“Well—no. You see, I was grateful to Cunningham. I gave him the account, however, of my own free will, you understand. I’ve never had reason to be sorry—he’s a good advertising man.”
“What happened when Nicky came to your office?”
“I threw him out!”
“This is the first time you’ve seen him since then?”
“Yes. Naturally, when I met Nicky up here, I became more alarmed than ever about Shipley’s book, though I couldn’t imagine why Hugo had asked the man up here. I decided, just after Hugo died, that I’d better get those story notes as quickly as possible. You can understand, now, why I had to have them.”
“Naturally. You wanted to make sure that Shipley hadn’t told about the Marie Parrish affair.”
Trum mopped his head and sighed.
“I was desperate. I knew that Nicky English would stop at nothing to lay hands on that manuscript. At first I thought of trying to buy the whole business from Eileen. But I was afraid. I knew the girl wasn’t the type—that she wouldn’t take dirty money. It occurred to me to use Mike Gavano. I made an appointment with him. It was a stupid thing to do. I’ve regretted it.”
“You told Gavano what you wanted?”
“Only that I wanted the notes—I didn’t tell him why. He said that it’d be easy.”
“How much did you offer him?”
“Five thousand.”
“Wow!” I yipped. “That must have set Mr. Gavano’s fertile brain a-whizzing.”
“It was a mistake,” said Homer. “Even if Gavano had stolen the notes, you wouldn’t have bought them at that price, Trum.”
“I realized that too late. At any rate, after your questioning Eileen in the living room yesterday afternoon, I gave up all hope. Somebody else had stolen the notes. I saw Gavano later in the day—after dinner, to be exact. I told him to forget about our little deal. I got the shock of my life, Bull—Gavano told me that he already had the notes!”
“Did he show them to you?”
“No. He only said they were ‘plenty hot,’ and that they were worth much more than five thousand dollars.”
Homer whistled. “I think Gavano was bluffing, Trum. He probably felt that he had a chance to get the notes from the original thief. And, too, it gave him something in his own line to mess around with until Wednesday.”
Trum lit another cigarette. “I’m pretty sure he was bluffing, Bull. I think I know who has those notes.”
“Nicky English?”
Trum almost dropped his cigarette. “How in the world did you know that?”
“I didn’t. I’m stabbing. But how do you know?”
“I was alone in the library for quite a while this evening—Shipley has an admirable collection of Hogarth, a favorite of mine. I spent about an hour going through his plates and then wandered out on the terrace. I saw you and MacAndrew return from the Tuckers. I won’t deny that I was curious to know whether you had any part of that first chapter. I knew you’d have her try to redo it from memory.”
“You have a detective’s mind, Trum.”
“At any rate, I left the terrace for my room. After a while, I came downstairs again, and stood in the dining room for a moment, I don’t know why. As you know, it’s possible to see the studio door from almost any part of the dining room. The hall to the studio was lit. I say that because my eyesight is none too good. If that light hadn’t been lit, I couldn’t have seen the door, nor the man who ran out of it quite suddenly.”
“You recognized the man?”
“I couldn’t be sure—he was running, you know. But I could almost swear it was Nicky English.”
Homer leaned back in his chair, his eyes half closed.
“You noticed the way he was dressed?”
“No.”
“In spite of the fact that you didn’t see him well, you still identify him as Nicky English?”
“Only because of what happened later. I followed the man through the main hall—”
“Just a moment, Trum! Did you see the man running down the main hall?”
Trum shook his head.
“Then you aren’t sure he ran down the main hall? He could have run through the dining room, onto the terrace, isn’t that right?”
Trum squirmed. “Of course it’s right. I took for granted the fact that he would run down the hall. That was why I went directly toward the front of the house—toward the library.”
“I’m not saying that he didn’t run down the main hall, Trum. I’m only suggesting that your man might have gone through other rooms—rooms you didn’t search. You didn’t examine the living room and the terrace, did you?”
