Footprints on the Ceiling

by Clayton Rawson

  “Yes. I’ll go along with you on that. It hangs together. Might be why the body was moved, too. A body in an empty, unregistered-for hotel room doesn’t give us anything to link to. Not a half-bad way to dispose of a body at that. But since it wasn’t murder, why the devil—”

  “You’re starting that premise from the wrong end, Inspector. You mean, with all that monkey business afoot, it might very well be murder. And that’s not all. The person who typed that letter and forged Floyd’s name may have done so in order to mislead Floyd’s intimates further. If they did notice a report of an unidentified corpse answering fairly well to Floyd’s description, it wouldn’t register because they would think he’s neither dead nor missing, but on a trip. Furthermore he’s apparently written a letter that he mailed after the body was found. Someone has a flair for detail.”

  “And the person who did the body-moving,” Gavigan added, “the mustache shaving, and the clothes swiping also had access to this typewriter! Our one list of suspects does for both bodies! And Arnold could have done all that—all except—except how the hell did he plant that letter on the 1:20 train? He was eating lunch here with four witnesses. And—Malloy! Take Quinn and go over those people upstairs. Find out what they were up to night before last, especially 1 a. m. Get alibis. Quinn, you check and find out if that water taxi brought Floyd back here after Henderson took him in. I’m going to look at that houseboat. If anyone did any diving it was out there. I’ll want Hunter and you, too, Brady. And lock that darkroom as you leave and hang on to the key.”

  Merlini got to his feet. “I want to make a phone call first.” His long legs carried him quickly up the stairs and out, before Gavigan had a chance to get inquisitive.

  And that reminded me of something. So, as we all went up and through the kitchen, I slipped, as unobtrusively as possible, into the back stairway I’d noticed there, leading to the second floor. But Gavigan saw me.

  “Hey. Where’d you think you’re going?”

  “Bathroom,” I said, trying to make it sound urgent.

  He frowned but let me go. I headed for the phone in Linda’s room and found it was the one Merlini had chosen. He was replacing the receiver as I came in.

  “Did you know you’re a wanted man, Ross?” he said. “I’ve been talking to Burt. He says that theater crowd you work for is wild. The director, the producer, and both angels have all been in his hair trying to locate you. They’ve got a private detective agency on the job and they had your description included in a Missing Persons broadcast about an hour ago.”

  “That bad? I’ll ask for a raise. Let’s have that phone if you’re through. I’ve just remembered that a friend of mine was looking for you yesterday. I promised him something. Hello. City desk—”

  I gave Ted an earful, no more than the Inspector would have to dish out as soon as the reporters caught up with him, but enough to make some nice fat headlines. He acted as if there hadn’t been anything to slap on the front page for the last month except the weather. And, if I hadn’t hung up on him finally, I’d be talking yet.

  “Now you’ve gone and done it,” Merlini said. “If Gavigan ever—wait!” He took his handkerchief and polished off the phone receiver. “You should know better than to leave your prints on the scene of your crime.”

  “Come on,” I said impatiently. “Let’s go. The Inspector might shove off without us.”

  I headed for the window and the sun deck, that being the most direct route. Merlini followed me; but, as we went toward the flight of steps, he said, suddenly, “Wait, Ross.”

  He had halted near another window, attracted by what he saw inside. He peered in for a moment and then rapped lightly on the pane. The sound acted with electric swiftness on the man who sat there, intent at something on the writing desk before him. He jumped guiltily and his head jerked, turning toward the window. It was Colonel Watrous. He saw us and with quick pantomime beckoned us in, holding an admonitory finger to his lips.

  Merlini lifted the window sash, and we crossed the sill quietly. Watrous wore a pair of earphones clamped over his head, and the wire attached to them led to an open, brown suitcase, its interior completely filled by what appeared to be a built-in combination radio and phonograph. The raised lid disclosed a revolving phonographic turntable and sound arm. One end of the suitcase, also hinged, was lowered, showing a bakelite panel bearing rheostat and tuning dials.

  The Colonel, still watching us, twisted one of the dials slightly, an intent listening look on his face. I noticed a second wire issuing from the machine that ended in a round black microphone hanging against the wall above the desk.

