The Murder Megapack

by Talmage Powell

  The electric clock in the study developed into a piece of evidence. Mr. Cord never could remember when to turn on the radio so this automatic clock had been bought. It could be set and it would turn on the radio at any appointed time. Someone had unplugged the radio and connected the lamp to the clock. Just as the clock could turn appliances on, it could turn them off too. And it was the clock that had turned out the lamp just when Bligh had heard the large hall clock chime nine.

  There was a strong presumption that the murderer had set the clock, for Cord had been killed in the dark. Only a killer who expected darkness at that moment, could have been prepared to act. Bligh had heard the blow struck after the light had gone out. Only Bligh had thought it was a door closing.

  Whoever struck the blow had been waiting just outside the study door. With Cord’s position in the chair charted, the killer grasped the bust of Plato the instant the clock put the light out, took swift strides to Cord and murdered him before he could move.

  * * * *

  Bligh was sitting on the bench atop a knoll some distance from the house, in corduroys and sweatshirt. He felt warm, for the Indian Summer sun was hot, and he was thinking about these things. Yet, for all his superficial warmth, there was an iciness in his heart and his stomach that he believed would never thaw. The iciness had been there since the moment when he had realized the responsibility for Silas Cord’s death might be his.

  Bligh hunched over, chin in hands, his almost closed eyes turned down to the brown earth. And so he meditated, until suddenly a pair of tan shoes intruded upon his vision. Bligh snapped his head up. Lieutenant Ware stood over him. Except for Ware’s efforts, all police work on the murder had come to a standstill. Ware alone was on the case, and he would not quit. Bligh gripped the edge of the bench.

  “We’re sick of that blackmail angle,” Ware hurled at him. “We’ve checked and checked it, and there’s nothing to it, I tell you.” Ware grasped him roughly and hauled him up off the bench. “You’re not telling everything. You’re holding back.” Bligh nodded. Ware was a man as big as Bligh, wider at the shoulders, much thicker at the waist. His face was frozen into a scowl, his eyes always narrowed. Bligh liked one thing about Ware: Ware would not give up; the man was fretting himself into a state where soon he would smash this case regardless how.

  “You low-down tramp,” Ware shouted, shaking him. “Five thousand is a fortune to a bum. You couldn’t wait to get it. Your feet itched—you wanted to be on the go, but not without that money. I’ve known from the beginning that you’re holding back.”

  Effortlessly, Bligh pushed Ware away, breaking his grip.

  “I’m holding back.” Bligh touched his forehead. “There are thoughts in here that won’t focus. Let’s go to the house.”

  Ware fell in step beside him, grumbling, “All right, what is this all about? Who are we going to see?”

  Bligh led him into the house and up the stairs. Bligh tapped on a door, waited, then turned the knob and pushed the door.

  Following him in over the threshold, Ware gasped. The large room was more exotic than feminine. One wall, covered with cloth-of-gold, furnished a backdrop for a large, squat porcelain Chinese idol, five or six feet high and as broad at the base. Its whole bald head, enormous grinning face and thick neck were leprous white; its blue robe, slipping from its fat shoulders, revealed that the entire body to the waist was the same dead white.

  The head was tilted over on the right shoulder, the shapeless mouth open in a smile. Bligh had thought him a Buddha, but Louise had explained that he was not. She told Bligh his name, but Bligh could not remember, except that he was the god of joy or smiles or something like that. The room was done in lacquers and gold, the whole in keeping with the idol and the cloth-of-gold backdrop.

  Louise Envers sat on a white chaise longue, wearing a simple black dress. Her hands were together in her lap, the back of one in the palm of that beneath, and though she was only sitting she gave the impression of having been disturbed.

  “Louise, maybe you can help us.” Bligh shut the door and pulled a stool over to the lounge. “Lieutenant Ware—” Bligh nodded to the big detective who remained standing, his eyes fixed on Louise’s slim face, tightly drawn hair and the jade pendants hanging motionless from her ears—“doesn’t think Mr. Cord was killed over blackmail. Ware thinks I killed him. But that doesn’t count.”

