by Jerry eBooks
“Friend, you sure travel in style.”
Stanton closed the door reluctantly. “Oh . . . you mean the compartment?”
The fat man nodded comfortably. “Use ’em myself, when I can work it in on the swindle sheet. But they wouldn’t stand for it this trip, not just to Marton.”
The train lurched, and Stanton sat down hastily on the opposite seat.
“What you need is another drink,” said the salesman jovially, and produced a pint bottle from his inside coat pocket.
Stanton shook his head; even the thought of it made him ill.
The fat man held the bottle out insistently. “Go ahead, pal. It’s good stuff. Bonded.”
“No, no thanks. Really. I need some sleep, more than anything.”
His friend shrugged, oblivious to the hint. “Well, I always say an eagle can’t fly on one wing. . . . Here’s to ya.”
The bottle tilted long and loudly, as Stanton stared. Then it went back into the coat pocket, the fat belly slumped even more permanently, and a pair of slightly bleary eyes studied him affably.
“Quigley . . .” he murmured. “John Quigley.”
Stanton stared at him speechlessly, too weak, too defeated, to protest or think.
The big man chuckled at the obvious effect he had made on his little pal. “Told ya I should’ve been a detective, yes, sir. Freddie Sherlock Pendergast, that’s what they should call me.”
He paused for a burp and then grinned complacently. “Know how I knew? Give up?”
Stanton shook his head helplessly.
“Apologize for openin’ your bag, yes, sir. But when you didn’t show up, I thought I oughta—you know, find out your name and address an’ stuff, case I had to ship it back to you. So I looked in it, an’ I say to myself: Freddie, ol’ boy, here’s a man forgets to mail letters same’s you do. Wife’s name is Mrs. John Quigley, so he must be Mr. John Quigley—and that’s his address.” He beamed triumphantly, while Stanton remembered with a flash of painful memory the letter Martha had given him to mail a million years ago. The letter he had forgotten, in his old suit.
He tried to think of a way out, but he was too tired, too weary to think, and the salesman was looking at him belligerently now, misunderstanding the expression on his face and his silence.
“Your wallet’s in there, pal—still in there, a hund’d per cent intact. Anybody else woulda walked off with it, and serve you right. But not Freddie Pendergast. They don’t come any honester, no, sir.” He looked at Stanton again and kicked the suitcase. “Here, you don’t believe me, take a look. Nobody calls ol’ Pendergast a liar, not an’ get away with it.”
Stanton forced a placating smile because he realized now that the man was quite drunk. “Sure . . . sure, you did right. And thanks a lot.”
The other man subsided as quickly as he had been aroused. “Okay, friend, okay. Les’ forget it. Les’ just have another snort an’ forget it.” He pulled out the bottle again, helped himself when Stanton shook his head.
Then he leaned his head back on the seat. “Quigley, eh? ’S funny name.” His eyes closed. “Once knew a guy name of Quimby. But Quigley—tha’s a new one on me.” The train rattled on. Outside, the night rushed by in a black tunnel of rain. The fat man’s head had drooped now, swaying with the motion of the car. He was almost asleep.
STANTON sat there staring at him with frozen fascination, trying to pull his thoughts together. He had to get away from this friendly, talkative fool. He knew his real name now, and he’d remember it. He’d remember it when he read that John Quigley was wanted for murder, for two murders perhaps.
He’d remember it too, if he woke up and found Quigley and his bag gone, at one of the first stops. If he stayed on the train, the man was expecting him to get off at the same stop with him—and he’d think it peculiar if he didn’t. Not only that, but the conductor would be coming through soon—and he’d have to show his ticket for New Orleans.
No, the thing to do was to leave his bag behind and hide somewhere, until he had a chance to get off unobserved. That way, the salesman would never know what had happened to him; wouldn’t even know that he had gotten off the train.
But first, his money and the letter. He wouldn’t leave those behind this time. He got up quietly. Pendergast’s leg was sprawled against the bag, but he was snoring soundly.
Stanton eased the suitcase away, trembling as the man stirred. But the snoring resumed again, and he swiftly unsnapped the catches. He found the wallet, the letter, stuffed them in an inside pocket and closed the bag again.
