The Second Pulp Crime

by Mack Reynolds

  In spite of the absurd brevity of the consultation he was certain that Mr. Pike required treatment of an expert nature. A far more intensive probing was definitely indicated. Sodium pentothal, surely. Perhaps hypnosis?

  Apart from the general formidable picture of a manic-depressive psychosis severe enough to embrace paranoid aggression there was the alarming fact elicited from Mr. Pike himself that even after a sound night’s sleep he would frequently wake up unrefreshed and physically exhausted. Quite as disturbing was the clinical revelation that a paternal uncle had been subject to epilepsy.

  What had transpired during those nights of conscious sleep when the subconscious took over? What dark forces under the shroud of night had been at play?

  It was tragic, how unsuspecting, how gullible the layman was in the face of such absolute danger. Tragic, too, in that it was composed of perils latent in a diseased brain, invisible, unseen, except by a trained physician. Simply because it failed to exhibit the understandable threat of, say, a killer tiger or some human prowler armed with a club, the average layman was rendered blind to its existence.

  This veiling was especially pronounced in persons close to the patient, strengthened by natural ties of blood or affection. Like that truly nice and decorous woman who was married to Mr. Pike. How in the name of reason could a ruthlessly self-seeking person such as Carlotta have had so dissimilar a sister? It was beyond him. Yet there she was, cooped up within the inescapable intimacy of her home, and blind as a bat to her potential deadly peril.

  Dr. Seibermann strolled outside into the grounds and to a screened gazebo, the slender columns of which offered support to draperies of golden alamanda bugles. He sat down and lighted a cigar, shielded from mosquitoes and other insect pests and pleasantly cooled by the trade wind, gentle and spiced with a fragrance of mimosa.

  The solitude was soothing. Dora and Freda were away for the evening at a pop concert being given in the auditorium at Miami Beach, and his receptionist had long since gone home. This state of benign peace, synthetic really, lasted for perhaps an inch of smoked cigar length when it was abruptly terminated by an unpleasant sensation that he was no longer alone. He was being watched. He localized the impression as having been caused by some movement within the deep shadows of a nearby mango tree.

  That was the trouble with strong moonlight. Everything was brilliantly clear in it, but the shadows which it cast were so correspondingly black. Dr. Seibermann tried to penetrate the ebon pall at the tree’s base but he could not do so. A species of terror gripped him, plunging him backward emotionally into all of the terrors that in the years long past had been so omnipresent every moment of the day and night.

  A light sweat broke over his body as that past came rushing back upon him and its doors, for so long securely locked and bolted, swung wide again—on Vienna, and the Grafin von Hanseldorf. On the man called Smith.

  It moved again.

  “Come out of there,” he cried. There was a ring of hysteria in his voice as he added, “Let me see your face!”

  * * * *

  Carlotta awoke shortly after eight o’clock. She got out of bed and bathed and dressed leisurely, turning on a radio while doing so, and adjusting its dial to a hi-fi Coral Gables station whose musical program served as a foil to the catlike tranquility of her mood. She was arranging her hair and face when the announcer’s voice broke in upon a Gershwin number, cutting it short.

  …we interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin on the previously reported disappearance of Dr. Helmut Seibermann, noted Fort Lauderdale psychiatrist. The doctor’s body has just been found beside a rockpit on the Damon Pike estate of Live Oaks…

  Carlotta’s lipstick, which she was applying at the moment, gashed grotesquely across her cheek.

  …a single gunshot was the cause of death, and although Sheriff Selah J. Conley does not rule out the possibility that the wound could have been self-inflicted he is quoted as saying that all indications point toward a suspicion of murder. Further bulletins will be given over this station as soon as they are released by the authorities. We will now resume…

  Gershwin again took over and Carlotta, recovered from her moment of shock, daubed cold cream on her cheek to remove the lipstick. It is difficult to believe, but her first reaction to the news was thoroughly in character. It concerned Sheriff Selah J. Conley.

