The Parachute Murder

by Lebbeus Mitchell

  Then Kemerson felt a current of air on his face, and was aware that the door he faced had been opened. On the instant two flashlights threw their crossing beams full upon his face.

  A startled cry escaped the lips of the man in the hallway who turned off his flashlight and hurried towards the rear window.

  “Chad—“ came a broken off whisper from Morne’s bedroom, and the second flashlight was quenched.

  In the sudden blackness, Kemerson jumped for the living room door as a bullet fired by the fleeing man in the hall whizzed past his nose. He stumbled and fell prostrate. He heard the man who had shot at him climbing out through the window. The intruder who had been going through Morne’s papers, started to follow, but Kemerson who could barely distinguish his figure, made a spring at his feet and brought him down to the hall floor while his own body was in the living room.

  CHAPTER XII — A FAST ONE IS PUT OVER ON KEMERSON

  KEMERSON’S prisoner tried to kick himself free, but the actor clung grimly to his ankles, and shouted for the policeman on guard whom he heard stumbling about in the darkness.

  “Turn on the switch—just to the right of the door!” he cried, and got to his feet and began pulling his still prostrate prisoner by the legs into the living room. The man caught hold of the door jamb, drew Kemerson towards him by doubling up his legs and gave a sudden lunge with both feet that sent the actor sprawling on the floor, his head striking a chair.

  But at that instant the policeman found the electric switch and flooded the hall with light.

  “Throw ‘em up!” shouted O’Donnell to the intruder as the latter leaped towards the window opening on the fire escape.

  The fleeing man gave one glance over his shoulder, and at sight of the leveled revolver stopped and raised his hands.

  “There’s more than one way of getting into an apartment, you see,” the prisoner remarked to his captor.

  “So I see, Mr. Betterling, if that is your name.”

  “Betterling!” cried Kemerson, walking giddily out to them and rubbing a swelling lump on the side of his head.

  “Chad—Oh, it’s you, Mr. Kemerson! Why the devil didn’t you tell me it was you masquerading as Morne?”

  “Testing a theory—that worked too well in one particular,” Kemerson replied with a rueful smile.

  “You know this bird, do you?” asked O’Donnell. “Yes, I know him. I never expected to find you housebreaking, Mr. Betterling.”

  “This Cerebus of the law refused to let me in,” said Betterling, “and I had to find other means.”

  “Yeah, this guy came to me with a key and note he said was from Mrs. Morne authorizing him to enter the apartment,” said O’Donnell, “to get some things she wanted. And I told him if Mrs. Morne wanted anything she’d have to come and get it herself, and bring a note from the Chief of Police or the District Attorney.”

  “Quite right,” said Kemerson. “And now, Mr. Betterling, perhaps you will tell me what you wanted in Chadwick Morne’s apartment.”

  “That’s a pretty big ‘perhaps’, Mr. Kemerson.” Betterling, a tall, muscular, clean-shaven man nearing forty, smiled nonchalantly. His dark eyes glittered.

  “You have your choice of talking to me or Mr. Brixton. If Mrs. Morne sent you here you may find it to your advantage—and to hers—to explain the reason to me.”

  “And have everything I say go straight back to Brixton! “

  “Anything that bears on the death of Chadwick Morne—yes.”

  “If it had anything to do with his murder, do you think I’d ever be found here?”

  “Sure you would,” said the policeman, “if there was some bit of evidence you had overlooked that might incriminate you.”

  “Or incriminate Mrs. Morne,” added Kemerson, gravely.

  “Come, Kemerson, you’ve got more intelligence than to imagine for a moment that she had anything more to do with her husband’s murder than I had.”

  “And just where were you on the night Morne was killed?” asked Kemerson.

  “Well, than you had, then,” laughed Betterling, “if you are bound to suspect me.”

  “If you want to help clear Mrs. Morne of suspicion now is your chance. Your attentions to her are of common knowledge. She has been seeking evidence for a divorce that she might marry you. Murder has removed the need for a divorce—and perhaps some unpleasant revelations that might have come out had the suit gone to trial.”

  Betterling gave the actor a long, penetrating look. “What do you mean by that—specifically?”

