The Tragedy of X, page 23
part #1 of Drury Lane Series
He went to the door of the library, opened it and peered about. One of the detectives was lounging in the hall. The man looked about quickly.
“Is the butler still downstairs?”
“I’ll see.” The detective walked away and returned shortly with a shuffling jorgens.
“Yes, sir?”
Drury Lane leaned against the jamb of the library door. “Jorgens, old fellow, do you know the combination of the library safe?”
Jorgens started. “I? No, sir.”
“Does Mrs. DeWitt know it? Or Miss DeWitt?”
“I don’t think so, sir.”
“Odd,” said Lane pleasantly. The detective was slouching off down the hall. “And how is that, Jorgens?”
“Well, sir, Mr. DeWitt… Well.” The butler seemed at a loss. “It’s queer, sir, but Mr. DeWitt for years has kept that safe sort of to himself.
There’s a bedroom safe upstairs in which Mrs. DeWitt and Miss DeWitt keep their jewels. But this one in the library… I think only he and Mr. Brooks, his attorney, knew the combination.”
“Brooks?” Drury Lane was thoughtful. “Will you have him come here, please.”
Jorgens moved away. When he returned, it was with Lionel Brooks, gray- blond hair tousled, eyes red and sleepless.
“Want me, Mr. Lane?”
“Yes. I understand that only you and DeWitt knew the combination of the library safe, Mr. Brooks.” An alert look swam into Brooks’s eyes. “May I have it, please?”
The lawyer stroked his chin. “A rather unusual request, Mr. Lane. I don’t know that ethically I have the right to give you the combination. And legally… This places me in a peculiar position. You see, the combination was given to me by DeWitt a long time ago. He told me that he didn’t want a record kept about the house, and if anything should happen to him he preferred that the safe be accessible only through official channels…
“You amaze me, Mr. Brooks,” murmured Lane. “Under the circumstances, I am more determined than ever to open the safe. You know, of course, that I possess the requisite authority. Would you transmit the combination to the District Attorney?” He was smiling, but his eyes probed the muscular contractions of the lawyer’s jaws.
“If it’s the will you want to see,” began Brooks weakly, “that’s really an entirely official matter…
“But it isn’t the will, Mr. Brooks. By the way, are you aware of the safe’s contents? There must be something precious inside to warrant all this mystery.”
“Oh, no, no! I’ve always suspected there was something queer inside, but of course I never presumed to ask DeWitt.”
“I think, Mr. Brooks,” said Lane in quite another voice “that you had better give me the combination.”
Brooks hesitated, averted his eyes… Then with a shrug he murmured a series of numerical symbols. Lane watched his lips gravely, nodded, and without another word retreated into the library, shutting the door in Brooks’s face.
The old actor hurried across the library to the safe. He manipulated the dial for some time. When the heavy little door swung open, he paused expectantly, examining its interior without disturbing anything…
Fifteen minutes later Mr. Drury Lane slammed the door of the safe shut, twirled the dial, and returned to the desk. In his hand was a small envelope.
Lane sat down in the desk-chair and studied the face of the envelope. It was addressed in longhand to John DeWitt, was post-marked Grand Central Station, New York City, and had gone through the general post-office on June third of the current year. Lane turned the envelope over; there was no return address.
Carefully he inserted his fingers into the ragged end of the envelope and extracted a single sheet of common notepaper. Like the envelope, it was written in script. The ink had been blue. It bore a date at the top of the sheet; June second. It opened with the abrupt salutation: Jack!
The message itself was laconic:
June 2nd.
Jack!
This is the last time you will hear from me by letter.
Every dog has his day. Mine will come soon.
Get ready to pay. You may be first.
The letter was signed, without benefit of conventional closure: Martin Stopes.
Scene 6
A SUITE IN THE HOTEL GRANT
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 4:05 A.M.
Sergeant Duffy’s preposterous back was pressed against the panels of the door leading into Cherry Browne’s suite, and he was talking guardedly to a worried-looking man of girth when Inspector Thumm, District Attorney Bruno, and their men strode down the corridor of the twelfth floor, in the Hotel Grant.
