The Chinese Doll

Chapter 16

  Boone, Ill.

  Sunday, A.M.

Louise, Dearest:

As I told you, Thompson spent a couple of hours with me Friday afternoon, and returned to the hospital again yesterday morning. Friday afternoon he was full of ideas and wanted to test them on someone. I had a few of my own and he promised to look into them.

His ace-in-the-hole had knocked the breath out of me. I fell back in bed, banging my head as I did so. If Leonore hadn’t drowned in the lake... then where?

I asked Thompson, “Say, just who do you trust around here?”

He held up one hand with five fingers spread.

“My wife,” he said. “She’s also my secretary. There is no one else around I can safely leave in charge of the office. Two, there’s Uncle Jack. Three, Mayor Yancey — he’s the opposition but he’s a good scout. Four, Doc Burbee, the coroner. He gets into office the same way I do. And...”

He paused. I fidgeted.

He finally added, “I guess you make the fifth.”

“Thanks.”

Hazel the starched nurse clattered in on her usual swift heels. She held a yellow envelope in her hand and paused to smile shyly at Thompson before giving it to me. I introduced them and demanded the telegram.

It was from Rothman and contained bad news.

It told me that Eleanor had vanished without a trace; but that the Croyden police and Coast Guard detachment were dragging the river for a woman’s body reported sighted by a fisherman. And it gave me hell for getting into trouble.

I gave it to Thompson to read. He did, stood up, took a quick turn about the room, sat down and read it again. And then he swore. Hazel stared at him in surprise. Prudently, she left the room.

“I believe,” Thompson stated flatly, “that in view of what you’ve told me, I had better investigate Dr. Saari.” I agreed with him in a halfhearted manner. He continued, “But I don’t understand why Eleanor wasn’t touched until today! Why not yesterday, after you had talked to her? Why not last night, at the farmhouse? She was still in their good graces.”

“Elizabeth Saari,” I reminded him, “didn’t know I knew Eleanor until I spoke her name, there in the ditch.”

“That’s right. I wonder if we can find that farmhouse? Your description of the ride ought to help.”

“Find out who rented their telephone.”

“Easy. It will be a completely mythical character named Jackson Bristol. He doesn’t exist. They use that name for a phone in the barn, to lease that part of the lake grounds, and a phone in the cottage. But Bristol doesn’t exist.”

“Just somebody who hangs around there during the day to keep an eye on the place?”

“That’s right. I daresay several thousand dollars’ worth of gambling equipment and liquor is housed in that barn. They need a watchman. It gives me such a feeling of utter futility to know all this, and yet not be able to close up the place. Or to hang something on Swisher that would stick.”

“If we could find Leonore’s fingerprints someplace—”

“I’ve thought of that. Such as in the caretaker’s cottage. Circumstantial evidence would prove she met her death there and was carried to the lake. It could have happened there as easily as any place else. But first, upon what pretext could I gain entrance? And second, are they foolish enough to leave fingerprints lying around?”

I said, “I don’t think so. But I could get in where you couldn’t. I don’t need a warrant.”

Thompson looked at me. “That would be breaking and entering.”

“Yes, wouldn’t it,” I agreed. “If I was caught I’d probably lose my license... the one I’ve already lost.”

“Think again, Horne. You’d lose more than that.”

“You mean my neck?”

He meant just that. To be found there would put me much, much too close to Swisher for comfort. Nevertheless I decided to go out there as soon as I could. I said nothing to Thompson about my decision.

That was late Friday afternoon. That night I tried to make a graceful exit from the hospital and was foiled. Saturday morning Don Thompson came back again.

He began on me by thinking out loud:

“Our trouble is this: you know and I know who’s behind it. We are pretty sure we know how everything was engineered, and why. I can add one more thing I picked up during the night. Harry Evans and Swisher were definitely on the outs. I learned that Evans entertained ideas of taking over the reins from Swisher, who, of course, resented it. It wasn’t what you thought at all: Evans wasn’t trying to get out, he was trying to get more deeply in.”

“Too deep for comfort.”

“Yes. I believe that Evans made the mistake of confiding his plans to the attorney, Ashley, in the belief that Ashley would side with him. Ashley promptly ratted on him. And the wheels began to move towards the elimination of Evans.”

I said, “Keep going.”

“Had those wheels not been revolving so elaborately, in so complicated a manner, they would have probably worked without a hitch. A simple gunshot and that was the end. The police would have nothing but the bullet which killed him. The perfect crimes are those that are exceedingly simple. But no, it had to be complicated. I’d like to study the intelligence which compounded such a scheme.”

“Cheer up. Maybe we can smoke him into the open.”

“Name something — go on — name something.”

I couldn’t.

His gaze went back to the snow on the window sill and his words were bitter, tired.

“Leonore is dead, deliberate murder. Who can it be pinned on? Eleanor said Swisher was their friend. We know better. But can we pin it on Swisher? We can not. Eleanor herself is his alibi. He was with her at the time of Leonore’s death; which means that a hireling did it. But who? And how shall we find him?

