The Chinese Doll

Chapter 18

I sat down, too, right where I was on the floor.

Eleanor slumped into the chair I had been feeling around for. She reached out with one wan hand and pushed the door shut. Then she seemed to just collapse.

The Judge was sitting across the room in the spot where I had imagined he would be. He was smoking, smiling, playing with a gun. His eyes twinkled.

He said to Eleanor, “Take the gentleman’s item, baby.”

Eleanor reached over with obvious effort and took it out of my hand. I was too dumbfounded to resist her.

The Judge reminded her, “He has a shoulder holster, baby. Look in that.”

She complied, but it was empty.

From my position at her feet I stared up into her pale face. A flood of unpleasant bits of newborn knowledge rushed into my half-baked skull, sweeping in with the awful rush of backwater across a bottom-land. Hindsight is a wonderful, futile thing!

Consider for instance Eleanor’s amazing story of her escape. How we had swallowed it, hook, line, sinker and pole.

The Judge was such a rotten shot that he had only nicked her shoulder. We had swallowed it. She had escaped down the back stairway, driven part way to Boone, transferred to a bus, walked from the bus terminal to my office, all that in broad daylight with a fresh wound. We had swallowed it. She had practically jumped at the suggestion to bring her along with us, in spite of her weakened condition, in spite of the certain danger had she been on the level. We swallowed it without a suspicion.

And only a few minutes ago, in the car, she had said she wasn’t worried about deportation... not now.

I turned on her, bitterly. “You damned little cheat. You were shot, weren’t you? You couldn’t fake that.”

The Judge answered for her. He showed no trace of anxiety at her condition, no worry at her being twenty-four hours late. He didn’t seem to care a damn.

“She was shot. That was necessary. Eleanor understands that. Eleanor is going to be repaid for her trouble.”

He shouldn’t have said that. But he did. And no sooner was it out of his mouth than something sharp connected in that just mentioned half-baked skull I own. If there had been a maze of wires and relays in me, like a mechanical man, the Judge would have heard a relay click all the way across the room. At his words the relay clicked, a circuit closed, and all the electrical knowledge in that mythical maze of wires focused down to a fine point. The fine point was behind the bridge of my nose, and my nose itched.

Eleanor was marked for death.

She wasn’t keen enough to realize it, to see ahead and discover where her part in the plan was leading her. A long-range plan of clever duplicity, equaled only by that earlier duplicity that had erased Harry Evans by remote control.

Eleanor’s eyes were glassy.

“You stupid, damn fool!” I bit out at her. “If you had the brains of a brass monkey you’d realize what you’ve done. You’re going to be repaid, all right. Yes indeed, paid the same way Leonore was paid when her usefulness was ended.”

The Judge butted in. “You’re annoying the lady, son.” Not his words, but the quiet undertone conveyed the warning; a warning Eleanor didn’t catch.

She just stared at me. I looked again. She wasn’t staring. Her eyes had turned completely glassy and the pupils were vanishing. I got to my knees.

Eleanor gritted between tight teeth: “I’m going to be sick...”

The Judge ordered sharply, “Go in the bathroom.”

She tried to get up. She put out a hand on the chair arm for a prop, but couldn’t make it. I got to my feet and moved towards her.

“Easy, son!” Dunkles snarled at me. He was on his feet, gun pointing at my midriff.

“Easy yourself. Can’t you see she’s sick!”

I don’t know why I felt sympathy for her. I should be hating her guts and hoping she fell out of the chair and banged her punkinhead on the floor. But I didn’t feel that way at all. I guess I’m chicken-hearted about women.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked the Judge.

I put an arm under Eleanor’s good shoulder and got her to her feet. Dunkles followed us to the bathroom. Once there, I didn’t know what to do for her. I sat her down, gave her my handkerchief to hold over her mouth, and turned to the medicine cabinet. Dunkles was watching me in the mirror.

