This Is Murder

Chapter Ten

Sam Moraine fought his way to consciousness through the deep oblivion of sleep. The insistent ringing of the extension telephone bell jarred him with the realization of impending duty. His hands were grouping for the instrument even before his numbed brain realized where he was or what was happening.

He spoke thickly into the transmitter, “Hello.”

Phil Duncan’s voice reached his ears, but for several seconds he couldn’t recognize it, could, in fact, hardly attach any significance to words which sounded in his ears as mere mechanical noises.

“... Hate to do this, Sam, but it’s important. I’ve got to see you right away. It’s for your own good as well as mine.”

Moraine’s mind tried to focus upon the subject in hand.

“Where are you now?”

“Right around the corner. We wanted to be certain you were home. Just come down and open the door when we ring. You won’t have to dress.”

“My God,” Moraine protested, “don’t you guys ever sleep? You use my office...”

He realized that he was talking to a dead line. Duncan, at the other end, had hung up the receiver.

Moraine jumped out of bed, kicked his feet into straw sandals, went to the bathroom, washed his mouth, scrubbed his face with cold water and sopped a cold towel on the back of his neck. The water felt good to him. He kicked off his pyjamas and flexed his muscles vigorously, getting the blood into circulation. He knew that he was going to need his wits about him.

He regarded his reflection in the mirror for a moment, then, with his fingers, tousled his hair. He put on his pyjamas and a bathrobe, and rubbed his knuckles across his eyes until he had brought a reddish look to the rims.

He left his bedroom and walked down the long corridor, down the winding staircase and stood at the front door, waiting.

He heard steps and opened the door.

Wind poured in.

Moraine blinked at the three men who hulked against the illumination of the porch light.

“Didn’t want you to get the servants up with the bell,” he said. “Come on in and follow me. We can talk in my bedroom. The heat’s all off. I’m cold.”

He turned his back, heard them file in behind him, and led the way up the stairs.

Moraine held open the door of his bedroom. The trio entered. Moraine closed the door. He grinned sleepily at Phil Duncan and at Barney Morden, then turned to face a tall, expressionless individual, garbed in black.

“Sam,” said Duncan, “shake hands with Frank Lott.”

Moraine extended a groping hand. The hand that gripped it was cold but firm. Long bony fingers wrapped themselves around Moraine’s hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Lott mechanically.

Moraine rubbed his hand to warm it, climbed into bed, pulled the covers up over himself and yawned prodigiously.

“What’s it all about?” he asked thickly.

Morden sat down on the side of the bed.

“Look here, Sam,” he said, “this thing isn’t a joke. It isn’t something you can play at — it’s serious. This is...”

“Just a minute, Barney,” Duncan said. “I’ll do the talking.”

Morden shrugged his shoulders and was silent.

Moraine, yawning again, said, “You fellows act as though you were making a professional call.”

“We are.”

Moraine sighed. “Well, damn it,” he said, “sit down — don’t stand there gawking around like a bunch of goofs. Close the window if it’s too drafty. There are some cigarettes over there in the case. If you birds think I’m going to offer you a drink at this hour of the morning, you’re nuts. You’ve got all the hospitality you’re going to get. Sit down and tell me what the hell it’s all about.”

Lott jack-knifed himself into a chair in slow dignity. Duncan sat on the arm of the chair, lit a cigarette and stared steadily at Moraine through the smoke.

“Sam,” he said, “we were in your office to-night.”

“I’ll say you were,” Moraine remarked, “and I hope to God you didn’t get me up at this hour of the morning in order to tell me that you were at my office. By the way, what time is it?”

“Around four o’clock,” Duncan said.

“Better close that window, Barney. There s a hell of a wind blowing through here. You fellows will get cold.”

Barney Morden hesitated a moment, then got up and pushed the window shut.

“You left your office in a hurry,” Duncan went on.

“I tried to. That goof with the empty pop-gun gave me a bad start. What did you do with him?”

“Locked him up.”

“Is he nuts, or what?”

“He thinks you broke up his home.”

“He’s a damned liar; I didn’t break up anything.”

“Just before you left the office,” Duncan said, “a woman called you on the telephone.” -

“Yeah, I guess so,” Moraine agreed, yawning again. “I wish you fellows would let a guy get some sleep. I’m so damn dopey I don’t half know what you’re talking about.”

Morden and Duncan exchanged glances.

“A call from a woman,” Duncan said.

“Damn it!” Moraine remarked. “I presume you’ll want to know what the call was about next.”

“We will,” Duncan said.

“You can go jump in the lake,” Moraine told him, grinning.