“Evans is dead, murdered by Leonore. And who can we pin that on? We don’t have the note — which undoubtedly was a clever forgery. And we probably no longer have Eleanor, whose testimony I would never go into court with. It is the weakest kind of circumstantial evidence. No — this whole plan may be fantastically complicated, but see how beautifully it ends at zero? Despite your meddling and my — meddling, they are getting away with it.”

“Unless they make one more mistake.”

“You’re thinking of Eleanor?”

“Yeah. Supposing city water turns up in her stomach?”

“We would have a clearly premeditated murder. As in Leonore’s case. Who would we arrest? I’m willing to bet that every one of those men you saw with her Thursday night have gone into hiding. Leaving you the last man to see her alive, as far as the public is concerned.”

Which ordinarily might prove embarrassing to me — if it wasn’t for the fact that they had had a perfect opportunity to erase my name from the slate forever, and had passed it by. That unexplainable “once over lightly” order, instead of a curt, rub him out. I must admit I had a glimmering of the truth; something Elizabeth Saari had said kept repeating itself to me. Sooner or later I knew things would make sense.

“You understand our position clearly?” Thompson asked. “We know much, and suspect more, but until we can prove it — beyond a shadow of a doubt — we may as well forget the whole thing. Don’t ever forget that Swisher beat the Feds.” He stood up. “I’ve got to get back to my office.”

As a parting shot, I flung at him, “I have no intentions of forgetting anything. And don’t forget to look into those things I mentioned.”

For the first time, he smiled. “My memory is pretty good, too. But remember, I warned you about breaking and entering.”

I said yes sir. And as he left I asked him to look into the legality of hillbilly music flooding the air. He must have mentioned my complaint to Hazel for presently the radio across the corridor was tuned down. I was glad she had voted for Thompson.

Last evening I asked for Dr. Saari. Hazel reported back that the doctor wasn’t in her office, but that she would keep trying. I wanted to make at least one appeal to be let out the front doors.

She was as good as her word, she did keep trying, but she never got the doctor. She said she could hear Dr. Saari’s office phone ringing but no one answered it. Shortly after supper Hazel went off duty and presumably forgot the whole business.

She hadn’t been gone very long before the night nurse came into the room. I hadn’t seen this one before and wasn’t particularly concerned about ever seeing her again. She asked me if I wanted anything.

I said no, not a thing.

Then she suggested I be a good boy and go to bed early because she didn’t want me galloping around the halls tonight. She put careful emphasis on the tonight. Which told me my jolly little adventure of last night was common property among the staff. I told her I would go to sleep early if that radio across the corridor didn’t keep me awake.

She answered that it wouldn’t, she would see to it, and that she had something for me.

I asked what. She gave me a telegram. I masked my anger at her keeping it so long and asked her to wait a moment as I might want to answer it. She waited.

The wire was from Rothman, reading: BODY IN RIVER NOT ELEANOR. ADVISE.

So by way of the night nurse I advised him to keep watch on the South Adams Street apartment and to grab Eleanor before she could walk into trouble.

The nurse left, and there were no further interruptions of my solitude.

Around midnight last night I got the hell out of there.

I hadn’t undressed, but stayed under the covers in the event the nurse should walk in. The hospital corridor was L-shaped and the nurse’s desk was at the corner of the L, not far from my door. My room was on the short end of the L, and the entrances for the public and the doctors were at the long end. I was on the second floor and there would be a fire escape at each end of the L.

I waited until I heard the tiny clicking noise that is the signal patients use to summon the nurse. They push a button under their pillow, a light goes on outside their door, and the little click comes from a device above the desk. The night nurse heard the click, looked along both arms of the L, and saw a light somewhere along the long arm. Her footsteps faded from my hearing.

I grabbed my hat and overcoat from the closet, peered out the door and found the corridor clear, and sped for the nearest windows. They were locked but that slowed me only a second. Outside the fire escape held the unbroken snow of the past few days. In very short order the snow was tracked. My tracks. They would give me away, but what the hell.

I wanted to go out and see that caretaker’s cottage. If I waited until daylight the caretaker would certainly be there, and I might be seen by others. At night, however, it just might be deserted because people would be playing in the bam. And I wouldn’t be seen. I would first have to go downtown to the office and get my gun.

I did, and I had to walk all the way.

To play safe I circled around a bit and stopped a few blocks from the office building, waiting in a doorway. The entire building was dark. There were only a few people on the streets, all hurrying to get somewhere. It was still uncomfortably cold. The only car in sight was a white police car parked in front of Thompson’s restaurant. There was no one in the car.

I eased along the sidewalks towards the office, keeping in the shadows next to the buildings and stopping in every doorway that offered a hiding place to look the scene over once more. There wasn’t a thing to arouse my suspicions. When I finally reached the door to my own stairway even the stragglers had vanished from the streets. Across the street I could see two cops eating and someone else playing the juke box. Just those three and the counter girl.

