The Whispering Master

Chapter Twenty-two

There was a pause, then Susan opened the door. She was fully dressed and wearing a hat, ready to go out. She held the door open a few inches and blocked ingress to the room.

“Well, what’s so important?” she demanded.

“It’s about your fingerprints,” Johnny said softly. “You left them in my room.”

Her eyes widened in shock. For a moment she stared at Johnny, then she opened the door. Johnny went into the room and Susan closed the door.

“You got the record from my room yesterday,” Johnny accused.

“What record?”

Johnny smiled. “It’s a little late in the day for that, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then why’d you let me into the room?”

“All right,” she said, “I was in your room yesterday. I had a right, after the way you’ve been prying into my sister’s affairs...”

“Then why didn’t you wear gloves?”

“I don’t believe you found my fingerprints, at all.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then, why...?”

“Why were you with Orville Seebright last night?” Johnny asked quickly.

“I don’t see that that’s any of your business.”

“Maybe it isn’t, but I kept asking myself that question and suddenly I had the answer. You were with him last night because you were discussing a deal with him.”

A slow flush started to spread across Susan’s face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Fletcher, and I don’t think I care for the tone nor the trend of your conversation.”

“I’m getting too close?”

“Too close to what?” Susan exclaimed scornfully.

“The truth.”

“You want the truth?” Susan cried. “I’ll tell you. You killed my sister and I can prove it.”

“I thought you might think that,” said Johnny. “Because of the record.”

“If you hadn’t killed Marjorie you wouldn’t have had the record. You couldn’t have had it.”

“Then, if you believed that, why didn’t you go to the police with your story... and your proof?”

“Because you’d have told them you merely found the record.”

“That’s right. That’s just what I’d have told them. And the jury, too. And I’d have told them about my alibi — which Lieutenant Rook verified a half hour after your sister’s death.”

“I heard about that alibi,” Susan said grimly. “But I didn’t hear one for that strong-arm pal of yours...”

“So you searched my room.”

“Yes! And I satisfied myself!”

“At the time you were searching my room,” Johnny said, “a couple of hirelings of the real murderer were giving me this” — indicating his battered face — “to make me tell them where I’d hid the record.” He paused. Susan’s expression told him that she didn’t believe a word he was saying. Nevertheless, he went on. “The record was thrown into my room by your sister; thrown through her window, across the air shaft and into my room... to keep it out of the hands of the man who killed her a moment later.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Whether you do or not, it’s the truth. I never talked to your sister. I had no reason to kill her. I wasn’t in love with her, I wasn’t jealous. She had no money, so there was no reason for me to kill her for profit. I didn’t know her.”

“Suppose for the sake of argument that you didn’t kill Marjorie,” Susan said. “And suppose she did throw the record through your window. Why... why did you keep it; why didn’t you turn it over to the police?”

“That was my mistake. Your sister was dead. It was obvious that the record was important. Important enough for someone to want it badly enough to commit murder. And I... well you said yesterday that I was a picaresque character. I live by my wits... and I thought I could make some money—”

“By selling the record to the murderer?”

“Not by selling the record — no. Orville Seebright offered me five thousand dollars. And I didn’t sell it to him, did I?”

“Because you wanted more?”

“If he’d offered ten times five thousand I wouldn’t have sold it. But for finding the man who committed the murder, for that I would take money.”

“You’re not a detective.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I am a detective — yes, an amateur detective. But a good one. There was a man killed in this hotel once, right in my own room. I got the man who killed him, after the police had failed... You can check up on that. Ask Eddie Miller. Or Peabody, the manager.”

Doubt began to come into Susan’s eyes. “Doug paid you some money yesterday to work for him — investigating. Then he discharged you later in the day.”

“Because of the blacklisting of a private detective who hates me. And because... look, you lied to me about this Doug, yourself. You told me you telephoned him in Iowa to tell him about your sister. He was here in New York, all the time... Why did you tell me — and the police — otherwise?”

