“Miz Shale is a nice, quiet tenant, sah. We ain’t nevveh had no police gemmen here befo’. Ah hope yawl ain’t fixin’ to make no—”
“Unlock it,” Tracy snapped. “And keep your mouth shut. If you open your trap to anyone but me, I’ll slap you in a precinct cell.”
He closed the door of 1-C softly behind him. Motionless, he waited in the darkened foyer of the apartment, watching, listening. Directly in front of him were glassed double doors, closing off what was probably a living-room. A dim light inside yellowed the panes of the closed doors.
The columnist tiptoed closer and glanced, right and left, along a high-ceilinged hall. Kitchen at one end, a bedroom at the other.
Someone was groaning very faintly. The sound was so low that only a man with Tracy’s supersensitive ears would have been aware of it. A church bell began to toll somewhere in the neighborhood and Tracy waited till the bell stopped. The groaning was louder now. It came from the closed living-room.
He turned the knob slowly, made an infinitesimal crack. Suddenly he gasped and stepped swiftly inside the room.
A gray-haired woman was lying on the floor near an opened window. The window curtain was blowing and billowing across her crumpled, motionless figure. Her eyes were closed. Her head was bleeding from a small gash in her scalp just above her right temple.
Tracy sprang forward and lifted her from the floor. He got her into a high-backed chair and her head rolled weakly against the blue-striped slip-cover. She was not unconscious but groggy as the devil. Jerry popped out into the hallway, found the bathroom and filled a blue unbreakable cup with cold water.
Her eyes fluttered open presently and she moaned. Terror was in her eyes but it faded as she saw the face of the columnist.
“Is—Is he—gone?”
“Yeah,” Tracy said gently. He glanced at the open window. “Take it easy, madam. You’ll be okey in a couple of minutes.”
He picked up the thing that had slammed her. A wooden rolling-pin, lying incongruously on the living-room rug, near the small bookcase directly under the window-sill. He glanced at the smear of blood on it, laid the thing down again where he had found it. He poked his head out the window. He was looking across the concrete paving of a backyard towards the brick rear of a Riverside Drive building. The drop from the open window was probably ten or eleven feet. An easy jump for anyone. He craned up and down the concrete length of the adjoining backyards. Towards 116th the yards ended smack against a tall brick wall; but up the other way, Jerry could see a dark cross street and beyond it a tall church tower with a red light burning steadily at its gloomy peak. That must be where the infernal bell had been booming, Tracy thought sourly. No sense climbing over the back fences after the vanished housebreaker; by this time the guy must have long since reached the side street, beat it swiftly over to the Drive and handed a dime to a bus conductor. He’d be well on his way now past Grant’s Tomb—or maybe the other way, through Cathedral Parkway for a quick fade later in midtown Manhattan. The oldish dame with the gray hair was showing signs of snapping back to normal.
“Who—Who are you?” she gasped. “I’m the gentleman who called you on the telephone,” Jerry told her gently. “My name is Shale. Edwin J. Shale. If you’ll remember—”
“Yes. … Oh, yes. … You are the man who—” Her dulled eyes began to look frightened again. “You had a theater ticket—with my name written on it. How—How did you get the ticket? May I see it?”
Jerry Tracy blandly ignored the question.
“I was afraid there was something wrong,” he murmured, “when you didn’t answer my ring at the bell. I got the hallman to unlock your door. … What happened? A sneak thief?”
“He—He must have been.”
She hesitated, eying her visitor with that same indefinable suggestion of bewilderment and terror.
“I was in the living-room here, looking over the New Yorker—when I thought I heard a stealthy noise in the kitchen. I—I didn’t pay any attention at first; sometimes the gas-oven door makes a funny bumping sound like that when it’s heated. But I heard it again, and it scared me because I was all alone. I got up and walked cautiously to the door and—”
She shuddered and Tracy said: “You’re all right now, Madam. Take it nice and easy. What happened then?”
“He—He was sneaking along the hall from the kitchen. He—had the rolling-pin in his hand like a—a club. I tried to scream—to run—but he sprang into the living-room after me and struck me over the head. I—I—He must have gotten in by climbing up from the backyard somehow—got in through the dinette window and sneaked through the kitchen.”
