Give ’Em the Ax

17

I drove the agency car fast, taking chances on a speeding ticket. It would have been a good plan to have parked it a block or two away from Billy Prue’s apartment, but I didn’t have the time. I drove right up to the apartment house, parked the car in front of the door, ran up the steps and rang Billy Prue’s bell.

It was one chance in ten — one chance in a hundred. If she was there at all, she would be packing up, but... I rang the bell again.

Nothing happened.

The lock on the outer door was pretty well worn. Any key that would fit the grooves would work the lock. I didn’t even have to bother with my skeleton keys. The key to my own apartment worked the lock on the outer door.

I went up to Billy Prue’s apartment. I knocked on the door twice. There was no sound from the interior. The place was thick with silence.

I took out my skeleton keys and tried one in the lock. It didn’t work.

Before I could take it out, the door was jerked open from the inside.

Billy Prue said sarcastically, “Make yourself right at home! Walk right in... Oh, it’s you!”

“Why don’t you answer a knock on your door?” I asked her.

Her hand went up to her throat. She said, “You scared the living daylights out of me.”

“You didn’t act like it.”

“I didn’t dare to. Why didn’t you say who it was?”

“How could I?”

“You could have called through the door.”

I carefully closed the door behind me and made sure that the spring lock clicked into place. I said, “That would have been nice — stand out in the hall and yell, ‘Yoo-hoo, Billy, this is Donald Lam, the private detective. I want to see you on business. Open up!’ ”

“Oh,” she said, “on business, is it?”

I looked around the room. The door to the bedroom was open. The bed was pretty well covered with folded clothes. There were two big suitcases and a steamer trunk on the floor, also a couple of hat boxes.

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t expect me to stay here, would you?”

“Not if you could find some other place.”

“I’ve found another place.”

“Where?”

“With a friend.”

I said, “Sit down for a minute. We’ve got to talk.”

“I want to get out of here, Donald. It’s terribly depressing and — and I’m afraid!”

“What are you afraid of?”

She hastily averted her eyes. “Nothing.”

“Delightfully logical,” I said.

“Shut up. You don’t have to be logical when you’re afraid.”

“Perhaps not.”

I stretched out in a comfortable chair, lit a cigarette and said, “Let’s talk some sense.”

“What about?”

“About the murder.”

“Do we have to talk about it?”

“Yes.”

“What about it?”

“You’re absolutely certain his watch was an hour fast when you left?”

“Yes.”

“And you set it back an hour when you returned?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure you didn’t set it back an hour before?”

“No, and I should have. That bothered me because I was supposed to have done so.”

I said, “All right. Let’s use our heads. Two people tampered with that watch. You were one of them. Now then, how many people knew about the plan to set the watch ahead?”

“Just Pittman Rimley and I.”

“And the boy in the washroom.”

“Yes, I forgot about him.”

I got out of the chair and paced the floor for a minute or so. She sat perfectly still watching me, not saying a word.

I walked over to the windows and stood looking down at the street below.

“What are you looking at?”

“The agency car parked down there in front of the place.”

She came to stand at my side. “What about it?”

I said, “Somebody put the murder weapon in there yesterday. I don’t know when it was put in, so I’ve got to start figuring why it was put in, because that may give me a clue to when.”

She said, “What do you mean why? You mean someone was trying to frame you?”

I said, “Either someone wanted to frame me, or someone didn’t.”

“That’s elemental.”

I said, “We have to begin with elemental facts. There’s one explanation that’s so damn simple that I’ve overlooked it.”

“What?”

I said, “Either someone put that weapon in my car because he wanted to frame me, or he didn’t. Naturally, I’ve acted on the assumption that whoever put it in there wanted to frame me. I’m beginning to think about the simple explanation now.”

“What?”

I said, “Let’s make another division. Whoever put that weapon in the car either knew it was my car, or didn’t.”

“Good Heavens, Donald, you don’t think there’s the slightest possibility anyone put it in your car simply by accident?”

“Not by accident. That’s taxing credulity altogether too much.”

She said, “I don’t get you. You seem to be contradicting yourself.”

“No, there’s one other explanation.”

“What?”

I said, “The weapon was put in my car because my car happened to be the most convenient place to hide the thing.”

“Oh, oh!” she said as the full implication of that dawned on her.

“So,” I said, “I keep thinking back where my car was. Where would it have been parked sufficiently soon after the murder so that someone would find it the most convenient place to dispose of the murder weapon?”

She said eagerly, “Donald, you may have something there.”

I said, “How about Pittman Rimley, can you trust him?”

“So far he’s always been on the square — with me.”

“There were two persons who knew about the watch business — Rimley and the man in the wash-room. Then there was a third person who could have known.”

“Who?”

“Mrs. Crail. Stanberry might have commented on the time to her. That’s logical, isn’t it?”

“It is when you put it that way.”

I said, “And I’m wondering why the handle of the hand ax had been sawed off. You’ve used a meat saw?”