“No, I didn’t. I went directly to the library. When I got there, I saw Nicky English. He was coming out.”
“How was he dressed?”
Trum wrinkled his fat brows. “That’s odd, Bull; I can’t say that I remember.”
“Nicky was wearing a tweed jacket and buff-colored slacks all day,” said Homer. “Don’t you think you would have recalled that ensemble if the man who ran out of the studio had worn it?”
Trum shrugged. “I haven’t much of an eye for clothes.”
“You must excuse my interruptions, Trum. I’m not trying to clear Nicky English—not by a long shot. But if you want to identify him as my assailant, we’ll have to have clearer proof.”
“I understand. I was getting to that. You see, when I met Nicky in the library, he seemed exceptionally sly and sharp with me. It seemed that he was playing cat to my canary, if you get what I mean. He asked me whether I had yet seen any part of Shipley’s book. I told him I hadn’t. He insinuated that it would make excellent material for his column. He seemed to be warning me—to be buying my silence—”
“You mean that he knew you had seen him from the dining room?”
“Oh, I can’t be sure of that, Bull. I can’t be sure. It was all innuendo, mind you—all innuendo.”
“But it might have been just Nicky’s normal manner of speech.”
There was a confused silence.
“I suppose so.”
“You left the library with Nicky?”
“No, I remained there.”
“How long?”
“I couldn’t say, Bull. But I got out of there when I saw the doctor come by the hall. I followed him into the studio.”
Homer arose to end the interview.
“You’ve been very helpful, Trum—in many ways. No need to worry any more about—those notes.”
Trum eyed him quizzically for a moment and said good night. Homer turned from the door and went rapidly to his table near the window.
“You think Trum was leveling, Homer?”
“Leveling?” He shot me a quick smile. “Trum’s afraid, Hank. He’s scared stiff!”
“Scared? I thought he looked relieved after he spilled his yarn. Seemed glad to get it off his chest.”
“Maybe. Trum’s a clever man, sonny. I think he came in here tonight to set himself straight with me. I think he’s afraid—afraid that Gavano might have conked us in the studio.”
“Then you don’t think it was Nicky?”
“We’ll find out, Hank—right now!”
I eyed my watch. “Right now? It’s almost three. Nicky must be asleep; he’s a sick boy.”
“I have an idea he’s awake. Scandal columnists don’t usually hit the hay before breakfast time, especially when they’re working on a story. This is Nicky’s creative hour.”
“In spite of the trouncing he got tonight?”
“You handed him his brief case, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “You think that means he’s still working?”
“Unless the drug put him to sleep. I have an idea that Nicky English would work all night to finish the story he had in mind, Hank. We’ve got to see him—and right
away.”
It sounded logical. Homer had been guessing right for ten hours band running. But this was the eleventh hour. How was I to know that this hunch could be wrong?
Dead wrong!
CHAPTER 17
Droopydrawers Gets His!
We minced down the hall to Nicky’s room. Faint streaks of moonlight silvered the long window at the far end of the corridor. But the hall was dark and quiet. Too quiet. Somewhere outside the wind played a dirge on a tree.
Homer rapped on the door gently, then rapped again. He put his ear to the door and listened. Then he stooped to squint through the keyhole.
“I’ll be damned. Take a look, Hank.”
I looked. There wasn’t a light in the room. The faint moonlight showed me Nicky’s bed, empty. I don’t know why I shivered. It may have been the weird light that gave the simple scene the quality of horror. Or perhaps, I thought, the sound of Homer’s breathing, over my left shoulder, made me tremble.
Homer tried the knob, and his right eyebrow went up.
“Locked!” he whispered. “Get our door key, Hank. I discovered this afternoon that all these doors have the same lock.”
I returned with the key and he opened the door.
Inside, he shut it softly behind us. When I made for the light switch, he banged my arm down sharply.
“No need for light, Hank. The moon is bright enough.”
“For what?”
“Look for the notes,” he whispered. “And hop to it—I’d hate to have Nicky walk in on us.”
