The 24th Horse

by Hugh Pentecost

  “He’s coming along fine, sir,” Shea said, patting the horse’s flank. “In another week or two we should be able to put him into service.”

  Pelham nodded. “He’s got a baby mouth. Goes crazy if you aren’t light as a feather.”

  Shea took a damp sponge and swabbed the black’s lips with it. “He’s got grand power when he takes off, sir. Looks like he was going clean over the rafters.”

  Pelham flicked the ash from his cigarette. “Wasn’t that Inspector Bradley you were talking to?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Nothing much, Captain. Asked if anyone could get into the Praynes’ apartment the back way if they didn’t have a key. I explained how it was. Then he got chatting about what a lovely way you have with a horse, sir, and asked me about how we run the school and all.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You haven’t seen any strangers using the back stair, have you, Peter?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or anyone outside the family … like Mr. Severied or Miss Linda or Mr. Curtin?”

  “No, sir. Leastways, not without you or Miss Pat with them.” The groom looked at Pelham’s anxious face. “Captain, if there’s anything I can do to help …”

  ‘There’s nothing, Peter. We’ve just got to sit tight while Bradley tries to pin murder on one of us! We’ve got to go on with our business … if there’s any left after this scandal! Polishing bits and soaping tack … while Bradley decides on a victim.”

  “Is it true, sir, that Mr. Severied has … well, not shown up?”

  Pelham’s eyes flashed. “You know as well as I do, Peter, that Guy never had anything to do with murder.”

  “Of course, sir, but it is funny he should …”

  “I’m afraid he’s in some sort of a jam,” Pelham said. He lifted a hand to cover his tired eyes for an instant. “If we only knew where to find him, we might be able to help.”

  ***

  Just as Bradley emerged onto the sidewalk, Rube Snyder hopped out of a police car and came up to him.

  “Here’s what you wanted, Red,” he said. “A warrant to search Severied’s apartment.”

  “Swell. Let’s go have a look now,” said Bradley.

  Rube drove the car back downtown. “What do you expect to find in this bird’s place, Red?” he asked.

  Bradley smiled. “I’m darned if I know, Rube. We’ve got to do something active to keep the commissioner satisfied.”

  “Don’t talk like a dope,” said Rube. “You never do nothin’ without a reason.”

  “Maybe I was ashamed to tell you what I expect to find,” said Bradley.

  “What, Red?”

  “Nothing,” said Bradley unhappily.

  “Come off it, Red!”

  “It’s true, Rube. The place where Gloria Prayne’s body was hidden is probably the place where the murder was committed. So far Severied’s is the only apartment I’ve heard of where it would be safe to hide a body.”

  “But, hell, Red, that sounds reasonable. Why don’t you expect to find nothin’?”

  “Because.” Bradley said, “I don’t think the body was hidden there.”

  Rube was still looking puzzled when he parked the sedan on Sixty-third Street. There was no sign of Monahan, and the switchboard operator told them that Severied hadn’t returned and that the detective was asleep in the porter’s room in the basement. Bradley explained about his warrant, and the superintendent was sent for to bring his pass key.

  A few minutes later the two men from headquarters and Mr. Rasmussen, a grizzled Dane who smoked a monstrous curve-stemmed pipe, went up in the elevator.

  They got out at Severied’s floor and walked along the tiled hallway. Just as they were opposite the apartment door, it was flung open. A man came out, head lowered, running like a halfback in a clear field.

  He charged straight into Bradley and was brought up short by the inspector, who had braced himself for the onslaught. It was Johnny Curtin.

  Johnny tried to wrench free, looked up, and saw who it was that held him.

  “Inspector, thank God it’s you!” he cried in a hoarse voice. He gestured wildly toward the open door of the apartment. “Guy! They got him! He’s dead. Oh, my God, the whole back of his head is blown off.”

  Bradley and Rube moved quickly. The inspector was the first through the door; but he stopped as he crossed the threshold, and his teeth clamped down hard on the stem of his pipe.