“Yes — of course.”

“One here in the apartment?”

“I guess so, yes.”

“Let’s get it out and take a look at it.”

She regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, then went to the kitchenette. I followed her. The meat saw was under the sink. She handed it to me.

There was some grease on the blade and embedded between the handle and the blade a few grains of sawdust.

“That does it,” I said.

“Does what?”

“Clinches the case.”

“I don’t see why.”

I looked at her steadily. “You had a hand ax here, didn’t you?”

Her eyes shifted.

I said, “Whoever did the job didn’t expect to find Stanberry unconscious. When she did, and found a hand ax... well, that was it.”

“She?”

“Yes. It was a woman.”

I kept looking at her. “She didn’t want to leave the murder weapon here. She had only one way of taking it out — in her handbag. She had to saw a piece off the handle to make it fit.”

“Donald!”

I turned to look down at the street. For several seconds the apartment was silent. Then I said, “I’m still toying with the explanation that the murder weapon was ditched in my car simply because my car happened to be the most convenient place for the murderer to put the weapon. Now then, if we’re going to work on that hypothesis, we suddenly find ourselves up against...”

I broke off.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“See that car?” I said.

She looked where I was pointing. “It’s a police car,” I said. “See the red spotlight...?”

Sergeant Frank Sellers got out of the car, gallantly walked around the car to the right side, opened the door and held out his hand.

Bertha Cool put her hand on Frank Sellers’ and got out of the car about as gracefully as a sack of sugar tumbling down off the top shelf in the pantry.

I said, “Quick! Get out of here and...! No, it’s too late.”

Bertha had spotted the agency car. I saw her tap Sellers on the shoulder and point. Sellers went over and looked at the license number. They talked together earnestly for a minute, then moved toward the door of the apartment house.

A moment later Billy Prue’s bell made noise.

“What do I do?” she asked.

She was looking at me with eyes that were wells of dismay.

“Sit down in that chair,” I said. “Don’t move! Don’t make a sound no matter what happens. Do you promise?”

“If you want me to.”

“No matter what happens! Understand?”

“Yes. Anything you say, Donald.”

The bell didn’t make any more noise.

I opened the door to the corridor, made certain the spring lock was working. “No matter what happens, don’t make a sound. Understand?”

She nodded.

I pulled the door closed, dropped down on my hands and knees and put my ear to the crack along the floor.

I was in that position when I heard faint steps down the corridor. I moved slightly, and the steps suddenly stopped.

I got to one knee, felt in my pocket for my collection of skeleton keys, took them out and tried out one on the lock.

The steps sounded again.

I whirled with the guilty start of someone who has been detected in an unlawful activity.

Sergeant Sellers was right on top of me.

“So,” he said, “got a key to the joint, have you?”

I tried to whip the keys back into my pocket.

Sergeant Sellers’ fingers clamped my wrist.

“Well, well, well,” Sellers said as his other hand snapped the key container out of my nerveless grasp. “So your agency plays around with skeleton keys, does it, Bertha?”

Bertha said, “Damn you, Donald, I told you a long while ago to get rid of those. They’ll get you in trouble.”

I didn’t say anything.

“What,” Sellers asked, “is the big idea?”

I said, “I wanted to get in for a look around.”

“I gathered you did. How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know — four or five minutes, maybe.”

“That long?”

I said, “I rang the bell three or four times to make sure there was no answer, then I... well, I got in through the outer door.”

“Then what?”

“Then I came up here and knocked. Then I listened for quite a while. I didn’t want to take chances on going in until I was sure the place was empty.”

“It’s empty?” Sellers asked.

“Yes. I think she moved out.”

“Then why did you want in?”

“I wanted to check something about the position of the bathtub.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see where two people would have to stand if they lifted the body into the bathtub. It would take two men to...”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Sellers interrupted. “I’ve busted the case wide open.”

“You have!”

“Yes. I want that jane.”

“Why?”

“We’ve identified the hand ax. She bought it at a hardware store three blocks down the street.”

I tried to make my voice sound unconcerned. “She’s probably at the Rendezvous now. You didn’t go out on that ambulance case?”

He grinned. “I thought that could have been a red herring, Donald. I wanted this Prue girl.”

“But someone went out to that Orleans address?”

“Sure.”

“And they won’t let Crail get away?”

“No, sweetheart, and you won’t get away, either. Come on. We’re going places.”

“Do I get my keys back?”

“Naughty, naughty.”

“Take the damn things and throw them away,” Bertha said angrily. “I’ve warned the little devil about that.”

Sellers said, “Come on, quit stalling.”

I followed them down to the street. I said, “I’ll take the agency car and...”

“The hell you will!” Sellers said. “You’ll stay right here, my lad, until I’ve put the bracelets on that little girl’s wrists. You won’t pull any slick little job of getting in to a telephone and tipping her off...”

“The bracelets on her wrists!”