I opened the bathroom door and peered into the gloom until my eyes caught the dull specks of light on the bathtub hardware. Then the moon played hard to get behind a cloud. The hardware highlights faded. I stood in the middle of the room, near the tub, waiting for the moon.
The light came suddenly, showing me a wall of shower curtains. I pulled them apart, and horror clutched at my guts. I felt my stomach turn over and my heart pound in my ears.
A grey shape hung from the metal rod above. It was Nicky English! His eyes bulged, fishlike, and stared me back into the bedroom. I almost fell into Homer’s arms.
“Nicky!” I gasped, pointing a shaking finger into the john. “Stiff!”
Then I slumped into a chair and felt my arteries harden. The light clicked on in the bathroom. Off again. Homer skipped around the bedroom.
“The key,” he muttered, and back he went to the john.
My stomach fell back in its groove. I joined Homer.
“Get a blanket, Hank. We’ll cover the window in here. I need light.”
I hung a blanket over the small window, and he snapped on the light.
Nicky hung by a red cord, knotted at the far end of the heavy shower fixture. It was grisly. His arms hung limp; his long robe seemed ready to drop from his shoulders at a sneeze. The broad sleeves hid his hands completely.
I was studying the contrast of purple robe against his bandaged green face when Homer beckoned me to the sink. He stood over a small mound of ashes.
“Nicky burned his bridges behind him,” he said.
“Small bridges. Why should Nicky burn papers in the sink?”
“Why should Nicky commit suicide?” Homer countered, scraping the ashes into an envelope. “Hold the fort—I’m going to call Swink!”
How easy it had been to hate Nicky! But why should he commit suicide? I plunged back over the trail of evidence for a reason. Could Nicky have killed Shipley? The charred note pointed to that sort of a mess. But how? And why would he kill Shipley, even if it were possible? Could it be that Shipley had been the man who took Marie Parrish aboard Trum’s yacht? It was a motive. I remembered suddenly that we didn’t yet know the answer to the Marie Parrish business. After all, Nicky may have discovered that Shipley had withheld information about the accident. Nicky was supposed to have been madly in love with Marie. He hadn’t, since then, been tied up with any other heart interest. He may have been waiting for a chance to get even with Shipley.
Homer returned and scampered into the john. He came out holding aloft the missing key.
“It was in his pocket.”
“Meaning which?”
“Meaning, I suppose, that Nicky locked the door, put the key in his pocket, burned almost all of the Shipley book notes, and stepped off the stool into eternity.”
“Neat. But why?”
Homer disregarded my question. He had found Nicky’s brief case, hidden on a shelf in the closet. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and thumbed through them. They were standard letter size sheets of typewriting paper—all blank! In a side pocket Homer found a fountain pen, a few pencils and an eraser. He tried the pen. It was full.
“Queerer and queerer,” he said. “You’re quite sure you handed him his brief case?”
I nodded. “Positive.”
“It didn’t—it couldn’t have slipped off the bed?”
“I put it in his hands. If it slipped off the bed, Nicky might have put it in the closet after that.”
“I wonder.” Homer looked at his hands, pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the ink off his fingers. “Damn pen leaks.”
Then he bounced into the bathroom again.
“Look here, Hank. Nicky did write last night, after all.”
He had pulled back the long sleeve and disclosed Nicky’s right hand. There was a small blue stain on the side of the middle finger.
“He was writing for quite a while. You’ll notice that the stain isn’t local. Nicky didn’t notice the leaky pen. It dripped down his finger. There must be a stain on the sheet. He kept writing until he got sleepy. Then he dropped the notes into his brief case until the thought of suicide struck him. He returned the brief cases to the closet, went into the bathroom, burned the notes—along with the Shipley notes—and then committed suicide. Sound logical?”
“Could be.”
There was the sound of a car scrunching up the driveway.
“That’s Swink and the coroner, Hank. Let them in through the back door. And be quiet about it.”
