Time for Murder

Chapter Five Time for Murder

Brokay told her his story; told it without embellishment, without any elaborate explanations, giving her merely an outline of what happened. She stood staring at him steadily.

“What’s the matter?” asked Brokay.

“I think,” she said, “that you at least owe me a certain amount of frankness. I have been frank with you; you should be frank with me.”

“But I have been frank with you.”

“The story that you have told me,” she said, “is probably the most improbable yam I have ever heard.”

Brokay realized, then, the utter hopelessness of expecting the police to believe his story. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, “if you don’t believe me. It’s the only story I can offer.”

She stood staring at him for several seconds. Finally she said: “I’m going to believe you, Mr. Brokay. My reason tells me I shouldn’t, but there’s something about you that makes me believe you in spite of myself.”

“Thank you,” he said, still with that stiff formality.

“But,” she went on, “you could never tell that to the police.”

“I know it,” he said.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

Brokay turned to the monkey. “That,” he said, “is the only clue. Apparently the monkey didn’t belong to Glady’s Ordway.”

“No,” she said, “the monkey didn’t belong to Gladys Ordway, I know that, because I was in the house with her. I saw her just a few hours before she was killed. She didn’t have any such pet as this.”

“Then,” said Brokay, “it stands to reason that the monkey was introduced into the house by the murderer.”

“But why on earth would a murderer bring a monkey to the house?”

“I don’t know.”

“And why would the monkey remain after the murder had been committed?”

“I think,” Brokay said, “I can give you some explanation of that. Monkeys are really sensitive animals, although many times people don’t realize it. When I entered the room, the monkey was sitting on the head of the bed, chattering in blind terror. What’s more, the murder had been committed but a few minutes before I entered the room. That means that the murderer must have been in the room when we entered the house; perhaps heard us on the stairs, or saw the beam of our flashlight as we came toward the room. He had to make his escape.”

“And you mean he was trying to catch the monkey?”

“Yes, the monkey had become terrified when he committed the crime. It had run from him. He had tried to recapture the animal, and then he heard us. He had to escape and leave the monkey there.”

“That,” she said, “sounds reasonable. But I still can’t understand why the murderer should have taken the monkey with him, or who the murderer was, or what the motive for the murder was.”

Brokay’s eyes glinted. “Well,” he said, “I’m going to do some detective work of my own. There’s one thing that’s a cinch, I’m in this thing up to my necktie and I’ve got to get out. The only way I can do it is by finding out what actually did happen.”

He crossed to the telephone which set on the table by the window.

“Take the classified index, Miss Koline,” he said, “and read down through the pet stores. I’m going to call them up one at a time. You give me the numbers.”

“What’s the idea?” she asked.

“The idea is,” he said, “that this monkey must originally have come from a pet store. I don’t think that the murderer had owned the monkey very long; certainly not long enough to have won the confidence of the little animal; not long enough to have learned very much about him. I’m acting on the theory that the monkey was sold recently.”

“I can’t understand just how you can figure that,” she said. “I see that there’s something to be said in favor of it, but—”

“Nevertheless,” he interrupted, “that’s the only theory we’ve got to work on, and we’re going to work on it.”

She opened the telephone book, ran her finger down the classified directory, and said: “All right, here’s the first one— Drexel Four-o-six-two.”

He dialed the number, and, when a voice answered, said: “I am trying to get some information about a monkey that was sold from your store within the last week. Have you a record of such sales?”

“We haven’t sold any monkey during the past week,” the man said. “It’s been a month since we made a sale of a monkey. You understand that at this particular season of the year the demand isn’t brisk, and we very seldom sell monkeys. Usually we handle them on order.”

“Thank you,” said Brokay, and hung up.

Rhoda Koline gave him the next number. Brokay call it. The result was the same. The third store had sold a monkey within the last week. Brokay got a description of the monkey and of the person who had bought it, together with the address. The fourth store yielded a blank. The fifth store had sold a monkey. The clerk couldn’t tell the name or address of the people who had purchased it

“There was a man,” he said, “who had a slight scar on the left side of his forehead, a little star-shaped scar. He was carrying a cane. He wore a tuxedo — a man about forty-four or forty-five, I should judge. He was broad across the shoulders, but not fat. He was accompanied by a girl in a leopard-skin coat. The girl was ten or fifteen years younger than he was. They had been looking at this monkey that we kept in the window, and decided they wanted to purchase it. They had both been drinking. We gave them some instructions on the care of the monkey and delivered the monkey to them.”

