Tracy began to wrestle desperately for his own life. The masked man tried to twist away from the jiu-jitsu hold of the maddened little columnist. Jerry wouldn’t let him. He shoved his foe’s bent arm upward behind the straining back, forced it higher, higher, until a scream burst from the blackmailer’s tortured lips and his gun dropped from wide-opened fingers.
Tracy clipped him savagely across the skull, sending him sliding to his knees. Again and again Tracy struck at him until the slumped blackmailer lay inert on the floor.
The room was very quiet.
For an instant Tracy remained swaying on his knees, his stomach tied in sick knots. The sight of the motionless bodies of Jane and her gunman brother snapped him out of his nausea.
He sprang hastily toward the girl. Blood from her throat dyed the columnist’s handkerchief a bright crimson. His hand shook like a leaf as he dabbed at the wound. But even the hasty swab he made disclosed that the wound itself was shallow, a horizontal rip across the flesh, not a perforation.
He thought numbly: “Thank God for that.”
He turned Tick Anderson over. Tick was stone dead. The bullet from the trapped blackmailer’s gun had crashed into his brain. Staring at Tick’s relaxed face, Tracy recalled with astonishment that last futile brushing gesture of Tick’s hand as he fell. Cold-blooded, hard-dying to the last. … Tracy was glad, suddenly, that Tick was dead. He knew him clearly for what he was. Likable, good-natured—but a killer. A hopeless misfit in a world of normal, decent people.
The blackmailer began to groan suddenly. Tracy turned. He saw that Jane, too, was recovering consciousness. Her eyelids were beginning to flutter. He caught Tick by the shoulders, dragged his body out to the hallway where Jane couldn’t see him.
Jane’s eyes were wide, glassy. She cringed as she saw the masked figure lying close to her.
“Dr. Stoner?” she gasped. “Did he—”
“Not Dr. Stoner,” Tracy said. There was certainty in his tone, a grim sureness. “Look, let me show you something.”
Jerry Tracy picked up the slack wrist of the blackmailer, eyed the bluish scar on the back of the hand. With a sudden gesture he drew his blood-soaked handkerchief across the scar. It made a smear on the flesh, but it did something else. The scar wiped off like a picture.
“My guess,” Tracy said slowly, “is that our very wise pal here is a rat named Hadley Brown.”
He ripped the black mask away.
“Not a bad guess for a guy with the Broadway mind,” he added harshly. His voice was brisk, purposely hard, peremptory. He wanted to keep Jane’s fuddled mind from the thought of her brother out in the hall.
“It took me a while to get wise to Gloria’s crooked fiancé. The thing that had me fooled at first was that Gloria and her father seemed to—” His head craned and he sprang to his feet. “Where is Gloria? Where did she go?”
There was a slow shuffling sound from the kitchen. Gloria Stoner appeared in the doorway, supporting her father. Dr. Stoner’s face was pale; blood from a ragged wound in his scalp made a trickle down his face, touched his gray mustache and goatee with a fleck of crimson. Tracy shoved a chair forward and the psychoanalyst crumpled into it with a groan. But Gloria remained upright, unwinking, pale as marble.
“I found him jammed in the kitchen broom closet, where he was dragged after we were both attacked.”
Her voice trembled. She was staring at Hadley Brown, at the ripped mask that lay on the floor beside him. Brown was sitting up, very quiet under the menace of Tracy’s gun. His eyes were slitted, watchful.
“I rather guess our marriage is off, eh what, darling?” he jeered with a dreary attempt at jauntiness.
Gloria took the bitter shock like a thoroughbred. Turning, she said in a numb, curiously gentle voice, “Thank you, Mr. Tracy, for—the truth.”
“I knew it in the cellar when he began to talk to me—in a disguised voice. It had to be either your father or Hadley Brown, because they were the only two people who knew Tick and I had quarreled about his sister in the restaurant. The blackmailer advertised the fact that he had a scar on the back of his hand. The fact that he disguised his voice to me in the cellar told me instantly he was not your father. Why show the scar and hide the voice? He was not Stoner, but Brown, coolly using his fake scar to incriminate Stoner in case he ran into trouble.”