  Louise rolled her big dark eyes up to Ware, holding her head still, as if her neck were stiff. She smiled to Ware, her lips a strange dark red against her white teeth.

  “What does count?” she asked softly.

  “That I feel responsible for the murder,” Bligh replied: “I swear Cord told me someone wanted to extort money from him. Yet I constantly recall that when I said I would not let him be robbed for something in his past, he said: ‘You do me little credit.’ Why did he say that? And, someone in this house killed him. The clock that was set to turn out the light at nine o’clock proves that. You see, there are hazy thoughts way at the back of my mind. You will have thought these things out by this time.”

  “I haven’t.” She continued smiling up to Ware, and Bligh thought it was almost wicked, the way she mocked him to Ware.

  Bligh rose stiffly. He and Ware nodded to Louise, and left the room. They walked toward the stairs.

  Bligh said, “That’s odd!” in a tone hushed by its perfervidness.

  “What?” Ware snapped.

  “Didn’t you see how she sat when we went in? She often sits like that, thinking. She can think the way you or I can read. You can’t sit and think unless you’re intelligent. Yet she has nothing to say.”

  “Maybe,” Ware gave him a sharp look, “she doesn’t think about the kind of things you suppose she does.”

  They whirled at the sound of, “Psst! Psst!”

  Maurice Rooper beckoned from down the hall. They hurried to him. In a voice constrained because of Rooper’s mysterious manner, Ware demanded, “What is it?”

  “I’ve been thinking,” Rooper announced, goggle-eyed.

  Plump and only of medium height, Maurice Rooper had a head of wild black hair and a profuse mustache. Because of these, his eyeglasses and dark skin, he looked much older than he was, although his immaturity was stark.

  “You’ve been thinking!” Ware fumed disgustedly.

  “What about?” Bligh dropped a hand to Rooper’s shoulder. He glanced into Rooper’s room. It was always weird, but an unusual conglomeration of junk cluttered it now. “Ye gods! Wait! Let me guess! I know, it’s a criminal laboratory!”

  “Right!” Rooper exclaimed ecstatically; “I’ve found my field at last. Criminology.” He drew Bligh into the room, not seeming to know Ware came in too, eyes popping. “Bligh; I have every room wired. I heard you and Ware in Louise’s room.”

  “You got no right!” Ware bawled. “You learn anything?”

  “No,” Rooper admitted. “Except that I’ve been thinking of what Bligh said to Louise.”

  Rooper branched off, telling them about the ‘bugs’ he had hidden in every room. He had a switchboard rigged on the table. Money being no object, as was always the case with Maurice, there were several stages of amplification, so that there was no need for headphones. Rooper brought everything in on a speaker.

  He demonstrated. There was an argument in progress between the maid and cook in the kitchen, and in the pantry the butler mumbled figures, every so often calling out for the maid and cook to shut up. The rest of the house was silent.

  Rooper proudly shut off the sound pickup system.

  “All right, smart head,” Ware groused. “Go ahead, talk.”

  Rooper lit a pungently Turkish cigarette.

  “Uncle Silas was hurt because Harry Bligh thought he had done something he could be blackmailed about.” Rooper laid a finger alongside his flat nose. “Ergo, there was no blackmailer.”

  Bligh asked simply, “You mean I’m a liar?”

  “Don’t you see?” Rooper pleaded. “Uncle Silas was being a
sked for money, but it was one of us that the blackmailer was threatening. We had only our allowances. But if the blackmailer went to Uncle Silas and said he could send Grayson or me or Louise to prison, Uncle Silas would pay to save us.”

  “Then why—” Ware smacked fist into palm—“the murder?”

  Bligh had an answer to that. The blackmailer had murdered because he had feared prison. Bligh had frightened him by calling the police. A blackmailer who wanted only money had been turned into a killer by Bligh’s interference. Which made Bligh morally responsible—the haunting thought that left Bligh careless whether or not the police arrested him, since if he were morally responsible he would feel as guilty as if he had struck the death blow.

  It was not the identity of the killer that concerned Bligh so much. It was the killer’s motive. If a blackmailer, threatened by the fear of arrest, had become desperate enough to murder Cord through Bligh’s calling in the police, then Bligh had no taste left for life.