Eleanor gulped once, took her hand away from her mouth long enough to say there were “three more out in the car” and that two of them would be in after me before long.

I growled, “Damn you, sister, get wise.”

It seemed to upset the kindly faced gentleman. He sat down on the narrow, white rim of the bathtub, near the doorway, where he could watch me and the front door.

He said again, “Stop annoying the lady, son.” And to Eleanor, “Who else is out there, baby?”

She told him. He pursed his lips and whistled.

Then he instructed, “Eleanor, baby, when you are feeling better, step over to the telephone and tell him what you have just told me.”

She nodded and said in a few minutes.

The medicine cabinet held a few things that could be used as an emetic, and a couple of bottles of advertised stuff supposed to settle the stomach and calm the nerves. I decided on that, and dropped a wafer in a glass of water. Tap water.

We watched it sizzle. I told myself happily that a couple of people were due for a surprise when Eleanor tried to phone the barn. There began to appear a dim ray of hope along the horizon. Unless — someone at the barn had tried to call the cottage and found the phone not working.

The wafer fizzled out and I handed the glass to the girl. She drank it slowly, making a face.

The Judge fumbled in his coat for a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit a match, all with one hand. I put my left hand, the one encased in the plaster cast, up on the wall, sort of leaning it against the side of the medicine cabinet. Swinging down from that distance would give it an added punch.

Eleanor finished the water and handed the glass to me. I put it in the little wire jigger fastened to the washstand, pushed the cabinet door to a position where I could see the Judge more clearly in the mirror, and watched. I wanted very much to see what he did with that paper match.

He flipped it into the tub behind him.

I must have yelled “Eureka!” or something. They both jumped and stared at me.

“Eleanor,” I burst out excitedly, “Eleanor, I’ve told you twice I was going to prove something to you! Remember?”

She said, yes, faintly.

“Eleanor, I’m going to show you how your sister was murdered. You wouldn’t believe me before; you’ve got to, now. I can prove it to you, here, now, this minute...”

The Judge cut in with an, easy son! but I ignored him.

“Eleanor — do you know how your sister died?”

“Why... of course. They said—” She glanced at the Judge. “The papers said she drowned.”

“Yes and no.” I was watching the Judge, too. He was bunching up his leg muscles. “The State’s Attorney told me she was drowned in purified water. That means city water, from a tap like this one. Such as you just drank. Not lake water. But Eleanor... she didn’t exactly drown.”

That one even stopped the Judge. It took him by sheer surprise, caused him to drop the preparations he was making to jump me. I watched him in the mirror.

“What!” he and Eleanor demanded, in unison.

“No. Ask Doc Burbee, out in the car. He performed the autopsy. Your sister was strangled to death, Eleanor. Strangled on a paper match thrown into a bathtub.”

Dunkles leaped, leaped without taking time to gather his wits or his muscles for the blow.

I didn’t make the same mistake, nor the one of turning around to face him. I saw him coming and whipped the plaster cast down and around in a fast cutting arc, putting all the strength into it I could muster. It contacted the jut of his jaw. The gun dropped from his hand. He sprawled backwards and slipped over the rim into the bathtub.

Eleanor had scrambled to her feet in panic, trying to get past us to the door. I pushed her back down on the seat and said, “I hope you believe me now, sister.”

A small noise came from the front door. It was pushed open a crack. Thompson’s gun appeared in the opening followed by Thompson, and then by Burbee and his pistol. I motioned to them to come into the bathroom.

Thompson peered at the unconscious man in the tub.

“It’s the Judge,” he informed me gravely. “What happened to him?”

“I’ve met him,” I said dryly. “He met my fist.”

Burbee saw Eleanor. “She’s ill.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to mention that she would be a damned sight sicker when I got through with her, but I let it slide. She had had enough grief and more was on the way.

I suggested to Thompson, “Lift that guy’s leg.”