  Carlotta recalled him as being the son of old Herkimer Conley, who had been one of her father’s close friends. In fact, it was her father who had put Conley into the sheriff’s office, a post that Selah had inherited and had held now for many years.

  In a dim fashion Carlotta remembered Selah from the old Live Oaks days. She recalled him as a chunky little boy, younger than either Florence or herself, who would occasionally accompany his father on a visit.

  She immediately perceived the probable advantages of the relationship. Florence (true to form) would undoubtedly have kept the friendship alive, not only socially but through large contributions to the party campaign fund, believing that her father would have wished the family to do so. This moneyed and social liaison with Selah surely would assure a kid-glove treatment of the dangerous situation at Live Oaks.

  Helmut’s death, the deed itself, left Carlotta cold. But its possible repercussions did disturb her. For an aggravating moment it seemed that her hellish engine of death had jumped its track, for there could be little doubt that Damon, in his alternate character of Mr. Hyde, had been the murderer.

  Carlotta had stayed at Live Oaks the previous evening for dinner and she recalled all too clearly how Damon had several times referred to Helmut in terms that would have curdled a turtle’s gelid blood.

  But when examined from the sheriff’s point of view, she appreciated that any question of Damon’s possible guilt would be an absurdity. He had only met Helmut once, and the meeting had turned out gratifyingly. From an official, the sheriff’s viewpoint, for Damon to have killed Helmut would have been senseless, without motive, the work of a madman—and the psychiatrist himself had pronounced Damon sane.

  No, happily, the death engine remained on its track.

  Carlotta put the final touch to her hair, then headed for the patio and breakfast in a calm frame of mind. Stefan, in a bilious citron and scarlet dressing gown, was already at the table, and Otis was with him. She paused in a loggia doorway and observed the tableau.

  The sun, well up above the sea and palm tree tops, focused its dazzlement on Stefan’s robe, with his face shaded and enigmatic looking above it. Otis, in spite of his tan, looked whitely strained. Carlotta was impressed, as always, by the uncanny resemblance that Otis bore to his father, whom she remembered as having been a darkly handsome young man, much given to fits of brooding.

  She moved out into the sunlight, was greeted, and asked Jenks to have her eggs done Benedict.

  Stefan said, “You’ve heard about Helmut, Carlotta. I can see that you have.”

  “Yes, on the radio, but the announcement simply said that they had found his body at Live Oaks. Who did find it, Otis?”

  “I did. I’d gone down to sketch the dawnlight on the waters of the rockpit, and when I got there, there he was.”

  “How did you know?”

  “That he was dead?”

  “No, that he was Helmut Seibermann. Or didn’t you?”

  “I knew from Damon’s description, for one thing. But I made certain of it by going through his pockets. His wallet hadn’t been touched. But it wouldn’t have been, of course. Any robbery motive is ridiculous.”

  “Otis,” Stefan said, “already has Damon en route to the nearest asylum for the criminally insane.”

  “Otis, you’re prejudiced. Entirely too much so. Your stepfather has been declared a perfectly normal man by one of the most competent psychiatrists in the country.”

  “Has he? Was he really?”

  “Just what are you getting a
t?”

  “The fact that the psychiatrist no longer exists. He is dead.”

  “What earthly difference does that make?”

  “Just this. No one was present during that consultation but Dr. Seibermann and Damon himself, and the only report on its results is the version Damon gave to mother. You want a motive for the killing? A cunning one, a madman’s one? Think this over. If Dr. Seibermann were silenced, Damon could manufacture any report that he liked about the examination and the doctor could never refute it.”

  “You forget there would be records—notes—”

  “Even that doesn’t wash. The police say that the filing cabinet where case histories are kept was tampered with. Doesn’t that alone give credibility to what I’m saying? Suppose the one on Damon was removed? By Damon, of course, after the murder. Well, what real proof of his sanity or madness according to Dr. Seibermann’s tests does now exist?”

  Carlotta looked at Otis with something less than aunt-like affection.

  “Have you discussed this angle with Sheriff Conley?”

