Fashioned for Murder

by George Harmon Coxe

  Without moving, Nason seemed in that split instant of time to recoil and stiffen, scalp crawling and breath held. He wanted desperately to duck, to jump back while there was time, to warn Sam Duble. Instead he heard the detective’s whispered oath, followed quickly by a curt command that cracked the silence and filled the darkened room.

  “Stay put!” Sam Duble said. “You’re covered!”

  They waited.

  There was no reply, no sign of movement.

  “Find a light,” Duble said. “I’ll hold the gun on him.”

  Nason was a little surprised to find he could move. He took a tentative sideways step, hand reaching, finding the wall, sliding along it until his fingers touched the light switch.

  He flicked it, and the room was bright.

  The man in the chair did not move or blink against this brightness. He was a stocky man in a blue coat; his arms hung straight down outside the chair, and his gray hat lay upside down on the floor. His head sagged so that the chin touched the chest, the hair close-cropped and iron-gray, but even so Nason could see the bushy mustache and the small dark stain upon the fabric of the vest.

  “Ned Gault, hunh?” Duble said. He shifted his weight and put away his short-barreled revolver. “I figured we might be running into him pretty soon. Close the door!”

  Nason let his breath whistle out, and by the time he had the door closed, the tension had gone from him and his mind was alert. He did not attempt to find an answer for what had happened, nor did he try to fit the incident into any over-all picture. He asked if Ned Gault was dead. When Sam Duble said, “No, not yet,” he remembered why he had come and started for the cheap kneehole desk against the wall.

  “Two in the vest,” Duble said, “but they’re high. The guy may pull through. We ought to get a doctor.”

  “Yeah,” said Nason and opened a drawer.

  “As a matter of fact, we ought to call the cops.”

  “Yeah.”

  Nason went through the papers in the drawer, and, from the corner of his eye, he was aware that the little detective was watching him. Three seconds ticked by and Duble spoke again.

  “What about it? We need an ambulance.”

  “Then call one.” Nason opened another drawer. “There’s no phone here but I noticed one in the downstairs hall. Have you got a nickel?”

  Duble did not answer, but a moment later the door opened and closed. The room was still again as Nason opened another drawer and this time he did not have to look far to find something that interested him. Practically on top of the assorted bills and letters and advertisements, was a page from a magazine.

  What made it interesting was the subject.

  It was a full-page photograph of Linda Courtney wearing the Elcazar emeralds, and had been torn from Fashion Parade, not like the clean-cut page he had seen that morning in Albert Wylie’s library, but with an irregularly jagged edge. He had it folded and in his pocket by the time Duble returned.

  “Let’s blow,” said Duble. “I’m allergic to cops.”

  Nason straightened and closed the drawer, wanting to continue his search and knowing there was no time. He glanced briefly at Ned Gault as he crossed the room, and now he was very glad they had come. If Gault lived, Gault could talk, though fortunately he could not talk about Duble and Nason. He snapped off the light while Duble wiped the doorknobs with a handkerchief. They closed the door and went quickly down the stairs and out on the street.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE DOORMAN at the Golden Slipper was a genial giant in bright-blue uniform well weighted with braid. He accepted the dollar Jerry Nason offered, folded it neatly, and said he believed Mr. Raoul Julian was inside.

  “You go ahead,” Sam Duble said, glancing down at his shabby trench coat. “Should I try to check this, the girl would probably pitch it back in my face.”

  Jerry Nason said all right. He said he didn’t think he’d be long and went down two steps and into the plush, thickly carpeted foyer. He gave his hat and coat to a regal-looking brunette who managed to look both bored and aloof, and while she passed them over the counter to her redheaded colleague, he noticed that people were waiting for tables outside the velvet rope that had been stretched across the entrance.

  Nason approached the dinner-jacketed flunky who manned the rope as though he owned the place. He said he would only be a minute. He said he was looking for a party and had been told that he could find Mr. Julian here.

  “Mr. Raoul Julian?” said the flunky.

