Michael Gray Novels

by Henry Kuttner

  Was that the way it worked?

  A voice said, “You wanted to see me?”

  Gray looked up into the politely puzzled face of the man he had been thinking about. For a moment he could only gaze blankly at Pollard. Then he remembered. The tests. The theory that the real killer would be afraid to take any tests, because tests might betray him…

  “Oh,” Gray said. “Yes. Something I forgot to ask you. I’d like to run a series of psychological tests on the people involved in this case. How about my testing you?” He made it purposely blunt. He didn’t want to give Pollard time to think.

  It worked.

  Pollard said quickly and firmly, “No!” Then he blinked and laughed a little, qualifying it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—it’s just that—”

  “Don’t let it worry you.” Gray smiled at him. He kept the excitement out of his voice with some effort, making his smile resigned. “I’m not surprised. That’s the reaction I keep getting. Well, maybe it isn’t such a good idea anyhow.”

  Relief was plain on Pollard’s face.

  Gray went down to his car slowly. Rain was pelting on the sidewalk as he slid into the driver’s seat. He listened to the soft tattoo on the roof and turned possibilities over and over in his mind.

  All theory, so far. No proof. But the points kept adding up.

  He wondered how Herrick would react to the same suggestion. Was Herrick, too, afraid of what tests might show? It would be interesting to find out

  Gray started the engine and drove off through the rain.

  The same rainstorm pelted on the roof of Chris Bond’s taxi. When he left the McCreery house, he had set off downhill with long-legged strides, making for a main street To get out of the downpour he went into a drugstore and drank a cup of coffee, hunching over it and gazing into its dark deeps as if he had a crystal there that could foretell his probable future, dark, too.

  Beneath the overhang of the counter he took out the handful of bills Martin McCreery had given him, counting them secretly, out of sight. He counted twice, making private calculations, balancing risk against risk. When he finally made up his mind, Bond wasn’t a man to loiter.

  He gulped the coffee, swung off the stool and waited under the dripping awning outside, snapping his fingers softly and doing an occasional dance shuffle, until an empty cab rolled by. It would be a long ride to Millbrae, but when Chris Bond had money in his pocket he never pinched pennies.

  17

  Zoe Herrick lay on her sofa by the window, looking out at the rain. Magazines littered the floor around her. On the table beside her was a box of brandied chocolates, and she nibbled at one from time to time, holding it delicately between finger and thumb, not paying much attention to what she was doing. Rainy days made her gloomy.

  When the maid said a man named Chris Bond wanted to see her she looked up alertly, interested. She didn’t have many callers. She asked the maid what he looked like, and the maid unexpectedly flushed a little, faltering in her description. It roused Zoe’s curiosity. While she waited, she pulled a heavy silver-framed hand mirror from under the sofa cushions and examined herself uncritically.

  Bond came in, walking with a certain wariness. When he saw she was alone he let his breath out in a relieved sigh. He had had enough of trying to cope with hostile men today. A woman was a welcome change. He gave her a pleasant, rather menacing grin.

  Zoe looked up at him, feeling her eyelashes flutter more coquettishly than she had really intended. He was amazingly good-looking. But she knew this type. She had dealt with many a Chris Bond in her long-ago days in stock.

  “All right, Mary, you can go,” she said to the maid. “Mr.—Bond, is it? Sit down.”

  Bond waited for the door to close. Then he came forward on light, silent feet and stood above the sofa, looking down. Zoe noted the smooth, powerful step and the bulk of his body above her, and she felt a little thrill of unexpected fear and excitement.

  “I’ll come right to the point, Mrs. Herrick,” Bond said. “You know my name?” And he watched, his eyes bright, waiting for recognition. It puzzled him that awareness didn’t jump to her face at once.

  “Bond?” she echoed. “I don’t think I—oh!”

  “Yes, Bond. It was my wife was killed Saturday night.”