Doctor Stoner said feebly from his chair, “We came here tonight suspecting you and Tick Anderson. Gloria heard enough in Jane’s apartment to let us know that the whole conspiracy was centered in this house. We entered by a window, hoping to trap you both; but I was clumsy enough to knock over a chair, and—”
Tracy was staring steadily at Hadley Brown. “I want the photostatic copies of those case histories you stole from Doctor Stoner’s study.”
“Go to hell,” Brown snarled.
Tracy remained unruffled. “None of us wants publicity in this affair, including you. You can hand over those photostats to me or I’ll call police headquarters and we’ll let cops go to work on you. Think it over for sixty seconds.”
Hadley Brown’s hesitation was brief. His lips moved sullenly. He pointed jerkily.
Tracy sprang across the room to a sofa, threw it upside down with a quick heave. On the under side of the upholstery was a square section of cloth held in place with snapper fasteners. Tracy ripped the snappers loose and a bulky manila envelope tumbled out. Inside the envelope were the typed case histories photographed from Doctor Stoner’s files—nearly two hundred sheets of thin onion-skin paper.
Tracy’s voice was savagely low: “I hate like hell to turn a rogue like this loose, but if we prosecute it means agony for decent, respectable people. Tomorrow I intend to visit each one of these victims and return their case histories. If they destroy the evidence with their own hands, they’ll know their secrets are safe. That will end Brown’s racket forever. In the future, Doctor, I’d advise you to be more careful in your methods of guarding your medical records. You needn’t worry about Brown. I’ll damn well see to it that he gets out of the country and stays out.”
His flinty eyes made the blackmailer quail.
“Try South America. If you ever come back, I’ll arrange damn quick to have you electrocuted for murder.”
Hadley Brown shrugged. In silence they watched him leave.
Jane asked faintly, “Where’s Tick? He—he’s all right, isn’t he?”
Tracy didn’t hesitate. He knew there was only one thing to do—to shock her into merciful oblivion and get her out of the house without delay.
He said curtly, “Tick is dead. He was shot to death.”
“Dead?” Jane stared at the white face of the Daily Planet’s columnist, knew that he was speaking the truth. She moaned, swayed. Tracy caught her as she fainted.
Gloria said swiftly, “We’ve got to get her out of the house while she’s unconscious. If there’s any way that we can help you—”
“Have you got a car outside?”
“Yes. It’s parked down the street.”
“Take Jane home with you. Keep her overnight. Feed her something to make her sleep like hell. I’ll come up to your place tomorrow. By that time I’ll have some plan worked out to take care of her until she gets over the shock.” He blinked sweat out of his haggard eyes. “It’s a tough deal for Jane, but I think I can manage her, once I get the police end of this thing straightened out. Jane’s name is not going to be printed in murder headlines—or yours or your father’s.”
“You’re pretty swell, Jerry,” Gloria said.
“Hurry up. Get your father in the car. Start the motor. I’ll take care of Jane.”
He watched from the doorway until he heard the muffled clamor of the automobile’s engine. It was very late now and Brixton Street was cold and silent, swept clear of any sign of pedestrians. Tracy was panting when he reached the car and slid Jane to the rear seat alongside Gloria.
Gloria propped the girl upright with one circling arm, let the slack head rest against her shoulder.
To any prying eyes Jane would pass for a girl who had had one drink too many.
Dr. Stoner sat hunched behind the car’s wheel, wiping the streaks of blood from his face with a tremulous hand.
“Are you all right now, Doctor? Can you drive?”
“Yes. Are you coming along with us?”
Tracy’s grin was a tired blur. “Can’t. I’ve got a couple of jobs yet. Scram!”
The car purred softly toward the corner, swung around it out of sight. Tracy hurried back to the brownstone house.
With a steady hand he picked up the telephone from a table in the front parlor and called police headquarters. He asked for Inspector Fitzgerald, had the call transferred to the inspector’s home. He and Fitz were close friends, veteran collaborators on dozens of tough cases. Tracy said damned little, but what he did say was concise and to the point.
