The Back-seat Murder

by Herman Landon

  He broke off with a sharp squeal. Harrington had seized him by the throat, jerked the glove from his hand and tossed it to Theresa, and now, transferring his grip from the man’s throat to his collar, he dragged him toward the door. The blackmailer squirmed and kicked and whined, but to no avail. In the entrance hall, after opening the door, Harrington gave a vigorous heave, and the little man went hurtling into the darkness and swirling rain. A thud and a scream sounded as he landed on the soggy lawn.

  “Not so good, eh, Tarkin?” Harrington called out, his feelings considerably relieved.

  Back in the library, he found Theresa standing before the fireplace. The fire was almost out; all that remained was a smolder and a glow in the ashes. Her slender figure drooping a little, she gazed as if fascinated at the charred and smoking mass. There was a faint reek in the air.

  “H’m,” said Harrington, following her rigid gaze. “So Tarkin’s ten thousand is going up in smoke.”

  “Yes,” she said absently, “the laundry marks—”

  “Oh, the laundry marks.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “We might as well make a thorough job of it.”

  He took kindling from the fuel basket, watched it blaze up, then added a couple of logs. He watched her unsteadily, as if she were a long distance away.

  “Better get up closer,” he advised. “You are drenched. And you might as well remove that raincoat.”

  Mechanically she took off the outer garment, and he drew up a chair close to the fire. For a time he stood looking at her with the same far-off expression in his eyes.

  “Wonder how Tarkin happened to know so much,” he mumbled.

  She continued to gaze into the fire as if she had not heard him. She shook her head listlessly when he offered a cigarette, and he lighted one for himself.

  “Funny thing about that glove,” he remarked. “I can think of no earthly reason why the person wearing it should remove it and drop it so close to the—er—fatal spot It seems like playing into the hands of fate.”

  She sat leaning forward in the chair, her face in her hands, while the firelight gleamed on her dark head. Now and then he looked at her queerly, with a grim smile on his lips.

  “Curious scoundrel, that Tarkin. Didn’t seem to know much about blackmailing technique. And he handled the glove very carelessly. I wonder—”

  He looked down at the floor as if a particularly puzzling thought had come to him, then shrugged and paced up and down the room a few times.

  “Anyhow,” he muttered, “the person who committed the murder must be a second Houdini. And Marsh must have been another.” He paused beside her and looked down at her gleaming head with an uncertain expression. “I suppose, now that the evidence has been reduced to ashes, we might as well turn the majesty of the law loose on the case. We’ve delayed rather long.”

  He waited for her answer, which was only a slow nod, and then he stepped up to the table and consulted the telephone book. In a little while he had Mr. Whittaker, the prosecuting attorney, on the wire. When he had made his brief report, he glanced about the room. For an instant his eyes paused on the fireplace. He sniffed. There was a suspicious reek in the air.

  “A bit stuffy in here,” he observed. “Suppose we open the windows for a bit.”

  CHAPTER VIII — The Law Takes Its Course

  The clock in the library had chimed the hour of two before Seneca Whittaker, the prosecuting attorney, arrived. With him he brought a little retinue consisting of Doctor Griffin, the county medical examiner, and two county detectives, Cunningham and Storm.

  A long, rangy, dour man was Seneca Whittaker. He had a gentle face that made one think of a melancholy lamb, and his voice was soft and a little plaintive. He always walked and spoke as if he were in a sickroom. With the exception of the white vest he wore, his clothing was rather untidy and ill-fitting. The white, double-buttoned vest, however, was an immaculate and impressive thing. Whittaker was proud of it. He displayed it whenever he could by the simple expedient of pushing his coat to the sides and thrusting his hands into his trousers pockets.

  Doctor Griffin and the two detectives were all incredulity while Harrington told his story. Occasionally the former snickered contemptuously, while the latter exchanged meaningful glances. Harrington himself felt at times as if his recital of facts merited nothing but disbelief. It was difficult to maintain a calm voice while he told of Marsh’s sudden and inexplicable appearance in the Waynefleet sedan and the equally sudden and inexplicable murder. Whittaker, however, looked as if he were of the firm opinion that this was a world of melodrama in which anything might happen.

