Deadly Joke

by Hugh Pentecost

  “I was waiting till I was told I could see Doug,” Hyland said. “What was I supposed to do, sit in the lobby and twiddle my thumbs?”

  “So that’s the early part of your evening,” Hardy said. “Let’s go back to the joke. You and your actor brought Sewall into the lobby. You stepped aside and let the reporters and the cameramen see him without his trousers. Then—?”

  Hyland blotted at his face. “Then Charlie grabbed at his chest, and there was blood, and he went down.”

  “You heard the shot?”

  “No, I didn’t hear the shot. If you’d been there, you’d know why. A couple of hundred people were screaming with laughter.”

  I could vouch for that.

  “But you knew he’d been shot,” Hardy said.

  “I’ve seen too many men die in battle not to know,” Hyland said.

  “Did you look around for somebody with a gun?”

  “I suppose I did—in a way.”

  “In a way?”

  “I thought if it was somebody close by, he might try to shoot his way out,” Hyland said.

  “And you wanted to be sure not to be in the line of fire,” Chambrun said.

  “Wouldn’t you?” Hyland said.

  “You didn’t see anyone with a gun?” Hardy asked.

  “No.”

  “You didn’t see anyone running away who might have had a gun?”

  “Lieutenant, the place was a madhouse—some crowding in toward Charlie, some trying to get the hell out of there. People were crying and screaming. They thought, of course, it was Doug. Whoever shot Charlie could just have walked away in that milling around.” He hesitated, his face clouding. “You’d think whoever was standing next to the killer would have heard the shot, seen something.” He seemed honestly puzzled by that fact.

  No one mentioned the balcony to him.

  “So let’s go on to the last part of your evening,” Hardy said. “You came back here, you couldn’t get to Mr. Maxwell, and my men wouldn’t let you see the body. You went into the Blue Lagoon and listened to the music, talked with Haskell. You were curious as to what Miss Marsh was doing here.”

  “Only vaguely curious,” Hyland said. “I knew she was an old friend of Chambrun’s. I supposed she’d come to see Charlie, to try to make arrangements, wanted help. She’d naturally go to her old friend who was on the inside.”

  “So you stayed here, drinking and listening to the entertainer until the Blue Lagoon closed.”

  “Yes. I tried once more to get through to Doug. No luck. Then I thought I would check in with Melody. I knew she must be feeling pretty low.”

  “How thoughtful,” Chambrun muttered.

  “So I went to her place,” Hyland said. “I persuaded her it wasn’t good for her to stay in her apartment where she could almost—almost still smell Charlie. I offered her my spare room, and she went to my apartment with me.”

  Hardy glanced at Melody. Her face was turned away. She was looking blankly at the corner of the room.

  “Will you describe in detail how you ‘persuaded’ Miss Marsh?” Hardy asked.

  “I—I just talked her into it,” Hyland said.

  “Punctuating your conversation by overturning the furniture, breaking glasses and lamps, and getting your face scratched,” Chambrun said.

  Hyland’s narrowed eyes were fixed on Melody. He moistened his lips. “Melody was in a hysterical state,” he said. “You have to realize that her world had come to an end. Charlie was her world. When we started to—to talk about it, she blew her stack. She started to throw stuff around, yelling and screaming. I—I tried to stop her. She—she fought with me. That’s how I got my face scratched. The poor darling had gone off her rocker. I—I finally got her quieted down and she came away with me. That apartment was no place for her to stay.”

  There was a moment of silence and then Hardy said: “Is that the way it was, Miss Marsh?”

  Very slowly Melody turned to look at him. She looked dazed. Then she nodded her head.

  “Oh, for God sake,” Chambrun said. He sounded disgusted.

  Hyland’s smile had returned. He was suddenly relaxed. He had gotten away with it, I thought. “I think Melody and I have been as cooperative with you as you could expect, Lieutenant,” he said. “None of us has had any sleep. Unless there is something else—?”

  “I think Miss Marsh should have medical attention,” Chambrun said. “She’s obviously in a state of shock.”

  “I’ll arrange for it,” Hyland said.