  “The same,” said Nason, and then, as if the word were open-sesame to everything worth while in the world, the rope came down and he was walking past the bar, wondering with fine resentment how it was that Julian, who had only been around ten days, could manage to own so much of the town.

  Once past the bar, he saw that the main room with its mirrored walls and blue furnishings was well filled, and he walked slowly along the wall toward the dance floor, eyes busy in their inspection of the tables. When he could find no sign of Linda or Julian, he looked over the dance floor, and Julian’s height made him the second tallest man there—and the handsomest.

  Jerry Nason moved in. He noticed with some annoyance that the rumba band was at the moment having its innings, and, though he could not rumba, he went bravely on until he could tap Julian’s shoulder and take his arm.

  “May I?” he asked.

  Julian glanced over his shoulder. Linda did not have to. She was facing Nason, and, after her first surprised stare, her young face congealed and she kept her eyes averted. Julian slowed down; he stopped and glowered darkly. For a second Nason thought the other would refuse, but the big man’s good manners came finally to his rescue.

  “Only because I do not wish a scene,” he said in curt, precise phrases. “If Miss Courtney has no objection, I will give you three minutes.” He bowed, stepped back, moved off.

  “Hello,” Nason said, and paying no attention to the rumba antics of the others, moved off smoothly in a dance of his own, content for the moment to have his arms about her.

  “I thought you’d gone,” Linda said woodenly.

  Nason shook his head. He took three or four steps, skin tingling with her nearness and the fragrance of her hair clogging his throat. Then, reluctantly, he told her about Irene Keith, feeling her draw back against his arm, seeing her eyes grow cloudy with doubt and uncertainty. He had her attention when he finished.

  “How awful!” she said, forgetting for the time to play her role. “Could it have been suicide, Jerry?”

  “I doubt it. The police haven’t said, but I think she knew too much. Whoever hired her couldn’t take a chance. He hesitated, wondering if he should tell her about Ned Gault and deciding against it. “Also,” he said, “my detective friend has been doing some checking on Julian. He’s a South American—from Colombia. From Bogotá—where the Elcazar emeralds came from.”

  He felt her stiffen in his arms and the thrust of her breasts as she took a quick breath. “How did you know about the Elcazar emeralds?”

  He made no answer to this because he had so little time.

  “We were suspicious of Albert Wylie this morning, weren’t we?” he said. “Julian works with Wylie. He could know about the emeralds disappearing from Bogotá ten years ago, about the man who was killed. He came up from Miami suddenly—the day after that Fashion Parade ad appeared.”

  “I’ve never heard such utter nonsense.” Linda continued to hold herself stiffly. She was not dancing now, just taking steps to keep out of his way. Her cheekbones were white. “Just because Raoul comes from Bogotá doesn’t mean—” She broke off.

  “Hello,” she said and tried to release herself.

  Nason felt the tap on his shoulder, the hand that fastened there. He dropped his arms and stepped back. He looked right at Julian, his mouth stiff, shaking a little with bitterness and frustration.

  “Thanks very much,” he said. “I enjoyed it,” he said, and then he was off the floor, walking quickly along the wall to
ward the velvet rope, seeing neither his surroundings nor the flunky who let him out.

  Sam Duble was chatting with the doorman but he broke off when he saw Nason’s face. He did not speak then but fell in step. They walked a half a block in silence while Nason’s anger died and the weariness began to move in on him. He could feel his muscles sag, and there was a strange, dull ache inside him that numbed his thoughts.

  At the corner Duble pulled him to a stop. He did not question him about what had happened inside the Golden Slipper; he said, “What comes next?”

  Nason took a second to orient himself and find out where he was. He felt too old and beaten and discouraged to think, but he did remember a bar halfway down the next block.

  “How would you like to get a little drunk?”

  He started to cross the street, and Duble went with him, rubbing his chin thoughtfully and giving his companion a sidewise glance. “It might not be a bad idea,” Duble said; “while we can. So long as it’s on you—or the expense account.”

