by Jerry eBooks
“Here’s the real Barry,” I said and handed Horne the picture I had taken from Anne Hagen’s Bible. “Photographed four years ago. Cort knew Miss Hagen was in touch with Barry, but he didn’t know she had a picture of her son. He slipped her an overdose of the sleeping tablets because she would have denounced him once the will was read.”
“All theory.” Cort smiled confidently. “None of it is proof I killed Winram!”
I grabbed his hands, held them exposed, showing the ink staining his fingers. “Some of this ink came off when he used his handkerchief tonight,” I told Horne, “drawn by the dampness. An analysis will show more of it inside the gloves he wore when he strangled Winram!”
A wave of fury distorted Cort’s owllike features. A desperate wrench freed his hands from my grasp. He made a dive for the door. But Horne’s foot reached out and he finished the dive on his face. He was handcuffed when they dragged him to his feet cursing me.
I smiled at Horne. I could see he was holding back a lot of words behind his teeth and I guessed they weren’t all nice ones. I smiled again when I saw two sweating plainclothesmen hauling the still unconscious Duffy out like a common drunk after I’d phoned in the story. And I smiled a big, contented smile when I thought of those two saw-bucks still reposing in my wallet.
YOU BUILT A FRAME FOR ME
Leonard B. Rosborough
Hard, beautiful, brilliant, the columnists called her, choice bait for the chair, but I remembered only the frightened, soft-eyed little kid I’d seen turn gun-girl . . .
HER real name doesn’t matter. Flint Hill, who was in the cell talking to her, called her Kohinoor. Let it go at that.
I was on duty that night in Death Row. Two prisoners were slated for the last walk. The first grim procession was already disappearing through the little green door.
I looked into the cell. The girl was slumped in the only chair. Her veneer of sophistication was wearing thin. I was glad of that. It had seemed out of place on a face so young and lovely.
Flint Hill sat on the cot, offering her a sort of cool, impersonal consolation. He had as dead a pan as you’ll ever find on a live man.
“A big night, Kohinoor, my jewel,” he was saying. “Double feature. There goes the first picture. Soon comes the second. Then this cell will be ready for a new tenant.”
HER reply was barely audible, “Maybe I’m softening. I’m thinking of what’s beyond the green door—and what will be there again—soon.”
Hill smiled in his chilly way. “You amaze me, Kohinoor. Buck up. The chair works fast. Any little message before . . . the end?”
I wanted to strangle the guy. “Hill,” I said, “why don’t you lay off? Hasn’t she got trouble enough?”
She threw me a grateful look and said, “Don’t worry. I can take it.”
“You see?” Flint Hill said to me. “See why I call her Kohinoor? That’s one of the world’s great diamonds. Hard, beautiful, brilliant.”
I grunted in disgust and walked away. With the emptying of that cell, society would exact its penalty for the killing of old Prentice Lawson.
Lawson, though wealthy, had lived modestly in a lonely suburban house, with a timid, elderly companion named Finley. The two men were more like old friends than master and servant. They shared a common hobby—the taking of amateur motion pictures.
Flint Hill and Kohinoor were distantly related to each other and to Lawson. They called him Uncle Prentice. His will provided for an equal division of his pile among the three—Finley, Kohinoor and Hill. Then he decided to change it and leave nearly everything to Finley. Told the youngsters they were getting too cynical—it would be good for them to scratch for themselves. But he didn’t act fast enough.
The police got a call one evening from Flint Hill that he’d found the old man murdered. Lawson was in the parlor with a bullet in his brain.
The girl, Kohinoor, was in a rear room, knocked unconscious, her own .38 caliber revolver in her coat pocket, with a smear of blood on the barrel. It had been fired twice. She didn’t explain its presence—merely insisted it had been stolen from her a couple of days before.
Finley was found in a closet of the same room with a blackjack in his hand, a gash in his bald scalp and a bullet in his chest. He lived long enough to mumble something about his camera.