  “Why was Cord killed?” Ware demanded louder.

  “Something just went wrong,” Rooper supposed.

  “That leaves us where we were,” Ware griped.

  “No, this is the link I’ve been trying to think out,” Bligh insisted. “Ware, the blackmailer didn’t murder Cord. His victim did. Cord was easygoing, but he had his scruples. Suppose he had learned something from the blackmailer that he could not forgive? It would have been the end of someone who had a comfortable home here and a sizable inheritance in prospect. That must be it!”

  “Then you have a sulky blackmailer somewhere,” Ware snarled. “He must know that the one he had the goods on murdered Cord. So why doesn’t the blackmailer tip us off?”

  “That is what blocked my thinking,” Bligh admitted. “But I see now that the blackmailer can’t speak. The moment he confessed he had tried extortion, you’d accuse him of murder. No one has a good enough alibi for that night to take a chance at flinging accusations about. Besides, how would he tip us off? With modern police scientific methods, it is hard to convey information without leaving a trail to yourself.”

  “There’s one way he could tip us off.” Ware’s face was terrible, and Rooper cringed. “He could tell us he was Sherlock Holmes. He could tell us he doped it out of his head.” Ware grabbed Rooper as if he would kill him on the spot. “You little hand-fed louse! Spill it! Who’d you have the goods on?”

  “No, no!” Rooper begged. “I swear! Bligh!”

  “Don’t treat him like that,” Bligh protested.

  Ware dragged Rooper out of the room. Bligh followed them downstairs and out of the house. Ware flung Rooper into his car and got in too. Then he turned a face livid with rage to Bligh, saying fiercely:

  “You better hope hard as prayers I get something out of him. Because don’t ever forget that if I don’t get someone else, you’re the patsy, and always were.”

  Ware’s car shot away, a thick cloud pouring from the exhaust.

  Bligh snuffled the gasoline stench out of his nose. He strode aimlessly from the house. He felt real pity for Rooper. Yet he realized the justness of Ware’s suspicions. It could be Rooper. That hobby-minded young man was poorly fitted to face the world if someone told Silas Cord something that would cause Cord to turn Rooper out of doors.

  A car careened to the house, braked violently. Tom Grayson leapt out and dashed into the house.

  Bligh ran into the house. Grayson was at the head of the stairs. Bligh bounded up. He was about to call when Grayson rushed into Louise’s room and slammed the door.

  Bligh put his hand on the knob. He snatched it away and raced down the hall to Rooper’s room. Dropping into a chair at the table, Bligh threw switches, heard voices, from some room or other—Rooper had the switches identified with hieroglyphics.

  Then Grayson’s voice burst from the speaker:

  “I can’t stand it another minute! I’ll go mad, do you hear, mad!” He sounded as if he’d been drinking heavily.

  “Get out!” Louise’s normally languid voice crackled. “You spineless sot, get out of this room and never enter it again, or I will tell them you did it.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Grayson gasped.

  “I wouldn’t dare?” Louise’s voice dripped scorn, and it sounded as though she’d risen. “You think I wouldn’t have, if there’d been any reason? I’ve made up my mind about you, worm. I don’t want you at any price. I’ll tell them! Wouldn’t dare! No one ever said I wouldn’t dare anything, I’ll tell you—”

  “You put that phone down!” Grayson screeched. “You won’t tell. But I will. I’ll tell them I’ve killed you!”

  Bligh heard her sharp intake of breath.

  “You?” she forced a laugh.

  Then she screamed.

  Bligh got out of Rooper’s room and down the hall faster than light. He flung open the door and burst in upon them.

  Louise held a gun. Grayson crouched, advancing upon her. Her back was to the wall, her hand tightened over the gun, death like a black fascination in her eyes.

  “Stop!” Bligh shouted.

  Grayson sprang at her.

  She fired and Grayson lost his impetus.

  Bligh leapt at her. She snapped the gun at him. It was Bligh’s life or her face. Bligh struck her down.

  Bligh took the gun, then put her unconscious form on the lounge. He lifted Grayson to a chair. Grayson had been shot in the shoulder, but he didn’t seem to notice the wound. He sat sobbing his heart out. Bligh phoned the doctor, then Ware.

