The Paul Cain Omnibus

by Cain, Paul

  She paused, glanced at the bottle; Brennan poured her another drink.

  “Harley drove over to the river,” she went on. “I guess his idea was to slug me an’ roll me in—he drove out on a little dark wharf an’ stopped the car.” She tilted the glass to her mouth, drank most of the whiskey. “An’ then a guy who’d been lying down on the floor in the back of the car got up and stuck a rod into the back of Harley’s neck an’ said: ‘Stick your hands up, you—an’ get out of the car.’ The guy got out behind him and walked him over to the edge of the wharf and I could hear them talking there, but I couldn’t make out what they said. Then there were two shots close together an’ the guy came running back to the car. He looked at me and I acted like I’d passed out—I’d been riding that way, slumped down in the seat, since Harley brought me out of the joint—and he figured I was out cold an’ hadn’t recognized him, I guess. He beat it back up the street.”

  Brennan was leaning forward; his eyes were bright, interested. “Who?”

  “Lou Antony.”

  Brennan smiled thinly, stood up. He said: “You’re nuts—Antony didn’t get in town till this morning.”

  She repeated: “Lou Antony. He looks like a skeleton—like he was awfully sick—but I’d know that face anywhere.” She finished her drink.

  Brennan glanced at Renée, turned back. “Why, damn it, Joice—that doesn’t make sense… .”

  Joice Colt said slowly: “Oh, yes, it does.”

  Brennan was staring at her with wide bewildered eyes.

  “Harley didn’t kill Barbara,” she went on, “Antony did. He beat Harley to it.”

  Brennan sat down slowly in the chair beside the bed; he was smilingly slightly, mirthlessly, shaking his head slowly back and forth.

  Joice Colt sat up and leaned against the head of the bed. “Harley called me late yesterday afternoon,” she said—“said he wanted to see me, to come over to his office at the Slipper. I went over about five-thirty. We had a few drinks an’ he hemmed and hawed about letting bygones be bygones and giving me a job and things like that. I couldn’t figure what it was all about an’ after a while I got suspicious, an’ while Harley was in the bathroom I scrammed out of the place. When I got back to the hotel an’ found Barbara dead I figured Harley for it right away. He’d called me over to the Slipper so I’d be out of the way, an’ at the same time establish his alibi while one of his hoods came up an’ did for Barbara. I told you I called him right away—I did, but at the Slipper, not at the hotel. He’d left the Slipper. I went downstairs, figuring I might catch him coming in, an’ I ran into you—”

  Brennan interrupted suddenly: “Sure, sure—so what? Harley’s still it. He had one of his men kill her, even if he didn’t do the actual job himself… .”

  She shook her head. “No. He planned for one of his boys to do it—Sam Kerr—but Kerr was too late. He went up about six o’clock, when he was sure I was safe at the Slipper. He wasn’t going to poison her—that isn’t the way Harley’s mind works—he was going to choke her or cave in her head or something gentle and quiet like that. Kerr was the kind of lad Harley would pick for a job like that. When he got there he knocked at Barbara’s door an’ there wasn’t any answer, an’ he’d been officed that we were practically living together so he went to my door, but there were voices inside—a man’s voice an’ Barbara’s voice—so he sat down on the back stairs to wait for the man to come out.”

  Brennan said: “How the hell do you know all this?”

  “This is the way I heard Kerr tell it to Harley—an’ this is the way it was.” She said it very emphatically.

  Brennan reached for the bottle and a glass, poured himself a drink.

  “In a little while the man came out,” she went on, “and went downstairs past Kerr. Kerr didn’t pay any particular attention to him—figured he was one of Barbara’s casual boyfriends—but he saw enough of him to describe him vaguely to Harley. It was Lou Antony.”

  Brennan drank.

  Renée had come around and was sitting on the foot of the bed. She said: “You might buy us all a drink.”

  Brennan was frowning into space. He handed her a glass and the bottle.

