by Otto Penzler
Desdemona turned all white at that.
“The wife and baby?” she whispered.
I led her out to the car.
“Why not?” I murmured. “The baby might shake a rattle at them. Brave lads like that can’t take chances.” I steered her in, climbed inside myself, and we started off for town. I passed her a fag and we both lit up.
“Mr. Warren,” she said, slow and low, “I suppose you think I’m as good as a—as a murderer.”
“Depends on how good the murderer is,” I answered, easy, snapping my butt into the street.
“You think,” she went on, “I worked this racket.”
“Do I?” I murmured. “Tell us some more, Portia.”
“What you going to do?” she asked, after about a mile.
“Eat, dance, then back to the Stopover Inn a day or two—”
She sucked in her breath quick.
“Ain’t you—ain’t you—” she commenced; and then she stopped.
“Afraid of meeting some of the boys?” I finished. “That’s just what I’m hoping for. You see, Jessica, it just happens that I’ve got information that Lewis—or whoever the hell did the killing—was trying to double-cross the gang. That’s why he bumped old Fuller off!”
She stared at me hard at that. Somehow it seemed that her face—under the drug-store blush—went white again. She didn’t say a word. Just looked and looked at me.
We got back to the Stopover and found the place all dark. Desdemona slipped out the car first to get the lay of the land, claiming she didn’t want to be seen in my company. Then she came back to the door, wig-wagged me an “all’s well,” and I climbed down and went in after her. There was one green-shaded lamp lighted in the lobby, over the desk, and the pimpled-faced lad was sprawled under it, fast asleep.
Desdemona turned with her finger to her lips.
“Good night,” she whispered; blew me a kiss, and disappeared in a back room. I waded up the dark stairs, two flights, turned down the corridor to room 317. I shut and locked the door, and then pulled it open without bothering to turn the key back.
The bolt had been taken out of the lock.
“Oh, ho!” thought I; “there’ve been villains at work!” And I shut the door and shoved the flimsy washstand in front of it, just in case. I pulled out my little toy, gave it a quick loving once-over, and stuck it back in my pocket. Then I stood before the window, stripped to the waist, slipped on my pajama jacket, turned out the light, and got dressed again. After which I went over to the open window and looked out.
It was mighty dark outside, but not so dark that I couldn’t make out something I’d noticed this afternoon—a little roof, about two feet wide (probably over a bay window below) running from just beneath my window to the window of 319. It was a flat roof, I found when I stepped outside; it was mighty simple to slip over to the next room. I pulled open that window, soft and wary. I stood a second, out of gun range, ears cocked. Then I climbed inside.
I slipped over to the bed, ran my hand lightly over it. It was empty. I’d been pretty sure the room wasn’t taken. According to the keys on the board downstairs, I seemed to be about the only guest in the hotel. I crossed to the door, settled myself and waited.
I must have waited half an hour. I know I heard a clock somewhere outdoors strike two, and I must have waited ten minutes after that. Then, mighty faint, I heard something. I put my ear to the floor and listened.
It made all the difference in the world when I did that. I could feel the vibrations, and it sounded like three or four people must be sneaking up the corridor, along that thick carpet. I waited there a minute, ready to shoot into action. Then, all at once, I got puzzled.
I was hearing those sneaky steps, coming nearer. But I was hearing something else, too— or feeling its vibrations. It was a tiny vibration, coming right from the long board where my ear was.
I was sitting up like a flash, gun ready, pointed back into the room. Somebody was stealing across the floor towards me.
I got up to a crouch; edged along farther into the room, all set to jump to one side if the door opened. I must have made about a yard. Then a hand reached out and touched me softly on the face.
I don’t know why I didn’t fire. I reckon instinctive knowledge came with the feel of that soft hand. But that trigger was as near in action as I’d ever like to have it in somebody else’s hand.
I heard her suck in her breath.
“Mr. Warren,” she whispered.
