“Mr. Manton will finance a library devoted to necrology—the study of death—if the play is a huge success. I have his word on it.”
Marcus growled, “Shut up about that, Arnheim.”
Karl Leader was fascinated now. His drink had gone untouched. “Go on, Mr. Noon.”
I shrugged. “How else could I figure it? Von Arnheim shows up always knowing where Marcus is, and I don’t believe in tea-leaf reading just yet. Von Arnheim knows Marcus will try to shoot me because he’s mentally depressed. It says so in the baron’s charts and figures. So Marcus does try. Von Arnheim also says I’m going to try to push Marcus off the terrace. It almost works out that way. So what does a sane, tax-paying detective like me think? I’m not superstitious. So I know that Marcus and Von Arnheim have to be in cahoots to work out that routine. The timing is so fine it couldn’t have been done without mutual co-operation. And Miss Carmody. Girl Fridays are supposed to protect their bosses, but Miss Carmody is always ready to tell everybody exactly where Marcus is and what he’s doing. She couldn’t keep a job like hers and be such a blabber mouth. So it also figures she was doing exactly what Marcus was ordering her to do—like walking into the office and creating enough of a diversion for Marcus to make a loud noise for me and the cops to hear while he was supposedly being booby trapped. He didn’t think the trick would work if we didn’t hear a noise.”
I was talking my ears off but I still had my weather eye trained on Von Arnheim and his walking stick. I predicted stormy weather.
“Bud Tremont kept lousing me up all the way. He jumped me the first time I laid eyes on him. I didn’t know then that he had a ton of dough invested in the show and that he was afraid Marcus had sicked me onto Lisa to find out about it. Add to that his crazy love life and his pride about looking like a champ in front of Lisa, and you get a rough picture of why he was trying to outdo me every time he saw me. Perfect example of an overgrown kid without sense enough to act like a man.”
Karl Leader murmured, “This is quite the most fascinating thing I’ve heard since Shakespeare. Is there anything more to add, Mr. Noon?”
“I’m just warming up, Leader.”
“Pray continue.”
I nodded. “Marcus is the only one who can say why he killed Darlene Donegan. I can make up some reasons for him, but the answer has to come from him.”
We all looked at Marcus Manton. He was amazed at me now.
“Conjecture, Ed. Lousy conjecture. Monday-morning quarterbacking. You can’t prove one point of that damn story.”
“No?” I winked at Von Arnheim. “You wouldn’t want to submit to a medical examination on your eardrum, would you? And you hung the rope around your neck by planting Darlene’s body in your mistress’ bedroom. You have a key. Lisa couldn’t have done it because she’s not the type. Donegan had been made love to, remember? I ruled out Bud Tremont because he wouldn’t have dared reenter a house where he’d left a dead body. He’s not the type, either. Some of his sportsmanship training still holds. He would have boxed Donegan to death, but I don’t think he would have strangled her.” I stared at Marcus. “Why did you kill her? To frame Lisa for falling in love with another man? To get rid of Tremont? Well, whatever your reasons were, you got what you wanted. A ton of free publicity for Roses in the Rain.”
Karl Leader was glaring at Marcus, but the Great Man could only wag his head at my insanity.
“Ed, you’re crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy.”
I was getting restless now, wondering how long Von Arnheim would stay peaceful. “Crazy mad, you mean. Your murder man is also an ace. You like aces. Aces who can fix brakes so cars will smash up and get rid of meddlesome people like me and Lisa. Lisa will do anything for a headline except kill people, I guess. The baron also took a shot at me last night. He missed deliberately, of course, because he’s an excellent shot. But he was just piling on more manure so he could come at me with some more of that death patter. The baron really believes that junk in his own insane way.”
Von Arnheim bowed, but Marcus had found a fresh point to bother me with.
“I suppose I set up this Tulip girl, too? I had her up my sleeve all this time. Just waiting for her to appear at the right moment. Miss X wins plum role of the year. More headlines, huh? Ahhhh, you sicken me.”
“No,” I said. “She’s on the level. But it just shows how your luck has held throughout this mess. Fran only wants to be an actress. She’s dramatic, so she showed up dramatically. I thought for sure she’d been rigged by you until I got to know her better.”
“Sure,” Marcus sneered. “Is she a good lay?”
Karl Leader reddened visibly. “There’s no need to get foul, Marcus. You only have to defend yourself against Noon’s charges. That’s all I’m waiting to hear.”
