by P. N. Elrod
“Oh, God,” said Marie Kennard. She seemed less angry and frightened now, shifting toward impatience.
“It’s all right,” said Anthony, misinterpreting. “I won’t let them hurt you.” He took her hand.
“No wonder Gilbert got on so well with him, they talk exactly alike.”
Escott looked insulted. “Young lady, I am not a compulsive liar.”
“Let’s not get into that,” I said. “Brockhurst, did you bring the letters?”
His expression wavered an instant, a dredged-up reaction from the instructions I’d given him last night. “I have them here.” He patted his inside pocket.
“Hand them over.”
He did so. I put them on my perforated coat. They made quite a stack. Like the others I collected from Dugan, these were addressed to people of such influence and position as to make life miserable for my friends.
“That’s all of them? You’re sure?” I dipped back toward head pain again, to be certain he told the truth, and it got a little way past his drink.
“All of them,” he whispered.
“Why are you helping them?” Marie asked him.
He blinked, coming out of it, unaware he’d even been in. “I have to. It will help Gilbert.” His voice, but my words from last night.
“How? You said that before. How will this help him?”
“I can’t explain yet, but I will later.”
“It is later.” She glared at me. “You got what you want, now let us go.”
I wasn’t holding the gun on them, but couldn’t fault her assumption that they were prisoners. “Was it your idea to come up here with him?” I hadn’t allowed for the possibility that any of his friends would tag along.
“Yes. I want to know why he’s doing this, giving these to you. We can always write more.”
“I know, but you won’t. Where are the others in your band of merrymakers ? They downstairs?”
She didn’t answer.
“Brockhurst?”
“They’re not here,” he said. Truthfully.
“That’s good. We’ve got enough guests at this party.”
“Let us go,” she repeated.
“In a minute. I want to talk to you about your friend Gilbert and that ten grand he says we want.” I jerked my head Escott’s way to include him.
“What about it?”
“Deal’s off. We don’t want your money. In fact, we never wanted it. That was all Gilbert’s idea. He was trying to shake you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Last night? In the car? Anthony drove you away from the club. During the ride, Gilbert told you how he bought us off the kidnapping case with the threat of these letters and a bribe to sweeten things. He said Escott was the brains and I was the crazy-mad muscle that roughed him up some.”
She stared. “How do you know that? Anthony, did you tell him?”
“Yeah, yeah, he told me all about it. Well, sister, you need to hear the truth about poor, abused, misunderstood Gilbert.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Charles, are those records still in the safe?”
He nodded. “Miss Smythe wasn’t up to dealing with the copying business today. However, I did transcribe the rest of it this afternoon. Only in shorthand, though.”
“That’s fine. Keep these birds here a second.” I went to the next room, bringing back the phonograph, setting it on the desk, and plugging it in. Then I unlocked the false drawer front, spun the combination, and took out the flat box inside. The top record had no label last night, but now sported a title, H. G. Dugan—Part One, and date, neatly printed on a small square of paper that was cellophane-taped near the center of the disk.
I tilted the record so Marie and Anthony could read it.
“What’s that?” she asked, suspicious.
Escott answered. “When your friend Gilbert made his visitation here, presumably to come to an advantageous arrangement with us concerning the kidnapping, he was unaware we were recording him. I think you’ll find his candor with Mr. Fleming to be remarkably enlightening.”
“Lemme set the scene,” I said, fitting the record onto the spindle. “When I came into this office yesterday for our meeting—that’s me and Gilbert, not Escott and Gilbert like you were told—I found your smiling sweetheart trying to pick the lock on my desk. He’s a bad kid. Too much time on his hands.”
“Impossible,” she said.
“Possible, and true. He had a set of professional lockpicks he must have gotten from those three criminal types he had helping him with the kidna—”
“They intimidated him into working for them! If he’d not done as he was told, they would have killed him.”
“Honey, did you ever once ask yourself why a gang of toughs like that would think an upper-crust, high-hatting, fancy-pants double-talker like Dugan could ever be a help to them on a kidnap job?”
“He knew the family, had access to the house—”
“And in the entire two weeks of the kidnapping, and the time before that, did Gilbert show the least sign that he was under pressure or preoccupied by anything threatening?”
“They told him if he said anything, he would die.”
“Gosh, and a brainy guy like him couldn’t think of a way around that? But let’s put it aside for the moment. Back to me coming in here and finding him impersonating Raffles on a bad night. I will admit to a certain amount of annoyance about it, and threw him around. Anyone would. I also tried to persuade him to sense, which we need not go into; suffice to say it did not work. After that, things got really interesting, bang, crash, boom, because I was frustrated and Dugan, being the source, was the logical target for my ire. I will point out to you that Mr. Escott was not in the room, and in fact never spoke to or saw Gilbert at all that night. So the stuff you heard in the car from dear Gilbert dealing with and finally bribing my partner here was just so much horse hockey.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re lying.”
“Lady, I don’t have to, but Gilbert does, enough for ten politicians. Just listen to what’s here, and if there’s anything on this that makes me a liar about him, I’ll give you ten grand.”
