Black Mask (Vol. 31, No. 4 — July 1948)

Murder was Johnny Ford’s business and he knew it was nothing to fool around with. Amateurs always get burned if they attempt to correct the script of a slay sequence.

Chapter One

The door to the inner office was ajar though I remembered closing it when I went out. I had come in quietly out of habit and there was no sound from inside the office. I crossed the anteroom and pushed the door wide.

The lean, tall man was seated at my desk. His sparse gray hair was precisely combed, giving his quiet face an old-fashioned, daguerreotype look. His tropical weight suit was gray as was the hat on the corner of the desk. Both looked expensive. His head inclined over my portable chessboard on the desk blotter. A slender thumb and forefinger tugged at an ear lobe and his lips were pursed slightly.

“Good afternoon.”

He looked up, the contemplative expression still on his face. His eyes were blue and his mouth firm and square. “Are you Mr. Ford?”

I nodded, hung my dark coconut straw on the rack, admired its blue pheasant lei band for the hundredth time and turned back toward the desk. He rose from my chair without apology, moved around the desk and sat in the customer’s chair. I sat down, toed out a bottom drawer, propped my feet on it and nodded toward the chessboard. “What do you think of it?”

He looked at the board. “It is an opening that has its merits,” he said thoughtfully. “I’m not surprised to find a man in your profession studying it.”

“You’ll have to spell that out.”

“The Sicilian Defense is generally conceded to be an excellent gambit for a strong player who is prepared to take risks to force a win.” He was mildly pleased with himself.

I picked up the board, leaving the men pegged in their positions, and placed it in the top drawer of the desk. “What did you want to see me about, Mr.—?”

“Robert Merriam,” he supplied.

I examined him with new interest. It is not often that I can look across my desk at six million dollars.

Merriam tilted his head at me. “Have you ever heard of the Paradise Broadcasting Company?”

“That’s the radio station about ten blocks from here, isn’t it?”

Merriam nodded. “I acquired it a few years ago along with a number of other properties. I didn’t want to own a radio station but I was forced to take it in order to avoid losing quite a large sum of money.” He paused and arranged his words.

“I know absolutely nothing about radio and despise the things but in my opinion the station is not making as much money as it should. I have checked our rates against those offered by other local stations and ours are in line with theirs. I have forced myself to listen to the radio for hours on end to compare the quality of our programs with others. Frankly, they are terrible but so are those of the other stations. And finally, I am satisfied that we carry as much advertising as the other stations.” He shook his head. “The books balance but I simply sense that something is wrong.”

“Have you considered having the books audited privately?”

“A very good local firm has been auditing the books semiannually since I acquired the station. The firm is above reproach and they apparently haven’t noticed anything out of the way. In spite of that, I have the feeling that everything is not as it should be.”

“Do you suspect anything or anybody in particular? The station manager, for instance?”

“Watson Hardy is quite mad, as most radio people are, but he seems to be honest. He has the virus of radio in his blood, not money.”

“What about the sales manager?”

Merriam’s eyes told me this was the question I was supposed to ask. “The station doesn’t have a sales manager at present. Good ones are hard to get. Hardy has been acting as general overseer and he has a young announcer, rather a virtuoso I hear, handling a good bit of the selling end. While Mr. Weir doesn’t actually run the sales force, he comes as close to being in charge as anybody with the exception of Hardy. I’m told he has a flair for selling as he does for broadcasting. He seems to be very clever and I’ve begun to wonder about him.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps you will think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill — but here you have a young man who started at the bottom of the announcer’s list less than a year ago and in that space of time has risen to a position second only to Hardy in control of the station’s affairs. During my infrequent visits to the studio I always make it a point to chat informally with the employees who happen to be on duty. Not once in the past year, Mr. Ford, has any employee evidenced any signs of either envy or admiration or respect for Frank Weir. Rather an odd situation, don’t you think, considering his rapid rise?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes a pat on the head isn’t enough to make an employee open up with his life story.”

Merriam smiled. “Every successful businessman must be something of an amateur psychologist. To me, this lack of emotion on the part of Weir’s fellow workers indicates dislike — dislike based on something more than mere envy. Aside from Weir’s above-average ability at the microphone and his obvious sales ability, there must be personal traits that do not call for either envy or admiring imitation from the rest of the staff.”

“Is Weir Island-born?”

“No. He arrived in Honolulu about a year ago.”

“You want me to get in touch with a mainland agency and check into his background?”

“I’m not particularly interested in that,” Merriam said slowly. “What I want is a complete report on his present activities — who his companions are, how much money he spends — that sort of thing. I’d like to know the background of the people he sees and what sort of pastimes he engages in.”

“What does Weir look like?”

“Rather dark complexion, very dark hair, blue eyes.”

“Tall or short?”

“Tall, about your height.”

“Age?”

“About thirty-five.”

“Heavy, medium-build, slender?”

“On the heavy side.”

“How much time are you allowing me?”

“Enough to make a complete report,” he smiled, “and I want the report to point out what lines your investigation has followed in order that I may be certain that the — research — has been complete.”

“Any special angle you’d like me to begin on?”

“I leave that entirely in your hands.” He pulled out his wallet. “There is the question of fees and you will want a retainer.”

“Twenty-five a day and expenses. A hundred retainer.”

He laid two crisp fifties on the desk, stood up and offered his hand. “I think we understand each other, Mr. Ford.”

I wasn’t so sure but I nodded anyway.

He paused in the doorway. “You understand, Mr. Ford, when I say I want to know who his acquaintances are, and something about them, I mean everybody he sees — everybody.” He turned and walked through the anteroom and let himself out quietly.

I put the two bills in my wallet, sat down and stared at the closed door. I was fairly certain that he really was Robert Merriam, that he did own the Paradise Broadcasting Company and that he wanted a tail on Frank Weir. As far as the rest of his story went, I didn’t think there was much truth in it.

The “Club” Papeete is on a side road just off Farrington Highway, near Waianae. It is a very fancy name considering the none too clean little bar, a row of booths, a handful of tables and a juke box. At the moment, it was not exactly a center of gay abandon. I was the sole customer at the bar and the part-Hawaiian bartender wasn’t talkative. In a rear booth, two Portugees rolled dice for drinks and lied in loud voices about their conquests. Frank Weir sat scowling in the booth directly behind me.

His companion could be described with a long whistle, a guttural male noise or simply by saying she was the sort of female that wives never seem to care for. She was blonde and wore a black, long-sleeved, high-necked street dress and a single strand of matched pearls. The attire should have created a demure effect but on her it successfully suggested soft lights and sheer negligees. But she was small with a round face, a short straight nose, full lips and a too-wide mouth. I thought at first she was somebody I knew but it was just the expression. It reminded me of a self-satisfied, well-fed alley cat.

She had been waiting when I followed Weir in almost an hour earlier. Ever since Weir had sat down and ordered a drink he had been pleading or threatening, I couldn’t tell which, while his companion concentrated on her several drinks. Now, she put her hand over his and shook her head adamantly from side to side. I had turned casually on the bar stool and her eyes caught mine. For an instant our eyes held and I swiveled back to the bar. Through the mirror I saw Weir continue to talk and the blonde go back to her drink. Suddenly Weir stood up and looked down at her, his face full of rage and torment. She stared at him with a blank, china-doll expression and said a few words. Weir fumbled for his wallet, tossed a bill on the table and strode angrily out of the Club Papeete. I looked at my watch and let him go. It was seven-thirty and I knew he was due at the studio to broadcast at eight.

The blonde finished her drink, took a mirror from her bag and used her little finger to smooth already smooth lipstick. She gathered up her bag and short jacket and moved out of my line of vision. I caught the heavy scent of Tabu and she slipped up on the bar stool beside me. She tossed the jacket on the bar and took a gold cigarette case and a long holder from the bag. She concentrated on the job of fitting the cigarette into the holder. Slowly her green eyes came up to meet mine in the mirror.

I held the lighted match to her cigarette, lit my own. “Frank Weir seems to be more than slightly annoyed.”

The cat’s eyes didn’t change expression. “You know him?”

I shrugged. “You meet one tramp announcer, you know them all.”

She eyed my glass. “I’ll have a double what you’re having.”

I ordered two double Scotches and water.

She drank half the contents of the small glass before she put it down. “You have to order double drinks in these places or you don’t get an edge.”

“You want an edge?”

She frowned. “What’s a tramp announcer?”

“Like Weir — fairly nice looking with wavy hair the girls like to run their hands through and a voice that could sell central heating to the Fiji Islanders. He never quite makes the grade because he lacks the requisite guts. It’s too easy to swipe little bits of what he wants and make up the rest with whisky and wenches who don’t have complicated morals. Usually, he leaves town in a hurry.”

She made patterns on the bar with her glass. “Why does he leave town in a hurry?”

“Sometimes it’s a misunderstanding about the whereabouts of the petty cash and sometimes just a boyfriend or a husband with a nasty temper.”

“That must be hard on the girls.”

I grinned. “The girls are usually glad to see him go. Curly-locks gets kind of demanding toward the end.”

She didn’t look up. “What’s your name?”

“Johnny Ford.”