He did, and saw the paper match lying in the tub. I couldn’t resist an “I told you so,” reminding them that they had all neglected the match business. Burbee looked down at it and as an afterthought turned the tap at the end of the tub. Water squirted out briefly and he shut it off.

I turned to the girl. “Does he make a habit of using bathtubs for ash trays, Eleanor?”

She nodded. “Chuck... is it true? Did he...?”

“Ask the Doc, here.”

She did, and Burbee told her. He eliminated the last doubts in her mind, providing there were any left. The girl was crying before he finished. More for Thompson’s benefit than Eleanor’s, the doctor demonstrated how Leonore had been drowned. Head down in a tub of water. Burbee was an excellent actor.

Thompson asked, “Do you suppose Dunkles will talk?”

I just laughed at him.

Dunkles was showing signs of reviving. I threw a glass of water in his face. He sputtered and struggled to a sitting position, glaring at Eleanor and then around to the newcomers. I sat down on the rim of the tub, just above him.

“Judge, permit me to introduce the State’s Attorney and the county coroner. One of them is itching to bring you to trial and the other is hoping you’ll try something — he’s a whiz at postmortems.”

Thompson demanded, “What about this girl, Leonore?”

Dunkles glared at him and distinctly told him to go to hell. He shot another glance at Eleanor and fidgeted uncomfortably when he found her eyes boring into his.

Eleanor said in a low voice, “Chuck...”

“Yeah?”

“Please come here a moment.”

I went to her. She wanted to whisper in my ear. What she said startled me. She was serious — I read it in her eyes. Well — we had gone this far; Dunkles must be made to talk. So why not? I said, all right, wait a minute. Thompson wanted to know where I was going. I told him, out to the car, and I would be right back. I said that Eleanor could make him talk; we were going to leave the Judge to her for a few minutes.

I asked Burbee to use the adhesive tape from the medicine cabinet and bind the Judge securely. Thompson wanted to know what the hell was going on. I said Eleanor knew a magic incantation that hypnotized people into talking.

In the car I found a pair of pliers and slipped them into my coat pocket. Trudy Thompson wanted to know what was going on. I told her everything was under control, and that we were about to wring a confession from the murderer. I cautioned her to keep her eyes peeled, that someone from the barn might come up to find out why the telephone was dead. She said okay.

In the bathroom Burbee had taped the hands and feet of the man in the tub. He couldn’t move anything except his mouth, and he was moving that plenty. Very bad words.

Eleanor walked to the tub and looked down at him. He shriveled under her steady gaze. Maybe he had an idea of what was coming. Taking Thompson and Burbee by the elbows, I piloted them out of the bathroom. At the door, I pulled the pliers out of my pocket and slipped them to Eleanor. She took them, slid her hand into my coat pocket, fished around for a moment, and came up with a packet of matches.

I’ll never forget the expression on Dunkles’ face when he saw the pliers.

It was probably five minutes before we heard him scream.

There hadn’t been a sound from the closed door. Thompson was worried. “Are they giving us the slip?”

I shook my head. “Not this time. She’s cured.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The bathroom window is too small. They couldn’t get out.” I said nothing about Eleanor’s earlier treachery.

“I wonder what she’s doing?”

It was then that Dunkles screamed. Just once. The State’s Attorney jumped from his chair and ran for the bathroom. I was there ahead of him, cutting him off.

Louise, I don’t know what Eleanor did to him. I don’t want to know, ever. But whatever it was, it was effective. Eleanor opened the door behind me and slipped a pair of pliers into my coat pocket. They were hot. She held onto my arm for support.

“He’ll talk to you, Mr. Thompson.”

She was perspiring. I guess we all were. We’d been in that cottage an awful long time and it was getting on our nerves. Thompson and Burbee edged past us into the bathroom to look down at Dunkles. He opened his mouth, and for once shocking language didn’t issue therefrom.

I put an arm around Eleanor and half carried her to a chair near the front door. I pulled the chair around so that it faced the door, and handed her my gun.

