“That’s—that’s fine.”
He lay there, soaking, getting sleepier and sleepier. Chanler’s supporting arm kept his head from wobbling under the water. Chanler, who had socked him, was now trying to help him. … Tracy wondered dimly about that. He let his brain drift and his eyelids close. …
Chanler roused him, finally. He helped Tracy out of the tub. He rubbed him vigorously with a bath towel. Tracy couldn’t understand Chanler’s solicitude after the crack on the head, and said so.
“I’m just a big, friendly guy,” Chanler grinned. “And maybe I want you to have a clear head to answer a few questions.”
With his help Tracy climbed into heavy, woolen underwear and belted a flannel robe over that. Vera came in with slippers and a hot, tall drink. It was potent enough to make Tracy’s legs wobble as the pair walked him back to the living-room.
Something glazed and watchful in Vera’s smile put Tracy back on his guard. He noticed something he hadn’t realized when he had first rushed into his apartment. The place had been thoroughly searched. Drawers were opened in desks and cabinets. Chairs had been moved. The rug looked rumpled.
Tracy spied Vera’s gun lying on the liquor cabinet where she had laid it down when she had mixed his drink. He made a sudden dash for it, but Chanler beat him to the gun, whipping his own out as he sprang forward. His face was menacing.
“Back up! And hands high, you dirty little crook!”
“Where’s Butch?” Tracy growled. “What have you done with him?”
Vera took her gun back from Chanler. The feel of it seemed to do hard, sneering things to her brown eyes.
“Is Butch the big fellow with the twisted ear? I had to tap him on the skull, I’m afraid.”
“You mean Chanler did.”
“I mean I did,” Vera snapped.
“How did you get so cold and wet?” Chanler asked harshly. “Did you fall overboard somewhere?”
“You know damned well what happened,” Tracy said. “You hired Joe Wilkie to do your second murder job, but he bungled it. That’s going to make it tough for you.”
“Second murder?” Vera said in a strange voice. “What are you talking about?”
“Skip it,” Tracy said. “What were you searching my apartment for?”
Chanler’s gun tightened grimly in his grasp.
“I’m after that code book of yours. The one you’ve been using to send crooked messages to Ed Spane through your column.”
“You must have been reading a joke book,” Tracy growled.
“Not jokes. Limericks. You were dumb enough to tip your hand, Tracy. I looked through your file of Planet columns while I was waiting here for you to show up. For instance:
“When the last scandal item is in,
I can still make a living from Sin—”
Tracy kept his temper. “I’d much rather discuss a guy named Ed Spane. The guy you stabbed in the gut. The guy you shoved in the bathtub behind the shower curtain.”
Chanler gasped. His face turned suddenly pale. “You’re a liar! Spane wasn’t in his apartment.”
“Then why did you phone for the cops to frame me for his murder?” Tracy’s cold chuckle was like the clink of an ice cube. “Luckily, I’m in the clear. I was able to tell Inspector Fitzgerald a few pertinent facts. The result is a general police alarm for one Roy Chanler and one Vera Durensky. Incidentally the cops have traced that phone call Chanler made after he fled from Spane’s apartment.”
The lie was smoothly uttered and it brought a frightened answer.
“I made no phone call,” Chanler protested thickly. “And I didn’t kill Spane.”
“What were you doing in his apartment?”
“Quit bluffing, Tracy! You can’t stall me off with guff. Hand over that crooked code book of yours! Or I’ll use a very painful method to—”
“Wait a minute!” Vera cried.
She had been staring keenly at Tracy. There was fear in her shining eyes.
“I don’t think this man is bluffing. If Spane is dead, you and I are in a spot, Roy. We’ve got to tell Tracy the truth. Let me talk to him, Roy! Please!”
She began to speak in a low voice that carried candid conviction. Or else she was doing a beautiful acting job. Tracy couldn’t be sure which.
She explained why she had first gone to Spane’s apartment. She suspected Spane of fomenting the wildcat strike at Chanler’s plant in order to discredit the union and force out her father. She was sure that Spane had slugged her father, Nicola Durensky. But she didn’t think that he was smart enough to be the head of the racket. Someone was behind Spane, she suspected, directing the whole criminal set-up. So, knowing Ed Spane was a fool for women, she wangled an invitation to his apartment, hoping to find some clue to the truth.