“What do you do for a living, Johnny Ford?”

“Poke my nose into other people’s business.”

Her face was still expressionless but the voice was on the chilled side. “You’re a bit hard on the rest of the poor little human race, aren’t you?”

I stared at her dispassionately. “I don’t like tramps.”

She flushed. “You lousy fourflusher!” She snatched her bag and jacket off the bar, slid from the stool and swept out. She had a nice figure.

The fat bartender waddled toward me with a worried look. I slid my glass at him. “Another double Scotch.”

He made it and put it down in front of me, his gaze still turned thoughtfully toward the door. I asked: “Who was the blonde?”

He looked at me in surprise. “Don’t you know her?”

I shook my head.

“Mrs. Robert Merriam.”

I stopped the drink halfway to my lips. “Mrs. Merriam, Junior,” I stated hopefully.

His face lit up in a gold-fanged grin and he shook his head. “The one and only Mrs. Robert Merriam.” He emphasized the “one and only.”

“She come in here often?”

His face went blank. “Once in awhile.”

“With the same fellow?”

The fat bartender’s face hardened into definite unfriendliness. “I wouldn’t know, pal. Why don’t you ask the lady?”

“Maybe I will.” I paid for the drinks, went out to my coupe and headed for town.

I was sore. It boiled down to the fact that Merriam had checked on me before calling in person. He had probably been satisfied with what he heard — except he found out I didn’t handle divorce work. A little thing like that wouldn’t bother him, since he would be leery of the usual boudoir-and-key-hole shamus anyway. Instead of trying to buy me by doubling or tripling my fee, he gave me a song and dance about low profits in a radio station and vague suspicions of the clever Frank Weir — knowing if I tailed Weir long enough I would run across Mrs. Merriam. I’d turn in the report and Merriam would have enough evidence to get rid of her without a heavy cash settlement — he hoped.

I thought about the little blonde and grinned. She didn’t look dumb. It might be interesting to find out what type of brass knuckles she used when the going got tough. I crossed off the idea. I have never felt any deep-seated desire to walk into a buzz saw just for kicks. I decided to drive into town and tell Merriam what he could do with his case. I felt better immediately.

It was a nice night for a drive. I snapped on the radio in the middle of Gershwin’s Concerto in F. It was Oscar Levant’s recording and I happen to think nobody can play Gershwin’s music like Levant. I lit a cigarette, relaxed and enjoyed it. It ended too soon and there was a spot announcement about somebody’s acid pills. Suddenly a very raucous and very bad arrangement of One O’Clock Jump blared out.

I started to change stations when the music faded and the smooth voice of Frank Weir floated out of the speaker. If there was anger and torment in his soul, his voice didn’t give it away. The guy was good. It was a half hour request program of popular recordings and “Frankie” sounded a sophisticated eighteen. His chatter was full of jive lingo and apparently the bobby-soxers ate it up. I left it on and listened. Anyway, I could tell Merriam I had kept Weir under surveillance until I quit the case.

The program was almost over when I turned off Dillingham Boulevard into King Street. The recording came to an end and I could hear the clicking noise it made as it completed each revolution. A minute went by — two minutes — three minutes. I waited for Frankie’s dulcet voice. Hundreds of kids, maybe thousands, were waiting for Frankie. Then the clicking noise segued into some unidentifiable light classic. The music faded and a gruff voice announced: “Ladies and gentlemen, due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to bring you the rest of the program to which you have been listening.” The music came up in volume.

It was a stock announcement. The speaker’s voice had authority and no indication of mike fright, but it also had the singsong quality of one unused to radio broadcasting. A hunch told me the voice belonged to somebody at the transmitter across town from the studios. Some kind of line failure, I tried to reason. By that time, I was at the intersection of King and Iwilei. I turned into Iwilei, took the short block and turned into Queen Street. There wasn’t much traffic along the waterfront and there were no traffic lights. I shoved down hard on the gas and headed for Waikiki and the broadcasting studio.

Chapter Two Turntable Death

A Lincoln sedan pulled out of a parking space in front of the low modernistic building. I moved into the space, hurried out of the car and into the building. There was no one in the receptionist’s anteroom. I half-ran down the long black and white linoleum-tiled corridor to where the brightly-lit control room stood out between the darkened studios. The heavy door was open and two telephones competed angrily with the music from the wall speaker.

Frank Weir sat with his back to me at the control panel, right hand loosely grasping the desk microphone, his head cushioned comfortably on crooked left arm. A forked line of coagulating blood pointed like an arrow to the small hole just behind the right ear. The turntables on either side of him continued soundlessly to spin out their seventy-eight r.p.m.’s, cheerfully demonstrating that the world moves on in spite of what happens to the erratic creatures who temporarily inhabit it.

I found switches and stopped the spinning records. Both ringing telephones had typewritten labels scotch-taped to their bases. I picked up the receiver of the one marked “Transmitter.” It was the voice I had heard on the air.

“Dammit, Weir, you’ve been off the air fifteen minutes! Why don’t you go to the can before you take over — or are you drunk again?”

“This is not Weir.”

“Where is he? Put him on!”

“He can’t come to the phone. He’s dead.”

“Dead drunk, hunh?”

“Just plain dead.”

“Are you kidding?”

“He’s got a hole in his head — a bullet hole.”

“Jeez, they finally got him!”

“Who?”

“Hell, I dunno. Lots of people.”

“Anybody in particular?”

“Say! Who is this?”

“I’ll be seeing you.”

“Hey! Wait a minute! What am I supposed to do about the rest of the programs tonight? I can’t handle all that stuff from the transmitter!”

“That’s your problem, sonny.” I hung up.

He rang back at once. I lifted the receiver, laid it on the desk and let it sputter. I picked up the telephone marked “Outside.”

A teen-age girl whined: “Frankie, what happuned to our program?”

“The program has been cancelled. You ought to be in bed now, anyway.” I hung up and before I could dial it was ringing again.

A young male voice with a distinctly Oriental inflection said: “The whole joint’s jim-jam-jumpin’ out here at Palama, Frankie lad, and we don’t dig that chintz you’re shovin’ at us. Come on, bust your vest and give us a Galliard oldie. How’s about Ceement Mixer, Frankie boy, putzy, putzy—”

I hung up and the phone rang immediately. A small female voice bleated: “Frankieeee!” I cursed and laid the receiver beside the other one.

I went out into the corridor. The phone on the receptionist’s desk was ringing now. I headed in the other direction past another studio, a door marked Library, and a large general office. I pushed through a smooth-paneled door bearing the gilt-lettered information General Manager, turned on the lights and saw a big desk of dark wood with a green leather-padded swivel chair. The phone on the desk was silent. I dialed Lieutenant Walter Chun’s private number, told him what I had found and said I would stand by. He said he could make it in ten minutes.

I hung up and looked around the office. I saw sand-colored walls, drawn Venetian blinds, more green leather furniture, a built-in wall speaker, a large Capehart and another cabinet which looked like a radio and turned out to be a small, well-stocked bar. All the windows were closed and locked. A narrow door in the side wall opened into a small lavatory. Its single frosted window was also locked.

I didn’t doubt that the killer had used the front entrance but I went out into the large general office anyway. There were open windows here but the screens were fastened on the inside and the Venetian blinds were lowered and fastened to the sill. All but one of the desks were as neatly barren as a civil servant’s five minutes before quitting time. That one bore a triangular nameplate which said: M. Gardas — Bookkeeper. A typewriter had been wheeled up to the desk and in it was one of the station’s printed bill forms. It was blank. On the desk were a couple of dozen statements, typed out and addressed, each slipped under its individual envelope flap, ready for folding and sealing. A looseleaf notebook lay open at a typewritten list of local business firms. The ashtray contained four cigarette stubs, three with lipstick, one without. There wasn’t anything else to see.

I went out into the corridor, found the solid door to the record library locked, peered into the darkened studios and went back to the control room. The wall speaker was emitting Viennese waltzes one after another without any announcements. I wondered if my transmitter friend was going to have enough of them to last all evening. I cradled both telephones and the outside phone began to ring again. I let it ring and bent over Weir. His curled fingers were within a few inches of the microphone switch. If he had lived a few seconds longer he might have made radio history by opening the switch and announcing his killer’s name from one end of the Hawaiian archipelago to the other. The wail of a siren rose above the music. I looked at Weir’s pockets longingly and backed out of the room. I went down to the receptionist’s anteroom, lit a cigarette and barely got my feet on the desk when there was a scuffle and loud voices, and the door swung open.

Lieutenant Walter Chun came in first, a slender, broad-shouldered Chinese in the middle thirties, with shining patent leather hair and hard, intelligent eyes that glistened like black enamel. Following practically on his heels was a stocky, powerfully built man with a round head and blue jowls, and a trim brunette who seemed to be all eyes. A uniformed cop came in last and stood against the door.

Bluejowls bustled over to me.

“What’s going on here? Who are you?”

“Mr. Ford put through the call,” Chun said and nodded toward the pair. “Mr. Watson Hardy, station manager, and Mrs. Hardy. Where is it, Johnny?”

“In the control room.”

Chun motioned the uniformed cop to remain at the door and went down the corridor with the three of us trailing. In the control room Hardy pushed past him, stopped abruptly.