  The dead man, sprawled on the rug, still wore his overcoat, although his brown felt hat had rolled a few feet away. The back of his head was not pretty. Some sort of high caliber bullet had obliterated its shape.

  Bradley’s face had gone white and set. “How the devil did he get up here? Is everybody permanently asleep at the switch?” He stepped into the room; halted once more, taking a side view. “Good Lord!” he said. He knelt down, without touching the body, and peered at the face buried in the thick nap of the rug. “This isn’t Severied!” he said.

  “Not Guy!” Johnny choked. “Then who in God’s name …”

  Bradley stood up, dusting off his hands. “It’s Douglas Prayne,” he said.

  Chapter 12

  “Mr. Prayne!” Johnny started into the foyer.

  “Hold it!” Rube Snyder collared Johnny and yanked him hack into the hall. There was no sound as Bradley stood in the doorway, staring stonily around. Then Rasmussen, the superintendent, began to whimper like a frightened child.

  “Cheesusgott! Cheesusgott!” he said, over and over again. “They murdert him!”

  There was no gun visible and, unless Prayne’s body had fallen on the weapon, it was gone. Bradley was not yet prepared to search for it. He disappeared through the living room into the back of the apartment. He was away only a moment.

  “No one here,” he said. He walked out into the hall, pulled the door closed, and the lock snapped. “The key,” he said to Rasmussen.

  The superintendent produced a ring of keys that jingled like sleigh bells in his fingers.

  “Which one is it?”

  Rasmussen pointed, and Bradley slipped the proper key off the ring and pocketed it.

  “Inspector!” Johnny broke out. “Let me explain about this. I—”

  “Shut up, you!” Rube growled. His fingers were still hooked into Johnny’s collar. Johnny tried to shake himself free. “Now, now, baby, don’t get rough!”

  “Let him go,” said Bradley.

  “Okay,” muttered Rube, disappointed.

  “Rasmussen,” Bradley said, “rout out Monahan, my man who’s sleeping in your porter’s room.”

  “Ja … ja.”

  “And have your employees stand by for questioning. If any one of them leaves the building, I’ll lock ’em up for life.”

  “Ja. I tell dem.” He scurried for the elevator, still mumbling under his breath, “Cheesusgott!”

  “Rube! Go downstairs to the switchboard. Call headquarters and get the squad here at once — the M.E., fingerprint man, photographer … the works.”

  “Okay, Red.”

  “And get the nearest radio car to us pronto.”

  “Right!” And Rube was off.

  Bradley ignored Johnny, his frosty eyes fixed on some distant point in space. Johnny nervously waited. At last the gray eyes came to rest on him.

  “Well?” said Bradley.

  Words poured out of Johnny. “Inspector. I’d only gotten here about two minutes before you. Pat and 1 had a theory about Gloria’s murder, and we thought Guy could help us. He has a privately listed phone and neither Pat nor I knew the number, so I came instead of calling. I rang the doorbell, and there wasn’t any answer. When I started to knock, I saw the door wasn’t latched, so I pushed it open and went in. I … I saw him lying there and … and I didn’t look closely. I … I took it for granted it was Guy and ran for help … and there you were. I … I … that’s all I know.”

  Bradley just looked
at him.

  “You’ve got to believe me,” Johnny said. “That’s exactly what happened.”

  “Didn’t you announce yourself?” Bradley asked.

  “No. I … well, I thought you might be having the place watched.”

  “And you didn’t want me to know about this visit!” Bradley finished for him. “What made you think you’d find Severied here?”

  “Pat and I figured Guy was simply being cantankerous when he walked out. A souse is stubborn, Inspector. We thought he’d come back home to get some sleep, after he’d had his way.”

  “Mercy,” said Bradley coldly. “Practical psychologists! You didn’t see anyone come out of this apartment? No one passed you in the hall or was waiting for the elevator?”

  “Not a soul. No one, Inspector.”

  “Did you touch anything in that room?”

  “Good God, no. I … I took one look and ran!”

  “The doorknob?”

  “I … I’m not sure. I think I just pushed the door open. I did ring the bell, though.”