When he hung up he had Fitz’s promise that there’d be no tip for the reporters and as little publicity as possible. Fitz knew that Jerry Tracy would drop casually into the inspector’s private room at headquarters the next day and spill him the complete truth of the affair, with not a single fact held back. It was the way the two always worked. Fitz, grimly elated by the welcome news of Tick’s sudden end, would keep the scandal under wraps as a routine gang feud. The public always took stuff like that for granted.
There was a bulging manila envelope under Tracy’s arm as he plodded with tired steps to Varick Street to find a night hawk cab. He drove to the Forties and east to the Redman’s apartment.
It was Al Redman who opened the door. It was Florence, his wife, who said quietly, “Come in, Jerry.” A robe was thrown loosely over her nightgown. She took one look at the Daily Planet’s columnist and the shuddering tension left her gaunt face.
“It’s all right, Jerry?”
“Of course, it’s all right.” He swung angrily toward Al. “What the hell did you tell her for?”
“I couldn’t hide it.”
Tracy stopped glaring, patted Al’s shoulder. “Sorry. I’m as edgy as a razor blade. Here, take a look at this.”
He handed the bank cashier a packet of sheets from the manila envelope. Al’s trembling fingers made the thin pages rustle as he flipped them over. He said thickly, “Jerry,” and could say no more.
Tracy’s gaze, swinging away in embarrassment, saw a portable typewriter on a desk over near the wall. The sight of it whipped the lines of weariness from Tracy’s mouth. He jerked the cover off the typewriter, spun a sheet of paper around the cylinder. He sat watching it for a while and the faces of Doctor Stoner and Gloria were bright in his mind.
He hit the keys with a clattering touch that sent the carriage dinging back and forth.
Readers of this column will remember a couple of squibs I wrote about a Doctor, a Deb and a Duck. I was wrong about the Doctor, the Deb AND the Duck. The Doctor is on the up-and-up. The Deb is a square-shooter. As for the Duck, he’s entitled to the last word—and it will serve me right if it’s a wise-quack …
Tracy grinned bleakly, stuck the paper in his pocket. He was walking toward the apartment door, his body drooping with fatigue, when a hand turned him gently around.
“Where you going?” Florence said.
“Home, lady. I’m so tired it’s not funny.”
“You’re doing nothing of the kind. What you need is food. I’m going to fix you the best hamburger sandwich you ever ate in your life.”
“Darn you, you’re a mind reader.” Tracy’s smile was blurred. “I’ll have mine with onion.”
MURDER IS NEWS
Jerry Tracy, Broadway columnist, has a murder on his hands—and no corpse!
AT PARK AVENUE AND 49th the dripping taxicab slowed and began to creep patiently through rainy darkness toward the curb in front of the Waldorf. There were other cars ahead and progress was slow.
Edgar Drake leaned forward on the worn leather cushion and murmured,
“Well? Well?” in a whining, unpleasant tone. He paid his driver the exact fare recorded by the meter. Then he pursed his lips, frowned, and added a dime. He was a square-chinned, square-fingered man with pouched eyelids and a middle-aged droop to his cheeks. But there was no fat on his stomach. He had the lean grayness of a timber wolf. His thick, grizzled hair, his eyebrows, even his face was gray. Cartoonists loved Edgar Drake; he was the perfect symbol of his own vast empire of industry and finance.
As he stepped under the sidewalk canopy, the hotel doorman assisted him with alacrity. The man’s alacrity was born of fear. Drake was easily annoyed and a complaint might mean the loss of the doorman’s job. He topped Drake’s head with an umbrella and took charge of the millionaire’s bulky briefcase with a deft motion.
“Yes, Mr. Drake. Horrible weather, sir.”
“Mmm.”
The doorman ignored hotel rules and continued across the spacious lobby to the desk. The clerk straightened like a ramrod and pasted on his glazed smile. A bellhop took the damp briefcase.
“While I was out I arranged for my reservation on the Queen Mary. Have the tickets arrived?”
“Yes, Mr. Drake. I surely hope it stops raining before midnight.”
“Mmm.”
An elevator lifted the millionaire to his tower room with no apparent motion. Drake stared unseeingly at the operator and the bellhop. It wasn’t that he ignored them; he was completely oblivious to their presence. There was mean, brooding uneasiness in his eyes. The look stayed with him all the way to his room; until the bellhop coughed gently. Then Drake pursed his lips as he had in the taxi and fished for a coin.
