LIEUTENANT MAX GOLD was having himself quite a time. He had let fly with both barrels, and now he leaned back in his creaky swivel chair to watch the effect on me.
I made a rather profane remark which indicated the measure of my astonishment. Then I laughed. Not much: just a little. He said, “What’s funny?”
“I’m thinking about two introductions. I introduced Ferguson to Candy Livingston, who was his ex-gal friend. They were as formal and as blank as that wall in back of you. Ditto with Ferguson and Agnes. ‘How do you do, Mr. Ferguson.’ ‘Delighted to meet you, Miss Sheridan.’ And she was his wife.”
Gold said, “They weren’t working at it. They separated years ago. He’s been sending her an adequate income.”
I said, “Where does she fit in?”
“She’s dead. That might mean something.”
“You’re miles ahead of me.”
“Look . . .” His manner was that of a teacher explaining something to a small—and not too bright—pupil. “Candy Livingston ran off with John Ferguson. But before they eloped Ferguson must have known Candy, and it ain’t unreasonable to suppose that Agnes knew that he knew her. As I remember your story, Agnes was in the Club Caliente when Candy accepted the introduction to Ferguson. Being a smart babe, we can sorta take it for granted that she smelled a mice. So what does she do? She cultivates Candy. And why? Because if there’s been a half-million-dollar touch, she figures she might cut in on it. Follow me?”
“I’m with you this far.”
“Naturally, Ferguson savvies what’s going on. If my guess is correct, he doesn’t like it. So he knocks Agnes off.”
I thought that one over. I said, “I took it for granted that whoever shot Agnes was really after Dana Warren.”
“You may be right, Douglas. I’m not going out on a limb. I’m just giving you a new thought to stew over.”
I said, “Ferguson was in the club the night Agnes was killed. He knew we were going skating after the dinner show. Where was he at the moment the shooting occurred?”
“He’s got a perfect alibi—too perfect. The man he was with says Ferguson never left the table until after the shooting. I never trust anything that neat.”
“Then your bet is Ferguson?”
“My hunch is that way. Ricardo ties up nice, but not as nice as Ferguson. I wouldn’t be too surprised if it turned out to be Ricardo, but my money rides the other way.”
I asked, “How about the Ethel Brower killing?”
“What we figured for Ricardo could also apply to Ferguson. He and the Brower dame knew each other. He wouldn’t have liked it if she spilled to you. Ricardo might have passed his information along to Ferguson instead of using it himself.” He smiled a tight little smile. “That’s the trouble with a murder like this, Douglas: sometimes you got more suspects than you want.”
“But you still think it was Ferguson?”
“It looks that way—Yes.”
“Why not arrest him?”
“For what?”
I made an impatient gesture. “Murder, for one thing.”
Max Gold shook his head. “He could beat that rap, easy. The way things stand now, we haven’t even got any good circumstantial evidence. There ain’t any sense charging him with something until you figure you got a good chance to prove it.”
“I don’t see it that way. You could prove he kidnaped Candy Livingston. Once you did that, the rest would fit.”
“Ferguson didn’t kidnap Candy. He can prove it.”
“How?”
“By you. The defense would get you on the stand and make you chirp. Being fairly honest, you’d have to repeat what Candy told you. So it wasn’t a kidnaping.”
I said, “Ferguson still got the half million dollars, didn’t he?”
His bright eyes got brighter. “That money was just a gift from a girl friend. She gave it to him voluntarily.”
I said, “Other things become clearer, now that I know about Ferguson. Maybe he put the hundred thousand in the bank for me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I haven’t any reason except that it ties in with the certainty that he took a lot of trouble to become friendly with me. He wasn’t planning any office building, but he worked hard to make me think he was. I’m trying to figure why.”
“You get the answer to that one, and I’ll kiss you.”
“That’s something to look forward to.” I grinned at him. “Ferguson’s weakness is his interest in me. The answer must be hidden right there.”
“Okay. You find it, and we’ll slap him in the cooler so quick it’ll make his hair curl.” Max spread both of his powerful hands on the top of the desk. “It shapes up like Ferguson,” he said. “I never was too willing to buy the Ricardo set-up. But even yet there’s some angle that we’ve both missed. Maybe I can find it—maybe you can. But I want to warn you of one thing: Keep your guard up. Ferguson could be a cold, bad baby if he was pushed.”
