Murder Round the Clock

by Hugh Pentecost

  "Oh, God!" Sally said.

  "When you find Norman, you'll find the answers," Saville said.

  "We know where Geller is," Hardy said. "We'll ask him in good time."

  "Well, where is he? I've got to talk to him, Lieutenant. The whole beginning of scene three is wrong. He's probably working on it right now."

  "What makes you think he's working?"

  "That's what he's being paid for!" Saville said.

  "I think," Chambrun said in a saw-toothed voice, "I've had about enough of this black comedy, Mr. Saville. A man has been murdered in my hotel. The lieutenant and I are here to gather facts."

  "Where is George?" Saville shouted, completely ignoring Chambrun.

  "On stage, professor," a new voice said.

  The man who came through the bedroom section of the suite was something you wouldn't believe. He was about two inches over six feet with a body right out of Bernarr McFad-den's dream world. Muscles, muscles, muscles. He wore a tight cotton T-shirt that exposed them all. There were also gray slacks and white sneakers. This was a man who could bend iron bars and straighten out horseshoes.

  "This is my lawyer, George Brimsek," Saville said. "He'll tell me what I have to do and not do."

  Brimsek's hair was a reddish crewcut, and he had the coldest gray-green eyes I've ever seen. His smile was pasted on.

  Sally made quick introductions and brought him up to date. As Brimsek listened, his biceps rippled. I discovered in due course that he really was a lawyer, but his only client was Robert Saville, and his chief duty was to keep Saville in top physical condition. It was his job to lose to Saville in any public competition—golf, tennis, squash, boxing, foils. The truth was he could have taken Saville in any sport with his right arm tied behind him.

  "I think you better answer the man's questions, Bob," he

  said. "They can make you do it somewhere else less pleasant, you know." He turned to Hardy. "Do I understand you know where Geller is?" It hadn't been mentioned in his presence, so I assumed he'd been listening from the next room.

  "We know where he is," Hardy said. "I want to know about Hansbury's visit to this suite last night."

  "That's reasonable," Brimsek said. "He showed up here about seven o'clock. We were just going down to the Grill Room for dinner. I was here, Bob, Sally, and—and you too, weren't you, Paul?"

  The vice-president nodded. He seemed to be still in shock.

  "There was a lot of shouting," Brimsek said, his smile tightening. "That's been more or less par for the course in our dealings with Hansbury. He has been claiming that Norman was entitled to certain payments for various drafts of the script he's writing. Since there has never been a single completed draft, we claim he's only entitled to payment for that initial draft. Hansbury called us a bunch of crooks and threatened to go to Carson with the whole story. We said he was a chiseling little rat trying to blackmail us. When all that had been said, we went down to dinner."

  "And Hansbury?"

  "We left him here. It was the only way to get rid of him since he wouldn't accept our invitation to leave. The last I saw of him he was trying to reach Norman on the phone—I assumed."

  "Assumed?"

  "He was dialing. He had told us he was going to tell Norman not to write another line. I gather he went to see Norman, they got in an argument, and Hansbury got his neck broken. Norman's very good at karate. I know. I taught him."

  "You all went to dinner—you, Miss Bevans, Mr. Saville, and Mr. Drott—leaving Hansbury here?" Hardy looked around and got a collection of affirmative nods.

  "Dinner was pretty impossible," Brimsek said. "Bob couldn't swallow a shrimp without having to sign his autograph. We came back up here about eight-thirty"

  "Hansbury was gone?"

  Brimsek nodded. "Gone, leaving a cigarette burn on the telephone table. We began trying to reach Norman then. Bob and Paul had notes for him. He didn't answer. We kept trying. At about a quarter to ten Bob and Sally got the housekeeper to let them into Norman's room. We thought he might be sick or had done himself some harm. Bob's quite right, he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Norman wasn't there, so that was that. We went out to find some action somewhere."

  "Action?"

  Brimsek shrugged. "Bob likes to play poker," he said.

  "You went out through the mob in the lobby?"

  Brimsek grinned. "We have a way."

  "The wheelchair," Chambrun said.

  "Oh, so you spotted that," Brimsek said.