  “I was about to come and get you,” Watrous said, in a half whisper. “That’s Rappourt’s room.” He gestured toward the wall on which the mike hung. “Brooke’s in there with her and planning to take French leave. He’s going to blackjack the police launch man and cut for it.”

  “Is this,” Merlini asked, “an eavesdropping machine?”

  “Yes. Latest thing in detectors—doesn’t require a mike in the other room. You merely put it against an outside wall and it picks up the vibrations and amplifies them. It’ll record, too. Listen.” He lifted the sound arm, snapped a switch labeled Playback, and moved the sound arm an eighth of an inch back on the record. “I got this to keep tabs on Rappourt,” he added, “when I began to suspect she might be faking.” He fell silent as the soundbox point touched the disk. Ira’s voice came, in mid-sentence, somewhat indistinct and slurred, rising above a rumbling undercurrent of hollow sound:

  “—too damned hot around here. I’m going to knock over that dick at the boat landing and take it on the lam now.”

  “I couldn’t get any more after that,” Watrous said, reversing the playback switch. “They’re still talking but it’s too low to catch.” He moved one of the dials again, listening.

  Merlini held out his hand for the earphones. “Get anything on Rappourt?”

  “No. Nothing.” Watrous shook his head and passed over the headset. “Except—well, what’s Brooke running for? And what do we do? Face him with it or lie low and catch him in the act?”

  Merlini held the phones against his ears, listened briefly, and then answered, “Neither, just yet.”

  He returned the headset, went quickly to the door and out into the hall. We heard him knock sharply at Rappourt’s door. Watrous listened, one hand at his dials. I stepped to the hall quickly and heard Rappourt’s voice raised.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  “Merlini.” He pushed the door in without waiting for an invitation. “Looking for you, Brooke. The Inspector wants to see you.”

  Ira didn’t answer immediately. Then he said smoothly. “Yes. Of course. Be down in just a moment.”

  “He’s in a hurry, Brooke.” Merlini was insistent.

  Behind me I heard Watrous jerk his mike from the wall, close the suitcase and slide it under the bed. He came to stand beside me in the doorway just as Brooke came out into the hall. Rappourt remained where she was. Merlini, Watrous, and I followed Brooke downstairs.

  Malloy and Quinn were in the living-room questioning Miss Verrill. As our procession started through, Malloy said, “Just a minute. I want you two. Brooke and Watrous.”

  “Keep him happy, Colonel,” Merlini said, herding Brooke on and out. And to Malloy, “The Inspector wants Brooke.”

  Merlini led the way quickly toward the boathouse. Inspector Gavigan was there, waiting with Brady and Hunter. The skipper of the police launch was warming her up.

  Gavigan looked at us, scowled at Brooke and said, “Not you. Captain Malloy wants—”

  Merlini stepped close to him and whispered rapidly. Gradually the Inspector’s face brightened. Brooke was puzzled. The frown he directed at Merlini’s back was venomous. Then he caught me watching him. His face smoothed immediately into a blank disinterest.

  Gavigan’s objections had evaporated. He indicated all of us. “Get aboard,” he commanded.

  I could see the diver’s two assi
stants on the deck of the houseboat as we approached. Then, off to the left, I made out a cluster of bubbles breaking on the river’s surface and indicating Mr. Novak’s position. One of the assistants, a square-jawed, beefy man, wore a chest phone and headset. He talked into the mouthpiece and kept a careful watch on the pressure gauge attached to a hooked-up series of four compressed-air tanks that lay on the deck. The other man, at the rail, was paying out air hose and life line.

  “Any more luck?” Gavigan inquired.

  The man with the phone shook his head. “No. Not yet. Pretty dark down there. He’s feeling around for those boats.”

  The single room in the houseboat cabin was fitted out as a combination workshop and drafting-room. A half-finished drawing on tracing linen was tacked on the drafting table, and blueprints hung along the walls. In the center of the room stood a water-filled glass aquarium. Floating on the water was a small, excellently constructed model of what was apparently Brooke’s Suction Salvage device. A jointed steel tube, capable of extension and retraction, descended from the underside of a dredgelike, flat-bottomed boat and terminated in a scooplike open maw that rested on the bottom.

