Chain Of Death

CHAPTER V MURDERERS TALK

IT was nine o’clock the next morning. The Zenith Building’s business day had begun. The massive skyscraper, glistening like a marble pinnacle in the sun, was thronged with hordes of workers.

Morning newspapers had blared the story of George Hobston’s murder. To the workers in the Zenith Building, the killing in 3318 was a subject of intense discussion. Few of them had ever heard of George Hobston. The dead man’s name was but one of hundreds on the big boards in the lobby. Yet the fact that he had been murdered in the Zenith Building was real news to the working inhabitants of that particular skyscraper.

A portly, gray-haired gentleman heard the talk of Hobston’s death as he rode up to the thirtieth floor. Alighting from the elevator, this man approached an office that bore the name:

Entering, he nodded pleasantly to the office force, which consisted of two stenographers and a young man who looked like a recent graduate of law school. He continued through a door marked “Private.”

This man was Culbert Joquill. He was in his own office. Massive bookcases lined the walls; from floor to ceiling they were filled with buckram-bound volumes that pertained to the law. Joquill seated himself behind a mahogany desk and stared in beaming fashion from the window.

A stenographer entered with the mail. Joquill opened letters, read them, and dictated replies in the stentorian tone that he might have saved for addressing a jury. This finished, he arose and walked to the door as the stenographer went back into the larger office.

“I do not care to be disturbed for the next half hour,” he announced. “If any clients call, tell them that they must wait. I am preparing an important brief. I shall notify you when I have finished.”

To emphasize his statement, Culbert Joquill closed the door of his inner office and turned the key. Walking back toward the window, he stopped at a bookcase and removed two volumes from a lower shelf. Pressing his fingers into a crevice, he clicked a hidden catch.

Stepping back, he drew a section of the bookcase outward on a hinge. The action revealed a small room, no more than six feet square.

A man was seated on a rumpled couch. He arose with a grin as the bookcase opened. He stepped into Joquill’s private office. The light from the window showed the evil leer upon his lips. It marked his face as that of the man who had murdered George Hobston and thrust Howard Norwyn into the vault room of 3318.

CULBERT JOQUILL closed the bookcase. He waved the ugly-faced man to a chair; then took his own position behind the desk. He smiled placidly as the man from the little room put an eager, whispered question:

“Did you read the newspapers?”

Culbert Joquill nodded.

“Did they get him?” The man question. “Did they get Norwyn? What did he have to say?”

“They did not get him,” responded Joquill, in a quiet tone. “However, it does not matter. His name is given in the newspapers; he is suspected as the murderer of George Hobston. What is more important — to myself as well as to you — is the name they did not mention. The newspapers say nothing regarding Garry Hewes.”

The ugly-lipped man grinned. This statement referred to him. He could see a pleased look on Joquill’s face. He settled back into the chair.

“Substantially,” declared the lawyer, in a soft tone, “the story is this. George Hobston entered his office at nine o’clock. At nine fifteen, Howard Norwyn arrived. Apparently, Norwyn must have threatened Hobston, who overpowered him, placed him in the vault room and called the watchman.

“Norwyn, however, had a gun. He managed to shoot Hobston. Then — probably due to Hobston’s neglect in locking the grilled door — Norwyn escaped. The building was searched. No trace was found of him.”

“The police found the gun?”

“No.”

“You just mentioned that they said he had one.”

“I was stating the theory as advanced by the police. The evidence against Howard Norwyn is purely circumstantial. Read the newspapers after you leave here. Form your own conclusions.”

Garry Hewes was staring from the window. His face was speculative. Culbert Joquill seemed to be awaiting his henchman’s reply. Garry spoke in a puzzled tone.

“Here’s what happened Joquill,” he stated. “I stayed here after five o’clock yesterday afternoon. I kept in the hideout behind the bookcase. I heard the scrub women come in and go out. I waited until half past eight.