  "There are four keys to this suite," Chambrun said. "None of them is at the front desk. Who has them?"

  "That's none of your damn business!" Saville exploded.

  "Might as well tell him, Bob," Brimsek said. "He'll find out." He was being uncommonly cooperative, I thought. "Bob has one, of course. I have one. Sally has one."

  "And the fourth?"

  Brimsek shrugged. "Sheri has one," he said.

  "Who is Sheri?" Hardy asked.

  "Miss Sheri Southworth," Brimsek said. "She's a lady companion of Bob's who stays here with him."

  "When you rent a suite you can have anyone stay with you you want," Saville said.

  "Miss Southworth lives in his suite?" Hardy said.

  "Yes."

  "Where is she?"

  "She's in bed. She's got a bad cold," Saville said.

  "Was she here last night?"

  "Of course."

  "You didn't mention her going to dinner with you."

  "I tell you she's got a virus!" Saville said. "She was sick in bed."

  "In this suite?"

  "Yes, yes, yes!"

  "Then she probably knows when Hansbury left. I'd like to talk to her," Hardy said.

  "She's sick in bed!" Saville shouted.

  "Ask her to join us," Hardy said.

  Brimsek nodded to Sally, who left to find Sheri.

  "We all have our special tastes in women," Karl Richter said. "Bob is neither a romantic nor an intellectual. He just likes them."

  Brimsek looked down at his bulging biceps with an amused grin.

  If Miss Sheri Southworth had a cold or virus, it was not noticeable. What she did have was a gorgeous shiner. Her left eye was purple and swollen shut. She looked around at us with an amiable grin and said, "I'd reallv rather switch than fight.-

  She was something. The blond hair was out of a bottle; the eyelashes were false; ditto the long tapering fingernails. The only things not false were revealed by her negligee. Oooh, look at all the lovely men," she said.

  "Shut up, Sheri!" Saville barked.

  'There has been a murder, Miss Southworth," Hardy said.

  "Oooh, how thrilling!" Sheri said. "Anybody I know?"

  'Frank Hansbury Somebody broke his neck," Saville said. I understand you were alone with Hansbury in this suite for a while last night, Miss Southworth," Hardy said.

  "That Frank Hansbury!" Sheri said. Her gold-tipped fingers touched her swollen eye. "He was only here a little while. On the phone all the time. He was too busy to be interested in me. I came in here for a cigarette, and he didn't even look at me." She touched her eye again, then looked at Saville with her good one. "I behaved myself, Bobby."

  "Will you shut up, Sheri!" Saville yelled.

  "Can you tell us what time Hansbury left here?" Hardy asked.

  "Ooooh, I'm afraid not, Lieutenant," she said. "I really have no sense about time at all. Bobby and the others were downstairs at dinner."

  "Do you have any idea who he was talking to on the phone?"

  "I'm afraid I don't. I mean, he wasn't really talking to anyone. He kept dialing numbers, but he didn't get any answers. One number did answer, I guess, and he said, 'Is Norman there yet?' But I guess Norman wasn't, because he hung up. Then I went back to my room, closed the door, and I didn't hear when he left."

  Hardy drew a deep breath. "You will all keep yourselves available till I tell you otherwise. Don't leave the hotel till you get the word from me."

  "Now look here, copper—" Sa
ville began.

  "Cool it, Bob," Brimsek said. "The lieutenant can hold us all as material witnesses if he chooses. He's being real polite."

  "What about me?" Karl Richter said. "I wasn't even in the hotel last night."

  "You stay too," Hardy said.

  "Any reason I shouldn't go downstairs for a drink?" Richter asked. "I have a batch of phone calls to make—private."

  "You can use my office," Chambrun said.

  I was surprised, but I didn't show it. I noticed, as I was leaving, that Paul Drott was getting up out of his chair. He hadn't spoken a word during our entire visit.

  Out in the hall Chambrun turned to Karl Richter. "You wanted to tell us something, Mr. Richter?"

  Richter's cold face was a mask. "You're smarter than I thought you were, Mr. Chambrun." We were standing by the elevators. He took a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. "Our Bobby's private life is rather unusual," he said. "Can you guess how it is with Sheri? She is—shall we say friendly?—to his friends, and for that he beats her up."