Record spinning, I put the needle in the groove and let Dugan damn himself.
13
DURING the course of playing both records of Dugan’s unwitting confession, I was prepared to throw Marie and Anthony a little hypnotic punch into believing my side of things. Unfortunately, working a whammy that went against a person’s ingrained inclination was always temporary. Without regular reinforcement, the persuasion I wanted would never stay in their minds until they realized the truth of it for themselves.
Despite the distraction of Escott’s Webley, Dugan’s little helpers listened close and careful to everything. From their shared expressions of horror, they apparently understood what it meant.
Marie found a handkerchief in her purse and made use of it. Anthony seemed in about the same shape but being a man couldn’t give in to tears. He looked grim and sad and restless. A couple times he asked me to stop the play, but I wasn’t feeling softhearted tonight. Their friend was a bastard, and I wanted them to know that for a solid fact. But betrayal is a terrible thing to deal with, and when it was over, they tried to shove its reality away.
“You made it up,” said Marie decisively. She straightened, showing a brave if sullen face to me.
I’d expected resistance. “I’m not smart enough or crazy enough to make up that kind of crap. You think he was reading from a script? Maybe you think he was blowing gas at me for some secret purpose. If so, then why did he tell you that Escott was the only guy he spoke to, or was that all part of some master plan Dugan couldn’t reveal to his best friends?”
“Then that wasn’t Gilbert.”
“Wise up, lady. Who else talks like that? Well, maybe Escott, but they have totally different voices.”
“You threatened him in some way,” said Anthony.
“Does he sound like I
was holding a gun on him? No one’s that good an actor. What you heard was the real Gilbert, the side he makes sure you never see. That was him in charge, threatening me, telling me how things were going to go, threatening my friends with six kinds of grief unless I jumped through his hoops.”
“He has to save himself. Those criminals put him into this position. Gilbert knows no one will believe him. He has to do whatever he can to preserve his freedom.”
“You think blackmail’s a nice, stand-up road to take? What would your mother say?”
He flinched. It had been a pretty low blow. I’d calculated it just right.
“How do you explain away that ten grand he says Escott insisted on for a bribe?”
“You just didn’t record that part.”
“Shall I play it again? From beginning to end? The whole thing is right there, starting with me coming in the door to Gilbert ordering me to stand in front of the window. This is the truth. Your friend is a liar, blackmailer, kidnapper, and would have murdered that helpless young girl with less thought than you put into picking out a tie. And . . . did you happen to read the papers today?” I pulled out the story about the dead couple found at the farm hideout. “The Indiana DA will start pressing for a murder charge on this. Unlike Dugan, he takes the killing of innocent people very seriously.”
They looked at it; so did Escott, who shook his head, somber. I folded the clipping and pocketed it.
“Gilbert didn’t do that,” Marie whispered. “It was those other men. They just didn’t tell him.”
“What, and miss a chance to terrify him that much more into helping? It don’t wash, toots. He was out there helping demolish the rest of the outhouse so they could dump Sarah Gladwell’s body into it.”
“How do you know?”
“You don’t have to repeat this, ’cause I’ll deny it, but I was the mysterious Good Samaritan who clobbered them all and brought them in for the cops.”
She shook her head. “But you—if that’s true, if you want Gilbert in jail so badly, why don’t you come forward?”
“Health reasons. I also thought Dugan and his crew would have enough weight to hang themselves without any help from me. Too bad I was wrong, but circumstances seem to be catching up with him. He seems to have pulled a hole in after himself, too. Has he talked to either of you today? You’d think he’d call and get the bribe money business finished. Don’t look good for him, does it?”
They had no answer for that.
“Dugan’s doing everything his twisted brain can think of to get out of paying for what he’s done and still turn a profit. You’re damn good friends to be willing to give him ten grand; he doesn’t deserve you. But he’s very deliberately and cheerfully using you. Since he couldn’t haul in twenty-five Gs from Vivian Gladwell, he’ll settle for ten conned from his girlfriend. My guess is as soon as the cash is in hand, he’s off to Brazil.”
Marie shook her head “No-no, he—”
“Lemme ask you this: When’s the last time you were ever in his house?”
Anthony blinked and didn’t reply.
“Think he’s a little embarrassed having people over? The place looks on the haunted side these days.”
“He just likes to meet his friends elsewhere. Four walls closing in and all that,” he offered.
“More like they’re falling down around his ears. Appearances are important to him. He doesn’t want you to see just how desperate he is. You know about his paper animal collection?”
“What?” The subject switch confused him.
I opened a desk drawer and pulled out some slightly crumpled origami animals. And boats. Last night I’d taken away a few samples, just in case they’d be needed. “Look familiar? He does this a lot. ‘To fill the time,’ he says. Sound familiar? Would you know his handwriting? You aware of his preference for writing in green ink?”
They stared at the pieces.
“Unfold one of those boats. I’ve not read what’s on there, but I can guess it’s pretty revolting. Read it, see the kind of crap’s flowing through Dugan’s mind. See the stuff he doesn’t tell you because he knows damn well how you’d react. Go on.”