“Can you describe the woman?” asked Brokay.

“Not much more than that she wore the leopard-skin coat, and, as I remember it, had black hair and black eyes. It was the man I was interested in mostly. He was rather a remarkable individual, although I couldn’t tell just how he gave the impression of being remarkable. It was something in his manner; something in his character.”

“Tell me something more about the monkey,” Brokay said. “Give me a description of it.”

The man gave a technical description of breed, species, place of origin, and so on.

When he had finished Brokay said: “Can you tell me that in less technical terms? I want to know exactly what the monkey looked like.”

The man gave him a description which tallied exactly with that of the monkey which was at the moment clinging to Brokay’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Brokay said, when he had noted the points of the description.

“You said you were with the police?” asked the man in the pet store.

“I didn’t say so,” Brokay answered, “but you can draw your own conclusions.”

He slid the receiver back into place and turned to Rhoda Koline.

“Miss Koline,” he said, “I think we’re on the trail. You’ve got to do something and do it right away.”

“What is it?”

“Find out if Thelma Grebe has a leopard-skin coat.”

“Oh yes,” she said, “I know that she has. She wore it one night when she was out with me. In fact, she had it on the night she came to call on me there at the Ordway residence.”

Brokay stood staring at the dead body on the bed. “There’s one funny thing about these murders,” he said.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“There’s a single stabbing wound, made with a long, narrow-bladed weapon. It’s too long and thin to be an ordinary type of knife. Moreover, the murderer has always had to work fast. He’s had to thrust and then run. I am wondering if he is absolutely certain that his victim is dead when he leaves the room.”

“What difference would it make?” Rhoda Koline asked.

“I’m going to show you,” he said. “This is going to be a little gruesome, but it’s got to be done.”

He walked to the bed, picked up the body of the dead burglar, dragged it half from the bed, so that it lay partially on the bed and partially on the floor. Then he took a pencil from his pocket, a piece of paper, and wrote in a rude scrawl—

“Thelma is mixed up in it. She notified…”

At this point Brokay let the pencil trail across the paper. He placed the paper directly beneath the left hand of the corpse, pushed the pencil into the fingers of the right hand, and then arranged the arms so that it looked as though the burglar had tried to scrawl some message just as he was dying.

“But,” she said, “I don’t see what you’re getting at.”

Brokay nodded toward Sam West. “That man,” he said, “was killed because he knew too much.”

“What did he know?” she asked, with a frown.

“It wasn’t what he knew, so much as what they thought he knew,” Brokay said. “Now I’m in exactly the position that he occupied, only I really know what they could only surmise that Sam West knew.”

“In other words,” she said, her face suddenly changing color, “you mean that—”

Brokay consulted his wristwatch. “I mean,” he said, “that it is going to take three murders to make the chain complete. There was the murder of Gladys Ordway. We don’t know yet what the motive was. There was the murder of Sam West. He was murdered because he knew too much about the Ordway murder. The next murder will be when I am stabbed in the back with some long, thin weapon.”

“But when?” she asked. “Will they attempt—”

“Almost immediately,” he said. “I think we can count on the attempt within the next hour.” He turned and smiled at her, but his smile was grim and without mirth.

“What time is it now?” she inquired.

The smile remained fixed upon his lips. “Time for murder,” he said in an undertone as the knob on the door turned quietly. The latch clicked back. The lock held the door in place.

“Unlock the door,” said Brokay.

Rhoda Koline turned the key in the lock. The door opened and Thelma Grebe crossed the threshold. “There’s a message,” she said, “for Frank Compton. Someone wants him at once, and—”

She broke off with a quick scream as she stood, apparently rigid with terror and startled surprise, staring at the figure which lay half off the bed, with the tell-tale red pool which had seeped through the covers telling its own grim story.