  “The nature of the relations that have existed between you and Mrs. Morne for the past two or three years—and where you were the night——”

  “Why, you contemptible—“ and Betterling was springing at the actor’s throat when the point of the policeman’s revolver in his back brought him to a sudden halt.

  “None of that, Mr. Betterling,” said O’Donnell. “A bullet is quicker than the hands.”

  “I am glad you realize the position Mrs. Morne will occupy in the mind of the public if a charge should be placed against her,” said Kemerson. “If she is innocent, as my investigation thus far leads me to believe, I want to clear her of all suspicion. You can help me to keep her name out of the case——”

  “You mean that, Kemerson? That you believe her innocent and don’t want to drag her into the investigation?”

  “I do, in spite of her lack of frankness with me. And I believe you can give me the evidence that will clear her.”

  “I can, Mr. Kemerson, but at a cost to an innocent life I am not willing to take—unless it comes to the worst. She would be the first to bid me say nothing now.”

  “There are ways to make you talk,” said O’Donnell truculently. “Shall I take him to headquarters, Mr. Kemerson?”

  “On what charge?” asked Betterling. “Am I accused of murdering Chadwick Morne? Where is your warrant?”

  “Housebreaking is charge enough to hold you on,” said O’Donnell, grimly.

  “I have Mrs. Morne’s written permission to enter her apartment. She will testify to that.”

  “And at once fasten suspicion more strongly upon herself,” said Kemerson. “What a morsel for the tabloids! ‘Widow of murdered actor sends lover to break into apartment she avoids since husband’s murder—What evidence did she wish to destroy?’ There’s nothing worse you could do for her.”

  Betterling made a gesture of helplessness. “You are right, of course. If you arrest me I shall say nothing, deny everything.” He took a bit of paper from his pocket and, before the surprised policeman could interfere, tore it into shreds and scattered them on the floor.

  “I’ll take charge of them,” said Kemerson. “Putting torn papers together is primer accomplishment, Betterling.”

  He gathered up the fragments of Mrs. Morne’s note and tucked them in his pocket.

  “Now,” he said, with a new authority, “you are going to talk. What did you come here to get?”

  “Since you mix detecting with acting,” said Better-ling, savagely, “that is for you to find out—if you can.”

  “Search him, O’Donnell.”

  “Now you said something.” O’Donnell set to work in grim seriousness and went through Betterling’s pockets while Kemerson covered him with the policeman’s revolver.

  “I am not armed, and you won’t find anything in my pockets. I was interrupted before I found...what I came for.”

  Kemerson carefully examined the contents of his captive’s pockets after restoring O’Donnell’s gun. He found nothing that had any apparent connection with the case. He returned everything to Betterling except an empty envelope bearing a French stamp and postmarked Paris.

  “What good do you think an empty envelope will do you?” asked Betterling, contemptuously.

  “Perhaps none at all, but I should like to compare the handwriting with that on the envelopes Mrs. Morne has been receiving from Paris.”

  With an exclamation of rage, Betterling snatched at the enve
lope in Kemerson’s hands and tore it in two before O’Donnell could subdue him.

  “Thank you, Betterling,” said Kemerson. “You have turned a fancy into enough of a fact to bear investigation. There is enough writing on this fragment for comparison. The letters which led to the quarrels between Morne and his wife came from Paris—quarrels about adopting——”

  “You win,” cut in Betterling, quickly. “Come into Morne’s bedroom while I finish my search. If I find what I am looking for, you may see it, in the strictest confidence. Since I must, I will reveal what I have sworn not to. You will see how far from the truth your imaginings are.”

  “Now you are talking sense,” observed O’Donnell in a more friendly tone.

  “Come with us,” said Kemerson to the policeman.

  “You bet I’m going with you,” said O’Donnell, raising his gun significantly. “I’ll use it, too, if there are any monkeyshines from you, Mr. Betterling.”

