The window was low enough that we could see in, and as far as we could tell looking into the darkened room, it was empty. Mac went in first, and I followed him. The room was just sufficiently illumined that we could make out where the furniture was, when our eyes had got accustomed to it.
Mac pointed toward one of the two closed doors and said, “Hallway. Stairs.” And we crossed over and opened it. It didn't squeak, but the latch clicked when I let go the knob, and Mac grabbed my arm again, so hard and unexpectedly that I almost let out a yawp.
The hall was darker. I reached in my pocket for a box of matches, but Mac pulled me over to him and whispered in my ear, “I've been here. I know where the stairs are.” He started off, feeling along the wall with one hand. I held on to the sleeve of his coat and followed.
We came to a turn, and he whispered, “This is the back of the staircase. Feel your way around it and you'll come to the bannister on the other side. We're going up.”
“And then what?”
He answered, “Kurt and the old man sleep upstairs, and it looks like they've turned in early---unless we're too late. We'll see if they're all right first.”
That sounded sensible. If they were all right, we'd have allies, and we could use them. And maybe there'd be a gun around. I still didn't feel very happy about chasing an armed maniac with only a walking stick for defense.
I whispered, “Listen---” and reached out for Mac.
But he'd moved on. I found the wall with my left hand and started to follow it around the staircase. Just around the corner, there was a door. A door there under the stairs meant a closet. I don't know why I opened that door. I heard a faint rustling sound, or thought I did, inside the closet, as my hand went along the outside of the door. But I should have caught up with Mac and told him, and we should have done the thing cautiously. But I didn't wait. Like a fool, I jerked the door open.
For just a second there was so much light that I couldn't see a thing. Some closet doors are rigged like that---particularly closets off darkish hallways. When you open the door the light inside the closet goes on, and when you close it the light goes off again.
It's a handy arrangement, but I didn't appreciate it just then. That light seemed to flash right in my eyes, and it utterly blinded me. I heard an exclamation from Mac, who'd reached the foot of the stairs, and I heard another rustle in the closet and a noise that sounded like the growl of an animal.
For what was probably two seconds, but seemed two hours, I stood there blinking, and then I could see again.
I saw, back among the coats and things hanging in the closet, a tall figure in an outsize overcoat. Terrifyingly expressionless eyes stared at me out of a twisted face. And a familiar-looking scattergun pointed squarely at the pit of my stomach from a range of two feet or less.
It was one of those awful instants that seem to hang poised upon the brink of time's abyss interminably. There wasn't time for me to grab for that gun or jump sidewise from in front of its muzzle. But, as though in slow motion, I could see the knuckles of his hand whiten as his finger tightened on the trigger. I could see the hammer go back, hear the click as it slipped the pawl and see it start down toward the single chamber of the gun.
It clicked down---empty---and I was still standing there alive and without a hole blown through me and my liver splattered over the wall behind me. For another fraction of a second, I was too terrified to move. If that gun hadn't been loaded back at Mac's house, then this whole thing didn't make sense at all. But the guy who'd just pulled the trigger must have thought it was loaded or he wouldn't have pulled the trigger. Until he'd done that he had me buffaloed; I'd have put up my hands like a lamb with that thing looking at me. Add it up, and---
But the guy in the overcoat didn't wait to add it up. He came out of the closet after me in a flying leap like the charge of a tiger. The empty gun was raised now to be used as a bludgeon and just in the nick of time I got my cane up to block a blow that would have crushed my skull.
His wrist hit against the edge of the cane and the gun flew out of his hand, over my shoulder, and knocked a square foot of plaster out of the wall behind, before it hit the floor.
He kept on coming, though, and the momentum of his charge knocked me off my feet, and he was right there on top of me, his hands reached for my throat.
All this had happened before Mac could get back down the two or three steps of the staircase he'd started up, but I heard him yell, “Herman, stop!” and the thud of his feet as he vaulted over the bannister and came running.