“Sure. What did you think?”

“Don’t let him stall you,” Bertha said. “He knows. He’s a smart little bastard. He was going to tip her off. My God, how he falls for women! That’s the trouble with him.”

Sellers said, “Listen, Donald, she’s the one who did the killing. Don’t get tangled up in it.”

I looked at him and laughed. “Anyone could have picked up the hand ax,” I said.

Sellers rose to the bait. “I’ve got the deadwood on her. Under an assumed name she rented an apartment in the Fulrose Apartments. She’s had it for a month, always being careful never to go in except when Rufus Stanberry was out. She’s been searching his apartment. The day of the murder, just after Stanberry had been bumped off, she showed up and made a good job of it. She went through the safe that time.”

“How do you know?”

“Archie Stanberry tells me some things are missing from the safe.”

“But how do you know she did it?”

He laughed and said, “She was smart when it came to going through Stanberry’s apartment. She didn’t leave any fingerprints. But she wasn’t smart when she lived in that apartment under an assumed name. Hell, it wouldn’t have done her any good anyway. She couldn’t have lived there for a month without leaving fingerprints.”

“You mean you’ve found her fingerprints in that apartment?”

“Sure. The one she rented under an assumed name. What’s more, the manager and one of the clerks identify her photograph absolutely.”

“Gosh!” I said.

“Don’t let it get you, lover,” Bertha said cheerfully. “She never was anything but a little gold digger with pretty legs.”

“How did you get wise?” I asked Sellers.

“Shucks, there was nothing to it. You went out to see this man Cullingdon. She went out to see Cullingdon. Your cars were parked side by each, or end to end — whichever you want to call it. She knew where your car was. She knew whose car it was. You let her drive you away. After you left her, she had ample time to drive out and ditch the murder weapon in your car. She thought she was being smart as hell when she did it. It was one of those things that looked good at the time, but it stuck her head in the noose.”

Bertha said suddenly, “Listen, Frank, I don’t want to go back with you after you’ve made the pinch and have Donald in the car with that little tart. Suppose Donald and I take the agency car and follow right along behind you. I’ll see that he doesn’t telephone.”

Sellers thought that over for a moment and said, “Okay.”

He walked over to the agency car with me.

I reached in my pocket for the keys. A sinking feeling developed in the pit of my stomach. I’d left the car keys and my driving gloves on the table in Billy Prue’s apartment.

“Well?” Bertha said.

I know now how people feel when they get stage fright. There probably wasn’t anything I could have said then that would have stalled the thing off, but if there had been, I couldn’t have said it. I was absolutely tongue-tied. I just stood there fumbling through my pockets.

“Where are they?” Bertha said.

“I must have dropped them there on the carpet when I took these other keys out of my pocket.”

Bertha looked at Frank Sellers.

Frank Sellers said softly under his breath, “Why you dirty double-crosser!”

The next second I felt his left hand grab my wrist. I saw the flash of steel and heard the ratchet of handcuffs. Steel bit into my wrists.

“All right, wise guy,” Sellers said. “I gave you a chance and you couldn’t take it the easy way. You have to do it the hard way. All right, that’s the way we’re going to play from now on. Come on, Buddy, you’re going back upstairs.”

I said indignantly, “What the hell’s eating you? Those keys are somewhere there on the carpet in front of that door and...”

“And I’ve just noticed,” Sellers said, “that you aren’t wearing your driving gloves. A hell of a detective I am. Come on, Buddy, we’re going back.”

We went back. There was nothing else to do.

Sellers got down on his knees in front of the door to Billy Prue’s apartment. He felt along the carpet. It was only a perfunctory gesture. Then he took my own skeleton keys and fitted one into the lock.

I made one last desperate attempt.

“Are you going in there without a search warrant?” I asked.

Frank Sellers isn’t a guy you can bluff that easy. “You’re damn right I’m going in there without a warrant,” he said.

The key clicked the lock back.

Billy Prue was sitting just as I had left her in the chair, her face might have been molded in pastry dough and daubed with make-up.

Sellers took in the situation with a practiced eye, walked over to the table and said, “Those your gloves, Lam?”

I said, “I’m not answering any questions.”

Sellers picked up the car keys, said, “The gloves and the keys will be evidence. Get your things on, Billy. You’re going places. Let me see your hand a minute.”

He picked up her hand.

There was nothing I could do about it even if I had warned her.

A half second later she jerked back and screamed as the cold steel touched her wrists, then the ratchet bit into pressure and Billy Prue and I were handcuffed one to the other.

“All right, Little Miss Murderess and Mr. Accessory-After-the-Fact,” Frank Sellers said grimly. “We’re going to teach you little lovebirds something.”

Bertha looked from me to Frank Sellers. “Listen, Frank,” she said, “suppose...”

“Nothing doing,” Sellers said roughly.

“But Frank...”

“Shut up,” he said. “And this time, we all ride in my car.”