  “I’ll arrange for it,” Chambrun said. He pressed a button on his desk. Miss Ruysdale made an instant appearance. “Will you take Miss Marsh to the guest room in my apartment, Ruysdale, and have Dr. Partridge attend to her. She’s in shock.”

  Melody looked from Chambrun to Hyland. There was terror in that look. Hyland broke the log jam.

  “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t stay here, Melody,” he said. “Chambrun is better equipped to take care of you than I would be—for the present.” There was something threatening about those last three words.

  “I don’t want you out of touch, Hyland,” Hardy said.

  “My dear Lieutenant, are you suggesting that I have some reason to run out on you? I’ll be very much in touch. I am, after all, Charlie Sewall’s lawyer.”

  Miss Ruysdale had gone over to Melody and the two women walked out of the office together. Melody never looked at one of us.

  “Good luck, Lieutenant,” Hyland said, when they were gone. He was suddenly feeling very chipper. “I guess you have my unlisted phone number.”

  “I have it,” I said.

  “Then I’ll see you around,” Hyland said. He walked, quite jaunty, out of the office.

  “Jerk!” Hardy said, when the door had closed.

  “I was surprised you mentioned the blackmail thing in his presence, Pierre,” Maxwell said.

  “It will hold him off for a while, now that he knows he has more people to deal with than you.”

  Maxwell pushed himself up out of his chair. It took effort. “I’ve really got to get some rest, Pierre. I’ll have my whole political committee down on me in a couple of hours. Thanks for trying to help.”

  Maxwell’s escort of Jerry’s two men were waiting in Ruysdale’s office to convoy him upstairs. Chambrun went over to the breakfast wagon, buttered a roll, and took it with a cup of coffee back to his desk.

  “The Marsh woman is really in shock,” Hardy said.

  “Shock my foot!” Chambrun said. “Hyland has frightened her into silence. If she admits to knowing about the blackmail, he’s probably convinced her he could bring charges of conspiracy, extortion, God knows what else against her. She’d spend the rest of her life in jail. If we can get the district attorney to promise her immunity if she’ll testify, she’ll get well very quickly. First I’ll try to persuade her myself. I don’t want to bring this blackmail thing into the open unless I have to.”

  “One thing’s certain,” Hardy said. “Hyland isn’t our killer. That photograph gets him off the hook. He was standing right next to Sewall when the shot was fired from the balcony.”

  “He’s not a killer,” Chambrun said. “He’s a bloodsucker.”

  The little red button blinked on Chambrun’s phone. He answered.

  “Chambrun here…Yes, Jerry.” Chambrun’s face went rock-hard. “Hardy’s with me. Yes, we’ll come at once.” He put down the phone. His little black eyes were blazing slits. “Jack MacDonald, our maintenance crew chief, has been beaten to death in his office in the basement,” he said. He stood up. “MacDonald was one of the people with a key to the balcony.”

  3

  THERE IS A GARAGE for guests of the Beaumont a floor below street level. At the same level are furnace rooms, air-conditioning equipment, and other maintenance machinery. MacDonald’s office opened off a concrete tunnel leading from the elevators to the garage. Office was a fancy name for it. It was a square, windowless room with a couple of air-circulating vents at the floor level a
nd near the ceiling. There was a metal filing cabinet where MacDonald kept his worksheets and assignments. There was a table against one wall where MacDonald had a coffee percolator, and a cot against the opposite wall where he could snooze during inactive hours.

  Jerry Dodd and one of the maintenance crew were waiting for us outside the door to MacDonald’s cubicle. Jerry’s face was drawn and white.

  “It’s not pretty,” he said. “We’ve got some kind of a maniac running loose in the hotel, Mr. Chambrun. Same kind of wild violence as in the case of Shaw. Somebody went on beating him long after he was dead.”

  “Weapon?” Hardy asked.

  “I didn’t want to touch anything till you got here,” Jerry said. “But no weapon I could see.”

  Chambrun and Hardy went into the room with Jerry. I stayed out in the hall with the crew man. Shaw had been enough for my stomach for one night.

  “My name is Edwards, Mr. Haskell,” the crew man said.