One of Herman's hands had found my throat and I was having to use both my hands to keep the other one off when Mac got there. He joined the fray with a nifty full nelson that pulled the maniac's arms away from my throat and yanked him up to his knees. Then Mac let the full nelson slide to a half, and got one of Herman's arms pinned behind him in a hammerlock. It was neat work.
But all of this hadn't been accomplished in silence. Another light flashed on at the top of the stairs, and we heard slippered feet in the upper hallway.
“The old man?” I asked Mac.
“No, he's deaf; this wouldn't have waked him. That'll be Kurt Wunderly.” He called out, “Hey, Wunderly. This is MacCready. Everything's under control, but come on down.”
A tall man in a bathrobe thrown over pajamas was starting down the steps even before Mac finished talking. He said, “What on earth? Herman!”
Herman gave a yank to get free then, and I picked up the empty scattergun. Held by the barrel, it made a beautiful billy. I tapped Herman lightly on the skull---just a soft tap---and said, “Behave, sonny.”
Mac was explaining to Kurt Wunderly. “Herman got away from the sanitarium. He was going to kill you and your foster-father. Stopped at my place to brag about it or something, and left us tied up, but we---”
I said, “My name's Bryce. I was visiting---”
“The famous playwright?”
“Thanks,” I said. “Better get us some ropes.”
He nodded, his face a bit pale. “There should be some in the closet there.” There were, and I got them.
I came in with the ropes. Herman made no resistance, his face was dull, expressionless, and his manner completely lethargic now. I'm no psychiatrist, but I recognized the symptoms of a manic-depressive insanity. Being captured had thrown him into the depressive state. Speechless, on the edge of sheer unconsciousness, he paid no attention to his surroundings or to what was said or done to him. Tying him up was routine. And old Mr. Wunderly turned out to be sleeping soundly, the sleep of the partly deaf, upstairs. Still with his ears on, so we didn't waken him.
Back down in the living room, Mac said, “Bryce and I will go to the coast guard station and phone for---”
“Hold it, Mac,” I cut in. “I figured out what was wrong with that second act. Look,” and I pointed at Herman, “this guy's crazy.”
Mac gawped at me for a minute like he thought I was, too, and maybe he did just then.
I went on: “But your caller wasn't, Mac. He was pretending to be. Add that up.” And I turned the scattergun around and pointed it at Kurt Wunderly, Herman's brother. I said, “Herman escaped and came here and asked you to protect him. He wasn't homicidal, just then. You hid him in that closet, and you came over to Mac's house to establish the idea that Herman was going to kill his foster-father and yourself. You turned out the light in Mac's study before you came in, and you figured that wearing that old overcoat and a hat and acting insane, you could pass for Herman in a darkened room.
“My guess is you wanted to kill Old Man Wunderly, probably because you thought he might live another ten years and you wanted your inheritance now. Or is that a good guess? Maybe you've got a taint of Herman's homicidal streak, too.”
Mac cut in, “Bryce, do you realize what you're---”
“Pipe down, Mac,” I told him, and went on talking to Kurt: “You left us tied up, ready to be witnesses that Herman was going to kill the old man. Then you came back here, gave hi
m back the coat and gun, and you were getting into your pajamas when we came. Then you were going---except that we got here in time---to kill the old man and then ‘capture’ Herman and turn him over with the story that you'd overcome him after the first murder and while he was trying to kill you. He had nothing to lose by being blamed for another murder; he'd just be sent back. And who'd have believed anything he tried to tell them?”
Kurt Wunderly said, “That should make a good play, Mr. Bryce, but you're being absurd. Now put down that empty gun and---”
I laughed. “If you didn't know Herman was here, how do you know this gun is empty? Because you unloaded it before you gave it back to him, to play safe! You weren't in the hall when he clicked it at me. You couldn't have known it was empty, if you're innocent.”
I heard Mac give a low whistle.