  Zoe caught her breath a little and gazed at him with renewed interest. She made her voice deeper than usual and sketched a graceful gesture of sympathy with the hand that had held the chocolate.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and waited. He hadn’t come for sympathy. That much she knew, anyhow. And she knew now who he was, though only vaguely. A character in the strange, alarming play that revolved around the dead girl in the burning apartment.

  But there was no need to feel frightened. It would all come out right in the end. Quine was a powerful lawyer, and the Herrick money cushioned everything. Philip would never let anything terrible happen.

  This man before her had probably come for money. She didn’t know yet what his approach would be, but the general type she knew. She rehearsed in her mind the several ways she might deal with him, depending on what kind of a role this turned out to be.

  “Your husband isn’t at home?” Bond asked.

  Zoe shook her head. “Did you want to see him?” she asked in an ironic voice. t

  Bond said, “No, I didn’t. I’d rather talk to you.”

  Flattered, Zoe said, “What about?”

  Bond swung away from her and began pacing the room with his long, smooth tread.

  “A business proposition,” he said. “I have a deal on in…St. Louis. I need capital to swing it. I’ve got some property for sale I thought you might like to buy.”

  “Here it comes,” Zoe thought. But she said nothing, only watched alertly, conscious that with her head tilted this way, toward him, she was showing the best side of her face.

  When she didn’t bite, Bond went on doggedly.

  “Valuable property,” he said. “Worth a lot. I’ll part with it cheap because I need the money for a quick trip.” He looked at Zoe thoughtfully. No use setting the price too high at first. If they pay up once, they’re hooked. They’ll keep on paying. Never make the first demand high enough to scare them.

  “Five thousand bucks,” he said.

  Zoe blinked. “My husband is the one you ought to talk to,” she said.

  “You can talk it over with him. I’m sure he’ll agree it’s a good deal.”

  Zoe waited. In a minute it would come. She was curious, but she felt quite secure. What information could he have that could touch her? Even if it concerned Eileen—the worst had already happened there. And Quine was in charge. Nothing could go wrong now.

  “I thought you’d appreciate getting first crack at my property,” Bond said, scowling. He had expected her to act more fluttery, to intimidate easier than this. He had to shake her poise somehow.

  “You understand,” he said, “I’ve got other ways of raising the money. A reporter I know would probably give me more than five grand for some of the photographs Beverly left me.”

  That should shake her, he thought. But Zoe looked ironically interested.

  “My wife’s things came to me, legally,” Bond said. “I didn’t get my hands on some of it until just today. Stuff the police have been keeping hushed up. Photographs and letters. Pretty nasty stuff, you understand?”

  Zoe frowned. “What are you talking about?” She hadn’t meant to speak. She lost some of her advantage when she did it, but she couldn’t keep the question back. The first faint stirrings of fear woke in her, as if she knew before he answered what unbelievable thing it was he meant to voice.

  “Scandal,” Bond told her, relishing the word. “Headline stuff. Some magazines would pay plenty for it, too.”

  Zoe said, “But I don’t understand. What has all this to do with us? How could your wife have left anything that could be of the slightest interest to me?” She made her voice haughty, but she couldn’t control the little quiver in it. She wanted
to cry out suddenly, “Don’t answer! Don’t tell me!” but she bit the inside of her cheek and kept the words back, clutching desperately after the feeling that this was all a play she was cast in, nothing real that could affect the real Zoe Herrick.

  Chris Bond said impatiently, “You know what I’m talking about. Don’t give me that. Beverly wasn’t sleeping with your old man just for kicks. I’ve got pictures and letters that the newspapers would—”

  Zoe shut her eyes tight.

  She opened her Ups, but no words came out. She gasped for breath and heard a high, thin voice force itself from her throat.

  “You’re lying! You filthy swine, you’re lying! My husband has never even looked at another woman. My husband—”

  Chris Bond laughed.

