Manly Wade Wellman - Chapbook 02 (13 page)

 
          
“The key—half a key, anyway.
This is a murder gone wrong.
Just now this Sharp tried to force a quarrel on me.”

 
          
“Probably
acting for the murderer,” chimed in Buckalew.

 
          
“Exactly.
It was all fixed up. This Captain Sharp sneers at
me and does his best to make a fight of it. That was what Malbrook did.
Malbrook’s wasn’t a chance squabble. He engineered things to make a situation
out of which a duel would come. For some reason, I was marked to be murdered.”

 
         
BUCKALEW
gazed at Stover with what might have been critical wonder in his deep dark
eyes. “You may be right. But Malbrook was killed first.”

 
          
“That’s
it.
First a plot to destroy men.
Then someone kills
Malbrook instead. I wonder who all are involved.”

 
          
“I
can name one,” said Buckalew.
“Bee MacGowan.”

 
          
Stover
started and tried to gesture the idea away.

 
          
“But
she was what you fought over, Dillon,” Buckalew pursued. “She was at your table
just as Malbrook came over and used her to make a scene. I said once not to
forget any single figure in this mess. That goes for Bee MacGowan, as well.
Here’s our taxi.”

 
          
Stover
nodded, but not as a sign of defeat.

 
          
“I’ll
have the solution inside of another day,” he vowed.

 
         
CONSIDERING
that Captain Sharp had just left the expensive and exclusive Zaarr, the
sleeping quarters he sought
were
shabby. They
consisted of two small rooms, little larger than cupboards, in one of the
lofty, blocky buildings that underlay the high towers among which he had spent
a few hours. He entered the front cubicle, and flung himself down in the one
chair.

 
          
His
coarse face bore the look of one angry and worried.

 
          
Almost
at once his radio phone buzzed. He approached it as a diver approaches a cold
plunge. “Yes,” he said into the transmitter, “this is Captain Sharp.”

 
          
“You
have failed me,”
came
a cold whisper he knew.

 
          
“It
wasn’t my fault,” Sharp began to plead.

 
          
“Do
not palter. Do not argue. I was there and saw. You handled the situation
foolishly. I felt like telling Mr. Congreve the truth about you, that you’re
guilty of many offenses against the Space Laws, and letting him carry you off
to jail. I am through with you now.”

 
          
“Give
me a chance!” Sharp cried vehemently. “I need that money you offered me. Let me
meet Stover again. I promise—”

 
          
“Your
promises are nothing, Sharp.
Less than nothing.”

 
          
A noise behind.
Sharp set down the phone and turned.

 
          
The
door to the rear room, where his bed was located, swung open. A towering shape
in blue and scarlet stepped into the light.

 
          
Sharp
swore shrilly, and his hand dived into the bosom of his tunic. But Dillon
Stover’s right hand, its sprained knuckles lightly bandaged, leveled an
electro-automatic.

 
          
“Freeze,”
he commanded, and Sharp obeyed. Stover crossed to him and with his left hand
drew the weapon that Sharp carried in an armpit holster.
 
 
         
The captain found the spirit to
answer. “You aren’t going to give me anything like a fighting chance, I
suppose.”

 
          
“You
suppose correctly.” Stover studied him with his bright blue eyes. “Well,
Sharp—Captain
Sharp
,
discharged
—”

 
          
“How
did you know that?” wheezed Sharp, badly shaken.

 
          
“I
looked through your papers while I waited here for you. As to how I got in—you
were going to ask that next? I hired the room next to you and cut through the
wall with an MS-ray.
Your address?
I got it at the
Zaarr, where all guests are required to register. Why did I come? To settle
accounts. That handles everything you’re thinking to ask me. Now I’ll do the
questioning.”

 
          
“You’ve
got the guns,” snarled
Sharp
. “Ask me whatever you
want to.”

 
          
Stover
sat down, but did not grant a similar relaxation to his captive. “You were set
on me like a mangy dog,” he charged. “To pick a fight and kill me. Who hired
you?” Sharp shook his head. “I can’t tell you that.”

 
          
“You
mean you won’t?” Stover’s eyes narrowed, and the pistol seemed to tense itself
in his bandaged hand.

           
“I can’t. I never saw the bird.”
Sharp was suddenly earnest. “Listen, you must believe that. I saw only a big
shape wrapped in a cloak, with the face covered.”

 
          
“Gray cloak?
Veil?
Gloves?
Was it man or woman?”

 
         
AGAIN
Sharp
shook his head. I can’t say. He—or she—whispered.
I couldn’t tell a thing about the voice.” He glanced furtively around. “I’m
risking my life with every word I speak.”

 
          
“You’re
risking your life with every word you hold back,” Stover informed him. “When
were you given this job?”

 
          
“Today about
noon
.”
Sharp gulped and his voice trembled. “I
came to Pulambar a week ago, hoping to make a connection—a space-job.”

 
          
Stover
nodded. He knew how discredited space-men sometimes signed with outlaw vessels
in such big, lax communities.

 
          
“The
job didn’t come through,” Sharp went on, “and I was pretty desperate. Then
about
noon
, as I
say, there was a buzz at my door bell. In stalked this bird in the cloak and
veil.”

           
“Asking you to kill me,” supplied
Stover. “And you agreed.”

 
          
Sharp
spread his hands in appeal.
 
 
         
“I’m broke. I’ll starve. Don’t I have
to live?”

 
          
“I
fail to see the necessity. And you won’t live long if you don’t get on with
this yarn. Talk fast, and don’t lie.”

