by Hank Janson
‘No.’
‘You didn’t have any grudge against him?’
‘No.’
He fitted his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat. ‘Know anybody who would have a grudge against him?’
I looked at Stella, and there was worry in her eyes. She was thinking of Dane. ‘Yeah,’ I drawled. ‘Burden had a fight with a guy last night, earlier in the evening that is. There was another fight later. These things happen at parties.’
‘Who was the guy?’
‘A fella named Skinner,’ I said. ‘Charles Skinner.’
I wasn’t telling Sharp anything he couldn’t find out anyway. As soon as he got around to questioning folks, the fight between Skinner and Burden was the first thing he would hear about.
‘What was the fight about?’
‘Burden was behaving badly to a dame. Charles Skinner remonstrated with him. Burden tried to knock his head off his shoulders.’
‘Who was the dame?’ snapped Sharp.
I hesitated. Only momentarily. But during that time Sharp’s hard knuckles pounded my lips again. His face looked ugly and his eyes were like ice chips. ‘Don’t tamper with the law, Janson,’ he warned. ‘Answer up smart!’
I hated like hell sitting there taking it from him, but I hadn’t any alternative. I spat blood onto my handkerchief, glared at him balefully and mumbled: ‘Dorothy Burden.’
‘What caused the fight?’
I told him. I told him in detail. His eyes glinted at me like he thought I was the cause of it all. ‘Fine friends you’ve got, Janson,’ he sneered.
‘I told ya. I’ve never seen Burden before.’
Once again it was his knuckles on my lips. ‘Don’t try any smart back-answers, Janson,’ he warned.
I kept my head down, clenched my fists and fought to keep myself under control. There was nothing I wanted more than to plant my fist right in the middle of his puss.
‘I think we’ll see Charles Skinner and Dorothy Burden,’ said Sharp. ‘Maybe we can wrap this up right away. Send a patrol wagon round for them now, will you, Conrad?’
While Conrad was gone, Stella asked if she might have some coffee. Sharp spoke to the uniformed cop on guard at the door. Conrad came back, took up his position facing Stella and began to finger her underclothing with his eyes. A little later the uniformed cop came back with three cups of coffee and some biscuits.
‘I’d like some coffee, too,’ I told Sharp.
He sneered. ‘I guess you would,’ he said. ‘But you don’t get any.’
It was quiet in that room while we waited for the patrol car to get back. And I’d have given anything for a cup of coffee myself. Instead, I had to watch Sharp, Conrad and Stella drink theirs, while the aroma of it was sweet in my nostrils. Stella would have given me half of hers, but Sharp prevented her.
‘I’ll even up with you sometime, Sharp,’ I warned.
This time it was Conrad who went into action. His lanky form uncoiled from the mantelpiece and his knuckles exploded against the side of my jaw. ‘You mustn’t be rude to the police, Janson,’ he said mildly. ‘You’ve got to be polite.’
I’d taken so much already it was worthwhile taking a little more. I kept quiet after that. I just hoped they wouldn’t carry on until I really did lose my temper.
They brought in Skinner and Dorothy. They lived near each other and they brought them in the same car. Dorothy looked pale and determined, and Skinner looked as he usually looked, gangling and nervous.
Sharp got them seated and then fixed Dorothy with his eyes. ‘You know why you’re here, Mrs Burden?’
She stared at him, licked her lips nervously. She said, suddenly anxious: ‘It’s Hugh, isn’t it? Something’s happened to him?’
‘What makes you think that?’ he asked artfully.
She caught herself quickly. She looked around. ‘The police here,’ she said. ‘Bringing me along. I may not be living with him, but I’m his legal wife. What else am I to think?’
‘Supposing something has happened to him?’ said Sharp. He looked at her keenly. ‘You don’t seem over-worried about him.’
‘Hugh and I didn’t get along very well,’ she said. Then she dropped her eyes. ‘We’ve been apart for three years.’
‘But friendly enough to come to his party last night, huh?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
‘Supposing I told you your husband was murdered last night?’ said Sharp quickly.
He was watching Dorothy, watching for some sign of reaction. She disappointed him. She raised her eyes slowly to his and then asked softly: ‘Is that what’s happened?’