Duffy introduced the worried-looking man as the hotel detective; and the hotel detective looked even more worried at the glint in Thumm’s eye.
‘Anything?” asked Thumm in an ominous voice.
“Quiet as mice,” mumbled the hotel detective. “Quiet as mice. Won’t be any trouble, now, will there, Inspector?”
“Not a peep out of them,” said the sergeant. “I guess they must have gone to bed.”
The hotel man immediately assumed a shocked expression. “We don’t allow that sort of thing.”
Thumm growled: “Any other exit from this apartment?”
“That door.” Duffy wielded his beefy arm. “And ’course there’s the fire- escape. But that’s covered from downstairs. Got a man on the roof, too, just in case.”
“Scarcely necessary, it seems to me,” objected Bruno. He seemed uneasy. “They won’t try to get away.”
“Well, you never can tell,” said the Inspector dryly. “All set, boys?” He glanced up and down the corridor; there was no one about except his own men and the hotel detective; two men had strolled over to the adjoining door. Without further preliminary Thumm rapped on the panels of the door.
There was no sound from the interior of the suite. Thumm set his ear against the door, listened for a moment, then knocked thunderously. The hotel detective opened his mouth to protest, closed it again, and began to patrol the carpeting nervously.
There was a long delay, but this time a little murmur of noise made itself faintly audible to the Inspector’s ear. He smiled grimly and waited. Then the click! of an electric switch somewhere in the interior, a whispering shuffle, and the tumbling sounds of a bolt being withdrawn. Thumm glanced warningly at his men. The door opened a scant two inches.
“Who is it? What do you want?” It was Cherry Browne’s voice, a nervous voice with uncertain accents.
Thumm wedged his large shoe into the crack of the door, prying it open. He placed his hamlike hand against the panels, pushed, and the door gave grudgingly. In the light of the room a very beautiful and very apprehensive Cherry stood, wrapped in lacy silken negligee, her tiny bare feet thrust into satin mules.
She uttered the ghostliest gasp at the sight of Thumm’s face, retreating instinctively. “Why, it’s Inspector Thumm!” she said in a weak voice, as if Thumm’s substantial presence were not self-evident. “What’s the - the trouble?”
“No trouble, no trouble at all,” said Thumm heartily, but his eyes were roving. He was standing in the sitting-room of the actress’s suite; it was in some disarray; on the sideboard an empty gin-bottle and an almost empty bottle of whisky; a litter of half-smoked cigarette-butts, a woman’s pearl- beaded evening bag on the table; unwashed glasses, an overturned chair… Her eyes went from the Inspector’s face to the doorway; they widened at the sight of Bruno and the silent men in the corridor outside.
The door leading into the bedroom was closed.
Thumm smiled. “Let’s go, D.A. - you men stay outside,” and the District Attorney walked into the room, shutting the corridor-door behind him.
Some of the woman’s natural self-possession returned; color came back into her cheeks, and one hand strayed to her hair.
“Well!” she said, “this is a fine time to disturb a lady. What’s the idea, Inspector?”
“Can it, Sister,” said Thumm pleasantly. “You alone?”
“What’s that to you?”
“I said - are you alone?”
“It’s none of your rotten business.”
Grinning, while Bruno leaned against the wall, Thumm crossed the room to the other door. The actress uttered a little cry of dismay and ran after him, intercepting him, placing her back against the bedroom door. She was angry; her luminous Spanish eyes flashed. “You’ve got a sweet nerve!” she cried. “Where’s your warrant? You can’t-”
Thumm placed his large hand on her shoulder, brushed her from the door… It opened in his face and Pollux stepped out, blinking in the light.
“All right, all right,” said Pollux in a cracked voice. “No sense in getting nasty. What the hell’s up?”
He was attired in clinging silk pajamas; his careful diumal veneer had vanished. His thin hair stuck up from his head as if greased; his needle- pointed mustache drooped sadly; unhealthy sacs, the color of graphite, curved under his protruding eyes.
Cherry Browne tossed her head, salvaged a cigarette from the litter on the table, struck a match, puffed hungrily, and sat down, legs swinging. Pollux merely stood still; he seemed conscious of the miserable figure he presented and shifted from one foot to the other.