“Present. Ready for all comers.”
“I was hoping you’d go back to your room before they came. Get back in the corner, for —sake!”
“I’m pretty well set, thanks.”
But now her voice was terrified, and no acting. I could tell that, even in the dark.
“Please!” she breathed; “in the corner; for my sake!”
“Well… anything for a lady, Orphelia.” I slunk back.
“And don’t show yourself!” I heard her hand softly turn the knob, just as there was a little grating sound in the next room—my washstand being pushed back. The door of this room opened, and a faint path of gaslight shot inside. She stepped to the doorway, blocking it.
“Well! What the hell are you birds doing around here?” Her voice was low, but cutting.
I heard a deep voice mutter something.
“Yeah?” she answered. “Well, you guessed wrong. Yes, I know"—she broke in quick on the guy— ”but, you damned fool, don’t you know he’s got half a dozen playmates hanging round outside?”
That seemed to get them. There was a bit more mumbling; then I heard them slink away. She closed the door and stood there a second, looking my way, I guess. I stepped out.
“Rosalind,” I said, “my family thanks you. To tell the truth, we never trusted you much before; but—”
“Yeah?” she said, kind of rough. “Stow that. And go back bye-bye quick.”
“First, though, the reward,” I said; and I caught her and kissed her, a real two bits kiss.
She didn’t push me away. She stood there a bit, after I was through, and I could hear her breathing heavy.
“You’re a nice boy,” she said at last, way low. “Why don’t you quit this dick racket, and get out of this hotel—now!”
“Lady,” I whispered, “the charm of your company—”
But I could hear her turning away.
“All right,” she cut in, nonchalantly. “Do your window climbing act and get under the sheets.” She opened the door and shut it after her; and in another minute I was in and out the windows, and had settled myself for the night.
I figured afterwards it must have been four o’clock when I snapped awake. I sat upright (I’d been sitting on the floor, against the wall) and listened. He was coming now—the guy I’d been laying for. I watched where I knew the door was when I dozed off.
There was a little wait. Then it came again— the faint squeak of the rollers under the wash-stand as it was being moved. And now I could see a tiny slit of light showing where the opening door was. I got to my knees, crawled over to a point of vantage, and waited.
The slit grew wider. The light from the hall seemed almost bright, after the dead darkness. The stand squeaked, stopped; squeaked, stopped.
I waited till the door was open six inches. Then I stood up.
Plop!
The slug from the silenced gun dug into the wall back of me. With one gesture I swung around to the window, fired, and dropped.
The room rang with the shot for a while, and when it died away everything was still. The door and the stand didn’t move any more; it didn’t have to. Whoever had been shoving there had done his job.
Like a damned fool, I’d kept my eyes peeled on that door, just like they planned. And meanwhile the bozo himself had fired from the window; and now he was inside with me.
I softly drew myself up, ready, and then didn’t move. He didn’t move, either. We were both waiting. All at once there was a little clatter by the opposite wal
l.
Even while I pulled the trigger, I knew I was pulling my second boner. I know when somebody tosses a pencil across the room. It was just instinct, I guess, that made me fire. Right away something bit my shoulder, burning it. I rolled under the bed while the report was still whooping around. I figured he must be somewhere at the other end of it. I lay there, listening. My arm stung a little. Not much.
I guess I must have Indian blood in me. A gravestone is a noisy, nervous animal, compared to what I was. I did a little necessary breathing— not much—and that was all. The second hand went tearing round and round somebody’s clock. It was his move first.
Probably he thought at last he must have got me. Anyhow, he moved a bit. Not three feet from me.
I let him have it.
By the time the noise died away, I heard them running up the stairs and along the corridor. I rolled from under, and when I got to my feet they were tumbling in the room—a whole army, it sounded like. When they lighted the light, though, I saw there were only four. Sergeant Rooney and three bobbies. Yes, and Coleman Fuller, standing there, white as a sheet.