Charles Skinner displayed interest. He sat up in his chair, leaned forward and said with a kinda mild interest: ‘You mean somebody’s killed him?’
‘Yeah,’ said Sharp. ‘Did you do it?’
Skinner stammered, his mouth opening five or six times before he managed to get the words out. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ he protested.
Sharp had been watching him closely to see his reactions, but I’d been watching Dorothy. She glanced at Skinner and there was a strange, curious look in her eyes. She glanced away from him quickly as though she didn’t want Sharp to see her looking at him.
‘You had a fight with him,’ rapped Sharp.
‘Not exactly a fight,’ pointed out Skinner. ‘I remonstrated with him and he’d have killed me if he hadn’t been stopped. He’s an awfully strong man.’
‘Was,’ corrected Sharp.
He looked back to Dorothy. ‘Would you mind telling me exactly what you did last night?’
‘I’ll do my best, Inspector,’ she said.
‘What d’you mean? Do your best? You know what happened, don’t you?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Do you have to know everything?’
Sharp pushed his face up close against hers so that she shrank away. ‘If you leave out one little thing, you’ll be bucking up against the law. The law’s a mighty powerful thing, lady.’
‘But,’ her lip quivered. ‘Everything?’ Her eyes were worried, concerned.
‘Are you trying to hide something?’ probed Sharp.
‘One’s private life …’ she began. She looked at Skinner, and for a moment I thought he was puzzled
‘Maybe you’ll understand,’ she said hopefully. ‘Maybe I’d better tell you.’
‘You’d better,’ said Sharp grimly.
Dorothy flashed a quick glance at Skinner and then looked back at the Inspector. Her face was clear and her eyes wide and innocent as she said: ‘When we left the party last night we had to walk because we couldn’t get a taxi.’
‘We?’
‘Charles and I,’ she explained.
‘Carry on.’
‘Shortly afterwards, Mr Janson picked us up in his car. He took us back to town. He dropped me at my apartment and Charles went home. He lives just a little way from me. Mr Janson drove on. He had some other people with him.’
‘Is that so?’ said Sharp, glancing across at me.
‘Don’t take my word for it,’ I said. ‘There were a coupla other people in the car, too. Ask them.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he sneered. ‘I won’t take your word, I’m only checking. What happened next, Mrs Burden?’
She bit her lip. ‘I’d rather not say.’
He breathed heavily. ‘Maybe you don’t know how serious this is, lady. This is murder. Maybe you wanted to get rid of this guy. Maybe you came back and slipped a knife in his ribs.’
Dorothy gave a gasp of horror. ‘A knife!’
‘You look like you could handle a knife,’ said Sharp evilly.
I half got up off my chair. Conrad’s fist slapped me down again. ‘Keep out of this, wise guy,’ he snarled.
Sharp gritted, ‘If you don’t wanna talk, lady, maybe we’d better take you down Headquarters. I guess we wouldn’t have to dig deep to find a motive. Burden’s a rich man. How much do you get now he’s dead
?’
Her face was white. But she had plenty of guts. ‘You’re behaving abominably, Inspector,’ she protested. ‘And your unwarrantable threats make it necessary for me to tell you what is only after all a purely private matter.’
‘I don’t care what you think, provided you talk,’ snarled Sharp.
She gulped. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you.’ She looked at Charles. ‘I’ll have to tell him, Charles,’ she said. Then, as the puzzled look drifted into Skinner’s eyes again, she turned back to Sharp. ‘Mr Skinner and I are very friendly,’ she said. ‘Extremely friendly. If my husband would have divorced me, we would have been married some time ago.’
‘Spit it out, lady!’ snapped Sharp, ‘Spit it out!’
She gulped again. ‘Charles only pretended to go home. He came back as soon as Mr Janson had gone off in his car.’ She gulped once more. ‘Charles and I spent the night together.’
Sharp glowered. His eyes flicked to Skinner. ‘Is that right?’ he barked.
Skinner nodded. ‘Naturally Mrs Burden doesn’t want it broadcast. But that’s the way it was.’