“My God!”

Mrs. Hardy brought the back of her hand up to her mouth. Her eyes held some emotion more complex than simple shock. The telephone was still ringing. Chun picked it up and listened. He grunted and slammed the receiver down. The phone rang again. Chun followed the cord to the switchboard and pulled out the plug.

Hardy noticed the loudspeaker on the wall for the first time. He stared at it and rushed over to the long-carriage typewriter standing beside the control desk. “My Lord! The studio has been off the air since eight twenty-three!”

I looked over his shoulder with Chun. Inserted in the typewriter was a standard radio station log sheet, space and columns for sponsor, announcer, type show, musical selection, length of commercial, and so on. The last entry was Night and Day — 8:23. I looked at Chun.

“That’s going to save the coroner a lot of trouble. The record was about three minutes long, which puts his killing between eight twenty-three and approximately eight twenty-six.”

Chun nodded as Hardy ran to the transmitter phone and dialed. He got my old pal on the phone, told him to keep the music going and hung up and tossed us a harried look.

“I’ve got to get Rex MacAvoy up here to take over the broadcasting. If you want me, I’ll be in my office, Come on, Helen!”

Helen Hardy had been standing just inside the door, staring fixedly at Frank Weir’s bowed figure. She turned, cast an enigmatic glance over her shoulder and followed her husband down the hall to his office.

Chun turned to me. “Give.”

“You ever heard of Robert Merriam?”

“He owns this place, doesn’t he?”

I said he did and gave him the whole story from the beginning. Chun didn’t ask any questions after I finished. He stared tentatively at the body, shrugged and said: “Let’s go see Hardy.”

I knew what the irritated shrug meant. The law in Hawaii says nobody can touch the body of the deceased until the coroner has made his examination. And since the law doesn’t make any exceptions, it applies to cops too. I said: “You going to let a little thing like a law stop you from frisking him?”

Chun grinned. “Never break a law, Johnny, unless it’s absolutely necessary. In this case, it’s not. Let’s go.”

Helen Hardy was seated on the low green sofa watching her husband sweat on the telephone.

“...Yes, Mr. Lecky... We’re going to run your announcement at a later time tonight... I know you contracted for the eight-thirty time... Of course you won’t have to pay for it. Furthermore, we’ll extend your contract for another week at no extra charge... Rewrite it? Well... More class, huh? Perhaps you’re right. Suppose you come in to my office say, at two tomorrow afternoon and we’ll work it out. O.K.?... That’s fine, Mr. Lecky. See you at two, Mr. Lecky. Goodbye, Mr. Lecky.” He hung up, got out his handkerchief and mopped his face.

Helen grinned maliciously. “Was that Mr. Lecky?”

He threw her an angry glance, looked at us and gestured with the handkerchief. “Can you beat it? He runs a drive-in barbecue stand. He buys a fifty-word spot announcement to run once a night and he thinks he owns the station. He listens every night for the damn thing. He can hardly speak English and he wants to write his own commercials — he wants more class!”

Chun said: “Anybody supposed to be working here tonight besides Weir?”

Hardy picked up a mimeographed program schedule from his desk. “No. MacAvoy had it until eight. Weir was on until closing and MacAvoy comes on again at six in the morning.” He shook his head. “I hated to call the boy back again tonight but what can I do? My other two announcers are in Hilo.”

“How come?”

“Vacation. It looked like an easy period and Rex and Weir were willing to do double duty so I let the other two go. It never fails. If I had any brains, I’d get out of radio!”

“What about this MacAvoy?” Chun interrupted. “What kind of a guy is he?”

“A good clean-cut personality. The most dependable man I’ve got.”

“Would he hang around after Weir relieved him?”

“Sometimes they do. Not MacAvoy tonight, though. His wife is home with the flu. He probably had his hat and coat on when Weir came in.”

“What kind of a guy was Weir?”

Hardy threw up his hands. “A problem! He had more natural ability than all the rest of the boys put together — a born showman and a born salesman — but undependable. Always something.”

“Any trouble about money?”

“All the time. He was always in debt. Once he hit me for five hundred dollars. I gave it to him in a weak moment.” Hardy was struck with a sudden thought. “He still owes it to me!”

“Did Weir run around much?”

“You mean women?”

“Women,” said Chun patiently.

Hardy shrugged. “I suppose so. Though what women saw in him I wouldn’t know. A smooth-talking character with no more principle than a tomcat.” His eyes rested momentarily on his wife.

“You happen to know of anybody in particular?”

Hardy hesitated. “No, I don’t think so, not anybody in particular.”

I asked: “Did he see a lot of Mrs. Merriam?”

I felt rather than saw Helen Hardy’s narrow-eyed concentration. Hardy looked startled. “Margo Merriam? She wouldn’t fool around with— Say! You’re not going to bring Robert Merriam into this, are you?”

“Why?” Chun asked.

“If Merriam didn’t like it, he could close down the station and never miss it. It would ruin me!”

“Why should he want to do that?” I asked.

“I didn’t say he wanted to. But he could — he owns the station. Besides,” he sneered, “if Margo is seeing too much of anybody, it’s Paul Cooper.”

“Watson!” Helen Hardy’s voice cracked out like a whip.

“Is that the Paul Cooper who manages Dray’s Department Store?” Chun asked.

Hardy glared at his wife. “That’s the one — the eligible bachelor,” he glowered. “A real gentleman.” He checked himself apologetically. “Cooper’s all right, I guess — besides, Dray’s is one of our best accounts.”

“Did Weir know Cooper?”

“He handled the Dray’s account. Only a couple of day’s ago Cooper called up and gave me hell about him.”

“Why?” Chun grunted.

“Weir had worked out a sort of quiz show — he was the master of ceremonies and he got four prominent people around town to sit on a panel and answer questions the listeners wrote in. Not a new idea but it went over well. It was sustaining and Dray’s had decided to buy it beginning next month. Weir spent a lot of time in the store getting ideas for commercials. Then Cooper called up and said Dray’s had a competent department to work out advertising methods and would I please tell Weir to stay the hell off the premises except when he was sent for. Cooper was all wet and I told him so in a nice way but he got nasty and threatened to cancel the show, so I backed down and smoothed it over.”

“What did Weir say?”

“He just laughed—”

There was a knock on the door and a tanned, serious-faced young man with circles under his eyes came into the office. He nodded at the group and smiled weakly at Helen Hardy. Hardy stood up.

“Come in, Rex, my boy. Sorry to get you out again tonight. How is Mrs. MacAvoy?”

“She’s all right, sir. She was sleeping when I left. It’s too bad about Frank.”

“Terrible, my boy, terrible. You know Helen, and this is Lieutenant Chun, the officer in charge of the case. And this is Mr. Ford. He’s—” He stopped. “Just what are you doing here, Mr. Ford?”

“He’s with me,” said Chun, turning to MacAvoy. “You were relieved by Weir at eight o’clock?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You hang around after you were relieved?”

“No, sir. I left right away.”

“Anybody else here when you left?”

“No, sir. Not a soul.”

“Who was the last person you saw in the building, except Weir?”

“The office people were all gone by five. There were some kids around until about six-thirty and a boy from the drug store brought me a couple of sandwiches and a coke about seven o’clock. He was the last person I saw until Frank showed up.”

“Did Weir say he was expecting anybody up here to meet him?”

“No, sir. He wasn’t very talkative. He seemed to have a grouch on about something.”

“He tell you what it was?”

“No, sir. We just went over the schedule and I left.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure.”

Chun turned to Hardy. “O.K.”

Hardy said: “No special instructions, my boy. We missed a lot of commercials. Squeeze them in now the best you can. I’ll call sponsors tomorrow and apologize and tell them we’re not billing them for tonight.”

“Yes, sir.” MacAvoy hesitated in the doorway. “I was wondering about that participation show tomorrow night, Mr. Hardy. I can work it from the control room but won’t it be kind of hard on the guest stars?”

Hardy clapped a hand to his forehead. “Holy mackerel! I forgot all about that! You’ll have to ride gain in the control room and I’ll emcee the show — or maybe I can get one of the boys back from Hilo in time. Give me time to think it out.”

“Yes, sir.” MacAvoy went out of the office taking off his coat.

Hardy slumped in his chair. “That was the program I was telling you about — the one for Dray’s. And what’s worse, Paul Cooper is one of the guests on the program. It’ll never go over.”

“Who else is on the program?” Helen Hardy asked idly.

He picked up the program schedule. “Professor Snowden, that woman up at the University who’s an authority on bugs, and Fred Fisher, the correspondent. He’s passing through on his way to Korea. And—” he looked up from the sheet, “Margo Merriam.”

The door swung open and the cop who had been stationed at the front entrance stuck his head in. “The wrecking crew’s finished, Lieutenant, and Doctor Mac said to ask if you wanted to see him.”

Chun nodded affirmatively. The cop withdrew and Chun turned back to Hardy. “You going to stick around for awhile?”

Hardy lifted a clip-board of typewritten pages. “Most of these haven’t gotten on the air. I’ll be checking sponsors half the night.”