I left him and started walking. I got to Broadway and turned left. Far ahead the big signs were blazing against the frozen sky. I remembered that I hadn’t eaten since lunch time. I dropped into a cafeteria which looked bright and warm. I made the rounds, grabbed myself a table near the window and tried to think by concentrating on the people who were hurrying by outside; a never-ending stream of people without personalities.
I was commencing to readjust my ideas. The more I thought, the less it looked like Ricardo. There were still a lot of things I couldn’t understand, but the only real motives I’d ever been able to pin on Ricardo were jealousy—which I didn’t believe—and bitterness over the fact that Dana was quitting the act.
The job of estimating Ferguson’s position was simpler. Ethel Brower had seen him with Candy. It could be presumed that she knew that the kidnaping wasn’t a kidnaping, and that the ransom money looked good to her. The same applied to Agnes. Ferguson wouldn’t like women who knew too much. I put my money on Ferguson. What I wanted, though, was to uncover the thing that was missing, so that the District Attorney could put him through the wringer.
I got a hunch. Arthur Maybank. He and Agnes had been playing around. How intimate they may have been, I didn’t know. But they had been alone a lot and Agnes must have done some talking. Maybe she had dropped remarks which wouldn’t mean a thing to Arthur, but might be significant in the light of what I knew now.
I thought of something else. Someone had tried to kill Arthur. That could come out Ferguson, too, without wasting a lot of logic. Ferguson might have thought that Agnes planned to upset his applecart. He might even have known that she had done too much talking already. It was better than any other theory I’d been able to concoct about the shooting of Arthur. It was worth discussing with him, at any rate.
I picked up my little pink check with the holes in it, and paid the cashier the amount opposite the last hole. I went to the nearest subway station and rode uptown. I walked across to the dreary edifice which was the McKinley Hospital.
Arthur was there. He was sitting in the accident room, doing nothing. He seemed glad to see me. I broke the news. He looked little, incredulous and frightened. He said, “And all the time I would have bet it was Ricardo.”
“We all thought that,” I agreed. “But we didn’t know anything about Ferguson being a crook.”
I felt sorry for Arthur. He looked scared to death. I told him what I wanted. I asked him to think back over everything he and Agnes had ever talked about. I explained that our answer might be hidden in some casual remark of hers which wouldn’t have meant a thing until now.
We started checking. I hated to do it, because some of the things we discussed were intimate. There hadn’t been many women in Arthur’s life. I gathered that he was hit hard and that this, coming on top of her tragic death, was just a little more than he could take without danger of cracking.
In the middle of our conversation, an accident call came in. The burly ambulance driver appeared from nowhere and said, “Let’s get goin’, Doc.”
Arthur looked at me helplessly. He said, “You’ll wait here?”
“How long will you be?”
“I never know.” He rushed across the room and buttonholed a tall, slim, nice-looking boy who had just walked in. They talked earnestly for a few minutes, and then Arthur came back. “He’s an interne,” he explained. “He says he’ll take over when I get back from this call. He’s going upstairs now to change.”
I said, “Suppose I go home, and you join me there. I’d like to telephone Dana. I haven’t spoken to her all day.”
He said he’d come to my apartment as soon as he was free. The ambulance sirened impatiently from the parking lot. Arthur scuttled off. I left the building and walked home.
I snapped on the reading lamp and settled myself in the easy chair under it. I picked up the telephone and called the Caliente. I had to wait a few minutes, but it was worth it. Dana’s voice always sounded good. At the moment, it sounded better than that.
I told her I’d run into a lot of new and exciting information. She wanted to know all about it. I said I thought it would be better not to talk over the phone. Our connection was through the club switchboard, and I didn’t know whether the operator might be listening in.
She saw my point, but it didn’t make her any less curious. I told her I’d have lunch with her the next day and explain everything. She asked me to come over to the club and sit through the supper show, but I said that was impossible. I was waiting for Arthur, who would be along any minute. I had a lot of talking to do.
I told her that I loved her, and she said something along the same line. So I said it again, and she repeated on her end. We were very silly and adolescent. It still sounded good. I told her good night and hung up. I felt fine. I kept on feeling fine until the buzzer sounded.