  “That will be a help! You see Douglas Prayne this morning?”

  “You mean at home?”

  “Where the devil do you think I mean? You spent the night at his apartment.”

  “I did, Bradley. But that’s no reason for you to …”

  “Answer my question!”

  “Yes … yes, I saw him. But he left before I did.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Why … why, it can’t be much more than two hours.”

  Bradley groaned. “And where did he say he was going?”

  “To his lawyer’s. He wanted advice on how to deal with … with you, Inspector!”

  “Did he mention Severied … or that he was coming here?”

  “Not in front of me, Inspector.”

  “And you remained at the Praynes’ for another hour and a half?”

  “Yes, sir. Pat and I had breakfast … and talked some more. You see, we have a theory that—”

  “I don’t give a good God damn about your theories, Curtin. Then you came straight here?”

  “In a cab.”

  The elevator gate opened and Rube, with Monahan in tow, joined them. Monahan looked scared.

  “Inspector, I swear I …”

  “Stop worrying,” Bradley said. “Unless Severied himself got by you you’re in the clear.”

  “Thanks, Inspector. What do you want me to do now?”

  “Work over the elevator man, the switchboard operator, and the night man. Someone besides Prayne came up and into this apartment. Find out who it was or get a description. One of ’em must have seen Prayne; Find out exactly what time he got here. Find out who left after that and when.”

  “The night man wasn’t on duty. Inspector. He …”

  “We don’t know when the murderer arrived,” Bradley said. “He may have come earlier and waited. Sweat it all out of ’em, Monahan. Get tough if you have to.”

  “Count on me, Inspector.”

  Bradley turned to Rube. “Take Mr. Curtin downstairs. When the radio car comes, have ’em take him down to headquarters and lock him up!”

  “Inspector!” Johnny cried. “I’ve got to get back to Pat. I—”

  “Take him away,” Bradley said.

  “You can’t do this, Bradley! What’s the charge against me?”

  “You find too many dead bodies, Curtin,” Bradley said. “Have him booked as a material witness, Rube.”

  “Come on, sweetie pie,” said Rube.

  “After that, Rube, round up the rest of ’em and bring ’em downtown. Miss Prayne. Miss Devon, Miss Marsh, Pelham … the whole kit and caboodle.”

  “How about a general alarm for Severied?”

  “No,” said Bradley.

  “Hell, Red, you want to find him, don’t you?”

  “No!”

  Rube was bewildered. “But, Red … nobody busted this door! Severied himself must of come back …”

  “Will you get moving?” Bradley demanded.

  “Okay, Red, it’s your case. I guess you know what you’re doin’.”

  “Thanks,” said Bradley, “for the compliment.”

  The squad from headquarters descended on Guy Severied’s flat and gave it the works. Douglas Prayne’s body was photographed from every conceivable angle. Its outline was drawn in chalk on the rug. The medical examiner gave it his attention before the stretcher bearers carried it downstairs to the morgue wagon. There was no gun lying beneath the body.

  The M. E. announced that Prayne had been dead probably not more than two hours and not less than one.

  “Find out what time he ate breakfast, and I can give it to you on the nail after the autopsy,” he advised Bradley.

  The fingerprint man went over the apartment inch by inch, dusting, photographing. When he was through, he had a fine collection of matching items that were unquestionably Guy’s. There were others not readily identified. Prayne had left none, since he had been wearing gloves.

  In the end Bradley gave the place a personal going over. Certain facts emerged.

  Either the murderer had had a key to the apartment or Severied had not shut the door securely when he went out the night before. This latter possibility appeared less probable, since the lock was of the snap variety and there was nothing in the foyer to keep the door from swinging to.

  Douglas Prayne had been wearing rubbers. He had tracked in moisture and mud from the street. The result was a clear enough trail on Guy’s rug. Prayne had come into the apartment, crossed to the chair by the fireplace and sat there for some time, to judge by the fuzz he had kicked up on the nap of the rug. Then, apparently, he had started to leave. The return trail led almost to the foyer. There it stopped … because there Payne had been shot in the hack of the head. There were no other distinguishable marks on the rug; but it seemed fairly clear that Prayne had sat talking to someone, and that the someone had shot him as he was leaving.