“What did he look like? Get much of a look at the man?”
“He seemed—well, young. A young man. It’s—It’s hard to remember when you—”
“Naturally,” Jerry said soothingly. “How about his face?”
“That’s the most horrible part of it,” Mrs. Shale shuddered. “He wore a mask; a black, shiny thing with slits in it. It made him look inhuman—like a—a—beast.”
The columnist nodded thoughtfully. “Excuse me,” he said suddenly, and left the living-room. He hurried back to the kitchen, snapped on the light, put his bright, beady eyes to work. He, popped into the dinette and did the same in there. He was gone only a minute or so and apologized when he returned for his abrupt action.
“Thought maybe the burglar might have left some trace,” he murmured. “I think we ought to call in the police at once.”
“No!” she gasped quickly. “No, no! Not the police. I’m—all right. I wouldn’t want any—any newspaper notoriety over my—my mishap.”
Tracy said, slowly: “It sounds silly, but do you suppose there could be any possible connection between this attempt at burglary and—and that theater ticket with your name on it?”
“I don’t see how—” She was very pale. “What possible connection could a ticket for Alabama Moon—an orchestra ticket, you said, for D-101—”
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Shale,” Tracy said quickly. “It wasn’t.”
“Wasn’t? I don’t understand.” Her hand flew to her breast. “Aren’t you Mr. Edwin Shale? Didn’t you call me on the telephone and tell me that—”
“I’m Shale, all right. Edwin J. Shale, of Montgomery, Alabama. But I didn’t say D-101.” He lied coolly. “The ticket I bought was D-201.”
“Oh!”
She looked at him blankly. He was able to detect no relief in her scared eyes. What the devil was behind all this? Sneak thieves didn’t wear masks; they only cased joints where they figured the coast was clear for a quick finger-grab and a quicker getaway. Was that mask stuff just a bit of baloney to cover up a recognition that Mrs. Shale was afraid to talk about? Her whole demeanor was a plain statement to Tracy that she had recognized the burglar’s face and was afraid to admit it. Why?
He knew that Mrs. Shale was going to pin him down in a minute about that damned theater ticket he was supposed to have. He was thinking up a suave stall to explain its absence when abruptly the front doorbell rang.
Ms. Shale jumped nervously. So did Tracy. This cockeyed running around in circles was beginning to get his goat.
“Shall I answer it?” she whispered, her voice quavering.
“Yes. Go ahead.”
He rose noiselessly from his chair and stood just inside the living-room door, listening.
He heard Mrs. Shale sigh audibly. She said, faintly, to someone: “Oh, hello. Where have you been?”
“Out,” a voice sneered.
“Whereabouts?”
“Just plain out. Do I have to give an itemized account of every street corner I stop on?”
It was a man’s voice. Petulant. Hard.
“It’s a wonder you wouldn’t stay at home once in a while,” Mrs. Shale said faintly. “I might have been killed.”
“Huh?” The man followed her into the living-room and stopped abruptly as he saw a stranger there.
Tracy smiled blandly at the young man and said, “How do?
” very politely.
It was the guy who had held Jerry up with the .32 in the Hotel Cantzvell. The same elusive lad who had sat in D-101 at the Parkhurst Theater, whom Tracy had last seen vanishing south-ward in Broadway’s traffic in an elusive Yellow taxicab.
The recognition was not mutual. The Jerry Tracy that this fellow had tied up wore a brown mustache and looked anything but like the Jerry Tracy of the moment.
The young man ignored the columnist’s politely extended hand.
“Who’s this fellow, Auntie?”
His face swung suspiciously towards Mrs. Shale and for the first time, apparently, he became aware that she was hurt.
“Hey. … What happened to your head? What’s the matter?”
She told him, with eyes averted, about the burglar’s visit. He listened, watching Tracy out of one corner of his eye. Panic flowed into his face as his aunt told him about the fortunate visit of the nice Mr. Edwin Shale, who had come up to see her about a theater ticket.
“This is my nephew, Leo,” Mrs. Shale told Jerry. “I’m so glad he’s home just now; I’ll feel so much safer.” Her face gave the lie to her tremulous words. If anything, she looked twice as scared as she had before.