She had seen the Tracy clipping on Spane’s desk. She had noticed him awkwardly cover it with something else when she first came in. She waited until Spane turned away to mix a drink, then she stole it. Spane was watching in a mirror and he saw her.
He leaped at her and they fought.
Vera’s gown was ripped and she was hurled to the floor. But she managed to jerk off one of her slippers and club Spane with its spiked heel. The blow dazed him and Vera fled downstairs to Tracy’s car. She lost the other slipper on her mad race down the backstairs.
“Okey so far,” Tracy said dryly. “Why did you go back to a guy who had just tried to kill you? And who else did you telephone to from my penthouse bedroom?”
“I called Nell, Roy’s sister. Nell knew I had gone to Spane’s and I was afraid she’d tell Roy. She had! She said Roy had left the house in a rage. I knew he’d rush straight to Spane’s to protect me. So I called Spane’s apartment and got no answer. I was terrified. That was why I—”
“How about you, Chanler?” Tracy said swiftly. “What happened to you?”
He had both of them frightened, on the defensive. He pressed his psychological advantage. If they were lying, they’d make some slip in the manufactured alibi.
“Spane slugged me in the dark the moment I walked in,” Chanler said. “Or I thought it was Spane. Anyhow, I went out cold. I was still unconscious when Vera came in. Spane had left the door ajar when he scrammed. Vera said—”
“Go ahead, Vera,” Tracy suggested.
“I found Roy unconscious. I roused him. We figured that Spane had slugged Roy and had fled. We looked through the apartment and found no sign of him.”
“You didn’t go near the shower curtain in his bathroom?”
Vera’s face was ghastly. She shook her head.
“We searched Spane’s desk and found his file of Daily Planets. All of them were opened at your column and marked with blue pencil. Then you arrived and—”
“I took it on the skull,” Tracy said, without inflection. “A nice plausible story.”
“It’s better than yours,” Vera flashed. “If you try to turn us over to the police, you’ll have a heap of explaining to do about those marked columns that passed between you and Spane. What’s your story, mister?”
“I don’t give a damn what it is,” Chanler grated. “All I want is the proof that Tracy and Spane were behind that fake labor war at my plant. Tracy, I’m giving you two minutes to hand over that code book of yours—or else!”
He wasn’t fooling. His face was twisted in ugly determination. But Tracy ignored Chanler’s gun and watched Vera. He noted exactly where she stood and where Roy stood. Vera, too, had a gun, but Tracy’s desperate intent was to make her forget about the weapon.
He began to jeer at her in a low, sneering voice. He implied that her visit to Spane had been made for personal and physical reasons. Laughing unpleasantly, he looked straight at her. He used a brief Anglo-Saxon word.
Chanler yelled with fury. But Vera was quicker than he. With blazing eyes, she sprang straight at the columnist. She forgot about her gun. Her open palm slapped Tracy hard across the mouth.
For an instant her body was directly between Tracy and Chanler’s
impotent gun. With a quick clutch, Tracy twisted Vera’s weapon from her grasp. His other hand shoved brutally, hurling her forward against the onrushing Chanler. They collided and went down in a heap.
Before Chanler could pull his pinned arm free, Tracy slugged him with the butt of Vera’s gun. An instant later the columnist had both weapons and had sprung clear of the tangle on the floor.
“Get up, stupid!” he told Chanler.
Chanler swayed to his feet. His mouth hung vacantly open. Vera was laughing in the shrill pitch of hysteria. She reeled feebly toward a chair and fell into it. Her laughter filled the living-room with ugly echoes.
Before the sound of her laughter died, a voice said very calmly: “How about letting me in on the joke?”
Tracy whirled. Inspector Fitzgerald was standing on the threshold, very quiet and self-possessed behind the mask of his pent-up fury. Roy Chanler started forward, then relaxed. Fitz’s police gun looked as big as a house. Vera continued to laugh helplessly.
“I’m glad you came, Fitz,” Tracy said breathlessly.
“Shut up, you little rat!” Fitz’s cold rage broke through his self-control. “You’re glad I came! You told me you didn’t know where this crooked pair was. You lied to me! And like a fool, I listened to you. I’ve got detectives searching all New York for two killers and where do I find them? Right in your own penthouse, under your protection. Laughing like hell at the way you kid the dumb police!”