I was surprised that Arthur could have completed his ambulance run so quickly. I went to the door and opened it. It wasn’t Arthur.
It was John Ferguson.
He said, “May I come in?” and came in anyway. He took off his overcoat and hat and dropped them on a chair. He was wearing a conservative oxford-gray suit, a white shirt and a plain blue necktie. He looked like a solid, prosperous citizen. He looked handsome and distinguished. He didn’t look like a crook. Most particularly he didn’t look like a murderer.
He dropped into a chair. I went back to where I had been sitting under the reading lamp. He smiled at me and I tried to smile back. He said I had a nice place, and I said I was glad he approved. I probably said a few other things, too, but I didn’t know what they were because I was groping for the motive behind his visit.
I was afraid I knew. He had never before called on me. He wasn’t the type to drop in unannounced. Something was on his mind, and I was fearful that it might be the same sort of something which had been on his mind at least twice before.
This looked as though it might be the pay-off. Ferguson was smart. He must have realized that by this time the police would have checked on Agnes and have discovered that she was his wife. How much else he knew, I couldn’t be sure. The only thing I was sure of was that I was up against a man who might be desperate and certainly was dangerous. I recalled Max Gold’s warning. It didn’t make me feel any better.
Any hope I may have had was dispelled swiftly. He said, “You had quite a long visit with Candy Livingston today, didn’t you, Kirk?”
I said, “How did you know that?”
“A little bird told me.” His lips were smiling, but his eyes were hard and steady. “Was it pleasant?” .
“Pleasant enough.”
“An interesting person, Candy. Picturesques, glamorous, lovely. You must have had a very interesting conversation.”
“More or less.”
“What did you talk about?”
He didn’t seem to be in a hurry. That suited me fine. I wasn’t either. What I wanted was time. I knew something that he didn’t. I knew that any minute now Arthur Maybank would be barging in. And while Arthur wasn’t much of a physical specimen, I felt reasonably certain that Ferguson wouldn’t take a potshot at me in the presence of any third person.
That he was there to do drastic things, I hadn’t the slightest doubt. That he knew about my visit to Candy’s apartment that afternoon only confirmed my belief. My job was to stall, to kill as much time as possible, and to pray that Arthur would show up before the zero hour.
I tried to act naturally. I tried to act like a man who didn’t have anything on his mind except architecture. I tried to keep my eyes away from the second hand of the mantel clock as it crept around the dial.
I said, “We didn’t talk about anything special.”
“It wasn’t important?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you usually stay away from the office to make social calls on ravishing blondes?”
I gave a laugh that sounded like an echo of itself. I said, “You know how those things are.”
“Do I?” Ferguson gave me a nice smile. “After you left Candy’s apartment,” he said genially, “did you enjoy your talk with that detective chap at the Homicide Bureau?”
I said, “He asked me to drop in. He wanted to ask me some questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“I don’t think I ought to tell, do you?”
“Yes,” he said. “I do.”
Time was running out. I was sitting stiffly, my muscles tensed. The first move he made I’d act. I didn’t believe I’d have much success, but at least I’d try.
Ferguson’s face got hard. He said, “I’m asking you one more time, Kirk: What did you and Candy talk about? Specifically.”
No more stalling. I could sense it. I decided to tell him a little bit of the truth. Just enough to keep him probing for more. I started to talk and then my heart jumped.
I hadn’t heard the elevator stop. The first thing that happened was a key grating in the lock. The door opened. Arthur Maybank walked in. I didn’t believe anybody could be as welcome.
Ferguson got up. So did I. It was good to be on my feet again. Arthur looked absurdly small with a big winter overcoat partly covering his hospital whites.
He looked at Ferguson. He looked at me. He looked at Ferguson again.
Then suddenly Arthur’s face was contorted. His hand jumped out of his overcoat pocket. There was a gun in it. He aimed it at Ferguson and pulled the trigger. Ferguson bent over as though to pick up something. Then he pitched forward.
Arthur didn’t move. He stood there with the gun in his hand, staring at the figure on the floor.
For an instant, I was paralyzed. Then I leaped across the room and snatched the gun from Arthur’s cold, nerveless fingers. Someone banged on the door and I yelled, “Go away!” I suppose they went, because there was no more banging.