I was getting it all now. Skinner had somehow worked up the courage to come back and stick that knife in between Burden’s ribs. He’d noticed his fountain pen at the time, picked it up so there wouldn’t be any questions asked about it. He didn’t think Dorothy knew about it. But she’d guessed and she was trying to cover up for him. She was giving him a first-class alibi.
And Skinner was being clever enough to take advantage of it.
‘How long did this guy stop with you?’ demanded Sharp.
She flushed and dropped her eyes. ‘Until early morning,’ she said. ‘He left early because we didn’t want the neighbours to –’ She broke off.
‘You folks are all the same,’ sneered Sharp. ‘Just popping in and out of each other’s beds. Just a lot of tom-cats.’
Skinner half rose off his chair. ‘I resent that –’ he began.
‘Siddown!’ roared Sharp, and Conrad thrust his hand against Skinner’s face, pushing him back into the chair.
‘What time did you leave her flat?’ demanded Sharp.
Skinner thought. ‘I got home at seven o’clock. It takes only minutes to get from Dorothy’s apartment.’
‘Which of you two is lying?’ rapped Sharp.
‘I – er – er –’ faltered Skinner.
Dorothy could tell Sharp was bluffing. She said crisply: ‘Neither of us is lying, Inspector. If necessary we’ll give this evidence on oath. And I can’t really see what more evidence you need. If we hadn’t spent the night together you would have had less evidence still. But it still wouldn’t have made us murderers, would it, Inspector?’
Sharp knew they had a watertight alibi. Only by accusing them of complicity in the murder could he get them on the stand. But there was no real reason why he should think them guilty, anyway.
Sure, Burden and Skinner had fought. But Burden was always fighting. All the cops knew that. Right down from the Police Commissioner to the humble patrol officer. Sharp had just been digging, trying to get somewhere. And he’d come up against a blank wall.
‘You can go now,’ growled Sharp surlily. ‘But we ain’t through yet. You’ll be hearing more from us.’
‘Why?’ asked Skinner.
Sharp was merely trying to get them worried, ‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Because this is a murder. Because she’s his wife. Because you wanna marry her. And because she’ll get a fair slice of his dough.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Inspector,’ said Dorothy. ‘Why not check up with the solicitors before you’re so certain on that point?’
Sharp’s mouth stayed open as he tried to say something. Then he covered his confusion by rasping angrily: ‘Clear out, both of you! But don’t think you’re pulling any wool over my eyes.’
I said quietly: ‘I shan’t say anything about this, Dorothy. What’s been said here is in confidence. I shan’t print anything that’s likely to cause you trouble.’
She looked at me gratefully. ‘Thanks so much, Hank.’
‘If the story does happen to get around,’ I said meaningfully, and looked at Sharp, ‘it’s because some guys have got bigger mouths than they’ve got brains.’
‘I think that’s quite evident,’ she said quietly.
Sharp looked at her and then he looked at me. He wanted to knuckle my teeth again. But too much rough stuff in front of too many witnesses was unsafe. He contented himself with breathing hard.
‘If you’re bothered with reporters,’ I said, ‘get in touch with me. I’ll give you my telephone number.’ I fumbled in my pocket for paper.
‘I can look it up in the book,’ said Dorothy.
‘No,’ I insisted. ‘I’ll give it to you.’ I found an old envelope, looked at Skinner and said: ‘Lend me your fountain pen, will ya?’
He didn’t hesitate. He pulled out his fountain pen.
As I scrawled my telephone number, I examined the pen. It was the identical one I’d seen the night before. There were his initials on it and part of the clip was broken away.
‘Thanks,’ I said, and gave it back to him. I gave Dorothy the telephone number.
When they’d gone, I looked at Sharp and grinned. ‘You ain’t getting very far, Sherlock,’ I said.
‘I’m learning all I wanna know,’ he said. ‘I’m learning quick.’
Somebody knocked at the door. Conrad went outside and there was a conference beyond the door. He came back, looked at Sharp and said: ‘There’s an early report through from the doctor.’
‘What’s he say?’
Conrad looked at me meaningfully.