“Take this. You know what to do if we have any visitors.”

She nodded.

“You won’t pull any more funny stuff on us?”

“No, Chuck. Not now. My eyes are open.”

Good, I said. I put my hand in my pocket and felt the pliers. They were slowly losing their heat. She watched me.

“Baby, you’re a very bad girl. I’d hate like hell to have you go to work on me.”

She smiled ever so softly. “I’d hate to have to work on you, Chuck. And Chuck—”

“Yeah?”

“I’m very sorry for the other night. I tried not to hit you too hard. Come here a moment.”

I did. She reached up, took hold of my ears gently and pulled my head down. Then she kissed me on the bump on the back of my head. Startled, I stared into her face.

“Leonore used to do that for me,” she said softly, “whenever I got hurt.”

“Oh, sure. Yeah.” It embarrassed me. “It’s okay, kid. Keep your eyes on that door. Don’t hesitate to shoot.”

I wanted to get back to the bathroom to hear what Dunkles was saying. Eleanor murmured something more as I left her. I didn’t catch what it was, not then, but later the words came to me with startling clearness.

Burbee had removed the tape and put handcuffs on the Judge. Dunkles was a whipped man; there was no spirit remaining in him. Thompson seemed disturbed, but vaguely satisfied. He was wishing he knew what Eleanor had done, and yet hoping he never found out. Curiously enough, Dunkles wouldn’t tell. I suspected the old boy still had his vanity.

His story pretty well tallied with what we had patched together. Harry Evans had entertained ideas of taking over the gambling syndicate, so the grapevine had said, and had seemingly convinced Ashley to go along with him. Instead, Ashley prattled to Swisher. Swisher had eliminated Evans in a manner directed by someone big, someone higher up who was affording protection to Swisher and his rotten empire.

Swisher had objected to the roundabout, fantastic method of eliminating Evans and was all for the old reliable popgun. The brains said no. There was to be no outward appearance of murder. Leonore would make it a hit-and-run accident.

When Leonore ran to Swisher after killing Evans, the plan was upset. He had put her to bed, telephoned for help, and later in the evening got her out of bed and put her to driving a taxi. For a purpose. Sometime during the evening she would pick up a supposedly regular customer on a downtown street corner and start for the lake. She would never get there. The supposedly regular customer would see to that.

But that plan, too, had gone astray. By mistake she had picked me up. I had talked with her. I had been consulted by Evans earlier in the day. I had phoned Ashley and hinted I knew a few things. If Leonore died under mysterious circumstances after having talked with me, I was the nosey type that would begin putting two and two together. Therefore, there must be another “accidental” death. At that time, Evans’ death was being accepted as just that — an accident.

No one guessed that a paper match would upset this plan.

Meanwhile, I had been watched because I was considered the dangerous fly in the pudding. No, Dunkles didn’t know who my shadow was or how it had been done. He only knew that my every move was known. He said he had picked up the impression that it had something to do with a girl, but he didn’t know.

When I went to Croyden, Ashley had recognized me from a photograph previously furnished him; it being a foregone conclusion I would visit him sometime soon. As soon as I had left he contacted Swisher and Swisher put a shadow on my tail. The shadow found me at Rothman’s office. No one knew, then, that I had seen Eleanor. They didn’t know that until the next day, after I was in the hospital.

But they suspected I was getting too close, in view of the fact that I had visited Ashley without disclosing my identity, and that I surely knew Leonore’s identity and her connection with Evans by that time.

The Judge had handled the mauling detail, too, from a distance. For some reason not understandable to him, I was taken off the train and to the farmhouse for a purpose. The purpose never materialized. He supposed I was to be bumped off; instead orders were given to muss me up and turn me loose, making sure that I was picked up and taken to the hospital.

“Why?” I demanded.

“I don’t know. I only follow orders.”

“Does only Swisher give the orders?”