“To hell with you, Leader,” roared Marcus. “I don’t have to explain my actions to anybody. It’s a complete tissue of lies. When his time comes to show proof, all he’ll have will be ideas and talk.” His eyes settled on Von Arnheim briefly, but I caught a flash of something. “Just a lot of hot air. Ed, you’re fired. As of now. I don’t want you any more. Beat it. I’ll tell Carmody to mail you a check for your trouble—”
I laughed out loud, the way he had the first day I was in his office.
“Five minutes to go, Big Man. Mike is coming with his boys. Better get a story ready. Or start praying for your sins. I’d feel bad about it except for the way you killed Donegan. Killing her after you made love to her. You never should have turned a ghoul like the baron loose on your show. You should have stuck to show business. Real show business.”
That was it. I’d said it all. I’d tried to make some sense out of everything, but all I could do now was wait for the cavalry to come. No, I didn’t have courtroom proof. Just some sense, logic and understanding of people and codes of behavior. I counted on Marcus Manton’s bluffing. I counted on Lisa de Milo’s being confused and forgetting her ridiculous confession. I had found out where Karl Leader stood. I expected Von Arnheim to do something now. He did.
The walking stick suddenly swung in his fingers land leveled at me like a rifle. I was ready for him. I knew something he didn’t know I knew. His walking stick was a rifle.
The big, foot-square ash tray on Marcus Manton’s desk was close enough to my right hand to be made use of. I scooped it up and with the same motion sailed it smack into the baron’s face. He had enough of a warning to stop pointing the stick and try to get out of the way. He didn’t have enough time or luck. The ash tray thudded off his shoulder and the walking stick flew out of his hands as he tried to protect his face. I reached him, hooked a leg behind his ankles and upended him with judo swiftness. He was sitting on the floor, staring up into my .45 with open-mouthed amazement, as if I had performed some incredible magic act.
His monocle dangled on its strap, swinging like a pendulum. Lisa de Milo screamed.
“Ach, Mr. Noon,” Von Arnheim rasped. “Bitte, do not shoot me.”
“No, I won’t kill you, Baron.” I swung the gun around. The squawk box was jumping on Marcus’ desk again. And Marcus was scrambling toward the terrace. Karl Leader shouted something and the office door flew inward. “Hold it, Marcus,” I started to yell. Lisa de Milo suddenly ran across my line of fire—deliberately—her eyes wild and blazing. Acting again. I cursed.
All because Bud Tremont had pounded into the room, Fran Tulip excitedly yammering behind him. I tried to fling Lisa out of the way and Tremont saw me do just that. A growl erupted in his throat and he hit me with a low tackle before anybody could yell or explain or stop him, even if about a thousand voices did start to holler from the corridor outside.
I went down hard, the .45 falling out of my hand. Tremont tried to drag me up so he could punch my face, but I kicked at him and staggered away. Marcus was bolting through the French windows, slamming them behind him, on his way somewhere in a big hurry.
Tremont closed in and Lisa added herself to the kicking, clawing pack. So Karl Leader came to m
y rescue. He hauled Tremont off me, locking Bud’s big arms behind him in a savage vise. Tremont roared like a maddened animal. Fran inserted her cries in the symphony. With the unholy din exploding on all sides, I could only think of one thing. Where could Marcus go out there that we couldn’t find him?
I pushed through the commotion and reached the terrace. Through the doors and out onto the fancy tiles. My eyes searched furiously. I didn’t have far to look.
Marcus Manton was at the north end of the terrace, Manhattan skyline behind him, his curls still wild and fluttering in the breeze. He looked defeated, yet triumphant. I didn’t like the insane look of him.
He was mounting the stone parapet that ran at right angles around his penthouse with the purpose and cold assurance that meant just one thing.
He was going to jump.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I walked toward him. He heard my heels clicking on the colored tiles beneath my feet. The sounds behind me died away as I drew closer. He turned stiffly on the parapet, steadying himself, his sincere-blue tie flying like a pennant on the roof of the Yankee Stadium.
I stopped five feet in front of him. He pushed a hand toward me, silently telling me to come no farther. The look in his bold black eyes was wild and only about three blinks away from the bottom’s dropping out of everything. His wide shoulders sagged, his arms dangling uselessly at his sides.
“Don’t come any nearer, Ed,” he said thickly. “This is no publicity stunt.”
I nodded, trying to hold down the riot in my heart. It was climbing into my mouth.
