The 24th Horse

by Hugh Pentecost

  “Six: Severied knew about it.

  “Seven: Gloria’s body was kept hidden for two days.

  “Eight: The keys to the Prayne car were kept on a table in the tack room, and everyone connected with the case knew it.

  “Nine: The murderer had a key to Guy Severied’s apartment.

  “Ten: Douglas Prayne hot-footed it to see Severied, talked with the murderer, and was shot.

  “Eleven: Severied went into hiding.

  “Twelve: George Pelham owns a gun of the type used in the second murder.

  “Thirteen: Severied went to Pelham’s apartment to find that gun and had to knock out Rube to get away.

  “Fourteen: When Dorothy Pelham disappeared the only thing missing was her toothbrush.

  “Fifteen: Johnny Curtin gave Gloria the air, and she went away mad.

  “Sixteen: Guy Severied got stinking drunk before he heard of the murder.

  “Seventeen: George Pelham is what our romantic lady novelists call ‘a one-woman man.’

  “Eighteen: Earl Williams owns a dairy farm in Peekskill, New York.

  “Nineteen: Guy Severied never looks at expense accounts.

  “Twenty: All women think that chains keep them from skidding on icy roads.”

  “For Pete’s sake!” said Mr. Julius disgustedly.

  “Twenty-one:” said Bradley, unmoved. “The Hotel Gansvoort burned to the ground in 1935.”

  “Bradley, stop it! You’re off your trolley.”

  “Twenty-two: All unmarried women have a strong maternal complex.”

  “God save us!” said Mr. Julius.

  “Twenty-three: The murderer had to have (a) access to Gloria’s stationery; (b) access to Linda’s desk; (c) access to Pelham’s apartment to get his gun; (d) access to Severied’s apartment; (e) access to an automobile.

  “Twenty-four: The murderer had to be somebody Gloria Prayne trusted. She would never have allowed herself to be trapped by anyone she feared. Not Severied! He was the person she was mortally afraid of.” Bradley drew a long breath. “Well, have you got it?”

  “I have got,” said Mr. Julius, “a headache. I think it ought to be grounds for dismissal for any policeman to read modern detective stories. Who the hell do you think you are … Philo Vance, Ellery Queen? All this hooey!” The old man got up. “I never thought the day would come when you’d turn into a gibbering idiot, Go fancy on me, will you? Well, I won’t even guess! I don’t want to know?”

  “Just the same, I’m grateful to you for your help … and for listening,” said Bradley.

  “Humph!” said Mr. Julius. “I’m going back to my bed. Consider yourself lucky if I ever give you five minutes of my time again. Good night.”

  He stomped down off the platform, across the tanbark, and out the door onto the street.

  Bradley watched him go, smiling. Then the look of amusement faded slowly from his face. He tamped down the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe and lit another match. Just as he drew in on the flame, a voice spoke behind him—a woman’s voice, cold and implacable.

  “Don’t turn around, Mr. Bradley, and don’t dare to move. I have this gun leveled straight at the back of your head.”

  The flame burned slowly down the stick of the match until it reached Bradley’s fingers.

  He dropped it, and the place was almost completely dark again.

  “How did you like my summation of the case, Miss Marsh?” he asked quietly.

  “I thought it fatally good,” said Linda Marsh.

  Bradley sat perfectly still, “I didn’t think you’d risk it,” he said. “But I had hopes.”

  “Hopes?”

  “I told you I was going to be here.” Bradley’s voice was mild.

  “Just what did you expect me to do?” Linda said. She sounded metallic, hard, grimly purposeful. “Wait until morning for you to arrest me with dramatic effect at headquarters?”

  “I thought perhaps you would do some thinking,” Bradley said. “I thought perhaps you would realize the futility of going on with this and surrender peacefully.”

  “Celia called you an optimist the other night,” Linda said. “She was right. Why should I surrender? I can still get away with this, Inspector. I can still live my life.”

  Bradley was as motionless as if he’d been carved out of stone. “Julius has the evidence,” he reminded her.

