The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  Slade’s brown eyes held a faintly puzzled expression. He didn’t ask the question, but the city editor answered it.

  “I loaned you half the money to get started in that Cleveland agency, Tim. You’ve done well—you had it in you.”

  Slade shrugged. “In another three months—I can pay you back, Hugh,” he said.

  Fresney smiled narrowly. “In another three months I’ll be forgotten,” he breathed. “Forget the loan, Tim. I wired for you for just one reason. I’m going to be through—pretty quick. That doesn’t frighten me, not much. I carry a gun and a heavy stick, Tim, and if I get a break—a chance to fight—you can go on back to Cleveland. But if they get me in the back, or machine-gun me out, or mob me out—I’d like you to get at least one of ’em, Tim. See?”

  Slade’s brown eyes were frowning. But he didn’t speak.

  Fresney said: “You’ll be all alone, Tim. The police’ll be pleasant, but they’ll be tickled. They never knew which way I’d print stuff. And I know too much. Vaupaugh’s yellow and he hates me now, because he’s been scared. Maybe he’ll get the dose, too. Maybe not. He’ll offer a reward, but the paper won’t help you much, Tim. The staff hates me. Collins might help a little, but he’ll probably get my job, and he’ll be busy being careful he doesn’t lose it. See?”

  Slade nodded. Fresney smiled and shrugged.

  “You’ll be alone, Tim,” he repeated. “I’ve hurt too many humans around here.”

  Slade said: “All right—I don’t mind being alone.”

  Fresney looked at the private detective with a peculiar expression in his small eyes.

  “You don’t think I’m going to get it, eh? Think I’ve gone yellow, like Vaupaugh?”

  Slade said quietly: “You seem pretty sure, Hugh. Ever think of being a news paper man in some other city?”

  Fresney smiled grimly. “I never was good at running,” he replied. “Well—that’s all, Tim. That loan pays your fee—unless I get a chance to fight. If you look things over after, and see that I’ve hit back some—then trot on back to Cleveland and forget all this stuff.”

  The city editor stood up. He patted a pocket of the trench coat, which he hadn’t removed. He looked down at Slade, smiling a little.

  “I’m no damn’ angel, Tim,” he said. “I guess you know that. But I don’t like the idea of the human that gets me having things too easy.”

  He held out his hand and Slade stood up. “I’ll go back to the paper behind you,” he said. “I’ll stick around for a while. You just might be wrong about things, Hugh.”

  The city editor grinned and shook his head. He tossed a dollar bill on the table.

  “The paper’s gone virtuous,” he stated with faint mockery. “It may save Vaupaugh’s perfumed neck, but it won’t save mine.”

  Tim Slade didn’t argue the point. He’d known Fresney for five years, and the city editor had always shoved humans out of his way. If he said he was through—Slade knew he was through.

  Fresney said: “Don’t come to the funeral, Tim.” His smile became a grin. “It’ll be a bum show. And you may have work to do.”

  Slade nodded. “You had a good time while the racket lasted, Hugh,” he said quietly. “I’ll do what I can. But with so many hating you—”

  Fresney grunted. “There may be carelessness along the line.”

  He dug his left hand into a pocket of the trench coat and handed Slade a grotesquely twisted piece of lead.

  “This morning, in the fog,” he said quietly, “I took an early walk—it hit a brick wall just ahead of me. Not much sound. Better keep it—might help. Over on the North Side, and the gun was silenced. Just the one shot. I got down low and stayed down for seconds, then I grabbed a cab and went home.”

  Tim Slade said: “Good size—.45 maybe.”

  Fresney nodded. “Maybe—doesn’t matter much. So long, Tim.”

  Slade said: “Luck—and keep your chin up, Hugh.”

  The city editor went from the room and down the stairs. Slade slipped the bullet in a pocket of his loose gray coat. He stood looking through the doorway, though Fresney was no longer in sight. After a few seconds he shoved his right hand in a deep pocket and touched the steel of his Colt automatic.

