I told her that I loved her, and she said something along the same line. So I said it again, and she repeated on her end. We were very silly and adolescent. It still sounded good. I told her good night and hung up. I felt fine. I kept on feeling fine until the buzzer sounded.
I was surprised that Arthur could have completed his ambulance run so quickly. I went to the door and opened it. It wasn’t Arthur.
It was John Ferguson.
He said, “May I come in?” and came in anyway. He took off his overcoat and hat and dropped them on a chair. He was wearing a conservative oxford-gray suit, a white shirt and a plain blue necktie. He looked like a solid, prosperous citizen. He looked handsome and distinguished. He didn’t look like a crook. Most particularly he didn’t look like a murderer.
He dropped into a chair. I went back to where I had been sitting under the reading lamp. He smiled at me and I tried to smile back. He said I had a nice place, and I said I was glad he approved. I probably said a few other things, too, but I didn’t know what they were because I was groping for the motive behind his visit.
I was afraid I knew. He had never before called on me. He wasn’t the type to drop in unannounced. Something was on his mind, and I was fearful that it might be the same sort of something which had been on his mind at least twice before.
This looked as though it might be the pay-off. Ferguson was smart. He must have realized that by this time the police would have checked on Agnes and have discovered that she was his wife. How much else he knew, I couldn’t be sure. The only thing I was sure of was that I was up against a man who might be desperate and certainly was dangerous. I recalled Max Gold’s warning. It didn’t make me feel any better.
Any hope I may have had was dispelled swiftly. He said, “You had quite a long visit with Candy Livingston today, didn’t you, Kirk?”
I said, “How did you know that?”
“A little bird told me.” His lips were smiling, but his eyes were hard and steady. “Was it pleasant?” .
“Pleasant enough.”
“An interesting person, Candy. Picturesques, glamorous, lovely. You must have had a very interesting conversation.”
“More or less.”
“What did you talk about?”
He didn’t seem to be in a hurry. That suited me fine. I wasn’t either. What I wanted was time. I knew something that he didn’t. I knew that any minute now Arthur Maybank would be barging in. And while Arthur wasn’t much of a physical specimen, I felt reasonably certain that Ferguson wouldn’t take a potshot at me in the presence of any third person.
That he was there to do drastic things, I hadn’t the slightest doubt. That he knew about my visit to Candy’s apartment that afternoon only confirmed my belief. My job was to stall, to kill as much time as possible, and to pray that Arthur would show up before the zero hour.
I tried to act naturally. I tried to act like a man who didn’t have anything on his mind except architecture. I tried to keep my eyes away from the second hand of the mantel clock as it crept around the dial.
I said, “We didn’t talk about anything special.”
“It wasn’t important?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you usually stay away from the office to make social calls on ravishing blondes?”
I gave a laugh that sounded like an echo of itself. I said, “You know how those things are.”
“Do I?” Ferguson gave me a nice smile. “After you left Candy’s apartment,” he said genially, “did you enjoy your talk with that detective chap at the Homicide Bureau?”
I said, “He asked me to drop in. He wanted to ask me some questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“I don’t think I ought to tell, do you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Time was running out. I was sitting stiffly, my muscles tensed. The first move he made I’d act. I didn’t believe I’d have much success, but at least I’d try.
Ferguson’s face got hard. He said, “I’m asking you one more time, Kirk: What did you and Candy talk about? Specifically.”
No more stalling. I could sense it. I decided to tell him a little bit of the truth. Just enough to keep him probing for more. I started to talk and then my heart jumped.
I hadn’t heard the elevator stop. The first thing that happened was a key grating in the lock. The door opened. Arthur Maybank walked in. I didn’t believe anybody could be as welcome.
Ferguson got up. So did I. It was good to be on my feet again. Arthur looked absurdly small with a big winter overcoat partly covering his hospital whites.
He looked at Ferguson. He looked at me. He looked at Ferguson again.