Little Dr. Mac Freyling didn’t have much to add to what we already knew. A single .22 slug had killed Frank Weir. Doctor Mac is a stickler for Medical Science — two words he capitalizes even in conversation — and though confronted with the control room log sheet he refused to narrow down the time of death until after the P.M. He proclaimed that “scientific fact is not achieved by guesswork,” and left grumbling about the frivolous amateurs they were letting on the police force these days. Since it was well known that Dr. Mac had brought Walter Chun into the world, he left only tolerant grins behind him.

Weir had been carrying the usual junk — a wallet with eighteen dollars in it, a wristwatch, a keyring with half a dozen keys, a dollar and a quarter in change, a crumpled pocket handkerchief, a neatly-folded breastpocket handkerchief with a faint lipstick smear and a heavy Tabu scent, a mechanical pencil, a fountain pen and a looseleaf pocket notebook.

Chun thumbed through the notebook. There were semitechnical notes, some rough diagrams of studio layouts, and near the end, a four page, finely spaced list of Honolulu retail stores of all kinds — drug stores, dress shops, markets, gas stations. A few were crossed out and beside each name that wasn’t crossed out were two sets of figures, obviously dollars and cents figures. The right hand set of figures was in all cases equal to one fourth of its adjacent left hand group.

Chun flipped back to the first page of the list. At the head of it were the letters: N.Y.

“What’s New York got to do with these Honolulu stores?”

I said: “Maybe we’ve got something.”

“This New York?”

“New Year’s was three weeks ago. This could be a list of sales for that day.”

Chun shrugged.

“You notice those figures in the right hand column are always twenty-five percent of the ones on the left?”

“Weir’s commissions?”

“When I was a kid on the Coast, I used to work around a radio station. I don’t remember any commissions that high.”

Chun closed the notebook.

I took it out of his hand and opened it again. “There was a perfectly legitimate racket they used to pull,” I mused. “On special occasions, like holidays, the station would high pressure its customers into buying ‘Greetings of the Season’ announcements. Stuff like ‘Joe Doakes’ Market wishes you a Merry Christmas and don’t forget you can get all the fixin’s for that Christmas dinner at Joe Doakes’ Market.’”

Chun eyed me distastefully.

I grinned. “You know they buy it. The gimmick is this: because of the overwhelming demand for time on that particular day, the rates are boosted a little — say ten percent. Most of them think that makes sense, so they pay it.”

“So what?”

I shrugged. “What’s to prevent Weir from getting on the phone and high pressuring all these people into buying New Year’s announcements at twenty-five percent over the regular rates and pocketing the difference?”

“The bookkeeper.”

“What do you mean?”

“Somebody is going to pay his bill by mail. The bookkeeper would catch it.”

“Maybe we can take care of that too.” I led the way back to the big office and the bookkeeper’s desk. The top addressed statement was made out to “Beck’s Dress Shoppe.” It was also the first name on Weir’s list and the first name in the open notebook on the desk. I checked both lists. The list in the Gardas notebook was an exact duplicate of Weir’s except that the names scratched out in Weir’s had not been listed. I handed the dress shop bill and Weir’s notebook to Chun. “The bill agrees with the larger figure.”

Under the glass top of the desk was a schedule of the station’s rates. Chun checked it with the bill.

“The regular rate for a fifty-word announcement, plus twenty-five percent, would equal the amount of this bill.” He straightened and looked around the office. “Looks like this Gardas was working late tonight.”

“It ties in. MacAvoy said the office force was gone by five. Gardas would know Weir was due on at eight. He could come in and make out these bills with him. When the checks started coming in they would all be routed to Gardas. He could carry the regular rate on the books and split the gravy with Weir.”

Chun picked up the bills. “We better check with Hardy.”

“And find out why Gardas left suddenly in the middle of his work,” I grinned.

Helen Hardy was seated with her feet on the sofa, reading a two months’ old copy of Variety. Hardy was smoking furiously and glaring at the silent telephone as though he dared it to bite him. I said: “You promote announcements from business houses for special occasions, don’t you — like Mother’s Day and New Year’s?”

“Certainly. All stations do that,” he said irritably.

“You charge more for those announcements?”

“As a matter of fact, we don’t. Why?”

Chun tossed the typed bills on his desk. “These mean anything to you?”

Hardy frowned and picked up the top statement. He lowered it and ran his finger down the rate chart. He picked up another and then a third. “Where did you get these?”

“Can you explain them?”

“The ones I’ve checked are incorrect. Where did you get them?”

Chun handed him the open notebook. “Weir’s.”

Hardy examined it and slowly his face purpled. “That son of a—” He turned over the pages, calculating as he read. Helen Hardy got up with a quick nervous movement and peered over his shoulder. Hardy said: “Twenty-five percent overcharge. Not bad for a day’s work. Where did you find these bills?”

“On your bookkeeper’s desk. It looks like he was working late tonight.”

“It’s a girl — Miriam Gardas.” Hardy spoke half to himself. “I’ve noticed him hanging over her desk a lot. I wasn’t suspicious because Weir would hang around anything that wore a skirt.”

“Where does Miss Gardas live?”

He consulted a list, pulled the telephone over to him and dialed.

“Mr. Gardas? This is Mr. Hardy down at the radio station. May I speak to Miriam, please?...” He frowned into the phone. “Not since this morning?... I see... No, nothing important. Sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Gardas. Good night.” He cradled the receiver. “Miriam hasn’t been home since this morning. She hasn’t called and they don’t know where she is.”

Chun said: “Let’s go.” He paused at the door. “I want to see you in the morning.” Hardy nodded slowly and Helen Hardy bit into her lower lip.

I followed Chun out to the front entrance. “You going out to the girl’s house?”

He nodded.

I said: “I think I’ll pay my client a visit.”

“If you get anything out of old man Merriam—”

“I’ll give you a call,” I promised.

Chapter Three Muscle Menace

The library could have belonged to somebody’s grandfather. With any sort of luck, of course, Merriam could have been somebody’s grandfather. The furniture was heavy, overstuffed brown leather and bookshelves rose from floor to ceiling on three sides. A well-worn Oriental rug covered most of the dark floor. Only the indirect lamp by Merriam’s chair was lit. He had moved aside the inlaid chess table with its tall, intricately carved pieces and sat staring at me. He was wearing a faded brown bathrobe and an aged pair of brown leather carpet slippers. He looked very old.

He made a steeple of long slender fingers and peered over it at various objects in the room. He spoke as though he had to lift each word bodily and hand it over to me and the words were very, very heavy.

“I owe you an apology, Mr. Ford.”

I waited.

“I wasn’t seeking a divorce. You must understand that.” He eyed my raised eyebrows and a tight ironic smile twisted his lips. “I am an old man. Until recently I looked on myself as an ‘older’ man. Now I realize that I am an old man. It is a familiar story — the old man and the beautiful child-wife.”

“And one day the child-wife grew up?”

“My first wife died many years ago. Margo is twenty-eight. With such a disparity of ages there is bound to be a certain difference of interests. Margo prefers to have people around her a great deal of the time. She likes gaiety and high spirits, parties and dancing. I am not too old for that sort of thing but I found it exceedingly tiresome because it bored me. After we had been married a few months I decided very sensibly to remain at home with a good book and suggest that Margo go out occasionally with the young people of her own age group. It seemed sensible at the time.”

“How did she take the suggestion?”

“At first she didn’t approve. But when I made it clear that such an arrangement would entail no sacrifice on my part, that I had a whole lifetime of good solid reading to catch up on, she allowed herself to be persuaded. The arrangement worked very well for a-while.”

“Now it works too well?”

“I have seen very little of my wife these past few months.”

“But you don’t want a divorce.” Merriam smiled wryly. “It was always possible that you would uncover grounds for a divorce. I hoped not. In any event,

I had no intention of using them. What I really wanted to find out was where my wife goes, whom she sees, what she does. I know little or nothing about the people with whom she spends most of her time. I thought young Weir would be a good starting point.”

“Why?”

“He had telephoned the house several times. I saw him only once but in my judgment he was a clever weakling with little or no character. That was the basis for my imaginary story about the radio station’s finances. Having formed the opinion I had, I thought it quite possible that you would uncover some sort of petty pilfering in the process of your investigation.”

I grinned. “Hardy is tearing his hair now.”

Merriam eyed me steadily. “I am in love with my wife, Mr. Ford. My only real concern is for her happiness.” He gazed at the grandfather’s clock in the corner. “She rarely comes in early and she is drinking too much. If I should discover there is someone else, someone of whom she has grown fond, I would want to do what I could for her happiness.”

“Where is Mrs. Merriam now?”

He shook his head.

“Under the circumstances, I shouldn’t think you’d want me to go on with the — research.”

“On the contrary, I should consider it a great favor if you would remain in my employ. I have explained my position. The situation has, of course, altered. Your sole aim would be to discover the murderer of Frank Weir.” He watched my expression and smiled. “I realize that is police business and I don’t expect miracles. I want you as my personal agent and as a sort of extra-legal supplement to the police investigation.”

“Does that mean you really want an investigation, or does it mean you want me to use my cop friends to keep you informed as to what’s going on?”

