Man-Trap

XII

It was nearly four-thirty when we finally got back to headquarters.

Warren Day greeted us glumly and made a vague gesture toward a couple of chairs. Hannegan, as usual, said nothing.

When we were seated, I announced, “I’ve got a brand new theory.”

“Did you have an old one?” the inspector asked sourly.

Then he carefully chose a cigar stub from his ash tray, examined it for cleanliness and thrust it in his mouth. Around the stub he said, “Shoot.”

“Let’s start back with the meeting between Lancaster and Knight,” I said. “According to the secretary at Jones and Knight, the two men were arguing over Lancaster’s determination to make a public announcement of some irregularity he had discovered in a company they both had large investments in. It seems that company was Ilco Utilities.”

“How do you know that?”

I told him of my visits to Harlan Jones and to the Mohl and Townsend Investment Company.

“Ilco Utilities is almost certainly the company Lancaster referred to,” I went on. “In the first place, unless Willard Knight was doing his undercover speculation through more than one investment house, Ilco Utilities was the only stock he owned. In the second place, his hurry to unload it at the same price at which he had bought indicates a panicky desire to get out from under.”

“I’ll accept your premise,” the inspector said impatiently. “You needn’t belabor the point.”

“Then let’s jump to Mrs. Knight’s story of how her husband behaved when he saw the news of Lancaster’s murder. Remember she said first he seemed elated, then frightened, and when she questioned him, he made some remark to the effect that the news was a mixed blessing.”

“She didn’t say it was Lancaster’s murder that set Knight off,” the inspector growled. “She just said it was something he saw in the paper. He never told her what.”

“What else could it have been? He could hardly have missed it, since it was headlined on the front page. And his reaction was logical, since both his partner and his secretary were witnesses to the violent argument he had with Lancaster.”

“Logical unless he actually shot Lancaster.”

“He didn’t,” I assured him. “Look at it this way. The news of Lancaster’s murder was entirely unexpected, and Knight’s first reaction was elation that Lancaster hadn’t lived long enough to make his public announcement, which gave Knight the twenty-four hours he needed to unload his stock. Then it occurred to him his argument with Lancaster made him a prime suspect and he had no alibi for the time of the murder, or at least none which would hold up under questioning. That dampened his elation, because he couldn’t afford to be detained by the police even for questioning until he sold out and replaced the money he had misappropriated from the company account. Therefore he disappeared long enough to transact his business.”

The inspector chewed his cigar dubiously. “You put your own finger on the weak spot in your reasoning. Knight’s alibi doesn’t stand up. If he had no alibi, I might go along. But innocent people don’t fake alibis.”

I said, “I don’t claim he was innocent of everything. Only of breaking the sixth commandment. Apparently he broke the seventh repeatedly.”

The inspector looked at me blankly. Fausta, who had been sitting all this time with her hands demurely folded in her lap, interpreted for him.

“Number six is, ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Number seven, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ Do you not read the Bible, Inspector?”

“He reads the Police Gazette,” I told her, then turned back to the inspector. “Knight’s fake alibi was for his wife’s benefit, not an attempt to deceive the police. And I’m not spouting theory. Knight was with Isobel Jones Monday evening from six fifteen until twelve forty-five. At her home.”

Day’s eyebrows went up.

“She admitted it,” I told him. “Of course it took me nearly ten minutes to break her down, whereas all you had was a night...”

“Get to the point, Moon!” Day roared, his nose beginning to whiten at the tip. “What did you get from the woman?”

So I told him.

The inspector’s scowl had faded by the time I had finished, to be replaced by a thoughtful look. “This time you think she told the truth?”

“It fits the facts too well to be another of her fairy stories. The odd thing in this case so far has been an apparent lack of motive. Of course there’s the remotely possible motive that Barney Seldon had Lancaster bumped as a roundabout method of avenging himself on Laurie Davis. But neither of us ever gave much credence to that, though Seldon must have some interest in the case, or he wouldn’t have sicked his hood on me. Incidentally, I figure the two mugs who grabbed me this morning must have been Seldon men too. Then we had Knight’s possible motive, but his getting killed pretty well eliminated him as a suspect even before we knew what we know now. Particularly since the attempt to poison Fausta came after Knight was dead. Only Lancaster’s killer would have any reason to pass at Fausta.”