  "I'm sure that isn't what you really wanted to tell us," Chambrun said coldly.

  "I enjoyed telling it to you, anyway," Richter said. "But you're right. I wanted to tell you that people like Bob Saville live in a world you may not understand. This is an ordinary guy from upstate New York—Utica, I think. He came from a middle-class family with no dough. He wanted to be an actor, genuinely. He went to an acting school, worked at anything— dishwashing, waiting on tables, night watchman. He got a few odd jobs off-Broadway. A real dedicated guy. Then he hit it big.

  "Do you know what he gets for making a movie? Half a million bucks—plus residuals, plus advertising payoffs, plus a share of profits. This TV series, if it sells, will make him several million dollars. He's so damned rich, you couldn't begin to count it. And he's no longer the dedicated young actor from Utica. He's king! If anybody gets in his way, like a writer or a director or a dame or a shoeshine boy—or a talent agent—our Bobby just rolls over him and leaves the remains for the dustman. To him it's unreasonable to imagine that anyone else has any rights. The world is a special-privilege oyster made only for him; none of its rules or laws apply to him. He's not a bad guy, really, but he's lost contact with reality."

  "Are you trying to tell us—" Hardy began.

  "I'm trying to tell you that, if a waiter brought Bob a cold poached egg, Bob might easily throw him out of the nineteenth-story window. Then he'd turn to George Brimsek and say, 'I lost my head. I'm sorry. Get me out of it.' Up to now George has always gotten him out of it. Don't let the muscles fool you. There is more between George's ears than mush."

  An elevator door opened, and we all stepped in. Chambrun turned to me as the car started down. "There's very little hope this story won't leak," he said. "You're going to be swamped by news people, Mark. As far as you know Hansbury died of a heart attack in Norman's room. The presence of the police is ordinary routine. If there are any statements to be made,

  Lieutenant Hardy will make them. Have a simple release mimeoed and just hand it out." I got off at the second floor.

  If somebody broke my neck and stuffed me in a closet, the interested parties would be limited. I have no family. Shelda, my secretary, would cry. Chambrun would feel depressed, I think. The police would be concerned, and so would my insurance company.

  Hansbury's death touched many more bases, all of them with red-hot publicity angles. There were huge investments on the line. If Robert Saville was in any way involved, his motion picture company stood to lose about $12,000,000 in as yet unreleased films. The network had a penny-ante investment of $250,000 in this pilot of Norman's, plus residuals on other shows, plus half a dozen old Saville movies bought for the late late shows at about $3,000,000 each. This was all real money, plus many other millions they had reasonably expected to make off Saville in the future.

  As I sat in my office writing out the phony news release, I could imagine what was going on in a dozen offices here and on the West Coast. Robert Saville must be kept clean at all costs. To hell with who murdered Frank Hansbury, so long as Saville's public image remained unsullied. I knew the Beaumont would suddenly be swarming with high-priced lawyers, high-priced executives, and in all probability, high-priced private investigators.

  Nobody would give a damn about Hansbury—no one except a family or a girl or maybe a dog waiting in an apartment somewhere for his evening walk.

  And then I began to think about Norman—once known as "little Norbert Gellernacht." Normans position was sticky, to put it mildly. Hardy would be down on him presently with some pretty deadly ammunition. The scene of the crime— Norman's room, undoubtedly loaded with Norman's fingerprints. The relationship with Hansbury—possibly friendly, quite probably explosive at the moment. The murder weapon—the edge of a hand, precision-skilled. Norman had that skill. He had admitted it. George Brimsek had modestly claimed the role of teacher.

  I had a vision of little Norbert Gellernacht sitting under a bright light, surrounded by the accusing faces of Hardy and high-powered lawyers and vice-presidents and even presidents. Norman was ideal guillotine fodder. Norman might well save the huge investments in Robert Saville. Who cares what happens to a writer? Writers are the "nothings" of the entertainment industry, even though the executives keep wistfully chanting that there would be no films, no television, no theater without them. Everybody knows it's actors and directors and executives and vice-presidents who matter.