He eyed me quizzically. “You are a very sensitive young man.”

“You haven’t answered my question.” His face took on a hardness I hadn’t seen before. “I want the murderer apprehended and this investigation concluded without publicity.”

I wondered how tough you have to be to start from scratch in a cane field and end up with six million bucks. “You may not have much luck avoiding publicity.”

He smiled gently. “We will see.”

I got up. “I’ll do what I can.”

He rose and walked to the door with me. “You have an absolutely free hand. Report to me when you see fit.”

We shook hands and I walked down to where my car was parked on the drive. As I got into the car I looked back. He was still framed rigidly in the lighted doorway.

When I awoke at six the next morning, rain was pouring down in bucketsful out of a blackly scowling sky. I padded out to get the paper and wondered why I made the effort to get up. In spite of the rain the air was close and I left the front door open and locked the screen.

There was less than a quarter-column on page two about Frank Weir’s death. The announcer had died suddenly at the broadcasting studio and I was an unidentified person who had discovered the body. There was no background stuff and Weir could have died from beriberi or old age. Police Lieutenant Walter Chun was withholding a full statement until he received the coroner’s report.

I put coffee on and shaved and showered and went into the bedroom to dress. I got as far as trousers and shoes when the rain momentarily let up in its fury and I heard the coffee pot rattle. I decided I had Underestimated it again and started through the living room toward the kitchen. I stopped and stared.

There was a tiny puddle of water on the floor inside the screen door. Drops left a trail to the kitchen. I went back to the bedroom and chose a pocket .32 from under the pile of shirts in the bureau. I slipped off the safety catch, came back to the living room and took a deep breath and slammed open the kitchen door.

Margo Merriam was seated at the kitchen table in the act of raising a cup of coffee to her lips. She was wearing a pale green slack suit, a white open-neck blouse and white leather rain-splotched wedgees. A white rain cape was thrown across the table. She peered over the coffee cup at the gun and then at the skivvie shirt.

“Enter the menace — muscles and all.”

“How did you get in here?”

She picked up the keyring on the table beside her and waved a gold penknife. “Used my key.”

“You get in many apartments this way?”

“I smelled coffee and heard the shower running. I didn’t want to disturb your bath.”

“What do you want?”

She eyed the gun and the biceps again, mostly the latter. “Put some clothes on, Johnny Ford. I won’t bite you.”

I gave up and went back to the bedroom and finished dressing. When I returned to the kitchen she was starting on a second cup of coffee. She reached for the bottle on the table and I winced. She had discovered my only bottle of cognac. She smiled sweetly.

“Makes a nice cup of coffee.”

I made bacon and eggs and ate in silence. Margo smoked and had a third brandy and coffee. I held the dishes under the tap and went out to the living room sofa. When Margo sat beside me, I got up and moved to a chair across the room.

“Still afraid I’ll bite, Johnny?”

I got a cigarette out of the battered pack. “I’m afraid to strike a match near you, Mrs. Merriam.”

“Call me Margo.” She got up and went into the kitchen and I heard the bottle rattle against the cup and she came back again. “I’m going to give up drinking as soon as I can think of a good reason.”

“Am I supposed to give you a reason?”

She stirred the coffee. “What an odd thing to ask.”

“You weren’t lured up here by my dashing charm.”

She grinned. “How can you be sure?”

“What do you want, Mrs. Merriam?”

“Margo.”

“Margo.”

She nodded. “You were following Frank last night.”

“You could be wrong.”

She shook her head. “Not after I learned you discovered his body — and were alone at the time.”

“You get around.”

She rested the cup on the end table. “That wasn’t funny when you used different words to say it last night.”

“Last night you walked out.”

“Let’s get something understood, Johnny,” she said flatly. “At present, all I’m interested in is a little information.”

“What do you want to know?”

Her look told me I ought not to lean over backwards. “You are a private detective.”

“It’s a legal occupation.”

“I know you couldn’t have anything against Frank, personally. I’ve got to know who hired you to kill him.”

I laughed out loud. “That’s a new approach.”

She gave me the smile again. “Don’t tell me the police have overlooked that possibility?”

“They considered it and they threw it out.”

She looked puzzled.

“Anybody who uses a .22 is either dumb or very, very good, sweetheart. The cops know I never rely on anything that small for my murders. What we ought to consider is a third possibility, to wit: small caliber guns fit nicely into women’s handbags.”

The wheels spun slowly. “You think Miss Gardas—?”

“Not necessarily—” I stared at her. “You do get around, don’t you?”

“If you say that again, I’m going to throw something at you.”

She leaned forward, chin in hand, and began to think aloud. “Frank and Miss Gardas were stealing money from the radio station. She came back last night to type those bills and they got into an argument. She waited her chance, watched him cut off the microphone switch and shot him.”

“Very neat. All wrapped up in a pretty package with no loose ends.”

“Certainly.”

“I like it better if she’s working at her desk and hears a shot. She goes out to the corridor, sees the killer and recognizes him — or her. Maybe the killer looks back or something. Then she gets scared and runs away.”

“That’s silly. They were both stealing money. You’ve got a perfect motive — thieves falling out. And maybe something more personal, too,” she added as an afterthought.

I eyed her. “I could be wrong.”

Margo opened her purse and took out a bill. “Have you got fifty dollars?”

“Why?”

“I’ll bet this hundred against it that you are wrong.”

The telephone rang and I crossed to it, still trying to read her expression.

“Ford?”

“Yeah.”

“Chun. We’ve got Miriam Gardas.”

“When?”

“About an hour ago out at Black Point.”

“What does the party have to say?”

“What’s the matter with you? Can’t you talk?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He paused. “We found her body out in the surf wedged between the rocks. She had two .22 slugs in her head. The tide was supposed to carry her out, I guess.”

“Any idea as to time?”

“She got it about the same time as Weir.”

“I see. Well, thanks for calling. Anything else — in general?”

“We’ve got people going around with Hardy’s salesmen to check Weir’s accounts. Might bring in something. I’m not betting on it. You get anything out of old man Merriam?”

“Nothing except he’s a pretty tough hombre.”

“You still working for him?”

“I guess so.”

“How much are you still working for him?”

“I’m not expected to run the police department, if that’s what you mean.”

“You coming down here?”

“Not right away. I want to do a little checking.”

“I’m not through with your client yet.”

I grinned. “I don’t blame you.”

“So long.”

“So long.” I hung up and turned back to Margo. “It’s been very nice, Mrs. Merriam, but now I’ve got work to do.” I went into the bedroom and got coat, hat and raincoat. I came back to the living room and Margo had put on the rain cape and was waiting at the door. She was eyeing me expectantly and still clutching the hundred dollar bill.

I looked at her and at the bill. I took the bill out of her hand, pocketed it and held the screen door open for her.

She glared at me. “I won’t ask you a thing, damn you.”

I grinned, bowed her out and followed her down the outside stairway. At the bottom, she crossed the street without looking back and climbed into a maroon Cadillac convertible.

The rain had slacked off to a drizzle and I walked unhurriedly around the building to the garage. I wanted to give her plenty of time to get away. I eased the coupe out into Kuhio and turned left, away from where she had been parked. As I expected, it didn’t do any good. By the time I got to Seaside I picked her up in the mirror. My beat-up coupe could never outdistance the Caddy and there wasn’t enough traffic in Waikiki to throw her off.

I burned up Seaside to Ala Wai, ignored the “Stop” sign and skidded around the corner towards town, narrowly missing an overloaded garbage truck. I did a fast couple of blocks down to Lewers, turned left again and picked out a driveway with a heavy panax hedge. I threw the wheel over, slid up the driveway and cut the ignition. I twisted in the seat and watched the big maroon convertible tear by, headed toward Kalakaua. I started to turn away and swiveled back again, blinking. Barreling along at a safe distance behind the Caddy was a heavy, black, chauffeur-driven Lincoln sedan. Leaning forward tensely in the rear seat was my client, Robert Merriam.

I hadn’t known I was leading a parade.

Chapter Three Lady Killer

By the time I got downtown, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining brightly. I parked, tossed my raincoat into the rumble and crossed the street and entered Dray’s Department Store.

I made my way across the main floor and up to the mezzanine offices. A cute, gum-chewing little thing led me into a larger office and turned me over to a formidable female of fifty odd. Mrs. Soames smiled agreeably enough when she learned I wasn’t selling anything and didn’t have any complaints for the management.

“Mr. Cooper has stepped out for a moment, Mr. Ford. If you’d care to wait?”

I said I would care to wait.

“Just step into his office. I’m sure he’ll be back in five minutes or so.”

The walls in Cooper’s office were chartreuse. Flanking the windows were a pair of framed charcoal drawings of horses’ heads executed in the anguished style of Donatello’s saints. They looked like they were going to die of malnutrition if somebody didn’t fetch a feedbag in a hell of a hurry. On the opposite wall hung an architect’s sketch of the Dray Building. The modern sofa and chairs to match were of blond Philippine mahogany, as was the large flat-top desk. A silver-framed photograph on the desk showed an aggressive looking aristocratic older woman. Her long face bore a disturbing resemblance to the charcoal drawings on the wall. Next to the photograph was a pipe rack containing half a dozen pipes. A couple of them had actually been smoked but not more than once or twice. I crossed to the windows and was staring into the street and not admiring the view when the door opened and Cooper barged in.

