Crime on My Hands

by George Sanders

  “Well, maybe. All right, then, why don’t we just clam up? If we don’t know from nothing, what could they do? They’d never find the gun, and it would go down as an unsolved crime. How about that?”

  “But, Sammy!” I protested. “We just can’t let a killer wander about. It isn’t good citizenship.”

  “Lay off the lecture,” Sammy said. “Besides, we’re about to have company.”

  Our company was McGuire, head of props. He was like a short brown wire. He had a shrewd, wrinkled face and bright gray eyes. He came in smiling.

  “I’d like to put those guns away,” he said to Sammy. “We won’t need ’em before tomorrow.”

  ‘I’ll bring ’em over after a while,” Sammy stalled. “We’re working on a scene.”

  McGuire shrugged, and went away. Sammy frowned.

  “We get deeper and deeper,” he said. “What am I going to tell him? They were his responsibility.”

  “He’ll pass the buck to you in case of trouble.”

  “What’ll I tell the cops, then?” Sammy wailed. “Am I gonna say I gave you the guns, and I only got one back? That the other was in Carla’s wagon, and you had a strange gun on you, a Smith & Wesson thirty-eight, just like the gun you claim is the murder weapon? My God, look where that puts you. You had this strange gun, and now it’s gone.”

  “That,” I said gently, “is what I pointed out to you. The inference is so obvious that they’d take their minds off the actual murderer. We must keep quiet, if we expect to find the killer.”

  “George, I don’t like it. I don’t want to be mixed up in it.”

  “You are mixed up in it, though,” I said reasonably. “It was you who gave me the signal to say nothing when you lied about the thirty-eights. Besides, Sammy, I need you.”

  “Oh, hell!” Sammy growled. “Why do people have to make friends? If a friend asks you for help, you’ve got to play ball or be a heel. And heels get along pretty well. There’s a lot of ’em in our business, doing all right.”

  “Thanks, Sammy. I knew you’d see it my way.”

  “I don’t see it your way at all. But what else can I do?” He glanced out the door. “Oh, God, here comes somebody else. You’d think this was the men’s can.”

  The bearded extra who had asked Riegleman about his place in the scheme of things came to the door. He stabbed Sammy with his sharp black eyes.

  “Mr. Riegleman told me, sir, to ask you.”

  “He would,” Sammy muttered. “Just pack up your troubles and drop ’em in my lap.”

  The man waited for Sammy to go on. The silence got a trifle embarrassing.

  “’Well?” Sammy finally snapped.

  ‘I’m sorry,” the man apologized. “I did not comprehend that you had finished. I am trying to ascertain the reason for my presence here.”

  “Did it ever occur to you,” Sammy asked gently, “that we’re shooting a picture?”

  “Yes,” the man said with dignity, “I understand that. But this strange series of events which began in Hollywood has me somewhat bewildered. You see, my agent told me to report to your studio. When I did, I was told to go to Gate Seven. Gate Seven bore a sign: ‘Beards.’ The man inside took one look at me and told me to report Monday morning ready to come here. Why?”

  “You’re getting your fifteen dollars a day,” Sammy snapped. “What do you want, a supporting role? Are you kicking about the dough?”

  “Dear me,” the man said, “as much as that? Then I have no complaint on the score of remuneration. But I still do not understand–”

  “It will all be made clear,” Sammy said. “Just keep yourself in readiness. You’ll get your orders.”

  “I see.” A reflective pause. “I – see.” He didn’t. That was very clear. “Thank you.” He went away, tall, lean, stooped, his head shaking.

  “You meet some funny ones,” Sammy said, looking after him. “Now, where were we?”

  “I want you to do something, Sammy. I want you to get the film that was being shot while Flynne was being murdered and bring it over to my trailer. Tonight, before they ship it back to the studio to be developed.”

  Sammy’s eyes went round with scandalized horror. “George! The master film! Undeveloped stock! You can’t do that. It would be like asking Congress to loan you the original Declaration of Independence.”

  “You want to trap the murderer, don’t you?”

