Lady Killer

by George Harmon Coxe

  “What makes you think so?”

  “You seem more interested in me than”—he glanced briefly towards the floor—“you are in Mr. Felton.”

  Murdock kept on thinking and the immediate focus of his thoughts was the darkened kitchen and the bathroom and the closed closet door in the bedroom, all of which he had not bothered to search before he left. It was, he admitted, possible that this man could have come along the narrow street and entered this house while he was busy getting his camera and things from the locked glove compartment of his car. It was quite possible. It was also possible that someone might have waited in one of the darkened rooms all the time Murdock had made his first cursory inspection of the apartment.

  Possible but somewhat unlikely, since this would mean that there were two men in the apartment, the one in hiding, and the one who had slugged Murdock when he came in. Yet even as he considered this possibility another alternative came to him. Suppose the man had ducked into a nearby doorway to see what happened next. If he had waited and seen Murdock come out and start for his car, if he had seen him open the car door, the assumption would be that Murdock was leaving. There would be time then to come back—in case there still remained some unfinished business which had to be taken care of.

  These and other things whipped through Murdock’s mind in those next few seconds and then, because he knew this was all conjecture and a likely waste of time, he nodded.

  “That’s good figuring,” he said. “Yes, I was here. I went out to my car to get a camera.” He held it up. “Harry Felton and I worked on the same paper. My name’s Murdock.”

  “Mine’s Valliere. Guy Valliere.”

  “You came in on the Kemnora.”

  “Yes.”

  “You had some trouble with the customs.”

  “A little.”

  “You were standing with Mr. and Mrs. Arnold when I took a picture of them outside the gate.”

  Something flickered in Valliere’s eyes and was gone. “Oh, yes. I remember now.”

  “You also knew Harry Felton—and had his address.”

  “I knew him when he was a correspondent in France and Germany. He gave me his address and told me to look him up. I decided I would but—” He broke off and glanced down once more. “A frightful business, this. Knocked him about a bit before they killed him, I guess. Stabbed him finally, wouldn’t you say?”

  Murdock didn’t say. He did not know how much of Valliere’s story to believe and he was too mixed up himself to theorize any further.

  “Been in the bedroom?” he asked.

  “Why—no.”

  “Let’s go in.”

  Valliere’s brows came up, wrinkling his forehead. “Why?”

  “There’s a telephone in there. I guess it’s time we called the police.”

  “An excellent idea. I was about to suggest it … In here?” he said, inclining his head towards the hallway and the lighted room beyond.

  “Yes,” Murdock said. “In there.”

  Lieutenant Bacon was a tall, square-shouldered veteran with rain-gray eyes, a lot of graying hair and a dry, laconic way of talking that complemented cleverly the tough aggressive tactics of his assistant, Sergeant Keogh. Arriving a few minutes after Murdock’s call, they were followed at close intervals by plain-clothes men, technicians, the medical examiner, and finally, by Tim Orcutt.

  The examiner’s verdict, pending a post-mortem, was that Felton had suffered a severe beating and that death had come as the result of a stab wound just over the heart. Now, at nine thirty, the examiner had gone, the body had been removed, and the lone technician who remained worked quietly in the bedroom. Murdock, slouched back on the couch next to Orcutt, had told his story briefly, as had Valliere, and Bacon’s attention was once more centered on the tall blond man as he checked certain statements already made.

  “You’re sure you didn’t see Murdock come out of the door downstairs and walk towards his car?”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Valliere said, “after I turned the corner, possibly because I wasn’t looking for anyone. The street door was ajar and I came up the stairs and knocked. When there was no answer, I tried the knob.”

  “You got on the Kemnora at Havre, but your passport says you’re a Belgian.”

  “My father was Belgian, my mother French.”

  “You talk like an Englishman,” Keogh said bluntly.

  Valliere smiled. He had a lot of poise and if he was at all bothered by this questioning he gave no indication of it.