He was of medium height, slender, with darkish blond hair cropped rather close to his head. His face bore the same slight resemblance to a horse as the photograph on the desk. He was wearing a double-breasted Glen Urquart plaid, a blue oxford shirt with a gold collar pin and he was every inch the busy young executive.

“Mr. Ford,” he said briskly. “I’m Cooper. Sorry to keep you waiting.” He moved around the desk and sat down. “What can I do for you?”

I sat in the chair beside the desk, got out one of my cards and handed it over. The smile he reserved for his best charge accounts was replaced by a look of inquiry.

“You knew Frank Weir, Mr. Cooper?”

His face took on a look of gravity. “I heard about it this morning. Too bad, poor fellow.”

I matched his gravity. “I’m trying to get a line on Weir himself. I was hoping you could help me.”

“Well—” he threw out a hand deprecatingly.

“You knew him, didn’t you?”

“Hardly at all. You’d do much better to go to his employer or to some close friend.”

“I understand you had business relations with him.”

“Well,” he admitted reluctantly, “Weir was preparing a radio program for our sponsorship.”

“Any truth in the rumor that you had words with him over it?”

“Oh, good lord,” he said impatiently, “that was purely a matter of policy.” He paused. “I don’t like to speak harshly of the dead, Mr. Ford, but I’m sure you’ve encountered men of Weir’s type, yourself. He was making a nuisance of himself in the store and I was afraid that if he had the freedom of the premises much longer he’d be telling me how to run things. Since he wasn’t the sort to take a reasonable hint, I went directly to his employer. I gather you have talked to Hardy?”

“You know of any enemies he had? Anybody who might have a grudge against him?”

Cooper permitted himself a smirk. “Some little waitress’ husband, perhaps. I really wouldn’t know.”

“Just for the record, Mr. Cooper, where were you between eight and eight-thirty last night?”

Cooper reared up with a look of startled indignation.

“I just wanted to tip you off,” I shrugged. “It’s possible the police will be along with the same question. They check every angle in a murder case. You do remember what you were doing, don’t you?”

His face had a faraway look. “I remember perfectly what I was doing.”

“Well?”

His expression was noble and even more equine looking.

I grimaced. “O.K., a dame can alibi you. Is that it?”

He stood up, pale with anger. “Mr. Ford, as I understand it, you’re not from the police?”

“Right.”

“And you have no business in my office without my permission?”

“Right.”

“Then will you please get the hell out?” he shouted.

I sighed and got up. “If that’s the way you want it. I’ll see you around, Sir Galahad. Maybe we can split a bale of hay sometime.”

I went out and Mrs. Soames looked worried. I jerked a thumb over my shoulder. “He ought to watch that temper. It might lead to ulcers.”

I went down the steps to the main floor, stopped in Hardware and bought some washers for faucets that didn’t need repairing and used the occasion to look up toward the mezzanine. Cooper had come out to the rail and was eyeing me speculatively. I waved to him and sauntered out of the store.

I drove back to Waikiki, parked near the Outrigger Arcade and went up on the terrace and had lunch. The surfboard riders were out in full force and I stalled around watching them until shortly before two o’clock. Then I went into the pay telephone and dialed the radio station.

“I’m calling about Mr. Lecky’s appointment with Mr. Hardy.”

“Who is calling, please?”

I repeated what I had said before.

“Mr. Lecky is with Mr. Hardy now. Which one did you want?”

“Oh, he’s with Mr. Hardy now? Then it’s all right, thank you.” I hung up. I found Hardy’s home address in the directory and headed for Portlock Road.

It was a low, California-style house with a long lanai overlooking the bay. It was expensively furnished and had the everything-has-its-place look that the homes of childless couples usually have. A Japanese maid dawdled in the kitchen, trying to find something to do.

Helen Hardy seemed surprised and somewhat pleased to see me. She also turned out to be something of a chatterbox. She insisted on making gin fizzes and I insisted on helping. She insisted I call her “Helen” and I agreed as long as she called me “Johnny.”

It was peaceful in the cool shade of the lanai. I settled comfortably in a rattan lounge chair and watched the rays of the afternoon sun play over the ripples on the water. It was the first moment of silence Helen had permitted. After a polite interval she said: “This isn’t exactly a social visit, is it, Johnny?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“You want me to talk about Frank Weir, is that it?”

“I’d like to get your slant on it. Did he have any actual enemies that you know of?”

She played with her glass. “Frank could be irritating enough, but I don’t know of anyone who disliked him enough to kill him.”

“Where was he from?”

“I don’t know, really. Just after the war he sent a transcribed audition to the radio station. Watson liked his voice and sent him an offer. I believe he was at some station in the midwest at that time but he never replied to Watson’s letter. Then, about a year ago, he turned up in Honolulu. It so happened that Watson needed another announcer and was delighted to give him the job.” She stared out at the water. “He was rather sweet at first and we more or less sponsored him among our friends. He was a bit older than the average station announcer and he had traveled a lot. It was nice to have an extra man around — for parties and things.” She looked to see if I had misinterpreted her.

I let her see that my thoughts were innocent. “By the way, you and Mr. Hardy can account for your movements last night, I suppose?”

She attempted a look of surprise.

I grinned. “If Chun hasn’t asked you yet, it’s because he hasn’t gotten around to it. It might save some embarrassment if you got it squared away in your mind.”

She had tensed but it could be a perfectly natural reaction. “We had dinner at the Outrigger Canoe Club.” She paused and studied my face. “And in case you’re remembering that the Outrigger is only a few blocks from the station. I can swear that no one left the table for more than five minutes. Then we came straight to the station. The first we knew of Frank’s death was when we met Lieutenant Chun outside.”

I finished my drink and rested it on the floor beside my chair. “You were saying that Weir changed after you got to know him?”

Helen pulled her mind back with effort. “I don’t think he really changed. It was just that at first he was concerned with creating a good impression.”

“He did act differently later?”

She shrugged. “He gradually drifted away from our little group. He found more excitement, I suppose, and gayer parties.” There was a hint of bitterness in her voice. “He drank an awful lot and he began to have trouble about money. I suppose he needed more money to keep up with his faster set.”

“Meaning Margo Merriam?”

Two white patches appeared at the sides of her nostrils. Her mouth was tight. “He had met Margo by that time, yes.”

“I gather you don’t care for Margo.”

Her nostrils quivered and the patches grew whiter. “I think she’s flashy and common and a man-chaser.”

“In short, you don’t approve of her.”

“In short, she’s a five-letter word.”

“Your husband said something about Margo and Paul Cooper.”

“Paul Cooper wouldn’t marry her in a million years,” Helen said with relish.

“You still talking about Margo?”

She nodded.

“What about the husband she’s already got?”

“People get divorces, Johnny.”

I must have looked incredulous.

Helen grinned. “I ran into her in the powder room at the Royal a few months ago. She was quite stinko and she said she had a confession to make. Why she picked on me, I’ll never know. We aren’t friends. She said she was going to divorce Robert Merriam and marry Paul. She even said they already had their silver pattern picked out. I didn’t believe a word of it but you never can tell.”

“But nothing happened?”

“Nothing. She just stares right through me when she sees me now. But Paul would never marry her.”

“Why not?”

“Paul gets around. He knows how to handle his women.” There was a glint of admiration and perhaps a touch of longing in her eyes.

“What’s Cooper like?”

“Lots of charm. A perfect gentleman.”

“You mean he sends flowers and always lights your cigarette for you?”

She laughed. “You sound like Watson. Yes, he is very thoughtful. But he’s not a professional hand-kisser. I know what you’re thinking. Most men of that sort make a career out of it to hide their stupidity or to hide the fact that they’re not such great shakes as men. But Paul is not like that. He’s sophisticated and intelligent. And he does give exquisite dinner parties and he’s a beautiful dancer. Watson doesn’t like to dance,” she said sadly.

I decided it was time to change the subject. “What about young MacAvoy? Did he have any particular reason to hate Weir?”

“Good heavens, no! I don’t think he approved of Frank’s private life but he admired his work tremendously. As a matter of fact, Frank took a liking to Rex and used to coach him in little tricks of the trade. Frank had his good side when he wasn’t thinking about himself.”

“Do you know Robert Merriam?”

“I’ve only seen him a few times. He’s a sweet person. Very shy, though, and much too good for that creature he married.”

I grinned and got up. “Thanks for everything. Helen. I’d better be getting along before that husband of yours comes home and thinks this is a rendezvous.”

She was disappointed. “I wish you didn’t have to go.” Then she brightened. “But now that we’ve become acquainted you’ll have to come out for dinner soon and tell us all about your interesting work.”

I gritted my teeth inwardly and said I would be delighted.

She called to me as I was getting in the car: “Maybe we’ll see you at the broadcast tonight. You’ll surely be there?”

I nodded and waved and rolled out of the driveway.

