Murder can be fun aka a.., p.18
Murder Can Be Fun # aka A Plot for Murder, page 18
The killer was leaving, the back way. Would he be coming around the house? No, of course not. He'd leave by the alley, if — Yes, there was an alley. Must be because there was no driveway in past the house, and Tracy remembered that there was a garage at the back.
Probably the killer had left his car — certainly he'd have a car — back there in the alley. If he could get the license number — Tracy's feet must have been thinking for him, for he was already running to the corner, around the corner, and heading for the mouth of the alley. He ran silently, along the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb.
Then the grass ended, but he was running silently anyway, and he remembered that he'd put on crepe-soled sport shoes when he'd dressing that morning. He stopped in the shadow of a catalpa tree a few yards from the end of the alley, stood there and listened.
There was no sound yet from the alley. Had he been wrong about the car, or about the direction in which the killer would leave? No, there was the soft closing of a car door.
Good; all he had to do was stand there in the shadow. The car would pass him; he could get the number, he hoped. He might even be able to recognize the driver as the car went by. The hum of a starter, and the low purr of a motor. It was so quiet he could even hear the shift of gears and then the slight change in the motor's sound as the driver let out the clutch. The car was moving now.
But which way? He hadn't thought of that. This end of the alley was nearest to town, nearest to the Queensborough Bridge. But if the car had come out from Manhattan, it was odds on its having entered the alley at this end. And — yes the sound of the motor seemed to be receding.
He sprinted to the mouth of the alley and looked in. Yes, there was the dark silhouette of the car against a dim aura of light down at the far end of the alley. It hadn't turned its lights on yet, but it was beginning to move, very slowly, away from him.
He could catch up to it easily, running silently behind it. He could get the rear license number and maybe even recognize the driver, through the back window.
He was halfway down the alley to the car before he saw how wrong he was. Suddenly, then, the headlights of the car flashed on — full upon Tracy, blinding him.
It was coming toward him instead of going away, and the driver stepped on the gas. The gears had changed from low to second; the driver didn't waste time advancing to high. Roaring in second gear, gathering speed, the car came straight at Tracy.
He was running too fast to stop, and there wouldn't be time for him to turn around, anyway, and reach the mouth of the alley. There was only one chance, and Tracy's body rather than his brain thought of it and acted on it.
He turned to run toward the point where, to his left, a low, three-foot fence bridged a three-yard gap between garages. The car turned, too.
Its fender almost scraped his leg as he went over the fence.
Then, lying painfully sprawled on hard-packed ground, just as he had landed, Tracy heard the car slow down momentarily, then shift gears and go on. It reached the street and kept going.
The killer wasn't coming back, then, to accomplish with a gun what his car had so narrowly missed accomplishing. By a margin of inches, Tracy's name was still off the list of victims.
Still dazed by the suddenness with which things had happened, Tracy got to his feet slowly. His knees were shaking, but there didn't seem to be any bones broken.
Well, that was what he got for trying to be Dick Tracy instead of Bill. Now there wasn't anything left but to phone the police and tell them what a mess he had made of things, and to take the look of contempt Bates would give him. But nuts to Bates.
He looked out into the alley, looking both ways carefully before he went back over the fence. No one was in sight at either end of the alley. How far would he have to go to find a phone?
Well, he could go to the Dineen house. Why not? The back door was undoubtedly open. That was what he should do, of course. Go there and phone, then wait for the police to come.
He made sure he had the fourth house and then went through the gate and into the back yard. He reached the steps of the back porch, and hesitated.
What if someone — was home — asleep upstairs? He shouldn't go barging in without being sure. He went around the house to the front and used the brass knocker. There was a doorbell, too, — and he rang it. He could hear it ringing, but there was no answer, no movement anywhere.
The family must be out, then. Unless—
He tried the front door and it was locked. He ran around to the back. Yes, the back door was unlocked. He opened it and stepped into the darkness of what must be the kitchen. There was linoleum underfoot and a faint kitcheny odor.
There was another smell, too. Also a faint one. He couldn't place it until he had his hand on the light switch beside the door and the door was closed behind him. He almost turned and ran out, then. The smell, he knew now, was the smell of blood.
But his fingers flipped the switch. For a second the light blinded him; then he could see.
Rex, the big Doberman pinscher, lay in the middle of the kitchen floor, his head in a pool of blood. One side of his skull had been bashed in by something heavy. This time the killer had finished the job on Rex. Knocked askew and soaked with blood was the bandage that had covered the dog's first wound — the crease from the bullet fired in his master's office last Tuesday. Tracy took a deep breath and walked around the dog's sprawled body, through a butler's pantry, and into the living room. The phone ought to be around here somewhere. Here were the stairs—
Wait, before he hunted further for the phone, hadn't he better look upstairs, to be sure that the Dineens had really been away from home, and not murdered in their beds? Or perhaps knocked out and tied up? The dog was past help, but what if there were human beings here who weren't? The need for a doctor or an ambulance might be more pressing than the need for the police, and he could get both with one call.
