The Big Book of Reel Murders

by Stories That Inspired Great Crime Films (epub)

  “He didn’t shoot again, because he’d made enough racket already. But he didn’t follow Fresney down, and pass him while he was stunned. Or if he did, he didn’t go outside. There are a couple of doors he could have used on the main floor—into the space where the presses are. He could have got out three other ways. Or he could have come back upstairs.”

  The inspector drew a deep breath. “That’s in return for the bullet you handed me,” he said. “It’s the way things look to me. My men are trying to find others who heard the shots—and others who saw people moving around right after they heard them. Fresney never even got the safety catch off his Colt. A full load inside. He has a permit for the gun, and when he got it, several weeks ago, he stated that he wasn’t exactly loved in this town.”

  Slade nodded. “You’re going pretty strong for the theory that Vaupaugh got the dose by mistake, and that it was an inside job,” he said softly.

  O’Hafey shrugged. “I’ll follow any lead,” he said. “That looks like the one to be followed right now. I want to find out who there is, in some way familiar with this newspaper plant, who thought Fresney was a louse.”

  Slade nodded again. “If I dig up anything—I’ll get it to you, Inspector,” he said. “I’m just poking around—I wasn’t supposed to go to work until Fresney was killed.”

  The inspector looked grim. “Do you lose much by the guy getting the wrong man?” he asked.

  Slade smiled with his brown eyes almost closed. He lighted a cigarette and inhaled.

  “I haven’t had time to figure it out yet,” he said. “But I don’t think I lose a thing.”

  His voice held a peculiar note. He moved away, went past reporters’ desks and reached Fresney’s side. The city editor was reading copy and had a blue pencil in his right hand. His head and forehead were bandaged—and there was adhesive tape around the right corner of his mouth. He was frowning.

  Slade stood beside him and said softly:

  “You weren’t holding anything back, Hugh?”

  The city editor didn’t look up. He scratched out some words and said thickly:

  “Just one thing, Tim.”

  Slade waited, and still the city editor didn’t look up. Slade said: “What, Hugh?”

  Fresney spoke softly. “I told you I didn’t know a short, thin man with a limp. I do know one. His name is Garrow. He was a stoolie for the North Side police for a while. Then he dropped out of sight. I had a tip that he wouldn’t turn up anything on the Jap Dyke mob.”

  Slade whistled softly. “That might mean he was in with them.” He was silent for a few seconds, then he said very slowly: “I think he gave the tipoff that you were inside, Hugh. I think maybe I’d better look him up.”

  Fresney said grimly: “He’ll be hard to find.”

  Slade nodded. “You’re holding out the fact that you know this fellow—you’re not tipping the police?”

  Fresney shrugged. “They can know it now,” he said. “I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t see that it would help things any.”

  Slade said: “All right—not holding out anything else?”

  Fresney swore and looked up. “Hell, no,” he said. “It’s the Dyke mob’s job—only they made a mistake. They got Vaupaugh instead of me. Damn’ tough on him. As for me—they’ll get me yet.”

  Slade smiled with his brown eyes. “You’ll be around for a while yet,” he said. “The inspector has questions. I’m going out, but I’ll be back before you leave.”

  The city editor nodded. “I’ll probably have to go down to the commissioner’s office,” he said. “If I’m not here or there—I’ll be at 82 Goorley until dawn. I think best over the strong stuff.”

  Slade said: “Sleep would be better for you—you must hurt a lot.”

  Fresney nodded. “I damn’ near got my neck broken,” he breathed, and went to work on the copy again.

  Tim Slade walked away from the city desk and went to the elevator. He asked the operator why it hadn’t been running at the time of the killing. The operator said it had been out of order for an hour before the murder—motor trouble. It was fixed fifteen minutes after.

  Slade got off at the street floor, went outside and stood near the curb for a few minutes. Then he went inside, went upstairs. A plain-clothesman was standing at one end of the landing, looking things over. He nodded to Tim. Tim went on up. When he opened the door of the anteroom to the office that had been Vaupaugh’s, O’Hafey blinked at him from the chair he was seated on.

