by Craig Rice
“We’re all so relieved that Lotus is out of this mess” Mona McClane said smiling.
Malone didn’t smile in return. “She might have been safer in jail.”
“What do you mean?” Lotus demanded.
“I came here,” Malone said, addressing Mona McClane “to make sure that you wouldn’t find this girl tonight, the victim, perhaps, of a carefully arranged suicide—or of another burglar. Because the person who murdered two men and almost made it three, isn’t going to take any chances.” He paused. “It might be Lotus, or it might be someone else—”
Mona McClane’s face was almost dead white. “I wouldn’t like to see that happen.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Malone said. He stood looking into the fireplace. “I understand your motive, of course. I even sympathize with it. But, unfortunately, in this world only the police department can assume the prerogatives of divine justice.”
Helene said, “Malone, what is it all about?” It was almost a cry.
No one answered her. No one seemed to hear her. Mona McClane turned to the brown-eyed girl and said, “Lotus dear, will you run up and ask the Vennings to drop down for a cocktail? Tell them Malone is here. You’d better ask Pendley down, too.”
After the girl had gone, Malone said, “I’d like to send a note to Louella White, too, if I may.” He scribbled something on the back of an envelope and handed it the maid. “For Miss White.”
Mona McClane looked at him. “Lotus told me all about herself. The whole story. As though I hadn’t known it all the time.”
“You knew it?” Malone said, his eyebrows up.
“Of course I did. Old Mrs. Abbot told me all about it before she died, when she and Lotus were in Paris. That’s why I’ve tried to keep an eye on the girl, she deserves it.”
“It was good of you,” Malone murmured.
She said sharply, “After all, the McClanes came over in the steerage, too.” She rose and stood before the fireplace, her hands thrust deep in the huge side pockets of her black wool dress. “In the steerage, but one of the best boats.”
Helene said almost desperately, “Malone, I can’t wait any longer. While the three of us are alone here, tell me—”
She was interrupted by the return of Lotus. The Vennings were only a few steps behind her. Michael Venning was in tweeds and held a pipe in one hand. Helene thought to complete the picture he should have had a thoroughbred setter prowling at his heels. Editha Venning showed no signs of her experience of the night before and wore a show of outward calm, but the light in her eyes was almost a glitter, and two spots of color burned high on her cheeks.
“Pendley will be down in a minute,” Lotus said.
Malone glanced at his watch again. He wondered if he ought to stall for time until Jake arrived.
“Tea?” Mona McClane asked politely, “or cocktails.”
Only Lotus took tea.
“How is young Ross McLaurin getting along?” Editha Venning asked. There was a faint, fluttering overtone in her voice.
“He’s improving,” Malone told her. “I hope he’s the last. There seems to have been something of an epidemic.”
This is it, Helene told herself. She wondered how everyone could be so calm. Damn Jake, for not getting here before this.
“The only way to stop an epidemic,” Malone added very quietly, “is to trace the carrier of the infection and remove it.”
No one spoke.
Suddenly he set his cocktail glass down hard, rose, and kicked at the firelog.
“I don’t know what the devil I’m doing this for,” he said almost angrily. “This isn’t my role. I’m going against my own interests when I prevent a crime. My business is to wait until the crime has been committed and the police have done their work. Then I have myself a client, a trial, an acquittal, and a fee. That’s how it’s supposed to work.” He wheeled around to face them. “Just the same, I’ve got to prevent this crime. I can’t let her do it.” He looked hard at Michael Venning. “You know, of course, that she’s planned to kill you, don’t you?”
Michael Venning jumped up, dropping his glass. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true,” Malone said wearily. He gestured at the big man who sat down again, sitting very straight on the edge of his chair. “She planned to, but it can’t happen this way.”
Editha Venning said. “You must be insane!” in a hoarse, strained voice, and suddenly was quiet.
Malone didn’t seem to have heard her. Before he could say another word, Pendley Tidewell came racing down the stairs and paused in the doorway, a small strip of pictures in his hand.
“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “It worked! Aunt Editha, it shows—” he paused. “What the hell is the matter with everybody?”
“I think I know what those pictures show,” Malone said calmly. “Just hold on to them for a minute.” He added, “You must have taken them with an ultra-violet light.”
“I did,” Pendley said. “But how did you know?”
“I guessed,” the lawyer told him. “There had to be some reason why you were under Michael Venning’s bed last night. Only you didn’t know what you were going to get in the way of a picture—or did you?” For a moment he stared hard at the young man. Then he mopped his brow.
“It might have been better,” Malone said slowly, “if I’d never been drawn into this. It might have been better if I hadn’t been in Joe the Angel’s bar the night when Gerald Tuesday was stabbed.” He paused. “Gerald Tuesday—but not the same Gerald Tuesday who murdered Michael Venning.”
“Malone, have you gone mad?” Helene exclaimed.
“For God’s sake,” Lotus Allen said almost harshly, “tell us what you mean.”
“Do you know what you mean?” Pendley Tidewell demanded.
Mona McClane said nothing. She sat looking away from the group as though she were not really a member of it, but only happened to be there.
Malone reached in his pocket and drew out a folded document. “That’s a copy of the will of the late Michael Venning, Senior,” he said. “I imagine that everyone concerned here knows its contents.” He looked at Mona McClane. “Yes, you were justified. Five million dollars is enough of a stake to be worth making a determined play for” He stole another glance at his watch. If Jake didn’t get here—
Lotus said, “Do you mean Gerald Tuesday murdered that Michael Venning?”
Malone shook his head. “No. His son. Michael Vening, Junior—for whom a grave was prepared in a desolate corner of the old Venning estate in—”
A cry from Helene and a sudden movement interrupted him. There was a moment of insane confusion in which one of the party darted across the room, threw open one of the French windows, and vanished through it into the twilight.
Before Malone could move, Mona McClane cried out, “Stop it, you fool!” She ran toward the window. “Stop it! He isn’t going to—” The rest was lost as she leaped out onto the terrace.
Helene was only a few steps behind. Malone made a sudden dive for her, missed, and followed. He was dimly aware that the others of the party were right behind him, but it was happening too quickly for him to see everything that was going on.
Helene screamed, “No!” and ran out onto the terrace. He followed her, almost blindly.
In the semidarkness it was hard to distinguish the figures that moved across the McClane lawn. One was halfway to the side gate; that, he knew, must be the fugitive. A smaller figure, Mona McClane, was following. Helene was running down the steps from the terrace. A burly, gray-suited man had appeared at the front door, grabbed Editha Venning, and held her back from going out to the lawn.
At the same instant, a taxicab stopped before the gate and a tall, red-haired man alighted, a large envelope under his arm. He came through the gate and stopped still for a moment.
In the twilight, a shot rang out. It came from the fugitive, missed Mona McClane. Helene screamed as the bullet whizzed narrowly past her ear. Suddenly the red-haired man cam
e to life. Dropping the envelope in the snow, he raced across the lawn in the direction of Helene.
There was another shot. It came from the little gun in Mona McClane’s hand. The fugitive staggered, took two more steps, and pitched forward into the snow.
Mona McClane stood motionless, in the snow and the deepening shadows, the gun still in her hand. Malone walked over to her and took it, very gently, from her unresisting fingers.
“You’re a damned good shot,” he said quietly.
Jake put an arm around Helene’s waist and held her very tight.
Suddenly Mona McClane smiled at them. “I said—in the public streets, with plenty of witnesses, didn’t I. But I didn’t really intend that you should be the witnesses!”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“As pretty a case of self-defense as I ever saw,” Malone said.
“According to you, it always is,” von Flanagan said.
Malone sighed. “All murder is a form of self-defense, if you’ll stop to think about it. But in this case—I don’t think there’s any possible doubt. All of us”—he made a sweeping gesture that included everyone in Mona McClane’s living room—“saw him shoot at her first.”
“His bullet bent my permanent wave the wrong way,” Helene said complainingly.
The police officer sipped suspiciously at the drink Mona McClane’s maid had offered him. “Just the same, I’d like to know if Mrs. McClane always carries a gun around in her dress pocket, or if this was some kind of special occasion.”
“Only when she wears a dress with pockets,” Malone snapped. “Usually she tucks it into her stocking.” He reached for a cigar. “Be reasonable. You’ve got the whole case cleared up. What the hell more do you want, a news-reel and Mickey Mouse? You might be nervous enough to pack a gun too, if one of your house guests had been murdered and another damn near it.”
“I was only asking,” von Flanagan grumbled. “What did this Venning guy want to go murdering people for, with all the dough he had?”
“Money isn’t the only reason for murder,” Malone said.
“No, but it’s the best one I know,” the police officer said. “What the hell—pardon me, Mrs. McClane—what’s it all about, anyway, Malone?”
“Venning got into some shenanigans in the Orient,” the lawyer said rapidly. “That’s right, isn’t it, Mrs. Venning? Yes, I thought so. You know, von Flanagan. The effect the tropics have on some people. The Tuesday brothers got onto it, and were blackmailing him.”
Helene stole a glance at Editha Venning. She was pale, but perfectly composed. The glittering light had gone from her eyes.
“On New Year’s Eve,” Malone went on, “Venning spotted the younger of the two in the Dome at the Sherman Hotel. He figured that New Year’s, with everybody a little hazy anyway, would be a swell time for a homicide. So he left the party for a short time—am I correct about that, Mrs. McClane?”
Mona McClane nodded and said, “Yes. For half an hour or so. Of course, in a party like that, you don’t pay much attention—people wander away and come back pretty much as they want to. But he was gone about that long. He got back just as the twelve o’clock whistles blew.”
“That would make it,” Malone said. “Venning spotted this guy in the Dome about eleven-thirty. That was no place for a nice quiet stabbing, so he trailed him to two or three other bars and finally caught up with him in an alley somewhere—we’ll never know exactly where it was—ran a knife into him, wiped off the knife, stuck it back in his jeans, and returned to the Panther Room as good as new. He couldn’t have figured the guy would be tough enough to walk a block or two with a hole in his back.”
He paused to light his cigar, observed a thoughtful look beginning to form in von Flanagan’s eyes, and spoke rapidly.
“Tuesday probably fell when he was stabbed and got up again. There was mud on his knees and elbows, you remember. While he was down, Venning went through his pockets for incriminating papers. He didn’t have much time and just carried away everything. That’s why there was no identification on the body when it was found.”
The thoughtful look was deepening in the police officer’s eyes.
“Then,” Malone went on, not daring to pause for breath, “the other Tuesday wangled an invitation to Mona McClane’s through a previous acquaintance with her. It must have been a nasty shock to Venning to find him moved in here, but he didn’t lose any time. Tuesday had only been here a few hours when he succeeded in getting himself murdered.”
Whatever von Flanagan had been thinking about, he forgot it. “But look here,” he said indignantly, “Venning was out walking when that guy was murdered. You heard him come in yourself.”
Everyone looked hopefully at Malone.
“I heard him come in the second time,” Malone said, rolling his cigar in his fingers. He turned to Editha Venning. “He left you for a few minutes while you were outside, didn’t he?”
She nodded. “Just before we came in. He wanted to run up to the drugstore for something, so I waited for him on the corner.”
“He didn’t go to the drugstore,” Malone told her. “He came back here, entered by the side door with the house key Mona McClane gives all her guests, went up the stairs, murdered the second Tuesday, went out again by the side door, met you, and came back to the house again with you. That’s when you were caught in the rain. You were outside waiting for him when that sudden rainfall came down. Your coat was ruined—I heard Mona McClane speaking of it. But he didn’t get rained on at all. He walked into the room before taking off his hat and coat—and the feather in his hat was a dead giveaway. It wasn’t even moist.”
He turned to von Flanagan. “That rainfall came down during the only time Tuesday could have been killed,” he said. “between the time when Helene went past his door and saw him alive and when we all went upstairs and found him dead. I checked the time with the weather bureau.”
Jake said suddenly, “Oh, that’s what you were doing when you called up the weather bureau that night. I thought you’d lost your mind.”
Malone sniffed. “You might have had a little more confidence in me,” he said stiffly.
“But why did he try to murder this McLaurin?” von Flanagan demanded suddenly. “Where does that fit in?”
“He was afraid McLaurin might have seen him come upstairs the afternoon of the second murder,” Malone said. “He couldn’t know for sure, but he wasn’t taking any chances.”
Von Flanagan shook his head. “He was a regular one-man crime wave.” Suddenly he remembered the presence of the widow, his face sobered, and he said, “Pardon me, Mrs. Venning,” in a respectful tone. “Well, a blackmailer usually deserves the worst he can get. Blackmail—if you ask my opinion—that’s criminal!”
“So is murder,” Malone murmured, “in its way.”
The police officer either didn’t hear or ignored him. “One thing more. Mrs. Venning. What were these men blackmailing your husband about? What had he been up to?”
There was a moment’s anxious silence in the room.
Editha Venning’s immense eyes grew shadowy. Her lips quivered. “It was—really, just the usual sort of thing. The Orient—women—” She bit her lip. “Opium—Oh please, can’t it be forgotten? The Venning name is so—well known—there really isn’t any use in—dragging all that up for the public—”
Malone thanked heaven for a woman who could think fast, and said, “She’s right, von Flanagan. This is a murder case, not blackmail. As long as you know who killed the two Tuesdays, the case is closed. Let’s just let lying dogs sleep.” Before von Flanagan could say anything, he added, “Venning tried to protect his wife. He even hired a bodyguard to keep these men away from her. That’s correct isn’t it, Lou White?”
The burly man in the rather tight gray suit met Malone’s eyes for an instant. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right.”
“You see?” Malone said to the police officer. “If you don’t believe me, you have Lou White’s word for it, and he’s a li
censed private detective of the state of New York.” He saw the thoughtful look beginning to form again in von Flanagan’s eyes and said quickly, “You owe a great debt of gratitude to Mrs. McClane. If it wasn’t for her, you’d be out chasing a murderer right now, with a good chance of having pot shots taken at the men on your staff.”
The police officer beamed suddenly. “I’m sure grateful, ma’am. And I wonder—there’s a bunch of newspaper guys waiting outside—if you would mind having your picture taken with me—maybe showing me the gun you done it with—”
“I’d be delighted,” Mona McClane said, rising to the occasion. “By all means, let’s have in the press.”
At that, Pendley Tidewell uncoiled himself from the big chair in the back of the room like a serpent coming out of a magician’s basket. “If there’s going to be any pictures taken—” he began hopefully.
The old McClane mansion on Lake Shore Drive hadn’t seen so many photographers together since the time twelve years ago when Mona McClane had run (unsuccessfully) for Congress.
When the excitement was all over, von Flanagan was the last to leave. There had been a puzzled frown on his face for the past five minutes, as though he were trying hard to remember something that had slipped his mind.
“You’ll all have to appear at the inquest, of course,” he said in a faraway tone. For a moment he was silent, rubbing one ear. Then suddenly he scowled heavily at Malone.
“That’s all very well,” he said indignantly, “but you still haven’t told me why that guy was looking for you the night he came into Joe the Angel’s bar and fell over dead.”
“Oh, that,” the little lawyer said, as though it was so unimportant he had forgotten it. “At first, Venning decided to deal with the Tuesdays. He intended to have me act for him, and told them so. He didn’t know any Chicago lawyers except those connected with the Venning estate, and Mrs. McClane had mentioned me.” He paused to relight his cigar.