He went on up the stairs, lighting lights as he went, and; through the upper part of the house. There were plenty of signs of the burglar — drawers emptied out onto the floor, closets ransacked — but there were no Dineens up there, dead or alive.
Breathing a bit more freely, he went back downstairs and found the phone in a little room off the hallway by the foot of the stairs. He reached for it, then thought that, having searched this far, he might as well look into the one room remaining, before he phoned. Then he could be certain in reporting that there'd been no murder done, except the dog.
The one room he hadn't entered yet was the front room, the one through whose windows he'd seen the flashlight. He went along the hall, reached through the open doorway, and switched on the lights of the front room. There had been murder.
Flat on its back lay the body of a man Tracy didn't know. He was a big man, dressed in a serge suit. He looked like a detective, a police detective. Undoubtedly that was what he was, left here to guard the house. The police must have anticipated the possibility of an attempt at burglary here. They'd thought that a policeman and a police dog, together, would be enough to stop it.
But they'd been wrong; the killer had got both of them, and had made his getaway. He'd almost got himself an extra victim, out there in the alley, while he was getting away.
But those thoughts were going on in the bottom layer, as it were, of Tracy's mind, things to be thought out and sorted out later. On top was sheer and numbing horror.
Not at the fact that murder had been done, but at how it had been done.
There was a bullet hole and a red stain on the detective's chest, but it was on the right side, not over the heart. That shot had knocked him down and out. It might have killed him later, as it must have gone through his right lung. But it hadn't killed him instantly.
By the man's face, his eyes, his tongue, there wasn't any doubt about the immediate cause of death — strangulation. And Bill Tracy's eyes were riveted in horror upon the man's neck and necktie.
The tie wasn't around his neck inside the collar; it had been slid up higher than that and used as a garrote, twisted tight by the insertion of a round polished piece of wood — it looked like a rung broken from a chair — in the manner of a tourniquet.
It was no more horrible, in itself, than other methods of murder, except for two facts. First, that it must have been done cold-bloodedly, while the man was unconscious from the bullet wound. And second—
The fact that it made the fourth of Tracy's Murder Can Be Fun ideas which had been put to deadly use. A man strangled with his own cravat. As Tracy stood there, looking down, he heard footsteps on the sidewalk outside. Footsteps that stopped, then started again, coming closer as though they were turning in the walk back to the house.
They were heavy footsteps, with an official sound to them. It was the heavy tread of a patrolman, a beat cop. Probably he knew that the Dineens were out and that a detective was on guard inside. He'd be wondering why all the lights in the house were on—
The steps reached the porch, sounded on wood. And panic hit Bill Tracy; hit him hard. He didn't know why he ran. He knew it was a foolish thing to do. He knew he should wait here, let the policeman in, and explain things, then wait until the homicide men got here. Then explain again and let them question him for the rest of the night.
No, it wasn't a reasonable fear, nor a reasoning one. It was blind panic. It came because the footsteps had come too soon after he'd seen how that necktie had been used. Before he'd had time to assimilate and digest that awful fact. If they found him here now—
That was as far as he could have expressed his fear coherently. But he ran.
As fast as he could run without making a noise. Through the house and out the back door, while the reverberation of the brass knocker on the front door drowned what little sound he may have made.
Across the back yard and into the alley. Through it and across the street and through the next alley. Only then did he stop running, and walk toward the subway station.
Panic walked with him still. The very night seemed to be closing in upon him as he walked, and after he got his breath back it was with difficulty that he kept himself from breaking into a run again.
Luckily, there was no one in the subway station at the moment he walked in. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror of a gum machine. He stopped then, forced himself to stand there long enough to light a cigarette with his shaking hands, and to compose his features before he went down to the tracks.
It seemed hours before a train came.
There was an atmosphere of unreality about that ride back to Manhattan. There were other people in the car, but they seemed more like ghosts than real fellow-passengers. Even the little old lady who sat directly across from him and smiled at him benignantly, didn't seem quite real.
It was a nightmare ride. He tried not to think, but that was worse — because he felt instead.
He didn't recover the semblance of calmness until he reached his own flat at the Smith Arms.
He mixed himself a drink, and found it tasted terrible. And his hands were still shaky. He put them into his pockets and sat in the Morris chair. He looked at the door and wondered if he'd locked it. He thought he had, but he got up and made certain, and then went back to the chair again. His hands were trembling a little less.
He remembered that he was hungry, and then decided that he wasn't. Then he decided maybe he was. Anyway, going out for coffee and a sandwich would be something to do. He couldn't think of anything else to do. For once, definitely, he didn't want a drink.
At Thompson's, he had coffee and two sandwiches.
He wondered, was Millie by any chance home and awake? He wanted to talk to someone. On the way back he looked up at her window; it was dark.
Dick? No, he didn't want to talk to anyone after all, unless it was Millie.
He thought, if I end up killed or in jail, it'll be her fault. Hers and Lee Randolph's. Damn 'em both for talking me into making a fool of myself.
He went back to his room and sat down in the Morris chair again, trying to think.
Outside, a clock struck midnight.
And that meant it wasn't Sunday any more; it was the end of his first day of vacation, his first day of marvelous freedom.