Then suddenly Arthur’s face was contorted. His hand jumped out of his overcoat pocket. There was a gun in it. He aimed it at Ferguson and pulled the trigger. Ferguson bent over as though to pick up something. Then he pitched forward.
Arthur didn’t move. He stood there with the gun in his hand, staring at the figure on the floor.
For an instant, I was paralyzed. Then I leaped across the room and snatched the gun from Arthur’s cold, nerveless fingers. Someone banged on the door and I yelled, “Go away!” I suppose they went, because there was no more banging.
I went to the telephone and dialed Watkins 9-8242, which was the number of the homicide squad. I was lucky. Max Gold was there. I told him to come right up. I didn’t go into detail, but I’m sure he caught the urgency in my voice.
I went back to Arthur, and put my hand on his shoulder. I said, “Thanks, kid,” which seemed rather inadequate under the circumstances, but still showed how I felt. Then I said gently, “But you shouldn’t have shot him.”
He said, “You told me about Ferguson. He killed Agnes and he probably killed Ethel Brower. The instant I saw him here I understood what it meant. He intended to kill you. That’s why I shot him.”
I was sweating. I said, “Where did you get the gun?”
“I’ve carried one ever since the night someone shot at me. I have a permit.”
“But to shoot someone—that way . . .”
“I think Ferguson was the man who tried to kill me.”
“You didn’t say a word . . .”
“I was afraid. The way he looked at me, I knew he was going to do something. Quick. And I remembered that he killed Agnes.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He killed her, all right.”
“You only think so, Arthur. It might have been Ricardo. Killing Agnes could have been a mistake.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t make a mistake when one woman is wearing a street costume and the other has on a purple evening dress.”
I said, “I appreciate what you did. But, good Lord . . .”
“I’d do it again, he said tonelessly. “If I had waited it would have been too late.”
I knelt beside Ferguson. He was still breathing. That could mean anything or nothing.
The buzzer sounded again. I opened the door and Max Gold came in. There were some other men with him, and a lot of people were in the hall. “We got a call through headquarters,” he said sharply. “Somebody reported hearing a shot.”
I moved my head toward Ferguson. Gold said, “Who did it?”
Arthur’s voice was steady. “I did.”
“Why?”
“He was a murderer. He was going to kill Kirk. He tried to kill me once.”
Gold telephoned for the medical examiner. A patrolman in uniform came up in the elevator and was assigned the job of quieting the crowd of tenants in the hall.
Gold started firing questions at me. He was only halfway through when the medical examiner came in. He was a fat, fussy little man. He knelt beside Ferguson and started doing things. He got up after a while and said, “I can’t say for sure—but I think he’ll live. We’d better get him to the hospital, quick.”
They phoned for the ambulance. While they were waiting Max Gold went to work on me again. He had none of the eas
y friendliness which had marked our conversation earlier that evening. His questions were sharp and direct. Once more the buzzer sounded. The door opened and Dana came in. She must have been told something because her cheeks were white and she looked frightened. She saw the body on the floor, and the detectives. She saw Arthur and she saw me. Gold said, “What are you doing here, Miss Warren?”
“I came to see Kirk.”
“Why?”
She looked at me, desperation in her eyes. I said, “I told her I’d got hold of some information, lieutenant. I wouldn’t tell her over the phone. I suppose curiosity got the better of her.”
Gold said, “Is that how it was, Miss Warren?”
“Yes. I came as soon as we finished the supper show.”
Gold quizzed me a little more. Then he started on Arthur. His questions crackled like machine-gun fire.
The ambulance shrieked in the street outside. They brought a stretcher up and carted John Ferguson away. A detective went with him.
I stood beside Dana. I held her hand tightly.
My brain was working overtime. It worked so fast I could hear the machinery creaking. I paid no attention to what was going on all around me.
Gold finished questioning Arthur. He smiled at Dana and me. He said, “Looks like my hand has been forced, Douglas. With this thing happening like it did, I’ll have to go to work on Ferguson as of now.”