  “All right—” Bligh held a towel to Grayson’s bleeding shoulder—“you tried to blackmail your uncle. So she killed him.”

  “You know?” Grayson’s face was as white as the huge idol’s.

  “Yes—now. You knew the house was to be empty that night before anyone else knew. You pretended you’d asked friends in and that you were angry. You were allaying suspicion.”

  “Understand this,” Grayson said emphatically, “I never meant to blackmail my uncle. I was only trying to scare Louise. You see, though I never liked her, she tantalized me and I couldn’t stand it. She wouldn’t have anything to do with me. So I told her if she didn’t go out with me I would tell uncle lies about her. He could be terrible if women disgraced themselves by the sort of men they mixed with.

  “I told Louise I’d invent stories about her and uncle would kick her out. I didn’t mean it. But she mocked me. Before I knew it, I’d done it. Uncle didn’t know who I was—I phoned him and said only that I knew something disgraceful about one of his wards and would reveal it if I didn’t get money. Louise was with me when I phoned. Uncle said he would pay. Then you got wind of it and sent for the police. I was scared sick.”

  After a moment Bligh said, “But you made an appointment with your uncle on the night he was murdered. You were out with your friends and crazy drunk, but you remembered the appointment and tried to keep it. Your car ran out of gas and you even managed to walk.”

  “I intended to tell uncle the whole thing was a joke in bad taste. But I had to get drunk before I could face him,” Grayson moaned. “Bligh, I didn’t want him or you to discover the real truth. Here is the truth—I threatened Louise that I would tell uncle lies about her. Then I began to wonder what she did do with herself. I began spying, following her.

  “Bligh, she’s the basest woman who ever lived. I could never have told a lie about her that would have been half bad enough. But I didn’t want uncle to know. I intended to tell him the whole blackmail scheme was a joke I’d been playing on Rooper.”

  Bligh grunted. “How about the night of the murder?”

  “I don’t remember anything,” Grayson confessed, “until I was standing in the hall. The study door was open a bit and I saw Louise. I knew she meant to do something terrible. She thought, you see, that I would tell uncle about her. I tried to tell her I wouldn’t. But she kicked me in the stomach. Then the light went out. A minute later she ran out the back of the house and I went after her. But I fell and couldn’t rise.
<
br />   “I think I knew what she had done, and what danger I was in. I had a bottle of whisky in my pocket. I drank it all. With what I had already had, it made me so drunk that I had sort of an alibi. Next day she told me if the police ever found out I was the one blackmailing uncle, they would think I was also the one who I murdered him. I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut. But I know she killed him and I had to tell. I can’t go on.”

  “It’s going to be tough proving it,” Bligh growled. “The fact that you were drunk isn’t going to make your testimony gilt-edged. She’ll have your uncle’s money to fight us with.”

  “I don’t care—” Grayson threw his shoulders back—“even if I’m arrested for attempted extortion. I can prove what places she’s gone to, what kind of people she’s been with and what she’s been doing. A lot of that is on film, and I have friends to testify to the rest. So I can prove she had reason to fear uncle might learn unpleasant truths about her. She can’t beat this case.”

  Louise sat on the chaise longue, her hands in her lap, her face calm.

  “You can’t yogi yourself out of this,” Bligh warned. “You’re in a jam. You have things to worry about, lady.”

  “Have I?” she asked languidly. She stuck out her tongue, a capsule on the end of it. Then she took in tongue and capsule and chewed. She swallowed before Bligh could get to her.

  Lieutenant Ware burst into the room. “What is this?”

  “I murdered my uncle,” Louise said.

  “What?” Ware thundered. “Why?”

  She said nothing, only gazed at Bligh. The doctor had entered and was at work on Grayson, who also looked to Bligh.

  “We don’t know why she did it,” Bligh snapped. “Temporary insanity, I suppose. All Grayson and I know is that she took poison and then confessed. Leave her alone! Can’t you see—well, you might figure she wouldn’t confess a thing like that if she couldn’t have depended on her poison to work fast.”