Thumm appraised him dispassionately, looking from one to the other. No one said a word.
The Inspector said, in the charged silence: “Now suppose you two lovebirds tell me where you were tonight.”
Cherry sniffed. “Who wants to know? Suppose you tell us why you’ve suddenly taken such an interest in my affairs.”
Thumm thrust his hard red face close to hers. “Now listen, listen, Sister,” he said without heat, “you and I will get along fine - fine, see? - if you don’t act Park Avenue. But get tough and I’ll break every bone in that pretty body of yours. Answer me, and cut the society stuff!”
His eyes were like agates, boring into hers. She giggled a little. “Well… After the show tonight Pollux met me and we - and we came here.”
“That’s hooey,” said Thumm. Bruno observed that Pollux was frowning, trying to signal the woman across Thumm’s shoulders. “You got in around 2:30. Now where were you?”
“Well, what are you so steamed about? Sure we came here. I didn’t want to say we went right from the theater to the hotel. I mean - I didn’t mean to say it. We went to a speak-easy on Forty-Fifth Street. Then we came here.”
“You weren’t on the Weehawken ferry tonight by any chance, were you? A little before midnight?”
Pollux groaned. “You, too!” snapped Thumm. “You were there, and both of you were seen in the ferry landing on the Jersey side.”
Cherry and Pollux looked at each other in a kind of despair. The woman said slowly: “Well, what of it? Anything wrong in that?”
“There’s plenty wrong with it,” growled the Inspector. “Where were you two going?”
“Oh, just taking a ferry-ride.”
Thumm snorted in disgust. “My God,” he said, “are you just dumb, or what? Expect me to believe that?” He stamped one foot. “I’m sick and tired of this beating around the bush, Sarah. You were on that ferry, and you got off on the Jersey side because you were following the DeWitt party!”
Pollux muttered: “We’d better give it to ’em straight, Cherry. It’s the only way.”
She glared at him with contempt. “You poor, white-livered sissy. There you go, spilling the beans like a scared brat. We didn’t do anything wrong, did we? They haven’t got anything on us, have they? Then what are you yapping about?”
“But Cherry-” Pollux was wincing; he spread his hands.
Thumm let them bicker. For some time he had been eyeing the pearl- beaded evening bag on the table. Now he plucked the bag to him and hefted it speculatively… The bickering stopped as if by magic. Cherry watched that heavy hand go up and down, up and down… “Give me that,” she said thickly.
“Pretty heavy upholstery in this bag, isn’t there?” grinned Thumm. “Weighs near a ton. I wonder…
She uttered a little animal cry as his large fingers dexterously flipped the bag open and dipped inside. Pollux paled and took a spasmodic step forward. Bruno quietly left the protection of his wall and went to Thumm’s side.
The Inspector’s fingers emerged with a diminutive pearl-handled revolver of small caliber. He manipulated the mechanism of the weapon and examined its interior. Three chambers were filled. Thumm wrapped a handkerchief around a pencil and swabbed the barrel; the handkerchief emerged clean. He held the revolver close to his nose and sniffed. He shook his head and threw the weapon on the table.
“I have a permit to own a revolver,” said the actress, licking her lips.
“Let’s see it.”
She went to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and returned to the table. Thumm examined the permit and handed it back to her. She sat down again.
“Now, you,” said Thumm to Pollux, “let’s have it. You were tailing the DeWitt party. What for?”
“I - I don’t know what you’re talking about”
Thumm’s eyes strayed to the revolver. “You know this gun makes it look bad for little Cherry here, don’t you?”
Cherry gulped. “What do you mean?” Pollux’s mouth sagged.
“John DeWitt was shot and killed on the West Shore local tonight,” said District Attorney Bruno-the first time he had spoken since entering the room. “Murdered.”
Their lips repeated the word mechanically; they looked at each other in a dazed, horrified way.
“Who did it?” whispered the woman.
“Don’t you know?”