I said at once that Flint Hill did the job. He was coldblooded as a snake, and he’d profit as much as anyone. The girl was a cool one, hard in a way, but a killer?—no. Homicide didn’t agree. They searched for the camera, but when Ballistics matched the slugs with Kohinoor’s gun, the case was airtight. They built it up like this: Kohinoor quarreled with Lawson. Finley got his camera going, expecting a good action picture that he and Lawson could laugh over later. When the enraged girl shot Lawson, Finley had the evidence. The panicky servant hid in the closet; she found him, slugged him with her gun, he hit back and she shot him before she lost consciousness.
That satisfied Homicide, but I wondered: How was he able to dispose of the camera? Why didn’t she shoot Finley the instant she found him, if she wanted to kill him?
I WALKED back and looked into the cell. Flint Hill, still cool and poker-faced, was talking:
“Time’s getting short, Kohinoor. Don’t go soft now. I’ve always liked you because you were hard—”
“Liked.me,” she flared in quick anger, “just as you liked beer and beefsteak!” The flash of anger passed; she lowered her voice. “It’s more than like with me, Flint—it’s love. I can’t escape it. You built a frame for me—but I can forgive . . . even that.” She pulled herself together and went on, “Does that sound soft?”
“It doesn’t sound like you, Kohinoor, my jewel,” Flint replied. “The hard gal who conked Finley—”
Her anger flickered again, faintly and briefly, like heat lightning on a faraway cloud. But there was no trace of it in her voice when she spoke; “I found Uncle Prentice—dead. My gun was beside his body. I picked it up, started out, and saw Finley dodge into the closet with his camera. When I opened the closet door, he saw the gun and went crazy with fear. He lunged, and I hit him with the barrel—in self-defense.”
Kohinoor drew in a long breath. “I threw the camera from the window, into the lily pond.”
That gave me a mild jolt of surprise. I had accepted Homicide’s theory that Finley got rid of the camera somehow before she caught him, and she hadn’t disputed that theory.
She went on, “I was slugged.”
I saw the little procession coming back then—all except the condemned man. Time for the second act.
I let them into the cell. Flint Hill stood up, but the girl didn’t. Flint took her hand and said, “This is the end of a beautiful friendship, Kohinoor. I’m really sorry. As long as I live”—his tight little grin came out for an instant—“I’ll remember the camera.”
Kohinoor tried to get up, but her knees wouldn’t bear her weight. Two officers helped her to her feet.
She looked at Hill. “That’s easy to say, Flint, when I’m the one to suffer. You killed Uncle Prentice with my gun.
You saw me coming and waited. After I struck Finley, you slugged me and shot Finley—and phoned the police. But you didn’t know then what had happened to the camera.” Her voice rose. “You built a frame for me—”
“For God’s sake,” one of the officers shouted, “get her out!”
THE officers supported her as they started along the passage. She turned and looked back. Flint Hill was walking away with a group in the opposite direction.
“Flint,” she called, but he didn’t turn. The officers urged her on.
Near the end of the corridor, she stopped again. There was no cool sophistication, no diamond hardness about her now. I couldn’t picture her slugging Finley, although I knew she’d done it. She was just a frightened little girl on the verge of collapse. “That horrible picture—” she whispered.
The picture in the camera? Maybe, but I think she meant something else—the room beyond the green door,
the group of silent witnesses, the body in the chair straining at the straps—
I looked around. Flint Hill was at the other end of the passage, and now a couple of guys were supporting him. I thought, “Sister, you’re not the only sufferer, after all.”
Kohinoor spoke again: “I tried—so hard. If they only hadn’t found the camera—”
“To late to think of that,” one of the guards said. “They did, finally, and it cinched the case. Come along now—or do we have to carry you?”
“I can . . . walk.”
The green door opened . . . closed.
“Flint,” the girl moaned.
I was feeling a little sick—glad of any excuse to get away. I turned and ran the length of the corridor, through the green door—and helped carry Flint Hill to the chair.
CRIME’S CLIENT
Guy Fleming
Little did Sam Hawke think that when he took that measly two-hundred-dollar assignment, he would be doubling for death.
