“It happened about a year and a half ago,” he said listlessly. “We were having dinner, Sheila and I. And she was paying me my twenty percent then and I’d earned it, believe me. We were arguing, I forget about what, but she was sore. And then this guy I’d known from San Francisco walked in. I didn’t think he’d recognize me because I’d been away three and a half years and I did what I could to change my appearance.”
“Dyed your hair,” Murdock said, “and gorged yourself to put on weight and added the glasses.”
Branson did not seem to hear. “This fellow I knew was a smart aleck. I don’t know if he knew about my trouble or not, because we weren’t friends and in a big city you can’t keep track of people that are just acquaintances, and generally you don’t give a damn about them, anyway. So I don’t think this fellow had any idea he was putting me on a spot, he was just—well, like I said, a smart aleck. He had a good-looking blonde with him and he gave Sheila the eye and winked and I sit there trying to pretend I don’t know him, and as he goes by he says, ‘Hi, Wortman. What do you hear from the Golden Gate?’”
Bronson sighed again from way down deep. He turned his hat idly in his hands and kept his gaze upon it. “I would get a break like that,” he said. “I never saw the guy again. I never even came close to being caught. But that time I’m with Sheila and she hears it, and with that stinking, suspicious mind of hers she got thinking right off something is wrong. ‘What does he mean, Wortman?” she says. ‘I thought you came from Chicago.’ I told her I did. I said the fellow got me mixed up with somebody else and I thought she swallowed it because she didn’t say anything more about it.”
He paused and said, “Until about six weeks later. She’d made up her mind I was trying to pull a fast one and she got this Rudy Nagle to see what he could get on somebody named Wortman who came from San Francisco. Nagle got the dope, all right,” he said. “All of it.”
“And that was the end of your twenty percent,” Murdock said. He glanced at Dale Jordan and she was sitting very still, her hazel eyes big and focused on Bronson. “And with Sheila alive there was no point in stealing the report because all she had to do was call police headquarters.”
“She had me—cold,” Bronson said. He brought his head up and readjusted his features. He put on his hat and stood up, paying no attention now either to Murdock or to the girl. At the door he turned, his hand on the knob. “I may be back,” he said and went out.
21
MURDOCK TOOK OFF HIS HAT AND COAT and tossed them on the studio couch. There was still no sound from the typewriter, and when he turned he saw that Dale Jordan was watching him, a slight paleness in her cheeks now, a certain breathless anxiety in her manner.
“How did you know?” she asked. “About Bronson?”
He said it was a long story and not especially interesting. He said he had found out that afternoon that Bronson was getting no commission from Sheila and that fact plus things he had guessed seemed to indicate the truth.
“Then he did have a motive, a reason for killing Sheila? And the detective, too.”
“A very good motive,” Murdock said. “Who else knows you’re here? You called Bronson. I guess you called Faulkner, too—or was it George Stark?”
“Mr. Faulkner,” she said, her tone carrying a note of wonder that he should know this. “I wanted to be sure how many copies I should make.”
“And he told Stark.”
She smiled. “Arthur Calvert, too, I guess. Because he called me awhile ago and said he would stop by and see how I was coming. Mr. Faulkner and Mr. Stark left just a little while ago.”
“That takes care of everyone but Devlin,” he said. “Maybe we’d better tell him in case he wants me.” He picked up the telephone and spoke for a minute or so with the police operator who said Devlin had not been in touch with his office yet but would be given Murdock’s message when he called in.
When he hung up he stood by the desk, seeing now the piles of typescript all neatly stacked, and the notebooks from which she had been working.
“You’ve really been knocking it out, haven’t you?”
Her smile was quick and friendly. She arched her shoulders and tossed her hair back, and he knew then that he was going to remain right here with her until she had finished and was ready to leave. He picked up one of the completed scripts.
“All right if I read this?”
“Of course.”
“I thought if I waited for you we might have a drink on the way home.”
“I’d like that,” the girl said frankly. “But it will probably be a couple of hours. Do you want to read them in order?”
Murdock glanced at the script he had, not sure just what she meant and she said, “There are three stories altogether. I’ve done two. But if you want to read them in order”—she handed him a second script from another pile—“this one comes first.”
Murdock thanked her. He pulled the easy chair close to the desk, settled himself comfortably, and began to read the first script and the further adventures of Eve Maxwell, the Sob Sister.
Eve, he discovered before he had read very far, was quite a gal. She had no counterpart in his own newspaper experience, for Sheila had glorified her beyond a working newspaperman’s recognition in her effort to build sufficient glamour for public consumption, and as played by Lois Edwards, she was a crusader as well as a sob sister, ever ready to champion the rights of the underdog and see that justice was done. Her list of acquaintances—those ready to help her for the purpose of plot whenever she asked—was vast and cosmopolitan, and in her adventures she was aided and abetted by one Alan Wilson—Arthur Calvert—who was the ace photographer for the fictitious Journal.