  Toward the end of Harrington’s story, he got up from his chair, displayed his ornamental vest to full advantage, and sauntered over to one of the windows. The storm had dwindled down to a slow drizzle and a fitful moan of wind. Whittaker looked down at the rug at his feet, and then he stooped and touched it briefly. He waited until Harrington had finished, and then he walked over to the opposite window and went through the same performance.

  “You’ve had the windows open, I see,” he observed. “It’s been raining in. There’s quite a pool on the windward side.”

  Harrington gaped at him. It seemed an absurdly irrelevant observation for Whittaker to make after listening to such an amazing story. He recalled, however, that he had opened the windows to clear the room of the odors of the burnt glove.

  “Yes, I opened them,” he said. “The room needed an airing.”

  “Did it?” asked Whittaker, regarding him sluggishly. “Let’s see, the wind died down suddenly at midnight. Not much rain could have blown in after that. You didn’t get back till about half past eleven, you tell me. Then you must have opened the windows between half past eleven and midnight.”

  Harrington nodded vaguely and sought Theresa’s eyes.

  “Weren’t you cold?” asked Whittaker. “You had just come in from a long drive in the storm.” Harrington gave a little start. He was just beginning to perceive the drift of Whittaker’s remarks.

  “The fire was smoking,” he casually explained. “It’s better to freeze than to suffocate.”

  “Oh, smoking, eh?” Whittaker turned his melancholy eyes on the fireplace. “Wonder what made it smoke. It isn’t smoking now.”

  While Harrington watched him with a growing tension, he walked up to the fireplace and looked down at the hearthstone. His head drooped lower and lower from his shoulders. Harrington, tracing his downward gaze, saw that there were particles of dried mud on the hearthstone.

  “Now, that’s queer.” Whittaker gave a mirthless chuckle. “If a fire had been burning, nobody could have stood as close as this without getting scorched. If there was no fire, what was the sense in standing up close?”

  Harrington stole a glance in Theresa’s direction. He saw a look of vague alarm on her face. Whittaker, it seemed, was gradually approaching a ticklish point. Harrington recalled that he had built up the fire after Theresa had thrown the glove on the glowing ashes.

  “Now, I wonder what made the smoke,” Whittaker said again in his gentle, plaintive voice. And then, while two pairs of eyes in the room watched him anxiously, he took the poker, pushed back the burning log, and proceeded to rake the embers and ashes. It was a tedious task, and Whittaker was a patient man. At length he dragged a small object out on the hearthstone.

  “Too hot to touch,” he said, but he tapped the little object with the poker, knocking off the coating of ash. “Why, it’s a button! What kind of button, I wonder? Too small for a vest and not the right shape for a shirt.” He got down on his knees and inspected his find closely. “It’s from a glove,” he declared. “A lady’s glove, I should say. And there’s a trade-mark on it. Well, we’ll just let it cool off.”

  He got up, spread his coat apart, exhibiting his vest, and fixed a gentle, quizzical look on Harrington and Theresa.

  “All right, doc. We’ll have a look at the body. You watch this button, Cunningham. You take a rim through the house, Storm. Better come alo
ng, Mr. Harrington. I think Miss Lanyard needs a rest.”

  The three, led by Harrington, went out to the garage. Harrington unlocked and opened the door and switched on the electric light, then stood aside while Whittaker walked slowly around the sedan, inspecting each door and window.

  “You say these doors and windows were locked?” he questioned.

  “All the windows were closed, and three of the doors were locked from the inside. The front door on the right was closed but not locked.”

  “And you were going thirty-five miles an hour?”

  “Between thirty-five and forty.”

  In his sluggish manner, Whittaker inspected the arrangement of the doors.

  “Nice little problem,” he commented. “Since the front door on the right was the only one that wasn’t locked, Marsh must have gotten into the car that way.”

  “But I would have seen him,” Harrington protested. “Besides, how could a man get into a car traveling over thirty-five miles an hour?”