The inspector said impatiently, “You’ve been talking for ten minutes since you mentioned having a brand new theory, and you still aren’t to the point. Stop acting like a senator.”

“I’m there now, Inspector. Apparently Lancaster and Knight were the only ones who knew of the irregularities in Ilco Utilities. Both are dead. Apply the hoary old question, ‘Who profits most?’ and your answer is the person responsible for the irregularities. Could be the motive for both murders was simply to silence the only people who could send an embezzler to jail. Maybe if you had the Illinois police delve into Ilco Utilities, you’d find the person responsible for the irregularities and at the same time find a murderer.”

Day was silent for a long time, his narrow nose pointed toward the cigar he had removed from his mouth and was now carefully shredding between his fingers. He said finally, “Did Laurie Davis pay your fee in advance?”

“Just half,” I said.

“Hey!” Fausta put in. “Laurie Davis is a friend of mine, Manny Moon. And anyway, he would not be so stupid as to hire you to catch him.”

“I’ve got a theory about that too,” I told her. “Maybe all he really wanted me to do was catch up with Willard Knight. Suppose Laurie knew Lancaster was going to talk things over with Knight and then blow the top off of Ilco Utilities? And suppose he also knew Knight had disappeared after the murder and would be a logical suspect? He wants Knight located fast, and what quicker way would there be than to hire a private investigator? He doesn’t have to say, ‘Find Willard Knight for me,’ because as the most logical suspect, he knows the investigator will go after Knight first. So he hires me ostensibly to find a killer, puts Farmer Cole on my tail, and when I locate Knight, the Farmer rubs him out.”

“Wait a minute,” the inspector said. “We didn’t know Knight had disappeared even here at Headquarters until you gave us the tip.”

“But Laurie may have. He had been checking into the case before he came to see me, because he knew all about Barney Seldon being questioned and released. Why don’t you check Mrs. Knight, and Harlan Jones, and his secretary, Matilda Graves, to see if anyone made some inquiries before I did? And Laurie did put Farmer Cole on my tail. To protect me, according to the Farmer, which is a bit of thoughtfulness that seems out of character for Mr. Davis.”

Fausta said, “No one was trailing us last night when Mr. Knight was killed.”

I emitted an unamused laugh. “Farmer Cole knows how to stay invisible. He was on me a whole day, and the only two times I spotted him were the two times he wanted me to.”

Day said, “I think I’m going to buy your new theory, Moon. But Davis isn’t the kind of guy you can pull in on suspicion. Before we go any farther I’m going to ask the Illinois police to look over Ilco Utilities.”

He reached for his phone.

I said, “I just had an idea which may tell us quicker if we’re on the right track. Let me make a call first.”

The inspector took his hand away from the phone, leaned back in his chair and watched me while I looked up the number of the Mohl and Townsend Investment Company in the phone book. I gave it to the switchboard operator and a moment later was talking to old Mr. Mohl.

After explaining I was in the office of the Chief of Homicide, I asked if he had any information as to who were the directors of Ilco Utilities. He left me holding the phone nearly five minutes before he came back and began reeling off a list of a dozen names. One of the names was Laurence Davis.

I said, “Thanks, Mr. Mohl,” and was about to hang up when he cleared his throat and said in his dried up voice, “A person was in making inquiries about you shortly after you left here, Mr. Moon.”

“A person?”

“I didn’t see him myself. He talked only to our receptionist. He claimed he was a friend of yours, had seen you enter the building and was trying to find you. But the manner in which he asked questions convinced the girl he was trying to pump her about what your business had been.”

“She tell him?”

“No. She suggested he talk to me, but he said that wouldn’t be necessary and departed.”

“Leave a name?” I asked.

“No. But she describes him as tall and rather thin.”

“She mention his teeth?”

“His teeth?” Alfred Mohl paused in thought, then said, “She did, now that you remind me. Rather protruding, she said.”

I said, “Thanks a lot, Mr. Mohl. I know the man.”