The coroner, a meaty little fellow named Bruck, gaped up at Nicky English. He pushed his glasses back on his bumpy forehead and tsk-tsked sadly, as though Nicky might have been an old friend.
Homer borrowed the coroner’s tape measure, crawled around in the tub, fussed with the corpse and made rapid entries in his little black book. He measured everything—the stool, the shower rod and the width of the tub. He straddled the tub edge and dropped the tape from Nicky’s head to the stool.
“What does it read, Hank?”
“Five foot five.”
“Hold the tape at Nicky’s heel now.”
“Five foot three.”
“Check it again.”
I tried hard to avoid touching Nicky.
“Five three and one-eighth,” I amended.
“A small size coffin,” said Bruck. “What you measurin’ for, Bull?”
“I like to measure, Bruck. It’s been pretty well proven that a suicide is more or less wacky at the moment of jumping off, hasn’t it?”
“So I’ve heard. Never did take much stock in that sort of talk, myself. Man who commits suicide is a dern fool, yes. But he’s far from crazy, the way I see it.”
“But doesn’t a suicide usually manage the business with a certain neatness? He’s thought the thing through, hasn’t he?”
“Don’t follow you, Bull.”
“Nor I,” said Swink.
“Here’s what I mean,” smiled Homer. “Nicky measures exactly five feet three and one-eighth. The distance from the stool to Nicky’s head is exactly five feet five inches. That means that Nicky stood on his toes to tie the rope around his neck, doesn’t it?”
Bruck looked up from polishing his glasses. “Possible.”
“I won’t argue the point,” said Homer. “But it seems to me t
hat a man who contemplated stepping off a stool would stand on it squarely. There’d be no reason on earth for Nicky to stand on his toes and tie that knot around his neck.”
“On the other hand,” said Swink, “supposin’ he tied the rope to the shower fixture first? It’s possible that way, ain’t it?”
“Is it, Swink? Would a man deliberately tie a knot around his neck so high that he would have to stand on his toes? That would be more torture, I should think, than suicide itself.”
Bruck studied the hanging figure quietly. “Let’s take the man down first, Bull, and argue later. I want to look at his neck.”
They were soon standing in the doorway, Bruck wiping his forehead, Homer and Swink awaiting his judgment.
“Far as I can see, Bull, the man choked to death. Neck wasn’t broken—just throttled himself. He wound that cord round his neck so tight, I’d say ’twas over pretty quick after he kicked that stool away.”
“Wouldn’t it be natural for his neck to break?”
“Not at all. Depends on the distance he dropped, I reckon. Man like this’d have to drop a good distance to break his neck, I’d say—him bein’ so light and all.”
“You’ve had similar cases, then?”
Bruck nodded. “Some. Fact is, most of ’em died the way this ’un did.”
“How about the rope, then? Have you ever found a knot on a suicide as unusual as this one?”
Bruck looked back at the john. “How d’you mean, ‘unusual’?”
“I’m talking about suicide knots exclusively,” Homer explained. “They’ve always interested me, these knots that drag a weary soul into the next world. How would a man determine the knot he uses? It seems to me, allowing for the fixed and frenzied purpose of a man contemplating suicide, that he’d only tie a knot he’d tied before. Isn’t that so?”
Bruck exchanged a baffled look with Swink.
Homer explained. “My point is this, gentlemen. I don’t think we can find much variation in the type of knot a man will use to throttle himself. It stands to reason that habit would govern all knot tying in cases of this sort, doesn’t it? A sailor might strangle himself with a half hitch, or a bowie, or whatever it is that sailors use for knotting most things securely. A cowboy, on the other hand, might tie another knot on his throat. So might a woodsman. But for most of us, knot tying involves the simple mechanics used in tying a Christmas package—one, two, three and it’s done. Nicky English wasn’t a Boy Scout. Nicky’s knowledge of knots was limited to the colloquial. Do I make myself clear?”
Death Paints the Picture Page 13