 
          
There
was no danger of
Sharp
lying. “I was told that you’d
be at the Zaarr tonight—you’d made reservation—and that there’d be an admission
card in my name there,” he rattled on. ‘‘I was told how to pick the scrap by
mentioning a woman named Gerda.”

 
          
“You
don’t know Gerda?” put in Stover.

 
          
“Never heard of her before today.”
Sharp was almost in
tears. “Mr. Stover, all I can say is that I’m sorrier than—”

 
          
“You’ll
be sorriest if you try to fool or forestall me,” Stover promised grimly. “And
just now, I judge that the whisperer was on your phone.”

 
          
“Yes,
telling me that I’d failed, was through,
wouldn’t
get
paid anything.”

 
          
Stover
had relaxed a trifle. Sharp sprang at him. Without rising from his seat, Stover
lifted a leg and kicked his assailant in the chest. Sharp fell, doubled up and
gasping. Stover laughed shortly, and rose.

 
          
“I’m
going,” he said. “By the way, do you realize your phone never tuned off?”

 
          
He
stepped to the instrument and spoke into it. “Hello, are you there? . . . I
heard the connection break,
Sharp
. The whisperer’s
been listen- ing.

 
          
Sharp
started moaning. “We’ve been heard. I spilled the dope. Now I’m done for.”

 
          
“Good
night,” said Stover, and moved toward the door. Sharp got to his feet. “Wait!!
What’s to become of me?”

 
          
“That’s
problematical,
Sharp
. I can’t do anything. I carry my
life in my hand everywhere I go.”

 
          
“What
had I better do?”

 
          
Stover
thought. Then:

 
          
“Go
to police headquarters. Look for a special agent named Congreve. Tell him any
dirty thing you’ve done, and it’ll land you in a cell. You should be safe
there. Later on, I’ll get in touch with you. We may make a deal if you’ll talk
in court.”

 
         
Reynardine
Phogor and her stepfather looked up in irritated wonder as the robot servitors
in the reception hall buzzed and rasped in protest. There was a clanking
scuffle as a robot was being pushed aside. Then a blue and scarlet giant
stalked in.

 
          
“Dillon
Stover!” exclaimed Reynardine.

 
          
Phogor’s
frog-face was distorted with fury. “What new violence—” he began angrily.

 
          
Stover
gestured for quiet. “I’m trying to help.
About the murder of
Malbrook and its effect on you.”

 
          
The
girl drew herself up. She was magnificently dressed, with a little too much
sparkle. Her fine eyes glittered disdain. “How can you help?” she demanded.

 
          
“By turning up the real murderer.
That would help you—unless
one of you did it.” Stover looked at each in turn. “Don’t call any robots,
Phogor. They’ll get smashed all out of working order. Listen to what I have to
say, and then I’ll go.”

 
          
Phogor
and Reynardine looked at each other. Then: “Say what you wish,” granted Phogor.

 
          
“It’s
about this alleged will,” said Stover. “You, Miss Reynardine, are very
confident of its existence.”

 
          
She
nodded her head, and the light played on its onyx streakings. “I am confident.
That is, unless Brome Fielding destroyed it.”

 
          
“You
saw the will?”

 
          
“I
heard it. You see, it’s a televiso record, picturing Mace announcing his
bequests verbally. In it he recognized me as his intended wife, and considers
me his principal heir-at- law.”

 
          
“Perfectly
legal,” seconded Phogor in his mighty voice.

 
          
“Would
he have kept the will in his fortified room?” asked Stover. “If he did, it’s
probably destroyed. Everything was smashed by the explosion.” “That may have
happened,” sighed Reynardine, as though she disliked
to shift
the blame for the will’s loss from Fielding.

           
Stover asked one more question. “You
hate Fielding, Miss Reynardine?”

 
          
“That
is an insolent remark,” began Phogor, but his stepdaughter waved him to
silence.

 
          
“Why
not tell Mr. Stover? All the rest of Pulambar seems to know. Mr. Fielding wants
to marry me.”

 
          
“Oh,”
said Stover. “And has he ever suggested marriage or made love before?”

 
          
She
shook her head. “He doesn’t put it on an emotional basis. Says that he and I
were the closest two persons to Mace, and that we should marry because of that
relationship. Rather fantastic. And,” she smiled a little at Stover, “I don’t
find him attractive.”

 
          
“I
think Mr. Stover’s unwarranted inquisition has gone far enough,” contributed
Phogor. “We are both tired. We have been frank. Let him be considerate, and
leave us.”

 
          
Stover
bowed, and left.

 
         
IN
THE reception hall that had been Malbrook’s, Congreve and Fielding faced each
other above the body of Gerda.

 
          
“Thank
heaven I asked you to come with me,” said Fielding, shaken.

 
          
Congreve
looked at the corpse again. “It would have been hard to frame you with this.
She’s been dead for hours. Now tell me again.”

 
          
“A radio phone call.
A whispering voice told me to come here
alone. But I had the inspiration, a lucky one, to ask you to come with me. You
say this was one of your undercover people? Was she working on this murder
case?”

 
          
Someone
else entered. It was Stover, who gave only one look at Gerda. To Fielding he
said: “They told me at your place you’d come here.”

 
          
“Get
out,” Fielding said.

 
          
“No,” demurred Stover.
“I’m in this case up to my neck. Mr.
Fielding, do you love Reynardine Phogor? Did you ask her hand in marriage?”
“You’re insolent.” That was Congreve, not Fielding. “You’re officious, too. And
you’re still under suspicion.”