I went to the telephone and dialed Watkins 9-8242, which was the number of the homicide squad. I was lucky. Max Gold was there. I told him to come right up. I didn’t go into detail, but I’m sure he caught the urgency in my voice.
I went back to Arthur, and put my hand on his shoulder. I said, “Thanks, kid,” which seemed rather inadequate under the circumstances, but still showed how I felt. Then I said gently, “But you shouldn’t have shot him.”
He said, “You told me about Ferguson. He killed Agnes and he probably killed Ethel Brower. The instant I saw him here I understood what it meant. He intended to kill you. That’s why I shot him.”
I was sweating. I said, “Where did you get the gun?”
“I’ve carried one ever since the night someone shot at me. I have a permit.”
“But to shoot someone—that way . . .”
“I think Ferguson was the man who tried to kill me.”
“You didn’t say a word . . .”
“I was afraid. The way he looked at me, I knew he was going to do something. Quick. And I remembered that he killed Agnes.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He killed her, all right.”
“You only think so, Arthur. It might have been Ricardo. Killing Agnes could have been a mistake.”
“That’s ridiculous. You can’t make a mistake when one woman is wearing a street costume and the other has on a purple evening dress.”
I said, “I appreciate what you did. But, good Lord . . .”
“I’d do it again, he said tonelessly. “If I had waited it would have been too late.”
I knelt beside Ferguson. He was still breathing. That could mean anything or nothing.
The buzzer sounded again. I opened the door and Max Gold came in. There were some other men with him, and a lot of people were in the hall. “We got a call through headquarters,” he said sharply. “Somebody reported hearing a shot.”
I moved my head toward Ferguson. Gold said, “Who did it?”
Arthur’s voice was steady. “I did.”
“Why?”
“He was a murderer. He was going to kill Kirk. He tried to kill me once.”
Gold telephoned for the medical examiner. A patrolman in uniform came up in the elevator and was assigned the job of quieting the crowd of tenants in the hall.
Gold started firing questions at me. He was only halfway through when the medical examiner came in. He was a fat, fussy little man. He knelt beside Ferguson and started doing things. He got up after a while and said, “I can’t say for sure—but I think he’ll live. We’d better get him to the hospital, quick.”
They phoned for the ambulance. While they were waiting Max Gold went to work on me again. He had none of the easy friendliness which had marked our conversation earlier that evening. His questions were sharp and direct. Once more the buzzer sounded. The door opened and Dana came in. She must have been told something because her cheeks were white and she looked frightened. She saw the body on the floor, and the detectives. She saw Arthur and she saw me. Gold said, “What are you doing here, Miss Warren?”
“I came to see Kirk.”
“Why?”
She looked at me, desperation in her eyes. I said, “I told her I’d got hold of some information, lieutenant. I wouldn’t tell her over the phone. I suppose curiosity got the better of her.”
Gold said, “Is that how it was, Miss Warren?”
“Yes. I came as soon as we finished the supper show.”
Gold quizzed me a little more. Then he started on Arthur. His questions crackled like machine-gun fire.
The ambulance shrieked in the street outside. They brought a stretcher up and carted John Ferguson away. A detective went with him.
I stood beside Dana. I held her hand tightly.
My brain was working overtime. It worked so fast I could hear the machinery creaking. I paid no attention to what was going on all around me.
Gold finished questioning Arthur. He smiled at Dana and me. He said, “Looks like my hand has been forced, Douglas. With this thing happening like it did, I’ll have to go to work on Ferguson as of now.”
“You think he’ll live?”
“I’d bet on it. And by the time he’s able to stand trial, I’ll probably have enough evidence to convict him.”
“You are convinced that he murdered Agnes Sheridan?”
“Yeh. Sure.”
I said, in a voice which didn’t sound like my own, “You’re wrong, lieutenant. Ferguson didn’t kill Agnes, and he didn’t kill Ethel Brower, either.”
Gold said, “What the hell . . .”
I repeated, “Ferguson didn’t do it.”
“If he didn’t,” asked Gold, “who did?”
I felt sick all over. What I faced was the toughest, meanest, lousiest job I ever had.
I said, “The person you want, lieutenant—the person who killed those two women—is standing right there. It’s Arthur Maybank.”