“But, Fitz—”
“You double-crossing skunk! You and your crooked limericks! Stand still, Tracy, or, by the Lord, I’ll plug you!”
Tracy didn’t halt. Moving slowly toward where his damp clothes lay, he said over his shoulder: “Shoot me if you want to, Fitz. You can’t stop me from trying to prove my innocence.”
He bent over his sodden clothing and took his wallet from an inner pocket. Standing erect in his bathrobe and heavy underwear, he fished out the wet newspaper clipping that Vera had tried vainly to hide in the trunk of his locked sedan.
“What’s that?” Fitz growled. “Another gag?”
“I don’t know what it is. All I know is that I’ve been framed for something I don’t know a damned thing about. I’m going to find out right now or break Roy Chanler’s neck.”
His voice was the only steady thing about him. His fingers trembled. The damp clipping fell to the floor and he bent to recover it. Fitz watched him like a hawk. So did Chanler.
Suddenly Tracy uttered a strangled cry. He hadn’t touched the fallen clipping. He was down on hands and knees, staring at it. He got up shakily, holding the moist paper flat in the palm of his hand. His eyes never left it as he spoke.
“Fitz, I think I’ve got it! The only answer that makes sense! What a blind, conceited, egotistical fool I’ve been!”
They stared at him. Fitz remained wary. Chanler was shrunk a little alongside the wall, his face impassive. Vera’s teeth were tautly together behind quivering lips.
“The thing that fooled me,” Tracy began slowly, “was the very thing a smart murderer counted on. Conceit! Jerry Tracy, the famous columnist, with his stuff syndicated in a thousand newspapers—”
He stopped short. He had half turned and his eyes faced for an instant the living-room window that gave access to his penthouse terrace. He caught a glimpse of the haze of falling snowflakes and, pressed close to the window-pane, the white smear of a thin, peering face.
Joe Wilkie! The killer who had dumped Tracy into the icy swirl of the East River! With hate in his eyes and a lifting gun barrel. …
“Look out!”
Tracy’s yell came a scant second before he flung himself at Fitz and knocked him staggering. From the terrace window came a crashing roar. The bullet missed Fitzgerald’s neck by an inch and drilled through the open flap of Tracy’s bathrobe.
Tracy whirled and darted toward the window. He dived through it with lowered head in a jangle of shattered glass. He hit the open terrace on his belly and skidded through the soft snow. Flame jetted at him from the retreating gunman. Tracy rolled over and over, with snow spurting at him like white spray from the impact of Wilkie’s hasty slugs.
The flame streaks veered away from Tracy as Fitzgerald sprang into view through the shattered window. Unlike Tracy, the inspector landed upright, solidly on his feet. He crouched slightly forward, his gun hand steadied on his left wrist. He fired so fast that there was no stutter to the roar of his shots.
Wilkie turned, took two sliding steps toward the penthouse wall, then his blind clutch slipped and he went down on his face in the snow.
“He must’ve come up the fire stairs and swung through the tower window to my terrace,” Tracy gasped.
Fitz nodded. With a face like granite, the police inspector carried the dead gunman through the smashed window and threw him to the living-room floor. Wilkie’s body landed with a thump like a sack of potatoes. Crimson oozed sluggishly from him.
“Maybe I’m wrong about you, Jerry,” Fitz said, pantingly. His stolid face was pale. “He’d have plugged me if you hadn’t yelled and shoved me out of range. If you want to talk, I’m willing to listen.”
Tracy hesitated perceptibly. He started to speak, then stopped. His glance swerved oddly from Fitz toward Roy Chanler and Vera. The knitting mill owner and Durensky’s daughter were staring with frozen terror at the corpse of Joe Wilkie. Tracy, however, seemed to be more interested in Fitzgerald.
He said slowly, “I’ve got almost enough to settle this thing right now. All I need is a little labor information to clear up a couple of weak points. Is Leo Pelman still covering the news story over at Spane’s apartment?”
“He was there when I left.”
“Call him up. Tell him to hurry over here. I can settle this Chanler-Durensky conspiracy with about three more facts.”