  “Kerr went back and knocked at the door,” Joice Colt went on. “Nobody answered an’ he finagled around with a couple of skeleton keys but it was no go—an’ pretty soon he heard the elevator stop at the floor an’ he ducked back down the stairway. He played hide an’ seek with the elevator that way for about ten minutes, working on the lock—and then I came back. He saw me go in, and come out in a couple minutes. He didn’t know what the hell to do—his orders were to knock Barbara off, an’ being a conscientious soul with a one-track mind, he was beginning to think about busting the door in when I came back up with you. He listened outside the door but couldn’t make much sense of what he could hear so he finally knocked at the door an’ came in and sapped you before he even noticed that Barbara was already stiff.”

  Brennan asked softly: “What about the glass?”

  “What glass?”

  “The glass under the bed—the one that had the strychnine in it. It was smashed when I came to.”

  She said: “If you had some angle figured out about that glass it was your own idea—you knocked the glass off the table an’ smashed it when you fell.”

  Brennan smiled sourly, said: “God! I’m a swell sleuth!” Then he snapped: “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about being with Harley, when you took me up to the room?”

  “I didn’t have time.” Joice Colt reached for a cigarette on the bed table, lighted it. “I was trying to figure the thing out by myself—find out where I got off… .”

  “So what happened after Kerr slugged me?”

  “I’m getting to that. Kerr saw that Barbara was dead an’ took it big. He evidently figured his best play was to take me along because he knew I could tie him up to Harley—an’ if I went into a good thorough disappearance it would look like I’d killed Barbara. I think he half figured that I’d killed her, anyway. He hustled me out an’ down the back stairs an’ out the service entrance. He kept close to me and had that rod in his pocket, shoved into my ribs. We got into a cab an’ went to his place over on Sixty-first an’ Lexington and he finally got Harley on the phone an’ told him what had happened. Harley told him to bring me to the joint uptown.”

  Brennan was leaning back in the chair, staring bleakly at Joice Colt. He asked: “Who slipped you the reefers?”

  “Kerr.” She smiled. “He smokes. I was awful jittery an’ he took pity on me, I guess.” She swung up to sit on the edge of the bed, facing Brennan. “We went uptown and met the fat nigger at the bar across the street from the Gateway, an’ they made me call you. Then they took me down to the Gateway and hustled me upstairs. The girl gave me some more weed—they figured I knew what was going to happen to me, I guess, an’ needed plenty anesthetic.” She put her hands up and patted her hair. “That’s all.”

  Brennan got up and walked to the window, stood staring out into the rain. “Where’ve you been all night?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Riding around in a cab—trying to figure out what to do. Then I sat in a speakeasy down the street for a couple hours. Finally I called the Eagle to find out if they had any dope on you—I figured they’d put the chill on you uptown by this time. The telephone girl said you were home, so I took a chance on coming over.” She smiled wanly. “They’re dragging the city for me, according to the papers—I’m plenty hot. I get goose pimples every time I see a uniform. I—”

  The phone rang. Joice Colt stiffened nervously, sucked in her breath sharply. Renée started to get up, but Brennan turned and went to the phone. He said: “Hello… . Mister Louis? I don’t know any Mister Louis—what does he want? … Personal? … Does he look like a bill collector? … Okay—tell him to wait. I’ll call you back.”

  Brennan put the phone down and went back to
the window. He stood there a little while and then he turned and went to the desk and picked up the sheaf of typewritten pages that Renée had finished. “Well—I guess I’m the chump in this deal,” he said. “Here’s the swellest story I ever turned in—almost turned in.” He sighed, shook his head. “I ride a hunch, an’ bet Johnnie my job—an’ my life—that I’m right. I make a sucker out of myself for Freberg an’ the Department an’ the whole damned town to give the horse laugh. I bloody near get myself killed—an’ all because I’m sap enough to go into a big sympathy act for a tomato like you.” He inched his head emphatically towards Joice Colt.

  She smiled coldly. “An’ because you hated Harley,” she said. “An’ because you think those trick hunches of yours are straight from… .”

  Brennan said, “Right,” very loudly. His expression was not pleasant. “I’ve played my hunches across the board since I was that high.” He held his hand at the height of his hip descriptively. “They’ve always worked out.” He patted his chest with his hand, went on very dramatically, very seriously: “If I can’t believe in my hunches, I can’t believe in myself!”