He was a round little man with an enormous stomach. He stood in front of Sam Hawke, grinning, and a gold tooth winked out from a pursed mouth under the waxed tips of a mousy brown mustache.
Hawke had not heard him enter. He sat with his feet up on the desk and focused the stranger between the broad tips of his shoes, taking in the sharply creased striped trousers, the swallow-tail coat, the fawncolored spats, and the yellow Malacca walking stick.
“Let’s try it again,” Hawke said. “Go out and knock first.”
The fat little man laughed. “Ha! A prime sense of humor, my friend. That’s what I like.”
Business had been slow and the man might be a prospective client, so Sam Hawke dropped his feet to the floor, lifted inquiring eyebrows and waited.
The little man seated himself gingerly on the edge of a chair with his chin propped on the Malacca stick and aimed his blue eyes at Hawke.
“Would you like to make a hundred dollars?” he asked abruptly.
Hawke held out his hand. The man produced a single crisp century note from a well-heeled wallet and flipped it on to the desk.
“Good.” He nodded vigorously. “That’s fine. That’s what I like. Not too many questions. Get your hat and your gun and let’s go.”
Hawke did not move. “Where?”
“The Miner’s National Bank.”
“What for?”
“I have to get some stuff out of a safe deposit box.”
Hawke folded the bill and tucked it neatly into his vest pocket. “So heavy you need help?” he asked.
The fat little man made an impatient gesture. “Not at all, but it’s valuable stuff and somebody may try to take it away from me.”
“Ah,” Sam Hawke breathed. “Then there may be a little shooting.”
The stranger shrugged. “It’s a possibility.”
Again Hawke extended his hand. “That C note needs some companions. Four more of them. My skin is very valuable and I wouldn’t want to get it punctured for a measly hundred dollars.”
Bright spots of color flushed the chubby cheeks. The blue eyes frowned. The round figure popped off the chair.
“Give me back my money,” he snapped angrily.
With a flip of his thumb Hawke shot him the wadded bill. The stranger hopped toward the door, stopped with his hand on the knob, then turned and faced the detective.
“The whole thing may take less than half an hour;” he said. “Also there may not be any shooting. I’ll give you two hundred dollars.”
Hawke recognized the signs. There was a flat finality to the man’s voice. He nodded crisply, said: “It’s a deal,” and took the proffered money. He got up, planted his hat firmly on his head, got the .38 automatic from his drawer, examined the cartridge clip, then dropped the weapon into his holster sling.
The Miner’s National Bank was three blocks away. They had covered one street and were halfway along the next when it happened. A taxi came roaring down from the corner, slewed with screaming brakes toward the curb. A hand was shoved out the window. The hand held a gun.
It all happened so fast neither Hawke nor the fat man could do one single thing about it. The gun barked and jerked back, and a lean tendril of smoke was immediately swept away by the backwash of wind.
Sam Hawke dropped like a third act curtain. He kneeled on one leg and hauled at the .38. But by the time he got it out the taxi was careening around the corner out of sight. He turned to look at the fat man.
His client was lying limply on the pavement, stubby legs out-spread. The color had drained from the flabby cheeks. His eyelids were squeezed tightly shut. Hawke felt the man’s wrist. It was beating like a dollar watch. And then he saw the derby which had rolled over against the cornerstone of a building. A tailor could not have cut a neater hole than the one the bullet had made.
Two sharp slaps against the man’s cheeks brought him around. People were beginning to form a semicircle, watching in open-mouthed and morbid fascination.
“Scat!” Sam Hawke snarled. “Scat!” He heaved the fat little man to his feet and steered him through the crowd.
“W-what happened?”
“You fainted. Somebody took a shot at you.”
The little man grasped Hawke’s arm. Hawke was surprised at the strength in those short dimpled fingers. “Let’s get away from here—quickly.”
Hawke flagged a cab and they pulled away just as a panting, perspiring cop hove to and anchored nervously on the fringe of the milling throng. They spurted away, but before the driver had time to slip into a third gear, Hawke breathed a stop order against the back of his neck. The cab rocked to a stop in front of the Miner’s National Bank.