I said:
“Have you got the girl?”
It seems they met her coming down on their way up. She stepped in, under escort, when I spoke.
“You nearly pulled a fast one, Desdy,” I said, “when you got my eyes on that door you were pushing open. But then, you deserved that break, after the help you gave me.”
She gave me a gum-chewing look. I wasn’t a nice boy now.
“What do you mean, help you?” she said.
“Why, by keeping the gang out of talking— and shooting—distance from me when I told you I might spread the news your boy friend double-crossed them. If they could pop me at a bowing distance—like in a passing car—well and good; but it was better to leave the near-at-hand job to the boy friend himself, and keep the others away, wasn’t it!”
She started to speak; stops; looks sidewise at Fuller; then back at me.
“What makes you think he’s my boy friend?” she asked sullenly.
“Just clever deduction,” I answered, modestly. “It took me a while to recognize you, with your glasses and fancy get-up, as the dame I’d seen talking with young Mr. Fuller here in the United Trust lobby—” (I heard Fuller mutter: “my—!”)—but then, when you were so quick to remember seeing somebody—Spike Lewis, or anybody else—steal down this hall, after Sergeant Rooney here and Bond and Job-son left, it was easy to see you were protecting one special guy. I was already pretty sure who the killer was, though,” I finished. “Let’s give credit where credit is due.”
Rooney let out a strong Anglo-Saxon word at that.
“What’s this?” he said, staring at me. “The killer was hiding in that room when we was there?”
I shook my head.
“Only half right, Sergeant,” I answered. “He was in the room with you. But he wasn’t hiding.”
“He wasn’t hid—? He was in the—?” Rooney gawked at me like one of us is nuts. “Well, who the—” he stuttered; “where—?”
“All answered with one dramatic gesture, Sergeant,” I cut in. And I gave the bed a pull, rolling it a couple of feet towards the door.
Harley Bond was curled up behind the head. He wasn’t dead. But he was sleeping peacefully, and wasn’t apt to wake up for some little time.
I got my blood money when the jury’s foreman said the harsh words. Police Captain Starr was there when they handed it to me, and he gave me a pat on the head.
“It was easy enough, Captain,” I answered; downcast eyes go well at headquarters, particularly if you’re a private dick. “I was stumped for a while, because I figured Bond came into the room along with the police. A bunch of trucks came by just then, so I couldn’t hear much. But then I figured that what I did hear didn’t prove he wasn’t there right along, talking with Jobson.”
The captain shook his head slowly.
“He was a wise baby, that lad,” he muttered. “Strange how a man of his capabilities could get into a jam like this. But that’s the way of it, I suppose,” he said, turning philosopher. “Got doing business for a gang, saw how easy money could be pulled by playing between the gang and their sucker and was caught with the goods.
“Might have gone panicky; might have thought he was ruined unless he could stop the sucker talking. Anyway he pulled it. Then there was Jobson.
“He knew Jobson was being shadowed, so he phoned us he was meeting him to learn what he could, and for us to call around in half an hour and he’d tell us what he learned. Had himself protected coming and going.” The captain stood up. “A wise baby,” he said, half to himself; “about as wise as they make them.”
I folded my check carefully.
“Pretty wise, Captain,” I agreed. I looked lovingly at the piece of paper in my hand. “But not the wisest, Captain,” I cooed softly, “not the wisest.”
I turned to Coleman Fuller as we went out of the station. “As for you, Mr. Fuller,” I said, “I suppose when you learned I was going out to the Inn alone your motherly instinct made you sneak out the police force to protect me.”
“Exactly,” he said nodding solemnly.
“And I suppose,” I went on, “if the sergeant had appeared too soon and copped the prize himself, you know what would have happened to you?”
He nodded again, just as solemn. I looked him over, wondering if he was human.
“And I suppose,” I said, “you know what a low-brow like me wants to do when he’s come into a juicy bit of money?”