I stood in my own doorway, hidden in deep shadow, feeling the warmth creeping down the stairs at my back, and watching the street I had left. No one or nothing came after me. Turning, I softly went up the stairs.

All the offices on the second floor were dark and apparently empty. I paused at Elizabeth Saari’s doorway to listen and was rewarded with nothing at all. Moving across the hall in the dark to my own door, I felt for the knob, silently turned it, and shoved the door violently open. I had already ducked back out of the door and was waiting, flattened against the wall beside the door.

Nothing at all happened.

It may have been silly to someone watching, but I entered my office on hands and knees, putting my left hand down easily to prevent the plaster cast from bumping the floor. No one would think of shooting that low if he were inside waiting for me. No one shot at all, high or low.

I got up, walked over to the desk, opened the lower drawer where I kept the gun, struck a match and carefully cupped the flame from reflecting on the windows. The flare of the shielded match showed gun and holster in the drawer where I had left them, showed several stacks of Atlantis manuscript lying on the floor as I had left them, and showed some brownish spots of blood on the typed pages. As I had not left them.

I snapped out the match and reached for the gun. Holding it in my right hand, which was awkward, I put out my left hand and touched the blood spots with a forefinger. They were dry. So I simply squatted there for many minutes, wondering what to do next.

While I waited, the dull and throbbing headache started in again. The exertion probably caused it. I loosened my hat to see if it helped any. It didn’t. But with the headache came sudden awareness that all wasn’t what it should have been. Sudden awareness that something indefinable I had been expecting failed to show. Nothing spectacular, only an insignificant, probably subconscious something that should have happened, but hadn’t.

I glanced around the darkened room.

The office door. If it had had eyes, they would have stared back at me. It had failed to hit the wall with the usual thud. I had given it a hearty inward shove and jumped back out of the opening, just in case there were visitors. There were no visitors, but the door hadn’t banged against the wall.

Again on hands and knees, no easy feat when one hand is partly cased in a plaster cast and the other is curled around the butt of a gun, I crawled over to the door and partly around it. The gently prodding barrel of the gun melted into something soft and yielding, something that gave out a whimper.

On my knees, I put out my left hand and followed the pointing barrel. And found a body. There was another response, more moan than whimper. My searching fingers discovered a heavy coat, and beneath the coat a dress and a woman’s breast. I fingered upwards towards the face, followed the soft undercurve of the chin and at the back of her neck found a tight knot of hair.

Eleanor.

The light of a second match showed her to me. She was lying on her back, her attractive, Oriental face now a pasty white. A slug had ripped away the padded shoulder of the coat she was wearing, biting through her shoulder and spilling a great deal of blood. The torn dress and coat were clogged with dried rivulets.

Eleanor rolled her head and cried out feverishly.

I doused the match, pocketed the gun and put my lips to her ear.

“Eleanor... Eleanor... come out of it.” A couple of gentle slaps in the face brought movement to her body. “Eleanor... do you hear me?”

“Please... don’t!” She tried to roll away.

“Eleanor — snap out of it!”

“Who... is it?”

“This is Chuck, Eleanor. Charles Horne.”

In ten minutes I had her sitting upright, in five more her eyes opened and she tried to see me in the dark.

I said, “I’m Chuck, remember?”

She nodded weakly. Frightened, ill, she clung to me. I slipped a clean handkerchief over the wound and pulled her coat about her shoulders.

“Don’t try to talk, Eleanor. I’ll call a doctor.”

“Oh, no...!” She tried to scream, pitifully.

“Take it easy, kid. I’m getting a good doctor. He’s okay; he can be trusted. Can you sit there alone? Now don’t fall over again. I’ll get a cab.”

I phoned Milkshake Mike and asked him if there was a cab in front of his place. He replied that there was, and that the Sultan was now enjoying a cup of coffee not ten feet from him as he spoke. I gave instructions to get the Sultan to my office in a rush. He informed me the Sultan said he would be delighted, after he finished his cuppacoffee.

We had to wait two or three minutes. It seemed like ten or fifteen.

I helped Eleanor to her feet and we waited just inside the doorway at the foot of the stairs for the cab. The cops and their white car had gone.

The cab pulled up to the curb and the Sultan stuck out his head to stare at us.

“Come here and help me,” I called across the sidewalk. To Eleanor I whispered, “Pretend you’re drunk.” She dropped her head on my shoulder, her hair concealing the tom coat.

The Sultan advanced across the sidewalk.

“Dames is always doing that,” he summed up.

“Take a look to see if anyone’s around,” I cautioned. “Don’t want to give the girl a bad name.”

He gave the street a sweeping, comprehensive glance in all directions without seeming to be looking at anything, and reported all clear. Between us we got Eleanor into the cab.

“Wheretobud?”

“Doc Burbee... the coroner. Do you know his place?”

The Sultan whirled around in the seat. “Hellsfire. She ain’t dead already?”

“Of course not. She lives there.”

“Okay. Do it in fiveorsix minutes.”