  “Not under those conditions. I’d rather forget about him. If Riegleman caught me, he’d tear my hide off with his teeth.”

  “Look, Sammy. The cameras recorded all the action. That film will furnish alibis for several hundred persons. If we give out the news that we have it and know that it contains a very important clue, the murderer will have to get the film and destroy it. Wouldn’t you, if you were the murderer?”

  “Not the master film, George! My God, that’s sacrilege!”

  “The murderer won’t see it that way, Sammy.”

  “Then he’s a dirty rat. Look, that was a swell scene this morning. We can’t take a chance on getting the film destroyed. We’d have to shoot it over, and maybe do retakes. That costs money, George! Listen, I’ve worked with Riegleman for a year. When he spends a nickel, he’s got to have an aspirin. You’d think he raised that buffalo from a calf.”

  “Only if it’s someone else’s money,” I reminded Sammy. “That’s what’s made him a success as a producer, remember. A successful producer gets to be a rich man. And Riegleman–”

  “A modest little home in the country,” Sammy said softly, and grinned.

  I repressed a grin. “Let’s don’t be unkind,” I said.

  “Twenty-six rooms and nine baths,” Sammy murmured. “Two swimming pools –one, of course, for the servants. A private shooting gallery where he can show off his fancy marksmanship. Remember the time he made a bet with the bit player who’d once been a bodyguard for Capone?”

  “He won it, didn’t he?” I said. “Wish I’d been there.” It must have been a memorable evening. A deck of cards tacked up on the target, and Riegleman and the ex-bodyguard playing poker by shooting at the cards. “Anyway, why shouldn’t he have the kind of modest little house he wants?”

  “If he ever gets it paid for,” Sammy said, “he’ll trade it in as down payment on another modest little home. This one with a private golf course and a polo field.”

  “All right, he’s ambitious,” I retorted. “It’s his money. Let’s veer back to business. About this film.” I paused. “As a matter of fact, Sammy, you might say I was doing this for Riegleman.”

  Sammy blinked. “Come again?”

  ‘I’m trying to save money, Sammy.”

  “How?”

  “Suppose the sheriff makes us stay here until the crime is solved. You and I know that would take him forever. And the costs would pile up every day. Now, if we clean up the case tonight, we can hand him his murderer and go on with the picture. We don’t lose any time.”

  Sammy thought about it. “You think you can clean it up?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Well–” Presently, he heaved to his small feet. “All right, but I hope to God you know what you’re doing.”

  “While you’re getting the film,” I said, “I’ll drive a couple of stakes so that when they’re lined up they’ll direct us to the dune where Listless threw the guns. If all this stuff is moved to another location, we’d have no landmark. And we can’t go out looking for the guns now. We’d be seen. Not that I think we’ll need them, anyway. But best not to chance it.”

  “I’ll need the other gun in that museum pair,” Sammy said. “We’d better find it.” He groaned. “Priceless guns, undeveloped stock. Somebody’s gonna catch up with us. God, what a mess! Good-by, George. If I get caught, plant a rose for me somewhere.”

  I sat for some time, thinking. I tried to drum up a little self-contempt. We were motivated by strictly personal considerations. I wanted to catch the murderer to forestall personal difficulty. I doubted that even I coul
d explain to the sheriff how I was innocent in this mixed-up mess. And Sammy was going along in the hope of getting the picture finished on schedule. Neither of us thought about Severance Flynne.

  As I went out to get a hammer and a couple of stakes, I resolved that I would find out something about Flynne. I must know his background to some extent in order to ascribe a motive for murder. Then, when I could define a motive, all I needed was the person at whose feet it could be laid, and I would have the killer. Very simple.

  As I drove the last stake, the killer would have erased me if I hadn’t put my back into the last blow. I put my back into it, which saved my life. My head was in motion. I knew, in a fragment of time between light and darkness, that I had been hit a terrific blow on the head.

  Chapter Seven

  I came to in the first-aid trailer, with the burn of raw brandy in my throat, and sacrificial drums in my head.

  Sammy, Paul, Riegleman, and Lamar James were there, crowded so close together that they were just a tangle of arms and legs.