  Slade said: “Pardon, Inspector—I thought Miss Jones was alone. Wanted to ask her a question.”

  O’Hafey waved a hand. “Go ahead,” he instructed.

  Slade looked at Dana Jones. “With Vaupaugh dead,” he said steadily, “who inherits the paper?”

  The inspector grunted. The girl said: “The family.”

  Slade nodded, smiling. “Large family?” he asked.

  The girl said: “Daughter and son. The son lives abroad, in Paris. He doesn’t like newspapers.”

  O’Hafey said: “Man after my own heart.”

  Slade smiled a little. “How about the daughter?” he asked.

  Dana Jones shrugged. “She and her father didn’t get along. She lives at the Schenley Hotel—saw him once a month, maybe.”

  O’Hafey sat up straight. “And they didn’t get along, eh?” he breathed. “Maybe he wouldn’t give her as much money as she wanted.”

  Slade looked at the inspector, grinning. The girl frowned.

  “Another woman who might have killed him,” she said disgustedly. “As a matter of fact, he gave her all the money she needed. She never complained. She told me once he was a pretty good father, but she didn’t like the perfume he used.”

  Slade said: “Did you like it?”

  The secretary’s eyes were very small. “If I were a man—I think I’d have liked it on a woman,” she replied.

  O’Hafey chuckled. Slade looked around at the cartoons on the wall, then looked at Dana Jones again.

  “I got very crazy about you in a hurry, Dana,” he said simply. “I’ve gone a good many years without doing that over any girl. Will you have dinner with me tomorrow night, before I shove off for Cleveland?”

  The girl stared at him. O’Hafey blinked. Slade said:

  “I’ll make you forget Hallam. You weren’t engaged, and he drank too much. Besides, all newspaper men are bums.”

  O’Hafey said: “What the—”

  Slade smiled a little and kept his eyes on the girl.

  “We’ll have Vaupaugh’s murderer by dawn,” he said slowly. “And that’ll be that. How about the dinner?”

  The girl said: “You’re—mad—”

  Slade shook his head. “If we have the killer by dawn—will you have dinner with me?”

  O’Hafey grunted. The girl said: “Yes.”

  Slade nodded. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll have a time.”

  He grinned at O’Hafey and went from the office. Fresney was calling to Collins in a loud voice:

  “Where in hell’s that follow-up on Lawson’s feature?”

  Tim Slade went down two flights of stairs, took his time going down the next. On the landing where the murder had occurred he stood for a few seconds. The plain-clothesman had gone. Slade went to the door of the circulation department room into which Hugh Fresney had been carried. He stood with his back to it and let his eyes move along the landing. After a few minutes he went down the steps and to the street. It was twelve-fifteen by his wrist-watch. The fog was pretty bad; there was a chill in the air. Tim Slade hailed a cab and got inside.

  “Schenley Hotel,” he said. “Don’t hurry—I want to think.”

  The cab driver stared at him, then grinned. “Sure,” he said over his shoulder. “I get that way a lot of times, but it don’t do me any good.”

  * * *
r />   —

  Collins was slumped in his chair when Slade walked into the editorial rooms at three o’clock. He had a green shade over his eyes and he looked tired. Most of the staff had quit for the night, but the telegraph instruments were still pounding out words. Slade sat on the edge of the inner curve of the copy desk, and said:

  “Hugh went home?”

  Collins nodded. “He went over to the commissioner’s office, and got back here at two. He stayed around for a while, but his body was aching pretty badly. He finally got away. Then that police lieutenant came in and gave me a third degree.”

  Slade said: “You?”