  Jerry Nason awoke with a head and a hang-over, which was bad enough when he remained recumbent and grew instantly worse when he stood up. A cold shower helped very little. The breakfast, which he forced down, left much to be desired, and Lieutenant Treynor, arriving with the breakfast tray, helped not at all.

  Treynor carried a newspaper. He sat down and waited until Nason was ready for coffee and a cigarette before pointing to an item on an inside page. Nason read the one-paragraph account that said that a woman identified as Irene Keith of such and such an address had been found dead in her room in a midtown hotel, the victim of cyanide poisoning.

  “We think that’s the dame who worked with Norman Franks. How would you like to come down to the morgue and identify her?”

  Nason groaned. In his pajamas and robe, his brown hair tousled and his blue eyes dark and morose, he was a picture of acute melancholia in the tertiary stages. Treynor had straddled a straight-backed chair and had crossed his hands on the back, his gaze intent but not unpleasant as he waited for some reply.

  “You know she’s Irene Keith, don’t you?” Nason said.

  “Sure.”

  “Then why—”

  “We want to find out if she’s the one who posed as Irma Heath. Cheer up,” Treynor said, “I’m going to give you a break.” And with that he pulled a rolled-up photograph from his pocket which proved to be a police picture of Irene Keith. “This’ll do for now. What do you say?”

  “That’s Irene,” said Nason. “That’s Irma.”

  Treynor nodded and put the photograph away. “Did those three pieces of jewelry turn up yet?” he asked casually.

  “No. Not that I know of.” Nason pushed his cup aside. “Was Irene murdered or did she—”

  “The evidence and the medical examiner say she was. There was a pint of rye on a table, and one glass and enough in it to tell us the highball was loaded. But there wasn’t anything around to hold the cyanide, no container, envelope, nothing.” He brought out cigarettes, lighted one, his gaze sleepy but always fixed on Nason’s face.

  “Also,” he said, “there’s an angle that we’d like to know more about. Before we had a chance to look over her apartment—she apparently left with just a bag that afternoon and went right to the New Shelby—somebody phoned in and said a man had been shot at that address. We ran into the boys who were following that one up, and what do you think we found?”

  Nason looked right at Treynor and gave it to him straight-faced. “The costume jewelry.”

  Nothing moved in Treynor’s eyes but one lid dropped a little more. He shook his head and there was no way of telling what he was thinking.

  “We found out that anonymous tip was on the level. A guy was sitting in her apartment with two slugs in his chest—fellow by the name of Ned Gault, a private dick. Know him?”

  “No.”

  “Ever hear of him?”

  Nason hesitated, looked thoughtful, and gave the part a good reading. “I think I have. He specializes in recovering stolen jewels, doesn’t he?”

  “But you don’t know him?” Treynor leaned back, his attitude suggesting it was of slight importance. “Anyway,” he said, “we got a break this time. They think Gault is going to live. He’s still unconscious but before the day’s out we’ll probably know a lot of things we don’t know now.”

  He stood up and stretched. “Funny how everything comes back to those three pieces of jewelry that had no value.”

  “You saw them.”

  “Yeah. And the stones were glass—then. But Franks and Keith wanted a lot of pictures of those pieces, didn’t they? And Franks was a crook who could do fancy things with jewels and settings. A cheap hoodlum, sticks you up and runs out with them, and we find out Franks hired him. You want to know why?”

  He turned from the window. “Because at one time those pieces must have been valuable as hell. They had real stones and Franks made a switch. You know that, don’t you? And somebody hired Franks and Keith, and Franks pulled a fast one and got rubbed out for it. So did Keith—because she knew who did the rubbing. And now we got Gault, another jewel expert.”

  “You also got an expert named Albert Wylie, if you want to bother to check up on him,” said Nason. “And another boy named Raoul Julian who comes from Colombia and works for Wylie now and then.”

  Interest kindled in Treynor’s eyes. He got out a notebook, asked more questions, and wrote down the address Nason gave him. “Franks got the pieces from the thug,” he said. “And he had them with him the night he came to the Courtney girl’s apartment with the bullets in his back. You had a story then and I made a mistake. I should have tossed you into the tank.” He snorted softly. “But I didn’t, and so I’m going to be a nice guy and let you horse around awhile and see—” He turned, the sentence suspended as knuckles drummed on the door.