I hung up and told Warren Day, “Farmer Cole is still on me. He walked into Mohl and Townsend right after we left and tried to find out what I wanted there.”

“That disproves your whole theory,” Fausta said. “If he was following you simply because he wanted to kill Mr. Knight, he would have stopped after accomplishing his mission. Probably Laurie Davis has him following you to make sure you do not loaf.”

Ignoring her, I asked Day, “What do you make of that?”

The inspector shook his head. “Nothing. It doesn’t make sense. Was Davis on the list of directors?”

“Yeah. So maybe you better make that call to the Illinois police.”

That evening Don Bell, the local radio gossip, had the full story of Fausta’s narrow escape from poisoning on his nine o’clock broadcast. I was rather surprised, inasmuch as the evening papers had carried nothing but the bare announcement of the waiter’s death, with the additional information that the police were investigating.

Fausta’s phone rang just as the broadcast ended and Fausta went into her bedroom to answer it.

When she returned to the front room, she announced, “That was Lieutenant Hannegan. Inspector Day wants you to meet him at your apartment right away. The inspector is already on his way and Lieutenant Hannegan has been phoning everywhere trying to reach you.”

“Hannegan said all that?” I asked, surprised. “Usually he isn’t so voluble.”

Then, not because I had the least suspicion the call was faked, but merely from the habit of double-checking, I went into the bedroom and phoned Headquarters. Since both Day and Hannegan went off duty at five, I was not surprised to find neither there. The sergeant on duty at Homicide knew nothing about their whereabouts.

I tried Day’s apartment, but when the phone had rung six times without answer, hung up. Then I tried my own number, and again hung up after six rings. Apparently Day had not yet arrived, for while I kept my apartment locked, the apartment manager knew the inspector well enough to let him in with a pass key, and I was certain Day would not stand out in the hall waiting when he could just as easily be inside drinking up my rye.

I made one more call, this time to the bar phone downstairs, and this time I got an answer. I told the bartender to send up Mouldy Greene.

When I returned to the front room, Fausta was freshening her lipstick with the obvious intention of going out.

I said, “You’re staying right here in this nice safe apartment.”

“I thought you were going to protect me twenty-four hours a day,” Fausta said. “Suppose that was not Lieutenant Hannegan at all, but the killer trying to lure you away so I would be alone?”

“You won’t be alone. Mouldy’s coming up. And wasn’t it Hannegan?”

Fausta shrugged. “I suppose. I haven’t heard him speak more than twice, and never over the phone.”

“I’m reasonably sure it was the lieutenant,” I assured her. “Warren Day is out, and he rarely goes anywhere except on business. He hates spending the money on foolish things like women and strong drink. His idea of a good time is to run down to the bank and deposit his pay check. And since the banks aren’t open at this time of night, he must be out on business. Anyway, if our killer was trying to get at you, he’d probably assume I was dragging you along and plan to pot you from some ambush.”

“Why not have the inspector come here?”

I said, “In the first place I can’t reach him. In the second, he’d only swear at me and tell me to get home fast even if I did reach him. And in the third place, I forgot my pajamas and tooth brush, so I can kill two birds with one stone.”

“It is too hot to sleep in pajamas,” Fausta said. “And you may share my toothbrush.”

“Stop acting like a suspicious wife,” I told her. “You’d think we were on a honeymoon and I was trying to sneak out with the boys.”

Mouldy arrived at that moment. I told him he was Fausta’s bodyguard until I got back and I wanted him in the apartment with the door locked.

“How about my job?” he asked. “Nobody’s on the door.”

“The customers will just have to put up with a bow from the head waiter instead of a slap on the back from you,” I said. “You stay here and don’t unlock that door for anyone but me.”

I left my car in the “no parking” space in front of my apartment inasmuch as I was on police business. As I expected, I found my front door unlocked, but when I opened it, the front room was dark.

Assuming the inspector was in the kitchen investigating my refrigerator, I pushed the door shut behind me and felt for the wall switch in the dark. When light sprang into the room, I found myself looking into the familiar bore of a short-barrelled revolver.