  Linda laughed. It was a harsh, grating sound. “You had him thoroughly confused. You spun your web so subtly that the poor old fool is more at sea than ever.”

  “Do you think,” Bradley asked, “that Pelham will marry you in the end?”

  “I think he will,” Linda said. “But not if he got to know. It would blow what’s left of his world to pieces. That, Mr. Bradley, is why you have come to the end of the trail. I’m sorry for you. You’ve been doing your job.”

  “And I’m sorry for you,” Bradley said.

  “Damn you for that!”

  “If you hadn’t had to pile it up … If it hadn’t been I or Douglas Prayne …”

  “There’s no use our discussing it, Mr. Bradley. You know the answers, as you told Julius. One of us has to die for the other to go on living.”

  “It would be easier to talk if you’d come around where I could see you,” Bradley said. “But I suppose it will be simpler from behind. You took care of the others that way.”

  For the first time Linda’s voice broke. “For God’s sake, Mr. Bradley, isn’t there some way out of this? I’m fighting for my life, for George’s. You know that. I thought with Gloria gone that would be the end of it. I thought it made me safe … made George safe. I thought Guy would benefit. Then I found she’d told her father. I couldn’t stop then. I had to go on.”

  Bradley started to tap out his pipe in the palm of his hand.

  “Don’t move!” Linda warned. “I’m not taking chances.”

  Bradley sat still. “I know what you were up against,” he said.

  “I thought I’d be safe, even after that,” Linda said. “But you came into it and stumbled across the line that led you to the truth. My only chance was to keep Guy and Williams from talking.”

  “It’s like a snowball,” Bradley said. “Murder always is. Now you are going to kill me. When Guy recovers, he’s going to realize why. You’ll have to go on. You’ll have to finish the job you tried tonight. Guy … then Williams. Do you know what will happen then?”

  Linda’s voice sounded parched. “What?”

  “Celia Devon is no fool. She suspects George. Wrong, of course. But she’s guessed the secret, or will, Sooner or later she’ll know it was you. You’ll have to keep on. Perhaps in the end George himself will have to die … although you’ve done all this for him. You’re out over your head, Miss Marsh. You can’t win. But I’ll give you a chance to save something.”

  “You’re not in a position to offer terms, Mr. Bradley.”

  “If you’ll submit to arrest,” said Bradley, “I promise you that Pelham need never know the truth about Dorothy. You’ve done all this to keep him from knowing. I offer you the chance to win on that score. If you refuse, in the long run the thing will catch up with you and there will be no secrets kept from anyone.”

  There was silence for a moment. He could hear her deep, labored breathing.

  Then she said, “I’ll take a chance on winning, Mr. Bradley. I’m sorry. But I have to take it.”

  At that precise moment there was a sound of smashing glass and the tiny light of the door was gone, the place plunged into complete darkness. There was a blast of flame from behind Bradley, but in that split second he had pitched sideways out of his chair and roiled off the edge of the platform to the tanbark. Linda’s gun exploded again, echoing and re-echoing.

  Then Bradley said quietly, “You can’t make it, Miss Marsh. There are men in every exit. Your statement has been taken down by a police stenographer. I’m sorry. I would have kept my word if you’d accepted terms. Drop your gun on the platform.”

  He could hear her stra
ngled gasp for breath. He kept his head below the level of the platform lest she should fire again in the direction of his voice. Her gun did spout flame. There was a heavy thud.

  “Lights!” Bradley shouted.

  Instantly the overhead lights came on. Bradley was on his feet. Plain-clothes men converged on the platform. Linda Marsh lay, face down, just behind Bradley’s overturned chair. She had, after all, made her own decision.

  Bradley turned away. He looked gray and tired. “Thanks, Corcoran,” he said. “I had to use you instead of Rube. I was afraid he wouldn’t hold his fire long enough. You got her statement?”

  “Every word of it, Inspector. You’ve solved your case.”

  Bradley sighed. “There may still be a thing or two to do about it.”

  ***

  Bradley was late in reaching his office the next morning. He had been through a session with the commissioner.

  When he walked into the room he discovered Pat, Johnny, Miss Devon, and Pelham waiting for him. The lines in his face seemed to grow deeper.