  “I spent some time in England during the early part of the war. I went to school there before that.”

  Bacon paced back and forth. He went again into Valliere’s story that he had met Harry Felton in France while Felton was a correspondent. Finally he said:

  “Did you know Sidney Graham?”

  “Why, yes. Met him coming over on the boat.”

  “You met him before that,” Orcutt said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, you met him before that. In Havre.”

  Valliere eyed the black-browed special agent somberly. “Really?” he said in a voice that neither confirmed nor denied Orcutt’s accusation.

  For a moment then it seemed that Orcutt was about to pursue the line of questioning. Earlier, when the medical examiner was at work, Murdock had gone out on the stairs with Orcutt and Bacon to tell them about the package Walt Tracy had found. He explained his own theory about the package which had been hidden in the equipment case and had then been inadvertently smuggled ashore.

  Orcutt had been instantly attentive. There was in his mind no doubt as to what the package contained and he said it was because of this that Graham and Valliere had been stripped and searched in the doctor’s office on the pier.

  “Bracelets,” he said. “That’s what that package contained. Two of them. Made of antique gold and studded with diamonds and rubies.”

  He questioned Murdock further and so did Bacon when he heard about subsequent events and the parked car at the corner. But Valliere had heard none of this and now Murdock thought Orcutt was going to work on the big man; instead the special agent exchanged glances with Bacon and, as though deciding to hold up his information and suspicions for another time, he leaned back.

  Bacon said: “You’re here on business. What sort of business?”

  “I brought in a few carats of loose diamonds,” Valliere said, “and some platinum settings.”

  “You in the jewelry business in Havre?”

  “In a small way. There and in Paris. It takes a bit of doing, you know, to get any money out of Europe and I brought the diamonds and settings here to sell them for dollars.” He glanced at Orcutt, still poised and sure of himself. “I’m sure Mr. Orcutt will agree that what I brought in I declared and paid duty on.”

  Bacon’s eyes slid to Orcutt, hesitated, came back. He nodded. “All right, Mr. Valliere. Where are you staying?”

  “Hotel Garland.”

  “We’ll want to see you again.”

  “Naturally. Whenever you say, Lieutenant.”

  “We’ll let you know.”

  Bacon’s tone was reserved but the implication was clear that it would be a mistake on Valliere’s part to try to leave town without permission. He stood near one window until the big man closed the door and then, turning and raising the sash, issued a low-voice order to someone on the sidewalk below, telling him to follow Valliere. When he closed the window, he suggested that Sergeant Keogh go downstairs and check with the plain-clothes men who had been making inquiries in the neighborhood.

  “You’re pretty sure that package Murdock told you about contained two bracelets,” he said to Orcutt. “And you think Sid Graham got them from Valliere.”

  “I do now.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “We’ve got agents in every important port in the world. Treasury Attachés we call them. They have their own informers. I don’t know as much about Valliere as I’d like to know—or as I’m going
to know before I get through—but we know he was in the jewelry business, doing that business out of his pocket.”

  “Like Graham?”

  “Like Graham used to do. I don’t know all the details but we got word that those bracelets were in the Havre area and that Valliere might be the man to see. We do know that Sidney Graham stayed there three days in a small hotel. We know that Valliere called on him twice. The Kemnora called at Havre and both Graham and Valliere got aboard. I think one of them had those bracelets and it wasn’t just a question of trying to beat the duty. Those bracelets were hot.”

  “You think Valliere stole them abroad?” Bacon asked.

  “Or picked them up from someone who did.” Orcutt lit a cigarette, letting the match flame burn nearly to his finger tips before blowing it out. “The Germans picked up a lot of that stuff all over the continent. Later the Americans—and some of the French resistance groups—took it away from them. Most of it was turned over and a few of those who didn’t turn it in are already in jail. We haven’t got it all by any means, but we have descriptions of most of the important pieces, and those bracelets fit. They came from France originally. Some countess owned them. We can’t be sure just what the deal was between Graham and Valliere, but that cablegram tells me we’re on the right track.”