  Sam Duble’s glance went past Nason as he walked in, touched Lieutenant Treynor, and revealed nothing. He answered Nason’s good morning and pushed back his battered felt. “Hello, Lieutenant,” he said.

  “How are you, Sam?” Treynor swiveled his glance from one to the other, new suspicion in the depths of his eyes. “You know Mr. Nason?”

  “Oh, yes.” Duble fanned out his coat and sat down on the straight-backed chair.

  “Long?”

  “Not very.”

  “He’s working for me,” Nason said, seeing no point in beating around the bush.

  “Doing what?”

  “Helping me look for those three pieces.”

  “Find them yet, Sam?” Treynor asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Hear about Ned Gault?”

  “There was a thing in the paper,” Duble said. “Too bad.”

  “Gault was lucky.” Treynor rocked up on his toes and eased himself back. “He’s going to be all right. We figure to question him later in the day.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Duble said.

  Nason took off his pajamas and pulled on his shorts. Treynor watched him idly, saying nothing. Duble just sat. After ten seconds of this, Treynor combed his sandy hair with his fingers and adjusted his hat. He went to the door and stopped with his hand on the knob.

  “I’m going to give you a little advice, Sam. You’re a good man and you get around, and there’s a chance you might run across those costume pieces before we do. They’re hooked up with murder now, Sam, so if you find them play it smart. Phone me.”

  Duble thought it over, spoke imperturbably. “I’d have to talk it over with Mr. Nason, Lieutenant. You know that.”

  “That’s up to you,” Treynor said. “Don’t stub your toe, Sam. So long, Mr. Nason,” he said and went out.

  Sam Duble pushed his hat farther back and watched Nason pull on his trousers. “What did he want?”

  Nason told him what had been said, and Duble nodded, his plump face impassive, his little eyes speculative. “He’s a smart cop,” he said. “And he can toss you in detention any time he wants to.”

  Nason said
he was well aware of that possibility but he was thinking now of Linda Courtney and the emeralds in the hotel safe, the worry growing in him as he considered certain aspects of what had once seemed like a good idea. It would not be difficult, he knew, for Trey-nor to learn about that package, and suddenly he was in a hurry to get dressed and claim it himself before it was too late.

  “Did you find out anything more about Julian?” he said.

  “A little,” Duble said. “That’s why I stopped by. Julian’s age and description fit a guy who was the nephew of Luis Elcazar. Elcazar owned the Elcazar emeralds and they disappeared ten years ago in Bogotá—the day Luis was murdered. Also,” Duble said mildly, “a lot of people in Bogotá still think the nephew murdered the uncle, though he was never tried. Neither was anyone else. The nephew’s name was Eduardo Elcazar.”

  Jerry Nason tugged his necktie into place, feeling not the slightest surprise at what Duble had told him. Since last night he had a hunch that Raoul Julian had a definite connection with the Elcazar emeralds, and he was less concerned now with the apparent proof of his hunch than with the presence of those emeralds in the hotel safe.

  He got his coat and hat and motioned Duble toward the door. The detective asked no questions but moved with him down the corridor to the elevators. In the lobby, Nason told Duble to wait, and went to the desk. The clerk was pleasant, helpful, and gabby. He got a card from a file, tapping it against his finger tips.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Nason. We no longer have that package. There was a Lieutenant Treynor from police headquarters asking about it just a few minutes ago.”

  Nason gripped the edge of the counter while the room rocked about him. He felt the blood drain from his face and his throat went dry. “Oh,” he said, and found his voice half-croak and half-whisper. He swallowed, and his grin was sickly. “So you gave it to the lieutenant?”

  “Oh, no.” The clerk was pleased with himself. “We didn’t have it then.” He paused for effect, and Nason, unable to find his voice now, waited slack-jawed until the clerk said, “You see, Miss Courtney called for it earlier. We have her signature here, and the instructions said—”