  Collins swore, nodding. “He thought my story might have been the bunk. Someone told him I’d made a hot speech to Vaupaugh when he refused to give me a raise he’d promised six months ago. The lieutenant had found out that Hugh had made a speech for me, too. Hugh thought I should have the raise. The lieutenant had an idea I might have done for Vaupaugh and lied about how it happened, and he figured Hugh might have tried to stop the fight and got shoved down the stairs. He thought Hugh might be protecting me.”

  Slade grinned. “You denied it?”

  Collins swore wearily. “I told him he was a crazy fool, and he said he thought he’d take me down to the station and hold me on suspicion. I said that would be fine—that Hugh would use scare-heads on it. That calmed him down a bit. He told me not to leave town and I said it was going to be tough having to cancel my trip to Japan. We didn’t get along so well, but he left about ten minutes ago.”

  Slade looked at the Accuracy sign on the wall and whistled all that he could remember of “Your Baby’s My Baby Now.” Collins took off his eye-shade and swore again.

  “We won’t have to smell that damn’ perfume around here any more, that’s one thing,” he muttered. “Poor devil!”

  He stood up and stretched. He called one of the two reporters on hand and said that if anything big broke on the Vaupaugh murder he wanted to be called.

  “And I hope nothing breaks,” he breathed.

  He looked at Slade and said: “Staying up all night?”

  Tim Slade shook his head. “I’ve only got about one thing more to do,” he said quietly.

  Collins looked at Slade narrowly. “O’Hafey came over and asked some questions about you,” he said. “He seemed pretty puzzled. Wanted to know whether you were very crazy or very shrewd. Said you’d told Miss Jones you’d have Vaupaugh’s murderer by dawn, and she agreed to have dinner with you if you did. He said he figured maybe you were trying to kid him, and if that was so he didn’t like the time you’d picked.”

  Slade smiled a little. Collins said: “What did Hugh mean when he tossed over that slip of paper and said you were a louse for hounding someone?”

  Slade continued to smile. “He wanted you and anyone else who might be interested to think I wasn’t particularly concerned with him,” he said. “He didn’t want you to get the idea that I was a detective he’d brought on from Cleveland, because he thought he was going to get killed.”

  Collins stared at him, sucked in a deep breath. There was silence in the city room, except for the clatter of the wire machines. Then the assistant city editor spoke.

  “So that was it,” he muttered. “Well—what’s the idea of spreading it around now? Fresney’s still alive.”

  Slade nodded. “Unless they got him on the way home,” he said steadily. “How about Miss Jones, Collins? Did Vaupaugh like her a lot?”

  The assistant city editor half closed his eyes. He spoke in a hard voice.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  Tim Slade nodded and stood up. He looked at the big sign on the wall again, then at his wrist-watch.

  “I’ll be moving along,” he said cheerfully. “If you stick around another hour—you’ll have something for the paper—something new.”

  Collins said: “Yes?” His tone was suddenly antagonistic. “Sorry, but I need sleep. If it’s big enough they’ll buzz me, and I’ll get Fresney up.”

  Slade nodded again. “Are you giving the paper a black border?” he asked.

  The assistant said tonelessly without looking up: “Just the editorial page.”

  Slade looked towards the telegraph machines. “Get in touch with Vaupaugh’s family yet?” he asked. “The daughter?”

  Collins shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “That isn’t up to me.”

  Slade smiled. “So long,” he said and went from the big room. He rode the elevator down and reached the street. He made a phone call, a fairly long one. He walked along Liberty Street, turned north on Ninth. Ninth was almost deserted. Over near the bridge it was deserted.

  He was halfway across the bridge when a cab passed him, going at pretty good speed. It slowed down a hundred feet or so ahead, stopped. There was the squealing of brakes, and a second cab pulled up almost the same distance behind him. No one descended from either cab.

  Slade said grimly: “Sure—”

  He got a cigarette between his lips, struck a match. The cab ahead started backing slowly, and when it started the other one moved forward. The driver of the one coming forward was very low in his seat.

