught the drift of Prickett’s words. “Say…what’s all this about an experiment, Dr Prickett?” he demanded furiously. “Why, you — you said I was to keep a special watch on Southerland Hall because you’d seen tramps hanging around. You said—”
Prickett ignored this. “Inspector, you can’t really mean that Konradi is dead?”
“Didn’t you hear a shot?”
“I thought it was a backfire on East End Avenue.”
“How did you happen to run around here just now?”
“Why, I…” Prickett moistened thin lips.
“Just passing by, eh?”
“No. I had to lock the door and—”
“Oh! So you locked us in! Didn’t you hear Halsey pounding on the window and yelling to let us out?”
“Of course. I thought Halsey’s reaction interesting.”
“You mean to say you heard him yell and you hadn’t sense enough to unlock the door?”
“I don’t like your tone, Inspector. I couldn’t unlock the door. That would have ruined the experiment.”
“Why did Konradi come back to Southerland Hall after telling me he wouldn’t be here this evening? Was that part of the experiment?”
“Konradi had nothing to do with it.”
“And I suppose your revolver had nothing to do with it either!”
“My revolver?”
“You said it would turn up. It did. It was used to kill Konradi. Maybe you were studying his startle pattern and forgot to use a blank instead of a bullet.”
“But I lost the revolver this afternoon — I couldn’t have used it this evening.”
“You might have pretended to lose it. You might have slipped it into that briefcase you took home with you. Is there a telephone in Southerland Hall?”
The front door was still locked, the burglar alarm still ringing. Prickett took a key from his pocket and Foyle unlocked the door. Automatically, he felt for the switch. Again there was a click, but no light.
“I…turned, off the current by removing part of the main switch,” volunteered Prickett.
“Another of your little improvements?”
“No, I got that from Blane. Darkness intensifies the emotional reaction of the subject.”
“Where’s this main switch?”
“In the basement. I can fix it in a minute.” Prickett groped his way toward the stairs.
“And turn off that blasted burglar alarm!” Foyle turned to Woodman. “Where’s the telephone?”
“They got phones in them offices.” He pointed to the closed doors on the right. “I gotta passkey and…”
Woodman’s voice faded as the lights blazed. He could see Konradi’s body through the open door of the lecture hall on the left.
“Good Lord! I forgot all about Halsey!” Foyle crossed the lecture hall to where the boy was lying unconscious. “Help me get him into one of the offices.”
Woodman unlocked the first door on the right. Between them they carried Halsey across the corridor. The office was more personal than the lecture hall. Distempered walls and tiled floor were the same, but there was a Persian rug, a mahogany desk and armchairs. Halsey sprawled in one, limp but still breathing.
Foyle reached for the telephone and paused. “When you collared me so efficiently you said something about the other fellow getting away. Did you get a look?”
“Sure.” Woodman locked the door of the lecture hall where the body lay and returned to the office. “He run up toward the campus an’ I seen him good when he crossed the open space in the moonlight. Little runt, he was — short an’ thin — an’ he had a felt hat with the brim pulled down over his eyes. He run in short steps like he wasn’t used to runnin’. His head was bobbin’ up an’ down. It took him two-three minutes to get to the top o’ that hill. Geez! It burns me up to think I didn’t go after him instead of you!”
The alarm bell ceased ringing like a sudden cessation of toothache. Foyle called the radio room at Police Headquarters. Precious minutes had been lost. But how could you make haste alone in an isolated building with the lights off, the windows nailed down, and three men to watch every minute?
“A short, thin man with a felt hat.” Foyle was speaking into the telephone. “Runs in short steps — unused to running. Last seen in grounds of Yorkville University going toward the East River. Probably bloodstains on hands and clothing. Not much to go on but send it out. And now give me Homicide.”