“Good God!” she said, “it’s Sam! What’s happened?”

“I’m sure I couldn’t tell you,” Brokay said. “I was talking with this young lady in the social hall. I came in to see Sam. I found him like this.”

“There was a man who came to see him,” she said quickly. “A man by the name of Compton, a fence. Where is he?”

Brokay shrugged his shoulders.

“Then,” said Thelma Grebe, “he’s the one that did it. He’s the one that’s responsible. We’ve got to find him.”

“Probably,” Brokay said, “that means Compton was at least the last one to see him alive. The police will want him as a material witness.”

“The police?” exclaimed Thelma Grebe. “Who said anything about the police?”

“Don’t you notify the police?” asked Brokay.

“Certainly not,” she snapped. “This is a place where we can’t have the police prowling around. We’ll have to handle the matter in such a way that the place will never be mixed up in it. But that isn’t going to prevent Sam West’s friends from getting vengeance.”

She turned and stared at Rhoda Koline. “When did you get in here?” she asked.

“You heard what the gentleman said, Thelma,” Rhoda Koline remarked.

Brokay entered the conversation once more. “We had just this minute entered the door,” he said. “We saw the body and turned the key in the lock of the door. We didn’t want to be disturbed until we could find out what it was all about. Then you twisted the knob on the door. I decided that it might be better to let you in, because I didn’t know who you were, and I was afraid you might make a racket if you found the door locked and got no response.”

Rhoda Koline, playing her part as though she had been carefully schooled in it by several rehearsals, moved toward the body, then recoiled.

“Look!” she said, “there’s something in his hand! Something that he was writing on — a paper or something.”

Thelma Grebe moved swiftly forward.

“I’ll take it,” she said.

“Just a moment,” Brokay said, and moved quickly, so that he was standing shoulder to shoulder with her as they bent over the figure and stared at the paper.

Brokay read, then looked accusingly at Thelma Grebe.

“Are you the Thelma that he referred to?” he asked. “That’s your name, I believe.”

“Certainly not,” she said. “It’s some other Thelma. What’s more, that doesn’t look like Sam West’s writing. I don’t believe Sam West could possibly have written anything after he received that stab wound in the back. That must have been instantaneous. This is some kind of a frame-up.”

Brokay shrugged his shoulders. “At any rate,” he said, “the paper is evidence.”

“No it isn’t!” she said and swooped for it.

Brokay bent swiftly, caught her wrist with his hand, pulled her back and picked up the paper. He folded it and slipped it in his pocket. “Oh yes,” he said, smiling frostily, “it’s evidence’.”

She stepped back, stared at him with blazing eyes. “You can’t get away with that sort of stuff,” she said. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Brokay shrugged his shoulders again. “I am,” he said, “a friend of Sam West — that is, I was a friend of his.”

“You’re a great friend!” she blazed. “You were left here alone in the room with him, and he was murdered. That may be what you call friendship.”

“I was down at the end of the hail,” he said, “in the social room — Room Ten.”

“You’re a liar!” she said. “You weren’t there at all.”

“Oh yes I was, and this young lady was with me.”

“This young lady talked with you a moment and then went back to her room,” said Thelma Grebe. “You can’t pull that stuff on me. You’re dealing with somebody that’s not a greenhorn, you know. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

She suddenly whirled and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her.

“Quick, Miss Koline,” Brokay said, “I think you’d better get back to your room.”

“No,” she said, her lips white. “We’ve got to get out of here. Don’t you understand what’s going to happen?”

“I understand perfectly,” he said, “but I’m on my guard.”

“No, no,” she told him, “let’s go. We can notify the police. Certainly they can trace down the clue of this monkey. I believe that the dealer would be able to identify the people. You could tell your story, and—”

“And it wouldn’t he believed,” he said, interrupting her. “You know your reaction to the story.”

“But it’s different now,” she said. “Please come. We can leave here, and—”

“No,” he said, “you’ve got to go to your room, and keep out of this. Go to your room and promise me that you’ll keep the door locked.” He took her by the arm, gently pushed her across the corridor to her room.

