The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)

7: 45 Guns

Julian Hunter, summoned peremptorily from the Mars box, appeared in the doorway before Sergeant Velie’s granite figure. The pouches beneath his eyes were more batrachian than ever; his pink cheeks were pinker and his expression more wooden, if that were possible, than before.

“Come in, Mr. Hunter,” said the Inspector shortly. “Take a chair.”

The pouches sank, and keen pupils glittered for an instant. “No, thank you,” said Hunter. “I’ll stand.”

“Suit yourself. How well did you know Horne?”

“Ah,” said Hunter. “The inquisition. My dear Inspector, aren’t you being a little absurd?”

“What— Say!”

The night-club owner waved a manicured hand. “It’s apparent that you consider me a potential suspect for the murder of that — uh — dashing old gentleman who came a cropper out there. It’s too silly, you know.”

“Rats. Come out of it, Hunter. That tack won’t get you anywhere,” said the Inspector sharply. “Now please answer my questions, and don’t waste our time — we’ve a big job on our hands and I can’t stand here arguing with you. Well, well?”

Hunter shrugged. “Didn’t know him well at all.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. How long did you know him?”

“Precisely one week.”

“Hmm. You met him when he hit town on this rodeo business?”

“That’s it, Inspector.”

“Through whom?”

“Tony, Tony Mars?”

“Under what circumstances?”

“Tony brought him to one of my night-clubs—”

“Club Mara?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the only time you saw him? Before tonight, I mean?”

Hunter lighted a cigaret with steady fingers. “Mmm. Can’t say, really.” He blew smoke indolently. “It’s possible Horne visited the Club Mara after that. I can’t be sure.”

The Inspector stared at him. “You’re lying, of course.”

Thick red surged into the pink cheeks, very slowly. “What the devil do you mean?”

The old man clucked. “Tchk! I beg your pardon, Mr. Hunter. No offense meant. I was just speculatin’ out loud.” Ellery, in his corner, smiled skeptically. “Y’see, I know you’re in a deal with Tony — were in a deal, I should say, to finance Horne’s comeback to the screen. I thought you’d surely have had a couple of meetings—”

“Oh,” said Hunter, with a long quiet breath. “Yes, certainly. Very natural thought. No, I told the truth, Inspector. And it’s not true that I was ‘in a deal,’ as you say, to furnish financial support for Horne’s venture. Mars, Grant — they mentioned it to me. I was merely considering the proposal. A little out of my line, you see.”

The Inspector performed the sacred rite of inhaling a pinch of snuff. “You were waiting, I suppose, to see what sort of reception Horne would get in this rodeo appearance of his?”

“Yes, yes! That’s it exactly.”

“Well! Nothing incriminating there, eh, Mr. Hunter?” The Inspector smiled and returned the old brown snuffbox to his pocket.

The room was quite still. A little pulse in Hunter’s throat began to hammer suddenly, and the vein in his left temple. He said rather thickly: “If you’re really thinking... Why, Inspector, I was in the same box with you all evening! How could I possibly—?”

“Of courrrse,” said the Inspector soothingly. “Of course, Mr. Hunter. Don’t upset yourself. These little chin-chins — just a matter of form. Now you go back to the Mars box and wait.”

“Wait? I can’t— Can’t I—?”

The Inspector spread thin deprecating hands. “We’re servants of the law, you know, Mr. Hunter. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to wait.”

Hunter inhaled deeply. “Hmm. Yes. I see that,” he said, and turned to go, sucking on his cigaret.

“By the way,” drawled Ellery from his corner, “do you know Miss Horne well, Mr. Hunter — Kit Horne?”

“Oh, Miss Horne. No, can’t say I do. I’ve met her on one or two occasions — once in Hollywood, I think, through Mrs. Hunter — I should say Miss Gay, my wife... but that’s all.”

He waited, as if expecting another question. It did not come, so after a moment he bowed slightly and left the office.

The Queens regarded each other with cryptic smiles.

“Why the silk gloves, Inspector?” asked Ellery. “I’ve never known you to handle a witness so softly before!”

“Don’t know,” murmured the old man. “A hunch, I guess. That bird knows something, and before I’m through with him I’ll find out what.” He stuck his head out of the doorway. “Thomas! Get that actress — the gaga Gay woman!” He turned back, smiling broadly. “Yes, and by the way, why the question about Kit Horne, eh?”

“Don’t know, sire. Just a hunch, I guess.” And Ellery grinned back until the willow-scent-silk figure of Mara Gay made a bowery frame out of the prosaic doorway.

The lady swept in like an elongated shadow of Portia, sat down with the sublimely indifferent dignity of the Virgin Queen, and glared at the Inspector with Medusa’s venomousness. “Well,” she sniffed, tossing her coiffured head, “this is really too much! Really too ridiculously much!”

