Murder on Wheels (15 page)

He hefted the knife carefully, and then took it with the blade gripped firmly between his thumb and first finger. “A wop sergeant once showed me how it’s done,” he observed. “I’ll see if I remember …”

His first try sent the knife whirling beautifully through the air, but only slapped the pillow with the handle instead of the blade. Miss Withers said nothing, but her attitude implied that he was worse at it than she had been herself. :He tried again, and this time the blade flew unerringly toward its mark.

Rip
it went through the pillow-slip, and that was all. For a second it hung in the air against the pillow, and then dropped to the sofa. The Inspector tried again, with the same result.

“Now try it closer,” Miss Withers suggested. “Get right in front of it. And if you can pin that pillow to the wall, even at that range, or if you can manage to cut a tiny slit in the back of the pillow, I’ll buy a box of cigars and smoke half of them myself.”

The Inspector took off his coat, and put down his cigar. Then he walked up to within three feet of the pillow and hurled the knife as if into the heart of his deadliest enemy. Once more the weapon penetrated no more than a quarter of an inch, and then dropped back.

Ten minutes later the Inspector gave it up as a bad job. Not even by laying the pillow down flat and stabbing at it with the knife gripped firmly in his hand could he penetrate the feathers.

He wiped the perspiration from his face. “Lord, woman, it’s like trying to stab a jellyfish. No resistance, but you don’t get anywhere.”

She was triumphant. “Exactly. I had an idea it would be this way. That’s why I insisted that you lend me the knife that nearly killed Hubert Stait, according to his own story. You see, I’ve helped stuff pillows, and I know that feathers are both the softest and the most obstinate things in the world. And whatever
did
happen last night in Hubert’s room, nobody threw this knife through his pillow, pinning it to the head of the bed!”

“Hmmm,” said the Inspector. “But the Sergeant found a slit in the back of the pillow, and a mark on the woodwork of the bed?”

“It’s possible that somebody took the knife and slit one of those holes … or both of them, for that matter.” They both sat in silence for a moment.

“Now what do you know about that?” the Inspector said softly. “So nice little Hubert up and told us a lie!”

“He told us what looks like a lie,” Miss Withers reminded him. “But so have a lot of other people in this case.”

“I
THINK I’M ON
the track at last,” the Inspector was saying. He had relaxed in Miss Withers’ big armchair, a sandwich in one hand and a glass of milk in the other, in lieu of dinner.

The school-teacher was attacking the feathers with a whisk broom, and succeeding only in scattering them like thistledown. “On the track of what? Or whom, if you prefer.”

“The murderer of Laurie Stait, of course. In spite of all your trouble in proving that poor little Hubert was faking, I don’t think that trail leads anywhere. Hubert was at the movie when the murder was committed, with the stupid but estimable Aunt Abbie. But I think I know—”

Miss Withers stopped bustling about with her broom. “You mean?”

“I mean the brother of Dana Waverly, that’s who I mean. Charles Waverly, the distant relative and next male heir of the Stait family. He’s a lawyer, and therefore in a position to know just what loot there would be in the Stait fortune.”

“Lawyers usually have better ways of getting loot than committing murder for it,” Miss Withers suggested dryly. “They play safe, as a rule.”

“I found out some other things today, though.” The Inspector, warmed by food, opened up and told the events which had transpired down in the Village. “Don’t you see? Dana was engaged to Lew and she loved Laurie. But her brother was all for her marrying the so-called ‘good twin.’ Charles Waverly is much older than his sister, and they’re orphans, so I suppose he’s her natural guardian. Anyway, she had it all set to break the news to Lew Stait after dinner that night—the stuff in the icebox showed that she had planned on a guest—and she didn’t look forward to the task as an easy job, because she undoubtedly tipped off her roommate to stay out of town for the week-end, and she’d laid her plans very carefully. What was the natural thing for her to do before making the plunge? See her brother, of course. I’ll wager you anything you like that Dana called at Charles’ office yesterday afternoon, and told him the news.”