The corridor was empty, but where could he hide? He opened the door wider, ventured a few steps out. Just at the end, where the aisle turned, was a door without a number. Footsteps sounded behind him cutting off his retreat, and he pushed it open.
It was dark inside—a closet with some clothes hanging on a hook, a broom, some shelves. There wasn’t much room, but he managed to squeeze his thin body in and shut the door just as someone went by outside.
So, hardly daring to breathe in the stuffy blackness, Mark Stanton rode through the miles, crammed in a porter’s closet while another man dozed comfortably in the compartment he had paid for.
His legs went to sleep, his body became stiff with cramps, but still he dared not venture out again. He finally dozed off, or perhaps he passed out. . . . It seemed hours later that he felt the monotonous rumble of the train slowing down.
Close by, came a muffled clang as the floorplate over the steps was swung up, and Stanton knew he could endure it no longer. He stumbled blindly out into the passageway, carried by stiff legs which moved by something other than his own will.
In the closet he had removed the new contact lenses to relieve the one physical pain he could do anything about; and now his world was out of focus.
But he could make out the porter hurrying past him; he could feel the train still slowing down, and when he stepped into the vestibule he could see through the open doorway where the few lights of a strange town beckoned.
He waited until the train was barely crawling before he jumped. Then he ran swiftly across the far end of the station platform, down a freight ramp. Behind him the train had paused and was already beginning to move again, but he didn’t look back.
He had come out on the main street of the town. His smarting, watery eyes couldn’t see too much, but the place had the fragrant atmosphere of the country after a rain, the midnight hush of a small village at sleep.
He took a deep breath, like a man out of prison. In the distance the train was rattling away with a last mournful whistle, carrying with it all that was left of John Quigley . . . and a fat, over-friendly salesman who would never know he had a murderer’s secret in his hands.
Mark Stanton, free at last, straightened his stiff back and walked confidently toward the one lighted window he could make out among the small cluster of store buildings.
A man stumbling drunkenly along the sidewalk turned and stared at him, and Stanton stopped.
“Can you tell me where a hotel is?”
The man moved his head tipsily and then unaccountably laughed. “They ain’t but one, mister. An’ you’re standin’ right in front it.”
He was still staring and muttering to himself as Stanton turned toward the light just ahead. He went through the door and found himself in a narrow lobby with straight-backed chairs. At the desk, a sallow-faced youth looked up from the comic magazine he was reading by the harsh light of a fly-specked light bulb.
“A room—with bath,” said Mark Stanton.
The clerk smirked as he shoved the register forward. “They all got baths, mister. Right at the end of the hall.”’
Stanton shrugged, signed the register with an undecipherable scrawl. When he looked up he saw the look in the clerk’s eyes, beady eyes that were going impudently over the crushed grey hat, the gabardine topcoat now crumpled and smudged.
“That’ll be two bucks, mister.”
Stanton reached for his wallet with a shaky smi
le. “I just got off the train, and somebody stole my luggage . . . while I was asleep.”
The clerk examined the ten-spot suspiciously, said “I just work here, mister,” and tossed change and key on the counter.
“Twenty-one. Top of the stairs to the right.”
Stanton fled up the creaking steps, found his room in the hall, switched on the light. It was dingy, it was musty, it wasn’t what he had hoped for—but it was a haven at last. He locked the door, pulled down the torn blind, tossed his hat and coat on the chair and then threw himself on the lumpy bed.
For a while he dozed, but the glare of the bulb overhead bothered him and he finally got up. Just as he reached for the switch, the telephone on the wall at his shoulder sounded shrilly. He drew back, staring at it in fear. It jangled again, and he finally reached out a trembling hand.
It was the clerk’s voice, charged with excitement. “Say, mister, your name Quimby, or somp’in like that?”
Stanton’s denial sounded like a scream to his own ears. “No . . . no! It’s Stanton.”
The kid went on. “Yeah, I knew it was a phony, a name like that. This guy just checked in from the train, see—a big fat guy with two suitcases. . . .”