“You think he’ll live?”
“I’d bet on it. And by the time he’s able to stand trial, I’ll probably have enough evidence to convict him.”
“You are convinced that he murdered Agnes Sheridan?”
“Yeh. Sure.”
I said, in a voice which didn’t sound like my own, “You’re wrong, lieutenant. Ferguson didn’t kill Agnes, and he didn’t kill Ethel Brower, either.”
Gold said, “What the hell . . .”
I repeated, “Ferguson didn’t do it.”
“If he didn’t,” asked Gold, “who did?”
I felt sick all over. What I faced was the toughest, meanest, lousiest job I ever had.
I said, “The person you want, lieutenant—the person who killed those two women—is standing right there. It’s Arthur Maybank.”
CHAPTER XXV
THE ATMOSPHERE in the room wasn’t nice. Arthur looked stunned; Dana, shocked; Max Gold, incredulous and the other detectives, as though they didn’t give a damn. Me—I felt completely, utterly and colossally miserable.
Gold was doing a high-pressure thinking job. He stared at me, then at the rug, and then at me again. He said, “You sound pretty sure of yourself, Douglas.”
I said, “I’m sure, all right. That’s the way it’s got to be.”
“Of course it is.” Max’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “But being just a dumb cop, I don’t see why. When did you get this brain-wave?”
“Just a little while ago. I wasn’t holding out on you. Until then I hadn’t even considered Arthur. Once I did, everything else dropped into place. Don’t get the idea I like what I’m doing. I never felt more like a heel in my life. It would be a lot more fun to pin this on Ferguson or Ricardo. But that isn’t the way things are.”
Gold said, “I’m listening. But so far I haven’t heard anything.”
He was skeptical and just a trifle hostile. I couldn’t blame him. I tried to keep my eyes away from Arthur. He looked like a shock victim: dazed and bewildered. I said, “In the first place, I don’t believe Arthur tried to kill Ferguson because my life was in danger. What he did was immediate and instinctive. I think it was the instinct of self-preservation at work. If he hadn’t been so excited—if his aim had been straighter—he’d have eliminated the last person who represented danger to him.”
Dana said, in a small, frightened voice. “You wouldn’t say something like that without being sure, would you, Kirk?”
“You know me better than that.”
“I don’t,” stated Max Gold bluntly. “And I’m not buying yet, Douglas. You gotta give me something definite.”
“All right, I will. I can prove that Arthur killed Agnes. That is the one vitally important thing I’m positive about. I know some other things, too. But not all. There are plenty of loose ends I can’t tie together, but the killing of Agnes Sheridan isn’t one of them.”
I looked at Arthur. He still hadn’t moved or said a word or protested against what I was doing. I said, “You told me, Arthur. You told me as plainly as though you had said it in so many words.”
“You might let me in on it,” suggested Gold. “I’m a big boy now. You can tell me things.”
I said, “I’ll make it as brief as possible. The night before Agnes was killed, the four of us had dinner together at the club: Agnes, Dana, Arthur and myself. We planned to go skating Monday night. We invited Arthur and he said No. He gave two perfectly valid reasons. One was that he was on duty all night. The second was that he couldn’t skate and didn’t want to learn.
“Remember one more thing. Arthur had been at the club many times. He knew the show schedule to the minute. He knew when Dana would go on and when she would finish. He knew that there was an exit from the club through the adjoining building. He knew that Agnes would leave her skates in Dana’s dressing room during the show, and after it was over, the two girls would go through that corridor to the dressing room. To do that, they had to pass the door of the second exit. The internes at the McKinley go off duty informally every once in a while for a variety of reasons: to run across the street for doughnuts and coffee, for instance. Arthur could leave the hospital, get to the Caliente just before Dana & Ricardo finished their act, do the shooting, and get back without ever being missed. The most elaborate check-up would indicate that he had been on duty continuously.”