“Marcus, be yourself. You could do an awful lot of things yet. Prisons aren’t that bad. Think of all the wonderful projects you could still work on. By the time you got out, you’d be bigger than ever. You’re the biggest showman since Barnum, and you know it. Everybody knows it.”
His sudden smile turned into a look from the grave, and his eyes got cold. Behind me, feet and voices thundered through the doors, then halted, stopped with a universal hush.
“Everybody stay back.” Marcus barely raised his voice. “You’re ringside, and you can’t ask for better than that.”
In the new silence, I heard Captain Mike Monks’ wonderfully sensible, familiar voice.
“Come down from there, Manton. Suicide is the silliest thing in the world.” You could have heard a sigh, if anyone had felt like sighing. Yet the hush that held the roof was a solid thing.
Marcus Manton stared down at me from his position at the top of the wacky universe.
“Damn you, you are the ace. The greatest. I had it all worked out. What a show it was going to be! The greatest. I’m damn sorry I won’t be here to see it. Roses in the Rain.” He must have loved that show, every word of it. His heavy voice caressed the title with love and tenderness.
“Marcus,” I said evenly, “please don’t be a sap. We’re sixteen floors above the street. Hard, stone street. It’s not as easy as you think. I’d rather shoot you now than see you smashed like a beetle on the sidewalk.”
“God, Ed, don’t talk like that,” Fran Tulip’s plea was a little-girl whimper from somewhere in back of me.
“You’re in middle life, Marcus, you stupid bastard,” I said. “Still got your own hair and all your arms and legs. Healthy as hell. You like reading, you like eating, you like women. You chucking all that because of a prison rap? Measure all those fine things against plastering yourself on the sidewalk down below and see if I’m not right.”
I’d closed the gap between us another twelve inches while I was talking. But he’d seen me. An indescribable smile curved his big mouth, his eyes mocked me.
“Prison, eh? I’m hot-seat bound and you know it. Sure, I killed Darlene. Because she taunted hell out of me about losing Lisa to an ex-pug. I was crazy, I guess. I was waiting for Lisa in her place when Darlene caught me there. She was making her last pitch for the lead in Roses. I cracked, I guess. I shouldn’t have made love to her so—” He smiled a weird smile. “Ed, I was out of that hospital before you and the cops left the building. The doc was on my payroll.”
I tried to agree with him. “We all crack sooner or later, Marcus.”
“Ain’t it the truth,” he said cheerily. With his arm, he swept for one brief instant the horizon of the New York he loved so much. “Well, it’s been a great show. Your money’s worth. With stars, beautiful dames by the ton and comedy relief. A real Marcus Manton production.”
I knew what Mike Monks, behind me, had already done. Sent a man for the emergency squad to get nets and things to spread below. But the Manton Building had too many cornices and buttresses and projections. And we were sixteen floors up. I edged closer, still talking.
“Come on, Marcus. Down, boy. Let’s talk this thing out.”
He looked down at me almost kindly, steadied himself, tucked the blue tie into his coat and shook his head. His eyes settled into a frosty mold.
“Good-bye, Ed. See you in hell.”
He spun like a revolving door. I leaped out of my shoes, reached him, felt his coat come away in my hands. Just as he stepped cleanly and easily off into space.
The screaming behind me didn’t subside for a long time. I stared down foolishly at the empty coat in my hands. There was nothing to say.
Marcus Manton had made the biggest exit of them all.
I sank to a sitting position on the tiled terrace, put my back to the parapet and closed my eyes. It had all the makings of a lousy day.
“God bless him,” I said to no one in particular.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Roses in the rain opened six months later on Broadway. Thanks to the headlines, box-office business was all that Marcus Manton had hoped for. The critics flipped for the show and the audiences loved it. Karl Leader’s direction drew reams of praise. But the most important single thing about Roses was its star. Fran Tulip was “a magnificent, poignant and tremendous new talent on the American stage” as Annalee. And I am quoting a top New York critic.
Von Arnheim writes me now and then from Ossining where he’s working on a new book, Death—the Last Essay. His letters are just like him. Nutty and terrifically interesting. And Lisa de Milo and Bud Tremont made it legal. Lisa retired from show biz altogether because she never quite got over Marcus Manton’s suicide. I never did run into Artie and Tip again.
I still see Fran Tulip. She has some ideas about marrying me and reforming me. I’ve got some ideas, too. She really is fabulous as Annalee.
If you do have the time and a night off, run up to the Fifty-third Street Theatre and catch Roses in the Rain. A real Marcus Manton production.
It’s still running.
THE END
Meanwhile Back at the Morgue Page 15