  Kemerson switched on the light in Morne’s bedroom and looked down at the mass of papers and articles which covered the bed—letters, clippings, documents, collars, shirts, even undergarments. Dresser drawers stood open, the closet shelf had been ransacked. Betterling went to the bed and began going through a bundle of letters tied together. He went through them quickly, merely glancing at postmarks and addresses. A sudden gleam came into his eyes at one envelope he picked up, but he quickly placed it on top of the pile of rejected letters, from which it slid to the bed, while he continued his search.

  “Ah!” he cried as he took up the next to the last envelope in the pile. “I thought he must have preserved it! Read that, Mr. Kemerson, and convince yourself my visit had nothing to do with Morne’s murder.”

  The envelope was postmarked Chicago and bore a typewritten address. As Kemerson unfolded the letter, O’Donnell edged closer to look over his shoulder.

  Betterling seized that moment to hurl himself against Kemerson. The impact was so heavy and sudden that both the actor and the policeman were knocked off their feet, landing in a heap on the floor. Before they could get up, Betterling was out in the hall. He slammed the door shut just as O’Donnell got his arm free and fired. They heard the key grate in the lock.

  “A fine pair of boobs we are!” exclaimed the disgusted policeman. “I need a nursing bottle instead of a gun!”

  “The letter!” cried Kemerson. “The letter!” and fell to searching among the lot on the bed.

  “You have it in your hand.”

  “Not that! The one Betterling let slide off the pile! Where is it? Gone! He got it right under our noses and got away with it! What were you, O’Donnell, before you became a policeman?”

  “Me?” asked the astonished officer. “Why, I was a...Yes, I see. I guess I should have gone into the street cleaning department. That’s what the Lieutenant will tell me when I report how slick I was tricked.”

  “I think if I were you I would not report what babes in the woods we proved ourselves.”

  “Have the murderer of Chadwick Morne in my hands, let him escape and not report it! If it ever got out I’d be kicked off the force!”

  “That’s just it—part of it, at least. The other part is that James Betterling is not the murderer of Morne. But he may know who is, and I’d rather have him at liberty just now.”

  “Shadow him and let him lead you to the murderer! “ said O’Donnell approvingly.

  “Something like that. I’ll tell as much of what happened here tonight to the District Attorney as is necessary. I suggest that you report to the Lieutenant at your station simply that two men broke into the house while I was here in the dark, trying to concentrate on the parachute murder, and that both men escaped.”

  “But the shots? Someone will be sure to have heard them.”

  “One of the intruders shot at me, and you shot at one of them. No names need be mentioned. We’ll give James Betterling all the rope he wants.”

  “The longer the rope, the better the hanging,” said O’Donnell.

  “Exactly. And I think that last shot of yours is going to get us out of here.”

  Neighboring tenants and the superintendent of the building effected their release a few minutes later. At Kemerson’s suggestion, the policeman quickly cleared the apartment of their rescuers while the actor searched for any possible clue to the identity of the intruder who had taken a shot at him in the dark. He examined the hall runner, the sill of the opened window, climbed out on the fire escape, exercising care not to disturb any finger prints that might have been left by the nocturnal prowlers. His search was vain. He had little doubt but that the second intruder was Giulio Vanuzzi, but realized he might be mistaken, that it might have been Kiyoshi, though he could advance no reason for the valet’s wishing to enter the apartment.

  He went back to the bedroom to have a look at the scattered letters and papers that Betterling had been examining—business letters, “mash” notes, theatrical clippings, notes from playwrights with manuscripts to submit. The result was meager: a single kodak picture, already faded, of a young and beautiful woman, fragile, blonde, with wistful eyes and mouth, in the uniform of a Red Cross nurse. Inscribed across the bottom in a woman’s carefully formed script was the following: “To ‘Chad’ from his Isobel. Paris.”

  The face of the nurse was that of Morne’s leading woman in Blashfield’s Wives—Dorothy Dineen. He got out the theatre record which contained the portrait of the suicide: he was not mistaken, this Isobel and Dorothy Dineen were one and the same. Dorothy Dineen...Why, that was the name of the married woman Mrs. Morne had said her husband had had an affair with in France! He sought for the bit of torn envelope Betterling had left in his hand and compared it with the writing on the faded kodak picture; they were totally dissimilar. He looked again at the blonde, wistful beauty of the woman in her stage portrait, and sighed with pity for her fate. Ambitious, but without the ability to succeed, had she sought escape from failure, or was it from Morne’s increasing coldness? She was hardly more than a child, and yet life and love had been too much for her.