  Bradley had just finished noting these facts when Monahan reported.

  “Nothing that’s gonna help, Inspector,” he said ruefully. “But I’ll have another crack at it. There’s just one thing they all swear to. Severied didn’t come back. At least no one saw him, it would have been possible, of course, for him to have waited until the elevator man was at one of the upper floors, and then to have sneaked up the fire stairs. But that could only have happened during the night man’s shift, when there’s no one at the switchboard.”

  “But you were on watch all during that shift,” said Bradley.

  “And I never left that hallway, not even to go to the toilet,” Monahan insisted. “But there was a time he could have come back, Inspector. After he gave me the slip at the Blue Moon. See what I mean? I spent maybe three quarters of an hour lookin’ and callin’ you and gettin’ back here. If he came straight here, he might’ve made it.”

  “Right.” agreed Bradley. “It’s a chance. But how did he get out again? To have killed Prayne he’d have to have left some time in the last hour. He couldn’t have used the fire stairs then without being seen, could he?”

  “Positively not. And he didn’t use the elevator. Unless he pulled a human-fly act, he just couldn’t have got out.”

  “How about Prayne? Did they see him come in?”

  Monahan’s round face was somber. “Here’s the trouble, Inspector. There’s three apartments on this floor besides Severied’s. One of them is occupied by a fellow named Guilfoyle. You’ve heard of him? He does a Broadway column for one of the tabloids. All kinds of people come to see him at all hours of the day and night. The elevator boys have got so used to a procession goin’ up to this Guilfoyle’s they just don’t pay much attention to anyone for or from this floor.”

  “That’s just dandy,” said Bradley. “A tabloid columnist! How come he isn’t in our hair already?”

  “He went out about half an hour before you came, Inspector. Now get this. The day man remembers — he thinks — bringin’ Prayne up about nine
o’clock, That’d be about an hour and three quarters before he was found. As for anyone else … well, he says Guilfoyle’s already had at least half a dozen visitors this morning. I mean at the time he figured they were Guilfoyle’s friends. He doesn’t remember much about them except he says a couple of ’em were dames.”

  “Can he describe them?”

  Monahan was disgusted. “I tried that. Two arms, two legs … you know, the usual useless stuff. He did say one of ’em was no chicken. Gray hair.”

  Bradley’s eyes narrowed. After a moment he dropped his hand on Monahan’s shoulder. “Couple of tough breaks for you,” he said. “But you’ve done your best. Stick here until I send someone. If anyone asks for Severied, hang onto ’em. When your relief shows, bring this elevator boy down to headquarters. I want him to look over some people. Maybe he’ll recognize somebody.”

  Back in his office Bradley dictated his own reports. Then as Rube had not yet arrived with his roundup of suspects, he had Johnny Curtin brought in.

  Johnny was tight-lipped and truculent when a uniformed policeman left him standing in front of Bradley’s desk.

  “I came to you last night because you were Mr. Julius’ friend,” he said, before Bradley could speak. “He was sure of your help and consideration. Now you’re kicking us around just the way we could expect to be treated by any dumb mick on the force.”

  “Sit down.” said Bradley, his voice deceptively mild.

  “I’ll stand,” Johnny said.

  Bradley took his pipe from his pocket and began to fill it from a stone crock on his desk. His deliberateness was a sign that he was fighting for control of his own temper.

  “You know, Curtin,” he said, “you are not up before the headmaster at prep school for having put a snake in the Latin teacher’s bed! Two people have been murdered. We don’t kid about killings down here.” He held a match to his pipe. “I tried to be considerate last night. What’s the result? If I’d locked every damned one of you up on suspicion, Douglas Prayne wouldn’t be having his guts cut open by the medical examiner at this moment.”

  Johnny moistened his lips. “I do appreciate your position. But people’s nerves can’t stand this sort of thing, Bradley. Not ordinary people. I … I … Cripes, I can’t get the picture of Prayne out of my head.”