Sharp sneered. ‘There ain’t nothing he can learn that’ll do him any good.’
‘Burden wasn’t killed instantly,’ said Conrad. ‘It was a painful wound and a crippling one. He probably wouldn’t have had the strength to do much. He was probably only partly conscious, anyway. But he didn’t die at once. He just lay there, slowly dying.’
‘What does all that mean?’ snapped Sharp.
‘The doctor reckons he couldn’t have been alive later than seven o’clock, but the actual death wound may have been inflicted as much as three hours before that.’
‘He could have been killed any time between four and seven,’ mused Sharp.
‘You want me anymore, Sharp?’ I interrupted.
‘I want some more information,’ he said. ‘I want a complete list of the guests.’
I shrugged. ‘I only knew one or two of them. I can’t help you there.’
Stella said quietly: ‘I know who they were. I helped Hugh work out the list. I can remember all of them.’
He looked at her keenly. ‘You and the Burden guy were pretty close, huh?’
‘I – er – we were friendly,’ she finally got out.
‘Sleeping in his bedroom, huh?’
‘Er – yes.’ She flushed and lowered her eyes.
‘Sleeping in his bedroom. But you shut the guy out. Wouldn’t let him in. You’re a cheap enough lay. Why didn’t you let him in? Wouldn’t he come across with enough dough? Or had he done something to make you mad? So mad you’d have slipped a knife between his ribs.’
‘Lay off her, Sharp,’ I said. ‘She’s already told you. She had a tussle with me. That pulled her down. She just didn’t feel like it when Burden got around to hammering at the door.’
His eyes sneered at me. ‘Big, strong fella, ain’t you? You lay a dame and she has to have a fortnight’s convalescence, huh? What kinda dope d’ya think I am? Where did this tussle take place, huh? There were maybe 50 or more folk milling around down here. D’ya give public demonstrations as well?’
Stella’s cheeks were burning hotly. She wouldn’t look at anything except the floor. I took a chance and said quietly: ‘We were in here, see. I locked the door. It was that kinda party. Anything could happen anywhere.’
Conrad fingered the triangular p
iece of white cloth. ‘Yeah,’ he said drily. ‘Anything could have happened.’
Stella began to cry again.
‘Let me get outta here,’ I said. ‘You’ve got all I can give you.’
‘Stick around, Janson,’ said Sharp. ‘We’ll be in touch with you.’ He leered. ‘You still may turn out to be an accomplice.’
‘Come on, Stella,’ I said quickly. ‘Let’s go.’
‘The dame stays,’ said Sharp. ‘She’s got work to do. I want that list.’
Stella looked at me appealingly.
I shrugged. ‘It’s no good, honey,’ I said. ‘You’ll just have to stop I guess.’ I opened the door and then turned around. Sharp and Conrad had moved in close to Stella. Conrad had his pencil poised.
‘Watch out for yourself, Stella,’ I warned. ‘There’s a cop outside here. If they get fresh, just scream your head off. I’ll fix up for somebody to send you a dress around so you can leave.’
I shut the door behind me quickly before Sharp could get mad. They’d given me a rough time, but it didn’t stop me from feeling jubilant.
Sharp was such a smart guy he was going to wade through 80 or so guests, checking them all up, finding out what each of them was doing. And he hadn’t a clue.
Whereas, on the other hand, it was quite obvious to me who the murderer was. I sympathised with Skinner and understood why he had done it. But he had still committed murder. And that was a capital offence.
I climbed into my car with my brain burning. I was getting all kinds of ideas, and a scheme in my mind was forming a pattern. A pleasant pattern. A pattern that would drive the Chronicle’s sales sky-high and at the same time give Detective-Inspector Sharp an unpleasant time, assuming he didn’t get demoted.
I drove straight from Burden’s place to the apartment where I’d dropped Lulu the night before. I went up to her apartment, leaned my thumb on the bell-push and waited. I still had that splitting headache, my belly was queasy because I hadn’t eaten and my lips were sore and puffed up.
But despite all these things I felt on top of the world. Never before had anything seemed so clean-cut and easy.
‘Hello,’ she said softly, and her hand took my arm and steered me through into the living-room.