Chapter Four One Motive Missing

Helen Hardy was a lonely woman. She talked about people with the intentness of a person who has few friends and has spent many lonely hours in conjecture. From her attitude, I guessed she thought Watson would throw her over in a minute for a smile from Margo. I agreed with her. From the little I had observed, Watson would stumble all over himself to play the dancing cavalier if Margo so much as batted an eyelash. The fact that Margo probably thought Watson wasn’t worth the trouble would only twist the knife deeper in Helen. I noticed absently that a sedan had pulled alongside and I slowed to let it pass.

Apparently, this was not the idea.

The sedan moved half a length ahead and slowly forced me off the road. I pulled off and stopped and the sedan parked in front of me. There were two men in the front seat and I saw the driver reach up and adjust the rear-view mirror. Then the two men got out opposite sides of the car. The driver was a long drink of water with a thin face sandwiched between big, pointed ears that stuck straight out from his head. The short one wore his head hammered down between his shoulders, an interesting arrangement that permitted him to dispense with a neck. His nose was flattened and there were scarred ridges on brow and cheekbone. He spat and announced: “It’s him, all right.”

“It is he,” I said mildly.

“Get out of the car, Mac,” Big-ears said dreamily.

“I like it here.”

“We want to talk to you, Mac.”

“Start talking.”

“Get around to the other side, Shorty,” said Big-ears.

I slid out the other side, slammed the door and backed up against the car as Shorty approached. Big-ears opened the door on his side, crawled over the seat and snaked a hand at my throat as Shorty closed in. I grabbed the hand, gave a yank, and kicked Shorty in the belly. Big-ears’ head hit the door frame with a satisfying smash and Shorty sat down with a grunt. Big-ears crawled painfully out his side of the car and Shorty stared stupidly at the ground between his knees. I twisted at the car door, cursing myself for not having a gun.

“You hadn’t ought to of done that, Mac.” Big-ears came around the rear of the car, rubbing his head.

I started for him and stopped at the sight of the .45 in his right fist

“All we wanted was to have a little talk with you. Get up, Shorty,” he said patiently.

Shorty got to his feet, grunted and rushed at me.

“Hold it,” said Big-ears. “We will go into the cane field and make a little conversation.” He gestured toward the dense eight-foot sugar cane.

I looked up and down the straight stretch of highway. There wasn’t a car in sight and none had passed since we stopped. Big-ears watched me, smiled sadly and wagged the big gun in the direction of the field. I went.

I pushed about twenty-five yards through the thick cane and Big-ears called a halt.

“We just wanted to talk peaceful, Mac. We wanted to ask you a little favor.”

“Why, certainly. Anything at all,” I said generously.

“We’re bringing you the word, Mac: stick to your crooked divorce racket and leave killings to the cops.”

Ordinarily, I have better sense. I said: “Put that big gun away before you hurt yourself, jughead. You and your comic friend couldn’t scare a bad case of hiccoughs.”

Big-ears stepped back. “We don’t want to scare anybody. We just think you’re going to listen to reason. Take him, Shorty!”

I whirled in time to catch Shorty’s right square in the midriff. I doubled over trying to vomit and my face ran into a pile driver. I straightened without any effort on my part and the pile driver landed in my stomach again and I went down. I wanted to stay down. A heel ground into the side of my face. Through the haze a hand reached for my throat and I saw Shorty’s twisted, sweating face floating above it. I grabbed the hand blindly and pulled him down. I slid out from under, rolled on top of him and pushed up on the arm with everything I had. I heard the bone snap and Shorty scream and then the toe of a size twelve boot crashed into my temple. It didn’t feel any worse than being bashed on top of the head with a pickaxe.

Sleep seemed very important to me.

Through the tall tops of the cane, stars twinkled in rhythm to the throbbing in my head. I remembered where I was and decided it would be a good idea to lie here until they harvested the cane. I could spend a week walking in circles within a few yards of the road and never see it. Besides, I wasn’t feeling very well.

A heavy truck rumbled by on my left. I got up and limped in the direction of the sound. The car was where I had left it and there was no sign of Big-ears or Shorty. I climbed in and headed for a hot bath and some adhesive tape. My face felt as though it had been over-matched with a meat grinder.

The broadcast was under way when I arrived at the station and the big Studio-A was packed with a grinning audience seated on folding chairs. MacAvoy was in the control room and the four guest stars were seated at a long table at the far end of the studio. Watson Hardy sat at a small table on the left, wisecracking in his rapid-fire, high-pitched voice.

I looked the guest stars over. Margo was wearing Chinese pajamas; wide black velvet trousers, pink brocade coat that flared stiffly at the hips, long earrings and a black velvet turban effect on her blonde hair. Fred Fisher, the correspondent, was a big, jolly, gross-looking man with unruly blond hair. He was wearing gray flannels, a corn-colored sport shirt and a horse blanket sport coat. He rarely took his eyes off Margo, even when he was answering questions. Paul Cooper sat upright and casual in a white dinner jacket. I eyed it enviously and made a mental note to find out the name of his tailor. The fourth member of the quartet, Professor Snowden, was a bright little woman in her sixties. Her humor was dry and witty and she was having the time of her life. When she wanted to answer a question her eyes popped, her lips pursed and she waved her hand as energetically as any fifth grader.

I saw that Hardy had splurged on promotion. Everybody on the program was wearing an expensive, fragrant, white ginger lei. Even the members of the studio audience had each been handed a three-strand pikake lei. I spotted Lieutenant Chun in the crowd of standees and moved over beside him. He stared at my face.

“Where you been?” he whispered. “Diving on the reef?”

“Doing your work for you,” I whispered back. “Anything new?”

“So far, we make Weir short almost three thousand in his accounts.”

I leered at him. “Is that all you got, Lieutenant?”

He leered right back. “Merriam’s Lincoln was parked in front of the studio after eight o’clock last night. Cop on the beat identified it.”

I bit my sore lip and winced. I remembered pulling in behind a departing Lincoln last night.

Now I remembered it.

Chun said: “We’re going to have a session in Hardy’s office after the broadcast. You want to sit in?”

“What do you think? Have you seen Merriam around?”

“Back in Hardy’s office with Mrs. Hardy. They’re listening on the radio in there.”

I eased through the crowd, went out to the front entrance and spoke long and repetitiously to Nixon, the cop stationed at the door. Then I went back to wait with my client and Mrs. Hardy.

We crowded into Hardy’s office — MacAvoy, Helen and Watson Hardy, Chun, Cooper, Margo and Robert Merriam. Hardy grabbed off the place of honor behind his desk and waved us all to seats.

“Well, here we are,” he intoned, “a council of war to get at the facts, to pool our resources—” He stopped abruptly when he saw Chun eyeing him clinically. “Ah, perhaps you’d better take over, Lieutenant, now that we’re all here.”

Chun thrust his hands down in his pockets and allowed his eyes to run over the watchful, guarded faces around the room.

“Three of you,” he began quietly, “acting without knowledge of each other’s efforts, have exerted what influence you could to kill publicity in this case and to have the police investigation follow any lead that would take it away from the group here tonight. Those three are Mr. Merriam, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Hardy.

“This is interesting because in the past twenty-four hours I have uncovered what could be a motive for nearly everybody here. In fact, there are so many near-motives that I got you all here tonight to take it up from another angle. I want to warn you, however,” his voice grew deceptively gentle, “if I don’t get what I want, I’m going to dig back into the lives of every one of you from the day you were born. And that goes for the three gentlemen whose names I have mentioned.”

He bowed politely in their direction and turned to Rex MacAvoy.

“How soon did you leave after Weir relieved you?”

Perspiration stood out on MacAvoy’s forehead. “About two minutes, sir.”

“And you say you didn’t see anybody?”

“No, sir, I swear it.”

Chun turned to Merriam. “Then I guess you got here after MacAvoy left the studio.”

Eyes turned on Merriam who straightened tiredly. “Undoubtedly, I did.”

Chun’s face was impassive. “You want to tell the story in your own words, Mr. Merriam?”

“Perhaps that would be best.” He studiously ignored Margo who was watching him curiously.

“I came to see Mr. Weir on a personal matter and I wanted to see him alone. As I started to get out of the car, I saw a man and a woman come down the steps. I sat back and waited until they vanished down the street. I didn’t recognize them but I was too concerned with avoiding their scrutiny to observe very closely. When they were gone, I entered the building and walked down the corridor to where Mr. Weir was broadcasting. I found him — dead. When I saw there was nothing I could do, I left the building as quickly as possible with the hope that no one saw me. As I said, my reason for wanting to see Mr. Weir was personal and I had no desire to have to explain it. I understand now that a policeman saw my car parked in front of the building.” He smiled grimly. “I realize, of course, that the story of a mysterious unidentified couple is an unlikely one, but it happens to be the truth.”

I looked at my watch and eased over to Hardy’s desk. The motion attracted Chun’s attention and he asked quietly: “You like it?”

I nodded. “That couple was the killer and Miss Gardas.”

He examined me thoughtfully and I fought against the temptation to look at my watch again. “Mrs. Merriam?” he asked.

I looked at Margo and she looked at me and I wasn’t sure of anything. I lit a cigarette, puffed at it too forcefully, stared at its lighted end judiciously and wondered what I was going to say next. Then the phone rang. Chun and Hardy reached for it and I got it.