“What’s too much?” said the Inspector absently. “Oh, Miss Gay! Now, don’t take that tone, please. I want—”

“You want!” snarled the Orchid of Hollywood. “And please don’t ‘please’ me, Inspector What’s-Your-Name! I’ll take any tone I choose, understand that! Now” — she continued without pausing for breath as the Inspector chopped off a mildly astonished protest — “please explain what you mean by this vile, this outrageous treatment! Keeping me cooped up in that awful place for hours, not even letting me go to — go to the ladies’ room! No, don’t interrupt me. Do you realize that this is bad publicity for me? Not that I look down on publicity; it has its uses, but—”

“Sweet uses,” murmured Ellery, garbling his Shakespeare.

“What? It has its uses, but this — this is vile! Those reporters, they’ve been telephoning their papers ever since this happened. Tomorrow I’ll find myself plastered all over the country, mixed up in a — my God — a murder! My press agent will love it, but then he’s such a barbarian! I tell you unless you let me get out of here at once — at once, understand? — I’ll phone my attorney and — and—”

She paused, gulping.

“And fiddlesticks,” snapped the Inspector. “Now pay attention. What do you know about this blasted business?”

The stare that had withered motion picture magnates burned harmlessly against the hide of the Inspector, who was made of asbestos. So she took from her evening-bag a diamond-studded lipstick and pursed her lips very provocatively. “Nothing,” she murmured, “dear Inspector.” Ellery grinned, and the Inspector blushed with fury.

“Don’t give me that!” he barked. “When did you meet Buck Horne?”

“The horse-opera person? Let me see.” She considered. “Last week.”

“Not in Hollywood?”

“Inspector Queen! He left the screen ten years ago!”

“Oh. You were a babe in arms at that time, I s’pose,” said the Inspector sourly. “Well, where did you meet Horne?”

“At the Club Mara, my husband’s little place, you know.”

Her husband’s little place was a vast one-sixth the size of the Colosseum, with more marble and gilt in it than Broadway’s most awesome motion picture palace.

“Who else was present when you met him?”

“Julian — my husband; that Grant person, Curly’s father; and Tony Mars.”

“You know Miss Horne for a long time?”

“That horsy little squirt?” She sniffed contemptuously. “She’s been presented to me on the Coast.”

“Presented to you, hey?” muttered the Inspector. “She would be — to you. All right, Miss Gay, that’s all. I’m busy.”

She gasped in sheer horror at this frightful implication of lese majeste. “Why, you old—”

Sergeant Velie gripped her arm delicately between forefinger and thumb and urged her out of the chair and the room.

Ellery sprang to his feet. “Are you quite finished with this mumbo-jumbo?”

“Hell, no. I want to see—”

“You,” said Ellery firmly, “want to see none other than Major Kirby, god of the newsreel cameras.”

“Kirby? But what the deuce for?”

“It seems to me that what we require more than anything else at the moment is someone on intimate terms with firearms — if you can imagine such a situation.”

The Inspector granted. “You want a firearms expert, so you pick a movie man, hey? That’s logic.”

“The Major, I’ve been told,” said Ellery, “is not only a crack pistoleer but is also something of an authority on something or other — I deduced firearms. That on the admittedly dubious word of Tony Mars — which you would recall if you’d thought about Kirby’s visit to the box before the fracas. Well, send for him, and we’ll find out soon enough how dependable Mars’s information is.”

Sergeant Velie was duly dispatched for the Major.

“But what do you want an expert for?” frowned the Inspector.

Ellery sighed. “Father, dear father, what’s the matter with your wits tonight? We’ve a bullet, haven’t we?”

The Inspector was distinctly annoyed. “Sometimes, my son... Don’t you think I know enough about the mechanics of my own job to have an expert look over the bullet, and compare it with others? But what’s the rush? Why the dickens—”

“Look here— We’ve got to examine those forty-five shooting-irons immediately — not just some time, but at once, dad!”

“What forty-five guns?”

“Well, I suppose there are forty-five of them,” said Ellery impatiently. “I noticed that the group of riders following Horne seemed consistently to be wearing single holsters which means a revolver per rider. That’s forty. Then there are Ted Lyons’s three — the .25 automatic and the two .45’s from the rodeo armory which he appropriated. Forty-three. Wild Bill Grant’s and Horne’s own — forty-five. But why argue? Don’t you see, dad, we’ve got to know?”

The Inspector’s irritation vanished. “You’re right. And the sooner the better... Well, Hesse?”

One of his squad, a solid Scandinavian, charged in, his little red eyes excited. “Chief, there’s a riot upstairs! The boys got all they can do to hold those people! They want to go home.”