  “I know where I am,” I said, “but what year is it?”

  “You’ve only been out a few minutes,” Lamar James said. “Somebody smacked you with a hammer. It wasn’t a solid blow, it just tore up a strip of scalp. Otherwise, they’d be making out entrance papers for you – somewhere.”

  They all eyed me as if I were in a glass case, with a printed placard: “George Sanders, good, if battered, specimen. From the Seven Dreams collection.”

  Lamar James said, “What were you doing out there?”

  I had no answer ready other than to say I was staking a mining claim. I hoped Sammy had. I said, “Let Sammy tell you. I don’t feel like talking.”

  “Why?” James demanded. “There’s no concussion. You’re not really hurt.”

  “Somebody left an old cement mixer in my skull.”

  He grinned, put his dark eyes on Sammy. “We were talking about the next scene,” Sammy said glibly. “’George wanted some changes in it. So he drove a couple of stakes to illustrate his point.”

  “That was a lot of work just to illustrate a point,” James said. “I felt those stakes. You could snub a landslide with ’em.”

  “I got carried away,” I said.

  “Yes, and it took all four of us, you big oaf,” Sammy said.

  Riegleman and Paul looked at me with disbelief. They knew the script. They couldn’t figure how a couple of stakes could fit into the next scene, changes or no. Neither could I. I closed my eyes, and Lamar James pried at them with questions.

  “Did you see anybody?”

  “No.”

  “Hear anybody?”

  “No.”

  “It looks like an attempt to kill you,” James said. “Why would anyone want to kill you?”

  “I haven’t the faintest notion.” I opened my eyes. “I thought you and the sheriff were going.”

  “I was on my way,” he said, “when Sammy found you and yelled for help.”

  I closed my eyes again. I didn’t want Sammy to see the glint of suspicion. He had been nearest to me at the time. He could have done it. But I had waited for a few moments after he left me. Even so, he could have gone to the lab and returned in plenty of time.

  I gave it up for the time being. “What now?”

  Riegleman said, “I’ll tell you what now. We do no more work today. You’ve been knocked for six and need rest. What’s more,” he said to James, “George must have a bodyguard. If the killer has selected him as the next victim, we must protect him until the picture is finished. He is the star.”

  I grinned at him, a little sourly. “Let’s not endanger the picture, by all means.”

  “I didn’t mean it so callously, George,” Riegleman apologized. “But the picture is a big consideration. We can’t jeopardize our investment.”

  “This isn’t getting anywhere,” Lamar James broke in. “We won’t get anywhere until we get some more information.” He turned to Riegleman. “Tell everybody – and I mean everybody – not to leave town.”

  He shouldered his way out. I sat up. The brandy was a warm glow in my stomach now. I felt middling well.

  Riegleman turned to Sammy. “Assign a couple of good men to stay with George.” He turned to me. “Don’t go anywhere without them.”

  “All right,” I said.

  Sammy waited for me, outside. “I’ve got the film, George. What about this bodyguard?”

  “Not yet,” I told him. “I need to find out a few things. I wish I knew where Flynne was quartered.”

  “I thought you might want to know, so I looked it up. He was in room fourteen at the Olsen Hotel.”

  “Then I’ll take off. You bring the film over to my trailer, and I’ll join you there.”

  I pushed my convertible at top speed across the sandy road until I reached the highway, then roared the three miles into Royalton. I strolled into the hotel, happy to find no desk clerk, and located Flynne’s room.

  If I could get some idea of Flynne as a person, his background, habits, and so on, I would be better equipped to work on possible motive, and the one person it fitted.

  His door was unlocked, and I went in. The place had been cleaned, the bed made, and his personal belongings put neatly away. These consisted of clothes, a few pipes, a pound can of cheap tobacco, and a carton of cigarettes. Nothing in the dresser drawers was any more personal than this. The mattress of his bed seemed to hide nothing. The porcelain pitcher had water in it, the washbowl was empty. A few clothes hung in the closet, and the pockets were empty except for a couple of ticket stubs from Grauman’s Chinese and a fountain pen. On the bed table was a litter of match folders, a couple of pencils, a pottery ash tray, and an empty glass.