  He walked around behind his desk, stood there for a minute looking through some reports, and then with a kind of reluctance faced his visitors.

  “I thought after you’d seen the papers this morning you’d realize that it wasn’t necessary for you to come here,” he said.

  “We simply can’t believe this,” Johnny said, He held up a copy of a newspaper, headlines black under a picture of Linda Marsh.

  LOVE KILLER AND SUICIDE

  Famous Fashion Designer Murders Rival

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true enough,” Bradley said. He lowered his eyes and began talking rapidly. “I owe you an apology, Captain Pelham. I was certain these killings were connected with your wife’s disappearance. I was wrong.” He glanced up, saw Miss Devon’s shrewd eyes fixed on him, and looked away again. “Linda was thirty-four years old, and there had been just one love in her life all these years — Severied. Gloria had some sort of hold on Severied and was forcing him into a marriage. When he threatened to rebel against her blackmailing she became frightened and wrote a letter exposing him as her potential murderer in case he should go to such lengths. She gave the letter to Linda to keep, being unaware of Linda’s feeling for Severied. Linda opened the letter and discovered why Severied had turned away from her. She destroyed the letter, waited for an opportunity to prepare a duplicate, and then her decks were clear.”

  “Why the duplicate?” asked Miss Devon in a steady voice. “Why not simply destroy it?”

  “She couldn’t be certain that Gloria hadn’t mentioned the existence of the letter to someone else,” Bradley explained. “She took no chances on that. She instantly produced the letter, thus throwing suspicion away from herself.”

  “But, damn it, I simply can’t understand it!” Pelham said. “When Linda was with me she seemed to …”

  “There is no doubt Miss Marsh was extremely fond of you, Captain,” said Bradley, “but she was in love with Severied. Once she had killed Gloria she found herself caught in a web from which she couldn’t escape. She was forced to kill Douglas Prayne when he guessed that she was the murderer. In the end she actually had to make an attempt on Severied, who had also hit on the truth about her.”

  “Where was Gloria killed?” Miss Devon asked.

  “At the dress shop. She went there after leaving Johnny at El Morocco. Linda was working late at the shop, as she often did. She strangled Gloria, kept the body hidden there for two days in an unused storeroom to which only she had access. On Saturday night, while everyone was excited about the Horse Show, she took the car keys from the tack room and drove to her shop. There is an alley for trucks at the rear. She dragged Gloria’s body out onto a loading platform and rolled it into the rumble seat. The rest you know.”

  Pelham stared dully at Bradley. “And you learned nothing about Dorothy? There’s no new evidence?”

  “Nothing. Not a shred,” said Bradley, his eyes on the paper-littered desk.

  Pelham got up from his chair, turned, and went quickly out of the room. Bradley came around the desk to where Johnny and Pat were sitting together.

  “This has been tough on you two,” he said, “But there’s no reason why it should spoil your lives.” He smiled wryly. “But try to be a little less complicated than your friends and relatives have been.”

  “You can count on that,” Johnny said. “I’m marrying Pat today … now, if she’ll have me. I’m taking her up to my farm in Millbrook, and that will be that.”

  Bradley watched them leave, and then he gave Miss Devon, who remained stolidly in her chair, a questioning look.

  “I have the highest regard for your abilities as a detective, Mr. Bradley,” she said, “but you are a terrible liar.”

  “Mercy, was it as bad as that?” he asked unhappily.

  “I think you got away with it,” said Miss Devon, “but you and I know that this story of yours is the sheerest twaddle. I’d like to know the real answer.”

  Bradley said, “Did you ever drink a scotch and soda at nine-thirty in the morning?”

  “No, but there has to be a first time for everything.”

  “Come with me, then. I’m going off duty and there’s a very good bar across the street.”

  ***

  “That story in the papers will hold water,” said Bradley, looking up from his glass. He and Miss Devon were sitting in a booth in Bradley’s bar. “Severied is quite willing to be the goat. I talked to him at the hospital before I gave it out.”