“Then I went up to Hobston’s office. I found a good place to hide in his outer office. I intended to threaten him; to make him open the vault before Norwyn arrived. That was where I got a break. Hobston opened the vault himself. I didn’t lose any time. I piled in from the outside office and plugged him in the back.

“With Hobston dead, the game was to plant it on Norwyn. So I lugged Hobston to the desk and fixed him so his back was toward the vault room. I turned out the light in the big office. I waited there until Norwyn arrived.

“He saw the open vault room. He saw Hobston’s body. Then I whacked him. Shoved him in the vault room and put the death gun in his mitt. I figured he’d come to inside of five minutes. So I made a phony call to the watchman in the lobby. I fired a shot out through the window; made a couple of gargles; then beat it.

“I left Norwyn to be the goat. I never thought he’d manage to get out. That lock on the vault-room door must have jammed. Norwyn had sense enough to beat it when he came to his senses.

“Anyway, I came back here. I laid in the hideout; I heard searchers coming through this office. I figured that Norwyn must have been found; that he said the real murderer was somewhere in the building. I thought they were making a search to find out if he was right. Now you tell me that it was Norwyn they were hunting for.”

“Precisely,” nodded Culbert Joquill. “Joe Cardona, the smart detective, fell for your idea. He decided that Hobston overpowered Norwyn and shoved him in the vault room. Hence, as I remarked before, Norwyn’s successful flight has made him a marked man. No one will believe his story when he is captured. He is definitely a fugitive.”

“Good,” said Garry, with a grin. He nudged his thumb toward the bookcase. “The swag is back there — all those securities and the cash that Hobston owned for himself. I left the other stuff — the stocks and bonds marked with the names of clients — in the vault room to make it look bad for Norwyn.”

“Did you get Hobston’s private book?”

“I did. Here it is.” Garry produced a leather-bound pocket memorandum. “It tallies exactly with the swag. More than half a million total.”

CULBERT JOQUILL took the little book and smiled as he thumbed the pages. Finished with his brief inspection, the gray-haired lawyer chuckled.

“This office is very similar to Hobston’s,” he remarked. “Like his suite, this one has its strong-room.” He pointed toward the bookcase. “However, I found it most suitable to close off my little alcove.

“Lucky, isn’t it, that the police never suspected a space behind that bookcase? They took it for granted that this was just an ordinary law office. Those books, with the thin wood work behind them, form a better barrier than the grilled door to Hobston’s vault room.”

“I found that out last night,” returned Garry.

“This office,” remarked Joquill, as an added thought, “differs in one respect from Hobston’s. It has a door of its own leading to the hall. That is essential in a lawyer’s office. It is always poor policy to usher clients out through the anteroom.

“So you, Garry, can leave by my private exit.” The attorney pointed to a door at the far end of the room. “You were here yesterday before the watchman went on duty; you are leaving during business hours to-day. Communicate with me later — about the end of the week.”

Garry Hewes arose. He turned toward the exit. He took a few paces; then turned and came back to the desk. He stood there with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Listen, Joquill,” he stated. “You and I are in the same boat. You ordered Hobston’s death and I went through with it. That was the best arrangement, because you and I are different.

“You’re a big-timer. I’m nothing but an ordinary gorilla that you imported from the Middle West. I’ve got sense enough to stay away from gangsters here in New York because you’ve paid me good money to play I was respectable.

“You’re smart, Joquill. You moved in here a month ago; you fixed this hideout in simple fashion. But you didn’t pick the Zenith Building just for fun. You took it because you were gunning for George Hobston. Am I right?”

“Certainly,” smiled Joquill.

“Well,” resumed Garry, with an uneasy shift, “that’s what bothers me. The hideout worked; the job’s gone through; but there’s a couple of points that don’t look so good.

“How did you find out that Hobston was hoarding his securities — that he had a lot of real dough stored in his vault with no record except the little book in his pocket?

“How did you arrange it for Hobston to come to his office last night; and how did you fix it so that Norwyn would be there for my frame-up?”