“Thank you, sir.”
The bellhop closed himself out and hurried back across a soundless corridor rug to the waiting elevator. He said under his breath, “Nuts.” He held out his palm and the operator grinned.
“Same old dime, eh?”
“I had to cough to get it.”
“To think a skinflint like that is married to the most beautiful dame in the U.S.A. laugh, huh?”
“She wasn’t laughing the last time he had her here,” the bellhop said. “If I was Pauline Drake, I’d poison the bum. I’ll bet he’s got an army of dicks keeping tabs on her up in Westchester while he’s in Europe making another billion.”
“You think she’s playing around?”
“She’s a fool if she doesn’t.”
Fool. … The same ugly word rose in Anne Leslie’s frightened mind as she peered outward at black, pouring rain through a curtained window-pane of Edgar Drake’s Westchester mansion. Anne was Mrs. Drake’s secretary. Blond, slim and very pretty. She shivered as she turned from the window and stared at a framed photograph of Pauline Drake. It was a calm, resolute face, one that was ageless, flawlessly lovely. Even in a photograph the dark hair and deep, lustrous eyes seemed vividly alive. Eyes that a previous marriage, a tumultuous life, a grown son and the long years had not harried.
Uneasiness tightened Anne’s blue eyes. Two hours had passed since Pauline Drake had driven stealthily away through drumming rain, unobserved by servants. The little coupé was supposedly locked in Mrs. Drake’s private garage. Only Anne knew where she had gone. The beat of her heart was quick, jumpy, like the gusty rattle of the rain against the window.
She remembered Edgar Drake’s lean gray face and his stubby, powerful hands. She thought of David Corning, the lawyer; of his dry, unemotional voice, always a shade dryer when he talked to Pauline, perhaps to hide the flame in his hungry brown eyes. She thought of young Tony Pedley, playing a jazz trumpet in a nightclub orchestra as a bread-and-butter substitute for a career as a surgeon. Tony, who had begged his heedless mother not to marry Edgar Drake. … Who hated his stepfather so bitterly that he had given up college and career rather than accept a penny of Drake’s grudging money. The whole thing was a dreadful mess. And very definitely dangerous. …
In the Club Pom-Pom the orchestra men were arranging chairs and setting up music racks on the raised dais. It was not quite ten and it was raining viciously outside. A few out-of-towne
rs were dining and drinking, unaware that the Pom-Pom before midnight was a waste of time and money. Tony Pedley was fingering the mouthpiece of his trumpet, his dark eyes bleak and unhappy. He stiffened as he heard voices behind him.
“I see where old man Drake is sailing for Europe tonight.”
“Yeah? The boat should sink!”
“Nice chance to toss him a life-preserver—and make a dime!”
There was unpleasant laughter in which Tony Pedley joined. He didn’t have to hide his rancor against the millionaire because none of the bandsmen was aware that he was Pauline Drake’s son. Only Fred Hammer knew that, Fred was the owner of the Club Pom-Pom and a grand guy. He had kept Tony’s secret and had put pressure on; the band leader to make a place for Tony and his college trumpet. Fred wad a stockholder in Drake Utilities. It amused him to think that part of the profits from the old skinflint’s money empire should be indirectly supporting a hated stepson whom Drake had kicked into social oblivion.
Tony glanced at the clock over the band platform. He stopped smiling abruptly. He laid his shining instrument down and picked up his hat. The trap drummer glanced at him curiously.
“Hey, where you goin’?”
“I—I’ve got to get a breath of fresh air.”
“You mean fresh rain! Smatter? You look sick.”
“Stomach. I’ll be right back.”
He went out by the front entrance to avoid passing Fred Hammer’s tiny office in the rear. But Fred was up front talking to the hat-check girl, and when Tony saw him it was too late to turn back. He told the club owner the same thing he had told the trap drummer.
Hammer nodded sympathetically. “O.K. Make it snappy, kid. Dig him up an umbrella, Evelyn.”
“Never mind,” Tony said faintly. “The cold rain’ll feel good.”
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 65