  Then he went down the stairs and outside, watched the city editor turn a corner and head southward, towards the Ninth Street bridge. He followed along, a half square or so behind. Fresney walked rapidly, with his head up. When a truck made sharp exhaust racket, not far from the bridge, the city editor stopped and looked towards it. Then he went on.

  Tim Slade bought a paper and glanced at it from time to time. It was dark when Fresney reached the other side of the bridge. The sky was gray and it was growing foggy. Slade increased his pace and got closer to the city editor. After seven or eight squares Fresney crossed Liberty Street and walked in the direction of the four-story brick building occupied by the Dispatch. The editorial rooms were on the upper floor; the presses were at street level. Slade followed to the entrance but didn’t go inside. The presses were motionless; there was a small crowd standing in the murky fog and reading a bulletin to the effect that Walter Cresser’s wife was making a last-hour appeal to the State governor, who was in Pittsburgh. The bulletin stated that Cresser was to be hanged between eleven and midnight.

  Tim Slade lighted a cigarette and went into a drug store. He had a soft drink which killed the taste of the beer he had taken with Fresney. He didn’t like the taste of beer. When he’d finished the drink he got inside a booth and called Fresney. He said:

  “T. S. speaking. Do you know a small man, very thin, who walks with a limp? Left leg stiff. Carries a straight, black stick.”

  Fresney said: “No—why?”

  Tim Slade dropped a cigarette on the floor of the booth and stepped on it.

  “He tagged along across the street from you, most of the way to the building. Just now he picked up a paper a blonde gal dropped, and they went different directions.”

  Fresney said in an irritated voice: “Well—what of that?”

  Slade said: “Maybe nothing—but she dropped the paper when she was right beside him, and I figured he might have slipped something with something written on it—inside the paper before he handed it back.”

  There was a little silence, then Fresney said:

  “The mechanics of the way they work doesn’t interest me, Tim.”

  Slade said: “All right—but I thought you might want to know a tip might be out that you were inside the building.”

  Fresney said with sarcasm: “Thanks—you think they’ll walk in and get me at my desk?”

  Slade said: “I thought you might know the man.”

  The city editor swore. Slade waited a few seconds, then said:

  “What time are you coming out?”

  Fresney swore again: “Around eleven-thirty, unless something big breaks. Take a nap, Tim—and we’ll have a drink around midnight. Ring me at eleven-fifteen.”

  Slade said: “Right,” and hung up. He smiled down at the receiver grimly. His brown eyes were almost closed. When he left the booth he went to the cigar counter and bought cigarettes. He recognized one of the Dispatch reporters he had seen in the editorial room. The reporter was at the counter, talking to an older man.

  “I’ve got a hunch the sheet is going to be a lot softer,” he was saying. “Tough on Fresney—he’ll hate getting soft with it.”

  The reporter’s companion swore. “It’ll just be another thing for him to hate,” he said grimly. “Hating comes easy for him.”

  Tim Slade went out to the street and walked past the Dispatch building again. There was a later bulletin posted—it had been pasted up on the great glass window that showed off the presses, while he was phoning. It announced that the governor had refused to reconsider the Cresser stay. Nothing more could be done.

  Tim Slade moved
along Liberty Street, through the fog. He nodded his head and his brown eyes were grim.

  “And hating comes easy for other people, too,” he breathed very softly.

  * * *

  —

  At the moment that Walter Cresser was pronounced dead by doctors at Western Penitentiary, Tim Slade was listening to a jazz band playing on the stage of the Alvin Theatre. They were doing a new number called “Your Baby’s My Baby Now.” They did it in slow tempo and when they had finished there was a lot of applause. The jazz band was the last number on the bill, and the bill was a long one. Tim Slade looked at his wrist-watch, left his aisle seat and went outside. It was damply cold; the fog had thickened.

  He walked to Liberty Street and moved towards the newspaper building. When he was three or four squares away an ambulance sped by, going in the same direction. It didn’t make much noise and Slade paid little attention to it.