  Tim Slade pulled on the cigarette and reached for his gun. He had it in his right-hand fingers when the first bullet struck the iron railing behind him. The bullet came from a gun in the cab that was moving forward. Almost instantly there was a staccato clatter from the machine that was backing. A spray of bullets battered metallically against iron—pain stabbed through Slade’s left hand as the spray went away from him.

  He fired twice at the cab that was moving forward, sucked in a sharp breath and vaulted the bridge rail. As he went down he ripped buttons from his coat in getting it open and let the gun slip from his fingers. He hit the water with his body hunched, in a sitting position. The shock was pretty bad.

  When he came up he was under the bridge. He struggled free of his coat, toed off his low shoes. He was a strong swimmer, but it was a fight to keep under the bridge, against the current. The river was high and the water was very cold. Fifty feet along he got rid of his suit coat, and that made things easier.

  Another fifty feet and he was out of the worst of the current. He was weakening pretty fast, and the hand that had been hit was numbing his left arm and bothering his stroke. The cold was getting to him, too.

  He used a back stroke for several seconds, then turned over and put his remaining strength in an effort to get close to the mud at the far end of the bridge. He was almost through when he felt the water become very quiet. Another twenty feet and his knees were scraping mud. He dragged himself out of the water, lay motionless for a half minute or so. Then he got to his knees, pulled himself to his feet.

  He shook the water from his ears, moved along between some wooden shacks built on the mud near the steel structure of the bridge. He was shivering and his breath was still coming in deep gulps.

  Twenty minutes later he was in a cab and the cab was moving across the river, towards his hotel. The cab driver had a ten-dollar bill in his pocket, and Tim Slade had a soaked handkerchief wrapped around the palm of his left hand. He lay back in the seat with his eyes closed.

  In his hotel room he had three deep drinks from a thin silver flask, got into dry clothes. He used antiseptic and bandages on his left hand, got a Luger that he’d picked up during the war from one of his bags. His eyes showed pain, but his lips were smiling a little. He had no coat or hat when he went down and picked up a cab. When he’d given the address he sat back and let his body sway with it. His eyes were closed and he was breathing slowly, evenly.

  Once he parted his lips and said: “Sure—”

  The fog didn’t seem to be so thick, but it had got colder. The cab driver drove very swiftly, and it didn’t take long to reach the address he had given.

  The man who opened the wooden door of the two-story
house had a thin scar across his forehead. Slade frowned at him, keeping his bandaged hand out of sight. He said:

  “Creese upstairs? He wanted me.”

  The one with the scarred forehead nodded. Slade went past him and he closed the door and bolted it. Slade said:

  “Is he alone?”

  The scarred one shook his head. “Jap’s with him,” he said hoarsely. “The coppers got tired of him and turned him loose.”

  He went away, gesturing towards the stairs. From a rear room Slade heard voices and the clink of glasses. Upstairs everything seemed pretty quiet.

  Tim Slade said very softly as he climbed the wooden stairs: “Jap—sure—”

  The door of the room was half opened. Slade shoved it open the rest of the way, with his left shoe. He walked inside. Jap Dyke was leaning across a table, elbows spread. He was a small, heavily shouldered man with eyes that slanted, and were slightly almond shaped. His skin was yellowish, and his dark hair edged high from his forehead. He was Italian, but he looked like a Japanese.

  Hugh Fresney sat in a corner, on a chair without arms. The chair was tilted back, and Fresney’s brown shoes rested on a cross rung between the two front legs. Both arms hung at his sides. There were two glasses, half filled with beer, on the table across which Dyke sprawled.

  Tim Slade stood near the opened door, his back to the stairs. Both hands were in the side pockets of his suit coat. He smiled at Fresney.

  The city editor’s lips twitched a little. Jap Dyke said:

  “What’s this?”

  He had a thin tone and when he spoke his lips didn’t move very much.

  Slade said: “Hello, Hugh—feel better?”

  The city editor’s eyes were very small. He shook his head.

  “My face isn’t so bad, but my body hurts like the devil.”