  Zoe felt her heart give one enormous lurch and pause in its beating. She had a strange, wild hope that it would stop now and never start again. For a dreadful moment she saw herself as she really was. This was the real world and the real truth, no play she could posture through, ignoring whatever she feared. And what Chris Bond said was nothing new to her. A part of her mind had known all along what the truth must be. But she wouldn’t accept it, even now. Her heart began to pound, and she was sorry to feel it

  “No,” she said in a violent whisper. “No! It isn’t true! I know it isn’t true! He couldn’t do that to me! I know he couldn’t!”

  Bond said angrily, “Don’t give me that. I know you people with dough. You’re no better than anyone else. You just get away with more. Well, this time it’s too hot. You can’t keep it quiet. I want money and you’re going to give it to me. It won’t do you a damn bit of good trying to cover up for your dear big-shot, two-timing husband.”

  He wanted to stop himself, hearing his voice grow louder. But the fact was he had begun to feel desperate. He hadn’t thought it would go like this. The woman wasn’t cowering and intimidated. She seemed too blind with shock to pay much attention to what he said to her. The situation was slipping out of control, just like the situation with Pollard. And the situation with Martin McCreery. He thought despairingly, “Maybe I’m no damn good as a blackmailer,” and the thought stung.

  “If you don’t get me that money and get it fast,” he said in a harsh voice, “the Herrick name’s going to be smeared on every front page in the country.” He glanced around the room in some desperation.

  A telephone on a long cord sat on a table by the door. He picked it up and shoved it toward Zoe.

  “Now you take this phone and call your husband,” he said commandingly. “Give him his choice. Five grand in cash or I turn over the pictures of him and Beverly in bed to the reporters. Mrs. Herrick, I’m talking to you!”

  Zoe looked up, met his eyes with a blank, unseeing stare.

  “Get out of my house!” she said, her breath hissing between her teeth. “Get out, get out, get out!”

  “Mrs. Herrick, I warn you—”

  Zoe’s hand dropped to the pillows. She felt something hard under her fingers and clutched it blindly, dragging it up to throw at him. She had the heavy silver mirror in her grip, and she hurled it straight at the dark, contorted face bending over her.

  Bond dodged just in time. The mirror grazed his cheek and smashed against the wall behind him.

  “Mrs. Herrick, cut that out! You don’t want to—”

  She snatched for the telephone.

  “I’m calling the police! Get out! Get out while you still can!” With a trembling hand she dialed the operator, held the instrument to her ear, her eyes wild in a dead white face staring at him unseeingly.

  Bond knew when he was beaten.

  He swung toward the door, jerked it open, slammed it behind him. His feet thudded on the stairs.

  Zoe watched him go. Then she pushed down the button of the telephone and sat there for a very long moment, her head bent over the instrument, breathing in short, hard gasps, her mind perfectly blank.

  Slowly an enormous rage began to fill her.

  She dialed a number with quick, unsteady stabs.

  “I want to speak to my husband,” she told the girl who answered. “Herrick. Hurry.” And when Philip came on the line, she said in a voice she didn’t recognize, “I want you home. Now. Now! Never mind—drop it—I don’t care. Get a cab. Now! Come home.”

  His bewildered protests ceased with a click as she cut the connection.

  Outside the rain was coming down hard. Chris Bond hunched morosely under a tree at the nearest bus stop, his coat collar turned up against the downpour. He dug his hands deep in his pockets, hunched his shoulders and sketched a sad little shuffle on the wet pavement with one foot. Maybe, after all, he had better take what he had and get out of town at once. Definitely today was not Chris Bond’s lucky day.

  18

  The level bars of a sullen saffron sunset gleamed through storm clouds beyond the window as Gray scribbled down the notes of his last interview with a patient. He was just reaching to switch on his desk lamp when he heard the outer door to his office swing violently open. Feet thudded across the carpet. The inner door burst open.

  Gray looked up into the pale, sweating face of Philip Herrick. His tie was pushed to one side and his raincoat hung open over a rain-spotted gray suit. He strode forward and slammed his palm down on the desk top.

  “You’ve gone too God damned far,” Herrick said in a thick, choked voice.

  Gray pushed his chair back, staring.