  “Sure, I know,” I said. I’d seen him around for years. He was one of the regulars.

  “Jack was supposed to show up to inspect the new plate-glass windows they’ve put in the lobby shops,” he said. “When he didn’t come or answer his phone, I came down to look for him.”

  “Nobody saw or heard anything?” I asked him.

  “Nobody’s come forward,” Edwards said.

  Chambrun and Jerry reappeared fairly quickly.

  “Senseless, brutal slaughter,” Chambrun said. “Jerry’s right. We’re dealing with some kind of a madman.” They headed for the elevators and I tagged along. “Maxwell can’t be allowed to leave his suite, even with guards, until we’ve nailed this creature.”

  We went up to the fourteenth floor. Jerry’s two men were at their posts outside the door.

  “The Maxwells alone?” Chambrun asked.

  “His friend is in there with him,” one of the men said. “Mr. Clarke.”

  Chambrun put his finger on the doorbell and held it there. The door was promptly opened by Watson Clarke. His big face looked haggard.

  “Oh, Mr. Chambrun,” he said.

  “We’d like to talk to you and Douglas,” Chambrun said.

  Clarke drew a deep breath. “Of course. But—we’ve got troubles.”

  “So have we,” Chambrun said. He walked past Clarke into the suite’s living room. I thought he looked relieved to see Maxwell sitting on the couch with a drink in his hand. Maxwell looked like some dreadful cartoon of himself; I could have sworn that he was fighting tears.

  “Oh, God!” he said. “Oh, God, Pierre.”

  I was surprised, but Chambrun seemed not to notice the state Maxwell was in. “I have to tell you, Douglas, that we’ve had another killing,” he said. “A man named MacDonald who was my maintenance crew chief. He was beaten to death, just like Shaw. It’s pretty clear that we’re dealing with some kind of psychopath who won’t stop at anything. Until we find him, you’re not to leave this suite, even under guard.”

  “What did this MacDonald have to do with all this?” Clarke asked.

  “I can only guess,” Chambrun said. “He had a key to the balcony. The key is in his office now, but he may have loaned it to someone, not realizing what it meant. Or he may have been bribed, and kept still about it too long.”

  “But I can’t stay here,” Maxwell said, his voice shaken. “I have to leave the hotel now, at once!”

  “Impossible,” Chambrun said. “Unless you want to commit suicide.”

  “Maybe I do,” Maxwell said. He reached forward and picked up a piece of paper from the coffee table. Chambrun read it, his face expressionless, and then handed it on to me.

  It was a piece of hotel stationery with two lines scribbled on it in a kind of schoolgirlish handwriting.

  My dear, dear Douglas:

  I am so very sorry, but I can’t stand this any longer.

  Grace

  “She was here when Douglas went down to your office a little while back,” Clarke said. “She was gone when he got back.”

  “Guards?” Chambrun asked Jerry.

  “We weren’t instructed to cover Mrs. Maxwell,” Jerry said. “The guards stayed with Mr. Maxwell.”

  “She’s probably gone home,” Chambrun said.

  Clarke shook his head. “I’ve tried calling the house for Doug. No answer.”

  “So what do you think this note means?” Chambrun asked.

  “She pleaded with me over and over to give up the political race,” Maxwell said. “I thought she wasn’t rational about it and I refused.”

  “Was she sober?” Chambrun asked. It sounded brutal.

  “She’d had a lot to drink tonight,” Maxwell said, “but she stays in remarkable control. I mean, only if you knew her could you tell. I’ve got to find her, Pierre, to tell her I’ll do whatever she asks.”

  “You can’t leave the hotel,” Chambrun said.

  “I have to, Pierre!”

  “You’ll force me to have Hardy place you in protective custody,” Chambrun said. He seemed without sympathy.

  “Let me try to find her for you, Doug,” Clarke said. “She may be at home and simply not answering the phone. She may have gone to some friend’s. I know most of the people she might turn to.”

  “For God sake, Watty, in the state of mind she’s in—”

  “You can count on me, Doug,” Clarke said. “I can do everything you might do.”

  “I suggest,” Chambrun said in the same unfeeling voice, “that you try to locate Diana. Ten to one she helped Grace arrange this.”