“The call,” Barney Morden said, “was from a woman, and she was excited. She seemed to be having hysterics. She screamed ‘Come out here,’ or something like that, and you could hear her all over the office.”

Duncan stared unsmilingly at Moraine. He spoke without raising his voice.

“Shut up, Barney, I’m handling this.”

Barney Morden grimly remarked, “Okay, Chief.”

Frank Lott sat motionless, his face fixed and lugubrious. Moraine flashed him a glance and said, “For Christ’s sake, what is this bird, an undertaker?”

Duncan nodded his head in slow, solemn assent. “Yes,” he said, “he’s an undertaker. He’s also the coroner.”

“Cheerful outfit to be pulling a man out of bed,” Moraine said, and turned to Frank Lott. “I didn’t mean any offense, Lott. I was just trying to make a joke.”

“And to change the subject,” Barney Morden said.

“Shut up, Barney,” Duncan repeated in a low monotone.

Sam Moraine made tasting noises with his mouth.

“What the devil’s the matter?” he asked.

“We’re waiting to find out about that telephone call,” Duncan said.

“Good God!” Moraine exclaimed. “Do I have to explain every telephone call I get, just because I let you birds use my office?”

“You left the office in a hurry,” Duncan went on, “and went somewhere. I think you took a cab.”

“Do you, indeed!” murmured Moraine sarcastically. “That’s awfully important, if it’s true, Phil. You should concentrate on it — find out if it’s true.”

“We’ve located a cab driver,” Duncan went on, “who took a man who answers your description, from near your office building out to Sixth Avenue and Maplehurst.”

Moraine’s face became utterly expressionless.

“What are you trying to do?” he asked.

“We want to know whether you were the one who took that cab.”

“What if I was?”

“What did you go out there for?”

“I didn’t say I went out there.”

“We can get the cab driver and he can identify you.”

“Suppose he does? Then what?”

“You’re not helping us much,” Duncan said.

Moraine laughed. “Snap out of it, Phil. Tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll answer questions. Try this gloomy, professional stuff and I won’t tell you a damned thing.”

Duncan and Barney Morden exchanged glances.

“I think,” Duncan said, “I’m going to ask you to get up.”

“What do you mean? Do you want to search the bed?”

“No, get up and get your clothes on.”

“Why?”

“We want you to go with us.”

“Where?”

“To the morgue.”

Moraine’s face showed indignation.

“Now, what the hell should I go to the morgue for?” he expostulated.

“To look at a body,” Duncan told him.

“Whose body?”

“We’ll let you know when you get there.”

“What good would it do for me to look at a body?”

“Never mind, we want you to go.”

Moraine stared steadily at him.

“Is this official?” he asked.

Duncan sighed and said, “Sam, I hate to do this, but this is official as hell.”

“And why do you want me to look at the body?”

“Because we think you went out to Sixth Avenue and Maplehurst.”

“That’s got something to do with it?”

“That’s got something to do with it.”

“What happens if I don’t dress?”

“If you don’t dress,” Duncan said slowly, “I’m afraid it will be an admission that you’re concealing something that may be connected with the case.”

“Then what?”

“Then we’d have to take you down to the office for inquiry. We’d have to confront you with the taxi driver.”

“Well, why not bring him up here?”

Duncan shook his head slowly and said regretfully, “No, Sam, we’re going to give you the breaks. We’d put you in a line of ten or fifteen men and let the cab driver see if he could pick you out.”

“Why, you don’t do that to a man,” Moraine exclaimed, “unless he’s accused of crime I”

Duncan’s silence was more significant than words world have been.

Sam Moraine kicked back the covers, walked to the closet, divested himself of his pyjamas and started dressing.

“Of all the fool things I ever heard in my life!” he said, as he struggled into his shirt.

Duncan sat silent. Barney Morden’s eyes followed his every move.

“There’s a bottle over there in the cupboard,” Moraine said. “It’s damned good Scotch. You guys help yourselves while I’m getting dressed... God, of all the damn fool ideas I ever heard of, dragging me off to a morgue to look at a corpse!”

He fumbled with his necktie, inspecting himself in the mirror, setting his face into rigid lines, schooling himself to give no exclamation, not to betray himself by so much as a single quiver of the facial muscles when the authorities should rip back the sheet and uncover the dead body of Pete Dixon.

The men were pouring whisky into glasses as he finished buttoning his vest.

“Want one, Sam?” asked Duncan.

“Make it a big one,” Moraine accepted.

Duncan pushed a glass, across to him. Moraine held the amber liquid up to the light.

“Well, boys,” he said cheerfully, “here’s to crime.”

Phil Duncan set his empty glass down on the side of the table, pulled his coat around him.

“Come on, Sam,” he said. “I hate to do this. Get your coat on and let’s go.”