  “I don’t know,” Whittaker confessed with a sigh. “All I know is what you told me. You said Marsh appeared in the rear seat after you had been going about three quarters of an hour. To appear there, he had to get in somehow, and there’s only one way he could have gotten in.”

  “But that’s an impossible way.”

  “Trying to prove yourself a liar, Mr. Harrington?” Whittaker chuckled in his dreary way. “Well, how Marsh got in isn’t any more mysterious than how the murderer got at him. All right, doc. Do your stuff.” Doctor Griffin opened the rear door and looked in at the gruesomely twisted figure in the corner.

  “I need more light than that,” he declared.

  Whittaker looked around, and his eyes fixed on a work bench littered with tools of all descriptions. With Harrington’s assistance he cleared off the bench, and then, by the combined efforts of the three men, the body was lifted from the car and placed upon it “Now,” said Whittaker while the examiner went about his task, “please sit down at the wheel, just as you were when you first saw Marsh in the car.” Harrington climbed into the front seat, gripped the wheel, and fixed his eyes on the rear-view mirror. Soon he saw Whittaker’s dour face reflected in the glass.

  “Is this how Marsh sat?” the prosecutor inquired. “Just a little more toward the center.”

  Whittaker edged over. “Now tell me again what happened.”

  “We were going down a hill. When we reached the bottom, I started to apply the brakes, but they weren’t working well, and Marsh ordered me to go on and take the road on the left. I knew that wasn’t the right road, and I didn’t like the looks of things anyway, so I stopped the car as soon as I could. We had an argument, and Marsh pulled a pistol on me.”

  “You saw the pistol in the mirror?”

  “I did. I saw Marsh’s face, too. He looked as if he actually meant to kill me. Oh, yes, I saw murder in his face. And I had no desire to die just then, so I went on and turned to the left.”

  “That’s the old, narrow road that leads to the Hilltop View Hotel?”

  “It Is, but I didn’t know it then. Looking in the mirror, I saw Marsh leaning back and smoking a cigar as if he were actually enjoying himself. I surmised he meant to kill me, and I was only playing for time. We reached the top of the hill, and Marsh ordered me to stop. He asked me if I didn’t think it was a good place to die, and then he said he was going to kill me.”

  “Why did he want to kill you?”

  “Oh, he had an absurd obsession that I was after his life. He was pressing the pistol against my spine, and I expected every moment to be my last. The only hope I could see was to jump for my life, and I doubted if I could jump fast enough. It seemed I would stand a better chance if I could give him a jolt of some sort and distract his mind for a moment. And so, all of a sudden I turned around and—”

  “Show me,” said Whittaker.

  Harrington changed from narrative to pantomime. He swung around in the seat and faced the man sitting behind him.

  “Then I asked him why he killed David Mooreland.” The prosecutor’s face went blank for a moment “Oh, you asked him why he killed David Mooreland. Did you have any reason for asking him that?”

  “Yes, I did. But even if I hadn’t had any reason whatever, the way he looked at me at that moment was proof enough. I never saw such a look of guilt in my life. I almost forgot to jump. And then—“ Harrington’s voice wavered. “Then it happened.”

  “While you were still turned around in your seat and facing him?”

  “Yes, just as I am facing you now. Marsh died before my eyes. First his face convulsed in the most horrible manner. Then his eyes grew round and glassy. He heaved forward, gave a scream, and then his head slumped down on his chest He was dead in a few minutes.”

  Whittaker inclined his head and meditated gloomily.

  “You didn’t see anything of the murderer?”

  “Nothing whatever.”

  “You saw no weapon, no hand reaching out, or anything of that sort?”

  Harrington shook his head. Again he had an embarrassing feeling that he had told an incredible thing. He wondered why Whittaker did not denounce him as a liar. Yet, even now, the death scene was horribly real and vivid in his mind.

  “Tell me,” said Whittaker, “did you have any idea as to whether Marsh was struck from the side or from the back?”