  Nothing to indicate that this was Flynne’s room. No old letters, no initialed handkerchiefs, nothing. A handsome pigskin bag in the closet was also bare of initials, and empty. Empty, that is, at first glance. In one of the fiat compartments I found a newspaper clipping.

  It was from a clipping service, but the name of the service had been torn from the pink label pasted to the clipping itself. This read:

  TRAGEDY IN MONDESLEY

  Lord Hake, member of the House from Burnham and head of one of our oldest families, died of pneumonia Friday midnight in his home, the Woods.

  His eldest son, Harry, met his death almost simultaneously in Mondesley when his Daimler ran over an embankment. It is believed that he was hurrying to his father’s bedside and lost his way in a heavy fog.

  The clipping, which was from an English newspaper, continued with a two-paragraph history of the family. It was all very dull. It meant absolutely nothing to me.

  A knock on the door sent the clipping into my pocket and me into the clothes closet. The knock was repeated; after a moment, the door opened stealthily and Wanda Waite came into the room.

  She had on a short white dress, her blonde hair was becomingly tumbled. Her lovely long legs were bare and brown. I appreciated the picture she made before I realized that her face was set, grim, and pale.

  She looked about the room with frightened eyes, and went swiftly to the bed table. She stood between me and the table, with her back to me, and I strained my eyes through the crack in the closet door to see what she was doing there.

  She seemed to be handling and examining everything on the table. Was she searching for something? Was she finding something and putting it in her purse? I couldn’t tell. I could see her pick up the empty glass and put it down. She moved to the dresser, picked up and examined the porcelain pitcher and washbowl. She stood for a moment with her hand resting on the metal footboard of the bed. Then suddenly she turned and almost ran from the room. She closed the door softly behind her and went away.

  The litter on the table looked undisturbed to me. Match folders, pencils, ash tray, empty glass. The match folders all bore the insignia of the Royalton Hardware Co., Inc. I shut my eyes and tried to remember if I had seen a different folder among them. I couldn’t.

  Had she put
something in her purse? Nothing seemed to be gone from the table. What had she been searching for? Most important of all, had she found it? I began to feel dizzy.

  I decided I had better go away. Lamar James would certainly be along soon, not to mention nameless persons who might wander in as Wanda had. This was no time for deduction. I went away with the clipping in my pocket.

  Among the gadgets I had installed in my trailer is a photoelectric cell which throws a beam across the door. It is connected to the lights, so that when I set a foot across the threshold the lights snap on. I don’t have to fumble around in the dark for a switch.

  I plugged a 300-watt daylight bulb, with a reflector behind it, into the light circuit and unscrewed all the wall lamps. I focused this searchlight on the door, at about the height of an adult’s eyes. If anyone came through the door at night, he should be instantly blinded. I tested my work, and it was good. Then Sammy arrived with the film, carrying it gingerly, and wearing the expression of a man who has just made off with the Mona Lisa.

  “Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “It’ll be safe with me.”

  I looked at the flat shiny can. A harmless-looking thing, but possibly containing the clue to a murderer. Or the proof of someone’s innocence. I handled it with care.

  “Too bad we’re not in Hollywood,” I mused. “I could develop this and make a print of it, and we could look at it.”

  “It would take more than that to get my mind off my worries,” Sammy groaned.

  “That film probably does contain a fine collection of clues,” I told him. “Perhaps if we could see it, we wouldn’t have to set a trap.”

  Sammy squinted at me. “Oh.” He was silent for a moment. “It’ll prove you didn’t shoot him. I remember. You were facing the camera in that scene. Flynne was behind you, in the crowd.”

  “If you could only remember where everyone else was at the time,” I said, “it might save a lot of trouble.”

  “I couldn’t be watching everything,” Sammy said almost apologetically. “I didn’t know there was going to be a murder.”

  “No. Only the murderer knew that. And that reminds me of something. If the murderer was in the scene, he’d know that the camera would record his every action. He couldn’t take such a chance. It must have been someone behind the cameras.”