“Yes, yes?”
“Well, I remembered what you said about somebody swipin’ yours, and I looked at ’em close. Don’t seem likely a man would be needin’ two big bags just to stop here. And then he gives me this phonus balonus, see, about one of ’em. belonging to a joe named Quintby and ast was anybody stayin’ here by that name. A thin man in a tan gabardine coat, he said.”
Stanton was silent, his mind whirling.
“I didn’t tell him nothin’,” the kid was assuring him. “You want I should call the cop?”
“No . . . no, I’ll see for myself in the morning. You forget it. Thanks.”
“Well, okay.” The kid sounded disappointed. “Just thought I’d ask. He’s in room twenty-four, right across from you.” Stanton got the receiver back on the hook. His eye caught the tattered telephone book dangling by a string underneath. On the cover, above an advertisement for a feed company, was the ornate heading: Morton & Marton County.
The fateful words burned in his mind. He had fled from the train at the same stop as the salesman. And Pendergast knew he was here. He had told him himself he was getting off at Marton!
FOR A long time Mark Stanton stood there motionless. The events of the night passed before his mind like a hideous, fumbling nightmare. . . .
A door slammed out in the corridor and someone stumbled across the hallway. Stanton started to reach for the light switch, but it was too late. Already a fat, tipsy salesman who liked to fancy himself a sleuth was pounding on his door.
“Hey, Quimby, you in there? Quimby, ol’ pal. Open up!”
Stanton was silent, hoping he’d go away, but the door shook on its hinges again. “Quimby! Hey. it’s me . . . Freddie.”
His sigh was one of final despair. If he didn’t open the door, there’d be a real disturbance. The kid downstairs might even call the police. If he did let him in. . . .
Then he remembered the gun . . . the gun in his coat pocket. He’d let that loud fool in, yes. And he’d wipe that name off his fat lips forever. Mark Stanton would do that. Mark Stanton had money. Mark Stanton could say it was self-defense, and the kid would testify the other man had robbed him. . . .
He stumbled across the dingy carpet, fished for the gun in his coat. The metal was cold in his wet palm.
As he straightened up he thought he saw somebody else in front of him. A man staring at him with haggard, insane eyes. A little man, in shabby clothing, with a gun in his hand.
The whirlpool was closing around him again, sucking him down into the depths of fear. . . .
And the man was John Quigley.
* * *
His end was not without glory, of a sort.
There was a fat, friendly salesman named Fred Pendergast, who told his friend Bill Hatterly all about it the next afternoon:
“A character, Bill, a real little character. Always leavin’ his bag behind.”
There was the jeweler, Latham, too. “You never know,” he remarked to the head salesman. “You never know. Would you believe it, that little squirt came in here with a gun and beat hell out of me because I’d turned him down on a raise. Right in the middle of that fire next door, too. Didn’t know he had it in him. . . .”
And there was a bartender named Joe, who liked to tell about this little guy, see, who got a load on one night and jumped off the bridge:
“The night of the flood, see, and I went off myself, trying to pull him back. Used to be a lifeguard, myself, an’ I still don’t know how I made it. But this little guy—his name was Quigley—he turned up fifty miles south of here. . . . Drowned? Hell, no, he didn’t drown. Died of heart failure in a hotel down there. Read it in the paper.”
Even today, down in Marton, there’s a suspicious hotel clerk who never accepted the official verdict. He still suspects a certain fat traveling man of murder; he still wonders why a man, just before he died, should fire a shot into a mirror.
THE END
A COLD NIGHT FOR MURDER
J. Lane Linklater
Grains of glass in a deadman’s thumb point the way for Bill Treat on a trail of mystery!
CHAPTER I
Trouble in the Bar
Bill Treat was wearing a light brown overcoat and a very old felt hat. The coat was not much protection against the cold of the night, but the furious misery of his mood made him unaware of the temperature. It was thirty minutes before midnight when he pushed into the Moravia Cafe. You could get either food or drinks here, either at the bar or at one of the tables.