  He gestured towards the table on which were grouped the personal effects found in Felton’s suit. In the wallet had been this radiogram and Murdock knew the message by heart.

  IMPERATIVE YOU MEET KEMNORA, it said. BEST CHANCE TO GET MONEY YOU NEED.

  The message was unsigned, but Orcutt thought he could find out who sent it from the ship’s wireless operator, though there was little doubt in his mind at the moment.

  “My hunch is that Graham got those bracelets for next to nothing because they were hot,” he said. “He didn’t know how he was going to get them into the country but it was too good a chance to miss. It’s obvious now that he had some connection with Felton …”

  He went on with his theory but Murdock wasn’t listening. He was thinking of Harry Felton and the things that came to mind depressed him greatly. Felton’s reputation—other than his ability to know a story when he found one and to write about it properly—had never been good. In addition to his proclivities for lady killing he always seemed to have more money than one would have expected, considering his salary, and he was not popular with the staff. It was not unusual for a reporter to do some publicity on the side for a fee, but in Felton’s case there had been rumors of polite blackmail, brought about by his willingness to kill a story for a price.

  It made Murdock a little sick to think about it because there was no longer much doubt as to Felton’s participation in this particular case. The story was bound to come out, at least in part, and because of that every honest newspaperman would suffer.

  “We never did like him,” Orcutt said, “or trust him. He used to be at the airport and we told the Courier to send someone else. We gave him a ‘cutter pass’ this time because he made a special pitch, but we intended to watch him, and he knew it. Otherwise he would have tried to bring those bracelets in himself.”

  “Graham took a hell of a chance,” Bacon said.

  “Sure,” Orcutt said. “He knew he couldn’t get away with it himself, but he thought of Felton and radioed him. Felton was willing to play, but leery. He planted the bracelets in Murdock’s case, and if we hadn’t pulled him into the doctor’s office to give him a frisk after we’d found that Graham was clean, he’d have gone back to the paper with Murdock and found some excuse to stick with that equipment case until he got the stuff back. Hell, it would only take a few seconds.”

  “Then why was he killed?” Murdock asked.

  “Because he tried to double-cross Graham. Once he got those bracelets he was going to skip. They’re probably worth close to a quarter of a million and Felton’s the kind that would take a chance for that kind of dough.”

  “Only Graham caught up with him,” Bacon said.

  “Because,” added Orcutt, “Murdock crossed up Felton by stopping for dinner instead of going straight back to the paper. Felton probably kept ducking into the studio every few minutes, not knowing that this kid, Walt Tracy, was out on an assignment with Murdock’s equipment case. When Felton finally came in and found the case the kid was in the darkroom working. Hell, it was a cinch. Only Felton was later than he expected and he got trapped here before he could run.”

  Murdock had no argument about that. He accepted the theory as the only possible explanation, but there were still some things he did not understand and he was reluctant to accept all of Bacon’s premise just because part of it seemed to be right.

  “Graham was a tough guy.”

  “That he was,” said Bacon. “No bully boy, but tough inside.”

  “He had a permit to carry a gun and if I remember right he once shot it out with a couple of thugs who tried to hijack him.”

  “Sure.” Bacon pursed thin lips and nodded. “Because Graham did a lot of his business right out of his pocket and there were plenty of times when he was loaded. That’s why he had that guy Lee Hammond with him most of the time.”

  Murdock knew Lee Hammond, an ex-heavyweight who was still very handy with his fists. He wondered if Hammond could have been the other man who had been sitting in the car he had seen parked at the corner.

  “Do you think this beating tonight was a two-man job?” he asked. “Then why should Graham knife Felton?” He paused as a new thought came to him. He remembered the dark-haired man with the foreign clothes and accent who had come to the office to ask for a photograph. A knife in the hands of such a man might fit the picture; yet even as he considered the idea he could find no reasonable connection between the man, who had said his name was Mason, and the bracelets, so he said: “If Graham was going to kill Felton he’d be more likely to shoot him.”