Garry Hewes paused. Culbert Joquill frowned. His tone was cold as he replied to his henchman’s questions.

“Those matters,” asserted the old lawyer, “do not concern you, Garry. Forget them.”

“I can’t forget them,” pleaded Garry. “They do concern me. I figure you must have known Hobston personally. What’s more, you must have pulled some gag to get him and Norwyn into the office last night. Suppose the police get working right. Suppose this smart dick, Cardona, finds the trail to you. What then?”

A broad smile appeared on Culbert Joquill’s crafty lips. The lawyer’s frown was gone. Joquill had taken Garry’s questions as an unwarranted attempt to pry into affairs which did not concern him; but the henchman’s explanation of his qualms were justification.

“Do not worry,” purred Joquill, in a confidential tone. “You have admitted that I am smart. Take my word for it that the police will never trace me. I knew that George Hobston had that secret wealth in his vault. I knew that he and Howard Norwyn would be at the office last night.

“Yet I made no effort to trace those facts. To me, George Hobston and Howard Norwyn were nothing more than names. Let us regard the whole matter as one of coincidence. Better, let us state that I acted upon sudden inspiration; that the possibilities of crime came to me as in a dream.

“I am serious, Garry.” Joquill set his fist upon the desk. “Between those facts and myself is a breach that can never be leaped. No one will ever know how I came to enter into this successful episode of crime. You think of me as a crafty schemer, do you not? Let me tell you more: I have a certain possession — we might say talisman — that makes my position invulnerable.

“I did not need you for a henchman. I chose you simply because I knew your past; because I was positive that you were a strong-armed worker upon whom I could rely. I do not care to play an active part in crime. I have taken you as an instrument with which to work.

“I am the brain, so far as you are concerned. You know that I planned Hobston’s death some weeks ago. It occurred on perfect schedule. Do you think that my plans came to an abrupt ending with last night?”

Rising, Culbert Joquill approached his henchman. He clapped his hand upon Garry’s shoulder; then drew the ugly-faced killer toward the door to the hall.

“Forget your worries,” suggested Joquill. “You are safe because my position is secure. My part in this entire episode has been one of complete concealment. I am a recognized attorney; the fact that I have an office in the Zenith Building means nothing.

“I am but one of hundreds of other tenants. So far as Hobston’s death is concerned, I am but a chance reader of the newspaper accounts. You understand?”

Garry Hewes nodded. His qualms were allayed. Turning, this tool who had performed murder stalked, unseen, from Culbert Joquill’s private exit.

THE old lawyer chuckled as he returned to his desk. Taking pen and sheet of paper, he inscribed a series of odd-shaped circles. They apparently formed a code.

This done, Joquill began another peculiar inscription, formed with a succession of block-like characters in several lines.

Joquill placed the sheets together; he folded them and put them in an envelope. From memory, he made duplicates of each sheet, folded these pairs together and put them into a second envelope.

The lawyer addressed the envelopes and placed stamps upon them. Rising, he strolled to the door of the outer office, unlocked it and walked from his own room. He nodded to two clients who were seated on a bench and remarked that he would soon be back to interview them.

Stepping into the corridor, Joquill continued toward the elevators. There, he posted his letters in the mail chute. Wearing the ghost of a smile, the gray-haired attorney came back through the outer office and continued into his private room. He pressed a buzzer. A stenographer appeared to find him behind the desk.

“I am ready to see the gentlemen who are waiting,” declared Joquill, quietly. “You may usher them in here.”

With hands folded upon the desk, Culbert Joquill looked the part of a conservative English barrister. His task of crime had been completed; the mailing of those coded notes had been the aftermath of his talk with Garry Hewes.

The hideout closed; its occupant gone; the spoils of George Hobston’s vault stowed safely from view, Culbert Joquill had no worry. He was resuming the role which he could play so well because it was his actual capacity: that of a consulting attorney.

Murder remained unavenged; and Culbert Joquill was confident that no investigator in all New York could possibly trace crime to him.