  CHAPTER XIII — “WATASH KEREO KAROSU JO”

  SO RELIEVED had Blake been at the accumulating evidence against Giulio Vanuzzi that he had hurried back from the interview with the District Attorney to his office in the Siddarth Theatre without reading the Morne case articles in the morning newspapers. He found Miss Burton arranging the early afternoon editions on his desk.

  “I thought you would want to know what they are printing about you,” she said. “They’ve all followed up that story in the Star.”

  “Let ‘em,” said Blake, almost jocularly. “The evidence all points strongly towards one man, and that man is not me.”

  “I’m glad,” said Miss Burton, simply, “but can’t something be done about these reporters to get them to ‘lay off’ you? They are even suggesting...”

  “Well, what?”

  “Read it yourself.” Blake was surprised at the asperity in her tone. She returned to her own cubby-hole without further words. Blake looked at the papers, and boiled with indignation.

  “PRESS AGENT’S MOVEMENTS UNACCOUNTED FOR ON NIGHT OF MORNE MURDER,” said the headlines in one paper.

  “SIDDARTH PRESS AGENT HAD LONG STANDING GRUDGE AGAINST MORNE,” said another.

  “BLAKE’S ALIBI SHOT TO PIECES BY INVESTIGATORS.”

  “MURDERED ACTOR’S WIDOW REFUSES TO TELL WHERE SHE WAS ON NIGHT OF TRAGEDY.”

  “MORNE DEATH LEAP PLANNED BY PRESS AGENT.”

  He had leaped into prominence in the Morne case with a vengeance.

  He got the latest edition of the morning Star and read the story which had set the reporters to baying at his heels like a pack of hungry jackals. The account declared boldly that Blake was absent from his room on the night of the Morne murder; that he had attempted to get his landlady to say she had seen him in his room after twelve o’clock; that he had been infatuated with Mrs. Morne before her marriage, and had threatened Morne’s life; and that he had arranged for the dea
d actor’s leap from an airplane, ostensibly for publicity purposes, hinting that other ends might have been in his mind. Mrs. Morne’s absence from her apartment on the night of her husband’s murder, her refusal to explain where she had been or to be interviewed, and her subsequent going into hiding were played up, as was the dancing of attendance upon her by James Betterling. It was small wonder that the Star’s editorial writer had asked three such impertinent questions of the District Attorney and of the police, and that the evening papers had followed up such sensational matter. The arrest of Sidney Stoneman and the search for Rolf Perkin were coupled under a small head on page two.

  Blake rang for Miss Burton. “Please telephone to Mrs. Handsaker and ask if any reporters are waiting for me there.”

  She re-entered a minute later. “Four men are loitering on the front steps at Mrs. Handsaker’s. Johnny Bursong says there are more than that in the theatre lobby. You’d better go out through the stage if you don’t want to be seen.”

  “Thanks, I will. Please send Johnny to me.”

  He instructed the office boy to go to his rooms, pack some clothes, which he specified, in a small black suitcase which did not have his initials on it and to take it to the Maxwell Hotel in East Sixty-Second Street.

  “Ask Mrs. Handsaker or the maid to let you out the back way. If you are sure you have not been followed, ask the clerk at the Maxwell what room Mr.—well, say John Milton—is occupying and bring the suitcase up. But if you are followed take it home with you and try later.”

  “There won’t no reporter find you through me,” boasted Johnny as Blake gave him carfare.

  Quickly outlining to Miss Burton the work he wished done, and dictating an explanatory letter to Mr. Siddarth, Blake made his way into the theatre through the producer’s private entrance, crossed the stage and emerged into the back street. He hailed a cruising taxi and was driven to the Grand Central Station through which he walked rapidly, emerging on Lexington avenue where he took another taxi to the Maxwell Hotel.

  It was after four when Johnny put in an appearance. He was brimming over with news.