“Exactly,” he murmured. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a full pint flash, and after I took a good pull at it, he finished it off himself. “That,” he said, “is just about enough to last us till we reach the nearest speak.”
I looked him over again; and I liked his looks.
“Exactly,” I said.
Two Murders, One Crime
Cornell Woolrich
ONLY EDGAR ALLAN POE ranks with Cornell Woolrich (1903-1968) as a creator of heart-stopping suspense, and Poe produced relatively little compared with the prolific poet of darkness.
A sad and lonely figure (he dedicated books to his hotel room and to his typewriter), Woolrich is the greatest noir writer who ever lived, in spite of stylistic failings that include so much purple prose that, in the hands of a lesser writer, would make one wince. His use of coincidence, too, made believable or unnoticed because of the break-neck thrill ride of his stories, is unmatched by any author with the exception of the unreadable Harry Stephen Keeler.
In addition to hundreds of stories, mainly written for the pulps, Woolrich produced such classic novels of suspense as The Bride Wore Black (1940), filmed in 1968 by Francois Truffaut, and Black Alibi (1942), filmed the following year by Jacques Tourneur as The Leopard Man. The most famous film made from his work is Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), based on a short story written under the pseudonym William Irish. Among numerous other Irish works to be filmed are the noir classic Phantom Lady, filmed by Robert Siodmak in 1944, two years after book publication, and Deadline at Dawn, directed by Harold Clurman in 1946, also two years after book publication.
“Two Murders, One Crime” was first published in the July 1942 issue of Black Mask under the title “Three Kills for One.”
Two Murders, One Crime
Cornell Woolrich
THAT NIGHT, JUST like on all the other nights before it, around a quarter to twelve Gary Severn took his hat off the hook nearest the door, turned and said to his pretty, docile little wife in the room behind him: “Guess I’ll go down to the corner a minute, bring in the midnight edition.”
“All right, dear,” she nodded, just like on all the other nights before this.
He opened the door, but then he stood there undecidedly on the threshold. “I feel kind of tired,” he yawned, backing a hand to his mouth. “Maybe I ought to skip it. It wouldn’t kill me to do without it one night. I usually fall asleep before I can turn to page two, anyway
.”
“Then don’t bother getting it, dear, let it go if you feel that way,” she acquiesced. “Why put yourself out? After all, it’s not that important.”
“No it isn’t, is it?” he admitted. For a moment he seemed about to step inside again and close the door after him. Then he shrugged. “Oh well,” he said, “I may as well go now that I’ve got my hat on. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.” He closed the door from the outside.
Who knows what is important, what isn’t important? Who is to recognize the turning-point that turns out to be a trifle, the trifle that turns out to be a turning-point?
A pause at the door, a yawn, a two-cent midnight paper that he wouldn’t have remained awake long enough to finish anyway.
He came out on the street. Just a man on his way to the corner for a newspaper, and then back again. It was the 181st day of the year, and on 180 other nights before this one he had come out at this same hour, for this same thing. No, one night there’d been a blizzard and he hadn’t. 179 nights, then.
He walked down to the corner, and turned it, and went one block over the long way, to where the concession was located. It was just a wooden trestle set up on the sidewalk, with the papers stacked on it. The tabs were always the first ones out, and they were on it already. But his was a standard size, and it came out the last of all of them, possibly due to complexities of make-up.
The man who kept the stand knew him by his paper, although he didn’t know his name or anything else about him. “Not up yet,” he greeted him. “Any minute now.”
Why is it, when a man has read one particular paper for any length of time, he will refuse to buy another in place of it, even though the same news is in both? Another trifle?
Gary Severn said, “I’ll take a turn around the block. It’ll probably be here by the time I get back.”
The delivery trucks left the plant downtown at 11:30, but the paper never hit the stands this far up much before twelve, due to a number of variables such as traffic-lights and weather which were never the same twice. It had often been a little delayed, just as it was tonight.