  “Guy would,” said Miss Devon. “But why? Why not the truth, whatever it is.”

  “Because,” said Bradley gravely, “for five years Guy Severied has gone through hell to keep the truth hidden, and Linda Marsh committed two murders for the same cause.”

  “But see here … ”

  “It’s a strange tale, Miss Devon. The story of the love of a man for his best friend, and of a woman for that same friend.

  “Dorothy Pelham, as we suspected all along, was the key to the whole affair. Dorothy Pelham, who was ‘crazy about the boys.’ You doubted that, because under that acid veneer of yours you really think well of people. But Dorothy Pelham didn’t deserve your confidence. I suspect that from the time she and Pelham were married she was never faithful to him.

  “Guy Severied had reason to know this. Long before Pelham ever met Dorothy, she and Severied had had an affair. In fact, it was Severied who introduced her to Pelham. Then, while Severied was away on a big-game-hunting expedition, Pelham courted Dorothy and married her.

  “Severied was delighted when he heard it. He was extremely fond of them both. He thought that with marriage Dorothy would settle down. But she didn’t. She continued to play around. Severied tried to persuade her to give it up.

  “He knew what it would mean to Pelham if he ever found out the truth.

  “Dorothy wasn’t having any. Instead, she tried to renew their old relationship. On the night that Dorothy disappeared she went to a hotel, took a suite there, and telephoned Severied to come and see her. He refused at first. Finally he agreed, but only because he decided that it was an opportunity to have it out with her once and for all.” Bradley drew a deep breath. “The important point, Miss Devon, is that the hotel was the Gansvoort.”

  “Good Lord!” Miss Devon’s tone was horrified.

  “That night, as you know,” Bradley continued, “the Gansvoort burned to the ground. Fifty or sixty people were burned to death. Dorothy Pelham was one of them. Severied was with her, but in the ensuing panic they were separated. He escaped. She did not.” Bradley knocked the cold ashes from his pipe. “Severied was then confronted with a problem. If he told Pelham that Dorothy had died in the fire, he would have to explain how he knew it. He would have to confess that he had been there with her, alone. No one, not even Pelham, his best friend, would believe that he had gone there to break things off.

  “Severied had to decide whether it was better for Pelham never to know what had happened to his wife an
d still retain his belief in her and his best friend or to know that she had never been faithful to him and live with the gnawing suspicion that Severied had double-crossed him. Guy decided that it was better for George never to know,”

  “I think he was right,” Miss Devon said.

  “It was a costly decision. Once he had made it he could never go back on it without dealing George a body blow. Naturally, he went through the motions of helping George in his search for Dorothy. He even paid the private-detective fees. But before that he ran into his first trouble. Earl Williams, the policeman who handled the case for the department, following ordinary routine, finally stumbled on the truth. Guy admitted it and sold Williams on keeping quiet. No crime had been committed. Williams agreed.

  “Nothing else cropped up for almost three years, and then things really got tough. Gloria was at Guy’s apartment one day. He left her to do an errand, and she began looking at papers and letters on his desk. I gather she had no very strong sense of private property. In the process she found a secret drawer. In it was a written agreement between Severied and Williams, disclosing the whole story.”

  “Gloria had struck gold!” said Miss Devon.

  “Quite so. She began a systematic blackmailing of Severied, which included marriage. Naturally Severied hated her guts. He must have made it so clear that she got frightened into writing the letter she left with Linda. If Guy pulled anything, he would pay. That was her notion.

  “Now Linda Marsh had an ordinary amount of curiosity. Gloria had acted so queerly she couldn’t resist opening the letter. And there the seed of murder was sown. Linda was in love with Pelham. It seemed likely that sooner or later George would marry her. But if this story, out of the past ever got to him, Pelham would crack into a thousand pieces. Linda was willing to go to any lengths to keep that knowledge from George.

  “She planned carefully. It was simple enough to prepare a duplicate letter to substitute for the original and to borrow Pelham’s automatic without his knowing it. Then she bided her time until the night Gloria left Johnny at El Morocco and went to Linda’s shop. The actual details of the murder are exactly as I described them.