  Joice Colt grinned broadly at Renée. “He’s delirious.”

  Renée was smiling at Brennan. She said softly: “Listen, baby—the Antony slant is as good, or better, than Harley.” She glanced at her watch. “And we can just make it.” She got up and went to him, took the sheaf of pages from him and threw them into the wastebasket, sat down at the desk and put a sheet of paper into the typewriter.

  There was a soft drumming of fingernails at the door. Brennan went to the door and opened it and there was a very thin man in a tightly belted dark raincoat standing there. His face was very thin, very gray; his dark eyes were sunken above sharp jutting cheekbones. Water dripped from the brim of his soft black hat, the bottom of his long raincoat.

  He came into the room slowly. “I told the girl to announce me as Louis,” he said, “because I wanted to learn the number of your room before you had a chance to misunderstand my visit.” He spoke very precisely, with a trace of accent; his voice had the hollow toneless quality of a sick man. He smiled. “I am Antony.”

  He stood quietly while Brennan closed the door. Renée and Joice Colt were staring at Antony with bright interested eyes.

  Antony moved his smile from Renée to Joice to Brennan; he asked: “May I sit down?”

  Brennan said: “Sure.” He jerked his head towards a chair, crossed behind Antony to a dresser near the door to bathroom, opened the top drawer.

  Antony said very quietly, “Don’t do that.” His voice was almost pleading. He had not moved towards the chair; a heavy blue automatic glittered dully in his hand.

  Brennan turned his head towards Antony, grinned slowly. “I was going to open a fresh one in your honor,” he said. He kept his eyes on Antony, reached slowly into the drawer and took out a bottle wrapped in tissue paper.

  Antony went to the chair and sat down; he held the automatic on his lap.

  Brennan tore the wrapper off the bottle, snapped off the cap; he took a fresh glass from the top of the dresser and poured a big drink. As Antony leaned forward to take it he was seized suddenly by a violent fit of coughing; he put the glass on the floor and took out a handkerchief and coughed for perhaps a half minute in a curious rhythmic way.

  Brennan poured whiskey into three glasses on the bed table; he turned the chair near the bed to face Antony, sat down and picked up his glass.

  Antony’s coughing ended as suddenly as it had started. He smiled apologetically at Brennan, picked up his glass from the floor and drank most of it. He said: “That is a good cough—yes?”

  Brennan nodded.

  “I have come to tell you something very funny,” Antony went on. He leaned back in the chair and his sunken pain-glazed eyes twinkled momentarily with amusement. “I have become soft, like a woman—I am Antony of whom many men were afraid and I have become soft and sentimental like—what you call it?—a pansy.” He laughed, and the sound was a harsh tearing sound deep in his body; he bent his head a little to one side, stared quizzically at Brennan. “Have you ever wanted something very much and then when you got it it was not very much—and you did not want anything very much? … .”

  Brennan smiled, shook his head slightly.

  Antony went on in the clipped, precisely accented monotone: “For a long time I have wanted to kill two people. It was a fever to me—there was nothing else that was important. I lived for that—I planned it very carefully.” He gestured pointedly with one hand. “Now it is done—and I think there is nothing that is important to me any more.”

  Brennan glanced at Joice Colt, drank the whiskey in his glass.

  Antony again coughed violently; he leaned forward and held his chest tightly with his hands. When the fit had worn itself out he went on more slowly: “I had arranged it very carefully. I got off the train at Greenville and a friend of mine who looks very much like me took my reservation and my place on the train. I had a plane waiting there and I was flown to a private landing field near Paterson and I got here to New York about five thirty. I went to the Valmouth—I wanted to do it myself, you see—and there was no answer at Barbara’s door and I was about to go when she came to the door across the hall. She had heard me knocking at her door and she came to the door or your room”—he bobbed his head at Joice Colt—“and opened it… .”