The flat-faced pseudo cop who had dumped me in the center of Midland Park sat in my favorite easy chair and it was he who held the gun. His driver, Slim, reclined on the couch.

I asked, “Which one of you is Lieutenant Hannegan?”

“Slim,” Flat-face said. “Slim can be real clever when he manages to stay awake.”

Slim growled something and his partner went on, “You wouldn’t believe it, but the whole idea was Slim’s. Phoning Warren Day to make sure he wasn’t home, in case you got suspicious and checked back. Imitating Lieutenant Hannegan to Miss Moreni. Ain’t he a little genius?”

“Shut up and let’s get going,” Slim said.

“Sure,” Flat-face said. His tone shed its mock politeness. “Turn around with your hands on top of your head, Buster.”

Since the order was accompanied by the snick of his revolver hammer being drawn back, I turned around and clasped my hands atop my head. An instant later his left hand snaked under my armpit from behind and removed my .38. I heard it clank as it was laid on the mantel.

“Let’s go,” Flat-face said, prodding my spine with the cocked revolver.

The ride in the blue sedan wasn’t long, although our destination was Maddon, across the state line. A four lane highway leads almost from the bridge ramp on the Illinois side straight into Maddon. Within ten minutes of the time we left the bridge we were pulling into the driveway of a neat white cottage on the outskirts of the little town.

At a prod from the revolver, I climbed out of the car and preceded my companions to a side door. Stepping ahead of me, Slim opened the door and led the way into a small hallway, then to the basement.

The basement, or at least that part of it we found ourselves in, had been converted into a large play room, fully equipped.

Other than we three new arrivals, only one person occupied the play room. Attired in formal trousers, a purple smoking jacket and leather sneakers, Barney Seldon sat on one of the bar stools watching television.

The moment we entered Barney jerked a thumb at the television screen, Slim walked over and cut off one of TV’s highest paid comics in the middle of a gag.

Seldon said, “Evening, Mr. Moon.”

I took a bar stool a seat or two away from Seldon.

Barney examined me coldly, finally said, “You were a little bit rough on my boy, Percy Sweet.”

“Tit for tat,” I told him. “Percy tried to be a little rough on me.”

“And then you yelled cop,” Barney said. “Really I was a little disappointed. Fausta built you up as such a tough guy, but instead of fighting your own battles, you yell cop.”

I looked at him in astonishment. “My own battles? When you try to scare me off a murder case, it isn’t a simple matter of Moon versus Seldon. It becomes Seldon versus the People.”

Barney’s eyebrows went up. “Murder case? You talking about the Lancaster affair?”

“That and Willard Knight. You had anyone else bumped recently?”

Barney laughed a short unpleasant laugh. “Is that why you think you’re on my stink list?”

I merely looked at him without answering.

“What did Percy say to you?” he asked.

I simulated his short unpleasant laugh.

“He intimated in his terse, ungrammatical way that he was going to learn me to kick a field goal, my head being the ball. And the lesson was to teach me to stay out of your hair.”

“No explanation of how you got in my hair?”

I shook my head. “Since our sole contact concerned Walter Lancaster, I assumed my looking into his murder ruffled your toupee.”

Barney snorted smoke in my direction. “We also discussed a lady.”

For a moment I didn’t get it, and when I finally did, it filled me with such a mixture of disgust and rage, I slid from my stool and reached out to gather a fist full of smoking jacket.

Across the room Flat-face said tonelessly, “You’ll get a slug in your guts.”

That deterred me from slugging Barney, but did nothing to abate my anger. Gripping the seat of the bar stool between us instead of his jacket, I leaned toward him and said impolitely, “You underdeveloped cretin! I’m up to my neck in a double murder investigation, trying to prevent a third, and you bother me with a lot of teen-age nonsense over a girl! In grammar school boys sic their gangs on fellows who mess with their girls, but they outgrow such juvenile stuff by the time they get to high school. Of course, never having attended either one, a paleolithic moron like you wouldn’t know that, but...”

“Hold it, Moon!” Barney said in a strangled voice.

“You ape-brained simpleton!” I yelled. “Grown men don’t win women by having their rivals beat up. What in hell do you think you’re accomplishing with this nonsense?”