“Suppose she did?”

“Well, you remember that his office is in the Enterprise Trust Building. It might be just accident that it was outside that building that Laurie Stait got his, but I doubt it. I think that smart lawyer was foolish enough to take things in his own hands. He wanted Dana to marry Lew, perhaps for business reasons. Perhaps he knew that old Mrs. Stait was leaving her money to Lew. We can check that later. Anyway, he hated to see Laurie Stait supplant the other twin in his sister’s nuptial couch, and he took steps to see that it didn’t happen. By removing Laurie Stait from this scheme of things.”

“Perfect,” Miss Withers told him icily. “You have a perfect case there against Charles Waverly. Except that you haven’t shown how he knew that Laurie Stait was driving by at that particular hour. He might have known that Lew had a date with his sister—but where does Laurie come in?” Miss Withers stopped suddenly. “Tell me, Oscar, has it occurred to you that Lew Stait didn’t make any effort to keep his dinner date with Dana the night of the murder? We found him playing around with the maid, you remember, and it was past the dinner hour.”

“Maybe she’d called the dinner off?”

“No, she hadn’t. Because she phoned, don’t you remember, to ask for Lew, last night?”

The Inspector nodded. “Maybe Lew knew what the bad news was going to be and he dodged it? Yet that doesn’t fit, somehow, with his marrying the girl early the next morning.”

His face brightened. “Well, anyway, I’ve been thinking it over and I’m going to send a couple of the boys to bring Charley Waverly in for questioning. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the murder rope was dropped out of his office window.”

Miss Withers shook her head. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Oscar. I think I see a glimmer of light, though.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I’m not telling you, yet,” she informed him. “But I’ll give you a hint. There’s something mighty interesting in that little Exhibit A you brought back with you from Dana Waverly’s apartment!”

The Inspector was surprised. “You mean the snapshot of Laurie and the collie dog taken last summer on the ranch?”

“Well, not exactly.” Miss Withers studied it for a moment. “A nice dog, that. But I was talking about something else. The diamond ring, Oscar. I never heard before of a bride who left her engagement ring at home during the ceremony.”

The Inspector reached for the phone. “All the same,” he said calmly, “I’m going to pick up this Waverly fellow. Not an arrest, exactly, just bring him in for questioning.” He spoke into the mouthpiece. “Spring 3100—all right, sister, have it your own way. Spring
seven
tharee one hundred …”

Miss Withers sprung her surprise. “While your bloodhounds are out, you’d better have them pick up that wild cowboy Buck Keeley,” she suggested. She ducked into the closet for a moment, and came out with the rope which she had picked up at the Rodeo.

“Keeley? Oh, I don’t think he had anything to do with the murder.” And then the Inspector saw what she held in her hand. She told him where and how she had found it.

“Don’t forget,” she said, “that members of the Stait family testified that Laurie had been worried and upset since Monday, and that he had answered the phone himself and had denied himself to callers—everybody. Doesn’t it seem a coincidence that—”

“That the Rodeo opened here in town on Monday? Good Lord, maybe you’re right. Laurie Stait might have been threatened by Keeley. Maybe they had a fight out at the ranch this summer.” He gave rapid orders into the mouthpiece.

“Maybe they did have a fight,” Miss Withers agreed. “I’ve got a hunch what it was about, too. Wasn’t Laurie Stait supposed to be loose with women—and wasn’t Rose Keeley out there?”

“That beautiful iceberg?”

“Maybe she wasn’t an iceberg last summer,” Miss Withers insinuated. “Remember, Laurie got some letters from Wyoming after he returned to New York. And his brother testified that Laurie had been sitting alone in their room and staring at a brick wall across the court.”

“Scared or worried, huh ? I’ll just bet you that Keeley had been threatening him. Well, we’ll soon find out I sent a couple of the boys over to the Hotel Senator with instructions to pick him up.”