In this particular script the plot dealt with a boy unjustly accused of murder and framed by the unscrupulous owner of a famous night club, who actually was the brains behind a gang of jewel thieves, and who used his club not only for a front but also as a suitable spot for bejeweled women to display their wealth and thereby mark themselves for victims. The innocent boy was a member of the orchestra, and the bulk of the story had to do with the methods used by Eve and Alan to prove the youth’s innocence. There was plenty of action in the piece and there was also another photographer, a young one who was filled with admiration and love for Eve and with hero worship for Alan. In trying to help them he inevitably involved himself so that he had to he saved from the real killer in the final scene, with Eve and Alan again triumphant.
The antics and methods of the fictional photographer amused Murdock as he compared their adventures with his own. He found himself slightly resentful at the ease with which the characters obtained their exclusive shots, but the story held him, and he forgot about the rapid chattering of the typewriter until he had finished.
When he glanced up, Dale Jordan was intent upon her work, her fingers flying. Her dark hair, falling softly about her young face, had a bronze sheen in the lamplight, there was a smudge on her nose, and so great was her concentration that not until she yanked the page from the machine did she become aware of him.
When she found him watching her she smiled quickly. She brushed her hair with the back of her hand, arching her shoulders again before reaching for more paper.
“Did you like it?”
“It’s swell.”
Murdock watched her strip the carbons and set up her new copies, and he replaced the script he had read and picked up a copy of the one that followed it.
“I’m going to read the other one,” he said. “No wonder Sheila decided to steal your husband’s stories.”
Dale liked that; her eyes said so. She said it was Sheila’s dialogue mostly, but her husband’s story and construction.
“But to be fair about it,” she said, “I must admit Sheila changed these last scripts more than usual. Generally she followed Keith’s plots very closely but in these she made some improvements of her own.”
Then, before she had quite finished speaking, she was typing furiously again and Murdock was re
ading—about how Eve Maxwell, Alan Wilson, and Jerry Blake, the young photographer, broke up a black-market ring that had been cornering all the sugar.
The formula was much the same as the first story; so was the pace and action. This time there was no obvious underdog on which Eve could concentrate and save from disgrace. She already had her lead when the story opened and it was in pursuing this that she got herself in trouble with the head of the ring. First Eve was in danger and then young Jerry Blake, who in his youthful enthusiasm had taken one too many chances. That put it up to Alan, and in the following gun battle he was wounded so that in the end he was in the hospital while Eve and Jerry waited to reassure him that all was well and that in being wounded he had saved them from certain death.
But it was all interesting to Murdock, so much so that he did not hear the steps in the hall. The knock startled him and the typewriter was suddenly silent and the room was still. Dale Jordan turned to look at him and then uttered a little sound that was half sigh, half laugh.
“That’s probably Mr. Faulkner,” she said. “He said he might stop back. Or Arthur Calvert.”
Murdock stood up. “I’ll get it,” he said, and moved swiftly past her and through the alcove.
When he opened the door he saw that the girl’s second guess had been correct, for Arthur Calvert stood in the hall, his belted trench coat making him look bigger than ever, his left hand holding a cardboard container.
“Hi,” Calvert said, his glance traveling past Murdock to Dale Jordan. “How’s it coming?”
Murdock stood aside and said it was coming fine.
“Hello, Arthur.” Dale called from the other room and kept on typing. “I’m working on the third one now.”
“I’ve read the first two,” Murdock said, following Calvert in. “They’re damn good.”
“Yeah,” Calvert said. He pushed back his hat, glanced about before he remembered the carton in his hand. “I thought maybe you’d like a little coffee,” he said to Dale. “Or maybe something to eat. We’re all pretty grateful for what you’re doing.”
“Aren’t you sweet?” Dale kept right on typing. “Just put it anywhere until I finish this page.”
Calvert put the carton on the telephone table, and Murdock said he’d read what Dale had on the last script. He picked up the first six pages, all that Dale had finished, put them and the carbons in order and sat down to see what happened next.
“Sit down, Arthur,” Dale said. “I’ll be through in three minutes.”
“Okay.” Calvert drew a straight-backed chair to a corner of the desk and lowered himself slowly. “I guess there’s enough coffee for you, too, Murdock,” he said. “If you’d like some. And if there’s a cup or something.”
“There’s probably a glass,” Murdock said.
“There is,” said Dale.
“Be with you in a minute,” Murdock said, already reading the announcer’s speech and the introduction to the story.
This one, he saw at once, had to do with some men who were running a crooked company which sold phony dealerships to discharged servicemen who had a little money and wanted to go in business for themselves.
The first scene was in the city room of the Journal and told how Eve got the lead on the story and the scene was played as she discussed her plans with young Jerry Blake, who was determined to make good now that he was taking Alan Wilson’s place and was to accept the full responsibility of Eve’s confidence.
Murdock stopped reading. Very slowly he sat up and a sudden prickling ran up his spine and spread across his shoulders. Dale had ripped out the completed sheet and carbons and for that instant the room was quiet so that this time Murdock heard faintly the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
He looked at Arthur Calvert sitting motionless in the chair and the big man watched him narrowly a moment and then turned slowly, his gaze shifting to the door as the steps became more pronounced.
Dale put the sheets of paper down and listened, and suddenly there was an air of uncertainty and tension in the room where none had been before.