Pasty-faced, the fat man craned a quick glance up and down the block. Then he darted across the sidewalk through the open portal like a spider after a fly caught in the center of its web. Hawke followed with dignity.
He had his own account here, and he waved at Nulty, the square-jawed, ironhaired guard. He followed his client down a flight of marble stairs terminating in a dead-end of gleaming steel bars. A tall, stoop-shouldered attendant with a paternal manner, known to Hawke as Pop Worden, looked out at them and smiled. Beyond him were the long rows of inch-thick steel compartments containing several hundred safe deposit boxes.
“You wanna open your box again, Mr. Hawke?” The attendant asked.
“No, Pop, just keeping a friend company.”
Worden keyed open the gate, squinting puzzledly at the fat man. “Don’t quite recollect—” he started to say.
The fat man interrupted with: “I don’t have a box here. I want Mr. Edward Aldrich’s box.”
Pop Worden frowned. “You got a power of attorney?”
“Yes. Here it is.”
“You got Mr. Aldrich’s key?”
The fat man produced that also.
Pop Worden pressed a button. In a moment a heavy-set, pompous man whom Hawke recognized as Robert Oakley, the branch manager, appeared. He clamped a pair of pince-nez glasses to the high bridge of his prominent nose, took the paper from Worden and examined it like a pawnbroker appraising a diamond.
He looked up. “Everything seems all right. The power of attorney is properly notarized. You may proceed, Worden.”
The attendant moved down the aisle, stepped up on a squat ladder, inserted two keys into the small swinging door marked 4001, and drew forth a long brown metal box. He piloted the way to one of the tiny cubicles used by depositors to examine their valuables. He snapped on a light and hurried back to the front gate.
“Wait here,” the fat man told Hawke, and yanked the door shut behind him.
Sam Hawke propped himself against the wall, fished out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. This promised to be an easy two hundred dollars. Obviously another attempt to polish off the fat man would not be made until he’d been delivered to his destination. Hawke took his second puff of the cigarette and that was the last. The next instant he was hit by a truck, lifted off the floor, and tossed five feet to the other end of the corr
idor.
All this was accompanied by the earsplitting roar of a thunderous detonation. The door of the cubicle burst outward in splinters. A pall of thick, gray smoke blossomed into the passage. And then for a moment there was silence, the deep silence that always follows an explosion.
From a distance, and through the buzzing in his ears, Hawke heard the thin cry of voices. He got to his feet, feeling as if a steam roller had run over his chest. His upper lip was moist, sticky, and when he touched it he saw that his nose was bleeding.
He hung against the wall, reeling, then slowly things came back into focus. People crowding around him. Pop Worden was white-faced, trembling. Oakley, in a state of high, nervous excitement, grabbed Hawke’s arm, jabbering: “What is it? What happened?”
Hawke swallowed, pointed a mute finger at the door-less cubicle, then suddenly plunged toward the opening. He came to a dead stop at the threshold and his stomach sickened and turned over. Behind him Oakley uttered a gurgling sound. A slender blond clerk fell to the floor in a faint.
Hawke turned away fast. One look had been enough. He was not a magician. He could do nothing for the fat man now. And in order to bury him they’d have to scrape him off the walls.
At the sound of heavy steps pounding down the corridor he looked up. At least three police cars must have disgorged such a load of cops. In the foreground, beefy, red-faced, hard-jawed, was Sergeant Hedrick. He snorted at sight of the private detective.
“I might’ve known you’d be here, Hawke. Wherever there’s trouble there’s you.”
Hawke took the crimson handkerchief away from his nose, focused a cold look on the sergeant, and said nothing.
“All right,” Hedrick snapped. “What happened?”
“In there,” Pop Worden said pointing.
Hedrick craned his neck, spared a brief glance into the annihilated cubicle, brought his neck back quickly, and wet his lips.
“Who is he?”
“Mr. Hawke brought him here,” Oakley volunteered. “He had a power of attorney to open Edward Aldrich’s box.”