  “From the back, I should say,”—after a moment’s reflection. “That’s only a hazy impression, though. I didn’t see the blow struck. All I saw was how Marsh reacted to it.”

  Whittaker fixed him with a long, sluggish look. Over at the bench the examiner was muttering to himself as he went about his task. Now Whittaker turned and inspected the window in the rear, running his fingers over it and pressing against it to make sure that it was securely fastened.

  “No answer here,” he announced.

  “Or anywhere else, I fear,” said Harrington.

  Whittaker switched on the light in the roof of the car, and then, finding it insufficient, swept the interior with his flashlight. He made a careful search of the seat, its upholstery appallingly smeared in places, then turned his attention to the floor.

  “Did Marsh wear a hat?” he suddenly inquired.

  Harrington stared at him. It seemed an utterly pointless question, but he recalled now that Marsh had been bareheaded. Even now, in imagination, he could see, in the dusky interior of the car, Marsh’s bald head and malevolent face.

  “Bareheaded, eh?” Whittaker echoed in his gentle, plaintive voice. “That’s queer. I must ask Storm what he thinks about that Storm has the right kind of brains for this sort of job. Well, doc?”

  Doctor Griffin had turned away from his inspection of the body. He scratched his chin reflectively.

  “I don’t like to state a definite opinion without a more thorough examination, but I should say the jugular vein had been cut at the point where it joins the subclavian vein.”

  “What sort of weapon?”

  “A very slender instrument, I should say. It might have been done with an ice pick.”

  “Could Marsh have killed himself?”

  Harrington shook his head at the question. Such an idea was utterly at variance with what he had witnessed.

  “If he had, there would be a weapon in the car, wouldn’t there?” said Doctor Griffin. “Under the circumstances, as Mr. Harrington has stated them, it would have been impossible for Marsh to throw the weapon away after stabbing himself. But he didn’t stab himself. This wound wasn’t self-inflicted. I’d stake my reputation on that.”

  “That’s out then,” Whittaker observed. “We know now that it’s a case of murder. All we want to know now is who did it, and how. Maybe Storm can figure it out.” He leaned his long, rangy body against the side of the car and pondered. “By the way, Mr. Harrington, what kind of cigars did Mr. Marsh smoke?”

  “Cigars?” Harrington peered at him bewilderedly. It seemed another pointless question. “He smoked a brand called Cuban Queen.�
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  “Expensive, aren’t they? About three for a dollar?”

  “I believe so. Yes, Marsh had expensive tastes in cigars.”

  “And you say he lighted one as you started up the hill after you had taken the left turn. Was he still smoking it when you stopped on the top?” Harrington’s mind went back over the tense moments.

  “I believe so. I couldn’t be positive, though. I was too excited to notice such details.”

  Whittaker nodded understandingly. “Anyway, the cigar must have dropped from his mouth when he was stabbed. Here it is.” He reached inside the car, picked up something, and exhibited a half-smoked cigar. The band was partly charred, but the name was still legible. He passed the fragment to Harrington. “Queer, eh?”

  Harrington studied the band for a moment.

  “‘Okay,’” he read, his brows puckering.

  “It’s a puzzle,” said Whittaker. “Okay is a cheap cigar. You can buy them three for a quarter. Quite a come-down for a man used to the best. I wonder why Mr. Marsh smoked good cigars all his life and a cheap one the day he was murdered. Maybe Storm can figure it out. Storm has brains. Here he is now.”

  CHAPTER IX — Tracks in the Mud

  The garage door opened and Storm, a thickset, flint-jawed man with shrewd eyes beneath beetling brows, walked in and reported that he had gone through the house but had found nothing of interest.

  “Well, there are a few interesting things here,” Whittaker told him. “I want your opinion on them, Storm. First, Mr. Harrington here tells me Marsh was bareheaded. What do you make of that?”

  The detective’s bushy brows contracted.

  “He wasn’t in the habit of going out bareheaded, was he? Some men think it makes the hair grow.”

  “No,” said Harrington. “I have been here three weeks, and I never saw him go out without his hat.”