No one spoke. Everyone watched the door, and Murdock wondered if it could be Lieutenant Devlin. He noted the slight break in the sequence of the steps before they continued and knew the caller had climbed the stairs and was in the hall.
They were close now, measured and distinct, a man’s steps by the sound of them, and Murdock found himself counting silently—one—two—three—Beyond the frosted-glass panel a shadow appeared and seemed to hesitate; then it was gone, and steps went on steadily, fading slightly, taking on a new quality as they began to climb the stairs to the floor above.
“Well,” Dale Jordan said, and laughed faintly. She seemed to shake herself, and glanced at Murdock somewhat sheepishly, as though she had been frightened and was afraid of being laughed at. “I thought it would be Mr. Faulkner.”
Murdock stood up and reached for the container of coffee.
“Other people work late in this building, huh?” he said. “Who’s on the third floor?”
“There are only two tenants,” Dale said. “It’s probably Mr. Reis. He has a photograph studio,” she added.
Arthur Calvert shifted in his chair and watched Murdock take the container to the washbowl behind the curtain.
“Is it still hot?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You’ll find a glass on the shelf,” Dale Jordan said.
Murdock put the glass on the flat edge of the bowl. He tugged at the top of the container. It was damp and slightly pulpy and stuck until he worked his fingernails under the edge. When the top finally came off his elbow touched the glass in a way that caused it to fall into the bowl and he tried to grab for it and dropped the carton, the coffee spilling down the drain.
“Oh, fine,” he said, to indicate the disgust he felt at his carelessness. He glanced at Dale. “I’m sorry,” he said and smiled at Arthur Calvert.
He held the smile and concentrated on his voice so that it would sound all right when he asked Calvert if he would mind going out for another container. Then something cold coiled swiftly about his spine, and his smile died. For what he saw in the man’s bright steady eyes told him it would be a waste of time to pretend any longer.
He held the container up and glanced inside. He smelled it, making sure about the distinctive odor and seeing the crystals in the bottom which had not entirely dissolved, crystals that had nothing at all in common with sugar.
“Where did you get it, Arthur?”
“Get what?” The voice was quiet.
“The cyanide.”
“I had it,” Calvert said, and his breath whistled out. “I had it quite a while. Before I worked with Sheila. I kept it because I knew I’d need it myself if things got worse.”
Murdock tossed the carton in the bowl and turned idly. He started for the desk, trying not to look at Calvert. He took two steps before the big man took his hand from his pocket.
Then Murdock stopped and saw the gun. It was pointed right at him and it looked small and ugly in the big hand. It was, he knew now, the same gun that had threatened him once before—in Dale Jordan’s apartment.
22
FOR ANOTHER FIVE SECONDS there was no sound in the room and none from the street outside. Calvert was standing so he could watch both Murdock and the girl, an odd brightness in his blue eyes and his face tallow white. Murdock forced himself to look away and then he saw Dale Jordan. She was on her feet, though he had not heard her rise, her young face pale with shock and incredulity.
“No,” she said finally. She shook her head, her dark hair swinging. “Not cyanide. That would mean—” She gulped and shook her head again, violently.
“No—I can’t believe it.” She stared at Calvert. “Arthur, you couldn’t.”
“Arthur did,” Murdock said.
“But—why?” the girl cried.
“He had to,” Murdock said, watching Calvert, measuring the distance that separated them. “He killed twice before and he found out today it wasn’t
enough. With you alive he—”
“You talk as if I liked doing it,” Calvert said, his voice tight with strain. “I didn’t. I couldn’t make myself touch her. But I had to do it, and this was the easiest way, the quickest. I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“When you found it out,” Murdock said, “you decided there was enough for both of us.”
Dale Jordan sank down on her chair, arms hanging at her sides and shoulders sagging. She understood now, and the shock was still upon her, blurring her voice.
“You knew it,” she said to Murdock. “You spilled the coffee on purpose.”
“On purpose, but I didn’t know,” Murdock said. “I—just couldn’t take a chance.”
“You knew all the time, I suppose.” Calvert had himself in hand now, and his tone was bitter. “I guess you had it all figured out.”
“No,” Murdock said wearily. “I guess I was too dumb or something.” He paused, eyes busy, knowing he was still too far from Calvert to do anything, remembering Devlin, wondering if he could possibly come in time. There was, he knew, no chance of talking Calvert out of it now, but talk took time and that was a thing he could do.
“I had three of you in mind,” he said. “I stood outside watching this place a couple of hours tonight and I did a lot of thinking.”
“Three of us, huh?”
“You and Faulkner and Bronson.” He hurried on, lest Calvert remember why he had come and act too soon. “In the beginning it was like Devlin said. Too many people had motives. But when I had time to think about it there were some things that didn’t fit. Someone stole Sheila’s gold key chain the night of the broadcast and after he killed her he left the keys in her bag because he had no further use for them. It could not have been Miriam Stark—”
He paused, remembering now that no one but himself and Rudy Nagle knew that Miriam had called on Sheila with murder in her mind. Luck in the presence of Murdock had prevented this, and he saw there was no point in going into this now.
Fifth Key Page 19