  I went down the hall to my apartment. Believe it or not, I found Norman pounding away at the typewriter when I let myself in with my key. He gave me a slightly irritated smile and went right on pounding.

  "Norman," I said, "you're in trouble."

  "Be a good boy, Mark, and leave me alone," Norman said. "At this moment Geoffrey Cleghorn, the Masked Crusader, is crossing Fifth Avenue hand over hand on a rope stretched ten stories above the street."

  "That's out," I said. "Saville refuses to have any stunts in the script that he can't do himself."

  Norman's fingers halted, poised over the keyboard. "Where did you get that?"

  "I just heard him say so."

  "That punk! It's been agreed from the start that we'd use a stunt man."

  "Norman, have you forgotten that Frank Hansbury has been murdered?"

  "I haven't forgotten," he said quite seriously. "But the only thing I know to do is finish this script. It means money for me, and money for Frank's estate. His commission."

  "Does Hansbury have a family?"

  "Divorced. No kids," Norman said, looking back at Geoffrey Cleghorn suspended over Fifth Avenue.

  I made what I thought was a joke, because it was the worst thing I could think of. "I don't suppose the girl you spent the night with was Hansbury's ex-wife."

  Norman looked up at me, frowning. "I don't know how you found out, Mark, but if you tell anyone I'll break your neck."

  I felt a cold chill running down my back. "Norman," I said, "don't use that phrase again."

  "What phrase?"

  " 'I'll break your neck.' There are people who already think you did that to Hansbury."

  "Don't be absurd. Frank was my best friend."

  "And you were living with his wife?"

  "She isn't his wife, Mark. They're divorced."

  "And he didn't care?"

  "Of course he didn't care. I told you that I told Frank where I was going last night. He even called me there."

  "I thought you said you didn't see or hear from him after six o'clock," I said.

  "I didn't! He called Gillian before I got there."

  That, I thought, would be the phone call that Sheri had heard Hansbury make. "Norman, unless I'm very wrong, you're going to be set up as a fall guy. You'd better forget about 'The Masked Crusader' and start thinking about yourself."

  "Who's going to set me up?"

  "Quite a lot of people who think of Robert Saville as the equivalent of the gold deposit in Fort Knox," I said. "You've just wrapped up the package. You're a
karate expert. You knew how to break Frank's neck. You told him you were going to spend the night with his wife, and he came up to your room to raise hell about it. You chopped him. Opportunity, motive, weapon."

  "You're off your rocker, Mark."

  "They all say you were on the verge of a nervous breakdown."

  "Oh, come on, Mark! Do I look as if I were on the verge of a nervous breakdown?"

  "No. And that in itself is suspicious, Norman. The way things are, you ought to look like it." I lit a cigarette and my hands weren't too steady. "If Hansbury didn't come to your room to see you, how did he get in there? Did he have a key?"

  "Nobody had a key. I was keeping people out so I could work, not inviting them in. Frank didn't come to my room while I was there."

  "Then how did he get in?"

  "You've got me, Mark. You've been in the room. Were there any signs of a fight there?"

  "Only between you and your typewriter," I said.

  "Maybe somebody brought him there and stuffed him in the closet after he was dead," Norman said. He looked at me, his eyes widening. "Maybe somebody is trying to frame me!"

  "I think you can classify that suggestion with the Gettysburg Address for sheer literary clarity," I said. "Norman, you're up to your neck in trouble."

  I left Norman and went down to see Chambrun. What I wanted to tell him and ask him had to wait because Lieutenant Hardy was there.

  We have a private card file at the Beaumont that lists special information about our guests—their financial status, marital situation, any personal habits worth knowing like whether the guest is an alcoholic or a patron of call girls or an addicted gambler or troublemaker of a special sort. This information is handled by a simple code—A for alcoholic, D for diplomat, O for over-his-head, meaning the guest can't really afford the Beaumont's prices and mustn't be allowed to get in too deep. MX after a man's name means he's a woman chaser double-crossing his wife. WX after a female guest means she's a man-chaser, double-crossing her husband. N stands for general nuisance, a complainer who has no basis for his complaints.

  Hardy was going through a little collection of cards that covered Saville and his entourage. That, I guessed, would include Norman.