  When he neared the entrance to the Dispatch there was a crowd that wasn’t looking at bulletins. The ambulance was at the curb, and there was a black, open car with police insignia showing.

  Slade closed his brown eyes slightly, shoved his way through the crowd. A uniformed officer caught him by the arm and Slade said:

  “I’m on the staff—what’s wrong?”

  The officer released his grip. “You’ll be writing about it,” he stated grimly and told the crowd to stop shoving.

  Slade said: “Sure,” and went inside.

  At the top of the first flight of wooden stairs he saw another crowd. The white of an interne’s coat showed. He went up the stairs. Cleve Collins, looking very pale, was saying:

  “I heard one shot—and I heard Vaupaugh call out: ‘For God’s sake, Hugh—get him—’ Then there was another shot. I was two flights up, and I ran right down. Vaupaugh was lying where he is now—and Fresney was halfway down, moving a little, on the steps.”

  Collins stopped. A plain-clothesman with a good pair of shoulders and a strong jaw said:

  “What’d you do?”

  Collins shrugged. “I went down there—” he pointed half the way down the stairs that led to the street level of the building—“and asked Fresney if he was shot.”

  The plain-clothesman said with sarcasm: “Wasn’t that fine!”

  The assistant city editor looked at him sharply. Then he said:

  “Don’t be that way, Reynolds. I’m not a suspect and I’m not stupid.”

  His voice was hard. Reynolds blinked at him and shrugged.

  “No offense meant,” he said.

  Tim Slade moved a few feet and looked down at the body of Vaupaugh. He hadn’t known the managing editor of the paper. The interne said in a fairly loud voice:

  “All over, here—I’ll go in and look at the other one.”

  Slade followed him into a room used by the circulation department. Hugh Fresney was stretched out on a leather divan. There was blood on his face; his head was bandaged. Five or six men were grouped around the divan. Fresney said slowly and with evident pain:

  “Vaupaugh started down the stairs—something was wrong with the elevator. There was something I wanted to tell him, and I started after him. I called to him, but he didn’t hear me. Collins—my assistant—came out to tell me we’d just got a flash that Cresser had been hanged. I said I’d be back—and went down after Vaupaugh. I caught up to him on the landing of the first floor.”

  The city editor paused. He spoke thickly—his mouth was cut. Slade noticed two of the paper’s reporters in the group about him. There was a police lieutenant in uniform and a man that looked like another plain-clothes detective. Fresney went on:

  “The landings aren’t very well lighted—we don’t use them much. These circulation department doors were closed—the offices were dark. Vaupaugh was facing me—he had his back to this door. I was talking—there was a shot. Vaupaugh grabbed at his back and called out. I think he said: ‘I’m shot—for God’s sake get him, Hugh.’ Not sure—the shot made a lot of racket. Vaupaugh staggered away from me—and there was another shot from the doorway here.”

  Fresney raised his left arm and pointed towards the door of the circulation office. He spoke in a low tone.

  “Vaupaugh fell and I stumbled over his body. I was trying to get my gun from the pocket I carry it in—it stuck. I went to my knees and something hit me on the top of the head. I grappled with the one who had struck me and was hit again. Then my body was swung around—I was falling. I hit the stairs and must have lost consciousness. The next thing I knew was when Collins was beside me, asking if I was shot.”

  The police lieutenant said: “What did you tell Collins?”

  Fresney swore. “I said I didn’t think so—but that the managing editor was. I told him the one with the gun must have got to the street. He ran on down the stairs and got the traffic cop near the theatre, a square away. The others came down and brought me up here—someone telephoned headquarters—”

  Fresney closed his eyes, and the interne, beside him, said:

  “Better let us run you to the hospital. You may be banged up inside. Outside it’s just a smashed head and face, and cuts and bruises on the body from the fall.”

  Fresney shook his head. “I’ll come over for an examination later, in a cab. I’m all right. Vaupaugh—”

  The interne shrugged. “Dead—maybe within ten seconds of the time he was hit. Looks as though the bullet got the heart, from behind.”