  The various pieces of a diving suit hung from hooks on the wall, and the round helmet with its great, goggling glass eyes stared at us from a corner. Merlini picked up one of the heavy, lead-weighted shoes and examined it closely. “They’ve been cleaned up,” he said, “But there are some traces of silt.”

  “All right, Brooke,” Gavigan said flatly. “It’s time for you to start talking. There’s a whale of a lot you can add to your statement, and I know it. So begin.”

  “I don’t understand. About what?” The innocently bewildered way he blinked at the Inspector from behind his glasses was expertly done.

  “Floyd. We’ve found him. You might start with that.”

  Brooke’s eyebrows rose together like twin elevators. “I don’t know what you want me to say. I know nothing about him. I haven’t seen him since night before last at dinner.”

  Gavigan bore down. “That won’t do, Brooke, and you know it. Floyd’s told us a lot. He admits that, after leaving the island the other night, he came back here to the houseboat while the others were busy at a séance. He went down in that diving suit to look at the wreck. You stayed topside and took care of his air. You might as well admit it.”

  There was a faintly greenish hue on Brooke’s face that grew as Gavigan talked. Then for a long moment he said nothing. Finally he made his decision. “All right. So what? He came back here. He dived. I took him into town again. He said he was coming back. He didn’t. Since you’ve talked to him, you know, I suppose. I don’t.”

  “Who left the island in that boat last night?”

  “I don’t know. Why should I? I wasn’t there.”

  “You might be interested in knowing that the boat’s been found on the other side at 130th St. Who knew about that boat besides yourself and Floyd?”

  “If Floyd says I know about that boat, he’s lying.”

  “I see. How did Floyd get back to the island after Henderson took him in?”

  “Water taxi. And it picked him up again afterward.”

  Gavigan grinned. “There’s only one water taxi on this river, and it didn’t make any trips out here Thursday night.”

  “The driver’s lying, too. Floyd tipped him not to talk.” Gavigan took a step toward him and stuck his chin out. Merlini said quickly, “And what did Floyd find on the bottom?”

  Brooke turned, ignoring Gavigan. “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “Perhaps. But we’d like to hear your answer. His story and yours don’t check too well so far. We thought we’d match them and try to cancel out the—er—the misstatements from each.”

  “Do you want to tell us now,” Gavigan asked ominously, “or have it sweated out of you at headquarters?”

  Brooke shrugged. “If you’ll stop barking at me, I’ll tell you now. If Floyd’s spilled it, there’s no point in my keeping quiet. He knew that Lamb intended to get a diver to investigate. He was impatient. Maybe he had last-minute doubts. I don’t know. He wanted to get a look first, himself.”

  “Why’d he have to go down in the middle of the night?” Gavigan rapped suspiciously.

  Brooke raised an eyebrow. “That means nothing. At 110 feet it’s pitch black at any time. And the diving in this river has to be done at slack water. Low tide was at 10:30.”

  “The séance was to cover the diving, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, yes. Partly. He didn’t want Lamb to know. He begged off the séance, had Henderson take him into town, and came back in the taxi. Why he tells you about the diving and won’t admit that, I don’t know. He dived and he satisfied himself that it was the Hussar.”

  “He found a couple of bucketfuls of guineas?”

  Ira’s hesitation was lengthy. Then he said, “Yes.”

  “Where are they?”

  “He took them with him.”

  “Why? Why didn’t he run in and show them to Lamb and Linda? It was proof wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. But—I don’t know why. He was running the show. Ask him.”

  Merlini said, “How long was Floyd down?” His voice came from the doorway, where he stood looking at a typewritten sheet of paper thumbtacked to the wall.

  “Just a bit under an hour. He fouled his lines once, and it took him about 15 minutes to get untangled.”

  “How much decompression did you give him?”

  “I followed the reading on that diving table. Three minutes at 20 feet, 10 at 10, plus the two allowed for hoisting him—15 altogether.”

  Merlini took out the thumbtacks and carried the sheet to the drafting table. Then he rummaged through a stack of books on the bunk in the corner. He found one, seated himself, and turned to the index. I caught a glimpse of the title: Deep Diving and Submarine Operations by R. H. Davis.