“So do I,” growled the Inspector. “You pass the word around, Hesse, to the uniformed men to use their billies, by God, if they have to. Not a single soul goes out of this place until he’s searched to the bone.”

Hesse’s eyes widened. “Search twenty thousand people?” he gasped.

“It’s a tall order, I know,” said the Inspector glumly. “But it looks as if we’ve got to do it. Now, Hesse, you tell Ritter...”

He walked out into the corridor with the detective, enumerating the commands “necessary to begin the task of searching to the skin the population of a small city. This was the good Inspector’s private meat; he began to look almost happy.

“Take all night,” said the Inspector when he returned, “and I s’pose I’ll be on the carpet tomorrow, but what the devil! Got to be done... Oh, come in, Major!”

Major Kirby, looking tired, nevertheless contrived also to look curious. He snapped a glance at Ellery.

“Still grinding?”

Kirby shook his head. “Stopped long ago. Good grief, when the home office finds out how much film we’ve used there’ll be war! Lucky I had plenty of stock with me. Well, sir, what can I do for you? Your Sergeant here tells me you wanted me especially.”

“Not I,” said the Inspector. “My son. Spill it, El.”

“It all depends,” said Ellery abruptly, “on you, Major. This evening we were informed that during the War you had achieved a reputation for being a crack pistol shot. Is that true?”

The Major’s small black eyes turned to small black stones. “And just what,” he said crisply, “do you mean by that?”

Ellery stared, and then burst into laughter. “Heavens, I’m not pumping you, man, as a murder suspect! I’m really interested for an entirely different reason. Is it true or isn’t it?”

Kirby’s expression wavered; then he smiled slightly. “I suppose it is. I won a few medals.”

“And I was also told that you’re something of a firearms expert. Is that true, too?”

“I’ve made a study of ballistics, Mr. Queen. More a hobby than a profession. I shouldn’t care to call myself an expert—”

“Thy modesty’s a candle to thy merit,” laughed Ellery. “How would you like to engage in a little experting for me?”

Major Kirby stroked his mustache nervously. “Happy to oblige, of course,” he murmured, “but I’ve a duty to my company, you know. That film we shot—”

“Nonsense! We’ll arrange all that. You’ve a lieutenant of some sort in your crew upstairs, haven’t you?”

“Yes. My chief cameraman will do. Name of Hall.”

“Excellent! Suppose—”

“I’ll have to talk to Hall first. We’ve made something of a scoop here tonight, Mr. Queen, with these pictures, and speed is our byword in this business.” He became thoughtful. “Tell you what. I’ll drop everything if you’ll let my men go at once. Film they’ve ground out will be developed, printed, cut, and assembled with sound for distribution to Broadway theaters by morning. Must get it out. It’s a go?”

“It’s a go,” said the Inspector unexpectedly, “but you and your men will have to go through the formality of a search, Major, before we release you.”

The Major cooled. “Is that necessary?”

“I should hope to tell you!”

Kirby shrugged. “Very well. Anything for some action. All right, Mr. Queen, I’m with you.”

The Inspector said genially to Sergeant Velie: “Thomas, there’s a special job for you. Go upstairs, search Major Kirby and his crew, and every bit of equipment.”

The Major seemed startled. “I say, now—”

“Just form, Major, just form,” said the Inspector affably. “Go on now, the two of you. I’ve work of my own.”

In twenty minutes the job was done. Sergeant Velie, than whom there was no more thorough disrespecter of persons on the metropolitan force, himself supervised a search which included Major Kirby’s slender body, Major Kirby’s natty clothes, Major Kirby’s resentful and jeering crew of cameramen and sound engineers, Major Kirby’s cameras, Major Kirby’s ohms and watts and rheostats (in a manner of speaking) — in a word, everything connected with Major Kirby and his unit, down to the last coil of cable, was picked over, scrutinized felt, pinched, pressed, eviscerated, anatomized, dismembered, and divellicated.

The result was a complete absence of discovery. There was nothing on that platform, nor anything on the persons of the men on the platform and the apparatus on the platform, which even remotely resembled an automatic. Whereupon, under special escort, the group of newsreel men was packed out of the building, armed with a hastily scribbled message from Major Kirby to the editor of his newsreel company.

The Major was the last to be pawed over. Found pure, he was passed directly out of the building by a side exit into Ellery’s arms. Ellery was waiting on the sidewalk with a huge police bag at his knee which contained forty-five pieces of assorted lethal hardware and some hundreds of cartridges.

The Inspector saw them off. “You’ll shoot whatever you find in the way of artillery down to us at Headquarters?” asked Ellery soberly.

“You bet.”

The old man stood gazing thoughtfully after their departing cab. Then he rather grimly went back into the Colosseum, to supervise the bodily search of twenty thousand persons.