  “Look,” Bacon said, a growing impatience flavoring his words. “Felton had the bracelets and he tried to run out—or have you forgotten the two suitcases we found packed in the bedroom?—and Graham caught up with him. Felton gave him an argument but he wouldn’t give up the jewelry. So Graham and Hammond gave him a beating, stripped him, and took the stuff away. Felton went into the bedroom to get a robe and he was wild at what had happened, and I say he came out of that bedroom with the knife, or paper-cutter, or whatever it was, and got it turned against him.”

  Murdock watched the lieutenant reach for his coat. He knew Bacon was getting a little annoyed at his persistence in arguing about what seemed like a cut-and-dried case. But there was a stubborn streak in Murdock that he was not always able to control, and it was working on him now as his mind went on to consider other possibilities.

  “Graham was sitting in that car parked at the corner.”

  “You think,” said Bacon.

  “All right. I can’t prove it and I could be wrong. But if he was, someone else swung at me when I came up here.”

  “So?”

  Murdock started to reply, thought better of it. Deciding he was too tired to argue he stood up and started to button his coat, his gaze resigned.

  “Forget it,” he said bluntly.

  Bacon glanced at Orcutt, eyes narrowing slightly. His own success had come through thoroughness and efficiency rather than any brilliant virtuosity, and he had known Murdock a long time. He had listened to other ideas in the past that had helped him greatly in his work and now, studying the photographer he seemed to change his attitude. He knew that as with most tips—nine out of ten of which were phony—some of Murdock’s suggestions were likely to be of small value, but he was too good an officer to ignore any possibility no matter how far-fetched it might seem. There was a small movement of his lips, which in Bacon passed for a smile, and he said:

  “What’s the matter? Getting touchy?”

  “I thought you had it figured.” Murdock’s reply came quickly and then he understood how it was with Bacon and the stiffness went out of his tone. “I’m not saying you’
re not right, but if you are then someone walked in after Graham had finished, got trapped by me and tried to slug me.”

  “Why not?” Bacon said. “You walk in to find a guy murdered and the body still warm and you want to get out. Somebody walks in on you in the dark and you slug him and run. A dumb play, sure, but people don’t always think the way they should when they’re in a spot like that.”

  “Why would Graham be waiting in the car then?”

  “Maybe he saw this new guy come up the street as he started to drive away and decided to wait and see what happened.”

  “Maybe Graham didn’t kill him. Maybe the man that slugged me did.”

  “Sure. It might even be figured that the Valliere lad did the job. But right now we want Graham, don’t we, Tim?”

  Orcutt nodded. “I do.”

  “When we get that far,” Bacon added, “we may be able to narrow it down some.” He straightened his hat and called to the technician to say he was leaving. “We’ll pick up Graham and Lee Hammond,” he said, “and when we do”—he glanced at Orcutt—“you’ll get your bracelets.”

  5

  WHEN Kent Murdock returned to the Courier-Herald he put the Leica film on which he had taken pictures of Harry Felton, as well as one of Guy Valliere, in his desk and went upstairs. Here he discovered that Wyman, the managing editor, had left for the night, and when the operator could not locate him at home, Murdock turned to the city editor for advice.

  What, normally, might have been a front page story had become an item that was too hot to handle, and as soon as the city editor had digested the salient points he agreed that it was best to play down the story until the higher-ups had decided on what policy to pursue. Lieutenant Bacon had been sympathetic to Murdock’s request for the withholding of certain information. Both knew that the murder would become known to the other newspapers since once the crime was a matter of record the channels of information were open to all. For the time being, however, Bacon was quite agreeable to maintain an attitude of ambiguity. The murder had to be announced. The police were looking for the killer; the circumstances of death were mysterious and officially nothing would be said for now about such things as motives and suspects.