“Please to meet you,” Leo mumbled.
“Certainly is some coincidence, huh?”
His scowl added, unmistakably: “How long are you gonna hang around here, mister?”
Tracy noticed that the nephew was breathing a little faster than normal, as though he had arrived in a hurry.
“Been running, Leo?” he asked gently.
“Who, me? I’ve been climbing that blasted hill from Riverside Drive.” A flush came into the pallor of his cheeks.
“What of it?”
“Nothing,” Tracy murmured. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going.”
“Don’t linger on my account,” Leo sneered.
“Leo!” Mrs. Shale murmured reprovingly. “Is that any way to talk to—”
“Aw, let him beat it!” Leo stalked over to a corner table, picked up the New Yorker, and pretended to read it.
Mrs. Shale escorted her mythical namesake to the door.
“Leo’s a little tired, I expect,” she said faintly. “I’m sorry he was so rude. Thank you for your—your very welcome help. I’m sure I’ll be all right now.”
She said it wistfully, almost beseechingly. The Daily Planet’s columnist had a strong feeling that her worried eyes were mutely begging him to stay, not to leave her alone with Leo. Tracy smiled at her, however, showed his teeth in the usual insincere grin of farewell and walked out through the dim marble, lobby into Clayborn Avenue.
He did some rapid and heavy thinking as he hurried back towards 116th. The affair seemed to get phonier by the minute! All the threads seemed to tie up, not with the theater, but with that apartment he had just left. Had the dead Harry Davidson been working under cover for Mrs. Shale? Had she become panicky and lugged in a private dick on the case? If so, where did the sullen Leo fit in? The old lady seemed plenty afraid of her sallow-faced nephew.
And what about the burglar who had swatted Mrs. Shale on the dome—the guy she didn’t seem anxious to identify? Tracy smiled dimly as he considered the sneak-thief angle. His mind went back to Leo and played with him all the way to the drug-store on the corner of 116th and Broadway.
He called up Dill Haig’s agency and, after a brief wait, heard the voice of Pat. The operative sounded froggy.
“Huh? Oh—hell, Jerry. … Been asleep, I guess. Reading a dopy magazine here all by myself. Guess I musta dozed off. … Anything new?”
“Plenty. Grab your hat and come on uptown. One-sixteenth and the Drive. I’ll be on a park bench, waiting for you.”
“Gunplay?” asked the practical Pat, with no sleep left in his voice.
“How do I know?” Tracy chuckled. “Of all the bloodthirsty guys I ever met, you’re the worst. Yeah—better bring old Sally Ann along. And make it snappy, sweetheart!”
He hung up, and walked down the steep hill to the Drive. He found a bench near the bicycle path and sat there in a mild reverie.
He was glad when the gaunt figure of the practical Pat finally showed up in the darkness. He gave Pat the crisp details of what had happened since he had donned his makeup and gone to the Hotel Cantwell.
Pat whistled softly. “So what do we do about it?”
“We’re going back to Clayborn Avenue and flash shields on ’em,” Tracy said. “Two guys from the homicide squad. Very official and hard-boiled. You may need Sally Ann; I think Leo is heeled. … You flash your own tin and I’ll show ’em the thing I took from Davidson.”
“Okey.” Pat considered things briefly. “What about this Davidson? He still nice and quiet in his bathroom?”
“Yeah. He won’t bother anyone till the chambermaid lets herself in tomorrow morning. How come you don’t know about Davidson and the Whalen Agency?”
“It’s a cheap and very rackety outfit. We never got chummy with that particular agency.”
They climbed the steep hill and went back to 225 Clayborn Avenue. Tracy rang the doorbell of 1-C but it was Pat who crowded close to the doorknob.
The minute the door opened Pat had the startled Leo backed helplessly against the wall of the apartment’s foyer.
“Hands away from that hip, son,” he whispered grimly, “Or poppa blow nice hole through belly!”
Jerry Tracy shut the door and smiled at the fuming Leo. Mrs. Shale’s sullen nephew recognized their recent visitor and made an ugly sound in his throat. Jerry grinned amiably.