Cherry Browne’s full lips began to quiver. Pollux surprised Thumm and Bruno by taking his first decisive step - he leaped to the table before Thumm could move and snatched up the revolver. Bruno lunged aside; Thumm’s hand shot to his hip-pocket; the actress screamed. But Pollux was not attempting drama; he held the weapon gingerly by the barrel, and Thumm’s hand paused at his pocket. “Look!” said Pollux quickly. His hand trembled as he shoved the grip toward the Inspector. “Take a good look at those bullets inside, Inspector! They’re not loaded - they’re blanks!”
Thumm took the weapon away. “Blanks they are,” he muttered. Bruno observed that Cherry Browne was staring at Pollux as if she had never seen him before.
Pollux’s words tumbled over each other in his eagerness. “I changed them myself last week. Cherry didn’t know until just now. I - I didn’t like the idea of her carrying a loaded gun around. A - a woman’s careless about those things.”
“Why only three cartridges, Pollux?” asked Bruno. “For all we know there might have been a loaded cartridge in one of the empty chambers.”
“But I tell you there wasn’t!” cried Pollux. “I don’t know why I didn’t fill it up. I just didn’t. We weren’t on that train tonight either. We got as far as the pier and then we turned around and took the next ferry back to New York. Didn’t we, Cherry?”
She nodded dumbly.
Thumm rifled the bag again. “Did you buy tickets?”
“No. We didn’t even go near the ticket-office, or the train.”
“But you were following the DeWitt party?”
A little nerve in Pollux’s left eyelid began to jump, comically. The rapidity of its quiver increased. But Pollux snapped his mouth shut like a turtle. The woman lowered her eyes and stared at the rug.
Thumm went into the dark bedroom. He came out again, empty-handed, and searched the sitting-room with ruthless efficiency. No one said anything. Finally, he turned his back on them and clumped heavily to the door. Bruno said: “Be on call at any time. No funny business, either of you,” and followed Thumm out of the room into the corridor.
The waiting men looked expectant as Thumm and Bruno emerged. But the Inspector shook his head and forged ahead to the elevators, Bruno trailing along wearily.
“Why didn’t you take the revolver?” asked Bruno.
Thumm jabbed a horny forefinger at the button. “And what good would that do us?” he said grumpily. The hotel detective pressed behind, the worried look on his face more pronounced than ever. Sergeant Duffy shouldered him aside. “No good at all. Doc Schilling said the wound was made by a .38. The only gun in that place is a .22.”
Scene 7
MICHAEL COLLINS’S APARTMENT
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 4:45 A.M.
New York was unbelievable in the dark glow of the false dawn. The police car rushed, unhindered, through streets as black and deserted as mountain trails, unseen except for an occasional cruising cab, headlights staring.
Michael Collins lived in a fortress on West Seventy-Eighth Street. As the police car slid to the curb, a man detached himself from the shadows of the house. Thumm jumped out, followed by Bruno and the detectives, and the man said: “He’s still upstairs, Chief. He hasn’t been out of the place since he came in.”
Thumm nodded and they streamed into the lobby. A uniformed old man at a desk gaped. They shook a sleeping elevator-boy into wakefulness, and he rushed them upward.
On the eighth floor they got out of the elevator; another detective appeared and significantly pointed to a door. They gathered round, quiet, and Bruno with a sigh of excitement consulted his watch. “Everything covered?” asked Thumm in a matter-of-fact voice. “He’s liable to be rambunctious.”
He stepped to the door and pressed the bell-button. A distant trill came to their ears. Instantly they heard the scuffle of feet and a man’s voice cried hoarsely: “Who’s there? Who is it?”
Thumm bellowed: “Police! Open the door!”
A short silence, then: “You’ll never get me alive, damn you!” in a strangled shout, another scuffling of feet and, sharp and clear as the snapping of a frozen branch, a revolver-shot. Then the sound of something heavy falling.
They leaped into frenzied action. Thumm took one step backward, inhaled deeply, and hurled himself at the door. It was solid, formidable. Sergeant Duffy and another man, a hard-muscled individual, stepped back with Thumm and the three men crashed into the door with the impact of a battering-ram. It shivered, but held. “Again!” yelled the Inspector… Under the fourth assault the door gave with a grinding scream and they tumbled headlong into a long dark hall. At the end of the hall there was the doorway to a room which was fully illuminated.