Bill figured he was entitled to one drink, even if he was going on duty in thirty minutes. He went to the bar and ordered bourbon. In the bar mirror he could see the dozen or so people at the tables. He knew them all. Especially he knew Osa Dunne.
Osa was drinking coffee, with Charlie Flax. She was very carefully not looking at Bill.
Charlie, large and smugly handsome, was looking pleased with himself. He had rich wavy blond hair. Charlie will be bald in another ten years, Bill thought, with savage if childish hope.
Bill turned and stared into the bar mirror, looking at himself without seeing himself, being busy thinking about Osa. He might have been shocked if he had noticed how he looked. His youthful face, a rather long face with a quizzical mouth, was drawn, and his eyes were bloodshot.
But he was thinking of Osa; thinking of her being with Charlie Flax; thinking that something had happened between himself and Osa, and he didn’t know what.
So he ordered another bourbon. He tossed it down.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned his head and glared at the middle-aged man with the broad grinning face. Hank Smalley, Osa’s stepfather—Osa had kept her own name, Osa Dunne.
Bill didn’t like Smalley; not at all. Smalley had always resented Osa’s interest in him. He thought Smalley had something to do with his present trouble.
“Go away,” Bill said thickly.
Smalley didn’t go away. He was still grinning; he was a little drunk. He stuck a dirty thumb out so that it pointed back to where Osa was sitting with Charlie Flax.
“You ain’t doing so good,” he jeered.
Suddenly, Bill’s resentment against Smalley blazed up furiously, blindly. He swung around. He was tall and towered over Smalley’s stock figure. Smalley, though older, was a powerful man.
Bill poked a fist at his face. Smalley staggered back, but kept his feet, and anger clouded his face. Mistily, Bill moved toward, Smalley, and Smalley was rushing at him.
Shouts in the cafe lifted into a roar.
But then someone got hold of Bill’s arms. And others were holding Smalley back. Bill still felt hazy. He was not so much angry now, as sick. It was all pretty silly. He still resented Smalley, but he didn’t want to be bothered trying to hit him.
Smalley was chatteri
ng angrily. A couple of men were soothing him, walking him away—out of the door.
Suddenly, Bill found that he was alone. He leaned against the bar. He tried not to look at Osa, with Charlie Flax. He ordered another bourbon. The bartender frowned, hesitated, then served the drink.
A hand came down gently on Bill’s arm as he started to pick up the glass.
A round smooth face with large round gray eyes smiled up at Bill. “It’s none of my business,” said the man, “but don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
Bill wanted to laugh. You never knew who might turn out to be a pal. Here was Silas Hocking, manager of the Central Packinghouse, trying to be helpful.
Then he didn’t want to laugh any more. He didn’t like Hocking, either. He resented him. He brushed Hocking’s hand away and downed his drink. Hocking walked away. Bill looked up. His eye caught the mirror. The mirror showed him Osa’s face, white and strained.
Desperately, Bill decided to order another drink, but there, on the bar in front of him, was a cup of black coffee. He stared at it. Then he realized that Mr. Hocking was back, beside him, smiling at him sadly.
“You’re on duty in a few minutes, my boy,” Hocking said quietly. “Better swallow this, eh?”
Bill was annoyed. He didn’t like Hocking’s fat respectable face. And he didn’t want to get sober at all. He nursed an impulse to push Hocking in his tight little mouth.
But Hocking was saying: “You know, they’re depending on you!”
Bill thought about that. Yes, that was right. The old fool was right. They were depending on him. That was something that made sense to Bill Treat, carried weight with him.
He nodded gloomily, muttered thanks, and picked up the cup of coffee with both hands.
Hocking walked away, toward the door. Bill sipped his coffee.
In the mirror, he saw Osa and Charlie Flax. They, too, were walking toward the door. Osa very deliberately didn’t see Bill. Of course. Osa was also due to go on duty at midnight. They could depend on Osa, all right.
Presently Bill looked at the bar clock. A lot of things had happened in less than half an hour. He paid his bill and walked out. He felt the cold more bitterly now. The chill cleared his head. He crossed the street and trod up some wooden stairs. On the second floor he came to a door on which was lettered:
