The ball game was over—for Chang and for Gregory.
Much later we put most of the pieces together in Chambrun’s office. Dr. Coughlin was our chief source of information, and to this day I don’t know how much more involved he was than he would admit. Chambrun and Jerry and I, along with Wexler and Miss Ruysdale and a CIA stenographer were present. Laura was in the hotel infirmary, waiting beside a still unconscious Drury.
Some of Coughlin’s story was straightforward. He was the surgeon who had performed the operation to change Neil Drury’s appearance. That had been three years ago. Drury, a stranger to him though he’d read about him in the papers, had been brought to him by an old friend, a newspaper man named Rattigan—James Gregory Rattigan.
“Rattigan had been stationed in Hong Kong,” Coughlin told us. “He’d helped Drury out there to get away from Chang. It cost him his job, and eventually he had to go to the other side of the world because Chang’s chums threatened him. He sent Drury to me about that time. He wasn’t a criminal trying to escape the law, so I had no reason not to change his face for him. It might save his life because Chang would be endlessly after him. I did it, and so far as I was concerned, that was that.
“A couple of years later Jim Rattigan came back from Europe and came to see me at my clinic. He was a sick man. Emphysema in an advanced stage. He persuaded me to let him stay at the clinic where I could look out for him personally. He was an old friend, I was fond of him, I let him stay.
“About six weeks ago the story broke in the press that General Chang was going to pay a diplomatic visit to this country. Chang was now a big wheel in the government, his revolutionary butcher days forgotten. Not forgotten, however, by Neil Drury and Jim Rattigan.”
Coughlin paused to light a cigarette and Miss Ruysdale brought him a Scotch-and-water from the sideboard.
“Drury turned up at the clinic a few days after the Chang story appeared in the newspapers. He and Jim put their heads together. I wasn’t in on it, but later Jim told me that they were discussing a plan to ‘get’ Chang. I told him they were crazy and forgot about it.”
That’s where I don’t know how honest Coughlin was with us, how much he helped. He swore he didn’t. But he listened to things he should have told the authorities if he was true-blue Joe.
“There were people willing to help, Drury told Jim,” Coughlin said. “There was Peter Williams, who’d been blinded by Chang. There was David Tolliver, Neil’s agent, who was willing to help up to a certain point. There was Sam Schwartz, who had been a sort of handyman, dresser, gofor—God knows what for Drury when he was a big wheel in Hollywood.”
“But Tolliver told us—” I started to say.
“Of course he told us,” Chambrun said. “He was covering for Schwartz. If we’d checked far enough back on Schwartz in the first place—”
“There was also Drury’s girl, his beloved Laura,” Coughlin went on. “She was against it, Jim told me, but if Neil insisted on going ahead with it, she’d play along. Neil also thought, in a pinch, they might get help from an old family friend who lived in the Beaumont—a Mrs. Haven. I don’t think she ever did more than give Laura shelter for a few hours. Jim couldn’t do much to help in his condition, but he’d spent a lot of time drawing up a dossier on Chang on his own account, habits, hobbies, pleasures, friends—the works.”
“How did they propose to do it?” Chambrun asked.
“It was pretty sketchy, from what Jim told me. When Chang arrived they would watch him, check his habits and routines. Then they’d pick a time. Laura, and Schwartz, and Tolliver, and the real Peter Williams would create some kind of diversion, some kind of disturbance. Neil, taking advantage of it, would do the job. Then they hit on the idea that Neil would impersonate the real Peter Williams, gain your confidence, be on the inside. It seemed to have worked. Jim, though he was very ill, insisted on coming to the hotel. He wanted to be where the action was.
“Yesterday evening, innocently enough, he got the whim that he wanted to go up to the roof to have a look at the city—maybe his last look. By the wildest kind of coincidence while he was up on the roof, looking at the lights, he found himself face to face with an enemy, a man he had known in China, Li Sung. Li Sung was Chang’s man; Li Sung knew that Jim was Drury’s friend; as they talked it became apparent that Li Sung guessed Drury was planning something, and now he guessed that Jim was part of it.”
“What was Li Sung doing on the roof?” Jerry Dodd asked.
“Chang’s advance preparations were very thorough,” Coughlin said. “He had found out that Mrs. Haven was an old friend of the Drurys. Sung was scouting out the territory. Well, Jim didn’t have much to lose—a few weeks at the most in time. That’s really the key to this, gentlemen. He carried a pocket knife. He managed to get it open while he and Sung talked. Sung wasn’t afraid of him, a frail invalid. Jim rammed that opened knife into Sung’s belly, and in the moment of surprise, managed to topple him over the parapet.” Coughlin sighed. “He was committed then. You made things very difficult for them all, Chambrun, by monitoring phones. And brother, you really had me in a spot that first time you came to Jim’s suite.”
“How so?” Chambrun asked.
“Because Jim wasn’t in the next room in bed. He’d gone out to scout around. It was he who warned Schwartz with that ‘hit the fan message.’ It was he who called his suite while you were there and said they’d found Miss Malone. He had to get you away so he could get back in his room.”
“But this morning?”
“It began last night. He began to think Neil shouldn’t go through with it. He knew what would happen. Neil had a life to live. And he, Jim Rattigan, didn’t. A few weeks at most. But he couldn’t get to Drury who was with you people, playing the role of Peter Williams.
“He used the fire stairs to come and go because he didn’t want you to know he was circulating. This morning he had decided, not having any particular plan, that he would get to Chang before Neil—probably save Neil his life and his future. He started down the stairs, armed with that Luger pistol, and ran smack into Miss Ruysdale, at the point of Neil’s gun. He pushed her aside and let Neil have it with the butt of the gun. Then he came on down to the lobby and waited.”
“And you helped him create a diversion,” Wexler said.
“I swear to God I had just walked in from the street when I saw him topple over in front of Chang’s party,” Coughlin said.
I looked at him and I didn’t believe him.
“Naturally when I saw those goons pointing guns at him, I ran forward to help him. He was my friend!”
“And when you got him moved aside you ran, in order to be out of the line of fire,” Wexler said.
“I ran toward the first-aid room back of the front desk because I knew there was oxygen there! I thought he needed oxygen,” Coughlin said.
I heard that and I didn’t believe it either. But I guessed he could make it stick.
“What will happen to Neil and Laura and the others?” Coughlin asked.
“They were involved in a conspiracy to commit a murder,” Wexler said. “A Federal prosecutor will have to decide what his chances are of proving it.”
Chambrun stood up. “Well, gentlemen, I have a hotel to run,” he said. He looked at me. “You might go down to the infirmary and see how Drury and Miss Malone are coming along.”
I didn’t want to go. She didn’t know that I was alive, but her hooks were still in me.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work o
f fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1972 by Judson Philips
cover design by Julianna Lee
978-1-4532-6883-4
This 2012 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY
HUGH PENTECOST
FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Otto Penzler, owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, founded the Mysterious Press in 1975. Penzler quickly became known for his outstanding selection of mystery, crime, and suspense books, both from his imprint and in his store. The imprint was devoted to printing the best books in these genres, using fine paper and top dust-jacket artists, as well as offering many limited, signed editions.
Now the Mysterious Press has gone digital, publishing ebooks through MysteriousPress.com.
MysteriousPress.com offers readers essential noir and suspense fiction, hard-boiled crime novels, and the latest thrillers from both debut authors and mystery masters. Discover classics and new voices, all from one legendary source.
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
FOLLOW US:
@emysteries and Facebook.com/MysteriousPressCom
MysteriousPress.com is one of a select group of publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Contents
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Part Three
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Copyrigeht
Birthday, Deathday Page 17