Susan frowned. “Because Doug asked me to do it. He... he telephoned me from Iowa. That’s why I came to New York. He’d tried to see Marjorie and she’d refused to talk to him. She told him she never wanted to see him again, so he... he telephoned me. I... I came here and found...” She broke off.

“She was down on her luck,” Johnny said, quietly. “She didn’t want to admit to Esbenshade that she had failed. People are that way; when everything goes wrong they crawl into their holes. Sometimes they pull the hole in after them. I can understand that, but I can’t see why Esbenshade should lie about his having been here in New York...”

“He explained that to me; it was the Mariota Record Company. He was a creditor — in fact, he’s also a large stockholder. He thought there was something wrong with the company and he came here to investigate them... secretly. He didn’t want them to know, at the company, that he was here.”

“And it was he who had you go out with Seebright last night?”

Susan regarded Johnny steadily for a moment. Then she went to a chair and seated herself. “I knew Doug Esbenshade, in Iowa,” she said, “I knew him as my sister’s fiancé. I didn’t know him as a businessman and I didn’t know him as a jilted lover. That Doug Esbenshade I’ve just learned to know. He’s cold, he’s vindictive and cruel. The first Doug Esbenshade let my sister come to New York, so that she could do something with her voice. The same Doug invested a huge amount of money in a record company, to help Marjorie. He did it secretly, too, so she’d think she was succeeding in her own right. And then something happened; despite everything, Marjorie failed — she was turned down by the Mariota people—”

“Because of a man named Armstrong, who also loved her and was so vindictive when she threw him over that he wrecked Marjorie’s chances with Mariota...”

“It was Armstrong then who was responsible for turning Esbenshade against Marjorie. When he came here last week he heard about Armstrong and Marjorie. He believed the worst. As a result he destroyed the Mariota Record Company — and Charles Armstrong. And now he hates Marjorie’s memory so much that he won’t do for her the one little thing that would have made her life worthwhile...” Susan paused. “That’s why I made the deal with Orville Seebright last night.”

“You gave him the Con Carson record, so that he can go to his bank and get the money to pay off Esbenshade and get the Mariota Record Company out of bankruptcy...?”

Susan nodded.

“And in return, Seebright will give your sister fame — posthumous fame?”

Again Susan nodded. “Her voice was good. The recording was an excellent one... It’s going to be on the reverse side of the Con Carson record and everybody who plays the Carson record will hear Marjorie’s voice. I... it’s the least I could do for Marjorie. I somehow think she’ll... know...”

“Maybe,” said Johnny, softly, “maybe she will.” He hesitated. “Susan, I know who killed your sister...”

She looked at him steadily. “Doug...?”

He exhaled heavily and shook his head.

“Don’t tell me,” Susan said quickly. “I hate too many people now.”

“You’ll read about it in the papers tonight,” said Johnny and went out of Susan’s room.

He returned to Room 821 to find Sam Cragg fully dressed.

“All right,” Johnny said, “let’s go wash this up.”

Sam exclaimed, “You mean... you know who did it?”

“I’ve known since last night,” Johnny said. “Only I couldn’t prove it.” He scowled. “I still can’t.”

“Then how’re you going to pin it on the guy?”

“I’m going to make him admit it.”

They left the hotel and walked to Times Square. In front of the Times Building, a heavy-set man of about forty was standing reading the Want Ads in the Times. He looked like a substantial citizen, wore a rolled brim fedora and a nicely pressed dark blue suit.

Johnny walked up to him. “Like to make a fast twenty-five bucks, Mister?”

The man sized up Johnny across his opened newspaper. “Driving the getaway car?”

Johnny grinned. “Acting.”

“Not me,” said the man. “I get goose-pimples all over when I have to stand up in front of anyone.”

“You can do this sitting down — and the audience will be a small one. It’ll be all nice and private and it’ll take you an hour.”

“Mister,” said the man, “you’ve hired yourself an actor.”

Johnny signaled to a taxicab and the three of them climbed in. Johnny gave the cabdriver the address and then coached his actor in the lines he was to speak.