Leaving his stool, Barney gripped the opposite side of the same one I was gripping and put his handsome nose an inch from mine. “I’m going to marry that girl! That’s what I’m accomplishing!” he yelled back to me. “And I’m keeping you away from her if I have to beat your brains out every hour on the hour!”

I straightened up. “She wouldn’t have a triple-plated jerk like you if you had every man in a radius of fifty miles beaten up.”

That released his trigger. Stepping away from the bar, he started a fast left hook at my head. Unfortunately, for him, this put him between me and the gun in Flat-face’s hand.

Deflecting his hook with my open right palm, I leaned my back against the bar, brought up my aluminum foot, planted it in his groin and snapped my leg straight. He shot across the room on his heels, crashed into Flat-face and took him to the floor with him.

I was vaulting the bar while Slim dropped his cards, leaped to his feet and began to reach under his coat. With a pinch bottle of Scotch in one hand and a quart of Irish whiskey in the other, I spun toward him and hurled the former end-over-end just as his gun began to clear. The Irish I flipped two feet lower an instant later.

Slim ducked the Scotch just in time to catch the Irish squarely on the nose. The pinch bottle burst all over the wall behind him, but the Irish didn’t even break. It rolled one way, Slim rolled the other, then both lay still.

The instant the Irish left my hand, I was rearmed again, this time with a square bottle of gin and a quart of bourbon. Both started toward the corner containing the pool table just as Barney rolled from Flat-face’s lap. Seated spread-eagled on the floor, Flat-face tried to duck and fire at the same time. Both bottles missed, but so did his bullet.

Before Flat-face could align his sights for a second shot I had two more bottles started, and after that I kept them going as rapidly as a juggler throws Indian clubs. It is amazing how accurately you can toss a full quart bottle clear across a room. In spite of hardly taking time to aim, not one of the eighteen quarts I threw missed Barney or Flat-face more than two feet. After the second volley Flat-face gave up trying to get in a shot, and he and Barney devoted themselves to scampering about on all fours in a frantic attempt to dodge the rain of hard drinks.

Had they kept out of each other’s way, perhaps all the bottles would have missed, but they were both paying more attention to me than to where they were going, and they met head on just in time for the seventeenth bottle to catch them right where their heads were touching.

Rolling both Flat-face and Barney on their backs to prevent them from drowning in a puddle of whiskey, I examined them and decided neither probably suffered anything more dangerous than mild concussion. I picked Flat-face’s pistol off the floor, wiped it clean of liquor and thrust it in my coat pocket. Relieving Slim of the keys to the blue sedan, I pocketed them also. Then I found an ice bucket behind the bar, filled it with water and dumped it in Barney’s face.

Spluttering, the gang leader sat erect, groaned and pressed both hands to the side of his head.

I said, “Barney, can you understand me?”

Thickly he said, “Yes.”

“Then listen carefully. I don’t care how hard you chase Fausta, because when she gets tired of your chasing, she’s perfectly capable of tying a can to your tail without my help. And if I feel like it, I’ll chase her too. Without your permission. But keep your goons away from me.”

He said something under his breath.

“Understand this clearly, Barney. I’ve no intention of spending the rest of my life jumping at shadows. One more pass at me and I’m coming at you with a gun. Not after your hoods, but straight at you. And if you think that won’t get you dead, check the morgue records over my way.”

Still clasping both hands to his head, Barney said indistinctly, “I know you’ve knocked off a bad boy or two, Moon.”

“Mister Moon.”

After a pause he sulkily amended, “Mister Moon.”

“Want to call it quits, Barney, or want to make this a real feud?”

His glazed eyes peered up at me with hate, but after an imperceptible hesitation, he said, “I guess a dame’s not important enough to kill a guy over, and I’d have to kill you if you came gunning.”

“Think you could?” I asked.

“I don’t want to,” he said with a mixture of pain and irritation. “All I ever intended was to give you a few bumps, but you got to take things serious. Just go away and leave me alone.”

I left him alone amid the ruins of his play room and his two hoods, drove the sedan to my house, where I left it, and proceeded to Fausta’s. She listened to my story with more than passing admiration for the narrator.