  “Did you advise Floyd against diving?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Brooke nodded slowly. “He hadn’t done any in ten years. He’s lots heavier and he’s been drinking too much. But he went anyway.”

  “Don’t you think you should have refused to assist him? He couldn’t dive without your help.”

  Brooke looked at him a long time. “What do you mean by that? He was all right when he left me— Oh! I begin to get it. The bends hit him later. Did you get him into a decompression tank?”

  Merlini didn’t bother to look up from his book. He thumbed the pages rapidly. “You know we didn’t.”

  Gavigan followed up quickly. “Floyd died of the effects of his diving an hour or two afterward. At the Hotel McKinley. You were there. You undressed him, shaved off his mustache, carried his body down the fire escape, and shoved it into an unoccupied room. Very clever. No clues to identify. What did you do with his clothes—and the guineas?”

  Ira took an involuntary step backward toward the door. “Floyd told you all that, too, I suppose. Rappourt get a psychic message for you?”

  “Maybe. You believe that’s possible, don’t you?”

  “I—I don’t know—I—”

  “Changing your mind all of a sudden, aren’t you? We know more, too. This houseboat has been an excuse for a lot of funny stuff. Pretending to be hard at work out here, you’ve been commuting in to town in that boat of yours instead. After you moved Floyd’s body, you came back to the island, typed a note on the typewriter at the house, forged Floyd’s signature, and put it aboard the 1:20 for Buffalo yesterday afternoon. You wanted it to look as if he were still alive. A play for time. But you made a couple of boners. You picked a lousy train, and you used the wrong typewriter. Well?”

  “I’ve heard enough. I want a lawyer.”

  “And, finally, you were overheard just a few minutes ago laying plans to knock one of my men on the head and take it on the lam. I have a witness to that.”

  “That’s a lie.”

  “You’re under arrest. Take him in, Malloy.”

  Brooke didn’t move. “Charged with what?” he ask
ed.

  “Moving a body without a permit, forging, falsifying and concealing evidence. Also murder.”

  Brooke looked at Gavigan steadily for a moment. Then he took a cigarette from his pocket, tapped it on the back of his hand, and, turning, walked to the door. He stopped there and said stiffly, “I’m allowed one phone call before you jug me. I want to instruct my lawyer to start a suit for false arrest. You’ve put your foot in it, Inspector.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” Gavigan said lightly. “Get going.”

  Merlini spoke up. “Before you go, Brooke. This decompression table you used. Take a look at it.” He stepped forward with the sheet in his hand.

  Brooke scowled suspiciously and glanced at the chart. I saw his eyes become suddenly bright and sharp. When he looked up, there was excitement on his face. His voice crackled.

  “This isn’t the same chart! It’s not right! Someone—”

  “I wondered if you’d say that. Look.” Merlini held-out the diving book and pointed. “It checks with the Navy tables in this book. And Floyd should have had 57 minutes of decompression time. Not 15.

  Ira stared at the book. “Someone—someone—”

  “You’re quite right. Someone changed the tables. It’s murder after all, Inspector, and with a brand-new weapon. One that even the Doctor didn’t think of. Brooke,”—Merlini’s voice was edged and fine—“who else knew that you and Floyd were going to dive?”

  “No one,” Brooke said shakily. “No one but Madame Rappourt. Damn her!”

  Chapter Eighteen:

  MURDER WEAPON

  INSPECTOR GAVIGAN TOOK THE book and paper from Merlini and compared them. There was no sound for a moment except the dull watery slaps of the river against the boat’s side, as the rising tide gently rocked it, and, now and then, a gentle groan from the aged timbers of the hull, as if some small discontented banshee were imprisoned there.

  “At a depth of 108 to 120 feet,” Merlini said then, “a dive of nearly an hour requires four stops on the way up—of 5, 10, 15, and 25 minutes each, with a total ascent time of 57 minutes. The chart in the book also points out in extra-black type that 35 minutes is the longest a diver should remain down at that depth, except in unusual circumstances. If you’ll turn back a few pages, you’ll find that 15 minutes of decompression for a dive of nearly an hour isn’t good for anything over 60 feet, not much more than half the depth here.”