I wanted to push the point home while I was at it, so I lied a little. My glimpse of the intruder's face in Mac's mirror had been too brief and too distant. But I said: “I can identify him, Mac. Before he reached around the corner in your study and turned out the light, I had a good look at his face in the mirror behind you---and his fingerprint will be on that light switch, and---”
The other proof came in a way I wasn't expecting. Kurt Wunderly yanked his hand out of his bathrobe pocket, and it held the thirty-two revolver that he'd taken away from Mac back at Mac's place.
He said, “You're too clever, Bryce. That forces me to go through with it---with one alteration. It will be found that Herman killed you and MacCready also.”
I guess I began to sweat a little when I saw what I'd done. Mac and I were each maybe three yards from Kurt Wunderly, and not standing together. But if we tried to rush him, he'd be sure to get one of us. And this time he wasn't going to take any chances; I saw from his face that he was going to shoot us down here and now, and then take the time necessary to get the stage set before he went for help.
For some reason he picked Mac first---maybe to save me for last, I don't know. But he pointed the gun Mac's way, and said “Sorry, MacCready, but---” and I had to do something.
Just to stall an instant I said the first damn fool thing that popped into my head. I said, “It's a good thing I happened to have a shell to fit this scattergun, Wunderly. Drop your pistol!”
I knew as I said it that there wasn't a chance on earth that I'd be believed. People don't carry around small-gauge shotgun shells on the chance they'll find a gun to put them in. But it did divert his attention from Mac for the second. He swung the gun back my way.
The scattergun was hanging at my side and I brought it up as though to fire it. I saw Kurt Wunderly grin as he waited for the empty click that would call my bluff---before he shot me. But I didn't pull the trigger. I kept my hand arcing out with the gun in it, and let go of the gun, sailing it right at his face.
He triggered the revolver then and it spat noise and flame at me. But five pounds of cold steel being thrown into a man's face is enough to spoil his aim, even if he's easily able to duck the missile. That shot came close, undoubtedly, but it didn't hit me.
And Mac had leaped in the second he saw what I was doing, and had Kurt Wunderly by the wrist before he could fire again. I got there myself a split second later, and between us we had no trouble handling him. We tied him and put him on the couch beside Herman.
Mac went across to a decanter of whiskey on the buffet and poured himself a drink with a hand that shook just a trifle. He said, “Five minutes, and we'll go for help. How did you figure out---?”
“Playwright's instinct, Mac. I told you that second act just didn't jell, and you thought I was talking through my hat. But I know how I can make it jell. I got a dilly of an idea for that play I have to write. Listen, I start off with a lonely house and a homicidal---”
“Save it. I'll come down to New York and see it on the boards.” He looked at the decanter of whiskey in his hand and then at me, incredulously. “Mean to say you're not having one with me?”
I shook my head firmly. “On the wagon till the play's complete. Or---say, I don't even want a drink. Mac, is there anything in this shock treatment of yours? And you didn't by any chance arrange all this just to---?”
He'd just downed the drink he'd poured---and he choked on it. When he could talk again he said, “You crazy---” and raised the decanter as though he was going to throw it at me. Then the reaction hit us, and we had an arm around each other's shoulders and laughed until it brought tears to our eyes.
HANDBOOK FOR HOMICIDE
Chapter 1
The Road to Einar
It was raining like the very devil, and I couldn't see more than twenty feet ahead. The road was a winding mountain road, full of unexpected turns and dips apparently laid out by someone with more experience constructing roller coasters than highways.
Worse, it was soft gooey mud. I had to drive fast to keep from sinking in, and I had to drive slow to keep from going off the outer edge into whatever depth lay beyond.
They'd told me, forty miles back in Scardale, that I'd better not try to reach the Einar Observatory until the storm was over. And I was discovering now that they'd known what they were talking about.
Then, abruptly and with a remark I won't record, I slammed on the brakes. The car slithered to a stop and started to sink.