“Who is it, Leo?” a pleasantly youthful voice called from the living-room. It was a girl’s voice; Tracy had never heard it before.
“Walk!” he ordered softly and Pat’s businesslike Sally Ann dug into their captive’s back and prodded him forward.
The young woman in the living-room jumped to her feet and squealed faintly as the procession appeared. She was dark-haired, dark-eyed, creamy skin, full red lips. Nice figure, too.
“She’s in show business,” Tracy thought, swiftly. “I’ll bet salami on that!”
Quickly he jerked out Davidson’s shield, flashed it in his cupped palm with a brisk, businesslike gesture. Mrs. Shale had risen to terrified feet from her easy chair over in the corner. She stared at the young woman and Leo. She seemed desperately to be trying to read their faces. Leo, too, was staring fixedly at his aunt.
It was Leo who spoke first.
“Your fake relative seems to have come back again—with a pal,” he said bitterly to his aunt.
His eyes swung quickly towards the younger woman.
“I told you this visit of his wasn’t on the level, Ruth. Didn’t I tell you that Edwin Shale stuff was a bluff?”
“Shut up!” Pat snapped at him. The agency man’s lean fingers located and extracted from Leo’s hip a squat-looking .32.
“Where’d you get this toy, son?”
“None of your damned business.”
“You got a permit for it?”
“I sure have.”
“What is the meaning of this—intrusion?” Mrs. Shale wanted to know in a shaky voice. “Am I to understand that you were deceiving me when you—”
“Yeah,” Tracy said. “But I’m not deceiving you now. City detectives, ma’am. We’re here to find out something about a homicide.”
“Homicide? You mean—somebody has been murdered?”
“Correct. A man named Harry Davidson. Ever hear of him?”
“Davidson—dead?” She found it hard, suddenly, to talk. She looked at Leo and if ever Jerry Tracy saw an unspoken accusation of murder, he saw it then as she stared in fright at her sullen nephew.
“My God, Leo,” she faltered. “Did you—”
“Cut it out, Auntie,” Leo snarled. “Don’t be a sap.”
The dark-haired girl was still silent. She had clear gray eyes and a nice mouth; Tracy liked her looks.
“Who are you?” Tracy asked her.
“My name is Ruth
Glennon,” she replied evenly. “This is my brother, Leo Glennon. Mrs. Shale is our aunt.”
“Yeah,” Leo said thickly, “and if you ask me—”
“Be quiet, Leo,” Ruth Glennon said.
“Well, they’re not going to hang no Davidson killing on me!”
“You weren’t in his room at the Hotel Cantwell late this afternoon, by any chance?” Jerry suggested silkily.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Are you quite sure you didn’t sneak into room 729 with that gun of yours?”
Leo’s mouth clamped shut like a steel trap.
“I’ve got nothing to say,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
“It’s still your party, Jerry,” Pat told the columnist calmly. “What’s next on the program?”
“Take Leo and his sister into the next room,” Tracy said. “Keep an eye on ’em till I call you back.”
“Right.”
Mrs. Shale averted her eyes from the venom of Leo’s glance. Tracy closed the living-room door softly behind the nephew and niece.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said to Mrs. Shale. “Don’t be afraid to talk candidly. No one can hurt you now.”
She nodded, her fingers twisting nervously together.
“Was this man Davidson in your employ?” Tracy asked her.
“Yes. I hired him.”
“Why?”
She cleared her throat, glanced nervously at the closed door. “Each week, for the past six weeks, I’ve received through the mail two sealed envelopes. One contained an orchestra ticket for Alabama Moon—D-101. The other contained an unsigned typewritten note, threatening me with immediate death unless I used the ticket. I telephoned the box-office of the Parkhurst Theater and the man there told me that all he knew was that the money for the seat came regularly to him in cash from some anonymous friend who said he wanted to surprise me. I was terribly frightened about it, but I thanked the box-office man and said it was very thoughtful of my unknown friend.”
“Did you tell your nephew and niece about the tickets and the threats?”
“Yes. Leo just laughed. Said it was a practical joke of some kind. Ruth didn’t say anything at all, but she looked very queer and uneasy.”
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 37