Was he going to sit there and jitter all night? Why the hell didn't he just go to bed, if he couldn't think of anything better to do?
He got up and took off his necktie and opened his collar. He was reaching for the tie rack when the idea hit him.
Suddenly, just like that, he knew the main part of the answer. He knew who the killer was. There was only one person who could be the killer.
CHAPTER 14
HE ALMOST dropped the tie. He said “My God!” and stared at himself in the mirror. It was utterly incredible. But there it was.
It had to be true because there wasn't any other answer. It was like a chess problem. There was only one key move, and when you made it, everything fell into place and you saw the reason for each piece being placed just so.
It had been perfect, almost. Except for the necktie. That's where the slip-up had been. The killer hadn't realized one little thing.
Slowly Tracy's hand came back with the tie he'd been about to hang up, and he put it back on. He adjusted the knot very carefully, and then went back to the closet to get his coat.
He put it on and then stopped to think again. He'd been going out to look up Bates, but he couldn't — yet. He wasn't, come to think of it, one hundred per cent sure. Just ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths. There might be some other explanation. He didn't see how, but there might be. He thought a minute, and knew how he could find out.
The thought scared him, but there it was.
Was he crazy enough to stick his neck out again, a second time in one evening? If he only had a gun—
Before he could change his mind, he picked up the phone. He gave the number of Dick Kreburn's hotel, and then Dick's room number.
After a minute, Dick's voice — with only a trace of hoarseness now — came to him.
“This is Tracy,” he said. “Listen, have you still got that pistol — that automatic, you had a couple of months ago?”
“Sure, Tracy. Want to shoot somebody?”
“N-no, not exactly. But I am in a jam, Dick. Could I borrow it for a few days, just to carry?”
“Why, I guess so, Tracy. I haven't any holster for it. But it's a thirty-two; you can carry it in your pocket if you have to.”
“That's okay. You home for the night? Going to be up long enough for me to get it?”
“I was just leaving, Tracy. Just luck you caught me at all. I was in a poker game uptown and they cleaned me out of the cash I had with me — it wasn't a fortune — and I came back to my room to pick up some money I had here, and I'm going back. But your place is on my way. Shall I drop the gun off with you?”
“That'll be swell. How soon will you be here?”
“Might be almost an hour. I got a couple of other things to do. And there's no hurry about getting back to the game; it's good for all night, if not longer.”
“Okay, Dick. Be seeing you.”
He put the receiver back, and started to pace up and down the room. Nearly an hour. Hell.
He thought about a drink, and decided again that he didn't want one. A cup of coffee, though—
Why not? It would kill time for that hour. He went down to Thompson's, leaving his light on and his door an inch ajar so Dick would go on in if he got there early. He had two cups of coffee, with his eye on the clock, and that killed three-quarters of an hour, so he went back to the apartment building, and upstairs.
Dick wasn't there yet.
v He was getting definitely scared now. He sat down in the Morris chair, and went over everything again very carefully in his mind. He must be right; it fitted too well to be wrong. It had to be—
There was a soft tap at the door and he said, “Come in,” and Dick Kreburn came in and said, “Hi, Tracy. Here it is.”
“Thanks, Dick.”
Tracy took the gun and looked it over. He pulled out the clip and saw it was loaded, jacked open the chamber and saw it. wasn't. He put the clip back in and worked the slide again so one of the steel-jacketed bullets went up into the firing chamber. He snicked off the safety catch. Dick Kreburn was watching him. He said, “Looks like you know how to handle one.”
“Yeah,” Tracy said, “I do. Put up your hands, Dick.”
Kreburn's face went blank. He took a slow step backward and raised his hands slowly. He said, “Tracy, if you're not kidding, that was a hell of a dirty trick.”
Tracy said, “I'm not kidding. And it's not as dirty a trick as four murders.”
“You're crazy.”
“Back up and sit down in that Morris chair, Dick. And you can put your hands down when you get there, if you keep them on the arms of the chair.”
“Damn you, Tracy—”
“Sit down. I'm giving you a break. You think this was a dirty trick, but it's not as dirty as calling the police and putting them on you without listening to you first. I'm going to tell you how I figure what happened, and then if you can show me I'm wrong, I won't call them. What have you got to lose?”
Kreburn laughed, without amusement. He said, “My life, if you're not careful. That's a touchy trigger and your knuckle looks white against it. All right, I'll listen. What's this about four murders? Last I heard, it was two you were worried about.”
Tracy backed to the desk and sat down on it. He relaxed his finger a trifle on the trigger, but kept the gun aimed at Dick as he rested it on his knee.
He said, “Walther Mueller was the first. You followed him from the plane to his hotel and went to his room to rob him. From what I've heard and read about it, you probably didn't intend to kill him — you slugged him to keep him quiet, but he had a soft skull and he died.”
“Why would I have—?”
“Just listen, first. The killer in this case — and that's you — can be only one thing. A professional jewel thief. You weren't after the pearls he brought; you would have known they'd be held in the customs. You must have had a tip, from South America, that he was smuggling in something a hell of a lot more valuable than those pearls.