Dead ahead in the middle of the narrow road, right at the twenty-foot limit of my range of vision, was a twin apparition that resolved itself, as I slid to a stop five feet from it, into a man leading a donkey toward me.
There was a big wooden box on each side of the donkey, and there definitely wasn't going to be room for one of us to pass the other.
About twenty yards back behind me, I remembered, was a wider place in the road. But backward was uphill. I put the car into reverse and gunned the engine. The wheels spun around in the slippery mud, and sank deeper.
I cranked down the glass of the window and over the beat of the storm I yelled, “I can't back. How far behind you is a wider place in the road?”
The man shook his head without answering. I saw that he was an Indian, young and rather handsome. And he was magnificently wet.
Apparently he hadn't understood me, for a shake of the head wasn't any answer to my question. I repeated it.
“Two mile,” he yelled back.
I groaned. If I had to wait while he led that donkey two miles back the way he had come, there went my chances of reaching Einar before dark. But he wasn't making any move to turn the beast around. Instead, he was untying the rope that held the wooden boxes in place.
“Hey, what's---” And then I realized that he was being smart, not dumb. The donkey, unencumbered by the load, could easily pass my car and could be reloaded on the other side.
He got one of the boxes off and came toward me with it. Alongside my car, he reached up and put it on the roof over my head.
I opened my mouth to object, and thought better. The box seemed light and probably wouldn't scratch the top enough to bother about.
Instead, I asked him what was in the boxes.
“Rattlesnakes.”
“Good Lord,” I said. “What for?”
“Sell 'em tourists---rattles, skins. Sell 'em venom drugstore.”
“Oh,” I said. And hoped the boxes wouldn't break or leak while they were on my car. A few loose rattlers in the back seat would be all I needed.
“Want buy big rattler? Diamondback? Cheap.”
“No thanks,” I told him.
He nodded, and led the donkey along the edge of nowhere past the car. Then he came back and got the boxes to reload on the donkey.
I yelled back, “Thanks!” and threw the shift into low. Downhill, it ought to start all right. But it didn't.
I opened the door and leaned out to look down at the wheels. They had sunk in up to the hubs.
The donkey, the rattlesnakes, and the Vanishing American were just starting off. I yelled.
The Indian came back. “Change 'em mind? Buy rattler?”
“Sorr
y, no. But could that creature of yours give this car a pull?”
He stared down at the wheels. “Plenty deep.”
“It's headed downhill, though. And if I started the engine while he pulled, it ought to do it.”
“Got 'em tow rope?”
“No, but you got the rope those boxes are tied with.”
“Weak. No pull 'em.”
“Five bucks,” I said.
He nodded, went back to the donkey and untied the boxes. He put them down in the mud this time and tied the rope to my front bumper, looping it several thicknesses. Then he led the donkey back front and hitched it.
We tried for ten minutes---but the car was still stuck. I leaned out and yelled a suggestion: “Let the donkey pull while you rock the car.”
We tried that. The wheels spun again, madly, and then caught hold. The car lurched forward suddenly---too suddenly---and what I should have foreseen happened. I slammed the brakes on, too late.
The donkey had stopped dead the minute the pull relaxed. The radiator of the car struck the creature's rump a glancing blow, and the donkey went over the edge. The car jerked sidewise toward the edge of the road, and there was a crackling sound as the rope broke.
Regardless of the knee-deep mud, I got out and ran to the edge.
The Indian was already there, looking down. He said, “It isn't deep here. But damn' it, I haven't got my gun along. Lend me your crank or a heavy wrench.”
I hardly noticed the change in his English diction. I said, “I've got a revolver. Can you get down and up again?”
“Sure,” he said. I got the revolver and handed it to him, and he went down. I could see him for the first few yards and then he was lost in the driving rain. There wasn't any shot, and in about ten minutes he reappeared.
“Didn't need it,” he said, handing me back the pistol. “He was dead, poor fellow.”
The Collection Page 79