They didn’t move, so I picked up two random pieces and put them into their hands. Reluctantly, Marie unfolded a boat. Anthony held his loose in his palm and read over Marie’s arm. They didn’t get far down the page.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” Anthony said. “A man has a right to an opinion. This is a free country.”
“You got me there. But what’s your opinion of a person who thinks people should be matched up to breed like a strain of cattle stock? Who thinks less-than-perfect children should be killed? Certainly Sarah Gladwell falls into that category. He said himself he carefully chose her. Come on, you two. Don’t be so damned thickheaded. Dugan put one over on you and too bad, but—”
“No!” Marie tore the paper up. “He’s just doing this to mislead people. Or it’s forged—”
I caught her eye, freezing her in place. “Believe it,” I said softly. “He used you. Used both of you. It’s okay to be mad at him.” I let her go, and she started sniffling.
“You’re horrible. I hate you.”
She was and wasn’t talking to me. The turntable still spun; I put the needle arm over the record and dropped it in a spot I’d memorized.
“. . . sentiment for that creature is misplaced. I chose her quite carefully, you know. I would never remove a contributing member of society, but she was nothing, on the contrary . . .”
I lifted the needle, reached into the safe, and pulled out a delicate crane, tossing it to Anthony. “Read that. You can see I didn’t open it; they don’t fold back quite the same. This is what he wanted me to get the other kidnappers to say to get him off the hook. You heard him tell me what he wanted done. His own writing.”
He shook his head. “Never mind. I believe you.”
About damned time.
“Who was that woman?”
“What woman?”
“The one in the room with you. The one on the record.”
I risked having Myrna mess with the lights. “That was just background noise from downstairs. Dugan and I were alone. That’s why he was able to gab so freely.”
“But what is this ‘secret’ of yours he talked about? It’s not you hypnotizing people. What did he mean about you invisibly following him? And that Stockyards business—?”
Headache time. “Don’t worry about that. Forget that part. What’s important is he really did kidnap Sarah, and he tried to extort money from her mother and from you two. He’s a liar and all the other garbage. Are you both straight on it? Dugan’s a bad guy.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Marie, kneading her handkerchief as though searching for a dry spot to use.
“Where is he?” Anthony asked.
I shrugged. “I haven’t heard from him since last night.” That was absolutely true. “My guess is he got wise and decided to lam it.”
“But he was so confident—”
“Based on lies. Maybe he realized it wouldn’t work or worried that I might not toe the line for him after all. He’s got a big brain; maybe he thought himself into a corner and knew he’d have to run. Why don’t you go visit his house? See if he left a clue.”
“You’ve been there, haven’t you? That’s how you got these things from him. What have you done with him?”
“Nothing. I don’t have to. He’s done it all himself. If you hear from him, have him call me. He likes to listen to himself talk so much he’d probably love this.” I nodded toward the spinning record.
Marie surged up, darting for the phonograph, murder in her eye.
Escott got there first. She slammed into him, but he held in place, arms up to deflect her fists. He dropped his gun on my coat, then grabbed her wrists. He spun her around quick as a jitterbug dancer, crossing her arms in front of her like a straitjacket, which mostly immobilized her. She struggled to get free, twisting and bucking. He tried not to wince.
Anthony was shocked for a moment, then stepped in and pulled her away. “Marie, please don’t!”
She subsided into sobbing, falling against him. “You’re horrid, all of you!”
“Not us. Gilbert,” he said.
“You liar!”
“I’m sorry, my dear, really I am.”
Escott got his gun and sank back on his chair with a stifled sigh. Marie went unintelligible for some while, her posing and apparent boredom completely gone. Her reaction told how deeply Dugan had gotten under her skin. He must have executed one hell of a charming performance for her, saying and doing all the right things, being the perfect gallant. The other night Anthony had been urging Dugan to overcome his reluctance and propose to her. How much of that had been inspired by Dugan’s manipulations so he could laugh up his sleeve at them both? I could imagine him entertaining himself by setting his friends up, then having them eagerly running around in response to every little thing he said. What a way to fill the time.
“Okay, Brockhurst,” I said, “you think you can convince the rest of your pals that Dugan’s guilty after all? I don’t want any more letters being written.”
“I don’t know . . . possibly.”
“Would hearing these recordings do the trick?”
He nodded, not meeting my eye.
“Fine. Maybe by tomorrow we’ll have some copies for you to pass around. Phone here around six, and I’ll let you know. You two scram.”
He looked, startled. “Just like that?”
“Yeah. In case you missed it, I’m busy with another mess right now.” I plucked at my bloodied shirt. “This has nothing to do with you, and I suggest you forget about it.”
Anthony hurriedly guided Marie toward the door, yanking it open and hauling them through before I could change my mind.
“You sure that’s wise to let them run loose?” Escott asked. “There were things on the records that might raise questions.”
“I’ll deal with them then. My guess is those two won’t be back if they can help it.”
“One may hope. Now . . . what about Bristow?”
“He promised to buckwheats me, and it’s a sure thing he’ll invite you to the party just for laughs, but I don’t particularly want to go.”