“Yes. But he has to follow them, too. From the man he’s getting protection from.”

“Who is that man?”

He didn’t know.

After the phone call to the Judge in the Croyden apartment, the Judge confronted Eleanor with the facts. They then knew she had talked with me.

It was the end for Eleanor, she had betrayed them — unless — well, there was just one chance for Eleanor to redeem herself; did she want that chance? Frightened, she jumped at the chance. And so she had been shot in the shoulder and the elaborate double-cross rigged up. It was her responsibility to get me to the caretaker’s cottage or back to the apartment in Croyden. In either place, someone would be waiting for us.

Us. It would have been curtains for both Eleanor and me, real curtains this time. The “once over lightly” attitude was gone. Events had changed too fast, and for the worse, to tolerate me any longer. That didn’t make a lot of sense to Thompson, but it did to me. It wasn’t that things had become worse since that night at the farmhouse. Oh no, I became the real danger before that night. But they didn’t know how real until the following day or two.

Therefore, curtains, for keeps. Eleanor had never tumbled to the fact that she was slated for it, too.

Meanwhile, Thompson’s wire had been tapped. If he had discovered anything incriminating he had been careful not to mention it on the phone. They were marking time until he made a slip.

Thompson said, “Where’s Eleanor?”

“In there in the—” But she wasn’t. The chair was empty. A cold breeze swept through the front door and struck our faces. With the coldness came the words Eleanor had half-whispered to me a few minutes ago.

She had said, “So long, boy.”

Somebody was running across the porch. Trudy Thompson appeared in the open door, her face excited.

“Someone’s coming,” she gasped. “Coming from the barn.”

Over her words came the sound of Thompson’s car starting. The motor revved furiously.

“Where’s Eleanor?” Thompson shouted, running.

“In the car. She said you needed me here. She said—”

Whatever else she said I didn’t find out. Thompson’s wife was nearly bowled over in our concerted rush out the door. Eleanor saw us coming across the porch. The car was moving. She flicked on the lights and gave it a rich burst of gas. The back wheels spun, caught, and the car leaped forward.

Running up from the barn, a gun in his hand, was Swisher. The lights picked him up, reflected on the weapon.

I realized what was going to happen, and was powerless to stop it. I think we all realized it about the same time. Swisher did, too. He saw his own trap closing on him. He hesitated in the glare of lights, suddenly turned and ran.

The damned fool ran towards the lake.

Eleanor whipped the car around in a tight curve, the wheels skidding on the snow. The lights found Swisher again. He stopped running, turned around, raised an arm and threw a shot at the car. Glass tinkled and one headlight went out.

That shot cost him precious time, cost him his life. He might have made it to some kind of safety if he hadn’t stopped. It had been foolish to run towards the lake. There were no trees there to protect him.

Eleanor caught him. Hard.

His breaking body whipped back over the hood of the car, pinned there by the stunning force of the blow. His hands groped desperately for a hold, found none, and fell loosely over the hood as the life force drained from them. Eleanor was at the lake’s edge.

She kept right on going.

The car shot off the bank into the air two or three feet above the ice. It hung there for a tick, suspended in the sky. And then it dropped. Smashing down on the ice, the tires let go with four simultaneous, muffled explosions. The ice cracked and parted.

When we reached the bank only the top of Thompson’s car appeared above the swirling water and broken ice.

Trudy Thompson said numbly, “That girl’s in there.”

I looked down at the roof of the car and whispered, because I didn’t want to be overheard.

“Good-bye, Eleanor.”

Climbing wearily up the stairs to my office, I found a light behind the door marked ELIZABETH SAARI, M.D. I pushed in on her without knocking. Elizabeth Saari glanced up from the desk, saw me, and quickly hung up the telephone she was using. On the floor beside the desk were two stuffed suitcases.

I guess I wasn’t any too pretty to look at.

She demanded, “Where have you been?”