  “No. I offered him a general hint when he got there with his troupe of trained ferrets, but he implied with his exquisite cracker-barrel tact that I could return to cutting out my paper dolls, and around then mother collared me to drive over here and get hold of you.”

  “Florence wants me? To stay at Live Oaks?”

  “Mother,” Otis said factually, “is an emotional wreck. Dr. Vanner has looked her over, and yes, she does want you with her. To steady her I guess. I’ve asked Stefan to come along, too. I can talk with him and he understands me. Everyone else just thinks I’ve an I.Q. of minus ten.”

  “Of course I’ll come,” Carlotta said. “I’ll drive over as soon as I’ve packed a few things.”

  Otis stood. “I must get back,” he said. His request to Stefan amounted to an appeal: “Would you come with me in my car? Right now?”

  Stefan shoved back his chair. “Yes. Ask Jenks to throw what I’ll need in a bag and have him bring it over with the Bugatti, will you, please, Carla?”

  Carlotta, deep in the complexity of her darkening thoughts, said absently, “Yes, Stefan. I will.”

  * * * *

  It was all very friendly in the best bienséance of Southern tradition, and Sheriff Selah J. Conley had the proper figure and manner to go with it. As with so many politicians of the Southland he was a tall, virilely built man with a lazy capacity for athletic movement that in a Russian would have spelled ballet.

  Hatless, coatless, comfortably cool in a linen sport shirt that exposed at the base of his throat a triangle of thick dark hair, he lounged in a wicker saucer-chair and drank the bourbon and branch water Edward had served him.

  They were seated, Jo and himself, on a flagged terrace in the rear of Live Oaks. Florence, under Dr. Vanner’s orders, was in bed, and after companionable greetings, Selah had sent Damon off to his business obligations at Damon’s latest operational fling: Tropical Engineering. Otis had not as yet returned from his run to Halcyon to gather up Carlotta.

  A man from the B.C.I. and a deputy sheriff had started to cross the terraces farther end, going in the general direction of the stables and the garage, with the morning sunlight coppering their young unsmiling faces. The B.C.I. man hesitated and looked over toward Selah, who made an almost imperceptible gesture with his hand. The man gave a slight nod of acknowledgment and moved on.

  It was something, Jo thought, like the manager of a ball team calling the plays with his set of secret signals from the dugout. She held no illusions in regard to the sheriff’s air of amiable lethargy.

  “They’re good boys,” Selah said as the two men passed from view. “Good backgrounds, all of them. Not a one but has himself a degree of some sort. The B.C.I. fellows, of course, have been trained something special.” His smile was warm. “It’s why I can loll.”

  “You don’t fool me, Sheriff Conley,” Jo said, returning his smile with sincere liking.

  “Miss Jo, it’s a fact. Mostly you might call me just the tail that wags the dog.”

  Jo’s eye was caught by two figures leaving the main rear doorway to the house.

  “Otis is back,” she said, “and apparently he’s brought along Count Zaleski.”

  She introduced Stefan to the sheriff, who shook hands while his glance drifted downward from a Sulka shirt, past Lincoln Road slacks to bench-made loafers, missing no glint of Stefan’s sartorial splendor.

  “Isn’t Carlotta coming?” Jo asked Otis.

  “She’s following. She had to pack some duds. How’s Mother?”

  “In bed.”

  “I’ll go up and stay with her until Carlotta gets here.”

  Otis left, and Stefan drifted into a chair. “How is this mess progressing, Sheriff Conley?” he asked.

  “Oh it will smooth out, Count Zaleski. Things settle.”

  “Always?”

  “Mostly always.”

  Stefan smiled, and Selah thought obliquely of Persian cats. “Your philosophy,” Stefan said, “is unusual—and soothing. But don’t you overrate the ‘mostly always’ just a bit? I’ve read somewhere that first-degree murders get solved only a third of the time at best. Fact articles illuminating the point seem to be in fashion.”