  “What do you—”

  Herrick broke in furiously. “I’m going to sue you and smear your name in every newspaper in the country. What the hell have you been doing to my wife?”

  This time Gray didn’t try to answer. He sat alert, watching.

  “Did you send that bastard Bond to see Zoe?” Herrick demanded.

  Silently Gray shook his head, still watching.

  “You’re a liar,” Herrick said, slapping the desk again. “Neil Pollard told me about Bond. You had a long talk with him. And I know damn well you’ve talked to my wife. Now you’ve got about three seconds to tell me how it happens Bond went to see my wife today. And where is that son of a bitch?”

  Gray said, “I don’t know. If you could tell me what’s happened—”

  “You know God damned well what’s happened!”

  Gray drew a deep breath and laid his hands on the desk, frowning at the angry little man. He thought there was panic close under the rage. Was it a killer’s panic? Was this a killer’s rage?

  “What was it you told my wife?” Herrick shouted, leaning over the desk to thrust his congested face at Gray. “By God, if you’re responsible for all this, I’ll sue you for the last penny you ever—”

  Gray said, “Oh, for God’s sake! Shut up, Herrick.”

  Herrick blinked a little. Then he began to roar.

  Watching him, Gray remembered suddenly Eileen’s last visit here. His own imitation of Herrick had been pretty accurate, he thought now, though at the time he had had little more than Eileen’s picture of him to go by. How often Herrick must have used this same technique on his daughter. And how often she must have responded, with blind rage or blind submission—always in the wrong way.

  “—see that you’re smeared in every newspa—” Herrick was shouting.

  Gray was suddenly tired of it.

  “God damn it, shut up!” he roared. He slammed his fist noisily on the desk and shoved back his chair, surging to his feet “Shut up and get out!”

  Herrick gasped slightly. “I’m staying!” he said in a voice just a little less violent than before. “I’m staying till I get an answer! If you’re responsible for—”

  Gray cleared the end of his desk in two strides. The third step carried him so close to Herrick that the little man had to tilt his head back to meet Gray’s eyes. Automatically Herrick stepped back a pace.

  “I’m staying!” he shouted again. “You can’t intimidate—”

  Gray took another forceful forward step. Again Herrick had to give ground.

  “You
sneaking, prying son of a bitch!” Herrick cried, backing away. “If you put a hand on me I’ll—”

  “Outside!” Gray said, advancing a little faster. With quick backward steps Herrick retreated before him, still mouthing half-coherent rage. When Gray had him on the threshold of the open door, he paused briefly, looking down.

  “Herrick!” he said.

  Herrick broke off in the middle of an incoherent threat, gazing up almost expectantly.

  Gray put all the coldness and contempt he could summon into his voice. “Who do you think I am?” he demanded. “Your wife?”

  Then he stepped back and shut the door in Herrick’s face.

  He stood there motionless a moment, realizing that his forehead was wet with sweat. If Herrick was the killer, Gray had just taken a very long chance.

  After a pause, he turned back to his desk, breathing rather hard. Bluffing Herrick hadn’t been much of a problem, after all. After the first few moments, Gray had known it wouldn’t come to a real fight. The battle, on a deeper, fiercer plane than physical combat, was on the battlefield where Eileen had struggled hopelessly for so long.

  Gray shook his head and picked up the telephone. Dialing, he noticed that his hand was shaking a little. There was no sound from the outer office. He got his connection and asked for Quine. They talked briefly. When Gray hung up he stood with bent head, frowning. Evidently things were moving that he hadn’t known about.

  As he stood quiet he heard the doorknob turn. Herrick looked in at him, red-faced, still angry, but looking oddly shaken.

  Herrick said in a comparatively subdued voice, “What the hell did you mean by that?”

  “By what?” Gray asked blankly.

  “What you said about my wife.”

  Gray said, “Oh.” Then, dispassionately, he added, “If you want to know, come in and sit down. Or else get out of here and stay out.”

  Herrick hesitated. Little grimaces of indecision crossed his congested face. Gray watched him steadily.