Fitzgerald leaped to the phone.
“I didn’t kill Spane,” Chanler gasped.
“Shut up!” Tracy snarled.
Gun on Chanler, Tracy waited until Leo Pelman came hurrying in. The Daily Planet’s labor expert gave a quick cry of enlightenment as he saw the crumpled figure of Joe Wilkie.
“So that’s who was behind them!” he breathed. “Joe Wilkie! I wondered who did the muscle work. Three of ’em in it, eh?”
Tracy nodded. “There were three crooks right from the start. But not these three. I’m still after the master mind.”
“I don’t get it,” Pelman said, puzzled. “Do you mean Ed Spane?”
“No,” Tracy said softly. “I mean—you.”
“What!” Pelman stared stupidly at the business end of Tracy’s gun. It was lined accurately at his heart. Tracy’s finger was taut against the trigger.
“Cuff him, Fitz!” Tracy said.
Pelman made no effort to elude the shining steel bracelets that Fitzgerald snapped on his upraised wrists from the rear. He seemed dumbfounded.
“That winds up the racket ‘trio,’ Tracy said. “Ed Spane and Joe Wilkie—and Leo Pelman. Two of ’em dead. But the smartest one, the real boss of the labor racket, is Mr. Leo Pelman.”
Pelman asked quietly, “Jerry, have you gone silly in the head?”
“Nope. I was silly for most of this mad evening, but now I know exactly what I’m talking about.
“You killed Spane to shut his mouth and protect yourself. When I was foolish enough to phone you, you realized it was only a question of time before I tumbled to the truth about that newspaper clipping. That would mean the police would crack down on Spane and Spane would come clean to save his own skin. So you got rid of him. … Take a look at this, Fitz.”
He showed Fitzgerald the sheet torn from the Daily Planet.
“I was too conceited to remember that a paper has two sides. All I could see was my own famous column. When I was foolish enough to call up Pelman on the phone and involve myself, he saw a chance to play up my mistake and pin the whole business on me. He’s the guy who blue-penciled those columns of mine in Spane’s apartment—after he had killed Spane!”
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Fitzgerald said, “I don’t understand, Jerry. What was on the other side of the paper?”
“The real column that was being used to carry code message between Pelman and Spane. It’s usually headed: “News Along the Labor Front.” But when the sheet was clipped from the Planet, Pelman’s by-line wasn’t clipped with it. Naturally, I saw only plain newsprint and paid no attention to it. I didn’t realize the truth until I dropped the clipping a little while ago and it landed wrong side up. When your own stuff is syndicated to every city in the country, you. … ”
Pelman’s face was gray. “You forget I’ve got an alibi. I was talking to you on the phone, Tracy. You asked me for information and I called you back fifteen minutes later. I didn’t have time to leave my apartment and kill Spane.”
“Spane was already dead when you called me back,” Tracy said. “You called from his apartment! You weren’t home when I tried to get you the second time. You only pretended you were. Actually, you had already killed Spane to shut his mouth, and you slugged Chanler a moment later and scrammed. You also called the police.”
“You’ll have one hell of a job proving that in court,” Pelman sneered. “Any more wild guesses?”
“Sure. You made a mistake when you telephoned police headquarters after Spane gave you the license number of my sedan. Nobody but a newspaperman would know that a car license can be verified in a hurry at police headquarters. Nor would the police give that information to anyone but a reporter. You covered yourself by saying you worked for the Chronicle.”
Pelman laughed jeeringly.
“If you think you can indict me for murder on a few lousy guesses like that, you’re only kidding yourself. You’ll need proof, boy friend.”
Tracy said, “I was saving that for the last. I’ve got the best proof in the world that you were using Spane and Wilkie to smash an honest union and turn it into a racket under your hidden leadership. You see, Pelman, I’ve cracked your newspaper code!”
Pelman cringed at Tracy’s triumphant shout.
Then, suddenly, he was plunging forward. His manacled hands closed on Tracy’s gun. The attack was made so swiftly that Tracy had no chance to defend himself. The gun was wrenched from his startled grasp. A knee-cap in his groin sent him reeling backward. Pelman swung the gun in both hands and fired point-blank at Inspector Fitzgerald.
Jerry Tracy, Celebrity Reporter Page 75