  “Those that do go unsolved, Count, are usually the ones that don’t make sense. By that I mean they have no purposeful motive.”

  “In the same category as fly swatting?”

  “You might put it that way.”

  “Would you say that this killing of Helmut made sense?”

  “Helmut—oh, Dr. Seibermann. You were friends?”

  “A difficult term, Sheriff. We were more than acquaintances but somewhat less than friends. Helmut and I have seen each other on an off-and-on basis during the past twenty years, whenever Carlotta and I happen to be in Florida. We met in Vienna before he fled and became naturalized over here. But to pursue the subject of pointlessness, mustn’t you admit that this crime might fall under it? Or should the listing be ‘scatterbrained?’”

  “Just how, sir?”

  “Well, from all I’ve gathered from Otis, we have Helmut smoking a cigar after dinner in his summer house on his grounds in Fort Lauderdale. I understand this was deduced from a cigar butt and a char mark on the flooring. Then presto, his body turns up next morning miles away in the most unlikely place. Why would it have been left here at Live Oaks? And why was it left exposed in plain sight instead of being, say, weighted and concealed in the waters of the rockpit?”

  Selah absently waved away an inquisitive wasp.

  “I like things simple, Count Zaleski. So suppose we take the fact of the body being left here in its simplest form. For us natives, Live Oaks is by way of being a county monument. During election time it’s a place for parlor meetings, and once every summer it is thrown open for a political rally—barbecue stuff and games for the children—just as it used to be in the days of Miss Jo’s grandfather.

  “As a result, nearly everything about the place is general knowledge. Like the rockpit being back out there in the southwest corner, and like the road running to it being private. How often is any swimming done in it, Miss Jo?”

  Jo thought, he is being willfully stupid about this, or willfully kind. She was certain that the sheriff was not a stupid man. She said, “Ever since the swimming pool was put in when papa started Tropical Engineering I doubt whether anyone has been near the rockpit at all. Except Otis, for his sketching.”

  Jo had never either liked nor disliked her half-brother, and definitely on the periphery of her mind lay the possibility that he could have done away with Dr. Seibermann in a murderous mood of brooding anger. Anger because the psychiatrist had declared her father sane, and disrupted the morbid, detestable mischief that Otis had stirred up.

  “It’s a lucky thing,” Selah said, “that Otis did go out there this morni
ng. Otherwise it might have been days.”

  Almost as though on cue, Otis came from the house and joined them.

  He said to Stefan, “Carlotta just came. She’s upstairs with mother.”

  “Maybe, Count Zaleski,” Selah said, “after your wife has settled Miss Florence for resting you would ask her if she would join me for a little talk?”

  Selah stood up, smiled amiably, and left them. He took the same path his deputy and the B.C.I. man had followed toward the stables and the garage, meeting before he reached them Dr. Melville Hart, the county medical examiner, who was on his way to his car.

  “All done, Mel?” the sheriff asked.

  “For the time being, Selah. I’ll get on with the autopsy later this morning. For now, just the obvious.”

  “Such as?”

  “I’d say he was shot anywhere between nine and eleven o’clock last night.”

  “Powder marks?”

  “Some, but you can skip any thought of suicide. The man would have had to be a contortionist.”

  “Would he have bled much?”

  “Plenty. Undoubtedly he was shot somewhere else and then moved out here. There isn’t enough blood where the body lay to fill a cup and there should have been a lot. The bullet penetrated the large dural venous sinuses, which means profuse external hemorrhage.”

  “Which means—?”

  “Which mean dural—dura mater—that’s the tough membrane that covers the brain. Venous sinus is a large vein or passage for blood that has given up its oxygen and become charged with carbon dioxide. The blood becomes purified by passing back through the lungs. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll call you when the job’s done.”

  “Thanks, Mel.”

  Dr. Hart hesitated before continuing to his car. “Do you have any idea what’s at the bottom of it all, Selah?”

  Selah managed with a broad gesture to embrace the whole of Live Oaks with its obvious patina of great wealth.

  “Money.”