  He leaned back, stroked the arm of the chair lightly with his fingers. “I had a present for Barbara,” he said—“I had a bottle of very fine bourbon to celebrate my homecoming. Barbara liked it very much.” His smile was a not a pleasant thing. “After a while I left Barbara and went to find Mister Harley—and after a while I found him… .”

  Brennan leaned forward slowly. No one said anything for perhaps a minute and then Brennan asked quietly: “So what?”

  Antony shrugged. “This morning I went in a cab to Trenton and got back on the train and my friend stayed in Trenton. Last night I did not have time to read the papers. But I read them this morning and they said Miss Colt was wanted for Barbara’s murder. I do not want that …” He smiled at Joice Colt. “I thought they would think it was suicide. I do not want anyone else to be in trouble—and I have done what I wanted to do—I do not very much care what happens to me now… .”

  He laughed. “You see—I am soft like a woman. And then, too, I am not very well—I was not very well when I went to prison and”—he tapped his chest lightly with his fingers—“it is very damp down there—I do not think there is very much left of my lungs.” He was grinning broadly at Brennan. “It makes you very soft and sentimental when there is not much left of your lungs… .”

  Brennan asked: “Why did you think of coming to me?”

  Antony shrugged again. “It was in the paper that you were with Miss Colt before she disappeared last night. You are a newspaperman—you would know best how to do this so that my friend who flew me here and my friend who took my place on the train do not become involved. And it is a good story for you—no?”

  Brennan said: “No.” He stood up and went to the desk, stooped over and took the sheaf of typewritten sheets out of the wastebasket and tossed them on the desk. “No—that is not a good story,” he said. He tapped the sheets on the desk with the backs of his fingers. “This is the story.” He turned his head to nod at Renée. “Read it.”

  Renée began reading in a small choked voice and Brennan went back and sat down. By the time Renée had read to the third page confidence had come back to her and she read well, spoke clearly, swiftly.

  Antony was leaning far back in the chair and his eyes were half closed, his mouth was curved to a thin smile.

  When Renée had finished they were all silent a little while and Antony said slowly: “It is a very interesting story.” He inclined his head towards Joice Colt. “You are sure it will make Miss Colt in the clear, yes?”

  Brennan nodded. “She�
�s the only one who could have made Harley’s alibi stand up—and now that Harley has, uh, disappeared, the story’s a cinch.” He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and stared very seriously at Antony. “You are quite sure there can be no leak on your side; I mean about your flying here, or being recognized by anyone yesterday, or anything like that?”

  Antony shook his head slowly, said: “Quite sure.”

  Brennan glanced at the clock on the dresser; it was eleven thirty-five. He turned to Renée, said: “You’d better hustle over to the office—you can write the finish there, after you get the first part in the work.”

  She bobbed her head up and down, stood up swiftly and stuffed the sheaf of paper into her handbag. Her coat was on a chair near the door; she went to it and Antony got up and helped her put it on. She thanked him, said, “So long,” over her shoulder to Brennan and Joice Colt, went out and closed the door.

  Antony crossed to Brennan and held out his hand. He had put the automatic back into the pocket of his raincoat and it made a great bulge there against the narrowness of his waist.

  He said: “I must go, too.”

  Brennan stood up and shook Antony’s hand. They stood silently a little while, smiling at each other a little.

  Brennan said: “You’d better see a good doctor.”

  Antony stuck out his lips, shrugged slightly, shook his head. “I think there are not any good doctors—for me,” he said. He turned and took Joice Colt’s outstretched hand and pressed it. Then he went to the door, and his shoulders were drooping and he was a very slight, very pitiable little figure going away like that in his tightly belted raincoat. He did not turn at the door; he went out and closed the door softly behind him.

  Brennan sat down on the arm of the chair and picked up the telephone, dialed a number. He said: “Hello, Johnnie. Hold everything—Renée’s on the way over… . Uh-huh, we were delayed a little. An’ never mind looking for Colt any more—she’s over here—I’m going to take a room for her here where she can lay low for a couple days while we cinch that Harley slant… . Uh-huh—an’ I have a hunch they won’t find Harley. I think he’s scrammed—long gone—that’ll make it a lot easier… .”