“Why?” I wanted to know.

“Do you know the police are looking for you?”

“The police — what the hell for?”

“The hospital called me when they discovered your absence. I called the police. And I’ve just talked with Mother Hubbard.”

“What has she got to do with it?”

“I wanted to know if you had returned home.”

“Say — how come you know Mother Hubbard?”

She grinned at me in open amusement. “I’ve found out a lot of things about you, Charles Home. Most of it from Mother Hubbard. You see, I’ve learned a few of the principles of detection, too.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“And now, where have you been? You look a sight.”

“To put it brutally, I’ve been helping to haul a car and a couple of bodies out of the lake.”

Her eyes widened. She waited a moment and then asked, “A couple of bodies?”

“A man named Swisher and a girl I know only as Eleanor. Do they mean anything to you?”

“Eleanor? You said Eleanor was—”

“Leonore’s sister,” I supplied. “Another Chinese doll.”

“Then... you’ve... caught up with them?”

I nodded. “Don Thompson, Doc Burbee and myself wound things up a few hours ago. All but the small fry who’ll be arrested whenever and wherever they turn up.” I paused. “And, of course, with the exception of the remaining silent partner.”

“And that will be...?”

“That will be the party who has never openly become involved in the case,” I said flatly. “The presumably unknown, silent partner who stayed behind the scenes, managed operations and issued the orders through either Swisher or Ashley, and most important, arranged for the protection with the right sources. Protection in exchange for guaranteed elections.”

She asked thoughtfully, slowly, “You said ‘presumably unknown, silent partner.’ That implies that you and Thompson know this person’s identity?”

“I know it,” I pointed out. “Thompson doesn’t — yet.”

My phone began to ring across the hall. I remained in her doorway, watching her.

She said impatiently, “That’s your phone.”

“I know it.”

“Aren’t you going to answer it?”

“No. Not now.”

“But... why not?”

“Because I know who it is and what he wants.”

“O...h?”

“That’s Thompson. Wanting to know the identity of the unknown partner. Earlier in the night I promised to explain two things to him: who killed Leonore and how, and the curious lapse of time that has been bothering us. I’ve had time to explain only the first; in the excitement he has forgotten the second, until now.”

“And you don’t want to tell him? Not right away?”

“That’s right.”

“I think,” she said slowly, “that I understand.”

“I’m sure you do. But to put it in word: I want to give someone a break; I want to repay a debt. I want to give someone time to get out of town.”

She got up from behind the desk and walked around it. “Please go on,” she murmured.

“Someone gave me a break, was nice to me when they could have been otherwise. Last Thursday night I was taken off a train by one of Swisher’s hoodlums — on orders of either Swisher or Ashley — and transported to a farmhouse somewhere. Swisher or Ashley, whoever gave that order, did it with the intention of eliminating me; rubbing me out of the picture. I had gotten in their hair. But, as I say, I was given a break — this unknown third party learned what had happened and countermanded the order — by telephone.”

“That surprised you?”

“It did; and neither the hoodlum, nor Eleanor, nor myself could understand it at the time. When the order was countermanded, another was given. The phrase used was ‘once over lightly.’ The second order directed that I be left alive, in a ditch, and at some spot where it was likely that I would be found. You found me. The hoodlum’s car followed yours all the way to the hospital to make sure I would receive good care. The party who gave that second order was interested in my health and well-being.

“That’s why I’m repaying a favor. I want to give that person the same break they gave me. Time to get out of town before I tell Thompson what he wants to know.”

She had been staring down at the suitcases. Suddenly she looked up into my face

“But Charles... isn’t that aiding a criminal to escape justice?”

I didn’t answer that. Instead, I said good night to Dr. Elizabeth Saari and walked out. I entered my own office, turned on the overhead light, and closed the door.

A telegram was lying on my desk.

The telephone was still ringing, impatiently. I dropped my hat over it and ignored the instrument.