  Fresney’s face twisted. “Damn!” he said weakly.

  The police lieutenant asked: “You never got a look at the face of the fellow that cracked you, Fresney?”

  The city editor shook his head. “He handled me as though he was big, strong,” he replied. “But I was almost out after the first crack—he might not have been big.”

  One of the other men said: “You don’t think there were two or three of them?”

  Fresney opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. He was wearing no coat; his vest was opened and his white shirt sleeves were rolled up.

  “Might have been,” he said slowly. “I have the feeling there was only one.”

  The police lieutenant said: “Vaupaugh’s life had been threatened, you say?”

  Fresney nodded. “He told me that this afternoon.”

  The one who looked like a plain-clothesman to Tim Slade spoke hoarsely:

  “Yours—has it been threatened, Fresney?”

  The city editor smiled a little. “Hell, yes,” he replied. “You fellows know that.”

  He used his arms and sat up a little. His eyes went to one of the reporters. Collins came into the room and Fresney said to him:

  “Get this in the next edition, Cleve—but save the high-lights for the final. Vaupaugh’s—last words—that sort of thing.”

  He shook his head, as though thinking of Vaupaugh. His eyes rested on Slade’s face, but he didn’t appear to see him. The police lieutenant spoke grimly.

  “Maybe they were trying for you—or this one fellow was trying for you, Fresney,” he said.

  Fresney said thickly: “Maybe.”

  The police lieutenant looked at those in the room. He frowned at Slade.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  Tim Slade let his brown eyes meet the city editor’s. Fresney eased his head back to the raised portion of the divan, and twisted his face with pain. Then he smiled a little.

  “He’s all right, Lieutenant,” he said. “Tim Slade—has a detective agency in Cleveland.”

  The police lieutenant continued to frown. He looked at Fresney.

  “What’s he doing here?” he asked.

  Fresney said: “I wired for him—things looked bad for me. He’s an old friend of mine.”

  The lieutenant grunted. “Bodyguard, eh?” he breathed.

  Slade shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m no good at that
sort of thing.”

  The police lieutenant stared at him. Fresney swore and sat up again. His face was pretty badly battered. The lieutenant spoke grimly.

  “Know who might have wanted to kill Vaupaugh, Fresney?”

  The city editor narrowed his eyes. “No,” he said. “But he was managing editor and owner of the sheet—and a lot of people always want to kill editors.”

  The police lieutenant smiled. “Know who might have wanted to kill you?” he asked.

  Fresney swore huskily. He touched his bandaged head with careful fingers.

  “I know a few people who might want to kill me,” he stated. “But that doesn’t say they tried.”

  Collins said: “You might have been mistaken for Vaupaugh—or he might have been mistaken for you. They wanted you, Hugh—and they got him.”

  The police lieutenant grunted. “Or maybe they figured one of you was about as bad as the other—and tried for you both.”

  Fresney shrugged. He looked at Collins. “Better get up above, and get the story going,” he said. “Reporters from the other papers will be along soon. Treat ’em nice—but don’t tell them anything important, and avoid the truth as much as possible. Get a good obituary started for Vaupaugh.”

  His words were tight, peculiar. Collins said:

  “The obit’s all ready—I had Creager write it up a week ago.”

  Fresney smiled grimly and the police lieutenant made clicking sounds.

  “You fellows work fast,” he breathed.

  Fresney looked at Collins as he turned to go from the room.

  “Say that the paper will probably offer a large reward for the arrest of the killer or killers,” he said slowly. “Don’t use my picture. Play Vaupaugh’s death up as a big loss to Pittsburgh and the newspaper world.”

  The police lieutenant swore. Collins nodded and started from the room. Fresney called in a voice that was thick and not very strong:

  “Don’t forget the police, Cleve—they’re working hard. The dragnet’s out. The police boys all loved Vaupaugh, and they were terribly broken up over his death. When word got around that I was alive—they shouted with joy—”