“And you’re going to stay here alone?” she asked.

He nodded. “It’s my only chance,” he said, “to get the thing cleared up. It’s got to be done for your sake, as well as mine.”

“But that doesn’t mean that you should take any risks,” she said.

Brokay gently but firmly pushed her across the corridor and into her room. “Stay there and don’t come out,” he said curtly.

He pulled the door shut with a bang, walked back across the corridor to the room where the dead burglar lay sprawled on the bed, and waited.

After a while, he thought he heard steps on the stairs. He braced himself and watched the handle of the door.

Nothing happened.

He frowned and looked at his watch.

More than fifteen minutes had elapsed since Thelma Grebe had left the room. Brokay couldn’t believe that she would summon the police; neither could he believe that she had intended simply to run away and leave the place. He kept thinking of those steps on the stairs; there had been something furtive about them, something—

Suddenly he gave a convulsive start. He strode to the door, jerked it open, crossed the corridor, twisted the knob of Rhoda Koline’s room and opened the door.

Thelma Grebe was standing just within the doorway. Standing beside her was a heavily built man, with a small star-shaped scar on the left side of his forehead. The man was carrying a cane in his right hand; his left hand held his hat and gloves.

“But surely, my dear young lady,” he was saying, “you can’t—” They turned as the door opened.

“Here he is now,” said Rhoda Koline with a quick catch in her voice.

The man faced Brokay. “Ah!” he said. “I was going to see you in a moment, my friend. I’m on special duty with the police. I am very friendly to Thelma Grebe, but I understand there has been a serious crime committed here.”

“There’s been a murder, if that’s what you mean,” George Brokay said, watching him closely.

“Where?” asked the man.

“In the room across the hall,” Brokay said.

The man bowed. “Kindly lead the way,” he said. “That is what I was trying to find out. Miss Grebe was rather indefinite about the entire affair. She wanted to get the thing hushed up in some way. I explained to her that it was impossible to hush up a murder.” He gestured toward the door.

Brokay turned his back to the man, put his hand on the knob of the door.

Several things happened almost at once. Rhoda Koline screamed. George Brokay flung himself down in a quick duck. Something hissed through the air above his head, and struck the panels of the door with an ominous thunk.

The man behind Brokay had lunged forward with the cane. The covering of the cane, which, apparently, was wood, had slipped back from a long, thin blade of keen steel, and the blade had embedded itself in the door.

Thelma Grebe, realizing what had happened, flung up her arm, and sunlight glinted upon blued steel as she pointed an automatic at Brokay. Brokay, still crouching under the blade which had pushed itself into the doorway, went forward in a long, low tackle, catching the legs of the man with the scarred forehead.

Thelma Grebe fired. The shot crashed through the panels of the door, missing Brokay by not more than an inch. Rhoda Koline flung herself upon Thelma Grebe, struggling for the gun. The man with the scarred forehead crashed down under the impact of Brokay’s rushing tackle. They squirmed about on the floor together. Brokay felt the man’s hand pushing its way under his coat lapel. He grabbed the arm with his left hand. The man lurched and twisted. Brokay caught a brief glimpse of a gun. He flung himself to one side, smashed his right fist over and across.

Another shot rang out, the gun so close to Brokay’s ear that the report was deafening. There was a shower of powdered plaster as the bullet struck the ceiling. The two women were struggling and twisting. Rhoda Koline hanging onto Thelma Grebe’s arm with the grim tenacity of a fighting bulldog.

The man with the scarred forehead gave a lurch, got to his hands and knees, flung up the weapon once more. Brokay pushed the weapon aside, sent everything he had in a terrific right which crashed through, full to the other’s face. As the man staggered backward and rolled inertly to the floor, Brokay grabbed the weapon from the man’s limp fingers. At that moment Rhoda Koline staggered backward. Thelma Grebe raised the gun once mere, this time not at Brokay, but straight at Rhoda Koline’s breast.

Brokay lunged forward. His left hand caught the woman’s arm, pulled it down and to one side as she fired. Then he wrested the gun from her, backed to the door and stood with the guns covering the pair. “Call the police, Rhoda,” he said.