  A nerve twitched in Maxwell’s cheek. “She would do anything to hurt me,” he said.

  “She would do anything to help her mother,” Chambrun said. “Do we understand each other, Douglas? You’re not to leave this suite until the police tell you it’s safe.”

  “I think Chambrun’s right, Doug,” Clarke said. “You won’t be doing Grace any good by exposing yourself to this killer.”

  “I don’t have any choice, do I?” Maxwell said. He made a choking sound. He was fighting tears. It’s a terrible thing to see a strong man cry.

  Clarke left the suite with us. “I’ll try the house first,” he said.

  “And if she doesn’t answer the doorbell?” Chambrun asked.

  “I have a key to their house,” Clarke said. “I’ve always been like one of the family.” He stood, frowning, as we waited for the elevator. “You really think Diana is in on this?” he asked.

  “She had a date with Mark for a drink. She didn’t keep it. I suspect her mother asked her for help.”

  “But she left the suite,” I said, “hours ago.”

  “To make arrangements for her mother,” Chambrun said. He looked at Clarke. “It might be worthwhile checking airports, bus terminals. Grace hasn’t had time to get very far. You might intercept her.”

  “It’s an idea,” Clarke said.

  The down car came and the doors slid open. Chambrun made no move to board it. “I want you to go down to the basement, Mark,” he said to me. “Have Hardy post extra guards up here. Wait for me there.”

  Clarke and I got on the elevator and I pressed the down button.

  “Poor Doug,” Clarke said. “He’s had almost more than a man could bear in one night. I’m afraid he’ll throw in the towel on his political future. It’s too bad. We need this kind of integrity and courage; need it desperately.”

  “Why is Mrs. Maxwell so set against it?” I asked.

  “Alcoholism is a disease,” Clarke said, “not something you can control with will power. Grace is deeply ashamed of it, poor darling. If Doug gets into public life, it’s a secret she won’t be able to keep. I believe that’s why she’s so determined to stop him.”

  The elevator stopped at the lobby floor. Clarke stepped out.

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “I’ll need it,” he said.

  The doors closed and I went down to the basement. Hardy was standing in the doorway to the office. Inside were a photographer and a fing
erprint man at work. I caught a glimpse of MacDonald’s body, covered now by a sheet. I gave Hardy Chambrun’s message and he passed along orders to one of his men. He looked glum.

  “No weapon,” he said. “A hundred fingerprints, all of them MacDonald’s. Like always, nobody saw anything, heard anything. There’s a lot of traffic down this corridor to the garage, but not at this hour of the morning.”

  I gave him a rundown on the Maxwell situation.

  “We should have had her watched,” he said.

  “There wasn’t any reason to think she was in danger.”

  “It would seem that anybody remotely connected with this is in danger from this lunatic,” Hardy said. “You, me, Chambrun, anybody. This bastard is on a homicidal binge.”

  I heard the elevator door open down the hall and I turned to see Chambrun approaching. He had Melody with him. It looked almost as if he was dragging her. He glanced into the little office.

  “Uncover the body,” he said in a cold voice. “I want Miss Marsh to see him.”

  It was a cruel thing to suggest. Hardy hesitated. Chambrun walked across the office and ripped the sheet back from MacDonald’s head—or what was left of it.

  Melody screamed. She tottered away and suddenly she was clinging to me, sobbing.

  Chambrun came out into the hall. He took her by the shoulders and wrenched her around so that she was facing him. “Is that enough to convince you, Melody?” he said. “Hyland has threatened you with jail. This killer doesn’t threaten. He intends to wipe out anyone who knows anything about him or his motives. You could be one. Hyland is almost certainly one. Would you rather face this than risk what Hyland has threatened you with? I can protect you from Hyland, but I can’t promise to protect you from that!” He jerked his head toward the bloody corpse. “You know something you haven’t told us. You know someone else who was on Charlie Sewall’s blackmail list. Do you want to be responsible for more deaths and maybe your own?”

  “So help me God, Pierre, I don’t know any names,” she said, fighting for control. “I knew about Maxwell, but for a very special reason.”