In silence, Moraine wrapped his coat about him, pulled a hat down on his head, nodded to the others. They filed out through the door, down the stairs and to the windswept sidewalk.

A car was waiting at the curb. Morden was doing the driving. Lott took the front seat, Duncan and Moraine the rear. The car purred into motion, swept through the deserted streets at speed. On the corners the wind tugged at the car, swayed it from side to side.

“Hell of a wind,” Morden remarked, fighting the steering wheel.

Duncan said nothing.

They turned down a dark side street, slid to a stop before a gloomy building, in front of which glowed greenish lights.

The men pushed through a swinging door. A dour-faced individual regarded them with fishy eyes, and nodded. Lott took the lead, led the way through a door, into a long corridor, paused before another door, took a key from his pocket, unlocked the door and entered a room that was as sepulchral as the inside of a vault. A sheeted figure lay upon a marble slab.

Barney Morden manuevered Moraine into a position facing the sheeted figure.

“You’ll understand, Sam,” Phil Duncan said, in the monotone of a magician diverting the attention of his audience, “that we only want...”

Sam Moraine saw Barney Morden’s hand surreptitiously drop to a corner of the sheet. He braced himself for the shock.

The sheet ripped back explosively as Morden gave it a strong jerk.

Sam Moraine’s eyes stared at the battered countenance of a dead woman. Blood matted her hair, encrusting it against her face in dark, stiff streamers. Blows had crushed the skull, had pushed the face lopsided. One eye bulged from its socket.

“Good God!” said Sam Moraine, recoiling.

The body was that of Ann Hartwell.

“When did you see her last, Sam?” Duncan asked.

Moraine turned to face Duncan. Morden took his arm, pivoted him back toward the corpse. “Take a good look at her,” he said. “Look at the face. See where those blows landed. Tell us who hit her.”

Moraine whirled savagely.

“Say, what the hell are you trying to do?” he demanded. “Is this some sort of a third degree? God damn you, Barney! I’ve shot square with you as a friend. You’ve mooched my liquor and hung around me, playing poker at my office and at my home. I don’t know as you’ve ever given me anything. I’ve put up with you because you’re a friend of Phil’s. Now you’re showing yourself up. You touch me with your damned hands again and I’ll smash your nose all over your face! Do you get that?”

Duncan stepped forward, pushed between them.

“That’s all, Barney,” he said. “I told you to keep out of this. You can’t handle Sam that way.”

Barney Morden hesitated for a moment, then sullenly stepped back.

“Know anything about it, Sam?” Duncan asked.

“Not one damn thing!” Moraine said slowly and emphatically. “I don’t need to tell you that this is a shock to me, Phil. It’s a hell of a shock. The last time I saw her, she was all dolled up in silk. She’d just come out of a bathtub, but she’d taken time to give attention to her face and hair, so that she was pretty damn presentable. She was attractive, and she knew it.

“I’m no saint; I like to look them over. Occasionally I fall. The woman wasn’t my type, but she was darned good looking. I hadn’t ever seen her before I gave the kidnapers the money for her release. I had no idea on earth she was under that sheet just now.”

“Her body,” Duncan said slowly, “was found beside the railroad track at Sixth Avenue and Maplehurst. She probably wasn’t killed there. That’s where the body was left. It might have been dumped from a moving train, or from an automobile.

“Railroad schedules show that a freight was due to pass Maplehurst at ten ten, a fast passenger train at ten forty-seven. Those were the only two trains over the tracks from nine at night to one in the morning. She was killed between ten o’clock and eleven-thirty o’clock.

“You left your office at about eleven. You may have taken a cab to Sixth Avenue and Maplehurst. A woman called you on the telephone about ten-fifty. She asked you to join her at once. She was hysterical.”

Moraine met the district attorney’s eyes. “Phil,” he said, “I give you my word of honor that telephone call had nothing to do with this woman’s death. I haven’t seen her since that last time I mentioned. I didn’t talk with her over the telephone or personally. I didn’t go out to meet her to-night. I didn’t know where she was, or that she was dead.”

Phil Duncan said wearily, “All right, Sam, that lets you out. You can go home.”

Barney Morden sucked air into his lungs in a quick gasp. “Ain’t you going to?...”

Duncan’s voice was flat and toneless with fatigue. “Shut up, Barney,” he said. “And drive Sam back to his apartment.”

Moraine gave Phil Duncan’s arm a squeeze. “Thanks for the offer, Phil, but I’ll take a cab. You have Barney take you home where you can get some sleep.”

He turned and lunged through the door.

Barney Morden started to talk as the door slammed shut behind Moraine, but Sam couldn’t hear the words.