Gold said, “I’ll swallow that, but there’s still something missing. You said you didn’t peg Arthur until just a little while ago. You said he just the same as told you he did it. That’s what I’m asking for. The clincher.”
I chose my words carefully. “It was something Arthur said, lieutenant. He said it right after he shot Ferguson. He was up in the air like a kite. I was firing questions at him. I argued that he had acted too hastily. I said that the shooting might have been done by Ricardo and that Ricardo could have meant to kill Dana.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing was wrong with the idea. What was wrong was Arthur’s answer. When I suggested that Agnes could have been killed by mistake, Arthur said vehemently that my idea was ridiculous. He said, ‘You can’t make a mistake when one woman is wearing a street costume and the other has on a purple evening dress.’ ”
Dana said, “Oh!” and I knew she had caught my point. But Max Gold shook his head. “I don’t get it,” he said. “I wouldn’t say there was anything dopey about that remark.”
“There was only one thing wrong with it, lieutenant. What you don’t know is that the dress Dana was wearing is the first purple one she ever owned. She never wore purple in her life before. The dress was delivered to her apartment less than two hours before the show went on. No one could have known that she intended to wear purple. And no one who didn’t actually see her that night could know that she was wearing it. The only ones who saw that dress were those who were at the dinner show. Plus one other person. That person was the man who killed Agnes.”
Gold said, “Well, whaddaya know! Supposedly, Arthur wasn’t there, but just the same he saw the dress. So he was there. Not bad, sonny, not bad. But look: Why would he want to kill Agnes? He’d been playing around with her, but he didn’t know she was Ferguson’s wife.”
I was deadly tired. I didn’t feel proud of myself. I didn’t feel anything but sorrowful. I said, “You’d better handle it, lieutenant. I hate the job I’ve had to do, and I wouldn’t want to carry it any further. Maybe Arthur will fill in the blank spaces. If I’m right, his guilt can be proved easy enough. The bullet they’ll take out of John Ferguson should tally with the bullet that killed Agnes Sheridan. What’s more,
if Ferguson recovers—as the medical examiner seems to believe he will—he’ll dp a lot of talking. All he’ll be interested in will be to save himself from facing trial for murder. Even the kidnaping charge wouldn’t bother him, especially since we know that he couldn’t be convicted of it.”
Gold started talking to Arthur. He was gentle and patient. He explained that the similarity of the two bullets and the inevitability of a straight story from Ferguson would convince any jury. He didn’t hold out any hope. He just stated facts.
Arthur didn’t seem to be much interested. He looked small and pitiful in his big overcoat and his hospital whites. He was like a man in a trance. He said, quietly, “Kirk is right, lieutenant. I killed Agnes just like he said I did.”
“Why?”
“Because a lot of other things had happened. They kept getting bigger and more terrible. On Sunday night, Agnes and I were alone for a long time after dinner. She asked a lot of questions. Those questions convinced me that she knew all about the jam I was in and was just trying to check on it. I was desperate and half crazy.” His voice broke. “I—I’d rather not talk any more. I’ve told you everything you need to know. I’m glad you know it. It had to end this way.”
His face went blank. He didn’t seem to realize what was happening to him. He didn’t seem to care. Gold glanced at me and shrugged. He said, “How much more do you know, Douglas?”
“A great deal—with plenty of details missing. But, as a beginning, I’ll remind you that we never understood how Ethel Brower got into my apartment. The answer to that is that Arthur had a key. He still has it. I had been away, and Arthur was using my apartment on his off nights.”
Gold said softly, “Don’t let me stop you.”
“Candy Livingston told us that Ethel Brower knew John Ferguson. Arthur knew him, too. It was Arthur who introduced me to Ferguson.
“On January 25th, Candy Livingston’s representatives gave a package containing a half million dollars in unidentifiable bills to an emissary of the person who was presumed to have kidnaped Candy. That was the night of one of the worst blizzards New York has had in forty years. The money was handed over, according to the newspapers, in Central Park, near Fifth Avenue.
Love Has No Alibi Page 17