Miss Withers nodded absent-mindedly. “Oscar, do you happen to remember just what that little taxi-driver said he saw on Fifth Avenue last night—you know, the eye-witness? I’ve been trying to think.”

“Sure I remember,” Piper told her. “He said that there wasn’t any driver in the Chrysler. And he went on to explain that although the weather was pretty thick with snow and everything, he saw somebody jump out of the roadster, backwards!”

She shook her head. “There was something else. I didn’t take it down in shorthand because I didn’t think it was important. But we can’t get any farther in this case until we know how Laurie Stait was killed. Oscar, you’re supposed to have the trained memory. Didn’t Leech say something else, something important?”

The Inspector shook his head. “I don’t remember anything. Oh, yes, he did say something about seeing the figure of a man rise right up out of the seat, with both arms flopping, like a scared frog jumping out of a puddle. He said it looked as if the fellow was trying to grab the side of a bus that was passing …”

“Eureka!” shouted Miss Withers. “Now I know how the murder was committed. It wasn’t from a window of the Enterprise Trust. I’ll bet that Charley Waverly’s offices are in the rear somewhere. Anyway, it couldn’t happen from a window, nor from a Rodeo parade, because there wasn’t any … nor from a car passing in the opposite direction, because the body would not have been pulled up out of the seat that way, at least not high enough so that it looked like a backward leap.” She was flushed with excitement.

“It was the bus I was trying to think of! The top of a bus is the only place from which that murder could have been committed.”

The Inspector stared at her. “But my dear lady, it’s …”

“It’s not impossible, I tell you.” She snatched up a pencil and a sheet of typewriter paper. “It’s as clear as daylight, Oscar Piper. Wait until I sketch it for you …”

The Inspector studied it at length. “You see? I put in the rope, to make it clearer, although of course Leech wouldn’t notice it. The rope was light in color, remember, and it would blend with the snow. The murderer dropped it over Laurie Stait’s head as the bus going north passed the south-bound roadster. The motion of the two cars was enough to jerk the victim out of his seat and into the air to crash on the pavement. It must have been a man, too, because it would take a lot of strength to withstand the shock.”

“Not if the murderer took a hitch of the rope’s end around the edge of the bus rail,” pointed out the Inspector. “He could let go of the rope when his job was done, and let the body lie there in traffic while he sailed north on the bus-top! Good lord, woman, you’ve got it. We may be able to trace the murderer through the Fifth Avenue bus company. Although heaven knows there were probably fifty buses through that street at approximately five-thirty!”

“Look for an open bus,” Miss Withers suggested.

“Why open? The murderer could have dropped his noose out of a side window just as well.”

She shook her head. “If it had been a roofed bus, there’d have been other people up on the bus-top, and the murderer would have run too great a risk. He—or she, for it could have been a woman, you know—undoubtedly chose an open top bus. They still run some of them at this time of year, although there’s few enough people who venture up there in a snowstorm. The murderer counted on that, you see.”

The Inspector pursed his lips. “We’ll find the conductor of that bus. He must have collected the fare from that passenger, whoever he was.”

“Not necessarily. If the murderer was as smart as I think, he slipped aboard the bus when the conductor was collecting fares inside, and sneaked up the stairs. Ten to one the conductor wouldn’t think it likely that anyone was up on top in that snowstorm.”

“Maybe you’re right, Hildegarde. But it’s something to work with, anyway. I’ll start the wheels rolling first thing in the morning. I’ll have Taylor or one of the boys interview every driver who had an open bus on the street at that hour. Maybe they did see something, after all.”

He was rudely interrupted by the shrill clatter of Miss Withers’ phone. It was Lieutenant Keller calling the Inspector, who listened for a moment, his brows narrowing.

“What? What’s that? When did he go? Who? Oh, never mind about the dame. Start the drag-net working. Broadcast his description to all outgoing ships. Cover all exits to the city and don’t forget the flying fields. Right.”

He hung up the phone a bit wearily. “What happened, Oscar? Did the smart Mr. Charles Waverly give you the slip?” Miss Withers moved closer.