Nixon, out at the receptionist’s desk, said: “Mr. Ford?”

“Yes.”

“Is it all right to tell Chun that you told me to do this?”

“Sure, he’s right here now.” I handed the phone to Chun.

The room was silent as he listened. I watched the tense and uneasy faces until Chun said: “O.K., I got it. Thanks.” He hung up and looked at me.

“I didn’t get the details about that beating you took.”

I shrugged.

“He says they got the two men who did it.”

“How did they do that?” I asked innocently.

“Found the sedan. It was a hot car and all the fingerprints had been wiped off the doors and steering wheel.”

“Then how did they get the guys?”

“Like you guessed they would — a right thumbprint on the rearview mirror. The big fellow’s thumb matched it and the short one had a cracked shoulder joint.”

“Who were they?”

“He says they work for Dray’s.”

We both turned on Cooper. He got a leather cigarette case from his inside coat pocket, lit a cigarette calmly with a gold Dunhill lighter. “Why, in heaven’s name, should two of Dray’s employes want to give Ford a beating?”

“I was just going to ask you that,” Chun said softly.

“What were the names of those two men, Lieutenant?”

“He didn’t give the names.”

“Will you call back and get them for me?” He frowned. “Perhaps it was a private grudge. Perhaps Mr. Ford can explain why he was beaten up?”

“I think I can,” I said. “Somebody thought there was enough pressure on to make the police stay away from the facts. He didn’t want me nosing around on the outside, so he had those two goons give me the treatment. I’m talking about you.”

Cooper stared at me blankly. “You do carry your personal dislikes to extremes, don’t you?”

I said to Merriam: “This is going to hurt but it’s got to come out.”

He inclined his head resignedly and I turned to Chun.

“Weir was a clever weakling and a petty crook — the kind of person who would use a frame or blackmail to get what he wanted, He fell for Mrs. Merriam. But Mrs. Merriam had set her sights on Cooper and there is evidence that she intended to marry him. Cooper, on the other hand, had different ideas. He enjoyed playing around with Margo and she was useful and attractive to him. He’s a good businessman and he made a lot of nice contacts through the dashing Mrs. Robert Merriam.

“Cooper’s aim was to win friends and influence people and stay in business,” I went on. “He knew he wouldn’t get anything but antagonism and bad publicity if he broke up the home of a well-known and well-liked man. And all he’d have to show for it would be a cute little number with no money and few real friends. I think he counted the cost and decided against it.

“Neither of them figured on Weir. Weir had something on Cooper — maybe on both of them. He asked Margo to stop seeing Cooper and she told him to go roll his hoop. So he tried to blackmail Cooper. The irony is that Cooper was perfectly willing to give Margo up but it was something that couldn’t be done overnight — not with Margo — and Cooper couldn’t or wouldn’t stoop to explain that to Weir.

“Last night Weir saw Margo for a showdown and didn’t get anywhere. When he got back to the station, he telephoned Cooper and Cooper came over to the station to silence him one way or another. Unfortunately for herself, Miriam Gardas picked last night to come back to the station. She heard the shot from her office and came running. Why Cooper took her out to Black Point, I don’t know, unless she said something that made Cooper suspect she knew about the blackmail. Instead of killing her here, he took her away to find out whatever it was. Whether he found out or not, doesn’t matter. He couldn’t let her live under any circumstances.”

Chun shook his head.

I said: “Too many holes?”

He shrugged and turned to Cooper.

Cooper ducked out his cigarette elaborately and said: “I suppose your brilliant deductions have shown you how I could be in two places at the same time?”

“You weren’t,” I said bluntly.

“Correct. As you so elegantly phrased it this morning, Mr. Ford, ‘A dame can alibi me.’”

“You’re going to need her.”

He smiled rigidly.

Margo adjusted a cigarette in the long holder without looking up. “Paul was with me. Or rather, I was with him at his apartment.”

“Are you satisfied?” Cooper snarled “It was a harmless evening.” he apologized. “We played records and had drinks. There would be no reason to bring it up at all—”

“But you were late, Paul.” Margo waved the long holder and peered, brighteyed, through the curling smoke. “When no one answered the bell, I went back to the car and waited. Almost half an hour.” She paused for effect. “I watched you go in. Then I gave you five minutes and followed you upstairs. That’s how I happened to notice that both the dashboard clock and my wrist-watch agreed on the time — five minutes to nine.”

Cooper stared fixedly at Margo. He got out the leather case and selected a cigarette without looking at it. Somehow, he seemed to be enjoying the situation. He replaced the case and when his hand came into view it was holding a snub-nosed Colt Banker’s Special. I remembered academically that they came in two calibers, .22 and .38, and you couldn’t tell them apart from a distance. The thought struck me that I didn’t have to guess which caliber this one was.

Cooper coughed loudly and artificially.

The door to the lavatory swung open and Big-ears, his sad smile, and his .45 moved into the room. Shorty followed with a mate to the .45 in his good hand. I noticed with satisfaction that his other arm was taped to his body. The pair fanned out and Cooper sidled over and locked the corridor door.

“That phone call was a rather neat trick, Lieutenant. If I hadn’t heard them climbing through the window, I would have been tempted to believe you.” He grinned at me. “I suspect Ford had a hand in that little strategy. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to find your guess was a good one — that Jonesy did forget to wipe that rear-view mirror. What about it, Jonesy?”

Jonesy of the big ears shook his head sadly. “I wouldn’t be surprised myself, Mr. Cooper.”

Cooper’s face was drawn. “I didn’t want to kill Weir, though I probably deserve a vote of thanks for performing that public service. I am extremely sorry about Miss Gardas but as Ford surmised, Weir had confided in her and there was nothing else I could do. Unfortunately, there is a law against it and thanks again to Mr. Ford, my position in Honolulu is, ah, untenable. I intend to retire to the more hospitable shores of the mainland and try a fresh start.

“Now, we are going to exit through that lavatory window and get into the rear of the panel truck parked outside. Then we’re going to make a quick trip across the Island to where you will all be hidden for a few days.”

Helen Hardy gasped and Cooper looked at her apologetically.

“You will have to do without food for two or three days but it won’t do you any real harm. I promise that as soon as we are safe I will see to it that word gets back telling the authorities where you are hidden. I’m sorry we can’t treat you any better but you all understand our circumstances. If you come along quietly, you will not be mistreated in any way.”

“Correction, boss,” Shorty spoke up, looking at me. “It’s gonna be kind of lonely holed up on the Coast and I want some happy thoughts to keep me company.” He grinned wickedly and gestured at his broken shoulder. “I’m gonna give the guy who did this something to remember me by.”

Cooper shrugged. “Jonesy, climb out and open the truck. And Kain, you get Lieutenant Chun’s gun and search Mr. Ford.”

Jonesy turned toward the lavatory and Shorty started for Chun. Suddenly there was a nasty, coughing sound. I didn’t see anything but I smelled the faint aroma of cordite. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cooper start to sag as I leaped. I smashed my left fist into Shorty’s injured shoulder and grabbed for his gun with my right. He let out a groan and his fingers loosened on the gun. I muffed it and it slipped to the floor.

I dove for it as a big gun exploded into action but no slugs tore into my back. Shorty reeled against the wall, gripping his injured shoulder. I clouted him on the jaw with the gun butt and he went down. I whirled in time to watch Jonesy slide slowly down the door frame with a faintly annoyed look on his face. Cooper was spread-eagled on the floor, clawing at it feebly. Chun holstered his Police Positive and I looked at Margo Merriam.

She was sitting in the same position, leaning forward slightly, the long cigarette holder pointing toward the ceiling. Her right hand rested firmly on the open evening bag in her lap and gripped a pearl-handled .25 automatic. The gun angled down at Cooper and she was still pulling the trigger convulsively. She was wearing a stiff smile and something that wasn’t nice glittered in her eyes. I went over and took the gun away from her and laid it on the desk.

Cooper held onto life for almost eight hours before his stomach gave up trying to digest those six lead pills. Before he died he told us that most of what we guessed had been correct.

The apartment manager of the building in which Cooper lived was a woman. Weir had turned on the charm and told her that he was going to play a practical joke on Cooper. What he had done was to introduce a recorder and a mike into Cooper’s apartment. Margo had visited Cooper that night and, apparently, it had been a very warm evening for December.

On the night of his death, Frank Weir had called Cooper and played the record for him over the phone. Cooper went to the station immediately afterwards. Weir had boasted to Miriam Gardas of what he had done and Cooper was lucky enough to destroy Weir, the record and Miss Gardas all within the same half hour — if you can call it lucky.

Jonesy died in Hardy’s office and Shorty Kain drew twenty years.

Nothing happened to Margo, naturally. She fired in self-defense at a murderer-kidnaper. Who could argue about that? I wish I could say that the Merriams lived together happily ever after.

They are still married and living together, period.

After things quieted down, I got a couple of telephone calls from Margo. But I have lived long enough to know when I am well off. I haven’t seen her since, though I did find out one thing from her — the name of Cooper’s tailor. I like my new white dinner jacket. I’ll say that for Cooper, he had very good taste — about clothes.